Piers Morgan Uncensored - 'A Regime Change War With NO PLAN!' Is Attack on Iran Really 'America First'?

Episode Date: March 3, 2026

President Trump has made it explicitly clear that ‘America First’ means whatever he wants it to mean - but none of the advocates for attacking Iran can argue with a straight face that he campaigned on war with Iran. The President for peace has changed tactics - but is it with good reason? Is Iran more of a threat now than it was 18 months ago? And what does ‘America First’ now mean to those who voted Trump in? Piers Morgan leads a debate with co-host of The Verdict with Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson, The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, host of Part of the Problem Dave Smith, host of Human Events Jack Posobiec and Jo Carducci aka JoJo from Jerz. Piers Morgan Uncensored is proudly independent and supported by: Superpower: Take the guesswork out of getting healthy in 2026. Get full body testing that goes 5x deeper than an annual physical and a personalized action plan that tells you exactly what to do next. All for just $199. Go to https://Superpower.com and use code PIERS for $20 off your membership this year Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sadly, there will likely be more. Before it ends, that's the way it is. I think this destroys Donald Trump's presidency. I mean, if he goes over there and just kills a bunch of Iranians, a bunch of Israelis are dead, a bunch of U.S. soldiers are dead, but the regime still stands. I mean, I think that's death for the rest of his presidency. This is not going to be sending troops into Iran.

Except the President Trump has told the New York Post literally two hours ago, he's not ruling out sending U.S. ground troops. If this turns out, into a full-on regime change, forever war. That's something that's going to prove to be very unpopular in this midterm year. Our service members deserve better than a commander-in-chief who does not have a plan.

They deserve better than a five-time draft Dodger. This is a total betrayal of his own voters. President Trump has made it explicitly clear that America first means whatever he wants it to mean. But that hasn't stopped many other people attempting to redefine it on his behalf. Ben Shapiro says that attacking Iran is America first because it serves a U.S. national interest. Lindsay Graham and Mark Levine, among others,

say that starting a war can, in a roundabout way, be an act of peace if it prevents war and suffering in the future. What none of the advocates for attacking Iran can argue with a straight face is that Trump campaigned on war with Iran. He didn't. In fact, it was, of course, explicitly the opposite. In addition, there must also be a complete commitment to dismantling the entire globalist neocon establishment that is perpetually dragging us into endless wars, pretending to fight for freedom and democracy abroad.

We should have never got into the Middle East. We should have never got into the Middle East. Under my leadership, we will turn the page forever on those foolish, stupid days of never-ending wars. I am the president who delivers peace. I was the first president in decades who didn't start a war. I think we would have been good with Iran. I don't want to do anything bad to Iran. Speaking of World War III, I'll keep you out of World War III.

What would happen if we had a war? We won't. With me. Well, both President Trump and Vice President Vance billed themselves as the pro-peace ticket, a message which massively expanded his election-winning coalition. Tulsi Gabbard said only Trump could prevent war with Iran

as she switched sides to join him. And J.D. Vance articulated very clearly that a war with Iran would be expensive. and against his country's interests. Israel has the right to defend itself, but America's interest is sometimes going to be distinct. Sometimes we're going to have overlapping interests, and sometimes we're going to have distinct interests,

and our interests, I think, very much, is in not going to war with Iran, right? It would be huge distraction of resources. It would be massively expensive to our country. So the obvious question is, what's changed? Is Iran more of a threat now than it was 18 months ago, If it is, nobody's plausibly explained why. Trump has worn many hats over the past few weeks

and attempting to justify the war that is now underway. It's the protesters, it's the nukes, it's the long-range ballistic missiles. That's the inherent inconvenience of an evil regime which has for decades been a thorn in America's side. But none of this will satisfy those in Trump's base who voted specifically for the pro-peace ticket and is unlikely to satisfy the masses of moderates

and swing voters who care above all about cheaper groceries and higher wages. Clearly, America first means different things to different people, but it stands to reason that above all, it surely meant fixing your own country before meddling with everybody else's. Well, joining me to discuss all of this. It's Ben Ferguson, co-host of The Verdict with Ted Cruz,

Tim Miller, commentator at the Bullwall, Dave Smith, host of part of the problem, Jack Posobic, host of human events, and Joe Kuducci, aka Jojo from Jurs. Well, welcome to all of you. Ben Ferguson, what's happened here? What's happened to the peace-loving, who wasn't going to go into the Middle East.

You know, I saw Axios reporting that no president in history has now launched attacks on more countries than Donald Trump. Where does that sit with America first? Stay out of the Middle East, stay out of foreign wars. Yeah, I think there's a very specific aspect of what Donald Trump's doing that the American people are okay with and it's different than forever wars. He did not going to go in and do what we did in Iraq and Afghanistan. And I think what the president also understood in pivoting is once he was back in the White House and saw the intelligence and realized what Iran is doing and what they're clearly trying to do and what they're trying to do not only with Israel, but also with the United States America, you just cannot allow them to get even anywhere close to having a nuclear weapon.

They are a threat to Americans. They've killed more American troops in my lifetime than any other country. Their proxies in Hezbollah and Hamas are a great example of that. They are a sponsor of terror. which again is the worst that I've seen in my lifetime as well. Anyone that's a bad actor in that part of the world, they will fund. They love funding terrorists. And once you saw what they did to Israel and the attack there and advocating and supporting and advancing and giving aid and arms and money and training to what happened in Israel, I think the president had to look at it differently.

Now, to be clear, this president, and I've spoken with the White House a lot lately, I've set with a Speaker of the House the day before the State of the Union. I set yesterday with Senator Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio. They all are saying the same exact thing. This is not going to be sending troops into Iran. So I think that is the biggest difference here. The President understands a threat. He also understands endless wars are never a good thing,

and he doesn't want to do that at all, and he won't. Right, except the President Trump has told the New York Post literally two hours ago. He's not ruling out sending U.S. ground troops into Iran. if they were necessary. He said, I don't have the yips with respect to boots on the ground. Every president says there'll be no boots on the ground. I don't say it. I say probably don't need them.

