Strait of Hormuz: Does it belong to the US or Iran?

**Christy Strawser** (0:00)
This is On Deadline, where the biggest stories, the smartest journalists, and the conversations that matter come together from Audacy news stations across the country.
When news breaks, the story doesn't stop there. I'm Christy Strawser. Let's get started. Let's talk separation anxiety. First up is Iran and its apparent plan to keep control of the Strait of Hormuz. Then it's kids going back to school, people and their e-bikes, and even families and the items they've left in loved ones' tombs.
That's right, tomb raiders in real life. But let's start with Iran.

**Charles Feldman** (0:35)
President Trump says the US controls the Strait of Hormuz. Iran's officials are pushing back on that. ABC News White House correspondent Karen Travers. Karen, good morning.
What have we learned? Does the US have naval superiority in the Strait now?

**Karen Travers** (0:52)
I mean, there of course has been the blockade that the US had put on, taken off and then put back into effect. But when you look at what the Iranians have done by threatening ships in that area, that critical waterway, they have maintained their stranglehold on traffic there, which has been severely restricted over the last several months. Remember back in June with Great Sanfer, the president announced the memo of understanding with Iran. And that was aimed at reopening the Strait to get traffic moving back to levels that it had been before the war, back when it was free to all ships going through. They could move freely through there as an international waterway. That memo of understanding effectively fell apart very quickly. The president has already declared it dead, so did the Iranians. But in that deal, there was a 60-day negotiating window to talk about Iran's nuclear program. That expires today. So it's notable that it's sort of a symbolic deadline expiration today that they never got to the nuclear talks because the issue about controlling and reopening the strait to full traffic is still unresolved.

**Charles Feldman** (1:57)
You know, it's interesting. The president, in essence, says, the strait is ours. We control the strait. I mean, is it ours to control? How does that work?

**Karen Travers** (2:08)
And no, if you look at what it was before the war, when it was a free international waterway. And remember when the Iranians for weeks have been saying they wanted to charge a fee or get some sort of service fee that they could get from countries going through there or from shipping companies going through there. The administration pushed back very strongly. Marco Rubio himself had said, you know, that's not how this works. This is an international waterway. No country can say that they have control over this and then extract fees. Then we saw the president say he wanted to have the United States have fees in that area.
He backed off of that in about 24 hours, but it was notable because that was contradictory to the exact message we had heard from the administration about what the Iranians had been saying for weeks.

**Charles Feldman** (2:52)
What are you hearing on Capitol Hill? We know Democrats have criticized the war since it began. Here we are heading into the midterm season. How are Republicans reacting to the ongoing war?

**Karen Travers** (3:03)
There has of course been a couple of votes to rein in the president's War Powers Act. We saw some Republicans join in on that. It's August, so it's quiet now in Washington with both the House and Senate on recess. So I think when they come back in earnest at the end of the month in early September, the midterms are going to be very quickly approaching and this is going to be an issue that will have an impact on that. Because of what we're seeing on the domestic front, gas prices are up 7 cents from just last week.
Diesel is up as well about 14 cents and that impacts prices of goods and things like that, that diesel moves around the country.

**Christy Strawser** (3:43)
Should e-bikes be banned or regulated like cars? Here's KCBS in the Bay Area.

**Charles Feldman** (3:50)
Well, perhaps you've seen them or almost been run down by them. E-bikes are everywhere. Their speed and safety risks do raise some questions. Phil Matier.
Phil, good morning. Do e-bikes need to be reined in?

**Phil Matier** (4:05)
Well, that's the thinking of some people, but I can tell you how to do it remains to be a mystery. What we had in California, as you know, we are a very bike-friendly state. Our communities are bike boosters. And in the introduction of e-bikes, everybody thought, wow, here's a new way to get to work and commute and go to the grocery store because you have these bikes that can, you know, you can pedal them or they can run on their electric motors. And some of them can run pretty fast on those electric motors. It was okay, it seemed to be when as long as adults were doing it, but now it's gotten into the kids. And the kids are not nearly as trained as adults or as good on these. And these bikes go the same speed for kids as they do for adults. I'm going to give you a statistic. This is how things have changed. In 2016, there were two reported injuries involving e-bikes.