Sunday Afternoon Updates: Trump Hits the Golf Course While Iran MOU Collapses – 6/28/26
Sunday Afternoon Updates: Trump Hits the Golf Course While Iran MOU Collapses – 6/28/26
The MOU is collapsing, the Strait of Hormuz is closer to shutting down, and Trump decided this was a good day to look at golf course blueprints
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Hi all, Ben here. It’s Sunday afternoon, and a lot has happened already. Remember to like, share, and re-stack. Let’s get into it.
Top stories we’re tracking today:
The Memorandum of Understanding with Iran is unraveling in real time, with strikes, counter-strikes, and the Strait of Hormuz crisis continuing to escalate
Trump spent his Sunday morning inspecting golf course renovations at East Potomac Golf Links instead of addressing any of it
A residential building in Bahrain was hit and damaged amid the regional escalation
The $300 billion Iran reconstruction fund appears to not exist, according to the Gulf states who are supposedly paying for it
Next round of Switzerland talks between the US and Iran have been cancelled
Foreign Minister Araghchi says the Strait of Hormuz could close entirely if escalation continues
Israel’s Defense Minister is bragging about a Lebanon agreement that directly undercuts the Iran deal
Republican Senator Roger Marshall went on Meet the Press and asked America to “hang in there”
Mamdani fired back at Republicans trying to use him as a boogeyman
Trump’s DC Reflecting Pool lies continue
Fox is embarrassingly trying to pretend like Trump’s Great American State Fair is a huge success
Albania’s protests against a Kushner-linked island project are now in their 28th straight day
Bernie Sanders delivered a fiery speech on military spending, housing, and inequality
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Let’s get into the details.
Trump Disappears While His Own Deal Falls Apart
Donald Trump hid from the press all morning today as the memorandum of understanding with Iran continues to collapse around him. His own administration keeps violating the ceasefire it claims to have secured, and instead of addressing any of it publicly, he spent his Sunday morning over at East Potomac Golf Links reviewing blueprints for renovations with Interior Secretary Doug Burgum. That’s right. While missiles are flying in the Middle East and an international waterway is on the verge of closing again, the leader of the free world is picking out new bunkers for a golf course.
His one social media post last night as all this was going on was an attack on journalist Maggie Haberman where he called her “Magot Hagerman (sic).” The post before that touted his Iran deal as some kind of economic miracle for American truckers, claiming the supposed energy boom would be a boon to the trucking industry. He’s also been telling farmers that Iran is going to buy up all our corn and soybeans. None of that is actually in the agreement. It’s just another con to dupe people who are suffering into thinking help is on the way and this Iran deal will make them rich.
And here’s where it gets worse.
While Trump was wandering around a golf course with Natalie Harp, who has been described by people around the administration as having a “very unhealthy” relationship with the president, Iran was actually responding to American military action. Iranian missiles successfully targeted multiple sites following US strikes, hitting American military infrastructure in Bahrain and Kuwait. A residential building in Bahrain’s Muharraq Governorate sustained serious damage. We have images of a high-rise tower with its top floor blown out and still smoking, rubble inside, and Bahrain Civil Defence personnel searching through the wreckage.
This is not a ceasefire. This is a ceasefire in name only.
So while all of that is happening, what’s Trump focused on? Renovating a golf course and apparently ensuring that there are 47 trees around the White House, to honor himself as the 47th president.
The Strait of Hormuz Problem Hasn’t Gone Away
The IRGC Navy put out a statement today that is worth flagging. According to a translation shared by Abas Aslani, the IRGC said America’s strikes near Sirik won’t resolve the question of who controls the Strait of Hormuz, and warned that further actions against vessels it considers offending will continue. The statement closed by saying that American forces in the region will face serious consequences in the coming days.
Here’s the structural problem at the heart of this. The MOU itself states that Iran administers the Strait of Hormuz, and that for the first 60 days it can’t charge for passage, after which it can. The US, apparently unhappy with that arrangement, announced it would open its own shipping lane near Oman. Iran said no, that’s not how this works, any new lane has to be coordinated with them under the terms of the deal. So Iran has been targeting vessels it says are violating IRGC control. The US then strikes Iran. Iran strikes US bases in response. That’s the loop we’re stuck in right now, and I don’t see why it would stop given how this administration operates.
Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, speaking from Iraq, said outright that if the current escalation continues, keeping the Strait of Hormuz open becomes impossible. He emphasized that under the agreement signed with the United States, Iran is the only country responsible for managing the strait, and that if other countries try to set up their own management of it, that will only produce more clashes. He also said the strait is supposed to return to pre-war operating capacity within 30 days, entirely under Iran’s management, and that any interference from outside parties will just delay that and increase tensions further.
We’re already seeing the effects. Traffic through the Oman route has dropped significantly, with most shipping now routed through the Iran-controlled lane, but overall traffic through the strait remains way down from pre-war levels. Despite that, Brent crude prices have stayed relatively contained, which tells me this is being managed and manipulated more than it’s being reported honestly.
