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This is a breaking news update from Bloomberg instant reaction and analysis from our three thousand journalists and analysts around the world. This is special coverage from Bloomberg Radio. I'm Doug Chrisner in New York Wednesday evening. In a rare primetime address to the nation, President Trump provided an update on the war in Iran.
Thanks to the progress we've made, I can say tonight that we are on track to complete all of America's military objectives shortly, very shortly. We're going to hit them extremely hard over the next two to three weeks. We're going to bring them back to the Stone ages where they belong. In the meantime, discussions are ongoing. Regime change was not our goal. We never said regime change. But regime change has occurred because of all of their original
leader's death. They're all dead. The new group is less radical and much more reasonable. Yet, if during this period of time no deal is made, we have our eyes or in key targets. If there is no deal, we are going to hit each and every one of their electric generating plants very hard, and probably simultaneously. We have not hit their oil, even though that's the easiest target of all because it would not give them even a
small chance of survival or rebuilding. But we could hit it and it would be gone, and there's not a thing they could do about it.
President Trump, they are delivering a rare prime time address with regards to war in Iran. He said, the US is getting very close to finishing the job in Iran. The hard part, in Trump's words, done insofar as Iron is concerned, and the country is no longer really a threat. Let's talk a little bit more about what we heard today from the President with our special guest, Christina Raffini is with us. She is co host of Bloomberg This Weekend. Also on the line, Bloomberg's Jeff Mason. He is White
House and Washington correspondent. Thanks to you both, Christina, let me begin with you. What did you make of what you heard tonight.
One of the interesting things we did not hear was something we were expecting to hear, and that was the President name NATO. We understand he's been very frustrated with NATO allies. He kind of second referenced it at one point. He said America doesn't need things out of the Strait. We have our own oil and gas. And to all you allies who basically wouldn't help us, if you want it, go protect it. He also gave a bit of a timeline, although there weren't as many specifics as a lot of
people were hoping for. He said, our objectives are about to be fully achieved. We're on track to complete those shortly, and then he said in the next two to three weeks. And for context, he then began listing the duration of other American wars, including Vietnam and the Iraq War, which meant much longer, and that it's you know, this has only been thirty two days of conflict, Jeff.
He seemed to be delivering an ultimatum. Vice President jd. Vance is set to relay some messages through mediators, and essentially it comes down to this, if there is no deal, the US is going to hit each and every one of Iran's electrical generating plants very hard. That seems to be illegal, doesn't Well.
I don't feel like I can comment on whether it's illegal, but I can say that it is certainly a threat, and that may be one reason why we're seeing s and p futures going down already as President Trump was speaking, and that's probably the opposite of what he was hoping to achieve, because he did reference the markets tonight, and he talked about the fact that stock markets had dropped a little bit because of the war, and then he said what he often says, which is he said he
saw the markets coming back as he's been talking about ending the conflict, and thought it seemed happy about that. I think tonight was largely a sales pitch by the president. It's a late sales pitch, and I don't mean late on a Wednesday evening. I mean late in the process
of the war. He launched this war four and a half weeks ago, essentially with a social media announcement, and yes, he has spoken to reporters and in that way addressed the American public over these weeks, but this was his first time coming out and laying out the logic for going into the war and laying out his next steps.
And that's what he did with this address tonight.
But I wouldn't say we learned a whole lot more about the war or the process, other than him sticking to a two to three week timeline for getting out Christina.
Earlier today, Iranian President Mussud Przeskyn took the, let's call it unusual step of issuing a letter directly addressed to Americans, and in it, he said, continuing along the path of confrontation is more costly in few ChIL than ever before, and he noted that attacks on infrastructure directly target Iranian people. Did it surprise you that there was no reference made to that letter.
Not really. The President doesn't like to I don't think he wants to give credence to that administration or that power structure in Tehran right now. But it was an interesting move by Iran because that's something we've seen Americans usually come from the State Department or American presidents have often issued statements in Farsi for the Iranian people. They often are trying to appeal to the people, especially during the protests or as President Trump said tonight, regime change
was not our goal, but regime change has occurred. If you're trying to appeal directly to the population to overthrow what you view as a corrupt and as you said several times, evil regime, that is something we are more commonly seeing from the US to Iran. I don't remember in recent memory the President of Iran appealing directly to the American people, but these are unprecedented times. The other thing the President said that I thought was interesting was
when he talked about regime change. He said, but regime change has occurred because all the original leaders are dead. This is true. They have taken out of a lot of Iran's leadership, but the current leader is the son of the former leader, and a lot of the mullahs and power structure that are electing him are still in
place from the old regime. And if anything, analysts have told us these strikes knocked out of a lot of potential moderates, and you're getting mostly extremists who are in the government right now, with the exception of perhaps the president and the Foreign Minister and maybe the Speaker of
the House in Tehran. So that's not exactly accurate. And calling it regime change is also not accurate, because these are, for better or worse, mostly the same people who were in power before this assault started.
