KT McFarland: “We No Longer Believe In What Our Founding Fathers Believed In”

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Guy Benson: I’m very pleased to welcome into the show now KT McFarland, who has worked for four presidential administrations. She was former deputy national security advisor in the first Trump administration. And KT, we’re always grateful for your time here.

KT McFarland: Well, it’s an honor and a pleasure to be with you guys.

Guy Benson: I want to start with this Russia-Ukraine situation, where the president has maneuvered to buy diesel from the Russians. A lot of people are saying, under the sanctions that exist, that’s not even legal. And you can opine on that if you’d like.

I said yesterday on the show, I don’t like this at all. I understand that you want sort of a quick fix in a short-sighted way for political reasons because it is painful here at home. But doing it through the Russians this way and applying all this sudden pressure back to the Ukrainians, I don’t like it. I don’t really understand why he thinks this would necessarily even work, especially when you couple it with this supposed energy ceasefire that he was touting and saying, “Well, it exists because they agree to it because I told them they agreed to it, and therefore they agreed to it.”

And then instantly, the Russians do what they always do, which is try to embarrass him. And then they’re doing the opposite of that. It just kind of seems like a few things were thrown together for domestic political reasons.

Unless I am missing something significant here, I know you often bring your geopolitical analysis back to energy for very good reason. Energy is the focus of all of this. So I’m very curious to hear what you make of the last few days and these developments.

KT McFarland: Again, there are two conflicting and competing priorities. One is the American people and low gas prices, and in this case, diesel fuel, which would be for farmers primarily. So he’s concerned with that.

But at the same time, President Trump–and I think this has been the genius of his foreign policy–is that he understands that you can’t convince countries not to go to war, whether it’s Iran, whether it’s Russia, but you can take away their ability to go to war, which is to cut them off financially.

It’s the same thing that President Reagan did in the Cold War and how we won the Cold War. He drove the price of oil down from $40 to $18 a barrel in nine months in the middle 1980s, and it bankrupted the Soviet Union.

The same way, President Trump has used the oil weapon by pushing prices down. Part of it is through Trump’s energy policy and the price of oil going down, but also because of the sanctions. And sanctions mean you can’t buy Russian oil, you can’t buy Iranian oil, and that’s the major income source for both Russia and Iran.

So it’s really the same story. How do you push prices so low that you deprive Iran and deprive Russia of the income they need to pay for the wars that we don’t want them to fight?

But at the same time, how do you make sure that the burden is not borne by the American farmer, the American taxpayer, or the American consumer? So he’s kind of walking a tightrope between the two.

But one of the reasons President Trump says, “You know, look, with my watch, Russia never invaded Ukraine. Russia invaded Ukraine under Obama. Russia invaded Ukraine under Biden.” Why? Because energy prices were high under Obama. They were $140 a barrel. Under Biden, it got up to about $120 a barrel. And Trump won–they were about $40, $50, $60 a barrel. And now Trump two, they were that low, but now they’ve gone up to near $100 a barrel.

So I understand why President Trump is doing it, but the long-range goal here is to push Russia to the negotiating table to end this war, to push Iran to the negotiating table to end that war. I’d like to see the war end.

Guy Benson: On Iran, there was a moment that went pretty viral on social media. It was in a debate this week featuring the fairly long-shot, if we’re honest, Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in New Jersey challenging Cory Booker, a guy named Justin Murphy.

And he was asked about Iran, and he gave an answer that, at first, you can see Booker sort of scoffing. And then, as Murphy goes into all the details and why he’s giving this answer, Booker sort of realizes and tenses up, like, “Oh, wait, he’s serious, and he’s making a bunch of points that I shouldn’t be scoffing at.”

Here’s what he said. Here’s cut 34.

Moderator: President Trump calls you and says, “I’ll do whatever you want. What do I do in Iran?” What’s your answer?

Justin Murphy: Finish it. Finish that war in a positive manner. We can’t wait halfway through and decide we don’t want to do this anymore.

The Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is a radical terrorist organization that has deprived the Iranian people and the Persian people of their history and of a decent life. They have murdered, raped, tortured, assassinated, promoted terrorism all throughout the world, especially in the region of the Middle East.

Guy Benson: And then the answer was concluded with cut 35.

Justin Murphy: They are a cancer on human existence.

I remember, as a young boy, watching those walls in November of 1979, watching the radical Islamic terrorists storm over the walls of our embassy, with 52 Americans held for 444 days.

