00:00I want to ask you the same question we've been kind of asking everyone this morning.
00:03Do we have any more details about what is in or what is not in or whether or not there
00:08is even a
00:09deal to be talking about? Any vibes or signs that we could be getting a tangible announcement later
00:14today? Well, we don't have details yet, but this is the third time in about as many days
00:22that we've heard Secretary of State Rubio talk about progress having been made. And these seem
00:27to be some of the most upbeat comments that he's had so far talking about this was now
00:32about five or six hours ago that he had this press conference with Minister External Affairs
00:38Minister Jaishankar after their meeting here in New Delhi, but talking about expecting in
00:46the next several hours to potentially have news, but making clear that that would be announced
00:50by President Trump in Washington. And so, of course, now that we're getting into the day
00:55on Sunday there in Washington, we're anticipating or looking for signs of additional details
01:02and information from the White House and from President Trump. But Secretary Rubio talking
01:07about progress having been made, saying he didn't want to get too ahead of things in terms of
01:12talking about it and didn't want to kind of overplay it, but also didn't want to kind of
01:19undersell it or to brush it off, said there has been this progress and that he would let
01:24the president speak more to that during the course of the day.
01:28Eric, we heard the Secretary of State say he wants this to be, you want this to be the
01:31remit of the Secretary of State, not the Secretary of Defense or Secretary of War.
01:35It does beg the question, though, just about his level of engagement. You cover the State
01:38Department day in and day out. And as we've watched this conflict unfold, it doesn't seem
01:42like he has played the marquee or the point role for this administration.
01:45We've had Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, of course, the president, Vice President J.D. Vance
01:50going to those talks in Pakistan, where you were, I know, Eric, as well. Just help us understand
01:54the role that Marco Rubio is playing here as we're trying to sew up, see some sewing up of
01:58a resolution here of this conflict.
02:01Well, of course, Marco Rubio is the first, as they say, dual-hatted, the first person to be both
02:07National Security Advisor and Secretary of State simultaneously since Henry Kissinger about
02:1350 years ago. And so the role that he's been playing, I think, has been more behind the
02:19scenes here, really managing the situation room meetings. And it's not always the public-facing
02:26part of this process that one sees. But for instance, we saw very early in the war that
02:32he briefed the press after his briefing of the intelligence committees, of the committees
02:38of Congress about the U.S. strike on Tehran on February 28th. And so I think his role here
02:45has been more behind the scenes and kind of management of the strategy and of that pursuit
02:53of the national security goal of making sure that Iran doesn't get a nuclear weapon. It's been more that
03:00than certainly the shuttle diplomacy, which we had seen prior to the war by Steve Witkoff and
03:06Jared Kushner, the envoys, as well as the very public trip about a month ago by Vice President
03:13Vance that I was speaking with you all from Islamabad. So I think that's kind of the way to understand
03:18how all of the players fit together here.
03:20Eric, we've only got about 30 seconds left, but I do want to ask you if you've heard from
03:25the current Secretary of State about President Trump's last Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo,
03:30being very critical of this proposed deal over Twitter, saying it seems straight out of basically
03:35the Obama administration's playbook that the JCPOA putting the IRGC, pay the IRGC to build a WMD
03:42program and terrorize the world, not remotely America first. Have we heard any pushback or response
03:47from the Secretary of State about that today? Well, yes, he was asked about that and he
03:55really rejected that. I mean, he said that given what we've seen from President Trump,
04:00the commitment of the operations and the forcefulness of Operation Midnight Hammer last June,
04:06as well as Epic Fury beginning in late February, you know, that really shows President Trump's seriousness
04:13about using force and maximum pressure to influence Iran's behavior. And so that's really been his
04:19response to some of that criticism we've seen. All right. Eric Martin, traveling in India with Secretary of State, thank
04:25you.
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