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Chapter 1: What is the initial deal with Iran and its implications?
Hello and welcome to the Bullard Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. We've got a doubleheader for you today in segment two. Maybe the dreamiest congressional candidate will be joining us, so stick around for that, particularly if you're on the video podcast. But first, slightly less dreamy, but a bit charming in his own way. He's on Substack at the Foreign Office.
He's the author of ISIS, Inside the Army of Terror. He's an editor at The Insider, a Russia-focused independent media outlet. It's Michael Weiss. How are you doing, handsome?
Chapter 2: How does Trump’s rhetoric affect U.S.-Israel relations?
Slightly less dreamy, Michael Weiss. That's got to go on a business card. Slightly less dreamy.
I mean, have you seen Sam Forstag? My stars. No. He's running in Montana. Oh, my goodness.
Okay. It's more for your wife, anyway. How many Chalamets does he get in the Tim Miller scale of dreaminess?
Yeah, well, he's not even on the Chalamet scale. He's not even on that. He doesn't even make the cut. Yeah, it's not my... Not your cup of tea. Yeah, not my model. But just like objectively speaking, you know, this is a man. Like Chalamet is, you know, kind of a wee lad.
Yeah.
My wife was walking behind him in Central Park.
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Chapter 3: What strategies is Sam Forstag using to unite voters?
Oh, God, jealous. His legs, she said, are basically the size of toothpicks. All right, Michael, don't get me excited this early in the morning. What did they say? The camera adds like 100 points of testosterone. So, yeah, I mean...
Okay, I'm getting verklempt. Speaking of testosterone. Hot and bothered, yes. Lack of testosterone. Trump has got what you said at the sub stack. It looks like the deal that is emerging, the MOU, is quite similar or even worse than something that Trump called the worst and dumbest deals ever made, being the JCPOA. Why don't you just talk about what you know at this point?
We haven't actually seen the text of the deal, which is telling in its own right. The White House put out a talking points paper. I really enjoyed the first sentence of the talking point, which is this is great for the American people who are concerned about being nuked by the Iranians. So this is great for the American family, actually. Family. Yeah. If you're a family in St.
Chapter 4: How does the current political climate impact working-class Americans?
Charles, Missouri, and you were worried that the Iranians might put a nuclear warhead onto a ballistic missile and fire it at your farmstead, then you can just sleep easy tonight. So that's point one.
It says they're going to feel relief at the pump and at the grocery store. Not sure why the grocery store factors into Iran and the settlement of the war. But yeah, I mean, so we don't know a heck of a whole lot because, as you say, the U.S. has refused to release the MOU. J.D. Vance has described it as about a page and a half.
So let's just back up a second and underscore this thing is not a peace agreement. This isn't any kind of treaty or some kind of lasting agreement.
This is basically an agreement to extend the ceasefire for another 60 days and to spend those 60 days trying to get to something more substantive and permanent, including on the nuclear issue and including on presumably, you know, war in Lebanon, a whole range. sort of basket of interrelated things. What do we know about this thing based on what J.D.
Vance and Jared Kushner told reporters on a background call yesterday? I wasn't on the call, so I'm not bound by any background covenant here. I just had a transcript of it leaked, and I could just tell you what J.D. and what Jared said.
Now, it's interesting that Jared was on the call.
Yeah.
Does he have a job?
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Chapter 5: What are the criticisms of the Democrats' messaging?
What is his job exactly?
Well, I mean, he's like... Plenty potentiary of the president for multiple portfolios. I mean, he's doing Ukraine stuff. He's doing leveraged buyouts with the Saudis. I mean, he's up to his eyeballs in geopolitical diplomacy. And it sounds like big business. And that's probably one of the reasons why he's selling this.
That's a news story that somebody that doesn't work for the government who doesn't have a security clearance is briefing the press on background without their name attached. Not only that, but- Feels like that's actually a bigger news story than this bullshit spin that he's offering on background. That's just one guy's opinion.
Yeah, and the attribution that they're demanding of the press is they describe Kushner as a senior administration official. What administration? Trump, Inc. Exactly. Which makes him sound like he's on the National Security Council or something like that. But, you know, I would say there are three main points.
I mean, without going into sort of the weeds of what was discussed, there are three points that come out of this very clearly. Number one, the U.S.
