The following is a lightly edited transcript of the April 22 episode of the Daily Blast podcast. Listen to it here.
Greg Sargent: This is The Daily Blast from The New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR Network. I’m your host, Greg Sargent.
It’s getting harder for Donald Trump’s propagandists to defend his handling of the war. Trump has been saying that a deal with Iran is near, yet Trump officials are leaking that his public outbursts have only made it harder to reach an agreement to end the conflict.
Amid those realities, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt went full cult on Fox News. She viciously attacked the media for being insufficiently worshipful of Trump’s glory, and she unleashed an obsequious monologue that was plainly designed to lift Trump’s spirits.
All this underscores that even if Trump gets a deal, it’ll be extremely hard to spin this adventure as a success. So how bad a catastrophe is this shaping up to be? We’re unraveling all this with former National Security Council and State Department veteran Emily Horne, one of our go-tos on these topics. Emily, nice to have you back on.
Emily Horne: Thanks for having me, Greg.
Sargent: So we’re getting close to the expiration of the two-week ceasefire. And as of this recording, JD Vance’s trip to negotiate a peace has been postponed after Iran failed to respond to the American position, though this could restart at any time. There’s a lot of confusion around the status of the Strait of Hormuz. Emily, can you explain where we are and bring us up to date on the current sticking points and everything else?
Horne: Talks are off. There’s no plan for when or if they’ll restart. The Strait of Hormuz continues to be controlled by the IRGC—the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps—which is the real source of power in Iran. It continues to control the Strait of Hormuz. And it’s IRGC missiles and drones that killed 13 U.S. troops, attacked U.S. embassies and diplomatic facilities across the Middle East, attacked Gulf oil and data center installations across the region, and whose damage Trump political leaders at the Pentagon are really continuing to cover up even as they’re insisting that victory is at hand.
So when you hear this administration talking about their conversations with the regime and how there may or may not be peace at hand, I think it’s really important to remember they often don’t know what the heck it is they’re talking about, because they confuse who really holds the power in Tehran these days.
It’s really striking to me when I hear this administration talking about the regime change that U.S. strikes have brought about and the destruction that they have leaked on things like the Iranian Navy and the Iranian Air Force. Those were never power centers to begin with. So when they’re going out and bragging about them on Fox News, they don’t really know what they’re talking about. And it’s a real tell to negotiators in Iran that the people who are showing up at the table really have no idea what they’re doing—that this is total amateur hour.
Sargent: Total Art of the Deal stuff. Well, CNN reports that the U.S. and Iran had appeared close to a deal, but then Trump started making all kinds of public statements to reporters and on Truth Social. He said Iran had agreed to a bunch of things that Iran hadn’t actually agreed to.
Trump officials privately told CNN that this was detrimental to the talks. One official said this: “The Iranians didn’t appreciate POTUS negotiating through social media and making it appear as if they had signed off on issues they hadn’t yet agreed to and ones that aren’t popular with their people back home.”
Emily, this seems really damning—not just on the substance, but also because officials are leaking this about Trump. What did you make of all of that?
Horne: So the only thing that was surprising to me about this CNN story was that the headline suggested that the parties had at one point been close to a deal, which the story itself doesn’t even actually support. That was probably some editor who wanted to make it seem like there was higher drama and that Trump’s social media creative writing projects over the weekend and his random phone calls to random reporters had somehow interrupted something that was actually going well—when in fact it wasn’t.
JD Vance doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing. Steve Witkoff, the president’s golf buddy—no diplomat. You know, the president’s son-in-law can’t negotiate anything except a deal with crypto leaders in the Middle East that’s going to enrich himself. These people don’t know what they’re doing and they barely even tried at the Islamabad talks. They were on the ground for less than 24 hours, where they washed their hands of the whole thing and said that it was a failure.
So it’s not surprising that the whole thing fell apart. It’s not surprising that the president was tweeting about it in real time and calling up random reporters and bragging about it in real time when there was an effort to get things back on track after that first round failed.
