"Horrific Surrender": Allies and Critics Blast Trump Iran Deal

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0:47You are helping yourselves. You are helping your country. MSNOW Live presents We the People America 250. Visit ms.now slash america250 to buy your tickets today. Welcome to The Beat. I'm Antonia Hilton in this evening for Ari Melber, and we have a big show for you tonight. The dedication of the Barack Obama Library, celebrities, ex-presidents, and yes, the tan suit. Also, Trump's American flag, blue paint, now peeling off into this green reflecting pool. And the Knicks get the biggest ticker tape parade in New York City history. But we're going to start with the increasingly bipartisan outrage over Donald Trump's Iran deal.

1:31Ironically, after a costly and very polarizing war, the only thing every political faction seems to be able to agree on is that nobody likes this. It's an agreement that ends hostilities, reopens the Strait of Hormuz, and boosts Iran's economy by unfreezing assets, granting oil waivers, and more, while guaranteeing nothing about Iran's nuclear program. Today, the condemnation is coming from across the political spectrum. Obama and Biden official Susan Rice calling it a, quote, jaw-dropping horrific surrender document. GOP Senator Ted Cruz warning it rewards, quote, theocratic lunatics. The New York Times writing, Iran gets major economic lifeline for minimal concessions in initial deal.

2:17Quote, Iran emerged from a confrontation with the world's most powerful military, having proved they can use economic chaos as a weapon. Axios pointing out that Trump initially demanded total surrender, the full dismantlement of Iran's nuclear program, no enrichment, no ballistic missiles and a say in picking Iran's supreme leader. Trump got absolutely none of the above. Now the administration is moving the goalposts, though, and trying to sell victory here. Listen for yourself to what Secretary of State Marco Rubio said about Iran's ballistic missiles during the war and what Trump is saying about them now.

2:58The purpose of this is to destroy that missile capability. Why does Iran want that ballistic missile capability? Can I follow up quickly? You said you don't buy Iran having ballistic missiles. Can you elaborate on that? I want to make sure you understand it. No, I'm saying that if other countries have them, it's a little bit unfair for them not to have some. Mind you, this was one of the administration's top objectives for this whole war. But now never mind. It would be unfair to deny Iran ballistic missiles. And this about face, it is not going over well. The conservative Wall Street Journal editorial board writing that Trump signed a, quote, recipe for the surrender of the Strait of Hormuz to the dictates of Iranian foreign policy.

3:43The conservative drudge report showing Lady Liberty herself covering her face with her hands in shame. The Times digging into the way the deal is driving a rift among Republicans. History demonstrates that giving billions of dollars to theocratic lunatics who want to murder us is an exceptionally bad idea. I wish you were homeschooled by a day drinker. No, no one's confident that Iran's going to do anything. Three hundred billion dollars, obviously a lot of money. Who's paying this money and why? Why would they do this? If we give billions of dollars to Iran, that money will be used to murder Americans.

4:25I didn't believe it. I thought somebody was spoofing me. The idea that that we would have effectively a Marshall Plan for Iran and come in and rebuild Iran after they'd been the leading state sponsor of terrorism for 47 years. They'd murdered nearly a thousand Americans. I don't think that makes any sense. Yesterday, Trump said if the deal with Iran goes south, quote, blame J.D. It sounded like a joke, but today the administration sent Vance to face questions from the press all by himself. Joining me now to break all of this down is Richard Stengel, who served in the Obama State Department that struck the initial 2015 Iran nuclear deal.

5:07He's now an MSNOW political analyst and Basil Smeichel, professor at Columbia University School of Professional Studies. He's also an MSNOW political analyst. It's great to have both of you guys with me tonight. So, Rick, I'll start with you. I think this is sort of the central question people are scratching their heads with this week, which is, is there a single thing in this deal, as it stands right now, that required us to go to war, that could not have been achieved through conversation, through diplomacy, anything that justifies all the people who lost their lives, the bombs that were dropped?

5:41You know, Antonio, that is the issue. I mean, it was an unforced war. It was a war of choice. There was no existential threat to America. And that was the initial mistake. That's the original sin. I do think we need to, you know, carve out a difference between why some people are objecting to it and others. Conservatives, some conservative Republicans are objecting to the treaty because we haven't continued bombing the heck out of them. I mean, I'm not in favor of that. And progressives are not in favor of that. Progressives are unhappy because the war was started without a reason. And then it was settled with this incredible windfall to the Iranians.

6:21And so I don't ever like to rejoice on America capitulating to somebody else and the mistakes that Donald Trump made. But again, it was an initial mistake and it was compounded by the settlement, which was driven by economic factors. And, you know, it turns out that the Iranians do have a nuclear weapon. It's called the Strait of Hormuz. Basil, how do you see Republicans now dealing with this mess that the president has put out? They're obviously reacting very publicly, but they are going to have to go back to their constituents an answer for the fact that 13 Americans have died. More than 3 ,000 Iranians died.

