John McArdle moderates reactions to Iran's two-week ceasefire ending 90 minutes before President Trump's deadline, with VP JD Vance and Jared Kushner leading Pakistan negotiations. Callers debate Israel's territorial ambitions versus U.S. peace goals, accuse Trump of war crimes and stock manipulation involving Elon Musk, and reference Jimmy Carter's 1979 embassy crisis. While some fear permanent regime change, others cite "Epic Fury" military operations and domestic housing costs, ultimately questioning whether instinct-driven leadership can secure lasting stability or merely delay inevitable conflict. [Automatically generated summary]
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Iranian TV's False Story00:07:58
unidentified
With impunity.
Congress must reconvene to stop this war and remove him from office.
Senator Chris Murphy said, it is astonishing that Trump took a military action that has given Iran control over a vital waterway it did not control before the war began.
Again, that's Iranian state-owned television, their English-language television network.
This is how the story is being portrayed across that network today.
I want to give you a sense of what's happening and what state television looks like in Iran as we continue to cover this story and hear from you about the ceasefire agreement.
The two-week ceasefire agreement reached 90 minutes short of President Trump's 8 p.m. deadline last night.
And we're getting your reaction on phone lines for Republicans, Democrats, and Independents.
202-748-8001 for Republicans.
202-748-8000 for Democrats.
Independents, it's 202-748-8002.
Again, the latest that we have learned is that Vice President JD Vance will lead the negotiations along with the President's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, Steve Wipkoff, the U.S. Special Envoy, all set to go to Pakistan.
Negotiations set to begin Saturday morning.
That's what was announced in the White House briefing room not one hour ago.
So this story continues to advance throughout the day.
Go ahead and give us a call.
Let us know what you think.
This is Bobby in New York.
Mine for Democrats.
Bobby, thanks for waiting.
unidentified
Yes, hello.
Thanks for taking my call.
I don't know if I'm the only one that sees this, but Israel's playing a different game.
They want a different end game.
This ceasefire is done.
They're still dropping bombs in Lebanon.
I believe a few other bombs have hit Iran, Iran, whatever.
Yeah, we're going into war.
The ceasefire, the two-week ceasefire is probably going to last two days at most.
I have a doctorate from the University of Chicago.
I've studied history for thousands of years.
Unfortunately, I do not think that human beings are capable of living with each other.
I believe that there will need to be some sort of extraterrestrial involvement in rewiring the human brain, or maybe Elon Musk and his company can figure out how to use technology to allow people to live peacefully.
This has been going on for thousands of years, and it will continue, whether it's the Middle East, South America, the Civil War, Europe, whatever.
I'm optimistic, but I'm not going to be around to see it because I'm 84.
So I would like to piggyback on what the guy from New York said is how Israel is just trying to do expansion.
And I think that we learned from their treatment of what happened in Gaza that they don't honor ceasefires.
But unfortunately, we have a whole voting block that is being influenced by a fake news station.
I guess we're going to say news station that is owned by a wealthy Australian to have lawmakers that are immigrants or came from immigrants telling us that immigration is our biggest threat without addressing crime against children that are happening here in the United States or tightening the penalties.
Israel has universal health care coverage.
We are paying for that.
Our kids are going to be paying for that.
Our grandkids are going to be paying for that.
And the prior caller that just said we bombed Hiroshima was a good idea.
We're not bombing buildings.
We're bombing people.
And civilians get impacted as well as children.
And nine times out of ten, the people saying that go to church every Sunday.
So I feel like it's unfortunate that we are sending our kids into fight rich people's war because there is no profit in peace.
And Gordon, it works better if you turn down your television.
We'll be able to hear you better.
unidentified
All right.
Turn that sound bitch off.
Yes.
I called because they put this number up on TV and they're wanting people's input.
And my input on this whole thing is that the Democrats, the way that they are treating our president is working right into the hands of Iran for negotiating.
And the false propaganda that's being put out by the Democratic Party is just undercutting the United States and our president.
And if they would get to working with them, we probably could have an end to this thing real shortly.
But the Iranian people know that the Democrats are against Donald Trump and they're undermining our national security.
And I just wanted to make that point real clear that if we could get a little bit of cooperation from our Democratic Party, just a little bit, we could probably put an end to this shit.
Gordon, when do you think the last time was that we had some cooperation between the parties in this country?
unidentified
You know, I never paid a hell of a lot of attention when the Democrats were in there.
But I can tell you this, that since President Trump has taken office, I haven't seen one Democrat.
Well, I have.
I guess he's an independent.
