Good evening once again. I am Stephanie Ruhl and you know where you are. This is a midweek

nightcap. We are now 40 days into the war in Iran and fractures are already emerging in the two

week ceasefire that Trump announced just last night. Here's the thing. No one seems to know exactly what the

ceasefire is or whether it's actually in effect. So just try to follow all of this. Take a deep breath.

This morning. Defense Secretary Pete Hagezeth, well, he declared victory and talked about Operation

Epic Fury like the whole thing in Iran in the past tense, like it's over.

It came as Iran accused the U.S. of already violating key points of the ceasefire, citing Israeli

strikes in Lebanon that happened hours after it was announced.

President Trump told PBS that Lebanon was not included in the deal, quote, because of Hezbollah.

But Iran's foreign minister said the ceasefire terms did, in fact, include Lebanon.

And state media reported that in response, Iran said, quote, fully closed the Strait of Formuz again.

White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt called that reporting false and said they have seen an uptick in traffic in the strait,

but I'm not sure where they saw that because new reports suggest that Iran is only tightening

its grip on the strait by limiting the number of vessels allowed to pass and imposing steep tolls

on any of them that do. And I want to remind our audience, the Wall Strait Journal reports that

before the war, before the war,

where than a hundred ships would pass through the strait every single day.

But the New York Times reports that just four ships were allowed to pass today, which is the fewest so far this month.

And while all of that happens, the White House also announced that Vice President J.D. Vance will lead a new negotiating team for talks this weekend that includes Steve Whitkoff and Jared Kushner. All right, let's bring in our nightcap. It's an excellent one. David Rode is here. MS now, senior national security reporter. He has been doing phenomenal work over the last 40 days. Jillian Tett, a columnist and member of the Financial Times editorial board. Tim O'Brien is back. Bloomberg Opinion, senior executive editor and Trump biographer

and Richard Stengel, former Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs.

He's also a former managing editor for Time Magazine and an MS now contributor.

Mr. Road, you know we're going to you first.

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