Franco Ordoñez

The reality on the ground is not necessarily what Trump is looking at.

He just wants a reason to be able to call something a win, whether it's a peace deal around the country or in this scenario.

And he's basically done that for the most part, including just yesterday.

saying that they have basically won the war.

Clearly, that's not the case.

But for Trump, I think the victory that he's looking for is if he can basically get the Strait of Hormuz open, then he can at least say by his own definition that they have won the war because, you know, while the regime may still be there, they're clearly degraded.

And he's kind of backed off and on about whether he really wants regime change or whether at least that's necessary to end this.

Yeah, I think when the new Supreme Leader was announced, I think that really, you know, kind of changed the narrative for the Trump administration because he was really talking a lot about regime change and all the steps towards regime change before then.

But then when, you know, kind of Iran dug in their heels and said they were going to continue to fight, the administration quickly kind of backed off that kind of language and focused more on the military goals.

I did find it interesting, though, yesterday, Trump kind of, you know, twisted himself or at least twisted the language into a little pretzel in order to say that this was still regime change, saying that they have killed so many leaders.

How could it not be regime change?

And then floated again, the idea that this new person that they're supposedly talking with could eventually be the person who kind of serves as, you know, and what we've talked about before, this Venezuela type model where it is actually the same regime, but it's a new person involved.

I'm Frank Ordonez.

I also cover the White House.

And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, a lot of commotion about that.

What we know is that 2,200 Marines have been dispatched to the region.

with all their equipment, including vehicles and support ships and stuff like that.

What we don't know exactly is what their objective is, but clearly the administration is looking to put a lot more pressure on Iran.

and possibly even looking to seize one or more of the islands off the coast of Iran to help secure the Strait of Hormuz and counter the Iranian attacks on commercial shipping, oil and cargo ships.