4/8/26: Trump Blinks On Iran Threat, Iran Ready For War To Resume, Hegseth Copes

This is an I Heart podcast. Guaranteed human. Hey guys, Sagar and Crystal here. Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election and we are so excited about what that means for the future of this show. This is the only place where you can find honest perspectives from the left and the right that simply does not exist anywhere else. So if that is something that's important to you, please go to breakingpoints.com, become a member today and you'll get access to our full shows, unedited, ad free, and all put together for you every morning in your inbox. We need your help to build the future of independent news media and we hope to see you at breakingpoints.com. All right, good morning and welcome to Breaking Points. All civilizations that were alive yesterday are alive today. That means it's a good day. It's a great day for world peace. The president has told us. According to the president, Donald Trump. Yes, the war is over or is it? It might be the theme of today's show. Overish, right. That's probably the best way to put it at this point. So all kinds of breaking news overnight. The president was posting on Truth Social, so we have response to the end of the war that was declared last night, but continuing to get details on what that actually means. What does that mean for the Strait of Hormuz? Oil prices have already dipped, but should they? How far should they actually fall, Ryan? A lot to get into from the president. The Pentagon has had a press conference early this morning. We're going to bring you comments from that. And also, of course, from the Iranian side, from the Israelis. What's actually on the table right now? There's so much to go over just from the last 12 hours. We have it all. Yes, and we'll be joined in a moment by my dropside colleague, Jeremy Skaehl, to break down how the Iranians are feeling about this two-week ceasefire leading into negotiations toward a permanent end to the war. The New York Times out with a huge new kind of TikTok about the way that Netanyahu on February 11th or 12th went to the, actually into the situation room. And with Mossad and other military officials on screen behind him made the hard sell, as they describe it, for the Iran war. And by the end of it, the next day, President Trump had said, I think we should do it. We'll unpack that. And also, reactions from Democrats on Capitol Hill. We'll have some flowers for some of them. Some little criticism for some others. Not little. We got some, we got Republicans, Alex Jones, Marjorie Taylor-Green and others, just losing their mind about Trump having lost his mind. Calling for the 25th Amendment. Some stronger reactions from some of them than some Democrats, in fact. And we got Professor Pape. That's right. So big show. Big show to get to. The news is happening actually while we're recording this today. So we are gonna- Oh, Ben Shapiro. We're gonna have a little bit of fun. Well, it's fun, but it's also related to, you mentioned we have Jeremy on the show, but it's related to the work that you guys are doing over at Dropsite. Basically, if people are- Make a lot of people mad. People are calling the 25th Amendment Trump. People are calling to- Fourth Amendment us? Yeah, I was just gonna ask what you think the right amendment is for that. They want him gone. They want him gone. Play the fifth. Lock him up. All right, let's get into the show because as we keep mentioning, there's so much to go through. As a reminder, breakingpoints.com is where you can go to get a premium subscription. Help us keep doing this independent journalism here. We're so grateful to all of you. If you can't subscribe, no problem. Go ahead and subscribe on YouTube. That's of course free or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's now go into the big news, A1. Let's put this up on the screen. A true social post from Donald Trump where he said, last night, with how long to go until the deadline, Ryan? We were right up on that eight. An hour, 15, hour and a half. Yeah. Right about, right around there. He said, based on conversations with Prime Minister Shabash Sharif, he goes on and says, Pakistan, wherein they had requested that I hold off the destructive force being sent tonight to Iran and subject to the Islamic Republic of Iran, agreeing to the complete, immediate, and safe opening of the Strait of Hormuz. I agreed to suspend the bombing and attack of Iran for a period of two weeks. He said this will be a double-sided ceasefire. The reason for doing so is that we have already met and exceeded all military objectives and are very far along with a definitive agreement concerning long-term peace with Iran and peace in the Middle East. Now, here's a really important part and we're gonna get Ryan's explanation of what it means. Well, we received a 10-point proposal from Iran and believe it is a workable basis on which to negotiate almost all of the various points of past contention have been agreed to between the US and Iran, but a two-week period will allow the agreement to be finalized and consummate it. Ryan, you posted a TikTok, a couple of hours before Trump posted that truth social. Now, you said you think he watches you on TikTok. I don't think he watches you on TikTok. Maybe he watches this show because I made a version of that point here too. Yes, but basically what you were saying is that he has a kind of public relations style off-ramp on the table, and this was as of yesterday. He kind of took that, no? Yeah, so basically the Iranians have for weeks now been put forward, and we'll talk to Jeremy later about this, since the early days of the war put forward conditions under which they would enter into negotiations for a permanent end to the war. The Iranians have been saying that for a very long time, but as is the want of the American media, we don't talk about that. You have to go to Dropsiders or here to hear about that because they're just crazy molests who are a death cult who just wanna do, it's totally irrational why they're even, what are they even upset about? And so looking into what kind of an offer they're making to end the war implies some rationality to your adversary, and you're not allowed to do that in American media. And so this peace proposal from the Iranians has been on the table for a long time. It's variously evolved into what people now call a 10 point, within the last few days, we're starting to call it a 10 point plan. So the point I made was because the media has paid no attention to this, what Trump could do is say I have gotten a 10 point proposal from the Iranians, they're on bended knee, my bullying, beat this out of them, and we will now have world peace. And that's exactly what he did. He said, I got a 10 point plan. And the Israelis of course are now freaking out because they're like, wait a minute, the 10 