Conservative commentator Bill O’Reilly has said he is “haunted” by the warning he gave President Donald Trump earlier this year against waging war with Iran as the conflict enters its sixth month.
Appearing on NewsNation’s On Balance with Leland Vittert this week, O’Reilly was asked about Trump’s dire approval rating and how it might impact Republican candidates in November’s midterms.
Vittert cited a new Reuters/Ipsos poll that found that just 35 percent approve of the job the president is doing compared to 63 percent disapproving and a Quinnipiac University survey finding that 49 percent of Americans feel worse off financially under his leadership.
O’Reilly insisted all would be well once the Iran fight was brought to a close but admitted to Vittert: “My own words haunt me.”
He explained: “In February, I talked to the president, just him and me. I said this is the biggest gamble you have ever taken in your entire life messing around with these people. They’re irrational.
“They are like the militants in Japan in World War II, in Germany in World War II, they’re not going to surrender. It’s going to be exceedingly difficult, and you cannot count on the Persians to overthrow them.
“So my words haunt me, because it’s exactly how it came down.”
The host asked his guest if he believed Trump was “intentionally sort of playing along” with Iran so that he could announce a peace deal closer to the midterms, delivering his side a much needed boost just before voters go to the polls.
O’Reilly scoffed at the idea and said: “No, if he could get out of that thing now, tonight, he would.”
In his latest comments on Iran, Trump warned Tehran it would be “hit very hard” unless the Strait of Hormuz was reopened imminently, although he also said that an “all-day negotiation” was staged Tuesday and had ended positively.
His rhetoric on the war has see-sawed throughout the conflict, however, and on Monday he had taken to Truth Social to label the regime “unbelievably duplicitous.”
“They ask for a meeting, some would say ‘beg,’ talks begin, with more scheduled in the immediate future, and they say, openly and proudly, that they’re not having any discussions, that nothing is being talked about, and they’re only dealing with ‘Oman,’” the president griped.
Eyebrows were also raised earlier this week when it emerged that an officer in the intelligence branch of U.S. Central Command had emailed a group of military analysts asking for “creative and unconventional ways to pressure and punish Iran.”
The crowdsourcing appeal added to the growing impression that an “exasperated” Trump and his top advisers do not have a clear strategy in place for drawing a line under the war.
