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Speaker 2: This is a breaking news update from Bloomberg instant.
Speaker 3: Reaction and analysis from our three thousand journalists and analysts
Speaker 3: around the world.
Speaker 2: This is special coverage from Bloomberg Radio. I'm Doug Chrisner
Speaker 2: in New York Wednesday evening. In a rare primetime address
Speaker 2: to the nation, President Trump provided an update on the
Speaker 2: war in Iran.
Speaker 4: Thanks to the progress we've made, I can say tonight
Speaker 4: that we are on track to complete all of America's
Speaker 4: military objectives shortly, very shortly. We're going to hit them
Speaker 4: extremely hard over the next two to three weeks. We're
Speaker 4: going to bring them back to the Stone ages where
Speaker 4: they belong. In the meantime, discussions are ongoing. Regime change
Speaker 4: was not our goal. We never said regime change. But
Speaker 4: regime change has occurred because of all of their original
Speaker 4: leader's death. They're all dead. The new group is less
Speaker 4: radical and much more reasonable. Yet, if during this period
Speaker 4: of time no deal is made, we have our eyes
Speaker 4: or in key targets. If there is no deal, we
Speaker 4: are going to hit each and every one of their
Speaker 4: electric generating plants very hard, and probably simultaneously. We have
Speaker 4: not hit their oil, even though that's the easiest target
Speaker 4: of all because it would not give them even a
Speaker 4: small chance of survival or rebuilding. But we could hit
Speaker 4: it and it would be gone, and there's not a
Speaker 4: thing they could do about it.
Speaker 2: President Trump, they are delivering a rare prime time address
Speaker 2: with regards to war in Iran. He said, the US
Speaker 2: is getting very close to finishing the job in Iran.
Speaker 2: The hard part, in Trump's words, done insofar as Iron
Speaker 2: is concerned, and the country is no longer really a threat.
Speaker 2: Let's talk a little bit more about what we heard
Speaker 2: today from the President with our special guest, Christina Raffini
Speaker 2: is with us. She is co host of Bloomberg This Weekend.
Speaker 2: Also on the line, Bloomberg's Jeff Mason. He is White
Speaker 2: House and Washington correspondent. Thanks to you both, Christina, let
Speaker 2: me begin with you. What did you make of what
Speaker 2: you heard tonight.
Speaker 1: One of the interesting things we did not hear was
Speaker 1: something we were expecting to hear, and that was the
Speaker 1: President name NATO. We understand he's been very frustrated with
Speaker 1: NATO allies. He kind of second referenced it at one point.
Speaker 1: He said America doesn't need things out of the Strait.
Speaker 1: We have our own oil and gas. And to all
Speaker 1: you allies who basically wouldn't help us, if you want it,
Speaker 1: go protect it. He also gave a bit of a timeline,
Speaker 1: although there weren't as many specifics as a lot of
Speaker 1: people were hoping for. He said, our objectives are about
Speaker 1: to be fully achieved. We're on track to complete those shortly,
Speaker 1: and then he said in the next two to three weeks.
Speaker 1: And for context, he then began listing the duration of
Speaker 1: other American wars, including Vietnam and the Iraq War, which
Speaker 1: meant much longer, and that it's you know, this has
Speaker 1: only been thirty two days of conflict, Jeff.
Speaker 2: He seemed to be delivering an ultimatum. He Vice President jd.
Speaker 2: Vance is set to relay some messages through mediators, and
Speaker 2: essentially it comes down to this, if there is no deal,
Speaker 2: the US is going to hit each and every one
Speaker 2: of Iran's electrical generating plants very hard. That seems to
Speaker 2: be illegal, doesn't Well.
Speaker 3: I don't feel like I can comment on whether it's illegal,
Speaker 3: but I can say that it is certainly a threat,
Speaker 3: and that may be one reason why we're seeing s
Speaker 3: and p futures going down already as President Trump was speaking,
Speaker 3: and that's probably the opposite of what he was hoping
Speaker 3: to achieve, because he did reference the markets tonight, and
Speaker 3: he talked about the fact that stock markets had dropped
Speaker 3: a little bit because of the war, and then he
Speaker 3: said what he often says, which is he said he
Speaker 3: saw the markets coming back as he's been talking about
Speaker 3: ending the conflict, and thought it seemed happy about that.
