NTK: Trump’s Humiliating Defeat: The Next Edition of "The Art of the Deal" Will Be in Farsi

9, 12, 10, 28, 2, 23. This is Deep State Radio, coming to you direct from our Super Secret Studio in the third sub-basement of the Ministry of Snark in Washington, D.C. and from other undisclosed locations across America and around the world. Hello and welcome to a special edition of Need to Know. I am David Rothkoff and I am joined today by two of our friends, two of the people we've been turning to throughout this Iran conflict and frankly for a long time before it because they're among this country's leading experts on nuclear issues and associated issues. And by them, I mean Joe Sarencion. How are you doing today, Joe? Just great, David. And John Wolfstahl. How are you doing today, John? I'm great, David. Thanks. And I noticed the other day that you were doing like a podcast with each other and you left me out. I was like, oh, no, you don't. You have eyes everywhere. Eyes everywhere. I was like, oh, I see. I'm not important to all this. And he was like, well, look, I knew that. But I think our... It's just a side gig. It means nothing to us. It didn't mean anything, David. It was meaningless. I know. It was meaningless sex. Right. Anyway, I thought it was appropriate. I know our listeners and viewers consider it appropriate because so much is going on and the president announced that there was a deal. Of course, there was no deal. It was exactly what we've all discussed over and over again. It was a concept of a fantasy, of a framework, of an MOU, of a something that might happen. But the interesting thing about it this time around is somehow something got signed by Autopen on Sunday, according to JD Vanth. And we still don't know what it is because it won't go into effect until Friday. But the president is letting out little bits and pieces of his position, which are kind of interesting at the beginning of a period of 60 days of negotiation on the, quote, hard issues, which seems to be part of this deal. And although I want to get into the deal first, the president said something today, it's Tuesday, as we're recording this, that I found so spectacularly meaningful that I thought we would start with commenting on it first because the president said today, and perhaps I should read the quote exactly, he was talking about Iran's enriched nuclear material. You remember that, right, guys? That we're enriched nuclear material, the reason we went to work. And he said, you could make the case why even bother getting it. It's not very valuable stuff. It's like, wait a minute, we've just spent hundreds of billions of dollars, thousands of Iranians are dead, thousands of people are dead in Lebanon. There were 20, 30,000 strikes that have destroyed most of Iran. We now have a hardline government in Iran. They now believe they control the strait of Hormuz. They won't do a deal unless we pay them for it. And the president is saying it's not even worth it. Joe? Well, that is a completely absurd statement. And first, it's part of the president's attempt to shift the focus from the numerous failures of this war, the catastrophes, the disasters, the unfulfilled goals that we can talk about later and shift it over to this frame where he's trying to cast this as a tremendous victory because he's done two things, open the straits, which of course were open before he started the war, and that he's going to get a pledge from Iran never to develop a nuclear weapon, which of course has been in effect, and John knows this since 1966, which is the first time Iran pledged never to get a nuclear weapon. And as we do those kinds of pledges in all kinds of places, including the very first page of the 2015 Jig Poa Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action that Obama signed and Trump tore up. So these are no victories. These are just repairing the damage that he's done. And so and then to the question itself of whether this stuff is valuable, it is enormously valuable. It has been the focus of all previous negotiations. And the reason is this. If you want to stop Iran from getting a bomb, what you have to do is affect two basic things. One, the machinery that they use to make to enrich uranium and the supply of enriched uranium that they have. And that's what the previous deal did. And presumably that's what this deal, if we ever get it, will do. If Iran has a stockpile of highly rich uranium, they can take that highly rich uranium, put it back into centrifuges now, thanks to Trump advanced centrifuges, and spin it up to the core of a bomb. And so and so what you want to do is get rid of that stockpile. We did that in 2015. Iran agreed to ship all of it, except for a small token amount out of the country. It appears that eventually the objective of these negotiations will be to get Iran to do that again. So no, it's not meaningless. It in fact is at the core of any future agreement the U.S. and Iran could strike. Yeah, but the president said it's meaningless before the negotiations begin, John. So if I were an Iranian, I would say, oh, okay, let's just move on to giving us some money. Yeah. Well, Iran is going to be saying give us some money until we see the text of the agreement, which hasn't been released. And already members of Congress are saying, look, we can't comment on this until we see what the text is. So hopefully it's going to be released. But Iran's going to get paid, right? Trump is desperate for a deal for a number of reasons. One, he wants