Morning Joe - Trump's Iran war hit the 6-month mark, Tehran feels like they 'have the upper hand'

Episode Date: August 28, 2026

August 28, 2026 – 8am Trump ‘renames’ Lake Ontario to Lake America Judge again blocks Trump’s bid to restrict mail-in voting Iran war reaches 6 months with no end in sight Annual ‘March on Washington’ returns to DC today Actress Lisa Kudrow talks ‘The Comeback’ Season 3 Co-Director Tanaz Eshaghian on her new documentary on gender and social structure in Iran titled, ‘An Eye for an Eye’ 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.

That is Lake Erie. We think it is still called Lake Erie on the right. We're not quite sure at this point. Yeah. But we'll be by late, something like Ontario or whatever it's going to be called, by the time we get the Buffalo. Anyway, you know what I'm talking about. Some of you do.

Some of us do. Yeah, right. We read the news. The great Al Michaels last night during the Patriots Brown's preseason game, a little commentary in a reference to President Trump's attempt to rename Lake Ontario, Lake America. Good morning. Welcome to morning, Joe. It is Friday, August 28th. I'm Willie Geist. Joe and Mika off this morning with us. MS Now contributor Mike Barnacle, contributing writer to the Atlantic Eugene Robinson, managing editor at the bulwark, Sam Stein,

and MS Now Senior Capitol Hill Reporter and host of way too early Ali Vitale. You know, Sam Stein, it strikes you watching that event in the Oval Office yesterday where the president's holding up his signed decree to change the name of Lake Ontario. to Lake America, just what an abject waste of the American public's time. So much of this with such serious issues on the table right now. It's not just the waste of time. It's a waste of money, right? We're going to have to change all the signage.

You're going to have to go through all the websites. You're going to have to deal with all the tourism issues, litigation that will arise from this. It's so stupid. And all because we're in a trade war with Canada that I couldn't even tell you why. And I follow this stuff pretty closely. Why are we in a trade war with Canada? entirely clear, but in a peak of frustration, he convenes an oval office meeting, announces that he's doing this. And it just indicates to me that he's out of ideas,

doesn't have anything new to offer. I mean, we did this with the Gulf of Mexico, obviously. And here we are. I'll just add this. One tidbit, people don't really know this, but back in February 2025, so like the heyday of Trump 2.0, there was a poll that was done, and they looked at all the things that Trump had done to that point. executive orders. And renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America was the least popular polling item less popular than pardoning the J6 rioters. Okay, so I'm not sure this is the wind that he thinks it is. Wow. Yeah. Yeah, going back to that going back to that well, Gene. I mean, look, we showed the polls yesterday. President Trump is underwater on just about every issue,

including issues that had been strengths like immigration and border security. Obviously, Iran has not gone the way now as we hit the six-month mark today the way he thought it would. And so he's doing anything and everything to turn the page and to distract, including just renaming lakes. Yeah, it's just absurd. I kept thinking of that great line from Succession, where Logan, Roy, in exasperation, says to his four children, you are not serious people. This is not, These are not serious people. This is certainly not a serious president. It's just absolutely absurd.

And the reason is that Prime Minister Carney in Canada, and especially the provincial leader, Doug Ford, have been actually rude, not just defiant, but rude to President Trump. and Doug Ford told him, you know, to kiss where the sun don't shine. And that obviously offended the president such that he's attempting to rename Lake Ontario. It's just, this will be a ridiculous footnote to an administration in which a lot of important stuff, most of it really bad, is happening. But it's just, this is almost insane, almost literally insane.

And President Trump incensed also because Prime Minister Carney again and again hasn't put it quite as artfully, perhaps, as Mr. Ford has, but has effectively said the same thing to President Trump and saying it again now around the Lake of America. Let's get to more serious matters like a federal judge, once again, temporarily blocking the U.S. Postal Service from putting into effect a key provision of President Trump's effort to restrict mail-in. voting. Yesterday, the judge issued a temporary restraining order that halts parts of Trump's executive order to stop the postal service from delivering mail-in ballots to voters whose names are not on an approved list that was created by the Trump administration. This comes after the Supreme Court on Tuesday allowed the president's executive order to move forward. The court's conservative majority did not decide on the legality, though, of that order. The justices instead ruled 23 states who sued did not have the right or the standing to challenge it.

