Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News. Welcome to the Bloomberg This Weekend podcast with David Gura, Christina Raffini, and Elisa Matteo.
We're covering a lot of breaking news this morning out of the Middle East, the US taking extraordinary strikes on Iran. We have a statement from the present that he posted in the early morning hours. We're going to have news reports, analysis over the course of this morning, as we will every weekend Saturdays in Sundation from seven o'clock to ten o'clock on Bloomberg Television, Bloomberg Radio, streaming on the Bloomberg
Business app, and at Bloomberg dot com as well. And Christina sufice to say, we're both woken early by all.
Of this news, quite early.
This was not quite the show we had planned today, as we just mentioned, but look, this is why we're here, this is where our teams are in and this is one of the great things about being at Bloomberg is people were awake all night, people were online immediately and reporting this out. We want to play you some more of the sound from that startling about eight minute statement the President dropped on social media this morning. Again, he
didn't call the press pool. He didn't notify everyone. While we talked to our reporter in mar Lago, and she said she found out when the rest of the world did post it online. Among some of the many remarkable things in that statement, including a declaration of war against Iran and a call for regime change, the President also said this campaign could cost American lives.
The lives of courageous American heroes may be lost, and we may have casualties that often happens in war. But we're doing this not for now. We're doing this for the future, and it is a noble mission. We pray for every service member as they selflessly risk their lives to ensure that Americans and our children will never be threatened by a nuclear armed Iran. We ask God to protect all of our heroes in harm's way, and we trust that with his help, the men and women of
the Armed Forces will prevail. We have the greatest in the world. They will prevail. To the members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, the Armed Forces, and all of the police. I say tonight that you must lay down your weapons and have complete immunity, or, in the alternative, face certain death. So lay down your arms. You will be treated fairly with total immunity, or you will face certain death. Finally, to the great, proud people of Iran, I say tonight
that the hour of your freedom is at hand. Stay sheltered, don't leave your home. It's very dangerous outside. Bombs will be dropping everywhere. When we are finished take over your government, it will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations. For many years you have asked for America's help, but you never got it. No president was willing to do what I am willing to do tonight. Now you have a president who is giving you what you want. So let's see how you respond.
America is backing you with overwhelming strength and devastating force. Now is the time to seize control of your destiny and to unleash the prosperous and glorious future that is close within your reach. This is the moment for action. Do not let it pass. May God bless the brave men and women of America's Armed forces. May God bless the United States of America. May God bless you all. Thank you.
The last two minutes of that extraordinary statement from the President of United States released on truth social early this morning, well before dawn. Our coverage spans the globe, and I'm going to bring in Dan Williams, Jerusalem based correspondent for Bloomberg newslam that Jemann top set, you, the anchor of Horizons on Bloomberg Television, Joe Matthew, the anchor of Balance of Power, and Jeff Mason, White House correspondent with us
on set here in New York. Jimani, we're just talking about your current circumstance, the fact that you've been hearing these strikes where you're sitting. I want to go to that entreaty from the President of the United States there at the end, urging Iranians to lay down their weapons. I should point out here these are airstrikes, and one wonders what the logical next steps would be were one to do that on the ground in Iran. And I'm
curious how you're thinking about that. The President calling for Iranians effectively to rise up, calling on the Revolutionary.
Guard those who do lay down their weapons, but.
What mechanisms in place to do that.
Talk about that challenge, if you would, Jumana, in these next few hours and days.
Yeah, Well, it's a huge challenge, and I think from what we can gather, just the retaliation that all of these Gulf states have seen and witness of the last few hours, suggests that the Iranian regime isn't going to go down quietly. They've been reading themselves for the real possibility of military action.
They have responded very quickly.
Remember and the twelve day Iran Israel war, it took them a couple of days to calibrate their response. This time they were ready to go, and they have targeted multiple countries. I will tell you, I'm sitting here in Dubai and fifteen minutes ago I heard a couple of blasts and it seems as so they're not sparing any Gulf state in so far as the US has assets in those countries. So we're talking about the UAE, We're
talking about Kuttar Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Iraq. All of these countries are involved, so it.
Has become a regional war.