But if they're necessary. So Trump is leaving that door open. But look at Venezuela, and that's what he's talking about. If there's a situation where you have to go in and take someone out in the way that we didn't Venezuela, by the way, we're not invading Venezuela. We're not staying in Venezuela. You have to look at the context of what the president is saying there. Like, I don't think that's ambiguity in any capacity by this.

President. What he's made clear is we're not going to go in and invade and take over a country. That is not what he wants to. Same thing in Venezuela. I would say Venezuela is a success where there technically boots on the ground there for X number of hours. Yes, there were. Are we staying there indefinitely? No, have we invaded the country and taken over? No, we have not. And that's why the president said, not once, but twice in his two speeches, I am preparing a place for you to be able to take over your own country. This may be the best chance you get to do it to the people of Iran. So you better go out there and take back your country as we are doing this for you. And we've seen the people in Iran. They have celebrated that overwhelmingly.

Okay. Tim Miller, it seems like there's a lot of hoops being jumped here to try and explain what is, to me, I've known Donald Trump a long time. It's been a clear change in his attitude towards meddling in foreign countries and foreign wars, and in particular in the Middle East. And, you know, he might have perfectly good reasons for doing it, but he's certainly a very different rhetoric now that he's using to what he was using when he was campaigning to be re-elected. This problem, it seems to me, with the attack on Iran is Iran is a massive country. It has a very ruthless, very large regime, which basically extends to all aspects of Iranian society.

are at least one and a half million revolutionary guard, regular army, paramilitaries, possibly as many as two million, none of whom at the moment appear ready to throw in the towel as Donald Trump has asked them to. So if people do rise up in the way that Donald Trump would like, you know, his utopia is that all these airstrikes bully the regime in such a way that the people sense their moment and they rise up and they overthrow them. But at the they would be facing a lot of them immediate death, as we saw when the recent protests were repressed. And that seems to me to be the fundamental flaw here in what Donald Trump wants to happen and the reality on the ground. A lot of that sounds right to me, Pierre's.

This is obviously a betrayal of this campaign promises. I mean, that Magus supporters can spin it however they want, but J.D. Vance in that clip you played was just very blunt about this. and there's nothing that has changed on the ground, making Iran a bigger threat since fall of 2024. In fact, Iran's been degraded a lot since fall of 2024. And so this is a total betrayal of his own voters. But to the actual plan here, I think what Ben just laid out is totally incoherent. Like, if the idea here is that this is a moment where the Iranian people have an opportunity to grab their own freedom and we're going to help them, okay, well, that requires troops on the ground. I mean, like, that would be a coherent objective, at least we want to free the Iranian people from the Ayatollah.

We're not saying that we're going to do that. Pete Hanksap was out saying that this is not a regime change operation and we are not doing democracy promotion. Pete Higgs has said that. So we can't both be on the side of the Iranian people and also not be interested in a regime change war and democracy promotion. Like, you have to do one or the other. The Iranian people cannot overthrow. Let me tell me. Health matters above anything else.

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Not only a superpower reduced their price to just $199, but for a limited time, our viewers and listeners get an additional $20 off with the code Peers, P-I-E-R-S. Head to superpowers.com and use code Peers at checkout for $20 off your membership. And after you sign up, be sure to mention that I sent you. Tim, I would simply say to you Syria. I mean, in Syria, very recently, we saw the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad very, very quickly, and it was actually driven by the people. Now, there are legitimate concerns about the leader of the rebel group,

but so far, you know, you would say tentatively it's been an improvement on what the Syrian people were enduring under Assad. But, you know, it's going to be a long game to watch there. Sure, peers. But certainly, but that was a, but that was it. But my point being, the United States' objective was achieved there without boots on the ground, wasn't it? Well, no, that was Turkey's objective in the United States. That was not our objective.

We weren't like Turkey armed a rebel group in Syria. Is that what we're going to do? Okay, again, that would be a coherent plan. Like we have picked a group, Pompeo said over the weekend, we like the M.E.K or the Kurds or whoever, we're going to arm them and provide them weapons and intelligence. That's what Turkey did. And I think they ended up having kind of catastrophic success in Syria. I don't even think that Turkey planned on that group.

so easily toppling the Assad regime. Again, maybe that could happen in Iran. The point that I'm trying to make peers is that there is no coherent objective being offered by this administration. Like you have Ben Ferguson on right now saying that what they want is freedom for the Iranian people.

That's not what Pete Hankseth was saying this morning. That's not. That's really quick. One more thing. Just one more thing. Donald Trump, I don't think of the incoherence. Just let me do one more thing.

Then you can talk, man. One more thing. Donald Trump said that he, like you, pointed to Venezuela and talked about how successful that is. This is very different for Venezuela a couple of reasons. Number one, four people have already died. That didn't happen to Venezuela. Number two, we had a clear successor.

Donald Trump told the New York Times that we had two or three successors in mind. All of them are dead. They've all been killed. He said to the Atlantic or to John Carl, I think, at ABC last night, that we don't know who the successor is now. So this is very much not a Venezuela situation. It is not a regime change. I refer to Venezuela about troops on the ground in response to that. And I think you're intellectually honest enough to understand that.

I don't think I have to explain to you like a third grader. I think you're now just trying to act like Venezuela and Iran are the same thing. They're very different places. Right. You are the one that said they're at the same thing. It was very simple. We had troops go in and take out the leader and then we left. That's the same thing that we're talking about now.

Well, four troops have died in this case. So it's already very different than that. It's already very different than that. Four troops have died. Again, I don't like to use American soldiers dying for a political point you're trying to score. I know you don't like the president. I know you don't like the president. plan. But let me also say this about what's the plan? There are two objectives here. I'm going to

tell you the two objectives. And so you put words my mouth. Number one, it's to make sure you take out a regime that is sponsoring terrorism all over the world and has made it very clear that they want to do what they did in Israel, also in America and other places. So it's a national security standpoint there. It's also a national security standpoint with oil and the Strait of Hormuz as well. That's very clear. They're worried about that area as well. And the third is, yes, when you get rid of someone, like this, of course, you want the people to be able to be free in their country and not be killed in the streets like we've witnessed where tens of thousands of them have been exterminated in the last month while they tried to stand up to their regime. So there can be multiple things here.

