The Ben Shapiro Show - June 16, 2026


Analyzing the Case for the Iran Agreement

Hosted by
Ben Shapiro
Mentioned
Trump JD Vance Mohamed Baqir Qalibov Obama Ali Reza Zakhani Mohammed Pazeshkian Steve Witkoff Lindsey Graham John Ratcliffe Jared Kushner Mark Thiessen Ismail Khania Pete Hegseth Barack Ravid Israel Hayom Marco Rubio Adam Credo Kalishnikov Houthis George and 4 more
Jimmy Kimmel, MSNBC, and the Total Meltdown Over White House UFC JD Vance Press Tour

Episode Stats


Length

29 minutes

Words per minute

203.51

Word count

5,990

Sentence count

411

Harmful content

Toxicity

4

sentences flagged

Hate speech

57

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

The President, Vice President, and Leader of the Iranian Parliament, a man named Mohammed Khalibaf, all signed a memorandum of understanding on Sunday night, and we still have no idea what is in it. What does it mean and what does it entail?

Transcript

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Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 So here's what we know.
00:00:01.000 The president, vice president, and leader of the Iranian parliament, a man named Mohammed Khalibaf, all signed a memorandum of understanding on Sunday night.
00:00:09.000 And we still have no idea what is in it.
00:00:12.000 So tonight, we're going to continue to talk about what we know and what we don't know and what we should expect next.
00:00:23.000 All right, so we still don't have much information at this point.
00:00:27.000 Like no text to the MOU could have been released.
00:00:30.000 I mean, it's been signed.
00:00:31.000 We know that because that's been announced by the administration.
00:00:33.000 We still have a lot of questions.
00:00:35.000 So here's the thing just release it.
00:00:38.000 Then we can talk about things we know.
00:00:41.000 Because that's the really cool thing about written agreements.
00:00:44.000 They're filled with words.
00:00:46.000 And those words, we can all read them and they mean things.
00:00:48.000 And then we can understand what they mean.
00:00:50.000 And then we can discuss them publicly.
00:00:52.000 Either that or we don't have any choice but to speculate.
00:00:55.000 So here's what we do have at this point some talking points that were issued from the White House.
00:01:00.000 Now, listen, my overall inclination remains to give President Trump the benefit of the doubt.
00:01:04.000 President Trump has a record of doing the hard thing when no one else would.
00:01:08.000 And I've said it a thousand times.
00:01:09.000 President Trump's foreign policy in the Middle East is the best of my lifetime, bar none, no close competitors.
00:01:14.000 No one else would have been able to do the Abraham Accords.
00:01:17.000 No one else would have gone after Soleimani.
00:01:19.000 No one else would have had the courage to deliver Operation Midnight Hammer last year, directed at the Fordow nuclear facility, let alone Operations Epic Fury and Economic Fury this year.
00:01:29.000 However, as with any war, the question is the endgame.
00:01:34.000 And we are being told that we're in the endgame.
00:01:36.000 So we just have to sort of analyze based on what we know and what we don't.
00:01:39.000 So here's the thing.
00:01:40.000 At the moment, there is technically no final deal cut.
00:01:42.000 We've been hearing from the White House, from the president, that the war is over, the deal is done, but that isn't actually the reality.
00:01:51.000 It's just not real.
00:01:52.000 The White House itself acknowledges this.
00:01:55.000 They put out a set of talking points.
00:01:57.000 The key one to me remains this one right here The Memorandum of Understanding sets a finite window to finalize the deal, no open ended timeline for Iran to exploit.
00:02:07.000 President Trump knows the regime stalls and uses talks to buy time.
00:02:10.000 He will not allow it. 0.69
00:02:11.000 The pressure that brought Iran to the table stays fully loaded and every option is still on the table. 0.99
00:02:15.000 This is the start, not the finish. 0.82
00:02:17.000 President Trump holds the leverage until the job is done.
00:02:21.000 So, again, that is a positive sign. 1.00
00:02:24.000 Obviously, if President Trump is still holding out the possibility that if Iran doesn't do what we want them to do, then we clock them again, or we have alternative plans, that would be a good thing. 0.88
00:02:34.000 And the president has shown willingness to do that before. 0.97
