President Donald Trump predicted that gas prices will eventually fall below $2 per gallon once the United States “wins” its war with Iran, tying relief from historically high fuel costs to the outcome of the six-month-old conflict.

Trump made the prediction as Americans came off a Labor Day weekend that saw the highest national average gas price ever recorded for the holiday.

With gas currently averaging more than $4 per gallon, Trump said prices would first fall to $3 before eventually dropping below $2 — levels last seen during the Covid-19 pandemic, when restrictions and a collapse in travel dramatically reduced demand for fuel.

“Oil prices will drop precipitously, like everything else is dropping (but more!), when we WIN the war with Iran,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

“Three Dollars a gallon, but ultimately, below Two Dollars a gallon. It will all happen quickly, and Iran will never have a Nuclear Weapon. MAGA! President DJT.”

Trump Ties Lower Prices to Victory in Iran

The prediction came as Trump has faced persistently low approval ratings, with concerns about high prices and the Iran conflict weighing on his standing.

The war began February 28 with joint American and Israeli airstrikes against Iran and has since stretched beyond six months. The deaths of eighteen American service members have been shared with the public.

Trump’s latest remarks also stood out because of the language he used to describe the fighting.

While explicitly referring to the confrontation as “the war with Iran” in his Truth Social post, members of the administration — including Trump himself — have recently rejected that characterization.

Vice President JD Vance was asked during last week’s White House briefing when the conflict would end and responded, “I wouldn’t call it a war.”

Trump similarly described the fighting as a “military conflict” rather than a war while speaking with reporters in the Oval Office last week.

“I’ll tell you what, a lot of people don’t call it a war. I call it a military conflict because it’s small potatoes for us. It’s not a big thing,” Trump said.

“We did Venezuela and we did this. In Venezuela, we lost nobody, and in this we lost 18 people, and in Vietnam you lost 100,000 people, and in other conflicts you lost tens of thousands of people.”

Trump went on to characterize the military action against Iran as intermittent rather than continuous.

“I would say that it’s intermittent,” he said. “You know, we do intermittent strikes, so I heard what he said, and it was interesting because I think that there is a lot of truth.”

“We are not fighting right now. There is no fighting. We are taking on a lot of oil. We control the Hormuz Strait. We control it very strongly.”

Public Frustration Grows

An August Reuters/Ipsos survey found just 31% of Americans supported U.S. military action against Iran, down from 37% in March, while 83% expected the war to continue for an “extended period of time.”

The consequences have also extended far beyond the battlefield. The conflict has repeatedly threatened traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a critical passage for global energy supplies, disrupting commercial shipping and contributing to higher oil, gas and transportation costs around the world.

Early in the war, shipping through the strait nearly ground to a halt, roughly 150 vessels were stranded, insurers withdrew some war risk coverage and energy prices jumped amid fears of a prolonged closure.

The justice’s unexplained order leaves Missouri on course to use its previous congressional districts in November, despite holding its August primaries under new Republican-drawn boundaries.

Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh rejected Missouri’s emergency request to reinstate a Republican-drawn congressional map for the November midterm elections, preserving a state court decision likely to cost the GOP one House seat.

Kavanaugh denied the application Tuesday without an explanation, according to the Supreme Court’s docket.

The order is not a final Supreme Court ruling on the legality of Missouri’s redistricting plan. It does mean that Kavanaugh declined to suspend the Missouri Supreme Court’s decision while the broader legal dispute continues.

The immediate practical result is significant: Missouri election officials must proceed under the congressional map adopted after the 2020 census, rather than the new boundaries the Republican-led Legislature approved in 2025.

Republicans sought another House seat

President Donald Trump encouraged Missouri Republicans to redraw the state’s congressional districts before the 2026 midterms as part of a broader national effort to protect the GOP’s narrow House majority.

The new map sought to transform the Kansas City-based 5th Congressional District, represented by Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, into a reliably Republican constituency by extending its boundaries into conservative rural areas.

Under the previous map, Republicans hold six of Missouri’s eight House seats. The new boundaries would have given the party a path to a seventh seat.

Missouri lawmakers approved the plan during a special legislative session, and Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe signed it into law. The new districts were subsequently used for the state’s Aug. 4 congressional primaries.

But opponents gathered more than 300,000 signatures for a referendum asking voters to approve or reject the map.

Missouri court revives referendum

Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins rejected the referendum petition on primary day, arguing that congressional redistricting could not be subjected to a statewide popular vote.

The Missouri Supreme Court unanimously disagreed.

In its Sept. 3 ruling, the state’s highest court concluded that the referendum petition was “legal, sufficient, and timely.” The court found that the state Constitution allows voters to challenge acts of the Legislature through the referendum process and contains no exception for congressional redistricting.

