Vice President James D. “J.D.” Vance is the last of the three prominent administration sceptics challenging the execution of the Third Gulf War, and Monday, he announced that the Memorandum of Understanding between the United States and Iran was already signed digitally, making Friday’s signature ceremony, literally, ceremonial.
“What we fundamentally believe is that this is going to be a good deal for the people of Israel, for the people of the Gulf, the people of America, and again, potentially for the people of Iran as well,” Vance told “Good Morning, America” host George Stephanopoulos.
“There's a lot of misreporting,” he said.
“I've seen this in the Israeli media about what's actually in the deal. I think when the people of the region see what's in the deal and see the kind of commitments the President of the United States is making, they're going to see this is good for everybody,” the vice president said. “Peace and prosperity is good for everybody. That's true for Israel. It's true for Saudi Arabia and UAE and Qatar.”
There is a structural reason for the war with Iran to come to a close, because the most powerful force here has nothing to do with politics or policy; it is the calendar–and right now, the calendar is tight.
The World Cup games kicked off June 11, and President Donald J. Trump hosted an epic UFC fight card on the White House’s South Lawn Sunday. That last match and fireworks finished at or around 1:30 a.m., and the president was wheels up for the G-7 meetings in Évian-les-Bains, France, by 3:15 a.m.
Trump told reporters he was not sure if he would stick around the MOU with Iran ceremony Friday, held across Lake Geneva in Geneva, Switzerland; after all, there is still Ukraine, Cuba and the July 4 celebrations of 250 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
Wednesday was both the confirmation hearing for Jay Clayton, the president’s nominee to become the director of national intelligence and the first policy meeting of the Federal Reserve Open Markets Committee with new Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh.
The productive segment of the Capitol Hill calendar runs from the president’s State of the Union Address, and it ends at the Fourth of July. Thus far, none of the president’s legislative objectives have been achieved, principally because so many items were included in Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill, though the SAVE America Act remains.
The SAVE America Act is the president’s landmark voter and election integrity legislation, which the Senate Republican leadership and their Democratic allies have vowed to stop.
It looked hopeless for Trump until it came time to reauthorize the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. FISA is the full-on program to spy on foreign nationals, and by sleight of hand, on Americans. It was the program the Obama administration used to spy on the 2016 Trump campaign–and what the Obama holdovers and burrowed-in Obama loyalists used to spy on the Trump administration in 2017.
Sunday, hours before the UFC fights took place on the grounds of the Executive Mansion, Trump issued his own challenge on TruthSocial.
“I’m against FISA if it doesn’t come with The Save America Act (Full version!) firmly attached to it,” he Truthed.
There it is.
There is a lot going on, and prosecuting a war in the Middle East was just getting in the way, so once again, the calendar won again.