00:02:36.000 In my opinion, he's going to have to show willingness to do that again in the very near future because I'll just put it this way I do not trust the Iranian government. 0.91
00:02:43.000 I do not see why anyone would trust the Iranian government given their 47 year long history of Takiyah to lying to everyone they negotiate with, of pursuing terrorism, of pursuing violence, of pursuing the building of nuclear capabilities under the radar and ballistic missile facilities and all the rest. 0.92
00:03:01.000 Okay, so what do we actually know? 0.96
00:03:03.000 Well, again, we do not have a big, fully written out document here.
00:03:08.000 The vice president himself, JD Vance, and this is JD's deal.
00:03:10.000 Let's be very clear this is the vice president's deal, it does not have support.
00:03:14.000 Apparently, according to Axios from the Secretary of State or the Secretary of Defense or the head of the CIA, this is the Vice President's deal.
00:03:20.000 He's the one who negotiated it, along with Jared Kushner and Steve Woodcock.
00:03:23.000 And the Vice President says that it's an MOU, a memorandum of understanding, that is one and a half pages.
00:03:28.000 He says it is very general, which is somewhat disquieting.
00:03:33.000 Is it fair to say that it's not spelled out that they have to end their ballistic missile program or end their funding of the Houthis and Hamas and Hezbollah, that that's left purposely vague?
00:03:46.000 And then the U.S. will come later and say, you know that we expected this and you're not behaving accordingly.
00:03:53.000 I'm just trying to understand how the deal is written.
00:03:57.000 Yeah, so the MOU, Jake, is about a page and a half.
00:03:59.000 So it is a very general document, but this has been very much part of the conversations that we've had with the Iranians.
00:04:07.000 So it's an agreement to agree to agree.
00:04:09.000 It's what I speculated on Monday.
00:04:12.000 What I speculated yesterday was that the agreement would basically be a big nothing burger in an attempt to open the strait.
00:04:20.000 That's what it sounds like.
00:04:22.000 And according to Mohammed Pazeshkin, who is the president of Iran, he said what has been agreed upon is an important step towards stopping the war and beginning negotiations.
00:04:29.000 A final agreement has yet to take shape.
00:04:31.000 So, again, all the talk about we've reached a final deal, not even close.
00:04:34.000 The Islamic Republic of Iran has prepared itself for all options.
00:04:36.000 The government's focus, with or without an agreement, is sincere service to the people.
00:04:40.000 The Iranian nation has learned from its martyred Imam not to submit to humiliation.
00:04:44.000 So, does any of this give me a lot of hope that something long term is going to happen here? 0.99
00:04:49.000 Something good?
00:04:51.000 Based on the negotiations led by the vice president?
00:04:53.000 Not really.
00:04:54.000 And that doesn't have anything to do with Vance. 1.00
00:04:56.000 Treating the Iranians as reasonable partners here, as people who are telling us the truth, as people who are committed to peace, is foolish. 1.00
00:05:04.000 Really foolish. 0.99
00:05:05.000 Again, the whole point of millenarian Islamic terrorism is that it is inherently unreasonable. 0.97
00:05:10.000 It is a belief system rooted in ideas that are foreign to the West, like that the whole world ought to be Islamic and that Iran is destined to be a global power, and that any agreement that gives up any of those interests is a violation of religious principle. 0.89
00:05:23.000 And it's not me saying that.
00:05:25.000 These are members of the top levels of the Iranian government, including, for example, the IRGC Quds Force commander, a man named Ismail Khani, who literally said yesterday, Without even a single Kalishnikov bullet being fired over the Red Sea, in the end, American warships did not dare to cross through the Bab el Mandib Strait.
00:05:43.000 This is the greatness of the resistance.
00:05:45.000 Iran's resistance in the Strait of Hormuz immensely increased the courage of our brothers in the resistance to confront America in various strategic locations around the world.
00:05:53.000 This time, if the Americans ever want to aggress against Muslim youths in a different part of the world, they will have to fear not only the Strait of Hormuz and Bab el Mandib, but many other places as well.
00:06:04.000 So, again, they are making very clear that they see this as an Iranian victory. 0.79
00:06:08.000 And that they see it as an opportunity to strengthen the Iranian hold on crucial choke points across the world. 0.73
