In late April, President Donald Trump announced that Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff (the Trump Administration's special envoy to the Middle East) would be resuming peace talks with Iran — only to tell the media, the next day, that the trip was off. Kushner and Witkoff are longtime business associates of Trump as well as political allies; both of them have backgrounds in high-end real estate, like the Trump Administration.

Reporter Linda Kinstler examines the "murky legal status" of Trump's Board of Peace and the Trump Administration/Kushner/Witkoff arrangement in an article published by the New York Times Magazine on May 1.

"Over the past year," Kinstler explains, "Kushner and Witkoff have crisscrossed the globe as White House emissaries: They have met with Hamas and with Vladimir Putin, with (Ukrainian President) Volodymyr Zelensky and with Iranian negotiators. Their near-universal presence at high-stakes negotiations suggests that Kushner and Witkoff, New York real estate developers who are now executive members of Trump's Board of Peace, have been almost single-handedly tasked with realizing Trump's desire to be remembered as the 'president of peace.'"

Kinstler adds, "But these are businessmen first and diplomats second…. Their view seems to be that peace is an asset to be leveraged and maximized."

Lawmakers, according to Kinstler, "are noticing the murky legal status" of Board of Peace activities.

"Several Democratic congressional investigations are looking into both Witkoff's and Kushner's financial records and international relationships," Kinstler notes. "In mid-April, four Democratic senators announced a probe of the Board of Peace's proposal to create a stablecoin for Gaza, pointing out that a number of its executives, including Witkoff and Trump himself, could stand to profit. In a letter addressed to Kushner announcing a House Judiciary Committee probe of his dual role as an investor and a 'volunteer' government representative, Rep. Jamie Raskin wrote, 'You cannot faithfully represent the United States with billions of dollars in Saudi and Emirati cash burning a hole in every pocket of every suit you own.'"

Kinstler adds, "By continuing to do so, Kushner was effectively insisting 'that the normal rules do not apply to you,' Raskin argued."

The reporter stresses that it remains to be seen what the Board of Peace will be able to accomplish in the Middle East.

"Rising energy prices have begun to strain American households," Kinstler observes, "but Trump and his 'people' aren't feeling the squeeze. Witkoff has said he is in the process of divesting from his real estate and crypto holdings; in 2024, Kushner said he would 'try to pre-emptively avoid any conflicts of interests.' But both men have seen their wealth grow significantly since Trump returned to office. And the peace they have long promised remains out of reach."

President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, was working with Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff to negotiate a new nuclear agreement with Iran when the U.S. began its bombing campaign. They were close to an agreement, but Trump went to war anyway, said a report from The Guardian.

It's prompting one national security analyst to question why the two are trying again to negotiate if they weren't able to succeed the first time around.

In a BlueSky thread, Marcy Wheeler questioned why folks are focused on things like the 25th Amendment and impeachment, instead of asking about Kushner, who doesn't even work for the White House and has his own economic interest in continuing the war. The New York Times reported last month that while he was negotiating a peace deal, he was also trying to raise money from Gulf states.

"NO ONE is really holding the GOP accountable for letting Trump send his son-in-law on a diplomat's errand, EVEN AFTER his incompetence led to war, or the fact that he has rid his White House of either experts or grown-up advisors," wrote Wheeler.

She added that there's also "the fact that they let him go to war without fully briefing before and during. It's that accountability that matters, one way or another. And impeachment/25A can be a tool to force that accountability."

Wheeler said that House and Senate Minority Leaders Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) and Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) are "intent" on demanding a vote over the War Powers Act.

"That would have the effect of peeling off a few members in both [houses]. But you need a larger narrative that GOP refusal to do its job enabled a catastrophic war," Wheeler added.

The comment comes as Trump posted on Truth Social that, despite closing the Strait of Hormuz and causing a possible global economic collapse, he believes Iran has "no cards." He called the closure of the strait "extortion."

The Guardian reported a few weeks after the bombing began that one Gulf diplomat, with direct knowledge of the negotiations, is furious with Witkoff and Kushner’s behavior. That person described them as “Israeli assets that had conspired to force the US president into entering a war from which he is now desperate to get himself out of."

Now, Vice President JD Vance is en route. Vance never wanted the war to begin with, so he might have more success than Kushner and Witkoff.

Meanwhile, inflation has risen above the level it was at when Trump took office in Jan. 2025.

