GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham said on Sunday that he thinks the US peace talks with Iran are going to fail -- and that President Trump is going to seize the Strait of Hormuz "by force."
Footage showed Araqchi walking into the room where Vance, the US delegation, and mediators were, in front of the cameras, and then leaving after embracing Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.
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."
The deal President Donald Trump's administration struck with the Iranian regime has become a joke in Washington, D.C., and it's left the president embarrassed and flailing for an answer, according to one analyst. Last week, the Trump administration and the Iranian regime agreed to a deal that would immediately reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a critical waterway that accounts for roughly 20% of the world's energy trade, and postpone more substantive talks until later in the week in Switzerland. Those talks were scheduled to take place on Friday, but were delayed until Saturday due to ongoing fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon. The Iranian regime also announced on Saturday that it was going to shut the Strait of Hormuz again.Joe Cirincione, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, told MS NOW's Alex Witt on "Alex Witt Reports" that the negotiations have soured to the point where Trump has resorted to his "Tony Soprano" negotiation tactics by threatening the Iranians with violence. That has only seemed to further deteriorate the talks, even though Trump is telling "This is what happens when he doesn't have any cards to play," Cirincione said. "He's in a weak position, and now he's embarrassed by this deal. His base is revolting against it. If he were to force this deal to be presented to the United States Congress, I don't think it would pass, and that's not something I would have said just a week ago.""So, he's frustrated. He's lashing out. He's acting irrationally, as he often does, and basically lying about what's going on," Cirincione added. "The joke in Washington, D.C., is that Trump told us this war was going to end with unconditional surrender. He didn't tell us it was going to be our unconditional surrender," he continued.
Political analysts and observers were shocked on Sunday by a new report revealing that former Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard's actions throughout her more than two decades in office appeared to have been "guided" by Chris Butler of the Science of Identity Foundation, which several ex-members have described as a "cult."The Washington Post obtained more than 25,000 memos and other documents exchanged between Gabbard and Butler that appeared to reveal instances in which Butler gave Gabbard direction on several issues, according to the report. There were other instances in which Butler sharply criticized the former Representative from Hawaii as "mealymouthed" over one bill she introduced. "Dozens of attached memos appeared to document directives and advice for Gabbard from her time in Congress," the report reads in part. "Some contained instructions on what legislation she should propose, which policies she should embrace, and how she should conduct herself on television. They had an air of authority. A memo about a proposal to partition war-torn Iraq into three states quoted an unnamed person as saying it was 'time for TG to come up with this idea.'"Political analysts and observers reacted to the report on social media. "Hillary was right about her," Jen Monroe, host of the "Ambitious Crossover Attempt" podcast, posted on X. "It’s kind of a relief that all her insane policy positions came from a Hindu cult leader and not from [Vladimir] Putin," Sir William Browder, who leads the Global Magnitsky Justice campaign, posted on X. "Tulsi Gabbard as the Manchurian Candidate but for cult kook," Dan Immergluk, professor emeritus of urban studies at Georgia State University, posted on Bluesky. "Sure, make her national security chief, why not? This would have been such a wild story in the before times. Just everyday insanity now.""Strong test of the Unitary Executive Theory," James Goodwin, policy director at the Center for Progressive Reform, posted on Bluesky.
The United States has now gone 13 consecutive months with zero illegal aliens released into the country at the border, according to the Department of Homeland Security and Customs and Border Protection. The post Trump Hits Historic Border Milestone: 13 Straight Months with Zero Illegal Aliens Released into the U.S. appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
Vice President Vance threatened to press the Justice Department to investigate Ellison's alleged knowledge of the scheme.
Economist Peter Schiff is warning that the federal government's yawning budget gap will be papered over with a flood of newly printed money, and that ordinary Americans will pay for it through prices that could eventually double.The chief economist and global strategist at Euro Pacific Asset Management laid out the math in a post on Saturday. In May, he wrote, the government spent $628 billion while collecting just $335 billion in taxes, a shortfall so large that balancing the budget would require tax revenue to nearly double. Schiff does not believe that will happen, and his prediction for what comes instead is blunt. "Since that won't happen," he wrote, "massive money printing will cover the shortfall, sending consumer prices doubling instead."In other words, Schiff is arguing that the administration faces a politically impossible choice and will take the path of least resistance. Rather than impose a tax increase steep enough to close the gap, which he later estimated at roughly 50 percent once seasonal revenue is accounted for, he expects the government to monetize the debt. The cost of that decision, in his telling, does not disappear. It simply shows up at the grocery store and the gas pump instead of on a tax bill.The thread drew agreement from others who share Schiff's hard-money outlook.Where Schiff went further than some observers was on the political fallout. When one user argued that doubling taxes was "virtually impossible" and would "absolutely cause massive unrest," recommending spending cuts instead, Schiff agreed the unrest is coming either way. "Yes, but they won't" cut spending, he replied, predicting that the government "will still get unrest, but they will blame it on inflation." The implication is that the administration will treat rising prices as an external force to be managed rather than the predictable result of its own fiscal choices.