President Trump has claimed without evidence again and again that voting by non-citizens is a widespread problem. It is not statistically. The Trump administration now likely to appeal this ruling, and it could again end up before the Supreme Court. But even if the administration is ultimately successful, it's not clear whether there would be enough time to implement the changes before the November midterm. So Ali Vitale, this is what a lot of people predicted, which it was going to get kicked back up eventually to the Supreme Court.

But this all takes time. The ballots are going out, mail-in ballots going out, for example, in North Carolina a week from today. The process is effectively underway while the courts sort this out. It's happening so close to November and so close to when ballots are going out that it really does lend to more confusion for voters. I mean, when I was watching states like Texas and others do mid-decade redistricting, my biggest concern was, all right, voters might be confused in November what race they're actually voting in, maybe where they're polling places are. That's one layer of confusion. But if you're someone who typically votes by mail and now you're seeing that it could be thrown into flux, that only adds more confusion to the process. And so again, this is going to get kicked through the courts.

And I think if it does end up at the Supreme Court, it's important for us to remember that the ruling that they issued to start the week was not one. on the substance and the content within the executive order. They weren't saying, yeah, this is all good. The administration can definitely do this. They were making effectively a legal argument around timing and when the suit was actually filed. And so it'll be interesting to see if they actually rule on this, what that ruling is. But again, the confusion just feels like it might be one of the features, not the bugs,

of what this administration and Republicans are trying to do. Do you know what we're talking about here? We're talking about a clearly premeditated plan by the President of the United States to rig an election. That's what he's trying to do. I mean, all of this stuff, every day we're in the courts with one thing or another. Thank God for some of the courts that they restrain him on several elements. I mean, we opened this program this morning by talking about the president signing with a great pen, you know, naming Lake Ontario, Lake of America or Lake America, whatever.

And we cover this every day. It's a clown show. This presidency has evolved into a clown show. Sam, that's perhaps true, but there are real-world implications to it. As we talk about this mail-in voting, I mean, President Trump, let's remind our viewers again, votes by mail. And they say, well, he's busy in the White House. He couldn't possibly vote in person.

Well, he spends a lot of his time in Mar-a-Lago, he could. Put that to the side. He's putting out a theory of the case that mail-in voting is rife with fraud, which it's not. We've cited study after study that shows it's vanishingly rare. What's your sense of how this actually affects people's voting come November and how it might change the outcome? Well, there's a few things. First of all, I just want to applaud Mike Barnacle's succinct saltiness there. I loved it. It's what we need right now on this morning. As for the merits of this mail-in balloting. Look, you're right that there is vanishingly little voter fraud.

And the idea, the predicate for this, that there is voter fraud is created by Trump's repeated insistence. So they say, well, we have to restore trust in the elections. The reason trust in the elections is low is because Trump's been on a year's long campaign to damage trust in the elections. So you asked, well, what is this going to mean for voting? A lot of people vote by mail, obviously. If the administration were to win on the merits of this case, it would be chaotic. States would have to scramble. They'd have to get a DHS certified list of voters who are ripe to receive. And the mail-in ballots, then the USPS would have to actually send the proper ballots to that list, all while state officials operate under the fear that if they screw up, they could be prosecuted

by the DOJ. So it's three different agencies involved in administering a brand-new election mail-in-balloting regime with about 65 days to go, including some states that have already printed their ballots and would have to reprint them to be properly certified. So you can imagine that That would be quite chaotic, quite expensive. People who would get ballots may not get ballots. You're talking about people who are overseas. Troops, for instance. They vote by mail a lot.

They would be particularly in trouble by this ruling. But let's say that this doesn't go into effect, that the Supreme Court rules, no, you know, this is kind of idiotic to have the postmaster general be so detrimental and consequential in the administration of our elections. Maybe the founders didn't think of that one and probably shouldn't have. Let's just keep going. Let's say, and then the vote happens, and then the vote's kind of close.

