Sophia Besch analyzes NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte's difficult White House meeting with President Trump, highlighting tensions over the Iran conflict where the president allegedly berated allies for insufficient support. While critics argue the U.S. embraced the war too aggressively, Rutte contends global safety improved through Iran's degraded conventional military program. Besch anticipates Rutte will credit Trump for securing 5% GDP defense spending commitments and address concerns by emphasizing allied contributions to freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz, driven by European shipping interests and economic stakes. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Europe Joins Strait of Hormuz00:04:41
From the table, understanding full well that so long as these guys are at the helm, peace, that other word that you mentioned, sir, will not spring out, will not be at hand.
The Foundation for Defensive Democracies can be found fdd.org, and that's where you can find much more from Benim Ben Taliblu, the Iran program senior director there.
We do always appreciate the conversation.
Thank you so much.
We continue our live coverage of the Artemis II lunar mission later today with a NASA update on the moon flyby live at 3.30 p.m. Eastern.
Then the four astronauts on board will hold a news conference from the spacecraft at 7.50 p.m., one day before their return to Earth and splashdown in the Pacific Ocean.
You can watch both briefings on C-SPAN, C-SPAN now, our free mobile app, and online at C-SPAN.org.
Friday, on C-SPAN Ceasefire, a bipartisan conversation on President Trump's handling of the Iran conflict with former West Virginia Independent Senator Joe Manchin and former North Carolina Republican Governor Pat McCrory.
Joined by our host, Dasha Burns.
They'll also discuss the economic and political fallout as the upcoming midterm elections approach.
Watch Ceasefire Friday at 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. Eastern and Pacific.
And this week, catch ceasefire on C-SPAN 2.
A focus now on U.S.-NATO relations with Sophia Besch.
She's a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
And Sophia Besch, NATO Secretary General Mark Ruda, met with President Trump at the White House yesterday.
What do we know about what happened in that meeting?
Yeah, that was a very difficult trip for the man who is known in Europe as the Trump Whisperer.
That's the reputation he won over the last year, de-escalating again and again between the alliance and the president.
And he had his work cut out for him after tensions ran really very high over the Iran war, where the president did not consult his European allies and then berated them for not supporting him or allegedly not supporting him.
So there was a lot for the Secretary General of NATO to kind of pick up on in that conversation.
What are you expecting the Secretary General to say?
He's speaking at 11 a.m. at the Reagan Institute in DC, talking about NATO, talking about the Iran war.
What are you expecting today?
Yes, it's quite the balance act for him because he was rebuked by European allies for initially, in their view, supporting embracing the war too much.
European allies have been very, very critical of this war.
At the same time, he has been holding the line and saying that the world is safer after the war or with the war because the Iranian conventional military program, at the very least, has been degraded.
I expect him to repeat something along those lines today as well.
His mission always, when he comes to speak with the president, is to give credit to the president for the way that NATO has been developing the fact that NATO allies have committed to spending 5% of their GDP on defense.
He credits President Trump with that achievement.
I expect that he will repeat something along those lines too.
But also, I think that he will acknowledge the president's disappointment with allies and probably try to make a case that they are now rallying to support freedom of navigation operations in the Strait of Formuz going forward to try to get shipping going again.
Do you think that could mean some NATO involvement here in this conflict or in some sort of peace deal?
So, this is not a NATO conflict, but I do expect that European militaries will want to contribute to a freedom of navigation operation and whatever shape that might take.
There have been conversations already between European allies to try and put something like that together because, of course, they have shipping interests too through the Strait of Hormuz, and their economies are very affected by the fact that the state has been closed.
So, I do expect them to become involved.
And I should say also that the United States has been drawing on its military infrastructure in Europe, its bases, its logistics for rearming, refueling.
So, Europe has been involved in this war.
NATO Allies Support Freedom Operations00:00:17
We're going to leave this to take you live to a briefing with NASA officials on the Artemis II moon mission.
As the crew heads back to Earth for an expected splashdown tomorrow evening, you're watching live coverage.
Associate Administrator Amit Shithria, Artemis II Flight Director Jeff Radigan.