← Bulwark Takes
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- [00:00]
Mark
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- [00:30]
Sam Stein
Insurance isn't one size fits all. That's why drivers of trusted progressives name your price tool for years. Just tell Progressive what you want to pay and they'll show you coverage options that fit your budget. Visit progressive.com to find a car insurance rate that works for you. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates Price and coverage match limited by state law. Hey everybody, it's me, Sam Stein, managing at the Bulwark. We're here live following Donald Trump's press conference at the G7, a meandering affair, a bit wild even by his standards. Joined by Journal Mark Hurtling and Andrew Egger to break it all down. Guys, I, I honestly, I'm kind of like we're speechless about this because it was a weave, it was meandering, it didn't make sense at some points. At others it seemed oddly defensive, low energy. But then there was also some real substantive stuff, Mark, about what we should, how we should perceive this mou, this Memorandum of understanding that we have struck with Iran and that there doesn't seem to be actually much in the way of enforcement of the mou.
- [01:40]
Mark
Well, there's not much in the way of an MOU from I can tell. One of the things we've been talking about for the last several weeks as they first announced they were going to do an MOU is, is an MOU is not a diplomatic tool. It's sort of an agenda that you use to do further diplomacy, do further negotiations, do further talks, parse out what both sides want, and then come to a determination of exactly what you're gonna negotiate. He even admitted that earlier today that it's not a deal, it's an mou. And you know, the, there was just a rambling for the first time by the president of what an MOU is all about, which all of us have been talking about over the last couple weeks. Now, during this press conference, there seemed to be a desire to state that everything we're going to ask for is going to be accomplished if Iran doesn't do it. The repeating theme was we're going to bomb the hell out of them all or start shooting again or start the action all over again. And I, for one thing, part of getting this MOU on the table and getting people to negotiate was for him to have an off ramp for what he realized was a disaster. And yet now on the verge of doing an MOU and beginning negotiations, the off ramp has been pulled away and we're back on the potential for another on ramp for military action.
- [03:18]
Sam Stein
Play the clip that really personified this where essentially it's like, and I'm trying to be, I'm trying to be objective about it, but essentially it boils down to they will do what we want here, they will fulfill these kind of amorphous obligations of the MoU, or else we will bomb them again. Let's play the clip.
- [03:42]
Andrew Egger
So you're threatening to bomb Iran if
- [03:44]
Mark
they don't comply, but there's nothing enforceable in the deal itself, is that correct?
- [03:49]
Donald Trump
It doesn't have to be. I let him know, I said, look, if you don't adhere to the agreement, I don't want to do that, but we're going to bomb the hell out of you. And I don't think that they're going to veer from the agreement. What else am I going to do? Am I going to say I'm going to take you to court? Let me take you to court. Let me just, let me sue you? No, we're going to bomb the hell out of them if they violate the agreement. I don't want them to, I want them to honor the agreement.
- [04:15]
Sam Stein
All right, Andrew, that seems a little bit sort of reductive, but maybe you have a different view of it.
- [04:22]
Andrew Egger
Well, the catch 22 there, I mean, the substance of the question is we've all seen these draft versions of this MOU floating around and the whole, the whole predicate of the question is there isn't that much that's enforceable that Iran is actually committing itself to other than, you know, pinky promise not to go after a nuclear weapon, which we also had in the jcpoa and, and beyond that, all of the sorts of actual checks and actual accountability mechanisms and things like this that Republicans have wanted since the days of the jcpoa. Didn't think the JCPOA got us enough. None of that is in it. So that's why she's asking the question. She's asking how can we count on Iran to stick to this? So it's this weird back and forth situation here with the President where on the One hand, there's no reason to believe that Iran has committed itself to anything like what Iran hawks want to see in terms of actual, like concrete, we are not going to take this and that and the other step toward enrichment and things like this. But then on the other hand, Trump is saying we're going to bomb them if we think they're moving toward that. So it almost seems like he is saying that we are going to be looking for different measures that are not part of this agreement at all. And if Iran takes steps that we don't like, that aren't part of this agreement, that then we ourselves are going to violate this agreement and start bombing again. But at the same time, if I can just add one other thing, like Trump very plainly does see the need to sign something right now and that, that, that is another thing that he spent a ton of time talking about this.
