President Trump and the Pentagon escalate the Iran conflict with "Operation Epic Fury," targeting 11,000 sites while seizing Karg Island to secure the Strait of Hormuz amidst soaring fuel prices. The war strains U.S. munitions stocks, potentially diverting aid from Ukraine, as analysts debate the lack of clear end goals against a resilient clerical regime. Simultaneously, NASA adjusts the Artemis II mission trajectory due to heat shield issues, delaying lunar landings to 2028 while testing life support systems for future exploration. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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elise labott
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gen dan caine
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mimi geerges
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pete hegseth
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charlie blackwell-thompson
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donald j trump
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hakeem jeffries
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karoline leavitt
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marco rubio
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tim burchett
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don bacon
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james lankford
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ro khanna
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Iran Conflict Update00:03:15
unidentified
Cosmopolitics Substack author Elise Labbitt will talk about the latest in the Iran conflict.
And then the Atlantic's Nancy Youssef will also discuss the ongoing U.S. operations in Iran amid reports of dwindling munition stockpiles.
Also, Space Flight Now, space reporter Will Robinson Smith on Artemis II, NASA's first crewed mission around the moon, and the future of space exploration.
In a Financial Times interview published yesterday, President Trump stated his favorite thing would be to take the oil in Iran and suggested the U.S. could very easily seize Karg Island, the country's primary oil export hub.
While he noted that a final decision has not been made, the Pentagon is reportedly preparing for potential ground operations to give the president what it calls maximum optionality.
Meanwhile, global markets are reacting.
Crude oil topped $116 a barrel yesterday, and gas hits $4 a gallon, the highest since 2022.
With the 2026 midterms now on the horizon, we want to know how this conflict is shaping your vote.
Our question for you this morning.
Is the Iran conflict a midterm election issue for you?
Democrats, call us on 202-748-8000.
Republicans, 202-748-8001.
And Independents, 202-748-8002.
You can send a text to 202-748-8003.
Include your first name in your city-state.
And we're on social media, facebook.com slash C-SPAN and X at C-SPANWJ.
Welcome to today's Washington Journal.
A quick update for you from the Associated Press on the war in Iran.
It says that Iran strikes fully loaded Kuwaiti oil tank off Dubai's coast.
It says that authorities in Dubai said that they contained a Kuwaiti oil tanker after it came under attack from Iran.
They said that there was no oil leakage and no injuries reported.
And Israel and the U.S. launched a new wave of strikes on Iran, hitting Tehran in the early morning hours.
Video shared by President Trump appeared to show a massive attack on Isfahan, where NASA fire tracking satellites suggest the explosions happened near Mount Sofa and an area believed to have military positions.
Iran has not yet confirmed that.
And U.S. gas prices jumped past an average of $4 a gallon for the first time since 2022.
Lastly, the UN will convene an emergency session Tuesday after officials announced that three peacekeepers in southern Lebanon had been killed in the last 24 hours.
It's not clear who was behind the attack, and it says that that incident remains under investigation.
Well, the Pentagon has scheduled an 8 a.m. Eastern press conference today.
Well, I'm not going to disclose to you who those people are because it probably would get them in trouble with some other groups of people inside of Iran.
Look, there's some fractures going on there internally.
And at the end of the day, I think that if there are people in Iran who now, given everything that's happened, are willing to move in a different direction for their country, that would be great.
Imagine in Iran that instead of spending their wealth, billions of dollars supporting terrorists or weapons, had spent that money helping the people of Iran, you'd have a much different country.
So we are always hopeful that that would exist over there.
It's unfortunate.
The people of Iran are incredible people.
The people who lead them, this clerical regime, that is the problem.
And if there are new people now in charge who have a more reasonable vision of the future, that would be good news for us, for them, for the entire world.
But we also have to be prepared for the possibility, maybe even the probability, that that is not the case.
Well, what I mean is, yeah, so you have people that are saying some of the right things privately.
Obviously, they're not going to put it out in press releases and what they say to you or put out there for the world doesn't necessarily reflect what they're saying in our conversations.
But at the end of the day, we have to see if these people end up being the ones in charge, seeing if they're the ones that have the power to deliver.
We're going to test it.
We are hopeful that that's the case.
There are clearly people there talking to us in ways that previous people in charge in Iran have not spoken to us in the past.
Some of the things they're willing to do, some of the things they're saying they're willing to do.
Obviously, they have to go do it.
We're going to test that proposition very strongly because we always prefer to settle things through negotiation and diplomacy.
But we also have to be prepared for the fact that that effort might fail, that we are dealing with a 47-year-old regime that still has a lot of people involved in it who aren't necessarily big fans of diplomacy or peace.
And, Michael, how does that relate to what we're talking about this morning?
unidentified
Well, I don't know if it relates, but I just want to, if I can get the last point in, just oppose that the government supports innovation as opposed to the government paying a billion dollars to France to stop doing windmill development, which again is an innovation.
So I'm just looking at how our government has changed from being an innovator to being a controller.
I think our nation was a nation founded 250 years ago almost on Judeo-Christian values.
And we've seen presidents, we've seen the leaders of the Department of War, and we've seen our troops go to prayer during the most turbulent times in our nation's history.
And I don't think there's anything wrong with our military leaders or with the president calling on the American people to pray for our service members and those who are serving our country overseas.
In fact, I think it's a very noble thing to do.
And if you talk to many service members, they will tell you they appreciate the prayers and support from the commander-in-chief and from his cabinet.
It says that the Pope said that Jesus cannot be used to justify violence and cited a biblical passage saying God will not listen to prayers from those whose hands are full of blood.
That's a quotation.
It said the Pope did not name specific political leaders but has steadily sharpened his criticism of the war in recent weeks.
Repeatedly calling for an immediate ceasefire, he lamented that Christians in the Middle East were suffering the consequences of what he described as an atrocious conflict and warned that some may not be fully able to observe Easter.
Quote, brothers and sisters, this is our God, Jesus, King of peace, who rejects war, whom no one can use to justify war.
He does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them.
Jason in Alabama, Independent Line, good morning.
unidentified
Hey, good morning.
As far as whether or not the war in Iran will be a midterm issue for me, I mean, it'll just be another reason to that affirms that Trump is a scumbag and everybody around him are scumbags, like showing Pete Hegseth praying to God to kill people in Iran.
It's just a ridiculous idea that God would be in support of such chaos and confusion.
The Bible says that God is not the author of confusion.
God, Chaos, and Lies00:15:40
unidentified
So there's no way you can go into a situation like this where you're killing school children, you're dropping 800 Tomahawk missiles on a country over the course of a month, and you're building your case on all of these lies.
Oh, we're negotiating, but we're killing everybody.
I want a deal, but then I don't need a deal.
We need allies, but then we don't need them because their ships are toys.
Like, all of this back and forth.
If there was anything righteous about this, there would be zero reason for them to tell as many lies as they tell.
But Donald Trump has proven time and time again that he would lie when the truth will do.
And the people around him have proven that they're willing to go to any depth to rationalize and make his nonsense make sense.
That's why they can go to a three-hour-long cabinet meeting and go around basically groveling and praising him and worshiping him as their God.
It says, a review shows new weapons hit school site U.S. missile untested and war left 21 dead.
On the first day of the war with Iran, a weapon bearing the hallmarks of a newly developed U.S.-made ballistic missile was used in an attack that struck a sports hall and adjacent elementary school near a military facility in southern Iran, according to weapons expert and a visual analysis by the New York Times.
Local officials cited in the Iranian news media said the strike and others nearby in the city killed at least 21 people.
It's a February 28th attack occurred the same day as a U.S. Tomahawk cruise missile struck a school in the city of Minab, several hundred miles away, killing 175 people.
In this other case, though, it involved a weapon that had been untested in combat.
The Times verified videos of two strikes on La Merd as well as aftermath footage from the attacks.
And you can see, you can read this article.
This is in the New York Times talking about the short-range ballistic missile called the Precision Strike Missile, first time used in war.
And we're taking your calls this morning.
You can give us a call.
We've got lines open.
Democrats are on 2027488000.
Republicans 202-748-8001.
And Independents 202-748-8002.
Let's talk to John in Arkansas, Independent Line.
Good morning.
unidentified
Good morning.
I'm a traditional Catholic.
And as a Catholic, I'm disgraced against this Pope.
We've had so much corruption in the Catholic Church, and this false prophet gets up there and makes comments that prayer is not heard.
It just makes me so upset.
I'm just the Catholic people in this country that are traditional Catholics, we need to stand up against the corruption in the Catholic Church.
And regarding the war, John, how are you feeling about the war?
unidentified
I'm behind this war.
We have been attacked by this regime over and over.
Other countries have, and it's time to put an end to it.
I know no one wants to lose any of our soldiers.
I think it's been handled real well up to now, but there may be time we may have to send some troops in, and we need to end it and take care of it completely.
Me, me, you always like the fast fact check stuff.
Ever since you all crawled out of them caves and trees, they've been killing folks.
You came to this country with the Bible in your hand, and you kill off the Indians, and then you too started at work, and you brought us over here to work.
And now you call Iran a terrorist.
This is the United States and Israel, the biggest terrorist nation in the country.
You've been killing folks all year.
This is another name.
I remind me of old country song by Why Do I Drink?
Because of family tradition.
This is American tradition of killing folks around the world.
Been doing it ever since you crawled out of them caves and trees in New York.
So, Dorothy, getting to the Iran conflict, do you feel like this is a war of self-defense?
unidentified
When somebody lets you, when they have evidence that they have six nuclear weapons, they intended to put one for the United States, one for Israel, one for Saudi Arabia, the other Middle Eastern countries that were surrounding them.
You know, there's so much misinformation and disinformation out there.
And I served in the military for 20 years and had been all around the world in different bases and camps.
And one thing I always do is ask the people in the places that I went to about their perception of the United States.
And most countries really believe, most citizens of other nations really believe that something is severely pathologically wrong with the way that Americans think and react to situations and our need for violence while claiming that we're a Christian nation.
I find it Dorothy that just called in, for a black woman to be talking as nutty as she was about propaganda that was put out by an administration that is bent on causing as much havoc in the world as possible.
I don't understand how Christians can claim to be a people of peace and love and create so much chaos in the world.
One other thing before I go.
I keep hearing people talk about Judeo-Christian.
There's no such thing as Judeo-Christian.
That was something that was made up.
And one of the things that I would implore people to do is read the talent about how they, and you'll find out how these people feel about Christians.
So James, going back to what you said about how long the war lasts and the impact on the economy.
So what are you thinking as far as timeline?
Are you going to be voting for Republicans?
Are you going to be voting for Democrats?
Like if the election were right now, do you know how you would vote?
unidentified
Right now, no, I'm 50-50.
I think it's very indeterminate as to what's going to happen here and that most people, and you know this for the news cycle, I mean, we have amnesia after 30 days.
I mean, do you know what you were doing a month ago or what we were watching on the news?
So, you know, I think a lot of voting happens with, you know, near-term what's going on, you know, 30 days before the election.
So it's very hard right now to figure out what's going to happen here.
I didn't vote for him the second time because I knew what he was going to do, and I believe what he's trying to do is make this a dictatorship where his family will be in office forever.
So Brian, as far as the 2026 midterm elections, is it impacting how you're going to vote?
unidentified
Well, I mean, you know, the way that I look at it is that this is all, I don't think votes, every, you know, you know, everybody's going to vote and everybody's going to, you know, put into office who they think is the best, but nobody's looking at the bigger picture and what God is doing behind the scenes right now.
The media is completely ignoring the spiritual side of this whole thing.
You know, Maggot Mike Johnson is really struggling right now.
They have a new message every week.
But you know what also is happening?
Republicans have been losing elections for the last 15 consecutive months, over and over and over again, including in deep red places like Texas, Louisiana, and most recently in Florida.
As a matter of fact, Donald Trump will now be represented at Mar-a-Lago by a Democrat in a district that he previously won by double digits.
