Imagine $800 million just quietly moving through
the stock market, like 15 minutes before the
president hits send on a massive military threat.
Yeah, which sounds like a movie plot, honestly.
Right. But that is not a hypothetical. That actually
happened this past weekend. So welcome to today's
Deep Dive. Glad to be here. Today is Tuesday,
March 24th, 2026, and we are unpacking this incredibly
dense, just wild edition of the Electoral Vote
political newsletter. It was a heavy one this
week. It really was. And our mission today for
you listening is simple. We are going to examine
the massive, almost surreal gap between allowed
political rhetoric and ground level reality.
Exactly. The difference between what's said and
what actually happens. Yeah, because we're looking
at the weekends, you know, all caps bluster versus
the Monday morning reality. We want to give you
the actual mechanics of what is happening behind
the headlines because the whiplash this weekend
was just, I mean, it was unbelievable. It's a
phenomenal case study and political whiplash
for sure. But before we get into the mechanisms
of these stories, we. do need to set a quick
baseline about our source material today. Yes.
Very important point. So the electoral vote newsletter
contains some highly pointed, strong partisan
viewpoints and criticisms. Right. Spanning the
whole political spectrum, but definitely heavily
focused on the current administration. Exactly.
And our job here is not to endorse these views.
We aren't taking sides at all. We are simply
acting as your guides, impartially unpacking
the newsletter's reporting and the arguments
they present. So you can fully grasp the political
dynamics at play. Right. We are just analyzing
the board exactly as they've laid it out. We're
looking past the noise, you know, to understand
the why and the how behind the actions. Yeah.
And there is honestly no better place to start
than the highest stakes story on that board.
The Iranian standoff. Oh, wow. Yeah. So over
the weekend, the president posted a threat on
his social media platform typed entirely in all
caps. Right. And the ultimatum was that if Iran
didn't fully open the Strait of Hormuz within
48 hours, the United States would, quote, obliterate
their various power plants, starting with the
biggest one first, which is an apocalyptic level
threat completely. But when you look at the strategic
mechanics, the source points out this threat
was fundamentally flawed from the literal moment
it was posted. Yeah, the newsletter highlights
a massive reality check here because the underlying
issue driving the entire standoff in the Strait
of Hormuz is that global energy prices are just
skyrocketing. Right. Gas prices are out of control.
Exactly. So if you destroy a nation's energy
infrastructure, you are pulling the fastest lever
available to make that exact problem infinitely
worse. You immediately shrink global supply.
Yes. And you send the energy markets into an
absolute panic. And furthermore, If the U .S.
actually followed through and bombed Iranian
power plants, Iranian military doctrine almost
guarantees retaliation. Right, by striking the
power plants of U .S. allies in the Middle East.
Precisely. Which completely destabilizes the
very energy markets the administration is, you
know, ostensibly trying to protect. Which brings
us to the Monday morning reality. So the 48 -hour
deadline passes, the strait remains closed. No
bombs are dropped. Nothing happens. Right. Instead,
we get what the newsletter dubs the TACO Act,
essentially a sudden massive backtrack. The president
posts another message announcing a five -day
pause on military strikes, citing, quote, Very
good and productive conversations. Yeah regarding
a total resolution of hostilities and the Dow
Jones instantly jumps over 600 points Naturally
the market loves that but here is where the mechanics
get incredibly suspicious According to the source
approximately 15 minutes before that backtrack
announcement the volume in stock and oil futures
completely spiked Yeah, eight hundred million
dollars in investments suddenly shifted and you
know to understand why that matters You have
to look at how futures markets operate. It's
basically a bet, right? Exactly. A futures contract
is essentially a bet on where the price of an
asset is going. So if you know a military strike
is being called off you know the panic in the
oil markets is about to subside. And the broader
stock market is going to rally. Right. So moving
that much capital minutes before a public announcement
is a massive glowing red flag for insider trading.
It's the ultimate high stakes poker game. It's
like it's like a player loudly declaring to the
whole room that they are going all in. But another
player at the table suddenly buys a massive pile
of chips right before the cards are actually
shown. That's a perfect analogy. If you're watching
that happen, you know someone saw the cards.
The newsletter notes that the Trump -appointed
SEC Commissioner Paul S. Atkins is going to face
immense pressure to investigate this. Oh, absolutely.
And if the federal regulators hesitate, the jurisdictional
mechanics means state authorities might step
in. Oh, really? How does that work? Well, because
these financial exchanges are based in specific
states, you could see New York Attorney General
Letitia James... Or even Illinois Attorney General,
Kwame Raoul, initiate their own probes. Because
they have jurisdiction over the exchanges. Exactly.