to quiet the Iran issue. He wants to get oil flowing because he knows the Republicans are going to be dayloosed in the election in November. And they need to try to get the economy back up to something semblance of par. And he wants to move on to Cuba. He went from Venezuela. I think, David, you mentioned this morning on Blue Sky that, or Joe, is it you that these are wars of distraction. We've gone to war in Venezuela. We've gone to wars in Iran. He wants to move on to Cuba. I'm Blue Sky. I called them the Epstein Wars. Yeah, right. Because he wants to distract people from, and the grift, right? I mean, we talked about this last week, David, you and I on Blue Sky as well. I'm glad that they've removed, apparently removed the words Donald Trump from the Kennedy Center, though it's still covered up with a tarp. But that's a distraction from the billions of dollars that Donald Trump is ripping off from the US government through his sons, through cryptocurrency, through ultimate fighting championship battles on the White House lawn. But Iran's going to get their money. Iran and Trump wants to move on from what has been a colossal failure. That gets to the central point, though, that every administration since the late 1980s has been focused on, which is that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. This is something everybody agrees on. And the only way they can get a nuclear weapon is that they have the nuclear material to build. And so the idea that the uranium is not valuable, that we don't have to get it, that Iran doesn't have to dilute it, is ludicrous. Yeah. So let's sort of go back and frame this properly, because Trump is saying and has said many, many times that he has won a great victory in Iran. And Trump wants to portray this deal as a peace deal that is associated with that great victory. But I don't think any of these things are true. And I just want to sort of break it down to the basics here. Joe, if you heard that a country launched a war against a weaker foe, achieved none of its objectives, didn't achieve regime change, did not reduce the likelihood of having a nuclear program actually increased its regional strategic influence. And then, because the position of the attacker was deteriorating so rapidly, and they were under so much economic pressure, and the public's view of it was so grim, that they sued for peace. And they said, we'll pay you $24 billion half this week, half another week, there's $300 billion more where that came from. Please just walk away. Wouldn't that be in military and diplomatic terms, what we would call a defeat and a surrender? Yes. In the last podcast we did together, you called it, based on a comment I made at the very end, that this deal was going to be a fig leaf for surrender. And that's what it is. We are covering up a humiliating defeat, perhaps the greatest strategic defeat in American military history. In previous millennia, this would be the kind of deal that one nation would make to China after they had conquered them, and they'd be paying tribute to them, they'd be giving them resources. That's what's happened here. So just to break it down, let's be very clear, that Donald Trump and BB Netanyahu went into this war with four key objectives. One, overthrow the regime. That was the objective. You do that, and everything else doesn't matter. Well, they didn't do that. So they have to try to do the other objectives, that is to eliminate Iran's ability to make nuclear weapons. Didn't do that, didn't accomplish that. They have to eliminate Iran's ability to make and fire missiles. Didn't do that. We know from U.S. intelligence, 70% of Iran's missile capability is still intact. And finally, and this might have been the most important strategic objective for Israel, sever Iran's support for proxy groups, the regional militias, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, three Hs. So none of that was accomplished. So therefore, at some point, Trump was stuck. He couldn't advance the war. The main fighting ended in the first month. But he couldn't retreat without suffering a public humiliation, very similar to the problem that Putin has in Ukraine, almost identical to that situation. So what he's now trying to do is present this retreat, present this surrender as an overwhelming victory. And it's very similar to what he's doing at the Kennedy Center. He literally is hiding, hiding the truth from the American public. And the Kennedy Center, he's got shrouds over the name change. Here, he's keeping the terms of the deal secret for as long as possible, so he can try to spin his case. In both cases, he's hiding essential details from the American public in order to try to convince them, as he's done repeatedly, do not believe your own lying eyes, believe me. And for about 40% of the American public that's going to work, for the rest of us, we're still firmly planted in reality. And we can see this for what it is, a humiliating defeat, an illegal, unnecessary war that never should have been started. That was pretty good metaphor with the Kennedy Center. You've got to give him credit. Thank you. No notes. I have no notes. Yeah, no, that was a nice job. But when you do go down the checklist, not only did we not achieve our goal of regime change or make it less likely that Iran has a nuclear weapon or reducing Iran's malign influence in the region, but we got a more hard line administration in Iran. We gave Iran effectively control of the Strait of Hormuz. And although Trump