A week ago today, VP Vance led the U.S. delegation for 21 hours of direct talks with Iran, in the Pakistani city of Islamabad. Those talks were not particularly fruitful. Right now we’re nearing the end of the original two-week ceasefire, and things remain fragile. Although, for some reason the U.S. stock market has been strong over the past 3 weeks, and is now back in the black for 2026.

Paul Krugman had an article today that I think nicely summarizes the state of the war:

“It’s been clear for a while that the United States has basically lost this war. The goal was to achieve regime change, possibly to take Iran’s uranium. Neither of those is going to happen. The Iranian regime is harder line than it was before. Iran has ended up strengthened because it has demonstrated its ability to shut off traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. No way the United States, even under current management, is going to commit ground troops to attempt to really do in Iran’s nuclear program on a sustained basis.

So the indicated strategy was essentially to give up, but claim that something wonderful was accomplished, and that’s certainly something that Trump is good at doing. But he hasn’t been able to pull it off, I think because he is incapable of facing reality. … [T]he U.S. just found out the limits to its power, and they turn out to be closer to our goal than they are to the Iranians’ goal. So we basically have to cut our losses by making a deal that leaves the Iranians with some stuff that they didn’t have before.

He can’t seem to do that. … [W]e are led by people who not only can’t plan a war right, they can’t even successfully execute a surrender. And that’s a really bad omen, not just for the Iran conflict, but for everything else.”

There was a by-election this week in Governor Sherrill’s old seat, the New Jersey 11th. This is a moderate suburban district that Harris won 53-44 in 2024 and in which Sherrill had won re-election 57-41 in 2024. However the victor in the recent open Democratic primary was Analilia Mejia, from the progressive wing of the party. As such many were interested in seeing whether Mejia would be able to continue the recent trend of Democratic margin expansion in by-elections, or whether instead the pendulum would swing back the other way due to her being “too progressive” for her district. She won 60-40, which is being viewed in some circles as a sign that the Democrats can afford to nominate progressives in a broader array of districts.

Two Congressmen resigned this week over sex scandals. The scandal involving Tony Gonzales (R-TX) had been percolating for a long time, so much so that he lost his primary several weeks ago over it. By contrast, the scandal involving Eric Swalwell (D-CA) only broke into the public eye mere days before he fell on his sword. With these resignations, once Mejia is seated the Republican majority will be 218-214.

However the larger impact of Swalwell’s sudden implosion is on the upcoming California gubernatorial race. With Governor Newsom term-limited and Kamala Harris having declined to run, the jungle primary scheduled for early June is wide open. Swalwell had been one of the leading Democratic candidates in a field featuring billionaire and 2020 Presidential gadfly Tom Steyer, former Congresswoman and failed 2024 Senate primary candidate Katie Porter, former HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra, former L.A. mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, and other minor players. Swalwell’s departure from that race may make it more likely that one candidate from each party will advance to the general; based on recent polling, there was increasing concern among Democrats that without consolidation of the field, the top two vote-getters in the primary could be the two main Republican candidates, even if as a whole the Democratic candidates were to receive as much as 60% of the primary vote.

In world politics, last Sunday Hungarian PM Orban decisively lost the election and is out of power after 16 years; encouragingly, he conceded the evening of the election. Earlier in the week VP Vance had been in Hungary, campaigning for Orban. Open American intervention in another country’s election is unusual enough, but even moreso when it’s in support of the candidate also supported by Russia. It will be very interesting to see the extent to which new Hungarian PM Magyar, a former member of Orban’s party who created his own opposition movement, will encounter difficulties in undoing the damage to institutions wrought by Orban’s authoritarian tendencies. Closer to home, Canadian PM Carney finally has a majority government to work with, after winning three by-elections last week in the wake of having convinced a handful of MPs from parties to both his left and right to cross the floor and join the Liberals.

The Court of International Trade recently had its oral arguments in the Section 122 tariffs case, Oregon v. Trump. From what I have read, the judges seriously engaged with plaintiffs’ arguments on the obsolescence of Section 122 in a world with floating exchange rates. While the invocation of Section 122 tariffs is by law limited to 150 days, I hope that the judges do not use that as an excuse to run out the clock here, but instead provide clear guidance on the meaning of the law. In other tariff news, on Monday the federal government will launch its new system under which importers of record can request refunds of the IEEPA tariffs that were deemed illegal in Learning Resources v. Trump.

TACO Tuesday arrived less than an hour after my last post, with the announcement of a two-week ceasefire between Iran and the U.S., mediated by Pakistan, to be accompanied by the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.

The markets loved that news. The price of a barrel of Brent Crude, around $110 prior to the announcement, immediately dipped below $95. U.S. stock markets were up almost 3% today, and emerging markets were generally up more than that.

But, what exactly is the present situation? More than 24 hours later, the Strait does not appear to be open and, as Bloomberg put it, “a series of conflicting statements — and actions — since the announcement suggests fundamental differences remain, making the truce even more fragile.” VP Vance is currently expected to lead the U.S. side of negotiations with the Iranians this weekend in Pakistan.

And while the last 36 hours obviously could have gone far worse, are we in a good place? Former Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger doesn’t think so:

“if this ceasefire holds, the United States lost. Not “didn’t fully win.” Not “achieved mixed results.” Lost. And the victory laps being run out of the White House today — the Truth Social posts, Pete Hegseth at the Pentagon podium declaring “Operation Epic Fury” a “historic victory” — are the kind of performance that would embarrass any serious military strategist, and that should embarrass every American who’s been paying attention.”

