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- [00:04]
Venetia Rainey
The telegraph.
- [00:10]
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- [00:35]
Connor Stringer
Acast powers the world's Best Podcasts Here's a show that we recommend.
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Mary and Courtney (Two Judgy Girls)
Welcome back to two Judgy Girls. I'm Mary from the Bay and I'm Courtney from la. TJG is the podcast where we spill all the tea on your favorite reality TV shows, celebrity gossip and everything in between. We're here to bring you our unfiltered opinions, hilarious commentary and plenty of laughs. Along the way were two SDSU Delta Gamma sisters with a microphone and a whole lot of opinions. Each week we dive headfirst into the wild world of reality television. From Bravo to all the trash TV you could want. We break down the drama, dissect the latest scandals and share our thoughts on everything from the jaw dropping moments to the embarrassing antics. But that's not all. We're not here to just gossip. We're here to connect with you, the jurors, and share our love of all things pop culture. Whether we're dishing on the latest celebrity breakups, discussing our favorite guilty pleasure movies, or sharing embarrassing stories from our own lives, we promise to keep it real, keep it fun, and keep you coming back for more. Come judge with us.
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Connor Stringer
ACAST helps creators launch, grow and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.com.
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Venetia Rainey
I'm Venetia Rainey and this is Iran The Latest It's Friday, 24th of July 2026, the 13th day of this latest round of the war since Donald Trump declared the US Iran ceasefire over. On today's episode, we'll be looking at Trump saying that he's mulling over a massive attack on Iran. What does he mean? And we'll be asking if the US Is running out of missiles, cash and oil. A short time ago, the United States
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Connor Stringer
military began major combat operations in Iran.
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Mary and Courtney (Two Judgy Girls)
Iran's supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was
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Venetia Rainey
killed in the attacks. For the first time ever, the US Navy used a surface sea drone in combat to strike Iranian targets.
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Connor Stringer
The Strait of almost completely closed again.
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Venetia Rainey
Does anyone really think that someone can tell President Trump what to do? Come on, let's start with where we are today. So the overnight strikes by America on Iran, the US has conducted 13th consecutive night of strikes, the CENTCOM statement says again aimed to hold Iran accountable and diminish threats from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to commercial shipping. So again, that's straight off Hormuz justification. Iranian media reported blasts in several cities around the country, including Khurramabad, Yask, Abas and Banda Abbas. A US missile strike near Abas left four people dead and five injured, according to Iranian media. And two injuries in Bandar Abbas as well. According to the Iranian Ministry of Health, There are now 55 confirmed dead from this recent round of US military strikes and 645 injured. Iran has responded, targeting the same three countries again, Kuwait, Bahrain and Jordan. According to the IRGC, they've again targeted a data center belonging to Amazon in Bahrain. That's according to state media. They also targeted fuel storage tanks, equipment, warehouses, hangars and living quarters at the Sheikh Isa Air Base in Jordan. Iran claims again to have targeted aircraft shelters, maintenance hangars and living quarters at the Al Azraq US Air Base. And in Kuwait, we've seen projectiles launched towards the Ali Al Salam Air Base. Kuwaiti military saying its air defences are actively intercepting Iranian drones and missiles. We also heard reports of a drone crashing near Iraq's Erbil International Airport, but no casualties. There was only a temporary suspension of flights and those have now resumed. Before I bring in our guests, there's also been a threat to the uk. So in a statement yesterday, Thursday, the IRGC said that it threatened to attack RAF Fairford and made veiled threats against the British monarchy regime. They said that any base used for aggression against Iranian territory is a legitimate target for us. And also claimed that the US had been flying B1 aircraft from this base because its missile stockpiles are depleted. So this is this story that we've been talking about. The B1 long range heavy bombers flying from this UK base on Tuesday and they were again spotted flying yesterday. The UK has responded saying the military is ready to 247 to defend Britain from any kind of attacks, whether it's on our soil or from abroad. And then a quick update on the Bab El Mandeb and the Strait of Hormuz. So starting with the Strait of Hormuz, the number of tankers crossing have fallen to just one on Thursday. That is the lowest level since the beginning of May. According to ship tracking data, price of oil is now surging back to $100 a barrel. And we've still got 6,000 sailors stranded in the Strait of Hormuz that plenty of calls for them to be rescued. Meanwhile, in the Bab El Mandab Strait, we've seen two Chinese supertankers successfully exiting. Now, this is significant. They are carrying crude oil from Saudi Arabia. We heard earlier this week about the Houthi maritime blockade of Saudi Arabia, but these Chinese tankers have exited. So not clear how they managed to get through or whether this means the blockade is easing, but they've managed to get out. Going to bring in our guests now. I'm joined down the line in Washington by Connor Stringer and Lottie Tiplady Bishop. Guys. Well, welcome to around the latest. Let's start with these Trump comments to Axios. I'm just going to read out the full quotes. He said, I'm considering a massive attack, bigger than ever before. I'm close to making a decision. We're all set for it. What do you think he means?
