The ledger, as at 19 Sept 2026

Our assessment Trump named Senator JD Vance on 15 July 2024, having already posted publicly on 11 May, six days before this video, that Haley was not under consideration.

Our assessment National Rally finished third on 7 July 2024 with 139 seats, and by the deadline France was run by Michel Barnier with no RN ministers. The surge was right; the governing was not.

Our assessment Trump won the 5 November 2024 election with 312 electoral votes to Harris's 226, in the official FEC tally.

Our assessment Four independent measurement systems put women between 53 and 55 percent Democratic in November 2024: Edison, AP VoteCast, Pew's validated voter study and the Catalist voter file.

Our assessment Turnout was 63.9 percent of eligible voters with about 156.3 million ballots cast, the second highest rate since 1908.

Our assessment Campus protest activity fell rather than expanded: 3,220 pro-Palestinian actions in the first half of 2024 against 1,151 in the second, with student arrests dropping from 3,572 to 88.

Our assessment Turnout was among the highest in more than a century rather than the lowest: the Census Bureau put it at 65.3 percent of the citizen voting-age population.

Our assessment The United States bombed Iran on the night of 21 to 22 June 2025 in Operation Midnight Hammer, dropping 14 GBU-57 bunker-busters on Fordow and Natanz and firing about 30 Tomahawks at Isfahan.

Our assessment Trump announced a 20 percent tariff on EU goods on 2 April 2025, well inside the deadline, settling at 15 percent under the framework of 27 July 2025.

Our assessment The June 2025 ceasefire held through the whole window and the next Israeli and US strikes on Iran came on 28 February 2026.

Our assessment A ceasefire announced 23 June took effect 24 June 2025, and no US or Israeli strike hit Iran again until 28 February 2026, an eight month gap.

Our assessment China sent no forces and confined itself to condemnation and calls for de-escalation. The qualifier is commercial: six Chinese firms were sanctioned in April 2025 over propellant ingredients.

Our assessment No nuclear weapon was used in the US-Israel-Iran war; the June 2025 and February 2026 campaigns were fought entirely with conventional munitions.

Our assessment Israel carried out at least 10,631 attacks between 1 January and 5 December, attacked at least six countries in 2025, and Netanyahu told the Knesset on 10 November 2025 that the war had not ended.

Our assessment No US ground troops entered Iran on the weekend of 28 and 29 March 2026. Hegseth said the US had taken Iran's airspace and waterways “without boots on the ground”.

Our assessment The premise held and the headline event did not: Iran and Israel went to war, but no ground invasion took place before the 24 April 2026 deadline, and the window has closed.

Our assessment Three pillars were claimed and two and a half are evidenced. Decapitation and the air campaign are documented, the arming half of the third is reported, and the bribing half has no payment record.

Our assessment Trump was in Beijing from 13 to 15 May 2026 and met Xi on 14 May. The trip had been rescheduled publicly before the video, and the payoff mechanism involving Russia is not established.

Our assessment The war ran more than 13 weeks and was still generating strikes on 6 June, clearing the many-weeks threshold before the deadline. The many-years branch remains unsettled.

Our assessment The government was not toppled. The Assembly of Experts named Mojtaba Khamenei supreme leader on 9 March 2026, nine days after his father was killed.

Our assessment No US or Israeli occupation of Iran took place by 17 June 2026 despite Khamenei's killing on 28 February, and the memorandum signed that day pulled US forces back from Iran's vicinity.

Our assessment US and Israeli strikes killed Ayatollah Khamenei on 28 February 2026, fighting ran for months, and a 14-point memorandum signed on 17 June 2026 was being violated by 25 June.

Our assessment Iranian drones hit the Ras Tanura refinery on 2 March 2026, four missiles aimed at Riyadh were intercepted in mid-March, and Riyadh struck inside Iran in late March, all before the deadline.

Our assessment The US struck Venezuela on 3 January 2026 and captured Nicolas Maduro, then struck inside Ecuador on 3 and 6 March, so the second South American country materialised too.

