New Greene Party - August 3, 2026

**Cenk Uygur** (0:00)
You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome, thank you.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:11)
When it's time to scale your business, it's time for Shopify. Get everything you need to grow the way you want, like all the way.
Stack more sales with the best converting checkout on the planet. Track your cha-chings from every channel right in one spot, and turn real-time reporting into big-time opportunities. Take your business to a whole new level. Switch to Shopify. Start your free trial today.

**SPEAKER_3** (0:40)
Queen Carvania stood haloed by the morning sun. An army hung on her every word.

**SPEAKER_4** (0:47)
My champions, I have sold my chariot on Carvana. It was a lovely SUV, an inexplicably queenly offer. They're even coming to the castle to collect it. Tonight, we feast.
An offer you can feast on.

**SPEAKER_5** (1:06)
Sell your car today on Carvana.

**SPEAKER_4** (1:08)
Pick up fees may apply.

**SPEAKER_6** (5:45)
There are some problems here, sorry, big time.

**SPEAKER_3** (5:47)
I'm so upset, oh my god.

**SPEAKER_4** (5:50)
Begah!

**Cenk Uygur** (6:29)
Well of The Young Turks, I'm your host Cenk Uygur. Trita Parsi joins me. Dr. Parsi is co-founder, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute. And make sure you check out his sub stack as well.
Trita, welcome.

**Trita Parsi** (6:43)
Great to be with you. Thank you for having me.

**Cenk Uygur** (6:45)
No problem. All right, obviously we're going to discuss Iran in a second and the war. And we're going to get Trita's point of view on whether we're even negotiating with the Iranians or if all of this is just entirely made up by Donald Trump, what's going to come next. We will also talk about some of the fights that have been going around on the issue of whether Morocco immigrant controversy was started by Israel. There's a lot of back and forth on that. Then the gathering of Tucker Carlson, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Joe Kent and Tom Massie at Tucker Carlson's place, is it a good thing or a bad thing? Is it partly good, partly bad?
And we've got a lot more. And then look, later in the program, in the second hour, there's folks who just are trying to confuse you as to what people stand for.
Are the only two options in the Democratic Party, the establishment and DSA? I think the answer is obviously no, but we're gonna talk about the nuances here, which apparently confounds mainstream media. They're like, what is nuance? We do not know.
I don't know why I gave them an accent, but it sounded funny. Okay, so, but having said all that, obviously the war is the biggest issue on the table, so let's get started.

**Donald Trump** (8:00)
We were also asked by Iran, very strongly actually. They said, we'd like to make a deal. Now, I don't know what they say because a lot of times they'll say that to me and then they'll go out and say, we don't know what he's talking about. Obviously, they don't wanna be attacked. And they knew the extent of the attack because they saw it falling. They knew the extent of the attack because they saw it falling.
We had an attack that would be the biggest attack since World War II, and it would have been disastrous with them.

**Cenk Uygur** (8:29)
Now Donald Trump claims that Iran then pleaded with him that they really wanted to negotiate and he changed his mind about an attack over the weekend. There's a lot more to get to there, Donald Trump quotes, Iranian quotes, but I wanna bring in Dr. Trita Parsi right away here.
Because, Trita, he said that Iran does not want to be attacked. You recently wrote an interesting piece where you said, I don't know that that's true, that they might have already calculated in that they're going to be attacked and are okay with that. So tell us a little bit about that first.

**Trita Parsi** (9:03)
Let me first start by saying that the idea that the Iranians pleaded with Trump not to be attacked, I find extremely difficult to believe. It completely contradicts everything I think they've been trying to do for the last couple of weeks, which I think is a risky strategy. Which goes to the core of your question. When they struck the Jordanians, which was not an immediate retaliation against an American strike, they were ready that the US would retaliate, which the US did. It doesn't mean that they want to be attacked, but essentially, their calculation is if Trump still believes he has a major escalatory card that he hasn't played yet, and he's contemplating playing it. Well, then the Iranians are signaling that they're ready for it, and they showcase how they would respond if that happened. How they would escalate horizontally if that happened. They struck Jordan, and then they also struck Egypt, apparently, with drone strike against American ships in Egypt showing that none of these places, even though they're very far away from Iran, can be protected. So if the US has assets in those different places, they can all become targets. And I think that was a deliberate message from the Iranians, that they're willing to escalate if he wants to escalate. And that if he wants to go to the negotiating table, and this is where I think the message may not have come across the way the Iranians perhaps intended to, is they're willing to negotiate. But then Trump needs to commit himself completely to the negotiating table, meaning that he needs to stop thinking that he can negotiate and every once in a while bomb a little bit in order to improve his negotiating position. And then whenever he feels like it, go back to the negotiating table. That's not a scenario the Iranians are going to accept and as a result they showcased their willingness to escalate as a way of deterring Trump, which I think again, it is a risky strategy because it could have led to a much larger war. But the running calculation appears to have been that it was even riskier not doing it.