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Here's the Scoop
Why Peace in Iran Isn’t a Done Deal; Will American Pessimism Affect the Midterms?
00:23:12
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- [00:00]
A
We brought in a bunch of super fans of Roblox, ages 9 to 12, and it correctly identified their ages in all six cases that we put up. It also correctly identified that I am well above 16 years old.
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B
Hey, everybody, and welcome to here's the scoop from NBC News. I'm Yasmin Vesugian. So Roblox is beefing up the child safety features of their online platform. After a slew of lawsuits, we are taking a look under the hood. Plus, we've got primaries this week in Georgia, Alabama, and no Oklahoma. So how are Americans feeling leading up to America 250? Our senior national politics reporter John Allen joins us for that. Up first, though, President Donald Trump has been saying for months that a deal to end the war with Iran is close. And then over the weekend he said we were there and this time Iranian officials are confirming the news. But we haven't seen the deal and there aren't a lot of specifics out there. In a true social post on Sunday, the president claimed, quote, the leaders of the region have for the first time found a president who can help them achieve real peace. But what is real peace? And is this a deal or the promise of a deal? Israel started the war alongside the United States and they are not a part of this potential deal. And its leaders are sending a very different message. On Sunday, Israel struck Beirut's southern suburbs in what the Israeli military says was an attack on Hezbollah targets. So even if they get to a final deal, could Israel and Hezbollah threaten it? For this, I want to bring in Aaron David Miller, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He is also a former State Department Middle east negotiator under Republican and Democratic administrations. Hi, Aaron.
- [01:47]
C
Hey, Esmeen. Great to be here with you.
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B
Always good to have you. So the president is calling this thing a great deal, but I want to be clear here. This is not a deal yet. This is the promise of a deal. This is a memorandum to continue to negotiate over the next 60 days, set up for us what you feel as if we are working with right now.
- [02:12]
C
Yeah. Yes. Reen, I think you broke the code. The text has not yet been released, which to me is very worrisome. It has the potential to be a memorandum of understanding that becomes a memorandum of misunderstanding because as you suggested, every issue what to do about Iran's highly enriched uranium, the 900 pounds, the 11 tons of uranium they have enriched to various levels? What to do about Iran's nuclear infrastructure? What about sanctions relief? What about unfreezing frozen assets? What about Mutual security guarantees. What about Lebanon? We've bought. And Iranians apparently have agreed a ticket to negotiation that is to last 60 days to address all these issues. And it remains a highly arguable proposition that during that period, the gaps that separate this administration's views from the Islamic Republic's views, those gaps are as wide as the Grand Canyon.
- [03:13]
B
You know, the President has had a, it seems, obsession, I would say, with the jcpoa. It was the Iran nuclear deal that was negotiated under the Obama administration, led by Secretary of State, then Secretary of State John Kerry in 2015 out of Vienna. It took years to negotiate that agreement. The President in his first term, President Trump pulled this country out of the jcpoa. He has spent the weekend telling reporters that this agreement, this deal that we don't know the details of, is better than the jcpoa. Can you remind people of, help people understand what the JCPOA was, the points of the JCPOA?
- [03:56]
C
It was an effort and it took 18 months to negotiate. It was 18 pages of text and 141 pages of technical annexes. Experts participated very rough negotiations. On reflection, I think it was a flawed but highly functional agreement. It was designed to put time on the clock to restrain and constrain Iran's capacity to enrich uranium under, under the careful monitoring and verification of the International Atomic Energy Agency. What is being talked about now, and this would be, this single facet, would in fact be an improvement if the Iranians and the Americans came to an agreement. Because what they're talking about now is a moratorium. Not a permanent cessation, but a moratorium on enrichment. No enrichment for anywhere. What the administration wanted to do better than the JCPOA, they wanted 20 years. The Iranians came back with five and 10, if you could get that. But you'd have to accompany that with the kind of monitoring and the kind of verification to deal with Iran's progress that they've made since leaving the JCPOA. Since we left in 2018. They've enriched 11 tons of uranium at varying levels since the first Trump administration walked out of that deal. Their knowledge, their capacity, the notion that the President could make a claim that he has prevented Iran from ever acquiring a nuclear weapon is a thought tethered to a galaxy far, far away, not to the realities back here on planet Earth.
