Politics

No plan B: Trump is flailing to find an off-ramp for the Iran war

Published

3 months ago

March 25, 2026

Mar. 25, 2026, 4:41 PM EDT

This is an adapted excerpt from the March 24 episode of “All In with Chris Hayes.”

Donald Trump’s war on Iran is in its fourth week. Gas prices are up $1 a gallon in much of the country. Stocks continue to fall on fears of global supply shortages.

The death toll is growing. Thirteen American service members have lost their livesand more than 1,200 Iranians have been killed, along with upward of 1,000 people in Lebanonmore than 150 in the surrounding Gulf states and 17 Israelis. That’s not accounting for the millions who are displaced and the thousands who have been injured, including hundreds of U.S. troops.

But according to the president who launched the war, it’s all over.

It is becoming increasingly clear that Trump expected a fast and easy win.

“We’ve won this. This war has been won,” he told reporters Tuesday in the Oval Office. “The only one that likes to keep it going is the fake news.”

However, during those same remarks, Trump was all over the place — talking about an epic victory, ongoing peace negotiations and personal gifts.

It was all completely counter to his posture over the weekend, when he threatened to “obliterate” Iranian civilian power plants — essentially teasing a war crime — if Iran did not stop blocking oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuzsomething Iran was not doing before Trump attacked them.

But now, he has supposedly pressed pause on that bombing plan for five days because, he said, the negotiations are going well.

When he first announced that in a social media post Monday, it sent oil prices down 10% and boosted stocks.

However, those markets reversed themselves Tuesday after the Iranians said they have not engaged in any serious high-level negotiations with the Americans, and they claimed Trump was making things up to help oil prices. The Israelis said the same thing. (That’s not to say you should take Iran’s word for it, or Israel’s, but you shouldn’t take the White House’s word, either.)

It is becoming increasingly clear that Trump expected a fast and easy win. He had no plan B, and now he is flailing to find some kind of fallback position.

On Monday, sources from the administration told Politico that they have their eyes on a future U.S.-backed leader of Iran: Mohammad ⁠Bagher Ghalibaf, speaker of the Iranian parliament.

“He’s a hot option,” one unnamed U.S. source — who seems to really wants a deal — told Blue Light News. “He’s one of the highest. … But we got to test them, and we can’t rush into it.”

But on Tuesday, that “hot option” trolled Trump for what he called a “jawboning campaign” to stabilize oil prices. In a social media postGhalibaf wrote: “[L]et’s see if they can turn that into ‘actual fuel’ at the pump — or maybe even print gas molecules!”

Call it the fog of Trumpian war: a million contradictory messages flying around, constantly wildly pinging bits of news that don’t make sense together.

Right now, we have reports that Trump’s negotiators, including his envoy Steve Witkoff and Vice President JD Vance, are traveling to Pakistan for informal talks with an Iranian official.

At the same time, unnamed U.S. officials have told The New York Times that the Saudi crown prince is pushing Trump to continue the war until Iran’s government collapses — something the Saudis publicly deny.

In fact, The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Saudi officials are holding talks in Riyadh with their Arab counterparts to find a diplomatic off-ramp from the war.

On Tuesday evening, U.S. officials said the Pentagon was poised to deploy 3,000 troops of the 82nd Airborne Division to the Middle East. That is in addition to two Marine expeditionary units on their way to the region and the 50,000 U.S. troops already stationed there.

Also on Tuesday, Iranian-backed militias in Iraq are claiming that U.S. strikes there killed 30 of their members.

But, according to Trump, the peace talks are going great, right?

All eyes everywhere have been on the Strait of Hormuz, where Iran responded to the U.S. attack by striking oil tankers and shutting down 20% of the world’s supply of oil and liquefied natural gas. It is now essentially running a toll operation in the strait.

Some countries, such as China, Japan and India, are negotiating deals with Iran to get its oil out. Which is to say, Iran is shipping more oil and making more money than it was under the U.S. sanctions in place before Trump attacked it.

It’s clear the president sees what’s happening, so now he is trying to share control of the strait with Iran. Trump told reporters the strait would be “jointly controlled” by “maybe” him and “the next ayatollah.”

