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00:00We are learning more this morning about the Iranian missile strike on a U.S. base in Jordan that killed
00:03two American service members, wounded several more, one person still missing, according to U.S. Central Command.
00:08Joining us now, Nancy Youssef, national security and defense writer for The Atlantic, and ABC News State Department reporter Shannon
00:14Kingston.
00:15Good morning to you both.
00:16Nancy, I want to start with you because one of the things we're seeing this morning is the Wall Street
00:19Journal is reporting that Iran has adapted to U.S. defenses.
00:23It's firing these missiles that travel at extremely high speeds and can maneuver as they streak towards the earth.
00:30According to U.S. officials, Iran's ability to hit sensitive targets has also raised concern that the regime is getting
00:35targeting help from China or Russia.
00:38What is your take on this idea that they might be getting some targeting help from Russia or China?
00:42And also this new strategy we're seeing, they also seem to be using some of those cheaper weapons first to
00:46kind of overwhelm the defense systems and then are being a little more successful with some of their strikes where
00:51they're trying to hit.
00:53Well, we saw an unverified video from The New York Times of the strike in Jordan.
00:57And what you notice is that there doesn't seem to be any intercept of that missile as it's headed towards
01:02the base.
01:02So it certainly suggests that the Iranians are adapting in terms of how they are targeting U.S. interests and
01:10assets across the region.
01:12And it's a troubling development in that as long as this war goes on, I think it's inevitable that adversaries
01:19learn how to adapt to U.S. defenses.
01:22It raises the risks for U.S. troops and for U.S. basing around the region and creates another reason
01:28for urgency in terms of finding some resolution for this.
01:32What we're seeing the Iranians do is tries to raise the costs of the U.S. presence in the region,
01:37not only for the United States, but for its allies.
01:40And I think adapting to U.S. defenses is one way that they are trying to do that.
01:45Shannon Kingston, get us up to speed on what we know of the ramifications of the attacks that we've seen
01:50in recent hours here.
01:51As Christina mentioned just a few minutes ago, there's kind of mixed messaging surrounding what's happening with the airport in
01:56Jordan.
01:57There have been calls on U.S. personnel in the region to be locked down or have to evacuate.
02:03Your sense of what's happening across the Middle East as a result of what we saw over the last 24
02:06hours?
02:08Right. I think we're still in a little bit of a fog of war kind of situation here.
02:12Jordan has emerged, if not a new feeder in this conflict, certainly a new focal point.
02:17And it does seem like Iran's ability to figure its way around U.S. air defense systems is factoring in
02:24pretty heavily here.
02:25And, of course, there's the fear among U.S. officials that Iran is sharing information, intelligence with China, with Russia,
02:33other adversaries.
02:33So it just shows how this all couples together.
02:36And a point that Christina has raised is that U.S. diplomatic presence in the region has been greatly diminished
02:42throughout the course of this conflict.
02:45So just getting information out to U.S. citizens in the region, very, very difficult right now.
02:51And we did see the State Department issue a worldwide caution alert, basically telling Americans and civilians everywhere across the
02:58Middle East to be careful.
03:00But without help from the U.S., without help from diplomats, there's really only so much that Americans can do
03:06in that region.
03:07Nancy, can you talk to us about what the U.S. presence is in Jordan?
03:11Obviously, there's diplomatic facilities.
03:12There are several military installations.
03:15And do we know what exactly they were going after?
03:17Or is it just that they are going after any facility that is associated with the U.S.?
03:22So you're right.
03:23The United States has a very robust presence in Jordan because of the strong relationship between the United States and
03:30Jordan.
03:31Jordan, like other countries in the region, I think Jordan is among those that saw a U.S. presence in
03:38its country as a form of deterrence against attacks.
03:41But what we've seen throughout this war in Iran is that instead the Iranians are targeting countries that have allowed
03:47the United States to have a basing presence in their country to say that actually that very thing that you
03:52thought would provide you a defense is, in fact, a risk to your own security.
03:57It's why we're seeing Gulf states being targeted.
04:00As you noted, Kuwait was struck overnight, also a country that has U.S. basing.
04:06And so the military presence allows for the United States to project forward and have bases closer to the region
04:15and project its presence throughout the world.
