00:00The IC assesses the regime in Iran appears to be intact, but largely degraded due to attacks on its leadership
00:06and military capabilities.
00:08Its conventional military power projection capabilities have largely been destroyed, leaving limited options.
00:16Let's bring in Bloomberg Politics editor Laura Davison.
00:19Limited options for Iran is the narrative in Washington, but what are we seeing actually on the ground?
00:25So on the ground, we see Iran really going on the offensive today, striking a bunch of energy sites in
00:31the region.
00:32We had several announcements of both Qatar and Abu Dhabi of sites that have either been damaged or are going
00:38to go offline because they've been damaged or there's concerns about continuing to operate them.
00:42That continues to just put pressure on energy prices.
00:45We really saw that. I've seen that in the market over the past 24 hours or so of oil hitting
00:50near $110.
00:51You know, this is a real uptick. You know, prices had been elevated but stable-ish for some days.
00:57And now we're starting to see that worry really creep in as central banks, too, are also starting to come
01:02out with their decisions.
01:03Hearing, you know, a more modest, more moderated tone from them on not sure exactly what the long-term outlook
01:08is like.
01:09But from what we're seeing just happening day to day on the ground of increasing uncertainty and more and more
01:14sites that just simply aren't able to produce anymore.
01:16French President Macron speaking right now, saying that he spoke with President Trump, that the Qatar Emir as well about
01:22the Iran strikes and that he's calling for a moratorium on strikes aimed at civilian assets.
01:27What are we seeing from allies? What are we seeing also from other countries in the Middle East?
01:32Yeah, we're seeing a lot of disagreement.
01:34You know, Israel has sort of been the most aggressive on this front of, you know, looking to go after
01:37some of these sites.
01:39You know, Trump has sort of had an evolving position, shall we say, of, you know, he originally, you know,
01:45especially Cargill Island is a perfect example.
01:47Let's go after military sites, not necessarily energy sites.
01:50But he sort of said, well, maybe I would, but I don't want to.
01:53And so this is where we're seeing a lot of tension of, you know, to do some of the military
01:57things that Israel seems more inclined to do that would, you know, would really damage the regime.
02:00Would also really damage energy infrastructure and have a lot of ripple effects globally, economically.
02:06And so you're seeing concerns that, you know, both you have civilians as well as, you know, civilians around, civilians
02:11in Iran and civilians around the world who would face both the economic and, you know, in the case of
02:16Iran, life-threatening consequences with some of these more extreme attacks.
02:20Laura, we just have a line crossing the Bloomberg and it's quite interesting.
02:23The Washington Post reporting that the Pentagon has asked the White House to approve some $200 billion request to Congress
02:31in relation to funding this war.
02:33What do you make of this, the chances of this going through, given what we know about how public support
02:39looks and how support or lack of support from the Democrats might look too?
02:44This is a huge number.
02:46I don't know, they have the exact numbers of what the current military budget is in front of me, but
02:50this is something, you know, like 20 or 25 percent of the military's annual budget.
02:55So this represents a huge increase and it's sort of an acknowledgment from the Pentagon that they see this as
03:00a as a very wide scope on this war that potentially lasting for a long time for a $200 billion
03:05request from Congress.
03:07This is going to be a really, really tough sell in Congress.
03:11You know, you have Democrats who are essentially unilaterally opposed in the Senate.
03:14You need some Democratic support to get these funding bills through.
03:17And also a lot of Republicans who have long talked about, you know, cutting government waste.
03:21Just a year ago, it was all doge.
03:22And how do we shrink the federal the size of the federal government?
03:25You know, now essentially having a huge expansion of government spending will be politically difficult.
03:30The White House in this report is sort of acknowledging that this is going to be a really hard sell.
03:34And so they're looking to sort of how they can pair this back.
03:37But going from $200 billion to, you know, a number that both the Pentagon can agree on and members of
03:42Congress,
03:43that's going to be a very difficult negotiation that could take weeks, if not months.
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