Morning Joe - David Ignatius: Trump's job now is to make his case clearly, directly to the U.S.

Episode Date: March 2, 2026

David Ignatius: Trump's job now is to make his case clearly, directly to the U.S. To listen to this show and other MS podcasts without ads, sign up for MS NOW Premium on Apple Podcasts. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Combat operations continue at this time in full force, and they will continue until all of our objectives are achieved. We have very strong objectives. They could have done something two weeks ago, but they just couldn't get there. Sentcom shared the news that three U.S. military service members have been killed in action. As one nation, we grieve for the true American patriots who have made the ultimate sacrifice. for our nation, even as we continue the righteous mission for which they gave their lives. We pray for the full recovery of the wounded and send our immense love and eternal gratitude to the families of the fallen. And sadly, there will likely be more. Before it ends,

that's the way it is, likely be more. President Trump warning there will likely be more U.S. troops killed. and wounded. As part of Operation Epic Fury, we have all the angles covered to this fast-moving story, including the latest on the attacks, how Iran is responding, who is leading that country, what the Trump administration's strategy might be, the push by members of Congress to have a say in the matter, the economic impact on oil markets, and much more. Good morning and welcome to Morning, Joe. It is Monday, March 2nd. We have top reporters in foreign policy and military experts assembled to start us off this Monday morning, the co-host of our 9 a.m. hour staff

writer at the Atlantic. Jonathan Lemire is here, columnist and associate editor at the Washington Post, David Ignatius, President Emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Haas, decorated combat veteran and former commander of U.S. Army Europe, retired Army lieutenant, General Mark Hurdling, is with us, and presidential historian and Pulitzer Prize-winning author, John Meacham joins us this morning. So why don't we get, why don't we really quickly before we get into the strikes that are intensifying across the Middle East? Let's just a lot obviously happened over the weekend. We were here on Saturday morning, but even since then, so much has changed.

David, why don't you give us a debrief? I, like you, I was calling and speaking to people of administration this weekend, and nobody's, nobody, off camera is suggesting this is going to be quick or easy. They're talking about a several-step process that may take up to six weeks, and they start by decapitating the leadership. They move on to cut off any abilities for them to strike neighbors in the region, and that may take a while. But then they're even talking about after destroying nuclear and ballistic missiles,

the ability for production of those missiles. And talking to this well-placed administration official, the idea seems they are going to tear up the roots. From the roots, any war-making ability that Iran has created since 1979. This is not going to be a one-and-done or a quick strike, at least based on everything I heard on Sunday. from our allies. What are you, get us up to date on your latest reporting. So, Joe, I'm hearing the same thing. I think there were concerns because President Trump has liked the quick in and out hit hard and then pull back and negotiate approach that that might be the case here. But it doesn't seem to be. It seemed to be in his broadcast remarks to the country

yesterday. He said this will go on. He told the New York Times he had a timeline of three to four weeks, which is substantial. He said he had the ammunition supplies to conduct a long war of that dimension. He called on the Iranian people again to rise up and change the regime, which indicates he has substantial ambitions for this. One Middle Eastern friend noted early this morning that there's an element of jazz improvisation to the way that Trump is conducting this war. There are different themes that are conflicting. He says he's ready to talk one day to Iranian leaders, but then the next day he's talking about this long campaign to, as you say,

take the regime out root and branch. In terms of the firepower expended so far, it's substantial. Estimates from U.S. Central Command and others are that 2,000 targets have been hit in these first two days of the war in Iran. the number of targets hit by Iran and the Gulf is in the 500 range. We now have a war that's expanded significantly into Lebanon, as Hezbollah fires and Israel retaliates. So when we talk about the danger of a regional war,

well, we've got one. Don't worry about the danger anymore because we actually have a regional war now. And I think the key thing, just to conclude this, Joe, was for the president to make the case to the country that the benefits of this war in terms of changing Iran finally after the 1979 revolution, having a more responsible country in the region, are worth all the pain. Without political support, we're going to see, I fear, what we have in the past in the Middle East, which is that the country tires of war soon. and the promises that an American president makes,

the country just isn't willing to deliver. So that's really, that's President Trump's job now, is to make his case clearly, directly, forcefully to the country, so the country will support a long and really consequential battle against Iran. Yeah, you look at the numbers from Royer Zibsos. Obviously, the president has his work cut out for him. David, one thing, though, whether it's been. people supported this war or did not support this war.

Stephen Erlanger, who, of course, covered Iran in the 1970s, wrote this morning for the New York Times, that regardless of how you feel, this is going to be as consequential, at least in this region, as the collapse of the Soviet Union was. I think we would all agree, the people that have been following and covering Iran and the region over the decades. Iran's regime may survive, writes Erlanger, but the Middle East will be changed. The Islamic Republic already weakened and unpopular is now further diminished its power at home in the region, at one of its slow steps since its leaders took power during the revolution to overthrow Iran's American-backed shot in 78 and 79.

