Trump Calls the Iran War Over, but Keeps the Blockade

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Greetings once again and welcome to Political Science. It's Tuesday, November 10th. Let's see what the hell's been going on.

President Trump says the war with Iran is over, militarily speaking. "Iran militarily is effectively over," he told reporters Monday after meeting Qatar's prime minister at the White House. "We're just keeping it the status quo."

The status quo is still a war footing. Thousands of American troops remain off Iran's coast enforcing a naval blockade of its oil, which Trump called "the greatest military blockade ever." On Saturday, the US disabled a commercial ship it said was trying to slip through. And Trump said the military has picked out targets, including thirty-eight bridges, in case the fighting resumes.

So "over" means the bombing has mostly stopped while the squeeze continues. Qatar's prime minister brought an Iranian proposal and reported progress toward a deal. Before any nuclear talks, Tehran wants the blockade lifted, sanctions ended, frozen money released and compensation for war damage, terms Trump has refused before. One senior Iranian security official replied online in capital letters: "FOLD YOUR HAND." Iran's president said the supreme leader wants an end to what he called "neither war nor peace." On that description, at least, both capitals seem to agree.

Russian, Ukrainian and American negotiators sit down in Abu Dhabi today, their first three-way meeting since February. Trump told 60 Minutes, "I believe we're very close to making a deal." A US official says both sides have privately shown some flexibility on occupied territory. That would be news, since Russia wants all of the Donbas and Ukraine has publicly refused to give up any land. The agenda starts with security guarantees, prisoner swaps, a possible pause in strikes on energy and shipping, and the return of Ukrainian children taken to Russia. European governments planned to send officials. The Kremlin says they won't be in the room.

The House has until midweek to deal with Thomas Massie's eight articles of impeachment against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, filed Monday. Beyond the Iran war, they cover the Caribbean boat strikes, Hegseth's pursuit of Senator Mark Kelly, and January's capture of Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro, which Massie calls the "kidnapping of a sovereign foreign leader." Speaker Mike Johnson says impeaching a Cabinet secretary during hostilities would be "a terrible thing for our allies and our enemies to see." With a 218 to 214 House, a few Republican defections would block any move to table it. Hegseth holds his first Pentagon press conference since May this morning.

He also wants at least three hundred and fifty billion dollars more for defense through a party-line bill. Senate Majority Leader John Thune says that takes fifty votes, "which right now we don't have." Government funding runs out December eleventh, and House Republicans pick their new minority leaders today, with Johnson stepping aside.

The Senate may get bluer still. In Alaska, Democrat Mary Peltola stretched her lead over Republican Senator Dan Sullivan to 2,517 votes on Monday. Alaska uses ranked-choice voting, and earlier projections had Sullivan winning once votes for trailing candidates were redistributed. By the Alaska Beacon's math, Monday's count erased that edge. Tens of thousands more absentee and early ballots get counted today.

In Mississippi, Democrat Scott Colom leads Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith by about twenty-five hundred votes. Thousands of voters cast affidavit ballots, many after a state check of the rolls marked them inactive, and they have until five p.m. today to fix any problems. Republicans want those ballots set aside and preserved. Counties certify Friday. Democrats already have fifty-four Senate seats. These two would make it fifty-six.

The people who will run the 2028 election in many states were chosen last week, and Democrats did well. In Georgia, former judge Penny Brown Reynolds won the office Brad Raffensperger held when he resisted pressure to overturn the 2020 result. She campaigned on standing up to Trump. Democrats also took open secretary of state seats in Michigan, Ohio and Indiana, and re-elected their incumbents in Arizona and Nevada.

By Votebeat's count, starting next year Democrats will run, or appoint whoever runs, elections in at least twenty-one states, against at least seventeen for Republicans. These offices keep the voter rolls, decide how aggressively to purge them, and decide whether to hand them to the Trump administration. In Iowa, Republican Paul Pate, who did share his, won a fifth term. Nebraska elected Republican Scott Petersen, who opposes mail voting and says "a lot of weird things went on" in 2020.

The Supreme Court voted eight to one on Monday to let the administration resume building border barriers through the Big Bend region of West Texas, including part of the national park. A federal judge in El Paso had ruled that two Homeland Security secretaries overstepped when they waived environmental laws to speed construction. The justices said she likely lacked authority to decide that, and that the government's interest "outweighs any aesthetic, recreational, and environmental harm." Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented without explanation.

The government says this stretch involves 341 miles of construction. Big Bend has the fewest migrant encounters anywhere on the southern border; officials argue that leaving it open would invite people to use it. The ruling only holds while the case continues. Lawyers for the challengers say the construction itself would be a "permanent alteration of an irreplaceable landscape."

That should do it for today. And remember, if you keep your expectations low, you'll never be disappointed. Thanks for listening, see you next time.