The PDB Situation Report | August 15th, 2026: Trump’s New Plan to Force Iran to Surrender & Foreign Troops Headed for Lebanon?

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**Mike Baker** (1:37)
Welcome to the PDB Situation Report. I'm Mike Baker. Your eyes and ears on the world stage. All right, let's get briefed. First up, President Trump is turning back to economic pressure on Iran, betting that a sustained blockade and financial squeeze can force Tehran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. We'll be joined by former Deputy National Security Advisor Victoria Coates for more on that. Later in the show, an international military presence could soon be deployed to southern Lebanon, possibly, perhaps, to help verify Hezbollah's disarmament, if they ever decide to disarm. We'll get analysis from David Daoud, senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, all-around great guy and friend of the show. But first, today's Situation Report Spotlight.
The Trump administration appears to be settling in for a longer economic showdown with Iran. Defense Secretary Pete Exxon said today the Navy can maintain its blockade of Iranian ports indefinitely, giving Washington a way to keep squeezing Tehran without returning immediately to major kinetic action. Trump says the US has, quote, total control of Hormuz. Oh, but Iran rejects that claim and says no vessel will be allowed to pass without its permission.
Now for more on this, I want to bring in Victoria Coates. She's Vice President of the Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy at the Heritage Foundation. Victoria previously served as Deputy National Security Advisor for the Middle East and North Africa, where she helped oversee the Maximum Pressure Campaign against Iran and played a role in launching the negotiations that ultimately led to the Abraham Accords. Victoria, thank you very much for joining us here on The Situation Report.

**Victoria Coates** (3:19)
Mike, it's a pleasure.

**Mike Baker** (3:20)
Let me start with this question, because this pretty much just popped up. President Trump has now come out and said that the US is in full total control of the Strait of Hormuz.
Is he correct?

**Victoria Coates** (3:32)
You know, I think he is. Now, with the Strait, it's always complicated. It's kind of like a relationship. But in this case, as I look at what's happening, and we had Secretary Wright come out yesterday and say, as many as 9 million barrels a day are coming out of the Strait. And a lot of people pushed back on that. But Javier Blas, who is an energy reporter with Bloomberg, so not a right-wing Trump-aligned outlet, had a piece today saying, you know, I actually think he's right and, you know, correct. And that could play on his name. And so if we have that and we've got 5 to 7 million barrels coming across Saudi Petroline, that's close on to 15, 16 million barrels a day, not too far off where we were with the Strait. And all of the oil that's coming out of the Strait is our allies' oil. It's Iraqi oil, it's Saudi Arabian oil, it's UAE oil, Kuwait. It's not Iranian oil. So the blockade holds, oil is getting out that we want to get out.