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Why Trump, Iran seem light-years apart on any possible deal to end the war
The fog of war usually refers to maddening confusion about what is happening on the battlefield.
But right now we have the fog of peace talks: Are they real, are they going anywhere, and which side is telling the truth?
It’s clear that President Trump, insisting he can end the war with Iran whenever he wants, is looking for an exit ramp to declare victory and get out.
WINNING THE BATTLES, LOSING THE WAR? AMERICA MUST DEFINE THE ENDGAME IN IRAN
It’s just as clear that the theocratic dictatorship–at least the leaders who survived the attacks that killed the ayatollah and many others–are digging in their heels. They will claim victory just for surviving the military onslaught that has decimated their navy and air force.
When Trump said there were back-channel talks–granting a five-day delay on threats to obliterate its energy facilities–the Iranians flatly denied it. Some prominent pundits doubted Trump. But then Tehran said yeah, well, there have been some secret contacts.
Now we have starkly different accounts of what’s going down.
Trump says the talks have been “very good.” The other day, in fact, he depicted the mullahs as making a major concession.
The Iranians have given the U.S. “a very big present, worth a tremendous amount of money,” Trump said. He was cagey about it, but revealed under questioning by CBS’s Ed O’Keefe that it involved the flow of oil and the Strait of Hormuz.
At the same time, Iranian military spokesman Ebrahim Zolfaghari taunted the administration in a video: “Has the level of your internal conflict reached the point where you are negotiating with yourselves?”
“Do not call your defeat an agreement,” he said.
And for good measure: “Someone like us will never come to terms with someone like you. Not now, not ever.”
Now some of this is undoubtedly done for domestic consumption. But the two sides sound like they couldn’t be farther apart.
The president has delivered a flurry of mixed messages on the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow passageway where an Iranian blockade has choked off one-fifth of the world’s oil traffic. He has said that the situation will work itself out. He has said our European allies (who refused to join our effort to intervene) should resolve this since the U.S. doesn’t rely on the strait. And he has also said that opening Hormuz is a top American priority.
Iran, which has sprinkled the strait with mines, told the U.N. that the waterway is open to any country not backing the U.S. and Israeli attacks. But other nations, and their insurance companies, are reluctant to send billion-dollar tankers into such troubled waters.
The impasse is hurting the president here at home, where soaring oil costs have boosted gas prices and tanked the stock market, shrinking the value of all those 401Ks. When Trump announced the bombing pause Monday, the market snapped back for a day. If there’s one thing Wall Street hates, it’s uncertainty.
Despite signaling that the war is practically over because “we’ve won,” Trump just dispatched at least 1,000 troops from the 82nd Airborne to the Middle East, along with the USS Tripoli, carrying 2,200 Marines.
Meanwhile, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has been playing the bad cop, vowing if there’s no deal “to destroy the enemy as viciously as possible.”
What’s equally unclear is who we’re talking to, with Pakistan playing the intermediary role. Trump has talked about regime change, though there seems no chance of that, and there’s chatter about doing business with the speaker of Iran’s parliament, Mohammad Ghalibaf, a former Revolutionary Guard commander who at times has taken a diplomatic approach with the West.
But with so many leaders killed and Ayatollah Khamenei’s son in hiding, no one knows how much influence Ghalibaf, a failed presidential candidate, still has.
Just yesterday, Ghalibaf, invoking the Israeli prime minister, warned the administration against sacrificing American soldiers for “Netanyahu’s delusions,” according to al-Jazeera. That hardly sounds conciliatory.
What’s more, the Iranians are famously difficult to negotiate with, going back on promises and moving the goalposts. Just ask Jimmy Carter.
Trump tore up the Obama administration’s nuke deal with the Iranians when he first took office, and now says he wants an agreement in which they renounce the pursuit of nuclear weapons. That is extremely unlikely, although the U.S. attacks last June and this month have obviously crippled their efforts.
