Welcome to the beat. I'm Ari Melburgh. We begin with news that actually broke exactly 24 hours ago

in our hour, this ceasefire and possible de-escalation in Donald Trump's war that he started with Iran.

The U.S. is pulling back from the brink. Trump announcing that two-week ceasefire after extreme, unusual and quite possibly criminal threats to literally

annihilate, I should say, the civilization of Iran.

The agreement's also an open question here.

This would be day one.

Trump and Hegeseth have been trying to spin it, but we're going to go through exactly what the facts are here.

We don't have a lot to show for the agreement yet.

With our Israeli partners, America's military achieved every single objective, on plan, on schedule,

exactly as laid out from day one. No, and very few people actually believe that.

There's a lot of facts here that get in the way of those kind of claims. The war's not obviously

over. There's no permanent victory on the energy issues or even the long-term capabilities

and weapons systems in Iran. This is a ceasefire of

sorts, and a lot of folks think that's better than the alternative, whether that was continuing

this war the way it was going, or worse, if you took anything Donald Trump posted and said

at face value, having the U.S. go into this war crimes assault.

Now, when you look at the actual terms, there are some big sticking points today. Israel has

resumed attacks on Lebanon. Iran has invoked that or claimed that as a violation of the ceasefire.

There are reports that they have closed the straight in response to those very attacks.

This is the AP reporting. Iran also accusing the U.S. of violating the truce, which could bring into

doubt these hastily scheduled upcoming talks. And then there's the question of what the U.S.

strength and leverage is here, because the talks could start as soon as this Friday.

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