Donald Trump is scheduled to give a speech tonight at 9 ET — the general consensus is that he’ll be giving an update on Iran.
There is, of course, a prediction market for what Trump will say in this address. And there isn’t much to divine from the numbers; even if we know the topic and had half of the speech ahead of time, there’s always a chance he goes off-script and stream-of-counsciousness-es his way into “April Fools” (currently at 5% on Kalshi and 6% on Polymarket):
Hugs to both exchanges for not sneakily adding “Day” in there, too. this actually makes it a little more attractive of a “let’s have some drinks and see if he says it” $5 buy.
But that’s not the point here. We have a possible edge that’s kind of interesting.
At 6:24 pm ET, NASA is launching Artemis II into outer-space for a trip to “the vicinity of the moon;” it may set a record for the longest distance a human has traveled away from Earth.
And, as the New York Times pointed out this week, nobody seems to care.
But Donald Trump — the man who created Space Force in 2019 — does. He issued an executive order in December to get us back on the moon by 2028. Check out this headline yesterday:
A lot of politicians are also on board. Hold your nose for the cringe at the end of this quote, but here’s Ted Cruz in September:
“Make no mistake, we are in a new space race with China. And if we fail, there will be a bad moon on the rise.”
So what does this have to do with the speech?
If you take a second look at the mentions through the lens of Trump touting the Artemis II launch — with which he’s obsessed — as a beacon of good news to offset a Very Serious Address, things start to look a little different. Values change. Possibilities emerge! Trump is an optimistic guy and a carnival barker, objectively, no matter what your politics. “Come check out this great thing!” And with an open mic and a need to throw in some good vibes — and a rocket going to(ward) the moon… let’s re-examine things: