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Trump Holds Cabinet Meeting With Blanche Nomination In Peril; Trump Defends $1.8 Billion Fund After DOJ Promised To Kill It; Blanche Confirmation Teeters As Trump Defends Weaponization Fund; Trump: DOJ Weaponization Fund Is Dead, But "I Wish It Weren't"; Trump On Iranian Negotiators; "All They Do Is Make Me Angry". Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired July 31, 2026 - 12:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[12:00:00]

DANA BASH, CNN HOST, INSIDE POLITICS: Right now, President Trump is holding a cabinet meeting at Camp David, and you see it's happening. As we speak and we're going to take it back to you live when he starts taking questions from reporters.

But before we do that, I just want to point out what you see there, sitting directly across from the president, the back of his head next to J.D. Vance is Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general. He wants to drop the acting from his title and get confirmed by the U.S. senate. But this morning, President Trump made that a lot harder. Two Republican senators are blocking Blanche because the White House won't commit to killing the president's so-called anti-weaponization fund. Blanche has said verbally that it is dead, but he won't put it in writing.

And this morning, the president posted this on Truth Social. The fund, he said, will not benefit me, but rather the great American patriots who were hunted down like dogs, and whose lives were unfairly and illegally destroyed by the crooked Joe Biden administration. I will always feel that these victims of government abuse should be paid back for what they were forced to endure, their lives have been ruined. Millions of people agree with me, as was proven in my landslide presidential win.

So, using and talking about the fund in an active tense is not going to win over those two Republican senators, John Cornyn and Thom Tillis. Moments ago, Tillis responded, saying, Senator Cornyn and I have been working with acting A.G. Todd Blanche to end the anti- weaponization fund, and he has been forthright, thoughtful, and patient. It's a shame his confirmation has hit a snag only because an incompetent personal advisor to the president refuses to amend the bogus settlement.

I'm joined by a terrific group of reporters who are very tuned in and well sourced in Trump world. Happy Friday, everybody.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Happy Friday.

BASH: Jazzie, I'm going to start with you. What are you hearing right now about what's going on behind the scenes with the Blanche confirmation and whether or not we're just at a kind of a permanent stalemate or whether there is still work to be done to make it official and confirm him?

JASMINE WRIGHT, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, NOTUS: It's unclear whether it's a permanent stalemate, but from what the sources that we've talked to across the board, both in the White House Capitol and outside of the White House, is that at least right now they're at an impasse. There are still conversations happening, but you know, Thom Tillis, the senator from North Carolina, says that it's a presidential advisor.

The people who I speak to are not so sure about that, right? It's the president. And I think that that Truth Social this morning kind of makes that clear. We took an informal poll on Capitol Hill yesterday. My colleague Manuela Silva for the newsletter this morning, the NOTUS newsletter, asking folks what they would rate whether or not Todd Blanche eventually gets confirmed.

Lisa Murkowski says, I would rate based on the comments from the White House. Not very likely. Thom Tillis said a 67.7 percent. Ron Johnson, of course, said I'm not in this, so I don't know. So, I think it's all across the board. I talked to one person close to the White House this morning. When I asked, where is everybody on this? And they said it's so bizarre.

Going back to the fact that the president kind of made the bed that he is currently laying in by endorsing Ken Paxton over John Cornyn. They said Ken Paxton would have won regardless of President Trump's endorsement. But him endorsing him, putting this -- putting his stamp on that race has now created a situation in which there are multiple senators on the Hill that don't want to go along with what he is doing.

DASHA BURNS, WHITE HOUSE BUREAU CHIEF, POLITICO: Plus, one to all of that. On top of that, though, I was talking to someone very close to the president, and what this person told me is, the way that you get Trump to want to not do something is put him on the spot about it. So --

BASH: Back him into a corner.

BURNS: He backed him into the corner. So, this person was saying, if Cornyn, if Tillis, if they are actually serious about this anti- weaponization fund and really genuinely want it to go away and don't just want to do this for show, they would just shut up about it. Take Todd Blanche's word, have the conversations behind the scenes. But by making it a public fight, he's going to want to double down because that is just what Trump does.