And ever since November of ’79, the IRGC in Iran has done nothing but export terror, murder, rape, oppression, and assassination to the region and to the world. And it’s time it stops. Four decades is enough. The Iranian people have suffered enough.

And I would say, Mr. President, put your cowboy hat on and get out there and kick some ass and get this done and done right.

Guy Benson: So, KT, I mean, I know that is an answer that might sound a little cowboy-ish at the end, but that bill of indictment against the regime, spoken very clearly in the span of about a minute, to me, that is a lot of the messaging that I wish we got a lot more of from the administration, from Republicans, and others. I wonder what you think.

KT McFarland: I couldn’t agree more. I’ve been urging the president to make the case to the American people as follows.

If we wanted to get rid of Iran’s nuclear weapons, we got rid of their nuclear weapons. Iran wanted to hold the world hostage over its oil, over the Strait of Hormuz. We’ve opened the Strait of Hormuz.

But Iran remains stubbornly refusing to give up its goal, which is to destroy America, get nuclear weapons, and basically destroy the whole world so that their revolutionary movement can go on.

I think the president needs to say to the American people, “Here’s the problem. Here’s what I’ve done to fix it. We’re not there yet. We’re going to be there. We’re starving the Iranian regime of income. We also have an ability to destroy more military sites in Iran. We can do that.

“And I need you to be with me, American people, because the end goal of this is that Iran is no longer a cancer on the Middle East, it’s no longer a cancer in the world, it’s no more a cancer on the world economy, and, by the way, it doesn’t ever get nuclear weapons.”

I think the American people get that. Reagan used to do it. Trump has done it to less effect, but he needs to make the case to the American people. Just lay it out. We understand. You don’t have to–I mean, just lay it out to the American people: what’s at stake, what’s needed, why I need you to be with me just a little bit longer, and then we can rid the world of the scourge of the IRGC, the Iranian revolution, which has the goal of destroying and killing every single one of anybody’s notice.

What’s happened with the Iran war is that the Revolutionary Guard–they’re not going to give up their nuclear weapons, they’re not going to give up power, they are not going to give up anything. They’ve just got to be destroyed.

Guy Benson: And not only would that be great for American national security and global stability, it would be very good for American interests on energy, flourishing, and prosperity as well. There’s a delayed gratification, but an important one on both of those fronts.

KT, I want to turn to a speech last week. We actually spent, uncharacteristically, three whole segments playing long snippets, long segments, from Secretary Rubio’s speech in Athens about Western civilization. And I wonder if you caught it and what you thought of it.

KT McFarland: I caught it, I read it, I watched it, I watched it again, and I think it’s one of the most important speeches in the last generation.

Because he traced–and it was a very thoughtful speech. I mean, I’ve studied philosophy at Oxford, so that’s my wheelhouse, one of my wheelhouses. And I thought he made a compelling case for why Western values, why Western civilization, started in Athens, went to Rome, Charlemagne, the British Empire, the American Empire. We are now the embodiment of people who believe that they are capable of governing themselves.

And he made a brilliant case. He quoted a lot of ancient philosophers and quoted modern-day people, and he really made the case for why it’s important.

But then he did something that nobody does, certainly not outside of an academic institution. He made the case for why we should be proud of it.

And the recognition that the biggest problem America has today is not even a foreign policy problem, it’s not an economic problem, is that we’ve lost our way. We no longer believe in what our founding fathers believed in. We no longer believe in what the Athenian government believed in, and we need to get back to that. We need to believe in it again, and we have to be proud of it.

And I thought it was just beautifully written, beautifully delivered, thoughtful, and a compelling case to, “Hey, America, get your act together. We can do this, but we’ve got to remember who we are and why the world thinks we’re special. We need to get back to that.”

Guy Benson: Yeah, and to get anyone these days to watch a speech for 27 minutes or whatever it was, it’s a tall order. People have very short attention spans. But if you’re going to have a shot, you better have a beautiful image, and my goodness, that backdrop was captivating unto itself.

And it was literally kind of the backdrop to the speech, both in terms of where he was standing, but also just the message and the themes of the speech reflected in that vista behind him.

And I think part of the message was not just to the American people, like, “Buck up, be proud. This is the inheritance that we ought not squander.” It was also a message, sometimes explicitly, to our partners and allies in Europe.

And some of those allies are the Brits. Right now, I saw the clip of Andy Burnham, who’s the new prime minister and the Labour Party over there, and he said this in the House of Commons about a recent terror plot against our people and aircraft on a British Royal Air Force base in England. Cut 33.

