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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
U.S. Releases Iran Agreement, Conservatives Call It Surrender; Trump Defends Iran Having Missiles, Unfair If Others Can Have Them; Iran Agreement Confirms What Trump, Vance Called Propaganda. Donald Trump Defends the Agreement with Iran that will Avert Economic Catastrophe. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired June 17, 2026 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[22:00:00]
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR (voice over): Tonight, Donald Trump defends what many Republicans call a surrender, the worst foreign policy blunder in decades, and bat (BLEEP) crazy.
TREY GOWDY, FOX NEWS HOST: I thought somebody was spoofing me when I saw it.
PHILLIP: So, is Iran better off now than before the war?
Plus, it turns out what the administration called propaganda is indeed in the agreement.
Also, the president test drives a new spin. He's saving the country from another depression.
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: The one president I did not want to be was the late great Herbert Hoover.
And as columnists suggest J.D. Vance will be the fall guy, his boss jokes about it.
TRUMP: If it works out, I'm going to take the credit. If it doesn't work out, I'm blaming J.D.
PHILLIP: Live at the table, Bakari Sellers, Stephen Moore, Yemisi Egbewole, Tim Parrish, Kian Tajbakhsh, and John Prideaux.
Americans with different perspectives aren't talking to each other, but here, they do.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIP (on camera): Good evening. I'm Abby Phillip in New York.
Tonight, the agreement between Iran and the United States has been released, and even allies of the president are trashing it, quote, an American surrender, a grave capitulation, and the worst foreign policy blunder in decades.
So, what's in it and what is out? Well, as part of the deal, the parties agreed to immediately end military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon, and Iran reaffirms that it will not procure or develop nuclear weapons.
But Iran seems to be gaining a whole lot out of the war that Donald Trump started. This agreement includes an unfreezing of Iranian assets, significant sanctions relief, and permission for Iran to sell its oil immediately. The United States agrees to lift its naval blockade at the Strait of Hormuz, and Iran agrees to remove mines, ensuring toll-free passage through that strait, but only for 60 days. And perhaps most controversially, the deal could establish a $300 billion fund paid for by Gulf allies.
Now, questions still remain about Iran's ballistic missile arsenal, its nuclear enrichment program, and what, if anything, happens to the nuclear deal, if a deal -- a broader deal isn't reached within 60 days.
Now, reacting to this agreement, here is Fox News Host Trey Gowdy.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOWDY: They're better off than they were before the hostilities began, and that should not be the consequence of war. When you lose a war -- I mean, think about it, Sandra. We went into Iran and rescued a downed pilot. We had total control over that country. We were winning militarily and economically. And when you are in that position, you negotiate from strength. You don't give people money. You don't give them access. What are they going to do with the money, Sandra?
You know that Iran is going to use this for nefarious purposes. We all know that. The regime has not changed.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: And, Kian, you've been with us so much now over the last several months. Right. We know you to be an expert on the Iranians, and also expert in these negotiations, the old one in 2015 and where we are now. Brett McGurk says, on its face, this new deal returns Iran to the status it enjoyed under the Obama-era nuclear deal, the JCPOA, with unlimited oil and petrochemical sales at market prices. Some experts have assessed that this article alone could deliver $60 to $70 billion a year directly to Iran.
That is the part of the deal that basically doesn't require Iran to do anything except sign on the dotted line.
KIAN TAJBAKHSH, FORMER POLITICAL PRISONER IN IRAN, RELEASED 2015: That's right. That's right, Abby. I mean, I think that there's a real concern on the face of it. I mean, you know, I've read the 14-point document. The administration is saying actually confusing things. They're saying we shouldn't take the text of the published 14 points seriously. Why? Because there are being backchannel commitments by the Iranians. PHILLIP: They call it a political document. They say they have a gentleman's agreement with the Iranians.
TAJBAKHSH: Right. Now, unfortunately, they you know, there's a kind of a misunderstanding of how things work in the Middle East. In the Middle East, what people say to you in private, in English, is usually irrelevant and meaningless. It's only what they will say in their own language publicly that actually counts.
[22:05:02]
So, it's actually the opposite of the U.S.
You know, I don't want to insult any politicians here, but politicians in the -- you know -- well, you know, politicians, typically, you know, they're criticized for lying in public but telling you the truth in private, in the Middle East, it's exactly the opposite. They will actually say the truth only in public, but in private, they'll say whatever you want to hear.
So, until we actually see what the terms are and how the negotiations go forward, on the face of it, you know, first of all, I wouldn't trust those backchannel and those commitments. We'd have to see what they are on paper, because that kind of vagueness is exactly where Iran is an expert at basically using ambiguity for their own purposes.
