President Trump declared the ceasefire with Iran dead, saying negotiations may continue but dismissing them as a "waste of time."

• "I think it's over," he said today at the NATO summit in Turkey.
• Oil quickly jumped 6%.

Why it matters: Both sides are launching attacks three weeks after signing a peace deal Trump described as "unconditional surrender."

• The deal is unraveling. Any sense of calm in the region has evaporated, Axios' Ben Berkowitz writes.

Trump spoke hours after the U.S. conducted a new round of strikes on Iran, retaliation for renewed Iranian attacks on commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz.

• Trump said of Iran: "I don't want to deal with them anymore. They're scum … As far as I'm concerned, it's just a waste of time dealing with them."

🛢️ By the numbers: The price of oil skyrocketed after Trump's comments, with the global benchmark Brent crude jumping 6% to nearly $79 in morning trading.

• At those levels, it's back above prewar prices after dipping just below.

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Graham Platner was a walking time bomb long before the on-the-record rape allegation he denied this week, Axios' Alex Thompson and Holly Otterbein write.

• A Nazi tattoo, social media rants, rampant rumors about women: Many Democratic leaders privately feared the Maine Democrat, now their U.S. Senate nominee, could be trouble. But they rationalized their delusions and denialism until it was too late. Now the party has few, if any, good options in one of the nation's most important Senate races.

Why it matters: The Platner debacle shows a key way President Trump has changed Democratic politics. If it means diminishing his power, Democrats are willing to surrender or temporarily ignore their own stated values.

• There are parallels to 2024, when Democrats sleepwalked into disaster by publicly attesting to Joe Biden's fitness as president despite private doubts.

🔎 Zoom in: Many Democrats blame Platner's team — particularly his political advisers at the media consulting firm Fight Agency — for not revealing or pushing to find out the extent of his baggage while continuing to rake in money over the past year.

• Around Platner's campaign launch in late August 2025, senior Democrats in D.C. questioned people at Fight Agency — which had helped democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani win the Democratic primary for New York mayor — about rumors of skeletons that could become liabilities, including issues in Platner's former relationships with women.
• Fight Agency representatives assured them all was well, and that part of Platner's appeal was that he had overcome his past problems, according to a person familiar with the conversation.

A couple of months later, as some of Platner's controversial past social media posts were becoming public, a person familiar with the campaign's internal dynamics said that Fight Agency knew about rumors that Platner had cheated on an ex-girlfriend and had been "creepy" with women.

• Platner denied the claims to his team at the time, that source said.

🖼️ The big picture: The cracks in Platner's well-crafted image were evident from the beginning if Democrats were willing to see them.

• Many progressives believed they had a potential heir to Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, and wanted a champion to fight the Democratic establishment.
• Starting with their launch video last August, Platner and his team billed him as an oyster farmer — a title most of the media, including Axios at times, repeated without scrutiny.
• But as early as August, he told ideologically friendly outlets that he makes little money from selling oysters and it's not how he makes a living.

Between the lines: The Democratic establishment bungled the Maine contest from the beginning.

• Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) endorsed then 77-year-old Maine Gov. Janet Mills in the Senate race at a time when many Democratic voters were angry about the status quo and wary of older elected officials hanging onto power.
• The party's establishment then quickly soured on Mills — believing she was running a lackluster campaign — but didn't offer an alternative before she suspended her candidacy this spring.

Go deeper: Why Dems embraced a Platner time bomb.

Republicans are dramatically boosting campaign spending on Senate races in red states that, until recently, looked safely out of Democrats' reach in the November midterms, Axios' Alex Isenstadt writes.

• Why it matters: The GOP — alarmed by recent polls and voting trends — is juicing its efforts in Ohio and Iowa to reinforce a Senate "red wall" they believe can block Democrats' path to a majority in the chamber.

The clearest evidence yet: One Nation, the conservative nonprofit aligned with Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.), is reserving $28 million in TV advertising in Ohio and $11 million in Iowa, according to plans obtained by Axios.

• Republican candidates are locked in tough races in those states less than two years after President Trump won both by double digits.

🔬 Zoom in: Republicans are especially worried about Ohio Sen. Jon Husted's unexpectedly competitive race against former Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown, who has outraised Husted by more than 2 to 1.

• Keep reading.

Chip stocks were hammered yesterday despite reassuring news from a major player — extending their recent slide into a second week, Axios' Pete Gannon writes.

