Trump: “I Guess” Americans Should Be Concerned About Iranian Attacks Inside U.S.

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1:07Good evening. Thanks for joining us. Starting off our scene in global war coverage tonight. A new progress report from US Central Command. Seven days into the fighting. Check. Check. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Be sure to be sure. According to Sencom, American forces have now hit more than 3,000 targets across Iran. This is a new video of a strike on Tehran. And this video also new to us shows one of the capital's two airports on fire after the strikes. Running state media tonight reporting explosions from one end of Tehran to the other. Some of it likely from Israel which says it launched a new wave of its own airstrikes on the city. And in the last couple hours there were new Iranian missiles for Israeli air defenses to deal with. Sencom also said that 43 Iranian ships have been damaged or destroyed since the war began, including this drone carrier in the Persian Gulf.

2:10I'm clear though exactly when it was hit. And though Iran's capacity to strike back has certainly been degraded. It has not been eliminated. New video from Basra and southern Iraq. Security forces there telling Reuters that Iranian drones hit an office and warehouse compound belonging to the American logistics and petroleum services company. Both Haliburden and KBR. No word yet if anyone was hurt. But Iranian attacks on the world's oil supply over the last seven days have pushed prices sharply higher. More than 12% today alone the steepest one to gain since 2020. Also today seen and learned from multiple sources that Russia is providing Iran with intelligence much of its satellite imagery about the locations and movements of American troops, ships and aircraft which Iran is targeting with missiles like these. We don't comment on intelligence reports that are leaked to the press. Whether or not this happened frankly it does not really matter. That is what White House Secretary Carolyn Levitt said when asked about it today.

3:13So there's a lot to get to into this hour. You might imagine that last bit about it not mattering drew questions, including from CNN's Kristen Holmes. You just said on Fox that it doesn't really matter if Russia is giving Iran information about military assets. Why doesn't it matter if US military is putting danger by Russia? And is that what the President believes as well? I meant Kristen and thank you for giving me a chance to make it very clear. Is that it clearly is not making a difference with respect to the military operations in Iran because we are completely decimating them. Well a short time later at a White House meeting on college sports the President was asked directly about what he said. He answered quote what a stupid question that is to be asking at this time we're talking about something else. Carolyn Levitt was also asked about this post from the President quoting him now. There will be no deal with Iran except unconditional surrender. What the President means is that when he as Commander-in-Chief of the US Armed Forces determines that Iran no longer poses a threat to the United States of America

4:16and the goals of Operation Epic Fury has been fully realized then Iran will essentially be in a place of unconditional surrender. Whether they say it themselves or not. So in addition to that there was more to try and make sense up from the President speaking with Time Magazine. He appeared sanguine about potential Iranian reprisals in the form of terror attacks on American soil. Quoting now from time quote asked whether Americans should be worried about retaliatory attacks at home. Trump acknowledges the possibility. I guess he says but I think they're worried about that all the time. We think about it all the time. We plan for it but yeah you know we expect some things like I said some people will die when you go to war. Some people will die. The President also spoke by phone with CNN's Dana Bash today telling her that he's involved in picking a new leader for Iran in saying quote. It's going to work very easily. It's going to work like it did in Venezuela. Dana will join us shortly. We've got CNN correspondence across the region tonight. Clarissa Ward is in Erbil, Iraq where a hotel was hit by a drone debris.

5:18And for the first time since the war began we have live reporting from Tehran. Fred Pleikin is there for us. I want to go first to Clarissa Ward. Clarissa we mentioned there was an incident at a hotel in Erbil. What happened? So this was earlier on in the evening Anderson the US Embassy in Baghdad issued an alert warning people that affected the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. It was a high risk of attacks on hotels in the Kurdistan area where high concentrations of foreigners are staying. Literally two hours after receiving this notification four drones attacked Central Erbil. They were all intercepted but one of them did explode next to a rotona hotel in the center of town. This obviously is making a lot of people very nervous Anderson because here in northern Iraq this is the first time that we have seen a civilian target attacked in this way.

