Katty Kay

And you would have been in the same position where Iran was not producing nuclear material and actually under the JCPOA when it was still

operating, the inspectors were going in regularly and saying, no, the Iranians were not in violation.

They sped up their uranium production after America pulled out of the JCPOA.

So I don't know which of those sounds like it would have been worse than the situation we're in now.

The counter-argument

that I have heard from Republicans on the Hill who are Trump-aligned is, well, we've decimated their missile supplies, so we've made it harder for them to attack their neighbors.

They weren't really attacking their neighbors at that point anyway, and they've still got half of their missile supply, according to intelligence sources, which they're keeping underground.

So we haven't decimated their missile supply, but we've set them back economically.

We may have

increased the clout of the hardliners in the regime and given the regime an extended lease of life.

So you tell me, Anthony, is there anything that I've just ticked off that sounds to you like it would have been worse?

Trump, who has now taken to posting truth social photographs from the Obama era, which don't even say Barack Hussein Obama, now just say Hussein Obama, photographs of his bits of Washington under his time.

So I don't think he does get away with it in the sense that there's going to be a massive rejection of this, it looks like, in the midterm elections and when voters go to the polls.

The reason voters are pissed off with this...

I think they would tolerate what's happening in the Gulf if they felt the president had been laser-focused on the job description that they gave him when they voted for him.

The job description he was given was very clear from the American public, bring down prices, make our economic situation better, and then you can do your other stuff.

But the problem he's getting is that he's not focused

on the job description he was given.

So I was talking to a Republican strategist this morning who said, this is going to be like the 2006 midterms where George W. Bush's second term, he's caught up in the Middle East, he's not doing enough to focus on what people want at home, and you get a change election in 2008 and you get something very different.

I think that's where we are.