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I've seen the C-SPAN footage. | |
| If it's a really good idea, present it in public view on C-SPAN. | ||
| Every single time I tuned in on TikTok or C-SPAN or YouTube or anything, there were tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people watching. | ||
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unidentified
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I went home after the speech and I turned on C-SPAN. | |
| I was on C-SPAN just this week. | ||
| To the American people, now is the time to tune in to C-SPAN. | ||
| They had something $2.50 a gallon. | ||
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unidentified
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I saw on television a little while ago in between my watching my great friends on C-SPAN. | |
| C-SPAN is televising this right now live. | ||
| So we are not just speaking to Los Angeles. | ||
| We are speaking to the country. | ||
| Joining us now to discuss the current state and future of Iran's nuclear program is Darryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association. | ||
| Darrell, thank you for being back. | ||
| Good to be here. | ||
| Why don't you start by reminding our audience about your organization, the mission, who you work with, and how you're funded? | ||
| So the Arms Patrol Association was established in 1971 to reduce the risks posed by the world's most dangerous weapons. | ||
| And that's one of the things we're talking about today, nuclear weapons, the prevention of proliferation. | ||
| We're an independent, nonpartisan organization. | ||
| We're a membership organization. | ||
| Our income comes from our members who support us and subscribers to our journal Arms Control today. | ||
| And we get some foundation grants from private U.S. institutions, but no U.S. government funding. | ||
| And we're, as I said, nonpartisan. | ||
| And it is now the sixth day of Iran and Israel exchanging military strikes. | ||
| Israel has a goal of eliminating Iran's nuclear program. | ||
| As meet, how would you define the current state of their program? | ||
| Where are they? | ||
| Well, Iran has for 25 years been experimenting with and advancing a uranium enrichment program. | ||
| And uranium enrichment can, of course, be used to produce nuclear fuel for electricity production and power reactors. | ||
| It can also be used to enrich uranium to bomb-grade 90% uranium-235. | ||
| And so over the past several years, since Donald Trump pulled out of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, which set back Iran's capability to enrich uranium, to produce plutonium, it provided more access by international inspectors. | ||
| The Iranians have, in retaliation, been upgrading their program. | ||
| So as of just a few weeks ago, Iran had the capability to quickly produce enough bomb-grade uranium for about a dozen bombs. | ||
| They had 440 kilograms of highly enriched uranium to 60%. | ||
| So they could make a dash to produce the bomb-grade nuclear material. | ||
| But U.S. intelligence community had not assessed that they'd made the decision to do so. | ||
| The U.S. intelligence community disagrees with Prime Minister Nanyahu's view that there was an imminent threat. | ||
| I don't believe there was an imminent threat of weaponization. | ||
| And it would have taken, and it would take even longer now, Iran months, if not over a year, to weaponize, that is, build the non-nuclear components, and to assemble a smaller and lighter device that could be delivered on a ballistic missile. | ||
| So here we are today. | ||
| The Israeli government has, I think, chosen this moment to strike Iran in part to upset the negotiations that Donald Trump was actively and energetically pursuing with Iran on a new agreement to block Iran's pathways to the bomb. | ||
| They were about to have the sixth round of talks in Oman last Sunday. | ||
| And so now what we've seen is the Israeli strikes on the Natan's enrichment site, which is primarily above ground. | ||
| It has been damaged to some extent. | ||
| How much we still don't know because IAEA inspectors are not there. | ||
| The Iranians have hit some other sites that are part of centrifuge manufacturing and research. | ||
| They've assassinated 14 scientists. | ||
| But they've not hit the underground Ford facility, which is deeply, deeply buried. | ||
| You've been talking about this. | ||
| And it is impervious to Israeli military attacks, but perhaps not a U.S. attack using the heavy ordinance from the B-2 bomber. | ||
| So we are at a moment here where I think Donald Trump and the Congress and the American people need to decide whether we're about to enter a war of choice after having tried and was still continuing negotiations with Iran. | ||
| And I think those negotiations can and should be renewed. | ||
| But that's going to require a cessation of the hostilities because if what the Iranians have reiterated is that they were willing to continue the negotiations before Israel started bombing. | ||