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Connor Stringer
Donald Trump's method of messaging throughout this whole conflict has been to posture and threaten big attacks whereby land strikes or land grabbing in the hopes of bouncing the Iranians to a peace deal and getting out of this quagmires conflict. And that's exactly what he's doing there. He's chosen Axios to do it through many times, and this is what he's continuing to do. And unfortunately, Donald Trump has reached a point now where we are months away from a midterm election. He's going into a second election campaign in the middle of the year after breaking one of his biggest election promises, which was to not lead America into another conflict. So he is desperate for an exit. That said, the administration has shifted. They have realized now that the Iranians are probably very unlikely to come to a deal. And they probably come to the realization that actually, believe it or not, getting these memorandums of understandings together and getting a nuclear deal together takes a hell of a lot of time. It took about two to three years. And the idea of getting one done in three or four months is proving extremely difficult. So the mindset has shifted behind the scenes. There's kind of an expectation, though, and a belief that we might be able to win voters by going very hard, very firm and back ourselves in the belief that actually if we give voters an option, would you rather be susceptible to nuclear missile in a hostile state or go to this war and be out? And sometime they'll probably back the strikes. So there's been a little bit of a mindset shift. But that said, they're desperate for a way out still. And if they can get one before the midterm, they'll absolutely Take it.
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Lottie Tiplady Bishop
So I agree that actually what he's been saying might be quite strategic, like domestically, so. Because what he's saying is completely at odds with what we're seeing in Washington. You had Pete Hegseth in Congress the other day, you know, begging for up to $80 billion. But the, what, what the Trump administration is doing, what the Republicans are doing as a whole, is actually framing this as a kind of like the Democrats are putting your people in danger in Iran by refusing to give us this money. So I think that you have Trump on one side threatening and being like, look, you know, we're going to protect you. We've got this huge attack, look how strong we are. And I think actually it might be quite smart for them to do this in tandem.
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Venetia Rainey
Interesting. And how much political support is there for that? We had another war powers vote yesterday and the Representatives passed it again for the second time, but then I think Senate blocked a vote for the second time again. Just how is the political establishment reacting to this war?
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Lottie Tiplady Bishop
I think that the Democrats have clearly had enough. Their argument is that it's a waste of money, a waste of lives, especially with the, the numbers growing, although they were revised down last night, which is kind of weird. On the Republican side of things, it's quite odd because from the outside this seems to be the, the biggest issue, and it really should be. But I think when you're in Washington, the reality is, is quite different. I mean, the Republican Party is very busy with lots of other things. I think the main issue actually, ironically, is Iran is really tearing the White House and Congress apart. And you're seeing a lot of frustration not only just from like rebel Republicans, but it's stalling things, it's making things really slow and it's causing problems domestically with, I mean, Trump has plenty of other things that he wants to be getting on with, including this Save America voter fraud Act. But because of how, you know, fed up people within his party are about how he's handled the war. They are, they're pushing back and blocking things.
