Secretary Antony J. Blinken With Savannah Guthrie of NBC Today
Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of State
New York City, New York
QUESTION: And joining us now, Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Mr. Secretary, good morning to you.
SECRETARY BLINKEN: Good morning.
QUESTION: Let’s start right there. Donald Trump says he was briefed by intelligence officials about Iran’s efforts to assassinate him. The ODNI has confirmed this. U.S. officials have. How concerned are you about this threat? And will there and should there be consequences against Iran?
SECRETARY BLINKEN: Look, this is something we’ve been tracking very intensely for a long time – an ongoing threat by Iran against a number of senior officials, including former government officials like President Trump, and some people who are currently serving the administration. So it’s something we take very, very seriously. We’re looking at it very carefully. I don’t have any further information to share, but know that we’re watching this very carefully.
QUESTION: Let’s talk about what’s going on right now in the Middle East – as you well know, a massive bombardment by Israel into the north into Hizballah territory. The Israeli theory here is escalate to de-escalate; in fact, just in essence, hit Hizballah so hard they’re forced to the negotiating table. Put simply, does the U.S. support this escalation strategy by Israel?
SECRETARY BLINKEN: Well first, Israel has a real and legitimate problem, because here’s what happened. After the horrific events of October 7th by Hamas in Israel in the south, Hizballah from Lebanon joined in and started firing rockets into Israel. People who lived in northern Israel had to evacuate their homes. Villages were destroyed. Homes were destroyed. Seventy thousand Israelis were forced from their homes.
And Israel started firing back. You had a tit-for-tat going back and forth. People in southern Lebanon had to leave their homes too. And what everyone wants is to have a secure environment in which people can simply return home, kids can go back to school. That’s what Israel is after.
So the best way to get that is not through war, not through escalation. It would be through a diplomatic agreement that has forces pulled back from the border, create a secure environment, people return home. That’s what we’re driving toward. Because while there’s a very legitimate issue here, we don’t think that war is the solution.
QUESTION: Well fair enough, but Israel is not listening to that. In fact, the U.S. defense secretary on Sunday told his Israeli counterpart to give time for diplomacy to work. And on Monday, this Israeli bombardment was the most serious, deadliest day in Lebanon since 2006.
SECRETARY BLINKEN: Yeah, what —
QUESTION: But Israel is not listening to the U.S. Why not?
SECRETARY BLINKEN: What we’re focused on now, including with many partners here in New York at the UN General Assembly, the Arab world, Europeans and others, is a plan to de-escalate and, again, to make sure that people can go back to their homes. But if there were to be a full-scale war – which we don’t have and which we’re working to avoid – that’s actually not going to solve the problem. It’s unlikely that people would be able to return home if there’s a full-scale war going on.
QUESTION: Short answer: Does the U.S. support what Israel is doing right now in terms of this escalation in order to later de-escalate and get to the negotiating table?
SECRETARY BLINKEN: What we support is solving the problem of making sure that people can go home. But we believe the best way to solve it is through diplomacy, not through war.
QUESTION: Why does the U.S. not have or use more leverage over Israel, its ally? We are the supplier of the bulk of its weapons of war, and yet there are countless examples – and you probably know them better than I – where Israel seems to flout what the U.S. is asking or suggesting. Why is that?
SECRETARY BLINKEN: Look, we have a longstanding relationship and security relationship with Israel, including making sure that it has what it needs to prevent the many enemies that it has from attacking it, to deter them. And that’s important to avoiding war as well.
And in this instance, there is a real problem that needs to be solved. Again, from our perspective, the best way to do it is diplomatically. We’re engaged with Israel on that. We’re engaged with others in the region on that. And we need to, I think, find the opportunity now to stop any escalation, prevent a full-scale war, get people back to their homes.
QUESTION: Should the U.S. have been given a heads-up, for example, that Israel was going to assassinate a political leader in Iran, in Tehran, or this pagers attack of last week? Shouldn’t the U.S., its Israeli ally, have gotten a heads-up at that a minimum?
