{"id":64404,"date":"2026-04-13T00:36:22","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T00:36:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/64404\/"},"modified":"2026-04-13T00:36:22","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T00:36:22","slug":"paul-w-smith-are-friends-avoiding-political-talk-about-trump-and-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/64404\/","title":{"rendered":"Paul W. Smith: Are friends avoiding political talk about Trump and Iran?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;right:0;bottom:0;width:100%;height:100%;z-index:2\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/89535961007-8941274700720260331-vpcmilitarydraftwhattoknowthumb-00000015-still-003-jpg.jpg\"\/><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vidplayicon\" src=\"https:\/\/www.gannett-cdn.com\/appservices\/universal-web\/universal\/icons\/icon-play-alt-white.svg\" alt=\"play\" style=\"height:40px;margin:auto 18px auto 27px;width:40px\"\/><\/p>\n<p>What to know about how a possible US military draft could work<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s what to know about how a U.S. military draft could work if Congress authorizes one amid rising global tensions.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOutta\u2019 My Mind on a Monday Moanin\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n<p>Last Monday, I told you about growing up on Tremont Street in Monroe, Michigan.<\/p>\n<p>I mentioned the core group of friends I spent that part of my life with.<\/p>\n<p>All good people.<\/p>\n<p>This story came from \u201cthe girl next door,&#8221; Marie Merman, \u00a0I called her, ReRe, the sister of my best friend, Paul Merman.<\/p>\n<p>I don\u2019t know how much politics was discussed in the Merman house; we were all quite young. After all, I was just 10 years old when I made the huge mistake of not joining Marie and Shelley on their excursion to Detroit, where their parents were taking them to see The Beatles.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;right:0;bottom:0;width:100%;height:100%;z-index:2\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/89583222007-videoframe-1137.png\"\/><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vidplayicon\" src=\"https:\/\/www.gannett-cdn.com\/appservices\/universal-web\/universal\/icons\/icon-play-alt-white.svg\" alt=\"play\" style=\"height:40px;margin:auto 18px auto 27px;width:40px\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Trump says US Navy to blockade Strait of Hormuz after failed talks<\/p>\n<p>After failed peace negotiations between the United States and Iran, President Trump said the U.S. Navy will start blockading the Strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n<p>I don\u2019t remember much talk about politics in my childhood home, but certainly, when we were kids, we picked up many of our beliefs through osmosis. We really were little sponges.<\/p>\n<p>The only political thing I remember was my dad taking me on a train whistle-stop tour by some guy named Richard Nixon. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, I would say Marie is very conservative, compared to her, I might be a liberal-conservative.<\/p>\n<p class=\"related-link\">READ: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.detroitnews.com\/story\/news\/world\/2026\/04\/12\/us-iran-ceasefire-hinges-on-strait-of-hormuz-why-is-it-so-important\/89510009007\/\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">US-Iran ceasefire hinges on Strait of Hormuz. Why is it so important?<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s the note Marie sent me on March 9 that started all this:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI just wanted to share with you that I think it\u2019s weird that I have been to a number of get-togethers lately where people chitchat about a variety of topics and no one has talked about Iran. Have we just gotten used to never bringing up anything to do with President Donald Trump in case we get in trouble with friends? We can\u2019t even talk about being in a war?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>So I\u2019m asking you, has it come to this?<\/p>\n<p>Are many walking that same tightrope?<\/p>\n<p>Paul W. Smith is host of \u201cFocus\u201d on WJR-AM (760) from noon to 2 p.m. Monday-Friday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What to know about how a possible US military draft could work Here&#8217;s what to know about how&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":64405,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[2524,38,34,24010,24018,601,10717,392],"class_list":{"0":"post-64404","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-iran","8":"tag-donald","9":"tag-donald-trump","10":"tag-iran","11":"tag-iran-united","12":"tag-iran-united-states-tensions","13":"tag-states","14":"tag-tensions","15":"tag-trump"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116394602174809951","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64404"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64404\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}