Afleveringen
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Good morning! Today is Sunday, July 19th 2026, and this is The American Conservative's Morning Brief. Two American soldiers were killed and one is missing after Iran struck a Jordanian air base, marking the first U.S. combat deaths since hostilities resumed, as Tehran suspends the Islamabad memorandum and strikes spread across the region. Jude Russo offers a pointed historical parable about a leader who attacked Iran expecting easy victory, only to find himself mired in indecisive war, civilian devastation, and eventual ruin—revealing at the end that his subject is Saddam Hussein. Ben Sixsmith argues that the Save Our Bacon Act has produced a rare bipartisan opening on animal welfare, uniting conservatives and progressives against factory farming's cruelties. and now for the details. We begin with breaking news from the Iran War. Two American soldiers have been killed and a third is missing in action after Iran struck Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan with drones and ballistic missiles. U.S. Central Command announced the losses on Saturday, saying the service members died on July 17 while defending against the Iranian attack. Four other soldiers were evacuated for medical treatment and have since been discharged. As Joseph Addington reports for The American Conservative, this is the first strike to kill American troops since the resumption of hostilities between Washington and the Islamic Republic last week. It also marks the first U.S. military deaths in the Iran War since March 12, when a KC-135 tanker aircraft crashed while supporting operations against Iran, killing six soldiers. Staying with the war, Iran's Foreign Ministry announced Saturday that Tehran has suspended its commitments under the Islamabad memorandum of understanding with the United States. Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi accused Washington of having, in his words, "effectively trampled on and halted all of its commitments." As Harrison Berger reports, CENTCOM says it struck Iranian surveillance sites, military logistics, and underground weapons storage in support of a renewed naval blockade. The BBC reports that overnight U.S. strikes destroyed an Iranian water desalination facility, leaving roughly ten thousand people without drinking water, with damaged roads and bridges hampering relief. Iran retaliated against U.S. bases across the region, striking targets in Jordan, Kuwait, and Bahrain, and hitting Saudi territory for the first time in four months with an attack on Prince Sultan Air Base. Amnesty International released a report Saturday concluding that some Iranian drone strikes on Bahrain and Saudi Arabia may constitute war crimes. Iran's Health Ministry says U.S. attacks since July 6 have killed at least 50 people. For historical perspective on this widening conflict, Jude Russo offers a column that, he insists, is not about Trump's foreign policy. Russo tells the story of a leader who launched an assault on the Islamic Republic of Iran after observing its internal disorder, backed by pliant elites drawn from his own social circles, with little serious thought given to strategy. That leader was surprised to meet a foe who fought back with ferocity and ingenuity, and dismayed to find his attack had strengthened the ayatollahs' grip on power. What followed was indecisive war, failed ceasefires, mounting debt, escalating strikes on civilian infrastructure, and a hollow peace that restored the status quo. The aggressor then turned to invade a smaller neighbor to refill the treasury and win martial glory, only to be crushed by a distant superpower. Russo reveals at the end that he is describing Saddam Hussein, the Iran–Iraq War, the invasion of Kuwait, and the First Gulf War. The parallels, he leaves to the reader. Those are today's highlights. For the full stories and more, visit theamericanconservative.com. Thank you for starting your morning with us.
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Good morning! Today is Saturday, July 18th 2026, and this is The American Conservative's Morning Brief. Rahm Emanuel's Tel Aviv speech recasts him as an Israel critic, but Harrison Berger reports the Israel lobby's applause and his refusal to back an arms embargo reveal a strategy to placate Democratic voters without changing policy. As Israel and its allies quietly move to embed military aid inside the Pentagon's procurement system, Congress could lose the ability to vote on the annual Foreign Military Financing line item altogether. In Britain, Andy Burnham's debut speech as Labour leader promised a "new politics" and hinted at a wealth tax, but Iain Macwhirter argues his slogans and statist instincts point only to continued economic decline. and now for the details. We begin with a look at the shifting rhetoric inside the Democratic Party on Israel, and what may lie beneath it. Former Chicago Mayor and Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, widely believed to be preparing a 2028 presidential run, traveled this month to Tel Aviv to deliver a speech at Tel Aviv University. In it, he broke with the usual script of Democratic hopefuls, criticizing Israel's conduct in Gaza, warning that Israel had allowed itself to become, in his words, a "territorial pariah," and pledging sanctions on Israelis attacking Palestinian civilians, on officials who back such violence, and on companies financing illegal settlements. As Harrison Berger reports for The American Conservative, that tough talk was quickly endorsed by the Democratic Majority for Israel and echoed the so-called "23-state solution" originally floated by the liberal Israel lobby group J Street. Pressed by the Financial Times, Emanuel confirmed he still wants the United States to sell weapons to Israel and walked back any suggestion of an arms embargo. Berger notes that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu himself has spoken of tapering off direct military aid, precisely because Israel and its lobby are moving to embed the arrangement inside the Pentagon's procurement system through Section 219 of the National Defense Authorization Act. That change, Berger writes, would remove the annual Foreign Military Financing line item Congress can vote on, and replace it with opaque defense-industrial integration that carries no line for lawmakers like Representative Thomas Massie to strike. Journalist Max Blumenthal, quoted in the piece, argues this is the template Democratic candidates will now use to placate a base that has turned sharply against Israel without actually changing policy. Across the Atlantic, Britain is about to get its seventh prime minister in a decade. Andy Burnham delivered his first speech as leader of the Labour Party on Friday, ahead of taking office at Number 10 on Monday. He promised, in his words, "good growth in every postcode and hope in every heart," a "new politics" free of factionalism, and a transfer of power away from Westminster and Whitehall to local communities. He also pledged to fix Britain's long-running social care crisis, so that elderly Britons no longer have to sell their homes to pay for care. Writing for The American Conservative, Iain Macwhirter finds the speech long on slogans and short on specifics. Macwhirter notes that Boris Johnson had already proposed a lifetime cap on care costs, only to see it scrapped by Chancellor Rachel Reeves in 2024. Burnham blamed four decades of neoliberalism since Margaret Thatcher for deindustrialization and stagnant wages, and hinted at a wealth tax and further tax rises to come. Macwhirter points out that Britain's tax burden is already at levels not seen since the Second World War, that business and energy costs are strangling industry, and that most European countries which tried wealth taxes, including Sweden, Denmark, and Austria, have since abandoned them because they raised little revenue and discouraged investment. Burnham's recipe of bringing transport and utilities back into public ownership, Macwhirter concludes, is likely to deliver only continuity in Britain's economic and social decline. Those are today's highlights. For the full stories and more, visit theamericanconservative.com. Thank you for starting your morning with us.
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Zijn er afleveringen die ontbreken?
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Good morning! Today is Friday, July 17th 2026, and this is The American Conservative's Morning Brief. With the Iran War in its 139th day, U.S. strikes and Iranian retaliation across the Gulf are pushing the region toward wider conflict as President Trump threatens to bomb Iran's power grid and bridges next week. Leonid Ragozin argues Trump has been sold a "tide is turning" narrative on Ukraine, warning that every prior Western attempt to coerce Moscow has ended in fiasco and worse terms for Kyiv. In an interview with The American Conservative, Tucker Carlson calls the West's demographic transformation "mass suicide" and something "world-historic" that elites have refused to allow anyone to discuss. and now for the details. The Iran War has now entered its 139th day, with no sign of de-escalation. Overnight, U.S. Central Command launched fresh airstrikes on what it described as Iranian command centers, air defense sites, and missile and drone capabilities. Defense analysts, however, note that many of the sites CENTCOM claims to have targeted lie deep beneath granite mountains that American munitions may not be able to penetrate. Iran's Foreign Ministry also condemned a reported U.S. strike near a children's cancer hospital in Shahid Baqaei, where more than 200 chemotherapy patients had to be evacuated. In response, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps says it struck U.S. bases and facilities in Kuwait, Bahrain, and Jordan. The stakes rose further after President Trump warned Wednesday that the U.S. would bomb Iran's power plants and bridges next week unless Tehran returns to negotiations. Iran's central military headquarters responded that if that threat is carried out, it will destroy, quote, "all the infrastructure in the region." Reuters reports Iran has asked the Yemeni Houthis to shut down the Bab al-Mandab Strait if American strikes hit its power plants. As Harrison Berger reports for The American Conservative, shipping through the Strait of Hormuz has already collapsed, with only 13 vessels transiting on Wednesday, and Brent crude climbed above $85 a barrel Thursday morning. President Trump, who once promised to end the war in Ukraine within 24 hours of his second inauguration, now appears to have adopted the escalation posture of his predecessor. At last week's NATO summit in Ankara, Trump called Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian oil refineries, quote, "an escalation that can help lead to an end," and praised President Zelensky for doing "an amazing job." Writing for The American Conservative, Leonid Ragozin argues that Trump's shift follows a coordinated PR campaign aimed squarely at the president himself, designed to persuade him that "the tide is turning" against Moscow. Ragozin is skeptical. He notes that Russians have endured far worse hardship in living memory, and that while Ukrainians brace for another winter in unheated apartments, Russians so far face only longer lines at the pump. Russia, he writes, has begun inching toward total war, methodically targeting Ukrainian petrol stations, food-processing facilities, and agricultural equipment. Ragozin argues that every previous Western attempt to coerce Moscow, from the collapse of the Minsk framework to the abandonment of the Istanbul talks, has ended in fiasco, with Ukraine emerging from each escalation facing far worse terms. He warns that Trump may be trying to atone for the Iran debacle by proving himself tough on Russia, but that this path risks producing an even greater catastrophe. Those are today's highlights. For the full stories and more, visit theamericanconservative.com. Thank you for starting your morning with us.