My sense is that Trump doesn’t want to bomb Iran’s oil and gas facilities, which would clearly extend the war and widen a conflict that has already spread to the surrounding Arab countries. Nor does he want to be seen as backing down. No wonder he’s postponed a showdown.
WHO ACTUALLY RUNS IRAN RIGHT NOW? THE KEY POWER PLAYERS AS TRUMP CLAIMS TALKS TO ‘TOP’ OFFICIAL
“President Trump does not bluff and he is prepared to unleash hell,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said yesterday.
The Iranians don’t want a temporary pause in the war, unnamed officials told the New York Times, out of concern that the U.S. and Israel would use the time to rebuild their forces for further airstrikes.
Iran’s only real weapon right now is drones, a few of which have caused damage in Israel, while others are aimed at U.S. military bases in the region. One drone sparked a huge fire at the Kuwaiti airport.
A report by the state broadcaster, Press TV, confirms that Iran won’t accept the U.S. proposal for a cease-fire. In its counter-offer, the dictatorship would also keep sole control of the Strait of Hormuz.
Among other demands, according to Press TV: Guarantees that the attacks on Iran won’t be started up again, and the payment of war damages and reparations. Iran wants any deal extended to Hezbollah, its Lebanese proxy, which fired rockets at Israel when the war began, triggering an invasion of southern Lebanon.
Another state media outlet, Fars News Agency, quoted a source as saying of a cease-fire: “It is not logical to enter into such a process with those who violate the agreement.”
The president has lashed out at the media for painting a relentlessly negative picture of a war that has largely been an American triumph. But it turns out that covering the endgame — if that’s what this is — is equally challenging.
At the moment, it looks like Trump wants a deal more than Iran, given the war’s unpopularity at home and its damage to the economy. For an America First candidate who ran against foreign wars, the prospect of a long, Iraq-style quagmire would be the worst possible outcome.
“Is the U.S. Repeating the Mistakes That Led to Forever Wars?” the Wall Street Journal asked yesterday.
But the coverage of the latest rhetorical sniping accurately reflects the vagueness of a process that may not deserve to be called negotiations.
It is, above all, a blinding fog.
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Karoline Leavitt blasts NYT ballroom coverage, calls out critics who ‘never built anything’
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt blasted The New York Times over a piece about the new White House ballroom that describes the plans as “unnecessarily big” and “very tall” in an interactive image of the ballroom plans.
“The New York Times had three random people who have ‘studied fine arts,’ ‘long written about urban planning,’ and never built anything to write an article criticizing the new White House ballroom. President Trump and his lead architect have built world-class buildings around the world, and they are ensuring the People’s House finally has a beautiful ballroom that’s been needed for decades — at no expense to the taxpayer,” she wrote on X.
The piece was written by a trained architect, a person who “studied fine arts,” as well as someone who has “long written about urban planning,” according to The Times.
The article showcased an interactive image of the ballroom that included red arrows and circles critiquing the structure. One circle on the roof of the ballroom design image said it was “unnecessarily big,” as another arrow highlighting the height of the design read, “very tall.”
WHITE HOUSE FIRES BACK AT CRITICS CALLING TRUMP’S MASSIVE ARCH ‘TOO BIG’
Another arrow pointed to “faux windows on the north side.”
Danielle Rhoades Ha, a spokesperson for The New York Times, issued a statement on X in response to Leavitt.
“Our article is based on interviews with architects, current and former government officials, and historical preservationists. It relies on public documentation of the building plans, and it quotes White House officials involved in the planning of the new ballroom. Compared with other major projects in Washington, this one has had little time for public review, and experts warn the design has many issues. We’re confident in the accuracy of our story,” the statement read.
WHITE HOUSE SAYS EAST WING DEMOLITION WAS NECESSARY DUE TO STRUCTURAL ISSUES
The White House did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s requests for additional comment. The New York Times pointed Fox News Digital to the statement they posted on X.
Marc Thiessen, a columnist for The Washington Post, called it “embarrassing” for The New York Times.
