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Morning Wire

Iran Talks Sputter & Spencer Pratt to the Rescue? | 6.2.26

02 Jun 2026

Transcription

Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.

Chapter 1: What are the key issues in the California governor and mayoral races?

4.115 - 17.708 John Bickley

Californians take to the polls today to decide which candidates will compete for governor and L.A. mayor come November. Have upstart Republicans Spencer Pratt and Steve Hilton shaken things up enough in the deep blue state to be on the ballots?

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17.928 - 26.437 Spencer Pratt

I'm not going to sit here and tell you Spencer Pratt can save L.A. What I can tell you is the status quo is destroying it and we need to try something different.

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26.697 - 40.729 John Bickley

I'm Daily Wire executive editor John Bickley. Georgia's off today. It's Tuesday, June 2nd. This is Morning Wire. The U.S.

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Chapter 2: How have Spencer Pratt and Steve Hilton changed the political landscape in California?

40.749 - 50.001 John Bickley

standoff with Iran takes a turn for the worse, with new strikes and stalling talks. Is the ceasefire on the verge of collapse, or will Trump finally rein in Iran?

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50.022 - 61.157 Unknown

The Iranians have been violating the ceasefire that began on April the 8th quite continuously. So we actually have justification to go back into military operations. The president's certainly full aware of that.

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61.738 - 75.034 John Bickley

And officials impose a 9 p.m. curfew in New Jersey after anti-ice riots lead to over a dozen arrests. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know.

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Chapter 3: Is the ceasefire with Iran on the verge of collapse?

137.617 - 139.742 Unknown

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140.498 - 160.531 John Bickley

The eyes of the nation will be on California tonight as the votes are tallied in some really consequential primaries, including for governor and mayor of L.A. Both of those contests have Republicans who have vastly outperformed expectations already. Joining us to break it all down is Daily Wire opinion editor and host of The Big Ben Show, Ben Domenech. Ben, great to have you on.

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160.932 - 161.713 Ben Domenech

Great to be with you.

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161.879 - 173.173 John Bickley

So let's start with LA. A lot of people focused on this race. You know, six months ago, the idea of Spencer Pratt being a serious contender for mayor there would have sounded like a joke.

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Chapter 4: What triggered the recent escalation in U.S.-Iran tensions?

173.374 - 174.437 John Bickley

What has changed?

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174.586 - 193.967 Ben Domenech

Well, what's changed is that people in L.A. are frustrated and they're frustrated for very logical and obvious reasons. Karen Bass was someone who was sitting atop a political machine that she worked to her advantage. She was someone who was viewed as kind of a kingmaker or queenmaker within the L.A. experience.

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194.608 - 214.043 Ben Domenech

But then the Palisades fire happened and she happened to be out of the country at the time. for reasons that don't seem to make very much sense even to this day. And there were all sorts of responses to that fire that sparked questions about corruption, about the inability of the fire response to handle it, about why that blaze.

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214.023 - 239.364 Ben Domenech

and was still even burning days after it had been identified about why the reservoir was essentially empty. Spencer Pratt is riding high on all the different sort of motivations that are coming from voters out of that experience. And I think that this is not really even a political response. It's much more of a capacity to govern response. It's a response to incompetence.

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239.504 - 248.036 Ben Domenech

It's a response to leadership that doesn't seem to be leading, doesn't seem to be handling any of the problems that people in Los Angeles face every day.

248.076 - 262.255 John Bickley

He obviously has a very uphill battle ahead of him as a Republican, very unlikely to ultimately win this thing, but we'll see. What's the coalition forming around him, and does it just fall apart if he loses today?

262.555 - 284.874 Ben Domenech

I don't think it falls apart. And the reason that I don't think it falls apart is because it's actually something that has tapped into, I think, a lot of online sentiment. These AI videos that have become an item of frustration and complaining from the Bass campaign and from other Democrats. And look, Los Angeles is notoriously corrupt. It's just, it is.

285.054 - 306.568 Ben Domenech

It's a place that has all sorts of problems going back for years, decades even, even before Karen Bass. And I think a lot of people will blame the ultimate result of this on that one way or the other, whether there's proof of it or not. But one thing that I do think is true about Spencer Pratt is that he's tapped into frustration that is far deeper than just the experience with the

306.548 - 320.659 Ben Domenech

I think it is really a rejection of the democratic elite political class that has run California for decades and run it from the perspective of many people, even those who might be politically independent or even Democrat leaning into the ground.

Chapter 5: Who is currently in charge of negotiations with Iran?

379.825 - 381.949 John Bickley

How's he looking going into today?

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382.3 - 397.865 Ben Domenech

Well, the situation with Hilton is an interesting one because you see this spark that came up under Javier Becerra, the candidate who really had not inspired a lot of people when Eric Swalwell exited the race. They just kind of defaulted, his voters did, to Becerra.

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398.126 - 414.829 Ben Domenech

And the fact that Tom Steyer, despite spending millions and millions of his billions and billions of dollars, has not been able to inspire anyone to come alongside him. I think that he'll will ultimately end up getting into this runoff because it's a top two finish situation. But it is kind of close at the end.