Make no mistake, Republicans are falling apart.
When are they going to learn their lesson that the American people are rejecting their extremism and actually want Congress to focus on making life better for everyday Americans?
That's what Democrats are continuing to do.
We're fighting to lower the high cost of living, to fix our broken health care system, to clean up corruption, to get ICE under control, to end the chaos at airports, to stop this reckless war of choice, and to actually focus on the things that matter.
The American people know Republican priorities have nothing to do with making their life better and everything to do with jamming their extreme and radical right-wing ideology down the throats of the American people.
Wonder if you agree with that or you disagree with that.
The numbers are on your screen.
You can give us a call.
This is Bob in Florida Independent Line.
Hi, Bob.
unidentified
Hey, good morning.
How you doing?
Good.
Great.
I'm going to comment on what Ralph said about Trump lying so much.
Every time he opens his mouth, a lie comes out.
And I'm a big history major.
I mean, from the beginning, when the settlers first came here and all through European history, all wars are based on religion.
Everybody feels their religion is better than this one or that one.
And it's just ironic.
Everyone uses that.
They use the Bible.
They're going to do this.
They're going to do that.
I've been through Europe all my life to the countries, Iran, Iraq, all through the European, and no problem.
I get treated better there than I do here in the United States.
This is just falsifying lies about people.
And I keep hearing over and over: oh, they're going to do this.
They've been on us for years and years.
The same treaty Obama had that he tore up, he's trying to use the same treaty to make deals now.
This man and this administration, they're complete idiots.
And anybody that votes for Republicans in the next term, hey, you ought to be suffering financially, spiritually, in any way, because the hard times are coming.
And it's due to this administration because he's covering up for the Epstein files.
First of all, I think Hakeem Jeffries, Senator Hakeem Jeffries, is really honorating the Democratic Committee.
And secondly, I think that a lot of people are taking the wrong initiative, the political perspective or objective towards the Trump administration.
I do feel as if the Trump administration is somewhat breaking, in a sense, based on the mere fact of the tariff situation and then inflation is hitting the economy.
And in regards to the Iran-Israel conflict, that is a conflict that has been pending.
And the only way to really resolve that matter is to go into a peace treaty deal as the Trump administration is attempting.
However, not to voice each side.
I had the fortune of traveling outside in that area.
And the conflict is really, really basis or down to the basic Bible texts.
And if you're coming with a certain economy or you're coming with a certain nationalism, then you are worse within itself as an individual who is not really born of that area.
And this is Nancy Democrat, Bowling Green, Kentucky.
Go ahead, Nancy.
unidentified
Yes, Mori, Mamie.
I'm actually recently just a Democrat because I was an independent for, I don't know, 45 years.
But, you know, I had to choose a side.
So that's what I've decided to do.
I would like, I can't wait to the midterms because I tell you what, there's enough people that are independent that are switching and they're switching sides to becoming a Democrat.
And I'm going to tell you, I honestly believe that's going to change the tide, so to speak.
And tell me about what's going on around Bowling Green in Kentucky, Nancy.
Do you think that the Democratic candidates have a shot?
unidentified
Yes, ma'am.
We're almost at $4 a gallon.
And I don't know if people know Kentucky's pretty poor.
So, and I'm 66.
I'm going to have to go back to work just to make a living, just to buy some food.
So, yes, ma'am, people in my area are pretty fed up, are very fed up with the situation and the way it looks.
I mean, we're not, you know, we're God-fearing.
We're very good people here.
We love people, but I'm telling you, there's some people that I know personally that has changed parties, and we're trying to get people to change parties.
So that's what the plan is.
We have got to take back things as they once were and try to be a country.
I mean, I googled up how many wars and conflicts we've been in since World War II.
It is absolutely scary.
So, people, wake up.
President Trump is not your Cyrus in the Bible.
So, please, let's just come together.
Let's take care of our kids, her grandkids, and, you know, people like myself, and, you know, just make America the best we can make it.
I partly believe there is a chance for that, but the people of Iran are going to have to take the bull by the horns right here because we're limited.
I don't think there's a will for a ground conflict between America and Iran.
I know a lot of Republicans don't support that, and I know all the Democrats won't support it.
So I firmly believe that there is room there for it, but I don't think that now is the time to let other people.
unidentified
Well, is it becoming a political problem for the president, for Republicans, even within your party?
This Washington Post report that came out today saying that the Pentagon is preparing for potential weeks of ground force operations there by American boots on the ground.
Then you had Caroline Levitt.
She was asked about it, and she said that these are just options, that the president has not made a decision.
Iran is continuing its approach of going after the energy targets of the region.
You know, it's seen that this asymmetrical warfare that we're talking about, they can't respond with bombs and missiles as much as they were.
But they see that this, you know, squeezing the international energy and global oil market is really the card that they have to play.
And so they're playing it all over the region and also really going after the Gulf allies to inflict that pain so that they put pressure on the United States to end the war.
Initially, the countries knew that they were in the blast radius and they were hesitant to have them go.
But now that they're going, the late King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia used to say, you have to cut the head off the stake.
And we've talked before that we don't really know once they cut off the head who's going to grow back.
But now that the war is in train and they see the pain that Iran is inflicting across the region, especially in the United Arab Emirates in Kuwait, they hit a U.S. air base in Saudi Arabia the other day.
They're saying you really have to go all the way now.
So, you know, the president is saying that we're having great negotiations with the Iranians.
The Iranians are saying there are no negotiations.
The truth is somewhere in the middle.
There are indirect talks.
Pakistan is really leading the charge, but there are a couple of countries involved: the Qataris, the Saudis, the Turks, the Egyptians, and they're all kind of met in Pakistan the other day to see if they could get some talks going.
But we see that the two sides are very still far apart.
President Trump introduced his 15-point plan, which was really for Iran's unconditional surrender.
And the Iranians feel that, you know, they're not losing here.
They may not be winning, but they definitely don't feel like they're losing.
And they put forward their own five-point plan, which is end the war, stop attacking all our proxies, get out of the region, and pay us for the damage they did.
So you can see the two-part control over that straight away.
And control over the Strait of Hermuz.
So you see the two sides are very far apart, and you don't get together and actually sit at the same table until you see that there's an opportunity to bridge that gap.
So Secretary Rubio had said we're not going to tell you who we're talking to because that could be dangerous to them, for their own domestic audience.
But do we know that the people that we're talking to or that the other intermediaries are talking to actually have control in Iran, that they have a say?
There are a lot of different groups also that are jockeying for power right now.
One of the leading figures is the son of the former Shah, Reza Hahlavi, who's seen as maybe like a transitional figure, but he doesn't have a huge constituency inside the country.
A lot of people in the diaspora think of this kind of nostalgia of the time of the Shah when things were better in Iran, that maybe he's been speaking out a lot.
You just saw him speaking at CPAC, interestingly enough, to conservatives in the U.S. political system.
But he's not seen as someone that really has the constituency inside the country.
There are also different factions, whether it's the Kurds, the Azeris.
The thing is, what you really want to see is an organized opposition with a leader that you can see defections in the military.
The people with the guns, who are they going to turn to?
And there seems to be, at least in reports, some disaffection within the system, and people are afraid of what's going on with the military campaign, but there's nobody to defect to.
You know, the question is, is there going to be a ground invasion?
What military experts don't see that happening?
You know, a real ground invasion like we saw in Iraq could have upwards of 100,000, 150,000 troops.
It doesn't look like there'll be a ground invasion.
What's headed to the region right now, it's still a lot of troops, and they could be used for some limited operations, such as seizing this Karg Island to help open up the Strait of Hormuz or taking the enriched uranium that's buried underground.
So that's still a very dangerous proposition, and there could be a lot of casualties.
So when people say, oh, you know, it's not that many troops, it is a lot of troops.
Anytime you put troops in harm's way, it's very dangerous.
And meanwhile, we see these oil markets.
We saw gas at over $4 a gallon today.
The energy markets are going to continue to be in flux.
So then what are you going to do, Linda, for the midterms if there isn't a third party option?
unidentified
I went to the primary election and they had the goon squad out there for the Republicans, you know, in uniform, in desert, you know, desert storm uniforms, giving out the forms.
And they said, and, you know, I said, well, you know, can't I vote for, you know, I like some Republicans, I like some Democrats.
You know, I vote by who the person is.
And they said, no.
They said, you know, first of all, everybody around here votes Republican.
I said, yeah, well, be that as it may, you know, I don't really, so I had to like fight my way in to get to the Democratic, so I have to vote Democratic.
And then the other thing was about the Pope.
You know, is he saying they don't, you know, favor war or killing?
And we are taking your calls on the question: is the Iran war a midterm election issue for you?
And the numbers are Democrats 202-748-8,000, Republicans 202-748-8001.
If you're an Independent, you can call 202-748-8002.
Carrie is a Republican in Ormond Beach, Florida.
Good morning.
unidentified
Good morning.
My name is Kerry, and I'm from Florida.
I just got a couple of questions in a comment, please.
One thing is I do a lot of research with the Democrats and Republicans and Independents should do it before they make a decision because research is really important.
And the second thing is we only get one-fifth of all from Iranians.
The United States is our oil capacity is full.
And if we need more oil, we can always get it from Venezuela, which is right next door.
The second question is: if the straits are closed and we've done destroyed all of Iran's nuclear thing, missiles, warriors, ships, and everything, why is the straits closed?
If Iran and things are destroyed, why can't it just go through?
And the third thing is, like I said in the beginning, if I'm a conservative patriot, that's the other party that this lady was talking about, is conservative parties where they need to be, which I will vote for Trump in 2024, and I'll do it again in 2028.
But at the same time, I'm saying people just need to do their research.
Yeah, and Carrie, we do have a reporter coming on from the Atlantic to talk about those issues as far as the state of Iran's military and how they're able to still keep the straits closed.
So stay with us.
That's the next segment after this.
Jesse, Anaheim, California, Democrat, you're on the air.
unidentified
Good morning.
You know, there's a lot of things going on in our world.
And they're more complicated than just the words that Trump uses or says.
And I can't wrap my head around the things that he lies about constantly.
Look, we are not winning.
We are not winning any war or we've got no permission from the Congress to do anything.
The Congress, the Republicans, are bending at the knee to Trump.
We have no, you know, people that are having a say.
The Democrats, they don't want the Democrats involved in anything that they're doing.
And so what you hear Donald Trump says is not necessarily true.
He does not tell the truth.
He's done as many illegal and things as possible in this country.
And as well as the Middle East.
The Middle East, that's a very complicated situation because it's not just about oil.
Now, if you remember Ahmadinejohn, I think that was his name.
I would like to say that I support President Trump 100% in what he's doing.
I think he has been caught between a rock and a hard place.
He's a man who cares for this country and wants our countries to survive and wants our allies to survive.
And he was put into a situation where if he just blindly ignored what the Iranian government was up to, we would eventually have been attacked and or our allies would have been attacked.
So he's doing what he has to do.
I know some people are very hurt economically.
I feel bad for them.
However, sometimes one has to do what's right for the country, even if short term it hurts economically.
And Will, as far as ground troops, how do you feel about that?
unidentified
I think President Trump is keeping that as a last option.
I do not think he wants to have ground troops in there, but the Iranian government is very stubborn and very destructive, and he's keeping that as a last option.
We are fully tracking this short-term fluctuation in oil and in diesel prices.
And that's why the President and the administration have continually announced robust actions to provide stability in the global energy market.
As you know, political risk insurance, one of those actions, allowing countries to purchase sanctioned oil just to increase the supply.
In the meantime, we've worked to release 400 billion barrels of oil in refined products as well.
We issued the 60-day Jones Act waiver.
All of this has with the goal of increasing supply to create stabilization in the market in the meantime.
But the overall message, as we've repeatedly stated, is again, these are short-term actions and short-term price fluctuations for the long-term benefit of ending the threat that Iran poses to the United States of America.
