Israel and Iran at War: ‘Trump and Netanyahu Set a Trap for the Iranians’
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Diverging Reports Breakdown
Trump’s Base in Uproar Over His Openness to Joining Iran Fight
The confrontation, 97 seconds of which Mr. Carlson posted on X Tuesday night, quickly racked up tens of millions of views. It came to embody a rupture that has burst into view on the right, as Mr. Trump weighs sending American aircraft and weapons to support Israel’s efforts to demolish Iran’s nuclear program.
“How many people live in Iran, by the way?” Mr. Carlson, the former Fox News host and a longtime ally of President Trump, asked Mr. Cruz, who has become a stalwart supporter of the president’s evolving approach to the conflict between Iran and Israel.
“I don’t know the population,” Mr. Cruz said.
Then Mr. Carlson went in for the kill: “You don’t know the population of the country you seek to topple?”
The confrontation, 97 seconds of which Mr. Carlson posted on X Tuesday night, quickly racked up tens of millions of views and came to embody a rupture that has burst into view on the right, as Mr. Trump weighs sending American aircraft and weapons to support Israel’s efforts to demolish Iran’s nuclear program.
Such a move would represent a remarkable reversal for Mr. Trump, who just months ago opposed military action while he sought a diplomatic solution — and, according to an increasingly vocal chorus of his critics on the right, a reversal of his long-held promise to steer the nation out of, not into, foreign entanglements.
Israel-Iran Live Updates: Trump Says He Hasn’t Made Up His Mind on U.S. Striking Iran
President Trump said he had not made a final decision about whether the U.S. would join the Israeli bombing campaign against Iran. Mr. Trump blamed Iran’s leaders for the violence, reiterating that they should have negotiated sooner with the United States to reach a nuclear deal. “Why didn’t you negotiate with me before all this death and destruction?’’ he said. Iran was, in fact, in talks with the. United States about its nuclear program, but suspended them after Israel. began its bombing campaign on Friday. The president said he might — or might not — enter the war between Israel and Iran, as millions of people in the United. States, Iran and Iran waited for him to decide. He said the Iranians have reached out to him and that the two sides may meet, though he declined to provide details of the outreach to the White House. He also said he would return to the Situation Room on Wednesday for a meeting with his national security team.
Can you answer questions about whether you are moving closer or you believe the U.S. is moving closer to striking Iranian nuclear facilities, where’s your mindset on that. I can’t say that right. You don’t seriously think I’m going to answer that question. No I may do it. I may not do it. I mean, nobody knows what I’m going to do. I can tell you this, that Iran’s got a lot of trouble and they want to negotiate. And I say, why didn’t you negotiate with me before all this death and destruction. Why didn’t you. I said to the people, why didn’t you negotiate with me two weeks ago. You could have done fine. You would have had a country. Do you think it’s too late to now. Really nothing is too late.
President Trump said on Wednesday that he had not made a final decision about whether the United States would join the Israeli bombing campaign against Iran, a day after he called for Tehran to evacuate and threatened Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
“I have ideas as to what to do, but I haven’t made a final — I like to make the final decision one second before it’s due, you know, because things change,” he said in the Oval Office.
Earlier the day, Mr. Trump said he might — or might not — enter the war between Israel and Iran, as millions of people in the United States, Israel and Iran waited for him to decide. Israel has asked the United States to use its more advanced military capability to help further cripple Iran’s nuclear program.
Just a day earlier, Mr. Trump issued bellicose threats to Iran, telling the more than 10 million people living in Tehran, the capital, to evacuate. In a separate post on social media, he cited the possibility of killing the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
On Wednesday, Mr. Trump blamed Iran’s leaders for the violence, reiterating that they should have negotiated sooner with the United States to reach a nuclear deal that might have prevented Israel from beginning its strikes. He said Iran now wants to negotiate.
