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US, Iran Trade Airstrikes as Fears Grow of a Return to War · Balance of Power

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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. You're listening to the
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0:25
Speaker 2: You made it to Little Friday.
0:28
Speaker 3: We're getting close, you know, coming after a short week
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Speaker 3: with the long weekend, this thing seems like two weeks
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Speaker 3: in one.
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Speaker 2: But I guess every week sort of does. Right. It's
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Speaker 2: the ninth of July.
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Speaker 3: There are questions about whether we are back at war
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Speaker 3: with Iran, and we may not be able to answer
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Speaker 3: them today, but we're going to do our best.
0:45
Speaker 2: With an update coming up from the White House.
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Speaker 3: Becca Wasser is going to join us from London with
0:50
Speaker 3: the options that are now facing the President, who is
0:52
Speaker 3: back home. He's got a bunch of events on his schedule.
0:56
Speaker 3: None of them are open to the press, mostly things
0:59
Speaker 3: described as signing time and executive time. But if he
1:02
Speaker 3: does emerge, of course we'll be talking about it with
1:05
Speaker 3: our eyes on the markets here. And we talked yesterday
1:08
Speaker 3: about whether this is the new normal, whether anything really
1:11
Speaker 3: changed at all, we're blowing up more stuff or on
1:13
Speaker 3: shooting back a little more. But there's technically still a
1:19
Speaker 3: cease fire. Aside from the President saying it was over,
1:23
Speaker 3: there's been no formal dispatching of the MoU and the
1:26
Speaker 3: markets are creeping higher again here. The price of oil
1:29
Speaker 3: is rolling back, and by the end of the day
1:31
Speaker 3: we'll probably be talking about the reflecting pool or the arc,
1:34
Speaker 3: the trump for something else that has nothing to do
1:37
Speaker 3: with what matters, and we'll all be surprised the next
1:41
Speaker 3: time this flares up. Then again, as I said, we
1:45
Speaker 3: blew up a lot of stuff last night, second straight
1:47
Speaker 3: day of attacks, US Central Command taking to Twitter because
1:51
Speaker 3: that's the only way you communicate around here anymore. Another
1:54
Speaker 3: round of strikes to further degrade Tehran's ability to attack
1:58
Speaker 3: commercial shipping in the Strait, which by the way, may
2:01
Speaker 3: as well be frozen with a foot of ice because
2:04
Speaker 3: no one's going through it right now. Strange to see
2:07
Speaker 3: oil fall back. Then again, with the technical response to
2:10
Speaker 3: yesterday's big jump, I don't know you figure that out.
2:13
Speaker 3: About ninety targets were hit though by the US, including
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Speaker 3: air defense systems, coastal surveillance assets, missile and drone storage sites.
2:22
Speaker 3: US forces remained vigilant, I read lethal and prepared to
2:26
Speaker 3: execute operations directed by the Commander in chief. The IRGC
2:31
Speaker 3: has also been busy hitting bases in Kuwait and Bahrain.
2:34
Speaker 3: That's the way they do it.
2:35
Speaker 4: You know.
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Speaker 3: They don't have much ability to strike us and not
2:38
Speaker 3: going to go shoot it an aircraft carrier, so they
2:40
Speaker 3: lob missiles over to our friends in places like Kuwait
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Speaker 3: and Bahrain, where massive US bases and ports are located.
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Speaker 3: Saying in a post on X Mohammed Gallibaf the parliamentary speaker,
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Speaker 3: let me be clear, if you strike, you will be
2:59
Speaker 3: struck back.
3:01
Speaker 2: The president says, we've already won.
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Speaker 3: That was the message on Air Force one last evening
3:10
Speaker 3: when he went to the back of the jet to
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Speaker 3: talk to reporters.
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Speaker 2: Listen, we have.
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Speaker 4: Anyways we could win, but we've already won militarily. They
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Speaker 4: very little, every little left, and they want to make
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Speaker 4: a deal so badly.
3:20
Speaker 5: They called a little while ago.
3:23
Speaker 4: They want to make it deal so badly. I just
3:25
Speaker 4: don't know if they were they making, and I don't
3:27
Speaker 4: know that they're going to.
3:28
Speaker 3: Hire the deal then now that was the new Air
3:31
Speaker 3: Force one, right, I'm getting confused. They had to put
3:34
Speaker 3: them on the old Air Force one to get out
3:35
Speaker 3: of Turkey. Then I guess they met the old the
3:39
Speaker 3: old one met the new one in England, and he
3:41
Speaker 3: got back on the new jet, the one with the
3:43
Speaker 3: luxury and Corinthian leather gifted by Cutter. Let's figure out
3:50
Speaker 3: what's going on by way of the White House that
3:52
Speaker 3: we're going to get analysis from Becca Wasser. Tyler Kendall
3:55
Speaker 3: is on the north lawn right now where the sun
3:57
Speaker 3: is threatening to come out. Tyler, it's great to see you.
4:00
Speaker 3: Welcome back. Have we heard from the President today about
4:04
Speaker 3: any of this? Do we know the status of the
4:05
Speaker 3: MoU at this point?
4:07
Speaker 6: Joe.
