Morning Joe - David Ignatius: Trump doesn’t have anybody he can settle this war with yet

Episode Date: March 10, 2026

David Ignatius: Trump doesn’t have anybody he can settle this war with yet To listen to this show and other MS podcasts without ads, sign up for MS NOW Premium on Apple Podcasts. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

On Iran, you called it an excursion. You said it would be over soon. Are you thinking this week it will be over? No, but sure. I think so. Okay, and with respect to the way. Very soon. Look, everything they have is gone, including their leadership.

In fact, there are two levels of leadership, and even actually, as it turns out, more than that. But two levels of leadership are gone. Most people have never even heard about the leaders that they're talking about. So it's obviously been very powerful, very effective. That was presidential yesterday. Hello, Joe, telling reporters the war with Iran could end soon while touting the success of the U.S. military. But during that news conference, he gave conflicting statements about the future of the conflict that do not align with messaging from his administration. That's just one of the several angles we'll following this morning, including new reporting that the president would support the killing of Iran's new leader.

if he doesn't agree to the administration's demands, plus the dramatic impact on the global economy, with oil prices spiking at one point yesterday to the highest level in four years. And the growing questions, Joe, about the deadly strike on an elementary school in Iran. Your thoughts? Well, I mean, you know, we're different from other countries. We're supposed to be different from other countries. When we make horrible mistakes in warfare, we admit it. need to admit it. And this is a situation where it certainly looks like all the evidence suggests

that it was an American-Tamahawk missile. Iranians don't have it as far as I'm, as far as anything I've ever read. And so, yeah, we were, we were aiming at a naval base. There was tragically a school nearby there, and that missile got guided in. And the intel must have had that as one of the four buildings in the naval base area. So, Again, it seems really obvious that that was a terrible, terrible, tragic mistake. And we are Americans. We need to admit those terrible, terrible mistakes. Regarding confusion yesterday, you know, Willie, everybody's so confused by what Donald Trump's saying, oh, one second he's saying, we're staying there for the long run.

You know, he's not going to telegraph exactly what he does. I'm still stuck on what he said to me a couple of Fridays ago, which was it's going to be a really interesting two weeks. And he said that repeatedly on the Friday before those strikes. Now, I'm not really great in math, but that time frame that he talked about repeatedly to me on the phone would end this Friday. I don't think it's going to be that neat. But at the same time, if Donald Trump is saying everything under the sun to either confuse. the Iranians or to confuse his political adversaries. That's not much of a surprise. That said, it's interesting yesterday. He says, oh, well, this is going to be pretty short. Tell CBS News.

It's going to shorten it up. And that's when the markets were collapsing. Oil was over 100. And it's almost like he was going downhill too fast. The markets were going, and he just pumped on the brakes. Oh, no, no, we're going to end this soon. What did the markets do? they immediately reversed. And in fact, I was out of the ballgame. And I looked at the stocks and saw everything turned. And we called Jesse Rodriguez. I go, Jesse, what just happened?

He goes, what do you mean? I got the market. It's like oil went from being 10% up to 5% down. I said, oh, Donald Trump just told CBS was going to be a shorter war. And then he went and told the Republicans something else. And then he told the Republicans something, you know, I think right now it's pumping the brakes yesterday when oil was exploding and trying to send the message that this war is not going to drag on and on, even if in the next breath he's saying this war is going to drag on and on. Well, yeah, and the messaging is conflicting not just within the president's own message, but within the administration, because he had President Trump saying that the war is, quote, very complete yesterday. and then backpedaling on that a little bit.

And then you had the Department of Defense saying, we have only just begun to fight putting out a statement saying that the war effectively has only just begun. He's used that two-week formulation many times over the course of his two administrations. It'll be done in about two weeks. It'll be done in about two weeks. You've heard that on health care and all kinds of different things. So we always take that with a grain of salt.

