Tommy Vitor (2:58)

Great to be here.

Jane Costen (2:59)

So the U.S. israel and Iran all reportedly agreed to a two week ceasefire agreement. I say reportedly in italics because it looks like even what we know happened has already fallen apart. What happened there?

Tommy Vitor (3:17)

It sounds like they all agreed to a ceasefire agreement, it's just not clear that it was the same one.

Jane Costen (3:22)

Yes, they appear to have all agreed to three separate ceasefire agreements.

Tommy Vitor (3:26)

We agreed to what we wanted to agree to. It sounds like where we got. We landed on this.

Jane Costen (3:31)

Yeah, I'm really perplexed here.

Tommy Vitor (3:34)

Me too.

Jane Costen (3:34)

Because Iran thinks, wow, the US agreed to our 10 part framework for peace, which includes we can enrich as much nuclear material as we want. The sanctions, they're gone, both primary and secondary sanctions. And Israel will stop bombing Hezbollah and Lebanese targets in general. The U.S. says, oh, we didn't agree to that, we agreed to some other thing. And Israel is still bombing targets in Lebanon even as of this morning. Now, why would Israel agree to the ceasefire only to essentially ignore it hours later? Like, what does Netanyahu want from the U. S. Iran conflict? And does he consider his fight against Hezbollah to be a separate thing?

Tommy Vitor (4:23)

Yeah, the Israelis have said since early on that they consider their fight against Hezbollah to be separate, to ultimately be longer term and probably larger. And it will likely include them fully invading and occupying like 15 miles of territory into Lebanon. So Netanyahu doesn't want anyone to tell him what to do when it comes to his own border. There are some analysts out there who wonder if Netanyahu is trying to upend this ceasefire agreement before it gets started. Because the Wall Street Journal reported that the Israelis were cut out of the negotiations between the US And Iran that got to the ceasefire. That they basically were presented the final text at the very end and that they were pissed about it. And there are some people who think that the reason Netanyahu is bombing the shit out of Lebanon today and the IDF is bragging about it, bragging about hitting 100 targets in 10 minutes, is because they are hoping that this is a way to make the cease fire agreement go away so that they continue doing what they want to do and hitting targets in Iran itself.

Jane Costen (5:25)

Right. And it should be noted, Hezbollah is, as we've talked about on the show before, Hezbollah is a Iranian proxy militia with obvious deep ties to the Iranian regime, gets money from. The Iranian regime said in part that it was hitting Israel right after the Iran US War began in response to the death of the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. But I think my larger question here is, does Netanyahu want this war to end with Iran?

Tommy Vitor (5:58)

I don't think so. I mean, I think you've heard the Israelis and the Americans say, usually on background from some, you know, senior U.S. official to Barack Ravid at Axios or whatever, that they have like two weeks, four weeks, six weeks, more military targets they want to hit at the same time. The one thing everyone agrees on the sort of like, number one priority in this war is to deal with Iran's nuclear program, especially the 900 pounds of highly enriched uranium that is still sitting in Iran as we speak. That's got to be gotten out somehow. It's not clear to me. It doesn't seem likely that the Iranians will hand it over. Maybe they will as part of some sort of deal. There's been a lot of talk about, like a commando raid style mission. I think Netanyahu knows that that is unbelievably risky and will likely lead to casualties. And he would probably prefer the Americans do it because we're just have a way bigger force and more capabilities and more technology and more of everything. So it just, it feels like there's a lot of unfinished business within the Pentagon and within, you know, the Israeli security establishment when it comes to this conflict.

Jane Costen (7:09)

Right. Especially since Trump, in his true social post about ending Iranian civilization, also said that they're, you know, they've got this way better, more reasonable regime in power now. Which my first thought was, what? Like, it's the same people. They are executing protesters at an even faster rate than before.

Tommy Vitor (7:26)

Yes.

Jane Costen (7:26)

Like, the only thing that's changed is that a lot of people have died. But it's still the same basic ethos, but to that point about, you know, unfinished business. On Wednesday, the White House said that Vice President J.D. vance will lead the American negotiating team in Pakistan. Nashville. Now, on Tuesday, the New York Times published a piece that to me was all about how Vance did not want to go to war with Iran. I would argue that a lot of that piece seemed to be coming from Vance and people around him saying, like, I didn't want to do this. I don't want anything to do with this. I think this is a bad idea. So what's going on here? Are we now looking to JD Vance for a diplomatic way out of this?

