This Is Why Trump Went To War With Iran — Transcript

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1. 0:00So Jonathan, I want to I want to take
2. 0:01you and this this is goes to both of
3. 0:03you.
4. 0:04Maggie brought up a great point. It's a
5. 0:06point I've brought up a lot. One of the
6. 0:08most attractive
7. 0:11planks of the Trump platform to a lot of
8. 0:14people my age that lived through Iraq or
9. 0:17Afghanistan was that we should not
10. 0:21mire ourselves in unwinnable foreign
11. 0:25wars
12. 0:26bankrupt the country saddle future
13. 0:29generations with debt
14. 0:31uh inflame anti-American sentiment all
15. 0:34over the world
16. 0:36send you know destabilize these
17. 0:38countries which send floods of refugees
18. 0:40through Europe or here and
19. 0:43that in turn destabilizes
20. 0:45the political situation in those
21. 0:47countries and we saw that happen in in
22. 0:49Iraq, Afghanistan
23. 0:51in Syria and Libya
24. 0:53all of these were were you know wars of
25. 0:56choice for the United States and Trump
26. 1:00came on the scene saying we've wasted a
27. 1:02lot of time, a lot of money, a lot of
28. 1:04people tragically died in those wars.
29. 1:07How do we go from that? Take us in
30. 1:11whether it's the Oval Office or the
31. 1:12Situation Room. Maggie said that it
32. 1:15wasn't simply Netanyahu puppeteering him
33. 1:17that he thought this was a good idea.
34. 1:20But
35. 1:22you know in the article that I read in
36. 1:23the New York Times that you guys both
37. 1:25write he has the the the head of the
38. 1:28Joint Chiefs telling him this is not
39. 1:30going to be easy.
40. 1:32The you have Ratcliffe the head of the
41. 1:33CIA going to affect regime change is
42. 1:36going to be incredibly difficult. We
43. 1:37don't know that we can do it.
44. 1:39Um I forget who it was but someone in
45. 1:42the room goes the Israelis are
46. 1:43overselling.
47. 1:44Like this regime's not just going to
48. 1:46collapse.
49. 1:48So he's getting all of that information.
50. 1:50What is motivating him to do this? Why
51. 1:54would he mortgage his political future
52. 1:59on this war.
53. 2:01It's a country of 90 million people.
54. 2:03They have a very large military. They
55. 2:06have defense guarantees with, you know,
56. 2:08with places like Russia and China. He's
57. 2:11getting all of this information. What is
58. 2:13pushing him in that direction? How do we
59. 2:15go from 2016 Middle Eastern wars
60. 2:18bankrupted our country to
61. 2:2120
62. 2:22uh you know, 2024
63. 2:25we're invading Iran.
64. 2:29>> So, uh
65. 2:30uh I'll I'll sort of work backwards a
66. 2:31little bit. Maggie and I as part of the
67. 2:34reporting for the book, um we obviously
68. 2:36asked him for an interview with the
69. 2:37president and we ended up getting one um
70. 2:40at sort of quite late in our reporting
71. 2:42process. And we go in and see him on
72. 2:46March 16th. So, it's the 17th day of the
73. 2:48war with Iran.
74. 2:50And there was a very I thought it was a
75. 2:52very revealing moment in that interview.
76. 2:55We we were asking him about presidential
77. 2:58power because he had told Tucker Carlson
78. 3:00a year earlier that no president has
79. 3:03ever been as powerful as me. He made
80. 3:05that claim to Tucker Carlson, which
81. 3:06obviously a claim that sort of soaked in
82. 3:09hubris. Um and so we ask him about that
83. 3:12and he gets one of his aides, Natalie
84. 3:15Harp, um to go and fetch this document
85. 3:18for us. And she goes off and gets this
86. 3:20printout and gives each of us a two-page
87. 3:22printout. And he he he sits there. He
88. 3:24wants us to read this document and he
89. 3:25starts reading it. And the document he
90. 3:28says is written by a historian and the
91. 3:30first open opening of the document says,
92. 3:32"Donald Trump is the most powerful man
93. 3:34who's ever existed on the planet by
94. 3:36far."
95. 3:37And then it goes on to compare him to
96. 3:39what he describes to us are the top 10.
97. 3:42And it's Mao, Stalin, Hitler, Alexander
98. 3:46the Great, the Caesars, Genghis Khan,
99. 3:49Attila the Hun, Tamerlane,
100. 3:52you know, essentially some of the most
101. 3:55notorious
102. 3:56>> Yeah, it's a good list. Let's be fair to
103. 3:58Trump. It's a good list.
104. 4:00>> It's a good list.
