Welcome to the Dispatch podcast. I'm Steve Hayes. On today's roundtable, the latest on Iran,

the blockade, the negotiations, the economy, and the politics of it all. And not worth your time,

looking back on a week of absurdity. Joining me are my

dispatch colleagues Mike Warren and David Drucker along with dispatch contributor and retired

Army Special Forces officer Mike Nelson. Let's dive right in. Welcome, gentlemen, a flurry of developments over the past several days on Iran. As of Friday, the Strait of Hormuz was open. The U.S. was running a blockade. There was a little

back and forth between Iranian leaders and U.S. leaders about whether the straight would remain

open. We started seeing on social media late Friday some comments from Iran's foreign minister

and others accusing Donald Trump of lying.

And in short order, the straight was closed. The United States appeared over the weekend to, for

the first time, enforce the blockade. There's discussion this week about renewed negotiations

on a deal. J.D. Vance, vice president, is preparing to return to Islamabad, potentially. There have been conflicting reports about that, both about whether there will be negotiations, about whether J.D. Vance will participate in those negotiations. The Iranians at this point are seeming to indicate

that they don't want to negotiate anymore right now. There are credible reports from our friends

at Iran International and elsewhere that there is infighting among the Iranian regime leaders.

Some of them want to continue to pursue negotiations others do not mike warren that was my

attempt at summarizing a busy and chaotic weekend on iran and the diplomacy surrounding the war there

what did i leave out and what do you make of everything that I've shared? Where are we at this

moment? Steve, I mean, it was a pretty good survey, I would say. Damning with faint praise right

away, right? Pretty good. My dad was famous for saying, not bad. That was sort of the high

praise for the Hayes kids growing up was not bad and we would take that and celebrate it.

I'm going to take your pretty good as the equivalent of not bad.

Steve, nice work. Nice work. No, the only thing I would add, I mean, it was pretty much exactly how I would have laid it out.

But just throw in the president's own public posting about the seizure of that Iranian ship.

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