00:00What you saw yesterday was U.S. destroyers moving through international waters being fired upon by the Iranians,
00:06and the U.S. responded defensively to protect itself. That's what you saw.
00:11I mean, that's separate and distinct from Operation Epic Fury.
00:17If you fire a drone or a missile at our destroyer, what are we supposed to do, let it hit
00:21it?
00:22We have to respond to it. We have to knock down the missile, and we have to knock out whatever
00:26it is that launched that missile.
00:27The alternative is to let it sink one of our ships. That's crazy.
00:30So, of course, we responded to it.
00:32Well, I guess, but the point is, if there's not much seizing in the firing, because we've seized the attacks.
00:37Well, you should ask that of the Iranians. Don't ask me. We didn't fire. They fired on us.
00:41My point is, if you fire at a U.S. Navy ship, what are we supposed to do?
00:44Say, oh, there's a ceasefire. We're not going to shoot down your drone.
00:46That's a stupid question. That's a stupid position to take.
00:50Of course we fired back at them. They were shooting at us.
00:52That's what I would expect to do.
00:53Only stupid countries don't shoot back when you're shot at, and we're not a stupid country.
00:58Well, we should know something today.
01:00I mean, we're expecting a response from them. We'll see what the response entails.
01:03The hope is that it's something that it can put us into a serious process of negotiation.
01:08Obviously, we've seen the reporting overnight that Iran has established or trying to establish some agency that's going to control
01:14traffic in the Straits.
01:15That would be very problematic. That would actually be unacceptable.
01:18I mean, the normalizing of their controlling of international waterways is both illegal and it's just something that's unacceptable.
01:26And the world has to start asking itself, what is it willing to do if Iran tries to normalize a
01:31control of an international waterway?
01:33I think that's unacceptable.
01:35But we're expecting a response from them today at some point.
01:38We have not received that yet in the last hour, but perhaps that will come.
01:43Their system is still highly fractured and a bit dysfunctional as well.
01:46So that may be serving as an impediment.
01:49I hope it's a serious offer. I really do.
01:51Can you come back to Cuba a little bit?
01:55The United States, including yesterday, are ramping up sanctions against Cuba, the regime and all that.
02:01With the exchange with the Pope, did you feel any convergence of views on that and on the U.S.
02:09policy?
02:09Let me clarify something for you.
02:10Our sanctions are against a company named Gaisa.
02:13This is a holding company set up by generals in Cuba that has generated billions of dollars of revenue,
02:19none of which benefits the Cuban people.
02:21Not one cent of it benefits the Cuban people.
02:23You understand this, right?
02:24I don't know if you know this.
02:26There's the Cuban government, and they have a budget,
02:29and then there's this private company that has more money than the government does.
02:33None of the money in that company goes to build a single road, a single bridge,
02:37provide a single grain of rice to a single Cuban, other than the people that are part of Gaisa.
02:41So that's what we're sanctioning,
02:43is a company that basically is taking anything that makes money in Cuba
02:46and illegally putting it into the pockets of a few regime insiders.
02:51So that's not sanctions on the Cuban people,
02:53because the Cuban people don't benefit from Gaisa.
02:55It's a sanction against this company that is stealing from the Cuban people to the benefit of a few.
03:00And we didn't discuss those sanctions yesterday,
03:02but we imposed them yesterday, and we're going to be doing more, by the way.
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