Transcription
After saying there was a deal, President Trump is now lashing out at Iran. In a truth social post that appeared just a few moments ago, he called Thran, and I'm quoting him now, dishonorable for what he's calling inaccurate descriptions of a proposed agreement. He also said they better get their act together and they better do so fast. Let's go to CNN's Kristen Holmes over at the White House. Kristen, what else is the president saying this morning? It's all very dramatic.
Yeah, and Wolf, we're going to get to what he's saying in a second, but I do want to explain how we got here and what it is that he is referring to because we had gotten a readout of this memorandum of understanding from a diplomat who had been briefed on what was in this document. And some of the key points were this, that it would be a 60-day ceasefire that would include everything, Lebanon included, that the Street of Hormuz would be opened immediately, and that pre-war levels of traffic would begin again within 30 days. that the US blockade of ports and some Iranian sanctions would all open up as part of this deal and that it satisfies all the US requirements on the nuclear issue. So that is what we had been reporting.
Then we had Iran come out state media and give their version of the deal which looks significantly different and there are a couple of points in there that are likely to make President Trump angry. One of them would they would not commit to seeding control over the straight of Hormuz and the other is that frozen funds these frozen assets that have been a point of contention for President Trump. They say Iranian state media and of course keep in mind the source here that the agreement would demand the release of $24 billion in those frozen funds.
So now you have President Trump reacting to this, essentially saying that the terms that Iran leaked to the fake news media have nothing to do with the terms that were agreed to in writing. What they said, including their weak, pathetic statement on having a deal, bears no relation to the truth. And with them, there is no such thing as dealing in good faith. I I assume what he's talking about when he talks about their weak and pathetic statement on the deal is the fact that we had heard uh that their response to the deal or the response to President Trump was that the the text still requires review and finalization. They have been saying that it has not been signed off on. President Trump of course saying that everybody was in agreement. So that is what is happening now. And again, we've been down this path before. President Trump says a deal is imminent and then we see a situation like this where one of the sides starts to backpedal and it all falls through. So we'll see what's going to happen now. US officials are still cautiously optimistic. We shall see. All right, Kristen Holmes over at the White House for us. Thank you very much.
All right, Wolf, let's continue this conversation with CNN political and global affairs analyst Barack Ravid. He's also the global affairs correspondent for Axios. Uh what do you make of this development with President Trump going from they've reached a great settlement to now saying Iran needs to get its act together because of what the state media there is reporting which is different from what the US has said.
Yes. I think what the US has been told by the Qatari mediators and the Pakistani mediators and the Iranian negotiators themselves yesterday uh was that they're basically ready to sign. That was the message that the White House got and preparation started for a possible signing ceremony during the weekend. For example, four US Air Force C17 planes left Washington yesterday to Europe uh as an advance for possible trip by Vice President Vance to Geneva to sign this uh agreement with the speaker of the Iranian parliament Muhammad Bakr Khalib. Uh but I think what happened in the recent hours is what happened several times uh during those negotiations that every time the parties were close to a deal, each side uh wanted to market the deal to its own domestic uh um audience. And when you do that, then each sides obviously um you know gives the deal its own spin uh emphasizes the things that it's going to get and downplays the things that he's going to give. And I think that's again what happened uh today when the Iranian presented their narrative or their spin on what has been agreed and President Trump uh pushed back and presented uh him and White House officials pres presented their narrative about what has been agreed and I think it's not totally different but I think each side just emphasizes what it is getting from a deal and not really talking about what it is giving in this deal because Barack when and when when I woke up this morning and saw everything that was happening overnight, it looked like there was going to be a deal uh that included a 60-day ceasefire, including other stops, including a ceasefire involving Israeli strikes on Hezbala targets in Lebanon as well. But now it looks like this whole thing potentially could collapse. Do you think potentially, God forbid, that the uh the region now, the US, Israel, and Iran are on the verge of an all-out war?
Um, I'm not sure because I think even though President Trump ordered new strikes uh in recent days, uh, all of them were still below the threshold of an all-out war. Uh, I'm not saying it can't happen. Uh, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu uh definitely wants this war to resume because he doesn't believe the Iranians and he thinks that the regime needs to be weakened uh even more. But I think that at least at the moment uh even though Trump just you know uh posted this very angry uh response to the Iranians uh my sense from talking to um people that are involved in the negotiations on the US side is that they still want to see if they can get uh to sign this agreement over the weekend. I still hear the same thing from the uh different mediators. Um, so it might all collapse. We might seeing that at the moment how this thing is collapsing, but it might be, you know, one of those uh hiccups that you have before you you get to a deal.
Yeah. Yesterday, President Trump was threatening to launch US troops to take over Iraq's critically important Iran's critically important Carg Island. Uh that sounds like that would be a major escalation in this war right there. Uh and a source is telling CNN, by the way, Barack, uh that the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, wasn't aware of an agreement with Iran, uh and that remarkably he learned of it only from social media. What does that say to you about the Trump Netanyahu alliance, at least right now?
So, so first about Car Island, I I have to say I find it at least at the moment, you know, things change all the time and very quickly. I don't do not sense that there's either an appetite or a real operational plan, imminent operational plan to do anything on Car Island. Uh I I just I have no information that shows that this is where uh Trump really wanted to go. Um, and it is true that Netanyahu learned about uh um Trump's post yesterday announcing that there's a deal uh from social media when he was sitting with his security chief and one of his adviserss came into the room and and told him that while they were discussing about what is the what are the potential US strikes that were going to happen several hours later, all of a sudden one of his advisers came in and said, "Well, uh there are no strikes. there's actually a deal according to what President Trump just posted and the US did not notify Netanyahu in advance of this post and I think that in the phone call from what I heard from US officials about a phone call Netanyahu and Trump had uh several hours later um Netanyahu was very um he sort of um told the president that you know he understands that there is a deal and there's nothing nothing he he could do. I'm sure that uh uh if if Prime Minister Netanyahu read President Trump's post from a few minutes ago, um his mood improved significantly.
Yeah, certainly did. Dari Barak Ravid.