Showing posts with label lets make a deal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lets make a deal. Show all posts

Monday, July 27, 2026

Netanyahu is finally getting his White House meeting. He may not like what comes with it.

Netanyahu is finally getting his White House meeting. He may not like what comes with it.

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/07/27/netanyahu-white-house-visit-trump-iran-war-01012362 

Netanyahu is finally getting his White House meeting. He may not like what comes with it.

The Israeli prime minister had been hoping for a sit-down with Trump for months — and getting one may not improve straining ties.

By Felicia Schwartz

07/27/2026 05:00 AM EDT

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected at the White House this week at a moment of significant tension between the longtime allies — after months of waiting for an invitation to come.

Netanyahu has not been to the White House since the war began and has been angling for an invitation since at least April, two people familiar with the matter said, granted anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomacy. The funeral of close Netanyahu confidant Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) provided an opening, though negotiations over the visit were only just finalized.

“At first there was no meeting. They arranged it in the last couple of days,” one of the people familiar with the matter said Friday, adding that Netanyahu is eager to consult with President Donald Trump about the escalation with Iran as well as the U.S. nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia.

Israel was the first to publicly confirm the Tuesday meeting; Trump acknowledged the visit in a rambling speech at the White House correspondents dinner late Friday. The White House did not respond to requests for comment about why the invitation took so long or what the pair will discuss

Netanyahu’s office stressed that the two leaders have met multiple times since Trump returned to office.

“Few allies have met so often and few alliances have achieved more in such short a time,” the prime minister’s office said in the statement. “President Trump and the prime minister will discuss the defining issues of our time and how to leverage our great alliance to win the war and forge lasting peace.” His office didn’t respond to questions about Netanyahu’s efforts to secure the meeting or why it took so long.

The tension between the two leaders is particularly notable because the Trump administration is currently waging the aggressive military campaign against Iran that Netanyahu has been pushing for. For much of the past two weeks, the U.S. had been launching daily strikes against Iran, though the administration said it paused those strikes over the weekend.

Netanyahu, who helped convince Trump to launch the initial attacks against Iran in February, could bear the blame if this latest campaign doesn’t bring Iran back to the negotiating table or restore passage for ships through the Strait of Hormuz.

Trump and Netanyahu last met face to face in February, in the lead-up to the war, which Trump at the time predicted would last four to five weeks. That was nearly five months ago.

A June memorandum of understanding between Washington and Tehran collapsed a month later, while Trump’s aims have shifted along the way: He first said he wanted regime change in addition to preventing Iran from rebuilding its nuclear program. But after the standoff over control of the Strait of Hormuz reignited the fighting, much of the focus has shifted to reopening the vital waterway.

With the goals unclear and unachieved, Trump’s MAGA base is souring on the war, especially as the American death toll ticks higher. After two U.S. troops were killed in an Iranian strike in Jordan earlier this month, Marjorie Taylor Greene — the former Georgia lawmaker and one-time Trump loyalist turned critic — lashed out on X: “Their deaths fuel your bloodlust for a senseless war,” she said.

Trump’s own staff are growing frustrated by the long odds of ending the fighting, and Trump has had harsh words for Netanyahu as the war has dragged on.

At the G7 summit in France, Trump called the Israeli leader “crazy” and used an expletive to describe his judgment, even as he insisted “without me, there would be no Israel.”

U.S. and Israeli goals in the war have increasingly diverged. While Israel has wanted to keep fighting, Trump, until recently, has been more optimistic about diplomacy.

“A lot of the policy decisions the Trump administration has made lately are not necessarily in Israel’s interest,” said Dana Stroul, the top civilian in the Pentagon working on Middle East issues during the Biden administration, now at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

She pointed to several moves the U.S. has made that have unsettled Israel, including agreeing to sell F-35s to Turkey, striking a civilian nuclear energy agreement with Saudi Arabia that lacks certain oversight mechanisms, pressing Israel to withdraw from Lebanon without assurances that the Hezbollah militant group has been dismantled, and pursuing a Syria policy Israel views warily given the orientation of the new government in Damascus.

