The Democrats first invented the term “October Surprise” in 1980, to describe what they claimed were secret efforts by the Reagan campaign to delay the release of our hostages in Tehran until after that year’s presidential election.

Depending on the version you read, the negotiations with Iranian intermediaries were conducted by vice-presidential nominee George H.W. Bush or by Reagan’s campaign manager and future CIA Director, Bill Casey.

Abolhassan Banisadr, who was Khomeini’s spokesman during his brief exile in France and later became the Islamic Republic’s first president until he broke with Khomeini in June 1981, was absolutely convinced the October Surprise was real. But neither he, nor Democrat conspiracy-theorists such as Gary Sick, were ever able to prove it.

But that hasn’t stopped the Democrats from believing it was true in 1980, and continuing to attempt their own October Surprise against Republican presidents ever since.

President Trump this week accused Iran of “making up fake hits, mines, and everything else” in an effort to drive up the price of oil before the midterms.

And they have had some success, with the price of Brent crude briefly spiking to $116/barrel and West Texas crude topping $102, primarily because of supply bottlenecks in Asian markets.

The job of Republicans and the President is to convince Americans that high gas prices are a small price to pay for preventing a nuclear-armed Iran with missiles pointed at us and at Israel.

And those who argue Iran does not have ICBM capabilities, let me remind you: they don’t need them.

As I pointed out in Countdown to Crisis: the Coming Nuclear Showdown with Iran, the IRGC has long practiced launching a nuclear payload from a surface vessel, such as a tramp steamer loitering, say, two hundred miles off our coast. Some in the military refer to this as the “SCUD in a bucket scenario.”

Big diplomatic efforts appeared to make a comeback this week. Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov went to Tehran to discuss a potential peace deal that would require the IRGC to send the “nuclear dust” to Russia in exchange for an end of the US economic and military blockade.

A Qatari-owned news outlet, al-Araby al-Jadeed, even claimed that this would be part of a “breakthrough agreement” announced this week, and was tied to a future Russia-US-China summit.

Well, that didn’t happen. Why? Because as I have been saying since cows learned to come home at night, the Rev. Guards will never ever give up their nuclear weapons capabilities. Without them, they would cease to exist.

There are only two ways to get Iran to give up the nuclear dust. Take it from them by force, or get the people of Iran to hand it over once we have armed them and they replace the Islamic regime.

The Wall Street Journal reported this week that the UAE was carrying out military strikes inside Iran, apparently with ground troops. And on Thursday, video appeared on X of huge explosive fires at an aluminum plant at Arak, where the IRGC was making oxidizer for solid fuel missiles.

CENTCOM has been uncharacteristically quiet in recent weeks. Instead of acknowledging US counterstrikes following Iranian attacks on shipping in the Gulf, they just bombed Iran’s largest naval base at Bandar Abbas this week in the early hours of Tuesday without a word.

All of this is part of President Trump’s strategy to downplay the Iran war and keep his powder dry for whenever he decides to launch the knock-out blow everyone is expecting to come.

But we did see a real October Surprise this week — one that has apparently been thwarted by a deaf former software engineer named Jennica Pounds, who uses the Twitter moniker “DataRepublican.”

Last year, as Elon Musk was taking his chain saw to USAID and other corrupt agencies of the U.S. government, Jennica Pounds used her skills to build a searchable database of federal grants that identified a universe of non-profit grifters who were using taxpayer dollars to promote left-wing causes at home and abroad.

(How a non-profit funded with government dollars can be considered a “Non-Governmental Organization” has long baffled me.)

Her latest investigation, however, is a blockbuster. She gained access to the video-taped record of secret meetings of former USAID staffers as they discussed how to use their skills at fomenting “color revolutions” abroad to carry out a color revolution right here in the United States, toppling the U.S. government and smashing our Constitution..

Here is a link to the first part of her investigation, which includes snippets from the videos that discuss how to use the midterm elections as an “opportunity” to spark mass protests that would become so violent the President would invoke the Insurrection Act.

Laura Ingraham picks it up from there.

“Activists will then claim widespread abuses as the military struggles to restore law and order. Then the press will collaborate with activists, amplifying their wild claims with video snippets on social media.

Then blue state governors – this is their dream – seeing the chaos will unite trying to override federal authorities, take over federal functions, and eventually rewrite our Constitution, or just rewrite it altogether.”

This is Black Lives Matter and No Kings on steroids. And coordinated as a national movement aimed at ending our Constitutional Republic.

Attorney Jeff Childers provides a terrifying deep dive into the plans of these former USAID left-wing activists, who have also recruited 1600 former military and intelligence officials to their cause as a self-styled National Security Leaders for America, known before the 2024 election as “for Biden.”

The Democrats would still love the Iranians to pull off their own October Surprise this year. You can almost hear them cheering every time oil tops $100/barrel — conveniently forgetting that oil topped $140/barrel in 2014 under Obama when Russia invaded Crimea.

Will the Iranians attempt to launch a massive terror attack in the next two weeks? They already tried to hit the B-1 bomber base in Britain, so I wouldn’t put it past them. Perhaps something reminiscent of the Marine Barracks bombing in Beirut?

Today is the 43rd anniversary of that attack. For those of you like me in the Jacksonville, Florida, area, you can visit the Marine Barracks memorial at Evergreen Cemetery on North Main Street in downtown Jacksonville. (I was there for the inauguration in 2019, and was in Beirut in 1983….)

All of this to remind us to remain ever vigilant. Vigilant for our freedoms and for our security.

I discuss these topics, and the French riots, on this week’s Prophecy Today Weekend.

As always, you can listen live at 1 PM on Saturday in the Jacksonville, Florida, area on 104.9 FM or 550 AM or by using the Jacksonville Way Radio app. You listen later to the podcast by clicking here.

Yours in freedom.

©2026 Kenneth R. Timmerman. All rights reserved.

---

Ken Timmerman’s 14th book of non-fiction, THE IRAN HOUSE: Tales of Revolution, Persecution, War, and Intrigue, can be ordered by clicking here or by viewing my author’s page, here.

Raising Olives in Provence, can be ordered by clicking here.

Follow me on Twitter @kentimmerman

Facebook: ken timmerman

Website: kentimmerman.com