With the Iranian military having mined the Strait of Hormuz and a classified Pentagon briefing warning it could take six months to clear — a timeline the Defense Department is publicly dismissing — President Trump signed an executive order on psychedelics with Joe Rogan at his side, then moved to reclassify marijuana, handing cultural wins to the coalition most central to his political survival, and the one that arguably swung the 2024 election: MAGA’s so-called “Manosphere.”
The crisis in the strait has intensified since U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran on February 28 prompted the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to lay mines throughout the waterway and threaten any ship attempting to pass. The Strait carries roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil supply. The Washington Post reported Wednesday, citing three officials who were present at a classified briefing, that a senior Defense Department official told members of the House Armed Services Committee it could take six months to clear the mines.
Pentagon chief spokesperson Sean Parnell denied the characterization, calling the story “cherry picking leaked information, much of which is false,” and adding that a six-month closure is “an impossibility and completely unacceptable” to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
The King of the Manosphere himself, Joe Rogan, claimed on his podcast on Tuesday that he had criticized the Iran War to Trump’s face, even as he attended the psychedelics signing ceremony, and Trump couldn’t help but respond. “He called me a liberal during the whole thing,” Rogan said, mocking Trump’s voice: “He’s very liberal.”
Mines, Blockades, and $4 Gas
The Pentagon’s public posture has not calmed energy markets. As of Thursday, the average price of a gallon of regular gas in the U.S. stands at $4.03 — down slightly from last week but still more than 85 cents higher than a year ago, according to AAA. Trump responded on Truth Social on Thursday, ordering the Navy to “shoot and kill any boat” placing mines in the strait and adding, “There is to be no hesitation. Additionally, our mine ‘sweepers’ are clearing the Strait right now.” U.S. Central Command has directed roughly 30 vessels — the majority of them oil tankers — to turn around or return to port as part of a U.S. naval blockade that went into effect last week, and most have complied.
The macroeconomic damage is compounding. The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas estimated the closure is expected to lower global real GDP growth by an annualized 2.9 percentage points in the second quarter of 2026. Goldman Sachs has warned that if limited traffic through the strait persists, Brent crude could average $120 per barrel in the third quarter of this year. Some analysts have raised the prospect of oil hitting $200 per barrel if the blockade continues indefinitely, including President Trump himself, who recently told CNBC that he was surprised the price of oil hadn’t gone that high amid the outbreak of war.
Enter Joe Rogan
Against that backdrop, Trump signed a sweeping executive order on Saturday directing the Department of Justice, Health and Human Services, the VA, and the FDA to accelerate research into and regulatory review of psychedelic substances, with $50 million in funding for states to investigate therapeutic applications.
Rogan was present in the Oval Office for the signing — a deliberate staging choice that reflects a deepening political problem for the White House, as influential voices in the podcasting ecosystem that helped deliver Trump’s 2024 victory grow restless about the economic costs of the conflict in the Gulf of Hormuz.
The psychedelics signing was accompanied a few days later by a far-reaching shift in marijuana policy. Trump’s acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, signed an order Thursday reclassifying state-licensed medical marijuana from Schedule I — reserved for drugs deemed to have no medical use and high potential for abuse — to the less-restrictive Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act. The order does not legalize marijuana federally, but it legitimizes medical marijuana programs in the 40 states that have adopted them, sets up a DEA registration system for state-licensed producers and distributors, and — crucially — grants cannabis companies a major tax windfall by allowing them, for the first time, to deduct business expenses on their federal taxes. It also removes barriers to federally funded cannabis research.
The president of the American Trade Association for Cannabis and Hemp, Michael Bronstein, called it “the most significant federal advancement in cannabis policy in over 50 years.” Trump had directed his attorney general to expedite the rescheduling process in December; on Sunday, while signing the psychedelics order, he appeared to express frustration that it had taken so long.
Not everyone was pleased. Kevin Sabet, CEO of Smart Approaches to Marijuana and a prominent legalization opponent, told the Associated Press that the action amounted to “a tax break to Big Weed” and a “confusing message about marijuana’s harms to the American public.” He labeled the Trump White House as “the most pro-drug administration in our history” and argued that “marijuana CEOs, psychedelics investors, and podcasters in active addiction” were driving the policy shift. More than 20 Republican senators — several of them staunch Trump allies — had signed a letter last year urging the president to maintain current marijuana classification standards.
Influence on voters
It appears that this may end up pleasing nobody, as the manosphere podcasters — a loose constellation of shows aimed at young, largely non-college men — have begun turning on the president over the Iran conflict specifically, having largely believed Trump when he claimed he would end the “endless wars” that mark what critics label the American Empire. Edison Research data shows that audiences for the most prominent of these shows are roughly one-third independent, one-third Republican, and one-third Democrat — meaning their disenchantment is not simply an intraparty problem but a threat to the broader coalition of soft supporters Trump activated in 2024. Young men are among the lowest-turnout groups in midterm elections; if that cohort feels disillusioned heading into 2026, the downstream consequences for Republican margins could be severe.
Nowhere is that dynamic more legible than in the figure of podcaster Theo Von. Von — a Louisiana-born comedian whose 2024 Trump interview was widely credited with humanizing the then-candidate on issues of addiction and working-class struggle — has been openly questioning MAGA orthodoxy for months. In January, he appeared alongside Bernie Sanders on his podcast This Past Weekend, not pushing back as Sanders condemned the “corruption” of the current administration and the outsized influence of lobbyists and Wall Street. Conservative fans accused Von of being “radicalized,” while others praised what they called intellectual integrity.
The tension spilled into Rogan’s own orbit. Earlier this month, Rogan drew criticism after a tense appearance by Von on The Joe Rogan Experience in which Von pushed back on political topics harder than almost any guest had in years — with Rogan, according to observers, deflecting rather than engaging. That Rogan appeared at the White House days later — lending his credibility to the psychedelics signing — while Von has been publicly drifting toward Sanders-style populism may capture the fracture lines running through the coalition that Trump is now trying to paper over with drug policy wins.
The Six-Month Question
The Pentagon’s furious pushback on the Washington Post’s six-month timeline is itself a political story: the leak suggests a gap between the military’s internal planning assumptions and the administration’s public messaging. Senate Republicans have defeated resolutions to check Trump’s Iran war powers five times, but the caucus is increasingly divided on whether Congress should assert itself as the conflict approaches the 60-day mark under the War Powers Resolution. The disconnect between what military planners are reportedly telling Congress in classified settings and what the Pentagon says publicly adds urgency to those deliberations.
Whether two drug-policy executive orders can hold together a coalition increasingly anxious about $4 gas, mined shipping lanes, and a potential six-month military commitment remains the central political question of Trump’s second term — and the answer may arrive well before midterm season.
For this story, Fortune journalists used generative AI as a research tool. An editor verified the accuracy of the information before publishing.
