Welcome to Wednesday’s Washington Secrets. You know what is no longer a secret? The memorandum of understanding with Iran. It was read aloud by a senior U.S. official on a briefing call with reporters, finally ending the speculation about the text of the agreement. We’ll leave analysis of the memo for others, but our takeaway today is that its tortured release reflects chaos behind the scenes. Plus, who likes mixed martial arts fighting more? Republicans or Democrats?
JD Vance strode onto the set of The View on Tuesday morning to talk about his new book, Communion, detailing his journey from evangelical Christian to Catholic.
Instead, he got questions about affordability, the Epstein files, and was warned he would next have to explain the administration’s deal with Iran.
“Let’s talk about the book, I’m here to sell books,” was his plaintive cry as the presenters wound down toward a commercial break. “Communion, buy my book, please!”
“Eventually we will, but this is a good opportunity for us to get some clarity on stuff,” Whoopi Goldberg answered.
It is now three days since the president, Vance, and the speaker of the Iranian parliament signed a memorandum of understanding, apparently expanding a ceasefire and setting the conditions for the next phase of talks. There has been little clarity to speak of.
Officials struggled to even decide when they would release the page-and-a-half text of the deal. An official said Monday that it would be published within 48 hours, while Donald Trump later said it would be released sometime after Friday, the day he set for a signing ceremony.
It meant Vance was the main figure selling the deal while Trump traveled overseas for a G7 summit.
He sat for a CBS News interview on Wednesday morning, and seemed to suggest a third time frame, promising that the text would be released Friday “at the latest.”
The reason, he explained, was that Qatari and Pakistani negotiators, who acted as mediators, had asked for a delay. But he promised that the agreement “was fundamentally a good deal for the American people.”
Within a matter of hours, the text was out, read aloud by a senior American official during a briefing call with White House reporters.
If that wasn’t complicated enough, the briefing call was at the same time as Trump’s press conference at the G7.
“I appreciate you doing this call,” said a reporter who sounded baffled by the whole thing, “but I must ask about the timing of this. Why did you wait to hold this call until simultaneously with the president’s press conference? And also, why wasn’t this released until today? Was the language still changing up until now?”
The officials on the call ignored the question. But it all hinted at confusion behind the scenes as a welter of moving parts and international parties came up against an administration that likes to move as fast as possible.
And it illustrates the difficulty facing Vance as he tries to sell the deal: How do you act as spokesman and cheerleader for a president who sets aside the niceties of diplomacy and conventional policy process in favor of operating on the hoof?
It is a long way from Vance’s comfort zone.
He rose to his position through staunch loyalty to Trump, acting as his Fox News enforcer and laying waste to Democratic excesses. His fraud portfolio fits naturally with that role.
His foreign policy positions, such as they are, align with a more isolationist wing of the Republican Party. Sending him out to sell a vague agreement with Iran is unlikely to win over the hawks who wonder why Tehran is getting off so lightly and whether the war was in vain. It is a much tougher job.
Meanwhile, Trump’s foreign policy chief, and Vance’s rival for the 2028 Republican nomination, has managed to avoid the fray. Marco Rubio, the president’s secretary of state and national security adviser, was with his boss at the G7. He was not out of sight, standing at his shoulder during Wednesday’s press conference, but he certainly had no time to sit down for interviews.
Instead, it will be Vance who is dispatched to Switzerland at the weekend for the signing ceremony.
“This way, if it works out, I’m going to take the credit,” Trump said at the end of his press conference. “If it doesn’t work out, I’m blaming JD.”
No wonder Vance wanted to talk about his book.
Quote of the day
While the White House is deciding when it will release the text of the memorandum of understanding, journalists journalisted and got hold of the document anyway. Or at least a draft. The White House disputes the idea that its language reflects the final MOU. Either way, it makes for tricky reading for Republican hawks who had given Trump the benefit of the doubt. Up until now, perhaps.
Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA), who gives a good quote, had this to say when asked if he was confident that Iran was going to give up its nuclear ambitions: “Unless you were homeschooled by a day drinker, no one’s confident that Iran is going to do anything.”
Secrets will leave readers to decide whether it is a good MOU or a bad MOU but wishes the vice president all the best in selling it.
Everyone loves a good fight
Speaking of the UFC jamboree, here are some fascinating data from More in Common, a nonprofit public opinion firm.
It looked at the audience for mixed martial arts fights to test the idea that Trump was using the fast-growing sport and politically charged backdrop for purely partisan effect. But if you thought the only people who enjoy watching bare-chested men beat each other to a pulp are Republicans, then you would be wrong.
Its survey of more than 5,500 people earlier this month found that the audience for such sports looks much like the rest of the country. MMA fans break down daily evenly: 33% Democratic, 29% Republican, and 31% independent.
In fact, the pattern holds across all major sports. Near equal shares of Democrats, Republicans, and independents make up the fanbases for the NFL, NBA, MLB, college football, and the World Cup.
There are some outliers, as you might perhaps imagine. NASCAR skews 41% Republicans, and the WNBA breaks 45% Democratic, but the authors say they “are less lopsided than most people might assume.”
Lunchtime reading
Did Gavin Newsom peak too soon? The rule of newspaper headlines is that any headline that ends in a question mark is answered with a “no.” This is more of a perhaps. It’s not too late for him to turn things around.
Trump’s extraordinary deal is a survival plan for Iran: What does the British Right make of the Iran MOU? The author of this piece was Boris Johnson’s speechwriter for a time.
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