Why Trump Backed Down on Iran as MAGA Revolts

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0:36There are two major storms advancing towards the Normandy coast. This weekend, on the anniversary of D-Day. If you invade tomorrow, they're going to be washed away. Honor their courage. Get my men onto the beaches somehow, anyhow. See their story. We will accept nothing less than full victory. Pressure, the untold true story of D-Day. Rated PG-13. Maybe inappropriate for children under 13. Now playing only in theaters. Welcome to The Beat. I'm Ari Melber. We begin with news that actually broke exactly 24 hours ago in our hour, this ceasefire and possible de-escalation in Donald Trump's war that he started with Iran.

1:11The U.S. is pulling back from the brink. Trump announcing that two-week ceasefire after extreme, unusual, and quite possibly criminal threats to literally annihilate the civilization of Iran. The agreement's also an open question here. This would be day one. Trump and Hegseth have been trying to spin it, but we're going to go through exactly what the facts are here. We don't have a lot to show for the agreement yet. With our Israeli partners, America's military achieved every single objective on plan, on schedule, exactly as laid out from day one. no and very few people actually believe that there's a lot of facts here that get in the way of those kind of claims the war's not obviously over there's no permanent victory on the energy issues or even the long-term capabilities and weapons systems in iran this is a ceasefire of sorts and a lot of folks think that's better than the alternative whether that was continuing this war the way it was going, or worse, if you took anything Donald Trump posted and said at face value, having the U.S.

2:26go into this war crimes assault. Now, when you look at the actual terms, there are some big sticking points today. Israel has resumed attacks on Lebanon. Iran has invoked that or claimed that as a violation of the ceasefire. There are reports that they've closed the strait in response to those very attacks. This is the AP reporting. Iran also accusing the U.S. of violating the truce, which could bring into doubt these hastily scheduled upcoming talks. And then there's the question of what the U.S. strength and leverage is here, because the talks could start as soon as this Friday. The Iranian Navy this morning was reportedly trying to still restrict the traffic at the strait.

3:07Now, nobody's trying to rush to count against progress if there were progress, but it would seem that on day one, Iran is not exactly doing what Trump claimed. they would do 24 hours ago. The journal reporting this recording that was played to ships in the region there, in that area, saying you must receive permission from the Iranian Navy from passing through the strait. If a vessel tries to transit without permission, they will be destroyed. Iran's government signaling its intention to continue asserting influence over the waterway, the journal reports, and noting that as of this report, which was just a few hours ago today, most ships aren't moving.

3:46At a minimum, that is less than what Trump promised. At a maximum, it would suggest that Iran continues to do some of what it wants to do. Mind you, they've been bombed and attacked and hurt, but they are wielding huge geostrategic and energy power. And if they're spending today restricting those ships and tankers, then they're continuing to do that. Prices that have been rising since the beginning of the war did fall, we should know, below $100 a barrel because of the announced reopening of the strait. But to move on from day trading, that still raises the question of whether the strait will be meaningfully reopened on a long-term basis.

4:22Otherwise, the day trading can go back up. There's also been the erratic shifting deadlines and then the caving from Trump. In March, remember, 48 hours, 5 days, 10 days. On Easter Sunday, we got this very extreme threat, which understandably drew a lot of concern across the Middle East and a lot of attention. But that didn't mean that people thought it would happen. That was the two weeks or face war crimes. Politico reporting that Iran's leadership structure is intact since, of course, the decapitation. So the Trump attacks did kill Iran's leaders, but they have been replaced with a hardline government.

5:02And those hardliners have control. Some sanctions have been lifted. The enriched uranium is in Iran. So we have the full forced the American military, which, as we've reported and experts have mentioned, has done what it has been asked to do. But that doesn't mean it can prevent Iran from turning one of the world's most important shipping lanes into, as Politico puts it, a de facto parking lot. Now, you could look at all this and say, oh, maybe it's bad news, maybe it's not perfect, but is everyone just out to criticize Trump? And by the way, he earned his share of criticism in threatening war crimes and attacking a civilian population, the very things that the Western world and the United States and our allies have long bemoaned about dictatorships and terrorists.

5:47Remember, the big thing that divides us and terrorists, we say, and have said for years, is that they target civilians. We don't, except the president was. Now, take that all together and his criticism, and you can still say, but is this just a habit of this discourse? Or if you talk to people in the White House, they will tell you the media just starts out negative. Well, even take a look at how the agreement was received at Fox News. We have not reached any of those objectives. There are serious questions about the future of this agreement. This matter, all major nuclear facilities, that has not happened.

