Breaking News from Pod Save America - Trump ADMITS DEFEAT as Iran DISASTER Grows

Episode Date: March 24, 2026

Trump says negotiations are underway, Iran calls his bluff, and Putin piles on. Alex Wagner and Evan Osnos break down the latest chaos from Trump's White House. CHECK OUT OUR SPONSOR: ZIP RECRUITER - http://ziprecruiter.com/CROOKED CHAPTERS 0:00 - Trump Contradicts Iran On Peace Talks 5:18 - Negotiations Are Going Poorly 8:49 - Ad Break 9:44 - Putin Trolling Trump With Russian Oil Tanker To Cuba 13:30 - Trump Looks Weak At Home And Globally Photos courtesy of AP Photo Archive Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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targeted strikes on Iraq and Israel. With negotiations like these, who needs negotiations? Joining me today to make sense of all of this is the great and brilliant Evan Osnos, journalist and author. It's great to have you here, Evan. My pleasure. I love one of the things about the internet as people who used to have or do have contracts with rival cable news organizations can talk freely and honestly on the internet. On the internet, nobody knows you're a reporter. That's true. They don't know that I exist on the internet. But anyway, okay, let's just talk about kind of where we're at here, Evan. So it really feels like the Iranians are calling Trump's bluff. Like he'll come out and say, well, this thing is winding down. We're making great progress on top.

and the Iranians like, oh, we're at fucking war. And if you need proof of that, here are some more missiles in the direction of your allies. I want to play two clips of President Trump. I'm only going to ask you to respond to one. But first of all, this is President Trump defending the notion that there is a diplomatic process underway. Mr. President, Iran's foreign ministry says you're not telling the truth when it comes to productive conversation, family war. Well, they're going to have to get themselves better public relations, people. So we have had very, very strong talks. We'll see where they lead. We have major points of agreement, I would say almost all points of agreement.

Perhaps that hasn't been conveyed. The communication, as you know, has been blown to pieces. They're unable to talk to each other. But we've had very strong talks. Mr. Whitkoff and Mr. Kushner had them. They went, I would say, perfectly. I would say that if they're not, that if they carry through with that, it'll end that problem, that conflict.

And I think it'll end it very, very substantially. Okay. Okay. So this reminds me of like maybe in like grade school when you're like, I think this person likes me. And they're like, no, that person does. That person does not like you. You're like, no, I have some real signs that they like me.

This is going really well. Let's just follow that clip up with something that just happened where much like high school, you're like, no, but he gave me his phone number or he gave me his letterman's jacket. This relationship is real. Here's Trump talking once again about Iran and how amazing their relationship is. They're going to make a deal. They did something yesterday that was amazing, actually. They gave us a present, and the president arrived today. It was a very big present worth a tremendous amount of money. And I'm not going to tell you what that president is, but it was a very significant prize.

And they gave it to us, and they said they were going to give it. So that meant one thing to me would deal with the right people. Is that nuclear related? No, it wasn't nuclear related. It was oil and gas related, and it was a very nice thing they did. But what it showed me is that we're dealing with the right people. Yeah, valuable prizes. Who even knows what that president is?

Trump won't say what the valuable present is. He won't tell anybody who he's actually. actually negotiating with Jared Kushner and Steve Whitkoff have been dispatched to lead this process. Whose assessment of this situation are you more inclined to believe? The Iranians or the Americans, Evan? Yeah, this is like the battle of the unreliable narrators. It's bizarre when you're in the position of saying, okay, I've heard the President of the United States, but let me see the Iranian readout of the meeting that maybe didn't happen. You know what I think is so interesting, Alex, It's like, these are like, the Iranians are not read into the old Trump playbook, which is the kind of like everything is an Atlantic City real estate deal, meaning that we should pretend that we might be making a deal, even if we might be knifing each other under the table, because it's all about the presentation.

This is like boardwalk empire as geopolitics, like it were genteel. we wear suits. We might be killing each other. And I think what's interesting is Trump is, of course, accustomed to dealing in Washington where people need to play by those rules because they need each other on the next day. So even if it is a fight to the death, they don't let on. Iran is not in that situation. Iran is quite literally facing an existential risk. They are facing a life or death scenario. And so they're saying, fine, we'll basically call Trump's bluff. And he's starting to sound quite odd and desperate when he says things like we're meeting very, very soon.

