DIVIDED WE STAND: There was little evidence that any minds were changed by yesterday’s closed-door briefings on Capitol Hill, in which Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan laid out the intelligence that prompted the United States to dispatch more ships and bombers to the Persian Gulf and warn Iran about “unrelenting force” if anything bad happens to American interests.

“I walked them through what the Department of Defense has been doing since May 3rd, when we received credible intelligence about threats to our interests in the Middle East and to American forces,” Shanahan told reporters after the two briefings, underscoring that he “acted on that credible intelligence.”