UNBIASED TAKE: JD Vance Reveals the Real Problem With Iran Negotiations

[0:00] vice president vant steps to the podium at the white house and walks straight into one of the [0:04] most controversial stories of the week that you need to know about hi everybody i'm jenna and [0:08] this is smarter news and let's get straight to it we've seen a rotating cast of characters in [0:12] the white house press briefing room as the press secretary caroline levitt is out on maternity leave [0:17] just a few weeks ago we had secretary of state marco rubio handle a press briefing and now it's [0:22] the vice president's turn and he took a little bit of a page out of the secretary of state's [0:28] playbook trying to warm the crowd up with a little joke and a sense of humor before he got started [0:34] i told carolyn i would stand in for her today for the white house press briefing on the condition [0:39] that when usha has our baby in july that she would be vice president for a couple weeks so [0:44] i mean it sounds like a fair trade why not just a little let's just do a little musical chairs [0:48] around the cabinet positions just to kind of spice things up i'll let you know if that happens in the [0:53] meantime vice president vance did not waste time getting into the topic that he wanted to highlight [1:00] which included his negotiations with iranian counterparts this is important to pay attention [1:06] to and as i take a look at the whole briefing that lasted just over 50 minutes or so what i'm about to [1:11] share with you is one of the most newsworthy parts of the briefing albeit probably the one that's not [1:16] getting the most attention remember the vice president has a unique perspective that even the president of [1:21] the united states does not have and that he has sat down uh in close proximity we don't know exactly [1:27] what these talks look like with iranian officials to try to negotiate a way out of this conflict and [1:34] one of the first questions he received was on this topic let's take a listen what is it about [1:40] the iranian side that you personally have seen where you believe that they are negotiating with us [1:46] in good faith well first of all i'd say it's a very complicated country and it's a country that i i [1:51] wouldn't pretend that i understand even after as as deep as i've been involved in this process from [1:55] the very beginning it's a great and proud civilization amazing people obviously have a great iranian [2:01] american community here in the united states of america smart people very hard working and you see [2:07] some of that in the negotiating team on the other side you also see some very hardline positions in the [2:13] negotiating team on the other side and so i think you see that that conflict the fact that maybe the [2:17] iranians aren't themselves quite clear in what direction they want to go to americans at home [2:23] because this has been going on for several weeks now i think what people just want to know is do you [2:28] personally believe that the iranians will come to a deal because we keep seeing this over and over [2:33] again when they go back and forth so do i personally believe it the honest answer is how could i possibly [2:38] know right and and you negotiate with people and sometimes you feel like you're making progress and [2:43] sometimes you feel like you're not making progress what i think what i think is that the iranians [2:48] want to make a deal how could i possibly know vice president van says the reason why i think this [2:54] soundbite is important and the reason why it matters is that it does provide some unique insight [2:59] into what's actually happening behind the scenes what the vice president is saying is it's not clear [3:04] exactly what the iranians want and i want us to take a moment to think about that well let's take a [3:09] sit back from foreign policy just think about it when you're trying to reach an agreement with anyone [3:13] on any issue if it's not clear what either side wants it's tough to get to any sort of resolution [3:21] because then the goal posts or the goals themselves keep moving there's been questions over the years [3:27] about why negotiations seem to go in circles with the iranians it's like ring around the rosie you know [3:33] it's just sort of like it doesn't really end up anywhere particularly productive now it depends on who you [3:39] talk to because some are going to say well this administration did this right and this administration [3:43] did it wrong but as of right now we're at a stalemate with iran and the big question in front [3:47] of us is what actually breaks that stalemate what the vice president is telling the american people [3:52] is he doesn't know now whether he's saying that publicly just to present a little bit of a vagueness [4:00] around these these really important negotiations that could be part of a strategy i'm going to take him at [4:05] his word that what he's saying is he's not sure what the iranians want and therefore negotiations [4:12] are difficult to be fruitful and so one of the questions we're asking is what does winning look [4:18] like for the united states here what does winning look like the united states says we do not want [4:22] iran to have a nuclear weapon we do not want iran to be a state sponsor of