$4.45 Gas, Trump's Record 62% Disapproval, Spirit Airlines Gone, and Six Months to Midterms - Video

Gas is $4.45 a gallon nationally — up $1.28 from this time last year — and the war in Iran is the reason. Trump's disapproval hit a record 62 percent, exactly six months before midterm elections. Spirit Airlines folded. And Euphoria's fandom is in crisis over Rue becoming a federal informant. Today's episode breaks down four storylines all running on the same underlying dynamic: the cost of instability is landing in daily American life in ways that are concrete and personal.

What's in today's episode:

THE STRAIT OF HORMUZ GAMBIT
Trump posted Sunday the U.S. would "guide" neutral ships through the Strait of Hormuz — the chokepoint through which 20 percent of the world's oil supply flows. The Wall Street Journal reported what this actually is: a coordination cell, not a naval escort program. That is a significantly different thing, and the market is going to figure it out. Gas is $4.45 nationally — a 30-cent jump in a single week, $1.28 higher than a year ago. CPI is at 3.3 percent. The Minneapolis Fed president told CBS Sunday he's not comfortable signaling a rate cut. The $4.50-a-gallon mark could arrive before the end of this week.

SIX MONTHS TO MIDTERMS — THE NUMBERS ARE BAD
Today marks exactly six months before Election Day. Trump's disapproval stands at a record 62 percent in a new WaPo-ABC-Ipsos poll, with his worst marks on cost of living — voters' top concern. Eighteen of the past twenty midterms, the president's party loses House seats. Every special election this cycle has followed that pattern. Republicans' best play is a redistricting sprint in the South: the Supreme Court's Callais decision curtailed Section 2 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, and GOP governors in Louisiana, Alabama, Tennessee, Florida, and Virginia are scrambling to redraw maps. More than twelve House seats are now in play. One GOP strategist put it plainly: "The only thing giving us hope is the VRA ruling and redistricting across the South."

SPIRIT AIRLINES IS DEAD
Spirit folded over the weekend. The Florida-based ultra-low-cost carrier went into liquidation after the Trump administration's rescue plan collapsed — creditors Ares, Citadel, and Cyrus rejected the government takeover, and no airline stepped in as a buyer. Thousands of employees are out of work. Republicans are blaming the Biden DOJ for blocking a JetBlue merger in 2024. Democrats are blaming the Iran war for driving jet fuel prices past the point of survival. Both arguments have merit — which is exactly why this story will be in campaign ads from both parties this fall.

CULTURE PICK: EUPHORIA & THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA 2
Euphoria Season 3 Episode 4 dropped this weekend. Cassie has launched a serious OnlyFans operation — the internet is debating it like a corporate pivot. Rue is now a federal informant, and a significant portion of the fan base has taken it as a personal betrayal. Two camps, both loud. On the box office side: The Devil Wears Prada 2 opened to $77 million domestic and $233 million worldwide. Lady Gaga plays the villain. The screenwriter used the Bezos world as a thematic reference point. That kind of business says something about where the appetite for cultural reckoning with concentrated power actually sits right now.

DAY DRIVERS
Three stories with significant traction that aren't leading the front page: the redistricting sprint in the South is moving faster than most people are tracking — more than twelve House seats in play after the Callais VRA ruling, with Louisiana suspending primary elections already underway. A 2025 House resolution that thanked ICE for "protecting the homeland" is now being weaponized against Democratic incumbents in Senate primaries in Michigan, Minnesota, and Illinois — a preview of the fall opposition playbook. And Google met with the White House on AI this week, a meeting that matters given where Congress is on AI governance, where the FTC is on AI practices, and how AI money is reshaping midterm campaign finance at scale.

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Annie Moore is co-founder of Imperio Chaos, a global strategic advisory firm operating at the intersection of government, capital, culture, and technology. The Daily is a daily news briefing covering the stories that move power — in politics, business, tech, and culture.

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