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B
So then there is what Israel may do, if in fact there is a deal that goes through and is signed after this 60 day negotiating period and they come to a consensus on all the points with regards to Iran's nuclear ambitions. I just said Sunday Israel bombed the southern suburbs of Beirut because they said they were targeting Hezbollah. Defense minister of Israel said that Israeli forces intend to stay in parts of Lebanon, Syria and Gaza indefinitely. The administration in Israel, along with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government, has said they are not a part of, of this potential deal. So what impact could the ongoing war between Israel and Lebanon have on whether or not something sticks between Iran and the United States?
- [06:39]
C
Right. I mean, Netanyahu played a critical role in how this war began. I'm not sure he's going to play much of a role in how it ended, but or how this phase ends. But Lebanon is tricky. And unless the Iranians are prepared to constrain Hezbollah and Trump is prepared to constrain Netanyahu, Lebanon is going to be a flashpoint. I suspect that Israeli activities against Hezbollah are going to continue in southern Lebanon. I don't see the Israelis withdrawing their troops and their military deployments and their presence. You're going to have elections in October. You have a million Israelis in the north who want Netanyahu to be tougher on his butt. You have a million Lebanese who have been displaced from the south. It's going to be up to Iran and Trump to try to constrain their respective partners or allies in this. If they don't, if the Iranians think that they could somehow create a situation where they're going to force Trump to force Netanyahu out of Lebanon without constraining the activities of their billion dollar proxy, I don't think this is going to work. But once the deal is signed and we get a better sense of what the terms are with respect to Lebanon, it's going to take an Iranian thumb on Hezbollah and a US Thumb on Netanyahu.
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A
Aaron?
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B
David Miller, as always, thank you, Yasmin.
- [08:21]
C
You're great. And it was great being with you. Thanks so much for having me.
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B
All right, coming up, America's 250th birthday is on the horizon, but Americans are feeling anything but celebratory. We're going to talk about how that's playing out in the primaries after a very quick break. Meantime, just do me a favor right forward this episode or another recent one that you really liked to a friend and then tell them why you love listening to. Here's the scoop. We would really love your help in getting the word out about our show. I'll see you on the other side.
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B
And we are back with here's the scoop from NBC News. So we are just a couple of weeks away from America 250. And while there are a bunch of celebrations planned in Washington, D.C. and a new NBC News poll shows that Americans are more pessimistic than ever about the country's future as we approach the end of primary season with key races in Georgia, Alabama and Oklahoma on Tuesday, how is that going to play out with voters? For that, I want to bring in NBC News senior national politics reporter John Allen. Hey, John.
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E
Hey. Yes.
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B
So we have this new NBC News polling out, which is sponsored by the nonpartisan nonprofit More Perfect. And Americans are feeling pretty bleak about their future. Tell me more about some of the major takeaways from this latest polling.
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E
So you hit the nail on the head, Yaz. First of all, I like to call it the windshield rearview mirror test. We asked people whether they thought America's best days were ahead of it or its best days were behind it. 58% said our best days are behind us.
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B
Wow.
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E
But even more than that, if you go like a little deeper into the poll, you find that 78% of people say that the American dream is harder to achieve today than it was a generation ago. 5% of people say it's easier to achieve. And I can tell you when you go into the cross tabs on that, this is across classes, it's across ages. So both poorer people, middle class people, wealthy people all say that the American dream is harder to achieve. And also when you talk about younger people and older people now there's a little balance. Younger people, people with less money, tend to think that even more. But at a total of 78%, it's basically everybody.
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B
I mean, and that speaks to where we are with this economy right now. The American dream being harder to achieve than ever before. Also faith in institutions that are low as well, including the federal government, tech, media, military as well. I want to talk about Republicans, because if we ground it in the race for the Republican nomination for the Georgia governor, both candidates, Lieutenant Governor Burt Jones and the healthcare executive, Rick Jackson, they have aligned themselves with the President, but the president has only endorsed one of them, and that is Lieutenant Governor Jones. So far, he has had a pretty good endorsement record this primary calendar. What does the poll tell us about Trump aligned candidates and how they may perform in the general election come November?
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E
Well, so if you take all these things together, right, including what you're talking about, which is the President's very strong record of endorsements in Republican primaries, there have been some cases where that has not quite worked out for him. Randy Feenster was running in Iowa, got the President's endorsement, lost his primary for governor. Of course, the exception pointing to the rule. Take that. Then you take, you know, generic ballot testing. We see here where the Democrats are favored in a generic ballot test in this poll by a handful of points. I think it's about a five percentage point difference. And then take the president's approval rating in this poll, 42%. We've seen some that are lower than that. We've seen some a little bit higher. But basically, the President's been around the 40% mark in a lot of the polling. And what this tells you, all of this together tells you is the President can still determine who is going to be the Republican nominee in an election. He can certainly make it impossible for certain candidates to get there. But what he cannot do at this point is, is endorse in a primary in a way that makes it clear that that person's gonna win a general election. That is to say, he continues to be overwhelmingly popular with Republican voters and not with Democrats and independents.
