DEVELOPING: Qataris RUSH to salvage Iran negotiations

Qatari negotiators rushing to Iran, scrambling to tamp down hostilities and salvage peace talks amid the latest explosion of violence. It comes after that shocking new Wall Street Journal report on a new plot to kill President Trump. Retired U.S. Marine Corps Major General Arnold Punaro is CEO of the Punaro Group and he joins me now. General, we're spending a lot of time together. Last night on Special Report, this afternoon on our program. So no surprise that the Iranian regime has got a plot to kill President Trump. Because take a look at this. This is during the funeral ceremonies for the Ayatollah. Hey Trump, we will kill you. I mean, that's pretty obvious. But listen to what President Trump told the New York Post. He left instructions, apparently, in case Iran was successful in this endeavor. He said, I've been on their list for a long time. That's what we're dealing with. The only thing is I've left instructions. If anything happens to just literally bomb them at levels that they have never seen before, I'm sure that that's something that the U.S. would make good of it. I mean, why are we even talking to these people? John, I would say there's been a history of the Iranian leadership and the Iranian people making threats against our presidents and our leaders. This to me is very different and it's much more serious. And the reason it's much more serious is they understand that President Trump is the only president that's basically almost reduced their ambitions to nothing. We've got to watch it at all times. Taken down a lot of their military capability to basically export terrorism. So I'm with you though. We always prefer diplomacy. That's been our country's mode. The Iranians don't negotiate seriously. They're just going to drag it out. They're never going to agree to anything that the U.S. would find acceptable. But I think when you actually threaten to kill an American president and you have an active plot to do so, according to the Israelis, and they're typically right on this stuff, isn't that in essence a declaration of war? I certainly would see it that way. I mean, even though they might argue he's a legitimate combatant, the heads of states are legitimate combatants in war, the leaderships are legitimate combatants. In theory, we're not in a state of war with Iran right now. But certainly I think it just underscores the fact that we've got to deal in Iran with the center of gravity. And the center of gravity is the IRGC, the Republican guards, the Quds Force. And even though we've significantly, the president significantly reduced their nuclear ambitions and ability to export terrorism, the IRGC still controls the Straits of Hormuz, which we find unacceptable. And we've got to change that. Well, I'm not sure do they actually control it or are they just harassing it? Because we say we control it. If you look at the flow, the slowdown in the flow, because the people, the insurance companies and the people that own those big tankers, they don't want to be hit by even a simple drone. We're still getting a bunch of ships through, though, even if they're going through dark. And I think our Navy and our capability could help that flow. But I think the president should take a lesson from his highly successful takeout of the ISIS caliphate during his first term and use some of those same things. You shut down their funding. You take out their leadership. You took out al-Baghdadi. We can work with our Israeli partners. You basically take out their training areas, their containment areas. It would be difficult. It would take time. But that's the only thing that's going to fundamentally change the outcome in Iran. So you mentioned that the IRGC is the center of gravity in all this, which brings me to this point. This is what the president put out on True Social regarding resumption of talks. The Islamic Republic of Iran has asked us to continue, quote, talks. We have agreed to do so. But the United States has stated to them in no uncertain terms that the ceasefire is over. So we're going back to the negotiation well again. And I'm wondering, at what point does Einstein's theory of insanity kick in, that you keep doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result? Yeah. I mean, what is it? The saying, the second kick of the mule? Look, it's not going to yield anything. We should basically let them go on vacation. Our negotiators go on vacation. Unfortunately, it's poorly written. It tilts towards Iran. So we're actually starting off on the wrong foot. So I personally don't think the negotiations had never thought from the outset we're going to yield anything that we would find acceptable. Yeah. All right. Well, we'll see where we go. We're taking another kick at the can here. Hopefully nobody's kicking the mule. Right. That would be cruel. General, great to see you. Have a wonderful vacation. All right. Anytime. Thank you.