Meanwhile, Mike Waltz, Trump’s ambassador to the UN, has been all over television insisting the US controls the Strait of Hormuz and will keep striking Iran if Iran tries to assert control over what Waltz calls the American lane. I’ll say what I’ve said before. I think this war was catastrophic and never should have happened, and I believe Trump and Netanyahu bear real responsibility for that. But if you signed a deal in Versailles and held it up as your big diplomatic win, you don’t get to act like there are no obligations attached to it. You can’t have it both ways. Stop acting like there’s no deal when you’re the one who signed it.
Nobody Can Find the $300 Billion
The MOU explicitly includes a $300 billion redevelopment fund for Iran. That’s not in dispute, it’s written into the text of the agreement. When that became public, the Trump regime’s line was that the money would come from Gulf Arab nations, not American taxpayers. Secretary of State Marco Rubio traveled to the Middle East to meet with Gulf Cooperation Council countries, and when asked whether he had discussed the $300 billion with them, he brushed it off, saying that’s “way down the line.”
Now here’s the part that should embarrass everyone involved. GCC Secretary General Jasem Al Budaiwi was asked directly about the fund, and he said he has not seen anything about it, that it was never introduced to him or to any other GCC countries, and that they simply don’t know anything about it. He said it was never part of any conversation they had.
So to recap: Trump put a $300 billion commitment into a signed agreement, claimed it wouldn’t cost Americans a dime because Gulf nations would cover it, and the Gulf nations are now saying on camera that they have no idea what he’s talking about. Someone is lying here, and it certainly isn’t the GCC Secretary General with nothing to gain from contradicting Trump.
This is peak Trump. Throw out a number that sounds impressive, claim someone else is footing the bill, and hope nobody checks. It’s the same instinct that had him grading his own COVID response an A-plus while hundreds of thousands of Americans died. The man is, and has always been, a fraud. Meanwhile, the United States is the country on the hook for the $300 billion as the guarantor, per the agreement.
Israel and Lebanon’s Deal Is Quietly Undermining the Iran Deal
While all this plays out, Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz is busy bragging about a separate agreement with Lebanon, calling it historic and a strategic blow against what he termed the Iranian axis. Katz confirmed Israeli forces will remain in southern Lebanon’s self-declared security zone, including around Beaufort Castle, and won’t fully withdraw until Hezbollah is disarmed across the entire country. He’s instructed the military to prepare for an extended deployment and says Israel will respond with serious force if Iran tries to interfere.
Here’s the problem nobody in this administration wants to acknowledge. Araghchi pointed out that under Article One of the MOU, the war is supposed to end on all fronts, including Lebanon, and he placed responsibility squarely on the United States to ensure Israel stops its attacks there, which clearly is not happening. So you have Rubio brokering a Lebanon arrangement that’s fundamentally at odds with the Iran MOU that Vance negotiated. One deal is premised on rolling back Iranian influence in the region. The other is premised on a ceasefire that requires exactly the opposite. These are not compatible documents, and pretending otherwise is just going to produce more of the exact violence we’re watching unfold right now.
Switzerland talks scheduled for this weekend between the US and Iran have already been cancelled because of the resumed hostilities, according to the Wall Street Journal. Things are not going well.
Some News From the Sunday Shows
Senator Roger Marshall went on Meet the Press this morning and somehow argued with a straight face that we should “root for the Trump team” rather than scrutinize them. When host Ryan Nobles pointed out that the US is still bombing Iran 120 days into this supposed resolution, Marshall called it a “mop up operation” and insisted the major war is over, even while admitting moments later that he doesn’t actually think the war is over. He also claimed real wages are outpacing inflation, which Nobles immediately and correctly pushed back on, because it’s not true.
Marshall also touted that Iran agreed, for the first time ever, not to develop nuclear weapons. That’s not new. The JCPOA, the actual nuclear deal that Trump tore up in his first term, said exactly that in its opening lines.
When pressed on Trump blocking a bipartisan housing affordability bill just days after his own press secretary praised it as one of the most significant housing bills in American history, Marshall pivoted to talking about voter fraud prevention measures instead. Nobles asked him to name a single documented instance of fraud that the SAVE America Act would have actually prevented. Marshall couldn’t.
Then there’s Mayor Mamdani, who went on ABC’s This Week and handled a setup question about Republicans making him their poster child about as well as you could ask. He pointed out that in six months in office he’s delivered free child care for two-year-olds for the first time in New York City history, returned tens of millions of dollars to tenants ripped off by bad landlords, paved 165,000 potholes, and presided over the lowest recorded crime numbers the city has seen. Contrast that with Marshall asking America to simply “hang in there.”
Speaking of Sunday shows, watch our show On Sunday with Jack Cocchiarella if you missed today’s episode. Today’s guests were Rep. Ro Khanna, Brian Tyler Cohen, and Melissa Murray.
Bernie Sanders Said the Quiet Part Out Loud
Bernie Sanders gave a speech today calling for an end to what he described as an immoral and ineffective foreign policy, along with a military budget north of a trillion dollars a year. He called for ending support for what he termed the genocidal Netanyahu government and cutting off backing for authoritarian regimes in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar. His closing line to urge those in power to start investing in the American people instead of the war machine.
