Sarah: Two Americans out of Iran in 48 hours
Sarah: talks the White House says are still live
Sarah: and a Pentagon review into a school strike
Sarah: begun in March — and still not public.
Sarah: If you're just joining us: the U.S.-Iran channel has stayed open even as the strikes kept landing.
Sarah: Trump said a deal had nearly been reached
Sarah: Iran pushed for more talks
Sarah: and technical negotiations kept running — all of it tangled up with tit-for-tat strikes and fights over Hormuz and oil exports.
Sarah: Diplomacy is alive, but it's leashed to the pressure at sea and in the air.
Rich: This is Iran War Daily.
Rich: A hostage on a plane, a press secretary reading 'devastating blows' off a card, and a finished investigation nobody will release.
Rich: Let's start with who's talking to whom.
Sarah: Diyar Guldogan, writing in Anadolu Agency:
Quote: Iran continues to communicate with the US and has expressed interest in reaching a nuclear agreement despite recent US military strikes
Quote: White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Thursday.
Quote: Asked whether negotiations with Tehran were at a standstill or had effectively ended
Quote: Leavitt said President Donald Trump had told her that diplomatic contacts remain active.
Sarah: The claim on the table is that Karoline Leavitt says Iran 'very much continues to talk.'
Sarah: She gives her source, too: she says she spoke with the president an hour earlier.
Sarah: So this is the White House press secretary characterizing Iranian intent.
Sarah: And notice the source here.
Sarah: This comes from Washington, not Oman or Doha, and not a foreign-ministry readout.
Sarah: Washington is narrating what Tehran wants.
Rich: And listen to the phrase: 'because they are suffering devastating blows.'
Rich: That's the talking point right there — Washington saying the strikes ARE the negotiating strategy.
Rich: So the talks update is this: contacts are supposedly still live, even after renewed strikes and the port blockade.
Rich: Combat and negotiation, same clock, same week.
Rich: Someone's paying for both.
Sarah: Leavitt also pins the strikes on Iran violating the MOU — specifically, firing on commercial vessels in Hormuz.
Sarah: That's her stated cause.
Sarah: Whether that firing is corroborated is a separate question.
Sarah: Abigail Williams, Garrett Haake and Babak Dehghanpisheh, writing in NBC News:
Quote: Trump
Quote: who described the release as a “gesture of Goodwill by Iran!” has ramped up pressure on Tehran in recent days and signed off on several new
Quote: rounds of U.S. military strikes.
Quote: Mizan, the news site of the Iranian judiciary, said Thursday in a post on Telegram that no American citizen had been released from custody.
Sarah: At the announcement level, the release is now double-sourced: Trump on Truth Social, and separately, the detainee's lawyer.
Sarah: She'd been held since December 2024, and both say she's safely out of Iran.
Rich: Second American out in 48 hours, in the same stretch where we just heard the White House say Iran 'very much continues to talk.'
Rich: Two releases and a talking point — that timing isn't an accident.
Sarah: Here's the wrinkle: Iran's judiciary news site, Mizan, posted Thursday that no American was released or exchanged.
Sarah: So we've got Washington and her own lawyer on one side, Tehran's official judiciary flatly denying it on the other.
Rich: Right, so Tehran wants the goodwill without the receipt.
Rich: They'll let her walk but they won't put their name on it — because admitting a swap mid-strike is a domestic problem for them.
Sarah: And still no channel is on the record.
Sarah: Doha, Islamabad, Oman — none of them is claiming credit.
Sarah: Trump calls it a 'gesture of Goodwill' while he's also signed off on new rounds of strikes.
Sarah: That's the contradiction sitting on the page.
Rich: That's where I'd press them.
Rich: Is this release coordinated with the talks, or is Tehran buying goodwill before whatever deadline gets floated next week?
Rich: Because none of the hard files — the nuclear track, the proxies — moved with her onto that plane.
Sarah: The Jerusalem Post writes:
Quote: US military leadership has held off on ordering an intelligence review to help determine the events surrounding the US-attributed strike
Quote: that hit a school in Iran in the initial strikes during Operation Epic Fury
Quote: CNN reported on Thursday
Quote: citing three sources familiar with the matter.
Rich: So the investigation's done.
Rich: Interviews with the service members involved — done back in March.
Rich: CNN's three sources say the results are just sitting there.
Rich: A completed review nobody will release.
Sarah: Let's be precise about the stages.
Sarah: The battle damage assessment ran within a week: did the strike hit the school, and was it a U.S.
Sarah: strike? The initial answer was yes.
Sarah: The next step was the DIA's holistic review, and as of early July, that still hadn't been ordered.
Rich: Right, and that's the step that asks the uncomfortable questions.
Rich: Funny which one gets the pause button.
Sarah: And the date matters — February 28.
Sarah: Same day as the strike that killed Khamenei, per the Post.
Sarah: So this school hit is inside the opening salvo of Epic Fury, not some stray follow-on.
Rich: Which is why the timing gnaws at me.
Rich: We just heard the White House say Iran wants a deal because they're taking devastating blows.
Rich: And meanwhile the one review that would put a number on what those blows actually hit is parked in a drawer.
Sarah: The specific gap is authority.
Sarah: CNN says leadership held off on ordering it.
Sarah: So I'd want this answered: who, by name or by chair, is sitting on that order, and on what basis?
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Host: You’ll find links to every story we covered today in the show notes, so if one caught your ear, it’s easy to go deeper from there.
Host: That’s Iran War Daily for today.
Host: This is a Lantern Podcast.