On Tuesday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken & Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin held a press conference with officials in the Philippines and answered questions about the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.
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NewsTranscript
00:00May I call Liz Frieden of Fox News for her question directed to Secretary Austin.
00:09Liz?
00:11Secretary Austin, having just spoken with Israeli Defense Minister Golan yesterday,
00:16do you believe an Israeli operation in Lebanon is imminent,
00:19and can Israel fight both Hamas and Lebanese Hezbollah at the same time and win?
00:24For Secretary Blinken,
00:26the U.S. is investing an unprecedented amount of money and resources to the Philippines.
00:31Why now, and why is the Philippines relevant to a potential invasion of Taiwan?
00:36For Secretary Manolo,
00:38following your meeting with China's Foreign Minister Wang,
00:41he warned that U.S. intermediate-range missile deployment could start an arms race with China.
00:47Do you think that you're starting an arms race?
00:49Liz, that's three questions.
00:51There's supposed to be one question for Secretary Austin.
00:54I will deprive the others of their question.
00:57So, please, we will leave it to that, and we'll see which questions will be answered.
01:02Yes, Secretary Austin, please.
01:05Liz, thanks for your question.
01:07I believe that you asked whether or not a fight was between Israel and Lebanon,
01:16or Israel and Lebanon-Hezbollah, is inevitable, or imminent, excuse me.
01:24I don't believe that, while we've seen a lot of activity on Israel's northern border,
01:31we remain concerned about the potential of this escalating into a full-blown fight.
01:37And I don't believe that a fight is inevitable.
01:41I think that we'd like to see things resolved in a diplomatic fashion.
01:47As to whether or not Israel can manage a war in Gaza and a fight in Lebanon at the same time,
01:57Israel will do what it needs to defend itself, and it's demonstrated that time and again.
02:02We've committed to helping Israel defend itself for whatever it takes,
02:08and certainly that's not a scenario that we'd like to see occur.
02:12We'd like to see things resolved in a diplomatic fashion going forward.