The Washington Examiner’s Tim Carney posted a photo of the New York Times building and used comments from the outlet’s article on the ballroom to describe the New York City building.
The Washington Free Beacon’s Jon Levine argued that there was no way The New York Times would publish something positive about the ballroom.
President Donald Trump said Sunday that the military is constructing a “massive complex” beneath a planned White House ballroom, which he said will feature bulletproof glass and drone-proof protections while being funded entirely by private donors.
The project, which Trump said is designed to accommodate large events and guests, would expand capacity at the White House, where he said existing rooms are too small for major gatherings.
“The military is building a massive complex under the ballroom, and that’s under construction, and we’re doing very well,” Trump said.
The president responded to the critique of the windows from The New York Times report, and said during his remarks on Sunday, “We have no fake windows.”
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NJ school district’s secretive transgender policy faces legal threat for bucking Supreme Court ruling
A New Jersey school district is being threatened with legal action unless it repeals a policy that lets schools withhold students’ gender-identity information from parents, setting up what could become an early test of the Supreme Court’s recent intervention in the fight over parental rights and school disclosure rules.
The Thomas More Society, a conservative legal group, accused the Westwood Regional School District in a demand letter of wrongfully maintaining the policy, which also allows the schools, in some cases, to aid K-12 students’ “social transition” to becoming transgender without their parents’ knowledge.
The move comes weeks after the Supreme Court dealt a major victory to conservative parents in Mirabelli v. Bonta by upholding an injunction against a similar policy in California.
“I had hoped this would end the practice of secret gender transitions, but what’s becoming clear to us is this is just the beginning,” Peter Breen, Thomas More Society executive vice president, told Fox News Digital. “This is not an end, but a beginning, our big win in the Supreme Court. We are already fielding requests from other parents across the country, and we anticipate sending a lot more demand letters, unfortunately.”
Fox News Digital reached out to the school district board members who received the letter, as well as the district’s superintendent, for comment but did not receive responses. The school board told local media earlier in March that members were consulting with district counsel and reviewing policies.
The letter requires the New Jersey school district to repeal its policy, called Policy 5756, within 20 days. Otherwise, Breen said, the Thomas More Society would follow the same path it did in California and begin litigation.
“When the Supreme Court decides a case, the logic of the decision is binding on every other court in the country, federal or state,” Breen said. “And so, the Supreme Court has said that parents have a fundamental right to control the upbringing and education of their children… and so a school official who defies that right could be subject individually to a lawsuit, not just the school district.”
In Mirabelli, California parents and teachers argued that the state’s transgender policy violated their rights under the First and 14th Amendments. The policy prevented school administrators from telling parents about their child’s potential efforts to transition their gender unless the child consented to it. It also required school staff to use students’ preferred names and pronouns regardless of the parents’ wishes.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit sided with Democratic Attorney General Rob Bonta in the case, leading the parents and teachers to turn to the Supreme Court. The high court vacated the 9th Circuit’s order 6-3 on an expedited and temporary basis while the case proceeds through the lower courts. The three liberal justices dissented.
FEDERAL JUDGE STRIKES DOWN ‘GENDER SECRECY’ POLICIES IN CALIFORNIA PUBLIC SCHOOLS
“The State argues that its policies advance a compelling interest in student safety and privacy,” the high court’s majority wrote in the unsigned opinion. “But those policies cut out the primary protectors of children’s best interests: their parents.”
Corey DeAngelis, a research fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, observed to Fox News Digital at the time that the Supreme Court’s decision was the latest in a string of victories for conservatives seeking to tighten policies surrounding transgender people. DeAngelis noted it only applied to California, despite its anticipated impact on other states.
“This precedent is surely a sign of good things to come,” DeAngelis said. “If there’s a lawsuit that arises in another state, you can be pretty sure that the Supreme Court is going to rule on the side of families.”
