actually think that is a uh reasonable misunderstanding, but neither us nor the Israelis said that that was gonna be part of the ceasefire. The Trump administration, including JD Vance, have completely lied to the American people. The two-week ceasefire with Iran included a stop to uh Israeli aggression [00:00:21] and Israel's assault on Lebanon. But uh Netanyahu wanted to continue carpet bombing Lebanon, and so as a result, he jeopardized the two-week ceasefire by doing just that. Then you have JD Vance and the Trump administration coming out to pretend as though the ceasefire did [00:00:39] not. cover Lebanon at all. And that's just not true. Now before we get to the details on this and more, Cenk, your two cents. Yeah, so look, this war has been confusing guys, especially this last part because it's not surprising that American government would be lying. It [00:00:58] would be shocking if the Israeli government weren't lying. And it's not like you could trust that Iranian government perfectly either. But normally I thought in previous lifetime was that you could somewhat trust some of American media. Now the American media just does American [00:01:17] propaganda. And so you can't get any real news from them. that's like, is Lebanon part of the deal? Absolutely, as you're about to see, right? But beyond that, it's really hard to get straight news out of anyone here. So follow along with us. as Anna gives you the facts. [00:01:36] And together we'll sort out what's actually happening in this war. So while Trump and Vance have been insisting that the two-week ceasefire does not have anything to do with the assault on Lebanon, the Times, the New York Times, believe it or not, asserts that that's not [00:01:53] true. And on top of that, to explain what's going on here, we kind of need to go back to Tuesday, April 7th. Because at 1217 PM, the Prime Minister of Pakistan posted the following. Diplomatic efforts for peaceful settlement of the ongoing war in the Middle East are progressing [00:02:10] steadily, strongly, and powerfully with the potential to lead to substantive results in near future. To allow diplomacy to run its course, I earnestly request Trump to extend the deadline for two weeks. Pakistan, in all sincerity, requests the Iranian brothers to open the Strait of [00:02:29] Hormuz for a corresponding period of two weeks as a goodwill gesture. We also urge all warring parties to observe a ceasefire everywhere for two weeks to allow diplomacy to achieve conclusive [00:02:45] termination of war. Okay, you get the point. Then, hours later at 3.32 PM, Trump announced the ceasefire. So this is what he wrote on Truth Social based on conversations with Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif of Pakistan and Field Marshal Asim Munir of Pakistan. And wherein they requested [00:03:04] that I hold off the destructive force being sent tonight to Iran and subject to the Islamic Republic of Iran agreeing to the complete, immediate and safe opening of the Strait of Hormuz. I agree to suspend the bombing and attack of Iran for a period of two weeks. Now here's [00:03:20] the very relevant part. We received a 10 point proposal from Iran and believe it is a workable basis on which to negotiate. Almost all of the various points of past contention have been [00:03:36] agreed to between the United States and Iran, but a two week period will allow the agreement to be finalized and consummated. Okay, great. Then a little over an hour later, Pakistan's Prime Minister posted the following. With the greatest humility, I am pleased to announce that the Islamic Republic of Iran and the US, along with their allies, have agreed to an [00:03:56] immediate ceasefire. everywhere including Lebanon and elsewhere effective immediately. Pretty freaking clear, pretty freaking clear, okay. So in other words, Pakistan's prime minister made not one but two separate references to Lebanon's inclusion in the ceasefire agreement. [00:04:16] And that is important because today the New York Times reported that when Prime Minister Sharif posted that initial statement, The White House had already seen and signed off on it before Sharif posted it, according to a person briefed on the communication. A White House [00:04:33] official denied that Trump wrote the statement, as some observers speculated on Truth Social when Sharif initially posted the statement with the header draft, Pakistan's PM message on X. But the administration did take part in crafting that statement, meaning our government [00:04:53] agreed with the notion. that the assault on Lebanon would stop and it would be included in