Trump’s struggle to find an off-ramp from the Iran war

0:00 The Iran war is in a kind of state of suspended animation.

0:03 On Thursday, US forces actually struck Iranian targets after

0:06 two US destroyers were attacked in the Strait of Hormuz,

0:09 but President Trump called this US response a quote love tap and said

0:13 that the exchange of fire did not represent a break in the ceasefire,

0:18 even though ceasefires in general don't include

0:20 two warring parties firing missiles at each other.

0:22 What we can take away from this episode is that Trump,

0:26 who initiated the late s t round of fighting in the 47-year-old

0:29 war between Iran and the US would like to do something else now.

0:32 I'll talk about this confusing situation,

0:34 as well as some large domestic political developments with Peter Baker,

0:38 the chief White House correspondent at The New York Times.

0:41 Jonathan Lemire is a staff writer at The Atlantic

0:43 and a co-host of Morning Joe on MS now.

0:46 I'm the Navaz is a co-anchor and co-managing editor of the PBS Newshour,

0:51 and Vivian Salama is a staff writer at The Atlantic.

0:55 Thank you all for joining me I'm gonna thank you for staying up late.

0:59 I appreciate it.

1:00 You're outing me as an old person.

1:02 I'm not outing you as an old person.

1:03 I just think we, you know, the Newshour audience needs you to be rested.

1:07 That's right.

1:07 So I appreciate you being here.

1:09 So let me start with you, give you the first question.

1:12 Great, so am I wrong to say that the Iranian regime has won this war,

1:18 first by surviving, and second,

1:21 by maintaining more or less control over the Strait of Hormuz.

1:24 I mean that is their main leverage point right now,

1:26 and I think it depends on who you ask, who's winning or who's losing.

1:30 Certainly you can't say the United States has

1:32 won the war as President Trump has said.

1:34 And look, the president has become sort

1:36 of an unreliable narrator to all of this, right?

1:39 As you mentioned, he calls these strikes a love tap.

1:42 He said it's a diversion, a military incursion.

1:45 We are at war and I think we need to be

1:48 clear about that and whatever this state of a ceasefire actually is,

1:51 and I think we need to look at what we've actually

1:53 seen happen rather than what the president says is going to happen,

1:57 which was a punishing US bombardment.

2:00 The Ayatollah killed his successor put into place and the Iranian

2:04 Foreign Minister told me as a continuation of the Ayo Khameini,

2:08 so that wasn't really a regime change,

2:10 but we've also seen a throttling of the Iranian economy.

2:13 The president says it's going to cripple them soon,

2:15 and now we have a new analysis that suggests that the regime could actually

2:19 last months in this new phase of sanctions and the blockade on their economy.

2:24 So Vivian, if it does, it does only last for months,

2:27 and Trump has the staying power to see

2:30 through the throttling of the oil economy.

2:33 Wouldn't that then count as a victory for the United States?

2:37 It depends how you measure victory, right?

2:39 I mean politically he is suffering.

2:41 The longer this war goes on, the more that he and ostensibly the GOP suffers.

2:46 You have midterm elections later this year,

2:49 and they could really take a slacking if they do

2:51 not uh have the ability to uh lower oil prices,

2:55 lower gas prices specifically, and just a moderate the the impact of this war.

3:00 But even just the depletion of assets, military assets,

3:03 the sort of mental state of the country in terms of having

3:08 to go to war at a time where a number of people,

3:11 especially some many of Trump's supporters did not support this war.

3:15 All of that has a cost ultimately and so

3:17 President Trump and the GOP will have to reckon

3:20 with that moving forward regardless of whether or not

3:22 there is an end date to this war.

3:24 So the question here is staying power, John,

3:27 you just wrote in The Atlantic today,

3:30 quote, Trump is left with a vexing question.

3:32 How do you end a war when your opponent won't budge,

3:34 and while Trump grasps for an exit,

3:36 the hardliners in Tehran have used the war to tighten their grip on power.

3:39 Iran seems hell bent on pulling off something.

3:42 It's historically done well, humiliating an American president.

3:45 So to win here does Iran just have

3:49 to outlast a person with an historically limited attention span.

3:55 Yes, and President Trump is very ready to turn the page

3:58 as one former advisor told me he's bored of this conflict,

4:02 but also because it's not the word they used was literally bored,

4:05 bored in part because it's not going the way he thought it would.

