Special Coverage: US Attacks Nuclear Sites in Iran
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Good morning, everyone. A special edition of Bloomberg Surveillance this Sunday for you across America, around the world. The Bloomberg News headline out right now, Iran reserves all options after U.S. hits nuclear sites. Welcome to our coverage for the next four hours here. We've been working on it all night to bring you the best.

and conversation here. Terry Haynes will join us on the Pulse of Washington. Other good guests as well. Importantly, Nathan Hager in moments will come to us with an update. We'll do that often here as the news moves. We have voices from London in moments to Ethan Bronner in Tel Aviv. And of course, all of our usual Bloomberg News and Bloomberg surveillance sources. With me on a Sunday is Paul Sweeney.

Paul, the shock of those headlines last night, it was a calm before the storm. It was. And, you know, President Trump had been out with some statements later last week saying, you know, basically up to two weeks he may consider some strikes against Iran. And then, of course, came out last night with some serious strikes against their nuclear facilities here with some of the biggest ordinance that the U.S. has ever.

uh and we'll see what kind of response uh we get from iran in the days coming forward uh the t live go on the bloomberg terminal is my major source for news flow an aggregation of all that's going on out there good morning to rosalind matheson in london driving that coverage with colinar montevalli as well we will go to conversations but the news flow right now is so

thick, so dense that we will often go to Washington to Nathan Hager for an update. Here with 99.1 FM in Washington, Nathan Hager. Tom, Paul, good morning. It is potentially the most consequential foreign policy decision of President Trump's time in office. As we've been reporting, the president...

has authorized American bombers to strike Iran's three main nuclear sites. The president announced the attack first on social media and then in an address to the nation from the White House. Here are the president's remarks in full, as heard across Bloomberg last night. A short time ago, the U.S. military carried out massive precision strikes on the three key nuclear facilities in the Iranian regime.

Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan. Everybody heard those names for years as they built this horribly destructive enterprise. Our objective was the destruction of Iran's nuclear enrichment capacity and a stop to the nuclear threat posed by the world's number one state sponsor of terror. Tonight, I can report to the world that the strikes were a spectacular

military success. Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated. Iran, the bully of the Middle East, must now make peace. If they do not, future attacks will be far greater and a lot easier. For 40 years, Iran has been saying, "Death to America, death to Israel." They have been killing our people, blowing off their arms, blowing off their legs with roadside bombs.

That was their specialty. We lost over a thousand people and hundreds of thousands throughout the Middle East and around the world have died as a direct result of their hate. In particular, so many were killed by their general, Qasem Soleimani. I decided a long time ago that I would not let this happen. It will not continue. I want to thank and congratulate Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu

We worked as a team like perhaps no team has ever worked before. And we've gone a long way to erasing this horrible threat to Israel. I want to thank the Israeli military for the wonderful job they've done. And most importantly, I want to congratulate the great American patriots who flew those magnificent machines tonight and all of the United States military on an operation the likes of which the world has not seen in many, many decades.

Hopefully, we will no longer need their services in this capacity. I hope that's so. I also want to congratulate the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan Raisenkane, spectacular general, and all of the brilliant military minds involved in this attack.

With all of that being said, this cannot continue. There will be either peace or there will be tragedy for Iran far greater than we have witnessed over the last eight days. Remember, there are many targets left. Tonight's was the most difficult of them all, by far, and perhaps the most lethal. But if peace does not come quickly, we will go after those other targets with precision, speed, and skill.

Most of them can be taken out in a matter of minutes. There's no military in the world that could have done what we did tonight, not even close. There has never been a military that could do what took place just a little while ago. Tomorrow, General Kane, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth will have a press conference at 8 a.m. at the Pentagon. And I want to just thank everybody and

In particular, God, I want to just say we love you, God, and we love our great military. Protect them. God bless the Middle East. God bless Israel. And God bless America. Thank you very much. And that was President Trump speaking from the White House last night alongside Vice President

J.D. Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. As we get more of a sense of what was carried out in the overnight hours, The New York Times is reporting that six B-2 bombers dropped a dozen bunker buster bombs online.

on Iran's underground nuclear site in Fordow. The same weapons, the Times is reporting, were dropped on Natanz. Cruise missiles were fired at Natanz and the third site at Isfahan as well. The Associated Press says this morning that satellite images do show damage to the entries at Fordow and the surrounding mountainside.