But yeah, the messaging has changed. The messaging changes sometimes within the same thought from the president about when this war will end and the progress that the United States is making. You had Secretary of State Marco Rubio talking about the rationale for the war yesterday, saying this was about taking out their missile capabilities, no mention of the nuclear program or regime change, which we haven't seen yet, as the Supreme Leader's own son now, is in power. So I think it just leads to, in the American public, the markets and other places a sense of confusion about, number one, what the aims of this war are. And number two, just how long it might last. As you say, he's not.

going to telegraph that for strategic reasons, but it does seem that he gives a different answer on that, Mika, every time he speaks. Absolutely. Well, he really does. I will say, though, that, you know, usually when you look at the cost of war, you look at how much a war is costing every day. And, of course, because we're $39 trillion in debt and nobody in Washington seems to give a damn, nobody's going to be paying attention to how much this is costing the American

taxpayers every day. but the one thing that they are going to see gas prices exploding. There were a couple of gas stations around here where gas was getting close to $4 a gallon. When you look at all the other pressures this economy is facing, that's something that, you know, having gas, if this war continues another week, gas prices around America are going to be over $4 a gallon most likely. That's just something with oil over $100 a barrel if the war continues. years and the straits remain closed. That's just something that American consumers are not going to take. And so there's also that clock ticking that may not have been ticking in past conflicts

and past wars. But I will tell you, at this stage, all evidence suggests that Donald Trump is trying to leverage for the best deal, the best exit. Not three months from now, I think much more likely to be sooner rather than later. Even if the defense department's quoting Karen and Richard Carpenter with, we've only just begun. I'm curious whether they're going to have a video out with that. I doubt it. No, probably not.

So here are the latest developments with the war in Iran now in day 11. Overnight Iranian drones were shot down over the oil-rich eastern region of Saudi Arabia, while Kuwait also shot some drones in its northern and southern areas. This comes as Pakistani warships have begun escorting its country's merchant ships to the Middle East to ensure energy supplies were not interrupted. Meanwhile, in Iran, thousands poured into the streets to celebrate the selection of the country's new supreme leader. While Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that Israel's military offensive against Iran was, was not done yet. This comes as Iran's

foreign minister said his country was prepared to continue attacks for as long as necessary and ruled out talks. After President Trump said, the war would be over very soon. Meanwhile, as we've discussed, the president and members of his administration

are making conflicting comments about the timeline of the war. Willie mentioned the Department of Defense, social media post yesterday, reading, we have only just begun to fight. A few hours later, during a news conference in Florida, President Trump was asked about the discrepancy

between some of Trump's comments and the messaging from the Pentagon. Mr. President, you've said the war is, quote, very complete, but your defense secretary says this is just the beginning. So which is it? And how long should Americans be prepared? Well, I think it could say both. The beginning.

It's the beginning of building a new country. But they certainly, they have no Navy, they have no air force. They have no anti-aircraft equipment. It's all been blown up. They have no radar. They have no telecommunications. And they have no leadership.

It's all gone. So, you know, you could look at that statement. We could call it a tremendous success right now as we leave here. I could call it. Or we could go further. And we're going to go further. But the big, really, on that war has been over for three days.

We could go further, but here are all the things that we've accomplished. That's what the president leads with. It's something obviously that he wants the American people to hear if he does decide to bring the troops home in the coming days or weeks. Let's swing around. The columnist and associate editor at the Washington Post, David Ignatius, and also decorated combat veteran. And former commander of the U.S. Army Europe, retired Army Lieutenant General Mark Kirtling.

He's the author of a new book, and it is out today, and you have to buy it. I hear it helps your back swing. Sing it, Joe. Reverses mail pattern baldness. It helps you lift weights, like 25%. It's called, If I Don't Return, a Father's Wartime Journal. And General, we can't wait to get into that and talk to you about it. We thank you for being here on this busy day for you to help us understand what's going on with Iran.

David Ignatius, let's start with you. You know, people have tried to sort through what Donald Trump is going to say, whether it was the first attack on Iran, I guess, about six months ago. Venezuela, the attack a couple of Fridays ago, when people said, oh, he can't attack tonight, because if he attacks tonight, it'll make us look bad because they've got to get the. response back to Geneva during the middle of negotiations. Well, he used that to get the Iranians off guard. I'm wondering what you're reporting is showing you, what's suggestion. This is sort of criminology right now, except it's just Donald Trump. We're trying to figure out because nobody else matters. He's thought it's that in the White House. I'm curious what your latest reporting is on his thinking. So, Joe, with this series of mixed messages and often contradictory statements,

it's almost like what President Trump calls the weave in his speaking style, kind of meandering back and forth. But there are several clear themes that you can distinguish yesterday, and I just want to briefly note them. First, the president does feel that he's going to be able to end the attacks on military targets soon. He had a lot of statistics. 90% of the missile launchers have been destroyed. So-and-so number of maybe ships have been destroyed. He went through his list. He talked at one point about needing maybe another week, but he sees the end of the conflict coming. The second is that he's really worried about the Strait of Hormuz. His strongest language all through the day yesterday was about what he would do if the Iranian,

continued to block a transit in the straight of hormones. He's worried because the effects on the global economy are really significant. The spike in prices for oil and natural gas, the effects on fertilizer markets, just a whole disparate series of economic effects are troubling the financial markets. He knows he's got to get that straight open. He's offered to escort ships through the strait.

