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Bloomberg Audio Studios Podcasts radio news, oil prices higher,
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stocks being dragged down as we look to what seems to be an escalating situation in the Middle east after the already conducted strikes against Iran yesterday in retaliation for the downed Apache helicopter over the Strait of Hormuz, President Trump saying that more attacks are on their way. This was the president in the Oval Office earlier today.
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We hit him hard yesterday and we're
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going to hit him again hard today
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in case you miss it, in case you don't turn on your television set and we'll see what happens with the deal.
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We were, we were really close to
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a deal, but they keep tapping us along. They keep playing us for suckers because you know what they dealt with some very stupid press president tapping us along. As the president made clear on Truth Social that the regime is simply taking too much time in negotiations. And this is where we start our conversation with an important voice in foreign policy and in domestic politics. That would be Nikki Haley, the former ambassador to the United nations, former governor of South Carolina, chair at Hudson Institute, founder of Stand for America, the advocacy group. It's wonderful to have you with us, Ambassador. Thanks for joining us today on Bloomberg. What are your thoughts then about this active conversation right now? Is this the only recourse at the moment to gain more leverage, to hasten an agreement with more strikes?
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First of all, I think you have to look at, you always have to look at what your adversary is thinking. For them, they're not looking to win. They're looking to survive. So there's a difference. What they think is if they can put enough political pressure on this administration, if they can put enough economic pressure on this administration, they think the US Will cave to a weak deal Iran has. This is the same playbook Iran has always done. They stall, they start talking, they make you think you're going to get a deal. They throw cold water on it. And all the while they're strategizing, they're rearming, they're getting ready for the next conflict. Iran was never going to do a deal. They are never going to get rid of their nuclear ambitions. That's their number one priority now. They've actually found more leverage with the Strait of Hormuz. And so they don't want to go back to what it was pre war. They now want to have sovereignty over the Street. They want to make sure that they have the threat of nuclear ambition, and they're going to continue to do that. So I think Trump was right to strike yesterday. But the idea of a deal, that's just not in their cards. They one of the surprising things that's not talked about, they have excavated 50 of the 69 tunnels that hold missiles. They're rearming now. That's not enough. We've weakened Iran tremendously, but it show you how they think.
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Well, so if Iran is never going to make a deal and the US Is now obviously bogged down in the Middle east for some time, in the absence of one, are we coming out on the losing side of this, Ambassador?
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No. The only option is to win. Trump has to finish what he started. And the key is stop waiting for a deal, Finish it. They're very weak, but what you have to do is go after their finances. What has not and which the administration should do is go after Russia and China. Russia right now is providing them drones. China says they want this hostility to end, yet they are providing them manpads for air defense systems. They provided satellite imagery so that you can hit our military bases. If you go after those two, they're providing money. If you go after those two, that's going to take away Iran's ability to help. The second thing is you do have to acknowledge Carg island is where they get their revenues from. And at some point, that's going to have to be addressed. But what they're doing is they're creating a distraction. And what they've said is, well, Israel is hitting Lebanon. No, Israel is hitting Hezbollah, the terrorist regime in Lebanon. The Lebanese people don't like Hezbollah. And so the key is, is Iran's going to keep making excuses. They're going to keep creating distractions. At the end of the day, they just want to survive. They just want to make it another day.
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Well, you just said a lot, and we need to unpack that. So the United States seizes Kharg Island. That would involve troops, as we understand, in an operation that could bring some risk but would have the point. You're making a very direct impact on the economy in Iran. When you say go after China and Russia, is that sanctions? Yes, because we find repeatedly that sanctions don't change behavior with these two.
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You have to truly hold them accountable. You have to make sure that they feel the pain. You know, and a lot of that is a lot of the oil that China would buy from Iran, they wouldn't pay Iran directly, they do it through shadow accounts through the uae. You have to go to UAE and say, look, we're working well together. You can't keep helping China help Iran. All of these adversarial things, those are the ones you go after. The point is, if you take your money away from Iran, they can't build nuclear production, they can't mine the strait, they can't fund Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis. You know, right now Iran's talking about now starting to hit Israeli boats, the Red Sea. They're not stopping. Their intention is to keep being aggressive so that they can get what they want, which is sanction relief, to unfreeze the assets and to try and get the country to see them as someone they need to be dealt with.
