Transcript
Mark Halperin (0:00)
Are you still quoting 30 year old movies? Have you said cool beans in the past 90 days? Do you think Discover isn't widely accepted? If this sounds like you, you're stuck in the past. Discover is accepted at 99% of places that take credit cards nationwide. And every time you make a purchase with your card, you automatically earn cash back. Welcome to the now it pays to Discover. Learn more@discover.com credit card based on the February 2024 Nelson Report. Foreign welcome back. I'm Mark Halperin, editor in chief of the two Way Live video platform and the host of this show. Next up here on the Megyn Kelly Network. Thank you for joining in just a little bit. We'll be joined by the great writer David Mamet, who's got a new book out. Every time the guy's interviewed, he's just gushed over by the host. So I'll do my share of gushing, but maybe not quite as gushy because guy's probably sick of it. Pleasure to have you here. I like to continue to say I'll probably say it for the first five years, we're a new show. So if you're watching or listening on YouTube or on a podcast platform, please help us out. Like subscribe, share, tell all your friends. We're grateful to have built the audience we've built so far and looking forward to more. David Mamet, as I said, will be next up. But first, let's answer the question that is dominating the world right now. Why would a man who hates war and loves negotiations, that's what he's done his whole career, why would he consider military action against Iran? This is a dilemma for Donald Trump, right? Biggest decision perhaps of his presidency that he's faced. And it's an interesting challenge because right now you've got a divide within the country. On the far left, people like David Hogg, who's been vice chairman of the dnc, saying absolutely no involvement in a conflict like this. And then you've got people in Donald Trump's own party, part of the MAGA movement, like Tucker Carlson, Marjorie Taylor Greene, saying, absolutely not, sounding a lot like David Hogg. And yet Donald Trump and his advisors recognize that this is a different kind of moment. For so many other people in the party, including people in the MAGA movement, there is a sense of an opportunity that has not existed for Donald Trump in his presidency, including his first term and for his four predecessors, all of whom and for Joe Biden, all of whom recognized that Iran is just not, it's not just a Bad actor. Iran is a special case not just because it's sponsored terrorism around the region and around the world, not just because it has ballistic missiles, but nuclear capability poised to have a nuclear weapon. And Donald Trump has been quite clear, as were his predecessors, Iran cannot be allowed to nuclear to. To get a nuclear weapon. What are the two ways people have talked about stopping it? One is a negotiation and the other is military action. And so what I want to try to do is tell you where I think Donald Trump's head has gotten, that's gotten him to this point. Why is someone who does not like war, has been outspoken and critical of President Bush, for instance, in Iraq, in saying these are not the kind of things the United States should be doing. How his, how did his head get to this place? First of all, Donald Trump shares with Benjamin Netanyahu that the clock has run out, that Iran is too close to developing a nuclear weapon. That's intelligence that some dispute. But the international agencies that monitor Iraq's capability, Israeli intelligence, they are quite clear that Iran is a danger for the world as it's on the doorstep of marrying up two technologies, ballistic missiles, including intercontinental ballistic missiles that could reach the United States and certainly reach Israel, and nuclear capability. And the other thing that has come across or that has come to a head is the Israeli intelligence, Israeli military, they've been studying the question of how to use intelligence and military capability for decades to take out Iran's nuclear program and missile program, how to execute that. And part of what Donald Trump, I believe, is, has caused him to be in this position to reach this conclusion is an awareness of what Israel has. Donald Trump has enormous respect for the Israeli intelligence community for their military capability. This is something about Donald Trump. He's in awe of anything that's best in the world. He loves great singers, he loves great athletes. Anything that's great where he can say that's as good as it exists on the planet, he loves and he's fascinated by people who can achieve that kind of excellence. He generously praises them. And you've heard him talk about in the last few days the Israeli intelligence capability, the Israeli military capability. That gives him confidence. Looking at Israel's history of accomplishment on offense and defense, it gives him confidence that he can partner with Israel and work with them to eliminate something that he has said repeatedly must be eliminated, Iran's capacity to produce a nuclear weapon in the context of, of the historical success of Israel going against its enemies in the region, its adversaries in the region. Donald Trump, one factor for him is Israel knows how to do this. He's delighted to partner with what I would argue is maybe the best side, or the best force rather, for intelligent marrying intelligence capability with a military goal. I don't think anyone literally in the history of the planet