Iran Talks Nearly BLOWUP After Trump Threatens Negotiators

Good morning, everybody.Happy Monday.We have an amazing show for everybody today.What do we have for us all?

Indeed, we do.So, rocky start to the negotiations yesterday, but J .D.Manns this morning is claiming that progress was made.Jeremy Scahill is going to join us to break down what we know.Hawks, of course, still out there doing their thing.

Lindsey Graham with some interesting comments, which we are forced to take note of.Polling shows the American people correctly believe that the Iran war was a complete disaster, which we lost, so they are in touch with reality there.the has endorsed a number of candidates in their primary races.Two of those candidates are going to join me and Ryan live.That would be Claire Valdez and Daria Liza.So the show is going to be a little bit late because we're talking about two campaigns day before election day.

So we needed to work with their schedule.So the show will go out a little bit later than usual, but I think it will be worth it in the end.

That's right.We're doing our best to your premium subscribers, but at least we're keeping you updated and we'll be putting out this first part a little bit early.Please subscribe to the show.BreakingPoints .com.We'll be doing our live AMA tomorrow.

if you want to support us.And if you're watching this on YouTube, hit subscribe to our YouTube channel.And if you're listening to the podcast, please share an episode with a friend.Rate us five stars.It really helps other people find the show.But let's go ahead and kick it off with this morning, literally just minutes ago, the vice president giving a press conference updates from these high -level negotiations between, who is it, Pakistan, Qatar, the Iranians, and the United States.

So it was a little bit touch and go yesterday.We'll get to that in a moment.But the vice presidentthis morning is claiming some significant progress.Let's go ahead and play a one.

Yesterday was a very very good day.We made a lot of good progress.We did exactly what we wanted to do which is accomplish four things for the American people.First we wanted to build a mechanism for keeping the Strait of Hormuz open.It is open.We've seen, of course, gas prices and oil prices come down, millions and millions of barrels of crude and natural gas flowing through the Strait of Hormuz that weren't flowing before.

But we also wanted to make sure that we actually set up the coordination mechanism so that we could demine the Straits of Hormuz so that when there are the conflicts that inevitably come up, we can make sure we work through them rather than that leading to escalation.And that is exactly what we did yesterday.Number two, we also wanted to build a mechanism, a similar mechanism, for de -confliction for the regional ceasefire.As the President of the United States has himself said, sometimes these ceasefires just mean you're shooting a little bit less, but we wanted to make sure that we had the proper coordination set up so that if there is shooting, if Hezbollah fires at Israel or if Israel responds, if there are other conflicts that arise in the region, we're actually talking to each other and figuring out how to stop the shooting how to make the region safer, our allies and everybody else.We set that up as well.Number three, we, and this is probably what we're most excited about as Americans, the Iranians have agreed to invite IAEA inspectors back into their country.

That is a major milestone for the American people and the first step in permanently denuclearizing or permanently ending a nuclear weapons program in Iran.

So the vice president, they're selling the Iranians willingness to allow IAEA inspectors in as a big win for the U .S.Of course, this was the sort of thing that was on the table before all the bombs fell.But nevertheless, let's put that aside.The other piece that hereally elaborates there is this de -confliction process in what he describes as a regional ceasefire, of course, that centers on Israel and Lebanon and their continued bombing of Hezbollah and of Beirut and the southern Lebanon area.

He was asked to elaborate further on that, obviously, that being a very key piece of whether or not this deal will go forward.Let's go ahead and take a listen to that.

I know Mr. Arachi said it was very good progress, Yeah, I would describe it as very good progress, too.

I mean, look, we want a regional ceasefire, right?We want Hezbollah to stop firing at our friends in Israel.We want Israelis to be able to live in peace.We also want to make sure that, you know, when things happen, they don't spiral into a broader escalation.And so we've been, I think, very good at setting up what we're calling a deconfliction mechanism.But what it really is, is to say that when things happen, the sides are actually talking to one another.

Sometimes, you know, you've got a bit of a chicken and egg problem, that you've got a who fires a drone that didn't have approval from the high But then sometimes that response, we could actually have a better and more peaceful situation if Israel responds in the context of a conversation that's ongoing between Hezbollah, Lebanon, Israel, and other partners in the region.There really hasn't been a mechanism to have those discussions until basically around 4 p .m.yesterday, Bergenstock time, when we set that up.

