The Dictatorship
Israel’s fuel depot strikes caught Trump by surprise. Here’s why that matters.
Israel struck 30 fuel depots in Tehran on Saturday. The attacks sent giant fireballs and colossal towers of smoke into the air, which obscured the sun and blanketed Iran’s capital of around 10 million people. Black raindrops fell in the capital the following day, and some residents woke up with burning pain in their throats and eyes. Iranian officials warned that the precipitation contained toxic compounds.
The strikes were captured in haunting photographs in international media — and the United States wasn’t happy.
This fissure highlights how the U.S. and Israel have different approaches to and interests in the war in Iran.
Axios, citing a U.S. official, Israeli official and a source with knowledge of the matter, reported that the strikes “went far beyond what the U.S. expected when Israel notified it in advance” and sparked “the first significant disagreement” between the two countries.
“The U.S. is concerned Israeli strikes on infrastructure that serves ordinary Iranians could backfire strategically, rallying Iranian society to support the regime and driving up oil prices,” Axios reported. (The White House and the IDF didn’t offer comment to Axios on their reportedly differing attitudes toward the strikes.)
There was also a concern about economic optics. A Trump adviser told Axios that President Donald Trump “doesn’t like” the attack and said there was a concern that it “reminds” people of higher gas prices.
Make no mistake, there is no sign that the Trump administration — which has provided no coherent explanation for its war of aggression and appears to have been behind a Tomahawk cruise missile strike that killed scores of children at a girl’s elementary school — is concerned about the welfare of the Iranian people. But this fissure highlights how the U.S. and Israel have different approaches to and interests in the war in Iran — and how easily Trump could get swept in Israel’s greater willingness to fight a prolonged war.
While Trump initially indicated he desired regime change in Iran, he has since softened his tone and suggested, among other things, that he’s open to diplomacy and a Venezuela-style deal in which Trump would find more cooperative leaders to work with in Iran and keep most of the government intact. While Trump continues to zig and zag unpredictably on describing his objectives in Iran, it’s fair to say he is amenable to exiting the war with Iran without regime change.
By contrast, Israel is consistently all in on regime change. Israel views Iran and the proxies it backs — including Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen and Hamas in Gaza — as an existential threat, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu considers this a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reshape the Middle East and eradicate an archnemesis. There is a “now or never” attitude underpinning his strikes.
These diverging attitudes can be seen in the way that Israel and the U.S. are prioritizing different targets. As Justin Leopold-Cohen and Ryan Brobst of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Center on Military and Political Power pointed out in a recent analysis, “Israel has prioritized hitting regime officials and military leaders, while the US has taken responsibility for degrading the Iranian Navy and is striking hardened targets with Tehran’s bomber fleet.” They noted that the different target priorities may be explained by their differing objectives in the war.
Here’s a vivid example of how Israel’s laser focus on regime change puts it at odds with the U.S.’s more flexible outlook: As The New York Times, citing U.S. officials, reportedon the first day of the war Israel targeted a “group of Iranian officials which the White House had identified as more willing to negotiate than their bosses, and who might help bring a swift end to the conflict.” In other words, Israel’s effort to clean house entirely also foreclosed a perceived potential Venezuela-style pathway for Trump.
Israel’s strikes on the fuel depots also underscores how Israel is willing to take risky and aggressive actions to topple Iran’s power structure and destabilize its economy and society. While the U.S. cited the strikes as something that might give life to pro-regime resistance, it seems plausible that Israel’s longer time horizon and appetite for regime change explains its willingness to hit harder.
These differing attitudes have two primary sources. One is geopolitics: Israel is striving for regional hegemony, and Iran is its only serious rival in the Middle East. While Iran is not close to building a nuclear weaponIran’s ballistic missiles and its proxies do pose a real threat to Israel’s security and allow it to contest Israeli domination of the region. By contrast, Iran can’t hit the U.S. with its missiles or threaten U.S. security by funding groups like Hezbollah. Yes, Iran can hit U.S. military bases in the Middle East, but U.S. military supremacy over Iran is unambiguous, and Iran has not shown an appetite for picking a fight with the U.S. the way it has with Israel.
The other factor is politics. The Israeli public is overwhelmingly supportive of the war on Iran, and Netanyahu, who is trailing in the polls ahead of an election this yearonce again appears to see war as a way to try to bolster his popularity, secure his legacy and delay his long-running legal troubles. Meanwhile in the U.S., support for the war on Iran is strikingly lowand Trump is already constantly seeking to assure that costs associated with the war, such as high oil prices, will be short term. Trump knows that a quagmire would undermine one of the central themes of all three of his presidential campaigns — avoiding forever wars.
