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Smerconish

Iran's President Vows To "Never Surrender"; Sources: Russia Giving Iran Intel On U.S. Military Targets; Trump Signals He Will Escalate Iran War Today. Trump Makes Remarks At Summit With Latin American Leaders; White House Orders Pentagon, Military Contractors To Stop Using A.I. Company Anthropic. Aired 9-10a ET

Aired March 07, 2026 - 09:00   ET

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

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[09:00:22]

MICHAEL SMERCONISH, CNN ANCHOR: No retreat, baby, no surrender. The words of the boss. I'm Michael Smerconish in the Philly burbs.

President Trump has demanded Iran's unconditional surrender. The Iranian president responded by saying that's a dream they should take to their grave. Trump's rebuttal, "Today, Iran will be hit very hard." The president said that under serious consideration for complete destruction will now be areas and groups of people not previously considered for targeting. The Iranian president also apologized to his Gulf State neighbors and said Iran's attacks against them will stop.

But soon after he said those words, they had not ceased, raising a question of whether Iran's political leadership can control its military forces.

Overnight, explosions rocked Tehran. Israel said that it used more than 80 fighter jets in its predawn strikes targeting military infrastructure. Today, the casualties of this war will come to the shores of the United States when this afternoon, the bodies of six U.S. service members killed in the conflict will be flown to Dover Air Force Base. President Trump and Vice President Vance set to attend the dignified transfer.

One of America's biggest enemies coming to the aid of Iran. Sources say that Russia is now providing intel on U.S. military targets. And in a Washington Post column today, Fareed Zakaria points out that while Israel might well welcome the chaos of regime collapse, the United States and its allies cannot. Where Trump initially exhorted the Iranian people to overthrow their government, he has more recently changed course and mused about dealing with potential leaders within the regime.

In a Friday telephone call, President Trump told Dana Bash that he hopes Iran will go the way of Venezuela, where acting President Delcy Rodriguez is doing what the president called a fantastic job and said that he was open to a religious leader who was not democratically elected so long as they treat the United States and Israel well. Which brings to mind a different lyric, meet the new boss, same as the old boss? Maybe the president is open to another religious, undemocratically elected leader. But what about Israel?

Writes Fareed, "The most dangerous element of this war, however, is not that the lead actor is improvising like a saxophone player. It's that the two countries waging the war have separate and perhaps incompatible agendas. For Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, the war is clearly about destroying the Islamic Republic. He acknowledged that this war was the culmination of a 40 year old dream. He's also using the opportunity to take out Hezbollah root and branch.

Let's go live to the region. CNN International Diplomatic Editor Nic Robertson is in Riyadh and CNN's Jerusalem Correspondent Jeremy Diamond is in Tel Aviv.

Jeremy, I'll start with you. President Trump told Dana Bash new leadership need not be democratic, could be a religious leader. Will Israel be satisfied with that?

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think first of all, it's important to note that for Israel, the primary concern is not necessarily who is in charge of Iran, but what the behavior of a future Iranian state, Iranian regime is towards the state of Israel and what kind of activities it engages in in the region. You know, even if it were to be a non-religious leader who keeps up the practices of arming proxies in the region, et cetera, then Israel certainly wouldn't be satisfied with that. And I think the question could be posed, I guess theoretically, if it was a religious leader who accepted Israel's presence in the region, then that might also satisfy Israel's concerns. But ultimately I think it's about looking at Israel's goals in this war as kind of a tiered system. You know, at the very most basic level, Israel wants to ensure that the Iranian nuclear threat is neutralized, that the ballistic missile threat is neutralized.

And then obviously they do have this overarching goal of regime change. And we've been watching as Israeli strikes in Iran have been targeting all of the different institutions of power inside of Iran, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, of course, military targets, senior political leaders that were taken out in the opening hours of this war, as well as other targets throughout Iran like the internal security forces, the Basij, aimed at trying to kind of take out root and branch all of the elements that prop up this regime for the long term. Whether Israel can actually achieve that goal or not remains an enormous open question, particularly as you were just noting, given the fact that the United States and Israel may not be fully aligned on how far they're willing to go to ensure that regime change is actually the outcome of this war.

