Morning Joe - Richard Haass: I don’t see signs that anyone at the White House thought this through

Episode Date: March 11, 2026

Richard Haass: I don’t see signs that anyone at the White House thought this through 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.

Do we think that the Russians have shared intelligence about the location of U.S. military assets? And if they have, why would we be giving waivers on Russian oil sanctions? Well, I'm not an intel officer. So I can't tell you. I can tell you that yesterday on the call with the president, the Russians said that they have not been sharing. That's what they said. So, you know, we can take them at their word, but they did say that. And yesterday morning, and yesterday morning independently, Jared and I had a call with Uschikoff, who reiterated the same.

So, you know, that's a better question for the intel people, but let's hope that they're not sharing. I'm hoping. Let's hope they're not sharing. I will say the initial statement there reminded me a lot of Jonathan Lemire's question. You go back. You got to go with the way back machine, 2018, Helsinki. There's John Lemire. And he asks a question, do you trust your own Intel chiefs that you put in charge or do you trust Vladimir Putin? That was good, Lamar. The president said, fill in the blank.

At the time, the president made clear he sided with Vladimir Putin, that he took Vladimir Putin at his word. And yesterday, his lead negotiator, Steve Whitkoff, suggested the same. And then he ended up everybody saying, well, let's hope they don't do that. You know, diplomats. You got to work with both sides. But I would just say if Steve is watching, Steve, they lie. This is what Russians do. They think it's the smart move to always lie.

That's the very nature of it. They are disruptors. They count on American suckers to think that they're going to win them over by force of personality. It never happens. So at FDR tried to do Willie, and you wake up the next day, and Eastern Europe has a wall.

Right through Berlin. Yeah. Because FDR thought he was going to win solid over at Yalta with the force of this personality. Yeah. There's a long, long history of this. Steve Whitkoff just said, I have to take Vladimir Putin at his word.

I have to take the ex-KGB agent at his word. And remember, Steve Whitkoff is the lead negotiator in the Russia-Ukraine talks, among many other places. Well, he talks just before this war. Right. But just remember, as we think about why perhaps we're not giving as much aid as we should be to Ukraine in the eyes of many people, the guy leading negotiation says you have to take Russia at their word.

So we'll see what happens there. We'll see what happens there. Richard, this Iran war has really shaken things up, obviously, even though. negotiations, it's strengthened Putin's hand. At the same time, the Ukrainians suddenly, if they do do a deal, they suddenly have a thriving defense industry because the Ukraine, by the way, I've been hearing this for six months now, especially across Europe, that the Ukrainians are doing things with drones. They're just blowing everybody's mind that are in the defense field.

And so there's one thing the administration officials told me yesterday, you know, we come to a close here. You know, the very thing that the Ukrainians were worried about. They don't have to worry about because the whole world's going to be coming to them for the next generation of drone fighters because that's where war is

going. You can stop ships in the Persian Gulf with a well-placed drone. So, again, it's fascinating what's going to be happening in those negotiations in the coming weeks and months. Yeah, we're caught a bit flat-footed. Our entire

military in some ways looks like the previous war, this proliferation of cheap, effective systems like drones, anti-ship missiles, whatever, we're not there. Problem for Ukraine is all the Patriot, all the air defense systems they'd love to have, which we never delivered, they're being used up at an alarming rate in this war. So the contrast between what we were prepared to do for Ukraine, which was extraordinarily little, and what we're using up there, they also take note of that. Yeah, but now the Ukrainians, of course, coming and offering us help, and we need that help, and I guess we're taking it. Also with us this morning, co-hosts of The Rest Is Politics Podcast, the BBC's Caddy Kay. Good to have you all on board this morning. Let's get started.

Do we want Caddy? Caddy, would you like to comment? You can comment on Russia, trusting Russians, Italian baseball, or the fact that Liverpool and Man City are going to be facing off against each other in the FA Cup. Yeah, so let's not talk about Liverpool Man City because we might jinx it for one or other households. So we'll park that one. The Italians, brava. Well done, Italy. I mean, we like a shaker. We like a shakeup on this show, right?

We're big enough. We're big enough to see Chattie. When I think it's being done. I think it's good. I think it's nice to have the world shaken up like this. Trusting the Russians. I mean, I don't know. I've read a lot of John Lack.

carry to realize that's really all you need to do is do Tinker Taylor soldier spy and you don't trust the Russians. And if you ever watch, if you ever watched an episode of Homeland, you don't trust the Russians, there you go. Where Saul says to his Russian counterport, I'm so tired of you. God damn lying. All you do is, come on, come on, Steve, watch Homeland, season five or six. You will know.

