Yesterday was one of those days when the news seemed to grow more existential by the moment. There was Trump’s apparent about-face on immigration enforcement, the manhandling of Sen. Alex Padilla at a DHS press conference, a judge’s ruling that Trump’s use of California’s National Guard was unconstitutional, and then Israel’s attack on Iran.

For today’s newsletter, we are going to focus on the latter first—laying out the opportunities and pitfalls for the Trump administration and outlining why Israel decided to act. After that, we will unpack all the immigration news and what it means for Trump, the country and the rule of law in general. Happy Friday.

Stay Calm and Carry On

by William Kristol

What to think about Israel and Iran?

I’ve not been in recent years a supporter of Bibi Netanyahu. But I support Israel’s attack on Iran’s nuclear program.

I’ve never been, and don’t intend ever to be, a supporter of Donald Trump. But I wish the president and his administration well in this crisis.

Do I, as Walt Whitman famously asked, contradict myself?

I don’t think so. Surely it should be possible both to criticize certain political leaders and to hope they do the right thing in a crisis.

Israel’s military strike on Iran’s nuclear program seems to have been a necessary and justifiable resort to stop that dangerous and terror-sponsoring regime from acquiring nuclear weapons. American administrations of both parties have repeatedly said that the Islamic Republic of Iran cannot be allowed to have nuclear weapons. They were right. In the absence of a diplomatic resolution or a U.S. military operation, Israel concluded that it had to act. Let’s hope the action achieves its objectives as quickly and comprehensively as possible.

The Trump administration is not the U.S. government I would have hoped for in this crisis. But I very much do hope they act wisely and responsibly. What that means is supporting and helping defend our ally Israel. It means helping to ensure a denuclearized Iran. It means defending our people and interests in the region, and doing our best to limit the spread of the conflict. It means helping, if possible and in appropriate ways, the people of Iran free themselves from their cruel and unfree government. More broadly, it means trying both to manage the crisis and turning it into an opportunity for a safer and freer Middle East.

I also hope that this crisis provides an opportunity for the Trump administration to rethink many of its dangerous and self-defeating America First doctrines. The world is much safer with U.S. engagement and leadership. While we should expect that there will be those inside and outside the administration who will see this moment as a chance to deepen the American right’s embrace of a new isolationism, Reaganite Republicans should be unabashed in stepping up to fight that temptation.

Just as the moment will prompt struggles in the GOP, it will also lead to important arguments among Democrats about U.S. foreign policy. Some of us will make the case for the legacies of Harry Truman and Scoop Jackson and John McCain—though McCain was, of course, not a Democrat. But as there were Reagan Democrats once, why couldn’t there be McCain Democrats today? Of course, there are others who will want to take the party in a very different direction. For those Democrats who believe in a robust U.S. role in the world, this is the time to engage vigorously and unapologetically.

Of course, as events unfold, there will be plenty of occasions for all of us, of all parties and persuasions, to provide commentaries and analyses. There will be decisions to praise and to criticize. There will be moments to make suggestions and offer counsel. But for now, in a fluid and complex situation like this one, I’d recommend caution and sobriety—and, for those so inclined, a little prayer.

As For What Actually Happened

by Will Selber

Early Friday morning Middle Eastern time, the Israeli Defense Forces launched what the Israeli government called a “precise, preemptive strike” on Iran, aiming to “damage” its nuclear weapons program. The IDF also targeted top military leaders and nuclear scientists. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz declared a “special emergency situation” in anticipation of Iranian ballistic missile and drone attacks. Both Israel and Iran have closed their respective airspace.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated that the United States was not involved in the strike, and he did not indicate if the United States will help Israel defend itself as it has done repeatedly since the October 7th Hamas attack. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that the operation—which apparently combined strikes by Israeli Air Force aircraft in Tehran and other sites around Iran with attacks using drones smuggled into the country—will continue for “as many days as it takes” and that “if we don’t act now, there will not be another generation” of Israelis. By Friday morning EST, Donald Trump was publicly praising the operation.

Israel’s strikes come on the heels of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s declaration that Iran was not complying with its nuclear nonproliferation obligations, even as the Trump administration tries to negotiate another nuclear deal with the theocracy. Trump, in his public statements, has continued to encourage those negotiations.

In anticipation of an Israeli strike, the United States reduced the presence of nonessential government personnel throughout the region and issued travel warnings. However, the United States military still has personnel scattered throughout the Middle East, including in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, and Bahrain. American troops are well within the range of Iran’s ballistic missiles. Rubio warned Iran not to target U.S. interests in response to Israeli strikes.

The reason for the timing of this attack remains unclear. There have been warnings and predictions of an imminent Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear program for fifteen years at least. Israel may have had intelligence suggesting that Iran was about to cross a key threshold in the weapon-making process. After nearly two years of tit-for-tat strikes between Iran and Israel, Netanyahu likely sensed an opening after Trump’s nuclear talks with Iran stalled. With the demise of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad and the decimation of Hezbollah and Hamas, Iran is at its weakest geopolitical position in a generation, and Israel’s October 2024 strikes against Iran apparently denuded the country of air defenses.