And what we know from authorities in all of these countries is that most of the missiles and drones have been intercepted, so there don't appear to be any civilian
casualties from the strikes themselves. There has been one casualty in Abu Dabian Bako shrapnel, But that is the bigger issue here because a short while ago it was reported that the Foreign Minister Abbasa actually actually didn't make a call to his counterparts in all those countries and warned them about them allowing the US to use their basis to launch further strikes on Iran. So this would suggest
that Iran are intent on retaliating. Now when it comes to the demonstrators, I mean you have to rewind back a month ago. There was and uprising, but it was brutally put down and there are unofficial numbers that have come through. We don't know the exact death death toll, but the number is put forward by human rights agencies suggest that thirty thousand people, more than thirty thousand people
were killed in these demonstrations. So there is a wariness, i think in Tehran amongst the population and a real question as to what exactly the US's assistance actually looks like and whether the focus here is to target once again military infrastructure, perhaps key individuals within the Iranian regime, but in terms of actual support on the ground, what does that look like? Because once again the stakes are
very high. And this is an Iranian regime we spoke about in the prior hour that is very intense on its own survival. It's an existential threat to them and they will not go down easily.
And I run in xpacts I've spoken to recently in the US who despise this regime with every fiber of their being. Still have family in Tehran. I talked to a woman who said her family she hadn't spoken to them in days during the last round of strikes because they had gone to the mountains to try to hide
from these air assaults. So these are the people the Trump administration is trying to appeal to, But at the same time, these are the people who are being put in harm's way, as well as our colleagues and friends and other people throughout the region. Dan, I understand you are now outside and say, I hope you've emerged from a shelter. I'm wondering if you're hearing any more from the Israeli government. This morning, I reached out to the
embassy here and they said they're not speaking yet. I'm wondering if you're hearing anything on your side of the world.
As of now, No, there have been procedural updates, for example, from the Transportation Minister about conditions at Israel's airports. The Israeli airspaces closed, as are the airspaces of other relevant countries in the region that obviously will affect air traffic, travel and the like.
They've also been called to.
Shelters very regularly, usually divvied up by sector, by city, by community, by part of the country. These readies have been weathered two such missile attacks going back all the way to nineteen ninety one the Gulf War, and over those three and a half decades have been developing a very sophisticated system that really homes down to the areas
likely to be affected by any specific launch. So basically, if you are in the line of fire where you happen to live, or potentially in the line of five for debris that could emerge for an interception of a missile above way, you are a missile intended for another part of the country, you'll receive a timely warning to go down to shelters. That's happened already a half dozen times since this really blew up at just past eight am this morning, just past ten in the Gulf and
we've been seeing that repeatedly. I think part of the reason the Iranians have succeeded, apparently in scoring strikes in those golf targets, as Jumana alluded to, is it comes down as much to range as anything else. Israel is well over a thousand and kilometers away. Those golf targets are in some cases just a few hundred kil klometers away from the Iranian launch points. That means there's far less time to prepare for those incoming missiles to intercept them,
to mount an interception. Obviously, when you're across the region as Israel is, and Israel has a very sophisticated defense of race system, then it's easy to track those missiles and see them coming. I expect after Prime Minister is and now put out that recorded message very close to President Trump's message. In fact, the content tracking almost exactly with what Trump said.
These Raeli's also calling on.
The Iranian people, Iranian people of all communities and sectors to rise up and take hold of their destiny. Now that the Iranian government is apparently receiving a drubbing at the hands of the combined US and Israeli forces, we won't hear back from him until I think nightfall when the Jewish Sabbath ends here in Israel.
That's a really good point, Dan. I mean in June, during that twelve day back and forth, we did watch the Iron Dome very successfully intercept most of those minisions. There were a few they got through, but for the most part, what you were seeing watching those screens was actually the interceptors going out and taking on those Aaran clearly knew this was a possibility and recalculated what they would strike and one.
Matthew, let me stick with this theme of surprise, and I know that you were listening as I was to Courtney Supermanian who's with the White House pool at mar A Lago, noting that she was as surprise as all of us by the presentation of that statement. Early in the morning. She saw it pop up online as we all did. I'm curious about lawmakers and how surprised they were.
