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00:00Joining us to discuss the wider foreign policy implications of both these conflicts is Victoria
00:04Coats. She served as Deputy National Security Advisor to President Trump and is now the Vice
00:08President of the Heritage Foundation's Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy. Welcome
00:12back. It's so nice to have you. I want to read you a tweet from Zelensky yesterday. He says,
00:19since the beginning of July, we have recorded active Russian satellite surveillance of the
00:23Gulf states and U.S. military facilities located there. It seems like he's gearing up to make
00:28this argument to President Trump when they meet in Washington. What is your take on this nexus
00:33between Russia and Iran possibly providing intelligence support? Well, Christina, David,
00:39good to be with you. Now, this is a very interesting development. We've all been very focused on
00:44Western Iran, on the bordering onto the Persian Gulf, the energy flows that come out of the Gulf.
00:49But there's also the north of Iran, up against the Caspian Sea, as you said. And that is where
00:55the Russians have been shipping in additional support to the Iranians. And the Ukrainians
01:00have decided to strike this. They've been quite active in the Caspian throughout the four plus
01:05years of war with Russia. So not entirely surprising, although, I mean, Russia's stretched
01:10pretty thin. So I don't know how much they have to send. But very interesting to see Ukraine now
01:15try proactively start to take a role here.
01:18You know, I'm very curious just sort of about the state of play and your read on it when it
01:22comes to
01:23the broader conflict in the Middle East and certainly what's happening with Iran. And I'm
01:27going to quote from something you said here to the Hill, I think, a little while back about these
01:30negotiations that were taking place. You called them a waste of time. And as we kind of look at
01:35this administration weighing what to do next, whether or not to increase the kind of military
01:39action that we've seen, find other ways to get Iranians back to the negotiating table,
01:43which they seem reluctant to do. What is the path forward as you see it? If that memo of
01:48understanding didn't create the kind of environment for constructive conversations,
01:52what's it going to take to find some sort of solution here to this conflict?
01:56No, I think the economic pressure is ultimately what's going to resolve this, David. I mean,
02:02you have an economy in Iran, which is saying it's on life support is a very kind way of putting
02:07it.
02:08The real is approaching two million for a dollar. It was 30,000 10 years ago. So that gives
02:13you some context for that. Their stock market still isn't trading normally. It hasn't since
02:18March. Unemployment's estimated around 35, 40 percent. They may have lost as many as 3 million
02:25jobs. And so you look at those metrics and the kind of ongoing pressure from Operation Economic Fury
02:31that Secretary Besson initiated, it just can't go on. So I think the combination of incremental
02:39military strikes and that very heavy economic pressure will eventually bring the regime to
02:45the table. I sort of think about it a little bit like the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
02:49You know, they go on until they can't anymore. And then suddenly you have you have an end to the
02:53regime. So we'll see what happens. But that to me is going to be the metric that I'm watching most
02:58closely going forward. I mean, but that's an argument that has been made for a while. And we still
03:03haven't seen whatever the Persian equivalent is of Swan Lake playing on state TV. There does seem
03:10to be a really high threshold, as we were talking earlier about, for that regime to absorb pain and
03:16to absorb that economic hardship. However, there's a Bloomberg's analysis from Friday that quotes a
03:21former U.S. ambassador of Saudi Arabia saying that they don't think Iran wants endless escalation.
03:26They can absorb a lot of pain, but it doesn't serve their interest to have so much infrastructure
03:29destroyed. And that makes me want to ask about what else there is left to target. We have these
03:35reports that the U.S. is running low on interceptors. They are also running out of purely
03:40military targets. What is the cost benefit reward there of starting to target more civilian
03:45infrastructure, the things that Iran would need to rebuild if indeed it did do that in a democratic
03:50way at some point and wanting to decimate the regime and take out whatever it can?
03:55Well, Christina, you're absolutely correct that the regime is pretty much
03:59unlimited in the pain it will inflict on the Iranian people. Bear in mind, they're the ones who are
04:03absorbing this. The regime itself is pretty well insulated from the woes of everyday Iranians.
04:10But as you said, the civilian infrastructure, so-called, is essentially what's next. And bear in
04:16mind, in Iran, most of what we would consider to be civilian infrastructure is controlled by and
04:23exploited by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the IRGC, the more extreme element of the
04:29Iranian military. So these are all what you might say are dual use facilities. And the president up
04:34until now has been very reluctant to strike them because he doesn't wish to inflict additional pain
04:39on the Iranian people, unlike their own leadership. But that may be what it takes, particularly around
04:46Tehran, where the inhabitants of Tehran have pretty high expectations for the services that they receive.
04:52If you start to impede their ability to provide water, electricity, that kind of thing,
04:58to the inhabitants of the city, you might have a really bad problem. So not a step anybody wants
05:05to take. It may be a step that the regime forces the administration to take.