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Speaker 7: President Trump was asked yesterday about whether or not these
4:10
Speaker 7: developments meant that we are going to see all out
4:13
Speaker 7: fighting when it comes to the conflict in Iran, and
4:16
Speaker 7: he himself said, quote, I don't know, so as his
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Speaker 7: word is to what we are now reporting, We're going
4:23
Speaker 7: to have to watch to see how this develops, because
4:25
Speaker 7: it's become very evident that the White House's patience was
4:29
Speaker 7: wearing thin when it comes to the diplomatic efforts. President
4:32
Speaker 7: Trump himself has outlined that that doesn't necessarily mean that
4:35
Speaker 7: all diplomacy is off. He did seem to give some
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Speaker 7: leeway yesterday for his negotiators to continue their work, though
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Speaker 7: he said in his opinion, he doesn't think that it
4:44
Speaker 7: will ultimately prove fruitful. And the fighting that we've seen
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Speaker 7: in the last forty eight hours does mark the most
4:49
Speaker 7: significant uptick since that memorandum of understanding was signed. But
4:53
Speaker 7: what really feels different about this time, I think it's
4:56
Speaker 7: fair to say, is that we saw the US put
4:58
Speaker 7: back on the economic press. Sure, we saw the US
5:01
Speaker 7: earlier this week revoke that weaver to allow Iranian crude
5:04
Speaker 7: to get to market. Previously, when there's been flareups, those
5:09
Speaker 7: sanctions had been in place. But the fact that this
5:11
Speaker 7: was considered to be really that carrot rather than the
5:14
Speaker 7: stick to get around to the negotiating table, and the
5:16
Speaker 7: US has already chosen to reverse that, that does seem
5:19
Speaker 7: like a very significant development beyond the kinetic action, because
5:24
Speaker 7: this was something that the White House was really willing
5:26
Speaker 7: to put out there, put on the table, but at
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Speaker 7: this point it didn't seem to budge Iran in the
5:31
Speaker 7: right direction.
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Speaker 2: It's interesting you point this outh Tyler.
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Speaker 3: Iran has rushed out tankers carrying roughly eleven million barrels
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Speaker 3: of crew of the past twenty four hours, we're reporting
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Speaker 3: on the terminal here. The problem is it's on the water.
5:44
Speaker 3: They just can't get it out anywhere. If the President's
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Speaker 3: going to be blocking this straight, we'll have to follow
5:48
Speaker 3: this very closely.
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Speaker 2: And Tyler, we thank you.
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Speaker 3: I'm sure we'll have more to talk about in our
5:52
Speaker 3: second hour here as we go live from the north
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Speaker 3: lawn of the White House to our Bloomberg bureau in London,
5:57
Speaker 3: where Becca Wasser is standing by our top to de
6:00
Speaker 3: Fence analyst at Bloomberg Economics is with us as the
6:03
Speaker 3: President is once again presented with a menu of options. Beca,
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Speaker 3: I'm really glad you could join us, and I'd love
6:08
Speaker 3: your thoughts on what's happening right now. How we find
6:12
Speaker 3: ninety targets two nights in a row of attacks when
6:17
Speaker 3: the President has said that we have already defeated them militarily.
6:20
Speaker 3: How do we keep finding new things to target?
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Speaker 8: Well, one is it's because targets are regenerating. We see
6:28
Speaker 8: Iran trying to rebuild its capabilities and shifting assets all around.
6:33
Speaker 8: That's going to generate new targets, but also so much
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Speaker 8: of this it's really restrikes. You see this continued cycle
6:42
Speaker 8: where essentially the United States finds itself mowing the lawn
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Speaker 8: to steal an Israeli phrase, which is continually going after
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Speaker 8: targets again and again to keep them from regenerating to
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Speaker 8: a point where they can hold various assets at risk.
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Speaker 8: And so this brings the US into really slippery slope
7:00
Speaker 8: where it's starting to look as though we're going to
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Speaker 8: be in conflict for a very long time, and that
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Speaker 8: potentially could risk being in one of the very forever
7:08
Speaker 8: wars that frankly Trump wanted to not even get into
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Speaker 8: in the first place.
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Speaker 3: And here we are with the President saying we're hitting
7:16
Speaker 3: them twenty to one. I don't know what you make
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Speaker 3: of this. Listen to the rhetoric from the President last
7:20
Speaker 3: evening on the scale of this most recent round of
7:23
Speaker 3: attacks beca here he is.
7:25
Speaker 2: We just said it.
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Speaker 4: Very hard, and I say, we hit up twenty to one.
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Speaker 4: Every time they hit us, We're gonna hit up twenty.
7:31
Speaker 5: They did a little.
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Speaker 4: Something today, but it was really retribution for last night.
7:35
Speaker 2: They hit actually three votes, not too and we hit
7:40
Speaker 2: back buch harder.
7:42
Speaker 3: They hit three boats, not too he said. When they
7:44
Speaker 3: hit back, we hit back twenty to one, is his point. Becca,
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Speaker 3: I don't know if that's a military strategy. But how
7:50
Speaker 3: different in scale and intensity are these attacks that we're
7:53
Speaker 3: pursuing these last two days based on what we've seen
7:55
Speaker 3: over the past couple of weeks.
