Morning Joe - Trump is at the G7 Summit as major questions remain about the agreement between the U.S. & Iran

Episode Date: June 16, 2026

June 16. 2026 - 6am: Trump is at the G7 Summit as major questions remain about the agreement between the U.S. & Iran California Governor Gavin Newsom says he and his wife are being investigated by the DOJ Preview of key Republican primary runoff elections today in Georgia Trump touts the upcoming July 4th event on the National Mall celebrating the country's 250th Anniversary  Arnold Schwarzenegger joins MJ from the Austrian World Summit taking place right now in Vienna     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.

All right, we've got live pictures from the G7 summit in France, where President Trump is set to meet with world leaders right now. He's sitting with the Emir of Qatar. He's been talking kind of off the cuff about the war in Ukraine and also about his Iran deal, talking about how his Iran deal is better than President Obama's Iran deal. And also addressed the issue of regime change, seeming to sort of change his position. on whether that needs to happen, has happened. We can listen in a little bit. We've been monitoring it for anything of news value. Let's dip in for a few seconds.

We'll come out in just a moment. But he didn't name in Israel, much less. He aimed at your countries. And actually, that was a mistake for them because it brought us, these countries, in particular, the five countries. It brought us, I mean, he even had Turkey once. I never understood it.

Nobody's going to understand it. That's the problem. They're totally irrational people. And those people are now done. And I think Iran has rational leadership now. But you wouldn't have, if it weren't for the United States of America, with me, because Obama was the opposite. Okay.

This is one of the things, Mika, that is so concerning to so many even Republicans on Capitol Hill and anybody that has followed Iran since 1979 and the revolution. You know, we don't know what's in this document, which in and of itself is a very strange thing. If you have a peace deal that's so great, and color bars up in France, if you have a peace still that is so great that's going to bring peace to the world, that's going to bring peace to Iran, then show it. Show it to the world. Again, we still are hearing very little about it.

Even Lindsey Graham said it's hard to support a deal when the only thing you hear about the deal comes from Iran. That's the first thing. The second thing is, we don't know what's going to happen. You never know how history unfolds. We don't know if this war ultimately will bring positive change to Iran

five, 10, 20 years from now. Who knows? Who knows? Maybe it does what we do know, right now, though, is that the negotiators had a, we're in a losing situation because America was in an extraordinarily weakened state as far as negotiating goes. And so we have no deal on nukes, which Donald Trump said. That's a whole reason he went in there. He did talk about regime change, but nothing there. We have, we have no deal on the straight other than possibly

opening it up. But even there, it's very murky. The Iranians talking about charging some sort of toll 60 days in. You have talk of a possible $300 billion reconstruction fund, which is just extraordinarily dangerous. And we'll talk about why moving up. But this is the most concerning part. Donald Trump just called the most extreme members of the Revolutionary Guard rational. This is exactly what Israel was concerned about. This is exactly what his critics in America were concerned about. This is exactly what Republicans were concerned about. This is exactly what Iran Hawks were concerned about that he would be so desperate that he would bend over backwards to sell a really bad deal. So he's saying that Iran is rational. J.D. Vance yesterday went on TV and said,

gee whiz, the great thing here is, basically, these Iranians, they've decided it's cool. They're going to change their way. Listen, when we are attacked, when horrible things happen, what do we say? We say never again. We say never forget. And we double down and make sure we'll never be that vulnerable again. That's what the Iranians are saying right now to themselves. They're not saying, gee whiz, we've seen the era in our way. I mean, these are Islamic, these are the most radical of the most radical that have now taken control because we killed their leaders. We killed their supreme leader. We killed their top political leaders. We killed their top military leaders. And now the most radical Iranians have taken over this country.