6:20And it's certainly the first time we have seen groups and these are believed to be Iran-backed militias in Iraq explicitly saying that they are going to attack these hotels. The reason that they are giving for going after these hotels Anderson is that there is a large number of American contractors and other contractors as well who up until this war began we are working on bases around this area but who have subsequently been moved into hotels temple. And we lost the feed there from Klerce Award. We are joined now by retired U.S. Army Brigadier General Mark Kimit and retired Navy rear admiral John Kirby who previously served as Pentagon Press Secretary under President Biden and spokesperson for the State Department under President Obama. General Kimit when the president says unconditional surrender that's what he is looking for what does that actually mean? I think you read his book The Art of the Deal. That's a typical negotiating style of Donald Trump. Start off with the maximalist demand then go to other somewhat tough positions.

7:30We haven't had unconditional surrender demanded since World War II and so I just think it's a rhetorical flourish on this part. You don't think there will be an unconditional surrender like what happened with the Japanese? No, in World War II. Not at all. There are very proud people. We can go into the religious aspect of their version of Shia. They are called twelveers and they actually believe suicide or martyrdom is the highest form of religious duty. So they are not going to surrender in candidly nor should they? Admiral Kirby, do you take that phrase unconditional surrender as a military objective, a political statement, a bargaining position or some combination of? Well, if it's something serious and not a bargaining position then it would connote an entirely different set of mission objectives for the U.S. military.

8:32And by design, unconditional surrender means that the vanquished has to submit to the victor in every regard politically, economically, militarily, even socially. So if he's serious about that and we'll see what he says tomorrow, then certainly you would expect that the military will be getting different guidance and different structures and different orders to conduct the operations that they're now conducting because originally it was couched from Secretary Hegseth and the chairman as a limited set of objectives. You say unconditional surrender, if you're serious about it then the military has to then adjust the way it's conducting operations. Because in your estimation, if it's unconditional surrender, I mean you're talking about hundreds of thousands of armed revolution, a guard corps member, militia members, all weapons would have to be laid down and that's sort of a surrender. Exactly. I mean you're talking about the enemy literally laying down arms and stopping the fighting. It also means that you're going to take control of post-conflict governance. You're going to actually rehabilitate a government to your liking and that requires a whole lot more effort than just bombs dropping from the air.

9:44That requires perhaps boots on the ground, certainly it's going to require a diplomatic effort that's more extensive and more complete. As General Kim it said, we haven't done this since World War II, this is a huge undertaking if in fact he's serious about it and it's not some sort of negotiating tactic. As we said sources are telling CNN that the Russians are giving intelligence information, potential targeting information, essentially untrue movements by the US in positions, how serious is that? Well it's pretty serious but it's probably the least surprising thing I've heard in this war so far. We've been given intelligence information to Ukraine since the beginning of the war, why wouldn't Russia be doing the same thing with Iran? By the way one other point and John made it, occupations take a lot of troops. It would take hundreds of thousands of American troops on the ground to conduct a post-surrender governance of that country. There doesn't seem to be any, there's surely not a lot of appetite for that in the country, we haven't heard any appetite of that from this administration thus far.

10:49No in fact quite the opposite from this administration. They said we don't believe in forever wars, this would be a forever occupation. Admiral there has been a lot of focus on the straight of Hormuz as oil prices have risen across the globe. President Trump has talked about military escorts by the US Navy to ensure tankers, cargo ships can cross safely. How large an operation would that be given the hundreds of ships that are waiting to cross right now? It's a very resource intensive operation, as you know we did this back in the late 80s under President Reagan during the tanker war. My first deployment in the Navy was to escort tankers in and out of the Gulf. It takes a lot of ships, a lot of time. I'm not saying the Navy couldn't do it but it wouldn't be cost free. It would extract naval capabilities from elsewhere around the world and other missions to be able to do it. I would hope if he's serious about doing this that some of our allied and partner navies in the region and beyond would be willing to contribute some ships to that effort.

