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Donald Trump is claiming that Iran has fully agreed to high-level international inspections of its nuclear program. Iran is flatly denying this.
“As always under Trump, it's more likely that the truth is coming from the other side”
at the negotiating table and not from our side. This highlights a big problem for Trump. He badly needs to produce results in these talks very quickly. He needs more money for the war, but as an angry exchange, he had with a reporter reveals the public won't put up with that when they're so sour on his economy.
It's gotten so bad that even Fox News is telling him the truth about his terrible economic numbers, so he needs to produce results in Iran fast. But as international relations professor Nicholas Grossman argues in a good new piece, time is not on his side, so he asked Nick to come on and explain it all to us.
Nick, always good to have you back on.
Yep, great to be here, Greg. Thanks. Can you quickly sum up where we are on this fundamental dispute, Nick? Trump says Iran has agreed to high-level international inspections, and he's even telling reporters that he wouldn't have agreed to enter the talks at all without Iran agreeing
to that beforehand, but all signs are that Iran has not agreed to it. What's the story here?
“I think it's pretty simple in that Trump is lying or at minimum heavily exaggerating”
and bullshitting. It's possible that they brought this up as something that Iran could maybe agree to in principle or suggest it, but all the signs show that there really hasn't been any discussion of Iran's nuclear program yet. There probably won't be since Iran has more leverage in these talks, and that sort of thing
would take a lot of details. A lot of the specific things that require nuclear physicists and engineers and other experts. There's no way they could possibly work it out now, so simply Trump is lying or trying to play up a minor, maybe discussion points as a big concession. Can I ask quickly before we move on from this Nick, does Trump saying this undermined
JD bands, is this a problem for JD bands and these negotiations? It's a big problem, I don't think we've seen something like this before, that the President of the United States is actively lying about what is going on in the discussions, and that makes it very hard for Iran to be able to get there sense of what the United States is committing to.
So, you know, just to make a deal, if I'm going to do something, I expect you to do something there, usually, trust-building measures, we take a few steps along the way, and so if I say, "Okay, I'll do X as long as you do Y," and then as soon as you get up from the table,
the President says, "No way, we're never going to do Y," and I never would have agreed
to that in the first place, then I can't know what you're going to do. I can't do my trust-building steps, and it makes the negotiations very difficult. So you've got the Americans, or in this weird position, of where they have to say, "Pay no attention to what our national leader says, he's just doing that as like theater for domestic consumption," and even as the Iranians can see the way that events and the whole Republican
party and a lot of conservative media kiss up to him, so often and just go with whatever he says. So yeah, it greatly undermines America's negotiating position. So Trump is under immense pressure right now to deliver. Let's listen to an exchange he had with a reporter who asked him about the news that the
Pentagon has asked Congress for another $80 billion for the war. The reporter starts up by saying, "The Department of War has asked for this money, listen to what happens." "The Department of War, a gaping for $80 billion for the Iran War, using Americans' support this at a time when so many are financially struggling."
"Are you with?" "How many of you makes it through?"
"Not a very good group, not doing very well.
Not only do they support it, not only do they support it, they demand it because they won't allow a rent to have a nuclear weapon.
“Do you want to see Trump, let them have a nuclear weapon?”
We're doing very well with a rent, they've been decimated." Nick, note how angry Trump gets at the notion that the American people are turning on him over both the war and the economy, and of course the American people have turned on him over both.
But he says the American people absolutely support spending $80 billion on the Iran War.
Your thoughts? He says this about everything, that whether there is any public support or not, it's kind of his way of trying to either bully reporters or bully the public into believing it, if to create an aura of power, or almost meme his way into more power than he actually has, and it's really not going to work in this instance.
I mean, Congress will most likely fund the Pentagon's requests, at least, in significant part, because a lot of that is replacing munitions that the United States fire against Iran, that is needed for a lot of contingencies, such as the event of a major war with Russia or China war, or Taiwan, anything like that. They will likely spend that money, but something to the American people, as some sort
of positive thing, that's not going to work at all. People can see the economic effects, and those are likely to get worse rather than get better
as the effects really be reverberate out, and they never supported the war in the first
place. But there isn't any particular reason why they would be excited to spend even more taxpayer dollars going there, when they are more concerned about really many other issues, especially economic ones. So you're really looking at a triple whammy for Trump, as you say, the public opposed
the war at the outset, which is itself unusual, and then the public had a direct glimpse of the economic effects of the war when the Strait of Hormuz closed, with unusual clarity, Trump was directly tied to skyrocketing prices. And then on top of that, Trump is now asking for another $80 billion, that's a triple whammy of sorts.
I don't think we've seen something like that before, Avley. No, we haven't. You can add on top of that, that the American public doesn't like losing a war, doesn't like backing a loser in a war, doesn't want to throw good money after bad. So if there was perhaps some sort of actual threat to the United States, or there was
some sort of national interest that he was achieving in the process of the war, then maybe there would be an argument for the American people to sacrifice in some manner, but there isn't at all, he's in the process of surrendering and making concessions to the Iranians and giving them more than they had before the start of the war, and so why would people be interested
“or say even excited or supportive of funding that more?”