PHILLIP: Yes. Let me play what President Trump said about Iran's new leadership. He seems to think that he's gotten a new crop of people that have changed their ways. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: They have a new group of leaders that I think is -- actually, I think they're smarter. I think they're very smart. I think they're far less radicalized. And I think they're -- I think they're really good. They love their country. You know, you talk about regime change. Nobody will say that, but I guess that's -- look, their one set of leaders is all gone. Their second set of leaders is all gone. Their third set of leaders, a little bit gone. But for the most part and, frankly, I think that's regime change. I think they're going to behave much differently.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: So, Bakari, I'm not sure on what basis he's saying that, because when you read the deal, you can see how Iran has gotten a lot of what they wanted out of this negotiation.
BAKARI SELLERS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I mean, I think to be to be extremely plain and clear, we went into the war in a posture where Donald Trump lied to the American public repeatedly about destroying or obliterating their ballistics efforts, going in and deteriorating their nuclear arsenal. At the end of the day, we lost American lives and soldiers. We paid the Iranian government $300 billion in reparations. It cost --
PHILLIP: Well, we haven't paid that yet.
SELLERS: We will.
PHILLIP: But it is a fund that would be established.
SELLERS: It was a fund. Okay. We spent $30 million or $29 million in fighting the war. We've lift sanctions on Iran. And let me just say something. Very rarely do you get Bakari Sellers, Trey Gowdy, and Nikki Haley, like all great South Carolinians, singing from the same sheet of music on the fact that Donald Trump lost the war.
I mean, let's be extremely clear. I mean, when people watch this show, they watch it for the exchange of ideas and the breadth of honesty, but there's not one person who can come on this show and say that our objectives were met. Barack Obama went in, and as I have a ton of friends who tell me all the time that the deal was not as strong as they wanted it to be, but we spent about $1.8 billion. A lot of that was unfrozen Iranian assets. We actually were able to secure 98 percent of their enriched uranium. They were further away from a nuclear weapon than they are today.
That may not have been the 100 percent success that people wanted, but Donald Trump ripped that up and also ripped up our global standing, and we went backwards.
PHILLIP: So, I mean, he just asked, can anyone defend it. Can you?
TIM PARRISH, CONSERVATIVE STRATEGIST: Well, I mean, first, I would start with a series of questions. Who paid Iran $300 billion?
SELLERS: Well, it's a fund. It will be. It's in paragraph --
PHILLIP: As I -- hold on. As I explained -- hold on. No, hold on. As I explained, the text of the deal establishes, or it posits that there would be a fund that the United States would facilitate being established for the reconstruction of Iran. It suggests that the Gulf states would play a role in funding that fund.
PARRISH: Right.
PHILLIP: So -- there are parts of it that are vague, but it promises to the Iranians up to $300 billion in funds to rebuild the country that we destroyed.
TAJBAKHSH: Although I'll just add --
PHILLIP: Yes.
TAJBAKHSH: If I'll just add, it says the mechanism for the implementation of that will be finalized only as part of a final deal. So, that part of it is not going to start on Friday.
PARRISH: Right.
PHILLIP: Right.
PARRISH: And so this is where accuracy matters, right? You can't say on national television that the president has given --
PHILLIP: Well, I corrected -- well, Tim, I corrected him on that.
PARRISH: You did, and I'm just making the --
PHILLIP: But there are other points about -- the one thing that, that isn't in dispute that happens as of today, apparently, is that the oil sanctions are lifted. So, that is happening right now.
[22:10:01]
PARRISH: Absolutely.
SELLERS: So, that's $60 to $70 billion.
PHILLIP: Hold on. Let me let him respond.
PARRISH: So -- well, the point I'll start from is this total mischaracterization that Donald Trump lost the war. First of all, the one objective, the strategic objective that the president was very clear about from day one, was that we did not want them to procure a nuclear weapon.
In that deal, in one of those 14 points, is Iran coming to the table and saying, we will not --
SELLERS: Let me ask -- can I ask you a very simple question?
PARRISH: I'll just -- I'll let you finish. Can I just finish the point?
SELLERS: Go ahead. Because I want you to ask and say was that in the JCPOA or not?
PARRISH: I know. And I didn't -- I let you finish the point.
SELLERS: Go ahead.
PARRISH: So, that's in one of those points, right? Is that we don't get a nuclear-armed Iran. That was the one strategic objective that the president had going into this, and that's victory. And so I don't know why anybody would be against --
SELLERS: Can I ask you a simple question?
PARRISH: Sure.
SELLERS: Was that in the JCPOA or not? Was it word for word or not?
PARRISH: Actually, I'm glad you asked. The JCPOA actually just gave a landing strip for the Iranians --
SELLERS: It literally said the same thing.
