First, just because Donald Trump is an inveterate liar, don’t assume that Iran is a reliable narrator about anything that was agreed to in this deal. (Was there a deal? We’ll get to that.) One thing both sides explicitly agree on, coming right from President Trump himself, is that the 10 point Iranian plan will serve as the basis for discussions over the next two weeks. The early accounts of what that document included focused on a lot things Iran wants, even including things it wanted before the war broke out. It doesn’t really focus on the things the U.S. notionally got into this war for. (We’ll get in a moment to what’s included in the document Iran released today.) For the U.S., this ceasefire is at best a ceasefire on the basis of a stalemate, where the fight is about a draw and both sides want to see if they can bring the fight to an end.

That’s the optimistic view. The U.S. has clearly been more eager to get to the negotiating table. It’s the U.S. that wants out most. The items on that list tilt heavily toward Iran. The Iranians appear to be exercising continued control of the Strait of Hormuz even if they may allow ships to go through — “allow” being the key word.

One of Trump’s Truthed conditions for a ceasefire was the “SAFE OPENING of the Strait of Hormuz.” The White House appeared ready to declare that condition met. But even this morning, before reports emerged that Iran was once again closing the strait, there was some fine print.

Khaya Himmelman has the story here.

Trump on Truth Social, 6:32 p.m. ET, with the climb-down, describing what he claims will amount to a “double sided CEASEFIRE!”:

Based on conversations with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Field Marshal Asim Munir, of Pakistan, and wherein they requested that I hold off the destructive force being sent tonight to Iran, and subject to the Islamic Republic of Iran agreeing to the COMPLETE, IMMEDIATE, and SAFE OPENING of the Strait of Hormuz, I agree to suspend the bombing and attack of Iran for a period of two weeks.

I try not to burden you with procedural minutiae in the key Trump II cases, but an unexpectedly strange 30-minute status conference ended a short time ago in the Abrego Garcia II civil case. What would normally be a snoozy housekeeping matter — in this instance, to set a briefing schedule on the Trump administration’s renewed bid to deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia to Liberia – went off the rails a bit.

Here are a few additional thoughts about the state of the war between the U.S. (and Israel) and Iran.

First, we had news from Reuters over the weekend that the U.S. and Iran might be on the brink of a ceasefire agreement, maybe as soon as Monday. It now seems like that was yet another example of a mix of over-optimism from broker countries trying to bring the sides together and, even more, the White House trying yet again to force a quick-to-fade market bounce. Yesterday afternoon I saw this piece in Haaretz which says that Pakistan (a lead country trying to broker a deal between the two sides) believes that Iran is now under the effective control of the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, that this commander thinks Iran is winning and that he’s not willing to compromise on Iran’s key demands or accede to the United States’. It also notes that Pakistan thinks the U.S. is more eager for a deal than Iran.

I don’t think you need to be Pakistan to see that last point. Everything President Trump does sends that message. Now, in the wake of the Trump’s threat to “end” Iranian civilization tonight, Iran has reportedly cut off participation in ceasefire talks with the U.S..

A few moments ago I saw this snippet in the Times:

We’re over a decade into the Trump era. To assess the damage his two terms have wrought and how, exactly, we got here, TPM’s David Kurtz was joined on Substack Live by friend of TPM and charter member of our DC bureau, Brian Beutler, who now writes the Off Message newsletter. 

In a wide-ranging conversation, David and Brian discussed Trump’s propaganda campaign around his war in Iran; how the Democrats could act as a true opposition party; and what the U.S. could look like come Jan. 2027 or 2029 depending on how the next two rounds of federal elections shake out. 

Check out their full live below.

We have a piece up this morning that looks at one of the less noticed side effects of Trump’s draconian immigration crackdown: bond. The Trump administration has, since last year, been attempting to deny detained immigrants bond, though hundreds of federal courts have rejected that policy. It is likely bound for the Supreme Court. In the meantime, Bryce Covert covers for us the considerable evidence that those who do obtain bond are paying enormous sums that were uncommon just two years ago. This looks to in part be the result of the Trump administration’s effort to purge the ranks of immigration judges of any who were, by their definition, too lenient on the detained.

I frequently get asked what people can do to get involved or play some role in fighting for the future of their country — where to donate, what kind of activism has a real impact. Some people have always been activists. But many others aren’t and haven’t particularly wanted to be but now feel they have no choice. And yet the scale of the problem is overwhelming, and the range of organizations and movements calling on your time and money are almost equally so. Critically, if you’re semi-new to these things, you don’t want to find out you were wasting your time or at least not using that or your money most efficiently.

TPM is a news and commentary site, not an activism site. But at least here in the Editors’ Blog we’re not so finicky about that that we feel we can’t share our opinions, hopefully reasonably well informed and perhaps with additional reporting, about what is a good use of your time or money. So with that in mind, and after a friend suggested it, I wanted to do a series of posts on the idea of “What Can I Do?” And here I would love your participation, your suggestions via email. I have my own views of the matter but I certainly don’t have all the answers and, by design, I don’t get directly involved myself. So give me your ideas, and I will try to share my thoughts on practical ways we individually can try to save our country and, as I will explain in a moment, build a new one. What actually makes a difference and what is more like scattering seeds on the wind?

Join me for a casual conversation with Brian Beutler, the proprietor of the newsletter Off Message and a former TPM colleague. Brian and I will use the news of the day as a jumping off point to chat about the Trump II era. We’ll be biting off some small topics like:

• How did we get to this point?
• How much worse will things get before they get better?
• Are we still being too optimistic?
• What does rebuilding American democracy look like?

We’ll be talking on Substack Live at 2 p.m. ET. See you then.