Or, as a headline in The Atlantic put it: “Trump’s Iran Deal Gives Him Nothing He Wanted”, with the sub-head “U.S. declarations of victory ring hollow”.

In other news, the result in last night’s runoff by-election in the safe Republican seat of the Georgia 14th was a 56-44 victory for the Trump-endorsed candidate. By comparison: a few weeks ago in the jungle Democrats collectively got 40% of the vote; a year-and-a-half ago the same Democratic candidate lost to MTG, 64-36; and in that same election, Trump beat Harris 68-31.

There was also a Wisconsin Supreme Court election last night, the third such election in the past three years. The previous two elections were national news, as in both cases the winning side would garner a 4-3 majority. This election attracted much less attention and spending, however, as majority control of the court was not in play. Nonetheless, after winning the 2023 election 55-44 and winning the 2025 election 55-45, last night the “Democratic” candidate (technically these elections are non-partisan) won 60-40. As such, both the Georgia and Wisconsin results last night suggest a strengthening wind at the Democrats’ back going into this fall.

On the legal front, yesterday plaintiffs filed their reply brief with the Court of International Trade in the Section 122 tariffs case, Oregon v. Trump, with respect to their request for summary judgment. Today a bipartisan group of economists with history in government service filed an amicus brief supporting plaintiffs. I find the plaintiffs’ arguments extremely compelling, to be honest. Oral argument at the CIT is on Friday.

Finally, several days ago it was announced that the administration had issued a legal opinion to the effect that the Presidential Records Act — the focal point of the Mar-a-Lago documents case — is unconstitutional, notwithstanding the 1977 SCOTUS decision in Nixon v. GSA. This week the American Historical Association filed suit in federal court, so AHA v. Trump will be another fun one to watch.

These are tenuous times, warranting a brief unscheduled post.

I’m writing this around dinner hour on a Tuesday, two days after Easter. As the country woke up on the morning of Easter Sunday, the following unbelievable social media post from President Trump was in the news:

“Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah. President DONALD J. TRUMP”

Yesterday he set 8pm Eastern Time today as the deadline for Iran to comply, although this afternoon there has been talk that Pakistan is attempting to broker a two-week extension. Today Trump reiterated that “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again” in the absence of a deal.

Assuming he goes through with it, rather than giving us another TACO Tuesday, we would appear to be talking about something on the spectrum of war crimes (attacking civilian infrastructure) to wholesale genocide, possibly with the use of tactical nukes sprinkled in. Fun times.

Congress remains out of session. There have been calls today from dozens of prominent Democrats that the Cabinet needs to invoke the 25th Amendment. But not just Democrats: former Trump-aligned types such as ex-Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor-Greene, Anthony Scaramucci, Candace Owens have talked about the 25th Amendment today.

Speaking of MTG, today is the runoff by-election for her old seat between a Trump-endorsed Republican and a Democrat, the two survivors from a recent jungle by-election. Collectively the Republicans outpolled the Democracts 60-40 in the jungle, but it will be interesting to see what happens today. The Democratic candidate, Shawn Harris, is a Black retired general who lost 64-36 to MTG in 2024.

Yesterday Trump became the first sitting President to ever attend a SCOTUS oral argument, sitting through Solicitor General Sauer’s defense of the birthright citizenship executive order in Trump v. Barbara. The general consensus is that the arguments went better than expected for the administration, but not well enough to lead to a win. It is possible that SG Sauer created enough doubt on the constitutional issues that the Court will decide it doesn’t need to reach those issues and instead resolve the case against on statutory grounds; that would leave the door open for potential future legislative and/or executive action to modify the long-standing conception of when and how citizenship attaches.

One interesting thing about this case is that it has inverted the usual political views on textualism versus living constitutionalism. Concepts like illegal immigration and birth tourism were unthinkable in the 1860s, so there is something to be said for the notion that the 14th Amendment should be interpreted in a manner that produces reasonable results applied to more modern fact patterns, rather than slavishly focusing on the original meaning of the words used at the time. But it’s pretty funny to see Justice Alito pounding the drum the loudest in favor of a living constitution argument, and the ACLU leading the argument in favor of a purely textualist analysis. But, as Chief Justice Roberts said, to laughter: “Well, it’s a new world, [but] it’s the same Constitution.”

Trump’s address to the nation last night, his first live address on the Iran war (he had released a taped video message on the first day of the war), lasted 19 minutes but covered no meaningful ground. Representative headlines this morning included The Atlantic’s “Maybe Trump Should Not Have Given This Speech,” Politico’s “‘What The Hell Did He Just Say?’ GOP Iran Worries Build After Trump Speech”, and the L.A. Times’ “Trump Speech on Iran War and Recent Remarks on Oil, NATO, Daycare Costs Land With a Thud.” The price of a barrel of West Texas Intermediate, which was at $67 when the war started, went from $98 before the speech to $112 as I write this, 24 hours later.

In Nate Silver’s approval rating poll average, Trump has just fallen below 40% for the first time in his second term.

Speaker Johnson now seems willing to entertain the Senate-passed compromise to fund the less controversial parts of DHS, although Republicans are now talking about a two-track approach in which the Senate would start working on trying to use budget reconciliation to fund ICE and CBP rather than engage meaningfully with Democratic demands for ICE reforms.

Finally, the big news of the day is that Trump has fired Attorney General Bondi, after trial balloons to that effect were widely floated yesterday. The left loathed her for treating the DOJ like Trump’s personal law firm, while the right ripped into her over how she has managed the Epstein files. While Todd Blanche has been named interim AG, the rumor is that Trump is considering nominating his EPA Administrator, Lee Zeldin, as Bondi’s permanent replacement.