Haberman reveals how Netanyahu pushed Trump to hit Iran

[0:00] You and your co-author Jonathan Swan have an excerpt from your new book Regime Change Inside [0:03] the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump in the New York Times today. It's fascinating. You [0:08] describe in it a Situation Room meeting where Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu gave a detailed [0:13] pitch for going to war with Iran. Do you think the public fully grasped just how influential [0:19] Netanyahu was in President Trump's decision to attack Iran? What have you learned? [0:25] So our reporting, Anderson, for the book, and this is our first excerpt from it, the book comes out [0:30] in June, but relates to how this particular lead-up period, and I think it's important [0:36] to underscore, and again, we write about this today, Jonathan and I do, that the President [0:43] and Bibi Netanyahu have actually been much more aligned in certain ways over a very long period [0:48] of time than certainly a lot of the President's base of supporters want to see, and then some [0:54] of his own advisors either recognize or want to admit. And if you look back at his first [0:58] term, President Trump's term, you know, the strike on General Soleimani was something that a lot of [1:04] people opposed around him. He really didn't have any hesitation about doing it and just did it. [1:10] There were some people who were thrilled that he did it. It had repercussions, right? I mean, [1:14] Iran has been looking to go after him in one way or another ever since, and it has escalated tensions [1:20] there, but it shouldn't really be a surprise if you look at the decade-long relationship. When Bibi Netanyahu [1:27] came to this Situation Room meeting with the President and the President's senior advisors [1:34] on February 11th, it's pretty extraordinary, Anderson, because it is clearly unusual for [1:39] a foreign leader to be in this kind of an in-person meeting in the Situation Room. It certainly speaks to [1:44] the magnitude of it. But Netanyahu was laying out a number of different ways in which they believed [1:51] this could go, that a war could go. And it would involve taking out ballistic missile capacity. It [1:58] would involve Iran not attacking its neighbors so aggressively. It would involve Iran not choking [2:04] off, you know, minimal likelihood of choking off the Strait of Hormuz. And then there was the possibility [2:09] of regime change, that it could happen. He played a video of possible options for who could take over [2:16] if there was, you know, some change or disruption to the clerical leadership in Iran, although most of [2:24] the Americans didn't really favor the people that he was talking about or some of the people he was [2:28] talking about. So he didn't suggest this all as, if this, then this is the absolute outcome. But [2:34] certainly President Trump was impressed by what he heard. He didn't completely say yes right there, [2:40] but he did say sounds good to me or something to that effect to the prime minister. And it was clear [2:45] that that was a likely green light. It was clear to the president's advisors that he was impressed with [2:49] what they saw. The next day, there was an overnight assessment that was done by U.S. intelligence [2:54] officials. And there were aspects of what Netanyahu described that could be done. But the regime [3:00] change scenarios were described by the CIA director as farcical and by the Secretary of State, Marco [3:06] Rubio, as bullshit. And so that is where it becomes a conflation of a lot of different points. [3:13] Most notably was that J.D. Vance was the most adamant voice against doing this in the president's [3:19] circle and repeatedly said this in front of his colleagues to the president. [3:24] Fascinating. Maggie Hebron, thanks very much. [3:26] I want to start with some of the reporting that they have on the ambivalence that was in the room. [3:34] Mr. Rubio, of course, the Secretary of State and National Security Advisor, indicated to colleagues [3:38] that he was much more ambivalent. Ms. Wiles, Susie Wiles' chief of staff, had concerns about [3:44] what a new conflict overseas could entail, but she did not tend to weigh in hard on military matters [3:52] and large meetings. General Cain, the Joint Chiefs Chair, was not a political loyalist and he had [3:58] serious concerns about a war with Iran, but he was very cautious in the way he presented his views to [4:04] the president. What's fascinating about all that reporting is group that together with also how some [4:11] of the IC community, how Ratliff and also Rubio pushed back on the briefing that these top officials got [4:20] from the Israelis as well. You did have officials saying, I mean, in this story, Marco Rubio basically dismissing [4:28] this report. Others saying that the Israelis have attempts to exaggerate in this briefing. [4:33] Let me just put sort of a little meat on that bone real quick. [4:36] So what you're talking about also in this report is Prime Minister Netanyahu went into the White House [4:41] on February 11th and gave some very bold, optimistic assessments of what could happen if the U.S. and [4:49] Israel went to war there. Into the situation room, by the way. [4:51] Into the