Members of U.S. President Donald Trump's administration drew a great deal of mockery when, during a Cabinet meeting in September 2025, they lavished him with fawning praise — which, MAGA critics argued, was cultish in a way that resembled communist North Korea. The officials took turns praising Trump, from Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff to then-Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer.

Trump, critics argue, is notoriously thin-skinned and requires nonstop praise. But that need for adulation and "constant affirmation," according to Salon's Chauncey DeVega, can make the president vulnerable to "manipulation" from U.S. allies as well as U.S. foes.

"Flattery moves Donald Trump," DeVega explains in an article published on April 30. "But he is quick to anger when his ego and vanity are wounded. When combined with his short attention span and little interest in the hard work of governance, these qualities are imperiling America's democracy at home and its influence abroad — a 'superpower suicide' that is unfolding on the mantle of the president's vanity."

Foreign leaders who are able to "manipulate" Trump, according to DeVega, range from Russian President Vladimir Putin to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. And in some cases, DeVega notes, the "stakes are high" for the U.S.

"Since Trump met with Putin in Alaska in August," DeVega observes, "his administration has repeatedly signaled a willingness to accept a peace deal that requires Ukraine to withdraw to the administrative border of the Donetsk region in the southern Donbas, which would mean giving Russia the remaining 30 percent of the territory — roughly 3500 square miles," DeVega observes. "This would be a huge concession to Russia and Putin, effectively rewarding its war of aggression…. America's friends, including Ukraine, and enemies like Russia know that Trump is malleable and easily manipulated."

DeVega continues, "Tell him what he wants to hear, give him gifts and name things after him, and you will be much more likely to get what you want. For all his immense power, Trump still yearns for any affirmation that he is the Great Man of history, and he will do almost anything to achieve it. He wants praise, attention and a Nobel Peace Prize, even if it means betraying Ukraine to Russia."

President Donald Trump has found himself in an unwinnable scenario with his Iran peace negotiations, according to one retired army colonel, as he is stuck dealing with hardline leadership that "refuses" to accept his own rules.

Jonathan Sweet is a retired lieutenant colonel who had three decades of service as a military intelligence officer. Alongside his frequent collaborations, national security reporter Mark Toth, published a new op-ed for The Hill on Thursday outlining the circumstances that have led Trump into the intractable quagmire he now finds himself stuck in with Iran.

"A stubbornly determined Trump insists that 'Iran really wants to make a deal' with the U.S.," the pair wrote. "At least that is what they tell his negotiating team of Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner behind closed doors. Iran’s actions — especially those of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, under the leadership of Ahmad Vahidi — suggest otherwise. And this led Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian to submit his resignation to the Office of the Supreme Leader last weekend."

As Sweet and Toth argued, Pezeshkian understood the situation better than Trump when he admitted that the IRGC was fully in control of Iran and preventing him from taking part in its governance. With "armed hard-liners" now in charge, "a deal that compromises their power in the Middle East is not in the cards," meaning that any eventual deal will almost certainly not be the one Trump is demanding.

"Trump is now demanding that Tehran put specific nuclear concessions down in writing as part of a preliminary agreement aimed at pushing past the drawn-out deadlock between the two countries," the pair continued. "Iran responded in part by firing missiles and drones Tuesday evening at Kuwait, the U.S. Fifth Fleet Headquarters at Bahrain, and a U.S. air base in the region."

They added later: "The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said that the retaliatory strikes' should serve as a lesson' for the U.S. Esmail Kowsari, a hardline member of the Iranian Parliament, called for Iran’s armed forces to confront the U.S. 'much more strongly,' saying Americans' understand nothing except the language of force and power.'”

Those attacks from Iran, they argued, should make it clear to Trump and his allies that "an emboldened Iran is not going to back down," and that their only meaningful response left would be to end the ceasefire and resume active strikes, a move that would inevitably go down poorly with voters in the U.S.

"The White House is going to have to follow through on its threats to resume Operation Epic Fury — only this time, it must finish the job and defeat the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Iran’s center of gravity," they concluded. "Unconditional surrender is now the only acceptable outcome for the White House to obtain the objectives the President laid out on March 2, which will lead to the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz."

Axios published an exclusive story last night that accomplished what the president needs most: the public impression that the Iran war is ending and that everything's going back to normal. Read it here, but let me foreground three facts that undermine the story's premise.