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Connor Stringer
Yeah. And crucially, you know, it's the base that have been torn in two here over this. You have one side of the kind of the MAGA Trumpites who believe that forever wars are a big no, no and that we've been led into another one and this needs to end quicker, sooner rather than later. And then you have what they like to call them here is the neoconservatives, those who believe that Iran should never have nuclear weapon and we must go to war either to prevent that. So that's kind of where we are. And we've seen a bit of a split in the base. You know, you've got Vance on one side of that, Trump on the other. Rubio's very much more an Iran hawk as well. And there's a bit of it. You can see it playing out on social media a lot as well, with some of the biggest conservative influencers going after each other over their differing points of view. Tucker Carlson, of course, very anti war, fell out with the president because of that, didn't he? And so I find himself banished to lands Afar with no people like Ben Shapiro attacking him yesterday, having their own little war off on their huge podcast, which must not be understood. The audience size and their influence in this thing is absolutely huge. So you're seeing that play out in real time as well, because it does feel like that.
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Venetia Rainey
I mean, we're increasingly hearing reports about America running out of oil, about its strategic reserve being at the lowest level since 1983. I mean, they're not running out of oil. That's obviously a huge exaggeration. But, okay, the strategic levels are dwindling because they're having to tap this to stop the oil markets from overreacting to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Chinese reserves also being used heavily to that extent. You mentioned there. Hegseth asking for $80 billion. And then we also increasingly hear about missile stockpile shortcomings. How much are those sort of three factors starting to come home to roost? Are people starting to connect the dots and saying that this war is no longer worth it?
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Lottie Tiplady Bishop
Well, I think there's a real, there's a real disconnect because, I mean, some of our reporting earlier in the week, it seems that Donald Trump might not know that he's running out of missiles genuinely, which is, it seems crazy, but there's, it was described to us as a culture of silence within the Pentagon and a real reluctance to share bad news. And I do think that you do see that kind of playing out in Trump's relentless optimism. You do have to kind of question the intelligence that he's been giving or given or, you know, we're obviously not privy to it, the, the intelligence that's being leaked in the press. So I think if it's not the president's number one issue, it's not really anyone else's to, to be frank, and it doesn't seem to be Pete Hegseth's either. The biggest issue for the Republicans right now is the cash. I, with regard to missiles. I mean you're seeing the consequences in real life. Some really scary stuff happening earlier on in the week when I think it was like three Iranian missiles hit a US base, including like some barracks where people were sleeping and a couple of people were killed. Not, I don't think it's while they were asleep, but it was, it was while they were kind of near there. It's getting quite scary for the people on the ground, but I'm not quite convinced that it's reached the White House yet or if it has, he's not letting it show.
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Connor Stringer
Yeah, I mean, so the big issue with the missiles and the concern really is and they're trying to hide this as much as possible and dampen concerns about how bad this is. But what the issue about the fears is that this war is using up millions and a massive stockpile of America's most precision weapons. So I think Tomahawks, some of those cruise missiles, the Patriot, the Thaad interceptors, the really cool ones that kind of spray bullets in the air like fireworks when missiles come in. So they're being depleted at a rate that basically it's quicker than they can actually build them. And that's the headache here. And it's not so much that the stockpiles are bleeding, but actually can we replace it? Because America might find itself in a position, this is the worry amongst those on the Hill and quietly in the White House is that if we were to go to war, or America was to go to war very soon after this conflict, they would be in a nightmare position where the stockpiles are so low the defense industry responsible for building these weapons don't have the capacity to. They're doing their utmost and good gosh are they paid unbelievable money to do it in these massive defense contracts, but they just don't have the capacity to do it to take on at the speed that we're blowing things up. So that's the real headache and the issue that they're fighting. And Hegseth is definitely playing that down obviously, of course, because I think Iran are acutely aware of this and you can see that's why drones have become a massive, massive maker and an impact in modern warfare. And even this war. Ukraine have found themselves in a unique position having fought a war entirely by drones own warfare for four years. They're not the experts. And even the US who once lambasted them for not having all the cards and fighting this war badly is now turning to them for help desperately in a multi million pound drone contract because they realize actually the quickest way to get this job done, or at least to replenish weapons and do so in a much more cost effective manner, is through drone warfare, not these multi billion dollar bunker busting missiles.
