Is Another Iran Deal in Sight After Trump Calls Off Another Attack?

America has abundant oil and natural gas, but energy security takes more than energy in the ground. It requires smart policies that ensure supply, modernize infrastructure, and strengthen energy supply chains. Learn more at energy security framework.org. Pay for by the American Petroleum Institute. From the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal, this is Potomac Watch. President Trump decides not to escalate his conflict with Iran over the weekend, saying the regime in Tehran wants to negotiate a deal now. But Iran says there are no negotiations with the United States, only with the country of Oman. So what is really going on here? Plus, two reluctant senators decide to support President Trump's nominee to Attorney General, Todd Blanche. After the acting Attorney General agrees in a letter to kill and not revive the president's $1.776 billion anti-weaponization fund. Is Todd Blanche now likely to be confirmed? And will the president try to decide to find some way to review the fund? Anyway, all right, welcome. I'm Paul as you go with the Daily Potomac Watch podcast here for the Wall Street Journal. I'm here today and a two-subject day. First, we're going to talk to Elliot Kaufman about Iran and then events on Capitol Hill and the Attorney General fight with Joe Sternberg. Welcome to you all. So the president seemed all last week, Elliot. to be gearing up for a renewed attack, to open the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran has been essentially blocking most traffic through it and claiming that they run the straight. But suddenly on Saturday night at 10 p.m. 10.05, to be exact, president sent out a truth of social posts saying he had called the whole thing. off. Let's listen to the president talking to reporters on the weekend of why he made that decision. I think there's a deal. There's a deal on hormones, and then there will be a deal on the nuclear, or you might call it the denuclearization of Iran. I call it the denuclearization of Iran. So we're holding it. We'll just say we can do it anytime we want, but we're asked by the three primary groups. We're also asked by Iran. Very strongly, actually. They said we'd like to make a deal. Now, you know, I don't know what they say because a lot of times they'll say that to me and then they'll go out and say, we don't know what he's talking about. Obviously, they don't want to be attacked. And they knew the extent of the attack because they saw it for me. Well, the president was right. The Iranians immediately came out and said there is no deal, no negotiations with the U.S. So what's the backstory here, Elliot? Well, as best I can tell. the U.S. military really was preparing to strike and escalate in a big way. That's true. That's true from all my reporting. And not only that, the Israeli military was also ready to go, prepared and planning to go in concert with the U.S. until they heard otherwise on truth social from the president. So this really was close, a close call, except we've been here before.

How many times has President Trump said, I was going to do it until I was asked not to by the mediators, by Qatar, Oman, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, in this case, apparently all someone has to do is ask. That, of course, weakens his own credibility and really puts the... U.S. and Israel as well in a very difficult situation here where Iran thinks it has the upper hand. It thinks President Trump, as much as he might threaten, he doesn't want this fight. He wants these talks more than they do. Take a couple of points there in order. First, the Gulf states, particularly Saudi Arabia. We know Saudi Arabia essentially leaked to everybody in sight that... that Mohammed bin Salman, the Crown Prince, who runs the kingdom, had called the president and said, don't do it. We're likely to be a much greater target if you do. That means they're oil production facilities. They have the export channel now through the Red Sea via a pipeline. They don't want that to be hit. Is that your understanding, too? Yes. Yes, it is. All right. So the Gulf, they're concerned. Then the question becomes this issue of. deterrence and the president's credibility on this, backing down time and again, time and again, time and again. And Iran is entirely justified, in my view, in concluding, president wants out. He wants out. He doesn't want this conflict to go ahead. He realizes, though, that if he gets out with Iran controlling the strait, that it will be an embarrassment for him. So he has to say there is going to be some deal. Is there any evidence at all of any movement on the two things the president talked about? One, the nuclear program. Very far off. No evidence. No evidence. All right. What about the Strait of Hormuz? On the Strait of Hormuz, it is more complicated. There are talks through the mediators. Oman in particular, although Pakistan has re-entered the fray on these talks. And what is being discussed is a middle route. Now, there is this northern route, a physical transit route through the strait that hugs Iran's coast. That's what Iran wants everybody using. There is a southern route that hugs Oman's coast. That's where the U.S. has been... sending ships. But previously, there was this middle route in between, which everybody used freely. And so the mediators are looking at all sorts of compromises. Can we get back to that? middle route. Can we say Iran won't have full control of the strait? Maybe it'll have half control. It'll control everything going in, but nothing going out. All of these sorts of ideas are being thrown around here. The Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, suggested that we are in the final stages of talks on the strait, but he didn't say that anything has been...