11:50But it's not cost free, it's not risk free, it's potentially pretty dangerous. General do you think this is essentially, I mean the strategy as of now is essentially kind of another version of Venezuela. I mean leave, you know, do whatever military attacks, you know, deplete resources, deplete their capabilities of being offensive, conducting offensive operations, nuclear operations, whatever the administration wants, and then leave some sort of whoever it was going to rule rule. Not possibly so, but what really is concern to me is the military operations now. What is concern to me is not their operations they're doing brilliantly, but we're starting to do score cards. You and I both remember body counts from Vietnam. That doesn't lead to victory. But body counts were famously faked in Vietnam even at a certain point. Right, but I don't think we're faking the number of missiles that were hitting the number of silkworms were hitting.

12:53But if we somehow think that the cumulative addition of broken stuff on the battlefield is going to lead to strategic victory, we're wrong. That's a Trish and Warfare. A Trish and Warfare says who he who runs out of stuff first loses. This is a battle of wills, not a Trish and Warfare. In this case, it's more like Ukraine where it's not really important what's happening on the battlefield. That war is not going to end until either Putin or Zelensky gives up. And we need to realize that this war isn't over until either President Trump or the leadership of Iran gives up or we kill all this. I'm rereading dispatches by Michael Hare, one of the great books of, I think, the greatest warbook ever written. It's certainly about the Vietnam War. And I'm really, I'm sure you know that book. I mean, he talks a lot about body counts and you would go out and people, you know, you'd get captain saying, oh, you know, here's the body count for this operation.

13:54Here's the body count. And on paper, supposedly everybody had been decimated and yet suddenly an entire division would rise up out of nowhere and attack a position. Yeah, look, the IRGC is an extensive military, paramilitary force in addition to the Iranian military, the state military. And they're not a monolith. They don't all think the same. They don't all act the same. And there's probably ongoing fights inside the IRGC about what this war means, what the end is going to be for them. And who's going to lead at the end of it? But they are still very, very much in control. And it's going to, to the general's point, it's not just about breaking things and destroying things. And we're doing a great job of that. It is about breaking the will of the resistance of the Iranian military and the IRGC. And that's a whole other task altogether. And that, I mean, that's an incredibly complex task. I mean, it sounds almost impossible given the extremist positions of a lot of these revolutionary guard guard members. Look, all of these revolutionary guard grew up. We're born and grew up in the vast majority and their first words were death to America, death to Israel.

15:03They've been ideologically managed for so long. They're not going to give up. And there's one other thing we need to worry about. Okay, so everybody surrenders. We now come in there. Who's in control? And what I'm most concerned about is, who's in control of those 400 kilograms of enriched uranium? Some crackpot revolutionary group like the PJC. There is virtue in having control, organic control in a country until something better happens. And you and I both saw that in Iraq. I appreciate you being here. Thank you, Admiral Kirby, as well, coming up next more. And what President said today about the war and to General Kimbertooth's point, the aftermath, CNN, Stan Abash, who spoke with him, joins us as our CNN Global Coverage, the war continues.

16:13Some of the latest wave of U.S. and Israeli strikes. Now hitting Iran, Tehran's narrowed bod airport on fire. It appears to have been a punishing day, seven of the war in Iran. Now, the day began with the President suggesting he's not worried about what this is doing about gasoline prices or whether or not Iran's next government is democratic. That's just some of what he told CNN's cheap political correspondent, Dan Abash, who joins us now. So what did the President say about the war, Dan? True to form, Anderson, he was incredibly enthusiastic about the success so far. In fact, he said if you're grading on a scale of 10, he thinks it's a 12 to 15. So far, he said, quote, Iran is not the same country. It was a week ago, a week ago, they were powerful, and now they've been indeed neutered. You mentioned the whole question of who's going to run Iran, which is such a core question. When I asked him about it, as he has done within the past week, several times, he connected it and made an analogy to Venezuela, saying, oh, it'll be like Venezuela, where we have Delci Rodriguez there, and she's doing a great job.

17:30And I said, well, it's a different kind of thing. There is a religious government there, and would you be okay with that continuing? And he said, well, I may, yeah, I mean, it depends on who the person is. I don't mind religious leaders. I deal with a lot of religious leaders and they're fantastic. And then I asked about whether or not that means that it doesn't have to be a democratic leader. And he said, I'm saying there has to be a leader that's going to be fair and just do a great job, treat the United States and Israel well, and treat other countries in the Middle East Anderson. So gas prices are up 34 cents a gallon since the start of the war. Did the president sound concerned about that? He didn't sound concerned. I pressed him on that. And we know that the president has been very fixated on gas prices when they are low as a part of his argument that the economy is doing better. He talked about it all the time. When I did tell him that they are up, he said that maybe a little bit, but it's going to be just a short term thing and they'll go back down.