PARRISH: -- to get to a nuclear weapon. It didn't. This is total and complete, we will not produce, and we will destroy -- PHILLIP: Well, hold on a second, Tim. Hold on a second, Tim. Before you jump in, Stephen --
STEPHEN MOORE, CO-FOUNDER, UNLEASH PROSPERITY: Which is --
PHILLIP: Hold on. Before you jump in, Stephen, the JCPOA said that Iran will under no circumstances ever obtain a nuclear weapon. And, in fact, this deal contemplates that because what it says is that Iran reiterates what they say has been their longstanding stance that they would not have a nuclear weapon.
Now, I think what you're referring to is the fact that the JCPOA had sunset provisions for the limits that they had on nuclear enrichment.
PARRISH: Correct.
PHILLIP: That is true. However, you also have to acknowledge that this deal has absolutely zero provisions when it comes to the fate of Iran's nuclear enrichment program and its nuclear weapons.
PARRISH: No, that's not true, Abby. This deal is performance-based.
PHILLIP: But -- yes. But what are the markers? But what are the markers, Tim?
PARRISH: If the Iranians start producing a nuclear weapon again, if there's evidence of that, they have to allow the proper regulatory authorities in the country. And if they report that something otherwise is happening, we'll pick back up.
PHILLIP: But hold on a second. This deal doesn't say Iran will never be able to enrich uranium in its borders. You know what it says? It says that we'll determine at another date the fate of enrichment in Iran, which suggests that this deal is contemplating that Iran could enrich.
Now, President Trump was even more explicit in an interview a couple of days ago with The New York Times, and he said, yes, maybe we might have a cap. Maybe it's around 3 percent, the same cap that existed in the JCPOA.
So, look, I get the sunset provisions but when you have a document that it basically says, we'll figure it out later, you can't tell me that those are benchmarks. Those are -- that's just kicking the can down the road.
MOORE: So, I would say this, that I think it's false to say that that they weren't developing nuclear weapons, because they were. So, whatever Obama did, it wasn't --
SELLERS: That's not what I said. In fact, to be completely clear, I said they were further away in 2015 than they are.
PARRISH: That's still not true.
(CROSSTALKS) MOORE: They were -- we know that they were moving very aggressively ahead with developing a nuclear weapon, and that was one of the greatest dangers on the planet. So, for you all to say he accomplished nothing, I think, is absurd.
SELLERS: What did he accomplish? We moved them -- and, by the way, Trump has been very clear.
MOORE: What did he accomplish?
SELLERS: Be clear with like what did he accomplish?
MOORE: We have denuclearized --
SELLERS: No, we have not.
(CROSSTALKS)
SELLERS: There is no one -- based on what?
MOORE: He made it very clear, if they continue to try to develop a nuclear weapon, we will bomb them again.
SELLERS: Because the bombing worked?
TAJBAKHSH: Well, one of the realities is that -- I mean, the one difference right now and practically because of the bombing, is that, currently, as far as we know, the centrifuges inside Iran are not spinning. That is to say they were under Obama, and I agree with you. I think there was a lot of -- I mean, there was a lot of ambiguity.
But I think that also, I mean, you know, I think we should maybe just leave the JCPOA behind. I think it was part of a different world. For me, it was a world before October 7th. I've said this on this show before. Yes. I think October 7th changed the rules of the game in the Middle East in terms of geopolitics. A JCPOA-type agreement just cannot survive.
In fact, the reason I think we got into this war, and as you know, I'm critical and agree with the president in terms of I think there was a strategic rationale for going in at some point. But I think that the execution and the planning was badly bungled, and we're paying the cost right now.
PHILLIP: So, one of the things, Kian, that we've talked about with you is the ballistic missile component of this.
TAJBAKHSH: Yes.
PHILLIP: And I just want to play what the administration had been saying about ballistic missiles and what they're saying now. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: They've already developed missiles that can threaten Europe and our bases overseas, and they're working to build missiles that will soon reach the United States of America.
[22:15:08]
MARCO RUBIO, SECRETARY OF STATE: We're going to destroy their navy. We're going to destroy their air force, and we are going to significantly destroy their missile launchers so they can never hide behind these things to get a nuclear weapon.
PETE HEGSETH, DEFENSE SECRETARY: This operation is a clear, devastating, decisive mission. Destroy the missile threat, destroy the navy, no nukes.
TRUMP: Well, what am I going to do? Am I going to let Saudi Arabia have missiles, but they can't have them? Yes, sir. It doesn't work that way, you know? It doesn't work that way. And missiles aren't the problem. Missiles are -- they hurt a little location, but they don't blow up the planet.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAJBAKHSH: I mean, it's -- I what can I tell you? It's -- look, I mean, exit planning and -- look, knowing to do what I think, to do the right thing is one thing, but knowing how to do it right is a different thing.
