Iran Vows Revenge; Trump Says War May End Soon

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1:22And when you're a Sinesta Travel Pass member, staying at America's Best Value In means earning points toward free nights, upgrades, and more every time you stay. Go to Sonesta.com to book your stay and unlock the best rates with Sonesta Travel Pass. Here today, Rome tomorrow. Join now at Sonesta.com. Terms and conditions apply. Bloomberg Audio Studios. Podcasts. Radio. News. Good morning. I'm Karen Moscow. And I'm John Tucker. Here are the stories we're following today. Well, John, the fighting continues as the war enters day 19. U.S. and Israel are continuing their attacks on Iran while Iran is striking back on Israel and Arab states in the Persian Gulf.

2:07This comes as President Trump abandons his efforts to recruit partners for the war. The president scolded his NATO allies for their lack of military support to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. So I think NATO is making a very foolish mistake. And I've long said that, I wonder whether or not NATO would ever be there for us. So this was a great test because we don't need them, but they should have been there. The other thing is, and I think very important, we didn't have to be there for Ukraine. And most countries showed little willingness to join the mission, which military analysts say would be risky without a ceasefire.

2:49Stuart Livingstone Wallace heads Bloomberg's Middle East coverage. I mean, I think he's pulled back because he asked and no one answered. You know, at best he sort of got non-commissional responses and, you know, at worst he got flat refusals. And I think, you know, part of that is twofold. Number one, the people that he's called on to come help are largely from institutions like NATO that he's sort of been quite disparaging about at late. Or it's been international allies that he's imposed huge tariffs on. And Bloomberg's Stuart Livingstone Wallace says more than 4 ,000 people have died in the war.

3:23And Israel has killed Ali Larajani, Iran's top security official, leaving the Islamic regime's leadership increasingly filled with hardliners. Larajani was seen by foreign diplomats as somebody who could be a conduit for talks. In a news conference, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced the killing. This morning, we eliminated Ali Larajani. He was the boss of the Revolutionary Guards, which is the gang of gangsters that runs Iran. We also eliminated the commander of the Basij. These are the gangsters' assistants who spread terror on the streets against the population. Israel's Prime Minister Netanyahu speaking through an interpreter.

4:00Iran's military vowed to avenge the killing of Larijani. Well, John, a top U.S. counterterrorism official has resigned. Joe Kent says he cannot in good conscience back the Trump administration's war. Ken said Iran posed no imminent threat, and he said the U.S. started the war because of pressure from Israel, and President Trump spoke about the resignation. I always thought he was a nice guy, but I always thought he was weak on security, very weak on security. I didn't know him well, but I thought he seemed like a pretty nice guy. But when I read his statement, I realized that it's a good thing that he's out, because he said that Iran was not a threat.

4:42Iran was a threat every country. And 13 months ago, President Trump praised Kent, former Green Beret, who was deployed in Iraq as he nominated him to join the administration. And oil dropping this morning. Right now, Brent is down 31 cents at 103.10 a barrel. Iraq signed a deal to resume exports through Turkey that avoid the Strait of Hormuz. Let's get more from Bloomberg Middle East. Energy reporter Anthony DiPaolo. In this situation, any additional supply is going to be helpful. And so that will be added oil coming out of the north of Iraq from some of its northern fields as well as from the Kurdish region there.

5:23You know, that's not going to be enough to redress the loss of oil that we've seen because of the Strait of Hormuz is closed. Bloomberg's Anthony DePaulo says Brent crude has rallied almost 70 percent this year with the bulk of that surge following the initial U.S. and Israeli attack against Iran late last month. Well, John, on the backdrop of the war in the Middle East, Federal Reserve officials make a policy decision today and make it a preview with Bloomberg's Michael McKee. What once was seen as a key Fed meeting has now been eclipsed by the Trump war on Iran. A divided Fed would have considered whether weak employment could justify another rate cut.

6:02Instead, uncertainty about the impact of higher oil and materials prices because of the war will certainly keep the central bank sidelined. The real news will be if the uncertainty leads to the Fed dropping the possibility of any rate cuts this year in their latest dot plot, and whether Fed Chair Jay Powell puts the emphasis on unemployment or inflation in his post-meeting news conference, or just says it's too uncertain to even guess. Michael McKee, Bloomberg Radio. All right, thanks, Mike. And let's turn to politics here in the states in the primary elections in the state of Illinois. The Lieutenant Governor, Juliana Stratton, has won yesterday's Democratic primary to run for Senator Dick Durbin's seat following a heated race with other members of her party, Congress members Raja Krishnamoorthy and Robin Kelly.

