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Grim verdict as ex-GOP operative says US is on a 'raft ride down the sewer river' of Trump
A former GOP operative argued President Donald Trump "is drowning in his own failure" in a video on Monday.Anti-Trump conservative Steve Schmidt described how Trump's failed Iran war, struggling economy and blunders around the algae-ridden reflecting pool have further damaged the United States. He suggested the next move would be the Trump cabinet meeting inside the Situation Room, and how future generations would view this "as a portal into understanding the insanity of this moment.""The economy is wrecked. The nation dishonored, the people divided," Schmidt said. "Ghislaine Maxwell sitting in minimum security. All of it a function of our national raft ride down the sewer river of Donald Trump's creation." "It may not seem like we are all of us, on a boat, together, upon that fetid pool. But trust me. We are," Schmidt said.
'Ridiculous!' Furious Fox News host calls to pull JD Vance from peace negotiations
Fox News host Brian Kilmeade lost it, calling for President Donald Trump to replace JD Vance as Iran negotiator — blasting his Israel criticism as "ridiculous."On Fox & Friends, Kilmeade unloaded on Vice President JD Vance after Vance warned Israeli cabinet members Thursday that Trump is "the only powerful ally" they have "anywhere left in the entire world." The remarks came as U.S. and Iranian negotiators were deep into a 60-day sprint to flesh out the memorandum of understanding the two countries signed last week."The president's gotta go on the inside," Kilmeade said, "because then the negotiators are wasting their time. No one's happy with this document. The president doesn't seem to be happy.""The fact that he hopped on Friday and started ripping Israel and said they have no friends — that is ridiculous!" Kilmeade continued. "Have you heard of the Abraham Accords? Do you understand that the Gulf States are tighter with Israel than ever before?"He then demanded Trump take over directly — and called Vance out by name."I think JD Vance, who's late to this party, doesn't understand the depth of the disagreement," Kilmeade said.MS NOW reported this week that Vance has compounded his inexperience with a series of false claims — including insisting that the deal's terms for destroying Iran's enriched uranium stockpile are "spelled out very clearly," when the memorandum of understanding includes no such provisions. Vance repeated the claim even after it was discredited.The vice president arrived Sunday at the Lake Lucerne Summit in Switzerland — where U.S. negotiators sat across from Iran's foreign minister and parliamentary speaker — but PBS reported Trump threatened to "hit Iran very hard again" on social media while talks were underway.Fox & Friends contributor Lawrence Jones, who spoke with Trump over the weekend, said the president told him privately the memorandum of understanding "was a starting point" — and that if Iran kept pushing him, "I gotta strike them."
Onlookers zero in on odd detail from JD Vance photo: '100% a message being sent'
Amid the ongoing negotiations in Switzerland between Washington and Tehran, Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani shared a photograph of himself and Vice President JD Vance on social media, and an odd detail in the image sparked a wave of speculation among onlookers.Posted Sunday night on X, the photograph shows a seated Vance typing on a laptop beside Al Thani, who is gesturing toward the laptop screen. Standing behind them is Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and special peace envoy. What drew curiosity from onlookers, however, was what appeared to be inserted into the laptop.A card can be seen inserted into the laptop sitting in Vance’s lap that appears to be a Common Access Card (CAC), an identification card used by U.S. defense personnel. The photograph on the card, however, appears to be of a woman and not of Vance.“I would love to know the intended symbolism of Qatar’s prime minister posting a picture of JD Vance logging into a laptop using someone else’s CAC card,” wrote Caroline Orr Bueno, a journalist and social sciences scholar, in a social media post on X. “There is 100% a read-between-the-lines message being sent.”Tim Miller, host of The Bulwark Podcast and MS NOW analyst, raised questions about the extent with which Qatar – which is not a signatory to the 14-point memorandum of understanding between the United States and Iran – was involved in negotiations.“Why is a Saudi agent with no security clearance representing America in this meeting?” Miller asked in a social media post on X to his more than 460,000 followers.The progressive media organization MeidasTouch simply asked “where is Marco,” referring to the notable absence of Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Anusar Farooqui, a writer and geopolitical analyst, labeled the photograph as evidence of an “agency fail.”I would love to know the intended symbolism of Qatar’s prime minister posting a picture of JD Vance logging into a laptop using someone else’s CAC card. There is 100% a read-between-the-lines message being sent. https://t.co/UiyDaZm4bM— Caroline Orr Bueno, Ph.D (@RVAwonk) June 22, 2026
'Slowly, then very quickly': Economist shares striking warning as Trump's war deal falters