PHILLIP: That is very true.
TAJBAKHSH: And, you know, I'm in the position that it was -- you know, maybe it wasn't the right time to do it, but at some point, I felt that the war was inevitable. And I think this is kicking down the can down the road, this agreement.
PHILLIP: And how has Trump -- I mean, the whole rationale, just to be clear, actually, even more so than the nuclear rationale. Because, you know, last year when they did the bombing, it was actually to bury the nuclear material, right? The rationale for this operation was to take the ballistic missile threat off the table so that they could no longer use ballistic missiles as a shield for their nuclear program.
Now, you have the president saying, well, why can't they have ballistic missiles? Everybody else in the neighborhood has them. How do they justify that at this stage?
YEMISI EGBEWOLE, FORMER CHIEF OF STAFF AND ADVISER, BIDEN WHITE HOUSE PRESS OFFICE: I think it just shows there was no clear objective from the beginning. I think the president and the administration sold this war in very large terms, and there's a middle ground. There are people who will say, look, we understand that Iran is a threat, but the president added so much to it.
I mean, let's talk about -- we're not even talking about the human rights element that was added at the beginning. He created a moral argument for going into Iran. He wanted an entire regime change. And I would now ask, are the people in Iran safer, more freer, better off, or have we completely lost that because we used it as --
MOORE: But their regime was killing thousands and thousands of people.
SELELRS: Yes. It's the -- but the regime has -- has the regime changed?
EGBEWOLE: We cut off one head and another one sprouted up.
(CROSSTALKS)
SELLERS: The regime has not changed. It actually got younger and angrier and they --
MOORE: Well, we'll see. We'll see.
EGBEWOLE: But it's a theocracy. You can't bomb your way to a democracy. It doesn't make sense.
PARRISH: Regime change was never this president's objective.
SELLERS: Yes, it was.
(CROSSTALKS)
PARRISH: The Israelis maybe, but that was never one of the objectives of the president.
PHILLIP: Tim, we've gone through this before. He said on the night of the bombing, the people of Iran, now is your time to take back your country. That's what he said. Then the next week, I want to have -- he said on the next week --
PARRISH: Really?
PHILLIP: He said on the next week, I want to have a role in picking the next leader of Iran. I think I can be the one to do that because I've killed all the other ones. So, they've put regime change on the table.
PARRISH: The president did not. That's a mischaracterization. The president never said, because I killed all the rest of them. That was not his words.
PHILLIP: Oh, okay. He said the United States bombed the rest of them. I'm sorry.
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: Let me let -- we're going to come back after the break, okay? Let's push pause on this conversation.
Next, for days, Trump and Vance have been calling leaks propaganda, but the agreement confirms most everything that they denied.
Plus, the president tries out a new spin. He's saving the economy from a depression by signing this agreement. We'll debate that next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [22:20:00]
PHILLIP: Tonight, the Trump administration's P.R. crisis on the Iran agreement is intensifying. This week, as aspects of the deal leaked, J.D. Vance, the vice president, made the rounds on T.V. to blame Gulf allies for the botched rollout, and downplaying concerns by accusing critics of spreading misinformation.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
J.D. VANCE, U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: What really bothers me and frustrates me and is unexpected, when the American media literally picks up talking points and propaganda from the IRGC that has no support in the text of the agreement that we've actually negotiated, and no basis in reality.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: So, don't take my word for it because we've been covering this all week but here's Erick Erickson today. When I pointed out things in this deal the other day, several administration defenders insisted that those things would never be in the deal. Now, they're in the deal, and the same people insist it's a great deal.
Stephen, why did they spend days denying that there would be a $300 billion fund, denying that there would be sanctions relief, and those things are in the deal?
MOORE: Well, I don't have a good explanation for that. I know that, you know, Trump wanted to get this over with. I do think there was a -- you know, I know we're going to talk about this a little later, I think he was concerned about the impact this is having on the U.S. economy and he wants to get it turned around as quickly as possible. So, he wants -- wanted to bring this to an end with the provision. You know, as I understand it, I haven't read all the -- but the most important provision of this is they will not gain a nuclear arsenal, and that seems to me to be a pretty important objective.
TAJBAKHSH: But there are no mechanisms stated here in terms of intrusive inspections, 24/7 inspections. I mean, I assume that that's something that will come and will be discussed during the 60-day period. But, frankly, I mean, I think that what it looks like to me is that the Iranians have -- you know, they flanked -- they did a flanking operation.
[22:25:04]
They found the soft underbelly of the U.S. military. They controlled the Straits of Hormuz even though they're a weaker power. And President Trump was simply unwilling, not incapable, but unwilling to spend more resources, possibly American lives, more money --
MOORE: Do you think he should have?
