DSR Daily April 9: Ceasefire with Iran Already in Serious Jeopardy

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Hello, and welcome to DSR's Daily. I'm David Rothkuff, joined by Riley Festler and Minestine. Riley's a hero. He's a little under the weather, but he's going to try to soldier through the next 15 minutes. Are you going to kick us off here, Rob?

I'm going to kick us off. I'm passing the line to Minestine today. That's OK. Well, that sounds good.

“All of us wish you speedy recovery, Riley.”

Go ahead, Minestine. He's on vocal rest, so I'm going to be doing. I'm going to be doing the kicking us off. OK, you kick us off. Iran is tightening control over the straight-of-arms by limiting ship traffic, requiring coordination

with Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and imposing tolls paid in currencies like

yen or cryptocurrency. These measures introduced during a ceasefire with Donald Trump have drastically reduced shipping and raise global concerns about energy supplies, disruptions, and rising prices. The move is wide. I thought this was over.

I thought there was a ceasefire. The war was over, and everything was fine. We had to understand. Oh, sorry. I just thought everything was fine.

The president said it was, I'm disappointed. Come on.

The move is widely seen as Iran leveraging the conflict to expand its economic and strategic

influence despite oppositions from Gulf States and potential violations of international maritime law. The president of the United States last night around 9pm, social media to out, the following. All US ships aircraft and military personnel with additional ammunition, weaponry, and anything else that is appropriate and necessary for the lethal prosecution and destruction of an already

substantially degraded enemy. He doesn't know all these words. Somebody wrote this, and went on on this day. We'll remain in place in and around Iran until such time as the all caps real agreement. What?

Reached is fully complied with. So there's the real agreement, and it was reached, and the problems were not fully complied with it. So if for any reason, it is not, which is highly unlikely, then the, and this is in quotes, "Shootin starts, shootin, no jhootin starts."

Hey there, cowpokes, then the shootin's going to start, and it's going to be bigger and better and stronger than anyone has ever seen before. Where have we heard that other than every day? It was agreed a long time ago. And despite all of the fake rhetoric to the contrary, all caps, no nuclear weapons,

what a relief. And the strain of hormones will be open and safe. We'll be open and safe all caps. Okay. What a relief.

In the meantime, our great military is loading up and resting, looking forward, actually, punchline coming to its next conquest. America is back all caps, exclamation point.

“That's why I thought everything was fine, Mina, because he said that.”

He was mine, right? Are you so Ryan? Yeah, and, and, and, yeah, it's the problem with what he said is, there is no agreement. We are right. That's clear, right?

Because, you know, they thought the agreement pertain to Lebanon then. It doesn't pertain to Lebanon. Israel was involved. Israel wasn't involved in. There was the thing about Trump saying we're going to get all their nukes,

and then they're saying they're not going to get the nukes. But all of this really turns at the moment around the big giant gift that Donald Trump gave to Iran.

So there were 130 ships going through there yesterday, just a couple went through.

It's actually fewer went through that in preceding days. There is less navigational freedom there. And the Iranians now believe that part of the payoff of this is them getting a cash bonus every time a ship goes through. Then having more leverage over the global economy than they have ever had. But what's the secret to Trump's post?

“Let me tell you what the secret to Trump's post is.”

Because it will reveal everything about where this is going. You still with us here, Riley.

I just, you look in like you're baiting.

I just want to make sure. I'm hanging on every word. Oh, well, thank you. Well, here's the secret. The secret are the words in the meantime.

Our great military is loading up and resting looking forward actually to its next conquest. Very, very. Don't make any Cuba vacation plans, anyone? But here's the thing. What Trump is saying.

See, it wants to turn the page. He's done with this. It doesn't out of fix it. It doesn't out of get the deal. And anything out of it, as I said yesterday, on Blue Sky, which is what I used instead of Twitter because Ela.

If Donald Trump were offered by the Iranians, the casino rights to carg Island, this would all be over. He'd be like, fine, he would, in fact, cater the opening up of the Iranian nuclear warhead's manufacturing facility. Because he doesn't care. He's not loyal to anything. He doesn't care about U.S. national interests.

He only cares about how does it look for Trump and can Trump get a little something something into his pocket out of it, which brings me to my final point in this morning's vigorous rant. And that is, if this is all done in crypto folks, I just, you know, I just, I don't know how we're going to get to know in this. But it's going to be a little fishy.

