Houthis Reject Trump’s Claims as Attacks on Saudi Arabia Escalate (with Hussain Albukhaiti)

0:00Ben Meiselas:Donald Trump got a rude awakening, not just from Iran, but also from the Houthis. Donald Trump called into NewsNation and said the following, Well, we are talking to the Houthis also, and they would also like to see if we can make a deal. That was in response to questioning by Robert Sherman of NewsNation, who said, On the Houthis, what have those conversations been like, and have there been any agreements reached? That's when Donald Trump said they want to do a deal. Well, the Houthis have responded and the Houthis are saying Donald Trump is an absolute fool. We're not talking to him and we just view him as an absolute clown right now.

0:41Ben Meiselas:That's how we see the United States under Donald Trump. Donald Trump also in this interview with Robert Sherman from News Nation when asked, so what are you looking to see from Iran on this decision, whether you're going to annihilate them or not? because Trump called Barack Ravid, his personal stenographer over at Axios and said, I think I'm gonna annihilate them, but we'll see. It's my decision. Sometimes I just decide this or that. Well, we'll see ultimately what I do. Donald Trump said, well, we're gonna see what happens. Right now, they wanna make a deal. And if the deal's not a correct deal, then I wouldn't even think about it.

1:15Ben Meiselas:But right now, they wanna make a deal because they're losing in every way. They're losing financially. They're losing militarily. They're losing every single way. So, yeah, we're going to see what happens now. Meanwhile, the Houthis are responding with their actions, and the Houthis launched their largest wave of missile and drone attacks yet, targeting multiple areas across Saudi Arabia in the past 12 to 24 hours. Saudi civil defense issued alerts for Jeddah, ABBA, Alula, Jazan, Yanbu, Kamis Mousheh, a Taif, and for the first time, the Far-Sun Islands also. We heard the air sirens go up over Riyadh.

1:59Ben Meiselas:That's right, Riyadh, and there's footage of explosions that can be heard right in Riyadh. I'll show you what happened as you have the Houthis, or Ansarala as they're called in the region, launch ballistic missile attacks, apparently targeting King Solomon Air Base nearby, and you can hear the explosions right by Riyadh. Here, play this clip.

2:30Whoa!

2:37Ben Meiselas:And you can see right here an Ansar Allah, Houthi, ballistic missile seen over Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia and it looks like it was able to maneuver around the interceptors that Saudi Arabia had. You can see for yourself. Let's play it.

3:00Ben Meiselas:This one account notes Al-Kharsh having air sirens alerting the people. It's most interesting if they hit nearby as well because Prince Sultan Air Base is nearby. Also, you have a Riyadh refinery right there. It should also be noted that the east-west pipeline, as we've discussed before in Saudi Arabia, has been hit pretty hard. A number of power stations there have been destroyed. And so Saudi Arabia made a formal announcement to European refiners that there will be no crude oil delivered to European refiners next month after a drone attack shut down the east-west pipeline. And we were expecting that announcement.

3:44Ben Meiselas:We had been reporting on it for quite some time. And that announcement was now made official. You take a look at what's going on in Sanaa right now, which is the capital of the Houthi Ansarala-controlled area of Yemen. And you can see for yourself, I mean, look at these large crowd gatherings that take place. This takes place every Friday. You can see for yourself just the the mass mobilization that exists. I'll show you this. Let's play it.

4:23Ben Meiselas:Another angle of this mass mobilization right over here in Sana. You can see over here what that looks like. Let's play it.

4:37Ben Meiselas:You know, and now I want to get an understanding of how people in Sanaa are perceiving Donald Trump constantly saying the Houthis want to do a deal with me, the Houthis want to do a deal with me. It's going to be a great deal. That's what he says. So why don't we talk to people from Sanaa? How about that? Want to bring in now Hussein Al-Bukhati. He is a pro-Houthi journalist. He is inside Sanaa. He has family members. His brother is in the political bureau as well, who's high up in the ranks of Ansarala right there. And so he speaks with the leadership over there. And so I'm curious, when Donald Trump makes these statements, what are actually people in leadership positions in the Houthis saying?

5:24Ben Meiselas:So why don't we ask, Why don't we see how they perceive Donald Trump? How do they perceive Trump's war in Iran with Netanyahu? How do they perceive it? What's the response? So bring in the interview I just did with Hussein al-Bukhati. He's in Sanaa right now. Let's bring him in. Now I want to bring on Hussein al-Bukhati, a reporter from Sanaa, pro-Houthi reporter. You're in Sanaa right now. You know what's going on in the area. And so I want to bring a perspective from you about what you're hearing. Obviously, and Sanaa will get into a bunch of stuff here. But, you know, Donald Trump announced on Friday, he went on a show here and said that very close to doing a deal with the Houthis.