TAJBAKHSH: I think that having gone down that road of starting a war to achieve the three goals that he stated -- I mean, I've my reading, it was quite consistent from the beginning. He said missiles, you know, it was enrichment, missiles, and proxies.
And that is something, by the way -- I mean, I did bring the -- I mean, the text of those three things were exactly the three items that President Trump stated in the executive order he made in -- when he came back in office and reinstated maximum -- you know, the maximum pressure. So, he's been focused on that.
So, I think that, yes. I mean, I think they were close to, like, the 20-yard line. And to achieve those war aims, I think that he could have gone further and I --
MOORE: To double down, basically.
TAJBAKHSH: Yes. He could have gone further, but he decided not to.
PHILLIP: So, you know, in addition to denying some of the monetary components of this deal, there was a lot of sort of hemming and hawing about what the deal was going to say about the enriched uranium.
And I just want to play -- again, there's a lot of before the deal and after the deal. Here is what they used to say about, you know, the nuclear material and enriched uranium being a red line and what President Trump is saying today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: Do you want the enriched uranium before you can end this?
TRUMP: And we want no enrichment, but we also want the enriched uranium.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One of your red lines is they have to renounce having their nuclear ambition.
TRUMP: Correct.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do we have to get back the highly enriched uranium? Is that a red line for a deal?
TRUMP: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you really feel in your heart of hearts that you can stop Iran from enriching uranium and never build a bomb ever?
TRUMP: Oh, 100 percent, they're going to stop. And they told me, the Iranians tell me, I deal with them, and they said that we're going to get the dust.
We've been pretty tough on that. You know, it's also -- it is a little hard, though, when you say that somebody wants it, other people have it, other adjoining states have it, and you're not letting them have it for purposes of electricity and things like that. It's always a little tough. You have to use a little common sense.
(END VIDEO CLIP) PHILLIP: Okay. So, just so you're aware of what's actually in this MOU, the memorandum of understanding, they're not going to get the dust. They are going to dilute the dust. That's what it says.
Now, you can give them credit for getting Iran to sign on to something that says, here's what we're going to do with the nuclear material that you have already, but it doesn't say, we're going to -- you're going to let us in to retrieve it and take it out of the country.
And, in fact, on the question of just are they able to enrich, remember he told Kaitlan, we want no enrichment. The deal says, we'll talk about enrichment. And then he said there in that quote, maybe they might need to enrich for other purposes. That is, I think, something that for many conservatives has been their red line on Iran.
TAJBAKHSH: Can I just make a comment about this enrichment? I was following very closely the 2015 -- there were -- the JCPOA made one, I think, concession which they shouldn't have done to the Iranians, which was that they included in the language the idea, the demand by the Iranians that we have a right to enrichment on Iranian soil.
Actually, under NPT, the Non-Proliferation Treaty, no country has a right to enrichment. The NPT gives countries a right to nuclear material, which they can use for civilian purposes, but it doesn't give anyone a right.
PHILLIP: So, did you read this the way I did, which is to say that they -- we are conceding, as the United States, that we're going to have a conversation about that?
TAJBAKHSH: That's exactly right.
PHILLIP: We're not saying, no enrichment. We're saying, oh, we can talk about it and maybe you can enrich up until this level. Again, that's exactly right, that this is something that was, for a long time, a red line. And that is, to me, one of the biggest concessions for Iran because they believe they have a right to enrich. And we're basically saying, you might.
PARRISH: Abby, I think the political whiplash to me here is most astounding. If Donald Trump found the cure to cancer, people at this table would be upset about how he did it. People on the political left would go crazy about how he did it.
We got into this war for a strategic purpose, and now the president has gotten us out of the war, gotten an end to the war, with a really good plan to do so and a very clear win, a big victory on nuclear weapons, and we're sitting around the table complaining about it.
[22:30:05]
SELLERS: Can you answer the question about nuclear enrichment?
PARRISH: Of course, the details of this are going to come out. The President has a skeleton of a plan put together, there's a framework that's been put together via these 14 points, and I do think that more of the details are going to come out, more of the KPIs are going to come out as we continue to negotiate and go through this.
But man, it's just, it's whiplash up here, because when we were in the war, it was, oh my god, five alarm fire, Trump got us in this war. Now he's getting us out, and beautifully so, and we're still complaining.
YEMISI EGBEWOLE, FORMER CHIEF OF STAFF AND ADVISER, BIDEN WHITE HOUSE PRESS OFFICE: The results don't match the cost of war, and that is honestly going to be a political problem for him as we get closer to the midterms, and we won't be on that.
PARRISH: The cost of war in this case was Iran not having a nuclear weapon, full stop.
EGBEWOLE: The cost of war to people at home are American lives that were lost.
