President Trump's Iran deal has opened an explosive second front in MAGA's civil war, waged by hawkish allies who view U.S. concessions as an existential betrayal of Israel, Axios' Zachary Basu writes.

• Why it matters: Across two terms and 11 years in the political spotlight, no issue has divided Trump's base more than the Iran war.

When U.S. strikes began, leading isolationists — from Tucker Carlson to Marjorie Taylor Greene — were excommunicated for suggesting Trump had abandoned "America First" principles on behalf of Israel.

• Three months later, with an interim deal in hand and peace potentially on the horizon, the Republican hawks who cheered Trump into battle are now leading their own furious rebellion.

🖼️ The big picture: Pro-Israel conservatives are demanding to see the text of Trump's memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Iran, frustrated as much by the deal's secrecy as by its reported substance.

• The White House has given conflicting signals on timing: Senior officials said the text would be released yesterday or today. Trump said it may come Friday, after a formal signing ceremony in Geneva.
• Republican leadership in Congress remains in the dark — and frustrated by the lack of detail.
• So is Israel, which hasn't seen the official MOU despite being a party to the ceasefire.

Trump inflamed the backlash yesterday by praising Iran's negotiators in a bilateral meeting with Qatar's emir, a key mediator distrusted by many pro-Israel Republicans.

• "We're dealing with people that I think are very rational people," Trump said, adding that Iranian officials were "nice to deal with," "not radicalized" and "looking to help their country."
• For hawks who view Iran's government as a terrorist regime incapable of reform, the president's language deepened their fear that the deal rewards Tehran for surviving the war.

🔎 Zoom in: The objections from Trump's pro-Israel allies fall largely into three buckets.

1. Money: The MOU would allow Iran to immediately begin selling oil while opening the door to sanctions relief, frozen funds and a $300 billion reconstruction fund during the next phase of nuclear talks. U.S. officials stress that financial relief would be tied to compliance, but hawks are apoplectic at the mere prospect of money flowing to Tehran.
2. Leverage: Months of overwhelming military force crippled Iran's nuclear infrastructure and conventional military defenses. By entering a 60-day negotiation window and lifting the naval blockade now, hawks argue Trump is trading away unprecedented leverage. Some even claim the regime was on the brink of collapse, though there's little evidence of that.
3. Trust: Critics reject the premise that Iran can be coaxed into moderation — a concern echoed inside Trump's own government. Axios reported that CIA Director John Ratcliffe warned Trump that U.S. intelligence has serious doubts about Tehran's willingness to make the nuclear concessions required for a final deal.

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In the GOP runoff for Georgia governor, billionaire health care executive Rick Jackson spent $100 million, mostly out of his pocket, and beat Trump-endorsed Burt Jones yesterday, 53% to 47%.

• It's "one of the biggest political upsets in recent Georgia history," writes Greg Bluestein of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
• Jackson will face Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms in the Nov. 3 general election. More from Axios Atlanta.

In Georgia's GOP primary runoff for U.S. Senate, Trump-endorsed U.S. Rep. Mike Collins beat Derek Dooley, 55% to 45%, and will face Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) in November. More from Axios Atlanta.

🥊 The bottom line: A split result for Trump.

In a scene from the forthcoming "Regime Change," President Trump asks a guest at a private dinner last year to compare Vice President Vance to Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Trump often does that to stir the pot on 2028 speculation. But this time, the judge was Rupert Murdoch.

• And with Vance and Rubio sitting awkwardly at the table, Murdoch was notably more effusive about Rubio. The media mogul had privately tried to talk Trump out of choosing Vance as his running mate in 2024.

Why it matters: Trump's parlor game — recounted in a 3,000-word passage in "Regime Change," by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, out next Tuesday — shows that Vance, as the authors write, can be sure Trump won't "make it easy for him" to get the 2028 GOP nomination.

• The passage was obtained by Axios.

The intrigue: We told you this weekend that top White House officials fear Haberman and Swan obtained audio recordings of Situation Room meetings for the book. Vance confirmed those fears yesterday: He told conservative podcaster Megyn Kelly about a "Regime Change" excerpt in The New York Times:

• "There were certain things in there that legitimately made me worried that people were taping ... which, by the way, is a felony."

The big picture: Haberman and Swan write that the dinner on Oct. 16, 2025, was a rapprochement for the billionaires. Murdoch had been a confidant in Trump's first term.

• But Trump sued Murdoch and his Wall Street Journal last year over an article about the president's former friendship with Jeffrey Epstein.