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Speaker 8: Well, let's start with the math. I am no economist,
8:00
Speaker 8: but I'm pretty sure that three times twenty is sixty,
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Speaker 8: not ninety. But that being said, I think we did
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Speaker 8: see really a slight shift in some of the targets
8:10
Speaker 8: that the US went after in this second day of strikes,
8:15
Speaker 8: and that is an expansion of the geography slightly, as
8:18
Speaker 8: well as purposely going after two railway bridges. So that's
8:23
Speaker 8: critical infrastructure that can be used for military purposes but
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Speaker 8: also civilian purposes. And I see that as a signal
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Speaker 8: to Iran of if you are going to continue these strikes,
8:34
Speaker 8: we have options to escalate, and one of the ways
8:36
Speaker 8: in which we can escalate is to go after some
8:39
Speaker 8: of the basic civilian infrastructure across your country. And that's
8:43
Speaker 8: going to also cause you some pain with your own
8:46
Speaker 8: domestic population.
8:48
Speaker 2: Okay, I'll bite on the bridge.
8:50
Speaker 3: Because Iran issued a statement about this, saying that this
8:54
Speaker 3: was a direct violation of the MoU. Others have said
8:58
Speaker 3: it smacked of war crimes when you started to civilian infrastructure.
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Speaker 2: What really went on here.
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Speaker 8: Beca I think there was an effort to try and
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Speaker 8: once again degrade Iran's ability to be able to carry
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Speaker 8: out attacks, and perhaps they were using these railways for
9:15
Speaker 8: logistics and trying to move material around, you know. But again,
9:19
Speaker 8: it's a very slippery slope here for the United States
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Speaker 8: if you go after civilian infrastructure, and they can argue
9:25
Speaker 8: that these are essentially dual use things that can be
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Speaker 8: used for military means as well as for your civilian means,
9:31
Speaker 8: making them acceptable under international law. But it is a
9:35
Speaker 8: slippery slope, and particularly when you've had rhetoric from the
9:38
Speaker 8: President in the past where he's essentially said that he's
9:41
Speaker 8: going to annihilate in an entire civilization in reference to Iran.
9:45
Speaker 8: You look at certain attacks on civilian infrastructure and you
9:50
Speaker 8: find yourself potentially in a place that is not necessarily
9:53
Speaker 8: the most palatable.
9:56
Speaker 2: Becca, thank you so much.
9:57
Speaker 3: As always, something tells me the London Bureau is getting
9:59
Speaker 3: smarter all the time. She leads our Defense analysis at
10:01
Speaker 3: Bloomberg Economics, Becke Wasser, thanks to you. The statement from
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Speaker 3: Iran's Foreign ministry about the attack on the railway line
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Speaker 3: and that bridge a flagrant violation the words chosen of
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Speaker 3: articles one and five in the US Iran Memorandum of Understanding.
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Speaker 2: Stay with us on Balance of Power. We'll have much
10:22
Speaker 2: more coming up after this.
10:27
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10:45
Speaker 3: As we wait to hear from the president today, and
10:47
Speaker 3: he could still open some of the events that he
10:49
Speaker 3: has on his schedule build so far simply as signing
10:52
Speaker 3: time and executive time, which we frequently see on the
10:55
Speaker 3: presidential guidance. We're also covering breaking news and a vacuum
10:59
Speaker 3: that is has been left in the Senate race in Maine.
11:02
Speaker 2: Listen.
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Speaker 9: I have faced some very serious allegations, and I just
11:08
Speaker 9: want to make it clear this is all false. We
11:11
Speaker 9: did it the way that we were told. We are
11:13
Speaker 9: supposed to make change, and we won, and now they
11:17
Speaker 9: are not going to let us have it, not if
11:25
Speaker 9: it's me, and so we're suspending campaign operations.
11:33
Speaker 3: An emotional gram Platner in an eleven minute free form
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Speaker 3: handheld vertical video, seemingly recorded on his telephone, raging against
11:43
Speaker 3: the party machine and making the announcement that many, if
11:47
Speaker 3: not most Democrats in Maine were hoping for suspending his
11:51
Speaker 3: race for US Senate. This, of course, is not the
11:55
Speaker 3: end of the story. As we've heard repeatedly from organizers
11:59
Speaker 3: in the Democratic part, the Platner campaign was trying somehow
12:01
Speaker 3: to affect the outcome of well, what happens next and
12:06
Speaker 3: who might replace him? In carrying the Democratic torch in
12:10
Speaker 3: an effort to one seat Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine,
12:14
Speaker 3: frequently targeted by Democrats, never toppled, And there are questions
12:18
Speaker 3: this evening about how exactly this is going to go forward.
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Speaker 2: The party is.
12:23
Speaker 3: Now talking about a nominating convention with only weeks to go,
12:27
Speaker 3: and we wonder if that will be enough for voters
12:30
Speaker 3: to feel like they had to say in this and
12:32
Speaker 3: to have a credible campaign move forward in such a
12:35
Speaker 3: short period. Of time, a lot easier said than done.
12:37
Speaker 3: As we now play to our political panel for their
12:40
Speaker 3: take on this, Bloomberg Politics contributors Genie Shanzano and Rick
12:44
Speaker 3: Davis join us. Now I'm glad to say Genie is here,
12:47
Speaker 3: a democracy visiting fellow at Harvard Kennedy School's Ash Center,
12:50
Speaker 3: and our friend Rick Davis, partner at Stone Court Capital,
12:53
Speaker 3: are republican strategist. Now what, Genie, how do you pull
12:57
Speaker 3: off a convention with six hundred delegates with two weeks?
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Speaker 5: Yeah?