And it’s not at all surprising that the Iranians took one look at all of this amateur-hour nonsense and said, okay, well, even if they did agree to do something, even if we did manage to negotiate with these yahoos, who is to say that the Americans would keep their word—because Trump is not giving anybody a reason to think that he’s serious about any of this.
Sargent: Trump’s red lines seem to be that Iran has to halt all uranium enrichment and turn over its stockpile of material entirely, whereas Iran doesn’t want to do those things and wants total control over the Strait of Hormuz. Is that about right? Is that about the size of who wants what?
Horne: Yes, that’s basically correct. Now, one of the things that makes this complicated, though, is that there are lots of elements who have influence within the Trump administration who want these talks to go even further, who want even more maximalist demands from the U.S. side. And so it’s a constantly moving target, which—I want to be clear, I’m not advocating for the Iranians here—but from the Iranian perspective, which, a good diplomat and negotiator thinks about—what’s on the mind of the people on the other side of the table—it makes it really hard for them to know which end is up.
It makes it really hard for them to know that the United States is going to actually keep its promises and that it’s not going to keep moving the goalposts. And Iran needs to retain some sort of leverage going forward, right? Because of the sort of legacy of mistrust with the United States, which means it would be hard for Iran to get anywhere close to the maximalist demands that the United States has.
Sargent: Yes. And again, the demands and the leverage I think are different now than they were eight weeks ago. You know, the Tehran toll booth that is the Strait of Hormuz—some analysts estimate that it could generate over $200 billion a year for Iran when normal traffic resumes. And that’s a chokehold that Iran has now learned that it can control and use to strangle global shipping and global energy supplies. Arguably, that gives Iran far greater leverage over global affairs than it would even have had with nuclear weapons, at least until global energy flows fully adjust. And analysts expect that that could be years, if ever.
Well, okay. So this is the situation that Karoline Leavitt is dealing with. Now listen to what she said on Fox News.
Karoline Leavitt (voiceover): He’s the negotiator in chief. And to all the critics in the media, the Democrats, the Panicans out there—you doubted he would win in 2016 and you were proven wrong. You doubted he would return to the Oval Office in 2024. You were proven wrong. I remember last year fighting with journalists from the podium about the president’s ability to strike a deal to end the war in Gaza and bring home all the hostages. And again, they were proven wrong. I suspect this time is going to be no different, Sean.
Sargent: Emily, this is so absurd on so many levels. Trump very well may get a deal, maybe even soon. But the question is, will there be any scenario in which this is a good overall outcome for the United States, right? What did you make of all that?
Horne: I hear an answer like that and I hear a spokesperson who knows that she has a really bad hand of cards to play. And so instead of trying to play that bad hand, she’s just attacking the person sitting on the other side of the table from her. She’s not engaging with any of the—I think the very reasonable and substantive questions that people on all sides of the aisle have about what does success look like in this conflict, when are gas prices going to go down, why does Iran have all this leverage now that it didn’t have eight weeks ago. She’s just refusing to engage with any of that and attacking anyone who asks her questions about it. But it’s really telling that she’s refusing to answer the questions and going on the offense.
Sargent: That kind of opens up a window on how Fox propaganda works, I think, because if you watch Leavitt delivering these types of monologues and tirades, you’ll see footage in the background of the United States blowing stuff up, right? They always have that boom this, boom that, boom that—like the videos that they show to the president, apparently—but they’re showing them to Fox News viewers.
And so you can kind of see where they’re going with the propaganda, which is to essentially say, okay, nevermind the fact that Iran has this leverage that they didn’t have eight weeks ago. Just look at how Trump is blowing things up and look how powerful he is. And then she just goes on this sycophantic rant, and you can kind of see exactly how they’re trying to manipulate the Trump base, right?
Horne: I mean, sure, but that in five bucks will buy me a gallon of gas.