President Donald Trump's war with Iran put the global economy on the brink of collapse, and one economist warns that it could get worse if one sector of the economy begins to show signs of weakness. Liaquat Ahamed, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and former World Bank investment chief, said during a recent episode of "The Court of History" podcast on the Legal AF Network that Trump's unilateral decision to impose tariffs on America's trading partners had already weakened the global economy before his war with Iran began. After the Iranian regime closed the Strait of Hormuz, the economy came exceedingly close to the brink, Ahamed argued. The only thing that saved Trump from collapsing the global economy was the enormous amounts of money tech companies are spending to build data centers around the world, Ahamed added. Without that, the economy would be in a "dark place," he continued. "The tech companies are spending trillions of dollars to build these data centers, and that is essentially sustaining the global economy," Ahamed said. Ahamed compared the state of the global economy to recent historical crashes, borrowing the old adage attributed to Ernest Hemingway that economic crises often unfold "slowly, then very quickly." He noted that the current value of the U.S. stock market is more than double the country's GDP, which he described as similar to the valuations seen during the dot-com bubble. That is happening at a time when more stress is being injected into the economy. Tensions between the U.S. and Iran appear to be ramping up again after Vice President JD Vance traveled to Switzerland to negotiate a deal with the Iranian regime to end the conflict. The Iranians announced they are closing the Strait of Hormuz once again in response to Israel's continued fighting with Hezbollah in Lebanon, which the regime has described as a "red line" in the negotiations. "Calling an end to this whole thing is very hard," Ahamed said. "On the other hand, I can assure you there will be an end."
Expert uncorks blunt advice for Trump on MS NOW as Iran deal slips away: 'Just shut up!'
A foreign-relations expert offered blunt advice to President Donald Trump as negotiations between his administration and the Iranian regime deteriorate. Joseph Cirincione, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, told MS NOW's Alex Witt on "Alex Witt Reports" that Trump appears to have a way to make a stronger deal with the Iranian regime, but the president is blind to it because of how much he is blustering about the state of the war. His comments come at a time when Trump's deal with Iran has become the "joke in Washington," according to Cirincione, and the Iranian regime seems to be backing away from an agreement struck between the two sides over continued fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon. On Sunday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi refused to shake hands with Vice President JD Vance when the two met for peace negotiations, which some observers described as a "humiliation" for Vance. While the two sides appear far apart on the war, Cirincione pointed out that Trump could still accomplish one of his major goals by preventing the Iranian regime from developing a nuclear weapon. "The Obama approach to negotiation worked. If Trump hadn't torn that up, we would have a fundamentally different relationship with Iran now, and Iran would still be many, many years away from the ability to build a bomb," Cirincione said. "So the only hope is to go back to negotiations and to hope that because Iran has emerged stronger from this war ... it doesn't really need a nuclear weapon as much as they thought they did." "They thought they needed it for defense," he continued. "Well, they have stronger deterrence right now." Cirincione said there is one catch that could make or break the talks. "I think they are willing to compromise on the program if Trump can just shut up and let the negotiators get to work and force the Israelis to stop their war in Lebanon; you could get a deal," he said. "You could still salvage this. But Trump has to act, not bluster."
Senator sounds alarm over G7 'nightmare scene' exposing 'state-like power' of corporations
Sen. Chris Murphy says a single image from this week's G7 summit captures one of his deepest fears about the growing power of the tech industry: the chief executives of major artificial intelligence companies seated at the table alongside presidents and prime ministers, as if they were heads of state themselves."At the G7, the CEOs of the big AI companies sat at the table like heads of state, alongside presidents and prime ministers," the Connecticut Democrat wrote, sharing a photo of the summit's main session. His reaction was blunt: "This is the nightmare scene."For Murphy, the optics were not a harmless photo op but a visual representation of how far corporate influence has crept into the highest levels of government. The concern is that companies building the most powerful AI systems are no longer simply lobbying governments from the outside, but are being granted a seat among the elected leaders who are supposed to regulate them.Murphy paired the warning with a call for governments to push back against what he described as the "state-like power" of these firms. He floated several possible responses, suggesting officials consider "taking ownership shares, breaking them up into smaller entities, or imposing a regulatory structure that controls their power over citizens." The range of options, from partial public ownership to outright breakup, signals how seriously he believes the threat should be taken.The senator has emerged as one of the more vocal critics in Congress of concentrated corporate and technological power, and his framing fits a broader unease on the left about the cozy relationship between the tech sector and the current administration. The sight of AI executives integrated into a gathering traditionally reserved for the world's most powerful elected officials, in his telling, is evidence that the balance has already tipped too far toward private industry.His underlying argument is that state-like power demands a state-like response. If a handful of companies can shape economies, information, and security on a scale once reserved for governments, Murphy contends, then leaving their authority unchecked is itself the danger. The photo, to him, is less a snapshot of cooperation than a warning about who is really sitting at the table when the world's decisions get made.At the G7, the CEOs of the big AI companies sat at the table like heads of state, alongside presidents and prime ministers.This is the nightmare scene.Governments need to have a response to the state-like power of these companies, whether it’s by taking ownership shares,… pic.twitter.com/aPdK7FFRaE— Chris Murphy ???? (@ChrisMurphyCT) June 21, 2026
