Are downplaying this. They are not at this point pointing the finger at israel. They are not at this point promising revenge. We are expecting to hear the iranians speaking fairly shortly. This is preplanned speech. Its not specifically in response to this strike, so well be closely monitoring that. In terms of israel, they are not officially claiming responsibility one way or another there are no plans of address from netanyahu and no official comment from the Israeli Government and israeli military. And that, too, is really telling. It feels like the israelis are trying to give iran space to not escalate this further. Theyre not trying to rub irans face in this. Theyre not crowing, not claiming victory. So you have this kind of war of words playing out on top of the actual strike itself, so at this moment despite those iranian threats weve been hearing all week that any iisraeli attack would be met with massive retaliation, it does not look like iran is trying to escalate, and here i
those israeli air defense systems. we don t know exactly how many interceptors israel fired on saturday night as it was stopping that incoming barrage of iranian drones and rockets, but given it was 350 missiles and drones altogether, you can bet it was a lot of interceptors and those are expensive. they re around $100 thousand each, so israel will be looking to the u.s., to congress to help replenish those funds. the major, major concern as well as obviously a full-scale war with iran is that this back and forth between israel and iran would draw in hezbollah, the powerful lebanese militant group, which has been firing into northern israel since october 7th. israel has been firing back. in the last couple of days israelis say they ve killed two senior commanders and there were 14 soldiers wounded by a hezbollah drone attack. now, at this point as i was saying at the beginning of the
want to escalate. i don t see any reason to believe that right now or any indication of that, but that would be a major indication that would tip it off i m sure into a much wider regional war. i think that s important to point out as we continue to track what the biden administration s response is going to be. clint watts, thank you for bringing us your expertise. we ve got a busy morning and still got more ahead because jury selection in donald trump s hush money trial is now almost complete. we ll take a look what happened in court yesterday and have some legal analysis. plus on capitol hill democrats on the rules committee advance speaker mike johnson s foreign aid package finally. what the he s saying across the aisle. those stories plus a check on the weather when we come right back. n the weather when we come right back
perspective is not to see regional escalation or rolling out of this war in multiple theaters. behind the scenes, though, it s already been happening. if you look at houthis in the red sea, iraqi militia and shia in iraq and syria that did the tower 22 attack, there s been a broad-based proxy war between iran, israel, iran and the united states boiling for many months. so i know they re trying to make sure and assure people they re not escalating, they re not tipping off a larger regional war. a very delicate line to cross. i think any sort of attack or direct action against u.s. military personnel again in the region or u.s. civilians would be a red line for the u.s. where they would have to move up escalating and i would also note there s the irgc, the iranian revolutionary guard corp and hezbollah in the past have directed terrorist attacks towards foreign targets, so that would be something else to watch out for if the iranians would
are down-playing this. they are not at this point pointing the finger at israel. they are not at this point promising revenge. we are expecting to hear the iranians speaking fairly shortly. this is preplanned speech. it s not specifically in response to this strike, so we ll be closely monitoring that. in terms of israel, they are not officially claiming responsibility one way or another there are no plans of address from netanyahu and no official comment from the israeli government and israeli military. and that, too, is really telling. it feels like the israelis are trying to give iran space to not escalate this further. they re not trying to rub iran s face in this. they re not crowing, not claiming victory. so you have this kind of war of words playing out on top of the actual strike itself, so at this moment despite those iranian threats we ve been hearing all week that any iisraeli attack would be met with massive