6:53Courage inspired me to run. Courage powered this campaign. And courage will bring this fight straight to Donald Trump's door. And with more than 80 % of the ballots counted, Stratton received 40%, while Krishnamoorthy took 33%. Kelly trailed with 18%. Stratton advances to a November general election against the Republican nominee. Don Tracy, the former state party chair. Durbin is retiring after 40 years in Congress, 29 of them in the U.S. Senate. Well, elsewhere in the stage, John, Jesse Jackson Jr., son of the late civil rights leader, fell short in his campaign to get reelected to Congress in a race marked by heavy spending by both artificial intelligence and pro-Israel interest groups.

7:40When nearly 70 percent of the ballots counted in Illinois' second congressional district, Cook County Commissioner Donna Miller had 41 % of the vote compared to 28 % for Jackson. And in other news this morning, Karen, Oaktree Capital Management co-founder Howard Marks says artificial intelligence is making the world more unpredictable than ever before. As heard right here on Bloomberg Radio, Marks spoke with our Lisa Abramowitz at the Capital Markets Industry Conference in New York. Well, I think most people are underestimating the impact of AI. Roughly 18 days ago on a Friday that a company called Block, which had 10 ,000 employees, announced that 4 ,000 of them were out.

8:1840 % of the workforce gone in one day because AI could do the work cheaper and faster. You can catch the full interview with Oak Tree Capital Management co-founder Howard Marks at our new video experience on the Bloomberg Business app. And a programming note, markets may close on Friday, but the world doesn't. And that's why we are bringing you a new live radio and TV show. Bloomberg This Weekend is looking beyond the daily headlines to the bigger themes driving politics, business, and culture. Join David Gurra, Christina Ruffini, and Laysa Matteo for smart conversations and in-depth interviews that help make sense of the week that's been and what comes next.

8:55Get Bloomberg This Weekend Live Saturdays and Sundays from 7 a.m. Eastern on Bloomberg Radio, TV, and the Bloomberg Business App. All right, thanks, Karen. And that brings us to 508. Time now for a look at some of the other stories making news in New York and around the world. And for that, we're joined by Bloomberg's Michael Barr. Michael, good morning. Good morning, John. Debate is underway on the Senate floor on the Save America Act. The bill, a top priority for President Trump, would require Americans to prove that they are U.S. citizens before they register to vote and to show identification at the polls, among other things.

9:31It's something Republican Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming supports. All these other things, photo IDs protect against voter fraud, and they prevent illegal immigrants from voting. But Democrats say it will make it more difficult for millions of Americans to vote. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York says Democrats would not allow the bill to pass the chamber. The SAVE Act is not about voter identification. It's about voter suppression. This debate could last at least a week. Changes are coming to airports, large and small, amid the shortage of TSA workers. At Philadelphia Airport, more terminals are being forced to close starting today as the partial government shutdown drags on.

10:15Several more security checkpoints will be off-limits temporarily. Gina Tidwell of the AAA. It is frustrating, but get there early. We always stay two hours before a domestic flight, three hours before an international flight. Now it's even more than that. Antoinette Wade has been a TSA agent for 18 years. She says her husband is also an agent, so neither of them are bringing home a paycheck right now. It's just unreasonable to expect anybody to continue to go to work for such long periods of time without receiving any pay. Other agents have taken on second jobs. Some have called out sick to work and some have even quit.

10:56New York City's congestion pricing toll is helping to boost subway ridership, with more drivers taking to subways for work and discretionary travel. That's according to the Transit Riders Group, the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee. The report for the MTA says ridership on the subway system reached$1.28 billion last year. That's a 7.7 % increase from a year earlier. Global News 24 hours a day. And whenever you want it with Bloomberg News Now, I'm Michael Barr and this is Bloomberg. Thanks, Michael. Time now for our Bloomberg Sports Update. And for that, we bring in Dan Schwarzman. Venezuela stunned the U.S.