13:03
Speaker 10: And can I just say, Joe, he needed to say
13:06
Speaker 10: five words, I'm suspending my campaign. Instead, we were treated
13:11
Speaker 10: to this crying game, narcissistic oh, blaming the media, blaming,
13:16
Speaker 10: blaming everybody, never taking responsibility for the very credible allegations
13:21
Speaker 10: against him of breaking and entering and rape, along with
13:25
Speaker 10: the many other things including Nazi tattoos. That was a
13:29
Speaker 10: video for the ages, I have to say, and one
13:33
Speaker 10: we really didn't need. And you know, I would just
13:36
Speaker 10: give credit to the main Democratic Party, the executive director there,
13:40
Speaker 10: Devin Murphy Anderson. She has done a brilliant job pushing back,
13:45
Speaker 10: particularly on something that you mentioned, which is the reason
13:48
Speaker 10: apparently this video took so long to come out because
13:52
Speaker 10: this guy and his campaign wanted a role in his replacement. Now,
13:57
Speaker 10: can you just imagine if somebody like Eric Swallwall said,
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Speaker 10: I'll step down from the governor's race in California, but
14:03
Speaker 10: I'd like to decide who's going to fill it in.
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Speaker 10: You know, it is narcissistic, and you know that main
14:09
Speaker 10: Democrats do have a process in place.
14:12
Speaker 5: It's a short.
14:12
Speaker 10: Time period, but boy, good riddance, and there's a big,
14:17
Speaker 10: rich Democratic bench there that can certainly fill and excel
14:21
Speaker 10: in these shoes.
14:23
Speaker 3: Well, the crying game had a surprise ending as I
14:26
Speaker 3: remember here Genie and this can too. You know, if
14:29
Speaker 3: anybody could pull this off, I figure, it's Rick Davis.
14:32
Speaker 3: What do you have two weeks? What's July twenty seven?
14:35
Speaker 3: You need to hold a nominating convention this month, Rick,
14:38
Speaker 3: six hundred delegates to pick the nominee.
14:41
Speaker 2: Go, how do you do it?
14:43
Speaker 7: You know?
14:43
Speaker 6: Actually, you know, getting the hall and filling it with
14:45
Speaker 6: people who are already leaders of the Democratic Party main
14:48
Speaker 6: isn't the hard part. And even picking a credit you know,
14:52
Speaker 6: that's just a couple of ballots. Boom, you got a candidate.
14:54
Speaker 6: The hard part starts then which is getting the entire
14:58
Speaker 6: Democratic Party to embrace that individual, to get the money
15:02
Speaker 6: wrapped around that individual in order to.
15:04
Speaker 2: Wage a campaign.
15:05
Speaker 6: It's going to be the most expensive campaign in the
15:08
Speaker 6: midterm elections. I mean, they're talking about a potential add
15:12
Speaker 6: by totaling four hundred million dollars, and if the candidate.
15:17
Speaker 2: Is incredible, the money doesn't show up.
15:19
Speaker 6: And really it doesn't matter whether or not you'd had
15:22
Speaker 6: a convention or not. So the trick here really starts
15:26
Speaker 6: post convention, and it almost doesn't matter who they pick.
15:30
Speaker 6: I mean, the parties are going to have to coalesce
15:33
Speaker 6: around this this individual, regardless of their barnacles or their abilities,
15:37
Speaker 6: and you know, and make this a competitive race because
15:41
Speaker 6: as as you know, as we heard from Jim Messina
15:44
Speaker 6: earlier today on this show, he's run every kind of
15:48
Speaker 6: rationale around this how to Democrats Ny Senate, And the
15:51
Speaker 6: one thing he keeps getting back to is all roads
15:54
Speaker 6: lead through Maine. So this is the kind of thing
15:56
Speaker 6: where if the if the Democrats are prepared to spend
15:59
Speaker 6: hundreds of millions of dollars on a brand new candidate
16:02
Speaker 6: with limited statewide experience and probably a record of losing,
16:06
Speaker 6: that's what's going to make this critical for them?
16:10
Speaker 2: Boy?
16:10
Speaker 3: If I have really something and yes to all of this, Genie.
16:14
Speaker 3: We heard from Emily's List, the Pro Choice Women's Pack
16:19
Speaker 3: responded to that video post that Graham Platner put on
16:24
Speaker 3: Twitter eleven minutes it says, and zero accountability. With that said,
16:31
Speaker 3: what do we need to hear from the Elizabeth Warrens
16:35
Speaker 3: and the Rocannas and the Bernie Sanders who were okay
16:38
Speaker 3: with the Nazi tattoo, They were okay with the sexting
16:41
Speaker 3: and the philandering whatever else, all these other accusations were
16:44
Speaker 3: but found a line here because a lot of this,
16:48
Speaker 3: as I think you have stated, it could have been prevented.
16:52
Speaker 10: It absolutely could have. And you know Emily's List, I
16:56
Speaker 10: couldn't agree more. They are absolutely right, Zoo, zero accountability there.
17:01
Speaker 10: And I do think you have Democrats with eggs on
17:04
Speaker 10: their face, And I would say it starts with the DSCC,
17:08
Speaker 10: it starts, unfortunately with the Democratic National Party with Chuck Schumer.
17:13
Speaker 10: You know, part of what we have to do is
17:15
Speaker 10: go back when Platner was first plucked out of obscurity,
17:19
Speaker 10: and he was plucked by DC and New York City
17:22
Speaker 10: Progressive consultants. He didn't grow up organically out of the
17:26
Speaker 10: main woods.
17:27
Speaker 5: He was plucked.
17:29
Speaker 10: And what they did is they wanted Janet Mills to run.
