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

Summary

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The Bulwark Podcast Summary

Episode: BREAKING: Trump Announces Deal With Iran, To Be Signed Friday
Date: June 14, 2026
Hosted by: Tim Miller (A), JVL (B), and contributor (C)
Theme: Dissecting the announced Trump-Iran “deal”—its implications, the political theater behind it, and what it means for U.S. credibility and global order.

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Episode Overview

In this urgent episode, Tim Miller and JVL react in real time to breaking headlines: President Trump has just announced a deal with Iran to be formally signed that Friday in Switzerland. The hosts break down the announcements, parse official statements, and contextualize the political spectacle around it, highlighting the deal’s substance (or lack thereof), its motivations—especially the timing with Trump’s 80th birthday—and the potential global fallout for the U.S. and international economic order.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The “Deal” Structure and Motives

• MoU, Not A Deal:
  The agreement is expected to be a Memorandum of Understanding—essentially a diplomatic punt, rather than a substantive peace treaty or binding accord.

  • JVL: “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. For Trump, it's a way to declare victory and get the fuck out of Iran, and for the Iranians to get everything they want.” (03:09)

• Personal Optics & Political Theater:
  Trump’s announcement coincides with his 80th birthday, with much of the pomp occurring at a birthday event featuring wrestling and motocross on the White House lawn.

  • Tim Miller: “The optics of celebrating victory coinciding with his birthday...this is the most pure distillation of the idiocracy clownish side of it.” (05:36)
  • JVL: “A birthday present. Yeah, yeah. Here's a little birthday present.” (04:59)

2. Core Provisions and Outcomes

• Sanctions Relief & Strait of Hormuz:
  Iran reportedly receives substantial sanctions relief, de facto control over the Strait of Hormuz, and financial compensation laundered through intermediaries.

  • JVL: “Iran is going to get sanctions relief. The sanctions are going to go away. Iran is going to get cash money...Trump is going to hide this and say...somebody else is going to be paying Iran.” (03:36)
  • “Marine traffic through the Gulf will be regulated by Iran in coordination with Oman.” (16:12 - quoting Iranian news agency via Phil Stewart, Reuters)

• No Real Address of the Nuclear Program:
  Surprisingly, there’s no substantive mention of Iran’s nuclear program or concrete constraints.

  • JVL: “There's no mention of the nuclear stuff in any of these announcements...Trump will treat...an unreliable Iranian promise to not make progress on nuclear weapons as if it’s iron.” (13:39, 14:14)

3. Global and Regional Implications

• U.S. Humiliation and Loss of Leverage:
  The deal is framed as a massive U.S. surrender, reducing American credibility and shifting the regional and geopolitical balance, notably benefiting China and adversarial regimes.

  • JVL: “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.” (08:43)

• Long-Term Effects on International Trade:
  The shift undermines principles of free navigation and predictability in global markets, resulting in permanently increased risk and costs (especially for insurers and the oil industry).

  • JVL: “The reinsurance industry can't unsee what just happened...the cost structure for oil is, is step changed up...the baseline costs are permanently raised.” (12:18)

• Continued Regional Instability:
  The deal appears to ignore ongoing Iranian proxy activity, promising only unreliable future pledges.

  • JVL: “They will get a totally unreliable Iranian promise to not make progress on nuclear weapons...and Just make it somebody else’s problem five years from now when [Trump] is at home with the Lord.” (14:14)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Farcical Formality of the Announcement:
  Tim Miller, reading Trump’s statement:

  “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. Let the oil flow.” (06:12)

  JVL:

  “Herewith, the Strait of Hormuz is open. That’s not how this works.” (06:44)

• On the Humiliation of the U.S.:
  JVL:

  “Everybody needs to pretend that this is a deal so that Trump can leave the theater...Once you’re gone and your leverage has gone from none to zero, we will tell you the terms...We are now a hemispheric bully and not a global hegemon.” (08:43)

• Summing up the Absurdity:
  JVL concocts an implausible but now-real “future” scenario:

