The U.S. and Iran continue working toward a peace deal after a week of increase hostilities, President Trump’s reaction to new inflation numbers and a birthday fighting cage behind the White House.
ELISSA NADWORNY, HOST:
The biggest challenge facing the Trump administration right now – a peace deal with Iran. And it’s become a bit of a will-they, won’t-they story. It’s gone like this. The president announces a deal is forthcoming, and we wait. This week, as we waited, an Apache helicopter went down off the Gulf of Oman. The U.S. blamed Iran. The U.S. struck Iran. Iran struck Gulf neighbors. The president threatened to strike Iran again, quote, “very hard.” And then just hours later, Trump announced he’d canceled that plan and that a peace deal was forthcoming. Joining me now is NPR senior contributor Ron Elving. Good morning.
RON ELVING, BYLINE: Good to be with you, Elissa.
NADWORNY: So this deal is a memorandum of understanding. And yesterday, Iran’s foreign minister said it’s in the final stages and that his country’s leadership had approved it. Do we know exactly what’s on the table yet?
ELVING: Not really. We only know what might be. Right now, the one thing the two sides seem to have agreed on is their interest in having an agreement, or what each side can say is an agreement. That would help President Trump celebrate his 80th birthday this weekend by claiming victory and by ending what has become a politically expensive misadventure. And if there really is a deal that holds up, it should reenergize the world oil market and bring prices down worldwide for gas and fertilizer and ultimately food as well. It would help Iran get back to selling its oil and accessing some of its frozen assets. And so for the moment, everyone seems eager to sign and smile. But the real test comes once a deal is actually in place and we see whether both sides perform as agreed and whether that produces the desired results.
NADWORNY: Right. OK, Ron, last week, you talked about the bipartisan upset on Capitol Hill over Trump’s pick of Bill Pulte, the head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, to step in as director of national intelligence. So now there is a new name, Jay Clayton. Will this pick satisfy the lawmakers?
ELVING: It surely won’t satisfy all of them, but it seems likely to placate them, or at least to placate enough for Clayton to be confirmed. Clayton has been a U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. His background in intelligence is quite limited, but Pulte had no such background at all. That’s why a bipartisan group of senators has been loath to even have him in the job for a minimal transition period. And that alone may abbreviate the confirmation process for Clayton and lead some senators to give him the benefit of the doubt.
NADWORNY: OK. On to the economy. President Trump had this response Wednesday when he was asked about the new data that showed the highest level of inflation in more than three years.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: The numbers were great. You know what I really love? I love the inflation. You know why?
NADWORNY: That sentence, I love the inflation. It got a lot of attention. But there was more to his answer. I mean, what point was he making?
ELVING: It would make sense for him to brush off that ugly inflation report and claim that the upward trend would soon be reversed and that inflation would come down. And he may have meant to say he loved not inflation itself, but the inflation number that was out that morning, the measurement, if only because it could have been still worse. And if that’s what he meant, then he failed to say it clearly enough. So now he’s on tape, saying he loves the inflation. Not a good look in an election year. Trump has already fallen 20 points among independents since the start of last year. He won’t be on the ballot this fall to bring out his hardcore base of supporters, so November could bring a serious setback in the midterms.
NADWORNY: Yes, of course, which people will be paying attention to inflation. OK. Finally, Ron, what are you going to do tomorrow night?
ELVING: Tonight, of course, it’s the Knicks and Spurs in Game 5 in the NBA finals, but tomorrow night is going to be – well, it’s going to be hard not to watch the Octagon on the White House South Lawn. This is the new spectacular arena that’s been built near the site of Trump’s rally on January 6, 2021. That rally became an assault on the Capitol and routed the members of Congress. On Sunday, the South Lawn will be the site of Trump’s multimillion-dollar UFC cage match. It’s a huge moneymaking event to mark Trump’s 80th birthday, and it just might be splashy enough and flashy enough to keep the focus off that particular number and the other age-related issues swirling around the nation’s second octogenarian president.
NADWORNY: (Laughter) That is NPR senior contributor Ron Elving. Thank you so much, Ron.
ELVING: Thank you, Elissa.
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