BASH: I take that your sources point, but the road of broken promises is littered with a lot of broken promises along the way. Just see Bill Cassidy, RFK, and vaccinations as a prime example. So, it's understandable that they want this in writing, based on what their experience has been over the past, almost two years, and they don't have a lot of, you know, what's to give anymore. MARC CAPUTO, SENIOR POLITICS REPORTER, AXIOS: Well, the idea that if he puts it in writing, then he's not going to reverse himself. I'm not quite sure how salient that is. Fact is, is that Trump enjoys exercising power, and he hates when people exercise power over him. So, this is what they're fighting about now. They're fighting about the SAVE Act. Same thing.

They're going to be possibly fighting over the continuing resolution to fund the government. The two might wind up getting paired. They're going to be fighting over the Iran war and its prosecution. It's just once Trump makes a decision and people decide to fight him. To Dasha's point, publicly. Then it's on, it becomes about the fight.

[12:05:00]

BASH: And this is now where he has -- yes, he has two Republicans who at least are publicly defying him, but he still has a majority of the GOP in the Senate and the House. Who knows what's going to happen with the midterms and what will happen if that disappears, especially in the House because he's going to have to take no for an answer in different ways. I guess it's -- when it comes --

CAPUTO: But he's going to go down screaming.

BASH: Yeah, I agree with you. I agree with you. What John Cornyn said yesterday is noteworthy. He said there are more than just two people who have reservations about the weaponization fund and about the scope of the settlement agreement. You know, after the midterms, who knows who's going to be the next United States senator from North Carolina or Texas? Which is kind of the point that I was making, and I didn't need to because he did. And the point is, is that they're taking the slings and arrows from the president because they don't have a political future and they're doing it for those who want to stay in office.

WRIGHT: Which is how the Senate operates. I mean, so many times we see these fights happening up on Capitol Hill where you see two people, because you can't just do it for one, two senators or two folks really sticking their neck out and taking the brunt of the aggression from Trump or whoever is in office. While there are a cohort of people behind them who also feel the same but don't necessarily need to put their name out there.

Look, I think that you -- that the president has a choice, right? He either decides to change the language and get Todd Blanche confirmed in in a week, or he pulls the language and waits for -- and waits for January. And I think that you're seeing that Truth Social this morning, face the realities that in January the situation might not be much better than he has it right now.

BURNS: And to Marc's point, it's also not just about Todd Blanche, it's about all of this other stuff. And you talked about some of the people sticking their necks out and getting the brunt of the arrows from the president. I mean, leader John Thune is one of those people.

My colleague Jordan Carter sat down with him this week and he said, look, the president expects me to be able to wave a magic wand and get the SAVE Act through and get all of these priorities of his through that his -- he and his team are not exactly helping my case here by attacking various Republicans. And it's been frustrating for him to try to sort of protect everyone, especially in a midterm year, while the president is leading to more Republican infighting than not.

CAPUTO: And I think one of the people we really should focus on is Susan Collins in Maine. She lucked out, or who knows, maybe she didn't luck out when Platner withdrew on the Democratic side. She now is Troy Jackson, who's running --

BASH: I think politically, she didn't luck out. That's what she thinks.

CAPUTO: Yeah, correct. Maybe she should have waited a little while longer, but Troy Jackson, her Democratic opponent is running a more conventional campaign. And if she winds up being put on the board for voting to, and this would be in Democratic language or in the campaign, you know, voting to compensate insurrectionists and then voting to confirm Todd Blanche when he's hiding the Epstein files. That's just handing Troy Jackson, the Democrat, in that state, which is a Democratic voting state, an extra win and they don't really want that.

BASH: And what we've been talking about here is this drama over the president's attorney general, and it's obviously very much tied to two things that he wants to do that benefit him and his supporters, the anti-weaponization fund. And I don't want to lose sight of this settlement that he made with the IRS, that everything that has happened thus far potentially with him and his taxes would just get wiped away.

And it speaks to again 94 days before the election -- 95 days before the election. The way that people out there see the president's priorities. This again is from our poll that we just put out this week. Trump has the right priorities. Yes, 27 percent. No, 73 percent.

WRIGHT: I remember asking somebody who is very inside of the president's base MAGA movement about a month and a half ago, whether or not people within the base really cared about this weaponization fund, whether this was a priority of theirs in the same way that the SAVE Act is, or closing the border and deporting illegal immigrants is, and they said no, it's not.

