She’s My Daughter … She’s My Sister’ – It’s difficult to ignore the similarities between President Trump’s flipping back and forth between negotiating with Iran and bombing them back to the Stone Age, and the denouement of Roman Polanski’s Chinatown, of Jack Nicholson’s J.J. Gittes trying to slap the truth out of Faye Dunaway’s Evelyn Mulwray.
Axios could not slap the truth out of the president when he told the publication Monday that he has decided to pause US strikes on Iran and give negotiations yet another chance.
Call this déjà vu or call it the Groundhog Day war. It’s safe to say Trump has, over the last 150 days or five months, depending on how you like to count, gone from threatening all-out war on Iran to negotiating with its most reasonable leaders and then back to ballistic Armageddon at least a few times over. In almost the same breath, Trump went on to tell Axios he could “return to expanded military operations if diplomacy fails.”
Those current negotiations, the online publication goes on to explain, are focused on yet another new deal that would reopen the historically always-open Strait of Hormuz and relaunch talks on a comprehensive nuclear deal.
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Slowing the Vote – The Trump administration’s US solicitor general, D. John Sauer, has called on the Supreme Court to allow the administration to fully implement President Trump’s executive order that seeks to restrict mail-in voting (per SCOTUSblog). US District Judge Indira Talwani has paused a portion of the EO in 23 states and the District of Columbia.
Sauer called the judge’s ruling “extraordinary” and said it “flouts settled” doctrines governing when courts can weigh in on a dispute. Sauer also asked SCOTUS to issue an immediate administrative stay that would put the court’s order on hold while the justices consider the administration’s request.
Meanwhile … The rift between President Trump and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) over how Thune hasn’t sacked the filibuster in order to get the SAVE America Act passed has come to this: Trump wants Thune to keep the Senate in session next week, when it’s supposed to begin its summer break and hit the midterm campaign trails (per Time magazine).
Thune isn’t having it, even after Trump Truth Socialed; “John Thune should NOT allow the United States Senate to ‘leave town’ until it passes the Save America Act or, better still, TERMINATE THE FILIBUSTER, where Republicans can pass everything they ever dreamed of, including a full and deep throated SAVE AMERICA ACT, the budget, and even the looming debt ceiling disaster, 1929!”–TL
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MONDAY 7/27/26
War-Free Weekend – It’s not the end of the US-Israeli war on Iran. It’s not a ceasefire. It’s a break.
President Trump over the weekend paused US strikes on Iran for the weekend following two straight weeks of attacks, according to Semafor. Trump had wanted a major escalation against Iran but held off because of concerns the US military has a dwindling supply of interceptor missiles, The New York Times has scooped.
It’s not that the US military is running short on interceptors, but rather that Iran is very interested in talks with the Trump administration, US Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz told Fox News Sunday. He said the president is “giving talks some space. He’s giving it a little bit of room. We’ve had both Oman and Iran, and a number of our other negotiators, engaged at every level in the past few weeks, and particularly in the past few days.”
Again.
Tuesday’s visitors … Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy both are scheduled to visit with President Trump at the White House Tuesday.
“Our key priorities are air defense, maritime security, and joint defense production – our cooperation that strengthens both countries,” Zelenskyy says (Kyiv Independent).
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Pricier Gas – National average of unleaded regular is $4.11 per gallon Monday according to AAA, unchanged from Sunday, but 1.9 cents higher than last Thursday and $1.308 costlier than February 27. Diesel is $5.296, up 8.7 cents per gallon over Thursday and +$1.572 over late February.
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Another Prog Dem – The Maine Democratic Party made it official Saturday morning and chose in a special convention former state Sen. Troy Jackson as its US Senate candidate to try and deny Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) a sixth term (per Politico). Jackson, a progressive fifth-generation logger replaces scandal-plagued progressive oyster farmer Graham Platner, who dropped out of the race over a former girlfriend’s allegations of sexual assault.
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Meanwhile, at the WHCD – President Trump presided over the White House Correspondents Dinner at the Washington Waldorf Astoria Friday night, rescheduled some three months after a gunman interrupted at the Washington Hilton, with the same sort of duality he displayed early in his celebrity real estate developer career, when he would call reporters posing as “John Barron” to praise Donald J. Trump.
“What do we do here? Is this supposed to be fun? Am I supposed to be serious? Am I supposed to be a comedian?” he began, according to The New York Times coverage Sunday.
He shook hands with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins and The Wall Street Journal’s Josh Dawsey as they crossed the stage to accept awards for their tough coverage of the White House.
Trump “mocked the appearance and careers of individual reporters, some of whom were in the room,” and gave Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA), Rosie O’Donnell, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (D-NY), former New Jersey Gov. Chris Cristie (R) and Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) the MAGA rally treatment.
And after he apparently lost the room completely by the end of his speech, the president pulled out a “Trump 2028” hat and placed it on his head. –Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa