Trump should dictate terms to Iran: Fleitz and Holt | American Agenda

Added: 2026-05-11

[00:00:00]much.

[00:00:00]>> Joining us now to talk about it, former National Security Council Chief of Staff in the Trump administration and former CIA analyst Fred Fle along with retired US Air Force Brigadier General and Newsmax contributor Blaine Holt.

[00:00:12]Pleasure to have you both on Fred right here on set. Good to see you in person for a change. Yeah, great to have you with us.

[00:00:18]>> So, the big hang-ups right now nuclear, right? And President Trump, we just heard what he said. They can't have a nuclear weapon. So, where does it go sideways when it comes to this topic?

[00:00:26]>> It's such a problem with what we heard from the Iranians. They're not going to disable or disassemble any of their nuclear sites. They're quibbling with us on uranium richer. They don't want to give up uranium enrichment. They don't want to give up their nuclear weapons program. That's just a a a non-starter for the president. Then they ask for ridiculous things like reparations. They want us to recognize their sovereignty over the straight har moves. This was not a serious answer. And it's why I've been arguing, including on this program, it's time to stop negotiating with the Iranians. The president should dictate terms. We stop the war if you stop the war. If you don't stop the war, we're going to blow you to kingdom come. No other concessions, no other conditions from the Iranians. The Iranians lost this war conclusively.

[00:01:09]>> And I I want to get your thoughts on that, General. But first, I want to share this. Uh Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Nahu, he was on 60 Minutes last night. He said there's still a lot of work that needs to be done to end the war. Here's what he said.

[00:01:21]>> There is still uh enrichment sites that have to be dismantled. There are still proxies that Iran supports. There are ballistic missiles that they still uh want to produce. Now, we've degraded a lot of it, but all of that is still there, and there's work to be done.

[00:01:40]>> General, I mean, a lot a lot of things, of course, I would say, need to be cleaned up, so to speak, after the war is done. But do you believe that the president at this point has accomplished his primary goal? Do you agree with Fred that now is the time to just stop trying to negotiate with a group of people who just won't negotiate?

[00:02:00]>> Yeah, I mean all of their demands while they seem like they're making demands as some sort of victor in this. Um they're really meant for the Iranian people, they're trying to stave off a revolution that is not going to be staved off.

[00:02:12]There's no reverse gear. The president has no intent of leaving a revenge-minded uh Armageddon-minded regime in place to our grandchildren, nor a nuclear weapons program. That's that's not in the offing. And so, every day that the president takes with this um is another day that the IRGC and what's left of this leadership uh uh cult uh they're going to fall under their own weight. And now he's going to go into Beijing, and that's even more time. The concerns I have are the oil wells that are starting to be damaged now. We know that because the Iranians are dumping oil into the straits and we've got to save that for the next uh free Iranian people government. They're going to need that. China's going to need that. And then we've got to get aligned with the Israelis about how to properly finish this war. The Israelis are much more kinetic-minded. Um we have all kinds of tools at our fingertips, many of them economic, and it's going in our direction. So, I'm not quite sure blasting our way in and taking things with ground troops is is the way to go.

[00:03:13]Nor nor would I do anything more in Lebanon other than let the supply chain speak for themselves and let Hezbollah die on the vine. They're heading that way.

[00:03:22]>> Well, Fred, what do you think would bring the quickest way to get an end to this? Now, you mentioned maybe blow them to kingdom come. The general just mentioned maybe economic sanctions of some sort. What levers do you think should be being pulled or maybe pulled harder than they already are right now?

[00:03:34]I think more economic pain has to be put on to Iran. Probably some military action against ports and energy facilities. And then we just have to ram home the idea of the ultimatum. We will stop the attacks if you stop the attacks. If you stop attacking neighboring states, if you stop attacking the strider, we will stop attacking. We will still have a military presence in the region that will resume bombing if Iran breaks its word. But we're not going to quibble with them on reparations or or or um uh lifting sanctions or stuff like that. They have to do what we're saying because frankly the president has explained how we met our objectives. It's time to get out of this war.

[00:04:14]>> Uh you mentioned general the the regime.

[00:04:16]Um you also said that they will fall at some point. My question and I think something I've been confused about throughout this uh entire war is that we know prior President Trump had been telling the Iranian people that they will be able to overthrow their government that they will have some level of freedom that this uh oppressive evil regime will be gone. But we haven't seen that happen. And instead at this point we've seen uh the new regime as as maybe tenuous as it may be. they seem to even be worse than the regime that uh the United States and Israel got rid of.

[00:04:52]So, so h how do we square what the president has been saying with what who the regime is now, even if it's questionable, and also maybe the expectations or the promises to the Iranian people.

[00:05:06]>> Yeah. No, I think that's all good. The president was on the right track with that. I think it's still his track, but you're not going to reveal that you're you've got some sort of clandestine let's get the resistance armed program.

[00:05:17]We're not going to announce that. Um, so there's a lot of things going on that we can't see, but that's the right and proper path. And so my target sets would be very different. I wouldn't be raising or getting rid of their energy infrastructure or their ports. What I'd be doing is I'd be going after the besiege, the police, the command and control structures to soften up what uh the Iranian people must do for themselves and to bring them into a world where they can self-govern and have uh their economy. If you don't do that, what you'll get is sectarian violence, endless civil wars, and we'll be there militarily forever. And I don't think anybody wants that. Uh also you'll bring China off the sidelines and having to take care of matters for themselves because some of these uh resources they feel that they need access to.

[00:06:01]>> Yeah. And again will be very interesting to see uh what President Trump speaks to uh she about in China this week. The timing couldn't be more perfect it sounds like. All right. Fred Flights Blaine Holt. Thank you.

[00:06:13]>> Thank you. Good to be here.