Zoom in: "The hostilities between the President and the tycoon had suddenly cooled," the authors write. "Trump was in an avuncular mood" as he greeted the dinner party of Murdoch and White House aides, with the tycoon seated beside Trump at the head of the table. Trump asked Murdoch who he liked best between Vance and Rubio, with the president adding: "They're both great."

• Trump: "What do you think of JD?"
• Murdoch: "Well ... I think JD has the potential to be great."
• Trump: "And what do you think of Marco?"
• Murdoch answered immediately: "Marco is brilliant."

"The other guests would talk privately about the moment for weeks after the dinner," Haberman and Swan write.

• More on the book.

SpaceX jumped another 4.8% yesterday, enabling Elon Musk's company to leapfrog Amazon in market value and become the world's fifth biggest company, Axios' Matt Phillips writes.

• Why it matters: The gain underscores the extraordinary power Musk's mastery of the stock market gives him.

Case in point: SpaceX announced a $60 billion all-stock deal yesterday, essentially using its stock as currency to buy fast-growing vibe-coding startup Cursor. That instantly bolstered SpaceX's Grok AI division against Anthropic and OpenAI.

• Share this story ... Get Axios Markets.

⛰️ Sneak peek: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, befitting the leader of a tech giant with the power of a nation-state, is in the French Alps for the G7, and is holding one-on-one meetings with many heads of state.

• Today, he's expected to emphasize the importance of ensuring AI is as widely distributed as possible.
• Altman is expected to highlight OpenAI's commitment to being a reliable and long-term partner. The ChatGPT creator works with most of the countries, both directly with governments and through companies representing critical infrastructure, and provides cybersecurity defensive tools through the GPT-5.5-Cyber program.

A majority of U.S. families (52%) now have two parents who work full-time — a record high, Axios' Avery Lotz writes from a new Pew report.

• That's up six points from a decade ago and 21 points since 1975.
• The share of families in which the dad works full-time and the mom is not employed fell from 42% in 1975 to just 23% last year.

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Axios' Joann Muller and Colin Demarest write from the ReIndustrialize defense summit in Detroit:

GM and Lockheed Martin plan to work together to strengthen U.S. manufacturing and boost America's readiness for war.

• Why it matters: The collaboration, at the urging of the Trump administration, is portrayed as an effort to protect national security by strengthening the U.S. industrial base across the defense sector.

Early conversations are focused on how Lockheed can leverage GM's expertise in high-rate manufacturing, digital engineering and supply chain management, said Frank St. John, Lockheed's chief operating officer.

🪖 The big picture: Lockheed weaponry is sought globally. The Trump administration has inked several deals with the defense contractor — the world's largest by revenue — to greatly boost production of missile defenses.

• To meet the Pentagon's demand to "triple or quadruple" weapons production within three to four years, Lockheed is investing $9 billion across 20 facilities.

More on the conference, from Colin's weekly Future of Defense newsletter.

A profound identity crisis has gripped America ahead of its 250th birthday: Citizens are less proud, less religiously unified and losing faith that the American Dream still works, Axios' Russell Contreras writes.

• A new survey from the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) finds that Americans are retreating into ideological camps, viewing the opposing side not as a political rival, but as threats to democracy itself.

🧮 By the numbers: 51% of Americans say they're extremely or very proud of being American, down sharply from 82% in 2013.

• Less than half of Democrats believe that being born in America (42%), believing in God (41%), or being Christian (29%) are important to national identity.
• A majority of Republicans say being born in America, believing in God and being Christian are important to being truly American.

Americans are also split on the American Dream, with less than half believing that hard work gets you ahead. Among 18- to 29-year-olds, belief in the American Dream has fallen from 50% in 2024 to 36% today.

• Keep reading.

This year's NBA Finals between the Knicks and Spurs were the most-watched since Michael Jordan's last win in 1998, according to Nielsen estimates.

• The series — which ended New York's 53-year title drought — averaged 20.6 million viewers across five games on ESPN and ABC.
• That's double the audience for last year's series between the Oklahoma City Thunder and Indiana Pacers.

Three of yesterday's four World Cup matches featured big moments from soccer's biggest stars:

• 🇦🇷 Argentina's Lionel Messi scored a hat trick — his first at a World Cup — to tie the record for the most career goals scored in the tournament.
• 🇫🇷 France's Kylian Mbappé scored two goals, including a rocket from 30 yards out, in the French team's win over Senegal.
• 🇳🇴 Norway's Erling Haaland scored twice to lead his country to its first World Cup win since 1998.

⚽ Today's schedule: Portugal vs. DRC (1 p.m. ET) ... England vs. Croatia (4 p.m. ET) ... Ghana vs. Panama (7 p.m. ET) ... Uzbekistan vs. Colombia (10 p.m. ET)