is saying that there will be no tolls, there was a story in the New York Times that said, well, Iran says, yeah, there are no tolls, there'll be fees. Navigation fees, safety fees, shipping fees. Not a toll. It would be a shame if something were to happen to your nice ship. Right, right. Yeah, well, exactly. But fees, right. And by the way, there's also the lump sum, $24 billion or plus $300 billion toll. Let's be clear about that. You pay them, you pay them. And we have to pay them off. And they've achieved something else, which strangely has manifested itself in all the news media simultaneously today, which to me says somebody at the White House is doing something. Even though some of the places it's manifested itself are like with our friend, Edloos. But Edloos says a story today about how Trump doesn't like Netanyahu anymore. Newsweek has a story today about how Trump doesn't like Netanyahu anymore. The Economist has a story about how Trump doesn't like Netanyahu anymore. Trump this morning in another just, I mean, this guy's brain is soup at this point. But he said, well, you know what? I think we should leave Lebanon to the Syrians. He said they could do a better job than the Israelis. Is this before or after he said you could walk, there's a land border between between cutter and cutter. Yeah, which but by the way, cutter, which is an island, right? But let's leave that aside. But the point is, we didn't just achieve none of our objectives. In every single area possible, we lost ground. We're in a worse position today than we were before. That's why this is not just a defeat. This is one of the great fiascos we have ever seen from any president ever in US history. So David, it's going to get worse. So as I was thinking about this, that's why I always like to have a Jewish person. The food here is terrible and the portions are so small. So I was thinking about it this morning. So Friday, we're going to start a 60 day clock to negotiate with the Iranians. Oh, God. And the Iranians have said, great, we can't wait to sit down with you. One, you're desperate for a deal, right? Two, the straits are open. We're making money again, right? Remember that Iran closed the straits and then the United States said, oh, no, no, we're going to break up with you first. So we then imposed embargo, even though the straits were closed. But once we lift that, Iran is going to continue or restart shipping oil through its shadow fleet and bringing in a bunch of money. And so the time, you know, time is not on the side of the United States in these negotiations. In any negotiating day one in negotiating class in grad school, what's your best alternative to a negotiated agreement? And for Iran, that best alternative is pretty good. I keep the uranium. I keep the ability to close the straits at almost any time. America's allies in the region are like, wait a second, if the US goes to war again, we get bombed and our economies go back in the crapper, that's no good. The US can't sustain its level of military operations in the Middle East indefinitely. One, because Trump wants to move on to Cuba, but like ships have to go home, right? Air fleets have to go home. Well, I would just add, I just interject there. The Iranians have calculated, and people have written about this, but the Iranians have calculated, there's no way the United States is going back in hard on this because there is zero political will to do that. And even if they did, Iran has demonstrated, and I'm very cautious about this because there is worse that the US could do. Remember the president was threatening in a very thinly veiled way to use nuclear weapons. We're going to seek unconditional surrender, right? We're going to destroy Iranian society. So Trump overnight, but Trump could do worse to Iran, but Iran has taken our best conventional shots and come out ahead. So they don't have any fear of the United States anymore. The deterrent of military force by the United States is gone. And so Iran is saying to Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, all of our friends, Bahrain, oh, you know, as they have for decades, the US might be here today. They might even be here tomorrow. But in 50 years, we're still going to be here. Would you like to talk about arrangements for security? Would you like to talk about shared oil revenue? Would you like to talk about who's in charge of these regional affairs? So the US has a even a good negotiating team would have a really tough time getting a good deal out of Iran. We were able to do what we did in 2015 because we had a global regime of sanctions. We even had the Russians and Chinese on our side. Iran was strangled economically and politically, and they had nowhere to turn. And we had the threat of military force. All of that is off the table. And Iran is like, great, you want to talk, bring it on. Yeah, I am, you know, picking up two things from that. Joe, one, this is undoubtedly, I haven't even seen the MOU yet. Nobody has. Not even Trump. Not even Trump, probably. But undoubtedly, it says 60 days renewable. Undoubtedly, it says that this period can be extended into the indefinite future. How do we know that? Well, we know the Gaza deal, because the Gaza deal was 100% the same bullshit. It was like, yeah, we've got one little thing, there are 22 other points, we'll get to those. And guess what? We've gotten to none of them. He just wanted to change the subject. But you know, there are other dimensions of this. And John, I'm kind of