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The Ingraham Angle 2/28/26 FULL END SHOW | ᗷᖇEᗩKIᑎG ᑎEᗯS Tᖇᑌᗰᑭ February 28, 2026
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00:00And with the attacks on Dubai and Saudi Arabia and Bahrain and Kuwait and Jordan,
00:06you wonder what this is going to mean. We're early in all of this. There are likely going
00:12to be many more attacks overnight tonight and in coming days. But could it change the face
00:19of the Middle East? We'll see. We've got you covered on every aspect. Stick with Fox News
00:25for continuing coverage tonight. Monday on Special Report, continuing coverage of the
00:30U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran. Remember, if you can't catch us live, set your DVR. We've got you
00:36covered. Fair, balanced, and still unafraid. Good night.
00:54A day and now night of deadly U.S. and Israeli military strikes against Iranian targets,
01:00resulting in not only widespread devastation of Iranian weapon sites, but killing one of the
01:06worst despots in the world. The Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, along with dozens of others, dead.
01:13I'm Laura Ingram. Welcome to this special live edition of The Ingram Angle, where we will examine
01:18the military strategy undertaken in this joint U.S.-Israeli action, and also the political,
01:24economic, and political fallout that may occur. And tonight, we're learning more about Iran's
01:32retaliation, hitting military and civilian targets across the Middle East, making no friends there,
01:37from Israel to Kuwait to Dubai to Abu Dhabi. We start tonight in Cyprus, where Fox's Nate Foy
01:44is standing by with the latest. Nate, what can you tell us?
01:49Hey, Laura. So yeah, we're in Cyprus because the airspace is closed around Israel. We're going to try
01:54to get there in the next couple of days as soon as we can. But just a massive day. You
01:58mentioned the
01:58headliner that the supreme leader, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is dead after an early morning
02:04American-Israeli strike in Tehran at his compound there, and he wasn't the only one killed. The exact
02:11numbers of who else was killed and how many is up for debate, but the big picture was a massive
02:16success. A U.S. defense official says the number is between five and ten others. These are high-up
02:22people in the Iranian regime. Israel puts that number at 40. We know the IRGC commander was killed,
02:30as well as several people who work in Iran's nuclear program as well. But it was just the beginning
02:35of massive strikes in Iran throughout the entire day. The U.S. launched 900 strikes in the first 12 hours
02:44of this campaign. And Israel calls this the greatest air campaign in its country's history.
02:50They hit, according to Iran, 24 of the 31 provinces in the country. Now, as for the success striking
02:59back from the Iranian perspective, we're learning just in this past hour, the Zayed International
03:05Airport in Abu Dhabi has been hit by attack drones. At least one person has been killed, seven others
03:13injured. Israel's been taking fire all day. Israel just put out numbers. One person has been killed,
03:20121 injured. But the big thing from back home is the American service members. And there were some
03:27reports from Iran claiming that several of them had been killed or injured. And U.S. Central Command
03:33came out and said, that's just not true. Not a single U.S. service member has been injured or killed
03:39to
03:39this point. No Navy ships were struck by missiles and very minimal damage to U.S. bases from strikes by
03:47Iran. The Navy's fifth fleet headquarters in Bahrain was hit. But a senior U.S. defense official says
03:55that it was an empty warehouse and that it has not impacted this campaign moving forward.
04:01Now, as you also mentioned, Iran is firing at pretty much every country in the region that hosts
04:08U.S. bases. Some of those more friendly to Iran historically, some of them not. In that second group
04:15would be Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia taking fire. And our Brett Baer learned from Saudi sources
04:23that there is going to be an emergency meeting from GCC countries. That's the Gulf Cooperation
04:29Council, a group of six Arab countries. And the message is going to be urging them to align
04:36with American interests. So that's a big deal. Also, we look at what Iran has to actually fight this
04:43war over the next couple of days in the next couple of weeks, if it gets to that. Iran fired
04:48at least
04:48300 missiles today. They have 2000 long range missiles, 2000 short range missiles. They had
04:56built up their arsenal since last summer during that 12 day war when Israel and the United States
05:02hit the nuclear facilities and also their ballistic missiles. Also, keep in mind, Laura,
05:07their proxies have been badly weakened since the conflict with Israel began. But the question now
05:14is what comes next? Both Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Trump are urging the Iranian people
05:18to take advantage of this moment and seize control of their government because it's a once in a
05:24generation opportunity. We'll send it back to you, Laura.
