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The Jim Acosta Show
BREAKING NEWS: U.S. AND ISRAEL STRIKE IRAN AS TRUMP WARNS OF POSSIBLE AMERICAN CASUALTIES. OUR DISCUSSION WITH ELISE LABOTT, BARBARA STARR AND MATT LEWIS
00:48:15
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- [00:00]
A
Our lease library. All right. Welcome to a special edition of the Jim Acosta Show. We are coming to you live to report on the latest developments coming out of the Middle East. The United States and Israel have joined forces to attack Iran and Iran is retaliating with strikes of its own. The information is not coming in as fast as we would like, but according to the Associated Press, of course, this, this began overnight and this is how the Associated Press puts it. The US And Israel launched a major attack on Iran. And Trump called on the Iranian public to, quote, seize control of your destiny by rising up against the Islamic leadership that has ruled the nation since 1979. These strikes opened a stunning new chapter in US intervention in Iran and mark the second time in eight months that the Trump administration has used military force against the Islamic Republic. This is all according to the Associated Press. I've got a great group of folks to talk about this. The wonderful Barbara Starr, longtime Pentagon correspondent Elise Labet of Cosmopolitics on Substack, veteran global affairs correspondent and of course, political analyst Matt Lewis. Barbara, let me go to you first. I mean, this is your stock and trade. I mean, this was sort of, this was not exactly the, the best kept secret that this was maybe coming down the pike. Maybe we didn't know the timing, but it certainly felt as though this was coming. Your thoughts as we're seeing this overnight? I mean, this could be, this can get out of control quickly. The elements that we're talking about here that are in the mixing bowl right now.
- [01:44]
B
Well, I, I think that's right. There needs to be an awful lot of caution. I would, I would think, I think the thing obviously to watch right now is Iranian backed retaliation. Where are they striking back in the region? We have seen the reports that they have struck the US Navy 5th Fleet headquarters in Bahrain. They may have struck in Qatar, some missile remnants falling in Jordan. If they strike inside Saudi Arabia, that changes the picture. Again, the Saudi regime will not take to that without getting into the so called action themselves. So that's something to watch and I think very important to watch the quality, if you will, of their response. Their missiles are having increasing accuracy in recent years. They have a significant ballistic missile inventory. They're not the least bit concerned about using it throughout the region. We've seen them attempt, I think, believe, some strikes into Israel. So, you know, this is not just about the US And Israel striking Iran, of course. This is the wider regional implications and what Iran may do in retaliation in either outright missile strikes or perhaps sleeper cells, terrorist attacks Things we don't even yet see coming.
- [03:13]
A
Yeah, and Elise, I mean, the AP is saying that the first strikes appear to hit areas around the offices of the Iranian Supreme Leader, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. And Iranian media reported strikes nationwide and apparently Iran is retaliating. The Revolutionary Guard of Iran said it launched a first wave of drones and missiles targeting Israel. So this we'll have to see how quickly this is going to. If this is just one chapter in a wave of strikes and counter strikes, we don't know. But it does have the potential to unravel in a big way. What's your sense of it right now, Elise?
- [03:53]
C
Well, exactly. And Barbara said Iranian missiles are growing in sophistication. The Iranians knew this was coming. Even if they knew they were trying to negotiate and stall for time, you could see the response was immediate. So they already had a response prepared. And what the US Is trying to do right now with Israel is try to, Barbara knows more of this than me, but shape the battlefield in the sense that, you know, try to eliminate the Iranians ability to have their air defenses to respond. You know, part of what. And again, Barbara could talk more about this that, you know, the US Is kind of stretched in right now. And so it's not that they can't walk and chew gum at the same time, but what about, you know, missiles? What about interceptors like Israel after October 7th and all of its attacks, you know, you know, kind of defenses and missiles and munitions and everything, like everyone's just stretched a little thin. But then Barbara also talks about the asymmetric possible response you saw, you know, in 2012, maybe Iran responded from some attack from Israel with a terrorist attack on an Israeli bus of tourists in Bulgaria. So those, you know, those asymmetric attacks there could be a cyber attack as the Iranians are experts at that, they're experts at disinformation and those type of things, you know, election interference, who knows what. As these attacks limit the Iran's conventional response, those asymmetric response and soft targets become more important. I'd also say that, you know, the President's speech was kind of lacking in terms of what is an end game, what is, you know, the exact strategies talking about freedom for Orion's calling on the Iranians to rise up and we could talk more about that. But you know, I think the attack on the Supreme Leader was symbolic. You know, between the US And Israeli intelligence. They probably knew he wasn't there. I don't think they're going to kill him that's my own personal opinion, but it was very symbolic. But they're not, I don't think. I think they're hoping that the Iranians will launch regime change. Not like he's trying to say, we're doing everything we can and then it's up to you to change the, you know, get rid of the regime. But lastly, I'll say the President said something that was, you know, very small, but he said there could be casualties. This is always possible in war.