The Karen, Homeland, it's all that. Can I just say top of the show? Why doesn't Caddy just burn the American flag? That's incredible. Charlie, really? I'm just saying that it's fun to have a shakeup. You guys are the best. It's okay.

Don't be so thin-skinned. You've got it. You know, you've got baseball. It's all right. You can share a little. We have to talk about it. We got to get to the war. There is a war.

That said, there appeared to be a coaching mix up with our friend yesterday. Anybody? Well, want to talk about that? Mark DeRosa, who we love. We love. Long-time Big Leagueer. Major League Baseball Network. We were rival high schools in New Jersey back in the early 90s.

One of the all-time great guys, a good manager. He made a comment yesterday morning on a TV show on the MLB Network that he thought the United States already had advanced until the quarterfinals. We're not worried about the Italians. In other words, the Italian game didn't matter. So they dug themselves an eight-nothing hole against the Italians. Perhaps we'll have to talk to Mark managing as if they were already there. Turns out they're not. They rallied for six runs, almost came back, but they did lose eight six. So now their fate is in the hands of the Italians.

Yeah, so there's an Italy plays Mexico today. Right. And depending what happens, the United States may be done. Oh, come on. They would not even be able to play in the quarterfinals. Come on. We've all been excited about potentially squaring off against Dominican Republic or Puerto Rico, or the defending champion in Japan.

And yet, we need some help today, depending on the... tie-breaker scenarios. So Mexico has to win today. Okay. Mexico needs to win. There's run differential too. We have Mexico needs to win today, beat Italy, but also needs to win by, I believe, four or more runs. Well, you know, we've been so good to our Mexican allies and neighbors. I'm sure they're going to be working extra hard to get those four runs. Eager, eager to help.

By the way, even if you thought they were in, you still shouldn't go down 8-0. Oh, Italians with a group of major league baseball players. Thank you. Patty Kay. They have a couple major leagues. We have an all-star team. Okay. We're going to get to the next.

news now, Iran is now laying mines in the Strait of Hormuz in a bid to shut down the critical economic waterway. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? U.S. officials tell the Wall Street Journal. On social media yesterday afternoon, President Trump warned Iran not to do so. Then, just minutes later, he posted that the U.S. had struck 10 inactive mine-laying boats. An hour later, United States Central Command posted this video of what it said were strikes, characteristics, caribbean. out on Iranian ships, including 16 mine layers. This comes, as Iran said, it carried out its heaviest and most intense strikes since the start of the war, targeting U.S. and Israeli assets across the region. Drones fell near the Dubai International Airport. Two cargo ships were struck off

the coast of the UAE, as was an apartment building in central Beirut. Meanwhile, the U.S. and Israel continue to carry out strikes in Iran, with residents of Tehran telling the Guardian, it was the worst night of aerial bombardment so far. Back in Washington, military officials held a closed-door briefing with members of the Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday. Senate Democrats left the meeting demanding public hearings. I emerged from this briefing as dissatisfied and angry, frankly, as I have from any past briefing in my 15 years in the Senate. I guess I am most concerned about the threat to American lives of potentially deploying our sons and daughters on the ground in Iran. We seem to be on a path toward deployment.

deploying American troops on the ground in Iran to accomplish any of the potential objectives here. You know, it really would be good for these open hearings to take place. American people need to hear. The administration has their line. They need to get their line. They need to go out. They need to tell Americans why we're in this war because it's a hot war. And John Lemire, you know, I had been telling you initial reporting with a phone call with the president a couple of Fridays ago.

It sounded like it was going to be a two-week operation. Calls to the White House yesterday, and people very close to the President suggest it's going to go much longer than that. In fact, you heard similar things out of the Pentagon. They're talking about now expanding the scope at least a month. They feel like with no air defenses there, that they have targets they want to continue hitting over the next month. And that seems like quite an expansion.

of operation, especially... With very little explanation as to what we lost. You start asking about targets, and then you have to start thinking, well, you know, maybe they're not going to put 100,000 boots on the ground, but it's certainly, if you're going to be going another month, it sounds like special ops operations are going to be in there. And something that we keep talking about. President has not talked about oil, doesn't say he's interested in oil.

Venezuela, he's been talking for 22 years about how George W. Bush didn't get the oil. I find it hard to believe that at some point, as in Venezuela, the president's not going to make a move to at least get control of some of the oil over in Iran. That's just who he is.

