Red lines and realities: Why the US-Iran peace talks in Islamabad collapsed — This is America

[0:07] This is America, where U.S. negotiators returned without a peace deal with Iran. [0:12] Why did the Pakistan talks collapse? [0:14] And what were Washington and Tehran's red lines that got in the way of a deal? [0:19] I'll be back with more on that later. [0:20] But first, here's Anna Burns-Francis in our Washington studio. [0:25] Thanks, Heidi. [0:26] Being a global superpower is about showing consistency and stability. [0:30] So what is the U.S. showing the world as it tries to rein in Iran? [0:35] In a moment, we'll be joined by Alan Fisher at the White House. [0:38] And later, our panel discussion will include guests who've met Iran's former supreme leader [0:42] and a former senior CIA agent who interrogated Saddam Hussein. [0:47] President Trump was keen today to tell the world that progress on a peace deal would be made. [0:53] He says there's only one condition outstanding. [0:57] What was the sticking point over? You said it was over nuclear. [1:00] It was over nuclear. Very similar. Yeah, very good. [1:03] I guess you're listening. It's over the fact that they will never have a nuclear weapon. [1:07] Iran, you're marking it down, Iran will not have a nuclear weapon. [1:13] And we agreed to a lot of things, but they didn't agree to that. [1:17] And I think they will agree to it. I'm almost sure of it. [1:20] In fact, I am sure of it. If they don't agree, there's no deal. [1:23] There'll never be a deal. Iran will not have a nuclear weapon. [1:26] So where does this leave America and its commander-in-chief? [1:31] Let's get to our chief U.S. correspondent, Alan Fisher, who joins us at the White House. [1:35] Alan, what did Trump's actions in the Strait mean? [1:38] Well, the blockade is meant to achieve a couple of things. [1:41] First of all, it's meant to stop Iran from charging any sort of fee for boats passing through the Strait of Hormuz. [1:49] They've been getting payments in cryptocurrency. That's not traceable. It's not blockable. [1:55] That has helped to fuel, in the White House's eyes, what Iran is doing with the war. [2:00] There's another reason for doing it as well. [2:02] They want to choke off by blocking everything coming in and out of Iranian ports. [2:06] Iranian access to world markets to essentially throttle their energy industry. [2:11] Again, that has all been about getting hard currency that they can then use to fund the war that they're undertaking with the United States. [2:21] What the U.S. hopes is that there'll be pressure on Iran from some of their main business partners, including China. [2:28] China imports roughly a third of its domestic oil from Tehran, and it's been doing that throughout the war. [2:35] Now, suddenly, if China doesn't get access to Iranian oil, that causes the Chinese a problem. [2:41] And the United States is hoping that that pressure on China will mean China putting pressure on Iran and force Iran to get back to the negotiating table. [2:50] Remember, the ceasefire only has nine days left to run. [2:53] Donald Trump believes that the Chinese will put that pressure on Tehran sooner rather than later. [2:59] All right then, Alan, nine days and putting that pressure on. [3:03] Will there be another attempt at a deal? [3:05] Well, if you listen to Donald Trump, he said that there have been discussions already that a responsible person, [3:11] the right people have been in touch with the United Nations, with the United States side in the last few hours. [3:17] And he believes that they haven't walked away from a deal yet. [3:20] And certainly, while the United States said that they couldn't get agreement on everything, [3:25] they didn't walk away either. [3:26] They didn't say, we're done, this is going nowhere. [3:29] So there is still the possibility that there could be some sort of deal done. [3:33] Now, the Pakistanis kept talking to the Iranians after the United States left Pakistan. [3:40] And clearly, that was to discuss technical issues and ways, perhaps, that they could reopen the deal. [3:45] Donald Trump wants a deal. [3:47] He wants to be able to declare peace. [3:48] He wants to be able to declare victory over Iran. [3:52] But also, he wants to make sure that the oil prices start to go back to normal levels. [3:58] He already said in an interview at the weekend, he thinks that come the midterms, still several months away, [4:03] oil prices could be about the same or slightly higher than they are now. [4:08] He knows that's politically bad news for him and the Republican Party. [4:12] So he definitely would like to try and get a deal done sometime in the next nine days. [4:17] All right. [4:17] Alan Fisher joining us from the White House. [4:19] Thank you. [4:19] Many of the points being publicly debated, Iran's nuclear program, sanctions and the Strait of Hormuz, [4:26] have been red lines in the region for decades. [4:29] Al Jazeera's Richard Gaysford reports on why they were the likely reason talks broke down in Islamabad [4:34] and how they've kept the US and Iran