So, that is the U .S.side.The joint mediators, Qatar and Pakistan, also put out a statement.We can put a zero up on the screen.A lot of this is—I'll read a little bit of this.

The first session of high -level talks under the framework have concluded with the participation of representatives of the Islamic Republic of Iran, United States of America, and the two mediating parties.and Qatar.

American side really needs Iran at least in the interim, a actual dedication to wanting to rein in the Lebanon conflict.But that remains the single biggest problem.I will say.the technical side, one detail.That's very important from what you read there about the actual way that this is going to be worked out.And actually, this should give you more of confidence in this.

Is it effectively right now, the United States is delegating the technical responsibility of the details to Qatar and to Pakistan, who actually have worked genuinely tirelessly over the last hundred days or so to get us to this moment.If it was just up to Jared and Whitcoff, we're screwed in terms of the seriousness of whether that's going to happen.However, when you have the Pakistanis and the Qataris, who over the next 60 days will actually be negotiating a lot of this stuff, and you get the IAEA back involved, then it is very possible that we actually could end up with some sort of technical deal.So that's actually a very positive development, in my opinion, from the US.But overall, I mean, this is the vice president.He's not the president.

And as we're all about to show you, I have no doubt in my mind, if JD Vance was the president of the United States, we wouldn't have much, first of all, I don't think we'd be in this damn war, but second, I don't think that we'd be having all this, they, won't they, or any of this.He has made repeated statements about Israel is just like any other country.They have a right to self -defense, so does everybody in the region.You're like, oh, what was that?You know, in terms of self -defense.But Trump can change his mind at any moment.

Same guy who got us into this mess in the first place, and as we're all about to show you, nearly destroyed the talks.I mean, do you think that J .D.in the middle of the talks would lean across the table and threaten to kill the negotiators?Probably not, but that's what Trump did.Literally while the negotiations were in route, which kicked off this whole, will they, won't they mess as it starts.

So that's the problem is Trump is the wild card on top of all of this.And ultimately he can very easily kill this entire thing.He's the leader, he's the president.We're looking and trying to analyze the words of the vice president.I have no doubt that he actually wants the deal.Where's the secretary of state, national security advisor, the most powerful national security official in 50 years.

Taking a backseat responsibility.state.Trump's ego really reared its ugly head yesterday and threatened to blow up the talks before they even began.He did an interview with Fox News' Trey Gingst and threatened the Iranians.That understandably caused a lot of upset from them.It actually is in violation of the terms of the 14 -point deal, the first element, I believe, of which is, hey, we're not going to threaten each other anymore.

Trump violates that immediately.So let's go ahead and take a listen to A2.

President Trump tells Fox News he spoke with Iranian officials overnight and said, you close it and you won't have a country.He went on to tell these officials, you won't even make it back to your effing country.Now, earlier today, Iran's President Massoud Pazeshian said this about Iranian enrichment of uranium.The president also reacting to that.Take a listen.

We will not give up our right to enrichment.And they, too, will be forced to accept it.You all know what the so -called president of the United States was saying.He had made a complete 100 -degree turn.He was saying that Iran must surrender unconditionally.Iran has no right to do this.

It has no right to do that.

During our call, responded directly to those comments by Iranian President Massoud Pazeshkian.President Trump told Fox News he better watch his mouth, he better shape up, or we'll take over the rest of the country.

Better shape up threatens to literally murder them before they leave the negotiations, so obviously not helpful.Iran must immediately stop their highly paid proxies in Lebanon from causing trouble.If they don't, we will hit Iran very hard again, just like we did last week, only worse.harder.So threatening them also over Lebanon.Iran appeared early on to walk out.

And actually, there were multiple news reports in Wall Street Journal and other mainstream outlets and in Iranian media claiming that they had walked out of negotiations altogether before they even commenced.We can put a four up on the screen.You can see the moment when that's a Rachi on the screen there.He's meeting, you know, he's speaking with a Pakistani official and then he exits the room.also a Israel's look at the tanker traffic, American officials are really trying to tow it out of the straits back open and, you know, vessels are transiting through, you can see that we are nowhere near back to the levels that things were at prior.to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

So we're in a bit of a Schrodinger's Strait of Hormuz situation right now.Is it open, is it closed?Hard to say, but perhaps Jeremy Scahill can illuminate the situation for us as he always does.

