What A Day - A Trumped Up Ceasefire

Episode Date: April 9, 2026

In the brief period since President Donald Trump announced a two-week ceasefire between Iran and the United States, Iran has claimed that the United States and Israel have violated its terms. As a result, Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz — again. According to Iranian state media, the 10-point framework Trump agreed to includes an end to Israeli attacks on Hezbollah in Lebanon, an end to all sanctions, and permission for Iran to enrich as much nuclear material as it wants. But the White House told the New York Times that's not the plan the U.S. is working from. So what, exactly, did Trump achieve by threatening to destroy Iran's civilization on Tuesday? Tommy Vietor, co-host of Crooked Media's Pod Save the World, joins the show to discuss.And in headlines, Immigration and Customs Enforcement continues its chaotic operations, the Trump administration's unpopularity hurts the GOP in local elections, and the U.K. tosses Ye's, the artist formerly known as Kanye West, rehabilitation tour in the bin.Show Notes: Check out Pod Save America – https://tinyurl.com/4n6y99mu Call Congress – 202-224-3121 Subscribe to the What A Day Newsletter – https://tinyurl.com/y4y2e9jy What A Day – YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/@whatadaypodcast Follow us on Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/crookedmedia/ For a transcript of this episode, please visit crooked.com/whataday

It's Thursday, April 9th. I'm Jane Koston, and this is what a day. The show that wants to know, have you been wishing for a new podcast from a man who tells it like it is? A man who stands up to the authorities. A man whose dulcet tones will ease your worried mind. For decades now, Americans have been told that we should trust the system, but our children are sicker, chronic diseases exploding, and the answers that we've been given aren't working. Many of us have come to the conclusion. And government actually lies to us.

I'm Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. You're HHS secretary. This podcast is about telling the truth, especially when it's uncomfortable. The government lies to you, except for me, the government. Now with a podcast. On today's show, the Trump administration's unpopularity continues to hurt the GOP in local elections. And the UK tosses Kanye's, I mean, Ye's, rehabilitation tour in the bin. but let's start with the ceasefire in Iran, or whatever is left of it.

We're recording this show on Wednesday evening, about one day after Trump announced a two-week ceasefire between Iran and the United States. But in that time, we've seen statements that don't make sense, continued violence, and claims by Iran that the United States and Israel have already violated the terms of the ceasefire. Oh, and the Strait of Hormuz is closed. Again, there's also been a lot of confusion. I mentioned yesterday that Trump had agreed to Iran's 10, point framework for peace talks. Well, it turns out, according to Iran state media, that framework includes an end to Israeli attacks on Hezbollah in Lebanon, and an end to all sanctions, and permission for Iran to enrich as much nuclear material as it wants. Which is weird, because Iran's nuclear program was the whole reason Trump said we went to war in the first place. But the White

House told the New York Times that's not the plan the U.S. is working from. And Israel has continued to bomb targets in Lebanon, killing more than 200 people on Wednesday. according to the Lebanese civil defense. Vice President J.D. Vance blamed the alleged disconnect on a misunderstanding on Wednesday. First of all, I actually think, and there's a lot of bad faith negotiation and a lot of bad faith, you know, propaganda going on. I think this comes from a legitimate misunderstanding. I think the Iranians thought that the ceasefire included Lebanon, and it just didn't. We never made that promise. We never indicated that was going to be the case.

Which is also weird because Pakistan, which mediated the ceasefire, explicitly said Lebanon was included. So what exactly did Trump achieve by threatening to destroy Iran's civilization on Tuesday? Actually, what has Trump achieved with Iran at all? To help figure it out, I spoke with Tommy Vitor, co-host of Crooked Media's POD Save the World. He worked for the National Security Council in the Obama administration. Tommy, welcome back to what today. Great to be here.

So, the U.S., Israel, and Iran, all rural. reportedly agreed to a two-week ceasefire agreement. I say reportedly in italics. Because it looks like even what we know happened has already fallen apart. What happened there? It sounds like they all agreed to a ceasefire agreement. It's just not clear that it was the same one. Yes, they appear to have all agreed to three separate ceasefire agreements.

