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I'm going to go back to Iran now to the Middle East. That main store. We had President Trump having a phone interview with NBC News exclusively talking about the war, where it stands and where he sees it headed. And he said, quote Iron wants to make a deal, and I don't want to make it because the terms are not good enough yet.
Christina, all right.
Joining us now to discuss all this are Bloomberg's host of Horizon, Middle East and Africa, Jumana Brissecci, the AP's international correspondent Philip Crowther, who is live near the Strait of Hormuz, and Bloomberg's Washington's.
Deputy Bureau Chief, Flora Davidson, who is actually in Tokyo. Thank you all so much for joining us. Philip, I want to start with.
You because there were some pretty dramatic images overnight of smoke rising from a port that I believe is somewhat near you. Can you, I mean, Aroan had said that they believe some of these incoming missiles were fired from the UAE. Was this retribution for that? What has Iran said and how has the UAE responded?
Yeah, this appears to have been retribution. This is the Alpha Jeira oil facility. It's just a few kilometers south from where we are here. About twenty four hours ago, there were two huge black plumes of smoke coming from there. This from two separate apparent drone attacks. Now these weren't drones that necessarily hit the plant directly, but that might
have been shot down. It's called an interception, and that fragments thereof might have hit the oil facility led to a stop of at least some of the operations there. They appeared to be back up and running now. But yes, a retaliation, it certainly was, and what Iran has been saying and has been clearly singling out the United Arab Emirates.
Where I am now.
Right here is that they're saying that US attacks on specifically Hag Island, where of course Iran processes a very large percentage of its oil at its terminal, that that was attacked by the United States from the United Arab Emirates,
from air bases or even from ports. So the reaction from Iran was to say that everybody should evacuate three big ports in the United Arab Emirates, and that includes the one we just mentioned, Al Fujaira also includes the biggest port in the whole of the Middle East, and there was a threat that there were going to be further attacks on those ports, again because Iran says they were US to stage US attacks on Iran. Iran is saying this without any proof, and indeed the US military
hasn't even deemed it worthy of a response. Now, there haven't been any from the point of view of Iran, we should say successful attacks on those ports. There might have been some interceptions over the last twenty four hours or so, but there have been no direct hits. No fragments of drones or missiles have hit any facilities or anything in the United Arab Emirates over the last twenty four hours, and that in fact goes for most golf countries.
There have been mass attacks of drones on Bahrain, for example, on Saudi Arabia as well, but the air defenses of most of these golf countries have been working well and increasingly well as this conflict continues.
Jaman, I want to turn to you and go back to that comment from the President to NBC News just about the state of play in this war and where it might be headed. Lingering on that line that Iron wants to make a deal, but the President doesn't think the terms are good enough.
Yet.
What is your sense of what the President is hoping for once in terms of a deal and how far apart these two sides are at this juncture in the war.
Well, it's also interesting to observe the evolution of his thinking. It was a couple of days prior I think he was calling for once again the unconditional surrender of the Iranian regime. But now he seems to be open once again to establishing a deal with them of some sorts. In that interview with NBC, he declined to give a lot of commentary on exactly what the conditions would be, but maintained, and this is a stance that the US has maintained even before the war kicked off, that Iran
should never have the ability to develop a nuclear weapon. Now, from Iran's perspective, we've had a couple of notable figures from the regime speak out. We've had the Iranian Foreign Minister make some remarks in addition to President Posishcamp putting up a post a couple of days ago where they suggested their conditions to come to the negotiating table with the US would include a number on one, full recognition of Iran's quote legitimate rights without giving a lot of
information on what exactly that means. Number two, reparations for damage is caused. And then number three, and this is probably the most important element, guarantees that a war like this will never happen again. So they are staking their own terms to go back to the negotiating table. Of course, their economy is massively buckling under this strain even before this war kicked off, and now there's the real threat
of civilian infrastructure being targeted as well. Carg Island obviously a key lifeblood for them, but I would say from the perspective of the Iranians, we always said from the beginning this was a fight for their existence. It's an existential fight for them. And the fact that the US are now saying or no longer talking about regime change, but are saying, okay, we're ready to cut a deal and their eyes actually is a victory and they have
sustained a lot of blows. Maybe they're losing militarily, but if they come out of this the other side still intact and still effectively leading the country, then they will
deem that to be a victory. So I think, you know, there's still a lot of daylight between the two sides, and from the Iranian perspective, they will continue to inflict as many blows as they can, as much economic cost on these Gulf countries and on the global economy in order to somehow bring the US as well, closer to what they're asking for.
Laura, I want to go to you now over in Tokyo, because the backdrop of all of this conflict is of course what it's doing to the world energy markets, what it's doing to global economies, and at the same time you have this Trump She Summit coming up, and there's a couple of.
Things going on.
There's US China talks about to happen or happening right now in Paris, and then you are in Japan for this there's economic secretaries.
There as well.
David just wrote down the name of the summit and I've already forgotten it, so can you please remind me the name of the Tokyo Summit. And they just kind of set the tage for us what's going on and where these two big countries are going to go and the backdrop of all this happening in the least, it's not it's on there somewhere.
This is not a straight.
But yeah, this is a summit.
