00:00This is a country, Iran, that has been heavily sanctioned, is heavily sanctioned,
00:03and has been for such a long period of time here.
00:06Yes, there's the tease of more announcements to come, but as you think this through,
00:10what more is there that the U.S. could do at this point in time to kind of tighten the
00:13economic vice on Iran?
00:16You know, David, that's an excellent question, and there are things that they can do,
00:22and we'll hear from Besson tomorrow about what those are.
00:24But each one of them pulls another thread that could undo it or make it worse for the United States.
00:32I mean, as you said, Iran has been under crushing sanctions for more than 40 years since the revolution.
00:39And they have—and Trump was right, sort of, in describing their economic conditions,
00:47but big surprise overstated it a bit.
00:50It is not 350 percent inflation, but it is around 80 percent inflation.
00:54There are 2,200 sanctions on them.
00:57I mean, they're isolated on the world.
00:59I mean, it's not a great situation for them.
01:01So what else can Trump do?
01:04He can go after their major trading partners.
01:06The only trouble with that is their major trading partner is China,
01:10who is under no—has no problem retaliating on the United States in terms of tariffs or other economic pressure,
01:19export controls, you know, because the U.S. buys so much from China.
01:23And China buys 90 percent of Iran's oil.
01:26So that's who you really have to go after if you want to change this.
01:30But neither China nor Iran are really listening to the United States or necessarily afraid of them.
01:38I mean, Iran just isn't showing any signs of capitulating at this point.
01:42I also wonder about the enforcement.
01:45Even if there really was the effort from the White House to go after China or third parties for buying
01:52Iranian oil,
01:53when it comes to China, to your point, it's not someone Trump has wanted to take on head-on.
01:58And I just wonder, first of all, if there is a mechanism to sufficiently enforce that,
02:02if the U.S. has the capacity for it, and if there is the will for that from the White
02:06House,
02:06especially given Xi's upcoming visit.
02:09Well, you hit on it, Christina.
02:11I mean, Trump wants the visit with Xi Jinping this fall to go very well.
02:16You know, he likes to show off his relationships with leaders around the world,
02:21especially those that aren't, you know, the most popular kids at the cafeteria.
02:26Story of my life, Wendy. Story of my life.
02:27Yeah, me too.
02:29So, you know, he wants it to go well.
02:34I don't really know how he's going to balance that.
02:38The other point is that Besant, you know, calls this the greatest coordinated economic,
02:43you know, program in the history of the world.
02:46And Trump said in that True Social Post, you know, come on, allies, let's go.
02:50Let's all do this together.
02:52But this is the same sort of sudden demands.
02:56You know, I heard the Canadian official, Chrystia Freeland, say a few minutes ago
03:00that Trump doesn't want allies, he wants vassals.
03:03And that was an excellent point, because, you know, when the U.S. and Israel started bombing
03:08Iran back in February, it was like they were asking all the allies in Europe, you know,
03:13come on, join us.
03:14But they didn't know what was going to happen.
03:16They had gotten, you know, a small heads up request to use their bases.
03:20And their response, I think, reasonably was, wait a minute, what are you getting us into?
03:26And I think that's the same thing here.
03:28We haven't heard about many, much coordination discussion going on with allies who might be
03:34able to pile on to this Iranian thing.
03:37You know, the Bushes, for whatever you think about the Bushes' presidencies, they were very
03:42good at building international coalitions to get things done.
03:45And Trump hasn't really shown that skill.
03:47I want to go back to that clip we played of the president talking about military options
03:52still being on the table.
03:53There's been kind of an interesting debate over the course of the last week centering
03:56on how much the administration, particularly Scott Best and the Treasury Secretary, has
04:00talked about economic warfare versus military warfare.
04:04And I think that there's a school of thought that by doing that, you're kind of giving carte
04:09blanche to Iran to do more.
04:11That if that seems to be the U.S.'s focus right now, they're not investing in kind of more
04:16strikes, more military action, maybe that opens the door for Iran going back down that
04:20route.
04:21And I wonder how you see that dynamic playing out here, Wendy.
04:23Well, that's certainly a risk, David.
04:26I mean, in Iran's sort of unusual power structure, their elite military, the Iranian Revolutionary
04:34Guard Corps, those guys are getting paid.