SMERCONISH: Jeremy, thanks for that report.

Nic Robertson, the Iranian president apologized to the Gulf States even as missiles and drones were flying their way. What's been the Saudi response so far?

[09:05:10] NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yes, talking to sources they're not prepared to commit at the moment. Actions speak louder than words. You have just earlier in the week, the Iranians trying to hit one of the massive oil facilities here in the east of the country, they didn't manage, but debris fell. Part of the plant had to be shut down temporarily. And back then you had the deputy Iranian foreign minister coming on CNN say, actually it wasn't us, that Iran didn't do it. So, you know, last night you have the biggest publicly announced, at least by the Ministry of Defense here.

Iranian assault, more than 20 drones on another major oil field. Ballistic missiles fired at a Saudi air base last night. Missiles whizzing around Riyadh as well that were intercepted.

So for the Saudis, look, if this is the beginning of a diplomatic off ramp of some kind, they will be exceptionally happy and relieved about it. But I don't think anyone here takes it at face value. They know the Iranians well. They know what they're dealing with. And even if the president were in command and control of the security forces in Iran, what he says one day and how he wants to control them one day, again, the caveat, even if he was in charge and not many people suspect he is, would he change tack in two days time?

These are all big questions.

SMERCONISH: Nic, President Trump in his first presidency was beloved in Saudi Arabia for being hard on Iran. Now they're caught in a war that he started. Has the mood relative to President Trump changed at all?

ROBERTSON: Yes, interesting question. Last night I was out asking Saudis that. In fact, I went to the same street where there was the Harley Davidson Cafe. It's been become another cafe now. Talk to the bikers, talk to the residents of this city about what they think.

And it was -- it was that number of years ago when I was in the same place asking them the same question about President Trump. Look, for some of them, they still love him. They still really like President Trump. They see him as a strong leader. You keep hearing that from people here.

And in this region, they love strong leaders. But there's more nuance to it now. Beloved in part, but kind of feared a little bit because quite simply they see the president because of his actions over the years, they interpret them as being more mercurial. So they're not sure if they get drawn into a war, will the president then back out of it precipitously, leave them in a war? So you have these questions now in people's minds, factored in.

But he's still popular here, but perhaps more cautiously so.

SMERCONISH: Nic Robertson, thank you. Joining me now to break all of this down is CNN Senior Military Analyst and former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Admiral James Stavridis.

Admiral, great to see you. The president told Dana Bash, militarily, so far this is a 15. On a scale of one to 10, what's your score?

ADM. JAMES STAVRIDIS, CNN SENIOR MILITARY ANALYST: I'll tell you in a minute. First, I just ask everybody watching, hold those service men and women and their families in your hearts as those remains come back in sacred fashion to our shores. And also think about our diplomats, our CIA officers, our American citizens caught in the midst of all this. Let's hold them all in our hearts.

Michael, I will not indulge in chest thumping, but I will say excellent campaign thus far. Militarily, I'd probably score at a nine. I think that's what Admiral Brad Cooper, the commander of this force, would probably say. A couple of things have gone wrong. We're going to learn more, unfortunately, about the strike on the girl's school.

Three F-15 shot down a number of missteps along those lines and above all, six brave American servicemen killed. So it's still a very successful campaign. At the tactical level, I'd call it a nine out of 10.

Last thought, what you really want to score is what's the strategic impact? So far I haven't seen a diminishment of the fight in the Iranians. And in that sense, the campaign has a way to go.

SMERCONISH: Are you surprised that Russia is reportedly sharing intel? From today's Washington Post since the war began Sunday, Russia has passed Iran the locations of U.S. military assets, including warships, aircraft, according to three officials who spoke on confidential basis. Your thoughts?

STAVRIDIS: I'm not shocked. Obviously, Iran has been a client state of Russia for decades. And then secondly, Iran has been supporting Russia by providing drones and other military material in the war in Ukraine. So I'm not surprised by it. I think the Russians are mistaken to do this. I think the administration is probably looking very closely at this.