04:18It had, up until this point, allowed Gulf nations and Arab nations to have a form of deterrence in their
04:25countries by having the U.S. presence.
04:27But what this war has done is sort of upended those suppositions that U.S. basing equals security.
04:34What the Iranians are saying is that actually it creates more threats for those countries.
04:39Nancy, I want to ask you sort of where we are in the trajectory of this, where we were having
04:43a conversation yesterday that it seems like these strikes are now a daily occurrence, U.S.-led strikes,
04:47and then kind of the retaliatory strikes from the Iranians.
04:49Are we back to where we were in March, say?
04:53Are we getting close to that?
04:54I'm just curious how you see the trajectory of this playing out.
04:57We certainly are getting closer.
04:58We're seeing Gulf nations being hit.
05:00We're seeing infrastructure being hit.
05:01We're not seeing strikes in Tehran, but we are seeing day by day increased hostilities, increased targeting further into Iran,
05:11further expanded into Gulf nations by the Iranians in response.
05:15I think both the U.S. and the Iranians are trying to raise the cost for the other.
05:20The Iranians are trying to say to the United States and its allies that not giving the Iranians control over
05:27the strait,
05:28not giving them the promised sanction and economic relief is too costly.
05:32And the United States is trying to say to Iran, trying to hold on to control the Strait of Hormuz
05:38is too costly,
05:39that the U.S. will not only go after the assets that it uses to control the strait, but after
05:44its infrastructure inside the country.
05:47I think the challenge is, I don't know that these strikes are changing either side's opinion,
05:51but rather further entrenching them into their positions.
05:55And over the weekend, we not only saw the tragic loss of those U.S. troops,
05:59but we heard the Iranians say that they're walking away from the memorandum of understanding.
06:03And so the diplomatic track that would be used to bring these temperatures down has essentially been eroded
06:09because the Iranians are saying they're not willing to come to the negotiation table.
06:13So we're seeing a rise up the escalation ladder by both sides,
06:17but neither side can actually control where those escalations are going to lead to.
06:22Shannon, and we also have some escalating rhetoric a bit from the president this morning.
06:26I know you've literally been on with us, so I'm not sure if you've seen it,
06:28but we just have a new true social post where the president says Republicans should add Iran to the Russian
06:34sanctions bill.
06:35That's what Lindsey, meaning Lindsey Graham, wanted to do and was going to happen.
06:39Important, all caps, with three exclamation points.
06:41We do want to talk to you both about Ukraine and Russia, but before we get there,
06:45can you kind of remind us what the status is with Iran's sanctions
06:48and if this is likely to do anything to get Iran back to the negotiating table
06:53or if it could have the opposite effect?
06:55Well, Iran is one of the most heavily sanctioned countries in the world, of course.
06:59They did get a temporary reprieve under that memorandum of understanding
07:03where they were able to sell oil on the open market very briefly,
07:06but by recent estimates they were able to profit in the billions from that.
07:11But quickly, once things started going south, we did see the U.S. act to reimpose all financial restrictions.
07:18And I think when it comes to President Trump's thinking right now,
07:21even though we saw promises from the Pentagon that revenge for the attack that killed
07:27those two American service members would be swift and severe,
07:30when we look at the actual strikes that took place in Iran overnight,
07:34the scope, the scale, not particularly dramatic, kind of the same as what we've seen over the course of the
07:40last week.
07:41So the question comes down to, is the president, is this him showing restraint or is this more of a
07:47strategic reset?
07:48Because even though Trump has been very hesitant about returning to an all-out war,
07:53he's also been surging air resources to the region.
07:57So it is very possible that the ceiling for this escalation, we are nowhere close to hitting it.
08:03Nancy Youssef, as we move to Ukraine, let me stick with this sanctions bill that's being debated still in the
08:08U.S. Senate.
08:09My understanding is you have secondary sanctions and secondary tariffs as well.
08:12And something I'm keen to ask Senator Jean Shaheen when she joins us in the next hour is,
08:16does this president have the appetite to impose the tariffs that would be called for by that legislation?
08:21So he could effectively, as I understand this piece of legislation,
08:25impose 100 percent sanctions on countries that buy Russian oil, the top five countries that buy Russian oil and gas.