That's who he's been. That's what he was focused on in Venezuela. So again, he's brushing it aside, saying, no, no, no, we're not interested in that. I find it hard to believe if these operations go another month. There's not going to be some move on those oil fields. They're already saying to the

Israelis don't bomb their energy infrastructure. Right. So, yeah, I wrote a couple of days ago posing that question. Like, isn't it unusual that President Trump has not talked about the oil? And the White House is saying, look, that's not our goal right now. But I think there's a real chance. People around the situation believe there's a real chance that could change the longer this goes. That might be something they're holding in reserve.

In terms of the timetable of this war, the United States has not put out any sort of public schedule. However, talk to some people in the administration. the Pentagon had drawn up about a four-week operation, a four-week operational plan. Now, of course, the president has off-ramps at any time. He can call, he can decide at any moment to pull out of that. But right now, they're mapping out about four weeks. And because, in part, they have expanded their target list. They feel like the air war has been so successful, they can be more ambitious. Eventually, they're going to run out of, like, grade A target, so they'll start going on the list, grade B, grade C. They really

feel like they can make a lasting damage here. Now, what that means, the future of Iran remains to be seen. Because if they come away with this, with a similar leadership structure in place, what really did they accomplish? And that's the guessing game right now. And the president has not tipped his hand is what he would declare a win. A clue, though, Senator Lindsey Graham yesterday said, and who's a close ally of the presidents and a hawk on Iran, he says, I don't see how we can declare a win if we leave Iran and there is an Ayatollah still in power, any sort of Ayatollah. There certainly is one now, but if Graham's wishes... Is he alive?

That means... Is there any evidence that he survived the effects? So, Hegg Seth was asked, Secretary Hengseth was asked this yesterday in the briefing, and he did not say one way or the other. There are some reports that the ITUL has been injured. There's been the replacement item. There's no confirmation one way or the other if he is still alive or actually running this government. But if he were to be killed, as long as the infrastructure is still there,

they would appoint someone else. So therefore, if Lindsey Graham gets what he wants, that expands this timetable dramatically. I can say also, really, information on his selection, again, I haven't nailed this down, but I've got it from a very well-placed source, that the Revolutionary Guard actually pushed Kulmini's name forward, even without him getting a majority of the clerics vote.

And so right now, what we're seeing inside is you're actually seeing different power structures inside of Iran, as this administration official told me, they're fighting each other. And right now, they're more afraid of the next leader than Donald Trump. They're more afraid of who may take control and then start settling scores across Iran. So right now, things were not really saying a quiet sort of fight between the clerics, the Revolutionary Guard, other power structures on who leads next. Yeah, if regime change was the goal of this administration, it's hard to see any of the

those leaders being acceptable to Donald Trump, whether it's one of the Iatollahs, a leader of the IRGC, someone like that. That's not who Donald Trump perhaps had in mind when he was thinking of regime change, Richard. But what is the way out of this war? I mean, you're writing about this this morning. We chose to get in. Now we have to choose how we're going to get out. You listen to Secretary Heggs at yesterday laying out the three objectives, which is destroying the missile capability and the drone capability, destroying the nuclear capability as well, going down the list, they would have to achieve all three of those before the United States walks away. We're not going to achieve all three of those completely. You can't destroy what you don't know,

plus certain capabilities can be resurrected. You can start building some more drones. We don't know where 100% of the nuclear stuff is. It took one country to start this war. That's us. It's going to take three to stop it. Israel wants to continue for some time. Israeli goals and American goals are not aligned here. They are not aligned. Israel has much more far-reaching goals and is not nearly as concerned about the knock-on effects. Iran gets a serious vote. And yes, Iran is much weaker. But Iran can continue. All it's going to take is one mine in a passageway, and no one's going to ensure a tanker for months or longer until you can prove it's safe again. All it's going to take is one drone hitting this or that target. So we can talk about these goals. And by the way,

we have zero ability to ensure what the future leadership of Iran is, who it's going to be, what his, what his policies are going to be. But this is a classic case that we didn't begin to play chess here and thinking through what the moves of our rival would be here. And Iran senses, by the way, they may, as weak as they are, he reminds what Henry Kissinger wrote about Vietnam, and he wrote about the Viet Cong. And he said, the problem with the war we're fighting in Vietnam

is the Viet Cong wins by not losing. And we lose by not winning. And I think the real question is, who is better able to withstand a war of great duration and pain. Iran's already suffered a lot of pain. And the real question is whether we are configured in the energy and economic space to suffer the pain, whether we're prepared to have an open-ended military deployment in this part of the world,

given everything we have to worry about in Europe and Asia, I just don't see signs that anyone at the White House thought this through. The issue is right now, it's not really even military challenges from Iran, obviously as much as it is energy challenges. The question is if oil's over 100 a barrel for two or three weeks, gas prices go over $4 a gallon, what sort of pressure? That's going to be the main pressure on the White House, more so than military pressure. So everyone's standby.

