Iran Wins - The Thursday AM Quickie 6/18/26
There's some shady business going on in the Michigan Senate race. But the truth that centrists are attempting to suppress is that support for leftist candidate Abdul El-Sayed is surging. - Corey
ON THE SHOW TODAY
6/18: Matt Binder will host in studio and MR will air pre-taped interviews hosted by Emma. The guests will be Ken Klippenstein, an independent journalist covering security and US politics at KlipNews, discussing the 15 anti-ICE activists indicted by the Justice Department; and Melat Kiros, candidate for Colorado's 1st congressional district, discussing her rally with Hasan Piker, which was canceled by multiple venues owned by large donors to her opponent.
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Today you'll read about Bernie Sanders' plan for an AI-backed sovereign wealth fund, Gavin Newsom's weird anti-tax coalition, and Washington, DC's stunning win for democratic socialist Janeese Lewis George.
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THE BIG NEWS
Trump Distracted By Shiny Objects as He Surrenders to Iran
The text of Donald Trump's deal to end the war on Iran was released yesterday, and many on both the left and right are calling it, with some justification, a victory for Iran and a declaration of surrender by the United States. The so-called memorandum of understanding isn't actually a final agreement – it gives the US and Iran 60 days to finalize the details of their agreement, during which time Iran will be allowed to export oil. In part, the deal also provides for the return of Iranian funds seized by the US and the lifting of sanctions on Iran; it also includes a nuclear agreement and allows Iran to keep its missiles and its international proxy forces. Most importantly from a global economic perspective, it calls for the Strait of Hormuz to be gradually reopened to commercial shipping traffic.
Trump's war on Iran was doomed from the start, Middle East expert Juan Cole says. The war, he told an interviewer yesterday, "was a huge failure.
"And with regard to their main objectives, the United States and Israel went into the war hoping that they could do a decapitation strike, I think Venezuela was much in their minds, the way that Trump kidnapped the strong man Maduro. They thought they could do that. They could simply kill Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and that the regime would would fall of its own accord or or would suddenly become docile. And they thought they could make Iran give up its nuclear enrichment activities and impose their will on on the country in these various ways. And it didn’t happen. It was not likely to happen from the very beginning. It was not a well-thought-out plan. It it didn’t show understanding of the government that existed in Iran, however unpopular it might be. It exists. It it has a certain amount of power and social roots. And so they failed."
Robert Malley, a former State Department official and negotiator on President Barack Obama's (much better) deal with Iran, says there's no comparison with the deal Trump just signed. "The bottom line is that the MOU is far preferable to any of the alternatives on offer," he wrote on social media. "Period."
The Israelis, cut out of Trump's deal with Iran, are furious. But Danny Citrinowicz, the former head of the Iran branch of Israeli military intelligence, calls the deal "measured and realistic" compared to the "maximalist objectives" the US had when Trump launched the war.
Trump appeared "exhausted and at times unwell" as the G7 summit concluded in France yesterday, HuffPost reports. He dined last night with French President Emmanuel Macron at that country's most famous gilded palace. "Versailles is not gold leaf — Versailles is the real deal," Trump gushed. The historical significance of signing a surrender at Versailles seems to have been lost on him – but Macron must have known how bad it would look for Trump.