June 24, 2025
At 6:02 last night, President Donald Trump announced on his social media account that Israel and Iran has agreed to “a Complete and Total CEASEFIRE” that would lead to “an Official END to THE 12 DAY WAR.” Maggie Haberman of the New York Times reported today that the announcement took some of Trump’s own senior advisors by surprise. Since then, Trump’s social media feed has been unusually active, posting claims that his approval rate is soaring, that he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize, that “for the first time ever [a] majority of Americans believe the United States is on the right track,” and that “Trump was right about everything.”
“THE CEASEFIRE IS NOW IN EFFECT. PLEASE DO NOT VIOLATE IT! DONALD J. TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES!” Trump’s social media feed posted at 1:08 this morning. But within hours, Israel had struck Iran again. At 6:50, Trump’s social media feed posted: “ISRAEL. DO NOT DROP THOSE BOMBS. IF YOU DO IT IS A MAJOR VIOLATION. BRING YOUR PILOTS HOME, NOW! DONALD J. TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.” At 7:28 it posted: ISRAEL is not going to attack Iran. All planes will turn around and head home, while doing a friendly “Plane Wave” to Iran. Nobody will be hurt, the Ceasefire is in effect! Thank you for your attention to this matter! DONALD J. TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.”
After Israel struck, Iran retaliated. This morning, Trump accused both countries of violating the ceasefire agreement—although, to be sure, there has been no published confirmation that any such agreement exists. Sounding angry, Trump told reporters: “We basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don’t know what the f--- they’re doing.”
At 11:17 the account posted: “Both Israel and Iran wanted to stop the War, equally! It was my great honor to Destroy All Nuclear facilities & capability, and then, STOP THE WAR!” It also attacked Democrats, especially women of color, at length, saying they were stupid and “can’t stand the concept of our Country being successful again.”
The account also said: “Now that we have made PEACE abroad, we must finish the job here at home by passing “THE GREAT, BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL,” and getting the Bill to my desk, ASAP. It will be a Historic Present for THE GREAT PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, as we begin the Celebration of our Country’s 250th Birthday. We are finally entering our Golden Age, which will bring unprecedented Safety, Security, and Prosperity for ALL of our Citizens.”
In fact, Trump’s victory lap seems designed to be the finale to a triumphant storyline that can convince his loyalists he has scored an enormous victory before reality sets in. According to a new CNN poll, Americans disapprove of the U.S. military strikes against Iran by a margin of 56% to 44%.
Further, Natasha Bertrand, Katie Bo Lillis, and Zachary Cohen of CNN reported today that according to early assessments by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) of the damage caused by the U.S. strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, the strikes did not destroy the main parts of the Iran’s nuclear program and probably set it back by only a few months. The DIA is the intelligence arm of the Pentagon.
The White House called the DIA assessment “flat out wrong.”
Later today, the New York Times confirmed CNN’s reporting.
Republican senator Rand Paul of Kentucky suggested today that the Obama administration had the right approach when it negotiated the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) that limited Iran’s nuclear program. Paul said: “I’m arguing that the intervention, the military intervention, may not have been successful, as people are saying, and also that there may not be a military answer to this, that ultimately the answer to the end of the nuclear program is going to involve diplomacy.”
A video on Trump’s social media feed posted at 7:15 tonight recalled Senator John McCain’s 2007 call to “bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran” to the tune of the Beach Boys’ “Barbara Ann.” Trump’s version used McCain’s “bomb Iran” chorus but was longer and had visual imagery of planes dropping bombs. In Trump’s version, the soundtrack to the video used the melody of Barbara Ann to say things like: “went to a mosque, gonna throw some rocks, tell the ayatollah gonna put you in a box,” and “old Uncle Sam, getting pretty hot, gonna turn Iran into a parking lot.”
It is a truism that, like other authoritarians, Trump tries only to appeal to his supporters, but I confess this video, from the president of the United States, left me aghast. It seems to me long past time to question the 79-year-old president’s mental health.
Tonight, Trump’s social media feed posted: “FAKE NEWS CNN, TOGETHER WITH THE FAILING NEW YORK TIMES, HAVE TEAMED UP IN AN ATTEMPT TO DEMEAN ONE OF THE MOST SUCCESSFUL MILITARY STRIKES IN HISTORY. THE NUCLEAR SITES IN IRAN ARE COMPLETELY DESTROYED! BOTH THE TIMES AND CNN ARE GETTING SLAMMED BY THE PUBLIC!”
Trump’s posts sound panicked, and even aside from the strikes against Iran, there is reason for his loyalists to be concerned about political events. On Saturday, masked agents from Customs and Border Patrol were caught on video chasing Narciso Barranco, a 48-year-old undocumented landscaper who has lived in the U.S. for decades, down a street with guns drawn, pinning him to the ground, and hitting him as they handcuffed him. Barranco’s oldest son, Alejandro, served in the Marines for four years and is a veteran. Barranco’s two younger sons are active-duty Marines. There has been a popular outcry over Barranco's arrest.
