Welcome to Meet the Press Now. I'm Kelly O'Donnell in Washington, where President Trump is making a direct appeal to the international community to help the U.S. secure the Strait of Hormuz to avoid a global oil supply crisis, even as he claims the U.S. could secure the strait by itself and says that we don't need the oil.
It comes as the White House continues to try to reassure consumers that the spike in energy prices due to the conflict will be temporary. Yesterday, President Trump said he was demanding countries that rely on oil from the Middle East join the U.S. in forming a coalition to secure the strait, which supplies roughly 20% of the global oil market. Today, the president doubling down on his calls for a global coalition.
I strongly encourage the other nations to get involved with us and get involved quickly and with great enthusiasm. I have that from a number of them, and I'd like to say their names, but frankly, I don't know if they would want me to or not because maybe they don't want to be targeted. But I say, wouldn't matter if you're targeted or not, because this is a paper tiger that we're dealing with now. It wasn't a paper tiger two weeks ago.
It's a paper tiger now. That assessment comes as the president is also claiming that Iran has been, quote, literally obliterated in the war and that its leadership has effectively been dismantled, prompting this question from reporters. Now that you've announced that the U.S. has destroyed all of Iran's mine laying ships, why can't the U.S.
just immediately reopen the Strait of Hormuz? Well, we could, but it takes two to tango. We have to get people to take their billion dollar ship and, you know, drive it up. You know, these ships are very expensive.
They could cost up to two billion dollars. So they don't want to take a chance and say, I think I think you'll be OK. They got to know it. We don't know if they even set any mines, but the thought that they may have is enough to keep people from saying, we don't need it.
Among the countries the president is calling out for help, the United Kingdom, France, South Korea, Japan and China, all responding to his request with mixed reactions and none doing so publicly, none committing to deploying assets to the Strait of Hormuz so far. Meanwhile, Iran's foreign minister telling state TV the Strait of Hormuz is open and only closed to enemies. Yesterday, crude oil hit one hundred dollars a barrel. Today, those prices are coming down to around ninety three dollars a barrel, but still 40 percent higher than when the war began.
Fuel prices also continue to climb with the average regular gas price per gallon inching closer to that four dollar mark. Yesterday on Meet the Press, Energy Secretary Chris Wright saying it could be a few weeks before those prices come down. After the conflict is over, you'll start to see prices come back down. It is a short term disruption, the flow of energy.
Americans are feeling it right now. Americans will feel it for a few more weeks. But at the end, we will have removed the greatest risk to global energy supplies. As for now, how much longer this could go on is the question mark.
An Iran foreign minister says there is no reason to negotiate with the U.S. President Trump was also asked about the possibility of negotiations and here's what he had to say. I don't know if they're ready yet. They're taking a pounding.
I don't know if they're ready yet. And we don't even know their leaders. Look, all of their leaders are dead, as far as we know, but they're all dead. We don't know who we're dealing with.
We met with the next group and but we don't know who their leader is. We have people wanting to negotiate. We have no idea who they are. Joining me now are NBC News White House correspondent Monica Alba, NBC News senior national security correspondent Courtney Kuby, NBC News business and data correspondent Brian Chung and NBC News international correspondent Matt Bradley.
Welcome one and all glad to have you here. Monica, let me start with you. Traffic through the strait has really ground to a halt in part because the companies that have the vessels don't want to expose themselves to the risk. Do you get a sense that the president's attempt to form a coalition is actually materializing?
It doesn't seem like it, Kelly, because he's trying to do this retroactively, right? He's trying to kind of bring this coalition together to countries, asking them for help when they weren't really consulted in the first place on launching this attack against Iran with Israel. So countries are saying, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a second, not so fast. And also they're saying this isn't our war.
This isn't necessarily our conflict, even if we do have a vested interest in getting the Strait of Hormuz to be safe enough for vessels to pass through it. So they want to have a more diplomatic conversation. That is certainly not what President Trump likes to necessarily want to engage in. And he said about the UK Prime Minister, for instance, who said, well, let me talk to my team first and maybe we'll have a discussion and I'll make a determination and get back to you.
And the president said in this event today, why does he need to talk to his team? Why can't he just tell me he wants to help and go ahead with it? So a difference in leadership style and a difference in the approach to this very complicated diplomatic challenge. And so revealing because the president doesn't feel he needs to consult.