But he's really saying the Iranians, if you interfere with this, all hell will break loose. David, do you have any suggestion at all? Do you have any evidence at all that there are talks quietly behind the scenes between the Trump administration and any representative of the Iranian government to say, we're going to finish our work here this week. We're going to pick up and leave, but you all have to guarantee that the straits are open. Any evidence that those talks are going on? I have no evidence that actual contacts are taking place, but there's signaling through the media.

I had a piece that I mentioned yesterday morning, in which I quoted a senior Israeli official who laid out their case, this is the case of the defense establishment, that they're close to achieving their basic military goals, that there are other political goals that are complicated. And you heard some of that same messaging from Washington. You have various intermediaries. President Trump spoke with President Vladimir Putin of Russia.

Obviously, they talked about ways to end the war. President Macron, France, has reached out to China for the same reason. But that gets me to the last point I wanted to make about the themes to see in yesterday's jumble. President Trump doesn't have anybody with whom he can settle this war. yet. That's really the problem that was created by the selection of most of Moshaba Khomeini, the son of the former Supreme Leader as the as the new leader of Iran. This is a person who's lost his father, his wife, his son. This is a person who's not going to be eager to make a deal with the United States. He's

if anything harder to line than what came before. And that's the dilemma. Final point, one source of mine who's been in one of the Gulf states said that the leaders of that country with whom he's been talking do not want President Trump to leave a wounded, angry animal across the Gulf that's going to come back and bite them. And so I think there is this fear still that having started the war, Trump has to finish it and find someone with whom he can make a deal that will work. That person doesn't exist yet.

So, General, as you understand it, we talk about finishing. the war in a couple of weeks, perhaps. What does it mean to finish this war? What are the objectives? As Secretary Rubio said yesterday, take out the missile capability of Iran, the missiles themselves, the launchers, the factories that make them, the Navy.

So they've made a lot of progress in that regard. At the beginning of this war, we heard about the nuclear program. We also heard about regime change. What do you believe the objectives of this war actually are and what it would look like to end it? I don't know. That's the problem.

I mean, listening to all of you talk about this this morning, the thing that's haunting me is this guy Clausewitz once said that war, politics is war by other, war is politics by other means. So we've about to conclude the controlled chaos part of this. If the president says stop the bombing and listening to what David was just saying that we have no one to talk with or no one to talk for us, it isn't going to be the president because he's already broken several promises with the Iranian government when he tore up the first JCPOA a couple of years ago

and now when he's attacking them when they were at the negotiating table. So those are the kind of things that I'm concerned about. The military has done an excellent job, as everyone has said. They've been striking the targets. They've been doing what we call commanders' intent, destroy the kinds of things that the president wants them to destroy. But it always comes back to you, what's next? Now, as a soldier, I'm saying, okay, they've done the job.

Where are the politicians? Where are the diplomats? Where are the information people to lead this on? You know, the profession of arms is an art, but there's also science to it. And there's always a formula that someone once told me, power equals resources times will. The Iranian people seem to have the will, even though their resources are dean. being depleted. We don't have as much of the will from the American people, from an understanding within the government to continue this to draw it to a conclusion. That's what I'm concerned about.

We didn't have a mission set or an end state in the beginning. We still don't. And polls show most Americans echo what you're saying. We don't understand why we're doing this. We understand that Iran has been evil in many ways for the last 50 years. We don't understand our personal interest in it. So as we talk about potential regime change, we now have. have the Supreme Leader, his son, in charge. Israel has suggested that he is now a target. We've heard the same from this administration. Talking to people, though, in the military world, in the Intel Committee, they say, this is just, you kill this guy, then another one comes up. It's all of the same ilk. These are the kind of people who are going to lead the country. You can't say,

we killed one guy. Now, young people in the streets go take over your country. It's just not that simple. Yeah, one of the things I learned from the amount of time I spent in the Middle East is personalities don't matter that much. Institutions do. Showing that film just a minute ago of the people on the streets of Tehran, proclaiming the new Ayatollah, is fascinating to me because it's a continuation of the institutions. And they still have parts of their military left, and that will rebuild itself. So, yeah, we haven't had regime change, Willie.