00:06:15.000 The mayor of Tehran, a person named Ali Reza Zakhani, says The war continues. 0.88
00:06:21.000 The war has not come to an end.
00:06:22.000 Our war with America is an existential war.
00:06:24.000 This war has been ongoing for 47 years.
00:06:26.000 It operates on various dimensions, meaning it has an intelligence, security, military, economic, cultural, media, and diplomatic aspect. 0.69
00:06:33.000 It is a multifaceted war, but in its military dimension, it is existential because the Iranian nation has rejected the structured order established after the Second World War. 0.72
00:06:42.000 The Iranian revolution has trampled upon it. 0.90
00:06:45.000 And America cannot accept that a country would emerge to become a role model and an inspiration for others, preventing the great Satan from exercising its devilish design. 0.93
00:06:52.000 So, again, am I deeply, deeply hopeful that people who say that they are pursuing a new Islamic civilization, this direct quote, new Islamic civilization, which serves as a prelude to the appearance of the 12th Imam, right? 0.69
00:07:06.000 This is the idea that there's going to be a 12th Imam who comes back and ushers in sort of the eschaton, and it's the end of the world. 0.96
00:07:12.000 We hold a civilizational outlook and we consider its prerequisite to be the building of a strong Iran and do not want this strong Iran to take shape. 0.97
00:07:19.000 Again, this is the thing they are saying. 0.98
00:07:20.000 So, do I think a long term deal is in the offing here?
00:07:26.000 I am very, very skeptical.
00:07:28.000 All righty, coming up, we'll get to the vice president and where he thinks these negotiations are going.
00:07:32.000 Does he believe the Iranians?
00:07:34.000 Is he skeptical of them?
00:07:35.000 Are they all turning over a new leaf?
00:07:36.000 We'll get to all of it first.
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00:08:58.000 Now, the vice president is skeptical, too, of at least the Iranian version of what is being pushed publicly in the deal.
00:09:03.000 Here was the vice president on Good Morning America.
00:09:07.000 And I had to caution Lindsey Graham and anybody else not to believe the hardliner propaganda in Iran, but to believe what's actually in the agreement.
00:09:15.000 But we'll be releasing the text this week.
00:09:17.000 And what everybody will see is that Iran doesn't get a dime of money unless they perform their obligations.
00:09:24.000 And the money that we're talking about is fundamentally sanctions relief. 0.58
00:09:27.000 We're not giving them American money.
00:09:28.000 Not a single dollar of American money will go to Iran. 0.52
00:09:31.000 But what we are saying, George, is we're willing to give significant sanctions relief if the Iranians make the kind of long-term commitments that are necessary to be a normal country, to give up their nuclear weapons program, to stop funding, uh, terrorist activities all over the Middle East.
00:09:47.000 Okay. 0.59
00:09:48.000 So we'll get to his comments about, you know, Iran getting a ton of money in just one second.
00:09:53.000 The more important point here is he says they're lying about what they're saying about the deal.
00:09:57.000 And then on CNBC the exact same day, the vice president says that actually Iran wants to turn over a new leaf.
00:10:03.000 They're our friends now.
00:10:06.000 This is a very interesting thing about these negotiations you see people, both the hardliners, but also the more political people, saying, our relationship with the United States over the past 47 years has been a mistake.
00:10:18.000 Let's turn over a new leaf.
00:10:20.000 We're, of course, going to verify that they actually mean it.
00:10:23.000 But if they're willing to turn over a new leaf, the president of the United States has said, we want them to be a successful country.
00:10:28.000 You know, they want to turn over a new leaf.
00:10:30.000 That's, you know, like some dude who just got out of rehab and is trying to fix his life.
00:10:33.000 I mean, sure, that guy just slaughtered 42,000 people in the streets six months ago and fired missiles into Israel, UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Iraq, and Jordan and initiated massive terror waves by proxy groups and also mined the Strait of Hormuz and is still doing all those things.
00:10:47.000 But they really, really, really want to turn over our newly.
00:10:50.000 Okay.
00:10:50.000 I mean, all right, I'm skeptical, but I haven't read the MOU.
00:10:54.000 Maybe the MOU is magic.
