What A Day - JD Vance Takes On Iran Negotiations

Episode Date: June 26, 2026

Vice President JD Vance has been given a job no one really wants: ending the incredibly unpopular Iran war. He’s been tasked with leading negotiations with Iranian counterparts to find a lasting solution that he thinks could QUOTE “transform the Middle East.” But there are many, many obstacles in his way. And as the US and Iran attempt to hammer out not just an end to the war, but a new nuclear deal, President Trump seems markedly uninterested in the whole thing. So for more on the mess that is trying to end the Iran war, we spoke with Tommy Vietor. He’s the co-host of Crooked Media’s Pod Save the World.And in headlines, Moscow’s Defense Ministry says Ukraine launched a major Thursday night attack, ex-national security adviser John Bolton pleads guilty to a single count of illegally retaining national defense information, and New York City approves a rent freeze on one- and two-year leases for people living in about 1 million rent-stabilized apartments.Show Notes: Check out Pod Save The World – www.youtube.com/@podsavetheworld 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

There is the high-level committee, which is just J.D. Vance on our side, who before the talks even started was like, look, I don't really know anything about this stuff, but I'm just going to go in there and chat them up. Because we all know J.D. Vance's personality wins over everybody. Yes. I mean, that man, yeah. Whoof. Could talk a woman in white gloves into a ketchup popsicle, you know what I mean? Just charm. Exactly. That's what we all say. I'm Jane Koston, and this is what a day.

the show wishing a happy 11th anniversary to one of the best days of my life. Take it away, 2015, MSNBC. We have read from the bench, there is a right to marriage equality. I repeat, speaking to you from the steps to the Supreme Court, there is a right to marriage equality, read just from the bench now, waiting to get the opinions as they come running out of the court, Thomas. We do. This is a big day.

Again, Ari Melburgh is standing there telling us that the court has ruled in favor of marriage equality in the Ogrevelde case. Yes, 11 years ago today, the Supreme Court ruled in a five to four decision at the 14th Amendment guarantees the right to marry to same-sex couples. Marriage, it turns out, is pretty cool. On today's show, we talked to Tommy Vitor about the negotiations to maybe, possibly, perhaps, and President Donald Trump's war in Iran. Before we get into all that, here's what we're following today, Friday, June 26th. There's a new Gallup in NBC poll. Came out, I think four days ago. Listen to this. Only 20. 99% of Democrat voters now say they are proud to be American.

Over half now say they want to live in another country. Go, go, go. We can't deport that minute. Hmm. Mike Johnson, why do you think people are ashamed of being American right now? Maybe it's the administration you coddle day in and day out while it runs roughshod over pretty much everybody. Unfortunately for us, House Speaker Mike Johnson was just an opening act for the

Faith and Freedom Coalition Policy Conference today. President Trump headlined the conference and talked all about his love and tolerance for all of humanity. Well, kind of. Our founders invoked the creator four times in the Declaration of Independence, four times. I wasn't mentioned once. I'm very upset. Not once. I've been reading all of those reports.

Religion is really, it's going up. If that were stuck, we'd be very, very rich all of us. I think I'd be the greatest communist in history. Aside from blaming former President Joe Biden's administration for what he described as persecution of Christians by the government, Trump also bragged about establishing a White House faith office and took credit for restoring Christmas. Remember how you didn't celebrate Christmas under Biden?

You're welcome. Moscow's defense ministry said Ukraine launched a major Thursday night attack on a dozen Russian regions, Russian-held Crimea, and the surrounding seas. It appeared to be one of Kiev's biggest drone assaults since the Kremlin's full-scale invasion more than four years ago, with Russia's defense ministry saying its air defense has intercepted 660 Ukrainian drones. Ukrainian long-range drones have been battering Russian oil production and energy facilities. According to Western officials and analysts,

Ukraine's campaign has choked Russian fuel supplies and military deliveries, stalled Moscow's efforts on the battlefield, and heaped pressure on Russian president, Vladimir Putin. The rules governing classified in national defense, information apply equally to everyone, regardless of position and regardless of how long you have served with the United States government. This morning, just moments ago, John Robert Bolton the second pled guilty in federal court to the unlawful retention of national defense information. I'm sorry. Did U.S. Attorney Kelly O. Hayes just say the rules governing classified and national

defense information apply equally to everyone? I think she did, which is weird because there was a man who kept classified documents beside his toilet. Maybe ask him about it. In pleading guilty to a single count of a legally retaining national defense information, John Bolton, former Trump administration national security advisor, sealed a deal with federal prosecutors that could allow him to avoid prison time. Bolton agreed to pay a $2.25 million fine, forfeit his retirement pay for his federal service, and perform up to 100 hours of community service.