at odds in previous negotiations. [4:40] You might not have actually seen them, but the talks were crisscrossed with red lines that divided both sides. [4:47] And as they sat down around the table in Islamabad and looked at the list of options, [4:51] it soon became clear that some red lines would be stronger than others. [4:55] For the Americans, no nuclear weapons was going to be key and getting hold of that uranium that Iran has. [5:03] Iran, well, it wants to keep that radioactive material and still have the ability to enrich it. [5:09] And for both sides, the Strait of Hormuz was a major focal point. [5:14] The narrow stretch of water has been at the center of this conflict, a crucial sea passage since what's known as the original red line was drawn on a map in 1928. [5:26] That's when British, French and American oil companies tied up a deal to monopolize production in the Middle East. [5:33] A red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized. [5:41] Since then, it's become a widely used term for a position that will be responded to if crossed, famously laid down by Barack Obama in relation to chemical weapons being used in Syria. [5:53] When, with modest effort and risk, we can stop children from being gassed to death and thereby make our own children safer over the long run, I believe we should act. [6:04] But President Obama never fully followed through, which rather makes the point that red lines vanish when the price of enforcing them outweighs the cost of not doing so. [6:15] The U.S. vice president headed back to Washington, having left Iranian negotiators with his best and final offer. [6:23] I don't care if they come back or not. If they don't come back, I'm fine. [6:26] The president knowing that red lines, depending on circumstances, can be wiped out as quickly as they are drawn. [6:36] Richard Gaysford, Al Jazeera, Washington. [6:38] Gloomy domestic headlines highlighting no deal hit the press well before Vice President Vance had even landed back on American soil. [6:48] Here's Heidi Jo Castro with a look at how the story was covered. [6:52] American negotiators returned to Washington empty handed. [6:56] We saw it written on the face of Vice President J.D. Vance when he announced no deal. [7:01] And we saw it immediately written in American headlines. [7:04] On the right, the conservative One America News had this. [7:08] Trump announces U.S. naval blockade of Hormuz Strait after failed Iran talks. [7:14] The Trump-friendly New York Post tabloid gave the president a little more oomph, writing, [7:20] Trump announces blockade of Strait of Hormuz as pres blasts Iran for world extortion. [7:27] On television, Americans watch their Congress members give it the partisan spin. [7:32] Here's Republican Senator Ron Johnson on the center-left-leaning ABC News. [7:37] We continue to weaken the regime until they are no longer effective and the Iranian people can reclaim their own liberty and take over Iran themselves. [7:46] Again, it's going to be a long-term project. [7:48] And that could go on for a long time. [7:49] I never thought this would be easy. I don't think Trump thought it would be easy. [7:52] It could take a long time. [7:53] Democrats agree that this conflict could take a long time to resolve, just like it took a long time for the U.S. and Iran to negotiate the 2015 Iran nuclear deal that Trump tore up three years later. [8:06] Here's Democratic Representative Pramila Jayapal on the left-leaning NBC News. [8:11] I feel good that perhaps there's still a path for these negotiations, but we should be clear. [8:17] Donald Trump got us into this mess. [8:19] He went into a war with Iran that was unauthorized and illegal. [8:25] And because of that, we are in the mess that we're in now. [8:28] There was no strategy. [8:29] And now the U.S. naval blockade is on, threatening to involve more countries and push fuel prices up further. [8:36] None of this is what Americans want to hear. [8:41] So how did we get here? [8:43] Let's take a look at both sides and their non-negotiables. [8:46] The United States' main red line is ensuring Iran can never have a nuclear weapon. [8:52] Iran insists it has a right to enrich uranium for civilian purposes. [8:56] Another red line for the U.S. guaranteed freedom of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz as an international waterway. [9:03] Iran wants to maintain control over the strait. [9:06] Iran has consistently categorized its missile capabilities as non-negotiable. [9:11] The U.S. wants to reduce it. [9:13] Washington also wants Iran to halt its support for armed groups in the region. [9:18] Iran considers them essential to its security. [9:21] And Iran demands that any deal include wide-scale sanctions relief to stabilize its economy. [9:29] Well, joining us today to discuss whether any of those issues can be brought back to the negotiating table [9:33] is a former U.S. ambassador and assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs, Jeffrey Feltman, [9:38] and former senior CIA analyst, John Nixon. [9:41] Gentlemen, thank you both for coming