Trump Urges Iran Leadership Change; Oil Spikes on Hormuz Disruptions

Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Good morning, I'm Nathan Hager and I'm Karen Moscow. Here
are the stories we're following today.
Karen, it is risk off across markets, with a third
day of attacks underway across the Middle East. Blasts have
been heard this morning in Bahrain, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates,
and Qatar. As Iran targets US interests in the region.
President Trump says the bombing campaign against Iran could last
for weeks. He's calling on the Islamic Republic's remaining leaders
to give up.
I once again urged the Revolutionary Guard, the Iranian military
police to lay down your arms and receive full immunity
or face certain death.
It will be certain death won't be.
Pretty, President Trump spoke in a new social media post
late yesterday. The President told The New York Times he's
willing to drop sanctions on Iran if its new leader
is pragmatic, but in an interview with ABC News, he
said his favored choices after the death of Iran Supreme
leader have all died in the attacks. Iran security chief
says Tehran won't negotiate with the US, and this morning
Kuwaits Army said a number of US fighter jets had crashed,
but all crew members survived. Iran's semi official Fars news
agency says five hundred and fifty five people have been
killed in US and Israeli attacks.
Well Later this morning, Nathan the Pentagon plans to hold
a news conference on the operation against Iran, and that
said for eight am Wall Street time. The White House
says Congress will receive a full briefing tomorrow from the
Pentagon State Department. In Cia, Republican Congressman Michael McCall says
Iran faces an extraordinary opportunity.
Since nineteen seventy nine, there's been a dark veil that
descended across the Middle East, and that shroud has now
been lifted, and the people of Iran now have a
chance for freedom and a chance to take back their country.
Than read but the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee,
Mark Warner, says the White House still has not spelled
out its ultimate goals from this conflict.
Is the goal Iran's nuclear capability is, it's the ballistic missiles,
regime change. And let me acknowledge the fact that the
Iranian leadership, the Supreme leader's taken out.
I mean that is good news.
I mean this regime is awful. But I can tell
you from the intelligence standpoint, we don't have great visibility
about who or what comes next.
Senator Warner and Congress and McCall where guests on our
new show Bloomberg This Weekend. Catch the show Saturdays and
Sundays from seven to ten am Eastern across Bloomberg platforms.
El Er Karen Iran is looking for a successor to
Ayatola Ali Hameni, the eighty six year old Supreme Leader
of Iran, who was killed in the air strikes. Golnar
Motavali leads Bloomberg's coverage in Iran.
In Iran, there is always a under the public. There
is always a contingency for the appointment and the succession
process of the Supreme Leader, almost as as soon as
the Supreme Media is appointed in the first place, and
that's actually embedded in the constitution.
So even if Harmony had died.
Of natural causes or of old age, and he was
eighty six years old, so there would have been some
form of preparation for his succession.
We've known that for some time.
Bloomberg's goldnarmotiv all these says. Iran's constitution does call for
an assembly of experts to choose the next supreme leader,
but that may not be possible in war time.
Well, Nathan, there are more signs the conflict is spreading
across the region. Israel bombay route and told residents in
dozens of southern Lebanese villages to leave after the militant
Hasbola group fired rockets and drones into the Jewish state.
Speaking yesterday through a translator before the latest military action
was announced, Israeli Prime Minister Benjaminett and yeah, who praised
the US Israel offensive against Iran.
It has truly reached the record of all times an
alliance in peace and.
In war, and this war will bring about.
True Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Atnyelho's speaking through an interpreter.
Elebenese authority say more than thirty people were killed in
the Israeli airstrikes today.
And there is plenty of reaction from world leaders this
morning to the military action in Iran. Karen Japanese Prime
Minister sana Etaka Aichi condemned Iran's nuclear program in a
carefully worded response that avoided commenting on whether Tokyo supported
Washington strikes on Tehran. North Korea condemned Israel's military attack
with US military support as a quote shameless and illegal
active aggression. The UK, France and Germany have issued a
joint statement saying they were not involved in the strikes
but are in close contact with the US, Israel and
partners in the region. Prime Minister kir Starmer says the
UK will not be involved in offensive action.
We want to be very clear. We all remember the
mistakes of Iraq and we have learned those lessons. We
were not involved in the initial strikes on Iran and
we will not join offensive action now. But Iran is
pursuing a scorched earth strategy, so we are supporting the
collective self defense of our allies and our people in
the region.
Prime Minister Kier Starmer says the UK has since allowed
the US to make use of British military basis for
the specific purpose of destroying Iranian missile sites.
Well, Nathan, as we mentioned, there's a massive market reaction
this morning to the strikes in Iran, and Bloomberg's John
Tucker joins us with the very latest.
John, good morning, morning Krol.