PARRISH: Yes, absolutely, when you go to war, having done it myself, we do, and there is, and that's an unfortunate, I don't want to gloss over that point, that is an unfortunate aspect of combat and going to war against our nation's enemies.
EGBEWOLE: It doesn't feel like the President understands the gravity of that, though.
PARRISH: Wait a second, I think as the commander-in-chief of the United States, the President absolutely understands, and I think if you want to compare when this President goes to Dover Air Force Base and did the dignified transfers of those bodies, he wasn't checking his watch like Joe Biden was and following the safety standards.
So when you talk about, let me finish, when you talk about the gravity of the issue with the President, and the commander in chief understanding the gravity of American lives lost, that's it.
SELLERS: Yes, no, I want to get back on topic, because I heard, and I appreciate the regurgitation of the talking points, but we were talking about nuclear enrichment and them being closer to a nuclear weapon and possessing that uranium that we're talking about in making these nuclear weapons, and you brought up an amazing point, which, frankly speaking, I'm too far away from to understand, so you taught me something today.
What I do understand about the JCPOA, which you said was a different time, and I agree with that wholeheartedly. October 7th did change the framework of the Middle East.
However, there were provisions in place, there were checkpoints in place to make sure that that enrichment was maintained at a certain level, that they were backing away from that, and all we're simply saying is that that's not in place today.
Listen, you are trusting the Iranian regime that has not changed by simply saying--
STEPHEN MOORE, CO-FOUNDER, UNLEASH PROSPERITY: No, I'm trusting Trump because the one thing he will never allow is for Iran to have a nuclear weapon. For the next two and a half years, Mr. President, they will not have a nuclear weapon.
SELLERS: This is Israel, the United States, the Middle East, which you just said, because we actually agree on something, that Iran does not need to have a nuclear weapon. It's a worldwide problem.
However, we actually had, and I'm going to just steal from Trey Gowdy, we actually had maximum pressure. We had sanctions on them. Today, they're able to go back and sell oil, they're charging money that we're paying for ships to come through the Straits of Hormuz.
It's not only the pain on the American people, which we'll get to, but talking points do a disservice to the fact that we are not meeting the objectives that Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth, Marco Rubio has been quiet, have told the American public.
PHILLIP: All right, we have to leave it there. Kian, thank you as always very much for teaching us all a little bit something tonight.
Next for us, the President delivers a new defense for the agreement to avoid another depression, he says. Another special guest is going to be with us at the table. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:35:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: Tonight, a new defense from President Trump and a new spin of why he says he wanted to get an agreement with Iran done as quickly as possible.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: So the one thing I didn't want to see is I didn't want to see economic catastrophe. If you kept this going, that could have happened.
But all I know is every time we talked about the possibility of peace, the stock market shot up like a rocket ship. It never went down.
They didn't like it. The people, you know, the stock market is more brilliant than anybody there is, including the people on this stage, other than me, of course.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Joining the table, John Perdue, the executive editor at "The Economist."
And John, we've been talking for months about the impact that this war has had on the economy, the price of gas skyrocketing. A month ago, it was $4.51. It's come down a bit to $4.03, but that's still over a dollar a gallon more than it was on February 28th of this year. And almost more than a gallon more than it was a year ago.
So it seems like, yes, if Iran wanted to put pressure on the world economically, they absolutely succeeded.
JOHN PRIDEAUX, EXECUTIVE EDITOR, "THE ECONOMIST", AND PODCAST HOST, THE ECONOMIST'S "TOCQUEVILLE ROAD TRIP": I think that's right. I think they've discovered in the course of this war how much leverage they have. And I think that's some pretty solid economic analysis there from President Trump. You know, had this war continued, had the oil been unable to get through the Strait of Hormuz, that's 20 percent of the world's oil supply flowed through that there.
Now, you shut that down indefinitely, and I don't know about economic catastrophe, but it would look pretty bad.
And so, yes, the President thought going into this war he had the leverage. I think it turns out that he didn't.
MOORE: I think he panicked a little bit. I mean, the economy is doing really well right now, really well.
[22:40:04]
And so, you know, you look at record stock market, you look at what's happening in manufacturing, construction, we're seeing incredible productivity gains in inflation. There's no doubt about the inflation rate's going to come down very rapidly.
In fact, we may have close to zero inflation in a few months, especially if the gas price comes down.
PHILLIP: But only if the gas prices come down, Stephen.
MOORE: What's that?
PHILLIP: But only if the gas prices come down.
MOORE: But that'll help a lot.
PHILLIP: No, but what I'm saying is, and you guys can hash this out, but the inflation that we've experienced in the last two months have been driven by gas prices.
MOORE: No question about that.
PHILLIP: So, in order for that to reverse itself, the gas prices do have to come down.
MOORE: And they will. And they are coming down.