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Good morning! Today is Thursday, July 16th 2026, and this is The American Conservative's Morning Brief. Anthony Constantini argues in The American Conservative that the Ankara NATO summit exposed a European strategy of flattery and exaggerated rearmament designed to stall Trump until 2029, and that the Pentagon's force posture review should pave the way to bring U.S. troops home. The Iran War hit day 138 with a seven-hour U.S. bombing campaign and Iranian retaliatory strikes on American bases in Kuwait, Bahrain, and Jordan, as Trump threatens to target Iran's power plants and bridges next week. Harrison Berger reports that the battle over the Strait of Hormuz is escalating, with Tuesday seeing zero transits through the U.S.-coordinated Omani channel while 21 vessels moved through the Iranian route, sending Brent Crude above $84.50 a barrel. and now for the details. We begin this morning in Ankara, Turkey, where the latest NATO summit has wrapped up with fewer fireworks than many expected. President Trump did demand Greenland and threaten to sever trade ties with Spain, but he ultimately confirmed the United States will remain in the alliance for now, calling the summit, in his words, "tremendously successful." That reassurance came alongside news that the White House recently blocked a Pentagon plan to cut the American troop presence in Europe by a third. Writing for The American Conservative, Anthony J. Constantini argues this outcome is a pity. As Constantini reports, European leaders have held secret discussions on how to defer any major decisions on the alliance until the end of Trump's term, with some proposing to scrap annual summits altogether so NATO can, in his phrase, fly under the radar until 2029. He notes that despite the flattery, the rearmament story is largely oversold. Estonia does spend 5.4 percent of GDP on defense, but that amounts to just 2.4 billion dollars—less, he observes, than Pennsylvania spends on its Department of Corrections. Slovakia's spending is flat, the Czech Republic's is declining, Italy is padding its numbers with domestic law enforcement, and Germany has walked back its grand promises. Constantini's deeper argument is that even successful European rearmament would not clearly serve American interests. Our allies already have the capabilities to deter a conventional Russian attack, he writes, and more European defense spending could actually raise the risk of a direct NATO–Russia confrontation over Ukraine. He points to the Pentagon's ongoing six-month review of U.S. force posture in Europe as the opening for a clear case to bring American conventional forces home—the ultimate card, he says, that the president should be prepared to play. The Iran War entered its 138th day on Wednesday with a sharp escalation. U.S. Central Command announced the completion of a seven-hour bombing run against what it described as Iranian missile and drone sites, naval capabilities, and coastal defense systems. Iranian media reported that one of the strikes hit a wheat storage facility. On Fox News Tuesday, President Trump warned that all of Iran's power plants and bridges will be targeted next week unless Tehran returns to the negotiating table. Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps struck back, claiming hits on a U.S. military logistics center at Kuwait's Mina Abdullah port, the Navy's Fifth Fleet in Bahrain, and Al-Azraq base in Jordan. Harrison Berger reports for TAC that the fight over the Strait of Hormuz is intensifying. The Wall Street Journal found that two of the three latest vessels struck by Iran were part of a U.S.-escorted shuttle run moving about 3.5 million barrels of oil per day. On Tuesday, shipping tracker Kpler recorded zero transits through the U.S.-coordinated Omani channel, while 21 vessels moved through the Iranian channel. Tehran points to article five of the memorandum of understanding signed by Trump and President Masoud Pezeshkian, which assigns future administration of the strait to Iran and Oman, and denounces American pressure to open a rival channel near the Omani coast. Brent Crude climbed above $84.50 a barrel on Wednesday morning. Those are today's highlights. For the full stories and more, visit theamericanconservative.com. Thank you for starting your morning with us.
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Good morning! Today is Wednesday, July 15th 2026, and this is The American Conservative's Morning Brief. The war in Iran enters its 137th day as U.S. forces bomb targets across the country for a third straight night, Iran strikes American positions in Bahrain, Jordan, and Iraq, and President Trump proposes charging a twenty-percent protection fee on ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz. Sina Toossi argues in a new report that Trump's regime-change war has become a quagmire with no military path to victory, the predictable result of a half-century pattern in which Washington has treated Iran as an irrational actor and repeatedly achieved the opposite of what it intended. And Luke Nicastro reports on Marine Le Pen's revived path to the French presidency after a court cleared her to run, with polls showing her comfortably ahead as the National Rally campaigns on national rebirth against a decade of Macron's technocratic rule. and now for the details. We begin with the war in Iran, now in its 137th day. On Monday evening, U.S. forces bombed Iran for a third straight night, striking targets in Bushehr, Chabahar, Jask, Konarak, Abu Musa, and Bandar Abbas. Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps responded with strikes on the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet in Bahrain, an American air base in Jordan, and Iranian Kurdish opposition facilities in Iraq. The IRGC also claimed to have killed three American service members in Kuwait over the weekend. Central Command initially denied casualties, though the Pentagon's official death toll rose by one on Monday with the disclosed death of a Navy pilot in an early-July helicopter crash. Iranian media reports at least 23 people killed in U.S. strikes since hostilities resumed. The Strait of Hormuz remains the central flashpoint. Iran continues to control the northern portion of the waterway and cites article five of the memorandum of understanding signed by President Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, which assigned future administration of the strait to Iran and Oman. On Monday, President Trump proposed that the United States become, in his words, "the guardian of the Hormuz Strait," and charge a twenty-percent protection fee on each ship's cargo. As Harrison Berger reports for The American Conservative, Iran has attacked vessels attempting to use an alternate Omani channel, most recently striking two UAE-flagged supertankers with cruise missiles on Monday. Shipping tracker Kpler says use of that Omani channel has almost disappeared in recent days. Brent crude has climbed to 87 dollars a barrel, up roughly 17 percent since July 7. That renewed conflict is the subject of a longer analysis by Sina Toossi, drawing on his new report for the Center for International Policy, titled Beyond Maximalism. Toossi argues that President Trump, who entered office promising to end America's endless wars, has instead chosen a war openly aimed at regime change in Iran, one that has become a quagmire of tit-for-tat strikes, economic blockades, and confrontation over Hormuz, with no plausible military path to victory. Toossi's central point is that this outcome was not inevitable. He traces nearly half a century of American policy from Iran-Contra through the 2015 nuclear deal and maximum pressure, and finds a consistent pattern: Washington has treated Iran as an irrational ideological actor when senior American military leaders and realist scholars have long described it as a rational state responding to incentives. He notes that the invasion of Iraq eliminated Iran's chief regional rival and expanded Tehran's influence. Withdrawal from the nuclear deal accelerated Iran's nuclear program. Maximum pressure drove Iran closer to Russia and China. Toossi warns that the restored blockade is unlikely to force capitulation and more likely to convince Tehran that leverage over Hormuz is indispensable to its security, at a moment when U.S. strategic petroleum reserves remain historically low. His conclusion: there is no military solution. Washington's objective, he writes, should not be unconditional submission but managing a long-term rivalry through reciprocal diplomacy and regional integration. Those are today's highlights. For the full stories and more, visit theamericanconservative.com. Thank you for starting your morning with us.