It really is bad for him, and just to underscore how badly the public has turned on him over this, listen to this snippet from a Fox anchor. He sights a new maristful showing that only 33% of Americans approve of Trump on the economy is lowest ever in maristfuling with 60% disapproving. Check us out.
We've only got a few months now until the midterms, this marist poll shows that the president is not exactly firing on all cylinders when it comes to approval of his handling of the economy. 33% disapproving 66 and 60% rather, his 33% approval rating is 3 points lower than Biden at his worst. Nick, did you catch how the anchor said that Trump is now lower on the economy than Joe Biden
was at his worst, and that has got to be the thing Trump hates to hear more than anything else, and this is coming from Fox News, making it even more pointed. I think this really illustrates very graphically the kind of pressure he feels to produce at deal. The last thing he wants to be doing right now is asking for tens of billions more for
“the war when his approval rating on the economy is one third of the country, right?”
Yes, and he needs something really fast because the economic impact is very unlikely to turn positive in time for the midterms and time to reduce that pressure. This was one of the things that got Trump to surrender in the first place that, you know, a good lesson of what is he actually afraid of, what can discipline him, what does he listen to?
The answer has always been markets that the oil market and others were on the verge of getting
into a very serious crisis because of reserves running down and the ships not leaving the straight in time to replenish that. And we still might see some of that because as much as Trump tries to sell this idea that the straightest totally open ships are flowing through, that Iran won't be charging tolls for it, none of that matches the facts on the ground.
And this is the type of a big scale, kind of supply demand, a hard physical reality that he can bullshit his way through for some time, kind of delay for a time, but cannot totally
Manage to hoodwink people when there are ongoing economic problems when costs...
when we saw recently inflation numbers in large part due to the war, getting back to levels
that we haven't seen in a few years, that all of that is a sort of thing that people notice. And he really seems desperate about it, that where usually he's able to either bully people into saying that it's going well, or turn it into a domestic political, he said she said back and forth or just somehow bullshit his way through it, change the subjects.
And this one is just stubbornly not doing it because the reality of it is too big. I'd hate to interrupt this thrilling podcast, but we have some exciting news at the DSR network. Our Substack is now live. Our Substack is going to be the new home for free and paid content here at the DSR network.
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Well, here's the kicker on the marist call. It finds his overall job approval at 36% which is the lowest of his second term.
Those are very bad numbers, Nick. Those are really bad. Those are the sort that lead to a midterm wipeout for a president's party. And we should note here that this 36% approval, which is, again, dismal, is absolutely not an outlier. The New York Times calling averages, which, if anything, are conservative and taken a lot of data, have as approval at 38%. That means that his actual approval is very plausibly in the mid-30s, 35, 36, 37.
“Those are terrible numbers. And I don't see them turning around, Nick. Do you?”
I mean, part of the problem here is that he's built into a situation with Iran where time isn't on his side. Is it? I think you're right that it is likely to get worse and it can't really see a way that it gets better. Think of a few different ways. One is that with the straight still restricted, that has been blocked for so long. A lot of supplies, not just energy, but things like fertilizers and another good one. We're going to see over the next year or two, the result of that supply crunch in higher prices,
reverberating through the economy. So the economy is more likely to get worse rather than better, at least instead of the mid-term. With the war, it looks like it has driven more wedges into the Maga Coalition to the GOP Coalition, because it effectively broke some of the deal that various voting groups thought that they had with Trump when they were voting for him. So you had some lighter supporters who thought that he was good for the economy, that he was going to
bring inflation down, that the economy was going to look more like, say, 2018, 2019 before COVID. And he didn't do that. He made it worse exactly along those measures in a way that's easy to link to the war. And also there were the people who voted for him because they thought that they
they bought into the image of anti-war isolationism, which was always bullshit, which had to
willfully ignore a lot of his first term stuff, but nevertheless some voters bought into it. And here he went and started a new Middle East war that is causing all sorts of problems and is not making better for anything for the United States or for its various allies of the world. And so where some of them feel betrayed. And so where I would be extremely wary of ever, say, giving credit to Tucker Carlson. So this is not credit, but where he is seeing an opportunity
in taking this anti-war isolationist, anti-Israel lane. And that is creating these political
Problems for Trump that are very unlikely to reverse in time for the midterms...
But I can't see what miracle thing would come along that would somehow reverse his approval decline. I just want to underscore your point by saying that Tucker Carlson and Marjorie Taylor Green just this week said that they're leaving the Republican party or something to that effect.
Again, we shouldn't trust these people, even for a second or hell, any sort of, any sort of
nobleness on their part at all. But there really is opportunity that they're seeing. They would not be doing this unless they sense that there are large constituencies
“within the Trump/Magic coalition that will agree with them on it, right?”
