Trump addresses war with Iran

0:00Do you love pop culture? Hate some of it, too? You're in good company. Pull up a metaphorical chair to pop culture happy hour. The podcast that breaks down the best and some of the most questionable moments in pop culture. We'll tell you what's great, what's interesting, and break it all down with debates that'll have you yelling at your speakers, but in a good way. Listen to NPR's pop culture happy hour by finding us wherever you get your podcasts. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics podcast. I'm Scott Detro. President Trump addressed the nation tonight to talk about the war in Iran. After a month of conflict, Trump said, this is close to the end. Tonight I'm pleased to say that these core strategic objectives are nearing completion. As we celebrate this progress, we think especially of the 13 American warriors who have laid down their lives in this fight to prevent our children from ever having

1:00to face a nuclear Iran. We have NPR National Security Correspondent Greg Myrie, White House correspondent Deepak Shiverham, International Affairs correspondent Jackie Northam. Deepa, I want to start with you. A lot of things stood out to me in this speech tonight, but I think the main one is that President Trump delivered remarks from the White House, and he made the case for a war, and he made the case for a war more than a month into the conflict. Yeah, we're like on week five right now, and the president is trying to explain to Americans why the US went to war in Iran in the first place. He didn't really make this case to the American people, even when the attacks initially happened. It took some time for him to come on camera days to talk about the objectives, the goals here. And now he's doing this formal address, this major address, weeks into the war, and I'll point out it comes at a time when approval ratings for Trump are going lower a little bit. People are feeling this war in their pocketbooks, gas prices are going up, so he's delayed in this, and it's notable that he's doing it now. I think the things that stood out to me

2:01is that he repeatedly said that he essentially wants credit for taking action in Iran when no other president did. He wanted the credit for that, and he said and described this war as an investment in your children, your grandchildren's future, he sort of painted it that way, and he said, essentially, that this war is short so far. It's just 30 plus days at this point. He even pointed out World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, took much longer, and so it was interesting to me that he's really emphasizing that in the context of all of that, it hasn't actually been that long. Yeah, and I want to get back to a few of those points, especially gas prices in a moment, but first Greg Maire, President Trump, talking about the position of strength the United States is in right now, saying the Iranian Navy is gone. It's Air Force has been ruined. It's leaders are dead, saying the US holds all the cards now and repeatedly said the mission is close to complete. How does that square with what we know about the state of battle? Well, a lot of the things he said are true in terms of the decimation of Iran's Air Force.

3:03It's Navy, but what we don't see is a clear end goal. Now he did put a timeline on there. He did say that the US should be completing its objectives and he guessed two to three weeks. So that was a speculation beforehand. He actually put that number out there. Always risky to put a timeline on a war because it tends to be based on when you achieve your objectives not on a certain date. So I think that was significant. He talked a lot about the Iran's nuclear program without giving any details of how this US could guarantee that Iran would not be able to develop a bomb in the future. Right, that's an important point talking a lot about the fact that no American president has wanted Iran to get a nuclear weapon talking about the fact Iran could hold the world hostage if God owed nuclear weapon. What do we know about the state of the nuclear materials at this point because they haven't been seized, they haven't been fully destroyed, right? Yeah, we've had very little information.

4:03The key point is there's about a thousand pounds of highly enriched uranium. It's believed to be some of it or most of it, all of it at one plant in Isfahan, another, possibly at Natans. But we've had no information and we've heard from the head of the UN's atomic energy agency who they saw that more than a year ago. They don't know where that is. We know Iran's nuclear facilities have been damaged considerably last year. We haven't heard much in this campaign. There seems to have been some attacks but not clear how the US plans to get that material if Iran might make a deal on it. So still as much as he talked about the fact that Iran shouldn't get a nuclear weapon ever, he didn't say how the US would be able to guarantee it. All right, let's take a quick break. More in a moment. And we're back. International Affairs correspondent Jackie Northam is on the line as well. Jackie, what do you think stood out from the speech

5:05to American allies listening from around the world? Well, clearly the part about the straight up hormones and trying to get the oil out. He repeated a social media post that he said yesterday saying, look, the US doesn't need this oil. We got plenty of it. But those countries, presumably he's talking about Europe. He's talking about the Gulf States. He's talking about South Asia perhaps as well. They said it's up to them to get it. He's saying that they should take the lead and protecting the oil that they so desperately need. And then he said what he did yesterday, which is get some delay, courage, and go out and get the oil. There's a lot of friction right now between many US allies. Because of some of Trump's comments obviously, but just the fact that they don't have a hand in this war, they didn't want this war. And now they're being ordered to really clean up the mess that the US has made. And that is in part closing off the straight up hormones.

6:09Right, and he has hinted in recent days that the US might withdraw from this conflict, even if Iran still controls the straight. Here are other countries to take it, take it, use it for themselves as the phrasing. But then a moment later he seemed to kind of couch that and said it'll just open up naturally and then say you should just buy American oil. So it didn't seem to me like there was a clear plan for this critical part of the global economy. Right, that was a good pitch for American oil for sure. The other thing that he didn't mention though is that at this moment, Iran is laying out plans to start charging tolls for ships to pass through the straight up hormones. And that will actually increase the cost of oil, which will have a knock on effects throughout the world. But it also won't, Iran has said that it will not allow ships through that have any association, no matter how far along in the train, that have any association with the US or Israel going through the straits. So the straight up hormones is the thing that has really sort of stumped the administration,

7:11which is remarkable because anybody who has watched this area of the world for any time, this has always been a threat that the Iranians could choke off any traffic going through there. And there's always questions and anybody I've talked to over the past month is why didn't the US plan for this ahead of this attack? Yeah, Deepak Shiverham, one political challenge the president is facing, you mentioned it before, is the rising cost of gas, the average is over $4 a gallon. He briefly hinted at that during the speech tonight, but also framed it as a short-term problem seemed to minimize it. Yeah, he essentially blamed it on the Iranian regime and he said, you know, they're attacking oil tankers, they've clothed the street and this is what's causing these high gas prices just to put it into context though, Scott. I mean, I find it so striking because literally like maybe two months ago, the president and the White House were pointing to lowered gas prices as a reason for their good economic work. They kept repeatedly bringing up low gas prices

8:14and now gas, like you said, has spiked up to around $4 a gallon. And what stood out to me was that Trump said that the US has never been more prepared economically to handle some of this, but at this point, it's really, really pinching them and really pinching Republicans, especially in a midterm election year, that people are really concerned about high cost. They're concerned about how this war is affecting their pocketbooks and gas is really one of those. And I will say there was a poll from CNN today that showed that some of that disapproval and some of that worry isn't just from Democrats or Independents. It's from Trump's base, people who say that they strongly approve of President Trump or are saying now that they feel that less so. Greg, we've got about a minute left. I want to ask you what you make of this in regards to a key thing. Thousands, about 10,000 or more troops making their way to the Middle East right now, Marines, members of the Army. What do you think this speech and this signaling from the White House means for them? Well, he really didn't talk about it. He gave no indication that he was going to use ground troops.

9:15And in fact, as he's talking about trying to wrap this up in two or three weeks, it certainly suggests he's not going to launch in a sort of significant ground operation. So my takeaway was he didn't want to talk about that. That may be deception, misdirection, but it certainly doesn't seem like we're headed towards a large ground operation. And that is that for tonight. We'll be back in your feeds tomorrow with more news. Thanks so much to my colleagues, Greg Meiery, Deepak Shiveram, and Jackie Northam. I'm Scott Tetro. Thank you for listening to The Incare Politics Podcast. The Incare Politics Podcast