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Jun 17, 2026 - World

Donald Trump’s pride in getting an Iran deal done, despite accusations that it was a complete capitulation to Iran’s leadership, led MS NOW’s Stephanie Ruhle to haul out the “Trump Always Chickens Out” (TACO) taunt.During a discussion of the deal with former diplomat Richard Haas and MS NOW’s David Rohde, she asked the two experts what the US got out of the deal.According to both, the US was definitely on the losing end and the deal could easily fall apart.“There's concerns that [Israel Prime Minister] Bibi Netanyahu is going to try to blow up this deal because it's so bad for Israel in the long term,” Rohde explained before adding a curt, “It is.”“And I'll just keep it short,” he continued. “I agree with what [New York Times conservative] Bret Stephens said. He said President Trump launched a war of choice. The really big issue was ground troops, and if you really wanted to win this war, he would need to take Kharg Island or actually, I think, land some troops in Iran.” “I'm not saying we should invade Iran with our ground troops, but when you go to war, you must fight totally and completely and show personal courage and he [Trump] blinked,” he accused. “President Trump kept dropping bombs and it didn't work. And bombs aren't enough to win a war.”“TACO: the war edition,” host Ruhle joked as her guests laughed. - YouTube youtu.be

Jun 17, 2026 - World

As President Donald Trump's vanity projects collapse, the reality of his failures is reflected in his presidency, according to a columnist on Wednesday.Trump has attempted to remodel the White House and build a ballroom, slap his name on the Kennedy Center, and remodel the reflecting pool by spending millions to repaint it dark blue only for algae to return and turn it neon green — but that has all backfired, wrote James Ball, political editor at The New World, in a piece published by The i Paper."Trump, in other words, waded into a complex problem that successive administrations failed to address, declared he alone could fix it, didn’t learn anything about the actual underlying issues, and fell flat on his face," Ball wrote. "Some readers might be spotting parallels between the reflecting pool and the President’s Middle East policy, but even just sticking to his misadventures in the capital provides no shortage of disasters."His second term has been marked by missteps and "laws keep tripping him up," Ball explained."Trump sees himself as a strongman and wants the world to see him in the same way," Ball wrote. "He thinks Congress and the Supreme Court work for him. Laws are things he gets to write, not things he has to follow. He seems to believe that every other nation has to do what he wants."Yet Trump has continued running into problems."But it is a lot harder to project that image when you can’t even manage a home renovation or fix the pool at the bottom of your garden," Ball wrote."Trump is a man in a rush, particularly to leave a lasting impression on Washington DC. But by trying to build a legacy in the nation’s capital, he risks doing the opposite. He wants a legacy in marble, not one covered in algae," Ball added.

Jun 17, 2026 - World

New York Times columnist Bret Stephens dropped the hammer on Donald Trump for “betraying” conservatives like himself who were encouraged that he took on Iran — only to capitulate when his war stalled out because he miscalculated the enemy.To make his point about the president’s lack of courage, Stephens brought up the way the president avoided the Vietnam War by getting a doctor to diagnose him with bonespurs, purportedly making him unable to serve and fight.With the headline reading, “Iran Found Trump’s Bonespur,” he jumped right in with, “War is a contest of wills. And in that contest, the hard men of Tehran appear to have scored a decisive victory over the vain man of Washington.”“I write this as someone who supported the war from the outset and hoped to see Trump carry it through to a decisive result: if not regime change, then at least a deal in which Iran would be forced to relinquish all of its enrichment capabilities and access to the Strait was unfettered,” he continued before adding, “But Trump got spooked after the regime didn’t instantly crumble and energy prices shot up. He then effectively abandoned the war he had started after less than six weeks of sustained combat — combat in which the United States lost fewer service members than in the 1983 invasion of Grenada. He compounded the error with an almost comical succession of military threats and last-minute climb-downs, each of them signaling indecision and weakness to Iranian adversaries practiced in the study of weakness.”Pointedly writing that the Iranian leadership, “took the measure of Trump’s courage. What it found was a bone spur,” he noted, “Though the details of the deal remain murky — a telling indicator of its likely shoddiness, since the administration would surely trumpet the terms of a strong agreement — it’s already clear that Trump has betrayed his promise to the Iranian people, after they were massacred in January to quell antigovernment protests.”According to the conservative columnist, Trump’s deal is leading to his “worst betrayal.” “We believed that Iran, which has waged a 47-year war against us, posed an increasingly intolerable threat to our security and vital interests,” he insisted. “This cease-fire neither ends nor eases that threat; it hardens and magnifies it. It removes the one point of U.S. leverage over Iran — the naval blockade of its ports — before there’s any negotiation over its nuclear program, which the Iranians will almost surely drag out until Trump is out of office.”After writing, “This is a debacle,” he predicted, “It gives Iran’s leaders something even more vital: The confidence that, whatever Trump may threaten, they can withstand the most any American president or Israeli prime minister can throw at them.”

Jun 17, 2026 - World

At the end of a segment on Donald Trump’s Iran deal, which is being highly criticized across the board as a disaster, MS NOW host Willie Geist made a point of holding up in the front page of Wednesday’s edition of the New York Post featuring a blaring headline criticizing the president.Prior to Geist’s display, each member of the “Morning Joe’ panel took a shot at the president now that details of his memorandum of understanding (MOU) have been leaked, with the Financial Times’ Ed Luce offering, “It doesn’t even pass the laugh test.”“Iran today is a considerably stronger regional power, considerably more threatening one to Israel and other of America's allies than it was on February 28th,” he continued. “There is no other way to see this than as a complete capitulation, capitulation by President Trump. And really a moment, I think of, well, I'm not going to use the word shame, but I mean, a really bad moment for the United States.”After co-host Mika Brzezinski shared a clip of Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) stating, “Until I get more specific information, I'm going to hesitate to say anything more about it,” conservative New York Times columnist David French interjected, “This should go before the Senate, at the very least. This is absolutely a treaty by any understanding of the word. So yeah, the United States Senate should weigh in here. But the problem is and they'll know this if they say no to this, if they say no, what does that mean?”“Does that mean a very unpopular war restarts? Does that mean that negotiations restart? What's next?” he added. “Because we were sort of led into this war without these kinds of questions being asked and answered on the front end. Here we are in the allegedly back-end with Congress trying to reassert itself, but no real Plan B here at all.”That led Geist to hold the Post front page with the headline, “LOVEBOMB” followed by "Prez says Islamic regime not radical,’ his deal showers mullahs with cash –– and no sanctions.”He remarked, “I would just point out the New York Post this morning. A rare moment when you've lost the New York Post. ‘Lovebomb,’ the New York Post ripping President Trump on this deal for showering, it says, this regime with money, the lifting of sanctions and this $300 billion investment fund for funding the radical regime. That's The New York Post going after Donald Trump.” - YouTube youtu.be

Jun 17, 2026 - World

Campaigners welcome announcement cutting levies on menstrual health items, but say their work to end period poverty is ‘far from over’Pakistan plans to abolish “period tax”, in a victory for young campaigners who had taken the government to court over the charges.Finance minister Muhammad Aurangzeb announced that sanitary towels and related items were “daily necessities that are indispensable for women’s health, dignity and full participation in social activities”, and said he intended to remove the sales tax. Continue reading...