REGIME COLLAPSE”: Ted Cruz Urges the U.S. to Arm Iranians to Fight Their Government

First to Chief International Correspondent Steve Harrigan, live in Tel Aviv. Hi Steve. Martha, some very different messages coming out of Iran, it's tough to decide which faction to believe. On one hand, in Parliament, talk about perhaps trying to ban Israeli and U.S. ships from the Strait of Hormuz. The same time, other Iranian officials talking about real progress on talks to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. The negotiations with Oman have made tremendous progress. President Trump has said he's played an active, personal role in those negotiations, and he could expect an announcement on them as early as today. Here's President Trump. I think it's going to end pretty soon. I don't think they can go much longer. Iran has been demanding fees for any ships that go through the Strait of Hormuz. That position has been rejected by the U.S. It's something that analysts have raised an issue of, and also concern that no matter what agreement is eventually signed, the real question is, will Iran live up to or uphold any deal at all? Here's General Keane. We know they won't comply with the deal, even if they sign it. So the United States has to go into this clearly knowing full well, let's give this a try, but if the Iranians don't cooperate here, then we have to go back to major combat operations. President Trump has maintained that the U.S. blockade on Iranian ports, also the threat of renewed military action, will be enough leverage to enforce any deal. Martha back to you. Steve Harrigan in Tel Aviv. Thank you, Steve. And with that, we bring in Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz, whose committees include judiciary and foreign relations. Great to have you with us, Senator, today. You said recently, thank you, sir, you said recently that what we should be doing is arming the Iranians who oppose their government and that regime change needs to be the goal. What would you be doing differently here? Well, listen, I think the president has had extraordinary leadership standing up to the threat of Iran. The Ayatollah and the Islamic regime there have been waging war with the United States for 47 continuous years. They have been the world's number one leading funder of terrorism across the globe. They have killed nearly a thousand Americans. And the Ayatollah twice hired hitmen to try to murder President Trump. And so President Trump earlier this year acted decisively as commander in chief to take out their military capacity and to prevent them from acquiring a nuclear weapon. And he was exactly right to do so. In my view, the objective here should be regime collapse. This is a regime led by theocratic lunatics who hate us, who chant death to America, who over and over and over again have demonstrated that they are willing to kill Americans and they have killed Americans over and over and over again. And so what I've urged from the beginning of this conflict is for us to arm the Iranian protesters. Look, President Trump is not going to send American boots on the ground. We should not have American soldiers in harm's way in Iran. But the protesters, there are millions of protesters there that are living under this Islamic tyranny, this forced Sharia law, and they want to be free. We saw at the beginning of this conflict between 10,000 and 40,000 protesters murdered by the regime. It's not fair to expect protesters with rocks to stand up to soldiers with machine guns. If we armed the protesters, the Iranians could be in charge of determining their own future instead of American soldiers in harm's way. So I think everybody wants the people of Iran to have the hour of freedom that the president talked about at the beginning of this conflict, that freedom was at hand, and that many of them, hard to get a handle on the numbers, but many of them would love to see the overthrow of the regime. But how close do you think the regime is to being tipped over? Look, I think the regime is hanging on by a thread. Their economy is in freefall. Their ballistic missiles have been almost entirely destroyed. Their drones have been decimated. Their navy is sunken at the bottom of the ocean. Their nuclear weapons facilities are in rubble. I think President Trump has unleashed devastating force on the military and the economy. Right now, though, the IRGC does not face armed opposition. You know, I remember back more than 20 years ago when Tiananmen Square, when that giant protest happened, and a week later, the NRA bought a full-page newspaper ad in six newspapers across the country. And the full-page ad had a picture of everyone in Tiananmen Square. And it said on the ad, last week, more than a million people rose up in protest in Tiananmen Square. Imagine what would have happened if they had had guns. And I remember reading that at the time and going, wow, OK, that's not a protest then. That's a revolution. And so, look, there were early discussions earlier this year in the administration about arming the protesters, in particular arming the Kurds, who have been a very loyal American ally in multiple conflicts. The public reporting was that that idea was killed because Erdogan in Turkey didn't like it. Well, look, at the end of the day, I don't care that Erdogan in Turkey doesn't like it. It is in our interest not to have a theocratic lunatic leading Iran who is actively trying to and tragically succeeding in killing Americans. And so I think we ought to go down that road. So how would you go down that road? We haven't heard much about that since in the early days, as you just pointed out, there was this push that looked like regime change was what was going to happen. And we know Israel said they wanted to essentially undermine the regime until it collapsed of its own weight. That's not where we seem to be right now. So what would what's a practical way to arm the people of Iran against their government? It feels like that moment has passed. Well, we have the capacity to do that. The CIA has done that in other conflicts where we've armed rebels standing up against enemies of America. We have the capacity to get get those weapons. And you're talking small arms. You're not not talking tanks and bazookas. But the ability to fight back against the IRGC. We have that capability. What hasn't happened yet is making the decision to use that capability. And listen, I think the Trump administration articulated military objectives, but but they they held short of saying the objective was regime collapse. And I think that's because after the Iraq war, the phrase regime change is radioactive. I understand that. I thought the Iraq war was a mistake. I oppose the Iraq war. President Trump. Well, we see President Trump speaking of the president coming into view now at the State Department. Senator Cruz, thank you very much.