Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: We stay on national security and defense, and we head
Speaker 2: back to the Aspen Security Forum. That's where we find
Speaker 2: David Gera. He's the co host of Bloomberg This Week,
Speaker 2: and he also is the co host of The Big
Speaker 2: Take podcast. He's sitting down with Senator Chris Murfy, Democrat
Speaker 2: of Connecticut. Hey, David, we.
Speaker 3: Got word that just a few minutes ago the US
Speaker 3: resumed strikes on Iran, and I guess I'd like to
Speaker 3: start there if I could.
Speaker 1: The situation we.
Speaker 3: Find ourselves in the plasticity of the President's policy toward
Speaker 3: the region right now, and your latest thinking on sort
Speaker 3: of where we are and where things are headed.
Speaker 4: I didn't know that we had stopped our strikes. This
Speaker 4: war restarted about a week ago.
Speaker 1: It shows no signs of ending.
Speaker 4: This is the most significant foreign policy disaster in the
Speaker 4: last twenty years. Around effectively has control of the Strait.
Speaker 4: They are going to have control of the Straight for
Speaker 4: the long run. As a price of opening that Straight,
Speaker 4: they want all the sanctions released, which is going to
Speaker 4: put a lot of new money into their economy, but
Speaker 4: also allow them to send money out to their proxy
Speaker 4: groups in the region. This war should have never started.
Speaker 4: It's hard to figure out what to do now, because
Speaker 4: it's kind of like asking somebody, now that the raw
Speaker 4: egg is splattered over the floor, how do you put
Speaker 4: it back together? But it seems as if the United
Speaker 4: States is going to have to pay that vig billions
Speaker 4: of dollars to Iran and sanctions relief, and we're going
Speaker 4: to have to prevail upon the Israelis to permanently stop
Speaker 4: the war with Lebanon. And if those two things happen,
Speaker 4: maybe we can get that straight reopened. I have no
Speaker 4: confidence that ultimately there's going to be any bigger deal
Speaker 4: between the United States and Iran. I don't think they're
Speaker 4: going to make any commitments on a nuclear program. So
Speaker 4: I guess the best we can ask for right now
Speaker 4: is to just stop the shooting, get the straight reopened.
Speaker 4: And we're still seemingly a far away from that.
Speaker 3: As we look at humpty dumpty there on the floor.
Speaker 3: Do you think the administration gets that they are they
Speaker 3: still confident that they can stare down Iran, I guess,
Speaker 3: and find some solution by doing that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think the sort of can't over hype the
Speaker 4: degree that just plain old incompetence plays in this story.
Speaker 1: I mean, the trum administration doesn't know what it's doing.
Speaker 4: It's primary diplomats with Iran are the president's son in
Speaker 4: law and a guy who is a real estate developer
Speaker 4: two seconds ago who's never done diplomacy. So it's not
Speaker 4: surprising that they're failing. They're going to either have to
Speaker 4: put actual adults, like experienced diplomats in charge, or they're
Speaker 4: just gonna have to step out of the way and
Speaker 4: ask our European friends or our golf friends to come
Speaker 4: in and try to seal an ultimate deal on reopening
Speaker 4: the strait. So I have very little confidence that this
Speaker 4: crowd that's in charge of our national security is going.
Speaker 1: To be able to get anything done.
Speaker 3: We've seen in recent weeks your colleagues on the other
Speaker 3: side of the aisle, many of them expressing more reservations
Speaker 3: about this. Do you detect a real change kind of
Speaker 3: in their position as this is attenuated as it plays out.
Speaker 4: I mean, this is, of course a deeply unpopular war.
Speaker 4: The American people don't support the war. They want it
Speaker 4: to end. They're paying the price, not just in higher
Speaker 4: gas prices, is in higher diesel prices and higher fertilizer prices,
Speaker 4: but also in the cost of the budget.
Speaker 1: This is one hundred billion to two hundred billion dollars.
Speaker 4: And what is going to happen is that Republicans are
Speaker 4: going to cut funding for schools, for transportation, for nutrition
Speaker 4: in order to pay for the war. That's part of
Speaker 4: the reason that the American public don't want it. So
Speaker 4: as you get closer to the election, this becomes an
Speaker 4: issue that Republics are going to have to deal with
Speaker 4: because this will be an issue where voters are going
Speaker 4: to say, are you for the war or against it?
