Tuesday: Trump's Iran Deal Is Dead, Who Called It?

Rush LindellRush Lindell here, back behind the mic, and Reagan, good to have you.

ReaganAlways good to be here, Rush.

Rush LindellWe've got a loaded hour. Iran's back in the headlines, and this time it is ugly.

ReaganThe MOU is dead! Trump said so himself at the NATO summit and everything moved fast after that.

Rush LindellWe're walking that whole timeline. The tanker attacks, the strikes, the reversal nobody saw coming.

ReaganAnd then there's the money side. Oil's moving, gas prices are moving, and midterms are closing in fast. and fast.

Rush LindellOh, and we're settling the scorecard. Who actually called this thing right?

ReaganCareful, I've got a memory.

Rush LindellSo do I, Reagan. That's the problem.

ReaganLet's separate the rhetoric from the reality later once the receipts are on the table.

Rush LindellLet me tell you something. I love it when you say that.

ReaganI know you do.

Rush LindellLater on, stick around for a parody bit. Iran's foreign ministry gets a Yelp review courtesy of yours truly.

ReaganI'm already bracing to fact check that one.

Rush LindellYou always do. But first... First, this hour is brought to you by Lear Capital, America's precious metals leader since 1997.

ReaganGood partner to have when the world looks like it does right now.

Rush LindellAll right, Reagan, walk me through how we actually got here.

ReaganHappy to. Let's start with the tankers.

Rush LindellBefore we dive in, a quick reminder, we love hearing from you. If you have questions or topics you'd like us to cover, head to the link in the description and submit your question. We read every single one. Okay, we called this a month ago. We sat right here and argued about this deal. I said masterstroke, Reagan said surrender. And tonight, folks, we're grading ourselves, because the deal, it's dead.

ReaganDead as in officially dead or dead as in Rush's-dramatic-voice dead?

Rush LindellBoth. ABC News reports Trump stood at the NATO summit in Ankara and said, quote, for me, I think it's over.

ReaganNot exactly Churchill, but it gets the point across.

Rush LindellAnd here's the line that got me, Reagan. He didn't just walk away. He called the Iranian leadership scum multiple times, said he doesn't want to deal with them anymore.

ReaganThat's a real shift in language. A month ago, this was a breakthrough. Tonight it's scum.

Rush LindellThat's not a shift-that's a full one eighty with the tires screeching.

ReaganI'll give you this much-the rhetoric matches the moment; it's not measured any more.

Rush LindellSo tonight we're not doing the same tired timeline recap everybody else is doing; we're pulling the receipts-our receipts-what we said, what he said, what actually happened.

ReaganSo-you're sure you want to revisit what you said a month ago?

Rush LindellTerrified, absolutely terrified, but let's do it anyway.

ReaganSo if the man who brokered this deal is now calling

Speaker 3for its collapse, why aren't you?

ReaganNow calling the other side scum on camera at a NATO summit,

Rush LindellRight.

Reaganwhat exactly happened in Ankara to get us here?

Rush LindellAnkara, NATO summit, and somewhere between the group photo and the state dinner, Trump torches his own deal.

ReaganWalk me through what actually triggered it.

Rush LindellThree tankers hit in the Strait of Hormuz. CENTCOM answers by striking more than 80 Iranian targets. That's ABC News reporting it this morning.

Reagan80 targets? That's not a slap on the wrist.

Rush LindellAnd here's the part I can't get over. Just last month, this same president Called Iran's leaders, quote, rational, nice, strong, and smart.

ReaganI remember that line.

Rush LindellSo a reporter asks him point blank what changed and Trump says, and I'm not making this up, I got to know them.

ReaganFour weeks. That's the whole diplomatic arc.

Rush LindellFour weeks, Reagan. Nice and smart to scum in one press gaggle. I'm calling it the anchor flip.

ReaganOkay, but let's separate the theater from the sequence. ABC News says he huddled with advisers Tuesday before the strikes landed, not after some tantrum in the hallway.

Rush LindellSure, he huddled, then declared the whole memorandum did, by Wednesday morning!

ReaganRight; and that timing matters because at the same time Washington yanked the sanctions waiver on Iranian oil sales directly tied to those tanker attacks.

Rush LindellSo it's not just insults-real leverage pulled overnight.

ReaganWhich raises the stakes for how Tehran responds. Evans.

Rush LindellAnd Tehran did not sit quiet.

ReaganIran's parliament speaker, Ghalibaf, their chief negotiator, posted that the U S violated the M O U outright. His line, the era of bullying and extortion is over. It leads nowhere. We don't fold.

