U.S. President Donald Trump launched the start of large-scale military strikes Yemen's Iran-backed Houthis on Saturday. LiveNOW's Christina Evans discuses the latest with Ken Gray, senior lecturer at the University of New Haven.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Thanks for staying with us here on Live Now from Botsom, your host Christina Evans.
00:06As promised before we went to that two minute break, we're going to be diving a bit further
00:09into some of the headlines that are coming out of the Middle East.
00:12Want to put up this live shot that we have there in Tel Aviv.
00:16So what we do know is that today President Trump said that he ordered a series of airstrikes
00:22on the Houthi held areas there in Yemen, promising to use overwhelming lethal force until Iranian
00:29Iraq Houthi rebels cease their attacks on shipping alongside that vital maritime corridor.
00:36Right now we do know that the Houthis have said in response that 13 civilians have been
00:41killed in the capital.
00:43I want to put this on your screen as well.
00:45This is a portion of that statement from President Trump that he put on True Social as he announced
00:51some of these attacks.
00:52I'm going to read it out in full here and then we're going to dive in with some of our
00:55experts to decode what this means and overall what the impact will be there in the region.
01:01But as this reads here, President Trump says, the Houthi attack on American vessels will
01:05not be tolerated.
01:07We will use overwhelming lethal force until we have achieved our objective.
01:11The Houthis have choked on shipping and one of the most important waterways of the world,
01:17grinding vast swaths of global commerce to a halt and attacking the core principle of
01:23freedom of navigation upon which international trade and commerce depends.
01:29Our brave war fighters are right now carrying out aerial attacks on the terrorist bases,
01:34leaders and missile defenses to protect American shipping, air and naval assets and to restore
01:41navigational freedom.
01:43No terrorist force will stop American commercial and naval vessels from freely sailing the
01:49waterways of the world.
01:51I wanted to bring you that portion of the statement again.
01:53We brought this to you as breaking news when it came out that President Trump has now conducted
01:58these wide ranging missile strikes against the Houthis and Yemen.
02:02I want to bring into the conversation now Ken Gray.
02:05Thanks so much for being with us here on Live Now from Fox.
02:08Of course, we like to keep our eye on this region as some of these news, this news comes
02:13out.
02:14First of all, what were your thoughts initially when you heard that President Trump had ordered
02:18these attacks there on the Houthis?
02:20Hi Christina, glad to be with you.
02:23You know, to me, this is something that should have occurred over a year ago.
02:28That is, the Houthis have been dominating the Red Sea, denying the use of the Red Sea
02:35for international commercial shipping.
02:38Billions of dollars have been wasted because ships have had to sell all the way around
02:44to be able to get up into the European countries, into the United States, denying them the opportunity
02:52to be able to go through the Suez Canal.
02:55The Egyptian government has been reeling from the fact that they have not been able to get
03:01the money from shipping going through the Suez Canal.
03:06Now the Houthis have announced that they are going to resume their attacks on ships in
03:12that area.
03:13They had not been doing so for about the last month during the ceasefire between Israel
03:19and Hamas.
03:20But now they have recently just announced that they were going to resume their attacks
03:25on ships.
03:26So President Trump has rightly said that we will not tolerate that.
03:32We will not tolerate U.S. warships coming under fire by the Houthis, and that we will
03:38take care of the problem of the Houthis.
03:41This is not a one-time strike like happened during the Biden administration.
03:45We're not going to see a few missiles or a few aircraft attack, and then that'll be it
03:51for the operation.
03:53This is attacks that will be ongoing for days to weeks.
03:59And when we're seeing these attacks, as you say, they're going to be ongoing for days
04:02to weeks.
04:03This has been expected.
04:04Can you sort of explain the long relationship between Iran and the Houthis as well?
04:10They are one of those proxy groups there in the region.
04:13So the axis here of resistance, Iran runs a group of proxy countries, proxy groups throughout
04:22that area, all the way from Iran across to Lebanon, down into Israel with Hamas and the
04:32Islamic Jihad, and also with the Houthis.
04:35The Houthis have been punching far above their weight class in that they had wanted
04:41to get into the fight against Israel with Hamas.
04:45But because of the distance from Israel, they've only been able to do a couple of airstrikes
04:51against Israel, and none of them have been effective.
04:54However, they have been showing themselves to be very effective at launching attacks
04:59on commercial shipping going through the Red Sea and denying the Red Sea passage for
05:05commercial shipping.
05:07And so they have been harassing shipping and have been a constant source of irritation,
05:18but they are finally going to be dealt with.
05:21So far today, attacks on them have been striking at things like radar installations, are launching
05:29equipment or missiles.
05:32What actually has to happen is to make the Houthi leadership pay a price, to seek out
05:38and neutralize their leadership in addition to their equipment.
05:45So a lot of their equipment has been put underground.
05:48So that denies them as easy targets, but the Houthi leadership should be targeted also.
