Nancy Youssef

So they've said that.

I would argue that that's a fundamental misreading of the Iranians in that the Iranians see the threat to their program as an existential threat and are prepared to risk war to protect it and are prepared to suffer casualties arguably more than we are prepared to suffer casualties to dismantle it.

So it was revealing to me in terms of how they're revealing the Iranians if what Stephen Witkoff is saying is an accurate description of the president's position.

The other thing I would note is if the use of force is designed to be leverage, and let's assume that I'm wrong and they're right and they've read the Iranians correctly, it is a very, very large presence for leverage.

I think the accurate way to think about it is that at one point it was potentially a form of leverage, but they're also there in place to be ready to go should negotiations fail.

Why is this happening now?

That is the question.

And I don't fully know the answer.

There are pieces of it that we know.

You remember at the end of December 2025, we saw remarkable protests that were happening across Iran and a bid by Iranians to change the leadership within their own country amid resistance.

real economic hardship.

And at that time, the president sent out social media posts saying that we were coming to help, and the Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group started moving towards the region.

And then protests were put down, frankly, by the Iranians.

Potentially great costs.

The estimates are anywhere from 3,000 to 30,000 killed in the push to end those protests.

And then we started hearing this discussion about needing to strike a deal.

I don't know if it's a scenario where the president started on this path with one goal in mind, thinking that the regime was in trouble and that there was an opportunity for the U.S.

with just a little bit of help could sort of tip the scales in the protesters' favor and it's expanded to something else.

That's one potential one.

But