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By Eli Okun |
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THE CATCH-UP |
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VP JD Vance celebrated the U.S.-Iran deal as a great first step as the world awaits its details. | Matt Rourke/Pool/AFP via Getty Images |
STEP ONE: President Donald Trump, VP JD Vance and Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf have now officially (digitally) signed the memorandum of understanding to cement a provisional peace deal ahead of Friday’s ceremony, U.S. officials told reporters. It’s a major moment for the Middle East. But the hardest issues still lie ahead. And the countries’ differing accounts today of what will actually happen with the Strait of Hormuz — as the world still waits to see the deal’s text — make clear how tricky the path forward may be. To wit: Trump said yesterday the deal would lead to the strait being “permanently toll-free,” returning to the status quo before Israel and the U.S. began the war. “Ships are starting to move, many loaded up with Oil,” he touted on Truth Social today. Vance used slightly more cautious language on CNBC today, saying the administration expected the strait would be “opened in a toll-free way for the long term,” but that it will be ironed out “in these technical negotiations.” Another U.S. official told reporters that it may be two weeks before shipping gets back to normal. And Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei hedged even further: Though he said Iran wouldn’t levy tolls on maritime traffic, he dangled the possibility that Iran could impose fees “in exchange for the services that are provided.” The stakes are more than semantic: Whether ships can pass easily through this global chokepoint has massive ramifications for oil prices, the cost of living and economic stability all over the globe. And the mixed messages have left some companies still uneasy about the restart, POLITICO’s Mike Soraghan and colleagues report. Once the strait is dealt with — no small feat, with a complex de-mining operation to come — Vance said the U.S. will press Iran to forgo its nuclear ambitions in exchange for economic rewards from the U.S. in the next phase of talks. He said the full details will be released this week, cautioning Americans not to put too much stock in Iranian hard-liners trying to pre-spin the deal as more favorable to Tehran than it is. On CBS, the VP claimed the deal “ensures that Iran will never have a nuclear weapon.” That’s an optimistic reading, which the U.S. hopes will be borne out in the next negotiations. As of now, the U.S. has largely not achieved Trump’s stated goals for the war, NYT’s Erica Green and Zolan Kanno-Youngs lay out: Iran’s theocratic regime holds onto power despite the killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Though Iran has sustained significant damage from U.S. and Israeli strikes, its military hasn’t been annihilated either, as Trump forecast, and its stockpiles of enriched uranium remain. Thousands of people have been killed. Yet the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz — the signal achievement of this peace deal — merely restores the commercial status quo of early 2026, perhaps with added sanctions relief for Iran. But the deal looks set to provide a reprieve after months of war, and it could yet open a pathway toward greater diplomatic progress. The U.S. will now have greater “leverage,” Vance said, and holds “all the cards.” Oil prices dropped significantly today, easing to their lowest level in three months, while stock markets jumped higher. And though some violence continued in Lebanon between Israel and Hezbollah, that ebbed today too, NYT’s Leo Sands and Hwaida Saad report. For Trump, the triumph is already at hand. “On Friday, it’ll be completely open,” he said of the strait as he arrived in Geneva for the G7 meeting. He told reporters he’ll likely leave Geneva before week’s end and leave the formal signing ceremony to Vance. “I think a lot of great things are gonna happen in the Middle East right now.” Good Monday afternoon. Thanks for reading Playbook PM. Drop me a line at eokun@politico.com.
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7 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW |
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1. SCOTUS WATCH: The Supreme Court said it will take up a potentially significant immigration case, per POLITICO’s Kyle Cheney. The justices agreed to hear a Trump administration appeal over whether the government can hold certain immigrants convicted of crimes for months or years in detention without a bond hearing. The high court also declined to take up a number of notable cases. Among the rejects: opponents of Trump’s tariffs, as importers lost out on an effort to challenge Trump’s Section 307 duties on China last year. More from Bloomberg 2. ANOTHER HABERMAN/SWAN STUNNER: The White House last year seriously considered suspending unauthorized immigrants’ constitutional habeas corpus rights, as Stephen Miller sought to push U.S. law into uncharted territory to further his hard-line immigration crackdown, NYT’s Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan reveal in the latest excerpt from their book, “Regime Change.” The idea effectively was to accelerate mass deportations without even having to go through judges. But Will Scharf and others warned of the legal and constitutional risks of stretching executive power to such a radical extent, and the idea faded away. (Instead, ICE switched to locking people up without bond hearings en masse.) N.B.: The article also reveals that Vance advocated for invoking the Insurrection Act to send in the troops after the killing of Alex Pretti during Minnesotans’ protests against immigration enforcement — though he pulled back from the idea after hearing from Scharf. 3. THE AFFORDABILITY AGENDA: A new version of the bipartisan housing affordability bill is coming back to the Senate floor this week, POLITICO’s Katherine Hapgood reports. After the two chambers squabbled over different versions, Senate Majority Leader John Thune plans to bring up legislation that incorporates a number of the House’s changes, including the limits on single-family home purchases by institutional investors. But it will also include some Senate provisions that the House axed. But but but: A spokesperson for the House Financial Services Committee told Punchbowl’s Brendan Pedersen the Senate’s move does not reflect a bicameral deal and they learned about it in the press.