While Iran’s antiquated air force is no match for Israel’s, Iran’s nuclear facilities are scattered throughout the country, with many of them buried deep underground. Israel will likely have to rely on sabotage and other covert activities to degrade Iran’s nuclear capability, and it may be impossible to destroy Iran’s entire nuclear enrichment program altogether.

Iran is now the third country to have its nuclear program attacked by the Israelis after the Israeli Air Force destroyed a French-designed nuclear reactor in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in 1981 and a North Korean–designed reactor in Syria in 2007.

Iran, which has already reportedly launched drones at Israel, has some retaliatory options still on the table, including strikes against American interests in the region using drones or its extremist network. It has recently been experiencing yet another wave of major protests, so the government’s attention may be divided and it may have to balance between appeasing the crowds in the streets and retaliating against Israel.

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Immigration Whiplash

by Andrew Egger

Yesterday was a day of major immigration-policy whiplash at the White House.

For weeks, Stephen Miller had spearheaded an effort to browbeat DHS and ICE into ratcheting up detentions and deportations—not to bother with targeting criminals and gang members, but to simply scoop up undocumented people by the fistful at Home Depot and 7-Eleven. ICE’s rush to implement these changes helped spark the days of unrest we saw in Los Angeles this week.

But yesterday, Donald Trump slammed the brakes.

“Our great Farmers and people in the Hotel and Leisure business have been stating that our very aggressive policy on immigration is taking very good, long time workers away from them, with those jobs being almost impossible to replace,” Trump lamented. “We must protect our Farmers, but get the CRIMINALS OUT OF THE USA. Changes are coming!”

Later, he repeated the point while speaking to reporters: “Our farmers are being hurt badly by—you know, they have very good workers, they’ve worked for them for 20 years, they’re not citizens, but they’ve turned out to be, you know, great. And we’re going to have to do something about that. We can’t take farmers and take all their people and send them back.”

Coming from the mouth of anyone else on earth, this argument would have earned a screeching denunciation from Miller and his allies. Given that it instead came from Trump, Miller was compelled to remain sullenly silent—although somebody later prevailed on the president to send a pair of Truth Social posts larded up with “largest Mass Deportation Program in American History” rhetoric. (It wouldn’t surprise you to learn which of these Miller retweeted and which he didn’t.)

Will any actual policy recalibration occur? Who knows! Although their views on the subject largely overlap, Trump doesn’t share Miller’s deeply fleshed-out ideology on immigration. Instead, his views are derived from a constellation of somewhat-related slogans, instincts, and grievances. It’s possible this brief stab of empathy for the U.S. agribusiness lobby (and, we should note, hoteliers) will stick with Trump. Or it’s possible he’ll forget it tomorrow.1 The point is, there’s little question things are up in the air for Trump’s immigration policy in a way they weren’t two days ago.

So the White House is confused on policy. What they’re less confused about is power.

Let me dwell briefly on a couple other things that happened yesterday. The first took place in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, where a federal judge ruled against Trump for federalizing the California National Guard over the objections of California Gov. Gavin Newsom. Trump’s actions—done in the name of suppressing violent unrest in Los Angeles—had been illegal, Judge Charles Breyer ruled, “both exceeding the scope of his statutory authority and violating the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.” The ruling went beyond even the relief California had sought in bringing the suit, although an appellate court temporarily stayed its implementation and the White House plans to appeal to the Supreme Court.

The second took place elsewhere in Los Angeles, during a press conference being held by DHS Secretary Kristi Noem. According to video of the incident, California Sen. Alex Padilla tried to interrupt Noem’s briefing to ask a question—before being forcibly removed from the room, dragged to the ground, and handcuffed by plainclothes officers and at least one man in an FBI uniform.

Padilla was ultimately released. Later, Noem poker-faced her way through a funhouse-mirror version of the story on Fox News: “This man burst into the room, started lunging towards the podium, interrupting me and elevating his voice, and was stopped, did not identify himself, and was removed from the room.” (Watch the video, in which Padilla clearly states “I am Senator Alex Padilla” and assess Noem’s truthfulness for yourself.)

When it comes to policy, Trump’s aims are, ultimately, pretty malleable. He has to juggle the interests of competing factions along with his own id. He has few deep ideological principles to guide him. He is frequently swayed by the arguments made by whomever he happened to talk to last.

But when it comes to power, his aims are simple and constant: He wants to consolidate it himself, then use it to crush those who displease him. And he does not care about whom he wields it against—an attitude increasingly shared by those around him as well.

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AROUND THE BULWARK

• The Real Costs of Trump’s Parade… Political stunts are bad for the military—and everyone else, argues WILL SELBER.

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• ‘The Life of Chuck’ Review… Spoiler alert: It’s heartrendingly empty, concludes SONNY BUNCH.

• Brian Wilson, R.I.P… God only knows what the Beach Boys would have been without him, remembers JOHN CHECK.

• More in Store… Need a Father’s Day Gift? Want a shirt to remember the “No Kings” Protests? Want to Free Andry? Or tell everyone that Trump Always Chickens Out? Come check out some of the new designs in the Bulwark Shop!

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