Senate Agenda Includes Blanche Confirmation, Trump Announces Iran Deal Amid Oil Price Drop

The U.S. Senate returns today with a packed agenda to tackle for its final session before a long recess until mid-September. On the to-do list is the confirmation hearing for President Trump's attorney general nominee, Todd Blanche. In a letter released last night, Blanche formally rescinded a plan for a $1.8 billion "anti-weaponization fund" to compensate people who allege they've been unfairly targeted by the federal government. Republican senators John Cornyn and Thom Tillis have withheld support for Blanche's nomination because of their opposition to the fund, which was created as part of a settlement deal for a lawsuit Trump filed against the IRS over leaked tax returns.

The provision of the deal that protects Trump and his family from future IRS tax audits was not addressed in Blanche's order, NPR's Claudia Grisales says. So while the order tackles a significant hurdle for the committee's confirmation process, Grisalies says it leaves several questions unanswered. She adds that it's uncertain whether Blanche has sufficient Republican support on the Senate floor for confirmation. With Republicans working with slim margins, even a few dissenting members could easily derail the vote.

Over the weekend, Trump posted on social media that the U.S. is canceling planned attacks on Iran, and that "the perimeters of a deal" had been reached. The president credited allies for persuading him to avoid renewed attacks. The U.S. and Israel were poised to strike Iran's energy infrastructure over the weekend, according to news reports. Trump said the potential deal would ensure the immediate total opening of the Strait of Hormuz and eliminate Iran's nuclear threat.

When it comes to the war, Trump has been in a pattern of threatening military strikes, then backing off and saying a diplomatic resolution has been reached, NPR's Hadeel Al-Shalchi tells Up First. This routine has played out multiple times since the U.S. struck an initial deal with Iran in April. Trump said that talks on the latest agreement would begin today, but Iran has not yet confirmed this. After Trump's announcement, oil prices took a nosedive. Brent crude, the global oil benchmark, dropped by 8% to around $83 per barrel yesterday. Since the war started at the end of February, oil prices have surged past $100 per barrel on several occasions.

An NPR review of court records from the last five years reveals a dramatic shift in how the Department of Justice is using a Civil War–era statute to bring forth charges of conspiracy to impede or injure an officer. Since Trump took office last year, the department has charged more than three dozen people. All of the cases involve people protesting federal immigration enforcement. Before 2025, most of the cases using the statute involved the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

In a new court filing, Capital One formally revealed that its decision to close roughly 385 bank accounts tied to the Trump Organization and its affiliates in mid-2021 was the result of an internal anti-money-laundering review. Trump-affiliated businesses alleged in an ongoing lawsuit that the accounts were closed due to political retaliation following the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. Capital One Bank has asked a federal judge to dismiss the lawsuit.