Nikki Haley, President Donald Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations, laid out a path on Tuesday for the United States to withdraw from its 2015 nuclear deal with Iran in a manner similar to the administration’s handling of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. Trump has announced a phase-out of the Obama-era program, calling on Congress to protect young immigrants as part of a broader immigration reform law. As with DACA, ending the Iran deal would be a controversial move even among Republicans, so rather than biting the bullet one way or another, Trump could pass the buck to Congress, hoping it’ll settle the issue. Politico reports:

Haley said that, should Trump not certify Iranian compliance, he may choose to leave the decision on whether to quit the deal to Congress. That was a surprising suggestion, given that the nuclear agreement is not a formal treaty and therefore does not require Congress’s approval.

This is a move fraught with danger, not only for the Middle East but America’s wider position in the world. In her speech at the American Enterprise Institute, Haley said, “This is about US national security. This is not about European security.” In point of fact, the Iran deal deeply interests the Europeans, who are far more likely to be targeted by nuclear weapons from Iran than America is. The Iran deal was made not just between the Obama administration and Iran but also with China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and Germany. The other signatories would, quite properly, resent a unilateral American withdrawal. The U.S. would face not just a hostile Iran, which would be newly free to pursue a nuclear program, but angry allies who would now have good reason to distrust it.

Over the weekend, the Clinton uber-loyalist announced the launch of a new website, Verrit. Daou, a former Clinton campaign aide, claimed that Verrit is intended for the “68.5 million,” a nod to Clinton’s share of the popular vote last November. It purportedly allows users to submit facts, which the site then verifies and posts, but it sure seems like a way for Daou to continue to grind various axes with Clinton’s critics. Then, Clinton herself endorsed the site.

This is very embarrassing to look at! So are the rest of Daou’s tweets, which contain a number of strange claims intended to prove the need for Verrit’s existence:

Daou provided no sourcing for his claims that a DDOS attack took Verrit down—a dubious beginning for a would-be purveyor of facts. Nor is it clear why people would want to destroy Clinton, who is not an elected official.

In fact, it’s unclear what purpose Verrit serves. “For a startup like this to work, it has to have a clearly defined mission, a valuable product and an engaged base which actually has an interest in using the platform long-term. Verrit has none of these,” Tom McKay noted at Gizmodo on Monday. Far from the 68.5 million users Daou believes his platform will attract, Verrit’s biggest backers right now appear to be writers for the pro-Clinton news site Shareblue:

Daou told Business Insider that he is personally funding the website right now, and it shows. Its cards look like they were designed in a junior high graphic design class. Its “facts,” which are supposed to be its key contribution to The Discourse, are shaky, and there are no public details available about how its verification process works. And it posts things like this:

This is not a fact. It’s propaganda. It is intended to vindicate Clinton and demonize those on the left who disagree with her.

It is no surprise that Daou’s new venture seems very scammy. But it is amazing that, after all that has happened, Clinton is still allowing people from her inner circle to humiliate her in public.

On Tuesday, Attorney General Jeff Sessions is expected to announce that the president has decided to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which provides work permits to people who came to the United States illegally as children. The Trump administration is expected to delay ending the program for six months, giving Congress the opportunity to pass legislation that would protect the so-called “Dreamers.” DACA has been criticized by conservatives for being implemented by Barack Obama without Congress’s consent; this delay will, theoretically at least, give Congress the opportunity to pass legislation to protect hundreds of thousands of young people.

DACA is widely popular, in large part because it is focused on people who did not enter this country of their own volition. But DACA has also been a litmus test for Trump’s base—ending the program is proof that he isn’t fatally compromised by globalists and RINOs. It is the dilemma that has faced Trump for the last seven months on a host of issues: appease his base or the rest of the country. As usual, Trump has chosen his base.

But the way he’s done so is particularly craven and shameless, even for him. As the past eight months have shown, Trump will spike the football about anything that looks remotely like an accomplishment, but he’s been noticeably quiet about DACA. His plan is about as far from a profile in courage you can get, even in contemporary American politics.

Trump has not just kicked the can to Congress, but also crafted a scenario in which he will have to take as little responsibility as possible. If Congress fails to pass some kind of equivalent legislation, Trump can blame do-nothing legislators that the vast majority of Americans already hate. If Congress does miraculously pass something, he can claim a bipartisan majority has spoken (the Senate would need Democratic support for such legislation), even though that would have been achieved in spite of him. Of course, he could also veto any legislation that passes—something his base will likely call for—but the whole point is for Trump to not take any decisive action and to leave as few fingerprints on this policy as possible.

What makes this so heinous is that Trump has taken hostage the lives and livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of young people so that he won’t have to to do any of the hard work of actually solving the problem, such as passing replacement legislation before ending their work permits. He gains almost nothing from this political cowardice—but hundreds of thousands stand to lose.

The National Labor Relations Board has issued formal charges to Musk’s Tesla corporation for waging a union-busting campaign at its factories. Workers have been trying to organize with United Automobile Workers of America; as Noah Kulwin reported for Vice on Thursday evening:

The National Labor Relations Board issued an official complaint to Tesla on Thursday, citing claims by workers that Tesla prevented them from leafleting or discussing union activity and worker safety on Tesla’s Fremont, California, factory premises. The charge sheet additionally alleges that Tesla HR staffers “interrogated” an employee about “protected” union activity.