He also tied this directly to the housing crisis, pointing out that while Jeff Bezos owns 14 mansions and other billionaires buy entire islands, roughly 800,000 Americans are homeless and 20 million households are spending more than half their income on housing.
From the Pool to the Fair
Ron Filipkowski raised a fair question this earlier after Interior Secretary Doug Burgum went on Fox & Friends Weekend to discuss alleged vandalism at the Reflecting Pool near the Lincoln Memorial, comparing it legally to throwing paint on Lincoln’s statue and touting seven arrests. Filipkowski simply asked whether anyone has actually been arrested for using a boxcutter on the pool, or whether that detail got lost somewhere along the way. Enough of the Soviet style lies to cover for Trump’s failures. Either put up or shut up.
Case in point: Trump’s so-called 250th anniversary fair on the National Mall, branded “Love the Land” and pitched as a celebration of farming and agriculture. Fox News’s Peter Doocy insisted on camera that people were still coming out to the event, even as the shot behind him showed an almost entirely empty fairground. This is what state-aligned media looks like.
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And it’s worth noting what happened to the actual 250th anniversary plans. According to someone who says they worked at the Smithsonian raising money for the original celebration, there had been a fully funded plan for a month-long Folklife Festival on the National Mall featuring major musical acts and cultural programming on the scale of Burning Man or Farm Aid, backed by millions in private philanthropy. That plan was reportedly scrapped because the administration wouldn’t issue the necessary permits, and the celebration got rebranded around Trump himself instead. What could have been a genuine, nonpartisan, generation-defining cultural moment turned into another weird Trump failure.
Let me know what you think in the comments. Thanks for reading! See you later with more updates.
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It's called lying, he only calls out his own behavior and experiences. I cannot wait until Satan calls him home
The good news is....
But then the bad news is, Vance is president.
More specifically projection.
Especially since he could easily afford all of the following: weight loss medication, weight loss surgery, a personal fitness trainer, a personal nutritionist, and actual healthy food. He also has lots of spare time to exercise in.
New nickname for him: "Tub of Lard."
Thank you Ben. I wish I could feel angry about our 250th birthday hijack but I just feel incredibly sad. We are so much more than this shit show.
I keep seeing these "live" broadcasts from FOX News with the mall in the background with minimal people there but the propagandists continue to lie about the attendance. "There's 1000's of people here!" 🤣
Apparently there's a huge demonstration against Trump outside the fair that has a lot more people in it than are attending the fair. You'll notice Fox News carefully doesn't show that.
Tens of people with nowhere better to go.
Picket Fox News.
Bingo! Correct name for it is "False News" or False Fox New."
We can have a 255 year celebration instead that will be epic
Or the 250th Anniversary of the ratification of the Constitution. June 21, 1788 was when New Hampshire was the 9th state to ratify it. https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/the-day-the-constitution-was-ratified So that anniversary would be in 2038.
When the felon gets done fucking up the East Potomac Golf Links it will be unaffordable for the recreational golfer. Everything thing he touches is over budget, against the law, and turns to shit covered in gaudy fake gold.
Hoping the next Dem pres can turn that elite course back to the regular golfers who patronized it in the past. Whatever company is given the contract to run Trump's version can be sent packing.
I feel like wearing black this Saturday. (Except I don’t have a totally black shirt). I definitely don’t feel like celebrating.
Trump gets a great deal of more enjoyment out of spending taxpayers money than solving the problems he created. Instead of solving the problems, he is looking at what he can do to enhance his name, project his image and increase control. When he is not trying to spend taxpayers money, he is looking for new problems to create to divert attention from the Epstein files and his existing problems. He doesn't have to think up lies to distract attention from these issues, it just comes naturally. He hasn't had a truthful day in his life.
Taxpayers should not be paying taxes until the wealthy pay the percentage we pay. If they pay 0 we should too. We should demand this. Why should elderly or any worker pay more than corporations or wealthy. We should demand equity!
Problem is, the rich have a scam where they have little or no income and therefore pay little or no taxes. It involves borrowing their living expenses on their assets. So they actually need to pay way, way MORE than their income, which is why we have so much talk about a "wealth" tax instead.
My wife keeps hearing me say the same thing every day: "Do they think we're stupid?"
Trump gets a great deal of more enjoyment out of spending taxpayers money than solving the problems he created. Instead of solving the problems, he is looking at what he can do to enhance his name, project his image and increase control. When he is not trying to spend taxpayers money, he is looking for new problems to create to divert attention from the Epstein files and his existing problems. He doesn't have to think up lies to distract attention from these issues, it just comes naturally. He hasn't had a truthful day in his life.
Taxpayers should not be paying taxes until the wealthy pay the percentage we pay. If they pay 0 we should too. We should demand this. Why should elderly or any worker pay more than corporations or wealthy. We should demand equity!
Hoping for thunder and lightning storms in DC to celebrate the 4th. Nature’s fireworks.
Anyone remember the Bicentennial Year’s events?
Yep, we do. Oh well, aren’t “years” just a man-made construct anyway?
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