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Venetia Rainey
I know that Hegseth is requesting more money, but that approval of that budget is being held to ransom. Is that right? How likely is Hegseth to get this money that he's asking for? As you said, I think 80 billion in total, but 67 billion of that specifically for the Iran war.
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Connor Stringer
I think he ultimately eventually will. Right. And I think that's where we probably will end up, is that I think we will get to the point where they end up having to do more money. But what's the big concern actually deem raised to me privately is that is America's spending and debt ceiling is just getting bigger and bigger and bigger. You have to remember America's interest. I think they pay a trillion interest on the debt alone every year. And one of Trump's large campaigns was to bring that cost down, bring borrowing down and bring spending down. And the war has basically nullified that and added some massive debt to the American debt pile. So that's really the concern actually is do we need to be spending this amount of money on a war that we don't need to be fighting?
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Lottie Tiplady Bishop
Yeah. And also just to build on that while they are waiting for this extra cash, they're obviously having to divert military spending away from things like training. So it just reinforces this idea that if anything happens after this and not like, you know, a few months in the next sort of five to 10 years, we are going to be really hamstrung.
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Venetia Rainey
And how much is this filtering down to people on the ground? I know there was a lot of concern about the, you know, price of petrol at the pump is around $4 again now. Is that right? It dipped when we had the ceasefire and now it's starting to climb back up again as oil prices also go back up.
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Connor Stringer
Yeah, exactly. And look, there's one big thing with these wars. It's all fun and it's talking about missiles, it's all very cool and the cost of, et cetera. But the one thing the average person really cares about is when they sit around the kitchen table at night and they talk about it, is probably how worse off they are. And that the fundamental issue with all of this and the only real voting issue, aside from whether you believe that Iran should have a nuclear weapon, is actually are we going to be poorer offers results of all this and the Answer at the moment is yes. American voters are rising to the pumps, paying way more for gas than what they had ever done in one significant amount of time. And that's a key voting issue. You see it time and time and again in American politics, especially at the last election when Donald Trump ran a campaign, of course, to bring down costs of living, which has by and by risen within with the cost of gas prices on this war.
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Lottie Tiplady Bishop
I think where you'll really see the impact of this as well is as the midterms approach, when people are beginning to plan trips home for Thanksgiving, if we are still in a similar situation where oil prices are so high and also the cost of flying across the country. And I think that it's getting quite dangerous and they're really running out of time to sort it out, because even if we come to a solution in a couple of months, prices will still be incredibly high at that point in the year.
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Venetia Rainey
Do you think there's much support for Trump to send in troops as a sort of, you know, trying to land that final big blow that might force the Iranians to capitulate? I mean, that's what's increasingly being discussed.
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Connor Stringer
No, is what I would say pretty bluntly. I think the red line has always been this conflict is putting troops on the front line, essentially. And Donald Trump does not want to risk a mass casualty event. And so far, what we've seen with the killing of these troops had been from Iranian missiles at significantly long range. They'd been caught out of bunkers or in bunkers that had been badly built or sleeping in the latest extraordinary circumstance. Putting troops on the ground is quantifying a war. It goes from being a skirmish, is what he likes to call it, to a full land grab, an American invasion, which historically has never been short and historically have never been casualty free. And that's something that Donald Trump does not want to go into a midterms with, into a second year with. And frankly, neither do any of his supporters or his party.
