[Rush Lindell] You know what nobody wants to say?
[Rush Lindell] Trump just signed a peace deal with Iran,
[Rush Lindell] at Versailles of all places,
[Rush Lindell] and the loudest objections are coming from his own side.
[Rush Lindell] Welcome to the Rush Lindell Show.
[Rush Lindell] I'm Rush Lindell.
[Reagan] I'm Reagan,
[Reagan] and rush,
[Reagan] the timing alone is something.
[Reagan] NBC News reported the signing happened late Wednesday at the Palace of Versailles, not Switzerland,
[Reagan] where everyone was waiting.
[Reagan] Macron posted the video himself.
[Rush Lindell] The Swiss press corps is still standing in Lucerne wondering what happened.
[Rush Lindell] So here's the show today.
[Rush Lindell] Trump and Iranian President Pezeshkian sign a 14-point MOU.
[Rush Lindell] Cease fire,
[Rush Lindell] the Strait of Hormuz reopens, a 60-day clock starts on the nuclear question.
[Rush Lindell] Big,
[Rush Lindell] right?
[Reagan] Big. But,
[Reagan] Reagan,
[Reagan] there's a lot of daylight between what the press release says and what the actual text says.
[Reagan] NPR obtained the MOU text,
[Reagan] and when you put it...
[Reagan] Put it side by side with the JCPOA, the Obama deal everyone on the right spent a decade torching,
[Reagan] the nuclear provisions look familiar.
[Rush Lindell] Shockingly familiar.
[Rush Lindell] We'll get into every word of that.
[Rush Lindell] And then Fox,
[Rush Lindell] the Wall Street Journal,
[Rush Lindell] the New York Post,
[Rush Lindell] they all broke with Trump on this simultaneously.
[Rush Lindell] Ben Shapiro called it a disaster,
[Rush Lindell] the conservative media's civil war is real and it is loud.
[Rush Lindell] LOUD.
[Reagan] Though I note some of those critics were cheerleading the war without a plan for how it ended,
[Reagan] that's a conversation worth having.
[Rush Lindell] And Netanyahu-Oh,
[Rush Lindell] we are absolutely getting to Netanyahu-Trump called him-I'll let the reporting speak for itself-"a very small partner at the G7." Israel was cut out of the MOU entirely.
[Reagan] There are real strategic consequences to that rupture heading into a 60 day fight
[Speaker 3] with Congress.
[Reagan] day final negotiation.
[Reagan] That's what we should be focused on.
[Rush Lindell] 60 days.
[Rush Lindell] That's the whole show.
[Rush Lindell] Let me tell you something,
[Rush Lindell] day 61 either justifies this thing or exposes it.
[Rush Lindell] First segment right now.
[Rush Lindell] One, two, three.
[Rush Lindell] Speaker one,
[Rush Lindell] action port side,
[Rush Lindell] please.
[Rush Lindell] Before we dive in,
[Rush Lindell] quick reminder,
[Rush Lindell] we love hearing from you.
[Rush Lindell] If you have questions or topics you'd like us to cover,
[Rush Lindell] head to the link in the description and submit your question.
[Rush Lindell] We read every single one.
[Rush Lindell] So here's what's going on:
[Rush Lindell] the United States just signed a peace deal with Iran-not at Camp David,
[Rush Lindell] not at the White House,
[Rush Lindell] at Versailles, over dinner
[Reagan] Wow.
[Rush Lindell] with Macron sitting right there saying,
[Rush Lindell] and I quote,
[Rush Lindell] Bravo!
[Reagan] I mean,
[Reagan] the plates were literally still on the table.
[Rush Lindell] Someone snapped a photo of the document to send to Tehran.
[Rush Lindell] That actually happened.
[Rush Lindell] According to CNN,
[Rush Lindell] Trump told his dinner companions,
[Rush Lindell] which included Wall Street titans,
[Rush Lindell] This was not easy,
[Rush Lindell] I can tell you.
