THE WAR ROOM: President Trump says he called off a third day of strikes on Iran because a peace deal is imminent. He told Georgia Lt. Gov. Burt Jones over the phone, “I don’t know if you heard, but we ended the war with Iran today, and they have agreed never to have a nuclear weapon.”   

  He’s out on a limb if it isn’t true, but stocks shot up on Trump’s word.  

  Trump said that the deal to end the Iran conflict could be signed “maybe over the weekend, in Europe,” and that Iran will agree not to develop a nuclear weapon. “It’s a very strong memorandum of understanding,” Trump said. “That’s a little conceptual.”

  Trump in an earlier interview with Fox News that he had mused about invading Kharg Island, Iran’s primary oil terminal, but said he wouldn’t do it. 

  Iran says that the Strait of Hormuz is now closed to all shipping and the US says it’s not.  While both sides claim to control the Strait, in a backhanded way Iran is in charge because what military threat they have left forces the US Navy to remain in place.

THE INTEL: The President said that he would nominate Jay Clayton, the US attorney in Manhattan, to be the next director of national intelligence, after lawmakers objected to his naming Bill Pulte, who has no experience in the field, to be interim director. 

  The is to replace the also largely unqualified Tulsi Gabbard who is stepping down. Trump may also face an uproar about naming Clayton, the former chair the Securities and Exchange Commission, who similarly has no experience in intelligence. But he frequently plays golf with the President.

  Senate majority Leader John Thune gave Clayton a non-endorsement endorsement saying, “I think he’s considered to be a very qualified professional with a great skill set for managing a complex problem set.” 

AMERICA FIRST: The Trump administration plans to significantly reduce the number of aircraft and warships committed to NATO, The NY Times reports according to European sources.

  President Trump has long threatened to reduce US backing of the NATO military lliance.

  The plan is to reduce the number of F-16 and F-15E fighter jets from roughly 150 to 100, as well as reconnaissance and support aircraft. They would also remove a bomber group, a missile-launching submarine and an aircraft carrier. 

HISTORY CLASS: The NY Times asked eight historians to evaluate the information and versions of history on the presidential plaques President Trump installed along the walkway between the Oval office and the West Wing at the White House.

  It didn’t take a historian to recognize that much of the text was written by Trump himself, including his signature capitalizations and exclamation marks such as, “THE BEST IS YET TO COME!”

  Trump referenced himself in the brief histories of six of his predecessors. The exhibit “is not so much bad history as it is anti-historical,” Sean Wilentz, an American history professor at Princeton University, told the Times.

  Trump’s own bio claims he ended eight wars and that, he “has built, right here at the White House, the magnificent Trump Presidential Ballroom after a 225 year wait.” The ballroom is still under a stop building order.

  The Joe Biden bio says he “took office as a result of the most corrupt election ever seen in the United States.”

  Many references in the biographies of previous presidents echo Trump’s own obsessions, including tariffs, immigration, and cutting taxes.

  Even the Abraham Lincoln plaque says, “He was the first Republican ever elected president.”   

INFINITE SCROLL:

— Former Acting FBI Director Brian Driscoll, who was fired from the agency after Kash Patel was confirmed, told CNN”s Anderson Cooper that during his vetting for the job he was asked questions by incoming Trump officials about his personal politics, including who he voted for, when he started supporting Trump, and whether he’d voted for a Democrat in recent elections.

  At one point, Driscoll said, incoming FBI Director Kash Patel told him there wouldn’t be an issue so long as he wasn’t active on social media, didn’t donate to the Democratic Party, and didn’t vote for Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 election. Driscoll told Cooper, “It made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.”

  Driscoll is suing the FBI for wrongful termination.

— Someone cut giant anti-Trump digits “8647” into the grass near Washington’s World War II Memorial. Responding police actually collected forensic evidence at the scene.

— Yesterday, just a day before today’s deadline, The Kennedy Center in Washington appealed a judge’s order to remove Donald Trump’s name from the building as well as the order blocking the center’s closure for two years of renovations. The center’s board is composed almost entirely of Trump allies.

THE OBIT PAGE: British artist David Hockney, whose brightly colored paintings were both impressionist and realist at the same time, has died at age 88. He was considered to be one of the most significant artists of the 20^th Century.

  Hockney lived for many years in Los Angeles, producing a body of work portraying the sunny life of California, many illustrating people and swimming pools. In a career that gained traction in the 1950s, he was also unafraid to portray gay life.  

THE SPIN RACK: US forces used a sea drone … and unmanned boat … to rescue the crew of the helicopter gunship shot down by Iran over the Gulf of Oman. That was a first. — Billionaire Tom Steyer spent $216 million of his own money running for governor of California and failed to make the two-candidate final election in November. Steyer also spent $342 million running for president in 2020. 

BELOW THE FOLD: Movie producer Richard Raymond has assured fans of the upcoming Brad Pitt movie “Heart of the Beast” that the German Shepard in the man vs. wild flick survives to the end.

  “Look, everybody loves a dog,” Raymond said. That’s not always the case with a Brad Pitt movie.