00:00Michelle Jarmusko is our White House and national security editor in Washington,
00:03and she joins us now. I mean, Michelle, I think just the basic question is,
00:07is this deal really dead in the contested waters here, or is there a chance that it could be
00:13revived? Well, I'm smiling, Christina, because we've been at this juncture every week, really,
00:20since the deal was struck. Usually over the weekends. Yes, exactly. On the weekend, we revisit
00:25this, you know, and look back and see how the pattern has repeated itself. I mean, I think
00:30one issue that Possession gets at in that interview is, will they actually come together for talks
00:37again? Now, we saw a really intriguing, you know, exchange on Tuesday where President Trump revealed
00:45that the two sides have been talking. You know, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, who were sitting
00:51alongside, looked visibly uncomfortable about that situation, about that reveal. And the president
00:56then went on to say there were three hours of talks. And, you know, in the end, we figured out
01:01that these were indirect talks at UNGA, that the mediators were kind of facilitating, but that
01:06clearly didn't really produce much, kind of went down the same path of, you know, the red lines on
01:13either side really preventing the two sides from getting together. So I think the Iranian president's
01:18statement there is revealing that they are holding firm on wanting the blockade to be lifted,
01:25wanting sanctions to start to be removed before they come back to the negotiating table.
01:30And that's just, you know, not something that Trump seems willing to give up right now.
01:34Michelle, talk about the way in which the language surrounding this and the prospect of a deal has
01:39shifted because we did hear from President Trump several times here in New York and Washington this
01:44week, this notion of something happening after the midterms or nothing's going to happen until the
01:47midterms. And then, lo, that will open things up again for either the resolution of the war, or as
01:51the Wall Street Journal reported, perhaps the resumption of military strikes. Picking up what
01:56you were talking about just a moment ago, the groundhog day-ness of the way that we have to
01:59talk about this. Look, we're back talking about a memo of understanding that was all but ripped up
02:04just a few weeks after it was signed in France. How are you thinking about the prospects of this
02:11coming together on any sort of timeline here? I mean, something that comes up time and time again when we
02:14talk about the prospects of a deal is that comparison to how much time it took for the
02:19JCPOA to be hatched and to be codified now many, many years ago.
02:24Yeah, well, David, I think I just keep coming back to two points. One is the sort of leverage game.
02:29And, excuse me, the president likes to, President Trump likes to play this constantly, you know,
02:34the sort of art of the deal. He's not going to reveal his cards. He believes strength always beats
02:40weakness. So he's always going to be pushing, pushing, pushing, not going to show any softening
02:44while also saying on the side, you know, of course I'm willing to talk as long as they come to
02:48the
02:49table with something that looks good to me. Now, there were rumors this week, especially after
02:54those Tuesday talks, that perhaps Iran had presented something that was palatable, that they would be
03:00willing to open up the strait in terms of, you know, stopping harassment of vessels and not trying to
03:07manage vessels, at least for a short period, while they kind of regained trust with the other side
03:14and that the U.S. would remove the blockade. Now, apparently whatever was presented to the U.S. was
03:20not accepted. You know, Trump has said outright he's rejected it. So we're in the same place.
03:24And the second point I would say is that there's this timing game. You know, you've heard the president
03:28say for months now, again, that this is ending very soon. And, you know, he's been very, you know,
03:34very persistent that the war will be complete and we will force them to the table and this will all
03:41be over. And especially around the midterms, this has become another pivot point that he's
03:46put out there that, you know, yes, the war will be over right after the midterms, if not sooner than
03:51that. And that's just not jiving with what I've heard many smart Iran analysts over the years say that
03:58the U.S. misunderstands. That Iran is not going to be rushed into anything. They're not on the political
04:03timeline that the U.S. is, certainly not in the four-year political timeline or even two-year
04:08political timeline. And so they're kind of on their own clock and have a much more existential
04:13view of the situation. They're taking pride in their resilience in this war against the world's
04:20mightiest military and just looking for survival at this point and sticking to their guns on,
04:26you know, holding management of Hormuz.
04:28Michelle, because it is a global society and all of these stories are related, when we talk about
04:33Iran, there's also been some reporting about whether or not Iran was discussed in the meeting
04:38between President Trump and Xi, this high-profile bilat. We got very different readouts from the
04:43White House and from Beijing about what happened in those meetings and comments about what happened
04:48in those meetings. What stood out to you as to what was in them and what was missing?
04:53Yeah. I mean, the readouts, as you know, Christina and David, both over the years,
04:58you know, these have kind of become separate paths for the U.S. and China. Whenever the leaders get
05:03together, we have gotten used to understanding that there will be different statements. I think
05:08what was different this time and more extreme is that the readout doesn't match, the White House
05:13readout doesn't match the China readout, but they also don't match the leader's statements. So,
05:18you know, the big thing that I've been focused on, yes, Iran is a big part of the messaging that
05:23is
05:24of intrigue, I think, between the two leaders, what they did and didn't perhaps discuss. But Taiwan
05:29stands out. I mean, that was a big issue coming in. That has been a, you know, a hot point
05:35for many,
05:36many countries in the region, including Japan, a U.S. ally who was concerned about what might or may not
05:42have been struck in those conversations. But we heard a very different message. We heard the day of
05:47those meetings from Xi telling state media that he urged the president to adhere to the policy of
05:56opposition to Taiwanese independence. And that word adhere is something that a lot of analysts are
06:01looking at and saying, well, hang on, now Beijing thinks that they're helping kind of dictate the U.S.
06:07policy toward Taiwan, where for many administrations dating back to Reagan, it was more so, you know,
06:13you can't influence what we say is, you know, strategic ambiguity and, you know, support for
06:20Taiwan clearly in Taiwanese arms sales, U.S. arms sales to Taiwan. So it's been a very complicating
06:27issue at this point. And, you know, it didn't come up, you know, at least in the readout, it definitely
06:33didn't come up on the U.S. side. And the official Chinese readout was not in there either. But we
06:39did
06:39hear from Trump that he believes Xi understands, you know, his position and we didn't need to talk
06:45about it very much. So I think that's unlikely to satisfy a lot of people, especially those in
06:51Taipei who are worried about how the U.S. might go forward with this policy. 100 percent.
06:55Michelle Jamerysko, thank you very much. Our colleague, Michelle Jamerysko, who is an editor
06:58for national security in the White House, based in Washington, D.C.
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