Tucker Carlson and Vivek Ramaswamy warn that the U.S. and Israel’s emotional response to Hamas risks dragging in Russia, Iran, China, and Saudi Arabia into a broader war, despite America’s weakened military—undermanned and financially strained. Ramaswamy proposes targeted strikes on Hamas leadership instead of a Gaza invasion, fearing it could trigger Hezbollah, Iranian militias, and even Saudi nuclear proliferation under U.S.-backed deals. Both criticize neoconservative hawks as more aggressive than Israeli strategists and condemn suppressed debate on U.S. national interests, arguing border security must override blind allegiance to allies. The episode frames unchecked escalation as a recipe for regional collapse, with Ramaswamy urging pragmatic foreign policy over performative loyalty. [Automatically generated summary]
Last week, we talked to Vivek Ramaswamy, who's running for president, about how the United States should respond to the Hamas attacks in Israel.
Of all the candidates in the race, Ramaswamy seemed the most interested in thinking through the long-term effects of what's happening in the Middle East on the United States.
And that struck us as a very good thing.
We're Americans.
We've got families here.
We care what happens to our country.
Why wouldn't we care?
And yet in Washington, Ramaswamy's question qualified as a scandal.
The usual chorus of liars, many of them on the so-called right, unfortunately, immediately denounced him as a dangerous bigot.
They claimed he was pro-Hamas, which is ridiculous.
And then they suggested that he doesn't believe in Israel's right to self-defense, which, if anything, is even dumber.
It was a thoroughly disgraceful display and a revealing one.
But none of it answered the question that he had raised.
What is the best path forward here for the United States, as well as for Israel and the rest of the world?
It's worth thinking about that.
The stakes are higher than many Americans understand.
It's easy to imagine several other nations getting pulled into the conflict between Israel and Hamas.
Those countries would include Russia, Iran, Turkey, China, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states, and possibly many more.
Some of those countries might take our side, aligned with Israel, but most of them would not.
And that would be a problem.
The US military is weaker than it's been in at least 50 years since the end of Vietnam.
Exhausted by two pointless conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, internally divided by identity politics, mismanaged by buffoonish hacks at the Pentagon, our services are in obvious disarray.
Check the enlistment numbers.
Nobody wants to join.
But it's worse than that.
The government that funds our army is bankrupt.
The man who leads it is senile.
Now is not the time for a world war.
We would lose.
But our commander-in-chief has no idea.
Watch this tape from Sunday as he smirks while bragging that America is so rich, there is no limit to our power.
We can wage as many wars as we want.
unidentified
The United States of America, for God's sake.
The most powerful nation in the history, not in the world, in the history of the world.
The history of the world.
We can take care of both of these and still maintain our overall international defense.
We have the capacity to do this and we have an obligation to do it.
We are the essential nation to paraphrase the former Secretary of State.
So what do you think the potential for disaster looks like here?
And I should preface by saying nobody disputes Israel's Interest in pursuing a conflict with Hamas, punishing those responsible, defending itself, of course.
I mean, even Beebe's former national security advisor was quoted in an article earlier today.
When he was asked the question of, well, what happens after Hamas?
His exact words were, I don't give a damn.
I used to think, think first, act later.
I don't think that way in light of last weekend.
And I understand, as I did in this country, the pain of what people have gone through.
You respond with emotion.
But the thing I worry about, Tucker, right now is what I see is the left-wing criticism of Israel's what looks like to be soon to be ground invasion of Gaza is about Proportionality and about injustice and humanitarian aid.
Even if you just put all that to one side, from a US perspective, from an Israel perspective, how is this actually going to achieve a good result?
And my concern right now, and as we're having this conversation, it appears imminent that Israel is going to mount a ground invasion into Gaza.
I'm concerned that a ground invasion into Gaza without clearly defined objectives is going to be the start of another no-win war that is not good for Israel and not good for the United States.
And so one of the things I've been thinking about just in recent days, you hear a lot of histrionics here, a lot of bloodthirsty neocons, in fact, far less reasonable than even many Israelis that are far more rational about this than some here in the United States, is how could this play out?
So if we just think about one reasonable scenario, let's just go step by step in terms of where we are.
Israel mounts a ground invasion into Gaza.
It doesn't have a clearly defined goal, but they've mounted that ground invasion.
That crosses a red line that Hezbollah has previously identified, saying that that's their red line for attacking Israel.
And this might be exactly when Israel is mired in a ground conflict in Gaza, which I worry could be a trap.
Networks, kilometers upon kilometers of tunnels.
A lot of traps that they could walk into.
That could be a moment that's perfectly appropriate, unfortunately, for Hezbollah to decide to go after Israel.
Israel's then in a two-front war, both in the north and the south in Gaza.
