Is There an Iran Endgame? Meet the Platners. Man Arrested for Biting ICE Agent. NJ Gov Blames ICE for Delaney Hall Scene. Bring Back SATs! More
Given the toughness of Iran’s rump government’s negotiations to end the conflict, the idea of Iran having a nuclear weapon should send chills up every spine in the West.
The latest wrinkle is President Trump’s profanity-laden conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over whether Israel should continue to fight Hezbollah in Lebanon. Axios broke the story:
President Trump lashed out at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over Israel’s escalation in Lebanon in an expletive-laden call on Monday, two U.S. officials and a third source briefed on the call told Axios.
Why it matters: Earlier on Monday, Iran threatened to abandon the negotiations with the U.S. over Israel’s actions in Lebanon. On the call, Trump called Netanyahu “crazy” and accused him of ingratitude, according to two of the sources. He also put the brakes on Israel’s plan to strike Beirut. …
The other side: Netanyahu released a statement after the call saying he’d told Trump that Israel would attack targets in Beirut if Hezbollah did not stop attacking Israel, and that in the meantime Israel would continue its operations in southern Lebanon.
An editorial in the Wall Street Journal (“Iran Gets Trump to Rescue Hezbollah”) takes a dim view of this most recent development:
Iran’s regime began Monday by throwing a wrench into negotiations with the U.S., and President Trump spent the rest of the day scrambling to satisfy Iran’s demand. The result is a new cease-fire in Lebanon, rescuing Hezbollah for the moment, though the terrorists didn’t abide by the first cease-fire for even a day. …
In reply to Iran’s threat to end negotiations, Mr. Trump talked tough. “I don’t care if they’re over,” he told CNBC. “Frankly, I thought they started to get very boring.”
But the President’s actions suggest he does care. After long calls with Mr. Netanyahu and Lebanese interlocutors, on Monday afternoon Mr. Trump announced a new cease-fire in Lebanon: “They agreed that all shooting will stop,” he wrote on Truth Social. …
Iran’s regime sees this as one war, and it has been testing Mr. Trump on all fronts. If it fires on U.S. forces in the Strait or Gulf, will he still try to salvage the cease-fire? How about stepped-up attacks on Israel? How about claiming to quit negotiations? In each case, Mr. Trump has chosen to avoid escalation and keep talking. If he won’t send a different message, it will be difficult to get the regime to comply with a deal, no matter what it promises now.
The U.S. is, meanwhile, pressuring neutral Oman to pick a side:
In recent days, the Trump administration has threatened to sanction and even bomb Oman, after a new intelligence assessment concluded that Muscat was planning to join Iran in tolling vessels in the strategic Strait of Hormuz, according to another U.S. official. Oman has repeatedly denied that it plans to do so.
Counterintuitive. “We don’t need a deal with Iran,” argues National Review’s Dan McLaughlin. “Walking away from the war with Iran may be the lesser evil compared with accepting a bad deal.”
This Just In: Israel is striking southern Lebanon but appears to be pulling back from Beirut under pressure from President Trump. On a cheerier note, Victor Davis Hanson writes that “Iran survives by delay, deception, and deterrence games—but the moment may be coming when airpower, not diplomacy, decides how the nuclear standoff ends.”
Ms. Must called Graham Platner “teflon” yesterday. Maybe not. “Democrats fret Graham Platner could cost them — and not just in Maine” is a Politico headline. Maybe they should have started fretting with the Nazi tattoo or the porta-potty revelations? The latest is Platner’s texting to women not his wife. Quite a few women not his wife. This one has a twist: Platner’s wife had flagged the sexually explicit texts to his campaign:
Amy Gertner, who married Platner in 2023, told the campaign about messages she had found early in their marriage in the spring of 2025. In late August, as some aides were conducting opposition research on their own candidate, Gertner disclosed the texts to a campaign aide to make sure they didn’t pose a risk to her husband’s nascent campaign, those people said.
Apparently, the campaign did not fret. But now they are. In response to the texting story, Amy Gertner released a campaign video complaining that there were “people willing to spread gossip.” Townhall’s Matt Vespa calls this Platner making his wife “do a walk of shame of sorts.” The video (“Hey, this is Amy”) is embedded in the Vespa story. It was not Amy’s first video, and I predict it won’t be her last.
Meanwhile, the Washington Free Beacon reports that Platner has admitted buying cocaine as a Marine and has “no regrets.” Janet Mills, 78, who suspended her campaign, probably does. She reminds Maine Dems that she is still on the ballot. All very fretful.
Bring back testing! “University of California Professors Are Begging Schools to Reinstate the SAT“:
More than 1,100 University of California math and science professors are urging UC regents to reinstate college-entrance exams, saying that unprepared students are lowering academic standards and draining teaching resources.
“We are already seeing the warning signs: longer pathways through prerequisite material, reduced readiness for advanced coursework, and growing pressure to dilute quantitative rigor,” the faculty wrote. “Left unaddressed, these trends will lead to declining graduation rates, longer time to degree, and reduced completion of STEM majors, with consequences for California’s highly skilled STEM workforce.”
An op-ed in the Wall Street Journal argues, “Even the overwhelmingly liberal Berkeley faculty are fed up with the admission of unprepared students.”
Speaking of California, I hear there are some primaries there today. Spencer Pratt and wild-card Republican Steve Hilton have made the races particularly interesting. “[B]ut don’t stay up waiting for the results. Winners might not be known for weeks thanks to state election laws that are designed to goose Democratic turnout,” a WSJ editorial suggests.
A federal appeals court ruled yesterday that the Trump administration’s ban on people who identify as “trans” is unconstitutional. A three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit split 2-1 in finding that the ban was unconstitutional. You don’t need me to tell you how this decision could affect military morale and discipline.
A good observation from RedState: “There must be something about the month of May for the radical ‘protesters’ at Delaney Hall Detention Center in Newark, New Jersey, because May 2026 has been a lot like May 2025 in terms of the wild scenes that have unfolded there over the past two weeks.”
RedState highlights several disturbing incidents, including the guy who sank his teeth into an ICE agent. But New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill blames ICE, Bill McGurn observes. McGurn does not give Sherrill high marks for her handling of the “protests”:
At a press briefing Saturday, Ms. Sherrill alluded to Minneapolis. Clearly she intended to draw a contrast between her decisive actions and Minnesota officials’ failure to go after those who caused the mayhem. “I refuse to let that happen in New Jersey,” she said in her best zero-tolerance voice. And she named those responsible for the violence outside Delaney Hall.
“I will not give ICE a pretext to expand operations at Delaney Hall or across our state,” Ms. Sherrill thumped. “I will not put lives at risk.”
It’s a whopper, but New Jersey being what it is—a blue state whose gerrymandering will only get worse under Ms. Sherrill—no one questioned it. Even though the truth of the violence she condemns is obvious to anyone who watches the news.
In closing, Ms. Must assigns germane reading. “Feuding Communist Millionaires Reveal a Secret Network Powering America’s Radicals” in City Journal. Dazzling reporting. You will be tested.
