Welcome to From the Politics Desk, a daily newsletter that brings you the NBC News Politics team’s latest reporting and analysis from the White House, Capitol Hill and the campaign trail.
In today’s edition, we explore the domestic political challenges facing President Donald Trump on the Iran agreement. Plus, Lawrence Hurley lays out the Trump-related cases the Supreme Court is still set to rule on this term.
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— Adam Wollner
President Donald Trump is framing a tentative peace deal with Iran as a victory for the U.S., but fractures in the Republican Party suggest that it could be a hard sell both on Capitol Hill and in the run-up to November’s midterm elections.
“It’s a very strong deal,” Trump said at the G7 summit in France today, seated across from Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. “Nobody knows what it is, but it’s very strong.”
The early response from Republican leaders and the conservative commentariat is mixed at best, in part because versions of a 14-point memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the two countries have been circulating around the globe while the White House had not shared the finer points with Congress or the public. On Wednesday, a senior U.S. official read the 14-point memorandum on a conference call with reporters.
With Trump under pressure from Republicans wary of forever wars and those worried about inflation ahead of the midterm elections, the short-term gain for consumers and candidates is the MOU, which promises a tentative end to hostilities and a reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. Administration officials believe that will bring down prices for gas and other goods as freighters flow freely again through a major conduit in the global supply chain.
But cutting a preliminary deal to immediately reopen a waterway that was clear when the U.S. launched the war in late February — without ensuring enriched uranium is removed, effecting regime change or continuing to squeeze Tehran’s economy — is a “low-grade humiliation” for the president, a person close to the White House said.
“It’s an embarrassing way to get out of this, but I think everyone just wants to get out of it,” this person said.
A more comprehensive pact remains as elusive as it is politically fraught for the president. As much as voters want the U.S. out of Iran — and polls consistently show that they do — the price of getting Tehran to abandon its nuclear ambitions is giving the regime access to money. That’s a cost that many of the president’s supporters don’t want to bear, and it’s one that GOP candidates may have to wrestle with if a final agreement is ever reached.
“If this is true, Iran wins,” Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations during Trump’s first term, wrote on X yesterday after The Wall Street Journal reported that sanctions on Iranian oil would be lifted immediately as part of the MOU. “There should be zero sanctions relief day one.”
Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, whose views generally differ from Haley’s, also criticized the possible lifting of economic sanctions during his “War Room” podcast yesterday.
“Keep the sanctions, because if we lose that, it will take forever to get back,” he said, adding that the president should not unfreeze billions of dollars in captured Iranian assets. “Just walk away, but keep their money.”
🇮🇱 Related: Israel cut out of Iran deal as Trump keeps deriding Netanyahu in public, by Matt Bradley
About a third of the vote remains to be tallied in the Washington, D.C., mayoral primary. But clear patterns of support have already emerged lifting democratic socialist Janeese Lewis George in the race to manage the nation’s capital — and the city’s relationship with President Donald Trump.
🗳️More from last night’s elections
In the coming weeks, the Supreme Court will render judgment in a flurry of significant cases involving President Donald Trump, including his attempt to limit birthright citizenship and fire a member of the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors.
The court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, has 20 cases left to decide in its current term, with the next ruling day set for Thursday. The term starts in October and generally concludes at the end of June when many of the biggest and most consequential cases are decided.
Trump has already suffered a major loss at the court this year, with the justices in February blocking his sweeping tariffs on imports from around the world. He reacted by lashing out at the justices who were in the majority, including two he appointed.
Robert Luther III, a professor at Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University who served in the White House during Trump’s first term, said that while the president will inevitably lose some cases, it is partly because the administration is pushing an “extremely robust vision” of presidential power.
“While ultimately there may be a few losses, I think the court continues to move in a pro-executive direction, a vision that is more consistent with President Trump’s view of the executive branch,” he added.
⚖️ Trump cases at the Supreme Court
That’s all From the Politics Desk for now. Today’s newsletter was compiled by Adam Wollner and Annelise Hanson.
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