17:33
Speaker 10: She was uncertain, she was hemming and huying, and they
17:36
Speaker 10: pushed out other really viable candidates, which is why we
17:40
Speaker 10: saw so many candidates get in on the governor's race there,
17:43
Speaker 10: and so they do have egg on their face. They're
17:46
Speaker 10: going to have to account for this, But I do
17:48
Speaker 10: think this is in some ways the best thing that
17:51
Speaker 10: could have happened, and the fact that it happened in
17:54
Speaker 10: time to replace him and Joe.
17:56
Speaker 6: I have to.
17:57
Speaker 10: Say, one person we're not going to see on the
17:59
Speaker 10: back is Mick Dreamy. Patrick Dempsey wrote an op ed
18:03
Speaker 10: he's not running, but he has done a book to
18:06
Speaker 10: see who the candidate's going to be. But there are
18:08
Speaker 10: a lot of viable candidates out there, and a lot
18:10
Speaker 10: of progressives who can without all the baggage, who have
18:15
Speaker 10: the same issues on their side that Platner was running on.
18:20
Speaker 10: He is not the only progressive.
18:21
Speaker 3: Out there well, and some of whom have been vetted
18:25
Speaker 3: and were in the gubernatorial campaign. Narov Shaw is getting
18:29
Speaker 3: a lot of talk. Former main CDC chief as well
18:32
Speaker 3: as the state Secretary of State Shanna Bellows. We'll see
18:36
Speaker 3: about that, obviously, but these could be somewhat familiar names.
18:40
Speaker 3: Certainly on the convention level, we'll see, I guess on
18:43
Speaker 3: a state wide level, Rick, I want to dive back
18:45
Speaker 3: into this video that Graham Platner made because he said
18:49
Speaker 3: a lot in eleven minutes, and it got a little
18:51
Speaker 3: conspiratorial at times. You could sort of feel the cosmic
18:55
Speaker 3: irony that this man is sensing as he sits out
18:59
Speaker 3: there on the deck in Maine steps from the oyster farm.
19:03
Speaker 3: Listen to how he put this sort of media political
19:07
Speaker 3: party conspiracy together in what he sees as a war
19:11
Speaker 3: against him.
19:11
Speaker 9: Listen, we live in a political system that is not
19:14
Speaker 9: built for normal people. It is a system that is
19:19
Speaker 9: built structurally to make sure that movements like ours cannot flourish,
19:26
Speaker 9: that if they begin to succeed, they can be crushed.
19:30
Speaker 9: But now the ball is in the court of the
19:31
Speaker 9: Democratic establishment. My name might be on the ballot right now,
19:36
Speaker 9: but that ballot line belongs to the people of Maine,
19:41
Speaker 9: and on November three, it needs to belong to the
19:44
Speaker 9: people of Maine, and the next Democratic Senator for Maine
19:49
Speaker 9: needs to belong to the people of Maine. They need
19:51
Speaker 9: to reflect the will and the values of the people
19:55
Speaker 9: of this state.
19:57
Speaker 3: Now beyond making you think that you don't want to
20:00
Speaker 3: be around this man when he's angry. Rick, A lot
20:03
Speaker 3: of people believe what he said, even take Graham Plattner's
20:07
Speaker 3: name out of it, and this campaign, believe that about
20:10
Speaker 3: American politics. And as somebody who has taken so called
20:13
Speaker 3: normal people, albeit many exceptional ones, as a campaign manager
20:18
Speaker 3: and molded them into a candidate and started a career
20:20
Speaker 3: in politics, I just wonder how you respond to that.
20:24
Speaker 6: Yeah, Look, this is the politics that we live in today,
20:27
Speaker 6: not the politics that I grew up in in the eighties,
20:30
Speaker 6: nineties and two thousands. And you could close your eyes
20:34
Speaker 6: and as David Axelrod said today, Graham Plattner took his
20:39
Speaker 6: script from Donald Trump. I mean, this is the same
20:42
Speaker 6: kind of rhetoric that Donald Trump used when he first
20:45
Speaker 6: ran for the Republican nomination. Right, Oh, these Republicans establishments
20:50
Speaker 6: against me.
20:51
Speaker 2: We're going to have to rip.
20:52
Speaker 6: This out of their hands. And literally, if you'd close
20:57
Speaker 6: your eyes and change the voice, it just very well
21:00
Speaker 6: could have been the same person not taking responsibility for
21:03
Speaker 6: any of their own shortfalls, not taking any responsibility for
21:07
Speaker 6: anything they'd done wrong in the process. And so look,
21:10
Speaker 6: I mean, this is this is the script. And every
21:14
Speaker 6: time Democrats criticize Donald Trump for you know, this kind
21:18
Speaker 6: of lack of accountability, all they got to do is
21:21
Speaker 6: look in the mirror and see Graham.
21:22
Speaker 2: Platner staring right back at him.
21:25
Speaker 6: And so until we have an agreement that somehow none
21:29
Speaker 6: of this actually is good for politics or good for
21:32
Speaker 6: the people who practice politics, then I think.
21:35
Speaker 2: We're going to just see more of this kind of junk.
21:37
Speaker 6: I mean, the last thing we needed to do is
21:40
Speaker 6: have to watch that video, listen to not take responsibility
21:43
Speaker 6: and count how many cars went by while he.
21:45
Speaker 2: Was given that thing. The worst produced thing I've ever
21:48
Speaker 2: seen in my life. I would only wish directoring.
