Gingrich: THIS is a very historic turning point...

These truly historic events coming fast and furious. Who better to welcome back to the show than Newt Gingrich, former history professor, former house speaker and a Fox News contributor. Newt, great to see you. Before I go into details about what happened today,

I just wanna play a little bit of Jamie Dimon. We heard some of it from Edward Lawrence, but I wanna play the full soundbite and get your reaction to it. Roll tape.

I think people are surprised to find out that a ballistic missile can go 3,000 miles. These are bad people and they needed to be stopped. And just who decided what now? I don't know what the military knows. I don't know what President Trump knows.

I just think now we've got to finish this thing and finish it right. So Newt, looking at this thing historically, as you usually do, is leaving without securing the Strait of Hormuz. Is is that

finishing the job? You know, one of the lessons I've learned, David, is that you watch Donald Trump and then you try to figure out what got him to a particular decision and what it means. And I think most of us underestimate this is a guy who now, since 2015, has been talking to world leaders on a daily basis. He has an enormous depth of knowledge, and he's been thinking about all this at levels that very few American presidents could match. My guess is this is not what I would have done, and certainly not what any standard Pentagon operation would have done. But I just want to raise a couple questions about language. We're

not leaving. First of all, if you have B-2s flying out of Missouri, that can bomb you and take out everything, we're never leaving. Second, if you and take out everything, we're never leaving. Second, if you have aircraft carriers offshore that can defeat anything you've got, we're not leaving. If you have submarines nearby that have Tomahawk missiles, we're not leaving.

If you have allies who've now decided that they are really pissed off at the Iranians, so you have the Saudis, Kuwaitis, and others, UAE, much more anti-Iran than they were six weeks ago. And there's a secondary part of this, a theme of this administration, consistently going back to Trump's first speech in Warsaw in 2017.

They want the Europeans and others to step up to the plate and do their share. They wanna get the Europeans and others to step up to the plate and do their share. They want to get the Europeans to take responsibility so they can pivot to make sure we can overmatch China. Now, this has been very clear if you're watching. So some of this that's going on right now is, you know, Trump, if he could have beaten

them quickly, he'd been happy. If he can't beat them quickly, he's gonna grind them down. He's never gonna leave. We may not have combat every morning. We may not put any ground troops in. Well, we'll be around.

We'll be watching our intelligence operation, plus Musaad, plus remember, we now have the Saudis. We have the UAE. We have all sorts of people helping us penetrate Iran. And we also have Iranians. My guess is of the 90 million Iranians, 85 million are anti-regime.

So I think the pressure will stay there. I think Trump will gradually wear him down. And I think this is a remarkably historic turning point. But it's on his terms may not fit the Harvard School of Diplomacy, may not fit the Council on Foreign Relations. But he has done more to shake up the Middle East in the last two years than the last five presidents. And you have to give him some credit for that kind of courage and that kind of determination.

And for, you know, for the Hoyt-Polloy to be criticized, I think back to Ronald Reagan's presidency. And they used to call him a cowboy and somebody who would shoot from the hip. They say the same things about Trump. Trump has been thinking about this for decades. Producers, I don't know if we still have that tape, but there's a tape from him talking to Barbara Walters back in 1987. Do we have that tape? Right. I think we can, yeah, we're going to roll that and get your reaction. Roll it.

Why couldn't we go in and take over some of their oil, which is along the sea? How would you do that? Would you send in the Marines? Would you take a chance in a war? Let them have Iran. You take their oil.

That's what I'd do.

How?

How?

I mean, do we want a war?

What do you mean, we take their oil?

You go in.

How do we go in?

You're going to have a war by being weak.

OK, how do we go in? What do we do?

Excuse me. Iran attacks this country, go in and grab one of their big oil installations. And I mean grab it and keep it and get back your losses because this country has lost plenty because of Iran.

Now he's been thinking about this for 37 years, at least 37 years. We haven't grabbed any oil. Are we going to be surprised? Is he going to do something before he leaves completely like maybe take some of their oil? He's been thinking about it.

David, let me go back to what you just said. He's not leaving completely. Yeah, he'll never leave. We'll never leave there. Frankly, when Saddam occupied Kuwait, I talked to the then secretary of state and I said to him, you know, this means there'll be an 82nd airborne flag in Kuwait for the next 100 years, because we were now drawn into the Gulf.

We had no choice. And I think what Trump is trying to think through is, and again, I don't want to guess too much, because he's smarter than I am. And he has been thinking about this at levels of depth, as you just pointed out, that go back for decades. I suspect what he's trying to think through right now is, how do we maximize the advantage of the United States? That is what America first means. Second, how do we force our allies to grow up and be responsible in a way that they have not been, I would argue, since World War II because they could always rely on us. And he's trying to say to them, guys, I'm not going to go in there

and do your job because the truth is we produce a surplus of oil and gas. The Strait of Hormuz is a disaster. It's terrible if you're Bangladesh. It's horrible if you're the Philippines. It's expensive if you're China. It doesn't directly affect the United States. And I think his view is other people have to be stronger. They have to develop more effective military. They have to do their share because the world's going to be dangerous and we need more people out there helping us police it not just the United

States and Israel. I would be remiss if we really almost have run out of time, but I've got to ask you at least one question about what's happening between the Senate and the House of Representatives on this DHS funding. What Senator Thune did early in the morning on Friday that has upset so many Republicans in the House, are you upset at what Senator Thune did, cutting a deal with the Democrats that didn't seem to be very helpful?

You know, I asked Speaker Johnson to send me the part that he's worried about, and frankly, I've not gotten anybody to explain to me what it means except what it says. And what it says is no money in this bill can be spent on ICE, period. Well, I

don't understand. And again, I don't want to reach a conclusion because I don't understand it. But the way it's written, it sure seems to me that the Senate Republicans allowed something to be put in there that would be totally inappropriate, particularly because the reading, at least on the House side, is that the money that does exist from the great big beautiful bill back in last year cannot be used for operational funds. Well, if that's the case, and I don't know, I don't fully understand why the Republicans would have tolerated that section. And it's

very clear. It's very specific, and I have several friends of mine who are lawyers who are trying to get it through and deal with experts and tell me, you know, but I've not gotten a good explanation from the Senate yet as to why the Republicans would have accepted that.

Well, we're gonna be talking to Rick Scott coming up next, Well, we're gonna be talking to Rick Scott coming up next, so we'll ask him that question.