The Megyn Kelly Show - America Begins War With Iran - What it Means for MAGA and More, with Marjorie Taylor Greene, Rich Lowry, Charles Cooke, and Sohrab Ahmari ｜ Ep. 1263

00:00:00.520 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at New East.

00:00:12.200 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.

00:00:15.480 The war on Iran has begun. 0.74

00:00:18.280 Where it ends and what's ahead for the United States remains unclear at this hour.

00:00:23.200 U.S. Central Command, which oversees our military operations in the Middle East,

00:00:26.540 announcing early this morning that now four U.S. service members have been killed.

00:00:31.980 That's up from three yesterday, one service member succumbing to his or her injuries.

00:00:37.340 Just a short time ago, President Trump gave an interview to the New York Post where

00:00:41.000 he did not rule out potentially sending U.S. ground troops into Iran.

00:00:46.500 The president's saying, quote, I don't have the yips with respect to boots on the ground.

00:00:51.240 Like every president says, there will be no boots on the ground.

00:00:54.320 I don't say it. I say, probably don't need them or if they were necessary.

00:01:00.380 First and foremost, I, Megyn Kelly, am praying for the troops.

00:01:05.560 I mean, that's where my mind immediately went.

00:01:07.940 The guys and the gals who have to actually carry out this mission, why again? 0.97

00:01:12.740 And put their lives on the line for whom again?

00:01:15.680 Are the ones who are on my mind, and I prayed for them mightily yesterday and the day before.

00:01:20.680 And I hope you have and will continue to as well.

00:01:24.640 Look, there are massive divisions over what we've done here,

00:01:28.380 and people are going to change their minds over the coming days and weeks one way or the other.

00:01:34.240 But my own feeling is no one should have to die for a foreign country.

00:01:41.440 I don't think those four service members died for the United States.

00:01:44.960 I think they died for Iran or for Israel. 0.86

00:01:48.940 I think I understand how this helps Iran perfectly well. 0.87

00:01:52.060 I get it.

00:01:52.820 I mean, I hope.

00:01:54.780 Long term, we'll see.

00:01:55.940 But they seem rather jubilant.

00:01:58.180 Eighty percent of the country does not support the Ayatollah. 0.94

00:02:00.740 He was a terrible, terrible man.

00:02:02.080 No one's crying that he's dead. 0.97

00:02:03.640 No normal person.

00:02:05.920 But our government's job is not to look out for Iran or for Israel.

00:02:10.360 It's to look out for us.

00:02:11.900 And this feels very much to me like it is clearly Israel's war.

00:02:17.760 Mark Levin wanted it.

00:02:19.360 It's his war. 0.83

00:02:20.400 Ben Shapiro, Lindsey Graham, Miriam Maddelson.

00:02:24.040 That's obvious.

00:02:24.820 They're the ones who've been pushing us into this.

00:02:27.180 But in case you had any doubt whatsoever, the Washington Post is reporting it explicitly

00:02:32.780 this morning, explicitly about why we did what we did and when we did it.

00:02:39.860 In the briefing on Tuesday for the Gang of Eight, which consists of the leaders of the

00:02:43.900 House, the Senate and each chamber's intel committees, Secretary of State Marco Rubio indicated

00:02:48.500 to lawmakers that the mission's timing and goals were shaped by the fact that Israel was

00:02:53.520 going to attack with or without the United States, according to a person familiar with

00:02:57.700 the outreach to lawmakers.

00:02:59.480 So the only debate that seemed to be remaining was whether the U.S. would launch in concert

00:03:03.500 with Israel or if the U.S. would wait until Iran retaliated on U.S. military targets in

00:03:09.420 the region and then engage.

00:03:11.340 That sounds perfectly right.

00:03:14.620 I think you knew that before you heard me read it from the Washington Post.

00:03:18.360 So Israel said they were going to do it. 0.74

00:03:19.800 Tucker Carlson said this on the show on Thursday.

00:03:21.760 He said exactly that.

00:03:23.760 And sure enough, that was the position that we were in.

00:03:27.020 And it would explain perfectly why President Trump seems to be having so much difficulty

00:03:31.200 clearly defining why we are doing this.

00:03:33.460 I mean, I don't know about you, but I have found the explanations lacking.

00:03:39.280 I woke up on Saturday morning like the rest of you to his videotaped announcement where

00:03:44.380 he was wearing the hat, did not walk away with a clear understanding of what we're doing.

00:03:48.740 It was restatements of things we've known for years.

00:03:52.000 Yeah, we hate Iran.

00:03:53.520 They hate us, too.

00:03:54.580 Like, we've known that.

00:03:56.660 Why are we doing this now?

00:03:59.320 What is the catalyst?

00:04:00.920 Obviously, President Trump does not want to say we did it because of Israel.

00:04:05.280 What he said instead was, quote, our objective is to defend the American people.

00:04:10.800 OK, so far, that sounds good.

00:04:12.160 Why do we need defending?

00:04:13.460 By eliminating imminent threats, he said, from the Iranian regime.

00:04:17.780 OK, we're under imminent threat now.

00:04:19.440 What is it?

00:04:21.000 What's the imminent threat from the Iranian regime?

00:04:24.080 We saw CNN's Scott Jennings, who's always talking with the administration, parroting this

00:04:28.560 over the weekend, posting on X, quote,

00:04:30.320 senior Trump admin officials telling me that credible intel indicated Iran planned preemptive

00:04:36.840 missile strikes against U.S. military targets in the region and against civilian targets as well.

00:04:43.580 Failure to act would have resulted in mass U.S. casualties.

00:04:47.360 Does that make any sense to you?

00:04:51.140 I mean, stop and think about it for a minute. 0.98

00:04:52.780 I'm close to this administration in many ways as well, but I don't allow them to use me like a fool.

00:04:56.720 Does it make any sense to you that Iran was planning preemptive strikes against us and our civilians,

00:05:06.240 knowing full well of the massive military assets we had moved into the region, the aircraft carriers and so on?

00:05:14.680 Obviously, it doesn't.

00:05:17.660 And sure enough, now, today, it's all over.

00:05:20.040 I mean, the Washington Post, U.S.

00:05:21.380 intel assessments that Iran's forces were unlikely to pose an imminent threat to the U.S.

00:05:25.560 mainland within the next decade.

00:05:27.700 OK, again, the attack came despite U.S.

00:05:31.280 intel assessments that Iran's forces were unlikely to pose an immediate threat to the U.S.

00:05:35.920 mainland within the next decade.

00:05:37.100 And beyond that, CNN and Reuters report that Trump administration officials on Sunday acknowledged

00:05:42.480 in closed door briefings with congressional staff to whom they're obligated to brief to speak and give their intel.

00:05:49.900 Quote, there was no intelligence suggesting Iran planned to attack U.S.

00:05:55.160 forces first or to strike our bases in the Middle East.

00:05:58.820 OK, so there was no indication of an imminent attack.

00:06:02.660 I don't know why Trump said that other than to try to justify the actions.

00:06:06.260 But now we've heard it from several different reporting centers that there was none on the homeland.

00:06:10.580 There was none on our outposts.

00:06:12.160 There was none on our forces.

00:06:13.320 And there was none on our bases in the Middle East.

00:06:16.600 President Trump cited a long list after that of terrible things that Iran has done to the United States

00:06:20.440 or its forces over the years dating back to when I was eight.

00:06:23.580 OK, so, I mean, I I realized the 1979 taking of the hostages for four hundred and forty four days was bad.

00:06:31.520 But like literally I was in third grade and it seems like a why now?

00:06:39.520 Why now?

00:06:40.380 Why when we are so fatigued with Middle East war, would we be retaliating against them now? 1.00

00:06:46.660 So, like, give me another reason, please, because it felt very much like a kitchen sink approach.

00:06:51.320 If we're going back, probably involved in the U.S. as coal, like all these, you know, the attacks in Beirut. 0.60

00:06:58.760 Like this is ancient history.

00:07:00.520 There is nobody under the age of 50 who even has an active knowledge of any of that stuff.

00:07:07.000 As for what they've done with like the Houthis and all that, like, first of all, a lot of these wrongs have been on the books for a long time.

00:07:12.620 And many of them have already resulted in sanctions or retaliation by the United States, which leaves us asking again, why are we doing this and why now?

00:07:22.320 President Trump mentioned he felt like we were getting tapped along by the negotiators dealing with our nuclear representatives, Kushner and Whitcoff, which I believe I'm sure they did.

00:07:32.540 That's all they ever do.

00:07:33.420 But Trump himself told us that we obliterated that program.

00:07:38.060 That was his word, obliterated.

00:07:40.560 Last June, we obliterated their nuclear program.

00:07:45.420 Like, not four years ago.

00:07:48.580 Seven months ago.

00:07:49.700 He mentioned that they still had, quote, ambitions to make a nuke, which I believe.

00:07:55.020 So is this about bombing them out of their ambition?

00:07:59.920 Is that why four service members are dead and their families are grieving them today because Iran had ambitions? 0.97

00:08:07.000 That, that, that can't be it.

00:08:08.800 I just, I don't understand fully what's going on here.

00:08:13.620 I do, I do believe Trump doesn't want to get us into another forever war.

00:08:19.040 And I believe he, he wouldn't willingly submit to quagmire.

00:08:26.940 You know, in his mind, he thinks he can do this.

00:08:29.020 He's been all over the board on the timing of it too.

00:08:31.000 But in generally he's saying four weeks or so.

00:08:34.060 And he thinks we can do enough damage to them over the course of four weeks that we can achieve what?

00:08:38.500 Again, I don't, I don't know.

00:08:40.000 Is that going to bomb them out of their ambition?

00:08:42.120 We don't know who's taking over.

00:08:43.920 The Ayatollah's dead.

00:08:44.940 Again, it's a great thing.

00:08:46.020 Nobody would, it's like, truly, it's like finding out that somebody like Hitler has died.

00:08:49.480 There's only one correct response.

00:08:51.240 Yay.

00:08:52.600 But, you know, regime change wars and taking out another country's leader is full of danger too.

00:08:59.600 Uh, reportedly there were family members of the Ayatollah that were also killed.

00:09:04.100 There was at least one report that also a granddaughter of his, I, I just, I pray for the Trump family.

00:09:09.160 I don't want anything to happen to them.

00:09:10.700 And we, we increased the risk of that with this behavior.

00:09:16.360 Um, he's already, I mean, Trump said he tried to kill me twice.

00:09:19.680 I got him first.

00:09:21.160 So, I mean, clearly Trump believed the reports that the Iranians were planning on murdering him, assassinating him.

00:09:28.040 There has been some speculation that they were actually behind a thwarted attack.

00:09:33.500 Not, not any of the ones that we actually know about, like the one in Butler or the one on his golf course, um, but another.

00:09:41.520 So, I get it.

00:09:42.760 You know, I got him before he got me.

00:09:44.920 Okay, maybe you can make the case for like one targeted bombing of the Ayatollah if that's what we wanted to do.

00:09:50.580 But this is well beyond that.

00:09:51.720 We're going to be there for a month.

00:09:52.920 We've taken out 40 plus members of the regime.

00:09:55.060 What are we going to do about all the other members of the regime?

00:09:58.080 Because right now Trump is saying we, we think they're going to put down their arms, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard members, which is the most vicious group they have over there, and join with the Iranian patriots in the streets, he said.

00:10:09.080 They are?

00:10:10.580 Based on what?

00:10:11.980 Because they were literally shooting the Iranian protesters in the face a couple of weeks ago.

00:10:17.240 Um, I don't, I've got serious doubts about what we're doing.

00:10:23.680 I support the president.

00:10:24.880 I voted for the president.

00:10:26.280 I campaigned for the president, as you know.

00:10:28.520 But that doesn't mean, and being a conservative or being a Trump supporter or being part of MAGA does not mean you have to accept another Middle East war without questions. 0.98

00:10:43.020 And anybody who tells you that can suck it.

00:10:47.460 There's nothing unpatriotic or unsupportive of one's conservatism or general adherence to MAGA-type principles to say, I would like to be better convinced that this is worth the sacrifice of American blood and treasure. 0.98

00:11:04.220 That's where I am.

00:11:05.120 That's where a lot of people are.

00:11:07.340 Um, and over the next two hours, we've got a series of guests who will talk us through all of the angles.

00:11:12.520 Hour two, we are going to have our, two of our favorites from National Review, who are, National Review is definitely neocon.

00:11:20.580 And they will defend the president and explain to us why they think this makes sense, and the president deserves that here.

00:11:25.920 And there are millions of Americans who are behind this.

00:11:28.300 If you spend two minutes on X, you will be persuaded that all of America supports this, which isn't true.

00:11:34.020 So Rich Lowry is here.

00:11:35.360 So is Charles C.W. Cook.

00:11:37.120 They'll explain it to you, to us all.

00:11:39.620 We're also going to be joined in just a bit by Iranian-American journalist, Saurabh Amari.

00:11:43.960 He's terrific, and he's been writing a lot about, you know, what the risks are, what the benefits are, and how we should be thinking about this conflict.

00:11:53.060 But we start today with a detractor, somebody who does not like what she's seeing, and that view will also be represented on this program.

00:12:01.400 And that is former U.S. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene.

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00:12:47.840 Find out more at guardyourcard.com and consider telling Congress to guard your card.

00:12:54.480 It's great to see you. Thank you for being here.

