Morning Joe - Some GOP and conservatives blast Trump's Iran deal

Episode Date: June 18, 2026

June 18, 2026 — 8am: Some GOP and conservatives blast Trump's Iran deal To listen to this show and other MS podcasts without ads, sign up for MS NOW Premium on Apple Podcasts. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

It's a memorandum of understanding. If it doesn't get done in 60 days, it's all right. We go back to bombing. You know, I don't want to do that because it's so good. But we might have to because we're never going to let them have a nuclear weapon. But they've agreed not to, and you'll see that very clearly in the agreement. What? What? What? It's like I'm going to give you a gift and I'll bomb you if you don't take the gift that I'm giving you.

Right. President Trump yesterday repeatedly threatening to bomb Iran if the country violated the memorandum of understanding, which has finally been released. The president is defending the deal amid widespread criticism here at home, with one Republican senator calling it the worst foreign policy blunder in decades. The agreement appears to give Iran everything it wants in exchange for opening up the Strait of Hormuz, which was wide over. before Trump started the war in late February. While Trump tries to spin the terms as a big win, here are the key items. Iran gets its sanctions lifted, gets access to hundreds of billions of dollars in reconstruction funds, and can now sell its oil across the world. Tehran's nuclear program also stays at its status quo, while negotiations continue for the next six.

60 days. Whatever happened to Iran can never have a nuclear weapons capability. Good morning and welcome to morning, Joe. It is Thursday, June 18th, along with Joe, Willie and me. We have the co-host of our 8 a.m. hour staff writer at the Atlantic, Jonathan Lemire, MS now senior national security reporter David Rode, retired CIA officer and MSNAN national security and intelligence analyst, Mark Polymeropoulos, and senior writer at the dispatch, and a columnist at Bloomberg opinion, David Drucker. Joe, I am aghast. Agast, a gas, gas, gas. Well, you know, just a couple things. Again, this is, it's very surprising because you usually slow and steady gets at Mika. Usually still waters run deep,

but not in this case, Mika. This is a first time you're going to be upset at what's been going on over the past decade. A couple of things, Willie, that bear repeating for the uninitiated, and certainly for some people that are listening to what Donald Trump's saying right now, that, oh, they've agreed not to have a nuclear weapon. This is the same position they have had for 50 years. This is the Wall Street Journal editorial page. And everybody else will tell you, it is the same exact position that they've had for 50 years. Secondly, why would Iran not take this deal. This memorandum of understanding, as David Rode

is reporting, and we'll talk to him about in a second and everybody else is reporting. This is a dream. They can't believe they got what they got from Donald Trump. And just a couple of things from the Wall Street Journal editorial page. Iran will demand even more, the Wall Street Journal editorial page says this morning. And if Mr. Trump is as desperate to end the conflict as he has sounded lately, he's going to give it. He sounds desperate.

He sounds like he's going to do anything to end this conflict. The people of Israel feel betrayed this morning. Republicans are horrified. Some will say it out loud. Some will not. And you could just go down the list of all the things he said we were going to do at the beginning of this war. And it just hasn't been done. And this MOU takes us in the opposite direction, showering them with maybe half a trillion dollars of money up front.

If you add all the things up that the Wall Street Journal was talking about yesterday. And then beyond that, they get to rebuild their economy and act as if they're Luxembourg, as if they're not the epicenter of international terrorism because Donald Trump says they can. Yeah, that Wall Street Journal catalogs, president, that op-ed catalogs, president by president from Jimmy Carter forward, all the attempts by both Democrats and Republicans over the years to find the moderates in Iran and finally say, we're going to be the administration that engages with Iran. They're going to act like a normal country, which is the term now that Vice President J.D. Vance is using. He says, if Iran acts like a normal country, this will be a good deal

for everyone. Well, history tells us that the mullahs have no interest in Iran being a normal country. They have an agenda that they're pushing around the world. So David wrote, I mean, you look at the particulars of all this. Sanctions lifted, oil flowing out of Iran already. Some of those ships are already moving. They can get those tens of billions of dollars back. The $300 billion investment fund. We had the president of the United States. We'll dig into this a little bit later, saying, well, I've got to let them keep some missiles. It's not fair. Saudi Arabia, and other Gulf states have missiles. We got to keep the playing field even,

which people's, whether you're a Republican or Democrat, made people's heads explode. But he called in the early days of this war for unconditional surrender of Iran. He called for regime change. He said they could not have a nuclear weapon. Is any of that achieved in this memorandum of understanding? No, not in any way, shape, or form.