  “Donald Trump’s going to start a war with Iran...then decide he got bored with it a couple of weeks in...massive international energy crisis...at his 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 mullahs everything before his fight night starts.” (15:11)

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Important Timestamps & Segments

• [01:06] - Recap of JVL’s Slack prediction about the deal’s likely nature (MoU, birthday optics).
• [03:09-04:14] - Details on Iran’s leverage, U.S. motivations, and laundering of payments.
• [06:10-07:19] - Reading and ridiculing Trump’s formal statement (“Ships of the world. Start your engines!”), and discussing practical realities (insurance, real risks).
• [08:43] - JVL on U.S. surrender and long-term global implications.
• [10:00] - Iranian state media confirms deal; framing it as an American humiliation.
• [12:10-13:28] - Explaining the new structural risks for international oil transit and reinsurance markets.
• [13:39-14:14] - On the lack of credible nuclear limitations and Iranian promises.
• [16:12] - Reuters report: Iran (with Oman) now regulates Gulf maritime traffic.

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Final Takeaways

• The event is less a diplomatic breakthrough and more a face-saving exit for the Trump administration, driven by personal legacy concerns rather than broad strategic interests.
• Substantively, the U.S. has given significant concessions with little in return; Iran and regional actors extract key wins as America signals a loss of will and influence.
• There is concern for lasting consequences to global trade, freedom of navigation, and the U.S.-anchored international order, with potentially far-reaching effects across the world.

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Transcript

[A]

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

[B]

We have what I don't know is

[A]

a kind of sort of birthday party humiliation deal from Donald Trump that he

[B]

is unilaterally announcing at this time with his friends. 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 JBL about it because there are a lot of layers to what is happening here.

[A]

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

[B]

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

[A]

say, jbl, I had to do this with you right now because we had

[B]

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?

[C]

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

[A]

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

[B]

I'm just reading it right here. People can see that.

[A]

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

[B]

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.

[A]

Number two, the quote unquote deal being

[B]

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

[A]

You go on. This is a moment of maximum leverage for the Iranians.

[B]

It's a way to get what they want because Trump has this incentive, the

[A]

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.

[B]

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

[A]

And so that was what your prediction was. I thought that the Iranians and it could still happen. We, God willing, we could have a

[B]

situation where we're both right, which would be nice.

[A]

I still Thought the Iranians would make

[B]

him sit on it.

[A]

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

[B]

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

[C]

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 think I come from the future and I can tell you what's going to happen. This 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 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't actually. But you see what I'm saying, Like, there is going to be money and maybe it will be laundered as well. It'll go to a joint, joint account administered by Oman and Iran. Iran is going to get paid. Every time somebody transits the straight 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 them. Somebody else is going to be paying Iran. So that, that's going to be part of it.

[B]

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

[C]

Yeah, 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 through 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. Yeah, right. 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.

[B]

Right.

[C]

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.

[B]

A birthday present. Yeah, yeah. Here's a little birthday present. I like that Ruben Gallego is calling it Temu jcpoa. Here's what Trump actually said. So this is, again, we don't know much. Here's what Trump is saying.

[A]

The deal. This is so ridiculous.

[B]

I need to read it and I'm going to read it to you for this reason. Jbl, like the Trump era, you know, everything that Trump does is some bit malicious and some bit clownish. You know, like there is like a, there is evil authoritarianism and there is idiocracy, like enmeshed in everything.

[A]

And I truly, I feel like this

[B]

Iran debacle and this announcement at his

[A]

wrestling birthday party tonight is the most

[B]

pure distillation of the idiocracy clownish side of it.

[A]

I mean, there's some malice here because

[B]

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

[A]

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

[B]

Congratulations to all.

[A]

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.

[B]

Let the oil flow. President Donald Trump.

[A]

But herewith, this is like the Book of. Sorry, if you have any, if you're

[B]

Mormons out there, just close your ears for a second.

[A]

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

[B]

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

[A]

That's not like.

[B]

That's not how this works.