Speaker 3: I think tonight was largely a sales pitch by the president.
Speaker 3: It's a late sales pitch, and I don't mean late
Speaker 3: on a Wednesday evening. I mean late in the process
Speaker 3: of the war. He launched this war four and a
Speaker 3: half weeks ago, essentially with a social media announcement, and yes,
Speaker 3: he has spoken to reporters and in that way addressed
Speaker 3: the American public over these weeks, but this was his
Speaker 3: first time coming out and laying out the logic for
Speaker 3: going into the war and laying out his next steps.
Speaker 3: And that's what he did with this address tonight. But
Speaker 3: I wouldn't say we learned a whole lot more about
Speaker 3: the war or the process, other than him sticking to
Speaker 3: a two to three week timeline for getting out Christina.
Speaker 2: Earlier today, Iranian President Mussuit Przeskyn took the, let's call
Speaker 2: it unusual step of issuing a letter directly addressed to Americans,
Speaker 2: and in it, he said, continuing along the path of
Speaker 2: confrontation is more costly in few ChIL than ever before,
Speaker 2: and he noted that attacks on infrastructure directly target Iranian people.
Speaker 2: Did it surprise you that there was no reference made
Speaker 2: to that letter.
Speaker 3: Not really.
Speaker 1: The President doesn't like to I don't think he wants
Speaker 1: to give credence to that administration or that power structure
Speaker 1: in Tehran right now. But it was an interesting move
Speaker 1: by Iran because that's something we've seen Americans usually come
Speaker 1: from the State Department or American presidents have often issued
Speaker 1: statements in Farsi for the Iranian people. They often are
Speaker 1: trying to appeal to the people, especially during the protests
Speaker 1: or as President Trump said tonight, regime change was not
Speaker 1: our goal, but regime change has occurred. If you're trying
Speaker 1: to appeal directly to the population to overthrow what you
Speaker 1: view as a corrupt and as you said several times,
Speaker 1: evil regime, that is something we are more commonly seeing
Speaker 1: from the US to Iran. I don't remember in recent
Speaker 1: memory the President of Iran appealing directly to the American people,
Speaker 1: but these are unprecedented times. The other thing the President
Speaker 1: said that I thought was interesting was when he talked
Speaker 1: about regime change. He said, but regime change has occurred
Speaker 1: because all the original leaders are dead. This is true.
Speaker 1: They have taken out of a lot of Iran's leadership,
Speaker 1: but the current leader is the son of the former leader,
Speaker 1: and a lot of the mullahs and power structure that
Speaker 1: are electing him are still in place from the old regime.
Speaker 1: And if anything, analysts have told us these strikes knocked
Speaker 1: out of a lot of potential moderates, and you're getting
Speaker 1: mostly extremists who are in the government right now, with
Speaker 1: the exception of perhaps the president and the Foreign Minister
Speaker 1: and maybe the Speaker of the House in Tehran. So
Speaker 1: that's not exactly accurate. And calling it regime change is
Speaker 1: also not accurate, because these are, for better or worse,
Speaker 1: mostly the same people who were in power before this
Speaker 1: assault started.
Speaker 2: Jeff, we understand that British Foreign Secretary of At Cooper
Speaker 2: will be chairing a virtual meeting with counterparts from some
Speaker 2: thirty five countries, and the aim apparently is to discuss
Speaker 2: a plan to restore freedom of navigation in the Strait.
Speaker 2: The US, from what I d stand, is not due
Speaker 2: to attend this virtual meeting. Where do you think things
Speaker 2: stand with some of our allies, particularly those in Europe.
