Leland Vittert’s War Notes: Race against Time (It’s Happening)

Encourage friends and family to subscribe to War Notes here.

NewsNation Chief Washington Anchor and On Balance host Leland Vittert was a foreign correspondent for four years in Jerusalem. He gives you an early look at tonight's 9 p.m. ET show, delivered straight to your inbox.

⚠️Editor's note: "War Notes" will be taking a long weekend! See you Monday.

➡️For tomorrow: It's Shabbat. Jewish families will go to their synagogues tomorrow in fear, surrounded by private security and police.

👀Look back: We are just one week since the brother of a Hezbollah terrorist drove his explosive-laden truck into a Jewish synagogue and day care trying to kill the 140 kids inside.

Yikes: Somehow, that story disappeared quick.
Reality: It's telling that mosques don't need armed security.

🤫Silence: Amazing how silent the U.N., pro-Palestinian types and similar do-gooders are about the execution of Iranian protesters — the regime says it will kill one of its own star wrestlers.

⚽It's similar to how few women's rights groups cared about the Iranian soccer players who are now all back in Iran facing torture, rape and possible execution.

Race Against Time ⏰

⌛Trump is in a race against political time — he originally said he needed six weeks, and this Saturday is halfway.

Good read: "How Trump Can Buy Time For His Iran War"
Pressure is mounting to:
- Bring prices down
- End the war
- And now, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says he needs $200 billion to replenish America's weapons
The U.S. is increasing its military pressure:
- Bunker-buster strikes on underground and maritime targets
- The next few days could define what comes next
At the center: the Strait of Hormuz
- NATO is signaling it may step in
- Trump says NATO is "too late" — obviously, he wants them to do more, but he will take the help.
Senate Republicans are blocking an effort to rein in Trump's war powers
- Democrats pushed to halt the offensive, which was undertaken without congressional approval
  - The vote failed for the second time since the war began
- Democrats are demanding more clarity on:
  - Objectives
  - Timeline
  - Cost of the war
💭Thought bubble: How do they do that without looking unpatriotic or unsupportive of the troops?
Last gasp? Iran thinks they have leverage
- IRAN'S FM THIS MORNING – Do they risk "deescalating"?

Watch tonight📺: Retired Vice Admiral John W. "Fozzie" Miller and Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., joins us.

JD Vance Is in A Pickle 🚨

JD Vance is caught between his benefactor, Tucker Carlson, and his boss, Donald Trump

Headlines like this suck when you are VP
- If he wants to be president, he needs them both happy, and he's not doing that well with either
- The vice president faces one of the hardest jobs in politics:
  - Stay loyal to Trump
  - Wink at Carlson and his crew
Tehran Tucker: honest reporting traced the Tucker talking points
MAGA's split is widening:
- Dan Bongino: "If you want to trash Trump, say his name — otherwise you're a coward," referring to the podcasters trashing the war but refusing to call Trump out
- Same thing happened on the show last night with Caroline Sunshine
- The Spectator headlines, "The Iran War is likely to mark the end of Trumpism"
- Nick Fuentes said, "I really believe Trump needs to be impeached"

Watch tonight📺: Lauren Wright and Mark McKinnon join us.

Can Trump Liberate Cuba? 📢

Trump is on the verge of doing what no president has done in 75 years:

Potentially bringing down Cuba's communist government
Personal thought: About time!
- Nobody has suffered more than the Cuban people.
The president signaling action:
- "We'll be doing something with Cuba very soon"
- Trump has floated the idea of "taking Cuba in some form"
On the other side: A warning from Havana
- Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel: Any U.S. aggression will be met with "impregnable resistance"
- Yet his regime is negotiating with the U.S. because of severe energy shortages crippling the island
The bigger picture: The Cubans should take Trump seriously … Maduro did not, and now look at him.
- This isn't just rhetoric
- It's a potential turning point in a decades-long standoff
The question now: What does "taking Cuba" actually look like? It could happen without a single shot.

Watch tonight📺: Ambassador Alberto Fernandez, vice president of the Middle East Media Research Institute, joins us — he left Cuba as an infant, but will he be able to go back to a free country?

Running the 2024 Playbook 📕

😕Are Democrats heading toward a 2024 déjà vu moment in the next election cycle?

The party appears to be dusting off the same playbook and risking a repeat of the strategy that failed them
- 🚨‼️Much of the messaging still centers on one thing: "F*** Trump"
Gavin Newsom's wife is leaning even further left, arguably outpacing Tim Walz's wife on woke messaging
- Newsom's wife doubled down on this messaging tactic, recently calling Trump a "vile specimen"
📃Tim Walz's wife insisted the Democrats were "turning the page" back in 2024, but are they really?
And this from Illinois Governor JB Pritzker: "We've got to restore the rule of law and that means holding people accountable who've broken the law. I'm talking about in this administration."
- Isn't that lawfare – aka, exactly what Biden did?
- Prosecuting your enemies was wrong when Biden did, when Trump does it and when the next Democrat will.
New figures, like Democrat James Talarico, who is running for a Senate seat in Texas, are gaining more attention claiming God is "nonbinary" and stating that "our trans community needs abortion care too."
🚓Even Bill de Blasio now admits "defund the police" was a mistake.

✈️Now, Democrats are echoing old, and failed, policies, refusing to keep DHS funded as weary and angry travelers wait in long lines amid renewed calls to defund ICE.

⁉️The bigger questions:
- ❓Can Democrats move beyond Trump-centric messaging
- ❓And how do they balance anti-Trump energy with progressive "woke" policies without losing voters?

Watch tonight📺: Madeline Summerville and Jamie Metzl join us on if Democrats can find a new playbook

Tafoya and High Gas Prices💲

Nobody ever won an election by telling Americans to suck it up.

🍺 Hold my beer: Minnesota senate candidate Michele Tafoya did exactly that with her way to deal with rising gas prices
- ☕No more Starbucks:
  - Tafoya said, "Maybe you take one less trip to Starbucks and so that gas goes a little further. Until this thing is over and these gas prices come back down again, let's just try to be patriots about this."
Yikes: How can it get worse than Jimmy Carter telling Americans to turn down the thermostat?

FOLLOW US ON SOCIAL MEDIA

@lelandvittert

@onbalancewithlelandvittert

WATCH ON BALANCE WEEKNIGHTS AT 9P/8C

Every night during On Balance, Leland Vittert asks "why?" about the most pressing matters of the day, with an intellectual, balanced and sometimes irreverent take on the news.

Make sure to let us know your thoughts on social media and by replying to this email.

See the latest videos and coverage from On Balance