6:21Iran wants control of the Strait of Hormuz. They never had control of the Strait. They have not suspended their ballistic missiles program. They're still firing them all. It can't be just peace in our time. We have a 10-point deal and they've agreed to this, this, this. I just think it's going to be very, very complicated. That's a laundry list of non-starters. Non-starters, failures, objectives not achieved against Trump and Hegseth saying everything is achieved. And that just doesn't wash because we're still in a ceasefire, not the end of the war. If everything were achieved, you wouldn't have a ceasefire.

6:54You'd have it over. So even if you want to grade on a curve of Trump's hyperbole, nobody really believes what he's saying, which is a problem for the credibility of the United States, even as people take a chance to exhale that he didn't make good on what were likely impeachable illegal threats to attack civilians en masse. The Journal also reporting that Gulf states are grappling with how to survive next to what is now an emboldened Iran, which as of now retains control over what we've been discussing, the quote, Strait of Hormuz, and seeks to become a regional hegemon. As we have done throughout this story and other stories in the Middle East, we want to bring in an expert who is known for his experience and nonpartisan views.

7:36Ambassador Dennis Ross served as a diplomat in peace negotiating the Clinton administration. He also served in the Bush administration and that of Obama. Welcome back. Good to be with you. Your view on what we've learned now in these 24 hours and the state of this ceasefire. Well, A, I would say that it's a fragile ceasefire because one of the problems in any mediation is to be sure that everybody understands the same points the same way. Pakistan, I think, has been acting in good faith, doesn't necessarily have a long history of being a mediator. And oftentimes when you're trying to produce a ceasefire, you want each side to hear the best possibility, not necessarily exactly what the other side is hearing.

8:25And that the danger of creating misunderstandings is, I think, quite real here. So that's point one. I think I'm not sure that both the Trump administration and the Iranians understand the same things the same way on the same points. But that's what you have a negotiation about, a direct negotiation about, and maybe that can sort it out. But two, there's some issues, which the vice president says, just an honest misunderstanding. Is Lebanon in included in this or not? Well, that's a pretty big hole. That's not just a misunderstanding. Prime Minister Netanyahu says this does not apply to us. And clearly today, Israel carried out a very extensive set of bombing across a major part of Lebanon.

9:23I suspect that was done to try to demonstrate they're not bound. The ceasefire doesn't limit them as it relates to Lebanon. One other point, just to keep in mind, one of the reasons I think there's pressure on Prime Minister Netanyahu to do that vis-a-vis Hezbollah is, unlike after October 7th, 2023, when the people who lived in the northern part of Israel were all evacuated, this time they were not evacuated. And they've been getting missiles from Hezbollah. So these are people who've been living in their shelters, not just off and on, but pretty extensively. So when you're... I almost want to push you deeper.

10:02When you look at those issues and this effort to do major war developments and policy through posting online, clearing out all the other experts and folks and diplomats like yourself. And then you have the problem the next day. I mean, is the process broken and was the president in a deadline of his own making? I mean, he acts like, oh, I'm going to scare everyone. And there was reaction we've covered. But then because of his own deadline, he seized on what the journal called the 10 sort of quote maximalist points from Iran. It would seem that, do you believe that we're, basically on the back heel, despite the military progress that the Pentagon says they've made.

10:46Yeah, look, I think we have to divide what has been extraordinary operational progress and operational success by both the U.S. military and the Israeli military. We have to divide that from what are the political objectives and whatever political process we're now talking about. What emerges on day one of this is that there are clearly very different understandings of what has been agreed to. The result of that has been actually 11 ships today made it through the Straits of Hormuz. That's not normal. The normal shipping is 150 ships a day. So we don't have an opening of the Straits of Hormuz, which was supposed to be open, timed with the ceasefire.

11:30So that's point one. Point two, what clearly has happened with Lebanon, even if the vice president's right, this is an honest mistake, that's a pretty big honest mistake. Because one of the rationales that the Iranians use today was to say the reason they're limiting what's happening through the straits is because of the Israeli attacks against Hezbollah. Pakistan's prime minister said, this is included in the ceasefire. The president of the United States said it was not. and the Prime Minister of Israel said it was not. Well, this is one that's going to have to be sorted out pretty quickly or you undercut what was the central element of this was not a ceasefire, but a ceasefire tied to the opening of the Straits.