“And I've got to wonder who's making the money, you know, who, like, how does this deal get struck?”

Because literally every country in the world knows right now. You know, if they can do a little something for Donald or a little something for Don Jr. Little something for Eric or maybe, you know, Tiffany gets a little something left in her garage. I don't know. You know, a few thousand more tickets get bought to Melania's movie by unknown sources.

Then things turn out okay. And you know how you know this? Because of another story. Are we doing the story about the, um, uh, the ballroom scandal that's brewing? Is that on our list? We did not come for the ballroom scandal today.

Okay, well, so here's a story that broke in the New York Times last night, um, by Kim Vocaloid. Uh, apparently, the world's largest steel company out of the goodness of its heart are solar metal, not American company.

By the way, the headquartered in Luxembourg, uh, decided to contribute almost 30 million dollars in steel to Donald Trump's, uh,

a ballroom project currently stall by the courts, but they don't need a 30 million dollars in steel. And then you'll never guess what happened to these generous generous people, just a few weeks later. Just take a guess. Many of you guess, Riley looks like he's about to collapse. Do you tell yourself? My guess is they got some sort of favor and/or praise and/or they got a trade deal. They got issues resolved, which will make them millions and millions of dollars.

It's just like pay off in plain sight, except our Supreme Court in its infinite, um, corruption, uh, has ruled that it's not really corruption unless there's an explicit quit pro quo.

“So if I go up to you and I say, "Mina, here are the keys of a brand new Cadillac," or whatever he wants, but you know, here are the key, and then you do something for me and exchange for that.”

Provided I didn't say, "Give me something and exchange for the Cadillac," according to our Supreme Court, it's not corrupt, which is how Washington DC has become the most corrupt nature capital in the world.

Anyway, how does that relate to the prior story? Do the math.

“Okay, Riley, I've tried to like stretch here so that you could take a few of the facts, you know, shots of energy and vitamin B, right in the butt.”

Do my adrenaline shot.

Yeah, exactly. Like in public fiction, right men are gives you the shot right to the heart, like in the third and get anyway.

I just did that while you were. Yeah, okay. It looks like he's just, he's back at it. Oh, good old Riley. Following a private meeting with Secretary General Marco Ruta, President Donald Trump escalated his criticism of NATO, claiming the alliance failed to support the U.S. during the conflict with Iran while Ruta characterized the discussion as Frank and highlighted the logistical assistance provided by many European nations. Trump remains frustrated over their refusal to help reopen the straight and poor moves.

President continues to threaten a withdrawal from the 32 member alliance, providing past grievances regarding Greenland, if anybody even remembers that at this point, and it's on his mind every day is like matching it every day this week. He wants Greenland that that's maybe that's the next one. Maybe, but he was just a fake out. Yeah, head fake. Well, we can, you were America. We can take anything we want, except apparently Iran, but go on.

But the past grievances regarding Greenland and accusing member states of turning their backs on American taxpayers.

In this year, over 10,000 electro-fahrt-zeige for Amazon lieforgons in ganz Europa eingesetzt. For lieforgons, we vote for young kids. I don't know, 10,000 electro-fahrt-zeige and it's worth ever more. Based on the plan of vehicles, our Liefer partner in the EU and Großbritannian is ending 26. A double-chish barger, a promise, and a cooler version of a 90, and low-chish version for matters.

Well, that's great for you. The günstig-mx-mart minutes are already announced in the 90s by McDonald's. Unforpentious prices in film and Italian restaurants. Hmm. Well, we're not going to go through the whole thing here, where Donald Trump has hated NATO forever, and where he doesn't understand the nature of an alliance.

And that NATO is actually a defensive alliance, and the Europeans were actually the front line in our defense against Russia.

“And the fact that they were willing to sign onto that when Russia's big beef was with the United States is an incredible act of heroism, right?”

Because where did the Russian tanks go first, right?

Through the full-the-gap into Germany or where did the missiles land first? They landed in Europe. Europe says we will stand up and we will fight for the United States and the defense of alliance and we'll line up for it. And he doesn't understand the benefits of that. He thinks it's all quit pro quo as we were alluding to earlier.

