Trump issues ULTIMATUM to Iran

[00:00:00]Vice President Vance and US negotiators are in Switzerland for the first round of nuclear talks with Iran. This as Hezbollah and the Israeli defense forces exchanged fire in Lebanon this weekend.

[00:00:10]Fox News chief foreign correspondent Trey Yingst is live in Tel Aviv with the latest. Trey.

[00:00:16]>> Yeah, hey Peter, good morning.

[00:00:17]High-level diplomatic talks are taking place today in Switzerland aimed at solidifying the memorandum of understanding and entering into the next phase of negotiations. This comes as Iran's IRGC says they have closed the Strait of Hormuz. I spoke earlier with President Trump for more than 20 minutes and he responded to that threat from the Iranians saying that he spoke with Iranian officials overnight and told them, "You close it and you won't have a country." He went on to say if they don't make a deal, "We'll collect tolls.

[00:00:46]We may take over the strait if we have to." The president says the US could become the guardian angel of the strait and the Middle East and take 20% of the oil. The strait along with Iran's nuclear program remain the focus for talks in Switzerland. Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian spoke today from Tehran laying out a new red line for the regime in this next round of discussions.

[00:01:08]>> We will not give up our right to enrichment.

[00:01:11]And they, too, will be forced to accept it.

[00:01:14]You all know what the so-called president of the United States was saying. He had made a complete 100° turn.

[00:01:22]He was saying that Iran must surrender unconditionally. Iran has no right to do this. It has no right to do that.

[00:01:31]>> President [snorts] Trump responded directly to Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian saying he better watch his mouth, he better shape up or we'll take over the rest of the country. The president also spoke about Lebanon where five Israeli soldiers were killed by Hezbollah in the course of 48 hours over the weekend. The Israelis responding with heavy air strikes across southern Lebanon. Now, President Trump posted to Truth Social this morning saying, "Iran must immediately stop their highly paid proxies in Lebanon from causing trouble.

[00:01:57]If they don't, we'll hit Iran very hard again, just like we did last week, only harder. Iran continues to try and tie the situation in Lebanon to the broader memorandum of understanding with the United States of America. Well, now President Trump is doing the same.

[00:02:11]Peter?

[00:02:13]>> Trey, thank you. For more, let's bring in Fox News contributor and host of the Hugh Hewitt show, Hugh Hewitt. Hugh, I got to ask you about this news overnight. Strait of Hormuz closed. Now what?

[00:02:26]>> Well, I think what the president posted and Trey just referenced on Truth Social this morning, they've got to pull back Hezbollah and they've got to open the Strait of Hormuz or we'll be back to the bombing. Now, I'm not one who put any faith in this MOU anyway, Peter. I think it's a letter of intent in real estate term. Doesn't bind anyone. You might continue talking, but they're not going to bring back Munich in 1938 from Switzerland. I don't think the vice president's going to do that. I don't think special envoys Whitcoff or Crocker are going to do that. I don't think the president will let them do that. So, I I actually believe we're in half time of the battle, the current battle. Tomorrow marks the one-year anniversary of Operation Midnight Hammer when the president ordered the And in that year, we've seen Iran terribly shaken. They massacred 40,000 of their own people and they've been pummeled for 6 weeks. I think they're going to want to strike a nicer tone with everyone if they want to get out of this jam cuz their country's falling apart. They may have closed the Strait again. That will not lead to anything productive for them, but probably a return to bombing.

[00:03:28]Ditto Hezbollah in Lebanon.

[00:03:31]>> And Hugh, nobody knows that is watching this, but I was waiting in Switzerland for the vice president this week and he stood me up because we figured at the time this is just like a no-win situation for Vance, right? If the deal works, conservatives are mad that he's the face of it. If it doesn't work, the president is mad. But the VP's new angle in this new sound that we have, uh it sounds like he is arguing if this doesn't work out, it's really Israel's fault. Listen to this.

[00:03:59]>> It's going to be something we're just going to have to continuously manage to ensure that, you know, Israel and and Lebanon are both safe and secure. The big problem is that you have somebody will sue and then somebody will respond and you try to have a chicken and egg problem where you've just got to stop the shooting for long enough to get the ceasefire to hold.

[00:04:20]>> So, is that a fair point that really if this all blows up, it's it's the Israelis?

[00:04:26]>> No, and I I didn't hear it that way. I heard the chicken and egg, which is not a great analogy because Hezbollah is a terrorist occupying force in Lebanon.