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B
So I wanna talk about the coalition that the President was actually able to secure in 2024, and that included young people and Latino voters, two groups that have historically leaned left, by the way. But the NBC News poll found that 64% of Latino voters disapprove of Trump now, and 77% of voters between the ages of 18 and 29 also disapprove of the president. Is there an opening and opportunity now for Democrats as we look ahead to November and where this polling is landing with both Latino voters and young voters?
- [14:16]
E
Yeah, there's absolutely an opportunity for the Democrats here, the question, I think, for them long term, beyond just this midterm, is whether they're going to present something that makes younger voters not go back and forth between the parties. If Democrats can present a vision that keeps Latino voters in their column and not falling away as they were in the last election, I think that's gonna be the big test for the Democrats beyond the midterms. In the midterms, this is bad news for President Trump and Republicans. And particularly, I think you've seen events intercede here. When President Trump was running in the last election, people were still talking about border wall. People were still talking about cutting off new immigration into the United States, new illegal immigration into the United States. What we've seen since the last election is a mass deportation campaign that included people who were not authorized to be here, but had been here for, you know, generations or been here for many years themselves, people who were rounded up, who were not actually here illegally, and the killing of a couple of Americans in Minnesota. I think you're seeing a reaction from Latino voters to the implementation of that mass deportation campaign where immigration has become a larger issue and one that cuts against the president with a group of people who had been open to his arguments about closing off the border to new immigration.
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B
Is there any glimmers of hope amidst this very kind of bleak, depressing set of numbers that we're talking about?
- [15:45]
E
Yes, there are slivers of silver lining, and I think the big one is, and this may be a surprise to folks, a majority of Americans say that they believe we all share core common values. So it's 54% who say that, 44%, not insignificant percentage say that we do not, as Americans, share common core values. But I think that majority there suggests that there's some building blocks in terms of a country that's less angrily divided.
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B
Keeping all of this in mind, John, especially as we're taking a look at these numbers and what is ahead. We've got primary contests, as I mentioned, in Georgia, Alabama, Oklahoma as well on Tuesday. Then we got the Democratic primary for D.C. mayor and a special primary in California's 14th district. What should we be looking for?
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E
I think what you're going to expect to see, Yasmin, over the course of the next several months is a lot more negativity in politics. There has been purchase, and yes, there's been absolute purchase for these politicians in beating each other up, beating the parties up, beating the president up, beating the ideologies up, and of course, beating the institutions up, which is why I think a big part of the story of why our institutions are not seen in good regard. In part, the public believes that they are not to be trusted. And then the politicians come in and echo that and kind of make it worse. So in the run up to an election, I think you're going to hear much more of that.
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B
John Allen, thank you.
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E
Take care. Yes.
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B
All right. We are going to take one more quick break. And when we come back, roblox, another front in the fight to keep kids safe online.
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B
And we are back with here's a scoop from NBC News. So my kids love roblox. And if you're a parent of a young kid, you know all about it. It launched back in 2006. It's now become the biggest social gaming platform for kids everywhere. Last year there were up to 152 million daily active users. But Roblox has also had some criticism over child safety issues. Over 150 families have sued the company. They accused them of not doing a good enough job of preventing children from being groomed by predators on the platform. Now, a spokesperson for the company told NBC News, quote, the claims about Roblox fundamentally misrepresent the how our platform works. At the same time, they said they were making changes to protect kids, some of which they're rolling out this month. So for this, I want to bring in NBC News anchor and chief consumer investigative correspondent Vicky Nguyen. Hi, Vicky.
- [19:49]
A
Hey, Yasmin. Thanks for having me.
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B
It's great to have you. My kids play Roblox and I didn't even understand the threats that exist in playing Roblox, the problems that exist. Can you first explain for folks kind of how the platform combines gaming with social components for those that don't know?
- [20:07]
A
Yeah. And you're not the only parent out there who is grappling with those same things. You think your children are playing a game like we did? Atari, Nintendo, I mean, I'm dating myself. But no, this is a universe where users can generate their own games. And it's not just for kids. There are a lot of adults who love Roblox. And you talk about the 150 million people daily who log on to play these games, and therein lies the concern for parents because there have been documented cases of people entering the chat grooming children on this platform. And then it leads to terrible, dire consequences out in the real world. And so Roblox, 20 years old, this company, the safety measures have evolved and the new technology out there now is to try and verify users ages so that you are chatting with people in your peer group. And so that is part of the new suite of safety features that Roblox is rolling out. Either you are now going, starting tomorrow, you're either gonna have to verify your age with a government issued id.