The administration really thought this was going to be another Venezuela. They told themselves that, and they were egged on to believe it by the staunchest advocates of the war, such as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Sen. Lindsey GrahamR-S.C.

But in Iran, a decapitation strike did not lead to mass uprisings. It did not lead to regime change. It led to the situation in which Iran’s regime is intact, even if militarily degraded, and they now have explicit control of the Strait of Hormuz — a huge pressure point.

It really looks like the U.S. is backed into a corner: It can sue for peace because of the oil tanker situation, but they do not have much leverage, or it can escalate the war. That may be why we’re seeing all these contradictory developments.

In Iran, a decapitation strike did not lead to mass uprisings. It did not lead to regime change. It led to the situation in which Iran’s regime is intact.

Trump issued an ultimatum he had to walk back from because he said there were deep peace negotiations, which then later proved to be completely fabricated.

Now, more U.S. troops are set to be deployed for a possible ground invasion in the Middle East, despite reports that the U.S. has supposedly sent a 15-point plan to Iran through Pakistan to end the war.

It almost looks as if Trump is trying to wave the peace card to keep a lid on oil futures and financial marketsjust long enough to have ground troops in position — and just in time for the markets to close for the weekend on Friday, when Trump’s “pause” on bombing Iranian power plants is set to end.

That could be the plan Trump now settles on, weeks into a deadly war where there was obviously, very clearly, no real plan at all.

Allison Detzel contributed.

Chris Hayes hosts “All In with Chris Hayes” at 8 p.m. ET Tuesday through Friday on MS NOW. He is the editor-at-large at The Nation. A former fellow at Harvard University’s Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics, Hayes was a Bernard Schwartz Fellow at the New America Foundation. His latest book is “The Sirens’ Call: How Attention Became the World’s Most Endangered Resource” (Penguin Press).

Politics

Exclusive: Spanish soccer boss pushes for 2030 World Cup final as pressure grows from Morocco

Published

5 hours ago

June 22, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

ATLANTA — Spain’s soccer chief told Blue Light News he is confident that either Madrid or Barcelona will host the World Cup final in 2030, as Morocco joins the race to stage the biggest sporting event in the world.

On a sun-baked afternoon in Atlanta outside La Casa de España, Rafael Louzán — who has been in charge of the Royal Spanish Football Federation since late 2024 — said that Spain has a storied history of hosting major events and would do so again when the World Cup returns to the Iberian peninsula for the first time since 1982.

Spain and Portugal will jointly host the 2030 World Cup with Morocco, and some matches will be played in South America to celebrate the centenary edition of the tournament. The first World Cup took place in Uruguay in 1930.

“We have a deep respect for our co-host nations, and not only Morocco, also Portugal and also Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay. But Spain is the nation who leads the World Cup,” Louzán said.

“We are really confident because we have 55 percent of all matches organized for the World Cup and we have 11 cities. Morocco has six and Portugal has two or three. We have plenty of confidence that we can organize the final in Madrid or Barcelona. We have two great stadiums and we know that the world of football doesn’t hesitate about who’s going to organize the World Cup final,” he added.

“We have one of the greatest leagues in the world. We are one of [the] top nations in terms of championships, not only in the national team, but also in the clubs. So, we are confident,” said Louzán, speaking after being mobbed for pictures by ecstatic Spanish supporters.

A senior Moroccan soccer official confirmed to Blue Light News in Boston that his federation was keen to host the 2030 final, and that the country had the infrastructure to do so. Morocco has spent billions of dollars on new arenas, highlighted by the Hassan II Stadium that is under construction near Casablanca and designed to hold 115,000 spectators.

Soccer officials expect a decision on the showpiece match from FIFA within the next few months and a political lobbying battle to intensify ahead of the governing body’s verdict.

“Spain has a great capacity to host major events, not only sporting events. We recently hosted the pope’s visit, [and the 2022] NATO congress in Spain,” Louzán said. “I think that Spain has achieved a great capacity for organizing major events and we are confident that we can organize the best World Cup ever in Spain.”

