00:00The external geopolitical environment remains so uncertain, Sherry. We're hearing now parts of
00:04Tehran have briefly lost electrical power after missile strikes, while the entry into the war
00:08of Yemen's Iran-backed Houthis and the arrival of thousands more American military personnel
00:13in the region raising fears of escalation. There is, in the meantime, little sign that
00:18Iran and the US will meet for peace talks anytime soon. Let's bring up Bloomberg Politics editor
00:22Laura Davison. So there seems to be almost like a two-track narrative happening at that moment,
00:27even as Washington continues to pursue these peace negotiations, which Iran says are pretty
00:34one-sided at this point. We are seeing really the signs of potentially this conflict widening and
00:40worsening. Yes, there were several indications over the weekend, you know, including, you know,
00:45missile fire from both sides continuing to be traded back and forth, including one Iranian missile
00:50hitting a US, a large plane that was on a Saudi Arabian air force. We saw the Houthis enter the
00:56fray, an Iranian-backed militia group. We've also been reporting in recent days that US allies in
01:01the Gulf are considering also jumping into the fray. That would expand that further. Plus, you saw the
01:06addition of about 3,500 US troops reach the region over the weekend. You know, the Washington Post
01:12reported that the US is looking at, you know, some sort of ground operation, potentially deploying
01:17those troops, and they're preparing for that to last weeks. You know, this is all as the war has
01:22entered its fifth week. Trump and Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, have said, you know,
01:27initially that they expected this operation to last four to six weeks, and they're much ahead of
01:30schedule. Now that we've entered that fifth week and peace talks remain elusive, it's clear that,
01:35you know, this is not going to be wrapping up, you know, within the next couple days here.
01:40Yeah, and the cost to the US military also could be big. We have already seen the first loss when
01:46it
01:46comes to a very valuable jet. Yes, this is an E3 sentry jet. This is essentially a command and
01:53warning system, a very large aircraft. It was on the ground as it was hit. You know, this is, you
01:58know, really a warning to the US military, just how vulnerable some of these, these very expensive
02:04pieces of aircraft can be. This is a, you know, $300 million jet. And this all comes against the
02:10backdrop of there being a fight in Congress about the US getting more money for this war. Congress
02:15controls the purse strings. The White House would need to go to members of Congress to get this war
02:19approved. All as, you know, popularity, you know, numbers are sinking. Republicans are worried about
02:25their own re-election, you know, prospects, particularly about, you know, attaching their
02:29name to a piece of legislation that would, you know, send billions of dollars to the Middle East.
02:33So this is all going to be, you know, a real political issue of the US as they look at
02:38the economic
02:39cost of this war. Laura, in the meantime, what do we know if anything about progress that might be
02:46made when it comes to these so-called ceasefire talks and negotiations or even communications with
02:52each side? Very little seemed to move over the weekend here. There was a meeting of regional
03:00leaders. The US was not involved in that in Pakistan over the weekend, you know, that they were looking
03:05for, you know, kind of ways to break the logjam here, to increase, you know, looking for opportunities
03:10to get Iran and the US to directly talk. You know, we've also seen, you know, other countries weigh in,
03:16particularly China, put pressure on Iran to look for some sort of ceasefire. But, you know, Trump has
03:20had a very optimistic tone on that. That really appears to not sort of necessarily be the overall
03:27sentiment here. And we're seeing that play out in the markets, you know, over the weekend with futures
03:30down and rent prices up.
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