- [05:53]
Sam Stein
We're going to get to that in a second. But I want to just talk about this idea of sort of a snapback enforcement mechanism with Mark for, for a minute. And I might be viewing this the wrong way, but I am admittedly going off of very limited information that we have. But it strikes me that the problem here is that we have a 60 day window at which point benefits will accrue, right? So all Iran has to do is be on good behavior for 60 days. They'll get their sanctions relief, they'll get the $300 million billion dollars, I should say they may even be able to start charging fees. On these straight of four moods. Let's put up this Associated Press news break that just happened right before we went on air. I don't know if we're able to do it. Probably not because it's a tweet. But under the news break it did say that they. Oh, there it is. So reporters were being read actual language from the MoU and among them was the AP and they said US draft of Iran agreement only secures toll free passage of the straight of Hormuz for 60 days. It doesn't preclude future fees. So this is what I'm going to ask you, Mark. Strikes me that the problem here is that after 60 days, Iran just needs to play nice for that. They get a bunch of benefits and then they could start kind of inching back in towards malignant behavior. They could put on a couple fees on the straight of Hormuz. They could be a bad regional actor in sort of minor ways, but not overt ways. They can do all the stuff that Donald Trump will say. Well, I Don't want to start bombing them again and get back into this situation, and they'll just kind of be in that bad status quo. Is that a fair read?
- [07:19]
Mark
It's an extremely fair read. And I'll go one step further and say 60 days puts us in the middle of August, and that's a whole lot closer to election. President Trump is doing what he's doing right now because I think his team is telling him we're tanking in a big way. And he even addressed that toward the end with polls. But if Iran decides after 60 days, playing for time, that they want to go longer, what you just said is exactly right, Sam. They're just going to kind of diddle away with it. And no one's. Are the ships all going to stay there during this period of time? Are all of the ammunition that's been fired at Iran going to be rebuilt over the next 60 days? Are we going to use that time frame to get another military force just sitting around in the Gulf to attack on a whim? Are we going to start drawing that down? It's a ludicrous combination of diplomacy and fallacy. You know, the President really believes that people will take his orders in other countries. And we're still just talking about Iran. Let's start talking about Israel. Let's start talking about the Gulf states. Let's start talking about Turkey and, and Europe and all the others that have a stake in this thing. Yeah, it's just, it's bizarre.
- [08:46]
Sam Stein
Now, Andrew, to your point, he did at some, at various junctures throughout, this kind of hint that he felt really pinched. Right. There is one moment where he was talking about how our munitions, our stockpile munitions, was getting dangerously low, or no, sorry, our oil stockpiles, global oil stockpiles are getting dangerously low. Said like four weeks, we would have been a real energy crisis. So that was a real hint. But he kept. He kept bringing up Herbert Hoover, like, over and over again as the President, he was desperately trying to avoid just letting the pretext kind of come out there. Let's play the clip of him referencing Hoover.
- [09:19]
Donald Trump
The only difference is that a player that's very volatile, very tough, very smart, frankly. You know, they have in one way a primitive culture, but it's also a genius primitive culture. They're very smart people, very good negotiators, but so are we. So rather than possibly going into a depression, rather than having your favorite president be Herbert Hoover, I was always the one I didn't want to be. I wouldn't have preferred Nixon I wouldn't have preferred. Plenty I wouldn't prefer. But the one I always thought of, Herbert Hoover. And he caused it. He raised taxes too fast and he raised interest rates too fast all at the same time. And it caused the Great Depression. So I don't think I'll make mistakes like that. I lowered.
- [10:14]
Sam Stein
Oh, my God. Well, that was a weave very much. There was one weave where he went from, like, Lebanon to Africa to Ebola to AI to electrical grids and so on and so forth. That was a better weave than that one. But, Andrew, if you're. If you're free to talk, I'm free to talk. Small child. This was what you're talking about. He's. There was something about this whole presentation where it's like, if I had kept going, folks, we would have been in real trouble.
- [10:42]
Andrew Egger
Yeah. The thing to understand about Trump, whenever he's talking, he can be just, you know, sitting in bed, tweeting or posting on True Social. Or he can be on the international stage at the G7. The first and foremost audience he is always talking to is some critic that he's imagining in his mind who he is mad at. And right now, these critics are Iran. Iran hawks in his party. It's guys like Mark Levin, and it's also Israel. It's people who want him to keep prosecuting the war who think he's getting cucked by Iran right now. And he is making repeated arguments throughout this speech that he was sort of forced to do this in a bunch of different ways. And this was one of them. He was saying, look, like you thought we were suffering economic pain now, you should have just seen what we were about to be suffering. You don't know how good we have it getting out of this conflict right now, which is a hilarious thing to say, say, because it, you know, completely justifies. And.
- [11:30]
Sam Stein
And he put us in the coffin.
- [11:32]
Andrew Egger
Exactly, exactly. And I mean, it's.
- [11:33]
Donald Trump
It.