It's essentially an agreement to reopen the Strait of Hormuz on Iran's terms. Iran will be able, there's some language, in there that they basically can't charge this toll that they've talked about for so long. This gives them immense power. Trump said if they don't, you know, go along with the negotiations way we want, we're going to start bombing them again. What will they do if we start bombing them?

Close the straight of four moves. And the bombing didn't work. And we'll talk about this one. I'll keep it short. But I would like to speak this morning at some point. President Trump is the person most responsible for this strategic defeat and failure. But I would argue the person's second most responsible who is in the most dangerous position politically, his defense secretary Pete Hegseth. He repeatedly lied to the American public in his

press conferences about the progress of the war, and he also refused to give basic information to members of Congress. There's a lot of ill will among senators and House members towards Pete Hegseth. And I just, I have our notes that Jonathan and I covered the press conferences every day, and it's just astonishing. The U.S. was raining death, fire, and fury onto the Iranians. endless. This is not mission creep mocking former president's administrations. The aftermath of this is going to be in our interest. And most importantly, he said Iran is exercising sheer desperation in the Strait of Hormuz. Did he warn the president about Strait of Hormuz before this war? Was he honest with the American public? And to the 50,000 Americans who risked their lives

and the 13 soldiers who died, you know, his performance is just something that has to be looked at. And interesting, Joe, we haven't seen the Defense Secretary in public much since those podium-banging news briefings that he would give every week where he'd lecture the media about how to cover the war, what was actually happening. And from all the reporting that he would show the President of the United States an iPad with things blowing up to show that they were doing well, it turns out this is a much, much more complicated problem than can be solved by blowing things up. Well, showing him an iPad with things blowing up, putting out memes from Hollywood movies. our cartoons, and that was supposed to substitute as basically communications coming out of the Pentagon or out of the White House about how this war, all of it ended up being a lie. I mean, we have looked back at the lies told by the Pentagon during the Vietnam War with William Westmoreland, and of course, that came over years.

But the damage that over the past several months that has put us where we are this morning, where Iran is going to be a behemoth in the region. With this money, with this MOU, if we do follow through on this MOU, Iran will be more powerful than they've ever been. The Iranians know it and are jubilant about this victory that they've achieved, and they're calling it what it is for them a victory. The Saudis yesterday who were compared to Iran, I'm sure they love that, where Donald Trump says, well, of course Iran needs to have ballistic missiles. I mean, if Saudi Arabia has ballistic missiles, how the hell can I tell Iran they can't have ballistic missiles? Really? Well, you know, because just about a month or two ago, it was Pete Hagsith telling us that all the ballistic missiles had been destroyed.

They're giving some percent of kill. 70 percent are gone. 80 percent. We have reduced it to crime. And Donald Trump telling reporters that anybody else who would listen that they don't love America, that they're rooting against the troops, if we admit that the Iranians still have, ballistic missile capability. Now he's admitting it. They're all admitting it. And Jonathan Lemire, Donald Trump has a much bigger problem than with the lefties in the progressive caucus

in the House and the Senate. He's got problems with his own Republicans. He's got problems with conservatives. He's got, for good reason, problems with the Wall Street Journal editorial page. and he's got problems inside his own administration from people who rightly see this as a betrayal. And those who see this as a betrayal have actually read history. And they understand with the Wall Street Journal's Strangestay. And I'm going to say, I don't know. I don't know who taught J.D. Vance at some of the nation's best institutions, right? But they need to get their diplomas back because we learned from Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan

that he was pushing for the Insurrection Act before a lawyer inside the White House had to tell the Yale law school graduate, no, we can't do that. And he's like, oh, okay. And now he's going around talking about Iran like it's a normal country. Well, as if they're Luxembourg. And as Wall Street Journal editorial pages said, again, as Willie said, they take us through every president since 1979. that has tried to find the moderates. We've always joked throughout the war about trying to find the moderates in Iran

and how there are not those moderates in Iran who get to power or else they get killed. And so J.D. Vance keeps talking about the moderates in Iran and the Wall Street Journal rightly says every president that has given Iran a good deal thinking that they're going to get the moderates to move forward in Iran. What's happened? well, what's happening, Iran has used the money to invest in terrorism, to invest in spreading global

terrorism across the region and across the world. And it's happened for 47 years. And now that they see a weak president who is scared to continue this fight in their eyes, they understand. They can get whatever they want. The latest example of this administration, not knowing its history, even a small one, President Trump signed the memorandum of understanding last night at Versailles. I don't know. Treaties signed in Versailles have not tended to work out well over the last hundred years or so. And you're right, there's no one, no one who actually likes this deal.

Even President Trump's efforts to spin it seem for him fairly half-hearted. I should note, he flew back from France last night. He's still up posting on truth. social, trying to defend it. Iran Hawks, deeply disappointed. We have seen an open rebellion on the right administration going after, like Ted Cruz and others. Lindsay Graham, of course, found a way to get there to support Trump, though he is putting

a skeptical eye on Vice President Vance because Vance has become the face of these negotiations in recent days. I mean, you just tick through it. None of the war goals were accomplished. Iran comes out of this stronger than before. The hardliners are empowered. they have more control of the Strait of Hormuz. They're about to get a windfall in order to rebuild their country.

And there's certainly no sense that they will stop supporting their proxies in the region who terrorize others. Israel has been checked, it appears, in its ability to respond, which is another real part of this, Joe. And this is, you know, President Trump, this shows desperation that he is now the latest president than Iran has humbled. But he understands that this war was careening off the tracks. the American economy about to go with it, and he decided to take whatever deal he could, even a bad one, to bring it to a close. And he was warned not to do it. He was warned by multiple people not to do it.

He was warned by history not to do it. He was warned by David Ignatius, and I will say the rest of us on this show every day, that Iran was not Venezuela. He moved forward anyway. And Mark Palomaropolis, the signing of Versailles, most unfortunate, because as we all grew up learning, and I'm not sure anybody the administration has read any history, but if they had, they would understand that many people believe that World War II began because the Germans were forced to pay so much in reparations at the end of World War I.

Here's a fun little fact, though. The United States is paying Iran more in war reparations. Under this deal, then Kaiser Wilhelm I, the second, paid the United States. allied powers at Versailles in 1919. What we're doing here is an abject surrender. There's no talking your way out of it. That's what it is. And the reparations we are paying Iran through the $300 million that the United States guarantees. The billion, $300 billion, the $100 billion, the Wall Street Journal writes about it unfrozen funds, the $60 billion a year that they can now make every single year off of their oil industry, because we're lifting all sanctions under this MOU. The United States

is paying Iran more in war reparations in 26 than Kaiser Wilhelm II, and a defeated Germany at the end of World War I agreed to pay out at Versailles. That's how bad this deal is. And there's a reason why Marco Rubio hasn't talked about it over the past several days. So, Joe, I just got back from Europe. I was actually at a conference of historians from the United States, from Europe, and actually some Iranian academics as well. I think you're entirely right. It's almost as if the administration doesn't read about history. whatsoever. I talked to an oil analyst yesterday, and he said, along with all of the things you talked about in terms of Iranian getting this infusion of cash, and that could be over time, one of the