the two week ceasefire. But now the administration is lying to us. The Times's reporting indicates that the Trump administration again was coordinating the ceasefire agreement with Pakistan. And [00:05:10] as we have pointed out, Pakistan was very clear, Lebanon was part of the ceasefire and now Iran is refusing to back down. In fact, today the president of Iran wrote the following. The repeated aggression by the Zionist entity against Lebanon is a flagrant violation of the initial [00:05:28] ceasefire agreement and a dangerous indicator of deceit and lack of commitment to potential accords. The continuation of these aggressions will render negotiations meaningless. Our hands will remain on the trigger and Iran will never abandon its Lebanese brothers and sisters. [00:05:49] And so, The speaker of the Iranian parliament wrote something very similar, Lebanon and the entire resistance access as Iran's allies uh form an inseparable part of the ceasefire. PM Shabazz Sharif publicly and clearly stressed that the Lebanon issue, there is no room for [00:06:08] denial and backtracking. Ceasefire violations carry explicit costs and strong responses. Extinguish the fire immediately. Israel is the biggest obstacle, not just to peace in the Middle East, to world peace. Israel is out of control and belligerent and is carrying [00:06:30] out war crimes left and right invading its neighbors thanks to us because we embolden them. We fund them, we arm them, and we are now uh complicit in their war crimes. We are part of their war crimes. And that's not fair to the American people because we don't want this. So uh I [00:06:49] think that the reason that Donald Trump did the threat of complete annihilation and why he's basically capitulating to Iran now is the same reason, which is that we're out of options. We have no leverage left because we're running low on defensive missiles. And if we obliterate [00:07:09] Iran's energy facilities, they will obliterate the Gulf energy facilities, oil will skyrocket, the stock market will crash. So we have no leverage. So that's why Trump desperately was like, yeah, the only leverage I have is total annihilation, so I might use that. But [00:07:28] it was a sad pathetic bluff. So when that didn't work, he backed out and was like, okay, okay, we'll agree to your 10 point plan. When he first said that I couldn't believe it, Wait, the 10 point plan has us taking all the bases out, giving reparations to Iran, etc. So but [00:07:45] again, in the statements, super clear that not attacking Lebanon was part of it, right? Even if the other two things that I just mentioned aren't. So basically, Trump is giving in and saying, yeah, we're not going to get your uranium. And we might even have to pay a toll to Strait [00:08:04] of Hormuz because we basically lost, right? So- Now, that humiliating defeat brought to you by our special ally Israel. But I'm gonna go a little further here and I'm sure that the good folks in the establishment will find this controversial. But I think that Iran should [00:08:26] get credit for defending Lebanon. 100%, are you kidding me? 100%, 100%, and also the Palestinians. Yes, that's what I was gonna get to as well. So I know that in American media, you have to call all Muslims terrorists and you have to denounce Palestinians and Lebanese and [00:08:45] Persians and you have to say they're always the bad guys. But no, Israel committed the genocide in Gaza and the only one who was trying to help the Palestinians were the Iranians. Israel is committing ethnic cleansing in southern Lebanon right now and the only one trying to help them are the Iranians. uh And everyone else sitting there and standing by as you [00:09:05] see genocide after genocide. Well, the old quotes about the Holocaust still remain in effect today. If you did nothing, then how complicit are you? So the one country that gets to say that they did something about Israel's genocides was Iran. And by the way, if you don't know, [00:09:25] they've been putting out messages to the rest of the Muslim world, shaming them. Yeah, good. You left our fellow brothers and sisters to die and get slaughtered by Israel? cowards. And it turns out when Iran fought back, not only did they fight back for Iran, but they're [00:09:45] now fighting back for Lebanon. I'm not naive, I get it. They have proxies there and they have political interests there. That's definitely also true. But the effect of what they're doing is fighting back to protect the Lebanese, which no one else on Earth is doing. And for me, [00:10:03] I think that they deserve credit for that. I totally agree with you. uh