SECRETARY BLINKEN: Look, it’s always nice not to be surprised by the action that someone takes. Certainly that’s better. But since October 7th, besides trying to make sure that October 7th never happens again, besides trying to sure that civilians in Gaza – men, women, and children who are caught in this horrific crossfire of Hamas’s making – are better protected and get the assistance they need.
We’re – we’ve also been working to prevent this war from spreading, from escalating, from going to other places. That’s what we’re focused on now – making sure that what you’re seeing in northern Israel, southern Lebanon now, doesn’t become a full-scale war, and on the contrary, that we resolve the problem that Israel has.
QUESTION: Can I ask about that pagers attack where Hizballah members were the targets and their – literally in their hands their pagers exploded. Some see this as a technological coup and an ingenious move by Israel. Others, including John Brennan, former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, who you know well, saying it’s a form of terrorism and it went too far. Where do you come down on it?
SECRETARY BLINKEN: Look, we’ve got to start with the proposition that Hizballah is a terrorist organization.
QUESTION: No question.
SECRETARY BLINKEN: So designated by the United States. And the reality is Israel left southern Lebanon. It had been occupying southern Lebanon for 15 years. It left in 2000. And all of these militia that existed there were supposed to put down their weapons. Hizballah didn’t do it. And then repeatedly in the time after that, it attacked and posed a threat to people living in northern Israel. So it’s very legitimate that Israel do something about Hizballah. We’d like —
QUESTION: No question about it.
SECRETARY BLINKEN: The only question is: What’s the best way to do it?
QUESTION: Oh, and the tactics.
SECRETARY BLINKEN: And what are the best tactics? And those are things that we’re always discussing with them. But right now, our main challenge is preventing a broader war, one that actually won’t solve the challenge that Israel has, and by the way the Lebanese have because they want to get their people back to their homes in southern Lebanon too. We want that too.
QUESTION: In fairness, you didn’t answer whether or not you approved of this particular tactic.
SECRETARY BLINKEN: Look, you’re always looking at what someone is doing, trying to figure out what the second- or third-order consequences may be. Does it open up a whole new Pandora’s box? It is something we’re looking at.
QUESTION: Both sides, as far as the ceasefire in Gaza, do not seem very interested in a deal. It seems like the U.S. is working quite hard at it, and you have Netanyahu moving the goal posts late in the negotiations in some case, you have the Hamas leader who’s also doing the very same thing. And it goes without saying it is Hamas that broke the ceasefire that existed on October 6th.
SECRETARY BLINKEN: Right.
QUESTION: Let’s not forget that. You had said in mid August that there was – this was sort of maybe the last best chance, you said, for the deal. So in that same spirit of candor, what is the likelihood of a ceasefire deal right now?
SECRETARY BLINKEN: We have a piece of paper, an agreement. It’s got 18 paragraphs. Fifteen of those paragraphs have been agreed between Hamas and Israel. But what’s happened over the last few weeks is Hamas has simply not been at the table, not been willing to engage on the remaining outstanding issues that, if we close them, will close the deal, will get it over the finish line. Now, Israel would have some hard decisions to make in the very end game too, so we have to look to that.
QUESTION: Well, let’s just say the quiet part out loud. President Biden is a lame duck president. He’s not running again. Do you think that Netanyahu, Sinwar, other world leaders, are biding their time just running out the clock hoping they’ll fare better in a new administration, potentially one of Donald Trump?
SECRETARY BLINKEN: Look, I can’t put myself in the minds of other leaders, other partners. I can tell you though that with the end of a term, with the end of an administration – and I’ve been through a few of them in the past – there’s also a certain amount of freedom because – and especially for President Biden, who has been doing this for so long and so well. He knows what he wants to get accomplished. He is determined to use the months that he has left as president to run through the tape.
QUESTION: So your message to anyone who perceives weakness or indecision —
SECRETARY BLINKEN: Our message, my message to anyone who perceives weakness, is President Biden is here till January 20th. He’s going to use every single day to advance the national interest.
QUESTION: Secretary of State Tony Blinken, thank you so much for your time.
SECRETARY BLINKEN: Great to be with you.
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