What’s most concerning is that Trump’s failure to set clear goals could mean he goes along with Israel’s objectives without even trying to do so. Without clear criteria for success, Trump’s operation is vulnerable to mission creep. And without attentiveness to or knowledge of the region, Trump may allow Israel to set the tone of the situation on the ground. Netanyahu has every incentive to make sure it all drifts in a direction that satisfies his goals.
Zeeshan Aleem is a writer and editor for MS NOW. He primarily writes about politics and foreign policy.
The Dictatorship
Monday’s Campaign Round-Up, 6.22.26: Why Trump backed both Republicans in a key S.C. race
Today’s installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.
* In South Carolina’s gubernatorial raceDonald Trump endorsed Lt. Gov. Pam Evette last month. Last week, however, ahead of this week’s primary runoff election in the race, the president published an online item telling voters that “you can’t go wrong” with either Evette or state Attorney General Alan Wilson.
If this sounds at all familiar, it’s because Trump has done this before. Around this time two years ago, for example, he endorsed both Republicans running in a congressional primary in Arizona. And two years before that, he endorsed two leading contenders in a Senate primary in Missouri.
Only the president can say for sure why he ended up endorsing Evette and Wilson in the South Carolina race, though it’s worth emphasizing for context that GOP primary voters have already ignored his direction into two gubernatorial primaries this month, and it stands to reason that he hoped to avoid a third.
* We’re one day away from a variety of notable racesincluding but not limited to South Carolina’s gubernatorial race. There are also some congressional primaries in a handful of statesincluding Maryland, New York and Utah.
* In took a while, but the ballots have been tallied under Maine’s ranked-choice systemand we now know that Democrat Hannah Pingree, the former state House speaker, will face off against Republican Bobby Charles, who worked at the State Department during the Bush-Cheney era.
* As for Maine’s closely watched congressional racestate Auditor Matt Dunlap won the Democratic nomination in the battleground 2nd District, defeating state Sen. Joe Baldacci, who enjoyed the backing of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Dunlap will run in the fall against a familiar figure: former Republican Gov. Paul LePage, who had moved to Florida a few years ago, but who returned to run for Congress.
* In California’s congressional special electiontwo Democratic candidates — state Sen. Aisha Wahab and Melissa Hernandez, a Bay Area Rapid Transit director — have advanced to an Aug. 18 special general election. The winner will fill the vacancy left by disgraced former Rep. Eric Swalwell, who resigned in April.
* In a new commercial shared first with MS NOWDemocrat James Talarico has launched his campaign’s first multimillion-dollar ad buy in Texas’ gubernatorial race. In the 30-second spot, Talarico focuses on affordability and the cost of living. The state lawmaker will face scandal-plagued state Attorney General Ken Paxton in the fall.
* And in New Jersey, Republican Rep. Tom Kean Jr.who has been missing from Capitol Hill since early March, will reportedly return to work on June 30according to a statement from his spokesperson. Neither Kean nor his office have offered any public information about why he has been away.
Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”
The Dictatorship
Trump tries dual endorsement in South Carolina as his pick for governor flounders in polls
After President Donald Trump’s pick for governor in Iowa lost in the Republican primary earlier this month, the president argued that he “would have endorsed the other person” if he had “the proper information.”
Trump is taking no chances in the South Carolina gubernatorial primary. Over the weekend he rescinded his exclusive endorsement of Pamela Evette, the lieutenant governor, announcing instead that he would support both Evette and her runoff opponent, Alan Wilson, the state’s attorney general.
The move put Evette’s political future in jeopardy: Even before Trump’s dual endorsement, she trailed in limited public polling and was seen by political observers in South Carolina as a weak candidate with little to show besides the president’s coveted endorsement.
“Her chief distinction from Alan Wilson was that Trump endorsed her,” said Dr. Dubose Kapeluck, a professor of political science at the Citadel Military College of South Carolina.
Trump’s dual endorsement “was a kiss of death,” he told MS NOW.
Evette, who moved to South Carolina from Ohio to found a successful payroll and HR company in 2000, has been lieutenant governor since 2019, serving under Gov. Henry McMaster, who is term-limited.
In office, she has pursued meaningful but little-celebrated policies, like a key tort reform bill, according to Gil Gatch, a Republican member of the South Carolina state House and an Evette supporter.
But voters could be forgiven for knowing little about Evette besides the fact that Trump endorsed her, which he did just days before the June 9 primary. Visitors to her campaign website are greeted with a full-screen message labeling Evette as “Trump-endorsed.” The first line in her X bio states the same. Pro-Evette television ads are quick to tout the endorsement.