point, like the Iranians are setting the terms for a permanent end to the war in which they will remain basically in control of the Strait of Hormuz and in a better position than they were in before Israel attacked them. Of course, many people died, they attacked a lot of their civilian infrastructure, their ballistic missiles, stockpiles way down, all of that is true, but strategically, you have to say they're in a much stronger position. We have more on that. Let's put this next truth social up on the screen. This is 12.01 AM from Donald Trump. He says, it's a big day for world peace. Iran wants it to happen. They've had enough. Likewise, so has everyone else. And then here's the, yeah, here's the Hormuz part. So he says, the United States of America will be helping with the traffic buildup in the Strait of Hormuz. So just zeroing in on that line because last night, after Trump posts this truth social ahead of the 8 p.m. deadline, everyone is wondering what does this actually mean? What in this two week period has been agreed to going forward? And that line itself, the U.S. will be helping with the traffic buildup in the Strait of Hormuz. That could mean anything or absolutely nothing, Ryan. And then he adds, we'll be loading up all sorts of supplies, just hanging around, which comes after, he says Iran can start reconstruction. But so is he talking about supplies or reconstruction? Or is he saying, no, we're gonna use this time to resupply our armaments and our ammo, and then we're gonna launch again? Well, and this is, let's put the next truth social up. There will be no enrichment of- This is this morning, right? This is, no, this one is from, oh yeah, it is from this morning. He says, the U.S. will work closely with Iran, which we have determined has gone through what will be a very productive regime change. There will be no enrichment of uranium, and the U.S. will, working with Iran, dig up and remove all of the deeply buried nuclear, quote, dust. It is now and has been under very exacting satellite surveillance. Nothing has been touched from the date of attack. We are and will be taking tariff and sanctions relief with Iran. So Ryan, does Iran then end this war? Still in control of the Strait of Hormuz and with sanctions relief? Is that a possibility right now? Absolutely is a possibility. In fact, it's a likelihood because that's what happens when you are in a military conflict, and I wouldn't say they won in the sense that they didn't like conquer other territory, but they showed that they're still able to project force against the Gulf allies, against the America's Gulf allies and Israel, despite getting completely pounded. And so if they can continue to block the Strait with just a few mines and a $20,000 drone from anywhere in the country, then you have to enter into negotiation. So yeah, it looks like, if this moves forward, they're emerging from in a position of significant strength. And a sign of how badly the U.S. is the one that wanted this agreement, if you, this is something fun you can do at home. So Shabazz Sharif is the Pakistani Prime Minister. His Twitter account is CM Shabazz, S-E-H-E-H-B-A-Z. So you go back and find his, from yesterday afternoon, he posted basically a proposal for a two week ceasefire, the thing that became the thing that Trump accepted. Then Trump said, and the New York Times even reports, Trump responded to a Pakistani proposal of a two week ceasefire. Is it a Pakistani proposal? If you look into the edit history of the tweet. Yes, you noticed this. Yes, it says, it says draft post for Pakistan's PM. So Shabazz Sharif copied the entire thing he was handed and just pasted it on a Twitter and then hit post. And then somebody was like, hey boss, you left in the message at the top. Now think about this. Would Shabazz Sharif's own staff refer to him as Pakistan's Prime Minister? Like, do Trump's staff refer to him as the American President or they just call him Mr. President? Like in Pakistan, he's the Prime Minister. He's not Pakistan's PM. Who is he Pakistan's PM to? Us. So we sent him, so Trump sent him, like post this on Twitter. I want you to post that you're asking for two weeks. And then Trump responds, I'm taking it. And so you don't have to trust me, just go to his Twitter feed, you can just search and edit history. It's a very funny feature. It's sitting right there. Well, I want to get your take on the Iranian response. So we can put the next element up on the screen. This is a Rachis statement on behalf of the Supreme National Council of the Islamic Republic of Iran, which said, first offered appreciation to Pakistan, said in response to the brotherly request of PM Sharif in his tweet and considering the quest by the US for negotiations based on its 15 point proposal, as well as announcement by POTUS about acceptance of the general framework of Iran's 10 point proposal, taking ownership of it there, as a basis for negotiations I hear by declare on behalf of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, if attacks against Iran are halted, our powerful armed forces will cease their defensive operations for a period of two weeks, save passage through the Strait of Hormuz, will be possible via coordination with Iran's armed forces and with due consideration of technical limitations. So they are in control of the Strait of Hormuz. Yes, and the concession that he's making in there is a reference to the 15 point plan that Trump had put forward. But as you notice, he's saying 10 point plan is the one that's the basis for negotiations. And can you help us understand how these different plans emerged or the timeline basically, because you guys at Dropsite had this 10 point, you were aware of the 10 point, you were reporting on the 10 point, and now you're getting reference all over the quote unquote mainstream press, because you guys were on this. What, when did that come out? So, and it's still, and we'll talk to Jeremy, we'll talk to Jeremy about this a little bit more. The precise 10 points are still not out. So last week, Jeremy and I reported a story over at Dropsite, that was the first time where Iranian officials confirmed basically officially that they had in fact sent a proposal back to the United States, because up until then, it was mostly a one way, Whitcoff kind of texting a Raghushi, texting others, like come on, come on, come on. So what had been happening over the previous weeks is that Egypt, Turkey, Pakistan and Oman were all involved as either mediators or intermediaries, depending on how you wanna characterize it. When you get into the diplomacy, like they care, is people be like, they're not mediators, because we're not negotiating, they're intermediaries. It's like, all right, stop, come on, you're trying to get to a deal here. So the Iranians would give a handful of conditions, that they had similar conditions that they'd started giving at the