At that juncture, it's not so hard to imagine President Trump saying, this is all fraudulent. I didn't get my save act. I didn't get this mail-in-balloting initiative through the Supreme Court. There is way too much fraud in this election. We can't sit these people in the House. And Mike Johnson shouldn't sit these people until we adjudicate what went wrong. That's the nightmare scenario. That's a real nightmare scenario.

And it's not so hard to imagine. Why isn't it hard to imagine? Because we live through it in 2020. We live through this with Biden. Now imagine that happening in hundreds of different districts. Yeah, and the idea that Mike Johnson is going to push back on President Trump, we've long ago abandoned that. And let's just go back to the beginning of this, which is this is a list of eligible voters created and cooked up by the Trump administration and then using the postal service with a stacked board of governors to carry it out. It's very messy and the clock is ticking. We're going to stay on this. but also today marked six months since President Trump launched the war in Iran.

It was in late February. The president announced the start of the war with a goal, he said, of ensuring Iran never obtains a nuclear weapon, a goal that remains unachieved. Trump then repeatedly insisted to Americans. The war was simply an excursion set to last just a matter of weeks. And we have right from the beginning we projected four to five weeks. This is a short excursion. No, but soon.

I think so. It'll be said. Won't be alone. We've won this war. This war has been won. I can say tonight that we are on track to complete all of America's military objectives shortly, very shortly. It should be ending pretty soon. That was just March and early April.

Now six months on, the president tells Al Jazeera, quote, I have no time schedule. None. I'm not in a hurry. I have no time schedule at all when he was asked how much time he was giving a Iran to return to talks. White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt also said this week, no negotiations are happening right now between the U.S. and Iran. Meanwhile, the war has cost the United States more than $37 billion so far. U.S. stockpiles of key weapons have diminished greatly. Gas prices have skyrocketed as ship traffic trickles through the once open straight of Hormuz,

and 18 U.S. service members have died with many, many more wounded. The Trump administration is now turning to economic pressure, in part, as our Jonathan Lemire writes for the Atlantic, to push around to the background while hoping that gas prices come down even a little and that Republicans can shift the nation's focus to more politically palatable topics ahead of the midterms. Let's bring an MS Now contributor, Inzamam Rashid, who joins us now live from Dubai. Inzimam, thanks for being with us this morning. At this six-month mark, let's just take stock of where we are in the United States, but also where our allies in the Gulf are and what they have been victim to because of this war,

what is the state of things there and what is the state of negotiations such that there are? Yeah, you listed off all of those things that have happened throughout the last six months there, Willie, and it's remarkable, isn't it, that the president's saying that within days this war would have been over. He was saying that back in March and April, and yet here we are today with no end in sight of this conflict. And the US allies, like the UAE, where I am, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, the GCC states have been attacked considerably by Iran, a neighbor which has got capabilities of firing drones and missiles to these countries. We've seen that extensively over the last six months cause infrastructure damage caused deaths in these countries as well. And particularly

damaging for this country is cause a huge impact. to their economies here in the UAE, tourism down massively as a result, the backbone of the economy here in this country. And so they will have a long road ahead of trying to rebuild and get their economies back on track as a result of this war. But where are we right now? We're in a situation where, yes, we've seen the top tier of Iran's leadership wiped out as a result of those attacks by the US and Israel when this war started. We haven't seen the new support. leader, much to Burkhamene. We don't know what health condition he is in, whether he's got any control over this conflict. But the people who are negotiating have tried to negotiate and fail.

Let's take you back to when Iran and the US were meeting face to face, the Iranian delegation with Vice President J.D. Vance up in the mountains in Switzerland, negotiations were happening. And it was my understanding that they were quite positive whilst we were up there reporting from there. And at that time, President Trump from thousands of miles away, put out a post threatening to attack the plane that would send the Iranians back home. And then we've seen Iran and Oman negotiate around the Strait of Hormuz, that waterway where usually 20% of the world's oil would pass through. That is now trickling through that waterway. And when those negotiations were taking place, we saw the Iranian military attack ships in the Strait of Hormuz. So we are now in a

