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Speaker 3: President Trump has confirmed US negotiators are heading to Pakistan
Speaker 3: tomorrow for meetings that we'll start on Tuesday, and the
Speaker 3: straight offore Movis remains a key sticking point between the
Speaker 3: US and Iran as the key energy choke point remains.
Speaker 5: Closed back with US.
Speaker 3: As Bloomberg's whe House correspondent Courtney Supermanian and Courtney If
Speaker 3: your phone rings. During the course of this interview, the
Speaker 3: President has talked to Jonathan carl He's talked to Fox News,
Speaker 3: He's talked to ms NOW. If your phone rings and
Speaker 3: you need to take it, nothing here on mind as
Speaker 3: well take the call if you need to, we will
Speaker 3: proceed without you until then, though you have been synthesizing
Speaker 3: all that the President has been saying in these phone interviews.
Speaker 3: Give us the latest on what we know of these meetings,
Speaker 3: the second round of talks that are going to be
Speaker 3: taking place here in Pakistan as the week begins.
Speaker 6: Yeah, as you mentioned, he's given a series of interviews
Speaker 6: this morning, he's taken to true social He's trying to
Speaker 6: set the tone of what to expect in the coming days,
Speaker 6: and that is that Special Envoys Steve Whitkoff and Jared
Speaker 6: Kushner will return to Islamabad tomorrow evening for talks. He
Speaker 6: has just told MS now that JD Vance is not
Speaker 6: attending those talks for security reasons. I have actually while
Speaker 6: we're sitting here, texting the Vice President's staff to try
Speaker 6: and confirm that. But I think all of this just underscores,
Speaker 6: in the last seventy two hours, just how much whiplash
Speaker 6: we're seeing here, and just underscores the unpredictable nature of
Speaker 6: this conflict and the erratic and sometimes contradictory messaging we've
Speaker 6: seen from the President. I think it's important to remember
Speaker 6: that Friday he told us that an agreement was all
Speaker 6: but agreed to, which included concessions that Iran had never
Speaker 6: publicly agreed to. He even told ABC that he trusted
Speaker 6: the Iranians, and then, of course he crucially left the
Speaker 6: blockade of the Straight in place until an agreement was finalized,
Speaker 6: which prompted Tehran to close the Straight again and set
Speaker 6: this whole off, this whole situation off, and now we're
Speaker 6: seeing him again threaten Iranian power plants in bridges if
Speaker 6: they don't take the deal, you know, again escalating the
Speaker 6: rhetoric ahead of negotiations, which is of course a tactic
Speaker 6: we've seen him use over and over again in this conflict.
Speaker 2: Counie, one of the things I found interesting is having
Speaker 2: covered the first Trump administration, as we all did, when
Speaker 2: they pulled out of the around nuclear deal the first time,
Speaker 2: and even on the campaign trail leading up to that,
Speaker 2: the President was so critical of Iran, saying they couldn't
Speaker 2: be trusted, They could never be trusted to get into
Speaker 2: any kind of a nuclear deal and stick to it,
Speaker 2: They couldn't be trusted as negotiators. You know, where has
Speaker 2: that changed? Why has that changed? And why is the
Speaker 2: president suddenly willing to take them at their word in
Speaker 2: these negotiations, in pursuit of a deal that seems like
Speaker 2: it's going to look very much like the one he
Speaker 2: pulls out of in the first place.
Speaker 6: That's a great question. I do think that the President
Speaker 6: is looking for an off ramp. I think he is
Speaker 6: realizing the economic repercussions are really bearing out both globally
Speaker 6: but here at home as we look ahead to November
Speaker 6: and we see Americans really start to feel the economic
Speaker 6: pain of this at the gas pump, right And so
Speaker 6: this time, you know, this is the situation of his making,
Speaker 6: and he is looking for any opportunity to bring this
Speaker 6: conflict to an end and move on. And so I
Speaker 6: think that has allowed him to sort of vacillate between
Speaker 6: you know, these this escalating rhetoric where he's really ramping
Speaker 6: up pressure but then taking the Iranians at their word
Speaker 6: that this that that they're going to come to the
Speaker 6: table and agree to a deal. But as you know,
Speaker 6: the Iranians are very good at dragging out negotiations.
Speaker 2: All right, courtnessy reminding our White House correspondent, thank you
Speaker 2: so much for Johnny us this morning. Joining us now
Speaker 2: is former Defense Secretary Mark Esper he served in President
Speaker 2: Trump's first administration. Mister secretary, thank you for being with us.
Speaker 2: The first question I want to ask you is, when
Speaker 2: you look at this negotiating team, Steve Wikoff, Jared Kushner,
Speaker 2: it looks like Vice President Vance, we're learning this morning,
Speaker 2: will not be going for the second round of negotiations.
Speaker 7: Do you think they're up to the task.
Speaker 8: Well, they have the President's trust, so in that regard,
Speaker 8: they are up to the task. Though I assume that
Speaker 8: the Iranians will interpret the Vice President not coming as
Speaker 8: a downgrading of these this next round of talks, which
Speaker 8: could be the last round of talks for anytime soon,
Speaker 8: and so they may pull back on their delegation, which
Speaker 8: I think it's going to be hard to get a
Speaker 8: deal done, at least a deal in principle for that reason.