- [11:33]
Andrew Egger
It is true. Iran had us over a barrel. You don't really expect the President to say that, but he was saying it. The other thing he kept saying, which was. Which was so funny through all of this, is like him obviously being mad at all of these people who are. Who are saying he's not tough enough on Iran. He's like, you know, you've never seen tough on Iran. None of you guys wanted me to go get Qassem Soleimani in my first term, and Israel didn't want me to do that. And. And, you know, none of these. None of these commentators wanted me to do that. But like, you know, so I went and got him and I bombed Iran now and I've done great and I've been amazing, so just shut up already and let me get us away from this depression that I was about to put us into if I didn't sign this deal. I mean, he really, he explicitly makes this argument throughout the course of this thing. And I don't know, he's. I made this point in Slack. He looked so grumpy and so, oh yeah, diminished and old. He's having negative run at this moment that they are trying to sell as this big triumph for the United States. And it is just so clear that even he is not really buying what they're selling on this.
- [12:33]
Mark
And, and, and the combination of I bombed him once, I bombed them twice, and if they pissed me off, I'm gonna bomb them again. It was a skit. I mean it was incredibly dumb and scary actually.
- [12:48]
Sam Stein
Mark.
- [12:48]
Mark
Mark.
- [12:49]
Sam Stein
How from just a sort of military standpoint, I mean, obviously we have an incredible amount of resources and personnel and munitions, but I am kind of curious how depleted we got. Obviously I kind of misinterpreted at one point when he was talking about oil, I thought he was talking about weaponry. But what's your sense of like how much we could have gone further on this path?
- [13:10]
Mark
Yeah, we could have, but it would have put every single contingency plan we have at risk in my view. And, and I used to be a long time ago when I was a one star, I was the J7 on the joint Staff. I which was the guy in charge of watching contingency plants and how much were we draining from one, Iraq and Afghanistan at the threat of draining others. What he's used is quite a bit of ammunition. Low density, high demand ammunition is what they call it. Ldht. So when you're talking about going another day, another week, starting it all over again, starting campaign, you're really putting other contingencies at risk. And that's not me saying that. That was the commander of Pacific Command saying that a couple of weeks ago when he said he was concerned about his various war plans and being able to have the right amount of ammunition.
- [14:06]
Sam Stein
There was a couple times during this, well beyond, beyond being sort of like amazed at Trump and his is kind of grumpiness. But there were a couple points in this where someone who covered The JCPOA in 2015, I, I was just like kind of blown away by how, how similar the structures are here. But obviously Trump will never admit it. So they're talking about at One juncture, you know, you're not paying Iran, but you are unfreezing their assets. And Donald Trump went into this great soliloquy about, well, it is their money, right? It's their money. Yeah, we, we're just, if, if we were to seize the money, if we were to seize their money, no one would ever invest in, in America again because you would have not, you wouldn't have the confidence they could get your money back. And I just light bulb went off. I was like, well, this is a sort of incredibly unsophisticated talking point, that unsophisticated version of the talking point that the Obama people use when they were unfreezing Iranian assets in 2015. And it just, it just blew me away. But then he went a bit further than even Obama did. He made the case proactively that the Iranians should keep some of their ballistic missiles, which is not something I ever heard any Obama administration official utter once in 2015. Let's listen to that.
- [15:24]
Donald Trump
So we'll be working on a parallel effort with the Gulf nations to address non nuclear issues such as the conventional ballistic missile missiles, which we'll be talking about and support. I mean, they have to have some because other people have some. You got to have some. Somebody said you shouldn't give them one. And I have guys, I like some of these guys, but I don't think this, I don't think they're smart, sir, you shouldn't let them have any missile. I said, well, what am I going to do? Am I going to let Saudi Arabia have missiles but they can't have them? Yes, sir. Doesn't work that way. You know, it doesn't work that way. And missiles aren't the problem. Missiles are. They hurt a little location, but they don't blow up the planet. So the Gulf nations will address the non nuclear issues as we'll be talking about the ballistic missiles and we'll talk also about the terrorist proxies that they have that we don't want that to happen.
- [16:26]
Sam Stein
But oh my God, I don't even know where to begin. It's just shocking to me that it happened. Of course everyone's gonna fall in line and be like, oh, he's a genius, of course they need some missiles. But it's just so amazing to me that he uttered it.
- [16:38]
Andrew Egger
Andrew, the other good, good moment that was along the same lines as this was he said, well, you know, we got 84, 85% of their missiles. And then his brain like jumped the track into the nuclear material talking point. Because he said, and by the way, the rest of the missiles, they're totally buried. They can't even get at them. They can't even use them. So like what's the problem? Right? And it's like, no, I mean, obviously Iran has not been exhausted in its capacity to deal damage if it wants to do damage. They have continued to show that in recent days when they have continued to launch these strikes on these countries. So yeah, I mean, I guess if you are Israel, you are happy that the United States has significantly diminished Iran's capacities in these respects. But the idea that they're finished, I mean, Pete Hegseth and these guys have been saying this for months now that they're like, you know, one more good barrage away from having spent their whole role. It's just not the case. And it is funny again to see Trump now acknowledging from the stage stuff that they have been insisting all along is basically the opposite. You know, where, where, where, where guys like Hegseth have said everything is going to be fine in the missiles department. Guys like Trump and Rubio and, and you know, Scott Besant have said, you know, the economy is going to be fine. Everything is just this little blip. And now we're acknowledging, okay, they're going to keep some missiles. And now we're acknowledging, okay, we were weeks away from a real crisis and we had to do, we had to cut bait basically and cut our losses and get out of here.