11:333-2 to win the World Baseball Classic as Eugenio Suarez doubled off of Garrett Whitlock in the top of the ninth inning to break a two-all tie. Eduardo Rodriguez held the U.S. to just one hit over four in the third innings. March Madness officially getting underway last night with the first two first-four matchups as Howard got by UMBC 86-83, while Texas slipped past NC State 68-66. Tonight, Prairie View A &M takes on Lehigh, while SMU faces Miami of Ohio. The WNBA and its players' union have reached a verbal agreement on the terms of a new collective bargaining agreement pending approval from the league's board of governors and players.

12:07The deal is expected to greatly increase salaries with a chance the league will see its first million dollar per year players. That's your Bloomberg Sports Update. Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Daybreak coming up after this.

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16:12fresh waves of missile and drone attacks on Israel and Arab states in the Persian Gulf. And this is President Trump says the U.S. could end the war with the Islamic Republic in the near future. We want to get the very latest. We're bringing in Patrick Sykes, Bloomberg's Middle East breaking news editor. Patrick, good morning. Thanks for being here. Why don't you start out by bringing us up to date on this latest round of attacks from Iran? Yeah, we've just in the past few hours seen attacks made or intercepted in Israel, the UAE, Saudi, and Kuwait. And as you mentioned, the main development overnight was the killing, the confirmation of the killing of Ali Larijani.

16:52This was the top security official in Iran, the head of the National Security Council. He was really important because he was seen as a key figure that could balance all parts of the Islamic Republic, you know, from the so-called principalists on the more extreme end of the spectrum to those more pragmatic and who might be more willing to speak to the U.S. to de-escalate. So his removal from the scene in that Israeli attack, I think it makes the chances of a Venezuela-type scenario even less likely, basically. Yeah, it does. So what happens to the exit strategy then? Is the president being optimistic and saying, hey, this could end soon?

17:37Yeah, it feels like both sides are rhetorically at least trying to lay the ground for a climb down for an off-ramp from Trump. We have statements like that, that the war's already won, that it was over in the first 24 hours. From Iran, we had an interesting line the other day from the foreign minister saying that he thinks that the U.S. has learned its lesson. That's really important for Tehran because they basically want to make sure, however this war ends, it's not in such a way that it's going to be repeated in another six months, because they've now had two rounds of talks that have twice been torn up by the emergence of hostilities, first in June and now in February.

18:21So, I mean, both sides still definitely in the fight, but we do see signs, rhetorically at least, of a search for an off-ramp. Interestingly enough, we heard from an official at the UAE saying that Iran is really miscalculating by firing upon Arab states in the Gulf, and it's only going to drive them closer to Israel and the U.S. Are we starting to see more of a shift in dynamics then? I think that makes sense, right? For those GCC countries in the Gulf, they had tried very hard to mend ties with Iran, which had been very frosty in the recent past. And that had paid dividends. You know, Israel had emerged as the biggest threat in the eyes of many in the region, while Iran had been weakened comparatively.

19:07Now, with these attacks on their energy infrastructure, on civilian infrastructure, So with the damage to that reputation of safety that they've worked a long time to build and preserve, all of that is at risk. And it's definitely going to make for a completely different dynamic, you know, however the war ends. Because these countries are going to have to remain neighbors with Iran. But they'll want it to end in such a way that they likewise don't see this repeated in the next six months. And, of course, there is the future of the Strait of Hormuz with about 30 seconds. the Speaker of Iran's parliament saying the straits not going to return to its pre-war status.

19:44So what's that going to mean for the future? Yeah. And interestingly linked to that, the foreign minister just earlier today said that he was calling for new arrangements to govern transit after the war. So there's this sense emerging from the Iranian side that even if there's peace tomorrow, even if there's peace in a week, two weeks, it's not going to be business as usual in terms of how transit was governed until the war, that it sounds like Iran is still going to want to exert some kind of control over which ships can come, when they can come, and the pace at which they can come. This is Bloomberg Daybreak, your morning podcast on the stories making news from Wall Street to Washington and beyond.

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21:07I'm Karen Moscow. I'm John Tucker. Join us again tomorrow morning for all the news you need to start your day right here on Bloomberg Day Break. For many men, mental health challenges aren't recognized until they've already taken a toll. Work pressure, financial stress, changing relationships, and traditional expectations around masculinity can quietly wear men down, often without clear warning signs. In Season 3 of The Visibility Gap, Dr. Guy Winch and his guests explore how these pressures show up, how to spot them earlier, and how men can access meaningful support. Listen to the new season of The Visibility Gap, a podcast presented by Cigna Healthcare.

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