Donald trump

What will the Iran ceasefire cost Trump?

Might Donald Trump travel to Tehran this spring to open an American embassy and declare that he’s fallen in love with the new Iranian leadership? His volte-face on Tuesday night – announcing a two-week ceasefire with Iran – suggests that Trump is embarking upon a new course in the Middle East. After threatening to bomb Iran back to the Stone Age, Trump announced that it’s time to call the whole thing off: “We received a 10-point proposal from Iran, and believe it is a workable basis on which to negotiate.”  What that negotiation will look like is an open question. Early reports suggest that Trump, not Iran, caved on everything from Iran’s control over the Strait of Hormuz to acceptance of uranium enrichment, from the lifting of sanctions to

ceasefire

Trump falls back on ‘you’re fired!’ as midterms loom

Pam Bondi’s departure as attorney general has prompted the usual Kremlinologist speculation. One theory has it that Donald Trump was furious that she may have warned Democrat Eric Swalwell about a planned FBI release of documents detailing his past relationship with a Chinese spy. Bondi’s replacement, Todd Blanche, dismissed these claims as false. Another theory is that the President had finally had enough of her errors over the handling of the Epstein files, given Bondi was recently subpoenaed in a bipartisan effort by the House. And Trump is widely reported to be frustrated at her failure to indict his archenemies, former FBI director James Comey and New York Attorney General

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Trump touts the successes of his war for peace

“Ceasefire!” Some people worried that President Trump was taking to the air waves tonight in order to declare a ceasefire with Iran. That, clearly, was what Masoud Pezeshkian, the President of Iran hoped for in his careful, lengthy and mendacious “Letter to the American People” today. Pezeshkian said that “portraying Iran as a threat is neither consistent with historical reality nor with present-day observable facts.” Tell that to the hundreds of American victims of Iranian aggression. Tell it to the thousands of victims of Iran’s proxies like Hezbollah and Hamas.  President Trump was having none of it. Operation Epic Fury, he said, was all about targeting the world’s leading sponsor of state terror and preventing

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Welcome to All Kings Day

King Charles III is planning a state visit to Washington DC next month. He is rumored to be staying at the White House, attending a state dinner and possibly addressing a joint meeting of Congress. The last royal to address Congress was Charles’s mother, the late Queen Elizabeth II speaking to a full chamber in May 1991, during George H.W. Bush’s presidency, around three months after the end of Operation Desert Storm. Britain contributed more than 50,000 troops to Iraq during the Gulf War which was – and remains to this day – the largest deployment of British military personnel since World War Two. (Pay no heed to Punchbowl’s Jake

‘We don’t know what’s going on or why we’re doing this’: how Trump’s Iran gamble backfired

“Donald Trump is a complicated person with simple ideas,” said Kellyanne Conway, the former White House senior counselor. “Way too many politicians are the exact opposite.” It’s a good way of understanding the 45th and 47th President and his extraordinary success. His turbulent personality causes mayhem, yet his political aims have remained constant, straightforward and popular. Decades ago, as a New York tycoon with a keen eye on international affairs, he identified three priorities for America: tackle the nation’s trade imbalances, force NATO allies to spend more on defense, and destroy terrorists. When it comes to realizing those simple ideas, however, his more complex attributes emerge. Trump believes in mixing