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Venetia Rainey
Yeah, because, Lottie, you mentioned that the official war death toll for the Americans has been Revised down from 18 to 14. And that's because the recent four deaths, three in Jordan that you mentioned and one in Iraq that took place last week came after Trump has declared the ceasefires. They've decided not to count them. That sounds like dodgy accounting to me. They've been killed while this war is ongoing, but clearly there's a sensitivity there to troop deaths.
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Lottie Tiplady Bishop
Yeah, I mean, well, you had Trump, I think it was, on Wednesday, posting all these kind of charts showing Iran death toll compared to Iraq and Afghanistan. It's something that he's insecure about is the word I would use. Because, you know, as Connor said, he can do a lot of kind of like posturing and we're going to hit you with a massive attack and I'm the president. But what he actually can't answer for is people being killed. And I think actually one of the deaths that they revised, I could be wrong, was of a 19 year old girl. And I just think, you know, no matter how much money you have and how many missiles you have, when you go to the polls, people are probably going to be thinking of her rather than what Donald Trump is posting on Truth Social or leaking to Axios.
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Venetia Rainey
Yeah, Isabella Gonzalez. She was one of the ones who was killed during the Iranian strike on a US Base in Jordan last Friday. Just a final question on this sort of round of conflict. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres was speaking earlier today and said the situation is getting out of control. Let's hear a clip of that. It's teetering on the edge of unimaginable. The region is being pulled into an ever widening circle of confrontation. One crisis feeds another, one escalation triggers the next.
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Connor Stringer
As this dynamic spreads, the political objectives are becoming increasingly obscured by the confrontation itself.
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Venetia Rainey
I just want to ask, what do you feel are the political objectives at the moment? We repeatedly hear from CENTCOM and their justification that it's still all about the Strait of Hormuz. The nuclear issue hasn't even been mentioned in a while. What is the White House trying to say that the political objective is that you guys understand?
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Connor Stringer
Well, they repeat the same lines that they have done, for instance, although the goalposts have absolutely shifted, but the objectives are multifold. It's always been that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. And that has been first and primary. The one messaging, the one line they've probably stuck to the most, more than any other. The rest which has kind of shifted as we've seen throughout the conflict, is Iran must have control over the Strait of Hormuz, won't be able to hold it to ransom and therefore the world's economy to ransom and the US have to take that back and take control. Proxies is of course the other major issue that Donald Trump has used to justify to go to war, that Iran has fueled for years proxy groups like Hezbollah, the Houthis and others to kill American citizens through, I mean, he calls them the granddaddy of IEDs, improvised explosive device. So making sure they don't fund VATs or any more of those proxies. A large part of that their missile capacity and their stockpile. The start of the war was one of the key objectives that they when they went to negotiations, when Witkoff and Kushner sat across from their counterparts way back when in Geneva went to war was something they had hoped would be addressed or at least they could push it to their regional allies to face. And we've now got to a point towards the end of this war in the latest memorandum of understanding where it seems like one of the Iran's biggest threat and biggest kind of arsenal and offensive capability will go unaddressed. It will be left to the Gulf partners who sort out between themselves. And that's not not confidence inducing at all is it for anybody in the region who have no fierce missiles for the last what almost coming up to six, five months or maybe six months of conflict.
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Venetia Rainey
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- [24:14]
Venetia Rainey
Let's move on to a few other big stories coming out of America this week. One is this nuclear deal between the US and Saudi Arabia which shocked the world I think was a surprise. They'd hashed out a deal which would allow Saudi Arabia to enrich its own uranium. And then 24 hours later Trump came out and said that the agreement was totally, and I'm quoting here, totally subject to Saudi Arabia joining the very respected and successful Abraham Accords. And he's referencing there deals that some Gulf states have made with Israel to normalize relations. This would be a huge coup if it was true because previously assisting Saudi Arabia with its civilian nuclear program was always put that the condition for that was always to normalize relations with Israel which hadn't happened previously, but sources seem to be saying that that wasn't actually discussed during the deal. What have you guys been hearing about that?