Even if the regime does not fall, which remains the stated goal of President Trump, this massive attack, it's likely to have strategic consequences in the Middle East comparable to the collapse. of the Soviet Union. I don't think anybody that's followed the Middle East seriously for some time would disagree with that. I will say, though, David, I think we could do a lot of people a service here who might be reading various reports, seeing what the president's saying to different media outlets, trying to figure out exactly what the world's going on. You talked about, you know, jazz improvisation. Other people are saying the president's just spitballing. This is what he does.

He's trying to figure out how he gets a deal with the Iranians, but he is going to continue, along with Israel, attacking, whether people like it or not, he's going to most likely continue to attack until they take away their warfighting capability and we'll do a deal with whomever he can do a deal with. But you brought it up in our Saturday morning special as the attacks just started. this is now, if somebody wants to understand what Donald Trump is going to do or the Trump doctrine, it is not what the negotiators are saying. Chances are good.

It's like you said, this Viking strike strategy, strike, pullback, negotiate. For President Trump, anybody who wants to understand how he's thinking right now, you have to look at what happened in Venezuela, which the president and people around him in the White House sees, a spectacular success, as the president told me on Friday, we replaced two employees in Venezuela. They have been changed from an enemy to somebody that we can work with. David, the same thing most likely is what the president's strategy is here, regardless of what he says to journalists, right? So, Joe, we did talk early Saturday morning about Trump conducting the Viking way of war using speed and surprise to launch raids and then pull back and take the political and trade benefits of that.

This is going to be something more sustained than a Viking raid. It's clear. That idea that I think we were right in describing the early hours of the war, I think, is being replaced by the reality that this is now a big regional war. And it's a war that's going to go to the heart of what has been destabilizing the Middle East since I began covering it in 1980, which was the Iranian revolution of the year before. That revolution continues to rumble. It's a destabilizing factor throughout the region, certainly in Lebanon, certainly in Syria, certainly in Gaza. So I think Trump has decided to go to the heart, supported by Israel. It's been very interesting to see in the day plus that the war has been going on,

countries that were initially very wary, like Britain, Britain didn't want to let the United States use its basis for this war because it doubted the rationale. They're now beginning to open up their bases. Similarly, our golf friends in the UAE and Saudi Arabia, initially very cautious, suspicious that this really makes sense. Now I've decided they're getting punched in the nose by Iran. They're getting the missiles landing at their hotels and their properties across the Gulf, and they're angry, and they're moving toward being ready to fight back.

So I think the elements for support for Trump's coalition are strengthening. And as you said at the outset, this is going to be about the fundamental destabilizing nature of the Iranian regime and a broad desire in the region to change it. Well, and speaking of Great Britain, that is going to be a lingering impact of the decision of Kier Starrmer not to let the President use the U.S. base in Great Great Britain to launch this attack. The administration, of course, enraged by that decision. We'll see how that plays out.

But, Mika, there's no doubt. I think anybody, I would guess most people here, most people across Europe, across the Middle least relieved that Kulmini has been killed, relieved that a lot of the worst of the worst in Iran have been killed. But this now is, of course, exploding into a regional conflict as everybody suspected it would be. So we don't know where this goes. The White House doesn't know where this goes. It could be over if Iran topples in a week. It could be over a week. But that's unlikely. the White House thinking four to six weeks at the least. So the conflict expanded into a new front just hours ago

as Israel and the Iran-backed militant group, Hezbollah, exchanged fire, shattering a truce that had been in place for about a year. Hezbollah says it was acting to avenge the death of Iran's supreme leader, and Israel responding in moves that threatened to expand the deadly conflict and destabilize the region as a war. a whole. Video this morning shows explosions and smoke in the Lebanese capital of Beirut. Meanwhile, fire and thick black smoke were seen rising earlier near the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait, as the State Department urges U.S. citizens to shelter in place there. Over the weekend,

three U.S. service members were killed in action in Kuwait, the first Americans to die in the war with Iran, although President Trump acknowledged. Their quote, likely will be more. Iran's retaliation to Operation Epic Fury has been expansive, targeting many of its Middle East neighbors. As the country's top national security leaders said, late last night, Tehran, quote, will not negotiate with the United States. President Trump, meanwhile, told the Atlantic, he's open to speaking to Iran's new leadership without specifying whom those talks would be with. He also told the New York Times, the attack could last four. or five weeks, but he did not lay out a clear plan for how power might be transferred to a new

government. ABC's Jonathan Carl says the president told him the U.S. had identified possible candidates to take over Iran, but they too were killed in the initial attack. Quote, it's not going to be anybody that we were thinking because they're all dead. Second or third place is dead. Jonathan Lemire, give us your latest reporting from the White House. So Joe, obviously, this is a defining moment for this presidency. Someone who, President Trump, of course, in 2016, we know, vowed to end the forever wars of Iraq and Afghanistan, vowed he would not be entangled in a new Middle Eastern conflict. That no longer the case. You know, what we're seeing here is, I mean, we heard from President Trump is a lack of messaging really to the nation.