Tommy Vitor (8:06)

Yeah, it sounds like J.D. vance is going to be on his way from Hungary, where, by the way, he's on the stump for a fucking dictator named Viktor Orban in Hungary. He's got an election coming up next week, and he'll probably go from there to Islamabad to be a part of the next round of talks. I would argue that's probably a good thing. Like, I think, like, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner are kind of bumbling idiots, and they failed with these negotiations, they failed with the Russia, Ukraine talks, and they're just. They don't know what they're doing. Hopefully, JD Vance will bring with him some experts, um, and he will come with the actual authority from Donald Trump to make decisions. But I guess we'll find out. When it comes to the politics for J.D. vance, though, like, they're just all over the map with what they're trying to spin for him. Right. Because if you read the Maggie Haberman Jonathan Swan story in the Times, you mentioned Vance is, at the same time, was opposed to the war, but then knew Trump was for it, so he didn't try to talk him out of it. So he tried to talk him into doing limited strikes. And then when Trump didn't want to do that, he told him to go all in and do, like, you know, the biggest version of the war possible. So, like, JD Vance has taken every position on this war possible. And the idea that this guy thinks he can come out of this administration and still run is like, J.D. vance. You know, I was the guy who went to Iraq as a Marine, and I came back completely, you know, disenchanted with the United States and military adventurism abroad.

Jane Costen (9:30)

It's a fucking.

Tommy Vitor (9:31)

It's a farce. Tucker Carlson's gonna run against him and clean his clock from the right and be like, you were part of this war. You did nothing to stop it. You enabled Donald Trump. You didn't tell him no when the chips were down, and it was a disaster.

Jane Costen (9:44)

It also seems interesting to me that there. I mean, going to the effort to spin this, there are so many different people involved in this administration, in this war, and they all seem to want something very different out of this war. And what Donald Trump wants out of this war seems to be a giant mystery.

Tommy Vitor (10:04)

God.

Jane Costen (10:04)

Only, like, you know, the White House will say, like, we want an end to, you know, Iran's ability to enrich uranium, which. I thought we handled that last year.

Tommy Vitor (10:15)

Me, too.

Jane Costen (10:16)

I believe that they said that anyone saying otherwise was doing the fake news.

Tommy Vitor (10:19)

Yep.

Jane Costen (10:20)

But then there's Also, you know, we want to help the protesters and get regime change, which I think we've. We can agree that they've given up.

Tommy Vitor (10:26)

They've given. They don't give a shit on that.

Jane Costen (10:27)

Like, that's. That's ended. And now so much of the focus seems to be on the Strait of Hormuz, which Trump is now saying, oh, what if the US And Iran, coordinated and controlled. Yeah. Controlled the Strait of Hormuz together. So given that Trump has appeared to have fucked around and found out and learned nothing, the US to me, is in a worse place than before with regard to Iran. We now have a regime that seems more hardline, less likely to want to do anything that we would have wanted them to do even before all of this happened. We have done so much to make everything worse in the region. Have we achieved anything? What are we doing here?

Tommy Vitor (11:16)

Yeah, I mean, let's kind of like, tick down the priorities. Like, number one was deal with Iran's nuclear program. As we just said, there's still 900 pounds of highly enriched uranium sitting, getting in Iran. We no longer have IAEA inspectors on the ground to see what they're doing in these various nuclear sites. And it seems likely that Iran will be more motivated than ever to seek a nuclear weapon as a deterrent from getting bombed again. So doesn't seem like a win to me. Number two, the second priority they talk about all the time was destroying Iran's military. Certainly, like, we sank all the boats, we took out their air force, took other navy, took out a bunch of defensive systems, a lot of the ballistic missile stockpiles. But before the ceasefire, the New York Times reported that US intelligence found that Iran was still able to fire 30 ballistic missiles a day and like, 50 to 100 drones. So they still have the ability to shut down the Strait of Hormuz with one shot. The third priority they always talked about was ending support for proxy groups like Hezbollah. Clearly, they're giving them diplomatic support today. Fourth was regime change. Remember, at one point, Trump not only said that he wanted regime change in Iran, but. But he wanted to pick the next leader. And instead we traded Ali Khamenei, who is 86 and about to regime change himself, for his more hardline son, who

Jane Costen (12:29)

has lost his entire family, who's lost

Tommy Vitor (12:31)

his entire family and probably doesn't like us. And as you mentioned before, Iran now has more control over the Strait of Hormuz than ever before and thus the global economy. So it's really like, I realize I have tds, but it's Hard for me to view this one as a big win at the moment.

Matt Berg (12:48)

Right.

Jane Costen (12:48)

And it's. The spin effort has been embarrassing. Embarrassing.