Speaker 8: And then if you're going to believe the president, then
Speaker 8: the President says the attacks will begin, you know, following
Speaker 8: that if the talks fail, if they don't sign the deal,
Speaker 8: I think is what he literally said. If they don't
Speaker 8: sign the deal on Tuesday before the ceasefire, then he's
Speaker 8: going to go after their energy, after their infrastructure, after
Speaker 8: their power plants.
Speaker 3: Mister Secretary, I want to ask you about the chronology here.
Speaker 3: So we had the announcement from the Iranian Ford Minister
Speaker 3: that the strait was open on Friday morning. Then a
Speaker 3: few hours later we saw a great deal of confusion.
Speaker 3: So and as the President indicated that blockade was going
Speaker 3: to stay in place. And that's kind of where I
Speaker 3: want to go with you. Is the role of that
Speaker 3: blockade going forward here? The importance of it as you
Speaker 3: see it. Is it something that you see as being
Speaker 3: negotiable here? Do you think it will be negotiated upon
Speaker 3: in those meetings in Islamabad?
Speaker 8: Well, I think, first of all, part of the blockade
Speaker 8: with regard to Iran, when the Foreign Minister came out,
Speaker 8: what he did say is it would be it was lifted,
Speaker 8: but he mentioned the conditions, and the nisitions, of course
Speaker 8: were still that shipping had to follow this new route
Speaker 8: which was close to the Iranian coastline between their islands,
Speaker 8: and that they would be managed by the IRGC, the
Speaker 8: Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, But that wasn't reported as loudly.
Speaker 9: It was just that they had opened it.
Speaker 8: And then of course there was a lot of friction
Speaker 8: within Iran with the hardliners saying that the Forem Minister
Speaker 8: had overstepped his bounds. It was the wrong message, and
Speaker 8: in fact they were going to do all those things
Speaker 8: plus charged tolls, and that caused the counter reaction. Look,
Speaker 8: I think President Trump keeping putting the blockade on Iran
Speaker 8: what a few days ago was a smart move. I
Speaker 8: think there's no reason why Iran should allow be allowed
Speaker 8: to reap the benefits of oil revenues coming out of
Speaker 8: golf and sustain its fight while shipping from friendly countries
Speaker 8: is not allowed to go.
Speaker 9: So I thought that mate was smart.
Speaker 8: I think that's what put pressure on the Iranians, and
Speaker 8: I was a little surprised that he didn't.
Speaker 9: Lift it when they lifted it.
Speaker 8: But nonetheless, we are where we are this morning with
Speaker 8: both it's clamping down on control of the straight and
Speaker 8: it effectively bottled up at this point in time once again.
Speaker 2: And what do you make of the President's renewed threats
Speaker 2: here this morning? He says he will go after every
Speaker 2: single power point and every single bridge and Iran no more.
Speaker 2: Mister nice guy, do you consider that a war crime?
Speaker 2: And what does it mean for the state as a whole?
Speaker 2: David was asking earlier wouldn't that just lead to a
Speaker 2: failed state If there's no infrastructure left, there's no power
Speaker 2: center left, there's no ability to have a democracy.
Speaker 8: And Iran, well, first of all, that's his negotiating style,
Speaker 8: right to threaten and to amp up the rhetoric and
Speaker 8: maybe force them to step down or at least reconsider
Speaker 8: that their position in the Iranians and so and so
Speaker 8: he's going back to where he was just about a
Speaker 8: week ago, I think, in terms of timing. So that's
Speaker 8: not surprising. You know, this question with regard to war crimes,
Speaker 8: it all depends on how the planners, the targeteers, and
Speaker 8: the lawyers look at different targets, whether it's a power
Speaker 8: plant or a bridge or a highway, and how close
Speaker 8: it's connection is to the military. So, for example, if
Speaker 8: you have a power plant sitting on a military base
Speaker 8: powering that base, then it's a legitimate target. As you
Speaker 8: get further and further away from such direct connectivity, then
Speaker 8: it becomes more dubious. And so I think they're going
Speaker 8: to have the military is gonna have to work through
Speaker 8: all those different issues case by case, target by target
Speaker 8: to come to that final understanding. If indeed that is
Speaker 8: where the military goes in this next phase.
Speaker 3: I think the thing that has led to a lot
Speaker 3: of the fogginess we've experienced over the last thirty six
Speaker 3: or forty eight hours, it's just not being able to
Speaker 3: get a sense of degree to which what the President
Speaker 3: is saying the Orionions have agreed to is in fact
Speaker 3: what they have agreed to. And you know, well the
Speaker 3: difficulties of engaging in any kind of diplomacy or negotiations
Speaker 3: with Rians. Of course, you were in the first term
Speaker 3: when the President pulled out of the jc POA talk
Speaker 3: a bit about that, if you would, the way the
Speaker 3: US can verify what in fact the Audians are actually
Speaker 3: saying they're doing what they have done. Yes, perhaps this
Speaker 3: will be haggled out over the table there in Islamabad.
Speaker 3: But leading up to it, how do we know what
Speaker 3: we know?
Speaker 5: To ask? A very base can cover some question.
Speaker 9: Yeah, look, it's tough.
Speaker 8: I mean, obviously the President raises his expectations with some
Speaker 8: of the things he says.
Speaker 9: Maybe he's picking up.