Up next, we're going to take this conversation to former National Security Advisor under President Biden, Jake Sullivan. He'll join us in just a moment. We'll be right back. Well, when President Trump says that Iran is in a place of unconditional surrender, he's not claiming the Iranian regime is going to come out and say that themselves. What the president means is that Iran's threats will no longer be backed by a ballistic missile arsenal that protects them from building a nuclear bomb in their country. President Trump will determine when Iran is in a place of unconditional surrender, when they no longer pose a credible and direct threat to the United States of America and our allies. White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt with that explanation of unconditional surrender.

Let's bring in former national security advisor under President Biden, Jake Sullivan. He is the co-host of the Fox Media podcast, The Long Game. It's great to have you back on the show. We heard from Senator Blumenthal earlier about his concern about boots on the ground in Iran. What are the options on the table here and your biggest concerns moving forward? Well, I'll start with my biggest concern moving forward, and it's just the sheer lack of planning and thinking through all of the second and third order consequences here, as you guys were just discussing a minute ago. Mika, when you sit in the situation room before the president decides to send U.S. men and women into harm's way and war, you have to answer two questions. The first question is, what are our objectives?

What are we trying to achieve and can we align our means to those ends? We've gotten 12 different answers to the question of what our objectives are in this war. And so we're sitting here today many days into this war and we can't answer the question because the Trump administration can't answer the question. The second question you ask in the situation room is what is our enemy going to do in response to our attack? And then you game out how you counteract it. And one of the things that was very obvious from the outset here is that Iran would threaten

the Straits of War moves, shutting down energy supply to the world, trying to drive up gas prices for ordinary Americans and energy prices for people around the world. And yet here, nearly two weeks into the war, we seem befuddled by the fact that they have done that, and we have no answers for how to respond to it. So from my perspective, part of the reason that you have Caroline Levitt playing word games about unconditional surrender, meaning kind of the opposite of what unconditional surrender actually means is because we backed ourselves into a corner. We didn't have a clear answer to the question what constitutes success in this war when we went into it. And so now we don't know how to get out of it. And that has put U.S. military forces who have performed remarkably in this

operation in a very difficult position. All right. So, Jake, let's talk about what you would do if you were in the position right now to get them out of that difficult position. And also, if you will, obviously, we understand. We've all shared real concerns about how we went in there. First of all, I want you to just tell people that are watching in the Morning Joe family. What is the positive side as we move forward if the White House figures out how to land this, having Iran with a seriously degraded nuclear weapons system, seriously degraded ballistic missile system,

which threatened our allies across the region, their military structure, their Navy, their Air Force, all really blown to pieces. Talk about how that could possibly make the region safer if we figure out how to land this operation without a tremendous blowback. That's question number one. Question number two is, how do we do that? I know it's very difficult, but if you're there sitting with the president this morning, What are the steps that you take to move this to a position where Iran will agree to certain things that will allow our troops to come home? Well, Joe, as you know, it's been a bipartisan commitment of multiple American presidents.

Going back to President Bush, President Obama, President Trump in his first term, President Biden, to ensure that Iran never gets a nuclear weapon. Now, the method that President Obama selected was to enter into a nuclear deal, to do it through diplomacy. President Trump has chosen to try to do it by military force. And last year, in Operation Midnight Hammer, it is the case that military force set Iran's nuclear program back substantially by destroying some of those significant nuclear facilities. But Iran still retains highly enriched uranium.

It still retains centrifuges. and it still retains the scientists that could eventually build a bomb if Iran chose to do so. And what's been interesting in this iteration of the conflict, this war that was launched a week ago Saturday, is they really haven't gone back at those nuclear facilities. And I don't fully understand why that is unless one of the ways in which they're going to try to advance the ball in degrading Iran's nuclear program is actually a special operation to try to go in on the ground to do something there. And we've seen that floated in the press somewhat surprisingly because you wouldn't think that people would be talking about that out in the open.