05:26All right, Nate. Thank you very much. And as Nate just mentioned, Iran's retaliation continuing late
05:32tonight. Now, just before we went to air tonight, Zayed International Airport in Abu Dhabi announced
05:39that one person was killed and seven others injured after a drone attack. Now, this is hours after the
05:45Kuwait airport was hit. And that spread mass panic among the passengers in the terminal. And now there
05:53reports that Dubai's airport was also hit. Here joining us is Dan Bongino, Fox News contributor,
06:00former deputy director of the FBI. Dan, thank you for joining us tonight.
06:05The death of Khamenei, will this end up being the sea change in the Middle East that so many have
06:14been
06:14waiting for? Or at this moment, is this being overstated given what we don't know yet on the ground
06:22there? Well, it's absolutely certain that they've had a secession plan in place. They obviously know
06:30they've been targets for a long time. Having said that, Laura, it's been close to 50 years we've been
06:36dealing with the, you know, the seat of the, you know, Shia Islamo-radicalism in Iran.
06:43Republican and Democrat administrations have largely failed to act. We've tried a number of different
06:49strategies from the JCPOA to even, you know, de facto and de jure appeasement at times,
06:55and none of it's worked. You know, President Trump was, is the first president to make a decisive
07:02call on this and to say, we've had enough. And keep in mind, Laura, I understand. This is not going
07:09to be another Iraq war, I'm convinced. That's not how President Trump, I believe, is thinking about
07:15this. But, you know, the folks out there who are criticizing him, you have to understand, like,
07:20he gave them a long runway for diplomacy. He's been talking about since 2016, the fact that bombing and
07:29taking out and decapitating the regime is an option. He gave them a number of opportunities to take an
07:35off-ramp. And they just didn't take it. And now they're dead. And that's just the facts.
07:42And, Dan, we remember, all of us remember all too well the $1.4 billion in cash that was directly
07:51given to Iran during the Obama administration. These were funds that were unfrozen. And this was
07:58part of the, you know, the Iranian negotiation at the time, after he failed to support the Green
08:06Revolution on the ground in 2009, which he conceded was a mistake. But there's been an attempt after
08:11attempt and flub after flub. And Trump said, I'm not going to kick this can down the road. I'm going
08:16to try to deal with this. And whatever anyone says, that is super bold.
08:22Yeah. I mean, do you have any idea how many white papers and academia have been written about how
08:29to transform this cauldron into the Middle East into a more peaceful place? President Trump, I think
08:35he just, he thinks in like a basic kind of SWAT analysis, you know, strengths, weaknesses,
08:40opportunities, threats. The Iranians were just too stupid to take advantage of that. A basic game
08:46theory analyst will tell you when you're in a position of weakness like the Iranians were, they have
08:51no air defenses, they have a military designed solely for regime preservation, and they couldn't
08:55even do that for a day. What you try to do is you try to mitigate threats and take advantage
09:01of small
09:01opportunities when you're in a position of weakness. What the Iranians did, and now they're dead,
09:06their leadership, is they exacerbated the threats and they kicked away all the opportunities every
09:13time they came in front of them. They were not negotiating from any position of strength whatsoever.
09:18Laura, even their proxies have abandoned them. And we don't know what's going to happen moving
09:24forward. I'm sure there's going to be something that emerges from this, and we all hope it doesn't,
09:27but their proxies have been basically castrated. They had no card to play with,
09:33and they were acting like they had a full house. It was just bizarre. And now you see what happens.