things that happens almost immediately is an infusion of several billion right off the bat. So they are ecstatic now, as you noted, all of these kind of grandiose, maximalist war aims of the administration are certainly who have not been met. The Israelis are kind of an apoplectic meltdown for good reason, because all of a sudden, the key Iranian progress, Hezbollah is almost given a free reign to strike Israel. That's something that Israeli defense planners are very nervous about. But I want to say something that I think is really important. It has been 156 days. I counted since January 13th. And January 13th is when Trump told the Iranian people, quote, help is on its way, when thousands were out in the streets and then they got

massacred. So along with all the reasons on why we have strengthened Iran as a rival in the region, we have betrayed the Iranian people. And that's something that I think is Trump is going to have to live with. Again, 156 days in that statement, and we have done nothing for the Iranian people. In fact, we have strengthened the regime. That's something that, I think, for a lot of us, it's pretty hard to stomach. Coming up, we'll get a live report from Chicago ahead of today's star-studded grand opening of the Obama Presidential Center. You're watching morning, Joe. We'll be right back. The details that I've seen so far look awful. This will go down as a tremendous foreign policy blunder. Iran ends up stronger. Our allies in the region are weaker.

And Iran has learned that if they're willing to grab that straight of our moves and choke it off, they can get the Western world to dance to their tune. I think it's a deep mistake. I mean, you know, these Republicans, President Trump is getting some major pushback and sharp criticism for the Iran deal, as he calls it, from fellow Republicans and conservatives like Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana. He posted on social media stating, quote, Reagan is rolling over in his grave. Iran's nuclear ambitions were not curbed, and they have learned that threatening the Strait of Hormuz works and will undoubtedly leverage it in the future. Now Iran gets to build brand new infrastructure under this deal. He continues before the war, the strait was open. Iran was being

crushed by sanctions, and 13 service members were still alive. Now, 13 Americans are dead. Families have paid billions at the pump. Sanctions will be lifted, and the bombing has stopped. This is the worst foreign policy blunder in decades. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas blasted the plan to send billions to Iran, telling the Daily Wire, quote, what has been released so far suggests that unfortunately the president is getting, I think, very poor advice when it comes to this deal. That money, if it goes to the Ayatollah, will go to fund terrorists trying to kill Americans and weapons that will be used to try and kill Americans. And it also appears to formalize a permanent role for the Islamic regime. Controlling the Strait of War moves,

it is difficult to see what possible benefit to America could come from that. And David Drucker, I'm curious, is it at all possible? Any voters would believe what we saw, which was the president trying to make it look like he would bomb Iran if they didn't take this incredible, I can't even call it a deal because they're getting everything they want. more. Yeah, I mean, look, we'll have to see how voters process this. I think, you know, what we're seeing from Republicans on the Hill, I think you just had a good couple of bookends there, right? You have one United States senator who is speaking his mind about President Trump and the deal because he lost the primary after President Trump endorsed his opponent. And then we have Senator Ted Cruz, who's, you know, spoke very candidly about the deal,

right? But now we're back to the president whose name shall, you know, who shall not be named, right? We're back to Voldemort here. Or this idea that a very strong and decisive leader who will do things nobody else will do was somehow railroaded into this deal because he's getting very poor advice, right? So which is it here? I mean, the guy knows what he's doing and is in charge of his faculties or he's not. And it's indicative of what we're seeing across the broader right and not just on Capitol Hill.

We talked about this before, but there were so many Republicans in Congress and center-right thinkers who have believed that after nearly 50 years, the action President Trump took going to war against Iran with Israel was a courageous decision, was the right decision, and the United States needed to see it through, right? And they were very gratified by the president's policy here. and now they're going through the, you know, the 35 stages of brief, which is, if this is true, it's going to be really bad. Well, I don't know if it's true because I haven't seen the text. I'm not going to react until I've seen the text. All right, well, I've seen the text. Right. And now that I've looked at the text, maybe it's really not so bad because, look, he did say he'll bomb them if they don't follow through.

