White House Watch: The Beginning of the End of the Iran Deal?

The president will speak from the White House Tuesday afternoon to announce a decision that will affect the future of the Iran nuclear deal.

The Washington Post reports Trump is expected to announce he will not waive sanctions on Iran ahead of the May 12 deadline, which the paper calls “a major step toward ending the nuclear agreement.”

Officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the deal was brokered by the Obama administration with allies from the European Union and the government in Iran. The Western countries agreed to lift sanctions on Tehran in exchange for promises and commitments to halt Iran’s nuclear development program. But critics of the deal, which include President Trump, say Iran’s end of the bargain is weak and unenforceable—and that Iran is violating the spirit of the deal.

One More Thing—Trump has been hinting he would pull out of the deal for months, a possibility made all the more likely by his naming Iran hawk John Bolton (who has advocated tearing up the JCPOA) as his national security adviser last month. It was an op-ed by Bolton that nearly derailed the White House’s plans to re-certify the deal last July, when Trump reversed his decision after reading the article and sent his staff scrambling on the day of the announcement—only to have him change his mind again back to the original plan:

Ever since special counsel Robert Mueller served Paul Manafort with a raft of indictments ranging from conspiracy against the United States to money laundering, President Trump has distanced himself from his former campaign manager. But that hasn’t stopped Trump from publicly gloating after a federal judge in Manafort’s case scolded prosecutors for using the case to try to flip him against the White House.

During his Friday speech at a National Rifle Association event, Trump gave a shout out to the district court judge who had criticized Mueller’s tactics, calling him “really something very special.”

Manafort, who is on trial in both D.C. and Virginia, has argued that Mueller’s team does not have jurisdiction to bring charges outside of their original mandate. The special counsel has retorted that they are merely pursuing evidence of criminality they uncovered in the course of that investigation.

Must-Read of the Day—From the Washington Post: “Inside Melania Trump’s complicated White House life: Separate schedule, different priorities”

Two months after President Trump and congressional Republicans infuriated deficit hawks by passing a $1.3 trillion budget, Trump is attempting to pull back on some of that spending. The White House announced Monday it would ask Congress for a $15 billion “rescission,” canceling spending already allotted in the March budget bill.

White House officials said that the proposed rescission would cut back more than 30 programs, with nearly half coming from the Children’s Health Insurance Program, a program that provides a health safety net for low-income families. Democrats blasted spending levels on CHIP as Congress debated tax reform last year and passed its spending bill earlier this spring.

Democrats wasted no time resuming those criticisms Monday, with Chuck Schumer accusing Trump of “hurting middle-class families and low-income children to appease the most conservative special interests and feel better about blowing up the deficit to give the wealthiest few and biggest corporations huge tax breaks.”

The White House insisted that the cuts to CHIP would not impact poor children’s ability to receive healthcare, and that the proposed cuts would simply return funds programs were not making use of.


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Primary Watch—Tuesday is a big day for Republican primaries in key Senate races, including in Indiana and West Virginia. President Trump weighed in on the latter race on Twitter Monday morning, calling on Mountain State Republicans to vote against Don Blankenship, on the basis that he would lose in November to incumbent Democrat Joe Manchin:

My colleague John McCormack reported shortly after Trump’s tweet on two internal GOP polls that found Blankenship leading the other two candidates for the Republican nomination, Patrick Morissey and Evan Jenkins.

Song of the Day— “Manic Depression” by the Jimi Hendrix Experience