BONUS: Cruz vs Tucker Debate: On Israel & Iran- Trump is Right, Tucker is Wrong
BONUS: Cruz vs Tucker Debate: On Israel & Iran- Trump is Right, Tucker is Wrong In this explosive episode of Verdict with Ted Cruz, Senator Cruz and Ben Ferguson Podcast Recap: Cruz vs. Carlson – A Heated Debate on U.S. Foreign Policy, Israel, and Iran In this explosive podcast episode, Senator Ted Cruz and Ben Ferguson talk about Senator Cruz's clash with Tucker Carlson over the future of U.S. foreign policy. Senator Cruz champions a robust alliance with Israel and a hardline stance against Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Key Highlights: Foreign Policy Divide: Cruz defends U.S. interventionism and strategic alliances, especially with Israel, while Carlson criticizes what he sees as endless foreign entanglements. Viral “Gotcha” Moments: Carlson stumps Cruz with questions like Iran’s population, prompting Cruz to accuse him of prioritizing viral clips over meaningful debate. Iranian Threat Allegations: Cruz cites intelligence reports alleging Iranian plots to assassinate Donald Trump and former officials, sparking a fiery exchange with a skeptical Carlson. Accusations of Bias: Cruz accuses Carlson of disproportionately targeting Israel and AIPAC, suggesting a double standard not applied to other allies. Moral Clarity vs. Relativism: Cruz argues for American exceptionalism and a foreign policy rooted in “peace through strength,” rejecting comparisons between the U.S. and authoritarian regimes. Trump’s Take: Former President Donald Trump backs Cruz’s position, reaffirming his “America First” stance and opposition to a nuclear-armed Iran. Be sure to follow and subscribe to Verdict with Ted Cruz wherever you get your podcasts. And don’t forget to follow the show on social media so you never miss a moment! YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@VerdictwithTedCruz/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/verdictwithtedcruz X: https://x.com/tedcruz X: https://x.com/benfergusonshow See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
It is Verdict with Center Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you.
It's so nice to have you with us.
Many of you listening to this on radio around the country, and we are thrilled to have you with us as well.
Don't forget, we do this show as a podcast, so make sure you hit that subscribe or auto-download button if you download Verdict with Ted Cruz.
We do it three days a week, and obviously this radio show as well.
Senator, we've got a lot to talk about on the show, but let's just start with the big thing everybody's wanting to hear about, and that is your sit-down interview in your office with Tucker Carlson.
Well, this week I sat down with Tucker Carlson.
We did a two-hour interview in my office.
And I got to tell you, it was a bloodbath.
The two of us, frankly, beat the living daylights out of each other for two hours straight.
It was, there were fireworks.
I'll tell you online.
There have been over 100 million views on clips from this show.
It was vigorous.
It was contested.
It was, look, it laid out two very different views on foreign policy, and it's what we're going to talk about today.
Yeah, it really is incredible on the foreign policy front.
So let's just start with the basic question that I think so many people have been asking me when they saw the sibits of this interview.
And I would actually encourage people to watch the entire interview, not just the little things that popped on social media.
But number one, like, why did you decide to do this interview with him?
And did you think it was going to be like this?
Well, let me start with the second part first.
Yes, I knew exactly what it was going to be.
I knew that Tucker, when he asked for the interview, I knew that he was doing it to come after me.
I knew he was going to come in and just be swinging as hard as he could.
And I went in.
I wasn't looking to pick a fight.
And in fact, we started the interview with my pointing out, I said, Tucker, listen, you and I, we agree on about 80% of issues.
We agree across the board.
And I said, Tucker, you have been fantastic on a ton of issues.
You've been fantastic on securing the border.
That is a deep passion of mine.
We've got to secure the border.
And when Joe Biden and the Democrats had opened borders, you were ferocious in fighting for that, which I have been fighting alongside that with all my might.
I will say during COVID, during the COVID lockdowns, Tucker was phenomenal.