09:39Secretary of War Pete Hegs said, Dan, just posted on X moments ago,
09:43we will not tolerate powerful missiles targeting the American people. Those missiles will be
09:50destroyed along with Iran's missile production. The Iranian Navy will be destroyed. And as President
09:55Trump has said his entire life, Iran will never have a nuclear weapon. The United States didn't
09:59start this conflict, but we will finish it. If you kill or threaten Americans anywhere in the world,
10:03as Iran has, then we will hunt you down and we will kill you. There's been some disagreement,
10:10though, hasn't there, Dan, between the intel community and what they concluded Iran was capable
10:17of. And fast forward to today, when we say we're not going to tolerate missiles that target Americans,
10:24I imagine what Secretary of War Hegs said is saying is missiles that target American military bases in the
10:30Middle East, because they do not have, they did not have the power to hit the mainland United States,
10:36not even close.
10:40Yeah, I mean, I know what surfaces an open source and what happens behind the scenes is typically
10:46different, but there's a relatively strong consensus, and it is all open source now,
10:52that the Iranians were just committed, completely committed to enrichment. They were offered a path
10:58many times for a civilian nuclear program with proper guardrails, and they basically gave the
11:05double-barreled middle finger to anyone who suggested it and said, no, we're going to enrich and we're
11:10going to do it here. We're not even going to entertain guardrails. Well, if you want to enrich to the
11:17point
11:17the Iranians wanted to enrich, you want to weaponize it. You're not looking at powering a bunch of heated
11:23pools in Iran. You're looking at it to create a weapon. And even after President Trump decimated
11:30their nuclear program before, again, this is what I was talking about before with the point of
11:33weakness, you would think at that point they would have made some major concessions and tried to
11:38mitigate, tried to mitigate some of the threats to take advantage of small opportunities. They did
11:42the exact opposite. They basically made no concessions at all. And President Trump and his team had
11:48basically had enough. You can only offer them food so many times before they throw in your face.
11:53And now you see what happens. And Dan, your message to our, some of our friends on the right
11:59who are, are saying, look, President Trump ran on no regime change, and now President Trump is doing
12:06regime change. You see the Democrats are picking up on that for 2026 themes. Your message to them tonight.
12:13Well, it's incredible how the doomers, Lawrence, hasn't even been 24 hours. It's happened at 3 a.m.
12:19It's not 3 a.m. Eastern time. Can you give, can you give the man a chance to cook a
12:24little bit?
12:24I mean, he's, he just deposed and decapitated the entire upper level infrastructure of the Iranian
12:31death to America regime. Maybe give the guy five minutes before you're ready crapping on everything
12:37he did. I mean, who else has been able to do this? If it doesn't work out over time,
12:42there'll be a bunch of papers and a bunch of talking heads, I'm sure, who will rip it apart.
12:46It's been 24 hours. Give the guy a chance. Where has he been proven wrong in the past? I thought
12:50World War III was going to break out after the Abraham records and after he moved the embassy
12:55and after he got Maduro. What, none of that happened. Give the guy a chance. He knows what he's doing.
13:01He's surrounded himself with more than competent people. Give it a chance. It's only,
13:04it's not even been 24 hours yet. All right, Dan, thank you very much for joining us tonight.
13:09Busy news night, obviously. And Iran's leadership may be decapitated, but as Bongino just said,
13:16they're still capable of retaliatory strikes. Just pan over here. We've got more interceptors
13:23coming off and more fire coming in here. So just stay with us here, John. You see these trails
13:30and there's another one coming off. There's a bunch of them here. So just take a little wide shot.
13:35Yeah, we've got more coming off. Just put me here so I can talk here. And you're going to see
13:43behind us, we've got to move. There's a lot of incoming fire right now toward Tel Aviv.
13:49And so just, and just stay with us. We've got to go. Our security. So we're going to stay live
13:56with
13:56you, but we've got to move toward hard cover here. The city is getting hit very hard.
14:01Joining us is Michael Oren, former Israeli ambassador to the United States. He spent much
14:05of the day there in a safe room himself. Mr. Ambassador, we're going to get to what the death
14:10of Khamenei means for Israel in a moment. But first, tell us about these strikes today. Have
14:18they begin to, have they begun to slow down at all or the frequency similar to what they were
14:25like 10 hours ago? No, they're pretty stable, Laura. It's good to be with you. In Tel Aviv,
14:32the last blast that killed an Israeli woman and wounded several dozen literally shook this building
14:37to its foundations. It's how powerful these missiles are. They are not firecrackers. They're
14:43carrying over a hundred pounds of, over a thousand pounds of TNT, which is enough to not just to blow
14:48up a building, but to devastate an entire neighborhood. You can imagine this. And Iran
14:53has thousands of these missiles, which means for Israel, it means that this war was a war of no
14:58choice. So it's an existential fright. We cannot let Iran have that ballistic missile capacity.