00:12:56.720 I sense your aggravation, your frustration as I watched your Twitter feed, and you were in the minority on X, which, again, it was just—I mean, X is completely saturated in neocons, the pro-Israel crowd, and people who would love to cheerlead us right into another Middle East ground war that's endless.

00:13:16.740 I was grateful for your contrary perspective, Marjorie.

00:13:20.820 Thank you for being here today, and give us your overall view on why you're against this.

00:13:25.640 Well, thank you so much for having me, Megan, and I completely agree with everything you said in your intro.

00:13:30.800 I'd also like to point out that X is saturated in bots as well and paid social media influencers who just echo whatever their money tells them to say, the money that they're getting paid for.

00:13:42.760 And so I think that just like our media has been nothing but propaganda for as long as you and I can remember, I think social media has turned into the same thing.

00:13:52.380 What I do know is most Americans, and it's being proved in polling that's coming out, most Americans are completely against this war because, like you said, the president has made no case for it.

00:14:04.640 We live our ordinary lives, and we don't feel threatened by Iran. 1.00

00:14:08.860 We don't walk around thinking that in any moment an Iranian ballistic missile is going to land on our head.

00:14:14.820 We don't.

00:14:15.240 Here's what Americans, and I want to read off this list.

00:14:18.080 This is what Americans are focused on.

00:14:20.620 72% of Americans can't afford health insurance.

00:14:24.380 58% of Americans can't afford car insurance.

00:14:27.980 67% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck.

00:14:31.720 31% of Americans can't afford their back taxes.

00:14:35.640 50% of Americans are in credit card debt, massive credit card debt.

00:14:41.380 That's where we are in America, and I campaigned with the president.

00:14:44.960 As a matter of fact, I was one of the only Republicans that was out there for Donald Trump when the rest of the neocons, by the way, that are just cheering him on now, had abandoned him and were trying to beat him in a primary and stop him from being president again.

00:15:01.460 I was out there on the front lines for Make America Great Again, and Make America Great Again was supposed to be America first, not Israel first, not any foreign country first, not any foreign people first, but the American people first in our problems.

00:15:18.540 And, you know, God bless the Iranian people.

00:15:22.400 I hope to God that they can have a government that is for them and that treats women fairly. 0.90

00:15:27.860 But what we have seen happen right now is we have seen over 100 little girls killed at a school from a bomb.

00:15:35.300 And I don't know whose bomb it was, but they're dead today because America and Israel attacked Iran. 0.84

00:15:40.360 So that's not really good for Iranian women. 1.00

00:15:42.700 And our president is saying that the Iranian people are all of a sudden going to topple their regime.

00:15:48.360 Well, I don't think the Iranian people are going to be toppling their regime when they're getting blown apart by the United States and Israel in an unprovoked attack.

00:15:57.980 And, yes, it was unprovoked.

00:15:59.820 And Pete Hegseth said this morning, Megan, he said that we didn't start this war.

00:16:04.440 But I hate to argue with the secretary of the Department of War.

00:16:08.580 America and Israel definitely started this war. 0.73

00:16:11.460 And you can't lie that away to the American people.

00:16:15.520 And so, you know how I feel right now?

00:16:17.600 I am irate.

00:16:19.280 I am furious about this.

00:16:21.320 We are nearly $40 trillion in debt.

00:16:24.220 How much is this war going to cost us?

00:16:26.620 We have seen enough of our American troops dead and murdered for foreign countries. 0.99

00:16:32.060 And now we've had four dead and murdered, just like you said, for Israel and for the Iranian people, not for the American people.

00:16:40.420 And I don't want to see any more dead and murdered.

00:16:42.940 Our military is filled with some of the greatest people from our country.

00:16:47.340 And God bless their families who are probably losing their minds right now, terrified that their son or daughter or their husband or wife or brother or sister may come home in a flag-draped coffin.

00:16:58.120 And then we have the president, who, by the way, Megan, this really needs to be said.

00:17:03.280 Donald Trump has said repeatedly on camera and in interviews, he doesn't think he's going to heaven.

00:17:09.380 Well, I want to ask a question, a serious question.

00:17:12.580 What is in his mind?

00:17:14.260 What is his mental state?

00:17:15.740 If he doesn't think he's going to heaven and he is a man towards the end, he's in the fourth quarter, he's towards the end of his life.

00:17:23.020 How does that pan out for the rest of us when we have a president of the United States who doesn't think and is convinced he's not going to heaven?

00:17:31.040 What does that mean his decision making is?

00:17:33.540 He already said to the New York Post today that he doesn't care about the polling.

00:17:38.080 He doesn't care about what the American people think.

00:17:40.900 And he may put troops on the ground.

00:17:42.720 He took a, oh, this is going to be a few-day war, to now it's going to be maybe four weeks or more.

00:17:48.360 I want to say, what is happening to the man that I supported, you supported, the man that denounced what happened in Iraq, the man that said no more foreign wars, no more regime change.

00:18:01.280 Promise it on the campaign.

00:18:03.380 J.D. Vance promised it.

00:18:04.780 Tulsi Gabbard promised it.

00:18:06.240 All of them promised it. 0.99

00:18:07.460 And we're a year in, a year in, and we're in another fucking war, and we've got American troops being killed. 0.99

00:18:15.180 I think it's time for America to rip the Band-Aid off, and we need to have a serious conversation about what the fuck is happening to this country, and who in the hell are these decisions being made for, and who is making these decisions? 0.99

00:18:29.620 Mm-hmm. 0.97

00:18:32.240 The president on the heaven thing has said he was being cheeky about that, that he actually doesn't have worries.

00:18:36.760 But I understand your greater point.

00:18:39.780 Who is making the decisions?

00:18:41.200 Because the President Trump that was talking to us about going in and, you know, we're going to—the Iranian people, they're going to thank me.

00:18:50.020 You know, like, I did you a favor.

00:18:51.500 I made you a promise, and I lived up to it.

00:18:53.200 He was talking to the Iranian people, not the American people.

00:18:55.320 Yeah.

00:18:55.620 I made you a promise, and I lived up—what do you mean?

00:18:58.300 They didn't vote for you?

00:18:59.020 That's right.

00:18:59.360 They weren't on the campaign trail for you?

00:19:01.280 They're—it's—we're the ones who are putting our best and bravest at risk right now.

00:19:06.300 And he says the Iranian people are—it's up to them to now sort of take the baton and, like, install new leadership.

00:19:11.700 They have no guns.

00:19:13.060 They're sheltering in place because we're bombing their country right now. 0.61

00:19:17.380 How are they—like, what is the plan for them to, like, then take the baton and install a new leader?

00:19:23.180 Like, how are they going to do that with the IRGC still intact and there still being Iranian leaders?

00:19:28.440 Not everybody was wiped out.

00:19:29.880 And his comments to the press today seem to be they're going to lay down their arms and join with the Iranian patriots.

00:19:36.320 No, they're not.

00:19:37.260 Based on what?

00:19:38.460 Yeah.

00:19:38.920 Based on what?

00:19:39.460 So if that doesn't happen willingly, just by, like, the grace of God, okay, we're going to do it, then we are going to have to do it, or Israel's going to have to do it.

00:19:47.180 And the more Israel fights, the more we have to fight MTG because that's what got us into this mess to begin with.

00:19:51.860 We saw they were going to head and do it, and we felt like we had no choice because they were going to attack our bases first thing as soon as Israel did it. 0.88

00:19:58.260 That's right.

00:19:59.000 No, you're absolutely right.

00:20:00.180 And I heard an analyst say today that, okay, we've killed approximately maybe 40 or more of their top leadership and the Ayatollah.

00:20:08.820 Well, guess what?

00:20:09.640 The cleric ruling class is about 50,000 deep in their government. 0.98

00:20:15.580 I mean, are we going to kill all 50,000 of them before they can bring a new government in? 0.99

00:20:21.720 And while this is happening, Megan, we're bombing them. 0.99

00:20:26.060 We are bombing them and killing their people and destroying their buildings and wreaking havoc on their entire ability to function in daily life. 1.00

00:20:35.740 Do we really think these people are going to be saying, oh, thank you, America. 0.87

00:20:40.180 Thank you.

00:20:40.700 God bless you. 1.00

00:20:41.540 We're killing them and killing their children. 1.00

00:20:44.220 So I think we're radicalizing a whole new generation of Iranians. 1.00

00:20:48.900 That's what I worry about, too.

00:20:49.820 That don't remember, like me and you, we don't remember.

00:20:53.560 We were kids when the last regime was taken out and this new regime was put in.

00:21:00.220 And I think this whole thing is, this is not what we voted for, Megan.

00:21:03.760 It is absolutely America last. 0.99

00:21:06.260 It's the same bullshit we've seen for decades now. 0.99

00:21:09.560 And I don't think the president is being tongue in cheek. 0.99

00:21:12.280 I know that man very well.

00:21:13.880 And he repeatedly and repeatedly says he's not going to heaven.

00:21:17.080 The same way he repeatedly says that he's going to, what do you think?

00:21:21.060 Should I run for president again?

00:21:22.820 You know, I think that that started out as we could take it as a joke, but I don't think he's joking.

00:21:28.040 And I know you're not willing to go there, but I am.

00:21:30.760 I really want to know what is his mental state and who is he doing this for?

00:21:37.080 Because it's not for the American people. 0.97

00:21:39.480 He's lying.

00:21:40.360 He's gone back on what he promised, no more foreign wars, no more regime change.

00:21:45.540 And I want to know where the hell is J.D. Vance?

00:21:48.140 Where is he?

00:21:48.940 Where is Tulsi Gabbard?

00:21:50.360 Because if they stand by and are silent and they're turning back on the same words they said,

00:21:55.820 it's all on video.

00:21:57.200 All of them are on video saying it, just like I'm on video saying no more foreign wars, 0.95

00:22:02.300 no more regime change.

00:22:03.360 I'm on video on campaign stages and at Trump rallies saying the exact same thing.

00:22:08.280 But but where's J.D. and where's Tulsi and the president?

00:22:12.520 Well, I'm sure behind the scenes, at least J.D. has worked to stop this, but he's lost.

00:22:17.460 I mean, that's got to say obvious now is any detractor.

00:22:20.500 The same way Tucker went in and tried to talk Trump out of this and he lost and admitted

00:22:24.060 the Mark Levin's of the world have won.

00:22:27.300 Yeah.

00:22:27.540 I mean, Mark Levin and Lindsey Graham, forgive me, spent the entire weekend with a massive

00:22:33.840 heart on.

00:22:34.800 There's just no.

00:22:35.580 That's right.

00:22:35.920 You can see it in the commentary.

00:22:37.300 They were thrilled.

00:22:39.140 They were gleeful.

00:22:40.560 I mean, they were just overly excited at the fact that we were now risking American troops

00:22:46.180 lives for Israel. 0.90

00:22:47.680 And what does Lindsey Graham do to go out there and like quell anybody's concerns that that's 1.00

00:22:52.580 what we're doing?

00:22:53.180 You know, he just keeps doubling down and doubling down.

00:22:55.720 And now he's mentioning Cuba.

00:22:57.980 Hold on.

00:22:58.480 Do we have that?

00:22:59.060 Yes.

00:22:59.480 Here's here he is on FNC Sunday night.

00:23:02.380 This is SOT 16.

00:23:03.520 Is President Trump finished the job that President Reagan failed to do?

00:23:08.860 I am a big admirer of Ronald Reagan, but I'm here to tell you that Donald Trump, in my opinion,

00:23:14.180 is the gold standard for Republicans, maybe any president when it comes to foreign policy.

00:23:20.660 Maduro, everybody talked about him.

00:23:22.700 Well, Donald Trump's got him in jail.

00:23:25.160 Cuba's next.

00:23:26.080 They're going to fall, this communist dictatorship in Cuba.

00:23:29.400 Their days are numbered.

00:23:30.860 The Iranian regime, the mothership of international terrorism is about to collapse. 0.99

00:23:37.060 The captain of the ship, the Ayatollah, is stone cold dead. 0.99

00:23:43.800 Cuba's next.

00:23:44.580 They're going to fall.

00:23:45.260 This is after Trump on Friday.

00:23:46.420 We played this bite on our show on Friday saying maybe we'll have a friendly takeover of Cuba, 0.84

00:23:51.920 which we don't know what that means.

00:23:54.120 So now they're talking about Cuba.

00:23:56.320 And let me just give you one more, MTG.

00:23:57.920 The former prime minister of Israel, Naftali Bennett, was at the Conference of Presidents

00:24:03.860 of Major American Jewish Organizations in Jerusalem on February 17th.

00:24:09.260 And listen to what he said then.

00:24:11.260 SOT 20.

00:24:11.900 A new Turkish threat is emerging. 1.00

00:24:14.900 I want to be very clear.

00:24:16.700 Turkey and Qatar have gained influence in Syria,

00:24:19.800 are seeking influence elsewhere and everywhere throughout the region.

00:24:24.040 And from here, I warn, Turkey is the new Iran. 0.99

00:24:30.340 Erdogan is sophisticated, dangerous, and he seeks to encircle Israel. 0.98

00:24:35.740 And while some senior Israelis were on Qatar's payroll, Qatar and Turkey are nourishing the Islamic 1.00

00:24:47.220 Brotherhood monster that is growing and eventually might become as dangerous as the one created

00:24:56.200 by Iran.