Speaker 8: Spot reports from his advisors, which which maybe is missing
Speaker 8: some nuance, but nonetheless the expectation was real. Or as
Speaker 8: the President's been saying that we're very, very close to
Speaker 8: a deal, that it's that they want it really badly.
Speaker 8: And then what you hear coming out of Iran as
Speaker 8: recently as the last twenty four hours, where the lead negotiator,
Speaker 8: Speaker Glibof has said, yes, progress was made in Islamabad
Speaker 8: last week, but we are far from a significant There
Speaker 8: are significant differences between our negotiating positions. Now he's the
Speaker 8: lead negotiator and un paraphrasing, but that shows.
Speaker 9: There's a much bigger gap.
Speaker 10: Now.
Speaker 8: Look, I'll also say that what the Iranians say publicly
Speaker 8: to the West and what they say privately to their
Speaker 8: own people are two different things because they're trying to
Speaker 8: manage the domestic audience. So it is hard to pass
Speaker 8: through what's going on. But when I look at each
Speaker 8: side's negotiating positions, going back to the fifteen points proposed
Speaker 8: by President Trump and the ten points proposed by.
Speaker 9: The Iranians, I just see few areas of agreement. The
Speaker 9: big issues.
Speaker 8: There's a major disagreement when it comes to nuclear richment,
Speaker 8: when it comes to returning the nuclear fuel, when it
Speaker 8: comes to what's going to be the future of the
Speaker 8: straight of hor Moves. I mean, when we talked yesterday
Speaker 8: about what the Foreign Minister said and what the IRGC
Speaker 8: is saying is the new normal they want to establish
Speaker 8: is that they have sovereignty over the strait and they
Speaker 8: will control manage who goes through, and they will impose tolls,
Speaker 8: much like what happens at the Panama Canal. And that's
Speaker 8: clearly something we the West cannot tolerate. So I think
Speaker 8: this is just going to have to play out of
Speaker 8: the coming days. I still see the positions based on
Speaker 8: my historical understanding of where both sides are. It's too
Speaker 8: far apart to get a deal here in the next
Speaker 8: forty eight to seventy two hours.
Speaker 2: Do you think this conflict was a strategic blunder by
Speaker 2: the US given that Iran has now figured out even
Speaker 2: if it gives up its nuclear program, it has a
Speaker 2: more powerful card to play in closing the.
Speaker 5: Strait, at least economically. Ye.
Speaker 8: You know, you can't tally the score until the game's over.
Speaker 8: And you know, right now, obviously we've had considerable progress
Speaker 8: at the military level, which with regard to taking down
Speaker 8: the military objectives of defeating their navy, degrading their air defense,
Speaker 8: their air force, so forth, and saw on. But at
Speaker 8: this point time, at the strategic level, we know that
Speaker 8: Iran is still refusing to yield to our nuclear demands,
Speaker 8: and that was ostensibly the reason why we got into
Speaker 8: this conflict eight weeks ago. If you recall in Geneva,
Speaker 8: whit Cough and Kushner said, look, the Iranians aren't serious
Speaker 8: on the nuclear issue. We need to try something different,
Speaker 8: and that's when Operation Epic Fury was Lost was launched.
Speaker 9: I'm sorry. So would you.
Speaker 2: In your time, if the president came to you when
Speaker 2: you were running the Pentagon, would you have said this
Speaker 2: was a good idea.
Speaker 9: Well, this happened to times during my tenure.
Speaker 8: I would say, look, these are the things we can do,
Speaker 8: but wars are unpredictable. Once you get into them, it's
Speaker 8: easy to get in, but hard to get out. And
Speaker 8: I talk about this a lot in my memoir about
Speaker 8: how we would have these discussions, and it would be
Speaker 8: myself and the Chairman warning about getting into a conflict
Speaker 8: without positioning troops in advance, without being prepared for a
Speaker 8: ground war, and without being prepared for all these other
Speaker 8: consequences we're seeing. So that's look that I thought that
Speaker 8: was my job a to prepare plans to go to war,
Speaker 8: make sure the force is ready, but b give my
Speaker 8: best advice with regard to the pros and cons. And
Speaker 8: you know there's been documentation about the presence of russ
Speaker 8: being at various positions on this with regard to getting it.
Speaker 8: But the views he felt emboldened after after what happened
Speaker 8: last June with Midnight Hammer, with the Venezuela operation, and
Speaker 8: was maybe convinced that if he did this operation decapitated
Speaker 8: the government, they might fall.
Speaker 9: And clearly clearly it didn't.
Speaker 3: Let me ask you lastly about Lebanon, which of course
Speaker 3: has been such a crucial issue here, and we have
Speaker 3: headlines this morning from Israel's Defense Minster saying he and
Speaker 3: Benjamin and Yahoo instructed the idea of to ask with
Speaker 3: act with all force from the ground, from the air,
Speaker 3: even during the ceasefire, to protect our soldiers in Lebanon
Speaker 3: from any threat. A crucial issue year for the US
Speaker 3: is the greed to which they and Israel are going
Speaker 3: to be on the same page. How big a challenge
Speaker 3: is that going to be going forward here?
Speaker 8: Well, Israel clearly has different goals than we have when
Speaker 8: it comes to both Iran and Lebanon, and the Lebanon
Speaker 8: issue has been dragging on for the Israelis as long
Speaker 8: as Hesbelah has been in existence since the early nineteen eighties.