4:08 He thought this a matter of days and a matter of weeks at most,

4:10 and it would be a resounding victory like he says we saw in Venezuela.

4:14 That has not been the case.

4:15 And instead he's been made to look sort of weak on the global stage.

4:18 Already Iran has, even if the war were to end tomorrow, which it will not,

4:21 that Iran has more control of the Strait of Horse

4:24 now than it did at the start of the conflict.

4:25 They have shown they can shut it any time,

4:27 and the pain that would accompany that to the global economy,

4:30 as Vivian said, the president is in a tough political situation here at home.

4:34 Gas prices are up.

4:35 His poll numbers are down.

4:36 Very few of the US military goals have actually been accomplished

4:40 there in Tehran and the president is looking for desperately for off-ramp,

4:46 some sort of deal here and that's why in part we see him

4:50 continuing to extend the ceasefire even

4:52 within incidents like this week where clearly,

4:54 you know, there was hostilities, but he won't escalate.

4:56 He keeps pushing it further on, right?

4:58 I'm very interested in how Iran

5:00 is responding to his idiosyncratic methodology here,

5:04 but I'm also interested in understanding how China is understanding this.

5:08 China is clearly watching this very closely, right?

5:10 And you're talking about how the Iranian economy continues to chug

5:13 along while there's other countries like China continuing to buy that oil.

5:17 This is also really complicates the president's upcoming visit to China.

5:20 There's a lot of other conflicting narratives and issues that they

5:23 have to deal with at a time that the US

5:25 and China have other things that they need to be

5:27 talking about that deal directly with the US economy.

5:29 That's a real challenge for the president, right?

5:31 And Vivian from a defense standpoint,

5:34 obviously the US is depleting its stocks of weapons

5:38 that could be used theoretically to defend Taiwan.

5:42 So China has to be looking at that.

5:44 China is definitely looking at that, um,

5:46 realizing also military assets that had been

5:48 stationed in the Asia Pacific that had been

5:50 shifted to the Middle East so that it could support the war effort in Iran.

5:55 A number of, you know, just diverted interests that China sees as a door opening

6:00 and it's intense interest in securing its position in Taiwan,

6:04 especially since President Trump has not been

6:07 sort of orthodox about wanting to outwardly defend

6:11 the sovereignty of Taiwan even though officials tell

6:13 me that privately the administration's policy hasn't changed.

6:16 He hasn't really been bullish on that because

6:18 he's so keen to maintain good relations with China,

6:20 perhaps um extend some sort of a trade deal with China.

6:23 And so he's looking at the economic, the transactional opportunities with China,

6:28 less so than say, the future of Taiwan,

6:31 all the while this war in Iran is going on, and it

6:35 really opens the door for China to do what it wants to do.

6:37 Peter stipulating that it can go anyway

6:39 and that Iran could collapse tomorrow and etc.

6:42 The story is not done.

6:45 stipulating all that who in the White House now has a realist view of what's

6:54 going on, or realistic view of what's going on in terms of the duration,

6:59 the impact on America's global standing,

7:02 the weapon, the depletion of assets, etc.

7:05 What's the fight inside the White House?

7:08 Well, I mean you have to believe Dan Kane,

7:10 the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, has a pretty realistic view of this.

7:12 He told them from the beginning it wouldn't

7:14 be as easy as the president said it was.

7:15 He's getting the numbers.

7:16 He's getting the numbers,

7:17 and he's the one who told the president even before the start that Iran

7:20 could take the Strait of Hormuz and create problems in the present brush it off,

7:24 according to reports saying, well,

7:25 that won't happen, they'll collapse before that happens,

7:27 and even if they do, you guys can take care of it.

7:29 Obviously, that's not the case.

7:30 You have to look at JD Vance,

7:32 who said from the beginning he didn't want this war.

7:34 He didn't think it was a good idea.

7:35 He has stuck to that even as he has been

7:38 publicly supportive of the president and participated in these peace talks,

7:41 but I think that his point of view looks a little

7:44 stronger in some of these internal discussions at this point,

7:46 but he doesn't have it out for them either.

7:49 I don't think that any of them has the clear path

7:51 to a resolution of the war that allows the president to claim victory,

7:55 given the things that Jonathan just outlined,

7:57 given the intelligence reports we've seen saying

7:59 that they still have most of their ballistic missiles.

