Trump’s Syria Reset

Happy Monday! Almost exactly one year after he was inadvertently arrested trying to enter the tournament, Scottie Scheffler on Sunday won the PGA Championship by five strokes. “Got out of jail, turned his life around, and hasn’t reoffended,” Mike Beauvais joked yesterday. “The system works.”

Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories

• Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said Sunday that “all the indications” show Mohammed Sinwar, Hamas’ leader in Gaza, had been killed in Israeli airstrikes last week. Sinwar became the leader of Hamas in Gaza after Israeli soldiers killed his brother, Yahya Sinwar—a key architect of the October 7, 2023, attacks—last fall. Meanwhile, Israeli and Hamas officials resumed ceasefire and hostage talks in Qatar on Saturday, hours after Israel launched a new offensive in the Gaza Strip. A statement from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the country’s negotiating team is exhausting “every possibility for a deal,” including a proposal that would secure the release of all remaining hostages and “the exile of Hamas terrorists, and the disarmament of the Gaza Strip.”
• Bucharest Mayor Nicușor Dan—who campaigned for president of Romania on a centrist, pro-European Union platform—defeated his nationalist rival George Simion on Sunday by a margin of nearly 8 percentage points with 99 percent of the vote in. Despite initially declaring victory, Simion, who has denied accusations of supporting Russia, later conceded the race in a social media post. On the campaign trail, Dan expressed support for Romania’s continued membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and aid to its neighboring country of Ukraine. “Russia, don’t forget, Romania isn’t yours,” supporters of Dan chanted as they celebrated his victory. 
• Russia on Sunday launched its biggest drone attack on Ukraine since the war began, Ukrainian officials said. The barrage, which targeted multiple regions, came one day after the two sides concluded their first in-person negotiations in Turkey and agreed to exchange 1,000 prisoners of war. Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky held meetings on Sunday with U.S. officials—including Vice President J.D. Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio—and European leaders while in Rome to attend Pope Leo XIV’s inaugural Mass. Also on Saturday, Trump shared on social media that he plans to hold separate phone calls on Monday with Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin to push for a ceasefire.
• Former President Joe Biden was diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer on Friday, his office shared in a statement on Sunday. His diagnosis includes “metastasis to the bone,” the statement said, adding that doctors gave it a Gleason score—a grading metric used to evaluate the aggressiveness of prostate cancer—of nine out of 10. Biden and his family are currently reviewing treatment plans, and the office shared that “the cancer appears to be hormone-sensitive which allows for effective management.” President Donald Trump said that he was “saddened” by Biden’s diagnosis and that he and First Lady Melania Trump wish him a “fast and successful recovery.”
• Axios on Saturday published audio recordings of former special counsel Robert Hur’s interview with Biden, which was conducted in 2023 as Hur investigated the then-president’s handling of classified documents. During the conversation, the transcript of which was released in March 2024, Biden needed help from his attorneys to recall the years in which his son died and Trump was first elected president. Hur ultimately declined to charge Biden, concluding that a jury would likely view him as a “sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”
• Moody’s Rating credit agency on Friday downgraded the U.S. government’s credit rating to Aa1—one notch below Aaa—citing in a press release that “government debt and interest payment ratios to levels that are significantly higher than similarly rated sovereigns.” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent called Moody’s credit rating a “lagging indicator” on NBC News’ “Meet the Press” on Sunday, claiming that the change was related to Biden administration-era spending. At the same time, Moody’s also changed its economic outlook for the U.S. from “negative” to “stable.”
• The Supreme Court on Friday once again temporarily blocked the Trump administration from deporting Venezuelan nationals—currently detained in northern Texas for alleged gang ties—under the 18^th-century Alien Enemies Act (AEA). In the 7-2 order, the majority ruled that a federal appeals court must answer “the question of what notice is due” to the detainees before their deportation, and that their removal may not advance until the court rules on that question. In his dissent, which was joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, Justice Samuel Alito wrote that the Supreme Court has “no authority” to temporarily block the deportations. Importantly, the Supreme Court did not rule on whether Trump could deport detainees under the AEA.
• The House Judiciary Committee informed the pharmaceutical company Pfizer on Thursday that it is investigating an allegation that the company intentionally delayed sharing the COVID-19 vaccine’s trial testing results until five days after the 2020 election. The British-based drugmaker GSK told U.S. federal prosecutors last year that one of its employees—Philip Dormitzer, a former Pfizer scientific researcher—informed fellow GSK employees that senior Pfizer executives had been “involved in a decision to deliberately slow down clinical testing” of the vaccine until after the election. Dormitzer, who no longer works at GSK, has denied making the alleged comments. Meanwhile, a Pfizer spokeswoman said the vaccine’s development process was “driven by science” and followed FDA protocols, adding, “Theories to the contrary are simply untrue and being manufactured.”
• A Mexican naval vessel collided with New York City’s Brooklyn Bridge on Saturday night, killing two of the ship’s crew members—a male Marine and a female cadet—and injuring 22 others aboard. The 277-crew ship, the Cuauhtémoc, was on an international goodwill mission and departing New York for Iceland when its masts struck the bridge and snapped. Local officials say the ship’s captain lost control of the vessel and, according to New York City Mayor Eric Adams, the ship lost power. The Brooklyn Bridge sustained no structural damage in the incident, authorities said.
• A car exploded outside of a fertility clinic in Palm Springs, California, on Saturday, injuring four people and killing one—the suspected bomber—in what the FBI has deemed an “intentional act of terrorism.” Law enforcement officials said the 25-year-old suspect, a Southern California native who was in the car at the time of the explosion, had attempted to livestream the bombing and had a history of expressing anti-natalist views online. No clinic employees were injured in the attack, a clinic physician said, and its IVF lab and embryos were unharmed.

