Politics

Iran’s foreign minister, Javad Zarif, has spent the last few days in New York, using American media to make a full-court press in a last-ditch attempt to persuade the United States not to tear up the nuclear deal with his country. As President Trump and Macron discussed what to do about Iran, Zarif complained about the lack of respect Donald Trump’s administration has shown the Islamic Republic. Talking about the prospect Trump will decide by the May 12 deadline not to recertify the deal, he asked rhetorically, “Who would, in their right mind, deal with the U.S. anymore?”It’s a striking strategy, not least because President Trump couldn’t make a similar media tour in Iran.

Call it the audacity of hope. Emmanuel Macron wants to become the savior of the West. Like Sartre, he wants to tell Trump that there is no exit, at least when it comes to the Iran deal.He gave Donald Trump an air kiss on the cheek yesterday before he headed off to Mount Vernon for a dinner with the Trumps. Next comes a state dinner, the first Trump has held. Planned by Melania herself, it promises to be a fulsome occasion, filled with pious asseverations of brotherly love between two revolutionary nations. By contrast, when German chancellor Angela Merkel visits later this week, she will likely be banished to the scullery. Trump has turned his back on Germany. He has grudges to settle. Trump’s grandfather Friedrich was booted out of Bavaria in 1905.

Celebrity apologies are all the rage. Such is the power of Twitter, that stars without round-the-clock PR surveillance and teams of media advisors will often find themselves in hot water. This week, it’s pop-country singer Shania Twain who has fallen foul of the perpetually offended. Why? Twain had the audacity to talk about supporting Trump in an interview with the Guardian. “I would have voted for him because, even though he was offensive, he seemed honest”, she said. “Do you want straight or polite? Not that you shouldn’t be able to have both. If I were voting, I just don’t want bullshit. I would have voted for a feeling that it was transparent. And politics has a reputation of not being that, right?”, she continued.

Last week Dave Rubin (of The Rubin Report) sat down for a rare interview with Thomas Sowell.  For three quarters of an hour they roamed over an amazing array of issues – social, political and economic. YouTube (where The Rubin Report is posted) demonetised the video immediately.  This is a favourite trick of the platform – to signal YouTube’s disapproval of the content, making sure that the no one (other than YouTube, of course) and certainly not the content’s creator can make any money out of it.  For YouTube it would seem that nothing is scarier than a black economist talking brilliantly about the issues of the age. Then on Saturday something strange happened in the universe.

So Rudy Giuliani finally got a job from Donald Trump. The former mayor of New York was one of the few establishment Republican figures to back Trump early in his run for president. His support was enthusiastic, and he broadcast it forcefully and repeatedly during the campaign. He thought it would lead to a plum post in a Trump administration—he had his sights set high, on either secretary of state or attorney general—but he was rebuffed. Now he’s got a job, though it’s one almost no one else in the country wanted: personal legal counsel to the president.

Nikki Haley is at war with Donald Trump. She may be his ambassador to the United Nations, but she wants to set a foreign policy all her own, closer to the global interventionism of George W. Bush or Hillary Clinton than to the muscular but restrained foreign policy that Trump campaigned on in 2016. Her differences with the president were on stark display this week, as she first announced sanctions against Russia that Trump had not approved, then shot back at the new director of the national economic council, Larry Kudlow, when he offered a diplomatic interpretation of her mistake. Kudlow ascribed her off-message remarks to “some momentary confusion,” to which Haley responded, “With all due respect, I don’t get confused.

Uh-oh. President Trump is wading into diplomatic waters in North Korea that he may have trouble navigating. Yesterday, he proudly revealed that talks with North Korea have been taking place at the “highest levels.” He also gave his blessing to the prospect of a peace treaty between the two Koreas, which currently only enjoy an armistice. But Trump also indicated that he wants to try and keep his options open: “It'll be taking place probably in early June, or a little before that, assuming things go well. It's possible things won't go well, and we won't have the meetings and we'll just continue to go along this very strong path that we've taken. But we'll see.

Angus King said today that he hasn’t made up his mind about President Donald Trump’s new pick for secretary of state, current CIA director Mike Pompeo. “I am legitimately undecided,” the Maine senator, who sits as an independent but caucuses with the Democrats, told CNN this morning. Kentucky Republican senator Rand Paul has declared he won’t vote for Pompeo. And since Republicans have a slim 51-49 majority -- with Senator John McCain being treated back in Arizona for brain cancer -- the administration has been looking for Democratic votes to secure Pompeo’s confirmation. King seemed like a natural choice, as he voted to confirm Pompeo as CIA director at the beginning of the Trump administration. “That is a very different job.

It’s shrinking. A new Washington Post-ABC News poll indicates that the Democrats’ edge over the Republicans in the forthcoming midterm election has dwindled among registered voters, from a 12-percent lead to 4-points. Donald Trump’s own approval ratings have edged up slightly to 40 percent, but his disapproval rating remains at a daunting 56 percent. So is it time to start waving goodbye to the Democratic wave predicted for the fall? Actually, the poll may have a salutary effect upon Democrats, reminding them that Trump and the GOP remain a potent foe.  Republicans hold a staggering 60 to 31 percent lead over Democrats among white voters who have not attended college. At the same time, far more Republican than Democratic seats are competitive races.

Donald Trump finally had something positive to say on Twitter. After nearly a week of dithering, the president made a decision and announced it, to a fair amount of surprise, on national television on Friday night: The United States, in concert with the United Kingdom and France, would launch targeted strikes on Syrian chemical weapons facilities, in response to a heartbreaking attack a week earlier in a Damascus suburb that killed dozens of civilians, including children. “A perfectly executed strike last night. Thank you to France and the United Kingdom for their wisdom and the power of their fine Military. Could not have had a better result. Mission Accomplished!” Trump tweeted on Saturday morning. Those last two words gave many pause.

President Donald Trump must have a lot on his mind as an eventful week—even by the new standard he’s created in Washington—comes to an end. He has now met the deadline he set himself on Monday, when he promised to make “major decisions” within 24 to 48 hours on Syria, after “Animal Assad,” as he calls that country’s dictator, unleashed a chemical weapon attack on civilians including children. A trade war between the United States and China is still brewing, with American farmers worried their livelihoods are at risk after China vowed to stamp tariffs on their products in retaliation for Trump’s tariffs on aluminium and steel—and Trump reconsidering his rejection of the Trans-Pacific Partnership to help them.

So Britain is responsible for staging the Syrian gas attack? According to Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov: “We have evidence that proves Britain was directly involved in organizing this provocation.” Evidence, shmevidence. Next thing you know Moscow will be offering to assist Yulia Skripal. Oh, wait. It already did.Vladimir Putin cannot conceal that his regime is complicit in some very odious deeds—and that it’s feeling increasingly confident about taunting the West. The Russian claim is deliberately preposterous.