[Rush Lindell] Then he lifted the memo to show off his signature.
[Reagan] So there was a formal signing ceremony already scheduled-Switzerland,
[Reagan] Lake Lucerne,
[Reagan] the whole setup.
[Reagan] JD Vance was supposed to fly out Friday.
[Rush Lindell] Nope.
[Rush Lindell] Trump wanted it done that night.
[Rush Lindell] Macron said he'd arrange it,
[Rush Lindell] and just like that-snap-Iran deal.
[Reagan] Rush,
[Reagan] I want to be clear. There is real substance here beyond the theater.
[Reagan] NPR reported this is a 14-point MOU,
[Reagan] immediate end to military operations,
[Reagan] Strait of Hormuz reopens,
[Reagan] oil sanctions lifted,
[Reagan] 60-day clock starts now to negotiate a final nuclear agreement.
[Rush Lindell] All of that's real and I'm not dismissing it.
[Rush Lindell] But here's what gets me.
[Rush Lindell] NBC News reported that Israel,
[Rush Lindell] our closest ally in the region,
[Rush Lindell] was not shown the memorandum before it was signed.
[Rush Lindell] Netanyahu found out the same way the rest of us did.
[Reagan] That's a significant detail,
[Reagan] and it's not just optics.
[Reagan] If Israel wasn't in the room, they can't push back on the terms before they're locked in.
[Rush Lindell] Exactly right,
[Rush Lindell] and Fox News is calling this a surrender.
[Rush Lindell] Republicans are calling this a surrender.
[Rush Lindell] We'll get into that.
[Reagan] The part I keep coming back to is the uranium.
[Reagan] NBC News said Iran's enriched uranium stock was
[Reagan] Stockpiles stays on Iranian soil; the details are deferred to the "Sixty-day talks.
[Rush Lindell] So we sign something,
[Rush Lindell] the uranium's still there and we've got sixty days to figure out what we actually agreed to.
[Reagan] That's the honest read of it.
[Rush Lindell] Which raises an obvious question:
[Rush Lindell] what exactly are those fourteen points,
[Rush Lindell] and does the fine print hold up?
[Rush Lindell] So,
[Rush Lindell] the fine print... Reagan,
[Rush Lindell] walk me through it. What does this MOU actually say on nukes?
[Reagan] Okay,
[Reagan] so CBS News did a side-by-side on this,
[Reagan] and the comparison is striking.
[Reagan] The MOU says Iran shall not procure or develop nuclear weapons.
[Reagan] That is, word for word,
[Reagan] the same pledge that was in the Obama JCPOA.
[Reagan] The exact same language Trump spent years calling the worst deal ever negotiated.
[Rush Lindell] The exact same language.
[Reagan] Verbatim. Now,
[Reagan] to be fair,
[Reagan] and I'll give the ceasefire real credit,
[Reagan] stopping active military operations matters.
[Reagan] But on the nuclear substance,
[Reagan] the JCPOA capped enrichment at 3.67%, capped the stockpile,
[Reagan] limited centrifuges to specific facilities.
[Reagan] This MOU doesn't mention centrifuges once,
[Reagan] doesn't cap enrichment levels at all.
[Rush Lindell] And the 440 kilograms sitting at 60%.
[Rush Lindell] Rent?
[Reagan] Still on Iranian soil,
[Reagan] the MOU says both sides agreed to resolve the "disposition"
[Reagan] of that stockpile,
[Reagan] which is a diplomatic way of saying we'll figure it out later.
[Reagan] Per CBS News,
[Reagan] the actual mechanics get punted to the sixty day technical talks.
[Rush Lindell] So the stuff that's one step from weapons grade we're leaving in their hands and we're calling that better than Obama's deal?
[Reagan] That's the question that doesn't have a clean answer right now.
[Reagan] The IAEA chief told Al Jazeera that four hundred forty kilograms at sixty percent is theoretically enough for more than ten nuclear warheads if refined further,
[Reagan] and this agreement has no centrifuge limits,
[Reagan] no enrichment cap-those details are deferred.