In fact, in the middle of the COVID lockdowns, I called Tucker back when he had a show on Fox and I told him, I said, Tucker, your evening monologues are the single best thing on television.
I listen to them.
I consume them like crack every night because they are so good because he was speaking out.
He was speaking out powerfully against the insanity of shutting down our country, against the insanity of shutting down small businesses, against the insanity of shutting down churches, against the insanity of shutting down schools.
And over 10 million kids did not go to in-person school for over a year.
And by the way, the data all show the learning loss to kids from that idiotic social experiment is going to be with them their entire life.
I think 10, 20, 30, 40 years from now, we're going to look back and say, what idiocy prompted this country to shut down schools and hurt so many kids.
So on all of those issues, on free speech, on the Second Amendment, Tucker's been fantastic.
And we are on exactly the same page on all of those issues.
Now, I did acknowledge there are issues on which we disagree.
I knew that Tucker wanted the interview because he wanted to come after me.
And I knew that it was going to be particularly spicy, a lot of fireworks, because Tucker in the last week has gotten really crosswise with President Trump.
Tucker has blasted the president and said that the president was complicit in Israel's war.
He said that the president's actions were not consistent with America First.
And so I knew that Tucker was going to be hot and that I was going to be the target to take his ire out.
But I did the interview because listen, although Tucker is right on a whole lot of issues on foreign policy, I think he's gone really off the rails.
He has gotten to a place of hardcore isolationism that I think is really dangerous.
It's not good for America.
I disagree with it.
He does not want America to support Israel.
He does not want America to do anything to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.
And he is vocally and vigorously disagreeing with President Trump.
And I thought it was important for me to do this interview to explain what President Trump is doing and to defend the president, to stand with President Trump.
And I got to tell you, the entire theme of my interview was very simple.
Donald Trump is right and Tucker on Iran and Israel.
You're wrong.
And that was the whole point of the interview.
That came across at great length.
Now, we did the interview and on Tuesday, and then Tucker released it on Wednesday.
But before Wednesday, he released a little snippet.
And in two hours, look, I'm going to give Tucker some credit.
He had a little gotcha moment.
So two hours of back and forth and back and forth and back and forth.
And he decided to play a little gotcha moment.
So in the course of talking about Iran, he asks me, he says, well, what's the population of Iran?
And I thought about it for a second and realized I didn't actually know the exact population of Iran.
And so I just said, I don't know.
And he did the sort of classic Tucker, what?
How can you not know that?
And I mean, he was, you know, vibrating and looking as if I had, you know, admitted to, I don't know, committing treason or something.
And I just said, look, I don't memorize population tables.
And he comes in with great, great joy and says, and I asked him, I said, what's the population of Iran?
He says, 92 million.
Actually, according to the Google searches afterwards, it's 89 million.
So he was off 3 million, which I think is funny because I assume he Google searched it right before the interview so he could do his little gotcha.
And I'll confess, this may not be terribly credible, but the truth of the matter is, in my head, what I was going to say if I was guessing was 90 million.
So I actually felt pretty good.
I'm like, huh, all right, pretty damn close.
But I said, look, what difference does it make if it's 90 million or 80 million or 100 million?
And the reason I didn't want to posit a guess is because stupid and unfair interviews, you play gotchas on this.
And I'll say things like population numbers.
There are all sorts of countries across the globe that have sort of really surprising populations.
They can have populations that are either significantly bigger than you would think or significantly smaller than you would think.
And at the end of the day, what I was talking about, which is the Ayatollah, a theocratic radical lunatic who chants death to America and is trying to develop a nuclear weapon, the threat of that is not remotely different whether Iran has a population of 80 million, 90 million, or 100 million.
So it was an irrelevant gotcha.
But that little clip, what Tucker did is he released it a day before the whole interview.
So he picked out of two hours, he thought that was the best 60 seconds because he did get me to say the words, I don't know, and he felt very gleeful on that.
I got to say, the rest of the interview, as it played out, there's a reason he wanted to start with that clip, and that clip went viral, and that's fine.
