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'Mission accomplished' Trump seemingly touts victory in Iran as war drags on · DEEP INSIGHT

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  Speaker 1: With global security on the line, I want to bring
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  Speaker 1: in MSNOW's Pia Schroeter. Retired Navy Rear Admiral John Kirby
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  Speaker 1: is an MSNOW National Security Analyst, former White House National
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  Speaker 1: Security Communications Advisor, and Director of the University of Chicago's
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  Speaker 1: Institute of Politics.
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  Speaker 2: Tim O'Brien, a.
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  Speaker 1: Senior executive editor of Bloomberg Opinion and an MSNOW political analyst.
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  Speaker 1: Admiral Kirby, I want to start with you because, correct
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  Speaker 1: me if I'm wrong, I think in 2003 when President
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  Speaker 1: Bush was on the USS Lincoln, interestingly enough, saying mission accomplished,
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  Speaker 1: you were still a lieutenant commander in the Navy, inactive.
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  Speaker 1: And I'm curious what you think, thinking about that moment
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  Speaker 1: in 2003 and Fast forward 23 years and seeing President
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  Speaker 1: Trump kind of tweet out something very, very similar.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, there's this, of course, there's always political
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  Speaker 3: pressure on a commander in chief when they enter a
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  Speaker 3: war to end it and to end it favorably and
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  Speaker 3: as soon as possible. Obviously, when President Bush made those
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  Speaker 3: comments aboard the Lincoln back then, the war wasn't over.
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  Speaker 4: It did drag on to a great cost of both
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  Speaker 4: lives and treasure.
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  Speaker 3: It does seem to me that President Trump is facing
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  Speaker 3: that same political pressure to wrap this.
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  Speaker 4: Up, to end it, or at least convince people that
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  Speaker 4: he's ended it. But obviously, he hasn't.
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  Speaker 3: If it was over, then he wouldn't have had the
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  Speaker 3: need to bring out the Treasury secretary last week to
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  Speaker 3: say that we were going to have a D-Day list
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  Speaker 3: of sanctions. If it was over, the Strait of Hormuz
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  Speaker 3: would be flowing at the pre-war levels.
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  Speaker 4: It's a trickle of ships getting through there.
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  Speaker 3: And if it was over, we wouldn't have a regime
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  Speaker 3: in Tehran, which is at least as radical as the
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  Speaker 3: one that he decapitated, if not more, with still designs
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  Speaker 3: on maintaining an ability to achieve a nuclear weapon. So
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  Speaker 3: clearly we're not done with this. I think it's just
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  Speaker 3: a wishful, aspirational meme that he posted to try to
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  Speaker 3: convince people that he has won when, in fact, this
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  Speaker 3: war has not only not been won, but I think
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  Speaker 3: on many levels, you could say it's been lost.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Priya, morale in the armed forces, you've been covering this
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  Speaker 1: better than probably any other reporter out there.
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  Speaker 2: Morale in the armed forces is low.
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  Speaker 1: It seems both across the board, whether it's the Army
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  Speaker 1: or the Navy or the Air Force, that this war
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  Speaker 1: has been exhausting for them.
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  Speaker 2: And I'm curious what they think, folks that.
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  Speaker 1: Are on one of these ships, one of these Air
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  Speaker 1: Force aircraft carriers, someone who is in the Middle East
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  Speaker 1: waiting for some kind of answer from this president about
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  Speaker 1: how the Iran war is going to end, how they
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  Speaker 1: take this in, how they take in the president of
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  Speaker 1: the United States, putting out a message that the mission
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  Speaker 1: is accomplished over and over and over again.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah, Eugene, I mean, we've lost track of the number
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  Speaker 5: of times we've heard from administration officials, either President Trump
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  Speaker 5: or Defense Secretary Hegseth, claiming some sort of version of
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  Speaker 5: mission accomplished. And what I'm hearing from family members of
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  Speaker 5: service members and service members themselves is there's simply just
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  Speaker 5: a lack of trust when they hear things like that.
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  Speaker 5: They thought that their deployments were going to be ending
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  Speaker 5: back in March and April. And instead, they kept getting
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  Speaker 5: extended and extended with no end in sight, which is
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  Speaker 5: what led to much of the reporting I was doing
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  Speaker 5: about morale issues and exhaustion. And so specifically in the
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  Speaker 5: case of the Lincoln, they didn't even believe that they
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  Speaker 5: were actually going home until Admiral Cooper, the CENTCOM commander, arrived.
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  Speaker 5: went on their ship physically in person and told them
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  Speaker 5: that you are in fact going home. So I think
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  Speaker 5: there's a little bit more trust when a uniformed person
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  Speaker 5: in their chain of command says you specifically are going home.