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Good morning! Today is Tuesday, July 14th 2026, and this is The American Conservative's Morning Brief. Jack Hunter offers a sober South Carolinian's reckoning with the late Senator Lindsey Graham, whose three-decade career made him Washington's most tireless advocate for open-ended war, from Iraq to Syria to Iran—and whose invocations of Hiroshima and Iwo Jima reveal a politician strikingly dismissive of human cost. Harrison Berger reports that hawks in Europe and inside America's own national security bureaucracy are steadily pulling President Trump into deeper ownership of the Ukraine war, with CIA Director John Ratcliffe reportedly pitching strikes on Russian refineries on the golf course while analysts like John Mearsheimer and Glenn Diesen warn the escalation could push the Kremlin toward nuclear demonstration. Mark Jamison argues that as Beijing moves to lock down its frontier AI models as strategic assets, Washington should resist the temptation to mirror. and now for the details. Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina died unexpectedly on Saturday at the age of seventy-one. His passing closes a three-decade congressional career during which he became perhaps the most consistent voice in Washington for open-ended military intervention abroad. In a reflection at The American Conservative, Jack Hunter, a fellow South Carolinian and longtime constituent, offers a sober accounting of Graham's public record, arguing that a pro-life ethic requires honesty even in eulogy. As Hunter recounts, Graham backed the Iraq War through its darkest years, lobbied President Obama to send twenty thousand American troops back into Iraq and Syria in 2015, pushed for military strikes on Syria in 2013, and this year invoked Iwo Jima while urging escalation against Iran—a battle in which more than twenty-six thousand Americans were killed or wounded. Hunter also notes Graham's May 2024 comments citing Hiroshima and Nagasaki as a model for Israel's campaign in Gaza, telling Israel to do "whatever" was necessary. Hunter writes that even the Daily Wire's Matt Walsh was taken aback by Graham's Iwo Jima remark, and that Graham appeared, throughout his career, dismissive of the human cost of the wars he championed. Hunter closes by writing that humans should never strive for inhumanity, and that he wishes Graham had thought the same. President Trump, who once promised to end the war in Ukraine within twenty-four hours of taking office, this past week described Ukrainian strikes on Russia's energy infrastructure as an "escalation" that could help end the conflict, and pledged to license Patriot missile production for Kiev. Harrison Berger reports for The American Conservative that hawks in Europe and within America's own national security bureaucracy are successfully selling the President a narrative he had previously resisted. Berger cites New York Times reporting that CIA Director John Ratcliffe personally pitched a campaign against Russian oil refineries to the President on the golf course, and Wall Street Journal reporting that Trump is being shown intelligence assessments designed to leave him impressed with Ukraine's strike capabilities. Berger cites John Mearsheimer, who told TAC that new Western aid will have hardly any effect on the battlefield but could push the Kremlin toward hardliners like Sergey Karaganov, who advocate a tactical nuclear demonstration to restore deterrence. Glenn Diesen argues the only remaining Russian response may be escalation toward nuclear war. Berger also notes that the city of Lviv saw riots last week protesting Zelensky's sweeping conscription regime, with Euronews counting more than one hundred such incidents this year. Mearsheimer describes Ukraine as being in a demographic death spiral. Following the Ankara NATO summit, Diesen concludes, diplomacy is dead, and this is now Trump's war. Those are today's highlights. For the full stories and more, visit theamericanconservative.com. Thank you for starting your morning with us.
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Good morning! Today is Monday, July 13th 2026, and this is The American Conservative's Morning Brief. The war with Iran reaches its 135th day as Tehran closes the Strait of Hormuz, CENTCOM launches a third wave of airstrikes, and Iranian forces hit American bases across the Gulf. Senator Lindsey Graham, the hawkish South Carolina Republican and Trump confidant, has died at 71, leaving Governor McMaster to name a successor and the state GOP scrambling before an August primary. Peter Van Buren argues that Democrats' embrace of gender-identity activism, on vivid display at the New York Pride Parade, is severing the older coalition built around marriage equality and could cost the party dearly in the midterms. and now for the details. The war with Iran entered its 135th day over the weekend with a sharp escalation in the Persian Gulf. According to U.S. Central Command, Iran on Saturday attacked the Cyprus-flagged container ship GFS Galaxy after it attempted to transit the Strait of Hormuz without coordinating with Tehran. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps announced the Strait would be closed until, in its words, the end of U.S. interference in the region. CENTCOM responded with a third wave of airstrikes this week, hitting Iranian missile and drone sites, naval assets, ammunition depots, and coastal surveillance positions. Iran then struck back, launching attacks against Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, Prince Hassan Air Base in Jordan, and additional sites in Oman, Kuwait, and Bahrain, warning that continued aggression would be met with more severe responses. As Harrison Berger reports, the weekend's exchange casts serious doubt on a CBS News report from Friday that had claimed Iran apologized for prior attacks on shipping. A senior Iranian official told Drop Site News that those leaks were a deliberate, coordinated media campaign to pressure Tehran into concessions over the Strait, and further alleged that the idea of opening an alternative shipping lane outside Iranian oversight had originated on the American side. Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina died Saturday after a sudden illness. He was 71. President Trump, writing on Truth Social, called Graham one of the greatest senators he had ever known and a true American patriot. Senate Majority Leader John Thune described him as a strong ally to freedom-loving countries around the globe. As Jude Russo reports, Graham was a former Air Force lawyer first elected to the House in 1994 and to the Senate in 2002. He was known throughout his career for aggressive foreign policy positions, pressing for military escalation against Iran and championing sanctions legislation against Russia. He briefly ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 2015, and though he initially called Donald Trump unfit for the presidency, he later became a fixture in Trump's inner circle. South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster will appoint a replacement to serve out the remainder of Graham's term, which ends January 3rd. The state Republican Party has until August 11th to hold a special primary to select a candidate for the seat Graham had been seeking to hold in the coming election. Eleven years after Obergefell v. Hodges, the movement that once organized around marriage equality looks strikingly different, and Peter Van Buren argues that difference is becoming a political liability for Democrats. Watching the New York Pride Parade this year, Van Buren observed that the traditional rainbow flag has been largely displaced by the trans flag, and that trans issues, including those affecting children, dominated the speeches and signage. Senator Chuck Schumer was booed by attendees who said he was insufficiently supportive of trans rights, while Mayor Zohran Mamdani drew some of the loudest applause. Van Buren traces how public support for same-sex marriage moved from about a third of Americans in the mid-nineties to roughly two-thirds by the 2020s, a shift that culminated in Obergefell and prompted the Republican Party in 2024 to drop opposition to marriage equality from its platform. That older movement, he writes, focused on consenting adults and universal rights already embedded in American law. What followed, in his account, was a radicalization: a turn toward gender identity, medical intervention for minors, drag events in libraries, school policies that kept parents in the dark, and the introduction of biological boys into girls' sports and locker rooms. Van Buren notes that predictions Trump would roll back same-sex marriage have not materialized. His Treasury Secretary is a married gay man with children, and Bostock v. Clayton County still protects gay and transgender workers from employment discrimination. But in post-election surveys, cultural issues, including transgender policy, mattered more to swing voters than even immigration or inflation. Van Buren's conclusion is that voters are increasingly separating support for gay equality from support for gender-identity ac
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Good morning! Today is Sunday, July 12th 2026, and this is The American Conservative's Morning Brief. With the Iran War now in its 134th day, Tehran signals talks in Oman while Trump warns a thousand missiles are "locked and loaded" over a Strait of Hormuz standoff. Scott Greer argues Karoline Leavitt's Fox News broadside against lazy, entitled Zoomers may thrill Boomer viewers but deepens the GOP's collapse among young voters. Spencer Neale examines how Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's quiet refusal to endorse Graham Platner now looks prescient after sexual assault allegations ended his Maine Senate bid. and now for the details. We begin with the Iran War, which entered its 134th day on Saturday. Iranian officials are set to travel to Oman for talks over the future of the conflict, though the shape of those negotiations remains unclear. U.S. and Iranian delegates were initially reported to be meeting in Muscat, with CBS News saying Vice President J.D. Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Jared Kushner, and Steve Witkoff would attend. Qatari mediators later told CBS that no Americans would be present. Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi is expected in Muscat for discussions on management of the Strait of Hormuz, and is also slated to meet with Turkey's foreign minister. Iranian state media, citing unnamed sources, says Tehran has ruled out talks with Washington until its conditions are met—including a Lebanon working group, resolution of Hormuz management, and permission for Iranian oil exports. In a Truth Social post Friday evening, President Trump warned that a thousand missiles are, in his words, "locked and loaded" and aimed at Iran, and that thousands more would follow should Iran act on threats to assassinate him. As Harrison Berger reports for The American Conservative, the White House has reportedly given Iran a Saturday deadline to publicly declare the Strait of Hormuz open and to stop firing on commercial ships, or face consequences. The dispute centers on which corridor tankers use through the strait, with Iran demanding coordination and tolls on its side of the waterway while Western shipping organizations direct vessels through Oman's corridor. Brent Crude closed Friday at just over seventy-six dollars a barrel. Staying in the region, Representative Ro Khanna, Democrat of California, was detained for ninety minutes by Israeli settlers while touring the West Bank on Wednesday afternoon. As David Brady reports for The American Conservative, Khanna—who is weighing a 2028 presidential run—was traveling through the ruins of Khirbet Zanuta, a Palestinian village, as part of a three-day trip when armed settlers surrounded and blocked his vehicle. According to the New York Times, Israel Defense Force members arrived at the scene during the encounter but did not assist Khanna. They blocked the road only after the settlers departed. The incident was captured by the congressman's team and witnessed by a Times photographer. Khanna has become an increasingly vocal critic of Israel's wars in Gaza and Iran. The trip was organized by Cameron Kasky, a Parkland shooting survivor and new member of Khanna's digital team, who himself ran for Congress in New York last year on a platform condemning Israel's actions in Gaza as genocide. On the domestic front, President Trump said Friday he will allow a major bipartisan housing package to become law without his signature, using the move to protest the Senate's failure to advance his SAVE America Act on election security. As Joseph Addington reports for The American Conservative, Trump dismissed the housing bill—the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act—as, quote, "a big yawn," and urged Congress to instead take up the SAVE Act, which would require documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote. The housing measure is expected to take effect Saturday under the constitutional provision allowing bills to become law if a president neither signs nor vetoes them within ten days while Congress is in session. The package passed with striking bipartisan support: 85 to 5 in the Senate, and 358 to 32 in the House. It aims to ease the nationwide housing shortage by accelerating environmental reviews, reducing regulatory barriers to construction, expanding support for manufactured and rural housing, and limiting the purchase of single-family homes by large corporate buyers. Those are today's highlights. For the full stories and more, visit theamericanconservative.com. Thank you for starting your morning with us.
