Ted Cruz Faceplants on the Case for War With Iran

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plus terms and conditions apply. Hey, everybody, it's me, Sam Stuy. I'm

managing editor of the book. I'm joined by Will Salton, and we're here to talk

about how lawmakers, specifically some of the Republicans, are talking, spinning,

explaining the war that we've launched in Iran. Will, it was kind of a tour to

force for a few of them on the Sunday shows, but in particular, the one that stood

out to me was Lindsey Graham, who, you know, the guy likes this stuff. Let's

just be honest about it. He was on there, and he had basically, I wouldn't call

a contradictory rationale for what was going on here. What I would say is he

didn't really have a good rationale. I mean, he said, well, we're taking a bad

guys. And then the natural follow-up was, what does that mean? What's the end

game? And there was really nothing. I mean, frankly, nothing. We'll play the

clip in a second, but I guess I was a little bit taken aback at how open they

are to the idea that there is no step to, right? It's basically, there's no

plans. Right. You know, I think it is, Sam, that Lindsey and these other

interventionists, they, so they wanted to win the internal war against the

isolationists within the Trump administration. And they're winning, and obviously

Venezuela and Iran like that. And they also want to not make the mistake that

interventionists have made in the past, or most recently. So they want to not

replicate Iraq, right? Iraq was, we have a plan. We're going to go in, we're

going to take over, we're going to set things up. These guys are like, no, no, no,

no, we're not going to do that. We're not going to make that mistake. We're

just going to go take it down and go, kill the itola, right? And

we'd degrade the government. And then, hey, we'll see what happens. So that's

the plan. It is no plan. Yeah, it's, it's Macroober. It's, we'll see what

happens. This week. Why don't we play the clip? Lindsey Graham on Meet the

Press. These are not difficult questions. He's asked, what is the plan? And

he's got nothing. How will the United States make sure that the next Iranian

government isn't worse than the current regime?

Just not our job to pick the next Iranian government. I don't remember being

attacked by a rock any time, you know, in the past, a rock is complicated.

But, you know, we, we have a relationship with the rock. It's up to a

Rhine to pick your leader. It's not my job. It's not President Trump's job.

We're not going to occupy the country. We're going to give the people of

Rhine a chance to do something they've ever had before, chart their own destiny.

In one sense, like, I'm not going to say I agree with it because I don't,

but like, it is, I think it's important that the United States not go around

the world choosing who should run countries. But in another sense, you

know, are we just going to play whack-a-mole? If we don't like the leader of

the country that emerges, are we just going to do this all over again? Do they

not recognize how destabilizing this would be, both for Iran and the region?

Do they not see downsides to not having a post war strategy to follow?

I mean, are we just going to do the Venezuelan model where we basically take

the next person up and say, okay, you're going to die unless you work with us?

There's so many secondary questions that I have based on what Lindsey just said.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, so Sam, what an exact, I don't understand how the Venezuela model

applies here. In Venezuela, as I understand it, we talked to Delci Rodriguez

beforehand. We're like, we're going to go in. We're going to take out your boss.

Now, you can either work with us or not. And here's what we want from you.

We want the oil. We want you to stop doing the fentanyl, whatever it is.

We don't have that in Iran as far as I know. If we had anything like that,

these guys wouldn't be talking this way. They wouldn't be saying, Hey, it's up to,

you know, so there is no Venezuela model in Iran. Secondly,

secondly, this thing about it's not our job, not my job, not Trump's job.

Sam, how is this going to go over? If this were, we go on for three, four weeks,

I don't know how long we go. And we get a replacement who is like from the

IRGC or whatever, they're still doing the terrorism. They're still building

the missiles. We're going to say, Hey, it's not our job.

Like, how's that going to go over with the voters? Like voters aren't going to,

American voters are not going to be like, Hey, I know you guys went in there,

didn't work out. We have the same stuff we had before. We got dead servicemen.

But hey, it's not your fault. I don't know. It doesn't really make much sense.

I recognize what they're doing here to degree. I mean,

the reference to Iraq is actually very instructive with that that he had there,

where he was just basically like, Look, we don't want to do that again.

We're not going to occupy the country. We know that no one will be in favor of

something like that. But then what? I mean,

this is the, and he was absolutely rejecting the sort of power doctrine of you

break it. You own it. In fact, I think he explicitly rejected that at one point,

Kristen Welker asks, I mean, will the United States pick the next leader of Iran,

or will the Iranian people pick the next leader? And his response is, no,

I talked to the crown prince. He's got some ideas about transition.

I talked to the crown prince. He's got some ideas about transition.

So, I mean, what was that? That was a weird one. I, I, yeah, I mean,

we're giving the Saudis a veto here. What's going on?

Yeah, okay. This is totally crazy. So let's go with your point about, look,

they're right. The administration is right. Lindsey Graham is right to say,

we're not going to pick your leader. So the upshot of that should be the people

of Iran pick the leader. Now, first of all, if that's your position,

why the hell are you talking about the crown prince of Saudi Arabia?

Why are you talking about me? Graham could not stop talking in this interview

about the Arabs. For people who are not familiar with the Middle East,

the Arabs are not the Persians. The Persians are not the Arabs.

