← Hold These Truths with Dan Crenshaw
Hold These Truths with Dan Crenshaw
SITREP 35: Iran Breaks the Deal, SCOTUS Reshapes Power, & America Leads in Venezuela
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We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created. As a member of Congress, I get to have a lot of really interesting people in the office, experts on what they're talking about. This is the podcast for insights into the issues. China, bioterrorism, Medicare for all in depth discussions, breaking it down into simple terms. We hold. We hold. We hold these truths. We hold these truths. With Dan Crenshaw, the eagle has landed. Welcome. This is sitrep35. Thanks for joining me as we discuss the most important stories from this week and arm you with the facts. So let's start with Iran. They broke the deal, Straits of Hormuz close again. So just two weeks after President Trump and Iranian President Massoud Pizachkin signed a memorandum of understanding designed to end the war, that agreement is already under strain. So let's just start with a quick refresh. The Strait of Hormuz is the world's most important energy choke point. Roughly one quarter of all seaborne oil and one fifth of global liquefied natural gas exports pass through this narrow waterway. When traffic slows there, the effects eventually show up in the form of higher energy prices around the world. So the memorandum of understanding, the MoU was signed on June 17, created a 60 day negotiating window for the United States and Iran to resolve the biggest issues that divide U.S. iran's nuclear program, the stockpile of enriched uranium, sanctions relief, Tehran's support for proxy militant groups, ballistic missile programs. Then last Sunday, Israeli strikes on Hezbollah infrastructure in Lebanon led the Iranians to close the strait again. So after four days of back and forth strikes between the US And Iranians in the strait, both sides have now returned to talks. Now, around the same time, the jmic, which is the US Navy's Joint Maritime Information center, announced a new route through the Strait of Hormuz that travels solely through Omani territorial waters that bypasses Iran entirely. Now, the Iranians, of course, issued threats to any vessels attempting to circumvent Iranian control the strait because of course, this is their entire leverage. It's a protected route through the strait that doesn't touch their waters and would prevent them from shocking oil markets by closing it. Now, the energy markets notice oil prices initially surged nearly 8% after Iran announced negotiations had stalled that sent West Texas intermediate crude into the mid-90s, Brent crude close behind. But after the United States Navy secured an alternate transit corridor and the latest exchange of strikes subsided, prices retreated back into the low 70s. And so this is where you see Tehran's strategic leverage start to fold. And here's where the dispute sits. The Iranians want sanctions relief up front. No surprise there. And they want the US to lift a naval blockade before any further concessions. They want to keep their enriched uranium stockpile. They're denying that they ever agreed to let the International Atomic Energy Agency or the IAEA inspectors back in. Now, remember, Vice President Vance said publicly that they had said that the head of the IAEA confirmed the MOU does grant inspector access. Iran just now says it's a misunderstanding. Seems convenient. Also goes to show, by the way, that the politics in Iran, there's, there's the politicians who are possibly more moderate that want a deal, and then there's the IRGC that absolutely does not want a deal and has a history of circumventing those. And so our negotiators are dealing with a difficult situation. Now, Iran's foreign minister also claimed that there's been, quote, no tangible progress and insisted any agreement on Iran's nuclear program must also include an end to the fighting in Lebanon. They're back to that. So, look, the United States position from the beginning has been that these are two separate conflicts. Lebanon is its own theater. The MoU is always a starting line, not a finish line. And the fact that Iran is back to closing the strait two weeks in tells you exactly how serious they are about a final deal. They're stalling. They want time to reconstitute, and they want sanctions relief without verification. President Trump's strategy continues to keep the blockade in place, keep the carrier groups forward, deployed, and let Iran feel the cost of bad faith negotiation. That's what it has to be. There's no other choice back home. Here we have some Supreme Court news. So there's some wins and losses for the administration. Top line here is the Supreme Court's term ended today. It was a mixed bag for the Trump administration. There were sweeping wins on executive power and immigration enforcement, but a loss on birthright citizenship and a win for states when it comes to transgender athletes in women's sports. And by win, I mean allowing states to stop men from competing in women's sports, just in case you were wondering. So we'll go over these real quick. One of the rulings was the temporary protected status. This is Mullen vs Doe. It was decided 6, 3. The court ruled that the president has every authority to end TPS Temporary Protected Status. That clears the way for DHS to terminate protection for roughly 350,000 Haitians, 6,000 Syrians. You know, it should be noted, TPS was built in 1990 as a short term humanitarian relief. Some designations have run 26 years. That's not temporary, that's permanent by any other name. And the executive has every right to end it. All right. Another case, the Federal Trade Commission case, this one also handed Trump a big victory. 63 decision. The justice has ruled that the President can fire the heads of most independent federal agencies without having to show cause. That gives the White House a lot greater control over executive branch agencies like the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Communications Commission, the securities and Exchange Commission, the National Labor Relations Board. So the President now has the authority that the Constitution already gave him, by the way, to fire people he should fire in the executive branch. Now, there is one carve out, and that's the Federal Reserve. The court drew one important exemption to that decision. In a separate 54 ruling, it said the President cannot remove Federal Reserve governors in the same way, allowing Governor Lisa Cook to remain in office. And on the transgender athletes, that was decided just today as I'm recording this, that the court upheld state bans on transgender athletes and girls and women's sports combined cases out of West Virginia and Idaho. So that means states get to keep drawing eligibility lines based on sex, and that's a win for fairness in women's athletics. Now, on the loss on birthright citizenship, the headline of the day, Trump vs Barbara 5 4. The court struck down the President's executive order, which to remind you the executive order would have eliminated birthright citizenship. It's a fair opinion to have. I mean, we're one of the only countries, maybe the only one that has birthright citizenship. But the court did rule that the 14th Amendment's citizenship clause does extend the children born here to undocumented or temporary visa parents. The one loss for the administration, but it is a big one and shows that if we want to change that, we have to have a constitutional amendment now in our hemisphere. Some devastating earthquakes hit Venezuela in particular. More than 1700 people are dead. On June 24th, two massive earthquakes struck northwestern and central Venezuela within 39 seconds of each other. That's a 7.2 and a 7.5. They were mostly centered in the Yaraqui State. The death toll has passed 1700. More than 5000 injured. Tens of thousands still missing. Trump administration has committed $300 million in aid and U.S. search and Rescue teams are on the ground. The international response has been substantial. More than 2,000 rescue workers from 27 countries are now in Venezuela. 