pay up. That's what Trump is demanding of Iran
as it launches new strikes tonight. In a post
Trump just put out, he said, quote, "Please
let the statement serve to represent until
further notice that from this point forth,
any and all damages done to ships, cargo,
or anything related there, too will be paid for
by Iranian money that the United States has in
its possession and controls. These damages
may be very substantial, but nevertheless,
this is the fair and equitable thing to do." Now,
it's worth noting that this is the same man who
said he was going to give Iran its money back as
part of theou, right? That was the whole thing. He
was giving them this money back. He actually said
this, "It's not our money. It's their money." And
we froze it at a certain point in time. It's
not our money. It's their money. Those are his
words. Now, Trump's claim about where the money
is going to come comes after he has just leveled
another massive threat, telling Axios, quote, "I
am considering a massive attack, bigger than ever
before. I am close to making a decision. We're all
set for it." What are you hearing about where his
head is tonight? And frankly, how quickly he
keeps changing his mind. Well, Erin, I mean,
as you said, it's 5 months and counting, and the
end is not anywhere in sight. First of all, you
have Secretary of State Marco Rubio saying things
like Iran is begging to get the table. Something
we've heard from President Trump, too. But then
President Trump today saying he doesn't think
Iran is ready for a deal. Even going further than
that, saying they need more of the same. Well,
more of the same likely is referring to the fact
that we've had 12 consecutive nights of bombings
in Iran. But our reporting today that the CIA and
the DIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, have re
recently assessed that this kind of bombing that
the US is doing every single night is unlikely
to move Iran's negotiating position. So what
exactly is it that President Trump is trying to
do? And we've heard this kind of rhetoric from him
before. Now, when we've talked to US officials,
they have said that Trump has yet to sign off
on the most aggressive military action. So,
is what he's trying to do get Iranians back to
the negotiating table? It's really unclear at this
point. But, as you noted, he is making all of the
moves, setting up for a potential uh escalation in
military operation. But what does that do for this
war in Iran? What does that do for the American
people? I can tell you from every conversation
that I have from the with the White House, with
White House officials, US officials, anyone close
to President Trump, they do not want to be talking
about this war. They do not want to be engaging in
this war. they would take a ceasefire now if they
could just get a ceasefire, hope for the prices to
kind of level and or at least go down a little bit
and then they could move on to talking about
things like the economy. That's obviously not
going to happen if President Trump escalates this.
So, is he willing to escalate this and potentially
even put boots on the ground? We just aren't clear
right now what the strategy is and we're getting
nothing from President Trump's orbit as to what
he's going to do to break this impass between
Iran and the United States. at this point seems
like it's just going to continue. Yeah. All right,
Kristen, thank you very much. And of course, just
just so much confusion on strategy and also what
the end goal even is uh what what they actually
want. Kristoff Kettle is here with the New York
Times. Seth Jones is also here with me and I know
both of you have so much new information. So,
Seth, can I just start with you? I know you've
been with and you've been speaking to senior
US officials. Are we about to see a massive
escalation here? the bigger bigger strikes,
bigger action than since the war began. Well,
Erin, only one person knows the answer to that
and that is President Trump right now. I will tell
you what the military has given him is options.
Uh they've given him options if he wants to open
up the straight. This will be risky. Uh they've
given him air options. They've given him air
plus naval options. So to put in naval vessels,
including potentially destroyers through the
straight to bring in uh tankers and others. and
then uh air plus naval plus ground options. So
the president does have options if he wants to
forcibly open up the straight. It does have risks.
That's where we're at right now. Uh which is an
incredible moment. Kristoff, let me ask you.
You did this incredible visual investigation
of what has actually happened. Uh destruction
at US military bases in the region and what's
happening. And with US troops dying in recent
days, perhaps in part because of defenses on
those bases being so severely compromised. Your
reporting is so central. So um you got images
that Iran had put out for propaganda purposes that
you then went and verified what exactly is. So,
damage to structures at the US air base in
Jordan, uh, which we're looking at right here. Uh,
that that as well as damage at tower 22, which
is a US military out outpost on the northern
Jordanian border up by Syria and damage to
US military a tent in Herbiel, Iraq up uh,
in in Iraqi Kurdistan. So, what were you able to
learn from this? What we were able to learn from
this is that uh, Iran has a lot of firepower left.