[A]

I mean, Iran has a say. You know who else has to say

[B]

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.

[C]

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

[A]

Yeah. The. Herewith you don't. I don't think it's going to be

[B]

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

[C]

Lloyd. Lloyd's gonna need a little more than that.

[B]

Sorry.

[A]

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

[B]

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

[A]

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

[B]

on all fronts, including Lebanon.

[C]

Permanent, Tim. Permanent.

[B]

Permanent.

[C]

Including in Lebanon until the heat death of the universe.

[B]

I don't know.

[A]

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

[B]

believe, believing that they are going to

[C]

be part of 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.

[A]

Maybe we'll find out in Switzerland.

[C]

This is how stupid this is.

[A]

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

[B]

the Republic of IR as well as

[A]

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

[B]

of Turkey for their immense contributions in this regard.

[C]

I also said they were going to sign this in Switzerland because right now

[A]

show you all the tapes.

[C]

Seven meeting in Evian.

[A]

But no, I was going to save

[B]

the tape for the end.

[C]

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

[A]

So what do you make about the. About the.

[B]

About the tacky pitch here and what we know so far.

[C]

Again, 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. Right? And that's what this is. 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. We, we, this is the last time we will ever have anything to say about things that go on in the Strait of hormones that then becomes China's problem for the rest of all time. And we are going to be, you know, reduced to going and sitting on Cuba and threatening Greenland again. Like we are now a hemispheric bully and not a global hegemon.

[B]

Yeah. Watch out, Nuke.

[A]

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

[B]

media is confirming that they've agreed to the deal, announcing part of announcement saying that the United States was humiliated and forced to sign an agreement to end the war on all fronts. The. I think that it's worth, right, it's

[A]

worth just sitting on this for a second. I mean, the Donald Trump

[B]

went into Iran war. They were negotiating like at the beginning of the war. It's important, 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, 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 that'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.

[C]

First regime change, regime change. First, first we were going to end

[B]

the regime and then demanding uncontrollable, unconditional surrender.

[A]

So you fast forward 100 days and

[B]

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

[A]

going

[C]

return to the status quo or Return

[B]

to where things were before the war started. Right. Hopefully. Yeah.

[C]

Maybe not even going to get that.

[B]

Yeah, but maybe, but we will get to.

[C]

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

[B]

quo, 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.

[C]

End of sanctions.

[B]

End of sanctions.

[C]

Control of the strait. Right. The strait will no longer be governed by international law.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

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 baseline costs are permanently raised.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And. Right.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

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

[B]

his hat on through all this was the nuclear notice.

[C]

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

[A]

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

[B]

Not a word.

[C]

N word, not anywhere near this stuff.

[B]

Thank God.

[C]

Bizarre, isn't it?

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Interesting. I was told by Marco Rubio that that was 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, got to kind of do what

[B]

will be back to where we are.

[A]

They still going to be funding the proxies in the region.

[B]

There's a lot of talk about the proxies for a while.

[C]

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.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

It's hard to really wrap your head

[B]

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

[A]

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

[B]

back in the past and kind of

[A]

pretend like I'm a person from the future.

[B]

Pretend like I'm JVL Nostradamus 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.

[A]

Donald Trump's going to start a war

[B]

with Iran and then decide he got

[A]

bored with it a couple of weeks in.

[B]

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 is

[A]

bulldozed the east wing of the White House.

[B]

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

[C]

mullahs everything 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.

[B]

Nailed it.

[C]

JV Toll. Toll free. Toll freedom. Don't worry, there won't be any tolls. Just like we won't be gifted. We won't be giving Iran any money. We will give some other countries money. And if they decide to give that

[A]

money to Iran, I mean, we don't.

[C]

That's not on us.

[A]

And do we.

[C]

This is all really bad.

[A]

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

[B]

was that the Iranian leadership was so 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?

[C]

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, you know, 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, who knows what else follows downstream of this and the. The impact to 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 now, you know, I think it benefited a lot of other people as 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.

[A]

It's bad. Can we do a little shot?