- [18:03]
Sam Stein
Yeah, I guess part of it is he wants to present this deal as some, some sort of re. Entrance of Iran into the global community. Right. And so of course they have to have funds to rebuild and they of course has to have weaponry. And then he wants them to sign the Abraham Accords. Like on top of that, it's not, it doesn't strike me as particularly realistic. I'm, we actually have a copy of the MOU and I'm sorting through it as I'm talking to you guys. But Mark, can you, while I sort through that, can you just sort of expand on that? Like how, how do you go about getting Iran back into the global community? Is it a realistic objective here?
- [18:37]
Mark
The, you know, if I can just comment on one other thing too about the jcpoa. You know, that was a year and a half effort in 159 page document and what we're currently seeing is we're going to go in and wing it. I mean that's really what is being publicized today. That. Okay, we might have a couple of talking points. I'm probably not going to be there to sign it. I'll let JD Sign it. There's nothing there. It is the terms of understanding by both sides of what they want to talk about, and neither side agree. And now that we have the alleged written document from one side, I'm not sure it represents the ideas of, again, Iran, the Iranian leadership. Certainly it doesn't represent what Israel wants. Certainly the Gulf states are going to have challenges with it because they're kind of questioning right now who's going to pony up the billions of dollars for the reconstruction. Of which Trump also said, well, it, you know, we're only going to give them 300 billion for reconstruction. They actually need a couple of trillion. So he's winging it. Even reconstruction. Yeah, the, the, the MOU is, it's, I would almost say it's a, it's a, it's a undergraduate war game of what you might put at a table for someone who has never done this before.
- [20:09]
Sam Stein
Well, let's get, let's get into it. So we're going to start putting up, so we actually have text. This is from the United States side of the full MOU finally released. We do not know if it corresponds with the Iranian version, but let's go, let's go through it because it's kind of fascinating to dissect. I'm going to start. The first three sections are, are fairly anodyne. It says the US And Iran commit to negotiating achieving Fandel in the maximum 60 days. We knew this. They talk about the situation in Lebanon and territorial integrity and sovereignty of Lebanon and respecting. They are going to respect each other's sovereignty and territorial integrity and refrain from interfering in each other's Internal Affairs. That's 1, 2, 3. Then it gets to 4 and then it gets to 5. And let's do 5 here because I found this to be kind of interesting. If we can put it up, I want to read it. Upon signing of this MoU, the Islamic Republic of Iran will make arrangements using its best efforts for safe passage of commercial vessels with no charge for 60 days only from the Persian Gulf to the Sea of Oman and vice versa. So essentially, they're going to get rid of the blockade of the Straight of Hormuz that Iran had put in place. The traffic of commercial vessels will immediately start and considering the need for removing the technical and military obstacles and demining by the Islamic Republic of Iran will be instated within 30 days. Iran will conduct dialogue with the Sultanate of Oman to define the future administration and maritime services in the Strait of Hormuz okay. That's what really stood out to me.
- [21:42]
Andrew Egger
Yeah.
- [21:43]
Sam Stein
In discussion with other Persian Gulf states in line with the applicable international law and sovereign rights of coastal states of the Strait of Hormuz. Mark, that reads to me like we are going to put together a fee service with Oman and that will be implemented at some point after the six days of clear passage.
- [22:03]
Donald Trump
Yes.
- [22:03]
Mark
Well, not. We will institute that they're, I think, hedging their bet knowing that Iran and Oman have already signed off on this.
- [22:11]
Sam Stein
Gotcha.
- [22:12]
Mark
May not be a toll, it may be a fee service. Hey, you have. If you move through the straits and you're collecting any kind of resources, you may pay a fee at Carg island, which we have the right to instill. You may pay a fee going through a de mined location, which. Which is closer to Oman because the strait is basically separated into three area. The area closest to Iran, they control the middle lane, if you will, if you'll call it that, used to be where most of the ships went through. And then there's the Omani coastline, which for the last several weeks the US Navy has helped escort ships or get ships through. So what they're basically saying is it's now up to Iran and Oman to determine who and what passage through passes through here.