Is that different than Venezuela? Of course, because every nation is different. I think you should know that. Yeah. Okay. Let me bring it. That doesn't sound like a plan because we don't know who the next regime is. Hang on, hang on, hang on. I want to bring in the other panel members. And let me bring in the other panel members. Dave Smith. I want to bring in Day Smith first. I will get to you, Jojo. Day Smith, what's your feeling about what we're seeing here? I mean, I look, for example, I've lost of friends who live in Dubai. They moved there for a good economic life, the sunshine, but also primarily safety. They would tell me they leave their front door open in Dubai because nobody gets robbed, right? This is a very safe place to live. Suddenly they're waking up and they're seeing

five-star hotels getting blown up. And it's causing enormous uncertainty throughout that entire region and causing enormous damage to the perceived business model of places like Dubai. So there are real-time consequences now of this within 48 hours of these strikes, which make it very, very different to anything we've seen before. Do you think this can work? Can it work? And if it doesn't work, where does that leave us all? Well, if it doesn't work, Donald Trump has destroyed his presidency, which I think is the most likely scenario at this point. And I don't think, I don't say that with any, you know, glee.

I mean, I think that's really bad for the country. And I understand that this is kind of devolving into like a partisan fight. But, you know, look, I mean, the justification for this war is totally incoherent. It's actually worse than any of the wars in the global war on terrorism, just in terms of how incoherent the justification. as I mean, all of the wars were based off lies, but at least the lies kind of, I mean, at this point, it's like, I don't even know what, I mean, I guess Ben will just defend whatever war Donald Trump launches, but their nuclear program was totally, of course, of course.

All right, right, you already, that's a good idea. I know, we've all heard the talking points. Okay. Are you saying Iran is not the worst sponsor terrorism? Like, serious question. Like, you act like you don't know that. You do realize Iran fundamentally funds, trains, Hezbollah, Hamas, and other terrorist groups. Jesus Christ.

Yes, I know. I mean, that's not like breaking news. Can I just talk for a second since you already spoke? Sure, but like don't act like you're a smart guy. Like, you should know that. You're downplaying a ran threat to the world. Dude, shut up for a second. I've heard a million times.

So you're saying it's not true. You're saying it's not true. Dude, can I just fucking talk to? This is so boring. I've heard a million of Fox News. Okay. I go on CNN too, by the way, okay? So like, it's not just Fox News, buddy.

Okay, so I've heard the talking point a million times that Iran is the number one sponsor of terrorism. It is something that the Warhawks love to say. I have actually never once heard a coherent definition of terrorism and then a demonstration that they're the worst of it. The IDF is the worst terrorist organization in the region. Let's get real. The United States of America is arguably the worst terrorist organization in the world. If you want to look over the last 25 years, how many innocent civilians we've slaughtered. You're getting us, you're getting us into the neo-19.

Yeah, that's right. You're getting us into the neocons seventh war, which they've been dying for for the last 25 years. That American flag thing behind you might want to take down, by the way. No, actually, if you love this country, if you're a real patriot, you'd have to hate this government. And the war policies that are destroying them. Yeah, yeah, yeah, DC, DC killed a lot more people than around it. And that's George W. Bush and Barack Obama and Joe Biden and Donald Trump. There's nothing to do. Dude, just all you can do is just interrupt because you know you have no point. on your side. Anyway, Pierce, what actually matters here?

Anyway, what actually matters here is that the calculation has been drastically changed and the incentives have been changed by Donald Trump, even since the 12-day war. Look, for the 12-day war to work out the way it did really relied on a major piece of that puzzle, which was that Iran, for self-preservation reasons, showed restraint in their response. They called ahead. They let us know where they were going to target. they made sure they didn't kill any Americans. This time, once Donald Trump killed the Ayatollah,

they offered, through their Italian negotiators, they offered a ceasefire. Iran said no. Iran has now made the calculation that they simply can't let America come in and kill the Ayatollah and not respond because then they'll just keep picking on them. Donald Trump already announced this was a regime-changed war with no plan, absolutely no plan.

as he has admitted, as Rubio has admitted, they have no plan for what comes next. And this is the scenario, I got to say, man, I hate to be vindicated like this, Pierce, but this is the scenario that all of us were warning about since well before the 12-day war, that now you've gotten yourself into a situation. Americans are dead. I think Mr. Miller misspoke when he said four people are dead. Four Americans are dead over there, probably more to come. Donald Trump says more to come.

We've had a couple Americans killed in Austin in a blowback terrorist attack that's happened already since then. And like, dude, the lack of wisdom here from the Trump administration, like, you have no idea what you just kicked off. There is absolutely no reason to think that this thing is not going to be a catastrophe, just like the last six theaters in the global war on terrorism. And by the way, you know, just final, one very quick last point. I'm sorry, Pierce, but I really, you know, interrupt you there a bunch. Let me just say one thing. For all the, like, supposed, like pretend intellectuals out there, like the gad sads and the Sam Harris, who have spent career talking about how violent and irrational the Muslim world is because you can't even draw up

a cartoon of Muhammad or they'll start killing people. Hey, what do you think happens when you murder in Ayatollah? Did anyone know that that's not just a political figure to the Shiites? Who we've had no beef with really so far. You've never had a Shiite jihad. That's like the most stupid foreign policy I've ever heard of. Oh, no, actually, Ben, my foreign policy is don't start words of aggression. Adolf Hitler, I guess, will still be alive if we use your foreign Well, great, good one, Ben. You just speak in slogans. My foreign policy is don't start.