We agreed to what we wanted to agree to. Right. It sounds like where we got. We landed on this. Yeah. I'm really perplexed here. Me too. Because Iran thinks, wow, the U.S. agreed to our 10-part framework for peace, which includes

we can enrich as much nuclear material as we want. The sanctions, they're gone, both primary and secondary sanctions, and Israel will stop bombing Hezbollah and Lebanese targets in general. The U.S. says, oh, we didn't agree to that. agreed to some other thing. And Israel is still bombing targets in Lebanon, even as of this morning. Now, why would Israel agree to the ceasefire only to essentially ignore it hours later? Like, what does Netanyahu want from the U.S. Iran conflict? And does he consider his fight against Hezbollah to be a separate thing? Yeah, they, the Israelis have said since early on that they

consider their fight against Hezbollah to be separate, to ultimately be longer term. and probably larger. And it will likely include them fully invading and occupying like 15 miles of territory into Lebanon. So Netanyahu doesn't want anyone to tell him what to do when it comes to his own border. There are some analysts out there who wonder if Netanyahu is trying to upend this ceasefire agreement before it gets started. Because the Wall Street Journal reported that the Israelis were cut out of the negotiations between the U.S. and Iran that got to the ceasefire, that they basically were presented the final text at the very end and that they were pissed about it. And there are some people who think that the reason Netanyahu is bombing the shit out of Lebanon today,

and the IDF is bragging about it, bragging about hitting 100 targets in 10 minutes, is because they are hoping that this is a way to make the ceasefire agreement go away so that they continue doing what they want to do and hitting targets in Iran itself. Right. And it should be noted, Hezbollah is, as we've talked about on the show before, Hezbollah is a Iranian proxy militia with obvious deep ties to the Iranian regime, gets money from the Iranian regime, said in part that it was hitting Israel right after the Iran-US war began in response to the death of the late Ayatollah Ali Hamani. But I think my larger question here is, does Netanyahu want this war to end with Iran? I don't think so. I mean, I think you've heard the Israelis and the Americans say, usually on background, from some, you know, senior U.S. official to Barack Reveed at Axios or whatever. They have like two weeks, four weeks, six weeks, more military targets they want to hit. At the same time, the one thing everyone agrees on, the sort of like number one priority in this war is to deal with Iran's nuclear program, especially the 900 pounds of highly-inrich. uranium that is still sitting in Iran as we speak. That's got to be gotten out somehow. It's not clear

to me. It doesn't seem likely that the Iranians will hand it over. Maybe they will as part of some sort of deal. There's been a lot of talk about like a commando raid style mission. I think Netanyahu knows that that is unbelievably risky and will likely lead to casualties. And he would probably prefer the Americans do it because we just have a way bigger force and more capabilities and more technology and more of everything. So it just, it feels like there's a lot of unfinished business within the Pentagon and within, you know, the Israeli security establishment when it comes to this conflict. Right. Especially since Trump in his true social post about ending Iranian civilization also said that they're, you know, they've got this way better, more reasonable regime in power now, which my first thought was, what?

Like, it's the same people. They are executing protesters at an even faster rate than before. Yes. Like, the only thing that's changed is that a lot of people have died, but it's still the same basic ethos. But to that point about, you know, unfinished business, on Wednesday, the White House said that Vice President J.D. Vance will lead the American negotiating team in Pakistan. Now, on Tuesday, the New York Times published a piece that, to me, was all about how Vance did not want to go to war with Iran. I would argue that a lot of that piece seemed to be coming from Vance and people around him. saying like, I didn't want to do this.

I don't want anything to do with this. I think this is a bad idea. So what's going on here? Are we now looking to J.D. Vance for a diplomatic way out of this? Yeah, it sounds like J.D. Vance is going to be on his way from Hungary, where, by the way, he's on the stump for a fucking dictator named Victor Orban in Hungary. He's got an election coming up next week. And he'll probably go from there to Islamabad to be a part of the next round of talks.

I would argue that's probably a good thing. I think like Steve Whitkoff and Jared Kushner are kind of bumbling idiots. And they've failed with these negotiations. They've failed with the Russia-Ukraine talks. And they're just, they don't know what they're doing. Hopefully J.D. Vance will bring with him some experts. And he will come with the actual authority from Donald Trump to make decisions. But I guess we'll find out.

When it comes to the politics for J.D. Vance, though, like they're just all over the map with what they're trying to spin for him. Right? Because if you read the Maggie Haberman, Jonathan Swan story in the Times you mentioned, Vance is at the same time was opposed to the war, but then new Trump was for it. So we didn't try to talk him out of it. So we tried to talk him into doing limited strikes. And then when Trump didn't want to do that, he told him to go all in and do like, you know, the biggest version of the war possible.

So like J.D. Vance has taken every position on this war possible. And the idea that this guy thinks he can come out of this administration and still run is like J.D. Vance, you know, I was the guy who went to Iraq as a Marine. came back, completely, you know, disenchanted with United States and military adventurism abroad, it's a fars. Tucker Carlson's going to run against him and clean his clock from the right and be like, you were part of this war. You did nothing to stop it. You enabled Donald Trump.