And now the U.S. intelligence community had recently assessed that Iran was not committed to developing a nuclear weapon. And, of course, President Trump just days ago had said he would give Iran within two weeks before he made a decision to carry out that strike. But the president had said he did not believe the intelligence community's advice.

This morning, Iran is vowing to respond. There have been sirens and explosions heard across Israel this morning as the Israeli military says Iran has fired more missiles at Israel overnight. Meantime, The Times is reporting that Iran's medium range missile stockpile is depleted. Iran's foreign minister, Abbas Arachi, says the door to diplomacy is no longer open.

He plans to travel to Moscow today to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin. I'm Nathan Hager in Washington. Tom and Paul, back to you. Nathan, thank you so much. We'll be hearing from Mr. Hager often here across our four hours this morning. Again, we're 50 minutes or so away from an important briefing by the Secretary of Defense and I believe the chairman of the Joint Chiefs.

of staff. It is 2.10 p.m. in Tel Aviv, a changed Israel. We are advantaged by Ethan Bronner with us, leading all of our coverage out of the Middle East from Tel Aviv. Ethan, thank you so much for joining us here on an exceptional Sunday. How is Israel changed this morning?

Well, morning, Tom. Morning, Paul. Look, Israel feels the sense in the air, on television, radio, and people on the street as of enormous gratitude, incredible sense of excitement, the belief that this very, very powerful threat that had been hanging over this country's head for a long time, if it hasn't been eliminated, it is very badly damaged. And in fact, we're waiting

both the Israeli officials and everyone, to see what we can learn about what happened at Fordow from those B2s. But I think even more importantly than the specifics of what happened in Iran is this notion that the United States has embraced this country's outlook, the speech that President Trump just gave that you just played,

It could not have been written by almost by Likud spokesman. It was a total embrace of the Israeli view of Iran and of its own future. And so it's now all that said, everyone is a little on edge and afraid and flights were canceled all morning and school is canceled and so forth. But we shall see. I think that there is a sense of an important corner having been turned.

Ethan, what are the expectations about retaliations, either within Israel or the region? I mean, I think that there is enormous speculation about what Iran could and might still do. We know that they still have some long-distance ballistic missiles. We imagine that those 400 kilograms of highly enriched uranium that they were holding are

at a place like Florida was, they say, was moved in advance of the bombing. So in theory, you could take 60%, which is what it was enriched to. You could take those containers, those canisters, and you could, in theory, make a nuclear weapon fairly quickly. Would Iran do that? No one really thinks that, but nobody really knows. Could Iran attack American bases and so forth, Israeli embassies?

All these things are being discussed. Nobody knows. Iran is very defiant in its public posture. But it must be said also that Iran hasn't been this weak in a very, very long time. I mean, all of its militias around the region have been taken out by Israel. And now it is very much on its back foot and led by a man in his late 80s who's probably in a bunker.

Ethan, what are the next steps, is it believed, for the Israeli military, who's had such amazing success in Iran over the last two decades? Amazing success.

Indeed. Look, they're continuing to attack in western, southwestern Iran today. Let's not forget that Iran did shoot off about 40 missiles at Israel early this morning, Israeli time. Nobody was killed as far as we know, but 70 or 80 people were hurt. Buildings were taken down. So there is still a sense that this ballistic missile threat

is of enormous significance for Israel. The idea that every day, every night, this country has to run to bomb shelters to avoid it is a huge threat.

And, you know, this is a country that is a big part of the digital economy of the world. It can't continue in this fashion. So they are continuing to try to take out those launchers and missile sites. But, you know, we'll have to see what's going forward. It's still a little unclear what's next. And also it's unclear what the U.S. will do next.

