Scrutiny on Trump's Iran Deal as Details Remain Secret

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0:34That's why millions go to 1-800-Flowers to celebrate life's most important moments. Order now for up to 40 % off. Don't miss out on this limited-time offer. Act now and save up to 40 % at 1-800-Flowers.com. That's 1-800-Flowers.com. Welcome to The Beat. I'm Ari Melber. We're tracking several stories as we start the week, including California governor and major Democratic potential candidate Gavin Newsom says DOJ is investigating him and his wife and he thinks the fix is in from Trump. That's a preview of what a lot of these campaigns could look like if he runs in 28 wall under what he calls a revenge prosecution.

1:12We have John Flannery on that coming up and a report on how the Trump White House was considering gutting habeas corpus rights. That's part of that series of bombshells we've seen in this forthcoming book that's coming out in New York Times reporters. And we have special coverage of that tonight, plus Trump trying to hide what looks like apparently the powerless legal humiliation that he's undergoing at the Kennedy Center. We begin, though, with truly big world news. The United States and Iran have a tentative agreement to end this long running now, several months long running war. The details are not all sketched out, but we are seeing everyone take this seriously, including other countries around the world, the global markets, particularly energy supplies.

2:00So this is one of those developments that comes with Donald Trump's credibility problems, and we'll touch on that, but also very clear signs that a lot of people believe what they're being told, that we are on the precipice of ending a war that so many Americans opposed from the start. Now, like I said, it's been four months or so. There was, of course, fighting. There was loss of life. There was the energy crisis. This could be the major step towards ending the conflict. And as a reminder, 13 Americans have died. Thousands of Iranians have died. And global markets and energy supplies and your gas prices have all been upended with Donald Trump's unilateral war of choice.

2:38In other words, he just started this war. He didn't run it by Congress or the public. And now he's trying to get it basically finished. finished with or without the goals that he and his allies and aides had talked about in the beginning. Now, the presidents in France today, U.S. officials say he and J.D. Vance have essentially signed by proxy, digitally signed a framework ahead of what will be the actual formal signing of a deal on Friday. The reports are that this would reopen that key straight of Hormuz, which, remember, was open before Trump started the war, but that's crucial to oil prices.

3:09And we are here in reality where everyone wanted to eventually find a way to get that reopened. The ceasefire that has been tenuous will be extended for 60 days, and then there will be a framework for Iran to discuss its nuclear program. If that sounds familiar, Iran's been discussing it with United States diplomats, proxies, cutouts, middle people for many years. So again, we're kind of back to where we were in some sense, although this could be good news if the deal holds. It's also unclear whether Iran will continue to try to use this conflict and its disruptions to exert additional control over the strait more than it had in the past.

3:47We don't know what assurances the U.S. has about those coming talks and whether they think it would actually constrain Iran's nuclear stockpile. But Trump is winding down this war, and he is doing so, as the Times summarized it, with his goals unmet. Trump gave a range of rationales when he started this war. There were big demands. There was big talk about changing the regime, about using force to somehow have an uprising, perhaps, or change the structure of the government there. But he failed to achieve anything like the unconditional surrender that he promised. There is no regime change. There is actually a younger hardline regime in place.

4:31And although there was, of course, progress from the U.S. and allies' perspective at degrading aspects of Iran's military, they have not destroyed its capabilities. They have also not destroyed or eliminated Iran's nuclear stockpile and potential. So what you have here is a war that has been mostly waged with a lot of U.S. regret. Regret on the energy side from anyone living in America who says, we don't want to pay for this. Why is our gas more expensive. Regret among military experts who said, well, if you actually knew everything that we know now, would you have even started this war? Because a young, hardline strength and set of leaders might be even worse than the situation they had.

5:15And for anyone who thought there might have been a more incremental path to a democracy movement in Iran, well, now they've reset the table. The U.S. leaves. Don't expect that movement to be very fortified. Republican Lindsey Graham says he's concerned about this deal. Over on Fox, they're saying this. this 60-day period, sir, if we reach it, this is precarious. It's tough stuff because Iran's history is to get to that table and just drag this thing out month after month and eventually year after year. I just went like, what do you think about us getting suckered back into a long stalemated negotiation?