Mark Ruta, the Secretary General of NATO, he has been the most solicitous of Trump of any European leap. And he will go in and he called him "Daddy" and it was like, "Oh, you're fantastic." And I love you. Well, the Europeans in the wake of what happened in Iran told Ruta to dial it back. So it was clearly the most operative meeting they had.

I think Trump was probably expecting a nice big smooch from Ruta like he usually gets. Didn't get it pissed off.

“At some point the other shoe is going to drop your folks.”

That's the important thing. Trump can't pull out of NATO. Because there's actually a law that was passed since he can't pull out of NATO. Even though, by the way, it's a treaty agreement, which means he can't pull out of NATO anyway. But they felt felt since suspenders were necessary because Trump was threatening this the last time.

But he can effectively do so. He can say this not a priority. We're not going to play troops. We're going to redeploy troops. We're going to cut our budget whatever.

And he's going to do that. You know, why? Because when he was sitting there with Vladimir Putin in some dacha someplace, getting his instructions for his big mission to destroy the West, Vladimir Putin said this is job number one, destroyed NATO.

Now you guys should look at the little surprise. I speak metaphorically. I don't believe there was actually such a meeting. But Donald Trump has steadily regularly in every conceivable respect, advanced the answers to Russia over the interests of the United States.

And the number one thing that he could possibly do to advance the interests of Russia, other than destroying America's standing in the world and our economy, and having all of us die of diseases that we once had vaccines for is pulling out of NATO.

Just don't worry about it. I don't believe everything Trump does is going to be quickly undone by whoever the next president is. But rest assured, the US back in NATO will be item number one, if Trump does anything to diminish this alliance. Because it's so damn important.

Pam Bondi will not testify before the House of Oversight and Government Reform Committee, as scheduled after the Justice Department said her subpoena applied only while she was serving as attorney general. The committee led by James Comer plans to coordinate with her personal attorney to reschedule a deposition regarding the handling of the Jeffrey Epstein investigation files. Bondi was recently replaced with Todd Blanch now leading the Justice Department.

“Yeah, I mean, why did they change the name of the department of defense or try to change it?”

They didn't obviously let's still let's name. When they should have changed the name of the Department of Justice, because this and that is just not true to the advertising anymore. They have nothing to do with justice. This is the Department of Covering Donald Trump's big fat ass. That's what they do.

They go after his enemies. They do obstruction of justice. You would think if Donald Trump got rid of Pam Bondi in order to put this Epstein thing behind him,

that they wouldn't have as one of the very first things done by Todd Blanch.

Say, hey, we're covering up Epstein again, you know, come get us. And, you know, there is a bipartisan push to go and get the full amount of information on Epstein. And yesterday, you had a democratic congressman, Rokana, and a Republican congresswoman, Nancy Mace, leading the calls that Bondi show up that the subpoena was for her and her personal capacity. And ultimately, they will push that forward.

It will be made clear. It was interpersonal capacity. DOJ has no jurisdiction over that. They will not be able to stop her from this.

“The question is, what is the congress do when it's under Republican control?”

And the answer is probably less than they should.

But if the Democrats win, the house, as they seem likely to in November, they can not just to peanut her. They can send out the marshals to come and get her. They can push to have her be made civilly liable as well as criminally liable. I mean, DOJ won't do anything about the criminal liability. But they will push and try to get her to show up.

The emptiness of the Republican argument that she no longer holds the position that's relevant is illustrated by the other people. They've got including notably in this best friend, Hillary Roddough. But a federal judge in Boston has blocked the Trump administration's attempt to terminate temporary protected status for over 5,000 Ethiopians, allowing them to continue living and working in the US.

“Judge Brian Murphy wrote that the Department of Homeland Security ignored a statutory procedure and used a pretextual rationale to end the protections,”

asserting that presidential will cannot override laws enacted by Congress. The administration defended its move as a necessary step toward restoring immigration integrity, labeling the ruling an example of a "judicial activism" and quote by a Biden appointed judge. This legal setback for the president's hard line agenda occurs Supreme Court prepares to hear arguments later this month on similar TPS revocations for hundreds of thousands of Haitian and Syrian migrants.

Look there, Laws. They got to follow the Laws. This is nothing to do with judicial activism. It is nothing to do with Biden appointee. They're plenty of Trump appointees and Republican appointees. They're also saying, "Hey, Mr. President, you've actually got to follow the law. You can't just do whatever you want. You're not a king." And with some luck, these rulings, as they make their way up to the Supreme Court, will continue to go this way. And we will not do the damage to our country that would inevitably result worldly to push out of the country.