15:04So we've gone into our safe room, oh boy, close to 30, 35 times. I'm sure the Iranians will try
15:09to
15:09keep us awake at night, not let us sleep more than an hour or two. I was in the safe
15:13room about,
15:14ooh, about 15 minutes ago. And as you saw from Trey's report recently, there's very intensive
15:20fighting or air defense fighting over Tel Aviv. We've had one major impact in the city today.
15:27The Iranian foreign minister is kind of reminding me of Baghdad Bob a little bit, saying,
15:34everything's fine here. Don't worry. Khomeini's great. Yeah. He's a lot.
15:39Americans and Israelis have failed to, you know, access to, you know, hit their targets. And now
15:49everything is under control. And we almost in less than two hours, we were able to start retaliation.
15:59Mr. Ambassador, they had, as Dan Bongino said, so many opportunities. President Trump wanted to
16:07settle this peacefully. He said so many times, and we have no reason not to believe him. And they
16:13wouldn't do it. They wouldn't give up that dream of enrichment of uranium. They wanted to keep it
16:20going. They said, oh, it's peaceful. It's just for energy, which nobody bought. Why do you think in
16:26the end they bet against President Trump here, that when he said he was going to do something,
16:31he put that red line down, he was going to do it? Because the enrichment for the Iranian regime,
16:37like the ballistic missile system, like the support for terrorist groups in the Middle East,
16:43and indeed throughout the world, it's in their DNA. Basically, the United States was asking this
16:48regime not to change itself, but try to commit identity suicide. And Iran was going to be
16:55incapable of doing this. Regime was incapable of doing that. And so probably from the get-go,
16:59there was no chance of bridging those huge gaps between the American position and the Iranian
17:04position. Maybe the Iranians concluded, I think falsely, that last summer when they, during the 12-day
17:11war, when they fired some missiles at Qatar, the president immediately agreed to a ceasefire and
17:16actually tied Israel's hands. Maybe they drew false conclusions for that, about this president's
17:21commitment to seeing through his promises to bring about a change in Iran, to come to the aid of
17:27the Iranian people who have been very courageous in going out and protesting against this regime
17:32at the cost of thousands and thousands of lives. Well, this is going to be up to them to take
17:37it to
17:38the next level. After the military strikes are done, this is up to the Iranian people. Mr. Ambassador,
17:43thank you very much. And with the Ayatollah and as many as 40 of the top Iranian officials dead,
17:49the key question does become, who is going to step in? Is there a true reformer waiting in the wings,
17:56or will the next guy be even worse? Now, some Iranian Americans and others are proposing the son of
18:02the Shah of Iran, Reza Pahlavi, who has lived in the United States since 1979. And today, Pahlavi posted on
18:09X.
18:10But does he have the support on the ground that would be necessary? That remains unclear tonight.
18:17Another name being floated is Ali Larijani, Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council.
18:23And he presents a nightmare scenario. He was one of Khamenei's top advisors. And he also posted on
18:30X late today saying, we will make the Zionist criminals and the shameless Americans regret their
18:35actions. The brave soldiers and the great nation of Iran will deliver an unforgettable lesson to the hellish
18:41international oppressors. Here to discuss is Jonathan Shanzer, Executive Director of the Foundation for the
18:47Defense of Democracies, and Ali Safavi from the National Council of Resistance of Iran. His brother was executed
18:53by Iran in the 1980s for his opposition to the regime.
18:58Ali, let's start with you. Who next? And what can you tell us about Larijani?