They have the authority to subpoena IP addresses,
trading time stamps, communication records, all
of it. Wow. So if the market seemingly knew the
bluff before the public did, that leads to a
massive question. Who exactly was on the other
side of those productive conversations? Right.
Who are we talking to? Because immediately after
the White House announces these talks, the Iranian
government publicly claims there are no negotiations
happening at all. Zero talks. And then the White
House pushes back, saying they are talking to,
quote, the most respected leader. Yet the newsletter
systematically dismantles that claim. It's not
the new Ayatollah Mujtaba Khamenei. It doesn't
appear to be the Islamic Revolutionary Guard
Corps. And it is certainly not the speaker of
the Iranian parliament, Mohammed Bagher Galabaf,
who explicitly went on record to deny any involvement.
It's just bizarre. Gerard Baker, an editor at
the Wall Street Journal, made a stunning observation
about this dynamic that the source pulled. Oh,
I saw that. Yeah, he wrote that Americans are
currently in the unprecedented position of having
to suspect that a hostile foreign adversary's
version of events might actually be more accurate
than their own governments. Which is a wild place
to be. The source drops the Axios reporting,
which leaks what the actual behind the scenes
deal looks like. And it completely contradicts
the weekend's threats, doesn't it? Completely.
According to this leak, the proposed deal allows
the current Iranian regime to stay in power.
The U .S. would facilitate the payment of unfrozen
funds. Which is essentially international banking
money Iran couldn't previously touch. Right.
Acting as a form of reparations, basically. Yeah.
But most critically, Iran's nuclear program would
essentially continue. Which leaves us with a
profound strategic deficit. We might eventually
get the Strait of Hormuz open, but the cost is
a wealthier Iranian regime. Alienated Middle
Eastern allies. Yeah, and the loss of 13 American
soldiers dead and 232 wounded in the lead up.
It's tragic. I have to push back on the logic
here, though. If the deal is this objectively
bad, like if it involves paying them off and
letting them keep their nuclear ambitions, Why
would the administration reportedly take it after
threatening to blow up their power plants? That's
the million -dollar question. What is the actual
mechanism driving that pivot? Honestly, it comes
down to the cynical reality of domestic politics
and consumer wallets. You simply cannot have
crude oil spiking to astronomical prices right
before major election cycles. Right. High gas
prices destroy incumbent administrations. Every
single time. And the source also points to the
recent U .S. withdrawal from Afghanistan as the
governing historical context here. Oh, that makes
sense. Yeah, the U .S. spent 20 years trying
to... up a non -theocratic puppet government
there. And the moment the military left, the
old regime took it back in a week. The underlying
lesson is that imposing an artificial government
from the outside requires committing to a forever
war. Right. So the administration likely realized
that a messy, expensive status quo is just politically
safer than triggering a regional war that spikes
inflation. Exactly. It's the lesser of two political
evils for them. Well, that same collision between
Saturday bluster and Monday reality isn't just
an international phenomenon. It happened right
here at home this weekend, too. Yeah, it really
did. But instead of the stock market spiking,
it was actual airplanes crashing. So let's look
at the Department of Homeland Security funding
standoff. The mechanics of this domestic standoff
follow the exact same pattern we just discussed
with Iran. So, over the weekend, the president
demanded that a piece of legislation called the
Save America Act be attached to Homeland Security
funding. And this is a highly ideological bill.
Highly ideological. It includes strict voter
ID mandates, a requirement for all paper ballots,
and bans on transgender athletes and women's
sports. The president posted that he would absolutely
not sign any DHS funding without these riders
effectively killing a bipartisan funding compromise.
When you freeze DHS funding, you aren't just
pausing bureaucratic paperwork in an office somewhere.
No, not at all. You're directly impacting the
personnel who manage our critical infrastructure,
the TSA, ICE, and crucially... air traffic controllers.
Right. Put yourself in the shoes of an air traffic
controller at LaGuardia Airport on a Monday morning.
You aren't thinking about the ideological writers
of the SAVE Act. You're just trying to do your
job. Exactly. You are running on zero sleep,
working under immense stress, trying to keep
metal tubes from hitting each other because your
department's funding is frozen and staffing is
stretched to the absolute breaking point. And
early Monday morning, the system broke. It did.
An Air Canada plane collided with a fire truck
on the tarmac. Both pilots were killed. It's
awful. And the newsletter consulted with a military
and civilian aviation expert who attributed this
tragedy directly to the overworked, understaffed
conditions caused by the DHS funding mess. It
forces a sudden tragic realization. Political
gamesmanship just hit harsh physical reality.