Speaker 3: Well, it's hard to say. I think they've certainly had
Speaker 3: a wake up call from President Trump. And that didn't
Speaker 3: just start with this war. That started with his return
Speaker 3: to office, generally when he started to be critical of
Speaker 3: NATO again as he was during his first term. Although
Speaker 3: I will say I asked him a question of one
Speaker 3: of his first press conferences last year about whether he
Speaker 3: remained committed to Article five, which of course is the
Speaker 3: part of the NATO Treaty that guarantees mutual defense, and
Speaker 3: he said yes. But there has certainly been a number
Speaker 3: of questions about that since, and he is raising them
Speaker 3: himself by being critical of NATO allies, Britain in particular,
Speaker 3: I might add, for not jumping in to help protect
Speaker 3: the straight of hor Moves and help get ship help
Speaker 3: improve the shipping passages through there. So to your question,
Speaker 3: and that was a long wind up. Sorry. The fact
Speaker 3: that the United States is not taking part is probably
Speaker 3: a sign that these other countries realize that Trump is
Speaker 3: serious when he says we're going to leave in two
Speaker 3: to three weeks and we don't really care what happens
Speaker 3: to the Strait of Hormuz. I mean, he says that
Speaker 3: it will it'll just automatically start working better. But I
Speaker 3: think most reasonable people who are familiar with that area
Speaker 3: of the world will know that that's not the case.
Speaker 3: And so these countries appear to be looking like they
Speaker 3: want to talk about it in order to come up
Speaker 3: with a strategy.
Speaker 2: Speaking with Bloomberg's Jeff Mason, who is our White House
Speaker 2: and Washington correspondent, as well as Christina Ruffini, who is
Speaker 2: co host of Bloomberg This Weekend. By the way, you
Speaker 2: can catch here Saturdays and Sundays on Bloomberg TV and
Speaker 2: Radio beginning at seven a m. Eastern time. Christina, let
Speaker 2: me go to you. The conversation that we had yesterday
Speaker 2: late in the day was the possibility of some type
Speaker 2: of UN action as it relates to the UAE, maybe
Speaker 2: using the use of force to keeping the straight open.
Speaker 2: Do you think that's got any chance of succeeding.
Speaker 1: I think the UN is at its weakest that we've
Speaker 1: seen it in probably the last two decades. But following
Speaker 1: up on Jeff's point, the President said, when this is done,
Speaker 1: it will just open up naturally because they want to
Speaker 1: sell the oil, referring to the Strait of Hormuz. What
Speaker 1: Jeff was talking about is something that allies are really
Speaker 1: concerned about, and that's probably what's precipitating that mention that
Speaker 1: that meeting you mentioned it from the UK and this
Speaker 1: effort to try to get some sort of coalition together
Speaker 1: with the UN, with these nations to open up the street,
Speaker 1: because it is looking more and more likely, and I
Speaker 1: think the President's words hinted at it tonight. He doesn't
Speaker 1: really care if the strait is operational. He's going to
Speaker 1: do his thing, and the US is going to leave.
Speaker 1: And all those GCC countries, all those golf allies, all
Speaker 1: the Asian countries that depend heavily on oil coming through
Speaker 1: that street, some of them who thought they had very
Speaker 1: close ties to the United States are going to be
Speaker 1: in trouble if the US is not there to finish
Speaker 1: the job, and that's going to fall to some sort
Speaker 1: of coalition of other nations. Maybe the UN is the
Speaker 1: mechanism by which they make that happen. But I would
Speaker 1: reckon it probably happens between a collaboration of EU and
Speaker 1: GCC countries. I think it probably happens outside that body.
Speaker 1: But perhaps talking about it at the UN will be
Speaker 1: helpful in getting that started. But this is a real issue,
Speaker 1: and allies are really concerned that this could actually happen
Speaker 1: and they could be left in a worse straitun unintended
Speaker 1: than when this war started, because Iran could be controlling
Speaker 1: the strait and then potentially profiting off of it if
Speaker 1: it starts to charge tolls or control passage.
Speaker 2: Jeff, let me go to you. Is President Trump getting
Speaker 2: advice from anyone outside that inner circle so to speak?