The visit comes just as the U.S. has telegraphed it is preparing for a significant escalation in Iran, surging carrier strike groups to the region, urging Americans to leave more than a dozen nearby countries and weighing a resumption of major joint combat operations with Israel.

But the Trump administration appears to still see its attacks as a way to return to negotiations. “We’re going to knock out all their bridges unless they get to the table and negotiate,” Trump told Fox News earlier this month.

While Netanyahu needs the meeting with Trump to shore up relations with Israel’s most important ally, the meeting itself could come at a cost to the embattled prime minister, who is up for reelection in October.

Trump will likely have requests for Israel to agree to American policies it has so far resisted — in Lebanon, Gaza and elsewhere in the region, said Elisa Ewers, who served in senior Middle East roles across the federal government and on the Hill.

“Bibi takes a risk coming to the White House. He might get pressed by President Trump with an ask, rather than the other way around,” said Ewers, now a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

She added: “The White House visit in itself is his get.”

Alex Gangitano contributed to this report.

 

 

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Thursday, June 25, 2026

Real estate mogul Trump doesn’t want affordable houses

 

Real estate mogul Trump doesn’t want affordable houses

 https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2026/6/25/800060686/news/trump-housing-bill-refuse-to-sign/

Real estate mogul Trump doesn’t want affordable houses

by Emily Singer
Staff
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Construction workers install a lumber roof at a new home build Tuesday, April 1, 2025, in Laveen, Ariz. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)
Construction workers install a lumber roof at a new home in Arizona.AP

President Donald Trump on Wednesday defended his decision not to sign a landmark housing bill that was overwhelmingly passed by the House and Senate, saying that he doesn’t want to lower housing costs because it would hurt people who have gotten rich off their home purchases.

“You have to understand—I don’t want to hurt people that own houses, too,” Trump said in the Oval Office, where he was holding a media availability with the leader of NATO. “These people, for the first time in their lives, they have valuable houses. They become rich. I don’t want to hurt them either.”

It’s the latest head-scratching comment he’s made that makes you wonder if he is trying to lose this fall’s midterm elections for his party. He is refusing to sign a bill to help more people afford homes, at a time when the median homeowner is 38 times richer than the median renter, according to a December 2024 CNN analysis. Voters are angry about the surging cost of living and are practically begging Trump and the GOP-controlled Congress to do something about it.

It’s especially galling as the comment came hours before the government released the latest inflation report, which showed Trump’s Iran war spiked inflation to 4.1% in May. That’s the highest level since April 2023.

Ultimately, inflation and high prices are far and away the most important issues for voters in the upcoming midterms, with 31% listing “inflation/prices” as their top issue, according to an Economist/YouGov poll released Tuesday. The second-place issue, with 16%, is “jobs and the economy,” which is intricately tied to inflation.

That’s terrible news for the GOP given that Trump’s approval on the economy is at just 33%, according to the latest NPR/PBS News/Marist poll.

This dismal economic picture is why Republicans passed the bipartisan housing bill in the first place. They hoped their support for legislation that seeks to lower housing costs would help them with voters in November.

The bipartisan bill would, among other things, ban private-equity investors from gobbling up the single-family home inventory—a phenomenon that has driven up costs for average Americans.

However, Trump pulled the rug out from under congressional Republicans on Wednesday, canceling a bill-signing ceremony minutes before it was scheduled to start. Trump said that he won’t sign the bill until Congress passes the voter suppression SAVE America Act, an awful piece of legislation that has no shot of passage.

However, his later admission that he didn’t sign the bill because he doesn’t want to hurt rich Americans may be the real reason he is holding up the bill.

In fact, it’s not even the first time he’s made a comment like that.

At a Cabinet meeting in January, Trump said this: “People that own their homes, we’re gonna keep them wealthy. We’re gonna keep those prices up. We’re not gonna destroy the value of their homes so that somebody who didn’t work very hard can buy a home. … I don’t want to drive housing prices down. I want to drive housing prices up.”