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Good morning! Today is Saturday, July 11th 2026, and this is The American Conservative's Morning Brief. President Trump has declined to renew the USMCA, the trade pact he himself negotiated, arguing that ballooning deficits with Mexico and Canada and a shrinking manufacturing base prove the deal failed to deliver. Ted Snider contends that the proxy war in Ukraine and the direct war on Iran have raised nuclear risks worldwide, from Finland and Lithuania lifting bans on hosting nuclear weapons to Saudi Arabia signing a mutual defense pact with nuclear-armed Pakistan. W. James Antle III examines how Graham Platner's imploded Senate bid in Maine exposes a dilemma for anti-establishment candidates who routed their party's elites in the primary but remained wholly dependent on those same donors to compete in November. and now for the details. President Trump has decided not to renew the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement, the trade pact he himself negotiated during his first term. The deal will remain in force until 2036, when it will expire unless all three countries agree to extend it. Trump told reporters in June that the USMCA was, quote, "sort of a good deal, but it was a great deal for one reason. It gave the right to terminate." As Joseph Addington reports, the president is exercising that right because the economic trends the deal was supposed to arrest have only accelerated. Since the USMCA took effect in 2020, the U.S. goods trade deficit with Mexico has nearly doubled, from 111 billion dollars to 197 billion. The deficit with Canada has grown roughly 250 percent. Manufacturing's share of U.S. GDP has slipped from just over 10 percent to 9.4, and there are fewer Americans working in manufacturing today than in January of 2020. Addington notes the USMCA was essentially NAFTA with a new coat of paint—preserving the North American free-trade zone while tightening automotive rules of origin and labor standards. The administration will keep negotiating over the next decade, pushing to strengthen those rules further, but a full replacement framework is not yet on the table. Addington observes that materially altering the arrangement will be difficult, as North American supply chains have grown more integrated, especially as manufacturers shift work from China to Mexico. What replaces the USMCA in 2036 will likely depend on the 2028 election, with Vice President J.D. Vance championing the protectionist line and Secretary of State Marco Rubio closer to the older Republican consensus on free trade. The American proxy war in Ukraine and the direct American war in Iran have raised nuclear risks around the world. That's the argument from Ted Snider, who points out that even Western officials now concede Russia was never poised to march on NATO territory. General Alexus Grynkewich, head of U.S. European Command, has said Russia is not looking for a wider conflict, and Sweden's prime minister agrees. But the war, Snider writes, has hardened a rigid line across Europe and allowed nuclear weapons to move up against it. Finland, which shares an 830-mile border with Russia, has overturned a decades-old ban on hosting nuclear weapons. Lithuania's parliament last week began lifting a similar constitutional ban. Poland has declared interest in the U.S. nuclear sharing program and has joined France's forward deterrence scheme. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned that Finland's move will make it a target. Snider argues the war on Iran has done comparable damage to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Iran, a signatory, was supposed to be protected in its right to a civilian program. The IAEA found no evidence of an active weapons program, yet did not condemn the strikes. Snider notes that Saudi Arabia has since signed a full mutual defense pact with nuclear-armed Pakistan, and Gulf states are quietly diversifying away from reliance on American security guarantees. Both wars, he concludes, were sold as making the world safer. Both, in his telling, have done the opposite. Those are today's highlights. For the full stories and more, visit theamericanconservative.com. Thank you for starting your morning with us.
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Good morning! Today is Friday, July 10th 2026, and this is The American Conservative's Morning Brief. As U.S. and Iranian forces trade fire for a second straight night and strikes hit civilian infrastructure near Khamenei's funeral, President Trump declares last month's memorandum of understanding with Tehran "over.". Ted Snider argues Washington is deceiving itself about a "victory" in Iran, citing Mearsheimer's assessment that Tehran has "clearly won the war" and drawing an uncomfortable parallel to Ukraine. James P. Pinkerton zooms out to place the Iran War within the twenty-five-year Neoconservative Era, weighing whether it truly ranks as "a bigger defeat than Vietnam" or, as J.D. Vance put it, merely "a little blip.". and now for the details. We begin with the latest from the Iran War, now in its one hundred and thirty-second day. For the second consecutive night, the United States carried out a bombing campaign against Iran, with Iran responding by launching drones and ballistic missiles at American and allied bases across the region. Central Command described the American targets as military in nature, but the Financial Times reports that strikes hit civilian infrastructure as well, including railroad bridges on the route to Mashhad, where the funeral of assassinated former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is underway. Electricity infrastructure in southeastern Iran was struck, cutting power to parts of the country, and the deputy governor of Bushehr province says the perimeter of the Bushehr nuclear power plant was also bombed. Iran's Revolutionary Guard retaliated against a satellite early-warning site in Qatar, fuel storage in Bahrain, and air defense in Kuwait, and launched missiles at the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain and bases in Kuwait and Jordan. As Harrison Berger reports for The American Conservative, traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has slowed sharply, with only thirteen tankers crossing on Wednesday against a recent daily average of thirty-three. President Trump on Wednesday evening declared last month's memorandum of understanding with Tehran "over," while also claiming that Iran had called wanting to make a deal. Brent crude sits above seventy-seven dollars, and the national average price for regular gasoline stands at three dollars and eighty-five cents. Ted Snider, writing for The American Conservative, argues that the collapse of the ceasefire reflects a dangerous self-deception in Washington. President Trump has invoked America's "recent victory" in Iran and claimed the United States "wiped out" the Iranian military. Snider counters that Iran retains ninety percent of its underground missile storage and launch facilities, seventy-five percent of its mobile launchers, seventy percent of its ballistic and cruise missiles, and half of its drones. The regime in Tehran remains firmly in place. Meanwhile, thirteen American service members have been killed, expensive munitions have been depleted, and unprecedented damage has been done to U.S. bases in the region, including the Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain. Snider quotes University of Chicago political scientist John Mearsheimer, who told TAC that Iran has "clearly won the war" and that the memorandum of understanding Trump signed was, in Mearsheimer's words, "effectively a surrender document." Snider draws a parallel to Ukraine, where he argues President Zelensky and his European backers are similarly convinced that the tide has turned, even as Russia grinds forward in the Donbas and Ukrainian air defenses failed to stop a single ballistic missile in this week's Russian barrage. In both theaters, Snider warns, leaders convinced they can still win the unwinnable risk prolonging wars that ought to be ended. Those are today's highlights. For the full stories and more, visit theamericanconservative.com. Thank you for starting your morning with us.