beginning of the war to these intermediaries, some to Turkey, some to Egypt, some to Oman, some to Pakistan, and effectively they then got compiled together in what became known then internally, secretly for a while, as this like 10 point plan, which, and we revealed, I think six of the points last week, and you can go find that over Dropside, but the basic things that we understand, that they have to basically stop attacking Iran, stop attacking Lebanon, lift sanctions, back off our nuclear program, but we will promise that we will not do a nuclear bomb and we'll agree to different conditions, that sort of thing. And so that's the deal, it then started becoming called a 10 point plan over the weekend slash Monday, and then Trump was like, okay, 10 point plan. But the point is, it's been out there, and Wittkopf and his team have been aware of versions of it for a very long time, and Iran has been very consistent. Jeremy, I think, reported Monday. Again, when they rejected this 48 hour, remember Trump was like, give us a 48 hour pause, and Iran said, no. Right. Because you're just gonna rearm, hit us again. We want a permanent end to the war, and here are the conditions. So what changed? What changed, I think, is Trump made a threat that he couldn't follow through on, an end civilization. He's not gonna do that. But why did Iran go from the 48 hour saying, no, we're not going to stop in 48 hours, to we'll stop for two months? And we'll ask Jeremy about this too, but because Trump said, I accept the 10 points. Yep, that's it. As the framework for negotiations going forward, and Iran's like, well, okay. I don't wanna laugh, but it's for, the administration right now trying to claim this is a great day for like, quote, world peace, and also that it wasn't, I don't wanna use the phrase taco either, because it's so much more serious than a taco. Ridiculous sentence, never thought it would come out of my mouth, but truly absurd to frame this as a win for the Trump administration. Although we've known from the very beginning that declare victory in our nomenclature means too loose. Exactly. So, like, we declared victory in Vietnam, you know, we spiked our helicopters in celebration. Yeah, right. It's like, so how we do it? I loved when the mission was accomplished. Yes. That was, yeah. Just declare victory immediately. Yes. It helps if you have a banner. Let's go to A3 here. This is what's happening elsewhere in terms of how, quote, fragile the ceasefire is. That's what JD Vance used to describe it. He's in Europe, so he had a little bit of time on the rest of the world to make that declaration earlier this morning. Now, despite the announcement of a ceasefire, the Israeli Air Force continues to carry out strikes in Iran, I mean, while Fabian reports, Iran meanwhile has several, has fired several salvos of ballistic missiles at Israel since the ceasefire was reportedly supposed to take effect. What do you make of that, Ryan? Yes, Israel keeps hitting them. Israel has also said, yeah, it won't ceasefire in Lebanon. They celebrated the ceasefire, the first attack, seems like after the ceasefire in Lebanon, was an attack on an ambulance. What Israel has done in southern Lebanon to medics the last several weeks is one of the more horrifying war crimes that they've carried out over the last several years, and that continued. And so there's certainly a lot of concern that these tit for tat strikes, combined with Israel's refusal to recognize that the ceasefire applies to Lebanon, even though Hezbollah has said, okay, we agree to the ceasefire. So Hezbollah has agreed, Iran has agreed, Trump says that this is the framework and the framework does include, that we've reported, we reported that last week, the framework includes an end to the war on Lebanon. But Israel is in the middle of an invasion. Like they're not just bombing, like they have ground troops in there, and they have said they're trying to take and hold significant portions of Lebanon up to the Latani River, and which is probably gas related, actually. Like if you draw a line west, from further up into Lebanon, you get much more of the gas field in the Mediterranean. So it's not just land, it's also natural gas. But that is a huge risk that it's gonna fall apart. I think Trump is gonna have to step in. Yeah, so just on that point, worth noting that Lebanese authorities say 1400, well actually almost 1500 people have been killed in Israeli strikes since March 2nd, and that includes at least 124 children. The HRANA group said 3,540 people have been killed since the war erupted in Iran, and about 1,600 of those were civilians, including at least 244 children, death tolls around the Middle East, obviously even some of the Gulf states. So it makes no sense to talk about any of this without mentioning there have been a lot of deaths just in the last, I mean, in the United States, double digit deaths among American service members. So what Trump is claiming right now as a win for the United States is, came at a high cost, came at a high cost, Ryan. Yes, yeah, what did we get out of this? Let's to the point of what did we get out of this? Go to the next element. Now it looks like, quote, the two week ceasefire plan includes allowing both Iran and Oman to charge fees on ships, transiting through the Strait of Hormuz. Although interesting, the Omani foreign minister this morning, Omani minister of transport, we have signed all agreements related to maritime transport, stipulating that no fees will be imposed for passage to the Strait of Hormuz. That's from Oman. That would be kind of interesting if Iran's like, yeah, we and Oman are gonna charge a fee, and Oman's like, no, never mind. It's like, it actually would really reflect which countries are sovereign and which aren't. We'll see what happens, but just the fact that that's even being reported right now is, yeah, at what cost, at what cost. Now, we can put the next element up on the screen, this Joe Weisenthal post from yesterday, dated Brent, just hit its highest level in history. That was as of yesterday afternoon, CNBC, after the market opened this morning, has said oil prices plunged back below $95 following the announcement, Brent crude futures are down more than 13% this morning, while US West Texas intermediate futures are more than 16% lower. So that's where we are with oil prices. Let's go now to the next element. This is what we know about the 10 point conditions. Ryan, complete cessation of any aggression against Iran. And these are, yeah, take these with a grain of salt. That's what I was gonna ask. Yeah, go ahead. So complete cessation of any aggression against Iran and allied resistance groups. Yeah, check. There you go. Withdrawal of US combat forces from the region. Well, we don't know, we don't know. That might be in there, but we'll talk to Jeremy about this, we don't think so. Okay, limited daily passage