America's Talking - Trump Refuses to Commit to Military Involvement in Iran, Won’t Rule It Out

Episode Date: June 21, 2025

(The Center Square) – As the conflict between Israel and Iran closes in on a week since it began, President Donald Trump won’t say if U.S. will get involved in the conflict. Despite dire warnings from Iran against the U.S. and its potential involvement, Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Wednesday that Iranians want to meet, adding they want to come to the White House. However, he appeared to throw water on the idea, adding the Islamic Republic should have made a deal.Support this podcast: https://secure.anedot.com/franklin-news-foundation/ce052532-b1e4-41c4-945c-d7ce2f52c38a?source_code=xxxxxxFull story: https://www.thecentersquare.com/national/article_5814eeb9-2b77-4f3c-b9cb-21a483161e11.htmlhttps://www.thecentersquare.com/national/article_a6925015-3bad-4478-bc01-423c29f645bd.html Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Greetings, everyone, and welcome to America in Focus, powered by the Center Square. I'm Dan McAelib, Chief Content Officer at Franklin News Foundation, publisher of the Center Square Newswire Service. President Donald Trump says he'll decide within the next couple of weeks on whether the U.S. will engage in military action against Iran. Israel and Iran have been engaged in a bombing campaign against each other for over a week. Israel and Trump say Iran is too close to building a nuclear bomb, something both vowed can't happen.

joining me to discuss developments in the ongoing battle is Sarah Roderick Fitch, Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief for the Center Square. Sarah, you've been covering this story since Israel launched his preemptive strikes last week. Tell us more about where the U.S. at is at in potentially joining the major conflict. Right now, it looks like it's just kind of a wait and see game. I'm not exactly sure where Trump, Trump is saying two weeks. I think honestly that two weeks is there to sort of see where things, things are developing. Quite frankly, Israel seems to be doing fairly well without American help and assistance. And even the latest development is that Israel is saying that they can even take out the large,

they can use a bunker bus or they can take out the Fardo, which is where the big nuclear site is. And so I think Trump just is kind of like right now waiting and seen, but he's saying that there's some negotiations behind the scenes. I think that the UK may be involved. I'm not exactly sure if France is involved in that as well. Francis generally had an amicable, somewhat amicable relationship with Iran for different years. So they've been, they've been very crucial in talks before, especially with the previous Iranian deal. So it's just interesting to see, especially with NATO summit coming up this week or next week, where that will, you know, where things will play out there. Maybe there'll be some more negotiations behind the scenes there.

We'll see what happens. But I think, yeah, I think at this point, President may be kind of hoping that things are resolved within the Navy next couple weeks. And maybe Israel can kind of take it on themselves and they won't need the United States. But not exactly sure that that is going to be the case, especially with – and the Iranians have also said that they have moved a lot of their nuclear stuff, that they're hiding in different places. So that could just be a tactic. It may or may not be true. We're not exactly sure. I'm pretty sure that the Iranians pretty confident in their intelligence.

I am pretty sure that they would be able to see and know, especially they have air superiority right now. So President Trump, both on the campaign trail last year and since he became president in January, says he wants peace. He does not want war. He vowed to end the U.S., or excuse me, the Russia-Ukraine war, the Israel-Hamas war. And now here it is, we're on the brink of possibly entering the war between Israel and Iran. But this is a bit of a different situation.

Both President Trump and Israel and certainly plenty of others have said Iran cannot have a nuclear bomb or nuclear bombs. Iran has vowed to annihilate Israel and the United States. So I think this is different than the other conflicts, potentially more dangerous. What do you think here? It is dangerous. There is that nuclear facility, but then also at the same time, I think that there's a lot of hesitancy, not just from the Trump administration, but from Republicans and Democrats, obviously not wanting to get into another Afghanistan situation or Iraq situation,

where it's just sort of this ongoing, never-ending war. And I think there's just that apprehension. It's sort of a PTSD, really, in fact. But I think where Iran is different is that something that is, culturally, it's very different from Iraq and Syria and Afghanistan. It's actually somewhat more similar culturally to Israel, Israelis, as far as they're, they're very highly educated, very civilized. They have long civilization, all of this. And 80% are actually over 80% of Iranians do not like the, they do not like the government, the regime. They have tried to topple them twice in the past 20 years and almost been successful. So I think that there's kind of a difference.

And I think that I don't think that would probably be necessary for like a ground invasion. I think there's that there's that fear. And I think that sort of Israel sort of knows just based on what they took out with, with Hezbollah and somewhat Hamas and everything like that. They were very successful in that, sort of taking up the leadership and trying to solve it from the leadership standpoint. But the thing is, is that it could be, I think it very well could sort of take care of itself in the sense. And I think that's where Trump is sort of looking at it is with the nuclear stuff. If you take away the nuclear powers and sort of that threat, away from the Iranian regime, it sort of takes away a lot of their power within their own people. And I know the outside world already knows that, is that there's a lot of movement.

There's the Iranian people, videos that I have seen from inside Iran, as the Iranian people are really happy about this. They want this. This is something that they've been wanting. So that is, that's where it's really different. It really is kind of a, all right, take care of the, take care of the weapons. and whatnot, and then can we go from there. And it may sort of take care of itself in a sense. And I think that, like I said, that Trump is sort of hoping that things sort of work itself

out and Israel can do the dirty work. And maybe they can come in and just sort of drop that one bunker buster bomb and then kind of say, okay, well, we've done our part. I don't, you know, I think that Trump knows that this wouldn't be sort of the same sort of situation, I think, with Iraq and Afghanistan. Probably not, you know, especially with the number of the population disliking regime. It doesn't appear that there would be, you know, a lot of street, street combat and whatnot. So that is where it's, it is very different. It is dangerous, but at the same time with the, like I said, with the Iranian people really hitting the regime, that is

promising for Israel and the United States. Sarah, thank you for joining us today. Listeners can keep up to this story and more at thecentersquare.com.