It's largely between the US and Japan, but there's also about eighteen countries who are also participating with high level economic and energy officials from from the region to talk basically about critical minerals and energy. You know, that of course was important even before Iran. Now with the backdrop of oil prices spiking, this has really added a lot of urgency and intensity to these discussions. Of course, the deals that have been struck, you know, so far this
weekend have been relatively modest in scale. You know, these are longer term arrangements. These are memory memorandums of understanding, things that won't really do anything to address the current situation at hand, but really set the stage for this visit. The Prime Minister of Japan, Takeyichi, is headed to the White House on Thursday. She has been quite critical of the US's stance in Iran, has questioned the legality of these strikes and said she plans to have a very
frank and stern conversation with Trump. So this is, you know, kind of We're seeing a lot of posturing from allies in the Indo Pacific region looking to get in the good graces of the Trump administration with some of these deals, but looking to take a stronger, firmer stance when it comes to geopolitics.
Our control room tells us it is the Indo Pacific Energy Security ministerial and business for it.
I feel less bad for not having out the tide of my time.
Well's right off the tongue, and we have Liezelda in the EPA administrator joining us from those talks here in a few minutes time, I should say. But of course, nothing is shaping the conversation about global energy more than the strait that we see behind Philip Crowther and Philip I go back to you and again reference that interview that was on NBC News or NBC News conducted with
President Trump via telephone. He said, We're going to be sweeping the strait very strongly, and we believe will be joined by other countries who are somewhat impeded and in some cases impeded from getting the oil. I'm looking at that line. We believe, as he invokes China and France and Japan and South Korea and other countries, this is a war that largely has been prosecuted by the US and Israel, just the two of them. Now we have a president talking about the need for allies to reopen
or get traffic flowing in that strait. Once again, your sense of the willingness of other countries to do that. Yesterday we had a conversation just about how little traffic you were able to observe in the strait behind you. Has anything notionally changed here over the last twenty four hours.
First of all, it hasn't.
There has not been any increasing traffic here because there is no deal, and it is still very much deemed too dangerous for any containerships, one of which we see behind us, but of course, more crucially for the world economic markets for oil tankers and those carrying liquefied natural gas to pass from the Persian Gulf through the Strait of Hormones to well, essentially where I am here, out into the wider world and bringing those commodities to the
international market. Now back to what you mentioned, though, you know this has happened before in the Middle East, that the United States has more or less unilaterally gone to war and then in the aftermath is asking for help essentially, and in this case, what President Trump is doing, he's or maybe enticing other countries to get involved in what would boil down to an inter national coalition of warships to protect these ships going in and out of the
Strait of Hormuz. Is he enticing them? Is he provoking them into joining him? Is he just basically saying this is a FETA complie. You need to now be part of this because it's your ships that are not getting through.
And it is true, of course.
These are countries and companies that are very much affected by a US Israeli war on Iran, and China is number one there because such a huge percentage of the oil that passes through the Strait of Hormuz goes to China. So in his post last night by President Trump on his social network on truth Social, he was naming countries specifically, not innocently, you know, there was a reason for this.
France and the United Kingdom, of course, that's understandable. These are Western allies, but also Japan, South Korea, and specifically China. He wants them to be part of, well essentially a bit of an armada that would be led by the United States to protect these ships and get the traffic flowing through the Strait of hor Mows. Again, this is
a lot easier said than done. While these Iranian threats to hit any ship that tries to go through that is in any way affiliated or allied with the United States and Israel or its allies, while those threats continue, well you have to presume that there could be Iranian attacks on warships as well.
Jimana.
Speaking of Israel, there's a report that's popped up in Semaphore that is exclusive saying that Israel has informed the US this week that it's running critically low on ballistic missile interceptors. As the conflict with Iran rages on, Israel has reportedly entered the current war already low on interceptors that were fired during last summer's conflict with Iran. Now this compliment's reporting from Bloomberg that UAE and Kutar were also.
Running low on those interceptors.
I do need to say both those countries have pushed back vociferously on that reporting. But I'm wondering if you have any sense of the veracity of these reports. If this is something countries in the region are worried about, I mean, it would make at this point, But what are they telling you?
I think, you know, let's just go back to the starting point of all of this, which is the asymmetry of the military warfare here. I think I don't think there's a question that the US and Israel have military dominance, and in fact, if you go back to some of the comments at Central Command have said, they've said that they managed to eliminate around sixty to seventy percent of missile launchers in Iran, around sixty to seventy percent of
their missile stockpiles. But at the same time, I think most of the region was taken aback at the sheer intensity and frequency of the strikes that came through from Iran onto these Gulf states and indeed onto Israel itself. I mean, just to give you the example of the UAE, they said that they have engaged in over one thousand, six hundred drones and three hundred missiles launched by Iran
since the war began, and this was over two weeks ago. Now, as our colleague reporter was just saying, the interception rate for these projectiles is very high. It's between something like ninety two to ninety five percent, whether it's drone, drones or missiles. But there is a mismatch and costs, and this is something that Iran recognizes. They're capable of manufacturing these low cost drones in.
A huge amount.
They're estimated to be sitting on around fifty thousand of these drones, and they are costly to take down. And so the longer this war goes on for the more they are going to be questions about how long these air defense systems can hold up for I should I should say, however, that these GLF states maintain that the air defense systems at continue to have very high interception rates, and they are doing what they can to beef them up.