Okay, the leaders in Iran are very far in their direction as far as Islam is concerned, and that's why they killed 35,000 protesters here a while back.
So I'm just going to briefly read a journal entry I just wrote last night.
And I'm just going to start.
It's been over a month now into the Israeli-U.S.-Iran war or Operation Epic Fury, as Trump likes to call it.
And I'm watching Marco Rubio in the Middle East, our Secretary of State, I believe, talking about how Trump prefers diplomacy to anything else.
And he's saying this as we send in the last month, we've sent over 5,000 troops.
There are 5,000 troops, new troops recently deployed over to the Middle East just this past month to join the already 40,000, 50,000 troops that had already been stationed there prior to this.
And I just, I want to go over the casualties of the war so far since February 28th.
These are conservative estimates.
Over 1,937 Iranians killed, 24,000 wounded, 3.2 million displaced.
1,238 Lebanese people killed, 3,543 wounded.
20 Israelis killed and over 6,000 wounded.
13 American soldiers killed and over 200 wounded.
And you've got these people calling into this line, talking as though we didn't have over 7,000 American U.S. soldiers die in the Iraq-Afghanistan war with nothing to show for it.
This is crazy.
Donald Trump is going to send in ground troops, whether it's to take over the islands in the Straits of Hormuz or into Iran directly.
We're sending in ground troops by now, and he is BSing us.
And I just pray that the American people, all of us, recognize that the value of life, our American, our boys, our daughters, our sons, our men and women, he's sending them over there to die for Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel.
And this is Tim, Rock Hills, South Carolina, Republican.
Good morning.
unidentified
Good morning.
I'm calling in to tell everybody to think about all the presidents before Donald Trump that made statements that Iran could never have a nuclear warhead, a nuclear bomb.
Now, all of a sudden, you get one president that knows and has a set enough that they can go in there and take care of this stuff.
Now, he's not going to make one of these three or four-year wars like all your caller-ins is trying to put it to.
He's going to protect my grandchildren and my great-grandchildren from what they could be facing in the future if we don't get rid of it.
Now, mind you, Obama, he sent all that money over.
Well, we don't really need to go into all this.
This is history.
All you got to do is research it.
My whole point is this.
We have finally got a president that is not a politician.
The last time I checked, the president's part is the executive branch.
And an executive needs a chief executive officer.
Now, does he talk the way people want him to talk?
No.
He talks down to the level of the people down here that's been frustrated for decades because of all the money going up under the table when all these politicians make all these deals that nobody knows nothing about.
I appreciate you taking my call, and I hope y'all have a nice day.
And this is a Truth Social post by President Trump.
This was posted at 7-11 this morning.
It says, all those countries that can't get jet fuel because of the Strait of Hormuz, like the United Kingdom, which refused to get involved in the decapitation of Iran, I have a suggestion for you.
Number one, buy from the U.S.
We have plenty.
And number two, build up some delayed courage.
Go to the strait and just take it, all caps.
You'll have to start learning how to fight for yourself.
The USA won't be there to help you anymore, just like you weren't there for us.
Iran has been essentially decimated.
The hard part is done.
Go get your own oil.
That is a post from this morning by President Trump.
And we are standing by to take you to the Pentagon for a press briefing.
Looks like the secretary and the chairman have approached the podiums and we'll take you there live coverage.
Well, over the weekend, I had the opportunity to visit our troops fighting in Operation Epic Fury.
We were in the ground, or on the ground, excuse me, in CETCOM on Saturday for about half the day.
For reasons of operational security, so those troops are not targeted, the places and bases will not be named.
Suffice it to say, the trip was an honor.
I had a chance to bear witness, and I witnessed the best of America.
I witnessed warriors, a brotherhood of men and women, warriors all, active duty, guard, and reserve, united in their love for each other, their shared purpose, and their commitment to the mission.
I witnessed sheer competency.
I watched a private first class confidently calling out an enemy missile trajectory to a room full of officers.
Everyone focused.
The room was locked in.
Two enemy missiles successfully shot down.
I spoke to Air Force and Navy pilots on the flight line who every day both deliver bombs deep into Iran, but also shoot down drones defending their base.
Many had just returned from the skies of Iran and Tehran.
I put on a headset and spoke to one crew in the cockpit, locked and loaded, each and every day.
I witnessed ingenuity, American ingenuity.
I met the young Army officer who figured out how to neutralize maneuvering enemy missiles, saving countless lives.
His commander confirmed that the whoops and cheers erupted in the Tactical Operations Center when his new approach was first successful.
I met the Air Force intel analyst who refines target packages faster than the enemy can adapt.
I actually gave him my card and told him to keep me posted on the ground truth.
I did the same with his boss, a colonel with a heart the size of Texas and a beautiful deployment mustache to match.
I witnessed lethality.
I met a junior airman as the sun was going down and a chill was setting on the tarmac, who, when asked what they needed, she simply looked up at me with a sly smile on her face and said, more bombs, sir, and bigger bombs.
We will happily oblige her.
I met the Army targeting team who found and sunk the pride and joy of the Iranian Navy, their fighting position plastered with images of sunken enemy ships.
And I witnessed urgency.
Right when we landed, another C-17 landed just minutes after us.
And within 30 seconds of the aircraft coming to a full stop, a team on the ground pulled up and the cargo was being uploaded.
Wartime speed.
To a man and to a woman, on the ground, in the air, on the flight line, and in the talk, I heard, we want everything faster.
Higher op tempo.
Wartime speed.
The feeling was the exact opposite of the rotational units year after year in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that we're so familiar with.
In those wars, it was always about the next rotation, never knowing when the mission would end or exactly what the mission was, year after year.
Not with epic fury.
I witnessed urgency to finish the job, urgency to achieve mission success, not looking at the next rotation, only moving as fast as possible to win.
I got a chance to troop the line, to witness firsthand what we already know is true.
I spoke to all ranks and all services, none of whom knew we were coming.
It was not rehearsed or scripted.
Sometimes we just wandered.
What I witnessed was motivation.
It was sheer mission focus.
It was the American warrior unleashed.
It was the kind of war-fighting American spirit that comes with a clear mission against a determined enemy.
A crew chief we flew with summed it up nicely.
He said, it's been a busy few weeks, sir, tough stuff, but I'm so honored to be called up.
Well, of course, eventually we want all those things.
They do too.
But what those Americans said to me, young and old, officer and NCO, male and female, black and white, was, let's finish the mission.
Get us even more bombs, bigger bombs, more targets.
Let us finish this.
In fact, Admiral Cooper noted this morning that the three Air Force captains shot down by Kuwaiti-friendly fire early in the fight, weeks ago.
They never left the theater.
All dropped bombs over Tehran last night.
These men and women live the Iranian threat every day, incoming missiles and drones, and know what a world looks like, what the world would look like if Iran had the most dangerous weapons in the world, a nuclear weapon.
As President Trump has said time and time again for years and in this administration, Iran cannot have a nuclear bomb and they won't.
These troops, they want to finish this fight for their kids and their grandkids.
This is about history.
This is about legacy.
Success matters.
And because of this president and these Americans, we're closer than ever before to winning.
President Trump is doing what no other president had the guts to do.
Previous presidents were all talk.
He's all action.
On the battlefield, because of the latitude the president has given us, American firepower is only increasing.
Iran's decreasing.
We have more and more options, and they have less.
Just one month in, only one month, we set the terms.
The upcoming days will be decisive.
Iran knows that, and there's almost nothing they can militarily do about it.
Yes, they will still shoot some missiles, but we will shoot them down.
Of note, the last 24 hours saw the lowest number of enemy missiles and drones fired by Iran.
They will go underground, but we will find them.
We recently destroyed another one of their command bunkers.
Leaders forced to flee, no water, no power, no oxygen, no command and control.
Their faith in their caves diminishing.
The latest intel is clear out of CENTCOM: our strikes are damaging the morale of the Iranian military, leading to widespread desertions, key personnel shortages, and causing frustrations amongst senior leaders.
Just last night, we had 200 dynamic strikes alone.
Dynamic strike is a strike where a pilot leaves, and during their flight, they get a new target set based on real-time intel given to them.
A new launcher, a new location, a new troop formation.
A dynamic target is one that changes while you're in the air because of improved intelligence.
200 dynamic strikes alone, in addition to the pre-planned targets.
The video the president posted last night of Esfahan, an ammo depot struck by U.S. bombers.
You see, you don't get to see many of those videos because, as a reminder, Iran has still shut off the internet to 99.9% of its population.
But if Iran is wise, they will cut a deal.
President Trump doesn't bluff and he does not back down.
You can ask Khomeini about that.
The new Iranian regime should know that by now.
This new regime, because regime change has occurred, should be wiser than the last.
President Trump will make a deal.
He is willing.
And the terms of the deal are known to them.
If Iran is not willing, then the United States War Department will continue with even more intensity.
Standing here this morning in this briefing room, in my mind's eye, I'm actually looking out at the groups I met this weekend.
The pilots, the logisticians, the intel analysts, the targeters, the sustainers, the flight crews, the air defenders, the base security, those maintainers who we walked up at sunset with the chill in the air on the flight line.
May God watch over all of them each day and each night.
May his almighty and eternal arms of providence stretch over them and protect them and bring them peace.
Good morning, everyone, and thank you again for being here.
As operations continue, I remain deeply grateful for the service and determination of 2.8 million members of our joint force, each of whom are serving something greater than themselves.
Every day, those deployed, and in many cases, those at home who are deploying forward and bomber pulses and others put themselves in harm's way, and we owe them a deep debt of gratitude.
I remain especially grateful for our fallen who gave the ultimate sacrifice.
We'll never forget their valor and their determination to do something greater than themselves.
And each day we continue to earn what they've given to us.
This morning, I want to share that yesterday, the Joint Force had the honor of participating in the burial of Colonel Clarence Emmel Bud Anderson, who passed away in May of 2024 at the ripe old age of 102.
He was laid to rest in Arlington Cemetery yesterday morning alongside his wife of 70 years, Eleanor, who he married on February 23rd, 1945.
She passed away in 2015 at the age of 92.
Bud, yesterday, a legend to our Air Force and fighter pilots everywhere, was honored with a combination flyby of F-35s and a fourship of P-51 Mustangs.
He was one of the most prolific flying aces of World War II and the highest scoring P-51 ace with 16 and a quarter kills in his squadron and in his group.
And he served from 1942 to 1972.
And his last combat tour was flying F-104 Thunder Chiefs over North Vietnam.
For anyone that had the chance to meet Colonel Anderson, you knew what an incredibly special man he was.
And that's true for each and every one of our World War II vets who become fewer and fewer with each passing day.
They are the greatest generation and give us the gift of an incredible example as we execute Operation Epic Fury today.
And Colonel Anderson, we mourn for your loss and remember that smile on the right side as you went out to do our nation's business.
Our Joint Force continues to focus on our military objectives as we systematically continue to degrade and destroy Iran's ability to project power and threaten stability beyond its borders.
First, the Joint Force continues to destroy Iran's ballistic missile and UAS capabilities.
We remain focused on interdicting and destroying the logistical and supply chains that feed these programs.
And this remains a truly joint effort prosecuted around the clock from air, land, sea, space, and cyberspace.
Long-range bombers from U.S. Strategic Command are coordinating with tactical fighter aircraft from our joint force launched from bases around the region and the continental United States.
While simultaneously, Navy fighters from the sea and sailors continue to project power from the sea while Army and Marine artillery units continue to execute long-range precision fires deep into enemy territory against high-value targets.
Meanwhile, on the defense side, our Army and air defenders and aviators, as the Secretary talked about, remain vigilant, forming a shield to protect our forces and our partners, intercepting missiles and drones.
Together, we continue to deliver precision strikes against key manufacturing nodes, component storage sites, research facilities deep within Iranian territory.
And over the past 29, I'm sorry, 30 days, we've struck more than 11,000 targets.
