Astead Herndon

So for 20 years, there's basically been one guy who was always known as the Iran war guy in Republican politics.

For years, even decades, Ambassador John Bolton has argued that America needs to push for regime change in Iran and take an active military role in making it happen.

But now that Trump is doing just that, Ambassador Bolton says he's actually going about it all wrong and making a big mistake.

So how did Trump lose the Republican Party's biggest Iran war hawk?

Let's find out.

Ambassador Bolton, thank you so much for joining us.

Glad to be here.

Ambassador, I would love for you to just run through your credentials for a second.

We're going to be talking about, obviously, the growing war in Iran, but I wanted for you to give our audience just a sense of how closely you've been tied to this for a while.

Yeah, and obviously that's the part that we really want to focus on.

I think you've become known as one of the most prominent American advocates for military action in Iran over a set of decades.

And this war is, in a sense, something that you've argued for long through your career.

But in recent weeks, you've emerged as one of the sharpest critics of the Trump administration's actions and how it's conducting this war.

I wanted you to walk me through your critiques.

Where do you think they went wrong from the perspective of someone who wanted to see this happen?

I think there's a very— Yeah, that didn't happen.

I hear that.

I guess the question then becomes, why is this happening now?

I mean, my working theory is that Trump got a little trigger happy after Venezuela and has ignored the different context that has taken place here or has simply underrepresented the differences from country to country.

I guess my question is for you then, like, why do you think this is happening now, considering he didn't take those steps of preparation?