If you're wondering why Bolton and why now? All you have to know is that he became an outspoken critic of Trump after serving in his first administration. Bolton is scheduled to be sentenced in October. Burr! It's cold in here! That's because... New York, the Independent Rent Guidelines Board just froze the rent. New York City Mayor Zora Mundani has made good on a signature campaign pledge. On Thursday, the city's rent guidelines board, an independent panel of mayoral appointees,

approved a rent freeze on one year and two-year leases for people living in about one million rent-stabilized apartments. It's another big win for Mumdani, who also slayed earlier this week when three congressional candidates he endorsed won their races in stunning fashion, unsteeding two Democratic incumbents and bucking the party establishment. And that's the news. Let's talk about the war in Iran. Vice President J.D. Vance has been given a job no one really wants, ending the incredibly unpopular Iran war. he's been tasked with leading negotiations with Iranian counterparts to find a lasting solution that he thinks could, quote, transform the Middle East.

Because that's so easy. But there are many, many obstacles in his way, like his boss, President Trump. See, Trump is very wishy-washy on Iran. One day he's threatening to end Iranian civilization. Another, Iranian leaders are, quote, very rational people who are just, quote, looking to help their country. And as the U.S. and Iran attempt to hammer out not just an end to the war, but a new nuclear deal, the president seems markedly uninterested in the whole thing. So for more on the mess that is trying to end the Iran war, I talked with Tommy Vitor.

He's the co-host of Crooked Media's POD Save the World. Hey, Tommy. Hello, my friends. How you doing? I'm all right. Happy World Cup. Happy World Cup. Sadly, that's not what we're here to talk about. I know.

We have the fever. We do. We 100% do. So direct talks between the U.S. and Iran are expected to start again next week, according to Pakistani mediators. Who all is at the table from each country? I think now it's going to be just the technical experts. There is the high-level committee, which, here I was just J.D. Vance on our side,

who before the talks even started was like, look, I don't really know anything about this stuff, but I'm just going to go in there and chat them up, I guess. Because we all know Jady Vance's personality wins over everybody. Yes. I mean, that man, yeah. Could talk a woman in white gloves into a ketchup popsicle. I mean, just charm. Exactly. That's what we all say.

So it's just technical experts. Yeah, I think it's technical experts. You're going to try to hammer out some sort of deal. But ultimately, King Trump is going to have to decide or agree to whatever this is. So it's at his whim. And, of course, Israel is not involved. No. Which is interesting.

It is interesting because they are very much a party to the deal. They have been told that they will now have a ceasefire in Lebanon. They're not happy about that. that. No, they are not. No. Netanyahu is an election coming up in October. He's very worried about this election because not only does it, he need to stay in power, but staying in power keeps him out of jail, right? So that's the stakes for him. And he is getting crushed in Israel because of this deal, because everyone thinks it's weak. He's getting attacked from the left from a hawkish perspective. He's getting attacked from the right. Everyone hates it. So he's going to be

looking for ways to blow up the deal. We'll get back to my conversation with Tommy in a moment. because like Katie Perry, Trump is hot and then cold, yes and then no, in then and out, up and then down, on Iran. So there's a lot more to cover. But 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. More to come after some ads. What a Day is brought to you by Americans United for Separation of Church and State. This hasn't gotten a lot of airtime, but President Trump's Religious Liberty Commission has been meeting regularly, not to focus on religious liberty for all, but rather how to further a Christian nationalist agenda in the U.S.

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Let's get back to my conversation with Tommy Vitor. What do we know about what the U.S. and Iran have agreed to right now? Well, so right now there is a 60-day sanctions waiver. that allows Iran to sell oil and gas and petroleum products. Steve Ratner, a progressive economist, estimated they could make up to $10 billion off of just that license over two months. But the Iranians are saying they could make $40 billion. Yes. So there's a range of estimates out there. At some point in the near future, Iran will get access to about $24 billion in unfrozen assets or currently frozen assets that will be unfrozen.

This is basically money they made selling oil that got locked up in random bank accounts because of sanctions. And they're also going to try to hammer out a nuclear deal, which, you know, sounds like they haven't really started on that yet. But it does sound like Iran has at least agreed to downblend their highly enriched uranium stockpile, but maybe not ship it out. So here's where I'm at. As you said, the Trump administration has promised to give Iran a lot of money in this MOU, despite Trump's claims that it wouldn't do that. It would. This week, the president said that the U.S. is going to use those frozen Iranian assets to buy the U.S. soybeans from American farmers for the Iranian people.

To all of this, I have one question. What? What are we? What's happening here? Like, I am struck by just this rapid shift from, we're going to destroy Iranian civilization. And, I mean, even before Trump, this is part of the Axis of Evil. Two, they seem nice. Everything's cool.

we're going to give them soybeans and money. Oh, yeah. It's a real vibe shift. Everything is different. So on the soybeans thing, Trump is claiming that the unfrozen assets will be used to buy U.S. agricultural products. As far as I can tell, this is made up out of nothing. J.D. Vance said this was Jared Kushner's brilliant idea, but the MOU says the following,

that the unfrozen funds, quote, shall be made fully usable for payment to any ultimate beneficiary designated by the central bank of the Islamic Republic of Iran. So if they want to buy soybeans, they can, but they don't have to under the terms of the deal. So I just don't, I truly don't know what the hell Trump is talking about. On the vibe shift thing, yeah, Trump has gone from talking about Iran as our mortal enemy as this, you know, theological, you know, sort of like religious base extremist group to potentially our best friends in the region. I personally think that's a good thing. Like the United States, people lawmakers in the U.S. talk about Iran in a crazy way. We hype the threat.

