March 22, 2026 - Trump and Starmer have "constructive" call on Iran

0:00This is LBC, with Nick Abbott. LBC's Washington correspondent is Simon Marx, and he is on the line now. Hello, Simon. Evening Nick. Now, number 10 has released a statement saying that the Kissed Armor talked to Donald Trump, and they planned to talk again, other than that they didn't really say anything. What do you know? Well, I saw the word constructive had been used to describe the talks. They must have been something, because just hours before they took place, the president of the United States on his social media account, reposted that sketch about Kissed Armor and David Lamy calling Donald Trump that appeared, of course, on that first outing for Saturday Night Live's UK edition. So Donald Trump certainly found it, made him chuckle. And certainly it must have set the stage for fresh tension, I think, in the relationship between the Prime Minister

1:00and the American leader. I mean, look, they are so far apart now on the war in Iran, a whole host of other issues. You know, questions, of course, continuing to be asked over there about whether the King's visit to the United States is really going to take place next month, given the extraordinary amount of tension that now exists between the two of them. I mean, whether they were able to advance any kind of conversation about freedom of navigation in the state of Hormuz that is meaningfully going to involve the Royal Navy, I think is very unclear. Certainly all of this came just a matter of hours after President Trump again on social media referred to NATO in all block capitals, no less, as cowards. And yet we were treated this morning to mark router NATO Secretary General and Trump Whisperer appearing on American television and not just bending over backwards, but twisting himself up into a pretzel

2:02to defend the president's conduct in Iran, even arguing that American voters should get behind Donald Trump and understand the benefits that this conflict in Iran is designed to bring to the American people, which is an extraordinary place for the NATO Secretary General to go. I mean, way out of his lane, but Mark Router has shown limitless capacity to try and fluff the ego of President Trump. And I think it was a TV interview for an audience of one, but where all this leaves the prime minister and the state of Hormuz issue, I think is pretty unclear. It's certainly not clear that he's anymore interested in cleaning up President Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu's mess in the Middle East after this phone call when he was before it. Yeah, and the mess is blowing back on Trump because his popularity rating, apart from with MAGA fans, did you see that pole on Trump was crowing about this?

3:06He got the source wrong. It wasn't CNN, as he said. I think it was NBC. There did a pole of MAGA fans and asked them whether they support Donald Trump in this excursion in Iran. And they said yes to the level of 100%. Zero people said no. I think it must have been a very small sample. I mean, because if you look at MAGA influences, I mean, big people, Tucker Carlson, Meghan Kelly, I mean, let's leave aside the more extreme voices like Candice Owens and Nick Fuentes and the others. I mean, they've all absolutely turned on Donald Trump. So I think this idea that MAGA is completely aligned behind him with regard to Iran is a stretch. I mean, it's also just worth making the point that Donald Trump has torpedoed his own plan, his own pledge, which was to focus like a laser beam on the economy and engaging in outreach to voters.

4:06We were barely going to see him in Washington. He was going to be covering so much ground from coast to coast in an effort to connect with the American people and persuade them that he's delivering American prosperity and trillions of dollars in investment are rolling in. And instead, what has rolled in is an average petrol price nationally at the pumps tonight of $4 a gallon. The highest it's been since 2022, with no sign of an end to that. Even if the president goes ahead and decides to ratchet up the military action that's taking place in Iran, I mean, the mixed messages this weekend have been unbelievable. On the one hand, we're winding down because we've made so much progress. But on the other hand, he might be sending more troops to the region and he certainly threatening the Iranians that unless they reopen the straighter four moves, he's got a blast Iran's power plants. One top Trump official on television today wouldn't even rule out the possibility

5:07that he might strike the nuclear power plant at Boucher that of course, the Russians built for the Iranians. So I don't know, are we winding down? Are we getting caught ever deeper in a potential quagmire, whatever he's doing? He's not treading the streets of Pennsylvania or Ohio or West Virginia or Michigan in a quest for votes for his own parties law makers who are feeling the heat from their constituents about what all of this is doing to the economy. You know, the Federal Reserve met last week. I mean, they must have been laughing about the notion of lowering interest rates under these circumstances. There's no possible way that's going to happen while this war is continuing. So he needs an off ramp, but he doesn't look like a man capable of finding one. Or any idea of what a win would look like. I mean, apart from going through the cycle of we've won and then, oh, we didn't win, we completely obliterated their nuclear,

6:10their nuclear program. And then we need to re obliterate it. And we don't need people who join a war after I won it. And would you please come over and clear up my mess? I mean, it's just all over the map. Well, we've reached the point where he has lifted partially American sanctions on 140 million barrels of Iranian oil in a bid to lower the price of oil that has been soaring on world markets because he is engaged in bombardment of the very country that produced the oil, the sanctions against which he is now lifting. And yet in the same breath, he's threatening to destroy more of their energy infrastructure. So he is completely all over the map. And he's also sort of partly un, what's the word un-engined?

7:10No, that's not what I was going for. It's not the one, but I do agree. Now, he's partly unbanded Russian oil. Yes, while Russia was giving Iran the location of American targets. Yes, I mean, trebles all round in the Kremlin. I mean, first of all, they're going to make more money off their oil as a result of being able to sell it much more easily on world markets. And of course, they're making more money anyway because the price has gone up by so much. But also, this notion that the White House still says, oh, it doesn't matter whether the Vladimir Putin's been providing the Iranians with targeting information that might lead to the death of American soldiers. Yes, it doesn't matter. Nothing to see here, absolutely astonishing. Now, ICE are being deployed to airports. What's that about? Well, the lines, the queues to get through airport security in some airports are now gargantuan. And at Lenta today, it took six hours

8:14for some people to get through security. We've seen extraordinary lengthy queues at other airports all over the country. This, of course, is because the Department of Homeland Security is not currently funded. There is a partial government shutdown that has been underway now for over a month. And so all the security guys at the airport are showing up without pay. Now, they will eventually get paid when the Department of Homeland Security is refunded, is funded again, rather. But Democrats, of course, in the aftermath of the ICE killings of two American citizens in Minneapolis earlier this year are not minded to fund the Department of Homeland Security. So what you're seeing is a number of these TSA agents, the security staff at the airports, are either taking second jobs and calling in sick to their main job, or they're simply walking off the job and saying, one, Earth would I turn up if I'm not going to get paid? So in some key airports, these security lines are now astonishing.

9:14I mean, I have to say, I flew yesterday back from, I was coming back from Asia. I flew from San Francisco to Washington, DC, and there were no issues at San Francisco at all. But in places like Atlanta Houston, apparently, is absolutely dreadful Dallas as well. They've got to do something. So the president's answer to this is to deploy ICE agents with no proven ability to engage in checking your passport and your driving license as you go through security lines. But hey, I guess anybody can do it. But this, of course, is a threat. It's a veiled threat because the president knows that Democrats will see it as an opportunity by ICE to engage in more efforts to identify illegal immigrants, snatch them and deport them at airports all over the country. And for the travel industry, this is yet more disastrous news because people are just going to stay away from airports for as long as this goes on, whether they're domestic travelers or international, the idea of having to go to an airport and dealing with the massed goods from ICE.

10:16I think he's going to put another massive damper on travel. Yeah, forget it. It's off my holiday list. Simon, always a pleasure. Thanks so much. That's Simon Marx. LBC's Washington correspondent.