We continue with Ethan Bronner driving all of Bloomberg News out of Tel Aviv. We welcome all of you on Bloomberg Television around the world, across the nation, on YouTube. Good morning as well and on Sirius XM across Canada.

and the United States on Channel 121. Joe Matthew coming up with a balance of power shifting in Washington. But first, we continue with Mr. Bronner. Paul? Ethan, you mentioned the U.S. military. Obviously, a very dramatic and lethal strike by the U.S. military overnight. What is the expectation within Israel about the role the U.S. may play in the hours and days to come?

I think Israel has been extremely careful about expressing too much expectation. The idea being that, you know, we make it easy and then they want to join the winners. That's been the approach. They think that's been an effective approach with President Trump. Obviously, the president himself said we will go back if this if we do not get what we want. And he didn't specify in the speech.

but has repeatedly specified that what Israel and the United States together want is for Iran to commit not to enriching uranium on its soil and to give up its highly enriched uranium. Iran has said it won't do that. I would say that Israel is going to continue to carry it out and hope that the U.S. will join them when necessary, yes.

Ethan, one final question. I'm sure we'll be speaking to you in the coming days as well. Ian Bremmer of Eurasia Group had a terse tweet or LinkedIn out last night where he said this is the best week in the political career of Mr. Netanyahu. Do you agree with that? This is essentially Mr. Trump supporting Netanyahu as he could only dream of. That's correct. I don't think that I think this is an incredibly powerful personal triumph.

for Benjamin Netanyahu. This is a guy who was in pretty deep political trouble recently and it seemed like it was over for him. In the story I wrote for Bloomberg early this morning, I said that Netanyahu was seen as kind of Golda Meir, the guy who'd be forced out by a terrible tragedy, a failure on his part, but in fact views himself as Franklin Roosevelt, the guy who withstood

the attack on Pearl Harbor and turned it into a massive victory for himself in the United States. So that's how Netanyahu sees himself. And look, I think Ian Bremmer had a point there. Literally, Ethan, as you were speaking of Pearl Harbor on December 8th, I was typing it into the computer. Ethan Bronner, thank you so much from Tel Aviv this morning. And we are on the same page and we're on the same page

with Joe Matthew, of course, wired into the politics of Washington, his effort with balance of power. Ethan, I go to December 8th, 1941, not for the drama of it or the equivalency of it, but it is seared in our childhood how FDR drove forward a dialogue of war. I don't sense a dialogue here.

Brief us on how Republicans and Democrats will address his say on the Sunday talk shows like Face the Nation.

Well, it's a great question here, and obviously you're going to hear a different angle from Democrats and Republicans. I think Democrats, you can understand they're going to be asking for the right to declare an authorization for the use of force. They're going to say that the president is acting irresponsibly in some cases. I'm more concerned or more interested to hear from Republicans who don't agree because the split that we've seen in MAGA that some call a civil war and that might be pushing it a little bit far.

has been fascinating. And this is something that weighed heavily on President Trump as he made this decision, knowing that Steve Bannon had lunch with him just a couple of days ago to urge restraint here. That is what preceded the two-week announcement. Remember this interview with Tucker Carlson and Ted Cruz that really brought this to life? Charlie Kirk and the others said,

have been really challenging Donald Trump to stay true to his claim on the campaign trail to start no new wars. That was the hallmark of the first term. That was what's supposed to make him different than Joe Biden. And here we are now with MAGA trying to, on a Sunday morning, reconcile itself, whether it should, in fact, back the president of the United States on something that they're very worried about. Joe, to the extent we want to get a view on how President Trump's

backing coalition MAGA support um who should we look to there um are there some figures that will really give us a sense of is there a break in his support

I think it's some of the names that I just mentioned. It's Steve Bannon who's really been driving this. It's going to be Tucker Carlson, who the president called cuckoo, remembering that Tucker Carlson stumped for Donald Trump. All of these guys were on the trail with him to try to get him elected, and they still call themselves tried and true supporters. Whether that breaks now is going to be interesting. They may back him on an isolated strike, but guys, we're all waiting to see what Iran does next.