- [06:35]
A
Yeah.
- [06:35]
C
So he called this a war.
- [06:38]
A
Wow.
- [06:38]
C
What does that mean in terms of getting authorization from Congress, declaring war? Those type of things we're not talking about. But I think on Monday, I think on Monday, members of Congress are going to be talking about this.
- [06:54]
A
Yeah, no question about it. And Elise teed it up just so perfectly. Matt, let's listen to a little bit of what Trump said. I think we have some of that video of Trump saying there may be casualties if we have it. Let's play it and talk about this.
- [07:12]
D
The lives of courageous American heroes may be lost and we may have casualties. That often happens in war. But we're doing this not for now, we're doing this for the future. And it is a noble mission. We pray for every service member as they selflessly risk their lives to ensure that Americans and our children will never be threatened by a nuclear armed Iran.
- [07:40]
A
Yeah, I mean, Matt, I mean, just in the last, what, few months, we've removed the leader of Venezuela. Yesterday, Trump was talking about, I think, a quote, friendly takeover of Cuba. Overnight, we launch strikes on Iran, triggering a global, maybe not a global conflict, but at least a regional conflict for the, for the moment. And, you know, I'm sorry, but, you know, maybe I'll just refer to the discourse. There are a lot of folks, you know, reminding us of what Trump tweeted back in 2012 about Obama and his poll numbers and what he might be tempted to do. He said, watch for Obama to, to attack. If we have the tweet, we can show it. Watch for Obama to attack Iran or Libya because his poll numbers aren't doing well. I mean, that's kind of the elephant in the room right now, isn't it?
- [08:31]
E
Yeah, it really is, Jim. Look, Donald Trump, this is a guy who ran for President in 2015, 2016, partly on the message that he wasn't going to be like George W. Bush. And the Iraq war loomed very large. And as recently as last year, the RNC put out a tweet saying, vote for the pro peace ticket. And it was a Picture of Trump and Vance. So this was a part of their messaging. And look, I think obviously anytime that you go into a war situation, it is fraught with danger. But from a political standpoint, there's really two different things to keep an eye on here. I think, number one, just the general public. And my feeling here is that I actually don't think the American public are anti war. I think they're anti hassle. If Trump could go in and do something, get out, there's no fallout, there's no dead Americans coming home in body bags, there's no terrorist attack, then I think the American people are generally fine with that. But if it gets messy, if it starts to look like a quagmire, obviously that's a different situation. But Jim, even putting that aside, there's also another problem is within the Trump coalition, there are people who were specifically attracted to Donald Trump, people who joined his coalition who are not normally Republican voters because of his anti war, anti forever war stance.
- [09:57]
A
Right.
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E
And what is going to happen to them? Trump already has a problem with his coalition coming unglued.
- [10:03]
B
Right.
- [10:04]
E
There were Hispanics who joined his coalition in 2024 and say, young podcast bros who have flee because of what's happening with ice and affordability. This is just one more example of how Donald Trump really didn't have a coherent philosophy. It attracted this disparate group of weird, this weird coalition of supporters. And it was obviously gonna be mutually exclusive at a certain point. You can't be all things to all people. And so there's a lot to watch here. Just from a political standpoint and also
- [10:35]
C
just super quick, Jim, also from a messaging standpoint, I think the President just hasn't been good about any messaging anywhere. But on this, I think whether it's George W. Bush or going back to Johnson in Vietnam or Roosevelt In World War II, they go to the American people, they go to the Congress, they have that national debate, and this is just not happening.
