Richard Arnold: US Correspondent on Iran War updates, President Biden's health and

The US has labelled demands from Iran to end the war as 'ridiculous'. 

Iran is demanding the US to end its blockade of the oil channel, pay Iran damages for the war, unfreeze Iranian assets and lift all sanctions on Tehran. 

US Correspondent Richard Arnold says that Vice President JD Vance had reported struggles in the peace talks just hours before Iran made their demands. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Stay inside. Richard Ald, pretty good morning to you.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
Good morning.

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Where would this one was coming all last week? Between
a man and the Iran Well, what's going on here?

Speaker 2 (00:08):
Nothing much, seems A Trumps former defense chief now is
calling the latest Iranian ultimatum that came out in the
last few hours on the straight up moves ridiculous. Mark Esper,
who was Trump's Defense secretary in his first term, is
speaking fun more directly than anything we hear from the
White House of late, saying this Iranian list of demands
now is a clear setback. All these months, almost six

(00:29):
months on into the.

Speaker 3 (00:30):
War, they've put forward demands of the United States which
frankly are ridiculous and should be rejected out of hand.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
Well, what Hurran's demanding is that the US must end
its blockade for the your channel, pay around damages for
the war, unfreeze Iranian assets, lift all sanctions on Tehrana,
never ever again say any bad word about the Iranian government.
So are the peace efforts going okay? Well, just hours
literally just a few hours before these Iranian demands. JD Vance,
who has been spearheading the peace efforts for the American team,

(01:00):
is this.

Speaker 4 (01:00):
They're hurting in a big way.

Speaker 1 (01:02):
They want this thing to be over.

Speaker 4 (01:04):
The question is whether they're able, their system is able
to give the things that are necessary for us to
be happy, for us to feel like we've gotten what
we need out of this particular engagement. That is still
to be determined. But I do think that we've made
some progress over the last few days.

Speaker 2 (01:20):
Made some progress. What progress Iran is hooting economically, it's
inflation rates through the roof. But how much does the
Iranian revolutionary God care about the economic problems of everyday folks.
Not at all. You would think this Iranian ultimatum shows there.

Speaker 3 (01:36):
Thinking now, It shows that they believe that they have
the upper hand. They believe they're winning, and they're emboldened.
And that's what we're up against right now, after what
five and a half months of conflict.

Speaker 2 (01:45):
Ispa's view is it the best approach for the US
right now is to tighten the economic sqeeze even further
on every front.

Speaker 3 (01:51):
We should multi multilateralize and get our Asian allies on board,
our European allies, others around the world, and really put
economic pressure on this country and slowly angle work.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
With European allies. That would be new as well. Esper
is confirming those reports last week that the Pentagon is
short on some missiles. Trump responded saying it was fake news,
is it? Says Espa, It.

Speaker 3 (02:11):
Is a serious situation that goes back to the end
of the Cold War and decisions we made between them
and then with the answer of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars,
and frankly, it accelerated during the Biden administration when we
were expending munitions or giving munitions to Ukraine. And it's
of course in the last six seven months it's really
taken a toll that we've now find ourselves considerably low

(02:33):
with regard to interceptors such as Patriot and THAD, and
to some ground attack weapons as well.

Speaker 2 (02:39):
The Pentagon also seems to be confirming this. They're asking
defense companies to ramp up production. The current Deputy Defense Secretary,
Steve Finberg, is calling on defense suppliers to provide far
more aggressive delivery timetables and to submit those plans within
twenty one days, while.

Speaker 3 (02:56):
Talking about taking two years to build a Patriot missile.
Whatever we do now is not going to help in
a short term, but nonetheless needs to be done for
strategic reasons.

Speaker 2 (03:04):
But the war is ongoing. Attacks continue and on the
Palestinian front Israel Nio, who has rejected Trump's fifteen point
plan for Gaza. Trump announced a breakthrough the other day
saying Hamas agreed to lay down their arms. That Nio,
who says doesn't believe it right.

Speaker 1 (03:19):
And then we get Joe Biden's update over the weekend.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
Yeah, and Jill Biden, the former First Lady, is adding
to the accounts of Joe Biden's cancer. She says he
is doing okay, okay, given that he is dealing with
an aggressive form of prostate cancer. We heard from the
former president's son Hunter over the weekend that it's tough
that his father's cancer has spread into his bones, and
further that is very painful and debilitating. Joe Biden is
eighty three. Had he stayed on in the last presidential

(03:46):
race and had he won, he would be right in
the middle of a second term, wouldn't he. That, of course,
is not how it went, and his wife.

Speaker 1 (03:52):
Says Joe will live with cancer till the rest.

Speaker 2 (03:55):
Of his life. Jill Biden wrote in her recent book
that she saw what she now really lives as were
early symptoms of the cancer when they were still in
the White House. We know that the former president's eldest son,
Bo died at a young age in twenty fifteen of glioblastoma,
an aggressive form of brain cancer. My own wife died
of this. Hunter Biden also told The beeB that his
father was rightly criticized for granting him a pardon in

(04:16):
his final weeks in Offers, he'd pled guilty to gun
and tax charges. Joe Biden said at the time those
charges were infected by politics. The son says that while
he is grateful for the pardon, he feels it's not
good for the country's political system or for his father's.

Speaker 1 (04:30):
See Wednesday Night, Richard Donald stated, so a couple of
other things. Remarkably, the Trump administration is going to play
a German company one point two billion dollars to stop
their wind projects. There's a company called w It's going
to abandon the rockshal wind projects in America and go home,
take the money, and go home. Carzio Cortez.

Speaker 5 (04:49):
In a I suppose she's all mendamied up at the moment.
She's fizzing off the back of that, but she's not
ruled out running for president. Twenty twenty eight, and I
note that Elon's delving into the Department of Government Efficiency.
Remember Doze, they inflated one hundred and ten billion dollars.
They said that saved it. It simply wasn't true. They

(05:12):
took credit for savings from leases that were being terminated
before the work began, and DOGE made unverifiable claims of
billions of dollars in savings. So just a one hundred
and ten billion dollars never really happened.

Speaker 2 (05:21):
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