Ben Rhodes

Joining us now is Ben Rhodes, former Deputy National Security Advisor for President Obama.

Ben, it's nice to see you.

Thanks very much for being with us tonight.

So, a lot is happening all at once.

I feel like there's a few different things I want to ask you about.

One is, what is going on with the weird favorable treatment to Russia when the intelligence and the open source reporting seems to be getting stronger and stronger about Russia really playing a pivotal role in Iran's ability to hurt American assets and American personnel?

But also what's happening, and I'll ask you this first, just with the strategic rationale for what we're doing, the president's incoherence in terms of being able to explain what he's trying to do and how that matches up with what he's actually doing, which is sending lots more troops.

Ben, The Wall Street Journal's reporting tonight that President Trump has told, again, this is a thing that Trump has reportedly said.

So as far as I'm concerned, things he says have no value.

The only reason to talk about them is to try to figure out how they match up with things he's actually doing.

While he is sending thousands of troops

to the region, including now not only paratroopers, but special forces, including Navy SEALs.

Trump has also reportedly, according to The Wall Street Journal, told aides tonight that he is willing to end the war in Iran, even if the Strait of Hormuz remains largely closed.

So, the Strait of Hormuz was open before the war.

It will now stay closed and be operated, as you put it, I guess, as the kind of toll road that you were just describing.

Trump is willing to have that be the outcome of his war, but there are these thousands of Americans that he has put over there.

And my sense of watching Trump in various national security crises that have erupted since in both of his terms is that he doesn't tend to send troops places without using them.

He doesn't tend to use them as a bluff to just put them there and then take them out without having them do something.

Do you have any sense of what he's planning on having them do?

Ben Rhodes, former Deputy National Security Advisor.