You know, he's recorded two videos that were put out on Trump. truth social, but has yet to do an address, perhaps from the Oval Office, as were customary from presidents at a time of war. He has yet to field a single question in a news conference. He has, though, done a series of quick phone calls with reporters, although noting, as you were Stamika was starting to there, that messaging seemingly changing each and every time in terms of the length of this mission, some of the objectives of the mission, who might be next? And in that call with Jonathan Carl, it seems like they had identified possible leaders, but then whoops, killed them too.

So that, I think, is unnerving some here at home who aren't sure how long this war will last, what its objectives might be, and how many more Americans may be killed. We know three already have. The president in his message yesterday, sort of saying, that's the way it is in terms of the cost of conflict,

suggesting there will be more, and we've seen footage this morning of a fighter jet down in Kuwait, though the pilot seems to have escaped. And Richard Haas, I mean, talking to people in the White House who are certainly pleased with the military objectives so far. And Joe was right at the top of the show. Venezuela is the driving force behind all of this. That that was such a success. It has inspired President Trump to believe he can do the same here.

There's some who already think Cuba could be next. So the military objectives are strong, but Iran's retaliation has also been widespread despite the decapitation strike. So talk to us about what you've seen in this first day or two in terms of Iran's ability to respond despite the damage inflicted, but also the sort of lack of messaging from the president to make the case to Americans why this conflict is happening, why it's in their interest. Well, Jonathan, if a word comes to mind for me to describe what's going on now, it's undisciplined. As disciplined as the United States has been on the military side of this war, we have been undisciplined on the foreign policy and political side. We have yet to make the case to the country

the world as to why this war had to happen now. The president's been all over the place as to U.S. objectives. And then the clip he showed at the beginning of the show, if the complete realization of all U.S. objectives has to happen before this war ends, this war is not going to end until literally the Iranian regime falls. That's not something under our control. That might not just be a question of days or weeks. That could be months or years. And that's where the Venezuela parallel comes in, this shows to me a profound misunderstanding of the DNA of Iran, the degree of institutionalization of political, clerical, ideological, ideological leadership, hundreds of thousands of people and the security forces, both the Revolutionary Guards as well as the

militia. So to think that somehow the two situations aren't any way analogous or parallel is frightening to me. So again, what keeps coming back to me is a lack of discipline as to analysis, as to making the case for why we're doing this, and above all now for war aims. And what's our definition of success? And what we're seeing with the Iranian reaction, Iran gets a vote. Yeah, we started the war, but it takes everybody to finish it. And that's the danger. This could be open-ended. And by not consulting with Congress or the American people, the president has put himself on a high wire. without a net below. And likely one of two things are going to happen, Jonathan.

Either he's going to have to walk back ambitious war aims, or he's going to lose support. I don't think, and history suggests you cannot sustain support for a war that is costly and doesn't seem to be on a trajectory of success. So, General Hurdling, a couple of things. First of all, and we'll be talking to John Meacham about this next block. But first of all, anybody that is trying to hold Donald Trump to any of the same sort of standards of previous presidents ramping up to war are going to be badly mistaken. We've already seen Maduro who didn't take his threat seriously. He could be living right now in Qatar on the beach instead.

He's in a jail cell in Brooklyn. You can say the same thing of the Iranian. So I don't, I certainly the question will be at the end of this, whether there is a method to that madness. But anybody that's looking at what this commander-in-chief is saying, what he's having his negotiators do, what he's saying to the press, they're kidding themselves, because this is the second time the Iranians have been surprised that Donald Trump did what he did in the past six months. So speak to that, but also speak, if you will, to the war aims. If you really dig in deep to this, both Israel and the United States, they are not interested in a hit and run here. It looks, again, from everything I've read and everything that's been reporting. They're talking about ripping up Iran's military's infrastructure that they've been building up since 1979.

Talk about that. talk about the successes you've seen in the early part of this operation militarily and also what if you're there running it what are your concerns in the coming days and weeks and possibly months yeah a couple things joe before i do that if i can just comment on what everyone else has said you know david ignatius i loved his phrase improvisation because it follows the ad hocism that was involved in the planning and improvisation is great great for jazz, not so much for combat. When lives are at stake and chaos is usually the environment. Richard said it's one discipline. That's the way I see it as well. Jonathan said military objectives are

extensive in being executed. Well, you know, we're repeatedly showing the strikes against targets and, you know, those are all very successful. But as I was taught early on, in my time in the military, showing precision strikes when the real question is to what end doesn't really help us right now. We're beyond the point of talking about the strikes because you can win every engagement, hit every target, and lose the war. When we're talking about, I think, the Middle East, which I'm very familiar with and have a whole lot of scar tissue in, what I conclude is external strikes alone can't produce democratic change. We've seen that in multiple conflicts.