6:03what you're hearing there is a concern based on the actual history, a kind of regretful hawk's view of what could happen next. Because most people are busy living their lives, and the way Donald Trump is governing America, people have got a lot of different problems to deal with, including the high prices. But if you have studied the Iran history, there is a reason that this is a country that is so opposed from UAE and Saudis to Israel to the United States to Western Europe. Iran has bedeviled the region. It has never been straightforward, honest, or easy to deal with. And so while it is true on the one hand that nobody has high hopes for a long protracted negotiation process that will magically result in Iran backing off all of its very well-established military goals, on the other hand, remember where the status quo was.

6:55We knew all this. The military brief saw this. the CIA tells the president all this, and previous presidents have looked at the situation and said, it's bad, but adding a war won't help. It's tough, but you have to just engage them and go forward. Indeed, a president who dealt with this, Barack Obama, because he's speaking out in interviews about his library, ended up also discussing the issues of trying to get improvement out of this type of regime. It is doubtful that any agreement that

7:27David Rothkopf:arises is going to be significantly different or a significant improvement from the deal that we had in the first place and had worked for a long stretch of time before we, the United States, pulled out of it. That deal had worked. What does working mean when you're dealing with this kind of country, a country that's a state sponsor of terror, that has waged war on its neighbors for years, that oppresses and kills its own people. Worked doesn't mean it's great or you're happy with this regime. But worked had meant that they were constrained and contained. Those are principles of foreign policy that are distinct from shooting first and then finding things get even worse.

8:19And then the U.S. under Trump being brought back to the negotiating table to get what? The strait reopened like it was before the war was started? Don't mishear me. I'm telling you the news tonight is incremental progress because we are further away from escalation and a longer war. A lot of people say that's pretty much obviously a good thing. And the price of oil is receding, is sliding. So those are things that could affect you and your pocketbook here in America, and they are welcomed, and the markets are cheering them and welcoming them. The Dow hitting all-time highs on this news today. That's the good part.

8:53But did we have to get here this way under this president? Well, that's the foreign policy question. And for that, we bring in David Rothkoff, Clinton administration official, foreign policy expert, host of Deep State Radio podcast, also a member of the prestigious Council on Foreign Relations and retired four star Army General Barry McCaffrey, an MSNL military analyst who has been with us, guided us through so much coverage. General, we talked about this from day one of this conflict. I tried to walk through with all fairness why a lot of folks think this sounds like a good step rather than more war.

9:26And yet there's so much criticism about just getting back to maybe status quo. Could you give us your breakdown tonight? Well, first of all, that was a terrific opening assessment of where we are. Let me add the perspective of Senator Jack Reed. I've had a lot of respect for him over the years with his decades of foreign policy and national security experience. His characterization is we got a deal to make a deal. So in the coming 60 days, we may or may not see any significance to the continued dialogue. The good news, as you say, is stopping fighting is the right thing to do. So the ceasefire is positive and may well allow us to pull back major U.S.

10:11naval forces and air power from the Mideast, where they've been deployed for a long time. It's also true the Straits will probably open, although they may be impaired in free transit of commercial shipping by the Iranians. They may try and continue to charge tolls. And finally, I don't think it should be underestimated, there has been devastating damage to Iranian conventional military capabilities. That's a good thing. Vile regime. I would personally assess, though, that the only cause worth fighting for was the Iranian nuclear program. And that, I do not believe, will be significantly constrained in the long run by this war.

10:56It's more likely that they'll take those 10 tons of highly enriched HEU and turn them into a dozen nuclear weapons in five years. And so I'll ask you and then I'll bring in David. But General, on that point, is it fair to say then that it might only be a face saving technique for the Trump administration to say, well, we'll get this going now. We'll talk about that later. And you seem to be in agreement with what other critics have said, which is, well, later means never to them. Well, I personally think it's been a strategic disaster for the United States. I mean, we've had tactical, incredible power over the Iranians.

11:37We lost two aircraft in 21 ,000 sorties against Iran. But we didn't change the strategic situation for the better. I think we're more vulnerable. We've lost a lot of credibility. Our allies in the Persian Gulf and Europe hate us for what we got them into. So I think this has been a largely a strategic disaster for U.S. foreign and defense policy.

12:03David Rothkopf:David, your views? Well, exactly the same. And it's hard not to come to those conclusions. We entered into this thing ostensibly to produce the changes that you listed at the outset. We didn't produce those changes. And in fact, here we are suing for peace. The president wants to turn the page, and so he's celebrating an agreement that will not actually get us back to the status quo and will not actually produce the results that he wants to achieve. You know, for the average American who's saying, well, my gas prices will go down because of this, not so fast. First of all, we have 60 days of negotiation.