“Why didn’t you negotiate with me before all this death and destruction?” Mr. Trump said. “Why didn’t you negotiate? I said to the people, ‘Why didn’t you negotiate with me two weeks ago? You could have done fine. You would have had a country.’”
But in response to a question about whether it was now too late to negotiate, Mr. Trump said, “Nothing’s too late.”
Iran was, in fact, in talks with the United States about its nuclear program, but suspended them after Israel’s bombing campaign began on Friday.
Mr. Trump said the Iranians have reached out to him and that the two sides may meet, though he declined to provide details of the outreach.
“They even suggested they come to the White House,” he said of the Iranians.
Iran’s mission to the United Nations appeared to deny Mr. Trump’s claim that Iran has asked recently to negotiate, saying “no Iranian official has ever asked to grovel at the gates of the White House.”
“Iran does NOT negotiate under duress, shall NOT accept peace under duress, and certainly NOT with a has-been warmonger clinging to relevance,” it said in a statement on X, calling Trump’s threat against the country’s supreme leader “cowardly.”
On Monday, Mr. Trump left a meeting of the leaders of the Group of 7 nations in Canada a day early to return to Washington to deal with the conflict between Israel and Iran. On Tuesday, he met with his national security team at the White House, and the president said he would return to the Situation Room for another meeting later on Wednesday.
Mr. Trump said he was not looking for a war with Iran.
“But if it’s a choice between them fighting or having a nuclear weapon, you have to do what you have to do,” he said. “And maybe we don’t have to fight.”
Mr. Trump’s public consideration of joining Israel’s military campaign has sharply divided the Republican Party, and left some of the president’s most prominent supporters in disbelief. Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News host, and Stephen K. Bannon, a former top aide to Mr. Trump, have both warned the president about allowing the United States to be drawn into the conflict. Mr. Trump shot back, describing Mr. Carlson as “kooky” on social media.
Vice President JD Vance has sought to reassure the anti-interventionist part of the party, writing his own lengthy social media post on Tuesday.
“Of course, people are right to be worried about foreign entanglement after the last 25 years of idiotic foreign policy,” Mr. Vance wrote on X. “But I believe the president has earned some trust on this issue. And having seen this up close and personal, I can assure you that he is only interested in using the American military to accomplish the American people’s goals.”
On Wednesday, Mr. Trump downplayed any rift among his supporters. He said that his position had always been clear: Iran, he said, cannot have a nuclear weapon.
“So I may have some people that are a little bit unhappy now, but I have some people that are very happy,” he said. “We have people outside of the base that can’t believe that this is happening, they’re so happy.”
Israel and Iran at War: ‘Trump and Netanyahu Set a Trap for the Iranians’
Amir Tibon, Haaretz’s former diplomatic correspondent, reviewed the progress of the war over the first week. “The best-case scenario for Israel is either an American attack on the underground Fordow nuclear site or an agreement that causes the Iranians to give up the uranium there,” he said. “A war of attrition like what we’ve had in Gaza for the last 20 months is the least desired result for Israel”
Tibon, Haaretz’s former diplomatic correspondent, reviewed the progress of the war over the first week with host Allison Kaplan Sommer, along with the ways he sees the conflict potentially playing out.
“The best-case scenario for Israel is either an American attack on the underground Fordow nuclear site or an agreement that causes the Iranians to give up the uranium there,” he said. “The worst case scenario is a war of attrition with Iran, in which we continue to bomb them but cannot fully eliminate some of their sites, and they continue to bomb us and wake us up three times every night with ballistic missiles. A war of attrition like what we’ve had in Gaza for the last 20 months is the least desired result for Israel.”
In retrospect, Tibon said, “the 10 days before the Israeli strike were a joint American-Israeli trap set for the Iranians” in which U.S. President Donald Trump deceptively declared he was pressuring Israel to stand down in deference to diplomatic efforts.
Also on the podcast, Professor Amit Schejter, one of the tens of thousands of Israelis stranded abroad after the war shut down Israel’s airports, discusses the challenges of finding his way back home.