Hundreds of thousands of people who are deserve to be here, be will be hurt in their own home countries. And see, are making big contributions to life in America? They're the fabric of what makes us American. They do not detract from it. They add to it and they enrich it. And just because Donald Trump is a racist and Steve, Steven Miller is a racist and Pete Higgs is a racist and J.D.

The answer is, you know, just because they're all racist doesn't mean they can just do whatever they want.

But they don't care, by the way, they feel if they go and promulgate these things and disrupt people's lives and it makes people less likely to come here.

They are further institutionalizing racism, which is their goal.

And almost everything they do that is not directly related to greed and corruption. Feeling better? It's Thursday. I'll have to work it into private. That's positive. Okay. Let's go one more. Come on. One more. Vice President, J.D. Vance, criticize Vladimir Zelensky for quote-unquote scandalous remarks about Victor Orman amid rising tensions between Ukraine and Hungary ahead of a key election. Vance echoed Hungarian claims that Kiev is using energy supply disruptions to influence Hungarian politics, accusations Ukraine has not directly addressed.

The dispute highlights broader geopolitical friction involving European Union relations with Hungary and ongoing wars impact on regional alliances.

And also, you know, illustrates what a tool, J.D. Vance is, what an odious tool, you know, all I can say about him as the candidate in 2022, please please, please run him as the candidate. Run this person that nobody can stand as the candidate. He is so repugnant.

“You know, he went to Hungary this week in order to try to prop up the campaign of Victor Orman as though that's was going to really help. That's just what they needed, right?”

And his main case that he was making was, well, the Europeans are put meddling. They're trying to support his opponent.

By the way, I'm here from America, but for Victor Orman. I mean, it was so hypocritical. It was laughable and people laughed at it.

And of course, what are the reasons that Zelensky, whose job is to fight for the survival of Ukraine, which, by the way, is in the interests of Europe and the United States, is being undermined, left and right by Zelensky, excuse me, by Orban, who, as recent scandals have shown yet again, is using his position and his government is using its position to help Russia, to funnel information to Russia, to block funding for vital initiatives to Ukraine. They are actively trying to destroy Ukraine. So, Zelensky is doing something to try to push back on them. It's his job. It's his moral obligation.

And we should be rooting for it. We shouldn't be sending off the vice president of the United States to go there and, you know, be, you know, campaign aid to an autograph, who is a thumb in the eye of democracy in Europe. I don't know, Rev. Katie Vance just rubbed me the wrong way. But you know, Elstas, Pete Hicksson, also RFK Jr. Also Scott Besson, also Steven Miller, also Melania, Don Jr. Eric, Don himself, that, I don't, the fact is I'm pretty triggered all the time. What should I do about this?

“Like, put your head into a paper bag and start screaming?”

That's a possibility. Is that what you do? Is that what does that work? And then I will subscribe by a team of doctors for my new related rage syndrome. Yeah, Riley internalizes it. And that's why he's slowly dying before I very eyes. Well, I'm not going to, I'm not going to prolong his pain. Riley should go get in bed, have a cup of tea, have some chicken soup, not at the same time, a little bit later. Take a nap, take some Advil. I take Advil every 15 minutes. I find it's really good. And, you know, you will recover Riley because you are young and fit. And I noticed on your social media that you just signed up for the Marine Corps marathon.

“And this is not a sickness. This is just your body going, what the fuck are you doing, Riley?”

Yeah, my body's not happy with me. That's for sure. Your body is like, what are you doing, seeking glory? Who's going to pay the price for this? Anyway, I hope you feel better. I hope you stay healthy and then I hope all of you out there feel better. I'm probably we didn't out very much here, but we did provide insight. Maybe just a little soup, salt of humor, dry humor. There's humor of resignation and bitterness. I don't know. We'll be back tomorrow. And, of course, later today, you've got our biggest most popular podcast.

Words matter. Me and Norm Ornstein, a couple of alticopters sitting around reflecting on the weeks of it.

And if it's not you, go join us for some of our other stuff.

“And subscribe on our YouTube channel and follow us on our other social media channels.”

And join us again here tomorrow on the DSRKly where we will answer the main question on your mind, which is did Riley survive till Friday.

Okay, till then, bye-bye.