Vance Warns Israeli Cabinet Against Attacking Trump’s Iran Deal

Trump Sabotages Senate Republicans' Plans on Spy Chief

Trump seems dead-set on installing Bill Pulte as director of national intelligence.

Interest rate cut not likely on the table, even after Iran deal and somewhat falling oil prices

The announcement of an end-of-hostility deal between the United States and Iran has done little to shift investor expectations that the Federal Reserve will hold or even raise interest rates this year, even as oil prices fall in response to the apparent diplomatic breakthrough. President Donald Trump recently announced the planned signing of the ceasefire […]

History shows how low Trump can go

In his first term of office Donald Trump achieved the lowest average job approval ratings (41%) among Americans since the end of the second world war. In his second term he has fallen well below that with an approval rating of only 35% in a recent Economist/YouGov poll.Much of this can be explained by voter perceptions of the state of the US economy. The chart below shows the relationship between the percentage of Americans who approve of the president’s handling of his job and consumer confidence. It covers almost 50 years of monthly data with the consumer confidence data coming from surveys conducted at the University of Michigan.The two series track each other closely and so demonstrate a moderately strong relationship with a correlation of 0.44 (If they were unrelated the correlation would be 0 and if they were exactly the same it would be 1). In both cases higher scores denote greater approval and increasing consumer confidence. This confirms the well-known fact that the state of the economy is a big driver of presidential approval. If we look closely at the consumer confidence index, the average score over the entire period was 84. In the late 1970s Jimmy Carter had low and falling approval ratings and consumer confidence scores. This goes a long way to explaining why he was a one-term president who lost to Ronald Reagan in the 1980 election. A decade later, when Republican George HW Bush was president between 1989 and 1993, consumer confidence plummeted as an official recession in the US economy was declared in July 1990, leading to declining growth and rising unemployment. The Federal Reserve, which is responsible for US monetary policy, exacerbated a weak financial situation by raising interest rates in order to combat inflation. The result was that Bush senior became another one-term president and lost the 1992 election to his Democrat rival, Bill Clinton (whose campaign motto was famously: “It’s the economy, stupid.”). However, the largest fall in consumer confidence over this period occurred after the financial crash of 2007-2008, which in turn produced a serious recession and rapidly declining consumer confidence. On this occasion George W Bush was in his second term as US president and his collapsing approval ratings paved the way for the victory of Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential contest.Finally, when Donald Trump won the presidential election in November 2016, consumer confidence was relatively high. In January 2017 at the time of his inauguration the consumer confidence index stood at 99. Four years later in January 2021 when Joe Biden was inaugurated as president the index was at 79, a dramatic decline in historical terms.The midterm elections for the House and the Senate take place in November this year and currently things do not look good for the Republicans. Pollsters have been asking what is called a “generic” question in their surveys about who respondents would vote for if the midterm elections took place today. They are virtually unanimous in their agreement that the Democrats will win control of the House of Representatives. In addition, it is possible, though less likely, that the Democrats will win control of the Senate.A thought experimentAn interesting thought experiment is to suppose that we were looking at a presidential election in November rather than the midterms. What light does the current consumer confidence data throw on such a hypothetical election? The second chart shows the relationship between voting for the incumbent’s party in the 19 presidential elections since 1978 and consumer confidence in the month of these elections.Once again, the relationship is moderately strong between the two series with a correlation of 0.43. Voters reward or punish the incumbent president or his party’s candidate depending on how they feel about the economy. As we observed in the first chart, the consumer confidence score was at its lowest at 55 in the 2008 election which Obama won. But the score on the index in June 2026 was 49, so – if consumer confidence continues to fall – then in a hypothetical presidential election in November Trump would lose very badly. This is a thought experiment rather than a prediction of what is likely to happen in the presidential election of 2028. But when the war in the Middle East launched by the US and Israel threatens to produce a global recession it seems unlikely that consumer confidence in the US will improve any time soon.Trump will not be on the ballot in 2028. But the Republican candidate in that election is likely to take a historical beating if the US and world economies do not improve in the meantime. Paul Whiteley, Professor, Department of Government, University of Essex This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

How much will Trump let Iran exploit American weakness?

The memorandum of understanding that the Trump administration has signed with the remaining leadership of the Islamic Republic of Iran has nothing to do with nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, or state-sponsored terrorism. It has everything to do with the fact that the United States failed in its military objective to control the Strait of Hormuz, […]

President Trump Has a Pool Problem. The Nation Has Thoughts.

People are flocking to see the algae-streaked reflecting pool on the National Mall and are eager to weigh in on the solution.

The Morning Briefing: Starting to Get the Feeling That We May Never Get Along With Iran

Mystery surrounds JD Vance's dash to Switzerland as world holds breath for Iranians to confirm peace deal

With 24 hours to go before a memorandum of understanding with Iran is scheduled to be signed in Switzerland, Vice President JD Vance threw doubt on whether the ceremony will occur.

'It’s not the same thing': Anchor grills GOP lawmaker over support of Iran deal

CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins took Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) to task over his support of President Donald Trump’s widely panned Memorandum of Understanding, forcing him to defend several of the plan's more outrageous points.“My point of view is that we have to give peace a chance to get done,” Moreno told Collins. “We have absolutely not made Iran stronger. We've killed almost 80 of their top leaders. We've destroyed their army, their navy, their ballistic missile program. Like I said, they are absolutely in a dramatically worse position as a result of president Trump's actions. And he prevented them from actually using a nuclear weapon that they could have cobbled together.”“[But] this deal lets them have waivers,” Collins pointed out. “They can start selling oil tonight. Eventually it will potentially unfreeze billions of dollars, hundreds of billions of dollars in frozen assets. Iran is still a state sponsor of terrorism, according to the United States. Do you have an issue with the U.S. doing things that allows them to have money to potentially rebuild all of those things that you just mentioned?”“What's the alternative, Kaitlan?" Moreno demanded. "What would you want the president to do? Allow them to have built a nuclear weapon?”“That's a question for some Republicans, too, it sounds like,” said Collins, referring to many GOP critics who find the deal offensive. She also pointed out that Iran now stands “make more money because they're selling it at competitive market prices to buyers with more attractive currencies.”She also reminded Moreno that he said in April that money from Iran’s oil sales doesn't “go to the people. It goes to a corrupt leadership.”“Aren't you worried that corrupt leadership is now going to get tens of billions of dollars from these sales?” she asked.“Yeah, but we'll be watching exactly what they do with the money,” said Moreno.“But the president pledged not to get involved in their domestic affairs in the MOU that he signed,” Collins quickly countered, to which Moreno could only repeat: “We're going to make certain that they behave, and they do exactly what they need to do.”Moreno then made a comparison to Trump’s intervention in Venezuela, saying Trump “saved Latin America,” and promised “you’re gonna see that happen in Cuba.”“It’s not the same thing. You can’t really compare the two,” said Collins, before then asking Moreno about the plight of the Iranian people. “[Trump] told that Iranian people that this was their chance to rise up and take back their government. Their government is being run by the former leader’s son. Do you think that they have been left hung out to dry here?”“Look, I don't know what's going to happen there,” said Moreno. “Again. We don't know.” - YouTube youtu.be