[09:10:10]

And final thought, Mike, I'll tell you what worries me is the precision Russia could provide for attacks on our warships who could be targeted by drones. Hard to hit one with a ballistic missile. But could you get drones out there? Could you, could you plant sea mines in the way of American ship? If you had precise real time targeting, you could.

That's very dangerous. I'm sure Admiral Cooper is watching all that closely.

SMERCONISH: Admiral Stavridis, compare and contrast Russia to China in this regard. China's response so far.

STAVRIDIS: China, I think is leaning back. I've heard comments from that camp that they view Iran not as a military ally, but rather a site of investment in an asset in the Belt and Road Initiative. So they're somewhat diminished by that and they're also hurt by the higher oil prices. However, from China's perspective, if the U.S. does get bogged down in another war and distracted, that presents real opportunity for them to assume leadership in the global south.

So for China, it's a mixed picture.

SMERCONISH: You've sailed the Strait of Hormuz dozens of times. You wrote for Bloomberg and I'll put it on the screen now, some thoughts this week that began this way," Iran used mines four decades ago against Saddam Hussein's Iraq. It has been planning a Strait of Hormuz closure operation for decades and probably has more than 5,000 mines." Expand on that, please.

STAVRIDIS: Deeply worrisome. And going back to the 1980s when as a junior officer, when I had more hair, I was in fact driving through the Strait of Hormuz and saw those mines actually in the water. Once they're flooded into the zone, it takes weeks if not months to really clear them. You're showing the Strait now. Look how little traffic is going through that.

Part of that is concern over mines. So let's say hypothetically the Iranians flood that entire region with two -- 3000 mines. They're capable of doing that. That mine clearance operation will be done by the U.S., our British allies have sweeps in the Gulf as well. The Saudis have minesweepers.

We've got aircraft that can participate. We've got advanced unmanned aircraft to hunt the mines. But it'll take time. And every day that strait is closed is putting more upward pressure on oil prices. Not a good situation.

It's a non-strategic card, asymmetric card that the Iranians could play, Michael.

SMERCONISH: Final question. Do you have supply chain concerns?

STAVRIDIS: Of course. And were focused quite correctly on the Strait of Hormuz. But the dog that hasn't barked yet is back on the corner of the Red Sea at the bottom of the Suez Canal with the Houthis. Don't forget when they were at peak attacks on shipping, major shippers had to reroute all the way around the Horn around Africa to get ships where they need to go. So there's not only a Strait of Hormuz problem, but if the Houthis come on in a big way and they're an Iranian proxy, we're back to where were a few months ago.

Then you've got a double whammy against the global supply chains. Yes, I'm worried.

SMERCONISH: Admiral Stavridis, as always, thank you for your expertise.

To everybody at home, hit me up on social media. Follow me on X, subscribe to my YouTube channel. Perhaps I'll read one of your reactions.

Michael, here's a better question. How many innocent Iranians will Israel and the U.S. kill before the war is over?

OK, so, we're on a roller coaster is responding already to today's poll question. Let me show you that now. Here's what I'm asking at smerconish.com. Go to my website and vote on today's poll question. When will the war in Iran end?

Is it going to end in a week? Is it going to end in a month? Is it going to end in a year? Will it end after our lifetimes?

I took a peek at the early voting, which you will see when you cast your ballot. I got to say I was pretty surprised, but that's all that I'll say and they were just flash returns.

Up ahead, Iran needs a leader and President Trump says he wants a say. Well, how is this going to work out? We'll talk about it with David Sanger of the New York Times next.

[09:14:49]

And later, the new weapon in the American military arsenal is artificial intelligence and the fight the Pentagon is now having over that.

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SMERCONISH: It's been one week now since the U.S. military launched Operation Epic Fury. It was an attack that everybody saw coming and yet nobody saw coming. So what made the president pull the trigger and what happens next? What exactly is the president's strategy? One question that needs to be answered, who will be in charge of Iran now that the supreme leader has been killed?

On Thursday, President Trump said that he plans to have a role in that decision and says that the leading candidate, the Ayatollah son, is unacceptable. This had people wondering not just who will be chosen, but what will be America's goal in this war. The president made his stance a bit clearer on Friday, telling CNN it's not essential that Iran become a democracy, but that it must have leadership which the U.S. Israel and other countries in the Middle east can work with. The administration says it's not interested in nation building, which raises the question of how involved it plans to be in Iran's future.

