Status of the Iran Conflict

There's the high level committee, which was just Jadie Vance on our side who before the talks even started was like, look, I don't really know anything about this stuff, but I'm just gonna go in there and chat them up because we all know, Jadie Vance's personality wins over everybody. Yes. I mean, that man, yeah, whew could talk a woman in white gloves into a ketchup popsicle, you know what I mean? Charm. Exactly. That's what we all say I'm Jane Coston and this is What A, the show wishing a happy eleventh anniversary to one of the best days of my life. Take it away, twenty fifteen MSNBC. We have read from the bench. There is a right to marriage equality. I repeat speaking to you from the steps of the Supreme Court, there is a right to marriage equality read just from the bench now waiting to get the opinions as they come running out of the court. Thomas. This is a big day. Again, Ari Melber is standing there telling us that the court has ruled in favor of marriage equality in the Ogre Vafell case. Yes, eleven years ago today, the Supreme Court ruled in a five to four decision that the fourteenth Amendment guarantees the right to marry to same sex couples. Marriage, it turns out , is pretty cool . On today's show, we talk to Tommy Vitor about the negotiations too, maybe, possibly, perhaps end President Donald Trump's war in Iran. Before we get into all that, here's what we're following today. Friday, june twenty sixth . There's a new gallop in NBC poll came out back four days ag o. Listen to this. Only twenty nine percent of Democrat voters now say they are proud to be American . Over half now say they want to live in another country . Go, go, go . We can't deport that money . Hm . Mack Johnson, why do you think people are ashamed of being American right now? Maybe it's the administration you coddled day in and day out while it runs rough shot over pretty much everybody . Unfortunately for us, House Speaker Mike Johnson was just an opening act for the Faith and Freedom Coalition Policy Conference today. President Trump headlined the conference and talked all about his love and tolerance for all humanity . Well , kind of. Our founders invoked the creator four times in the Declaration of Independence, four times. I wasn't mentioned once. I'm very upset . Not once. I've been reading all of those reports. Religion's really psh, it's going up if that were stuck we'd be very rich all of us. I think I'd be the greatest communist in history. Aside from blaming former President Joe Biden's administration for what he described as persecution of Christians by the government, Trump also bragged about establishing a white House faith office and took credit for restoring Christmas. Remember how you didn't celebrate Christmas under Biden? You're welcome . Moscow's Defense Ministry said Ukraine launched a major Thursday night attack on a dozen Russian regions, Russian held Crimea, and the surrounding seas. It appeared to be one of Kyiv's biggest drone assaults since the Kremlin's full scale invasion more than four years ago , with Russia's Defense Ministry saying its air defense is intercept ed six hundred and sixty Ukrainian drones. Ukrainian long range drones have been battering Russian oil production and energy facilities. According to Western officials and analysts, Ukraine's campaign has choked Russian fuel supplies and military deliveries, stalled Moscow's efforts on the battlefield, and heaped pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin . The rules governing classified international defense information apply equally to everyone , regardless of position and regardless of how long you have served with the United States government. This morning, just moments ago, John Robert Bolton II pled guilty in federal court to the unlawful retention of national defense information . I'm sorry . Did U. S. Attorney Kelly O'Hey just say the rules governing classified a national defense information apply equally to everyone ? I think she did, which is weird because there was a man who kept classified documents beside his toilet. Maybe ask him about it. In pleading guilty to a single count of illeg ally retaining national defense information, John Bolton, former Trump administration national security adviser, sealed a deal with federal prosecutors that could allow him to avoid prison time. Bolton agreed to pay a two point two five million dollars fine, forfeit his retirement pay for his federal service, and perform up to one hundred hours of community service. If you're wondering why Bolton and why now, all you have to know is that he became an outspoken critic of Trump after serving in his first administration. Bolton is scheduled to be sentenced in October . Burr . It's cold in here. That's because New York, the independent rent guidelines board just froze the rent. New York City Mayor Zora Mamdani has made good on a signature campaign pledge. On Thursday, the city's rent guidelines board, an independent panel of mayoral appointees, approved a rent freeze on one year and two year leases for people living in about one million rent stabilized apartments. It's another big win for Mumdani, who also slayed earlier this week when three congressional candidates he endorsed won their races in stunning fashion, unseating two Democratic incumbents and booking the party establishment. And that's the news . Let's talk about the war in Iran. Vice President JD Vance has been given a job no one really wants, ending the incredibly unpopular Iran war. He's been tasked with leading negotiations with Iranian counterparts to find a lasting solution that he thinks could quote transform the Middle East . Because that's so easy . But there