And if it does strike U.S. interests in the region, this is going to feel real different. Joe, as we get to the Hegseth press conference, frame out the relationship of the Pentagon to the White House. Last night, we had President Trump with the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, the Vice President,

all in civilian dress, the civilian superiority over our military. Tell us how General Kane and the others of the military fit into this discussion.

These are great questions because there are a lot of new faces here at the Pentagon. Yeah. And a lot of them other than Pete Hegseth have really not been public figures so far. Our reporting, my reporting would suggest that it's in fact not Pete Hegseth we should be watching, but Steve Feinberg, the deputy defense secretary who has been knee deep in this working directly with the White House.

crossing the Potomac to make that connection while Pete Hegseth deals with a lot of hearings and a lot of other issues that have put him somewhat on the outs with President Trump. They did stand side by side. We should note Hegseth and Trump in the cross hallway at the White House last night. And Hegseth is going to hold forth in this news conference. He'll be the face of this publicly. Behind the scenes, it's Feinberg working with the White House to a great degree, which is really something that feels unusual at a time of war.

But with your expertise on this, Joe Matthew, I mean, the fact is Stephen Andrew Feinberg is a major Republican donor. We in the Bloomberg world, folks, know him all with his work at Cerberus, acclaimed tennis player at Princeton, et cetera, et cetera. What is his competency here within the Pentagon?

Listen, that's not a question that I can probably answer. And we have a great team covering the Pentagon on that front. He hasn't been on the job for that long. Whether he has real military chops is another matter. And the same goes for a chairman of a Joint Chiefs who's got great experience on the battlefield, but is actually pretty new to this job, remembering that Donald Trump wanted to clean house and Pete Hegseth did as well. All of this remains to be seen on really, frankly, what's the next move? We can't underscore the importance of what just happened.

But this is not the end of something. It's the start of something. When we start considering the needs of force protection in places throughout the Middle East, like Saudi Arabia, like even in Iraq and Syria, where we have thousands of U.S. troops, the UAE, for instance, could all be within the reach of Iran right now. And politically speaking, you know, how far does Congress let this go without, in fact, an authorization for the use of force? That's going to be a big question in the weeks ahead, because this is not likely to be something that stops tomorrow.

Joe, what do we expect from the Democrats here? There's some reporting that they were not even briefed on this operation here. Yeah. What's the expectation? Pretty interesting.

It's not going to help the conversation, like Tom said, coming up after we're done here when we turn to the Sunday morning shows here on Bloomberg. They were already concerned about this. They were already calling out Donald Trump for preparing a strike like this now that he's done it, and they weren't in the loop. That goes for a lot of things around here. We've got a reconciliation process that they're not involved in as well. So it's a familiar feeling for Democrats, but when it comes to national security, it has a bit of a different tinge.

Joe Matthew, thank you so much. With Balance of Power, who will be with us through the show this morning. Joe Matthew in Washington. If this government spending in defense goes towards things like R&D that have dual-use civilian purposes, you could get spillovers that actually end up enhancing productivity in Europe and so have a more long-lasting impact on growth.

To learn more about the intersection of national security and global trade, subscribe to PGM's The Outthinking Investor in your favorite podcast app.

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for that briefing. We welcome all of you around the world, particularly on YouTube, where you may subscribe to Bloomberg Podcasts, growing each and every day. With the news flow this morning, and thank you, Rosalind Matheson and Top Live Go, T-L-I-V-E Go, on the Bloomberg Terminal Worldwide, we need a briefing every 20 minutes. In Washington, Nathan Hayward.

Tom, Paul, it is a wider war in the Middle East this morning. Last night, President Donald Trump said American bombers had completely and totally obliterated Iran's three main underground nuclear sites at Fordow and Tons and Ishfahan. In an address to the nation from the White House, the president said there would be far greater attacks if Iran does not make peace.