[Rush Lindell] The JCPOA ran a hundred fifty nine pages.
[Rush Lindell] This is fourteen bullet points negotiated by two real estate developers.
[Reagan] Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner-I mean,
[Reagan] look,
[Reagan] the ceasefire is real.
[Reagan] The Strait reopening is real,
[Reagan] but the hard nuclear work hasn't happened yet; it's been delegated to 60 days of talks.
[Rush Lindell] And speaking of people who read the fine print,
[Rush Lindell] the conservative media just got a look at this thing,
[Rush Lindell] and they're not sending congratulations.
[Rush Lindell] So while Reagan was dissecting the nuclear fine print,
[Rush Lindell] the right wing media machine lit up,
[Rush Lindell] and I mean all of it simultaneously.
[Reagan] The Murdoch trifecta?
[Rush Lindell] The Murdoch trifecta-Fox News,
[Rush Lindell] the Wall Street Journal,
[Rush Lindell] the New York Post-all broke with Trump on the same day the WSJ editorial board ran the headline "Trump Stages an Iran Retreat," the New York Post concluded the MOU,
[Rush Lindell] and I quote:
[Rush Lindell] seems to leave things right back where they were before the bomb started dropping.
[Reagan] So the bombs accomplished nothing,
[Reagan] that's what they're saying.
[Rush Lindell] That's what their own editorial board is saying.
[Rush Lindell] And then you've got Ben Shapiro,
[Rush Lindell] I'm calling him the Disaster Whisperer,
[Rush Lindell] on Fox News calling it a disaster.
[Rush Lindell] Erick Erickson flatly, Trump has surrendered to Iran.
[Rush Lindell] Tucker Carlson calls it a retreat.
[Reagan] Okay,
[Reagan] but Rush,
[Reagan] some of that criticism is fair on the merits.
[Reagan] Is Shapiro's point that you can't declare victory at half time?
[Reagan] That's a real argument.
[Rush Lindell] I don't dispute the substance; what I dispute is the selective memory.
[Reagan] Say more.
[Rush Lindell] These are the same voices who cheered the war from day one:
[Rush Lindell] no exit plan,
[Rush Lindell] no end game,
[Rush Lindell] just bombs away-and now that Trump is trying to land the plane,
[Rush Lindell] they're appalled at the turbulence?
[Reagan] That's fair.
[Reagan] You don't get to cheer the war and then refuse all responsibility for how it ends.
[Reagan] HOW IT ENDS.
[Rush Lindell] Now here's the line that stopped me cold:
[Rush Lindell] Fox contributor Marc Thiessen, who reportedly advised Trump on this war,
[Rush Lindell] compared the $300 billion reconstruction fund to offering the Marshall Plan while the Nazis were still in power.
[Reagan] That's a striking analogy.
[Rush Lindell] It's vivid.
[Rush Lindell] It's also from a guy who was inside the tent five minutes ago.
[Reagan] And notice,
[Reagan] nobody's blaming Trump directly.
[Reagan] Thiessen called it "b-
[Reagan] The Vance Peace Deal.
[Reagan] Trump signed it.
[Reagan] Vance is taking the arrows.
[Rush Lindell] Which is exactly where we're headed next,
[Rush Lindell] because that scapegoating has a very specific political purpose.
[Rush Lindell] So Kilmeade-Brian Kilmeade on Fox and Friends-I need to translate this for you.
[Reagan] Oh,
[Reagan] please go ahead.
[Rush Lindell] He goes on air and says-and I'm pulling this exact quote-"Maybe Vance wasn't the right person to bring this conflict to an end." That's the whole operation right there.
[Reagan] Eleven words-the man did it in eleven words.
[Rush Lindell] Eleven words-not a single one of them says "Trump." The deal is bad.
[Rush Lindell] But somehow the guy who signed it is blameless.