21:51
Speaker 5: This tirens you know, come pick you up, and.
21:55
Speaker 2: Man, Hafference to the best of us happens to the
21:57
Speaker 2: best of us. He suspended his campaign.
22:03
Speaker 3: That used to be something that you did when you
22:05
Speaker 3: were thinking about dropping out of the race, which I
22:07
Speaker 3: thought the first video was. Remember he was going to
22:09
Speaker 3: stop down and think about things. Now he's suspending the campaign. Everybody,
22:13
Speaker 3: including me, says, well, he's out of the race. Should
22:16
Speaker 3: we assume that, I mean, is he waiting for some
22:19
Speaker 3: sort of window to come back?
22:23
Speaker 10: He can wait on the New York Times poll just
22:25
Speaker 10: before he dropped showed this was before these allegations came out,
22:29
Speaker 10: showed that he was losing to Susan Collins. And I
22:32
Speaker 10: am going to just remind everybody the Republicans let Donald
22:36
Speaker 10: Trump become president and run three times on their ticket,
22:40
Speaker 10: and they have nominated Ken Paxton to be their senator
22:45
Speaker 10: from Texas. The difference is Democrats have pushed out this
22:51
Speaker 10: Platner have pushed out Platner.
22:53
Speaker 5: But the other thing, Joe.
22:54
Speaker 10: Is I think we need to get over this moment
22:57
Speaker 10: where if you are working class, if you or somebody
23:00
Speaker 10: who has never run for office before, you have somehow
23:04
Speaker 10: committed these atrocities against women, you have made anti Semitic statements,
23:09
Speaker 10: and we're supposed to look away. There are a lot
23:12
Speaker 10: of wonderfully successful progressive populist people out there who have
23:18
Speaker 10: not been accused of these kind of really credible and
23:22
Speaker 10: horrific crimes. So the idea we have to take one
23:25
Speaker 10: with the other is laughable. And that shows that these
23:29
Speaker 10: consultants who went there did not do their job, and
23:32
Speaker 10: the Democratic Party did not do it until now that
23:36
Speaker 10: they got him out.
23:38
Speaker 3: Boy, really something just quickly, Rick, as a campaign operative,
23:42
Speaker 3: what happens to the folks who are running Graham Platner's
23:45
Speaker 3: campaign may have not shared information or we're responsible for
23:50
Speaker 3: this dumpster fire that we have here.
23:52
Speaker 2: Do they get jobs in the next cycle? How does
23:54
Speaker 2: this work?
23:55
Speaker 4: Yeah?
23:56
Speaker 6: First of all, on suspending a campaign, it's a legal
23:59
Speaker 6: framework allows him to continue to spend money and take
24:02
Speaker 6: it in to pay the bills that he auto. So
24:04
Speaker 6: that's just a nomenclature. Yeah, it's going to be very
24:07
Speaker 6: hard for these guys the way this went down, that
24:09
Speaker 6: video is going to basically tattoo unemployable on their forehead
24:13
Speaker 6: in politics.
24:14
Speaker 3: Wow, geez all right, speaking of tattoos pun intended, I'd
24:20
Speaker 3: say we put this one the bed. Rick Davis and
24:21
Speaker 3: Jeanie Shanzano will help us figure out though, how we're
24:24
Speaker 3: going to get through this convention and figure out what
24:26
Speaker 3: this race is going to be.
24:28
Speaker 2: I feel like we need to get up to Maine. Everybody.
24:30
Speaker 3: Producer James going to set up the bandwagon when we
24:33
Speaker 3: will be on the way. Rick Davis and Jeanie Shanzano,
24:34
Speaker 3: Bloomberg Politics contributors, thank you on this day after Platner
24:38
Speaker 3: suspends the campaign, stay with.
24:42
Speaker 2: Us on Balance of Power. We'll have much more coming
24:44
Speaker 2: up after this.
24:49
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast. Catch
24:53
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25:02
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25:06
Speaker 3: It's the Thursday edition and we're still following the bead
25:08
Speaker 3: in Iran after another night of back and forth. This
25:12
Speaker 3: was the second straight night of attacks by the US
25:15
Speaker 3: as promised by the President, and while we've not heard
25:17
Speaker 3: from Donald Trump today, US Central Command on social media
25:21
Speaker 3: saying forces completed another round of strikes with ninety targets,
25:25
Speaker 3: this time air defense systems, coastal surveillance assets, missile and
25:29
Speaker 3: drone storage sites, and saying that US forces remain vigilant, lethal,
25:34
Speaker 3: and prepared. Suggest there may be more where this came from.
25:37
Speaker 3: The President has repeatedly been presented with military options, and
25:40
Speaker 3: we know that fire is coming back in the other direction,
25:43
Speaker 3: not necessarily at the US Armada, that has been lined
25:47
Speaker 3: up near the strait. The IRGC struck US bases in
25:51
Speaker 3: Kuwait and Bahrain, repeating a pattern that we have seen
25:55
Speaker 3: striking our allies in the region that are home to
25:58
Speaker 3: US assets. And we want to hear more about this
26:01
Speaker 3: and maybe get a better idea of where we stand,
26:03
Speaker 3: where this MoU is, where the ceasefire stands. With Emily Harding,
26:07
Speaker 3: vice President of the Defense and Security Department at the
26:10
Speaker 3: Center for Strategic and International Studies CSIS, and a real expert,
26:14
Speaker 3: as we watch her resume as former director for Irana
26:17
Speaker 3: the National Security Council, former deputy staff director on the
26:20
Speaker 3: Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Emily has spent a long time,
26:24
Speaker 3: and we're glad to have you back. Welcome to Bloomberg
26:26
Speaker 3: TV and Radio. Are you assuming the ceasefire is over
26:30
Speaker 3: or that we're simply continuing this pattern of tit for
26:34
Speaker 3: tats against the backdrop of some form of talks.