Instead, Trump has said he wants to see interest rates lowered to make it easier for people to buy homes, even though lowering interest rates can raise inflation and, as a result, housing costs.

In fact, experts say that it’s high interest rates that cause housing prices to drop.

“If mortgage rates stay high the remainder of the year, home prices will start falling. It’s the basic premise of supply and demand. If the demand starts to fall due to higher rates, the supply will increase, and home prices will slowly fall,” Jeremy Schachter, branch manager at Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation in Phoenix, Arizona, told CBS News earlier this month.

Schachter added, “If mortgage rates come down, more buyers will come into the market, and home prices may stabilize or even increase.”

Leave it to Trump, who has bankrupted casinos, to get it completely wrong.

Democrats, for their part, are already using Trump’s comments in their messaging.

“Trump just said he won’t sign a bill to lower housing costs. Are we surprised?” Sen. Mark Kelly, Democrat of Arizona, wrote in a Facebook post. “He called the affordability crisis a hoax and said he ‘loves inflation’—all while he gets billions of dollars richer. Americans deserve a president who actually cares about the pain they’re feeling.”

And Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who co-sponsoered the bill Trump refuses to sign, said the president doesn’t care about lowering prices for Americans.

“The cost of food is up. The cost of utilities is up. The cost of gasoline is up. The cost of healthcare is through the roof. The cost of housing is up,” Warren said at a news conference on Capitol Hill. “Donald Trump may not care, but Democrats do.”

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  1. Comment by TexasTom.

    What Trump understands about economics could fit inside a nanoparticle. The man seems to be ignorant about pretty much every aspect of the field.

    Aside from that, didn't he also recently say that nobody "gives a shit about housing"? Since it isn't an issue that impacts him, he is incapable of understanding why it matters to other people. To be able to understand would require that the man possess empathy, which is not a trait that will ever be exhibited by a sociopath like Trump.

  2. Comment by codestar7.

    "So that people who don't work very hard can buy a house"? WTF Drumpf has never "worked" a day in his life. How could he possibly know?

  3. Comment by sfmikey1.

    Once again, Trump reveals the "art of the deal" is blackmail.

    Can't wait until the Extortionist-in-Chief is yesterday's fish-wrap. (Although repairing the damage will be a long, hard slog.)

  4. Comment by Desert Scientist.

    Of course! Why would a real estate con-man want people who don't deserve it (are not at least millionaires) to own a home? Born with a gold spoon in his mouth he of course sees vast wealth as a sign of superiority. He was also apparently born with a Louis XIV complex as he sees gold on everything as a sign of his superior intellect, which no other living being can match, let alone POC or a mere woman. That's why it infuriates him to see the Obamas so popular. In his mind, they don't deserve it, he does!!

    Why did so many people not see this coming? If we ever get out of this mess (that 77 million people put us all in) for whatever diety's sake, let's appreciate what we have and work to make it better!!

  5. Comment by Carnelian Orb.

    Surprise, surprise, surprise!

    The orange pedophile hates your average American.

  6. Comment by Grabber by the Heel.

    So is Trump not signing the housing bill to force repubs to pass his voter suppression bill or is he really trying to kill the housing bill to protect 'homeowners' meaning real estate hedge funds and banksters?

    The grift and graft are endless with this one.

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Tuesday, June 23, 2026

Trump Spirals as Iran Exposes His Lies About the Deal

Trump Spirals as Iran Exposes His Lies About the Deal

https://newrepublic.com/post/212200/trump-spirals-iran-exposes-lies-nuclear-deal 

Edith Olmsted
/

Trump Spirals as Iran Exposes His Lies About the Deal

Trump and his team keep claiming the agreement with Iran includes details it definitely doesn’t.

Donald Trump speaking at his desk in the Oval Office of the White House, while others stand behind him.
Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

Donald Trump began his Tuesday morning by melting down over the status of his agreement with Iran.