8:01 They're still as close to a nuclear weapon as they were when the war started,

8:04 and they have increased control over the Strait of Hormuz.

8:06 What does that look like, right, John,

8:08 when did the president decide that he was done?

8:10 He's been done for a few weeks now.

8:12 I mean, I mean, the war has only been going on for a few weeks.

8:15 Well, as you say, a legendary short attention span.

8:17 He thought this would be days.

8:18 Um, I mean, he's looking for a deal even now.

8:21 Washington awaits a response to a from Iran on a one-page

8:24 memorandum which at best is like kicking the can down the road.

8:27 It just extends the ceasefire further.

8:29 They're they're nowhere near any sort of negotiation,

8:32 and it's not clear that Iran is incentivized to deal with him right now,

8:35 that they think, yes, maybe there will be economic pain.

8:37 Maybe the people will suffer.

8:39 Well, the, the R G C running the place don't really care about that.

8:42 They feel like this is a moment to make a stand,

8:45 and they are making the President of the United States look weak,

8:48 and Jonathan and I have actually written together that, you know,

8:51 President Trump explored an off-ramp weeks ago,

8:54 but Gulf allies in particular had been extremely alarmed

8:57 at the situation that he would have been leaving

9:00 behind had he pulled out a few weeks ago

9:02 because it's right on their doorstep stay on that.

9:04 If he continues in the pattern that he's going in the direction he's going,

9:09 which is finding any reason in the world not to re-engage.

9:14 And even when he has to re-engage, calling it a love tap.

9:17 Where does that leave Saudi Arabia,

9:20 United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Israel, for that matter.

9:23 All of them have been shown the very harsh realities of their vulnerabilities

9:27 with the closure of the Strait of Hormuz

9:29 and the inability for them to export oil,

9:33 which is their primary generate fund generator for their for their economies

9:37 and so this has been an eye opening experience for them,

9:40 but beyond that, even if the Strait of Hormuz were to open tomorrow.

9:44 They still have to reckon with the fact

9:46 that Iran's nuclear program is still an open question.

9:49 and that is not going to be solved anytime soon.

9:51 There could be a migrant flow at any

9:54 moment because of the battering that Iran has taken.

9:56 They're right there on their doorstep.

9:58 Bahrain is less than 60 kilometers from Iran.

10:01 They have a very real,

10:03 very harsh reality in front of them after this war ends of what

10:07 the future of Iran looks like in the region as a whole.

10:09 One more question on this, Peter.

10:10 I assume this is the subject of your next book in 2029 or whatever,

10:14 but you try to answer it now, but preorder it, yes,

10:18 but how did this happen given an answer in 12 seconds if you can.

10:26 How did this happen in the sense that Iran is very good over the last 4 decades,

10:33 almost 5 decades of messing with American presidents,

10:37 the Iraq War, which was extremely well planned.

10:41 compared to this.

10:42 How, how do they just drive right into this cul de sac.

10:47 I think what you see here in his second

10:50 term as a president who feels more comfortable with power,

10:53 emboldened to do the things he didn't do in the first term.

10:55 Remember in the first term, he launched a strike against Iran over

10:58 a relatively modest incident and then pulled back

11:01 10 minutes before the bombs were to hit

11:03 because he just felt uncomfortable about it.

11:04 This time he feels comfortable.

11:05 He's emboldened by Venezuela.

11:07 He thinks that worked out really well.

11:09 He's emboldened by the strikes last June,

11:11 which did seem to work out pretty well.

11:13 He did it for 12 days, no damage,

11:15 much damage anyway to America or its allies, and in theory,

11:18 according to him, he obliterated the nuclear program that we

11:20 now have to go back in and do again.

11:22 So I think he felt emboldened.

11:23 I think he felt empowered, and I think they obviously misjudged the total

11:28 cost of how this was going to work out.

11:30 Jeff will say one more thing because the former

11:31 US negotiator with Iran put it to me this way.

11:33 There's two different paining cocks right in Iran.

11:36 They are fine to cause pain to their own population.

11:38 That's not an issue for the regime here.

11:40 The president has to deal with surging energy prices,

11:42 low approval numbers, and midterms.

11:44 It's interesting.

11:44 Our definition of pain is gas at $450 or $5 a gallon.

11:48 Their definition of pain is mass death, but even there the regime does not care

11:54 about mass death on the part of their people.