You didn't tell him no when the chips were down. And it was a disaster. It also seems interesting to me that they're, I mean, going to the effort to spin this, there are so many different people involved in this administration, in this administration, in this war, and they all seem to want something very different out of this war. And what Donald Trump wants out of this war seems to be a giant mystery to me. Like, you know, the White House will say, like, we want an end to, you know, Iran's ability to enrich uranium, which I thought we handled that last year.

Me too. I believe that they said that anyone saying otherwise was doing the fake news. But then there's also, you know, we want to help the protesters and get regime change. which I think we can agree that they've given up. They don't give shit on that. Like that's, that's ended. And now, so much of the focus seems to be on the street of Hormuz, which Trump is now saying, oh, what if the U.S. and Iran coordinated and controlled, yeah, controlled the Strait of Hormuz together.

So given that, Trump has appeared to have fucked around and found out and learned nothing. the U.S. to me is in a worse place than before with regard to Iran. We now have a regime that seems more hardline, less likely to want to do anything that we would have wanted them to do even before all of this happened. We have done so much to make everything worse in the region. Have we achieved anything? What are we doing here? Yeah, I mean, let's kind of like tick down the priorities. Like number one was deal with Iran's nuclear program.

As we just said, there's still 900 pounds of highly enriched uranium sitting in Iran. We no longer have IAEA inspectors on the ground to see what they're doing in these various nuclear sites. And it seems likely that Iran will be more motivated than ever to seek a nuclear weapon as a deterrent from getting bombed again. So it doesn't seem like a wind to me. The second priority they talk about all the time was destroying Iran's military. Certainly, like, we sank all the boats. took out their air force, took out their Navy, took out a bunch of defensive systems, a lot of the ballistic missile stockpile. But before the ceasefire, the New York Times reported that U.S. intelligence found that Iran was still able to fire 30 ballistic missiles a day in like 50 to 100 drones.

So they still have the ability to shut down the Strait of Hermuz with one shot. The third priority they always talked about was ending support for proxy groups like Hezbollah. Clearly they're giving them diplomatic support today. Fourth was a regime change. Remember, at one point, Trump not only said that he wanted regime change in Iran, but he wanted to pick the next leader. And instead, we traded Ali Hamene, who was 86 and about to regime change himself for his more hard-line son. Who has lost his entire family? Who has lost his entire family and probably doesn't like us.

And as you mentioned before, Iran now has more control over the Strait of Hormuz than ever before. And thus, the global economy. So it's really like, I realize I have TDS. But it's hard for me to view this one as a big win at the moment. Right. And it's the spin effort has been. Embarrassing. It's been fucking embarrassing.

It's embarrassing. And like, you know, the Financial Times is reporting that the Iranians are going to demand crypto payments for the toll that they'll charge for boats to go through the straight or Hamoos. Do we think that money is going to go to the people of Iran and food and services? No, it's going to go to rebuilding their military, support for Hezbollah, support for Hamas, ballistic missiles. And I imagine the Russians and the Chinese will gladly support them in these efforts to rebuild. And like the Iranian people are the ones getting screwed the most here because they are left with a destroyed country, a more hardline government that is far more willing now to crack down on any dissent, any protests than they were a few months ago.

Because they're going to wager that, you know, at this time, Trump and Netanyahu are like they're going to be scared off coming to the rescue of the protesters because frankly they don't actually give a shit. Tommy, thanks as always for joining me. It's uplifting. Good to be here. That was my conversation with Tommy Vitor, co-host of Crooked Media's Pod Save the World. The news is pretty overwhelming right now, but we're here to help you make sense of it all. So if you like the show, make sure to subscribe, leave a five-star review on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, watch us on YouTube, and share with your friends. We'll be back after some ads. What Today is brought to you by Delete Me.

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It's a total game changer, no matter where you're headed. Download the Wise app today or visit Wise.com. Terms and conditions apply. Here's what else we're following today. Joining me is Crooked's Washington correspondent, Matt Berg, to talk about the big stories. Hey, Matt. Hey, Jane. There's a lot going on around the world. But back in the United States, immigration and customs enforcement is still causing terrible chaos.

ICE agents have arrested more than 800 people based on tips provided by transportation security administration officials since the beginning of Trump's second term, according to Reuters. That's unsettling, considering ICE is now checking IDs at airports during. the ongoing DHS shutdown, which is, by the way, still going on. Yeah, and that's not even the only controversy involving ICE recently. Earlier this week, an Army staff sergeant told various news outlets that his wife had been detained by ICE only days after their wedding. She had been brought to the U.S. as a toddler from Honduras and was planning to apply for a green card.

