BREAKING: Trump Announces Deal With Iran, To Be Signed Friday

Summary

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Bulwark Takes: BREAKING – Trump Announces Deal With Iran, To Be Signed Friday

Date: June 14, 2026
Host: Tim Miller
Guest: JVL (and JBL, i.e. Jonathan V. Last)
Theme: Trump’s surprise Iran “deal” announcement, its reality, implications, and absurdity

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Episode Overview

This rapid-response episode of Bulwark Takes dissects Donald Trump’s surprise unilateral announcement of a “deal” with Iran, set for a signing ceremony in Switzerland. Tim Miller, JVL, and JBL break down what’s really happening beneath the bluster: a performative, optics-driven announcement that appears to give Iran what it wants, restores little for the United States, and constitutes what they call a historic humiliation for American power and credibility. The conversation channels both biting humor and deep policy anxiety, focusing on the deal’s substance, signaling, and ramifications for the region and the world.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

The Lead-Up: Trump’s Motivation & the Bulwark Bet

• JVL predicted Trump would try to secure a dramatic, birthday-timed announcement to save face and declare victory, regardless of substance.
  • “Trump would love to turn either his birthday or America 250 into a VJ Day style celebration. … Today is Trump's 80th birthday.” – JVL (01:41)
• The “deal” is really a memorandum of understanding (MoU), not an actual binding agreement.
  • “Trump can pretend it's a deal while the Iranians treat it as nothing. … Trump has this incentive. The optics of celebrating victory coinciding with his birthday.” – JVL (02:02-02:15)

What’s Actually in This “Deal”?

• Sanctions relief for Iran, U.S. withdrawal, Iranian control of the Strait, but nuclear and regional security issues fundamentally unresolved.

  • “Iran is going to get sanctions relief. … Trump is going to hide this and say that the U.S. isn't giving … somebody else is going to be paying Iran.” – JBL (03:42-04:44)
  • “Trump will say, oh, well, Obama gave them… we didn’t give them anything. When it’s just, it’s like working for a shell company.” – JBL (04:48)

• Optical Bravado, Zero Substance

  • Trump’s announcement was filled with ceremonial language of "herewith," but nonsensical in practical terms.
    • “I hereby fully authorize the toll free opening of the Strait of Hormuz. … Ships of the world, start your engines. Let the oil flow.” – Trump, read by Tim Miller (06:42-06:57)
  • In reality, global oil traffic, shipping insurance, and actual regional actors remain unconvinced.
    • “Insurers and reinsurers are also going to need to have some proof here. … Lloyd’s is going to need a little more than that, Mr. President.” – JVL & JBL (07:24-07:50)

Regional and Geopolitical Implications

• The deal is widely seen as a face-saving exercise for Trump, a “birthday present” from Iran and others simply so he’ll “leave the theater.”
  • “Everybody needs to pretend that this is a deal so that Trump can leave the theater. … They’re going to pretend there is a deal when there isn’t. What there is: people willing to say, sure, we'll pretend you have a deal. Now get out.” – JBL (09:14-09:48)
• America’s global standing is shattered:
  • “This is an unbelievable surrender and defeat for the United States. Our interests are harmed, our position globally is hurt. … We are now a hemispheric bully and not a global hegemon.” – JBL (09:50-10:24)
• The Iranians are gloating:
  • “Iran state media is confirming they’ve agreed to the deal … announcing … the United States was humiliated and forced to sign.” – JVL (10:26-10:41)
• The supposed return to status quo is shaky:
  • U.S. went from pressuring Iran’s weak regime to empowering it with cash and control.
    • “What we did… was go in, decapitate the Ayatollah, start a war in Iran. It’s cost us billions…dead Americans, dead children. … And now … we’re going back to the status quo.” – JVL (10:54-12:07)

Strategic, Security, and Economic Fallout

• Iran gets permanent leverage:

  • The world now knows Iran can shut down the Strait. Insurance and oil prices will never be the same.
    • “Even if this deal ... allows traffic to resume, the reinsurance industry can’t unsee what happened. Iran controls the strait.” – JBL (12:43)