6:56That doesn't even include people in Lebanon. And as we are finding out here, Lebanon is very much a front in this war. The military spent nearly$30 billion. Some analysts actually have it higher than that. And this has cost the U.S. economy$132 billion. If you're a Republican and you go to a constituent and they're asking you about all this, what do you even say? Well, if, you know, on the one hand, you would say, believe in your president, but the voter is not going to have a lot of evidence or opportunity to really have that feeling and engagement with their president because there's an inconsistency that comes from this White House that is astonishing.

7:35I listened to Susan Rice the other day explain the Obama deal. She was incredibly bright, brilliant. It was smart. It was evidence-based. It was thoughtful. And it's exactly what you would want to hear from an administration, everything that this administration is not. So what the Republican voters are hearing is just a lot of noise and from that an inability to make sense of the path forward. And to pull a thread from something that you said, there are multiple constituencies within the Republican Party on this, right? You have the isolationists that didn't want this at all. You have some populists who want America to be strong, want the president to be strong, so they don't like the fact that there seems to be some capitulation here.

8:25And then there were others that would probably want him to do so much more damage, right? And one of the points that you made in the tease is that they wanted a say in who becomes the next leader. That sounds like regime change to me. And when you bring that to the voter, right, particularly his base, who was largely isolationist, they're going to be like, wait, we didn't sign up for this. And I don't think there is a response that comes from this White House that either A, makes assuages their concern, or B, is able to take away from the economics of this that seem like they impact the president more than the country in a positive way.

9:05Well, there's the people who may be kind of wondering about the regime change piece of it because it was so much a part of the drumbeat leading up to this moment. But there are also Iranian Americans who were very much, they believed that they came on our air and they said they actually did believe that all this was a good idea. They were hoping for regime change. We saw our government, also the Israeli government, send signals to people in Iran, rise up. This is your moment. You know, there's all the reporting around an effort to arm people. And so you can't even blame them for believing that something there was going to change.

9:40Rick, when you look at the facts now, did any part of the Iranian political system change for the better? You know, you brought up a good point, which we haven't heard enough about in the last few days, is that the other victim here is the Iranian people, right? We have kind of betrayed them. We said, look, we're going to support you in your democratic efforts. And what has happened, and this always happens when a country is bombed from afar, is that the very conservatives band together. And so the Revolutionary Guard now is even more conservative than it was before. And so it's put the Iranian people in an impossible position.

10:24They saw us as an ally. And as you say, lots of Iranian Americans were saying, yes, please do this. And now they're in a worse position than they were before. And that goes not only for the Iranian people, it goes for our other allies. It goes for our Gulf allies are in a worse position. The Israelis are in a worse position. And, of course, we are in a worse position. And just an important piece to that, too, because we had that same conversation with Venezuela, right? That, yes, you had a lot of Venezuela-Americans that were saying, you know what, the guy was bad. He should probably go. So they were cheering what the president did.

10:59That's all well and good. But the question is, how many more of these conflicts will America enter into haphazardly or half-assed, right? How often are we going to be able to do that and still focus on what's happening here at home? Well, I can tell you, as someone with family living in Cuba, they are watching everything that's happening in Iran very, very closely right now. And there is a community here in the United States, of course, that seems to believe that what could happen there would be just as simple as what happened in Venezuela. And even while that is cleaner sort of on the surface, the reality is the Venezuelans don't have democracy either.

11:33No elections yet. Delcy Rodriguez was a crook too. She's now running the place. She's elevated a guy who used to torture people into a key position in the government. I mean, the idea that we've really done regime change there hasn't quite worked out either. And in the agreement, I mean, it was kind of an amazing, it's amazing to read the agreement. In the agreement, we also say, we're not going to meddle in your affairs. We do, yeah. No, we've already, you know, Trump has already betrayed that, but, you know. What do you make of J.D. Vance in this moment? And just, I mean, the messaging he's done.

12:06He's been on this media tour, but part of that's because he has a book out. The other part of it is it seems like Trump and Marco Rubio have kind of shoved him out there. Like, you clean this mess up. Well, and the irony, as you know, Antonia, is that he was the one person who objected to us invading Iran. He was the one person in the situation room who said, hey, let's not do this. He has always been a kind of isolationist. Let's not get involved in foreign wars. You know, he's being a good soldier. He's being a good soldier because he wants to have the endorsement of Trump when he runs for president.