has done it better than, than the Israelis, and Donald Trump knows that. Second factor, I think, is Iran and this place they're in. They are weaker than they've ever been since they started to pose this threat to the world. Their proxies in the region have been either eliminated or seriously diminished by Israel and by others. Israel last year, in their conflict with Iran, started to degrade Iran's air abilities. And in this conflict, they've eliminated Iran's ability to control the skies over their own country. That's a big advantage. As you think about a US Military involvement, it's going to be from the air. And what the United States doesn't want to go into is to face an Iran that has the capability to fight with or shoot down American aircraft. Israel's eliminated that. That makes this much more likely. And as I said, Iran's not just a bad actor. Iran, maybe after Putin, is the worst actor on the planet, maybe more so than North Korea. If you look at their threat to Israel, if you look at how destabilizing they are in the Middle east, the threat they pose to energy prices, their capacity to threaten American interests directly, you look at all that and you say, this is an opportunity, I believe, that the President sees to eliminate what they are able to do. Then you think about the context in which all this has played out over the last several days as the President considers military action. One is the reaction from around the world. There has been condemnation of Israel by the Saudis, the Gulf states. Some in Europe have urged the restraint on the part of the Israelis. And there are some domestic voices even, even beyond isolationist maga, including the Democratic Party, that have said, you know, they don't love this. But you think about what the reaction might have been, would have been only a few years ago how the world would have reacted to an Israeli strike like this. Now Israel says it's a matter of defense, it's its existential need. But it was a preemptive attack. And, and some would say it was an overkill. And yet the reaction has been pretty muted. And, and, and there are people around the President who say they've noticed that muted reaction. They recognize that there's an openness to this. The market's the same thing. Some markets are down, and obviously people are concerned about energy prices, but you've not seen a collapse in markets. And again, if you had said in a political science course or it's a, as a war game a few years ago, what would happen to energy prices in the markets if Israel attacked Iran? You'd be predicting a worldwide recession. Panic really hasn't happened and that I think is a factor. Then I'll say again, Israel, to make this successful, to make this successful, they must eliminate Iran's nuclear capability. Leave regime change aside for a moment. The whole point of this mission is to set back the Iranian nuclear program to zero. Not degraded as they've done in the past with previous operations, but to set it back to zero. And in order to do that, they have to take out the capability at a place called Fordo. It's one of the main Iran nuclear Capab nuclear sites and it's in a mountain, it's buried deep underground purposely because the Israelis don't have the capability to take it out. There's one country in the world with the military capability to take out Forta and that's the United States using B52s with these bunker busting bombs that can burrow deep down and take it out. Now, could Israel take out Fordo some other way? They've said in the last few days that they can take it out or that it will be taken out. You could, you could get people in there and access the facility and explode it that way. But the reason the United States is, is poised for this, the reason the United States is, has had to consider this is because if you want to take out Fordo, if you want to restrain Iran's nuclear capability and take it down to zero, the only way is to have the United States involved. And Donald Trump knows that. Just as previous presidents have endless conversations between Israeli prime ministers and particularly Netanyahu and American presidents about would the United states allow its B52s to be used in this way. And again, it's the moment when American, American president has finally considered it in a serious way. We've seen US assets move to the region, military assets move to the region. Now that could be just as a show of support for Israel. It could also be to be ready in case Iran strikes. President Trump has said if the United States and Secretary Rubio said it as well, if the United States is hit by Iran in some way and Iran could do that, then the United States would retaliate. So those forces could be there in anticipation of a possible need to retaliate. But it could also be according to my sources, part of this operation, the B52s would need to be refueled, they'd need to be serviced, they'd need to be protected. It's also the case that although Donald Trump says mixed things about Russia, to say the least, that Russia would be suffering a loss because Iran has been a staunch ally of Russia, common cause within the Middle East. And if you're looking to push back on Russia, as many in Trump administration are, an Iranian loss would have the added benefit, eliminating their nuclear capacity, of changing things in the balance of power and adversely to Russia. I look also at people in the administration. I look at people on Capitol Hill who get briefed by the