of ships through the strait for two weeks. Cancellation of all primary sanctions, secondary sanctions and UN sanctions. If they get that, I mean. I got to. Yeah, it sounds like they did. Compensation for Iran's damages through the creation of an investment in financial fund. That'll be through the, that will get, they'll say, no, we don't have to do that, but we're gonna charge for the ships. Yeah, okay. Iran's commitment to not building nuclear weapons. Yeah, check. Acceptance by the United States of Iran's right to enrichment and negotiation on the level of enrichment. That is my understanding of the kind of thing the Iranians were putting in this. So now the US is saying that they're gonna push back on that and negotiate that. Iran's agreement to negotiate bilateral and multilateral peace treaties with regional countries in its own interest. I don't know if that's in there, it would make sense. How can we be against that? Yeah, that's extension of non-aggression to all resistance groups. Yes, it's saying cease fire against our Iraqi folks, against Hezbollah, et cetera. Termination of all resolutions of the IAEA Board of Governors in the UN Security Council and approval of all commitments in an official UN resolution. We have heard that they want some guarantees, whether it's the UN or some other idea. And I don't think the Board of Peace counts. Okay. Some promises that you're going to actually live up to what you're saying, but really in the end, they don't really trust any promises. Like it's really the threat of their own ability to defend themselves that they think is going to lock this thing in place. Okay. Now we have Lindsey Graham's reaction posted on X last night as everyone was kind of trying to understand what was going on. This is around 726 PM. Like everyone he said, I hope we can end the reign of terror of the Iranian regime through diplomacy. We must remember the Strait of Hormuz was attacked by Iran after the start of the war destroying freedom of navigation. Going forward, it is imperative Iran is not rewarded for this hostile act against the world. As for the 10 point proposal at the end of the war, I look forward to reviewing it at the appropriate time and its submission to Congress for a vote. Like we did with the Obama JCPOA, I want to reaffirm that from my point of view, every ounce of the approximately 900 pounds of highly enriched uranium has to be controlled by the US and removed from Iran to prevent them in the future from having a dirty bomb or returning to the enrichment business, the Libyan model, for lack of a better phrase that Lindsey Graham said. Ryan Trump said also, we read this post, just minutes ago, about the nuclear dust, however he phrased it. Sounds like he's taking that a bit from, not Lindsey Graham himself, but that he's trying to give scraps to the Lindsey Graham's who are furious. I'm sure internally furious with all this. Graham posted shortly after that, just a couple of hours after that, he said, as I stated before, I prefer diplomacy if it leads to the right outcome regarding the Iranian terrorist regime. At this early stage, I am extremely cautious regarding what is fact versus fiction or misrepresentation. So. Lindsey Graham preferring diplomacy. Incredible. Fact versus fiction, I think we're going with fiction on that one. Just one, let's just observe that Lindsey Graham, confronted with the prospect of peace, demands congressional involvement. War, have at it man. Whatever. Now, I covered Obama's JCPOA. This, that's the Iran nuclear deal. And he's being a little bit misleading when he describes how it went to Congress. It was not submitted to Congress for approval, it was submitted for a vote of disapproval. And that's key because to block something in the Senate, you only need 41 votes. And JCPOA got 42 votes. And that's why it was able to go through. And it did not get enough votes in the House to block it either. And so, okay, you can go ahead, put this ceasefire deal before the Senate and the House if you want, but understand that it will be under the same terms. Vote of disapproval, which means you only need 41 senators. And if you get Rand Paul and 40 Democrats, there are 47 of them, although if you want to count Federman, 46 of them. 46 plus Rand Paul, you should be good. And maybe a couple other Republicans who would support a peace deal at this point. So go ahead, Senate to Congress if you want, but let's understand it's going under the same terms as the one before. And let's put the Israeli response up on the screen as well. This is the next element. Based on political echelon directives, the Defense Army has ceased fire in the battle with Iran and remains in a high state of defensive alert, ready to respond to any breach. In Lebanon, the Defense Army continues combat and ground operations against the terrorist Hezbollah. What I like is how they say they have ceased fire in the battle of Iran and then you scroll down and they say they keep, they're attacking Iran. This is from the idea. Yeah, same post. The Defense Army has ceased fire in the battle with Iran and remains in a high state of defensive alert. It is central production infrastructure belonging to the Iranian regime was targeted in several areas inside Iran. Wait a minute. What? I thought you said you'd ceased fire. As part of these airstrikes, Air Force fighter jets attacked dozens of launch sites, which led to the thwarting of a broader missile barrage that was directed toward the state of Israel. So this reminds us, reminds everybody of the end of the 12 day war, where Trump announced a ceasefire. Yes. And Netanyahu launched another set of sorties to bomb Iran and Trump had to tweet out or truth out, turn the planes around. Right. He's gonna have to do that again. Cause clearly saying that the war is over and that we're ceasing fire is not getting through to Israel. Well, it's kind of interesting there how they're distinguishing between Iran and Hezbollah or attempting to distinguish between Iran and Hezbollah. But I just love this line. In addition, central production infrastructure belonging to the Iranian regime was targeted in several areas inside Iran. In the same statement where they say they've stopped bombing. Yeah. It was just targeted with bombs, not bombs. What do you guys, you think we're all idiots? And again, their entire argument about the fight against Hezbollah is predicated on the idea that it's proxy of Iran. Mm-hmm. Right. Yeah, so that's right. That's right. Is that too? Is it or isn't it? Yeah. Right, well, let's now bring your colleague Jeremy Skehill from Dropsite News into the conversation. Both of you have been reporting on this very closely. Jeremy's negotiations reporting has been absolutely critical to understanding what's going on. Yeah, so we're very lucky to have him here with us today. Let's bring him in. To talk through how we got here and where we're