12:43David Rothkopf:That's likely to be extended. There could be starts and stops in the Persian Gulf with regard to that. But the impact of opening up the Strait of Hormuz now on gas prices will take months and months to be felt Fertilizer ships and things like that will come after the oil ships So the impact on food prices will take even longer to be felt The Iranians right now are in a better position with regard to gaining a nuclear weapon, as the general said than they were when we struck the deal, the JCPOA, that the Obama administration struck in 2015, because they have this enriched uranium, much of which they gained after President Trump in his first term tore up the JCPOA.

13:34David Rothkopf:And even if they somehow struck a deal to get rid of that enriched uranium, they now have the know-how, the centrifuges, the scientists, and the ability to get back to wherever they want to go much faster than they did. I'd look at it this way. We launched a war, an illegal war. We shouldn't have launched it. It's cost us billions and billions of dollars. It is hugely unpopular here. It has weakened our alliances around the world. It has given the Iranians more leverage over the Strait of Hormuz. We are now going to pay them much more than the Obama administration did in repatriating funds. We are going to allegedly open up$24 billion in funds of theirs.

14:22David Rothkopf:And there is talk, and even the vice president has mentioned this, that if they do the right thing in the negotiations, we may set up a$300 billion fund to rebuild Iran. Well, what are we doing? We went in, we achieved none of our objectives. They're coming out of it stronger. We are suing for peace. I defer to the general on this, but this is what you call in a war a defeat. We have been defeated. They are coming out of it better off than we are, even with all the damage that was done. And the president knows it. And he is just so desperately afraid that this will hurt the prospects of Republicans and lead to investigations and other problems for him in the fall and beyond that he's just, OK, let's move on.

15:13David Rothkopf:I'll take whatever deal you can get. Let's pretend we have a deal. And that's what we're doing now. We're pretending we have a deal. You mentioned the$300 billion. I'll put that headline up here. That's the Reconstruction Fund. Well, actually, I have Vance on it. Let's listen to that briefly. J.D. Vance. The Iranians are saying that they're going to have access to a$300 billion Reconstruction Fund. True or false? Well, and that's the sort of thing they could have access to, funded by the Gulf Coast Coalition, so long as they honor their end of the obligation. And so that raises the question of whether this sort of forever war or forever bill is the opposite of what Trump ran on.

15:58General, in conclusion, David invoked your credibility. I'll let you respond.

16:09Let me just say one other thing to add on what David, I think, correctly outlined for us. Not only are we probably going to pay them$24 billion in 60 days and probably$300 billion in extortion fees out of the Gulf Coast states, But even more likely, the negotiations, which are typically difficult with the Iranians, are being conducted by people who we devastated in the aerial campaign. I mean, the current supreme leader with his burned face and shattered legs, his wife was killed, his dad was killed, a brother, a sister. The IRGC leadership has been devastated. They're desperate for cash. They're not going to cooperate with us in the negotiations.

16:57We did not achieve our purpose through military force, and now we're going to suffer the consequences. Yeah, you both laid it out, and that's why it's a mixed picture at best, with a lot of evidence that this was not the war to start based on the results we're living through. General McCaffrey, David Rothkopf, my thanks to both of you. I'll tell viewers coming up, we have the look at Donald Trump's big loss at the Kennedy Center. He's trying to hide the optics, but he loses on the substance. Stephen Miller under pressure now with reports that lawyers within the Trump administration and others were sounding the alarm on an effort to undercut the Constitution.

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19:23Democratic Governor of California, Gavin Newsom, who is seen as a big-time Democrat who could run for president, has announced today that, in his view, the DOJ under Trump is pursuing what he views as a lawfare-style political probe of him and his wife. Federal agents have knocked on the doors of family, friends, and former employees. Not because they found a crime, because they're simply trying to find one. This campaign has reached my own home to get me. He's coming after my wife, Jen. Donald Trump picked the wrong target. We have nothing to hide. His political operatives can take every record and read every page, but they'll be looking in the wrong place.