disappointed because you haven't hit all the things that could go wrong with this. One of the others is that Trump is doing this to reduce the price of gasoline so that he doesn't have as much heat in the fall, right, in the elections. But here's the problem. First of all, if you reopen the straits, there's 188 ships or something out in there. The first ones that are going to go through maybe oil and gas tankers, the super tankers, the ones that are going to go through last in months are fertilizerships, which means that the price of food is going to stay high. Secondly, even though the price of a barrel of oil has come down, that doesn't mean that it's going to be lower at the pumps. And in fact, the price of gas is likely to stay high at the pumps through election day. So there is going to be no benefit for doing all of this for the American people. And there are a lot of Republicans, including Lindsey Graham, who spends most of the time with his lips firmly attached to the president's ass, who are saying, I don't like this. So it's causing distress for him within his own party. So I agree with all of that. We've learned about global supply chains starting with the pandemic, right? These aren't light switches that you can just flip on and off. Put aside for a second, the infrastructure damage that's been done, where the oil and gas fields around the Middle East have been damaged, can take years to get back up to production. But everybody notices, as soon as there's a rumor that there might be a war or conflict, the price of gasoline spikes. And then it takes a long time for those prices to come back down at the gas station. And then, of course, that works its way through the economy. So all the food that's going to be at the supermarket next week, next month, had to get shipped on gas prices today. So you're right, that price line, that elephant of the war, is going to have to work through the snake's digestion system. And it's going to be a major political burden for the Republicans, for any incumbent. But Joe and I talked about this yesterday on the podcast that will not be named. Okay, no, fine. No, no, I know. I'll leave the fucking room now. You guys go and talk without me. It's not you. It's you are essential, but it turns out your staff that produces these things are like are going to get replaced by AI pretty quickly. So no, they're not. We know Riley's Riley's not actually a real person. But you know, assume, you know, who knows what Donald Trump is going to do with things like the Constitution or the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act. But there is a law that says any deal that relieves sanctions on Iran has to go in front of the Congress. He may or may not submit it. But, you know, there's a dynamic here at work where Republicans will be in lockstep to support the president, maybe Democrats don't want war to restart, but they're tempted to say, we told you so, this guy's terrible and oppose the deal. But like the deal is likely going to go through, but it doesn't solve the political problems for the president. I'd hate to interrupt this thrilling podcast, but we have some exciting news at the DSR network. Our sub stack is now live. Our sub stack is going to be the new home for free and paid content here at the DSR network. The best way to support us over our new sub stack is by becoming a member. Right now, there's an early bird special until the end of the month, where you'll get 30% off of a new subscription with no code required to sign up for either a free or paid subscription to our sub stack. You can go to DSR network.substack.com. That's DSR network.substack.com. We're super excited for our new sub stack and for you to join us there. We have a lot of things coming that we're thrilled to share with you in the future. We appreciate your support and thank you for listening. Now back to the show. Joe, you seem to be chomping at the bit. Don't need a question for me to say. So we're putting aside the nuclear agreement, whatever it may be, because we don't know what it's going to be and we've got 60 days and maybe it'll never happen, which is supposedly the reason we fought this war, Iran imminent nuclear threat. So that's been just pushed aside. And let's look at the strategic consequences of this disaster. And one of them, David, you started with, is the relationship between the United States and Israel is probably worse now than it's ever been. And in previous administrations, Democratic administrations, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, when the American president has disagreed with Benjamin Netanyahu, Benjamin Netanyahu could go to the Republican party and fix it and try to outflank the Democrats with, you know, call them weak and enemies of Israel. Well, he can't go there anymore. Netanyahu doesn't have that tool. So he is really left in the lurch here. And the Israeli media is withering about this deal. Left, right and center are highly critical. Many people are happy the war is over. And we all should understand that the main benefit is to stop the war. I mean, I don't want to get, can compete with progressive credentials with you, but there are plenty of Americans who are perfectly happy with the U.S. relationship with Israel being over too. So it is continuing to sink. So in addition to now, the American discomfort over the horrors of Gaza and what Israel is doing on the West Bank and it's refused, as I said, well, now you add to this that they got us into an unnecessary