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Watch Gavin Newsom on On the Road with Jonathan Martin Gov. Gavin Newsom joins Jonathan Martin in San Francisco for a candid conversation on the experiences that shaped his political career, his approach to Trump and what he sees at stake for Democrats in 2026.
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4. STICKING TO THEIR GUNS: “Inside the Trump administration’s rapid rollback of gun regulations,” by WaPo’s Perry Stein: “In the last 17 months, the Trump administration has delivered win after win for the nation’s most ardent gun-rights advocacy groups, chipping away at dozens of federal regulations. … Experts and gun control advocates interviewed for this article highlighted [one regulatory] admission about potential ‘mass casualty events’ as an example of how the administration’s desired changes seem to favor gun access over public safety.” 5. FRAUD FILES: As the Trump administration gets more aggressive about rooting out hospice fraud — an effort inspired by Nick Shirley and spearheaded by Vance — dozens of legitimate organizations have gotten suspended as well, WaPo’s Isaac Arnsdorf reports. WaPo counts 43 such agencies. But CMS Administrator Mehmet Oz says few are affected — and a small number of legitimate hospices that need to get decisions reversed is worth the bigger picture of cracking down on many other fraudulent groups. 6. CLICKER: CBS’ Stefan Becket and colleagues compiled an interactive tool to search through all of Trump’s stock trades in the first quarter of the year. The total — 3,642 transactions, many with companies entangled with the government — “is unprecedented for a sitting president.” But Trump’s representatives say he has nothing to do with the investments, which are managed by outside advisers. 7. LONG READ: “Inside the Ludicrous, Deadly Serious Plan to Take Over Greenland,” by The New Yorker’s Ben Taub: “Greenlanders worry that the war in Iran is only serving as a temporary reprieve; influence operations are ongoing, at Trump’s direction, and every so often he blurts out the stakes. … Trump’s pursuit of Greenland has always been in the hands of a few ideologues and opportunists. … [T]he Danish and Greenlandic governments were unaware that, during Trump’s first term, [Tom Dans and Drew Horn] had also represented their respective agencies on a secret National Security Council task force whose focus was the acquisition of Greenland.”
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TALK OF THE TOWN |
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THE NATURAL CONCLUSION — President Donald Trump declared that the big July Fourth event on the National Mall to celebrate America’s semiquincentennial will now also be “the most spectacular TRUMP RALLY of them all.” He indicated the music will include his playlist rather than people who “constantly complain,” a seeming reference to the musical acts who pulled out of the event when its not-so-nonpartisan framing became clear. Trump said the event will also include record-setting fireworks, military bands, flyovers and a “TRIBUTE TO AMERICA.” HISTORY LESSON — Copies of the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th Amendment have been put on display beneath the Lincoln Memorial, set to open to the public next week as part of the semiquincentennial celebrations, WaPo’s Michael Ruane reports. BOOK CLUB — “Vance’s new book puts his Catholic faith at the center of his story — and his political future,” by CNN’s Steve Contorno: “In [‘Communion,’ VP JD] Vance connects his faith to his political transformation — from Donald Trump skeptic to Trump’s vice president — and to his views on the prevailing social and economic debates. Through this lens, Vance argues for prioritizing families over gross domestic product, limiting migration, rejecting universal basic income, and discouraging abortions by improving conditions for new mothers and young children.” Notable: In the book, Vance also describes his infamous “childless cat ladies” comment as “a clear moment where I failed,” per NBC’s Henry Gomez. FOR YOUR RADAR — Joe Biden will drive around Los Angeles County with Jay Leno in the former president’s vintage Corvette on an episode of “Jay Leno’s Garage” tonight, Deadline’s Dominic Patten scooped. OUT AND ABOUT — YouTube hosted a brunch yesterday at Top of the Hay with content creators and policymakers to celebrate America 250 ahead of the UFC event. Julia Cole performed. SPOTTED: Reps. John McGuire (R-Va.) and William Timmons (R-S.C.), Kai Trump, John Shahidi, Kyle Forgeard, Andre Rush, Benny Johnson, Emily Jashinsky, Kagan Dunlap, Kaelan Dorr, Brianna D’Apuzzo and Johanna Persing. TRANSITIONS — Joel Scanlon has been named the next president and CEO of Hudson Institute, succeeding John Walters at the start of next year. He most recently has been EVP and is a Bush White House alum. … Ángel Cabrera has been named the next president and CEO of the Aspen Institute. He currently is president of the Georgia Institute of Technology. … … Brian Phillips will be VP of comms at the Heritage Foundation. He previously worked at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, and is a Ted Cruz and Mike Lee alum. … Susan Carney Lynch is now a partner at BCLP. She previously worked at the Justice Department. BONUS BIRTHDAY: Elli Dalton of Sen. Rick Scott’s (R-Fla.) office Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here. Send Playbookers tips to playbook@politico.com or text us on Signal here. Playbook couldn’t happen without our editor Giuseppe Macri and deputy editor Garrett Ross.
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