U.S. and Iran reach a deal. Now what？

Today on The Playbook Podcast, Donald Trump heads to the G7 in France today after signing a peace deal with Iran. But what is the deal? Are we going to see it? Is it worth the paper it's written on? We'll dig into all that. And it's fight night at the White House last night. No, not Scott Besson and Bill Pulte again. This time it was the UFC. Hello, I'm Jack Blanchard. And I'm Megan Musserly. It's Monday, June 15th. It's good to see you, Megan. How are you? Good to see you. And we missed you last week, Jack. I'm so happy you're back. I know I got sent away to the UK for my sins for a week, but I am back. I am back in the hot muggy surrounds of Washington, D.C. I was enjoying the electric storm over the city last night while the fight was happening at the White House. Donald Trump will be flying away from all that this morning. He's headed to Avignon, the foot of the French Alps, for the G7 summit. There's only going to be one topic that they want to talk about as soon as he gets there, which is this apparent deal, which might have been signed, might not quite have been signed yet with Iran. What do you make of it all? Yeah, I mean, this is going to loom large over the summit. I mean, we knew that it was going to loom large. And now you know that there is some sort of a deal framework in place with what sounds like the signing ceremony to be scheduled on Friday in Switzerland. There's going to be a lot of questions now about what comes next. Right. We know this is a deal to reopen the strait. OK, but what does it actually mean to reopen the strait? Right. There's going to be a lot of talk about that, especially among the G7. As folks remember, the UK and France had promised that they would help sort of secure the strait once a deal was reached. Now we're in that phase. Right. I was speaking last week with a senior White House official who told me at the time when a deal was still on the horizon that, you know, no, there were no specific asks on Iran going into the summit. They would need to see, you know, a deal being reached and then they could figure out sort of what those specific asks would be from G7 countries. Well, we're now in that phase. Right. This is going to be a huge topic of conversation in France. We haven't actually seen the detail of this deal yet. It's very important to say my feeling is always that, you know, when someone's got a really good deal with something, they want to come rushing out and show you what they've got agreed and shout it from the rooftops. That hasn't happened ominously at this point. So it's hard to dig into the crucial detail that's actually going to tell us whether this deal is worth the papers written on. Donald Trump announced it at about half past five last night that the deal was done and he immediately would be removing the United States blockade. Then an hour later posted, I'll just sort of casually mentioned the deal won't be signed until Friday and that that's when the Strait of Hormuz will open. So there's a few things that I think we need to be watching forward today. Obviously, more detail of what has actually been agreed because there's some speculation around. We can talk about that in a minute. But like until you see it in black and white, it's very hard to be able to assess how good a deal Trump and the American negotiators have done. Market reaction, though, in the meantime, we are going to see that pretty quickly when the markets open this morning and looking at what was happening overnight in Asia and so on, it looks like markets are pretty excited by this. They seem to be taking it seriously from what we've seen. Oil prices plummeting, shares going up, all the things that Donald Trump will like. I mean, if that continues, then he'll probably just be rubbing his hands, Megan, and saying, you know, job done regardless of the detail. Right. I mean, I think the rhetoric we're going to see from him will likely be some version of he's been saying trust the process. You know, I know what I'm doing. I'm trying to get the U.S. a better deal. The war will end. Prices will come down. And now I think we're going to see him, you know, take a victory lap here. Right. And say, you know, look at the markets, look at how they're responding. You know, it's going to take some time for sort of the economic wounds from the war to heal. And so I think the big question will be, you know, how long does that part take? And, you know, we're sitting here mid June. There's time, but not a ton of time. And as far as political timetables go before the midterms, but certainly the president is going to be very happy with what we're what we're likely to see today. Yeah. I mean, the calculation was going into this conflict was that they could get it done quickly and it wouldn't affect the midterms because, you know, when it was the end of February when they started bombing it. And I think there was some expectation in Donald Trump's mind that this will be over very fast. Obviously, it wasn't just about time for oil prices to come down again before November. I mean, the idea that the American public and it forgotten all about it feels a bit of a stretch. But then again, new cycles move very quickly. You know, who talked about the Venezuela thing anymore? Not many people thinking about that at the moment. It's not impossible that they managed to move the conversation on. But, you know, all the shipping experts and so on tell you or have been telling us for months that, you know, the straight doesn't just open overnight and magically everything goes back to normal and supply chains go back to normal. All of that is going to take some months at best, if not