18:40He insisted that's going to happen and did not give any hint of concern at least today when we talked. I was understanding he brought up Cuba. It was really interesting, Anderson. I didn't ask him about it. He did it unsolicited when he was talking about Iran. He kind of veered off and said, by the way, Cuba is going to fall pretty soon. That's a quote. And then he said, they want to make a deal so badly. They want to make a deal. And so I'm going to put Marco Rubio over there and we'll see how that works out. We're really focused on this one right now, meaning Iran. We've got plenty of time, but Cuba's ready after 50 years. We know that the United States government has been squeezing Cuba for a very long time, but particularly since the President arrested Maduro, brought him back to the U.S. put Delci Rodriguez in and has encouraged and pressed Venezuela, which has been up until now a very big source of energy, of oil, of economic help for Cuba to not do that.

19:52And our Patrick Oppenheim, who is there and others are saying that they are really feeling it there. Who knows how far along this conversation with Cuba actually is, but the fact that it was on his mind was noteworthy, Anderson. Dana Bash, thanks so much. Appreciate it. More now in the tone and tenor of what the President is saying about the war and the message it sends to the American public, joining us in a chief political analyst, a former senior adviser, President Obama, David Axelrod. So David, you hear Dana talk about her conversations. The President seemed overly confident to you in terms of where the war is going and who's going to lead Iran. You know, this is the second or third time, Anderson. First of all, that he said, well, it's war, you know, we're going to lose people even as some of his accolades are arguing that it's not war for their own purposes speaker of the house. There's just so much confusion about what the mission is and what the end game is and so on. But yeah, I mean, the idea that people are just going to bend to his will, I think, is so overwrought.

20:59And I've said to you many times, I've said many times elsewhere that the thing you learn when you're in the White House very quickly is the words the President speaks are deadly serious. They can send armies marching and markets tumbling and this President doesn't seem to think that way. He throws these words out. And it's almost without meaning it's he's he's posturing in the moment. But it's not really clear what the plan is at the military discussion you had at the front end of your of your show speaks to that. Nobody in the military would hear what the President said to Dana and feel particularly comforted by that. I want to read again what the President said to Time magazine and asked whether Americans should be worried about retaliatory attacks at home time wrote Trump acknowledges the possibility. I guess he says, but I think they're worried about that all the time. We think about it all the time. We plan for it. But yeah, you know, we expect some things like I said, some people will die when you go to war, some people will die.

22:05How do you read that tone? Well, that's the reference that I made before I find it shocking, you know, and I think everyone whose son and daughter is over. Manning this mission, fighting this war. You know, it has to be shocked by that. And I think those who've lost lost loved ones to acts of terrorism have to have to feel shocked by that. You know, you want a President to understand the sobriety of the decisions that he's making and the potential outcomes of them and have the empathy to understand that every life that is lost is a tragedy for the family involved. So you don't want to be offhanded about, you know, overnight they merged a video game, video game scenes and cartoon scenes with battle scenes. As if this is all a game, it's not a game to the young men and women whose lives are at stake. It wouldn't be a game for the people who've lost who lose lives to lose the lives of their loved ones to terrorism.

23:18I find it really, really disturbing. This is the most serious thing a President can do and he's like speed dialing people and making comments like speed dialing reporters and saying contradictory things and sending signals that can actually make the situation worse and not better. David Axel and David, thanks very much. Coming up next beyond just the President's remarks on the subject, how prepared is the federal government right now to detect and prevent terror attacks at home and have recent changes that the FBI and DHS left Americans more vulnerable? We'll look at that ahead. Rince knows that greatness takes time, but so does laundry. So Rince will take your laundry and hand-deliver it to your door, expertly cleaned, and you can take the time pursuing your passions. Time one spent sorting and waiting, folding and queuing, now spent challenging and innovating and pushing your way to greatness. So pick up the Irish flute or those calligraphy pens or that daunting beef Wellington recipe card and leave the laundry to us. Rince, it's time to be great.