Speaker 8: So and this isn't the first time that there's been
Speaker 8: some type of agreement or a commitment by the Lebanese
Speaker 8: government to disarm Hesbelah to move them back up north.
Speaker 8: So look, I think Israel clearly wants to go in
Speaker 8: and push the Hesbela further north of the Latawni River,
Speaker 8: disarm them once again, take out their leadership. But they're
Speaker 8: playing to President Trump's fiddle right now because Trump wants
Speaker 8: a deal, and to get the deal, he had to
Speaker 8: push them to us to have a ceasefire with the Lebanese,
Speaker 8: with Hesbela, to be more specific, in order to get
Speaker 8: the Iranians to back down a little bit. So I
Speaker 8: think the question will be is if the ceasefire between
Speaker 8: the United States and Iran breaks down in three days,
Speaker 8: will the ceasefire between hesb Law and Israel also break down?
Speaker 9: That'll be an important point to watch.
Speaker 2: I mean, very quickly, what do you think will happen?
Speaker 2: Do you think it will break down?
Speaker 8: Where the rhetoric is this morning, I see it very
Speaker 8: hard to get an agreement in forty eight hours. So
Speaker 8: my sense is the President might be forced to launch
Speaker 8: some type of military tax to live up to what
Speaker 8: he said, rather than kind of yielding or extending the agreement.
Speaker 9: But who knows, we'll see.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for taking time. Former Defense of
Speaker 2: Tarry Mark Esper joining us this morning.
Speaker 3: Stay with us for more on Bloomberg this weekend.
Speaker 2: Right after this, President Trump says Special Envoy Steve Witkoff
Speaker 2: will head to Islamabad for talks on Tuesday, if that
Speaker 2: could last until Wednesday, after Ron reversed this decision to
Speaker 2: reopen shipping to the strait of horror moves. Energy Secretary
Speaker 2: Chris Wright was on CNN's State of the Union earlier
Speaker 2: and had this to say about negotiations.
Speaker 9: Negotiations are going very well.
Speaker 11: A lot of the chatter and noise you here in
Speaker 11: public is really the signs of a regime that's falling apart.
Speaker 11: Different factions go in different directions. They're worried about trying
Speaker 11: to get some leverage at the end of these negotiations.
Speaker 11: I think President Trump and Vice President Vance have us
Speaker 11: on a pathway to a good ending of this conflict
Speaker 11: before long.
Speaker 3: Join US now is access is White House supporter Marcapudo
Speaker 3: and Atlantic staff rider Nancy useef Mark. Let me start
Speaker 3: with you and just get your read of the latest here,
Speaker 3: the present making the rounds over the course of the morning,
Speaker 3: indicating that Steve Woodcoff Jared christ are gonna be the point.
Speaker 3: People go into these talks curious what you make of
Speaker 3: that the latest there, and sort of what you think
Speaker 3: will be notably different at this meeting compared to the
Speaker 3: one that took place between JD. Vance and his running
Speaker 3: counterparts last week.
Speaker 12: Well, I have no idea what's going to be notably different.
Speaker 12: One of the things that seems to be through line
Speaker 12: is everything seems to be notably the same. The only
Speaker 12: through line we have so far is that there's generally
Speaker 12: a ceasefire between the United States and Iran, between Israel
Speaker 12: and Lebanon. But otherwise everyone keeps claiming that progress is
Speaker 12: being made, but what's really happening. As a result, we've
Speaker 12: had a few things in axios that we had reported.
Speaker 12: One that there is an idea out there that the
Speaker 12: US had started to advance of providing Iran access to
Speaker 12: its frozen assets, its currency bank accounts, essentially of about
Speaker 12: twenty billion dollars in return for them giving up uranium
Speaker 12: to the United States. It's highly rich uranium stockpiles. The
Speaker 12: Iranians wanted more money, and then the President came out
Speaker 12: and said he wasn't going to do this. However, there
Speaker 12: remained the very big issues, which is Iran has highly
Speaker 12: enriched uranium, the United States has access to Iran's money
Speaker 12: and has basically frozen them out from it. That's a
Speaker 12: possible trade item. Iran has closed the straight of horm moves,
Speaker 12: the United States wants it open and has a blockade.
Speaker 12: Those things seem tradable. And then more broadly, the United
Speaker 12: States has lots of weaponry and sanctions against Iran. Iran
Speaker 12: funds terrorist proxy groups like Hamas, has Bulla and Houthis,
Speaker 12: and so that also seems to be a trade item.
Speaker 12: But so far we have not seen anything in writing
Speaker 12: that clearly shows what's up for trade, what's up for discussion,
Speaker 12: what the progress is. So until then you have statements
Speaker 12: from President Trump and what you just played there, and
Speaker 12: Energy Secretary Chris Wright saying all this progress is happening,
Speaker 12: and then you have the running saying no, no, it's not.
Speaker 12: We do know they're talking, because obviously they're talking, and
Speaker 12: also they're not shooting.