What we've had is continuous regime decapitation. And if you're focused on institutions as opposed to personalities, there will be a new leader tomorrow. And it'll continue. And there's 92 million people in that country. So who's going to be the next Ayatollah or the next Supreme Leader? A lot of open questions. Everybody stay in place. Our coverage will continue.

Coming up, we're going to talk to Kim Gattas out of Lebanon to get her angle from that angle of the war. Also, Mark Caputo will join us. He has new reporting on Afghanistan. Maxius about how the Ukrainians are contributing. We'll be right back with much more. Morning, Joe. The goals of this mission are clear, and it's important to continue to remind the American people of why it is that the greatest military in the history of the world is engaged in this operation. It is to destroy the ability of this regime to launch missiles, both by destroying their missiles and their launchers, destroy the factories that make these missiles, and destroy their Navy.

Okay. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, yesterday offering those reasons behind why the United States went to war against Iran. I think that's one, two, three. That might be a third. I don't know. Joe? Well, you know, again, Marco, Secretary of St. Marco Rubio was actually the first to spell things out fairly clearly several days ago, and that's positive. It's just important. As anybody looks at this conflict, looks at this war, looks at what's going on. There are two sides of this. It's been a remarkable military success. We have degraded their nuclear capabilities. We have degraded their ability to launch missiles across the region, possibly the United States one day.

We have degraded their Navy in an extraordinary way. We have degraded their air defenses in an extraordinary way. We have decapitated their leadership. We'll see who replaces the leadership. Militarily, every military person that's looked at what's happened will tell you that this has been extraordinarily fairly successful. Now, it would have said the same thing about Iraq in March and April of 2003. But thus far, militarily, we're doing great. Our challenge right now, as a general said, is on the political side. Anybody that tells you, first of all, that the military hasn't done an extraordinary

job, they've got an agenda. I mean, obviously, there have been tragedies. But militarily, the have hit what they wanted to hit and degrade or what they wanted to grade. The problem comes on the political side where you have a war that's unpopular at home. You've got gas prices rising that's going to be unpopular at home. You have in Iran, you have a leader now that's a successor to his father who seems to be even more extreme. This is a regional conflict needs to be kind of put back in there. And right now there's no one to negotiate with. So we have we have we have. have two different things happening right now. Militarily, a success.

Politically, there are things that need to be developed and things that need to be thought through and things that need to be brought to a resolution because right now, there are two different realities in this war. One, extremely successful, the other, not successful yet. Let's bring in contributing editor at the Financial Times, Kim Gattah. She's in Lebanon this morning just outside of Beirut and the Washington Post. David Ignatius has the first question. David. So, Kim, I want to ask you the Lebanon version of what we've been discussing.

Israeli military attacks on Lebanon have been overwhelming in recent days. But Israeli officials that I have talked to in the last 24 hours say we're hitting most of the targets now that we want to go after. And the Israelis do not want a ground invasion of Lebanon all the way to Beirut. They tried that in 1982. They don't want to do it again. And so they talk about the possibility that there might be a negotiation of a ceasefire working with the Lebanese authorities, the Lebanese president, Aon, the Lebanese Prime Minister, Nawaf Salam.

Do you hear that same thing in Beirut? Do you think we're getting near the end of the Israeli campaign there and then possibly a ceasefire that might perhaps provide a model for broader de-escalation in this war. David, great to speak to you and thanks for having me, Mika and Joe. I want to push back just a little bit first on the idea of a resounding military success on Iran. I actually, I'm not a military expert, and I will defer to military experts. I think it's actually still a little bit too soon. to make that assessment. I know a lot has been degraded, a lot has been destroyed,

but it's for, I think, still a short-term setback for Iran, and they still have the capacity to do a lot of damage in the region, including through some of their proxy militias like Hezbollah in Iran and the Shia militias in Iraq. and they will now work to try to live to fight another day. So the concern in the region is also that this is just the first of many such fights unless we find a way forward that delivers more positive results, more constructive results, and this requires diplomacy, but also positive results for the Iranian people.