situation where direct negotiations between the U.S. and Iran aren't happening. Iran and Oman are trying to find a way to reopen the strait of Homoos. But it seems to me that they are pushing this, the Iranians in particular, up until the midterm elections where they know that President Trump is seriously suffering with the American public. And so they know they've got the upper hand and we'll ride this out for as long as they possibly can. Still ahead this morning on Morning Joe, thousands of people are expected to gather on the national mall today for a rally marking the 63rd anniversary of the March on Washington. Reverend Al Sharpton joins us straight ahead for a preview. And we'll be right back with much more Morning Joe. The annual March on Washington

returns to Washington, D.C. today. The theme this year is defend the vote in reaction to the Supreme Court's ruling in April that effectively limited a key provision of the Voting Rights Act and open the door to several redistricting efforts across the country. Today, civil rights groups will gather at the Lincoln Memorial to remember the moment when Martin Luther King Jr. first delivered his iconic, I Have a Dream speech 63 years ago now. Joining us now one of the speakers at today's March, the host of Politics Nation on MS Now, our friend the Reverend Al Sharpton. He's also president of the National Action Network, which is hosting today's event. Rev, so looking forward to this event today. along with many others today about voting rights, among many other things. I guess the larger

question is 63 years on as we sit here in America, 2026, what is the state of the dream? That is the real issue we'll be raising. Since 2020, Martin Luther King III and I have been co-chairing this with National Action Network and Dream Drummajor's Institute with his mother. When we started doing it annually in 2020, they had done before us. And we've never seen voting rights more under threat than we see today. 63 years ago, I was just a kid, eight or nine years old. And it was a breakthrough because 63, March, 64 Civil Rights Act, 65 voting rights act. Here we are with the Civil Rights Act of 64 under threat because of the end of DEI.

you don't know whether we're making advancements or not. You can't gauge or judge how much diversity is in a corporation or in government, because you can no longer deal with diversity issues. And now the voting rights issue, the bullet shot through the heart of the Voting Rights Act by the Cayless decision in the Supreme Court, a Trump-Stack court gives us a new urgency. So today we're coming across ideological lines. We have the heads of every major civil rights group speaking, but we also have Hakeem Jeffrey speaking. We have AOC speaking.

We have Senator Bernie Sanders speaking. We have the chair of the Black Caucus speaking because we want to show we have black faith leaders and Jewish faith leaders and Muslims. Because we want to show this is not about whether you're left or right. This is about who's getting left out of this process. And that's what Dr. King's dream was all about. You know, I've heard people say, you know, we have to have events like today's because the work is undone. Actually, the work is being undone. It's being erased. The Voting Rights Act has been systematically destroyed by the Supreme Court. I mean, there's very little of it left to tell you the truth.

So this mobilization is really important, but how can we take it forward? What can be done, given the stance of this court, which has allowed this administration essentially to dismantle those landmark pieces of legislation that you talk about, the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. The event today must be the kickoff or the work that we must do. So we must go around the country. announced today voting brigades, particularly in the south. We're going on the southern tour. You must remember 63 when Dr. King and A. Philip Randolph and others did that march, it was a highlight in the capital. Then they went south and did the work. That's what we're going to do now. But you've got to get people's attention before you can go into trenches and deal with it.

But we have people coming. We had 10 buses leave Houston, Texas last night. Atlanta is on the way. I mean, many. We have some states that buses messed up, but they'll be. be too then. But most of the country to galvanize people, then you organize it. But if you don't have a flashpoint, it's hard to get people community by community. So that's what today is.

And when you look at the fact that, as you said, it's been systemic. The goal today is the midterm elections are paramount, because we need this new Congress, if we get a new Congress, a new House of Representatives, to offer a new

voting rights act. So we need to lay out today, not who you vote for, but what you vote for. And what you vote for is we need a new voting rights act passed by this Congress that's bulletproof by this Supreme Court. I have a two-part question. And I don't mean the first part in any cheeky way whatsoever. But obviously, the iconic image of Martin Luther King from Lincoln Memorial is the reflecting pool in the backdrop. And we're here with a reflecting pool that's falling apart. The sealant literally coming undone. It has not been repaired. And then people be. prosecuted falsely for sabotaging it. And I'm wondering, first question is to the degree that

that symbolism does work to your advantage, will it be incorporated in today's festivities? And then the second question is about the generational divide around this stuff, because when you talk to people in the field, they say, yes, the older generation understands us, they've lived through this, they're more committed to the proposition that voting rights need to be restored and fought for. The younger generation is harder to plug in. Is that your sense of how things go? I think that in some cases it is, though we have a lot of young people in National