08:31What is your sense of that?
08:33Again, as he talks about Senator Graham's legacy, the importance of this bill,
08:36does he evince the readiness to actually follow through on what this law would let him do?
08:41I think we have seen an increased shift in the president's position as the Ukrainians have made advances on the
08:48battlefield,
08:48that he has sort of embraced the Ukrainian position more as they've had more wins.
08:54Now, whether that extends to sanctions I think remains to be seen.
08:58But between that and now reports that the Russians might be helping the Iranians and their targeting,
09:03I think we're seeing more and more incentive for the president to move towards this direction.
09:07It's hard to say with any certainty because his position on Russia has oscillated back and forth.
09:12But over the last month, I would say we have seen a president that has celebrated Ukraine's battlefield wins by
09:22taking more and more positions towards them.
09:24He's been more open to providing weapons and other support for Ukraine that he didn't have the position for just
09:31a few months ago
09:32when it seemed that the Ukrainians were taking really heavy hits from Russia.
09:38And now Russia, you're seeing for our TV viewers, you're seeing some video that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky tweeted out
09:44earlier this week
09:45of some of those Ukrainian hits inside Russia, huge plumes of smoke rising from different facilities.
09:50Shannon, I want to ask you, because there were a lot of sanctions put on Russia at the start of
09:54this conflict.
09:55They were kicked off the SWIFT system.
09:56There were lots of measures taken.
09:58It didn't really make as much of an impact as it was expected.
10:02And that's a whole complicated thing about how the Russian system works and how much stuff is controlled by the
10:06government
10:06and how they're able to shift funds around.
10:08We are starting to see, however, regular people, regular everyday people and oligarchs get impacted by these strikes,
10:15by what's happening with oil.
10:16They're starting to see some shakes in the economy.
10:18It's an interesting time to talk about further sanctions on Russia.
10:22Could they have an impact now where they haven't had as big an impact in the past?
10:30We've been very hesitant at different times during this conflict to impose new financial restrictions.
10:36Anytime there's really a sign that Russia might be moving towards the negotiating table, they would typically back off.
10:42So seeing the president put his support behind these sanctions, this bill, it could factor into Russian decision making.
10:50But I think it's going to come down to Russia's ability to procure what it needs to keep really its
10:56war industry going.
10:57Because this has come down to really a battle of ammunition stocks here.
11:02Because that major strike we saw in Ukraine in the capital overnight, that sadly is becoming the norm now,
11:09as Russia really ramps up ballistic missile strikes, getting around Iran's air defenses,
11:14exposing the lack of ammunition it has for its patriot system to defend its cities.
11:20And that lack of ammunition, of course, goes hand in hand with what we're seeing in the Middle East.
11:25There's just less to go around.
11:27And that's why we really can't see these conflicts in a vacuum.
11:30It's all connected.
11:32Nancy, we've got about a minute left.
11:33And I just want to ask you for your read of what's happening in Ukraine when it comes to leadership
11:36there.
11:37President Zelenskyy shuffling his cabinet, Mikhail Fedorov being dismissed,
11:40the defense minister who is very popular among the population there.
11:43There have been protests as a result of that dismissal.
11:46What do we know about the motivations for that?
11:48And what's your read on why this happened now?
11:50So there have been internal divisions between that ministry, and we're seeing them play out on a public stage.
11:57And this has been a problem that has plagued Zelenskyy's government questions about governance and corruption.
12:03And we've seen at times that the leader has had to back down because of opposition about his form of
12:12governance
12:12and some of the key aides around them.
12:14And so we're seeing another manifestation of this that's playing out because of internal divisions about the future of the
12:20Ukrainian defense
12:22at a time that they're facing increased strain, resource strains,
12:27and at the same time seeing kind of battlefield gains that is leading to, I think, a reassertment within the
12:33ministry
12:34about where the country should be going, where its defenses should be going,
12:37and who should be in charge of sort of shaping its future.
12:39I think an internal battle is now playing out on the streets and a reflection of an ongoing conflict
12:46that has plagued the Ukrainian government throughout the war, which is what governance looks like,
12:50what is acceptable, and what the Ukrainians want to see from their leadership.
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