• Nuclear issues unresolved:

  • “There’s no mention of the nuclear stuff in any of these announcements.” – Tim Miller & JBL (14:10-14:15)
  • Trump will “treat unreliable Iranian promises on nukes or proxies as if it’s iron.” – JBL (14:44)

• Middle Eastern balance of power shifts:

  • Iran emerges more powerful; Israel and Saudis diminish.
    • “Iran becomes more powerful than the Saudis.” – JBL (24:24)
  • Gulf States now must cut side deals with Iran, not the U.S. or Israel.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Everything that Trump does is some bit malicious and some bit clownish. … Evil authoritarianism and idiocracy, enmeshed in everything.” – JVL (05:53)
• “This (deal) is the most pure distillation of the idiocracy clownish side of it.” – Tim Miller (06:07)
• “The biggest idiots are the neocon hawks that got [Trump] into the war and backed him.” – Tim Miller (19:45)
• “Nobody that gets into bed with Donald Trump ends up with roses on the back end. He is not a reliable partner.” – Tim Miller (25:03)
• “The reason this is bad is not just because Donald Trump has been utterly humiliated … This is really bad for America because America has guaranteed freedom of navigation … since WWII. … And it’s gone now.” – JBL (18:20)
• “Unconditional surrender didn’t happen. There was a surrender. It was Trump on his own birthday.” – Tim Miller (26:30)

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Noteworthy Segments and Timestamps

• JVL’s prescient prediction: 01:27–02:29
• What the MoU actually means: 03:01–04:44
• Reading Trump’s grandiose but hollow announcement: 06:35–07:20
• Pakistan’s echo on ‘permanent cessation of military operations’ (Lebanon, etc.): 08:00–08:34
• True ramifications for U.S. position: 09:44–10:24
• Iranian media’s humiliation narrative: 10:26–10:41
• Nuclear non-mention examined: 14:10–14:20
• Neocon delusions & conservative hawk blowback: 19:45–21:06
• How the regional balance shifts away from the U.S. and Israel: 24:15–25:03
• Summing up the reliability myth of Trump as an ally: 25:03–25:26

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Summary and Takeaways

• The “deal” is designed wholly for Trump’s optics, not substance.
• U.S. exit comes at the cost of empowering Iran regionally, damaging alliances, and undermining long-term American interests in freedom of navigation and global leadership.
• Allies and adversaries alike will see through the fanfare, while impacts—higher shipping insurance, oil volatility, destabilized friends—are long-lasting.
• The episode features irreverent humor but a clear, bracing message: This is a historic own-goal for American statecraft.

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Final Thoughts

JVL’s advice? Don’t mistake spectacle for substance, and never bet future security on a birthday cake signing ceremony.

“It’s very bad, Tim. … We will follow this up. I promise you—it’s going to be amazing.” – JBL (19:12, 27:07)

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Transcript

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[Tim Miller]

Hey everybody, what's happening? I'm Tim Miller at the Bulwark. That is jvl.

[JVL]

We have what I don't know is

[Tim Miller]

a kind of sort of birthday party humiliation deal from Donald Trump that he is unilaterally announcing at this time with his friends.

[JVL]

The Pakistanis are doing so as well. People, a lot of siren tweets out there about this, about this big deal and I want to talk to JVL about it because there are a lot of layers of to what is happening here.

[Tim Miller]

And jvl, I don't ever like just really handing it to jvl.

[JVL]

Usually I like to hand it to him with like a caveat. You know, it's important to keep him humble. But I have to, I have to

[Tim Miller]

say, jbl, I had to do this

[JVL]

with you right now because we had a little gentleman's bet on the Bulwark slack and I'm sad to say that you were the victor in the gentleman's in the bet. So I could read it all or do you want to give us an initial thought on what we're saying?

[JBL]

I mean, you could read it, you could roll the tape, whatever you'd prefer.

[Tim Miller]

Okay, let's read the tape. I'm gonna read one. We'll maybe roll the tape a little bit. Here's what JBL said in our, in

[JVL]

our Slack feed on Friday. I'm just reading it right here. People can see that.