Going back to your question, David, there are talks now. The president of Lebanon has made very clear. He's saying the Lebanese are willing to sit down face to face with the Israelis to negotiate a ceasefire and a way forward. I don't think we're yet talking about a peace agreement. The prime minister is on board as well. Hasbullah, of course, is not. It is slightly incommunicado. It's apparently difficult. to be in touch with them. But this is a moment where the Lebanese state is trying to really assert itself. There is some criticism in the country that although this is a good step, this comes too little too late and they should have done this much sooner so that Lebanon would avoid this war. But it's complicated, David. As you know, Hezbollah is part of the politics in this country.

It has members of parliament. it has influence in security institutions, state institutions. So this is a long-term battle for the Lebanese government to assert itself. I do think that the military pressure by Israel will continue. I expect it will increase, actually, over the next few days or weeks even. You're right that there will not be an invasion all the way up to Beirut. But I think there will be a bit of a incursion, a ground incursion into southern Lebanon. And I suspect the Israelis will take some parts of southern Lebanon a few kilometers in as a buffer zone.

And that will then be part of the negotiation as well. You know, Willie, what's so fascinating is we listen to Kim and talking about, well, maybe the military operations not as successful as Americans are saying it is. because this is still a very, very dangerous region, a very dangerous neighborhood, which parallels with what David heard earlier in his reporting that he reported earlier this morning from a leader in the region saying, don't leave us with a battered, bruised, and angry Iran. And, of course, that leader was talking about more military strikes. Kim's talking about the importance of diplomacy. But there's no doubt.

we have a lot of allies in the region concerned about America just cutting and running and leaving them with an angry and wounded Iran. Including Israel, yeah, all of our allies in the region for sure. And I guess General Hurdling, it just depends again on what your definition of successes. Does it mean taking out missile capabilities, as Marco Rubia said? Does it mean obliterating, as President Trump has said, the nuclear program? Does it mean regime change? We're certainly not on a path to regime change at the moment.

So just tactically, strategically, from your point of view, as a general, the military campaign, just to add to this conversation that Joe and Kim are having, how is it going from the U.S. perspective? Well, from the standpoint of the military, and I think, unlike Kim, I can speak to this. And what I will say is, I'll make a recommendation to all politicians, quit starting your sentences with, we've got the greatest military in the world. The military knows what they can and can't do. And what they can't do is end a war.

That's up to the politicians. And to continue to open your sentences like Secretary Rubio just did with how great the military is, is a waste of time. You know, the military for the most part is pretty humble. There's not hubris involved. We don't need other people telling folks how good we are. We know what we can do. But we also know what we can't do. And that's the ground we're in right now.

So I can say that. I make that recommendation to all politicians. politicians, knock it off. Yeah. Worry about what you've got to do to end wars. So to that point, Kim Gattas, how important is U.S. accountability, whether it's the girls' school in Iran or whatever else happens during this war, and especially when it comes to American credibility in the region and working with partners?

Well, I think that's going to be the biggest challenge to overcome. because you've heard it from your guests, David and the general also, that America's credibility in negotiating with Iran is also shot. And we heard that yesterday in an interview on another channel that was done with the advisor to the Supreme Leader, Muhammad Karazi, who said, you know, why would we negotiate with America? They lured us twice into the negotiations as a lead-up to a bombing campaign. So we're not going to sit down with them.

I think that potentially the Iranians will re-engage precisely because it is about survival. So they may also lure America back into negotiations to buy themselves sometime to rebuild what they can rebuild, to reassert control over the country, wherever they have lost control. And I want to remind our viewers, last year or just over a year and a half ago, Hezbollah in Lebanon was supposedly completely decimated and decapitated. And it was touted as a great military success as well. But there was no diplomacy to back it up. There was no plan for the day after, for how you capitalize on it.

And despite the best efforts of the Lebanese government across the year, Hasvala was able to reconstitute. itself to some extent or its capacities to some extent. And it is now launching rockets at Israel. When it comes to the region, I think there is a lot of concern, and Joe's already mentioned it, there is a lot of concern about how this ends and what comes after. I think we have to be careful not to try to indicate that what Arab countries are asking for is a continuation of this war because it is hurting them economically. But that's why we need to, you know, put all our heads together.