Let's start with the major stin cambridges worldwide, pushing lower
US stock futures down one percent. Brent krue this is
the international benchmark now up over eight percent, about seventy
two dollars a barrel spot gold that has topped fifty
four hundred dollars announced bill holding on a gain at
more than three percent that we saw last week. The
dollar performing like a haven asset right now up six
tenths of a percent dollar DXY. John Taylor at Alliance Bernstein'
says markets have reached critical levels.
Actually think the longer this goes on, and if oil
prices stay higher for a longer period, people will start
to think about the negative economic excuse me negative economic
consequences of that, and that could push treasury old Slova.
Now, with the rise in oil, the major energy companies
seeing strong gains across Asia and Europe. Let's look at
Exon Mobile and Occidental Petroleum pre market up around five
percent each. Now with the prospect of an extended work
you have the defense stocks. They are jumping RTX Corporation,
Lockheed Martin pre market they are up over six percent,
and then of course the airline and travel stocks will
have more in the moment, but they have plunged from
closures of the airspace and the rise in oil. The
closing of Middle East airspace also threatening the margins of
freight carriers like FedEx and United Parcels Service. So the
impact your stretches to almost every corner of the market,
you know, New York. I'm John Tucker, Bloomberg Radio.
All right, John, Thanks, let's get more now on that
travel chaos you mentioned in the Middle East and beyond.
Airlines across the Persian Gulf have extended suspensions of operations.
Bloomberg's Aviation and transport reporter Danny lisays it's not clear
when these disruptions might end.
We're looking at around thousands of flights today being canceled
in and out of some of these key transit hubs,
particularly to Buy the borld's busiest international airport for for
transit travel, and that also extends to Abu Dhabi and Doha.
So with the region's air space also being closed, it
really means that the airlines cannot operate in the Persian Golf.
That's Bloomberg's Danny Lee reporting, and European airline stocks are plunging.
Luft Hansa's down more than six percent. IAG, the owner
of British Airways, is down five percent.
Nathan, Amazon Web Services as it suffered a disruption to
it after our unidentified object struck one of its data
centers in the United Arab Emirates. The incident impacted services
from the data center in one of its regional groups,
and power to the facility was shut off by the
fire department as they worked to extinguish them Blaze.
In company news, Karen Berkshire Hathaway shares her down almost
two percent in early training. In addition to the overall
market weekness this morning, the conglomerates operating profits fell nearly
thirty percent in Warren Buffett's final quarter, as CEO analyst
noted weakness in Berkshire's insurance businesses.
And we have a programming note here, Nathan, As we
just saw this past weekend. Markets may close on Friday,
but the world does not. And that's why we're bringing
you a new live radio and TV show, Bloomberg this
weekend is looking beyond the daily headlines to the bigger
themes driving politics, business and culture. Joined David Gura, Christina
Ruffini and Lisa Matteo for smart conversations and in depth
interviews at he makes sense of the week that's been
and what comes next. Get the show live Saturdays and
Sundays from seven am Eastern on Bloomberg Radio TV and
the Bloomberg Business App. Time now for look at some
of the other stories making news in New York and
around the world. And for that we're joined by Bloomberg.
So Michael Barr, Michael, good morning.
Good morning, Karen. Authorities say a gunman wearing clothes with
an Iranian flag design and the words property of Allah
killed two people and wounded fourteen at an Austin, Texas bar.
Police shot and killed a man who had used both
a pistol and a rifle in the shooting early Sunday,
day after the US and Israel launched an attack on Iran.
FBI Special Agent in Charge Alex Dorian.
There were indicators that on the subject and in his
vehicle that indicate potential nexus to terrorism. Again, it's till
too early to make a determination on that. That's why
we investigated very closely with our partners with Austin Police Department.
Multiple people briefed on the investigation saying the suspected gunman
is a fifty three year old man originally from Senegal.
The Supreme Court will hear arguments today in a major's
Second Amendment case over whether unlawful drug users can be
barred from owning firearms. The government is arguing that there
has always been laws restricting gun access to people who
are considered habitual drunkards. At least for forty three states
have laws restricting gun access to drug addicts. The Reverend
Jesse Jackson will be in South Carolina for a final
public farewell today. Jackson will lie in state at the
Capitol in Columbia. After the South Carolina services, Jackson's body
is expected to be taken back to Chicago before a
final set of services at his Rainbow Push Coalition Chicago headquarters.
Jackson died on February seventeenth, the day e four. A
wild scene in eastern Texas over the weekend, a hot
air balloon crashed into a communications tower. The two people
in the balloon were stuck for more than nine hundred
feet in the air. First responders quickly arrived on the scene.
This man witnessed it.
The people are actually coming down right now and it's
pretty wild.