26:38
Speaker 5: I don't think it's really over.
26:40
Speaker 11: I think this is definitely another example of war big
26:43
Speaker 11: continuation of policy by other means. Basically, both sides are
26:47
Speaker 11: communicating with violence at the moment. What we see is
26:50
Speaker 11: the Iranians expressing their displeasure at several triggers that have
26:54
Speaker 11: happened recently, including Israeli strikes inside Lemanon, some clashes with
26:58
Speaker 11: the Kurds and the worth of Iran, and then also
27:01
Speaker 11: this transit of ships close to the Omani side of
27:04
Speaker 11: the border, and we just saw them wrap up funeral
27:07
Speaker 11: festivities for the Ayatola and that's a moment where they
27:10
Speaker 11: seem to really have wanted to reassert themselves in the strait.
27:14
Speaker 11: And then we see the Trump administration pushing back very
27:16
Speaker 11: hard with retaliatory strike. So we are in one of
27:19
Speaker 11: these cycles. But that doesn't mean that we can't return
27:22
Speaker 11: to negotiations, returned to a ceasefire when both sides have
27:25
Speaker 11: in effect said their piece.
27:27
Speaker 3: Well, Emily, the US attacked Iran's coastal southern provinces and
27:32
Speaker 3: according to Iran, this is not from sencom two bridges
27:37
Speaker 3: in eastern provinces along the railway line to the city
27:40
Speaker 3: of Mashad, Iran calling the attacks this is a statement
27:44
Speaker 3: from the Foreign Ministry. I'm sure you've seen it. A
27:46
Speaker 3: flagrant violation of Articles one to five of the MoU
27:51
Speaker 3: for starters. What are we doing dropping bridges here? That
27:54
Speaker 3: seems like an escalation and what do you make of
27:56
Speaker 3: a flagrant violation?
27:58
Speaker 2: Does it still stand.
28:00
Speaker 11: I think both sides could shoot some talking points back
28:03
Speaker 11: and forth on who's violating THEU more, but that's really
28:06
Speaker 11: not a productive conversation at this point. On the point
28:09
Speaker 11: of the bridges, though, I think there's some conflicting opinions
28:12
Speaker 11: about that. From a military perspective, you could say that
28:15
Speaker 11: those bridges were very useful militarily to move things around
28:18
Speaker 11: inside iron that are necessary to keep harassing the straight.
28:22
Speaker 11: On the other hand, it's also civilian infrastructure, and civilians
28:25
Speaker 11: need to get around, so this is one of those
28:27
Speaker 11: things we're inside the Department of War. There would have
28:30
Speaker 11: been a lot of debate inside Sencom. There would have
28:32
Speaker 11: been a lot of debate over whether these were legitimate
28:34
Speaker 11: military targets. We're also pretty deep into this conflict at
28:38
Speaker 11: this point, and while we started it with a huge
28:41
Speaker 11: target deck, those have kind of worn down a little bit.
28:44
Speaker 11: So now we're looking for is smaller targets, small fast
28:48
Speaker 11: boats and things that are really going to send a message.
28:50
Speaker 11: And to me, those strikes on bridges and infrastructure really
28:53
Speaker 11: says to the Iranians that, look, we can bring some
28:56
Speaker 11: serious pain to your administration, and we're going to be
28:59
Speaker 11: in this to win this.
29:01
Speaker 2: Wow.
29:01
Speaker 3: You know, I just I wonder and I've asked a
29:04
Speaker 3: few people this. When you hear a couple nights in
29:06
Speaker 3: a row, he we just struck ninety more targets. We're
29:08
Speaker 3: taking the fight to Iran. Having heard repeatedly from the
29:12
Speaker 3: President that we have defeated Iran militarily, We've destroyed their
29:17
Speaker 3: air force and navy, how can we continue to find
29:20
Speaker 3: so many new targets. Are they rebuilding reconstituting sites or
29:24
Speaker 3: are these lower level, lower grade targets that might not
29:27
Speaker 3: have been prioritized earlier in the war.
29:30
Speaker 11: Right, So there are big strategic targets like the facilities
29:33
Speaker 11: where they're working on nuclear weapons production, where they're working
29:36
Speaker 11: on nuclear enrichment.
29:38
Speaker 5: Those things have been thoroughly destroyed.
29:40
Speaker 11: When you look at smaller targets like these, however, it
29:43
Speaker 11: is pretty easy to rebuild some of it. A lot
29:46
Speaker 11: of what they're doing in the Strait is they're harassing
29:48
Speaker 11: shipping with small drones. Those are very easy to hide,
29:52
Speaker 11: very easy to produce, and very easy to move around
29:55
Speaker 11: the country. So those are going to be the kind
29:56
Speaker 11: of mobile targets they're looking for now we've also seen
29:59
Speaker 11: them a harassed shipping in the Strait with small boats,
30:02
Speaker 11: small fast boats.
30:04
Speaker 5: Those can be hidden in.