Speaker 4: And it's going to matter in their choices. So yes,
Speaker 4: I expect that you will get more Republicans saying time
Speaker 4: to end the war. For the first time ever. About
Speaker 4: three weeks ago, we passed a resolution in the Senate
Speaker 4: to end the war. It ultimately was stymied by some
Speaker 4: procedural moves in the Senate, but there is evidence that
Speaker 4: Republicans are starting to wake up.
Speaker 3: You mentioned is reel a moment ago. When I go
Speaker 3: back to that memo of understanding, which it seems was
Speaker 3: not worth the paper that it was it was printed on.
Speaker 3: I think the President would agree with that now, Israel,
Speaker 3: of course not a party to those conversations. And I'm
Speaker 3: curious how you look at the US is power to
Speaker 3: persuade as reel to scale back, pull back its campaign
Speaker 3: and Lebanon and change tech.
Speaker 4: I think you'll have to use the leverage that we have,
Speaker 4: and the leverage that we have is our defense relationship.
Speaker 4: So long as Israel believes that the Trump administration is
Speaker 4: going to continue to feed them the weapons and the
Speaker 4: intelligence that they need to carry out war on Lebanon,
Speaker 4: They're going to continue.
Speaker 1: To carry out that war. That's a very blunt tool.
Speaker 4: It took me a long time to accept it as
Speaker 4: a tool to try to influence their behavior in Gaza.
Speaker 4: But if it is a precondition to getting the straight open,
Speaker 4: then we have to consider using that tool, because as
Speaker 4: long as the strait is closed, it is American citizens
Speaker 4: families that are bearing the cost.
Speaker 3: Let's talk a bit about that pulled a domestic politics here,
Speaker 3: and you mentioned it's a deeply unpopular war. How do
Speaker 3: you see that playing out in the months ahead, and
Speaker 3: how do you and your fellow Democrats kind of maybe
Speaker 3: capitalize is not the right word to use there, but
Speaker 3: highlight the fact that it's this unpopular issay it is
Speaker 3: with the electorate.
Speaker 4: You know, what I found in my time in politics
Speaker 4: is that most of the time, foreign policy doesn't matter
Speaker 4: in elections until it's sometimes the only thing that matters.
Speaker 4: And I do think that this election it's going to
Speaker 4: be on the ballot. Even if Trump were to get
Speaker 4: the straight reopen today, the cost of a gallon of
Speaker 4: gasolene or fertilizer is not gonna come down to any
Speaker 4: reasonable level by November, so it will be a voting issue.
Speaker 4: And the president's foreign policy incompetence and that agreement you mentioned,
Speaker 4: that ces fire agreement was just an example of incompetence, right.
Speaker 4: He signed an agreement committing Israel to do something without
Speaker 4: Israel at the table. He apparently by accident, signed an
Speaker 4: agreement that actually gave control of the Strait permanently to Israel.
Speaker 4: Excuse me, to Iran. His foreign policy disasters are I
Speaker 4: think going to be relevant this November.
Speaker 3: I had Invester Ramavanuel here earlier, and he really seemed
Speaker 3: to welcome having this debate about US Israel relations going
Speaker 3: into the midterms and the general action on the heels
Speaker 3: of that. Do you likewise, I mean there's a lot
Speaker 3: of ink being spilled here about which there's division the
Speaker 3: Democratic Party. There's debate about Israel. How healthy that that
Speaker 3: might be. Where do you fall on.
Speaker 4: That, well, I mean, broadly, I don't think you're a
Speaker 4: healthy party unless you're having debate, unless you have division.
Speaker 4: Part of the reason that the Republican Party is about
Speaker 4: to get their clock cleaned in this election is that
Speaker 4: they don't have any.
Speaker 1: Debate, you'd I am pretty confident of that.
Speaker 4: I mean, they're going to try to cheat their way
Speaker 4: to a win, but I'm confident that if it's a
Speaker 4: free and fair election, Democrats are going to.
Speaker 1: Do very well. Yeah.