1. "Some US officials remain skeptical that even an initial deal will be reached."
2. Among the skeptics is US Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Axios: He "called some of Iran's top leaders 'insane in the brain' and said it was unclear whether they would make a deal."
3. And ceasefire terms are "being negotiated between Trump's envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner and several Iranian officials, both directly and through mediators."

Put these pieces together, especially the fact that Witkoff and Kushner are clowns, and you have more of the same game of kicking the can down the road. The White House says it "believes it's getting close to an agreement," but there's just as much reason to believe the White House knows that's nonsense. The war is not ending. The administration is trying to fool the public, especially the investors, into continuing to assume that the global supply of oil will be restored to pre-war levels, thus bringing down gas prices and dodging a recession.

Then there's the fact that the president speaks in terms of peace and war in the same breath. The peerless Aaron Rupar vividly put it this way: "It’s completely incoherent bat---- lunacy."

For all that, however, I don't think most people appreciate the depth of his lunacy. And I think that's because few of us understand what it means when Donald Trump demands that Iran "reopen" of the Strait of Hormuz. He's making it sound like there are rows and rows of Iranian battleships literally blocking the way in and out. If that were the case, however, the US Navy could just blow them up, allowing vessels laden with oil and natural gas to traverse.

The truth is more complicated. It's not that Iran is blocking the strait. It's that the owners of these vessels – and more importantly, their insurers – are choosing not to go in and out. Why? They are scared. Why are they scared of? Iran. The largest tankers are worth $100 million. Naturally, their owners and insurers fear what Iran might do to their property.

This is what news reports mean when they say that Iran has "effectively blocked" the strait. They mean the risk of damage and destruction to these multimillion-dollar vessels and their crews, which are carrying $200 million in oil or natural gas, is so great that their owners and insurers choose to essentially block themselves. When the president demands that Iran "reopen" the strait, he's demanding that Iran stop creating such a high-risk environment.

Importantly, the president cannot do much to significantly reduce the risk. He can threaten to resume bombing "at a much higher level and intensity" if Iran's regime does not "reopen" the strait. (He can, for that matter, threaten to murder a "whole civilization" if they don't agree to his terms). He can order a naval blockade of Iranian ports of call. He can tell the Navy to escort every vessel in and out of those international waters for the next 20 years.

He can control a lot.

But he cannot control the reality of insurance.

For all the bragging about tactical accomplishments – "they have no navy left ... they don't have an air force ... that's a very substantial achievement," Secretary of State Marco Rubio reminded us – the fact remains that there are no military options available to the president that can guarantee that one drone sent by one drone operator would not find a way to blow a hole in just one of those supertankers. As James Mattis said recently, Iran has "anti-ship cruise missiles that could be fired off the back of a pickup truck that can go 100 miles."

"There's the problem," Mattis said.

The White House keeps saying that the US has the advantage, but what does that mean when Iran can accomplish so much for so little? What does "advantage" mean when the US can accomplish so little for so much? (The Pentagon says the war has so far cost $25 billion. The Post reported today that Iran has attacked "at least 228 structures or pieces of equipment at US military sites." Damage to the US base in Bahrain is so "extensive," a US official said, that the headquarters had to be relocated to Tampa. The official told the Post that it's unlikely that "troops, contractors or civilian employees will return to the base 'anytime soon.'")

Trump said the US has "total control" of the strait. Treasury Secretary Scott Bissent said the US has "absolute control." US Senator Lindsay Graham, a Republican, was less certain, but confident. Once the US takes control, he said, that's "checkmate." Wish-casting, all of it.

Ships are choosing not to enter out of fear. Trump can't make them. The strait will "reopen" when Iran decides to stop scaring everyone. It can't be forced militarily. It must be enticed politically. That's going to be hard not only because the president needs Iran's help in cleaning up the mess he created. (After all, Hormuz was open before Trump agreed to Benjamin Netanyahu's hare-brained scheme.) Harder is the fact that Iran now has something more valuable even than nuclear weapons. A superpower won't beg for peace over a bomb.

But it might over Hormuz.

President Donald Trump has had a rough week with one failure after another.

First, a report revealed that his genius "gold card" plan, which would give easy access to U.S. citizenship for $1 million, has failed spectacularly. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said last year that once it went live, they had already received $1.3 billion in commitments. The Department of Commerce reiterated the figure in a press release after the first of the year.

"Now, how much have we sold in three days?" Trump asked Lutnick in December in a video shared by Scripps News.

"One billion, three hundred million dollars worth in a matter of a couple of days," Lutnick said.