Okay, thank you Jamin Rossecchi, our Mid East anchor. We've also liked to thank Philip kurhller AP international correspondent standing out on that water for us. And Laura Davidson, of course, Washington Deputy BEARA Chief joining us from Tokyo.
Stay with us for more on Bloomberg this weekend, right after this.
All right, so right now, President Trump's National Energy Dominance Council is hosting an energy security firm in Tokyo. This was a conference that was planned before America struck Iran and is happening amid global economic turmoil.
Shorting is now from Tokyo. Is the EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin on this Saturday. Great to have you with us. We're going to talk about the substance of the conversations you've been having here in just a moment, but I wanted to ask you first, remembering as I do, you as a congressman, you as a fellow New Yorker. You've talked an awful lot about the need for there to be endgames in military conflict, and you've brought that up in the context of your military service as well. Talking
about a Rock and Afghanistan. As we look at this war entering the third week, I'm curious what you see that endgame as and if it's clear enough to you as somebody again who's served in the military.
Well, obviously, my role serving as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency is a bit different than serving Congress on the House Horna Affairs Committee. Have the utmost faith and trust in President Trump and his national security and foreign policy team. They have been conducting many successful strikes to
achieve strategic objectives, taking out top high value targets throughout Iran. Consistently, that progress has resulted in all sorts of people who have been responsible for many attacks that have not just adversely impacted US interests in that region, but have killed and maimed US service members.
As a now retired member.
Of the United States Army, speaking from that perspective, just too many fellow soldiers have been targeted by OURGC and Iranian leadership over the course of my adult life. Since first going into the military in two thousand and three, seeing that justice brought to bear on behalf of all those United States service members that their veterans, those families. That is long overdue justice for many of these Iranian quote unquote leaders who are no longer alive.
I do want to ask you about the summit that you're competing, and especially, you know oil prices about forty percent. Americans already feel like they're being squeezed. And I know that you're there partially to pitch to Asian countries because I heard John some of our other network friends why America would be a good resource for them for energy,
why they should get our energy from US. But my question to you is many of those same nations, including Vietnam, Thailand and others, are feeling pressure from the constantly changing US tariff landscape, and they feel like the President is using that as a tool and changes depending on what he wants from foreign policy. So why should Asian nations trust the US as a consistent and dependable source of energy in the future.
Well, the points is that you see these Asian companies, these Asian countries that have relied so heavily on the Middle East for their crude oil and the time that it takes, and the reliance on a route that in many respects a terrorist regime has been able to frequently disrupt or, at the very least threaten to disrupt over the course of years and decades. Now they start looking east to the United States, where we have been unleashing energy dominance here at home with new projects that are
now on the horizon. President Trump has been advocating strongly for a new lit liquid lergy facility, a pipeline that would run alongside the Trans Alaska pipeline in Alaska. Crude oil in Alaska has the ability to have a lot more oil passed through it, and that route for sixty years with Japan, for example, has been able to deliver that crude oil to Asia. To japras I, how are you with freedom of navigation?
Of course I'm sorry for but if I may, are you not getting any pushback that even if you make some of these deals and President Trump becomes displeased with these countries, he could claw back that energy.
Well, what we just witnessed over the course last forty eight hours is that many countries in the Indo Pacific are gravitating towards the United States. We had over fifty billion dollars worth of deals with US companies. All the dialogue that has taken place has been with an understanding that by entering into new deals with the United States that allows them to reduce their reliance which was so
heavily concentrated in the Middle East. And on top of it, it takes just a fraction of time to get that energy supply to Japan and these other countries, compared to twenty eight days to get it from the Middle East to take eight days.
To get there from Alaska.
So that is another dynamic, but just a lot of very robust, energetic, motivated conversation and engagement from the ministers of energy of all of these countries trying to cut deals with United States.
Mister Minister rusually cutting deals, you might, for Christina say. At the top of this is of course the summit that was scheduled before the war began, and I'm curious, given what has happened here, how much that situation is kind of coloring the conversations that you're having with allies and companies at the summit. Over the course of this weekend.
One of the topics that were discussed, one of the pillars of this weekend is about the supply chain, and for Indo Pacific countries, they are I think far more motivated they were talking quite frequently about wanting to diversify their supply chain, that they want to start looking elsewhere because they were relying too heavily on the Middle Eastern region for their supply chain now, so diversifying how they
provide energy to their people. Some countries are further along and talking about nuclear, others relying more on L and G, others talking about coal. It really ran the gamut, and depending on which country we were sitting in for a bilateral or for meetings amongst all the energy ministers, diversification of the supply chain was not just a pillar going into this weekend, but something that was frequently talked about throughout.
I have a couple of nuclear questions, but I do want to start with when we look at the possible consequences of a regime falling in Iran, one of the concerns we've been hearing from nuclear experts and security experts is how to secure and possibly transport out that rich geranium in that country. Is there a plan to do it, does it involve American boots on the ground, and what can you tell us about what's going to happen there.
Yeah, that's a question that I as Administrative EPA would not want to answer on behalf of the President of the White House, the Department of War, Department of State, or Department of Energy, the transport of uranium out of Iran, any other aspects of your question our questions that I's EPA administrator wouldn't be appropriate to be the one answering great questions, but I would be the right person for the administration to answer that.