But there's a reason he wanted to start with that clip because the rest of the interview, Tucker's positions on Israel were very clear.
He didn't want to stand with Israel.
He was, and we're going to lay this out in the course of the show, deeply opposed to Israel.
And he was deeply opposed to President Trump's policy.
And in fact, he had been in writing and vocally attacking President Trump.
And he didn't want to talk about that in terms of putting it out the results of the interview.
But that's why I did the interview.
So I've done interviews that have been pretty snarky.
I worked at CNN for a long time as a conservative commentator.
Are you glad you did the interview?
Because I always got that question.
It's the same one I know a lot of people want to ask you.
Absolutely, 1,000% yes.
Look, could the interview have been much better if Tucker had wanted to sit down and have a reasonable, thoughtful conversation, let me speak, let him speak, us go back and forth, and lay out different visions of foreign policy.
That would have been a much, much better interview.
But Tucker didn't want to do that.
When he doesn't like what you're saying, he interrupts, he gets snarky, he insults you, and you're going to hear all that because that's what he did.
But that's fine.
I mean, he decided he wanted this interview to be the two of us screaming at each other, so that's what it ended up being.
But I'm very glad because it was important to lay out the contrast.
Donald Trump is right, and Tucker Carlson is wrong on Israel and Iran, and I wanted to make that absolutely clear.
One of the big differences between the two of you was on what success looks like, especially when it comes to Israel taking out top Iranian military leadership.
Well, that's exactly right.
Israel right now is taking out the senior Iranian military leadership.
And this is a regime.
When the Ayatollah chants death to America, I believe him.
When he chants death to Israel, I believe him.
When he calls Israel the little Satan and America the Great Satan, I believe that he believes that.
And so the Ayatollah's efforts to develop nuclear weapons, they are designed for one very specific purpose, which is to be able to attack Israel and America.
And let me point out, by the way, there is a reason the Ayatollah has an ICBM program.
ICBM stands for Intercontinental Ballistic Missile.
You do not need an ICBM to attack Israel.
Right now, Iran is pounding Israel with ballistic missiles, but Israel is relatively close to Iran.
Iran wants an ICBM for one purpose and one purpose only, to be able to carry a nuclear warhead to the United States of America.
And so that is the threat we are facing.
And Israel is doing an enormous favor to America by taking out Iran's nuclear capability.
Here, give a listen to Tucker and me discussing exactly this point.
You want to ask, how does supporting Israel benefit us?
Right now, this tiny little country, the size of the state of New Jersey, is fighting our enemies for us and taking out their top military leadership and trying to take out their nuclear capacity.
That makes America much safer.
By the way, you're absolutely right.
I mean, Israel is taking out top Iranian military leadership.
And yes, Israel is fighting our enemies right now for us.
And not just America, but many other countries around the world.
Well, and it benefits America.
Understand, these nuclear weapons are being developed so they can attack America.
And it's not American soldiers who are taking out these nuclear facilities.
It is Israeli commandos who are doing so.
That's something we should be grateful for.
But Tucker Carlson has been vigorously criticizing President Trump for standing with Israel on this.
And here's another segment with Tucker and me discussing this point.
As if they're willing to spend money to lead opposed to that.
It's awful.
I am against killing anybody, actually, especially foreign government.
I'm asking about your allegation and the Prime Minister of Israel's allegation that killing terrorists is a good thing.
Killing people who are trying to murder Americans is a good thing.
Because if you're America first, you want to protect Americans.
So taking out killing Osama bin Laden was a fantastic thing.
But you don't really believe that they're trying to murder Trump or you.
Yes, I do.
Yes, I do.
And why aren't you?
Senator, you said earlier in the interview with him at the beginning and on this show that you and Tucker agree on about 80% of the issues, like hardcore lockstep.
But this one here is maybe the most insane point where Tucker's like, hey, I don't want to kill anybody around the world no matter what.
I'm like, hold on, if you had a chance to take out Hitler, you wouldn't have done it.
