If Trump Wants The Pentagon Funded The United States Must Side With Europe And Ukraine - Not Russia

Trump is asking Congress for a lot of money. There are things we need in return.

Morning all. Yesterday we talked about how both Putin and Trump are not winning their wars. Today let’s talk a bit about what comes next as policy makers and investors here and around the world start to reckon with the aftermath of these unfolding, twin geopolitical failures.

First, after Trump’s ridiculous gambit to open the Strait of Hormuz yesterday failed, Brent crude started the day at its highest point of the war:

And gas prices here in the US just keep rising:

Next - paying for Trump’s failed war. This war, and Trump’s other global adventures, are going to cost an extraordinary amount of money. Many, many hundreds of billions. Pro-democracy forces need to develop a comprehensive strategy of what we will get in return for providing funding for the Pentagon, for we cannot leave our military in a weakened position. Among the things we should be exploring - more Congressional oversight of the war itself, and the aftermath, as the Constitution and the law requires; reforms to create a leaner and more agile US military, ala Ukraine; a clear embrace of Ukraine, Europe and NATO in the Ukraine conflict, the days of appeasing Putin must end now; a repeal of the unaffordable Trump tax cuts to help pay for all this; an ending of his tariffs, to create more global good will as we work to restore America’s damaged reputation in the world; moving Trump’s Venezuela shake down from an off-shore, off-the books self-enrichment scheme to something overseen and managed by the US government; and perhaps more items from our Hopium Agenda, below.

From Punchbowl this morning - Ukraine backers vow tougher approach in aid fight:

Congressional backers of Ukraine are shifting to a more confrontational approach with the Trump administration in their fight to help the embattled U.S. ally in its endless war with Russia.

Ukraine supporters know they’ll need Democratic votes to advance major swaths of President Donald Trump’s $1.5 trillion Pentagon budget request and government funding.

They see these must-pass bills as essential leverage points to force a reluctant Trump administration — and other hostile Republicans in Congress — to provide Ukraine the resources to end Vladimir Putin’s war.

“Not one damn nickel, unless there’s a really robust support for Ukraine that helps Ukraine put Putin in the cage he belongs in,” said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) at the Sedona Forum on Friday.

War continues. It’s nearly a year and a half into Trump’s second term and the conflict, which the president repeatedly vowed to end on day one of his second term, shows no sign of stopping anytime soon. Ukraine backers allege a reason for that.

“It’s pretty clear that the president and his team favor Putin over Zelenskyy — and that’s very troubling,” said Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) during a panel at the event. “I want to turn the heat up.”

Those fears were reinforced last week with revelations that $400 million in congressional-approved Ukraine funding was withheld by the Pentagon until bipartisan pressure led to its release. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth confirmed this while testifying before Congress.

“It’s beyond debate: Trump’s on Putin’s side,” said Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.). “Withdrawing troops from Germany, sitting on the $400 million, it’s all consistent with a man who is for Russia, not Ukraine.”

A hefty chunk of Republicans, notably Vice President JD Vance, remain adamantly opposed to further aid to Ukraine. Vance said cutting that direct aid was “one of the things I’m proudest that we’ve done in this administration” during an event in April.

Other Republicans are supportive of Ukraine but wary of publicly breaking with the Trump administration to do so.

Here’s news. Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) will travel to Ukraine at the end of the month to deliver a keynote address at the Black Sea Security Forum and then visit the Odesa region to tour military and civilian resistance capabilities.

Gallego is hoping to bring other senators along on the trip. He sees the delegation as a way to gather important real-time information on the war, especially as the Iran conflict has pushed Ukraine from the front burner.

“Ukraine can win this war, and Ukraine needs us to win that war,” Gallego told us. “If we don’t provide it, it’s going to be a big regret for us — a moral stain that we’ll never get over.”

Here’s an excerpt from a new article from The Hill this morning, Murkowski spearheads GOP showdown over Iran:

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) is leading a push within the Senate Republican Conference for a vote on a resolution to authorize the use of military force against Iran beyond the 60-day window set by the 1973 War Powers Act. But Senate Republican Leader John Thune (S.D.) doesn’t appear eager to schedule a vote that would give Republican lawmakers ownership of the controversial war.

Senate Republican sources say Murkowski likely won’t get a vote on her measure because it’s not privileged. Additionally, she would need Thune to agree to put it on the busy Senate calendar.

But if Republican senators don’t have an opportunity to vote on a measure to authorize military operations against Iran, that could open the door for more Republicans to vote for a Democratic-sponsored resolution ordering President Trump to withdraw U.S. troops deployed against Iran.

Democrats plan to vote against any resolution authorizing the use of force against Iran because every Democratic senator opposes the conflict except for Sen. John Fetterman (Pa.).

They would like to see Republicans vote for a resolution authorizing the conflict because that would put individual senators on record in favor of continuing the war, which polls show is unpopular with most voters.