It's open -ish, you know, kind of open depending on how you look at it.But as you said, we got Jeremy here.I'm sure he's been on the phone overnight.He's gonna update us on the Iranian side, their understandings.Let's get to it.

Joining us now is co -founder of DropSight News and great friend of the show, Jeremy Scahill.Great to see you, Jeremy.Good to see you, man.

Thanks for having me back.

So what do you make of the on -again, off -again nature of the talks yesterday?J .D.Vance's positive comments this morning.What do you think came out of the first day of negotiations?

I think it's important to remember there's a really ferocious debate happening right now in Iran, among the kind of most important political echelons in the country.And there's a very vibrant debate among the broader public in Iran about whether or not the Iranians should even be meeting with J .D.Vance or certainly with Donald Trump, given that they assassinated the supreme leader of Iran and were responsible for more than 3 ,000 deaths of Iranians during the course of this war that began on February 28th.plane landed, there was a lot of pushback on the idea that they would have any sort of a photo op with J .D.

Vance or potentially Donald Trump if he had decided to attend.At the same time, you had Netanyahu and the Israelis doing their best to try to preemptively sabotage this by expanding their massive bombing of Lebanon, their ground operations in Lebanon.And so even before the Iranian plane landed in Switzerland, the Iranian military had announced that it had closed again the Strait of Hormuz.And so you had that as the kind of backdrop to all of this.And so when Arachi and Ghalibaf, the two lead Iranian negotiators, walked out of that photo op,and then marched down the hallway.

It was a multifaceted rationale as to why exactly they did that.And, you know, I was told when there were reports emerging that the Iranians had canceled the talk, a senior Iranian official told me right away, that's that's just simply not true, that this was a an action that our delegation needed to take.The Iranians still very much view themselves as having having leverage.You know, you mentioned also Donald Trump's almost like sociopathic threats to assassinate the Iranian negotiators if they didn't sort of capitulate to his demands.This has been Trump's behavior for a very long time.And you can contrast that with the kind of level nature of J .

D.Vance's talking.And part of the reason why they have Vance there is probably because Vance is able to keep his cool here.And I think there are real questions.You know, we talked about on this show before.the Iranians brought in senior psychologists to assess Donald Trump.

And they felt that when the psychologists got involved, that the messaging started being received in a much better way with Donald Trump.They were talking about it clinically.When Trump behaves like this, and he's basically saying, we're going to assassinate you, it makes perfect sense why the Iranians would believe that it's necessary to have psychological professionals involved with these kinds of talks.And remember, too, the Israelis did try to assassinate the Hamas negotiators late last year in Qatar, while they were gathering to deliberate over a proposal that Donald Trump had delivered to them.So it's not just sort of empty threats being hurled out here.So I would say that the current situation is like this.

The Israelis may be forced to cease their fire for some period of time in Lebanon.It does seem, from what Vice President Vance said, that the U .S.position is that the Israelis are going to remain entrenched, at least in some portions.of southern Lebanon, if not in all of the positions they're in for the time being.They're talking about doing some experimental zoning of a ceasefire.

But the Iranians, I think, have made it very clear to the world and certainly to the United States that they consider Lebanon a red line.Whether the Iranians will allow the sort of negotiations to proceed even while Israeli troops are entrenched in Lebanon is another question.Abbas Arachi, the Iranian foreign minister, did indicate last week that in communications to Hezbollah, he said that this would be something that would be addressed in the context of the bigger negotiations over a broader deal.So Netanyahu clearly is going to want to try to sabotage this.As for the sort of particulars, yes, technical teams are negotiating, But it appears as though the United States, again, didn't actually bring its own high -level nuclear experts.The Iranians, again, they show up with a suite of individuals with PhDs, multidisciplinary, and the U .

S.largely shows up with J .D.Vance and a couple of guys carrying last week's golf scores.The idea that J .D.