Are you kidding me?
Well, this is unfortunately a point that, frankly, you see from a lot of people on the far left.
You see from the sort of Jimmy Carters of the world and even Barack Obama's, the kind of peacenicks that say, man, all war is bad.
Just, you know, killing is bad.
I'm just opposed to killing.
And I get that that sounds good in a college faculty lounge.
But as I asked him in the course of it, I'm like, do you think it's bad that we killed Osama bin Laden?
Do you think it's bad that Hitler's dead?
Do you think it's bad that we killed General Soleimani?
Do you think it's bad that, and let's be clear, that President Trump killed General Soleimani?
I asked him that.
He wouldn't answer that.
He wouldn't answer if it was good or bad that we killed Osama bin Laden.
The idea that we should never kill anybody is an incredibly naive and unrealistic position.
Look, I think we should avoid unnecessary wars.
I think we should be very reluctant to put American servicemen and women in harm's way.
But when you have terrorists, killing Osama bin Laden was a great day for America and a great day for the world because Osama bin Laden murdered thousands of Americans and waged war against America.
And anyone who is actually focused on America first and defending this nation understands that there are dangerous people that are trying to kill Americans, and it's the job of the commander-in-chief to keep them safe.
Now, I will say in a two-hour interview, one of the things that was striking is 36 minutes of the interview was Tucker attacking me for supporting Israel.
And in particular, he was obsessed with APAC.
APAC is the America Israel Political Action Committee.
And he was going on and on and on about how APAC should have to register under FARA, the law that requires that organizations that are lobbying on behalf of foreign governments have to register.
Now, APAC is not lobbying on behalf of a foreign government.
APAC consists of Americans.
It is Americans who are standing up.
Now, there are Americans who want a strong U.S.-Israel relationship, but they are not a lobbyist for the nation of Israel.
And all told, he asked 28 questions on APAC, 28 questions.
He asked 35 questions on why I was supporting Israel.
And finally, it led to this moment, which was quite a bit of fireworks.
Here, give a listen.
By the way, Tucker, it's a very weird thing.
The obsession with Israel.
Well, we're talking about foreign countries.
It's hardly an obsession.
You're not talking about Chinese.
You're not talking about Japanese.
You're not talking about the British.
You're not talking about the French.
The question, what about the Jews?
What about the Jews?
Oh, I'm an anti-Semite now.
Senator, you're asking the US meeting.
You're asking, why are the Jews controlling our foreign policy?
That's what you just asked.
I'm hardly saying that.
That is exactly what you just said.
It is, by the way, exactly what he was saying over and over again, as you mentioned for so long.
And again, the demonization of Americans, and many of them, they're Jewish, that advocate for Israel in America and saying they should be foreign lobbyist organization.
Look, I've spoken at one of their events before.
I'm sure you've spoken at countless events for them before.
The idea that there's some foreign agency is absurd.
Yeah, and he also had a whole line of inquiry.
Isn't it horrible that Israel spies on America?
And my response was, every one of our allies spies on America.
We spy on every one of our allies.
That's real politique.
That's the world we live in.
And he could not acknowledge that point.
He said, no, no, but Israel does it.
It's terrible that Israel does it.
And it was bizarrely focused.
Okay, look, the Brits spy on us.
The Canadians spy on us.
The French spy on us.
Everybody spies on us.
And we spy on everybody.
Welcome to reality because conservatives are not simple and naive.
And yet the criticism that is directed at Israel, sadly, is unique and I think really unfortunate.
I want to get back into the Tucker Carlson interview that you did.
And, Senator, there was some interesting themes that came out of this interview.
He was obviously attacking you.
He was attacking Israel.
He was attacking groups that support Israel.
But then there was an even weirder point where I think Tucker probably is hoping that we don't play this or that people didn't watch the whole interview and hear this part.
It was about the Iranian regime.
They've been trying to murder Donald Trump.
They've hired hitmen.
They've been trying to hire hitmen.
