00:00President Trump announced Sunday that the U.S. would begin escorting ships stuck in the Strait
00:04of Hormuz through it, quote, so that they can freely and ably get on with their business.
00:08The operation called Project Freedom begins today. It remains to be seen if any ship will
00:13take up America's offer to be escorted across the strait, given Iran's repeated threats against U.S.
00:19and Israeli ships. The announcement came just hours after military officials in the U.K. say
00:24a cargo ship was struck by small craft near the Strait of Hormuz, just off the coast of Iran.
00:29Luckily, none of the crew was injured in the attack, and as of last night, no one claimed
00:33responsibility. But Iran's military has repeatedly warned ships that try to pass without paying a
00:38pricey toll would be attacked. Ships also have to prove that they have no affiliation with the
00:43United States or Israel. Now, this vessel that was attacked was headed north into the Persian Gulf
00:48and was not actually attempting to exit the Strait of Hormuz. The incident comes after Iran reportedly
00:53offered the Trump administration a 14-point peace plan late Saturday, one that made no mention of
00:59their nuclear program the biggest point of contention. In return for reopening the strait,
01:03the Islamic Republic demanded that the U.S. lift its blockade and sanctions on Iran, withdraw its
01:08forces from the Middle East, and end all hostilities in the region, including Israel's conflict in
01:14Lebanon. It also gave President Trump 30 days to respond. As you might imagine, he was not thrilled
01:19with any of that. I asked the Post's Deputy Managing Editor Michael Zenni about the state of the
01:23fragile ceasefire and the latest on any plans the administration may be making to bring this
01:28conflict to an end. It seems like both sides right now have a lot of voices agitating for the war
01:35to
01:35start again. President Trump recently said that he thought that it might be better without a deal,
01:43without a peace deal, after it appeared that the, appears that the talks for a long-term ceasefire
01:52have failed. Also, nothing is getting through the Strait of Hormuz. We just saw today reports that Iranian
02:04small ships had attacked a cargo freighter that was actually, it wasn't trying to carry oil out of the
02:11strait. It looks like it was trying to carry goods and cargo into the Persian Gulf, so going the other
02:17way. And what we've seen in response to, you know, to President Trump's threats that he could step up the
02:25war again, is that the Revolutionary Guard, the IRGC, has basically said, yeah, come and do it. They are
02:35similarly predicting that there will be another war and they, or the war will resume. And they said that they
02:42welcome that and they think that they can outlast the U.S. and its will.
02:49I also asked Michael about the president's plans to pull 5,000 American troops out of Germany due to that
02:55country's lack of support for the war.
02:56President Trump seems to really be very rapidly souring on America's NATO allies in Europe.
03:05So what we saw on Friday was that the Department of War had announced that 5,000 troops, 5,000
03:15American
03:15troops were being pulled out of Germany. Germany, of course, is the second largest base for U.S. troops
03:21in the world after Japan, sorry, foreign base. And our presence there obviously is a longtime sort of
03:30relic of the Cold War when Germany was going to be the flashpoint for, you know, a possible World War
03:39III if the Soviet Union invaded, right? We put more troops into Germany after Russia invaded Ukraine,
03:47Ukraine. But now this drawdown has resulted in troop levels being about what they were before that
03:54invasion in 2022. President Trump seems to be increasingly less interested in propping up the
04:06military defenses of Europe in light of their unwillingness to cooperate with the U.S. on Iran.
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