5/27: The Takeout with Major Garrett

Still to come on The Takeout, Israel escalates its war against Hezbollah in Lebanon, what it could mean for peace talks in the region. Also, look at how the nation's most historic speeches helped tell the story of America. President Obama's former speechwriter and advisor, Ben Rhodes, on his new book and his take on the Trump administration's current strategy versus Iran and its nuclear ambitions. The Takeoutreturns in 90 seconds. Welcome back to Takeout. Today, President Trump said, quote, "We'll have to just finish the job" if peace talks with Iran don't improve or make more progress. Secretary of State Marco Rubio-- he's also the National Security Advisor, we should remind ourselves-- appeared to underscore that possibility. Listen. If there's an agreement to be made, we want that to be made. I think there's been some progress and some interest. And we'll see over the next few hours and days whether progress could be made. I just want to remind everybody, Mr. President, you know this well, you have other options available to you if that doesn't work.

CBS Newsnational security contributor, Joe Zacks, joins me now. He's a friend of the program. He's also an adjunct fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracy. So when the Secretary of State and National Security Advisor, sitting next to the president, says, you have other options, we all know what he means. What does that suggest, that negotiations are still the preferred option or that we could restart all this? So, well, first of all, Major, it's an honor to be on your show on the first anniversary. And thank you for having me on as a guest. So with respect to your question, I think that the preferred option is actually a negotiated settlement. I think the president has communicated that clearly time and again. But he has to keep up the pressure. And I think we saw that over the weekend with the self-defense strikes that CENTCOM conducted against an Iranian regime that was laying mines in the Strait of Hormuz, which is hardly an act of good faith during a period of a ceasefire. But the president has shown tremendous strategic patience. We're now seven weeks into a two-week ceasefire. So I think that he wants to continue on that path. But there's a limit. The Strait of Hormuz has to be opened up and trafficked--

Unconditionally, no tolls. --unfettered.

Even though that means that if it's open and there are no tolls, Iran still makes money from that. But they won't make extra money by tolling the vessels that flow through. Right. I think there's limited possibility that the president politically-- and I don't think that's the direction he wants to go-- support an Iran and/or an Iran-Oman venture to charge tolls through the Strait of Hormuz. So that's number 1. And number 2 is there has to be a satisfactory resolution of the nuclear file. With clear-cut deadlines, and enforcement, and some resolution of what happens to the highly enriched uranium. Those seem to be key. That's absolutely correct, Major. That's why we went into this venture. And this is the United States's legacy, and it's the president's legacy. And I don't think that this can be resolved satisfactorily to them for the American public with the United States leaving in a weakened position. And it strikes me that that's not the president's intent. There's a lot of speculation about what is being discussed with respect to this MOU. Some of it is informed speculation. Some of it may be spin that-- Right. Both sides are kind of spinning. The Iranians are spinning. The Americans are spinning. We still don't know any of the hard details. That's right. And the devil will be in the details. And the Iranian regime, I would say, are devils. And they are very hard negotiators. And so I suspect that we will see a lot more of to and fro before we achieve an actual MOU and/or long-term settlement.

Remember, MOU stands for Memorandum Of Understanding. Joe Zacks, I appreciate your time, as always. Thank you. Coming up, my conversation with Ben Rhodes, former speechwriter and advisor to President Obama, about his new book that looks at 15 speeches that are a through line in American history. He'll explain when we come back. You're watching The Takeout. Welcome back to The Takeouton this happy-birthday Wednesday. Yes, later, there will be cake. A new book, out just yesterday, tries to tell the story of America through some very important speeches. But you might not know some of these speeches or the people who gave them. All We Say, The Battle for our American Identity, A History in 15 Speeches looks at remarks from luminaries such as Benjamin Franklin at the Constitutional Convention all the way until President Trump's second inauguration, and some interesting characters in American history in between. Earlier, I spoke with the author Ben Rhodes, former speechwriter for President Obama and an advisor, about the book and a lot more. We started with how he views the current state of negotiations with Iran. Here is some of that conversation. Ben Rhodes, I promise you, we will get to all we say, the book. But I've got to talk to you about Iran. I've got to talk to you about President Trump's orientation to the state of the war, the objectives, all the things that he continues to say, harshly critical of the nuclear deal. President Obama negotiated with the Iranian regime. Your thoughts? Well, I mean, Major, you were there at the time.