Given the increase in air superiority, we've successfully started to conduct the first overland B-52 missions, which allow us, as we've said before, to continue to get on top of the enemy and, as the Secretary talked about, switch towards more and more dynamic targets servicing mobile targets around the battle space.
We've continued to do the work against Iran's missile, drone, and naval production facilities, and we continue the multi-domain pressure that we've talked about.
Second, on the Navy front, we continue to assert dominance over the Iranian Navy.
We remain focused on targeting their mine lane capability, their naval assets, and we've now, as I mentioned briefly last time, started to work attack helicopters and other close air support assets into the naval domain.
CENTCOM continues to identify and work against naval depots and storage areas.
We've taken out, again, more than 150 ships, including all Jamaran-class frigates inside their Navy.
Third, we continue to prosecute our campaign against our defense industrial base at scale.
This includes factories, warehouses, nuclear weapons, research and development labs, and the associated infrastructure required for Iran to reconstitute its combat capability.
I'd like to continue my theme of highlighting the incredible contributions of Americans to our joint force.
Today, I want to talk a little bit about a different front line, a line that doesn't have bunkers or guardposts, but is just as critical to our nation's security, our national assembly lines.
Today, I want to recognize a group of Americans who live at the beginning of our nation's combat power, the Americans who actually make our weapons both inside our defense industrial base, but even more broadly inside our national industrial base.
In every military option, we could not and cannot do our jobs without the men and women across our country who show up every day around the clock to a factory floor, a workshop, a laboratory, who build the weapons and capabilities we need to project American combat power at the time and place of our choosing.
These great Americans, and I've had a chance to spend some time with them when I was in the private sector, are the core of American combat power.
They're the machinists running high-tech CNC machines, cutting raw blocks of metal into incredibly precise parts.
They're the assembly workers painstakingly taking a kit of parts and turning that into a complex guidance system or precision munition or a rocket motor or building a jet or submarine.
Or there are quality assurance technicians who ensure that when a warfighter pulls a trigger, the weapon works every time.
This can be and is tough and gritty work.
It's not a quiet office and a desk with paper, and there's nothing wrong with that, but this is exactly the way this group of Americans likes it.
I know this.
I've seen it myself, and I remain deeply honored by that gift.
It's often loud and dangerous work, demanding.
It requires absolute focus for hours at a time with deep commitment to get it right every single time.
It's hands-on work where one uncaught mistake or deviation can put an American's life at risk.
A single misplaced wire, a microscopic flaw, and a weld, incorrectly calibrated sensor could mean the difference between mission success or mission failure.
The difference is measured in the lives of our sons and daughters who we put out around the field and on the field of battle.
We rely on and trust in these great Americans, and it's not just their manufacturing skill, it's their innovative minds and their entrepreneurial spirit.
From those who build exquisite capabilities down to the mom-and-pop machine shops all over this great country, they live at the beginning of and the core of America's combat capability, constantly adapting, constantly improving, constantly learning.
And there are examples of this throughout history and current days, to include building things like the F-117 stealth fighter, the B-2 stealth bomber, making our combat capability undetectable over the enemy, to today's B-21 and F-47.
It's work like in the shipyards of the East Coast and Northeast side of the United States that go out and build America's nuclear submarines that allow us to patrol around the world at the time and place of our choosing.
These innovators, these workers, these incredible Americans, don't get the same glory as a fighter pilot returning to a carrier deck at night or an artilleryman sending rounds downrange, and yet they show up every single day.
And without them, we could not do the work that we are tasked to do.
24-7, they build the tools that we need to do our business.
The skill, the commitment, the patriotism, the dedication poured into every piece of combat capability and hardware is seen and felt out at the edge of the force, as the Secretary talked about those young bomb builders out in the desert that he had the chance to see.
You can see it, you can feel it, and it's real, and we're deeply grateful.
So to the American workforce out there, both inside our defense industrial base and in our national industrial base, thank you on behalf of the joint force.
We carry the weapons that you build.
We rely on the systems that you create.
And the distance from that factory floor and that assembly line to the front line is incredibly short.
Thank you.
Keep it up.
And to our adversaries out there, I remind you to beware of the American workforce.
We continue to press forward in our military objectives.
The Secretary and I remain deeply humbled by the spirit, tenacity, commitment, and grit of our 2.8 million member strong joint force.
I want to, as always, thank the force and their families.
So your initial assessment of what you just heard at that press conference.
unidentified
So we got a couple new details.
What I heard the chairman in particular say is that the U.S. has military objectives that are defined as making sure that Iran can't pose a threat to its neighbors and region, and that the way the U.S. wants to do that is by reducing their ballistic missile and drone capability.
Namely, he talked about labs for the nuclear program, but he didn't say, the chairman didn't say nuclear weapons specifically.
He mentioned 11,000 targets that had been hit.
But what they didn't define is what does that state look like?
How many strikes have to happen for Iran to no longer pose a threat?
And does that mean that they have to hit 100% of their capability, 90% of their capability, 11,000 out of how many targets, for example?
And does removing those capabilities then allow for the U.S. and its partners to find ways to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, for example?
Does it make a straight?
That's right.
And between that and the President's social media post this morning saying that it's on Europe to reopen it, it seemed to suggest that they believe that once the Iranians are weaker militarily, that it'll be harder for them to close the strait and therefore Europe can come in afterwards and sort of negotiate the ways to reopen the strait.
They also didn't talk about proxies.
Is it such that the U.S. wants to make sure that the Iranians cannot provide capabilities to its proxies?
And so we heard a sort of smattering of details about what the U.S. has been able to do militarily, a broad definition of military success.
What we didn't hear is what that end state looks like.
What is an acceptable outcome for the United States and Israel?
He talked a lot about the defense industrial base, both in Iran and in the United States.
You wrote an article, and the title is this, The One Variable That Could Decide the War.
What is that?
unidentified
Munitions.
The Iranians right now are using drones primarily, along with ballistic missiles.
Each of their drones are called Shahid drones, cost about $30,000.
The defenses that we're using, the missiles we're using to shoot them down, cost somewhere between $1 and $5 million each, and oftentimes they're launching more than one.
And there's a limited supply of them, not only for the United States, but for its Gulf partners that the Iranians are also targeting.
And so there's real concern that between the limited supply, the munitions that have already been provided to the Ukrainians, and the time it takes to restock U.S. supplies of those, that there is a battle of munitions, that there could come a point where the U.S. is having it, and Israel and its Gulf partners are having to make decisions about what to shoot down and what not because of that cost difference between what the Iranians can produce quickly and at a relative cheap price and how long and expensive the U.S. and Allied defense is.
So Iran actually can just keep making them since they're easy to make and they're made quickly and maybe outpace the U.S.'s ability to make those defensive weapons.
unidentified
That's right.
And so that's why you heard General Kane saying that they're focused on the supply chain because the best way they can combat it is to go after the factories or the places in which they build them.
The challenge becomes how much do they have now and is that enough supply to keep them in the war days, weeks?
We haven't gotten any fidelity on that from the United States military.
The challenge is, yes, there are different people in charge than there were a month ago.
And we've seen several iterations of people in charge of defense, Intel, and of course the Ayatollah himself.
But it's the same regime in that you still have the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
You still have a government that has core values that the United States said that it was seeking to combat at the start of this war.
This is not a government that is going to be ready to negotiate in the ways that I think the United States was hoping when it started the war.
This is not a fundamental change in principles in terms of governance within Iran.
And I think we're seeing that in terms of how the war is playing out.
You are not hearing a regime come forward and say, we are interested in negotiations.
We are open to the president's optimism about talks.
We are hearing government elements say, we are not interested in talks.
We don't trust this United States government because when we negotiated with them in the past, they conducted strikes against us twice, June, and then again last month.
We are not hearing a change in tone from the government or a hardening or lessening of their positions in terms of what they're seeking to achieve in this war.
Both the United States and Iran are still sort of holding on to some would argue maximalist aims that they're trying to achieve in this war.
The United States wants to eliminate Iran's military capability.
The Iranians are seeking payment for the damage that has been caused, potential control of the straight of Hormuz going forward, and the promise this United States will not strike again.
So while the people have changed, we have not seen evidence that the core principles that have governed Iran have changed.
If you've got a question about Iran, you can start giving us a call now.
Democrats are on 202748-8000.
Republicans 202-748-8001.
And Independents 202-748-8002.
Nancy, how does Iran define winning this war?
unidentified
It's a great question because they are fighting what I would describe as an asymmetric war.
As we've discussed, they don't have the military capabilities that the United States and Israel bring Bringing to this fight.
They don't have the sort of advanced systems, the kinds of technology.
What they are using are cheaper weapons along with ballistic missiles, and they are seeking to survive the attacks, to keep the country intact.
In many ways, they are fighting for the next day so that they are able to sustain and endure the campaign by the United States and Israel longer than Israel and the United States are willing to conduct it.
And they are seeking to make the cost of this war higher and higher for the United States and Israel, both practically speaking in terms of the attacks that they're conducting on Israel, on U.S. allies and partners in the region, but also by closing the straits and saying there's an economic cost to global energy markets by attacking us.
And so I think the Iranian mission is one, to survive, and two, to send a message that it is too costly for the U.S. and Israel to conduct future strikes on us again anytime soon.
So what do you make of their attack on that Kuwaiti oil tanker?
It was fully loaded.
It was like a million barrels that's on fire right now in the port of Dubai.
unidentified
What they are trying to say is that we have control over the world's energy markets.
That while countries may try to go around us or try to find alternative ways to distribute oil and through the world market, that we maintain an ability to cause pain to the economic market.
And I think they're also trying to put pressure on Kuwait, which is a U.S. ally, to say to the United States, this war is costing us too much in terms of security and our economy for you to sustain it.
Can we please find an off-ramp?
We talk about the Gulf and how some Gulf partners want to see the United States keep fighting because they believe that if an Iranian government stays in place, that that poses a long-term risk to their security and to the neighborhood security.
But not all Gulf partners look at this war in a monolithic way.
Some are worried about the economic cost to them, risks to their infrastructure, risks to their security.
And so I think what Iran is trying to do is find breaking points where they can create more pressure, more costs to the United States and Israel for conducting this war over time.
So President Trump posted on Truth Social that if there is no deal made with Iran, that the U.S. would obliterate, that's his word, their energy infrastructure, their desalination plants.
What do you make of that as far as will that be enough to get Iran to make concessions?
unidentified
Well, you raise a great point because on one hand, we hear the United States say that it wants to reach a deal, but we also hear increased threats.
And on the Iranian side, while the President says we're closer to negotiations, we've actually seen an escalation in the targeting of Israel and Gulf partners.
And so I think this is a reflection of the President's negotiation style where he is trying to sort of say to allies and partners to put out a threat to come up with means to incentivize them to come to the negotiating table.
I think the challenge is the one that we spoke about earlier.
Iran is seeking not just to stop the war, but to make the war so painful that Israel and the Gulf states don't consider coming back at them in a few months or a few years from now.
You'll remember that the U.S. conducted along with Israel strikes in June and then, of course, these strikes.
And I think Iran is looking to set the conditions such that there is less incentive to come back at this so that they can use potential revenue that they get from the Strait of Hormuz to reconstitute themselves.
And so they are both trying to defend themselves and keep the regime in place, but also to make the war as costly as possible.
So I'm not sure if those threats in and of themselves work.
The Iranians already see this as a fight for their survival.
And then I would also say targeting civilian strikes, infrastructure is not allowed.
If something is used for the purpose of war, it can be targeted.
But infrastructure that is targeting civilians is a violation of the Geneva Conventions.
And so it's interesting to me that he's mentioning desalination plans because there's not a clear tie between those and the conduct of the war.
To your point about benefiting off the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the U.S. did lift sanctions on Iranian oil that was already out.
I guess the estimates are $14 billion that the Iranians could gain from that.
Is that substantial?
Is that something that could help them prosecute the war?
unidentified
So in one way, yes, but not immediate, right?
