Leland Vittert’s War Notes: Looking for an Exit Ramp‼️

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NewsNation Chief Washington Anchor and On Balance host Leland Vittert was a foreign correspondent for four years in Jerusalem. He gives you an early look at tonight's 9 p.m. ET show, delivered straight to your inbox.

14 months✈️: The air traffic controller at LaGuardia Airport who appears (at least partly) responsible for the Air Canada crash was working double duty.

🚨The crash happened 14 months after the DCA crash that occurred, in part, because an overworked controller missed obvious signs of a potential collision.
🗣️After that, Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy and the administration promised to fix the controller shortage.
🤦Clearly, it's not fixed.
Be fair⚖️: That's not his fault — it takes years to fully qualify a new controller, and there is still a big backlog of slots to fill.
Zoom out🌎: Americans don't like dysfunction. They don't like to wait hours for airport security. They don't like planes crashing. They don't like high gas prices.
- 🤷Those may not be the administration's fault — they aren't. But it is President Trump and the Republicans' problem — they only have a few months to fix them.

What Is Going On? What Are We Fighting For?

👀President Trump is looking for an exit ramp. He badly wants to declare victory — and the Iranians are giving him "presents."

💥We've seen this play before with Midnight Hammer — Trump declared victory too soon, and it turned into a disaster.
Damn🤷: Never thought I would say this, but Secretary of War Pete Hegseth's "we negotiate with bombs" line is exactly the tactic Trump should take.
- Hope✈️: Trump is sending the 82nd Airborne to the Middle East — at least he is negotiating from a position of military strength.
But‼️: Trump is enamoured with a deal —
- How many times do we need to say — you can't have a good deal with bad people, and the Iranians are the worst of people.
- 🚨Certainly not with bad people who now know they can blackmail you with closing the Strait of Hormuz.
- 👀Anybody want to guess what the first weapon China will send Iran is?
Today🗣️: Trump talked about how the Iranians agreed not to have a nuclear weapon — ever.
- 🎂That's like a child pinky-swearing they didn't eat the birthday cake when they are covered with chocolate icing.
Look back🔙: For years, the Iranians have promised they would never have a nuclear weapon — and then built nuclear enrichment facilities hundreds of feet deep in the mountains.
- The Iranians will NEVER, especially right now, give up their uranium stockpile.
6D logic📺: Last night, Bill O'Reilly tried to sell the idea that we make a ceasefire deal with Iran and then the Iranian people rise up and overthrow a weakened regime.
- It's preposterous — if you want the regime overthrown, you don't give them a chance to regroup and rearm.
Political logic🤷: Democrats should be thrilled, right? They love the deals with the Iranians — of course, they will find something wrong with what Trump does.
Middle East reality‼️: If Trump makes a deal rewarding Iran's regime by letting them stay in power, it will once again hurt our standing with Israel and the Gulf allies.
- The Middle East does not respect fighting to a truce — they respect those who fight to the death.
Prediction💭: Any deal that comes with Iran controlling the Strait of Hormuz — i.e., their blockade isn't broken first — will only embolden the regime
- ‼️The regime will start hunting and killing anybody who helped the U.S. and Israel, plus any potential "protesters."
- ‼️China will start rearming them.
- ‼️They will restart their nuclear program immediately — just like they did after Midnight Hammer and the last deal

Watch tonight📺: Retired U.S. Navy Commander Kirk S. Lippold and Jennifer Gavito, the former acting principal deputy assistant secretary of state for the Middle East, join us.

The Midterm Mirage 💥

🗳️Democrats seem to be counting their chickens before they hatch as they are fully confident they are going to win in the midterms.

🎤Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y.: "We're strongly positioned to take back the House."
🎤MS NOW's Catherine Rampell: "We may need to coin a term stronger than blue wave."
🎤CNN Harry Enten: "Democrats are so enthusiastic they just can't hide it."
- 📊But look at the numbers: According to a YouGov poll, if the midterms were held today —
  - 39% of Americans say they would vote Democrat
  - 36% say Republican.
    - ‼️This is just a 3% difference.

Flip side 🔄: Republicans should be terrified — Trump bros are starting to run away from Trump.

📉CNN Harry Enten says Trump beat Kamala Harris in 2024 by 13 points, but now, he has a net approval of minus-7 with them.
📉And with men under 45 — Trump won by five points in 2024 but is now at minus-19 with them, says Enten.
📉On the cost of living, Enten says Trump is now minus-30 with men.
- 🎤Enten: "There is no way in God's green earth that the Republican Party can hold down the House of Representatives if this number holds. When your 30 points underwater with the gender that of course put you over the top in the election on the cost of living, the number one issue, that means see you later to that Republican House majority and maybe that Senate majority as well.

A different problem‼️: Democrats face a Chicago problem

🗣️The Democratic governor just blamed Trump for the murder of a college co-ed by a suspect Biden let out of jail
🚨More than double the number of people have been murdered in Chicago than service members killed during Operation Epic Fury.
🤦The mayor in Chicago just refused to apologize to the family of the murdered girl. Watch.
👎Now, this clip of Senator Chris Murphy saying who Democrats really care about is the "undocumented migrants" is coming back around

Tonight📺: Erick Erickson on if Republicans can switch the story back to Democrats.

CHICKEN!!

🤦The TSA funding debate is now the dumbest game of chicken ever — TSA wait times are now up to six hours, and protests at airports are growing since ICE agents were deployed yesterday.

Even worse👎: TSA agents making $50,000-$70,000 a year are going without their third paycheck.
Delta is now punishing congressmembers by suspending the special congressional services that let them skip TSA lines.
- 👏Score one for the good guys.
Be real: Stop with the politics for a second — it's just wrong.
- Shutting down the government and using hard-working Americans not getting paid as political pawns is just wrong.
Be fair⚖️: Republicans always lose these fights because, regardless of the facts, the overwhelming media narrative blames Republicans.

🤝Senators say they are closing in on a deal that will fund the Department of Homeland Security besides the agency that arrests and deports immigrants.

‼️Republicans are caving here
🤦And Democrats had to hold out as long as they could because they have to prove to their base that they got something from Trump — that's their demand.
- Irony🤦: Senator Chuck Schumer is still so worried about a primary fight from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
  - He is doubling down again that you are not allowed to get along with Trump — Schumer: "Attaching voter suppression to TSA paychecks was an outrageous demand from the start, Democrats knew it, Republicans knew it, and we wasted a day of negotiations because of Donald Trump's temper tantrum."

Watch tonight 📺: Former White House senior adviser May Mailman and Rep. Suhas Subramanyam, D-Va.

The Marlboro Man Rides 🚬

🚬"Smoking is cool again! Here's what you need to know" headlines the New York Post

⁉️What I need to know?!?!?
- 🚨Smoking is TERRIBLE for you!
  - Tobacco is the leading preventable cause of disease and death in America, according to the American Cancer Society.
  - Full disclosure🤷: As a recovering foreign correspondent, I love nothing more than smoking while on assignment or occasionally when on vacation — sorry, Dad.
What's new again📺: TV and movies made smoking cool back in the day — now a new show about Carolyn Bessette (Kennedy), "Love Story," is making it cool again.
Be fair ⚖️: More and more young people are on antianxiety meds and doing drugs to cope with anxiety — isn't that all worse than just lighting a cigarette once in a while?
- Tucker Carlson is promoting his own brand of highly addictive nicotine pouches with a variety of health benefits, including male performance enhancement — no, I am not kidding.

What I am thinking 🧠: Wouldn't it be nice if I could just do the show with a Marlboro Gold?

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