going, joined by my Dropsite colleague, Jeremy Skehill. Jeremy, thanks for taking some time this morning. Really appreciate it. Thank you. All right, so this 10 point plan, where did this come from and what is your sense of how we got from the brink of Armageddon to Trump saying, I've gotten this 10 point plan, world peace is what he is now saying is upon us. Yeah, I mean, I think we need to set aside any of the representations that Trump is making publicly right now. I mean, the idea that he mentioned the Iranian 10 point plan and said that it was a solid basis, in other words, framework for the beginning of real negotiations was what allowed the Iranians to claim that Trump had effectively capitulated to their demands. It's important to emphasize that there's been a lot of reporting and claims about what is in this 10 point plan. And while it's true that Iran has revealed some of it to us and other news organizations, they have not publicly released the 10 point plan. What we know is contained in it because the Iranians have confirmed this to us and others is that they want any agreement to be effectively a non aggression pact where the United States is publicly agreeing and they want a UN Security Council resolution to this effect that this era of periodic war against Iran by the United States and Israel is over. They want the agreement to apply to what they call all fronts of resistance, meaning Lebanon, Palestine, Iran, as well as Iraq. There's also some question of whether it would apply to answer a law also known as the Houthis in Yemen. The Iranians want a lifting of all sanctions. They want compensation for the damage that has been done by the US and Israeli bombing campaigns. And perhaps most significant to the US discourse and Trump's obsessive focus on the Strait of Hormuz, Iran is stating that they are going to maintain the control that they had over the Strait of Hormuz prior to the start of this war. There's other reports that it includes, you know, the US withdrawing all military bases and US personnel from the Middle East. I haven't gotten any confirmation that that's actually in the 10 point plan. Also, the Iranians have told me that they have made some representations on the issue of nuclear enrichment, but I would be cautious in co-signing the legitimacy of any of the details that are being leaked in the media right now. What I'm told by Iranians is that this is an incredibly sensitive issue, that it is linked to sanctions relief and the non-aggression pact, and that Iran is not gonna just be coming out and publicly stating its position. So in short, what I would say is that Iran was rejecting this temporary ceasefire proposal that Trump had been floating with a very thin veneer that it was the Pakistanis that came up with this idea. Trump's been desperate for an off ramp. The Iranians had prior to yesterday, and I think it remains their belief or their most likely scenario, was that Trump just wants a pause and that eventually he and Israel intend to resume bombing Iran, as they've done twice in the past year when they claimed to be negotiating. But from the Iranian perspective, when Trump then said, I'm going to publicly announce and reference this 10 point plan, that was sort of the trigger for the Iranian political and military echelons to say, we're not declaring that the war is over, but if the US publicly states that that's the basis for negotiations, and the US states that it is going to cease its fire against Iran, that we will, in the words of Abbas Arachi, the Iranian foreign minister, suspend our defensive operations. But Iran is saying that it has its trigger remaining on the finger, its finger remaining on the trigger. There's a question of whether the Israelis are actually going to continue their massive bombing and ground operations in Lebanon. Iran has said that that could throw the entire deal into jeopardy. And so it's a very fragile situation, but the Iranians of course are declaring a victory. Trump is declaring a victory. Trump's track record is that he just systematically lies about being in negotiations with Iran. The Iranians recognize they're taking a gamble, which is why they're limiting it, the scope of this and saying that they remain ready to continue what they call their defensive operations. Now how critical is the Strait of Hormuz? We still don't actually know what's going to happen really with the Strait of Hormuz. How critical is a point of leverage is that right now to the Iranians? I think that perhaps the top level headline in terms of the geopolitical realities of this is that Iran put on full display in front of the world how much economic damage and global panic it can cause. By simply, they never closed formally the Strait of Hormuz. They just said that it's only open to ships that coordinate with the Iranian state. But Iran's most potent weapon for certain in this war was twofold. One was that they repeatedly gave lie to Trump and Netanyahu's proclamations that the missile program had been obliterated, that their launchers had been obliterated, that their drone program had been obliterated. Iran continued to strike even when Pete Hegzeff would say basically they're finished and they've been bombed back to the stone ages in terms of their military capacity. Can I just add right there, Hegzeff, literally within the last couple of minutes, that's just, he's giving a briefing right now and he said, quote, Iran begged for the ceasefire and we all know it. Yeah, I mean, this is, obviously, none of us are sitting there behind the scenes, but I think it's pretty clear that it was Trump and his administration that were desperate for an agreement. We've talked about this on the show before. It was Steve Whitcoff who was obsessively texting the Iranian foreign minister and others. The Iranians said at the beginning that they weren't going to go for some kind of a short-term deal that they first needed to ensure that they had represented that they're able to strike back ferociously. I really think that that is pure propaganda. I think that it was Trump desperate for either a pause or an off-ramp. The Israelis are also in a pretty serious situation in terms of their ability to stop Iran's ballistic missiles. Trump is in big trouble politically. The US economy and the global economy is in big trouble. The Gulf states, the GCC, they have never in their histories been in a greater state of panic over the extent of damage that Iran has been able to cause, just by primarily hitting American military bases. And I think at the end of the day, we'll hear eventually that those countries, the GCC countries, these Arab countries, were absolutely irate at this and begging Trump because they felt like he just left them to be completely shellacked by Iran. And they had been given assurances that none of this was going to happen despite the fact that the Iranians said it was going