- [23:02]
Sam Stein
Right?
- [23:02]
Mark
I think that's what it says.
- [23:04]
Sam Stein
That's my read of it too. All right, then we get to section six and let's put that up. And Andrew, this one's for you. So on Section 6, this is with respect to the reconstruction United States of America undertakes with regional partners to develop a definitive, mutually agreed plan with at least USD US dollars, $300 billion for the reconstruction and economic development of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Mechanism of the implementation of the plan will be finalized as part of the final deal within 60 days. All required license waivers and permissions needed for the relevant financial transactions will be granted by the United States of America. That last part. So, okay, my read of this and Andrew, tell me if I'm wrong. I often end we're going to facilitate $300 billion in reconstruction. It doesn't say it's going to be our money, but it will be our, you know, measured as US Dollars. We will wave and get the license to make sure this happens. Which means the sanctions regimes that we have put in place will be waived and this will all happen within 60 days.
- [24:12]
Andrew Egger
Yeah, well, and if you go on to seven, that the sanctions part, I'm going to.
- [24:16]
Sam Stein
I'm going to get to seven in a second. But what is that My, is that the right read as you see it?
- [24:20]
Andrew Egger
Yeah, 100%. I mean, this is, this is a drop of all economic pressure levers against Iran. Not only a drop from the United States, but if you, if you read into what Trump was saying about this stuff today, we are going to move from a country that forbids the world from doing business with Iran to a country that goes around shaking a hat in the region to get all of these neighboring states to pony up a bunch of cash to go and invest in Iran. We're not just opening up the markets to them. We've become like their biggest economic cheerleader in, in the region and on the global, on the global stage. And I mean, this is, this is another part of why the idea that Donald Trump could, if Iran decides to get squirrely again, just say, ah, you know what, we tried all this, we're going to go back to bombing again. And that's going to be, you know, another, another still possible outlet from all of this. It's just, it's just farcical on its face. We are now committing to a bunch of different things that are going to make it much more painful for us and much more painful for all of our regional partners to cut back on all this stuff again. Because what are we going to tell a bunch of US Companies that they now need to go and get reinvested in Iran and sink a bunch of money into new infrastructure and hiring and all kinds of stuff over there and then, you know, two months from now we're going to say, just kidding, pull the plug, all that money's gone. We've, we've enriched Iran, we've allowed them to, to rebuild in all these sorts of ways. But we've decided that we're, we're better off fighting after all. I mean, we become weaker from the point of view of any future attack with every single one of these provisions. So if we're not wanting to attack them now, there's no chance we're going to be wanting to attack them later.
- [26:02]
Sam Stein
Can I comment on this?
- [26:03]
Mark
Because I think, you know that the statement itself where it says the mechanisms for this will be established within 60 days, my comment on that is. You got to be fucking kidding me. I mean, you know, what Sam just said is exactly right. The Gulf, color me silly, but perhaps the Gulf states like Dubai and UAE and Kuwait and Saudi Arabia may want to know whether they're being asked to finance Iran's recovery after years of Iranian backed attacks against them. I mean, this is suddenly turning an enemy that's been there for decades into someone they're going to pay to reconstruct.
- [26:47]
Sam Stein
I mean, it's crazier than that, Mark. Iran just spent weeks bombing their own infrastructure. They're not their liquid national gas pipes small.
- [26:55]
Mark
That small is present. You know, and by the way, these are also the same Gulf states that President Trump said could rebuild Gaza after the Israeli attack against Hamas. And none of them ponied up.
- [27:10]
Sam Stein
Well, that raises actually an interesting question. So let's say in theory, after 60 days, the money isn't there. Okay, 300 billion was promised. The mechanisms are not there, and the commitments are not there. Where what happens? The Iranians look at this and say, okay, we're closing the strait again. Is that it?
- [27:28]
Mark
Well, I think the first thing the Iranians would say was, hey, you guys were the ones that said you were going to do this. What's the status? That's what's going to happen. And by the way, this is the same country that the president just said a little while ago in the press conference were immature in their ability to negotiate. They've been around for, oh, I don't know, a couple thousand years. I think they're actually damn good at negotiating. And he doesn't really.
- [27:56]
Andrew Egger
Can I say, can I say one thing on Gulf states, too?
- [27:58]
Sam Stein
I want to get to the 7 and 8, because this is, this is about. But go ahead quickly. Go quickly.
- [28:02]
Andrew Egger
Yeah, just real quick. I mean, this is just the latest example of what we've seen where a country that tries to butter Donald Trump up in a specific way finds out that there are downsides to this because a lot of these Gulf states have personally endeared themselves to Donald Trump by making themselves into his personal piggy banks. Right? They have, they have funneled insane resources to him and his family on sort of a personal capacity. And as, as state actors, you know, during all of the Liberation Day stuff last last year, promising these massive lavish investments in the United States again in order to sidle up to him and ingratiate themselves to him. But what they have now done is they have him thinking of them as just this bottomless well of financial resources that he can dip into to solve basically any problems he wants to in the region. And this is the other shoe dropping of that.
