00:01Thank you. It's kind of strange, and I think you guys know who I'm going to go right here.
00:08First of all, I'm not going to comment about what the U.S. may or may not do militarily,
00:12nor am I going to be up here and broadcast that any decision in that regard has been made. I
00:17think the President's observation is the United States remains the most highly capable military
00:21power on earth. We can achieve military objectives if we seek to. He hasn't made a decision. I have
00:26no announcement in that regard with you today, and nor do we take any of it lightly. The
00:30President prefers not to do it that way. If he did, he would have done it weeks ago and months
00:33ago.
00:34He'd prefer to solve it diplomatically, but I think what the President expresses to you is
00:38incredible confidence that if we needed to do something militarily, we would have the ability
00:42to do it, and we really have everything we need to be successful, but we would prefer to do it
00:46peacefully. The next, right behind, right there, the gentleman. Yeah. How much time are you giving
00:54these Qatari-backed talks with Iran an opportunity to succeed before you might resume military
01:01operations? Well, I mean, the message is simple. Iran is blowing up ships, including ships that have,
01:05for example, Indian sailors on them, including ships that have energy that's destined for countries
01:10represented at that table. We live in a world in which a country is openly, you know, a regime is
01:15openly saying we will blow up commercial ships. Think about that, okay? Think about the world we now
01:20live in. It sounds like something from 100 years ago or 80 years ago. That's what's happening in
01:24every country there is challenged. As far as the talks are concerned, I don't know if there's a
01:27timeframe that's up to the President to make decisions with regards to those sorts of things.
01:31There are multiple talks. Talks have actually never stopped. There's been active conversations
01:36going, both in some cases directly, but often through intermediaries. And the President's preference
01:41in any challenge around the world is to try to solve it diplomatically and peacefully if possible.
01:46He recognizes there are some issues in the world that cannot be solved peacefully, unfortunately,
01:50sadly. But we would prefer to solve it in that manner. So I'm not going to characterize neither
01:55the progress on those talks nor any timeframe on it, other than to tell you that if there is a
01:59diplomatic solution, we would be open to it. But obviously, it can't be one that endangers our
02:03national security or one that doesn't meet our core concerns that we have that brought us into that
02:09in the first place. And that is primarily that Iran not simply not only has shown that they clearly
02:13have ambitions to be a nuclear weapons power, and that can never be allowed to happen.
02:16But this is also a country and a regime that's at the center of all the instability in the Middle
02:21East. So anywhere you turn, what you find is some Iranian proxy that's undermining the peace and
02:26stability of the Middle East. That's a fundamental threat that we have to confront on top of the
02:30fact that they want nuclear weapons. This is a regime that's massacred its own people. You can only
02:34imagine what it would do to others if they possess weapons of mass destruction, which will never be
02:38allowed to happen as long as President Trump is in the White House.
02:41Just going row by row and just like, I don't know how, I'm not really, there's no rhyme or reason
02:45to it, guys. My apologies.
