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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. A short time ago,

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Speaker 1: the US military carried out massive precision strikes on the

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Speaker 1: three key nuclear facilities in the Iranian regime.

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Speaker 2: On Saturday night, the United States conducted airstrikes on three

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Speaker 2: of Iran's nuclear sites. It was a dramatic escalation of

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Speaker 2: the US's involvement in Israel's deepening war with Tehran.

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Speaker 1: Our objective was the destruction of irans nuclear enrichment capacity

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Speaker 1: and a stop to the nuclear threat posed by the

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Speaker 1: world's number one state sponsor of terror.

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Speaker 2: President Trump addressed the nation at ten pm Eastern and

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Speaker 2: called the attacks on Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities quote

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Speaker 2: a spectacular military.

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Speaker 1: Success rand The bully of the Middle East must now

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Speaker 1: make peace. If they do not, future attacks would be

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Speaker 1: far greater and a lot easier.

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Speaker 2: US Defense Secretary Pete Hegsath said in a press conference

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Speaker 2: from the Pentagon that an initial battleground assessment suggested that

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Speaker 2: the strikes had quote the desired effect.

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Speaker 3: We devastated the Iranian nuclear program, but it's worth noting

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Speaker 3: the operation did not target Iranian troops of the Iranian people.

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Speaker 2: Within hours of the attack, Israel's prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

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Speaker 2: put out a recorded statement praising the US strikes. Iran's

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Speaker 2: foreign minister said the country would use all options to

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Speaker 2: defend itself. Bloomberg's US National security and intelligence reporter Natalia

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Speaker 2: Drosdiak says that Trump's monumental decision happened slowly and then

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Speaker 2: suddenly all at once.

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Speaker 4: He had publicly said that he would give himself two

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Speaker 4: weeks to decide, and over the weekend we started seeing

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Speaker 4: some signs that maybe something was up sooner than that,

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Speaker 4: and it appears that he decided pretty much minutes before

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Speaker 4: the bomber plant's actually deployed to Iran. So this was

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Speaker 4: a relatively last minute decision, even if it was something

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Speaker 4: that he'd been considering for the last few days.

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Speaker 2: And now it's raised questions that could take much longer

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Speaker 2: to resolve.

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Speaker 4: So the fear was that getting involved here, even if

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Speaker 4: it was a limited surgical strike, that could escalate and

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Speaker 4: spiral out of control in such a way that would

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Speaker 4: just drag the US back into another longer fight.

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Speaker 2: I'm Sarah Holder, and this is the big take from

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Speaker 2: Bloomberg News today. On the show What Comes After the

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Speaker 2: US strikes on Iran? Natalia drosdiac covered is national security

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Speaker 2: and intelligence for Bloomberg and has been following the US's

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Speaker 2: weekend strike on Iran.

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Speaker 4: So this whole operation took about thirty seven hours. They

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Speaker 4: dubbed it Midnight Hammer. It resulted in strikes on Iran's

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Speaker 4: nuclear sites in fordeaux Is, Fahan, and Natan's. In the end,

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Speaker 4: they ended up using about one hundred and twenty five planes.

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Speaker 4: They even launched Tomahawk missiles from submarines, you know, some

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Speaker 4: hundred miles away, if not more, And they ended up

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Speaker 4: using about fourteen of those bunker buster bombs, which are

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Speaker 4: called massive ordnance penetrator bombs. So by the end of it,

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Speaker 4: because there were no US service members who.

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Speaker 5: Were lost or harmed.

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Speaker 4: And Iran also didn't end up firing at any US assets,

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Speaker 4: the administration deemed it a big success.

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Speaker 2: Well, the move was surprising for a president who campaigned

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Speaker 2: on America First, who promised to end the US's involvement

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Speaker 2: in forever Wars. How much of a reversal is this

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Speaker 2: from Trump?

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Speaker 4: So, I mean, on one hand, he has been saying

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Speaker 4: repeatedly for years now that Iran cannot get a nuclear weapon,

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Speaker 4: But on the other hand as you say he's been.

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Speaker 4: He had campaigned on becoming, you know, the peace president

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Speaker 4: and getting America out of wars that were in the

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Speaker 4: Middle East and elsewhere in the world. There's also a

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Speaker 4: strong faction inside his party that tend to be more restrainers,

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Speaker 4: that don't want to get engaged in these forever wars.