Therefore, another head of government might not need to. Is there a conflict in these discussions with the president saying he needs this international coalition, but at the same time is describing the threat from Iran as far reduced? Yeah, I think there are kind of a myriad of contradictions that the president has been making here because he is trying to make the argument that militarily so many of these targets have been hit, so many of the objectives have been met. But clearly this economic consideration and dealing with the Strait of Hormuz, which he says he knew and was aware this was going to be such a problem, makes it very, very difficult to be able to declare victory in any sense, because until you have solved that, we don't really know how the president can make that claim.
And then you also are seeing these reports of additional resources of Marines and a unit that are going to be sent to the region. Unclear exactly what their goal will be and what their role will be, but it is very hard for the president to say, on one hand, we are ready to wind down, while on the other, you're seeing a ramp up in that sense. We're still waiting this afternoon for an event that is yet to take place, as I understand it, with the president and vice president Vance in the same room together, which might not sound unusual, except we have not seen that since the war began. What should we be looking for?
Just a few days ago, it was the president who admitted that the vice president did have some, quote, philosophical differences in his approach to what they should do leading up to the decision making on the war against Iran. The fact that we are seeing them and there they are at this event now is notable because likely there will be some questions presented to one or both of them about that gulf, about that difference in opinion. Now, the vice president, when he was asked about this a couple of days ago, said, I'm not going to reveal personal considerations and recommendations that I make to the commander in chief to the media. I'm not going to reveal that to all of us.
But I think it's very instructive that the president doesn't really hesitate when he's asked about it. He will say, yes, maybe we differed on a couple of different things, but we're aligned on these others, which just sets up this whole other major conversation, as you know, Kelly, about 2028 and what this could mean for the president backing his own vice president or potentially his secretary of state, Marco Rubio, who's somebody that he has heaped praise on as we have seen this conflict over the last three weeks. And Rubio has been so prominent in this whole discussion by virtue of the role that he plays. Courtney, let me bring you into this discussion as well.
And we talk about the feasibility issues from the military side of things of trying to form a coalition of trying to bring these leaders together. Do you get a sense that there's any progress on this and that there's any definition as to what the roles would be if other nations joined in? Yeah, it's not impossible that the militaries could come together and provide some sort of a coalition that would be helping ships get through. But at this point, we don't see any real momentum towards that goal.
There's options like things like some nations can provide aircraft that can do surveillance, maybe even provide air defenses in the way that they could defend against drones by shooting at them, air to air missiles or whatever it is. So there's multiple options. There's unmanned systems that they could use as well. But again, at this point, we don't see any indication that that is really moving in any direction.
It's in large part because of what just Monica just said. That is these countries were brought in in advance. And even though they have an economic interest in this being the Strait of Hormuz allowing for free flow of commercial traffic, they may not want to get involved militarily. And the reality is the same exact threat that exists to the U.S.
Navy would exist for all of those other militaries as well. So if there is a real threat to the military if they were to try and take on this challenge, even as a multinational coalition. So it's an extraordinary ask from the president to these allies. We also need your expertise when it comes to that critical oil depot known as Karg Island in Iran.
There have been questions about whether the U.S., now that there have been strikes there Yeah, and again, the context behind the conversation between Kristen Welker and also Chris Wright, the Secretary of Energy, is important because he was also saying that, yes, there could be relief, but it might not be until the summer. Now, it's all about when ships can start going through the Strait of Hormuz. It's as simple as once those ships begin going out, it doesn't even have to be at the same rate as what we saw prior, even if it's 10, 20, 30, maybe even 50 ships, that could lead to overall repricing in these global oil markets. I was talking to an analyst in the last few days that said the moment the Strait of Hormuz looks like it's open again, you could see barrels of oil go down $20 in one go.
Again, if we're going by the math that every $10 for a barrel of oil translates to 25 cents at the pump per gallon for you and me, that could mean an instant savings of about 50 cents per gallon. But again, it's if, if the Strait of Hormuz reopens. Thank you, Brian. Appreciate that.