Tesla workers have complained of long hours, dangerous conditions, and low pay. “I’ve seen people pass out, hit the floor like a pancake, and smash their face open,” one told The Guardian in February 2017. In April, The American Prospect reported that Tesla wages range “from $17 to $21 an hour,” well below industry average. Musk, meanwhile, has a net worth of $21.1 billion.

He owes that sum at least in part to savvy marketing. In true Silicon Valley tradition, he has cast himself as a savior. And it’s entirely possible that the technologies his companies create will help preserve the environment. But Musk’s labor troubles illustrate deeper problems with the Valley’s philosophy. Musk can create all the electric cars and hyperloops he wants, but unless he pairs these efforts with a commitment to fair labor practices, the world he creates won’t be better than the one we have now. It’ll just move at a faster pace.

On Wednesday, in a letter to new FBI Director Christopher Wray, Senators Chuck Grassley and Lindsey Graham revealed that, before Hillary Clinton had been interviewed by the agency, former FBI Director Comey had begun preparing a statement clearing her of breaking the law for conducting State Department business on a private email server. “Conclusion first, fact-gathering second—that’s no way to run an investigation,” Grassley and Graham wrote. “The FBI should be held to a higher standard than that, especially in a matter of such great public interest and controversy.”

Unsurprisingly, conservative media went ballistic: Here was proof that Comey was not the upstanding and independent lawman that he pretends to be, that Clinton only got away scot-free because of the system, and that Trump was right to remove Comey from his post. Even more unsurprisingly, Trump seized on the revelation to zing Comey once more:

There are a few problems with this. First, as Comey’s good buddy Ben Wittes pointed out on Twitter, Comey may have simply been preparing for a likely outcome:

In other words, it’s not necessarily out of the ordinary.

But the other problem is that it contradicts Trump’s own reasoning for firing Comey in the first place. The initial justification for Comey’s firing was contained in a letter from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, which criticized Comey for overstepping his bounds as FBI director and for publicly announcing the reopening of the Clinton investigation days before the election. So Trump is attacking Comey for both exonerating Clinton and going after her.

Of course, Rosenstein’s letter was always a flimsy pretext. Comey was obviously fired for not shutting down the Russia investigation after Trump asked him to. But that flimsy pretext also served as a defense against the allegation that Trump obstructed justice by firing Comey.

Fox News reported Thursday afternoon that the Trump administration will end Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals:

DACA grants undocumented immigrants protection from deportation if their parents brought them illegally to this country as children. They must have a high school diploma or GED, and they must pass a background check. As of this year, DACA protected about 750,000 young people from deportation—something Trump pledged to change during his campaign for president.

Though the White House hasn’t issued a formal policy, McClatchy reports that the administration will most likely allow DACA beneficiaries to stay in the U.S. until their current work permits expire. Trump will say this is a compassionate compromise. It is not. It will split up families and uproot individuals who have spent most of their lives in this country.

The decision will also inflict economic harm, CNBC reports:

The research follows a study earlier this year by the Center for American Progress that estimated the loss of DACA workers would reduce U.S. gross domestic product by $433 billion over the next 10 years.

That economic impact would be felt unevenly across the country. California, with an estimated 188,000 DACA workers, would suffer a GDP loss of $11.3 billion a year, according to the CAP research. Texas would lose $6.1 billion in GDP annually, and North Carolina would lose $1.9 billion a year.

None of this matters to Trump, who must appease the bigots who form the hard core of his support. Ten conservative states are suing the federal government over DACA, which they say is unconstitutional. The move may actually be less popular with the larger Republican base; according to polling from Morning Consult, most Republican voters think DACA beneficiaries should be allowed to become citizens.

Nevertheless, most of them voted for Trump knowing full well about his xenophobia. Trump is betting they won’t care much, and he’s probably right.

In May, Kushner’s family company apologized for using Kushner in pitches to foreign investors, after being caught playing up his connection to the president in China. This brazen conflict of interest was an early example of what many feared about Trump’s presidency: that Trump, his family, and those around him would use the presidency to enrich themselves.

Two months later, people connected to the Kushner family’s business were reportedly still advertising Jared’s role in the government to try to attract investment. And on Thursday, Bloomberg posted a doozy of a story alleging that the company’s angling for foreign capital wasn’t limited to China. The Kushner Company is badly over-leveraged—it owns half of the $1.2 billion dollar mortgage, which is due in 18 months, on a hilariously on-the-nose 666 Fifth Avenue tower. They are desperate for cash and have been criss-crossing the globe for two years to try to get help.

Over the past two years, executives and family members have sought substantial overseas investment from previously undisclosed places: South Korea’s sovereign-wealth fund, France’s richest man, Israeli banks and insurance companies, and exploratory talks with a Saudi developer, according to former and current executives. These were in addition to previously reported attempts to raise money in China and Qatar.

Kushner’s father-in-law has cast him as a Mr. Fix It—a dealmaker in the Trump mold. But 666 Fifth Avenue, which Kushner thought was a slam dunk, is haunting his family. With the clock ticking, it’s also a serious conflict of interest, especially given Kushner’s foreign policy portfolio.