Instant Reaction: US, Israel Attack Iran as Trump Urges Regime Change

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1:23Donald Trump:Go to Sinesta.com to book your stay and unlock the best rates with Sinesta Travel Pass. Here today, Rome tomorrow. Join now at Sinesta.com. Terms and conditions apply. Bloomberg Audio Studios.

1:38Evan Newmark:Podcasts. Radio. News. Welcome to the Bloomberg This Weekend podcast with David Gura, Christina Raffini and Lisa Mateo.

1:50Donald Trump:We're covering a lot of breaking news this morning out of the Middle East. The U.S. taking extraordinary strikes on Iran. We have a statement from the president that he posted in the early morning hours. We're going to have news, reports, analysis over the course of this morning, as we will every weekend, Saturdays and Sundays from 7 o 'clock to 10 o 'clock on Bloomberg Television, Bloomberg Radio streaming on the Bloomberg Business app and at Bloomberg.com as well. And Christina, suffice to say, we were both awoken early by all of this news.

2:15Evan Newmark:Quite early. This was not quite the show we had planned today, as we just mentioned. But look, this is why we're here. This is why our teams are in. And this is one of the great things about being at Bloomberg is people were awake all night. People were online immediately and reporting this out. We want to play you some more of the sound from that startling about eight minute statement the president dropped on social media this morning. Again, he didn't call the press pool. He didn't notify everyone. We talked to our reporter in Mar-a-Lago and she said she found out when the rest of the world did post it online.

2:43Evan Newmark:Among some of the many remarkable things in that statement, including a declaration of war against Iran and a call for regime change, the president also said this campaign could cost American lives.

2:54Donald Trump:The lives of courageous American heroes may be lost and we may have casualties that often happens in war. But we're doing this not for now. We're doing this for the future. And it is a noble mission. We pray for every service member as they selflessly risk their lives to ensure that Americans and our children will never be threatened by a nuclear armed Iran. We ask God to protect all of our heroes in harm's way. And we trust that with his help, the men and women of the armed forces will prevail. We have the greatest in the world and they will prevail. To the members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, the armed forces and all of the police, I say tonight that you must lay down your weapons and have complete immunity or, in the alternative, face certain death.

3:51Donald Trump:So, lay down your arms. You will be treated fairly with total immunity or you will face certain death. Finally, to the great, proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand. Stay sheltered. Don't leave your home. It's very dangerous outside. Bombs will be dropping everywhere. When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations. For many years, you have asked for America's help, but you never got it. No president was willing to do what I am willing to do tonight. Now you have a president who is giving you what you want.

4:37Donald Trump:So let's see how you respond. America is backing you with overwhelming strength and devastating force. Now is the time to seize control of your destiny and to unleash the prosperous and glorious future that is close within your reach. This is the moment for action. Do not let it pass. May God bless the brave men and women of America's armed forces. May God bless the United States of America. May God bless you all. Thank you. The last two minutes of that extraordinary statement from the president of the United States released on Truth Social early this morning, well before dawn. Our coverage spans the globe, and I'm going to bring in Dan Williams, Jerusalem-based correspondent for Bloomberg News, along with Jumaane Bersetje, the anchor of Horizons on Bloomberg Television, Joe Matthew, the anchor of Balance of Power, and Jeff Mason, White House correspondent with us on set here in New York.

5:28Donald Trump:Jumaane, we were just talking about your current circumstance, the fact that you've been hearing these strikes where you're sitting. I want to go to that entreaty from the president of the United States there at the end, urging Iranians to lay down their weapons. I should point out here, these are airstrikes. And one wonders what the logical next steps would be were one to do that on the ground in Iran. And I'm curious how you were thinking about that, the president calling for Iranians effectively to rise up, calling on the revolutionary guard.

5:52Evan Newmark:Offering immunity for those who do lay down their weapons.

5:55Donald Trump:But what mechanism is in place to do that? Talk about that challenge, if you would, Jumana, in these next few hours and days. Yeah, well, it's a huge challenge. And I think from what we can gather, just the retaliation that all of these Gulf states have seen and witnessed over the last few hours suggests that the Iranian regime isn't going to go down quietly. They've been readying themselves for the real possibility of military action. They have responded very quickly. Remember, in the 12-day Iran-Israel war, it took them a couple of days to calibrate their response. This time they were ready to go.

6:24Donald Trump:And they have targeted multiple countries. I will tell you, I'm sitting here in Dubai and 15 minutes ago, I heard a couple of blasts. And it seems as though they're not sparing any Gulf states insofar as the U.S. has assets in those countries. So we're talking about the UAE. We're talking about Qatar, Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Iraq. All of these countries are involved. So it has become a regional war. And what we know from authorities in all of these countries is that most of the missiles and drones have been intercepted. So there don't appear to be any civilian casualties from the strikes themselves.

7:03Donald Trump:There has been one casualty in Abu Dhabi on back of shrapnel. But that is the bigger issue here, because a short while ago it was reported that the foreign minister, Abbas Arraq, She actually did make a call to his counterparts in all those countries and warned them about them allowing the U.S. to use their bases to launch further strikes on Iran. So this would suggest that Iran are intent on retaliating. Now, when it comes to the demonstrators, I mean, you have to rewind back a month ago. There was an uprising, but it was brutally put down. And there are unofficial numbers that have come through.