- [10:59]
A
Yeah. And Barbara, I mean, we know that the US Military is capable of doing some incredible things. We saw the precision with which they carried out the removal of Maduro and Venezuela. But this is a different. This is a horse of a different feather toppling the Iranian regime, which has long been a goal of the neocons that, as Matt Lewis said, Trump used to savage back in the day. I remember being at all those rallies when Trump would go after the Bushes and the Cheneys and he campaigned on no new wars and so on. He's got this board of peace that he was Just meeting with, I think a week ago, you know, not exactly, you know, a stellar cast of pro democracy governments there with them on that, on that board of peace. But this, this is just, this is, this has a huge potential for what they used to call mission creep. Barbara, it seems to me.
- [11:55]
B
Well, I, I think we're already there. I mean, yeah, look at, look at what's happened since this war, as Elise said began. We have them going after potentially Iran's nuclear capability, nuclear potential nuclear targets, weapons targets, Iranian military targets. You have them going, but also after leadership targets. Bombing government buildings, according to reports, bombing the homes of Iranian leaders, whether they're there or not, issuing statements, you know, that basically are the equivalent to, you know, rise up, go out in the street and overthrow your government. So first of all, we have a multi headed goal by the President here. We don't have a strategy and a methodology of carrying out the strategy. We don't know when will it be successful. Clearly you cannot obliterate, as the US once claimed, Iran's nuclear program because they can rebuild it. You can't obliterate an entire leadership because are people going to go out in the street, who are they going to rally behind? Who will the new leader, will that leader last, you know, more than five minutes in the face of the regime capability that still exists? It's, it's, you know, it's important to remember, everybody knows Iran is a huge country, massive population, massive land mass. This is not a small undertaking. What you achieve in one part of Iran you may not achieve in another part. So I think there's an awful long way to go in both understanding this, understanding how the administration thinks they're going to carry it out. And do they even have a plan to carry it out?
- [13:51]
A
Yeah, Elise, I mean, the other thing that we have to mention in all of this is that, I mean, even in the run up to this weekend when, you know, the conversation in Washington seemed to be around, you know, this is coming, this is coming to a theater, theater near you. I mean, one of the questions that I think was raised, and I think it's a good question is, you know, Donald Trump and his administration said that they had decimated Iran's nuclear program with the previous round of strikes that occurred last year. And you know, Trump was asked, and I think, you know, the Pentagon was asked, you know, running up to this weekend, hey, wait a minute, we thought that, you know, why is this even necessary? You said you decimated their nuclear program. I mean, it just calls into question the kind of information that we're getting out of this administration regarding all of this. But I mean, I know you covered the, you know, the big multinational effort that the Obama administration. I covered it too, to rid Iran of its nuclear program. Trump abandoned that and he's abandoned that in favor of military action and he's going into Iran again. So I don't understand what the goal of this is. Is it to cripple their nuclear program again or is it to topple the reg regime? Because toppling the regime as we saw in Iraq, you know, you know that, what was it, the Rumsfeld, you know, phrase. There, there are known knowns, known unknowns and unknown unknowns. I think something along. Barbara probably remembers it better than I do, but at least.
- [15:18]
C
Yeah, and then there's the box. Yeah. And then there's the Colin Powell add. Add the Colin Powell phrase. You break the Pottery Barn rule. You break it, you bought it.
- [15:29]
A
Yeah.
- [15:29]
C
And especially if you're calling on the Iranian people to overthrow their government or what if the Iranians start taking it out on the people even more than they have. And that's why Barbara said, what Barbara's saying is so key that there's no strategy. So what's the end game? Because is it deterrence? Is it getting rid of the nuclear program? Is it. Getting rid of the missile program is a regime change. Each of those have a different US Commitment, a different US Investment, a different duration, a different risk, different consequences. It's not just, we're going in there and we'll see what happens. I was just on C Span a few minutes ago and this one caller called in and said President Trump said we'll see what happens and let's just see what happens. But you can't just, you know, throw the dice and see what happens. My understanding is there was some planning going on. I'm not sure Barbara might know more like the extent of what planning for the day after is, is happening. But as we said, we still don't know what the end game is and what the objectives. This, what we call in diplomacy, the strategic objectives. And so we don't know what the risks and the, you know, the, the long term mission creep and for how long this could go on and how the Pandora's boxes, you said that open. And look, we don't know what would have happened if President Trump never pulled out of the jcpoa, as we call it, the nuclear deal. But also, look, the Iranians, let's not make the Iranians out to be these, you know, innocent victims. Here they are trying to reconstitute their nuclear program. I don't. I've never thought that they would actually use a nuclear weapon against Israel or the United States. I think they always wanted. Or an icbm. They're nowhere close to an icbm miniaturizing a weapon and putting it on a nuclear warhead to launch it against the United States. I think maybe they're a little bit more rational than that. But, you know, look, this, this administrative. This regime has a couple of things. Regime survival and resistance. They would never capitulate to the United States. So, you know, I just don't know that these negotiations were ever going to lead anywhere.
