G. Elliot Morris: “New estimates I’ve produced show that Trump’s approval rating is below 50% among registered voters in 135 Republican-held congressional seats — 104 in the House and 31 in the Senate.”
“And his approval is below 45% in jurisdictions represented by 44 Republican members of Congress — 34 in the House and 10 in the Senate.”
President Trump sharply criticized Iran’s call for young people to line up as human shields around power plants, NBC News reports.
Said Trump: “Totally illegal. They’re not allowed to do that.”
As for what motivated him to post this morning that “a whole civilization will die tonight” — a comment that has drawn backlash from around the world — he would only say: “You’ll have to figure that out.”
Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif pleaded for President Trump to extend tonight’s 8 p.m. deadline by two weeks for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
Bloomberg: “The world’s most important price for real-world oil barrels soared to a record, the latest evidence of global crude markets that are pricing increasingly scarce supply in the wake of the Iran war.”
“Dated Brent, which helps value most of the world’s oil transactions, hit $144.42 a barrel on Tuesday, the highest since Platts, a unit of S&P Global Energy first began publishing the measure back in 1987. The benchmark is based on a more immediate delivery period than Brent futures — which were trading near $109 on Tuesday — an indication of a clamor to secure barrels for delivery as soon as possible.”
Washington Post: “Army Secretary Dan Driscoll has no plans to resign or otherwise leave his role at the Pentagon… after a series of internal clashes with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that have caused other U.S. officials to question how long the two senior political appointees can coexist.”
“Driscoll’s statement follows last week’s abrupt ouster of the Army’s top officer, Gen. Randy George, and two other senior military leaders — and as Hegseth’s top spokesman, Sean Parnell, has privately told colleagues that he is interested in Driscoll’s job should it become open.”
New York Times: “Anthropic, the artificial intelligence company that recently fought the Pentagon over the use of its technology, has built a new A.I. model that it claims is too powerful to be released to the public.”
Carolyn Kissane: “Five weeks into the war… the full effects are still unfolding. Markets have not fully absorbed what sustained disruption could mean. Both sides are now signaling a willingness to target the infrastructure that underpins not only energy systems, but civilian life. Power plants, pipelines, ports, and transport networks are no longer clearly off-limits. The logic of escalation points toward symmetry with each strike inviting another, each target expanding the scope of what is considered permissible. This is the precipice.”
“If both sides follow through on their threats, the consequences will not be contained to the Gulf. They will reverberate through energy markets, global trade, and critical infrastructure far beyond the region. And what is being tested is not just access to energy but the resilience of the systems that sustain modern economies.”
Stat: “The war with Iran has focused the world’s attention on nuclear weapons and oil. Those risks are real. But there is a third category of danger that the conflict has brought into sharp relief — one that the United States is far less prepared to handle than most people realize.”
“Iran likely has a biological weapons capability. This has been the view of the U.S. government for several years now, predating the second Trump administration…”
“War makes an already serious problem harder. When command structures fracture, when facilities are struck and personnel scatter, the custody of dangerous materials unravels. Dangerous materials don’t secure themselves.”
A senior Iranian source told Reuters: “If the situation gets out of control, Iran’s allies will also close the Bab El-Mandeb Strait.”
The New York Times reports Iran has stopped efforts to negotiate with the U.S., but Axios reports the U.S. is still claiming progress in the ongoing negotiations.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) called the president “an extremely sick person” for his threats to Iran that a “whole civilization may die tonight.”
Even before Iran cut off direct diplomacy with the U.S., it was sticking to a hard-line position in negotiations and showed no signs of backing down, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Tehran told Pakistan, which is mediating talks, that it believed it was winning and that it retained 15,000 missiles and 45,000 drones in its arsenal.
The House Democratic leadership called for lawmakers to return to Washington immediately to hold a vote to end the Iran war, the Wall Street Journal reports.
The statement, signed by Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York and other top House Democratic lawmakers, said President Trump is “completely unhinged” and that a vote is necessary to stop the president before he “plunges the country into World War III.”
Washington Post: “President Donald Trump has continued to describe the war against Iran as an unqualified success, saying as recently as Monday that the United States was doing ‘unbelievably well,’ while Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Tehran had been ’embarrassed and humiliated’ by U.S. forces.”
“But Iran’s downing of an F-15E fighter jet and the high-risk rescue operation that ensued showed that Tehran retains the ability to threaten the United States’ military personnel and cast doubt on the statistics Hegseth has promoted in recent weeks, boasting about ‘complete control of Iranian skies’ and ‘uncontested airspace.'”
New York Times: “Coordinated U.S. and Israeli strikes on military targets in Iran continued methodically on Tuesday, even as President Trump raised his rhetoric threatening the country to apocalyptic levels.”
“The United States launched a series of more than 90 strikes on Kharg Island, Iran’s oil export hub, early Tuesday. A U.S. military official characterized the Kharg strikes as ‘restrikes’ — hitting targets that have been struck before to ensure more damage. He said that the United States was not yet striking Iranian infrastructure on the island, which lies in the Persian Gulf off the country’s southern coast.”
Aaron Blake: “Twenty-one months ago, Tucker Carlson told the 2024 Republican National Convention that Donald Trump’s survival of an assassination attempt amounted to ‘divine intervention’ — that God had chosen to save Trump because he had a plan for him to lead the country.”
Said Carlson: “Something bigger is going on here.”
“Today, Carlson is offering an almost polar-opposite argument about Trump. He seemed to intimate during his show Monday that Trump might be the antichrist.”
“That rhetorical flourish capped Carlson’s harshest public criticism of Trump to date. While the former Fox News host has been highly critical of the Iran war before — and somewhat more gently critical of Trump the man, at least publicly — the gloves were off on Monday like never before.”
NOTUS: “The White House plans to spend $15 million in National Endowment for the Humanities funds to finance the construction of the massive archway President Donald Trump hopes to build across from the Lincoln Memorial.”
Just published: RFK Jr.: The Fall and Rise by Isabel Vincent.
People Magazine has an excerpt: “Fourteen years after RFK Jr.’s second wife died by suicide, a new biography reveals harrowing details of their bitter split and the secrets found in his diaries.”
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.