24:31As the U.S. continues to wage war in the Middle East, I want to read you again that quote from the President which David Axel and I were talking about before the break. Here's how the magazine wrote about it. Ask whether Americans should be worried about retaliatory attacks at home, Trump acknowledges the possibility. I guess he says, but I think they're worried about that all the time. We think about it all the time. We plan for it, but yeah, you know, we expect some things. Like I said, some people will die when you go to war. Some people will die. Sources also tell CNN that FBI Director Cash Patel fired dozens of agents and staff members from a counterintelligence unit tasked with monitoring threats from Iran just days before the U.S. launched its major military operation there. The reason they were fired, each was involved in the federal Trump classified documents, Cates, which you may recall included allegations that the President retained a secret Pentagon document with plans to attack Iran. Joining me now is CNN Chief Law Enforcement Intelligence Analyst, John Miller. I want to ask you about the Iran and the FBI piece of this for a moment, but the President doesn't seem overly concerned about giving the comments at Time Magazine about increasing attacks in the U.S. the potential of that. Should we all be concerned about that?

25:40Well, we should always be concerned. And I say that in the context of behind the scenes secretly in ways most people don't know about it. Iranian operatives have been on the ground here plotting things for a long time. There are even now Iranian operatives in the United States. One would have to assume that given the number we have taken off the game field and the idea that Iran would have no mode of not to replace them with some other covert operators. You have to operate on that assumption. But we also, and I think what the President was saying is, we're under constant threat from the remnants of ISIS and al-Qaeda. We saw the Bourbon Street attacks in New Orleans on New Year's Day two years ago. We've seen the plots that have been interrupted and thwarted. This is a post-9-11 constant, as long as that propaganda is out there. The factor of Iran, though, is they do this very professionally and they are in a position where they've always done targeted violence targeting particular people.

26:42This is the kind of environment where they could go to a mass casualty incident. I mean, people who have been caught in the past, what are they doing here? Where are they working here? Do they have diplomatic immunity or what is sort of infiltration, is their life? So you've had covert Iranian intelligence officers who have come in and out of the United States under various covers and then recruited individuals associated with violence or criminal organizations to target particular people for them for a hit or for an assault or a kidnapping or a murder. But we've also seen them use elements of Hezbollah that were planted in America, Anderson, for the specific purpose of cataloging targets, studying them, mapping them, developing target books and transmitting them back to their handlers in Iran. So this is something that Iran has been thinking about in planning for 20 years or more. And this counterintelligence team that reports the cash betel fired a number of people, what do you know about it?

27:47Well, this is a rolling set of firings where as people like Laura Lumer or Stephen Miller at the White House get more names of agents or analysts who are associated with the January 6 case or the Trump's classified document case from Mar-a-Lago, you know, those names are filtered down to the FBI director and told these people need to go. And they are fired without due process, unceremoniously, pack up your things and go. Someday they'll all sue and they'll all get money or just come back, but what the relevant effect right now is not the injustice of it, it's the brain drain. Some of the most experienced counterterrorism executives in the Bureau, the people who would know how to run the cases to probe for the very threats you're talking about are now out. And people who are honest, hard working people, but less experienced have taken their places. And the agents and analysts from the squads, the worker bees on that level, those are the people with the real knowledge and experience in their head.

28:49And they're gone. And this is not the time for them to be gone for just doing their job. And given the fact that the President of the United States, his family are likely now going to be under threat from Iran for the rest of their lives, given this, let alone just him being President of the United States. And we've seen Iran having, you know, ill will and aims against President Trump in the past. It's incredible to me that he would decimate Iranian-related intelligence officers. Once politics rubs up against law enforcement or intelligence, all logic seems to disappear from the game. It was President Trump, candidate President Trump, before this last election, who was targeted by Iran for assassination. On the very assumption, Anderson, that as a candidate, he'd have just that much less security that they might be able to pull it off. They recruited a team, they paid money. So this isn't theoretical. Yeah, John Miller, thank you. Appreciate it. Up next, the political dimension, Democratic Congressman of Marine Combat Veteran, Jake Ochenkost joins us.