in today. [9:43] Ambassador, I'll start with you. [9:44] Is the U.S. in a better or worse position than it was before the weekend? [9:48] I think if you look at the Strait of Hormuz, we're in a worse position. [9:50] We had freedom of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz before this war started. [9:55] In terms of the objectives set up by the president, I don't see where we have achieved much. [10:05] But I am encouraged that the door doesn't seem to have closed on negotiations, [10:10] even though J.D. Vance left Islamabad and said they didn't have a deal. [10:13] It would have been unrealistic to expect a deal to be done in 21 hours anyway. [10:19] And so perhaps there is a way to keep the talks going in a way that extends the ceasefire [10:25] to allow sort of some principles to be established that would address some of the concerns you brought up. [10:31] And it's also, I would raise the Lebanon issue. [10:34] It's the question of how Lebanon plays into this. [10:37] John, there are just nine days left as it stands at the moment. [10:40] And as the ambassador has pointed out, not a huge amount of time to get a deal done. [10:44] 21 hours obviously wasn't enough for it. [10:47] Who wants to get the deal done more at this point, do you think? [10:49] The U.S. or Iran? [10:50] I think both want to get it done. [10:53] I think both are in the process now of trying to ratchet up as much pain as they possibly can on each other, [11:00] but in a different way, not militarily speaking, but in terms of inflicting economic pain. [11:04] But having said that, I would say that I think that from Donald Trump's point of view, [11:10] he probably is at a disadvantage because he really, this has been very painful for most Americans. [11:20] The Iranians have basically their system, they've been preparing for this moment for 47 years. [11:27] They've created their government to withstand people or another country trying to destroy their government. [11:34] And they're very resilient. [11:36] And so I think it's just right now to see who yells uncle first, if I can use that phrase. [11:42] Yeah. [11:42] And there is no, you know, this is not point scoring, right? [11:45] There's so many different ways of measuring this. [11:46] There is no winner or loser perhaps. [11:48] But there is the fact that Iran's leadership has survived thus far. [11:52] And it is managing to withstand a pretty serious U.S. assault. [11:56] So I'm wondering, Ambassador, does that imply that the U.S. will be very keen? [12:01] I won't use the word, you know, desperate, but they need to get a deal done here. [12:05] I think so, because I think the Iranian calculation all along was, okay, they're outnumbered, they're outgunned, but they can outlast us. [12:11] That they can inflict, they can widen the war to make global pain in a way that their political endurance will exceed ours. [12:19] And I think that's where we are right now. [12:22] The Iranian government has lost the legitimacy of its population a long time ago. [12:25] But they are internally cohesive. [12:27] And as John pointed out, there are layers of leadership that are there. [12:33] So getting rid of this regime is really not in the cards. [12:36] It will eventually, by its own internal contradictions, go away. [12:40] But I'm afraid this war has probably extended its life rather than shorten it. [12:44] That's an interesting comment, John. [12:45] I'm wondering then what you make of the talks that we did have. [12:49] What was the breakdown in your assessment? [12:52] I don't really see how anybody could have thought that with these three very thorny issues that they were discussing, [12:59] that they could possibly come to some sort of an agreement in less than a day. [13:04] The breakdown was thinking that you could get there in the first place. [13:06] Yeah, absolutely. [13:07] And, you know, the longer this goes on, I think, as Jeffrey alluded to, the longer this goes on, [13:12] I think the harder it is for the United States to claim victory. [13:16] If anything, it's just sort of the Iranian side is going to be. [13:20] And we were talking about this before. [13:23] This guy, Kalabov, Mohammed Bakar Kalabov, who's the Speaker of the Massachusetts, [13:27] is he has been wanting to sort of find himself in this moment of national leadership for decades. [13:32] And he's not about to turn it. [13:34] Like, I think he's a very pragmatic individual, very hard line. [13:37] But he's not about to sort of take on this role so that he can then surrender to the United States. [13:42] Yeah, he's not about to capitulate by any means. [13:45] Right, exactly. [13:45] President Trump did shed some light over the weekend as to what he thought the biggest sticking point was. [13:51] It was a good meeting yesterday, really a good meeting, except for one problem. [13:55] And it's 95 percent. [13:58] They want to have nuclear weapons. [13:59] It's not going to happen. [14:02] Ambassador, can I put this out here? [14:04] Please. [14:04] But that's a ridiculous statement because, I mean, I don't take the Iranian