Transcript of Rep. Auchincloss Discusses Trump’s Disastrous Iran Deal New

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MAGA Mike and Republicans in Congress are refusing to show up and do their job.

They've shut down Congress as there continues to be a partial shutdown of the federal government while this purported ceasefire, which is really a market manipulation scheme by Donald Trump, is essentially fully collapsing, uh, from Iran.

Their leaders, their lead negotiators, are not even showing up to Islamabad in Pakistan to meet with J.D. Vance and United States delegation until the US agrees to negotiate within the 10-point Iranian framework that Donald Trump previously stated publicly that he would be agreeable to, and that that would be the basis of any negotiated settlement discussions.

And so Iran's not even showing. So what's MAGA Mike doing? They're posting messages right now from the House gallery that says the following: The House of Representatives has adjourned until 12:00 PM Tuesday, April 14th, 2026 for morning hour. The House then meets 2:00 PM for legislative business. I mean, it must be nice. Do they even work at all? Or they just continue to take vacations and continue to allow Donald Trump to engage in these unlawful wars and frankly, war crimes, these disastrous foreign war crimes. Uh, we have Donald Trump privately, uh, telling his cabinet and telling people in the White House that he truly doubts the Strait of Hormuz will ever fully reopen soon. And he's getting very, very worried despite him publicly saying that oil will flow again quickly and the Strait of Hormuz is open. Donald Trump is privately confiding that he thinks that Iran is never going to give up control. You have All of the Arab nations in the Middle East that were once allied with the United States, they're seeing what's going on. And they're saying, if this is what's gonna happen and the US is gonna let Iran continue to just control the Strait of Hormuz, and Donald Trump has given up America's security umbrella, which formed the basis of all of our quid pro quo pay for play payments to Donald Trump, then we might have to just engage in our own military intervention.

And there may be just an entire Middle East war that could break out very soon. And then Donald Trump, while all this is going on, while MAGA Mike has abandoned Congress, Trump's just calling up the New York Post and saying things like this. You're dealing with people in Iran that we don't know whether or not they tell the truth to our face. They're getting rid of all nuclear weapons. And then they go out to the press and say, no, we'd like to enrich. Donald, in Iran's 10-point plan, it literally says enrich uranium is permitted, that you agreed to, and you posted you agreed to their 10-point plan. You also Gave them control over the Strait of Hormuz. You also said they could charge $2 million. You also said that the United States would remove all military bases in the Middle East. You also said Iran can keep all ballistic missiles, Shahed drones, uh, and FPV drones. You also said you would pay Iran war reparations. That was their 10-point plan that you agreed to. And we all saw what it was when you did it. You can try to lie, but you agreed to this plan.

Donald Trump then said, we're loading up the ships with the best ammunition, the best weapons ever made. If we don't have a deal, we will be using them. We will be using them very effectively. Well, Iran's negotiating team says, okay, keep on talking like that. We're just not going to show up. We control the Strait of Hormuz. We hold the cards, Donald, and we will not be going to Islamabad at all. To which Donald Trump then posts, the Iranians don't seem to realize they have no cards other than a short-term extortion of the world by using international waterways. The only reason they are alive today is to negotiate. Donald J. Trump. You know, and it's language like like that, Donald, that hasn't really done too well for you in the past 'cause you bankrupted all your damn companies, or most of 'em, and in this war. So that's how you're behaving right now. And meanwhile, Pakistan's defense minister, Khawaja Asif, just reposted the following message: Israel must be restrained for US-Iran ceasefire to hold. And Donald, you picked this guy in Pakistan and Prime Minister Sharif to be the mediator. And your mediators are posting Israel must be restrained for US-Iran ceasefire to hold.

That's your guy. That's your guy in Pakistan who's posting that right now as Israel says there is no ceasefire with Lebanon and we're going to do what we did earlier this week where there was a massacre of innocent people in Lebanon, where there were 258 people killed and over 1,000 other casualties. So you might be wondering, well, Ben, What are these MAGA Republican Congress members doing? They're going on TV. They're going on state regime media, which calls itself Fox. And you've got MAGA Republican Congress member Russell Fry saying, we shouldn't have Congress micromanaging a war. Donald Trump is handling it great. It's quite literally your job under Article 1 to declare war. The war powers is a power of Congress, but go ahead and Tell this to state regime media. Play this clip.

Congress right now certainly has an obligation in some ways to, to, to assist in matters of international importance. But to micromanage the president with 535 CEOs of the country doesn't make a lot of sense to me. It doesn't make a lot of sense to the American people. President Trump has always said from the very beginning, this is a limited incursion. We're going to go in there and take care of business and fix things. We don't need Congress right now. Micromanaging a war that the president, or a conflict that the president is trying to engage in. And so Democrats are just playing politics once again.