00:10:56.000 Maybe the vice president pulled the rabbit out of the hat.
00:10:58.000 I got to be honest.
00:11:00.000 The United States, the most powerful military in the history of the world, should not need to pull rabbits out of hats in order to achieve our ends with regard to Iran.
00:11:08.000 But hey, maybe the vice president was able to do it without further military action.
00:11:12.000 And if so, great.
00:11:13.000 So let me return once again to our model of what a good deal would look like and what a bad deal would look like.
00:11:19.000 Because when we are talking about the deal, I need to reiterate this every single day.
00:11:23.000 If we are going to determine what a good deal looks like versus a bad deal, we need to know the standards.
00:11:27.000 So a good deal, and again, these standards were not set by me, they were set.
00:11:32.000 By the President of the United States, by the Secretary of State, by the Secretary of Defense, and others.
00:11:37.000 And not by me. 0.64
00:11:39.000 So here's what a good deal would look like a good conclusion to this war.
00:11:42.000 One, no nuclear development.
00:11:44.000 Two, no ballistic missile development.
00:11:47.000 Three, no funding of terrorism abroad.
00:11:49.000 Four, the permanent toll free opening of the Strait.
00:11:52.000 And five, finally, when all of those have happened and been verified, we can talk about opening up the Iranian economy.
00:11:57.000 That's what a good deal would look like. 0.99
00:11:59.000 What would a bad deal look like?
00:12:00.000 It would look like the opposite of that continued nuclear development or the possibility of breakout, continued ballistic missile development, funding of terrorism continued abroad, continued Iranian tolling and control over the Strait, and funding going into Iran while all of that happens.
00:12:14.000 That's what a bad deal would look like.
00:12:15.000 So now we get to go through these factors one by one and we will determine.
00:12:19.000 Again, we don't have the text.
00:12:20.000 The minute we have the text, we can analyze the text.
00:12:22.000 This is always my proviso.
00:12:24.000 But all we can do, because the text has not been released, is to read the tea leaves and the public comments and the media reports, the credible media reports of the coverage and what the VP is saying, among others.
00:12:35.000 Okay, so here is what we know.
00:12:38.000 According to Axios, on the nukes, the CIA director, John Ratcliffe, told President Trump and other senior officials that intelligence gathered by U.S. intelligence agencies raised serious doubts about Iran's willingness to make the nuclear concessions the United States is seeking in any final deal.
00:12:53.000 According to three sources familiar with those discussions, the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, and the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, have both expressed concerns and raised questions about the deal in internal discussions.
00:13:03.000 The source says the intelligence reflects the Iranian intentions are not in line with their commitments under the deal.
00:13:08.000 Okay, so the White House is trotting out a talking point.
00:13:12.000 Their talking point is that Iran has committed to no nuclear weapon.
00:13:17.000 That Iran has committed in writing to no nuclear weapon that the IAEA, the International Atomic Energy Agency, will return to verify.
00:13:25.000 Okay, so let's be clear.
00:13:26.000 Iran has already committed in writing not to develop nuclear weapons. 0.51
00:13:29.000 They've been committed to the so called nonproliferation treaty since 1970, and they've been lying for 47 years about all of this.
00:13:36.000 As far as the IAEA returning to verify, they can say what they want.
00:13:39.000 They said the same thing about the JCPOA, and then they immediately started hoodwinking the IAEA.
00:13:45.000 Here's the thing about agreements agreements, as stated before, are words on paper.
00:13:49.000 They are only as strong as their enforcement mechanism.
00:13:51.000 So, again, back to the nukes.
00:13:53.000 The president said originally no enrichment.
00:13:56.000 That standard has obviously changed.
00:13:58.000 President Trump told the New York Times on Sunday, quote, they were still negotiating over whether Iran would suspend its enrichment for 20 years.
00:14:05.000 Trump hinted he might settle for a 15 year suspension, but did not want to negotiate via the press.
00:14:10.000 He also insisted that Iran would be forever limited to enriching at low levels that could never be used by the military.