Action Network and other civil rights groups, but I preached at Howard University here in Washington on Sunday. They're getting a sense now of what's going on because they are affected by mail and voting. They are affected by them moving

the mark around, so to speak, in terms of their enfranchisement, because now they're looking at the fact that, well, you mean I may not get a job in a corporation because of DEI or I may not be able to aspire in a certain field. So they're beginning to, in their lifetime, live what we used to talk about back in the day. Back in the day is today. And in terms of the symbolism of the breakdown and maneuvering around a reflecting pool, watch my speech today.

You know, Reverend Al, we will watch your speech today, but watching these pictures of an event that occurred in 1963, it caused me to think about the country that existed in 1963. Three months after the march on Washington, President Kennedy was killed. Less than two years after the march on Washington, the first element of the ninth Marines landed at a place called Denny's. and South Vietnam, and we know the roller coaster after that, what happened to this country.

And I'm wondering, from your perspective, do you think it was easier to unify this country today than it is today? I think that in those days, you had the division that was more structured, because you must remember when they came to Washington 63 years ago, Blacks couldn't ride the front of a bus until they got over the Mesa Dixie line to make the march. We were able to rent buses

and people flying in first class this year. So the divide was there. You couldn't use a toilet if you were black until you got north of Maryland 63 years ago. So it was more finite then. It became more subtle now, but this administration is bringing

the southerties off. And that's been my challenge of people around the country. You think it's hard to get on a bus, or get on a plane and come to Washington now. Think of how hard it was for people that came from Texas and Mississippi, 63 years ago, under segregation. They couldn't even stop at a restaurant and get a meal.

It was against the law. It wasn't accustomed. So it shows the progress we made that is now being regressed, and we must address that. Coming up on Morning, Joe, a conversation with Emmy-winning actress Lisa Kudrow. We'll talk about her cult classic series, The Comeback, as it wraps its third and final season. That's straight ahead on Morning Joe.

Welcome to my new chapter. Come on in. Are you coming or taking it all in? Okay. This is a hip crowd. And did we leave room for dessert? He did. I have a show.

How's that? That's the name of the show. Such a good hook, too. You know, because you can say it's so many different ways. How's that? How's that? It's just so good. A look at the hit HBO series, The Comeback.

The mockumentary style show stars Lisa Kudrow as Valerie Cherish, a former A-List sitcom star, looking to revive her fading career. And in the third and final season of that show, now streaming on HBO Max, the character returns to Hollywood, landing the lead role in a new sitcom, only to realize it's written entirely by AI. Joe recently caught up with Lisa for a conversation about the show and much more. Lisa, thanks so much for being with us. I've just got to say congratulations on the comeback and how you guys are always on the cutting edge. You were in 2005.

You're still on the cutting edge in 2026. Congratulations. Thank you. Thanks a lot. Yeah. Every episode of every season, whether it was in 2005 or whether it was nine years later or whether it was this year, you guys always seem to be just on the crest of a, of a, of, but was about to overtake Hollywood.

And what you'd hear people talking about? I'm going to lose my job because of reality TV. I'm going to lose my job because of AI. But that's what your character, Valerie, had to deal with, constantly talk about that. Yeah, that's what, you know, Michael and I really wanted this show. As much as it is as it is about the character, Valerie Cherish, it's also very much about the perceived threat by writers, actors, everyone in this industry, and networks and studios, you know, what everyone's terrified of is what is part of every season of the comeback, every season, all three.