- [28:49]
Mark
One last thing, Sam, if you don't mind. I learned a word during my time in the Middle East. It's an Arabic word. I don't know the Farsi translation, but the word is wasta. And in the Arab world, when you have wasta, it means everyone Respects who you are because you make stuff happen. You get things done. The President of the United States, whoever it might be, has always had wasta in the Middle East. Right now, I think, as Sam Andrew just said it, it's fading because it's not there anymore.
- [29:20]
Sam Stein
Right. All right, let's. This is where it gets like super technical and you're kind of looking at every single word and trying to make sure you got the right meaning here. I guess that's the case with these types of agreements. But let's put a seven and eight together now. It's a little bit. It's small font, but paragraph seven is basically the sanctions relief in how it's going to happen. So it says the United States of America undertakes to terminate all. All types of sanctions. All types, that's their words. All types of sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran. I can't. That's. It's amazing that they're doing all types of sanctions, including the United Nations Security Council resolutions, IAEA Board of Governors resolutions, all unilateral US sanctions primary and secondary in an agreed upon schedule as part of the final deal. We don't know what the agreed upon schedule is. So that's tbd. The Islamic Republic of Iran in the United States of America acknowledge the critical importance of the sanctions termination issued above mentioned mentioned and express their intentions to immediately address these issues in the negotiations in order to achieve mutually agreement on them. That sentence doesn't quite make sense to me. It seems like a lot of words. All right, eight. The Islamic Republic of Iran reaffirms that it shall not procure or develop nuclear weapons. That was part of the jcpoa. Everyone knows it. The United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran have agreed to resolve the disposition of stockpile enriched material pursuant to a mechanism that will be mutually agreed upon. And here's where I kind of my ear sparks a little bit. In accordance with the schedule mentioned in paragraph 7 with the minimum methodology to be down blended on site under the supervision of IAEA. So what was the scheduled mentioned in paragraph 7? It looks like as I read it, that they're going to do sanctions relief first and then get to the issue of downgrading enriched uranium. But I might be overreading this and I just can't tell. But this strikes me. Mark or Andrew, I guess Mark, you first. As sort of the most important and most likely to trip things up element of this is the sequencing. We just don't know the sequencing on a lot of this stuff. What comes first? The Sanctions relief or the inspections, what comes first? End of the blockade or opening the Strait of Hormuz? You know, it's, it's those nitty gritty details. And you mentioned it. The JCPOA took a year and a half to negotiate. It was 159 pages long. I went, I went and reread it again. You could see how tortured every single word was. Yes, this is ambiguous to me.
- [32:02]
Mark
It does appear to me in reading this that the sanctions relief will come first.
- [32:09]
Sam Stein
Right, that's my read.
- [32:11]
Mark
And the fate of the enriched material and the nuclear material is deferred. So this is not dismantlement. It's a promise to negotiate dismantlement in the future, but only after the sanctions have been relieved and Iran has the money back. So Iran from the very beginning has said they want their money, they want people to quit attacking them, Lebanon should be free and Israel should no longer attack them. So it appears to me in reading this formal statement that Iran is getting everything they want and the United States is providing that, especially in terms of the monetary, the fiscal aspect of it. And yet there's a promise to negotiate nuclear dismantlement later after people have talked to the various governing bodies like the UN and the iaea. Just that alone will take months, if not years. I mean, that's not something that's going to snappily occur in the hall of any body that has 194 different nations contributing foreign.
- [33:26]
Sam Stein
Let's go to number nine. We're going to move through these pretty quickly. Pending the final deal, the United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran agreed to maintain the status quo Islamic Pro. Iran will maintain the current status quo of its nuclear program and the United States of America will not impose any new sanctions and will not deploy additional forces in the region. This is interesting only for the fact that it's pending the final deal, which means that during the course of the negotiations that are going to supposedly happen because of the MoU, there will not be any new sanctions. So Iran could keep the sanctions of the negotiations going or as an incentive to keep the sanction the negotiations going and going and going because they're not going to be re sanctioned while those negotiations happen. It's an invitation to just negotiate or draw them out as I read it. Andrew.
