0:00
We had President Trump speaking alongside some yawning school kids
0:03
We had a hastily arranged press conference that was announced yesterday with Pete Hegseth
0:08
And now Marco Rubio has been speaking as well about Operation Epic Fury
0:12
Let's just remind you earlier on, this was the Defence Secretary, or as Trump calls him, the War Secretary
0:17
Pete Hegseth speaking at a briefing at the Pentagon. Ceasefire is not over. Ultimately, this is a separate and distinct project
0:25
and we expected there would be some churn at the beginning, which happened
0:31
And we said we would defend and defend aggressively, and we absolutely have. Iran knows that, and ultimately the president's going to make a decision
0:39
whether anything were to escalate into a violation of a ceasefire. But certainly we would urge Iran to be prudent in the actions that they take
0:46
to keep that underneath this threshold. This is about the straits. This is about freedom of navigation
0:51
This is about international waterways. This is about free flow of commerce, all the things that happened before, and only Iran is contesting
0:59
So right now the ceasefire certainly holds, but we're going to be watching very, very closely
1:04
And President Trump was answering questions from reporters in the Oval Office. Can I ask you about Iran, Mr. President? Yes
1:10
They've fired at U.S. ships several times in the last five hours
1:14
What do they need to do to violate the ceasefire? Well, you'll find out, because I'll let you know
1:21
They know what to do and they know what to do. They know what not to do more importantly actually
1:28
And they fired them in little boats with pea shooters, the pea shooters, little boat with
1:34
little, you know why? Because they don't have any boats anymore. The Navy is comprised of, they call them little boats
1:40
And they're fast. They're so fast that they had eight of them and they're all gone
1:49
And they're fast, but they're not fast like a missile. A missile is slightly faster
1:54
They all gone so they looking around for little boats to try and compete with our great navy We have a navy that unbelievable President Trump characteristically answering questions from the Oval Office earlier on
2:06
Ambassador James F. Jeffrey was Deputy National Security Advisor. He was previously the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq and served in a variety of roles under Donald Trump
2:15
including the envoy to Syria and to counter ISIS, and is now a distinguished fellow at the Washington Institute
2:21
Ambassador Jeffrey, thank you very much for your time. Just sum up your take where we are, whatever time it is, nearly six o'clock your time in terms of the developments from key players today
2:34
Thanks for having me on. Look, at its best, this whole operation has been pretty chaotic and confusing
2:42
Beyond that, at another level, putting out Trump and Higgs to talk about it makes it even more confusing and contradictory
2:52
and leaves everybody frustrated. So they rolled out Marco Rubio, who knows how to do this kind of
2:58
thing. So he made it as coherent as possible. And I'll try to give that version to you
3:03
We are no longer in epic fury. That is a military operation against Iran. We will not conduct
3:10
offensive, initiate, offensive operations against Iran. Instead, we are doing what amounts to a
3:17
quasi-escort of ships under what Hegseth called a U.S. dome through the Straits. How successful
3:27
that will be without actually providing guarantees, I don't know. We got some ships through yesterday
3:33
Now, the Iranians did launch some attacks. They weren't particularly serious attacks. They were
3:39
all beaten off. But the Iranians also hit the Emirates port facility for an oil pipeline that
3:49
avoids the straits. Between that pipeline and the Saudi pipeline, we're getting every day about six
3:54
to seven million barrels out of the Gulf That about half of what being cut So it very critical The Iranians are sending a signal Right now nobody knows what tomorrow will bring to be honest
4:06
Will we try to put together an escort operation, which we did successfully in 1988, 87, 88
4:13
and we got most of the oil out, but a lot of ships were hit. And we also lost, almost lost
4:18
one of our own ships to our mind. Whether Trump is willing to do this or not, we don't know. We'll
4:23
have to wait, frankly, till tomorrow. And we heard from the president not ruling out resuming a
4:30
bombing campaign if necessary and from other officials from the US government, but also the
4:35
president making the point that this has been hugely successful. When it comes to those vessels
4:43
traveling through the Strait of Hormuz, again, you touched on some of the conflicting reports there
4:48
It seems to me that, I mean, those ships, even if they are accompanied by the U.S.
4:54
still don't have the guarantees in place to ensure their safety. Whether they do or not, the key thing is, are they willing to risk it
5:02
Yeah. Frankly, what we saw in 87, 88 is ships were willing to risk it
5:06
A lot of them took some hits. These are, as you know, 150,000 ton tankers, in some cases twice as big as an aircraft carrier
5:14
and they can kind of plow along, but they are taking some risk. That we don't know. Again, success in Jim Jeffries' mind is either a new nuclear agreement with the Iranians and the lifting of both the American and the Iranian blockade in the Straits
5:31
Until we're at that point, we shouldn't talk about success. what's or how is this playing with the american public and the um i mean the sort of pocket books
5:41
is the is the usual phrase but in terms of that sort of fatigue with how long this is going on
5:47
because the president keeps saying this is being hugely successful but are the american public
5:52
buying that um the short answer by all the polls is by two to one the americans hate this thing and they really angry about gas prices But look I been doing this for a long time I saw real anger
6:07
You mentioned it early with your caller on Iraq. But even more than that, Vietnam, we lost 55,000 people killed
6:15
This is not a particularly difficult burden for the American people to take any more than it is for the British people who are suffering at least as much from higher gas prices
6:25
and oil prices. And we're not really losing any casualties other than the initial 13
6:30
And the amount of money compared to the defense budget we've blown on this thing is really
6:35
insignificant. So the basic problem is the American people are irritated because nobody told them what
6:41
we were going to do, why we were doing it, and what sacrifices, however minor, they had to make
6:47
Had this explained to them, I understand why we're going after Iran. I watched just in Syria alone
6:54
Iran and its minions Assad and the Russians kill 650,000 people, and many of them by poison gas
7:00
There are good reasons to be trying to oppose Iran in the region. Trump didn't make that, I would say, obvious case
7:07
I'm not going to ask you to be a soothsayer, but I am going to ask you whether you think a round of negotiations are imminent
7:15
Well, they're ongoing right now, and Rubio hinted at that very carefully
7:19
He actually said the Iranians are making some progress on offering Trump's as a two
7:25
But of course, you I mean, let's face it, we have to shrug a bit at what he says
7:29
But Rubio is a far more serious public speaker. So if we can get to the point where Iran limits its enrichment and Trump falls off of his never enriched, we could get to a resolution of this thing
7:41
And I think we will. Trump does not want to. The conclusion most of us have looking at this is Trump does not want to go back to military operations
7:52
They did not deliver the overthrow of Iran. They did not deliver the capitulation of Iran
7:56
And he doesn't want to keep this thing going. It's not a second Venezuela