And they're not saying forget the fact that they killed all our leaders. They're not saying forget the revolution in 79, which shaped their entire life and worldview. They're not forgetting the chance for 47 years of death to America, death to Israel. They're not forgetting that we back the Shah of Iran, who was a dictator and a thug and tortured Iranians for a generation. They're not forgetting 1953, Mosaday, and the United States going in and overthrowing their government. They're not forgetting any of that. And so when you have Donald Trump, the president of the United States going on TV and saying, these are rational guys, please, accept my deal that we did in desperation. These are rational guys. Yeah. And when you have

J.D. Vads saying, hey, they've seen the errors of their way. I mean, J.D. said everything, but they were going to become members of the Southern Baptist Convention. It's really embarrassing for them. I'm embarrassed for them. It's humiliating for the United States throughout the entire region. What does Israel? What does the UAE? What do countries all across that region think when they hear Donald Trump say, oh, the most radical members of the Revolutionary Guard are rational people. What do they think when J.D. Vant says, gee, whiz, it's great that they've changed their way. What they're saying is, these people are so desperate for a deal, are either so horribly, horribly naive that they're a danger to our region, a danger to the world. And so there's an

attempt to oversell this, and it's going, it's, it's just not going to go well. Well, I think also there's a lot to learn here in this moment, Republicans, if you're watching, and if you're listening to the president and other world leaders, President Trump responds to strength by backing down and paying them off. Like, the Iranians have been mocking and pushing back at Trump ever since this war began. For three months now, they have been saying, we don't think the way you do. No, you won't. No, no, no, at every turn, they don't care. They don't care what he says. He cannot wave a wand and make it go away. And I think it's fair to say that whatever wand he's waving now may not be exactly what Ron will ultimately put up with. That's been so far,

the blueprint that we've seen since he decided to go to war with Iran. But he responds to strength differently, and it's worth taking note because the Iranians right now here, again, still have the upper hand. And he's bragging about a deal that nobody has seen being better than the deal that President Obama put in place. And I have a lot of questions about that, Joe. Well, we all have a lot of questions. And I've yet to talk to a foreign policy person who thinks this is a, quote, better deal than what Barack Obama had in large part, because we don't know what the deal is. Obama, what did Obama give? One point five billion. We're talking about $300 billion here that the Iranians are going to be rewarded for if they go through this process. Well, listen,

let's talk to other people about this. The co-hosts of our 8 a.m. hour staff writer at the Atlantic, Jonathan O'Meer is here. Politics Bureau Chief and Senior Political Political Columnist at Politico, Jonathan Martins here. Also, colonists and associate editor of the Washington Post, David Ignatius, with us. David, we're going to take everybody through the news, but just really quickly. And we're also going to get to your fascinating story about, I love Jared Kushner's line, okay, well, if you want a Rolls-Roy still, you're going to have to give us a Rolls-Roy's price. I'll let you explain that in a little bit. But just, a remarkable behind the scenes look at those negotiations. I would guess even some negotiating might be wincing

at what they're hearing from the president and the vice president. When the president calls the most radical faction of the Revolutionary Guard now running the country, quote, rational people as he just did five minutes ago. But also J.D. Vance saying, glory, glory, hallelujah, they've changed their ways. They want to turn their back on everything that they are. They want to turn their back of the core existence of their soul because we were so desperate for a deal. Take us, first of all, your reaction to the Revolutionary Guard and the people running this country, now suddenly, quote, rational people. So, Joe, there's a low probability that these people have suddenly seen the promised land

that are going to transform everything we know about them. It's safe to say that the chance of that is less than 50%. But there is a chance, and we should remember that within this regime, there's a range of people with different views, different experiences, different aspirations, and that's been part of the negotiating process. What I found in really digging into the story of how this came together was that it was a complicated effort. President Trump had seen that this war wasn't going to.

the way he wanted and he wanted out. And so that was really the mission assigned to his negotiators, and they've been struggling with that with this unlikely group of Iranians now for several months. We'll see those personalities on Friday in Geneva. We'll see the House Speaker of the Iranian Parliament, Mohamed Bakr Khalibov, who's been the principal counterpart of these negotiations. he'll speak. We'll see how rational or irrational he sounds. But I think the basic point that we're making, that I would make is that it's best to see this deal as an interim step.