44 international urban search and rescue teams are there as well, and 140 search dogs. United States committed $300 million and deployed teams from USAID's Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance. See liberals, it's, it still exists. It's still a thing. We're just doing things like this instead of building bridges to nowhere. Anyway, the EU added another 5 million euros and the humanitarian air bridge. This matters for a few reasons. First, like the obvious, thousands of human beings are buried under rubble and you help them because you should help them. But second, this is a post Maduro Venezuela and the country's in the middle of a fragile political transition. An earthquake of this scale could either support that transition by demonstrating what international cooperation looks like, or destabilize it further if humanitarian aid becomes politicized. The administration has been moving fast, working through interim Venezuelan authorities and refusing to let Cuban or Russian intermediaries near the relief operation. I think that's the right call because we showed up with $300 million in search teams within 48 hours. So that's the answer to anyone who tells you that we don't lead anymore. We do. We always have. And when people are in need, the world calls us. They don't call Beijing not Moscow, they call the United States. Now moving across to Europe, Ukraine is doing pretty well. They're striking Moscow in their latest developments on the war. On June 18, Ukrainian drones carried out the largest attack on Moscow since the war started over four years ago. Just 10 miles southeast of the Kremlin, Ukrainian drones attacked the oil for the Capitania oil refinery. I don't know if I said that right now. Recently, Ukraine has dramatically expanded its long range drone capability, launching large waves of drones deep into Russian territory and making its most substantial strikes in the war to date. They're primarily targeting oil and natural gas facilities like the one in Capitania. Now building on this momentum, Zelenskyy gave Belarusian president and who was also a key Kremlin ally, his name is Alexander Lukashenko, an ultimatum on June 19th he said either turn off radio and communication systems that support Russian operations in Ukra or Ukraine would be forced to turn it off themselves. Ostensibly with these drones, Lukashenko yielded and as of June 22nd relay equipment in Belarus went dark. So this immediately coincided with a drop in the number of Russian shahed type attack drones entering northern Ukraine. Ukrainians have remained on the offense, striking Russia's only helium plants more than 700 miles from the front line and disabling the Russian energy supply supply chain so much that they've they that Russia has declared a state of emergency in Crimea, halted civilian fuel sales in certain regions and seen a quarter of their oil domestic. Their domestic oil production just disabled. So the walls are closing in on Moscow. Maybe not as fast as everyone would like. We've been saying this maybe for some time, but this is their forever war and it's very costly. Putin has been forced to acknowledge Russia's significant fuel shortages. And despite his stated commitment to pursuing full control of much of eastern Ukraine, this strikes close to home weaken what was already strained public support for the war. What's more, black market gasoline brought to prominence by stricter regulations on fuel consumption to support the war has risen as high as $15 per gallon. That's what Russians are paying. That's not sustainable. Putin knows this and he now says he expects U. S led diplomatic efforts to end the war to resume once the US Iran negotiations are resolved. Who knows when that will be though? All right, other developing headlines. NATO summit kicks off in Ankara, Turkey next week. That's July 7th and 8th. Big agenda item. Implementing the 5% of GDP defense spending commitment by 2035 that President Trump has pushed through at the Hague summit last year. Every member state except Spain, which negotiated an exemption because of course they're Spanish, signed on. Every member also met or exceeded the 2% target in 2025 compared to just three states meeting it in 2014. Trump has spent the last week publicly criticizing European allies for their lukewarm support during the Iran war and questioning what NATO is for. Summit will be a stress test. Expect fireworks. Also expect, I think, a meaningful step up in real European defense investment. In other news, this is good news, good news and bad news, really. The FBI foiled a plot to attack the the big UFC match at the White House. UFC America 250 event. They were going to use explosive laden drones and firearms and they arrested five suspects on June 10th. Now the case broke because the lead suspect's own mother spotted his activity online and called the police. 26 usernames are now under investigation with 14 already identified. I say it's bad news because this is really the type of threat that we have to be careful of in the future. Drone warfare is everywhere. It's easy to get and they're hard to take down. This is actually something we're working on in Congress, making sure that private sector critical infrastructure facilities actually have the right to defend themselves, that local law enforcement actually has the legal right to go after drones. You'd be surprised how many limitations there are. And this gets to the World cup, now it's in full force across North America. And, and you can bet there's a lot of security around these games for reasons like this. In good news, the US Is doing quite well. The elimination stage has begun and people from around the world are coming and experiencing our nation. New York to Chattanooga, Kansas City, Louisiana, Houston. And the world gets to see how we do things and American team is looking pretty good so far. So the next game for them is against Bosnia and that's an elimination round game. I'm thinking we'll win that and if we do we go to the round of 16. Now that's historically where we haven't advanced from but we're looking pretty good this year might be different. Now if you read nothing else, try this one out for getting a little bit more well read on these SCOTUS decisions. It's called the court allows Trump to fire FTC commissioner and overturns major restraint on presidential power. Look, if you want to understand just how the administrative state has just changed, that's a good read. That's all for the sit rep out.