- [18:03]
A
Yeah, Matt. I mean, you know, there's the political dimension to all of this. And, you know, people like Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia, you know, he's been for years saying that, you know, if the President of the United States wants to go to war, he's got to come to Congress. And his colleague in Virginia, Mark Warner, put out a statement just a little while ago. We can show some of that on screen. And forgive some of the cut and paste quality here, folks. We're just coming on the air and everybody's sort of reacting quickly to all of this. But Mark Warner put out a statement saying, the American people have seen this playbook before. Claims of urgency, misrepresented intelligence and military action that pulls the United States into regime change and prolonged costly nation building. We owe it to our service members and, and to every American family to ensure that we are not repeating mistakes of the past. The President owes the country clear answers. What is the objective? What is the strategy to prevent escalation? How does this make Americans safer? And he goes on to say, this should require congressional authorization. Matt, we're all old enough to remember the Iraq war and the hell it put this country through. The multiple deployments the US Service members had to go through, the strains it put on the military, how it, how the Iraq war emboldened Iran. I mean, one of the reasons why the Iranians are such a pain in the neck is because of the misadventure in Iraq. And so, I mean, this thing can just go in so many different directions. And I saw, you know, I, I think Democrats have made, you know, their feelings pretty clear in all this. I think I saw Jack Schlossberg, John F. Kennedy's grandson, or, yeah, grandson, who's running for Congress in New York, said he wants to see regime change in Washington. That was his tweet that he put out this morning. So I think Democrats are gonna you know, they're gonna go right after a President of the United States. And Donald Trump, who claims he has this board of peace, who wants a Nobel Peace Prize, whose campaign against no new wars and so on, who's launched the United States into something that we just don't know what the end game is. Where is this going?
- [20:11]
E
Yeah, it's almost like that FIFA Peace Prize means nothing, Jim. You know, that was supposed to be prestigious. Look, I do think Donald Trump learned the lesson of Iraq, which is don't try to do nation building, don't get bogged down. The problem is that now he's sort of been rewarded for doing these limited air strikes and sort of surgical. Take Maduro, kidnap Maduro, whatever. And sometimes things don't go as planned and the enemy gets a vote too. And so you can f around and find out, and that may happen. Look, Donald Trump, a couple days ago, when he was lamenting the Supreme Court blocking his tariffs, said something, and I'm paraphrasing, but he said something to the effect of, I can destroy a country, but I can't impose tariffs. I think he sees, he's learned, he likes to have sort of, you know, carte blanche authority to do whatever he wants. And he's learned that foreign policy is an area where he can pretty much do what he wants without congressional approval. So if something good comes from this, it could be that Congress begins to claw back some of their prerogatives and some of their authority, not only as it pertains to tariffs, which they haven't done, but as it pertains to foreign policy. Jim, let me say something else too, that I think is important. Possible political fallout that could be part of this. It's going to be more of a long term problem, I think, than a short term problem. And that is the nation of Israel. This is a nation that once enjoyed strong bipartisan support within the United States of America. And I think in recent years, thanks largely to Benjamin Netanyahu, it has been perceived that it is an ally not so much of America, but of Donald Trump. There's a sense out there, fair or not, and some of this may come from anti Semitic corners, others of it may be legitimate, but there's a sense that Israel and Netanyahu senses that there is a brief window of opportunity, that this is a president that they can manipulate, that this is the best chance they're ever going to have to have the US Kind of do their bidding. As it pertains to Iran, if that takes hold and metastasizes I think one of the kind of sad long term implications or fallout from this could be that it's bad news for Israel in the long run.
- [22:34]
A
Yeah, there may be this narrow window of opportunity where the Israelis are looking at the American political calendar and saying, okay, we have until about November to do this and that, that may be what's taking place right now. But Barbara Starr, I mean, some of
- [22:48]
E
the expense of public, of American public support, which.
- [22:52]
A
That's exactly right.