I was. And look, there are a lot of things that we did not get right in the Obama years. But I always felt like one thing we did get right was that nuclear deal with Iran. And our basic case at the time was, there were only two ways to solve this problem of the Iranian nuclear program-- a diplomatic agreement that is roughly like what we got. And you could argue whether certain provisions you might want to tighten or make longer, but the outlines of that kind of deal. Or you'd have to use military force. And the agreement that you put together was not just the United States and Iran. It was a multination agreement with enforcement mechanisms. And I think that's the most important thing because, again, you had the permanent five members of the United Nations Security Council. So you had not just the United States, Great Britain, and France, you had Russia and China in on the deal, Germany and the EU and on the deal. And then you had enforcement mechanisms that had inspections of the Iranian nuclear facilities and their uranium mines and mills-- so literally, the entire supply chain, where they pulled the uranium out of the ground, how they enriched it. The stockpile had to be shipped out of the country. And all of that was inspected by the International Atomic Energy Agency. So it was very clear what the deal was and had the force of international law, because you had a UN Security Council resolution that said, the Iranians break this deal-- And yet, President Trump and the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, say over, and over, and over again, it put Iran on a path to a nuclear weapon. Yeah. And it didn't. I mean, it actually makes no sense to say that because they had to roll back their program. Now, two things I'd say to be fair to the criticisms-- one of the criticisms is that certain elements of the deal had durations. Certain restrictions on the Iranian program--

Sunsetted. --sunsetted in 10 years or 15 years in terms of the numbers of centrifuges they could operate. Now, the two things I'd say about that are, number 1, that's not uncommon in arms control agreements. So we had a New Start Treaty negotiated with Russia on deployment of nuclear missiles and launchers. It is a 10-year phase. And then 10 years later, you renegotiate. So there's not a tradition in arms control of permanent arms control deals. Now, the second and more important thing I'd say, though, Major, is Trump pulled out of the deal in 2018. So all the restrictions went away in three years. And Iran started doing all the things that people warned that they might do in 10 years, in three years. So I never quite-- there was a kind of cognitive dissonance there that you're blowing up the deal because you don't want them to do things in 10 years, but you're, therefore, allowing them to enrich at a higher level and allowing them to accumulate a stockpile, and leads to a situation now where the stockpile of enriched uranium they have is much more potent than anything they had in the Obama years. Now, the other thing I'd say is that Netanyahu's criticism of the deal to Congress when he came to the US and gave a speech opposing the deal was that it didn't address ballistic missiles, and it didn't address Iranian support for terrorist proxy groups. And look, that's true. But diplomacy is the art of the possible. And the Iranians were never going to agree to that. Now, fast forward, when Kushner and Witkoff were negotiating before this latest war, they were demanding that the Iranians limit their ballistic missile program and their support for proxies. And, of course, the Iranians said no. And that's when Netanyahu convinced Trump, I think, to do this-- I think telling him that it would be easy, that the Iranian regime would collapse. And, look, we got the same presentation. I was, in many a phone call with President Obama where he was talking to Prime Minister Netanyahu. And he was telling him, you shouldn't make this deal. You should use military force. You need to have credible military option. And we did the war game. And guess what? Every time you did the war game, that's when you sit down and you simulate what might happen. Iran closes the Strait of Hormuz. The Iranian regime digs in. It doesn't collapse. Basically, what has happened was eminently predictable. Anyone who's worked or war gamed on this scenario--

The regime clings to power. Asymmetric warfare is used, even though it's weakened and, because of its theocratic devotion to the underpinnings of the revolution, don't give up. Yes. And because the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, which is the hardest-core element of the regime, they function not just as a theocratic regime, but as essentially a military dictatorship. And so what's happened now--

A deeply corrupt one. So in part because of sanctions, they've basically have a monopoly on, let's say, the dark economy-- sanctions busting, all kinds of illicit trade. They had their own sources of revenue. And so they operate well in conflict. And-- They don't starve, in other words. They don't starve. And they don't care about their people. I mean, the same reason that they're odious is why they're dangerous because, right now, Trump is trying to blockade Iran and create hardship for the Iranian people so that the regime comes up with their hands out. They don't care if their people suffer for a few months as long as they can hold the global economy hostage. And so I think the situation Trump finds himself in is probably the best landing place he could find, is something kind of like the Obama deal, like the Iranians reopened the Strait. The blockade is lifted. The Iranians get a bunch of revenue from sanctions relief or from tolling the Strait. And then there's some sort of 60-day period to negotiate all these other things. And then you negotiate something kind of like the Iran deal. And here's more of my conversation with Ben Rhodes about his book and the connective tissue between some of America's most important speeches and how history played out. Please listen. All We Say, A History in 15 Speeches-- most of the speeches are from long, long ago. There are some from the modern era, but most predate radio, anything that we would commonly associate with mass communication in this country. Is there a reason for that? Well, I really wanted to go back to the origins of the argument that we've been having in this country that is so potent right now. I'm a big believer that you have to look to history to understand the present. And as someone who was a speechwriter, not a historian, I also knew that what speeches offer is history in the present tense. This is how people were trying to persuade each other. This is how people are trying to mobilize movements. This is how people are trying to change things. And I wanted to essentially focus on American identity. And so what I found is that there are these rich tributaries that run out of the 19th century into today, because I start with Benjamin Franklin. And that's a good starting point for our conversation. He gives a speech at the Constitutional Convention that's the closing argument for the Constitution, in which he notably doesn't mention the Constitution. He mentions the Constitution, but not the substance of it. The entire speech is about compromise and the virtue of compromise. And he says, if you get a group of people together in a room, you have all their wisdom, but you also have all their selfish interests, all their prejudices. And you're not going to get a perfect product or agreement out of that. The compromise that he exalted rightly made this country possible. But they compromised about big things--