We saw it in Desert Storm when 45 days of airstrikes was followed up by a ground campaign. If you don't have something to put in place afterwards, it's going to be even tougher than what we saw in Iraq and Afghanistan. because these strikes in the Middle East will usually strengthen the hardliners. It's going to create further chaos. You don't have a security force. Some of the targeting now is not only going after a headquarters and air defense system, it's going after formations where the revolutionary guards are, where the Beji are. They're trying to kill those forces that provide security for a regime.

So whenever you lose security in a society, And you have people rising up looking for leadership. There's a huge disconnect. So what I would say from the military standpoint, yes, the strikes are being executed with great precision and effects. But, I mean, I hate to say this as a military guy, you have to at one point say, so what? Are we just destroying things? Are we just bombing targets? What is going to happen right now?

It is a pipe dream to think people are going to rise up when they're continuing to see their nation being struck, when their security forces are being dismantled, when there's no government leadership, when you don't have the people running the organization, and you have public unrest. Okay, great. First day, the leader was being overthrown. But now we're seeing the escalation in other countries. The last thing I'd talk about is the president, when he was talking to the New York Times, times last night, talked about the amount of munitions that are being used. 2000 strikes, as of this morning, about that number. Precision weapon reused in all of them.

Defenses systems like the Patriot missiles and the THAAD batteries that are protecting various Gulf states and soldiers in the regions have very expensive missiles that they shoot. Those can only last so long. And as we've said, the intel estimates say that Iran has anywhere from 10,000 to 20,000 missiles that they can launch. You can only shoot them down with so many defensive weapons. So the dynamics of expenditure gets into something called battlefield math. And somebody at the Pentagon is now concluding where are we taking risk around other places in the world? I know they're doing that in the Pentagon because that's.

That used to be my job. When we were in Iraq and Afghanistan in the early 2000s, my job is the J7 to say, what risk are we incurring elsewhere as we're using all of our resources, intelligence gathering, formations, airplanes, naval ships, and especially weapons systems that cost a lot and take a long time to produce, or all on, you know, the ballot to say, how long can we conduct these strikes. Four to five weeks is the president of the New York Times last night is a very long time. All right. Up next, we're going to get historical analysis from John Meacham. Plus MS now's Michael Schnell was one of the reporters who spoke with President Trump on Saturday night following the strikes on Iran. She joins us ahead with more on that. We'll also talk about how the military

campaign is fracturing the Republican Party as some GOP lawmakers criticized the actions of the administration. And as we go to break, a look at the Travelers' forecast this morning from Acuethers Bernie Raynow. Bernie, how's it looking? Mickey, it's a cold but tranquil Monday across the Northeast. The Acuweather exclusive forecast, sunshine, Boston, 28 degrees, some clouds in New York City this afternoon, 32. Watch Washington, D.C. and Dulles for a little bit of snow this afternoon. Pretty sharp contrast in the southeast, 52 in Charlotte with some drizzle, but 70 in Atlanta, and then widespread warmth across Texas. While I don't have any flight delays here posted in your

Acky Weather exclusive travel forecast, watch Washington, D.C. and Dulles for some minor delays with that snowed this afternoon. To make the best decisions and be more in the know, download the Acky Weather app today. So the front page of the New York Times this morning talks about the war, of course, shows troops killed his blasts, Jolt the Mideast, fear of wider war after Iran's response. But there's also the talk about the president here, willing to talk to Iranian leaders. We're going to get new reporting out of the Gulf region from David Ignatius in one minute. First, three U.S. F-15 strike eagles flying in support of the operation in Iran went down over Kuwait due to a parent-friendly fire, according to the U.S. Central Command.

A press release put out moments ago reads in part this. During active combat, that included attacks from Iranian aircraft, ballistic missiles, and drones. The U.S. Air Force fighter jets were mistakenly shot down by Kuwaiti air defenses. Sitcom also notices all six air crew ejected and have been safely recovered. So David Ignatius reading the front page of the Times. And I'd love for you to go to David Ignatian. I'd go to John Meacham here. David, first of all, a couple of quick questions on some reporting you just got out of the Gulf region.