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B
So this is called the RO Roblox Kids account. Right. This is what they've, they're developing, they've
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A
launched kids accounts, select accounts as well. So in addition to either scanning your face to verify your age, which they say they can do with 1.4 years of accuracy. So they've been testing, they did this, launched it in Australia first. They've been working out the kinks because they want to make sure that like, users are grouped together.
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B
So it's not just, are you under or over 18, for instance?
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A
Absolutely. And it's not just relying on you scrolling to a dropdown menu and making up a Birth date.
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B
Exactly right.
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A
So there's this technology, there are concerns over privacy. What happens to that scan that you're doing of my kid's face? Roblox says once the scan is entered, they delete that data. But I think what is important is they're also launching these age based groups. So kids in the five to eight category will only have access to games that are appropriate for their ages. And they will not have chat unless their parents go in a linked account and allow it. Now if you are 9 to 15, you will have some chat features. And then if you are 16 and up, you generally have access. And if you don't want to verify your age, if you don't want to have your ID or your face scanned, then you will not have chat and you will have limited access to the game.
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B
So if you have kids that already have Roblox account, like my children, does that mean tomorrow I'm going back in and changing and adjusting?
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A
Tomorrow they will be prompted. If they haven't already verified their age. It's easy. We saw it at the headquarters, demonstrated to us in California.
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B
You tested it too?
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A
Brought in a bunch of kids. Yeah, we brought in a bunch of super fans of Roblox ages 9 to 12. And it correctly identified their ages. In all six cases that we put up. It also correctly identified that I am well above 16 years old. Here's the thing, here's the rub. It's funny because sometimes it will say that you are actually younger than you are. Right. And that's the better. That's actually, I don't enjoy that. I don't want as a parent, Right. If your nine year old is put in the group with the five to eight year olds, but your nine year old's not liking that. Cause they wanna be able to chat with their friends who are also 9 or 10. And so if that happens, you as a parent can go in and request a one time age verific. And somebody also asked, kids are so smart, they're gonna game the system. Yasmine, you know they come up to, they like hold the iPad up, they're like, mommy, look this way, look that one. You're like what? Huh? And next thing you know they're like in an 18 and above account.
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C
Yeah.
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A
No, what Roblox says is there's ongoing age verification in the background. So if you say you're 21, but you're always like hanging out with the nine year olds, are you a nine year old? That's a problem. And so they will kick you out. But this is, it's really complicated because, you know, you do. Parents do need to be involved too. You can't just rely on any single platform, whether it's a gaming platform or social media platform to do the work. So sit side by side with your kids, ask them questions about what they're doing, have them play in a public environment. They shouldn't be in their rooms with the door closed.
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B
Let's talk about what's happening here in the UK because the UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has said the UK plans on banning kids under the age of 16 from using social media apps like, I believe, TikTok, Snapchat and YouTube. Is there any plan on that happening here stateside? Because we've seen kind of these incremental changes happening here from social media sites, but not an all out ban for kids of a certain age.
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A
Well, obviously they don't want that because this is their bread and butter, right? This is how they make their money. But the UK Prime Minister, Keir Starmer saying today they're gonna follow exactly what Australia did and take it a step further. So they're gonna ban social media for kids under 16. They're also gonna add, right, because Australia did it first. Australia did it first. So this is gonna go before the Parliament in December. It's not a done deal yet, but a YouGov poll that was done of British citizens back in December found that 74% of them approve and support this measure. So I think that there's such a heightened awareness of the potential harm that comes from social media. And to see the UK taking this kind of step and saying, you know what, kids under 16 really don't need these apps is huge. And I do think it has a strong chance of passing. And if it does, you would see implementation by early 2027, early next year.
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B
Vicky Wynn, thank you.
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A
Great to be with you.
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B
That is gonna do it for us at here's the Scoop from NBC News. I'm Yassin Bisugin. We'll be back tomorrow with whatever the day may bring. And if you like what you heard, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And you can also subscribe to our daily newsletter, the Inside Scoop. It is a deeper dive on the main stories of the day that comes out every weeknight straight to your inbox. You can sign up for. The Inside Scoop is part of a paid subscription at NBC News. We'll see you tomorrow.
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