The United States had a problem that had to be solved quickly, which was that the Strait of Hormuz had to be reopened. It couldn't continue to block global shipping indefinitely. The cost for the world economy is too high. So the straits going to be reopened. I think there's some consensus that that's real. And then there's this future hypothesis that perhaps as you go down the road, you'll have enormous benefits in the deal because we'll reward good Iranian behavior. They'll do what we're asking on the nuclear program. They'll do what we're asking on other issues. And the U.S. will respond by helping Iran become the modern country that I've seen in my trips to Iran, most Iranians want. So that's the hopeful version. The other, our,

arguably more realistic version is we're actually going to be added down after this inflection point, that the bad guys are still in control, that they'll want to be as brutal, threatening to Israel, they'll want to use their proxies as aggressively. So I think a good deal of skepticism, agnosticism in a way is an appropriate response to this deal. We just don't know where it goes next beyond the fact, it seems to me, that the Strait of Hormuz will reopen. making a significant difference in the world economy for the next a few months. Beyond that, we'll argue about this, I think, for weeks and months probably. Well, several Republicans on Capitol Hill are expressing skepticism about the tentative deal.

Republican Senator Tom Tillis of North Carolina said, quote, if it's a secret deal, then how can I take it seriously? Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina wrote on social media, quote, I look forward to reviewing the actual document rather than relying on Iranian propaganda reports. And Republican Senator James Langford of Oklahoma said, quote, we all have questions. No one has seen it. Joe? Yeah, you know, Jonathan Martin, I will, well, it's not like I'm confessing here because people can go back. and look at the tape. I was against the 2015 Obama deal. And I was against the 2015 Obama deal because

I'm a conservative. I don't trust the Iranians. You know, I don't trust them to do the right thing. They see us as their mortal enemy. They see Israel as their mortal enemy. They see democracy as being the antithesis of everything they want. They think we're corrupt, we're backslidden, where all the things that we've heard through the years. Great sight. I bring that up only to say if they didn't trust the Obama deal that was painstakingly negotiated, and I didn't trust it, that was painstakingly negotiated, that went into great detail that the Obama team spent months and even years working up to.

So you actually had the Iranians about as pinned down as they were ever going to get. just think about how Republicans on the Hill today are responding to this, oh, well, they may get $300 billion here. They may get $24 billion there. They may get, you know, I was upset about $400 million of pallets of cash, right? And we had a long, David and I, you know, David and I had long negotiations. I mean, conversations on the show, was this the right thing to do? He said, who knows it's an existential risk, but at the end, he said it's worth taking.

But if that's how I was feeling, and most Republicans were feeling in 2015, I bet you couldn't trust Iran, what about this? We don't have paper. We're hearing $300 billion to Iran for reconstruction funds, and we're hearing Donald Trump saying, these are, quote, rational people. and the vice president saying miraculously, they've now seen the errors in their way. Jay-Mart, you take it. The IRGC has grown in office, Joe. They've really come to become mature and really appreciate campaign finance reform, for example. No, look, I think if you ask most Republicans on the Hill, what they would say privately

is this is not a deal. This is a ceasefire to reopen the straits to. unlock global oil markets posing as a deal. They had to reopen the straits for raw political reasons because you can't keep the straits blocked because you can't keep jacking up the price of fuel, which is going to create a 2006-style midterm wipeout. They had to open the straits. Everything else is going to be punted down the road to be decided later. And I think privately, there is a relief among the GOP that the streets have reopened because they did. does create downward pressure on oil prices, but they are, to your point,

Joe, going to have to eat a humiliation here for the next weeks or months about the actual details as they come out. And a lot of it will be punted and based on Iranian behavior. And they can hedge on that, but they know deep down that this is not really a deal. It's a glorified ceasefire. Jay Mart's right. This simply pushes things down the road a little bit. And we're seeing a furious attempt from the president himself, his vice. Vice President and members of administration to spin this as something bigger than it actually is. What this is, and people I've talked around the administration, will quietly admit,

is that the president wanted out. He's wanted out for a while. We saw him repeatedly threaten Iran with hostilities, but no one believed that he would follow through. Iran, in particular, would call his bluff. Because the president saw this war was bogged down, he was not going to commit ground troops. He did not want to do a full. full-on, despite his bluster, did not want to do a full-on attack in terms of infrastructure and the like, because he was afraid of the consequences for American allies in the Gulf. He was afraid of what that could mean for energy markets. And they see the price of oil and the price of gas at the pumps.

