Trump's Kentucky chaos and Rubio's big...shoes

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1:02This is a Global Player original podcast. And as we take decisive action to stop the threat posed by the terrorist regime in Iran with Operation Epic Fury.

1:24Is that a great name? Well, it's only good if you win, you know, you can only do... And we've won. Let me tell you, we've won. You know, you never like to say too early you won. We won. We won the best... In the first hour it was over. Donald Trump claiming victory within the first hour of his war against Iran. Has he convinced anyone else of the ramblings inside his head?

1:51Jon Sopel:Does anyone believe he's won? Does anyone understand what this war is all about? And how can you claim victory when the Straits of Hormuz are shut and the oil price is surging upwards? Welcome to the News Agents USA. The News Agents USA with Emily Maitlis and John Sopel. It's John. It's Emily. And that was Donald Trump in Hebron, Kentucky, where... Not the West Bank. Not the West Bank, but sort of Israel friendly town. Kentucky's Republican Party said the purpose of that presidential trip was partly to lay out the work he's doing to make America affordable again. In other words, they are trying to get him back onto script.

2:41They are trying to get him to talk about cost of living, affordability and the work he's doing for ordinary American families. What he does is he comes in sounding like he's head of the World Wrestling Foundation. Epic Fury, big cheers, describes his victory, says that no president wants to claim victory, but he clearly does. And he says that his war was won within an hour. And the trouble is, frankly, it just sounds so hollow. it sounds so mad because he has to all intents and purposes lost control of it completely and on the stump he's even more exposed because there's really no one even asking the questions he's just there to ramble in that speech as he did last night for over an hour

3:35Jon Sopel:yeah look the epic fury bit what a great name for a war you know D-Day what a great name for an operation you can't imagine Churchill or Eisenhower saying any of that. Operation Overlord, it's fantastic! The hollowness, as you say, Emily. Well, do you remember Wilfred Owen talked about the pity of war, right? The pity of war is like good men, as it were, are dying for a greater cause. He doesn't really care about anyone dying in his war, right? And he doesn't seem to care about the fact that oil is rising either, because he just wants to claim a victory. So then you go to the substance of it. And again, it is just empty because to say that we claimed victory in the first hour.

4:22Jon Sopel:Look, the first hour of that war was unbelievably successful in decapitating the Iranian leadership. the regime is still in place. The regime is still capable of closing the Straits of Hormuz which will have a devastating effect on the world economy and for all the undoubted military might of the United States of America with its bombers flying in the air and its precision-guided weaponry it is utterly powerless to stop the sowing of mines the planting of mines in the Straits of Hormuz through which 20 % of the world's oil flows and that is presenting a serious problem for Donald Trump. There was no strategy going into this war and there seems to be no strategy now and as you said Emily there this is all about Donald Trump traveling the country to talk about affordability and how great the American economy is doing and again that seems slightly hollow as well when people are going to have to pay much more when And they go and fill up their car with gas at the petrol station, at the gas station.

5:29Jon Sopel:And the cost of food is going to go up as a result of it. I actually can't bear to hear him talk about the success of the first hour of war, because we now know that within that first hour, within that first Saturday morning of the attacks, between 140 and 160 Iranian schoolgirls were killed by an American Tomahawk missile. Now, if that's what he thinks of as success, I for one am speechless, frankly. Yeah. So there was something very interesting as well, I thought, just hearing that clip again. And, you know, maybe kind of it's almost worth spooling back to it when he says, you know, Epic Fury, what a great knee.

6:04Jon Sopel:We won within the first hour. And I was expecting you and I have been to far too many Trump rallies over the past decade. I was expecting the chance of USA, USA, USA. I thought there would be the kind of tub thumping that is invariably goes with that sort of message. You know, when Obama came out and announced the killing of Osama bin Laden, there were chants of USA on university campuses across the country. You know, on other key moments, there have been the chants of USA. Where was it there? This was in Kentucky. This was to an audience of loyalists who seem to hear that rather quietly, like they don't quite believe it themselves that this is the reality that Donald Trump is talking about.