12:10And even here, I would say with regard to the opening of the Straits, the Iranians are still controlling it. Right. They're allowing, if they allow others to go, it's still under their aegis. I just want to point out something else here. This is an international waterway. You can't compare it to the Suez Canal or the Panama Canal. Those are both man-made waterways dug through independent, sovereign states. This is an international waterway that has always been respected as an international waterway, and which, by the way, Iran has never sought to do what it's doing now. Right. When we anticipated in the past, when I would be involved with all sorts of contingency planning, we would say, look, we end up in a war.

12:56They may try to close. This was the risk that they faced. The New York Times reported that the Pentagon did tell President Trump that and fresh off Venezuela and everything else. He thought, well, we'll work it out. In that sense, you're worse off. I want to show one more thing before I lose you, which is this MAGA pushback. You know, a lot has changed, and we have a lot more folks on the right who are what you would traditionally call doves when it comes to Middle East intervention these days. And that's catching up with Trump quickly. To send out a tweet with the F word on Easter morning promising the murder of civilians and then saying praise be to Allah without explaining any of it, that is evil.

13:35How do we 25th Amendment is that? He can't be a dignified, strong leader without threatening a bunch of war crimes. I don't know about you, but I am sick of it. I'm just I'm sick of it. Can't he just behave like a normal human? Ambassador Ross, I have about one minute left. It would seem this issue has revived things that are well known and documented about Donald Trump, that he doesn't behave that way, that he doesn't have a propriety or decorum, that he does lie with great ease. That's been established. And yet this now seems to be the gateway drug for his right-wing detractors. And I'm just curious, given the policy of it all, what it means, do you think, if the United States, for all of its military power, doesn't necessarily have a long runway where the president and his party want to stay deeply enmeshed in this going into the election?

14:32Look, I will take a step back and just offer the following observation. From the very beginning of this, there should have been an explanation to the country. Why is this necessary? The issue of imminence, for me, was not so much an issue as the nature of the ongoing threat. You should have explained, there's an ongoing threat. We are trying to resolve it diplomatically. We tried and we failed because they're really not prepared to give up a nuclear weapons capability. They're not prepared to give up a ballistic missile threat to the neighborhood. They're not prepared to walk away from blocking international waterway.

15:11And that's why we've had to deal with this threat. And then you explain, here's what we're trying to achieve. Why, what, and how. That should have been what was explained from the very beginning. and then people even on the right who are not enthusiastic about this at least would have an explanation right the fact that this is shifting from day to day makes it much easier for everybody to question what what's going on well yeah they didn't make the case they didn't level with the public so you have that issue for sure uh ambassador ross thank you let me tell folks what's coming up we look at the war crimes problem with an expert by the end of the hour pam bondy now trying to duck testifying because she lost her job.

15:51We'll see whether that works. And warning signs for Republicans in those midterms I just mentioned. We've got the new numbers. Democrats surging, including in red areas. That's next.

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17:38A lot going on, but we also just had more elections with Democrats outperforming last night in Wisconsin. A liberal, Chris Taylor, won a seat on the state Supreme Court by a smashing 20 points. Remember, Trump won Wisconsin in 24. Liberals there have an edge now of about three votes on that court. Georgia is a battleground state. The Trump-endorsed candidate, Clay Fuller, did win the seat to replace MTG. But here's what's really big when you look at the midterms. That is MTG. That's one of those big MAGA districts. And the Democratic candidate actually shifted the voting in that district by not 5 or 10 or 15 points, which in most districts would be the margin of victory, but by 25 points from 24.

18:24Experts calling this a wow moment for Democrats. Republicans panic. The gains are the latest in a wider series of victories since 24. Americans are mad about the high prices, about the war we've been covering, and other failed campaign promises, including the Epstein of it all. This is not an isolated incident or data point from last night. This is what we've been seeing last year and this year. Democrats won three high-profile races. The winner of the New York City mayoral race will be Zoran Mamdani. Mikey Sherrill will be elected the next governor of New Jersey. In a major upset, Democrats flipped a Lancaster County Senate seat in a district that President Trump easily won.