The Supreme Court has weighed in recently on several key gender identity disputes through full opinions and emergency orders, and the decisions have broken along ideological lines. Outside Mirabelli, the high court in United States v. Skrmetti affirmed 6-3 a state’s authority to ban certain transgender medical treatment for minors under the equal protection clause. In a 6-3 emergency ruling last year, the justices temporarily greenlit President Donald Trump’s ban on transgender service members serving in the military.
The high court is also weighing two relevant and closely watched cases, one on a religious-based therapist offering alternative counseling to transgender youths and one on transgender athletes. Decisions on those are expected by the summer.
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Amanda Peet exposes ‘desperation galore’ behind Hollywood fame
Amanda Peet is pulling back the threadbare curtain on life underneath the spotlight.
The 54-year-old actress called out Hollywood as nothing but “smoke and mirrors.”
“It’s ridiculous,” Peet told Fox News Digital when asked about the “biggest misconception” of stars having a “perfect life” in Hollywood. “It’s smoke and mirrors. There’s no there there. I mean you name the aphorism, it applies to us. It’s desperation galore. ‘What are they doing over there? Why don’t I have that? Why don’t I look like that?’ That’s the bad part.”
She continued, “In Hollywood, it’s hard to — I’m gonna just sound corny. It’s competitive, and it’s hard to get out of that really sort of competitive mindset where the piece of cheese on the island is too small and there are too many people going after it.”
VINCE VAUGHN EXPOSES HOLLYWOOD’S ELITIST MINDSET: ‘WE’RE SMART…YOU’RE AN IDIOT’ IF YOU DISAGREE
The “Something’s Gotta Give” actress added that aging in the youth-obsessed industry isn’t easy either.
“I’m older, so I have much more peace about it, but it’s really, really hard to find that, and it is hard not to want to chase your own buzz if you are lucky enough to have any, and instead, just be like, ‘What do I really want to do when my alarm goes off in the morning? What do I want to be doing? Is this really what I want to be doing? Is this really helpful or useful to anyone?’”
WATCH: Amanda Peet calls Hollywood glamour ‘ridiculous’ and ‘smoke and mirrors’
Peet is starring in the second season of Apple TV’s “Your Friends & Neighbors,” which premieres on Friday, April 3 with one new episode each week through June 5.
VALERIE BERTINELLI FINDS STRENGTH AFTER DEVASTATING YEAR OF HEALTH BATTLES AND EMOTIONAL HEARTBREAK
She said that fans can expect a “lot more” from season two.
“Then also there’s the issue of Coop having this secret life,” Peet said of Jon Hamm’s character who plays her ex-husband on the show.
“And I think this season, one too many people are starting to get an inkling that something’s going on with Coop,” she continued. “And so it gets more and more dangerous for him to keep doing what he’s doing, which is incredibly exciting. And then [her character] Mel and Coop are still in this kind of like, will they, won’t they? They’re so pissed off at each other, but they still seem to wanna f— each other. So yeah, it’s just really a whole big hot mess.”
WATCH: Amanda Peet reveals fans can expect a ‘lot more’ from season 2 of ‘Your Friends & Neighbors’
Peet said she also appreciated a storyline where her character deals with going into menopause, which she said was cathartic for her.
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“It was very cathartic to be able to put my own menopausal frustrations and rage into an appropriate situation, namely be acting out as a character instead of in my own life,” Peet revealed.
The actress has also been open about her breast cancer diagnosis, which she announced earlier this month.
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She told Fox News Digital that when she first heard the news, her thoughts were filled with “terror.”
“My children and terror,” she admitted.
Peet said she made the decision to not tell her dying mother “because she wasn’t well for so long that it was, you know, fairly obvious that I, you know, on the off chance that she would have been able to understand, I wouldn’t have wanted to scare her.”
“So, it wasn’t a hard decision, it was just sort of hard in a more global way because I had been so close to her all my life.”
Peet revealed her breast cancer diagnosis in a New Yorker essay last Saturday, saying that she is stage I and doesn’t need chemotherapy, but will go undergo a lumpectomy and radiation.
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