[09:20:04]

Regarding the conflict, the president put on Truth Social, there will be no deal with Iran except unconditional surrender. He told Time magazine he believes the administration's goals could be achieved in about a month, but that there are no time limits in getting things done.

Here to discuss these issue is David Sanger, CNN political and national security analyst and the New York Times White House and national security correspondent.

David, you heard Admiral Stavridis a few moments ago say militarily, the United States and Israel are doing well, but of course, that's only half the battle. What comes next and how we get there is equally important. Will you address that? DAVID SANGER, CNN POLITICAL & NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Sure, Michael, and thank you for having me on. You know, I think Admiral Stavridis had it just right. The military, while it's made some errors and particularly the girl's school tragedy, if in fact that turns out to be American, caused is a huge misstep. But by and large they've had clear targets and they've hit them.

You can't say that of the political process. A week ago, when President Trump first announced the beginning of this action, he urged the Iranian people to wait until the U.S. and Israel had done their work and then rise up against their government, which sounded like regime change. The next day we asked him to explain that portion of his statement where he said that the IRGC should just surrender since there's no American force there or Israeli force.

Who are they supposed to surrender to? And he said, well, they should just turn their arms over to the people. These are the people who they were killing on the streets just a month before.

And then all week we've had various different and contradictory war aims announced by Secretary Marco Rubio, Secretary Hegseth, all of them described much more limited efforts which would include basically just destroying enough of the missile and nuclear program to make sure that Iran could not show force, use force outside of its borders. And then the president came back calling for unilateral surrender and saying that he gets to pick the next leader. So we're all confused.

SMERCONISH: In one of your filings this week, you said in contrast to June of last year, that was about physics, you wrote, rather than being about politics. That contrast. I want you to explain what you meant.

SANGER: So last June, the president ordered U.S. Central Command, which is conducting this operation as well, to destroy three very specific nuclear sites. They were in very remote areas. They went in with 12 bunker busting bombs, some of the biggest bombs the U.S. has. And they went down and did exactly what he said. It wasn't totally obliterated, but the nuclear fuel was buried, particularly at one site, Isfahan.

And we don't believe that the Iranians have been able to recover it since then. So if anything, Iran was further from its nuclear goals when this conflict started last week. That was about physics because it was all about how deep down you could get those bunker busters. This is about politics because the president himself, as the Washington Post reported today, has received intelligence reports saying it's very unlikely that he can jar loose the core leadership, the clerics, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. And if he can't do that, he can't bring about regime change.

The president also seems stuck on the analogy with Venezuela. Several times this week he has said Venezuela was a perfect example for this, where he left the government in place and just removed the leader. Most people who know much about Iranian politics will tell you Venezuela and Iran could not be more different.

SMERCONISH: I understand that. And I'm wondering, could Israel live with a Venezuelan outcome?

SANGER: Well, right now there are overlapping but not exactly the same goals for Israel and the U.S. The Israelis have made clear they want to destroy the entire regime, and therefore, no, I don't think they could live with the Venezuelan outcome. I mean, the president did not bring about regime change in Venezuela. He just left the regime in place without Maduro and then basically said the support for this regime depends on American access to the Venezuelan oil and some other steps. Israel would not stand for that in Iran.

[09:25:06]

The president may well have to settle for that.

SMERCONISH: I asked the question, trying to be forward looking, but in view of last week's inconsistency, and it was an inconsistency between what Secretary Rubio said, I think it was Monday afternoon when he went to Capitol Hill to deliver the briefing and explained that the U.N., you know what he said, you've reported on this as well, that the U.S. had to act because Israel was going to act. The following day, the president contradicted that. Then they seemed to get on the same page. Address that issue in the context of whether Israel and the United States will or won't be on the same page in resolving all of this.

SANGER: Well, Secretary Rubio I think probably accurately described the back and forth. I think he was probably right. But it was just a little embarrassing when people thought about it, which was essentially that the U.S. had concluded that Israel was going to attack Iran anyway. So it had to go along with that because they thought the Iranian response to the Israeli attack would be attacks on American bases. I think that's probably accurate.