Let me ask you something kind of complementary to the strikes on Iran, and that as we've see the administration open up those pipelines off the coast of California once again, and there are a lot of Californians who remember that oil spill back in twenty fifteen, that Refugeo oil spill, are worried about the integrity of those pipelines, and I wonder what your messages to them, as we hear from the governor of that state and others saying, look, this
is something that shouldn't be happening right now in light of the fact that there are one hundred hundred, one thousand gallons barrels of oil that were spilled as a result of that back in twenty fifteen.
Well, I mean it's always important to remember lessons learned of the past, to be leaning into new technology, to make sure that with new projects for extraction, for processing anywhere in America, that in the partnerships and in the requests for permits, and as this investment goes forward, that we are learning the lessons of the past, that we're
doing it as safely as possible. I often talk about how I strongly believe that in the United States we tap into our own energy supplies so much safer than so many other countries elsewhere around the world. And that runs across the gamut on all different kinds of ways that energy is extracted. So, yeah, you know, to your question, which is which is a great one. It's important that when these projects, when these permits are moving forward, that we're doing it as responsibly as possible.
I also want to ask you as you talk about US energy dominance. Obviously, the President and a lot of people have said the US should look more into nuclear One of the things your agency and the Primitive Energy have done is change some of the regulations for trying to build nuclear plants and nuclear reactors. That's had mixed results because it's trying to bring these plants online faster
and solve this issue. But some of the criticism is it's taking away some of the safety concerns, including things like firearms trainings and emergency drills, which critics are saying could make these plants more vulnerable to theft of nuclear power. What is your response to that and do you have any concerns with lessening regulations around nuclear reactors.
At no point since I was sworn in as administrator fourteen months ago, with any nuclear project that I've seen anywhere inside the United States, I seen anything but the highest level of competency brought to bear with very incredible staffers, many career staffers here at EPA, doing our due diligence.
Trump's speed is about operating quickly. The way that we have implemented that directive from the President is one that I can very confidently say with eyes on many different nuclear projects across this country that they're being done extraordinarily competently, and quite frankly, the people the companies that are making the big investment, they have every motivation to protect that investment.
And I would say the lot of these companies are breaking ground on projects with goals of breaking ground on many more projects. So it's almost a proof of concept when you know Ocklow in Idaho Falls, Idaho is breaking ground which they have recently done.
They want to build many more.
I can think of their project in Oak Bridge in Tennessee, as well as other states. Right now, there are a lot of retrofits, a lot of small modular reactors. There are a lot of nuclear projects. Yes, the permitting is going much faster under President Trump, but due diligence and competency has been all over from the government standpoint as well as from the investor standpoint.
Mister administrator, thank you very much. That's Leezelden joining us from Tokyo, where the sun is setting as it rises here in New York. He's there for that inaugural into Pacific Energy Security Ministerial and Business Forum.
Great to get his perspective.
We appreciate him staying up lates eight thirty.
I'm not sure if he's coming from or going to dinner, but we appreciate.
Your doing, sir.
Stay with us for more on Bloomberg this weekend. Right after this, and I.
Mentioned that interview that President Trump did with NBC News, and coming out of that he said, we quote totally demolished Carg Island, that island off the coast of Iran, so important to that country's oil industry. But we may hit it a few more times just for fun. He continued in that interview and talked about the prospects of there being a deal between the US and Iran, saying that Iran has offered one, but it's not acceptable to
the US side. We're going to talk about all of this with two congressmen, first, Adam Smith, the ranking member of the Armed Services Committee. Mike Lawler is going to join us after that conversation with Representative Smith. He's on the Foreign Affairs Committee. Congressman Smith, great to have you with us, of course, representing the ninth district in the state of Washington. I want to start with that comment that I just read, that comment that the President.
Made to NBC News saying.
That on the heels of hitting Carg Island, he might do it a few more times just for fun. And I wonder how that resonates with you as you think about what the endgame is here and what you've learned from the administration about how they intend to prosecute this war to its conclusion.
Well, certainly the cavalier, non serious way in which President Trump, Secretary of Hegseth, and others have talked about this war. We have Secretary hegset talking about no quarter, which is basically a military term for no survivors, kill everybody. I think that attitude has really undermined our ability to build support and move forward. It's far from the largest problem with this war. I mean the largest problem is what's the plan, what's the strategy, what are we trying to accomplish,
what's the path to achieving it? And how do we deal with the costs that are mounting by the day, certainly in terms of deaths, but the economic impact you referenced globally. What's the path here? I know we want to degrade Iran's capability militarily, but how much? And then the real goal at the start of this seemed to be to fundamentally change Iran's calculus, to make them less hostile to us, to Israel, and to the region. And there seems to be no progress on that aspect of
the plan. So this war is continued. The cost is incredibly high. The President doesn't seem to have a plan. Meanwhile, they want to apparently try to convince America that this is some kind of fun video game that we're just playing, even as people are dying all across the region and the global economy is suffering from this. So yeah, I wish they were a little more serious in the way they explained such an incredibly important action that they are taking.