I saw reporting earlier this morning from The New York Times that Jack Read's communications director, Jack Read, of course, the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, was given no advanced notice of this. One wonders about the so called Gang of Eight, the leadership from the House and the Senate, the leading members of the select intelligence committees, as well any indication if they were given any heads up here.
This was actually just have learned at a Bloomberg News that the Gang of Eight did get a heads up on this, which did not happen for instance, when the US went into Venezuela to captured Nicholas Mduro, and there was a bit of outrage when Marco Rubio, at the time the Secretary of State, suggested that they couldn't trust members of Congress to not leak that information, and the Gang of Eight is quite well known for not doing that. These are the two party leaders in each chamber, and
leader and ranking member of both intel committees. That would include Mark Warner, who is out with the statement this morning demanding a war powers vote. And it gets back to this idea of a prolonged engagement, which the President is clearly telegraphing. The Speaker of the House was also briefed, we understand, and I suspect that that came from the
same place. Whether there's going to be a classified briefing for all members now will be the next question, And I suspect in the days ahead they'll be demanding that.
And Jeff correct my memory, but I think that's a departure from when the US struck arounds nuclear facilities earlier in last year in the summer, because I remember hearing a lot of griping from Congress that members hadn't been notified. Maybe some Republicans had, but I don't think the full G eight was notified.
No, I think your memory is right on that.
And just to sort of take a broader look or standback, look at that. You heard the president use the language and use the word war. Well, Congress has the right to declare war. And that could be another major tension point politically in Washington. The fact that the president, though some lawmakers may have been given a heads up, he didn't go and ask permission.
He didn't ask Congress to get behind this.
He went ahead and did it. This is another example I think that some critics would say of the Congress, which of course is controlled by Republicans, giving up powers that the Constitution gives them to the executive. That's been true with tariffs as well. This, of course on a major foreign policy level, and debate.
About the Warpowers Act is not exclusive to this president. This was an issue for Democratic presidents, it's an issue for Republican This has been as long as we've covered Washington, this has been something Congress has complained about. But to me, the fact that usually when you hear presidents announce strikes like this, they dance around this specifically so they don't
come into direct conduct. What does it tell you about the power dynamic between Congress and this White House that the President is outright saying this is a war, It could be protracted, and there could be American case.
I think it's just another example of the strengthening of the executive that has happened under President Trump's second term. I mean, he has claimed powers in many times, many ways that are not his. He has used executive orders to govern more so than legislation, which is not to downplay the legislation, the legislative victories that he also had in terms of tax cuts, and that has been attention point in Washington. It's been attention point with certainly with Democrats.
The question is whether Democrat Republicans, rather as Joe was referencing earlier, are going to rise up against that as well.
Certainly I can guarantee you if.
This were a Democratic president in office, they would not be standing for this.
But that has been a.
Hallmark character that has been a hallmark of the Republican response to President Trump's second term is that they don't stand up. So will this be a line that they feel he's crossed?
TVD Jamani, you heard Dan talking about the alignment in those statements between Prime Minister and net Nyahu and President Trump. I want to ask you about how effectively golf leaders have been able to make their case to President Trump in the run up to all of this. We saw that inaugural meeting of the Board of Peace in Washington, d C. Many golf leaders party to that, and we're
present for that first meeting. I guess there is some inherent ineffectiveness here, but what is that level of communication, the quality of that communication like between golf leaders and the president right now?
I mean, you've got to be thinking that, You've got to be thinking they're working on the channels. We just got a statement put out by the Saudi Arabian Pharmastry calling for an immediate de escalation, saying that they stand in unity with their golf allies in the region, the ones who had been targeted and for Golf states, look, this is of utmost priority. The escalation is of utmost priority.
And I think you know, when it comes to the relationship with Iran, I wouldn't say that there's a huge amount of love lost between many of these Golf nations and the Iranian regime. But that being said, for them, what is more important in the region in the context of their own economic visions, because many of these countries are undergoing ECONO trans transformation, is political stability, and that
has been a consistent theme. If you speak to the leaders in these various Gulf states, they will tell you that they don't want this crisis to spiral out of control. And viewers may recall that a couple of years ago, twenty twenty three, that was actually a mediation that was brokered by China between Saudi Arabia and Iran to sort of restore diplomatic relationships or both sides pledged non interference in each other's affairs, and that was a big step.