19:09Susan Crawford beating conservative Brad Schimmel. Democrats have flipped a state House seat in the closely watched election in Iowa. Democrats flipping a seat in the state Senate. Emily Gregory, the Democrat, who has upset John Maples, the Republican. In Wisconsin, liberals strengthened their hold on the state Supreme Court. the Democratic candidates better than expected showing in the race to replace Marjorie Taylor Green represents the single largest shift toward Democrats in Trump's second term. We're joined by Democratic strategist Juanita Tolliver, the author of A More Curved Party. Welcome.

19:47And what do you see in this trend line? A lot of pissed off people, Ari. Pissed on people, especially in red districts. I appreciate you highlighting Georgia 14 and the swing from Wisconsin. I also want to throw out there Tennessee 7 and Florida 6, which also saw 20 and higher point shifts in these margins. And I think the margins reflect voters who are angry about the ways Trump has made their lives worse with his actions and his policies. And that, of course, is trickling down to impact the Republican Party generally, because they're the ones largely in Congress sitting back and watching him take these actions and not asserting their own authority.

20:24And so a lot of voters are probably looking at the party like, what's the point? What are you here for? I think the other thing when I see these margins is, I want to know, Ari, is this Democratic surges and Republicans staying home? Or are Republicans also voting Democrat? And how that could show up potentially in the November midterms, because honestly, based on this trajectory and the races that you highlighted, covering from 2025 to present day, I don't see any change in between Donald Trump's actions between today and November 2026. It's a great point because being critical of Trump doesn't mean just resistance or no kings or what you might call coming from the left.

21:08MTG, Tom Massey and others, they're coming from whatever you want to call it. Their populist conservative credentials, officials maga the right or the down up plot we've heard about which is oh when you have elites acting one way and then they they trump tells you he's going to care about your prices doesn't do anything about it makes it worse raises gas prices i don't think it's a leftist or a rightist concern it's just an american concern what do you think about that in a district like mtgs um where to move that many points yeah you as you said it's it's turnout but also you got to move some people who live there, who ain't exactly the resistance usually.

21:45They're not the resistance, but they're hurt just as much as anyone else by Trump and Republicans ending health care subsidies and taxes. And now they can't afford their premium. They're just as hurt by the high cost of basic goods from shoes to cars, thanks to Trump's tariffs, which congressional Republicans did nothing to stop. They're seeing those rises at the gas pumps due to Trump's unnecessary war in Iran. So it comes back to the fact that this transcends age, race, gender, political identity as well, and the reality that they are struggling. The other part that I think is going to continue to play a part in this area is the fact that we are due for an economic downturn.

22:22Economies run in cycles. We are due for a downturn. And that is going to exacerbate what Trump has already created through his bad policies. And so what I'm curious to see again is if we track these numbers, how much we can parse out, how many of those Republicans are just saying, forget this, I'm staying home or forget this, I'm voting for a Democrat who can actually change things, which presents an opportunity for the Democratic Party. Because just a few days ago, wasn't Donald Trump just saying, we don't have money for daycare, we don't have money for Medicare, we don't have money for Medicaid.

22:54This is where Democrats need to invest because people are struggling. So filling the gaps of Trump and Republican could be a viable strategy for their party. Yeah. And as you say, with the war, Democrats are the ones with an America first budget, if you want to call it that. If it means spending at home instead of abroad, there you go. When you look at the messaging, our colleague Al Sharpton was hosting some of these top names at the conference this week. And I want to play some of what we heard. Something is wrong with our president and we are less safe and sound here in America with him being the commander in chief.

23:30We have to do more to ensure that when we celebrate black history in the city, we also ensure that it can keep being written in this city. We have an opportunity to have a real debate within our party about what we stand for, about what our affirmative vision is. Just briefly, your thought on what we are hearing there, the affirmative side from Democrats running this year. I think it's a good start and we're going to need a lot more of it. Laying out how they're going to edit, undo all the harm that Donald Trump has done and quickly in a substantive way that people can feel. Because if these are 2028 contenders, like I think that was Governor Josh Shapiro in that last clip, then he's going to need to put a lot of meat on the bones to show the people what he plans to deliver for them and what he will invest in to make their lives better.

24:17Yeah. Juanita, thank you as always. I'm going to fit in a break. I'm going to tell folks. Absolutely. We have a breakdown on these war crimes issues, which is important. That's later tonight. And the Pam Bondi replacement. Joyce Vance is here.

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