Vance has to be calling international nuclear experts at 2 a .m., as he indicated in his press conference today, that should really raise a lot of eyebrows.Why isn't the U .S.

sending very serious negotiators on the nuclear issue if, as Donald Trump says, that was the most important thing.point of Frankly, easier to just doubt.much of this.Curious for your reaction to that.That was my reading of the Pakistan memorandum.

Yeah, I mean, again, let's remember, too, that the Omanis were really the expert mediators between the United States and Iran.And because of Steve Whitkoff's behavior and the White House's behavior, they toxified the relationship with the most knowledgeable force that the U .S.had been working with for decades on this issue.The Qataris have really emerged as the primary mediators right now.Yes, Pakistan gets to put its signature on these documents, but it's quite clear that Qatar is now in the prime position taking the lead on all of this.

And I think we have to remember, again, a concession that President Trump made that is very important, is that he basically said, we don't actually need the enriched uranium to be taken outside of Iran.We can deal with it inside of Iran.That's been the Iranian position going back a year, going back many years when they're talked about potential framework for negotiation.So the Iranians also feel that they want a coup of sorts because Donald Trump is no longer saying they're not allowed to do any enrichment whatsoever if they reach a deal with the United States.That's a massive concession if you just go back a few months or even a few weeks to what Donald Trump was saying.But I think your suspicion is correct.

in part is true.It might not be limited to the Qataris or the Pakistanis.It also seems like the U .S.wants to kind of co -opt the IAEA, which is supposed to be a neutral international body, into effectively being the U .S.

enforcer of this.That's why they're pushing for IAEA inspectors or monitors to go into Iran very soon.But, you know, if you go back and you look at the roster that the U .S.brought, just from an American perspective, doesn't matter if you're Democrat or Republican, just look at it from a purely technical perspective.It's good diplomacy and responsible statecraft to bring actual experts that also have security clearances in your country, that also know how to prepare information that can be briefed

the President of the United States.When you're outsourcing these core issues that the President has defined as the single most important issue to the IAEA or to Qatar or to Pakistan, then you're sort of saying, well, we don't need American expertise in the room.And it just goes to show you, again, it's another indicator of how kind of fraudulent the entire architecture of justifying this war was from the very beginning.

Yeah, that is so well said.Let's talk a little bit more about Netanyahu in Lebanon.As you indicated, you know, they do not seem like they're willing to withdraw from southern Lebanon.Let's go and take a listen to a little bit of Netanyahu's recent comments on that front.

As long as we need to protect our people, we will remain in the security zone in south Lebanon.And the reason, the reason is perfectly understood.No country would be asked to do otherwise.Now, you imagine the United States across the border.You have thousands, an army of thousands of terrorists who pellet your cities and your towns with rockets and ballistic missiles and killer drones.They kill your soldiers.

They kill your citizens.They kill your children.And they threaten them every day.Well, what would America do?Would it say, well, there's nothing we can do?

Jeremy, the memo of understanding explicitly talks about Lebanese sovereignty.Is this going to be acceptable to the Iranians?

I suspect it won't.I mean, it will be if, in fact, Donald Trump and J .D.Vance are able to restrain Netanyahu and the Israelis genuinely do stop firing.Then I think there is a window open where the Iranians can then say, OK, there is a, quote unquote, cessation of fire happening right now.And now we need to address the issue of the withdrawal.

And that may buy some time.And again, Arachi has indicated that that may be the reality the Iranians arewilling to accept.On the flip side of this, Netanyahu, in particular, has a real expertise in violating ceasefires.You know, Rafat al -Arir, the Palestinian poet and writer from Gaza who was assassinated by the Israelis during the genocide, often remarked that the Israeli definition of a ceasefire is that we fire and you cease.And we're certainly seeing that in Gaza, where the Israelis have killed more than a thousand Palestinians since the so -called ceasefire was signed in October.

And so I would suspect that if Netanyahu tries to replicate that definition of a ceasefire, that this is going to become a potential deal breaker every single time there's an incident.There's a parallel track happening, which if you listen to what President Trump and J .D.Vance have said.They're a little bit contradicting each other over the weekend in the messaging.Donald Trump is supposedly claiming that he's going to get Ahmed al -Sharaa, the president of Syria, that he claims he personally installed in power, that somehow a former al -Qaeda leader is going to lead the charge to dismantle and destroy Hezbollah in another state inside of Lebanon.