00:14:14.000 Well, that is not no enrichment, is it, actually?
00:14:18.000 Meanwhile, JD Vance says, you remember that, all that stuff about the nuclear dust?
00:14:21.000 The president saying we're going to go get the nuclear dust, it's a condition of ending the war and all of that.
00:14:25.000 Well, turns out, here's what the vice president had to say.
00:14:31.000 The technical details are one of the things that we're going to work on when we start those technical talks on Friday. 0.98
00:14:36.000 But absolutely, we're talking about working with the IAEA and working with the Iranians to go in and destroy that enriched stockpile of material. 0.90
00:14:45.000 Whether we play an observer role or whether we play a more active role, these are the sorts of things that we'll figure out in technical talks. 0.67
00:14:51.000 But what the president has made very clear is the United States will be there to confirm that that enriched stockpile of material is destroyed.
00:14:59.000 Okay, so he can say all of that.
00:15:02.000 That's great. 1.00
00:15:03.000 Now, the question becomes Will the Iranians actually do all of that stuff? 0.87
00:15:07.000 And there is a big difference between the United States will be present at some point during the process and it will be shipped out of the country, for example, or the Iranians get to sit there and then so called water it, water down the nuclear stock, which is basically the same thing as the JCPOA. 0.72
00:15:21.000 Okay, remember point two?
00:15:22.000 Point two in a good deal would be no ballistic missile development.
00:15:25.000 You will notice there has not been one sentence said about ballistic missiles or development this entire time in this deal.
00:15:32.000 Not one word.
00:15:33.000 The U.S. president hasn't talked about it. 1.00
00:15:35.000 The Iranians have.
00:15:36.000 Apparently, said that that is not part of the deal in any way.
00:15:39.000 So, that is just not part of it.
00:15:41.000 How about terrorism?
00:15:43.000 How about terrorism?
00:15:45.000 Again, the outside indicators suggest that this deal does not concern Iranian support for terrorism.
00:15:51.000 The White House put out its talking points, and actually, it seems to achieve the reverse of stopping the Iranian support for terrorism.
00:16:00.000 The MOU, according to the White House, ends the fighting, including in Lebanon.
00:16:04.000 Quote President Trump brought it inside the peace instead of leaving it to reignite the war, meaning that military operations ended on all fronts, explicitly including Lebanon for the first time.
00:16:14.000 And it has teeth.
00:16:15.000 The ceasefire has to hold before anything else moves forward.
00:16:17.000 The end of the fighting is not a hope, it is a precondition.
00:16:20.000 Okay, but just the other day, Hezbollah literally attacked northern Israel.
00:16:25.000 Israel then went after Dahiya, which is where Hezbollah's leadership lives.
00:16:28.000 And President Trump called up the prime minister of Israel and yelled at him.
00:16:32.000 According to President Trump, speaking to Barack Ravid at Axios, that does not sound as though terrorism is going to stop in any way, shape, or form.
00:16:45.000 The White House says, quote, with the fighting ended on every front, Iran enters a dialogue with its neighbors to settle conflicts decades in the making.
00:16:51.000 Many presidents tried to unite this region, none could.
00:16:53.000 President Trump is doing it again, building on the Abraham Accords.
00:16:56.000 Okay, the notion that Iran is going to be a part of the Abraham Accords.
00:17:00.000 Okay, that's weird because I'm noticing that Mohammed Khalibaf, who will apparently on Friday be literally in a photo op with the vice president of the United States, I cannot express to you how stomach turning that is.
00:17:12.000 I don't care who the vice president is.
00:17:14.000 I don't care who the president is.
00:17:16.000 Leaders of the United States of America.
00:17:18.000 In a photo op with a mass murdering terrorist supporter like Mohammed Khalibaf, shaking hands six months after he blew away 42,000 innocent people in the streets, and weeks after he was, his administration was firing missiles at literally all of our allies in the region, and continues to support every terrorist group in the region, and is currently continuing to control the Strait. 0.73
00:17:43.000 Like right now, it is not fully open for business unless the Iranians have, quote unquote, decided it is. 0.72