And Arab countries need to be involved in this effort as well to find the way forward with diplomacy and continued military pressure. I assume there's going to be more economic sanctions on Iran. Perhaps we're looking at Iraq under embargo scenario where that leaves the Iranian people, you know, not in a great place, is there still a possibility for them to rise up in a few weeks or a few months once they get a bit of a breather? It's really hard to predict at the moment. But again, when President Trump says in January, help is on the way and the Iranian people are left to be slaughtered, you know, they're going to be thinking twice about taking to the streets

again. And here too, I think it is up to countries in the region as well to say at least to give, you know, not practical support, we don't want to see other countries get involved on the ground, but to speak out in support of the wishes of the Iranian people, because that also might be symbolic, but it does give people some courage. Contributing editor at the Financial Times, Kim Gattas, thank you once again for your reporting and analysis this morning. And coming up on Morning Joe, we're going to have much more on the war with Iran, including what President Trump said. yesterday about the deadly bombing of an elementary school.

Plus, federal law enforcement continues to pursue the president's false claims of 2020 voter fraud, this time by seizing voting records in Arizona. And as we go to break, a quick look at the Travelers forecast this morning from Accuethers, Bernie Rayno. Bernie, how's it looking? Mika, it feels more like late April and early May today. Your exclusive act, the forecast, Sunshine, Beautiful Day. Boston, 65 degrees. Watch out for the fog. Long Island, New York, toward Philly this morning. Other than that, it's sunny. Now, problems in the century of United States. Severe weather around

Chicago, Indianapolis, late today, and tonight, Texas this afternoon, and concluding Dallas, the rest of the southeast, it's warm and humid with just some spotty thunderstorms. Travel delays, not many, but there can be a few this morning in New York City and Philadelphia. To help you make the best decisions will be more in the note, download the Acreweather App. today. What you do and what you see. Love again. New reporting from Axios this morning details a U.S.

government decision seven months ago to turn down an offer from Ukraine to buy its technology for shooting down Iranian drones, only to reverse course last week after Iran began firing off a greater number of drones than expected. White House reporter for Axios. Mark Caputo is following this story. joins us now with more. also with us, the co-host of our 9am hour, staff writer at the Atlantic Jonathan Lemire.

It's good morning. So, Mark, this is such an interesting angle to the story of the war in Iran, which is strategically interesting, but also politically interesting, that Zelensky is stepping forward and saying, United States, you're not giving me the help

I think I need right now, but we're willing to offer you some help here with these drones. So walk us through the technology that we're talking about and what that initial offer was seven months ago. Essentially, what we're talking about is sort of drone-on-dron attacks. The drones unmanned aerial vehicles

can get shot down by other unmanned aerial vehicles, other drones. And Ukraine has become the world's expert in this technology because Russia, Putin, when he invaded, began using Iranian-made drones, the Shahid drones. And the Ukrainians quickly adapted and came up with this technology. And according to them and most independent experts, analysts, it's worked quite well. So seven months ago, Zelensky is in a meeting in the White House, about seven months ago. And he tells Donald Trump, look, I've got this thing and it works. And this was just about a month after or two months after the United States had gone to war or had bombed Iran. And the Ukrainians and Zelensky had proposed that they go into business with

the United States to help manufacture as many as 20 million of these anti-dron drones to shoot down Shahad drones. As part of this, they presented a PowerPoint presentation, and that PowerPoint presentation actually displayed a map of the Middle East. It showed where they could have a network of defensive drone hubs so that if Iran and if the United States were to come into conflict or its regional allies, the United States regional allies, they would have protections against these drones. No one knows why this was rebuffed or dismissed, but it was. And some administration officials do acknowledge to us now that they say if there was a mistake. mistake, a tactical error in the lead up to this war. This was it, the failure to procure these

things, because now the United States last week has decided to ask Ukraine, okay, yeah, sure, well, let's get these things so we can stop some of these drones. Well, Mark, it's not too hard to imagine why it was rebuffed, considering the sort of reflexive anti-Ukraine stance from this administration time after time. And even before this moment, there was a real sense that the U.S. military was lagging behind in drone production. This is the future of warfare. We've seen in the Ukraine conflict. Other nations are far ahead of where we are in terms of putting them together. So let's talk about this, the sort of what's shadowing this decision is the ongoing Ukraine-Russia

war, even in the last couple of days. And we spent a lot of time on this yesterday where there's credible reporting that Russia's helping Iran with intelligence that Iran could then use to target U.S. military assets in the Middle East. And it was met just with a shrug by the Trump administration. and the president himself downplaying this, oh, this is no big deal. While at the same time, Ukraine, looking to help, but in the president's remarks of late, still blaming Zelensky more than Putin for lack of a deal.

