00:00Jeff, I'm going to start with you and what you may or may not be hearing from the White House.
00:03The president obviously outlined all of this on Truth Social.
00:06Does this lift some of the political pressure that he was under?
00:10Oh, absolutely.
00:11I mean, I wrote a story yesterday, which I was preparing to talk to you guys about today,
00:16about the political risks for the president of last week,
00:21saying that he was going to pull the United States out of the war in two to three weeks
00:25and talking about all of the victories that he perceives the United States has had during that period
00:32since it and Israel attacked Iran, only to then on Friday be undercut by,
00:38have his rhetoric undercut anyway by the fact that Iran has successfully brought down a U.S. plane.
00:46And then to have one of the members of that crew not have been found on Friday or yet on
00:54Saturday,
00:54huge political risk in addition to the military implications of that.
00:58So this is a big success story for the president.
01:02It absolutely lifts some of the political threats that come from it.
01:09But it also leads to more questions, again, about that timeline that he outlined last week,
01:15whether or not he ends up sticking to that or whether he ends up going through
01:19with some of the more escalatory rhetoric that was also part of his speech on Wednesday night.
01:24And, Dan, I want to ask you about the messaging around this coming from Iran.
01:28Some of our Mideast colleagues were chatting with me at the early hours for us this morning,
01:32talking about how the Iranian government is focusing not on this amazing successful rescue,
01:37but they're focusing on the fact that they were able to down this plane in the first place.
01:42They're also talking about the fact that the U.S. lost more aircraft going in and trying to retrieve them.
01:47What is the messaging? What messaging is piercing through there?
01:50And how do you think this is going to impact the conflict in the region?
01:53Because even though this is very good news, there were still strikes overnight throughout the region,
01:58hits on energy infrastructure, Israel hit.
02:01Iran says five people were killed and 170 wounded in an airstrike on this petrochemical complex.
02:05So this is a moment, but the war is still continuing around it.
02:10Well, I think the Iranians are understandably trying to draw some cold comfort out of their failure
02:15to capture this airman and basically looking at the debris left behind.
02:21I'm not sure there's much to be gained from doing that.
02:24Perhaps for many Iranians, it's a reminder of the failed American attempt to rescue hostages back in 1979,
02:32an attempt that really sullied the record of then-President Carter.
02:36Back then, aircraft were abandoned, destroyed in the desert, but crew members were also killed.
02:42This is a very different situation to our knowledge.
02:45No American personnel have been killed.
02:47Everyone's been safely withdrawn.
02:49So the Iranians are doing what they can.
02:51And frankly, I would wonder whether it's wise of them to point out to their own audience
02:55that apparently the American Rescue Party managed to set up in very short order a working base of operation,
03:01including a landing strip on Iranian soil, not least given suggestions by the Trump administration,
03:08sometimes by Israel, that there may be an attempt mounted by force to withdraw
03:13what remains of highly enriched uranium from Iran.
03:16By every account, that would require a major excavation campaign,
03:20some very heavy lifting of those canisters, 440 kilograms worth of canisters,
03:26potentially the erection or the creation of a landing strip, an air zone.
03:30So if anything, the Iranians are telling their own people that the Americans have capabilities
03:35that potentially, and I say potentially, could be reapplied in a major strategic operation
03:39to deny Iran that enriched uranium sometime in the future.
03:43Jeff Mason, we want to talk about a different post that the president wrote yesterday
03:47before he got to the pilot.
03:50This is before we knew the pilot had been rescued.
03:53Remember when I gave Iran 10 days to make a deal, he wrote,
03:57or open up the Hormuz Strait.
03:58Time is running out 48 hours before all hell will rain down on them,
04:03R-E-I-G-N, rain down on them.
04:06Glory be to God.
04:08A statement that has generated the headline on the Drudge Report,
04:11Trump invokes holy war.
04:13Is this ultimatum still in place?
04:16Well, I would say it's probably still in place until he tells us it's not.