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Lottie Tiplady Bishop
He also said that there'll be no enrichment of material, which was really confusing. Okay. So, yeah, the same. I think that it was something that was announced through the Department of Energy with Chris Wright, the Energy Secretary. And there was sort of like a signing ceremony. And then the next day, Trump was truthing, it seemed in response to backlash. My read on it is that I think that, like quite a few things, they hadn't actually really kind of crossed the T's and dotted the I's. But Connor will probably know more from actually speaking to people within.
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Connor Stringer
What's most fascinating about this is Saudi Arabia's and MBS's relationship with Donald Trump throughout this war. And we've seen basically those two get closer and closer together. And actually mbs, for the first time in his premiership, willing to use offensive strikes, willing to help the US Bomb a Gulf ally and a Muslim ally in Iran, which is obviously extraordinary given, as you say, that relations with Israel is abnormalized. And for a long, long time, those Gulf states shared a common enemy in Tel Aviv for some time. Yet here we see Saudi Arabia supporting them in this war. Trump has long sought to kind of come deal with MBS and bring these Gulf allies together for the Abraham Accord. It's the thing that got away. You remember, in his first term, he was desperate to get everybody signed up and got relatively close. And then obviously things got away from him. And here we are second time. Right. And he's desperate again as part of his legacy making in the Middle east to kind of normalize relations. And everybody, one big happy family. Israel, of course, not very happy, immediately were very upset that it seemed like they'd been rarely consulted on the whole thing, which is extraordinary when you think about Saudi Arabia and their wealth and their size and their influence being given, as you say, a nuclear program, albeit not to enrich, but a civilian one, when they haven't kind of recognized Israel or at least normalized relations with them, is quite extraordinary. But I think what it shows more than anything else is that Trump is. Is acutely aware of perhaps what he owes Saudi Arabia in this war. And there an MBS in particular who has stood by him and remember, invested, has invested extraordinary amounts of money into the United States as part of this America first program. And so he's a financial asset and MBS will want something in return.
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Lottie Tiplady Bishop
I was going to completely agree with you, Conor. Trump is a deal maker and we know that behind the scenes, MBS has been right by his side since the start of this war. I suspected as some kind of thank you or reward. And I just want to pick up on something that Connor said as well about Israel's kind of surprise and shock. I mean, we could do an entire spin off podcast about Israel and the US's relationship in this, but it does increasingly seem like Trump is kind of losing interest then I do wonder if that is something to do with the upcoming elections and I wonder if that is something to do with the upcoming elections and how Netanyahu is polling.
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Venetia Rainey
That's interesting. I saw as part of the comments to Axios as well. Trump said Israel would join the war in two minutes if I asked them to, but that he doesn't need anybody to launch a new operation against Iran because particularly there'll be consequences for Israel joining the strikes. He's also said that relations with Netanyahu Bibi are very good and I would meet him if he's here. Netanyahu is supposed to be attending Lindsey Graham's funeral or wake in Washington next week. Would they meet, do you think that might be on the cards?
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Connor Stringer
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I would say there'd be very, very.
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Venetia Rainey
Because it was delayed already once. Right. A couple of weeks ago, we think just after NATO.
- [28:58]
Connor Stringer
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. They seemed like they were supposed to have a trip, but it wasn't officially, I think, penciled in the President's diary. I think the Israelis seemed to be briefing that they were going to come over, but the White House kind of stood firm. That was at a period of time, you remember, where Israel seemed to be wanting to drag this conflic on and restarting or breaking the ceasefire, of course, which greatly angered the President. I mean, since then we've seen that the US mentality and strategy has shifted them. They believe, or at least Trump believes in the interim period that to bring around the negotiating table, it's going to take more bombardment, heavy strikes and consistent artillery to do that. You can debate as to whether that works. I think personally the blockade has more impact than any kind of military intervention has. So, yes, Bibi will want to come to Washington, get some FaceTime. I mean, a word like Lou Eater like him doesn't come all the way to D.C. and not see the big man.