are many, many obstacles in his way, like his boss, President Trump. See, Trump is very wishy washy on Iran. One day, he's threatening to end Iranian civilization. Another, Iranian leaders are, quote, very rational people who are just, quote, looking to help their country. And as the U. S. and Iran attempt to hammer out not just an end to the war, but a new nuclear deal, the president seems markedly uninterested in the whole thing. So for more on the mess that is trying to end the Iran war, I talked with Tommy Vitor. He's the co host of crooked media's Pod Save the World . Hey Tommy. Hello my friend. How you doing? I'm all right. Happy World Cup. Happy World Cup. Sadly, that's not what we're here to talk about. No. We have the fever. We do. We one hundred percent do. So direct talks between the U. S. and Iran are expected to start again next week, according to Pakistani mediators. Who all is at the table from each country? I think now it's going to be just the technical experts . There's the high level committee, which is just Jadie Vance on our side , who before the talks even started was like, look, I don't really know anything about this stuff, but I'm just going to go in there and chat them chat them up because we all know JD Vance's personality wins over everybody. Yes. I mean, that man, yeah , whew could talk a woman in white gloves into a ketchup popsicle, you know what I mean? Charm. Exactly that's what we all say. So it was just very technical experts. Yeah, I think it's technical experts who are going to try to hammer out some sort of deal. But you know, ultimately, King Trump is gonna have to decide or ag toreed whatever this is. So it's at his whim. And of course, Israel not involved . No , which is interesting. It is interesting because they are very much a party to the deal. They have been told that they will now have a ceasefire in Lebanon . They're not happy about that. Because they're not Netanyahu has an election coming up in October. He's very worried about this election because not only does it he need to stay in power, but staying in power keeps him out of jail . So that's the stakes for him. And he is getting crushed in Israel because of this deal because everyone thinks it's weak. He's getting attacked from the left from a Hakish perspective, he's getting attacked from the right. Everyone hates it. So he's going to for be w lookingays to blow up the de . We'll get back to my conversation with Tommy in a moment because like Katie Perry, Trump is hot and then cold, yes, and then no, in then and out, up and then down , out or on. So there's a lot more to cover. But if you like the show, make sure to subscribe, leave a five star review on Spotify Fine Up a podcast, watch us on YouTube, and share with your friends. More to come after some ads . What today is brought to you by Americans United for Separation of Church and State. 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Book your next vacation early on Verbo and save over one hundred and twenty dollars . Marise and shine. Avera savings one hundred and forty one dollars select homes only . Let's get back to my conversation with Tommy Vit or. What do we know about what the US and Iran have agreed to right now? Well, so right now there is a sixty day sanctions waiver that allows Iran to sell oil and gas and petroleum products . Steve Ratner, a progressive economist, estimated they could make up to ten billion dollars off of just that license over two months. But the Iranians are saying they could make forty billion dollars. Yes. So there's a range of estimates out there. At some point in the near future, Iran will get access to about twenty four billion dollars in unfrozen assets or currently frozen assets that will be unfrozen. This is basically money they made selling oil that got locked up in random bank accounts because of sanctions . And they're also going to try to hammer out a nuclear deal, which, you know, sounds like they haven't really started on that yet, but it does sound like Iran has at least agreed to down blend their highly enriched uranium stockpile, but maybe not ship it out. So here's where I'm at . As you said, the Trump administration has promised to give Iran a lot of money in this MOU despite Trump's claims that it wouldn't do that. It would. This week, the president said that the U. S. is going to use those frozen Iranian assets to buy soybeans from American farmers for the Iranian people. To all of this , I have one question What ? Like what are we what's happening here? Like I am struck by this rapid shift from we're going to destroy Iranian civilization . And even before Trump, this is part of the Axis of evil two . They seem nice. Everything's cool. We're going to give them soybeans. Love and money. Oh yeah, it's a real vibe shift. Everything is different. So on the Soybeans thing, Trump is claiming that the unfrozen assets will be used to buy U. S. agricultural products . As far as I can tell, this is made up out of nothing. JD Vance said this was Jared Kushner's brilliant idea, but the MOU says the following that the unfrozen funds quote shall be made fully usable for payment to any ultimate beneficiary designated by the central bank of the Islamic Republic of Iran. So if they want to buy soybeans , they can, but they don't have to under the terms of the deal. So I just don't I truly don't know what the hell Trump is talking about. On the vibe shift thing, yeah, Trump has talked gone from talking about Iran as our mortal enemy as this theological, you know, sort of like religious based extremist group to potentially our best friends in the region. I personally think that's a good thing. Like the United States , people lawmakers