MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Negotiators from the U.S. and Iran say they have concluded an initial phase of discussions over the details of a peace agreement between the U.S. and Iran. Here's Vice President JD Vance before the talks began.
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JD VANCE: The question before us now is, how much more can we accomplish together? Can we turn over a new leaf? Can we change relations in the Middle East permanently?
MARTIN: In a few minutes, we'll talk about the negotiations with the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee. But first, NPR senior national political correspondent Mara Liasson is with us to tell us more about the political stakes for Trump in this moment. Good morning, Mara.
MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: Good morning.
MARTIN: How is this memorandum of understanding playing in the U.S. so far?
LIASSON: Well, Trump is struggling to sell it. He's getting criticism from both wings of his own party. There are some in the Make America Great Again - MAGA - base who are angry that he went to war in the first place. Many of them voted for him because he promised not to get involved in any more foreign wars. And they don't feel like the U.S. has achieved anything of value so far.
Then there are conservative Iran hawks in the GOP who feel the deal is weak, that it doesn't do any better than a deal made by former President Barack Obama, which Trump has criticized bitterly. And they also say that Trump's stated goals in the war haven't been met. There's certainly been no unconditional surrender, no regime change. Iran gets hundreds of millions of dollars in unfrozen assets, and so far, there's nothing to stop Iran from enriching uranium or building a nuclear weapon.
MARTIN: Has Trump responded to this criticism? How is he taking this?
LIASSON: Well, he's not very happy about it. He called his critics stupid and bad people. He was particularly angry about a New York Times headline that he actually reposted on social media. The headline said, quote, "what changed after almost four months of war? Analysts say not much." And Trump went on to say that the Iranian air force is gone. Its military is decimated. Its leaders were killed. And all that is true. But it also appears that Iran took a beating, but the regime is still in place, arguably more hardline than the previous one. And Iran has been able to deploy a powerful new weapon they never used before - closing the Strait of Hormuz - and that's given them leverage over the world economy.
MARTIN: So why make a deal now? I mean, what is at stake for President Trump and his party?
LIASSON: The short answer is the U.S. economy. The economic pressure, once the Strait of Hormuz was closed and prices went up, seems to have pushed Trump to make this deal. And when he signed it last week in France, he said he didn't want to be like former President Herbert Hoover. Here's what he said.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: So rather than possibly going into a depression, rather than having your favorite president be Herbert Hoover - that was always the one I didn't want to be.
LIASSON: So Trump is being very transparent. He doesn't want to be seen as responsible for inflation rising. He's basically telling the world and his opponents what his pain point is, which is $4-a-gallon gasoline.
MARTIN: So just in the couple minutes we have left here, Mara, what greeted Trump back in Washington when he returned from signing that tentative deal with Iran?
LIASSON: Well, one thing he found was the Reflecting Pool at the Lincoln Memorial was full of green, slimy algae and peeling blue paint. That happened maybe because the pool is now absorbing more sunlight and heat after Trump had its bottom painted dark blue. So you could see that green algae and peeling blue paint as a metaphor for Trump's troubles getting the world to follow his orders, or you could see it as just a temporary blip as he makes Washington, D.C., more beautiful.
MARTIN: At least in his eyes. That...
LIASSON: In his eyes.
MARTIN: That is NPR's Mara Liasson. Mara, thank you.
LIASSON: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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