Which is, you know, how you're supposed to go through the immigration process. Yeah, you can imagine the reaction to this. a lot of people rallied behind her and pressured the Trump administration to release her. And on Tuesday, they did. Yeah, I mean, which is good. And I think it's pretty telling that people don't like what ICE is doing or what this administration is doing because in other good news, Democrats are feeling more hopeful about the November midterms after a pair of elections on Wednesday. Here's a reaction from CNN data guru, Harry Anton. Holy Toledo, holy smokes. Holy cow.

I wouldn't have used those exact words, but yeah, basically. A liberal judge won the Wisconsin Supreme Court election in a nearly 20-point victory that almost doubled the margin that another liberal judge won by last year. In the other outcome that Democrats are cheering wasn't even a win. Democrat Sean Harris ran for former Republican representative Marjorie Taylor Green's seat in Georgia, and he lost, but he lost by a much smaller margin than anyone expected. That margin was 12 points, and in 2024, Trump won the district back. 37 points. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of information there. One, if Trump's not on the ticket,

Republicans do way worse. Also, everybody's very mad at Republicans. I thought it was interesting. Former Representative Green tweeted about how, you know, this was never going to switch to blue, but this just shows how disappointed everyone is in the Trump administration. Yeah, there's a lot out there in different news articles about this saying how, you know, Republicans don't think that This is that big of a deal, and it's all going to be fine in November. But the bottom line is that there's a clear trend of Democrats outperforming in places where Republicans used to dominate. And so there definitely is at least something for Republicans to be worried about in the midterms. And, you know, speaking of comebacks of a sort, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West is trying to stage one of his own.

And it's not going so well, as you might have predicted. The British government blocked Yeh from traveling to the UK ahead of a festival, which he was scheduled to headline in July. The festival was canceled in British Prime Minister Kirstarmer said, quote, Kanye West should never have been invited. Now, his current tour is part of Wes Yeh's attempt to become relevant in the mainstream once again. It's interesting because he's still been making albums. He's been performing alongside very well-known rappers who don't have a problem with the incredibly offensive things he's been doing. like releasing a song titled Hal Hitler. Then in January, he released a giant ad in the Wall Street Journal to explain that his

anti-Semitism, the White Lives Matter T-shirts, I guess, and his general whole thing over the last few years was the result of a brain injury, suffered during a car accident. If you remember, through the wire, that song, it was around then when his jaw was wired shut. Apparently, the ad didn't work on the British government. And this is definitely not the last we're going to be hearing about this. I have a feeling that Kanye is going to be. in the news cycle for a little bit because he scheduled to headline another festival in Italy in July,

and there's some debate, you know, given the history of the country's role in World War II and a bunch of just general concern about him coming to the country, whether he should be allowed to perform. On the other hand, a Dutch government official said that the Netherlands isn't planning to bar Kanye from performing at his upcoming tour dates there. So, you know, could go either way depending on the country, I guess. Yeah, yay performed recently in California. A lot of very famous people attended. So his career is in this weird holding pattern, I think, in which the last several years have been very much a hindrance to his success internationally and with most people. And yet, there are lots of people who still want to see him do Kanye. But I mostly just want to hang out with you, Matt. Thanks so much. Thanks for having me. And that's the news. Before we go, this week on Runaway Country, Alex Wagner is joined by Brian Tyler Cohen to break down what's looking more and more like Trump fully unraveling.

And the bigger question, where the hell is Congress while all of this is happening? From the chaos to the consequences, it's a conversation you don't want to miss. Tune into Runaway Country wherever you get your podcasts or watch on YouTube. That's all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review. Honor a heroic rat who saved thousands of lives and tell your friends to live. Listen. And if you're into reading, and not just about Magawa, an African giant pouched rat who sniffed at more than 100 landmines in Cambodia during his five-year career, clearing more than a million acres of land and even helping to train other rats after he retired in 2021. Like me, what a day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at crooked.com slash subscribe. I'm Jane Koston. Magawa passed away in 2022, but last week, a seven-foot-tall statue of the rat was unveiled in C.m. Reap, Cambodia. to honor his incredible legacy. What Today is a production of Crooked Media.

It's recorded and mixed by Desmond Taylor. Our associate producer is Emily Four. Our producer is Caitlin Plummer. Our video editor is Joseph Tutra. Our video producer is Johanna Case. We had production help today from Greg Walters, Matt Berg, and Ethan Oberman. Our senior producer is Erica Morrison,

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