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tv   The Context  BBC News  June 20, 2025 9:00pm-9:31pm BST

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hello, welcome to the context with me, kasia madera, in london. and i'm sumi somaskanda in washington, where this hour, we'll be focusing on president trump's second term. and we're looking at efforts to end the conflict between israel and iran. what intelligence do you have that iran is building a nuclear weapon? your intelligence community has said they have no evidence that they are at this point. well, then my intelligence community is wrong. who in the intelligence community said that? your director of national intelligence, tulsi gabbard. she's wrong. we have a window of time. this is perilous and deadly serious, and i think it was important for europeans to be sat with the iranians, conveying those messages. the confrontation between israel and iran is escalating rapidly with a terrible toll.
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joining us tonight are robby soave, co-host of the hill's news commentary series programme rising, and johanna maska, former official in the obama administration. hello, welcome to the context. this hour, we focus on the impacts of donald trump's second term, and as we await arguably the president's most significant decision - whether to take direct action against iran - heated diplomatic efforts to de-escalate the conflict between israel and iran have been taking place without resolution. yeah, and this is reflected on the ground with the exchanges of fire continuing as this conflict enters its second week. dozens of israelis were injured in the country's north this
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afternoon in the latest round of iranian attacks, while israeli strikes have continued across iran. while the un secretary-general warned that the world is racing towards crisis, the two sides at war show no signs of abating, with israel accussing iran of having a "genocidal agenda", while iran says israel is carrying out war crimes. as those diplomatic efforts intensify, president trump says europe would not be able to help much in bringing this conflict to an end. could the europeans help at all and talking with iran? no, they did not help at all. iran does not want to speak to europe, they want to speak to us. europe is not going to help us very much. what intelligence do you have that iran is building a nuclear weapon? your intelligence community has said they have no evidence that they are at this point. well, then my intelligence community is wrong. who in the intelligence community said that? your director of national intelligence, tulsi gabbard. she's wrong. united nations general-secretary antonio guterres says the world is watching the israel-iran conflict with growing alarm. the confrontation between israel and iran is escalating rapidly with a terrible toll,
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killing and injuring civilians, devastating homes, neighbourhoods and civilian infrastructure and attacking nuclear facilities. the world is watching with growing alarm. we are not drifting toward crisis, we are racing toward it. we are not witnessing isolated incidents. we are on course to potential chaos. the expansion of this conflict could ignite a fire that no-one can control. we must not let that happen. let's speak to our senior north america correspondent john sudworth outside the united nations. that is where that meeting of the security council has been taking place, and apparently really heated. yeah, pretty tough exchange of words. some pretty stark warnings as you
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heard from the secretary-general there. he took to quoting john lennon at one point, give peace a chance, he was saying. the meeting heard from the director general of the international atomic energy agency, saying that at the moment, there is no indication that israel's strikes on iran's nuclear facilities had caused widespread contamination beyond those facilities themselves but that that danger remained were israel to strike the active nuclear reactors, for example. he was warning of a real risk of much, much wider, a much wider threat from radiation potentially stretching hundreds of kilometres. so nobody is any doubt about what the stakes are here. lots of people voicing concern. the european powers, the permanent members the uk and france, calling for an
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urgent de-escalation, but of course the voices in the room that everybody was waiting to hear from were those of the iranian and israeli ambassador. and if you say, when they spoke, it was a pretty angry exchange. from the iranians, we had them saying that the israeli attack was unprovoked. they said their nuclear programme was they accuse the us of their complicity in the rest of the security council of not doing anything to stop it. and the iranian ambassador said their actions were taken as of the vans and they will continue as long as israel's attacks on iranian soil continued. then straight afterwards, in fact, we had the israeli ambassador saying that iran had a genocidal agenda, he said. he claimed that it was moving towards deployable nuclear weapons faster than any of us
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can imagine, and he said that israel would not stop until it had dismantled that threat. so while there were these calls for diplomacy from many of the other nations involved in today's meeting, if anything from the iranian and israeli positions, we have proof that those positions are pretty entrenched. yeah, they sure seem to be. as always, many thanks, live at the un. let's bring in our panel for today - robby soave, co-host of the hill's news commentary series programme rising, and johanna maska, former aide to us president barack obama. great to have you both with us today as we are hearing about those diplomatic efforts, let's start out by asking you about what we heard president trump steak a short while ago. he was asked about putting in a call to israel in order to tell them to stop strikes and continue negotiation need to that's pretty tough to do. what do you think of that? yeah, we are waiting to see about two weeks before seeing if the us will get involved. israel has already been moving forward and engage in a bombing campaign,