12:37But it's a complicated position for him to be in. So we're going to dig into J.D. Vance and what's happening in the Republican Party, because there's so much to that. After this quick break, Richard and Basil, you're both sticking with me. Coming up later in the show, a special guest on the unveiling of the Obama Library with the stars all coming out. They said this magic thing that said there are millions of us right now who are waking up every day and say, what's my job here? What's the how do I contribute to the good fight? We would think that it's different. But the truth is, even if we're standing and waiting to get to higher ground, all we have to ask is the question of what can I do?

13:17And there's something that every single one of us could do. Also, Trump's$14 million paint job at the reflecting pool, it's now apparently coming off. We're trying to get a visual. OK, so that's good. So that's the bottom of the pool that is now coming off. Oh, boy. Plus, the biggest ticker tape in history for the New York Knicks. We're going to be back in just 90 seconds. We really did it, Dom.

13:51I'm in a New York state of mind.

14:05Dang, Nabbit, we got whore-moozled. This is what happened there. People don't know how we got here or why we're here. It's the same feeling everyone has at a destination wedding. All right, we are going to jump right back into it with Rick Stengel and Basil Smykel. So we were just talking about the J.D. Vance of it all. Very, very interesting figure. He was on a podcast today with The Times as part of the promotion around his book that's about his Catholic faith. But of course, it started sort of all about Iran. And it was very interesting to hear J.D. Vance talk about Israel and the criticism of this administration in Israel right now as their allies there are just outraged.

14:45They feel incredibly betrayed, to use that word you used a few moments ago, Rick. And I want you to take a listen to some of his conversation with Ross at The Times.

14:55There is this weird panic almost in the Israeli system that I've picked up on. I find this whole freak out in Israel a little bit odd because I think that it comes from a place of mistrust. And I think that America has earned the trust of that region of the world. We've done a very good job by that particular country and that particular government. Rick, it's been very interesting to me to watch J.D. Vance, but also the president's comments right now about their relationship with Netanyahu and the rest of the leadership there. Not only do you hear him use the word sort of panic and freak out there, which is just not really language that you hear the U.S.

15:36using much about their allies. But then you have Trump the other day really going after Netanyahu for the destruction of people's homes in Lebanon. Yeah. Vance was at a podium at the White House earlier today talking about how Israel basically has no friends left other than Trump. I mean, this is sort of shift in tone, a shift in language here. What does it indicate to you about what's going on? Well, one part of it indicates this idea that Netanyahu led Trump by the nose into war, and then the war turned out to be catastrophic. And it's like, oh, you're the guy that forced me to do that, even though I can't admit that you're the guy that forced me to do that.

16:13And of course, our interests from the start were never perfectly aligned. We've talked about Lebanon. We have no strategic interest in Lebanon. Lebanon is not in any way a threat to the United States. The Israelis see it as an existential threat to them. And Netanyahu, the one thing that he comes back to always is that I'm protecting Israel against our existential threats. And you cannot have any kind of compromise when you're doing that. Trump sees it as excessive and most of the world sees it as excessive. And that's the one time that Trump seems to be hearkening back to that kind of pacifist side of him that we used to see.

16:54Yeah. I mean, Basil, there were Democrats reacting to some of these comments saying that they wish they had heard Biden use language like this. Well, you know, it's interesting because vice presidents are often pushed out to answer questions when the administration itself has a messaging problem. You know, we've seen it with Cheney. We've seen it with Biden, actually, for Obama. And Kamala Harris was sent to Central America, right? The borders are a job. The borders are a job. So, you know, the question that I have is whether or not J.D. Vance is actually up to the task. I don't know that he necessarily is because all of that sounded muddled.

17:30It sounds almost like a shift in policy, right? And the president, you know, when people tell you who they are, you believe them. He says, if things go wrong, blame J.D. Vance. Guess what he's going to do as soon as he really hears it from his base, right? Because I think he's hearing it now. And the fact that J.D. Vance is out there means that the president is nervous about how his base is going to receive him. And he's setting the vice president up for failure. Well, Dasha Burns at Politico, she was reporting earlier today that basically Vance allies think that all this might ultimately be a really good thing for him.

18:04He'll get to take credit. This will be the Vance peace deal. Do you think that's just spin or do you think there's some reality there? My gut tells me that it is just spin. And I say that because one of the things that I look at is whether or not this energizes the base or it tamps down the base. Ultimately, I think it suppresses the base. They're going to move. That coalition is breaking apart. So he's going to have to, he, J.D. Betts, is going to have to find a way to rebuild, reconstitute whatever coalition got Trump elected and maybe add some to that. I don't know that this situation helps him at all.

18:40You agree? I, you know, I had this vision in my head. I mean, two and a half years now when he's running for president, he's going to triangulate against the old administration and say, I was against the war from the start. I never believed in it. It was a mistake. That side of the Republican base, I think, is not going anywhere. It's not going to become globalized. And so it's like, you know, he will part from Trump the way Kamala Harris did not part from Joe Biden. And will he be more credible because he was there and at least he got out in front of the cameras and he answered questions as this deal came together?

