Washington Post: “So what was this all for?”
“That question is already dividing some Republicans and foreign policy hawks. The memorandum ends the fighting, reopens the Strait of Hormuz and gives Trump a chance to claim he prevented a broader economic crisis.”
“But many of its core terms appear to return the U.S. and Iran to roughly where they were before the conflict: with Iran’s government still in power and its long-term nuclear commitments still unresolved.”
“Three supertankers from Saudi Arabia loaded with 6 million barrels of oil have crossed the Strait of Hormuz,” CNBC reports.
“Former City Councilman Kenyan McDuffie, who ran as a tough-on-crime centrist, has conceded the Democratic mayoral primary in Washington, D.C., to Janeese Lewis George, a democratic socialist and D.C. councilwoman,” the New York Times reports.
“The Associated Press has yet to call the race, but Ms. Lewis George currently has around 53 percent of the vote, enough to give her an outright victory without tabulating the ranked choices in the election. In an overwhelmingly Democratic city, she would almost certainly win the general election in November.”
Former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) told SiriusXM that despite her former friendship with President Trump, when she told him that her son was receiving death threats after the president called her a traitor, he texted her back that it was her own fault.
Said Greene: “So I sent him directly the death messages I was receiving on my son, and I said, no matter political disagreements, our children should never be threatened. That’s absolutely unacceptable. And I told him his words were causing that to happen. And his reply back to me was, ‘It’s your fault and you deserve it.’ And that’s what he texted me back. And I have those text messages.”
New York Times: “For days, lines have formed and rationing has been implemented at gas stations in dozens of Russian regions, as persistent Ukrainian drone attacks on oil refineries and processing facilities have threatened a fuel shortage.”
“Ukraine has taken particular aim at Crimea, the peninsula that Russia illegally annexed in 2014, with a range of strikes aimed at cutting off the region’s supply lines. The Russian economy has also begun suffering from the costs of the war in a way that the Kremlin had managed to avoid for years.”
“The Supreme Court on Thursday narrowed a federal law that banned drug users and addicts from owning or possessing guns,” the New York Times reports.
“The justices ruled that the law was overbroad, sweeping together recreational drug users with people addicted to drugs who posed a danger to public safety.”
“Two of the biggest progressive stars in the country are taking a split path on endorsements in messy Democratic primaries, leaving some Democrats reading the tea leaves for what it means for their political futures,” NOTUS reports.
“New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is backing a trio of insurgent candidates in House races, including two who are challenging Democratic incumbents, while staying out of contentious state legislative primaries. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is supporting several Democratic Socialists of America candidates in competitive New York state legislative races, while so far staying out of contentious congressional primaries.”
“Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook incurred more than $1.3 million in legal and security expenses following President Donald Trump’s attempt to fire her in August from the Fed’s board, a new ethics filing revealed Thursday,” CNBC reports.
“Outside organizations reimbursed Cook for those expenses, the filing shows.”
“The Supreme Court is expected to rule imminently on whether Trump has the power to fire Cook for the reasons he cited.”
“Cuba’s leadership signed off on a sweeping list of 176 market-liberalization measures covering 23 core areas, as the Caribbean nation tries to rescue a moribund economy that’s being squeezed by US sanctions,” Bloomberg reports.
President Trump blasted critics of the Iran deal as “fools” for not thinking he was tough on Tehran, describing them as “either jealous, bad people, or stupid,” the New York Post reports.
Peter Wehner: “Donald Trump’s 80th birthday was in many ways the apotheosis of the Trump administration—the Ultimate Fighting Championship held a seven-fight card on the South Lawn of the White House, with the president and members of his family in attendance.”
“The event was garish, lurid, and crass—perfectly calibrated to appeal to the president. A massive military flyover. The use of honor guards to usher UFC fighters into the cage. ‘Octagon Girls’ in sequined red-white-and-blue costumes parading around the cage between rounds… The main event, a lightweight championship bout between Justin Gaethje and Ilia Topuria, left Topuria bloodied and battered, his face mangled, his vision so impaired that he was hospitalized after the fight…”
“It was Trump’s version of the Roman imperial games—state-sponsored brutality as public entertainment, staged to please the emperor and his courtiers, desecrating a public space. He clearly relished every second of it. But the MAGA movement—and the 80-year-old man who leads it—is breaking apart.”
“Most Americans are optimistic that the country is broadly more united than divided, and they feel that’s true even across some contentious dividing lines like race and gender,” a new NBC News poll finds.
“But that optimism does not extend to what Americans see as a broad gulf between the wealthy and those who are not wealthy.”
Financial Times: “The deal has many critics, from hawks in the US to ultra-hardliners in Iran. Netanyahu, who wanted to continue the fight, is chastened and angry. Trump and Netanyahu have failed to secure many war objectives; the regime is not only intact but has been empowered, after withstanding the bombing and proving its ability to close the Strait of Hormuz. Before the war, Iran was engaging in nuclear talks, and shipping was passing freely through the strait.”
“But this deal is the least bad way for Trump to extricate himself from a crisis he ought never to have ignited.”
“The memorandum of understanding that the U.S. and Iran signed on Wednesday could cement Tehran’s long-term control of the Strait of Hormuz, leaving the door open for the regime to charge fees on oil tankers and other ships attempting to transit it in the future,” Politico reports.
“The oil industry has said throughout the conflict that its top priority is to restore shipping flows through the Hormuz to the way they were prior to the war, when the waterway carried 20 percent of the world’s oil and was fully open to vessels without any tolls or fees. The Trump administration said it shared that goal, but analysts said the agreement appears to throw that into question.”
“During a state television broadcast on Wednesday, Iranian Parliament Speaker and chief negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf declared that Iran emerged triumphant in its recent armed conflict against the United States and Israel,” Israel National News reports.
Playbook: “Are we sure that signing a peace treaty in Versailles — the literal home of terrible peace treaties — was a good idea?”
Los Angeles Times: “Rubio, who also serves as the president’s national security advisor, has remained effectively mum since news of a preliminary peace deal was announced by the administration on Sunday.”
“His absence has drawn notice across foreign policy circles — not only because Rubio has served as chief architect of the administration’s global strategy thus far, but also because he has become one of the president’s most effective communicators, both at home and abroad.”
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.