They've come after former cabinet members of Donald Trump.
And when you brought it up, he acted like he'd never heard of this before and that you were either lying or this is shocking news to him.
Yeah, this was utterly bizarre.
And I got to say, in the whole course of the two-hour interview, this was the strangest portion.
For the last two years, Iran has been actively trying to murder President Donald Trump.
Iran has hired hitmen to murder President Trump.
Iran also has been trying to murder Mike Pompeo, President Trump's former Secretary of State, John Bolton, President Trump's former National Security Advisor, and Brian Hook, President Trump's former assistant secretary of state.
All of them, Iran has hired hitmen and has been targeting them.
Bizarrely, and this has been widely reported.
These are objective facts.
But bizarrely, Tucker Carlson insisted this has never happened.
Here, give a listen.
I just want to pull that thread because it's so important.
I voted for Donald Trump.
I campaigned for Donald Trump.
He's our president.
And we're on the cusp of a war.
So if Iran, if there's evidence that Iran paid hitmen to kill Donald Trump and is currently doing that, where is that?
What are you even talking about?
I've never heard that before.
Okay, where is the evidence?
Who are these people?
Why haven't they been arrested?
Why are we not at war with Iran?
That's a great question to ask.
How do you know that that's true?
We know that it's true because we have been told that by the military and our intelligence community for the last two years.
We meaning who?
Congress has and the public.
I mean, they had multiple testimonies.
I can send you testimonies.
Do we know the names of the people or where this happened or what they tried to do to kill Trump?
We do not.
We have not apprehended an Iranian hitman trying to kill him.
We know that Iran is trying to do so.
In the United States.
Yes.
And by the way, like Iran.
This just seems like a huge headline, and you're acting like everyone knows this.
I didn't know that.
Iran put out a whole video about murdering Trump.
Right, but I've never heard evidence that there are hitmen in the United States.
I mean, trying to kill Trump right now.
We should have a nationwide drag down on this, and we should attack Iran immediately, if that's true.
Don't you think?
No.
Because they're trying to assassinate our president?
They have been for two years.
Why are we at war?
They're not war with them.
Well, we are trying to assist them.
Why don't we just nuke Tehran if they're trying to murder our president?
There's nothing that you could do that would be worse for the United States than murdering Trump.
And I just don't understand why you're not calling for the use of nuclear weapons against the Ayatollah right now.
I'm serious.
If you really believe there's a lot of people in the world.
use of nuclear weapons see whatever part of the problem of so what do you mean you don't seem to take the allegations seriously i I do.
If you believe they're trying to murder Trump, we need to stop what we're doing and punish them.
I mean, insanely bizarre.
We went from, let's not do anything to, oh, they're trying to kill Trump.
Well, if that's true, let's just nuke them.
So you're right.
The entire two hours, Tucker's position was do nothing on Iran.
Do nothing on Iran.
Do nothing on Iran.
Do not support Israel.
But if Iran is trying to murder Trump, then we should nuke them.
Okay, Ben, that's absolutely wacky.
And look, it's the sign of someone who's not presenting an argument in good faith.
No, we should not be nuking Iran.
That's not a good idea.
And by the way, this is a point where actually facts matter.
And part of what was frustrating about this interview is that Tucker just says things that are blatantly false, and he doesn't care if they're true or false.
So this is an objective fact.
I'm going to read to you from a political article on November 8th, 2024, not very long ago.
Here's the title.
Iran ordered an operative to assassinate Trump before the election, federal prosecutors say.
The alleged would-be assassin is believed to be in Iran and remains at large, prosecutors said.
Here's the beginning of the article.
The Iranian government ordered an operative to assassinate Donald Trump before the 2024 election, Manhattan federal prosecutors said Friday.
The latest in a string of assassination plots directed at the former and future president in recent months.
Prosecutors charge Farhad Shakiri with murder for hire and providing material support to foreign terrorist organizations.
He is believed to be in Iran and remains at large, prosecutors said.