And in just the time that we have been having our conversation here, Courtney has gotten some new information, some additional reporting on how the president is being advised about some next steps. What can you tell us? Yeah, so one thing that we've learned, this is according to a number of our colleagues who worked on the story together, is that according to six sources who are familiar with the president's daily information that he's presented on the war in Iran, that every day he is presented with what's known as an off-ramp or an option for how he can end the war if he wants to. Now, notably, we know that he has not done yet that at this point, every single day he has continued to go forward with the military options, the military objectives.
But in fact, there are advisors who are providing him with that option. It may be one of the reasons that we hear this language that's so uncertain from the administration about exactly how long this war could go on, Kelly. That is important context. And to get a sense that this is a part of the president's regular cadence of trying to make that decision, that is critical.
Do you get a sense that there is any coalescing around a particular option or is it just presenting him with an array of choices? It seems to be that there is a decision or at this point there is a goal to complete these military objectives. So that is the most basic ones that they've laid out from the beginning is to go out to take out the Iranian navy, to destroy their ballistic missile program and to destroy their drone program. But Kelly, those are not easy to accomplish.
The U.S. military has made a huge amount of progress in the first two plus weeks of this, but they still have a stretch to go. So the fact that the president every single day is getting the option for an off-ramp when they have really completed a lot of the tasks and really just taken out a lot of Iran's military capabilities, it just opens up the possibility that the president may decide one day that he is tired of the headlines about the Strait of Hormuz, that he's tired about this on this billions of dollars that are being spent in this war. But again, as of now, he's not taking that off-ramp.
Great new reporting. Thank you for bringing it to us, Courtney. We always appreciate that you can juggle a lot of things. Thank you so much.
Let me turn now to Matt. And as we've mentioned, we're now into week three. And let's get a sense of what it's like on the ground in the region. The situation has obviously changed a lot.
And have you gotten a sense that in Tel Aviv there have been more strikes? What's your picture there? Well, as a matter of fact, Kelly, we just got an alert right now. You might be hearing this all around saying that in the next couple of minutes they're expecting another incoming, probably from Iran.
We've been hearing these with some regularity. And in fact, it doesn't really seem like it's been letting up. But what we have heard from the IDF is that now these salvos that are being fired by the Iranians contain fewer and fewer projectiles in them. So while we're still hearing the sirens all day long and often all night long, although they have been dispersed in quite a little bit, most of these missile salvos don't really have that many missiles in them and they're causing very few injuries.
So things have shifted. And that's why we're starting to see this week schools are going to partially begin to reopen. It's already been several weeks since offices were reopening. And things really are getting back to normal in a real way.
A lot of the restaurants and stuff in this neighborhood and around the country are getting back to work. So things are kind of getting back to normal. I want to share with you some of what the president had to say today about Iran's leadership and his description of the new supreme leader. Let's play a bit of that.
This one we haven't seen at all. So that could be for a lot of different reasons. We don't know if Peter is dead or not. I will say this.
Nobody's seen him, which is unusual. The president, of course, referring there to the son of the supreme leader who had been killed. And then we have not seen any sort of proof of life, even though there was a statement. What is the sense in the region about an assessment of who is in charge right now?
Well, obviously, this lack of information is causing a flurry of conspiracy theories and conjecture. One of the things that we're hearing in the Israeli press is talking about a lot is the talk about how the senior Khamenei might have thought that his son. And there you're hearing those sirens now. That's answering a question about how things are going.
His son was considered inadequate. So we were having some difficulty with your mic going in and out, Matt, obviously, for the reasons of the alarms that are going on around you. Please be safe. We don't want to hold you up.
Thank you so much. Yes. Quite an indication. You're bringing it really to us and our viewers.
We're going to go into the White House now where the president in the Oval Office is taking some questions from reporters. They're crooked. They make money. They gain power.
They use it for power. Like with the Somalis, they vote in a block 100 percent. They make a deal with the Somalis. They all vote because they're on a gravy train.
It's it's money first, power second. A lot of people say power first. No, it's money first, power second. Do you ever see where like Mercedes people come up with from somebody that have no money?
And now they're buying Mercedes Benz cars. OK, it's more cash goes out of the Minnesota airport than any other place in the world. So we're going to find it. And Minnesota is really bad.
The governor is corrupt. The attorney general is totally corrupt, just like the New York state attorney general, Leticia James. She's a highly corrupt person. Bragg, the DA is a corrupt person.
