Bulwark Takes - Ted Cruz Faceplants on the Case for War With Iran

Episode Date: March 1, 2026

Sam Stein and Will Saletan watched the the Sunday shows and give their takes on the spin after the U.S. strikes on Iran, zeroing in on the mixed messaging from Republican lawmakers defending the action. From Lindsey Graham insisting it’s “not our job” to shape Iran’s future, to Ted Cruz struggling to define an imminent threat, the hawkish case for war raises more questions than it answers. They unpack the interventionists’ victory inside Trump world, the rejection of “you break it, you own it,” and the vague comparisons to a so-called Venezuela model that doesn’t seem to apply.

Hey, everybody. It's me, Sam Stein, managing editor of the Bullock. 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 Lindsay Graham, who, you know, the guy likes this stuff. Let's just be honest about it. He was on there. And he was on there. had basically, I wouldn't call it contradictory rationales 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 out 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 two. It's basically there's no plans. Right.

You know, I think it is, Sam, that Lindsay and these other interventionists, 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, 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. It goes kill the Ayatollah and degrade the government. And then, hey, we'll see what happens. So that's the plan.

It is no plan. It's it's, it's, it's, we'll see what happens. Why don't we play the clip, Lindsay 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? It's not our job to pick the next Iranian government.

I don't remember being attacked by Iraq anytime, you know, in the past. Iraq is complicated, but, you know, we have a relationship with Iraq. It's up to Iran 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 Iran a chance. to do something they've never 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 whackamol? 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 Venezuela model where we basically take the next person up and say, okay, you're going to die unless you work with us? Like, there's so many secondary questions that I have based on what Lindsay just said. Yeah, yeah. So, Sam, what 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 war, 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 it 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 a degree. I mean, the reference to Iraq is actually very instructive 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 or 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 him, 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 talk 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. Yeah, yeah, I mean. Are we giving the Saudis a veto here? What's going on?

Sam, okay, this is totally crazy. So let's go with your point about, look, they're right. The administration is right. Lindsay Graham is right to say, we're not going to pick your leader. So the upshot of that should be, the people of Iran picked 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, I mean, 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 of Iran are going to be happy with like Arabs coming in and like an Arab force, like that's insane, absolutely nuts. And he can't be.

that stupid, can he? That's rhetorical. 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 it will work out and there'll be no problems whatsoever. It's absurd. I mean, the other unaccurrent 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, today, the Iranians, had continued their intention to pursue nuclear enrichment. Their intention had not been abolished. They remained a threat. Rubio 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, he's 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 to getting used. We obliterated them a while

ago. So what is the imminent threat? Yeah. They don't know. No, there is no imminent. I mean, for people who didn't, 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 were 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? It's meaningless. Yeah. So it means basically we can attack anybody because we can define any potential threat as imminent. Mark Warner, the vice chair should say of the intel committee in the Senate, he said he was on CNN.

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 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, J.D. Vance's and the Gabbards and the, you know, form. 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 on 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 Adelsea 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 job. It's not our job.

It's not my job. It's not his job. 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 Ayatollah, right? They're all getting

what they want. 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 done in a day, right? It was a surgical operation. There were no deaths. And we had our person in place in Delci Rodriguez. None of that applies here. 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, in terms of support for this action. So it's only going to get worse over the next several weeks.

Well, we'll see. Well, thanks for doing this. I don't know why you torture yourself every Sunday watching these shows, but I genuinely appreciate it. It's a 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. Because they love us, Sam. They love us, and we love them. I shouldn't say that. I appreciate every bit of your viewership. Thank you so much for doing that. we'll take care buddy everyone else subscribe to the bulwark where you get great content like this

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