PHILLIP: But that's why Trump felt so much pressure to get this seat.
MOORE: Except my point is, they were coming down anyway. In other words, he may have panicked and said, oh, I need to have this deal to make the economy strong. And my point is, it's strong.
I mean, the most amazing thing is how durable and resilient the U.S. economy has been, despite the fact that the oil price went up to $100 a gallon. PRIDEAUX: I think there's some truth to that.
I mean, the President's point about the stock market is correct. You know, people are in a frenzy about A.I. stocks and all of that. But I do think that if you shut off 20 percent of the world's oil supply indefinitely, that has an effect.
And even with the memorandum of understanding we have now, the price of oil is not going to go down to the level it was before the war. It will remain elevated because it's going to take quite a while to get the oil flowing through the Strait. You know, it's full of mines that have been placed there by the IRGC, it needs to be demined.
There's a whole load of ships that need to get out there. So it'll take a while for us to get back to where we were. And most of the forecasts I've seen suggest that by the end of the year, the oil price will be $10 a barrel higher than it was pre-war, which is not a crazy amount.
MOORE: It's $74 right now. So it already is.
PRIDEAUX: Can I ask you two smart fellows a question real quick?
SELLERS: I mean, I know that your economic indicators that you're using are things like the stock market.
MOORE: No, I'm talking about people's income.
SELLERS: I'm talking about people from Denmark, South Carolina where I'm from, we're paying higher grocery prices. Because of the war, the cost of fertilizer went up. So the cost of consumer goods.
How about this? The cost of electricity is at a price point where people are paying more for electricity right now than they have been.
So when you look at these common markers, and I'm not talking about the ones that you all are talking about, which are very intricate and the NASDAQ and the market. I'm talking about people who right now, for example, this is very sensationalized, so forgive me for bringing it to this level.
But a gallon of milk in South Carolina is $4.52. A gallon of gas is $4. The federal minimum wage is $7. So literally you have to work a full hour just to get one gallon of gas and one gallon of milk.
So while you guys are talking about these economic indicators, I'm talking about the American public whose price of living actually went up because of this war. Am I missing a point?
MOORE: It did. But the median family income since January 1 of 2017, when Trump came in for his second term, was up $3,000 for the median family income.
EGWEBOLE: Do you think people feel that?
MOORE: So they're doing better. Even with the higher gas prices. But also, Stephen, isn't it also true that because of the inflation
has outpaced wage growth the first time in three years in the last couple of months.
MOORE: In the last couple of months, yes. But I'm talking about over the fall.
PHILLIP: But I'm talking about, we're talking about here, how has the war impacted Americans and how they're doing.
MOORE: There's no question it was negative.
PHILLIP: It's interesting because there's not a lot of questions you can ask Americans, but you get 86 percent of people saying the same thing. Well, 86 percent of Americans say that the war has been bad for their cost of living, 83 percent say it's been bad for the global economy. That is also, when you look at there on the GOP side, that's still, that's three quarters of Republicans who agree with those statements.
So, look, that is almost universal. People believe this war has been bad for their pocketbooks, and that is the political problem.
EGWEBOLE: And I'll tell you, when I worked in the Biden White House, and it's 2022, my dad called me on my way into the White House, and he said, talk to your boss and tell him I can't fill up my truck. And he's still saying the same thing today.
The American people always look to who is sitting in that Oval Office. And that President has to answer for it. And it's a very hard thing to say, well, you know, it was about the missiles, it was about the drones, it was about the proxies.
That just doesn't translate to every day.
MOORE: But that's, under that, that we would never go to war. In other words, wars are bad for the economy.
EGEWBOLE: No, I understand that, but then it's how you communicate it. And the problem is, I just don't think we have a communicator as the commander-in-chief that you can rely on.
SELLERS: And I think that people also see, and I misspoke on Saturday when I was on the "Table for Five." I said that 1897 had gotten these contracts, when it was actually broken, had gotten contracts with the Defense Department.
[22:45:05]
So I misspoke, blame a hit on my heart. But people are also seeing people profiting off of war. And I think that when people see them being unable to make ends meet and people are still profiting off of war, then for the people who are watching at home, they see a fundamental disconnect.
And honestly, this is where we would also agree, I think, Stephen, and I'm trying to find some moments of common ground here because I like you, but I think that people see that as being not a Republican problem, but a problem of a class of elitism that they don't necessarily identify with.
And so when I'm talking to both of you guys about these issues that are really just table issues, I'm talking about the women who wear the big hats who sit on the front row of church and when you hug them you smell like Chanel No. 5 all day long.
But they're making these decisions about whether or not they pay their utility bills or get their prescription drugs. I mean, these are real issues that don't have anything to do with the volume of trades in the stock market because of defense stocks or anything else.
