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By Eli Okun |
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THE CATCH-UP |
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President Donald Trump combined Truth Social messages urging a ceasefire with a direct call this morning to Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu. | Mark Schiefelbein/AP |
WAR REPORT: President Donald Trump today tried to keep a lid on an outburst of Israel-Iran hostilities that threatened to derail the Middle East war’s fragile ceasefire. The initial signs are that the region has calmed down, after a period of back-and-forth attacks overnight when a return to all-out war looked possible. That’s due in part to interventions by Trump. Early this morning, the president posted on Truth Social that both countries “must immediately stop,” and then hopefully declared that everyone wanted to move quickly toward a ceasefire and a more durable peace deal. Trump combined those messages with a direct call this morning to Benjamin Netanyahu, in which he asked the Israeli PM to stand down from any further attacks on Iran, NYT’s Aaron Boxerman and colleagues report. Ultimately, Israel and Iran announced that they’d suspend their barrages. But the prospects for peace, already on shaky ground before this weekend’s spiral, still look tenuous. Both countries threatened to resume intense attacks if the other’s aggression continued, raising questions about whether Trump’s reiterated promise of a deal arriving soon can actually be borne out. The immediate trigger for the latest hostilities was Israel’s ongoing fight with Iranian-allied Hezbollah in Lebanon, including strikes from both sides yesterday, which prompted Iran to rain down ballistic missiles on Israel. Jerusalem and Tehran then launched waves of retaliatory strikes against each other. Notably, the Houthis joined in too with a missile against Israel, and Iran threatened to shutter the Bab al-Mandab strait near Yemen on top of the Strait of Hormuz closure. Netanyahu said it was “unacceptable” for Iran to “force a new equation” with attacks in retaliation for Lebanon. Today’s pause provides a retreat and a reprieve, in which Trump seems to have pushed Netanyahu to get his way. But the attacks were another sign of a growing strategic gulf between allies Israel and the U.S. since they launched the war together a few months ago: Trump continues to drive toward a peace agreement, while Netanyahu seeks expanded war against Israel’s enemies. Growing tensions between the U.S. and Israel over Lebanon have given Iran an opening and strained what began as a closely coordinated war between the two allies, WSJ’s Anat Peled and colleagues report. The divide stems from Trump’s and Netanyahu’s contradictory domestic political pressures: While the war is unpopular with Americans (to the extent that Trump is now falsely claiming he didn’t pledge to keep the U.S. out of wars), many Israelis — across political lines — are urging Netanyahu to stand firm and keep fighting Hezbollah, WaPo’s Gerry Shih and Heidi Levine report. Interesting shift: CNN’s Jeremy Diamond reports that despite an Israeli official’s claim, the U.S. denied stepping in today to intercept any of the missiles fired by Iran — unlike in previous clashes when the U.S. played a more active role in Israeli air defense. Strait talk: European allies, meanwhile, are focused on getting the critical Strait of Hormuz open to traffic again. The U.K. and France want the G7 next week to sign off on their plan for removing mines from the strait once a peace deal is reached, Bloomberg’s Alex Wickham and colleagues report. The big question is whether Trump, who’s been frustrated by Europe’s reticence to join the war, will get on board. Good Monday afternoon. Thanks for reading Playbook PM. Drop me a line at eokun@politico.com.
