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Speaker 1: And now for a moment of clarity.

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Speaker 2: What Secretary of Hegseth said about it being fortified could

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be true in fact, but it's how it was fortified

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that I think is interesting to me as I read

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that piece. It may have had tea walls, big concrete

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six foot walls around that tactical operations center, which would

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in fact make it quote unquote fortified. But was it

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fortified against an air attack? Was it fortified against a

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drone coming from up high? And that's I think an

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open question. It is possible that it wasn't, So you know,

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both things can be true fortified, but not necessarily fortified

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against the threat. So the accounts given by those soldiers,

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that certainly is alarming and interesting. And I hope that

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when the Central Command finishes this investigation that they'll be

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you know, completely transparent and fulsome in describing what they

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found and more critically, what if any lessons learned they

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they got out of it, and what changes they might

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have to implement to force protection going forward.

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Speaker 1: I don't know how we meet that expectation, or how

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this administration meets that expectation when everything virtually coming out

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of them is a lie or a reframing of facts

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to meet a storyline and a narrative John that they

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want to perpetuate. This for them is a video game,

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This is a television series. You know, to listen to

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the Secretary of Defense. We don't have a Department of War, people,

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but it's the Secretary of Defense sitting up here talking

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the way he talks. These young men and women. What

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is their expectation when they go into battle? And you

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know that's not going to be their reality. Their reality

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is not going to be this clean cut. Oh yes,

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we dropped the bomb. Things blew up and everybody went

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scurrying back into their holes. That's not how it works.

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The enemy fights, the enemy responds. We have thirteen soldiers,

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men and women who are dead because of these actions.

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And this yippie kaya crazy out of this administration. But

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here's the other dividing line here, which is fundamentally just

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a parable in itself about this administration. The strait of

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horror moves now from everything we've been told, and this

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goes to my first point. They obliterated any obstacles that

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could stand in their way to keeping this channel open.

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And yet here we are and David Rhodes our ms

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NOW correspondent notes Gregory Brew, a senior around An energy

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analysts with Eurasia Group, a geopolitical risk consulting firm, told

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ms NOW Iran's new control of the Strait has given

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it more leverage than it had before the war. Hello, people,

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where are we? John? I mean they so it controls

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the nation.

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Speaker 2: It's a fair point, Michael. I mean, you know, forty

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days ago, before the war started, the Strait was open,

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completely open, and shipping companies didn't have to check with

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Iran before going through the Straight of Horror moves. And

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that that tiny, little narrow gap there, it was open,

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and something on the order of one hundred to one

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hundred and thirty five ships per day were transiting in

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and out.

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Speaker 1: Catch Michael Steele on the weeknight Monday through Friday at

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seven pm Eastern on ms NOW