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Good morning! Today is Thursday, July 9th 2026, and this is The American Conservative's Morning Brief. Andrew Day warns that Trump is repeating Biden's 2022 mistake in Ukraine, waving off peace talks just as Kyiv briefly gains momentum, even as interceptor shortages leave its cities exposed and analysts warn the pendulum will soon swing back toward Moscow. On day 131 of the war with Iran, President Trump declared the ceasefire memorandum "over" after overnight strikes and Iranian retaliation against U.S. bases in Bahrain and Kuwait, sending oil prices climbing even as 78 percent of Americans say they want the war to end. and now for the details. We begin this morning with the war in Ukraine, and a warning that Washington may be repeating a costly mistake. Russian missile and drone attacks continue to pound Ukrainian cities, and the Ukrainian Air Force says a serious shortage of interceptor missiles meant that none of the 23 ballistic missiles fired at Kyiv on Sunday night were shot down. And yet, according to reporting from Axios, European officials say the message from Washington in recent weeks is that Ukraine has the upper hand on the battlefield, and the White House feels less urgency to launch a new diplomatic push. As Andrew Day reports for The American Conservative, that assessment echoes a fateful choice made by the Biden administration back in November 2022. At that time, Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley urged the White House to press for a diplomatic settlement while Ukraine held battlefield momentum. Secretaries Blinken and Sullivan argued against it. Milley, Day notes, turned out to be right about the war's trajectory. Now, Day writes, President Trump appears to be making the same wager. Ukraine has scored dramatic deep strikes inside Russia, including an attack on energy infrastructure that knocked out power across occupied Crimea. But Jennifer Kavanagh of Defense Priorities cautions that the pendulum is likely to swing back in Moscow's favor, given Russia's advantages in firepower and manpower. Day points out that the moment is not comfortable for Vladimir Putin either. A recent Levada Center poll found 67 percent of Russians want peace talks to begin, a record high, and a Gallup survey found a majority of Russians saying local economic conditions are worsening for the first time in the poll's 20-year history. Day argues that with Trump having reduced direct American support and Europe carrying more of the burden, Washington is a more plausible mediator than before. But, he writes, resolving the war was a key Trump campaign promise, and the best time to push for peace is when the wheel turns in Ukraine's favor. At some point, Day concludes, the Ukrainians won't get another turn. Turning now to the war with Iran, which has entered its 131st day. Speaking at a NATO summit press conference in Ankara alongside Secretary General Mark Rutte, President Trump declared that the memorandum of understanding signed last month to stabilize the ceasefire is, in his words, over. Trump said Iran's leadership are "scum" and "cuckoo," and called further talks a waste of time. As Harrison Berger reports, the president's comments followed an overnight exchange of strikes. The U.S. military said it hit Iran in retaliation for Iranian attacks on vessels in the Strait of Hormuz. Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps then launched retaliatory strikes against U.S. bases in Bahrain and Kuwait, claiming to have targeted 85 American military installations, including the Navy's Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain. Trump told reporters the U.S. would "probably hit them hard again tonight." Secretary General Rutte applauded the strikes as "completely the right thing to do." Berger notes, however, that a CBS News poll released in late June found that 78 percent of Americans want an end to the war now. Global markets responded to the escalation, with Brent Crude oil rising above $79.80 per barrel Wednesday morning, up from $71.50 at the start of the week. Those are today's highlights. For the full stories and more, visit theamericanconservative.com. Thank you for starting your morning with us.
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Good morning! Today is Wednesday, July 8th 2026, and this is The American Conservative's Morning Brief. The U.S. military launched massive retaliatory strikes on more than 80 targets in southwestern Iran after attacks on commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, with Iranian forces reportedly striking back at Bahrain within hours. At the NATO summit in Ankara, President Trump signaled a warming of ties with Turkey, lifting sanctions and opening the door to F-35 sales despite Israeli objections. Jack Hunter argues that conservative outrage over democratic socialist Melat Kiros's 9/11 blowback remarks revives Bush-Cheney-era speech codes—ignoring that Pat Buchanan, Ron Paul, and Robert Novak all made the same case. and now for the details. We begin with breaking news from the Persian Gulf. The U.S. military announced Tuesday evening it was launching what it called a series of powerful strikes against Iran, in retaliation for Iranian attacks on three commercial vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz. The Pentagon described the Iranian attacks as unwarranted, dangerous, and a clear violation of the ceasefire reached last month. According to reporting cited by Andrew Day at The American Conservative, U.S. forces struck southwestern Iran, hitting more than 80 targets—including air-defense systems, coastal surveillance, surface-to-air missiles, anti-ship cruise missile sites, drone launch sites, and port facilities. A U.S. official told Axios the strikes were four to five times more powerful than those conducted ten days ago. Within hours, reports emerged of Iranian retaliatory strikes against Bahrain, which hosts the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet. As Day reports, the escalation follows the White House's decision earlier Tuesday to reinstate sanctions on Iranian oil sales that had been lifted as part of last month's memorandum of understanding. Tehran called that move a violation of the agreement, insisting it retains the right to manage traffic through the strait. In a related dispatch, Harrison Berger notes that the damaged vessels included a Qatari-owned liquefied natural gas carrier and a Saudi-flagged crude oil tanker, and that President Trump, speaking earlier in the day at the NATO summit in Ankara, had signaled a warming of ties with Turkey—announcing the lifting of sanctions and openness to selling F-35 fighter jets to Ankara, in defiance of pressure from Israeli officials who have urged a more confrontational posture toward President Erdogan. Turning to the intersection of foreign policy and domestic politics, a new controversy has erupted over remarks by Melat Kiros, the 29-year-old democratic socialist who last week defeated 15-term incumbent Diana DeGette in a Denver Democratic primary. Asked by a local reporter whether she believed the 9/11 attacks were, like the October 7th attack on Israel, an inevitable consequence of U.S. foreign policy, Kiros said American destabilization of the Middle East had led people to believe violence was the only response. Conservative commentators, including Nikki Haley and the Republican Jewish Coalition, accused her of blaming America for 9/11. As Jack Hunter writes for The American Conservative, that reaction represents a kind of time warp—reviving the Bush-Cheney-era speech codes that once branded any discussion of blowback as anti-American. Hunter points out that Pat Buchanan, a cofounder of the magazine, said much the same thing for two decades—on MSNBC, in his columns, and in his 1999 book A Republic, Not An Empire, which even named Osama bin Laden as a likely instigator of a catastrophic attack on an American city. Hunter recalls Ron Paul's famous 2008 debate exchange with Rudy Giuliani, when Paul invoked the CIA's own concept of blowback and saw his political movement take off. Columnist Robert Novak made similar arguments after 9/11. Hunter argues that while the rise of democratic socialists in Democratic primaries isn't good news for the country, it's a healthy development that Americans across the political spectrum can now discuss the consequences of U.S. foreign policy more honestly than the neoconservative consensus once permitted. Those are today's highlights. For the full stories and more, visit theamericanconservative.com. Thank you for starting your morning with us.