Adolf Hiller's a bad guy. You better not attack him and stop him from invading all of Europe and taking over the world. Don't mess the fight of America. Never because that guy's a really bad guy. That's your foreign policy. So Ben, you just, so you're just going to say the dumbest thing and then interrupt me if I respond. You literally just said, I'm in Texas where the Austin attack happened.

And your policy is, hey, be really nice to bad people. And then they might not kill you. That is your. foreign policy. And you're now saying that Donald Trump is somehow responsible for a terrorist that said property of Allah and had a Iranian t-shirt on saying, oh, no, that's Donald Trump's fault. Not actually the terrorist's fault. That is the problem with so many of you on the left. Because you don't understand that sometimes you have to take out back out. I actually want to give two other, I want to give two other panel.

Trust me, you are not. Shut up. Two other panel members have so far said. fucking. Okay, guys, two other Panamans are saying nothing. But let's bring them in. But let's bring them in. But all right, whatever. Well, you said a lot and it was interesting. I want to bring in Jack Mosobic.

Jack, you know, it's interesting to watch how the conservative right is reacted to this. You've got Tucker Carlson, one of the big figures of the conservative right, going off the deep end about this attack, calling it disgusting, calling it evil. You know, that would have been unprecedented 20 years ago to hear someone who was such a big figure the Conservative right in America, going after a Republican government's decision to do something like this in such a virulent manner rhetorically. What do you feel about this? I mean, I think a lot of what Dave Smith is saying is what the fears a lot of people on the right

have about this, too. The polls show this is a very unpopular move. Even Republicans are hitting now nearly below 50% support for this, which is unprecedented for a military action like this under a Republican president. How are you feeling about this? Well, Pierre, last time I was on here, that's exactly what I said. I said that if this turns into a full-on regime change, forever war, kind of prolonged, protracted situation, that's something that's going to prove to be very unpopular in this midterm year. And I'm certainly not going to change my analysis on that. That's just true. That's just the absolute truth of the matter. The question is,

I think, and still remains, will this be a Venezuela-style situation where there's going to be one military operation, a brief operation, and then this protracted, or I should say, immediate, you know, immediate ceasefire, and then a situation where a new leadership is brought in, and the U.S. is working with that leadership. You did hear the president say that, I believe, to Brett Baer earlier today. And yes, he's been making a lot of statements across all of media and saying different things in different places. but we have heard, and I've heard from the administration, some rhetoric regarding this, this Venezuela model, which does seem to be very well celebrated.

And, of course, he pointed that out at the state of the union last week. But look, you know, Charlie Kirk is, you know, is someone who lobbied very hard back in June, along with myself, to say, do not push this and warned very succinctly, I believe, and very strongly that younger voters are not going to be on board with this because they are war weary. after looking at Iraq, after looking at Afghanistan, after seeing the pullout in Kabul in 2021 and saying, what is it worth? What is it for? So you do see this, you see this split, really, within MAGA, where older voters, it's 50, 55 up, very, very, very supportive. Then younger voters, very, very against. Gen Y, kind of in the middle, global war on terror veterans, generally in the middle. That's what's going on. President Trump ultimately is the only one who knows how it's going to shake out. J.D. Vance, of course, up there as well. And so that's going to be

the situation. Look, those guys know what the situation is on the ground. And those guys obviously realize that they're the ones conducting this election right now in the midterms. And certainly, they know what the stakes are. Okay, Jojo, thank you for your patience and welcome back to Uncensored. What is your view about the killing of the Ayatollah Khomeini? I mean, for 47 years, it's indisputable that the Iranian regime has been a ruthless barbaric regime which has terrorized its own people, which has sponsored terrorism throughout the Middle East, predominantly aimed at Israel, through the tentacles of Hezbollah, through the Houthis, through Hamas and so on, celebrated October the 7th and all these things.

None of that is really up for debate. I mean, that's what they've been. The question becomes a little bit like the debate about. Saddam Hussein at the start of a century when I was at a daily mirror here in the UK and took a very strong position against that war because I did not believe that we had established the US and the UK in particular a reason to take him out that the weapons of mass destruction seemed to be a construct that wasn't built on evidence that turned out sadly to be true and we had 20 years of mayhem that came out of that led predominantly by the rise of ISIS who filled the vacuum and caused

terrorism for two decades. So, you know, I have a long memory when it comes to these kind of things. And that was a situation where it needed boots on the ground, which turned out to be a complete disaster. Here, Donald Trump is holding the possibility of committing more boots on the ground to a country of 93 million people where you have, you know, one and a half million heavily armed people that work for the regime, from the Republican Guard down to the regular army, to the paramilitaries, this is an enormous number of heavily armed, committed to the regime people who will repress any uprising of the kind Donald Trump wants, I would imagine, in a very quick and very draconian way, as we saw only last month.

So this seems to me, when you add in the attacks on hotels in Dubai and the rest of it, it seems to me a very precarious situation. So when Jack says, well, Donald Trump knows what's happening, I'm not completely convinced that he can know what's happening, and it's the unpredictability of this, which is concerning to me. No, thank you. You're absolutely right.

I'm not going to be shedding a tear for the Ayatollah, that's for sure. But if we're going to be talking about, you know, oppressive, despotic regimes who hate America and our country's goal being going in to have regime changed, we could go into a lot of countries. I mean, Donald Trump is literally rolling out the red carpet for Vladimir Putin. He's falling in love with Kim Jong-un.

But the thing is, in this particular case, they keep moving the reasoning behind this attack. They can't agree with themselves. Donald Trump said it was an imminent threat. Donald Trump said it was about regime change. Pete Heggseth said it's about preventing them from having an umbrella, preventing them from having nuclear weapons. Ted Cruz says there's no evidence that they've seen that they even have the capacity for nuclear weapons or for enrichment.