30:04
Speaker 11: Any number of places all along the Iranian coast, and
30:08
Speaker 11: they can keep moving that material into positions. So while
30:11
Speaker 11: we are continually knocking down a lot of these targets,
30:14
Speaker 11: some are going to come back on. Others are going
30:16
Speaker 11: to be deeper into the target deck or these things
30:19
Speaker 11: that we didn't strike before that now we're going to
30:21
Speaker 11: send a message by striking got it.
30:24
Speaker 3: As I mentioned, you were director for Iran on the
30:26
Speaker 3: National Security Council seven o eight, so the George W.
30:29
Speaker 3: Bush administration, Emily, to what extent were you talking about
30:34
Speaker 3: this very issue, the extent to which you gamed out
30:38
Speaker 3: having to protect the Straight or maybe occupying karg Island.
30:41
Speaker 3: Are the stories and targets you're reading about now familiar
30:45
Speaker 3: to you.
30:46
Speaker 2: I realized you.
30:47
Speaker 3: Can't describe a classified information, but were these considerations that long.
30:51
Speaker 5: Ago quite familiar?
30:54
Speaker 11: In a lot of ways, this is a war that
30:56
Speaker 11: we've been planning for, waiting for for twenty years. Back
30:59
Speaker 11: when I was on the National Security Council, we were
31:01
Speaker 11: seeing the Iranian government go after our troops in Iraq
31:05
Speaker 11: in a very aggressive way, and so we were planning
31:07
Speaker 11: for a potential escalation that could lead to this kind
31:10
Speaker 11: of war. We did the wargames, we did the planning,
31:13
Speaker 11: we did the opp plans. This has been something that
31:15
Speaker 11: the Pentagon has been ready to do for a very
31:18
Speaker 11: long time. And granted they've been updating those plans based
31:21
Speaker 11: on what would be the most legitimate targets, the most
31:24
Speaker 11: painful targets for the Iranian regime. But one of the
31:26
Speaker 11: features of all those discussions was always how are they
31:29
Speaker 11: going to try to close the Straight? Will they be
31:32
Speaker 11: able to shut down global shipping? What can we do
31:34
Speaker 11: about it if they do this. Actually, this particular round
31:38
Speaker 11: of conflict, I was surprised by how little preparation there
31:42
Speaker 11: was for that eventuality that they were going to close
31:45
Speaker 11: the Straight. It just seemed like an obvious move that
31:48
Speaker 11: they were always going to try to make. And I
31:49
Speaker 11: think what has really surprised the world is just how
31:52
Speaker 11: little effort it really takes on the part of the
31:54
Speaker 11: Iranians to make it unpalatable for things like global shipping
31:58
Speaker 11: to move through that very narrow water.
32:01
Speaker 2: This is fascinating.
32:02
Speaker 3: That's, of course, when the commander in chief was calling
32:05
Speaker 3: Iran part of the axis of evil. We all remember
32:09
Speaker 3: that speech. Emily, what do you make outside of maybe
32:15
Speaker 3: lack of planning for the straight the rest of the
32:17
Speaker 3: way the military has selected targets and comported itself over
32:22
Speaker 3: the past couple of months. Is this similar to what
32:25
Speaker 3: your administration would have done in terms of approach?
32:28
Speaker 6: Oh?
32:29
Speaker 5: I think so.
32:29
Speaker 11: I mean, it's really a tale of two policies. There's
32:32
Speaker 11: one policy, which is the military execution of the president's orders,
32:36
Speaker 11: and in so many ways that has been amazingly, perfectly,
32:39
Speaker 11: wonderfully done, from rescuing the downed airman who was in Iran,
32:45
Speaker 11: to the very precise targeting to minimizing civilian casualties whenever possible,
32:51
Speaker 11: to being able to find, fix and finish very quickly
32:54
Speaker 11: with the help of some new technologies.
32:56
Speaker 5: A lot of that has been.
32:57
Speaker 11: Proving the way of American warfare works very well, very efficiently,
33:01
Speaker 11: and can be lethal when it needs to be. On
33:04
Speaker 11: the other hand, though you have the overarching policy of
33:07
Speaker 11: the conflict, you know, what are we really trying to
33:09
Speaker 11: accomplish here? There are things that you can accomplish via
33:12
Speaker 11: military means, and there are things that you just can't.
33:15
Speaker 11: So early on in this year, what we saw was
33:17
Speaker 11: the Trump administration come out and say that they were
33:19
Speaker 11: looking for things like an end to violence against protesters.
33:22
Speaker 11: They were talking about things like regime change or a
33:25
Speaker 11: new regime in Iran, and then they kind of backed
33:27
Speaker 11: off that rhetoric, and I suspect it's because somebody explained
33:31
Speaker 11: to them that these objectives are very difficult to achieve
33:34
Speaker 11: through military means. Instead, we shifted to this framework where
33:37
Speaker 11: we were looking at nuclear and navy and those things
33:40
Speaker 11: you can accomplished.
33:41
Speaker 2: He is calling it.
33:42
Speaker 3: The denuclearization is the word we've been hearing from the president.
33:47
Speaker 2: Emily.
33:47
Speaker 3: Really great to have you back. Don't be a stranger.
33:49
Speaker 3: Emily Harding csis. Thanks for listening to the Balance of
33:57
Speaker 3: Power podcast. Make sure to subscribe if you haven't already,
34:00
Speaker 3: at Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts, and
34:04
Speaker 3: you can find us live every weekday from Washington, DC
34:07
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