- [34:17]
Andrew Egger
Yeah, and if you go on to 10 there, if you don't mind as well, because that basically elaborates, it says the United States of America undertakes that immediately upon the signing of this MOU and until the termination of sanctions, the treasury will issue Waivers for the export of Iranian crude oil, petroleum products and derivatives, and so on and so on. So everything that is front loaded here is all coming from the U.S. it's, it's, you know, there's a way to read the stuff you guys were talking about before. I know it's a little ambiguous there. I do think there's a way to read it that the ultimate sanctions relief and the nuclear negotiations go hand in hand over this period of 60 days. But before that it is extremely explicit that we are one, dropping the blockade of Iranian ports and two, we are dropping all of these, or sorry, rather issuing all of these waivers to allow certain things and particularly Iranian oil to flow. And all of that comes even prior to the one sort of front loaded thing that Iran is offering here, which is the partial and sort of ambiguous reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. So to maybe lay out the whole timetable here. It's, we give them a bunch of economic goodies immediately. They give us the one big economic lifeline probably and pretty soon the Strait of Hormuz, they're doing the minesweeping and all these sorts of things. And then it's more question marks about how the other stuff all comes down because a lot of the other stuff just hasn't been negotiated yet. That's the big thing. This is the talks that are starting now and we still don't know. But again, as I was saying before, every day that goes past that brings us closer to the midterms, as Mark said, or that we go around and secure new financial investment commitments for Iran. It's not like we get a stronger in any of this at any point. So it's, it's, I don't know, it's pretty grisly from a, from a negotiating point of view.
- [36:03]
Sam Stein
And then the last. Go ahead, Mark, quickly.
- [36:05]
Mark
It goes back to one of the things you were saying at the very beginning too, the emphasis that the President made on refilling all of the, the supplies. You know, he said four, you know, we've only got four weeks left of oil. So I'm a great guy in opening the straits and getting that back to you. It, it just, you know, it's taking credit for something you caused, the evil that you caused.
- [36:32]
Sam Stein
So now this might be the most significant graph and I guess it's also the one that is open to communication or it's a little bit because too. But let's put a graph. 13. Okay. After signing this Memorandum of understanding and subject to the beginning of implementation of paragraphs 1 4, 5, 10, and 11. So just for your reminder, 4 and 5, 10 and 11 are basically about the financial relief. 4 was about the $300 billion to rebuild Iran. 5 was about safe passage through the Strait and the end of the blockade that we had. And in addition to that, coming up with some sort of system where the Sultan of Oman and the Republic of Iran kind of have some fee service. 10 and 10 and 11 were explicitly about sanctions relief. So after signing this MOU, and subject to the beginning of the implementation. Implementation of all that and the continuing implementation of these measures, the United States of America and the Republic of Iran will start negotiations. Okay, so if I'm reading this correct, negotiations on the final deal do not start until we start seeing sanctions relief. The opening of the straits, the ending of the blockade, and some mechanism from which the 300 billion to rebuild Iran have begun have been implemented to some degree. So we can't even start negotiations until we see that, according to this graph is how I read it, which I guess makes sense. You want to make sure that people are operating in good faith. But it does mean that Iran will get some economic benefits during the negotiations, and that means we've removed some key leverage points for the negotiations.
- [38:28]
Andrew Egger
Well, enormous economic benefits. Right? I mean, this is a very, very, very steep price that the Trump administration has agreed to pay just to keep Iran at the negotiating table and more importantly, to take some of the pressure off of the Strait of Hormuz. And again, like, we've gotten a little bit away from what we started talking about at the beginning, which was this Trump speech. But it just could not have been clearer as you were watching that speech, that Trump believes, and probably correctly, that the, The. The Iranian stranglehold over the Strait of Hormuz was about to become painful for America and for the world on a scale that we just hadn't even seen yet. And he really felt like he had to. He was over a barrel and was compelled to give these goodies, and Iran knew it, too. And that's why we're seeing the deal that we're seeing.
- [39:13]
Sam Stein
I mean, I just. I'm struck by this mark, that he's just done with this war. That was it. He. He is done. He. He was willing to take anything to just get to the point where he could say, I'm out, because for what Andrew said. And also, I think he was just sort of, like, recognized. He's taking a huge political hit here. But even the, Even the body language in that press conference, the, you know, lethargic, angry kind of grumpy attitude about it. Like, it just seemed like he was done.
- [39:41]
Mark
Yeah, I. You know, we've known that for a while. I think he.
- [39:45]
Sam Stein
Yeah.
- [39:45]
Mark
Hasn't been able to push it away from the headlines. He hasn't been able to delay action on it because it is war. It's extremely hard to figure out how to fight a war and execute a strategy, especially when a strategy isn't there in the first place. And all of these things are contrary to who he was as a businessman making a deal on real estate property. None of them relate or correlate to what he's trying to do right now. And it's too hard. He wanted other people to solve it for him. Witkoff, Kushner, Rubio, Hegseth. But none of them can. And what we haven't even mentioned is Rubio's body language.