- [22:52]
E
That's the problem.
- [22:53]
A
And Trump is in this phase right now, this, this mentality right now where he's just going to go for it. It reminds me a little bit of that, that those scary moments around January 6th when the generals over at the Pentagon were trying to prevent Donald Trump from just doing what, just going wild and doing crazy stuff because he wanted to cling to power. And I just, I throw that out there, as you know, as my own observation, is what we may be seeing over the next several months. But, but Barbara, when the, when the Iranians are saying, quote, there are no red lines, we were just showing that, quote a few moments ago. That appears to be how the Iranians, the Revolutionary Guard, how they're responding to this. They're saying, quote, there are no red lines. So that means going after targets in the region. That means going after the Israelis. That means potentially going after American targets really anywhere, if they can pull it off, I suppose. Is that how you read, read into it?
- [23:48]
B
Well, I think that's what everybody has to be prepared for, you know, and yes, there's, there's no real challenge in the world to American military power. It's the best there is. But it has limits, if you will. I mean, an aircraft carrier can't stop a terror attack. It can bomb targets, it can bomb terrorist camps. It can do all of those things. But if the Iranians are out there planning these so called asymmetric attacks, all they have to do, you know, as they say, is be lucky once, heaven forbid, get through American military power and strike their targets. And I would say one other thing. As we're talking through all of this, the US has assembled a vast, if you will, air power armada out there. Navy ships, aircraft, fighters, bombers, missiles. But it all is delivered by air. So it's an air campaign, if you will. Air campaigns, as we have all learned in Iraq and Afghanistan, they work, but they have limited utility. And especially over the long run, how long are you going to be able to leave that vast firepower out there? They'll have to rotate, they'll have to come Home, other troops will have to go in. I would think that the US Red line would be ground forces in, in Iran because that would be extraordinarily difficult and risky and what would it really achieve? But I'm not sure you can get to regime change solely through US Air power and White House rhetoric. Go out there in the streets. Iranians are going to have to coalesce around some political force that's greater than the regime that's there right now. And that's a really long road.
- [25:40]
A
Yeah. And Elise, I mean, I covered the Iraq war in Baghdad in 2004 for CBS News. And you know, this is a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. But I mean, I do remember that. To Barbara's point, it's exactly right that if Donald Trump thinks he can somehow carry out regime change in Iran purely through airstrikes, I think he has another thing coming to him. And this is only achievable. I mean, the people of Iran don't have the weapons. The government has the weapons. And I just don't see how, you know, because we launched some airstrikes, that this is somehow going to spur a revolution that can overtake the government. Maybe Donald Trump, who is, you know, I would say without a doubt the luckiest politician I've seen in my lifetime, maybe he, maybe there's some way that it can happen. But my experience covering Iraq is that to topple a regime, it is bloody, it is violent, it involves street to street, house to house, town to town, battling on the ground with US Boots in theater. And at least that, that is something I'm not sure that the public is ready for, that the world is ready for.
- [26:55]
C
Yeah, I mean, we, it's not enough. Barbara says it exactly right. And maybe he's just, again, his military leaders must have advised him of that. And so maybe he's just saying it. You know, I think Donald Trump has always lived in his own kind of world and believes what he wants to believe. Military planners, the joint. You've seen all these reports about the Raisin Cain, the chief of the Joint Chiefs, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had some reservations about the kind of long slog that this could become. Not that it wouldn't be possible to launch these strikes, but what is the US Getting itself into? And maybe even he didn't get that kind of clarity from the president about what the end game was. So I don't, you know, when the president talks about rise up, take over your government, like, you know, when the US Says that you would Think that there's a plan and a strategy behind it of what the US Is gonna do to make that happen. You know, there isn't here. So. And again, the Iranian. What if, what if the Iranians hear what the President said and takes it out on the Iranian people, starts launching more attacks on the Iranian people because the President did that, and try to get the Iranian people against the President of the United States? I just don't think there's been enough discussion, certainly not publicly, certainly not with Congress, but maybe even within the administration itself, about what we're trying to achieve, what's the end game and what is our cost benefit analysis? What are our red lines in terms of not what we're willing to do, but the cost in blood and treasure that the Americans are willing to bear.