And so, it begs the question of who is the president doing this for? In time and time again, we are consistently asking that question, who are these renovations to the White House for? Who are these renovations to Washington D.C. for? And you're seeing people really react quite negatively to that question, and ultimately people are coming around and perhaps saying, it's not me, and that is a problem for Republicans in November.

BURNS: Republicans (Ph) are reacting negatively to this. I mean, when I talk to operatives that are working in really critical races, they say that in the focus groups they do and the sort of ad hoc polling that they do, people bring up the ballroom voluntarily. Like they're not even necessarily asking about it, but people are saying, why does --

[12:10:00]

BASH: And these are Republicans.

BURNS: These are Republicans. These are even Republican primary voters that are saying this, and that should be red flashing warning signs for the administration.

BASH: All right, we're going to sneak in a break. As you see, the cabinet meeting at Camp David is still ongoing. We are going to continue to monitor that. We will bring it to you when the president starts to take questions. Hopefully, he will from members of the press who were there. Up next, name calling, attacks, finger pointing, Midwest nice. Midwest not so nice in Michigan. That's where the Democratic Senate primary is going to happen in just four days. We'll tell you what we mean about this not so nice, coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BASH: I'm going to get back to the cabinet meeting. The president is answering a question about Iran.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: It's very simple. They cannot have a nuclear weapon. Iran will not have a nuclear weapon. They can't have a nuclear weapon. If they did, the Middle East would have been wiped out by now. If I didn't stop the JCPOA, the Obama deal, if I didn't terminate that, they would have had a nuclear weapon. I believe Israel would no longer be with us in big parts of the Middle East and perhaps other countries in different continents, frankly. These people are crazy. So, they cannot have a nuclear weapon, and they won't.

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: Asked what to expect over the next four weeks, you know, we'll be hitting -- we'll be hitting them very hard. At some point, they're going to say, we just can't take it anymore.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President, on the disarmament deal that you announced, do you have assurances from Israel that they are on board with this deal? And what comes first? Does Israel pull back and then Hamas disarms, or does Hamas need to disarm and then Israel?

TRUMP: So, we do have an understanding with Israel. Israel is very happy about it. Israel helped us, and they've been very good. They've been very good about it. Most people said that would be a deal that would be undoable. Now, will it go through its ups and downs? It's a very complex situation over there.

The people are very complex and difficult. In many cases wonderful and many cases not so wonderful, but that will be a -- it's a great breakthrough. Nobody's ever thought that would -- nobody thought that would be possible to disarm Hamas. That shows you much success we're having with Iran, because if you go four months ago, five months ago, a deal like that would have been impossible. So, it's a big step for the Middle East, and people are really impressed by it and they're surprised by it.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And what comes first, Mr. President? What comes first?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Infantino speak to you about their proposal to sell a stake in the World Cup and is that something you support? Did FIFA or Mr. Infantino speak to you about their proposal to sell a stake?

TRUMP: No, I never talked to him about it.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President, on the -- you said this morning on Truth Social that victims of government abuse should be paid back, even if it's not the anti-weaponization fund. Would you still want the acting attorney general to kind of, you really (Ph) to that?

TRUMP: Well, I'm talking about the weaponization against large numbers of people in our country by the Biden administration and by Obama. But by the Biden administration, in particular, in this case. But large numbers of people, their lives have been ruined. They've been destroyed. Their families have been, you know, decimated. They've gone to prison for no reason whatsoever. There's never been a group of people. Most likely, I mean, I can think of a couple that were treated pretty badly groups. But there's essentially never been a group of people treated so badly as these people. And this fund, this fund was not for me. This fund was for those people that have been weaponized, that have been abused.

Now, I was abused. They attacked my house, Mar-a-Lago, where I live. And I was, you know, big damages should have been given to me. I don't want anything. I'm not talking about myself. I think that there's a group of people in this country. History will show that were treated like nobody else has ever been treated so badly, so horribly. Their families have been ruined. Many, many suicides, have committed suicide. People that were very successful, that wanted to go to a rally or an event and ended up spending the rest of their lives in horror.

