Political Wire (original) (raw)

Charlie Sykes: “The deal Trump announced amid the roar, glitz, and ignominy of his UFC spectacle was an American surrender in a war that leaves us with less than we had when it started. This is what defeat looks, feels, and tastes like.”

“Trump, naturally, will treat the non-deal — it is a Memorandum of Understanding to keep talking for another 60 days — as a victory. And from his point of view, it was a relief; Sunday’s surrender was the retreat he so desperately wanted, ending a war that he started, but could not figure out how to finish. And now, in the immortal words of Madmen, you will be amazed at how quickly it never happened— at least for Trump. He can now memory-hole the fiasco and replace it with new worlds to conquer and/or enshittify.”

New York Times: “The full text of the deal has not yet been released and Israel was not directly involved in the negotiations. Initial details suggest that the agreement does nothing to curb Iran’s ballistic missile arsenal, or its funding of regional proxies like Hezbollah in Lebanon or the Houthis in Yemen, who have attacked Israel with their own arsenals. It could help Iran bolster those proxies by easing sanctions, which would allow billions of dollars to flow into its bank accounts.”

“The deal’s terms when it comes to constraining Iran’s nuclear program — of greatest importance to Israel, and the greatest priority of Mr. Netanyahu’s career — remain undisclosed or still to be negotiated during the agreed 60-day cease-fire to allow for further talks. Questions remain over what will become of Iran’s stock of near-bomb-grade uranium and whether the country will be able to keep enriching nuclear fuel.”

“Worse still for Mr. Netanyahu, who faces re-election in a few months and is behind in the polls, President Trump, the Israeli leader’s most valuable political asset, has publicly rebuked him multiple times in recent weeks.”

Ryan Lizza: “Trump is always the hero of his own disaster. He batters the economy with tariffs and then bails out the American farmers he bankrupted. He foments civil unrest in American cities with extremist ICE agents and then claims to restore order with the National Guard. Now, after setting the Middle East ablaze, Trump is posing as the firefighter extinguishing the flames.”

“The damage from his attack on Iran is incalculable.”

The Bulwark: “The emergency motion Trump filed last week made reference to an astonishing and apparently new Kennedy Center bylaw: All new private donations, it suggested, have been conditioned “upon the name of the Center remaining unchanged as the ‘Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.'”

“If the name were ever changed, the bylaw apparently states, the Center would be obliged to return all such donations.”

“It is doubtful that any agreement that arises is going to be significantly different or a significant improvement from the deal that we had in the first place and had worked for, for a long stretch of time before we, the United States, pulled out of it.”

— Barack Obama, quoted by ABC News, on the reported deal President Trump says he struck with Iran.

“Almost immediately after striking a deal with Iran, President Trump appeared eager to take a victory lap,” the New York Times reports.

“He trumpeted that the agreement would open the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway for the world’s energy supplies whose stalled ship traffic has rattled the global economy. He told The New York Times that his efforts had saved Israel from nuclear extinction and made the Middle East safer. It all gave him a key win as he traveled to France for the Group of 7 summit, where he will meet with European leaders who have criticized his approach to the war.”

“Despite Mr. Trump’s grandiose claims, the agreement has not yet achieved the core goals he laid out three months ago for launching U.S.-Israeli war against Iran.”

CBS News: “The Supreme Court on Monday turned away ex-Trump campaign aide Carter Page’s attempt to revive a lawsuit against former FBI Director James Comey and other senior FBI officials over surveillance warrants obtained by the bureau during its investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.”

CBS News: “Vice President JD Vance denied on Monday that Iran will receive ‘billions of dollars of assets’ as part of a the U.S.-Iran deal that was announced Sunday and is set to be signed later this week.”

Said Vance: “When people say that billions of dollars of assets will be released, that’s not true. What is true is that Iran will have a much better and much more prosperous future if they meet the obligations they make in this agreement.”

New York Times: “The long-awaited deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz brought quick relief to the oil market, sending prices to their lowest levels since early March.”