This morning, the Associated Press says satellite images show damage to the entries and surrounding mountainside at Fordow. The U.N.'s nuclear watchdog had warned against an attack like this because of the risk of radiation leaks. But right now, the International Atomic Energy Agency says there is no sign of increase in off-site radiation levels. And Iran's Red Crescent says there were no deaths from last night's attacks.

This morning, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the strike was done in full coordination with his country. Now Iran is vowing to respond. There have been sirens and explosions heard in Israel this morning. Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Arraji says the U.S. crossed a very big line last night that it also bombed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the International Rule of Law.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen says now is the moment for Iran to engage in credible diplomacy while warning the country cannot obtain a nuclear weapon. China just released a statement strongly condemning the U.S. strikes and calling for a ceasefire, particularly from Israel.

Iran's foreign minister says he will head to Moscow today to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin. That is Iran's strongest ally in the region. I'm Nathan Hager in Washington. Tom and Paul. Nathan, thank you so much. Greatly appreciate it. For the markets today, let's remember it is Sunday. Little trading on the Bloomberg launchpad. There is one thing trading. And Paul, I'm frankly surprised Bitcoin is down so little as a thermometer.

A global thermometer of the moment. It really isn't declined all that much off the shock of this geopolitics. And Tom, Dan Curtis from Bloomberg Television out of London. Some really good, helpful news here. Just to keep us up to date, oil will begin trading 6 p.m. Eastern time tonight.

US Treasuries open 8 p.m. Eastern time tonight. US Equity Futures will open around 6 p.m. Eastern time tonight. And the currency is around 5 p.m. Eastern time on Sunday. So it's later today. We'll start to get a sense of the market's reaction. I pick it up at 7 p.m. as a traditional thing. Maybe it'll be a little bit earlier this time around. But look to Bloomberg this evening for the Asia morning. His book of 13 years ago is definitive. It is indispensable today.

When leaders really matter, it is a set of chapters of leadership.

in times of crisis for America. Gautam Mukunda joins us, of course, with Yale University and in this case, a book from the Harvard Business Review of years ago. Professor, thank you so much for beginning our conversation this morning. We are alluding to December 8th, 1941, and our memories is a protocol, a process of going to war. Did the president breach that protocol last night?

Oh, completely. We're not even in the universe of that protocol. But that is not a set of laws and rules that we've enforced in my lifetime. So we're not going to start now. When you look at indispensable and I look at the chapter leading up to World War Two, which is on Chamberlain and then over to Churchill is is well from where you sit and the synthesis of your books on the presidency. Is this a nation behind its president?

Not at all. And so there's always a rally around the flag effect during a crisis. And I think the first opinion polls will probably be pretty supportive because they usually are. But most polling for this beforehand was not supportive of a strike. And I heard the discussion about whether the MAGA movement will fracture over this. I doubt that it will. You're already seeing major people there who had yesterday opposed a strike, today saying the president has acted wisely.

But for the country as a whole, I think a lot depends on what happens next. It is, at this point, the Iranians' move, not ours, that will determine how things play out. Gotham, what do you think pushed President Trump to make this move? Again, a very substantial move in terms of really aggressively deploying U.S. military in a very sensitive part of the world. What do you think was his motivation?

It really is, and it's worth sort of emphasizing that there was no urgency here, right? He had said, "I'm giving you two weeks." The Iranians had signaled they were open to negotiations. These facilities were not going anywhere. The Iranians were not within weeks of a bomb or anything like that.

It seems kind of like getting inside the head of the president is always difficult. He saw the Israelis having an extraordinary tactical and operational success. And you can't overstate just how effective the Israeli attacks have been. And he kind of wanted to get in on it and also observed that there were a handful of targets that they could not strike that we could. And again, we don't have bomb damage assessment from any reliable source yet. We don't know how well these strikes worked.

do you what do you expect over the next coming days and weeks gotham from the u.s congress both sides of the aisle in terms of response uh to this news so many democrats will be outraged that they weren't even briefed in and that again is a violation of the law the law requires that you brief in senior democrats as well as senior republicans when you're doing this kind of operation and the trump administration just ignored that um but

But at the same time, I think Democrats probably don't want to be seen as being completely opposed to a successful operation, if it is successful. So there's going to be some cross-currents there, as there are on the Republican side, where Rand Paul, I think, has already come out and saying he opposed these actions. So we're going to see a lot of waiting and seeing. The domestic politics are going to depend a lot on how the Iranians respond and how we respond to that response.

