05/30/25

Good morning! It’s Friday, May 30th.

National Mint Julep Day

Well I’ll be! (What is that accent?)

Fun fact: More than 120,000 mint juleps are sold during Derby weekend in Louisville. It’s the drink of the Kentucky Derby because… they promoted it more and sold it in souvenir glasses.

Americans love souvenir glasses!

And now, the news.

Israel-Hamas

-via BBC and The Guardian

Starting with the Israel-Hamas war, where Thursday saw two radically different headlines.

First, Israel’s Prime Minister has said they have accepted a new ceasefire deal, presented by Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff.

Not all the details of the deal have been published, but it does include a 60-day ceasefire, which is extendable up to 70 days.

Hamas has the deal and is currently studying it.

While all of that is going on on one side – on the other side of the spectrum… Israeli ministers have announced that 22 new Jewish settlements have been approved in the occupied West Bank, marking the biggest, and therefore most dangerous, expansion in decades.

These settlements are seen as illegal under international law. Not unlike Gaza, this is land that Palestinians want. Moving into that area puts Palestinians at risk.

Several of these 22 settlements have already existed in the area, but will now be made legal under Israeli law. Not under international law, under Israeli law.

Ta-riff Off

-via AP News, Washington Post, and CNBC

On Thursday, and kind of Wednesday, Trump’s tariffs bounced all around in the news.

Starting Wednesday, when a federal court judge blocked Trump’s sweeping tariffs, ruling he overstepped his authority (classic) when he invoked the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act to put those tariffs in place.

Then Thursday, because he was like but I want to do tariffs! I heard that word once! A federal court of appeals stayed the federal court’s decision.

Which means the tariffs are back on! For now.

And nothing’s better for the economy than confusion!

Actually, the markets did see a teeny tiny little uptick on Thursday, but in the long run, one can only assume this back and forth will not help anything. It’s certainly not helping me. That’s for sure.

TACO Dummy

-via NY Times

Listen, it’s Friday.

Yesterday, we had a long show. Tough topics. We’ve got this dude in the White House who’s screwing with our economy. Screwing with our rights. Actively making life worse for people by choice… like that is a decision he makes. That is how he is choosing to live his life.

So it’s going to be a short episode, but I can’t end the week without talking about this…

Earlier this week, a Financial Times columnist coined the term TACO trade. TACO as in – Trump Always Chickens Out.

Referring to how Trump threatens tariffs but backs down to allow countries more time to negotiate.

Dude is famously terrible at negotiating. He couldn’t even get his own name on Twitter!

TACO Trade. Silly, funny. Whatever.

On Wednesday, a particularly brave reporter asked him about it.

His response: “I chicken out? I’ve never heard that. Don’t ever say what you said. That’s a nasty question. To me, that’s the nastiest question.”

That’s the nastiest question?

That?

I keep seeing this shirt online that says I could be meaner and that’s what this made me think of.

That’s no way that’s the nastiest question.

If that’s the nastiest question… I mean I guess it confirms everything we know about him. Which is that he’s never asked himself a hard question in his life.

The nastiest question.

I ask worse questions about that man on an hourly basis. And not even on purpose. Not even actively. I’ll just be walking up the stairs to my office and think, but what if he dad had ever once just told him he loved him?

Or I’ll be getting some tea and think, what if someone had just shaved his head and he looked different than he does right now?

Getting on the freeway and think… things that are too mean to put into a microphone. Because I have manners.

What if he had manners? What if someone had just respected him enough to teach him manners?

What if someone had liked him enough to… just… what if someone liked him?

Anyway… it’s Friday. I recommend, if you’re feeling a little stressed or anything this weekend, feel free to go over some questions that you think might be nastiest than “hey, have you heard this TACO trade thing?”

And that’s it. That’s the news.

Because it’s Friday. We could all use it.

I’m proud of Friday’s. The really hold us together.

And because you hold me together (no pressure!), I’m proud of you.