Is Iran winning the war?
The News Agents
Global
4.1 • 5.4K Ratings
🗓️ 19 March 2026
⏱️ 46 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Looking and sounding rather like a frat boy emerging from a hazing, Pete Hegseth arrived blinking, bombastic and victorious into his press conference this morning to declare complete success in his Epic Fury military campaign in Iran.
He was quick to castigate America's ungrateful allies - telling the world that they should be thanking President Trump - and cracked a few jokes about Iranian ships being at the bottom of the ocean.
Outside the Pentagon's echo chamber, the world looks rather different. Iran's regime holds many of the cards in this conflict. And it’s making Trump sweat. Control of the shipping lanes gives Iran control of the price of oil and thus much of the world economy. And they’re acting like an army of insurgents - pounding energy infrastructure across the Middle East, sending gas prices rocketing. So how does America find a way out? Or is Trump's only play now to go all in and send in the troops?
Later - anyone remember the 70s? Ted Heath's dire warning to the nation that life would no longer be as we know it has some uncomfortable parallels for the current occupant of No 10. Should we prepare for everything we’ve taken for granted to change? And should Keir Starmer be rethinking his entire premiership as a result of this war?
The News Agents is brought to you by HSBC UK - https://www.hsbc.co.uk/
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Newsagents podcast is brought to you by HSBC UK, opening up a world of opportunity. |
| 0:09.3 | This is a global player original podcast. |
| 0:12.9 | The world, the Middle East, our ungrateful allies in Europe, even segments of our own press, |
| 0:22.9 | should be saying one thing to President Trump. |
| 0:30.6 | Thank you. Thank you for the courage to stop this terror state from holding the world hostage with missiles while building or attempting to build a nuclear bomb. Thank you for doing the work of the free world. |
| 0:38.9 | Well, on behalf of all those ungrateful allies, I'd like to offer Pete Hexuth a thank you. |
| 0:46.3 | Thank you for getting us into the biggest, bloodiest, most dangerous, almighty mess that you no longer |
| 0:53.2 | control. |
| 1:00.4 | And also thank you for the fact that Qatari gas fields are being blown up, that the price of oil and gas have gone through the roof, the strait of Hormuz is still shut. |
| 1:06.7 | If America is winning, what does loss look like? |
| 1:10.7 | Welcome to the newsagents. |
| 1:16.7 | The Newsagents. |
| 1:18.5 | It's John. |
| 1:19.5 | It's Emily. |
| 1:20.3 | It's Lewis. |
| 1:20.8 | And it has been yet another dizzying 24 hours in the Iran War. |
| 1:25.1 | Quick update is to, as of about 1 o'clock in the afternoon, London time, |
| 1:28.9 | where we are. Overnight, Israel struck Iran's South Paz gas field, killed Iran's intelligence |
| 1:35.4 | minister alongside some of the heaviest air strikes on Beirut in decades. Meanwhile, Iran |
| 1:42.3 | retaliated by hitting the energy infrastructure across the Gulf, |
| 1:46.9 | including, crucially, Qatar's Rastafan liquefied natural gas facility. This is one of the most |
| 1:54.9 | important pieces of energy infrastructure anywhere in the world, producing around 20% of global natural gas supply. |
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