Speaker 2: I do need to ask you, as we were speaking
Speaker 2: at your Axios colleague, Brockervied was now contradicting the President,
Speaker 2: who said earlier that Vice President Jadevans would not be
Speaker 2: attending these talks. Axios is now reporting that Vice President
Speaker 2: jd Vance will lead the US delegation for another right
Speaker 2: of talks Islamabad. I know you've been on with us,
Speaker 2: but I didn't know if if you'd heard that as well,
Speaker 2: and what you're thinking.
Speaker 13: Is on that.
Speaker 12: I didn't want to come out and say it because
Speaker 12: I wasn't sure if it had come out yet. It
Speaker 12: would be a shocking breach of protocol if jady Vance
Speaker 12: were not there. So when you just listed those two
Speaker 12: names and didn't list jade Vance, I was rather surprised. Yes,
Speaker 12: jady Vance is the lead negotiatory supposed to be, and
Speaker 12: he's going to be taking that role here as well.
Speaker 2: All right, Nancy, let's go to you. I want to
Speaker 2: talk to you about some of the mixed messaging we're getting,
Speaker 2: not just from the administration but also on the Iranian
Speaker 2: side as well. We've had infighting between IRGC members and
Speaker 2: political more political elites. We've had this very bellicose tweet
Speaker 2: this morning or social media posts from the President threatening
Speaker 2: to once again take out Iran's bridges and power plants,
Speaker 2: but at the same time going back to talks and
Speaker 2: saying things are progressing and they think that the US
Speaker 2: can get a deal. What is going on here?
Speaker 14: So you make a very important point because over the
Speaker 14: end of the weekend, or at least on Friday, we
Speaker 14: saw talks about a ceasefire from the Foreign Minister, for
Speaker 14: only the state news media to say that actually the
Speaker 14: Aya Tola was on board. And the reason that was
Speaker 14: significant not just because it impacts the talks, but it
Speaker 14: was the first rule break we've seen our fissures within
Speaker 14: the regime, something we've been looking for as a sign
Speaker 14: of potential fractures for the regime, and so that was noteworthy.
Speaker 14: But I think you get at a very important point
Speaker 14: is we're also seeing some broken patterns in the United
Speaker 14: States where the President, facing challenges in terms of reaching
Speaker 14: a strategic outcome that is beneficial to the United States,
Speaker 14: is turning back to tactical threats. We saw this earlier
Speaker 14: with the threat to kill a civilization. And now, as
Speaker 14: you note in this latest social media post, he's threatened
Speaker 14: to strike Iranian infrastructure. In addition to being a violation
Speaker 14: to the Geneva Conventions. Doing so doesn't answer the ultimate
Speaker 14: question that the US is trying to resolve, which is
Speaker 14: how to get the strategic outcome that they want. And
Speaker 14: so it feels to me that we're on a cycle
Speaker 14: in which we're trying to leverage the US military superiority
Speaker 14: to reach and understanding what we want to achieve through
Speaker 14: these war aims. And as your colleague noted, there are
Speaker 14: a lot of things that the United States and iron
Speaker 14: are trying to achieve, the nuclear program, reopening the Strait sanctions,
Speaker 14: relieve what would happen with the proxies, the Iruni proxies,
Speaker 14: and the Warren Lebanon. The last time there were serious
Speaker 14: negotiations about this, it took nearly two years to reach
Speaker 14: an agreement on just one component of it. And so
Speaker 14: I know there's been a back and forth today about
Speaker 14: whether the Vice President is attending and what that means.
Speaker 14: I'm also curious if there will be more technical experts
Speaker 14: in this next round of negotiations, because in the past
Speaker 14: these negotiations were successful not when the top sort of
Speaker 14: headline making attendees were there, but when the experts were
Speaker 14: able to work out these details such that when folks
Speaker 14: like the Vice president or the president's top negotiator came
Speaker 14: to the table, it wasn't to iron out these very
Speaker 14: very specific points, but to really sort of put the
Speaker 14: final signature on it. So I'm curious if we'll see
Speaker 14: a different tactic in terms of how how the United
Speaker 14: States approaches these talks, not just through who's attending from
Speaker 14: the White House, but who's attending from government agencies that
Speaker 14: could really help get to a resolution.
Speaker 3: Mark, we got about a minute left, but I do
Speaker 3: want to ask you about your reporting on what's happening
Speaker 3: with Cuba, because the President has maintained that that's still
Speaker 3: very much a live issue for him going forward.
Speaker 5: Here.
Speaker 3: I'm struck the last time I sat down with Cuba's
Speaker 3: ambassador to the UN, he was reluctant to tell me
Speaker 3: with whom the Cubans had been meeting. Wouldn't safe with
Speaker 3: Secretary Ruby or others. We now know that there has
Speaker 3: been a meeting. Give us in this minute that we
Speaker 3: have left. The latest that you know of the status
Speaker 3: of those conversations as the President's threats continue.
Speaker 12: Friday before last, eight days ago, a high level State
Speaker 12: Department delegation went down to Havana, touchdown in Havanah, first
Speaker 12: time the United States government plane had done that since
Speaker 12: twenty sixteen when President Obama went. They had meetings with
Speaker 12: the Cuban officials, Cuban apparatrics, as well as the grandson
Speaker 12: of Raoul Castro known as Raulito, also nicknamed El Congrejo
Speaker 12: the Crab, and they basically delivered the United States long
Speaker 12: standing message that we need to have economic and democratic reforms,
Speaker 12: free political prisoners, and start discussing returning seized assets that
Speaker 12: were taken during the revolution to US persons and corporate interests.