They're all corrupt. These are corrupt people. And we got too many of them in our country. And we have to expose them and we have to catch them.
And if these two guys can't, these are high IQ people. I like high. I've always liked high IQ. These are high IQ people.
If they don't do it, we're going to go a long way, fellas, to find somebody else to do it. We have no choice. If honestly, if they may not do a good job, if they don't do a good job, it's possible if they don't do a good job, the country sort of in trouble. Yes, go ahead.
Thanks, sir. Two questions. I think we're going to do a great job. Go ahead.
First, Vice President Democrats are already calling you the fraud czar. What's your reaction to that title? And second, given your past skepticism of foreign adventurism, are you completely on board with the current war in Iran? So I like fraud czar.
I certainly what we do. And look, we have to do it. As the president said, this is a problem that's festered in this country for far too long. And far too few people have actually wanted to do anything about it.
That's what makes this administration different, is that we actually tackle the problems the American people have been confronting. So I'm very happy about it. And look, I think that I know what you're trying to do, Phil. You're trying to drive a wedge between members of the administration, between me and the president.
What the president said consistently, going back to 2015, and I agree with him, is that Iran should not have a nuclear weapon. We have taken this military action under the president's leadership. I think all of us, whether you're a Democrat or Republican, should pray for success and pray for the safety of our troops. That's the approach that I've taken.
Make it as successful as possible. So there's no hesitation about giving your past statements with the current operation. What do you mean there's no hesitation with my past statements? Given your skepticism of foreign adventurism, you were a critic of the global war on terror previously.
Well, I think one big difference, Phil, is that we have a smart president, whereas in the past we've had dumb presidents. And I trust President Trump to get the job done, to do a good job for the American people and to make sure that the mistakes of the past aren't repeated. Absolutely. Thanks, sir.
JD has been great. But here's the simple thing I have, you know, some people, I don't want wars. I want wars less than almost anybody. Peace through strength.
But you know what? I've watched Iran for a It's better than most. If you give Iran a nuclear weapon, at least a very substantial part of the world would be blown up, and it'll be used almost immediately. Do you mind if I keep this here?
You know, I used to look at it, and I said, it's a piece of art, but how can it be effective? It's so stealth. Think of it, Peter. At 1:00 in the morning, it flies in, and they say, sir, they're in Iranian airspace.
And I say, oh. And I'm watching it from the situation room with a couple of other very smart people, including some good generals, real generals, not television generals. And all of a sudden you see that dive. They start diving.
And you see him, 30,000, 20,000. Boy, I said, that was a lot. They went down fast to aim it. And they know they're coming.
And they're smart. And they never saw them. And they're firing a little bit, but they don't know what they're firing at, because they can't see a thing. And then you hear the biggest explosions that anybody's ever heard.
Those are the biggest bombs. Outside of nuclear, those are the biggest bombs. And you say, what technology we have. What a great country.
I built it. Largely, I built it during my first term. I built it. I didn't know I'd have to use it this much in my second term.
But we had an incompetent president. We had an incompetent administration. And if that group of people in any form, whether it's Kamala Harris, doesn't matter, would have had another four years, we would have had no country left. Yes, please.
You say you're doing a job for the rest of the world. In your conversations with your counterparts, are they thanking you? What are the conversations like when you talk about this military conflict that's taking place in Iran? Well, it should be thanking me, because many of them get 90% China, as an example, should be thanking us.
But I don't expect a thank you. But they should be thanking us. Japan gets 95%. China, 91%.
Many of the countries, South Korea gets a tremendous percentage of their oil and therefore their energy from the Straits and, as I call it, the Straits. And they should be not only thanking us, they should be helping us. What does surprise me is that they're not eager to help. There are a couple.
We'll be announcing some names. There are some that really were right up front. I wouldn't announce their name now, whether maybe they'd prefer it not be in the nest or whatever. I will say this.
It's a lot easier to get people today than it was two weeks ago. Two weeks ago, before we destroyed them, before we obliterated the country, before we took out, because they're down to about 8% of their missiles. They're down to a small portion of their drones. And we've demolished many of their factories where they make the missiles and the drones.
And the rest are all following. Our military has been amazing. We hit Qard Island, took out every single thing in Qard Island except one thing. We left the pipes, because if we take out the pipes, it takes a long time to build them.