situation room. Thank you. So you have the Israeli Prime Minister in the situation room with [4:55] a small group of people, including the fact that it could bring an end to the Islamic regime. And what [5:01] you were saying, this according to the reporting, when Mr. Trump joined the meeting [5:05] of the U.S. intelligence officials after that Netanyahu briefing, Mr. Ratliff briefed him on [5:12] the assessment. The CIA director used one word to describe the Israeli Prime Minister's regime [5:16] change scenarios. Farcical. At that point, Mr. Rubio cut in. In other words, it's bullshit. [5:22] I think that is really important to highlight, right? Especially if we're going to talk about [5:27] the ambivalence that people had to express a dissenting view, you know, to the present. Because you did [5:34] have doubts there. But those doubts weren't forcefully argued to the president, right? [5:40] And we've talked often, you know, going back to last year about how loyalty is such a measure of [5:47] success in this administration. And I've often had a reporting target of how does that translate [5:53] in these meetings where you would expect a back and forth and a counter argument to be presented [5:58] and then another argument to be presented? Or is it that some of the most powerful influential [6:03] people in government are really just focused on, at times, telling the president what he does [6:08] rather than what he does not want to hear, right? And this reporting was so important because on [6:13] something as pivotal as whether or not to go to war, it really seemed like the only person who [6:19] presented that counter argument was the vice president, was J.D. Vance. [6:23] And Shelby, let me read you a part of that reporting. In front of his colleagues, Mr. Vance warned [6:27] Mr. Trump that a war against Iran could cause regional chaos and untold numbers of casualties. [6:33] It could also break apart Mr. Trump's political coalition and would be seen as a betrayal by [6:39] many voters who had bought into the promise of new wars. Yeah, the vice president seems to have [6:45] been the most forceful one in the room and sort of laying out more clearly what everybody else was [6:51] trying to quietly express to the president. And so, you know, I do think that there was clearly [6:57] some effort to say, hey, hold on. What about this? What about this? But I think that at the end of the [7:04] day, there's a few aspects. A, the people around Trump this time around are very careful. So even [7:10] when they express their opinions, I think sometimes it's curbed and they aren't as forceful as, say, [7:17] the vice president. But I also think that the president had already made up his mind. And I think [7:21] that there was an acknowledgement among the room and among this group of advisors in particular [7:27] that, okay, well, you know, we'll say there are some risks to this. But at the end of the day, [7:32] as that reporting notes, the team around Donald Trump, at the end of the day, whenever he does [7:38] something, they'll voice their opinion, they'll say something. But if he wants to do it, they go ahead [7:44] with it. And this is a clear example, even something as huge as going to war with Iran. [7:49] Yeah, which, I mean, that is actually in keeping with the way most administrations are. I mean, [7:55] he's the president, he was elected, they weren't, and so forth. I do think the fact that the U.S. [8:00] intelligence agencies push back about the notion of any idea of regime change from this maybe speaks [8:07] to why the U.S. goal at the beginning and still now wasn't, they were saying regime change would be [8:12] nice, but it's not part of our goal. But I also, so there's the intel side of the briefing that [8:18] Israel presented. And as you're saying that many in the U.S. were skeptical of from the U.S. intel [8:23] community. But I think it also exposes this reporting, the political divide that exists, [8:29] because both so much criticism on the right and the left, and I don't mean just what J.D. Vance said [8:35] about you promised no new wars, but it's about Israel leading the U.S. into this. That is the core [8:42] of the critique on the right and the left of Trump's foreign policy in this moment in time. [8:49] And I think that this, you know, having Netanyahu in the situation room, like the tightness around this, [8:57] to me, exposes the heart of that concern. [9:00] And real quick, one of the right wing's most ardent opponents of the state of Israel [9:06] is Tucker Carlson. And in this reporting, it says that Tucker went to speak to the president about [9:13] this. Mr. Trump, who had known Mr. Carlson for years, tried to reassure him, excuse me, [9:18] they talked on the phone. I know you're worried about it, but it's going to be okay, the president [9:22] said. Mr. Carlson asked how he knew, because it always is. And I think that's another dynamic here, [9:28] that we can't push aside, which is that the president feels so emboldened, or at least felt [9:34] so emboldened by, in his first term, getting out Soleimani, by the operation in Venezuela, [9:40] both of which were so different from what he embarked on with Iran. But that was a part of [9:46] his thinking as he went into this operation six weeks ago.