Speaker 12: In return, the United States didn't offer much. They offered
Speaker 12: to help set up Starlink to increase internet access. They
Speaker 12: also made very clear what the United States did to
Speaker 12: the Cubans that if there's a huge problem and a
Speaker 12: humanitarian crisis or societal collapse in Cuba, the United States
Speaker 12: is not going to stand idly by. That's not a
Speaker 12: direct threat, but boy, it's an indirect one.
Speaker 2: All right, We're going to have to leave it there.
Speaker 2: Mark Pudo white House repporter for Axios and Nancy Yusef
Speaker 2: with The Atlantic. Stay with us for more on Bloomberg
Speaker 2: this weekend right after.
Speaker 5: This birthday is this Wednesday, April twenty second.
Speaker 3: And of course, one of the biggest threats to the
Speaker 3: planet is climate change. According to a recent study, climate
Speaker 3: change could the world economy some thirty eight trillion dollars
Speaker 3: per year by the middle of the century.
Speaker 2: And of course climate chang josh so impacts the food
Speaker 2: we eat, how we eat it, how we get it.
Speaker 2: And joining us now is award winning chef, TV host
Speaker 2: and restaurant tour Andrew Zimmern. He's also the author of
Speaker 2: a new cookbook, the Blue Food Cookbook, Delicious Seafood Recipes
Speaker 2: for a Sustainable Future. Andrew, thank you so much for
Speaker 2: joining us.
Speaker 7: Thank you great to be here.
Speaker 2: So explain to us blue foods. Is that like blue
Speaker 2: zones we talk about those for health? Or what does
Speaker 2: this mean? And why did you want to write this?
Speaker 10: No, that's my buddy Dan Butner's book, which is great
Speaker 10: in an olternative consequence. Is the production company that I
Speaker 10: owned produces his podcast and he's one of my best friends.
Speaker 7: A great book and you should buy that too.
Speaker 2: Sarreally blue works for him. I'm gonna use it as well.
Speaker 15: I got it.
Speaker 7: Thanks exactly, well exactly.
Speaker 10: The United Nations use this term over a decade ago,
Speaker 10: and then nobody else did. And my co author Barton
Speaker 10: sever and our collaborators fed by Blue, who helped vet
Speaker 10: all the technical information in the book, we all felt
Speaker 10: it was really important to come up with a way
Speaker 10: to talk about food that comes from water fish, shellfish,
Speaker 10: lake fish, brook trout, seaweeds very importantly, and be able
Speaker 10: to talk about them from a global perspective as opposed
Speaker 10: to green foods and green economies, which are obviously terrestrial.
Speaker 10: If we want to combat climate change, if we want
Speaker 10: to feed a hungry year planet, if we want to
Speaker 10: do so economically, and we want to make sure that
Speaker 10: hunger is something that is statistically eliminated on planet Earth,
Speaker 10: which is actually possible to do, there is a path
Speaker 10: of success for that, then that all the solutions start
Speaker 10: with blue foods and our water systems most importantly, because
Speaker 10: we have I have to protect them, but we also
Speaker 10: have to produce from them. At the same time, every
Speaker 10: second breath we take comes from the ocean, and by
Speaker 10: working on the ocean. Working in the ocean and all
Speaker 10: of our water systems, we can do a better job
Speaker 10: of protecting it and producing from it.
Speaker 3: At the same time, we're going to ask about at
Speaker 3: least one recipe here in a moment. But let me
Speaker 3: just ask you about when I go to the store
Speaker 3: and buy seafood, what should I be looking for?
Speaker 5: In other words, in the spirit of going.
Speaker 3: After blue foods, what are the best things for me
Speaker 3: to target or purchase as a food eating consumer here
Speaker 3: in America in twenty twenty six.
Speaker 10: You should simply ask the person who's behind the counter
Speaker 10: or wearing the red vest if they're stalking the frozen
Speaker 10: aisle or the canned isle, because remember, responsibly source seafoods
Speaker 10: that are properly handled are in three places in your markets.
Speaker 10: But ask the person you know about the catch of
Speaker 10: the day, Ask about what's fresh, Ask, most importantly, is
Speaker 10: it responsibly sourced. The questions that people ask themselves with
Speaker 10: fish and shellfish all the time is fressure, frozen, wild
Speaker 10: or farmed?
Speaker 7: And those questions are really irrelevant.
Speaker 10: There are bad actors in the fresh and frozen space.
Speaker 10: There are bad actors in the farmed and the wild
Speaker 10: fisheries management space, but the good actors far outweigh them.
Speaker 2: Well, there's a recipe in here for chocolate chip Kelp brownies.
Speaker 2: Seafood didn't be a dessert. Any other outliers that you
Speaker 2: think might take some convincing, but you're going to stand
Speaker 2: by well.
Speaker 7: Seaweedn't desert.
Speaker 10: It is just a great way to get something super
Speaker 10: healthy into your body. The FAO and the OMB all
Speaker 10: estimate that by twenty forty five, which is nineteen years
Speaker 10: from now, we will produce see more seafood by weight
Speaker 10: in America than we will potatoes.
Speaker 7: Think about that. Seaweed is the food of the future.