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  Speaker 5: But clearly there is no mission accomplished and this war
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  Speaker 5: is not over when we're mobilizing other aircraft carriers like
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  Speaker 5: the USS George Washington into the region. And all the
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  Speaker 5: former leaders I'm talking to are talking about changing our
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  Speaker 5: force posture to put more troops and more assets in
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  Speaker 5: the region because we're going to have to indefinitely hold
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  Speaker 5: on to this blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.
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  Speaker 1: Priya, you also have new reporting about the sailor from
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  Speaker 1: the USS Lincoln who jumped and his wife saying that
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  Speaker 1: there was disciplinary action charges happening afterwards.
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  Speaker 2: What else can you tell folks? Yeah.
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  Speaker 5: So, Eugene, this sailor specifically is basically being accused of
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  Speaker 5: violating two articles of the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
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  Speaker 5: One of them is for malingering, which basically alleges that
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  Speaker 5: a service member faked an illness or an injury to
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  Speaker 5: get out of work, duty or service. And the other
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  Speaker 5: one basically alleges that a service member left their work
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  Speaker 5: duty station without the proper authority. So this sailor in
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  Speaker 5: particular is facing a captain's mast.
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  Speaker 4: It's a version of.
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  Speaker 5: A nonjudicial punishment where he could basically get only half
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  Speaker 5: of his pay for a certain period of time. And
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  Speaker 5: I think it raises a lot of serious questions about
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  Speaker 5: how the military is handling mental health issues, especially at
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  Speaker 5: a time, as I just discussed, where so many service
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  Speaker 5: members are saying that they're depressed and exhausted because their
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  Speaker 5: deployments keep getting extended and they're facing a so many,
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  Speaker 5: you know, deteriorating conditions when it comes to a lack
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  Speaker 5: of supplies and food.
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  Speaker 2: Priya Sridhar, thank you so much.
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  Speaker 1: I'm going to let you go because I know there's
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  Speaker 1: a lot of reporting that you have to get to.
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  Speaker 2: I appreciate you taking the time.
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  Speaker 1: Admiral Kirby, what is your reaction to what you just
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  Speaker 1: heard from Priya as someone who has done this work?
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  Speaker 1: What is the reaction to the morale that these folks
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  Speaker 1: are facing right now and feeling?
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  Speaker 3: Well, Look, lengthy deployments with uncertain endings absolutely affect a
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  Speaker 3: crew's morale and certainly contribute to a sense of both
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  Speaker 3: mental and physical fatigue when you're on station that long
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  Speaker 3: and you're being whiplashed between combat operations and then holding
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  Speaker 3: back while flying. negotiations are going on. I mean, it
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  Speaker 3: takes a toll on folks. Ships and sailors get tired
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  Speaker 3: over time. And so I'm not surprised that there have
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  Speaker 3: been these stories coming from the Lincoln after such a
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  Speaker 3: lengthy deployment, again, with great uncertainty about when it was
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  Speaker 3: going to end. I remember on my carrier deployment, this
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  Speaker 3: was a long time ago, I won't tell you how
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  Speaker 3: long ago, but even on a little six-month deployment that
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  Speaker 3: I went on in support of the Iraqi Kurds, almost
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  Speaker 3: from the time we left the home base, there were
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  Speaker 3: rumors about how we were going to get home early
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  Speaker 3: or how we were going.
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  Speaker 4: To get extended.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, so the rumor mill on a ship just
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  Speaker 3: gets virulent and it's hard to hold that back. And
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  Speaker 3: those rumors only compound that level of difficulty for sailors.
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  Speaker 2: Tim, On the.
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  Speaker 1: Same day that President Trump posted that mission accomplished meme,
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  Speaker 1: I guess, I'm not even sure what they call them
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  Speaker 1: anymore on Tooth Social. He told Al Jazeera that the
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  Speaker 1: war could go on indefinitely.
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  Speaker 2: Let me read this to you. Quote, I have no
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  Speaker 2: time scheduled.
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  Speaker 5: None.
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  Speaker 2: I'm not in a hurry. I have no time schedule
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  Speaker 2: at all.
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  Speaker 1: No one would accuse President Trump of being intellectually consistent
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  Speaker 1: on anything.
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  Speaker 2: But maybe there's a, do you think there's a strategy here? Like,
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  Speaker 2: what is going on?
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  Speaker 6: I always think, Eugene, it's a mistake to put strategy
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  Speaker 6: and Donald Trump in the same sentence. He doesn't plan.
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  Speaker 6: He's not intellectually curious. He doesn't take the advice of
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  Speaker 6: advisors who have greater experience or insight than he does.
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  Speaker 6: His whole life has been a triumph of style over substance.