Barranco’s son Alejandro told Jacob Soboroff, Julia Ainsley, and Suzanne Gamboa of NBC News that his father is being held with at least 70 other people with one toilet and no privacy and that he has received very little water and even less food.
ICE's detentions continue to create a backlash. Isabela Dias of Mother Jones reported that the number of migrants detained in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities across the country has reached a record high of more than 56,000, leading to overcrowding and unsanitary conditions. Federal law permits members of Congress to make unannounced visits to ICE facilities to inspect them, but officers at the Department of Homeland Security last week said members of Congress needed to give at least 72 hours notice before an inspection.
ICE claims the power to “deny a request or otherwise cancel, reschedule or terminate a tour or visit” by lawmakers or by members of their staff if “facility management or other ICE officials deem it appropriate to do so.”
Inspections will be hard to conduct at the newly approved detention facility deep in the Florida Everglades designed to house up to 5,000 migrants. Members of the state legislature say they were not consulted about the plan. Florida says the new facility will cost about $450 million a year to operate. The federal government will reimburse that money through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
News broke today that White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, widely believed to be the individual responsible for the administration’s draconian immigration policies, owns between $100,000 and $250,000 worth of stock in Palantir, the data and intelligence software company owned by Peter Thiel. Palantir has a number of valuable contracts with ICE to track undocumented immigrants.
Ken Dilanian of NBC News reported today that concern about retaliation from Iranian sleeper cells has made the FBI return agents who had been pulled from their normal duties to focus on immigration issues back to their usual focus on counterterrorism, counterintelligence, and cybersecurity.
One source told Dilanian, “Guess they are realizing this whole national security thing is important, after all.”
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Notes:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/23/world/middleeast/trump-ceasefire-israel-iran.html
https://www.cnn.com/2025/06/24/politics/intel-assessment-us-strikes-iran-nuclear-sites
Donald J. Trump, Truth Social post, June 23, 2025, 6:02 pm.
Donald J. Trump, Truth Social post, June 24, 2025, 1:08 a.m.
Donald J. Trump, Truth Social post, June 24, 2025, 6:50 a.m.
Donald J. Trump, Truth Social post, June 24, 2025, 7:28 a.m.
Donald J. Trump, Truth Social post, June 24, 2025, 9:56 a.m.
Donald J. Trump, Truth Social post, June 24, 2025, 10:07 a.m.
Donald J. Trump, Truth Social post, June 24, 2025, 11:17 a.m.
Donald J. Trump, Truth Social post, June 24, 2025, 9:46 p.m.
Donald J. Trump, Truth Social post, June 24, 2025, 7:15 p.m.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/trump-lashes-israel-iran-dont-know-f-re-rcna214712
https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-iran-israel-nuclear-strike-10074fdadf47d4ec35faf1de6ac6d54d
https://www.cnn.com/2025/06/24/politics/trump-iran-strikes-poll-cnn-ssrs
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/24/us/politics/iran-nuclear-sites.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/19/us/politics/ice-congress.html
https://www.cnn.com/2025/06/23/us/narciso-barranco-father-detained-santa-ana
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/06/ice-detention-numbers-record-high/
Bluesky:
jenrubin.bsky.social/post/3lsewo32egk2o
potustracker.us/post/3lscllo46t424
britculpsapp.bsky.social/post/3lsdxlczn7s22
potustracker.us/post/3lsdwklnqcw2d
potustracker.us/post/3lsdytaocwe2j
potustracker.us/post/3lsfiomewlr2q
codigocripto.bsky.social/post/3lsfduptwxk2t
The insanity continues with this regime and each time I think I've read the most outrageous newsletter yet, Dr. Heather, somehow you manage to exceed all limits of the imagination with your concise reporting of the day's latest activities and announcements by the most unqualified and definitely mentally deficient person ever to hold the office of POTUS. And I keep wondering why the news media continue to enable and be complicit with this regime's clearly unstable not-genius.
Despite the groundswell of protests and resistance from We the People, which has been very encouraging, sometimes despair is all I can feel with news like today's.
Thank you for continuing to keep us informed and enlightened. You are a national treasure.
When I reached the paragraph where you said you were “I was aghast,” I knew I was witnessing a level of outrage and disbelief that would parallel reading from you “I just saw the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse thunder past my front window.”
The disease, the evil underneath this, has reached a stage in its progression that seems to more deeply infect MAGA-aligned people in a sort of end-stage nihilistic fatalism - “We’re going to do this no matter what reality says,” it seems.
Your newsletter today is not just accurate, it’s a must-read for every politician, government executive (appointed or elected) at every level, and anybody in the US with a pulse. Fantastic work, thank you so much for what you do. You are a great writer and this one drives home every point to the bullseye.