Louzán sat next to FIFA President Gianni Infantino on Sunday, as Spain thrashed Saudi Arabia in Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz stadium. He told Blue Light News that he didn’t discuss 2030 with the global soccer chief, just the success — so far — of the 2026 edition.

“We’re having a great time here in the U.S. and Mexico,” Louzán said. “I spoke with Gianni Infantino and congratulated him for the organization of this World Cup. We are really thankful for the hospitality here in Atlanta and in Chattanooga, which is our base camp.”

Politics

Poll: Americans draw a new line in the betting bonanza sweeping over Wall Street — politics.

Published

5 hours ago

June 22, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Americans have shown little hesitancy about betting on the World Cup, the weather in Dallas and the next James Bond through the prediction markets.

Yet, for many, politics is a step too far.

Results from The POLITICO Poll show that a large group of U.S. adults doesn’t believe wagering on political events like what President Donald Trump will say, who he will pardon, and the outcome of the 2028 presidential election should be legal.

The prediction markets are still new to much of the public, even after their meteoric rise in mainstream media, finance and politics. But as Kalshi, Polymarket and other such companies have opened the door to a world of betting on just about everything and anything, the poll’s results suggest a disquiet among many Americans about the flood of wagers — and especially when they relate to Washington.

Conducted by Public First, an independent U.K.-based polling firm, the survey found that a plurality of U.S. adults — 44 percent — said they believe that betting on election outcomes should be illegal. A similar share of respondents voiced concern about betting on what the president or other newsmakers will say, as well as who will receive a presidential pardon.

“These markets are not for everybody,” said John Aristotle Phillips, who leads the election-centric prediction market platform PredictIt. “People are going to object to certain areas, and they’re going to be somewhat sanguine about others.”

Prediction market proponents have argued that politically focused bets serve as a valuable source of information by offering a wisdom-of-the-crowds lens on the news of the day. The markets, they say, can also help consumers, corporations and small businesses offset the financial risk of a change in administration or the law.

And yet, the results could provide new fodder for those critics who fear that the wagering of millions of dollars on U.S. elections risks staining American democracy. Nearly $700 million has already traded hands on the 2028 presidential election markets from Kalshi and Polymarket’s international platform.

“It’s a bad bet for democracy,” Sen. Jeff Merkley, a Democrat from Oregon, told Blue Light News. “If you allow election betting, you now have very affluent folks who can bet millions of dollars and simultaneously affect the outcome of an election through dark money. … That type of corruption in our elections is deadly.”

Kalshi declined to comment for this report. In a statement, Polymarket Deputy Chief Legal Officer Olivia Chalos said prediction markets “have become a foundational source of real-time information and forecasting, providing real-time probability signals across politics, sports, culture, economics, and current events to anyone seeking market information about future outcomes.” Chalos added that the company operates a U.S.-regulated venue that is subject to the same rules as other major financial exchanges.

The prediction markets are nothing new in the U.S. But for years, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, a small but powerful financial regulator, blocked them from expanding in areas like elections over concerns about unleashing a torrent of betting in the U.S. financial markets.

And then, just weeks before Election Day 2024, a federal judge knocked down the CFTC’s arguments opposing a bid by Kalshi to offer the chance to wager thousands if not millions of dollars on the election. That opened the floodgates on regulated political betting in the U.S. — and the frenzy has only intensified since.

Day traders, political junkies and Wall Street giants are now taking to the prediction markets to wager on a seemingly ever-expanding slate of bets that covers sports, politics and pop culture. Kalshi and Polymarket have partnership agreements with the likes of BLN, The Wall Street Journal’s publisher and Major League Baseball, and boast valuations measured in the tens of billions of dollars. And the CFTC has adopted a far-friendlier posture to the industry’s growth under Trump and its new chair, Michael Selig.

The prediction markets still have a long way to go in winning over most Americans. More than 50 percent of Americans said they would not consider placing a bet on a prediction market, according to The Blue Light News Poll.