Speaker 2: Do you think?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 3: It's always sort of tricky to figure out where President
Speaker 3: Trump is getting his advice. We know that he talks to,
Speaker 3: of course the inner circle of advisors that you were referencing,
Speaker 3: also an outer circle of friends. He calls some of
Speaker 3: the natural US allies and leaders of friends as well,
Speaker 3: but it's hard for me to say to what extent
Speaker 3: he's listening to them. I always come back, when asked
Speaker 3: about this, to something that he said. I believe it
Speaker 3: was in twenty sixteen, before he won the first election
Speaker 3: that he won, which he was asked then where he
Speaker 3: gets his advice, and he said from myself, And I
Speaker 3: think that that still applies in twenty twenty six He
Speaker 3: is his top counselor, he is his top spokesperson. He
Speaker 3: likes to be the number one in charge, and he
Speaker 3: likes to be the one delivering the message, and he
Speaker 3: likes to be the one making the decisions. Now that's
Speaker 3: not to say he's not listening to some others and
Speaker 3: getting some advice, certainly from people like Marco Rubio, Steve Woodkoff,
Speaker 3: Jared Kushner, and probably his own vice president, as you
Speaker 3: noted earlier, who's becoming a little bit more involved in
Speaker 3: more recent days. But the buck stops with him, and
Speaker 3: he's the ultimate.
Speaker 2: Decider, Christina. Before this conflict began, the administration was somewhat
Speaker 2: stressing the issue of affordability. And I know now that
Speaker 2: the Cleveland now cast from the Cleveland Fed has the
Speaker 2: inflation rated around forecasted around three and a quarter percent.
Speaker 2: Where do you think this leaves the president as we
Speaker 2: talk more and more about the run up to the
Speaker 2: off term elections.
Speaker 1: I mean again, I hate to give Jeff Mason too
Speaker 1: much credit, just kidding. Jeff is brilliant, but he was
Speaker 1: right saying he was right and saying this was part
Speaker 1: of that. This is a sales pitch because midterms are
Speaker 1: if you are the president, just around the corner. And
Speaker 1: even if this is resolved tomorrow, which the President said,
Speaker 1: it's not going to be right. He's looking at a
Speaker 1: two to three week timeline before the US operation is
Speaker 1: even finished. That's not to say whether or not the
Speaker 1: strait is working by then. And even though the President
Speaker 1: emphasized many many times he said, you know, thanks to
Speaker 1: my economic policies, we have drill, baby, Bill, drill, the
Speaker 1: US is financially independent. The oil prices will come down,
Speaker 1: the stock market will go up. That's pretty aspirational because
Speaker 1: every analyst I've heard on Bloomberg this week is saying
Speaker 1: this is not like flipping a switch. There's a tail
Speaker 1: to this. It's inputs for chemicals, it's fertilizer for farmers.
Speaker 1: It's the global oil price, not just what we're paying
Speaker 1: in the US. That impacts everybody's price at the pump.
Speaker 1: And that's something that voters are really going to notice.
Speaker 1: And you know, Trump voters are very, very loyal, but
Speaker 1: it's expensive to live in the United States right now,
Speaker 1: and families are under a lot of pressure, and that's
Speaker 1: really really going to hurt him, and it's really going
Speaker 1: to hurt Republicans ahead of the midterms when they're already
Speaker 1: looking at an uphill battle.
Speaker 2: Jeff, what do we know about the build up of
Speaker 2: additional US troops in the Mid East region?
Speaker 3: Let me answer that, and then I want to get
Speaker 3: back to the politics briefly. As far as the build up,
Speaker 3: we know that in recent days and weeks that the
Speaker 3: United States has sent more troops to the region, which
Speaker 3: has led to some speculation about boots putting boots on
Speaker 3: the ground. That's definitely not something that the President addressed tonight,
Speaker 3: which I think you can interpret in two ways. Number One,
Speaker 3: you would, I don't think, be wrong to conclude that
Speaker 3: he's signaling that that is definitely not the direction he
Speaker 3: wants to move, or else he wouldn't be repeating the
Speaker 3: fact that he wants to conclude the war in the
Speaker 3: next two to three weeks. You could also conclude that
Speaker 3: it's a headfake and that the President is still considering
Speaker 3: it and that's why he has sent troops into the
Speaker 3: region in order to continue to have that option. So
Speaker 3: that'll be something that you know, allies and enemies will
Speaker 3: will have to figure out as as as this war continues. Briefly,
Speaker 3: back on the politics, though, I also wanted to say
Speaker 3: I said earlier that this was a sales pitch. One
Speaker 3: of the things that was a sales pitch, I think
Speaker 3: was him listing the number of when Christina mentioned this,
Speaker 3: as well, listing the major wars of the last century
Speaker 3: and how long they took. And I'm just I'd be
Speaker 3: very curious to see some polling after the speech as
Speaker 3: to whether that logic resonates at all, both with his
Speaker 3: base and with an American public that heard him say
Speaker 3: as a candidate in twenty twenty four that he would
Speaker 3: not launch new wars Christina.