But that means essentially that you're subletting your foreign policy to another ally, right? And that you're letting Israel decide when the United States is going to go to war. So that compounded the continuing debate about whether or not even the president should be allowed to decide when you go to war here or whether the Constitution rules and it's got to be Congress.

Later on, the president contradicted that and he and Rubio had to sort of try to get in line. But that's been what the whole week has been like. Even after the president said in a Truth Social post on Friday that he wanted unilateral surrender here, that they had to completely capitulate. The press secretary, Karoline Leavitt had to come out and say, well, that doesn't necessarily mean the Iranians would say they are surrendering. The president could just determine that he's met his goals and therefore they have effectively surrendered.

SMERCONISH: David Sanger, thank you for all that great reporting and analysis.

To everybody at home, social media, you can reach me via X or YouTube.

Meg says the president and Department of War said it will be four to six week mission. It's not a war, it's a military action. No troops on the ground. Smerconish is running propa -- oh, come on. What should I call it?

What exactly should I call exactly what's transpiring? I thought of this, and by the way, Meg is referencing today's poll question. So let's put it on the screen and I'll defend it. I'm the one who wrote it and I had to think about the war choice. When will the blank in Iran end?

Meg would have me use some descriptor other than war. It's a war. Is it going to end in a week and a month, in a year, or after our lifetime? Go and cast your ballot on that question. You'll get results at the end of the hour.

Still to come, one of the military's newest tools in its war with Iran, something that you can't see or touch. It could be extremely valuable as a resource, but the Pentagon and its creator, not exactly seeing eye to eye. Make sure you're signing up for our free newsletter at smerconish.com.

When you're voting on the poll question, you'll get the work of prize winning illustrators like Steve Breen.

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[09:32:57]

SMERCONISH: You can find me via social media on all the usual platforms. Maybe I'll read one of your comments during the course of the program.

Based upon the last time we engaged in a war in the Middle East, I'm assuming President Barron Trump, yes, we would be that stupid, will hastily negotiate our withdrawal from Iran in 2050 --

OK, I'm not sure how to respond to that, Gregg, other than to say I notice you've used the word war and, boy, what a touch point this is. How else would you describe the military action that's taken -- and by the way, it doesn't mean that I'm buying into the left or the right. I'm just analyzing what went on.

When there's a sustained military campaign that's already a week long in duration, and we've taken out a nation's leadership, I think, that transcends the strike that we had last June. That's not passing judgment on it. I just think that it's an accurate descriptor to call what's going on.

I recognize there hasn't been a declaration. I understand all the issues surrounding the war powers. What's next? More social media reaction to today's program and where things stand.

To be specific, heavy kinetic in a month, minor skirmishes in a year, and terrorist activity in a lifetime. This is David responding to the poll question asking, how long is it going to last?

And your last comment is the one that worries me the most, which is to say that it just goes on and our kids hate their kids, and our grandkids are fighting their grandkids. Maybe it finally brings peace and stability. Wouldn't that be a great thing? More social media reaction. Here we go.

The variable is the Hormuz Strait, as I was just discussing with Admiral Stavridis. If ships start running again this week, it will last less than a month. If they can't get the oil flowing again in the next few days, it ends by Friday.

I think the metrics that matter most in all of this are gasoline prices, the president's approval rating, and the markets. I think that the president monitors each of the three of those, and that will largely determine when the outcome comes. But as you heard me say earlier in the program, talking to Jeremy Diamond in Tel Aviv and speaking to Admiral Stavridis and talking to David Sanger I see possible conflict ahead.

[09:35:08]

I was surprised by the president telling Dana Bash yesterday that he's OK with it being not necessarily a democracy, and that it's OK if it continues to be a religious leader, a cleric who is in this role. They've got to treat the United States and Israel well, the president said that. But I wonder how that would sit with Israel.

In other words, the president is now saying that Venezuela has gone well and that Delcy Rodriguez, as a temporary president acting for Maduro, because we've -- because we've -- we've outed him.

We're breaking now? OK. Go ahead. Tell me what you'd like me to do. Go to breaking news?

