Facing expulsion vote, Swalwell resigns from Congress.
Quite apart from the gravity of the allegations, I simply cannot remember a more rapid and total campaign and, it would now seem, career implosion. Usually loyalists and especially senior staff hold out a bit longer. Just stunning in every dimension.
This post at Axios gives us the benefit of Barak Ravid’s reporting on the state of the U.S.-Iran negotiations. His sources suggest that the core hold up was the Iranian nuclear program, with the U.S. insisting on a 20 year moratorium on uranium production and the Iranians countering with something in the single digits. Note that this isn’t that different from what President Obama got with the JCPOA — a longterm but by no means permanent cessation. There’s also no mention in the Ravid piece about the Strait of Hormuz or the sanctions regime. Perhaps I’m wrong in what I noted here and the demand for sanctions relief is merely a bluff. But other reports say that Hormuz was in fact a major stumbling block, as one would expect. While I don’t question Ravid’s reporting as such, this article in the Times, I believe, captures the dynamic more precisely: Iran and the U.S. are now moving into a battle of economic privation, testing which player can endure more economic pain.
Conspiracy theories have become an inescapable part of American politics and political culture. I talked to Mike Rothschild, a journalist and conspiracy researcher who writes TPM’s Rough Edges column, about why some conspiracies endure, and what happens when fringe ideas are legitimized by some of the most powerful people on earth.
We got into the long tail of QAnon; just how many central banks the Rothschild family supposedly owns; and why MAGA conspiracy peddlers are turning on President Trump.
Check out our conversation below.
I wanted to share a few more thoughts on the current ceasefire and negotiations between the United States and Iran. As I noted earlier, there’s something so rich about sending JD Vance to lead the negotiations since the vice president has bent over backwards to signal to everyone who will listen (or write stories) that he was absolutely, positively against the war in the first place. President Trump has sent Vance to conduct and really own negotiations that almost certainly wouldn’t go well for the United States.
This cannot be an accident.
I started this post before the news broke that the first attempt at negotiations had broken down or, at least for now, had failed. That news just tightened the box into which Trump placed Vance. If the war resumes, Vance owns that continuation because he walked away from the negotiating table. It’s almost as though he gave the original order. If the negotiations fail, that’s on Vance too.
So where are we now?
There may never be a Trump quote this perfect, this good: “Pope Leo is WEAK on Crime…”
Savor it.
We have a new Cafe piece from an expert on the country’s authoritarian movement.
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Kate and Josh talk war and midterms from the Lone Star State (with a special bonus segment featuring the Texas Observer’s Justin Miller).
TPM reporter Josh Kovensky and publisher Joe Ragazzo are back to launch The TPM Social Club, a show about what’s interesting.
Kate and Josh talk Pam Bondi’s ouster, Trump’s Iran stemwinder and the birthright citizenship oral arguments.
Kate and Josh talk airports in crisis, Trump’s bewildering political calculus and, believe it or not, an optimistic vision of what a post-Trump world could look like.
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