As many as five other Republicans could vote to end military hostilities against Iran unless Murkowski prevails in her effort to pass a resolution formally authorizing the military campaign — which would bring the naval blockade against Iranian ports and future military strikes against Iran into compliance with the War Powers Act.

Murkowski is courting support from a group of Republican colleagues, including Sens. Thom Tillis (N.C.), John Curtis (Utah), Todd Young (Ind.) and Josh Hawley (Mo.), who have warned that Congress needs to authorize the conflict if it stretches past 60 days.

All five GOP senators have said that Congress needs to have more say if the war drags on for more than a few months.

Trump notified Congress of the strikes against Iran on March 2. The 60-day window set by the War Powers Act, which allowed Trump to deploy U.S. forces without congressional authorization, expired on May 1.

Murkowski told colleagues on the Senate floor last week that she wants Congress to vote on a resolution authorizing the conflict to “establish a framework” that would require Trump to “come to Congress with clearly defined political and military objectives.”

“It would require metrics for success, notice of any changes in objectives and exit criteria. It would ultimately ensure that Congress is engaged,” she said.

Third, Democrats need to once again become leaders in the global energy transition, unabashed, no bullshit here either. Here’s an excerpt from Paul Krugman’s terrific new essay, Trump Is Losing A Second War: The Iran debacle is accelerating the shift away from fossil fuels:

The global energy transition — the shift from fossil fuels to electrotech, which uses solar, wind and batteries to power an electrified economy — is accelerating. It’s now clear that the closure of the Strait of Hormuz marks an inflection point: the global green energy curve, which was already on a rapidly rising trajectory, has suddenly become even steeper. “Investors,” reports the Financial Times, “are piling into clean energy funds.”

This acceleration isn’t just a consequence of soaring fossil fuel prices. It is also the result of the worldwide realization that, with the end of Pax Americana, depending on imported hydrocarbons is a risk not worth taking. The United States cannot be relied on to keep sea lanes open when cheap drones can take out an oil tanker or a major pipeline. Even relying on oil and gas from America itself is dangerous, since one never knows when an erratic U.S. government – now under the control of a twice-elected malignant narcissist — will try to use energy as a tool of coercion.

Despite the perversity of its causes, the current acceleration of electrotech is overwhelmingly positive for the world as a whole. It will slow climate change and reduce pollution. It will diminish the power of anti-democratic petrostates and limit the vulnerability of the world economy to disruptions at choke points like Hormuz. It will democratize access to cheap energy sources in places like Africa.

There is another positive consequence of the clean energy boom: the diminishment of the carbon coalition — the interest groups and ideologues who hate renewable energy and want the world to keep burning fossil fuels. That coalition currently controls the Trump administration’s energy policy. But this is only the latest stage in the corruption of U.S. politics by fossil fuel interests. When we decry the Supreme Court’s destruction of the Voting Rights Act, we should always remember that the Koch brothers and other fossil fuel oligarchs essentially created the Roberts court.

And now we have petrostate oligarchs making naked corruption great again by lining the pockets of the Trump family.

I also strongly recommend spending time with this remarkable, related article from the New York Times, It’s the Age of Electricity and America Isn’t Ready (gift link). An excerpt:

Electricity is perhaps the most underrated issue of our time.

In the United States, we have been blessed with a power grid that instantly responds whenever you flick on the lights. It works mostly as expected, cooling our homes, charging our laptops and phones, running lifesaving equipment. But as we plug more things into the grid, it will come under unprecedented strain. Virtually every economic goal that American politicians might strive for — growing the economy, reinvigorating the manufacturing sector, fighting climate change or just making life more affordable — will require big upgrades to the electricity system.

Lately Americans have become fixated on the explosion in data centers and the power needs of artificial intelligence. That is actually a small part of a much bigger problem. Our grid is too old and our supply of electricity too small. If we don’t meet this moment, we will face an impoverished future of more expensive, less reliable energy, and slower economic growth. In a worst-case scenario, we could see Americans defect from the grid entirely, raising costs for everyone. Something needs to change now.

Fourth, we need a big rethink of global food security. Trump’s failed war has taught us that the world is overly reliant on oil-derived fertilizer produced in the Middle East. Diversification, more domestic stockpiling, new non-petro forms of fertilizer all need to be explored. There is great urgency to this both for American farmers and the farmers of the world. More on this in the days to come.

The bottom line here is that Trump 2.0 has failed. His war in the Middle East has failed. Putin is failing in Ukraine, and Zelenskyy has emerged as a respected global leader, valiantly defending his country for a foreign aggressor. Orban has been defeated and his illiberal coalition in Europe is weakening. Trump’s economic strategy has failed. The country has turned on him and the GOP. We are going to be picking up the pieces and digging out of this Trumpian rubble for many years, perhaps decades. But it is what we must do now, and pro-democracy forces should not be waiting until after the election to start this process. While out of power we are not powerless, and we need to use the power we have to force far better outcomes for the American people and the people of the world right now, today, and not next year. For as we’ve been discussing the moment now requires Democrats and our broader pro-democracy movement to imagine and build something new and better, together.

