The Exchange 7/8/26

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**Kelly Evans** (1:00)
You're listening to The Exchange. Here's today's show.
Scott, thank you very much. The president says he may strike Iran again tonight, and the markets are taking it somewhat in stride. We're well off the earlier session lows, down about 619 though. One of our guests says that's a mistake, this relatively muted reaction. I'm Kelly Evans, and welcome to The Exchange. An escalation on several fronts today, on Iran, with President Trump declaring the ceasefire over, and in Europe, with Russia and Ukraine continuing assaults on each other. And all of this happening against the backdrop of the NATO Summit, where the president just wrapped up a press conference. So let's start there this hour. Our Steve Sedgwick is live at the NATO Summit in Turkey. Steve, and recap for us a little bit of what we learned from the president. He's spoken quite a lot today. What's the temperature of the room as all of this has taken place, and what else has happened in the past couple of hours?

**Steve Sedgwick** (1:56)
Kelly, I've had the pleasure of working with you for many, many years, and it was one of the most extraordinary evenings I've had in my career this evening. I came into that press conference with the president really, really concerned that he was going to slate NATO, slate the allies, talk about pulling those troops back again, and all other issues as well. But what we got was actually a president who said, it was tremendous love inside the room with all 32 members. And he even said nice things about Spain, about Denmark as well. And it was quite extraordinary how positive the president was considering how negative he had been about so many parts of NATO in the buildup. But he was really pleased about the spending levels. He was pleased actually that the level of support from the room was so full-hearted regards Iran as well. And I actually got a question into the president. And I said, look, sir, the world has taken you at your word that the MOU is over, that the ceasefire is over, oil prices, WTI and Brent up around about $7.
What happens next? Is the MOU dead? And are we going to see a resumption of the full-scale conflict?
The president didn't actually directly answer the question, but he did actually say that he thought oil prices were going to go down dramatically from here as well. So he didn't seem very concerned about the blip up we've seen today. He also talked about the nuclear capacity of Iran, saying they would never have a nuclear weapon. And that was his key priority. And that was what he was working for going forward. But I have to say, considering the curve balls and the chaos that preceded this meeting, that was during this meeting, I thought it was a stunningly positive Donald Trump and positive for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization as well. I didn't expect to see that. And as I say, Kelly, I thought it was one of the most extraordinary days I've had in my career.

**Kelly Evans** (3:42)
I'm so glad that you're there because I saw those headlines on the wire and I thought to myself, well, there must be more to the story.
But you look at the market reaction, which is still to some extent lower today, although not dramatically so. So just one more time. I mean, it's one thing for the president to kind of strike a more positive tone. It's another thing for that to indicate there's been a substantive development. I mean, does the takeaway from this then, contrary to everything that we've heard over the past 24, 48 hours with his incendiary comments about Greenland again, and his comments about Spain, is all of that out the window now?