And then, at some point, something's going to happen as positive with respect to those pipes. But there are some countries that greatly disappointed me. And you know, I'm the one that got them to pay from 2% to 5% of GDP NATO. And I get along great with those countries in NATO, but I always said, you know, the problem with NATO is we'll always be there for them, but they'll never be there for us.
And when I hear the UK, which we sort of considered the Rolls-Royce of allies, right? When you say they were the oldest and they're going to be there. And I say, it would be really helpful if you'd send over a couple of ships and if you have some minesweepers, which they do, be very helpful. And the Prime Minister is a nice man.
I think he's a very nice guy. He says, well, I'd like to ask my team. I said, you don't have to worry about a team. You don't have a team.
If you're the Prime Minister, you can make a decision. Well, I have to speak to my people. I said, you don't have to speak to anybody. So it was very disappointing.
And then after we obliterated them and destroyed their military, the whole thing, and it became a much safer zone, he said, we're going to send over two aircraft carriers. I said, I don't want them anymore. I don't want them after we win. I want them before we start.
I don't need your aircraft carriers after we've already won. So, you know, those things are very disappointing. You have to remember, we have 45,000 troops in Japan. We have 45,000 troops in South Korea.
We have 45,000, 50,000 troops in Germany. We defend all these countries. And then get any minesweepers. And they say, well, it would be possible for us not to get involved.
I've been saying for a long time, this is the greatest thing to come out of this. We spend trillions and trillions of dollars on NATO to defend other countries. And I always said, but if it ever comes time to defend us, they're not going to be there. Many of them would not be there.
And we're going to have to start thinking more wisely in this country. Some have been very good. One or two have been great. I'll tell you the great ones are at the right time.
But there have been some that were right up there, Peter. They were right up there. They wanted to do it so much. Go ahead, Peter.
Thank you. You've talked about Iran a couple of times today and what they did after Abiduri began. You said they hit Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait. Nobody expected that.
We were shocked. Are you surprised that nobody briefed you ahead of time that that might be their retaliation? Nobody thought they were going to hit. I wouldn't say friendly countries.
They were like neutral. They lived with it for years. Peter, they were going to take over the Middle East. They were going to knock out Israel with a nuclear weapon.
But after we knocked out their nuclear potential, their nuclear potential weapon, they started building missiles, thousands and thousands of missiles. And they were going to do it with missiles while they developed. These are sick people. While they developed nuclear, somehow they would have started a different site because that site was, you saw the site, the mountain.
They were going to go into a certain area, which we know exactly where it is. And they were going to do that. And it's incredible what we've done. I tell you, the job we've done.
You know, if I didn't terminate Barack Hussein Obama's Iran nuclear deal, you would right now, well, Israel would be gone. It would be incinerated and probably the Middle East likewise. And remember, they got all of those missiles. And I heard they were sending missiles to UAE.
I said, That's strange. You know, UAE is like the banker for Iran. They're like the banker. Qatar, their neighbors, they got along OK.
Saudi Arabia. All of a sudden, Kuwait. Kuwait is going to get hit. Bahrain is going to get hit.
All these countries are getting hit. There was no expert that would say that was going to happen. It's not a question of like, gee, should you have known? And if we did know, think of it.
I mean, we have to do what we have to do. But we hit them so hard, like nobody's ever been hit. We hit them very hard. And we've extinguished most of their missiles.
We've extinguished most of their drones. We've extinguished most of the places where the missiles and the drones are built. We've fully extinguished two layers of leadership and probably a third, if you believe some stories. So really, one thing had a little choke point and they've used it very well for years.
But it doesn't work. But I think this, if some of these countries that we've been good to for years, and maybe more important than that, some of these countries that get 90 percent and 95 percent of their energy from Hormuz, the strait, Hormuz, a famous, wonderful, beautiful place. But you wouldn't want to be necessarily sailing a boat there right now. You know why?
Not because of them, because of us. Because we've taken out their entire Navy. We've taken out every one of their drones. They call it a drone layer, a mine layer.
They're specific boats that are meant to put mines out. How would you like to have a nation that has 22 boats with their sole function? They're very different looking boats. You wouldn't want one for your family.