[Reagan] And then Kilmeade adds,
[Reagan] this is Vance's deal,
[Reagan] it's not the President's deal.
[Reagan] Rush,
[Reagan] Trump literally flew to Versailles and signed it at dinner.
[Rush Lindell] With Macron saying "Bravo," but go off,
[Rush Lindell] Brian.
[Reagan] Look,
[Reagan] I get the instinct-nobody wants to torch the president directly.
[Reagan] But calling this Vance's deal is-that's not criticism,
[Reagan] that's a human shield.
[Rush Lindell] And then there's Tom Cotton,
[Rush Lindell] Senate Intelligence Committee chair.
[Speaker 4] Mm hmm.
[Speaker 5] Mm
[Speaker 6] The
[Speaker 5] -hmm.
[Speaker 6] Senate's loudest Iran hawk for a decade-you ready?
[Reagan] I'm on the edge of my seat.
[Speaker 6] He tells Fox News-and I'm not paraphrasing-"Trump deserves enormous credit for weakening Iran." Then,
[Speaker 6] in the same breath,
[Speaker 6] we must not squander the leverage.
[Speaker 6] That's it.
[Speaker 6] That's the whole statement.
[Reagan] Interrupting, he praised the war and criticized the peace.
[Speaker 6] Without ever saying the deal is wrong.
[Reagan] Cotton spent years saying Obama's Iran deal was an
[Reagan] Was an existential betrayal,
[Reagan] now he's doing careful sentence construction.
[Speaker 6] M!
[Reagan] That's what tribal loyalty actually looks like when it's dressed up as analysis.
[Speaker 6] You know what nobody wants to say; the pattern is identical across all of them-Kilmeade,
[Speaker 6] Cotton,
[Speaker 6] the whole crew-protect the man,
[Speaker 6] absorb the criticism somewhere else.
[Reagan] Vance is the somewhere else.
[Speaker 6] Vance is the somewhere else,
[Speaker 6] and speaking of what nobody's saying honestly-
[Speaker 6] There's another story running underneath all of this, one that involves a phone call,
[Speaker 6] some expletives, and a very unhappy prime minister.
[Reagan] Yeah,
[Reagan] that one's something else entirely.
[Rush Lindell] Now,
[Rush Lindell] the Bibi blow-up: Axios reported it; Trump confirmed it.
[Rush Lindell] He called Netanyahu,
[Rush Lindell] on the record,
[Rush Lindell] quote,
[Rush Lindell] fucking crazy,
[Rush Lindell] an expletive laden call after Netanyahu ordered Beirut strikes one hour before the MOU signing.
[Rush Lindell] an expletive laden call after Netanyahu ordered Beirut strikes one hour before the M.O.U.
[Rush Lindell] signing.
[Rush Lindell] One hour.
[Reagan] And Trump didn't walk it back.
[Reagan] He told Axios,
[Reagan] why did Bibi have to do a fucking attack?
[Reagan] He has no fucking judgment.
[Reagan] PBS confirmed he acknowledged the call publicly.
[Speaker 6] A little bit perturbed,
[Speaker 6] he said.
[Speaker 6] Yeah,
[Speaker 6] a little bit.
[Reagan] The diplomatic version.
[Speaker 6] But Reagan,
[Speaker 6] the MOU text part,
[Speaker 6] that's almost worse.
[Speaker 6] NBC News reported Wednesday that Israeli officials still had not seen the final draft.
[Speaker 6] A US official's response:
[Speaker 6] the Israelis never asked for it.
[Reagan] Never asked-that's the US government's answer.
[Reagan] Answer.--An Axios reported Netanyahu seemed to recognize he couldn't stop Trump from signing it,
[Reagan] not agreed with it; recognized he couldn't stop it.
[Speaker 6] Big difference.
[Reagan] And at the G7 Trump said in public we are the big partner and he is the very small partner.
[Reagan] Four months before Israeli elections.
[Speaker 7] No!
