Transcript of Iran Targets US Bases & Celebration of America 250 Outperforms | 6.29.26

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The Iran ceasefire remains on the brink after both sides exchanged fire over the weekend, but talks are still on for Tuesday.

While the administration hoped that the Iranians would take the economic incentives, they never took additional military strikes off the table. And so I think what we're seeing right now is the Iranians, they're pushing their luck.

I'm Georgia Howe. Jon is on vacation this week. It's Monday, June 29th, and this is Morning Wire. Rescuers race to pull survivors from the rubble in Venezuela as the disaster reaches its 5th day. It's a really dire situation, um, we have a very critical window of time where we're able to have survivors, um, pulled from the, the rubble. And America celebrates her first quarter century this week with a blowout celebration of the 50 states on the National Mall, but some states are leaving their booths empty. These states are showing up, maybe not through their governor's office, but we're going to make sure every state is represented on the mall. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned, we have the news you need to know.

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The US and Iran exchanged missiles and new threats over the weekend as the fragile ceasefire appears ready to break at any moment. Cabot Phillips, host of Wired In, is here now with the latest. So Cabot, first off, catch us up on what happened over the weekend.

Yeah, this time last week, the vibes were high. JD Vance was wrapping up successful negotiations in Switzerland, and it looked like the two sides had finally reached an agreement they could both swallow. But on Thursday, things started to take a turn for the worse. That's when Iranian drones targeted several commercial cargo vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz, and at least one ship headed for Singapore suffered extensive damage. In response, the US executed a 90-minute operation with airstrikes hammering Iranian radar and drone facilities along the coast. As VP Pence put it, quote, Iran signed a ceasefire agreement. We have honored it. If they have disagreements about how the MOU is being applied, they can pick up the phone, but violence will be met with violence. But instead of backing down, the Iranians accused the US of, quote, treaty breaking under various pretexts. And then they launched attacks on more vessels in the strait. They also sent a barrage of missiles and drones into Kuwait and Bahrain, though most thankfully were shot down. That prompted yet another retaliatory attack by the US, which again hammered IRGC installations across the coast Saturday night. And then hours later, the Iranians targeted US bases in Kuwait and Bahrain, though again no service members or civilians were harmed.

And hours after that, you guessed it, the US responded with even more strikes. Here's UN Ambassador Mike Waltz in response on Sunday.

If the Iranian regime thinks for a second that President Trump is going to sit sit by, stand by while Iran continues to attack international shipping without a response or our bases without a response. They're sadly mistaken. And they saw that loud and clear over the last few nights.

Now, for their part, the Iranians have declared that American bases in the Middle East would, quote, soon experience hell. So the ceasefire is still technically in place, but there is a lot of firing going on.

Now, what are they trying to get out of this? Why would the Iranians do this?

Yeah, I've posed this question to numerous Pentagon officials, both current and former, and they're always quick to say some variation of, look, tyrannical regimes run by radical Islamists do not act logically. So there isn't always some, you know, grand geopolitical strategy at play. So it could be just as simple as crazy people do crazy things. But others told me that these repeated violations of the ceasefire and the sort of teasing Trump into renewing the war could be an example of dissent within the leadership structure itself. We tend to think of the regime as a monolith with singular goals, but that's not the case, especially when the top dozen or so leaders have all been killed in the last 6 months and the Ayatollah himself has been out of commission. Yes, there are some members of the regime who want the war to end and feel the peace deal is beneficial in the long run. But as one retired army general put it to me, there are still plenty of Iranians there in control who want this war to continue and view any deal with America as weakness. And it only takes a few people with that mindset to order rogue drone or missile strikes and kick things up all over again.

That obviously puts President Trump in a very hard spot. If he feels the regime as a whole still wants this deal, he risks appearing weak by not restarting the war, or at least going much harder with his strikes. But if he goes all in again, he could be dragged into a prolonged conflict that he desperately wants to avoid.

Now, what does this mean for the Strait of Hormuz? Is it currently open?

Yeah, that's the question that will have the biggest impact on Americans in the short term, as global prices, as we've covered, have been greatly impacted by the strait's closure. It's technically open, but again, there's still a lot of missiles going out towards vessels in the strait. The Iranians know that control of the Strait of Hormuz is their biggest piece of leverage, and they have been very slow to cede any ground. Now, this peace deal technically does not offer them control of the strait, but that is not how they see it. Iran's foreign minister said this weekend that the deal does give them total control, and they have been acting accordingly. In recent days, they've demanded that ships transit through Iranian waters directly off their coast instead of taking a separate, longer course along the coast of Oman. And now they are threatening to attack ships that violate that demand. Now, for his part, President Trump issued a new series of threats over the weekend, saying Iran had, quote, violated the ceasefire agreement again. It is very possible they will never learn. There may come a point when we are no longer able to be reasonable and will be forced to militarily complete the job we very successfully started.