We know Trump and Putin spoke again yesterday. Yeah, it's one of those things that even some Trump advisors are a little mystified about because they just acknowledge that sort of personally Donald Trump doesn't seem to like Zelensky as much as he likes Putin. And for Trump, personality and personal relationships matter. That having been said is, you're right, the United States is an ally of Ukraine and Ukraine is an ally of the United States. And Iran is an ally of Russia and Russia is an ally of Iran. And for some reason, though Trump is generally pretty good at these black and white, mannequin worldviews of you're with us or you're against us.

In this case, for some reason, he doesn't quite get there. that is one of the problems that was experienced back in, what, August when the United States had rebuffed or dismissed this offer, one of the officials that we spoke to said that while they couldn't say why the United States decided not to take up this offer at the time, there was a sense that this was, quote, Zelensky being Zelensky being a bit of a too much of a self-promoter, and that he's sort of representing in the view of some in the Trump administration, a nation that doesn't quite punch above its weight. It's not quite as taken seriously as Russia as. Now, however, because the drones have had an effect in the region,

have been implicated in the deaths of seven U.S. service members, they are taking the Ukrainians and their technology a lot more seriously. Well, I mean, I don't understand the, I just don't understand the White House's attitude towards Ukraine. I never will. I've been hearing that Russia was going to take over Dunbos for a year now. It's not happening. I've been hearing that Ukraine's on the verge of a collapse for a year now. It's not happening.

Ukraine has had its most successful month since 2023 on the battlefield taking land back from Russia. You go on and on. And here is the drone technology that, again, could have made a huge difference in the opening weeks of this war. I'm curious. You mentioned the men and women, the service men and women who died in Kuwait. Is there a feeling inside the Defense Department that this anti-drone technology considered the best in the world would have been able to possibly stop those Iranian attacks? No one's gotten there and no one is dismissing the death of those seven service members. The Riyadh is in war and in matters like this, some missiles, some drones, some weapons of the enemy are going to get through and there are going to be some casualties. The estimate was that the U.S.

I certainly understand that. I certainly understand that. I'm just curious, though, what kind of drone? Were the drones that actually caused the American deaths? Were the drones, the type of drones that this Ukrainian technology was so good? good at stopping? Our understanding is the drones that Iran is using, pardon me, are the Shahed drones, and those are the platform that have been sold to Russia that the Ukrainian drones have shot down.

So the answer to that is probably yes. Not a lot of specifics are coming out of the administration about that, not a lot of soul-searching in relation to this, but after the fact, they are admitting these things are effective and we should have them in the United States to shoot these things down. All right, White House reporter for Axis. Mark Caputo, thank you for that great reporting, and his exclusive, new reporting, is available to read now online. David Ignatius, final thoughts on where we are this morning and what you're going to be following. What stories or what storyline are you going to be following today to try to figure out where this war is going?

So, Joe, I'm going to be looking at the issues that we've discussed. how soon do the U.S. and Israel think they can complete their military goals, political goals aside. The military, as you said, has been proceeding well. How many more days is that going to require? How much force will it take to reopen the Strait of Hormuz? That's going to be a major part of bringing this situation back to normal. It's going to take a lot of effort, international cooperation. And then a final point that we haven't discussed, but I'm hearing from U.S. officials' concern about the precision targeting by Iran of U.S. diplomatic and intelligence personnel in the Middle East.

We've had the CIA station in Riyadh hit. That building has been out here, been hit twice. Yesterday, there were reports of attacks on a U.S. consulate in Turkey and Adana, on a U.S. facility in Nigeria. on the U.S. facility in Norway. And there's concern the Iranians have extremely good intelligence in their targeting. And one simple way for me to put it in closing is, yeah, this is going to have a, yes, go ahead, Joe. David, could those targeting capabilities be coming from Russia? Yes.