- [29:14]
A
Yeah. And Matt, I mean, the thing I come back to with Donald Trump is that he only cares about his own political survival first and foremost. And that makes me wonder whether we are going to see a situation where perhaps he's going to carry out these strikes over the next several days and then that might be it for a while. I, you know, I question whether he's going to go whole hog here and put boots on the ground because he, I think he understands full well. I mean, if you're, if you're the Republicans up on Capitol Hill right now, apparently John Thune has said that regime change should happen. He is not. Republican leaders are rallying around Trump's military action right now. But if this drags on for months and months, I cannot imagine that's going to go over well with Republicans who are clinging to their majorities as we speak. I mean, it seems to me that that is going to be a difficult proposition for the Republicans to stomach.
- [30:11]
E
Absolutely. Look, one could imagine he declares victory and says, hey, we have obliterated their nuclear program, mission accomplished again, and leaves again. Except this time he just totally leaves. And a lot of people would believe him. They would just say, oh, I guess we did it, we did it. And in a way, that creates a false sense of security for American citizens. They believe that we have taken on Iran and that we have dismantled their nuclear program and it's a fool's paradise. So that, in a way is maybe possibly a worst case scenario. It also supposes that Iran is going to, like, let that happen and not have some sort of response, even if revenge is a dish best served cold. Look, Jim, we've seen that the best and brightest can get us in, whether it's Vietnam can get us involved in quagmires or I mean, look at the George W. Bush administration. I mean, Don Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, highly experienced, competent, serious figures who got us involved in Iraq. And so it's not really true that smart, competent, experienced people always are the right move, but we're now experimenting with the opposite end of that. Donald Trump, I'm sure some of his generals are very great, but is he even listening to him? This is a guy who's gotten where he is by doing things based on his own gut instinct. He has surrounded himself with political advisors who are really yes men. And so we're flying blind here. And does he have. Maybe it's. Maybe he's simply not communicating the exit strategy and the mission or maybe it doesn't exist.
- [31:53]
A
Right.
- [31:53]
E
And so that's a truly scary scenario.
- [31:57]
A
No question for a second. Go ahead, Barbara.
- [32:01]
B
If I may, to follow what Matt's saying and he would have a lot of insight into this. So let's just look ahead a few days, maybe a week, 10 days down the road. How will Congress seek accountability from the administration and transparency from the administration about what they're doing here? Typically, you might see the Secretary of Defense, the chairman of the Joint Chief, the Secretary of State come before Congress in open hearings, submit to public Q and A from senators, from congressmen and talk as much as they can in a non classified way about what is happening and what they're doing. This, however, is an administration where the Pentagon resists wholeheartedly coming before Congress and explaining itself. And you know, who are we not talking about here? Pete Hegseth. I'm not sure I've heard the Secretary of Defense and it is the Defense Department. Still not the War Department. I'm not, I'm not sure I've heard his name mentioned. He's sort of the Pam Bundy kind of official testifying before Congress. He's quite easy with hurling the insults back.
- [33:16]
C
Yeah, that's not going to cut it, I don't think. I don't think that's going to cut it. It might probably be Rubio maybe.
- [33:21]
B
Well, I think that they're going to want to hear because what the person they really want to hear from is the chairman. Chairman and someone who's very sober minded. I'm not sure Pete Hegseth wants to sit there at the chairman's right hand and stay silent while the chairman, you know, candidly answers questions. So I think, I think there's something to watch. Congress can only go so far unless they're able to perhaps get public hearings and have this explained to the American people.
- [33:54]
E
Yeah, I'm also, I'm also very curious to see what happens to the Tucker Carlson's, the Joe Rogans, the Theo.
- [34:02]
C
That's a great point.
- [34:03]
E
The Glenn Greenwald. Do they kind of go along with this, look the other way, blame Israel, or does it actually start to pose problems for Donald Trump and Republicans going into what already looks like a very tough midterm?
- [34:17]
A
That's a great point. And to Barbara's point, Elise, this is not a cabinet with the likes of Colin Powell and Donald Rumsfeld and Condoleezza Rice and so on. This is a Fox News cabinet of not very serious people. Maybe you could argue Marco Rubio is a serious person from a Washington standpoint, although lately he's, you know, he's really gone full blown MAGA in terms of his policies. But, you know, he, he is very much an influential force in that administration right now. So I would have to think, just as Stephen Miller is sort of running the show on the domestic side, that Marco Rubio is running point in a big way on this. I don't know if they're necessarily consulting with Pete Hegseth that much these days as to which strikes they should take.