‘Their Time to Shine’

Syrian security forces ambushed Islamic State sleeper cells in the northwest city of Aleppo over the weekend, killing three terrorists in surprise attacks on multiple safe houses. The raids, the only public operation of its kind since the fall of the Assad regime to rebel forces in December, came as the new government in Damascus seeks to convince the international community—and in particular the United States—that it’s ready and willing to combat jihadist violence in Syria despite its own extremist origins.

Such was the objective of Syria’s interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump last week—the first direct talks between leaders of the two countries in a quarter-century. Hailing his Syrian counterpart, a former al-Qaeda member, as a “young attractive guy” with a “very strong past,” Trump announced an effective reset with the country after decades of frosty diplomatic relations. But ongoing sectarian violence in Syria—and its leader’s own militant past—threatens to derail the American president’s plans for a country still reeling from 14 years of civil war.

“It’s their time to shine,” Trump said in a speech delivered in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, last week, unveiling plans to waive longtime U.S. sanctions on Damascus. “Good luck, Syria. Show us something very special, like they’ve done, frankly, in Saudi Arabia, ok? They’re going to show us something special. Very good people.” The administration had been considering lifting some of its longtime sanctions on the country, some of the most crippling in the world, for months. But government agencies are now scrambling to implement their wholesale reversal using sanctions waivers, CNN reported Saturday, a move that could transform Syria from a pariah state to a key regional player. 

The White House’s swift reversal of longstanding U.S. Syria policy appeared to come at the behest of America’s Sunni allies in the Middle East. Turkey, a key backer of the former rebel groups now in charge in Damascus, welcomed the move. Leaders of the Gulf Arab states likewise hailed Trump’s Syria embrace as a step toward prosperity and stability in the region, showering him with a lengthy round of applause in Riyadh as he announced the pivot.

On Friday, the World Bank revealed that Syria’s outstanding debt of more than $15.5 million had been paid off by Saudi Arabia and Qatar. The cleared balance will allow the country to take out new loans and, in theory, begin the reconstruction process following more than a decade of unrest. “We are pleased that the clearance of Syria’s arrears will allow the World Bank Group to re-engage with the country and address the development needs of the Syrian people,” the bank said in a statement. “After years of conflict, Syria is on a path to recovery and development.”

More than 90 percent of Syrians live below the poverty line, according to the United Nations, creating an environment ripe for jihadist violence. But the task of rebuilding now falls to a man with an extremist past; until December, al-Sharaa had a $10 million U.S. bounty on his head. The former militant leader joined al-Qaeda after America’s 2003 invasion of Iraq and eventually spent more than five years in various U.S.-run detention centers. After being released and returned to Syria, he went on to found an al-Qaeda offshoot that would eventually become the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS)—the rebel faction that led the charge against dictator Bashar al-Assad. 

Al-Sharaa has since made public efforts to moderate. As the HTS and other rebel factions swept Syrian cities in December, he urged his fighters to respect the country’s ethnic and religious minorities, including Kurds, Alawites, and Christians. Upon becoming the interim president in late January, he called for a unified government that reflects “Syria’s diversity in its men, women, and youth.” On that, however, the new government has a spotty record. In March, for example, pro-Damascus fighters carried out a massacre in Alawite communities that left well over 1,000 people—mostly civilians—dead in the span of 72 hours.