words as revealing what they're actually going to do. [14:13] I don't think they negotiate in complete good faith. [14:16] But they have always said, we will not have nuclear weapons. [14:19] They have consistently said that. [14:20] Whether it's true or not is a different matter. [14:22] So when he says when they won't accept the fact that they won't have nuclear weapons, I don't believe that. [14:27] They probably said, we don't want nuclear weapons. [14:30] The late Supreme Leader had a fatwa against, an edict against nuclear weapons. [14:36] Whether or not they want nuclear weapons is a different matter. [14:39] But so I think this is actually a question of enrichment. [14:41] That the Iranians are insisting on their right under the Non-Proliferation Treaty to have enrichment for civilian purposes. [14:48] They wouldn't have gone through these negotiations saying, we want a nuclear weapon. [14:51] The question's down to whether or not it's zero enrichment, which is the U.S. position, or facilities for what the Iranians would say is a program for civilian enrichment. [15:02] I want to touch on that. [15:03] John, quickly, though, there is the other argument that you cannot say that you have effectively wiped out someone's ability to procure a nuclear weapon, [15:10] while at the same time saying that they don't want one or that they can't have one, right? [15:14] The argument is the U.S. says, in effect, it's done so much damage Iran can't. [15:18] How can that still be a sticking point if you've done the damage that they cannot anyway? [15:21] Exactly. [15:22] And, you know, as far as this, this has been going on for decades. [15:26] And the thing is, you know, when you look at the Iranians, it's, it's, the Iranians, I think, are very proud people. [15:32] And they feel it is their right to have this capability should they choose so. [15:36] And I, I remember when I was, worked in government, we would see polling from the, from, from Iran. [15:42] And it talked about how the Iranians, basically, they didn't support mullahs or clerics having their finger on the nuclear button, [15:49] but they did support very universally the right of Iran to pursue this, if that's what they chose. [15:55] So, Ambassador, picking up on John's point there and the point you made, [15:58] what tolerance should the U.S. have then for Iranian sovereignty when it comes to this issue? [16:03] But it seems as though there, I mean, this is, this is a great diplomatic puzzle. [16:08] How do you resolve a U.S. position of zero enrichment and an Iranian insistence on the right for enrichment? [16:13] That's the diplomatic puzzle we're talking about here. [16:15] I think actually Hormuz has turned out to be bigger leverage than the nuclear program, but that's a different story. [16:22] There's ways to do it. [16:23] You say, okay, we're suspending enrichment for, for a period, but you don't give up the right. [16:27] And it sounds like that was something on the table in Islamabad, [16:30] where the, where the United States wanted a longer period, like 20 years of no, of a commitment to no enrichment. [16:35] And the Iranians were willing to go not quite that far, maintaining their right while suspending. [16:40] Because they're not, they actually aren't enriching right now anyway. [16:43] Yeah. [16:44] And it's going to be even harder for them to rebuild their enrichment program, [16:46] given the damage to the military industrial complex over the, over the past seven, six, seven weeks. [16:51] So that there should be a way that you, that the Iranians say we've maintained the right, [16:56] and the U.S. says there's zero, there's zero enrichment for a certain period. [17:00] Conversely, John, there is this issue that of the uranium that they do have, [17:04] the ability for the U.S. to perhaps do something with that or to force Iran to do something is rather restricted at this point. [17:10] Any attempt to go into Iran is going to be certainly complicating and very costly for the conflict. [17:16] Yeah. And, and, and I don't think that that's what Donald Trump wants, because I don't think he wants a very long drawn out. [17:22] This cuts against his entire voter base of what they thought that they were getting when they voted for. [17:28] No new wars. [17:29] Exactly. Exactly. And, and so, you know, and ironically, the only way you're really going to know about what capabilities Iran has is by putting boots on the ground. [17:39] So it's a, it's a dilemma that I think ultimately, you know, they might not get an answer on. [17:44] Ambassador, there's also the issue of ballistic missiles and the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, has said Iran's missile program is, quote, functionally destroyed. [17:55] American intelligence assessments say it can be reconstituted. [17:58] How much of a problem is the ballistic missile program and the stockpile that Iran has an issue for negotiations? [18:05] Well, the, the, the claim that the ballistic missile program is destroyed, I think it's analogous to the nuclear program being totally obliterated in last, last