Everyone hates Trump’s memorandum of understanding with Iran. Well, with the possible exception of Iran, who do quite well out of it. Here’s a roundup of who hates it and why, and all the other nonsense happening in Trumpworld
Trump wandering around Versailles just before he signed the deal(Image: Telmo Pinto/SOPA Images/Shutterstock)
Donald Trump’s memorandum of understanding with Iran already has a deeply unfortunate nickname: The Surrender Bill.
Let’s be clear. With the possible exception of Iran, everyone hates it. Republicans hate it, Democrats hate it, Israel hates it, huge chunks of the international community hate it. Reagan is presumably turning in his grave in California. Everyone thinks it’s such a terrible deal that it could even end his Presidency.
So let’s take a look at how it all shook out overnight, and everything else falling apart in Trump’s America
Meanwhile, in Trumpworld
- Trump misses the symbolism
- The best bits of the Surrender Bill
- Republicans might get rid of him
- And we take a look at how the Algae are doing
Here’s everything you need to know
Trump signs Iran deal at Versailles, nobody spotted the symbolism
After much back and forth over when Trump’s memorandum of understanding would be signed, and where, and who by, the Donald decided to do it himself. At Versailles.
Apparently oblivious to the symbolism – Versailles was the location of Germany’s particularly humiliating surrender in 1919 – he whipped out his sharpie and signed that piece of paper right then and there.
Well, at least JD Vance won’t have to get a flight to Switzerland this weekend after all.
So how surrender-y is it?
While the text, for some reason still hasn’t been published, an official did read it out to reporters. And hoo wee. Versailles was the perfect venue.
Before we get into it, let’s journey back to the start of the war, when Trump’s objectives were regime change, removing Iran’s ballistic missile stockpile, no nuclear weapons and “unconditional surrender”.
Exactly one of those things is in this deal, and it was also present in the one America already had and Trump tore up in 2018. It reads that Iran “reaffirms” its pledge not to have nuclear weapons. That is in there.
On the other hand, Iran seems to do quite well out of some of the other stuff. They get access to a $300m reconstruction fund, to be set up – though not necessarily funded by the US. All sanctions get lifted, all wars end, including Israel’s war in Lebanon. Billions in frozen assets are thawed out and available for Iran to spend.
Republicans hate it so much they might vote to turf him out
Republicans in Congress are reportedly so upset about the deal that they’re starting to talk about the inevitable impeachment Democrats would be able to push through if they win big in the Midterms in November. Trump, remember, has been impeached twice, but never convicted by the Senate, which needs a 2/3 majority. And it always goes on party lines. Maybe not this time.
This might all explain the bizarre press conference
Trump stood up at the G7 earlier in the day and rambled even more erratically than usual for 40 minutes before he took any questions.
The thing he kept repeating during the presser was that he didn’t want to be seen as another Herbert Hoover, the President that led America into the Great Depression.
And why might that happen? Well, in an astonishing moment of candour, Trump rambled for a bit about how if they’d kept the hostilities up with Iran, the world would have run out of oil resreves in four weeks.
What happened to the missiles?
Trump explained in his press conference that while there would be a programme to address the preponderance of non-nuclear missiles in the region, Iran would be keeping theirs.
“They have to have some,” he said. “Because other people have some. You gotta have some.”
While we listen back to that one, let’s watch Marco Rubio at the very moment he realises he’s going to be remembered as being the Secretary of State when one of America’s biggest foreign policy blunders took place. And also, he’s never going to be President now.
Algae update
Regular readers will recall that yesterday, in a desperate attempt to turn the Lincoln reflecting pool back to American Flag Blue from the swamp green it became over the weekend, workmen were seen dumping gallons of hydrogen peroxide in the world famous landmark.
Did it work? Well, see for yourself…it kind of did, but only round the edges.
The boss
A weird video of Trump declaring, apparently in jest, to his G7 counterparts that he is “the boss” has been circulating today. Even weirder is that the version doing the rounds has an even funnier moment stripped out. He’d entered the room kind of alongside the South Korean delegation, and just followed them where they were going. Eventually he realised he was on the wrong side of of the table, so he had to turn around and wander over that way before declaring himself “the boss”.