It was a big mouthpone in.
The region because you may also recall that in prior incidents, Saudi IRANQO facilities in Kai were also subject to retaliation from Iran. So this time around, they've been working very aggressively the last couple of years to ensure that those type of strikes don't happen again. And yet here we are on a daylight today where every single US based military base, or not every single but every single country that is ho staying at US base has been targeted
with the Iranian retaliation. So they would be looking upon this with a lot of consternation concern about what happens next.
Obviously pushing for a big de escalation here, working those diplomatic channels, but it's unlikely at this point that things can calm down or de escalate because the messaging that's come through, at least from the Israeli side, is that this is an operation that's going to go on for days, and as long as that happens, you would think that also the Gulf States and their assets, the US assets in the region will continue to be targets.
I also want to update our audience. Coordney Supermann, in our White House correspondent in mar Lago with the President updates us and confirms that we are not expected to get further remarks from President Trump today. Dan, I want to go to you and ask about President Trump and the relationship between him and Benjamin Netanyahu. This has been two leaders who were very close and then had it been of a tiff, the romance seemed to be over,
and then it has reignited in recent months. The Prime Minister was recently at the White House and sources were telling me Israel officials were coming out of that meeting. The word they used was giddy. Flashboard. A few weeks later and we have this joint strike on Iran. Talk to us about that relationship and how much influence you think then has over President Trump when it comes to taking action in Iran.
I think he has a great deal of influence.
Indeed, there was something of a falling out in between the two Trump administrations. Famously, Trump, then out of office in mar Lago, used the effort about Nita. I was unhappy about these radiister Prime Minister being so quick to recognize President Biden's election win. I think that's all well in the past. I didn't there's any dispute. I think President Trump would be the first to agree with this.
This is a president who really enjoys success and ad Maya's success, and I think after the catastrophe of October seventh. The way these readly government and military were blindsided by
that Hamas attack two and a half years ago. Ntanneo, veteran prime minister, the longest serving prime minister, with his eye firmly on his historical legacy and also the needs of the country in the given moment, put his mind not just to turning around the situation in Gaza, but effectively revolutionizing revolutionary bring about revolutionary.
Change to the Middle East at large.
Israel went on the offensive on several fronts against other Iranian allies. Hamas has enjoyed Iranian patronage for a very long time, as has Hizballah in Lebanon, Shiite groups in Iraq, certain groups in Syria until very recently, and then again the Huthis in Yemen are also aligned with Iran and now Israel with a healthy United States, it took taking on Iran directly. So I think what's clear here is
that Trump has been persuaded. It may have been by other forces, may have been for his own reading of history. He'll be someone who will remember the Iran Crisis of nineteen seventy nine, the Iranian Revolution, when the US embassy was taken over and many of the staff held hostage for a long time.
He will be aware of that.
There are also US allegations that Iran has been behind assassination attempts or at least one against this president, who survived two assassination attempts, active assassination attempts in recent months.
So it would appear a combination of the council of the Israeli Prime minister, prime minister he trusts to get the job done and potentially to give him a solid accounting of the realities of the Middle East and his own ideas about his historical place or US priorities in the Middle East, and how US interests might be served.
By seeing a change of regime in Iran.
It seems that they've coalesced in this day that we've seen, and also, as noted six months ago in June, they stressed this relationship with the United States joining the Israelis in what was then a surprise attack against Iran. The US joined in, and now they joined in at the outset with the US prepositioning planes in Israel, which.
Itself is without precedence.
So yes, there is a very tight relationship between these men that goes well beyond the rapul to what appears to be a common understanding of the Middle East.
Joe, at a moment like this, one tends to look back on what happened in the preceding days. You were on Capitol Hill for the State of the Union, watching the president advisors come in. That's right, that seems that feels like a thousand years ago. General Kin was there. Of course, Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State as well. In fact, we were talking yesterday Christina and I. Marco Ruba, the Secretary of State, is still having a plan to go to Israel over.
The course of weekend.
It was announced yesterday. Yesterday.