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Good morning! Today is Tuesday, July 7th 2026, and this is The American Conservative's Morning Brief. At the NATO summit in Ankara, Luke Nicastro warns that Europe's rearmament pledge is a trap designed to keep American troops on the continent, and argues the case for unilateral U.S. withdrawal is stronger than the tired "freeriding" critique suggests. Eldar Mamedov reads Israel's sudden recognition of the Armenian genocide as an opportunistic maneuver aimed at isolating Turkey, warning that the campaign's real audience is Washington and its endpoint a U.S. confrontation with a NATO ally. and now for the details. We begin this morning in Ankara, Turkey, where NATO leaders are gathered for the annual alliance summit. Much of the agenda is devoted to demonstrating progress on last year's pledge that every NATO member spend three and a half percent of GDP on core defense, plus another one and a half percent on defense-adjacent priorities, by 2035. According to NATO, non-U.S. members boosted defense spending last year by some ninety billion dollars, and billions more in new contracts are set to be announced. Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal reports that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had prepared to announce sweeping additional troop cuts in Europe, but that proposal was blocked after national security adviser Marco Rubio and other senior officials weighed in. Writing for The American Conservative, Luke Nicastro argues that European rearmament is not what it appears. As Nicastro reports, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte and other European leaders are deliberately using the spending pledge as a mechanism to keep American forces on the continent — and they've been careful to credit President Trump for the entire five percent commitment. Nicastro warns that the dominant "freeriding" critique of NATO, which focuses on Europe not paying its fair share, quietly concedes two premises: that the conventional defense of Europe against Russia is critical to American security, and that it is under-resourced. He challenges both. The non-U.S. members of NATO have a collective GDP more than ten times Russia's, and over six hundred million Europeans to Russia's one hundred forty million. Nicastro contends that eighty thousand American troops in Europe are not necessary to deter Moscow, that their presence reinforces Russian fears of encirclement, obstructs a settlement in Ukraine, and exposes American servicemembers to unnecessary risk in a live war zone. His prescription: unilateral, unconditional cuts to the U.S. military presence in Europe, with an eye toward getting out entirely. He closes with Thomas Jefferson's 1823 counsel to James Monroe that America should never take active part in the quarrels of Europe. Turning to the eastern Mediterranean, the Israeli government has voted to formally recognize the World War I-era Armenian genocide, a resolution that still awaits ratification by the Knesset. Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar framed the vote as a moral duty and said Israel now joins thirty-two countries that have acknowledged the historical truth. Writing for The American Conservative, Eldar Mamedov urges a skeptical reading of the move. As Mamedov reports, for decades Israeli governments avoided this recognition to preserve ties with Kemalist Turkey under the so-called periphery strategy. That calculus has changed. Israel's deepening partnership with Azerbaijan — which now supplies roughly forty percent of Israel's oil and provides an intelligence foothold on Iran's border — culminated in Baku's 2023 expulsion of about one hundred thousand indigenous Armenian Christians from Nagorno-Karabakh, an event in which, according to Haaretz, Israel's fingerprints were visible. Mamedov notes the moral duty invoked by Sa'ar was absent then. He argues the real target of the recognition vote is Turkey, now cast by Israeli leaders and allied Washington think tanks like the Foundation for Defense of Democracies as the head of a new Sunni axis, a successor threat to Iran. Armenia's own reaction was lukewarm; Azerbaijan's was hostile. Mamedov's conclusion is that the campaign is aimed less at the region than at Washington, with the endpoint being a U.S. confrontation with a NATO ally. He urges American policymakers to make clear that Israel is free to pursue its own foreign policy, but that the United States will not be drawn into another Middle Eastern war. Those are today's highlights. For the full stories and more, visit theamericanconservative.com. Thank you for starting your morning with us.
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Good morning! Today is Monday, July 6th 2026, and this is The American Conservative's Morning Brief. In Tehran, hundreds of thousands mourn the assassinated Ali Khamenei as Iran War negotiations grind into their 18th day, with new polling showing 58 percent of Americans now say the war hasn't been worth the cost and President Trump's approval sliding to 36 percent. Aaron Magid argues in TAC that Jordan's $2 billion annual aid package deserves the same scrutiny applied to Israel, especially given King Abdullah's reported $106 million in luxury homes and $224 million in Swiss accounts. Peter Van Buren examines Marco Rubio's plan to slash African visa processing posts from nearly 50 to 20, while Spencer Neale asks hard questions about Rep. Tom Kean's four-month absence from Congress. and now for the details. We begin in Tehran, where hundreds of thousands of mourners have gathered for the second day of funeral ceremonies for former Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who was assassinated by the United States and Israel on February 28th. The rites coincide with the 18th day of negotiations aimed at ending the Iran War. Senior Iranian officials have attended, though the new Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, has not appeared. As Harrison Berger reports for The American Conservative, journalists on the ground in Tehran are describing significant public backlash to the government's decision to negotiate with Washington, and open calls for vengeance against the United States and Israel. Berger points to a new Financial Times poll showing 58 percent of registered American voters now say the Iran War has not been worth the cost, with only 28 percent saying it has. The White House asked Congress last month for $67 billion to cover war costs, and rising petrol and consumer prices have driven President Trump's approval to 36 percent overall — and just 21 percent among independents, an eight-point drop in a single month. Meanwhile, Lebanon's National News Agency reports fresh Israeli helicopter fire and airstrikes in occupied southern Lebanon. Berger notes that Article One of the 60-day interim agreement, which took effect June 17th, requires an immediate and permanent end to military operations on all fronts — including in Lebanon — and commits the United States to preserving Lebanese sovereignty. Tehran has warned that continued Israeli operations there could derail the entire peace process. Turning to foreign aid: the United States has sent Jordan roughly $33.8 billion in assistance over the past 75 years. This year alone, Congress authorized more than $2 billion, placing the Hashemite Kingdom among the top three recipients of U.S. aid worldwide. Writing for The American Conservative, Aaron Magid argues that figure deserves the same scrutiny lawmakers like Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie have applied to aid for Israel. Magid points out that Jordan's GDP has quadrupled over the last two decades and now exceeds that of many African nations. The International Monetary Fund describes its economy as resilient. Meanwhile, The Economist rates Jordan an authoritarian regime, and Jordanian authorities last year banned the Muslim Brotherhood after its political wing won the most seats in parliamentary elections. The Syrian refugee population that once justified surging aid has fallen sharply since the fall of Bashar al-Assad, with nearly 200,000 refugees returning home. Magid also notes that the 2020 Abraham Accords have made Jordan's peace treaty with Israel less unique — and that King Abdullah himself, according to the Pandora Papers and reporting in the New York Times, holds 14 luxury homes worth over $106 million and Swiss bank accounts exceeding $224 million. Magid suggests aid should return to its 2006 level of roughly $400 million, arguing that as American strategists urge a pivot toward the Western Hemisphere and away from the Middle East, Jordan should no longer sit near the top of the U.S. foreign aid ledger. Those are today's highlights. For the full stories and more, visit theamericanconservative.com. Thank you for starting your morning with us.