00:24:57.800 Turkey and Qatar are gaining influence not only in Syria, but also in Gaza, through the front

00:25:04.020 door and everyone and trying to create a new choke ring. 1.00

00:25:09.440 Turkey is trying to flip Saudi Arabia against us and establish a hostile Sunni access with

00:25:16.220 nuclear Pakistan. 0.92

00:25:19.240 So where does it end?

00:25:20.800 I shared that on my social media as well.

00:25:23.160 I think Israel, and I'm talking about the government of Israel, I think these people,

00:25:26.640 they literally are trying to start World War III.

00:25:29.800 It's completely out of control.

00:25:31.240 It will never end.

00:25:32.800 War will continue when Israel is pushing the United States and demanding that we wage war 0.98

00:25:39.100 with them.

00:25:39.500 It will continue as long as we're alive.

00:25:41.660 It will never end.

00:25:42.900 And Lindsey Graham, I saw him, I saw a video of him this morning, and he was choking back

00:25:48.100 tears, swallowing back tears, because he was saying he was so proud of President Trump

00:25:53.720 for declaring war and going to war with Iran.

00:25:56.820 He wasn't choking back tears for the American military members that have been killed and

00:26:01.760 their families who are mourning their deaths right now.

00:26:04.560 He's choking back tears because he's so happy about war.

00:26:08.340 Megan, I can remember on a campaign stage in Lindsey Graham's home county, where he was

00:26:13.500 born and went to elementary school, where he's from, I stood on that stage and spoke before

00:26:18.080 him, and I said, no more foreign wars, no more regime change.

00:26:21.060 And I said, we're going to end the war in Ukraine.

00:26:22.760 The crowd went nuts, thousands of people.

00:26:26.040 Then Lindsey Graham came out right behind me and spoke right after me, and they booed 0.99

00:26:30.220 him for 10 minutes on stage.

00:26:33.060 That was a little over, I think it was about a year and a half ago.

00:26:35.720 It was during the campaign.

00:26:36.980 They booed him in his home county for 10 minutes straight.

00:26:39.940 But when you watch a video like that from the former prime minister of Israel, all I can

00:26:44.900 think about is the military industrial complex.

00:26:47.960 Those guys are lighting up their cigars, drinking their whiskey, and patting each other on

00:26:51.800 the back because all they can think about is how much money they're going to make off the

00:26:56.140 American taxpayers making bombs, building new aircraft, building new drones, and building 0.82

00:27:01.540 all kinds of military equipment just to kill people all over the world. 0.99

00:27:04.960 While the American people, all they want is to be able to fucking afford a house, afford 0.98

00:27:10.340 health insurance, and be able to maybe, maybe live the dream like the baby boomers did and 1.00

00:27:16.200 live a family that can live on a single family income and not have both parents working themselves

00:27:22.080 to death so their children have to live in daycare and grow up in daycare.

00:27:26.120 And that's the reality that we're in, Megan.

00:27:28.280 It is America last, and it makes me want to vomit.

00:27:31.840 I don't even know if I ever want to vote again.

00:27:34.020 I am so disgusted.

00:27:36.300 Democrats destroyed this country for four years, and now Republicans, and we didn't vote for 0.99

00:27:41.800 the Lindsey Grahams and the Mark Levins, and fucking Laura Loomer, she needs to go over 1.00

00:27:46.440 there to Israel because they need 100,000 reservists, and she's 32 years old, so she should go fighting 0.99

00:27:52.220 that war too.

00:27:53.220 That's not MAGA.

00:27:54.860 That is not MAGA.

00:27:56.140 That's not America first.

00:27:57.380 This isn't what we voted for, and I can tell you right now, neither party, neither party

00:28:03.280 gives us anything.

00:28:04.400 It's back and forth, and it's the uniparty always wins, and this time, this time, it's 0.96

00:28:09.960 not even the uniparty for America.

00:28:12.060 It's literally Israel first, Israel first, and then where is it going to stop? 0.95

00:28:17.900 We had the chance to vote for Ron DeSantis, for Nikki Haley during the presidential primary.

00:28:23.440 I was there.

00:28:24.020 I moderated the debate.

00:28:24.960 We absolutely had that as an option right in front of us, and the Republican Party

00:28:30.180 resoundingly rejected them.

00:28:32.600 I mean, they completely were against Nikki Haley.

00:28:34.780 They thought she was way too much of a neocon hawk, and you had Trump over there saying,

00:28:39.400 no more Middle East wars.

00:28:40.280 I'm going to keep us out of war.

00:28:41.980 I'm the Dove president.

00:28:42.800 And look at us, like you point out, a year in, a year into it.

00:28:47.180 Now, this is the second strike on Iran. 0.57

00:28:49.100 We did one strike, targeted, said we obliterated the nuclear program.

00:28:52.220 I think most Americans were like, okay, it was risky, but we move on.

00:28:56.520 Yeah, that's right.

00:28:57.240 Glad it's gone.

00:28:58.180 And now we're back.

00:28:59.340 We're back in there talking about possible ground troops.

00:29:02.440 Yeah.

00:29:02.600 And we don't know for how long, maybe four weeks, but maybe longer.

00:29:06.560 And the quagmire doesn't come because the president says, I would like a quagmire.

00:29:11.180 I think I would like to spend 20 years in Iran. 1.00

00:29:14.500 It comes because the retaliatory attacks are escalating.

00:29:18.900 They attack more of our people. 0.99

00:29:20.080 Then we can't just pull up and say, okay, it's over.

00:29:22.540 Right.

00:29:22.800 Because they've escalated too.

00:29:24.460 And the Iranians are starting to escalate. 1.00

00:29:26.300 Like, they get a say as well in how long this goes on.

00:29:29.920 Absolutely.

00:29:30.280 I think what we're seeing, it's like you said, who's going to stop?

00:29:33.500 I think what we're going to see is complete annihilation for whoever is annihilated.

00:29:39.040 Is it going to be Iran? 0.75

00:29:40.480 Likely so.

00:29:41.620 They're just Israel and America. 1.00

00:29:43.060 We're going to keep bombing them until they are completely annihilated. 0.84

00:29:46.780 Because President Trump himself said last week, he said he was, I forget his exact quote,

00:29:53.080 but it was basically, it was, oh, he said for once and for all, for once and for all.

00:29:58.460 So he's not going to stop.

00:30:00.280 Which means, when will it stop?

00:30:03.040 This is, I'll say it again.

00:30:06.160 Americans do not care about a foreign country and their war.

00:30:11.280 We are so done with it.

00:30:13.060 And we thought, we thought 2024.

00:30:14.920 It's true.

00:30:14.940 We have our own worries.

00:30:16.140 Yeah.

00:30:17.060 Okay, look, let's take this down to something simple.

00:30:20.260 Social security is going to be bankrupt in seven years.

00:30:23.800 You and I have been paying into social security all our entire lives.

00:30:26.840 We aren't going to see a social security check at this point.

00:30:29.520 We're just not going to see one.

00:30:30.880 The millennials who, that generation, they're like dual working parents.

00:30:36.080 They're never going to see a social security check and they're paying into it.

00:30:39.400 And our kids, Megan, you can forget it.

00:30:41.740 They won't even know what a social security check is.

00:30:44.660 It'll be like, oh yeah, that was something our grandparents got.

00:30:47.280 They won't even know.

00:30:48.660 I mean, it's absurd.

00:30:50.280 But, oh no, no, no, no.

00:30:51.340 We got to go fight this war in Iran. 0.93

00:30:53.580 We got to destroy.

00:30:54.520 We got the Ayatollah.

00:30:55.960 A bunch of people are having to Google search.

00:30:58.480 What is an Ayatollah? 0.93

00:31:00.420 They don't even know what an Ayatollah is.

00:31:03.120 It's so out of control.

00:31:05.260 It is mind numbing.

00:31:06.680 It is infuriating. 0.98

00:31:08.360 And I think, I really think both parties need to be burned down. 0.93

00:31:11.900 Both parties need to be burned down because Democrats can't pretend like they're against 0.91

00:31:17.080 this war. 0.66

00:31:17.740 They're all for it too.

00:31:19.460 They funded and got all into the Ukraine war.

00:31:22.440 They've been into the wars for years.

00:31:23.880 And so have the Republicans.

00:31:26.400 We have no representation in Washington.

00:31:28.680 He was funding Israel, you know, without question for the past four years is one of 0.72

00:31:33.940 the reasons why his party wound up turning on him because the Democrats have become anti-Israel.

00:31:38.760 But no, you're right.

00:31:39.840 Both parties love war.

00:31:40.900 I mean, that is clear.

00:31:43.020 And the military industrial complex always wins.

00:31:46.540 Whether the American people do remains to be seen.

00:31:49.340 MTG, thank you.

00:31:50.320 Thank you, Megan.

00:31:53.840 Look, I realize a lot of you may be feeling very differently.

00:31:56.640 Your hour is second hour.

00:31:58.020 You will hear that POV definitely expressed because I'm not looking to change hearts and

00:32:02.240 minds on it.

00:32:02.900 I'm just looking to be honest with you about where I am.

00:32:05.800 But I think you deserve and the president deserves to have himself defended this action

00:32:10.080 defended.

00:32:10.780 And I'll be honest, Doug and I are split on this.

00:32:12.940 Doug is in support of it.

00:32:14.480 Doug supports the president and Doug can't stand Iran and what it's been doing. 0.99

00:32:18.500 Neither can I.

00:32:18.980 I don't like Iran. 0.99

00:32:20.260 It's leadership at least.

00:32:21.360 But and I certainly I have Iranian friends, you know, Iranian Americans who are very much

00:32:25.180 grateful to President Trump for getting rid of the Ayatollah, for at least giving them 1.00

00:32:28.360 a shot at returning Iran to something that looks more democratic.

00:32:31.580 And I get all that and I have empathy for them and I celebrate their happiness.

00:32:35.480 But but we're talking about using the American military and putting their lives at risk.

00:32:42.320 And let's be honest, ours, too, because if you don't think we're going to see retaliatory

00:32:47.560 terror here in the homeland, you weren't paying attention for the past 20 plus years.

00:32:52.960 Already we had that attack in Austin. 0.98

00:32:54.600 That looks like a crazy man. 0.76

00:32:56.100 I'm going to be honest. 0.98

00:32:56.860 He was wearing an Iranian flag and a T-shirt praising Allah.

00:33:00.840 But so, yes, related, linked, obviously.

00:33:04.200 But I'm talking about more methodical, well-planned attacks on soft targets.

00:33:09.380 I mean, for the young people and we have a lot of young people watch the show.

00:33:12.180 You're probably in high school when this stuff happened.

00:33:13.960 But I'm telling you, we covered it on Fox.

00:33:15.780 I was there night after night in the prime time of Fox discussing this terror attack and

00:33:19.720 that terror attack and another terror attack.

00:33:21.500 And it wasn't by loons. 0.69

00:33:22.600 It was by ideologues, radically Muslim ideologues who hated the United States because of its 0.98

00:33:29.000 foreign policy, because of its foreign entanglements.

00:33:32.100 And it's settled down.

00:33:33.600 It's settled down somewhat over the past, whatever, let's say seven years.

00:33:37.980 And it's about to start back up again.

00:33:39.880 We don't know who the hell came into this country under Joe Biden. 1.00

00:33:42.340 Who the fuck came across the border? 1.00

00:33:44.260 We have zero clue. 0.99

00:33:45.940 You don't think that there's going to be some Iranian pro-Ayatollah sympathetic to the

00:33:49.820 leadership of Iran terror cells?

00:33:52.660 I mean, I realized Kash Patel's putting out statements saying we're on it.

00:33:55.560 We're watching it.

00:33:56.160 They were always watching it, even when we got attacked over and over and over.

00:34:01.360 So I just I don't want to get hysterical about this.

00:34:04.660 OK, it's not yet World War Three.

00:34:07.480 And President Trump, I believe, doesn't want quagmire long term war and will do everything

00:34:13.320 within his power to keep this thing tight and use an overwhelming amount of force to make

00:34:17.260 sure that if there actually is a threat they're willing to unleash against us, it is minimized.

00:34:21.480 Not hobbled, if not completely eliminated.

00:34:24.860 But there are massive risks to what we're doing.

00:34:27.060 And my own take on it is it's not worth it.

00:34:30.160 Not to us, American citizens.

00:34:33.280 Again, different POVs coming up.

00:34:35.020 Up next, Saurabh Amari, which who, unlike virtually any of us on the program today, actually knows

00:34:39.780 what he's talking about when it comes to Iran, the interior of it and what is likely to be

00:34:44.880 the reaction and the risks.

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00:36:15.640 As one nation, we grieve for the true American patriots who have made the ultimate sacrifice

00:36:22.340 for our nation, even as we continue the righteous mission for which they gave their lives.

00:36:30.420 We pray for the full recovery of the wounded and send our immense love and eternal gratitude

00:36:37.000 to the families of the fallen.

00:36:39.320 And sadly, there will likely be more.

00:36:43.760 Before it ends, that's the way it is.

00:36:46.740 Likely be more, but we'll do everything possible.

00:36:50.820 Why?

00:36:51.360 Why should there be any?

00:36:53.060 Why?

00:36:54.040 Can you imagine the families of those four fallen service members, American service members?

00:36:58.160 Welcome back to The Megyn Kelly Show.

00:37:02.280 Here with me now is Saurabh Amari.

00:37:03.900 He's the U.S. editor of UnHerd.

00:37:05.520 He was born in Tehran, Iran.

00:37:07.760 And like I said, unlike most of us, actually knows what he's talking about when it comes

00:37:11.080 to the dynamics inside that country and what's next there.