04:36Those guys are pretty much running the war.
04:40And we can see that what this might do is then their attitude is, well, fine, then we'll
04:47just, the pressure that we'll put on, since they're unable to put economic pressure on
04:52the U.S. or its Gulf allies, is to continue to bomb them.
04:56Is, you know, the Navy is not, I don't know between their Navy or their Air Force, but their
05:00military is clearly not destroyed.
05:02They clearly still have munitions.
05:04They clearly still have thousands of cheap drones that they can send across the Gulf.
05:09And so, yeah, the IRGC can just keep doing what it wants.
05:14This also doesn't put pressure on Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz for free traffic, as
05:20it always was.
05:22Now they might be incentivized to really insist on that toll that they've been talking to
05:27Oman about, excuse me.
05:29And that, of course, would be anathema to the United States.
05:33Wendy, I want to play some sound from the president from a rally Friday night for the
05:38late Senator Lindsey Graham's sister, Senator Darlene Graham.
05:41But it is on what we were just talking about.
05:43They want to make a deal so badly.
05:45We don't even know if we want, because I view the Strait of Hormuz as an American territory
05:51right now.
05:52It's an American territory.
05:54And the president followed up on True Social with a map of the Strait of Hormuz, labeling
05:59it U.S. territory.
06:00This cannot be helping diplomatic negotiations.
06:04But we were just talking about Canada as the 51st state.
06:07We're going to talk later in the show about another country that has had overtures in the
06:12White House about being part of America.
06:14What is this expansionist bent with the White House?
06:18And is there strategy behind it?
06:19This cannot be helping with negotiations, if there even are any real negotiations happening
06:23right now.
06:24No, I think this is just, you know, Trump's sort of signature braggadocio.
06:29And if Iran was so desperate for a deal, they would be at a table trying to make a deal,
06:35right?
06:36And Pakistan and other allies have been, you know, really trying to get the U.S. and
06:41Iran back to a table.
06:43They've been talking to Witkoff and Kushner and all these envoys.
06:46And, you know, right now, the foreign minister, Abbas Agarachi, says that he has no interest
06:52in talking to the United States.
06:54So I don't know where that notion comes from.
06:57I think this is just Trump trying to, as one of my favorite old governors used to say,
07:02Ann Richards of Texas, you know, I think he's trying to put lipstick on a pig.
07:05He's trying to make this unpopular war with no end in sight sound better than it is at
07:12a political rally for the midterms when the Republicans who have backed this war with
07:17Trump are looking like they're going to lose.
07:19Christine, I said Wendy was joining us from our D.C.
07:21Bureau, but for our listeners, she's in a much more beautifully decorated space than
07:25that.
07:25She's joining us from home.
07:27Wendy, I'm going to posit that's because you wanted to steer clear of Constitution Avenue
07:30because of this Grand Prix that's happening in Washington, D.C. this week.
07:34And before we let you go, talk to us a bit about that, how that fits into this, yes, celebration,
07:39commemoration of the 250th anniversary, but the way in which President Trump has kind of
07:43charted out his own version of that, first involving the UFC and now here, fast cars in
07:50the nation's capital.
07:51Right.
07:51Trump has this incredibly, I don't know what else is the word to use for it, macho way of celebrating
08:00the nation's 250th birthday.
08:03I mean, there are so many ways we could have celebrated that with the progress we've made
08:08in our history and things like that.
08:10Instead, he used the White House lawn for a UFC fight.
08:13He had that great American state fair on the mall, which kind of was a bust.
08:17And now I think this one is probably the most popular of the three.
08:23We're expecting 140,000 people downtown.
08:25And yes, I'll be getting on the Metro, not driving to the office later.
08:30But there is going to be this Grand Prix where race cars are going to be going, you know,
08:37like 200 miles an hour on city streets between the White House and the Capitol.
08:42And then they'll zoom around Pennsylvania Avenue.
08:44Wendy, steer clear, is my advice to you.
08:47We're going to have to leave it there.
08:49I don't know what Pennsylvania Avenue is going to look like after this.
08:52It could be torn up.
08:53Thank you, Wendy.
08:54Appreciate it, as always.
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