Because the petition was submitted before the redistricting legislation took effect, the court held that the new map was automatically suspended pending voter approval.

The new boundaries “did not go into effect and will not go into effect unless and until approved by the voters,” Judge Ginger Gooch wrote.

The court ordered that the previous map remain in force for the Nov. 3 general election, even though candidates had already competed in primaries conducted under the new districts. The referendum will appear on the November ballot, but even voter approval would come too late to make the new map operative for this year’s congressional races.

Missouri raises federal challenge

Hoskins, represented by Republican Attorney General Catherine Hanaway’s office, asked Kavanaugh to suspend the Missouri ruling.

Kavanaugh handles emergency applications originating in the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which includes Missouri. He requested a response from the referendum’s supporters before denying the application in Hoskins v. Von Glahn.

Missouri argued that its Supreme Court improperly interfered with the Legislature’s authority to determine the “Times, Places and Manner” of congressional elections under the U.S. Constitution’s Elections Clause.

The state also warned that switching maps between the primary and general elections would create administrative confusion, disrupt established election procedures, and undermine votes cast by approximately 1.2 million primary participants.

Hanaway characterized the state ruling as creating a “full-fledged constitutional crisis.”

Republican Party organizations supported Missouri’s application, including the Republican National Committee, National Republican Congressional Committee, and Missouri Republican State Committee. Florida also submitted a brief supporting the state.

The Campaign Legal Center and the American Civil Liberties Union filed in opposition.

Attorneys for Richard Von Glahn and other referendum supporters argued that the state’s emergency application suffered from jurisdictional and procedural problems. They also said Missouri was requesting the wrong form of relief because merely staying the state-court injunction would not necessarily grant Hoskins affirmative authority to use a map that, under the Missouri Supreme Court’s interpretation, never legally took effect.

Denial does not decide the merits

Kavanaugh’s one-line denial supplied no reasoning and did not say whether he agreed with the Missouri Supreme Court’s constitutional analysis.

He also did not refer the application to the full court, at least according to the public docket. An individual justice may decide an emergency request assigned to his circuit or refer it to all nine justices.

The denial should therefore not be described as a final determination that Missouri’s map is unconstitutional. The state court did not strike down the boundaries as an impermissible partisan gerrymander. Instead, it held that Missouri’s referendum process prevented the redistricting law from taking effect without voter approval.

The distinction leaves open the possibility of further litigation over the Elections Clause and other federal claims. Republican Rep. Bob Onder, GOP congressional nominee Rick Brattin, and two voters have also filed a separate federal lawsuit seeking to block the return to the old districts.

Any eventual ruling in that litigation could address broader constitutional questions. However, election deadlines make a further change before November increasingly difficult.

For the 2026 election, Kavanaugh’s refusal to intervene leaves Republicans without the congressional map they designed to pursue a seventh Missouri seat — and places the fate of that map in the hands of voters.

This is a breaking news story. Please check back for updates.

Nate Hochman says he did not create the 2023 campaign video and removed his repost after learning what the symbol meant. The State Department now calls him a trusted senior official.

A senior State Department official serving as Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s chief speechwriter was previously fired from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign after promoting a video featuring imagery associated with Nazi Germany and modern white supremacists.

Nate Hochman joined the State Department this year and now serves as deputy director of its influential Office of Policy Planning. His government email signature also identifies him as Rubio’s chief speechwriter.

Hochman’s rapid rise within the department has renewed scrutiny of his departure from DeSantis’ 2024 presidential campaign three years ago.

The 2023 controversy centered on a pro-DeSantis video that mocked President Donald Trump before portraying the Florida governor in front of marching soldiers and a rotating Sonnenrad, or “Black Sun.”

Hochman reposted the video from an anonymous pro-DeSantis social media account. Axios subsequently reported that he had secretly created the clip and helped make it appear as though it came from an outside supporter.

Hochman has denied creating the video.

Video Used Nazi-Derived Symbol

The video opened with an internet meme character reacting unhappily to Trump’s record on the border wall and his promotion of COVID-19 vaccines.

The character’s mood improved as the video shifted to headlines praising DeSantis. The clip ended with the Florida state seal transforming into a rotating Sonnenrad as DeSantis appeared at its center and soldiers marched in the background.

The specific Sonnenrad design used in the video is not merely an ancient European sun symbol.

The Nazi-derived version was created during the 1930s and appeared in a mosaic at Wewelsburg Castle, a site acquired and renovated by Heinrich Himmler’s SS.

Neo-Nazis and other white supremacists adopted the symbol after World War II. The Anti-Defamation League says the specific 12-rayed Black Sun design is “almost always used as a white supremacist symbol,” although it cautions that symbols should generally be evaluated in context.

Placing a political candidate in the center of that image, surrounded by marching soldiers, created an unmistakably authoritarian visual and generated immediate condemnation.