19:08Well, first of all, thank you very much for inviting me to your show. When it comes to who will
19:15be the next leader of Iran,
19:16I think it is the Iranian people who will determine that. Today, our president-elect Mariam Rajavi announced a
19:24provisional government based upon her 10-point plan, which calls for holding free elections in Iran no
19:31later than six months after the fall of the regime to elect a constitutional assembly, which will draft the
19:37future constitution of the new republic. And of course, that will determine who the next leader of Iran
19:43Iran will be. People of Iran will vote for that. That said, when it comes to Ali Larijani, he's a
19:49regime stalwart. He was the head of the Iranian state radio and television for 10 years. He was a
19:56parliament speaker for two terms, eight years. And he was a member of the Supreme National Security Council
20:02for many years. So he indeed is one of the most hardline elements of the Iranian regime. And that is
20:09precisely why he was elevated to the position that he has today by Khamenei when he was thinking of
20:16what will happen if, in fact, some war breaks out. As to Reza Pahlavi, obviously, he is a relic of
20:24the past.
20:25His father, people of Iran, threw out of Iran for his brutal dictatorship as his grandfather. So when it
20:32comes to any game plan for the future of Iran, Reza Pahlavi doesn't even have a seat on the bench.
20:38And the Iranian people are not going to overthrow the Mueller's regime to replace it with a dictator.
20:44As far as they are concerned, there's there's no difference between a crown and a turban.
20:49Jonathan, your thoughts on succession here, because the worst thing that could happen,
20:54one of the worst things that could happen is that, you know, decapitate this this regime
20:57and another regime of future terrorists is in place. Well, that's right. And I think right now,
21:04here's what I would look at. There are three different sets of people that have been cultivated
21:08by outsiders. We got the CIA, you got the Mossad, and you've got the crown prince, all cultivating
21:14people on the ground, hoping that they may be able to step in. But nobody is going to stick their
21:19neck
21:19out until they know this regime has fallen. The thing that I'm watching for right now, though,
21:25is whether Donald Trump is trying to pull off another Venezuela. In other words, decapitate
21:30the regime, as we have just seen today, 40 top leaders gone, and then try to find out who the
21:36pragmatists are a little bit further down the chain, who might be willing to work with the United States
21:42and to keep things stable until a new regime can be put into place, voted in by the Iranian people.
21:48I don't know which way we go here, but I don't think we're going to see people stick their necks
21:52out right now, knowing that the regime is willing to kill 30, 40,000 people on the streets for
21:58protesting their oppressive regime. Yeah, stick their necks out to get their heads chopped off.
22:03Jonathan and Ali, thank you very much. Good to see both of you. And coming up, Tomahawk missiles
22:07and one-way attack drones, how the U.S. helped take out Iran's supreme leader. Details next.
22:13Continuing to strike even throughout this show, Bahrain's interior ministry reporting now that
22:19its airport has been hit by a suicide drone. Now, this is after Iran hit Kuwait's airport,
22:26Abu Dhabi, and there were reports that Dubai's airport has also been struck by one of these
22:32suicide drones. Here with me now, Navy vet and Texas Congressman Ronnie Jackson, along with
22:36Medal of Honor recipient Dakota Meyer. All right, gentlemen, a lot to unpack here.
22:42Let's start with you, Dakota. Like, you've been in these very difficult situations. You know that
22:51there are Americans out there, many of them who fear, as happy as they are that this regime seems to
22:57have been decapitated, they fear a protracted conflict in the Middle East stemming from these
23:04joint strikes, Israel and the United States working together. Your reaction to everything you've seen
23:09today and those concerns? Look, here's what I think is, I think that, I think we can all agree that
23:17a, you know, a nuclear Iran is not safe for the entire world, and at some point someone's going to
23:23have to deal with this. I think that the timing is incredible because we have a strong leadership as
23:29well as a strong military, and we've seen over the past couple months what we are capable of when we
23:33have both of those together. So while there might be concerns and everybody could be concerned, I think we
23:38have to sit back and wait. But what we have seen from our leadership is effectiveness and efficiency
23:43at everything that they have done so far when it comes to these types of situations. Congressman
23:48Jackson, the intel that we at least now know that Israel and the United States had to pinpoint the
23:58exact location of the Iranian leadership at the exact three different sites hit simultaneously
24:06in broad daylight. What, what should that tell the American people about the precise nature of this
24:14planning? Well, it should tell the American people, Laura, and all of our adversaries. Once again,
24:19President Trump has, has reiterated and has proven that he's not like any other president we've had
24:24before. He's going to take necessary action, even if it means proactively going after a terrorist, you know,
24:31country like this, that, that, that, that wreaks havoc all over the world. He's going to do what's necessary.