And so, and this time, of course, it's AI. It's AI. And we have Valerie Cherish, the actress, who finally is the lead of a multi-camera sitcom, except it's. It's the first one written by AI. So all the challenges, all of that. And then we get to explore what it would, what we imagine it would be if there were no writers and it was AI writing the show. And, yeah, and if you had a network head, like one of my favorite actors, Andrew Scott, he plays the role in a really in a chilling way of a network executive who is

riding this AI wave to cut all overhead costs. And once he talk about, a retention time or keeping people in front of the television set as long as possible. Right. That, you know, it's that second screen thing that people are talking about, that people will just have something on while they're looking at their phone or their iPad or doing something else. And it doesn't have to be genius, you know, that he was never looking for great.

just good enough. And, you know, that rings true for all of us because not everything has been great and not everything has been, you know, culture defining, but they've been popular and profitable. And that doesn't mean it's bad because the audience tells you what it wants. You know, I mean, I don't, to me, the goal was to not be very judgmental, not editorialized too much about AI. I mean, reality TV was a huge threat, but entertainment expanded to include AI, to include reality TV, and, you know, maybe that's what's going to happen. You know, it won't destroy everything, you know? Right. Well, I mean, maybe that'll be a part of it. I was one of the best reviews I've seen about the Odyssey talked about how it's not a surprise

that that's a culturally defining summer film because it was done by the most analog director of all time. And you look at other deals, like for instance, a huge deal that was done for the theater, Broadway and West End. A huge deal just got completed. And the people who did the deal said, well, one of the reasons we did it is because there is a pushback. There will always be this AI side of things,

but people still want analog. They still want that. beauty. They still want that human touch, which Valerie provides, especially at the end of the third season. Well, yes. Yes, she does. I mean, look, she also agrees to let them use her avatar because she's going to go off and work with a genius writer, human, and get to be in a show. Yeah, that, you know, that, and act in it herself. So to me, that's sort of, The point is there might be all of it, you know, but the really great stuff, I think, we think, will come from human beings.

Talk, if you will, about the development three seasons over 20 years. What I thought was so remarkable about the end of season three was you find out that it's not Valerie, who's really evolved, it's people's perception. And there's a quote I wrote down here where you said, you have to agree to be humiliated and I never signed up. It's not like we're seeing a new Valerie. It's like we were always looking through the wrong lens

at the Valerie that was there all along. The survivor, the person who was strong, the person who had doubt, the person who kept her head down and worked hard to make it in this crazy industry. Talk about how that came about. The ending up being such a beautiful ending. It came about because that was mine and Michael's experience. When I did the first season, I couldn't understand why people would say,

that must have been so hard for you to play that. And I think, blink, blink, what? Valerie's never, it wasn't hard. Valerie's not injured. You know, if something, someone's being mean, she doesn't entertain it for long. She clocks it. But then she spins it into something else that she has to believe. So she's sort of creating her own reality.

And over the past 20 years, what I aim to see working on this was she's, that's how. you survive. She's the most resilient one around. Oh, Mike, it was a revelation that we needed to include. And then just the thought, the idea when it came out of my mouth, you know, because we improvised that as we're writing, you have to agree to be humiliated. You do. You have to agree to be happy, too. So you can just like, you can make choices. And that was sort of revelatory. And we love having Valerie say that, even though she seems the least likely, you know, wise person. And also it seems, especially in seasons two and three, that your long-suffering husband, Mark, always comes through in the end.

Talk about how Damien Young always, you two, at the end of season two, and at the end of season, three, he's actually, he ends up being the rock and coming in and telling you, you do, you know, I'm behind you, no matter what you do. Again, I made for very moving, very moving television. Oh, great. Yes. It's, it felt like a real relationship in that they had very rocky times. And it's getting through those times that sort of, that cement people.

and you know that ultimately they're there for you. And she showed up for him also this season because he was taken down a few pegs. And, you know, during the, you know, like the era of cancellation, you know, he got nailed. And he is a decent person. And so, yeah, it was just great to also play out what a real relationship. relationship is. So that was thrilling. And Damien is so good. He's just so good. And he lets Valerie be her. And she lets him be him. So yeah. You got to ask you about your nomination for an Emmy. What are your thoughts about not just you, but obviously the entire show being recognized for the remarkable work

you guys have done over the past 20 years? Yeah, thanks. It's, I mean, the nominations are a very big deal to me. You know, we got, Michael and I are recognized for writing, and I'm, I have a nomination for playing Valerie, and it's such a huge field that our peers thought that we were Emmy-worthy, that we got nominations is a very big deal. to me. That's already, that's already a win, I think. So it's really thrilling. It's really nice. Because it's not like a huge, you know, a huge hit show. It's niche. And we're very proud of it,

you know, but that's kind, that's really amazing. I've got to ask you, before you go, obviously a big announcement this past week about a comeback. Another come back. Another come back this time in movie theaters, talk about it. Right. Romine and Michelle, too? Yeah, Romney, Michelle too. Yeah. I mean, I guess first, I'm just, I'm only doing things I did 20 years ago.