Andy Burnham: And confirm our assessment that it is highly likely to have been coordinated in Iran, almost certainly directed by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard. We will not tolerate these threats on our soil. We will crack down on Iran’s use of criminal networks, using our full range of powers to target them and their funding streams.

Guy Benson: So here’s the thing, KT. It is useful to have a British prime minister, in this case, a real lefty, saying, yes, again, it’s Iran, this evil, terror-exporting regime and entity. They were trying to commit acts of terrorism on British soil against Brits and Americans yet again. And he’s saying, “It is unacceptable. We won’t tolerate it,” blah, blah.

Here’s the problem, though. From my perspective, I’m glad that he said it. I’m happy that he’s being clear about what the evidence is showing. But the people they arrested have been bailed out already. Supposedly, they’re under close surveillance, but still they’re not behind bars, which is wild to me.

And I just wondered, will the Brits in this case actually do anything meaningful against the regime other than some words? Because it seems like they’re trying to, because of domestic political constituencies, frankly, where they are saying the things that Western powers should say, but then doing the things that are pandering to a lot of people who are now voting in their country who might side with the IRGC, quite frankly.

KT McFarland: I mean, you’ve said it absolutely perfectly. It’s worth–it’s needed. Anybody can make a speech. It’s a nice-sounding speech. But what will he do?

Has he joined with, as he said, “Okay, as a result of recognizing that Iran was trying to do an attack on British soil, I am going to join with President Trump and help eradicate Iran”? He didn’t say anything like that at all.

In fact, only reluctantly were they allowing American aircraft to land at NATO bases, by the way, which we paid for, to land on NATO bases in support of the Iranian war in Iran.

So again, I think maybe it’s because they’re so worried about their domestic political environment. It’s a voting bloc that is, let’s say, anti-Israel, pro-Hamas, pro-Iran, pro-IRGC. Believe it or not, that is a voting bloc in the UK, and I guess he panders to them.

But at the same time, he knows he can’t say, “Okay, open season on a military base.”

The other thing that I found of great interest was that the United States, in the dark of night, pulled away and took the American B-1 bombers off of that base and took them away, realizing that, A, the British couldn’t protect them or wouldn’t protect them, and we didn’t want an incident there.

Guy Benson: Lastly, in the few moments that we have remaining, these Houthi strikes against Saudi Arabia. Some of these images, KT, of just people waiting in an airport at their gate and all of a sudden, huge explosions, people go scrambling, many people have died.

A lot of those people are–you can see it–they are in their religious pilgrimage garb, right? Their Hajj garb. They are there fulfilling an obligation of Islam, and to see them attacked by terrorists inside Saudi Arabia, I’m just wondering, where’s the Arab street on this one? Where’s the outrage from Muslims about terrorists killing Muslims on their way to or from Mecca, or whatever it might be?

Point A and point B: What are the Saudis and those other Arab states going to do about it? Because right now, they’re getting harassed and killed by this terrorist organization.

KT McFarland: And it’s not going to stop. There have been two successful attacks so far. There will be many, many, many more because there is always an extra missile somewhere in Iran that they’re going to fire at Saudi Arabia. There’s always an extra bag of missiles in Yemen that the Houthis have that they are going to fire at Saudi Arabia.

I mean, the irony of all this is that Iran started this three years ago because Iran was nervous that the Saudis were going to join the Abraham Accords, make peace with Israel, and have a Gulf Arab-Israel-United States coalition of security, economics, and commerce in the Middle East.

So Iran unleashed Hamas on October 7, three years ago, to murder Israelis, babies, women, and children. And as a result of that, Israel said, “Okay, we’ve had enough. We’re going to destroy Hamas. We are going to destroy Hezbollah.”

And then Iran, instead of sort of just holding its cards at that point, said, “Okay, we’re going to make this an even bigger war.”

Guy Benson: Yeah, we’re going to start attacking directly and through our proxies Muslims in the region.

KT McFarland: Yeah, we’re going to go after the Gulf Arabs. How stupid was that, right?

So now you have a situation where Iran is going to get its own worst nightmare, which is Saudi Arabia and the United States and Israel are going to join together to go after yet another Iranian proxy, the Houthis.

Guy Benson: And how about some of these other Arab states as well, who have been attacked relentlessly by this regime? They have skin in the game. They need to step up as well.

KT McFarland, our guest here on The Guy Benson Show. KT, thank you.