Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas's recent speech at the University of Texas at Austin about the ties between progressivism and vicious fascist leaders like Adolf Hitler alarmed an analyst on a new podcast episode on Wednesday.

Sidney Blumenthal and Sean Wilentz, co-hosts of "The Court of History," argued in a new episode that Thomas's claim that all the ills of modern society can be traced back to the original Progressive era was not an accurate reading of American history. Wilentz was alarmed by the speech because it seemed to further claims that have been circulating on conspiratorial parts of the internet for several years.

"I'd be laughing at it if it wasn't so frightening," Wilentz said. "It's frightening the extent to which it shows me the triumph of ideas that have been around for a long time and are truly crackpot. This is not history. It's a crackpot right-wing musing coming out of a conspiratorial group ... It's very Tea Party-ish."

"But, the shocking thing is that he's getting praised all over the place by the right wing," he added. "This stuff is on Fox [News], all over the right-wing media. They're going in an echo chamber about how this is the real way to think about America."

Blumenthal argued that Thomas's speech seemed to go beyond Republicans' attacks on the administrative state. Instead, he seemed to be promoting a theory with roots in an antisemitic work that blamed Jewish people for the creation of the Federal Reserve system.

"We can laugh at it all we want because it's so stupid, but by the same token, there they are," Wilentz said. "They have a great deal of power, and these are the people who are certainly in charge of the Republican party these days, and it adds a dimension to what Trump is about that is really much more frightening."

Former Rep. George Santos suggested on social media Wednesday that he would run for Congress again if lawmakers did not remove Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN).

Santos was expelled from Congress in late 2023 after a federal fraud indictment. He was originally sentenced to 87 months in federal prison after pleading guilty to identity theft and wire fraud in August 2024, beginning his sentence in April 2025.

He was released less than three months into his sentence at President Donald Trump's behest.

Online critics quickly mocked Santos's comeback plans with sarcasm and criticism.

Via X, musician Brian Rosenworcel sarcastically suggested Santos run against Omar in Minnesota, prompting Santos to fire back, calling him an "idiot" and clarifying his plan involved running elsewhere.

Additional critics exchanged hostile responses with Santos on social media.

Santos claimed his life was "an open book" and argued Americans would prefer candidates honest about their past over those with secrets.

Watch the video below.

The Trump administration is quietly changing its narrative around gas prices as officials realize President Donald Trump's promises are unworkable, Politico reported on Wednesday.

"Administration officials facing lawmakers declined to put a timetable when the war in Iran would end and the ensuing rise in energy prices would ease, instead offering vague assurances of their track record in lowering prices," said the report. "'I think the conflict will end, and I think gasoline prices will come back to where they were, or perhaps lower,' Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Senate appropriators."

This assessment, the report continued, is "a marked shift in rhetoric from previous public appeals asking for reassurance on energy price spikes two months after Trump launched the strikes in the Middle East and Iran retaliated by attacking oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, choking off nearly 20 percent of the world’s oil supply and straining the global economy. Trump himself originally said the war, now nearing its second month, would last 'four to five weeks.'"

There is no current path for reopening the Strait of Hormuz to full capacity, even as the Trump administration claims that Iran's naval fleet has been decimated.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright, for his part, has suggested average gas prices could stay above $3 a gallon into next year, which Trump has publicly contradicted. However, Wright is now softening this stance, saying, “I never said gas prices wouldn’t go down until next year. Never, never said such a thing. There was a thing on the news that I said they might not be below $3 a gallon ... I left some uncertainty in there.”

Average gas prices are above $4 a gallon as of press time, driven in large part by significant increases in GOP-controlled states where gas is usually cheap. The most recent polls have Trump's approval rating cratering to the mid to low 30s, with even one in three Republicans disapproving.