The president is speaking now at -- I'll finish my thought later. The president speaking now at Doral to Latin leaders.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The heroes coming home from Iran, coming home in a different manner than they thought they'd be coming home. But they're great heroes in our country, and we're going to keep it that way.

As always, when it comes to war, there's always that -- but we're going to keep it to a minimum, I think Pete. And going to be something, a service that we're really providing, not for the Middle East, but for the world. These were sick people, very sick people.

This morning, I'm honored to welcome distinguished heads of state from across the western hemisphere for the first Shield of the Americas Summit. And it's something very, very special. Marco's been working on it very hard so have a lot of other people, because it's a very important place for us. It's nice to be home. It's very, very important. You know, we go all over the world, 9,000 miles away, 12,000 miles away.

I said, how long is this flight? Sir, this flight is 19 hours. I said, oh, that's great. I said, now, I have flights that last for two hours. I like that better, much better.

But on this historic day, we come together to announce a brand new military coalition to eradicate the criminal cartels plaguing our region. And you have a lot of it. One of the things when we were talking backstage, you were telling me that the crime, the cartels, and we're knocking the hell out of them where we can. We're going to go heavier.

So, what we were doing with the boats coming in, the boats, there's not a lot of people coming in by boats anymore. We knocked down drugs coming in by sea. Drugs coming in through water is down 96 percent. We're trying to find out who the other 4 percent are, because I think they're the bravest people in the world. Either that or they don't watch television, right?

They're either very brave or they're not watching. But we're calling this military partnership the Americas Counter Cartel Coalition, and that's what you need. You have cartels -- they seem to grow in this region unbelievably rapidly. It has to do with drugs, largely.

Earlier this week here in Miami, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, who's right here, Pete, you are fantastic, doing a great job. We're proud of you. And representatives of 17 different nations formally entered this new alliance. The heart of our agreement is a commitment to using lethal military force to destroy the sinister cartels and terrorist networks once and for all.

We'll get rid of them. We need your help. You have to just tell us where they are. We have amazing -- we have amazing weaponry as you probably noticed over the last short period of time. But I want to thank members of the coalition, most of whom are friends of mine. A few of them I have just met, but most of whom are friends, many of whom I endorsed. And they took that endorsement and they went on to win big. I haven't -- I haven't had a bad endorsement yet, right?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

TRUMP: He says, yes. He was happy. He was a couple of points down and went up like a rocket ship, right, in Argentina. But the president of Argentina is here. Javier Milei, thank you very much. Thank you very much for being here. President of El Salvador another friend, Nayib Bukele.

You know, he is a man who we've gotten very close to. I saw him as a young man my first time. You were young and handsome. Now, you're older and handsome. You're older and handsome. But he runs a good operation. That's all I care about, right? When I first saw him I said, he's too young.

[09:40:01]

And then I saw the job he did. I said, well, I guess he's not too young. Because I was young and did well. But you've been a great president, and we appreciate the relationship very much. President of Paraguay, Santiago Pena. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.

President of Ecuador, Daniel Noboa. Daniel, thank you. Thank you, Daniel. President of Panama, I love that canal.

Jose, I think you made the greatest deal in history. He bought it for $1.00. One of our brilliant presidents. I can't sleep over that deal. They gave it to him for $1.00. Jose Raul Mulino was -- you know, you made one of the greatest real estate deals in history. Jimmy Carter, one of our -- one of our great presidents.

President of Honduras, Tito Asfura. Thank you, Tito. Thank you very much. Great to see you the other day. President of Guyana, Irfaan Ali. Thank you. President of Bolivia, Rodrigo Paz. Thank you very much. Great people.

Prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago, and I have to be very careful with this because, you know, your word, your first name is very similar to a first name that we have, but fortunately it's pronounced different. It's Kamla as opposed to Kamala. I like Kamla better in many ways.

And I just want to say thank you very much. But I had to be careful with that first name. I didn't want to get it -- I didn't want to get it mixed up because it would ruin your reputation completely.

I said, is this the same pronunciation? No, sir. It's a little different. It's Kam, right? Kam as opposed to Kahm. We don't like Kahm.

