Trump pushes back at conservative voices critical of Iran war

Geoff Bennett:

Nick Schifrin joins us now along with White House correspondent Liz Landers.

Good to see you both.

Liz, we will start with you.

President Trump met with the German chancellor today at the White House. We saw him take questions from reporters. One of the questions he got was, who could lead Iran next? What did he say?

Liz Landers:

This was the first time we have heard the president take questions from the press on camera since this strike was launched over the weekend.

And now that the supreme leader has been killed, there's a question of who's going to lead the country. He was specifically asked today in that Oval Office meeting about whether or not the crowned prince, Reza Pahlavi, the exiled crown prince, the son of the former shah of Iran, could lead the country. Here's what he said.

President Donald Trump:

It would seem to me that somebody from within maybe would be more appropriate. I have said that. He looks like a very nice person. But it would seem to me that somebody that's there, that's currently popular, if there's such a person, but we have people like that.

Liz Landers:

But the president has also said that many of the other options that the administration was looking towards as potential successors in Iran have also been killed now.

We heard yesterday from the secretary of war, Pete Hegseth, that this is not a regime change war, so still questions about who succeeds there in Iran.

Geoff Bennett:

And, Nick, you reported that Israel struck the meeting of the assembly that is picking the next supreme leader in Iran. What more do you know?

Nick Schifrin:

Well, as you and Liz have been discussing, this is a real key decision point for the future of the Islamic Republic. And there are reports tonight, we haven't confirmed them, but there are reports that assembly has chosen Mojtaba Khamenei.

He is the son of the current supreme leader. And if this is true, if this is the case that he's been chosen, this is not in U.S. interests. Analysts tell me that he represents a continuation of his father's policies backed by hard-liners within the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, with whom he fought in the trenches of Iran's war with Iraq.

That said, analysts do tell me that he's probably in the best position to consolidate power at this point. Among the other candidates being considered, Hassan Khomeini, the former supreme leader's grandson, considered a relative moderate. You see him there on the right. And Alireza Arafi, considered a hard-liner.

But as Liz pointed out, many of the other moderate candidates were killed in that first Israeli airstrike.

Geoff Bennett:

And, Nick, the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, who we saw in your piece taking questions there from reporters, he sought to explain, clarify his comments yesterday about Israel and the start of this war.

Fill us in.

Nick Schifrin:

So, yesterday, Secretary Rubio really suggested that the U.S. hand had been forced by Israeli decision to go in regardless of what the U.S. did.

Today, echoing President Trump, he removed Israel from that equation. So listen to what he said yesterday first, and then today.

Marco Rubio:

We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action. We knew that would precipitate an attack against American forces. And we knew that if we didn't preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties and perhaps even higher those killed.

Once the president made a decision that negotiations were not going to work, that they were playing us on the negotiations and that this was a threat that was untenable, the decision was made to strike them.

Nick Schifrin:

Again, removing Israeli decision from the U.S. decision to go to war, as the president say -- but a reminder, Geoff, as we have been talking about, it was the U.S. that provided Israel the intelligence that allowed Israel to start this war with that initial attack that killed the supreme leader.

Geoff Bennett:

And, Liz, let's talk more about the politics of this, the domestic politics, namely the pushback from parts of President Trump's MAGA base.

Liz Landers:

Yes, so, yesterday, we saw that the White House is putting out allies and officials, including Vice President J.D. Vance, who was on FOX News last night, pushing back on some of this MAGA opposition.

However, we're still seeing some of these high-profile conservative voices speaking out against this military action, including Megyn Kelly, the former FOX News host who has a very popular YouTube show. She said that Americans shouldn't die for a foreign country and placed blame for this conflict on Israel.

But the president himself actually hit back on some of these doubters in a phone interview that he did with the journalist Rachael Bade. He said of Megyn Kelly, he said: "She ought to study her history book a little bit."

He also responded to Tucker Carlson's criticism of him, saying that "He has no impact on me." And he also talked about MAGA writ large. He said: "MAGA is Trump himself. It's not the other two," talking about Kelly and Carlson.

I also asked the White House too about former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who's been very vocal about this in the last few days. They sent me a statement saying" "Former Congresswoman Greene quit on her constituents and the America first movement in the middle of her term. President Trump is fighting every single day to make America great again. We don't have time for."

That's from Davis Ingle, a White House spokesperson.

One source who's close to the White House I spoke to earlier today on the phone said that the whole messaging around this is -- seems like the president is message-testing through the media. This person described it as the president conducting a focus group of 350 million people that is playing out through the press, Geoff.

Geoff Bennett:

OK.

Liz Landers, Nick Schifrin, our thanks to you both.

Nick Schifrin:

Thank you.