Trump's behavior at home is blowing up in his face on the world stage: analyst
Donald Trump's habit of punishing Republicans who cross him may have just cost him the political cover he needs to sell his Iran deal, according to political analyst Sabrina Haake, who argues the president's domestic vendettas are actively undermining him abroad.In her latest newsletter, Haake makes the case that Trump's "personal thirst for revenge at home is hurting him on Iran." Her logic is straightforward: the lawmakers Trump targeted in primaries, several of whom lost as a result, no longer owe him anything and are now free to attack his foreign policy without fear of consequences. As she puts it, they "have zero Fs left to give."The result has been a chorus of Republican criticism aimed at the memorandum of understanding that ended Trump's war with Iran. Haake points to Sen. Bill Cassidy, who called the agreement "the worst foreign policy blunder in decades" and warned that Iran learned "threatening the Strait of Hormuz works." Sen. Thom Tillis flagged the war's $100 billion price tag, while Rep. Thomas Massie noted that figure is five times what Congress spends annually on roads and bridges. Even former Vice President Mike Pence said the deal "smacks of appeasement," and Sen. Ted Cruz blasted a reconstruction fund he described as handing "billions of dollars to theocratic lunatics."Haake's central argument is that this is a self-inflicted wound. Trump alienated the very voices he would now need to defend the agreement, and he is reportedly planning to skip the congressional review required under the 2015 Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, a move that members of both parties have urged him not to make. Having burned those bridges, she contends, he is left without allies to make his case.The analyst is also sharply critical of the deal's substance, which she says bears no resemblance to the "UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER" Trump demanded fifteen weeks ago. Instead of regime change, disarmament, or American control of Iranian oil, Haake writes that the MOU waives sanctions immediately, lets Iran resume oil exports, and steers an estimated $300 billion reconstruction package toward the country, while securing only a temporary 60-day window of toll-free passage through the Strait of Hormuz. She frames it bluntly as the US "effectively paying Iran to stop threatening international shipping."
Ex-senior official suspects Trump to 'bury horrific' incident that killed children: report
A former senior Pentagon official sounded the alarm on Sunday over their belief that the Trump administration was likely to bury an internal investigation into an incident that coincided with the launch of the U.S. war against Iran, an incident one Democratic lawmaker described as “one of the most horrific episodes” of the “illegal Trump war.”Trump’s Operation Epic Fury began with “double tap” strikes on Shajareh Tayyebeh, an Iranian girls’ elementary school, which killed at least 156 people, 120 of them children. Trump initially blamed Iran for the strikes before it became clear that a U.S.-made Tomahawk missile was used in the attack.While the U.S. military is reportedly still investigating the incident, several former Pentagon and national security officials “expressed doubt” to The Guardian for its report published on Sunday that the results of the investigation would ever be made public.“It’s very rare that you would have a military operation and not have some incidents where there was a mistaken target and civilians are harmed or killed, but then there is a system for investigating, assessing accountability and taking responsibility,” one former senior Pentagon official told The Guardian, speaking on the condition of anonymity.“There’s a very clear process for this, and I’m very doubtful that the [Defense Secretary Pete] Hegseth Pentagon will follow through.”Rep. Yassamin Ansari (D-AZ), also speaking with The Guardian, said that she had vigorously pressed the Trump administration for answers, only to be stonewalled.“The US strike [on the girls’ elementary school] is one of the most horrific episodes of the entire illegal Trump war in Iran,” Ansari said.“Donald Trump is hiding the truth from the American people and Congress, and deflecting blame to Secretary Hegseth, because he does not want the public to know the true horrors of what he unleashed on the Iranian people with absolutely nothing to show for it.”
Sweat, tears and camaraderie as 20,000 runners take on world’s largest ultramarathon
For one day every June, South Africa’s searing racial inequality seems to melt away at Comrades raceIn the early morning dark, thousands of runners waited, jostling with anticipation. South Africa’s national anthem rang out. Then the haunting swell of Shosholoza, first sung by Zimbabwean migrant workers in South Africa’s goldmines. Finally, that unmistakable, spine-tingling piano: Chariots of Fire.Runners gather before the start of the marathon Continue reading...