[Reagan] That's not a diplomatic slip.
[Reagan] That's a message.
[Speaker 6] Without me there would be no Israel.
[Speaker 6] He said that,
[Speaker 6] at the G7,
[Speaker 6] to the cameras,
[Speaker 6] and the White House never denied any of it.
[Reagan] Now,
[Reagan] I want to push on something here.
[Reagan] On one read,
[Reagan] Trump is asserting control,
[Reagan] forcing an ally that nearly blew up the deal to accept the outcome.
[Reagan] That's not nothing.
[Speaker 6] I hear you,
[Speaker 6] and I'll be honest,
[Speaker 6] I'm not sure he's right to do it.
[Speaker 6] Bibi ordered a strike on Beirut one hour before the signing-that's on him.
[Reagan] Fair,
[Reagan] but Israel has no seat at the sixty day table now.
[Reagan] Their core concerns-centrifuges,
[Reagan] ballistic missiles,
[Reagan] Lebanon withdrawal-all get negotiated without them in the room.
[Speaker 6] Which brings us to the question nobody wants to answer yet:
[Speaker 6] Did Trump actually win this?
[Speaker 6] Because that answer depends entirely on what happens in those 60 days,
[Speaker 6] and we're going there next.
[Speaker 6] So the real question:
[Speaker 6] Did Trump win or not?
[Speaker 6] I've been sitting with this all week,
[Speaker 6] and I'll give you my honest answer.
[Reagan] Same.
[Reagan] Go.
[Speaker 6] The case for Trump is real.
[Speaker 6] Iran lost Khamenei,
[Speaker 6] lost most of its IRGC command structure,
[Speaker 6] and came to the table in a hundred days.
[Speaker 6] Thirteen American lives.
[Speaker 6] The Pentagon puts the direct military cost around $40 billion per CNN and CSIS.
[Speaker 6] That is a price,
[Speaker 6] but the s***.
[Rush Lindell] The street is open and no president has ever gotten Iran's signature on anything this fast.
[Reagan] All of that's true,
[Reagan] and I don't dismiss it,
[Reagan] but here's what I can't get past:
[Reagan] Iran gets immediate oil sanctions waivers,
[Reagan] dollar denominated trade for the first time in four decades,
[Speaker 4] four.
[Reagan] and keeps every centrifuge running.
[Reagan] The Foundation for Defense of Democracies flagged it bluntly:
[Reagan] Washington is trading away its most durable economic lever.
[Reagan] before the hard part of the negotiation has even started.
[Rush Lindell] That's the thing that keeps me up.
[Rush Lindell] Because the MOU didn't cap enrichment,
[Rush Lindell] didn't touch the ballistic missile program,
[Rush Lindell] Iran's missile program and support for allied groups are explicitly off the agenda in these 60-day talks,
[Rush Lindell] according to Iranian state media reports.
[Reagan] Wow.
[Rush Lindell] So what exactly did the war establish?
[Reagan] Directly, it established that Iran can be hurt.
[Reagan] It did not
[Reagan] Not establish that Iran can be stopped; those are different things.
[Rush Lindell] Yeah,
[Rush Lindell] yeah-and look,
[Rush Lindell] I think the MOU buys time-that's the honest conservative verdict:
[Rush Lindell] not victory-time.
[Reagan] Rush all push back on that framing slightly:
[Reagan] because buying time only matters if you use it; if sixty days from now enrichment is still unresolved and the centrifuges are still spinning,
[Reagan] what was the strategic purpose of the war?
[Rush Lindell] That's a question I don't have a clean answer to,
[Rush Lindell] and I don't think the White House does either.
[Reagan] Neither do I-and that discomfort is where honest conservatism has to live right now.
[Rush Lindell] The 60-day clock is already running.
[Rush Lindell] We'll find out what this actually was:
[Rush Lindell] a turning point or an expensive pause.
[Rush Lindell] That answer's coming fast.
