Schumer’s Platner Problem

**Leigh Ann Caldwell** (0:01)
Today, the White House was describing this as a memorandum of understanding, which is a lot different from a peace deal. And so there's already expectation lowering that's happening.

**Peter Hamby** (0:20)
Welcome to The Powers That Be Daily, Puck's podcast focused on the intersection of Wall Street, Washington, Silicon Valley, and Hollywood and the players who run it all. I'm Peter Hamby. It's Tuesday, June 16th. Today, I'm joined by Leigh Ann Caldwell, who tells me that Republicans on Capitol Hill are very skeptical about Donald Trump's ceasefire deal with Iran and wary of any deal that doesn't fully dismantle the country's nuclear program.
Leigh Ann also has some new reporting on the ongoing Graham Platner headache for Democrats as they try to take back the Senate. And she reveals a public spat that went down a few days ago in New York, involving Chuck Schumer and a veteran DC political strategist who has strong opinions about Platner's candidacy. We'll discuss all that and much more on today's episode of The Powers That Be.
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Happy Tuesday everybody and welcome to The Powers That Be. I'm joined today by my colleague Leigh Ann Caldwell. We're going to talk about a muted Republican reaction so far on Capitol Hill to the president's Iran ceasefire deal. Be very skeptical people that this thing will hold given all of the recent promises that have fallen through. We're also going to talk about some of Leigh Ann's new reporting on how Democrats in Washington are digesting the Graham Platner candidacy in Maine and all of the baggage and anxiety that comes with it. And if you're watching us on YouTube, you'll notice that Leigh Ann and I look like a husband and wife folk pop duo playing at ACL in like 2011 with our matching denim slash chambray shirts. So we've got good millennial taste.

**Leigh Ann Caldwell** (3:53)
I was laughing during your open when you were talking about Iran only because I realized that we were wearing basically the same outfit.

**Peter Hamby** (4:02)
We both look great. Leigh Ann, let's talk about this Iran deal. So basically Trump is a 60-day ceasefire. Let's be clear, I saw some TV news channel saying that Trump has reached a deal to end the war. No, this is a ceasefire. We have seen ceasefires collapse over and over again. We saw ceasefires collapse between Israel and Gaza last year. So what this does so far is that the Strait of Hormuz will be open without tolls. Toll-free Strait of Hormuz, even though it doesn't seem like that many ships are going through just yet. There will be no more American blockade of Iran. Israel does not like this deal, I think because it's like halting them from going into Lebanon. I'm not sure of the specifics of that. But there is the nuclear angle.
Again, JD Vance told Jake Tapper yesterday in announcing this, he's the lead negotiator or one of them, that we got to work out the kinks in the next 60 days when Jake was asking, this will do anything to neuter Iran's ballistic missile program or developing nuclear materials. JD Vance was basically like, we hope so, we'll wait and see.
I was struck by Super Hawk, Lindsey Graham tweeting about this over the last few days.
By the way, pinning this on JD Vance and the quote Trump administration, but not Donald Trump. He's very skeptical here. Everyone is comparing this to the JCPOA, which many Republicans during the Obama years said was too much of a giveaway to Iran. We were giving them money. It didn't crack down hard enough on their nuclear program. They want, at least the hardliners, want any kind of nuclear deal, if it comes, even comes, to be harder than the Obama one and different than the Obama one. Lindsey Graham for one was basically saying, we'll wait and see, but telegraphing that he was very skeptical of this whole thing. So I think that boils down to two reasons to be skeptical. One, Trump says the war is going to be over any minute, then it's not, and then Iran is very clearly an untrustworthy negotiating partner and regime. And then two, everyone wants to see something done about the nuclear program, and that just seems very unclear at this point. So the Republicans that you're talking to on the Hill, it sounds like they're kind of holding their breath as well.