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Speaker 4: But the question is whether they'll ultimately rally around him,

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Speaker 4: and you know, they might be able to come around

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Speaker 4: to that narrative, especially if these strikes stay limited and

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Speaker 4: don't escalate in a major way.

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Speaker 2: The US strikes came nine days after Israel bombed Iran

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Speaker 2: on June thirteenth, setting off a series of attacks between

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Speaker 2: the two countries. Ethan Bronner is Bloomberg's Israel bureau chief,

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Speaker 2: and he's been covering the fallout. I asked him what

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Speaker 2: we know so far about the love of coordination between

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Speaker 2: Israel and the US and a lead up to the

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Speaker 2: US as strikes.

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Speaker 5: It was exceptionally tight coordination.

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Speaker 3: Trump got a call from Natanya who said we are

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Speaker 3: going to move and he didn't stop them.

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Speaker 5: He didn't say don't do it, but he said you're

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Speaker 5: on your own. But then what.

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Speaker 3: Happened is the Israelis, after many years and months of planning,

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Speaker 3: actually carried out a rather brilliant set of tactical moves

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Speaker 3: in terms of killing a number of top people, in

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Speaker 3: terms of damaging Natons and other uranium and Richmond site,

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Speaker 3: and in terms of taking out a whole bunch of

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Speaker 3: launchers and long range ballistic missiles. So when that happened,

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Speaker 3: I think that the Americans looked on and said, well,

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Speaker 3: this could be something we could join easily, and the

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Speaker 3: Israeli said it to them. They said, hey, we've set

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Speaker 3: the table, no boots.

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Speaker 5: On the ground.

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Speaker 3: All you have to do is bring your amazing hardware,

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Speaker 3: your B two's and your bunker busters, draw a few

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Speaker 3: bombs and get out.

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Speaker 5: That's all we're asking of you. And in essence, that's

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Speaker 5: what happened.

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Speaker 2: So, I mean, what does the US's entrance into this world,

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Speaker 2: the response to that call and that ask say about

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Speaker 2: Nyaho's relationship with Trump and his influence over the president.

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Speaker 3: So we do know that he has been very influential

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Speaker 3: over the years, and in fact, Nichan Yaou did tell

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Speaker 3: the Nation Israel a week ago that he ordered the

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Speaker 3: beginning the preparation for this attack on Iran in November.

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Speaker 5: So it's clear that the election of Trump was one

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Speaker 5: of the motives for him to do so.

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Speaker 3: President Biden was against this kind of military activity, so

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Speaker 3: was President Obama, and so in previous efforts to maybe

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Speaker 3: bomb Iran, the Americans pushed back and did not allow

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Speaker 3: Israel to do so this time. Interestingly, in the spring,

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Speaker 3: it looked like President Trump did say to them hold

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Speaker 3: off when they wanted to move forward.

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Speaker 5: He wanted to give diplomacy a chance.

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Speaker 3: But he also says that diplomacy didn't work, and therefore

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Speaker 3: he decided to move in this direction.

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Speaker 2: Beyond destroying Iran's nuclear capabilities, Israel has also called for

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Speaker 2: regime change in Iran. On Sunday, Defense Secretary Hegsuth said

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Speaker 2: that wasn't part of the US's goals, but later, in

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Speaker 2: a post on True Social Trump implied that he did

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Speaker 2: favor regime change too. As he put it, make Iran

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Speaker 2: great again. What do we know about the differences in

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Speaker 2: what the US and Israel hope to accomplish here?

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Speaker 3: So officially, Israel has not named regime change as one

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Speaker 3: of its war aims.

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Speaker 5: It has frequently said, we'd be delighted. We think it's

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Speaker 5: a great thing.

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Speaker 3: Ultimately, that's what has to happen, but that they have

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Speaker 3: not called for that. They have set out three war

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Speaker 3: aims to destroy Around's nuclear capacity, two to destroy its

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Speaker 3: ballistic missile capacity, and three to destroy its ability to

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Speaker 3: sponsor militias around Israel that seek its destruction. There has

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Speaker 3: been a kind of emission creep in Israel about this,

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Speaker 3: and one of the reasons, of course, is that over

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Speaker 3: the last nine days since Israel launched its attack on Iran,

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Speaker 3: the ballistic missiles that have flown into this country have

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Speaker 3: been extremely destructive and very frightening. They have left people homeless,

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Speaker 3: they have destroyed whole city blocks, and they have made

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Speaker 3: the Israelis feel that simply ending the nuclear program may not.