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so the question becomes what level of us support will be given and the potentials are none to everything too full on military conflict with iran. israel will really like us to help by providing the so-called bunker buster bombs weapon to be able to get to the fordow facility. but donald trump spoke out against his own national intelligence director, referencing the israeli intelligence and i must recognise there is no new us intelligence showing the development of new capability. this matters in the context of the us domestic sphere that donald trump owes his entire career to campaigning against the iraq war and saying that then president george w. bush made a mistake in believing the intelligence which led him to engaging in the iraq war. that was one of the most important moments for donald trump as he was on stage with the brother
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of george w. bush and that made his candidacy. very ironic for him to now be in a position of relying on not only our own intelligence but another country's in saying this is verified to be true in this country has been saying that iran is days away from a nuclear weapon pretty much my entire lifetime. that comment, he was so categorically that she was wrong and even back in and this is been going on for some time to my back in march of 25th of this year, tulsi gabbard was talking and giving the intelligence community's threat assessment and she said they don't have any evidence that iran does not have any nuclear weapon and now so categorically her own president saying she was wrong. and this comes at a time when she was not even invited to a major meeting on the issue, so obviously there are cracks in
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his administration which are troubling. this is not the first time that he has doubted us intelligence. he doubted us intelligence that russia tried to influence the outcome of the election, but it is substantial because he is tying himself to benjamin netanyahu very closely. and if you see the fractures in the republican party, the democrats are certainly not going to side with benjamin netanyahu, and now you've got fractures really developing within the republican party. you have a lot of maga personalities who are very concerned about war. robbie is right that donald trump was an anti-war candidate, and i worked for president obama, who was an anti-war candidate. the us it is not on the side of war, so it's going to be interesting to see how those dynamics play out in his own caucus divide. ok come out back with you both with much more discuss with un a moment.
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let's speak to jeffrey feltman, former united nations under-secretary-general for political affairs. he oversaw the un's diplomatic efforts to prevent and mitigate conflict worldwide. i will ask un a moment about the united nations but i want to pick up on this point that we have seen here about intelligence that we were just discussing with our panel as donald trump states unequivocally that there is intelligence that iran was very close to building a nuclear weapon and again it rejected the assessment of his director of national intelligence. what do you think that tells us? first, i think it tells us couple of things and after pamela said, it just mean he does not trust his own intelligence community, which is worrying as he is trying to determine what he is going to do in the situation. what would the result be of the us joining the israelis in trying to bomb fordow poster was he getting
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good information about the potential risk and opportunities are from those who know the region and can analyse it or is he relying on benjamin netanyahu? net for years has said that iran is days or months away from getting a bomb in river there was a cartoon image in the un general assembly several years ago saying iran was on the way to getting a bath. so first my concern is if he was only listening to benjamin netanyahu in dismissing the wider array of expertise he has available to him in its own government. the second point is i think it's sort of... the question of has iran decided to go for a bump is sort of a false question. is it really either or? can we not imagine that the iranians continued to do some research of what would it take you and if they have not decided to go all the way yet, meaning that israel could be picking up the same information as the americans are picking up but interpreting it differently? but that goes to
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the issue of timing all of this and if you look at the fact that president trump is set a maximum of two weeks until he makes a decision, what time does that give diplomatic efforts here, especially when you have heard the president just say he does not think europe is going to be able to help much on this? i don't think the two weeks means much except for that he is not made up his mind. i think if it takes three weeks, it will take three weeks and if it takes three days, it will take three days. i think the two weeks was put out there to buy time because i suspect he truly does not know and truly is being torn in both directions, to be at the historic figure who demolishes once and for all iran's nuclear programme or the person that kept us out of another middle east war. he probably truly is in a dilemma and i think the two weeks with a throw away. the deadline that mattered in terms where we are now was his 60 day deadline that he would have a deal within 60 days, because in benjamin netanyahu and israel waited until day 61 to start their strikes. so they used his deadline is one of the justifications for when they started the strikes last week.