“Despite their protestations and false statements to the contrary, coupled with the drumbeat of the Fake News, which is doing everything possible to make the U.S. Victory as small and insignificant as possible, Iran has fully and completely agreed to highest level Nuclear inspections long into the future (Infinity!!!). This will insure ‘Nuclear Honesty,’” he wrote on Truth Social. “If they did not agree to this, there would be no further negotiations!”

Well, Mr. President, I have some bad news …

Speaking at a press briefing Tuesday, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei denied the Trump administration’s claim that the country would allow inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to visit its nuclear bombed sites.

“We have not had a meeting with the director general of the IAEA, nor do we have any plans for the agency to inspect Iran’s nuclear facilities damaged by the US and Zionist military aggression,” Baqaei said.

That also contradicts Vice President JD Vance’s claim on Monday that Iran had agreed to allow IAEA inspectors, who could visit Iran “this week, maybe as soon as today.”

The vice president did not offer specifics on what kind of access IAEA inspectors would be granted, or how frequently their inspections would take place. Last week, U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff reportedly assured U.S. lawmakers that in agreeing to the MOU, Tehran had drafted a letter inviting IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi to bring inspectors into the country.

In the 14-point memorandum of understanding, Iran has only agreed to commit to “down-blending” its enriched nuclear material under the supervision of IAEA inspectors. In return for that commitment, the U.S. has offered Iran unprecedented waivers allowing them to sell their previously sanctioned oil.

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Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling
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CBS Takes Major Nosedive After Bari Weiss’s 60 Minutes Purge

CBS News is suffering from a collapse in ratings thanks to its new boss.

Bari Weiss speaks to someone (not pictured)
Leigh Vogel/Getty Images

CBS News is losing heads, both in the newsroom and across America.

Viewership plummeted at CBS News weeks after its chief, Bari Weiss, fired numerous producers and correspondents from 60 Minutes, according to Nielsen ratings data obtained by Status.

Damage was particularly bad at CBS Mornings, hosted by Gayle King, which has long held the third-place ratings spot among network morning shows. But that recently changed: CBS Mornings averaged 1.8 million total viewers earlier this month, then dropped to 1.59 million on June 3, the day after executives fired Scott Pelley, the de facto face of CBS News.

That amounted to an 11 percent slip in audience following what was already the “worst-rated May on record” in CBS Mornings history, according to the ratings data.

The dip was short-lived, but nonetheless “alarmed some officials,” since morning shows typically produce the lion’s share of ad revenue for the major news networks, according to Status reporter Oliver Darcy.

Change at 60 Minutes, the network’s famed investigative weekly program, has been rapid and corrosive. Late last month, Weiss simultaneously fired executive producer Tanya Simon, correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi (who criticized Weiss’s decision to delay her report on Trump deportations to the notoriously brutal CECOT mega-prison in El Salvador), correspondent Cecilia Vega, and executive editor Draggan Mihailovich. That same day, she appointed Nick Bilton—a former Vanity Fair columnist with no broadcast experience—to lead the venerated newsmagazine.

But Weiss may not be running the place for much longer. CBS’s parent company, Paramount Skydance, is pursuing a merger with Warner Bros. Discovery, a monumental industry shift that could see Weiss’s brief tenure atop the network come to an end, according to some longtime 60 Minutes staffers.

“I have a feeling that Bari will not be overseeing 60 Minutes for very much longer. I think once the deal gets done with Warner Bros., people will demand that she be let go or move into another position,” Steve Kroft, a 30-year veteran of the show, told Variety earlier this month. “Everything she’s touched has turned to shit. Everything she’s touched has gone colossally wrong. And I don’t think she’s showed any talent for this position. She’s only fulfilling other people’s agendas.”

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Rachel Kahn
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ICE Agents Do Donuts With Their Cars to Celebrate Father’s Day Raid

The agents also arrested a mariachi band in Santa Barbara, California.