- [29:53]
Venetia Rainey
You've also been doing some reporting on Andy Burnham's new cabinet. Andy Burnham became the new British Prime Minister this Monday. Feels like a lifetime ago already. And you've been talking about why his Foreign secretary pick, Ed Miliband has not been going down very well in Washington. We spoke to David Blair at the beginning of this week about why he thought. Why David thought Ed Miliband was not a very good choice over his. His vote against military action in Syria. But there's another reason why he's not very popular in Washington. Right, Conor?
- [30:19]
Connor Stringer
Net zero. A wokie in the mix is what is what people will tell me. So Ed Miliband's drive towards Net zero and constant kind of upheaval of oil drilling rights in the North Sea has not gone unnoticed here. You gotta remember that Donald Trump's kind of pet project is having the UK drill in North Sea. He's got a golf course in Aberdeen. Of course, his heritage links back there, so he likes to see it prosper and do well. Emil Lebanon seems like half the Cabinet, or at least in the previous one, has made a string of historic comments negatively about Trump, which haven't gone amidst calling him a loser, a misogynist, a racist, among many other things. So I can tell you when, before he was appointed Foreign Secretary, when there was a bit of a tug of war to see if he was appointed Chancellor during the interim talks, the kind of crossover talks as the government prepares to take up the reins. The US had warned them not to put Ed Miliband as Chancellor. It wouldn't go down very well. They wouldn't be seen to be proactive on defense, which is obviously a massive issue for the United States. Instead, what Burnham has done is took him as a Foreign secretary. So the man to kind of save the fraying US UK relationship is a man who clearly doesn't like Donald Trump and has said many bad things about him. Funny, I was actually with somebody last night, a very senior UK diplomat, who said, look, you know, with John Healey as Chancellor, we look good on defense. We've got some other good picks. And they will admit privately that Miller Ban is going to be a headache that they're going to have to kind of smooth over over time. But what they all point out to is that he's obviously a seasoned diplomat. They can change their their tune very quickly. And we saw that with his meeting with Rubio earlier this week or yesterday. Apparently the readout from that was very good. It was very warm and there was no overly concerned about comments said in the past. So this will all come down to how things go going forward. Trump is a man who forgives and forgets, remarkably so, actually, given the amount of enemies he has. He could be his worst friends, someone like James Comey or Michael Cohen's a great example who dumped him in the Russia scandal, if you remember. Now, coming back into the phrase is quite extraordinary. So as long as you're loyal to him and you show that you listen and you do what he asks, he will keep you on side. So Miliband's got to probably learn that quite quickly and very, very excited to see his first interactions when he comes to Washington.
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Venetia Rainey
Do we know when that's going to be yet?
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Connor Stringer
Well, we think potentially, I think, in a couple of months. So there's a g. I think it's a G.20 foreign ministers meeting in the US in August, which seems like if I assume Miliband will go, then of course, that he would be on US soil for the first time and meet lots of admin folk. So we'll see how that goes. Ears will be to the ground.
- [33:21]
Venetia Rainey
And then just finally, new tariffs. Trump has announced new tariffs on the uk, EU and dozens of other trading partners. What's going on here? Is this the start of a new trade war? Lottie, bring us up to date.
- [33:32]
Lottie Tiplady Bishop
I think if I were to be a little bit of a skeptic, I'm not sure if it's the start of a new trade war. I think it's probably the continuation of his previous tariffs that were a court ruled that he couldn't use. He put them in using some kind of emergency law and the court ruled that that law was not able to be used. So he's now put them in saying that it's to do with forced labor and we're kind of inferring it's our ties with China. And to be fair, the UK does buy things from Beijing that are made in factories that have been reportedly found to be not great. So I think it was 10% that he put on us. It feels to me like it's just a continuation. I don't know if he's declaring war. I think in some other countries, like Brazil, immediately put reciprocal tariffs on it. Could be the start of another. I would say a tete a tete rather than a war. But I am not convinced that this is going to be running the news cycle for the next few weeks. I think this is Donald Trump's. He's plugging a hole.