The thing is, they haven't. thought this through. Donald Trump doesn't think things through. There is no end game. There was no clear objective. I'm still waiting for him to explain this to anybody coherently. He hasn't done so. But to your point originally about this being America first or not America first, this is yet another one of Donald Trump's campaign promises that he has not delivered on. And if I'm somebody who voted for him, I'm looking right now at all of these things that he said he was going to do and hasn't. This one in particular, no new foreign war. I remember every MAGA idiot in my replies telling me to cry harder because they got the guy who was going to get us out of these long protracted wars.

He said he was going to release the names in the Epstein files. Now we know he had to be compelled by Congress to do so. Then he slow walked those and only released half and redacted 96% of his own name mentions. He also said he was going to bring down the cost of groceries. He was going to bring down our electric bills. Not only is that not happening, everything is moving in the wrong. direction, our GDP, inflation, et cetera, another promise that he made to his base who voted for him that he is not delivering on.

And to me, this one is the easiest one, because we have, as you played at the top, sound bite after sound bite after sound bite, of him saying he was going to be the candidate for peace, that he was going to get us out of these wars, that Kamala Harris was going to be the one that got your sons and daughters into these protracted wars. And by the way, Hegsa said today, Donald Trump said today, we could be looking at five weeks. Neither one of them will say we won't put boots on the ground. And that is very different than what they said in Venezuela. And to the point about Venezuela being a success, I would ask the people of Venezuela, if that is actually true, if their lives are markedly better right now since we went in and removed their leader.

That's what I'm concerned about. I'm desperately concerned that there is no strategy here. So we're going to reaction to streets. I'm pretty sure they'd say yes. I want to finish this point. This is very important to me, sir. Pardon me. I just really need to finish this.

We're talking about Iran. Like, you're way off the reservation. I really need to finish this. This is near and dear to my heart because I grew up on near a military base. My father worked for the Department of Defense. He was based on military base. Most of my siblings have served. This is near and dear to my heart.

The men and women of our military, our service members, deserve better than a commander in chief who does not have a plan. They deserve better than a five-time draft Dodger who called the fall in a war, suckers, and losers. They deserve better than someone who demeaned a P.O.W. Disparaged a Gold Star family. Insulted a military widow, desecrated Arlington National Cemetery, told John Kelly that he did not know as he stood on hollow ground. What was in it for them? Our men and women are military, our service members, they deserve a commander-in-chief that doesn't say it is what it is when they die in combat.

Just remember that. Let me bring. Okay, Ben Ferguson. The military overwhelming voted for him twice. Hang on, hang on, Ben Ferguson. Actually, three times. This statistic is incredible. So Axios reported on Monday that no president in the modern era

has ordered more military strikes against as many different countries as Donald Trump. Now, Marjorie Taylor Green, a former big Trump MAGA supporter, said, we said no more foreign wars, no more regime change. We set it on rally stage after, stage speech after speech. Trump, Vance, basically the entire admin campaigned on it and promised to put

America first and make America great again. There are 93 million people in Iran let them liberate themselves, but Iran's on the verge of having nuclear weapons. Yeah, sure. We've been spood-fed that line for decades and Trump told us all that he's bombing this past summer, completely wiped it all out. It's always a lie and it's always America last. That's coming from a once massive Trump supporter. As is Tucker Carlson most of a time, who calls this evil and disgusting. Yeah, both of them are fringe people, individuals now, not in the Republican conservative movement. Let's just be clear. You're quoting someone that used to be pretty sane and now it's gone pretty crazy.

Martin Taylor Green, the most of the one thing she ever did. Tucker is the mainstream. Wow. Again, I'll go back to what I was saying. Jack, he's French. Absolutely. The overwhelming. Mainstream.

Lindsey Graham is the mainstream. Tucker Carlson is the MAGARLY. Marjorie Taylor Green is like, is someone, the most important thing she ever did in her time in Congress was wait until the deadline to get her pinch and to resign one day afterwards. So like,

you want to talk about being in a selfish person. Don't you do a podcast? But let me answer the question. Let me answer the question. You're all liberals. I'm a conservative. Don't act like you know what we know on the conservative side. I won't tell your liberal whack friends

what you guys believe. Like, Neo, make sure you put the Neo in front of it, Neo-conservative. Whatever you are, it's, you go through there. Can I,

can I allow, I would like to allow, I would like to allow, I would like to allow, Ben Ferguson. That would be me. Pierce, the rules are,

if he interrupts me my whole time, then I'm going to do it to him. Those are the Pierce Morgan rules. No? I can't stop laughing about Martin, as always,

all panelists can behave in any way, in any way they think, shows them off in the best possible light. Martin Taylor Green resigned from Congress because she couldn't win re-election. That's because the Republicans excommunicated her. Yes. Otherwise, she would have won. I don't know if you don't know how to re-polling.

But she read her own polling and saw she wasn't going to win. Okay, but Ben, Ben, Ben, Ben, all right, but Ben, Ben, Ben, let me just look. That axiost stat alone, you know, using that stat as you run seven months now away from the midterm elections, if this goes the wrong way for Donald Trump, and it could easily go the wrong way, they get stuck into a terrible quagmire,

you know, Israel and the United States in Iran. No, it costs you in midterms. He doesn't. There's no quick win or whatever. This could lead to a complete shalacking in the midterms. Trump becomes a lame duck president in that eventuality, and this becomes the thing he's remembered for. I mean, the stakes are incredibly high here.

Yeah. Look, I agree with Jack on the point he made earlier, that if this goes long, and there's troops on the ground in a more traditional way, this will be a disaster, and there's a very good chance the Republicans will get beat in the midterms. That means that Trump's agenda disappears. That means investigations and impeachment start right away.

Democrats have already said that. They will go after him and impeach him again and go after anyone around impeach him again. I know you guys are grinning in the bottom because you guys like to use lawfare instead of like access to the American people. But what the president of the United States of America has made it clear here.

He believed that Iran, this was the moment to act, Act, and this was a moment. You guys were spying on multiple Republicans and abusing power of the government. Susie Wilde and the FBI directors came out. I know you can laugh about it because you guys are sick. Like, you use the government to weaponize it. They went after six Democratic members of Congress, lawfare? Are you serious right now?

