Trump’s Deal Disaster 🚨

Trump might end up with the worst of both worlds

Editor’s note✏️: Thanks to Amanda for organizing more than usual — Rachel and I head to Normandy after the show tonight for research on a new book.

• 📱Expect a dispatch or two from France plus a very special Father’s Day message.

• 👋War Notes will be back to full speed on Tuesday!

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Father’s Day📚: Ahead of Father’s Day, I’ve been doing interviews about “Born Lucky.”

• 🙏It’s hope for every parent of a kid having a hard time — Hugh Hewitt called it a GREAT Father’s Day present

  • 📺Watch here.

• 📗For those of you new to War Notes, it’s the story of my father adapting me to the world rather than the world to me after I got diagnosed with autism

  • Set your DVRs📺: We are reairing the NewsNation special with Bill O’Reilly Father’s Day morning at 11 ET

  • 🫵Just for you — a FREE SIGNED bookmark from me

    • Order “Born Lucky” as a gift or for yourself before Father’s Day and forward the sales receipt to — BornLuckyBook@Gmail.com

    • 📩I’ll send you your signed bookmark next week.

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Trial twist🌀: Luigi Mangione is going to claim that he murdered UnitedHealthcare CEO because he was under “extreme emotional disturbance” due to the unfairness of health care.

• Why it matters‼️: If the jury buys it, the charges against him would be reduced from murder to manslaughter — resulting in less prison time

• This is the socialist Twinkie defense of why killing a health care CEO is okay.

  • 👀Shows how the rhetoric in America has pushed, especially those on the Left, to this extreme amount of emotional distress

    • Fair to say✅: Many of the actions of those on the Left could be counted as mental illness

    • There are psychologists who say Trump Derangement Syndrome has all the characteristics of mental illness

    • What I am thinking💭: Socialism is a mental illness.

• Tonight📺: Berit Berger on whether this will give a sympathetic jury — in a city that elected Zohran Mamdani — a reason to acquit

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Deal Disaster🚨

‼️The Iran deal keeps getting worse for Team Trump — as we told you last night, Trump wants nothing to do with the signing and says JD will take the fall.

• Trump might end up with the worst of both worlds rather than the best — the deal falls apart, and he doesn’t get any political wins.

  • Doocy: “Why not stick around for the signing ceremony with this Iran peace deal?”

  • Trump: “I might. But this is a memorandum of understanding… It might not be the kind of document I should be signing… If it doesn’t work out, I’m blaming JD.”

🙏Trump hoped the “deal” would let him move on from the Iran war — the opposite is happening.

• 💣Now it’s Iran’s right to have a ballistic missile program

  • Trump: “We’ll be working on a parallel effort with the Gulf nations to address non-nuclear issues such as the conventional ballistic missiles, which we’ll be talking about. And support them. I mean, they have to have some because other people have some. They’ve got to have some”

• 🤦The list of reversals is too long for War Notes.

• A U.S. official on the deal with Iran: “What’s more important than the actual document is the understandings we have with each other”

  • 🤔Can you imagine if Biden or Obama’s people said this?

  • 🤦What, now the memorandum of understanding or the deal shouldn’t matter? We should just be happy about all the pinky promises Iran gave Trump?

• Be fair⚖️: Trump could still get Iran to give up its nukes and stop funding terrorism

• Be real❗: Iran could have already done what they didn’t — now they are going to do that without any U.S. leverage 60 or 90 or 180 days from now.

Danger⚠️: The real problem for Trump isn’t the deal disaster; it’s the fallout

• “MAGA hawk mutiny deepens Trump’s isolation on Iran,” writes Zachary Basu in Mike Allen’s must-read AM note

• Watch tonight📺: America First Trump supporter Steve Cortes and Brig. Gen. John Teichert on whether Trump might get the worst rather than best of both worlds with his Iran deal.

‼️Trump lacks the political power to put down Republican revolts — that’s a dangerous place.

• Fighting back🥊: Today, Trump canceled the Senate confirmation hearing for his GOP-backed director of national intelligence pick, Jay Clayton, and is keeping meme king Bill Pulte as acting DNI.

  • When Trump gets cornered, he tries to pivot with something that will outrage the media.

• Dig deep🪏: He’s holding off on the confirmation to pressure Congress into reauthorizing FISA 702.

• Dig deeper🪏: But really, he’s holding off this to get his SAVE America bill passed.

  • Problem‼️: Senate Republicans don’t have enough votes — and don’t want to abolish the filibuster to get there.

    • If Trump didn’t have the political arm-twisting ability to get the SAVE America Act passed a couple of weeks ago — he certainly doesn’t have it now.

    • Out of reach: Trump’s wins are getting farther and farther away

Tonight📺: Chris Cillizza and Caroline Sunshine and whether Trump can distract his way out of Iran – hint: watch Cuba.

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Under the Bus🚌

🤾Hillary Clinton is the latest Democrat to throw Joe Biden under the bus over his decision to run for a second term in 2024.

• Clinton said Biden “made a terrible mistake himself, his legacy and for the country.”

• Look back🔙: This was Clinton in 2023 when asked if Biden should run again:

  • Clinton: “Absolutely. I think he’s done a really terrific job…So yes, I want him to run if that’s what he wants to do, and of course I’ll support him.”

‼️The Democratic old guard won’t go away.

• What I’m thinking💭: I’m sure most people agree with what Clinton has to say about Biden — but when does continuing to throw your “friends” under the bus make the party better?

The gang 👀: Obama opens his presidential library on Friday — who will show up and say nice things?

Tonight📺: Donte Mills and Lauren Wright on the Democratic Party

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Data Centers 🏭

☑️Everybody outside of DC and NYC agrees on one thing: Don’t build big, ugly, electricity-sucking data centers in my backyard.

• 👷3,000 data centers are up and running in the U.S., and another 1,500 new ones are in the works.

• 🧑‍💻The AI boom creating millionaires and billionaires comes at a high cost.

  • ‼️Data centers raise electricity rates, use tons of water and have few workers once built — those are just some of the knocks.

  • Plus, they often pay little in taxes

  • Opportunity💸: The not-in-my-backyard problem is so bad that some big companies are offering big paydays to host communities

    • Teachers are getting $50,000 bonuses

• Be smart🧠: Politicians and journalists keep missing these stories because they remain in the bubble.

• Watch tonight📺: Our coverage from across the country of what’s really happening with data centers!