29:50And later we'll tell you about the more of the January 6th pardon recipients, more of them who have been accused of new crimes, a patriot, or so-called patriot update ahead. The cops are good. Jackson Hewitt will do your taxes for $149 or less, no matter how complicated. So if you're a delivery driver. Slash handyman. Slash wedding DJ. You pay only $149 or less. We're talking to you, waitress. Chuck, please. Slash pet sitter. Slash influencer. Just $149 or less. Want your refund to work as hard as you? Hurry, don't wait. File with Jackson Hewitt today. The related time offer for new clients on federal returns, participating locations only, terms at Jackson Hewitt.com slash $149. The relationship between the FBI director and the president has always been complicated. Unravel the complex dynamic in the CNN original series. Standoff, the FBI, power and paranoia, premier Sunday, March 22nd on CNN, and next day on the CNN app.

30:54We are monitoring the situation in Tehran after a new wave of air strikes there tonight, including on one of the city's two big airports. Democratic Congressman Jake Awkencloss joins us now. He's also a US Marine veteran. Congressman, what do you make of President Trump's declaration today that there will be no deal with Iran except unconditional surrender? What does that mean to you and what would that look like if he actually means that? Interesting, good evening. Thanks for having me on. I don't know what that means. I can't really really, I don't understand it. The regime is still in control of the ground. The United States has air dominance over Iran along with Israel, and it seems to be maybe a third to a halfway through its military objectives meant to dismantle Iran's ability to project force outside of its borders. But you can't bomb your way to regime change, and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and their militia still seem to retain control of their apparatus of repression.

31:58So I don't know what it means to say unconditional surrender. It looks like the assembly of experts is going to appoint a successor, and that individual may be a hardliner, and we may have just replaced one old dictator for one young dictator. President Trump also reiterated to CNN's Dana Bash's argument that he should be involved in picking Iran's new leader, saying he wants a situation comparable to what the U.S. has with Venezuela, a regime that I guess he believes is taking its marching orders now from Washington. Is that even a remote possibility in Iran aid that the president would have a role in picking who the new leader is, and that it would so, it would be so compliant that they would just, I mean, the Venezuela situation, the other way looking at it is all the old thugs are still there. They just took out one thug. Right. I think that what's achievable, and what I advocated for last week before the president declared this war of choice, would be that the core American strategic interest is that we retain air supremacy in the region. I do think that's vital for our security interests.

33:10And two, that there's a policy of mutual non-interference with Iran, that Iran agrees not to be funding proxy terror groups in Syria and Iraq or funding rocket strikes from his below, or Hamas, and the United States in turn agrees that overt and covert action against the Iranian regime would stop. That potentially is achievable, but this idea that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps is going to expressly take orders from the President of the United States, it strikes me as hard to fathom. As you know, Secretary of Defense, Hegsath and White House Press Secretary Carolyn Levitt criticized reporters this week for reporting on six U.S. service members who died in an attack by Iran on a U.S. outpost in Kuwait, saying the coverage was designed to make the president somehow look bad, as a Marine combat veteran who served in Afghanistan had friends and comrades who have made the ultimate sacrifice. I'm wondering what you thought of those comments. Despicable. I think it's a vital element of a free press to report upon the price of war, not just the material price but the moral price as well.

34:19And as you know, Anderson, this Pentagon, even before this war started, has been the least transparent and responsive Pentagon in history that it ejected reporters who would not agree to its absurd demands more befitting a banana republic than the United States. And I really, I feel grateful, I will say, to reporters everywhere at outlets including CNN who are continuing to report and source on this war, despite the fact that, frankly, this Pentagon doesn't view itself as accountable to the American public. And this really needs to be a reckoning on the imperative for Congress to rewrite the War Powers Act, because it should be plain now to the American public and certainly it should be plain to Congress that this 70-year-old law, 50-year-old law, excuse me, is just not fit for purpose. Because we now have allowed presidents to unilaterally declare war, prosecute war, and make up their own strategies for ending war without any accountability to the people's representatives, and it is totally unacceptable. Congressman Alconcloss, I appreciate your time. Thank you.

