Will G7 summit reveal Trump as a 'reality TV' president?

[0:00] What is time for the group chat? Guess who's here? Retired U.S. Army Lieutenant General Mark [0:04] Hurtling. He is now an MSNOW military analyst. David French is here. I have not seen him in [0:09] ages. I'm thrilled he's back. An opinion columnist for The New York Times. Pablo Torre, an MSNOW [0:14] contributor and host of the podcast. Pablo Torre finds out with Meadowlark Media. And Peter Goodman, [0:20] he covers the global economy for The New York Times. All right, General, you know I'm turning [0:24] to you first. What is your take on how the G7 is receiving this deal with Iran and your take [0:30] on what we know about the deal with Iran? Well, first, Stephanie, I got to congratulate you on [0:36] your new show. It's great to be with you for the first time on the second day. What do we know [0:41] about the deal? Well, we know it's not a deal. It's a memorandum of understanding, which is the [0:46] equivalent of an agenda when you go into a business meeting or even a military meeting. Here's what [0:52] we're going to talk about. So there's no substance to a deal just yet. It is going to come about with [1:01] what they say to each other. What we're hearing now is the president is saying one thing and the [1:06] Trump administration is saying one thing in terms of what they got out of it. The Iranians, both the [1:12] Ayatollah and the IRGC and the press spokesmen for Iran are saying different things. And we have the U.S. [1:20] press and international press saying a third thing. So we're not sure what it means. And I agree with [1:24] you in terms of what the president just said. If he reads it to us, it will sound a lot like a one [1:30] page agenda. It won't be the kinds of things he's reporting have already happened. The Iranians are [1:37] saying there may not be a toll in the Strait of Hormuz, but they are going to charge fees. [1:41] So that kind of counters. There have been there has been nothing said by the Iranians about what [1:48] they're going to do with their nuclear capabilities, either the dust, as the president keeps calling it, [1:54] or their potential for creating more. So, you know, as a military guy, having seen other negotiations [2:02] like the Minsk Accords or the Paris Agreements or the Daytona Accords, the Dayton Accords, [2:08] I'm sorry. Those are the kind of things you get to the meat of the issue. We're nowhere close to [2:14] being there yet. And everyone knows it. Mr. French, what do you think? Well, you know, look, [2:19] my colleagues on the news side of The Times reported several days ago that one of the sticking points [2:23] here was that both sides wanted to claim victory. Both sides wanted to be able to spin. But that's not [2:28] a surprise, right? That would be in any situation like this. But they figured out how to do it. And that [2:32] is, well, we're going to say there's an agreement that we're not going to release. And then we're [2:36] going to fill the void with propaganda. But no one will believe that. [2:40] I know no one's going to believe it. But this is very short-term thinking. There's been short-term [2:44] thinking from the beginning here. And so what Trump does is he's just continually kicking the can down [2:49] the next news cycle, the next news cycle, the next news cycle, apparently in the hope that, you know, [2:54] if plan A doesn't work, plan B can be pretending that plan A worked long enough and loudly enough that [3:01] at least his base comes on board. But I'm seeing fury, fury in parts of the Republican base here [3:08] amongst those people who against, you know, they had stuck with Trump. And one of the reasons they [3:13] stuck with Trump is they said he can deal with Iran and the Democrats are too weak to deal with Iran. [3:18] And then what you have here is an agreement that may actually leave Iran far stronger, [3:23] not from a conventional military standpoint. They took severe losses there, but it was far stronger [3:29] from a geopolitical standpoint than when the war began, which is the exact opposite of the intention. [3:36] But that's sort of what my biggest question or concern is today, right? This all started this [3:40] weekend with Trump's grandest, biggest show for his birthday at the White House with the Blue Angels, [3:45] with the UFC fight. And now we've got an agreement. It's 11 years ago today that Donald Trump made his [3:52] way down the escalator at Trump Tower and announced he's running for president. And what is he great at? [3:57] Branding and messaging and selling, right? He's seen it. That's how he became— [4:01] It's a reality television presidency. [4:03] But you're now taking a reality TV presidency, and we're talking about a war that is impacting [4:11] a countless—the global economy. [4:12] Correct. And supply chains don't live by reality television rules. So I agree with David. I think [4:19] this is clearly designed to allow both sides to spin it the way they want to their domestic [4:23] constituencies. The problem is that if the ships don't actually start moving through the Strait of [4:29] Hormuz, which is going to involve human beings on ships being willing to take that risk, owners of [4:36] ships worth millions of dollars taking the risk, insurance companies that have to be involved. [4:41] If that doesn't actually happen, you can't spin the physical shortage of critical commodities. And [4:47] it's not just oil and gas. It's fertilizer, which I guess we'll get into in terms of malnutrition. [4:53] I mean, all of the ways in which the global economy has been disrupted, that continues to get worse [5:00] until you can break this logic. And let's remember that the best case scenario for this MOU, which has [5:07] been described as like a table of contents for a deal, not a real deal, the best case scenario is that [5:13] we end up in what was the status quo before the war, because there were no tolls or fees or surcharges [5:18] or whatever you want to call them. Ships could move. And until that happens again, we're something [5:23] less than status quo. And the people in control of the markets, there's now risk in this supply chain [5:29] for energy, whatever happens that wasn't there before. Then is there a risk that this G7 actually [5:36] reveals Trump as a reality TV president? Because you've got these other world leaders who full well know [5:42] without these details and who had to sit there in that in that