Speaker 10: It requires very little equipment, and it is all a
Speaker 10: plus side. I would encourage people to be eating nutritious
Speaker 10: oily fish that are good for our brain health and
Speaker 10: our body's development. A sardine, a fresh sardine, but also
Speaker 10: a tin one are literally perfect foods when it comes
Speaker 10: to our health. We need to be incorporating more foods
Speaker 10: like that into our diets.
Speaker 3: I want to ask you lastly just about the changes
Speaker 3: that we've seen in terms of availability of fish, lobster,
Speaker 3: bivalves as well. Climate changes is having a role there,
Speaker 3: how do you think about that in the context of
Speaker 3: what you're advocating people leader or go after.
Speaker 5: How much is that landscape changing.
Speaker 10: Well, it changes all the time, which is why I've
Speaker 10: been calling for in America for one national agency to.
Speaker 7: Help us monitors heat food.
Speaker 10: Right now, we have an alphabet soup of different agencies,
Speaker 10: all of which are doing good jobs, but nobody is
Speaker 10: really talking to each other. It's also why I've advocated
Speaker 10: for a Secretary of Food, a cabinet level position. Food
Speaker 10: and food adjacent businesses are one of the largest sections
Speaker 10: of GDP. You know, independent restaurants alone. Forget about farms
Speaker 10: and all of the food production companies, but just independent
Speaker 10: restaurants alone is about six percent of GDP. We have
Speaker 10: food decisions being made by six different alphabet agencies in Washington,
Speaker 10: DC alone, So I think we need to centralize all
Speaker 10: that under one office. I think the other thing that
Speaker 10: we need to do is we need to remember that
Speaker 10: the oceans are always changing. What's available one day is
Speaker 10: not available the other. Lobsters are marching north to colder climates,
Speaker 10: so are crabs in search of food. And I think
Speaker 10: what people should do is they should be communicating more
Speaker 10: with the person behind the counter at a supermarket, at
Speaker 10: a big box store, or at a fish store about
Speaker 10: what that store thinks they should be eating.
Speaker 7: Let them right now be the gatekeeper for you.
Speaker 10: Eat lower on the food chain and try to make
Speaker 10: sure that you become a good global citizen. To answer
Speaker 10: David's question more exactly, shop the fish, not the dish.
Speaker 10: If you go into the market, you're going to make
Speaker 10: fish and chips with cod, and cod's not there. Ask
Speaker 10: the person behind the counter, Hey, I was going to
Speaker 10: make fish and chips with cod. There's no cod. What
Speaker 10: should I use instead? Let those people help be your
Speaker 10: guidepost Shop the dish.
Speaker 7: Not the fish.
Speaker 2: All right, I think we're gonna have to leave it there.
Speaker 15: Thank you so much.
Speaker 7: Have a great day, all right.
Speaker 2: The book is the Blue Food Cookbook, Delicious Sepid Recipes
Speaker 2: for a Sustainable Future.
Speaker 4: Stay with us for more on Bloomberg this weekend. Right
Speaker 4: after this.
Speaker 3: Good News now this weekend's pointed news quiz, the news
Speaker 3: quiz for risk takers.
Speaker 2: David is this week have you been practicing so.
Speaker 5: Much as I can? You know, I read regularly, and
Speaker 5: you know.
Speaker 15: Tim beat my very first lost him tell me more.
Speaker 15: But I was reveling in this.
Speaker 2: However, we have a guest star we do playing along
Speaker 2: with us, and.
Speaker 13: I think this is probably like the most dreads enough
Speaker 13: I felt in my embarrassed even joke.
Speaker 15: About the same way.
Speaker 9: But it'll be fine, Lisa, Master will make you look good.
Speaker 4: Okay, let me explain it to you because you're new
Speaker 4: to this ed. Okay, So basically, we have three different categories. Okay,
Speaker 4: do you have ten, ten, ten, thirty chips in front
Speaker 4: of you?
Speaker 15: Okay? What you do with those chips?
Speaker 4: You figure out how confident are you are with each category.
Speaker 4: If you know the first category, you're gonna put ten chips,
Speaker 4: you're gonna be twenty chips.
Speaker 15: Maybe maybe thirty all in one, it depends. I usually
Speaker 15: just go to even.
Speaker 2: But if you're really confident on one, you can slide another.
Speaker 4: I'll ask you the question, you write it on your board,
Speaker 4: and I'll tell you guys to flip it and we'll
Speaker 4: see who gets it wrong.
Speaker 15: Okay.
Speaker 5: If he's wrong, what happens? You take the chips and
Speaker 5: if you're.
Speaker 4: Wrong, I get your chips a little piece of your salt.
Speaker 15: That's right, Okay, So let's get to the category.
Speaker 9: Categories.
Speaker 15: Categories okay.
Speaker 4: First category is investigations, second category business leader, and third
Speaker 4: category con cons.
Speaker 13: Does cons mean like pro and console con artists or convictions?
Speaker 15: Okay? Thank you, not that I'm but it's.
Speaker 3: Good to ask ye.
Speaker 5: To spell the word sentence.
Speaker 4: All right, are you ready for the first How are
Speaker 4: you betting?
Speaker 2: How are you?
Speaker 5: I put nothing on the person?
Speaker 4: You put nothing on the first one?
Speaker 7: Ten?
Speaker 14: Five?
