Gordon Robison: Middle East correspondent on whether Trump will direct further strikes on Iran

President Trump's reiterating he's prepared to do what it takes to prevent Iran acquiring nuclear weapons. 

He announced yesterday he had called of plans for another attack this week, at the request of some Gulf states.

Donald Trump today told media US officials are still negotiating, but Iran may need another 'big hit'.

Middle East correspondent Gordon Robison says it's unclear what will happen next, but Vice President JD Vance has claimed they can't allow an 'arms race'.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Gordon Robinson, US and Middle East correspondent is with us.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
Hallo Gordon, Hello, having a pleasure to be with you.

Speaker 1 (00:06):
It is lovely to chat to you again. Where are
we at with this war? Is Trump going to bomb
around or not?

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Well, your guess is probably as good as mine. We're
still in a fragile stalemate masquerading as a cease fire.
You played the SoundBite from JD. Van's a moment ago.
Trump said something similar, essentially that he had planned to
launch a massive attack on Iran but was talked into
briefly pausing it by some of his golf allies and

(00:35):
some unnamed other allies, which I presume as a reference
to Pakistan. You know, maybe that's true, maybe it's gamesmanship.
At this point, it's really hard to tell which is which.
But the United States is clearly still looking for a
way out of this and supposedly, you know, if we
can keep it paused a little bit. If I hate

(00:59):
to sound to sound flippant about something as important as
a war, but it feels as though the US administration
is just kicking the can down the road, even if
it's only for a few days at a time.

Speaker 1 (01:10):
I mean, the longer this goes on, Obviously, the more
uncomfortable it is for everybody in the world other than
it would well, including around but it seems to be
that they can withstand this at the moment. Is the
US do you think in the end going to buckle
on the uranium demands?

Speaker 2 (01:28):
Well, I don't think so, at least it doesn't seem
to me like they're going to do anything that could
be characterized as buckling. The trick is that uranium is
such a very specific subject that it's the kind of
thing that you can probably find some sort of a

(01:48):
accommodation where both sides can claim that they won. The
US is bottom line, notably, has not been that that
Iran can't have uranium. It's been that Iran can't have
a bomb. And there is, you know, a long, long
road between having uranium and having a bomb. So one
of the few bright sides in all of this is

(02:10):
that seems to be somewhere where they probably could come
up with a clever formulation that meets both sides needs politically.

Speaker 1 (02:18):
And so it's awkward for Trump to be seen to
be losing. So is he talking about everything other than
Aroun at the moment.

Speaker 2 (02:24):
Pretty much yes, he's talking about his ballroom, which you know,
give him. This is something he clearly is very, very
enthusiastic about. This is the gigantic ballroom that he wants
to build where the East Wing of the White House
used to stand. He's talking about cosmetic changes to Washington
as we approach the United States two hundred and fiftieth

(02:45):
birthday in July. But the big thing that's been going
on also is frankly, a political retribution trip around the
United States. You hear a lot, and I think this
is important for viewers listeners outside the United State. So
you hear a lot about Trump being historically unpopular as
a president. That is true, but it is also true

(03:07):
that he's demonstrated, just within literally the last few hours,
that he still has an iron grip on the Republican Party.
Just in the last couple of hours, one of the
very few Republican congressmen who's been willing to push back
against Trump lost his primary, so he'll be leaving Congress
at the end of his current term. This comes a
couple of days, literally only three days after a Republican

(03:31):
senator from Louisiana who five years ago voted against Trump
over the January sixth impeachment, lost his primary. So Trump's
approval ratings may be low, but he is going out
of his way to remind everyone that he's still in
charge of everyone on his side of the aisle.

Speaker 1 (03:49):
Very interesting, Hey, Gordon, thank you very much, as always
appreciated talking to you. That's Gordon Robinson, us and Middle
East correspondent. For more from Hither dukeless Allen Drive, listen
live to News Talks It from four pm weekdays, or
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