Inside the U.S.-Iran Deal, and Trump Hosts U.F.C. Fights

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0:32From the New York Times, it's the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. Today's Monday, June 15th. Here's what we're covering.

0:44I'm not going to say that everybody's going to sing kumbaya tomorrow. It's going to take a little bit of time to learn the ways of peace. But I do think we took a major, major step tonight. After months of negotiations, the U.S. and Iran have announced that they've reached a framework for peace, essentially an agreement that could pave the way for an end to the war. I know that this has been a hard time for a lot of Americans, but we have achieved something great for them. Speaking to Fox News, Vice President J.D. Vance celebrated the deal, which he said will reopen the Strait of Hormuz and immediately end the U.S.

1:16naval blockade on Iran. In a statement on social media, President Trump wrote, quote, ships of the world, start your engines. Let the oil flow. The deal came together in a last-minute flurry of talks, with Iran holding off on finalizing the so-called Memorandum of Understanding until after midnight Tehran time. According to two Iranian officials, that was because they didn't want it to coincide with Trump's 80th birthday. Both Iran and the U.S. are trying to portray the deal, which includes a 60-day ceasefire, as a victory for their side. Though some of the thorniest issues between them have basically just been pushed off to future talks about a broader agreement down the line.

1:58The fact of the matter is that a memorandum of understanding doesn't have any particular enforceable capability. This isn't a peace deal. It's not a nuclear deal. It's more like a table of contents, as one of the president's aides put it to me, for what needs to be negotiated next. David Sanger covers the White House for The Times. Yesterday, he spoke with President Trump on the phone for almost a half an hour. What was unusual about the president's call is that as he described and walked me through the nuclear agreements that he believed they were going to reach, he was basically describing agreements that he wanted to make sound as if they had already been reached.

2:44But when pressed, acknowledged that this is all subject to this later and, in my view, much more important document, which would be much more like what the Obama administration negotiated 11 years ago. Specifics about whether or not Iran can enrich uranium, whether it has to give up its stockpile of nuclear fuel and so forth. David says that fresh talks about Iran's nuclear program could kick off as soon as Friday, when the U.S.-Iran framework is expected to be officially signed. One factor that could still reignite the conflict, though, is Israel's ongoing campaign against the Iran-backed militia Hezbollah in Lebanon.

3:30Iran insists the new ceasefire requires an end to fighting on all fronts, including Lebanon. But Israel was not part of the talks, and its national security minister has already stressed that it is not bound by the agreement. David has more on the U.S.-Iran negotiations, including a plan Trump is floating to make the U.S. a paid police force for the Middle East, on today's episode of The Daily.

4:00Now, two other quick updates from Washington. I just can't believe that we're at the White House watching UFC fights. Dude, I'm so filled with, like, testosterone. I want to kick somebody in the chest. It's crazy. Hours after announcing the agreement with Iran, President Trump sat cage-side for UFC fights on the White House lawn, a spectacle unlike any in the history of the presidency. USA! USA! USA! For the night, the White House was not just the backdrop, but a set for the event. The fighters were filmed walking through it to get to the ring. The audience was packed with cabinet members, Republican lawmakers, and billionaires like Mark Zuckerberg and David Ellison.

4:42The whole thing was draped in ads for corporate sponsors. Bud Light, Polymarket, Crypto.com. The event put Trump at the center of a sport that's popular with many young men. and some in the GOP hope it could be a way to capture their enthusiasm ahead of the midterms. Recent polls from The Times and Siena College have found that Trump's approval rating with young men specifically has fallen by about 10 percentage points in recent months, as his overall approval rating has slipped. Democrats, meanwhile, portrayed the event as a stunt, with Senator Adam Schiff writing that Trump had been focused on the fights, quote, while you're fighting to pay this month's bills.