Now you're talking about real risk of, there's no way that you're really going to avoid some level of U.S. involvement there.
Now look at what the Iranian-backed militias and other places like Iraq, like, you know, the Badr group in Iraq.
You talk about the Houthis in Yemen.
What have they said?
This is also going to be their red line for involvement.
So now you have broader regional conflict.
At a time when you have civilian casualties in Gaza, that turns the rest of the world's back on Israel.
By the way, even in the case of success, ending up with what fills the vacuum, Hamas 2.0, with a bunch of radicalized Palestinians.
So I don't think that that's a real, unfortunately, a reasonable way for how this could play out.
Well, I think that that's the elephant in the room that's missing, is that we don't have, from Israel, a clear sense of what the objectives are.
Now, in the United States, we should be reasonably helping our partner, who is struck in the case of really a devastating and inhumane hit to their country.
It was barbaric.
I think our job is to tell them these are the mistakes we made in the wake of 9-11 when that happened to us here.
This is a time to have a clearly defined objective.
Instead, we get histrionics from the likes of Lindsey Graham or Nikki Haley or Mike Pence offering histrionics at a time when you actually could use rational strategy.
It's amazing to get a moral lecture from people who've so diminished our country and who are responsible for the deaths of so many Americans lecturing you from some high horse.
They cite their foreign policy experience, which I don't have, but they wear it as a badge of honor.
I think that their foreign policy experience unfortunately shows in terms of the results that they have delivered for this country.
My view is, look, a lot of neocons here are far more bloodthirsty than even some more realistic minds in Israel.
What's a better alternative to the plan as it currently exists, which is a non-plan, an invasion of Gaza without a clear objective, and I think there's a real cascade of events.
Following Hezbollah, following likely then U.S. involvement, following Iranian militias in Iraq to in Yemen.
Okay, well, you would know even better than I how well that one front war didn't go.
Now imagine if they're mired in conflict to the south in Gaza at the same time.
And by the way, some of those groups in Iraq, Iranian-backed militias, They have said that they would strike back in U.S. involvement here, strike U.S. assets in the area in the case of U.S. involvement.
Well, think about where we have our biggest embassy, biggest embassies in Baghdad, where, by the way, as of when we're having this conversation, it's a little bit chaotic out of Baghdad.
I don't think it's crazy for the Baghdad, for the U.S. embassy in Baghdad even to be evacuated.
So against those circumstances, I am worried that this is going to lead to a war that is not good for Israel with poorly defined objectives and isn't good for the United States.
Now, there are other questions we could be asking, which are what might be a more productive path.
I think that there's a culture of fear right now in the United States.
I'm not speaking for Israel.
I'm speaking for the culture here in the U.S., where, yes, all of us, I'm sure you and I included, share an emotionally visceral reaction to what happened with Israel being that wrong.
But I think that...
Emotional, visceral reaction has everybody looking to each other to talk about the periphery of the issue.
Everybody's so eager to talk about whether you're going to condemn the college student groups that are making silly statements over here or the $100 million of humanitarian aid over there.
I see Republicans rushing to analyze the mosquitoes on the elephant's tail without talking about the actual elephant in the room, which is what we should do.
Well, I think that there are some in the U.S. that are so bloodthirsty and have been rooting for outcomes that have really, from their standpoint, nothing to do with this conflict that might want to use this conflict as an excuse to do what they otherwise might have wanted to do anyway, which is reopen broad-scale regional war in the Middle East, which we haven't had since Iraq and Afghanistan came to a close.
These are cynical forces that exist in some wings of the U.S. But I can't speak for why others aren't really clear-headed.
What exactly is our plan of action?
What advances U.S. interests?
What exactly should we tell Israel we will and won't support?
And how could that possibly positively influence Israel to make the right decisions here?
But I think there's first principle, go after the people who are responsible for this in an achievable goal, in a way, and I would say, you know, metaphorically or literally, put their heads on stakes, make sure that we actually have a clear deterrence that something like this never happens again.
And then I think there are ways that Israel could really turn the tables here.
I mean, the things that people will say on the internet appall me, but Hamas is a terrorist group and deserves to be held accountable for the dastardly acts.
I mean, this was barbaric.
It was medieval.
And I think a...
Direct response to exact justice from Hamas is 100% morally justified.
And as U.S. president, if I were in that office, I would provide every bit of diplomatic air cover to Israel to do what it needs to do.
Because I'm also looking after the U.S. interests here.
I don't want the U.S. military involved in some tripwire of a war in the Middle East that we sleepwalk ourselves into, which isn't good for the U.S., but isn't even likely good for Israel.
Now, I think there are some broader regional issues that we need to deal with, too.
I mean, one of the lurking issues here is the nuclear capabilities of Iran.
