00:01Thank you. It's kind of strange. I think you guys know who I am right here.
00:08First of all, I'm not going to comment about what the U.S. may or may not do militarily,
00:12nor am I going to be up here and broadcast that any decision in that regard has been made. I
00:17think the president's observation is the United States remains the most highly capable military
00:21power on earth. We can achieve military objectives if we seek to. He hasn't made a decision. I have
00:26no announcement in that regard with you today, nor do we take any of it lightly. The president
00:30prefers not to do it that way. If he did, he would have done it weeks ago and months ago.
00:34He'd prefer to solve it diplomatically. But I think what the president expresses to you
00:37is the incredible confidence that if we needed to do something militarily, we would have the
00:42ability to do it, and we really have everything we need to be successful, but we would prefer
00:46to do it peacefully. The next, right behind, right there, the gentleman. Yeah.
00:53How much time are you giving these Qatari-backed talks with Iran an opportunity to succeed before
00:59you might resume military operations? Well, I mean, the message is simple. Iran is blowing up
01:03ships, including ships that have, for example, Indian sailors on them, including ships that have
01:08energy that's destined for countries represented at that table. We live in a world in which a
01:13country is openly, you know, a regime is openly saying we will blow up commercial ships. Think about
01:18that, okay? Think about the world we now live in. It sounds like something from 100 years
01:22ago or 80 years ago. That's what's happening. And every country there is challenged. As far
01:25as the talks are concerned, I don't know if there's a timeframe that's up to the president
01:29to make decisions with regards to those sorts of things. There are multiple talks. Talks
01:33have actually never stopped. There's been active conversations going, both in some cases
01:38directly but often through intermediaries. And the president's preference in any challenge
01:43around the world is to try to solve it diplomatically and peacefully if possible. He recognizes there
01:47some issues in the world that cannot be solved peacefully, unfortunately, sadly. But we would
01:52prefer to solve it in that manner. So I'm not going to characterize neither the progress
01:56on those talks nor any timeframe on it, other than to tell you that if there is a diplomatic
01:59solution, we would be open to it. But obviously, it can't be one that endangers our national
02:03security or one that doesn't meet our core concerns that we have that brought us into
02:08that in the first place. And that is primarily that Iran not simply – not only has shown
02:12that they clearly have ambitions to be a nuclear weapons power, and that can never be allowed
02:16to happen. But this is also a country and a regime that's at the center of all the instability
02:20in the Middle East. So anywhere you turn, what you find is some Iranian proxy that's undermining
02:25the peace and stability of the Middle East. That's a fundamental threat that we have to confront,
02:29on top of the fact that they want nuclear weapons. This is a regime that's massacred its own
02:33people. You can only imagine what it would do to others if they possess weapons of mass
02:37destruction, which will never be allowed to happen as long as President Trump is in the White House.
02:41Just going row by row and just like – I don't know how – I'm not really – there's no
02:44rhyme or reason
02:45to it, guys. My apologies.
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