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Well, as if they heard you, Ambassador, the US Just announced sanctions on quote, unquote, clandestine banking in China linked to Iran sanctioning some Chinese and Hong Kong based individuals. So perhaps that would be a start to what you're getting at here. But I want to go back to something else you mentioned. That's Lebanon and Israel's conduct there. Your point is well understood that it's Hezbollah that they're targeting, but obviously there has been a lot of associated collateral damage. And I wonder if you view Israel as now being actually a very complicating factor in the path forward. If Israel's desires and objectives are diverging from ours.
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The US Partnering with Israel and what they did to really bring Iran to its knees was so important and so helpful for the national security of the US of Israel and of the west. So very important that that happened. Israel has to defend itself. But think just since the April cease fire, what you've had is the Hezbollah has struck Northern Israel over 2000 times with rockets and drones. What country would put up with that? What country would allow that? So it's not that Israel was doing this, it's Hezbollah. So Iran is trying to make this gray by saying, oh, they're hitting Lebanon. This is not the case. Lebanon is not the issue. It is Hezbollah. That's the issue. And you can't let this terrorist activity that is associated with Iran continue. And I think that the US And Israel are partners. I think that while Netanyahu and Trump may disagree at times, I think they agree on a lot more than they disagree. And I think at the end of, they both have the same end goal. And so I think that partnership stays strong.
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It's amazing that we're having this conversation in June of 2026, remembering the no new wars mantra that followed the Trump campaign throughout his reelection. There's amazing analysis from our colleagues at Bloomberg Economics found. Since taking office last January, President Trump has Greenlit at least 14,418 military strikes around the globe. I'm just curious, if you were sitting behind the Resolute desk, would you have started this war?
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I think that Trump did the right thing. Iran was the weakest they had ever been. If Trump wouldn't have gotten involved, they just would have gone back to doing what they're doing. Keep in mind, you have to know the ideology of that regime. In 1979, they called the US the Great Satan, and they said, death to America. Believe adversaries when they say they want to kill you. I personally was targeted. There was a hitman that was actually paid money on US soil to kill me. They are coming to America to kill Americans. This is a regime that finds that their Messiah is coming. And in the meantime, their struggles are supposed to be real, and they're supposed to cause chaos and brutality and murder in the process. You can't change an ideology like that. So they were going to rebuild. They were going to continue to cause harm. They were going to continue to put national security threats on Americans. Over 1,000Americans have been injured and killed from Iran. We shouldn't even be allowing one. This had to happen. Now he just has to finish what he started.
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So you see the national security justification for this particular excursion, as the President has called it. He also has suggested that once the. Once this Iran situation is over, whenever that is, he may turn his sights to Cuba. And I wonder if you see that as urgent, what you would expect the US to do when it comes to Cuba and a regime that clearly is teetering on the brink in the US
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Put in their national security strategy to make the Western Hemisphere a priority. I think that you saw that with, you know, extracting Maduro and Venezuela, the Venezuelans are going to see. See so much progress with that. That was something that needed to happen. They deserve freedom, and they're going to get it. What you're seeing in Cuba is a little bit different because Cuba doesn't have a Delsey Rodriguez, a number two, that can go and run things. Cuba doesn't have a Machado ahead of an opposition that can go forward. So I don't think that this administration is going to go militarily into Cuba. I think they're just going to put pressure through sanctions and weigh them down. You know, they already stopped the oil that was going from Venezuela to Cuba. They had Mexico pull Back on the oil that was going to Cuba and now Cuba's feeling the pain. They can only take so much pain. What they're going to want is sanction relief. They're going to want to get the Cuban economy going again. But unfortunately they're going to have to continue to deal with the people that are leading Cuba right now. That's not going to be an issue. That's not going to be something that they can change.
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Yeah. There have been questions about whether we could sustain action in two parts of the world militarily like this because we have a massive buildup in the Middle east that's standing by to do what you're suggesting, which is to finish the job. If in fact we went pedal to the metal and took the advice of Nikki Haley, how long would it take?
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Stop negotiating with them. That's never going to happen. We've lost time. Go finish what you started. I think within a week to two weeks.
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Is that right?
