Scoop: Cabinet to huddle to talk midterm politics

Mar 26, 2026Center Left

President Trump's political team is meeting with his Cabinet late Thursday to discuss plans for top officials to fan out across the country to stress what the administration is doing to help the economy, sources tell Axios.Why it matters: The meeting comes as the Iran war has sent gas prices soaring, and after the stock market's worst day since Trump launched the war a month ago.Trump's team believes the economy — above all other issues, including any anxiety over the president's actions on Iran or immigration — will drive voter sentiment heading into the November elections.Democrats have won a series of state and federal elections in recent weeks, as Trump's poll numbers — including on his handling of the economy — have plummeted.Zoom in: Trump advisers believe that while the national media is focused on the war, voters are more interested in pocketbook issues — especially during tax season.Yes, but: It may be hard to talk about the economy without acknowledging the war, and economists' concern that it could slow economic growth for an extended period.Zoom out: White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, Deputy Chief of Staff James Blair, Cabinet secretary Meghan Bauer and senior Trump political advisers Tony Fabrizio, Richard Walters and Tim Saler will present a plan to the Cabinet, people familiar with the plans said.Cabinet members will be urged to focus on several things Trump has done since taking office.They include provisions in last year's "big, beautiful" tax and spending bill to cut some taxes on tips and overtime pay.The officials also are being urged to engage with alternative media platforms, such as podcasts.Behind the scenes: This will be part of a series of political meetings the Cabinet will hold in the run-up to the election.

Trump team believed Israel plotted assassinations to derail Iran talks: reports

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Trump team believed Israel plotted assassinations to derail Iran talks: reports

Trump administration officials reportedly believed that the Israeli government intended to assassinate Iran’s top negotiators—including the country’s foreign minister—during peace talks with the US in an effort to sabotage diplomatic progress.The New York Times reported Thursday that “American concerns about the targeting of two particular Iranian officials—Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister, and Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of the Parliament—spiked during delicate ceasefire negotiations that began in April.” In response, the US “went so far as to ask other countries in the region to warn Iran about the possibility Israel could target the two officials,” according to the Times, which cited unnamed current and former American officials.The US and Israel have killed dozens of top Iranian officials since launching their illegal joint war in late February. But the allied countries reportedly removed Araghchi and Ghalibaf from their target list in late March, opening the possibility of high-level negotiations to end the war.But Israel remained bent on targeting the negotiators, according to the Times, whose reporting was later corroborated by The Washington Post.The Times detailed one dramatic incident in April, when Ghalibaf was planning to travel to Pakistan’s capital to meet with US Vice President JD Vance:Pakistani fighter jets escorted the Iranian airplanes carrying a delegation of more than 70 Iranians from the border of Iran to Islamabad and back again when the session was over.But on the way back to Tehran, an Israeli security threat emerged.Iran’s security forces notified the plane carrying Mr. Ghalibaf back to Tehran that they had picked up intelligence that Israel planned to attack the plane and that two Israeli fighter jets had entered Iran’s airspace from its western border near Iraq, the two officials said.Mahdi Mohammadi, a senior adviser for Mr. Ghalibaf, who accompanied him to Islamabad, confirmed this account on his social media page. The plane made an emergency landing in the city of Mashhad, Iran’s closest airport to the Pakistani border, and the Iranian delegation traveled some eight hours by land back to Tehran, Mr. Mohammadi and the two officials said.The Post reported that “cracks emerged” between the US and Israeli approaches to the war following Israel’s assassination of top Iranian national security official Ali Larijani in March.“They’ve wiped out everybody,” Trump told reporters in late March, suggesting Israel’s assassination campaign was making it difficult to find potential negotiating partners.Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, wrote in response to the new reporting that “Israel is a state that, on paper, is a US partner, but in reality is so extreme in its obsession to undermine US diplomacy that it even tries to assassinate those the US engages with in crucial negotiations.”“I can’t recall a government as terrified of peace as the one running Israel,” Parsi added.At present, the Israeli government—led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—is endangering tenuous US-Iran peace talks with its continued occupation of and assault on Lebanon, which Iran has highlighted as a key factor in the negotiations.Visiting occupied southern Lebanon earlier this week, Netanyahu declared to Israeli troops that “our insistence is that we will not leave... until the threat is removed.”Parsi wrote earlier this week that “beyond his long-standing desire to use American force to subjugate Iran to Israeli domination and achieve a regional balance favorable to Israel,” Netanyahu “now also has stark political and personal reasons to restart the war” with Iran.“The [US and Iran’s memorandum of understanding] has come at a steep political cost for Netanyahu,” wrote Parsi. “His prospects for reelection in October are weaker than they have been in months. Once seen as the Israeli leader uniquely capable of delivering President Trump, he now confronts the prospect that both the war and the ensuing diplomacy will leave Israel in a strategically weaker position—undermining the very case he has made for his leadership.”“And of course,” Parsi added, “if he loses the elections, he will likely spend the next few years in jail, as he will lose his immunity as prime minister and face trial over corruption charges.”The story was published in partnership with Common Dreams, read the original here.

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