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but i suspect the time for diplomatic off ramps is fairly short. but i would not tie it to two weeks. ok, really good to get your perspective and analysis of the story today. thanks for joining a. thank you. let's bring in our panel for today - robby soave, co-host of the hill's news commentary series programme rising, and johanna maska, former aide to us president barack obama. that deadline that he talked about, two weeks this summer ammo without the danger of it 60 days as he saw on the 51st day we saw israel attacked iran. what is it with donald trump and his deadlines? look, i would say any time and it being thrown out there it all if you are against more military involvement, as i am to be clear, it is better than saying we medially going to go in now. it shows he is thinking it through, and i think he is actually about this. i would
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not describe it so much as a fracture, as a legitimate difference of opinion. really on both sides of the political spectrum, there are top democrats like john federman and chuck schumer, chuck schumer in leadership, who absolutely want to help israel and have this confrontation with iran. there are others in the party like bernie sanders who were dead set against it so this is a debate happening in democratic circles and in trouble can circles, and donald trump has some noninterventionist instincts that are colliding with what israel is urging him to do. israel is trying to make it sound, and by israel i mean the government of benjamin netanyahu obviously, make it sound as of the negotiations that trump was engaged with earlier were some kind a diversionary tactic for the strike, which i read and i think many red is very much an effort to make trump feel as if he has no choice but to be involved in this. i don't think that's the right way to handle trump. i think you'll make a decision and
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much of maga and much of the republican party or the entire party will agree with him and i think that is going to be a good thing. do you think that any of this will have an impact on the president? i do, and you saw that the carlson recently had senator ted cruz on an essentially pants him on his own programme because he could not name the population, even an estimate of iran, and he is one of those hawks pushing for war. so you see to her carlson has really been using his platform to say we do not want this war, we should not go down this route and when you have a leading hawk who could not even in the population of the country, i think that does give donald trump pause. if he is watching fox news, fox news is obviously rallying to the cause of the conflict, and that is not happening on some of his
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allies in this maga preferable so i think that does actually make the difference, and i will say that it's not just european allies and others who probably would welcome two weeks. there are a lot of americans, and robbie is right on both sides of the aisle, who welcome that pause because they want their perspective shared as well. what a panel we have, everybody agreeing with each other. do not go away. we will be back imminently and will hear from the uk foreign secretary on this and also i've been speaking to a former head of
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welcome back to the context. european negotiators have welcomed donald trump's announcement that he will make a decision on us military action in iran within two weeks. it has offered them some breathing space and a diplomatic window that could get iran back to the negotiating table. some of that diplomatic effort has been taking place today in geneva, where the foreign secretary, david lammy, and counterparts from france and germany have been holding talks with iran's foreign minister, abbas araghchi, to try to ease the conflict. the talks have been the first face-to-face talks between tehran and western governments since israel launched its attacks on iran last week. the uk foreign secretary has been speaking following those talks, which he described as "constructive". we urge the iranians to get back into discussions with the united states. we will do all we can to facilitate those discussions, but to understand the immediacy of this moment, the seriousness of the intent, i think, of the united states, its partners and global allies at this time, and our determination to see a diplomatic off-ramp and de-escalation to this problem.