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They could long before the week to two weeks. They could. It would take them the amount of time to extract the nuclear enrichment that they have seized Carg Island. You'll have to have special forces there. To go and hold Carg island is going to obviously take a little bit longer. But this is one where they need to be focused and mission driven on go after the revenues that are going to Iran and that's the only way to get rid of the regime. And then the Iranian people have no way to defend themselves. They've killed thousands of people in the streets and made examples of them. What's happened in the past is the US has actually helped countries so that the people can rise up. That's the way that this is going to end is when the people feel safe enough to rise up, that they can go and take their country back.
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If the US were to pursue the course of action you're describing, do you believe it would be prudent for the President to go to Congress first? Do you see that constitutional necessity that he is consistently denied is necessary?
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I always think you need to go to Congress. One, you need the buy in of Congress. You need the buy in of the American people. You need to explain what you're doing, why you're doing it, and what you know. And yes, it's just good practice to go to Congress with more. This administration has done a lot by executive order. The danger in that is the next administration, if it's not a Republican, all of that gets reversed and then we're swinging the pendulum. That's not good for the American people. Congress needs to step up. There are a lot of things Congress could be doing, but right now we're hearing a lot of talking and not a lot of action.
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The political pendulum also swings as we watch the primary season unfold. And there was a state you know a lot about that was, of course, voting yesterday in South Carolina. The president's endorsements, endorsements have been on the line quite a bit here more recently, and they paid off last evening, particularly in the race for governor in the primary for governor. Pamela Yvette, I'm curious your thoughts on this and what it looks to be the end of a couple of political careers, including Nancy Mace and someone who you endorsed and endorsed you back in. Ralph Norman, what, what transpired last night and is it good for your party?
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Well, I think, first of all, primaries are always good for our party. I think that it's very important that you have debate, that you have, you know, them touching as many hands as they can and really getting their message out. So I think having a full primary was a great thing. You know, the press has been covering that Nancy Mace was a factor, and because of the Trump endorsement, she lost. She was never a factor in this race. She was always in fifth place. She was never going anywhere. She knew that, and South Carolina knew that. So, you know, she laid her bed. She's now laying in it. That's what she's doing. Ralph Norman, who I respect and love, we go way back. He does what he says he's going to do. He's got real clarity. You know, certainly I wish he would have made it into the, into the runoff, but, you know, he was always pushing. And then you had Evatt and Wilson in there. And so look, it's the power of the Trump endorsement. Evatt wouldn't have made it in the runoff without the Trump endorsement. So his endorsement is strong. It does move the ball. And, you know, we just have to make sure that who we elect in a primary is who we want to vote for in a general.
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Well, and to that point, I wonder if you think the president is making the correct endorsement choices, even if we look beyond South Carolina to say, somewhere like Texas. Texas, where Ken Paxton is now the one who is going to have to try to hold a Senate seat in Republican hands.
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It's going to cost a lot more money for Republicans to hold that seat. I do think we'll hold the Texas seat, but it's just not Republicans. Look at Graham Platner in Maine. You know, it's, it's amazing to me. You know, I always say it's important to understand that in a primary, you make your choice. In a general election, you're given the choice. You, you, you have to choose between the two. But in America, typically only 15% of Americans vote in a primary. So what you're getting is the extreme of both sides. So by the time most Americans go to vote, they're having to choose between two extremes. It's because we don't talk about primaries in high schools. Our kids don't know that they know to vote in November. They know to do that, and they do. But until we start talking about the importance of primaries and until Americans see that that's actually the race that matters, you're going to have the Paxton race, you're going to have the platinum, you're going to have those. Is that make us kind of uncomfortable? But, you know, all in the name of getting a majority. Let's get the right good people in there so that we can start getting things done. But more than that, let's look at what's not getting done. You know, you look at the debt that America has right now. What has Congress done about that? So you want to talk about a war, but why aren't they talking about balancing a budget? You know, we're $39 trillion in debt. We're going to be 40 trillion, trillion in the fall. That's unacceptable. That's like the US taking in 5 trillion a year and spending 7 trillion a year. You know, now we're 100% over GDP. The last two recessions, we had a buffer. If we have another recession, there will be no stimulus. There will be no tax breaks. You aren't going to have a cushion to do anything with. That is something Congress can address now, and they've yet to do it. Social Security is going to run out in six years. Every U.S. senate candidate needs to be asked, what are you going to do about it? Because 75 million Americans will be affected by that. You don't wait until that falls on us and do a quick band aid of a deal. It's something I talked about in the campaign was reforming entitlements. You have to do that in a few years, 15% of our federal outlays are going to be interest. That's not okay.
