Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent appears on CNBC to discuss the Trump administration policies that were proactively deployed during Operation Epic Fury.

The goal of global financial stabilization is actually part of the strategic planning within the White House, including Treasury, Energy and Interior in alignment with the State Dept., Pentagon and national security agencies.  Part of that plan was the announcement for the U.S. to underwrite maritime insurance to ensure a minimal disruption to the global energy markets.

Secretary Bessent discusses the insurance facet at the 3:00 minute mark of the video below. WATCH:

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Secretary of State Marco Rubio updates the media on current activity surrounding Operation Epic Fury.

Secretary Rubio begins with an update on what Americans in the region need to know. Rubio asks all Americans to record their status with the U.S. State Department. [State Dept. Website] To get the latest updates visit http://travel.state.gov/destination and enroll to receive alerts directly at http://step.state.gov. Americans who need consular help can reach us 24/7 by phone: +1-202-501-4444 (from abroad) and +1-888-407-4747 (from the U.S. and Canada).

Rubio then outlines the latest report on a drone hitting near a U.S. embassy in Dubai.  A drone struck a parking lot adjacent to a chancellery building and a fire broke out.  No Americans were hurt or injured. The consulate was already on minimal staffing.

Secretary Rubio then provides an update on the general disposition of the conflict effort.  Rubio notes the two most powerful air forces in the world are about to go even more severe in our combat activity deep inside Iran.

The traditional frame of reference for pundits surrounds “the escalation trap.”  Most of them are so stuck in their old Washington DC view of nation building they just cannot see another approach.

How do you avoid the trap? You don’t play the game.

You don’t try to control the outcome on the ground.  You change behavior, without being on the ground.

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President Trump holds a bilateral meeting with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in the Oval Office.  After brief remarks of mutual appreciation, President Trump and Chancellor Merz responded to questions from the assembled press pool.

Chancellor Merz expressed support for the objective of eliminating the regime threat from Iran.  President Trump notes at the beginning how Iran is targeting civilian targets in the region and generating even more support from the Gulf states for the USA.

When asked about the British and Spanish refusal to support U.S. military logistics and deployment, President Trump let the media be aware he is not happy with the position of Spain and the U.K.  President Trump also announced [11:00 of video] an economic embargo of trade with Spain as an outcome of their position.

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There has been an ongoing narrative from the insufferable leftists and professional pundits in opposition, that the United States military will soon run out of missiles, rockets, drones, bombs and lethal munitions.  Given the global stockpiles of these weapons, the underlying premise always seemed absurd.

President Trump responded to the false claims in both a direct Truth Social message and an interview with Politico.

[Truth Social] – “The United States Munitions Stockpiles have, at the medium and upper medium grade, never been higher or better – As was stated to me today, we have a virtually unlimited supply of these weapons. Wars can be fought “forever,” and very successfully, using just these supplies (which are better than other countries finest arms!). At the highest end, we have a good supply, but are not where we want to be. Much additional high-grade weaponry is stored for us in outlying countries. Sleepy Joe Biden spent all of his time, and our Country’s money, GIVING everything to P.T. Barnum (Zelenskyy!) of Ukraine – Hundreds of Billions of Dollars’ worth – And, while he gave so much of the super high end away (FREE!), he didn’t bother to replace it. Fortunately, I rebuilt the military in my first term and continue to do so. The United States is stocked, and ready to WIN, BIG!!! Thank you for your attention to this matter.” President DONALD J. TRUMP

(VIA POLITICO) – […] In a roughly 4-minute phone call with POLITICO, Trump argued that Tehran’s military capacity is being steadily degraded, even as Iranian forces are expected to “keep lobbing missiles for a while.”

“They’re running out and they’re running out of areas to shoot them, because they’re being decimated,” Trump said. “They’re running out of launchers.”

[…] Trump during the interview said, “we have unlimited of the middle- and upper middle- ammunition and things. We save it and we build it.”

“The defense companies are on a rapid tear to build the various things we need,” he added. “They’re under emergency orders. We’re making it fast. But we have unlimited, as stupid as [former President Joe] Biden was, he didn’t use it.”

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Seeing how MSM and Trump opposition outlets are twisting and contorting the words and explanations from Secretary of State Marco Rubio it is worth posting the full transcript of his remarks from yesterday.

…” I’m not going to give away the details of our tactical efforts, but the hardest hits are yet to come from the U.S. military.  The next phase will be even more punishing on Iran than it is right now.  Someone was screaming, “How long will it take?”  I don’t know how long it’ll take.  We have objectives.  We will do this as long as it takes to achieve those objectives, and we will achieve those objectives.”…

[Full Transcript] – SECRETARY RUBIO: “The United States conducted this operation with a very clear goal in mind. I haven’t gotten a chance to see a lot of reporting. I don’t understand what the confusion is. Let me explain it to you, and I’ll do it once again as clearly as possible. Perhaps you’ll report it that way.

The United States is conducting an operation to eliminate the threat of Iran’s short-range ballistic missiles and the threat posed by their navy, particularly to naval assets. That is what it is focused on doing right now and it’s doing quite successfully. I’ll leave it to the Pentagon and the Department of War to discuss the tactics behind that and the progress that’s being made. That is the clear objective of this mission.

The second question I’ve been asked is: Why now? Well, there’s two reasons why now. The first is it was abundantly clear that if Iran came under attack by anyone, the United States or Israel or anyone, they were going to respond and respond against the United States. The orders had been delegated down to the field commanders. It was automatic, and in fact it beared to be true because, in fact, the – within an hour of the initial attack on the leadership compound, the missile forces in the south and in the north for that matter had already been activated to launch. In fact, those had already been pre-positioned.

