Politics

Donald Trump is on a roll. Last week, he bombed Iran and imposed a ceasefire on Tehran and Jerusalem. Now the Supreme Court, in its final day of session, has handed him another victory by constraining the power of federal judges to constrain the executive branch. The verdict is clear: the Trump administration will have much more latitude to recast America.In essence, the Supreme Court is consolidating a conservative counter-revolution that began, as Sam Tanenhaus notes in his exemplary new biography of William F. Buckley, Jr., after World War II and is reaching full flower under Trump. Once upon a time, liberals enacted sweeping policies and programs through the courts. Now it is the right’s turn.

With Iran’s nuclear sites “obliterated” and the 12 DAY WAR in the rear-view, the Trump administration can now turn attention back to its core mission: defeating the Enemy Within. Buried within all the war and New York election hubbub this week was the news that the US had arrested 11 Iranian nationals who were in the country illegally, including, according to the New York Post, “a former Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps member with suspected ties to Hezbollah, an ex Iranian army sniper and a terror watchlist suspect.” The administration, not without reason, is concerned that Iran will activate “sleeper cells” in the US.

As I write, the time is 10 p.m. in New York City and the temperature is hovering somewhere around unbearable. It’s a nice respite from the 100 degrees the city hit on Tuesday afternoon, as voters flocked to the polls to cast their ballots in an unusually heated mayoral primary. Polls closed at 9 p.m., and a town famed for its impatience was given the gift of a clear front-runner. Improbably, against all odds, all common wisdom, the vast majority of polls and even the betting markets, the night ended with Zohran Mamdani, the 33-year-old state assemblyman and proud “Muslim democratic socialist” as the Democratic nominee for New York City mayor. “I’m very proud of the campaign that we ran,” Cuomo told his supporters as Mamdani’s lead proved insurmountable.

Where is Tulsi Gabbard? The country’s Director of National Intelligence has been glaringly absent as the biggest national security story in years continues to develop. In both the lead-up to and the aftermath of President Trump’s decision to strike Iran’s nuclear sites, Gabbard has barely been seen, or heard. It’s a strange time for the chief of the US intelligence community to go silent, leading to a growing number of questions that Americans – particularly MAGA Americans – would like answered.It’s Gabbard’s now-infamous testimony to Congress in March – and a video posted to social media earlier this month – that are thought to have sidelined her from the Trump administration in recent weeks.

In what will likely be remembered as the most monumental decision of his presidency, Donald Trump decided to pull the trigger. The very vocal portion of his supporters that advocated publicly against action to destroy Iran's nuclear capabilities found out, much to their chagrin, where they stand in the pecking order. Under Trump, the President himself, alone, decides what will be done – and he will not be threatened, cajoled or blackmailed out of doing what he believes to be right. Trump has been emphatic since 2011: Iran cannot be allowed to have a bomb. And he was willing to go as far as sending seven B-2 bombers thousands of miles across the seas to make sure of it.What does this do to Trump's coalition?

So much for the contention that President Donald Trump always chickens out. Trump has done what George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Joe Biden contemplated but never executed: bombing Iran's main nuclear sites with a combination of bunker busters and Tomahawk cruise missiles.  In his brief White House address on Saturday night, Trump exuded confidence, stating that the Iranian nuclear program had been "obliterated." But he made it clear that he is prepared to up the ante, pledging that if Iran doesn't agree to a peace deal, then the bombing campaign will be expanded. Trump said that the US “will go to those other targets with precision, speed and skill." America is now at war with Iran. Already Trump's MAGA followers are (largely) hailing his audacious decision.