An accomplishment like tort reform, while noted on Evette’s website, “maybe could have been something that was highlighted more heavily,” Gatch told MS NOW.
The political makeup of South Carolina nearly guarantees the next governor will be whoever emerges on Tuesday between Evette and Wilson. They survived a crowded primary field on June 9, and nearly every challenger who fell short of the runoff publicly endorsed the attorney general.
“She’s just not a good candidate,” Josh Kimbrell, a state senator who failed to make the runoff and has since said he’d back Wilson, said of Evette.
“She kind of assumed this was a coronation, and that was never going to go over that well,” he added.
Even some pro-Trump voters were confused by the president’s initial endorsement of Evette, whom he called “a good friend, fighter, and WINNER” in a social media post in May.
“I have no clue why Trump would endorse Pamela Evette,” Leland Lemmons, a 30-year-old Trump supporter told MS NOW as he exited a polling site in the Greenville suburb of Easley on June 9.
“She’s served, you know, a decent time. I just haven’t seen much fruition of what she’s done in office,” he added.
In a post on Truth Social Friday announcing his dual endorsement, Trump wrote, “I can’t hurt one of them by only Endorsing the other, so, therefore, I am going to Endorse, for Governor of South Carolina, both Pam Evette and Alan Wilson!”
In a subsequent statement on X, Evette said, “I was proud to come in first as [Trump’s] endorsed candidate for Governor on June 9th. Looking forward to doing it again on June 23rd.”
After The Washington Post foreshadowed the dual endorsement last Tuesday, allies of Evette were quick to denounce the possibility.
“I would guess that’s fake news,” Suzanne Pucci, a member of Evette’s finance committee, told MS NOW of the chance Trump would also endorse Wilson. “She’s probably not real worried about it.”
Another close ally and supporter told MS NOW at the time the report was “a total, fabricated lie.”
“[Trump] is invested in Pamela Evette because she invested in him. He’s a loyal guy. That kind of stuff is important to him,” added the supporter, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
“With or without Trump, I think she is going to win,” they said.
On Thursday, a senior campaign aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity, brushed off the idea of a dual endorsement, telling MS NOW in a statement, “Pamela Evette has earned the complete and total endorsement of President Trump. She is the only Trump-endorsed candidate in this race and we look forward to delivering a big win for the president on Tuesday.”
Roughly 24 hours later, Trump retracted the exclusive endorsement.
Will McDuffie is a reporter for MS NOW.
As last week’s G7 summit in France got underway, a reporter asked Donald Trump whether his purported deal with Iran was final. “No, it’s not final,” the president replied. Later that day — during a visit to Versaillesof all places — he signed the framework anyway.
But moments after signing his name to the memorandum of understanding, Trump offered an unsubtle hint about what he was thinking at the time. Amid applause from those around him, the American president pointed down and then up while saying“Oil down, stocks up.”
In other words, Trump’s focus had nothing to do with natural security and everything to do with the economy. What’s more, the four-word phrase was part of a larger and underappreciated pattern. The Washington Post reported:
In the more than 100 days since President Donald Trump launched a war with Iran, he has offered a shifting list of reasons for why he started the conflict. But in explaining his push for peace, he named a priority much closer to home: protecting the stock market.
“I didn’t want to see economic catastrophe,” Trump told reporters gathered in the Alpine spa town of Évian-les-Bains, France, after the Group of Seven summit.
As the summit wrapped up, the Republican similarly said“I’ve studied presidents, some good, some bad, some great. Not too many are great and some really bad. … And the one president I did not want to be was the late, great Herbert Hoover. I didn’t want that and who knows what would have happened.”
He pushed the same point in an interview with Axios, which was released over the weekend.
“If I went further, the stock market would be much lower,” the president said. “Now think of this: I have one primary wish as president, in terms of people: I never want to be the late, great Herbert Hoover.”
The comments came days after Trump similarly argued“The alternative to this deal was a global recession. There are stupid people who want to see a global recession. They are just stupid people.”
Whether the president fully appreciates the implications of his own rhetoric, this string of comments doesn’t just shed light on his motivations for accepting a defeat, it also suggests he saw his failed policy in Iran as pushing the global economy toward a dangerous cliff.
In other words, based on Trump’s own comments, the war he started was poised to create an “economic catastrophe,” which he was desperate to avoid — and which led him to accept a framework that empowered Iran to get what it wanted in exchange for effectively no concessions at all.
Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”
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