David, if they don't open the straight of Hormuz and make it safe for commercial shipping, that's obviously not a victory.

The that is what's called defeat.

That is a failure to achieve the fundamental war aim that the president has or or should have.

Iran has taken the straight of Hormuz hostage.

And so when there's a hostage taking, you have a choice.

You either try to free the hostage by force.

Missy was talking about sending in Marines and and other other troops to seize territory or you free the hostage by negotiation or some wy combination of the two.

And I think that's basically the the choice that that Trump has if if he tries to walk away from this having, you know, left global commerce, you know, in a in a very precarious situation, global markets really now being affected by the closure of the straight, which walks away.

We've achieved our goals.

That's it.

It's up to you fellas.

I think the world will just be I rate and I don't think he he can get away.

I heard today uh from an Arab who's been in involved in you know parts of of these discussions an idea for some kind of international process that in effect oversees the straight of Hormuz that is like what the UN did in the negotiations that opened the Black Sea to to commerce again in the Ukraine war.

I mean, the Black Sea was a no-go zone.

The UN negotiated a process.

It got buyin from everybody.

And it's not inconceivable that that something like that could be done for the straight of horses.

Iran is demanding that it charge tolls.

Well, that's not going to work.

But it's conceivable that you could have some kind of international regime that that's a way out that actually would get buy in from just about everybody.

How hard is it to open the straight from military?

Militarily.

So I I think you know landing troops who are going to be there as targets uh in is indefinitely is a terrible idea.

It's the problem.

I mean I've been up there and seen it as others around the table may have.

It is really such a tiny area.

It's so easy to mine.

It's so easy, you know, you could you could float a a tanker out at midnight, you know, with no transponders and sink it and you block a big part of that that passageway.

Peter David wrote this week, "Trump is convincing as a risktaker, but not a suicidal one.

He has an instinct for self-preservation amid the chaos he inflicts.

Oil prices spiking markets NASDAQ in correction territory."

Yeah.

You covered this man for a long time.

Is he just going to throw his hands up?

Well, I think one of the things that's been surprising is his willingness to absorb that pain for as long as he has because he's a famously impatient man, right?

But and and one of the things we've seen also has uh affected his policies in the past have been pressure points on economics.

When the bond market has reacted badly uh to some of his tariff decisions, he's been willing to reverse course or switch gears.

And he hasn't yet so far on this.

But I think his calculation is that once it's over, and it'll be over in two weeks, three weeks, however many weeks you want to say, it'll all be back to normal and everything will be fine.

At least that's what he's telling himself, right?

That that gas prices will come back down.

the the markets will recover by the time the midterms come along.

Whether that's lost or not for the Republicans, we can argue already, but it'll all be back to normal.

People won't mind.

But the problem is that if there's a big disparity between saying we've won, which is what he says, we've won already, past tense, we've won, and sending 8,000, 10,000, 20,000 troops to the ground.

and and even if it's a fake out, even if it's a strategic ambiguity in order to leverage negotiations, what he's at least putting on the table is a much more extended and extensive involvement on a long-term basis in the region, which is exactly what Americans thought they were voting against when they voted for him.

Right.

um whatever he does, he's not going to be doing it with many European allies.

The Europeans, of course, as well as Asian countries, more dependent on the oil and gas that flows through.

Um Susan, you wrote um this week, uh America's friends in Europe ought to take note of what the president said at 6:16 a.m.

on Thursday when he started his day by denouncing not only the ayatollas of the Islamic Republic, but the nations of NATO that have so far refused to join the US in its war on Iran.

This is in all caps.

The USA needs nothing from NATO, but never forget this very important point in time.

I'm not even 100% sure I understand what he means by never forget this important point in time, but he's trolling NATO precisely when he could use some help.

It seems like he has more anger at US allies sometimes than he has the anti-American Ayatollas who run Iran.

For sure.

or for example the leaders of Russia uh you know who have now become beneficiaries of this war uh and in fact in many ways Vladimir Putin is getting I think it was a 38 billion windfall and that's even if the war stops in April which there's no guarantee that it will because we've allowed uh lifted temporarily sanctions on some of its uh oil in order to ease the pressure in the markets created by Trump's war.

Donald Trump, there's a through line here.

You know it well.

Uh, you know, he has consistently uh denigrated America's allies and its alliances going back to the very beginning of his time in politics.

And, you know, my theory of the case is, you know, pay attention to what Donald Trump is fulminating about late at night and early in the morning.

That is as close as the world has ever come to a direct pipeline into the id of an American president.

And Donald Trump has it out for NATO.

He has it out for America's European allies.

He continued after that posting to complain about it in a cabinet meeting in increasingly striden terms again on Friday.

Uh we'll see if he follows through.

I think what you are seeing o over the last 6 months, especially after Donald Trump's uh threat to hold out the possibility of using military force against our NATO ally Denmark to seize its territory in Greenland.

That was a real breaking point for many of America's partners.