One, Donald Trump says he's willing to talk to Tehran's new leadership. You have some reporting on that new leadership. You also have some reporting just in on what sort of hit Iran's stockpiles took regarding missiles and drones. What can you tell us right now? So, Joe, the question of who's running things in Iran, after this overwhelming barrage, 2,000 targets, according to Sentcom's estimates, does raise the question of who's running the show. Sources in contact with people in Iran tell me two things.

First, the person that Ayatollahominee designated as the succession figure would manage transition if he were killed is now in place. He's the head of the so-called Supreme National Security Council. His name is Ali Larjani. He's familiar to anybody who follows Iran. He is a wily, tough survivor. People call him a pragmatist, but that means he's managed to be useful to every tough president and IRGC commander who's come along.

He was known as the hanging judge early in his career because he was responsible for so many convictions of people who were caught protesting. So that's the first person that President Trump's going to have to have to work with. Interestingly, there are reports that an early sort of informal ballot of the so-called Council of Experts that's going to choose the next Supreme Leader, the successor to Ali Ghamenei, has chosen on Ayatollah Arafi, not well known in the West. A conservative cleric described as fairly risk-averse. A person keeps a low media profile, kind of the opposite of Khomeini. Make of that what you will. It's not an official choice. But it led me, as I thought about the situation in Tehran and the leadership uncertainty there,

to want to ask John Meacham, eminent presidential historian, what's the nature of leadership for an American president in wartime? Because Donald Trump, in a way that really he hasn't faced before now confronts that question, John. What does a wartime leader do in America? in a big war. Well, it depends on the era, obviously. Our friend Michael Beschloss wrote a monumental book about this called Presidents of War. What we're seeing now is an imperial presidency, a phrase coined in the early 1970s in the wake of

Korea and Vietnam by Arthur Slazinger Jr. And Arthur meant it as sort of a criticism. it's, let's leave that aside for a second. It is, in fact, a descriptor. I've been getting a lot of questions, as I'm sure you have, from people saying, how can a president do this? Well, this is what presidents do. And it's why, it's this example, 7,012, of why presidential elections matter so much.

In many ways, the exertion, projection of force since World War II, which was the last time we declared war officially in the constitutional sense has been for presidents, if you will, to ask forgiveness rather than permission, that phrase. They tend to act. Now, the Bushes both went to the UN and to Congress, but President Bush 41, and Richard Haas knows all about this. President Bush 41 in August of 19th, when he was content, contemplating war to remove Saddam Hussein's forces from Kuwait, had a resolution in Congress, went to the UN, but repeatedly told his diary, I think it was seven times, that he was willing to be impeached because he had convinced himself of the righteousness and efficacy and necessity

of this mission. And so even if Congress, and you'll remember David, how close of vote that was in 1990, 91, he was willing to do it. And he was willing to act in a unilateral way. And we think of George Herbert Walker Bush as kind of this embodiment of the wise men ethos, which I think it's safe to say President Trump has not usually evoked in most people's minds. Character as a war president is destiny in the way that character in the presidency broadly put is destiny. Because the way power has evolved is that presidents do have an extraordinary amount of leeway to project our military force. A final point is successful war presidents, which is what they all want to be, are in fact the ones who make. the case, who explain why we are expending blood and treasure, those who try to do it unilaterally,

though they can, tend to regret it. And so that's, I think, an important lesson of history for President Trump to be thinking about as, and this is not a partisan point, right? I mean, and by the way, as we all know, this was a terrible regime. protesters, exporting terrorism. So this is not a reflexively ideological criticism of the president. It is, as you ask, a historically based point that if you want a democracy to go to war and to support you, let us in, explain it to us. FDR said in February of 1942 that the news is going to get worse and worse before it gets better and better. And the American people deserve to have it

straight from the shoulder. Give it to us straight from the shoulder and history tells us we'll do what it takes. Try to tell us that it's not that big a deal or that successes outnumber failures. Ask President Johnson how well that worked out. Yeah, and you look at the history of Winston Churchill in 40 and 41 during the Battle of Britain, he always told the unvarnished truth to the British people and let them know that things like FDR were going to get worse before they got better and they remained patient. You know, as I was listening, Richard Haas, to John Meacham,

talking about bringing the American people along. You're so reminded by the lessons of the Vietnam War, Reagan's Secretary of Defense, Cap Weinberger, setting out the four aims, the Weinberger doctrine, which Colin Powell added to it, which is before you go in, know what the triggering event is that you come out. And one of those four or five things that people like Colin Powell especially believed were important because they were fighting a war in Vietnam

that the American people didn't support was getting the public on your side. talk about what you saw with Bush 41 and what you would recommend for this administration, how to bring the American people along. What did Bush 41 do in the lead up to the first Iraq war? And what would you recommend this president do to get the American people on his side in this war? I'll talk about it, Joe, but I want to come back to one big difference between the two, because we've talked about Vietnam, we've talked about the Gulf War. There's a difference between wars of necessity and wars of choice when it comes to selling them to the American people in the world.