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Good morning! Today is Sunday, July 5th 2026, and this is The American Conservative's Morning Brief. Two bills moving through Congress this summer would deepen the U.S.–Israel military bond, with Section 219 of the NDAA fusing the two countries' defense industries and a separate $3.3 billion transfer facing a Massie-led revolt that has House Democrats scrambling. In Tehran, up to thirty million mourners are expected at the funeral of Ayatollah Khamenei, assassinated in February, as Iran War negotiations enter their seventeenth day and Tehran warns foreign vessels in the Strait of Hormuz to follow its designated routes or face forceful response. Tensions flare between Israel and Turkey, with President Erdoğan calling the Israeli cabinet war-addicted while Israeli ministers increasingly cast Ankara as a greater threat than Iran. and now for the details. We begin on Capitol Hill, where two pieces of legislation moving through Congress this summer could reshape the financial and military relationship between the United States and Israel. The first is the National Defense Authorization Act for 2027. Tucked inside is a provision, now numbered Section 219, that would direct the Pentagon to identify Israeli-origin technologies for integration into U.S. weapons systems and to build American-based co-production partnerships with Israeli industry. The second is a separate appropriations bill containing three-point-three billion dollars in annual funding for Israel, tied to a ten-year, thirty-eight billion dollar memorandum of understanding. Congressman Thomas Massie of Kentucky, joined by Congressman Ro Khanna of California, has introduced amendments targeting both tracks. The House Rules Committee this week rejected their bipartisan amendment to strip Section 219 from the NDAA. As Harrison Berger reports for The American Conservative, analysts at the Quincy Institute call Section 219 unprecedented. Annelle Sheline told TAC that no other foreign country has an executive agent inside the Pentagon to merge its military industrial base with America's. She warns the provision would shift Israeli weapons funding out of congressional view and into the Pentagon's procurement system, insulating it from a public that, by polling, has grown deeply skeptical of financing Israel's wars. Berger notes the national security concerns are twofold. Foreign components in American systems raise the risk of compromised supply chains, a danger underscored by Israel's 2024 pager operation in Lebanon. And by fusing the two countries' defense industries, Washington would surrender the leverage it currently holds over Israeli conduct in the region. Berger reports that Massie's amendment on the three-point-three billion dollar transfer has provoked what Punchbowl News describes as alarm inside the House Democratic caucus, with members seeking guidance on how to vote as their base turns against Israel funding. Sheline warns that if Section 219 becomes law, Congress may not get another meaningful vote on the matter. Turning overseas, the funeral of Iran's former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei opened Saturday in Tehran, with up to thirty million mourners expected to pay their respects. Khamenei was assassinated by the United States and Israel on February 28th. Senior officials from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Russia, and China are reported to be attending. Talks to end the Iran War have now entered their seventeenth day, with the next round scheduled for July 11th in Pakistan, according to Al Arabiya. Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi warned Saturday against what he called extra-regional powers operating in the Strait of Hormuz. Iran's central military command has declared that all vessels transiting the strait must follow routes designated by Tehran or face what it called an immediate and forceful response. Energy market observers say traffic is already shifting away from the Omani side of the strait toward the Iranian route. That warning came a day after British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron announced their governments stand ready to deploy a multinational military mission to support freedom of navigation there. As Harrison Berger reports for TAC, the Financial Times found many mourners at Khamenei's funeral voicing frustration with their government's pursuit of a negotiated settlement. Speaking at Mount Rushmore on the eve of the nation's 250th anniversary, President Trump said, quote, we beat Venezuela in one day and we knocked the hell out of Iran, and that they are, quote, dying to settle. Berger also notes rising tensions between Israel and Turkey. President Erdoğan, appearing with Pakistan's prime minister, described the Israeli cabinet as war-addicted and tied to the continuation of regional conflicts. Several Israeli ministers have in recent weeks labeled Turkey a greater concern than Iran, with former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett declaring that Turkey is the new Iran. Thos
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Good morning! Today is Saturday, July 4th 2026, and this is The American Conservative's Morning Brief. On the semiquincentennial, Reid Smith reflects on the surreal spectacle of American strikes on Iran during a World Cup it hosts, and asks whether a republic founded on self-government can still constrain its own power with prudence and wisdom. Smith traces restraint as a broken but enduring American promise, from Washington's Farewell to Eisenhower's warning, arguing that the 1947 National Security Act turned war from a state of exception into the routine province of the executive branch. Christopher Mott revisits Washington's Farewell Address as a second Declaration of Independence, drawing a pointed parallel between the young republic's refusal to be drawn into revolutionary France's quarrels and today's Middle East entanglements undertaken at the behest of a foreign country. and now for the details. On this Fourth of July, as Americans mark the semiquincentennial, The American Conservative opens with a meditation on the gap between our founding aspirations and our present conduct abroad. The occasion is striking. Hours before Iran's national soccer team took the pitch in Seattle for its World Cup match against Egypt, U.S. Central Command announced further strikes against the Islamic Republic. A host nation had never before bombed a participating country during the tournament, and this came just months after FIFA awarded President Donald Trump its Peace Prize. As Reid Smith writes, the scene is absurd, but the paradox is typically American. Smith argues that restraint has rarely been America's habit, but it has always been part of America's promise. He traces that thread from Washington's warning against permanent alliances, through John Quincy Adams's insistence that America goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy, to Eisenhower on the military-industrial complex, and through generations who marched against war in Vietnam and Iraq. Smith notes that the National Security Act of 1947 routinized wartime mobilization and turned war, once conceived by the Founders as a state of exception requiring public deliberation and congressional consent, into the province of the executive branch and its classified bureaucracies. The result, he writes, is a republic that often uses force while rarely choosing war. His question for the holiday: can a nation founded on self-government constrain its own power with prudence, courage, and wisdom. In a companion piece for the anniversary, Christopher Mott revisits George Washington's Farewell Address and argues that, in the field of diplomacy, it deserves to be read as a kind of second Declaration of Independence. Mott sets the scene in the 1790s, when revolutionary France, having helped secure American independence at Saratoga, was pressing the young United States to serve as a base for privateering against Britain. The Washington administration instead issued a Proclamation of Neutrality and concluded the Jay Treaty of 1795. The treaty was so bitterly contested that John Jay was burned in effigy across the country, and Alexander Hamilton was struck by a stone while speaking in its defense. Mott writes that Washington, a former land surveyor, had a spatial rather than ideological conception of geopolitics. He saw the American experiment as dependent on distance from Europe's quarrels and on avoiding entangling alliances with friend and foe alike. Mott quotes Washington's warning that a passionate attachment of one nation for another dooms the smaller to be a satellite of the greater, and gives ambitious or deluded citizens the opportunity to betray their own country's interests under the appearance of virtue. Mott draws the parallel to the present Middle East, where, he writes, the U.S. government has conceded that its involvement occurred at the behest of a foreign country. The lesson he takes from Washington is strategic self-determination, avoiding the entanglements of both permanent enemies and permanent allies. Those are today's highlights. For the full stories and more, visit theamericanconservative.com. Thank you for starting your morning with us.
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Good morning! Today is Friday, July 3rd 2026, and this is The American Conservative's Morning Brief. Andrew Day unpacks the Supreme Court's 6–3 ruling upholding birthright citizenship, arguing that while Trump's executive order was struck down, the constitutional split was really 5–4 and the national debate over citizenship has only just begun. Chart Westcott challenges the familiar phrase "a nation of immigrants," making the case that America is better understood as a nation of assimilants, where the true miracle was never arrival but the transformation of strangers into fellow countrymen. and now for the details. We begin with this week's Supreme Court ruling on birthright citizenship. In a six-to-three decision, the justices upheld near-universal birthright citizenship, striking down President Trump's executive order that would have ended the practice for the children of illegal aliens and temporary residents. As Andrew Day writes for The American Conservative, the ruling changed everything, and yet nothing. The system remains as it has been since the late 1890s, but Day argues the context has shifted dramatically. He cites Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies, who told TAC that mass immigration is incompatible with the goals of a modern society in ways it wasn't a century or two ago, pointing to smartphones, social media, and the welfare state as obstacles to assimilation. Day highlights arguments from author Ann Coulter, who insists the Fourteenth Amendment, crafted after the Civil War to guarantee citizenship for freed slaves, was never meant to cover the children of illegal aliens or temporary residents. Day also identifies a silver lining for conservatives. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, though joining the majority, based his opinion on a federal statute rather than the Constitution itself, meaning the constitutional split was actually five to four. That leaves open the possibility that Congress could one day redefine birthright citizenship by statute. Day concludes that Trump's order has already shifted the range of acceptable opinion, opening a national debate on the nature of citizenship that even the Washington Post editorial board has acknowledged. Staying with questions of citizenship and national identity, as America approaches its two hundred fiftieth birthday, Chart Westcott offers a reflection in The American Conservative on what he calls one of the most persistent myths in modern American politics: the phrase "a nation of immigrants." Westcott argues that America is more accurately described as a nation of assimilants. Immigration, he writes, is merely the act of arrival. Assimilation is the act of becoming. What made the American experiment remarkable, in his telling, was never the ability to attract newcomers but the capacity to transform strangers into fellow countrymen. Westcott takes on the long-running debate over whether America is fundamentally a creed or a nation, and argues that the two cannot be separated. The Constitution, he notes, was not written for humanity in the abstract. As John Jay observed in Federalist Two, it was written for a people already bound by common habits and affections. Drawing on Lincoln at Gettysburg, on Theodore Roosevelt's insistence that there be no divided allegiance, and even on Malcolm X's observation that mere citizenship is not the same as belonging, Westcott makes the case that assimilation is not exclusion but the pathway to full membership. He challenges the modern slogan that "diversity is our strength," writing that diversity itself is simply a fact. What matters is whether a nation possesses the cultural confidence to turn diversity into unity, out of many, one. Those are today's highlights. For the full stories and more, visit theamericanconservative.com. Thank you for starting your morning with us.