105. 4:01>> It's solid. It's a solid list. It's a
106. 4:02solid list. Um so
107. 4:04>> [laughter]
108. 4:05>> So, he shows us this list and there's
109. 4:08there's no moral dimension to it. It
110. 4:09it's about pure The metric is about
111. 4:11power and the the analysis at the top is
112. 4:14the reason Trump is the most powerful
113. 4:15American president is because he he is
114. 4:18in charge of the US military, he's in
115. 4:20charge of the US economy. There has
116. 4:21never been a military as powerful as the
117. 4:23US military, obviously, in human
118. 4:25history. But, that Trump is willing to
119. 4:26use that power.
120. 4:28And
121. 4:29it really occurred to us in that moment,
122. 4:31but it had occurred to us throughout our
123. 4:32reporting, you know, you asked Maggie
124. 4:34about how the second term differs from
125. 4:35the first term.
126. 4:38I think he I And he made this very clear
127. 4:40by how he said it, I think he wants to
128. 4:42be a sort of Napoleonic type of figure.
129. 4:45I think he wants to be a capital G great
130. 4:47man of history. And I think that he
131. 4:50believes that the way to do that is to
132. 4:53do, quote unquote, big things on the
133. 4:55global stage. And I think the story of
134. 4:59going to war with Iran was a story of,
135. 5:03for sure, Netanyahu pushing extremely
136. 5:06hard. You know, we have an extraordinary
137. 5:08scene in the situation room in the book
138. 5:11at war to Trump and showing this video
139. 5:14montage and regime change in Iran.
140. 5:18The CIA said it was nonsense, but
141. 5:21I think a big even bigger part Trump's
142. 5:23own instincts. He thought this was going
143. 5:25to be a fast
144. 5:27day, said. He his experience of going
145. 5:31[snorts] in, authorizing Delta Force to
146. 5:33go into Caracas and snatching a foreign
147. 5:36sovereign head of state out of his
148. 5:37bedroom in the middle of the night in
149. 5:38his pajamas and doing regime change in
150. 5:41that country and installing a client
151. 5:43puppet, I think made him feel that he
152. 5:46could control events around the world
153. 5:49when he really can't. You know, you said
154. 5:50it. It's a country of more than 90
155. 5:52million people. This is not Caracas. And
156. 5:55the the revolutionary regime in Iran is
157. 5:5747 years in the making. It's It goes
158. 6:00much deeper than the Hugo Chavez
159. 6:03remnants in in Venezuela. So, I think he
160. 6:05just had an overestimation,
161. 6:08uh
162. 6:09a false belief in the power of the
163. 6:11American military to shape events
164. 6:13overseas.
165. 6:14Completely ahistorical.
166. 6:17There's no example in human history of
167. 6:18regime change achieved through an air
168. 6:20campaign. It's never been done. You
169. 6:23always need boots on the ground. So, you
170. 6:25know, anyone who has any passing
171. 6:27familiarity of military history could
172. 6:29have told you that, but he just had a
173. 6:31feeling. And we've talked to people in
174. 6:32the room with him, and he just felt that
175. 6:34this was going to work out and that this
176. 6:35was going to go well. And the last thing
177. 6:37I'll say is, you know, we have a thing
178. 6:38in the book where Tucker Carlson before
179. 6:40the war says to Trump, um you know, he's
180. 6:43questioning him about it. And Trump
181. 6:45goes, "It's going to be fine." And
182. 6:47Tucker goes, "Are you sure?" I'm
183. 6:48paraphrasing. And Tucker says, "Yeah."
184. 6:50And he says, "Well, how do you know?"
185. 6:51And Trump says, "Cuz it always is."
186. 6:53>> Right. Right. I know that.
187. 6:54>> That's That's the mindset.
188. 6:56>> Ben, you're following up on what
189. 6:57Jonathan said.
190. 6:59The Israelis have the greatest
191. 7:01intelligence service in the world,
192. 7:02arguably one of them. They do tons of
193. 7:04psychological profiles of people. Do
194. 7:06they look at Trump and they know he
195. 7:08wants to be a great man of history?
196. 7:12Do Are they using his own
197. 7:15uh ambitions and his own personality
198. 7:18against him to get him into this war?
199. 7:21Can you go into a little bit of his
200. 7:23relationship with Netanyahu and how
201. 7:26exactly When did Israel start lobbying
202. 7:30for him to do this privately? Was this
203. 7:33Was this when Miriam Adelson gave him
204. 7:34money? Was this when he was elected? Did
205. 7:37it start in term one? When did the
206. 7:39clamoring to go to war with Iran begin.