Rush LindellStrong words from a government that's about to start counting bodies.

ReaganWhich is exactly the number we need to look at next because Tehran's putting out a toll and it's not small.

Rush LindellOne question before we go there. There. If I got to know them is the President's actual foreign policy, what happens the next time he changes his mind?

ReaganThat's the receipt we're keeping.

Rush LindellSure, sets aside the theater for a second, the numbers here are brutal. Iran's health ministry says at least 50 people are dead, over 500 injured, just this month. 50? That's not a headline, that's a body count. And Al Jazeera is reporting ties some of that directly to infrastructure. A desalination plant got hit, leaving 10,000 people without water. Wait, a water plant, not a missile site, not a base, water? That's what's being reported. And Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister Gharibabadi is now saying flatly the U.S. has violated and suspended all its commitments under the MOU. Suspended, sure, because striking back at Bahrain and Kuwait is real diplomatic! Right, that's the retaliation: Tehran hit two U.S. allies in the Gulf and CENTCOM's reporting American service members killed in Jordan. Okay, Reagan, that's the part nobody's saying loud enough: we're not watching Iran anymore, we're watching the whole neighborhood catch fire. Seven straight nights of CENTCOM strikes now; this isn't a skirmish, it's the worst stretch since the cease fire fell apart. And every night we act shocked, like this wasn't exactly where MOUs over was always going to lead. I'll give you that one. Escalation begets escalation. That part isn't complicated. No, it isn't. What is complicated is explaining to a guy filling up his tank why any of this matters to him. Funny you say that, because it already does. Crude is moving, and it's moving fast. Oh, here we go. Let's talk about what this is actually costing people. Rush. Shifting to the money side of this, US crude jumped about six per cent, near seventy four sixty two a barrel, right after Trump called Iran's leaders "scum.

ReaganCFR's read matters here-still nowhere close to the near one hundred and twenty dollar high we saw before the MOU collapsed, but traders don't grade on 'still lower'--they trade on direction.

Rush LindellDirection's everything in this business-green arrow goes up, the gas station line gets longer. Every time.

ReaganThere's also a clock nobody's naming out loud. Strategist Karl Rove's been blunt: this needs resolving by Labor Day because the fall campaign starts right after.

Rush LindellNothing sharpens a politician's focus like a midterm map.

ReaganAnd here's the odd part: the strait itself isn't fully shut. A U.S. defense official told reporters over a hundred vessels coordinated transits with the military last week alone. More than three hundred moved through the wider region.

Rush LindellA hundred ships still crossing a war zone?

ReaganStill crossing. Slower, pricier insurance, but moving. The choke point spooked, not closed. Different story for your gas bill, though.

Rush LindellWhich is exactly why, if you're watching oil bounce around like this,

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Rush LindellOkay, pump prices, midterms, silver hedges ... that's the wallet side of this whole mess.

Speaker 4Yeah.

ReaganWhich means it's time to check the receipts. A month ago, we had this exact fight on air over whether that 14-point deal was a win.

Rush LindellAnd I remember exactly what I said.

ReaganSo do I. Let's find out who was right.

Rush LindellOkay, Reagan, time to eat some words, mine mostly.

ReaganI was wondering when we'd get here!

Rush LindellLast month I called that fourteen point MOU a win, a real honest Trump-earned win.

ReaganAnd I said it was a pause dressed up as peace.

Rush LindellI was closer.

ReaganI'll take it; but let's be fair to you, too; the shipping numbers did calm down for a while.

Rush LindellThey did, for about six weeks. Then, boom!

ReaganRight, and that's not random. According to Council on Foreign Relations, the MOU only guaranteed Iran sixty days of toll free shipping through Hormuz.

Rush LindellSixty days like a lease!

ReaganLike a lease nobody read the fine print on; that clock was running the entire time we were calling it a masterstroke.

Rush LindellSo the thing had an expiration date and everybody just didn't mention it?

ReaganDidn't mention it or didn't want to?

Rush LindellThat's on me. I was so locked into the win narrative, I skipped the fine print.

ReaganI flagged the 60 days back then, but even I didn't think it'd blow up this fast.

Rush LindellSo we're both wrong, just in different directions.

ReaganBasically. Now CFR's Max Boot wrote something today that I think nails the bigger picture.

Rush LindellGo on.

ReaganBoot argues Trump is facing the same trap every president before him hit. Hit—A limited war fought with limited means, producing limited results.

Rush LindellSay that again.

ReaganLimited war, limited means, limited results; no path through regime change, no appetite at home for more.