in the US talk about Iran in a crazy way. We hype the threat. We don't talk about them like they are human beings with politics and a diversity of opinions. It's like this monolithic evil that must be countered that's stupid. It's a country of ninety million people with leaders who are human beings who make political decisions just like anyone else. Like we should treat them more like a regular country. Also, it's pretty evident to me that we actually don't care about the evil that they do . They are executing protesters at a faster rate than they were before. Yeah . But JD Vance thinks, hey, let's take revolutionary guard members who the U. has S des.ignated them to be terrorists, and they're just going to go like be part of this and they'll talk to Sencom. Like it's not just that we don't treat them as human beings, it's that like all of the bad stuff that they do , we just clearly don't actually care very much about and is evidenced by all of this. Look, Trump doesn't give a shit about human rights violations, whether it's in Iran or Saudi Arabia or Russia or China or any of his favorite autocratic regimes. North Korea, for example, right? Trump Trump just doesn't care about human rights. This whole idea that he was going to ride to the rescue of the protesters was always made up. And in fact, he probably certainly harmed them JD Vance talks about the war like the benefit was the friends we made along the way . Like literally he was the cool thing is now we have someone to talk to. Yeah. And I want to say hold Ayatollah. Yeah, I a little was jerk. I just wanted like, Hey JD, like you could have just called them up, had some meetings, had some secret meetings. You know, you didn't need to bomb them to get an email address over there, but he seems to think that that's the upside. So we also know that Trump is very hot and cold on Iran, really depending on the day. Apparently today he's a little cold . He posted on through Social Today that Iran made, quote, a foolish violation of our ceasefire agreement by launching at least four dr one attacks on ships in the Strait of Hormuz, which brings me to my next question, the Strait of Hormuz. Which was open before all of this? I think it's important to mention that. What's going on there? What's happening? I think what's happening is the Iranians are saying that you can only pass through the Strait of H amus if you follow a designated route and ships that go outside of that designated route are getting punished with drones, armed drones exploding on their decks . So the idea that the Strait of Hormuz is fully open and we're back to normal and oil and gas is transiting through there in record numbers, like it's all just bullshit. Like Iran is demonstrating that they will be controlling the Strait of Humuz going forward and they,'re setting up all this infrastructure to charge fees , i. e. tolls, which Trump says won't exist, but will in the future . We mentioned Israel a little bit earlier. In the midst of all this, Israel has continued to strike Lebanon despite President Trump's polite request that they stop doing that. Trump made the point that like, you know, not every apartment building contains Hezbollah. Like you got to stop doing this, which I was like, worse person . Yeah. Makes a great point. So the US started this war with Israel. Like this goes back to last year . Can it make a successful peace deal without it? Because to your point, Netanyahu's under a lot of internal political pressure to not stop doing any of this . Yeah, I mean, look, the Israelis are occupying like six miles of territory into southern Lebanon. They have said clearly that they have plan to withdraw troops or get out of Lebanon. Hezbollah is an organization that exists to resist Israeli occupation. So there's going to be clashes there . I think the question is , can Trump, I think, said a ceasefire in the Middle East sometimes is about shooting less , right? And he was like saying something that sounded ridiculous, but had some truth to it. I think the question is, will the Israelis start bombing Beirut again? And if that happens, that's the sort of scenario where I think you see Iran fire back directly at Israel and things kind of pop off to that point . Trump has said many, many , many times that the Iran war is over or almost over or basically over. Yeah. But given Israel, given all everything we've just talked about, are we actually close to a deal? Because the White House just asked Congress for billions more dollars for quote urgent needs related to Operation Epic Furies. So like, at the end of the day , is the war coming to an end? Where are we? I mean, I think we have a ceasefire. It seems clear to me that Trump politically does not want to resume fighting because he knows it will lead to closure to Strait Ahmuds. Gas prices go up, bad politics for him, right? So he just wants this thing done and dusted. Now, the question is, do we have a nuclear deal? Absolutely not. Not even close. We'll see if they can negotiate one in the next thirty to sixty days . Consider me not all that hopeful. My guess is Trump just kind of drags this thing out, extends the ceasefire, kind of punts the harder questions forward for as long as he can , but you we' knowll, see. Tommy, as always, thank you for joining me. Thank you for having me. That was my conversation with Tommy Vitor, co host of Crooked Media's Pod Save the World . Before we go, guys, Crooked Con twenty twenty six is happening november fifth or seventh in Washington DC. It's going to be even bigger than last year, and last year was pretty big, not to brag. And I'll be there. We continue to believe that the answer to rising right wing authoritarianism is a