7:39Donald Trump:We don't know the exact death toll, but the numbers put forward by human rights agencies suggest that 30 ,000 people, more than 30 ,000 people were killed in these demonstrations. So there is a wariness, I think, in Tehran amongst the population and a real question as to what exactly the U.S.'s assistance actually looks like and whether the focus here is to target, once again, military infrastructure, perhaps key individuals within the Iranian regime. But in terms of actual support on the ground, what does that look like? Because once again, the stakes are very high. And this is an Iranian regime we spoke about in the prior hour that is very intense on its own survival.

8:20Donald Trump:It's an existential threat to them.

8:23Evan Newmark:And they will not go down easily. And Iranian expats I've spoken to recently in the U.S. who despise this regime with every fiber of their being still have family in Tehran. I talked to a woman who said her family, she hadn't spoken to them in days during the last round of strikes because they had gone to the mountains to try to hide from these air assaults. So these are the people the Trump administration is trying to appeal to. But at the same time, these are the people who are being put in harm's way, as well as our colleagues and friends and other people throughout the region. Dan, I understand you are now outside and safe.

8:56Evan Newmark:I hope you've emerged from a shelter. I'm wondering if we're hearing any more from the Israeli government this morning, I reached out to the embassy here and they said they're not speaking yet. I'm wondering if you're hearing anything on your side of the world.

9:08Donald Trump:As of now, no, there have been procedural updates, for example, from the transportation minister about conditions at Israel's airports. The Israeli airspace is closed, as are the air spaces of other relevant countries in the region. That obviously will affect air traffic, travel, and the like. They've also been called to shelters very regularly, usually divvied up by sector, by city, by community, by part of the country. The Israelis have been weathered to such missile attacks going back all the way to 1991, the Gulf War. And over those three and a half decades, have been developing a very sophisticated system that really homes down to the areas likely to be affected by any specific launch.

9:53Donald Trump:So basically, if you are in the line of fire where you happen to live or potentially in the line of fire for debris that could emerge for an interception of a missile above where you are, a missile intended for another part of the country, you'll receive a timely warning to go down to shelters. That's happened already a half dozen times since this really blew up at just past 8am this morning, just past 10 in the Gulf. And we've been seeing that repeatedly, I think part of the reason the Iranians have succeeded apparently in scoring strikes in those Gulf targets, as Jumana alluded to, is it comes down as much to range as anything else.

10:32Donald Trump:Israel is well over a thousand kilometers away. Those Gulf targets are in some cases just a few hundred kilometers away from the Iranian launch points. That means there's far less time to prepare for those incoming missiles to intercept them to mount an interception. Obviously, when you're across the region, as Israel is, and Israel has a very sophisticated defense array system, then it's easier to track those missiles and see them coming. I expect after Prime Minister Netanyahu put out that recorded message, very close to President Trump's message, in fact, the content tracking almost exactly with what Trump said, the Israelis also calling on the Iranian people, Iranian people of all communities and sectors, to rise up and take hold of their destiny.

11:14Donald Trump:now that the Iranian government is apparently receiving a drubbing at the hands of the combined US and Israeli forces. We won't hear back from him until I think nightfall when the Jewish Sabbath ends here in Israel.

11:27Evan Newmark:That's a really good point, Dan. I mean, in June, during that 12-day back and forth, we did watch the Iron Dome very successfully intercept most of those munitions. There were a few that got through, but for the most part, what you were seeing watching those screens was actually the interceptors going out and taking on those. Iran clearly knew this was a possibility and recalculated what they would strike and when.

11:47Donald Trump:Joe Matthew, let me stick with this theme of surprise. And I know that you were listening as I was to Courtney Supermanian, who's with the White House pool at Mar-a-Lago, noting that she was as surprised as all of us by the presentation of that statement early in the morning. She saw it pop up online, as we all did. I'm curious about lawmakers and how surprised they were. I saw reporting earlier this morning from The New York Times that Jack Reed's communications director, Jack Reed, of course, the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, was given no advance notice of this. One wonders about the so-called Gang of Eight, the leadership from the House and the Senate, the leading members of the select intelligence committees as well.

12:19Donald Trump:Any indication if they were given any heads up here? We actually just have learned at Bloomberg News that the Gang of Eight did get a heads up on this, which did not happen, for instance, when the U.S. went into Venezuela to capture Nicolas Maduro. And there was a bit of outrage when Marco Rubio, at the time the Secretary of State, suggested that they couldn't trust members of Congress to not leak that information. And the gang of eight is quite well known for not doing that. These are the two party leaders in each chamber and leader and ranking member of both intel committees. That would include Mark Warner, who is out with a statement this morning demanding a war powers vote.

12:54Donald Trump:And it gets back to this idea of a prolonged engagement, which the president is clearly telegraphing. The Speaker of the House was also briefed, we understand. And I suspect that that came from the same place. Whether there's going to be a classified briefing for all members now will be the next question. And I suspect in the days ahead, they'll be demanding that.

