Scotsman head of news Dale Miller speaks to world editor Jane Bradley about the Iran / Israel situation and the start of the Donald Trump trial in America
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00:02 - Hello, you're joining us today
00:10 from the Scotsman offices in Edinburgh.
00:13 I'm here with our world correspondent, Jane Bradley,
00:16 to talk about the front page of the Scotsman Firstly.
00:19 And it's a big day again in international politics.
00:22 We're led again on the situation involving Iran and Israel.
00:26 Israel's war council has met.
00:29 They are considering a response.
00:31 There have been calls for calm heads,
00:33 specifically from Rishi Sunak and others.
00:36 It will be fascinating to see
00:38 how things develop over coming days.
00:40 And also a picture of Donald Trump on the front page.
00:44 He will dominate headlines over coming days.
00:46 We'll get to that shortly.
00:47 But Jane, I wanted to talk to you
00:49 about the situation with Iran and Israel.
00:52 We had the bombings overnight
00:55 into Sunday morning on the weekends.
00:57 What does Israel's position mean at the moment?
01:00 What do we think might happen?
01:02 - So Israel has, as you said,
01:03 had a meeting with war council.
01:05 It is considering its response.
01:06 But I think from things that the Israeli government has said
01:10 there is no chance it's just going to leave it at this.
01:12 It's not gonna say, okay,
01:14 we bombed the Iranian embassy in Syria.
01:17 And now, you know, we've had this happen.
01:20 They're not just gonna say, fine, we'll move on from here.
01:23 They are going to look at a retaliation.
01:27 - And the responses here in the UK,
01:30 we've had Rishi Sunak spoke initially on Sunday.
01:33 He gave a statement.
01:33 We've had first minister Hamza Yusuf
01:35 speaking again in the morning.
01:36 What's the position from both those governments?
01:38 - So Rishi Sunak has said today
01:40 that he's gonna speak to the Israeli leader,
01:42 Benjamin Netanyahu today to say that, you know,
01:44 he needs to exercise restraint.
01:45 He needs to be calm.
01:46 I think we've seen in the whole conflict in Israel and Gaza
01:50 that, you know, Netanyahu is not exercising restraint
01:53 in many ways, you know,
01:54 even despite international governments suggesting
01:57 he does so in terms of his response in Gaza,
01:59 in terms of the humanitarian impact there.
02:02 He has been very clear on what he wants to do
02:04 in this conflict.
02:05 And I think that will continue in this sort of spilling over
02:09 into Iran.
02:10 - And just on Iran, motivations behind the attack,
02:13 it's difficult to guess,
02:15 but the timing was meant to be in retaliation
02:18 for the attack that happened on April the 1st.
02:21 Where does this actually leave Iran
02:23 in the bigger picture of Israel?
02:25 - I mean, Iran has said it has a right to defend itself
02:28 and retaliate as well.
02:29 Iran itself technically does not have nuclear weapons,
02:34 which is something that, you know,
02:36 should be a reassuring thing,
02:38 but there has been questions over
02:40 whether Iran's nuclear program
02:42 has been gradually going on in the background.
02:44 There was an agreement
02:44 that Iran should not have nuclear weapons.
02:47 It was an international agreement back in 2015,
02:50 but there is worry that Iran could create a nuclear weapon
02:53 within about a year.
02:55 Israel has also,
02:57 is not clear on whether Israel has nuclear weapons.
03:00 So whether there could be a big escalation,
03:02 whether there could be fears of a bigger escalation
03:05 within the region, depends partly on that.
03:07 - I want to move on to Donald Trump.
03:09 He's always in the headlines,
03:11 but particularly in America,
03:12 there's going to be rolling coverage over the coming days.
03:15 The trial involving Stormy Daniels is due to start.
03:17 There has been a bit of a holdup though.
03:19 Can you talk us through that?
03:20 - Yeah, I mean, we're seeing a kind of OJ Simpson style,
03:23 you know, who's going to be on the jury kind of situation.
03:25 You know, there's been a lot of questions
03:27 over potential jurors,
03:29 what connections they are to Trump,
03:30 whether they've been involved in, you know,
03:32 any kind of politics before, that kind of thing.
03:33 There's been very specific questions asked of each juror,
03:36 what kind of radio stations they listen to,
03:38 when they listen to them, that kind of thing.
03:40 Once they do choose a jury,
03:41 there's going to be probably about another two months or so,
03:44 I think they said until possibly June of trial going on.
03:48 Now that's going to mean that Trump is expected
03:49 to be in court for most of that.
03:51 He's already tried to ask for special dispensations
03:54 to get out of it for certain things,
03:56 one being his son's graduation
03:58 and another being Supreme Court deliberations next week.
04:03 At the moment, he's being told by the judge
04:05 that no, that's not going to be a possibility,
04:07 he's got to be present.
04:08 So while he should be
04:10 as a presidential candidate campaigning,
04:11 he's actually going to be sitting in a courtroom,
04:13 which could be a benefit for him, or it may not be.
04:15 It remains to be seen really.
04:17 - I was going to ask about that,
04:18 because it comes at a critical point in the campaign.
04:21 So is he better being on the campaign trail,
04:24 or actually is he going to dominate headlines
04:25 by being in the courtroom and perhaps win
04:29 or be suspended by itself?
04:31 - Yeah, I mean, I think the thing is with Trump
04:33 that when he is in the public eye, in the headlines,
04:36 it seems to do him well.
04:38 I mean, it doesn't really matter whether it's bad publicity,
04:40 he seems to see it as any publicity is good publicity.
04:42 So the fact that he's going to be in the headlines every day
04:45 from this court case could actually be a benefit
04:48 for his presidential campaign.
04:49 But equally, he won't be present at the normal,
04:52 you know, sort of presidential election campaign events
04:55 that he would be doing if this wasn't going on.
04:57 - You can read all the latest
04:58 on the developing situation with Israel
05:00 and what they choose to do
05:01 in terms of a response at thescotsman.com.
05:04 Also, you'll be able to follow details
05:06 of the Donald Trump trial and the fallout
05:09 over the coming days and weeks.
05:11 Please follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and X,
05:14 and go out and support local journalism.
05:16 Buy a copy of the paper tomorrow.
05:19 Thanks very much for joining us.
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