They're not pretty. Their sole function is to lift a mine into the water and drop it a certain number of feet down. But they had 22 of them. We've taken out all of them, but you can probably drop them off on the boats.
We don't even know, by the way, we don't know that any mines have even been dropped. But the thought that they would scares people that have billion dollar ships. Yeah, please. Thank you, President Trump.
I'd like to ask Vice President about his plans to go after possible fraud in California and New York. And of course, about Minnesota. And President Trump first, I got to ask you, you said earlier today that the new supreme leader of a top committee, you don't know if he's dead or alive. There are a couple of interesting reports about him today.
There's one report that he You want to see a stock market go down? Start letting them hit you with nukes. Okay. I think I said it this morning.
I think it's a very small price to pay. And frankly, I thought it was gonna go down much more if you want to know the truth. I assumed that it was gonna go down much more. Only because people don't understand to a large, it's a great, it's a big chess game at a very high level.
It's a very high level chess, the highest. And I'm dealing with very smart players. These are smart people. They don't get there.
You know, when you deal with some of these people, you're dealing with high level intellect, high, very high IQ people. These are not Jasmine Crockett and her group. These are smart people. These are really smart people and violent people and vicious people and some very nice people.
And some are very nice, but violent. They turn violent. But you know what, if I didn't do, if I didn't do what I did, we would have been hit. Number one, very important, was the termination of Obama's horrible deal.
And number two, this beautiful plane hitting them eight months ago, whenever it was, and taking out their nuclear capacity. That totally threw them for a loop. If they had that bomb at either time, five years ago or seven months ago, if they had that bomb, that bomb would have been used almost immediately. Mr.
President, two questions on domestic policy. I'll bring it close to home. First of all, the Safe America Act. What are you expecting this week when this vote takes place in the U.S.
Senate? Will the vice president's vote be necessary? We need to pare it if it gets done. I'm not sure if it is.
You know, the Democrats have horrible policy. It's just incredible, but they stick together. It's the one thing they do. Their Supreme Court members stick together.
Those appointed by a Democrat stick together. If Barack Hussein Obama appoints a member of the Supreme Court, that member never goes against him. And they're proud about it. They say, I don't give a damn if it's good or bad.
That man appointed me and I'm never going to let him down. I don't say that's right or wrong. I just say they stick together. Republicans go the opposite way.
If Donald Trump appointed me, I'm going to show the world that I can be totally just and I can be independent of Donald Trump. He's not controlling me. And I don't want to control them. I just want to have smart decisions.
They gave us a decision on tariffs the other day that won't change tariffs. I can do it a different way. I always knew I could do it a different way. This was a little quicker, a little easier, a little better.
But they gave us a decision that could cost this country $500 billion to pay people back because now I have to start the tariffs all over again. Very simple. And what happens with the money I've already collected? Why didn't they say, starting from now, go the other way?
$500 billion perhaps. It's so sad. But one thing about the Democrats, they stick together like glue. They impeached me twice for absolutely no reason unanimously.
Fortunately, the Republicans stuck together and it was something. It was pretty wild. But the Democrats have horrible policy. Transgender for everybody, open borders, men playing in women's sports.
But the one thing they do have is they stick together no matter how bad the policy. It's embarrassing to watch them try to defend it. And in a way, I say as a Republican, I would say, thank goodness they have bad policy because you'd never beat them. We have something in there now, the Save America Act, voter ID with a picture, right?
That's a 99 percent issue. Even among Democrats, you know, Democrats poll at 89 percent on that. And then they have proof of citizenship. And then they have no mail-in ballots.
No mail-in ballots. We have no mail-in. We're going to continue to listen to the president and come back with any additional newsmaking comments he may make. But I want to check in with Monica Alba, who has remained with us here on set.
One of the things that I didn't hear much discussion of in that with the president is how all of this affects China. And he has big plans to visit China soon. And maybe those will be adjusted. What is your take on how China's playing a role here or might be affected?
That's right to meet you, Kelly, because that is certainly playing in the background and in the conversations around everything related to Iran. The president is supposed to be making his way to China about two weeks from today is when the White House says he was going to be heading there for that high profile meeting, the president Xi Jinping. And now today, for the first time, the press secretary opened up the door for potentially delaying that. The president sort of hinted at that this weekend that that is a possibility, because if this doesn't get completely wrapped up by then, which those conversations and seem to be happening in the background, it seems like that will move back.