administration, their allies, for instance, on the Intelligence Committee in the Senate. The body language also suggests that there's quiet support for this. Not universally, but there is quiet support for this. Then we get to regime change. That's more complicated. There's no doubt that if you said to most policymakers in the United States the previous democratic presence, do you want there to be a plan to eliminate Iran's nuclear and missile capability? Yeah, there's pretty big consensus around that. Maybe not how it would be done, but that it should be done. But should the United States and Israel do anything to foster regime change in Iran? All the negatives, all the dangers associated with that, they're pretty intense. Right. What would happen if the current government fell? No tears would be shed for the current leaders, and many of them have already been killed by the Israelis, and probably more will be as well. But what happens if they're gone? What steps into place now? Iran has a big middle class, upper middle class, a lot of educated people. The assumption is if they were given an opportunity to change their form of government more, less, more secular, more representative, less repressive, that they would choose that. But we don't really know that for sure. And so whenever you're talking about a military action that could, and the Israelis have been quite open about this, that could lead to regime change in Iran, you have to be worried, and President Trump is worried about it, as are his advisors. What would happen? Would there be bloodshed? Would there be counter revolution? Would there be factions? Who would control the military? Would there be elections? What role would Israel and the United States play? Who in Iran might step forward to be a leader, to try to transition from this long running, repression, repressive regime that sponsored terrorism to something else? This is a really tough choice. But you've seen lots of prominent voices in the United States, a lot of calmness, even Ones who aren't always favorable to Donald Trump say, maybe it's time for regime change. It's been the wish of many American presidents that it would happen organically, that there'd be a revolution not inspired by an Israeli attack or an American attack, but rather happen organically, as has happened at some countries in the region. Doesn't seem like it. It seems like the theocracy in Iran, the dictatorship in Iran, has enough control over society that that hasn't happened. In fact, even as the attacks from Israel have come, there have been very few signs within Iran that the people would like to rise up to take advantage of the opportunity. But it's another factor that Donald Trump has to consider. And you consider it on both sides. There are people in the administration who say, yeah, the Israelis want regime change, that would be good. Let them take the lead on it. But if our actions in working in concert with Israel lead to regime change in Iran, great. Then there are people in the administration who have the attitude of, we've seen this movie before, we don't want to be part of that. Donald Trump, as, as military action gets pondered, has to think about that. What's he going to do if the government falls there? The Iranians are trying to convince the Trump administration they're ready to negotiate. And the body language for the president as he left Canada, back from the G7, to me, to my ear, the body language there was a tell that he's, he's, he's done negotiating. If the Iranians want to surrender, if the Iranians want to say, we're willing to get rid of our nuclear program, we'll acknowledge that we had one. We're ending it out. We're giving up our nuclear capacity, we're giving up our missiles. I think that president would take a victory lap on that. But there's no indication that that's the posture of the Iranians. Everything the Iranians are saying to the other allies in the Middle east, the countries who they'll deal with as intermediaries, is, yeah, let's have a ceasefire and talk about. Were willing to talk. Donald Trump likes to negotiate, but he doesn't like to waste time. And he doesn't like to negotiate people who he doesn't think are negotiating in good faith. Many people in the White House, many people in the administration say it's too late to negotiate with them. And, and they're not negotiating in good faith. That's not a total view. And, and the president's got a nuanced view on this. He'll Take a negotiation, but it's got to be in good faith. The biggest thing I hear about from folks is maga. The biggest thing I hear about in the context of what's the President going to do? What's the President been thinking? Will the president follow through with action? And it's interesting because Donald Trump's been pretty dismissive of maga, been pretty dismissive when Tucker Carlson did a high profile interview with Steve Bannon, was very critical of the prospect of America getting directly involved with this war and even aiding Israel the way it's been done, been criticized by some in maga. Donald Trump lashed back at his friend Tucker, criticized Tucker. There's also speculation that there are other people in maga, maybe even within the administration who share Tucker's point of view. Tulsi Gabbard, people speculate about, the Vice president, people speculate about. I believe that the President is well aware of where MAGA is on this, but he doesn't always side with, with, with the, the far part of maga, the