"That's essentially it's the green card on steroids," Trump said, before falsely stating the previous administration allowed 25 million people into the U.S.

As it turns out, that was more like $1 million. Lutnick spoke to a congressional committee on Thursday, where he testified that only one person has been approved for the program. But Lutnick said that it was due to the program only now getting off the ground.

“They’ve just set it up, and they wanted to make sure they did it perfectly,” he said.

Second, Trump lost his battle with Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who refused to confirm the president's nominee to the Federal Reserve while the Justice Department was investigating outgoing chairman Jerome Powell. Trump caved on Friday, with a statement by Jeanine Pirro. She could bring the charges back, one legal expert said, but for now, it's another Trump loss.

Third, in the Washington, D.C. Circuit Court, Trump failed in his ongoing efforts to stop asylum applications from millions of refugees who have sought a safer life in the U.S., according to Politico's legal analyst Kyle Cheney. The judge rejected Trump's attempts to block the applications. Trump's administration will likely appeal.

Meanwhile, his fourth failure came as Iran continued to refuse to negotiate with the administration, leading Trump to lose it and order "shoot to kill" for anyone going through the Strait of Hormuz. Iran's embassies all over the world have been blowing up X with videos trolling Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.

Trump set a deadline for Wednesday, saying that there would be no extensions of the ceasefire. Then he backed down, drawing further mockery. He hasn't set a new deadline.

When reporters probed Trump about it, he snapped, “Don’t rush me.”

By Friday, CNN reported, the Trump administration said it was sending Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff back to Pakistan to negotiate. Iran made it clear that it wasn't sending any of its top officials, so the administration said it wouldn't send Vice President JD Vance. Kushner and Witkoff have failed every time they've attempted to negotiate with Iran.

All week, Trump has been mocked for offering a deal that looks remarkably like the one President Barack Obama negotiated, the Washington Post reported on Wednesday. In that case, the U.S. unlocked sanctions, giving Iran access to $2 billion of its own money parked in international financial institutions. Trump's plan was to give them $20 billion, Axios said on Tuesday.

Fifth, Trump had another incident where he fell asleep again with the cameras on. Thursday afternoon, Trump was speaking and bragging that he'd solved healthcare amid a new deal with the pharmaceutical company Regeneron. Then Trump dozed off. It makes at least 14 times the president has crashed in public, Indy 100 cataloged last month, before the most recent incident. Once was during a press conference about his Memphis Task Force, and days later was during a Cabinet.

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President Donald Trump is desperate for an off-ramp to escape the deadly and messy war he started with Iran, but according to a new analysis from MS NOW, his "bafflingly incoherent" strategy means that achieving peace may not be possible anytime soon.

Writing for MS NOW on Tuesday, reporter Zeeshan Aleem broke down Trump's dubious claim from Monday that "productive" peace talks were underway with Iranian leaders, something that Iran itself denied. In response, Trump insisted that his special diplomatic envoy, Steve Witkoff, and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, had been in touch with an official from Iran, whom he called "the man who I believe is the most respected and the leader," a description vague enough that it could refer to anyone, Aleem argued.

This contradicted Trump's claim from just days earlier, when he said that military strikes had wiped out too much of Iran's leadership for peace talks, stating, "we have nobody to talk to — and you know what? We like it that way."

The reporter noted that there is precedent for Trump claiming that negotiations are underway while the other party denies them. Last year, he claimed that trade talks were taking place with China, an assertion that Beijing promptly shot down. Then, as now, Trump had a major interest in soothing economic instability caused by his reckless policies, Aleem argued, causing him to invent a potential off-ramp.

The likelihood that he will succeed in de-escalating the ongoing Iran war is low, however, due to the haphazard manner in which he has conducted the conflict and the shifting, contradictory goals he has put forward.

"In a remarkable feat of self-sabotage, Trump has manufactured a bona fide political crisis for himself by underestimating Iran’s response to U.S. airstrikes," Aleem wrote. "He is now feeling the heat from soaring gas prices. It is plausible that Trump is trying to invent an off-ramp after cornering himself impulsively."

He continued: "More broadly, Trump’s Iran policy is bafflingly incoherent. It makes little sense to pursue peace negotiations with a country at the exact same time as pursuing a strategy of decapitation and regime change. And given the fact that Trump has already blown up talks with Tehran not just once but twice, with airstrikes in the past year, Iran has little incentive to ever take Trump’s word in future negotiations."