legal war. I know many of our friends, John, want to put the whole thing on Trump. This is Trump's choice. But I can't believe that if it wasn't for BB Netanyahu, I don't think he would have fought this war. He told them he'd take a block. In a week, you'll get rid of the regime. Venezuela plus, that was the idea. But let me just read you something from what Netanyahu supporters are saying about this. And I wouldn't read this on any other podcast. It's in the Washington Post today. The anchor of Channel 14, one of the more hard-wired channels in Israel, is often seen as Netanyahu's most prominent mouthpiece. And he yesterday lanced out at Trump as a loser, accurate, advanced lowlife. But then he called his special envoys Kushner and Steve Whitcoff as, I can only say this here, two little Jews whom Qatar bought for a lot of money and who sold out their brothers in Israel. Whoa, whoa, dude. And that's Netanyahu's version of events. So Netanyahu's getting hammered. This is terrible for his reelection changes. Our relationship is further strained. That's big strategic change number one. Strategic change number two is our Gulf allies re-evaluating their relationship to us. Forget the nuclear deal, all that. The US bases that we built there starting in 1991 after the successful mind you want to rock war, we're seeing as security assets now they're security liabilities. And by the way, according to the alleged terms of this deal, the United States has to remove troops from the region. I mean, that's not increased, right? And not increased. So look, you know, Joe, it is a great point. I mean, China is going to go to those same Gulf allies and say like, we will never drag you into a war by our military equipment. And we will never judge you. Be whatever you want to do whatever. You want to throw your people in jail. You want to, you know, put your women in vows, you know, whatever. We're good, right? You know, So I was going to get the third consequence under this real quick. I mean, China and Russia benefit from this. They're the winners of this. And China's influence is going to grow in the Gulf for some of the reasons you said, and Russia perhaps also as well. And finally, there's the energy consequences. You're starting to see articles about how this is going to accelerate a massive change in global energy supplies. What climate, the threat of climate change couldn't do the Iran war might. It's increasing the search for a redoubable alternative energy sources of all kinds. But the United States has unilaterally disarmed in the competition for that. Exactly. Trump's policies are slashing interests and investments in solar, in wind, in geothermal, et cetera, across the board. Other countries are now going to be turning to these sources in earnest. And who again is the beneficiary of this? China. Because China is investing big time and has cornered the market on many of the key technological aspects of renewable energies. It's a strategic catastrophe. I want to say one other thing. And, John, you know, you can respond to this. I was on MSNOW yesterday talking about this and on it was General Barry McCaffrey. He was the other guy on it. Four star general, very highly regarded, very thoughtful guy. I've been on with him a lot. I agree with him often. But I noticed a subtext. And I would say this to his face because I think it's something that needs to be discussed. But he was always very quick to say the US military went in there and where they were super successful. We destroyed all, you know, tactically, we achieved all these wonderful results. And, you know, I hear this and I think, well, yeah, that's what happened in Vietnam. That's what happened in the Iraq war. That's what happened in Afghanistan. The US military keeps patting itself on the back for tactical success and accepting strategic failure. And why is that? Do they just say, well, that's the responsibility of the civilian overseers of our military? I don't know. But I mean, it troubles me that we've got the world's biggest, most advanced military and we don't seem to understand how to use it. And that that just is another sort of strategic level conclusion or substantive level conclusion I come to from this. I mean, there is a big meta point here about how does the United States exercise power in all of its aspects around the world? And there's no doubt that American power has been diminished, political, economic, brand, military, all of it. What does it mean to have a trillion-dollar plus defense budget if you can achieve your military goals? But I would redirect this a little bit, David, to say I don't believe anything that comes out of the United States government today because Donald Trump has co-opted it entirely. He's a pathological liar. Pete Hegzeff is not to be believed. Doug Borgum is not to be believed. The ODNI is not to be believed. Marco Rubio is not to be believed. So why should we believe that we have achieved the tactical military goals? Right? We're told Iran's missiles were destroyed, then the intelligence community says no, actually 70% are intact. Right? Iran has been preparing for 30 plus years to absorb American conventional attack and then live to fight another day. So until we actually have congressional oversight, until we actually have an honest defense department that reveals details about why we killed 150 Iranian schoolgirls on the first days of the war, why we've lost planes and friendly fire, whether or not, I mean, we can hit a target and our planes can