6:10Ben Meiselas:And he says he was asked about it. We're talking with them. We're very close to doing a deal. You know, this is something that you probably have heard him say about Iran a number of times. deal, deal here, deal there, deal there. So I'm just genuinely curious. I mean, you're there, you're speaking with leadership. You know the people who are in the political bureau there. Do you know what's going on? I mean, I think it's just a big lie. Trump has been known for lying since he took office. He keep lying till today that he stopped eight wars. I mean, I still have searched everything. I don't know which war has stopped.

6:55It started actually wars. But regarding this issue, I mean, it has started maybe a few days ago because of the attack against Saudi Arabia. Everyone was asking why SANA 4.0 as they call them Ansar Ladhouti are not targeting US ship because they were clear when they were when they when they attacked Saudi ship when they started after they broke the ceasefire and targets and airport. They say that this blockade is only against Saudi ships. And when they arrived and liberate Bab al-Mandeb straight near Moka, they said as well. Exactly. This blockade is only against Saudi ship because all the countries and Saudi media has been saying that they will threaten the shipping.

7:41So why those statements that come from from Trump? because the media Saudi back media and some international media, they always asking why why are you not targeting United States ships. So Trump wants to kind of take advantage of that questions like to show that we are in talk with the Houthi as they said that the Houthi have contacted us and they requested us they do want a war and they ask us they do want to get to get us involved because they know what I did before and as well this latest statement from him. I mean, what kind of talk will we have with the United States at this time if we do have a war with it?

8:23What kind of talk or reach that we are as Ansarullah or as Yemen will try to reach Donald Trump if we have said from the beginning that the only Saudi ship is blocked from Yemen. So this means that Britain can say as well that they are not targeting our ship. We have an agreement with them. Any other country. We said only the Saudi ship. So this is actually all, all, all lies. And to prove that we remember that when Trump had launched the attack against Yemen, when he continued the Biden, he said in the truth, social media that we will do during the prosperity guardian and Yemeni blocking the Red Sea in front of the Israel because of the genocide in Gaza.

9:04He said in a tweet, in a truth media, said that we are hitting the Houthis really bad and we like badly and we will continue until they stop attacking our ship and Israeli ship, even though we only target United States ship because of the prosperity guardian attack against Yemen.

9:22Ben Meiselas:Let me ask you this, Hussein. From our view over here, are you and our people there following the developments in the United States, you know, when he's out there saying these things, you know, like there's this deal and that, you know, here's what I'm, you know, I mean, I think in addition in the past 24 hours, he said, you know, I'm thinking about whether or not we're going to annihilate Iran or not, you know, and things like that. I mean, are you all seeing that? And how is that being, you know, just discussed there. I mean, I think it's just a, from an interesting standpoint, just to think, how is that impacting behavior where you are in Sanaa?

10:08Yeah, I mean, just we look at him here in Sanaa and maybe in all Yemen as like someone who's a fool, who doesn't want, who doesn't know what to say. He doesn't know what not to say. He just like what comes to his mouth, he will just say it and is actually making the reputation of the United States as one of the country that's considered the free world, making it bad. And if here, I mean, if somebody will, will, will, will break an agreement or a word with someone we call we call him Trump. So he's someone who just like the media, he doesn't care about the area we are living in. We remember his speech.

10:58When he got in the White House, he spoke about peace. We don't want to get United States involved. We don't want to do that. We don't was actually I when I heard it, I said that this is actually a fine make America great again. We thought how to make America again great is not to get involved. And that's why the people in the United States are against him. But for us, it affects us. It affects our life, it affects our country because all this war is actually destroying our region. All United States involvement is making us fighting each other. All United States intervention in the region is helping Saudi Arabia to target us, to kill us, to have a blockade.

11:39United States during Obama have sold the largest deals with Saudi Arabia during the war against Yemen weapons deal during Obama and they give him the peace Nobel Prize. But in America and in the West or in the United States, the only effect that the people will feel of Trump and his crazy movement and politics in our country is that they will see that the gas price has increased maybe 5%, 10%.

12:08Ben Meiselas:And you all are very familiar with those numbers. I mean, and so when we take a look, though, at the way Trump conducted the war in Iran, you, people in the Houthi leadership, I'm sure, observed the way the war was handled. and you probably hear the statements coming out from Trump about the U.S. won and Iran doesn't have a navy and Iran's out of missiles and Iran is, you know, begging, begging for a deal. And so was there anything from the perspective of the Houthis that was surprising about how Trump actually conducted operationally the war in Iran and how Iran responded to the war? What do you think here?

