'EXTREMELY BAD' situation revealed in Iran as economy in COLLAPSE

Added: 2026-05-19

[00:00:01]President Trump is escalating the pressure on Iran, warning the clock is ticking down for a peace deal. Reports now the commander-in-chief will hold a situation room meeting with his top adviserss tomorrow on potential next steps to bring an end to the conflict.

[00:00:16]Now, we do know from the president that military action is on the table. I'm Harris Faulner. You are in the Faulner Focus. Iran Stadia meeting media reporting a new 14-point peace plan has been sent to Pakistani mediators to present to the United States and it does not appear the Iranian counter proposal mentions conceding key parts of their nuclear program which we know is a key demand for President Trump. Yesterday the president posted this for Iran. The clock is ticking and they had better get moving fast or there won't be anything left of them. Time is of the essence.

[00:00:54]Here's Fox News senior strategic analyst, General Jack Keane.

[00:00:59]>> Where they're coming from is they they believe they can they can stick with this and run the clock out. And that's what they're t trying to do right now even with modifying their negotiating position. They want to run this clock out in increase the political economic pressure on the president and they just don't care about the suffering of people. The president has exhibited huge amount of patience here since the ceasefire on April the 8th and we've tried to work a deal with these guys and it it just doesn't seem possible.

[00:01:31]>> A new opinion piece on how to finish the job in Iran has this quote if the regime refuses to capitulate Trump will have to deploy the full spectrum of US power.

[00:01:43]End of quote. The US blockade in the Straight of Hormuz has crippled Iran's economy. We know that. In fact, it's so bad that they're having to face shutting in their wells. They can't pump them to keep going. And if you can't take oil out, that increases the danger that you might not be able to use some of those wells again. Early signs of the fuel crisis emerged over the weekend. As unemployment and inflation are skyrocketing, it's prompted major discontent among the Iranian citizenry who have continued to hold protests. At this point, we're covering all of the angles on all of this. Retired US Army Lieutenant Colonel Darren Gob will join me in moments. First though, senior foreign correspondent Trey Yinst is on the ground in Tel Aviv, Israel. Trey Harris, good morning. While the region waits to see if the war will resume in the days ahead, diplomatic efforts are playing out. Iran reportedly sent a revised proposal to Pakistani mediators aimed at addressing some of the gaps in their previous response that President Trump called a piece of garbage.

[00:02:51]>> Therefore, from the very day after we sent our points to the American side via Pakistan, we were faced with a series of proposals from the other side which have been reviewed over the past few days. As was announced yesterday, our own views have in turn been conveyed to the American side.

[00:03:08]This comes as the economic situation inside of Iran is getting worse each day due to the ongoing US blockade of Iranian ports. Sentcom says more than 80 commercial vessels have been redirected and four were disabled to enforce the blockade.

[00:03:23]>> The economic situation is very very bad.

[00:03:26]I mean for 3 months now the situation has completely deteriorated. Ever since these protests happened and the dollar price went up. Then after the war started, the shop was basically closed for nearly a month and now the situation is extremely bad.

[00:03:41]>> A senior Israeli official speaking to Fox News over the weekend said early signs of a developing fuel crisis started emerging over the weekend, including long lines at gas stations and growing public discontent over fuel shortages and distribution problems.

[00:03:54]Prices continue to rise. Unemployment is climbing and inflation is accelerating sharply. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant called this week for the US allies around the world to increase their economic pressure on the Iranian regime.

[00:04:08]>> We call upon all our G7 and indeed the all of our allies and the rest of the world to follow the sanctions regime so that we can crack down on the illicit finance that is fueling the Iranian war machine and get this money back to the Iranian people.

[00:04:28]The US military buildup across the region continues each day with more transport planes arriving in the Middle East. Harris >> Trey Yinks, thank you very much. Retired US Army Lieutenant Colonel Darren Gobb, a Blackhawk helicopter pilot, battalion commander, and international military strategist is in focus now. Good to see you. Uh, look, I I made some notes as Trey was reporting. First of all, if we don't hit Iran's military very soon, is it time uh to just go home at this point and count up the victories that we've already had?

