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Speaker 1: Trump's speech, scheduled for two pm our time, turned out

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Speaker 1: to contain no announcements at all. Disappointingly, we got no

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Speaker 1: firm end date, no clue about what the buildup of

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Speaker 1: troops in the region is for, no plan to reopen

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Speaker 1: the Strait of Juma. Is just the usual bluster.

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Speaker 2: I can say tonight that we are on track to

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Speaker 2: complete all of America's military objectives shortly, very shortly. We're

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Speaker 2: going to hit them extremely hard over the next two

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Speaker 2: to three weeks. We're going to bring them back to

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Speaker 2: the Stone ages.

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Speaker 3: Where they belong.

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Speaker 1: Doug Hay is a former communications director for the Republican Party. Doug,

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Speaker 1: thanks for joining us.

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Speaker 3: It's great to be with you. Thank you now.

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Speaker 1: Without an actional announcement, this is just pr for American voters,

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Speaker 1: isn't it.

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Speaker 3: Well, it's something I'm still not sure. And the question

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Speaker 3: I ask is why give this speech tonight? And I

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Speaker 3: say that because he had the opportunity a few weeks

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Speaker 3: back to address the nation and to answer a lot

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Speaker 3: of the questions that voters had on that that was

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Speaker 3: the State of the Union, the biggest speech any president

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Speaker 3: gives any year, and he didn't do so. And in

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Speaker 3: tonight's speech, there was no news, so without telling people

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Speaker 3: that we've actually won this thing, we were told we're

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Speaker 3: getting close. Maybe there's an an escalation coming. Gas prices

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Speaker 3: might come down soon, might not. It's not clear to

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Speaker 3: me why they made the decision to make this speech

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Speaker 3: and to make it tonight.

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Speaker 1: Well, I just assumed that the clue lay in the

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Speaker 1: fact that he went through all the various wars that

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Speaker 1: he was comparing this war to in the durations in

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Speaker 1: a bit to show that this was a really quick

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Speaker 1: war actually by contrast. And is that not a sign

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Speaker 1: that the narrative, the prevailing narrative that he's losing and

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Speaker 1: this is dragging is getting to him, and he's trying

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Speaker 1: to go over the top of the legacy media and

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Speaker 1: talk directly to the base.

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Speaker 3: Well, more than anything, the issue of gas prices is

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Speaker 3: what is spooking this White House because it's something that

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Speaker 3: they're hearing from Republican members of Congress almost every day.

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Speaker 3: And then you have the issue with his base specifically

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Speaker 3: about foreign intervention. And I can tell you I was

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Speaker 3: in Israel in June last summer when the bombing started,

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Speaker 3: and a lot of that very hardcore magabase not the

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Speaker 3: people who've voted for Trump necessarily, but the people who

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Speaker 3: voted for Trump and wear a red hat out in public.

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Speaker 3: A lot of them didn't really like that. So they

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Speaker 3: don't like this. They didn't necessarily like Venezuela. They may

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Speaker 3: have concerns about Cuba because these are the things that

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Speaker 3: Donald Trump ran on not doing.

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Speaker 1: So if you listen to his language about really smashing iron,

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Speaker 1: about it going for two to three weeks, threatening various targets,

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Speaker 1: what do you read into that? Is he about to

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Speaker 1: escalate things?

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Speaker 3: He wants to draw this to a close, and so

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Speaker 3: clearly he feels that the best way potentially to do

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Speaker 3: that is by an escalation. And the interesting to me

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Speaker 3: is it's not cutting a deal. We've been told forever

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Speaker 3: the art of the deal. Donald Trump's the great deal maker.

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Speaker 3: It's another example of where he's really not tried to

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Speaker 3: do so. Unless the deal is you're going to get

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Speaker 3: everything you want, and very clearly Iran doesn't want to

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Speaker 3: do that. And so how this ends at this point,

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Speaker 3: I don't think we know. And again he didn't declare victory,

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Speaker 3: just that we're winning.

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Speaker 1: He's given himself something of an off ramp as well.

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Speaker 1: Hasn't he because he has said, we never wanted regime change.

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Speaker 1: So the regime has already changed in any case, because

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Speaker 1: the really bad radical guys are gone. So he can

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Speaker 1: almost if you want, like he is not bound now,

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Speaker 1: is he by the need to see a complete change

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Speaker 1: in who's running around?

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Speaker 3: Well, he's never been bound by that. But it's part of,

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Speaker 3: I think the challenge that he finds himself with that

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Speaker 3: really hardcore part of his base. So forget every Democratic

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Speaker 3: member of Congress or senator and even some of the Republicans,

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Speaker 3: it's those members who really were against any sort of

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Speaker 3: foreign intervention and we would hear the phrase forever wars

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Speaker 3: and you know, international adventurism, things like that. He's very

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Speaker 3: nervous that they're unhappy again. What happened with Iran and

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Speaker 3: Israel last summer was pretty quick, a lot faster than

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Speaker 3: this has been, and those same people didn't like that then.

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Speaker 1: Doug, thank you very much, really appreciate your analysis. Doug Hay,

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Speaker 1: former communications director for the Republican Party. For more from hither,

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Speaker 1: Duke Lassy Allen Drive, listen live to news talks.

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Speaker 3: It'd be from four pm weekdays, or follow the podcast

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Speaker 3: on iHeartRadio,