part, the isolationist part of maga. We've seen him engage in military activity in the past. He believes in speaking loudly and carrying a big stick, but only using it when he thinks it's essential. And as I've said, I think the conditions, if you're someone who believes as he does, Iran can never have a nuclear weapon, the United States must do everything it can to keep Iran from having a nuclear capability. If you're someone who believes that, like Donald Trump, this is the moment, there's never been a moment like this. The folks in MAGA got to respect their, their principle. You got to respect their point of view. They don't believe that this is in the United States interest. But what the President is saying when he tells people repeatedly that he's always been resolute, they cannot have a nuclear weapon, what he's saying in effect is tell me your plan, tell me your plan to get rid of Iran's nuclear capability. If I'm not going to seize this moment, what am I going to do? Because negotiation hasn't worked. Israel has engaged in his, in, in his historically engaged in extraordinary capability to have human spies on the ground in Iran, to assassinate individual nuclear scientists. It's been incredible, incredible story of how effective Israel working with allies has been in keeping Iran from getting there, slowing down their progress. This has been taking years and years where this has occurred. But the challenge is, again, from the Israeli point of view, time is up. And so you see this confluence. And again, the presidencies the confluence. Iran's never been weaker, never been more vulnerable to the kind of attack that Israel's engaged in, that the United States, if they help, makes a big difference. And the urgency has never been higher because Iran is closer. According to the intelligence information that the Israelis have. They've never been closer to having the capability to marry up a nuclear warhead with a missile that can reach Israel and maybe even the United States. That's the moment. That's the, that's the reason this consideration for Donald Trump has been so front and center, causing him to leave the G7 meeting back to the White House and, and making a decision that, again, as I say, could be the most momentous decision of his presidency, really the most momentous decision of his life. Because taking out Iran's capability has tons of risk. Talked about some, the possibility of chaos in Iran, backlash from Iran. If they're struck by the United States, they may still have some capability to strike back, although the Israelis have degraded so much of it. But in addition, there's the risk of what happens to nuclear material. Does it fly all over the Middle east in a way that sickens people and turns a generation of young people against the United States? We really don't know very much about what's going on with public opinion in Iran. There's always speculation that there's a large group of middle class, upper middle class, well educated folks ready to be part of a new government, ready to be part of taking the country in a new direction. But we don't know that. We don't know that for sure. We worry here that whatever the president is able to do, whatever he chooses to do in a sustained military campaign, if that's, if that's the direction of going sustained, what are the implications? No question, no question in my mind that there will be no boots to the ground. There'll be no American forces there, the way we saw in Iraq, and Iraq is the precedent, the Tucker and Other site all the time. So how do you keep this from being another. The most simple one is to, is to say, no, no American forces on the ground, maybe special ops, but no, no American forces on the ground in any significant numbers. And no attempt, no attempt to try to shape who's in the government. Now, I think the Israelis will do that. I think the Israelis probably already have a list of people who they think could be in the government. Americans can help another way besides the government private sector investment. Imagine you've got all these extraordinarily successful business people, many in high tech, in the United States who have Iranian backgrounds, Iranian Americans who are, who follow closely what happens in their country, where their families came from. They could be marshaled, they could be public in saying to the Iranian people, if you get rid of the current government, if your country is open for business again to the west, we can do a lot of business, we can create a lot of wealth in Iran. And that's another appreciation that the President has for the Iranian people, that they are extraordinarily successful historically at commerce, very well educated. And. And again, the, the number of successful Iranian business people, I was Googling the other day to look at lists, and it's extraordinary, the number of prominent American business people, some well known, some not, but who achieved enormous success at figuring out how do you create wealth in this country. And many of them would be eager to go back to Iran, whether they, whether they were born there or not, and help the country change. So there's the possibility that that could happen without the United States government doing what it did in Iraq, which everybody recognizes now is a huge mistake. You cannot put American forces on the ground and force people to go in a direction they don't want to go. Would Israel stay there? Probably not. Would the Saudis come in? Who