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Good morning! Today is Thursday, July 2nd 2026, and this is The American Conservative's Morning Brief. Doug Bandow argues Europe's fury at Council President António Costa for opening a channel to Moscow reveals a continent unwilling to face the reality that after 52 months of war, only negotiations can produce a durable peace. Jack Hunter examines how the hard left and the America First right have arrived at strikingly similar conclusions about Israel, with recent primaries and polling showing a bipartisan revolt against Washington's posture. and now for the details. We begin in Brussels, where European Council President António Costa has come under fire from EU leaders after his chief of staff initiated informal contact with Moscow. Political outlets report that French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz are among those most aggrieved, with Lithuania's president insisting that now is not the right time to negotiate with Vladimir Putin. Estonia's prime minister went further, arguing that the EU cannot even play the role of mediator without compromising its ability to pressure Russia. As Doug Bandow writes for The American Conservative, this reaction is difficult to square with reality on the ground. The war in Ukraine has now raged for 52 months, longer than the First World War, with no end in sight. Bandow argues that fears of a Russian march to the Atlantic, or an assault on the Baltic states, are wildly overstated, and that Kiev lacks the manpower and resources to reclaim lost territory by force. Without negotiations, he warns, the conflict will either freeze into permanent hostility or escalate catastrophically. Bandow contends that a durable peace requires embedding both Ukraine and Russia within a broader continental security framework, and that European capitals must recognize Moscow's red lines rather than shout them down. He notes that back in 2001, Putin addressed the German Bundestag speaking of European integration with hope. Recovering that moment may be impossible, Bandow concedes, but after more than four years of war, Europe should be actively pushing for peace, not punishing the officials who try to open a channel. Turning to domestic politics, a striking realignment is taking shape around American policy toward Israel. In New York City's recent congressional primaries, three insurgent candidates with ties to the Democratic Socialists of America defeated establishment incumbents, and each made vocal criticism of Israel a centerpiece of their campaigns. A Democratic pollster told Responsible Statecraft there was very little daylight between Brad Lander and Dan Goldman ideologically except when it came to Israel, and Lander won by 30 points despite being outspent. National polling shows two-thirds of Democrats now believe the United States is too supportive of Israel. As Jack Hunter writes for The American Conservative, a parallel shift is underway on the right. A recent poll found that just over half of Republican voters believe Israel has too much influence over U.S. foreign policy, and favorability has dropped sharply among younger conservatives. Congressman Thomas Massie lost his primary in part over his opposition to aid for Israel, and former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene became the first House Republican to describe the situation in Gaza as genocide. Hunter argues that the hard left and the America First right have arrived at similar conclusions for similar reasons: opposition to American vassalage, skepticism of endless regional wars, and a conviction that resources are better spent at home. He acknowledges deep disagreements between the two camps on domestic policy, but suggests that on questions of national sovereignty and restraint abroad, a working alliance is not only possible but overdue. Those are today's highlights. For the full stories and more, visit theamericanconservative.com. Thank you for starting your morning with us.
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Good morning! Today is Wednesday, July 1st 2026, and this is The American Conservative's Morning Brief. Jude Russo warns that both Washington and Tehran are poised to squander their leverage in the Iran peace talks, with American negotiators misreading Hezbollah and Iran floating a fantastical $40 billion Hormuz toll scheme. Kushner and Witkoff landed in Doha as talks stretched into their thirteenth day, but Tehran flatly denied any plans for direct meetings, while Moody's estimates the war has cost the average American household roughly a thousand dollars. Presumptive British Prime Minister Andy Burnham unveiled a "Number Ten North" devolution scheme in Manchester, reviving decades-old regional promises that Iain Macwhirter argues are unlikely to revive Britain's flagging economy. and now for the details. We begin with the delicate negotiations to end the war with Iran, where both sides appear at risk of squandering their advantages. Last week, U.S. negotiators announced a framework for a Lebanon-Israel deal, premised on Israeli withdrawal being matched by the Lebanese army moving into vacated areas to prevent Hezbollah from returning. As Jude Russo writes, this is wishful thinking. If the Lebanese army were strong enough to clear out Hezbollah, they would have done it already. The entire problem is predicated on the weakness of the Lebanese state. Russo argues that American negotiators still misread Hezbollah, treating it as an Al Qaeda-style ideological actor when structurally it more closely resembles the Irish Republican Army, straddling politics and militancy, and enjoying broad popular support. Any real settlement, he contends, will have to reckon with Hezbollah directly. On the Iranian side, Russo points to reporting in the Wall Street Journal that Tehran expects to generate roughly forty billion dollars from a proposed toll system on the Strait of Hormuz—two orders of magnitude beyond what Turkey earns administering the Bosporus. Russo warns that pressing such maximalist demands will encourage regional players to route their exports elsewhere, turning control of Hormuz into a wasting asset. He suggests a more modest fee structure could actually embed Iran in international administration as a normal nation, while indirect talks mediated by an inexperienced Pakistan continue to produce avoidable hiccups. The question, Russo concludes, is whether two governments uniquely ill-suited to getting along can resist returning to form. Staying with the Iran file, U.S. envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff arrived in Doha on Tuesday as talks entered their thirteenth day. Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei rejected White House claims that Iranian negotiators would meet the Americans, saying Tehran has no plans to meet Kushner, Witkoff, or any other U.S. official in the coming days. Qatar's Foreign Ministry confirmed there will be no direct negotiations while the envoys are in the Qatari capital. As Harrison Berger reports, CBS News, citing Moody's chief economist, estimates the Iran war has cost the average American household roughly one thousand dollars in higher fuel, food, and other expenses, including three hundred dollars more for gas and two hundred dollars more for groceries. Oman's foreign minister appeared to back Iran's proposal for Strait of Hormuz fees, drawing a distinction between transit tolls and voluntary service fees. Meanwhile, Lebanon's National News Agency reports continued Israeli drone and airstrike activity in the south, with Lebanon's Health Ministry reporting more than four thousand two hundred people killed by Israeli strikes since March. Brent Crude closed Tuesday at seventy-three dollars and ten cents a barrel, with the national average price of gasoline at three dollars and eighty-five cents. Those are today's highlights. For the full stories and more, visit theamericanconservative.com. Thank you for starting your morning with us.
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Good morning! Today is Tuesday, June 30th 2026, and this is The American Conservative's Morning Brief. The Supreme Court hands the Trump administration two losses and one win as the term winds down, with major rulings on mail-in ballots, the Federal Reserve, and the FTC reshaping the boundaries of executive power. Day twelve of the US–Iran ceasefire brings confusion over whether talks in Doha are actually happening, while Lebanon's leadership pushes back against Rubio's framework for disarming Hezbollah. As Keir Starmer's resignation clears the way for Andy Burnham, a fierce contest is underway to determine who will take the second most powerful job in British politics. and now for the details. We begin at the Supreme Court, which issued three significant rulings Monday morning as the term nears its close, with the Trump administration coming out on the losing end in two of them. In Watson v. Republican National Committee, a five-to-four majority upheld Mississippi's grace period for mail-in ballots postmarked by election day but received within five days afterward. The Court reaffirmed that the Constitution places election regulations primarily in the hands of the states, not the federal government. In a second five-to-four decision, the justices blocked the Trump administration's attempt to remove Federal Reserve Board member Lisa Cook while litigation over her dismissal proceeds. The administration had alleged Cook committed mortgage fraud. Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the majority, said the administration's position would, in his words, "transform the Federal Reserve's for-cause protection into at-will employment—an interpretive leap out of step with the statute Congress enacted and our Nation's tradition of central banking protected from political interference." The administration did secure one major win. By a six-to-three margin, the Court struck down the law that shielded Federal Trade Commission officials from removal except for cause. As David Brady reports for The American Conservative, that ruling is a significant victory for advocates of the unitary executive theory, overturning a prior precedent that had insulated dozens of independent agencies from direct presidential control. Rulings on birthright citizenship, transgender athletes, and campaign finance are expected Tuesday. Turning to the Middle East, negotiations between the United States and Iran remain in an uncertain state on day twelve of the ceasefire period stipulated by the memorandum of understanding. President Trump posted on Truth Social Monday morning that Iran had requested a meeting and that it would take place Tuesday in Doha. Anonymous officials told several outlets that the United States would stand down and halt strikes on Iran while negotiations continue, and the White House indicated that Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff would travel to Qatar. However, as Harrison Berger reports for The American Conservative, no official confirmation has yet come from Washington, Tehran, or Doha that the talks are actually on. Iran's Tasnim News Agency cited Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi saying technical working group talks in Doha had not been scheduled or confirmed. Meanwhile, Iran's Speaker of Parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, told his Lebanese counterpart that Iran is, quote, "seriously pursuing" the goal of ending Israel's occupation of Lebanese territory under the first clause of the Islamabad memorandum. And Lebanon's Speaker Nabih Berri publicly criticized the framework deal brokered by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, which would involve Lebanese forces in disarming Hezbollah. Berri warned the agreement could incite internal divisions and draw the Lebanese into a confrontation among themselves. Brent Crude was trading at $72.60 Monday morning, with the national average price of regular gasoline at $3.86 a gallon. Those are today's highlights. For the full stories and more, visit theamericanconservative.com. Thank you for starting your morning with us.
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