Trump desperately wants ‘dramatic, cinematic’ conclusion to Iran war

Added: 2026-05-27

[00:00:00]I want to move on to Iran now. So, as we always have to say at this point, it's quite unclear where things are at right now. We do have the idea that there is a peace deal in the next couple days. Uh, President Trump, as we're recording now, has just said that the Camp David talks that he's going to have with his cabinet presumably about this peace deal are delayed. There's another meeting at the White House. Iran is certainly saying that there is no peace deal imminent, that they're threatening US forces. Um, I'll start with this. So we have had a situation where every time there's a you know peace deal or a big deal about to be reached, Trump starts tweeting out some well truth socialing out some crazy stuff in an effort to intimidate Iran to come to the negotiating table with a bit more hurry.

[00:00:43]I wonder if the strikes over the weekend are part of that. Is it a case of hey just letting you know things can go down a bit more aggressively if you don't come to the negotiating table? If the true social posts aren't working off anymore.

[00:00:57]How close do you think on what you're hearing a deal could be?

[00:01:02]>> I'm I don't have any special insider information. Uh I am waiting on tender hooks with everybody else for the next presidential pronouncement, many of which are self-contradictory or at least contradict the last presidential announcement a couple hours ago. Um the one thing that was interesting about those strikes that's I think clarifying and these were a couple of um strikes on some boats, some swift boats that were laying mines in the straight and one anti-aircraft battery near Bonder Abbas that that fired on US forces that executed those strikes. Um what that tells you one thing is that and this is somehow difficult for for some people to understand the straight of Hormuz is not militarily closed. The Iranians did not deploy the assets that they had in previous decades and no longer possessed due to the 40-day war to militarily close the straight to all traffic, including its own traffic. They were just attempting to lay some of those mines just then and they were blown up in the process. So that tells you one thing, but it's not a comforting fact because that also means that maritime traffic through the straight has been closed off by virtue of the threat or hyper hypothetical threat of retaliatory force from Iran on shipping interests.

[00:02:16]The Iranians have fired off some missiles at some ships. They have laid some minds in the strait, but nothing even remotely approaching what they've done in the past like in 1987 and 1988.

[00:02:27]and certainly nothing that was uh studied in the scenarios over the course of decades leading up to this war. Which is why the straight of Hormuz has become the president's biggest problem. Um it's not the nuclear material. It's not uh it's not the Iranian terror proxies.

[00:02:42]It's the straight of Hormuz which was always going to be their big card and something the United States could clear.

[00:02:48]We've cleared it before militarily in the 80s as I said and sometimes the Iranians muck around in the straight and and there's some uh military action there usually very small scale but the failure to open this up by force and even being bequeafd access to this in that just if they were to be so generous as to and beneficent as to grant us access to the strait it would set an atrocious president. It all but guarantees that other revisionist powers like China would would try the very same gambit which much more efficacy likely and much more competence in for example the strait of Taiwan. Um it would establish uh it would create the conditions in which spheres of influence would naturally arise as corporate and governmental interests made their arrangements with Iran to control which if it was left with control of straight of Hormuz would extort shipping fees whether it calls it a toll or not or environmental protection or what have you it would extort those nations that depend on that waterway and who doesn't depend on that waterway the United States and Israel both of which seem to be very content to allow the world to work this out for itself. self and that whatever that arrangement emerges from that dynamic is not going to be the benefit of American interests. The president has talked himself into a bit of a corner here with regard to this the surrender of nuclear material. I may have some more tolerance than the average American for quote unquote lawnmowing operations where you're just going back in and executing strikes on some very select targets in order to prevent them from gaining too much efficacy, power, competence, support, what have you. Um, but those nuclear the nuclear material such as we understand it is buried. It's very difficult to access the very complicated and expensive refining and enriching equipment that Iran needs to create nuclear weapons has been disabled from what public intelligence suggests. And it would be very difficult for Iran to start a nuclear bomb program again that we wouldn't see from space or that the Israelis wouldn't catch with their extensive penetration network of intelligence assets and agents inside Iran. So I'm less worried about that.

[00:04:57]And even the president said to Sean Hannity the other day, "Well, it's more of a public relations thing to try to get the nuclear dust, as he calls it, because he wants a definitive, dramatic, cinematic end to this war." I don't think he was ever going to get one. I think what he was always going to get was a settlement with something resembling the rump elements of the Iranian regime, after which you move on to the phase that everybody said was coming throughout this war, which is in destabilizing the regime internally. And we're there. The only problem is the straight of Hormuz and the president doesn't seem to have the will necessary to do what needs to be done to reopen that straight. Until he does, he's going to find a very unsatisfying end to this war and a strategic deficit for the United States moving forward. I I I think you've absolutely nailed it there because I think you know I I started off going okay this is a real chance to get rid of a terrible regime one that is a existential threat to the US and Israel as long as it exists threat to the west as well and it just as it went on I was just starting to worry that you know that old taco Trump fear was going to come through that he was going to leave in a way that sort made sure that nothing was really progressed and when you hear that there's a deal imminent.