[00:04:34]Israel had to go in and defend Israel's territory. The president has blessed that. I think the vice president is I hope he's studying Ronald Reagan in Reykjavik in 1986 because sometime a disaster of a summit can turn into a big geostrategic political win. So, if he walks away from Switzerland and said, "These are idiots. These are lunatics.

[00:04:52]We can't deal with them." I think that increases his stock because that's the actual truth. We know that the IRGC and the mullahs are nuts and they're lunatics as we've President has said and as Secretary Rubio has said. So, I think it could blow up and to his advantage.

[00:05:06]What isn't to his advantage is blaming our closest ally and most important ally in the world, Israel, for any of this because it's not their fault. It's the Iranian terrorist proxy, Hezbollah, that refuses to disengage.

[00:05:17]>> And it seems like the heart of Republican and Democratic concerns with this deal is giving Iran money that they can maybe then use for anything. I asked President Trump about that on Wednesday in Evian. Listen to this.

[00:05:34]The United States is not going to directly pay Iran, but the US is going to let the Iranians start making billions of dollars selling oil accessing this recon- >> only if they're doing things right. Only if Peter only if we're not doing anything. We're not putting up money.

[00:05:55]>> Explain though what the difference is between giving Iran US dollars and unfreezing US dollars.

[00:06:04]>> Well, the unfreezing is an easy one to answer.

[00:06:07]We have taken a lot of their money.

[00:06:11]And we have their money. We have taken their money. It's not our money.

[00:06:14]It's their money.

[00:06:17]>> Hugh, what do you think of that answer?

[00:06:20]>> All right, it's an illuminating exchange, Peter, as was the one at the end when he said, "I'll blame JD if it goes off the rails." When you asked him about that. What he's saying is there's a way for Iran to get their assets unfrozen. It would begin, for example, with the IAEA inspectors going into pick out mountain, which is the fourth big nuclear facility. It would begin if they simply stopped shooting and attacking the boats in the Strait of Hormuz like they did overnight. It would begin when they withdrew Hezbollah to north of Latani and get out of the grill of Israel.

[00:06:52]I I don't think he's going to let anything get unfrozen until they've done all that. In the meantime, they can sell some oil if they've opened up the straight. That's about $5 a month.

[00:07:01]That's barely lunch money for the IRGC.

[00:07:03]So, that's that's not giving them much.

[00:07:05]So, I didn't take too much away from the MOU. I think it's half-time in this battle. I don't think we know which way it's going to go, but I don't think they're going to be getting rich off of the MOU not in any way, shape, or form.

[00:07:17]>> And something else that JD Vance is saying is that the US is going to be We heard this today. The US wants to have new relations with the Iranians. Like he's making it sound like we could have a normal relationship with them if they give up the nuke. Do you think that there's a big appetite for that in the United States? A normal diplomatic relationship where he's visiting Tehran the same way that he would go visit Riyadh or somewhere like that.

[00:07:43]>> Only if the regime change, Peter.

[00:07:45]There's nothing There's a huge appetite for getting back to where we were in 1978 with Iran. They were a close ally.

[00:07:52]They were ally of Israel. There are 92 million wonderful Persian people, Iranian people with extraordinary talents. We got a great diaspora in the United States. We'd love to go back to 1978 before Jimmy Carter screwed this all up and the Ayatollah Khomeini came back. But, the IRGC, the Haiti, these these knuckleheads who are their political leadership that have no power, no, there's not much appetite for that.

[00:08:13]We would like for Iran to back away from their nuclear program, and maybe they change over time. But, I'm not holding my breath to when I'm going to visit Tehran. I don't think that's ever going to happen in my lifetime unless the people rise up in the next year, which is possible, not likely, but it's possible. And I I I don't think we're going to have the embassy reopen on uh Massachusetts Avenue, which is the old Iranian embassy, for a long, long time.

[00:08:37]>> Uh well, we'll see. Uh Hugh Hewitt, happy Father's Day. Thank you.

[00:08:42]>> And to you, Peter.

[00:08:44]>> Thanks, you.

[00:08:45]>> Hey, everyone. I'm Emily Compagno. Catch me and my co-host Harris Faulkner and Kayleigh McEnany on Outnumbered every weekday at 12:00 p.m. Eastern, or set your DVR. Also, don't forget to subscribe to the Fox News YouTube page for daily highlights.