6/15/26: Trump Says Iran Deal Is Done, Jeremy Scahill On US Capitulation, Israelis Meltdown Over Deal

22:48Right.

22:48Jeremy Scahill:Can you talk a little bit more about the money piece of this for Iran? Because I think this is a particularly sensitive issue for Trump and his coalition because they made a big deal about the assets that were unfrozen under the JCPOA, the pallets of cash being shipped to the Iranian terrorist regime. We heard all kinds of rhetoric about that. So can you speak to what is being contemplated here with regards to Iran having their assets unfrozen, sanctions lifted, and also receiving compensation for the damage that was done to their country? I mean, there's some interesting things that if you read between the lines of some statements that Vice President J.D.

23:26Vance made recently, if you look at some of what Iran is saying, it's interesting. Let's start from the biggest sort of perspective on this. Iran has said that it wants at least$24 billion in its frozen assets. This is Iranian money that's been frozen, repatriated to Iran at the front end of a deal. That was Iran's opening position. Behind the scenes, there was discussion of phasing it, where half of it would occur during the initial period of the Memorandum of Understanding, and the other half of it would occur as sort of a benchmark process during the 60-day negotiation. But behind the scenes, there's been a flurry of activity involving Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, reports of money already changing hands.

24:08The Emiratis are denying that, but Iranian sources have told me that Trump wants to find a way to give us our money without saying that he gave us our money. So it's possible that this will kind of not become entirely public right away for the reasons you just mentioned, that Trump wants to be able to say, I didn't do what Barack Hussein Obama did and give them cash at the front end of this deal. The other day, J.D. Vance posted on X a remarkably kind of diplomatic statement about the state of affairs. And within that, he said, you know, no money is going to exchange hands at the beginning of this.

24:40Iran's not going to be given money for showing up to a meeting or signing a document. That's very different than Trump saying no money is ever going to exchange hands. What I think Vance is indicating is that there is this alternative process going on. So we'll have to see when we see the actual text how the Trump administration tries to finesse this. There's also a discussion of maybe some of it being framed as loans or some of it being humanitarian in nature or some of it being portrayed as financing that's coming from Gulf countries out of the goodness of their hearts. But the reality is the Iranians aren't going to move forward unless a significant portion of that$24 billion is in one way or another repatriated.

25:20And the whole thing really is about narrative spin right now. But J.D. Vance's comment, I think, was really interesting because it was taking a more nuanced position than Trump and I think indicates that there is an alternative process playing out that may not appear in the document where Iran ends up getting its money without Trump having to say we gave it to them. Got it. There's a lot of face saving going on, isn't there? Last question, Jeremy. The Iranians claim that they were able to extract at the very last minute the lifting of the total blockade upon signing as a result of their willingness to strike Israel after they struck Lebanon.

25:52How does that comport with what you heard? Because I think that's pretty extraordinary that they were able to extract that if it's true. Yeah. I mean, I had been shown language two nights ago that was pretty close to that. When I went back then, so I was questioning at first, you know, was this really a concession? And then late last night when I was talking to the Iranians, they said, yeah, there are some technical details that shifted that we had been pushing for. And Trump in the end came through and said, yes, it's going to happen. I mean, there is the issue of demining. We're going to see.

26:20They're saying that it's going to be lifted as of Friday, not immediately, as Trump said. But, Segar, I think the bigger issue, and I think this is going to be the center of the whole ballgame, is going to be Lebanon. Israel, the defense minister and others are saying we aren't bound by this agreement. This is going to be a real test of if Trump actually wants this deal, because if the Israelis continue their siege on Lebanon, the Iranians have shown quite clearly that at least right now, they are not going to sit on their hands. They're saying they didn't strike for the reason that you said, because they got capitulations from Trump at the 11th hour and they wouldn't have done it otherwise.

26:56I think that there's real risk for Iran here. There's a ferocious internal debate. People were calling for the head of Galibov and Arachi, saying that this is a bad deal for Iran. And the center of that is they feel that Iran has more strategic leverage over the United States than it's had in many, many years. And the concern is that if Iran gives up too much and gets bogged down in a process without comprehensive sanctions relief, the Iranian economy continues to suffer. The Israelis escalate their covert Mossad operations inside of Iran. And Iran's rally around the flag effect starts to diminish.