- [34:43]
Connor Stringer
Yeah. So they've had to do this basically because the other tariffs and the mechanism of which they put these tariffs under before has run out. It expires on Friday. So they've had to come up with a way that is first of all legally signed, because you remember the previous one got thrown out by the Supreme Court in a bit of an embarrassing blunder for the President that almost threatened to really derail his whole economic agenda for his whole term. So they've had to scratch their heads in the last couple of months since then and come up with a way that's legally signed or at least it's going to be harder to throw out. And they've basically come up with what is a the idea that countries, as Lossy said, who has had ties to China, those who have broken kind of foreign slavery laws, et cetera, will be hit with 10% tariffs. This is obviously much easier to prove. It's tangential. It's linked of course to various other laws. So that's basically why they've done it. The Supreme Court has probably bounced them into this. But I actually don't think the UK have come out terribly badly from this. Again, I was speaking to somebody who was in the negotiations in the room actually recently who pointed out that the biggest winner in all this has been the King. And if it wasn't for him we would probably be at a point where we'd have whiskey crucially still being hampered pretty badly. If you look at the rest of the countries and you actually look, look at what we've managed to probably achieve, we've got alcohol, whiskey at least, you know, tariff free pharmaceuticals, beef and carbs, which sounds like quite frankly a great night out.
- [36:12]
Venetia Rainey
One more thing I wanted to ask you about actually that Iranian threat against British interests calling us a legitimate target because of these B1 bombers flying. What do you make of that?
- [36:22]
Connor Stringer
Yeah, the missile stuff, the RAF therapeutic stuff is very interesting and the Chaegos stuff I know you mentioned we're going to talk about it but I mean this is worrying and why it's so interesting one is because the threatened substitute role in the UK directly into this conflict for the first time. But normally if Iran was to make this threat, we probably wouldn't really care because we didn't really believe that they had the missile capability or range to do anything about it. But you remember that Iran fired two ballistic missiles towards Diego Garcia about middle way through the war and that petrified everybody in Europe. Every European leader could not believe it. Jaws hit the ground because that's a 4,000 kilometer range.
- [37:03]
Venetia Rainey
I will just add reportedly right, because they were intercepted and fell into the sea. So we've just never seen any hard proof. I'll just add my tiny little pinch of salt skepticism to that one.
- [37:14]
Connor Stringer
If you believe exactly that they were fired to 4000 km which is extraordinary. That would put Europe well within range of potentially of an Iranian missile if they've got longer, which is extraordina. So everyone's got their eye on that and are acutely aware of the impact of what could happen there. I think we won't see the UK drawn into anything, but we saw drones fire to Cyprus, among many other means and ways, so that's definitely not one to be taken lightly.
- [37:43]
Venetia Rainey
Lottie Tip, lady bishop, our acting U.S. news editor, and Connor Stringer, our chief Washington correspondent. Thanks very much for joining us on around the Latest. That's all for today's episode. We'll be back again on Sunday with a special bonus episode about Lebanon. And then on Monday we'll be back again with the usual daily news update states I'll be on holiday and so will Roland, so you'll have a special rota of guest hosts to lead you through all the news. You'll be in very safe hands. Until then, goodbye. Around the Latest is an original podcast from the Telegraph, created by David Knowles and hosted by me, Venetia Rainey and Roland Oliphant. If you appreciated this podcast, please consider following around the latest on your preferred POD podcast app. And if you have a moment, leave a review as it helps others find the show. For more from our foreign correspondence on the ground, sign up for our new daily newsletter Cables, or listen to our sister podcast Ukraine. The Latest we're still on the same email address battleions telegraph.co.uk or you can contact us on X. You can find our handles in the show. Notes the producer is Peter Shevlin. The executive producers are Venetia Rainey and Luke Wells.
- [39:01]
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Connor Stringer
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