That is an incredibly risky operation with no guarantee of success. And even then, to a point Richard Haas made a few minutes ago, Iran will retain the capacity to reconstitute a lot of these capabilities. So it is absolutely the case that the U.S. military in really remarkable and quite professional fashion, has been able to action targets against ballistic missiles, against drones, against the Navy, against the armed forces of Iran. And Iran's capabilities, conventional capabilities, have been deeply set back. But at the end of this, you have to ask the question, where would we be a year from now or two years from now as Iran tries to build back up? And I think that's the strategic conundrum that the administration is facing. And it raises

the question, is the ultimate endgame here regime change, as Lindsay Graham has argued, And I think that the history of U.S. engaging in regime change wars in the Middle East has not gone particularly well. So what I would be as advising is to say it's time to take an off ramp here, time to get out of this war to say basically, look, we've achieved some operational tactical objectives. And now we need to limit the potential consequences of having this turn into an open-ended regime change war that drags the U.S. deeper and deeper in. And by the way, some Republican senators were saying that yesterday, declare victory, walk away, you've degraded their missile capability, just get out, which I don't think President Trump is prepared

to do at this moment. Jake, let me ask you about the nuclear program. You mentioned it. There have been some reporting that maybe a special operations mission would go in. General Hurtling was here yesterday explaining just how difficult that would be. This is not the Maduro raid. This is going in with equipment and force protection and everything else and digging up and extracting nuclear material. But as someone who addressed the nuclear problem with Iran with diplomacy during your time in the administration previous, what do you think the approach should be to denying, as we heard yesterday from Secretary Heges, the third objective he laid out, denying Iran access to a nuclear weapon. Given where we are right now, what's the best way forward in that direction? Well, I still believe that there is the possibility of through a hard-nosed diplomatic, negotiation addressing that stockpile. In fact, before the U.S. and Israel launched this war,

the reports are that Steve Wittkoff and Jared Kushner received an offer from the Iranians actually to do something about disposing of that material, which I think is the highest priority when it comes to abating the Iranian nuclear threat. We've got to either dilute that material so it cannot be easily enriched into weapons-grade uranium or it has to be removed from the country. And I still believe that even after this war, even with all of the consequences of this, there remains a potential pathway to do that. I think it's more difficult now because Iran is going to be far more reluctant to go back to the table again after two rounds of military action. But fundamentally, at the end of the day, the only way to have real confidence long term that Iran is not building a nuclear

weapon is to have some form of diplomacy because we need inspectors on the ground in Iran. We need Iran to agree to allow those inspectors in, because without that ability to verify, we simply can't be certain about what Iran is up to with its nuclear program. So my view would be basically say we've achieved substantial degradation of Iran's capabilities across the board. We are now going to end military hostilities here. To Richard's point, Iran has a vote in that too, and so does Israel, but then try to turn to a circumstance where we rally the country.

of the world to say, now we need to deal diplomatically with Iran's nuclear program. I think we've put a massive hurdle in our way to try to do that now because the enthusiasm of Iran to engage in such negotiations is probably at an all-time low following this action. Jake, can I ask a question that Joe asked just a little differently, and that's to lay out the downside of the operation so far, because if I'm hearing you right, you actually think that quite a lot of what has been done in terms of degrading America, Iran's military capability has been successful and has made the region safer. So was there a reason not to do this? Are there knock on consequences, whether it's regional or a little further afield in terms of

the implications for Russia or other countries, are there ways in which this operation in the last 10 days has made America not safer? Well, Katty, I'm glad you asked the question because it gives me the opportunity to say, I do not believe that this has made America safer. And I don't think that those tactical gains are actually going to convert into long-term security gains for the United States, not by a long shot.

Joe asked me to kind of gamely make the positive case, and I think the most positive thing you can say is we made some tactical operational gains because we have a very effective military. I think strategically, this has so far been a huge setback for the United States because all of the advances, we've made no advances in this war on the nuclear program, as I've said, and the advances we've made on their conventional capabilities can be reversed relatively rapidly by Iran reconstituting its ballistic missile program and its drone program.

So I think it's incremental on the gain side and it's significant on the cost side. It's a cost, I think, in terms of strain in our relationships across the Gulf as they deal with the incoming from Iran. It's a cost in terms of our capacity to shape events globally because we're mired down in the Middle East right now. And also, we've chose to just launch a war of choice with no imminent threat. And I think that degrades America's overall capacity for global leadership. And finally, it raises the specter of potential asymmetric attack. from Iran, whether through terrorism or cyber or other means, that could potentially put more Americans at risk.

So I think the net of all of this, especially since we've done this without any kind of explanation to the American people or with their informed consent, and we've done it without a clear and imminent threat facing us is quite negative and getting more negative by the day. And that's not even touching the economic consequences that are being felt by Americans as we speak at the pump. So I do think it is right to credit our armed forces for the work that they are doing. I think it's right to ask the question, what could we be getting out of this? But I think when you do a net assessment of this military action so far, it's very difficult to come out on the side that this is advancing America's national security interests.