June. [18:13] It's simply not true. Functionally destroyed. The word functionally might be doing a bit of heavy lifting. [18:18] Yeah, that, yeah, that, that, that's true. I mean, the ballistic missile program is one of the reasons why, why you see the differences between the Israeli and the American positions on this, in this war. [18:27] We, the, the U S and Israel went into this war together, but increasingly you're seeing, um, a divergence where the Israelis are much, much more concerned about the ballistic missile program than we are. [18:38] And now I would suspect our Gulf allies are much more concerned about the ballistic missile program, given, given that their, um, security blanket that they thought was there has been penetrated repeatedly. [18:48] Yeah. So tell me, are you on the same page here, John? Do you think, especially on that point, actually quite interestingly, about what the wider region will be feeling about missiles and their presence in Iran? [18:57] Oh, yeah, I think I couldn't agree more. Uh, I think that, uh, I, I, I really think that, uh, Iran did themselves a disservice by attacking the Gulf, Gulf states the way they have. [19:10] And it's going to create, uh, uh, just reservoirs of ill will. I think that's going to be felt for, for decades to come. [19:18] But there's a, uh, John, I don't know if you agree with me, but I think there's a parallel here back to the, back to the Obama era, JCPOA, the, the agreement there, because the Gulf states were very upset, um, that the U S was focused on the nuclear program only and not on the proxy networks and not on the ballistic missiles that potentially threatened them. [19:36] And the Iran would get rewards that they could use to increase their ballistic missile and, and proxy network. [19:42] And now you can have the same thing happen where you have the president in the statement you just played saying the nuclear issue is the issue and probably hormones rates in there too. [19:51] But if the U S walks away from some kind of understanding on the ballistic missile program, which is the Iranian set of non-negotiable, the Gulf states are going to have the same sense of betrayal that they felt under Obama. [20:00] In a very simplistic way, my simplistic way here, if, if I can clarify that for a layman here, John, is that because really all of these should be discussed in a non-conflict time and actually the theater of war has really amplified what we visibly see. [20:16] We see, you know, talk of nuclear, we see the Strait of Hormuz being closed and those become really pressing issues when actually the points that the ambassadors just made about how regional allies will be feeling get drowned out in the conversation. [20:27] I couldn't agree. Again, I couldn't agree more. You know, I think that this is, this is going to damage, I think, our standing in the region for, for some time to come and it's going to be, we'll have to see what happens in a post Trump world, how things develop. [20:43] But I think that, you know, we've, we've really done ourselves a disservice. And, you know, I think one of the things that everybody's looking at is to see what, what China will make of this and what, how China will try to take advantage because ultimately China is a very, is a country that likes to take advantage of situations, especially when they see low hanging fruit that they can grab. [21:05] They will also obviously have an interest in the Strait of Hormuz. The effective closure of the Strait has impacted countries' fuel supplies around the world. [21:13] But as the U.S. president has repeatedly said, that doesn't impact America. [21:18] Mid-March, Donald Trump was suggesting the U.S. didn't need to play a role in getting the vital waterway reopened. [21:23] But just a fortnight later, he said opening it wouldn't be a problem. [21:27] Tensions rose just a couple of days later with this now infamous threat, which has led us to today, collapsed talks and a blockade of a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. [21:36] Ambassador, we have seen this, a blockade of the Strait now, but in effect, there is some passage to some degree, depending on which side you're on. [21:45] But I'm wondering if this does not make the conflict entirely a whole lot more messy and murky in terms of where and how it will end. [21:53] What is the off-ramp? [21:54] Yeah, and as we all know, the Strait of Hormuz was open before February 28th for free navigation. [22:01] And now the Iranians have long threatened to use this weapon, and now they have. [22:05] And we're all going to remember they can use it again. [22:08] However this is resolved, it's always going to be out there that they did it once and they can do it again. [22:14] And so it seems to me that you've got to come up with some kind of international understanding of how the Strait will operate in the future. [22:23] You know, you look at the passage from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean, the Montreux agreement from the 20s. [22:30] There needs to be some sort of international understanding of how