It's remarkable that uh our partners both in Europe and Asia by the way who were also asked in Japan and South Korea to participate in this conflict to to help open the straight they all said a very loud no this is your war Donald and I think David's point about uh you know if we can continue in a sort of limbo here in the straight of Hormuz Donald Trump declares victory walks away and it's still not safe for those tankers to go through the resentment uh which was already building up is going to be enormous and I think it's it's very hard to see uh a scenario here where this doesn't represent a big blow to American international power and standing in many ways.

No, if the straight is not open, the US will look like the thing that Donald Trump professes to hate more than anything, a loser.

Yeah.

U but Missy ju just to make a a point of clarification here could the U the US does not need NATO or Japan or South Korea to open up the straighter prom it would just be harder and and it would it would be more resources American resources no the the US military doesn't need you know the French military or the Danish military what the United States would do if it took the decision to do so it would first the the the biggest barrier to trying to clear the straight is making sure that the the countermine ships are not hit by drones.

They're not hit by missiles.

So that is why they're not in the region.

That's why they haven't started this work yet.

So what they would need to do is have you know enough feel confident enough that the anti-hship missiles that the drones aren't going to come out and hit these ships.

Then the United States would get combat air patrols up um around the latoral combat ships which are the counter mine ships.

They would have destroyers go in and technically it's something that can be done.

There's always mines that are missed.

We saw this in uh the Gulf War in 1991.

We saw this in the tanker wars in the 1980s where American ships were hit despite, you know, despite the the belief that they already had been cleared.

So, it can be done.

I think for Trump, it's more of um another grievance against these countries where he feels like he's doing the heavy lifting.

We don't need this oil.

And you know, I think that it it he wants the moral support.

He wants to be head of a coalition just like uh Joe Biden was in in in Ukraine.

And it's more about that than the military capability.

I I have a large question for the panel which is prompted by a moment that I want you to watch courtesy of the speaker of the house, Mike Johnson.

Let's watch this for a minute.

And so tonight we have created a new award.

Uh we have uh we're we're going to do something we've never done before.

We're going to honor him with a new award that we'll present annually from this point forward.

But he is the suitable and fitting recipient of the first ever America First award.

We can think of no better title for what that is.

That's this beautiful golden statue here.

Appropriate for the new golden era in America.

Peter, I mean, I'll ask this of of everyone.

It's a real challenge for the United States, not only on this issue of the the war currently, but others that the president is unusually susceptible to flattery and unusually resistant to criticism or selfreflection.

This was extraordinary.

Yeah, it's one of the many extraordinary things that happens all the time now.

But but talk about a president with that kind of personality in a situation in which he has to be assimilating vast quantities of intelligence, including intelligence you might not want to hear, right?

Yeah.

No flattery is the way you get to him and you know, information is not.

Uh and look at the other one that happened this week, by the way, Mike Johnson giving him this madeup award.

But the the other thing that's going on this week is the Treasury Department, Donald Trump's Treasury Department has decided to put Donald Trump's signature on the dollar bill and every other dollar bill.

No president has ever had their signature on the currency before.

But it's one more way of stamping his identity on not just the buildings he built as a developer, but on American institutions, right?

His name is now on the Kennedy Center.

His name is now on the Institute of Peace.

He wants his name on Dulles Airport, on Union Station, on Penn Station.

He wants his name uh on programs uh for tax cuts and and and and and prescription medication.

uh and it's all about his ego.

In narcissism, it's not subtle and everybody plays that.

So if you are a speaker of the house or you are a foreign leader, you know that and that's the the game, you know, that needs to be played.

You're not going to win them over by logic.

You might win them over by flattery.

I would just make a small editorial note.

I've made this before that if I were trying to be more popular, I would not put my name on Dulles airport.

I just want to I just want to that's that's special for the Washington Metro region.

Uh but David, let's let's it's let's let's we could we could wrap this up here uh with you.

You spent a career covering Middle East dictators, leaders, men with massive egos who had difficulty assessing reality around them.

We are now in the most serious war of Donald Trump's presidency.

talk about his personality and and the and his psychological and emotional needs in the context of how the decisions are going to be made.

So, if you want to understand how Trump uh sailed through uh intelligence warnings uh what appear to have been warnings from the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, General Kaine in into this war, just watch one of the cabinet meetings or the clip that you just showed with with Speaker Mike Johnson.

I mean, the degree of of flattery um uh the the the inability it seems for people just to level with him and say, "Mr.

President, don't Mr.

President, stop."

He just he is not a person who's able able to hear that.

Um I'm reminded of Vladimir Putin, sorry to say it, uh in February 2022, who sailed into Ukraine thinking it would be over in a week.

you know that it was going to be a easy kind of march to Kev and is still stuck four years later in in a war he can't get out of and and you know it happens when people are flattered and they don't listen to to the evidence.

We'll talk about Ozamandius next week on this show.

I'm sorry that we're going to have to leave it there, but I want to thank our guests for joining me.