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the uk foreign secretary there. it all comes as president trump and his nato counterparts are due to meet for two days in the netherlands from next tuesday. mr trump insists that us allies should commit to spending at least 5% of gross domestic product, but that requires investment at an unprecedented scale. trump has cast doubt over whether the us would defend allies that spend too little. i've been speaking with former nato secretary general anders fogh rasmussen. i started by asking him whether the us could still be considered a reliable partner in the alliance. first of all, i think it's important to stress that increased defence investments should not be decided to please president trump. they should be decided to defend europe. that's what it is about, and that's why i support to increase defence spending from the current target of 2% of gdp till a new target of 3.5 when it comes to core defence,
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plus 1.5% when it comes to defence-related investments. but even more important actually is the timeline, and it's unambitious. it's almost ridiculous to suggest a timeline of 2035 to achieve this goal. bombing are raining down in ukraine right now. according to our intelligence services, putin will be capable of attacking a nato country before the end of this decade, so we should fulfil the nato target, at the latest, by 2030. so i wonder, then, given that you have some countries, especially southern european countries, who are barely hitting the 2% target that the nato secretary general, that donald trump also wants, is nato still relevant? do the member states,
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do they potentially need to be changed, then, if some are more committed, particularly those countries closer to the ukraine border like poland who are spending next year... they will say they will spend 5% of their gdp on defence, whereas you've got places like italy spending much, much less. is nato still even relevant? nato is still relevant, and we should recall that nato is a collective defence organisation, which means that we should all live up to the common targets. obviously, it is more expensive to defend poland and the baltic states, for instance, against a russian attack than to defend spain and portugal or italy. but it is a collective defence organisation, and in the spirit of solidarity, we should all fulfil that common target and help each other if need be. let's bring in our panel
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for today - robby soave, co-host of the hill's news commentary series programme rising, and johanna maska, former aide to us president barack obama. listening to that very interesting conversation, and i should say president trump and speaking a little bit earlier before getting on the plane again pointed out that spain and canada are what he called notorious slow payers when it comes to nato contributions. but this clearly is going to be a topic and an issue, especially with the conflict in ukraine, iran and israel as a look ahead to that summit. yeah, it's a rift. you never know what donald trump is going to do at a summit. i work for a very printable president and i remember planning our nato summit in chicago. president obama, we plan everything, he came to all the meetings and a lot of work it happened before and. resident trump is the complete opposite. he will up the end like he did the g7 when he went to canada and leave in the middle of the meeting. you have no idea what is going to happen or unfold. that can in a sense be a good thing,
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especially for the media because you see more of the real divides than you do when something is so planned. but at the same time, european allies have to figure out who is going to show up and what are they doing. and it's really troubling because we were just talking about how important nato is because it has a population base that finally rivals the like of china. i must admit i recall when i was at the 2022 nato summit in madrid and it was joe biden back then at the helm, and when it came to questions from the press corps, only the us press corps got a question in and i will tell you it was only about us domestic issues emitted by that point there was a full-scale invasion of ukraine. but just when it comes to nato, when donald trump was speaking just before heading off, the audio was not great but there was a moment when he said, criticising spain for spending not quite 2% of their gdp on defence, then he went on to say
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that he does not think necessarily that the us should spend 5%, yet he wants everybody else too. it seems to feel like it's one rule for donald trump, one rule for everybody else. well, he speaks for a movement, for a lot of voters in the us who are frustrated and feel like if not free writing that the us has shouldered more of its share of the cost of europe than our european peer nations when europe is more threatened by it, for instance, russia's actions in the us is itself at a time where china is certainly the us's largest global threat, not russia. i'm glad you brought up the comparison to joe biden. whatever you think about donald trump, we don't have any mystery about what his views are. he is the most accessible president to the press. in fact, they took her carlson criticism of the iran policy that joanna mentioned was something he got asked by a
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writer for the atlantic, just call donald trump and said how do you respond to what took her carlson said? and then trump gave his answer. can you imagine a member of the media being able to call joe biden and get an answer on some breaking or developing policy? that's the difference here. we've obviously seen recent reporting that maybe it was not even possible given joe biden's state to get a straight answer on the sorts of things. i guess the question is going to be... galahad. i was going to add, though, one thing is he is accessible but he changes what he actually believes it so often that you never actually know if that's going to be the final answer was that they this evening other nato summits where erdogan will say whatever to any question but you don't know whether to believe it. so there is a little bit of entertaining... is called strategic ambiguity is with the administration is calling it
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but they gives him room to plan your back with both of un a moment.
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hello, welcome back. i'm sumi in washington and i'm kasia madera in london. this is the context on bbc news a judge has ordered the columbia university student mahmoud khalil to be released on bail from us immigration detention, where he has been held for more than three months over his activism against israel's war in gaza. the us vice president is on his way to california, jd vance will be in los angeles where he'll tour a federal building command center and meet marines. it comes as the trump administration is celebrating a victory in its standoff with california over anti-deportation protests there. on thursday a federal appeals court unanimously allowed

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