A view of a Santa Barbara California city street, with people walking on a sidewalk in front of palm treets and buildings.
Tibrina Hobson/Getty Images/Santa Barbara International Film Festival
The streets of Santa Barbara, California, in February

On the morning of Father’s Day, seven cars of ICE agents barreled through Santa Barbara, California, and detained anywhere from nine to 11 people, including one U.S. citizen.

The Santa Barbara Independent reported that three of the people detained were mariachi musicians, according to a spokesperson for an activist group that had been following the agents. The musicians may have been in the act of serenading fathers as part of a Mexican immigrant Father’s Day tradition, or on their way to do so.

As part of the action, ICE agents reportedly detained a U.S. citizen before releasing him at a nearby hospital. They also bear-sprayed a woman who was part of an ICE-monitoring organization through the rear window of her car.

Activists trailing ICE said that the agents didn’t just arrest people in the city but also sped down the streets in the early morning, and did donuts with their cars under the highway for 15 minutes. When they got on the freeway, the activists reported that the agents were going over 100 miles an hour.

Meanwhile, the Santa Barbara police chief, Kelly Gordon, had no idea ICE was in town. “We didn’t have any calls for service from 1 a.m. that were remotely close to what was being alleged on the Westside,” she said.

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Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling
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Republicans Ready to Give Up on Defunding Planned Parenthood

With just a few months left until the midterms, Republicans are trying to steer clear of the issue.

Signs hang in the window of a Planned Parenthood clinic reading "Nonjudgmental Compassionate Care" and "Care. No matter what."
Scott Olson/Getty Images

Planned Parenthood is on the path to having its funding restored thanks to Republican chaos in Congress.

The nonprofit health care organization could regain access to federal funds as soon as July 4, exactly one year after the Senate parliamentarian allowed Republicans to pass a one-year ban on national funding for the program, NOTUS reported Monday.

Amid all the chaos related to the Iran war, economic fallout, severed alliances over Trump’s midterm election endorsements, and a lapsed federal spy bill, Republicans have been unable to galvanize their party to vote to extend the limited ban.

“I think at this point, it’d be unlikely,” Montana Senator Steve Daines told NOTUS.

One possible pathway to advancing the anti-abortion agenda item would be to find a vehicle such as a third reconciliation bill to pass the ban, though Daines recognized that such bills are “hard to pass.”

Anti-abortion groups are pushing GOP lawmakers to find a way to pass a reconciliation bill regardless.

“Budget reconciliation remains the only viable legislative path to continuing to defund Big Abortion businesses like Planned Parenthood,” Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, wrote in a letter to Senate Republicans last week.

House Speaker Mike Johnson has signaled that he intends to push for a third reconciliation bill in the near future, even as other top Republicans reject the idea. Senators Mitch McConnell and Susan Collins have already said they don’t see it happening.

“I think it’s safe to conclude there will not be another reconciliation bill,” McConnell, the chair of the Appropriations Defense Subcommittee, said during a hearing earlier this month.

Louisiana Senator John Kennedy also said he didn’t believe a third round of budgetary efforts would garner much support from the party, considering the difficulty the party faced during attempts to muster a second bill. “It’s not looking real good,” he told reporters.

Planned Parenthood is the nation’s largest abortion provider, but that’s not the only service it offers. The nonprofit provides critical services such as physicals, cancer screenings, STI testing, and birth control access, and it does not use public funds to provide abortion care. Performing abortions with federal funds is already illegal based on the parameters set by the Hyde Amendment, which became law in 1976.

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Malcolm Ferguson
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Democratic States Want No Part of Trump’s “Great American State Fair”

The states don’t want to take part in a “partisan affair” and say costs are too high.

A Freedom 250 banner is hanging behind the columns of the U.S. Department of Agriculture building in Washington, D.C. Two American flags are visible on either side of the building on flagpoles, with "America 250" visible on one of them instead of the normal 50 stars.
Kevin Carter/Getty Images
A Freedom 250 banner celebrating America’s 250th birthday hangs behind the columns of the Department of Agriculture building in Washington, D.C.

More states are pulling out of President Trump’s “Great American State Fair,” citing financial constraints.

Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Oregon, and North Carolina—the last of which Trump won in 2024—have each declined to send a representative to the festival, which was meant to feature one 600-square-foot booth for each state, on the National Mall. The fair is set to begin Thursday, followed by 16 days of festivities. Notably, the six states that have dropped out all have Democratic governors.

“Given the significant costs associated with participating in the Great American State Fair, we chose to focus on supporting local efforts here in Washington state for this very important commemoration,” Washington Lieutenant Governor Denny Heck told The Hill. Fair organizer Freedom 250 has claimed that there are no cost requirements per state.

Luke Harkins, Oregon Governor Tina Kotek’s press secretary, pointed to “growing concerns that the event in Washington, D.C., is shaping up to be a more partisan affair than originally presented.” Massachusetts Governor Maura Healy proclaimed that “everybody’s bailing on” Trump’s fair, though fellow blue states California, Colorado, and New York will be present.

This Freedom 250 festival has been a mess from the beginning, and it hasn’t even gotten started. From the first wave of announced performers dropping out to entire states now bailing, it’s becoming less and less clear what the event will look like. Nevertheless, Trump is insisting that the show must go on.

“On July 4th, at The Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument, in beautiful and safe Washington D.C., we are going to host the most spectacular TRUMP RALLY of them all, a ‘TRIBUTE TO AMERICA,’” Trump wrote on Truth Social last week. “Starting at 7 P.M. EST, this HUGE Celebration will honor our Country’s People, Spirit, Strength, Resolve, and Triumphs. With the backdrop of the Lincoln Memorial and surrounding the beautifully new Reflecting Pool, more than 300 Members of our strong and talented Military Bands, Orchestras, and Ceremonial Units, will perform Patriotic Melodies and American Classics, and my Playlist.”

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Edith Olmsted
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Judge Blocks Trump’s “Voter Database” of Americans and Their SSNs

A federal judge has ruled against the Department of Homeland Security’s error-ridden database.

A man walks to a polling place to cast his vote.
Samuel Corum/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

A federal judge has blocked the Department of Homeland Security from continuing to “haphazardly” create a database of millions of Americans it knew was “inaccurate” in order to purge noncitizens from voter rolls.

U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan on Monday sided with the League of Women Voters, who’d challenged Trump’s directive to expand the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE.

In order to update the SAVE database, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services obtained Americans’ Social Security numbers from the Department of Government Efficiency—where some employees were accused of misusing Americans’ sensitive information—and combined it with citizenship data that “they knew to be unreliable,” Sooknanan wrote.

“Since then, states have partnered with the federal government to access the database and are actively removing United States citizens from voter rolls based on inaccurate information,” she wrote in a 75-page ruling. “All in all, the federal government has knowingly trampled on the privacy rights of American citizens in a manner that threatens the sacred right to vote.”

Sooknanan ruled that the Trump administration had violated protections enshrined in the Social Security Act, the Privacy Act, and the Administrative Procedures Act.

Since SAVE was updated, numerous voters have been falsely declared noncitizens, threatened with removal from voter registration rolls, and in some cases, referred to the DHS for possible criminal investigations. Sooknanan found that these misidentifications qualified as, at the very least, “a lesser form” of defamation, and said the administration’s arguments to the contrary “border on absurd.”

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Rachel Kahn
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Not So Fast: Iran Says It Didn’t Agree to Nuclear Inspections

Iranian state media says nuclear inspectors weren’t discussed in Switzerland.

Several Iranian officials wearing suits walk on carpet through a hallway in Switzerland.
URS FLUEELER/POOL/AFP/Getty Images
Iran’s delegation, including Minister of Foreign Affairs Abbas Araghchi (center) and Speaker of the Islamic Parliament Mohammed Bagher Ghalibaf (second from right) arrives for talks in Switzerland on June 21.

Despite Vice President JD Vance’s claims, Iran’s state media says it will not allow nuclear inspectors into the country, complicating the agreement made between the U.S. and Iran.

