Benjamin Netanyahu walked into a Cabinet meeting Sunday and publicly torched the Gaza peace plan that Donald Trump has been bragging about for months. The same day, Iran told the United States it would not reopen the Strait of Hormuz until America "corrects its behavior" and cuts a check for war damages. Cool, cool. Everything is fine.
Netanyahu to Trump: Thanks, We'll Pass
Trump's so-called Board of Peace put together a 15-point plan for Gaza that called for a phased Israeli military withdrawal running alongside the disarmament of Hamas. According to NBC News, Netanyahu told his Cabinet on Sunday that Israeli forces are not going anywhere until Hamas disarms first, completely and unconditionally. That is not what the plan says. That is, in fact, the opposite of what the plan says.
Hamas, for its part, said last month it would disarm, but only after Israel withdraws and stops all hostilities. So you have two parties who both say the other one has to go first, and a U.S. president who has been loudly claiming credit for a deal that neither side will accept. The plan Trump has repeatedly called a key foreign policy achievement has now been explicitly rejected by the country whose cooperation was required for it to exist.
This rejection also lands after months of building tension between the White House and Israel's government over Iran, NBC News notes. The relationship between Washington and Jerusalem has been fraying in ways the administration would very much prefer you not focus on. Netanyahu just made that significantly harder to ignore.
Iran's Price Tag for Hormuz: Everything
Iran spent the weekend making sure the Middle East news cycle had nowhere peaceful to go. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi confirmed Sunday that there are no active negotiations between Tehran and Washington, NBC News reports. This came right after Iran's Supreme National Security Council secretary Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr spelled out exactly what it would take to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
The list, as carried by Iranian state media, includes: a full U.S. naval withdrawal, financial damages paid to Iran for the war, unfreezing of Iranian assets, lifting of all sanctions, and a permanent end to U.S. military action against Iran and its regional allies. So, everything. Iran wants everything. The U.S. has not publicly responded, which is probably wise since the list is less a negotiating position than a performance piece.
U.S. officials had previously ruled out making immediate payments to Iran in earlier rounds of talks, according to NBC News. The Strait of Hormuz handles a substantial chunk of the world's oil traffic. Tehran knows exactly what it's doing by keeping the question open.
Trump's Lawyer Is Now the Nation's Top Cop, Confirmed at 4 a.m.
Because apparently major constitutional decisions should happen in the dead of night, the Senate confirmed Todd Blanche as Attorney General of the United States early Saturday morning, NBC News reports. The vote was 50-49, held after 4 a.m. as a late-night session bled into the small hours before a planned Senate recess. Just a totally normal way to install the country's chief law enforcement officer.
Blanche, who served as Trump's personal defense attorney before this, squeaked through on an almost purely party-line vote. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska were the only Republicans to vote no. Three earlier Republican holdouts, Senators Bill Cassidy, John Cornyn, and Thom Tillis, ultimately fell in line after receiving "various assurances" from Blanche, NBC News reports. One of those assurances was an order rescinding the $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund.
Here is the kicker: NBC News notes that a legal loophole could still revive that fund anyway. So Cassidy, Cornyn, and Tillis handed Trump his attorney general in exchange for a concession that may not actually stick. Tremendous negotiators, all of them.
Michigan Democrats Are Calling Obama
On a somewhat less apocalyptic note, Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic Senate nominee in Michigan after his primary victory last week, told NBC News' Meet the Press on Sunday that he spoke with Barack Obama following his win. El-Sayed said the conversation was "really warm and inspiring" and confirmed he hopes Obama will campaign alongside him in Michigan this fall.
"I know that he knows the critical role that Michigan is going to play in holding Trump accountable, in winning back the Senate and in building forward the future that we need," El-Sayed told Meet the Press. Michigan is shaping up to be one of the most consequential Senate races heading into the midterms, and an Obama appearance would be a significant boost in a state where the former president still carries real weight.
Meanwhile, in very different Republican news, Senator Jim Banks of Indiana told the same program that GOP Representative Max Miller of Ohio should drop his re-election bid and resign "if the allegations are true." Miller's ex-wife Emily Moreno, daughter of Republican Senator Bernie Moreno, accused the congressman of domestic violence. Miller has denied everything and says he's staying in the race, NBC News reports.
The Rest of the Weekend, Briefly
The Senate voted 90-6 early Saturday to pass a short-term funding bill and prevent a government shutdown before the midterms, NBC News reports. Ninety to six. The government nearly shut down and they fixed it with a vote that wasn't even close. Ask yourself why it took this long.
Postmaster General David Steiner warned that the Postal Service could close thousands of post offices and raise prices without congressional action, according to NBC News. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said she has not ruled out a presidential or Senate run in 2028. And a boat capsized near Liberty Island in New York Harbor Saturday night, killing a 27-year-old Queens woman identified as Sara Sanchez and her 5-month-old daughter Antonella Garcia, NBC News reports. The boat's captain, Manuel Hernandez, was arrested and charged with reckless endangerment. Eleven others were rescued with minor injuries.
The Dingo Take
Trump built his second term on the promise that he, uniquely, could make deals nobody else could make. He would end the wars, he would open the straits, he would bring the Middle East to heel through sheer force of personality and Art of the Deal energy. Netanyahu just called that bluff in front of his entire Cabinet, on a Sunday, without apparent concern for how it would look. The Board of Peace's 15-point plan is now public wreckage, and Trump has to decide whether to pretend it isn't or pick a fight with the Israeli government he spent years treating as untouchable.
The Blanche confirmation is its own category of alarming and deserves more attention than it got. The man who personally defended Donald Trump in criminal court is now the Attorney General of the United States, confirmed in the middle of the night, after holdouts were bought off with concessions that may not even hold up legally. The 4 a.m. vote time was not an accident. That is what burying something looks like when you technically have to do it in public.
And Iran is sitting on the Strait of Hormuz with a list of demands that reads like a joke but isn't one. No negotiations, no deal, no timeline. Tehran is not in a hurry. The question is whether Washington can say the same thing.
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