There are others who are just very honest about their disappointment, about their disappointment with both President Trump and the deal. But it's a real mixed bag politically. I'll just say the president boxed himself in here because this is what happens when you don't make a public case for major military action. The president never asked for the support of the American people, for the support of the Congress, for support from our allies. And so when things inevitably bogged down because we were only willing to do so much militarily for understandable political reasons, the president didn't have any out. allies and friends with skin in the game who were there to back up the policy and see it through. And that's part of why he ended up looking for a get out of jail free card here. And it's why the vice president is selling this and not Secretary Rubio, a la after Venezuela.

Yeah, I mean, you've got J.D. Vance talking like Iran is Luxembourg. It's humiliating for him. to be running around doing that. David Rode, we've all said that Donald Trump made the mistake early on of not telling the American people why we're going to war, not being clear. He finally settled, though, on what? A nuclear program. They can never have a nuclear program. What did Donald Trump say yesterday? They've already said.

Talked about the ballistic missiles. And what he's saying at this front is bad, really, is what's in the MOU. Because as it comes to ballistic missiles, the thing that our allies in that region are the most concerned about right now, Donald Trump said, well, if Saudi Arabia has ballistic missiles, well, my good friends, the Iranians should have ballistic missiles. How can you say? And he did say this. How can you say that the Saudis can have ballistic missiles when the Iranians can't? Why, that's not fair. And then on nukes, on the issue, that he said was the key thing they can't have a nuclear program. I wrote it down here. He said it's hard when their neighbors have nuclear programs, and you're not letting them have a nuclear program for electricity and things like that. This is what the Iranians have been lying about for 47 years.

They've been saying for 47 years, oh, no, no, we're not going to build a bomb. We're not going to. They've been saying that for half a century. Say, this is just for electricity. If the Saudis can have it for electricity, if Israel are going to have, then we should be able to have nuclear power for electricity. Donald Trump is literally lifting the words from every Ayatollah that has ever run that country while building a nuclear program.

So it's one of the reasons why the Israelis are. horrified at the betrayal. Our allies in the region are horrified at the betrayal. None of them will say it, but they are. It's why Republicans on the Hill are horrified by the betrayal. It's why like-minded thinkers with Wall Street Journal editorial are horrified by the betrayal. Not just what he put on the MOU, which is about $500 billion in war reparations against, signed at Versailles, the bitter irony about that, but also what he's saying, saying, well, if America's allies have nuclear programs or have ballistic missiles in the region, then it's just makes common sense to let the Iranians do it too. It's extraordinary. There's the launch of

the war, the management of the war, and even the way he's trying to spin this deal, I'm sure horrified some of his age what he said yesterday. The bottom line is that this is Donald Trump himself. I with a former administration official. And in his second term, he has no large national security council. He doesn't really listen to any of his AIDS. It's a tiny circle. And he makes these decisions. He feels he has more foreign policy experience now as a second term president.

This MOU shows he does not. This is, I agree with Senator Cancer. This is Senator, excuse me, Cassidy. This is one of the largest American foreign policy blunders in decades. And this is Donald Trump's fault. his arrogance, bluntly speaking, and his complete misreading of the region and what it's like to go to war there. Mark Polly Marappos, take us to Tel Aviv this morning and what Bibi Netanyahu must be thinking, that he got his man in the White House and Donald Trump, that he went to the situation room, sold the war successfully.

He thought that Donald Trump, the United States military, would come in and finish off Iran, take out the regime. And now he sits here this morning with this memorandum of understanding anyway, with explicitly, language that says there can be no attacks on Lebanon. Israel has said that doesn't include us. We'll see what Donald Trump has to say to the prime minister. But where does all this leave Israel? So the Israelis I speak with are in a state of panic. One former Mossade official said literally, I can't believe this is happening. But in some ways, they should have known better. And one analyst actually told me, look, you know, Benjamin Netanyahu decided to ride the tiger. That's Donald Trump. And the tiger just turned around and just bit him on the rear end. And like many of us

predicted he would because Trump was no dedicated, you know, a savior. He was not the Messiah for Israelis too transactional. And let me just add one quick thing, Willie. Let's not forget, at the end of the Biden administration, if you calculate what President Biden did after October 7th, he gave the Israelis $18 billion in military aid, yet somehow he is seen as not a supporter of Israel. That was preposterous. And right now, I think the Israelis are realizing that Trump was not who they thought he was and that this MOU actually puts them in a very precarious national security situation, particularly with terms of ballistic missiles and what to do about Hizbollah, a terrorist entity sitting on their northern border.

