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ZEITGEIST

April 25, 2026

The fracture lines in the Iran standoff are widening — and not just between the two countries. Tucker Carlson, once one of Trump's closest outside advisers and the country's most popular conservative pundit, declared this week that he considers the war a personal betrayal. "I feel betrayed," he said in a Journal interview, dating the rupture to February 28, the day the U.S. and Israel launched airstrikes on Iran that killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Carlson said he visited the White House three times to argue against escalation, and that in their final meeting in February, a letter from evangelist Franklin Graham accusing Carlson of antisemitism lay on the Resolute Desk. Trump listened but looked "sad and resigned," Carlson said. They haven't spoken since. On Monday's podcast, Carlson told nearly six million subscribers he was wrestling with his conscience and wanted to say "I'm sorry for misleading people." Leavitt said anyone who claims to be a conservative and regrets voting for Trump over Harris is "either a fool or a fraud." Carlson's break is the most visible sign yet that the war is splitting the coalition that put Trump back in office, with the populist-antiwar right now openly at odds with the administration's interventionists.

On the other side of the negotiating impasse, Iran's own leadership divisions are spilling into view. Hard-liners in and around the political system, including figures aligned with the Revolutionary Guard, are publicly attacking the country's top negotiators for even discussing the nuclear program during April's first round of talks in Pakistan. Mahmoud Nabavian, an ultraconservative lawmaker who was part of the Iranian delegation, told state media that putting nuclear issues on the table was "a strategic mistake." The deeper problem: Mojtaba Khamenei, who succeeded his father as supreme leader, has not been seen or heard since the war began. There is broad consensus among U.S., Israeli and mediating officials that he is secluded, possibly injured and unable to communicate freely — complicating Tehran's ability to reach consensus on any painful concessions. U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner are heading to Islamabad, but Iranian state media insists no meeting is planned. A detail from the first round captures the surreal asymmetry: at one point Kushner stepped out of late-night negotiations to call Trump and Secretary of State Rubio, who were about to watch a mixed martial arts fight in Miami.

The war is redrawing global energy flows, with some effects that could outlast the fighting. U.S. exports of crude and petroleum products hit a record last week — nearly 12.9 million barrels a day — and more than 60 empty supertankers were steaming toward the Gulf Coast as of Wednesday, roughly triple prewar levels. The country this month nearly flipped to a net exporter of crude for the first time in weekly government data going back to 2001. In March, U.S. firms signed $56 billion in energy deals with Asian investors at a Tokyo forum. But the windfall has limits: Asian refineries are built to process heavier Middle Eastern crude, not the lighter American variety, and overhauling them would take years. Europe, which now gets about 60% of its liquefied natural gas from the U.S., worries about swapping one dependency for another — especially under a president who has leveraged gas exports in trade talks.

Even when the strait reopens, the damage to Persian Gulf production will linger for months or years. Iraq's output has plunged to about 1.6 million barrels a day from 4.9 million before the war. Paraffin and asphalt-like substances may have clogged wells where thick crude stopped flowing; pressure in older fields is likely to have fallen, meaning less oil and more gas when they restart. Wood Mackenzie estimates that reaching 85% of prewar output in Iraq's southern fields could take nine months. The International Energy Agency puts it more starkly: "some pre-conflict production may not return."

The war has also shifted more of Ukraine's financial burden onto Europe, even as Kyiv still depends on American interceptors and battlefield intelligence. The EU this week signed off on the equivalent of $105 billion in loans to keep Kyiv afloat through the end of next year — unlocked by the recent election defeat of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who stayed away from the summit in Cyprus. "For the first time in years there are no Russians in the room," Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk wrote, in a pointed reference to Orbán's warm ties with Moscow. But Ukraine already needs an additional €19 billion beyond what was planned for next year, and a French presidential election will test whether Paris remains in the consensus. Zelensky sharpened his tone toward Washington, saying it would be "disrespectful" for U.S. envoys not to visit Kyiv given they have already been to Moscow.

At home, the economic mood is darkening in a way that doesn't match the data. The University of Michigan's consumer-sentiment index fell to 49.8 in April, its lowest reading in the survey's 70-plus-year history. Sixty-four percent of respondents expect unemployment to rise in the next year — a level never before seen outside a recession. Retail sales remain solid, jobless claims are low, and markets hover near records — but gas prices have spiked, tariff policy is erratic, and layoff headlines keep coming. The gap between mood and metrics is one of the economy's defining puzzles.

Separately, AI-related stress is showing up on corporate balance sheets. Two large loans made during the post-pandemic buyout boom — about $3 billion backing software maker Medallia and $1.4 billion behind dental-services company Affordable Care — are defaulting, hitting funds at Blackstone, KKR and Apollo. Thoma Bravo, which invested $5.1 billion in Medallia in 2021, is likely to lose it all. UBS analysts warned that a coming "SaaSpocalypse," as AI threatens to displace enterprise software, could double the private-credit default rate to 9–10% this year. Blackstone's largest credit fund reported nonperforming loans at a record 2.4% of its portfolio.

But AI is also creating winners. Intel, left for dead a year ago, reported a 7% revenue jump to $13.6 billion, beating analyst estimates by 11%, as the rise of autonomous AI agents revived demand for the CPUs the chipmaker specializes in. Its data-center segment posted $5.1 billion in quarterly revenue, some $600 million above expectations. Shares surged 20% after hours. CEO Lip-Bu Tan said the ratio of CPUs to GPUs needed has shifted from one-to-eight to one-to-four — a structural tailwind for Intel's core business. Separately, nuclear-energy company X-Energy closed its first day of trading up 27%, delivering paper gains of more than $300 million to Ken Griffin on a $100 million investment made 18 months ago. Amazon, which owns close to 20% of X-Energy, is betting on its modular reactors to power data centers.

On the political map, the full story behind Virginia's razor-thin redistricting vote is now coming into focus. Barack Obama — who built much of his political brand on opposing gerrymandering — went all in on the effort, personally reassuring Virginia's House speaker backstage at a rally and lending his voice to millions in advertising. Republicans countered with Obama's own anti-gerrymandering quotes, creating dueling-Obama ad wars. The measure passed by just three percentage points. House leader Hakeem Jeffries declared afterward: "Maximum warfare, everywhere, all the time." Virginia's speaker, Don Scott, put the party's evolution more bluntly: "When they go low, you got to get your ass down and fight with them."

And in a gesture few were clamoring for, the Justice Department announced it would allow executions by firing squad and restore lethal injections in federal death-penalty cases, even as a recent Gallup poll found support for capital punishment at a 50-year low. The department is seeking death sentences against 44 defendants and is considering relocating or expanding federal death row, including possibly building an additional execution facility.

A war fracturing both sides politically, an energy map being redrawn for years, consumer confidence at generational lows while markets hover near highs — the picture this Saturday morning is of a world adjusting not to a crisis but to the realization that several of them have become the new normal.

ZEITGEIST DISPATCH — April 25, 2026

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