June 1, 2026
Heather Cox Richardson
June 1, 2026
Heather Cox Richardson
Jun 2
As we enter the summer months, weâre hitting the ground running. There is so much news today, Iâm going to have to let some of it splash over into tomorrow to do it justice. For today, Iran and its role in the presidentâs deteriorating mental condition are going to take center stage.
Over the weekend, there were what Iâm going to have to call the usual reports of an imminent agreement between the U.S. and Iran to end hostilities, with the usual outcome.
Last week the U.S. and Iran appeared to be making headway on a 60-day memorandum of understanding to continue the ceasefire and to establish a framework for further talks about Iranâs nuclear program. But President Donald J. Trump is caught between a rock and a hard place in these negotiations.
His base demands that he look strong and accomplish what, after the initial strikes failed, he claimed to have started the war for: to make sure Iran doesnât have the capacity to produce a nuclear weapon. He also needs to reopen the Strait of Hormuzâwhich was open before he began the strikesâand get oil flowing again from that region of the Middle East. Prices in the U.S. are rising, and the looming threat of oil reserves running out adds even more pressure to consumer prices.
And Congress returns to work tomorrow, raising the possibility that lawmakers will pass a war powers resolution requiring Trump to withdraw American forces from the region. House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) sent House members home a day early before the Memorial Day holiday out of concern such a measure would pass.
But Iran is in no hurry to throw Trump a lifeline. Their negotiators now maintain they have a right to control the Strait of Hormuz. They are demanding reparations for the damage inflicted in the country during the war, and they say they wonât negotiate over the nuclear program until there is a ceasefire.
But these conditions are all problematic for Trumpâs negotiators. Permitting Iran to control the strait is not just about oil; itâs about the principle of freedom of the seas set out after World War II. Global trade depends on that concept. The exchange of money is also a problem for Trump. He has spent much of his political life attacking the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action that China, France, Germany, Russia, the U.K., the U.S., and the European Union negotiated with Iran during the Obama administration, claiming that former president Obama âgaveâ Iran $1.7 billion. In fact, the JCPOA simply permitted the release of Iranian assets frozen overseas by sanctions, but much of Trumpâs base believes that Obama showed weakness by buying an agreement.
And then there is the nuclear issue.
So what has tended to happen in negotiations is that the teams come up with a framework, details leak to the media, and Trumpâs base hears that Trump has weakened on some of his maximalist demands. They complain, Trump then posts something false about the talks or incendiary about Iran, and the negotiations fall apart.
And the cost of the war, in both lives and treasure, and the pressure on U.S. consumers and the economy continue to mount.
Last Friday, Trump and his advisors spent two hours discussing the latest round of negotiations in the Situation Room. According to Erika Solomon and Farnaz Fassihi of the New York Times, that agreement included the release of about $24 billion in frozen Iranian assets and a postwar âinvestment fundâ to rebuild Iran, with one diplomat telling the journalists the number on the table was $300 billion. Talks about Iranâs nuclear program would be deferred.
On Friday morning, Trump posted, once again, that the strait would be opened and that Iran must never have a nuclear weapon. But then he emerged from the Situation Room without the âfinal determinationâ on the agreement he had promised. On Saturday, Mohsen Rezaie, one of the advisors to Iranâs supreme leader, posted: âAs predicted, the President of the United States is betraying diplomacy for the third time.â
Over the weekend, Trumpâs social media account posted repeated attacks on Democrats and on the judges who have been deciding against him in legal cases. He posted long defenses of his alterations to monuments in Washington, D.C., and AI images of capital landmarks covered in trash and graffiti juxtaposed with ones gleaming and fresh, with captions that blame Democrats for the former and praise Trump for the latter.