Huff. Mark Palomaropoulos, David Rode, David Drucker, thank you all very much for coming on this morning. And we'll be right back with much more Morning Joe. Welcome back. President Trump's namesake building in Chicago could soon have a new address. A petition to rename the street where the Trump Tower is located to Barack, who's San Obama Avenue has reached more than 25,000 signatures. The Chicago City Council would have to approve the change to legally rename the street, and the city does not allow living people to receive honorary street names. This may not happen, but if it were, I'm sure President Trump would be delighted.

We are just hours away from the dedication and grand opening of that city, Chicago's newest landmark, the Obama Presidential Center. The 19-acre campus is located on Chicago's south side. It includes a public library, a playground, community spaces, and a museum. Former President's Biden, Bush, and Clinton are all expected to attend today's ceremony, along with a star-studded list of performers to help kick off a weekend celebration coinciding with the Juneteenth holiday. Let's now go live to Chicago and bring in MSNNOWD, NAMD, good to see you. Tell us more about today's festivities and what people can expect.

when they get a chance to visit the brand new Obama Center. You know, you use the term star-studded, and that is accurate in describing what we're going to see here in just a couple hours. Things are expected to kick off around noon, and let me tell you it's not every day a work assignment turns into a music festival, but that's what today feels like.

We're going to see performances by Christina Aguilera, by Bono, by Stevie Wonder, John Legend, Jennifer Hudson, TEMS, a personal favorite of mine. The list goes on. There will also be shout-outs for the former presidents you listed that are attending, as well as the first ladies that are coming. So with a guest list that looks like that, just with the amount of diplomats, dignitaries, officials, celebrities that are coming, you can imagine security was a top concern. MS now actually got to talk to James Morley.

He is the Secret Service head who was oversaw all the security planning for today's event. He said it started six months ago. Take it listen to some of the work he said that went into that planning. We have support from federal, state, and local partners, law enforcement. You have support from federal, see the anti-scale fencing here. We'll have vehicle checkpoints, magnetometers. There'll be tactical assets, some that the public will see and some that they won't. We'll have drones providing Overwatch. We have a temporary fright restriction in place that were restricted access from aircraft and drones. So it is a very comprehensive security plan. Now let me tell you about the experience just coming in today. The first thing you see is that

playground. It is a huge space complete with slides. beautiful gardens. And then you see the home court, which I was told as a personal favorite of the president. It's that NBA-sized regulation basketball court. And it's actually across the street from a local high school, which speaks to its purpose to be sort of a youth organizing and meeting place. Once you actually get in here, you see a branch of the Chicago Public Library here on the campus that's going to feature what's called the presidential reading room. That's going to have more than 3,000 books that are personal favorites of the president and first lady. The area you see behind me is called John Lewis Plaza.

It's sort of the area that connects the different buildings of this museum. And then to the right of me is the gigantic museum itself. It looks like the Stonehenge to me. But that has several floors. It's going to tick through the Obama presidency, American history, and encourages the next generation of leaders to still allow hope to derive them in their work. So a full show ahead of us. Things are, of course, going to open to the public tomorrow.

And we are respecting a lot of people, a lot of excitement as things get underway here. just a couple of hours. We can hear the sound check behind you. In fact, it's already proven to be a popular attraction seeing yesterday tickets sold out through November. So people want to see the Obama Center as it begins to open. MS Now reporter NAMD Ingaw, live for us from Chicago this morning. Thank you so very much.