No, so I mean you can say what you want about the fund, and they've agreed to not have a fund, but there are a lot of people that are very upset about it. A lot of Republican people, a lot of Democrat people are very upset about it. A lot of people were covered. I wasn't covered by that fund. I don't want to be covered by the fund. I probably was abused more than anybody in the history of our country, but I wasn't looking for that, but there were a lot of people.

[12:15:00]

And I'll tell you something, Todd Blanche is a very, very good man, and he shouldn't be in the middle of this. He should get approved because you will never get anybody like him. You're never going to get anybody. And to make him a pawn on this whole thing, this is being done by a senator, and I don't really blame him to be honest with you. I endorse his opponent.

And as soon as I endorse his opponent, his opponent went through the roof, and he won the primary election in Texas, was Senate. And the man that lost, the man that I didn't endorse, has become very angry, and that's OK. I mean, I understand that. I probably would do the same thing. You want to know the truth? I think I do the same thing.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President, all of that, do you agree? Just to be clear, do you agree with the acting attorney general that the anti- weaponization fund is dead? And why not just put that in --

TRUMP: Well, it is dead, but you know, I wish it weren't. To be honest with you, I think people were horribly treated, horribly abused. This has nothing to do with that. This was me, horribly abused, and I'd like to see them compensated for the pain. They lost their families. They committed suicide. Many people committed suicide. They went down for an innocent journey. And I'm not only talking there, I'm talking about not even having to do with that. The way they were treated, the Biden administration and the Obama administration weaponized government and destroyed lives.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President, are you willing to accept limits on the scope of the auto immunity deal in order to get Attorney General Blanche confirmed?

TRUMP: Well, he should be approved forthwith. I mean, you're never going to get a person like that. Everybody agrees to it. Don't forget, Senator Cornyn thought he was phenomenal until he lost. You know, when he lost, is that a correct statement? You come from Texas. I mean he thought this was the most incredible person. Then, what he lost, and he lost because of me. I endorsed somebody else. And as soon as I endorse the other person, the other person became a rocket ship upward, and he lost. And you know, I think I'd be the same.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But would you --

TRUMP: I mean, I shouldn't say that. But I'd be upset also, and I -- so I fully understand it. He shouldn't be that way. I shouldn't be that way, but he is that way. He's become a very angry person and I understand. You have a couple of others that have caused their defeat to, and probably, hear from them too. Yeah.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President, back on Iran, there's a report that you got a proposal from the military to go big and hit them hard over 10 or 14 days.

TRUMP: Well, we're going big. We've already gone big. Look, I mean, what's big? They had 159 ships. That was their entire navy, 159. Their entire navy is laying at the bottom of the sea. I'd say that's going big. They had 200 airplanes. They're all gone. Every one of them. They're not one airplane. They had anti-aircraft weaponry. Very good, but it didn't work, and it's all gone. Their radar is all gone. Their leaders are all gone. Everything's all gone, but they'll fight onward.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President, on Ukraine, you said the other day that you're not sure about whether to grant Ukraine the Patriot missile license that have been discussed. Do you want to see more from Zelenskyy before you take that action.

TRUMP: Well, it's a big step. Look, we have the greatest weapons in the world. We have the greatest drones in the world. People don't know that. We have the greatest weaponry in the world. We have -- in the case of President Zelenskyy, he'd like to have some patriots. He'd like to have some tomahawks, which are, you know, lethal, one offensive, one defensive.

But when you give somebody the right, very complex weapons, by the way, I mean the patriot, as an example. The other day you read that five missiles were shot. They were going 8600 miles an hour. Think of it, 8600. Now a car. If you go 60, it gets to be a little faster. If you go 100. 8,600 miles an hour, and they were big missiles and they were shot at Jordan, and our guys were there, bing, bing, bing, bing, five, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, right? I don't want to be fighting.

(CROSSTALK)

That would have been a great sound bite. There were five missiles, and we shot all five down before they got close. Nobody else has that capacity. These weapons are incredible. We have to be very careful about letting somebody build them. You know, it's very important. Now we are building many plants now to make those and other, the Tomahawk missile is the most incredible thing. It can go into a doorway.

You can put it through a window of a house. Nobody's ever seen anything like it. You have to be very judicious, but you have to be very careful. Now, we have not agreed to that. We're talking about it, but it's a hard thing to give away that kind of technology and I don't think this would ever happen. But you know, those people that you give that technology, they can some day turn on you. You know that is possible. You look at war, it's happened a couple of times over the years, right? So, we have to be very careful.

