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Jun 21, 2026 - World

Sen. Chris Murphy says a single image from this week's G7 summit captures one of his deepest fears about the growing power of the tech industry: the chief executives of major artificial intelligence companies seated at the table alongside presidents and prime ministers, as if they were heads of state themselves."At the G7, the CEOs of the big AI companies sat at the table like heads of state, alongside presidents and prime ministers," the Connecticut Democrat wrote, sharing a photo of the summit's main session. His reaction was blunt: "This is the nightmare scene."For Murphy, the optics were not a harmless photo op but a visual representation of how far corporate influence has crept into the highest levels of government. The concern is that companies building the most powerful AI systems are no longer simply lobbying governments from the outside, but are being granted a seat among the elected leaders who are supposed to regulate them.Murphy paired the warning with a call for governments to push back against what he described as the "state-like power" of these firms. He floated several possible responses, suggesting officials consider "taking ownership shares, breaking them up into smaller entities, or imposing a regulatory structure that controls their power over citizens." The range of options, from partial public ownership to outright breakup, signals how seriously he believes the threat should be taken.The senator has emerged as one of the more vocal critics in Congress of concentrated corporate and technological power, and his framing fits a broader unease on the left about the cozy relationship between the tech sector and the current administration. The sight of AI executives integrated into a gathering traditionally reserved for the world's most powerful elected officials, in his telling, is evidence that the balance has already tipped too far toward private industry.His underlying argument is that state-like power demands a state-like response. If a handful of companies can shape economies, information, and security on a scale once reserved for governments, Murphy contends, then leaving their authority unchecked is itself the danger. The photo, to him, is less a snapshot of cooperation than a warning about who is really sitting at the table when the world's decisions get made.At the G7, the CEOs of the big AI companies sat at the table like heads of state, alongside presidents and prime ministers.This is the nightmare scene.Governments need to have a response to the state-like power of these companies, whether it’s by taking ownership shares,… pic.twitter.com/aPdK7FFRaE— Chris Murphy ???? (@ChrisMurphyCT) June 21, 2026

Jun 21, 2026 - World

The ongoing peace talks in Switzerland between American and Iranian officials got off Sunday to a rocky start, according to one Emirati political analyst who went on to describe the spectacle as nothing short of “humiliation” for Vice President JD Vance, who’s leading the U.S. delegation.“This was humiliation. No one in modern history has made America wait and beg for negotiations. This was the moment JD Vance should have returned to Washington. The Islamic regime did this on purpose,” argued Emirati political analyst and author Amjad Taha in an analysis published on social media.Taha flagged several key details from the meeting between the two delegations that made it, he argued, “easy for the world to draw its own conclusions” on “who looked confident and who looked desperate.” Chief among them was the U.S. delegation entering the venue “well before the Iranians,” according to Taha.“In diplomacy, the side with leverage doesn't wait in the room,” Taha wrote. “You claim to be leading and winning, yet you arrived first. First mistake.”Taha also flagged a telling moment from Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghci, who Taha claimed “entered last and refused to shake hands,” a claim supported by reporting from the Iranian news outlet Tasnim News Agency.Ron Filipkowski, the editor-in-chief of the progressive media organization MeidasTouch, reacted to Taha’s analysis with a bleak assessment of the United States’ global standing.“The US has never looked smaller or weaker on the world stage,” Filipkowski wrote in a social media post on X to his more than 1 million followers.The US has never looked smaller or weaker on the world stage. https://t.co/HPfRhyBbJa— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) June 21, 2026

Jun 21, 2026 - World

President Donald Trump's account of a phone call he says he had with Iranian officials, in which he reportedly threatened to wipe out their country, take over the Strait of Hormuz, and more, has set off a wave of disbelief, ridicule, and alarm across the political spectrum.The threats were relayed by Fox News correspondent Trey Yingst, who said he spoke with Trump for more than 20 minutes and came away with what he called "new insight" into the president's posture as nuclear talks opened in Switzerland. According to Yingst, Trump described what he told the Iranians about the strait in blunt terms. "You close it and you won't have a country," Trump said he warned them. "You won't even make it back to your f------ country." Yingst added that Trump said, "We may take over the Strait, if we have to."The response from Trump's critics was immediate and caustic. Former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci, who served briefly in Trump's first term before becoming a frequent antagonist, summed up his reaction in three dry words. "Normal Presidential behavior," he wrote, sharing a MeidasTouch post that reported Trump had told Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, after Pezeshkian said Iran would not give up enrichment, "He better watch his mouth ... or we will take over the rest of the country."Journalist Aaron Rupar, who posted Yingst's full segment, catalogued the threats without restraint. "We'll take over the rest of your country ... I'll blow the s--- out of them," Rupar quoted, describing the "bonkers phone call" as one that "apparently included threats to assassinate Iran's leadership, impose draconian US tolls in the Strait of Hormuz, and occupy Iran with the US military."Democratic Rep. Ted Lieu of California zeroed in on the practical and legal emptiness of the threats. "US troops would die during any ground invasion of Iran," Lieu wrote. "It would also be brazenly illegal without Congressional authorization." He warned that seizing the strait would trap American forces in a quagmire, adding that "Iran would try to kill them every day in a forever war." His conclusion was that Tehran is not impressed: "Iran knows these are empty threats by Trump."Some questioned whether the call even happened as described. Author and Iran expert Hooman Majd, who has written extensively about the country and served as an informal interpreter for past Iranian presidents, flatly disputed the premise. "President Trump did not speak with an Iranian official and say anything of the sort directly to him," Majd wrote. He then floated a mocking theory about how Trump might be staging these confrontations: "Is it possible the WH staff has arranged for a Persian-accented staffer to man a phone for Trump to call whenever he wants to yell at an 'Iranian official'?"Notably, the criticism was not confined to the left. David Pyne, a self-described America First analyst who posts as @AmericaFirstCon, called the president "completely unhinged" and accused him of "threatening to assassinate Iran's diplomatic representatives and invade, conquer and occupy all of Iran." Pyne, who opposes new wars, argued the bravado was hollow. "His threat to take over all of Iran is a bluff since he's reportedly afraid to invade Iran knowing that it would lead to thousands of US military servicemembers being killed in action," he wrote, adding that even committing the entire active-duty Army and reserves "likely wouldn't be enough to conquer all of Iran without a US nuclear first strike."The threats were also amplified, approvingly, by right-wing accounts. Commentator Nick Sortor, whose post was boosted by conservative legal activist Mike Davis, framed the same language as a triumph. "HOLY CRAP! President Trump issued a DIRECT THREAT to Iranian negotiators in Switzerland," Sortor wrote, presenting "You close [the Strait] and you won't have a country" as evidence of strength rather than instability.US troops would die during any ground invasion of Iran. It would also be brazenly illegal without Congressional authorization.And if US troops took over the Straight, Iran would try to kill them every day in a forever war.Iran knows these are empty threats by trump. https://t.co/x3ZDeY52Zt— Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) June 21, 2026

