Donald Trump ordered another 9,000 sailors and Marines toward Iran on Thursday and promised, the same night, that the war is about to end. The USS Theodore Roosevelt carrier group and the USS Makin Island amphibious group are sailing for the Middle East, US officials told CBS News and the Associated Press, and could arrive by the end of October. The Pentagon would then have three carriers and roughly 20,000 American forces in the region.
Hours later, at a truck plant in Denton, Texas, Trump told the crowd: "I'm ensuring that Iran will be very quickly ended." Iran, he said, "is ready to fold up," and the United States would win "right after the election," maybe before it.
Trump can mean both only if the troops are not there to fight. Our read: Trump wants one number lower on November 3, the price of gas, and he wants the credit for it. He did the same in March, when he quietly lifted sanctions on Russian oil already loaded on tankers to keep pump prices from sinking his party, and Narativ reported it at the time.
Traders heard him. Brent crude fell to $100 a barrel by 11 a.m. Friday, more than $5 below Thursday's close, after Reuters reported that European governments were discussing a release of diesel stocks. American drivers paid $4.40 a gallon on Friday, by AAA's count. Crude moves on expectations within days; the pump follows weeks later. Trump does not need the pump. He needs the chart heading down before the vote.
He has also telegraphed the rest. TIME asked him on Monday whether he would "ramp up bombing after the midterms." He answered with one word.
"Possible."