00:37:14.880 Saurabh, thanks for being here.

00:37:16.100 So your thoughts on where we are now and where it's likely to go.

00:37:20.080 Thanks for having me, Megan.

00:37:21.640 So let me start, since you mentioned my background.

00:37:23.740 Yes, I'm an American of an Iranian background, and I got to tell you, if the regime change

00:37:30.560 operation or the war, whatever they're calling it, panned out the way that the president laid

00:37:36.820 out in his initial speech and the various advocates for this war had envisioned, then

00:37:44.200 as an Iranian American, I'd have an easier time because I hate this regime.

00:37:50.220 It's driven me and my family into exile.

00:37:53.740 And I would get to go back, presumably.

00:37:56.220 But it's as an American, as an American by choice, that I oppose this war for some of

00:38:01.500 the reasons that you laid out with Marjorie in the previous segment.

00:38:05.800 The bottom line is, I thought that after two decades of failed regime change wars, the United 0.63

00:38:14.060 States was going to focus, especially under Trump and under this kind of populist conservatism,

00:38:19.120 on domestic reconsolidation, building up at home, restoring our hollowed out industrial

00:38:26.100 capacity, rethinking how we do immigration and admitting far fewer people.

00:38:31.820 And that takes real work, not just, you know, some of these ice raids, but that takes legislation

00:38:37.100 that the president hasn't done.

00:38:39.020 All that, you know, and of course, being prepared for the real challenges of the 21st century.

00:38:43.460 For the most part, they lie in East Asia.

00:38:46.120 That's where America's future challenges and opportunities are.

00:38:49.460 It's China. 0.90

00:38:50.520 It has to do with, you know, the fact that in a few years, more than half of global GDP

00:38:56.840 will be in the Asia Pacific region.

00:38:59.100 And forget, you know, the region that I left behind.

00:39:01.560 It's the mess of a region that I left behind.

00:39:04.560 Why go back in, especially on these premises of we're going to give Iranians freedom? 1.00

00:39:11.160 How are they, as you said, as Marjorie, as others have said, how are we going to achieve

00:39:15.320 that?

00:39:15.600 What's the metric?

00:39:17.480 How is that going to be possible without boots on the ground?

00:39:21.300 And then today I hear both the president and Secretary Hegseth, whom I admire on other

00:39:27.960 fronts.

00:39:28.340 I got to say, I mean, you know, I've interviewed Pete and and respect him.

00:39:31.840 I actually think people underestimate him.

00:39:33.520 But, you know, talking about if necessary, we'll have boots on the ground.

00:39:36.740 I mean, this is it's like taking a an unpleasant time capsule back to 2003, even the same language. 0.99

00:39:44.820 I mean, I heard someone on Fox News, one of these Republican lawmakers, highly intelligent

00:39:50.480 Republican lawmakers said, you know, it'll be up to the Iraqi people, excuse me, the Iranian

00:39:55.480 people to determine their destiny.

00:39:57.140 It's like, oh, my God.

00:39:59.180 So honestly, Fox News is insufferable right now.

00:40:03.220 Insufferable.

00:40:03.900 I was there for 14 years.

00:40:05.340 I've already told my audience if I were a Fox News anchor right now, I'd know exactly

00:40:08.960 what to do.

00:40:10.160 Cheerlead, cheerlead. 1.00

00:40:12.320 That's it.

00:40:13.200 It's all about rah, rah, rah.

00:40:15.040 Go military.

00:40:16.120 That's what's patriotic.

00:40:17.560 Praise the president.

00:40:18.400 Support the troops.

00:40:19.300 Support the war.

00:40:20.380 Day in, day out.

00:40:21.280 That's I mean, this morning, who do they put on Mike Pompeo to kick off the day's coverage?

00:40:25.780 Lindsey Graham all over Fox News over the weekend that it's utterly unhelpful to go

00:40:30.980 like today.

00:40:32.300 Obviously, I've come out and said how I honestly feel because I owe that to my audience.

00:40:35.660 But today we're going to have both sides on to help people actually make up their own

00:40:40.080 minds.

00:40:41.140 You will not find that over on Fox News.

00:40:44.200 They've got one mission, and that's to support these military groups, the military itself

00:40:50.080 and President Trump.

00:40:52.200 But it's just folly.

00:40:54.540 It's folly. 0.93

00:40:55.160 So it's a fool's errand, too, because it's like I already did 20 years of that. 0.54

00:40:59.620 I did 20 years of marching us blindly into war and cheerleading it and not being the one 0.93

00:41:03.620 to carry the consequences.

00:41:04.520 But I've interviewed enough soldiers missing legs and soldiers who almost killed themselves

00:41:08.960 due to PTSD who don't see any value in what they did over there, especially after we gave

00:41:13.040 it up under Joe Biden, that I know now more caution is needed.

00:41:16.520 Cheerleading may make you feel good, may spike your ratings, Fox News, but it doesn't necessarily

00:41:21.880 help the guys who are actually going to have to put those boots on the ground and go fight

00:41:25.320 this war, which, as I point out, is not necessarily going to be the cakewalk that our administration

00:41:30.340 is suggesting.

00:41:31.140 So, Rav, what do you make of the Iranians response so far?

00:41:34.180 Because they seem to be fighting just as hard as they possibly can.

00:41:37.620 Yes, I think this it surprised even me.

00:41:42.000 And I was obviously, to be clear, I was a war skeptic.

00:41:45.600 You know, I was a skeptic of going to war with Iran before it happened.

00:41:49.380 But even for me, the degree to which they've actually held it together is is surprising.

00:41:55.520 It reminds us that Iran is not Iraq.

00:41:58.160 It's much bigger.

00:41:58.900 It is not an artificial state whose borders were basically drawn by, you know, European

00:42:05.820 imperialists 100 years ago, just by kind of randomly going, OK, here's Iraq, here's

00:42:10.160 Lebanon.

00:42:10.460 That's not the case with Iran.

00:42:11.980 It's a resilient, systemic, civilizational state.

00:42:15.360 And so even though the supreme leader was killed early on in the attack, they have in place

00:42:23.060 various people who are prepared for each role.

00:42:26.460 There's someone else waiting to take command.

00:42:29.780 They have been firing on all cylinders, really have set the Gulf on fire, gone a long ways,

00:42:36.780 was really closing the Straits of Hormuz.

00:42:39.960 They've are raining fire on Israel.

00:42:42.680 And by the way, the images from Israel of the civilians, which is where all the all 0.96

00:42:46.040 the oil from the Middle East has to pass the Straits of Hormuz to get out, shipped out.

00:42:49.780 The images from Israel really just break my heart as well, because, you know, it's just

00:42:53.500 you know, I grew up during the Iran-Iraq war, the latter years of Iran-Iraq war.

00:42:57.820 I only have vague memories of this.

00:42:59.360 But that kind of city to city missile warfare is really, really awful because you can't predict

00:43:05.020 where it comes from, you know, and what the consequences are, even just the sound.

00:43:09.960 I have empathy for what the Israelis are going through.

00:43:11.980 But their government is doing this to them willingly.

00:43:14.940 I feel like we and they knew what they were getting.

00:43:17.840 Bibi Netanyahu, you know exactly what you're going to put him in office.

00:43:20.880 We were told by this president he wasn't going to do this.

00:43:24.900 He his whole candidacy, the first and the second, were all about how he wasn't this guy

00:43:30.840 and promised not actually explicitly promised not to do this.

00:43:35.080 So I feel like we if we wind up being Israel with terror attacks raining down on this city

00:43:39.980 or that, and they don't usually come from me, the air here, they're usually at a nightclub

00:43:44.480 or a school or a church or some other soft target.

00:43:48.180 We really didn't ask for this.

00:43:50.320 You know, we the people, our government may have, but we the people did not want this.

00:43:53.860 Yeah, I think the real terror threats right now are to U.S. facilities in the region because

00:44:00.160 Khamenei, like him or not, was not just the head of state of Iran.

00:44:04.100 He was also the spiritual leader of of many millions of Shiites, many of whom outside the

00:44:10.760 country respect and revered him more than those inside the country, to be honest.

00:44:14.320 But at any rate, there are Shiites in Bahrain, there are Shiites in Saudi Arabia, there are

00:44:18.620 Shiites in Pakistan, there are Shiites in Lebanon, of course.

00:44:21.940 And so that's where I think the immediate terror threat to U.S. facilities, U.S. citizens,

00:44:26.960 U.S. interests are.

00:44:29.120 Again, I think it's one of several consequences that weren't thought through.

00:44:33.100 Certainly when I saw images of attacks on the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, U.S. facilities

00:44:39.300 in Erbil and Basra, these are places in Iraq.

00:44:42.380 That's one of the areas where I just thought, like, did they think this through, that there's,

00:44:47.680 you know, Bahrain, for example, U.S. ally, is actually a minority state.

00:44:51.800 It's it's only 20 percent Sunni and they rule over 80 percent Shiites.

00:44:56.920 So if the Shiites there get angry, is Bahrain stable? 1.00

00:45:00.920 Probably.

00:45:01.500 And it'll take some a great deal of repression.

00:45:03.360 But just, you know, it's one of those Pandora's boxes that I don't think should have been opened

00:45:09.180 willy nilly.

00:45:09.740 And I think they did it based on on vibes and the kind of false assurances of men like

00:45:16.060 B.B. and men like Lindsey Graham here in the United States.

00:45:19.440 Not so much anyone even in the cabinet, I think.

00:45:21.660 I think it's really the outside figures.

00:45:23.620 I think that's right.

00:45:24.300 You know, like the Mark Levin.

00:45:25.920 Tucker was here on Thursday pointing out B.B.'s been to the White House seven times in

00:45:29.000 the past year.

00:45:29.660 Yeah.

00:45:29.940 Seven times.

00:45:31.000 I mean, that's incredible.

00:45:32.380 The Laura Loomers.

00:45:33.180 Again, yeah, a country of nine million versus our own, which has got three hundred and fifty

00:45:38.740 million.

00:45:39.000 And we have a lot more worries on our hands these days than foreign policy in the Middle

00:45:43.560 East.

00:45:44.980 Can you talk about you?

00:45:46.600 You've written a little bit about possible balkanization within Iran.

00:45:50.500 Like there's it's not there are all these different factions inside of Iran and it's really

00:45:54.840 not that clear how things will go now that there's not the strong hand at the top.

00:46:01.280 Yes.

00:46:01.540 So Iran, often a lot of Iranians like to describe themselves as Persian.

00:46:06.540 And I think the reason they do that, Iran is a very old term.

00:46:09.200 Actually, it goes back millennia and it means the land of the Aryans.

00:46:13.740 But some Iranians, because Iran is associated, especially Iranians in the diaspora, because

00:46:19.080 Iran is associated with the Ayatollahs and terrorism and so on, like to describe themselves

00:46:23.780 as Persian, the Persian is really there's only about 50 percent, 51 percent of the country

00:46:28.900 that's Persian.

00:46:29.820 You have Kurds there. 0.99

00:46:31.320 You have Azaris, you have Lors. 0.99

00:46:33.140 These are different ethnic and linguistic groups.

00:46:35.040 You have Arabs, Baluch, Turkmen, Azaris and others.

00:46:40.680 And look, Iranian identity, national identity is multiethnic and it's it's it's holding together.

00:46:47.500 However, there are separatist impulses among these various groups.

00:46:51.460 And the Israelis and others have been encouraging that, even as they tell the Iranian diaspora 0.98

00:46:58.020 types that they want a unified Iran to be ruled by the son of the former Shah.

00:47:02.080 We can go into him later.

00:47:03.440 But at any rate, you know.

00:47:05.680 Well, that's a joke, isn't it?

00:47:07.220 I mean, my my belief is that this Reza Pahlavi is a joke and that the Iranian people would 1.00

00:47:12.700 never accept him.

00:47:14.500 Well, look, in a country of 92 million, you know, he has some support.

00:47:19.020 I won't deny it, but I just think he's a fundamentally unserious person.

00:47:23.720 You can't you know, you can't really blame him either.

00:47:25.460 He's lived most of his life in the West, in the United States.

00:47:28.440 He has in the past said it.

00:47:29.920 He's like, I don't I'm not sure if I want to move back to Iran.

00:47:33.140 He's kind of a reluctant.

00:47:34.780 He's kind of a reluctant Shah.

00:47:36.520 You know, his daughter, for example, his children had reportedly haven't been taught

00:47:39.780 Persian.

00:47:40.360 So imagine wanting to be a king of a country where your own children haven't learned the

00:47:45.500 language. So, you know, there are there are downsides.

00:47:48.900 And by the way, it's not like I want necessarily liberal democracy in Iran.

00:47:52.620 Yes, Iran has a monarchic tradition stretching back millennia.

00:47:55.700 But how are you going to implement it or bring it back off the back of airstrikes that are

00:48:01.680 right now devastating the country?

00:48:03.280 And he hasn't actually expressed any sympathy for the Iranian civilians who have died.

00:48:08.020 You know, you don't you don't have to.

00:48:09.260 Right.

00:48:09.840 You can say it's ultimately the regime's fault that this is happening.

00:48:12.760 OK, but he won't even say, like, I'm sorry about the people who've who've lost their lives

00:48:17.140 so far in the in the bombing.

00:48:19.440 So to get back to the fracturing, it's a real danger because, you know, there are these

00:48:25.060 groups and you have a regime that has all these stockpiles of conventional and maybe material

00:48:29.780 they can use to prep nonconventional weapons.