Harris, I want to get to what you know about the mission and the administration's sense of that mission. And we saw the news that the Administration plans to send the thirty first Marine Expeditionary Unit to the region to add to the number of service personnel who are there in the Middle East. Do you have a clear understanding of what those marines are going to do? And as you watch that unfold, what does it tell you about the direction of this conflict?
Yeah, I have a clear understanding of what the options are. And look, we've been talking about this for a long time. There is no doubt that Iran is a major problem in the region, in the world, a threat to US, a threat to Israel. They support a variety of different violent extremist terrorist groups. How do you deal with that threat? So the Armed Services Committee for years now has been looking at options. I mean, what can you do what's militarily on the table. And there's always been two big
problems with the military option. One the collateral damage. He hit Iran, it spreads, and that certainly happened. It's spread as far as anyone would have feared. The second problem is, can you really degrade them militarily to such a degree that it makes that cost worth the effort, And what we learned is really not. Because the Iranian regime is dug in, they are very very solid there, even as their leaders have been killed, they have a succession plan.
There's ninety million people in Iran, they have a military. They not appear inclined to simply collapse. So the conclusion was the military option wouldn't accomplish those objectives, would blow up the region, cause all manner of collateral damage and escalation, and wouldn't ultimately accomplish the objective. Trump to to walk into that and to think that, a, we can degrade their military capability to such a degree that it makes it worth it, but if they can just rebuild it,
I mean, that's the main problem with that. And then second he seemed to just sort of cross his fingers and say, well, gosh, if we hit him hard enough, they'll either collapse or they will simply be broken enough to do what we want. But there was never a clear path between all of this bombing and all of this destruction and getting to that change in behavior by Iran. That's the problem, and that's what we're experiencing right now.
And I'd be interested to hear anyone who supports this war tell me what that path is at this point to fundamentally breaking and changing the regime. I don't see it.
Do you think that goal is accomplishable without putting boots on the ground. One of the experts we spoke to this week said, there are two ways to go about this.
You know, you can do a plumer long.
Bombing campaign, but that doesn't give you as much input and impetus into what's actually happening on.
The ground and could take longer.
Or you can send in troops, but then again, you could get myired in another forever war.
Yeah, sorry, thank you. I didn't directly answer the most important part of that previous question. And so we've done this bombing campaign and you want to try to do it on the cheap, And that's what a bombing campaign is. Now we've seen even the bombing campaign spreads, escalates, causes violence across the region. But now you're up against that reality. Okay, you haven't achieved the objective. What about ground troops And the problem with the ground troops again is you're going to
need a lot to dislodge this regime. There are talk about more tactical efforts, smaller numbers of troops, and this is what the Marines could do. One possibility is you seed seize Karj Island to try to cut off that economic lifeline for Iran. But could you seize it, could you hold it? There's considerable questions about that. Maybe a small group of special forces can help spark a revolt with it Iran, but again there's no clear path to that.
Would you support that? Would you support US troops going in and a lot of a capacity like that?
Heavens no, No, Sorry, I do not, because I don't think it would be effective and I think it again would be an escalation, It would cost more lives, and I think you'd be able to dislodge regime. And that's the problem. And let me be clear. If I woke up tomorrow and this Iranian regime was gone, and we had in Iran that was working for the Iranian people and stopped all of the terrible stuff they were doing.
I would be very, very happy. But the problem is there's no direct path to doing that and the cost of what Donald Trump has done without thinking that through, without having a plan to actually achieve the objective. So now you can achieve the objective, and you've caused an enormous amount of casualties, disruption, and escalation, not just in Iran, but across the region and across the world. So that's the problem I have with this approach.
I want to ask you about the path forward here for lawmakers like yourself who opposed this military action. So we saw that vote on the War Powers resolution fail in both houses last week. How do you pick up the pieces from that world? What does opposition to this war look like going forward, both in the House and the Senate as you see it, you know.
Certainly we need to speak out against it. For those who are against the war, give them a voice, give them an argument for why to do it. But I think from a practical standpoint, my goal is to stop the war because I think it's bad. It's bad posse, it's escalation, it's incredibly costly. It's devastating to aricon. We've seen gas prices go up, you know, fifty cents to
a dollar. It's going to cause the affordability crisis. Don't want to get worse in this country, and I think the most sensible path to that is try to encourage the Trump administration and the supporters of this war to, however implausibly be able to declare victory and stop. Okay, try to begin to rebuild pieces. That I think is a plausible argument for the Trump administration. And then you hear Trump saying let's bomb them for fun. You hear
Hegseth saying no quarter. You hear Trump saying they're willing to negotiate. But I'm not really in the mood. All of that is deep cause for concern. But the plan is, okay, declare victory and stop. If that can stop the war, that I'm more than willing to make that argument.
Do you have any kind of read on the condition of the new leader of Iran, because we have this statement from Iran's foreign minister saying Mushaba Kamini is in good health and fully managing the situation, but we still haven't seen him what is your perspective and what are you hearing about whether he is in fact even a player at this point, I have no idea.
Nobody knows, all right, So there is no answer to that question. I think the thing is, let's not get too excited about what the answer is to that one way or the other. Even if he is. Some hosts told me the other day he's in a koma and he's missing a limb. How he knows that, I have no idea. But let's say that the guy's completely incapacitated, he dies in a week. The statement that was put out was put out. If it wasn't put out by him,
it was put out by the Iranian regime. It was put out by the people who are in charge of Iran. So the belligerence in that statement, the complete lack of the any sort of acquiescence as Trump had hoped, shows that whether this guy's alive or not, the people who are running are on are no closer to having a reasonable government there than they were at the start of this war. Arguably they're further away and even more dug.
