John J. Mearsheimer

They've actually done quite well in the war, as we saw when they attacked Israel a few days ago.

Here you have a situation where Israel did not attack Iran.

Iran felt that it was free to attack Israel.

And Iran has made it clear it's more than willing to go up the escalation ladder with us and with Israel.

They feel like they're in the driver's seat.

So the Iranians won't cut President Trump any slack.

They won't give him a deal that'll allow him to walk away from this.

And again, he's under ever-present pressure on the economic front to shut this one down.

At the same time, the Israelis...

will not cooperate with him either.

What Trump really wants to do is cut a deal that basically accepts the fact that Iran won.

He can't change Iran's position.

And he's got to accept the fact that Iran has won and cut a sweetheart deal for Iran.

But the Israelis under no circumstances want him to do this.

And Bibi is resisting.

So what's happening here is Trump is being pushed from one side by Bibi, and he's being pushed on the other side by the inexorable forces of the international economy as it reacts to the shutdown straits, okay?

So what's happening is that desperate Donald Trump is beginning to put pressure on the Israelis because he can't put pressure on the Iranians.

He's putting pressure on the Israelis in ways that he's never done before.

So he had this conversation where he said really terrible things about Iran.

Prime Minister Netanyahu last Monday, this was on June 1st, right?