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Speaker 5: End the threat that Iran poses to this country.

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Speaker 2: So what do we know about the actual extent of

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Speaker 2: the damage to Iran's nuclear facilities and its capabilities.

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Speaker 5: So far, we don't know much, Sarah. We are waiting,

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Speaker 5: and the even the.

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Speaker 3: Israeli officials that I've spoken to, so they're waiting for

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Speaker 3: deeper data and knowledge and information of what happened.

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Speaker 5: The goal of the US operation.

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Speaker 3: Was to drop such heavy, heavy bombs on fourdoh that

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Speaker 3: it would not be able to be reconstituted.

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Speaker 5: We don't know if that happened.

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Speaker 3: We do know that if fourteen thirty thousand pound bombs

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Speaker 3: were dropped.

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Speaker 5: As apparently as the case on.

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Speaker 3: A spot, even if it's eighty meters or one hundred

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Speaker 3: meters underground, it feels like a reasonable assumption that bad

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Speaker 3: things would happen to that place.

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Speaker 2: As of Sunday evening, the extent of the damage to

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Speaker 2: Iran's nuclear facilities was still being assessed. So I asked

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Speaker 2: Bloomberg's Natalia Drosiak what the Trump administration was preparing for next.

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Speaker 4: So at this point, it's pretty clear that Iran is

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Speaker 4: going to have to retaliate against the US. You know,

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Speaker 4: this has been the Supreme Leader's main project for decades,

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Speaker 4: this nuclear project. So the strikes that we've seen over

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Speaker 4: the last few days are not going to go over lately.

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Speaker 4: And there's a variety of ways that they may choose

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Speaker 4: to retaliate. It could be attacking US forces in the

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Speaker 4: Middle East or American citizens. It could involve getting proxy

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Speaker 4: groups involved launching terror attacks around the world. There's any

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Speaker 4: number of ways that they may choose to retaliate, and

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Speaker 4: in terms of how the US will respond, they've made

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Speaker 4: clear that if Iran responds or retaliates in any way,

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Speaker 4: the US will hit back even harder. And in the meantime,

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Speaker 4: the White House is also, you know, continuing to push

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Speaker 4: for diplomacy. They're hoping that, you know, with Iran's program

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Speaker 4: now so decimated, as they say, as they claim anyway,

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Speaker 4: they're hoping that they'll feel compelled to finally come to

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Speaker 4: the table in a serious way and reach a deal.

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Speaker 2: Well, the US and Iran, we're engaging in negotiations and

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Speaker 2: talks before this attack. What could diplomacy look like moving forward?

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Speaker 4: It's really difficult to say, because I think at this

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Speaker 4: stage there's probably a lot of trust that's been broken.

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Speaker 4: So will the Iranians believe the Americans? I think that's

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Speaker 4: one of the key questions. Another one is how do

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Speaker 4: you actually monitor the Iranian nuclear program if they're allowed

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Speaker 4: to have any any sort of enrichment, even if it's

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Speaker 4: just for civilian purposes. You know, that was one of

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Speaker 4: the benefits, let's say, or what proponents were advocating for

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Speaker 4: as part of the past nuclear program, and now with

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Speaker 4: these sites destroyed, that monitoring is going to be very difficult.

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Speaker 2: Is there a scenario where this weekend's attacks are the

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Speaker 2: end of US involvement in this conflict? Like, could this

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Speaker 2: go back to being Israel's war tomorrow next week?

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Speaker 4: I think this is the key question. I think what

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Speaker 4: we'll decide that is how Iran retaliates. If they retaliate

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Speaker 4: in a way that's unsuccessful in terms of targeting American

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Speaker 4: forces or American citizens, then there might be a way

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Speaker 4: to keep this from spiraling.

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Speaker 2: This is the Big Take from Bloomberg News. I'm Sarah Holder.

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Speaker 2: For more reporting on the Israel Iran war from on

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Speaker 2: the ground in the Middle East and from the White House,

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Speaker 2: go to Bloomberg dot Com and tomorrow on the Big Take,

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Speaker 2: we'll bring you an episode diving into what this latest

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Speaker 2: escalation could mean for oil markets and access to Iron

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Speaker 2: Strait of Hormuz. To get more from The Big Take

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Speaker 2: We'll be back tomorrow.