- [40:31]
Sam Stein
Yeah. Talk about that for a second.
- [40:33]
Mark
Behind him at the press conference. So very different from Witkoff's body language. Witkoff is remaining the sycophant. You know, you could tell it's a. It's a trite expression, but with Rubio, his soul left his body and never came back during that entire press conference.
- [40:54]
Sam Stein
Okay, well, one. One person who was not there, whose soul probably also left his body, was J.D. vance, who's been tasked with selling this deal. And he's gone on the shows for a couple days now, and weirdly enough, like, was kind of downplaying the idea that the. The MOU said exactly what it said. You know, it's like $300 billion. What are you talking about? Anyways, Trump clearly wants to just offload all this stuff onto JD Pants. And at the end of the press
- [41:23]
Mark
conference one, the one I. I laughed at with the reporter, they asked a serious question first and the same report. And I can't remember. It was a Peter Doocy. No, it wasn't Doocy.
- [41:33]
Sam Stein
It wasn't Ducey.
- [41:34]
Mark
The woman said to him afterwards, asked the first question, then said, and what did you think of J.D. vance's performance yesterday? And it's like, what?
- [41:43]
Sam Stein
That came out of nowhere. That was a weird one. That was a weird question. And then the one that really, really blew my mind was the guy was like, did you see the generic congressional ballot poll? And I was like, you're in the G7 in France and this is happening. You're asking about the Congress.
- [41:58]
Andrew Egger
It is. It is astonishing. One real quick thing on that. It doesn't matter what's happening in the news. Anytime Trump gets questions from his traveling pool, you are forcibly Re reminded of the way that he completely broke that institution and stuck a bunch of people in it who are like right wing mega bloggers who are going to ask like, Mr. President, oil is dropping like crazy on your very powerful deal with Iran. Your thoughts on that? I mean, it's just, it really is embarrassing to see that be what is presented as the American media on the world.
- [42:27]
Mark
You both have been in these kind of forums before and I've been in them answering questions. But there's the American media and then the international media and the American media is asking those kind of questions. The international look media are looking at each other like, what the hell is wrong with these people? You know, True.
- [42:45]
Sam Stein
You know, I will say this though, about the international media. They do ask questions solely based on the interests of their countries. So the Japanese reporter is like to ask him about like Japanese internal politics in the Brazilian report is like, what's going on with you and Lula? And Trump's mind is racing a million miles a minute. He had no clue what the Japanese reporter was saying. He was just like totally out to lunch on that. So anyways, the very last question came back to Ducey for the second time and he brings up J.D. vance and Trump just like, you know, he just kind of cops to how Jade is going to get thrown under the bus for this. And let's watch that.
- [43:25]
Andrew Egger
Thank you, President Trump. I have a question about this weekend. Why not stick around for the signing ceremony with this Iran peace deal?
- [43:34]
Donald Trump
I might.
- [43:35]
Andrew Egger
You might?
- [43:35]
Donald Trump
Yeah, I might. But I'd rather. This is a memorandum of understanding. It's very important, but it might not be the kind of a document that I should be signing.
- [43:47]
Andrew Egger
Is there some element to this where you send the vice president?
- [43:51]
Sam Stein
If it works out, great.
- [43:54]
Mark
You look like a genius for sending him.
- [43:56]
Sam Stein
And if it doesn't work out, it's the vice president.
- [43:59]
Donald Trump
I like that idea. Sure. This way, if it works out, I'm going to take the credit. If it doesn't work out, I'm blaming J.D. you better be careful, J.D. he's going to turn his plane around and get the hell out of here. Yeah, I like that idea. I think it's a good idea. Thank you very much.
- [44:13]
Andrew Egger
Everybody didn't show it, but that was the only moment in the thing Marco Rubio liked.
- [44:19]
Sam Stein
Yeah, he's kind of smirked, but you could tell.
- [44:22]
Mark
It's like. Yeah, the smirk was. He'd do that to me in a heartbeat too, you know.
- [44:29]
Sam Stein
Totally. The bus comes for everybody at some point in time. All right, fellas. This is great. I. I can't believe we actually broke down the MOU live on air. That's, you know, that's real live TV right there, guys. Very impressed with us. We're. We're growing up, becoming real professionals. For those who tuned in, I hope
- [44:48]
Mark
this was informative, except when I dropped the F bomb, I apologize.
- [44:52]
Sam Stein
It's all right.
- [44:53]
Andrew Egger
You can do that. We love crazy for that. Mark.
- [44:57]
Sam Stein
Yeah, they love it. All right, Andrew, Mark. Thanks a bunch, guys. For everyone who watched, thanks so much. If you like what you watched, subscribe to us on YouTube or on Substack and we will come back to you soon. Take care of.