5:22In all, according to a recent poll by Reuters and Ipsos, just 16 % of Americans said it was appropriate for Trump to hold the fights at the White House. And over at the Kennedy Center, a different fight unfolded this weekend over the name of the building. The board members of the Kennedy Center voted unanimously to rename it the Trump Kennedy Center. What is your reaction to that? Well, I was honored by it. The board is a very distinguished board. Months ago, members of the Center's board, many hand-picked by Trump, arranged to have new signage put up reading The Donald J. Trump and the John F.

5:59Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts. That set off a lot of backlash, some from the Kennedy family itself, as well as a lawsuit filed by a Democratic lawmaker. Take it down! Take it down! Overnight on Saturday, hundreds of people gathered to watch as the new letters were taken down to comply with a court order in which a federal judge found that only Congress has the right to rename the center. The whole complex is set to close soon for two years of renovations, which Trump announced after the institution had been rocked by boycotts and cancellations.

6:42In Japan, lawmakers are drafting a plan to address a national dilemma. The country is running out of men who can be emperor. Japan has the world's oldest monarchy, with a line of emperors going back to 660 BC. And for hundreds of years, only men have been allowed to hold that title. But the number of eligible heirs has been shrinking steadily. There are currently just three men who could inherit the throne, and one of them is 90 years old. In order to prevent a succession crisis, Japan's legislature is moving forward with a provision that would allow the royals to adopt distant male relatives, adding them to the pool of possible heirs.

7:24There are a number of Japanese families connected to the throne that could be included in this. Many of them had been stripped of their royal status under a post-World War II plan pushed by the U.S. to weaken the monarchy there. According to Japanese news reports, the change could mean that dozens of commoners who've been working everyday jobs in advertising or selling insurance could suddenly become eligible for the throne. But many in Japan think there's an easier solution. Let a woman become emperor. Polls show broad public support for the idea, and the current emperor's daughter, 24-year-old Princess Aiko, is a popular national figure.

8:04One expert on Japan's royal family told The Times that if the country continues to exclude women from the role, that will only hurt the monarchy in the long run, adding that over time, the whole system will become, quote, unsustainable.

8:26And finally. Oh, yes! Gio Reina! The World Cup is well underway. The U.S. came out strong with a 4-1 win over Paraguay. Final score, seven to Germany and one for Curacao. While Curacao had a crushing debut in its first ever appearance in the tournament, getting routed by Germany. And later today, Iran will be in the spotlight. I believe the Iran squad have just landed at Los Angeles International Airport. There had been questions about whether the team would make it to the U.S., but all is now set for them to play in L.A. this evening against New Zealand. Now, with everyone's attention on the teams, the Times has also been talking with the experts who are watching the grass.

9:15FIFA rules say that every game has to be played on natural, living turf, and the fields have to be consistent across all 16 stadiums. So when, say, the French star Kylian Mbappe kicks the ball in New Jersey, it needs to bounce the same way it would in Toronto or Guadalajara. Pulling that off is an enormous feat that has been years in the making. To have just the right grass in just the right conditions, FIFA assembled a crack team of turfologists. Yeah, turfologists. They have done all kinds of tests, even inventing a machine with a 3D-printed foot in a soccer cleat to imitate a World Cup player cutting hard across the turf.

9:57And they had to settle on the perfect mix of grass species. The open-air stadiums in warmer areas are using a Bermuda strain, while stadiums further north and those with roofs are using a custom and very specific mix of 84 % Kentucky bluegrass and 16 % ryegrass. In many cases, sod for the fields had to be grown off-site and was shipped as far as 1 ,400 miles in refrigerated trucks to get to the arenas. Now, with the games underway, the work has not ended for FIFA's field management experts. They are watching all the matches, but not for the scores. They're keeping tabs on the grass from the FIFA Tournament Operations Center in Miami.

10:41They're looking out for slips, bad bounces, or just anything that doesn't look quite right. Those are the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. We'll be back tomorrow with the latest on the G7 summit in France, where President Trump is set to meet with America's allies as tensions between the U.S. and Europe flare.