6:49Yeah. The other person that got a mention in that speech, Trump found himself in the district of Thomas Massey, who is the Republican who has worked so hard along with Ro Khanna to bring a transparency to the Epstein files. It was him who essentially got Trump to cave in on that vote in Congress to release the Epstein files. And Trump last night called him a disloyal nut job. Now, you don't have to work very hard to find out what is really on Trump's mind because he kind of tells you. So, yeah, he goes all the way to Hebron, Kentucky to talk about the war. But what's he actually thinking about?

7:32He's thinking about how much he dislikes Thomas Massey because he never really wanted to release the Epstein files. It kind of just reminds us of where his mind actually is on all this still.

7:43Jon Sopel:Yeah, and that is the petty squabbles that he's had and the score settling and the desire for vengeance and vindication always. And the fear, clearly, of what is still to come. Exactly. Anyway, let's have a listen to Donald Trump from another passage in his carefully scripted one hour and 10 minute ramble. Along with just one Republican voted against, you know what the name is? he is the worst person his name is what the hell how did he ever end up in kentucky his name is thomas massey

8:23how did he ever end up here paul anyway no massey voted against tax cuts for seniors And now Thomas Massey is attacking a great Navy SEAL hero. This is a real hero. Ed Galrine.

8:46Who's running against him in the primary. You know why? Because he's not doing right for our president. He didn't want to run for office. He's a hero. He's a farmer hero. He's a tremendous war hero, but he's a farmer right here. He's like central casting. I said, this is the guy I'm looking. I wanted to, I want to just give me somebody with a warm body to beat Massey. And I got somebody with a warm body, but a big, beautiful brain and a great patriot. He's unbelievable. And he did it because he said he's disrespecting our country. So Trump is talking about Ed Galrine, who is Thomas Massey's primary challenger in the election.

9:32But what you should understand for context is that it isn't just that Massey pushed to release these files. He's also said that his own constituents in Kentucky, that reddest of red states, to your point, have raised concerns about the war and the impact of the cost of living. And if you look at the polling, you can see what he's talking about. 43 % of Americans, this is Ipsos, found that Americans disapprove of the US strikes on Iran. That is a pretty low poll rating for a president taking his country to war in the first week, right? This isn't that people have grown tired of something that wasn't going their way.

10:13This is the moment when you wrap yourself in the flag. This is meant to be the rally to the flag moment. So 43 % of Americans disapprove of it. The approval rate is just 29 % and 26 % say they're unsure. So altogether, you have got a clear, a vast majority of Americans who are not approving of this war with Iran. And Thomas Massey is pointing that out. And Trump really doesn't want to hear that.

10:44Jon Sopel:and look you know i've i heard someone on the radio saying oh no don't worry the trump base is with us they're supporting it and it's just the democrats who are opposing it and i thought no that is a really unsophisticated analysis because in every u.s election there are an awful lot of independent uh voters who kind of will sometimes go with the republicans and sometimes go with the democrats the independents are very very unconvinced to put it as its most generous about this war but you're also getting some of the really big influences coming out against it and there is none bigger i would argue than joe rogan the most popular podcast in the usa donald trump spent three hours with joe rogan prior to the election and then joe rogan came out and endorsed donald trump this is joe rogan this week on the war in iran this one's nuts like if they had supposedly dismantled their chances of making a nuclear bomb.

11:46Whether or not that's true, I mean, it's so hard to know. It 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. Well, but he said he's against endless wars. Well, they're all endless. Listen, man, they're all endless. Did you ever hear Rumsfeld talk about Iraq when it first happened? Tell me. They were talking about like six weeks.

12:17Jon Sopel:So there you have Joe Rogan kind of kind of raising the question that I think that most Americans are raising. You know, I remember Bill Clinton when he was talking about the Balkans, talking about how we need to roll down the map of the world and have a look at why this matters to Europe and to everyone. Donald Trump has done nothing of that. There has been no preparation of American public opinion for what he was going to do and why he was going to do it and what the end would look like and what we would have achieved by that point. He's suddenly done it. And then he's expecting the American people to go along with it.