I wonder how you think about that show the run up to this. Again, I keep going back to this theme of surprise, but what you've observed sort of the apparatus surrounding all of this. Yes, we've heard from the President, but the degree to which he's been engaging with and we've heard from his advisors on national security, defense and diplomacy.
Yeah, And of course at that point when we were in the Capital for State of the Union, the storyline was one of optimism that they were gearing up for talks on Thursday. President said ten to fifteen days. By the way, this is ten days on the spot. I'm not sure if you guys noticed that, which is kind of interesting, But you know, Marco Rubio, that's also very true and really no new insight into justification. It certainly wasn't amounting to what we heard in this video overnight.
Of course, they clearly knew this, and he had a briefing by the Sentcom commander on Thursday A little did we know that was probably a briefing about how the attack was ready to go. Look, this is going to play differently with different members of the cabinet.
You point out Marco.
Rubio reminding everyone of the tension between Marco Rubio and JD. Vance as the potential air apparent of this president and of MAGA. This is going to be very difficult for jd. Vance to telegraph publicly. So he's going to have to support this obviously as a member of the administration, but to make this in America first, we need to do this now as a domestic issue for him, knowing that he wants to run in twenty eight it's going to be tough.
Jeff.
I want to play you a bit more sound from the President's remarks this morning. No apologize, we've heard the presence from Marx this morning, but I want to play you sound from the President speaking yesterday corpor Chrisky Texas because listening to what he said in the State of the Union, listening to the messaging up into this speech as we were all trying to read the tea leaves last night, when I heard this, I thought, uh oh, so let's play listen you can give you They don't.
Want to quite go far enough and stupid. Look, we've been playing with him for forty seven years, and that's a long time. They've been blowing the legs off our people, blowing the face off our people. The arms, they've been knocking out chips one by one, and every month.
Is something else. So you can't put up with it to long.
We're not happy with the negotiation. They just don't want to They don't want to say the keywords we're not going to have a nuclear weapon.
Was that the President tipping his hat there for people who were listening, and what are the ramifications for this? As we look at the bigger geopolitical strategy, I'm talking about potential conflicts like China, Taiwana. Head of the president's visit to China and then of course Russia and Ukraine. Does this impact that?
Sure?
So Number one, I think he probably was telegraphing it. And I think it's interesting as well, because this is a president who has made clear almost from day one that he's interested in getting the Nobel Peace Prize. And yet he's also a president who is very, very interested in using the forces that are available to him in terms of military power, and he's certainly done that now
in Iran. On the broader geopolitical ramifications, I thought it was very interesting to hear earlier what Russia Russia's reaction to this. I'm sure some would call that very rich to have Russia saying that this is an unprovoked attack and not in line with an international norms, considering the fact that Russia of course invaded Ukraine.
But that again that does have ramifications for this.
How does that change this administration, the Trump administration's ability to form a piece deal there, which, of course President Trumps said he want you rightly said, the President is going to China in about a month. There's always this sort of threats or a concern of China potentially invading Taiwan. What kind of message does the United States strike on another country, in this case Iran, send to China in terms of whether that would be accepted or acceptable.
Our colleague Tony helping it heads up our Russia coverage making a very good point in light of the statement that you just mentioned there. What the showcase is, in fact, is the reduced capacity of Russia and Vladimir Putin to defend its long standing allies in the Middle East. I wonder what you think about that. We have seen, certainly with Iran, the damage to a lot of its proxies
in the region. And Russia for so long was a patron of a lot of these countries, Iran chief among them in supporting them against the prospect of this kind of aggression, and.
We saw this in Syria. You know what was one of the big reasons that regime couldn't hold on is it just Russia didn't have the bandwidth to support that regime as much as they used to. Remember when I was there quite a few years ago, they were picture of the Iola of the RGC leaders all over that area, and you know that's not there anymore.
So it really just reminds us of the disruption in the in world order that we've seen just in the president's first year. In this second term, there's a lot of overlap here, as you're pointing out, and to get back to what Jeff said, how this impacts a potential peace deal around Ukraine, the way that it may be informing the Chinese when it comes to Taiwan, or huge questions right now, we haven't even brought up Greenland since we came on the air this week.
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