35:19Joining us now is CNN Global Affairs Analyst, Brett McGurk, and CNN National Security Analyst, Alex Pleatsis. Brett, let me start with you, President Trump has compared this war multiple times to the U.S. Operation Venezuela, the Captured Maduro, how he wants to run his new leadership, as we mentioned with the Congressman just now, to resemble the post-Maduro leadership in Venezuela. Is there any similarity in the two situations? No, not at all. And I think the idea that someone's going to rise here and suddenly engage with the President of the United States and cut a deal as their first move while trying to restore what's left of the Islamic Republic, I think, is highly, highly unlikely. Anderson, let me say two things. I think military plan you've covered in the show, I think, very much on plan. The commanders, I think, feel very confident about where things are going, looking at all the indicators. You do not hear, of course, from uniform military, the boastfulness that we're kind of hearing from the White House, which I think is totally inappropriate. On any given day, as UNI have discussed, this is so high risk, and you can still have things go terribly wrong. But the military plan is on plan.

36:24The bottleneck here in the strategy, I think, looking ahead to the next week, is an economic one, and that's a trace of her moves. I think you can see the White House scrambling to try to address this problem. Really, no ships are going through Anderson. They're self-determined, because insurance has gone up 700%, and Iran has threatened to strike any ship going through. So you've seen the White House now take two measures. A new insurance facility for $20 billion. We'll see if that has an effect, releasing this stranded Russian oil, about 140 barrels to India. We'll see if that has an effect. But I think you will start seeing some ships try to go through the strait over the coming week. And if we're here a week from now, and we still have the straits of her moves shut, I think we really are heading for a significant crisis. Those taps will have to shut off throughout the Gulf, because there won't be anywhere to store the oil. This is key. You had Admiral Kirby on. He talked about Operation Ernest Will back in the 80s. We actually did this, but very different time, Anderson. I was involved in another strait, and the Red Sea, the Babel Mendeb, where Iranian missiles were targeting ships by the group the Houthis in Yemen, as a cat and mouse game, given the range of these missiles and drones, and the ships are sitting duck.

37:38So watch this very closely. That's straight of her moves over the next week. So bottom line, military is on plan. They actually do have, I think, clear objectives. They are not being swayed. Everything the President says every day about a new political objective. The military orders are written down. The military knows what it's doing. It's not getting off course. But I think that economic piece is key here over the next week. Alex, how vulnerable are those ships in the straits of her moves, given the proximity to Iran, even if Iran's capabilities are severely degraded, they could still strike those ships pretty easily. Yeah, I mean, that's part of the problem, because the drones are still flying at this point. So the ballistic missiles, they're not really going to be targeting ships with those types of things. And those launches are down. And the Israelis mentioned about how many launchers they had hit. They think there's 100 to 200 left. And everybody's been focused on that. But the drones are the more significant problem. And it's hard to quantify how many are left. And they only need to get one or two of those off to hit a ship before it becomes problematic. You have private ship owners, and they're under willing to undertake a certain amount of risk. But to a certain point, they're even holding backwards what you're seeing right now.

38:40So those private ship owners, I was speaking to the ship traders a little earlier today. Collectively, I think the Greeks and the Chinese could probably put together somewhere between four and five million barrels a day out of the 20 that need to go out. So it's not going to be a wholesale replacement. And to Brett's point, we're seeing oil at 100 that could spike somewhere between 100 and even 150 if this doesn't work. So is Iran counting on that of just the threat of it stopping the oil prices go up, and that's pressure on the US? And speaking to some of the mediators and folks in the region who are aware of what Iran is doing and folks who are familiar with the strategy and the intelligence community at the Pentagon, it's part of their strategy. They want to drive up the oil prices, drive up the cost, maximize US casualties, make this painful for the president. They want to elongate it because they think he can't hold out to Brett's point. We have a week or two before the straits become a crisis. And then finally to try to exploit fissures within mag and within the base because there's a split in this cabinet about whether or not this war should continue for what lengthen and whether it should be a ground component. The audience are trying to exploit all of that because that's the best way how. Brett, I mean to that point, how much does the economic pressure from rising oil prices? How much does that end up impacting a military operation?