00:17:50.000 And as we will get to when it comes to the Strait of Hormuz, totally unclear what happens next.
00:17:54.000 Mohammed Khalibaf is literally still praising the struggle of Lebanon's brave fighters.
00:17:59.000 Quote, they can never catch any part of the pillars of resistance alone and isolated. 0.61
00:18:03.000 The valiant struggles of Lebanon's brave fighters and the powerful diplomacy of the Islamic Republic of Iran guarantee the sovereignty and territorial integrity of dear Lebanon and will dismantle the crazy antics and warmongering of the Israeli elite, spin as we spin. 0.63
00:18:15.000 And now, again, one of the things worth pointing out here is that they're not defending Lebanon, they're defending Hezbollah.
00:18:20.000 There's a legitimate state called Lebanon, it has a government.
00:18:22.000 Hezbollah is a part of the government because they are a terrorist group that has forced their way in, but they are not the military of Lebanon.
00:18:29.000 They're a terrorist group holding the entire country of Lebanon hostage.
00:18:33.000 Not my point.
00:18:34.000 That is the point of this administration, including the Secretary of State.
00:18:38.000 So if the idea here is that somehow this administration and the deal that has been cut weakens Hezbollah, I'm not seeing it so much.
00:18:49.000 I'm not seeing it. 0.84
00:18:50.000 Maybe it's there.
00:18:51.000 Again, we haven't seen the MOU.
00:18:53.000 For the thousandth time, we haven't seen the MOU.
00:18:56.000 That's not because of me.
00:18:58.000 I would like to see the MOU.
00:18:59.000 I think you would like to see the MOU.
00:19:00.000 Hell, I think we'd all like to see the MOU.
00:19:03.000 But here is JD Vance suggesting that Israel has been participating in the talks with Iran and that they expect everyone to honor the agreement.
00:19:10.000 Okay, if Israel is not a party to the actual talks, which they are not, they have not been included in the talks.
00:19:16.000 If Israel is not a signatory to the agreement, which they are not, how in the world could you tie Israel's hands when it comes to self defense in Lebanon while Hezbollah is firing?
00:19:26.000 Rockets and drones over the border at Israeli citizens.
00:19:29.000 But here is JD Vance.
00:19:30.000 Does this sound as though this is somehow going to stop the Iranian support for terrorist groups like Hezbollah?
00:19:35.000 If so, I'm just wondering how.
00:19:38.000 They've been participating in this peace agreement.
00:19:41.000 They've been participating in our talks with Iran.
00:19:44.000 They understand where our perspective is.
00:19:47.000 And what the president has said is that we expect everybody to honor this agreement.
00:19:51.000 There are always, Gail, these bumpy moments with these ceasefires.
00:19:55.000 Sometimes someone will fire and sometimes somebody responds.
00:19:58.000 We think right now that there are probably people within Iran because of the internet blackout that are not even aware that this deal has happened.
00:20:05.000 So we certainly expect the Israelis are going to be a participant in this peace process.
00:20:10.000 But we think it's going to be good for them.
00:20:12.000 It's going to be good for us.
00:20:13.000 It's going to be good for the Gulf Coast Coalition.
00:20:15.000 Okay, I can just point out at this point, we haven't seen the MOU for the one millionth time.
00:20:19.000 We've not seen the MOU.
00:20:22.000 I would be a little surprised if the Israelis have not seen any MOU at this point, considering that the Iranians have seen it, and so has Qatar, and so has the UAE.
00:20:29.000 Apparently, everyone in the region has already seen it.
00:20:32.000 Shall we say that this is not a popular MOU from what I understand in Israel?
00:20:36.000 And again, Israel, they were flying jets alongside American jets during this whole operation.
00:20:42.000 Iran was firing at American soldiers during this whole operation.
00:20:46.000 So, playing halvesies is a bit strange.
00:20:49.000 Coming up, we'll get to the Strait of Hormuz.
00:20:51.000 What's going on there?
00:20:52.000 Is cash going to change hands?
00:20:53.000 How does that work?
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00:22:03.000 Okay, so how about the Strait of Hormuz?
00:22:05.000 That's what this whole thing's about in reality, right?
00:22:07.000 I mean, it's just about reopening the Strait of Hormuz.
00:22:09.000 And we were told that the Strait of Hormuz is open again.
00:22:11.000 The White House has put out its talking points.
00:22:13.000 They say, quote, the Strait is open free of charge, direct quote.