So they needed to get something done to get this straight open. But we should note, this is a win for Iran in terms of playing tough. Hardliners there are empowered. They know now they have the ability to close the Strait of Hormuz at any time. And that 60 days, whenever this, if this indeed is signed on Friday in Geneva, starting that clock 60 days, if Iran's going to insist that they have some sort of toll mechanism or some sort of fee mechanism for the straight, that's going to be a problem. That's going to be a problem for America itself, but also its regions in the Gulf. So there's many around this process who think, yes, it's a ceasefire, but it's more of a pause. And they're not ruling out future tensions and potentially even future violence a couple months down the road. We will keep monitoring the events at the G7 summit in France. Also still ahead on Morning Joe, a lot more to get to. California Governor Gavin Newsom is accusing President Trump of weaponizing the Justice Department against him and his wife.

We'll show you what he's saying about being investigated by the DOJ. Plus, former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is standing by. He just sat down with former Vice President Kamala Harris a short time ago. ago as part of the Austrian World Summit. And as we go to break, a quick look at the Travelers forecast this morning from Accuethers, Bernie Rayno. Bernie, how's it looking? Mika, it is the terrific Tuesday across the northeast and mid-Atlantic. You're acuethy forecast. Sunshine, 78 Boston, 77 New York City, but some problems, some gusty thunderstorms this afternoon, Detroit, Chicago, St. Louis, toward Louisville, drenching thunderstorms, Texas coast, Houston,

toward New Orleans, isolated shower, thunderstorm around Tampa, and Miami, if you're doing any traveling, Atlanta, Houston, delays today. To help you make the best decisions and be more in the know, download the Accuether app today. On the issue of what we will do to terminate pollution and to save our planet, the policy must include,

and my experience as Attorney General, reinforce that for me. The policies must include accountability and consequence for bad behaviors. Though it's former Vice President Kamala Harris this morning, alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger at the Austrian World Summit, taking place right now in Vienna. The summit is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year with climate leaders from several countries taking the stage to discuss and offer solutions

now to fight climate change by bringing together governments, businesses, and individuals. And this year's theme is, we are unstoppable. And Arnold Schwarzenegger joins us now from Vienna. He is, of course, the host of the summit. Governor, thank you so much for being with us. We greatly appreciate it. Well, thank you very much for having me. And, you know, I just want to right off the top correct you because you said it's climate change.

I want you to talk about fighting pollution because we have to terminate pollution. And that's what I always say. I use my movie lines, Asta la Vista pollution. So this is the kind of things we have to talk about. Climate change, most people don't understand. I don't care about any of that stuff. I think they care about pollution, because pollution is the thing that actually kills 7 million people a year.

You know, climate change, you know, and with all the bad weathers and the storms and the floods and all of the stuff, that kills maybe 25,000 people, which is, of course, 25,000 people too many. But pollution kills 7 million. So this is why I always stress pollution rather than climate change. And what are some of the ideas right now

that you're hearing this year that you're getting excited about in some ways to fight pollution? Well, you know, what the conference, the theme of the conference is that we're unstoppable. And the reason why this is because, as you know, in America we have an administration that doesn't really believe in pollution being a threat to our health and that it kills all of these people.

So we want to encourage people here to just say, stop whining about the White House. about them not believing in then. I said, what is it that we can do? I said, because it doesn't really matter on the end who is in the White House. What really matters is what we're doing on a state and local level.