13:11Evan Newmark:And Jeff, correct my memory, but I think that's a departure from when the U.S. struck Iran's nuclear facilities earlier in last year in the summer, because I remember hearing a lot of griping from Congress that members hadn't been notified. Maybe some Republicans had, but I don't think the full G8 was notified.

13:25Donald Trump:No, I think your memory is right on that. And just to sort of take a broader look or stand back, look at that, you heard the president use the language and use the word war. Well, Congress has the right to declare war. And that could be another major tension point politically in Washington, the fact that the president, though some lawmakers may have been given a heads up, he didn't go and ask permission. He didn't ask Congress to get behind this. He went ahead and did it. This is another example, I think, that some critics would say of the Congress, which, of course, is controlled by Republicans, giving up powers that the Constitution gives them to the executive.

14:02Donald Trump:That's been true with tariffs as well. This, of course, on a major foreign policy level.

14:07Evan Newmark:And debate about the War Powers Act is not exclusive to this president. This was an issue for Democratic presidents. This was an issue for Republicans. This has been, as long as we've covered Washington, this has been something Congress has complained about. But to me, the fact that usually when you hear presidents announce strikes like this, they dance around this specifically so they don't come into direct contact. What does it tell you about the power dynamic between Congress and this White House that the president is outright saying this is of war, it could be protracted, and there could be American casualties.

14:34Donald Trump:I think it's just another example of the strengthening of the executive that has happened under President Trump's second term. I mean, he has claimed powers in many ways that are not his. He has used executive orders to govern more so than legislation, which is not to downplay the legislative victories that he also had in terms of tax cuts. And that has been a tension point in Washington. It's been a tension point certainly with Democrats. The question is whether Republicans, as Joe was referencing earlier, are going to rise up against that as well. Certainly, I can guarantee you, if this were a Democratic president in office, they would not be standing for this.

15:11Donald Trump:But that has been a hallmark of the Republican response to President Trump's second term is that they don't stand up. So will this be a line that they feel he's crossed? TBD. Jumana, you heard Dan talking about the alignment in those statements between Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Trump. I want to ask you about how effectively Gulf leaders have been able to make their case to President Trump in the run-up to all of this. We saw that inaugural meeting of the Board of Peace in Washington, D.C. Many Gulf leaders party to that and were present for that first meeting. I guess there is some inherent ineffectiveness here, but what is that level of communication, the quality of that communication like between Gulf leaders and the president right now?

15:52Donald Trump:I mean, you've got to be thinking that working on the channels, we just got a statement put out by the Saudi Arabian foreign ministry calling for an immediate de-escalation, saying that they stand in unity with their Gulf allies in the region, the ones who had been targeted. And for Gulf states, look, this is of utmost priority. The escalation is of utmost priority. And I think, you know, when it comes to the relationship with Iran, I wouldn't say that there's a huge amount of love lost between many of these Gulf nations and the Iranian regime. But that being said, for them, what is more important in the region, in the context of their own economic visions, because many of these countries are undergoing economic transformation, is political stability.

16:37Donald Trump:And that has been a consistent theme. If you speak to the leaders in these various Gulf states, they will tell you that they don't want this crisis to spiral out of control. And the viewers may recall that a couple of years ago, 2023, there was actually a mediation that was brokered by China between Saudi Arabia and Iran to sort of restore diplomatic relationships or both sides pledged non-interference in each other's affairs. And that was a big step. It was a big milestone in the region. Because you may also recall that in prior incidents, Saudi Aramco facilities in Abqai were also subject to retaliation from Iran.

17:18Donald Trump:So this time around, they've been working very aggressively the last couple of years to ensure that those type of strikes don't happen again. And yet here we are on a day like today where every single U.S.-based military base, or not every single, but every single country that is hosting a U.S.-based has been targeted with the Iranian retaliation. So they would be looking upon this with a lot of consternation, concern about what happens next, obviously pushing for a big de-escalation here, working those diplomatic channels. But it's unlikely at this point that things can calm down or de-escalate, because the messaging that's come through, at least from the Israeli side, is that this is an operation that's going to go on for days.

18:04Donald Trump:And as long as that happens, you would think that also the Gulf states and their assets, the U.S. assets in the region, will continue to be targets.

18:12Evan Newmark:I also wanted to update our audience. Courtney Supermanyan, our White House correspondent in Mar-a-Lago with the president, updates us and confirms that we are not expected to get further remarks from President Trump today. Dan, I want to go to you and ask about President Trump and the relationship between him and Benjamin Netanyahu. This has been two leaders who were very close and then had a bit of a tiff. The bromance seemed to be over, and then it has reignited in recent months. The prime minister was recently at the White House, and sources were telling me Israeli officials were coming out of that meeting.

18:45Evan Newmark:The word they used was giddy. Flash forward a few weeks later, and we have this joint strike on Iran. Talk to us about that relationship and how much influence you think Netanyahu has over President Trump when it comes to taking action in Iran.