Yeah, real lives were lost. A funding standoff
was no longer just about like long TSA lines.
It became a fatal public safety crisis. And the
political calculus immediately flipped. It is
exactly like a game of chicken where one driver
suddenly realizes the bridge is actually out.
Oh, that's exactly it. You can demand all the
ideological writers you want on a Saturday, but
when planes are literally crashing on Monday
because of understaffed airports, gravity wins.
Gravity always wins. So following the crash and
the Senate's 54 to 45 vote to confirm Markwayne
Mullen to head DHS, the president's stance completely
reversed. Shocker. Right. Reports indicated he
was suddenly open to a compromise to open the
TSA using Democratic votes, hoping to pass his
SaveE Act demands later through a process called
budget reconciliation. But here is the legislative
reality check that makes the initial weekend
demand even more baffling. Passing those demands
through reconciliation is essentially impossible.
Because of the bird rule, right? Yes, exactly.
Because reconciliation is basically a legislative
cheat code to bypass the 60 vote filibuster,
but the catch is the bird rule. Right. Every
single line item in that bill must be strictly
about dollars and cents revenues and outlays.
You cannot sneak social policy into a math equation.
Precisely. The Senate parliamentarian, Elizabeth
McDonough, acts as the procedural bouncer here.
I love that procedural bouncer. Yeah, and she
is highly unlikely to allow provisions about
transgender athletes or paper ballot mandates
into a reconciliation bill because they just
are not strictly budgetary. So the administration
was making a fatal weekend standoff over legislative
demands that the procedural mechanics of the
Senate would never allow to pass anyway. Exactly.
It's all theater until real people get hurt.
And this disconnect between what sounds good
on a Saturday and what is legally or practically
possible on a Monday, it's bleeding into our
basic civic norms. It really is. The source provides
this rapid -fire series of vignettes that show
how this degradation of authority is playing
out in real time. Right. It illustrates how the
blurring of lines isn't contained to just foreign
policy or funding bills. It's eroding basic institutional
trust. Take the executive order the president
issued trying to ban other sports leagues from
broadcasting their games during the Army Navy
College football game. Oh yeah, that was wild.
The cited reason was, quote, military necessity.
But an executive order directs federal agencies.
It cannot dictate television schedules to private
entities like CBS or ESPN. It's entirely performative.
Totally. Then you have the NBA champion Oklahoma
City Thunder skipping their customary White House
visit, citing a, quote, timing issue. Right.
And the newsletter notes this continues a distinct
pattern. Teams frequently skipped under Trump,
resumed visiting under Biden, and are now skipping
again. Add to that the president's highly aggressive
tweet celebrating the death of former FBI director
Robert Wheeler. He stated, quote, Good, I'm glad
he's dead. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas
actually addressed this broader atmosphere in
a recent interview that the source highlighted.
Oh, what'd he say? He lamented a 34 -year decline
in institutional trust. He warned that we're
in danger of destroying the very institutions
required to maintain a free society. Because
when the executive branch issues legally fictional
orders and publicly degrades deceased officials,
that trust just evaporates. And we're seeing
this behavior from the legislative branch as
well. The newsletter points to Texas Senator
Ted Cruz. Yeah, this was an interesting one.
So Cruz, who is an evangelical Protestant, was
spreading a bizarre conspiracy theory online
linking to a screed that claimed a secret Catholic
cabal is trying to replace America's Protestants
with Catholics. It is essentially a religious
variation of replacement theory. But I have to
ask you about the electoral math here. Texas
is roughly 40 % Hispanic, which leans heavily
Catholic. Right. So if a Texas senator is pushing
19th century anti -Catholic conspiracy theories,
how does that possibly play out for him when
he needs to run for reelection in a general election?
Well, the mechanism driving that behavior is
the modern primary election system versus the
general election survival. What do you mean?
Politicians pushing internet conspiracies are
utilizing a high yield strategy to raise small
dollar donations from a very online, highly engaged,
and often extreme base. Oh, so it's a cash grab.
Exactly. In the short term, during a primary,
ideological purity and outrage generate the funds
needed to survive. Right. The disconnect is that
the very rhetoric that wins a primary often mathematically
dooms them with the moderate median voters they
desperately need in a general election. They
are trading long -term institutional and electoral
health for short -term internet posturing. Exactly.
So when the volume is turned up this high, when
the norms are breaking down and the weekend ultimatums
keep vanishing by Monday, how do voters actually
process it? That's a great question. The source
dives into the data using a metric called Q scores.
