Episode 5553: China's Election Interference; Holding Biden Accountable

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Bannon`s War Room 54 min 4 speakers 5 chapters transcribed 1 month ago

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How is the Middle East conflict escalating and which countries are now involved?

Unknown 0:00

Saudi Arabia, they're now involved in this thing. What does this mean for the war? Well, I don't think Egypt is involved yet, which is really an important kind of nuance here is that the Iranians don't actually know who struck a U.S. LNG bomb. Facility is not exactly a facility, a platform in Egypt. Egypt hasn't responded and I don't think they will. I'm not sure Iran wanted Iraq. I don't think they wanted Egypt to respond, but this is part of a potential kind of horizontal. and vertical escalation of what's going on, right, that we're seeing more territory horizontally, more geography involved. But most of it is aimed at U.S. and then also Saudi assets. And but the kinds of assets are also changing.

Unknown 0:56

So we're seeing this vertical escalation in terms of not just U.S. military bases, but also this kind of logistics or energy facilities. And so we are seeing an escalation now. And again, today, Iran has responded with attacks on Jordan and Kuwait. And so we're seeing this tit for tat, Kate. And You know, there's some big questions here because there's got to be an off ramp at some point. But the president now is deciding. No signs of diplomatic progress. President Trump getting increasingly frustrated with this war that appears to be widening, opening up multiple fronts in this region. And overnight, the U.S. intensifying strikes after Iran targeted Egyptian infrastructure projects. for the first time in this conflict, really underscoring how challenging it is going to be to get those diplomatic talks back on track.

Unknown 1:54

CENTCOM saying in a statement that the U.S. Central Command Forces successfully completed a heavy wave of strikes against Iran in response to yesterday's attempted missile attacks on U.S. forces. CENTCOM assets they say struck dozens of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps targets in Iran, including military command centers, missile and drone facilities, coastal surveillance and defense sites and maritime capabilities. Iran, meanwhile, says that the Strait of Hormuz is going to remain closed. And notably, this comes after on Wednesday into Thursday, the U.S. teamed up with Saudi Arabia to launch joint strikes against Iranian proxies in Iraq. Notably, Saudi's Defense Minister Khalid bin Salman traveled to the U.S.

Unknown 2:38

for a brief visit, meeting with both Vice President J.D. Vance and President Donald Trump. Now, according to sources who tell our colleague Jennifer Hansler over at the State Department, Saudi Arabia's assessment is that Iran is going to seek to create leverage through escalation. Of course, the Saudi stance is they prefer to see this de-escalate. But Iran also still believes that it has political leverage over President Trump with this war just three months away from the midterm elections. And that comes as it remains deeply unpopular with the American people. About 28% of respondents to a recent CNN poll approve of Trump's handling of this war. But many of the president's advisors want him to publicly show that he is focused on the economy.

Unknown 3:23

President Trump yesterday spending time revealing upgrades to Dulles International Airport instead. that all of us who are watching this closely have been saying for weeks now is that there doesn't seem to be a very clear off ramp. Someone has got to basically, I don't want to say capitulate, but has got to stop in order to get the negotiations back. But it takes two to tango. And I think what Iran is showing that, you know, they escalated during the pause. Right. So we had this pause and then they did this surprise attack on Jordan. I think it was purposeful. I think it was to send a message that they it happened when the president was meeting with Netanyahu in the Oval Office. And it happened when there are these discussions about what's going to happen to the Strait of Hormuz.

Unknown 4:18

And I think Iran is showing very clearly they have very clear red line on control of the Strait of Hormuz. Huge leverage. The Saudi Houthi issue is slightly separate, obviously connected, but the Houthis also have their own problem with the Saudis in terms of a blockade on Yemen that they want broken.