Speaker 2: Earlier in the week, the president was focused on trying
Speaker 2: to recover enriched uranium in Iran, but apparently he told
Speaker 2: Reuters that it's so far underground he doesn't even care
Speaker 2: about it any longer. Talk to me about what you
Speaker 2: perceived to be the maybe subtle shifts in objectives.
Speaker 1: So the Washington Post was out with some good reporting
Speaker 1: today about the President asking for an operational plan for
Speaker 1: US Commando's special forces to go in and try to
Speaker 1: retrieve that uranium. That to me immediately seems like an
Speaker 1: almost impossible and incredibly dangerous task because, as the President
Speaker 1: mentioned in his speech, the US hit s Fahim, Thetans
Speaker 1: FDAU those new clear sites very heavily last June with
Speaker 1: those big bunker busting bombs, and according to the President,
Speaker 1: greatered them and at the time destroyed the nuclear the
Speaker 1: nuclear program. Now tonight, the President said that Iran was
Speaker 1: on the door of a nuclear bomb and they were
Speaker 1: mirroring the race. Everyone I've spoken to nuclear experts say
Speaker 1: there's no evidence that Iran was any closer to that
Speaker 1: breakout time the time it takes them to flip the
Speaker 1: switch and create a nuclear weapon than they were when
Speaker 1: the US attacks those nuclear sites last summer. The issue
Speaker 1: is is this has been a talking point for the President,
Speaker 1: and so he wants to show that he's trying to
Speaker 1: prevent a Ran from having a nuclear bomb. He has
Speaker 1: a plan for getting that uranium, but now it seems
Speaker 1: like he is backing off of that. That could be
Speaker 1: potentially because those plans came back and were not feasible
Speaker 1: or just simply because he realized that it contradicts his
Speaker 1: own argument that the US destroyed these sites. But at
Speaker 1: the same time, he's also saying that Iran was about
Speaker 1: to get a nuclear and both those two things can't
Speaker 1: really be true.
Speaker 2: Jeff, I'll give you the last word as we get
Speaker 2: set to wrap up.
Speaker 3: I appreciate you giving me the last word instead of Christina,
Speaker 3: But what I would like to say is actually building
Speaker 3: off of her brilliant remarks just there, which is politically
Speaker 3: their conservatives and I spoke to one of them today
Speaker 3: who are concerned that President Trump is not finishing the job.
Speaker 3: That he made the decision to go in and start
Speaker 3: this war, controversial decision but one that is certainly supported
Speaker 3: by a lot of Iran Hawks and right leading people
Speaker 3: in the foreign policy establishment, and they were worried ahead
Speaker 3: of this speech today that he is done with it,
Speaker 3: ready to get out because of the multiple reasons that
Speaker 3: we've already cited, and that that will actually still leave
Speaker 3: a threat in Iran that he could have taken care
Speaker 3: of now if he had just stuck with it.
Speaker 2: Jeff, thank you so very much. Bloomberg's Jeff Mason, our
Speaker 2: White House and Washington correspondent, and a very special thanks
Speaker 2: to Christina Raffini, co host of Bloomberg This weekend, and
Speaker 2: you can capture Saturdays and Sundays on Bloomberg TV and
Speaker 2: Radio beginning at seven a m. Eastern Time. Thanks to
Speaker 2: you both,