[Rush Lindell] So the clock is running,
[Rush Lindell] Day One of Sixty,
[Rush Lindell] and here's what we're actually watching.
[Reagan] Right,
[Reagan] three things—and they're not abstract.
[Rush Lindell] Hit it!
[Reagan] First,
[Reagan] does Iran agree to halt enrichment outright,
[Reagan] or do they run the clock stalling on definitions?
[Reagan] The Hill reported this week it took Obama twenty months to nail down the JCPOA. They're asking Witkoff to do it in sixty days.
[Rush Lindell] Sixty Days. NBD.
[Reagan] Second thing,
[Reagan] and this is the one I'm watching most closely,—that uranium stockpile.
[Reagan] The MOU language,
[Reagan] as PBS laid it out verbatim,
[Reagan] says the minimum is down blending on site under IAEA supervision.
[Reagan] Minimum.
[Rush Lindell] Hmm.
[Reagan] That word is doing a lot of work.
[Rush Lindell] Because downblending on Iranian soil is not the same as removal.
[Reagan] Not even close,
[Reagan] and comedy already issued a direct
[Reagan] Directive prohibiting the stockpile from leaving the country." Al Jazeera reported that. So the floor of this deal may also be the ceiling.
[Rush Lindell] And the third thing is Lebanon.
[Rush Lindell] Iran says the deal requires Israel to withdraw.
[Rush Lindell] Israel has no seat at these talks.
[Rush Lindell] That's a collision waiting to happen.
[Reagan] Which brings us back to Netanyahu.
[Reagan] He can't stop the final deal.
[Reagan] He showed that at Versailles.
[Reagan] But he can make 60 days feel like 600.
[Reagan] hundred.
[Rush Lindell] Here's the verdict I keep landing on:
[Rush Lindell] the standard for judging this isn't the press conference,
[Rush Lindell] it's what Iran's nuclear program looks like on day sixty one.
[Reagan] Exactly not what Trump said at the G7,
[Reagan] not what Pezeshkian signed in Tehran, what the IAEA can actually verify when the clock expires.
[Rush Lindell] And if the answer is enrichment continuing,
[Rush Lindell] stockpiles still sitting on Iranian soil.
[Rush Lindell] oil,
[Rush Lindell] and Lebanon still contested,
[Rush Lindell] then the MOU didn't end the war-it paused it.
[Reagan] That's the sixty day question nobody wants to answer yet.
[Rush Lindell] Stay with us-we'll be tracking every one of those benchmarks as they hit.
[Rush Lindell] Day sixty one.
[Rush Lindell] That's the date that matters.
[Rush Lindell] Not today's press conference,
[Rush Lindell] not the Versailles dinner photo-op.
[Rush Lindell] Day sixty one,
[Rush Lindell] when the IAEA either has access or it doesn't.
[Reagan] And that's the standard we laid out today.
[Reagan] The four hundred and forty kilograms of sixty percent enriched uranium,
[Reagan] the centrifuges,
[Reagan] Lebanon,
[Reagan] those three things will tell you everything.
[Reagan] Watch what's verifiable.
[Reagan] Not what's declared.
[Rush Lindell] Bravo,
[Rush Lindell] Macron!
[Rush Lindell] Bravo!
[Rush Lindell] Look,
[Rush Lindell] this deal either delivers on Day Sixty One or the critics were right all along:
[Rush Lindell] no middle ground.
[Reagan] No middle ground.
[Reagan] And that debate,
[Reagan] inside conservative media,
[Reagan] between allies,
[Reagan] around the Netanyahu rupture-that's not going away in sixty days either.
[Rush Lindell] This was a big one.
[Rush Lindell] Thanks for spending the hour with us.
[Reagan] Really glad you were here.
[Reagan] If today's show made you think-
[Reagan] Subscribe,
[Reagan] leave a five-star review,
[Reagan] and tell somebody who needs to hear it. New episodes every weekday.
[Rush Lindell] We'll see you tomorrow,
[Rush Lindell] right here.