So they're able to conduct precision strikes. So
if you look at the satellite images, uh you see
that they're targeting specific radar sites,
drone shelters, airplane hangers, and so on. So
they can conduct precision strikes and inflicting
very heavy damage. And of course, the the most
severe damage happened last week on Friday when
several US service members were killed, were
killed in a terrible tragedy. By the way, I
will note the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, did
not answer the question directly when he was asked
yesterday if China was providing that targeting
information. Obviously, we have reported that
both China and Russia were helping provide much
of that information early in the war. So, Seth,
when you look at satellite images that you've
been focused on uh on the Iranian side of things,
right, you look at the ground there, you're
seeing something pretty significant in Iran.
Yeah, this just sort of dovetales with uh with
what we've just seen of damage on the US side,
which is we're seeing the Iranians actively
rebuilding like busy bees. Uh they're rebuilding
uh missile silos. They're they're building
infrastructure sites. And what's important, Aaron,
is that uh the Iranians have so much underground,
too, that that much of what they're having to do
in some areas is just reopen uh areas where Earth
has just like shut off the the tunnel. So, it's
like redigging excavation and and what appears to
be the case is a lot of the US strikes are just
not destroying those missile launchers. They're
being they're underground. The Shahed underground
missiles themselves, crews are ballistic
underground. That seems to be a strategy that
has been successful for the Iranians so far. Yeah.
And I and I'll note, Seth, from you know, from
your reporting and and and what we understand from
reporting the New York Times did about the CIA,
what 2/3 of the missile uh capacity was in place.
Those numbers though are now 6 to 8 weeks old. So,
who knows what has, you know, even been added
back on top of that. I It's obviously unclear.
Kristoff, you were able to verify some of the
uh with video some of what Iran was putting out,
including a video that Iran had put out showing a
strike on that air base in Jordan. And so you say,
let's just we'll show this what what looked
like to you that the explosion appeared to
be pre-fabricated housing. Um so you were able
to sort of match this up. So can you talk about
that? How you were able to match up what we're
actually seeing to confirm if it's real? it. So
it's it's a very unusual footage, right? And it's
actually filmed probably by a US soldier because
it's inside the the air base. Uh but what we are
doing is we use this sort of footage as well as
satellite imagery to match this up with each other
to match up buildings to uh check the damage when
it actually occurred. Satellite imagery allows
you to go back in time to make sure like a week
ago this building was still standing. And that's
how we verify and that's how we can assess both
the damage up close but also on on the whole base
in this case. Seth, how vulnerable are US troops?
I mean, when you think about in the early days
of the war when virtually every THAD uh missile
defense system of the that the US had in the
region was was taken out except for maybe one
and now here we are seeing strikes like Kristoff
is going through on that air base in Jordan where
US soldiers were killed in just the past few
days. How vulnerable are US sites? I mean,
how much of that missile defense and radar and
all of these things that they've been taking out,
how much of it has even been repaired on the
US side? Well, Aaron, uh, there does appear
to be some effort to repair some of what the US
has done, but I will tell you, I was in Europe
last week looking at an update on the war in
Ukraine. What is what is striking, that war
has been going on for four and a half years, is
the Ukrainians have been uh targeted by missiles
and drones for four and a half years. They have
their uh bases underground. Uh they've got uh a
range of both point and area defense, so counter
drone capabilities. The US should have been
better prepared when this war started for these
kinds of missiles, cruise ballistic missiles,
and drones. This was entirely predictable from
what we've seen for 4 and a half years in Ukraine
and how to defend against it. So having like
structures that are hitable uh and not underground
is a major lesson from the war in Ukraine that
was not moved over to the Persian Gulf right