Trump floats new plan to impose his own tolls on Strait of Hormuz
President Donald Trump took to Truth Social to muse about who gets to charge ships for passing through the Strait of Hormuz — and landed on an answer that put the United States, and himself, at the center of it.In a post Wednesday, Trump declared there would be "NO TOLLS in the Hormuz Strait for 60 days" during what he called the "Cease Fire Period," and "NO TOLLS after the 60 day period has expired" — with one sweeping exception. The carve-out: tolls "imposed by and for the United States of America," should the underlying deal collapse.The justification he offered was pretty clear. The fees, he wrote, would be compensation "for services rendered as the Guardian Angel to the countries of the Middle East," covering "past, present, and future reimbursement of costs." He signed off, as he often does, with "Thank you for your attention to this matter!!!"The post recasts a fragile ceasefire — one Trump secured only after threatening that Iran's "whole civilization will die tonight" — as a kind of protection arrangement, with Washington positioned to bill the region for the privilege of safe passage.His latest post openly contemplates American tolls rather than ruling them out.Iran, for its part, has confirmed it won't collect tolls for 60 days but, per semiofficial outlet Tasnim, plans to start charging "for services" once the window closes — leaving both Washington and Tehran eyeing fees on the same waterway.The stakes behind the bravado are real. Roughly a fifth of the world's oil — about 20 million barrels a day — moves through the Strait of Hormuz, alongside much of the globe's liquefied natural gas.
'How humiliating': JD Vance ripped as his confident Iran boast unravels in real time
Vice President JD Vance is facing online mockery after a boast about the recent Iran deal backfired.Vance went on Fox & Friends Weekend on Saturday morning to tout Trump's new Iran deal. He told the Fox program, "My understanding, talking to Steve and Jared this morning, is that things are going well," referring to Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner."The United States has all the cards," Vance continued. "The straits are now open."Less than a few hours after he made those comments, Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz, and online commentators let him have it."How humiliating," writer Polly Sigh reacted on X."Steve and Jared - the two who completely bungled these negotiations from the start which led us into this mess," added MeidasTouch, a political news network."Talking to Steve and Jared. Good lord," wrote Missouri Democratic congressional candidate Fred Wellman."He's not a particularly good liar," veteran journalist Bill Kristol said. "But he's certainly a shameless one.""Believe nothing that comes out of his mouth," Middle East and geopolitical analyst Matthew RJ Brodsky posted."Trump has given Vance enough rope to hang himself," economist and author Anders Aslund wrote. "Witkoff and Kushner are no negotiators, nor knowledgeable. The US has no cards.""We said Uno. Iran said Draw Four," writer and podcaster Hemant Mehta posted, playing off Vance's card metaphor."It might be time to retire the 'we have all the cards' metaphor," University of Ottawa professor Roland Paris suggested. "Given how obviously the administration is being outplayed by those who supposedly don't have any cards."Norman Ornstein, a political scientist and contributing editor for The Atlantic, simply reacted, "Hahahahahahahahaha."
Trump forgot to bring Iran deal to signing — leaving Rubio scrambling for printer: report
Secretary of State Marco Rubio scrambled for a printer inside the Palace of Versailles after President Donald Trump went to the sign his Iran deal — without bringing a copy with him.A new report sheds light on the chaotic behind-the-scenes details of how the historic agreement came together.According to Agence France-Presse, Trump decided to sign at a candlelit dinner in Versailles "quite spontaneously" — the text hadn't even been printed, leaving Rubio to hunt down a printer somewhere inside the grand palace.When Trump finally put pen to paper, he used a fat black marker, the crockery still on the table after a dinner of lobster and caviar.The deal itself had been announced three days earlier — on Trump's 80th birthday, June 14 — while he was still in Washington, celebrating by watching MMA cage fights at the White House.The signing venue had shifted multiple times. French President Emmanuel Macron had said the deal had already been signed "electronically." It had then been expected that Vice President JD Vance would formalize it with top Iranian negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf in Switzerland. Trump then muddied the waters by saying it would be signed "tomorrow, maybe the next day" — before simply signing it himself at the Versailles dinner, reportedly impressed by the palace's "golden splendor."Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian signed his own copy in a parallel move, with Iranian news agencies showing him brandishing the document for the cameras.The follow-on talks at the luxury Bürgenstock resort in Switzerland — a mountaintop complex where hotel guests had reportedly been quietly asked to leave — were postponed at the last minute, reportedly due to Israeli military action against Hezbollah in Lebanon late Thursday.Journalists waiting on the tarmac at Andrews Air Force Base to fly to the meeting with Vice President JD Vance received a terse message: the vice president wasn't leaving that evening.Iran said Friday there was now "no urgency," but that it was "planning to hold a meeting in the coming days."