agreed to, and it is Abbas Araghchi in particular who has repeatedly promised the straight will open only to withdraw that concession just as fast. We don't know if Arakke can deliver the rest of the government, do we? Not at all, yeah. So that's been the pattern, right? Abbas Araghchi says, see, we're going to deliver. He can't in the end because the other parts of the government, especially the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, just doesn't want to budge and make any concessions at all to the United States. We are going to take a break. We'll be back shortly. America has abundant oil and natural gas, but energy security takes more than energy in the ground. It requires smart policies that ensure supply, modernize infrastructure, and strengthen energy supply chains. Learn more at energy security framework.org. Pay for by the American Petroleum Institute. I'm Matthew Hennessy, the editor of Free Expression, the new daily newsletter from the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal. Free expression is a little different than what you get in the print paper's opinion section. We've expanded things out a little bit. We have a great mix of columnists, including Matt Continetti, Louise Perry, and Kyle Smith. You also get frequent, sharp contributions from my editorial colleagues. And we publish outside contributors, too, from rock star economists like Tom Sol to real rock stars like John Androsic and David Drayman. You can sign up for free expression by going to the journal's homepage and looking for the free expression tab. We're also on substack. Twitter, Instagram, threads, and TikTok, if that's your sort of thing. Sign up for free expression today, and we'll see you in your inbox tomorrow. Welcome back. I'm Paul Gugue with Potomac Watch. So the negotiators... Tell Trump there's a deal. Trump says, we're just on the cusp of a deal. It's just a cusp. And then it never materializes. Is there any reason in this particular moment to think that that will be different? I don't think so. Because we've seen what happened during the memorandum of understanding with Iran, in which case we were not only making a deal blockade with Iran, but we were offering them. many billions of dollars in sanctions relief, all for the easy part, which was just allow ships to transit through the Strait of Hormuz. And Iran would not budge on that. What's happened since? Well, there have been 12 or 13 days of U.S. strikes focusing around the Strait, and yet...

Traffic through that straight is still pretty low. And the U.S. hasn't attempted the kind of major escalation against Iranian energy targets. President Trump backed down from that. And we haven't. attempted to reopen the Strait of Hormuz by force, by actually escorting ships through there. So we haven't done what it would take to significantly shift Iran's stance since that MOU fell apart. All right. So the president suggested today on Monday in another truth social post that Iran is duplicitous. They tell you you want negotiations and they say. back off on it. Now, the president did also stress that we continue to have the blockade. The U.S. military, the Navy is blockading Iranian ports. They can't import anything, and their shipments of oil cannot go out. That's pretty clearly continuing. That's an important point of economic pressure. on Iran. But everybody I talked to, Elliot, says that's the sort of thing that will hurt them, but it will take some time before they really, really cry uncle. That's right. It will weaken them for afterward, but it will not force their hand today or tomorrow. That sort of thing would have to be sustained for a long period of time. And one point I would just make is that... President Trump back down here after, as we said, requests from Saudi Arabia from the Gulf. The Saudis requested that. Why? Because of an Iranian threat attacking their energy infrastructure. What we are telling Iran is that they have the strongest punch here. They have something like escalation dominance in this situation, which should never be the case when the U.S. military... is involved. But if Iran has that via the Saudis, via the Gulf. UAE, Kuwait, Oman, pick your U.S. ally. In that case, our negotiating hand significantly weakens. And we have made that clear to them. That's why I am not confident about these talks right now. Yeah, I mean, if there's some kind of enormous strain that Iran were under because of... political fissures inside or popular uprising of some sort where it felt pressure, maybe you could see there would be a change in its attitude here. We don't see that sort of pressure right now being exerted or those cracks in the regime in its control. But another way of putting your point, Ellie, is Iran is essentially control of events. In a sense, it can dictate when it wants to attack shipping in the strait. or American allies, or mobilize the Houthis in the Red Sea. And they know the president wants a deal because the president has told them time and time again, I want a deal. So it puts him the president in a position. I mean, he'd love there to be some calm here, right? Negotiations continue. The price of oil falls as it did today in the wake of his stand down. Love to see that kind of muddle along.