27:29That's a real concern that we're hearing from some Iranians who oppose this deal. I turned off news altogether. I hate to say it, but I don't trust much of anything.

27:40Jeremy Scahill:It's the rage bait. It feels like it's trying to divide people. If we got clear facts, maybe we can calm down a little. NBC News brings you clear reporting. Let's meet at the facts. Let's move forward from there. NBC News, reporting for America. Who doesn't love warm, carby comfort? Satisfying sandwiches, loaded bagels, rich mac and cheese. Crave-worthy and smart, Hero Bread's loaves, bagels, and noodles have just 0-5 gram snack carbs, 0 gram sugar, and up to 19 grams of protein and 32 grams of fiber per serving. Hero Bread bakes with heart-healthy olive oil and delivers a soft, fluffy, flavorful experience you love.

28:23Jeremy Scahill:Shop now on Hero.co. Use code IHEART for 10 % off. That's Hero.co. Per serving, not a low-calorie food. Some products contain allulose. See nutrition info on Hero.co for sodium and sugar content. If your best finance people are doing expense reports, chasing receipts or spending time on month end close, it's time to get Brex AF, a gentic finance that eliminates that work before it starts. Learn more at Brex dot com slash AF. It's a good transition to the free count in Israel because obviously, as you pointed out, Israel and Lebanon still the primary area in which this whole thing could fall apart and could fall apart very quickly.

29:03Jeremy Scahill:I actually want to start with B6 here, Bezalel Smotrich coming out and expressing his concerns about the deal. He says the agreement with Iran is bad for Israel and for the entire free world, period. The joint campaign had many achievements in weakening Iran. They will not go to waste. We will have to continue the campaign to topple the regime ourselves and in creative ways and ensure that Iran will never have nuclear weapons. None of the candidates who see themselves as fit for the premiership would withstand even 10 percent of the pressure currently being applied to the Israeli government, especially to the one at its head.

29:37Jeremy Scahill:In Lebanon, we will be tested. This is our war, our fighters, and the immediate security of our northern residents. I will continue to act so that we continue to stand firm on ours and allow the IDF full freedom of action to continue pushing Hezbollah away. Jeremy, what do you make of those comments? I took particular note of the mention that they would continue to topple the try to topple the Iranian regime in, quote, creative ways. Yeah, I mean, I think I think that's clear and that's been the policy for a long time. But I think they're going to really escalate those efforts. I mean, Crystal, there's something else interesting here, which is that Iranian officials and analysts that I've been talking to, not just government officials, believe that there is going to be another war.

30:18And it's going to be between Iran and Israel. And they said that the focus right now is the issue of decoupling. The Israelis and the United States are trying to decouple Hezbollah from Iran. Trump now has gone in a bit of a different direction because of this reported concession to the Iranians. We'll see how that plays out. And they've enlisted the Lebanese government in this parallel so-called peace process, and they're trying to get the Lebanese army to serve as the kind of domestic enforcer of the campaign to break Hezbollah. And that has all kinds of complicated issues attached to it because of the diversity of Lebanon, the way the system is structured, and the popularity of the resistance right now, particularly among the Shia population of Lebanon.

31:01From the Iranian position, and I was told this by an Iranian official in addition to Iranian analysts, the Iranians want to try to accentuate the divisions between the United States and Israel on Lebanon. And they have no illusions that Donald Trump has been this immense backer of these genocidal, scorched-earth wars. They're clear on that. But they also are very savvy students of American politics, and they understand that there's divisions within the Republican Party. They understand that Israel is increasingly becoming a toxic issue on the right in the United States, that it's going to play a role in the midterm elections, that Netanyahu is going to face re-election, and that he's being attacked from the right saying, you didn't finish these wars, that Hamas still is in power in their section of Gaza, that Hezbollah is still killing Israeli soldiers, including with these very cheaply made FPV drones, that the Iranian government is still firmly in place.