00:48:32.400 And you have like ISIS style Islamists, Sunni Islamists in Iran. 0.90

00:48:38.120 What would happen if, you know, the regime collapses and there's no clear authority over

00:48:43.000 the the weapons and material?

00:48:46.680 How how can you forestall the ISIS types from taking that stuff over? 0.98

00:48:52.780 So there are like really nightmare scenarios.

00:48:55.000 How many refugees would a collapse of the state feed into not just the neighboring Arab states,

00:49:00.620 but of course, to Europe, a Europe that's already fed up with refugees from Afghanistan 1.00

00:49:05.460 and Syria and elsewhere?

00:49:07.180 I mean, these are, you know, I mean, the state collapse scenario is is very real and very

00:49:14.940 dangerous.

00:49:16.000 You could have a scenario where the map of Iran looks like something like Syria did, you 0.88

00:49:22.180 know, where it's all these different zones controlled by different foreign powers, different

00:49:25.500 ethnic and sectarian factions.

00:49:27.400 Do you really want that in the Middle East? 1.00

00:49:29.280 And Trump right now is just saying, well, you know, I had I had two or three guys who

00:49:35.580 I thought could take over in the same way Delce Rodriguez took over in Venezuela when we took

00:49:41.180 Maduro out and brought him up here.

00:49:44.000 And then he said, oh, but they're all dead now.

00:49:46.840 Actually, they had a long list of people.

00:49:49.020 And I like the top two or three.

00:49:50.800 And but they're dead.

00:49:51.900 So I guess we're going to have to keep looking down the list.

00:49:54.700 It doesn't it just doesn't seem like it was well planned out.

00:49:57.380 And we don't like the regime.

00:49:59.440 We got to carry this over.

00:50:00.580 So I got to take a break.

00:50:01.620 So please, I understand you can stay a little bit, which I appreciate.

00:50:04.760 But but what I want to talk about is the fact that the regime is much wider spread and ingrained

00:50:11.540 than just Maduro at the top and taking him out in Venezuela.

00:50:16.080 So I'm not sure we're talking about apples to apples.

00:50:18.380 By the way, his regime is still technically running Venezuela.

00:50:20.960 But I mean, how many are we going to have to kill in order to make way for the Iranian 1.00

00:50:25.760 people to take over and restore Iran to its former glory? 0.99

00:50:30.380 That's next.

00:50:30.900 Stand by.

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00:51:43.220 Turns out the regime who chanted death to America and death to Israel was gifted death

00:51:54.520 from America and death from Israel. 0.95

00:51:58.500 This is not a so-called regime change war, but the regime sure did change and the world

00:52:06.700 is better off for it.

00:52:08.280 Secretary of War Pete Hegseth this morning from the Pentagon, a joint presser was held

00:52:13.360 along with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Dan Raisin-Cain, to justify some of the actions

00:52:19.180 that we've taken in the Middle East this weekend and to answer some questions.

00:52:23.560 There was another interesting exchange where Secretary Hegseth made clear this is not a

00:52:29.740 forever war.

00:52:30.900 This is not Iraq is what he said.

00:52:32.440 Let's listen to Sat 11.

00:52:34.320 We set the terms of this war from start to finish to the media outlets and political

00:52:40.620 left screaming endless wars.

00:52:42.680 Stop.

00:52:43.900 This is not Iraq. 0.87

00:52:45.540 This is not endless.

00:52:47.360 I was there for both.

00:52:49.780 Our generation knows better.

00:52:51.320 And so does this president. 0.97

00:52:52.900 He called the last 20 years of nation building wars dumb. 0.92

00:52:57.400 And he's right.

00:52:59.180 This is the opposite.

00:53:01.760 This operation is a clear, devastating, decisive mission.

00:53:06.660 Destroy the missile threat.

00:53:07.920 Destroy the Navy. 0.80

00:53:09.020 No nukes.

00:53:10.560 That's the messaging coming out of the Pentagon.

00:53:12.820 Welcome back to The Megyn Kelly Show.

00:53:14.160 Back with me now, Saurabh Amari, U.S. editor of UnHerd.

00:53:17.480 So here's the thing, Saurabh.

00:53:20.120 I asked you about exactly how do we affect regime change anyway when the regime is so

00:53:26.480 deeply entrenched in Iran.

00:53:29.000 And here is what President Trump told The New York Times.

00:53:32.160 When pressed on his plans for a transition of power, Mr. Trump said he hoped Iran's elite 0.95

00:53:36.160 military forces, including hardened officers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, who

00:53:41.680 have held substantial influence and profited from the existing regime, would simply turn over

00:53:47.040 their weapons to the Iranian populace. 0.88

00:53:49.900 Quote, they would really surrender to the people, if you think about it.

00:53:54.660 That is what Mr. Trump said to The Times.

00:53:58.300 Thoughts on the likelihood of that happening?

00:54:00.960 Yeah, I did think about it.

00:54:02.500 And it's a preposterous thing.

00:54:05.680 Like, why?

00:54:06.980 First of all, I mean, a lot of people, including apparently President Trump, are under the impression

00:54:12.160 that all these Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps officers and the Basij paramilitia, all

00:54:20.180 these groups really don't believe this stuff that they believe about being servants of God

00:54:26.580 and on a mission to advance Islam and so on and so forth.

00:54:30.900 It's all they're all just cynical.

00:54:32.140 And sometimes I'm tempted to believe that, too.

00:54:34.920 But over the past, especially over the past 48, 72 hours, I've actually become all the more

00:54:39.520 convinced that no, they like at least some of these people, a substantial number of them

00:54:44.020 really believe this stuff.

00:54:46.040 They are committed to the project of this regime to the Islamic Republic.

00:54:49.620 Like, so they're not just going to give up.

00:54:52.300 And then, too, they've their whole existence is because the regime exists, like their whole

00:54:58.100 they draw material benefits as well as spiritual and ideological ones.

00:55:03.200 So why would they, you know, give up their weapons in return for an uncertain future in

00:55:09.240 which there could either be civil war or they and their families could be targeted by the

00:55:13.040 new regime, whatever that new regime might be?

00:55:16.060 You know, they're just going to give up their weapons if you think about it.

00:55:19.380 Is I'm sorry, that's just one of the silliest things said by a U.S.

00:55:24.240 president at a moment that demands absolute seriousness from the commander in chief.

00:55:29.160 What is this stuff?

00:55:30.160 It's it sounds it sounds irrational if you think about it, Megan.

00:55:35.200 I mean, what what about at this point?

00:55:38.220 What if Trump just declared victory?

00:55:39.640 We got rid of the Ayatollah. 1.00

00:55:41.100 We killed 40 of the top people, you know, pushing for nuclear weapons in Iran. 0.59

00:55:46.860 We gave the Iranian people at least a shot. 1.00

00:55:48.960 If Israel or somebody else wants to do boots on the ground at this point or help them out

00:55:53.060 or give them guns, meaning the citizenry.

00:55:56.100 Great.

00:55:56.580 We're out.

00:55:57.160 We did our part.

00:55:57.940 I mean, how can the United States cut its losses at this point?

00:56:02.120 Yeah, I think they should be looking for a for an exit path today.

00:56:05.340 Bloomberg reported that in Doha, the Qataris and the Emiratis are looking to help Trump find

00:56:12.380 an off ramp out of this.

00:56:14.680 I actually think the Iranians will continue to go because in Iranian discourse now, the 1.00

00:56:21.900 belief of the regime is that that was the mistake they made at the end of the 12 day

00:56:26.240 war, where they believed they had the missile advantage over Israel and they accepted a ceasefire.

00:56:31.840 And therefore, Israel got emboldened to do its own attack. 0.52

00:56:35.620 And of course, to draw the U.S. into a second operation against Iran.

00:56:39.720 So they the Iranians may calculate that they're going to just, you know, fire everything they 1.00

00:56:44.640 have or much of what they have of these different types of missiles.

00:56:47.900 And they're now using the more advanced ones, even as interceptors, U.S. and Israeli interceptors

00:56:53.900 are becoming depleted.

00:56:55.260 They're going to fire everything they have so that they basically to try to ensure that

00:57:00.940 there's not a future attack like this again.

00:57:04.620 So, again, there has to be hopefully an exit path, you know.

00:57:10.540 And it raises the question of would Israel keep going if the U.S. pulls out?

00:57:13.880 I don't think so.

00:57:14.780 I think so much of the Israelis freedom of action depends on their sense that the Americans

00:57:21.000 will back them.

00:57:22.500 So, look, if I were to be asked what the end game of this war is, I think it will be a 0.83

00:57:29.020 kind of a muddle where we definitely bruise the Iranians and the Iranians will also be 1.00

00:57:35.080 able to claim that they definitely held their own and everyone claims a, quote unquote, victory.

00:57:41.060 I hope, I really pray that what Secretary Hegseth and President Trump said about putting troops

00:57:49.560 on the ground potentially, quote unquote, if necessary, does not pan out.

00:57:53.500 By the way, to really do regime change, that's what it would be required is to put troops on

00:57:58.260 the ground to kind of secure the country.

00:58:00.540 That's what all the military experts say.

00:58:01.760 Well, that's just a that's just a crazy thing to do, not not just, you know, in terms of

00:58:06.580 the for the strategic and military reasons we've been discussing so far, but just politically

00:58:11.120 speaking.

00:58:11.760 I mean, is the Republican Party politically suicidal to do something like that already?

00:58:17.900 The Reuters Ipsos poll found that only one in four Americans supports this this operation

00:58:23.700 that is only going to get worse with boots on the ground.

00:58:26.960 Like, why?

00:58:28.300 And especially because, you know, voters, including myself, would have a just cause to

00:58:32.640 say, hey, we thought we were voting for, quote, the peace ticket.

00:58:36.640 We thought we were voting for the kind of new, more restrained Republican Party, not the one

00:58:43.680 that puts us on a time travel machine back to 2003, including with 2003 style rhetoric about

00:58:51.720 freedom, freedom in the Middle East.

00:58:54.080 Oh, give me a break. 0.60

00:58:55.720 Didn't we try all this?

00:58:56.720 The only way they make those polls go up, because we saw a difference this morning between

00:58:59.940 a couple of polls in terms of the American people's support for what we're doing, the

00:59:04.420 way they got a higher rating in the one poll in support of this was to say, do you support

00:59:09.920 taking out the Iranian nukes with U.S. military power?

00:59:14.220 And then you'll get a majority of Americans saying, yeah, actually, I do want that.

00:59:17.600 Nobody wants Iran to have a nuke.

00:59:19.280 But but that actually hasn't been President Trump's main message because he told us seven months

00:59:24.780 ago, he obliterated them already.

00:59:27.280 He's been reduced to arguing about what their ambitions are.

00:59:30.620 And he didn't like the way they were negotiating at the table, which that whole negotiation to me.

00:59:35.760 So, Rob, you tell me.

00:59:36.460 But it seemed pretextual.

00:59:37.760 Like our demands were so extracting on the Iranians. 0.99

00:59:41.940 It seemed like we knew there was no way they were going to give us the promises we were

00:59:46.120 demanding.

00:59:47.100 And it seems like we had already decided with Israel, we were moving military assets to the

00:59:51.820 region as we were having the negotiations that unless they just completely went belly

00:59:56.240 up, we were going to do this.

00:59:58.700 So I don't know.

01:00:00.280 I mean, I just feel like we we made our decision a while ago about what we were going to do.

01:00:04.680 And so now what is going to happen if President Trump does spend the next month there with

01:00:09.380 troops on the ground, possibly with air power?

01:00:13.300 Now what?

01:00:14.340 I mean, is there any chance?

01:00:15.820 We do get rid of enough of the regime that somehow the Iranian people get the Iran of 1978 0.99

01:00:24.620 delivered back to them with the women without the hijabs and like girls prancing in the streets 1.00

01:00:30.920 and like normal clothing and going to schools and, you know, feeling free and looking Western

01:00:35.300 and a country that isn't like a hotbed of hatred toward America and terrorist acts in the Middle East.

01:00:41.920 Well, I mean, I should say the Iranian women have stopped in core urban areas. 1.00

01:00:47.640 They've stopped wearing the hijab ever since the 2022 uprising. 0.96

01:00:51.760 And that's a credit to their courage by basically defying the regime for so long that in certain

01:00:56.420 places, the regime feels like it can't enforce the hijab norms.

01:00:59.280 In other places, they're so devout that they still wear the hijab no matter what.

01:01:02.900 But to your larger question, I think what we're looking at certainly the where the trends are

01:01:10.960 heading and I think where a lot of Israeli strategies strategists would prefer is a kind

01:01:15.560 of Syrianization of Iran, where, you know, you have maybe a government that can only control

01:01:22.540 the capital in certain outskirts of the capital.

01:01:25.220 Then you maybe have ethnic strife to the northwest and, you know, to the south and to the west where

01:01:32.060 the Kurds, the Azaris and the Arabs and Baluchis are.

01:01:35.760 Then you have, you know, potentially remnants of the regime, right?

01:01:40.800 Not all of them are going to give up.

01:01:42.140 Some of them are going to form the like the Shiite liberation front, whatever they're going

01:01:46.080 to call it, the party of God.

01:01:48.060 And they're going to try to menace the new newly established government that can only govern

01:01:53.460 like around Tehran, the capital.