to. But to directly answer your question, Emily, on the Strait of Hormuz, what Abbasirachi said last night was that Iran is going to maintain control of it over these two weeks and in perpetuity, and that any movement through the Strait is going to have to be coordinated with the Iranian military. So I don't think that what Trump is announcing and is sort of projecting is what his base seems to think it is. Trump is not in control of the Strait of Hormuz, and that's probably the most potent weapon that Iran has deployed in this, was showing that they could actually wreak absolute global economic havoc. It feels like the reformist camp in Iran, which has been arguing for decades for engagement with the United States, for diplomacy, for we're going to work through these sanctions, this nuclear deal, and so on and so forth. It seems like they've been pretty thoroughly repudiated internally, by the way, this has gone, because you've had the hardliners have been saying, no, the only thing the United States and Israel understand is force and raw power, and now 40 days of demonstrating force and raw power has gotten them more than the kind of reformists and the diplomats have been able to get for decades. But I'm wondering how they transition then to the period of diplomacy, or are they there yet, or do they believe, are they still in a posture that, no, this is actually probably another faint by the United States? So if it's kind of reconfigured Iranian politics, does that shape how they respond to these negotiations differently than they would have responded all times previously? I mean, I understand, and there isn't a lot of reporting on this yet, but I suspect that it's going to become a more prominent part of the story. My understanding is that China actually quietly played a quite significant role, particularly in its dealings with the Iranians. I had been told many weeks ago that China had been a quiet but extremely active player in this, and so I would look for some stories to start emerging about the role that China played in this deal. But I think you're right to an extent. When an Iranian official I spoke to last night said that they don't take any of Trump's actual words at face value, and that their working assumption is that this is some kind of a ploy or a trick. But that they calculate that because Trump has come out and said that he accepts the 10 point plan from Iran as a basis, a reasonable basis for discussions, that because of their relationships with China, with Pakistan, with other countries that have been Oman, that have been serving in a mediator role, that the Iranians are willing to reciprocate if the US stops bombing. It's very similar to the agreement that the United States made with Ansarullah in Yemen. It's Trump portrayed it as a double-sided ceasefire, but the Iranians have portrayed this as Trump essentially agreeing to the framework that the Iranians have demanded from the third day of the war and that they're gonna watch and see, but that their finger remains on the trigger. The big risk that I'm told by Iranians is that this is then used, like it's been twice before in the past year, to give cover for the planning of a massive bombing campaign or some kind of attempted special operations deployment inside of Iran, or that it's just gonna be used as a temporary pause to rearm Israel so that it can defend more robustly against ballistic missile attacks and to bring more US firepower into the region. Trump has completely made a mockery of the legitimacy of the word of the United States in an unprecedented way in the 250 years of the country. We have never had a president that so brazenly and openly and blatantly lies about the United States negotiating and then uses the full force of the US military in a clandestine or covert operation that is barely covert or clandestine because he's openly doing it. Another Hegseth quote here from the briefing, you see had Iran refused our terms, the next targets would have been their power plants, bridges and oil and energy infrastructure, targets they could not defend and could not realistically rebuild. We were locked and loaded. President Trump had the power to cripple Iran's entire economy in minutes, but he chose mercy response to that, Jeremy. I mean, this is complete nonsense. Look what happened in the past 48 hours in Iran. You had Iranians of various political stripes coming out and saying that they were going to serve as human shields around the energy infrastructure of Iran, gathering in the many, many thousands around sites that Trump said that he was going to bomb. At the same time, you had the IRGC laying out maps of exactly what they were going to bomb in the GCC Arab countries and in Israel as well. So I really do think that this was a case of Trump blinking first. I didn't hear or get any sense that the Iranians were in a state of panic about this. They were resigned to the idea that Trump may well go forward and try to do this. They understood that that was a possibility and I never once got a sense talking to Iranian officials that they were in a panic about it. I think they were of the mindset that if that's our fate, but we're going to continue to fight the United States. So Hegsath has been bloviating and engaging in some kind of really warped Christian nationalist rhetoric to wrap this whole thing up, but underpinning it all has been demonstrable lies. Every time they tell us Iran has been wiped out, Iran intensifies its attacks. The scale of damage that Iran had a capacity to inflict if the United States began widely bombing its energy infrastructure would have dwarfed the scale of what we're seeing in the Strait of Hormuz in terms of the damage it did to all of those Gulf Arab countries that Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner have cultivated deep financial relationships with. And I think Trump blinked here, but I would not put it past him to be plotting with Netanyahu a return to massive bombing and using this as just a pause to rearm. And last question for me, do you have a sense of how the Iranians view Israel's ongoing role in this? Like, do they believe that Israel is going to abide by the ceasefire? Are they gonna stop hitting Israel if Israel is continuing to hit Lebanon? I mean, this is, I was texting with a source this morning. I mean, I do think that the Iranians take very seriously the statement that the Israelis made early this morning that they were not going to cease their fire in Lebanon. My guess would be that Trump's gonna have to intervene to some extent, but the Israelis have a PhD in violating every single so-called ceasefire that they've ever signed, specifically in Lebanon, where there was a ceasefire for more than a year, where the Israelis just repeatedly bombed and bombed and bombed. So I think that's one flashpoint that could call into question the overarching ceasefire deal, if you