But I will note, so Robert Kagan had a really powerful article in The Atlantic yesterday pointing out that administrations that were a lot more sort of careful about civil rights and domestic rights than the Trump administration have used wartime to crack down domestically. And there has to be some concern that the Trump administration is going to do that here, too.

I look at it again, the Kagan piece, American democracy might not survive a war with Iran. That's very strong language here, Gadda Mokunda. The basic idea and my heritage is on a presidential effort of military force, the nation in some way rallies around him. At this press conference in 30 minutes, is there going to be a nation rallying around the Secretary of Defense?

I'm sure there will be some, but this administration has done everything possible to counter that. I mean, you even have them releasing photographs of him in the Situation Room wearing a campaign hat during a military strike. It's just impossible to imagine any previous president doing that, both out of you shouldn't, but also just because if you do want the country to rally to you, you should give some signs that you respect and value half the country.

Gautam Akhandan with us, and we will continue. His book, Indispensable and Picking Presidents, looks at the history of the administration, the executive branch across America. We welcome all of you, a special edition of Bloomberg Surveillance. Good morning on Bloomberg Television Worldwide, on YouTube Worldwide. Subscribe to Bloomberg Podcasts. A special good morning to 92.9 FM in Boston, down here in New York City, Bloomberg 1130, and Nathan Hager's 99.1 FM.

FM in Washington. We will continue many good guests coming up here besides Professor Makunda. Peter Scheer is scheduled to be with us. Oh, OK. And Paul Sweeney to the professor. Gautam, how do you expect President Trump to play this in the days ahead? I mean, this is it appears at this early stage a wonderful military success. Do you expect him to play this up or to try to just move forward and not, you know, expose any potential rifts in his support?

I think he will continue to play as success. But Paul, I'm just going to emphasize, we don't know if this was a success yet. Let's just go down the list. We don't know where the uranium hexafluoride is. So we just don't know. Is it buried under Fordow? Is it in the Tans? Is it in Isfahan? The IAEA has said that they've just lost track of it. And at 60%, that uranium is quite close to being ready to be weaponized.

So if, just hypothetically speaking, if we damaged but did not knock out Fordow, they likely will have enough centrifuges there that if they choose to make a sprint to a bomb, they might be able to do it relatively quickly. If we completely destroyed Fordow, then it's a different situation. But we don't know yet. So it's very, sort of very early to be announcing that we have complete success here. So Gautam, I mean, again, this was a significant escalation by the U.S. What do you think the U.S.,

is willing to deal with in terms of retaliation here? If there is retaliation, is this going to be something that could drag the U.S. into maybe a little bit more involved situation? I think that's the fear on everybody's part, including, I'm sure, the administration, which does not want that. There are at least some reports that the Iranians have already started GPS jamming ships in the Straits of Hormuz. If they really wanted to escalate, blocking the Straits would be a way they could do that. And that's

probably still within their military capabilities since they can use mines instead of other things to do that. But that would have consequences, right? On the world price of oil, the Chinese would probably be very unhappy if they did that. So they may not choose to take that step. That means that more like attack on U.S. forces in the Gulf, attack in the Gulf area, attack on American embassies, things like that. And then just...

So events have a momentum all of their own in which they could do that. And if Americans die in Iranian retaliation, then there's going to be pressure on the Trump, on the president to respond once again.

Professor, one final question, and I guess I go from clash of civilizations, a thought from Charles River up in Boston years ago, the clash of civilizations over Ian Bremmer at Eurasia Groups, every nation for themselves. Wow. Have we set up a change of our foreign policy today?