The third is the assessment that was made that if we stood and waited for that attack to come first before we hit them, we would suffer much higher casualties. And so the President made the very wise decision. We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action, we knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces, and we knew that if we didn’t preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties and perhaps even higher those killed, and then we would all be here answering questions about why we knew that and didn’t act.

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Susan Kokinda and the Lyndon LaRouche network give their perspective on the British reaction to the U.S. strikes against Iran.  The analysis has value from a review of the historic relationship of the British imperialist policy toward matters of foreign entanglement and the control mechanisms that have historically flowed from the U.K

As a consequence of British government policy much of the Kokinda analysis accurately touches on the root cause of U.K response. However, the emphasis on the modern UK government as the lead of a global network is not always as severe or ¹complicated as the Lyndon LaRouche network would espouse.  WATCH:

¹Great Britain has imported a large percentage of extreme Islamists.  As Iran is confronted, and as Israel is viewed as a significant beneficiary to that confrontation, the leftist British government -represented by majority base supporting Prime Minister Keir Starmer- is politically trying to retain stability.  Starmer does not want to upset the Muslim population within the U.K.  That is a significant political facet undiscussed in the Kokinda review of British response.

Additionally, the Trump Doctrine in confronting totalitarian dictators, or oppressive government systems, has always been to support the rise of the authentic ‘nationalist’ voice of the nation in question.  President Trump has no personal or policy motive to drive the outcome when the authentic rise of the voice happens. Instead, he seeks to remove the anti-American sentiment carried by the former -hopefully replaced- regime.

In all of President Trump’s prior foreign policy examples we see he focuses on creating opportunity for liberty and freedom, but he does not seek to determine how that liberty and freedom are ultimately expressed – so long as there is no negative outcome to American interests.

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The U.S. State Department is now telling all U.S. Citizens from 14 middle east countries to make immediate plans to exit the region. These are not travel advisories, these are specific instructions to leave the region.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs Mora Namdar posted on the social media site X that Americans in countries, including Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Israel, should “DEPART NOW” using any available commercial transportation.

The guidance comes as many major airlines have canceled flights to and from the region as the war that began when U.S. and Israel attacked Iran on Saturday. It has since grown into a wider regional conflict, touching nearly every country nearby.

A “boxcar effect” is now taking place.  As each day passes without airline flights available, more and more travelers are stuck in the region as their planned departure is cancelled.  What might begin day #1 as several thousand people stranded, can quickly become several tens of thousands in a few days.  The instructions to exit appear timed as an effort to avoid the numbers continuing to climb.  However, without airlines operating departures become problematic.

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When pressed on how long the U.S. military would remain focused on Iran, secretary of State Marco Rubio said as long as it takes. “The hardest hits are yet to come from the U.S. military. The next phase will be even more punishing on Iran than it is right now,” he told reporters at the U.S. Capitol.

“How long will it take? I don’t know how long it will take,” Rubio said. “We have objectives. We will do this as long as it takes to achieve those objectives.”

“We would love for there to be an Iran that’s not governed by radical Shia clerics,” he said heading into a classified briefing on Capitol Hill. “That’s not the objective.” … “The objectives of this operation are to destroy their ballistic missile capability and make sure they can’t rebuild it and make sure that they can’t hide behind that to have a nuclear program,” he said. “That’s the objective of the mission.”  WATCH:

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At least from my limited perspective, the biggest surprise coming from Operation Epic Fury so far is the counterstrike reaction from Iran toward the rest of the region.  I have reached out to several people about this, and everyone has a different response.

Within a few hours of the operation against Iran beginning, the Iranian regime began firing counterstrikes against the entire Arab region.  Instead of their traditional approach toward striking back at limited U.S. military bases in/around Iraq and/or Israel, Iran began firing missiles and drones into the UAE, Kuwait, Oman, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Bahrain.

Brief recap map of the first 24 hours of attack sites, contrast with a map of known U.S. military bases.

This seemingly wanton striking out against the entire middle east region was not something CTH expected to see.

Additionally, the Iranian targets were not just limited to U.S. military bases, the missiles and drones were launching toward all kinds of random infrastructure throughout the Arab world.  Most of these missiles and drones have been intercepted; however, no one has yet established a reasonable thesis as to why Iran chose this approach.

In a recent interview with Jake Tapper, President Trump also said the White House and Pentagon were surprised at the civilian targets selected by Iran for retaliatory strikes.  The White House, State Dept and U.S. military did not expect to see Iran retaliate against regional allied partners, and the reaction has been for the Arab countries to be even more supportive of the attacks against Iran.

All of the Arab countries that seemingly would have sat on the sidelines and given tacit support, are now openly providing support and even expressing a willingness to get involved with their own military to assist.  This is a first.

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President Trump was previously scheduled to participate in a Medal of Honor ceremony, prior to the start of joint Operation Epic Fury in Iran. As the Medal of Honor event began this morning, President Trump delivered remarks about Iran.  WATCH (prompted):

As noted by President Trump the current operation continues degrading the Iranian war machine.  The U.S. and Israeli military are systematically taking down strategic targets inside Iran.  Simultaneously, the Iranian naval fleet is being targeted and continues to be destroyed.

As target packages are worked using a previous priority list, the U.S. operation continues from air and sea. Waves of missiles, drones, U.S. fighters and bomber aircraft as well as naval assets are continuing to bombard the Iranian military destroying their capacity to wage war.

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