Jeff, we understand that British Foreign Secretary of Ed Cooper will be chairing a virtual meeting with counterparts from some thirty five countries, and the aim apparently is to discuss a plan to restore freedom of navigation in the Strait. The US, from what I d stand, is not due to attend this virtual meeting. Where do you think things stand with some of our allies, particularly those in Europe.
Well, it's hard to say.
I think they've certainly had a wake up call from President Trump.
And that didn't just start with this war.
That started with his return to office, generally when he started to be critical of NATO again as he was during his first term. Although I will say I asked him a question of one of his first press conferences last year about whether he remained committed to Article five, which of course is the part of the NATO Treaty
that guarantees mutual defense, and he said yes. But there has certainly been a number of questions about that since, and he is raising them himself by being critical of NATO allies, Britain in particular, I might add, for not jumping in to help protect the straight of hor Moves and help get ship to help improve the shipping passages
through there. So to your question, and that was a long wind up, sorry, The fact that the United States is not taking part is probably a sign that these other countries realize that Trump is serious when he says We're going to leave in two to three weeks and we don't really care what happens to the Strait of Hormuz. I mean, he says that it will it will just automatically start working better. But I think most reasonable people who are familiar with that area of the world will
know that that's not the case. And so these countries appear to be looking like they want to talk about it in order to come up with a strategy.
Speaking with Bloomberg's Jeff Mason, who is our White House and Washington correspondent, as well as Christina Ruffini, who is co host of Bloomberg This Weekend. By the way, you can catch here Saturdays and Sundays on Bloomberg TV and Radio beginning at seven a m. Eastern time. Christina, let me go to you. The conversation that we had yesterday late in the day was the possibility of some type of UN action as it relates to the UAE, maybe using the use of force to keeping the straight open.
Do you think that's got any chance of succeeding.
I think the UN is at its weakest that we've seen it in probably the last two decades. But following up on Jeff's point, the President said, when this is done, it will just open up naturally because they want to
sell the oil, referring to the Strait of Hormuz. What Jeff was talking about is something that allies are really concerned about, and that's probably what's precipitating that mention that that meeting you mentioned it from the UK and this effort to try to get some sort of coalition together with the UN, with these nations to open up the street, because it is looking more and more likely, and I think the President's words hinted at it tonight. He doesn't
really care if the strait is operational. He's going to do his thing, and the US is going to leave, and all those GCC countries, all those Golf allies, all the Asian countries that depend heavily on oil coming through that street, some of them who thought they had very close ties to the United States are gon be in trouble if the US is not there to finish the job, and that's going to fall to some sort of coalition of other nations. Maybe the UN is the mechanism by
which they make that happen. But I would reckon it probably happens between a collaboration of EU and GCC countries. I think it probably happens outside that body. But perhaps talking about it at the UN will be helpful in
getting that started. But this is a real issue, and allies are really concerned that this could actually happen and they could be left in a worse straitun unintended than when this war started, because Iran could be controlling the strait and then potentially profiting off of it if it starts to charge tolls or control passage.
Jeff, let me go to you. Is President Trump getting advice from anyone outside that inner circle so to speak? Do you think?
You know? It's always sort of tricky to figure out where President Trump is getting his advice. We know that he talks to, of course the inner circle of advisors that you were referencing, also an outer circle of friends.
He calls some.
Of the natural US allies and leaders of friends as well, but it's hard for me to say to what extent he's listening to them. I always come back, when asked about this, to something that he said. I believe it was in twenty sixteen, before he won the first election that he won, which he was asked then where he gets his advice, and he said from myself, And I think that that still applies in twenty twenty six He
is his top counselor, he is his top spokesperson. He likes to be the number one in charge, and he likes to be the one delivering the message, and he likes to be the one.
Making the decisions.
Now that's not to say he's not listening to some others and getting some advice, certainly from people like Marco Rubio, Steve Woodkoff, Jared Kushner, and.
Probably his own vice president.
As you noted earlier, who's becoming a little bit more involved in more recent days.
But the buck stops with him, and he's the ultimate decider, Christina.
Before this conflict began, the administration was somewhat stressing the issue of affordability. And I know now that the Cleveland now cast from the Cleveland Fed has the inflation rated around forecasted around three and a quarter percent. Where do you think this leaves the president as we talk more and more about the run up to the off term elections.