terrorism that threatens [4:28] the us our people our allies this is our clear goal how do we get to that is another question entirely [4:36] and quite frankly it's been a question that is beyond just our current news cycle so i wanted [4:40] to make sure that you saw this let's switch to the next big story though and this is one of the most [4:44] controversial stories of the week and it's one that needs a little background before you hear what [4:48] the vice president has to say on it so let's just rewind to monday sounds like a million years ago [4:53] doesn't it but on monday we got an announcement from the department of justice and it was an [4:58] announcement for a settlement on a lawsuit you may not even really be familiar with quite frankly it [5:03] was one that we had to review january was a busy time remember venezuela maduro we had all the ice [5:09] situations immigrations and customs enforcement protests and operations throughout the country there [5:13] was a lot going on something else that happened in january at the end of the month is the president [5:18] and his two sons and one of their business entities sued the u.s treasury and the internal revenue [5:26] service the irs why did they do that they did that because they said that the irs and the treasury [5:32] department illegally released their tax returns 10 billion dollars was this civil lawsuit this is what [5:38] was at stake now we haven't heard a lot about this case in the time between now and then so this [5:43] announcement on monday was a bit of a surprise and it was an announcement of a settlement so settlement [5:48] is usually a way that you have two opposing sides reaching an agreement not having to go to court [5:54] and typically it would suggest you know past his precedent that those that are suing that want [6:00] something would get a payment of some sort as part of a settlement or get something in exchange [6:05] that did exactly happen here the trump family the business entity did not get anything per se what is [6:13] part of the settlement though is the announcement of the anti-weaponization fund the anti-weaponization [6:21] fund is a fund with 1.77 billion dollars and what it's supposed to do as it sounds is to provide [6:28] resources i.e money to those who believe that the federal government has been weaponized against them [6:36] president trump has said this the trump family has said that they have been victims of this [6:40] specifically under the biden administration and what they're doing here in this way is saying we're not [6:45] going to take any money what we want to do is create a fund where americans republican democrat [6:51] does it matter can appeal to the fund and say we have been wronged by the federal government we've been [6:57] targeted it's been weaponized against us and we have a claim and they could receive money for that claim [7:04] now that's what we know about the anti-weaponization fund but we don't know a lot of specifics we know that [7:10] it's going to be a panel of five people we don't know who those people are we know that a person that sits [7:15] on the panel could be removed by the president we know that this fund would exist until december [7:21] 2028 note the date right after the election and that if there's leftover money in the fund it could [7:27] go to any number of departments the commerce department the interior or a part of the federal [7:32] government that is deemed worthy to receive these extra funds who can actually apply for this we don't [7:39] know how much money can someone get we don't really know what are some of the requirements around [7:46] filing a claim how do you prove that claim what sort of time does it take if you say you have a [7:50] claim before getting rejected or accepted how does the panel work in the background is this a full-time [7:55] job is this a part-time job can someone actually receive a billion dollars and then there's 700 [8:00] million left we don't know a lot of these specifics so there's a lot of questions and knowing just that [8:06] is important earlier in the day before the vice president stepped in front of the white house press [8:11] corps the acting attorney general todd blanche was sitting before a senate hearing and with this [8:18] news very fresh coming on monday when the the acting attorney general sat down on tuesday he received [8:25] quite a few questions from all sorts of folks on this topic including two leading democrats and the [8:32] summations of their questions summarize the critiques of this plan early as it is in understanding [8:39] what it is at all mr attorney general this is an outrageous unprecedented slush fund that you set [8:48] up simple question will eligible individuals who assaulted capitol hill police officers be eligible for [8:54] this fund well as it makes plain anything just let me know if they're eligible for the fund as as [9:01] as was made plain yesterday anybody in this country is eligible to apply if they believe they [9:08] were victim weapons mr attorney general let me ask you this are there going to be rules that say [9:12] that if you've assaulted a capitol hill police officer or committed a violent crime you will not be [9:18] eligible why not make that a rule i expect that the well because i'm not one of the commissioners [9:23] setting