05:09I want to quote something here from the New York Times just about the thinking of the president at
05:13this moment about where things go from here when it comes to Iran. By late Friday, Mr. Trump appeared to
05:17temporarily put aside the bigger bombing plans, apparently persuaded, at least in part,
05:21by his military advisor's assessment of dwindling supplies of munitions to defend American troops
05:25in Jordan, Kuwait, Bahrain, and the UAE. A major attack would most likely have drawn a heavier
05:31Iranian retaliation. Victoria Coates, you bring a unique perspective here. You worked for this
05:35president. You saw him wrestle with foreign policy decisions in the past. And I'm wondering about
05:40the way that he can change his mind, how he thinks through issues like this one. I'm struck also just
05:46by the way that his tone, his tack toward Ukraine has changed in recent weeks. We saw him in a
05:52much
05:52friendlier form with President Zelensky at the NATO summit, the G7 summit before that. How plastic is
05:59his thinking when it comes to foreign policy? How resolute is he? And sort of what do you make of
06:03the way that he seems to be in real time considering these different outcomes or different paths
06:08forward? Well, President Trump really is not an ideologue in these kinds of issues. He's very
06:15much, I mean, the principle of America first is what guides his thinking. And so it's not so much,
06:20you know, what did we do last year, the year before? It's where are the opportunities right now?
06:25And so it makes him a very dynamic thinker on these issues. He very much is looking for opportunities,
06:31the unexpected. I remember saying to him at one point, you know, you've given us a tremendous amount
06:36of leeway as policymakers because nobody knows what you're going to do. It could be anything.
06:41And so it tends to put our foes on a little bit of a back foot because, you know, you
06:47can sort of
06:47assume, oh, he's not going to strike. He's concerned about interceptor levels. And then that's when he
06:52does it. So I think we should all be prepared to be surprised in coming hours. It's going to be
06:58a
06:58very interesting week in Washington. We have the funeral of Senator Lindsey Graham coming up,
07:03I believe, on Tuesday. So there's going to be a parade of foreign dignitaries coming through
07:08Washington. Again, that is an opportunity. And I think Senator Graham would be the first to urge
07:13the president to take advantage of it, that folks are showing up in person. He can have a lot of
07:17these
07:17meetings one on one and see what might be possible. But very interesting if, as we were discussing,
07:24you know, Ukraine starts to play a more active role in the Iran war. That could be something that
07:29comes out of this. It does seem like a fitting way to honor a senator who had a lot of
07:33reach
07:33internationally that all these leaders are coming into town and will probably be at least trying to
07:38have an audience with the president. Exactly. I want to play you some sound speaking of Ukraine
07:42from President Zelensky talking about his relationship with President Trump from, of all
07:46people, Lara Loomer. It seems like the relationship has greatly improved. Is there something that you
07:53could share with the viewers about maybe your conversations with the president?
07:56You are right that the tone has changed. Absolutely. We had first like changing moment in Rome,
08:04in Vatican. Yes, it was not long meeting, but I always said that is, I think, historic moment
08:11because we, we changed their relations during 15, 20 minutes. So nobody was around us. We've
08:17been only two of us. And I was very happy to hear president and I hope and I was, and
08:24he heard
08:25me and I heard him. And I think it was, let it be between two of us, but it was
08:31very good.
08:33The evolution of Loomer and some other MAGA influencers this week going from being vehemently
08:38anti-Ukraine to, in some cases, in her case, apologizing for past remarks, going to visit
08:43the president and now saying, you know, they are on Ukraine's side. I'm wondering if President Trump
08:49is swayable in the same way, how much influence he takes from people like Lara Loomer and how much
08:54influence he takes from other allies and even some members of the Republican Party who have been
08:58trying to get him to be more supportive of Ukraine? What are your expectations out of this meeting?
09:03Well, again, I think, I think this is a situation where the president's going to look for an
09:07opportunity. And I look at the last 18 months. I think, you know, we had that very fractious
09:12meeting in the Oval Office at the beginning of President Trump's second term. But I think that
09:17actually had a very beneficial effect. I think President Zelensky went back to Kyiv and said,
09:22gee, this is a very different United States. We're going to have to figure out what we're going to do.
09:27And that's when they started escalating the this drone production that's been so successful for
09:32them, the long, long range attack drones. And I think that NATO also got the message from President
09:37Trump. You guys are going to have to do more. This isn't as much as it takes for as long
09:41as it takes,
09:41which is a bumper sticker, not a strategy. So he was right to get rid of that approach. But at
09:46the
09:46same time, it really galvanized our European allies to start doing a lot more. And that has really moved
09:53the needle going forward. And I mean, I don't know, Laura Loomer. I wouldn't take my national
09:58security advice from her. But I think it is interesting. You know, success attracts interest.
10:04And Ukrainians have really changed the momentum on the battlefield. Hopefully, this has an effect
10:10on Putin. The Russian economy is also suffering fairly significantly. And when he starts to take
10:16some damage to the core industries that fuel that Russian economy, that will put some pressure on his
10:22oligarch friends, that that is what will may actually change his decision making, get him to
10:28the negotiating table to come up with a deal that's acceptable to Ukraine and Washington, not just dictated
10:34by Moscow.
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