13:08I mean, he done it really miserably. I mean, he targeted Iran. He didn't thought of the strength of Iran, which was the Strait of Hormuz. Iran has never, ever used it. I mean, if I was him when I targeted Iran, but he thought Israel targeted Iran for 12 days. Iran hasn't done that. It's the opposite because United States have all the bases. So he should have thought as well, where Iran going to retaliate. They do have missile to the United States. I mean, a child will know that they will retaliate against your bases. They will target your bases there. They will destroy the economy and this will affect your economy as well in the United state and you promised for peace and for for for for all of that so uh to to go and launch that huge war and that a huge attack that could actually cripple iran killing their supreme leader so you should expect all type of retaliation but the thing that's actually uh make me think i mean And does Trump, of course, you have military advisors, you have people not talking about the Minister of Defense because he's just another copy of Trump.

14:24I'm talking about the commander of the aircraft carrier, the commander of the districts of the United States Army. Wasn't there anyone who's wise who will tell him this is actually will make us fail. This will damage our reputation. You can see now that the United States reputation as one of the strongest power, it was even damaged by Yemenis in the Red Sea. It shows that those aircraft carrier has become a liability for the United States. They try always to keep protecting them because no one has ever dared to target them. So as well their bases have damaged the reputation of the United States as they can protect those countries in the region.

15:06They couldn't protect Saudi Arabia. They couldn't protect their own base. So this actually will have a huge impact on the United States existing and present in all the entire region or maybe in the entire world.

15:19Ben Meiselas:Hussein, did that surprise you about, I mean, the U.S., I talk about it or sometimes people talk about it in these geopolitical terms, which sometimes are obviously disconnected to what people are actually feeling in a place like Sanaa. But we talk about the U.S. security umbrella, and I'm using that terminology to say, you know, the U.S. had all of these bases in the Middle East. And regardless of what you would think about U.S. policy going back, the idea of U.S. being strong and projecting strength, I think exists. I don't want to put my biases, but the idea, I think I'm hearing you saying, you know, they still had a reputation of being strong, you know, and a reputation of, and what you seem to be saying is how you and others in the Houthis are seeing it, though, is that that reputation, which of, you know, which we can talk about policy, but there's a whole history there that, but, but the reputation.

16:28Ben Meiselas:when you see these bases that are being hit and not being defended, and you see the issue about what's being reported with interceptors, it almost sounds like you're saying it almost surprised you as well, which is like, really? Talk to us about that. I don't want to put words here. I mean, this is actually what's happening. As United States reputation as like a powerful country that it protects, its allies, it will make safe guard them all that when it was happening is because you know, United States war were against for example, Iraq was weak at the time targeting Libya, which is what after the revolution.

17:15So there wasn't an army that will face him or someone that will that will show the real into the United States since after the war of Vietnam. So and as well. So what I think it started from Yemen, that prosperity guardian, as I said, this partnership has become a liability. And for Iran now we've seen that United States as well, it lost its reputation as a like a human rights guardian, a guardian and a guardian and a freedom guardian, because we see all the country that tonight state supporting in the region, our dictatorship and as well what's happening in Palestine, the genocide and the full support from from United States.

18:02All that actually have damaged the United States reputation. And finally, it's Trump and his war against against Iran. And what I think I was speaking as an example with my brother, Muhammad, he's a member of the political bureau of Ansarullah political bureau. And as well, he's the governor of of the Mar province out of Sana 'a. I asked him about the reputation of the United States, especially after what we did in the Persian Gulf. He is the one who said he said their ship has become a liability when I when I told him that uh united states will be sending their battleship and their aircraft carrier to protect israel and to stop our attack against israeli ships what he said he said is good it's good that they will bring their aircraft carrier i said why he said because we don't have missiles to reach the united states it's far away i mean i don't know i mean we might not never have so he We say they are bringing us target.

19:06They are bringing us target. And after that fight and after Yemen has successfully like made Trump to stop attacking Yemen and Yemen stopped attacking, uh, um, United States Trump have said that we, we agreed that they will stop attacking our ship and we will stop attacking them. And he forgot to tell you about the start of the war. He said he want to ask to stop attacking the ships of their allies. He means that's right. So my brother have said clearly and I'm quoting him after after after that he said now just look what China now is thinking regarding Trump and the reputation of the United States.

19:45He said I'm sure that they are saying Taiwan it will be something simple. If the Hosey have done that in the Red Sea and those people who are wearing sandals and And they have missiles that we have much, much better than them. So Taiwan will be to take over it. It will be easy and simple. So this is actually just imagine what they are thinking as well now after the war against Iran. So this is one of the most, I think the biggest mistake that the United States have done in their military history.

20:22Ben Meiselas:Do you think that the, or from your conversations, not what you think. I mean, you speak with people who are in the political bureau has what took place in the U.S. war on Iran, U.S. and Netanyahu's war in Iran. Has that increased the confidence of the Houthis vis-a-vis Saudi Arabia and the Saudi Arabia proxies in Yemen? Does it make the Houthis think, well, look, if Iran was able to do that to the United States, Saudi Arabia gets its weapons from the United States, and we, the Houthis, were able to stand up to the United States. states, we're going against Saudi Arabia, and Saudi Arabia depends on the United States.