31:55And there's actually a Khamenei who is the supreme leader of Iran. And so I do think that it's not just the loonies like Smotrich and Ben Gavir, but I think the mainstream of Israeli political power wants to continue this war against Lebanon. And the wild card here is what happens when it comes up against Trump's public projections. But at the end of the day, no one trusts the Americans. No one trusts Trump. The Iranians are not stupid. In fact, their delegation often is flush with PhDs when ours is flush with last weekend's golf scores. Right. Let's put B7 up here on the screen. Just to your point, here we have Yair Lapid.

32:35A tough morning for—this guy is the leftist, by the way, of Israel. This morning is Israeli citizens are waking up to an agreement between the U.S. and Iran made over Israel's head. In one signature stroke, immense military achievements secured with the courage of our pilots and the blood of our fighters has been erased. While Netanyahu stood on the sidelines, weak, ill, isolated, and powerless, he signs an agreement that funnels billions to the Ayatollah's regime, leaves the nuclear structure intact, preserves the ballistic missile threat as is, throws a lifeline to the murderous regime in Tehran.

33:06This is the culmination of long years of failure. Netanyahu is the man who, for years, sold the public a false image of Mr. Security and, in reality, became the father of Israel's greatest strategic failure in history. The man who built the notion of Hamas is an asset who enabled the flow of Qatari money who abandoned the diplomatic arena, who dismantled Israel's alliances and left it isolated at the moment of truth. Netanyahu is good for Hamas. He is good for Iran. He is good for Hezbollah. He is not good for Israel. The one who promised total victory ends his tenure with Israel's enemy stronger, Israel weaker, and the deterrence built with the blood of our fighters eroding before our nation.

33:47I mean, you could have written that from Ben Gavir or Smotrich too, but it does demonstrate, Jeremy, the level of basic, I guess, bipartisan is what you would call it, you know, with the problem for Bibi Netanyahu inside of Israel at a critical political moment for him. And so how are the Iranians thinking that, you know, they can look at Israeli politics the same way any of us can about the reality of getting 60 days without fire in Lebanon, potentially even fire on Iran? Yeah, I mean, it's it's and we've been talking about this on the show and elsewhere before that it's been really clear over the past few years that that it's not, as Bernie Sanders says, the extremist right wing government of Benjamin Netanyahu.

34:27This is at the core of mainstream political life now in Israel. And in some ways, it is reminiscent of the posture of many top Democrats in the United States where they're sort of egging Trump on and they're sort of using the taco line that Trump always chickens out and they're trying to sort of make it more, you know, make Trump more aggressive or sort of attack him from the position of you failed to achieve these objectives and the regime is being left in power. There are ways in which that also is kind of a common dynamic within the institutional Democratic Party, who very much actually wanted a war against Iran, and they were happy to have Trump do it because the odds of it becoming a disaster could be beneficial to the American Democratic Party's political future at the midterm elections.

35:14But again, my understanding is that many Iranian officials, many leaders of Hezbollah do not view this as the potential end of the war. They view it as a phase where the crossroads is going to be how much more deeply does the United States get involved with what is ultimately going to be a war on the part of Iran, Hezbollah, potentially a broader axis of resistance against Israel as the Israelis start to ratchet up their covert operations inside of Iran. Tests are going to be all over the place in the next week or so because the Israelis clearly want to undermine this. Trump apparently told them he's going to stop this.

35:53I doubt it. I think it's going to be really tough. And then the ball is in Iran's court. Do we say no nuclear negotiations unless the scorched earth bombing or siege of Lebanon stops? That really, in a lot of ways, is going to be the massive question looming over this for the coming days.

36:07Jeremy Scahill:Yeah, as it has been the whole time. Just to give a broader sense of how this is landing with the Israeli public, not just the political class, we can put B3 up on the screen. These were some Telegram comments that were pulled by Middle Eastern analyst Sina Tusi. Among some of the choice quotes here from ordinary Israelis on Telegram, God will curse Trump. The first war in Israel's history that we lost. We have to admit the facts. Iranians taught America a lesson. I think that's probably true. Hopefully in 10 years, we won't be dependent on American idiots. And then to turn to the American domestic political context, because we have plenty of influential pundits in our own country who seem to put the interests of Israel above virtually anything else.

