Trump Celebrates Achieving Absolutely Nothing in Iran

Ceasefire deal reportedly reached: The Strait of Hormuz will be "permanently toll-free," according to President Donald Trump, who reports he reached a preliminary ceasefire deal with Iran over the weekend. A memorandum of understanding is scheduled to be signed on Friday.

BREAKING: President Trump says the deal with Iran is "now complete."

"I hereby fully authorize the toll free opening of the Strait of Hormuz… let the oil flow," Trump says. pic.twitter.com/ekg15g5uqQ

— The Kobeissi Letter (@KobeissiLetter) June 14, 2026

But there's a big caveat: Trump said that if a nuclear deal can't be hammered out—that process is supposed to begin in Switzerland on Friday, following the signing of the memorandum—he will authorize the military to start attacking once again (or make the U.S. "the guardian of the Middle East" and get 20 percent of the area's revenues).

In a phone interview with  The New York Times , Trump previewed some of the possible sticking points. For example, he wants a uranium-enriching pause for 20 years, whereas Iran claims it will agree to only 10. (The president noted that he could possibly settle for 15.) He also praised the current Iranian regime, presumably buttering them up a bit. He lambasted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, calling him "a very difficult guy."

"And to be honest with you," Trump continued, "he should be very thankful to us for doing this. Because if Iran had a nuclear weapon, Israel wouldn't be around for two hours."

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Per the Times , "Iran has also agreed to give up half of its 440 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60 percent—near weapons grade—while diluting the other half to levels that would make it only applicable for nonmilitary uses. But how that is done, by whom, and under what auspices and inspection routine remain subjects for further detailed negotiations." In other words: There's still a lot to be sorted out, and a lot of opportunities for each side to be overly stubborn and sink negotiations.

Iran DepFM: MoU will be signed Friday in Switzerland. Delegation heads will discuss arrangements for future talks. US commitments—ending war, lifting blockade, and releasing assets—will be verified. Entering 60-day negotiations is conditional upon US fulfilling these commitments. https://t.co/RlT2Px8dIC

— Iran Nuances (@IranNuances) June 14, 2026

Mythos, interrupted: Axios reports that the administration is "blocking foreign governments, companies and individuals" from accessing Anthropic's most advanced AI model—Mythos, also called Fable. The company decided to entirely block access to that model instead. Rumors have swirled claiming that Chinese hackers got access; other sources assert that Amazon found vulnerabilities with the model and flagged them for the administration.

"Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on Friday sent a letter to Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei saying [Mythos] would be subject to export controls to any location outside of the U.S. and to all foreign persons within the country," continues Axios . This includes foreign nationals at Anthropic, who are now blocked from working on that product.

"Anthropic tightly controlled the release of Mythos, which was launched in April, limiting access to a select group of companies that could use it to plug security holes," notes Semafor. "The plan was to ensure its capabilities wouldn't make it into the hands of hackers. Anthropic has said Mythos represents a danger to the public because of its ability to find bugs in computer code, which could be exploited by malicious actors."

"Fable is Mythos with guardrails," writes David Sacks, a venture capitalist and adviser to President Donald Trump. "But if those guardrails fail, then you've exposed Mythos and its advanced cyber capabilities to people who shouldn't have them. (Keep in mind that Anthropic itself widely promoted the idea that Mythos was a cyberweapon and needed to be regulated as such. They asked for government regulation of Mythos and championed the guardrails on Fable. If there is a vulnerability—big or small—it is Anthropic's responsibility to patch.)"

Sacks continues: "A highly credible trusted partner of both Anthropic and the USG who was testing Fable came forward with a jailbreak of those guardrails. The Admin asked Dario to fix the jailbreak or de-deploy the model. Dario refused."

Anthropic, meanwhile, doesn't seem to believe the jailbreak was serious: "Given that perfect jailbreak resistance does not appear to be possible today, Anthropic adopted a defense in depth  strategy with Fable 5," writes the company in a press release. "We aimed to make jailbreaks either narrow (in the case of non-universal jailbreaks) or very expensive to produce (in the case of universal jailbreaks), and to combine this with thorough monitoring to quickly detect and shut down any successful attacks. This is also why Anthropic has required 30-day…