I say, we have to rely on ourselves. That's where the action is. And so when you think about, you know, what California has accomplished and what Texas is accomplishing right now and with Massachusetts is accomplishing in Minnesota and all of those states, it's really remarkable because they just say,

okay, we're going to take the bullp of the horn and we're going to go and create the changes and we're going to set goals of upting our renewable energy, lowering our greenhouse gases and all those kind of things. Let's not wait for the federal government to take the lead. Let us take the lead. So what we are doing is with this conference here is really encouraging people to go and just continue working themselves

and thinking about what can I do versus what can they do. That's such an important message. I wanted to ask you. You've said some very inspiring things about Americans, democracy. And I've always found that immigrants have a better perspective sometimes and those of us who were born in America and were raised here because we just assume that democracy is always going to be with us. We always assume that everything will always be the way it is. You've given some very moving warnings in the past about your own family members that were swept up during World War

II in Nazism. And you've warned Americans against this. I'm wondering, As you look at what's happening with Gavin Newsom and his wife, as you look at what's happening where people are trying to say that California's elections are being rigged, you're the last Republican governor elected in California, and it took 30 days. That's the law. How are we doing as a democracy right now? What are your concerns with somebody who has a perspective that maybe those of us who were born here don't have?

Well, you know, it doesn't really matter where you're. live. The most important thing is that we are inclusive and that we don't hate anybody because they feel differently than we do or that belong to a different religion than we do or that they're belonging to a different party than we do. And this is the theme also of our conference here. I tell to me it makes no difference if you're a communist, if you're a socialist, if you're Democrat or Republican or if you come from a dictatorship, it makes no difference. I say, come here to Vienna, and let's work together to solve this problem and to create a good environment. I think that if we work together, we are much more powerful rather than fighting each other and always alienating half of the people.

So to me, I think going in the direction of kind of like inclusion has always been something that I was taught by people here in Austria. And then when I came to America, I saw inclusion really in the highest level, you know, where you. people were kind of like really helpful to me as an immigrant that just arrived in America. They gave me pillowcases and pillows and blankets and dishes and silverware and the black and white TV and all of this kind of things. I was shocked when I came to America and I got this much help and I learned how to be generous. And I do exactly the same thing now. I want to make sure that when it is Thanksgiving, that I go to East L.A.

and to feed the people that have less money, and then I donate a thousand turkeys to them on Thanksgiving. I do exactly the things that was done to me when I came to America, and I want to continue the tradition. And all the other stuff, I'm just the, if it's bodybuilding, if it's fitness, I deal with the world. So I never ask when I promote bodybuilding

or when I promote fitness, are you a Democrat? Are you an Arab? Are you Israeli? Are you Australian? Are you from Africa? I don't care. I don't care. I want everyone to be fit.

I want everyone to enjoy the motivation when I say, go and train and do something every day. It doesn't matter what party are you coming from if you believe in the things that I believe in. I want to have everyone be included. And so this is, I think, when we work on inclusion, I think that people go and protect our democracy much more. Very different things happening with immigrants today here in America, that is for sure.

Host of the Austrian World Summit, Arnold Schwarzenegger. Thank you very much for joining us on Morning Joe. It was good to have you on the show this morning. Well, thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. All right, take care. California governor, the present governor, Gavin Newsom says he and his wife are being investigated by the Justice Department. MS now has confirmed that federal prosecutors, the office there based in Sacramento, is investigating Newsom's wife for potential tax fraud and evasion.

The governor yesterday accused the president of weaponizing the DOJ. In recent days, 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. They're demanding records. They're abusing the grand jury process, digging through years and years of random documents. Donald Trump isn't just coming after me because of my mean tweets. He's coming after me because I'm considering running for president because he hates that I've consistently called him out. over and over again for his lies and deceit. Donald Trump is simply the most corrupt president

in American history. He's turned the levers of government into his own personal power ministries to reward cronies and to try to jail his opponents. His personal attorney now runs the Department of Justice, which has repeatedly gone after his political enemies. Let's bring in MS now, Justice and Intelligence Reporter Ken Delaney. And Ken, what more can you tell us about this investigation and how far it's going? Good morning, Mika. Well, the bottom line here from our reporting is that this is complicated. We are hearing sort of two things at the same time, one of which is that this is a legitimate