“Getting substantial amounts of oil and gas flowing, however, will take much longer.”

“It can take weeks or months, even in the best of times, to get oil and gas from wells in the Persian Gulf to buyers in China or Japan.”

Punchbowl News: “Trump spent part of Sunday calling reporters to talk about the deal, including The New York Times, Fox News and Axios, telling them how historic this agreement will be for the United States and the region. According to what Trump told the NYT, his campaign against Iran ‘remade the Middle East in America’s favor.'”

“Yet what Trump and top administration officials really have is a 60-day extension of the current ceasefire while they negotiate over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program. Trump suggested he might agree to a 15- or 20-year suspension of Iran’s uranium enrichment program in return for sanctions relief, per the NYT. He also threatened renewed U.S. attacks on Iran unless a permanent accord is reached.”

“There are some differences between what U.S. and Iranian officials say is in the agreement. Senior American officials strongly denied reports of a $12 billion U.S. payment to Iran as part of the deal.”

Vice President JD Vance on Monday said after the U.S. and Iran struck a preliminary deal that there are “a lot” of details that remain to be ironed out, but he expressed confidence that America has “all the cards” in subsequent talks, CNBC reports.

Paul Krugman: “Many people have compared our current era to the Gilded Age. But that analogy is deeply unfair to the Gilded Age. Like the robber barons of yore, today’s oligarchs are immensely wealthy — even wealthier, relative to the economy as a whole, than their predecessors.”

“And extreme wealth corrupts our democracy. But the corruption is deeper and more destructive now than it was then: The mitigating factors that once put some brakes on the harm done by excessive wealth concentration are now mostly gone.”

Washington Post: “President Donald Trump said Monday he would be closely involved in a marquee celebration of the country’s 250th anniversary, casting the July Fourth event on the National Mall as one of his political rallies.”

Said Trump: “We are going to host the most spectacular TRUMP RALLY of them all, a ‘TRIBUTE TO AMERICA’… There will be incredible Flyovers and Airshows featuring our Top Military Pilots and Equipment, and I will deliver keynote remarks that you will not want to miss.”

Jonathan Martin: “Democrats are approaching what could be their most wide-open presidential primary in decades, but I’d venture a confident prediction today: one of the two Georgia senators will be on the party’s ticket in 2028.”

“Senators Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, the two Democrats who delivered their party a majority with their twin victories at the end of the first Trump term, could bookend the outgoing president eight years later.”

Florida gubernatorial candidate Byron Donalds (R) spoke about the importance of education in front of a misspelled sign.

Tom Nichols: “President Trump has announced that the United States and Iran have reached a deal to end their war… He then headed off to oversee the garish public spectacle he’d arranged for his birthday on the South Lawn of the White House.”

“The United States, however, has little to celebrate: Trump and his team, in record time, just lost a war to a militarily mediocre—but nonetheless extremely dangerous—adversary.”

“The details of the agreement remain unconfirmed, but the president, of course, is eager to spin the outcome as a victory. (Trump was in a hurry to sign the deal on his birthday; the Iranians, who now seem to be in charge of this whole business, instead said they will send someone to a meeting in Switzerland on Friday.) But even before we have the details, it is clear that Trump has failed to achieve every one of the goals he put forward for this war of choice, and now he is determined to sign, seal, and deliver America’s capitulation as quickly as possible.”

“Boris Epshteyn is such a fixture in Donald Trump’s White House that he’s in Oval Office meetings when some attendees don’t even know it,” Axios reports.

“Epshteyn, the president’s senior personal counsel, speaks with “the boss” so often that Trump sometimes puts him on speakerphone without telling others in the room, two people familiar with the routine tell Axios.”

“Why it matters: In a White House where proximity to power is power itself, Epshteyn is one of the most influential people in D.C. — not just because he’s listening in, but because Trump listens to him as well.”

“President Donald Trump has said he will hit France’s wine industry with a 100% tariff on exports to the U.S. if it does not scrap its digital services tax on U.S. technology companies,” CNBC reports.