Richard Arnold: US Correspondant says President Trump sets "two-week deadline" to decide US involvement in Iran.

The US President has set himself a two-week deadline to decide on US involvement in the Iran-Israel conflict.

Hundreds have been injured and killed over the past week, with both sides trading punishing strikes. Israel has bombed nuclear and civilian targets in Iran - and Iranian missiles hit an Israeli hospital overnight.

US Correspondent Richard Arnold told Andrew Dickens that Donald Trump has very publicly been trying to negotiate an end to the conflict, with domestic politics playing a part.

He says Trump is dealing with division in his own political ranks over the issue and he's been going back and forth on US involvement.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
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Speaker 2 (00:16):
So America we go, Richard Arnold, Good morning to you
in Good morning, Andrew. So the whole world is on
tenderhooks every morning we wake up down here going. So,
what has happened? Has Trump actually joined Israel than attacks
on iranzo? What is happening?

Speaker 3 (00:30):
Well, what's happening is that Trump has just extended the
window for diplomacy. After signaling that he had approved US
attack plans and was willing to use that massive bunker
busting bomb to try to destroy Around's underground nuclear operations
at Photo, He's now opening up the diplomatic path once again.
Here's what his press person, Karen Levitt said at a
White House briefing a short time ago, quoting her boss, the.

Speaker 4 (00:54):
President is saying that he will make a decision whether
or not to go within the next two weeks.

Speaker 3 (00:59):
Yeah, so extending the time. This just days after Trump
echoed the Israeli calls for wider American involvement and warned
people to quote evacuate Tehran. Trump is dealing with divisions
in his own political ranks as well. So he's warning
of US attacks at one point, then backing away at
other points, negotiating very publicly as you hear in what

(01:20):
is I guess the Trump style saying I don't want.

Speaker 5 (01:22):
To fight either. I'm not liking to fight, but they've
been a situation between.

Speaker 2 (01:26):
Fighting and them having a nuclear weapon.

Speaker 5 (01:29):
You have to do what you have to do.

Speaker 3 (01:31):
Well. When the Iranians held back from agreeing to end
their nuclear Richmond of potential bomb making program the start
of this month, the Israelis began military campaigns that have
been actions they've been advocating for years and years, and
now today Israeli leader Neetnyo, who has been to the
latest Iranian missile strike target where they hit the Soroka

(01:53):
Medical Center in the southern Israeli city of Beeshiba, Iran
saying it was aiming for a nearby military site. The
Iranian hit has caused extensive damage to the hospital, seriously
injured at least six people. Iran's Defense Minister Israel Kant
says that because of this, Iran leader of the Anela
Hamany quite cannot continue to exist quote unquote. He is

(02:13):
ready to leader Ntnio, who visited the hospital site and
again urged US involvement, saying of Iran, as he was
at that location today, he.

Speaker 4 (02:24):
Gave them the chance to do it through negotiations. They
strung him along. You don't string along Donald Trump. He
knows the game, and I think that we're both committed
to making sure that Iran will not have a nuclear weapon.

Speaker 3 (02:40):
Well, as you hear Trump now taking a somewhat different
tack on this, but this is some of what he
is hearing. Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren also is speaking out
opposing any direct American military role at all of this.

Speaker 4 (02:53):
We don't need to escalate in Iran.

Speaker 2 (02:56):
That doesn't make anyone in the Middle East safer, and
it certainly doesn't make the United States any safer.

Speaker 3 (03:01):
And among Trump supporters has been this very interesting split
that was highlighted when takes a Senator Ted Cruz, who
backs US military involvement in this sad fra an interview
with former Fox News host Tucker Culson, who strenuously opposes it,
and the session well turned out into a bit of
a shouting match. Here is just a little part of it.

Speaker 5 (03:21):
How many people living around by the way, I don't
know the population at all. No, I don't know the population.
You don't know the population of the country. You seek
to topple well, is if you don't know anything about
the country. He didn't say, I don't know anything about Okay,
what's the ethnic mix of Ron. They are Persians and
were predominantly Shia. Okay, you don't know anything about Iran?

(03:42):
So okay, I am not but the Tucker Carlson bird
on Iran. You're a center who's calling.

Speaker 3 (03:50):
About the country. Trump went into office for his second
term saying, you know Meerica first, that he would keep
out of the sort of military entanglements had cost this
country so dearly in recent decades. One point that is
being made about it possible he was here strike at
Podo is what next? Many will recall that on May
Day two thousand and three, then President George W. Bush

(04:13):
helped to pilot a military jet that landed on the
deck of the aircraft carrier USS. Abraham Lincoln Bush then
spoke in front of that huge banner. Right, everyone remembers.
Mission accomplished, it said on the banner. However, the military
operations went on for years and years, and the prospect
of turning Iraq into a Western style democracy fell flat.
Now today Europe also is pressing for a return to diplomacy.

(04:36):
When it comes to Iran, European leaders going to hold
talks in Geneva tomorrow, they're expected to urge the Iranians
to get back to the negotiating table.

Speaker 4 (04:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (04:45):
Yeah, he was a profit of peace, Donald Trump, but
now he's been dragged into war. There's also a certain
irony into the fact that, of course the reason Iran
has recommenced their nuclear program is that weapons inspectors aren't there.
They were there with an agreement with Obama. Donald Trump
was the guy who ripped it up. But hey, you know,
twenty twenty hindsight, that's the thing now. Poor old Elon

(05:06):
Muss the SpaceX Starshivik's sploded during a test at the
starbase in Texas this week.

Speaker 3 (05:11):
Well, he's not poor, but it's not a happy time
for your loan. He left the White House after his
bromance breakup with Trump. At one point, he had posted
on his ex social media site remember This, that he
loved Donald Trump as much as a straight man can
love another man, quote unquote. Well things changed a bit,
didn't they. He also lost a big chunk of his
fortune during his White House stint, some two hundred and

(05:32):
three billion dollars in New Zealand equivalent by most estimates. Now,
his latest test on his SpaceX starship rocket has blown
up on its launch site. They were doing a bit
of a test firing when whoa, whoa, yeah, whoa. Fortunately
no one was hurt. What they're describing as a major anomaly.

(05:52):
They've had a few anomalies while testing the largest rocket
ever built. Starships. Earlier seventh and eighth test also ended
with rockets exploding. So if anyone now planning that trip
to Mars not happening just yet.

Speaker 2 (06:06):
Good stuff, and I thank you very much. And that
is Richard Arnold out of the United States of America.

Speaker 1 (06:11):
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