The article continues, quote, according to a criminal complaint unsealed in Manhattan federal court, Shakiri said during an FBI interview that in September he was directed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of Iran to surveil and kill Trump, whom the charging papers identify as Victim 4.
When Shakiri told an IRGC official that doing so would prove expensive, the official responded that money's not an issue, which Shakiri understood to mean that the IRGC had previously spent a significant sum of money on efforts to murder Victim 4 and was willing to continue spending a lot of money in its attempt to procure victims for assassination, according to the charging papers.
So there's literally a Department of Justice indictment specifically against an assassin for attempting to murder Trump.
There also, by the way, was a separate assassin who was arrested for renting an apartment next to John Bolton, an Iranian assassin that was there to murder Trump's former national security advisor.
And as I noted, the Iranians put out an entire video, a minute and a half video.
It's an animated video that shows Donald Trump playing golf and shows the Iranians using a drone attack to kill him.
All of that is objectively true, and yet Tucker says, I've never heard a word of it.
I don't know anything about this.
And I want to play this video right here.
This is in Farsi, but I want to play it and then I'm going to tell you what he's saying.
So let's just be clear.
That's the IRGC commander live on Islamic Republic of Iran state TV.
And tell people what he just said.
Well, his name is Amir Ali Hajazadeh.
He's the commander of the IRGC.
He's on national television.
And he says, quote, God willing, we'll be able to kill Trump, Pompeo, General McKenzie, and other U.S. commanders.
That's on TV.
Now, Tucker spent the entire interview denying that Iran was trying to kill President Trump.
That's objectively false.
Facts matter.
And bizarrely, he said, well, if that fact was true, he thought we should immediately attack Iran and we should nuke Iran.
Well, no, that's not the case.
We should not nuke Iran.
But we should do what President Trump is doing right now, which is support Israel in taking out Iran's nuclear capability and their senior military leadership.
That actually makes sense.
And I'll tell you that the day after our interview aired, President Trump was asked about the conflict between me and Tucker in the Oval Office.
And here, give a listen to the back and forth President Trump had in the Oval with a reporter.
Have you seen the Tucker Carlson Senator Ted Cruz interview?
It seems like this issue on whether or not the United States should strike is kind of dividing a lot of your supporters.
No, my supporters are for me.
My supporters are America first.
They make America great again.
My supporters don't want to see Iran have a nuclear weapon.
Tucker's a nice guy.
He called and apologized the other day because he thought he said things were a little bit too strong, and I appreciated that.
And Ted Cruz is a nice guy.
I mean, he's been with me for a long time.
I'd say once the race was over, he's been with me ever since, right?
But it's very simple.
If they think that it's okay for Iran to have a nuclear weapon, then they should oppose me.
But nobody thinks it's okay.
This goes back to the very beginning and why I think Tucker was so hostile.
He wanted a distraction from the fact that he had messed up with Trump.
He had to call Trump and apologize.
And he thought, all right, if I just go after Ted Cruz, maybe that'll fix all my problems.
I don't think it worked.
Well, and look, the reason that Tucker had to apologize to Trump is that he had been publicly blasting Trump.
He said Trump was complicit in Israel's war.
And he said what Trump was doing was not America first.
And President Trump tweeted out and said, look, I'm the one who created America First, and I decide what it is.
And allowing Iran to have a nuclear weapon, that is not America First.
And that's exactly what President Trump said in the Oval.
You know what's amazing?
We've laid out the facts that is undisputed.
By the way, out of 100 senators, all 100 agree that Iran is trying to murder President Trump.
Even the looniest, even Bernie Sanders, even Elizabeth Warren, doesn't dispute that Iran is trying to murder Trump because it's an objective fact.
I've laid those facts out repeatedly.
Do you know Tucker has not responded once to that?
He has not said, oh, I was wrong on that.
He hasn't said, oh, well, gosh, I said if that was the case, we should attack Iran immediately and nuke them, which, by the way, to be clear, we should not.
At the end of the day, facts matter.