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Watch Season 1 of On the Road with Jonathan Martin From South Philly to Baltimore, Chicago, Augusta and San Francisco, Jonathan Martin hits the road for candid conversations with key political players where they call home. Catch up on Season 1 featuring Josh Shapiro, Wes Moore, JB Pritzker, Brian Kemp, Gavin Newsom and more on American politics, the road to 2026 and what’s next. Watch Season 1 now. |
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5 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW |
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1. IMMIGRATION FILES: The Justice Department today rolled out a plan to revoke 17 Americans’ citizenship for alleged immigration fraud, the biggest such batch of denaturalizations in history, as CBS’ Camilo Montoya-Galvez scooped. DOJ says some of the people have been convicted of fraud, others of sex crimes. Between 1990 and 2017, DOJ filed an average of 11 such cases per year. 2. WEAPONIZATION WATCH: “How the Drive to Find a Conspiracy Against Trump Rocked the Justice Dept.,” by NYT’s Devlin Barrett, adapted from his new book, “The Department of Revenge” ($31): “[FBI Director Kash] Patel’s drive to target critics of the president set off cascading crises with U.S. attorneys’ offices, derailed distinguished careers and undercut the Justice Department’s credibility with judges. … [T]he case consolidated years of his complaints and accusations about Democrats and national security officials. To many career Justice Department veterans, the case looked more like Frankenstein’s monster — a motley assortment of long-dead investigations that were now supposed to be stitched together.” DOJ responded that it “enforces federal law fairly, consistently and without regard to politics.” Related read: “Trump allies wanted to ‘delete’ this consumer watchdog. Now it’s a political weapon,” by WaPo’s Andrew Ackerman: “A year in, a much smaller [CFPB] is still standing and has been remade to advance the president’s political goals. The bureau has begun to probe a class of smaller, mostly nonprofit lenders that Russell Vought, the acting director of the bureau, has characterized as unduly ‘woke.’ … The moves represent a reorientation of an agency that had previously focused on aggressively policing larger financial institutions on behalf of ordinary consumers.” 3. CROSSING THE LINE: Texas state Rep. James Talarico has landed the Senate endorsement of a defense lawyer who helped represent Texas AG Ken Paxton in multiple trials, NOTUS’ Stephen Neukam scooped. Dan Cogdell donated to Paxton last year and defended him at his state impeachment trial, but now says Paxton has “lost sight of his core mission.” But multiple other Paxton impeachment defense lawyers responded that they were strongly sticking with him. 4. UP IN THE AIR: As Congress keeps trying to iron out disputes over an aviation safety bill, one under-the-radar component has triggered a new partisan skirmish, POLITICO’s Brian Faler reports. The provision would stop state tax officials from using some airplane tracking data to make sure the wealthy pay taxes on their private jets (which they often conceal). Democrats are angry, while Republicans say the info planes broadcast is for safety reasons, not taxes. 5. WHAT MAHA IS WATCHING: “EPA scientists say they are being pushed to downplay potential risks of household products,” by CNN’s René Marsh: “Inside the Trump administration’s Environmental Protection Agency, scientists say they’re under pressure to alter safety reviews of chemicals commonly found in consumer products like household cleaners and cosmetics to make risks to human health and the environment disappear on paper. … [S]cientists are also being told to stop considering the impact a chemical may have on specific racial groups … [S]ome veteran employees say they have been pressed to make chemicals appear safe by coming up with test parameters that aren’t realistic.” The EPA responded that it’s “using realistic exposure scenarios rather than defaulting to compounded worst-case assumptions,” and maintaining “gold-standard science.”
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TALK OF THE TOWN |
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IN MEMORIAM — “Gordon S. Wood, Pioneering Historian of Early America, Dies at 92,” by NYT’s David Stout: “In a Pulitzer-winning book, ‘The Radicalism of the American Revolution,’ he wrote that the colonists rose up against an entire worldview, not just against taxation.” — “Robert Coles, Pulitzer-winning psychiatrist who shaped public policy, dies at 97,” by Joe Holley in WaPo: “After encountering civil rights emblem Ruby Bridges, he spent his career documenting the impact of social and political unrest, especially on the young.” MEDIA MOVE — Emma Janssen is now a staff writer at The New Republic, covering congressional Democrats. She previously worked at The American Prospect. TRANSITION — Matthew Owen is now a partner at Gibson Dunn. He previously worked at Kirkland & Ellis, and is a Hill and Supreme Court alum. WELCOME TO THE WORLD — Natasha Dabrowski, chief of staff at NewDEAL, and Josh Fendrick, principal at Williams & Jensen, welcomed Sofia Brooke Fendrick on May 26. She joins big sister Lily. Pic … Another pic 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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