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Well, I'm just listening to you speak, Ambassador, and I'm wondering if you plan to travel to campaign for candidates that you decide to support, whether it's in the South Carolina runoff or nationally and what your plans are beyond this midterm cycle. We all remember when you said your time would come. Is it coming in this next round?
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First of all, I'm going to help any candidates that I can. You know, we have been helping Susan Collins raise money. I plan on going to Maine and campaigning for her, doing that when we see a good candidate. I mean, that race matters to us so much. And she's been such a remarkable senator. You know, it's, it shouldn't go overseeing that. She's never missed a vote. Never missed a vote. And regardless of where her views are, she's respected. She's a hard worker. She's come out of tough races. But we need to make sure she wins again. We can't take this for granted. So, yes, I will be out there in elections helping Republicans. That's something I'm always going to do in terms of my future. You know, I'm going to keep talking about the things that matter. I'm going to talk about foreign policy. I'm going to talk about the debt. I'm going to talk about the need for us to self correct. I think that's what I can do. You know, I talk to a lot of business leaders now about how you manage business in, you know, this world that we're in. And that's kind of where I am right now. I, you know, so I'm not going to look forward. I'm not running in 2028. That's not something that I'm interested in. But my voice is going to always be there. I think it's too important for us to stay silent in times like this.
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Well, and as you talk about talking about foreign policy, something that you were Vocal about in 2024, President Trump, as Joe alluded to earlier, was very much not running that kind of campaign. And yet he does seem to be running that kind of presidency, much more foreign policy oriented. And I wonder if you expect that that trajectory is going to continue where that once again is back at the forefront of conversation.
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Well, I think, you know, you can say no new wars, but the reality of Ukraine and Russia is there. Russia invaded a free country. That's something that we can't step away from. The reality of the threat from Iran on our national security, you can't walk away from that. So, yes, in a campaign, you can say no new wars, but reality hits you in the face when you get to that leadership position and you have to make those decisions. And I think he's having to make those decisions now.
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It's a pretty dangerous time that, that we're living in and talking through with you, Ambassador. And there's a big question about who should be running the nation's intelligence apparatus. This is a big problem on Capitol Hill. FISA expires, it looks like, on Friday, because lawmakers need more than Bill pulses. They want a permanent name that the President might announce. He says he's working on one, but Pulte will be on the job later this month. Are you comfortable with that?
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Well, I think Trump has made it clear that he's going to put a permanent person in there. That person needs to have experience. We need. I mean, our intelligence is everything I can tell you from when I was at the United nations, the profiles of our adversaries, knowing what they're saying, knowing what they're doing, knowing the threats that face us, are hugely important. It would be irresponsible for Congress not to renew fisa. I can't stress enough how that keeps Americans safe. And regardless of what you think about Pulte, FISA needs to continue and Trump needs to put someone qualified in there that can make Congress feel like they can move forward. So both of those things need to happen just quickly.
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Is it also irresponsible to have someone, even in an acting capacity, who's used non public mortgage data to go after perceived enemies of the President?
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I think that what we want is transparency. Let us know who's serving us, what are they doing for us. Be transparent about it. And what's your end goal? I think that there are, you know, cabinet members who are doing a great job. I think there are other cabinet members who we may not know as much of what they're doing. Open it all up. Let the American people see. At the end of the day, Americans want to know that government's working for them. They still don't trust government. They don't trust our agencies, they don't trust Congress, they don't trust elected officials. Americans deserve better. You know, they're paying higher in groceries, higher in energy, higher in insurance. You know, all of these things. Kids can't afford their rent. If all of that's going to happen, it makes an American public more resentful and it makes them more angry at why people aren't working for them. And my advice is, look, we're going to be okay, but do your part. Step up. Don't vote for somebody because they look good in a picture or hold a baby. Well, you know, are they fighting for you? And if they're fighting for you, fight for them. But if they're not, it's time to turn the leaf and get someone else. All right.
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We'll leave it on that note. Ambassador, thank you so much for joining us. She's now chair at Hudson Institute, also former ambassador to the United nations and former governor of South Carolina. Nikki Haley here with us on Bloomberg TV and radio. Thank you so much. As industries evolve faster than ever, companies
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