And today at 11 a.m. Eastern, MS. Now will be live from Chicago for the grand opening of the Obama Presidential Center. And then tomorrow night, Michelle Norris will host a special behind-the-scenes look inside that center, which features exclusive interviews with the former president, former First Lady Michelle Obama, as well as members of their inner circle. Again, today's live coverage will begin at 11am Eastern right here on MS now. Let's take a look now at some of the other stories making headlines this morning, beginning with hundreds of Ukrainian drones striking an oil refinery near Moscow earlier today.

It looks to be the largest attack on the cap that capital city since the war for began. Officials say at least 16 people in the Moscow area were injured. That strike was part of a multi-wave, wide-reaching operation across Russia. The footage of the oil refinery attack remarkable seeing some of the explosions caused by those drones. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court here in the United States is entering the final few days of its term with some major landmark decisions potentially coming as soon as later today. The justices are expected to hand down 20 remaining decisions on issues ranging from Trump's presidential power, birthright citizenship, and other curbs on immigration, as well as the rights of transgender athletes, and much more.

Now, the court, of course, does not announce in advance which decisions are coming, and it often drops blockbuster decisions in the final days before its summer recent. So we've still got a little time here. We, of course, will be watching and will bring you live any developments. Coming up ahead on Morning Joe, President Trump is back at the White House this morning after leaving the G7 summit in France with a preliminary agreement to end the war with Iran. MS now's Akele Gartner will join us from the White House North Lawn. Plus, we're also going to bring you a live report from Switzerland, where negotiators

are scheduled to host an official signing ceremony later this week. Morning Joe, we'll be right back. We reached an agreement with Iran that achieves everything we set out to accomplish everything and much more. Ending the current conflict, reopening the Strait of Hormuz and preventing Iran from ever obtaining a nuclear weapon. That's what was all about. They have a new group of leaders that I think is, actually I think they're smarter. I think they're very smart. I think they're far less radicalized.

and I think they're really good. They love their country. You know, the stock market is more brilliant than anybody there is, including the people on this stage, other than me, of course. The one president I did not want to be was the late-great Herbert Hoover. I didn't want that.

I made it very tougher than when I terminated the Barack Hussein Obama catastrophe. J-C., P-O-A, one of the worst. deals. Naftnaf might have been worse, but that was worse economically. This deal was really dangerous what he did. He gave them everything, including a lot of money, which we don't give them, by the way. No president in history has ever been tougher on a run than I have, and they know that. President Trump yesterday at the G7 summit trying to defend the deal with Iran, doing so in some part with outright lies. Trump is now back at the White House, while representatives from

the U.S. and Iran, along with mediators from Pakistan and Qatar, are expected to meet in Switzerland tomorrow for initial negotiations. Let's bring in MS Now White House reporter Akala Gardner at the White House and MS now international reporter Inez de la Quatera, who joins us live from Geneva, Switzerland. Thanks to you both for being here. Enes, let's start with you. We just played from you a little bit of the president's news conference yesterday in France. He then went on to actually sign the M.O. you in Versailles, sort of an odd choice for a treaty signing considering its history. What else jumped out from you yesterday and preview for us what will happen there in Switzerland tomorrow? Yes, I mean, this G7 was really all about Iran. President Trump spent most of his time here

defending his deal with Iran, both in conversations with world leaders and members of the press. So he did hold that roughly 70-minute-long press conference yesterday where he took some questions from reporters, not many. But something that struck me is that he talked, you know, over and over again about the economy. You played it there. He talked about how he didn't want to be like Herbert Hoover, who was, of course, blamed for the Great Depression. So he seemed to suggest that the reason he's making this deal is because he wants the economy to get back on track. He's obviously very mindful of that ahead of the midterms. And so that was something that kept coming up. The other thing that struck me was him talking about how it might be okay for Iran to obtain

missiles. That's obviously a big departure from prior comments. He'd made. And then in terms of the reaction here at the G7, so world leaders have gone out of their way to praise this deal. It's unclear whether or not they actually mean it. So we heard, for example, from the French president that he thinks this is a very good deal. It could be that world leaders are just trying to turn the page on Iran and cozy up to Trump and try to get him to turn his focus back to issues they care about like Ukraine because, of course, they went into this G7 summit with a strained relationship with President Trump because of Iran, because they had refused to get involved in the war.