Because it takes time for the sort of economic benefits to weave its way into the Iranian system.
It does help in that two ways, I would argue.
One, Iran is suffering economically.
The Iranian people are suffering economically.
And I think one thing the Iranians want to be able to come back and say to the people after this war ends that they have reaped some sort of economic benefit, that the Iranian people have gained something for all the suffering that they've endured throughout these strikes.
So there's that.
But also, I think what the United States may be signaling to the Iranians is that the closing of the strait is causing us pain, that we are experiencing it.
And so it opens an opportunity, one would argue, for Iran to see this as a point of leverage that they can use in future negotiations because we are saying we are feeling the pain so much so that we are willing to lift sanctions, which was one of the conditions that the Iranians had sought before the start of the war.
We'll start on the Republican line in Laurel, Maryland.
Damien, good morning.
You're on with Nancy Yousaf.
unidentified
Good morning.
Thank you.
There's a YouTuber named Ryan Macbeth.
I think he's a CIA analyst, but he posts a lot on YouTube.
And he pointed out a mistake we made in the beginning where we parked all our airplanes on one tarmac and then Iran hit it and they blew up one of our seeing eyes in the sky plane and they're pretty expensive.
And he noted that, hey, we got to learn from Ukraine because Ukraine did the same thing to Russia when Russia planted all their planes on the tarmac.
So that's one big thing we did.
So I hope they learn from that.
And the other thing is, have you heard anything about resistance groups rising up in Iran?
Justifying Nuclear Capacity00:13:19
unidentified
I've seen YouTube videos where they're just picking off guards one by one, but I haven't heard of a leader or anybody resistance.
Thank you.
Hi, Damien.
Thank you for your great question.
So on the start of the war, we did see a huge influx of U.S. aircraft across the region.
So many so that they've reached a point where it was hard to find places to park them because I think what the United States was trying to do was strike with overwhelming force.
And we saw the Ayatollah killed shortly afterwards, such that you would see a rise up of the Iranian people and a potential quick end to the war.
That, of course, didn't happen.
But I think when you go into these conflicts, I think what you're getting at is for all the planning you do and all the thought processes you bring to it, wars become unpredictable the minute they start.
And so while I think the U.S. had that calculation, they were willing to do so knowing that it could put its aircraft at risk.
Now, relatively, the United States has not suffered tremendous costs to its infrastructure in terms of its planes.
Where we've seen the real damage happen is at bases across the region, particularly in Bahrain.
There have been a loss of several aircraft, of course, the three fighter jets in Kuwait, the KC-135 over Iraq, and the fighter jet hit in Saudi Arabia.
That's what we know of.
But I think relatively, the United States hasn't lost a large number of aircraft because of keeping them at those bases.
And to your question about defections, it's interesting.
Secretary Hagseth today, for the first time, mentioned defections within the Iranian military.
This is the first time we've heard him talk about a real consequential effect in terms of personnel leaving.
And that becomes important because if that is happening, that is a key metric in terms of whether the regime can survive.
Because if you start to see mass defections in their key components like the military, it makes it much harder for the Iranian government to stay in place.
But what we haven't seen is a rise of people.
What we've heard instead is that the Iranian regime is working very hard to make sure that people don't feel safe to come out, that there are checkpoints throughout the country.
And of course, people are in the middle of facing strikes, so that's harder for them to come out.
There also isn't an organized opposition leader within the country because, in part, the Iranian government has worked very hard to make sure that those kinds of elements don't exist within the regime.
Al in Harrison, New Jersey, Democrat, you're on the air.
unidentified
Good morning.
I'm a Democrat from New Jersey, and my question, though, is: one of the major reasons that the President has explained that we've entered into this conflict, this war, is to neutralize Iran's nuclear capabilities.
That was done, I thought.
The president pounded his chest back in July and categorically announced that the strikes that were inflicted on Iran in July obliterated was his word.
That's one of his favorite words now.
That their capabilities were obliterated.
So now, one of the justifications for the current war is that we need to obliterate Iran's nuclear capacity.
How can we trust his word when he said eight months ago that the mission was accomplished?
It was the nuclear capacity obliterated.
But now he's justifying, and I think in our national interest, that's an important justification, that he's justifying the war, that he has to obliterate Iran's nuclear capacity.
I thought that was done already.
So, how does the American public trust whatever comes from the administration now about that particular issue?
Thank you.
Thank you, Alan.
Thank you for your question.
You're right.
Last June, he used the word obliterate to describe Iran's nuclear program, but the intelligence community came out shortly afterwards and said that it had been damaged but far short of obliterated.
And I think what we saw in June was a damaging of the facilities, the enrichment facilities.
What remains in place in Iran is the enriched uranium, which would be presumably used for a nuclear weapon.
But having said that, I think you're getting at a much broader and a very important point: in the run-up to the U.S. strikes on Iran, we didn't have a large public discourse about the need for this war, the expectations for this war, what the United States was trying to achieve.
And since then, we've heard various descriptions, sometimes in the span of 24 hours, that it's about regime change.
It's not about regime change.
It's about nuclear capability.
It's not about nuclear capabilities.
It's about ballistic and drone capability.
It's about opening the straight of Hormuz.
And I think the lack of sort of discourse about the aims of the war has made it hard to make assessments of whether the United States is achieving the outcomes that it wants.
That coupled with the fact that we're not getting the kinds of details about these operations.
We're getting statistics here and there, but not a clear understanding of what the United States has been able to achieve.
Having said all that, remember that as of yet, Iran, there's been no evidence that they have a nuclear weapon, but that they were aspiring to build one.
And so the question becomes: can strikes kill that aspiration?
Can it do enough such that Iran doesn't seek to continue to try to build a program in the post-period after the strikes end?
The Washington Post is reporting that this week the U.S. is considering diverting Ukraine military aid, which is the munitions, to the Middle East.
What do you think of that and the message that that sends?
unidentified
Well, I think they are spot on because there is such a shortage.
I mean, hundreds of munitions that the United States went through just in the first three days of the war.
I think the figure was 850.
That alone would take years to restock U.S. stockpiles with.
But at the same time, the munitions that the United States has provided Ukraine has been essential to their fight against Russia.
So what I think this ultimately speaks to is how much in demand these munitions are in these various conflicts.
And the reasons for them are actually connected.
That both in Ukraine and in the war in Iran, we are seeing adversaries use smaller, less expensive ordnance, fire multiple forms of them, and really force the U.S., Israel, and Ukraine to go through expensive munitions to defend themselves against attacks.
And so I think it raises the questions about is there a plan going forward to find ways, cheaper ways, to combat these kinds of weapons?
Jim, a Republican in Idaho, you're on the air, Jim.
unidentified
Jim?
Thank you for taking my call.
My question is: I know the costs are high now, but Iran's goal is always to have a nuclear weapon.
So if this wasn't being done now, what would be the cost monetarily and in human life when Iran did achieve a nuclear weapon?
That's what I have.
Thank you very much.
Hi, Jim, and thank you for the question.
You raise an important point.
Iran has posed a threat to its neighbors and to the United States for decades, going back for the United States all the way back to the 2003 invasion of Iraq when it was supplying deadly weapons that killed U.S. troops and the proxies that it has throughout the region.
And so we should be clear that this is a war that was started in part because of the threats that Iran poses to the international community.
I think it's hard to answer what would have happened if the U.S. hadn't struck because at the time the Iranians had an 86-year-old Ayatollah as leader.
We were starting to see fractures within the society about the future of the country.
Would it have gone a different way on its own had the strikes not happened?
It's a hard question to answer because we're now in a new period.
But I think what, if nothing else, I think the war has certainly weakened the regime such that even if it doesn't collapse now, you could see a scenario where years from now that the effects of this war and the battering that the regime has taken has made it weaker so that we could see different outcomes for Iran in the future in terms of the kinds of governors we'll see.
In Baltimore, Maryland, on the independent line, Edward, you're on with Nancy Yousaf of the Atlantic.
unidentified
Hey, Nancy, good morning, you all.
I was wondering, I have really two questions.
The first one is, I teach journalism, and I find it very difficult to talk to my class about being objective when I hear reporters not reporting the full scope of the story.
It's very one-sided.
I know that we're Americans and American journalism and all of that, but at some point, the intellectual dishonesty doesn't serve the American interest.
There were reports that Israeli agents were part of the civil unrest.
They were arrested.
We don't hear that in American media.
We hear about American strikes, but we don't hear about Iranian strikes or the number of U.S. deads.
Where does American journalism sever its ties with the administration to deliver the truth to the people?
Thank you.
Hi, Edward.
Thank you for the question.
It is hard to follow the news on or on because in some ways we have so much information that I think we're seeing elements of all the facets of the war.
I think sometimes it can be hard to find that information because there's so much of it and there's not sort of an agreement in terms of what objectivity looks like anymore in our industry.
The other thing I would notice that this war, unlike any war of recent history, is very, very hard to cover.
The U.S. has not made it possible for reporters to go on ships, on bases, to embed with troops, to even go inside the Pentagon.
The Iranians have closed off internet access so that there's no clear way to get information from inside Iran or talk to everyday Iranians.
And certainly, other than a few reporters, there are not independent media inside Iran.
And the Israelis have put out limited information about what they're doing.
We're not getting a full scope.
And so when it comes to covering this war and really getting fidelity in terms of what's happening, I think it's been one of the most challenging because in past wars, we could at least have reporters on the ground.
And in this case, it's become much, much harder to see the front lines of these conflicts.
Tell us more about your access to the Pentagon, especially in light of the Supreme Court's decision.
unidentified
So there was a ruling by a district court judge, and he basically said that the U.S. decision to, I should rephrase, Hexet's decision to say that we had to sign a form saying that we would not publish information unless it was authorized by the Pentagon violated First, Fourth, and Fifth Amendment rights and ordered that the rules essentially be changed.
So the Pentagon did change them, but they actually put more restrictions and they closed the corridor in which the Pentagon Press Corps worked and moved us to an annex, not even in the building.
And the challenge is to get to the annex, you have to go through the building, which under the past that they proposed, we couldn't do.
And so it would have been actually even already harder to go to the building.
So it was sort of in the building in name only, but not really in the spirit of what the law, the ruling was seeking to achieve, which was to make it such that we could talk and gather information to inform the American public about what's happening.
And so there was a hearing yesterday in which the New York Times, which brought the lawsuit, has raised those concerns with the judge, and we'll wait to hear from him about that.
But based on my friends who were there, it seemed that the judge was quite frustrated by the administration's response to his ruling.
So when we see the press conferences that, for instance, we just saw, and we aired it completely on C-SPAN 2, there are reporters there, and they're asking questions.
unidentified
Yes, but we're not allowed in the building.
So when we go to those press conferences, we're escorted in, we're escorted out.
They're assigned seats in those rooms.
They're pre-chosen in some cases, which journalists will be able to ask questions.
And we're not getting the kind of details that I think one would expect.
If you go back and look, for example, in the early days of the 2003 invasion, you had generals coming forward, not just the chairman, but generals who were involved in the war, explaining the conduct of the war, explaining what the missions are.
That's not happening in this case, these are happening occasionally.
And I think it's demonstrated by the fact that Hegseth in today's press conference said he went to the Middle East and didn't take any reporters with him, which in the past would not have happened.
Strain on Military Plan00:06:23
unidentified
We would have been able to travel and see for ourselves what the troops were telling him, how he was seeing the war.
On the Republican line in Las Vegas, John, good morning.
unidentified
Good morning, you guys.
Hey, great show as usual.
I want to ask this lady: did you make the statement that going into this war that there was no clear plan?
Did you make that statement earlier?
What I said was that there's no clear aim that the United States has in terms of where, at what point, it believes that Iran is being nullified to the point that it can't pose a threat to the United States and its Gulf partners.
You couldn't be more wrong.
You don't know what you're talking about.
And you need to watch C-SPAN and Fox News and other cable news places because you don't know what you're talking about.