01:01:55.200 So something like a combination of Iraq and Afghanistan, right, where the old Afghan government

01:02:01.480 that we held up for to try to uphold for about 20 years could only control Kabul and its 1.00

01:02:06.560 environment.

01:02:07.280 So something similar.

01:02:08.480 But all of that, even that assumes a degree of of heavy degree of U.S.

01:02:14.080 investment in reconstruction, security, et cetera, to try to to hold that outcome up.

01:02:20.720 If you really want a fully unified Iran to hold together, then you do need those like hundreds 1.00

01:02:25.900 of thousands of U.S. troops to like build a new country.

01:02:29.340 But I was pretty sure I didn't, you know, vote for nation building.

01:02:33.680 They might call it something else.

01:02:35.120 If we do democracy building in Iran, I mean, there's going to be a full revolt here in the

01:02:39.820 United States.

01:02:40.620 Like you're going to get massive amounts of registered Republicans not voting.

01:02:45.340 I don't I don't know that they're going to run to vote Democrat, but they're not going

01:02:48.020 to vote because like that building democracy.

01:02:51.080 If we if we've learned anything, anything from the past 20 years, we should have learned that

01:02:55.420 we can't do that.

01:02:56.580 And I realize Iran is not the same as Iraq.

01:02:58.620 Everybody keeps lecturing us on how it's not.

01:03:00.180 And I realize that's true.

01:03:01.520 There is there is a desire for democratic rule, some form of it in Iran that didn't exist

01:03:06.920 in Iraq.

01:03:07.760 But I mean, is is it large enough, Saurabh, that we actually have a shot of going over

01:03:12.320 there and getting people, you know, to have the democratic elections and to live free like

01:03:17.400 a constitutional republic like, you know, is there a better shot at that than there was

01:03:22.260 in Iraq?

01:03:22.640 There is there is a secular population.

01:03:28.060 I'm not sure they're small d Democrats.

01:03:29.740 I think from what I've learned about studying Iranian political history and political culture

01:03:35.980 is that fundamentally, it's an authoritarian culture.

01:03:40.680 I'll be on.

01:03:41.160 People will say that that's an unpopular thing to say on my part or I'm being, you know, not

01:03:45.920 all you can't just say that about a whole culture.

01:03:48.280 But everything I've learned about Iranian political history tells me that Iran, in order 0.71

01:03:53.080 to keep together, requires a strong central authority embodied in a in a kind of a person,

01:04:00.920 a visible principle of unity, like a living, breathing principle of unity.

01:04:05.080 For most of its history, 2500 years, 3000 years, that's been a shot or a king.

01:04:11.560 The Islamic Republic essentially was is in part a monarchy, except instead of a king, it

01:04:18.640 has a instead of someone who has a who wears a crown, it's someone who wears a turban.

01:04:23.440 And so, I mean, I think so that's the if you want to keep it together as a cohesive state.

01:04:31.360 And then the question falls back to who do you whom do we have who could serve that role?

01:04:37.120 Who's not part of the Islamic Republic?

01:04:40.100 If if the if the vision is really total regime change and I, you know, I can't think of someone.

01:04:45.320 Maybe there was one the president had in mind, but we killed him.

01:04:49.400 Right.

01:04:49.960 That's what he keeps saying.

01:04:51.300 So, thank you.

01:04:52.100 Thanks for all you've written on this and for coming on.

01:04:54.300 I'm sure we'll be talking to you again soon in the coming days.

01:04:57.220 OK, up next are pals from National Review who feel very differently about this whole thing

01:05:01.620 and they're rational, smart, America loving guys.

01:05:05.480 So we want to get their perspective as well.

01:05:06.920 That's next.

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01:06:23.700 Hey everyone, it's me, Megan Kelly.

01:06:28.320 I've got some exciting news.

01:06:30.560 I now have my very own channel on Sirius XM.

01:06:33.680 It's called the Megan Kelly channel and it is where you will hear the truth unfiltered with no agenda and no apologies.

01:06:39.820 Along with the Megan Kelly show, you're going to hear from people like Mark Halperin,

01:06:43.200 Link Lauren, Maureen Callahan, Emily Jashinsky, Jesse Kelly, Real Clear Politics and many more.

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01:07:00.100 Our objective is to defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime.

01:07:08.680 For 47 years, the Iranian regime has chanted death to America and waged an unending campaign of bloodshed and mass murder, 1.00

01:07:20.340 targeting the United States, our troops and the innocent people in many, many countries.

01:07:25.600 It's been mass terror and we're not going to put up with it any longer.

01:07:30.360 Iran is the world's number one state sponsor of terror and just recently killed tens of thousands of its own citizens on the street as they protested.

01:07:42.520 It has always been the policy of the United States, in particular, my administration,

01:07:48.600 that this terrorist regime can never have a nuclear weapon.

01:07:53.320 I'll say it again.

01:07:54.560 They can never have a nuclear weapon.

01:07:57.840 They've rejected every opportunity to renounce their nuclear ambitions and we can't take it anymore.

01:08:06.240 They're going to destroy their missiles and raise their missile industry to the ground.

01:08:11.640 It will be totally, again, obliterated.

01:08:15.620 Part of the messaging that we woke up to on Saturday morning after U.S. forces had invaded Iraq by air and taken out the Ayatollah among some 40 other regime leaders,

01:08:29.320 in addition to reportedly somewhere around 200 dead, some portion of those civilian, though we're not sure exactly what the numbers are.

01:08:36.860 We've also lost four American service personnel so far, and President Trump saying expect more in the process of this war.

01:08:48.260 He used the term war that we've launched.

01:08:50.360 Welcome back to The Megyn Kelly Show.

01:08:52.240 Videos are flooding social media from all over the world of celebrations, right?

01:08:56.760 So I've made my own position clear, but there's no denying that the vast majority of Iranians are thrilled that this terrible, terrible man, 1.00

01:09:06.640 the brutal supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is dead.

01:09:10.800 Many of them are coming from inside Iran, where this guy's iron-fisted rule is no more, but not just from inside Iran.

01:09:19.240 There is this one, there's an ex-user, Vahid Online, who captured this video of Iranians tearing down a statue of the Ayatollah in southern Iran.

01:09:28.020 The user writing, am I dreaming?

01:09:30.700 Hello, new world.

01:09:31.680 Watch.

01:09:37.760 Statue falls.

01:09:41.280 Fires are burning.

01:09:43.760 Jubilant, mostly young men celebrating in this particular video.

01:09:49.240 Either that or someone caught on fire.

01:09:58.020 I mean, the scream, it doesn't sound like a scream of jubilance, but we understand from the context that it is.

01:10:05.760 Women specifically have been at the forefront of a lot of these celebrations, defying decades of enforced hijab laws. 0.99

01:10:12.180 We just discussed that with Saurabh, like this crowd dancing without the headdress to music in the streets of Karaj near Tehran.

01:10:20.960 There was extraordinary video out of London showing what we presume are Iranian expats dancing in the streets next to Israeli expats living there.

01:10:49.180 So that was quite a sight.

01:10:51.100 Here, domestically, we saw Iranian Americans take to the streets across the nation in large cities to celebrate the fall of the Ayatollah and the chants at something better for many of their family members who are still there.

01:11:02.760 We have friends who are among those cheering this for that very reason.

01:11:06.180 Had to leave Iran because of the brutal regime, but not all the family members did.

01:11:09.860 And therefore, they haven't been able to see their family members.

01:11:12.900 You know, their kids haven't been able to see their grandparents and so on.

01:11:16.220 And now there's the possibility that things are changing.

01:11:20.780 As I said at the top of the first hour, there's really no disputing that this does provide good news to the Iranians.

01:11:28.280 I mean, the death of the Ayatollah seems like it's good news for the Iranians, no matter how you look at it. 1.00

01:11:33.140 But it's the question of whether it's it's what's going to happen next and putting American troops on the line in this way will long term be good for America.

01:11:42.820 And that's where we bring in Rich Lowry, editor in chief of National Review and Charles C.W. Cook, senior writer for National Review and host of the Charles C.W. Cook podcast.

01:11:50.880 You can find all of their work by becoming an NR plus subscriber, which you should absolutely do because you'll be smarter and you will thank me.

01:11:58.780 Guys, welcome back.

01:11:59.900 All right, Rich, take us down the neocon route and make make the case for why this was the right move. 0.88

01:12:07.140 Yeah, so I'm not going to play labels with you, but I've never considered myself a neocon.

01:12:10.920 That said, I'm supportive of what I actually don't consider a neocon either.

01:12:14.820 I think like National Review has neocons at it.

01:12:18.760 That's true.

01:12:19.360 But I agree.

01:12:20.980 I've never put you or Charles in that in that.

01:12:23.720 So that aside, I'm supportive of what President Trump's trying to do here.

01:12:27.300 This regime has been at war with the United States for nearly 50 years, has blood on their hands up to their elbows.

01:12:33.560 And the rule, unwritten rule has been they get to hit us and we don't get to hit them back directly.

01:12:39.640 Trump made it clear he's not going to accept that rule last year with the June raid and now has made it even clearer.

01:12:44.680 So I think it'd be a very good thing and I think this will happen if we flatten their nuclear capabilities or missile capabilities and significantly diminish their military.

01:12:53.900 And it'd be a good thing if you get a more reasonable or a different government.

01:12:59.080 Now, I say all that with misgivings and criticisms, some of which overlap with what Saurabh was saying.

01:13:05.940 One, it's kind of crazy that there was basically no public – sustained public case for this in advance of this major military operation.

01:13:13.860 He got the State of the Union address last week where this was an afterthought.

01:13:16.880 It came in maybe the 95th or 100th minute and I think even if he technically has legal authority, he should have gone to Congress to get an authorization, one.

01:13:25.120 Two, obviously, it's extremely difficult to do regime change from the air.

01:13:30.000 And even if you do affect regime change, you have no idea and very little control over what's going to come next.

01:13:34.900 Now, I think it's likely – you can imagine some scenarios where what comes next would be worse for us, but hard to imagine, hard to imagine.

01:13:43.100 And there's some chance he'll get a more reasonable posture from the regime out of this.

01:13:47.140 He'll get a Dulce Rodriguez-type candidate even though he said we've maybe killed some of those in the initial days or a popular revolution.

01:13:55.200 But you don't know what it's going to be.

01:13:57.000 I mean there's total guesswork behind what's behind door number three here.

01:14:01.980 And then finally the rhetoric, and we heard it in the clip you played from him at the top there, 95 percent of which I agree with from President Trump.

01:14:10.000 But the idea there was any imminent threat from Iran or some breakout that was going to happen in days or weeks such that we had to do this now is preposterous.

01:14:18.120 It's obviously a target of opportunity.

01:14:19.900 It's not true.

01:14:20.320 It drew his attention first when he had the revolt and tens of thousands of people gunned down in the streets.

01:14:26.380 And then given what's happened over the last year or two, basically held harmless against air attacks.

01:14:31.540 So it was a target of opportunity.

01:14:33.840 I understand why he's doing it.

01:14:34.980 I hope it succeeds, but I'm not – there are problems I have with this as well.

01:14:40.000 Charles, how do you feel about it?

01:14:44.040 Well, I'm agnostic.

01:14:46.240 I hope it works out.

01:14:49.560 I'm not against it.

01:14:51.460 I'm not a cheerleader for it.

01:14:53.960 I think that this should have gone through Congress, and I think it should for a couple of reasons.

01:14:59.040 First, I believe that that's how the Constitution expects us to proceed.

01:15:03.900 But also, I think it's good for us as a polity to have the argument.

01:15:10.800 I know a good number of people who live around me, some on my street, who came out on Saturday morning and said to me,

01:15:17.380 oh, you follow politics.

01:15:18.540 What's this thing in Iran?

01:15:19.660 And that seems a very strange setup for an incursion of this importance.

01:15:29.180 The objectives of this seem to be all over the place.

01:15:34.520 Trump has said over and over again a whole bunch of different things.

01:15:38.940 He's been quite prolix on the phone with various journalists, but each time he's changed the reasoning.

01:15:47.000 Now, all of those reasonings are good, right?

01:15:50.260 They are that the Iranian theocracy is a dictatorship.

01:15:54.700 It is.

01:15:55.120 That Iran is effectively at war with the United States and has targeted us for 45 years and killed our people and paid other people to kill our people. 0.93

01:16:04.860 It has.

01:16:06.220 And that Iran is trying to destabilize the Middle East, including what it wants to do, ultimately, which is nuke Israel. 0.91

01:16:14.240 That's also true.

01:16:15.780 But it would be good, I think, if we had one coherent message as to what it is that we're doing here.

01:16:22.460 So I worry, first off, that we don't.

01:16:25.220 And I worry that the public hasn't been prepared for this, which is going to lead to and, in fact, already has led to deaths.

01:16:33.820 But that doesn't mean that I'm against it.

01:16:36.940 I don't know is the honest answer.

01:16:39.480 I don't know how this is going to end.

01:16:41.600 I mean, I don't know how this is going to end.

01:16:43.140 And I really would have liked a sustained debate in Congress or otherwise so that I could have heard lots of different people making the case as to whether it was a good or bad idea, what the risks were, what the risks of not going in were.

01:16:56.500 The one thing I am sure about, and on this, Rich, and I absolutely agree, is that the notion that this was a defensive act is ridiculous.

01:17:04.620 Again, that doesn't mean I'm against it.

01:17:06.300 But this was not defensive.

01:17:07.640 It was not timely.

01:17:09.000 The president was not in the same sort of circumstances he would find himself in if, say, the United States were invaded.