207. 7:43>> So, we write in depth on this. Tam, I'm
208. 7:45glad you asked about that because it's
209. 7:47actually one of the areas of reporting
210. 7:48that was really interesting to us and
211. 7:51that went in a direction that was
212. 7:52somewhat different than we had initially
213. 7:55uh anticipated, but I mean, look, he did
214. 7:58the strike against Soleimani in 20 early
215. 7:592020 over the objection of some of his
216. 8:02advisors. He was very proud of that.
217. 8:03He's been talking about it for a long
218. 8:05time. Uh he had this falling out with
219. 8:07Netanyahu in early 2021 because
220. 8:11Netanyahu congratulated Biden on winning
221. 8:13the election and this became a sore
222. 8:14point. And we write about how in the
223. 8:17book
224. 8:18Netanyahu wanted to, you know, repair
225. 8:21the breach with Trump. He goes to see
226. 8:23him right after Butler uh when Trump
227. 8:25has, you know, this wound on his ear.
228. 8:27He's showing Netanyahu the ear and not
229. 8:30Netanyahu shows up to this meeting at
230. 8:32Mar-a-Lago, which is really long. Uh it
231. 8:34was a couple hours and he's got a list.
232. 8:37I'm I'm shortening this anecdote, but
233. 8:39he's got a list of like all of the the
234. 8:41leaders who had or one category of
235. 8:44leaders who had congratulated Biden and
236. 8:46showed that actually Netanyahu was was
237. 8:48pretty late by comparison. It wasn't
238. 8:50really that quick. Okay, so Trump kind
239. 8:52of laughs and whatever.
240. 8:54Trump makes clear to Netanyahu in this
241. 8:56meeting, according to our reporting,
242. 8:58that at some point in a in a sort of
243. 9:01pull aside,
244. 9:02he's going to be a much
245. 9:04harder line president on Iran
246. 9:07in a second term than he would in a than
247. 9:09he was in the first. He knew that
248. 9:11Netanyahu wanted him to do certain
249. 9:12things that he didn't do last time. He
250. 9:14will do them this time. And the context
251. 9:17for that is number one, Iran had been
252. 9:21lobbying physical threats against Trump
253. 9:23since the Soleimani strike against half
254. 9:26a dozen or so members of his senior team
255. 9:28from term one.
256. 9:30Uh Iranians, according to the US
257. 9:32government, hacked into the Trump
258. 9:34campaign's emails. And so all of this is
259. 9:36like part of the backdrop for why Trump
260. 9:38is is more pissed off and more
261. 9:40receptive.
262. 9:41It was cleared in Netanyahu's top
263. 9:43advisor, Ron Dermer, that there was like
264. 9:46an 80% chance that Trump would join them
265. 9:49in a war in the in a meeting that he had
266. 9:51with Trump after the 2024 election. So,
267. 9:54you move forward and Trump is incredibly
268. 9:56and this is actually an
269. 9:58an under-explored piece here, but Trump
270. 10:00was like fascinated by the pager attacks
271. 10:03that the Israeli military did against
272. 10:04Hezbollah.
273. 10:06And Netanyahu brings him a gold-plated
274. 10:09pager and it's a gift to Trump. And you
275. 10:13know, Trump is very good at telling
276. 10:14different people
277. 10:15different things depending on the
278. 10:17audience. So, to some who were
279. 10:18anti-Netanyahu, he was sort of critical
280. 10:20of the gift. But with others, he was
281. 10:22clearly fascinated by it and kept
282. 10:24talking about the violence and the
283. 10:25violence of the attack. And then you get
284. 10:27to June of last year when they go into
285. 10:29this 12-day war, which is led first by
286. 10:32Israel and they were going ahead
287. 10:33regardless.
288. 10:35It's a massive success. Trump is
289. 10:37watching on It's a obviously a much
290. 10:39smaller campaign, but Trump is watching
291. 10:41Fox News that morning and it's just
292. 10:43being heralded as this like military
293. 10:45success and he wants to be part of that.
294. 10:48And so, he had great faith in the
295. 10:50Israeli military uh because of what he
296. 10:53was being told and he was just much more
297. 10:56open to this for the variety of factors
298. 10:58that Jonathan mentioned and that I'm
299. 11:01talking about, which is he personally
300. 11:02felt under siege by Iran. And he
301. 11:04believed this was going to go quickly,
302. 11:06but like Tim, one thing that was so
303. 11:09striking in our reporting, we talked
304. 11:10about this in the book,
305. 11:11he was so much more hawkish on Iran than
306. 11:13most of his own team. And I remember as
307. 11:15we were reporting this out, so many of
308. 11:17his own team believing like late last
309. 11:19year right before New Year's like
310. 11:21Netanyahu is going to come and he's
311. 11:23going to come and ask us to do more and
312. 11:25the president's just not having it. And
313. 11:27that is so not how this played out.