- [35:04]
C
It's pretty clear, it's pretty clear that the chairman has an influential voice here, although I don't think they were happy with his, you know, the story about, I think what I heard, I don't know if this is true, but what I heard is that he raised these concerns. They were kind of alleviated after they started talking it out and then it was leaked about his concerns. So maybe that was leaked by someone in the administration that doesn't, didn't want this action. And there is a camp in the administration, as we've been discussing, led by JD Vance that is anti military action. And I think the whole point about the Tuckers and everybody there is a big kind of division on Israel in particular, which has a lot of taints of antisemitism and isolationism and this whole MAGA crowd. But I think Rubio is the adult in the room, but he's pretty stretched thin in Venezuela and such. But it does concern me.
- [36:15]
A
A flag in Havana, it seems.
- [36:17]
C
Right. It does concern me that there are not enough people in this administration that really understand Iran, that understand the region. And you know, when you look at the president's closest advisors, I'm not saying there aren't people in the administration that are working there that don't know it, but when you kind of look and you say, okay, Jared Kushner is the one that understands the Middle East. The most out of that coterie of when Steve Wyckoff said, well, I don't understand why the Iranians aren't capitulating. It just goes to show you that he doesn't understand Iran. He doesn't understand the regime. And maybe the negotiations would have gone better if they understood this isn't a real estate deal. This is a negotiation about pride and culture and history and decades of animus towards each other. It does concern me that there are not enough people in the administration kind of raising these, these weightier issues.
- [37:28]
A
No question about it. Yeah. And you have a commander in chief who is perpetually looking at things through a political survival lens, it seems to me. And he's making these, these gut decisions based largely on a lot of that. But is that.
- [37:42]
C
Barbara, is that top. Can you just quickly, like, what do you think about the chairman? I mean, obviously he wasn't like a major four star general with all the kind of experience that you would expect from a chairman, but what are your perceptions about him? And I mean, there's a lot that's
- [38:03]
A
not known about this chairman.
- [38:04]
B
Yeah, well, I think he's, I think he is operating in a very cautious manner, which I think understand why he's doing that. This is what a chairman does. This is what you, you do. You present the commander in chief with options. You know, usually hypothetically, there's three options. The high option, the low option, and the middle option. And you tell them, okay. You don't say, we can't. They never say, we can't do it. We can do it, but here's the risk to you. What's the benefit you hope to achieve? They want to hear an end game. They want to hear a strategy so they can build a force of capability that directly addresses what a commander in chief wants to achieve. But they all, they always, always, always put the risks there. They, they are very careful. Any military commander, this is the potential risk you face. This is what we, you know, the known unknowns. This is what we don't know. Go ahead, Elise.
- [39:08]
C
Yeah, sorry. No, finish the thought. Sorry about that.
- [39:10]
B
That's all right. And that's what Kane has done. It's, it's very appropriate. It's, it's the way it all works. I think the fascinating question, very inside baseball remains. Pete Hegseth. You know what I want to see this week? Is he going to be out there with more of his workout videos with the troops while this war is going on? Pete Hegseth may find that it's time to get a little more serious about his job.
- [39:40]
E
Yeah.
- [39:40]
A
And I mean, no time to do squats with RFK junior Elise.
- [39:43]
C
Right on, Kane. I think what you're saying is, and I think that that might be why he kept demanding so much firepower in the region, as much at any time since the Iraq war, because he doesn't, it seems like he doesn't know what the President's ultimate endgame is. So he wants to be prepared with any possible scenario. And so he wants, you know what I mean? If it was a limited strike and we just wanted to maybe go after the nuclear, he would know what he needed. And here they just keep throwing assets in the region because maybe they don't know what they need because they don't know what he wants.
- [40:24]
B
It's one of the classic military problems. They always advise their political leadership of. You know, to paraphrase, it's real easy to get into something. It's much harder to get out of it. How do you know when you're done? How do you know that? How do you know when you've achieved victory? And is there any kind of victory to actually achieve?
- [40:47]
A
That's the big question. Well, an amazing panel to, to wake up on a Saturday morning with to talk about this. Barbara Elise, Matt, thank you so much for jumping on. I was pestering all of you last second and all of you, like the Super Friends or something just sort of, you know, magically appeared in your tapes and your, in your, your superstar outfit.
