Blame Game

Plus: Surveillance for babies, using endowments to keep lights on, and more...

How stupid does he think voters are? President Donald Trump is touring the West Coast, selling Republicans' midterm pitch to voters. As part of this, he's trying to answer for high gas prices—which just hit a national average of $4.09 a gallon—but doing so in the most characteristically Trump way possible: deflecting blame for the war in Iran and focusing instead on how big businesses have erred.

"Mike Wirth, Chairman and CEO of Chevron, just gave, in an interview with the fabulous Maria Bartiromo, all of the reasons that his company is doing so well," he wrote on Truth Social yesterday. "The only thing he conveniently forgot to mention is that, without the genius, foresight, strength, and stability, of the TRUMP Administration, the Oil Industry, and our Country itself, would be DEAD! As an example, they threw Mike and Chevron out of Venezuela, but now they're back, far bigger and stronger than ever before, expecting to make a fortune! That goes for other Oil Companies as well…and get your consumer (retail!) Oil Prices DOWN, NOW!"

This is wildly twisted logic: The oil industry would be dead without the Trump administration? They're making a fortune (compared to normal times)? Trump can just order prices downward, other economic conditions be damned?

Yesterday, he chastised "the major oil companies for 'making too much money' off global oil shortages as a result of the war," reports Politico. "'They better cut the retail price, the consumer price,' Trump said. 'I'll say it loud and clear. I'm not happy about it.'" But Trump is running out of time to scapegoat.

"Labor Day is the point where gas prices are baked into the election," Republican pollster Frank Luntz told Politico. "That last summer trip determines how voters evaluate their cost of living."

"We got to wrap it up," Speaker Mike Johnson said last month about the war. Not wrong.

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Scenes from New York: "I'd been hearing that NYC wine stores were having a hard time," writes Ginia Bellafonte in the comments of her recent New York Times piece. "People are drinking less across the board—unquestionably a good thing for health—and weight-loss drugs are adding to the slump. But in terms of retail culture, there's something to mourn. Thanks to state laws limiting owners to a single shop, wine stores are among the city's last true mom-and-pops. Then I heard about Louisville, the center of the bourbon industry, and the effect declining sales were having on its cultural life, and I got busy."

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QUICK HITS

• From me, over at Substack: "I'm writing a book—CITY WITHOUT CHILDREN—to construct a wide-angle view of how different forces work in convergence to shape citydwelling American parents' risk appetites. This book will be part culture, part policy, and part grief memoir, shaped by my experience with my two boys and the fact that I've lived through every parent's worst fear: burying one's own child." Follow me there to hear more.
• Surveillance for babies: "Sleep tracking and optimization will remain the base of Nanit's business," says the CEO of the baby monitor company Nanit, according to The New York Times. "But already, the app offers some health features, such as automatically detecting and recording audio of coughs that can be shared with pediatricians. The company sees growth potential in giving its app the ability to weigh in on speech and motor development, which Nanit's camera could track ambiently. Hypothetically, Ms. Salinas said, the app could flag a delay and offer parents tips for improvement, like reading more bedtime stories." This strikes me as something that will generate more parental anxiety and worry, not less.
• I went on Roundtable:

• "College leaders are cutting programs, laying off faculty—and digging into endowments to pay operating expenses. Boards of trustees are under intense pressure and some are turning on one another and the presidents they employ. In extreme cases, schools are covering day-to-day bills with funds that donors gifted for other purposes, without the donors' knowledge or consent," reports The Wall Street Journal. "This tactic is creating a new loser in the consolidation of higher education: thousands of philanthropists who have donated billions of dollars to colleges and universities across generations. Nearly 200 private colleges borrowed from restricted endowments in 2025, up from 131 in 2021, according to estimates from Perspective Data Science, a higher-education financial consultant. Schools used most of the money for everyday expenses, said Matthew Hendricks, the company's founder."
• "Two Republican lawmakers who had threatened to vote against Todd Blanche's nomination to become the next attorney general said Monday they are now prepared [to] offer their support after he formally killed a key aspect of President Donald Trump's controversial deal with the IRS," reports The Washington Post. "In an order Blanche issued late Sunday, the acting attorney general said he was eliminating, in writing, the administration's proposal for a $1.8 billion fund for people who claimed they were victims of political prosecutions. He also clarified that a separate aspect of Trump's deal, which offered the president, his sons and their companies protection from past tax claims, did not rule out future IRS audits."