He stood up and said that them guys were being a bunch of buttholes because anything that President Trump tried to do, said or done, was absolutely false.
And then they get on TV and they spread their propaganda and then they spread these false rumors and then they say, well, we're not talking about that.
And then they go on and then they talk some more and they say, well, but they put all this propaganda out and then they say, well, we're not talking about that.
We're talking about something else.
Once the words get out of their mouth and into the people's ears, that's 90% of the battle.
And the people take it as the gospel and no follow-up, no proof, no nothing.
Determining The Regime's Future00:08:00
unidentified
And in my estimation, that is what's keeping this country in the hole.
And these cities that are aiding and abetting all of these illegals are undercutting all of our people.
I have a grandson and a granddaughter and a grandbaby, and they've been trying to get housing for over a year.
And instead of getting housing for them, they're giving it to the illegals.
And who the hell knows what our government is paying for as far as health and one thing or another?
And then these other guys going out, their husbands and stuff going out and get substandard jobs.
That's Troy in Pittsburgh to Wesley in Norfolk, Virginia, Independent.
Go ahead.
unidentified
Hello, thank you.
Good afternoon.
You know, the son of the exiled prince, I think his name is Paul Levy, he called for the people to rise up in January, and they did by the thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, and they were brutally killed.
Now, I haven't heard from him lately.
Now, I know the people aren't armed, but I'm just wondering about, because the people have to determine their regime and who runs their country.
I don't think that's something that we can determine.
I think they have to determine that.
But I'm just wondering, what is the percentage of the people that support the regime that we keep seeing on Iranian state TV that are out there waving the flags and still yelling death to America?
What is the percentage of those people versus the people that are willing to rise up against the regime?
And I know there may be some people who want the regime gone, but they're living in fear or maybe they don't want to have any trouble and they're just willing to accept things the way they are.
But I just wonder how many people are willing to rise up against the regime and overthrow this regime versus the people who support the regime at this point.
I just wonder what is that percentage because they're going to have to determine their regime.
Epic Fury decimated Iran's military and rendered it combat ineffective for years to come.
unidentified
So, who did the President turn to for advice on how to deal with Iran, and who is he listening to now?
In a moment, we'll go to Manny Rapolo, who joins us from the State Department.
But first, let's go to Kimberly Helkott at the White House.
Kimberly, what do we know about how the President is making decisions, like agreeing to the ceasefire, and where things go from here?
Well, we can look at the start of Epic Fury, the name of the operation that began more than 30 days ago, as a signal to who the president is looking to and just how small his team of advisors is.
There's no question that as commander-in-chief, the U.S. President is the one making the ultimate decisions and that this is a very centralized and top-down structure.
What we know is that it's personality driven all around the U.S. president.
So when it comes to negotiations, they're really no different.
It really is very much the same.
But what we saw at the start of the conflict was the U.S. president at his home in Mar-a-Lago in Florida, not here at the White House, where his director of national intelligence, as well as the vice president, were simply taking an observer status.
And what that really signals is that the U.S. president is not looking for dissenting voices, particularly when it comes to the vice president and Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence.
Instead, what he is listening to is instinct over intelligence.
And as a result, what you get is really a top-down structure when the president makes decisions, whether it is during the military conflict or in negotiations to end it.
Manny, I'll bring you in here.
Kimberly, talking about those different voices.
You're at the State Department.
That is home, of course, to Marco Rubio, a close member of Trump's cabinet.
How much sway does he have with the president?
Well, like you said, Anna, U.S. Secretary of State, Marco Rubio is quite close to President Trump.
He has his ear.
He has the president's trust, which means that he also has a lot of influence when it comes to policy and when it comes to strategy here.
Ultimately, however, we also know, and just to build on what Kimberly was saying in that previous question that you asked her, it is up to President Trump at the end of the day to make the decisions over strategy.
We know that because of individuals who are close to him within the administration who are more familiar with this process, who have said exactly that.
And by many accounts, President Trump is leaning less on traditional diplomatic channels like the State Department and more on his own instincts.
You heard it from the president himself who says that at times he knows when he feels it in his bones.
And part of this is President Trump's character.
He's long expressed distrust over U.S. intelligence agencies.
He's expressed skepticism over career journalists here.
So, you know, this is important because along with this sense of urgency that we're getting from U.S. diplomats here at the State Department and when you hear it within the foreign policy chatter here in the city, this is important because this is a strategy when it comes to Iran and when it comes to negotiations that is not consensus driven, but rather, like Kimberly said, a top-down approach.