[Tim Miller]

For whatever, for what it's worth, I think we might be close to a deal. Couple reasons. Number one, Trump would love to turn either his birthday or America 250 into

[JVL]

a VI Day style celebration. Today is Trump's 80th birthday. He is 80. I don't know if you know that. He's 80 years old, an elderly man.

[Tim Miller]

Number two, the quote unquote deal being proposed is in the form of an

[JVL]

MoU, which means that Trump can pretend it's a deal while the Iranians treat it as nothing. That could be what happens.

[Tim Miller]

You go on. This is a moment of maximum leverage

[JVL]

for the Iranians, it's a way to get what they want. Cuz Trump has this incentive.

[Tim Miller]

The optics of celebrating victory coinciding with his birthday. And then number four, the MOU framework is proposed. Doesn't do anything crazy. It's just a ratification of everything.

[JVL]

We knew Iran would wind up getting sanctions relief, control of the Strait and no nuke.

[Tim Miller]

And so that was what your prediction was. I thought that the Iranians and it could still happen, God willing, we could have a situation where we're both right,

[JVL]

which would be nice.

[Tim Miller]

I still thought the Iranians would make

[JVL]

him sit on it.

[Tim Miller]

And we've not heard from the Iranians yet. And it's possible that we get into one of these situations where Trump announces

[JVL]

a deal and like the Iranians don't really confirm it for a couple of days, but the current plan is for them to meet in Switzerland on Friday. So tell us why you Nostradamus this jvl.

[JBL]

So in fairness to me, this was not a JVL is always right guaranteed prediction. I was looking at the tea leaves and saying, I think there's a good chance this is going to happen. So this is not, you know, sometimes I will just come out and say, let me tell you the future. I come from the future. And I can tell you what's going to happen was not that it's important for everybody to understand that we have not seen any details of the deal beyond Trump's saying it's a deal, the deal capitalized. This is not going to be a deal. What this is going to be is a memorandum of understanding that punts everything into the future. And so what this is, it's a way for Trump to declare victory and get the fuck out of Iran and for the Iranians to get everything they want. And I mean, I, this is, again, I'm, I'm not coming to you from the future, but I can tell you that they. Trump says there won't be any tolls. There's going to be something. Maybe it will be an administrative fee, maybe it'll be money to go into an environmental protection fund to protect the integrity of the, the, the special. There's a special breed of tarpon which lives in the Strait of Hormuz, which must be. I'm making that up. There isn'. Do you see what I'm saying? Like there is going to be money and maybe it will be laundered as well to go to a joint, joint account administered by Oman and Iran. Iran is going to get paid every time somebody transits the Strait Going into the future, that's just going to happen. Iran is going to get sanctions relief. The sanctions are going to go away. Iran is going to get cash money. Now Trump is going to hide this and say that, like, the US isn't giving somebody else is going to be paying Iran. So that, that's going to be part of it.

[JVL]

And the UAE has already said that they're going to be paying Iran. Yeah, it's one example. Yeah.

[JBL]

Right. And so again, Trump will say, oh, well, Obama gave him whatever billion dollars, we didn't give them anything. When it's just, it's like working for a shell company. And on the nuke stuff, all of that is going to be punted. Well, we'll figure that out over the next 60 days.

[JVL]

Yeah, right.

[JBL]

And I am telling you, once the United States is out of there, we ain't never going back. You know, Trump is just out. So, you know, this is, this is why I just looked at it and thought everybody gets what they want here. Like Trump. Find what Trump needed a sweetener on all this. Right. Because Trump was getting nothing. And the only thing he could get that the Iranians could give him was, sure, do it at your stupid cage fight.

[JVL]

A birthday presentation. Yeah, here's a little birthday present. I like that Ruben Gallego is calling it Temu jcpoa.

[Tim Miller]

Here's what Trump actually said.

[JVL]

So this is, again, we don't know much. Here's what Trump is saying.

[Tim Miller]

The deal. This is so ridiculous.

[JVL]

I need to read it and I'm gonna read it to you for this reason.