investigation that actually arose from law enforcement officials in California. It was not directed by Washington necessarily. and that, look, there have been investigations swirling around the governor's wife, Jennifer Seibel Newsom, and her dealings with nonprofits and some other investigations involving one of his AIDS for a long time. But we're also hearing that the recent flurry of activity in this case is very recent, just in the past couple of weeks, and that there has been a push by Trump appointees to gin up an investigation targeting Governor Newsom. So is this weaponization? Is it legitimate? It's unclear at the moment. It appears to be a little bit more than weaponization in the sense that some of our sources say there is something legitimate to look at here in terms of, and there have been questions raised for years about Jennifer Seibel Newsom's dealings with nonprofits, raising money from people that have business with the state of California and with her husband. But at the same time, anything this Justice Department does targeting a political opponent of Donald Trump is suspect at this moment. because of all the evidence that we've seen that some of these investigations are not on the level. And, of course, you know, the sort of the hurdles to opening a grand jury investigation are very low. It does not take much at all.

And then you have these news reports and the governor, knowing that this would leak, sort of took the initiative and decided to make it public, which besmirches people whether they're guilty of anything or not. So a lot of questions here. We'll continue to do reporting. But again, complicated story. There may be something to it. It may also be political people leaning on prosecutors to get results. MS now, Justice and Intelligence Reporter Kandalenian.

Thank you very much. We'll be following that. And coming up on Morning Joe, we turn back to the war in Iran and David Ignatius' new piece on the zigzag diplomacy that is shaping this conflict. That's next on Morning Joe. Welcome back to Morning Joe, live look at Washington. That fight night stuff is still up there. As we continue to cover the potential deal with Iran,

a lot of different opinions about what it really means and what it really is because nobody really knows. David Ignatius, your latest opinion piece for the Washington Post, is titled Inside the ZigZag Bargaining that produced an Iran framework. And in it you write in part quote, the principal U.S. negotiators have been Trump's special emissaries, Jared Kushner and Steve Whitkoff. They aren't diplomats, but investors. And that has given this negotiation a peculiar risk-reward character.

It's an investor pitch rather than a diplomat's brief. The theme is a pay-to-play rather than check the boxes. When Kushner met in April in Islamabad with Iran's parliamentary speaker, he told him bluntly, look, if you want your Royles Royce price, we need the Rolls-Royce product. The American proposal, in effect, is to recapitalize Iran through a $300 billion plan for private investment in the country's modernization. If you've watched as many Middle East moonshots fail as I have covering the region, you have to question whether this big idea of transformation will succeed. But bending the arc of Iran away from revolution and toward a responsible modern state is the overriding challenge. And given the failure of regime change, I frankly don't see a better route than what the Trump team is proposing.

Ask to summarize his takeaways as a negotiator. This official at the center of the Iran talks expressed a view that would probably be shared by every observer. Whatever they think of Trump and his peace plan. My biggest lesson is it's very easy to start a war and really hard to get out. So, David, I'm going to try and be positive here. I guess perhaps is it fair to say there hasn't been an approach like this before? So a little bit of Barack Obama's JCPOA diplomacy was premised on the same idea. Let's draw the Iranians into the world economy.

Let's, over time, try to help modernize and normalize the Iranian state. As we have seen, that was a complete failure. That's why I stressed earlier. I think it's important to see this as a transition. Most likely it's going to lead down to repetition of what we saw with Obama. The hardliner simply won't change, won't show flexibility. but there's a chance that because of incentives and the enormous desire of the Iranian people

to have a different, more modern, prosperous, technologically advanced country, that you would get some movement in the right direction. And that's the way I think the Trump team tried to structure their bargaining. It's very instrumental. It is like what investors say to people when they're trying to make a deal.