Speaker 3: No, you can't go five.
Speaker 5: I can't.
Speaker 15: Literally let's go ten.
Speaker 4: Ten alright, okay, okay, so you're going ten o the
Speaker 4: first so ten ten, ten, ten, okay, good, all right,
Speaker 4: here we go.
Speaker 15: The question is.
Speaker 4: Gomez was charged with influence, peddling and commercial bribery. Her
Speaker 4: hut bind is which country's premiere? Her name is miss?
Speaker 4: Her husband is which country's premiere?
Speaker 5: Really?
Speaker 4: Now, come on, David, all right, everybody's read.
Speaker 5: I just love the music, which is the reason.
Speaker 9: I like to he does.
Speaker 15: Okay, flipp it? What do you got David? There will start, David.
Speaker 4: You got Columbia, Christina Spain ed.
Speaker 15: Spain is the answer.
Speaker 9: For the record.
Speaker 4: Only, So you didn't bet anything, David. Okay, we're doing well, we're.
Speaker 5: Doing we're winning.
Speaker 4: We're against David. Here we go next, one category business leaders.
Speaker 15: Are you ready? Okay, hold on, sorry, yes?
Speaker 4: Are you going to ten for business leaders?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 15: And again?
Speaker 4: Okay, good, you're going with twenty twenty for business leaders? Okay.
Speaker 4: A man allegedly through a Maltov cocktail at the San
Speaker 4: Francisco home of which business figure. What was the name
Speaker 4: of this business figure?
Speaker 9: It's the other one, the other one.
Speaker 15: If it's one of them, it's the one.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna be all right.
Speaker 4: We're all ready flip its moment, alady, everybody got it? Okay, good, good, good, good, excellent.
Speaker 5: For the record, I've got twenty points for that.
Speaker 4: Okay, but they still have their their two so we're
Speaker 4: all tied up here, all right.
Speaker 15: Have had more conviction that I was going to do?
Speaker 15: You should have known that.
Speaker 6: All right?
Speaker 4: Are you ready for the cons Okay?
Speaker 5: This is like okay the French City.
Speaker 15: Oh no, no, okay.
Speaker 4: The founder, the founder of which annual New York event
Speaker 4: was arrested on charges that he stole money raised for charity.
Speaker 4: What is the name of that New York you know?
Speaker 10: This is?
Speaker 9: I hate this thing.
Speaker 13: Yes, some issue with the question which we can get into.
Speaker 9: Let's do think the category isleting I.
Speaker 13: Know we'll get to it.
Speaker 4: Okay, I'm right, okay, okay, flipp it.
Speaker 15: What do we got calla David?
Speaker 9: I read.
Speaker 5: Charity event?
Speaker 15: Charity event in San Francisco as well, like a New
Speaker 15: York City thing started in New York. I don't know,
Speaker 15: but it had to about that, did you bet? Oh?
Speaker 4: I get your chips. David, you're down.
Speaker 5: This is probably my most low in the city.
Speaker 4: All right, David, terrible. We got to go for a bonus. Then,
Speaker 4: you know that is your uload.
Speaker 2: This current news quiz is your most loath day. Find
Speaker 2: out the end of this at the end of the Okay,
Speaker 2: all right, we've got about all right, we have a
Speaker 2: bonus only minute.
Speaker 15: Okay.
Speaker 4: It has thirty Christinas there and you have ten twenty David,
Speaker 4: all right, anti trust this is the category?
Speaker 5: All in?
Speaker 4: Yeah, all in, Okay, okay, okay, okay, all right, here
Speaker 4: we go. Which confectioner, a large consumer of hazelnuts, was
Speaker 4: a target of European Union anti trust raids this week?
Speaker 4: Which confection what is the name products?
Speaker 9: I can't think of the company.
Speaker 4: It's a large consumer of hazelnuts, very distinction.
Speaker 3: No does it so delicious on a piece of bread?
Speaker 4: Milk. I help, spelling is not counting here, come on
Speaker 4: the name of the company. The company.
Speaker 10: Sorry, exactly what I was saying, I was going to write.
Speaker 4: Ferrero like kind of I did not know until I
Speaker 4: was that.
Speaker 9: I didn't know.
Speaker 13: But Motela inside of Otemus too in the spacecraft was
Speaker 13: the biggest story.
Speaker 10: It was.
Speaker 3: It floated right past the date about the game, perhaps
Speaker 3: more than the game itself.
Speaker 5: Don't kill our colleagues in the.
Speaker 13: Game, Sundbag to you, guys, you did say really good,
Speaker 13: you have to come back. You did it?
Speaker 5: Okay, thank you. I appreciate that patronizing statement. All right, you.
Speaker 3: Can test your knowledge and all ten questions. Take the
Speaker 3: Portynews quiz at Bloomberg dot com slash forty. Thanks for choice, Yeah,
Speaker 3: probably me.
Speaker 2: Thanks for joining us on today's Bloomberg This Weekend podcast.
Speaker 2: Don't forget to tune in live for the show every
Speaker 2: Saturday and Sunday morning, starting at seven am Eastern.
Speaker 3: We're on Bloomberg Television Radio and the Bloomberg Business App,
Speaker 3: bringing you unique takes and in depth interviews on news, politics, lifestyle,
Speaker 3: and culture.