[Tim Miller]

Jbl, like the Trump era, everything that

[JVL]

Trump does is some bit malicious and some bit clownish. There is evil authoritarianism and there's idiocracy, like enmeshed in everything.

[Tim Miller]

And I truly, I feel like this

[JVL]

Iran debacle and this announcement at his wrestling birthday party tonight is the most pure distillation of the idiocracy clownish side of it.

[Tim Miller]

I mean, there's some malice here because

[JVL]

as I said, there's some malice and some clownishness in everything. But in particular, right now we're getting the clownishness.

[Tim Miller]

So sorry to the producers. I was gonna get to reading it. I was gonna get to reading it. I just had to vamp for a second. Here it is. The deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran is now complete.

[JVL]

Congratulations to all.

[Tim Miller]

I hereby fully authorize the toll free opening of the Strait of Hormuz. Can he authorize that? And simultaneously herewith authorize the immediate removal of the United States naval blockade ships of the world. Start your engines.

[JVL]

Let the oil flow. President DONALD Trump the Herewith, it's just

[Tim Miller]

like this is like the Book of.

[JVL]

Sorry, if you have any. If you're, if you're Mormons out there, just close your ears for a second.

[Tim Miller]

Like the Book of Mormon certain by Joseph has like a million herewiths in there. It's like one of these things where you want to have a word to

[JVL]

make yourself feel like this is very serious and formal. Now herewith, the strait of hormones is open.

[Tim Miller]

That's not like. That's not how this works. I mean, Iran has a say. You know who else has a say

[JVL]

is the commercial tankers who are still going to need proof that there are no mines, that there's not going to be any funny business that they can get through, that they can get insurance. I mean like, yeah, all of that.

[JBL]

Reinsurers, insurers and reinsurers also going to need to have some proof here. Right?

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, the herewith. You know, I don't think it's going

[JVL]

to be good enough for the reinsurance folks who are concerned that they're multi.

[JBL]

Lloyd's going to need a little More than that, Mr. President.

[JVL]

Sorry.

[Tim Miller]

So that is. That's what he had to say. We've got the Pakistanis.

[JVL]

Here's what we've got. An announcement from the Pakistanis following the

[Tim Miller]

intensive talks, blah, blah, blah. Immediate and permanent termination of military operations

[JVL]

on all fronts, including Lebanon.

[JBL]

Permanent, Tim. Permanent.

[JVL]

Permanent.

[JBL]

Including in Lebanon until the heat death of the universe.

[JVL]

I don't know.

[Tim Miller]

Does, does Donald Trump or does Bibi get a say in this? Because I don't believe Bibi is attacking Lebanon this morning. So I have a hard time to

[JVL]

believe, believing that they are going to be part.

[JBL]

Are the Israelis party to this? Because here's the funny thing. The US Is not a belligerent in Lebanon. Lebanon has two belligerents. One of them is not a party to this agreement.

[Tim Miller]

Maybe we'll find out in Switzerland.

[JBL]

This is.

[JVL]

How stupid this is.

[Tim Miller]

The official signing ceremony, Friday 19 June is in Switzerland. We'd like to thank the US and

[JVL]

the Republic of Iran as well as

[Tim Miller]

the great leadership of Qatar, the visionary leadership of Saudi Arabia and the Republic

[JVL]

of Turkey for their immense contributions in this regard.

[JBL]

I also said they were going to sign this in Switzerland because right now in the meeting and Evian.

[Tim Miller]

But no, I was going to save

[JVL]

the tape for the end.

[JBL]

You're driving, Tim. Okay. I'm not going to tell you.

[Tim Miller]

So what do you make about the.

[JVL]

About the about the Paki pitch here and what we know so far, again,

[JBL]

it just shows you that this is. Everybody needs to pretend that this is a deal so that Trump can leave the theater. That's what this is. Right? Trump needs to get out. And so they're going to pretend that there is a deal when there isn't. What there is is a bunch of people who are finally willing to say, sure, we'll pretend you have a deal. Now get out. Don't let the door hit you on the way. And then once you're gone and your leverage has gone from none to zero, we will tell you the terms.