PHILLIP: We're going to hit pause here for just a moment. We'll resume after a quick break. A lot more to discuss on the economic impact of this war.
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[22:50:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: Welcome back.
As President Trump engaged in this negotiation with Iran, the question has always, Tim, been hanging over his head, whether or not he needs the deal more than the Iranians do. And let me play what he said today about that. Listen.
This is President Trump talking about the ships needing to go through the Strait of Hormuz.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
TRUMP: But what this does is it allows the ships to go.
If we keep bombing, those ships won't be going. And you're talking about 500, 600, 700 million dollars a day. It's a lot of money.
A lot of money. That's why the world is okay. It's liquid.
It's fine. Also, we run out of reserves in about four weeks. There are reserves all over the world, and we would really run out.
And there'll be a time when you wouldn't be able to get it. And you want to see Bedlam?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: So if he's saying that today, do you really think the Iranians weren't aware that that was the pressure that he knew was there, and that he needed this deal really badly in order to prevent that from happening? PARRISH: Well, Abby, I look at this in sort of two parts. And I don't
think it's lost on anyone that, yes, the President recognized that he needed to come to some end to this war, whether or not you want to call it for political purposes midterms, or what I truly believe is that the President is not a big fan of war.
He ran on no unending long-term wars. He's negotiated peace deals in other places around the world. And so I do think that the President really did legitimately want to end this war.
I think the other side of that, though, is that the world needed this deal because the world benefits when Iran does not have a nuclear weapon. And the 14 points that we see in the MOU, that's the result, is that Iran does not have a nuclear weapon, and may no longer pose that threat to the world. And so I don't think that just Donald Trump needed this deal.
I think that the world needed this deal, and certainly the United States needed the deal, and hopefully our economy starts to improve and the deal works itself out. I think that's where we find ourselves.
SELLERS: I saw a funny article last week that there was a volunteer firefighter that they just arrested, and the reason they arrested him was because he was going out and he was setting the fires, and then he was joining the fire department to travel around and put them out.
So, I mean, that's what that reminds me of. Look, we all will admit that Iran does not deserve or need a nuclear weapon. But what I don't agree on is the fact that Donald Trump went into a war that many people told him was ill-advised.
Donald Trump went into a war that cost American lives, and whether or not you're with "The Economist", or whether or not you're Stephen, or whether or not you're Bakari Sellers, you can always say that the people who hurt the most when they came out of this were the American public, and we did not meet our objectives, period. I mean, if we want to talk about that, that is what it is.
MOORE: First of all, I want to address, we are achieving the objective of de-escalating. And we'll know, by the way, and I want to come out on the show with you a year from now, and we'll see where we're at.
SELLERS: Do you have faith in the regime or Trump?
MOORE: In Trump. There's no way.
SELLERS: I think that it's foolish to have a belief in either. I want to ask you one thing.
PARRISH: First of all, you said if I was Bakari, and we know I'm far not handsome enough to be you, Bakari.
SELLERS: We know. That's a fact. I'm willing to concede that.
PARRISH: But here's the thing. You keep talking about the faith in Trump versus the regime, and when the Obama administration negotiated the JCPOA, who did they put their trust in then?
SELLERS: Oh, actually, the world joined them. So you had a lot of Middle East, you had a lot of, you actually had an agreement.
PARRISH: At the G7 where they are now, the world has come behind the President and said, we applaud this deal.
PHILLIP: And also there was an inspection regime, there were verification points, there were concrete benchmarks. Just one last thing before we go.
I won't play it, but Trump joked today that if this didn't go well, he would blame J.D. Vance for negotiating it. J.D. Vance wants to be President, and has been, unfortunately for him, the face of this agreement all week. What's that going to do to his ambitions?
[22:55:06]
EGBEWOLE: Well, I think he's really busy with the book tour right now and arguing with the ladies on "The View." So I don't know if he's balancing it as much as he needs to, but looks good for Marco Rubio, I think.
PARRISH: Does that endorse him?
MOORE: The two frontrunners to succeed Trump right now are Marco Rubio and J.D. It's almost like "Game of Thrones," he's playing them off each other. But he was joking.
PHILLIP: He's just joking about that, don't worry.
Thank you very much for being here. We will be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: I've got an exciting new show available to stream right now. It's called "Confessions and Obsessions."
I sit with a group of familiar faces, and they're going to reveal things that they want to get off their chest and things that they really cannot stop thinking about. Things that they probably should not be saying out loud.
[23:00:10]
Our first episode touches on etiquette, Botox, young people's opinions, and much more. You can stream the show anytime with an all- access subscription in the CNN app or at cnn.com/watch. Can't wait to see you there.
And thank you very much for watching "NewsNight." "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.