But working with the country’s imperfect leadership to stabilize the country is better than the alternative, some analysts argue. In addition to enlisting Damascus’ help in combating the Islamic State, the Trump administration is also looking to the new government to prevent Iran from regaining a foothold in Syria. Tehran propped up the Assad regime for years, using Syria as a conduit through which to export regional terrorism.

That shared adversary may serve as the basis for greater cooperation between al-Sharaa’s government and Israel. During their meeting last week, Trump urged the Syrian leader to normalize ties with the Jewish state. And according to Israeli media reports, behind-the-scenes talks to expand the Abraham Accords have already begun.

But in order to proceed, the two sides will need to overcome some rocky first impressions. “They were jihadists and remain jihadists, even if some of their leaders have donned suits,” Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said of Syria’s new leaders in March. Israel has conducted regular airstrikes in the country since Assad’s ouster, fearing that the former regime’s weapons could fall into terrorist hands, and it still runs some 10 bases in Syrian territory after pushing into a buffer zone between the two countries in December.

The Israeli military has also carried out operations in Syria on behalf of the Druze, a minority religious sect that in recent weeks has been targeted by pro-government fighters. Clashes between Islamists and Druze in communities near Damascus earlier this month left more than 100 people dead, prompting Druze leaders to request Israel’s intervention. Following the attacks, Israeli fighter jets conducted a series of airstrikes aimed at sending what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described as a “clear message to the Syrian regime” that Israel would not allow “any threat to the Druze community.”

Now, as the White House looks to al-Sharaa as a potential partner in peace, the specter of ethnic violence looms. “The Druze have tried to be part of the new government and to get their basic civil rights,” Muafak Tarif, the head of the Druze community in Israel, said at a conference this month. But they instead face “a thousand foreign soldiers who belong to ISIS who are saying the Druze are not part of Syria.”

Today’s Must-Read

Toeing the Company Line

Worth Your Time

• Writing in Quillette, Ellie Avishai, executive director of the Mill Institute, questioned whether the recently founded University of Austin (UATX) is betraying its founding purpose of creating a space for free discourse.  “On 8 November 2021, the founders of the University of Austin (UATX) announced the launch of their new project—a school where students would receive ‘an education rooted in the pursuit of truth,’” she wrote. “On a web page titled, Our Principles, UATX pledges that it will ‘renew the mission of the university, and serve as a model for institutions of higher education by safeguarding academic freedom and promoting intellectual pluralism.’” The Mill Institute was “an obvious fit,” and it joined UATX as an affiliated institute in 2022. “Even while we were gathering momentum, however, there were concerning indicators,” Avishai wrote. “Early in our tenure, the administration grew noncommittal about our advisory role. It seemed to us that while the university appreciated the way we were holding a mirror up to educators at other schools, there was little appetite for examining the culture at UATX itself. … It turned out that what I was observing was symptomatic of the larger ideological tension developing within UATX between two camps—those specifically championing an unabashedly ‘anti-woke’ conservative agenda, and those (such as myself) prioritising academic freedom more generally.”
• In a piece for the Detroit Free Press, former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Bridget Brink, explained her recent decision to step down from her role. “I have proudly served five presidents―Republicans and Democrats—to make sure the United States is the strongest, greatest country that the world has ever known. I respect the president’s right and responsibility to determine U.S. foreign policy—with proper checks and balances by U.S. Congress. Unfortunately, the policy since the beginning of the Trump administration has been to put pressure on the victim, Ukraine, rather than on the aggressor, Russia,” she wrote. “I cannot stand by while a country is invaded, a democracy bombarded, and children killed with impunity. I believe that the only way to secure U.S. interests is to stand up for democracies and to stand against autocrats. Peace at any price is not peace at all—it is appeasement. And history has taught us time and again that appeasement does not lead to safety, security or prosperity. It leads to more war and suffering.”

Presented Without Comment

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In the Zeitgeist

On October 7, 2023, Yuval Raphael was attending the Nova music festival when Hamas terrorists crossed the border to massacre more than 1,200 Israelis. She miraculously survived that day by playing dead.

But she’s not just a survivor—she’s also an accomplished singer who, this weekend, finished in second place in the 2025 Eurovision Song Contest, and won the public vote. The 24-year-old musician represented Israel with a ballad called “New Day Will Rise.”

Let Us Know 

Do you think the Trump administration’s Syrian reset is worth the risks?