The president really wants this meeting to happen, but everything is connected also to this major big conversation about the economic repercussions of what happens with the Strait of Hormuz. All of this is really just coming together at a critical point for the president who wants this meeting to happen, but admits it may have to move back. And certainly being out of the country at a time when there is hostile conflict, that is a risk in and of itself. Let me also check back in with Courtney.
There were a couple of things that stood out. He made a reference to the pipes and something might be coming with the pipes. I didn't know if you had any sense of what that means. And I was also struck by and he was asked a question about the fact that he a couple of times hinted at not having early guidance that Iran would strike neighbors perhaps as quickly as they did.
What is your sense of how that squares with what you've been learning from the military sources that you routinely talk with day in, day out? So the pipes, he mentioned this on one of his social media postings that that the U.S. intentionally did not destroy or go anywhere near any of the oil pipelines or pipes on Karg island. And he said that was because they could take potentially years to fix or repair.
And so that was his decision. But he left open the possibility that he could the U.S. could go back and and strike them again. So I suspect that's what he meant by the pipes.
But again, this is the first time we've actually heard him speak about it. As far as this is also, he's now several times in the last day or so mentioned that the U.S. didn't think that Iran was going to strike out against other countries in the region once the U.S. and Israel began their strikes inside Iran.
And that we know that the military was planning for that possibility, including by sending in additional forces and air defense systems into the region. So there definitely was planning and expectation that Iran would lash out at least at the U.S. military and potentially allied facilities in the region. Now, it's possible that they underestimated Iran's will to go after some of the civilian facilities and civilian targets that we've seen them go after in countries all around the region.
Kelly, but as far as the military, the military was preparing for and expecting that Iran would lash out just the way that they did. Such great context, Courtney. Thank you so much. We're joined now by the panel.
We've got an abbreviated back of the show. So thanks for riding along with us as we do that. Tolu Olonu-Ripa from The Atlantic joining us. Arshi Siddiqui is a former aide to Speaker Pelosi and also a Democratic strategist.
And Mark Bednar, the Republican strategist and former advisor to Speaker McCarthy. So thank you one and all. Monica is still with us. You already know her.
Let's talk about some of the things the president has just said. Mark, let me start with you. When you hear the president speaking critically of allies at a time when he needs them, does that sit well with other Republicans? Well, when he finishes the thought and it's comprehensive about it, it's a very important conversation.
For instance, when he's been critical about the EU's involvement in their ask for help against Russia, they're buying record amounts of Russian natural gas. So they're personally funding Putin's war machine. So when he criticizes them, you know, in totality, that argument then makes sense. And here the EU is going to also benefit from a defanged Iran, a nuclear free Iran.
So the fact that they have actual major incentives as well to participate and to get on board and to help secure this area. We certainly had more than a hint that Bill Clinton might be a phone friend of President Trump today. Are you surprised by that? Do you think it has benefit for the president to hear from others who've sat in that chair?
Absolutely. I think that's a positive aspect. And we know that the president likes picking up the phone. So I'm glad that circle is widening and I hope it continues to widen in terms of getting different types of thoughts and perspectives.
Do you get a sense that when the president talks about, I thought the prices would go or the stock market would go down more dramatically. Do you think that's a message Democrats can seize on in the weeks ahead? I think the stock market is one piece of the puzzle, but it all goes back to affordability. And certainly the stock market has a lot to do with retirement and balances there.
But this uncertainty and volatility and the self-inflicted wounds on the economy, I think that's where Democrats are going to double down because these are concerted decisions that the administration is making, whether on tech tariffs, whether or not extending the ACA subsidies, the enhanced subsidies on health care, cutting Medicaid, cutting food assistance As the day wraps up, get the scoop on what's been happening with Here's the Scoop, the new podcast from NBC News with me, your host, Jasmine Basudio. We'll take a deep dive into the day's top stories with NBC News' trusted journalists. It's a fresh take that's sharp, thoughtful, and informative, bringing you closer to the headlines and conversations that are shaping our world. From the front page to the zeitgeist, here's the scoop from NBC News.
Listen daily on Spotify.