We will be talking about all this with historian Phillips O’Brien tomorrow live at 2pm ET. You can register for our discussion here, and a recording will be sent out tomorrow afternoon for those who can’t join us live. We will also be diving into all this at our paid subscriber gathering Wednesday night at 7pm ET.

A reminder that you canfind all of our interviews and podcasts on the Hopium site under the Podcast tab, and on YouTube, Apple Podcasts and Spotify too. Links to upcoming Hopium events can be always be found under our Events tab.

And yes, my friends, it is that time……

Time To Get To Work Everyone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Winning The Midterms, Competing In Red States and Red Places, Expanding The Map

Rallying For Jen Jordan and Miracle Rankin For Georgia Supreme Court - This is our next big opportunity to make good trouble all. The Election is May 19th, early voting has begun, and we have 2 great candidates, Jen Jordan and Miracle Rankin, who have a serious shot at flipping two GOP-held Supreme Court seats. Watch our new interview with Jordan and Rankin, donate to their campaign, and volunteer no matter where you are! In just a week we’ve already raised $24,500 towards our $50,000 goal!

Hopium’s Winning The House Campaign (2026) - $636,600 raised, $1,000,000 goal (new ambitious, audacious even, q2 goal) - Donate to all twelve of our endorsed House challengers with one click | Get to know Jamie Ager (NC-11), Christina Bohannan (IA-01), Paige Cognetti (PA-08), Rebecca Cooke (WI-03), Sean McCann (MI-04), Jo Mendoza (AZ-06), Chaz Molder (TN-05), Janelle Stelson (PA-10), Shannon Taylor (VA-01), and Sarah Trone Garriott (IA-03) by watching our recently recorded Hopium interviews. Interviews with Jonathan Nez and Elaine Luria coming soon!

If you are looking for inspiration watch a few of these interviews - I promise these great candidates will get you excited about our opportunities this November! For it is simple - if we win these twelve races the House flips. Period.

James Talarico For Texas - $66,000 raised, $250,000 - Donate | Volunteer and Learn More | Enjoy my inspiring interview with Rep. Talarico as he fights to turn Texas blue.

Mary Peltola For Alaska Senate - $88,600 raised, $250,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer and Learn More | Enjoy my uplifting conversation with Mary Peltola as she fights to turn Alaska blue.

Winning Ohio - $134,700 raised, $250,000 goal - Our new campaign splits contributions evenly among Sherrod Brown, the Acton/Pepper ticket, and the Ohio Democratic Party | Donate today and help us turn this critical 2026 battleground blue | Watch my new discussions with US Senate candidate Sherrod Brown, Lt. Gov candidate David Pepper, and Ohio Dem Chair Kathleen Clyde.

This total includes $21,000 sent by a Hopium community member directly to each of our three Buckeye State partners!

Hopium’s Audacious Expansion Fund - $549,900 raised, $1,000,000 goal (new stretch goal) - Join our campaign that has helped expand our map by investing in the Democratic Parties of Alaska, Florida, Iowa, Maine, and Texas, all now central battlegrounds in the 2026 election | Catch interviews with the five intrepid state chairs leading their troops into battle this year - will get you fired up! | Contribute to all five state parties with one contribution split evenly among these five new battlegrounds.

Many thanks to two generous Hopium community members who have audaciously donated $20,000 to each of our five state parties over the past two years.

Roy Cooper for NC Senate (2026) - $109,200 raised, $250,000 goal - Donate | Learn More | Volunteer | Enjoy my new discussion with Gov. Cooper as he fights to turn North Carolina blue.

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Advocate For The Hopium Agenda/Pass Resolutions Of Condemnation In Your Community/Winning In An Evolving Battlefield

There are a few more ways to go to work in the coming days - call your leaders and advocate for elements of our working, ever evolving Hopium Agenda; bring resolutions that condemn our Mad King and lets facts be spoken to a candid world to your state or local government; and learn how you can help us win in evolving political and electoral battlefield this year.

Here’s our working, evolving Post-Iran Disaster Agenda:

• Work to end this new gulf war and Trump’s Imperial global ambitions

• Support Ukraine and Europe, not Russia

• Roll back the new, illegal tariffs

• Rescind the Trump tax cuts, claw back the extra ICE funding, fund the IRS so it can collect the taxes the rich are hiding from us

• Launch a major anti-corruption, renewing democracy campaign, one that ensures accountability for the crimes and treason committed, limits the political power of our emerging oligarchy, and strengthens democracy here and everywhere

• Make the US a clean energy superpower, fight for true energy independence, and lower utility and energy prices for the American people

• Rein in ICE, end Mass Deportation

• End Trump’s destructive war on science, research, our health scare system and our public Health

• Make clear to American farmers that we want to end the failed war, repeal the terrible tariffs, find legal pathways for farm workers, and make health care and energy more affordable

Please use the paid subscriber chat to self-report the good trouble you make each day.

Keep working hard all. We have a country to save and elections to win, together! - Simon