survive. But what does Iran have left? Was it worth the price? Right? We're having Apache helicopters, $10 million pieces of equipment taken down with Shahid drones that cost $10,000,000, and we're shooting down Shahid drones with multimillion-dollar interceptors. That is not even a tactical success. You're absolutely right. Let me ask you one more question. Tomorrow we're going to do another podcast. We've got a couple of regional experts who are the world's leading experts on Iran and the region, and I do want to talk to them about some of these strategic points you think. But there's one I think we can also acknowledge here that has not factored in this. And that is that weeks before Trump launched this war, there were thousands of people in the streets of Iran protesting against the government. There were thousands of people. There was a national movement to try to produce the kind of change in Iran that the people of Iran frankly deserve. Two things. One, that's over. We have strengthened the hardline regime, and we are about to give them billions of dollars to enable them to strengthen themselves further. So we have undermined that movement. Secondly, Trump doesn't give a shit. We saw what happened in Venezuela, which he keeps touting as a success, except we achieved nothing for the US in Venezuela. Some of Trump's friends have made some money. But remember, there was a bad regime there that was anti-democratic. That was the reason we attacked. We criticized them for many, many years. And Trump went in and said, get rid of this one guy. You can keep the regime. You don't have to be democratic. Everything's fine. So long as I get my deal, I don't give a shit what happens in your country. So we've strengthened the Iranian regime, and we have a president who doesn't give a shit about it. And so I think this is also in the end a huge defeat for the people of Iran, while it's a victory for the government. Yeah, you could argue that Trump's war saved the Iranian regime. Right. I think that's right. They were on the ropes. They were getting weaker by the day. And they had a strong repressive apparatus that could suppress the demonstrations, but they never defeated the ideas or the emotions or the cause behind those demonstrations. Well, here the war comes and everything shifts. As you say, a more consolidated, more hard line, more militarily controlled regime at this point. And they're about to get rich from this, but in two ways. Three, the assets that they'll get from fees on the straight, the immediate infusion of cash from frozen Iranian assets that will now be unfrozen, and then the lifting of sanctions, which will allow them to make a lot more money, and possibly dip into this fund that J. D. Vance acknowledged, what they propose, a $300 billion reconstruction fund. Well, that's an enormous amount of money. Some of it will go to line the pockets of the corrupt Iranian regime officials. Some of it will go to Iranian-backed militia movements in the region, but some of it's going to go to subsidized prices in Iran to reduce the outrageous inflation that's there. So that's going to calm the arrest, unrest. So all of that is going to make it much more difficult for the Iranian people to do what only they can do, which has been about regime change in Iran. I'm afraid we've put that off for years more, maybe a decade. So, Joe, one of the benefits of being as old as, well, we are. I'll give you that. We are. You're very kind, John. We remember stuff. So if you remember in 1991. How long has he been giving you shit for this? Let's see. We met in the early 90s. So probably since at least that, probably before, but I just didn't realize it. But in 1991, before the United States moved to liberate Kuwait, George H. W. Bush called for the people in southern Iraq to rise up. Yes. If you rise up against your government, we will be there to support you. And they did, and we left them out to dry, and they were all killed. And so Trump did the exact same thing. Rise up against your government in Iran. We're coming to help you. And instead of leaving what he found, which was a diffuse balance of power in Iran between the religious community, between the IRGC, between the different regional factions, and between what is a multicultural society, right? There are Zaris and Persians and Turkmens in Iran. He's left a military junta in charge with the means to suppress its population at will. And that's going to be the result, a nuclear armed military junta that can close the straits and strangle the global economy at will. Nuclear threshold. That doesn't sound so good. So I mean, it's been a tactical, it's been a strategic defeat, geopolitically with regard to Iran, the region, our allies in the region, our allies around the world, our geopolitical rivals around the world, global energy prices, the global economy, and the nuclear program in Iran. But other than that, and Iran tied New Zealand at the World Cup in front of 70,000 cheering. Yeah, but the United States, the motherfucking United States of America, doesn't let those guys stay in the US. They have to, they're forcing them to stay in Mexico, ride a bus into the US, ride a bus out. They weren't allowed into it. It is so despicable. And those guys, I was listening on Fox last night, and they're like, well, you know, due to the domestic problems that they're having in Iran, these people have gone through a lot. And it's like, what the fuck are you talking about? Due to the fact that we attacked their