24:36And, you know, they, this, this intelligence out there has probably been out there for a long time.
24:40We probably had opportunities to do this in the past, but we've never had somebody willing to pull
24:45the trigger and do it. So I'm really glad that President Trump stepped up to the plate and did this.
24:49As Dakota mentioned, the timing was perfect. They went out of their way to make sure they were doing it
24:54in the middle of the day,
24:54which they were not expecting. Cause we usually fight at night and we didn't now. We, and they got
24:59them while they're all together at a meeting and killed at least 40 of, of their top IRGC and
25:05government intelligence officials, as well as the Supreme leader and the leader of IRGC, their, their
25:12leader for their intelligence service and many, many more. So they've been decapitated. I mean,
25:17they're, they have no one left to turn to anymore. Russia and China are obviously willing to help them.
25:21All of their proxies are staying quiet right now. Cause they know they'll be exterminated if they
25:26poke their head up right now. And all of the Arab states that are also have traditionally been
25:30enemies of theirs are all with us. So they are, they are on their knees right now. And we just
25:35have to continue to do whatever's necessary for the next few days or the next few weeks or however long
25:40this takes to make this stick. And then we have to pray to God and do everything that we can,
25:45that they get a regime in there that, that, that wants to be a neighbor, uh, to all the Arab
25:50states that
25:51are in the area and a neighbor to Israel and, and wants to be a friend, not an enemy to
25:55the United
25:55States and the rest of the world. Yeah, we sure hope that's the case. Um, Dakota, we're learning
26:00tonight that the U S Patriot missile system used over our air force base and Qatar has been wildly
26:07successful. Uh, again, Americans see that we spend 1.1 trillion dollars annually now on our military,
26:14but from the F 35 to these Patriot missile systems, this has been, uh, I mean, as right now,
26:22a tour de force of defense and again, precision with how these, uh, systems are being operated and
26:29the execution of this strategy. Yeah. Laura, I want you to understand that the men and women who wear
26:37the nation's cloth have always been the best human beings and the most capable human beings that not
26:42only the United States of America has to offer, but that the, that walk the face of the planet.
26:47And what we are now seeing is that we have leadership who are willing and allowing them
26:50to go out and to do what they are capable of. And I think that this is tax dollars well
26:55spent.
26:56And I think we should all be thankful that we have such men and women who are willing to go
26:59out
27:00and do the nation's bidding like we've seen over the last couple months. Uh, and a commander in chief
27:05who knows what he's doing with top, top leadership in our cabinet. Congressman and Dakota, thank you both
27:11very much. All right, coming up, how close was Iran to having a nuclear weapon? There's a debate about
27:17that, but what we know next. Specifically about the negotiations, I'm wondering.
27:24And I think the president was extremely transparent in the last couple of weeks as we have seen these
27:30talks go on. You know, I was with, uh, people close to the nuclear talks, uh, late last night,
27:35probably just three hours before these strikes, uh, began in Iran. And the mood was not good,
27:41Brett. Um, it was one of defeat, uh, one of frustration. Um, and it was becoming very clear
27:46to these folks that the U S was going to strike. It was just a matter of when. And according
27:51to my
27:51sources in the region, uh, it was really a big hangup over enrichment. That was, that was the breaking
27:58point here. Um, and my sources were telling me that Iran was willing to stop stockpiling. They were
28:03willing to allow, uh, U N and U S, um, inspectors into the country, which had never let, uh, happen
28:10before, but they weren't willing to stop enrichment. And now there are reports today, Brett, that the
28:15U S even offered Iran free nuclear fuel forever. And they refused. So it was very clear to this
28:22administration and perhaps the negotiators, maybe for quite some time, that these talks were going
28:26nowhere. Politics factors into everything. Even the middle of, uh, action like this, lawmakers
28:32weighing in, Harold, on, on this. Take a listen.