Right, exactly, that they are opportunities to finger in the wind. It's almost like they're positioning themselves for a period of whatever happens after Trump and that they want to be in the lane that says, you know, various bogus stuff like, I don't know, a lot of the racism anti-immigrant stuff, for example, was good. But the Iran war and Middle East interventionism was bad and tried to capture a future of the right by doing that. But that also makes it a argument inside the
Republican party because you also have another group that has been wrong feels wrongs. By this are the archhawks, the ones who have been wanting it a run where the entire time, the ones who are very strong supporters of Israel, they're failing betrayed by Trump's surrendering and making all these big concessions to Iran, of giving Iran benefits up front and not getting anything for the United States of leaving towards an absolute best-case scenario, something like a weaker
version of the JCPOA, the Obama nuclear deal, which they hated and wanted to pose in the first place.
So those are the sort of people who maybe didn't love some other Trump stuff and bit their tongue about it because they like that he was going to be so violently aggressive in the Middle East and so supportive of Israel and of Benjamin Netanyahu. And now when Trump is doing something that goes against those interests and you have the Tucker and that other part of the coalition going in a different direction, it looks really difficult for anybody to possibly be able to hold
that thing together. I mean, he's losing three different groups if you really bear down on it, right? He's losing the low engagement, young non-white working class types who went to Trump because he's the apprentice guy or whatever they thought. He's losing the diehard maga types who actually seem to have real anti-interventionist views. I'm really skeptical of that and I know you are as well, but still people like Tucker and Marjorie Taylor Green are speaking to some sort of
constituency out there that thinks that. And he's losing the Republican hawks who thought Trump
“would basically be their Tribune to brush whatever enemy grows up in their path. Yeah, I think”
he's losing some of the kind of managed fear tough guy types also in that he he looks a week. That's the this was supposed to be some triumph of strength and it's going terribly along those lines. And that's the sort of thing that so many people, various experts on the issue could have told them in advance that you can't just act like a reality show tough guy, do a bunch of bluster, do some bombs from afar and expect a country to then capitulate to you. That's not going to work,
but nevertheless some people bought into that and the embarrassment of it now with being part of a loser and one who is surrendering and flailing and kind of going back and forth on it a lot and just generally looks weak and being seen by a lot of people in those areas this week just as another part another ship against that coalition that he built that got him back into the White House in 2024. Well, let's wrap this up by listening to something Trump said at a rally in Pennsylvania,
“which I think shows again how anger he is at the media and everybody over all this, listen.”
Iran will never have a nuclear weapon and they've agreed to that.
But remember, this was an easy we had 47 years worth of present and other people other countries too. We're not the only one that never did anything. They were the bully of the Middle East and now we're leaving Iran with no navy, no air force, no anti-aircraft, no missile capability, no nuclear program, we're leaving them without any nuclear capacity and they've agreed to that and we're getting a little quite well although if you read the fake news, you never know, think of it.
The fake news, they have no army, they have no navy, they have no air force, they have no anti-aircraft, we can fly over to rent, just that will, nobody going to do anything to us and then I read the fake news that they're doing quite well, they're not doing quite well. Nick, note how Trump says Iran has agreed to having no nuclear program, one in fact,
All it has agreed to is what it has agreed to many times in the past, which i...
language about how it shall not fly or develop nuclear weapons and note how he rages at the media for telling people the truth, which is that Trump has gotten little to nothing on this front. What's the basic dynamic here going forward? Does this change any time soon? Does it just
“drag on for many months? How do you see it playing out? I think it's probably dragging on for a while”
that unfortunately one of the really long-term problems with this is that
Trump has given Iran this really powerful card that they can threaten to close a straight-of-war
moves when they don't like how things were going, either with negotiations with the United States or Israeli military activity in Lebanon or just to buy anything else and they can start up as an issue. I bet we're going to be hearing about this for years. Iran is also setting
“up a toll regime, they're building this out with Oman, they're charging people's special”
insurance and saying they're going to have to pay and Trump is lying about that and he's trying to sell that lie, but that one looks like it's moving forward also, so he's gotten the Iranian government's a big new revenue stream and they are not going to be giving concessions on the nuclear program. At least not ones that are more in the MOU, what it specifically says is
they even use the language Iran reiterates. Basically it says its old statement that they won't
get nuclear weapons and nobody really believes before, which is why there were all these sanctions and pressure on Iran in the first place, so he's going to keep on giving Iran these concessions to get just recently lifting sanctions on Iran, allowing a lot of Iranians ships to leave and sell it market, we're unfreezing Iranian assets is something that the Iranians said they talked
“about when they were meeting in Switzerland on that one I believe them, so we'll see more”
economic concessions to Iran just to get Iran to keep the process of letting ships through the straight-up or moves because that's the real leverage that they have where once they got a hold of that they have had us, they have had the stronger hand and they have been playing it better than the United States has, so while Trump will continue prioritizing trying to lie to the American people about what happens, the facts on the ground and the actual shape of the Middle East of the
international system that is coming out of this is going to keep on likely getting more and more in the Iranians favor with Trump lying and threatening and blustering along the way. The beauty of it all is that JD Vance inherits this whole mass next year when Donald Trump is utterly checked out and essentially leaving the scene and JD Vance is starting his presidential
run. He deserves every bit of that Nicolas Grossman, thanks for coming on, always great to talk to you.
Yep, best to look to Mr. Vance, I guess. And yeah, great talking to you too, thanks for having me.