President of Costa Rica, Rodrigo Chaves, as well as the president- elect of Costa Rica, Laura Fernandez Delgado. So, thank you very much. Thank you very much. And the president of the Dominican Republic, Luis Abinader. And so many of my friends are in the Dominican, including the Sugar King, right? He is a -- he is indeed the Sugar King, a lot of sugar. I don't know if that's good or bad, but he's got a lot of it, right?

But we're grateful to be joined as well by the president-elect of Chile, Jose Kast. Congratulations. It's an endorsement. Gave you a little endorsement. I love when I give endorsements on people when -- but you know what? They don't lose.

You know, I don't know. I guess it would be illegal. Could you imagine if I could -- they spend millions and millions and millions of dollars on a campaign. They're losing, and they begged me for an endorsement. I give them endorsement. They win by 30 points. And I get nothing.

If I could sell that -- is there a way? Do we have any of our legal people here? A little -- Marco's close enough. Is there a way I can get paid for that, Marco? I'd make a lot -- they spend millions of dollars. And I give it for nothing. I could -- even if I put it into the Treasury of the United States, it would be pretty good, right, Marco?

But Marco is saying, this is not a good idea. No, but it's an honor to do it. It's an honor to have that power where I can endorse somebody and even in foreign countries. Here it was -- this we had one in -- this week, 124 and zero with endorsements. And so that's good.

But now I'm doing foreign countries all of a sudden to say, sir, would you endorse me? And it's an honor, if I like you. I only do it if I think you're good. If I think you're not good -- I've turned down many more than I've accepted, believe me.

I want to thank Secretary of State Marco Rubio for his leadership in organizing this really important summit. He's fantastic. He's a fantastic secretary of state. And thus far, look, we've had the most incredible year of any president, I think, by -- you know, I ended eight wars. We're not going to go into it too much today, but what we've done is incredible. And we're going to be -- we're going to be --

SMERCONISH: The president speaking at the Shield of America Summit in Doral, Florida. Still to come, a future where computers decide what to strike and who to kill. It's already here. Artificial intelligence already helping target strikes inside Iran. A new battle brewing here in the United States between the Pentagon and the A.I. company behind that technology. Sign up for the newsletter at Smerconish.com for which Jack Ohman drew this.

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[09:49:15]

SMERCONISH: The Pentagon is using B-2 bombers, fighter jets, cruise missiles, and artificial intelligence to strike targets inside Iran. Reports show the Pentagon has been using A.I. for things like analyzing satellite images, scanning massive amounts of intelligence data, translating chatter on the internet, and predicting possible military outcomes.

One system that they've used is called Maven Smart System, run by Palantir Technologies. Anthropic's A.I. Claude was one of the tools feeding into that system.

Outside of Iran another battle has been brewing, this one between Anthropic and the Pentagon. The controversy started with one question somebody at Anthropic asked Palantir, how was our A.I. used in a raid involving Maduro? A reference to the U.S. ouster of Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro.

[09:50:01]

The Pentagon got angry that Anthropic was even asking the question. Why? Because it suggested that Anthropic didn't trust the military. Anthropic is concerned their A.I. would be used for such things as mass surveillance and fully autonomous weapons that could decide who to kill without a human making the decision.

Joining me now to discuss all this is Michael Horowitz, director of Perry World House and professor at the University of Pennsylvania. He's a drone and military technology expert and former deputy assistant secretary of defense.

Professor, thank you for being here. Is this a dispute about policy or a dispute about personalities?

MICHAEL HOROWITZ, DIRECTOR, PERRY WORLD HOUSE, UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA: I think this is much more a dispute about personalities masquerading as a dispute about policy. The main reason for that is how much the Pentagon is relying on Anthropic's technology now, and the fact that there was no actual dispute between the Pentagon and Anthropic about any uses of their technology, nor was there any ask that the Pentagon was making of Anthropic in the future, that Anthropic had a problem with.

This essentially was a theoretical argument about possible future use cases involving mass surveillance, or what Anthropic calls fully autonomous weapons.