28:41Okay. I'll trust me that the lawmakers have weighed in on this, uh, today on a lot of different
28:48fronts, Democrats and Republicans along party lines. Um, Harold, where do you see this? I mean,
28:54we're at the beginning stages of this. Well, first off, you've done a great job today. Thanks for
28:59having me on the network, really having to rework everything to accommodate this. I'd say two
29:04things. We're less than 20 hours in. I think Mark's appraisal of this and ISIS are spot on in, in
29:10so
29:10many ways, but we shouldn't, we shouldn't allow ourselves to, to, to not forget the, how your follow
29:15up was to Mark. We're still very early here. We will disrupt the Iranians. There's no, there's no
29:20question about that. But the fundamental question after that is how much has this, uh, altered the
29:25equation, changed the equation, uh, in Iran. There are 90 million people there. We have to ask the
29:31question, what kind of leadership do they want? I heard the president and I thought the most
29:35salient and powerful part of that eight minutes you referred to earlier, Brett, was him asking the
29:40Iranians to stand up, uh, and to offer new leadership. Two, we have to think about the Powell
29:45doctrine, one big part of it, which is how do you justify this at home? Uh, the president has supporters
29:52who are suspicious, skeptical of, of, of long, uh, entanglements overseas, including his own vice
29:59president. How does the stock market react? I thought Kevin book's reaction about maybe 60 cents to a dollar
30:05increases in gasoline, uh, if the things, if things go in the worst possible way. And I think the third
30:10question is our global coalition. How does that stand together and how does that stay together?
30:15But ultimately the president and his team are going to have to have to say to the country,
30:19explain to the country and express to the country how long we're going to be into this, uh, and what,
30:25what result we're looking for. Yeah. Well, as promised, the lawmakers were talking today. Take a listen.
30:35I command president Trump for making the difficult but absolutely necessary decision to join our partners
30:42in Israel. This sounds an awful lot, lot like it could be Iraq war 2.0. One, a lie about
30:49nuclear weapons
30:50and two, no plan whatsoever for what comes next. This is going to not end well for Iran and that
30:57there will be peace in the Middle East after this. Have they been communicating? No, they haven't been.
31:01I mean, it's, it's not even close, not only with us, but with the American people.
31:07Mark, I think we've learned that the military side of things can really handle a lot,
31:11as we saw with Venezuela and other operations, midnight hammer and others.
31:15Uh, one would think that there are multiple plans and multiple off ramps in this whole operation.
31:21Sure. Absolutely. And look, what Donald Trump is doing is forging a new way to lead on the world
31:26stage in the, in the wake of Iraq and Afghanistan. When Ronald Reagan came in after the Vietnam War,
31:30there was no appetite for boots on the ground. So he forced the Reagan doctrine
31:33supporting freedom movements around the world to bring it to challenge the Soviet Union.
31:37Donald Trump has come in after Afghanistan and Iraq, where there's no appetite for American boots on
31:41the ground. And our choice is to retreat from the world or to lead in a different way. And that's
31:46what he's doing here. He's leading from the ground, from the air.
31:49The ground forces in Iraq are the Iran, I mean, in Iran, are the Iranian people,
31:53and they're going to have their role to play. And that's what he was talking about today in that
31:56statement. So this is a new way of leading and we got to give him time to work it out
31:59because it's
32:00very important that we continue to lead. It's a historic day. Panel, thanks so much.
32:06Up next, final thoughts as we leave you on this day, a newsy Saturday. Amazing, the strikes and the
32:14retaliation. We leave you with some final thoughts on this historic day. Three years ago, almost three
32:22years ago, things looked very different in the Middle East. There were reports that you had suspended
32:28talks. No, no, that's that's not true. Not true. So you think if you were to characterize it, are you
32:33close? Every day we get closer. I know you heard those words from the Saudi Crown Prince. What was your
32:39response? Well, I was delighted to hear what he had to say and to to borrow a phrase. I think
32:46we're
32:46getting closer to peace every day that passes. It was just a few days before October 7th and the Hamas
32:55attacks inside Israel. It changed the whole dynamic. Now this has changed the dynamic again.
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