[00:05:00]>> Yeah, good morning, Harris. Good to see you, too. I think that's probably option A and option B, which is option A being that Trump follows through with the threats of use of force again, uh, which would be unfortunate, but at this point, it's the only language the Tyrron dictators know. Option B would be, you know, we we've done what we can. We've hope we hope the Iranian people would step forward and uh and more of our allies around the world would step forward as well. But if they don't, then it may be time to say, "Okay, let's redirect ourselves onto different priorities and see what happens here and do the best we can because we can use some force if needed, but we certainly don't need to put boots on the ground."

[00:05:38]>> Look, uh things are not quite what they were when this war started. Things have been moving around us and two things in particular, China and Russia. And we know that there are threats now for our NATO allies per Russia just over the weekend. The reports of that are quite jarring as Bellarus is once again in the fold with troops being put there by Russia according to reports. Your take on the landscape now if we don't finish the job in Iran?

[00:06:09]Yeah, I think things continue to get more dangerous in some respects. We've seen a splintering a little bit between China and Iran based on President Trump's visit with Shei knowing that China has said we're not going to keep supplying Iran, at least publicly. What that also does is create a bit of a faction potential split between Russia and China where that uh that solid allied relationship that seems to be out there isn't quite as strong as many would have imagined as well as what's happening with as you mentioned between Russia, Bellarus and as that grows around Ukraine and them looking at potentially a weaker NATO as a whole and all of this comes down to potentially how much can America do at once and what's truly in our strategic interests. and and what is not.

[00:06:54]>> Can you imagine that Russia would ever consider hitting our Western European NATO allies at this point? I mean, are they saber rattling or what's happening?

[00:07:05]>> Uh, I think it's very unlikely that they would do that. Europe is doing a good enough job essentially of destroying itself with this mass uncontrolled immigration and and change of demographics.

[00:07:17]Uh, they're likely to let that go. Uh, and plus they've shown what they can do and they've had a hard time moving beyond where they're at in Ukraine already. To grow that now would actually put Russia at much greater risk than if they just tried to declare some form of victory in eastern Ukraine and also and also stopped.

[00:07:36]>> It's just fascinating how these things touch each other because of those enemies that are so yolked together.

[00:07:42]Look, I want to get to this. I I don't know if Iran's delusional about how bad their economy is or if they legitimately just don't care, but that terror regime is looking for a way out of the economic squeeze from our US blockade in the straight of Hormuz. We know that. And according to Bloomberg now, cargo trains are running from central China to Iran have jumped from roughly one per week before the blockade now to every 3 or 4 days, highlighting a growing alternative channel as Iran is looking to blunt maritime pressure. The corridor runs through multiple countries, making it far more complex to disrupt than uh shipping lanes in the Persian Gulf. What do you make of this? And you just said China may be a little bit of a split.

[00:08:26]Seems like they're pretty glued.

[00:08:30]>> Well, you know, China's very interested, of course, in Iran's success as their proxy because they need that oil from Iran in the first place. They've already lost the oil from Venezuela by a part.

[00:08:39]So, that means cheap crude is is not flowing into into China as it used to be. So, they need that and that relationship is there because it's economically they're economically tied together. This was expected that Iran would look for alternate means to continue what they could do. But increasing a couple railroad trips, you know, a week is not going to make up for uh what the freedom moose is capable of doing from an economic standpoint. But we always knew Iran would look for alternate means to keep their economy and their military machines going because the two are very much tied together. I don't see it being super effective as but it is what they're going to do and continue to do. But we also have the capability to uh reduce that ability as well of China to keep supplying Iran.

[00:09:23]>> I've been asking all of my military leadership guests this question. It's a yes or no and have to go quickly. If it were your decision tonight to go in and militarily move, what would you do? Yes or no? Move in?

[00:09:38]>> Uh yes, I would move in in a limited capacity. Anything that doesn't put boots on the ground is what is what we can do. We should not be going in there with uh with boots on ground that we have air power for a reason. Use it to the best we can and we'll see how the results turn out.

[00:09:53]>> Lieutenant Colonel Darren Gob, always great to have you in focus. Thank you.

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