Tucker’s email newsletter, June 23

Many of the people pushing hardest for a war with Iran have long pretended that preventing the Ayatollah from getting a nuclear weapon is the project’s only goal. But that was never believable.

Donald Trump shined a light on the endeavor’s true objective on Sunday, writing on Truth Social that decapitating the current Iranian government, which could entangle America in this conflict for years, could be necessary to “MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN.”

“It’s not politically correct to use the term, ‘Regime Change’ but if the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn’t there be a Regime change??? MIGA!!” the president wrote.

The message was Trump’s first time publicly raising the possibility of regime change, and marks a departure from the rest of the administration’s messaging. JD Vance said on Sunday that the White House’s longstanding view “has been very clear that we don’t want a regime change.”

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Few moments in American history are as shameful as when our country invaded Iraq based on the lie that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. That catastrophe may have helped the neocons, but it did so at the cost of trillions of U.S. taxpayer dollars and thousands of service member lives.

Is 2025 Washington making the same mistake the Bush administration did in 2003? Marco Rubio says no, but for a different reason than you may expect.

Rather than justifying America’s act of war by assuring the public that Iran absolutely, positively was on the verge of developing nuclear weapons like the war hawks insist, Rubio on Sunday said it doesn’t even matter if Tehran was building a bomb. The U.S. had to attack regardless.

“That’s irrelevant!” the secretary of state barked when asked if he knows for sure that Iran’s supreme leader had ordered nuclear weaponization. “I see that question being asked in the media all the time. That’s an irrelevant question.”

We disagree. We think whether the stated reason for bombing Iran is legitimate is very important. The American people deserve to know if their government is lying to them about its motives for engaging in yet another Middle Eastern war. Rubio’s defensiveness is a bad sign.

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Some historically anti-interventionist Republicans are putting their tails between their legs and applauding America’s latest Middle Eastern bombing campaign because a president they like pulled the trigger. Others, like Representative Thomas Massie, are staying true to their principles.

The Kentucky congressman slammed this weekend’s attacks on Sunday, saying Iran posed “no imminent threat” that warranted the strikes’ authorization.

“There were no imminent threats to the United States, which was what would authorize that,” Massie said on CBS News.

The comment came in response to Mike Johnson claiming “the Article One power of Congress really allows for the president to do this.” Massie also tweeted that Saturday’s offensive was “not Constitutional” after Donald Trump announced its completion.

The president responded by calling the America First congressman “not MAGA” and a “LOSER” on Truth Social.

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Although it rarely crosses people’s minds, the Strait of Hormuz has a major impact on the day-to-day lives of every single American. Approximately 20% of the world’s oil supply flows through the narrow Middle Eastern waterway, meaning its closure could disrupt roughly $1 billion in daily oil shipments.

What would happen to the global and U.S. economies if the channel shut down? We may soon find out.

The Iranian Parliament voted to close the strait on Sunday, endorsing a measure to shut off global use of the passage in response to America’s nuclear center strikes. Although Iran lacks the legal authority to make such a move, its location next to the waterway gives it the ability to block vessels from entering or exiting without the use of force. The country’s Supreme Council will not decide whether or not to approve the parliament’s decision.

Last week, an Economist/YouGov poll showed that only 16% of Americans support U.S. involvement in the war with Iran. It’s worth wondering if energy prices shooting through the roof would cause that number to decrease even further.

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The Department of Homeland Security issued a terrorism alert on Sunday, warning of possible Iranian attacks against the U.S. following Saturday’s airstrikes on Tehran’s nuclear facilities.

“The likelihood of violent extremists in the Homeland independently mobilizing to violence in response to the conflict would likely increase if Iranian leadership issued a religious ruling calling for retaliatory violence against targets in the Homeland,” the agency said in a statement.

Officials also warned that the chances of cyberattacks and antisemitic provocations are likely to increase. If they do, expect Washington to tell America it is being targeted for its freedoms, not because it waged an act of war.

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It’s no secret that permanent Washington hates Donald Trump. His political career has represented a threat to their beloved status quo, and they’ve used every dirty trick in the book to try to shut it down. But that could be changing.

Now that the president has embraced the decades-old tradition of Middle Eastern interventionism, some of the establishment’s most loyal creatures are emerging from the swamp’s shadows to shower him with praise. We’re sure you can guess the roster.

John Bolton, one of the Iraq War’s chief architects who now frequents cable news to shamelessly promote the neocon agenda. Adam Kinzinger, who’s spent three years dreaming of American boots on the ground in Russia but would doubtlessly be happy to settle for Iran. And of course, Mike Pence, who is more than willing to brush his personal loathing for Trump aside in the name of plunging the United States into a new foreign conflict.

These men and others like them may chastise the president over issues that don’t really matter, but they’re thrilled to reverse course when he flirts with the George Bush-style foreign policy that dominated the 2000s. Few things would bring them more joy than its return.

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Donald Trump announced the completion of America’s attacks on Iran while we were at a dinner party with friends. One of them is an active-duty Marine. We’ll never forget his reaction to the news.

The shock was immediate. Although the possibility of the United States waging an act of war in Iran had of course been on his mind, finding out that it was no longer a hypothetical, that it had actually happened, elicited emotions that would be impossible to fake. The liveliness of the evening vanished from his face, replaced by a look you’d expect from someone who’d just learned of a tragic family house fire.

“I don’t want my friends to die,” he said as he stared at the floor, racing to grasp the calamity of what he’d just learned. “I just don’t want my friends to die.”

We’re sorry to report this, but there is a real possibility that his nightmare plays out. Before the strikes, Iran’s president vowed to “destroy” any country that assaulted his government’s nuclear facilities. Now that the U.S. has done precisely that, our military is overwhelmingly likely to face Iranian retaliation. Tehran has plenty of targets to choose from.

As stated in a weekend report, the U.S. currently has over 40,000 troops and Defense Department civilians stationed in the Middle East. Nearly 14,000 in Kuwait, 2,500 in neighboring Iraq, and thousands more in Jordan, Qatar, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates.

Every single one of those men and women is now a sitting duck, facing the very real possibility of losing their lives thanks to Washington once again inserting America into a war in the Middle East. That is true no matter how many Top Gun-style fighter jet videos or Old Glory images those cheering loudest for this war share on social media. Thousands of Americans could soon die.

We don’t expect cooler heads to prevail, but we hope they do. If they don’t, the neocons will have some serious explaining to do to the families of the perished. We pray it doesn’t come to that.