“The US Vice President’s claim regarding the return of [International Atomic Energy Agency] inspectors to Iran is false.… In the Swiss negotiations, there was no discussion about the presence of inspectors in the country,” an X post from the state-affiliated Fars News Agency said in Farsi on Monday, citing an unnamed “informed source.”

A screenshot of a tweet from Ron Filipkowski, who in turn screenshotted Fars News Agency's tweet in Farsi, translated to English, reading An informed source in a conversation with a Fars News Agency reporter: The US Vice President's claim regarding the return of IAEA inspectors to Iran is false This informed source continued: In the Swiss negotiations, there was no discussion about the presence of inspectors in the country.

Earlier on Monday, Vance announced that as part of the ongoing peace talks between Iran and the U.S., Iran would allow IAEA inspectors back into the country for the first time since July 2025. Iran suspended cooperation with the agency after the U.S. bombed its nuclear enrichment facilities.

Alongside the opening of the Strait of Hormuz, allowing IAEA inspectors into Iran was a condition of the peace deal, according to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. In exchange, the U.S. planned to temporarily lift sanctions on Iranian oil.

“In line with the ongoing productive talks in Switzerland, Iran has committed to free and open transit in the Strait of Hormuz and to permit International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors into their country,” Bessent posted on X Monday morning. “As part of the framework, Treasury has issued a temporary 60-day general license authorizing the production, delivery, and sale of Iranian oil.”

However, the White House and Tehran don’t seem to be on the same page. According to the “informed source,” inspectors were never on the table as part of the negotiations. Meanwhile, Iran may soon be able to finally reap the benefits of selling its oil at market price after years of U.S. sanctions.

This deal was already pretty sweet for Iran—but if it doesn’t have to let inspectors in, it’s even more unbalanced. Isn’t it great to have such an accomplished dealmaker as president?

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Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling
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Trump Appointee Suggested Seizing Greenland to Help Out Red Lobster

Yes, this is unfortunately a real story.

Thomas Dans official portrait
U.S. Arctic Research Commission
Thomas Dans

The White House has insisted that acquiring Greenland is necessary for America’s national security—but it seems that some Trump officials believe it would primarily benefit American seafood buffets.

A Trump official and Texas venture capitalist, Thomas Dans, was identified by the Danish government as one of three Americans running private “influence operations” in Greenland, according to The New Yorker. (Dans is the twin brother of Project 2025 author Paul Dans.)

Dans was appointed by Trump in December to serve as the chair of the U.S. Arctic Research Commission, a federal agency founded in 1984 to establish national policy as it relates to scientific advancement in the Arctic. Dans had previously held the position during Trump’s first term, as well.

In 2024, Dans founded American Daybreak, a nonprofit promoting U.S. business abroad. He continues to run the nonprofit, according to his LinkedIn profile, and has leveraged both positions to venture to Greenland numerous times.

But the take that Dans offered The New Yorker regarding the proposed foreign takeover was less than inspiring. In a predominantly off-the-record interview, Dans offered the potential commercial benefits to seafood franchises like Red Lobster as the primary reason to take over Greenland.

“My view is that the United States could take all the seafood Greenland could produce, and cut out the middleman, and keep it from China—and you could bring back all-you-can-eat shrimp at Red Lobster,” Dans said.

Dans has been a significant fixture in MAGA world’s Greenland agenda since before Trump returned to power. He was the organizer of a “tourism trip” that sent Donald Trump Jr., far-right political pundit Charlie Kirk, and Trump administration staffer Sergio Gor to the island in January 2025, according to an analysis by Responsible Statecraft. That trek ended in several humiliating revelations, including reports from local media that Trump Jr. reportedly convinced homeless residents to wear MAGA merchandise in exchange for food.

Two months later, in March, when Greenlandic outrage stumped his efforts to send Usha Vance to a dogsled race in Sisimiut, Dans was irate.