04:20That said, my suspicion is, based on having covered President Trump for so long,
04:26that one of the things that generated that social media post yesterday
04:30was his frustration or sense of being under pressure because of this airman
04:34who had not yet been captured.
04:36So we'll see if that changes the dynamic for the president.
04:39He will no doubt be feeling a rush of success from this operation now,
04:45and that may impact the next steps.
04:48But that doesn't mean that the impact will mean the president won't follow through
04:52on that threat.
04:53It, again, just generates the question of,
04:56will he still be in the mood that he seemed to be at the beginning of last week
05:01of just wanting to get out in two to three weeks?
05:04Or will he feel flushed by this military operation and success that, by the way,
05:10started out with a military failure of having a plane shot down,
05:16which contradicts the air superiority argument that he had been making?
05:21Or will it, I guess that's just the question, Joe,
05:25is what happens next in terms of whether the president wants to continue that escalation or not.
05:31But that's a long answer to your short question, and I'll circle back,
05:35which is as far as I think we can tell, that threat is still there until he removes it.
05:41And, Dan, I want to go back to what you were talking about, about that airstrip,
05:43because AFP is reporting the U.S. used an unused or an outdated airstrip near Isfahan.
05:49There is a nuclear facility there.
05:51They don't seem to be.
05:52It's a large area.
05:53They don't seem to be in the same place.
05:54But you have information, I understand, on Israel's assistance to the rescue operation.
05:59Can you tell us what you've learned and how they were involved?
06:02Well, as we were preparing for this interview,
06:04one media outlet reported that two Israeli commander units were involved in those recovery efforts.
06:10That hasn't been confirmed by Israeli officials, what Israel has says.
06:14And I think this is predictable and, frankly, acceptable and credible that they helped from the outset in terms of
06:22shifting resources,
06:23both in terms of offensive strikes aimed at suppressing potential threats, encroaching Iranian groups,
06:30Iranian capture parties, posses and the like, trying to reach that airman, as well as intelligence.
06:36The Israelis, while, of course, the U.S. has a superpower as intelligence facilities,
06:40the Israelis are very good at tactical intelligence.
06:43That's why they've headed up assassination strikes.
06:46They have a way of closing the circle between detecting a target and sending the order to an aerial vehicle
06:52to shoot at that target,
06:54basically closing that loop very quickly.
06:56That's something that would be required in a hot pursuit situation like recovering a downed airman
07:02who is being pursued in parallel by the Iranians.
07:06So I think it's credible whether there were actually Israeli boots on the ground.
07:10That remains to be seen.
07:11Perhaps we'll never know.
07:12It could be the Israelis are trying to gain some of the glory from what is an impressive story for
07:17Easter weekend.
07:18Nonetheless, there's no doubt that those allies are working very closely together,
07:22especially when it comes to air power, which is the main branch being used against Iran at this time.
07:28Really fascinating, Dan.
07:29And you're absolutely right.
07:30Nobody has on-the-ground intelligence about Iran better than the Israelis, and that had to be put to use
07:35at some point.
07:35And this being a joint operation really changes the contours of this story, if that is confirmed.
07:41Hey, Jeff, I'm looking at the guidance for the president today.
07:44He's got executive time this morning, closed to press, and then the family Easter dinner at 7 p.m., which
07:50obviously is a private affair.
07:51Do we suspect he makes some time to talk about this today in front of cameras and microphones?
07:56Good question.
07:57I mean, I think there's no doubt that the president at some point will want to have his face on
08:02camera and do a bit of a victory lap.
08:04Whether that ends up being today, Easter Sunday, or early in the week is hard to say.
08:10He did call yesterday.
08:11The press operation called an early lid, which is the terminology for when the press pool is essentially dismissed and
08:18told that no other activity with the president is taking place that day.
08:22He didn't go golfing.
08:23And now we know why.
08:24We know what he was doing, monitoring this operation.
08:28But today, with that success behind him, it's certainly possible that he'll want to say something unless he decides to
08:34hold off because of Easter and address it more publicly later this week.
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