[JVL]

Right?

[JBL]

And that's what this is. This, again, people need to understand this is an unbelievable surrender and defeat for the United States. Our interests are harmed, our position globally is hurt. This is the last time we will ever have anything to say about things that go on in the Strait of Hormuz that then becomes China's problem for the rest of all time. And we are going to be reduced to going and sitting on Cuba and threatening Greenland again. Like we are now a hemispheric bully and not a global hegemon.

[JVL]

Yeah. Watch out, Nuke.

[Tim Miller]

Here we go. As we are recording here, Iran state

[JVL]

media is confirming that they've agreed to the deal, announcing in part of their announcement, saying that the United States was humiliated and forced to sign an agreement to end the war on all fronts.

[Tim Miller]

The. I think that it's true, right? It's worth just sitting on this for a second. I mean, the Donald Trump

[JVL]

went into Iran.

[Tim Miller]

They were negotiating at the beginning of the war.

[JVL]

It's important to just kind of like take the lens back. Before all this started, we had ongoing negotiations. I mean, we had buffoons, like, we had outer borough real estate guys to support people on the negotiations. But there were negotiations that were happening. The Strait of Hormuz was open. We were not at any threat from Iran. They had a regime that was weakening, protests in the street, economic issues. The Ayatollah was even older than our ayatollah, was dying like very sick old man. And so what we did, given that state of play, was go in, decapitate the Ayatollah, start a war in Iran. It's cost us billions upon billions of dollars. So it's resulted in the close of the Strait of Hormuz resulted in dead Americans, dead children in Iran, dead people all over the region. And we come out of that now. And when we are doing that, upon engaging in that military action, the president announced that he was not going to Stop until he received unconditional surrender from the Iranians. Fast forward over 100 days. First regime, regime change. First.

[JBL]

First we were going to end the regime.

[JVL]

Yeah. And then demanding on control. Unconditional surrender.

[Tim Miller]

So you fast forward 100 days.

[JVL]

And again, we don't exactly, we don't have the letter of the deal here, but we get the gist, which is what we got out of it was going back to the status quo, a return to where things were before the war started. Right. Hopefully. Yeah.

[JBL]

Maybe we're not even going to get that.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. But maybe what we'll get to is

[JBL]

we will get to Donald Trump pretending that we're returning to the status quo,

[JVL]

which was negotiating over their nuclear material and having the Strait of Hormuz open. Like those are the things that we get. And they get cash. End of sanctions, End of sanctions.

[JBL]

Control of the straight. Right. The straight will no longer be governed by international law. Yeah. And this is the other thing we talked about. The reinsurers, even if this deal is, is eventually ratified in some way that, you know, allows traffic to, to resume, the reinsurance industry can't unsee what just happened. Everybody now understands that Iran controls the strait. Before this war, that was always a theoretical, like, well, maybe they could. We don't know. Now that that's happened, I mean, forget the tolls that Iran can impose. The reinsurance costs are going to go up because all oil that passes, you know, heading east out of, out of the Middle east now has to have baked into those costs on the reinsurance end. Unless Iran decides to start blowing up stuff. Right. I mean, this is. Again, so the cost structure for oil is, is step changed up. Right. Like, you know, it's going. So the oil may go down from the heights eventually. I think it's going to take a while to drift down. But the, the baseline costs are permanently raised.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah.

[JVL]

And great job.

[Tim Miller]

Right?

[JVL]

Sure.

[Tim Miller]

The end. And so who know. And the thing that he was hanging

[JVL]

his hat on through all this was the nuclear notice.

[JBL]

There's no, no mention of the nuclear stuff in any of these announcements.

[Tim Miller]

Tim was there. I haven't seen the word nuclear.

[JBL]

Not a word. N word. Not anywhere near this stuff.

[JVL]

Thank God.

[JBL]

Bizarre, isn't it?

[Tim Miller]

Yeah.

[JBL]

Interesting. I was told by Marco Rubio that that was the, the reason we did this because it was the most important thing after the freedom and after the, the regime chains and after the unconditional surrender, then we finally got to, well, you know, we gotta kind of do whatever we.