Yeah, to use the high school. Or they gave us a present, a very valuable present. Can't show you the present because the present lives in Canada in Niagara Falls. But the present and I, it's so meaningful. Wait to you see the present. No. The person who gave me the present is the right person. person to be talking to. I just, you raise the point, like, in any negotiation, it's a game,

I mean, it's negotiation or chicken. The person who's ready to drive over the cliff or feels like the cliff is the inevitable endpoint tends to have the stronger hand, right? I mean, just because they can demand and like, if they don't get what they want, fuck it, they're screwed anyway. And I'm thinking about that in the context of the reporting we have on what Iran is demanding of the U.S., right? They've demanded assurances like compensation for, war damage, right? They've rejected American demands to cease uranium enrichment and hand over their stockpiles of uranium, which, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, if there was a point of this war, it was to stop Iran's nuclear program. Correct. And now they're going to send us a bill for the

damage we're causing. In addition to that, the president has eased sanctions on Iranian oil, I think 140 million barrels, which could result in a profit for the Iranian regime that we are currently at war with of $14 billion. Like, riddle me this, Evan. How does any of this feel like we have a hand to play in the negotiations? I don't understand. I just, I don't understand here. I'm no geostrategist, Alex. However, you know, the idea that we would suddenly find ourselves in the position we are in, which is that Iran is essentially saying, fine, you want an end to this? We want a Marshall plan. Call it the Hegsev plan, which is that the reparations that Iran essentially is asking for is a reflection of the fact that they recognize quite fairly and accurately that

the United States is in a brutal position here. I mean, the idea that we're now living with a Strait of Hormuz, which is closed to us and our allies, but not closed to China. And, you know, China, I mean, in this case, Trump could say tomorrow, as he so is clearly tempted to do, I've achieved victory, you know, another big win. We're coming home. The problem is, is that if he does that, the Straits of Hormuz is still closed. You still can't get U.S. shipping through there. So instead, what's he doing? He's turning. to new friends, like he's got Pakistan and Egypt, perhaps, negotiating for some sort of resolution. And there's some talk that, you know, they met last week in Saudi Arabia. But to complicate matters in a really interesting way, Alex, you probably saw. There's now reports that the Saudi crown prince MBS may in fact be pushing for this war to continue because it's in his interest. Sunni Shia schisms. That's pretty mildly. Well, I mean, I really think this is the world, honestly, that Mark Carney was talking about in January.

Yes. When he said that we were facing a rupture in the world order, this is the world of the jungle. And this is the world that Stephen Miller thought they wanted when he said that it was going to be the iron law of strength, the way the world has always operated. Well, congratulations, gentlemen. This is the world you've got. It's a world in which this is a rupture. It's such a good point. And we're the ones bleeding in the corner.

And when we are bleeding in the corner after insulting and demeaning our allies, they're like, fuck off. We're not helping you reopen the straight. The Iranians see weakness and are compiling a laundry list as the diplomatic process isn't even underway and they continue a barrage of assaults on American allies. Pot of America Breaking News is brought to you by ZipRecruiter. What's the latest trend in hiring? It's skill-based hiring, which emphasizes capabilities over education and direct experience.

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So we've temporarily lifted sanctions on Russian oil. again, helping the Iranian regime because Russia is supporting Iran and also helping the dictatorial regime of Vladimir Putin as it fights a war of democracy against Ukrainians. But anyway, we've lifted sanctions on Russian oil, supposedly to bring down the price of oil, which is now $100 over a barrel. Politico reports today that Russia loaded up an oil tanker and has pointed it straight to Cuba. It's carrying, I think, an estimated 730,000 barrels of crude oil. And Cuba, of course, has been under an American economic embargo for several months, which may be the second front in this war is to oust the Cuban regime. We'll not talk about that on this podcast.

Fox News is now streaming live on Fox One. When it matters most, turn to the voices you trust. We go beyond the headlines, bringing you the stories you won't hear anywhere else. Live coverage, sharp analysis, real. perspective, at home or on the go. Stay connected when it counts. Stream Fox News on Fox One. Download today. Save it for next week. Save it for another time. But the fact that like the Russians sail this through like, you know, the English channel, I think, like everybody's watching this Russian oil tanker

sail across the Atlantic, headed towards Cuba, a quite literally like a middle finger to Trump. And like what are we going to do about it? It just seems like such an extraordinary pile on, right, from all of America's adversaries who were like, how does it, to your point, how does it feel to be the weakest animal in the jungle? Because we're now all going to pounce on you. Do you read it that way? And like, this is obviously not the best. Putin's getting a lot more than just the humiliation of Trump and all of this.