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  Speaker 6: smoke and mirrors over reality. He said he was a
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  Speaker 6: self-made man when he was the son of a wealthy father,
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  Speaker 6: that he was a brilliant student who got into college
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  Speaker 6: based on his intellectual bona fides when Family Connections got
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  Speaker 6: him in, that he was a great businessman when, in fact,
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  Speaker 6: he was a serial bankruptcy artist. And now as president,
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  Speaker 6: he's saying this war is won when business By all accounts,
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  Speaker 6: it clearly isn't. How is he defining winning? Is the
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  Speaker 6: Strait of Hormuz open again? Is oil shipping freely through
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  Speaker 6: the Strait of Hormuz?
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  Speaker 7: No.
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  Speaker 6: Has stability been returned to the Middle East?
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  Speaker 4: No.
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  Speaker 6: Is there a less threatening regime in Iran? No. Are
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  Speaker 6: our sailors and our service people out of harm's way?
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  Speaker 4: No.
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  Speaker 6: Is this going to haunt us for quite a long time, reputationally,
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  Speaker 6: militarily and diplomatically?
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  Speaker 4: No.
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  Speaker 2: Absolutely, yes.
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  Speaker 6: So the only way that this is defined as a
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  Speaker 6: win is in Donald Trump's own mind. And I think
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  Speaker 6: he's so used to using propaganda or spin.
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  Speaker 2: To get over on people.
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  Speaker 6: He did it as a celebrity, as a businessman. Unfortunately,
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  Speaker 6: now as president of the United States and the most
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  Speaker 6: powerful man in the world, the consequences of him constantly
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  Speaker 6: selling snake oil are is damaging for the U.S. and
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  Speaker 6: the rest of the world.
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  Speaker 2: I guess we don't tell anyone what the mission is.
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  Speaker 1: It's easy to say mission accomplished because we're not even
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  Speaker 1: sure what we're really supposed.
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  Speaker 4: To be doing.
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  Speaker 6: Remember they didn't say when they went into this war
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  Speaker 6: what their goals were. They laid them out and they
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  Speaker 6: haven't achieved any of them.
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  Speaker 1: And those have changed over and over again. I want
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  Speaker 1: to play something from the Trump administration when we want
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  Speaker 1: them to be focusing on the current war, the war
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  Speaker 1: they are focused on, which is the one in Afghanistan.
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  Speaker 2: Watch this.
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  Speaker 7: We are conducting a thorough review of what took place
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  Speaker 7: in Afghanistan, and I'm going to be honest with you
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  Speaker 7: about what that's turning up. The deeper we look, the
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  Speaker 7: more there is to look at. We are finding things
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  Speaker 7: that we did not expect. Recently, my team recovered highly
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  Speaker 7: relevant classified documents, material that should have been disclosed, stashed,
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  Speaker 7: and hidden away in safes where they would not be found.
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  Speaker 7: And after the team reviewed these documents, it became clear
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  Speaker 7: why someone tried to hide them.
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  Speaker 1: Admiral, you were in the administration when the withdrawal took place.
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  Speaker 1: What's your reaction to the DOD's decision to pursue an
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  Speaker 1: investigation now to kind of trickle out some of these accusations,
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  Speaker 1: highly classified things that should have been been sent out?
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  Speaker 2: How do you think this is going to play out?
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  Speaker 2: What do you think they're looking for here?
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  Speaker 4: Well, it's hard to know until we see exactly what
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  Speaker 4: they find.
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  Speaker 3: Look, any any review that can uncover more lessons learned,
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  Speaker 3: I think in the main that that's that's never a
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  Speaker 3: bad thing for a military operation of the magnitude of
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  Speaker 3: the withdrawal. But the way they've couched this publicly is
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  Speaker 3: that it's really more of a retribution. It's really more
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  Speaker 3: about pointing fingers at the previous administration. I'll just say
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  Speaker 3: two things. One, I hope that when they reveal their results,
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  Speaker 3: they also make sure that they include the effect of
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  Speaker 3: the Doha agreement that President Trump signed with the Taliban
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  Speaker 3: before President Biden took office, because that set the timeline
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  Speaker 3: in motion. That set the expectations of the Taliban in
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  Speaker 3: terms of how they were going to behave and potentially
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  Speaker 3: govern Afghanistan going forward. Number two, on the issue of
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  Speaker 3: these documents, again, I don't know what they say.
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  Speaker 4: I don't know where they came from.
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  Speaker 3: I certainly can't Speak to the veracity of the claim.
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  Speaker 3: But if you have documents locked in a safe, that's
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  Speaker 3: where they're supposed to be. If it's a classified document
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  Speaker 3: that you're trying to preserve, you put it in a safe. Otherwise,
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  Speaker 3: it gets burned appropriately and gets destroyed. So, again, we
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  Speaker 3: have to see what these documents actually say. But it
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  Speaker 3: sounds to me like they will probably be being preserved
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  Speaker 3: appropriately in a safe locked in a space where only
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  Speaker 3: limited people could have access to them.