Jon Lovett

Yeah, finish.

Well, yeah, get to the bottom of the thing.

Maybe there's some good stuff at the bottom.

What if there's some pictures?

Yeah, it's also, we've been through so many rounds of reporting in which Trump felt we were on the precipice of a deal and then the talks fall apart.

But if you take out the spinning coming from the administration, is it possible that really they've just been far apart the whole time because the Venn diagram of on one side you have Trump

requiring a deal that is better than the jcpoa the obama deal because he said that deal was the worst deal ever made on the other side you have iran in a stronger position when the war began wanting a better deal than that including uh uh consequences to the yes yeah to the u.s reparations for the cost of the war and

uh the power it's gained from having control of the straight or moves those circles don't overlap so what are we doing here yeah exactly oh we just we keep and then the reporting is so credulous and so it feels like we're having this up or down up and down roller coaster but really we're just dealing with the like kind of strategic like reality of this stupid war yeah it sounds like it comes me out personally same

I just wanna just, before we get into the details of it, the neocon high dungeon of the 2000s, I still do not miss.

Look, this is a very big blunder.

I think it's a little premature to be saying it's worse than Pearl Harbor.

Sure, in hindsight, it looks pretty fucking good.

But a year or so after Pearl Harbor, things were pretty up in the air.

But this is all like throat clearing around what was truly a bracing and

just dismal read on the situation, including laying out just how few options Trump has, because part of the reason he called off military strikes, wanted a ceasefire, is because of the leverage Iran had when it was striking oil and gas infrastructure in the region, how he can try to declare victory, but that still leaves the Strait of Hormuz, how all the options that Trump has are fucking terrible.

It's also like the gall of Trump saying, oh, these people are dishonorable.

You used previous talks as a smokescreen to bomb the leadership.

You have ripped up the previous agreement and you may not have liked it, but it was negotiated in good faith by the United States, which you can...

whose authority came from Obama to you.

So you've kind of undermined our credibility there.