White House report card: Convention glitz and $5,000 dividends can’t distract from Iran war

Published September 11, 2026 11:30am ET



Welcome to Friday’s edition of Washington Secrets. If a friend sent you this and you’d like to sign up, CLICK HERE. What a week: 9/11 commemorations, more escalation in the Persian Gulf, trade war with Canada, and a first Republican midterm convention. Once again, we run the rule over how it all unfolded.

Donald Trump spent Labor Day weekend at his New Jersey golf club before returning to the White House on Monday. Meanwhile, his envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, made their first visit to Kyiv to see if they could kick-start peace talks with Russia, a country they have visited repeatedly (and they were in Moscow before heading to Ukraine).

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