wanna call it that over the next two weeks. But I think the Iranians have a sense that they're in a long war with Israel. And right now they're focused on what kind of agreement Trump may or may not be willing to engage in. I do have the sense that the Iranians are fully prepared to resume a full-scale war. And I don't think they want it, but I think the US has really underestimated Iran's capacity. And I think that the US has really cartoonized Iranian society, the political diversity that exists in Iranian society. And the extent to which it's a real story that Iranians of various political stripes, including those opposed to the government, have come out in opposition to this bombing. Those aren't minor issues. And I think that the effect of this war in a broader sense, and this was reflected in the comments posted this morning by Pazeshki and the president of Iran, where he said that going forward, we have to try to function and operate as one nation. Yes, Iran engages in propaganda like all other nations. But I think there's some significant legitimacy to the idea that Iranians were overwhelmingly opposed to what the US and Israel were doing. And they understand that as long as Israel operates with nuclear weapons and has the full backing of the US to wage these kinds of wars, that it's just a temporary pause regardless of whatever agreement gets signed in terms of the war against Israel. And that's my final question, Jeremy, is Donald Trump right now is saying, he has determined Iran has gone through a regime change. Obviously, the person at the very top has changed. But what is your response to the claim that actually the regime itself has been changed by this 40 day, 38 day, whatever it's been, long war? I think this is part of the combination of ignorance and arrogance that we've seen when US officials, and it's not just Trump. You hear this from the think tank crowd, the people paid to think by the makers of tanks, where they really oversimplify Iran's system. They often talk, Trump and others, oh, for 47 years the Iranians have been doing this. Well, for 47 years, Iran has been building institutions knowing that the most powerful country in the world wanted to change its regime and wipe out its government and eliminate its effective sovereignty. So what I would say is, I think these are greatly exaggerated claims. Yes, it's true that some of the more flexible, known public figures have been assassinated. I think it is true that to some degree, the IRGC, the lesson it's learned from the past two and a half years has been that it was a mistake not to pursue a nuclear weapon, that it was a mistake to choreograph its retaliatory strikes since the Gaza genocide began rather than actually smacking hard as they've done since February 28th. But I don't think there's been an actual change of regime. I think this is wishful thinking and propaganda. I think Iran's institutions have endured and in asymmetric warfare, the less powerful, less mighty in terms of use of force side in it, wins by not losing. And so, I think this is a microcosmic situation that has some essence of Vietnam or Afghanistan. Well, Jeremy, correspondent for Dropsite News, my colleague over there, thank you so much for joining us. Really appreciate it. Thank you guys. Just as we're sitting here, Ryan, the Pentagon is doing a briefing this morning, one of those early 8 a.m. briefings with Dan Cain, chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, responding to the wild events, the roller coaster of the last 13 or so hours. Here's a little bit from Secretary of War Hegseth just moments ago. Other presidents marked time and kicked the can down the road. President Trump made history. From the strike that took out Qasem Soleimani, to tearing up the disastrous Obama-Iran deal, to the precision campaign that obliterated Iran's nuclear sites in Operation Midnight Hammer, to the decisive military victory we just achieved in Operation Epic Fury, this commander in chief. President Trump forged this moment. Iran begged for this ceasefire, and we all know it. But they can no longer build missiles, build rockets, build launchers, or build UAVs. Their factories have been raised to the ground. Iran begged for the ceasefire, we're being told now. And actually, as I was watching this news roll in, I wanted to go back to White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitz, long post that people may remember, I remember we covered this at the time, this is back on March 2nd. Clearly there was a lot of frustration in the White House with people on the right, and in general, criticizing the president for not having a clear objective. Because what we were hearing from, everyone was all over the place. I mean, at this point, even the most diehard magus porter would have to agree. There was mixed messaging. The first still continues throughout the entire war, but in the first several days, it was absolutely all over the place. So Caroline Levitz came out with a post, where she said, President Trump released a statement laying out clear objectives to the American people for Operation Epic Fury, let me reiterate them. Destroy the Iranian regime's missiles and raise their missile industry to the ground. Annihilate the Iranian regime's navy, ensure the regime's terrorist proxies can no longer destabilize the region. Stop them from making and using IEDs or roadside bombs, guarantee that Iran can never obtain a nuclear weapon, preventing this radical regime and its terrorist leaders from threatening America and our core national security interests is a clear, eyed, and necessary objective, and went on to say, the terrorist Iranian regime would not say yes to peace. Their brutal attacks and threats will finally end under President Trump. Contrasting their clearest version, their clearest iteration of what the objectives were just several days into the war, Hexeth right now saying the Iranians begged, begged for what just happened in the last 12 or so hours, Ryan. It's remarkable. I mean, it's not surprising, I don't think, but it's just remarkable how the PR efforts to clean all of this up are going to be detached from the reality. Yeah, when you go into, and we'll talk about this in the next segment, when we talk about this New York Times article on Nanyahu, when you go into the war with completely flawed assumptions about how it will unfold, and then it unfolds completely differently than you expected. Regime change, that is to say. Regime change, they're not gonna be able to close straight up our moves, they're not gonna be able to attack the Gulf allies. All of that turns out to be untrue. Then yeah, you're gonna be stuck then just trying to put overwhelming force on Iran and at some point you come up against your own physical limits of how much you can bomb, and the moral limits of how much you can get away with destruction of civilian infrastructure and