19:12Or will he be undermined by someone like Rubio, who may well run as well? And he'll be able to say, you can barely see my fingerprints on all of this. Yes. I mean, you know, Rubio can say I was against it before I voted for it or whatever. But yeah, and Rubio, you know, has kept his own counsel about it. So, you know, they obviously will be competitors. Ironically, I think they will both come out against the war and say they were both deep down against it. Given the direction the American public has been moving on all of this, I think that if you want to run for president in 2028, you have no choice but to do that.

19:47Rick Stengel, Basil Smychel, it's always good to talk to you too. All right, later in the show, Mamdani's New York City unifies around the champion next day on this parade day. Also ahead, the historic star-studded opening of the Obama Presidential Library. Despite all of our differences, we can see each other. and understand one another and make common cause together. Plus, the critics calling out the grift, corruption, and the vanity projects from Trump's swamp green reflecting pool to the costly ballroom. My next guest is in that fight after this break. Monday.com AI agents took over my work.

20:31And I absolutely love it. Chasing deadlines, writing status reports, updating stakeholders. Agents handle the daily grind now. I stay in the loop only when it matters. Create your own AI agent in minutes on Monday.com. Ever since I was young, I've watched people working hard, chasing opportunity, making sacrifices, doing everything they can to build a better life. And now we're shining a light on what matters most. Our economy, our national identity, our democracy, our future. The stakes have never been higher. It's all On The Line. On The Line with Alicia Menendez. Weekdays at 12 p.m. Eastern on MS Now.

21:16We turn now to Donald Trump's vanity projects causing chaos in Washington. The reflecting pool that was supposed to be American flag blue for the nation's 250th birthday on July 4th is still green. And workers are scrambling to clean it up now, pouring jugs of hydrogen peroxide in the water after Trump's renovations to redo the base and install a system to kill algae seems to have backfired. This all costing taxpayers, by the way, over$16 million. According to algae experts, this was bound to happen. quote, Trump undertook this transformation during the hottest part of the year when algae flourish, and he made the cement dark blue, which retains even more heat, turning the shallow pool into an algae incubator.

22:02The Atlantic noting the pool now how now how clumps of aquatic plant matter foiled the wishes of the most powerful man in the world and how the president who said he drained the swamp has instead created the conditions for a new one. Here, a side-by-side from June 11th to June 16th. You can see for yourself there, it's clearly turning green. And now, parts of Trump's blue paint, they are apparently even peeling off. This video going viral with millions of views. Sam Stein and the Bulwark sent their own folks there to inspect. We're trying to get a visual. OK, so that that's good. So that's the bottom of the pool that is now coming off.

22:54This comes amid Trump's wider D.C. makeover getting pushed back in courts, including his controversial ballroom project, of course. New reports saying Trump quietly redirected$352 million in federal funds designated for the Secret Service toward the ballroom, despite Congress rejecting its funding and repeated promises that it would be financed by private donations. And the Washington Post obtaining the contractor's cost estimate from March, putting the cost at$600 million when Trump said it would cost no more than$400 million. And half that price tag, by the way, it's going to be paid with our tax dollars.

23:37Even though the president knew this, he continued to falsely say no taxpayer dollars would be spent here. You've been so generous in your contributions, very substantial money, fully financed. It's fully taken care of now. And in fact, we'll have money left over. The DOJ continues to fight, now urging an appeals court to let construction move forward, saying that the project's security features are needed to protect Trump. This after Trump's name was officially removed from the Kennedy Center after a successful lawsuit against the president. And joining me now is Ambassador Norm Eisen, who was part of that successful Kennedy Center suit.

24:18He was the top ethics lawyer for President Obama, co-founder of The Contrarian on Substack, and co-founder of Democracy Defenders Fund. Ambassador Eisen, it is great to have you on the show tonight. So you just secured that win against the Trump administration at the Kennedy Center. And start by just telling me what that fight represents to you. Thank you for having me, Antonia. And what it represents is the pushback against Donald Trump's corruption. Within a couple hours of each other, we won the fight to take back the Kennedy Center for the memory of John F. Kennedy and for the American people to take his name off that building.

25:05And we helped win the$1.8 billion slash fund case to put a stop to it. And the two are connected. They are both grabbing things of value from the American people. And in our over 300 legal cases and matters, we're also litigating over one aspect of that ballroom. The toxic dirt when the East Wing was destroyed, full of lead and chromium that was dumped on a public golf course in a public park that kids and families use. We're doing that to the ballroom story is also about taking money directly out of the pockets of the American people. It's corruption, pure and simple. And I think that is a big part of why the American people are so disgusted with Donald Trump, his record low unpopularity.