Look, okay, you want to be, paid at Rolls-Royce price to get out of this war, you're going to have to deliver a Rolls-Royce. You're going to have to give us what we want in terms of the details. I mean, I have, as many journalists do, a copy of what appear to be the terms of this deal. You go through them, there's nothing here that will surprise anybody. I think the question that we're all struggling with is, is this regime, is this group of IRGC hardliners that's going to be fronted by the House Speaker Kalibov on Friday, are they prepared to actually deliver?

And the honest answer is, we don't know. But what I try to say in this piece, I've been covering Iran since a year after the revolution since 1980. And every one of those years, I've wondered, how do you turn the arc of this country that is just so destabilizing? It's created nightmare after nightmare in the Middle East. Many different attempts have been tried, to bomb them into changing,

attempt to assassinate the leadership, and knock them all out, and then see if we can get regime change. Brave Iranians in the opposition, by the tens of thousands died in January, trying to bring regime change. None of it's worked. So I've been asking myself,

okay, how would you get there? How would that arc bend over time towards something that's more stable for Iran, for the region, I don't know the answer, but I wouldn't just dismiss out of hand this idea that the desire of Iranians, including people in the regime, for a different, more modern country that looks like their neighbors across the Gulf, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Saudi Arabia, that that isn't a possibility worth exploring. Joe.

Yeah, you know, David, I spoke with Jared Kushner regularly during the negotiations. for the Abraham Accords. And I was struck at the time and, you know, rolled my eyes at the idea that you're somehow going to look at this like you look at real estate deals. Laffer was over. I told Jared, well, it worked. You know, they went in and they said, instead of dealing with the Palestinians who we haven't been able to deal with, we're going to see how we can encourage people all around to make peace with Israel. and the Abraham Accords did work. The issue here, obviously, with Iran is. Nobody ever lost money betting against progress with the Islamic Republic of Iran. Here, though, it is fascinating. And again, so I would be wise to bet that this would be an abject failure.

At the same time, the stakes are so high for the Iranians here. You know, I think you quoted, Jared Kushner is telling them, you have the possibility of having wealth is greater, greater than the Saudis. If you modernize, if you come into the future, it can truly be transformative. And I guess the question is, we never know how things are going to go. And again, as skeptical as we've been, I always bring up the example of the Soviet Union in 1989. None of us. Nobody could have seen what happened in 1989 coming. You collapse slowly and then all at once.

That could happen to this regime who was on its last leg even before the war. So I'm just curious, again, somebody that's covered this regime since 1980, is there a possibility that maybe they will look at what's being presented before them? And is there a possibility they may step through the door that takes them into the 21st century instead of staying in the 7th century? their eighth century. Joe, you'd have to say, honestly, it's a low probability, but it's not a zero probability. And we're just going to have to see. I don't think any of the people on the U.S. side have been negotiating this deal could tell you with confidence that they know how it's going to turn out. But the decision was, let's try to create a structure of incentives for good behavior and rewarding good behavior over time and see if that makes a difference.

I think we should all watch honestly, skeptically. You know, if we're seeing more bad behavior, you've got to call it out every time it happens. Ron can be very dangerous. But I think to assume at the outset that this is going to be a car wreck is probably unfounded. Yeah. The Washington Post, David Ignatius, thank you very much. We appreciate your insights, of course. And now we turn to J-Mart.

Jay Mart, Democratic Senator John Ossoff of Georgia has been criticizing the Trump family's dealmaking during recent rallies for his re-election campaign. One clip online garnered more than 5 million views on YouTube. And you argue in a piece for Politico that the ability to reach voters online is an example of what makes Osaf, as well as fellow Senator Rafael Warnock, good picks for the 12. 2008 Democratic ticket. Tell us more about that. Well, thanks for the plug. I really believe that one of those two Georgia senators is going to land on the 28 ticket, either Aesaw or Warnock, in part because of the state they're from. Democrats have got to improve their fortunes and the Sunbelt. They've got to routinely win

