Transcript: Trump Erupts as Aides Leak Humiliating Iran Truth: He Lost

As Trump melts down over Iran and officials quietly admit the unthinkable, a former Defense Department official explains why time is not on his side—and where this fiasco is headed next.

The following is a lightly edited transcript of the August 18 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.

So the sixty-day deadline for Donald Trump and Iran to reach a deal has now expired, and Trump is plainly in a terrible mood over it. In an interview with Fox News, he raged over the Strait of Hormuz, claiming that he’ll bomb the shit out of the country of Oman if its talks with Iran concerning the strait get in his way. It’s not hard to see why Trump is so angry. In a series of leaks from inside the administration, officials basically admit that Trump has lost the war.

What’s really striking about this situation is that Trump seems absolutely convinced that time is on his side. Yet the opposite appears true. Literally every day that passes makes this situation worse for him, and he doesn’t seem capable of grasping this. So now what? We’re talking about all of it with Ariane Tabatabai, a former Defense Department official under Joe Biden, who’s now at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. Ari, nice to have you on again.

Ariane Tabatabai: Thanks for having me on again.

Sargent: So the sixty-day deadline for Trump and Iran to reach this deal has expired, the Strait of Hormuz remains closed, and there are these parallel talks between Iran and Oman about how to reopen the strait. Ari, can you just sum up where we are right now with all these moving parts?

Tabatabai: Yeah, we’re basically where we’ve been for quite a few months now, which is to say that there was this memorandum of understanding that was supposed to set the 60-day calendar for the United States and Iran to resolve a number of issues, among them the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, and very importantly, the fate of Iran’s nuclear program. The 60 days came and went, and we do not have a resolution on either of those issues, and we do not have a resolution on anything else.

Sargent: So maybe you can just settle this right now. Trump keeps saying that we’re in control of the Strait of Hormuz. Who’s in control of the Strait of Hormuz?

Tabatabai: Well, we have assets in the area, but Iran has effectively found a way to control the Strait of Hormuz when it comes to what vessels are able to pass. It can hold various vessels, commercial and otherwise, at risk. It can do it from the shore, where it has missiles and drones.

And it has effectively installed this, again, tolling system that I think is not going anywhere anytime soon. That is why I think that, you know, it’s pretty clear that the Iranians have the upper hand on this one.

Sargent: Right. So the short version is that we have blockaded the strait, which means that we can prevent Iran from doing certain types of business. But beyond that, Iran controls it in the sense that it decides who gets out and who doesn’t.

Tabatabai: That’s right.

Sargent: OK, so it’s in this context that Trump spoke with Fox News correspondent Trey Yingst about the whole situation. Listen to what Yingst said about that conversation.

Trey Yingst (voiceover): Now, I asked the president about these parallel talks that are taking place between Iran and Oman about control of the Strait of Hormuz. And the president told Fox News, “if Oman gets in the way, we’ll bomb the s--- out of them.” We went on to talk about a variety of different regional topics, including the U.S. stockpiles of weapons that are currently stationed in the Middle East. The president says what we’ve used so far is “peanuts.”

Sargent: So let’s take this in two pieces. First, note that Trump threatened to bomb the shit out of Oman if it gets in the way of his efforts, as if those efforts are producing such spectacular successes. What is it that he doesn’t like about Oman’s conduct right now?

Tabatabai: Well, look, he’s not been particularly specific about what it is he does not like about Oman’s conduct. What he has indicated, and what we can kind of get from his statement, is that he believes that the Omanis, by virtue of being engaged in this diplomatic process with Iran, are making it difficult for the United States to win a decisive victory against Iran and to close out the war.

The reality is that that’s not the case, right? We are not winning the war—but not because of Oman, or because there are diplomatic processes going on. By the way, the president, as I indicated earlier on,........

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