navigation can be preserved over the long term. [22:37] John, I'm going to ask a question that's going to sound a bit silly, I think. [22:39] But if I can emphasize it here, why does Donald Trump want the Strait open? [22:43] He wants to show that he won, you know, and this is one of the problems, is that both sides have to be able to walk away and say that, hey, we won. [22:55] We prevailed in this, and that's going to be very difficult. [22:58] Donald Trump wants to, like, wants the Strait's open in order to get the flow of energy moving so he can bring down the price of fuel costs. [23:09] But also to say to his base, look, I went in there, I got rid of these people, and I'm a strong guy, and America is great again. [23:19] John, I disagree with, I agree with everything you've said, but with slight disagreement on one point, which I think it's easier for the Iranians to say we won, because we're still here. [23:29] Yeah. [23:30] So then, we're measuring winning again, right? [23:33] So what then do you, can you see happening then, Ambassador, over the next 24 hours? [23:41] The worst case scenario would be that the Iranians facing the blockade of the blockade, as you put it, would convince their Houthi allies to close the Babamanda, the Strait that goes into the Red Sea. [23:52] Yeah. [23:52] And close off another passageway, or that the Iranians would attack the east-west pipeline across Saudi Arabia that gives access to some of the Saudi oil races to be exported via the Red Sea. [24:04] So that would be the worst case scenario, is that Iran escalates in terms of closing off other access points for hydrocarbons. [24:14] And a better position would be that the Pakistanis, the Chinese, whoever, say that they're continuing to pass the messages on the two sides, and that they're building on the progress. [24:24] Because everyone said that there was progress in Islamabad, but just not on some of the key issues that you've mentioned. [24:30] And that there would be a way to start signalling an extension of the ceasefire in order to give negotiations more than 21 hours to succeed. [24:40] Yeah. [24:40] All right, John, I'll give you the last, perhaps only one word. [24:42] Will the ceasefire hold? [24:44] Will the ceasefire? [24:46] I hope so. [24:48] Three it is. [24:49] Gentlemen, thank you both for coming in. [24:51] I appreciate it. [24:52] Jeffrey Feltman, former U.S. Ambassador, and John Nixon, former senior CIA analyst. [24:55] All right, those failed talks in Islamabad have been fodder for Trump's supporters and detractors online. [25:01] The question now hanging on, what will happen next between the United States and Iran? [25:06] Alex Baird has been following the debate. [25:10] Well, a lot can happen in a weekend. [25:12] Those failed talks coming to this. [25:15] The president posting a Christ-like image of himself on Monday, now deleted. [25:19] The question, what would Trump do? [25:21] His answer, now the U.S. will blockade the Strait of Hormuz, that geographic red line. [25:26] Trump saying this is all on Tehran and reminding the world the U.S. is locked and loaded. [25:32] Former Trump ally and far-right podcaster Alex Jones posting this. [25:36] Conspiracy theories running wild online and Jones telling Americans to pray. [25:42] Pray for an awakening. [25:43] Pray for Trump to wake up, call out Israel and pull out of this now and make a real deal with Iran. [25:47] That's the only way. [25:48] He's be done now. [25:49] Some voices in the state saying it's Israel that will be celebrating those failed talks [25:53] because it never signed up for a ceasefire in the first place. [25:57] The White House called out by New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof for underestimating Iran [26:02] during those negotiations, leading to the double closure of Hormuz. [26:07] Cenk Uge from The Young Turks saying that will hurt the American economy even more. [26:13] But there is another side. [26:14] Pro-Trump broadcaster Benny Johnson is praising Trump for being tough [26:18] and hitting the Iranians with a reverse UNO card. [26:22] Trump now winning the game. [26:24] Absolute masterstroke. [26:27] We'll see what happens next. [26:29] It's exciting times. [26:30] Republican Senator Lindsey Graham saying the president has made the right move. [26:35] I hope the world will finally understand the type of people we're dealing with. [26:39] But while that dealing was happening, it was the president. [26:42] Well, on Saturday night, he was at a UFC match in Miami. [26:46] Now being criticized for not taking those talks seriously. [26:49] While on the Iranian side, Foreign Minister Abbas Aragji going viral here in the States [26:53] for warning, goodwill begets goodwill, enmity begets enmity. [27:00] Well, that's all from the team here in Washington, D.C. [27:03] On This Is America, we'll keep following the decisions that shape the U.S. [27:06] and influence the world. [27:07] If you want to catch up on this episode, check out our YouTube. [27:10] For now, we'll hand back to our headquarters in Doha. [27:13] Thanks for joining us.