up the rules i expect that there will be four of the five members aren't you mr attorney general [9:27] pardon me you're appointing four of the five members i am appointing all five we set up the rules i would [9:32] hope you would make a rule that anyone convicted of assaulting a police officer of violent crime [9:36] is simply not eligible they should not apply president trump is the first president to sue his [9:42] own government and then direct his chosen acting attorney general to reach this kind of settlement [9:49] will you commit that none of president trump's family will receive a direct payout from this fund [9:57] yes but you what you just said is not true i mean if i can correct that please the president did not [10:02] direct me to do anything has it ever happened that a sitting president sued his own government for 10 [10:10] billion dollars and then directed the settlement of the case and the establishment of a payout fund [10:15] not that i'm aware but there's a lot of things that president trump's the first of no president [10:19] had been indicted one two three four five six seven eight times either correct no president's been [10:24] indicted and will you commit that none of this money will go to president trump's campaign donors [10:29] i am not committing to anything beyond the settlement agreement itself when you say campaign donors [10:35] that they are not excluded from seeking compensation last question senator van holland of maryland senator [10:41] chris coons of delaware asking some of the questions that there's some general understanding of what [10:47] this fund could look like but it is fairly unprecedented in our reporting we were trying to look for something [10:53] to compare it to the department of justice mentions one fund but this is something that quite [10:59] frankly i'm not as familiar with and the process for which this would roll out we really don't know [11:05] just big picture the trump administration feels that the government specifically the justice department [11:11] has been weaponized against not only president trump but other americans that support him in creating [11:17] the anti-weaponization fund now the trump administration is being accused of weaponizing the justice department [11:24] and the government and so now we have the accusations flying multiple directions so let's return back to [11:31] the white house press briefing remember vice president vance one of his areas that he's focused on is [11:36] not just iran he's also been named head of a task force dealing and addressing government fraud specifically [11:44] having to do with government money being used in unethical ways so now he's at the podium we have this news [11:53] and he's getting some tough questions on it let's take a listen this is jonathan carl from abc news [11:59] vice president thank you i want to ask you about that 1.8 billion dollar fund uh set up uh weaponization [12:05] fund is being called uh why should taxpayers be paying to settle a 10 billion dollar lawsuit that [12:12] was brought by the president of the united states and should people that attacked the capitol building [12:18] and assaulted police officers should they be eligible should they receive money should they [12:24] receive money in front of this one well let me say a couple things about that first sean i i think in [12:28] some ways the media has misrepresented what this is actually about this is about compensating americans [12:33] for the lawfare that we saw under the last administration and by the way anybody can apply for it [12:38] republicans can apply for it democrats can apply for it as you know the president united states has [12:43] pardoned a number of democrats who he felt were actually subject to this lawfare i mean if hunter [12:49] biden wants to apply for this particular fund he is welcome to it's going to go through a normal [12:54] process where we vet everything where we try to identify whether people's claims are actually [12:58] legitimate but but but but here's the question you say why should taxpayers fund this whenever the [13:04] united states government incurs legal expenses it pays out those legal expenses when it it's settling [13:10] a lawsuit it pays out money to settle that lawsuit and the question is is a dollar of this money going [13:16] to the trump administration no is a dollar of this money going to donald trump personally no is a [13:22] dollar of this money going to donald trump's family no the people that would get the money [13:27] are people some of whom have been prosecuted completely disproportionate to any crime they've ever [13:32] committed okay so this is the argument coming from the white house you can hear it as well [13:36] and the acting attorney general as well as the vice president saying listen [13:39] this fund's open to anybody hunter biden can't apply to this fund we don't know exactly what would [13:44] you know the qualifications would be or he if he would get accepted but he could apply [13:47] this is for everybody because we feel like this is an important issue and the pushback is well every [13:54] everybody now did you notice the similarity between what the democrats on capitol hill were asking about [14:00] and then what jonathan kerl was asking about as well as caitlin collins for cnn and others