Jake, it's Richard. We are where we are. We can have long conversations about the errors that were made and getting us here. And if you assume that we can't base a policy on a hope for regime, James. and that more military attacks won't solve the problems for us. Also, you end up in diplomacy. So let me ask you two questions about diplomacy if you were advising a president.

Would you simply have a nuclear-focused diplomacy and should we put aside Iran's support, say, for proxies, ballistic missiles, whatever? Should we essentially have a nuclear approach? And second of all, do we now have to think about going back to where we were before the war sanctions relief? Essentially, if we want this war to end,

Do we now have to be willing to put on the table incentives for Iran and not just simply threats? So I'll start with the second question first. When you engage in diplomacy, even with your most implacable adversary, and you make a demand of them, and you say, do this and I will give you nothing for it, the odds that they're going to say, okay, sure, I'll go along with that, are quite low, even in the face of a military threat. So I think any diplomacy with Iran will have to involve a quid for the quo, will have to involve some measure of sanctions. relief. Now, that can be metered. It can be tied to performance metrics, but I think it is not logical to think we could have a diplomatic deal that didn't involve the U.S. engaging in some form of sanctions relief. I think that has been true in diplomacy since time immemorial. On the first question, I would sequence this. I think asking for everything up front saying,

we'll only do a deal if you give us missiles, if you give us terrorist proxies, and if you give us nuclear is a recipe for hitting a dead end. So I would deal with the most proximate and considerable threat, which is the nuclear program. Get a deal on that. Get that enriched uranium out of Iran or get it diluted so it doesn't pose a threat. And then say that is a step along a path where we are also going to ask you alongside the countries of the region to enter talks about these bigger security issues, including missiles and terrorist proxies. I think sensible, practical diplomacy step by step can do more to help enhance the security of our people and people around the world than taking either a totally maximalist position that will hit a dead end in diplomacy

or just up in choosing to launch a war of choice, which is what we've chosen to do. Yeah, former national security advisor, Jake Sullivan. Thank you so much for coming on the show this morning. And you can listen to Jake on his Vox Media podcast, The Long Game. We appreciate it. And Richard, to the point that Iran gets a vote in this as well, the lead of Wide World of News, Mark Halprin's newsletter this morning that just came out. So despite questions about the health and viability of the Supreme Leader, Iran, quote,

is not acting like a decapitated regime with massive Wednesday strikes into Tel Aviv, threats to mine the Straits, a big hit on a U.S. facility in Iraq, wide-ranging hits on other American assets, per the Associated Press. Iran attacked commercial ships on Wednesday across the Persian Gulf and targeted Dubai International Airport escalating a campaign of squeezing the energy-rich region. Two Iranian drones hit near Dubai International Airport home to the long-haul carrier Emirates, etc, et cetera, et cetera. Iran's joint military command also announced it would start targeting banks and financial institutions

and the Middle East, which would put, of course, Dubai at risk on and on and on. That's just in the last 12 hours. So we are seeing last night an acceleration of U.S. targets in Tehran. But as Mark reports here, scouring the news from the region, Iran is striking back. and they do not look like a decapitated regime. No, they're resilient. And what this tells us, Joe, is the two things we focused on most,

regime change and military force, are not going to solve this force. They're certainly not going to end it for us on terms we want. So we're going to end up what Jake was just talking about. We're going to have to rethink diplomacy. And ironically enough, the exact issues that Steve Witkoff

and Jared Kushner rejected talking about in any reasonable way before the war, we're going to have to circle back to exactly those issues. What are we prepared to tolerate or not on the nuclear file? What are we prepared to do in the way of sanctions, so forth? We are going to have to reach some understanding or accommodation with Iran because we cannot eliminate their military prowess, and we can't get the leadership in place that we want.

We can't base U.S. policy on that hope. We actually need to have a strategy, and negotiations are going to have to be part of that strategy as awkward and as difficult as that's going to be. Maybe Congress as well. President Emeritus on the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Haas. Richard also serves as our golf analyst, get your green jacket ready. It's a month away, my friend. We're getting there. It's a month away is coming up. It's, yeah.