I mean, this is epic trolling by Vladimir Putin. He literally, he takes his oil tanker. They are publicly broadcasting its destination. I mean, for people haven't seen this, it's amazing. They're saying that it's headed to Atlantis USA, like a fanciful harbor in the Americas. And so, I mean, and the purpose of this is not to actually reopen the Cuban economy. It's less than a million barrels of oil. This is entirely to force the United States to do something that demands something of our assets,

our reputation, our attention at a time when we frankly are depleted in all three of those things. So, you know, Putin is saying to essentially the world, look, I can do what I want. I can sail this vessel as and maybe I'll turn away at the last minute, presumably it will. But maybe I won't. And I will force the United States to back up its bluff. So I mean, this is essentially, to my mind, Alex, the collision of the world of nonsense. that Trump creates when he talks, colliding with the absolutely real world of steel and bone and reality. There's a, I mean, there's a kind of classic Orwell quote on this, which is that, like, ultimately, every lie ends up colliding with reality, usually on the battlefield. And right now,

the battlefield is global. And it's because Trump has thrown open the norms, any sense of kinship or duty or alliance and said, none of that matters, this means that it is jungle rules. And it turns out, in fact, that the United States, we're not really built for that. We've sort of spent more or less the last 75 years building ourselves for a world that we created, which was a, you know, as flawed as it was, a rules-based liberal international order. And now we're kind of naked in the jungle. It's not a good place to be. Not great to be naked in a city, but definitely not great to be naked in the jungle. I wonder how you think Trump's understood.

I'm not going to say perceived weakness, but his understood weakness translates to the domestic, the fight that's playing out right now, right? Like, there's this huge question. I don't want to get too weedy with this because, first of all, it is a quickly moving storm front. Like, there could be a deal by the end of the day. There could not be a deal to fund DHS. But really Trump has been pushing.

and pressuring Republicans in Congress not to fund DHS, not to make any deals with Democrats until and unless they pass his voter suppression bill, the Save America Act, and or kill the filibuster and just pass the legislation by a simple majority. And like, you know, Republicans in the Senate and in Congress at large are not known to be like those of the steelyest backbone. But I kind of wonder how you see like, I mean, it's just like everybody is looking at Trump and saying this clown has grossly mismanaged our affairs.

Why should we be listening to him again? I mean, do you think, what's your kind of assessment of how much all of this international gobbledygook, which is putting it mildly, this chaos impacts his ability to puppeteer his, you know, allies slash lackeys on the hill? Well, one of the rules of the jungle is that when somebody looks weak, when somebody is bloodied. That's when you pounce. That's when you say, oh, okay, if you want to live in a transactional world, we'll live in a transactional world. So to tie it together, for instance, to the Russia scenario, one of the things that we're hearing is that Russia has said, okay, you need us

right now. So what we're going to do is ask you to stop giving intelligence to the Ukrainians in return for us to stop giving intelligence to the Iranians on where vessels are located in the Middle least, which is an insane thing for the United States to do, but maybe in the option set for somebody like Donald Trump. You'd apply it to domestic politics. Right now, you've got Republicans who are saying, this man is weak. This man is exposing us, perhaps, to political risk as we get closer and closer to the midterms. You've got some Republicans who came out of the White House last night and said, look, we think that we're going to be able to just pass the parts of the BHS buzzet that are not ICE, not deportation.

Yes. And then we'll do all the rest of it in reconciliation. Right. They're like, hush little baby, hush little baby. Your Save America Act, we'll deal with that. We'll deal with that in reconciliation. I'm not a Senate parliamentarian, but they're like, hush, hush, hush, hush, hush, little baby.

Well, and even Mike Lee, you know, from you, he couldn't even like say the quiet part quietly. He actually tweeted out. He was like, that'll never pass reconciliation. He's the author of the same bill. I think we're seeing both on the domestic front and on the foreign front, that this is a man who didn't do the reading, is now frantically trying to figure out how to solve multiple problems on multiple fronts. He's spread very thin. And with friends like these, you can imagine how easy it gets.

Can we call the name of this? Trump is naked in the jungle? I mean, I know that it's going to generate all kinds of terrifying AI memes, but I think it's. You nailed it with that one, Evan. It's time, Alex. I think it's time for that to become a thing. You're right. I think you've been on this podcast is about to be a thing.

Thank you for taking time out of this busy, insane cluster of a newsday to offer your wisdom and analysis, buddy. It's really great to talk to you. It's really great to have you. Thank you for doing this. My pleasure. Thanks for having me. If you are watching this video right now and you are not subscribed, what are even doing?

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