NewsNation host Leland Vittert erupted Friday evening when Democratic Virginia Rep. Suhas Subramanyam claimed the Trump administration sought a conflict with Iran.
President Donald Trump announced the launch of U.S. military strikes identified as Operation Epic Fury in a video posted to Truth Social early Feb. 28. He cited concerns Iran would attack American bases in response to an Israeli strike after attempts to negotiate a cessation of Iran’s efforts to acquire nuclear weapons failed to make meaningful progress. Subramanyam, during his NewsNation appearance, claimed Iran didn’t pose an “imminent threat” to the United States.
“I hope this all works out and I hope that in the end oil prices go down, but the reality is we have picked a fight with Iran, Iran is very resilient— ,” Subramanyam claimed, prompting a stunned Vittert to cut in.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Hold on, hold on,” Vittert began. “Forgive me, forgive me for a second. We picked a fight with Iran? Forty-seven years ago we had— no, no, no, no, no, 47 years ago, we had no fight with Iran. They took hundreds of our people hostage at the embassy, then they killed 237 U.S. Marines, then they killed a thousand U.S. troops in Iraq, and you’re saying we picked the fight?”
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“There was no imminent threat to the United States,” Subramanyam claimed. “We started this war with Iran, and we made this decision. We’re here now.”
Steve Witkoff, President Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, told Fox News host Sean Hannity during a March 2 interview Iranian diplomats declared their intent to continue enriching uranium and claimed they already had enough material to construct 11 dirty bombs.
“If you think Iran’s going to just accept a unilateral withdrawal whenever Trump wants and let him declare victory, that’s not gonna happen. They’re gonna continue to make life hard for us,” Subramanyam claimed. “So I don’t see how a ceasefire is reached in the next couple of weeks, even if Trump wants to withdraw. They’re going to continue this pressure on us, and they’re going to show that the message they’re going to send is that, ‘You can’t mess with us anymore and that we’re going to just rebuild our ballistic missiles and everything else.’”
“I’m sure that’s a concern, I think it’s the wrong concern, having lived there for four years and studied this,” Vittert responded. “I think the Iranians are going to, right now, realize that escalate to de-escalate doesn’t work with someone who has a much bigger military.”
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