But if Iran decides it doesn't like what it sees in negotiations, isn't getting what it wants, the blockade isn't ending against its ports, it can fire missiles, it can attack some of these targets, particularly if they kill Americans, as they have in recent weeks, put the president a position where he has no choice but to respond in some way. And then he's responding to their dictation of events. Yes. President Trump's muddle along strategy has been effective at managing markets. There has been nobody better at jawboning the price of oil here. Aggressive on Friday, dovish, on Monday. We've seen all that. But muddling along in this way, all of a sudden, midterm elections are closer. All of a sudden, the president is feeling all the more political... pressure on this, and the core objectives here have not been met. We haven't been able to fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz, nor have we gotten Iran's stockpile of enriched uranium out of the ground, nor have we dealt with Pickax Mountain, a potential Iranian enrichment site. All of these things have been known now for weeks and months, and we've been muddling along but not solving the issues. Yeah, the president really does want out, at least before the midterms. So who knows? It's probably going to muddle along here. Could there be a deal of some kind? Yes, but it'd be a small D. deal, and it probably will be muddling along in some way rather than a comprehensive peace agreement that achieves what the president wants. All right, Elliot Kaufman, thanks so much for joining us. In this, it turns out, Groundhog Day of a story, it's always the same. All right, we're going to go to break, and when we come back, more on Potomac Watch. America has abundant oil and natural gas, but energy security takes more than energy in the ground. It requires smart policies that ensure supply, modernize infrastructure, and strengthen energy supply chains. Learn more at energy security framework.org. Pay for by the American Petroleum Institute. Don't forget, you can reach the latest episode of Potomac Watch anytime. Just ask your smart speaker, play the opinion Potomac Watch podcast. That is, play the opinion, Potomac Watch podcast. From the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal, this is Potomac Watch.

Welcome back. I'm Paul Giego with Potomac Watch. Let's turn to Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, nominated by President Trump to be the permanent attorney general, needs Senate confirmation. But his nomination has been held up by two Republican senators, John Cornyn of Texas, Thom Tillis of North Carolina, because they'd want assurances that the president's anti-weaponization fund, $1.8 billion worth, to compensate some of the people who were prosecuted. during the Biden years, including for January 6 offenses, some of them quite awful offenses, would be killed. Todd Blanche has promised that it will be over, but they wanted real assurances in writing that that will be the case. Let's listen to President Trump talk about the fund and John Cornyn. We have a man named Dr. Ledge. He's outstanding in every way most of you know who he is. You're not going to find a better person. And everybody, and it's because I backed one his opponent and his opponent won in a landslide. This is the only reason it's happening. But I will say there are a lot of people that like. People were hurt so badly. 22 suicides. They were destroyed. Their families were destroyed. This would be a reimbursement for the payment they suffer. A lot of people like it. If they don't approve that, I put it back on the table. A lot of people like it. A lot of big supporters of Trump like it. Well, no doubt. A lot of supporters of Trump like it because they would get some cash from the Treasury. But Joe, the president's explanation for why John Cornyn, as opposed to this, suggests it's all about the fact that there's revenge because the president are supported. Ken Paxton, the Attorney General of Texas, who won the nomination from John Cornyn. But John Cornyn, I know him, and I think there's some real principle here, unlike the weaponization fund. And same with Thom Tillis, the North Carolina senator. So they have said, sorry, we're not going to vote for it. This is a time where the senators have leverage on confirmations. And over the weekend, first President Trump posted on True Social that he'd be happy to, if they don't want to confirm him, resurrect the fund and keep Todd Blanche in an acting capacity. But. Late on Sunday, Todd Blanche sent a letter to the two senators saying, okay, I will bury this thing. Here's a formal statement that I'm going to bury the fund, not it's dead for good, killed, dead, buried. He also sent another letter saying, the Justice Department did, saying that they narrowed the terms of IRS settlement with the president over audits. So give us a little more elaboration on what. the letters actually said. Well, I think that this is one of those happy occasions where the merits seem to align with the politics here. So, I mean, this anti-weaponization fund had already basically been dead. The administration had said, but they've now formalized that in a way that I think is really helpful because this fund was never a good idea. I think that there was always a certain amount of disquiet about it in Congress, particularly because lawmakers hadn't really...