He then said, if that happens, the Islamic Republic of Iran will no longer exist. Uh, the next round of negotiations between these two sides will take place tomorrow in Switzerland. And if those meetings actually happen, which given this fighting is now, uh, kind of up in the air, the two sides will have plenty to talk about.

Right. And a lot of intrigue about what's actually being said behind closed doors. Cabot, thanks for reporting.

Absolutely.

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Well, the situation on the ground is still very chaotic and very dangerous for the rescue teams. Since those 7.5 and 7.2 magnitude earthquakes hit Venezuela's La Guaira region on Wednesday, hundreds of aftershocks have continued to shake the area. Those in particular pose a real risk to emergency workers that are digging through rubble to find survivors. If any of that rubble shifts the wrong way, that could cause a building to collapse again. So again, a very dangerous situation for rescue workers. We're also now well outside of the 72-hour window that aid groups every day is critical to find people who are trapped. After about 3 days, the odds of finding people alive drops drastically. But throughout this obviously very tragic ordeal, there have been a few bright spots. Over the weekend, the State Department released a video of American rescue workers pulling a 9-month-old baby and her mother from rubble. Both only had minor injuries and are doing well.

Yeah, and it's really hard to actually understand the scale of the disaster there, and one of the reasons for that has been that officials have really struggled to get accurate assessments of the damage. What kind of firm numbers do we have at this point?

The death toll seems to climb every hour. By Saturday, National Assembly President Jorge Rodriguez said that at least 1,430 people have died and over 3,000 are injured. At least another 3,000 families have lost their homes, and officials estimate that the number of buildings that have collapsed is around 125. Now, it's that last number that has worried officials about the ultimate death toll. A UN official told The New York Times that 125 collapsed buildings— that includes huge structures like— apartment and office buildings— suggests that the real death toll is much higher than the current official number. Now, fortunately, dozens of countries have promised to send or have already sent aid to Venezuela. Just to go through some of that aid, the United States has earmarked $150 million for recovery efforts, and search and rescue teams from Virginia, Los Angeles, and Miami-Dade County are on the ground in Venezuela already alongside the US military. The European Commission has flown in hundreds of emergency workers from France, Spain, Italy, and other countries. As well as promised €5 million in emergency funds. The United Kingdom has sent a 68-person crew and €2 million, and the list goes on.

Hmm.

Now, Venezuelans were already in a pretty dire situation before all this, so how are locals coping with this disaster?

Yeah, in the immediate aftermath, there was a huge outpour of support from Venezuelans. Hundreds of people took supplies into the hardest-hit regions, and some even began digging through rubble to reach survivors. However, As laudable as those acts are, they actually caused quite a few problems with the emergency response. Professional search and rescue teams were slow getting to some areas because the roads were so clogged with people rushing in to help. And in situations like this, obviously every second matters. And then there have also been reports of people taking advantage of the situation and looting from those who can't protect their belongings right now.

Now, what about their healthcare system? What kind of capacity do they have to actually handle the emergency care?

Yeah, no healthcare system is designed to handle a major crisis like this, but even so, Venezuela's system was in particularly bad shape. It has been underfunded for decades and has suffered tremendously from economic collapse and workers immigrating out of Venezuela. Medical teams were understaffed, ambulance services were unreliable at best, and hospitals suffered chronically from water and electrical outages. And then the disaster last week happened, and all of those issues have exploded. Immediately, 2 of the 3 state hospitals in La Guaira, the worst-hit region, were knocked out. In Caracas, one trauma hospital's roof collapsed. Officials are now telling people to stay away from the hospital except in the most severe situations to avoid overloading the system. Communication is down across a lot of the country, so the only means of communication is through radio or Elon Musk's Starlink. That means for hospitals that medical staff often don't know about the extent of an injury until the injured person is brought through the doors of the hospital.

Hmm.

Well, no doubt it's going to be a long road for recovery. Tim, thanks for coming on.

Thanks for having me.

In less than a week, America will round the corner on her quarter-century birthday. The Capitol is buzzing with anticipation, but some politicians say their states don't want to be represented in the celebrations. Joining us to discuss the events planned for the week, plus the drama, is D.C. Bureau Chief Tim Rice. Tim, thanks for coming on.