knows? The point is Iran didn't have a lot of friends around the world, with the exception of Russia and a few others. And so how do you make this happen? Donald Trump does not want to go to war. He doesn't. He's quite clear about that. And it's one of the things that some of the critics on the left say. You know, he's a warmonger. He, he doesn't understand the costs of war. He does, although he did not serve himself. Anyone who's had a private conversation with him about these issues, or if you listen to what he says in public, he does not want to go to war. This is a hugely important and risky set of decisions to make, but they're decisions that are made in a very specific context of time and place. Hard to think of that, many historical precedents like this, but this is one, as I've said, decades, decades of presidents have said, how do we disarm them? President Obama did a deal, very close call for a lot of people whether that deal was good on, on the maga. Right. They considered it a failure. But there's only two ways to get this done. And if you're not going to do a deal, then you're going to have to use military action or you're going to have to deal with the Consequences. And Donald Trump will not deal with the consequences. And with Netanyahu, he's got a partner who right now understands the need to be nice to the United States, to be respectful to the president. They haven't always had the best relationship. They had some rockiness after the 2020 presidential election, to be sure. But right now, these are two guys who have a clear understanding of the moment. Netanyahu has been extremely aggressive, and as I said, the backlash has not been that great. I would have expected a significantly greater backlash to what Israel has done, and that is the context in which these presidential decisions are being made. The decision to do what can only be done in the moment and which must be done is a big part of what's animating the president. If Iran backs down, the attacks can stop. But if Iran does not do what it needs to do, Donald Trump, I believe his patience is done. The Israelis patience is done for sure. But I believe the American president's patience has done as well. This will be resolved. He wants to get it resolved. It's the same thing attitude he has towards China. Part of what he wants his legacy to be is to solve things that weren't previously solved, both by him in the first term and by other presidents. Other presidents left office, in most cases with Iran in a stronger position than when they took office. That's not what Donald Trump wants. He wants to put them in a weaker position. And the clearest way to do that is eliminate their nuclear capability and their ballistic missile capability. And regime change. Regime change is dicey. And I tell everybody, if you support regime change, you need to be ready to own the possible negative implications of a change in the government. You got to go into it eyes wide open. You cannot go into it rosy colored. And that's a big daunting thing for the president because he knows full well the negative possibilities. Even if there's no active effort to foster regime change, it could happen indirectly because of American action. And he knows that's happening on his watch. It's a risk. But the biggest risk, the biggest risk for Israel, the biggest risk for the United States, the biggest issue risk for the world, is the status quo. And that is why at this moment, you can expect the United States to seize the opportunity for President Trump to make what I say, again, maybe the hardest decision of his life. All right, next up, the extraordinary writer David Mamet. We'll talk about what's going on in the world with him, his new book, and then about the craft of writing. That's all next up, right Here. Okay, everybody, let me tell you a story. Now, it's about a guy named Leo Grillo. Leo was on a road trip and he came across a Doberman. Doberman was severely underweight and the Doberman was clearly in a lot of trouble. So Leo rescued the dog and he gave him a name, Delta. 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Please visit deltarescue.org to learn more again today, go to deltarescue.org Are you still quoting 30 year old movies? Have you said cool beans in the past 90 days? Do you think Discover isn't widely accepted? If this sounds like you, you're stuck in the past. Discover is accepted at 99% of places that take credit cards nationwide. And every time you make a purchase with your card, you automatically earn cash back. Welcome to the now it pays to Discover. Learn more@discover.com credit card based on the February 2024 Nelson Report. All right, next up, a most enjoyable book. If you host shows, you get sent a lot of books and you gotta look at a lot of books and read a lot of books. A lot of hosts don't actually read them. I do. I respect authors as being an author myself, David Mamet's new book, the Disenlightenment, Politics, Horror and Entertainment. I couldn't love it more. It's really well written, which is nice for a book. Not all books are well written. It's very provocative, it's very thoughtful, it's very engaging. It's a romp through 42,000 different things but woven together. And if you're a writer or you love the craft of writing, it's. It's just a, it's like a, it's like source material for understanding the craft of how you weave something together. And I couldn't be more delighted to welcome David Mamet to next up. Mr. Mamet, welcome in.