Original Broadcast Date: August 24, 2026
Watch the original episode hosted by Mr. Fuentes on Rumble: EPISODE #1738
Nicholas J. Fuentes opened Monday’s America First with a broader assessment of the political moment before turning to the evening’s two principal news stories: the Trump administration’s new economic campaign against Iran and a Supreme Court ruling involving the administration’s attempt to change federal mail-ballot procedures.
The two subjects ultimately fed into the same argument Fuentes made throughout the episode. In his view, the administration has repeatedly waited until problems become crises before attempting improvised solutions, while the broader political right is losing momentum as a reorganized left begins rebuilding around economic issues.
By the end of the opening monologue, Fuentes was describing Trumpism itself as a political cycle approaching its conclusion and urging nationalists to think beyond the immediate election calendar.
Fuentes Warns That the Left Is Rebuilding
Before getting into Iran, Fuentes discussed what he described as an unusually quiet political news cycle. He contrasted that with developments he believes are taking place beneath the surface of American politics.
His concern is that the political left, badly damaged after the 2024 election, is beginning to reorganize.
Fuentes attributed the left’s earlier weakness to several factors: the collapse of Joe Biden’s reelection campaign, Kamala Harris’s unsuccessful candidacy, divisions following the October 7 attacks and the war in Gaza, and the resurgence of Trump and MAGA.
He argued that the newer left is increasingly deemphasizing some of the cultural rhetoric that dominated progressive politics several years ago and instead concentrating on material concerns such as housing, health care, groceries, inflation and child care.
He referred to this emerging approach as “Woke 2.0” and pointed to figures including Zohran Mamdani, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Abdul El-Sayed and Hasan Piker as examples of a younger left that is attempting to package radical politics around affordability and economic frustration.
Fuentes believes that could become a significant force by 2028.
His criticism of the right was that too much of its attention is currently being consumed by internal disputes, sensational conspiracy theories and attempts to find common ground with portions of the left.
He specifically criticized Tucker Carlson’s recent “10-point plan,” Marjorie Taylor Greene’s outreach to audiences outside the Republican coalition and what he sees as a larger attempt to construct a left-right alliance around economic populism, Israel, Jeffrey Epstein and opposition to political elites.
Fuentes argued that this strategy misunderstands the political opposition.
In his telling, portions of the right are seeking reconciliation at precisely the moment that the activist left is becoming more confident and aggressive.
That led into a larger warning about Trump.
“Trump Is Blowing It”
Fuentes reiterated that he considers himself “off the Trump train,” saying that although Trump remains the institutional leader of the Republican Party and the central figure around which right-wing electoral politics currently revolves, he no longer believes Trump is advancing the America First agenda.
That distinction was important to his argument.
Fuentes was not claiming Trump had ceased to matter. He argued almost the opposite: Trump remains so dominant that failures associated with his administration damage everyone politically associated with the American right.
He pointed to declining enthusiasm, polling problems and the approaching midterms as evidence that the atmosphere surrounding Trump has changed from the buildup to the 2024 election.
Fuentes contrasted the current environment with the period when figures such as Joe Rogan, Theo Von and Tim Dillon were broadly sympathetic to Trump. He described those personalities not as ideological nationalists but as culturally libertarian or anti-establishment figures who had nevertheless moved into Trump’s orbit.
That cultural energy, he argued, has dissipated.
Fuentes believes younger Democratic and socialist figures are increasingly capturing the outsider and anti-establishment image that Trump possessed during the previous election cycle.
From there, he laid out what he believes should be the nationalist response.
Rather than abandoning institutions, Fuentes encouraged younger supporters to become involved in campaigns, College Republicans, Young Republican organizations and government itself. He argued that a political downturn could actually provide an opportunity for nationalists to establish relationships and institutional positions while other factions become discouraged and leave politics.
His timeframe extended well beyond 2028.
Fuentes suggested that if another major right-wing political wave emerges in 2032 or 2036, the people who spent the intervening years building organizations and relationships would be positioned to influence it.
Fuentes Declares the Trump Political Cycle a Failure
Fuentes then delivered one of the episode’s strongest assessments of the Trump era.
“We have to collectively now regard Trumpism as a complete and total failure,” he said.
He argued that after a political movement stretching back to 2015, the structural transformation promised by MAGA has largely failed to materialize.
He cited the absence of a completed border wall, permanent immigration restructuring and a durable tariff system while arguing that the United States remains deeply involved in the Middle East.
His prediction that Republicans will lose the House in November remains a forecast, not an established outcome.
Fuentes characterized the coming midterms as the beginning of the end of Trump’s remaining political leverage. If Democrats capture the House and the 2028 Republican presidential contest begins shortly afterward, he argued, Trump could enter the final two years of his presidency as an increasingly weakened lame duck.
“Trumpism has ended not with a bang, but with a whimper,” he said.
That became the context for the featured story.