36:56Jeremy Scahill:One of them being Mark Levin, who's been very influential with the White House. Trump has tweeted out multiple times, hey, you got to watch what this guy Mark Levin is saying because he's right on target. Let's go and take a listen. here to be one and his immediate reaction last night to what we knew of the deal. And when Israel is forced to defend itself, including preemptively against Hezbollah in Lebanon, and remember, they're not at war with Lebanon. They have a peace deal with Lebanon. They'd never been at war with Lebanon. And it is said to be in violation of the deal. We saw this play out earlier, providing the Iranian regime with a strategic opportunity to attack Israel, claiming it's defending its ally and that Israel violated the deal.

37:36What then? Will Israel become a pariah? And will it be admonished? Iran's counting on it, and so is Hezbollah. Hezbollah must not be in the deal. It must not, and that must be very clear. But to me, and at this stage, it's not very clear, despite some of the language that's been put out in anonymous briefings of certain media by administration officials.

38:07Jeremy Scahill:Let's also put Lindsey Graham up on the screen because I thought his response was also very interesting. You know, in the American political context, Jeremy, mostly I've seen the neocons sort of reluctant to directly really criticize Trump, especially since the American side has not released all of the details of the deal from their perspective. So in any case, Lindsey Graham here says, I'm pleased to hear the memorandum of understanding with Iran to allow the Strait of Hormuz to open has been agreed to. I'll be watching closely the ensuing negotiations regarding Iran's nuclear program and other matters.

38:36Jeremy Scahill:I'm somewhat concerned that Iran's view of the agreement seems different than what the American negotiating team is claiming. Under our law, any nuclear deal with Iran will be sent to Congress for review and a vote. So Congress didn't get a say on going to war, but apparently peace Congress has to approve. I look forward to reviewing the final product. And I believe it is imperative that the architect of the deal, Vice President Vance and his negotiating partners be part of the process in presenting the final deal to Congress. Congratulations to all in getting us to this point. Time will tell.

39:09Jeremy Scahill:That piece about J.D. Vance to me is very significant because it seems like it's Lindsey Graham trying to position himself to be very critical of the deal without having to criticize Trump directly. He can blame, oh, J.D. Vance, the negotiating team, they screwed this whole thing up. If it was Trump at that negotiating table, man, who had art of the deal and regime change and all the things that we all would have that, you know, he personally would have wanted. Yeah, I think that's a good point. I think, you know, we're looking also at 2028 messaging here. And clearly, Lindsey Graham doesn't doesn't want J.D.

39:42Vance to be the nominee, at least at this point, or the successor to Trump and the MAGA movement. But a couple of interesting details, Crystal. One is on this issue of Iran's ballistic missile program. Trump and others were talking from the beginning that the Iranian ballistic missile range has to be reduced, that their ballistic missile program has to be eliminated, that their support for their regional allies has to be completely ended, that the nuclear dust is going to be taken by American forces and removed from the country. Now, what are we talking about? Trump is saying, oh, it doesn't actually need to be removed.

40:12It can be destroyed in the country. What this is for people that actually have been following this closely is Trump is coming around to the position that the Iranians told them was their red line, which is Iran said, we are not going to remove our highly enriched uranium. We are willing to discuss a dilution of it. You know, the Iranians also told me they were willing to put on the table a 10 year moratorium on enriching above 3.6 percent, that they were willing to dilute any of their enriched uranium that's above 20 percent back down to civilian levels. They said that they were coming in with a flexibility.

40:44It was Trump that laid out all of these things. The regime is going to be overthrown. The people are going to rise up. We're going to get rid of all their ballistic missiles. They're not going to have a drone program anymore. We're going to come in and U.S. soldiers are going to retrieve the nuclear dust. Now what we're talking about is going back to sort of the discussions that were existing as of February 27th, the day before Trump and Netanyahu launched this war. The big scandal here in perpetuity should remain that Donald Trump chose this war, that he did so not only at great economic cost to the world, not only because it humiliated the United States, but also because the deal that he's going to get in the end, potentially, is going to be worse than the terms the Iranians were putting on the table for the year, basically, leading up to this war.

