AVOID JCPOA

“So you're getting a lot of mixed messages, a lot of silence. And so we're in this very uncertain moment. Trump has extended this ceasefire seemingly indefinitely, but at the same time, they've kept enormous military force in the Middle East and are poised to attack if this thing falls apart.”

“What is clear, Michael, in every single poll that we have had described to us in our reporting is that the war has damaged Trump's numbers universally. And again, it doesn't mean he won't come back from it, maybe, depending on how this ends. But the longer it goes, Republicans who have been generally in lockstep with Trump, because they've really been afraid of incurring his wrath, are going to face a choice about how closely to align with him in the fall.”

“The other frustration for Trump is he's facing real constraints. Despite all the bravado that you hear from the president and from Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense, we have unlimited weapons, etc. They don't have unlimited weapons and they're very, very constrained when it comes to long-range strike weapons. What that means is if they do do what Trump has threatened, which is blow up every bridge and power plant inside Iran, they don't really have the long-range arsenal to do that.”

“And it's very frustrating to Trump because he doesn't feel he can negotiate properly with the Iranians. It's not clear that the Iranian negotiators are empowered to negotiate. It's very unclear the extent to which they're able to communicate in real time with the Ayatollah, who we don't have a clear idea of his health, his well-being. It seems pretty clear that he's in a bad way and that the negotiators are not able to get quick responsiveness from him.”

“What Donald Trump is focused on in this term, what he has been focused on, is making himself a capital G great figure of history. The amount of time he's spending on domestic politics pales in comparison to him taking really bold aggressive moves in foreign policy and also putting his physical imprint on the world, on Washington DC, designing monuments to himself, renaming institutions, ensuring that he achieved some level of immortality.”

“The question for Trump is, how can the gives that we give be portrayed as superior to what Obama and Co. gave away in the JCPOA? I mean, if it was up to Trump, he would be the president, the first one, to deal with this problem in a permanent way, completely eliminate the program, have a new regime in that's more friendly to the United States. But none of those things seem likely right now.”

“He was open with Pam Bondi, now the former Attorney General, back in September, that she wasn't moving fast enough to prosecute certain people. In that case, it was James Comey. He has been talking to allies about how prosecutions can move quicker. You are seeing Todd Blanch now work with— This is the acting Attorney General. These are people who the president believes are going to do what he wants.”