Podcasts · Letters from an American

Performative Nonsense

· 11 min

Episode Performative Nonsense

0:00 11:16

August 25, 2026

Trump is floating the idea of renaming Lake Ontario. Canadian officials will impose tariffs of up to 50% on US products on September 8, Scott Bessent’s threat to strangle Iran’s economy isn’t faring well, China is taking advantage of the desperation those threats suggest, The Iran war has reconfigured the Middle East with Iran emerging as the area's dominant power, Trump and Defense Secretary Hegseth want to bring a “warrior” ethos to the Pentagon and they thought senior officers would agree with him, but they have disagreed with policies to scale back the effort to protect civilians, Trump’s trade war is likely to hit the Midwest right before the midterms, Republican candidates are backing away from Trump, Trump still thinks his power is unchallenged and he is now threatening to demolish the Kennedy Center if he can’t renovate it.

Watch today's recording here: https://www.youtube.com/live/g9TUa1Rwd6U?si=T8_KKcHQZElhpnZ-

Get full, free access to Letters from an American here: https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/subscribe

You can also find me:

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/hcrichardson.bsky.social

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/heathercoxrichardson/?hl=en

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/heathercoxrichardson/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@heathercoxrichardson

Get full access to Letters from an American at heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/subscribe

Links in the notes 7

The episode on the publisher’s site

Transcript

    Shows are listed from Apple Podcasts' charts and directory, and Podcast Index where it is used. Every show and episode belongs to its publisher and plays from the publisher's own feed; this site hosts none of them. Explicit shows are for adult profiles only, and children’s profiles hear only children’s shows. More about this list.