12:49Jon Sopel:And he's claiming victory when it is so clear that, yeah, you might have degraded. You might have taken out the one layer of the Iranian leadership. But the regime is in place and the Straits of Hormuz are still closed. Well, in a moment, we're going to be speaking to former National Security Advisor John Bolton, who has been an advocate for changing the Iranian regime for years. Does he like what his president is doing now?

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13:57The News Agents USA. Well, joining us now is Trump's former national security advisor, John Bolton. President Trump was telling Kentucky last night that he's won the war, that he won it within the first hours. Your response? Sure he did. And, you know, this is Trump in typical form. He then, having said we had won the war, said there's still a lot to do, and we don't want to end it too early. So he's done what he enjoys doing, which is making sure that the decision when to actually end the hostilities is his to control. But he's in a very different position now than before the war. He has unleashed this effort, which I would support if it's to get regime change in Iran, which was one of his seven or eight listed objectives.

14:47But if he stops before that, he's already created a lot of political pain for himself. And if he stops prematurely, he won't have anything to show for it, which could produce even more political pain. He didn't prepare the people before the war started. He didn't prepare Congress. He didn't prepare the allies. And he didn't really prepare the Iranian opposition. And I think that's showing right now. Do you think he's achieved anything other than the decapitation of a leader who's been quickly replaced? Well, we say he. It's an interesting question. I don't know the answer to how much punnage of bombs has been dropped by Israel and how much by the United States.

15:26I think that'd be interesting for people to find out. But the Israelis largely responsible for killing perhaps up to 500 leaders to the regime, which is not a small number and presumably still looking for more. In terms of changing the regime, no, I think Mojtabi, Hhamenei, the son, now the supreme leader, is just as much a hardliner as his father, if not more, which is one reason why if you want to change in Iran, the only real answer is to change the entire regime, get rid of the Ayatollahs and the Revolutionary Guard.

15:56Jon Sopel:What do you think Donald Trump's ambitions are then? Because it's been very hard to discern, as you say, on the first sort of 24 hours of the war, he was telling the Iranian people, it's your chance now to rise up and get rid of this regime. Since when, he's spoken of far less about regime change and seems to have been spooked by what has happened to the oil price. The reporting over here is that the White House was surprised that the price of oil went up so quickly, to which I can only say, you've got to be kidding me that they didn't see that coming or that Iran would try and close the Strait of Hormuz.

16:31But I think this also typifies Trump decision making. He doesn't think ahead. He doesn't have a strategic plan. He just makes decisions by the seat of his pants. And he doesn't have people around him by his own design who tell him maybe he ought to think about this or think about that before he takes a decision.

16:49Jon Sopel:So I could imagine that in the White House, there'll be some people throwing tomatoes at the television screen if they're listening to you by saying, come on, this is what John Bolton's always advocated that there should be military action in Iran. Yeah, if you do it the right way, I mean, nobody who advocates regime change thought it was going to be easy to do. We talked about a lot of these things in 2018 and 2019. I tried to convince him to do it. I tried to lay out what the pluses and minuses were and how hard it would be. And he didn't want to do it in 2018 and 19. Now he has. I'm worried that, you know, my criticisms, I speak as an advocate for regime change.

17:30My criticisms are that he's set it up in such a way he may be destined for failure.

17:35Jon Sopel:Just can I ask you about the Straits of Hormuz? Because you've got this very narrow pinch point through which 20 percent of the world's oil and LNG flows. You cannot just use military might to say we'll keep it open when you all it takes is to drop a couple of mines off a Dow or off a skiff. And the Iranians can block it very easily. And it doesn't seem to me that there is much that the military can do to prevent it. Well, I think there's a lot we can do, and I think it's already happened. You know, the Iranians had 16 mine laying ships. They're now on the bottom of the Gulf. There are other ways they can do it, and those need to be dealt with.

18:15the i'm surprised that uh that this wasn't done early in the war what what they did focus on in addition to destroying the air defense capabilities was uh iran's ballistic missile arsenal which is right you want to destroy their retaliatory strike capabilities but closing the hormone the strait of hormuz is a retaliatory capability and they should have eliminated that last week too but

18:38Jon Sopel:if you can you know i i was reading that iran has something like a thousand sea mines that it can lay at some point. And if you can just drop one off the edge of a, you know, a small fishing boat or whatever it happens to be, you can sink all the vessels you like. There are plenty of boats that can go out there and do that work for the Iranians. Well, that's why our military should be focused on making sure that the swift boat capability they have, which is substantial, which can also swarm tankers and try and attack them that way, that all of those need to be sunk too. And we need our Navy's mine laying ships.