Yet, last question I have is just about money. And before this war began, you had a Pentagon asking for an extremely large budget one and a half trillion dollars, which I think will astonish a lot of people. I imagine some of your constituents as well. Is this administration going to get that from Congress? What's your assessment of the appetite to increase the defense budget to that size and scale.
Yeah, that's a fifty percent increase in the defense budget. And by the way, that doesn't include the supplemental that they're talking about asking for to help cover the cost of this war, which is going to be in the tens of billions of dollars. No, that's not realistic. And look, we have a thirty eight trillion dollar debt and it's
very frustrating to me that everyone talks about that. And then, oh my gosh, the Republicans when came writing into majority in Congress and President Trump got elected, this was a major issue. And then they voted for the Reconciliation Bill to add four trillion dollars to the debt by massively cutting taxes. You're going to massively cut taxes and then you're going to start a war and ask for a fifty percent increase in the defense budget. I mean, I don't think we need to do that even if we
hadn't cut those taxes. But my god, how do you stand up in front of the American people and say we need a one point five trillion dollar defense budget. We had to go to this war and spend these ten million dollars, but we're not going to pay for it. We're going to cut taxes. We're going to drive the debt through the ceiling.
I know, I'm as I'm a little bit speechless in terms of how do you justify that from any sort of economic standpoint. I wouldn't have cut the taxes and I wouldn't be going to war and.
Massively increasing the defense budget. But to try to do both is just insane in my view.
Gentleman from the ninth Congression District in Washington, Carson Adam Smith, the ranking member of the Armed Services Committee, thank you very much for your time on this Sunday, appreciate, Thank you so much.
We want to go now to the other side of the aisle and the other side of the country and talk to Congressman Mike Lawler, a Republican from the great State of New York, and he serves on the Foreign Affairs Committee.
Consman, thank you so much for joining us this morning.
First of all, I think you were listening when your Democratic colleagues said he wishes they meeting this administration were a little more serious about all this.
Do you agree or disagree with that?
And I just want to give you a chance to react to anything else you heard your colleagues say.
Well, I wish my Democratic colleagues were more serious about this. I mean, the fact is, fifty three of them voted last week not to declare Iran the greatest state sponsor of terrorism. So I think my colleague should be a little more focused on, frankly, the unseeriousness of his own party. And frankly, nothing he said was actually of substance in
that interview that I just listened to. The fact is that everybody acknowledges, other than the fifty three Democrats that voted no, that Iran is the greatest state sponsor of terror. They have been the greatest impediment to peace and stability
in the Middle East and in the region. We see with their belligerent response to this conflict where they are striking civilian sites in Arab states neighboring them, that Iran is the real threat here, and ultimately, after months of negotiation in which Iran refused to seed any ground with respect to its ballistic missiles program and its financing of terrorism, President Trump made a decision that every president said that they would, that they would ensure that Iran never got
a nuclear weapon. And between last summer strikes and the decision to take military action here, President Trump is ensuring that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. That is paramount. And all of my Democratic colleagues, including Adam Smith, just said, oh, I hope it works out. I hope we get regime change. I hope, I hope. Well, hope is not a strategy, and you actually have to be willing to take action.
And that is the fundamental problem and why Barack Obama's attempts at this and Joe Biden's attempts at this have failed so miserably, because hope is not a strategy. You actually have to be willing to take military action if you are going to impede their ability to use a
nuclear weapon. The problem here was very simple. Iran was mass producing ballistic missiles at such a rate that if we did not intervene, if we did not stop it, they would have been able to develop a nuclear bomb and utilize it in short timeframe the Congressation.
I haven't seen any evidence that shows that that breakout time was closer or more urgent this week, this month than it was last summer when the administration went after those nuclear sites. Do you have any information that those decis made a nuclear side, accords to administration rats.
Yeah, okay, we have had classified briefs, and I'm not going to get into the specifics of the classified briefs, but the fact is that the administration and President Trump took decisive action last summer, striking three nuclear facilities. As everybody understands, Iran has enriched uranium that they are currently storing, and they were mass producing ballistic missiles at an alarming rate that would actually protect their ability to develop that bomb.
Had we waited, had we allowed this to continue in perpetuity, it would have been almost impossible for us to take the necessary steps to prevent them from getting a nuclear weapons. So there was a decision that was made, and I support what the President decided in this moment to end the threat of a nuclear Iran, And for many of my colleagues on the Democratic side, the problem with them is they're in consistent on everything. Adam Smith was in
support of efforts in Libya to remove Momar Gadafi. Adam Smith was supportive of Barack Obama's seven month bombing of Libya. Didn't say boo about it. So the problem is many of my Democratic colleagues care more about the fact that Donald Trump is president and it's Donald Trump making these decisions than they do preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. And that's the fundamental problem.
Congress, you said just a moment ago that hope is not a strategy. I'm going to quote from something that the President said the NBC News yesterday, quote Hopefully China, France, Japan, South Korea, and the UK and others that are affected by this artificial constraint will send ships to the area so that the horror MOUs strait will no longer be threat by a nation that has been totally decapitated Therein, it does seem like hope is the strategy for the president.