- [41:07]
B
So now it's time to put on the second pot of coffee now.
- [41:10]
A
Now it's time to put. Or the third. That would be very helpful in my case. But guys, thank you so much. Really appreciate it. It's a very important issue, very important topic. So appreciate the time. Thank you.
- [41:22]
C
You bet.
- [41:23]
B
Good.
- [41:23]
A
Excellent experts all, thank you so much. Really appreciate it. And just to recap where we are right now, I believe we have a full screen graphic that can kind of walk us through where we are at the moment. It's unclear where the Supreme Leader of Iran is, despite Iranian claims that he is safe in the midst of this operation. Epic Fury, as the Trump administration is calling it. We'll see how epic it is or how ferocious it is. Iran is launching counter attacks across the Middle east that has the potential for some major spillover and the potential to inflame this even further into a regional conflict. We don't know where that's going to take us from here. And U.S. citizens in the region have been warned to shelter in place. Obviously, there are US Military assets scattered throughout the region. The Iranians know this. They are attempting to hit those targets. And it looks from initial reports that they're having not great levels of success, of various levels of success. We'll say to put it safely at this point, but I think the question has to be asked before we go, is what the political motivations are of Donald Trump. He is up against it right now. And as I've talked about this on this program so many times, you know, this is somebody who likes to think of himself as the TV host in chief, as the executive producer in chief, doesn't like what the stories are leading the news. Let's change the newscast, let's change the rundown. Let's change what's front and center in the minds of the American people. And I think the question has to be asked. With his poll numbers tanking with the Epstein files, you know, those questions swirling around his head, he has made it very clear he's not even keeping his thoughts secret anymore or to himself anymore as to what he thinks about the midterm election cycle. He has talked about wanting to nationalize elections. He has sent Tulsi Gabbard down to Atlanta to seize ballot ballots from the 2020 election cycle. This is somebody who is thinking deeply about his own political survival at this point. And I think we can't go without acknowledging the elephant in the room, and that is Donald Trump as a political animal who is worried about his own survival at this point. He is a wounded political animal who is worried about his survival at this point. And the question is whether or not those motivations are coming into play in taking this action that the United States military has taken over the weekend. And for the, for the folks who are tuning in late to all of this, I do want to play, if I can, one last time before we go. The sound of Donald Trump telling the American people again, this was, you know, when not a lot of Americans were awake. But telling the American people that there might be casualties in all of this. Let's play this one last time.
- [44:17]
D
Seeks to kill. The lives of courageous American heroes may be lost and we may have casualties that often happens in war. But we're doing this not for now. We're doing this for the future. And it is a noble mission. We pray for every service member as they selflessly risk their lives to ensure that Americans and our children will never be threatened by a nuclear armed Iran.
- [44:46]
A
I mean, there's Donald Trump saying American lives may be lost. There may be casualties. This is a war. And these are the words that he's using right now. Why has the Trump administration not gone to the Congress and made this kind of case for war? They go on Fox News. They go on conservative media talk about how the Iranians are doing this or that. But this is an administration that a year ago said that the Iranian nuclear program had been decimated, had been had been basically wiped out. So what is the rationale for going in and striking Iran now if it's regime change, that case needs to be made to the American people. And I just keep coming back to this question, whether or not Donald Trump is basically doing this for his own political survival. And I think it's a fair question to ask at this grave hour. And, you know, for somebody who has received draft deferments in his own past, the president of the United States should not be so cavalier with the lives of American soldiers, of the lives of American men and women. For those of us who are old enough to remember what took place in Iraq during the 2000s and how there were multiple deployments that put American families through hell for the better part of a decade as the US Attempted to put a lid on the instability that was unleashed in the Middle east after George W. Bush took out Saddam Hussein. And as Barbara Starr was just saying a few moments ago, and I think it's the perfect way to end this, it's a lot easier to get in than it is to get out. I do want to thank Barbara Starr for joining me. The amazing veteran Pentagon correspondent, the incredible Elise Labet veteran global affairs correspondent, and of course, longtime political analyst, the great Matt Lewis. Some really terrific minds helping us sort through this this morning. I'll let everybody get back to their weekend. But in the meantime, really appreciate everybody tuning in for this special report of the JIM Acosta show, still reporting from Washington. Yes, I'm back in D.C. i'm Jim Acosta. We'll stay on top of this. We'll see you next time.