Huge things. --slavery, the nature of citizenship, immigration, how that's going to work. And so I immediately found that Americans got that. And the first several speeches in the book are the whiplash of the Indigenous reaction to that, the abolitionist reaction to that, the Confederate reaction to that. And then Lincoln comes along in the second inaugural, and he's trying to resolve it. And that argument has repeated over and over again, essentially. Now, we're not dealing with slavery, but we're the same questions of identity, of immigration, about-- Of power. Of power. Who has power in this country? Yeah. You can catch my full conversation-- it runs well over 30 minutes-- with Ben Rhodes on YouTube or your favorite podcast platform. Coming up, our political panel joins me to talk Texas primaries-- the wins, the upsets, and a lot of other topics. Plus, as I said, eventually there'll be cake. You're watching The Takeout. Welcome back to The Takeout. Political panel time, two segments today-- CBS Newscontributor, Democratic strategist, Joel Payne, Republican strategist, T.W. Arrighi. We'll get to Texas in a second, but I want to play for you sound. My colleague, Rita Braver, sat down with Joe Biden. This is going to air in full on CBS Sunday Morningthis Sunday. It's about the debate and Joe Biden's reaction. Listen. Were you horrified as you saw it unfold? I wasn't horrified. I was frightened because I had never, ever seen Joe like that before or since, never. Or since? Yes, or since. You've never seen him like that? Never, no. What happened? I don't know what happened. I mean, as I watched it, I thought, oh, my god, he's having a stroke. And it scared me to death. Joel? That's riveting. And-- "I thought he had a stroke." --very brave of her to share that. I think, look, any Democrat right now, having to go back and talk about 2024 is a painful experience. And I think it's going to make it hard to do any real recollection of the Biden years without talking about the trauma of the exit of the Biden years. I can just tell you, the work of the party in '26 and '28 is to move past that and make sense of whatever that experience was. I appreciate her talking about it. But I don't-- it's almost in a parallel universe to the conversation that's happening in the Democratic Party right now. That is so disconnected from where Democrats are right now. Do people who are close to it or who were close to it have to explain? I think everyone who, whether you were a party to it in that White House or in that campaign, or, frankly, I'll own it. People like me, who my theory the entire time was, as long as it wasn't impacting his job performance, his age shouldn't have been an issue. And clearly, that wasn't the case. We all have to-- We've got a minute before we go to break. You're going to stay for a second segment. But give me your thoughts as you watch that. I am sure a lot of horrible things went through his family's mind when watching him have a meltdown. But the fact of the matter is, the American people saw a diminished man over a long stretch of time. And while that was a horrifying and shocking thing to see the commander in chief on a debate stage doing it, it was not out of the realm of possibility to the American public. And that's why you saw such a huge backlash. In fact, it was confirmation of the worst. That is correct. And she brought up fearing a stroke. And that reminds me of Woodrow Wilson actually having a stroke, and his wife knowing it happened and hiding it from the American people. That hearkens back to that. We said we would never let that happen again. So I do think people need to answer for it today. And then we let it happen again two years later because Donald Trump is tweeting through it on-- I would not compare-- --Truth Social every weekend. I would not compare their behaviors to one another. You don't compare them at all? No, I don't. Look-- Even though polling data shows about a third of the country thinks that there are cognitive issues with President Trump today. Threaten to wipe out a civilization. He has done that. But he is not freezing on a stage. He is not at a loss for words. The man goes on three-hour-long-- we hear from him every day. He goes on marathon answering sessions. They're just not comparable. The same issue that Democrats had three years ago, Republicans might have. We're going to go to break. Stay with us. There's going to be cake. I'm telling you, it's going to be cake. We'll be back in a minute. Welcome back to The Takeout. As promised, the cake is here. The cupcakes are here. I'm going to let Nate in New York do all the directing, and the camera guys do all the fun stuff they want for the cake and the cupcakes. T.W. Arrighi and Joel Payne, give me your take on Texas really quick. I'm not surprised by the end result. Are you surprised by how big Ken Paxton shellacked John Cornyn? Sure. But as we were saying in the break, sometimes people stay home at the drop of a hat. And I think that's exactly what happened. The basic support, they're like-- there's--