39:45Well, I said it's a literal and figurative bottleneck because I think it could shorten the clock. I think you got to keep focus on trying to allow the military campaign to go to fruition. That's probably about another three weeks or so given that all the targets on the deck. But this economic crisis could really come in and bite. So that's just what I'm looking at here over the next week. And I think we'll start to see ships going through the strait and whether or not the Iranians actually target and are successful. I think that will be a key indicator. The key indicator this week Anderson was getting those missiles and drone launches down. We've really seen them go down quite significantly. But I think these economic indicators will be an increasing factor over the coming days. Alex, in terms of what Israel is doing against Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon also around Beirut in the areas of Beirut they control. How much of this is the culmination of obviously this long campaign Israel has had going back to the very visible pager bombing of Hezbollah operatives.

40:47Do you think they see this as an opportunity to once and for all sort of try to destroy Hezbollah? Oh, absolutely. I mean, this is one of the four strategic objectives the White House laid out earlier this week in conjunction with the Israelis. So it was to sink the Navy and we have a surface warfare officer in charge of US Central Command and an Apple Cooper seat. Tell them to sink a Navy knows how 47 ships are gone. You know, we talked about the launchers already down to 100 or 200 for missiles and hitting the missile stocks. Now they're moving to the third tier of targets, which appears to be the proxies in the region. So the Israelis are targeting Hezbollah and really hitting them hard. The US has switched to hitting the umbrella group of Iranian militias in Iraq. They're known as part of the PMF is the acronym, but it stands for those groups. And then last will be the nuke sites. So the president wants to get rid of the proxies. The nuke sites will be next. That's actually a more difficult target. And when those four target sets are exhausted to Brad's point, the military mission will be complete. What happens afterwards is political. Yeah, I'll explain this. Thanks, Brett McGurk. Thanks so much. Appreciate it. Up next January six insurrectionists were given a new lease on life by presidential partners.

41:47Yet a number of them have gone on to face new criminal charges. We have a few more to add to the list of our Patriot so-called update. Next. All right, we're on the Capitol steps and they broke through the police line. Well, you'll recall when a president Trump's first orders of business on inauguration day 2025 was to pardon nearly all of January six insurrectionists. More than 1500 offenders who the president routinely calls patriots. We've been keeping track of how many of those who storm the Capitol have gone on to commit or be charged with committing new crimes. And we continue. Update. There are a number of them just this week to let you know about. This is a far right extremist Jake Lang holding a Capitol police officer shield and wearing a gas mask on January six, battling law enforcement in this photo. He's swinging a baseball bat at them.

42:48Lang was charged with 11 counts, including assault with a dangerous weapon. After his pardon, he returned to the Capitol this past January six for a bit of a victory lap with a number of other so-called patriots. He confronted one of the officers he faced off with during the insurrection, allegedly threatened him with death saying public execution is the only solution for animals like you. A few days ago, Lang was arrested in DC for threatening a police officer and believe it or not, this is not the only charge he's dealing with this week. Last month, he was in Minneapolis and posted this video of himself destroying a sculpture that read prosecute ice. He was charged with felony damage to property. On Wednesday, he pleaded not guilty in court. This is self-refessed white supremacist Brian Beddenker on January six holding a Confederate flag. He was found guilty of storming the Capitol. These images were used as evidence against him along with the fact that he was wearing a court mandated GPS monitor at the time. For a prior burglary conviction, Beddenker was arrested Monday on assault and battery charges.

43:51He allegedly filmed himself touching several women inappropriately on a Maryland metro train and posted it to social media. Also, one more so-called patriot to meet Andrew Paul Johnson circled in these photos here. He too was charged with storming the Capitol and then pardoned by the president. Just six months later, he was arrested for multiple child sex abuse charges in Florida. According to authorities, he tried to buy the silence of his child victims by claiming that he stood to receive $10 million as restitution for, quote, being a Jan Sixer, unquote. A month ago, he was found guilty of five criminal charges, including molestation, lewd and lascivious exhibition and transmission of material harmful to a minor. Yesterday, he was sentenced to life in prison. Unless, of course, the president decides to pardon him again. That's it for us. The news continues. The source of Caitlin Collins starts now.