Does Iran have the capability do that himself? Or is it the belief around the region that it's actually Russia that is providing them this precision targeting with their intel? So certainly there's a possibility that Russia's feeding specific coordinates, but the Iranian terror network, let's be honest in describing it, is extensive. They plan operations well, and the danger of a war that's going to spread out into Europe and even into the United States, a war with a long tail that will take a long time for violence to receive is something I hear people talking about more and more. But when you have the evacuation of all this non-emergency diplomatic personnel from Saudi Arabia, you know something big is going on. All right. The Washington Post, David Ignatius, thank you so much for coming on this morning.

And General Hurdling, your new book out today is titled, If I Don't Return, a Father's Wartime Journal. And you write, quote, this journal was once a gift to our young sons. It's now a gift to anyone. who cares to read it? What do you hope readers will take away from it, especially now? Well, my publisher tells me it's not a war book, that it's more a book about character and leadership and morals and values, and it's also about war,

and how you gain an understanding of life and the importance of things that you do in crisis situations. Everyone goes through some type of crisis, no matter what business or industry or profession you're in. So I'm hoping some of the thoughts in here, the reflections of a book that or a journal that I wrote 35 years ago will come through with some additional life lessons about how to address different things that you can front in life. You can front.

General war tends to become when we talk about it in the public and on television, abstraction in many ways. So few of us actually serve anymore. It's not like the World War II era or even the Vietnam era with the draft when your next door neighbor to your right or left probably served as well. So what do you think people should know that this is not about statistics or cool videos and Department of Defense puts out of things blowing up about what was going through your mind when you sat down in 1990 to write these letters to your sons?

Yeah, well, this was a thing for family, really, not just our sons, but also for my wife in case I didn't come home. And we were told 50% of us were not going to come home. So that's a scary thought when you go into that as a young man. And it really narrows your vision and causes you to focus on what's important in life. So the thing I'd tell you, Willie, if you read this book, it's not only about all those things I just said, it's also about the military and what families go through when they're deployed. And the importance from a political standpoint, from a political leader's standpoint, of what happens in all of those families, those thousands of families when you send America's sons and daughters to war. It's more than just ruck up and deploy.

There's a whole lot that goes into it and a whole lot of tensions within families. I mean, my wife once counted up the number of Christmases and birthdays and anniversaries and T-ball games that I missed. And she said, this is what happens when our nation goes to war. And she was understanding of that. And you write here, in the book, to your family, you will never understand how I felt on the days leading up to my departure. from Lerberg. You probably couldn't understand why I was repeatedly touching your hair, kissing and hugging you more than usual, and watching both of you do the everyday things that seem so normal. I pray that you boys never know this kind of fear. For years, men have been going to

war, so hopefully their children didn't have to. That is part of what love is about. But I honestly believe that what we're being asked to do is so important, so overwhelming, that if successful, peace will be with our country for some time in the future. I don't want you guys to ever experience the fear I felt prior to coming here. It is also a feeling I never want to have again. Talk about sharing those very intimate thoughts with your family and why it's so important that other Americans understand what you and other brave Americans go through when they go off to war. Well, you know, Joe, that segment you just read was what I wrote to our seven and 10-year-old in that journal. And each one of them and one of our daughters-in-law deployed 11 different

times to the same place that I was fighting in in 1991. So they had 11 different deployments to Iraq. My wife, during that 10-year period after we entered Iraq, had a 10-year period where only four months of it. She had all of us home at one time. There were times when two of us were there, one time when three of us were there, but there was only four months where she didn't have to be concerned about one of her soldiers being away. That's a heady thought when you think about what a family goes through. And it's important that our spouses of soldiers and all military members are probably in many cases stronger than we are, because they have the pride of their mate being a soldier, but they also have the fear of losing them. So those are the kinds of thoughts that

are in the book. I'd like to comment, too, my favorite part of the book is the very last chapter when I use something called MacArthur's Prayer for his sons to describe the intimacies of what a family relationship and what parents caring for their children is all about and what you wish for them. And it really centers around hubris and not having it, having a whole lot of humility and a little bit of character and a whole lot of sustaining your values. And at this point in our nation's history, I think all three of those things, humility, values, character, leadership are kind of critical to what we're trying to do. Should guide us. The new book, If I Don't Return, a Father's Wartime Journal is out today. Retired Army Lieutenant General Mark Hurdling, thank you very much for coming on the show. Congratulations on the book.

Thank you, Michael. Thank you for sharing it. Thank you, you guys. Appreciate it.