It'd be nice when the snow here, though, melted before then. Yeah, it's going to snow again, so there you go. Coming up, the Trump White House seems to have found a fundraising opportunity in the war with Iran. David Drucker joins us with his new reporting on that. And as we go to break, a quick look at the travelers' forecast this morning from Acqueweathers, Bernie Rayno. Bernie, how's it looking? Mika, it's another spring-like day across the northeast, but it's not as bright as we've seen over the last couple of days. Your acuether exclusive forecast. Here comes the clouds. Boston, New York City.

A couple of showers late in the day. There could be a gusty thunderstorm tonight. Watch out for the strong thunderstorms. Eastern Ohio, western parts of Pennsylvania and New York State this afternoon. Strong thunderstorms, Little Rock Jackson, toward New Orleans, Atlanta. It's a warm, humid day. today better weather in Dallas this afternoon. We don't have any delays along the East Coast posted. To help you make the best decisions and be more in the know, download the ACQ weather up today. What just seems so insane based on what he ran on. I mean, this is why a lot of people feel betrayed, right? He ran on no more wars and these stupid senseless wars, and then we have one that

we can't even really clearly define why we did it. You know, it's so interesting, Willie. Joe Rogan, the scales falleth from his eyes. You had Andrew Schultz who was sort of, you know, was he Maga curious or was he a MAGA supporter? Whatever he was, he's not anymore. Like, he's firing on, you know, all cylinders against Epstein, against Iran. A lot of these guys, you know, that were supposed to be the avatars of the bro culture. are going, yeah, now. It's really starting to add up. I mean, Rogan, you start with criticism of the Trump administration on the Epstein files.

There's been some pretty loud criticism on immigration policy on ice, on the actions ice taking. And now on this war in Iran saying, none of this is the package that we saw in Donald Trump and voted for. This violates all of that. So at some point, it's not a one-off. At some point, the whole thing isn't what you vote for. Right. And John, yesterday we get the news. out of Dural, that the White House is, and by the way, there's a smart political move.

I've been looking at the TV camera for months saying they need to do this. So I'm not criticizing them for doing this. They did it like six months, nine months late, telling the Republicans, hey, don't use the term mass deportation. Which is interesting. You had told me earlier that the White House was telling us. the president several months ago, stop talking about mass deportation on the campaign trail. It's killing us in the polls. Now the White House is telling the Republicans, stop talking about mass deportation. It's killing us in the polls. Yeah, a slow pivot, to be sure, but they seemingly

got there. That's an understatement. Yeah, of course, this was such a staple of all of President Trump's remarks last year. And when they were focusing on deporting the so-called worst of worst. It was still relatively popular. And certainly Americans like the idea of a closed southern border, a poll suggest. But as this got, you know, as the moves got more aggressive, if it moved into like your neighbors, your friends, you know, moms waiting to pick up their kids from school, it was all, the American public was already souring on this last year, the end of last year. And then we add to it what happened in Minnesota, right, confrontations, the violence to two American deaths. It has become politically toxic. The president's well underwater on this.

there's finally been a realization from the White House. Stop talking about. He has largely stopped talking about it, at least for now. And now there's word to Congress do the same as the midterms approach. So, Mike, I'm drawing no parallels between the two events, though they have had a significant impact on where the American people go. You were old enough. And I mean, with the greatest of respect, you were old enough to remember what happened after the church bombing in Birmingham, the 16th Street Church bombing in Birmingham. That motivated, quote, moderate whites to get up off their ass.

and start supporting civil rights in a way that black people were not treated like third-class citizens. Same thing with the freedom writers, Selma, those things awakened a nation. Here, you just got a sense that the combination of Renee Good and Alex Pretty would awaken a sleeping nation. And I say that, not melodramatically at all. awaken a sleeping nation and the combination of those two killings and the execution style what to me look like an execution style killing would like to use a stronger word but i'll wait for a jury in the future to make that determination um awaken this nation there's no doubt about that and we came into this segment with a clip from joe rogan uh who has clearly been awakened by a series

of events. And I would attribute Joe Rogan's insight, and I do believe it's insight into his sidewalk sense of what's going on in this country. Sure, he's making a lot of money. He's very popular. He's got millions of listeners and viewers and everything

like that, but he has a sidewalk sense speaking to directly what you were just talking about. People don't like certain things. Like a guy on the ground, his weapon taken away, that he never displayed. I mean, shot eight times in the back. Right. And the worst of the worst, you know, little kid, you know,

with a five-year-old kid being shipped out, you know, to Mexico or wherever they sent him. People don't like this. And then you take the fact that gas prices are up, groceries are up, health insurance costs are through the roof if you can get health insurance. It's all right there. They're shipped to taxes and then the little boy was shipped back. But, yeah, Yeah, it's all too much. And, you know, by the end of this, Mika, 7% Kato said that by the end of all of these things, and they're still going on, only 7% of the people that were being detained were the worst of the worst. Well, and that's the point.