Jun 21, 2026 - World

President Donald Trump appeared to threaten Iranian peace negotiators with assassination Sunday in a “bonkers” phone call with Fox News’ Trey Yingst, the details of which Yingst revealed on air just moments later.Last week, Trump officially agreed to a tentative peace deal with Iran, giving the two parties 60 days to finalize a more permanent agreement to end hostilities. Vice President JD Vance arrived in Switzerland Sunday to meet with an Iranian delegation of negotiators led by Speaker Mahammad Bagher Ghalibaf and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghci.However, after Iranian military officials announced on Saturday that they would, again, close the Strait of Hormuz due to violations of the tentative peace deal, Trump suggested, Yingst said, that the Iranian negotiators may not “make it back” to their home country.“President Trump tells Fox News he spoke with Iranian officials overnight and said ‘you close it and you won’t have a country,’” Yingst said, recalling his phone call with Trump held moments earlier. “He went on to tell these officials, ‘you won’t even make it back to your f---ing country.’”Whether Trump’s remarks suggested he may order the Iranian negotiators assassinated before their return home remains unclear, though multiple Iranian negotiators have been assassinated throughout the duration of the U.S. war against Iran, such as Ali Larijani, the former speaker of the Iranian Parliament who was killed in March in an Israeli airstrike."We'll take over the rest of your country ... I'll blow the shit out of them" -- here is Trey Yingst's entire segment about the bonkers phone call he says he had with Trump this morning that apparently included threats to assassinate Iran's leadership, impose draconian US tolls… pic.twitter.com/RLi9bos14Q— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 21, 2026

Jun 21, 2026 - World

JD Vance's path to the presidency may run through Tehran, and not in a way that helps him. That is the striking implication of a new analysis by Iran expert Karim Sadjadpour, who argues in The Atlantic that the vice president's political future now depends heavily on whether hardline Iranian officials decide to play along with Donald Trump's latest gamble.Sadjadpour, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, lays out how Trump handed Vance responsibility for an enormous and unlikely task: not merely striking a new nuclear deal, but engineering a wholesale transformation of US-Iran relations after a war that Sadjadpour says ended in humiliation for the president. The memorandum that paused the fighting, he writes, is so lopsided that it reads as if Tehran drafted it, with 13 of its 14 provisions amounting to boilerplate or favoring Iran outright.That is the project Vance has been told to deliver, and Trump has been remarkably candid about who absorbs the blame if it fails. "If it works out, I'm going to take the credit," the president said, according to the piece. "If it doesn't work out, I'm blaming J.D."The expert's sharpest observation is about where that leaves the vice president. Vance's prospects, Sadjadpour writes, "may rest as much on Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps officers as on Republican-primary voters." In other words, a man eyeing the 2028 nomination has tied his standing to the cooperation of the very military and clerical figures who built their careers on resistance to the United States.Vance is reportedly pinning hopes on Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, a former IRGC general and current speaker of Iran's Parliament, with whom he spent more than 20 hours in Islamabad and supposedly developed a rapport. Sadjadpour is skeptical that private warmth means anything. He notes that Qalibaf's public appearances, where he mocks America, praises Hezbollah, threatens Israel, and celebrates partnership with China, are a far more reliable guide to Tehran's intentions than any backroom assurances.The broader picture Sadjadpour paints is of an Iranian regime that thrives on isolation and treats sabotaging American presidents as a point of pride. He traces that pattern back to the 1979 revolution and the hostage crisis that helped sink Jimmy Carter's reelection. This time, he suggests, Tehran stands to claim an unusually rich prize. The Islamic Republic, he writes, may get "a two-for-one": the presidency of Donald Trump, and the presidential ambitions of JD Vance.If Sadjadpour is right, Vance has accepted a mission whose success is largely outside his control, with a boss already rehearsing the line that will pin any failure on him. The clerics and generals in Tehran, not the voters in Iowa, may end up deciding how that story turns out.