And you mentioned, you know, Versailles is kind of an odd place for a treaty. That's very much something we're seeing in the French media. They're mocking the fact that this treaty was signed at Versailles, pointing to the 1919-Versight treaty, which, of course, was supposed to end World War I, but kind of set the stage for World War II. And so the symbolism there, not ideal. All right. So let's hear more from President Trump's nearly 70-minute news conference yesterday at the

closed the G7 summit in France. He claimed that the agreement forces Iran to give us. up. It's highly enriched uranium, which could, of course, be used for a nuclear weapon. And then, as Inez just said, he defended Iran's right to have ballistic missiles. So they'll work closely with us to turn over the so-called enriched material that's very deep in the bowels of the earth, very deep. Nobody can get it. So it's not important that we do it quickly, but we could do it fairly quickly. When we have a chance, we'll do it. But in the meantime, we have cameras on every inch of it.

Nobody can do it. And if they do, we'll hit them with Patriots, that's all. And they'll be gone. And they know that. Technical discussions and the removal of all stockpiles of enriched materials will begin immediately. We're going to start that immediately. So we'll be

working on a parallel effort with the Gulf Nations to address non-nuclear issues, such as the conventional ballistic missiles, which we'll be talking about, and support. I mean, they have to have some because other people have some. You've got to have some.

Sir, you shouldn't let them have any missile. I said, well, what am I going to do? Are we going to let Saudi Arabia have missiles, but they can't have them? Yes, sir. It doesn't work that way, you know? It doesn't work that way. And missiles aren't the problem. Missiles are, they hurt a little location, but they don't blow up the planet.

Akela, some jaws dropped hearing that yesterday. It's not just that President Trump did not achieve. really any of his war goals in this conflict now he's rapidly running away from them the president has broken so many promises the list is incredibly long you heard him talking about missiles yesterday from the very beginning of this conflict we heard from the president and multiple members of his team that that was a primary objective to prevent Iran from having this threat to their neighboring Gulf allies and Israel that threat still exists and one of the biggest takeaway for me yesterday, and Ines pointing this out too, is the president really acknowledging that the

economy and the Strait of Ramos was the reason why he's ultimately signing this agreement. He has downplayed the economy throughout this conflict and talked about bombing as this really real source of leverage. And even in the same breadth of him talking about this agreement, he is still threatening to use force. And I think it's very important to underscore that U.S. officials are really saying that the two sides could walk away at any. point, this is not a binding agreement. They called it a gentleman's agreement yesterday. So there was a tremendous amount of risk. They're putting a lot of weight on Switzerland and talks that could potentially happen there. But there's no mistake that this agreement really is a

departure from President Trump's promises. MSNOW White House reporter Akala Gardner. Thank you. And MSNNNASD. NADYANTELA Quatera reporting live from Switzerland. Thank you as well. And as the White House tries to spin this deal, which is anything but a victory, in fact, as I wrote for the Atlantic yesterday, this is a significant defeat for President Trump, accomplished none of its war goals and left America weaker, economically, militarily, strategically. But the White House is trying to spin it. In fact, they just announced that Vice President J.D. Vance will be holding a briefing at the White House. He'll handle the briefing today in the briefing room at 11 a.m. Eastern as they continue to try to suggest this. is a win when really all it does at best is return the straight and four moves to the status quo, but yet Iran has shown they can close it at any time. Iran has threatened that they will exact

some sort of tolls or fees. There's nuke program, untouched, sanctions and financial relief coming. This was a defeat. That does it for us this morning. We, of course, we'll have more for you tomorrow at 6 a.m. Eastern. Money power politics with Stephanie Rule is up next after a short final break.