As we look at the total traffic, explain how it's president.
Yeah, the President is in touch with these nations. Remember, China is the greatest purchaser of Iranian petroleum, and.
Yet we're are the straight remains closed and we see Entergy likes.
Me to finish.
If you'd like me to finish, let me actually speak.
Thanks.
So the fact is China is the greatest purchaser of Iranian petroleum. They're the ones that benefit most from the Strait of Horror moves being open. Uh so, yeah, it's in China's interest, it's in some of our European allies interests for the Strait of Horror moves.
To be open.
Remember, we don't get oil from Iran. We have crippling sanctions on iranium petroleum. Iran's illicit oil trade is what has funded terrorism around the globe, and we have been cracking down on that. I'm last year last Congress, I passed the Ship Act alongside Secretary of Rubio when he was in the Senate to crack down on the illicit oil trade. Obviously, we want the Straight of Horror moves
to be open. That is why the President has taken aggressive action against Iran's naval fleet, obliterating it as well as going after their military capacity and capability on carg Island. So we are taking necessary measures to push back against the Iranian regime and their efforts to block the Strait of Horror moves. But it is also incumbent on some of our allies and adversaries, many of whom benefit from trade coming through the Strait of Horror moves to engage.
And I think the President is not only engaged in that conversation, but he's making the point that it is in their best interests as well to engage on this matter.
Hikriston, I want to ask you about the cost of this conflict, not just the financial cost, but also the human toll. There has been a lot of loss of life, including American soldiers, and one of them I believe is from your district. There's an NYPD officer from who died in Kuwait supporting this operation. What are you hearing from
your constituents. Have you spoken to this family and are people concerned that as this goes on, even if they support the president, even if they support the objectives, they may not be willing to commit more American lives to this operation.
Well, anytime we have military engagement, the loss of life is tragic. The loss of our men and women in our armed forces is tragic, and our heart breaks for their families. I have spoken to his widow, and we will certainly be doing everything in our power to support
the family. There is a go fundme that has already raised well over one hundred thousand dollars to support this family, including one hundred thousand dollars donation by Bill Ackman, and I thank him for that in support of this family. But this is obviously always a very difficult time anytime you have the loss of our soldiers. We saw the refueling you know airplane the other day go down and
six soldiers lost in that. It's tragic, and certainly that is something that the military does everything in their power to guard against and prevent the loss of life. But this is certainly a conflict in which we are trying to stop evil. We are trying to prevent a nuclear weapon from being used in the Middle East or around the globe and cause mass casualty. You see how Iran has responded belligerently, striking civilian targets in neighboring Arab states.
They launched hundreds of ballistic missiles at Israel last year and the year before. The fact is, this regime needs to be defeated, and President Trump and our armed forces are making a necessary, difficult, but necessary decision to take out the threat corkuson.
I want to ask you lastly. You sit on the Fort Affairs Committee, as we've mentioned, but you're on the Financial Services Committee as well, and we have this news on Friday that a judge it's struck down. What the US attorney in DC hope to do, which is to issue subpoena is a get information from FED chair Jerome Powell and from the FED Reserve as well visa vi
his chairmanship. We heard from Tom Tillis, the Senator from North Carolina who's threatened to withhold FED nominations as a result of that investigation, that he continues to do so. In light of what's happened here, do you think it's in our interest, in the country's interest for these investigations to continue if it does involve holding up the nomination of Kevin Warsh to be the next VEED chair.
Look, I'd like.
To see Kevin Worsh confirmed expeditiously. I think it's imperative that he come in as chairman. Jerome Powell will still be on the FED board. But from my vantage point, I don't think this is the best use of time and resources. I've said that previously. Should there be an investigation into how the rebuilding of the Federal Reserve building went billions of dollars over budget? Sure, and they should get to the bottom of that and have a full
understanding of that. But I don't think that at this moment requires a criminal investigation of Chairman Pale, and I think frankly, we need to move forward with a new FED chair And.
Chris and Mike Lauler, thank you so much for joining us. A mutual friend tells me you're a big Oscar fan, So I hope you get a chance to relax and watch that tonight and maybe we can have you back and talk about your picks and whether you.
Got them or not.
Stay with us for more on Bloomberg this weekend right after this.
Welcome back to Bloomberg this weekend. I'm Christina Raffini here with David Gera. This Sunday is not only Oscar Sunday, it is also Selection Sunday.
That's right.
It is a big deal for college basketball.
Fans like me with conviction.
You know how good I am at.
The sports ball, but I do like a bracket. I'm not gonna lie, I know nothing about them, but this is fun.
This is fun for all March Madness kicking off this week tonight. We're gonna find out which teams have made it to the Big Dance, and here to help us figure out who those teams are likely to be so you can put them in your brack. And I don't know how you select your team cure chair based on mascot.
Based on color schemes, although you know what, sometimes that works as well as people have Actually that's true.
It's the host for a business of sports podcast for Nesta Prodermo Joints. It was noting along with us, she might have a more sophisticated calculus than you when it comes to picking her team is We'll get into that in just a monte. Butanessa, great to have you with us. Let me ask you, first of all, just rif what what colors this season's NCAA tournament. We see a lot
of ads for sports betting, for instance. It does feel like we've kind of entered a new terrain or iteration of March Madness with the advent and legalization of sports betting.