And I find this fascinating because it completely
strips out the noise. Right. It's a very different
way to look at polling. Because when you look
at a standard approval rating, a politician might
sit at 40 percent, but that number is heavily
skewed if 20 percent of the respondents simply
say, you know, no opinion. A Q score removes
the no opinion group entirely. It measures approval
strictly among the people who actually know who
you are and have formed a solid opinion. How
does that alter our understanding of the political
landscape? Well, it acts as a much purer metric
of how well a political brand is actually landing
with the engaged public. Okay. When you force
the data to only look at people paying attention,
the narrative shifts dramatically. The disparities
in the newsletter's data are incredible. Barack
Obama remains the most popular political figure
on this list, boasting a Q score of 58 .5. Still
very high. Right. And sitting at the absolute
bottom, dead last, is Trump adviser Stephen Miller
at 32 .1. But what really stands out is the performance
of moderate Democrats. Yeah, this was the most
surprising part to me. Because we constantly
hear media narratives about a struggling Democratic
brand. But when you isolate the Q scores, politicians
like Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear and Pennsylvania
Governor Josh Shapiro Shapiro are thriving. Do
incredibly well. Beshear is at 57 .7 and Shapiro
is at 56 .9. These are remarkably high figures.
And consider the mechanism of why their numbers
are so high. Governors like Beshear and Shapiro
are not driving the daily outrage cycle. No,
you rarely see them screaming on TV. Right. They
naturally have no opinion metrics nationally
because they aren't on television every night
talking about conspiracies. But among the voters
who do know them, they are deeply liked. Because
they represent quiet, pragmatic governance focused
on tangible local results. Exactly. Contrast
that with the Magier brand, which absolutely
dominates the daily headlines. According to the
source, 12 of the bottom 13 spots on this Q score
list are occupied by figures associated with
the Magier movement. Vice President JD Vance
is tied with Ted Cruz at 43 .8. Tucker Carlson
is deeply unpopular across the board. This illustrates
the massive difference between fame and popularity.
Oh, that's a good way to put it. Loud attention
grabbing politics, whether it's the MadGA movement
or even RFK Jr.'s chaotic third party coalition,
it guarantees high name recognition. Everyone
knows who you are, so everyone has an opinion.
But that omnipresence does not translate to actual
popularity. In fact, the data shows that constantly
being at the center of the noise heavily alienates
the median voter. The newsletter points to Georgia
as the perfect real -world application of this
data. Democratic Senator John Ossoff is running
a highly disciplined, hyperlocal campaign there.
Very quiet campaign. Extremely. He is actively
distancing himself from the loud national party
drama and focusing purely on Georgia issues.
And it is working so effectively that the source
suggests Republicans might abandon trying to
flip his seat entirely. Right. Choosing instead
to focus their resources on defending their own
narrow majority elsewhere. It proves that when
the political environment is defined by endless
whiplash, the politicians who put their heads
down ignore the national circus and focus on
local governance are the ones quietly winning.
over the public. Completely agree Well, as we
wrap up today's deep dive, the core takeaway
for you listening is all about tuning your radar.
Being truly well -informed means learning to
look past the weekend all -caps posts and focusing
on the Monday morning mechanics. The threats
might be incredibly loud, but gravity always
wins. Whether you are watching $800 million in
financial markets spike before a foreign policy
backtrack, or understanding how the Byrd Rule
blocks ideological legislative demands, or seeing
how quiet pragmatism consistently performs loud
outrage in the polling data. The truth is always
found in the actions, not the volume. Well said.
And that leaves us with a final lingering puzzle
to chew on regarding those Q scores. Oh, right.
We discussed how Q scores remove the no -opinion
voters. But I want you to think about those specific
people for a second. Who are the respondents
who, in the year 2026, still look at a pollster
and say they have no opinion on Donald Trump,
Barack Obama, or Bernie Sanders? Yeah, how is
that even possible? Right. What does it take
for a citizen to completely tune out a decade
of the loudest, most invasive political era in
modern history? Are these people the ultimate
untouchable swing voters who will quietly decide
the next election, or have they just entirely,
permanently opted out of the American system?
That is a fascinating question to end on. Because,
you know, when the volume knob has been broken
off at 11 for a decade, maybe the only rebellion
left is just putting on noise -canceling headphones.
Honestly, yeah. Well, thank you so much for joining
us on this deep dive. Keep questioning the headlines,
look for the mechanics behind the noise, and
we will see you next time.