Sharaa gave an interview to Lebanese TV, where he seemed to push back against that and talked about respecting the sovereignty of Lebanon and then saying that he's willing to engage with leaders of Hezbollah and others.So at least publicly, he's indicating that that's not going to happen, even though Trump was sort of saying, oh, the final touches are being put on this new war.We're going to start involving the Syrians going into Lebanon, which would be an utter bloodbath and an insane bit of lunacy even by Trump standards.But then you have JD Vance.saying some interesting things.He says that the agreement talks about the territorial integrity of Lebanon.

Now, the Iranians say that means you can't have Israeli occupation forces there.J .D.Vance seemed to indicate that it needs to be aimed at resolving the issue ofHezbollah.And this is why there's this other track where they're trying to co -opt, the United States and Israel are trying to co -opt the Lebanese government under President Joseph Aoun into essentially serving as the Lebanese counterterrorism force that's going to go in and crush Hezbollah.

So I would imagine what Vance is kind of doing.trying to prepare the public for, or what indicates the US position behind closed doors, is that they're going to try to say, We can get the Israelis to leave as long as the Lebanese army, which is trained in part and supported by the United States.And this is what Israel has been calling for.If we can get the Lebanese army to come in and take over Hezbollah positions, that also is reasserting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Lebanon.That though raises questions of civil war, civil strife, civil conflict in Lebanon.When you don't have a political resolution in a Lebanese context to the question of Hezbollah, which is not just an armed actor in the region.

It also has members of parliament affiliated with it.And up until recently was actually a crucial part of the government before it was sort of forced out of it.So it does seem like Vance's track on this is to try to merge this secondary peace, so -called peace process that the White House has been orchestrating with this MOU.And the idea is that the U .S.could sort of pick two flowers with one hand by saying, oh, we're stopping the Israelis from firing.

And by the way, the Lebanese army is now going to take up positions in the south of Lebanon, which will be resisted by a lot of supporters of Hezbollah.So this issue is going to get very, very complicated.It's the single greatest issue that has the potential to blow the entire deal up, in part because the Iranians have made it abundantly clear that they view Hezbollah as their ally, that they view Hezbollah as a party to this.and that they view the United States and Israel in violation of the deal as long as that war continues.

It's not like they're just going to surrender their own, like you said, look, this is a decades -long problem inside of Lebanon.They're not just gonna cede all of their own authority, hard fought in this particular case, to the Lebanese government, especially if it's under control of the United States.Last thing, I do wanna clear up something I said earlier where I mentioned that the deconfliction cell would include Israel.Currently, the initial report, Jeremy, is that it actually won't include Israel.I'm not sure, I mean, maybe that's a good thing if the United States would actually tell Israel Israel, what to do and what not to do.At the same time, per Netanyahu's comments, they're not going to stop the number or the types of strikes they're continuing to do in Lebanon.

So it does seem as if that may not be useful, this so -called deconfliction cell, if it is not going to actually be able to restrain Israeli behavior, which I feel like is a common theme.

I mean, it also speaks in part, again, we don't know what's happening behind the scenes between the United States and Israel at this point, but the Israelis are also ferociously trying to resist themselves being party to this Iran deal.I mean, that's Netanyahu's messaging, is that Donald Trump, as president of the United States, has a right to make a deal with Iran, but Israel is not bound by those terms.It's what he's using to justify their continued presence in Lebanon.He's going to try to spin any sort of agreement that he makes that clearly is related to the MOU as having to do with the bilateral relationship between the United States and the bilateral relationship Israel has with the Lebanese government, and to avoid it being that they're making some deal that's an omnibus package.But in the issue of this deconfliction, when they implemented a similar monitoring mechanism for Gaza, The fact that they didn't include the Palestinian side sent a very clear message that this was just a U .S.

