There is a thing that happens in mob movies, right before things go very wrong for everybody. Someone does a favor for someone they shouldn’t trust. Someone looks the other way when they should be looking directly. And then the favor gets returned, and the cycle deepens, and by the time anyone says the word “complicit” out loud, it’s already too late to mean anything.
We are living in that scene right now.
Here is what we know, and what we need to say plainly, because the noise coming out of today’s Trump press conference is designed to make you forget it by morning.
Russia is providing Iran with targeting intelligence on American forces. Not rumor. Not allegation. Multiple officials familiar with U.S. intelligence confirmed it to the Washington Post, the Associated Press, and CNN. The intelligence includes the locations of American warships and aircraft in the Middle East. One official described Russia’s assistance as a “pretty comprehensive effort.” Russia is feeding Iran a targeting menu. Americans are the main course.
Seven American service members are dead. An Iranian drone struck a makeshift facility housing U.S. troops in Kuwait. A building beside the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet headquarters in Bahrain was damaged by an Iranian attack drone. The precision of those attacks, officials told the Post, suggests Russia’s advanced satellite imagery is doing work it was never supposed to do against American military assets.
Russia painted the targets. Iran pulled the triggers. Americans died.
Now here is the part that should make your vision go red.
The Trump administration’s response to learning that Russia is feeding targeting intelligence to our enemies in an active war — the response to an act that, in any prior era of American foreign policy, would have detonated the relationship and triggered consequences — was to ease sanctions on Russian oil.
That is not a metaphor. That is the transaction.
The Treasury Department issued a sweeping general license loosening sanctions on Russian oil companies and their shadow fleet. The VERY WHITE House framed it as a market-stabilization measure — oil prices are spiking because of the war, they said, and we need more supply. Fine. Except the country benefiting from that relief is the same country that just spent the last week helping Iran figure out where to aim. Senate Democrats from the Banking, Foreign Relations, and Armed Services committees responded immediately, noting that the administration bypassed a legal requirement to notify Congress thirty days in advance before taking such action — a law passed overwhelmingly by the Senate called the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act. They bypassed the law designed to prevent exactly this.
When NBC’s Kristen Welker pressed National Security Adviser Mike Waltz on why the administration was helping Russia at the precise moment Russia was helping Iran kill Americans, Waltz said he “wouldn’t characterize it that way.” Welker asked how else you would describe easing oil sanctions on a country actively targeting your own troops. Waltz said it was “common sense.”
Common sense.
Meanwhile, Secretary of Warmongering Pete Hegseth, asked about Russia’s intelligence sharing with Iran, said the Pentagon was “not concerned.” He said, “No one’s putting us in danger.” Seven flag-draped coffins disagree.
And then there was today’s press conference.
We learned about the Trump-Putin phone call — which lasted approximately one hour, which was characterized as “frank and businesslike” — not from the White House. We learned about it from the Kremlin. Putin’s foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov briefed reporters on the call’s contents before the American press had been given anything. The Kremlin told the world that Trump and Putin discussed the Iran war, Ukraine, and global oil markets. Ushakov described it as a conversation that “will undoubtedly have practical significance for the further work of the two countries.” Shortly after that call, Trump walked to a podium at his golf resort and declared the war “very complete.”
The sequencing matters. Russia helps Iran target Americans. Trump eases sanctions on Russia. Trump and Putin have a private call, the contents of which we learn from Moscow. Trump holds a press conference and announces the war is basically over. Oil prices dip. Markets respond. Russia gets paid.
When a reporter had the temerity to ask Trump about Russia’s role in helping Iran, he called the question stupid. Not inaccurate. Stupid. He then pivoted to talking about college athletes, because there was apparently a college athletics announcement at the same event, and if you can’t answer the question about why your friend is helping your enemy kill your soldiers, you talk about sports. This is not a strategy. It is barely even a deflection. It is a man with no answer refusing to stand still long enough to need one.
Here is the thing about what’s happening that is genuinely difficult to metabolize: Russia has been at war with Ukraine for four years. Iran supplies Russia with the drones it uses to hit Ukrainian cities. Russia now supplies Iran with the intelligence it uses to hit American targets. The weapon pipeline flows in a circle, and at the center of the circle, collecting rewards from every direction, is Vladimir Putin. He is winning in Ukraine. He is winning in Iran. He is winning in Washington. And the American president, confronted with all of that at a press conference today — at his golf resort, after a fundraiser — called the question stupid and moved on.
Seven families are folding flags. Gas is approaching prices not seen since 2022. Oil fields burning in Tehran will still be killing people 10 years from now. Remember burn pits? The Strait of Hormuz has nearly stopped moving oil. And the man running this war just got off the phone with the man helping our enemies kill us, eased that man’s sanctions, and declared victory.
The question is not whether this is wrong. It is transparently, historically, undeniably wrong. The question is whether enough people say so loudly enough that it cannot be buried under the next press conference, the next deflection, the next round of “very complete.”
That’s the job now. Say it. Name it. Don’t let it disappear.
**Unfugginbelievable is an independent, reader-supported investigation into the things that make us want to flip a table — then flip it back over and document everything on it. Every claim is fact-checked. Every source is real. No ads, no sponsors, no corporate overlords telling us what to leave out. If this work matters to you and you want to keep us caffeinated while we do it, buy us a cuppa at buymeacoffee.com/unfugginbelievable. We’ll drink it while reading the next filing.
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