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414.95 - 431.848 Ben Domenech

And a lot of that has been because there is another Republican in the race who is drawing away some support from him. I think that the only way, the only hope that Republicans really have of making any kind of noise in the governor's race is if Hilton gets into this runoff. He probably will, but it could be close.

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431.896 - 445.869 John Bickley

Well, no matter how things shake out tonight in the vote, Pratt and Hilton have both proven there's a lot of energy on the conservative side still in California. We'll see if that builds even more in the coming months. Ben, thanks so much for coming on.

446.41 - 447.593 Ben Domenech

Great to be with you as always.

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Chapter 6: What are the implications of the protests outside the ICE facility in New Jersey?

500.697 - 504.327 Unknown

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505.268 - 519.451 John Bickley

The ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran appears to be on the verge of collapsing. Joining us now is Cabot Phillips, host of Wired and Live. Hey, Cabot. So we appeared to be on the verge of a 60-day ceasefire extension. Now it looks like it's about to implode.

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519.812 - 524.92 Cabot Phillips

What changed here? Yeah, the reality is the gap between Trump and Iran never really closed.

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Chapter 7: What conditions are protesters demanding for detainees at ICE facilities?

524.94 - 542.907 Cabot Phillips

There was just a lot of talk and rumors that papered over that fact. Things were mostly at a stalemate on Friday, and then once something went wrong, the whole thing sort of stalled. And according to Iran, that trigger was Israel. Over the weekend, Iran said that it's suspending talks and all messages through mediators after Israeli strikes on Hezbollah over the weekend.

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542.927 - 555.764 Cabot Phillips

For their part, the Israelis said they were responding to violations of the ceasefire from those terrorists with Hezbollah. It looked like the hot war between Israel and Hezbollah was resuming at full speed until Donald Trump appeared to de-escalate the situation.

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556.124 - 572.164 Cabot Phillips

The president posted on Truth Social yesterday that following a, quote, very productive call with Netanyahu as well as Hezbollah leaders, that there would be, quote, no troops going to Beirut and that Hezbollah had, quote, agreed that all shooting will stop, that Israel will not attack them and they will not attack Israel.

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572.144 - 587.757 Cabot Phillips

Now, whether that holds true and its potential implications for rekindling the Iran negotiations remain to be seen. The situation is still very much in flux. And to that point, President Trump actually refuted claims that talks were dead, claiming on Truth Social that they were still moving forward, quote, rapidly.

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587.737 - 597.129 John Bickley

So Iran is giving Lebanon as the reason that they're ceasing these talks. But of course, there's other complications going on here, as you mentioned. Unpack that for us, if you would.

597.35 - 615.313 Cabot Phillips

Yeah, President Trump has yet to waver on his demand that Iran give up its entire uranium stockpile, roughly 10 warheads worth of material. And that has and will almost certainly continue to be the toughest issue to get through. To put it simply, Trump is not budging and neither are the Iranians. They know that that is their main point of leverage internationally.

615.293 - 630.313 Cabot Phillips

In fact, they won't even agree to nuclear talks being part of any ceasefire extension framework. Their second priority is money, and that involves demands for control of the strait and unfreezing of billions of Iranian assets. Both of those issues have also been non-starters for the Trump administration so far.

Chapter 8: How is the Trump administration responding to claims about ICE conditions?

630.353 - 637.943 Cabot Phillips

So unless something changes, even if talks resume, both sides are still kind of in a stalemate. The question really is who blinks first.

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637.923 - 648.396 John Bickley

It's always a game of chicken in these negotiations. Now, the question of who we're actually negotiating with in Iran got even more complicated over the weekend. New reports on that front.

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649.037 - 662.074 Cabot Phillips

Who is in charge? Well, quite frankly, that is a question not even U.S. negotiators can really answer right now. And it's starting to become a pretty big obstacle in moving things forward. There have been reports that after the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei back in February,

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662.054 - 679.33 Cabot Phillips

The IRGC has effectively seized large parts of the government and cut the president of Iran and his cabinet, whom we've been negotiating with for months, out of major decisions. This has gotten to the point where over the weekend, the Iranian president reportedly submitted his letter of resignation out of frustration with the IRGC's dominance in the government.

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679.81 - 682.072 Cabot Phillips

Though whether that actually happens remains to be seen.

682.553 - 690.88 John Bickley

So while the diplomacy has stalled, we have seen a new round of shooting between the U.S. and Iran. Bring us up to speed on that front.

690.86 - 706.157 Cabot Phillips

Yeah, things escalated again pretty quickly over the weekend. On Saturday, U.S. Central Command said Iran fired two ballistic missiles overnight at American forces stationed in Kuwait. Both missiles were immediately intercepted following those missile attacks and another exchange where Iran shot down U.S. drones. The U.S.

706.197 - 711.823 Cabot Phillips

military retaliated, taking out Iranian air defenses, a ground control station, and a pair of attack drones.

712.224 - 716.108 John Bickley

And how has the situation changed in the Strait of Hormuz now?

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