By Jim Geraghty
Friday, July 10, 2026
Well before the conflict with Iran, this newsletter and
quite a few other places pointed out, over
and over and over again, that the Iranian regime had broken just about every treaty it had ever signed. One of
the difficult lessons of this life is making decisions based upon what people do,
not necessarily upon what people say.
Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal and CNN reported that Israeli intelligence warned the U.S. government that the Iranian regime devised
a new plot to assassinate President Donald Trump. . . while that allegedly peace-inducing Memorandum of Understanding is in
effect. (This may well have been a factor in President Trump’s use of an old
version of Air Force One to fly back to Washington; more on that below.)
This is at least the third time the Iranian government
has been tied to a plot to assassinate Trump. The first was Pakistani national Asif Merchant in July 2024; the second was alleged IRGC operative Farhad Shakeri in November 2024; and
now, this one. (These are separate from the assassination attempts against
Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, and at Mar-a-Lago; no ties to Iran or any other foreign power
have been found in those cases.)
The plots to kill Trump are separate from the Iranian
plots to assassinate former National Security Adviser John Bolton,
former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, former Special Envoy for
Iran Brian Hook, former CENTCOM commander General Frank McKenzie, and former Secretary of Defense Mike Esper.
Whether or not you believe our 80-year-old president
retains all his marbles, our commander-in-chief did not help himself when, at the G7 summit in France, he emphasized how rational,
nice, strong, and smart and “not radicalized” the current leadership of the
Iranian government is:
We’re dealing with
people that I think are very rational people. I mean, they were nice to deal
with. They were strong people, smart people. I think actually they’re smarter
than the first and second group, but they’re not radicalized, and they’re, you
know, looking to help their country.
There is a good chance that, while Trump was telling the
international press about how great the Iranian mullahs were, they were plotting
to kill him.
A few days ago, the often-sharp Logan Dobson asked why
people were surprised that Trump is hyperbolic and exaggerates: “When he’s
negotiating with someone and trying to get to a deal, he says over-the-top nice
things about them, and when he feels someone has wronged him/America, he says
over-the-top mean things about them.”
But I don’t think people are surprised that Trump says
things like this. They’re saying it’s not good for Trump or the country for him
to say things that are objectively not true with the whole world watching. He
sounds naïve and foolish when he sings the praises of the Iranians one week,
then later comes back and says everyone who doubted their trustworthiness was
right all along.
Follow-Up Number One: The New Qatari-Donated Air Force
One
Yesterday’s Corner post noted that President Trump flew out
of Turkey on Wednesday night on the old Air Force One, instead of his new
Qatari-donated Boeing 747-8, as a security precaution related to the resumption
of hostilities with Iran.
I know certain readers of this newsletter may not trust
the reporting of the New York Times, but the fact that Trump switched
planes is a proven fact. The two planes look quite different. And it’s highly
unusual for the president to travel to a foreign country on one plane and
return on a different one, so something out of the ordinary must have occurred.
This morning, the Times followed up and has two named sources
indicating that the new Qatari-donated jet is not as secure as its
predecessors.
The new Air Force
One, which President Trump flew on earlier this week to Turkey, lacks the same
defensive countermeasures that were security features of the old model,
including its advanced antimissile capabilities, according to multiple
officials who have been briefed on how the jet was retrofitted.
Experts say the
absence of those capabilities on the Boeing 747-8 aircraft, which was donated
by Qatar, creates potential risk in using the jet abroad, a dynamic underscored
by the abrupt decision on Wednesday for Mr. Trump to leave Turkey
on the old Air Force One at the urging of the Secret Service.
. . .
“Time didn’t
permit all the normal Air Force One modifications, so some mix of security,
communications and support is missing,” said Frank Kendall, the former Air
Force secretary who was in charge of the department as it tried to push Boeing
to accelerate its long-delayed contract to deliver two new Air Force One
planes.
“With the Iran
situation, this could be of concern,” Mr. Kendall said. “Frankly, I’m surprised
to see this plane used outside the U.S.”
Andrew P. Hunter,
the former Air Force assistant secretary who was in charge of the Air Force One
program during the Biden administration, also said that a true retrofit of a
747 jet to prepare it to become Air Force One would require more than a year of
work.
The Times also notes that a U.S. Air Force statement from last month about the new
plane states, “No risk was taken in security, safety or mission communications,
but the collective team made trades on some of the less commonly used mission
sets that Boeing must deliver to support the next 40 years.”
Now, you can argue that you don’t trust the New York
Times, or former Air Force secretaries, or assistant secretaries. But there’s
still that inconvenient fact that, if the new Qatari jet is every bit as secure
as the old model, then why didn’t Trump fly back on it from Turkey? Once again,
watch what people do, not what they say.
Accepting and using the Qatari jet was a terrible idea.
Many people said so at the time, and the administration overruled all of them.
Follow-Up Number Two: Is Graham Platner Certain to
Withdraw?
Here’s an often unwelcome assessment I’ve given to female
friends in long-term relationships who are waiting for their boyfriends to
propose: When a man wants to do something, he does it. He rarely sits around
waiting for just the right moment to do it, and he even more rarely waits a
long time. If he doesn’t want to do something, he will find all kinds of
reasons to delay and procrastinate.
Axios: “Graham Platner privately told staff that he is
planning to officially file paperwork to end his Senate campaign on Monday —
the drop-dead deadline for him to exit the race.”
In his released
video, Platner made it abundantly clear that he does not want to withdraw
from the race, and he is only doing so because everyone else in the Democratic
Party was pulling their support. As of this writing, he has not formally
withdrawn from the race; he has only said in the video that he intends to do
so. The Maine Democratic Party has no way to make him withdraw from the race.
As noted earlier this week, Maine law only covers what is done when
a candidate withdraws or dies. (You think they’re watching for anybody
carrying a briefcase to Platner campaign meetings?)
How certain is it that Platner will actually keep his
promise to formally withdraw from the race?
One last time: Watch what people do, not what they
say.
ADDENDUM: At midweek, the New York Times informed its readers that Graham Platner “lived largely off
government benefits.” In their first article about Platner, they described him as an
oyster farmer and quoted him as saying, “I’m a waterman who works in the ocean
with his hands.”
Also in this week’s article, the Times shared some
new details about how Platner was recruited as a candidate.
The initial
headhunters, Dan Moraff and Leanne Fan, and then a third out-of-state operative
they called up to Maine — Morris Katz — told Mr. Platner he was “the one,” a
“hero of the movement,” “a historical figure” who could be “leading a
revolution,” according to half a dozen people with knowledge of their
conversations.
Mmm. You know who else was a historical figure, seen as a hero of his movement and leading a
revolution?
Credit this very astute observation from progressive Platner
critic Magdi Jacobs: “This really gives the game away. None of these people
care about governing or legislation or actual change. Their entire theory of politics revolves around celebrity and
thrill seeking.”
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