And if I had the clear answers, if any of us had the clear answers to exactly how you would keep Iran from becoming nuclear weapon equipped, you know, we wouldn't be talking about this right now.
But I think a maximum pressure campaign against Iran, economically speaking, until they actually fully phase out their nuclear weapons is a reasonable discussion and debate to have.
I think we can avoid doing some really stupid things that we've done along the way, though.
In the meantime, this year, think about the discussion around transferring nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia.
I think we've done something like 27 deals with 43 countries.
Saudi Arabia did not want the terms of those traditional civilian nuclear technology transfers because they require oversight and monitoring to make sure you're not using them for military purposes.
So the idiocy of this, and it's not just Biden.
I mean, Biden's idiocy is high.
But there's Republicans going along with him to say that as a condition for getting Saudi Arabia into some type of expanded diplomatic deal with Israel, we were going to offer security guarantees to Saudi Arabia, and furthermore, that we were going to offer this nuclear transfer on terms that were different than the historical civilian nuclear transfers that we've done.
But actually, if you look at it the other way, we've had a—I'm not saying it's a comfortable balance of power, but there has been something resembling a balance of power.
This is this summer we're talking about it, Tucker, and this is an uncomfortable topic, but we can't just dismiss the possibility that these two things are entirely unrelated.
I mean, right when we have inserted our noses in to this, what I think is a terrible idea of a deal with Saudi Arabia, and I think many in Israel and otherwise agreed with me, too, that transferring nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia on these differential terms and security guarantees, that shouldn't be necessarily what's required to drive Saudi Arabia into a peaceful deal with Israel.
In some ways, we're the ones that just stuck our noses and tipped the scales in that balance of power if that Saudi Arabian deal were going to proceed.
And then what do you get two months later, this disastrous attack?
So I think that there are complicated factors at work here that we can take our own goals that we have scored in this process off the table.
And then all of those savings from a war that we would have avoided, you know what Israel and U.S. can use it for?
Protecting our own respective borders.
I mean, that was a border crisis of historic proportion.
But just to back up for one click, the idea that we would in any way abet a nuclear program in any country, particularly in Saudi Arabia, is so destabilizing and crazy.
It suggests that people have lost their awe of their fear of nuclear weapons.
I'm watching people on television, on the internet, sort of blithely talk about the possibility of the use of nuclear weapons in this conflict.
I watched it five times yesterday.
Can we agree that anyone who sort of throws out, maybe they'll use nukes, is insane?
You'd have to be a mental patient to say something like that.
Either that or so profoundly ill-informed about what the consequences would be for the United States.
And so I really can't speak for the mental state of some of these people, Tucker, who are viewing the expansion and nuclear proliferation to Saudi Arabia or the consequences of using that.
So so this is what frustrates me about where we are in this and.
And, you know, the views I'm adopting here, I think, from a political perspective, a lot of people have advised me, you know, this isn't really where you want to go.
I think we got somebody has to step up and actually ask the questions that other people are too afraid to ask.
What are the consequences of the biggest thing that's about to happen?
If Israel mounts that ground war in Gaza, appears to be the next step in this conflict, and there's no clearly identified objective, what are the consequences for Israel?
What are the consequences for the United States, we should ask as Americans?
And I think there's a better way.
There may be multiple better ways to do this, but we're not going to get there unless we have actual unfettered debate on the merits.
And I think there's something, particularly in the Republican Party, actually, around the culture of this issue that has really stifled that debate.
The experience I've had, I mean, the first time you and I met was...
I don't know if you remember this was after when I was writing my first book.
It was in the context of I'd been a biotech CEO and George Floyd died and this country started acting crazy and there were certain debates you couldn't have on questions relating to race and whatever back in 2020. I remember what that felt like.
It was a speech suppressive environment where there were certain debates you weren't allowed to have.
And many on the left would call me racist as a way of silencing open debate and believing in colorblind meritocracy.
It feels really similar.
It feels really similar in a different way right now where isolationist has become the new racist, a new label to use as a substitute.
Yeah, I mean, I have to say, if you're attacked for asking what's good for the United States and asking that as an American who's trying to lead the country, if that's considered out of bounds, if you're being denounced by Republicans for saying that, then the whole America First thing was just a lie.
I think it's the more trustworthy position for Americans to take.
Not only with people at home, that's the moral obligation of an American leader.
It's also more credible.
I mean, if you're one of America's friends abroad and you say that I irrespectively and unconditionally stand with you regardless of my national interest, even if I'm sitting as somebody in Israel listening to an American say that, that's not...
And our adversaries, I think we can draw clearer red lines when we're just honest about the fact that U.S. leaders should act in the U.S. national interest.
And the fact that that's become controversial, I think, shows how far our mistaken foreign policy establishment has come.