longer to return to normal. And of course, that is all predicated on the idea that the straight is, in fact, going to fully reopen as promised and everything just goes back to normal as it was before the attack started. And that, to me, doesn't yet seem certain because we've heard this a few times. I appreciate this looks different in formality to the way they're announcing it. But still, Donald Trump has said the straight's been open before and nothing of the sort has happened. So there'll be a degree of skepticism, I would have thought, in D.C. and in the other European capitals and so on, even if the market seems pretty happy. Right. I mean, you know, to your point, the straight reopening is not just an on off switch for as much as the president's two social posts yesterday may have suggested otherwise. But there's I mean, there's a lot of work that needs to be done to sort of secure the straight. You know, over the weekend preparation for G7, a senior administration official was talking to reporters about this and saying, you know, there's a lot that needs to be done, like the demining of the straight. Right. That's something that the U.S. can do. It would like help from G7 countries to accomplish that as well. So it's just not as simple as saying the straight's open. Everything's fine now. You know, the light, the light is green. And then I think the big thing that I'm going to be watching for, too, is is the language surrounding, you know, the future of Iran's nuclear program. Right. Obviously, that hangs over all of this. You know, again, to your point, we haven't seen the text of, you know, this deal reached. We're not expecting anything extremely significant there. And so there's a lot of details to be ironed out about what exactly does that look like? We heard from Senator Lindsey Graham yesterday and he was, you know, expressing some skepticism about, you know, how the agreement would deal with Iran's nuclear program. And, you know, he was saying that he's concerned that Iran's view of the agreement seems different than what the American negotiating team is saying. So, I mean, to your point, there's still a lot of really fine points to be worked out here. Yeah, exactly. And the detail really matters because, of course, America had a deal with Iran 11 years ago that Barack Obama's team negotiated. And in that agreement, Iran said that under no circumstances will it seek, develop or acquire nuclear weapons. Now, Donald Trump said he didn't believe that. But are we going to believe this one? Is there going to be something more substantial than a bit of paper saying that? Is this supposed to be progress? Because, of course, the Strait of Hormuz was opened before this conflict started as well. So the devil's in the detail. We ain't got the detail. And when Donald Trump arrives in France this afternoon, he's due there in the afternoon local time. The first thing he's walking into is a one-to-one with the French president Emmanuel Macron. And I would imagine the first thing the French president is going to ask for is some of these details about exactly what's happened. And then Trump's going to go out of that into a dinner with all the G7 leaders. And they're all going to want to know the same thing because they know just as well as you and I do, better than we do, that that detail is absolutely crucial. And, of course, many of their economies are being battered even worse, far worse, than the American economy has been by this conflict. The supply chains, the hit on energy prices in a country like Japan, you know, hugely hit by the blockade where they don't have the same level of energy self-sufficiency that America has got. So, you know, it's a really big deal to these people who are at the table. And Trump's going to be facing a lot of questions. Is he even going to have the detail himself at his fingertips? Are they going to get the same sort of broad brush smile and, you know, hand of the wave and big boast? Or will they even get some answers? You know, it's hard to know, really. Everyone just wants some clarity here. We're all looking for it, you know, journalists and world leaders alike. More details were coming out over the weekend from the Trump administration about what's expected at the G7 summit this week beyond the discussion over Iran, because there's obviously lots of big world issues for these world leaders to discuss. Ukraine appears to be moving up the agenda. At least the European side are trying to push it up the agenda. Zelensky is going to be there for part of the summit, even though he's obviously not a G7 leader. Do you expect much movement there? Do you think Donald Trump's in the mood to listen? Is he feeling more Ukraine minded than he was a few weeks ago, maybe now that this is a little bit more out of the way? I think that's what, you know, in all my conversations with folks close to the White House that we kept hearing on, you know, the foreign policy side of the equation is just Iran was sucking up so much oxygen. And again, you know, it is going to continue to do that. But at the same time, that maybe creates space now for some of these other conversations to happen, including on Ukraine. You know, I think to your point, the Europeans are coming in with, you know, very clear push, it sounds like to sort of use the G7 to sell the US on, you know, benefits of sealing this drone deal with Ukraine. We know that, you know, Ukraine is running out of Patriot interceptors. There's an ask there. The White House is watching this closely. I was speaking with a senior White House official who was telling me, you know, there's, you know, recognition that, you know, the conflict is not as, you