Tommy Vitor (12:53)

It's embarrassing. And like, you know, the Financial Times is reporting that the Iranians are going to demand crypto payments for the toll that they'll charge for boats to go through the Strait of Hormuz. Do we think that money is going to go to the people of Iran and food and services? No, it's going to go to rebuilding their military, support for Hezbollah, support for Hamas ballistic missiles. And I imagine the Russians and the Chinese will gladly support them in these efforts to rebuild. And like the Iranian people are the ones getting screwed the most here because they are left with a destroyed country, a more hardline government that is far more willing now to crack down on any dissent, any protests than they were a few months ago because they're going to wager that, you know, at this time, Trump and Netanyahu, like, they're, they are going to be scared off coming to the rescue of the protesters because frankly, they don't actually give a shit.

Jane Costen (13:44)

Tommy, thanks as always for joining me.

Tommy Vitor (13:47)

It's uplifting. Good to be here.

Jane Costen (13:49)

That was my conversation with Tommy Vitor, co host of Crooked Media's Pod Save the World. The news is pretty overwhelming right now, but we're here to help you make sense of it all. So if you like the show, make sure to subscribe. Leave a five star review on Spotify and Apple podcasts, watch us on YouTube and share with your friends. We'll be back after some ads. What a day is brought to you by Deleteme. Deleteme makes it easy, quick and safe to remove your personal data online. At a time when surveillance and data breaches are common enough to make everyone vulnerable, it's easier than ever to find personal information about people online. Having your address, phone number and family members names hanging out on the Internet can have actual consequences in the real world and makes everyone vulnerable. More and more online partisans and nefarious actors will find this data and use it to target political rivals, civil servants, and even outspoken citizens posting their opinions online. As someone with an active online presence, privacy is really important to me. And it should be to you too. Have you ever been a victim of identity theft, Harassment, Doxxing? If you haven't, you probably know someone who has. Deleteme can help take control of your data and keep your private life private by signing up for Deleteme now at a special discount for our listeners. Get 20% off your delete me plan when you go to JoinDeleteMe.com wad and use promo code WAD at checkout. The only way to get 20% off is to go to JoinDeleteMe.com WAD and enter code WAD at checkout. That's JoinDeleteMe.com WAD code WAD this podcast is brought to you by WISE, the app for international people using money around the globe. When it comes to sending money abroad, many providers claim to offer free fees and competitive rates. But don't be fooled, this can be code for inflated exchange rates. With the WISE account, you can send, spend and receive money in over 40 currencies without ever having to worry about hidden fees sending pounds across the pond. Most transfers arrive in 20 seconds or less. Spending reals in Rio. The wise travel card gives you the mid market rate on every purchase. No costly markups on your bill. Getting paid in dollars for your side gig. Avoid hidden fees and get the real exchange rate every time. With 24. 7 access to life support, your international transactions with WISE are quick, transparent and safe. Plus, WISE runs over 7 million daily checks to catch and prevent fraud. My husband and I use WYZE when we travel internationally and it couldn't be easier. It's a total game changer no matter where you're headed. Download the WISE app today or visit WISE.com Terms and Conditions apply. Are you concerned about microplastics in your home? Blueland makes it easy to make sustainable choices. Blueland cleaning sprays, toilet bowl, cleaner and dishwasher and laundry detergent tablets are free from dyes, parabens and harsh chemicals. Blueland is a certified B Corp and Leaping Bunny Cruelty Free certified. Their formulas are EPA Safer Choice certified and many products have also earned Cradle to Cradle's Gold Material Health Certificate. Get 15% off your first order by going to blueland.com crooked blueland.com crooked if

Tommy Vitor (16:43)

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Jane Costen (17:14)

Here's what else we're following today. Head of Lines Joining me is Crooked's Washington correspondent Matt Berg to talk about the big stories. Hey Matt.

Matt Berg (17:25)

Hey Jane.

Jane Costen (17:26)

There's a lot going on around the world but back in the United States, Immigration and Customs Enforcement is still causing terrible chaos. ICE agents have arrested more than 800 people based on tips provided by Transportation Security Administration officials since the beginning of Trump's second term, according to Reuters. That's unsettling, considering ICE is now checking IDs at airports during the ongoing DHS shutdown, which is, by the way, still going on.

Matt Berg (17:52)

Yeah. And that's not even the only controversy involving ICE recently. Earlier this week, an army staff sergeant told various news outlets that his wife had been detained by ICE only days after their wedding. She had been brought to the US As a toddler from Honduras and was planning to apply for a green card,

Jane Costen (18:08)

which is, you know, how you're supposed to go through the immigration process.

Matt Berg (18:13)

Yeah, you can imagine the reaction to this. A lot of people rallied behind her and pressured the Trump administration to release her. And on Tuesday, they did.