DeSantis Campaign Fired Hochman

Hochman was working as a speechwriter on DeSantis’ communications team when the clip appeared in July 2023.

He shared it from the anonymous pro-DeSantis account and then reposted it from his personal account before deleting the post.

Axios reported at the time that Hochman had produced and distributed the video himself, citing a person familiar with the matter.

“Nate Hochman is no longer with the campaign,” a DeSantis campaign official told Axios. “And we will not be commenting on him further.”

The dismissal occurred during a broader campaign restructuring in which DeSantis eliminated more than one-third of his staff amid concerns about spending and his failure to close Trump’s commanding primary lead.

The episode also followed criticism of another campaign-produced video that attacked Trump for what it portrayed as excessive support for LGBT causes.

Hochman Denies Creating Clip

Hochman later challenged the account that he made the Sonnenrad video.

In a 2024 essay for The American Conservative, he rejected the notion that an “ethnically Jewish kid with no prior video editing experience was cranking out neo-Nazi videos under the cover of night.”

Hochman said he removed his repost and notified campaign supervisors after learning the symbol’s meaning. He declined to identify the person he said created the clip, citing the “risk of throwing friends under the bus.”

His defense therefore contests a central portion of the reporting: who actually assembled the video.

It does not dispute that he promoted the clip through his social media account before removing it.

Career Rebounded After Campaign Firing

Hochman’s dismissal did not permanently derail his political career.

He subsequently worked for America 2100, a conservative advocacy organization founded by former Rubio chief of staff Mike Needham. The group has focused heavily on immigration, nationalism, and demographic changes in American communities.

Hochman later became a policy adviser to Republican Sen. Eric Schmitt of Missouri.

His appointment to the State Department placed him closer to the center of the Trump administration’s foreign policy operation. The Office of Policy Planning functions as an internal strategic unit, providing long-term analysis and policy recommendations to the secretary of state.

As deputy director and Rubio’s chief speechwriter, Hochman potentially helps shape both the substance and public presentation of American foreign policy.

State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott defended him when asked about the resurfaced controversy.

“Nate Hochman is a trusted and key member of the department who has worked tirelessly to advance the president’s foreign policy agenda,” Pigott told The New York Times.

The department did not suggest that Hochman currently espouses Nazi or white supremacist views, nor did it announce any review of his appointment.

The renewed scrutiny concerns whether Hochman’s promotion of the clip should have prevented him from receiving a senior government position.

The available evidence establishes that Hochman shared the video, deleted his repost, and lost his campaign job during the ensuing controversy. Whether he created the clip remains disputed: Axios reported that he did, while Hochman has publicly denied it.

This month, in Donaldsonville, Louisiana, Hyundai and POSCO broke ground on a $5.8 billion electric arc mill built to pour 2.7 million tons of automotive sheet metal a year. It is the first purpose-built automotive mill of its kind in the country, and it anchors Hyundai's $26 billion American program. Officials put the local effect at 1,300 direct jobs and roughly 4,000 indirect ones, with the first coil targeted for 2029. The steel is meant for vehicle bodies assembled in Alabama and Georgia, coil that would otherwise have been stamped from imported steel. Contractors are already on the site in Ascension Parish.

The week before, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick sat down on CNBC and put a number on the wider map. The United States, he said, now holds $1.2 trillion in commitments to build semiconductors on American soil. When this administration took office, America produced less than 2% of the world's chips. The path Lutnick described runs toward 40%, and toward 50% if Intel's foundry holds.

Liberation Day tariffs put a charge on access to the American consumer and turned the world's richest market from a free good into a scarce one. The July 2025 tax law then changed the plant's return. 100% expensing of equipment and qualified production property lets a firm deduct the full cost of a factory in the year it builds it. Power finished the argument for the projects that swallow electricity. American energy abundance made the American data center and the American fab among the few sites that can feed an AI load at scale. European industrial power is still expensive, and several Asian grids cannot promise the same firm load on a construction calendar, which is why data centers and leading-edge semiconductor fabs keep landing here. Reciprocal trade frameworks did the last piece of work. Tariff relief became a multi-year investment vehicle from Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Europe's industrial champions. Lutnick stated the bargain plainly. If you make it here, you do not pay tariffs, but if you do not, be prepared to pay to enter the greatest market in the world. Kevin Hassett, the president's economic adviser, added the tax half. Tariffs are pushing people to onshore activity, and expensing is making them want to invest like crazy.

The plants themselves have counties and start dates, which is the evidence that finally matters. TSMC arrived in Phoenix under the prior administration with a $65 billion program. In March 2025, standing beside President Trump, it added $100 billion. In July 2026, after the U.S.-Taiwan trade and investment agreement, it added $100 billion more. The Arizona program now totals $265 billion across 10 fabs and two packaging plants. The company's own chairman calls it the largest foreign direct investment in American history, and the first fab is already in high-volume production of 4-nanometer chips. Micron's memory program has been lifted to $250 billion. Add Texas Instruments and GlobalFoundries, and four companies alone account for more than $440 billion.