00:22:16.000 The idea would be that Iran demines it.
00:22:18.000 Traffic is restored and the blockade is eased in proportion. 0.78
00:22:21.000 American leverage holds the entire way.
00:22:24.000 The president himself put out a truth suggesting ships are starting to move, many loaded up with oil out of the Strait of Hormuz.
00:22:30.000 They're going along the southern highway, which is totally safe, secure, and pristine.
00:22:34.000 There are other areas of travel also.
00:22:37.000 Well, there's only one problem.
00:22:39.000 The Iranians are saying, sure, it's open right now, but at the end of the negotiation, we are going to toll it. 0.89
00:22:46.000 We're not going to call it a toll, we'll call it an environmental fee, but we remain in control.
00:22:50.000 And the vice president himself acknowledges there are a lot of details to talk about, which is weird because it turns out that's actually a really simple thing to talk about.
00:22:57.000 Is it open or is it not?
00:22:58.000 This is a binary question.
00:23:01.000 What exactly is the detail that remains to be worked out?
00:23:04.000 Presumably, that is why we are doing this deal in the first place.
00:23:10.000 Well, our expectation is that the strait is going to be opened in a toll free way for the long term.
00:23:14.000 And that's the sort of thing that we're going to figure out in these technical negotiations.
00:23:17.000 You know, there are a lot of very important details to figure out that we're actually going to sit at the table.
00:23:23.000 And discuss together and figure out a path forward on these details.
00:23:27.000 For example, they've committed to destroy and dispose of their stockpile of highly enriched material.
00:23:33.000 That's the highly enriched uranium that they accumulated over the Obama administration and over the Biden administration.
00:23:39.000 And what we've said is, okay, let's talk about how exactly we're going to do that.
00:23:43.000 Okay, we will find out because, again, the Iranians are not saying that.
00:23:46.000 So release the text.
00:23:47.000 Okay, how about the cash?
00:23:48.000 Remember, one of the preconditions to a good deal is we don't pay them while they do all this stuff.
00:23:53.000 So the White House released some talking points The money Iran can access in the near term is Iran's own frozen funds.
00:23:59.000 Iran wants tens of billions released up front for nothing.
00:24:02.000 Full sanctions relief and reconstruction are tied to the final deal and to Iran's performance.
00:24:06.000 The reconstruction plan is built and funded with regional partners, not by American taxpayers, and unlocks only as Iran delivers.
00:24:12.000 Okay, so there are two issues here.
00:24:13.000 One is the immediate release of monies to Iran, the second is the so called $300 billion reconstruction fund.
00:24:20.000 So let's start with the first one the release of funds.
00:24:24.000 If we release funds, or if we tell our Arab Gulf state allies to release funds to Iran, it doesn't have to be American taxpayer dollars.
00:24:34.000 That is us releasing money to Iran.
00:24:37.000 You should recognize at this point that the Obama administration, when they sent pallets of cash to the Iranians, that was money that was quote unquote owed to Iran.
00:24:46.000 That was the Obama administration's actual argument that that money was Iran's money and we had just unfrozen it.
00:24:51.000 If you unfreeze money to a terrorist group, that is in fact money going to a terrorist group.
00:24:57.000 It does not have to come from American.
00:24:58.000 That's sleight of hand.
00:24:59.000 It's rhetorical sleight of hand.
00:25:00.000 I was not earning the impression that you and I would be paying taxpayer dollars to go straight to Iran.
00:25:05.000 But if we press people to release money to a terrorist state, In order for them to continue to toll the straight and to exert control whenever they feel threatened, or for them to rebuild their ballistic missile and nuclear capacities, that is a gigantic mistake.
00:25:23.000 And playing a game where you say, well, at least it's not your money, it doesn't matter who the point of sanctions is to sanction everyone who is doing business with.
00:25:30.000 That is literally what they are for.
00:25:32.000 It is not that America was doing hundreds of billions of dollars with Iran before, we weren't. 0.80
00:25:36.000 We haven't done serious business with Iran here in the United States since the Iranian Revolution of 79.
00:25:41.000 The whole point of the sanctions regime is that it applies largely to third parties.