The idea that the Persians are going to, and people in Iran are going to be happy

with like Arabs coming in and like an Arab force. Like that's insane.

Absolutely nuts. Right. He can't be that stupid, Kenny.

I think that's rhetorical. Yeah.

I mean, to me, this is sort of like they've oversimplified.

It's a game of risk. We're going to bomb here and then put people in here

and we're not going to touch this and suddenly we'll work out and there'll be no problems

whatsoever. It's absurd. I mean, the other on the current of not just this interview,

but basically every other interview today was, why did we do this now?

What was the issue that compelled you to do this now?

And frankly, there was mixed messaging to put it kindly on that front.

So for instance, Mike Turner, this is a direct quote, they had continued

today, the Iranians had continued their intention to pursue nuclear enrichment.

Their intention had not been abolished. They remained threatened.

They said they weren't enriching.

They had continued their intention to pursue nuclear enrichment.

They had said and declared that they were going to do that.

Their programs had not been completely abolished and their intention had not been abolished.

They remained a threat.

So just the intention was itself a threat, but that's obviously not

imminence, right? I mean, could it be an intention as imminence not going to be?

And then there was Ted Cruz. Cruz, I was a little bit surprised by how he got tripped up,

and the interview usually is pretty good at this stuff, but he got really tripped up.

I don't have present day intelligence on what progress they had made towards rebuilding nuclear

weapons since we bombed their facilities. I have no indication that they were anywhere

close to getting nuclear weapons because our bombing was devastating.

Okay, so they're not close to getting nukes. He has no intelligence that they are close

against. We obliterated them a while ago. So what is the imminent threat?

Yeah, okay, I don't know. No, there is no imminent. I mean, for people who didn't,

I nobody wants to watch all these shows. A series of these Republicans were on various shows today.

None of them could answer this question. They used words like that one, intention.

Oh, it's their intention to build the weapons. People, if you are at the point where you

are defining the intention to build dangerous weapons at some point in the future,

as an imminent threat, you have robbed the word imminent of any meaning, right?

That's just meaningless. Yeah, so it means basically we can attack anybody because we can

define any potential threat as imminent. Mark Warner, the vice-chair, I should say,

of the Intel Committee and the Senate. He said, he was on CNN. He said, I saw no intelligence

that Iran was on the verge of launching any kind of preemptive strike against the United States

America. I saw no intelligence that Iran was on the verge of launching any kind of preemptive strike

against the United States of America. None. None. So, I mean, I don't know. I was, I was unimpressed.

The other thing I will say notable in its absence was there was not a single Trump

official on the shows today, not one, unless you saw one. No, no, but I will say this.

Graham and Tom Cotton was also on CNN talking about this. Right. Graham Cotton, they're part of a

group with Marco Rubio. These are the interventionists. They're the hawks in the administration. So,

they're kind of speaking for that wing of the administration. I mean, Rubio actually is in

the administration, but he was part of that circle. And they were up against the isolationists,

the, you know, JD advances and the Gabbards and the, you know, formerly the Marjorie Taylor Greens.

And those people lost out. So, there is the hawk wing of the Trump administration and the Senate

Republicans won this fight and they were happy to go out and crow about it today.

Yeah, but how long do you think, well, we'll see. But so, three service members died.

The number of others were injured. We don't know what the economic ripple effects are going to be

like when the stock market opens some Monday, but it doesn't look particularly good. We'll see.

There's continued bombardment happening right now. Trump doesn't want a prolonged war. I don't

think would be not in his nature. And he was quoted. We talked a little bit about this. Well,

you know, do they have a Delce Rodriguez for Iran? He was quoted in the Atlantic today,

saying that he's ready to talk with the next level of leadership in Iran who's still alive.

I sense just from watching the guy that he's not going to want to get bogged down in anything like

this. And that's probably why Graham's out there saying it's not our, not our job.

Not our job. It's not my job. Not his job or my job. As you read it right now,

what's your sense of how the president views this?

I don't think he's figured this out. Look, I think the way that Trump is operating is,

as long as these attacks on countries keep going well, he's going to keep attacking. So he did

Venezuela. Venezuela worked out. So he's thinking, well, I'll try it. I'll do it in Iran. And remember,

the hawks are constantly telling him to do this because they all have their agenda. Rubia wanted

to take down Maduro. Graham wanted to take down the eyes. Oh, right. They're all getting what

they want. They're, they're, they're egging him along. He's going to keep going. And he thinks

that the Venezuela model will mean that he'll succeed here. But he doesn't have. Remember,

Venezuela was a day. It was, it was done in a day, right? It was a surgical operation. There

were no deaths. And we had our person in place in Delce Rodriguez. None of that applies here.

None, none of it. And so beyond this first day, as this wears on already, Sam, you can see in the

polls, the polls are not good for is intensive support for, for this action. So it's only going

to get worse over the next several weeks. I'll see. Well, thanks for doing this. I don't know why

you torture yourself every Sunday watching these shows, but I genuinely appreciated it to public

service. For those who are watching us talk about the shows we watched. I don't know why you're

doing that either, but we appreciate that. We love Sam. We love it. And we love them. I should,

I shouldn't say that. I appreciate every bit of your viewership. Thank you so much for doing that.

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