Our assessment The World Bank cut its 2026 global growth forecast to 2.5 percent on 11 June, the weakest since the pandemic, after Brent rose from 61 to 118 dollars a barrel in the first quarter.

Our assessment No battle for Odessa took place by 17 July 2026. The city was struck from the air rather than encircled, and no NATO force made a stand there.

Our assessment There was no falling out by 17 July 2026. Putin and Xi signed a multipolar declaration and about 20 agreements in Beijing on 20 May 2026; the visible strain is commercial, over gas prices.

Our assessment Iranian missiles and drones struck US Naval Forces Central Command in Manama on 28 February 2026, the first day of the war, at a base hosting about 8,300 sailors.

Our assessment Iran shut the strait after the 2 March 2026 strikes and the IRGC declared it closed until further notice on 12 July. Note the closure was already under way when this clip published.

Our assessment After 8 July 2026, US sanctions and a blockade began; the IMF projected 6.1 percent Iranian contraction and 68.9 percent inflation, and June and July 2026 strikes hit water, bridges and railways.

Our assessment Trump won the 2024 election, ordered strikes on Iran on 21 June 2025, and launched Operation Epic Fury on 28 February 2026, which is 22 months after April 2024.

Our assessment Trump declared the US “guardian of the Hormuz Strait” on 13 July 2026, reinstated the naval blockade and demanded 20 percent of all cargo shipped; transits fell to 39 in a week.

Our assessment The United States struck three Iranian nuclear sites in June 2025 and launched a full air campaign on 28 February 2026, well inside the two-to-four-year window.

Our assessment Ali Khamenei died on 28 February 2026, killed in joint US and Israeli strikes on Tehran, about 21 months after the 24 May 2024 claim.

Our assessment Ali Khamenei was killed in joint US and Israeli strikes on Tehran on 28 February 2026, and the 88-member Assembly of Experts named his son Mojtaba Khamenei supreme leader on 8 March 2026.

Settled by Settled the day US ground forces enter Iran, or on 8 May 2030 if they never have.

Settled by Settled if a US invasion of Iran ever begins: either the major powers had first agreed rules of war, including a tactical nuclear ban, or they had not.

Settled by Settled only if a foreign invasion of Iran occurs: most Iranians resist it, or they do not.

Our assessment Spain beat Argentina 1-0 in the final on 19 July 2026, the day after he said it, so the “if” failed and can never now be met. This is not a judgement on whether Messi will enter Argentine politics.

Settled by Settled by 23 April 2034: overextension, debt, and civil unrest either hit the US at the same time, or they did not.

Settled by Settled by long-run survey evidence that these beliefs are growing, or are not, in America.

Our assessment V-Dem's 2026 report finds democracy in Western Europe and North America at its lowest in over 50 years, 18 years before the deadline, though the decline was already documented when he said it.

Our assessment Israel opened war with Iran on 13 June 2025, and the United States bombed Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan on 21 June, then fought alongside Israel again from February 2026.

Our assessment The two instruments disagree. A telephone survey inside Iran shows the predicted unity; an online panel of more than 30,000 shows 70 to 80 percent rejecting the Islamic Republic, and anti-regime protests began in December 2025.

Our assessment Iran's reliance on asymmetric warfare is confirmed, but whether the US and Israel can win is still open: the April ceasefire collapsed and the Council on Foreign Relations judges the conflict unresolved.

Our assessment In June 2025 the Pentagon redirected anti-drone munitions from Ukraine to American forces in the Middle East, a diversion Defense Secretary Hegseth confirmed in congressional testimony.

Our assessment The European half held, with no NATO role and Spain refusing its bases. The Middle Eastern half did not: Saudi aircraft flew combat missions alongside American aircraft on 28 July 2026.

Our assessment China kept the strategic ambiguity the claim described, but the help it gave was not at a level Washington accepted: the US sanctioned Chinese entities under Executive Order 13949 and seized a vessel.

Our assessment Russia deployed no soldiers, as predicted, but never threatened nuclear retaliation. The mechanism the claim named, deterrence by nuclear threat, did not appear.