And the good news is the commander-in-chief's job is to be clear-eyed and do what is necessary to keep America safe.
President Trump is doing that.
I spoke to him just a few days ago and I said, Mr. President, thank you.
Thank you for standing with Israel.
Thank you for standing up for America.
Thank you for defending our servicemen and women.
You notice Iran has not attacked our servicemen and women because the president has made clear the consequences would be massive for doing so.
And President Trump right now is being strong and resolute.
And I'm proud to stand with the president that he is doing exactly the right thing.
He is embodying America first and he's keeping this country safe.
And there's one big definition that has been coming up and I've seen it a lot and I've been asked about it especially since this interview.
And it's the argument or the word isolationist or isolationism.
What does that mean?
And then your thoughts on it, Senator, so people understand it, but also what is your foreign policy so people understand you're not an isolationist and you're not one of those that's like, hey, let's go to war everywhere we can either.
Yeah, that's exactly right.
And this is something we talked about quite a bit in the interview with Tucker Carlson.
And when he wasn't screaming at me and it wasn't a mud mess, we actually laid out some really important basic philosophy on foreign policy.
Look, historically, there have been two polls in Republican foreign policy.
On the one side, you've had the interventionists.
They've been people like John McCain, people like Lindsey Graham, who are eager to use U.S. military force, who are frequently advocating for a robust, robust use of military force.
On the other poll, you have the isolationists, and the most notable of those are Ron Paul and Rand Paul, and Tucker Carlson, I think, is now emphatically in that category as well.
And their view is that America should withdraw from the world, that we have two giant oceans on both sides, and we should not employ the military.
As Tucker said in an earlier clip we played, we should never kill anybody, which means our military should never engage with our enemies.
I've always considered, and most people look at that and say, okay, you've got to be one or the other.
I've always thought both views were wrong.
I disagree with both.
I disagree with interventionists.
I disagree with isolationists.
I consider myself a third point on the triangle.
I consider myself a non-interventionist hawk.
Now, what does that mean?
It means that I am exceptionally reluctant to use U.S. military force.
We should have a very high threshold for sending our sons and daughters into harm's way.
We should not engage in unnecessary wars.
But, and this is a very important but, the touchstone for all foreign policy and military action should be the vital national security interest of the United States.
So, I oppose the Iraq war.
The Iraq war under George W. Bush, I think, was a mistake.
It ended up making America less safe.
We toppled a dictator, Saddam Hussein, who was killing radical Islamic terrorists.
And what happened?
The radical Islamic terrorists took over and they began killing Americans.
That was bad.
I also oppose what happened in Libya.
Gaddafi was another dictator.
He was killing radical Islamic terrorists.
We toppled Qaddafi, and the radical Islamic terrorists took over and began killing Americans.
That was bad.
The touchstone should be, does this make America more safe?
Does this protect Americans?
And the reason I believe that President Trump is exactly right to support Israel in stopping Iran's nuclear weapons capability is because Iran with a nuclear weapon poses a clear threat to the safety and security of America and a clear threat of murdering a vast number of Americans.
That's why Israel is acting.
That's why President Trump is acting.
And I'll point out, Ben, when I say non-interventionist hawk, that's a fancy way of saying what President Reagan referred to as peace through strength.
Be strong enough that your enemies don't want to mess with you.
If you want to avoid war, be strong.
When you're weak, when you're isolationist, you end up with more war because your enemies are aggressive because they know you're weak.
It is also, I believe, exactly what President Trump's foreign policy is.
It's what he has done consistently.
And I agree with President Trump's foreign policy.
And I will say that that's true on Iran.
That's true on Israel, but it's also true on Russia.
And I want you to listen to a back and forth that Tucker and I had on Russia because that's another area where clarity is valuable.
And here, give a listen.
I don't think that Putin loves us.
I'm distressed by the moral condition of most leaders around the world.
Most of them, they all kill people.
I'm against that.
I'm just saying I wish to focus here.
Can I say something?
I actually don't agree with that statement.