But, no, it is, that's really thrilling. How exciting that people are excited about Romney and Michelle. And why not? They're just fun and they're decent people. people and you know it's it's really it's fun it's so great to do anything that makes people happy it's the whole point to me about you know doing those kinds of shows or movies so yay yay you've been doing it for a very long time and certainly doing it with a comeback good luck and congratulations and thank you so much for being with us today I really do appreciate it thank you

Thanks a lot. A new documentary called An Eye for an Eye follows the real-life story of a woman in Tehran who is facing threats of execution and demands for blood money after she killed her abusive husband in an act of self-defense. I said, I didn't know, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not I'm sorry to see her. I don't want to see them I'm not going to see them, not want to

make sure that's done. I'm here. You were in jailed in four dozen. Four-dice. What happened

happened to be? The last of the chest in here was. I always said, I'd say, if we'd ever be it to kill and we'd, we'd kill us. The film is streaming now

on jolt. Film, and we recently spoke with the Emmy-nominated co-director of that documentary. Tell us about this movie because it's very unusual to get to film in Iran. So talk us through how you did that and how, I mean, this seems like how unprecedented is this kind of access? I mean, the level of access that we got is pretty incredible. You get to be in the center of essentially a drama between two families. One family is demanding blood money from the woman who killed her abusive husband. And the husband, the victim's family, is now saying, if you don't want to be executed, because under Sharia law, you are allowed to execute as a form of retribution. But you can also demand blood money and forgive. And in today's economy, more and more people, because the economy is so

terrible. They are like, we'll forgive you, but we want this amount of money. And so what makes the film incredible is that we have access to both families negotiating and the human rights activists in the middle trying to find a middle ground. And they're essentially arguing over what a woman's life is worth. Negotiating. Who do they negotiate with? Is there a governmental aspect to this in the negotiations? Not quite. So the human rights activist is the one that really is handling the negotiation. She goes to the dead husband's family and they, for instance, say we want, you know, $50,000 and she's negotiating them down. And our camera is right there fully filming all these, the back and ports. I mean, if you ever want to see Iranians negotiate and how good they are. I think the world is watching out right now. This is the film for you.

You want a real insider look of how things work and their ability to honestly negotiate until the very last minute into the courtroom. So just talk us through this. She got married. She was married off to him at 15. Yeah. Felt madly in love. Right.

She tried to get a divorce. She tried to get out of this thing. So just talk us through a little bit about the story there. Well, I wanted to really look at what gets her to the place. where she thinks it might be a really a good idea to strangle her husband one night when he's high as a kite on opium with the help of her two daughters. Like what would be, what would lead a woman to think that that makes any kind of sense? And so we looked at what happened and she explained. She's like, I did, I tried to get a divorce and in Iran a man can get a divorce by just saying,

I don't want to be here anymore. And he gets it. A woman cannot. It's really, really, really, nearly impossible for her to just get a divorce. So she goes to the court, she asks, and the judge says, lady, this is like a child's play argument. Go home, fix it. So that doesn't work.

Her other option is to ask her father to help her, which is very much a patriarchy. So the other person is to go to the other man that's supposed to be protective. And he says, you chose this guy. The only way you're coming back to my house is, is when you're dead. Like, I am not, I'm not helping you. So she reaches a point where she thinks, how do I get out of this

and how do I free my family and my kids from this very addicted, abusive man who at some point threatened to sell one of the daughters for drugs? Wow. That's an extraordinary story. All of it is wrapped up in the new documentary, an eye for an eye, and it's available to stream now on jolt dot film directed to nazah shagin thank you very much for this and that does it for us this morning

money power politics with stephanie rule is up next after a short break