21:10Ben Meiselas:Does that factor into the equation? Yeah, yeah. I mean, this actually helped Ansar al-Dahouthi in Yemen after the prosperity guardian and outrun the left Israel to protect ships from attack, getting attacked. But after that, we continued to target Israel. It kind of kind like kind of a good reputation for for inside Yemen. Because at that time people knew that we shouldn't be afraid with the United States. We should from the United States, we shouldn't be choosing the side that is like an ally to the United States. We should choose the other side because it show us how the United States actually cannot and is not able to conduct war like they they used to do before and this is this is as well has given the people in the entire region as we say here that if you if you you are naked if you think that you are covered by the United States like the United States giving you an umbrella you you still naked that umbrella will not cover anything.

22:24This actually happened after the war and prosperity guiding against Yemen and as well against against Iran and trying to set the entire region in a war. That is and is not the United States war is Israel war. So and to go and take all your country and reputation of your country just to help a foreign country that has the one who was attacked Iran is actually is good for us. I can tell you.

22:54Ben Meiselas:Let me ask you this before we go. Do you think Ansarallah will now be moving more east? We obviously know the west is now fully under control. Do you expect to move east towards, you know, east of Sanaa towards, you know, Mareeb? We've seen some images of that or even east towards Aden or do you think at this point Houthis are saying, look, we've got control over the Red Sea and that's really the prime real estate here. Do we need to go east? I know there was discussion about that previously, but what can you share about that? Yeah, I mean, of course, I think now the other goal is to liberate Marib.

23:40Marib is east of Sana 'a is where the it has four 14 districts or as we call them directories divided to 12 areas. The entire Marib province was under the control of Yemeni art force in Sana 'a is 12 director in 12 areas. What's left is Marib city itself. It's called Marib directory or Marib district, the city and as well the district of the Wadi or what they call them the Sahara. So it's only mainly the city and now the Yemeni Art Forces have been advancing in the last few days. And they are kind of around Marib from the east, from the west, under their control, Marib city, west of Marib, north of Marib, south of Marib.

24:30and now they are advancing as well kind of to close the there is only one road that connects marriage toward uh uh dromota towards saudi arabia so i believe this the target and what they're always strategy is not to close the road this is exactly what they did in mocha to keep the people if they want to leave especially the military personnel so yeah the the uh leader of As they call in the Hodi have said many times after this war, after we have sealed and liberated the coast that Yemeni will liberate the entire country and our demand now is different than our demand when we were begging the Saudis before they break ceasefire to lift the blockade, to allow food and medicine to enter, to stop taking Yemeni money to spend that money on Yemeni people.

25:19Now the demand is a total liberation. And leader of Antwan Allah said yesterday he said about this demand, he said the first one Saudi left or the entire blockade against Yemen to stop all the aggression or all kinds of aggression. Third is to stop interfering in Yemen and the total withdrawal for Saudi and their forces from Yemen and to stop supporting any groups in Yemen. If those demands are not met, Yemeni army will conduct and continue attacking against Saudi Arabia. and I just have this breaking news that there are the siren has been gunned for the second time in Yanbu 'a, in Saudi Arabia, and as well in Jayzan and in Abha.

26:01And the first one was in Hamis Moshayt. So there should be that the huge attack against Saudi, a main air base in Hamis Moshayt and as well on Saudi, maybe oil infrastructure and Aramco and as well Saudi have asked mediator. It could be the Omanis because they want to know the fate or what you call those two pilots who were in the F-15 that was shut down. Saudi are now having mediator asking Ansar al-Adhuti about them. This means that they are either in the hand of Ansar al-Allah, either are alive or dead, they are not in the hands of Saudi Arabia.

26:44Ben Meiselas:And yeah, we've seen, we've been following those strikes on Iambu, on Abqaiq, on the East-West Pipeline. We've seen those power stations. And so we're going to keep on reporting on this. We're going to keep on talking about this. We'll see the developments as they occur. And you brought us some of that breaking news. So let's pause here. Let's bring, you know, let's see where things develop. up, if there's going to be a mediation. And I just thought, you know, to get the, I cover what's happening. And so to hear you who speaks with leadership, you have family and leadership. And so thank you for sharing your perspective on what's happening.

27:23Ben Meiselas:And Hussein Al-Bukhati reporting from Sana. Thank you, Hussein. Thank you for having me. Thank you. Before you go, our book, WTF America, is available for pre-order now. It's the story of how we got here and how we fight our way back. To pre-order, scan the QR code or click the link in the description. Let's do this.