from audits. What John Cornyn wanted was that to be narrowed so that the number of people who would be immune for audits from previous returns, and this would be limited to the president, his two sons in the Trump organization, Eric and Donald Trump Jr., who participated, who have a management responsibility in the Trump organization. Now Todd Blanche says we're going to narrow it only to them. and only for past audits. So in the future, tax returns, Donald Trump could still be audited, and so could the Trump organization and the sons. That's sort of where we come out. A lot of critics still say, well, wait a minute. Even making him immune from those past audits is a gift to the president. My response, I guess, for that is, well, look, his privacy was violated. here. And, you know, so there has to be some, and the president didn't get any payments, by the way, as part of the settlement here. So that's something, at least, he got out of the settlement from IRS and justice. What do you think? Well, I think that there's always a prudential argument here, which a lot of critics of this kind of agreement tend to overlook. You know, I think that part of the rationale of including a degree of immunity, at least for some of these previous year tax returns. in an agreement like this is a recognition that, you know, Trump has become a political target, you know, within some of these agencies. And, you know, we had the history of his prosecutions during the period when he was out of office. And that was very politically destructive, whatever you thought of the merits of those cases. And so I think that there's a good prudential argument to make at this point. Look, we're going to try to take the IRS and the tax issue off of the table, at least for things that have already happened. And we're not going to get ourselves dragged into this practice of these unending tax audits and investigations and litigation about these prior year tax returns. Let's assume that because the American people voted for Trump in November of 2024, that a judgment about his... business practices for good or ill is baked into the cake, and we are not going to make that a political issue moving forward. And so, I mean, there's definitely a risk associated with that in the same way that there is a risk associated with the prosecutor or the government granting immunity to anyone for anything that you might later discover something where you really wish that you could actually prosecute or investigate them. But I think that you make the... prudential judgment, which I think is smart in this case, that we have to draw some kind of line under this or this whole lawfare. issue is going to drag on forever. And I actually think that this sort of thing is probably a better way of trying to deal with the lawfare problem than stunts like that $1.8 billion settlement fund that they were proposing that was prone to all sorts of abuses that the senators were worried about. So many of the critics of this agreement between the senators and now Todd Blanche, they ignore the fact that some...

historic levels of lawfare were tempted against Donald Trump. And they'll say, oh, well, he deserved it. Well, we can go through those cases again. I don't want to relitigate them. But they were unwise, even to the extent that some of them might bear investigating. They're unwise. And politically, they helped Donald Trump get reelected because they ended up getting Republicans to rally around him and help him win the nomination against Ron DeSantis. and others. And you can see it in the polling data going back to 2023 and 2024. So here we are now. There's going to be a vote in the... Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, it's expected. And Todd Blanche is expected to make it out of committee. And then that nomination will make it to the floor. And he's expected to be confirmed, Joe, this week before the Senate goes on at summer recess, I gather. Yes, that seems to be the direction of travel. And I think that on balance, it's probably a good thing because, you know, without making... Any particular judgment about Todd Blanche, and I do have the sense that he is reasonably competent for the job. I think that it is better that we have a Senate confirmed attorney general and have the Senate actually have confirmed someone in such an important position instead of dragging on this acting AG status. So, you know, if they've been able to reach a political agreement that gets us over that line. so that we can have someone that has that stamp of approval from the Senate. I think that that is probably better for the proper functioning of the government than the alternative. And I think that's kind of a broader point about the Senate's role in all of this, too, because, I mean, going back to Paul, some of the objections that the senators had about that lawfare fund. and the particular concern that it was going to forgive or compensate people who had been ringleaders of what on January 6th was actually a rioter, an attack directed at the United States Congress. I mean, the Congress has institutional interests of its own to protect here, and I think that if we're getting back to a system where senators are... protecting their own interests as legislators under the Constitution, and then also using that as leverage to serve their appointed function. It's probably better for us the government be working in the way that it is supposed to than that we keep trying to find all of these little workarounds, whether that's having someone in the acting status for a long time without confirmation, or coming up with a lawfare. strategy against a president or potential president. The option that the president floated on the weekend, just if he's not confirmed, just keeping Todd Blanche as acting, he could do that. He could do that for an extended period of time.

And then who knows what Todd Blanche might do if he's made no commitments to the Senate of the kind that he now has made. So I give Thom Tillis and John Cornyn real credit here for standing up for this and getting something tangible, which is rare when it comes to congressional dealings with the President because the Republicans have been so unwilling to challenge the president. Now, either Thom Tillis and John Cornyn are running for re-election now because John Cornyn was defeated and Thom Tillis decided to bow out under pressure. from Donald Trump. And by the way, that's probably going to cost Republicans the seat in North Carolina. And it may cost the Republicans the seat in Texas. So the president's loading about having endorsed John Cornyn's opponent is still remains to be seen whether that is warranted as a political matter. Clearly, in this case, it forced his attorney general to make some concessions to the Senate. All right, we'll leave it at there, Joe Sternberg. And, of course, thank you to Elliot Kaufman and Joe Sternberg. Thank you all for listening. We're every day on Potomac Watch. America has abundant oil and natural gas, but energy security takes more than energy in the ground. It requires smart policies that ensure supply, modernize infrastructure, and strengthen energy supply chains. Learn more at energy security framework.org. Pay for by the American Petroleum Institute.