Trump endorsed him. There's no point. Right. So now--

Is he a compromised bad or more difficult nominee for Republicans in this race? Without question. Do I still think he is the favorite to win? Yes, I think it's a lean Republican seat. But it's going to cost 3x the money that it was supposed to. Meaning that's money that's going to go to Texas that could have gone someplace else. Correct. Instead of Maine, North Carolina-- Ohio. --Michigan, Ohio. They're trying to go to work on James Talarico, which tells me that they see-- Vegan, transgender, all this stuff. Sure, all of it. And I saw his interview with Ed, which I thought was really great. Listen, I think here's the issue with Talarico. I think he needs to make this a referendum on Ken Paxton, and on Donald Trump, and on Republicans. This is a referendum on, is James Talarico too woke for Texas? That's not a good place to be. Whatever the answer is, that's not a good conversation to be having. If this is a referendum on Ken Paxton being the most corrupt politician in America, you're in the zone where you can win. How do you assess what the president said today? He was asked, do you feel any political pressure? And he said, I don't care about the midterms. I know why he said that. In the next breath, he said, I don't want Iran to think that they're pressurizing me or I'm going to take a bad deal because of politics. I get that. But still, I don't care about the midterms is not reassuring to rank-and-file Republicans in the House and Senate. You know that as well as I do. No, I agree with you. But it also isn't right for him. He remembers what it was like when the Democrats took over the House, when they took over Congress when he was last in office. He was impeached. It was nonstop investigations. He doesn't want to go through all of that again. So of course, I think that was a bad slip of the tongue. And yes, I agree. The Commander in Chief doesn't have the luxury always to think about the next election when they're trying to keep America safe, and then I understand that. I've been told in my ear by my most excellent executive producer, Mike Solmsen, that I'm supposed to look at the camera and just read the prompter and trust it. So I have no idea what the copy's about to say. I'm reading it blind. I do this sometimes. Apparently, the staff has spent the last few weeks preparing a surprise. So whatever it is, here it is. Hey, Major. Mike Johnson here in the Speaker's office. I just wanted to weigh in and say, congratulations on a year for the show. Takeout'sa great hit. I enjoyed being a guest. We got to do it again sometime, my friend. Talk to you soon. Major, congratulations on one year of your new show. I'm glad to be part of it. You've created something that's become required watching and listening in Washington, DC, and beyond, and not just because people are hoping you'll hand them one of those famous ties from the studio rack. At this point, showing up on your podcast feels a lot like a policy discussion mixed with a surprise trip to a haberdashery. Shout out to my friend, Major Garrett, and a hearty congratulations to him, to the whole Takeoutteam for your one-year anniversary, bringing fair and balanced news to the American people. Hey, Major, you know it all started in Amarillo, Texas. So don't forget those roots. God bless. And go, West Texas. Happy first year of The Takeout,Major. Keep asking the tough questions. Our democracy depends on it. When people tune into The Takeout, they know what they are watching. They're watching a show that takes the facts seriously and presents them in a non-ideological way, whether it's a discussion of sports, economics, pop, or culture. Congratulations belongs to you. Major, congratulations on the first anniversary of The Takeout. I'm so honored to be part of that first year, and wish you all the best for the year ahead. I remember the first time I joined you on your show, The Takeouton CBS. Time flies. It was a great conversation, and I knew right away I wanted to come back. I wish you and your show's team a happy first anniversary. I look forward to being on again soon. So congratulations, Major Garrett-- one year of The Takeout,among your many other journalistic activities. And you know why it's working? You actually know things and ask good questions and, by the way, then get answers. It's always fantastic to watch or to be on. My thanks to Christian Peña, who did the very hard work of going around Capitol Hill and getting all those testimonials. Borderline sounded like an autopsy or a funeral. Not really, but thanks to everyone who did that. And many, many thanks to Christian Peña and to my team. Joel Payne, T.W. Arrighi, stay for the cake. Stay for the cupcakes. Happy Wednesday, everyone. On our birthday, this is The Takeout. You know what we are. One quick reminder-- relentlessly curious, reliably civil, occasionally clever. Come in, everybody. Gather around. Gather around. The Daily Report is coming up next. I'm supposed to look at camera 2, Guy tells me. There we are. All right. See you, everybody. See everybody. Wave. Make it light up. Make it light up and bring the rain. [MUSIC PLAYING]