states like Georgia to be competitive in the future as long as Florida and Texas remain difficult. The Midwest is not getting any easier. I think Osloff and Warnock will have carried that state multiple times if Assoff wins this fall. Also something else. You know, David Axelow likes to say that we pick remedies, not replicas of the past president. And boy, it's hard to think of two different people than the 39-year-old, got a young boy, boy senator, articulate, good-looking fellow, and the older black pastor from Dr. King's pulpit, who would better reflect a remedy to the last four years in American life. And I would say this about Ossoff, too. Democrats have a type, all right? And the type typically is from JFK through Obama,

somebody who mixes outsider and insider credentials is articulate and can blur the factional lines within their party between center and left. And I'm just describing Osov's brand. So I think you add the technological role, Mika, which is he knows how to move online. He's a documentarian by trade. He understands what breaks through on the camera, and he has mastered so far this. And if you can hold somebody's attention for more than 10 seconds on this, you're going to have a real shot to win in 2028. You know, Jay Martin, I'm curious about the transformation of John Oshoff. And I'll say that because after he got elected, I was like, that guy won statewide in Georgia, and I always joked. I said he looked like an extra and

worn Bady's Reds. He did not look like a guy that represented my home state, the state that I was born in. And so, and he always, to me at least, the first couple of years seemed little clunky, a little awkward. I was like, God, that guy just doesn't seem to fit the state very well. Man, maybe it was six months, maybe it was nine months ago. I saw him give a speech, and I was like, Whoa. Somebody has, I hate to use the word grown. I'm sure he hasn't grown as a person in office like substantially more than anybody else. But he certainly, his presentation has changed from, again, being an extra in reds to being a guy that a lot of Democrats are looking at going, you may be the future of the Democratic Party. Well, as Trump would say, Joe, he looks the part

and the era of vibes, that goes a long way. But also, it has been six years almost since he came to the Senate. And when he ran in that special election, Joe, that you'll recall in 2017 for the House when Tom Price vacated the seat suburban Atlanta. Now, that's 2017. That's almost nine years. That's almost 10 years that he's been on the national scene in politics. So, you know, he has gotten older. He's on the doorstep of 40, which I know doesn't sound that old, but he's almost 40 years old. And I think he has grown politically, and he's more confident in his presentation. But most importantly, he just knows how to present online and knows what breaks through. And Joe, that is half the battle in this era, is just breaking through. So Jay Mart, let's talk about George's other senators, Senator Warnock, who we had on as a guest yesterday.

We should note, what do politicians do when they're thinking of running for higher office? Well, they put out a book. That's why Senator Warnock was here yesterday. He put out a book. And I do think his is a name, though he's a little lower profile perhaps in Ossoff, at least for the moment. He's delivered some big speeches in the Senate that have taken off. He speaks very powerfully, morally. As you say, he occupies Dr. King's pulpit.

I've started here some Democrats starting to look at him. He's not one of the first names mentioned, but say, hey, this is someone here who could be in either spot of a potential 28-28 ticket. If you believe the country needs a kind of post-watergate cleansing, which 2028 could be, he'd be an obvious. candidate, the sort of pastor healer. And I'll say this, John, I talk to folks in Georgia and the Senate. They think that Warnock is the more obvious candidate to run that Ossoff may in fact not have the fire in the belly. Warnock is doing the things that are more obvious. He was in Nevada over the weekend, an early state. Osov's lockdown in Georgia for his reelection. And Warnock is sort of using this moment to write a book, travel some campaign for other Democrats. So right now,

Warnock appears to be the more obvious candidate. But you guys know this. If I'm POS off wins by five in Georgia this fall, which is like 20 anywhere else. The pressure on him to run for president is going to be enormous in the days after that. Yeah, for sure. Jonathan Martin, thank you very much. Jonathan's new piece. The 2028 Democratic ticket may already be taking shape is available to read on Politico right now. And coming up on Morning Joe will bring you more from the G7 summit in France as President Trump continues to

to praise the deal with Iran, but is yet to make the terms public. We'll dig into that straight ahead on Morning Joe.