His posts seemed designed primarily to reassure himself. By Saturday, so many of the musical acts his team had lined up to play at his Freedom 250 âGreat American State Fairâ from late June through the beginning of July had bailed that Trump posted that he was âthinking about bringing the Number One Attraction anywhere in the World, the man who gets much larger audiences than Elvis in his prime, and he does so without a guitar, the man who loves our Country more than anyone else, and the man who some say is the Greatest President in History (THE GOAT!), DONALD J. TRUMP, to take the place of these highly paid, Third Rate âArtists,â and give a major speech, rallying the Country forward like I have done ever since being President!â He continued: âTwo years ago, the United States was DEAD. Now we have the âHOTTESTâ Country anywhere in the World. I donât want so-called âArtistsâ that get paid far too much money, who arenât happy. I only want to be surrounded by Happy People, Smart People, Successful People, and People that know how to WIN. So, by copy of this TRUTH, I am ordering my Representatives to look at the feasibility of doing an AMERICA IS BACK Rally on Wednesday, Washington, D.C., same time, same location. Only Great Patriots invitedâIt will be a Wild and Beautiful Celebration of America! President DONALD J. TRUMPâ
It was an odd echo of his December 19, 2020, tweet calling his base to Washington, D.C., in which he wrote: âBig protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!â
Odder still was what followed: image after image of Trump as a great leader. There were images of Trump alongside first president George Washington, one of them showing the two presidents riding horses together in colonial garb beside a racecar with TRUMP across the hood, the White House in the background, and the Space Shuttle overhead. In an AI image, Trump is dunking a basketball over an exhausted New York governor Kathy Hochul, a Democrat; in another image, he and Patriots football player Tom Brady stand talking, backlit, under a caption that reads âGOAT.â
There were pictures of Trump kissing the American flag; Mount Rushmore with Trumpâs sculpture in line with those of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln (who looks somewhat alarmed); Trump apparently as a superhero admiral with armor on his chest that bears an American eagle; Trump standing near King Charles; Trump with Chinaâs president Xi Jinping.
A series of AI images in the style of the 1950s Dick and Jane readers show a town parade festooned with flags and patriotic bunting, little girls laughing together at an old-fashioned town fair, and little boys in a suburb playing ball. All of the images read: âAMERICA IS BACK!â And in them, all of the people are white.
(NOTE: 25TH AMENDMENT - NOW, DAMMIT!!!)
He posted an image of a white family from that era standing beside a Cadillac Coupe DeVille parked on a suburban street, with the caption: âBILLIONS WERE SPENT TO CONVINCE YOU THIS IS EVIL.â
Then Trumpâs account posted a series of images contrasting his vision of Bidenâs America versus his own. In his images, Bidenâs world was one of theft, illegal squatting, violence, and illegal immigration. The images of Trumpâs âsolutionsâ to these problems showed people imprisoned, arrested, and deported.
At 1:02 this morning, Trump posted: âIran really wants to make a deal, and it will be a good one for the U.S.A. and those that are with us. But donât the Dumocrats, and various seemingly unpatriotic Republicans, understand that it is MUCH tougher for me to properly do my job and negotiate, when political hacks keep negatively âchirping,â at levels never seen before, over and over again, that I should move faster, or move slower, or go to war, or not go to war, or whatever. Just sit back and relax, it will all work out well in the endâIt always does! President DJTâ
A minute later, his account posted: âHas anyone ever seen a happy Dumocrat???â
Then, later this morning, Iranian officials said they were suspending negotiations with the U.S. until Israel, which entered the war alongside the U.S., stops its strikes on Lebanon, strikes they say violate the ceasefire agreement. They warned they would close the Strait of Hormuz entirelyâa few ships have been making the transitâand move against the Bab al-Mandab strait at the outlet of the Red Sea, as well. On CNBC, Trump told Eamon Javers that he doesnât care if peace negotiations with Iran end. âI couldnât care less,â he said. Negotiations were starting âto get very boring.â
(NOTE: ATTENTION SPAN OF A FOUR-YEAR OLD!!! )
But oil prices jumped sharply with the announcement of the suspension and the threat to the Bab al-Mandab, and at 1:43 in the afternoon, Trump posted: âTalks are continuing, at a rapid pace, with the Islamic Republic of Iran.â At 5:47, he posted on social media that he had spoken with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and indirectly with Hezbollah, and that they both agreed to stop striking each other.
The Pentagon has been trying to control information coming out about its actions for months now, but that effort is now ramping up. This afternoon, Scott Nover of the Washington Post reported that the Pentagon has designated its press office as a classified spaceâa Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility, or SCIFâand even those journalists who have not had their press badges rescinded will require an appointment to talk to the press secretary.