[Tim Miller]

Are they still going to be funding the proxies in the region. There's a lot of talk about the

[JVL]

proxies for a while.

[JBL]

I'm sure they'll promise not to. Just like they'll promise not to do nuclear. Right. This is, again, this is what they will get, is they will get a totally unreliable Iranian promise to not make progress on nuclear weapons. And Trump will treat that as if it's iron. We'll see. Look, we got it. We got our deal. And just make it somebody else's problem five years from now when he is at home with the Lord.

[JVL]

Yeah,

[Tim Miller]

it's hard to really wrap your

[JVL]

head around the extent of how Hector Mountain Duke Macho this is.

[Tim Miller]

I mean, you really couldn't have. You know, sometimes I like to go

[JVL]

back in the past and kind of

[Tim Miller]

pretend like I'm a person from the future.

[JVL]

Pretend like I'm JVL Mr. Adamus. And I'm talking to, you know, I don't know who. You're kind of just a regular Republican type person. I'm talking to Jeb, talking going back 11 years past, I'm like, here's something that's going to happen in the future. You're not going to believe this.

[Tim Miller]

Donald Trump's going to start a war

[JVL]

with Iran and then decide you get bored with it a couple of weeks in, it's going to cause a massive international energy crisis. He is going to have absolutely no interest in resolving the war. And then as we approached his 80th birthday, he's going to have a UFC and motocross event on the White House lawn next to rubble because he has

[Tim Miller]

bulldozed the east wing of the White House.

[JVL]

And at that birthday party, he's going to be so desperate to announce that he has signed a peace deal that he is going to give the Iranian

[JBL]

mullahs everything two hours before his fight night starts. I mean, little like this is just. Just tweeted out by Phil Stewart of Reuters. He reports that Iran's news agency has announced it has been decided that Marine traffic through the Gulf will be regulated by Iran in coordination with Oman.

[JVL]

Nailed it.

[Tim Miller]

Jv.

[JVL]

No tolls.

[JBL]

Toll free. Toll free. Don't worry, there won't be any tolls. Just like we won't be gift. We won't be giving Iran any money. We will give some other countries money. And if they decide to give that money to Iran, I mean, we don't. That's not on us.

[Tim Miller]

And do we.

[JBL]

This is all really bad.

[Tim Miller]

Do we trust the new Iranian leadership? I thought the whole premise of this

[JVL]

was that The Iranian bad and such a threat that they need to be removed. So it seems confusing why then we would give them control over a major waterway?

[JBL]

Well, I mean they've, they've proven that they can, they can work, they can work with our great president and make deals. So why wouldn't we, why wouldn't we do this with them? Again, I, this isn't. I just don't want to sound like I have Trump derangement syndrome or something here because the reason this is bad is not just because Donald Trump has been utterly humiliated, not just because a bunch of lives were lost, not just because a bunch of infrastructure was destroyed. And I mean, this entire thing was just like setting probably a couple hundred billion dollars on fire, right? It was just, just taking value out of the world and increasing costs on everybody, which, you know, goes and lowers everybody's standard of living. This is really bad for America because America has guaranteed freedom of navigation across the world since the end of World War II. And that is what the entire free trade regime that we built and guaranteed was anchored by. And it's gone now. And the Strait of Hormuz is just the beginning. China has been testing this in the South China Sea for 15 or 20 years and we keep brushing them back. That's gone over. Forget it. China controls all of the waterways in their sphere of influence now. And who knows what else follows downstream of this. The impacts of this on the entire international system of trade and economic development. And again, this international system of trade which we set up to benefit us, I think it benefited a lot of other people. Well, but you know, like we're not, we're not a charity. We don't, you know, we're an empire. So it's very bad, Tim.

[JVL]

It's bad.

[Tim Miller]

Can we do a little show?

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[Tim Miller]

The stupidest people in the country besides

[JVL]

Donald Trump are the neocon hawks that got him into the war and backed him.

[JBL]

Oh, where's Mark Levin thinking that Trump

[Tim Miller]

could be relied upon? I'm just scrolling down Mark Levin's Twitter feed right now. Yeah, the great one.