Gulf War, we arguably had vital national interests at stake, Iraq invaded. World War II is obviously that case. I would think Vietnam, the Iraq War of 2003, this one, we can question whether our vital interests were at stake. We also had other possible policies, whether it was negotiations, economic sanctions, whatever. My point is simply that when it is a war of choice, it puts far greater pressure, far greater premium on a president making the case. Why are the costs worth it when we had other options? Why are the costs worth it when the interest at stake might be important, but not necessarily vital? So in 1990 and 91, President Bush 41, again, I think had the advantage of we were

reacting to an Iraqi invasion. But what he did is he went to the American. people repeatedly. And he went to the United Nations repeatedly. He went to the Congress repeatedly. And he did one other thing, Joe. He kept our aims limited. What he tried to do is say, okay, here's what we're going to do, but we're not going to do more than we have to. This president has basically, I think, violated every one of those rules. He hasn't gone to the American people. He hasn't gone to the Congress. He hasn't gone to the international community to to the UN. And these aims are extraordinarily expansive, even worse. And the general can talk to this. He's articulated aims that you can't give to a general or an admiral and say, accomplish these.

Regime change is not a military mission. What we can do is perhaps set the table for it. We can destroy munitions. We can kill leaders. But offshore, you cannot bring about regime change. So I think this president, the only way the lessons of 1990 and 91 kick in is he really needs to start to articulate a much more doable and narrow set of war aims what he's going to get in trouble. And General, you've obviously have experience that nobody here has and most people watching do not have. what do troops in the field need to hear not only from the president, but from political leaders? I mean, they're focused on the objective. They're focused on the mission, I'm sure, and tune out most of it. But I was always struck by Colin Powell talking about his experiences in Vietnam and the need for public support when you're out there with you and your buddies putting their lives on the line.

Talk about what they need while fighting this war. Any war is very dangerous, Joe. We all know that. What John Meacham and Richard just said really sings to me because I think it just reflects back on the statement of with great power, which the president has, comes great responsibility. And that goes beyond just telling people to pull triggers. It goes to the bringing the nation on board.

It goes to talking to the press about exactly what the plan is. It is the hard work of building alliances and getting support from the international community. All of those things are required. Now, when you're talking at the soldier level, they want to know why they're there. You know, what I would say is it's just, it goes beyond, hey, do this and hit that target. You know, any racist monkey can do that. But when you're talking about people coming from a democratic nation, you want to know why you potentially might suffer consequences and have to sacrifice to support and defend the Constitution. From my perspective, those things aren't present.

We don't know what this is about. We don't know why we've been in there other than to change your. regime. Well, that's a grand handwave of a statement of an objective. There's got to be more to it than that. Because, you know, as you said at the beginning of this segment, you know, there have now been three F-15 shot down by friendly fire because that kind of stuff happens in war. It's the fog, it's the chaos, it's all the dynamics. So you want as much clarity as a soldier as you can possibly get and that includes what the heck is the mission what are we trying to do other than just attack and right and i think there's such a distrust in the trump administration of the press of politicians

of diplomats that so much is kept uh closely held like for instance in long conversations i had this weekend uh you know i was told that that the overall goal is Venezuela, Iran, Russia, ultimately, getting that oil out of the hands of China. So it cuts off the ability for China to get cheap oil. And I could go on in a very long way about how this is part of their overarching plan. But that's not conveyed to the American people. Everything right now is conveyed at an ad hoc basis. And I think a part of it is, uh, is, you know, is a part of it, uh, because there's such a distrust coming from this administration of allies, of the media, of other people that presidents would usually talk with.

And so that has a lot of people asking the question of what exactly is going on right now and what is a long-range plan. Retired Army Lieutenant General Mark Hurdling and President Emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Haas, thank you both very much for your insights this morning. And coming up our coverage of the U.S. Strikes on Iran continues. We'll speak with New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman. Plus, we'll dig into the criticism from some in President Trump's Maga base that U.S. intervention in Iran is not America first. Politico's Jonathan Martin and Bloomberg's David Drucker.

Join us next on that rift. We'll be right back. Many Republican lawmakers are strongly backing President Trump, praising the strikes in Iran as decisive and necessary. That includes the Senate Majority Leader and Speaker Johnson, but other Republicans are questioning the attacks on social media, Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, wrote that he opposed, quote, another presidential war, citing the Constitution. Congressman Thomas Massey declared, I am opposed to this war. The Constitution requires a vote. Congressman Warren Davidson of Ohio also responded online, writing, quote, no. When asked if he said, if he supported the president's actions.