| They would be ready and able to do this as soon as Israeli strikes stop. | ||
| But they're going to continue to retaliate. | ||
| So the other thing I would just point out is that we should not lose sight of the fact that U.S. intervention here, even if it is to simply try to strike the Fordot facility, is not a one-off operation. | ||
| We've known for years that hitting back at Iran's nuclear program would require a steady campaign of bombing on the part of the United States. | ||
| Ultimately, the knowledge that Iran has accumulated over two decades plus can't be bombed away. | ||
| And Iran can and will reconstitute this program eventually. | ||
| We would also see, I think, a widening of the war. | ||
| The Supreme Leader just this morning threatened massive retaliation if the U.S. attacks. | ||
| So we're putting at risk American troops, civilians throughout the region. | ||
| And it also risks a disruption of the oil supplies that go through the Straits of Hormuz. | ||
| So that could lead to massive increases in gas prices, oil prices, et cetera. | ||
| So the idea of hitting Ford with B-2 bombers using these massive bombs does not guarantee that Fordot is eliminated, and it will not by itself eliminate the threat for all time. | ||
| So that is an illusion. | ||
| And I think it's important that Congress debate this on the basis of the facts. | ||
| The President step backs from the emotions of the moment and looks at the consequences of the U.S. getting involved in yet another Middle East war. | ||
| Our guest is Darrell Kimball. | ||
| He is Executive Director of the Arms Control Association. | ||
| We are talking about the state, current state and future of Iran's nuclear program. | ||
| If you have a question or comment for him, you can start calling in now the lines. | ||
| Republicans 202-748-8001. | ||
| Democrats 202-748-8000. | ||
| And Independents 202-748-8002. | ||
| Darrell wanted to ask you about Iran's nuclear program. | ||
| They've said that it's for civilian purposes only, and it currently imports the enriched uranium that it does need. | ||
| What is the country's motivation for continuing to want to retain enrichment and increase its level of uranium enriched? | ||
| Well, I don't believe that it is solely a civilian program. | ||
| I think the clerical regime wants to have the option to pursue nuclear weapons in the future. | ||
| They want to have the leverage that a nuclear program like this, which brings them close to the capability of producing material for nuclear weapons, provides. | ||
| But they also want to achieve sanctions relief, economic normalization to some extent. | ||
| The Iranians have been sanctioned over the years time and time again with punishing sanctions that have made life difficult, especially for ordinary Iranians. | ||
| And many of the people in the regime have benefited from this by getting around the sanctions. | ||
| But I think that has been the objective for the last several years. | ||
| And the thing that we need to be thinking about as we consider the options and the effects of Netanyahu's strike, strikes that began on June 13th, is how is this going to change the thinking inside Iran? | ||
| The Iranians have had the capability, technically, to build nuclear weapons. | ||
| They have done research on nuclear weapons, especially prior to the 2003 period. | ||
| So they have the knowledge, they almost have the material, they have the delivery systems. | ||
| Why haven't they actually built nuclear weapons? | ||
| Well, nuclear weapons are not particularly useful except to deter nuclear attack and to deter conventional attack. | ||
| And so here we have the Israelis striking at Iran to try to set back the program, maybe to take down the regime. | ||
| And I think many in Iran now are going to be thinking, all right, we do need to cross this threshold. | ||
| We do need to pursue nuclear weapons secretly. | ||
| So I think this could be one of the terrible side effects here, is that Iran takes some of the nuclear material that they have, which I'm sure they still have secured, and they pursue a secret program. | ||
| And they may also, we might hear in the coming days and weeks, if this keeps going, Iran might say, we're going to pull out of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. | ||
| That treaty bought it. | ||
| Good afternoon. | ||
| My colleagues and I remain squarely focused on achieving our dual mandate goals of maximum employment and stable prices for the benefit of the American people. | ||
| Despite elevated uncertainty, the economy is in a solid position. | ||
| The unemployment rate remains low, and the labor market is at or near maximum employment. | ||
| Inflation has come down a great deal, but has been running somewhat above our 2% longer-run objective. | ||
| In support of our goals, today the Federal Open Market Committee decided to leave our policy interest rate unchanged. |