I mean, it is true that U.S. citizens got sucked into this and were treated terribly and murdered. And the investigations taken away from the state where it happened so that, accountability isn't even real either, and that is frustrating, and everyone can see that with their eyes. But it's also what's happening to undocumented people. People here on American soil all get treated the same way, and they are given due process, and they have rights. And these ice thugs just ran over everything that law enforcement is about, and nobody liked what they saw, whether it was undocumented or there may be a few very, you know, very hardliners on the right who think this is the right thing. But Donald Trump promised mass deportations like you've never seen them before.

And he delivered. So now they want to take back on that word. Good luck. This was his campaign line. You're going to get mass deportations like you've never seen them before. And he was right. And now they're building deportation centers. Let me just say a couple things.

First of all, whether it was a... murder or not. You said whether it's a murder or not will be determined, of course, by a jury. I would say execution style killing. Is that a safer way of putting it? That's what I said, that it looked like that. And a jury, and that's why I said a jury will

determine if there's a criminal connection to this, I suspect we will see that at some point. But the other thing too is it's just really, we all know that there are

a lot of people who, who are border patrol agents that have been in ICE for quite a long time, who've also been disgusted by what they've seen, the lack of discipline in Minneapolis, the lack of discipline by these new recruits that have just been thrown in there, a lot of them with absolutely no discipline whatsoever. I sure as hell no, and I know Mike's heard it, we've all heard it. Police officers are just deeply offended by the way.

recklessness. I think it's also very fair to say that there are people in Border Patrol and in ICE who have also seen what's happened and have been disgusted by it. No question. Career Border Patrol agents discussed it and some of them have become whistleblowers and talk to media outlets about the lack of training, about curtailed training for these new people who are out in the streets meeting quotas. They have numbers given to them by Stephen Miller. You've got to round up this many people. And so for now, the White House at Dural to talk to House Republicans and say, hey, don't talk about mass deportations, one, and just focus on the part where we're going after violent offenders. Well, that is what people voted for. Seal the border, get the worst to the worst, but that's

not what's been happening. So that horse has left the barn. You can't suddenly say, no, actually, what we're doing is going after the worst to the worst when we've all seen what we've seen with our own eyes on television and people have seen what they've seen in their communities where people who've been here for 20 years and owned a restaurant, been taxpaying members of the community, are getting pulled out and sent back to their countries of origin. Because, Jonathan, I've always said my parents, if they were alive, they would have been deeply offended by how open the borders were during the Biden administration, during the first few years of the Biden administration. And they would be deeply offended by what they're

seeing in the streets of America now. And so let's just be very clear, that's where my parents always. I always could look to my parents and say, hey, mom, dad, what do you think of this? What do you think of that? I know. They would have said, why are they letting all those people in? Why, why do we not have a border? And then they would say, why are they doing that to Americans? Why are they doing that? So, yeah, I mean, this is all pretty easy stuff to sort through. Americans want a closed tight, not closed, but they want a tight, secure southern border, and they also want these immigrants treated with respect. And yes, held, held accountable by law, but treated with respect. And no question.

Polls suggest Americans believe this administration went too far, significantly too far. And there's a little bit of a reset here, Caddy, in terms of the politics of this. We have this messaging from the White House. to congressional Republicans. We have a sigh of relief from some on the GOP that Secretary Nome is now out. They think she was the very toxic face of this policy. But the quotas have not been rescinded.

Like there's certainly, the administration has taken its foot off of the gas, at least for the time being. But Stephen Miller is still the architect of this plan. And now there seems to be a bit of a pause as they wait to see the, look at the polls, look at the politics. Do they forge forward again down the road?

That remains to be seen. Yeah, I mean, interesting that you went to Stephen Miller because that's exactly what I was thinking about, too. We've had Tom Holman and we got Christine Nome out. We don't have the kinds of scenes we saw in Minneapolis at the beginning of the year. We don't know if that is something that we're going to see again between now and the midterm elections. It seems unlikely, given the polling numbers. But Stephen Miller, for everything we hear about him, still very much in the president's good graces, still the person that has an enormous amount of power, despite having the low.

title of Deputy Chief of Staff in the White House. So is there any sense in which Stephen Miller and his agenda, because this is his agenda, he is the one that has been pushing this, is there any sense in which he has revised his position at all and won't be pushing hard on this again if the polls start to change?