First of all, over and over again at the beginning, Trump asked these idiots, the Ayatollah or whoever, that we want to come in and we want to make sure you do not have a nuclear weapon.
We want to do it peacefully.
They rejected it.
He must have had four or five or six different plans to do this peacefully at the beginning.
So the first thing I'm going to tell you, lady, is go back to the beginning.
Number two is we surprise attacked them, and after we did that, we asked them, lay down your arms and surrender.
Trump has tried over and over again not to have a military plan.
Our military plan is well executed and extremely confusing to the enemy.
They don't know what we're doing, and we're taking them down.
And I don't understand where you come up with this opinion.
So, John, you outlined why the war started and the attempts to prevent it from escalating in the beginning.
What I'm asking is, what is an acceptable end state?
For example, if Iran can still launch ballistic missiles at its Gulf partners once a week, twice a week, is that an acceptable outcome?
If it can't launch it at all, ever, is that an acceptable outcome?
If its drone capabilities are brought down by 95%, but there are still factories in place in which they can produce them going forward, is that an acceptable outcome?
I think you outlined some of the efforts to try to reach some sort of settlement in the run-up to the war and the initial aims to remove the regime.
But what I'm asking is: at what point does the United States decide that Iran is no longer a threat to the region?
And that hasn't been outlined because we don't know what that end state looks like.
At what point is Iran so weak that it cannot pose a threat as the United States defines it to the U.S., to the Gulf partners, to Israel?
With this war that's going on, who gave Donald Trump a Florida to Solo authority to start the war.
So you ask a great question because obviously, under Article I of the Constitution, the authority to declare war falls to Congress.
But I think in the post-Cold War period and over time, and certainly since the global war on terrorism, we have seen more ambiguity around that, such that presidents have been allowed to conduct strikes on countries in Iraq, in Syria, and Iran in the past.
The president himself has launched attacks on seven countries so far in his first year.
And so I think there are some questions about whether the president had a responsibility to go to Congress and seek authorization given the scale and scope of the war.
What I've seen in my time is that we've increasingly defined these things not as war as we think about it, but as strike campaigns, which has created a sort of legal ambiguity for it.
The other thing I would note is, while there are Democrats on the Hill who have raised concerns about this, we haven't seen this sort of bipartisan call for the president to come forward and state clearly what this is, what he's seeking to achieve.
We heard frustration from Republicans, but not so much to sort of cut off funding for the war or do other things to limit the president's ability to conduct it.
And the last question for you, which is, you know, this, we talked about the burn rate essentially of American munitions.
Could this impact readiness for future, possible future conflict with China or with Russia?
unidentified
I think it can.
We don't have fidelity on the numbers, but the U.S. has said that it wants to be prepared for threats from the Western Hemisphere, threats from China, to support Ukraine, threats from the Middle East.
And these are some of the most coveted weapons when it comes to air defense.
And given that we've gone through so many of them so quickly and the time it will take to reconstitute them, I think there are real questions about readiness.
But I wouldn't limit readiness to just the munitions.
The strain on the force, the USS Gerald Ford has been out deployed.
It'll be nearly 11 months.
That puts a strain on the sailors and on the ship itself.
The USS Abraham Lincoln, the other aircraft carrier in the region, has been deployed for several months.
The rotations on the force, those all put strains on the force and can affect readiness.
So I think as we think about this, how we prepare for future conflicts, the strain we're putting on both munitions, the equipment, and the personnel should be affected.
Now, the counter that some would argue is that by having troops engage, we are also learning and adapting in ways that could be applicable to addressing threats from China.
And coming up in about half an hour, we'll talk to Space Flight Now reporter Will Robinson Smith.
He joins us for a closer look at the mission.
And what you're looking at now is a live shot of the Artemis II spacecraft.
That's at Kennedy Space Center.
The scheduled liftoff is tomorrow evening at 6.24 p.m. Eastern with four astronauts on board.
We've got our C-SPAN cameras there to cover that.
And in the meantime, after the break, we will take your calls for open forum.
You can start calling in now.
2027488000 is a line for Democrats.
2027488001 for Republicans.
And 2027488002 for Independents.
unidentified
We'll be right back fan is as unbiased as you can get.
You are so fair.
I don't know how anybody can say otherwise.
You guys do the most important work for everyone in this country.
I love C-SPAN because I get to hear all the voices.
You bring these divergent viewpoints and you present both sides of an issue and you allow people to make up their own minds.
I absolutely love C-SPAN.
I love to hear both sides.
I've watched C-SPAN every morning and it is unbiased.
And you bring in factual information for the callers to understand where they are in their comments.
It's probably the only place that we can hear honest opinion of Americans across the country.
You guys at C-SPAN are doing such a wonderful job of allowing free exchange of ideas without a lot of interruptions.
Thank you, C-SPAN, for being a light in the dark.
In a divided media world, one place brings Americans together.
According to a new MAGIT research report, nearly 90 million Americans turn to C-SPAN, and they're almost perfectly balanced: 28% conservative, 27% liberal or progressive, 41% moderate.
Republicans watching Democrats, Democrats watching Republicans, moderates watching all sides.
Because C-SPAN viewers want the facts straight from the source.
No commentary, no agenda, just democracy.
Unfiltered every day on the C-SPAN networks.
Best ideas and best practices can be found anywhere.
It's nice to be with a member who knows what they're talking about.
unidentified
You guys did agree to the civility, all right?
He owes my son $10 from a bet.
I never paid for it.
Fork it over.
That's fighting words right there.
Glad I'm not in charge of that.
I'm thrilled to be on the show with him.
There are not shows like this, right?
Incentivizing that relationship.
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So this is the time when we celebrate the triumph of the spirit over the body.
I am not a material being.
I'm a spiritual being.
And my spirit will survive.
Those of you who believe in material things, you will receive your rewards here on earth.
Remember what my best friend, my guidance counselor, the one I go to for my learning, is Jesus Christ, what he went through, and that he gave up his body so that I could inherit his spirit.
So those of you who quote the Old Testament, that is dead, Christ came to renew the spirit, and I will celebrate the resurrection of the spirit.
Don't be misled by the noise, the noise of others who will tell you that war is good.
I would rather feed children than starve them.
This is a cruel, cruel country right now.
And I really wish that Pope Leo would come and visit this country.
And just like Pope John Paul, a Polish person, visited Poland and overturned the dictatorship of communism, I pray that Pope Leo would come and visit America and overturn this fascist situation we're in.
Okay, Susan, this is Roger, Pineville, North Carolina, Independent Line.
unidentified
Go ahead, Roger.
Yeah, good morning, Amy.
I haven't called in in two years, but I listen every day.
I had my doubts about you when I first saw you, but you are great.
Love you.
Anyway, just a constructive criticism for Washington Journal.
I would happen to say, as much as you like to tout your independence and everything, I would say that you guys quote from the New York Times, the Washington Post, and Politico about 80% of the time.
That's not exactly unbiased.
Another thing about the people that do call in, it's interesting because you can tell by their comments, they've got the same talking points.
I don't care what side it's on, but it's like, people, start thinking for yourselves.
The White House spokesperson, Caroline Levitt, talked about, told reporters that President Trump wants Congress to come back to Washington and pass that funding.
Here she is.
unidentified
You said that the president is encouraging Congress to come back to D.C. U.S. and yourself.
How has he done that?
Has he told leadership that they should cancel recess and come back?
If you recall, he said that he'll host a big Easter dinner here at the White House if Congress will come back and fight the Democrats on this issue, which we should do.
Because again, the Democrat Party is in the wrong here.
They have voted seven times against funding the Department of Homeland Security, which is completely egregious with everything we have going on in the world.
And these brave men and women who serve DHS deserve to get their paychecks.
President wants to see that happen, and he wants Congress to come back to get it done.
I'm giving you a call just to get your take on the connection between the Venezuelan and the Iran war.
Some people think that they're leveraging the Petro system against the Chinese government as their net importers of energy.
I just want to get your take on if you think that that's effective foreign policy and if you think that that should be conveyed to the American people.
And also, if you're around this weekend, Richard Williamstown at New Jersey, line for Democrats, you're on the air.
unidentified
Good morning, a first-time caller, and I truly enjoy your program.
But my concern is why, why are the members of the Republican Party so afraid of Donald Trump and then just allowing him to just unleash his anger against everyone?
And though, Donald Trump doesn't care about anybody but he and his family and his friends and the Republicans who are cobtailing to him, he doesn't care about them at all.
So I think it's time that they stand up against Donald Trump and say, no, this is the people's world.
And this is the New York Post with the headline: Trump puts Iran on notice, reveals to the Post his one-week ultimatum for new speaker after Tehran's attack on Israeli oil refinery.
That's from the New York Post.
And this is David, Republican in Pennsylvania.
Hi, David.
unidentified
Good morning.
I'm calling to support our president, Donald Trump.
You know, you had this facade with this no kings march, and they've already started reviewing some of the footage.
It's fake, a lot of them.
There's pictures from sporting events.
There was one picture they put out, it was actually looked like Mecca, and they photoshopped out the tower in the middle of Mecca.
Angry white people are out there.
They forget that Donald Trump won by 8 million votes.
He won the Electoral College.
He's standing up to tyrants around the world, which we haven't done in 40 years.
We have to stand up for America.
Also, America does need to be first.
We stopped the flow of fentanyl down to a trickle.
You know, the amount of deaths last year from drug overdoses is down dramatically.
And what do you think that's from?
From the cut in smuggling of illegal drugs across the border.
As far as the shutdown, I blame the Democrats because they block, block, block or put out a partial bill and say, oh, we gave you an option, but they didn't fund the important option, the security option of the United States for Homeland Security to be able to do their job.
You know, you don't have a police force, and then all of a sudden say, we're not going to let you patrol.
And, David, are you in favor regarding DHS funding?
Are you in favor of Speaker Johnson and Leader Thun bringing back the House and the Senate in order to deal with that?
unidentified
Everybody should be ordered back to come back on Monday for immediate debate to start on Tuesday.
You can have your week.
Everybody on both sides have been loggawing their vacation and going out, you know, because they keep getting paid.
You know, they started talking about: hey, if we don't have a government budget, we're going to end this payment for senators and representatives and federal judges.
If they would do that, you wouldn't have a delay but for maybe five or six days in these budgets because once they know that they're not getting paid, they would feel the sting that the THS workers and everybody else has felt.
The GOP weighs health care cuts to pay for Iran war.
It says Republicans are considering reductions in federal health spending to help pay for a budget bill containing as much as $200 billion to fund the Iran war and immigration enforcement.
It says new efforts to rein in health programs are sure to be controversial and open the GOP up to election year attacks that they're cutting health care to pay for an unpopular war.
You can see that at Axios if you'd like to read the rest of that.
Arielle in White House, Tennessee, Independent Line.
Good morning.
unidentified
Good morning, and thank you for this platform.
I would just like to say that the fundamental principle of the Constitution is that the government is a republic in which the sovereign power of government lies with we the people.
So if we the people are divided on the political views of our congressional representatives, our Senate representatives, the president, war, then, but these things are continuing to occur, then obviously the power does not lie with the people.
We have perhaps the 1%, if not the 10%, of the country that makes decisions for the 90%.
So I don't see how with the Supreme Court justices that we have that interpret the meaning of the Constitution using different viewpoints.
I don't know how we are still considered a republic when we do not agree on a lot of governmental or policy, not governmental, but policy.
I think whenever I understand that there is certain executive power that the executive branch has to have, for example, in the state of emergency or an attack such as 9-11.
But when a war is provoked, if the sovereign right of government lies with the people, I question why don't we vote on things like that?
Why don't we vote on whether or not we decide to go to war when we the people are boots on the ground, whether you're Republican, Democrat, or indifferent, and the people who make the decision and are responsible for negotiating these things are sitting in air condition, getting the world's best water that we don't know exists, and the world's best food that we don't know exists.