Medicine has begun to move on the same terms. Eli Lilly's chief executive, David Ricks, said his company hadn't built a new American site in more than 40 years until the first Trump tax cuts changed the arithmetic. In February 2025, with pharmaceutical tariffs on the table, Lilly pledged four new plants and 13,000 manufacturing and construction jobs. Virginia came first, then a $6.5 billion site in Houston, then a $6 billion plant in Huntsville that stands as the largest single-site investment in Alabama history, and finally a $3.5 billion injectables facility in Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley. Three of the four will make active pharmaceutical ingredients, the link in the medicine supply chain the country had exported to Asia. Lilly is not an outlier. On August 31, nine additional drugmakers posted at least $19.6 billion in new American manufacturing commitments, bringing the pharmaceutical total the Commerce Department now puts above $600 billion. Add the first new primary aluminum smelter in 45 years, a $4 billion Oklahoma project that doubles domestic capacity, and the industrial map starts to look different county by county.

The Bureau of Economic Analysis counted $232.2 billion in new foreign direct investment expenditures in 2025, and the total investment President Trump and his team have secured is now over $11.2 trillion over the next 4 to 10 years. That $232.2 billion BEA figure is a 49.5% jump after four consecutive years of decline, with manufacturing taking $121.8 billion of the flow. Nominal private nonresidential fixed investment hit a series high of $4.62 trillion annualized in the second quarter of 2026. Factory construction employment has grown by nearly 100,000 jobs since Inauguration Day, with 16,000 manufacturing jobs added in August alone. TSMC's first Arizona fab is already running. Hyundai's contractors are in the dirt in Louisiana. Even Bloomberg Economics, examining an earlier $9.6 trillion version of the White House list with every intention of trimming it, still found about $7 trillion it was willing to call real investment pledges, and then conceded that the trimmed figure exceeded all the foreign direct investment accumulated in the United States since statistics were first collected. Even a hostile trim, then, left a figure larger than every dollar of foreign direct investment booked in the United States since the series began.

In January 2025, the outgoing Biden White House closed its books by claiming over $1 trillion in announced private sector investments catalyzed by its three signature laws across four years. Same scoreboard, same class of claim. Set the two ledgers next to each other, and the ratio is hard to talk past: $11.2 trillion in 20 months against $1 trillion in 48. If the announcement standard was good enough to crown the Biden industrial policy a success, it is good enough to measure its successor at 10 times the scale in less than half the time.

For a generation, Washington wrote grant checks and hoped the factories would stay. This term treats the taxpayer as a partner with a claim on the result. In August 2025, the government converted Intel's unpaid CHIPS grants into 433.3 million shares at $20.47, a 9.9% stake purchased with money already appropriated, plus a warrant for another 5% if Intel ever surrenders majority control of its foundry, and by June 2026 the president could mark that position above $60 billion after the stock's re-rating so that money already appropriated did not vanish into a finished plant but remained an asset the public still held. The same design appears in the golden share in U.S. Steel, which carries a veto over plant closures, in preferred stock in MP Materials, and in positions in Lithium Americas, Korea Zinc, Vulcan Elements, and L3Harris Missile Solutions. One count puts those equity-linked arrangements at 39 and the total at $27.7 billion.

Japan's $550 billion framework is the hardest version of the same idea. Washington selects the projects, and after Japan recoups its capital, the United States keeps 90% of the profits. A Hudson Institute review of the memorandum noted that Tokyo puts up the capital and Washington chooses the projects. Access to the American customer used to be treated as a given. It is now priced, and payment arrives as plants and fabs rather than as a note that can be rolled over. Once Japan crosses the threshold of getting its capital back, the residual does not stay in Tokyo. The donor state pays and then watches the appreciation accrue somewhere else. The ownership state pays once, keeps a claim, and can vote when a plant is slated to close.

Alexander Hamilton wrote in 1791 that a country's independence and security are materially connected to the prosperity of its manufactures. The Marshall Plan spent about $13 billion in then-dollars, roughly $170 billion today, rebuilding allied industry so that allies could buy American goods. What is underway now runs that sequence the other way. Allied treasuries and allied champions are rebuilding American industrial capacity as the price of admission to the American customer. For four decades America gave its market away and watched the factories follow the giveaway. This term reversed the bargain. If you want the customer, you build the plant here, and in the strategic sectors the taxpayer keeps a warrant. Today, that claim is $11.2 trillion in announced commitments, a steel mill rising in a Louisiana parish, and a stock certificate in the public's name.

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