01:17:15.060 This is a choice.

01:17:16.420 This was a change in American policy in the region.

01:17:19.640 It wasn't that we suddenly had to act.

01:17:22.280 Funnily enough, the last two times you could make that case.

01:17:25.000 You could say Iran is too close to getting a nuclear weapon for our liking.

01:17:29.320 We are going to act.

01:17:30.300 We did.

01:17:30.660 And you could say the Iranians are gunning down the people of Iran in the street, and we're going to go in on a humanitarian basis right now.

01:17:39.600 But this time, this is different.

01:17:42.000 And I just don't like the sleight of hand, even if I'm open to being persuaded that the action is necessary.

01:17:47.940 You know, Rich, this morning, Brit Hume was tweeting about imminent threat, saying, why should we wait for an imminent threat?

01:17:56.160 If we waited for it to be truly imminent in Iran when it comes to a nuclear weapon or ballistic missiles that could hit the United States, we'd be criticizing the Trump administration for not doing something earlier.

01:18:09.820 I think the reason we're debating it is because Trump said there was an imminent threat, and that's the reason we did it.

01:18:16.840 And then all this reporting immediately came out saying, no, there wasn't.

01:18:20.420 And Trump's own officials had briefed Congress on Sunday saying there wasn't one.

01:18:25.320 So it's like the president created that own, you know, his own messaging problem there by offering that as a rationale.

01:18:30.720 But putting to the side the fact that, you know, the president probably shouldn't have said that, what about Brit's point of why would we wait until it was an imminent threat before we took action?

01:18:44.320 Yeah, I agree with that.

01:18:45.240 I think that's a sound point.

01:18:46.800 But I don't think you need an imminent threat in order to do this.

01:18:50.020 In fact, you want to do it before it's imminent.

01:18:52.400 You want to do it when their air defenses are down.

01:18:54.420 You want to do it when the regime is weak.

01:18:56.460 So there are all sorts of reasons you do it now.

01:18:58.400 But it is just a target of opportunity.

01:19:00.160 It's not driven by imminence.

01:19:02.360 So don't say it's driven by imminence.

01:19:04.040 But every U.S. government, this is where they go.

01:19:07.460 They go two things, two places naturally.

01:19:10.840 One is the war for freedom.

01:19:12.300 One, it's an imminent threat, right?

01:19:14.460 And here on the regime change part of it, I think there's still ambiguity about what he's really going to settle for.

01:19:22.620 As Charlie says, he said different things in different interviews, which suggests his state of mind is up for grabs about this as well.

01:19:29.700 And they certainly it is a war for regime change at the moment.

01:19:32.380 But that doesn't mean that Trump, would you be shocked if two days from now he says we've destroyed all their nuclear capabilities or missile capabilities?

01:19:38.940 They have no Navy anymore.

01:19:39.920 And I gave the Iranian people a chance and hopefully they'll take advantage of it.

01:19:44.620 But we're stopping.

01:19:45.620 I wouldn't be totally shocked by that.

01:19:47.320 No, no.

01:19:48.440 I'm really hoping that's what he does.

01:19:49.780 Yeah.

01:19:50.020 So so we'll we'll we'll see.

01:19:52.300 I think it's very much an open question.

01:19:53.940 But I just remember, Megan, being in Iraq in 07 and 08 as as a journalist.

01:19:58.420 And we had 150 guys on the ground and we have a president, this guy named Al Maliki.

01:20:04.400 Now, there's a Democratic element because we we actually had elections in Iraq, but we didn't have control over him.

01:20:09.880 And in fact, we knew he was a bad guy.

01:20:11.900 He knew he was a tool of Iran. 1.00

01:20:13.380 And with 150 guys on the ground, we couldn't change that or we couldn't control them.

01:20:18.520 So, again, this is opening up door three without knowing what's behind it.

01:20:22.820 I'm I'm inclined to do that because I think this regime is so terrible.

01:20:25.900 You know, you can imagine awful outcomes.

01:20:28.780 Civil war, you know, would be terrible for the Iranian people.

01:20:31.680 Not sure it's actually worse for us.

01:20:33.440 But I think this regime, anti-Americanism in its DNA, arguably the most anti-American regime on the planet, again, with blood on its hands throughout decades since the inception of the regime.

01:20:47.020 So I'm willing to see what's behind that door.

01:20:50.200 But again, I'm not confident of the outcome or whether we'll be able to do it.

01:20:55.200 I mean, Rich, this is funny because I told the audience this in the first hour that Doug and I, my husband and I, are disagreeing on this one.

01:21:00.840 Friendly, loving disagreement.

01:21:01.900 But he's very much in favor of what Trump is doing and I'm not.

01:21:05.820 And the point Doug made, and it was a fair point, was Trump's not starting a war.

01:21:12.680 They've been at war with us.

01:21:13.960 But he's just the first president who's willing to acknowledge it and engage.

01:21:18.980 Yeah, that I agree with Doug.

01:21:20.700 Can we get Doug on?

01:21:21.720 I get a little more support here.

01:21:25.220 I think that's definitely true.

01:21:26.400 But can you expand on that?

01:21:27.240 Because, I mean, of course, as a news anchor, I have been covering all these years the number of times that Iran does attack American properties or troops stationed here, there, elsewhere, or through its proxies.

01:21:38.940 He's constantly, like, I don't mean to minimize it, but just like a junkyard dog in a car lot, biting us constantly, hurting us constantly, constantly.

01:21:51.240 So it never blows up into a full, like, they take us out or they do a massive attack on the homeland.

01:21:56.560 But he is responsible for the death of, Trump said thousands of Americans.

01:22:00.760 I don't know what the number would be, but certainly in Iraq, Iran caused a lot of American servicemen and women to die. 0.80

01:22:07.120 Yeah, 603 is the technical number.

01:22:09.640 I don't know how they arrive at that.

01:22:10.920 But I think Trump also, on this question, is this consistent with Trump and his philosophy?

01:22:15.800 People who expected him to be an isolationist were wrong.

01:22:18.940 There are neocons who thought he was an isolationist.

01:22:20.780 They were wrong.

01:22:21.180 There are people on Trump's own side who thought he was an isolationist.

01:22:23.660 They're wrong.

01:22:24.160 As we've seen over the last year or so, the reflex is towards action.

01:22:29.700 And I think the major theme in the second term is there are a whole bunch of things he kind of thought about or wanted to do the first term, whether it's, you know, can I fire a bunch of federal workers in kneecap federal departments and agencies that I don't like?

01:22:41.360 No, sir, you can't do that.

01:22:42.480 Can I prosecute my political enemies?

01:22:44.020 No, sir, you better not do that. 1.00

01:22:46.180 Can I kill drug runners in the Caribbean? 1.00

01:22:48.600 No, sir, you can't do it. 1.00

01:22:49.820 And this may have been something he thought about as well.

01:22:51.740 Certainly he's been consistent, very consistent.

01:22:53.600 They can't have a weapon.

01:22:54.940 And going back to 1980, he's saying, let's just take him out.

01:22:58.400 This regime is terrible.

01:23:00.140 So I think this is one of those things where he's figured out.

01:23:01.560 There's a soundbite making its way on the Internet right now of Trump back in 1980 saying, why would we let them have our hostages for 444 days?

01:23:08.080 It's inexcusable.

01:23:08.860 Keep going.

01:23:09.100 So I was just going to say this is just one of those things where he's figured out, you know what?

01:23:12.000 I can do it.

01:23:13.020 No one's going to stop me.

01:23:14.300 Now, that doesn't mean, you know, that's not the affirmative case on the merits for doing it.

01:23:17.720 But that's just explaining his his mindset here, I think.

01:23:21.780 Or part of it.

01:23:22.240 He told Jake Tapper, Charlie, that we haven't even started hitting them hard.

01:23:30.720 The big wave hasn't even happened.

01:23:33.200 The big one is coming soon.

01:23:35.420 Today, Tapper reported that on somebody else's show on CNN saying he'll have full coverage during his show.

01:23:40.780 So the big one is coming soon.

01:23:43.080 The big wave hasn't even happened yet.

01:23:45.680 I mean, how much more of this do you think the American people will sit back and quietly allow without congressional approval, without a full fledged press conference by the president where people get to pepper him with questions?

01:23:57.720 Just a few got asked with Pete Hegseth and Raisin Cain this morning.

01:24:02.540 But that's a lot to expect for people to just sit back and have their Wheaties over without really getting to inquire much.

01:24:09.080 I think it depends on how successful it is.

01:24:12.820 Unfortunately, I think that is the standard.

01:24:15.400 I have my own rules that I believe are granted in the Constitution.

01:24:19.180 I don't think most people are committed to or attached to those.

01:24:23.640 It's an abstract principle when it comes to war.

01:24:25.780 I think Trump does have a couple of things on his side.

01:24:28.640 Having criticized him, I'll make a couple of devil's advocate defenses of him.

01:24:33.880 The first is he tonally did make it seem as if he would not do this.

01:24:41.480 Clearly, if you were half listening to Trump during the campaigns, both of them, you would have thought that he would not get involved in the Middle East proactively like this.

01:24:53.020 But the big criticism that he has had and that many of those who were attracted to Trump have had was of full scale ground wars where we sent hundreds of thousands of troops to a country.

01:25:08.760 We invaded.

01:25:09.800 We put them on the ground there and we left them there for a long time to keep the peace or advance other objectives.

01:25:16.580 In Trump's defense, he hasn't done that.

01:25:18.760 This is a very different way of engaging in the world.

01:25:23.120 We also saw it in Venezuela where he got in with these very quick, very sophisticated, very successful attacks and he achieved a goal.

01:25:33.960 So I think some of the cavilling I've heard that, oh, it's the same old.

01:25:38.060 I think that isn't quite right.

01:25:39.460 Second, I keep seeing people quoting the campaign from 2024 and saying that if Kamala Harris is elected, your sons will be drafted and then say, aha.

01:25:51.400 Now, I think that was a hyperbole.

01:25:53.060 I don't think that would have happened either.

01:25:54.520 But no one's been drafted here.

01:25:56.300 We ought to be accurate.

01:25:58.460 No one's being drafted here.

01:25:59.740 No one's been drafted in America since the 1970s.

01:26:02.500 So the big question, to answer your question, I think Trump's going to have to answer, is how many dead Americans is the public going to put up without a debate, without press conferences, without congressional involvement?

01:26:14.720 And we're already at, is it four?

01:26:17.720 That's a lot of people relative to the norm.

01:26:21.880 It's not a lot of people relative to World War II.

01:26:23.820 But you don't normally hear about American soldiers being killed, and that's going to quite rightly be a focal point for the media.

01:26:33.240 So I think if that's it, and we spend another week and get a whole bunch of other things done, maybe people will be happy with it.

01:26:41.360 But if it's four tomorrow as well, and then four on Friday and four on Saturday, I do think at that point the administration is going to have to re-evaluate.

01:26:51.820 And to finish, I would note that Trump is not doing, in my view, the proactive work that he needs to do to persuade people who aren't sure whether they approve of this or not.

01:27:03.100 And I say that as someone who is one of those people.

01:27:06.120 I just don't think it's good enough.

01:27:07.800 I don't think you can have a press conference in the early hours of the morning on a day where people who are unprepared for it wake up to learn that we are, in his words, at war, and then have him disappear.

01:27:19.460 And the next thing we hear is that four people are dead.

01:27:23.460 He can win this if he does it really well.

01:27:25.820 But it's not just going to happen, because that vacuum is going to be filled by Democrats and critics who are going to hammer him and hammer him and hammer him.

01:27:33.760 And if Trump's this great communicator, we're always told that he is, then he should remember that and convey his position here.

01:27:39.500 Because if he doesn't, I think he's going to be underwater on it, even if it's the right thing to do.

01:27:43.840 I mean, I'm not sure he actually can do it in a way that's really going to persuade.

01:27:49.380 I mean, obviously, the Warhawks, especially on the right, are going to accept kind of anything he says, because they're just looking for a fig leaf.

01:27:55.380 They wanted this for a long time.

01:27:56.460 So it doesn't matter what he what rationale he puts behind it.

01:27:59.500 But, you know, today, The Washington Post is reporting that it was really Israel and the Saudis who were who were leaning on Trump to do this because the Saudis hate Iran.

01:28:09.980 It's their Sunni, Iran's Shiite. They don't get along. They never have. 1.00

01:28:14.660 Publicly, the Saudis are like, no, no, we oppose this. It's wrong. 1.00

01:28:18.000 You can't use Saudi Arabia for anything connected with this.

01:28:21.040 But behind the scenes, they were reportedly not only in favor of it, but pushing for it.

01:28:24.600 And there's been nobody pushing for it more than Bibi Netanyahu.

01:28:27.580 That's obvious. That's why he's been at the White House seven times this year.

01:28:30.780 And The Washington Post reporting that the attack came despite U.S. intelligence assessments that Iran's forces were unlikely to pose an immediate threat to U.S. mainland within the next decade.

01:28:41.800 Reuters and CNN matching that reporting and WAPO going on to say that in the briefing for the Gang of Eight, Secretary Rubio told lawmakers that the attack.

01:28:53.220 Hold on a second. I lost my missions, timing and goals were shaped by the fact that Israel was going to attack with or without us. 0.61

01:29:01.540 So they were going to go in and and the United States understood that as soon as they did it, we were going to get the retaliation because we're viewed as the big devil and they're viewed as the little devil by Iran.