civilians themselves. And that gets us to this really fascinating response from the Iranian public. You know, we were told that the Iranian public is ready to overthrow the regime and they just need a little bit of help. Yeah, Kurds are coming in. The Kurds are coming in, the students are gonna all rise up, instead we bomb the universities. But if we can roll B1 here, this is one of the more popular musicians in Iran, Ali Ghassmari, who has previously clashed significantly with the Iranian regime. I think he got in a bunch of trouble because he brought some women without head coverings up on stage. And otherwise has been, he's the kind of person who's obviously going to be critical of a conservative government, very extremely conservative government like the one in Iran. He positioned himself outside of the power plant saying that if you're going to plunge my people into darkness, you're going to take me with them. And then thousands of people at various power plants showed up and stood on bridges and outside of power plants saying, if you're gonna take this bridge out, you're gonna take us out with it, which to me was a amount of courage and amount of confidence in Trump's humanity that I don't think I have. Like I was like, oh God, I don't think this is gonna stop Trump. Disalone now, he didn't do it. He ended up taking the deal that was on the table. Great, I'm glad that they weren't killed. The Iranians said, you know, that they were gonna be down there basically live streaming. And saying like, if you're really gonna do this, you're going to have to kill us too. And I just don't think that that was how Netanyahu explained to Trump, the Iranian people would respond. Yeah, clearly it wasn't. We'll get to that in the next vlog. Plus the Joint Chiefs guy saying the other day, every Iranian with a gun was shooting at us when we were trying to rescue our downed airmen. It's like, wait a minute, I thought, thought you were liberating them and they'd be welcoming you. Weird. Well, Ryan, this countdown clock on Israeli TV went right down into the wire. Speaking of humanity, let's move into inhumanity. This is channel 13. Over in Israel, yeah, like a New Year's countdown clock. Right. Oh man, I wonder, we should find out how it was at the 90 minute mark when they were like, was there a giddiness and then just a... Deflation. I mean, the meltdown on on Israeli Twitter and pro-Israel US Twitter has been something to behold, that's for sure. Well, actually speaking of what's happened internally in Iran, let's go ahead and put now B5 on the screen. This is a video of Iranian Jews looking at this synagogue in Tehran that had been bombed on Passover. Ryan, it's complete rubble. There were like 100 synagogues in, well, I guess there were 100 synagogues in Iran. Like, how are they insane? Yeah, if you're listening to this, just rabbi's walking through a complete rubble in Tehran, glimpse inside, I mean, Tehran is a... Who knows how old that synagogue is? That's a good point as well. Tehran is a massive city. Yeah, 10 million plus people. Utter destruction to the synagogue and to many other places in the city, obviously. So the other thing I wanted to mention, we mentioned a lot of, I mean, just not getting a lot of attention in Western media at all, but looking at potentially, according to human rights groups, like 1600 civilian deaths, 244 children in Iran since the beginning of the war. Ryan, the element of this that we haven't even discussed is to what extent looking at the video of the human chain and the like, all of this then proves the point, the mullahs we're making, that the United States will stop at nothing. You have the president United States saying he's gonna destroy the entire civilization. We don't even need to bring up the extent of that rhetoric or go back into it, because everyone is totally familiar with it and how unhinged it was. That seems like it has a pretty good chance of rallying Iranians around the IRGC at a level that they weren't even before the war began. The name that the Iranian government had for us was the Great Satan. Tucker Carlson basically embraced that name for Trump himself in his podcast, was yesterday or the day before, calling him effectively some version of Antichrist. It was, yeah, we have certainly done ourselves no favors. But hopefully, you heard from Iranian leaders the entire time that they would say the same thing that we say about their leadership. They would say we know that the American government does not represent the American people. We know the American people voted to end the endless wars. We know the American people voted for America first, not to be dragged into war by Israel. You kept hearing that from Iranian leaders. That's at least positive, that the Iranian people and the American people at least finally identify with each other that neither of us want these wars yet here we are. Collectively, we can get to a place where we're not doing it. Well, yeah, I mean, when the war started, it's not as though the majority of the country was behind the IRGC, whether or not Netanyahu, I mean, whatever Netanyahu was telling our president, we're gonna get to that in just a moment. It's not as though the entire country was behind the IRGC. It was genuinely divided. People in Iran genuinely were divided. I just think there's a serious question on the table now, to what extent support may have increased for the more radical leadership in Iran after, again, you have people say the United States wants to wipe you off the map, take out the entire civilization, and the president of the United States comes out and says, an entire civilization will end, children are killed. Yeah, what I hate, I'm one of these peaceniks. If I were Iranian, I'd be in that reformer camp. Let's do diplomacy, let's do engagement. You're a dirty hippie. Let's talk to some of dirty hippie. Like just objectively speaking, the dirty hippies had their legs cut out from under them, and the people arguing that force and violence was a more effective path towards dignity, sovereignty, and peace on the other side, those folks are being validated, and people like me are being invalidated, and that sucks because the lesson that people are gonna learn from this is that in this world, violence actually is more likely to get you where you need to go. But it begets violence. It always begets more violence. That's one of the points that Dr. Wittman's making. Although as the hardliners would argue, no, it was actually appeasement. It was actually the diplomacy, the attempt to reach peace, betrayed weakness then to the US and Israel, and Israel would then just attack them constantly. I mean, I don't want that to be true, but so far, it's not looking good for my camp, looking good for the hardliner camp. But the long term is not looking good for anyone. No, that's very true also. This is an I Heart podcast. Guaranteed human.