of major [14:05] networks they were really focused on january 6th and those that have been prosecuted for january 6 [14:12] activities involving january 6. as you know president trump has pardoned uh this group and so the [14:19] question that democrats are focused on is well does ev does everyone qualify would that group qualify if [14:26] you you know we could take that 10x you know do if you have a record of any kind do you qualify like how [14:31] do you determine who actually gets to file a claim i just want to point out this is a part of the media [14:38] that as a member of the press we need to be aware of when i hear democrats on capitol hill ask a question [14:45] hours earlier before that same question is asked in the press briefing room on the very same topic [14:51] remember we heard you know the senators are asking about january 6 then we have members of the press [14:56] asking about january 6 january 6 is a small portion of the u.s population but it's a similar focus for [15:03] two of these groups what would have been better for members of the press here if they were curious if [15:07] they had heard this from democrats on capitol hill said what we heard from senators such and such and [15:13] such and such and this is what they're asking about what's your response to that then it looks like [15:19] the press is independently thinking or at least resourcing their questions when we ask very similar [15:25] questions to lawmakers and don't source the reason why we're asking them then it looks like we're [15:30] just rinse and repeating a certain talking point and we want to make sure as members of the press [15:35] that we're independent and as you know at smarter news we're non-partisan with no political agenda it's [15:39] very easy to look like you have a political agenda if you're asking the same questions as lawmakers [15:44] without giving them the proper sourcing for that now it's also true that members of the press may arrive [15:50] at the same questions as lawmakers and i don't know if jonathan carl or caitlyn collins or any of these [15:55] groups were actually listening to the acting attorney general testify in the senate before they headed to [16:01] the white house brief press briefing i think it's 50 50. it was a big event to watch and maybe they were [16:06] watching and that helped inform their question or maybe they just were thinking about it themselves [16:10] but it's just a word of caution if you notice that pattern uh we have to ask ourselves is are they just [16:17] happen to be thinking the same thing or are they repeating a talking point and this is why we can [16:21] feel that the press is biased and that's something that i personally i believe that you should have [16:26] a lot of options for unbiased non-partisan press which is why we exist so thank you for your support [16:32] but i just wanted to point that out because there's striking similarities if you heard them i didn't want [16:35] to ignore them so again we're we're we have this story in front of us and it's a big one that's a lot of [16:42] money 1.77 billion dollars and a question about how exactly it's going to be distributed and whether [16:48] or not it is actually going to be distributed in a partisan or political way that serves the [16:52] administration during an election cycle the midterms coming up in a presidential cycle ahead and what [16:57] does that look like the question that i believe we should be asking is why now why did the administration [17:04] why did the justice department decide on monday to announce this we got a lot happening why monday and [17:09] why right before the acting attorney general testifies before congress knowing full well that [17:14] the senators cannot ignore this they're going to have to ask the questions and is that part of a [17:19] strategy of some sort to try to drive the news cycle or the conversation away from other topics and [17:26] onto a new topic that then gets a lot of attention i have no way of knowing behind the scenes if there's [17:33] a strategy to this and i'll tell you something there's a lot of thinking about the sophistication of [17:36] strategies in different areas of government it's been my experience that sometimes things are sort [17:41] of coincidental or maybe not even thought through necessarily so i'm not alleging that i'm just [17:46] simply asking the question so we're releasing it on monday we have the acting attorney general of the [17:51] justice department that's in charge of this panel testifying on tuesday and then a couple hours after [17:57] him we have the vice president who heads up a task force on fraud specifically dealing with [18:02] government money stepping to the podium in the white house to answer questions so either the acting [18:08] attorney general and the vice president just got a tough draw here and just by chance they're having [18:13] to answer questions that they're they're specifically have a very specific position uh related to um you [18:19] know or it's just just sort of a a coincidence but that's the question i have which is why now [18:24] this case was just a few months old there's already a settlement reached what is this is is this part of [18:29] something else is something happening behind the scenes uh that we need to know more about and if [18:33] i