With a new CNN poll showing the American people split over the Iran nuclear deal, Secretary of State John Kerry was back on the Hill on Tuesday, testifying before the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

As well as warning that rejection of the deal would have “dire consequences” Sec Kerry said that the impending release of Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard was not tied to the agreement.

Kerry wasn’t the only one lobbying for the deal today.

While if world leaders and senior members of the Obama administration can’t convince Congress, there’s always Morgan Freeman and Jack Black.

Aaron David Miller writes at CNN on why there is such public uncertainty.

Such skepticism is hardly surprising, partly because it’s based on negative attitudes toward Iran that have been building since the 1979 revolution and hostage crisis. A Gallup poll earlier this year found only 11% of Americans surveyed had a favorable opinion of Iran — the lowest percentage of 22 countries, including Syrian, Russia and North Korea.

Indeed, if the Iran story were filled with heroic acts of peacemaking — with pictures to highlight historic breakthroughs and handshakes, such as the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty — there might be a much more uniformly positive reaction. But President Obama is — fairly or not — a polarizing figure. And the Iranian mullahs are hardly poster children for pro-American sensibilities.

On the other side of the equation, there’s Ted Cruz,

 

while another GOP Presidential candidate, Mick Huckabee, doubled down on his inflammatory holocaust rhetoric in criticizing the deal.

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* POLITICS * Talking of Donald Trump, as next week’s Fox GOP debate approaches, Billionaire Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban thinks his fellow TV personality has “changed the game” of traditional politics. MSNBC reports:

Cuban took to his Cyber Dust messaging app this week to congratulate Trump, referring to the Republican presidential candidate as “probably the best thing to happen to politics in a long, long time.”

“I don’t care what his actual positions are,” Cuban wrote. “I don’t care if he says the wrong thing. He says what’s on his mind. He gives honest answers rather than prepared answers. This is more important than anything any candidate has done in years.”

Trump, of course, has already picked up the crucial Dennis Rodman endorsement.

While, in the spirit of ‘game-changing’, the Trump campaign on Tuesday was on the back foot after comments by one of its top advisers were reported by The Daily Beast.

http://twitter.com/timkmak/status/626062412442169344

http://twitter.com/BuzzFeedAndrew/status/626205529199759360

 

Away from the campaign trail, Conservative Republican Congressman Mark Meadows of North Carolina began a formal challenge to oust House Speaker John Boehner. A “motion to vacate” has only ever been successful once, 105 years ago.

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* WORLD * Britain and France are both pledging action over what Prime Minister David Cameron called a “very concerning” situation at the Calais Eurotunnel terminal.

Two men are due to appear in court in Zimbabwe on Wednesday in connection with the killing of a lion by a Minnesota dentist who reportedly paid $55,000 to do so. Walter Palmer felt the fury of the internet for most of the day on Tuesday. The Minneapolis Star-Tribune reports:

Chelsea Hassler, outreach director with the Twin Cities-based Animal Rights Coalition, said her group and “many outraged citizens” intend to protest outside Palmer’s office on Wednesday afternoon.

 

Authorities in Waller County, Texas, released new footage of Sandra Bland in custody, with the aim of countering rumors that she was already deceased in her booking photograph.

The White House rejected a petition calling for a pardon for NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.

 

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* MEDIA *  The New York Times editor, as well as the paper’s ombud, addressed the paper’s troublesome Hillary Clinton email story.

Meanwhile, Pew published a report on perceptions of trustworthiness in media organizations, broken down by audience age group.

(Pew Research Center)

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* BUSINESS * Microsoft is preparing for the rollout of Windows 10.

Twitter executives were surprisingly candid on an earnings call on Tuesday. The New York Times reports:

Twitter’s top executives acknowledged on Tuesday that despite huge name recognition for its social network, the vast majority of potential customers did not understand how or why to use the service, stunting its growth. And even among regular users, less than half check it daily.

Despite a 61 percent increase in revenue and a narrower net loss than a year ago, the company’s shares fell sharply on the back of slow growth in user numbers.

 

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* SPORTS * Michel Platini, the French President of Uefa, is expected to announce sometime this week that he will be a candidate for the Presidency of Fifa in succession to Sepp Blatter.

New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady had his four-game suspension over the “deflategate” controversy upheld by the NFL. The Boston Globe writes that

But at this point, given how badly Brady feels he is being mistreated, he might as well fight this thing to the end. Take Goodell to court and shine a big microscope on the NFL’s appeals and discipline processes. It’s gotten bigger than the fate of the Patriots’ 2015 season. Sorry, Bill Belichick.

Finally, the NFL made some headlines of a positive kind involving women, hiring the first-ever female member of a coaching staff as Jen Welter took up an appointment with the Arizona Cardinals.