You guys literally were spying on citizens in the government because you didn't like them. That is a fact, period. And you'll do it again if you get control of the House and Senate. I understand that. Anybody who would not initiate an investigation into his adversary, you want to talk about lawfare? I'm sorry. Let's not all speak the ones. If Donald Trump doesn't get this right and do it in the way that he's described, which is a short term, we're talking about weeks here, right, four weeks, five weeks, and then be able to pull out, it will be a disaster going into the midterms.

I think Donald Trump understands that clearly. And I also think he thought the objective here was worth that risk because he wasn't making this decision. for a political reason. If he was, he wouldn't have done it. Right? The polling data that you sit here and you look at you like, hey, just don't go there. Let's not do this. The polling data says it's not worth it going the midterms.

I think it was a national security decision for him. I think he understood that national security perspective. I think he understood the threat that Iran was to us and the rest of the world. And I think he saw an opportunity here and he said, I'm going to take this opportunity to do this because I believe in it that much. If you were making decisions solely based on polling, then you wouldn't make this decision. I think it's a national security decision, which, by the way, is what we want our presidents to do, whether it's Obama or Joe Biden. All right. Let me bring it, Tim Miller.

I mean, I would categorize it, Tim, more as a massive roll of a dice by Donald Trump. I think he's been persuaded about the timing by Netanyahu and the Israeli government. We've been itching to do this now for a very long time. And what's saying that Trump doesn't think it would be a good thing for the world, I think he probably does. But I think the timing is so fascinating to me. And the reason I say a roll of a dice is because politically, the downside if this goes even remotely wrong or just gets stuck for the next few months,

is so clear to me. This could absolutely cost Trump everything in terms of political power come November. And once he becomes somebody without control of the House, as Ben said, your ability to do anything just gets paralyzed until the end of your term. So the stakes are incredibly high, But there is another way to look at this, which is Trump has been pretty uniquely successful in doing precision attacks on the foreign stage,

whether it's Soleimani when he took him out, whether it's al-Baghdadi when he took him out, whether it was the 12-day war last summer, time and again, whether it's bringing a ceasefire to Gaza, and nobody really thought there was a chance of that. Times well, time and again, Trump has gone in and done quick surgical strikes on places. It's been a very different philosophy to boots on the ground, years in war and so on. And that's probably emboldered him to do this. And he's probably calculating that he, by taking out the entire hierarchy of this regime, which appears to be what's happened, to the extent where the next two, three, four, and five people they thought might be potential next leaders apparently all got killed too. Even the ex-president, Akhtam, Dinajad, who I once interviewed has been killed, apparently.

So a complete wipeout of all the sort of top names in the Iranian regime. He's calculating this could lead to a domino effect where you could see the regime getting toppled because actually a number of the Revolutionary Guard perhaps turn on it, the army, regular army follow, suddenly the people feel that this is moving the right way. And as we saw in Syria, boom, suddenly there... Look, I'm not saying this will happen,

but I'm saying we have seen this happen. in different places around the world and it can happen very quickly if people feel like if the ones supporting the regime believe it's going down and the people sense that these things can change very quickly.

So you could be in a position by the summer where Donald Trump actually has affected genuine change there the people have risen up and Iran is removed of a 47 year repressive regime and that could play well for Trump and it could lead to the Abraham

Ham Accords, having Saudi Arabia join it and others, because I do think the big strategic era Iran has made is attacking the Gulf states. And I think the moment they've done that, they've lined up all these plays like UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and others, lined up now behind an America, Israel, you know, a pact going into Iran, which I didn't think I'd ever see. So I think a lot of things are possible here. Tip, your response to my thoughts. Yeah, go a couple of things. I look, just how. strained that hypothetical case of how it could possibly go well is, I think speaks to the just political disaster and the danger of this situation for Trump. I'm like, sure, yeah, obviously

he's high on his own supply because some of these other, you know, one-off strikes have gone well. This is obviously very different than that. Yes, obviously he's being influenced by MBS and BB to a degree that they might be just kind of walking around the dog park at this point, convincing him to get into this. But this is such a different scenario than all of those other scenarios. as mentioned earlier, and thanks Dave for the update on the language. But like four American troops are already dead. And again, like for what? Like in your strained scenario, the best case scenario is that maybe in the future,

there'll be an internal struggle in Iran and a regime that we like better, but we don't know who it is, will be taking control. Like if you pulled the American people just two weeks ago and said, hey, would it be worth four American deaths for the possibility that maybe Iran might get a better regime, but we're not sure who it is. I think that would be like a 20 to 80, you know, only 20% of the country like Ben and a couple of his buddies would be for that.

Most of the Republicans wouldn't be for that. And look at this panel. Jack was one of Trump's biggest supporters. Like he's hedging on this, you know, in his answer. Dave was one of Trump's biggest supporters. He's even more hostile to me against this. He's calling us terrorists. I'm not even that far.

Among Trump's own base, this is a disaster. Independent voters, you look at polls of all ages. Last independent poll I saw had 19% in support this among independence. And the best case scenario you can point out is that like maybe there'll be some new leadership, but we don't know who it is and we're not supporting a particular person. Like that's a crazy. That's a crazy risk. And sure, yeah, the Arab states are with us for now. But are they going to continue to be if, if, you know, their hotels and their oil reserves are being bombed? Are the people of UAE and Qatar and Saudi as on board with this as their leadership? I'm

skeptical of that. What about our European allies? Oil prices in Europe are up 50% today. And this thing is already a disaster. We're on day three. And they have no plan for getting out of it. It's like we're going to bomb them for four more weeks and hope that something good happens. Good luck. Yeah. It's a roll of nice for sure. Right. I mean, Dave Smith, the oil part of this is fascinating to me, because I wasn't an expert on the straight of Hummus until yesterday when I really studied it at length. I was like, well, okay, what goes through this rate? Okay? And it turns out 20% of the oil production of the world

goes through this rate on a daily basis. And it's millions and millions of barrels. But interestingly, 78% of it goes to Asia, predominantly China. Right? About 10% goes to the United States and about 10% to Europe. So actually, the biggest victim of closing the strait of hummus would be China, who are a traditional ally of the Iranian regime, which raises all sorts of questions.