[00:06:12]When you hear that uh the regime is still there despite all of these shutdowns, despite all of this strangulation that the US has done, I'm starting to worry that Trump is going to take a deal that he can spin as they're so far away from a nuclear project. It's not funny. Uh but the straight of Hormuz is open. But my worry is as long as the nation of Iran is led by someone who thinks that America is the great Satan and Israel is the little Satan and that world peace can be achieved by the removal of the US and Israel. I don't think Iran is ever going to truly abandon a nuclear dream because they that is an inherent nuclear dream within their ideology. That's my fear.

[00:06:50]>> Oh, I don't think so either. But we don't need to trust anyone. Um we it's this is not a matter of trust. It's verify and verify to to paraphrase and to adulterate the Reagan claim. Um, this regime will always regard the United States as a preeminent threat to its stability, to its ideology that has since the the inception of this regime.

[00:07:08]That hostility is mutual. The Iranian regime has killed thousands of Americans. The Iranian officials who are still alive have blood on their hands.

[00:07:16]Many of them met their fates over the course of the 40-day war. Um, but we don't have to trust this regime at all.

[00:07:22]We don't have to have a working relationship with this regime. We can strangle it and isolate it. And the 40-day war has has helped us advance that cause. The degree to which the Gulf States now recognize what the threat in their regime truly is. And whether they're vocal about it or not, that Israel is the region's pre-minent military power. Um, with the exception of the United States, which is the globe's pre-minent military power, but it is basically a regional hegeimon. And those countries that look to their own security and stability will make a very cold and cleareyed decision about who has their interests in mind and who doesn't. And that's good for the United States. That's great for us. Our our interests are advanced by that. Um, and I'm disincclined to say that the war has not been uh a a valuable enterprise in part because of the fact that the United States enjoys so much more freedom of action than Iran. I mean, if you were to if you were to just ask somebody who was being honest, who was a non a good faith actor in this dialogue, which party you would rather be? Would you rather have the freedom of action available to Iran or the freedom of action available to the United States? The answer is obvious.

[00:08:30]>> I think I would rather look out a window like you know just the ability to look at a window.

[00:08:36]>> Right. Precisely. and the degradation of the Iranian nuclear program to say nothing of the decimation of their their air force, their navy, their defense industrial base, their nuclear program, their leadership cadres, all of them have been ground into dust to to varying degrees. And that's good and yes, they will rebuild. It will take quite a lot of time to rebuild. But when the Iranian people come back for this regime, as they will, as they did in 2001, as they did in 20 2009, as they did in 2017, 2018, 2022, 2023, and 2025, and they will again, and when they come, they will face a regime that is far weaker, has far less money to pay its apparatics, and has very a much reduced terror apparatus with which to control and subjugate their population. And that was always part of the plan as we understood it. But the Iranians have managed with this straight of Hormuz gambit to inflict enough political pressure on the Republican party. And that's what it is. Domestic political pressure coming from a Republican party that is focused on a political cycle in November more so than the the generational project that the United States is currently engaged in in the Middle East. And those cross pressures are are are coming to bear on these negotiations. Look, I reserve the right to react to this thing when it happens.

[00:09:55]It hasn't happened yet, James. We have to keep telling ourselves there's no pen to paper here. There's no deal as far as we understand it yet. Although a very could happen very quickly. These things tend to come together quickly when they're when they're being floated like this. So, it is valuable to to say where our objections are and to throw brushback pitches as some Republicans in the Senate are. folks like Lindsey Graham, Ted Cruz, Roger Wicker, who's who's the head of some very very powerful armed Senate Armed uh services committee. Um they're saying this is JCPOA2. This is Barack Obama's nuclear deal, the sequel. We don't want anything to do with that. However, those are the those are the loud ones, voices who are quiet within the party, who don't want to run crosswise of the Republican voters, who are still supportive of the president and therefore supportive of this war. Um they're all still getting very they're getting very nervous looking at the polling. And if the polling or if the gas prices in this country are still at $450 a gallon, approaching $5 a gallon in some places come November, the Republican party will be wiped out. There's just no question about it. So, the president needs a victory as much as Iran needs relief.

[00:11:01]This is a game of chicken and both parties are starting to blink.