[JVL]

Sean Hannity called him the great one. No, he's tweeting through it, which is even better. 3 hours ago.

[Tim Miller]

I can't tell you how many people,

[JVL]

comma, several of whom you'd know, comma, who are contacting me out of grave concern.

[JBL]

Oh, great concern. Was Susan Collins one of them?

[Tim Miller]

Grave concern. It's probably was Susan Collins one of them. He, quote, treated Lindsey Graham, who's a little bit concerned as well about the diplomatic solution. He thinks that he's concerned that Iran

[JVL]

is going to attack Israel again and that we'll quickly learn who stands with Israel. I've got some bad news for Mark about what he's going to find out about the great president that he loves

[Tim Miller]

so much about where he's going to fall on that one.

[JVL]

So, yeah, I don't know.

[Tim Miller]

Now he's also posting for all the bots, anti Semites and crackpots. Screw yourselves. This is so he's losing it. It's shot.

[JVL]

Another shock.

[Tim Miller]

Who could have known, right? Like the, the hawks who cared about the Iranian regime because they care about Israel.

[JVL]

And they got into this because Donald Trump was their ally. Who could have predicted this result?

[JBL]

Let me give you another prediction. And this is I said this to Sarah on and on our receipts live with Catherine Pell. Another factor that influenced me in all this was that because Lindsey Graham had gotten over the threshold to avoid a runoff in South Carolina and Trump really dragged him across the line on that, Lindsay is gonna have to just suck it up and take it on this one. And Lindsay is gonna have to bless this deal. And having super Warhawk Lindsey Graham say that this is a great deal and there's nothing wrong with it is going to make it a little bit harder for guys like Mark Levin and Mark Thiessen and those guys, and I promise you those guys were always going to get onside with whatever deal Trump made. It'll be faster because they won't have Lindsey at their back.

[Tim Miller]

Let's get the little pup mask on. And this is, this is interesting.

[JVL]

Just a little news item out here apparently that presses per far as news. So you know the axios of Iran. So it's hard to know exactly how true it is. But that's what the regime is saying at least was that Iran was going to cancel the negotiations and not give Trump his birthday present following Israel's attack on Lebanon this morning. But Trump offered new last minute concessions,

[Tim Miller]

more concessions, including the preservation of Lebanon's and territorial integrity.

[JVL]

Israel's withdrawal from the Lebanese border, easy

[Tim Miller]

concessions for Trump to make and the immediate lifting of the siege. Yeah, okay. All I'm saying is this is also one of those things where he's getting his little birthday party announcement that he thinks is good, even though anybody with

[JVL]

eyes can see that it's utterly humiliating to switch on.

[Tim Miller]

Signing is Friday. So BB Will have a. Bibi will have a word here, and I don't know, maybe Trump will cut some deal

[JVL]

with Bibi behind the scenes, too, where we end up paying off Israel. It's like we're paying off everybody else and then, then decides he's going to not attack Lebanon again for a month. And then in a month, whatever it's, we're gone. So who cares?

[JBL]

So I don't know enough about Israeli politics to know what happens here, but I, I just, this seems to me like this has to be incredibly destabilizing for the Netanyahu regime. And I wonder if he can survive this. It'll be very interesting to see what the reaction is in Iran, in Israel, because, you know, they were, they were in it to win it here. And did, did they really internalize that? They, they should. They could just take whatever they could get from Trump for as long as they could get it and then move on and it's fine. Or did they talk themselves into believing that this was the way they were going to settle all accounts? And they were going to, they were going to reduce Iran to what they were going to do to Iran, what they did to Gaza. And the end state here is that Iran becomes the second most powerful state in the region. Like Iran comes out of this Israel or Saudi be on Israel. Third. Then I thought, no, I think Iran becomes more powerful than the Saudis.

[JVL]

It's not great either.

[JBL]

So, I mean, the end, the end result of this is that the gambit to, like, this is how we get rid of the ayatollahs and we reduce a random rubble in the medium term, even forget the long term, in the medium term, it's a huge loss for Israel and Israel becomes, it's just worse for them. And also all of the other smaller Gulf states, they who, you know, had been thinking about like, oh, maybe we normalize relations with Israel. No, because they now have to get right with Iran.