country and killed their friends and relatives, and they haven't been able to play, you know, but they won't say that because it's Fox. So it's like looking at it through this propaganda lens. It's so offensive to me. If there is a God we're going to have an Iran, US quarterfinal, I have to look at the schedule to see how it all matches up. I hope it happens. Mother of all soccer matches. Of course, we have to move it to Canada. I hope it happens. I'm looking forward to the Iran Cabo Verde final actually. But look, let's come back to this for one second, because there will be a deal. It will be announced in a couple of days, probably. Elements of it will be. The Iranians will announce their elements. The US will announce their elements. What is the best outcome that we could expect, Joe and then John, from this negotiating period? Well, I mean, not the best possible outcome. Not the world, you know, is better and everybody gets a unicorn. What's the best possible outcome? Yeah, so I wouldn't call this a deal. This is a one and a half page MOU. So that's an agreement and understanding. The best possible outcome is the war actually stops not just in Iran, but also in Lebanon, which is arguably the more ferocious war that's going on right now. A million people displaced, maybe 10,000 killed. Part of the deal is the understanding is supposed to be that Israel will withdraw from Lebanon. Israel says no way we're not going to withdraw. So that's a hot spot to watch. But let's say that we solve that somehow. The wars are over in all its theaters. The traffic begins again. The mines are cleared. There is talk about a nuclear arrangement. And then nuclear arrangement does include, and as Iran offered to do before the war, take the uranium out of the country, put a moratorium on further enrichment, and make other arrangements in exchange for tens of billions of dollars in unfrozen Iranian assets. That's the best case. And that's, I think, what Trump and the Iranians are aiming for. If Netanyahu doesn't screw it up by continuing his war in Lebanon, then they might be able to get that. John, I don't want you to talk about the best case, because I don't think you're capable of talking about the best case, because I don't think that's in your personality. I want you to tell me what your worry is going to happen. Well, thanks for thinking so much of me, David. I'll give you both. In 60 days, the best that can happen is maybe you get the International Atomic Energy Agency back into the country, and they can begin to figure out where the uranium is and what shape it is. In 60 days, maybe they can get that done. It takes weeks to get the teams together, equipment. These are nuclear industrial sites that have been bombed that are toxic, and you've got to put people into those locations. And it's not like these people are just sitting around at the pool waiting to be deployed. So best case is you get the teams in. And the worst case, Iran just says, no, we'll dig out the uranium. But these terms are not acceptable. What else you got? Iran has been doing this for a long time. Iran are tough negotiators. I've been in Iran. I've negotiated with the Iranians. This team, there are no Jack Kennedy. They don't have what it takes to go toe-to-toe with the Iranians when they have a good hand to play. And they've got a low, straight, with a seven-kicker. Yeah, I think the worst case is worst of that, which is the Iranians play the U.S., say that they are giving up their claim to have a nuclear weapon. The U.S. pays them for that. They agree to, in the future, have some kind of inspection regime. And we are back where we were, except they have more leverage, more power, more money at their disposal. In other words, I think they can, the last thing, Trump, he doesn't seem to be able to do the math, right? 60 days from now is essentially Labor Day. So he wants to begin the negotiation. He wants to hit the beginning of the campaign season with an announcement of a failure in this negotiation. No, he doesn't. Right. And he can't afford to go back to war. Right. And no, and there's no option to go back to war. So that's it. Every day from here on, Iran gets stronger and the U.S. position gets weaker. And that's just the way it is. That's right. And whatever it is, well, let me put it this way, the next edition of the Art of the Deal will be in Farsi. Yeah. I mean, look, we have to, it's why it's why you deserve credit. With a new epilogue, yeah. You deserve credit. You know, the media ecosystem that Trump supporters live in is not going to get into details, right? No. Got a great deal. He solved this problem. He says so. Deal. What details? Unnecessary. I take the president's word. So he's going to be able to sell that to, as Joe said, 35, 40% of the population, whether they actually say, well, wait a second, if I drive to the polls, it's going to cost me 450 a gallon, that somebody's fault or not remains to be seen. You guys are great. I really enjoyed talking to I hope that you enjoyed talking to me enough that you'll talk to me again and you won't be doing this all. I knew I was going to regret it. I knew I should eat this. No, no, it's okay. It's okay. No, it's okay. I'm fine out here. There's nobody, there's nobody else to talk to, but there's squirrels. Except for tomorrow. Yeah, I have squirrels. It would be my favorite. All right. Never happen again. Honey, I promise I'll teach. Right. Okay. It's great to see you. See you all soon. Thank you, everybody. Bye-bye.