And former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Green of Georgia accused both President Trump and vice president fans of betraying their promises to avoid foreign entanglements, calling the operation, quote, America last, because it will not lower inflation or help struggling Americans with the current cost of living crisis. You know, Jonathan Lemire, we have been able to see throughout the weekend, quotes from the president, tape from the president, from the vice president,

from Stephen Miller, other people now in the administration in 2024, 2023, 24, just saying outright, they were never going to go into Iran. And several former Republicans saying, I was told that if I voted for Kamala Harris, we would have forever war in Iran. And the joke the dark humor was, well, I voted for Kamala Harris, and now we have forever wars in Iran. That said, on the hill, this is one of those issues. It's like Israel, right? It splits both ways. You have Republicans breaking, opposing the president on Iran. You have some Democrats not going with the majority of the Democratic caucus, also supporting these attacks. on Iran. So right now, you actually have sort of breakaway fractions on both sides of the aisle

on this Iranian attack, I suppose, because of the nature of the Iranian government being such an export of terrorism since 1979. Yeah, it's messier than usual in terms of reaction here. And certainly almost unanimous that, I mean, no one's mourning, the Supreme Leader and his downfall in Iran. But there is some pushback, though. There certainly were a lot of Democrats saying, look, you needed to consult with Congress here. You didn't. And I believe Senator Kane's war powers resolution is going to be up on the floor either tomorrow or Wednesday in the Senate. There are those in the Republican Party, others who have opposed this. Tucker Carlson, loudly doing so. Eric Prince, loudly doing so. Steve Bannon, these are all influential MAGA voices expressing real concerns.

Congress in Massachusetts going on to say, well, look, this isn't also going to change the topic from the Epstein files. We're going to continue our investigation there as well. But it is. This is a president. Our friends at Axios have some data this morning. The President Trump, despite proclaiming a peace being a peace president, and despite so many voting for him because they thought he was more of an isolationist, that he has now launched attacks, often just won and done missile strikes, on more nations than any other modern president so far in this term. And the fallout politically is going to be significant. So let's talk more about it. senior writer at the dispatch and a columnist at Bloomberg opinion, David Drucker,

Politics Bureau Chief, and senior political columnist at Politico, Jonathan Martin, as well as MS now congressional reporter Michael Schnell, who spoke with President Trump over the weekend. And Michael, we'll get to that conversation just a moment that you had with President Trump. But, J-Mart, starting with you, I mean, I do think there are, I mean, this is a significant war and a massive story. and you know, hard to know exactly the fallout. I think a lot will depend on how long the conflict lasts and how many American lives are lost.

But certainly, I heard from a number of Republicans this weekend who said, look, the president barely even mentioned this in the state of the union, and now this is topic A number one, you know, with the midterms approaching. Yeah, I think you're right that this is not going to be Venezuela, which is, you know, a nice sort of 48-hour, a weekend news cycle and we can install, you know, somebody from the previous regime who's, okay, willing to salute and help us on the oil.

You can stay in power. And then we all kind of move on to the next thing. This is not that. And I think that the response so far has been, I think, a reflection of the fact that there's not been a realignment in the Republican Party when it comes to foreign policy. There's been a realignment around a personality of the Republican Party, okay? If there was a realignment toward a more realist or restrained foreign policy, guys, you would have had a hell of a lot more Republicans over the weekend raising questions about what happened. I know MTG and Tucker, but look at the current members of Congress.

You can't get that far beyond Rand Paul and Thomas Massey, who are the libertarian voices consistent on matters of foreign policy. Where is everybody else who purportedly was going to be a voice of restraint, was going to sort of walk away from this neo-con approach? It underscores the fact that there's a loyalty to President Trump in whatever he says or does that supersedes this ostensible realignment of the Republican Party's foreign policy posture. You just don't really see up you on a handful of Freedom Caucus folks, Massey and Paul. And, John, I think to your point, that raises the great question of,

are we looking at a replay of the Iraq war in terms of the political reaction within the Republican Party? Don't forget, 2002, 3, everybody in the party is lined up with the administration about taking out Saddam Hussein. And then, of course, the war goes on and he loses support within the Republican Party and folks walk away. I just right now, it's extraordinary the degree to which folks are saluting, you know, President Trump's choice here with really no explanation, as Joe pointed out, as to why we're doing this at all. So it's a Trump party.