But, you know, Iran itself is somebody that exports a lot of its oil through the Strait of Hua. So they would also damage their own ability to export oil. So they'd be damaging their biggest oil importer from the strait, which is China, and their own ability to export it. It seems to me that playing that card doesn't suit Iran and doesn't suit China. So, you know, you're left then with purely the military card, aren't you? Well, I mean, they're already playing that card, right? And they sunk a tanker the other day.

And then what happens then is that the insurance companies get worried about insuring ships going through there. And so you kind of like, in effect, can shut down the Strait of Hormuz. But, you know, to your point, Pierce, about attacking other countries in the region and shutting down the strait. The idea here, I mean, it seems like the thinking from the Iranian perspective is that they feel, like they have to give us a bloody nose in this one, that they can't allow us to do this without suffering some. Now, that's a very difficult calculation, but of course, Pierce, they're making a calculation with a knife to their neck. I mean, the most powerful government in the history of the world's commander-in-chief announced regime change and that they have to go. I think also,

you know, I would probably even state stronger than what I said at the beginning. It's not that if this goes bad Donald Trump has destroyed his presidency, if this isn't an overwhelming success in that very unlikely scenario that you laid out, I think this destroys Donald Trump's presidency. I mean, if he goes over there and just kills a bunch of Iranians, the result of this is that a bunch of Iranians are dead, a bunch of Israelis are dead, a bunch of U.S. soldiers are dead, but the regime still stands, even though he announced regime change, and then he just comes back, I mean, I think that's death for the rest of his presidency. So he's, everybody has now painted themselves into a very difficult position to get out of. You know, Jack had a, maybe

A couple months ago, Jack put out like a mini documentary on the war in Iraq, which was excellent. It was excellent. I shared it on Twitter. And one of the things, I believe you had this in there. I can't remember. I've watched too much stuff about the war in Iraq. But I believe you had in there the quote on Meet the Press where Dick Cheney says right before the war in Iraq, it'll be weeks, not months. You know, it's really easy at the beginning of the – it's really easy at the beginning of this thing to say, oh, well, don't worry.

The plan is it'll go really great. But, I mean, Pierce, it is true. Look, people were celebrating in the streets. That is true. People in Venezuela were celebrating in the streets. Of course, the regime isn't gone, and the people in Venezuela don't have any more liberty than they did then.

Now, of course, in Iraq, which is a super majority, Shiite country, there were a lot of people celebrating in the streets when Saddam Hussein first fell. He was a brutal dictator, who oppressed the majority of his population. But the thing is this, Pierce, right? In the last Iranian election, the president, who was far to the right of the last president, got like 20% of the vote. You know, Iran is a country of 90 million people.

If you got even 5 million people who are committed, you know, Ayatollah-lo-loving Islamists, well, that's more than enough for a healthy insurgency. And so the thing is that this is, if you actually do... By the way, just for perspective, Saddam also got above 90% of the votes in his. last election too. So there are major questions that is that free and fair election. Let's let's be clear. Like I don't think it's fair to say that they voted for this guy, this shot that I told up. Yeah, yeah. The point. Saddam got over 90% every time he was on the ballot. Like that's fair. I'm not saying. You're just not you're just missing the point.

But anyway, like that's just crap. Yeah, yeah. I'm not, I'm not claiming it as you're just missing the point. But I'm not claiming it is. But then don't use the act like they chose the guy. No, no, you just don't get. Like people are getting run over the streets and kill by him. They're not real. They're not real elections necessarily. Then don't act like they are. Just, yeah, I mean, you just won't let me finish the sentence. You know you can't win the argument. And then you're like, okay, maybe it was a fake election.

Maybe it's a real election. I admire that you know you can't win the argument, so you just have to talk over me every time. Listen, man, we got a-trier. True or false, was a free and fair election or last time there was election? True or false? Pears. Was it a free election or real?

True or false question. Pierce. Pierce. Because you guys, I have to simplify it for you. Okay. Cool, cool, cool. Pierce. Let that finish his point.

For the last two years, Pierce, for the first time, really, in my lifetime, and maybe in American history, the Warhawks have had to come debate us. Like, it's a new reality now. Like, Ted Cruz was trying to tweet at me the other day. Like, now that the media has been decentralized and the corporate media is destroyed, they actually have to come in and have the argument. And we have so consistently destroyed you guys over the last two years that this is now a probe. Just like the propaganda put out about the elections in Iran. Got it. Yeah, you destroyed us.

Yeah. Again, you can't just stop interrupting, Pierce. He can't let me make the point. This is now a pro-Palestinian country. That's how bad you guys have lost the argument. So you guys are all giddy now because you got your war, even though the American people are totally against it. Just wait, dude.

By the way, Pierce, keep in mind what Ben just said. This is going, Can I get one sentence? Can I get one sentence out? Pierce, that's pretty messed up. Okay, so Pierce, this is how stupid this is. If I were to say to someone, don't get hammered and go out and drive your car

And then you get hammered and go out and drive your car. And I go, hey, you're hammered. Come home right now. Ben would say, you're rooting for me to crash the car. No, dummy. I'm rooting for you to get out of the car. You're fucking, listen, dude. You guys, you're sitting there and you're saying you don't care about the people in Iran.

You don't care about the American troops have been killed by Iran. You guys talk about what people are the reality. Pierce. What a fucking dumb argument you would do to? Time out. Time out. Time out. Time out.

You don't care about people. Time out. Fuck off. You know, the reality, Dave, about what you said about the last two years in the media and stuff, is actually one of the reasons why my show has become increasingly popular. It's precisely because you would not see a debate. You would not see a debate like we've seen between you and Ben Ferguson for last hour, anywhere on mainstream media.