Sargent: Well, right, exactly. Well, let’s listen to more of Leavitt. Here she runs through all the destruction Trump has rained down on the Iranian military. Then she says this.
Karoline Leavitt (voiceover): Yet the American media is still trying to say that the United States is in a worse-off position than we were at the start of this, that Iran still poses a threat. It’s all a bunch of nonsense. They are rooting against this president and therefore our country. And it’s really despicable to watch. The facts are the facts. President Trump has been the steady leader our country needs throughout this entire endeavor. And again, thanks to the success of the military operation and his hardline negotiating style, we’re on the brink of a deal. And if not, the president as commander-in-chief still has a number of options at his disposal that he’s unafraid to use. And President Trump has proven before—he does not bluff. When he makes a promise, he follows through on it. And I’m not sure why, after 10 years of covering this president, the American media still cannot understand: when President Trump says he’s going to do something, he’s going to do it.
Sargent: My favorite thing about this is the description of Trump’s threat to destroy an entire civilization and commit major war crimes as a, quote-unquote, “hardline negotiating style.” But that aside, Emily, is it true that Trump is in total control of the situation or not? It seems like—yeah, the Iranian military has been badly degraded and yeah, Trump made a lot of things go boom, but like, he’s not actually in control of the situation, is he?
Horne: I think that the IRGC is watching clips like this and gloating, because Karoline is revealing just how little this administration understands Iran and understands war and understands leverage and they could not be more thrilled that she is out there talking about the destruction of things like Iran’s Air Force and Navy, when it’s in fact the IRGC that is functionally in charge of the government and the military apparatus in not just Tehran, but increasingly controlling global affairs when it comes to things like the global energy market and regional security. All they can do is point at things that are blowing up and say, look, we did that. Like they’re asking for extra credit on a school assignment for particularly good drawing assignment. It’s just really disgusting.
And to your point earlier—speaking of disgusting things—we can’t lose sight of what an utter game changer it is that the president of the United States has threatened to use the U.S. military to commit a genocide. And didn’t just do it once, by the way. This clip is Karoline, his spokesperson, going out there and saying that he’s perfectly willing to do it again.
That means that the United States of America is functionally a rogue state on the global stage. And we’re going to be dealing with the repercussions of that, certainly for the rest of our lives, probably for our kids’ lives as well—that our country has threatened to exterminate a civilization, a country of 93 million people, the vast majority of whom have nothing to do with the havoc that the IRGC is wreaking across the region. These are ordinary people who just want to raise their families and work and worship and live in peace and dignity. And every single person who was hearing that in Tehran is hearing a threat to extinguish their lives and kill everyone they know. I’m appalled as an American that that is something that my president is going out and talking about on the world stage in my name. We should all be appalled by that.
Sargent: We should. And Trump keeps repeating this over and over. And I want to get into the repercussions of this, because if you follow Trump closely, you’ll note that he says things like he’s going to blow up every power plant and every bridge in Iran if Iran doesn’t do our bidding. And he keeps using that language.
Now, that is an explicit threat to commit massive war crimes—it’s not right, it’s not even ambiguous. Like, even Pete Hegseth, who’s a bloodthirsty maniac, actually has a little bit of sense on this stuff, and he tries to keep it a little ambiguous. He says, we’ve got a whole list of legitimate targets we’re going to knock out, right, which seems to mean targets that have some sort of military function, which could be, you know, a bit of a borderline case on whether it’s war crimes or not. Donald Trump does not try to finesse it at all. He says, in essence, I will absolutely commit war crimes by blowing up every plant and every bridge. What are the repercussions of that?
Horne: I mean, they’re horrific to think about. First of all, God help us all if he actually does it. And I pray that day will never ever come. But then let’s think about what happens if it does turn out that that is an empty threat. One, you’ve destroyed the moral credibility of the United States—not just as a moral force for good in the world, but as a source of stability, as a source of leadership. How are future generations going to look back at this moment? And how are we as people going to be dealing with the fact that the president is doing this in our name?