Thanks for having me, Georgia.

So, uh, the Great American State Fair has kicked off. First, tell us about that.

Yeah, so I mean, it's exactly what it sounds like right there in the name. This is a massive state fair on the National Mall meant to capture the spirit of state fairs and carnivals and summer activities, you know, that Americans are used to having in their hometowns and home states. So it spans the length of the National Mall from the Lincoln Memorial to the Washington Monument. Every state, or almost every state, we'll talk about that, has a booth, uh, that represents a little bit of their own state's culture, celebrates, you know, what makes their state unique. So Kentucky's booth is all about bourbon and bluegrass. Wisconsin has cheese curds. Nebraska and Illinois both have Abraham Lincoln. A lot of states actually lay claim to Lincoln. But, you know, across the board, it kicked off earlier this week with the concert, the much ballyhooed concert that a lot of musical acts dropped out of. And it's been a pretty rainy few days here in Washington. So that threatened to throw a wrench in things. But the show went on. The president kicked things off with a great speech. Crowds have been all over the mall. DC is absolutely packed in people in America 250 gear.

And one of the things that they're doing over the next couple of weeks that the fair will be in operation, every day has a theme day. So this week, for instance, I believe Tuesday is about American aerospace engineering. Wednesday highlights the future of technology, but Monday is Maha Monday. And this made some people a little bit angry. They think this is a politically charged event. They don't necessarily want to make America healthy again, but it's a little ridiculous. You could still buy your corn dogs and your cotton candy and all that normal, uh, fair food. So, you know, uh, not explicitly, explicitly political.

Now, you said some states are saying they don't want to be involved in this fair. Why not? And then how is that affecting the programming?

Yeah, so the latest instance of people kind of claiming that this event is politicized and then actually politicizing it by refusing to participate in it. So I believe around 10 states originally were not going to, going to participate, including ironically, a lot of the states that were the original 13 colonies. So Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Massachusetts, and a bunch of others, right? So the reasons varied. You know, I believe it was Rhode Island just sort of said that, well, we want, you know, it takes a lot of resources and people to set up the booth and we would rather those people work on America 250 events here at home. Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, meanwhile, explicitly said Pennsylvania will not be participating because President Donald Trump, you know, is a tyrant and is politicizing this event by being involved, blah, blah, blah. Notably, though, that sort of opened the window for a really amazing act of bipartisanship, which is Pennsylvania's two senators, Dave McCormick, who's a Republican, and John Fetterman, who of course is a Democrat, banded together with a bunch of businesses and, you know, the Pennsylvania Chamber of Commerce, and they independently stood up Pennsylvania's booth.

So even though Pennsylvania is not sending an official delegation, their Senate delegation and a bunch of businesses stepped in. So it's really, that was really awesome to see. And to answer your question, you know, it hasn't really disrupted things that much. Obviously those states will be missed, but you know, the fair is still going strong. And notably a lot of reports, you know, I saw reports today from NBC News, from NPR, from the Associated Press, all sort of begrudgingly admitting that all the people they've interviewed have said, this isn't politicized. This is just a really amazing event to celebrate America's 250th birthday.

Well, great to hear. And last before you go, what other events can we expect to see for the rest of the week leading up to 4th of July?

Sure. So in addition to those theme days that I mentioned, the big one, of course, is on the 4th of July, fireworks, uh, as there are every year in Washington, a pretty massive fireworks display. But this year is going to be something for the record books. There are 850,000 fireworks that are going to be set off on the 4th of July from around Washington. There are 8 barges in the Potomac the Potomac River that will set off fireworks, plus locations, you know, rocket locations, I suppose, by the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument, all throughout DC. So it's going to be pretty loud and pretty bright here in Washington. But one thing to note is that Freedom 250, the group that is putting on the Great American State Fair in conjunction with the Trump administration, is doing events all around the country, and we're going to see a lot of them this week. So there's a whole sailing tour and naval presentation in New York Harbor leading up to the 4th of July. Every state has its own, uh, sort of, you know, different, different showcase. The president is going to be in South Dakota on July 3rd for a massive event outside of Mount Rushmore.

Uh, and they have a great website. It's very interactive. You can see, you know, what's going on in your state, in your city, all around the country. So, uh, a pretty interesting organization doing a lot of good work. Uh, but yeah, we're, they're really gonna kick it into gear in these last few days leading up to the official 250th anniversary. Anniversary.

All right, very exciting. I'm going to look up what Tennessee is doing. Tim, thanks so much for reporting.

Thanks for having me, Georgia.

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