Folks right now we're in line. Let's see, John, where we are two weeks from now, a month from now, because this is not Venezuela. And, you know, David Drucker, what's so fascinating is, and J-Mart's exactly right. So many of the same people in the Washington establishment, whether you're talking about the vice president, whether you're talking about the president, whether you're talking about Stephen Miller, people around the president, closest to the president, promising 23 and 24, we're never going into Iran. We won't go into Iran. Kamala Harris and Joe Biden would take us to Iran, but President Trump won't. But by and large, as J.MART said, most of the Republican establishment in Washington, D.C.

is lockstep behind the president, which isn't a surprise. I think what's interesting is some of those voices that we heard John Lamere bring up. And what I'm hearing, I'm curious if this is what you're hearing from the MAGA base, the Republican base, is that it's not so much the vice presidents and the president. presidential advisors and the Republican senators that the president may lose on this. It is, the MAGA online base. It is, you know, younger voters that voted for the president in 24. It's all these people who've been disappointed first with the Epstein files not being released in full and now with Iran. Is that, if there is a fissure, is that more of the danger? I think that's a good place to look, Joe. There's so much to impact there that's so important. Look, I think, you know, one of the things to remember, the president didn't just say, and the people surrounding him in 23 and 24 in that campaign, we're just saying up to peace president or all be the peace president.

They referred to everybody else, Democrat and Republican, as a bunch of neocon war mongers. I mean, they were very specific about what they would do and what they wouldn't do. And in a sense, what we're seeing here is a reversion to Reagan-era, hawkish Republican foreign policy, which is why you're not getting a huge backlash from Republicans in Congress. Because even though Trump has refashioned the party, and there are so many new members on the Hill that have come up in the Trump era, by and large, you still have so many Republicans who were products of the Reagan era,

were weaned during that era before Trump. And this all makes sense to them. This is the sort of thing that they would have hoped a Republican president would at least consider doing, if not actually doing, when you look at nearly 50 years of failed diplomacy and very laudable attempts, but failed attempts, to curtail Iran's nuclear program, right? And I think that what happened on October 7th had so much to do with that because all of a sudden Iran and its proxies weren't just talking tough. they went after civilians and they waged war. And I think that changed the calculus.

Now, where this can go south for the president is if this thing gets bogged down, if we start setting up temporary bases. I was talking to people over the weekend and they said, look, the online right is a significant portion of the Republican base and they matter in the party. But when you're looking at Republican voters writ large, they're still prone to support military action like this. You go after foreign adversaries that are acting relevantly, you take them out, and that makes sense to a lot of Republican voters,

even though the online right is so much louder. But if this thing gets bogged down, if we start to lose soldiers and this goes on without end, then the president is going to find himself with a political problem. And I think especially, and as everybody's been discussing here at the table, this morning, because he hasn't made a case to the American people. And there is a case to make. You know, I was able to lay out part of it in 10 seconds. He just, it's not his way. He hasn't bothered doing it. And unlike the Iraq War of 2003 weekend, we saw how that went. He hasn't gone

to Congress to get by and. So he's on an island, which is fine as long as this goes well, but it's not fine if it doesn't. All right, David Drucker. By the way, during our show, we are going to I'll be hearing from Defense Secretary Pete Hankseth and chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Dan Cain. They'll be speaking live, giving an update on this. And as we close out the first hour of morning, Joe, and launch the second, John Meacham, final thoughts on where this is headed and any historical lessons that apply. Unfortunately, we're living in an age of unpredictability. And analogies are perilous.

If you think about it, as we just said, this is kind of a Reagan era. foreign policy move from a president who has proven to be durably protectionist. And so what we are living in, and this is somewhat sobering, is this is the age of Trump. And it's whatever seems to occur to him at a given moment to be the course that the country should take. and that's a monarchical system.

I'm not saying that, you know, but you understand. So that's where we are. And it's why every vote matters. And it's why we, I don't think it's, I think it's a fool's errand to say, this is where we're going to be on Wednesday. I'm reminded of the great scene in Tom Sawyer, where Mark Twain writes,

that Tom Sawyer said, an evangelist came to town who was so good that even Huck Finn was saved until Tuesday, right? So it's just, this is a period of seasonal certainty. And when I say season, in the age of Trump, a season is an hour. Yeah, no doubt about it. All right. John Meacham, thank you so much. And I will say, just underlining so people can understand, you know, the history of this and why there is a large number of Republicans, despite what the president and vice president, Stephen Miller, others said during the campaign,

why so many of the Republicans would support this. For those of us that came up as Reagan conservatives, for those of us who remember, 1979, 1979 is a defining moment in our political development. I was in a high school. This is something that so many people, Reagan conservatives have been wanted in one way or another,

Maybe not a full-scale invasion, but a confrontation. People, like myself, very skeptical a decade ago, about the Iran nuclear deal. Because our feeling was that the Iranians always lied. If you, in negotiations, if you're sitting there going, well, why are so many Republicans supporting this? Well, these are the people that were inspired to get into politics by Ronald Reagan and who know that Donald Trump will be out of office, you know, within three years. that's that sort of base of Republican support. I think, as I said before, the problem is going to come up online with younger MAGA supporters of the president

who don't know about Ronald Reagan, don't care about Ronald Reagan, and said that was then, this is now. So sort of a split in the Republican Party there.