[12:20:00]

I mean, we guard that. We have the greatest military in the world, but we have the greatest weapons in the world. Now we have to make them a little bit faster because we've given a lot away, you know, President Biden unfortunately gave a lot away to Ukraine, and he gave -- so did I. I mean, I gave them the javelins, the tank busters. Without the javelins, that war would have been a one-day war. Would have been over. They wiped out the tanks going up to Kyiv, where they got stuck in the mud.

They had a general that decided to go through the mud instead of going up the highway where they were going very nice. It would have been over, but no, I gave them the javelins. The javelins are unbelievably. We have the greatest weapons in the world. We have to be very careful about giving out the secrets to those weapons, and they're not -- you can't copy them. It's a little like Nvidia, they have a chip.

They say you cannot copy it. The complexity is so great you cannot, you know, most things you copy. China is known for it. Other countries, though, we do something, and I guess we copy also. Most things you can copy pretty easily. There's a chip that they made their ultimate chip, and they always have the ultimate chip. And I say, well, why doesn't somebody copy it? Because they can't. The complex, they can't copy our weapons. We have the greatest weapons in the world. Many of them. Those are just two or three that I mentioned. But you cannot copy them, so we have to be very careful.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As Hamas disarms as part of this plan, who do you see is taking possession of those weapons that they had? Did that go to the new government?

TRUMP: It's going to be the Board of Peace mostly. It's going to be run by the board. This Board of Peace has been an amazing. It's led by some amazing people, Board of Peace.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President, you said they do have some capabilities left. Should Americans be prepared for these back-and- forth attacks to continue until Iran simply isn't able to strike back?

TRUMP: They'll get weaker. They'll get a little stronger, maybe now, but they'll get weaker. And then they peter out. Yeah, sure. I think so. I mean, it'd be foolish to say no. You always have to keep your guard up.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What is the status of talks? Who would from the administration --

TRUMP: Well, they always want to talk, but they break their words so often. Steve is talking. Jared, we have very good people. J.D. is involved, very strongly involved. We have great people talking. Marco's involved.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (inaudible) talks aren't--

TRUMP: Very good people. We have the best people, but they'll make a deal. As an example, we'll talk about nuclear, and we'll be in there talking about nuclear for seven hours. I say, why do you need seven? You can take 10 minutes. You have five minutes. You should solve it, but seven hours, and then they'll go out. And I'll say, they discuss nuclear, and they'll go out and they'll say, we never discuss nuclear. And I say why? Why do they say that? All they do is make me angry, you know. Just make me angry. Any other questions?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President -- reach a deal with Iran, given that you talked about --

TRUMP: Yes, you can. I mean, look, I'm losing faith in them because they do lie and do -- they do misrepresent. Well, the other day, the five missiles were shot. We knocked them down, but we were in the midst of a negotiation. I mean, I'm waiting for Steve to call me. How's the negotiation going? And instead, I got a call from Pete that they just shot five missiles at one of our bases in Jordan, and we have bases in Jordan.

Fortunately, our people operated the equipment. It's also very complex to operate. You know, you talk about the equipment. It's very -- you have to be -- oftentimes, you see, when did you go to school? MIT, Caltech. I mean, you know, they go to schools that are not as normal for the military. To be honest with you, we have unbelievably brilliant people operating that equipment.

And when you don't, you know, the equipment, the shots miss, the safety misses or the accuracy misses. We have unbelievable people. Think of it. We had 111 at one point, a couple of months ago. 111 over a short period of time. Missiles were shot at the Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier, great, beautiful ship.

One of the most beautiful ships to me, designed ones. 111 missiles going out. Out of the 111 missiles, 111 missiles were shot down quite a bit earlier than they got. I mean, long before they got there, they were shot down. It was almost -- in a couple of cases, they were shot down almost as they were taking off. It's incredible technology.

So, you have a ship that costs billions of dollars, and you have missiles heading to it. 111 missiles were shot down, routinely shot down. And I speak -- I spoke to the people. I like to reward people. I call them up on the president, and they were cool as a cucumber.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President, the last couple weeks of strikes by CENTCOM. CENTCOM has said that those were meant to degrade Iran's ability to disrupt the Strait of Hormuz. How many more strikes will it take to significant?