Treasury Launches “Operation Economic Outcast”
Fuentes turned next to Iran, focusing on Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s announcement earlier that day of a new campaign called Operation Economic Outcast.
The announcement itself is confirmed.
On August 24, Treasury said the administration had begun what it called an “unprecedented” economic campaign aimed at isolating Iran from the international financial system. Treasury expanded potential secondary-sanctions exposure in five areas — digital assets, technology, gold, aviation and shipping — while OFAC targeted approximately 60 entities, individuals and vessels connected to Iranian oil revenue, missile and nuclear procurement and cyber activity.
Bessent said American officials had mapped networks Iran uses to move oil and evade sanctions and warned foreign governments and companies that continued cooperation with Tehran could expose them to American penalties.
The announcement marked a significant shift in emphasis toward economic pressure after nearly six months of war.
Fuentes’s central question was straightforward:
How much additional economic pressure can Washington impose on Iran without confronting China?
China Is the Missing Piece
This was the heart of Fuentes’s Iran analysis.
Iran has operated under extensive American sanctions for years. If the administration does not want to launch a ground invasion or destroy Iran’s energy infrastructure outright, Fuentes argued, then squeezing the remaining international channels through which Iran earns money becomes the logical next option.
That means secondary sanctions.
Instead of only sanctioning Iranian companies, Washington can threaten foreign banks, businesses and trading partners that continue facilitating Iranian commerce.
But Iran’s most important oil customer is China.
Reuters reported on August 24 that China remained Iran’s principal oil buyer. Iranian shipments to China had declined sharply during the conflict, but Chinese refiners continued purchasing Iranian crude despite years of American sanctions. More than 80 percent of Iran’s shipped oil has recently gone to China.
Fuentes therefore argued that Washington can sanction intermediaries indefinitely without completely solving the underlying problem.
If Beijing continues providing an outlet for Iranian petroleum, Iran retains an economic lifeline.
That concern was not unique to Fuentes. Subsequent reporting similarly described China as the most important target the administration had so far avoided directly penalizing.
Bessent said countries would receive defined timelines to end identified Iran-related activities, but the administration did not publicly announce individual deadlines or a specific ultimatum to Beijing.
For Fuentes, that omission substantially weakened the new strategy.
The Limits of Military and Economic Pressure
Fuentes then worked through the alternatives.
A ground invasion, he argued, is politically and militarily unrealistic.
An effort to destroy Iran’s petroleum infrastructure could inflict enormous economic damage, but Fuentes argued that it would create a different problem: destroying the revenue base required by whatever government eventually controls Iran.
His concern was that regime collapse without a functioning state could create a refugee crisis, militant organizations and a failed state across a country of roughly 90 million people.
Destroying Iranian energy infrastructure could also trigger retaliation against Gulf energy facilities.
The administration therefore faces what Fuentes described as a calibration problem: applying enough pressure to force negotiations without applying so much that Iran escalates dramatically or the state collapses uncontrollably.
Operation Economic Outcast represents an attempt to find that middle ground.
Fuentes remained skeptical that it was being attempted early enough.
The Clock Is Working Against Washington
Time was the recurring theme in his Iran analysis.
Fuentes argued that a comprehensive economic containment strategy should have been developed as a contingency before the military campaign began rather than months afterward.
He said an earlier effort to coordinate with China, Asian partners and regional governments might have given sanctions months to take effect.
Instead, he argued, Washington is now trying to construct that system while under pressure from disrupted energy markets, damaged military infrastructure and an approaching election.
There was one numerical point from the broadcast that requires clarification.
Fuentes said the Strategic Petroleum Reserve had fallen below 290 million barrels. That was essentially correct: EIA data for the week ending August 21 put the SPR at approximately 289.7 million barrels.
However, his accompanying statement that the United States had only “45 days worth of oil” should not be treated as the standard EIA measure of crude-oil supply. EIA reported 24.8 days of commercial crude-oil supply for the same week, while the SPR is a separate emergency stockpile.
The broader point Fuentes was making was that the administration now has less room to absorb a prolonged energy shock.
He concluded that unless Washington is prepared to seriously pressure China, the new sanctions campaign may not create enough additional pain to force Tehran to capitulate before political and economic costs become unacceptable in the United States.
Supreme Court Ruling on Trump’s Mail-Ballot Order
Fuentes next moved to the administration’s election policy.
President Trump issued Executive Order 14399 on March 31, directing the Department of Homeland Security to develop state-by-state citizenship lists while also calling for changes involving the Postal Service and mail ballots.
The Supreme Court issued an order on August 24 allowing part of the administration’s effort to proceed after concluding that the states challenging the internal federal directives lacked standing at that stage.
Crucially, the Supreme Court did not rule that the entire mail-ballot policy is constitutional.
The Court specifically noted that its ruling did not mean future implementation measures would necessarily be lawful. Separate litigation and a separate nationwide injunction affecting implementation also remained in place.