• Samsung, the world's largest memory-chip maker, reported explosive revenue growth, but its shares immediately fell. Investors are worried the AI boom that's been driving up chip prices can't keep growing this fast forever.
• The sell-off continued in the U.S., where memory stocks like Micron (-4.7%) and SanDisk (-7.3%) were slammed.

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The Trump administration's official position about Venezuela's exiled opposition leader is simple: Don't help María Corina Machado gain entry to her home country. But Deputy Secretary of State Chris Landau didn't appear to get the memo, Axios' Marc Caputo writes.

• Landau is suspected of twice miscommunicating U.S. policy to two countries about Machado, according to seven senior administration officials.

Why it matters: Landau's alleged freelancing roiled the State Department for two days and led to internal arguments, international confusion and increased tensions with Machado supporters.

🥊 "There's a widespread belief that Landau went rogue," one of the sources told Axios. "And the evidence supports that belief."

• Said another: "Marco isn't happy" with Landau, who's second only to Marco Rubio at the State Department.

🔭 Zoom in: The controversy erupted after the June 24 earthquakes that rocked Venezuela and killed more than 3,500 people. Machado, living in exile in the U.S. without a valid Venezuelan passport, wanted to return to Venezuela to help with relief efforts.

• But administration officials interfered with her travel plans, telling Axios last week that they amounted to "gross political opportunism" that would hamper recovery and relief efforts.

The intrigue: Landau, 62, is a former U.S. ambassador to Mexico and the son of a former U.S. ambassador to Venezuela. He's suspected by senior administration officials of opposing U.S. policy toward Caracas and being too close to Machado's inner circle.

• Keep reading.

Senate GOP leaders and allies of Sen. Mitch McConnell say they've spoken to the Kentucky senator as fears rise about his health, Axios' Stef W. Kight writes.

• Why it matters: McConnell, 84, who spent nearly two decades as Republican leader, has been hospitalized for roughly three weeks. Little information has been released about his condition.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.), Majority Whip John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) and CNN commentator Scott Jennings — a former McConnell aide — described detailed conversations they'd had with McConnell in recent days in starkly similar terms.

• A Thune spokesperson said: "They had a lengthy and substantive conversation that covered a variety of topics, including national security."
• Jennings posted on X: "He's still recovering in the hospital. We talked for just shy of 20 minutes ... about IRAN, UKRAINE, the unfolding situation in MAINE, my visit to the TR Presidential Library, and even a little bit of Senate history."

McConnell's office said in a statement yesterday: "Senator McConnell appreciates the outpouring of support he's receiving while he continues his recovery in the hospital. The Senator continues to improve, and is working closely with his staff on Kentucky and Senate matters while the Senate is out of session."

• McConnell's team issued an identical statement last week.

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"Americans, once members of a proudly literate society, read much less than they used to," The Atlantic's Rose Horowitch writes in the magazine's August cover story:

"The decline in reading cuts across age groups, gender, and education levels. Even the demographics that traditionally read the most — retirees, women, and college graduates — have seen a collapse."

🧮 By the numbers: Fewer than half of U.S. adults read a book of any kind in 2022, according to a National Endowment for the Arts survey — the most comprehensive look at the nation's reading habits.

• The share of Americans who read for pleasure on any given day fell from 28% in 2004 to 16% in 2023, according to the American Time Use Survey.
• Gambling is now more common than reading a book: 57% of Americans placed a bet last year.

The bottom line: "The decline of reading will bring about changes of the same magnitude. It will affect our innermost thoughts, our society's politics and culture, and how we tell the history of our civilization."

• Keep reading.

The U.S. men's soccer team's loss to Belgium on Monday drew a record 42 million combined viewers across Fox and Telemundo — the most-watched men's soccer match in U.S. television history.

• More than 30 million people watched the English-language telecast on Fox, according to the broadcaster.
• 12 million watched on Telemundo and Peacock with Spanish commentary.

🤯 Stunning stat, via The Athletic: The match "will likely eclipse any single-game U.S. sports broadcast this decade, other than the juggernaut that is the NFL."

📅 The tournament is down to eight teams after Argentina and Switzerland survived thrillers to close out the Round of 16.

• Quarterfinal schedule: France vs. Morocco (Thursday, 4 p.m. ET) ... Spain vs. Belgium (Friday, 3 p.m.) ... Norway vs. England (Saturday, 5 p.m.) ... Argentina vs. Switzerland (Saturday, 9 p.m.).

Gift link to The Athletic.