I'm assuming they have harnesses of stuff.
I sure hope. So this is one of the craziest things.
Fire Fighters performed a complicated rescue that took about four hours.
Global news twenty four hours a day and whenever you
want it with Bloomberg News. Now that Michael Barrn. This
is Bloomberg Herron.
Thanks Michael a time now for our Bloomberg Sports update,
and for that we bring in John stash.
Hour, Thanks Aaron.
Sunday in the NBA began in New York. The knicksbeat
the Spurs one fourteen to eighty nine. That in San
Antonio's eleven game winning streak. The last game was in Boston.
The Celtics improved to forty and twenty. They meet the
Sixers one fourteen to ninety eight. Colleg Jube to the
Big Ten in upset. Ohio State b to eighth rank Purdue.
Michigan State won in Indiana. Chad Baker Mizarra is USC's
top scorer. On Saturday, he asked to be taken out
of a game, and then he went and sat in
the stands USC announced he's no longer with the team.
That to Bloomberg Sports, update.
Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Daybreak coming up after this.
Coast to coast on Bloomberg Radio, nationwide on Sirius XM,
and around the world on Bloomberg dot Com and the
Bloomberg Business app. This is Bloomberg Daybreak.
Good morning, I'm Nathan Hagrid.
Is a third day of military conflict across the Middle
East after the US and Israeli strikes on Iran that
claimed Supreme Leader Iatola alihame Nie. President Trump says the
operation against Iran will continue until all his objectives are met.
These actions are right and they are necessary to ensure
that Americans will never have to face a radical blood Thursday,
the terrorist regime armed with nuclear weapons and lots of threats.
Was President Trump and his latest social media post on
the conflict in Iran. Joining US now from Dubai is
Bloomberg Middle East correspondent Jumana Bursecci, the anchor of Bloomberg
Horizons on Bloomberg Television.
Jumana, good morning. What is the latest from where you sait?
Well, the latest is that it's very clear that this
has become a regional conflicts, regional war. Over the course
of the last three days, there are now eleven countries
involved in the Iran war, and what started off as
an operation on Saturday morning, joint military operation between the
US and Israel to take out what now we understand
was the Ayatola alongside some key personnel, has expanded and
there doesn't seem to be any signs of things letting up.
We heard from the Israeli Prime Minister yesterday, Benjaminataniajuan. He
was saying that the operations actually planned to intensify in
coming days. The US Central Command have said that they've
hit a thousand targets and around Iran. President Trump yesterday
said that they downed nine Iranian warships that going after
the Iranian navy. And in response to that, you would
think that perhaps this would have been an opportunity for
Iran to reassess their options or perhaps even come to
the table again with the US. But in fact this
morning we heard from one of the key voices, a
fellow called Ali Larijani, who is the chief of the
National Supreme Council, and he said that the negotiations with
the US is not back on the table again, and
they continue to direct missiles and drones towards Israel, key
golf states, and it's caused a huge amount of disruption here.
Not a lot in terms of overall casualties because most
of these missiles have been intercepted, most of them, but
a lot of debris has caused considerable damage. And they've
also targeted the airports, which means that it estimated they
about three hundred thousand people estimated around the Gulf region
right now unable to travel because of the airspace closure. So, yes,
it's definitely an intensification.
Is it an intensification that we're seeing in terms of
Arab states retaliating or is it just defensive at this point?
So in so far as Arab states have responded, it's
been calibrated very carefully, but the language would suggest that
they are very unhappy with the way Iran has responded here.
Iran have said, the Ranian officials have said that they've
been targeting US assets. But actually, when you're in a
situation where a significant amount of damage is being leveled
at key infrastructure, including the airports, which as you know,
for many of these economies their key passageways between east
and west, between Asia and Europe, that becomes very damaging
to what these Gulf states are trying to achieve. And
you know, I've spoken to many diplomats over the last
couple of years, and they've talked about de escalation, the
importance of maintaining this image of being a safe haven
or even an oasis in a region that tends to
be quite will conflict's written. But the feeling and the
concern is that that image is being jeopardized because of
the actions that Iran has undertaken over the last couple
of days. And so the language that has come out
has suggested that the Gulf state's position towards Iran may
be changing, and if anything, it's unifying them together. It's
bringing them closer together and also bringing them perhaps even
closer to the United States. And some of them that
they might not say this on record, but behind closed doors,
are actually endorsing what the US is doing right now.
Wow, given that we've seen this defiant stance from Tehran,
the reaction militarily, this idea of Tehran coming back to
the table that President Trump has put out there, it
raises the question would be coming back to the table
considering that there is no supreme leader at this point,
and from what we understand there's still a process of
trying to figure out who that person is.
Yeah, correct that that's correct, And you've got to think
that anyway they would have been preparing for this scenario.
