SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
The Pentagon wants $200 billion to fund the war in Iran, an imposing amount for what President Trump has repeatedly downplayed as a short-term excursion. Last night, he posted on Truth Social, quote, "we are getting very close to meeting our objectives as we consider winding down our great military efforts in the Middle East." NPR senior contributor Ron Elving joins us. Ron, thanks so much for being with us.
RON ELVING, BYLINE: Good to be with you, Scott.
SIMON: The president also said last night other nations who use the Strait of Hormuz should be the ones who guard and police it if necessary. This week, he looked to allies for help with that, but not a lot of hands went up.
ELVING: No. The president says the countries that use the Gulf oil primarily ought to send the warships of their own to open the Strait of Hormuz. He says it would be easy to do it, but he also says the U.S. won't do it or shouldn't do it because Americans don't use the Gulf's oil so much. That may be, but Americans are paying the skyrocketing prices for the oil they do use because that price depends on global supply and demand. That's been knocked way out of kilter by this war and the blockage at the Strait of Hormuz.
Meanwhile, Trump has been insulting those very countries he wants to have pitch in - U.S. allies, especially the NATO countries - calling them cowards and saying he doesn't even want their help anymore because we don't need it after all. Yet in all this storm of contradiction, some U.S. allies have tried to find a middle ground. The United Kingdom has let the U.S. use some of its bases for flights intended to protect shipping in the strait. But the big question is still just how long this oil pinch will last and what it will take to open things up.
SIMON: Treasury Department has temporarily lifted sanctions on Iranian oil, at least on the oil already loaded on ships. Now, those sanctions have been in place for decades. What's the thinking here?
ELVING: The apparent thought is that any addition to the world's supply right now - and this is millions of barrels - would help, not maybe so much here in the U.S., but in Asia and other places where the shortage is acute and in terms of the global market. It's not clear this will produce revenue for Iran in the short run, but it does meddy (ph) the - muddy, rather - the message we've been trying to send, and at a critical time. This war has been a tougher sell to Americans than the White House may have anticipated, and its support level has been falling.
SIMON: Which raises a question. That $200 billion request - how likely is it to get met on Capitol Hill?
ELVING: Judging by responses so far, we've heard a lot of talk about having serious negotiations with the White House, probably also a public accounting for how we got here. So there might be hearings where senators got to question key Cabinet members, and the Trump administration has shown little inclination thus far to involve Congress in any meaningful way. And now that we see thousands of Marines being deployed to the region, possibly for a combat role, the stakes and the resistance are getting a little higher every day.
SIMON: In the midst of all this, the Senate this weekend is debating the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act - what's being called the SAVE America Act. Senate Majority Leader Thune has said that the votes aren't there to pass it. Why is this piece of legislation such a priority right now?
ELVING: The president and his party are intent on changing the voting laws before the midterm elections this fall. It is their biggest priority right now. The SAVE Act is about making it more difficult for someone to vote who is not a citizen, and that idea is very popular on its face. But this bill also involves forcing longtime citizens to obtain and show documents many do not have. It also bans voting by mail except for special cases, even though all the research shows mailed ballots are not only easier to use but more secure against fraud.
SIMON: Finally, Ron, a federal judge yesterday ruled that key parts of the Defense Department's press policy, which went into effect in October, are illegal. What can you tell us?
ELVING: The Pentagon under Secretary Pete Hegseth put limits on where reporters could go, who they could talk to, and a long list of news organizations - The New York Times, other newspapers, also NPR and PBS and the cable and broadcast TV operations - all refused to live under those conditions. So we're barred. We were barred. The others were barred from the Pentagon. A federal judge has now ruled that was a clear violation of the First Amendment rights of news reporters and news consumers with a compelling interest in the Pentagon and the government in general.
SIMON: NPR senior contributor Ron Elving. Ron, thanks so much for being with us.
ELVING: Thank you, Scott. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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