00:25:45.000 If you unfreeze that, they get money.
00:25:47.000 Okay, how about that $300 billion slush fund?
00:25:50.000 Okay, so here's the vice president acknowledging a potential $300 billion slush fund.
00:25:56.000 Now we should recognize here this would be with the current regime in place. 0.64
00:26:00.000 And Mark Thiessen correctly points out that this is the equivalent of a Marshall Plan for Germany while Hitler is still in charge.
00:26:09.000 Here's the vice president.
00:26:11.000 The Iranians are saying that they're going to have access to a $300 billion reconstruction fund.
00:26:16.000 True or false? 0.84
00:26:19.000 Well, that's the sort of thing they could have access to, funded by the Gulf Coast Coalition, so long as they honor their end of the obligation.
00:26:27.000 Okay, now let's just point out why in the world would the Gulf Coast start investing in Iran?
00:26:32.000 Why?
00:26:33.000 Why in the world would UAE and Bahrain and Saudi want to invest in Iran?
00:26:38.000 The answer is they really, really don't.
00:26:39.000 That would be a bribe. 0.75
00:26:41.000 That would be them attempting to buy the Iranians out of attacking them and undermining them and trying to destroy their regime. 0.83
00:26:46.000 These are enemies. 0.89
00:26:47.000 These are generational enemies.
00:26:49.000 The notion that the Emiratis are desperate to invest billions of their dollars in Iran is not true.
00:26:56.000 That's nuts.
00:26:57.000 You can talk to the Emiratis.
00:26:58.000 They will tell you that that is not true. 0.88
00:27:01.000 The only reason they would do that is under pressure or under the belief that they are being abandoned and they have to cut some sort of deal with the Iranians.
00:27:08.000 Not only that, there's a report out from Israel Hayom today.
00:27:13.000 It says, quote, U.S. secretly approved a financial and maritime arrangement between Qatar and Iran.
00:27:18.000 Under which billions of dollars were paid to Tehran in exchange for free passage for Qatari tankers and ships through the Strait of Hormuz.
00:27:24.000 So, in other words, if this report is correct, the United States gave the go ahead while this embargo was happening to allow Qatar to bribe Iran to take its ships out.
00:27:35.000 What great allies the Qataris are.
00:27:38.000 According to Israel Hayom, this was a deliberate and conscious course of action by the U.S. administration, which allowed its Navy to turn a blind eye to the arrangement, in complete contradiction to its declared policy.
00:27:47.000 The move was intended to ease the crisis in global energy markets and curb rising oil prices.
00:27:54.000 The secret U.S. approval.
00:27:55.000 Which the sources said was granted about a month ago, dovetailed with Qatar's interest in opening a direct channel of communication with Tehran.
00:28:01.000 Again, Qatar has been the go between along with Pakistan.
00:28:04.000 So you have an Iranian cutout and you have a Chinese cutout in Pakistan negotiating this deal. 0.63
00:28:09.000 While the UAE and Saudi were being hit by missiles and UAV attacks, Qatar assisted Iran financially and remained completely protected.
00:28:17.000 And now, a senior official briefing the assembled media, according to Adam Credo of the Free Beacon, this is almost certainly the VP, who is.
00:28:26.000 Calling himself senior official for purposes of media coverage, said, We are prepared to release frozen funds and we are prepared to release sanctions.
00:28:34.000 And we'll do some small gestures of that in the beginning if they make some small gestures to us that show they're willing to meet their commitments as well.
00:28:40.000 So these will be kind of small aunties to kind of see the cards, but that'll be based on performance.
00:28:43.000 And we're going to get together this week and talk about that.
00:28:46.000 Okay.
00:28:47.000 So just to go back to the five standards of a good deal versus a bad deal a bad deal would look like continued nuclear development, a bad deal would look like continued ballistic missile development.
00:28:58.000 A bad deal would look like funding of terrorism abroad continuing. 0.57
00:29:02.000 A bad deal would look like continued Iranian control over the Strait and tolling of the Strait. 0.64
00:29:08.000 And a bad deal would look like more funding going into Iran. 0.87
00:29:10.000 So we'll wait to see the MOU.
00:29:12.000 I will say that the early returns do not look wildly promising at this point.
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