They all kill people.
There's a moral relativism.
So I don't think Donald Trump is a murderer.
He doesn't kill people.
We don't have concentration.
I'm Donald Trump a murderer.
You just said world leaders all kill people, and there's a moral relativism.
I'm hardly a moral relativist.
But you are.
You just, that statement was the essence of the.
It's an anti-Semite, an isolationist, a moral relativist.
Okay.
No, not you just say world leaders all kill people.
I'm saying I'm against killing people in general.
And hyperventilating about how Putin was in the KGB or whatever.
I just want to serve American interests, and pushing him to China is not in our interest at all.
And you helped him do it, and you haven't apologized.
And by the way, you're the cheerleader.
I helped drive him into China.
It's a complete lie.
You funded the war against him.
No, I authored the legislation that shut down Nord Stream 2 that prevented the war.
And if Trump had still been in the White House, we would have had the war.
And look, the comment you made, the reasons things like moral relativism are so dangerous, oh, everyone kills people.
No, there is a difference.
The United States.
We don't have concentration camps.
We don't torture and murder people.
You look at China, where they've got a million prisoners in concentration camps.
You look at Putin where he's got prisoners in Siberia.
He tortures and murders his political opponents.
Donald Trump doesn't do that.
America doesn't do that.
And by the way, other countries don't do that.
I see the game.
It's like I'm distressed.
No, I'm responding with facts.
You don't like the facts.
I don't even know what facts you're talking about.
I'm not saying that Trump puts people in concentration camps.
I campaigned for Trump.
I love Trump.
So did I.
Okay.
So this has nothing to do with Trump.
I'm merely saying that.
When you said every world leader kills people, it dropped with some war.
It's a emphasis on what's happening inside the country.
That's it.
Is there a moral difference between America and our enemies?
Is there a moral difference between America?
And what is it?
But articulated.
It's valuable to say why.
Wow.
And I think that's one of the biggest differences between you and Tucker Carlson right there in that conversation.
Yeah, look, he would not say that Putin was a bad guy.
He would not say that President Trump was right to take out General Soleimani.
He would not say that President Trump was right to take out al-Baghdadi, the head of ISIS.
He would not say that President Trump was right to take out ISIS's caliphate.
And here, I want you to listen to this additional back and forth we had on Russia.
I'm going to say, I don't understand.
For some reason, you are really invested in defending Russia.
And I don't get that.
I'm not attacking you with that.
I'm genuinely like, I don't get why you're so passionate about defending Russia.
I mean, wow.
Senator, the laughing at the end by him just because you were killing him with the facts really sums up the entire two-hour interview, in my opinion.
Well, it was an odd thing because he would say things that were just wildly untrue.
He said, every world leader kills people.
And no, it is not equivalent.
Donald Trump is not equivalent to Vladimir Putin.
And that's frankly something that leftists say.
And unfortunately, isolationists on the right say it as well.
And it's simply not true.
You know, we were having this interview in my office.
And the dominant feature in my office is a gigantic painting of Ronald Reagan in front of the Brandenburg Gate.
And above him in German are the words, tear down this wall in the style of the graffiti.
I think those are the most important words uttered in modern times.
And they call for the importance of American leadership.
Now, as I make clear in this interview, I don't want us to be at war with Russia.
We should not be at war with Russia.
But it doesn't mean we need to be cheerleaders for Russia, that we need to be cutting essentially infomercials for Russian grocery stores.
We ought to speak the truth, and the bully pulpit of the presidency is incredibly powerful.
And I got to say again, President Trump is doing that beautifully.
The entire point of this interview was for me to make absolutely clear that on Israel, on Iran, President Trump is right, and Tucker Carlson is wrong.
And we stand with Israel, and we will keep the American people safe.
Don't forget we do this show Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
And make sure you hit that subscribe or auto download button wherever you get your podcast so you do not miss an episode.
And also, tomorrow, on Saturday, we'll have the week-in review.
Some of the top things we talked about this past week that you may have missed.