SMERCONISH: I realize this is all, you know, new turf, but if a defense contractor like Raytheon sells to the Pentagon they don't insist on how their weapons could be used, right? So, should it be different in a world of artificial intelligence?

HOROWITZ: And this is really the Pentagon's perspective in some ways. You know they say, you know, hey, like Lockheed, Raytheon, they sell us a missile. They don't get to say, you know, you get to fire it against country X, but not country Y. So like, Anthropic, why are you pressing us on this?

And I think from Anthropic's perspective, they view this more like terms of service sort of like any software contractor has with the Pentagon. And so, thinks that they have a right to be able to say, hey, you can use our technology for this use case, but not that use case. Within the confines of the use cases they think that it's OK to then to use them for anything just like, you know, Lockheed or Raytheon would.

What this really reflects is how artificial intelligence is a different kind of technology. It's still evolving, still changing, and you need those contractors behind the scenes constantly as you're updating what you're doing with it and new use cases become possible as the technology improves. And that's why this is really about a breakdown in trust between Anthropic and the Pentagon.

SMERCONISH: OK. So, we're having this conversation. And here in the states, we're coming to terms with the idea of artificial intelligence being used for defense purposes. Meanwhile, what's going on in Russia and China as best we know? In other words, are they as far advanced in using A.I. in the way that we are?

HOROWITZ: It's a great question. Russia and China are going full speed ahead as fast as they can in the incorporation of artificial intelligence into their militaries especially China. The U.S. and China is, I think, all of your viewers probably know are in global competition right now. And that global competition, especially surrounding artificial intelligence, has been intense.

On the frontier of A.I., where Chinese companies like DeepSeek are competing with American companies like Anthropic and OpenAI and others, and that includes military applications of artificial intelligence where China's military is working intensely to do that.

Is America ahead in frontier A.I.? Yes, absolutely. But where China and Russia can sometimes have an advantage is they've been a lot more willing to incorporate artificial intelligence into their militaries. I worry, for example, as a former Pentagon official, that America will have the best A.I. in the world but that we will end up trailing when it comes to adoption.

SMERCONISH: Professor Horowitz, thank you for your expertise. We appreciate it.

You still have time to vote on today's poll question at Smerconish.com. Go there now and answer the question, when will the war in Iran end? Is it going to end in a week? Is it going to end in a month? Is it going to end in a year, or after our lifetime? We'll give you the flash returns right after this.

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SMERCONISH: OK. There's the voting so far at Smerconish.com. More than 35,000 have already cast their ballot. When will the war in Iran end? Roughly 40 percent -- looks like it's rounded off, say 40 percent in a year. Almost an equal number say, this is scary, hope they're wrong, after our lifetime. In a month, 22 percent. I confess I'm in that category. In a week, one percent.

If you've not yet voted, you can still go to the Web site and do so. Here's some social media reaction that came in during the course of today's program.

Define end. The bombs may stop in a month but the war will continue in cyber and terrorism domains unless we let the Iranian people build their own democracy.

I think that's what the president was hoping they would do. But as pointed out by David Sanger earlier in the program there's been -- there's been no uprising of the sort that was invited by President Trump, at least that we've seen so far. Nor does it appear that there's been any break in the regime so far.

More social media reaction. Follow me on X, subscribe to my YouTube channel like Carol did.

We have -- We have no choice. The horses left the barn. All nations use A.I. as a tool for military operations.

So, this is Carol reacting to my conversation with Dr. Horowitz about the use of artificial intelligence. I had this as a poll question at Smerconish.com this week. Are we -- are we better or worse off knowing that the Pentagon is using artificial intelligence? And my comment was that the -- the only thing worse than the Pentagon using artificial intelligence is the Pentagon not using artificial intelligence.

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Like I think it makes sense in a variety of circumstances, and it's going to be evolving. But would you rather that China has it and Russia has it, and we don't? Very quickly, one more I think I can get it done. Go ahead. Let's go.

I don't care if the president is a Republican or a Democrat. I agree. If you're bombing a country and they're returning fire and people are dying, that's a war.

Yes, what else am I supposed to discuss? The semantics relative to what's going on in Iran I find to be ridiculous. If you missed any of today's program you can always listen anywhere you get your podcast. See you next week.