-Israeli project that was operating under the veneer of being some kind of a monitoring cell.I think in this case, what Vance is talking about with the establishment of this is literally to try to stop the Israelis from blowing up the deal and to try tohave a mechanism to speak directly to the Iranians.They also opened a line of communication that has to do with the Strait of Hormuz.But in the broader picture, if we zoom up to 30 ,000 feet, I think we have to look at this as kind of two separate but related tracks.On the one hand, We have the short -term realities that the Israeli war in Lebanon has the potential to really blow up this deal.

And I would also add to that Donald Trump's erratic behavior.The Iranians are fed up with him making these public threats, and they're under pressure from their own government.Remember, the supreme leader of Iran did not wholly endorse this MOU.He simply granted consent for Iran's political leaders to move forward with these negotiations.And there are a lot of Iranians, including prominent members of the Iranian parliament, who are adamantly opposed to what Ghalibaf and Arachi are doing, meeting with J .D.

Vance, meeting with the Americans.So all of those things together create very unstable terrain that this is operating on.Yes, the Iranians do seem to be succeeding in getting some of their assets unfrozen.J .D.Vance said this thing about they need to import American soy, American corn.

We'll have to see what the Iranians say about that deal.In the longer term, if this moves on and the Iranians are not getting substantial sanctions relief, and the nuclear issue, Donald Trump could blow the whole thing up and say, oh, wait a minute, no, we do need to go in and take the nuclear dust.We actually have to send the Marines in to retrieve this.The whole thing could go south very, very fast.The Iranians, the most important thing to them in terms of the war is they feel that they've succeeded in restoring deterrence.That no matter what Donald Trump says, or Lindsey Graham saying, oh, the next step is Donald Trump's going to go in and seize the Strait of Hormuz.

Good luck with that, without losing a substantial number of American soldiers I mean that's lunacy the kind of lunacy Lindsey Graham has put his banked his entire career on, but just to show you how the neocon nutcases in Washington think about this, you just need to watchany comments from Lindsey Graham.But I think the Iranians feel like they have a win -win in a sense.Yes, I think they would prefer comprehensive sanctions relief, a state of non -aggression with the United States, an ability to sort of allow their society to thrive free of suffocating sanctions.I think all of that is true.But it's also true that there is political support at the highest levels of power in Iran for taking a much harder line and saying, if the United States doesn't learn its lesson, we keep slapping them back.

And by slapping, we mean using the option of military force or asymmetric tactics to shut down the global economy as it depends on the Strait of Hormuz.

That was actually the last piece I wanted to get from you.We could put A6 back up on the screen.This is the tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.You know, Trump, in what I think was an honest moment, said that it would be bedlam if we kept the Strait of Hormuz closed.The oil markets would be a disaster.We know that oil executives came to him and And basically like, listen, buddy, we've kept it together here so far.

Basically, China has saved our asses by reducing their imports of oil significantly.But this can't go on forever.What is your understanding of the current state of play of the Strait of Hormuz?Because we talked earlier about how Iran has said that they have closed it again or limiting traffic again because of Israeli violations of the MOU in Lebanon.

I mean, I think this is another staggering admission off the cuff by Donald Trump.And it just shows the hubris.He thought, oh, this thing is all sewn up.I have it.The stock market's going to be celebrating me again.And we're going to have the price of oil is going to plummet.

And the Iranians, and I think they also understood the market manipulation tactics at play here.I think they timed their closure of the Strait of Hormuz in sync with Trump's constant recurring attempts to manipulate markets by making certain decisions public on the various stages.the negotiations.But I think it's quite clear that Iran has a very firm handle of control over the Strait of Hormuz.This was something that the Iranians had contemplated doing for many, many years.It's not like this was just something they cooked up when the United States and Israel bombed February 28th.

They understood the global impact it was going to have.And they stopped short of doing this during other wars, I think because they felt like this is going to be a tool we'll bring out when we feel we're facing an existential threat.And now that they've done it, and now that they've emerged with their state intact, with their government intact, and with the world being quite nervous about the idea of another war in Iran, and combine that with Donald Trump's admission about the actual cost of this and how close the United States came to an even further catastrophic economic situation, I think it ultimately puts cards back in the hands of the Iranians.

Well said, Jeremy.Thank you for your analysis, man.Really spot on.

Appreciate you guys.Thanks for all your work.