Secretary Rubio symbolizes that for the nation. What is the foreign policy coming out of state? It's not clear that foreign policy is coming out of state because, I mean, apart from all the hats that Secretary Rubio is wearing, we keep seeing Trump make statements that conflict with his. If I were in state, what I would be really worried about is the signal we just sent, is the way you make sure that the United States does not attack you is to already have nuclear weapons.

right? The North Koreans demonstrated that, and the Iranians who didn't have them were vulnerable. There have to be quite a few countries in the world that are looking at this and saying, well, the nonproliferation regime is over because the Iranians were signaling that they would negotiate and we struck anyways. And so they've got to be thinking that given what's happened,

the right thing for them to do is make a sprint to acquire nuclear weapons as fast as possible. Gautam, thank you so much. Really appreciate it this morning. Professor Yale University, Gautam Akunda, with his really incredible books on the presidency of the nation. Paul, I think the questions here in this press conference is actually where is policy coming from? And I remember Bush the Younger, there was a surprise while they're making decisions at the White House yesterday

I'm unsure of this statement, Paul Sweeney. Can we say all decisions are coming from the White House? Maybe that is so. Yeah, it certainly seems like it, not just in military situations, but on pretty much all policy seems to emanate from the White House. And that's the way the president is comfortable managing issues.

his administration. For enterprise organizations, managing all your food needs is a tall order. But with EasyCater, you get a single workplace food vendor with the tools and resources to make it easy, giving teams across your organization an easy way to order from a huge variety of restaurants, all on one platform. All while consolidating your corporate food spend so you can control costs, streamlining billing and payment and simplifying reporting.

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while also creating opportunities to give back along the way. Visit Thrivent.com to learn more. Thrivent, where money means more. Of extraordinary ability with his tours of duty at Reuters and Jerusalem Post, Dan Williams has provided really granular coverage for Israel.

and the Levant for all of Bloomberg News. And he joins us now from Jerusalem. Dan Williams, thank you for taking time in your afternoon on our Sunday morning here in New York. Dan, I look at the change in Iran, and it projects to their support of Hezbollah to the north in Lebanon, of maybe Gaza in certain forms as well, and other things. As the president said, Iran, the bully. Is the bully diminished this morning?

I think the Middle East power structure has been reordered dramatically, possibly more than seen in a single instant in decades, if ever.

This is something that many in the Middle East were anticipating, some dreading, some hoping for, going back decades. The conclusive, potentially, intervention of the U.S. superpower with U.S. firepower, putting paid to sites in Iran that were designed specifically to withstand conventional attacks, including by Israel, which is arguably the Middle East's

the world's mightiest military power. So what we've seen now is Trump upending effectively a status quo that was in place

That was shaken, admittedly, by eight or nine days of Israeli strikes. But nonetheless, this changes the equation utterly. Dan, it's so important you bring this up. And this goes back to October of 1981. Paul Sweeney brought this up earlier. Dan Williams is framed around the sea change of the war of 1967, seared in a memory of a certain vintage as the assassination of Anwar Sadat.

Is all of Israeli leadership and maybe even Western leadership, are they at risk this morning because of this bombing last night?

That's an extraordinarily good question. It's very acute. It would seem that you're referring mainly to the prospects of upheaval within Iran against the Iranian leadership. Is that what you're referring to? I'll go there as well. You can go both ways. It can be threats to the Iranian leadership, including the Ayatollah, or the other way, as we saw with Rabin and with Sadat decades ago. Is that where we are this morning, where everyone's at risk? Well, I wouldn't say—

I wouldn't say the Israeli leadership is at any risk. Indeed, there was an assassination of Prime Minister Rabin exactly three decades ago. That was over risk-taking and peacemaking with the Palestinians.