Speaker 4: I think in a healthy political party you have debate,
Speaker 4: and we certainly do have a debate in the Democratic
Speaker 4: Party about what to do with Israel. I mean, I'm
Speaker 4: somebody that wants a strong US relationship with Israel. I
Speaker 4: do believe in the preservation and protection of a Jewish
Speaker 4: state in the Middle East. What Netanyahu is doing is
Speaker 4: not serving that objective. He is actually, in the long run,
Speaker 4: going to end up recruiting more enemies of Israel, both
Speaker 4: terrorist enemies and frankly countries that don't support Israel's existence
Speaker 4: Through his conduct in both Gaza and in leban and
Speaker 4: that's why I think we have to use blunt tools
Speaker 4: to get his policy to change.
Speaker 3: He allude to election malfeasans the potential for that. Seven
Speaker 3: o'clock Local time, nine o'clock Eastern time, the President is
Speaker 3: going to give a speech to the nation and reportedly
Speaker 3: we'll focus on the twenty twenty election and electional regularities
Speaker 3: as he sees them. I'll ask you, if you're going
Speaker 3: to tune into that bit more broadly here, what's the
Speaker 3: message of that and in the danger of it, as
Speaker 3: you might see it in him continue to espouse what
Speaker 3: we know not to be true.
Speaker 4: Well, the danger is that we, for the first time
Speaker 4: in American history, don't have a free election. I don't
Speaker 4: know what the President is going to recommend, but if
Speaker 4: he is trying to build the case to put troops
Speaker 4: out in the bolling places, he will likely be stopped
Speaker 4: by the Supreme Court, and then we will see whether
Speaker 4: our democracy collapses and he does not listen to the
Speaker 4: decision of the Supreme Court.
Speaker 1: This is a really dangerous moment, and I'm really.
Speaker 4: Worried that so many am I Republican colleagues are quiet
Speaker 4: about it. You know, their party as a cult right now,
Speaker 4: and I am just still hopeful that some of my
Speaker 4: Republican colleagues will stand up and when they hear his
Speaker 4: speech tonight, call it out for what it likely will
Speaker 4: be the most significant rhetorical attack on democracy on the
Speaker 4: national airwaves that has ever been made in the history
Speaker 4: of the country.
Speaker 3: Let me ask you lastly, just about your counsel, your
Speaker 3: vision for the Democratic Party. You have a new book out,
Speaker 3: Crisis for the Common Good, and a lot of the
Speaker 3: council in that book is just for us to come
Speaker 3: together more through clubs and activities and kind of re
Speaker 3: engage with the way things used to be. Not wholly
Speaker 3: leaning on nostalogia, but that's a part of it. Here,
Speaker 3: I could ask if you're running for present, I expect
Speaker 3: you demurror on that. But let me ask you how
Speaker 3: you see the future of the Democratic Party here visa
Speaker 3: via text, or just how you're thinking about the way
Speaker 3: your party should take shape here going to the next election.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I bought my party to recognize that crisis.
Speaker 4: People are feeling less meaning and purpose in their lives.
Speaker 4: They're feeling more disconnected from their family, from their community
Speaker 4: than ever before. We've got to sort of preach a
Speaker 4: gospel of happiness about how people can wake up every
Speaker 4: day and feel like they have real dignity and meaning
Speaker 4: in their work, How we can control these technologies that
Speaker 4: are sending their kids into lives of isolation. Our party, sometimes,
Speaker 4: you know, solves very technical problems like the price of
Speaker 4: a prescription drug, but doesn't explain to people how that's
Speaker 4: actually going to make them happier.
Speaker 1: If we were to lead.
Speaker 4: This November and two years from now with a really
Speaker 4: aggressive plan on how to control the ravages of social
Speaker 4: media and AI, a space that, by the way, is
Speaker 4: open to the Democratic Party right now, like parents don't
Speaker 4: know which party to pick if they want to protect
Speaker 4: their children from AI. That would speak to families in
Speaker 4: a spiritual way, because they feel like they're losing control
Speaker 4: of their lives at the hands of these new technologies.
Speaker 4: That's the conversation my book is trying to start in
Speaker 4: the party. I mean, I think it's a little too
Speaker 4: early because we're not to be sure that we're going
Speaker 4: to have a democracy in twenty twenty eight, So let's
Speaker 4: make sure that we have a free and fair election
Speaker 4: in twenty twenty six, and then we'll all make our
Speaker 4: decisions for twenty.
Speaker 1: Twenty eight centumorphy.
Speaker 3: Thank you very Muchsure frispav of Connecticut joining me here
Speaker 3: at the Aspen Security Forum