So you have to imagine that there undoubtedly has to be some frustration among diplomats when they look at the strategy and see that at times policy experts are being ignored, intelligence officials are being ignored, and more importantly, professional diplomats are not being taken into account when these decisions are being made.
Manny Rapalo joining us from the State Department and Kimberly Halcott at the White House.
We've been hearing on phone lines for Republicans, Democrats and independents.
We've got another 10 or 15 minutes left here to get to your phone calls.
So go ahead and keep dialing in as we take you through the latest, including earlier today, it was the Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer announcing that he would force another war powers vote in the United States Senate next week.
The minority leader saying this will be the fourth time that we forced a war powers vote, he said in his ex-post, this time after threats from the president to extinguish an entire civilization.
Republicans must join us in voting to end this war once and for all.
He said our country is worse off because of Trump's strategic ineptitude.
We also learned from that White House briefing today that the White House is sending a team consisting of Vice President JD Vance, Steve Wickoff, his U.S. Special Envoy, Jared Kushner, his son-in-law, to Pakistan for these ongoing negotiations on a potential final peace deal.
Those negotiations will begin on Saturday morning, according to White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt.
That's the latest from here in Washington.
What do you think on phone lines from around the country?
We'll start in Wisconsin.
Jim is a Democrat.
Jim, go ahead.
unidentified
Yeah, I have three things to talk about.
First, we did an investigation why the temple in Michigan was attacked.
3,000 members, the largest Jewish membership to a temple in the United States, maybe the world.
They give tons of money to the government of the United States and to Israel.
If they're Americans and they're Jewish, they should be Americans.
My view on the ceasefire is I think it's a mistake, especially since they started firing bombs off right after it happened and they closed the strait right after it happened.
It was kind of like a slap in our face.
Like, we're going to do what we're going to do anyway.
I think if we're going to go in, we need to go all in and just finish it for all.
It means, you know, it just seems when it comes to Iran, they've screamed death to America for 47 years.
They've hated us for 47 years.
Iran is mostly Persian people.
Persian people are very kind, very loving.
They've been taking over for 47 years.
They've lived basically as hostages in their own country.
They've begged us to come in and help them.
That's bad when someone begged you to attack their own country.
You know, it's not the people of Iran that it's so hard because it's like we're attacking Iran and we're looking at it as Iranian people, but it's really the Persian people that live there.
I think it has to be an overhaul because the people there that will be left will be punished if there's any form of that regime left.
I mean, to us, we go protest in the streets when we don't like something either side.
I mean, I've protested on either side.
I protest if I don't like something.
That's the benefit of being an independent.
You know, if I don't like something that our current president does, I can go protest because I'm an independent.
That's my right.
If I don't like something that the other guy does, I can protest.
That's my right.
No one is going to shoot me.
You know, if they go protest, they get 47,000 people die.
They have no right to protest.
So if this regime comes back, they're going to be little motorcycles and AK-47s or whatever machine gun they have, and they'll be killed because of what they've done now.
So their people will be punished if this regime has any form of it back.
Has to be pulled out by the root and restarted.
And I don't know how they do that, to be honest.
I just know that if it's not done completely, it'll reform.
This is an ex post from not three or four minutes ago from Tina Smith, the senator from Minnesota, Democrat, saying that she's grateful there wasn't further escalation, but this ceasefire is anything but a win, saying so much chaos and pain for an ill-conceived war, a massive strategic failure, is what she calls it.
Rosemary in Arizona, Democrat, go ahead.
unidentified
Hi.
I just want to say Trump has committed so many crimes.
This is all crimes, war crimes.
He is horrible.
He needs to be removed.
His entire cabinet, they're all committing crimes.
This is stock market manipulation.
And it probably has Elon Musk included into it.
It's every single time that they're trying to move the stock market up and down, they're blowing something up or causing some kind of chaos.
Oh, yes, I tell you, I pray to the Lord to have the president guide him what he do in Iran.
And my prayer is answered.
I like the way what he did, that we will have a ceasefire, that we all live in peace.
Now, for those people who are against the president, I'm very sorry to tell them that they can just pack up their stuff and move out of the United States.
I'm 87, living on my own, and I have a little dementia.
I was listening to the conference this morning at the White House, and I thought the most important question I heard was one of the reporters asked and talked about one of her relatives in Iran, who she spoke with last night.
And the relative was calling to say goodbye.
And it touched me because I put myself in that woman's shoes in Iran, calling her relatives.
And I thought that question was the most important question in the conference this morning that I heard.
My heart goes out to the people of Iran and any person whose life is threatened.