We don't talk about them like they are human beings with politics and a diversity of opinions. It's like this monolithic evil that must be countered. That's stupid. It's a country of 90 million people with leaders who are human beings who make political decisions just like anyone else. Like we should treat them more like a regular country. Also, it's pretty evident to me that we actually don't care about the evil that they do. They are executing protesters at a faster rate than they were before. Yeah.

But J.D. Vance thinks, hey, let's take revolutionary guard members who the U.S. has designated them to be terrorists. And they're just going to go, like, be part of this and they'll talk to Centcom. Like, it's not just that we don't treat them as human beings. It's that, like, all of the bad stuff that they do do, we just clearly don't actually care very much about. And it's evidenced by all of this. Well, yeah, look, Trump doesn't give a shit about human rights. violations, whether it's in Iran or Saudi Arabia or Russia or China or any of his favorite autocratic regime, North Korea, for example, right?

Trump just doesn't care about human rights. This whole idea that he was going to ride to the rescue of the protesters was always made up. And in fact, he probably, he certainly harmed them. Yes. JD Vance talks about the war, like the benefit was the friends we made along the way. Like literally, he was like, the cool thing is now we have someone to talk to. Yeah.

And I want to say, J.D. Hold Ayatollah. Ugh. What a jerk. I just want to be like, hey, JD, like, you could have just called them up, had some meetings, had some secret meetings. You know, you didn't need to bomb them to get an email address over there. But he seems to think that that's the upside. So we also know that Trump is very hot and cold on Iran, really depending on the day.

Apparently today, he's a little cold. He's pissed. He posted on True Social Today that Iran made, quote, a foolish violation of our ceasefire agreement by launching least four drone attacks on ships. in the Strait of Hormuz, which brings me to my next question, the Strait of Hormuz, which was open before all of this? I think it's important to mention that. What's going on there? What's happening?

I think what's happening is the Iranians are saying that you can only pass through the Strait of Hamos if you follow a designated route. And ships that go outside of that designated route are getting punished with drones, armed drones exploding on their decks. So the idea that the Strait of Hormuz is fully open and we're back to normal and oil and gas is transiting through there in record. numbers like it's all just bullshit like Iran is demonstrating that they will be controlling the trade of who moves going forward and they're setting up all this infrastructure to charge fees i.e.

tolls which Trump says won't exist but will in the future. We mentioned Israel a little bit earlier in the midst of all of this Israel has continued to strike Lebanon despite President Trump's polite requests that they stopped doing that. Trump made the point that like you know not every apartment building contains Hezbollah like you got of stuck doing this, which I was like, worst person you know makes a great point. So the U.S. started this war with Israel. Like this goes back to last year. Can it make a successful peace deal without it? Because to your point, Netanyahu's under a lot of internal political pressure to not stop doing any of this. Yeah. I mean, look, the Israelis are occupying like six

miles of territory into southern Lebanon. They have said clearly that they have no plan to withdraw troops or get out of Lebanon, as well as an organization that exists to resist Israeli occupation. So there's going to be clashes there. I think the question is, can, you know, Trump, I think, said a ceasefire in the Middle East sometimes is about shooting less, right? And he was like saying something that sounded ridiculous, but had some truth to it. I think the question is, will the Israelis start bombing Beirut again? And if that happens, that's the sort of scenario where I think you see Iran fire back directly at Israel and things kind of pop off. To that point, Trump has said many, many, many times that the Iran war is over or almost over

or basically over. Yeah. But given Israel, given everything we've just talked about, are we actually close to a deal? Because the White House just asked Congress for billions more dollars for, quote, urgent needs related to Operation Epic Fury. So, like, at the end of the day, is the war? coming to an end? Where are we?

I mean, I think we have a ceasefire. It seems clear to me that Trump politically does not want to resume fighting because he knows it will lead to closure the straight-to-homuz. Gas prices go up, bad politics for him, right? So he just wants this thing done and dusted. Now, the question is, do we have a nuclear deal? Absolutely not. Not even close.

We'll see if they can negotiate one in the next 30 to 60 days. Consider me not all that hopeful. My guess is Trump just kind of drags this thing out. extends the ceasefire, kind of punts the harder questions forward for as long as he can. But, you know, we'll see. Tommy, as always, thank you for joining me. Thank you for having me. That was my conversation with Tommy Vitor, co-host of Crooked Media's Pod Save the World.

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