That’s a pretty big question that we all should be asking ourselves right now. And it’s not too soon, by the way, to start asking ourselves what does accountability look like when this is all over? And I’m still enough of an optimist to believe that there will be a morning after for this administration. So I’m thinking a lot these days about what does accountability and what does reconciliation with accountability look like as we’re getting to that morning after.
But there’s also the point that this is the position of a fundamentally weak president in this moment. To make a massive empty threat and not follow up on it—the world is watching that. The Iranians are watching that. The IRGC is watching that. And given the level with which Iranian propaganda has been able to mock this president for all of his many foibles and failings, I’m sure that they’ll find a way to mock him not being able to follow up on his threat to annihilate an entire civilization too.
Sargent: Well, yes, there will be a morning after, and it may come a lot sooner than people think if Democrats can win the House and possibly the Senate. But just to sort of close this out—we’re in this strange situation where they keep telling us Trump has absolute mastery over the situation, as if he’s only agreeing to negotiate with Iran out of his own benevolence.
If that were the case, though, then wouldn’t Trump be able to simply dictate the terms? There’s just an inherent absurdity to all this that I think is worth surfacing and looking at.
Horne: Absolutely. And you know, going back to those clips of Karoline Leavitt—you know, honestly, sometimes I feel a little bit sorry for Karoline. She’s got this sick, crazy old man of a boss and he’s making these crazy rants on social media. He’s threatening genocide. He’s picking fights with the Pope.
And it’s her job to go out there and publicly defend stuff that would make most people her age go, I don’t know, maybe we should talk about hiding grandpa’s car keys. And then I remember it’s not car keys at stake. It’s literally America’s nuclear launch codes. And then I no longer feel sorry for her or anyone else who is still choosing to defend this shit.
Sargent: So, Emily, as we were recording this, it turns out that Trump just announced that the ceasefire will be extended indefinitely. And we don’t seem to know exactly what that means for the talks, but can you kind of play out where this all goes from here?
Horne: So obviously this news just broke as we were recording. What this appears to be is an acknowledgement from President Trump that Iran holds all the cards here, and that he is extending a ceasefire with Iran until Iran submits a proposal to end the war permanently.
The statement that he put up on Truth Social says, “Pakistan has asked us to hold our attack on the country of Iran until such time as their leaders and representatives can come up with a unified proposal.” So that, to me, says a couple of things. One, they’re acknowledging—and I think this is good for the world—that despite Karoline Leavitt’s threats today to destroy the entire civilization of Iran, that’s not going to happen. So let’s acknowledge that not doing genocide is a good thing. But apart from that one good thing, this seems to me to be a total caving to all of the leverage that Iran has been able to accumulate in the last eight weeks.
I think it’s upsetting to see that we wound up in a place where—after 13 American soldiers were killed in IRGC attacks, where our diplomatic facilities were attacked, where a lot of the damage is still being hidden by the Pentagon, where we have all seen our gas and energy prices rising with no end in sight, where global trade has been disrupted, where our credibility has been shredded—this is the best that we’ve got: the maintenance of the status quo, and the timetable is now on Iran to put together a proposal while the U.S. is out of ideas for how to resolve this.
Sargent: It sure looks that way. And we’ve got to think that at least he isn’t carrying out the threat of genocide, which is a weirdly positive thing.
Horne: I don’t want to give him credit for it though, Greg, honestly. The damage of destroying America’s reputation on the global stage, of making us into a rogue state that threatens to annihilate our enemies—that damage has been done and can’t be undone. Even if in this particular moment it doesn’t look like the crisis that’s most at hand.
Sargent: Well, who says Trump didn’t accomplish anything? He accomplished that. Emily Horne, awesome to talk to you, folks. Check out Emily’s Substack—it’s called Spin Class. Emily, always a pleasure to talk to you.
Horne: Thanks, Greg.