05:55And when we're thinking about the broader impact of some of these attacks, let's first
05:59talk about the economic impact.
06:02These ships, they are going through that region, it's a major thoroughfare, as President Trump
06:06said.
06:07Can you sort of talk about how that's impacting multiple countries, not just the United States,
06:12as it's a frequently used path for shipping?
06:16All the goods that are passing from the Far East take that route through the Red Sea.
06:27So we're talking about impact on a lot of different countries' economies.
06:32Parts for cars, for instance, often have had to be directed all the way around Africa,
06:39taking an additional month to get to their end use to be put into automobiles as they're
06:45being manufactured.
06:48Electronic goods coming from China has to be diverted all the way around like that,
06:54around Africa.
06:55And so this has been an impact not only on the United States, but an impact on European
07:04countries across the board and an impact on the Far East.
07:09The Houthis, as I say, are punching far above their weight class.
07:14They are having a real impact to be such a small group that barely controls the country
07:21of Yemen.
07:24They have split Yemen into the Yemen government and the Houthi government, and so they have
07:30been a constant source of irritation.
07:35And Saudi Arabia had been fighting with them before, before they ended up making peace
07:41with the Houthis.
07:44The Houthis, as I say, wanted to be involved in the attack on Israel, but their distance
07:49made that very difficult.
07:51So they did the next best thing and tried to dominate shipping going through this area.
07:59And as we're continuing on here, we do know as well that the Houthis put out a statement
08:04saying that 13 civilians had been killed in the process.
08:09Of course, this is going to continue on.
08:11And we also know that the United States says that, according to officials, that they are
08:15the only ones who participated in this attack.
08:18Do you think that others of our allies will continue to jump into this fight as well?
08:22Or do you think this will solely be a U.S. action that's taking place for the time being?
08:29I don't have a crystal ball.
08:30I can't tell you what will happen in the weeks to come.
08:35But I think that the United States has sufficient force in this area to be able to punish the
08:39Houthis enough to stop them from resuming their attacks.
08:43We've got the Harry S. Truman Carrier Strike Group there, comprised of the carrier and
08:50the aircraft on board the carrier.
08:53And it also has destroyers and it has a cruiser with it.
09:01Plus there's also a cruise missile submarine there in the area.
09:05And so that alone should be sufficient force to be able to stop the Houthis from resuming
09:12their attacks in this area and should be able to met out enough punishment to keep them
09:17from being a continued source of irritation.
09:20Overall, with this U.S. show of force there in the region, how do you think this is going
09:26to impact some of the other groups that are there in the Middle East, including Israel?
09:31Of course, they currently do have a ceasefire agreement with Hamas, no matter how fragile
09:37at this point.
09:38But do you think that this will impact some of the other conflicts there in the region?
09:42So the chief country that will be impacted by this is Iran.
09:48Iran is the puppet master pulling the strings on all the puppets.
09:53The Houthis being one of these puppets, they have been greatly damaged by the actions there
10:00in Syria, which with Hayat out, Tom Shum, HYT overthrowing the Syrian government and
10:15denying Iran access to Hezbollah.
10:22This is another one of their puppets.
10:24So they don't have Hezbollah, Hamas is all but neutralized, and now they are losing the
10:32Houthis, which were constantly launching attacks on ships in the area for Iran, and now they've
10:39lost out on that group also.
10:42So Iran is the one that is actually, in addition to the Houthis, is going to be the country
10:48is suffering the most from this.
10:51Again, putting up that portion of President Trump's statement as he talked about the U.S.
10:55conducting these strikes against the Houthis there in Yemen.
10:59We've been here with Ken Gray, helping us to break down some of the latest headlines.
11:03Ken, before I let you go, any more thoughts that people who are listening now should be
11:08looking out for over the next few days after President Trump made this announcement?
11:13So the president said that we were going to have a continued set of operations against
11:19the Houthis.
11:20It will be interesting to see how the Houthis will react to that, whether they will continue
11:30to try to attack shipping in the area, or if they go to ground and stop.
11:35The civilian casualties are due to the fact that the Houthis are placing their weapon
11:40systems within civilian population areas.
11:44And so the human shields that are being used to try to protect their systems are the population
11:51in that area.
11:52So they, of course, will be also the ones suffering from this.
11:56But this is long overdue.
12:00I'm surprised that it did not happen earlier, but the Biden administration was very, very
12:05reluctant to carry out any operations in this area.
12:09And they were constantly hamstringing the Israelis from taking care of Hamas.
12:14And the Houthis continue to be a problem because the Biden administration refused to do anything
12:21other than a couple of selective strikes on weapon systems.
12:25All right, once again, Ken Gray here to help us break down some of these topics as it pertains
12:31to this breaking news that we brought to you as President Trump did order this attack on
12:36the Houthis.
12:37Ken, we appreciate you for being with us here on Live Now, helping us to break down some
12:40of these more complex topics coming out of the Middle East.