If anything, the current leadership, specifically the Prime Minister Netanyahu, despite his very significant dip in popularity over judicial reform efforts two years ago, over the disastrous October 7th attack of Hamas, which begun this war, I think you're going to see his popularity increase.

increase with this, including critics. And we've seen this already, the opposition leader rallying to him, regular critics in the Israeli media admitting that this war, the way he conducted it, and in fact, the way he conducted contacts

with President Trump, such that President Trump decided to intervene, that all works in Netanyahu's favor. I think he has as solid a position as he had had in recent memory in Israel. As for Iran, there's been much speculation that this situation could effectuate a regime change. I think we should be cautious about predicting that, if only because under threat of external action or under external attack,

People tend to rally to their flag, even if in quieter times they were less likely to do so, even if in quieter times they're unhappy with a government, with a regime that rules over them. However, it's quite possible that in the long run, with this Iranian regime having seen its prestige dented, having been humiliated like this,

having seen its military might, which provided it with a degree of domestic clout as well, so blunted by the combined force of Israel and the United States, once that dust settles, we could actually see some serious change in the internal dynamics of Iran, yes. Dan, what do you think the next steps are for Israel here? I mean, it feels like maybe we're waiting

to see what Iran does, but that's not, Israel doesn't tend to wait and see what people do. They tend to act. What do you believe the next days will hold for Israel? - Well, indeed, a couple things happened within short order of the world learning of these attacks ordered by Trump on these three sites in Iran, these three nuclear sites.

One was that Israel announced that it has pursued its own nightly attacks, including one set of sorties against one of the sites attacked by the United States, Isfahan, showing that the U.S. must have struck some nuclear targets there. Israel is coming in perhaps on a mopping up operation, perhaps addressing targets that weren't addressed by the United States.

As far as Israel is concerned, the work continues. There was also a missile in UAV salvo by Iran against Israel, quite a bit of damage, 6 a.m., pretty much the entire country going down to shelters. That would seem par for the course. The big question is, was that all? Was Iran basically ticking a box?

in terms of its retaliation. Keep in mind, it has yet to retaliate, to my knowledge, against the United States. Perhaps it sees Israel as a U.S. proxy, and that's a safer retaliation option, especially if it's a one-off. If indeed it is a one-off, I think what we're going to see now is very, very, very careful consideration on the part of the Iranian leadership

whether they should do an entire review of their position, whether they should capitulate on their nuclear program, submit to US and Israeli by extension demands regarding uranium enrichment, and in doing so preserve themselves. Because it would appear to me the choice now faced by the Iranian leadership is between self-preservation, i.e. regime preservation, and preserving a nuclear program that has been significantly degraded, possibly retarded by months or even years.

It's basically like guarding a jalopy of a nuclear program, even in the knowledge that that will actually extend the military strikes suffered by the regime, potentially toppling it in an irrevocable manner. So I think it's quite a binary choice. And I think the Israelis and possibly the Americans, I think Trump actually made this quite clear in his statement.

are banking on the Iranians now doing an about-face diplomatically, and this really bringing about dramatic change in the entire disposition, the entire direction of negotiations, and the future of the nuclear program, i.e. an effective shutting down of what remains of the nuclear program should Iran agree to do that. Dan, it's been an extraordinary time in Israeli history since October 7th, so much change, most of it to the military benefit of Israel.

Is there a view in Israel that things are really potentially different now? Yes, it feels like a revolutionary moment. October 7th was a cataclysm. Hamas basically was a game changer in terms of an attack on Israel, what Israel suffered from that attack.

completely surprised by a ostensibly far inferior force. Hamas showed great original thinking, quite military virtuosity, if they like. They really pulled off a surprise, a shock attack on Israel. But it also changed the rules as far as Israel is concerned. If Hamas came along with a game changer, then Israel was actually going to change the game. And the new game, as far as Israel is concerned, is going in the offensive, destroying all potential threats,

in all neighboring countries and also Iran, which Israel considers its arch foe. And so far it would appear, with all the costs involved, and the costs have been very significant to Palestinians in Gaza, to Israelis, especially on the home front, it would appear that the Israeli campaign is being pursued to its full extent

and may even succeed. Dan Williams in Jerusalem, we look forward to your reporting here in the coming hours. Dan Williams with Ethan Bronner in Israel this morning. For enterprise organizations, managing all your food needs is a tall order.

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