41:33And really, if we had an actual aggressive Congress, where you actually had Republicans willing to take on the president, this is an epic scandal, what has happened. Because what we've seen over the past hundred days is a complete and total unnecessary war that was counterproductive that in the end makes Americans less safe also because it shows the world that there's this gratuitous violence that the U.S. will just unleash, that Israel seems to be in control of a large portion of our decision making, and that the president of the United States humiliated the highest office in the land and wasn't even able to get a deal that was better than the terms that the other side was putting on the table before you went and launched a 100-day military economic and diplomatic war.

42:17It's scandalous. Jeremy, let's just hold that after the deal's done. Then let's all be honest. After the deal's done, in the interim, he's the greatest president of all time.

42:28Jeremy Scahill:We can say we're very glad that perhaps, potentially, there is a deal to end this disaster, but that it's been a disaster. But one last question for you, Jeremy. Why did Iran choose to make Lebanon so central and we hear nothing about Gaza? Well, I mean, that's a question that many Palestinians have asked me. I also discussed this the other day with Hassan Ahmadiyan, who's one of the most well-known Iran analysts. And the answers that I've been given when I've talked to Iranian officials about this, just as someone who's really immersed in covering Gaza, I found them to be unsatisfying answers, but I understand them.

43:02Iran says that this is more complicated than Lebanon because the Palestinian factions signed an agreement with Trump and with Israel, that there's a United Nations Security Council resolution that is governing the so-called Board of Peace, that there is a separate track of negotiations that is happening between the Palestinians and the Israelis via the Board of Peace. Yes, the Iranians are watching and they are extremely opposed to this and say that they're in solidarity with the Palestinians of Gaza, but they're saying that it would require an entire separate diplomatic track and that they don't have the leverage to also put Gaza and the war under its umbrella.

43:43And one Iranian official said to me, so if we were to start doing this, what do we say about illegal settlements? What do we say about the siege and the forced displacement in the occupied West Bank? It's not that we don't want to do this. It's that in order to do that, it requires a whole other front. And what they're saying is we're going to get to that. But Hezbollah actively entered the war front on March 2nd by attacking Israel in response to the aggression against Iran. And also the the myth of Iran being the kind of primary backer of Hamas, it's it's just false that Iran is somehow some puppet master controlling Hamas.

44:21Hamas and Hezbollah have a very different relationship to Iran. I think the Iranians also came to a point where they felt like this was D-Day. And if they didn't draw a red line in defending and having a joint front with Hezbollah and the southern resistance in Lebanon, that they were essentially ceding that territory in perpetuity to the Israelis. The situation with the Palestinians in Gaza is unspeakably horrifying. Just one statistic for you. Israel has killed more Palestinians since the October ceasefire was signed than Israeli civilians that were killed on October 7th. Think about that for a moment.

44:59The Israelis have killed more Palestinians, approximately 1 ,000, in Gaza since the ceasefire was signed last October than civilians who died in Israel in the Hamas-led attacks on October 7th, 2023. When you look at that and then you say, oh, we're making a deal with Donald Trump, the world looks very different. So I think that's why everyone's very suspicious about this. That's a really, really important point there. And it is, you know, if anything, it at least dispels this myth that Hamas is 100 percent, you know, Iran controlled. Because if it was, then they would be drawing a lot more red lines around that than they did around Lebanon, which genuinely does make a lot of sense.

45:39Thank you so much for your analysis and all the work that you guys are doing, Jeremy. We rely on you so totally to actually get the truth about what's going on. And keep us updated on Iran's view of Trump's psychology because the audience seems to really appreciate that. All right. Take care. And thank you guys for your continuing great work. Thanks, man.

45:58Jeremy Scahill:Our pleasure.

46:23We'll be right back.

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