20:08Just to catch you up on how we got here, remember, Donald Trump's first impeachment was over his effort to get a foreign country, Ukraine, to announce an investigation of a Democrat years before the race, years, stay with me, years before Biden was the frontrunner. And then the whole idea was just if there was an investigation, that might be bad enough to hurt the Bidens. Trump was impeached over that. But what's my point in mentioning that tonight? back then, he wanted another country to do it because either he didn't have enough authority over the DOJ to get this kind of allegedly lawless probe going, or he didn't think he could get away with it then, right?

20:50And that was impeachable. Now, we have probes like this against the opposition party, critics, Republicans, journalists all the time. This is not normal, and if the evidence doesn't support the probe, if it was called in as revenge, it might be unlawful. Now, the New York Times records that there's multiple federal investigations related to Newsom, one that the wife's finances. Another quote says that people associated with the Newsoms have been contacted by agents in the past week. Newsom's aides believe the agents have been subpoenaed. All of this comes after a very obvious ramp up. In the news, sometimes if it's a close call or it's a mystery, we just tell you we don't know enough.

21:32But here we know a heck of a lot about Donald Trump telling on himself.

21:55Donald Trump saying just this month, it would be great to have him arrested. That is not exactly a denial or a responsible statement or any effort at neutrality. And it comes amidst a crackdown on many different people through these governmental powers. I'm joined by John Flannery, former federal prosecutor, congressional counsel. John, I mentioned the wider context because if we see serious evidence of wrongdoing by anyone, we don't care who they are, we report it. And yet so many different people have the chart I want to put up on the screen. It's almost excessive or comical. But we keep updating on this program because this shows you the enemies list and how many different probes are being attempted.

22:39Your view tonight? My view is that we make a mistake when we talk about it as weaponizing. There's a big difference between having the broad discretion to investigate a crime. But when you start something frivolous, when you have nothing but a fishing expedition, when you choose the target based on their visibility as a presidential candidate and his wife to pressure him, and because she's active in the area talking about sexism and has had movies and so forth, then what you have is you have the appearance of attacking someone for what they say, the First Amendment. And it's the first because it is the way that we challenge the government.

23:20And nothing could be clearer in this case than that. And when we're challenging the government, no less than Justice Jackson said that if something is fundamentally improper, then it's inappropriate and wrong and unconstitutional. And we turn to the 15th and the 14th Amendment to find the guidance for that. Due process means fundamentally fair. This is not fair. When I was in AUSA, if I was talking to you about where our investigation stood and we hadn't indicted and there hadn't been a public hearing, I would be fired. These people are not fired. Why? They gave answers and they tried to rebut the target of their investigation.

23:56Why? Because that's what Trump wanted, whether he says it exactly or not. They said, we're here in Sacramento. What do we have to do with D.C.? Well, you're only a phone call away from the Oval Office. And we've seen from the New York Times disclosures and others, there are no barriers to these people cooperating in violation of our laws and our Constitution. So what do I think about it? It's a major miscarriage of justice. And if I was the judge, we would start investigating with a master and some funds because we have data points already, like you mentioned. Right. And so what do the courts have to do here to keep up with this?

24:30Because I mentioned how far we have fallen from the example of trying to get another country to do it. And so, again, I'll put it back up on the screen because we've been tracking it here on the beat. when you look at this many different probes, you go from the inference of, well, the DOJ's got to do its homework and it gets a certain amount of deference in court to the opposite. And so do you think courts have to be faster in pushing back on this if they think it is baseless? You, a delay, you really put your finger on it. The delay in the judicial process to slap down something that is so obviously wrong has been a major failure in our protection of our individual rights and liberties.

25:08We have data points such as James Comey, BS cases, nothing to it. Letitia James, same thing. And what is this? Just like you said, this is him. His modus operandi is the same, although he was dealing in Zelensky in July of 2019 with, I just want you to investigate. And if you investigate Biden and his son, then you can come to the White House. We can get you Tomahawk missiles. This is different in terms of venue, but it's the same approach. I'm going to try to beat down the current leading candidate for president, and there are others in the field. And I am going to get in his head by chasing his wife.

25:47And I am going to put it out there in the year in California when we have elections there for governor and so forth. So this is not a clumsy thing. This is an accurate thing. What can we do about it? The judge could call for a special master, have the grand jury minutes brought to him, hire a few people and say, because we are on notice that this is what the Justice Department is doing, and there's no one, no place we can go to appeal from there, then we should investigate it. It should be a motion made by the governor and his council, and they should demand that this be looked into because we have to stop this, and it's not been stopped.