Or what about MAGA Republican Senator McCormick? He goes, but could you imagine what it would be like right now if Kamala Harris was in charge? Could you imagine where we'd be with Iran? Yeah, not in Iran right now, not in a disastrous war where you've just ceded all of America's power. I mean, are these people for real? I mean, these are the most vile, deranged human beings, these MAGA Republicans. What are you— you're going to blame Kamala? This is sociopath stuff. And I'm sure you all know a sociopath in your life, or many. That's what this is right here. These are deranged human beings. Play this clip.

Been eliminated. And I just want to do a thought experiment with you. Imagine a scenario where Kamala Harris was president and, and we were, we were dealing with Iran, which we now know had capabilities we didn't even know existed. Imagine 3 more years them building that missile capability, 3 more years closer to a nuclear weapon. That is a world that would have been completely unacceptable to all Americans.

And then you have MAGA Republican Senator Rick Scott say, we saved Europe, so you owe us, you owe us. They have to engage in war crimes with you. They have to engage in war crimes with Donald. Sorry, they ain't doing it. They ain't doing it. Here, play this clip right here.

Your thoughts.

Well, first off, I mean, Europe would all be speaking German if it wasn't for the American service members and what we did to save their butts in the Second World War. For them to not support what we're doing in Iran to make them safer and Americans safer is just foolish. So NATO is going to have to change. Either they're going to step up and be a partner and be an ally, or why are we even involved in it? It doesn't make any sense that them not supporting what we're doing in Iran, not letting us use military bases. I mean, we built probably most of that stuff. And clearly American dollars went into all the defense of Europe over the years. So something's going to change.

Well, I want to bring in Democratic Congressmember Jake Alken Claus. Congressmember Alken Claus, great to see you as always. I'm sure those have seen you on the network before. You're a captain in the Marines. You've led teams in some of the most difficult areas across the country. And so, you know, obviously, you know, being a member of Congress and seeing the military buildup in Iran near and dear to your heart and so many Americans as well. You know, talk us through right now, you know, this situation where Donald Trump made a social media post saying that he agreed to the 10-point plan that was put forward by Iran. Iran had consistently been putting forward those 10 points. It wasn't a mystery what they were. One of the issues why it was so surprising that a ceasefire fire would even be entered into was because those 10 points described, you know, in certain circles as maximalist, was basically a full surrender by Donald Trump of everything when you read those 10 points. And so then Trump's position basically is now— and this is what he and JD Vance are saying, you know, actually the parliament leader in Iran, MB Ghalibaf, doesn't really speak good English, and there must have been something lost in translation because they actually accepted our 15-point plan.

We never agreed to their 10-point plan. And it's just— it's a clown show, Congressman. I mean, to see the United States of America, one, adopt that 10-point plan, which was a surrender in my view when you look at the 10 points, and then now be like, oh, you know, they didn't understand English. And that's what it's just— this is what the United States is, right? It's pathetic.

The nation that saved the world from the Nazis and architected the Pax Americana now is the nation that let Iran, Pakistan, and China make as the basis of negotiations going forward 10 points that are, as you said, a complete capitulation of American power in that region. So what the president said, to be clear, his own words was these 10 points, not 15, These 10 points are a workable basis on which to negotiate. Let's just— I'm just going to briefly recite what those 10 points are. I'll compress and condense them. The United States removes all forces from all bases in the Middle East. The United States and its allies, including Israel, agree to never attack Iran or its proxy terror forces ever again. The United States lifts all primary and secondary sanctions on Iran. The United States unfreezes all overseas property held by Iranian leaders. The United States pays war reparations operations to Iran. Iran is allowed to control the Strait of Hormuz and charge every ship $2 million to transit it. And then finally, silence on the question of nuclear enrichment. I mean, this document is what the previous ayatollah could only have dreamed of as a basis for negotiations, right?

And so I suppose the thinking with Iran, when Trump had Pakistan reach out to them right before his deadline, they're like, We probably know he's going to violate this and he's going to pull the stunt he's pulling now. But I assume their thinking is even getting the United States to say that they agree to this is a massive blow to the credibility of the US. It sends the signal everywhere that this is utter weakness, and there's nothing that Iran could even achieve militarily that would be as embarrassing as Trump or any American president saying, I agree to these terms, a historical scar.

And for Iran, they're like, you know what, he breaks, he breaches it, he breaches it.

We just got him to basically say the Americans lost. And that's the message that the rest of the world understands, even if certain Fox viewers may not understand that based on the— but I even think they're getting it now based on the lousy propaganda that's being spewed. But I that's my take on it. And they put him in the trap and we're seeing them right now kind of put the screws in, it seems, you know, as there's apparently a conversation coming up in Islamabad.