Is that a debate? And actually, it's actually, it's actually an important and healthy thing. That people who have diametrically opposed views, I have to duke it out with each other. I feel like I learned things. One quick point in Pierce, one quick point that I didn't get to get it. Very quickly.

If Ben, if Ben is going to say, which by the way, my prediction on this, Donald Trump has lost the midterm elections. And if this thing goes bad, the 2028 election is gone and a Democrat will win. And even by Ben's own admission here, he's risking, he's risking, he's risking handing this country back over to the Democrats

for what to maybe liberate the people of Iran. that's America first that we're going to risk President AOC over them getting their freedom? I mean, Jack, dude, you got to admit, man. We got to abandon this president now, dude. That's it. He chose Mark with him.

Let me ask, Jack. Don't all talk a once. I want to ask Jack. I want to ask Jack this. So, Polymark, it's an interesting point, this, I think. So Polymarket have asked about the possibility of a ceasefire,

right? 1% by March the 2nd. I can agree with that. But by the end of March, 45% potentially. But the highest overall April the 30th, there could be a ceasefire by then, 65%. I think the interesting thing here is Trump's done a lot of U-turns recently about a lot of stuff. And it wouldn't surprise me at all if, at some stage,

if this is going the wrong way, he suddenly pivots to, you know what? We had a job to take out the Ayatollah and the top of this evil regime. We put them back in their box. They won't dare do this again. and he claims or attempts to claim a victory based on what has already been done, accepting that they can't do an awful lot more. Could you see that situation?

I mean, I could absolutely see that. Look, I was just saying before, Donald Trump is not George W. Bush. J.D. Vance is not Dick Cheney. So you can't put, you know, it's Apple to Orange's comparison in that situation. And thank God they're not, right, obviously. And that's why we haven't seen these troop movements talking. I mean, sure, he's never going to, you know, announce in a press conference what the strategy is going to be. But we just haven't seen

Marines and expeditionary units and army being sent over. We've seen naval power. We've seen air power. So we just haven't seen boots on the ground really been seriously deployed to the area. What it looks like to me, I would be surprised if this thing goes beyond March personally. That's what the president's been signaling in terms of four weeks. And he's already said that he thinks it's ahead of schedule because of this situation where they got for what, 40 to 49 members of the leadership out. So the minute I think that someone comes up and it's just, you know, reading the tea leaves here, but the minute I think that someone comes up that seems to be a stable leadership, whether that be IRGC, whether that be the civilian

president, whether that be another Ayatollah, I think they're going to take the other. Anyone could be an Ayatollah. It could be the IHRGC. It could be the Persian people. It could be a lady from the streets. We don't fucking know. Kimberle-Gilk. Who the hell does? Do you actually like study a little bit? It's a great plan. I mean, at least George Rubeo. Yes, it's very. Final word, okay, final words to Jojo. Jojo, Jojo, very quickly. You look like you were, you were indeed

licking your lips at the prospect of all this, potentially going so badly that you guys in the house in November. Hold on a minute. I want to clarify something. We have, you know, human lives that are at stake here. I am not hoping that it goes badly when it comes to our service members. I want to be very, very clear about that. I'm not hoping it goes badly at all.

certainly not for the Iranian people. What I want to know is what our national security interests are here. What I want to know is how any of this makes any of us any safer. What I want to know is how any of this makes my grocery bill lower, lowers my electricity, or it gets more transparency for the survivors of Jeffrey Epstein. I want to know how this advances the United States of America, because what I'm looking at is something that makes us less safe. And we're already, by the way, since we're all talking about this being the tipping point

in the don't tip the waiter game, we're already looking at a country where everything is moving in the wrong direction. We are poor, we are sicker, we are hemorrhaging manufacturing jobs. We're basically not even adding jobs to our economy at all right now.

Again, GDP moving in the wrong direction. Inflation is basically stagnant. The United States of America is in a bad place right now. So for Donald Trump to choose to do this right now, when he doesn't have a real justification, he's certainly not made the case to the American people.

It's deeply, deeply on. popular, maybe one quarter of the American people support this at all. I'm focused on what actually helps the United States of America. And when Donald Trump sold himself as the America first president, that he was going to make America great again. Joe Biden had our economy moving in the exact right direction. We were the envy of all of our fair nations. And Donald Trump once again, Inherited, Ben, do you ever just let someone talk? He was really helping to talk. He'd ever just let someone You're insane. Yeah, in fact, every message was doing in the right direction.

Ben, let's do some jobs. In the right direction. Hey, Donald Trump, by the way, hang on. Hang on. Let's be clear. We're not going back over Biden other than to say even Joe Biden can't remember whether he got things right or wrong. Yeah, Joe Biden was awesome.

Really peers, really peers. Joe Biden, do you want to go there? His economy stuck. I'm sorry to say this. Joe Biden, Joe Biden was a zoffer. Biden was a zombie president for the last two years. Yes. Only his economy was a disaster. Okay. And by the way, Jojo, the other point

I make it the U.S. economy is actually, wait a minute. The U.S. economy is actually doing very well compared to those countries in the world. The problem the problem Donald Trump has is it's not filtering through to ordinary, hardworking people because inflation is still there. And inflation, as I explained to one of my guests the other day, who wasn't too sure what it was, inflation means prices are still going up.

Until you have no inflation, they go up. Yeah. So look, I got to leave it there. We run out of time. We run out of time. But I think the point I would make is the U.S. economy is actually doing well. And that is why I find this decision by Donald Trump, extremely fascinating and very precarious. and we'll see how it plays out.

But I think the midterms and Donald Trump's legacy hinge entirely on how this now plays out, this war on Iran. Thank you all to my panel very much. Thanks, Pierce. It was. Thank you. We'll make sure you check out this week's episode

of History Unsensitive with Bianca Nobolo. She's put together a gripping account of Iran's remarkable history and how it will shape the success or failure of the war now raging today. History Uncensored. wherever you listen to podcasts and, of course, on YouTube via the link in our show notes. Pierce Morgan Unsensored is proudly independent.

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