I mean, it's absolutely one of the biggest, you know, things of the year, one of the biggest betting events on the calendar. It's actually bet on more than the
Super Bowl. Considering the amount of games that March Madness has. There's, you know, a prediction of three billion dollars over three billion dollars when we bet on this year's March Madness, and that only includes sports books, not even considering prediction markets, which is now one of the biggest things that people are really getting into this year.
Is that taking some of the fun away from this? I mean, my introduce to March Madness is like a college pool, a bunch of cash. You're talking to people you never talked to in your office. It was like adorable in its sketchiness. I don't know the fact that it's been commodified. Are people still I mean, obviously three point three billion dollars people are still enjoying it. But has it changed the vibe of March Madness to something a little bit more serious?
I don't think so.
I think, you know, it's almost exactly what we want, what they want, and what we've already been doing with filling out your bracket, like you were saying before, I mean, people just throw random things in there, so it's the same thing with betting on the game. You're hoping that Cinderella story, that that eleven seed is going to come through and make it to the Elite eight or the
Final four. And I think really what it's doing is giving people exactly what they were already writing down their brackets, but it's giving them an opportunity to actually make money on it.
And it's just really the same exact thing.
Just now they're making money on it, and the sports books are very happy as well.
I want to get your counselor on who we should be looking to for maybe some of those Cinderella stories. So yesterday I was having a beverage of my choice and watching the Vanderbilt Florida game. Very exciting. Vanderbilt won that unexpectedly. So we've had these conference tournaments happening. Who are you looking at? Who stands perhaps to surprise all of us here as we look ahead to March badness.
You know, I went to du Kane University, so I'm a big fan of the A ten and A ten. Actually, you know, they're one of the conferences that actually usually kind of get in there, and they have about three or four seeds, so I'm a little bit of a homer in that way. But if you are filling out your brackets, if you are looking to play to bet, usually those eleven seeds that we'll see today in selection Sunday who those will be, But usually those eleven seeds, those twelve.
Seeds are the ones you want to put your money on.
Obviously, lots of money, lots of interest. But I have been informed because I am new to Bloomberg. There's something called Bloomberg's Bracket for a Cause. This is the eleventh year and the website goes live this week. Explain what this is and why we do it and how much money is raised.
Yeah, So Bloomberg Bracket for a Cause is something that's been going on for over ten years. CEOs, investors, hedge fund managers, they all come together, they pledge twenty thousand dollars for exactly what we're talking about. They're filling out their brackets and they're also just raising money for charity,
which is amazing. Whitney Wolf heard. Actually, the founder of Bumble has won the last two years in a row, and you know she's raising money for Baby to Baby I think, which is a organization that helps child poverty. And I've written the story and I've talked to some of the investors and they actually have a little bit more of a hedge than you know, me and you filling out our brackets because they see it as a investment. They see it as looking at you know, those little
things that they look to in the market. They're doing that exact same thing when they're filling out their college brackets.
Essa, How could someone possibly have more like interest and analytics and filling out brackets than me, as we've already established as I choose by cute magus mascots and color choices.
But all right, I'll give you that on that note.
My last question kind of looking at the zeitgeist, looking at this moment, I've heard from a few friends that they're going to rely on AI to help pick their brackets this year, and I'm thinking, like, maybe that's going to be a phenomenon here as well. Yeah, I mean, like that could tell you a good deal. I imagine just about like past not the past performance is a guarantee of future success. But are you hearing that as well, Vanessa?
Like is that a thing as well? People using AI to kind of figure out what they're going to put in their brackets.
It's absolutely something that people a tool that people use, and it's.
It's helpful obviously, Like you know, coaches use it sometimes to try and figure out.
What their game plan is going to be.
But at the same time, I think AI knows just as much as everyone else does in terms of March Madness. They I mean, they call it that for a reason. You know, Cinderella's stories happen every year. But the reality is, you know, number one seeds tend to win.
We haven't talked about the women's bracket yet. Yukon seemingly unstoppable. Yet again, we talk about the success of brackets for a cause, and it's Winter year after year, Yukon winter year after year, hear and looking like they're in a very strong position going into the women's March Madness as well.
It's an amazing story for Yukon.
I mean, you know, they won last year with Paige Becker's and she finally got her ring, and now Azy Fudd trying to do the same thing as she goes in her last year before she goes.
To the WNBA. They're undefeated, they're looking extremely strong. But I also wouldn't put it past.
UCLA is another team that I would really look at, with Lauren Betts also doing the same thing in one of her last years before she goes to the WNBA.
Vanessa, great to talk to you. Vanessa Prodmo, the host of the Business of Sports podcast here at liberg News, reports in the Business with sports as well. Good luck for sank you so much.
I'm gonna sit us. I'm gonna send you my bracket. You can get me thumbs up and some down. Yeah, you feel like that market ap. Please I gotta beat David. Please help me.
We'll see we shall see you.
Thanks for joining us on today's Bloomberg This Weekend podcast. Don't forget to tune in live for the show every Saturday and Sunday morning, starting at seven am Eastern.
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