I mean again, I hate to give Jeff Mason too much credit, just kidding. Jeff is brilliant, but he was right saying he was right and saying this was part of that. This is a sales pitch because midterms are if you are the president, just around the corner. And even if this is resolved tomorrow, which the President said, it's not going to be right. He's looking at a two to three week timeline before the US operation is even finished. That's not to say whether or not the
strait is working by then. And even though the President emphasized many many times he said, you know, thanks to my economic policies, we have drill, baby, Bill, drill, the US is financially independent. The oil prices will come down, the stock market will go up. That's pretty aspirational because every analyst I've heard on Bloomberg this week is saying this is not like flipping a switch. There's a tail to this. It's inputs for chemicals, it's fertilizer for farmers.
It's the global oil price, not just what we're paying in the US. That impacts everybody's price at the pump. And that's something that voters are really going to notice. And you know, Trump voters are very, very loyal, but it's expensive to live in the United States right now, and families are under a lot of pressure, and that's really really going to hurt him, and it's really going to hurt Republicans ahead of the midterms when they're already looking at an uphill battle.
Jeff, what do we know about the build up of additional US troops in the Mid East region?
Let me answer that, and then I want to get back to the politics briefly. As far as the build up, we know that in recent days and weeks that the United States has sent more troops to the region, which led to some speculation about potent boots, putting boots on the ground. That's definitely not something that the President addressed tonight,
which I think you can interpret in two ways. Number One, you would, I don't think, be wrong to conclude that he's signaling that that is definitely not the direction he wants to move, or else he wouldn't be repeating the fact that he wants to conclude the war in the next two to three weeks. You could also conclude that it's a headfake and that the President is still considering it and that's why he has sent troops in the into the region in order to continue to have that option.
So that'll be something that you know, allies and enemies will will have to figure out as as this war continues.
Briefly back on the politics, though, I also wanted to.
Say I said earlier that this was a sales pitch. One of the things that was a sales pitch, I think was him listing the number of when Christina mentioned this, as well listing the major wars of the last century and how long they took. And I'm just I'd be very curious to see some polling after the speech as to whether that logic resonates at all, both with his base and with an American public that heard him say as a candidate in twenty twenty four that he would not launch new wars Christina.
Earlier in the week, the president was focused on trying to recover enriched uranium in Iran, but apparently he told Reuters that it's so far underground he doesn't even care about it any longer. Talk to me about what you perceived to be the maybe subtle shifts in objectives.
So the Washington Post was out with some good reporting today about the President asking for an operational plan for US Commando's special forces to go in and try to
retrieve that uranium. That to me immediately seems like an almost impossible and incredibly dangerous task because, as the President mentioned in his speech, the US hit s Fahim, thetans FDAU those new clear sites very heavily last June with those big bunker busting bombs, and according to the President, greatered them and at the time destroyed the nuclear the nuclear program. Now tonight, the President said that Iran was on the door of a nuclear bomb and they were
mirroring the race. Everyone I've spoken to nuclear experts say there's no evidence that Iran was any closer to that breakout time the time it takes them to flip the switch and create a nuclear weapon than they were when the US attacks those nuclear sites last summer. The issue is is this has been a talking point for the President, and so he wants to show that he's trying to prevent a Ran from having a nuclear bomb. He has a plan for getting that uranium, but now it seems
like he is backing off of that. That could be potentially because those plans came back and were not feasible or just simply because he realized that it contradicts his own argument that the US destroyed these sites. But at the same time, he's also saying that Iran was about to get a nuclear and both those two things can't really be true.
Jeff, I'll give you the last word as we get set to wrap up.
I appreciate you giving me the last word instead of Christina, But what I would like to say is actually building off of her brilliant remarks just there, which is politically their conservatives, and I spoke to one of them today who are concerned that President Trump.
Is not finishing the job. That he made the.
Decision to go in and start this war, controversial decision but one that is certainly supported by a lot of Iran Hawks and right leading people in the foreign policy establishment, and they were worried ahead of this speech today that he is done with it, ready to get out because of the multiple reasons that we've already cited, and that that will actually still leave a threat in Iran that he could have taken care of now if he had just stuck with it.
Jeff, thank you so very much. Bloomberg's Jeff Mason, our White House and Washington correspondent, And a very special thanks to Christina Raffini, co host of Bloomberg This Weekend, and you can catch here Saturdays and Sundays on Bloomberg TV and radio beginning at seven a m. Eastern Time. Thanks to you both,