Jane Costen (18:24)

Yeah, I mean, which is good. And I think it's pretty telling that people don't like what ICE is doing or what this administration is doing, because, in other words, good news, Democrats are feeling more hopeful about the November midterms after a pair of elections. On Wednesday, here's the reaction from CNN data guru Harry Holy Toledo.

Tommy Vitor (18:43)

Holy smokes. Holy cow.

Jane Costen (18:46)

I wouldn't have used those exact words. But, yeah, basically, a liberal judge won the Wisconsin Supreme Court election in a nearly 20 point victory that almost doubled the margin that another liberal judge won by last year.

Matt Berg (18:58)

And the other outcome that Democrats are cheering wasn't even Democrat Sean Harris ran for former Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene's seat in Georgia. And he lost, but he lost by a much smaller margin than anyone expected. That margin was 12 points. And in 2024, Trump won the district by 37 points.

Jane Costen (19:17)

Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of information there. One, if Trump's not on the ticket, Republicans do way worse. Also, everybody's very mad at Republicans. I thought it was interesting former Representative Greene tweeted about how this was never going to switch to blue, but this just shows how disappointed everyone is in the Trump administration.

Matt Berg (19:38)

Yeah, there's a lot out there in different news articles about this saying how Republicans don't think that this is that big of a deal and it's all gonna be fine in November. But the bottom line is that there's a clear trend of Democrats outperforming in places where Republicans used to dominate. And so there definitely is at least something for Republicans to be worried about in the midterms. And, you know, speaking of comebacks of a sort, the rapper formerly known as Kanye west is trying to stage one of his own. It's not going so well. As you might have predicted, the British government blocked Ye from traveling to the UK ahead of a festival which he was scheduled to headline in July. The festival was canceled and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said, quote, kanye west should never have been invited.

Jane Costen (20:25)

Now his current tour is part of Wes Ye's attempt to become relevant in the mainstream once again. It's interesting because he's still been making albums. He's been performing alongside very well known rappers who don't have a problem with the incredibly offensive things he's been doing, like releasing a song titled Heil Hitler. Then in January, he released a giant ad in the Wall Street Journal to explain that his anti Semitism the White Lives Matter T shirts, I guess, and his General Hope thing over the last few years was the result of a brain injury suffered during a car accident. If you remember through the Wire, that song, it was around then when his jaw was wired shut. Apparently the ad didn't work on the

Matt Berg (21:05)

British government, and this is definitely not the last we're going to be hearing about this. I have a feeling that Kanye is going to be in the news cycle for a little bit because he's scheduled to headline another festival in Italy in July and there's some debate, given the history of the country's role in World War II and a bunch of just general concern about him coming to the country whether he should be allowed to perform. On the other hand, a Dutch government official said that the Netherlands isn't planning to bar Kanye from performing at his upcoming tour dates there. So, you know, could go either way, depending on the country, I guess.

Jane Costen (21:38)

Yeah, Ye performed recently in California. A lot of very famous people attended. So his career is in this weird holding pattern, I think, in which the last several years have been very much a hindrance to his success internationally and with most people. And yet there are lots of people who still want to see him do Kanye. But I mostly just want to hang out with you. Matt. Thanks so much.

Matt Berg (22:05)

Thanks for having me.

Jane Costen (22:06)

And that's the. Before we go. This week on Runaway Country, Alex Wagner is joined by Brian Tyler Cohen to break down what's looking more and more like Trump fully unraveling. And the bigger question, where the hell is Congress? While all of this is happening, from the chaos to the consequences, it's a conversation you don't want to miss. Tune in to Runaway country wherever you get your podcasts or watch on YouTube. That's all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review and subscribe. Honor a heroic rat who saved thousands of lives and tell your friends to listen. And if you're into reading and not just about Magawa, an African giant pouched rat who sniffed at more than 100 landmines in Cambodia during his five year career, clearing more than a million acres of land and even helping to train other rats after he retired in 2021. Like me, what a Day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe@qriket.com subscribe hi, I'm Jane Coston. Migawa passed away in 2022, but last week a seven foot tall statue of the rat was unveiled in Siem Reap, Cambodia to honor his incredible legacy. What a Day is a production of Crooked Media. It's recorded and mixed by Desmond Taylor. Our associate producer is Emily Foer. Our producer is Caitlin Plummer. Our video editor is Joseph Dutra. Our video producer is Johanna Case. We have production help today from Greg Walters, Matt Berg and Ethan Oberman. Our senior producer is Erica Morrison and our senior Vice President of News and Politics is Adrian Hill. Our theme music is by Kyle Murdoch and Jordan Cantor. We had help today from the Associated Press. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.