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Monday, May 11, 2026

Iran war quagmire threatens to leave Trump with little from China trip besides ballroom envy

The war that President Donald Trump unilaterally started with Iran is sending oil prices through the stratosphere with no end in sight. Americans are paying record-high gasoline prices just as the summer travel season comes into view.

Unsurprisingly, his approval ratings are lower than they’ve ever been, and the giant ballroom that is Trump’s passion project is deeply unpopular.

So what is the leader of the free world up to this week?

He’s jetting off to Beijing to be feted in a lavish state visit — including a sumptuous banquet in a golden ballroom that dwarfs the controversial monstrosity he’s building where the White House’s East Wing stood before he, wait for it, unilaterally demolished it.

Trump’s two-day sojourn in China comes as his administration remains locked in the economic malaise brought on by his own decision to launch a war against Iran without regard for decades of strategic analyses which had calculated that Tehran would retaliate by blocking the Strait of Hormuz.

That blockade has wrought havoc on global markets and choked off a key maritime route for approximately a fifth of the world’s petroleum supply.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way.

Read more here.

By Andrew Feinberg

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Daily briefing

The three issues preventing the US and Iran from agreeing a peace deal

Iran and the United States are held in an impasse over several key issues, blocking serious talks to end the war, James C. Reynolds and Alex Croft write.

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QUOTE OF THE DAY

That’s not classified, it’s a quote from you.

Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) after Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth threatened another investigation into him.

What else you need to know

Game Over: A new arcade game satirizing President Donald Trump’s war with Iran has appeared on the National Mall - and it’s by the group responsible for some of the recent mocking statues that have appeared in Washington, D.C, Katie Hawkinson reports.
Cost overruns: A company that reportedly worked for one of Donald Trump’s golf courses was awarded a no-bid federal contract worth nearly $7 million to repaint the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool last month. Alex Woodward has more.

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