That's right. These 10 points, it's not that they're going to become the final terms of an international treaty. I think Congress would revolt, allies would revolt. They cannot become instantiated into a treaty. But I think you said it quite rightly, Ben. A series of conditions that had they been, for example, introduced into the United Nations, the United States would previously have vetoed them, right? They would never have been allowed to come into the United Nations. They are now the anchor point for a new conception of regional power in the Middle East and the basis upon which the United States and its allies now has to negotiate, which is why I have said that this president is now the first president in American history to start and then lose a war by himself. And that's a mark of shame that he's going to have to carry forward into history.

You know, and the only thing I'd push back on is just to say losing is— and being a loser is probably, you know, nice because this loss is not just in this war. I mean, this outcome is generational. Now, what'll happen in the future, how this puzzle gets put back together, But it is basically fundamentally saying that the post-World War II structure is over. And it's, you know, and Trump posted it and they did things to where, you know, you can tell that they were thinking ahead while Donald Trump was just thinking about his own deadline.

They said he's got to post this message, which specifically used their language.

He has to do a repost.

Of the foreign—

he reposted the foreign minister, Araghchi, of Iran on his social media account. I mean, just some things that you got to look at and go, oh my God, remember the days where Obama would wear a tan suit and that was it? Like, what are we doing?

Can I— so you had said, like, where do we go from here? The future, so uncertain. Clearly it is. And I have very little confidence that this president or the team around him can architect anything materially better in the next year or two. But I do think it's important that as Democrats, you know, as the ideas primary begins for 2028, that we do start to lay down a national security vision for this part of the world. And what I have proposed, and it's an outline though, is that in some ways you have to make the problem bigger. And what I mean by that is just focused on Israel versus Hezbollah or even America versus Iran is actually missing what I think is the broader picture, which is a greater Mediterranean Alliance. We've got Ukraine all the way through to the Middle East that really have to be knit together in a defense, energy, and logistics infrastructure. And we can do that, one, by reinforcing the Abraham Accords with an air defense substructure; two, by investing in the India-Middle East Economic Corridor, which basically creates ports and pipelines to connect the Middle East with Europe directly, bypassing the Strait of Hormuz.

Uh, and 3, by, uh, strengthening NATO and tying NATO and the Abraham Accords more closely together. We really need an arc from Ukraine all the way through our allies in the Middle East that is a bulwark against hostility from Russia and hostility from Iran and allows the United States to focus on what is truly our pacing adversary in the 21st century, which is China in the Indo-Pacific.

Now, you've been on Fox multiple times, and whenever you're on there the last time you're on there, Donald Trump attacking you personally, making social media posts about you personally. What's your reaction to all of that? I mean, obviously you get under his skin, but more broadly, you're not afraid to go on Fox and to speak to that audience there. Talk to us about that.

I'll go on Fox anytime they'll have me. They have me less frequently these days than they used to, I think because I do get under the president's skin and he lets them know about it. The reason I do that, though, is because we know a template for beating this administration. And what it requires is, one, you've got to drive some wedges into the MAGA coalition. Two, you've got to get dissenters within the administration. Three, you've got to get outside groups, whether they be industry, whether they be academic, whether they be civil society groups. And then four, using those three things, you then have to get congressional Republicans. So we've done this template, for example, with the National Institutes of Health. We've done this to a certain degree on ICE and on pulling back from their worst excesses in Minnesota. And now we've done this on Epstein. And now we've got to do this on this war. We have got to box in this president's unilateral authority to conduct war and peace, because he's a lunatic. And we've got to pass a war powers resolution. We've got to demand a two-thirds vote in the Senate for any agreement that he would try to ink with Iran.

And the way to do that, it starts with driving wedges into the MAGA coalition. And on this issue, we have tailwinds because I think a lot of the MAGA coalition are looking at a president who talked about an America-first foreign policy. They're seeing him bomb 7 different countries in his first year and have to ask China, China's help to lower gas prices for Americans. That does not sound like an America-first foreign policy.

Congressman, talk to us about Simple But Not Easy, your Substack, before we go.

Every week I write about a Democratic alternative to the madness that we're seeing in Washington. I think it's critical for Democrats to contest Donald Trump's authoritarianism. I also think it's critical that looking towards '26 and '28, Democrats propose a positive agenda to the American public about what we want to do. And so every week I write about, hey, I know you're seeing this in the headlines, You probably have concerns. Here's a better Democratic approach, whether it be immigration, whether it be the cost of housing, whether it be prescription drugs, whether it be war in the Middle East. I'm always trying to put forward a positive Democratic alternative. I encourage people to subscribe.

Congressmember Elkin Claus, thanks for joining us.

Appreciate you having me on again.

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