know, quote, hot as it was before. And they're also getting the message loud and clear that Zelensky needs more missiles. But, you know, what does the US promise out of it? Is the president in a more giving mood? He's going to be, you know, coming into the G7, probably feeling pretty good about the state of things. What does that mean? Does that mean he's more receptive to these entreaties? We just don't know. Yeah, totally, totally. And trade will be another big one on the agenda. Lots of these obviously have a lot to talk about Donald Trump about trade. We know Mark Carney, the Canadian PM is very keen to have conversations. We're expecting a meeting with Modi, the Prime Minister of India as well this week. The thing that struck me thinking about the dynamics of some of these meetings, Megan, is just how many of these leaders Donald Trump has actually fallen out with over the last few months. In fact, you know, he came in and was having quite good relations initially in the second term with the main sort of Western allied leaders. And they've sort of dropped one by one like dominoes. And, you know, his relationship with the British Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, has collapsed. His relationship with the German Chancellor, Frederick Merz, has collapsed. Even his relationship with Giorgio Maloney, the Italian leader, which was so, you know, warm and friendly for such a long time, that has now collapsed. Carney, I mean, he's sort of gone back and forth with a bit like Macron and sort of love one minute and hate the next, isn't it? It's just wonder if we might have some sort of blow up this week with, you know, one of them or even all of them, because it's just obviously such a tempestuous character, Donald Trump. And things have moved on quite a bit since last year when they were all getting on quite well. They have, they have. I actually had a story about this that ran over the weekend, but really looking at the very low bar that both, you know, the US and its European allies are setting for the summit. One British official deadpanned that they were just hoping that the plane Wi-Fi worked. A former Trump official said that they were just watching out for the photo ops. They didn't expect any policy agreements, but they were interested in who was being photographed with who. Another diplomat said they were just, you know, glad Trump's attending. And if he shows up there, then that'll be a win. I mean, I think that just speaks to sort of where the state of these relationships are and the fact that, you know, everyone just wants to go in and be able to sort of say that, you know, this gathering of seven of the world's largest economies, they can all get together. They can all relatively get on the same page with some respectful disagreements and present a united front, even in the challenging era of Donald Trump and his, you know, idiosyncratic approach to multilateral bodies. Yeah, you can say that again. He went home. He went home last year after one day, didn't he? He just decided he'd had enough. So, you know, anything is possible this week. He probably had a much better time last night on the South Lawn, Megan, where they were having this pretty extraordinary UFC fight. I mean, we've, you know, we've written about it a lot over the months and we knew it was coming. But when you actually stood back last night and watched what was happening outside the White House, in the nation's capital, on the president's birthday, on Flag Day, just an absolutely extraordinary spectacle. You couldn't really have dreamed anything like this would happen, even just a few years ago. Do you think people, American public, will have been pleased to see this? Is this sort of fine, you know, 250, big year for America, why not have a big sporting event now? Or do you think it jars a bit for people, given the economic situation that so many are in? I imagine, I haven't seen the polling on this, but I imagine in our deeply divided nation, how you perceive how the UFC fight went has a lot to do with your thoughts on President Trump and probably not much else. Look, the visuals out of the event were, you know, just stunning. I was watching the fight last night and, you know, they were doing the little, you know, pre-show and, you know, they were showing the locker room, which is inside EEOB. The juxtaposition of seeing the mats on the floor against the gilded, you know, walls, it was just such a sight to behold. And at the same time, I was thinking about this, like, this moment of what it means for UFC to be on the South Lawn of the White House. Here is an organization that started in the 90s. It was, you know, seedy and pretty and the fights were described as very brutal. And then UFC came sort of into the mainstream. And so this organization has had this evolution over 30 years that, you know, very much parallels the president's own rise, the rise of the MAGA movement. Right. And so to have, you know, the UFC fight on the South Lawn of the White House really just marries these two concepts together and shows just like how much this country has really changed in the last couple of decades. Right. And, you know, and it was full acceptance last night with the celebrities were there and the billionaires were there and the big tech dudes were there. And yeah, this is this is mainstream culture now, I guess. That's all we got time for on today's show. Thanks so much for listening. As always, we've got much more news and analysis in today's Playbook newsletter, which you can find at politico.com slash playbook. Do please subscribe or follow us wherever you normally get your podcast and we shall be back with you tomorrow. Have a great day.