Did Trump lose his war?

The plan to expunge Trump’s impeachments and an AI regulation effort

Trump’s Iran defeat, an impeachment void push, and an anti-AI congressional petition

Though details remain fuzzy, it seems the worst of the U.S.-led war on Iran may be over. But while President Donald Trump trumpets his pact with Tehran, observers and even some Republicans are skeptical that this deal will make the U.S. stronger and more secure. At the same time, Trump is debating pushing his allies toward an act of pointed historical revisionism, as he works to erase his impeachments from the presidential record.

Rafi Schwartz
The Week Digital

Adem Altan / AFP / Getty Images

the big debate

Did Trump just lose his own war?

A “preliminary deal” between Trump and Iran to end months of fighting is “welcome,” said The New York Times. But the agreement “brings with it hard truths.” Not only was it a “terrible mistake” to start the war, but Trump “prosecuted it recklessly and in open defiance of the law.” As a result, the U.S. is “emerging weaker militarily, diplomatically and economically” in ways that will last for years.

The president may be “touting his latest ceasefire deal with Iran as peace in our time,” said The Wall Street Journal. But the rest of the world will “more likely to see it as a strategic retreat” that falls short of “achieving his war aims.”

Conservative foreign policy hawks are “openly worrying” that Trump “gave away too much in the name of trying to end the war,” said CNN. He has “surrendered to Iran,” said right-wing commentator Erick Erickson on X. “Those who kill Americans love this deal.”

Given the ambiguity over what Washington and Tehran have already or might someday agree to, the “only thing that seems clear is that the world’s leading state sponsor of anti-American terrorism is going to get lots of money,” said the National Review. And it’s all for “nothing more than opening the Strait of Hormuz,” which Iran closed only after Trump launched his war.

Trump “deserves credit for bringing this conflict to this point,” said retired Lieutenant Colonel Robert Maginnis at Fox News. Still, the country should “view this agreement for precisely what it is: a strategic pause.”

By the numbers

$600 million: The new estimated cost of Trump’s East Wing ballroom, according to a “detailed project summary” prepared by a contractor and obtained by The Washington Post. The internal estimate is $200 million higher than the president has publicly acknowledged, and contrary to his repeated claims, it relies on taxpayer funds to complete the majority of the work.

Drew Angerer / Getty Images

policy watch

Trump pushes allies to wipe first-term impeachments from the record

The president is seeking a “symbolic victory on a matter that has dogged him since his first term,” said The Wall Street Journal: He’s considering pushing congressional allies to pass a resolution to void his two impeachments. The push comes as part of a “broader effort to burnish his presidential legacy” and “fits with a wider campaign to erase black marks on his record.”

If successful, the expungement would have “little legal significance,” since the Constitution “provides no procedure for undoing an impeachment,” said the Journal. Moreover, any White House effort to undo Trump’s impeachment “likely won’t happen until after” the midterm elections in November, as Trump is “not yet actively pressuring lawmakers” for the resolution, said Forbes.

Trump only cares about his “legacy,” said S.E. Cupp on CNN’s “Erin Burnett OutFront.” “If that means pretending he wasn’t impeached twice, I guess that will satisfy him in his old age, but this is not what Americans care about.”

If there’s Republican reluctance over Trump’s impeachment purge, it’s because the “last thing they want to do is be dredging up Jan. 6, on which he’s still particularly unpopular,” said Andy Craig on The Daily Blast podcast. Conservative lawmakers would prefer to be “on the attack blasting Democrats” rather than “defending Trump right now, given where the polls are at.” Still, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has “discussed the resolution with Trump,” said the Journal, and also had “more detailed conversations with some of the president’s allies in the legal world.”

feature of the week

Republicans and Democrats are going to war over their dueling fundraising platforms

Donation portals ActBlue and WinRed face intense congressional scrutiny as bipartisan campaign finance reform languishes

On our radar

Hundreds of state lawmakers petition Congress over AI: More than 200 state legislators are urging Capitol Hill to reject a proposal to preempt local AI regulations, which would “freeze a sweeping set of state laws” and “tie the hands of lawmakers at a moment of rapid technological transformation,” said the bipartisan group in a letter to Congress. The group is targeting a “draft of a national framework on AI” that “proposes overriding state regulations that target AI model development for three years,” said The Hill.

Trump taps another personal lawyer for U.S. attorney job: Trump is “again choosing one of his personal lawyers” for “one of the nation’s most powerful legal positions,” after the president this week named former federal prosecutor James McDonald to be U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said The New York Times. McDonald is currently a “litigation partner at Sullivan & Cromwell, the law firm handling Mr. Trump’s appeal of his criminal conviction” over hush money payments made to Stormy Daniels during the 2016 election.

Dan J. Sullivan barred from challenging Sen. Dan Sullivan: The Alaska Board of Elections this week determined retired teacher Dan J. Sullivan is ineligible to challenge incumbent Senator Dan Sullivan in November. J. Sullivan had filed his candidacy to “confuse or mislead and to thereby compromise the ballot’s fairness or neutrality,” said Director of Elections Carol Beecher in a letter explaining the ruling. Beecher’s order “cited many of the reasons listed in complaints filed by the state Republican Party and the National Republican Senatorial Committee,” said Alaska Public Media.

in their words

‘Courage is not having the strength to go on; it is going on when you don’t have the strength.’

An adage attributed to Theodore Roosevelt on a banner hung from the Theodore Roosevelt Federal Building. This quote “did not originate” with the late president, said Theodore Roosevelt Center Co-Director Michael Patrick Cullinane to The Washington Post. It most likely comes from a 1992 “American self-help book ‘The Mourning After’” on “how to deal with grief,” said the Post.

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