The Ayatola was eighty six years old, and yes, it
is a hugely consequential chapter in Iranian history that's now closed.
But at the same time, his legacy is that he
massively strengthened the military, the Revolutionary Guard, alongside these hardliner clerics,
and so he built up a system that is very
well preserved, and the procedure is just kicking into place now.
There's a transitional Council composed of three members that at
the same time there's going to be this larger eighty
eight cleric member group, a committee that will get together
and they will ultimately decide on who the successor of
Homine is going to be. A few names are being
thrown out there. All of them tend to be hardliners,
as you would imagine. I mean, they're not going to
select somebody who isn't approved by these clerics but also
doesn't get the seal approval of the Revolutionary Guard. But
the point is the language here is one of defiance
that's coming out of Iran, and there are no signs
yet of them capitulating or of the system collapsing.
Jumana Borsecchi of Bloomberg News, our Middle East correspondent and
host of Bloomberg Horizons on Bloomberg Television, juwanna thank you
for this debrief. We're going to be checking back with
you throughout the morning and into the days to come,
I'm sure, and as we continue our team coverage of
the conflict in Iran and the broader Middle East. We
are joined now from Tel Aviv by our Israel bureau
chief for Bloomberg News, Ethan bron Or. Ethan, It's great
to have you with us this morning. From your perspective,
where do things stand now? What Nathan, I think Jaman
has summed it up very very well. I mean, the
one element she didn't mention is that last night his
Belah sent some rockets and missiles and drones into northern Israel,
and the Israelis have responded.
With a great force. They've already killed thirty plus people.
They were bombing his bull of sites in southern Beirut,
and they've ordered some fifty plus villages in the south
of Lebanon to evacuate. I don't know where this is going,
whether the Israelis are really going to take on his Belah.
I think they've been looking for a reason to try
to do more to disarm his Belah after the.
Ceasefire of two years ago.
But I do think that what you guys were talking about,
the potential inclusion of the GCC, of the Golf Cooperation Council,
the Saudis, et cetera into this next phase, is the
most significant thing to watch.
We'll see what happens.
The headlines, some of which I've seen this morning, say
that Israel sees no need at this point for a
ground invasion into Lebanon to go after Hezbola. What does
that tell you about where things could be going at
this point and what the level of strength of Iran's
proxies is now now that so much of the leadership
in Iran itself has been decapitated.
Yes, you're right, I mean, obviously the result of October seventh,
twenty twenty three attack by Kamas on Israel. The goal
of that attack was to draw the proxies into a
kind of pincer motion against Israel, ultimately in theory to
just do away with this state.
I mean, this is a very powerful military force in Israel.
And the opposite has happened over the last two and
a half years, which is that Hisbolah, much of it
was really taken out, Kamas has been largely destroyed.
The Yasud regime in Syria, Fel.
And the Hutis are not destroyed, but they've been hit
pretty hard. So yes, the proxies, these are all proxy
militias that have relied on Iran, armed and funded by Iran,
are on their back feet. So I think that Israel,
first of all, when the spokesman of the military was
asked whether there might be a ground and curage and
it's Lebanon, he simply applied, all options are on the table.
My instinct at the moment is that you're right that
they probably won't, that they'll continue at it from the
air because they're really so focused on Iran right now.
But look, it is a kind of remaking of the
region's geostrategic balance. And now this final piece, which I
don't know where it's going, because I think that for
the Gulf countries seeing too strong in Israel is also
another issue. But between Israel and the US and one side,
and Iran on the other. With Iran attacking them. They
seem to be looking in the direction of the US
and Israel at least today.
To the idea of a rebalancing of the geopolitics in
the Middle East. Right now, we've talked together, you and
I for more than two and a half years. Now,
that's how long this conflict has been going on between
Israel and Hamas in Gaza. Now the focus has turned
more squarely on Iran.
Where is Israeli support for.
A potentially even more prolonged conflict in the Middle East.
Look, I don't know that we can measure the support
for a prolonged conflict, but certainly if you were to
take you if you could somehow take a mood measurement. Today,
I think there is resolve, if you'd like, in Israel,
even though many people are being forced to sleep in
shelters and so on. But there is a sense that's
this an existential threat to Israel over the last and
nearly fifty years, in the form of the Islamic Republic,
which has called for death to Israel, and which has
sponsored these militias, and which has been at least according
to US and israel early intelligence's been trying to build
a nuclear bomb.
All of these are reasons for Israel to feel that the.
Decapitating of the Islamic Republic for the killing of Alikhamani
and the other thirty or forty people around him is
an enormously significant achievement for Israel and will guarantee its
long term survival.
This is Bloomberg Daybreak, your morning podcast and the stories
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