I think we should maybe look at the bigger picture of maybe how government is supposed to function.
This is not an allegiance to a person, it is a form of government in which people are to be governed.
You know, I wanted to tell a story about how I recently ordered a world globe, a 16-inch rotating world globe.
Artemis Team Spirit00:06:33
unidentified
And after receiving it a week or so ago, I was looking at the Middle East area and the countries involved in this fiasco right now.
As I was looking at the Red Sea, I was noticing, well, at the bottom of the Red Sea, they have a strait that is even narrower than the Hormuz.
And I thought, well, I know the U.S. military is probably using this passageway as an alternative route to get to the shortest distance between two dots when they were deploying.
So about the same time I heard about the USS Gerald Ford with a fire aboard, and they apparently had to limp back northbound through the Suez once again and go to a Greek port for repairs.
I was looking at those countries around the Red Sea, and we see the Sudan, Ethiopia, Yemen, Oman.
Not exactly the friendliest countries, especially the way Trump has been treating so-called allies.
So would it be possible that a drone hit the USS Gerald Ford from those sites?
And what happened to the two bomber refuelers where we lost six or seven crewmen?
Did a drone hit those?
We're not quite getting the information.
That's why I tried to call earlier with your prior guest, thanking her and you for seeking the truth.
But with the brainwashing going on from the Fox media, who has infected the White House with people like Pete Hankseff, Sean Duffy, the Scott Besense, the Dan Bonginos, the Janine Peros, the Tammy Bruces.
Remember, people, once it was, hold on, Mimi.
Remember, Rupert Murdoch in a court of law, under oath, said we peddled lies regarding the election.
Well, the crew members are getting ready to take off as scheduled tomorrow.
What do you think they're feeling right now?
unidentified
Well, what they're doing is, I mean, they're making sure that they're mentally prepared.
You know, they've had the opportunity over the past few months as this has become more and more real to ensure that their family's prepared and that they've got everything sort of in order.
It's a, you know, supposed to be a short 10-day mission or so so that they are make sure everything else is prepared.
Now you've got to make sure you're mentally prepared.
You want to make sure you're well rested.
You really understand all those initial steps as you're going through it and that you're ready to execute what you've been trained to do.
Can you give our audience an understanding of the importance of the Artemis program?
What is it what is it going to be accomplishing for us?
unidentified
Well, you know, for me, I was young enough, I'm old enough, I should say.
I actually watched Neil Armstrong step foot on the surface of the moon many years ago.
And I believe that out of the Apollo era, there was a whole generation of us that went on and became engineers and scientists inspired by those missions.
And you look at the change in technology and everything that's advanced over the past 50 or so years.
And a lot of that, I think, came from the inspiration of the Apollo missions.
I really think that's one of the greatest contributions of human spaceflight in general.
So the Artemis missions, you know, this time, going and staying, we're going to get a lot more science out of this.
You know, what we learn on the basic science level is going to change how we live and function.
But in addition, just solving those engineering problems of how do you actually live in that environment?
Everything we learn will come back to make life better here on Earth, which I think is the ultimate goal of why we go to space.
And I was very fortunate to get the last assignment, but I try and stay healthy and be as much of a part of the office.
You know, not flying in space is really more than 90% of the job.
And so you really have to enjoy being part of the team to solve the problems and ensure that we can execute the missions we're given.
You know, there's nothing that we do as humans that really isn't part of a team.
So there's no better feeling than succeeding as part of a team.
And at NASA, you know, I've had the opportunity, not flying in space many times, of being a part of a very successful team.
And that's the excitement.
So if I ever get assigned again, that's wonderful.
We can sort that out with my wife if she wants me to go or not.
But, you know, this is really exciting to be a part of the team and being here as we move on to the back to the moon and we'll go there to stay and ultimately on to Mars.
Does God want the Democrats or the Republicans to take the House and the Senate?
Like, what are you thinking?
unidentified
Well, what I think, what I've seen in scripture, of course, is God has his plans, purposes, and pursuits.
He also has his pleasing, his perfect will.
Six P's.
And what do you know?
What will play out is, of course, in the hands of man.
He doesn't interfere.
He's a gentleman.
But it is up to people who will do the voting.
I mean, we did get enough votes for the change that took place November 5th.
And since then, of course, a lot of people are not happy.
There's so many people that think that the high gas prices, this war that's going on, it seems that Donald Trump has had to take the bull by the horns, which I do believe that God has his intent, his plan.
Yes, we don't care for deaths, but innocent children, schools, and all that.
But nevertheless, this thing's been brewing in the Middle East.
All right, Wally, I got to move on to Will in Tulsa, Oklahoma, line for independence.
Good morning.
unidentified
Hey, good morning, too.
Thank you for taking my call.
And before we spoke to the, before you spoke to the astronaut, there was a caller, your last caller before that break, talking about the Red Sea and the narrow strait right by the Gulf of Aden.
And the reason we don't use the Suez and the inlet to the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea, which is west of the Persian Gulf, is because that's the reason we use the Persian Gulf.
Iran has the oil.
It's where the oil is.
Saudi Arabia has oil, certainly, but to get the oil from Iran out to the east over to China and up around to North Korea, et cetera, wherever they trade.
The reason we're not using the Red Sea is because the oil is in Iran.
We've got to get over there and fill those tankers.
I'm just amazed at some of the surprise that some of the callers are calling in about Trump and what he's doing, and he has no plan.
He's been winging it since he was a kid.
Five people are five children or in his family.
He's got an older brother who passed, he died from alcoholism.
He's got three sisters.
He was kicked out of the house, essentially sent to this military academy.
Of all five children his parents had, only one was asked to leave the house, and that was DJT.
My question is, what did he do?
You know, why did his parents recognize, or what did his parents recognize in him to put him in to a military academy?
And obviously, the answer is that he lacks some sort of discipline, and they got fed up with him.
Orion Spacecraft Launches00:15:21
unidentified
But this persistent lying and this persistent con man nonsense that we all see today because of his notoriety as the president of the United States.
But this has been going on in his life forever, his entire life.
All right, well, and I got to end you there because coming up after the break, we'll take a closer look at the mission with Spaceflight Now reporter Will Robinson Smith, who will join us live from Kennedy Space Center.
We are expecting that launch tomorrow of the Artemis II.
You can see it there on the launch pad in Florida.
We'll be right back after this break.
unidentified
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C-SPAN, Democracy Unfiltered.
A new era of space exploration begins.
C-SPAN brings you live coverage of the Artemis II moon mission launch.
Join us Wednesday at 1 p.m. Eastern for real-time video from the Kennedy Space Center and Houston Mission Control, plus expert analysis, briefings, news conferences, and live viewer calls as America prepares to return astronauts to the moon.
And be sure to stay with C-SPAN after liftoff for continued live coverage throughout the mission and the splashdown.
Don't miss special coverage of the Artemis II launch live Wednesday at 1 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN, the C-SPAN Now app or at c-SPAN.org.
So the Artemis program is an initiative to get humans back to the moon long-term on an enduring presence.
And the Artemis II mission, which is set to launch on Wednesday, is the next big milestone in that.
So if you and your audience remember, a couple of years ago, back in November of 2022, the uncrewed Artemis 1 mission launched, and that was really to shake out the rocket, the space launch system, and the Orion spacecraft, which had a couple of dummies and a lot of sensors to get a sense of how both of those vehicles would operate.
That mission went into lunar orbit.
This time, one of the main objectives is to see how the life support system for the Orion spacecraft operates, how well it's able to keep the crew comfortable and safe for this roughly 10-day mission, which will be what's called a free return trajectory.
So that means it's not going into lunar orbit, but rather doing kind of a big figure eight around the moon and then splashing down in the Pacific Ocean.
And that sets the stage for the next big endeavors, which are meeting up with the lunar landers, one built by SpaceX, one built by Blue Origin from Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, respectively.
And those will be the robotic landers that take the astronauts down to the surface of the moon beginning in 2028.
Okay, so going back to Artemis 1, the unmanned system, you said that that was meant to shake out any problems.
Were there any problems detected?
unidentified
So the Space Launch System rocket performed pretty much as they expected.
The solid rocket boosters on the sides, which have shuttle heritage, those performed as they anticipated, as did the RS-25 engines, which power the core stage.
There were a couple of additions that they added to the rocket to make the flight a little bit more optimal, but basically that went as they wanted it to.
The Orion spacecraft, on the other hand, largely performed as was anticipated.
However, during the re-entry, the way that they bring the spacecraft back, it's like skipping a rock across the water.
It's called a skip re-entry to take some of the energy out of the Orion spacecraft and make it safer for a splashdown.
When they did that, there was a little bit more of a cracking element in the heat shield than they saw in their modeling going into the Artemis I mission.
And so the reason why it's been so long largely between Artemis I and Artemis II is they really wanted to run down their analysis of the heat shield, reassess the trajectory, and come back with either the decision to replace the heat shield for Artemis II or fly the heat shield as it existed.
The decision that they made, the other one, fly the heat shield as it is, slightly change the trajectory, make it a little bit more of a direct insertion back into the atmosphere.
And we will take your calls and your questions about the Artemis program.
Our lines are bipartisan.
So Democrats are on 202748-8000.
Republicans 202-748-8001.
And Independents 202748-8002.
You can start calling us now.
Will, what are the astronauts going to be doing during this 10-day flight?
unidentified
Yeah, so there are a lot of exciting objectives for this four-person crew.
So you have three Americans, Reed Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Cook, and a Canadian Space Agency astronaut, Jeremy Hansen.
And part of what they're going to be doing pretty soon after they launch, they'll separate from the rocket's upper stage, and then they'll flip their spacecraft around and do what's called a proximity demonstration.
So they'll manually pilot the Orion spacecraft and get close and further away from their upper stage.
And that's in order to set up the future proximity operations that will be needed for the further missions.
So if you imagine for when they're landing around the moon, they'll send out the Orion spacecraft into a lunar orbit, and then they'll meet up with either SpaceX's lander or the one from Blue Origin.
And those two will dock.
Two astronauts will go into the lander and then down to the lunar surface.
So this is an early demonstration of how well the Orion handles when you've got two test pilots behind the stick.
So that's one big objective.
Another, as I mentioned, is to learn more about the life support system since the Orion spacecraft on the Artemis 1 mission actually didn't have a fully built out Eclipse system or life support system.
So that's something that they haven't demonstrated before that will be shown to prove that it can support astronauts on this mission.
And just a correction on my part, the lines are regional, not bipartisan.
So if you're in Eastern or Central time zones, call us on 202-748-8000.
If you're in Mountain or Pacific, it's 202-748-8001.
If you've already started calling, don't worry about it.
You can stay on the line that you've called on, but our lines are regional.
Will, tell us a little bit more about the astronauts that were chosen for this mission.
unidentified
Yeah, so the three Americans are all NASA astronauts.
Jeremy Hansen is the Canadian Space Agency astronaut.
Both Reed and Victor have a Navy background.
They're both test pilots.
Jeremy Hansen, also a test pilot in his own right, and Christina is an electrical engineer.
So they all bring a wealth of experience to this mission.
And for Christina, Victor, and Reed, this is their second flight.
All three of them have been to the International Space Station.
In fact, Victor Glover was the first African American to serve on a long-duration space mission on board the ISS.
For Jeremy, this will be his first spaceflight.
However, he's had a lot of experience with the astronaut corps and was the first non-American to lead a NASA astronaut class.
So he's a good leader.
He has a lot of experience in the various training environments that both NASA and its international partners put these astronauts through.
So when NASA was looking at all the various candidates that could build this mission and be a cohesive team, these are the four that they selected for just some of those characteristics and more.
And the Artemis III, then, going on to that, what will the objective be for Artemis III and what's the timeline?
unidentified
So your audience may remember Artemis III once upon a time was going to be the mission where we saw them land on the moon.
They're taking a different path with that now.