“American Daybreak, and I personally, were very disappointed by the negative and hostile reaction—fanned by often false press reports—to the United States supporting Greenland and hoping to learn about its culture, tradition, and people,” Dans wrote in an extended missive on X at the time. “These press stories and Greenlandic officials’ overreaction are harmful to the strong relationship, based on mutual respect, shared interest, and courtesy, that the United States has long enjoyed with Greenland and hopes to expand upon.”

Days later, Greenland’s various political parties set aside their differences to unite under a singular goal: opposing U.S. aggression.

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Malcolm Ferguson
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Judge Quashes Trump’s Revenge on Minnesota’s Democratic Leaders

The White House was trying to force compliance during Operation Metro Surge in January.

Tim Walz standing outdoors behind a microphone, wearing a windbreaker in front of Minnesota officials including Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and Senator Amy Klobuchar.
Alex Kormann/The Minnesota Star Tribune/Getty Images
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz holds a press conference alongside Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey in 2025.

A federal judge has killed the Trump administration’s attempt to subpoena Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, and other state leaders, finding that the Justice Department used the subpoena to try to force the state to capitulate to the White House’s demands regarding Operation Metro Surge in January—which saw federal agents kill two American citizens, Alex Pretti and Renee Good.

“Initiating a criminal investigation in order to harass political opponents or to coerce them into taking official action—particularly official action that the federal government cannot directly require those political opponents to take—is a blatantly unlawful and unethical use of the grand-jury process,” Judge Patrick Schiltz wrote. “The only question, then, is whether the challenged subpoenas were issued for one of these forbidden purposes. The Court has no doubt that they were. On the other hand, the Department has struggled—without success—to identify a single plausible investigatory justification for the subpoenas.”

Walz, Frey, Attorney General Keith Ellison, and St. Paul Mayor Kaohly Her were each subpoenaed in January on the grounds that they were impeding federal agents from doing their jobs. The subpoenas also accompanied weeks of vitriolic rhetoric from the administration regarding Somali Americans and immigrants.

“Today’s ruling is a victory for the rule of law and our democracy. A federal district judge found that the U.S. Department of Justice’s investigation into me and other Minnesota elected officials was politically motivated, unconstitutional, and meritless,” Walz wrote on X after the news. “The U.S. Justice Department is pursuing criminal investigations into the President’s political opponents. This case was just one example of that, but we are seeing daily reminders of this administration’s lawlessness—in Minnesota and around the country. We all must continue to seek justice and uphold the rule of law. I will never stop exercising my constitutional rights to stand up for Minnesotans and the American freedoms that we hold dear.”

“Subpoenaing political opponents because they spoke on behalf of their constituents violates the core tenets of our democracy and human decency,” said Frey.

The Trump administration has yet to respond to Judge Schlitz’s ruling.

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Edith Olmsted
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Trump Moves to Make It a Whole Lot More Expensive to Become a Citizen

The Department of Homeland Security is planning to wildly increase citizenship application fees.

A hand holding an American flag and a printed copy of the Star Spangled Banner lyrics at a citizenship ceremony.
Kent Nishimura/Bloomberg/Getty Images

The Department of Homeland Security has proposed a massive increase in citizenship application fees, as the Trump administration continues to upend legal immigration.

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services proposed a rule Monday that would raise the fee for a paper citizenship application by 75 percent from $760 to $1,330, and the fee for an online application by 80 percent from $710 to $1,280, according to Newsweek.

The proposed rule would also make it more expensive to seek a hearing challenging a denied naturalization. If adopted, the rule would raise the fee for an appeal from $830 to $1,475 by paper, and from $780 to $1,425 online.

Under the proposed rule, the government would scrap fee waivers and a reduced-fee option for individuals experiencing financial hardship. The changes would present a significant financial hurdle for lower-income immigrants, further transforming legal immigration into a privilege for the extremely wealthy and a moneymaking scheme for the federal government.

This proposed rule is yet another way the Trump administration is attempting to curb legal immigration. The government has stacked the deck by appointing immigration judges bent on denying asylum claims, curbed America’s refugee program, and imposed steep price increases on H-1B visas.


 

 

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