Weekend Quotables
Trump says, "Don't ask." PLUS...Is Mitch McConnell secretly deceased?
Donald Trump on Sunday twice told journalists to stop asking him about the status of the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran once again closed after the president declared an end to the ceasefire deal between the two countries.
The first instance came during an interview with NBC News’ Kristen Welker, who pointed to conflicting statements from the Iranian government and US Central Command about the status of the strait.
Trump replied that “it’s open, and I don’t want to talk about it because I want to honor the life” of the late Sen. Lindsey Graham.
Shortly after, during an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, Trump was again asked whether the strait was still open.
Trump on Tapper’s Show
TAPPER: “Iran says the Strait is closed…”
TRUMP: “Don’t talk about it.”
TAPPER: “Ok.”
ME: “Huh?”
More Quotables
Rep. Ro Khanna
“The IDF is lying. What happened was unprecedented. They had violent settlers detain American citizens including a government official, brandishing M4s, kicking the tires of our van, laughing at us… We were detained for 20 minutes, fearful for our lives.” — Meet the Press
Abdul El-Sayed
Judge me by my work, I funded the system because it needed to be funded,” he said. “Too often the conversation we have is fund or defund. The question that we don’t ask is, what kind of system do we really want? I want us to be investing in the kinds of interventions that actually protect people.” — Fox News
George Conway
“A severely mentally ill man has control of the launch codes for America’s nuclear arsenal, but it doesn’t seem that many people care.” — Media-ite
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Answer to a reader’s question
No Dave. Rumors that some bettors on Kalshi made a killing by betting that Graham would die before McConnell are false. The implication is that some insiders had knowledge of Graham’s sudden demise before it actually happened, and that McConnell wasn’t already dead.
Kalshi is a CFTC‑regulated exchange, meaning it operates under the same federal rules that govern commodities and financial derivatives. Those rules ban markets tied to death, injury, or serious harm to individuals.
So what would the hypothetical odds look like?
According to AI, a realistic prediction‑market pricing (if such markets were legal) would probably resemble:
McConnell “dies first”: ~70–80%
Graham “dies first”: ~20–30%
The Guardian’s Arwa Mahdawi goes so far as to ask: Is Mitch McConnell secretly deceased?