19:17You had one there, apparently was called back several weeks ago, which is unfortunate. But we have minesweepers that are state of the art. And even if they get some mines in the water, we should be taking them out. Who do you think Trump is listening to on the question of this Iran conflict? Have you spoken to him personally? Has he sought your counsel? Certainly not. Not for seven years or so. So I don't know who he's listening to. But I think the trouble is that he wanted people around him who would basically say, yes, sir. And I think that's what he's got. So I'm not sure if even people who support regime change are able to say, we've got a plan for this contingency.

20:04We have to take this preparation with the opposition. I don't see any sign of that. Let me ask it in a different way. Do you think he is being led on this by Netanyahu and the Israeli government? Because this is something that we know Israeli president after Israeli president has wanted and advocated for understandable reasons. Look, even I don't think Trump was led around by Bibi. I think Trump's doing this on his own. I can't give you the reason. I wish I could. But I think he thinks he's in charge. And do you think that he has lost control of this now? I mean, with everything that we've talked about in the Straits of Hormuz now, do you think Trump has lost control of what's happening in Iran?

20:46Well, you know, if you don't know where you're going, any exit works. And that's why I think he is looking for a way where he can declare victory with a straight face. But as long as the Strait of Hormuz is closed, I don't think that's a serious option. And I think that's why the military will now be spending 24-7 trying to find an answer to it, which, as I say, I would have thought they would have tried to take care of this earlier.

21:10Jon Sopel:And just on the kind of trajectory of this over the next few weeks, which way do you think they will go? Because do you cut and run and leave the job half done? And the new Ayatollah Khomeini's son has said today in his first public statement, we are going to keep the Straits of Hormuz shut. In which case, can Donald Trump leave this war like that? Or does he have to commit more resources in a way that he's probably absolutely loathe to do? Well, there are two real questions. What should we do? And one question, and the second really, is what will Trump do? Trump will surely do what he thinks is in his personal best interest.

21:48And if he thinks he can convince people that we won, And I think that he'll do that. For example, if the current Supreme Leader gets taken out, which is quite possible, he could have the shortest tenure of any Supreme Leader in the history of the revolution. That's a hook Trump could use to get out. I think we've got a very rare opportunity here, given the dissent inside Iran, to overturn this regime. And Trump's made a lot of mistakes so far, but it's not hopeless. And if we could overturn the regime, that is the only chance for lasting peace and security in the Middle East. Ambassador, you said that you hadn't really spoken to the president for, what, some seven years or so.

22:31Last August, we understand that he sent FBI agents to search your home and office over the handling of classified information. Do you know where that investigation is now? What is the latest on that that you can tell us? Well, I don't really discuss it. I don't think it's appropriate for me to do it. I'd love to be able to, but it's just not the time. In terms of where Vice President J.D. Vance is saying, he said that classified documents are part of the investigation. And he said that there's a broad concern about you. I'm trying to understand, maybe you don't want to discuss the investigation itself, but when you've got a vice president saying there is a broad concern about you and that the investigation focuses on documents, I mean, what is your perception of how closely politics and the law is now linked?

23:20I think there's no question this is part of the retribution campaign. No question at all. Do you concede that there has been any wrongdoing on your part in terms of the classified documents that were taken away? I have pleaded not guilty and I'm going to leave it at that.

23:34Jon Sopel:So can I just bring you back to something else you said, which is about I think it bears on the international community and its response to what Donald Trump has done in Iran. You said it was unfortunate that the Britain, I think, had a minesweeper there. It's been withdrawn. on Keir Starmer wouldn't give unfettered support to the operation. I mean, was Keir Starmer right, given the vagueness of the military goals and ambitions of what the campaign was and what it was meant to be and the legality? Or do you think Britain has let America down? Well, there are a lot of different stories about what was said beforehand.