01:29:12.940 And I guess Trump would rather be sort of in on the offensive move there, Rich.

01:29:17.940 But, you know, he can't go out to the American people and say, I did it for Israel.

01:29:23.460 I did it because I wanted to have Bibi's back because he was doing it and we were going to get dragged in one way or another.

01:29:29.400 He definitely does not want to say that. And he hasn't even mentioned Israel.

01:29:33.140 Instead, he just throws the kitchen sink at us, which then we accurately perceive as not true because kitchen sink rationales never fly.

01:29:41.900 Yeah, I think Trump's very much senior partner here.

01:29:46.040 And if you want to tell Bibi, no, you just don't know.

01:29:48.980 You know, he did it towards the end of the 12 day war when Israel was reportedly ready to launch a strike.

01:29:54.260 Like not not apparently directed at the Ayatollah, some people thought, but at a high level officials.

01:29:58.840 And Trump said, no, we've had enough. So I think Trump's very much senior partner here.

01:30:03.260 He's ultimately driving the car. And I think a key insight they had going back to the first term was actually kind of the the the old conventional wisdom.

01:30:12.000 You can't be pro-Israel because all the Arabs are going to hate you and you're going to alienate all your Arab allies. 1.00

01:30:17.500 It's totally wrong. It's all they all hate Iran, no matter what they say publicly.

01:30:22.800 And the Saudis are saying we're neutral. We don't want this to happen.

01:30:26.060 Can't we talk or behind the scenes saying go?

01:30:28.900 You know, this is the main threat to the to the region.

01:30:31.360 And that's why you have this unprecedented military cooperation between the U.S. and Israel and actually the Gulf states joining in.

01:30:38.700 What do you what do you make of the possibility, Rich, that this I don't know if it's the main goal, but a secondary bonus is to help cripple China when it comes to Iranian oil?

01:30:55.000 Already we took out kind of took control of Venezuela's oil and that this is some sort of long game play to weaken the Chinese. 0.98

01:31:04.140 I think there's a little to that. I think that's a it is a strategic benefit if everything goes right here.

01:31:11.380 But I think this is mainly about Iran. I think Trump hates this regime, hates what they've done to Americans, considers it a threat and considers it totally intolerable that they could pursue and get a nuclear weapon.

01:31:22.200 And it's come to the conclusion it's not this regime, at least under conditions as of four or five days ago, was never going to give up its nuclear ambitions.

01:31:30.320 So this is what what you had to do. You've got to flatten it all and hopefully get a new regime or a more reasonable regime.

01:31:37.080 I think everything else is a side issue.

01:31:38.560 What do you make of the fact that neither Russia nor the Chinese stepped in to help Iran?

01:31:42.960 Do you find that interesting, Rich? Like the new axis of evil, you know, like they're all together and they're having the meetings and now there's this new coalition.

01:31:51.100 And it seems to me both China and Russia are like, see ya, you're on your own.

01:31:54.400 Yeah, good luck. You know, I hope your meetings go well. You know, your daylight meetings go well.

01:31:59.280 I do think this is, again, this is all side benefit stuff, but just the proficiency we have demonstrated militarily, the Venezuelan raid, and then this.

01:32:08.600 If you look at one of our main adversaries, and China's the main one, but Russia's up there. 0.90

01:32:13.100 They tried to do this four years ago in Kyiv.

01:32:15.780 They sent in the special forces in a raid that was supposed to decapitate the government and send in a long column of armor that's supposed to just march into Kyiv, you know, and it'll be done in a week.

01:32:25.400 The way maybe it will be done in Iran, it was a total debacle.

01:32:29.840 So I do think it's a useful message that no one else on the planet has these sort of capabilities.

01:32:35.480 Okay, but here we are in day two, you know, I guess Saturday's one, Sunday's two, or day three of this thing.

01:32:44.560 And now you had Trump, just as we came to air, saying, I don't have the yips when it comes to boots on the ground.

01:32:49.880 I'm actually kind of good with that.

01:32:51.200 And I think, to your point, Rich, he's talking about limited.

01:32:55.480 I believe, Trump, that he has zero desire to get us into the long, quagmire, 20-year situation.

01:33:01.100 I don't believe the president would ever allow that.

01:33:02.860 But the problem is unforeseen consequences.

01:33:05.520 Like, that presumes we're going to be like, we're sending in troops, including on the ground, and then we'll decide when it's over and we leave.

01:33:12.980 But we just don't know whether that's going to be possible.

01:33:16.220 How hard can Iran fight? 0.94

01:33:18.120 They're fighting very hard right now.

01:33:19.420 They did not just roll over, and reportedly that's contrary to what was expected by us.

01:33:23.620 What if, God forbid, Russia or China did get involved?

01:33:26.720 I don't think they will.

01:33:27.440 But, like, yeah, I'm just saying you just, you don't know where it's going to go.

01:33:30.840 And that's how you wind up with 20-year wars.

01:33:33.500 Here was Pete Hegseth on the topic of boots on the ground just this morning, Saten.

01:33:39.760 Secretary Hegseth, I have two questions for you.

01:33:42.280 First, are there currently any American boots on the ground in Iran?

01:33:46.140 No, but we're not going to go into the exercise of what we will or will not do.

01:33:52.920 I think it's one of those fallacies for a long time that this department or presidents or others should tell the American people, and our enemies, by the way, here's exactly what we'll do.

01:34:01.940 Here's exactly how long we'll go.

01:34:04.420 Here's exactly how far we'll go.

01:34:06.340 Here's what we're willing to do and not do. 0.98

01:34:07.920 It's foolishness.

01:34:09.660 And so President Trump ensures that our enemies understand we'll go as far as we need to go to advanced American interests. 0.97

01:34:16.440 But we're not dumb about it.

01:34:17.820 You don't have to roll 200,000 people in there and stay for 20 years. 0.97

01:34:21.280 We've proven that you can achieve objectives that advance American interests without being foolish about it. 0.74

01:34:26.220 Now, will we be bold about it?

01:34:28.180 Are we willing to be decisive about it?

01:34:30.260 Do we put months and months of planning into what kind of effects we want to achieve?

01:34:33.980 Absolutely.

01:34:35.420 But going forward, why in the world would we tell you, you, the enemy, anybody, what we will or will not do in pursuit of an objective?

01:34:44.480 We fight to win.

01:34:46.020 We fight to achieve the objectives the President of the United States has laid out.

01:34:50.000 And we will do so unapologetically.

01:34:52.220 Thank you.

01:34:53.700 That's a good answer, Charles.

01:34:55.180 But the question is, if we actually do have to put boots on the ground because the President doesn't have the so-called yips and because we are not effectively accomplishing regime change, which he has suggested is a stated goal, then I do think American attitudes could change.

01:35:13.740 And one of the things I've been hearing from many online is they do not think this will have been worth it if it costs GOP the House in 2026, in November, or the presidency in 2028.

01:35:28.800 Your thoughts on it?

01:35:32.020 Well, the boots on the ground line, as you say, can mean anything.

01:35:38.480 It's possible they'll need to send in small groups of elite forces to do discrete things, as they did in Venezuela.

01:35:46.820 If we had 200,000 people headed to Iran, we would notice, I think. 0.97

01:35:53.740 And he's quite happy, Hegseth, to rule that one out.

01:35:57.260 So I think Trump is partly intimating that he has been told that a limited use of special forces might be necessary.

01:36:06.880 And he's partly being Donald Trump and saying, as he loves to say, that he's not scared, that he's not intimidated, that he will do anything that he wants to do.

01:36:17.040 Working out which is which with Trump is always quite difficult.

01:36:20.140 The problem with foreign policy is that it doesn't map particularly neatly onto democracy, in the sense that, by definition, a lot of what we do in our foreign policy has to be based on lies, spying, a clandestine collection of information that is not released.

01:36:45.400 Most of the impetus for this action will never, ever be seen, at least not by the midterms or by 2028.

01:36:58.000 So it's quite hard to calculate politically what the consequences will be there or what the consequences should be there. 0.97

01:37:08.380 I think it's, in a sense, either brave or stupid of Trump to do this right now. 0.99

01:37:14.300 Even George H.W. Bush waited until after the midterms. 0.99

01:37:19.000 Trump is not.

01:37:20.660 He's effectively saying, trust me.

01:37:23.680 The last thing is there will be a lot of gamesmanship here, Megan, where people, if the Republicans do lose, say, the House, which I expect them to, and expected them to two weeks ago in November, will say, ah, it's because.

01:37:37.560 And then they will insert the thing that they dislike to explain it.

01:37:42.420 So, you know, I don't like tariffs, right?

01:37:44.700 So I would say, well, it's because it's obviously because of the tariffs.

01:37:48.000 Those who oppose this will say, ah, it's obviously because of the foray into Iran.

01:37:54.260 I think it's it's a difficult balance.

01:37:57.800 But, you know, when you are the commander in chief, you really have to take the politics into account and do your best to shape those politics.

01:38:05.920 As I've said, I don't think Trump's doing a particularly good job, but not be subordinate to those politics, not be a slave to those politics.

01:38:12.740 Because there are some things you have to do when you're in office that will be unpopular or at least that will take a lot of work to make popular.

01:38:20.140 So I'm never as persuaded by the sorts of criticisms.

01:38:25.740 I know you're just passing them on from the Internet rather than making them yourself that you mentioned there, because that that that is not leadership.

01:38:36.040 And you need more leadership than than followership in foreign policy than in domestic politics, in my view.

01:38:43.940 Well, one thing you're going to get for sure is you've got some significant faction of the MAGA faithful rich that's against this.

01:38:52.540 The majority of Republicans, according to the polls so far, depending on which one you look at, may support it.

01:38:58.300 The vast majority of Democrats are against it.

01:39:00.600 The majority of independents are against it.

01:39:02.620 And but you're going to get the media, Fox News is going to cheerlead it, Newsmax and so on.

01:39:08.540 CNN and MSNBC, I don't know that they're going to know what to do because they're they tend to be pro military industrial complex, but they hate Trump.

01:39:17.260 So this is a tough this is a tough position for them.

01:39:20.340 And so far, what we've seen, let's just take The Washington Post, is a very odd tact.

01:39:27.280 Here is where here's where they went.

01:39:29.020 Ayatollah al-Khamani, Iran's supreme leader, is dead at 86.

01:39:35.340 OK, so first of all, it's just so generic, just like old man dies at 86.

01:39:38.940 With his bushy white beard and easy smile, Khamenei cuts a more avuncular figure in public than his perpetually scowling but much more revered mentor and the previous Khamenei.

01:39:59.120 And he was known to be fond of Persian poetry and classic Western novels, Rich, especially Victor Hugo's Les Miserables.

01:40:08.420 That's so sweet.

01:40:09.380 I'm so glad I'm getting to know him.

01:40:10.920 And they describe him as a closet moderate.

01:40:13.240 Listen to what they said about Charlie Kirk when he was killed.

01:40:16.500 Charlie Kirk, fiery voice in conservative politics, killed at 31, frequently generated outcry with provocative statements, commenting that he thought twice about flying on planes with black pilots because he questioned whether they had the job because of the airline's DEI goals.

01:40:33.820 Not only is that a smear of what Charlie actually said because he and I discussed it at length right after he said it, but notice a difference in tone there, Rich, and approach?

01:40:43.780 Charlie is not cuddly, but the Ayatollah sure was. 0.99

01:40:46.720 Yeah, these obituaries and disparities.

01:40:50.300 Avuncular.

01:40:50.740 Yeah, how they write about dictators and how they write about American political figures on the right who just say things they disagree with, you know, who haven't killed anyone, haven't blown up a building, apartment buildings with Americans in them or embassies with Americans. 0.95

01:41:04.080 It's so disgusting.

01:41:07.000 And the Washington Post is supposed to be getting better, you know, at this, but that obituary was stomach turning.

01:41:14.240 They've got a long, long road to go.

01:41:19.120 Listen, guys, I appreciate you coming on.

01:41:21.120 I mean, I think it's it's to your credit because I know Trump's not your favorite president, but you're defending him because you believe in what he's done here, which is one of the things I love about NR, because even if you don't like Trump, you'll say what's real in terms of the good, the bad and the ugly and well worth the subscription.

01:41:36.420 Thank you both so much.

01:41:37.700 Talk soon.

01:41:38.120 Thank you.

01:41:39.760 And thanks to all of you at home.

01:41:41.220 I'd love to get your thoughts on it.

01:41:42.640 I'd love to keep my finger on the pulse of how the audience feels.

01:41:45.300 I mean, I just think this is a difficult one.

01:41:46.840 This is tricky.

01:41:47.620 It's not quite as easy for me anyway, as the strikes Trump undertook in June.

01:41:52.500 We don't know where it's going.

01:41:53.700 And we that one was over before you knew it.

01:41:55.920 And no Americans died.

01:41:57.820 This one, we already have four Americans dead. 0.83

01:41:59.940 And I think about their families.

01:42:01.540 In any event, I end as I began.

01:42:03.480 Pray for the troops.

01:42:04.680 Pray for President Trump and his cabinet.

01:42:06.420 They need it now a lot.

01:42:07.960 We'll see you tomorrow.

01:42:09.620 Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. 0.94

01:42:11.780 No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

The Megyn Kelly Show - March 02, 2026

America Begins War With Iran - What it Means for MAGA and More, with Marjorie Taylor Greene, Rich Lowry, Charles Cooke, and Sohrab Ahmari ｜ Ep. 1263

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