[JVL]

Yeah.

[JBL]

Everybody else in the Gulf is going to cut side deals with Iran to make sure that they. And this is really.

[Tim Miller]

Can I just say, I'm not a geopolitical expert.

[JVL]

I'm not an Israel expert. Sometimes, though, there are certain things where

[Tim Miller]

you can Be too close to something. I feel this way about political prognostication. It's like every once in a while

[JVL]

I get a little too close to a race and I and it blocks me from being able to see the big picture of what's happening.

[Tim Miller]

And a lot of like the big

[JVL]

Israel hawks were mad at me and other not just many people for like criticizing this and saying they're not considering the medium term here. Like there's a short term, like there's a very short termism view and it's just. And like my point was always I don't need to know the details of everything that's happening in the Middle East. I just know that nobody that gets into bed with Donald Trump like ends up with roses on the back end. Right. Like that it's that. That he is not a reliable partner and that you are going to in that you are picking as your one ally the least reliable person while simultaneously pissing off much of the rest of the world, alienating the other American party

[Tim Miller]

that will ostensibly be in power again at some point you would imagine.

[JVL]

Right. And so anyway I agree with you

[JBL]

especially when the entire operation is based on fantasy. Right. I mean you remember like you know we have the report they sold Trump on the idea that like oh you know like we roll in there and 12 hours later the people have risen up in the streets, the regime is decapitated and we get a whole new like it was just fantasy.

[Tim Miller]

Unconditional surrender didn't happen. There was a surrender.

[JVL]

It was Trump on his own birthday.

[Tim Miller]

Jbl, you did nail this. I've got to run to dinner and so I can't stomach.

[JVL]

I've just glazed you enough for one

[JBL]

don't know don't you cheap out on me now.

[Tim Miller]

I'm not cheaping out on you.

[JBL]

Roll the tape.

[Tim Miller]

I'm going to let. I'm rolling the tape and then people can watch. Here's what JBL said was going to

[JVL]

happen on Friday and then you can.

[JBL]

Should they subscribe to my newsletter?

[Tim Miller]

Tim, before we listen, before we listen to the video everyone should subscribe to the Triad newsletter. Go to the bulwark.com pull down the newsletter tab, the Triad.

[JVL]

Sign up for that or just sign up for all our newsletters. They're all great because it's the best thing out there.

[Tim Miller]

I do glad you about that. It's the best newsletter going.

[JVL]

I don't know how you do it

[Tim Miller]

every single fucking day though.

[JVL]

I wrote Friday so Fridays was pretty

[Tim Miller]

good Friday but most every day 98% of the days. It's you, Cal Ripken Jr. Over there. So we'll. So this is the type of prediction that you get.

[JVL]

If you get JBL's newsletter, he will take your flowers on the backside. I'm going to leave my chair empty.

[Tim Miller]

I'll see you all later. Bye.

[JBL]

Let's watch. But Trump will get to say, look, I got a deal. I got a deal. Look at my deal. I have my papers in my deal. And we're going to have next week a bunch of world leaders over in Switzerland for the G7. And so they could. They're doing it in Evian, by the

[Tim Miller]

way,

[JBL]

which I guess is is in France, not Sweden. But Geneva is right there. There it is. Hey guys. We will be back with more as details emerge and we will follow this up. I promise you. It's going to be amazing. And if you are interested in doing a little amateur meteorology, go take a look and just see what the chances are of severe thunderstorms in Washington, D.C. for the next couple hours because starting at 8 o' clock we have this giant outdoor fight happening with a few thousand VIPs in attendance on the lawn of the White House underneath a gigantic steel structure, which I again, not a meteorologist, but probably not advisable to be sitting there if there is lightning in the area. And if so, they will have to evacuate all of these people. And I have no effing idea where they're going to put them all. It could be a debacle. Everybody else hit. Like hit subscribe. We'll be back with more later. Good luck, America.

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