Daniel Radcliffe | (EXTENDED) Foreign Policy Expert Brett McGurk
The Late Show Pod Show with Stephen Colbert
CBS
4.4 • 2.3K Ratings
🗓️ 3 March 2026
⏱️ 33 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
President Trump still hasn’t told the American people why he’s bombing Iran, the U.S. and Israel have sent mixed messages about whether the goal is regime change, and Secretary Hegseth boasted that the military will disregard customary rules of engagement during this campaign. Brett McGurk, CNN national security analyst and former Middle East advisor to four presidents, warns in this EXTENDED conversation that President Trump has entered into a war without communicating clear objectives and a clear plan on how to achieve them. Tony-winner Daniel Radcliffe explains that while his new Broadway show “Every Brilliant Thing” is technically a one-man-show, the high level of audience participation ensures that he’s not acting alone every night.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Welcome to The Late Show, everybody. I'm your host Stephen Colbert. |
| 0:10.4 | Look, I don't need to tell y'all what's going on over the weekend. |
| 0:14.9 | The United States and Israel conducted a massive bombing campaign against Iran. |
| 0:19.7 | We now face an unpredictable and unstable situation |
| 0:23.0 | that brings me to my long-running segment. |
| 0:28.8 | America at what? |
| 0:34.8 | We haven't run that graphic in six years. |
| 0:38.7 | I said long-running, not frequent. |
| 0:40.8 | This military mission has been dubbed Operation Epic Fury. |
| 0:46.2 | Fun fact. No. |
| 0:49.0 | Fun fact, Epic Fury is an anagram for Forget Epstein. |
| 0:54.4 | Now, right off the top. |
| 0:58.3 | Can we check that? |
| 0:59.8 | Can we check? Make sure that's the case. |
| 1:01.1 | Fact check that? |
| 1:02.0 | Now, right off the top, I want to point out that an open-ended war of choice in the Middle East |
| 1:07.0 | with no clear exit strategy or defined victory is where I got on this train. And in the last |
| 1:13.3 | 25 years of talking about this stuff on TV, I have learned not to stand up here and say like |
| 1:18.1 | Moses on the mountaintop on day three of a new war, whether this is going to be a good or this |
| 1:23.0 | is going to be a bad. But I will definitely say that we have no clear idea where this is going or why it's going |
| 1:30.6 | there. Now say what you want about George W. Bush, and I did. Okay. He sold. That guy went |
| 1:38.9 | out there. He sold his Middle East war. That's what the W stood for. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from CBS, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of CBS and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.