Rush LindellAnd that's the part that gets me. We keep acting like this time is different!

ReaganIt never is-not with Iran, not with this kind of pressure campaign.

Rush LindellSo was the MOU a win or a surrender?

ReaganNeither; it was a countdown clock we dressed up as diplomacy.

Rush LindellFine-I overstated it; you called the structure, I called the vibe.

ReaganThe vibe was good, for what it's worth.

Rush LindellThanks-small comfort.

ReaganBut structure is what breaks every time.

Rush LindellMm hmm. All right, I've owned my part, you've owned yours-grades are in.

ReaganGrades are in.

Rush LindellBut you know what nobody's graded yet?

ReaganWhat?

Rush LindellThe way this whole thing sounded from Tehran's side once it collapsed.

ReaganOh, I have thoughts.

Rush LindellOh, we've got thoughts-wait till you hear how we're framing it!

ReaganThis is gonna be a bit, isn't it?

Rush LindellIt's already written! Building on that one more bit before we get serious again.

ReaganOh no.

Rush LindellPicture Iran's foreign ministry on Yelp. Mock bureaucrat. Ordered de-escalation. Received 80 targets. One star.

ReaganYou said two stars a second ago in rehearsal.

Rush LindellInconsistent reviewer. Sue him.

ReaganKeep going.

Rush LindellNow, flip it. Trump side, used car lot ad; announcer voice, Iranian leadership, rational, nice, strong, smart, won't last, folks, now, scum, certified, as in no warranty.

ReaganThat rhythm is unfortunately perfect.

Rush LindellTwo weeks' compliment to insult, that's the whole pitch.

ReaganExcept the joke skips WHY the sign flipped." ABC News reported CENTCOM hit over eighty targets after Iran attacked merchant ships in Hormuz first.

Rush LindellFair, the salesman had a reason.

ReaganDoesn't make the whiplash less funny; just means it's not one sided theater.

Rush LindellFine, rewrite the review: Ordered cease fire received mutual escalation. Both parties left one star reviews on each other.

ReaganThere it is, equal opportunity mockery.

Rush LindellAnd Al Jazeera's got the real casualty count behind the punch line: fifty dead this month per Iran's health ministry. So laugh, but not too hard.

ReaganNOTED: Comedy with a conscience.

Rush LindellBuilding on that circus, let's do the actual scorecard: Who called this right?

ReaganHonestly, not me on the ceasefire holding. But I called the 60 day window nobody read.

Rush LindellYeah, that one's yours. I said deal of the century. It was a deal of the month.

ReaganTo month's generous.

Rush LindellFair, fair.

ReaganBut here's what actually matters going forward: CFR's Max Boot.

Rush Lindelllays out Trump's real problem now. He's stuck choosing between letting Iran toll ships through Hormuz or escalating further with no clear military endgame.

ReaganNeither one's a win.

Rush LindellRight. Al Jazeera reported CENTCOM just ran its seventh straight night of strikes. That's not a skirmish anymore. That's a pattern.

ReaganSo what are we watching next week?

Rush LindellWhether Tehran's negotiator actually comes back to the table, or whether suspended Deal Quietly Becomes Dead

ReaganI'm watching the oil futures; if Hormuz traffic drops instead of just slowing, that's the real siren.

Rush LindellAnd don't sleep on the calendar-midterms are coming, and nobody votes on foreign policy nuance.

ReaganThey vote on the number at the pump!

Rush LindellExactly. Diplomacy might not decide what happens next-gas prices might.

ReaganAnd that's the verdict, folks: this war isn't being won on the battlefield- around or the negotiating table.

Rush LindellIt's being decided at the gas station.

ReaganWrite that down. We'll see who's right in November. So that's the hour: Iran, Hormuz, and Rush. Wait, sorry, I mean me getting called out on my own prediction.

Rush LindellI said I'd give credit where it's due!

ReaganYou did-barely.

Rush LindellThe takeaway, though: the choke point spooked, not closed. That's the real story under all the noise.

ReaganThat's exactly right. Everybody's watching the Strait, but the deadline that matters is the midterms.

Rush LindellAgreed. Watch the pump price, not the press conference.

ReaganAnd on that note, if you liked this hour, subscribe, leave us five stars, tell somebody who needs to hear it.

Rush LindellNew episodes every weekday. We're not going anywhere.

ReaganNeither is this fight, apparently.

Rush LindellNo kidding.

ReaganWell, thanks for spending the hour with us.

Rush LindellWe'll see you tomorrow.

ReaganStay sharp out there.