5️⃣ The Strait of ‘Iran’, Open but Chained
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi declared the Strait of Hormuz “completely open” on Friday morning. President Trump quote-posted “THANK YOU!” in all caps and then, in a second Truth Social post the same morning, confirmed the U.S. naval blockade would remain in force “until such time as our transaction with Iran is 100 percent complete.” “It’s easy to be cynical when you hear pronouncements of victory,” MeidasTouch Chief Washington Correspondent Scott MacFarlane said on The Fivestack, noting the conspicuous Republican silence and Ann Coulter’s reaction: “yay, the strait that was open before we began bombing is open again. Everybody pretend this is a huge victory for Trump, so he’ll end this catastrophe.” Host Zev Shalev pointed out that the ceasefire depends on Hezbollah, which is not a party to the agreement, and on a prospective Axios-reported deal unfreezing $20 billion in Iranian funds in exchange for uranium. “It sounds a lot like the Obama deal,” Shalev said. Wyoming Republican Senator Cynthia Lummis, declining to mention the president by name, told reporters she had “record food pantry needs right here, right now, this week” in her state.
4️⃣ Mejia Wins New Jersey in a Blowout
Progressive Democrat Analilia Mejia, backed by Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, won the special election to fill Governor-elect Mikie Sherrill’s House seat, defeating Republican Joe Hathaway by a wide margin. “That suburban New Jersey district is not blue-blue,” MacFarlane said. “Democrats fought like hell to win that seat in 2018. They fought like hell to preserve it in ‘20, ‘22, and ‘24. If that’s uninteresting, if that’s not contested in a serious way, it’s a barometer of where things are headed.” Trump has predicted a Republican landslide in November; thirty-six House Republicans have already announced they will not seek reelection — a record. Shalev noted that the administration’s urgency on Iran is reading less like foreign policy and more like campaign management.
3️⃣ The Blanche Coup
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, Trump’s former personal defense attorney, is converting the Department of Justice into a one-man enforcement arm, Shalev said. Blanche this week told his department to “move on” from the Epstein files while 2.5 million documents remain sealed. His office moved to vacate the seditious conspiracy convictions of a dozen Proud Boys and Oath Keepers leaders, including Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes. And Blanche is personally overseeing an expanding criminal inquiry into former CIA Director John Brennan, with six or more witnesses queued. U.S. Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro, MacFarlane reported, separately filed a motion Friday seeking to have the Justice Department refund restitution fines paid by a pair of January 6 defendants — money that had been earmarked for the victims’ fund covering the 140 police officers injured that day. “That symbol means something,” MacFarlane said. “We are still auditioning for Trump’s approval.”
2️⃣ Oil Prices and the Limits of the Victory Lap
Crude prices tumbled on Araghchi’s announcement — WTI down roughly 12 percent, Brent down 10.5 percent — but gasoline prices at the pump are unlikely to deliver relief before November, and Republican campaign strategists know it. “Gas prices go up by an elevator,” MacFarlane quoted his former CBS colleague Jill Schlesinger. “They go down by a slow spirally staircase.” At a Thursday press opportunity, Trump, asked how much longer Americans would pay high gas prices, replied, “Well, they’re not very high.” “He doesn’t seem to have a real grasp on what his economy is doing to the everyday person,” Shalev said. MacFarlane’s harder point: “Trump’s running the Biden playbook. Which failed. It doesn’t work.” The GOP’s midterm plan — run hard on the Trump tax cuts this spring — has been swamped by pump prices and grocery receipts.
1️⃣ Warning: The January 6 Blueprint Is Back, from Inside the White House
Former Republican Congressman Denver Riggleman, who served as senior technical advisor to the House Select Committee on the January 6th Attack, joined the show to walk through his newly published analysis tying Trump’s March 31, 2026 voting executive order to the 2020 playbook drafted at South Carolina’s Tomotley Plantation. “Tomotley Plantation was bought by Lin Wood for about $7.9 million,” Riggleman said. “Tomotley is where they gathered everybody right after the election, right after November 3rd, to come up with a plan to use executive orders and legal frameworks to steal the election.” The 2026 executive order directs the Department of Homeland Security to compile a federal Citizenship List, gives the Postmaster General uniform rule-making authority over mail ballots, and provides criminal prosecution authority over state and local election officials who do not comply. “Jamie Raskin likes to say the biggest indicator, the biggest symptom of a forthcoming coup is a recently attempted coup,” MacFarlane said. Riggleman’s alarm is that the same network — Flynn, Powell, Byrne, Waldron — has simply moved from a hotel conference room to inside the White House, with more sophisticated tactics and no Pat Cipollone left to block them. “When you pardon people who tried to overturn an election, you really have eliminated the moral hazard and the safety net,” MacFarlane said. Seditious conspiracy, he reminded viewers, “means you conspire to overturn the government or democracy or an election. It’s hard to think of a more fundamentally pernicious thing to do.” The Department of Justice is now trying to vacate those convictions.
The Iran story is the distraction. The Blanche story is the coup. The big story rises in the East — and the next one starts at the ballot box. History rhymes. That’s how we know sooner.
The FiveStack is available as an audio podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. The FiveStack is a co-production of deanblundell.substack.com and narativ.org.
Thank you Jim Bourg, Stephanie G Wilson, PhD, Robin Payes, Iulia Huiu, LeftieProf, and many others for tuning into my live video with Scott MacFarlane! Join me for my next live video in the app.