Earlier this year, the NASA administrator Jared Isaacman decided, along with the rest of NASA, talked it over with the members of industry and their international partners that Artemis III would instead happen closer to home in Earth orbit.
They're still figuring out exactly what that mission profile will look like, but basically you'll see Orion launch on the Space Launch System rocket as we expect to see it in just a day or so.
And it will meet up with one or potentially both of the lunar landers that will, starting with Artemis IV, take the astronauts down to the lunar surface.
And so if you want to imagine it, this is more like Apollo 9 in that sense, where you see a stepping stone towards eventually landing on the moon instead of jumping right from the first time you put astronauts on Orion to then saying, okay, now you're going to go meet with a lander and sit down on the lunar surface.
And are you able to give us an idea of how much the entire Artemis program is costing and put that in perspective for us as far as like percentages of the U.S. budget?
unidentified
So overall, the NASA budget is, if I've got my numbers right, less than half a percent of the overall U.S. budget.
So Congress appropriated on the order of $25 billion for FY26.
And within that, the Artemis program has been a large percentage of NASA's overall spending.
And that's partly because some of the pieces and parts have been years behind and millions to billions of dollars over budget, which was why the administrator decided to reshape what the Artemis program looked like, take out some items that were going to continue to delay the progress of the Artemis program and continue to bolster the cost.
Just one example, off camera to my right is the vehicle assembly building.
There's a large tower there that's very similar to the one that's out at the launch pad right now.
NASA decided to stop that construction.
Even though it's getting close, that was years behind, billions over budget.
It's called the Mobile Launcher 2.
And instead, NASA decided to take pieces that are common with that vehicle or that mobile launcher and use them as backfill for the original mobile launcher.
The reason that that exists actually is because NASA was originally planning to have a taller version of the Space Launch System rocket, which used a more powerful upper stage that was being manufactured by Boeing.
However, that was also delayed and the timeline of that was still a bit squishy.
So the administrator decided to put aside that upper stage, put aside that mobile launcher, and simplify the architecture, which is designed to reduce costs, number one, and number two, to increase the flight cadence.
We've got a question for you by text from Chester in Mooresville, North Carolina, who wants to know if this mission will provide images and any type of evidence of the previous moon landing for all those skeptics out there that are persistent.
unidentified
Well, thank you so much for the question.
To the first, what will we see?
Well, we'll see a lot after the mission happens once they're able to get the crew back, get all the really high-resolution photos and images that will come out throughout the mission.
But they're prioritizing, especially as they get closer to the moon and then eventually start to make their way back.
They want to make sure they've got good communications with the crew, both through originally the near space network and then the deep space network when they're getting close to proximity with the moon.
But we will see a lot from them throughout the course of the mission.
For example, when they're going to be performing that proximity demonstration with the Orion spacecraft in the upper stage, we'll be able to see the front-facing cameras on Orion, what the spacecraft is seeing looking at that upper stage, which will provide all of us a really cool vantage point on that key test and demonstration.
And then we also expect to see various images from the cameras that are on the tips of the four solar panels.
They'll be sending imagery back from the spacecraft, looking back at that, looking back at Earth, back towards the moon.
To the second part of your question about will we see the landing sites from the Apollo era, hate to disappoint, but probably not just because of the proximity of where the astronauts will be in relation to the moon.
But the cool thing about Artemis II and what they will be able to see is based off of the lighting and when exactly they launch, they'll be flying around the backside of the moon at a time where part of it will be illuminated in a way that the Apollo astronauts never got to see because they wanted to land on the moon to have the maximum amount of time on the surface of the moon facing the Earth for the best possible lighting in that scenario.
So we're going to be able to see things that human eyes have never seen before.
And the astronauts will share those images with us.
Yeah, coming up on nearly 60 years since we last set foot on the moon in 1972.
So the reason, part of the reason why it's taken so long is both partly technological, partly political.
There have been a number of efforts to get humans back to the moon.
If you recall, during the George W. Bush administration, there was the Constellation program that got canceled subsequently under President Obama.
The Artemis program is the first in quite a while to have an enduring, long-duration deep space human program that has persisted through multiple administrations across both major political parties.
And so that has created a lot of political energy to make sure that this gets done.
As to the reason why it's taken so long to get humans on this spacecraft now, partly because of the readiness of these vehicles, the testing that's gone through them, as I mentioned with the heat shield analysis that had to be done after the uncrewed Artemis 1 mission, that took a little bit longer than folks were anticipating.
So it's kind of a puzzle of various pieces that have caused this delay.
But mostly, you know, if you want to put it down to one answer, it's because we want to go back on the moon in an enduring presence.
Weather Criteria for Moon00:07:48
unidentified
And that's taken technology that's taken more time to develop both the systems, the procedures, and how we want to live on the moon sustainably and what that will look like.
Yes, I see no logical reason whatsoever to waste billions of dollars to circle the moon when we can't even afford to get full health care and feed our people here in America.
We, I can understand having a space station up.
And I can see us putting defense satellites up.
Those are good missions, but to go around the moon is not a priority now.
Take care of the people here in America or on Earth before we waste the money going around the moon.
And that's something that we've certainly heard multiple times as folks who cover the space industry of why do we spend tax dollars going to low Earth orbit to beyond the moon.
A couple of things that I would say in response to that.
Number one, as far as our presence in low Earth orbit, the International Space Station, which has been a really important testbed for both the United States as well as our international partners, it is aging and it will be deorbited somewhere in the ballpark of at least 2030, potentially as late as 2032.
It depends on the readiness of both the commercial space stations that will replace it, as well as for the deorbit vehicle, which is being built by SpaceX.
And so the current administration has a priority to maintain our presence in low Earth orbit.
And so they're working with a variety of commercial companies to make sure that there isn't a gap like we saw with human spaceflight from the United States between the shuttle landing in 2011 and when commercial crews started with flights beginning with Demo 2 in 2020.
The reason why we're going to the moon, though, I would say, going back to my earlier comments about the percentage of our budget that we spent here in the United States on the space program, it's less than 1%.
So a fairly small percentage of our overall tax dollars is going to sustain the various programs that NASA has, not just the moon mission, but across the NASA centers around the country.
And all 50 states have some influence and connection to the space program, especially with Artemis here.
But we want to learn about how to live off-planet.
It's been a national priority both for this current administration and the previous administrations to make life multi-planetary eventually, to learn how to live off-world, eventually on Mars.
And the moon is a good starting place to do that because you can get back to the moon relatively fast compared to a return trip from Mars.
And so if Mars is the ultimate objective, which has been the stated case of, again, this administration and the next, then we need to learn about human physiology, the impacts of radiation in deep space, and especially to that radiation point.
We just don't have the same comparison here in low Earth orbit that we do around the moon.
We're protected by our atmosphere, our ionosphere, and going further beyond low Earth orbit will teach us about the spacecraft development that we have to have, the radiation protection, and a host of other things about living and working off-planet.
And, Will, just real quick about the weather and the forecast.
I mean, it looks nice there behind you.
How's it looking for the launch tomorrow?
Is the forecast indicating that the weather will be good, that they can take off?
unidentified
Yeah, it's nice and breezy here on this Tuesday morning.
The weather forecast from the 45th Weather Squadron, which is part of Space Launch Delta 45 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, they're forecasting an 80% chance for favorable weather.
And so essentially what that 80% means is there's an 80% chance that all the weather criteria are going to be acceptable at some point during the two-hour window.
They're targeting the opening, but if they need to push further into it, they do have that latitude.
What they're watching for at this point right now are the groundwinds as well as the cumulus clouds.
It's a partially cloudy sky here right now, and what you don't want to do is fly a rocket through a particularly thick cloud because the static generated by the rocket could create lightning and threaten both the spacecraft, the crew, and those of us on the ground.
So that's obviously something that they want to avoid.
But from what we heard from the mission management team yesterday, and we'll hear again later today from the 45th Weather Squadron, the pathway to launch as far as a weather standpoint is looking very good right now.
You will be able to see it here on the C-SPAN networks.
That's tomorrow evening.
It's scheduled for the evening.
Watch our schedule for that and be sure to watch the launch.
That should be very exciting.
Here is from yesterday, NASA's Artemis Launch Director, Charlie Blackwell Thompson, speaking with reporters yesterday about launch conditions for tomorrow.
Some of them are standard range criteria relative to lightning and other things, and some are specific to our vehicle, like winds and that sort of thing.
So our launch weather officer takes all of those criteria.
And so when they give us a percentage, that 80% is that there's an 80% chance that we are going to be an acceptable criteria across all of them.
But if we're in violation of any of them, then we're going to wait it out.
I'll give you, and Mark Berger, who's our launch weather officer, he'll be here tomorrow and he can certainly talk all the weather in detail.
But I'll give you my opinion on the weather.
So we have a two-hour launch window.
That's a wonderful thing because when you look across the forecast, and I was looking at it just this morning, and you look at the winds, I think we're going to be okay from a wind perspective.
And really what they're looking at for the most part is cumulus clouds.
And so, you know, I imagine that over the course can guarantee it, but over the course of a two-hour window, you know, weather can change and things can move around.
And so, you know, when I see an 80% chance of go and a two-hour window, I feel pretty good about our chances.
Also here on C-SPAN this evening, we've got Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro.
He joins a conversation centered on his new book called Where We Keep the Light: Stories from a Life of Service.
It explores topics such as faith, family, and politics, including the 2025 arson attack on the governor's residence.
That's hosted by the Jefferson Educational Society.
And again, that's live at 6 p.m. Eastern today at C-SPAN.
You can watch all those on our app, C-SPANNOW, and online at c-span.org.
And this is the front page of the Wall Street Journal with this.
Trump looks to exit with straits still closed.
It says the goal is to limit Iran's war to a few weeks.
Reopening passage could come later.
This says that the president told AIDS he is willing to end the U.S. military campaign against Iran, even if the Strait of Hormuz remains largely closed.
It's likely extending Tehran's firm grip on the waterway and leaving a complex operation to reopen it for a later date.
That's at the Wall Street Journal.
And this is Dan calling us from Severn, Maryland.
Democrat, good morning, Dan.
You're on Open Forum.
unidentified
Good morning.
I would like to comment on Secretary Peggset earlier statement today that now we control everything, what they're doing in Iran.
That is just plain not true.
We don't control.
We don't control the state of Hormuz.
We don't control the traffic of the oil through there.
The gas at the pump is over $4 a gallon.
How are we controlling everything there when it's a basic economic thing that we don't control, and it affects all of us.
Not just the military and the people that are deployed there in a war that is not a war, it's a special mission or however strike assign land it's named and it's not declared by Congress, but it affects every one of us.
I mean, the price of gas went from $2.90 to over $4 in less than a month.
Could you please schedule in your C-SPAN programming somebody to please talk about Social Security and what they're doing to expand Social Security sometime soon?
Because we all need it desperately.
Most of us are living on less than half of the cost of living because we're living solely on Social Security, not, you know.
When you say expand Social Security, what do you mean?
unidentified
I'm talking about I'm talking about giving people more money to live on.
They're paying us like it's 1971 and they're expecting us to get by on it, and it's impossible.
No matter how much you cut out, no matter how much that you budget, no matter how much that you fractionalize and cut out absolutely everything and live on the bare minimum, we're all living on the edge of those pennies that they've just stopped making.
And it's just unconscionable.
And I really need them to give people, and I'm not saying give like, give out like a handout.
I mean, we all, you know, we worked for it.
But they're expecting us to get by on nothing.
There are, for people like me, let me just say this real quick.
I have been disabled for 35 years.
I can't get better.
I can't go to work.
I can't work from home, not even part-time, not even from home.
There is no pension because I haven't been able to work.
There's no 401k because I haven't been able to work.
There is nothing but Social Security.
I get $24 a month on food stamps.
Doing the best I can.
And I know a lot of people on Social Security who are making a lot less than I am every month.
It's insane.
They give you nothing to live on and they expect you to live.
And we really need somebody to talk about this in Congress.