Fuentes accurately emphasized that distinction during the episode.
His criticism was practical as much as constitutional.
He questioned how the federal government could maintain a continually updated nationwide eligibility database when people move, die, change addresses and change registration status constantly. He also questioned how USPS could realistically be incorporated into determining whether individual mail ballots complied with federal eligibility requirements.
Fuentes viewed the executive order as another example of the administration attempting through executive authority what it had failed to secure legislatively.
A Broader Critique of the Administration
The election discussion brought Fuentes back to his central argument.
He compared the ballot initiative with DOGE, tariffs, Iran policy, personnel changes and other administration projects, arguing that the common problem is not necessarily the underlying goals but implementation.
His contention was that Trump repeatedly advances dramatic policies without sufficient legal and institutional groundwork, allowing courts, bureaucratic resistance or practical problems to derail them.
Fuentes said that makes the second Trump administration a particularly frustrating “missed opportunity.”
He argued that Trump entered office with years to prepare, Republican control of Congress and a conservative Supreme Court, yet failed to translate that political position into the systematic governing program Fuentes wanted.
At one point he cited Project 2025 as an example of the kind of preexisting policy and personnel infrastructure that could have been used.
There are two factual corrections to the broadcast here.
Fuentes referred to a “93-page” Project 2025 policy document. Heritage’s Mandate for Leadership was actually approximately 900 pages.
He also placed Trump’s public disavowal of Project 2025 in June 2024. Trump’s prominent Truth Social statement distancing himself from the project came on July 5, 2024. His separate comments proposing automatic green cards for foreign graduates of American colleges did occur on the All-In Podcast in June 2024.
Those corrections do not change Fuentes’s larger argument: he believes Trump rejected the kind of disciplined ideological transition infrastructure that could have made the second administration fundamentally different from the first.
“The Problem Is Trump”
Fuentes eventually reduced his criticism to a simple conclusion.
“The problem is Trump,” he said.
He said he still supports many of the policies Trump once campaigned on — industrial policy, tariffs, missile defense, stronger borders, deportations and greater strategic independence — but no longer believes Trump is capable of implementing them effectively.
Fuentes even revisited his controversial 2024 position that a Kamala Harris victory might ultimately have been better for the nationalist right.
His reasoning was strategic rather than ideological.
Had Harris inherited the country’s economic and foreign-policy problems, he argued, Republicans and nationalists could have remained an opposition movement preparing for 2028. Instead, Trump returned to power, and Fuentes believes the failures of his administration are now being attached to the entire political right.
“We would have been four years ahead of schedule,” Fuentes said. “Now we’re four years behind.”
Super Chats: DataRepublican, Conspiracy Politics and Building for the Future
The second half of the program was largely devoted to Super Chats and looser discussion.
One notable exchange involved DataRepublican, the online name used by Jennica Pounds.
Fuentes reacted to reports that Pounds had been working for the Pentagon after previously accusing him of being a federal asset.
The underlying employment revelation is real. Reporting this week said the Pentagon confirmed that Pounds became a special government employee at the Department of Defense in July.
Fuentes found the episode particularly ironic because of her earlier accusations against him.
He also returned repeatedly to his criticism of conspiratorial thinking on the right, using online theories concerning Argentine beef, Israel and several true-crime stories as examples of what he believes is a growing tendency to construct elaborate explanations when ordinary ones are sufficient.
At other points, Fuentes discussed relationships, internet culture, younger supporters entering politics, his recent appearance with Gavin McInnes and his belief that supporters with professional credentials should quietly establish themselves inside institutions rather than damage future opportunities through reckless online behavior.
One Super Chat from a listener who had scored a 174 on the LSAT and was considering volunteering for a state Senate campaign prompted Fuentes to strongly encourage political involvement — while advising the listener to protect his professional future and avoid compromising himself online.
That advice connected directly back to the episode’s opening argument.
Fuentes does not believe the immediate political environment favors the nationalist right.
His answer is therefore not withdrawal.
It is preparation.
Looking Beyond Trump
Episode 1738 was ultimately less about any single news story than about Fuentes’s assessment of where the America First movement now stands.
Operation Economic Outcast became an example of an administration trying to recover strategic leverage after military options narrowed.
The mail-ballot executive order became an example of attempting through late executive action what Republicans had failed to secure through legislation.
And the resurgence Fuentes sees developing on the political left became the reason he believes nationalists must stop assuming that the cultural momentum of 2024 will automatically return.
His forecast is pessimistic in the short term.
But his prescription is long-term institutional involvement.
Fuentes told younger nationalists to enter campaigns, political organizations, government, law, business and other institutions now — not because he believes victory is imminent, but because he believes the next major political opportunity could be years away.
The Trump era, in his assessment, is approaching its political conclusion.
The question he posed throughout Episode 1738 was what gets built after it.
This article is an independent recap. AF Observer is not affiliated with or endorsed by America First or its creators.