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Chapter 6: How does climate change affect wildfire management?
is ratifying or confirming Iran's control of the Strait of Hormuz. Because what they're saying in this MOU or how they're describing the contents of the MOU, the Strait will be opened by Iran for the next 60 days free of charge. So the Iranians say, we're not charging tolls, we're charging environmental fees or some kind of administrative tax or surcharge or whatever. The U.S.
says, no, no, you mustn't do that. But what they're basically saying is, yes, we acknowledge that you, Iran, which did not control the Strait of Hormuz as of February, whatever, the day before the war started. You now control it. And one of the things we have to litigate is who's going to control it in perpetuity. Maybe it's some kind of joint.
You're going to get the deals on CEQA. Correct. You know, make sure that we review the rare fish.
Yeah. So that's point one. Point two, the ceasefire also applies to Lebanon. Why is this important? Well, for two reasons. Number one, you will recall way back in the long, long ago, one of the operational objectives of Epic Fury, as the war was known, was to eliminate Iran's support. It's funny just to think about that.
Chapter 7: What are the challenges in the current healthcare system?
It's called Epic, but it was called Epic Fury. It's a great name. I mean, it's... Yeah, it's like, you know, if you like type into Claude, hey, Claude, give my 12 year old gamer kid the name for a cool military campaign. Claude would be too embarrassed to say Operation Epic Fury. But but here we are.
So one of the operational objectives was Iran must end its patronage, financing, arming of terrorist proxies, including Lebanese Hezbollah. This agreement, or this MOU, basically upends that operational objective by certifying that Iran continues to control Lebanese Hezbollah by interlinking the war in Lebanon with the war in Iran, right? And you had Donald Trump today at the G7 get up and say...
He's quite tired of seeing how the Israelis go to war with Hezbollah. They level entire apartment blocks. I think he made a comment like we'd rather see the Syrians. Ahmed al-Shara would be better fighting Hezbollah in Lebanon than the Israelis. So this is a complete reversal of one of the core objectives of this war. Right. Number three, J.D.
Vance and Kushner are kind of going around saying, oh, there's no money up front. There's no money up front. Bullshit. On the call, Jared Kushner said that there will be, quote, small gestures.
Chapter 8: What is the future of U.S. foreign policy under current leadership?
made toward the Iranians for performance-based behavior. So, in other words, if the Iranians make good on opening up the Strait, they get money. They get money anyway. Why? Because the naval blockade we imposed is costing them hundreds of millions of dollars per day by restricting their ability to export oil. So the minute we start rescinding our naval blockade and
Consequently, they start exporting more oil. They're going to make money. And in a matter of a month, it's going to be in the billions of dollars, right? Then you had this kind of back and forth. Last Friday, the Mehr News Agency, which is ultra conservative faction of the Iranian regime controlled state media outlet, put out their version of 14 points of this MOU. J.D.
Vance took to Twitter and said, you know, I'm a little disappointed seeing people who are otherwise very skeptical of Iranian propaganda fall for Iranian propaganda. One of the big items in this memo, and I remember talking about it on Morning Joe with Scarborough, was a $300 billion reconstruction package for Iran. $300 billion. Everyone went nuts. J.D.
Vance started sprinkling cold water on it, saying, don't believe the hype, don't believe the propaganda. He's asked by CBS yesterday, what about this $300 billion? He's like, well, that's something that could be part of the deal, assuming they behave correctly. Well, hang on. I thought it was fake news. Now it's real.
Now the FT publishes a more elaborate explanation saying, well, it's not going to be a government-run reconstruction fund. It'll be private enterprise. So here's where you get Jared and the Witkoff family into some real... It's nice that we have a senior administration official who also has a real estate empire and investment company.
Jared said on the call that one of the goals would be to, assuming Iran behaves... And, you know, J.D. thinks it's, quote, cool that he now thinks the IRGC has seen the error of its ways. After 47 years... Yeah, we're going to get to that.
We're going to come back to J.D. We'll come back to that.
But OK, so Jared said one of the end goals of this whole thing would be to, quote, corral international investment in Iraq. What does this sound like to you? I'll tell you what it sounds like to me. In 2016, after the JCPOA, the Barack Obama... designed arms control agreement with Iran to limit but not eliminate the nuclear program.
After that was signed, ratified, John Kerry went on what was known as a roadshow. He traveled to London, he met with European bankers, and it was quite awkward even for members of the Obama administration, because Kerry was going around saying, hey, everything's cool. Iran, that war, that conflict, that's over, man. Come on in, the water's fine. You can invest in Iran.
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