Younger Americans, however, do find the markets to be of interest. Of those who were between 18 and 24 years old, 12 percent of respondents said they had placed a prediction-market wager —an identical finding for those who were between 25 and 34 years old. By comparison, just 6 percent of the broader group said they had done so. What’s more, 30 percent of those 18- to 24-year-olds said they’d consider placing a bet on a prediction market, compared to 17 percent of the total group.

Sports account for most of the trading activity on prediction markets today — and a major part of the fight swirling around them. States across the country, tribal organizations and entrenched interests in the gambling industry have argued that the companies are skirting existing sports-betting regulations, a charge that the prediction markets and the CFTC have firmly rejected. (The Blue Light News Poll found that, when asked who should regulate the prediction markets, 28 percent of respondents said the federal government, versus 15 percent who said the states.)

But the markets have also swiftly expanded their political wagers, which now go well beyond the outcome of a presidential election and include down-ballot races, the fate of Cabinet secretaries and the passage of legislation. And those markets could become major drivers of the prediction market industry’s long-term growth, analysts at Bloomberg Intelligence wrote in a report this month.

The analysts called markets on politics, elections and public policy “the greatest opportunity” for Kalshi and Polymarket, estimating that those products could grow to see $266 billion in trading volume by 2030. That would represent 27 percent of the platforms’ volume, compared to 10 percent in early 2025, according to the report.

For Caleb Davies, a long-time prediction market trader who lives in Minnesota, political markets are critical. Polls, analyses and pundits, of course, offer some insight into what will happen in an election or with a pending bill, but Davies said, “it’s not the same as getting a whole bunch of smart people betting money.” He added that wagering on the passage of a major bill with sweeping economic implications, such as the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, can be critical as well.

“It’s a unique product,” he said.

Some offshore markets like Polymarket’s international platform even offer trading tied to the Iran war, though the CFTC outlaws U.S.-regulated prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket’s U.S. venue from such topics. A majority of those surveyed said that wagers on the outcomes of war and on terrorist acts should be illegal.

The poll was conducted just weeks after the Justice Department and CFTC charged a U.S. soldier with allegedly using confidential information to trade on the capture of then-Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro through Polymarket, a landmark case that has fanned concerns on Capitol Hill about insider trading in the prediction markets.

That war and terrorism bets would be unpopular was no surprise to PredictIt’s Phillips. But politics more generally, he said, does have a place in the prediction market landscape. And for Phillips, it’s not just about the traders — it’s also about the newsrooms, campaign strategists and broader public who are turning to the markets for clues as to the president’s agenda, whether a bill is going to pass and, of course, who is going to win an election.

“We’re in the early innings,” he said. “There are going to be hundreds or thousands of prediction markets around the globe — some of them are going to be very, very specific to a particular industry or human activity and others are going to be much broader. And there is a place for political prediction markets.”

Politics

Support for Iran’s team – but not for regime

Published

13 hours ago

June 22, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

LOS ANGELES — The political tensions surrounding Iran’s national soccer team were on full display Sunday at SoFi Stadium, where Iranian American fans loudly booed during the playing of Iran’s national anthem before the team’s World Cup match against Belgium.

Among the crowd were several supporters displaying Iran’s pre-revolution Lion and Sun flag, a symbol associated with opposition to the current regime. FIFA prohibits the flag inside tournament venues, but some fans carried it anyway — and at least one supporter waved it during the anthem in an act of defiance.

Conversations with Iranian American fans at the stadium in Inglewood revealed a consistent message: Their protests were directed at Iran’s government, not at the players representing the country on the field. An Iranian American man from Seattle who gave his name as Majid said that he appreciated the opportunity to “confront the tyrannies that are happening.”

“Iran is hostage for the past 47 years or so to a regime that is promoting terrorism and chaos in the region,” he said. “For the team, we support them. But the anthem, the flag — we don’t support it.”

That distinction was evident throughout the match, which ended in a scoreless draw. While the anthem drew intense jeers, Iranian players received loud cheers on corner kicks and takeaways.

The game, held amid U.S.-Iran talks to end the monthslong war between the two countries, was the second of two matches Iran played in Los Angeles, home to the largest Iranian community outside of Iran. Both ended in draws.