was asking someone about this off the record on background so that i could do a little extra [18:37] reporting that would be the question that i'm i would ask because we went from not talking about any [18:41] of this to suddenly having a news cycle that's dominated by it with a lot of questions coming from [18:46] our smart news community on it which is one of the reasons why i took a closer look at this story so [18:50] thank you very much for that i want to leave you with a final question though that vice president vance [18:55] did have to answer and it's something that i'm sharing with you because i wonder for you what [19:02] surfaces as the most important topic you could hear from the vice president on or quite frankly [19:06] any high-ranking official in the administration we are at a time where the midterms are heating up [19:13] we're going to be in a more aggressive political election cycle and that usually brings us back to [19:19] what matters most to americans safety and security national security personal security and the [19:24] economy jobs and and our ability uh to use our dollar uh for good value you know if there's high [19:31] inflation that means your dollar is actually worth less so the question here is well what about those [19:36] other topics while we're dealing with these other big issues and vice president vance did get a [19:41] question on that let's take a listen the terms are well underway you've got voters go to the polls in [19:45] six states today you and the president ran on a platform that included no new wars cutting gas [19:51] prices cutting inflation what do you say to people who are going to the polls today and who feel like [19:55] those promises are unkept well i'd say a few things first of all we've delivered great wins for the [20:02] american people we ran on delivering tax cuts to the american people which we did the largest tax cuts in [20:07] american history we ran on cutting taxes particular on people who were working on overtime working on [20:13] tips we cut taxes for those americans we ran on the promise of bringing investment back into the [20:18] united states of america that rather than factory closures we were going to have factories opening [20:23] and we've seen both construction jobs and manufacturing but also manufacturing jobs have great rebounds [20:28] under the trump administration and under our leadership we are very aware that because of what's going [20:33] on in the middle east gas prices have gone up and a lot of americans are struggling because of that [20:38] our view is that it is a temporary increase we're taking a number of steps to try to push back [20:44] against it and try to ensure that americans are paying as little at the pump as possible but i feel [20:49] quite confident after we've taken care of business in the middle east those prices are going to come [20:53] down and there have been a lot of prices as you know a lot of prices from rent to housing where we still [20:59] got a lot of work to do but we do see some real progress made across the economy on pricing but also on [21:06] people's jobs for me no follow-up on that one what do you think about what the vice president said [21:11] that there's great wins do you feel that the trump administration has some great wins for the [21:16] american people as far as the economy or do you feel like there's big misses that are missed [21:20] opportunities i'm curious your thoughts on that as the vice president was speaking there i was thinking [21:24] about an article that i read in the hill this morning a newspaper that's really focused on capitol hill [21:29] and politics taking a look at who actually emerged from our primary day this week which was on tuesday [21:35] and who actually won their in their primary elections and so far at least this week it looks [21:41] that like president trump backed candidates are emerging as the victors versus other republicans [21:48] who did not have the president's support the interesting point that was brought up in this in [21:52] this article was that as the president chalks up those wins what it sets up in november is democrats can [22:00] run specifically against him and his policies without even necessarily touching an individual [22:05] candidate and so that kind of gives us an idea of the paradigm that could emerge as we get closer [22:11] to election day in november now here's the final final question for you guys who do you think is up [22:16] next in the white house press briefing room if you could choose a member of the cabinet who would who [22:20] do you who do you want to see next i mean i don't know it's like they're keeping us guessing every uh [22:24] every little bit who would you like to see who would you request maybe we just need to have a you know [22:29] we could have the the the secretary of the interior we could talk about national parks next you know it could be [22:33] something a little easier you know summer travel national parks i don't think they'll take my [22:40] suggestion uh but we'll see we'll see who has a stepping to the podium and i'm always curious [22:45] for your questions your comments your thoughts on these new stories and how we can better serve you [22:49] as quick concise non-partisan smarter news have a great day guys i'll see you soon bye [23:02] you