audience while president said Iran will [5:48] never, ever, not ever, ever in the history of ever have nuclear capabilities again. If the rest of the G7 [5:54] actually says, no, thank you. This is foolish. This is nonsensical. What does that do to the United States [6:01] as a superpower? I just want to point out that I don't think any world leader is waking up today [6:05] thinking I got this one wrong. Donald Trump, it turns out, is not a reliable narrator. I think everybody [6:11] has known that. Yes, but they've been able to sort of ice skate through this because diplomacy matters. [6:17] Right. And so the difference now is here is a war that domestically is unpopular, that Congress [6:24] seems to be asleep contemplating. Like, when are we going to get involved here? When are we going to [6:29] take the steering wheel back from this president? The reality, though, of like what Donald Trump is [6:35] as he goes to the G7 is he's a boxing promoter. There's a great line from Bob Arum, the former [6:41] great boxing promoter. Yesterday I was lying. Today I'm telling the truth. That's what he is. And so when [6:48] he says it's a fee and not a toll, it's a memorandum of understanding, which is the same thing as an [6:54] agreement. When he says no nuclear weapons, but the civilian nuclear technology, well, that might be [7:00] developed. When he says, when his administration is signaling through leaks, this may cost $300 [7:06] billion. Billion with a B. But that's Iran's own money that they're just going to unlock. It's like [7:11] at a certain point, the American people, the hope here is that the G7 might be a weather vane, but the [7:16] American people are going to say, to David's point, this is our money. You're burning. That's where it [7:23] comes home to roost. And is Pablo right? Is Congress asleep or are they hiding under the covers? [7:28] Well, a couple of them are starting to wake up a little bit. You had a House vote that was very [7:31] interesting under the War Powers Resolution, where a few Republicans defected and a majority of the [7:36] House was signaling this thing all needs to wind down. I think you have the Senate, which is, [7:42] the Republicans in the Senate are angrier at Trump than they've ever been. Not for a good reason. I [7:46] mean, not because of all of Trump's incompetence, but because Trump has turned on some of their [7:50] colleagues, like Senator Cassidy and Cornyn and all of this. So they're getting angry at Trump. [7:55] And so Trump's ability to sort of command Congress, be the puppet master of Congress [8:00] is diminishing. And all of this is the fruit of the poisonous decision not to go to the American [8:06] people. If you don't go to the American people, if you don't go to Congress, then what happens? [8:12] You don't talk to the G7. You don't talk to your allies. If you don't talk to any of these people, [8:17] you don't go to the UN, you don't go to your allies, you don't go to Congress. What happens? [8:21] Democracies then go into war with no staying power, with no ability to survive adversity, [8:27] because there's no public support. There's no public buy-in. And here's the thing, that demand [8:33] in the Constitution for public support exists for very good reasons. It's not just a technicality. [8:38] And we're seeing the reasons why now a president of the United States has no bargaining position. [8:43] A president of the United States is having to spin furiously about a war that it never should [8:48] have launched, an illegal war he never should have launched. And now we're reaping the consequences [8:53] of all of that. And had he gone to the American people, the American people likely would have said [8:57] no to him for all of the reasons we're experiencing now. General, President Trump was asked today about [9:03] Israel and the fact that they are keeping forces in Lebanon. And I want to share his response. [9:07] Can this deal survive if Israel attacks Lebanon? [9:13] It can. And, you know, I consider that the minor war, Iran's a big one, but we have that [9:20] little pinprick out there that constantly rears its head. And that's Hezbollah. And, you know, [9:28] I was very responsible for Syria. And the man that's running Syria now is a person that I put there, [9:35] along with President Erdogan and some others. He's done an amazing job of pulling it together. [9:40] I suggested to Israel to let Syria take care of Hezbollah. Because to be honest with you, [9:47] I think they do a better job of doing it. [9:50] OK, so my response to that is, say what? What do you think? [9:54] It's a fantasy from a variety of angles. First of all, you know, calling Hezbollah a little [10:01] pinprick, they have about 700,000 fighters inside of Lebanon. That's the intelligence estimate. [10:08] They have been a bane on the soul of Israel for the last, oh, I don't know, 30 or 40 years. [10:15] They are an existential threat as a terrorist organization, as was Hamas in Gaza and are the [10:23] Houthis in Yemen, all of which report back to Yemen. So just the concept of thinking that they're a [10:29] little pinprick is, one, just a bizarre statement. But secondly, it just shows, again, I'll go back to [10:37] what both David and Pablo were saying, how a lack of coordination and cooperation and synchronization [10:43] with allies is important. And the president hasn't done that. What I'd say to Stephanie, I mean, I've [10:50] watched some of the video from the G7 conference. It's interesting to me that the president seems to [10:57] be, well, let's just say none of the other leaders are approaching him much. The body language of the [11:05] the other elements of the G7, they're avoiding him. You know, when they even are taking this picture, [11:11] you can see he's kind of standing there. People are talking to each other. I mean, that the shots [11:15] you're showing now is the picture itself. But before and after, they are avoiding him, because all of [11:22] those leaders know how to conduct diplomacy. They all know how to build strong alliances. They know [11:28] how to tell truth to their people, even though they may spin it a little bit for political purposes. [11:34] They realize that the president has none of those things right now. It is become he has become a [11:40] pariah in this meeting to a degree. And it's it's he's understood by most of the world leaders [11:47] for being what he is and what the American people are now finding out.