[12:25:00]

TRUMP: Well, you never know. Look, I mean, most people would have given up by now, you know, they've got no navy, they got no air force. Most people would have given up, they haven't. So, I give them credit for that. You know, they're known as being tough. They're tough.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Back on Ukraine, what did you tell President Zelenskyy about the patriots? Did you explain all that to him?

TRUMP: I did. I spoke about patriots. I spoke to him about tomahawks. I spoke to him about everything. I also spoke to him about, let's get this war a win. So last month they had 25,000 people. It's averaging about 25,000 people, a month die, mostly soldiers, almost entirely. But you know, missiles are hitting areas also, but mostly soldiers. They had 25,000 soldiers. The month before that, it was 32,000 soldiers. I said, you got to get this war over. I think he wants to make a deal, and I think Putin wants to make a deal, but there's a lot of dislike, as you probably notice.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think it's very reluctant to make concessions to President Putin.

TRUMP: Well, nobody wants to make concessions, but they're both going to have to make some concessions. I mean, you got to make a deal. 25,000 young, beautiful people, soldiers, mostly soldiers, are dying a month. I ended eight wars. That was the war I thought would maybe go first and it really hasn't, it's got a last. I mean, I ended wars that were, in theory, much more difficult than to end. We had a couple that were into the 30-year category. Well, the Congo -- look at the Congo and Rwanda. That was our nasty war. And they have peace. I don't know how long that one's going to stay, but we ended India, Pakistan. 11 planes were shot down. That was raging. That was -- I used tariff. I said, if you're going to go to war, 250 percent tariff each of them, and they screamed and yelled and were very angry. They were both angry about it. A day later, they called and they said, we will not go to war. Then I ended up, and the prime minister of Pakistan said, I saved 50 million lives because that's two nuclear powers, serious nuclear powers. Thank you very much, everybody. Thank you.

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: No, I think Minnesota is behind it. You know who's behind it, Minnesota, because they're grossly in doubt.

BASH: All right, we have been listening to President Trump take questions from reporters, some of whom you see around this table with some important questions about things that are on his plate right now. Let's start with Iran. What we heard from the president, a question about whether or not, Americans should just get used to the back and forth militarily between the U.S. and Iran.

And he said, I think so. He said, it would be foolish to say no. All they do is make me angry. And on the question, meaning Iran. Another question of the talks that are going on or not going on, he said that he is losing faith in them, meaning the Iranians, and that they are going to get weaker and weaker and then peter out. We'll see if that happens.

I do want to get to the table here, but I also want to say that the president talked pretty extensively about Todd Blanche and that nomination, which is on life support at best on Capitol Hill. And on the reason, it is on life support, and that is the anti-weaponization fund that he still says in various ways that he thinks is a good idea. Let's start though around here with Iran. Marc Caputo, what was your takeaway on those comments?

CAPUTO: Take his comments just now. I had asked him. I've lost track of days. Wednesday in the Oval Office, he had a press conference, and I asked him, are you always going to hit back if the Iranians hit you? And he said, yes. And we've seen that Iran is sporadically doing that to essentially keep the United States in theater. And he's now essentially acknowledging in a more overt fashion that we're in for this prolonged phase of what I've called a lukewarm war. They hit, we hit.

There's some peace talks, then there's more bombs and more shooting that happens. So, if anyone thinks that Trump is going to quickly leave, all of the signs are that he's not. If they think he's going to massively escalate, there's not a lot of signs of that either. It looks like current policy. This is what it looks like going forward for a period of time.

BURNS: But that's exactly what every military expert I talk to says is not sustainable, given the munitions conversation we've been having. That we don't have the stockpiles we should have right now. Everyone I talk to that says, either we need to escalate and "finish the job." And I do know that there are some factions in the West Wing that are whispering that in the president's ear, or the alternative, take a bad deal and get out. It's this sort of retaliatory striking that continues indefinitely that is the worst thing that we could be doing. That doesn't mean that's not what the president is ultimately going to stick with.

CAPUTO: Right. But knowing how Trump thinks and knowing that of those three options