Ted Cruz Faceplants on the Case for War With Iran
Bulwark Takes
The Bulwark
4.7 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 1 March 2026
⏱️ 13 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Sam Stein and Will Saletan watched the the Sunday shows and give their takes on the spin after the U.S. strikes on Iran, zeroing in on the mixed messaging from Republican lawmakers defending the action. From Lindsey Graham insisting it’s “not our job” to shape Iran’s future, to Ted Cruz struggling to define an imminent threat, the hawkish case for war raises more questions than it answers. They unpack the interventionists’ victory inside Trump world, the rejection of “you break it, you own it,” and the vague comparisons to a so-called Venezuela model that doesn’t seem to apply.
Transcript
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| 0:34.4 | with Indeed. Hey, everybody. It's me, Sam Stein, managing editor of the Bullwark. |
| 0:38.3 | I'm joined by Will Salton, and we're here to talk about how lawmakers, specifically |
| 0:42.9 | some of the Republicans, are talking, spinning, explaining the war that we've launched |
| 0:50.7 | in Iran. |
| 0:51.7 | Will, it was kind of a tour to force for a few of them on the Sunday shows, but in particular, |
| 0:57.1 | the one that stood out to me was Lindsay Graham, who, you know, the guy likes this stuff. |
| 1:03.0 | Let's just be honest about it. |
| 1:04.7 | He was on there, and he had basically, I wouldn't call it contradictory rationales for what was going on here. |
| 1:11.9 | What I would say is he didn't really have a good rationale. |
| 1:15.6 | I mean, he said, well, we're taking out bad guys. |
| 1:18.3 | And then the natural follow-up was, what does that mean? |
| 1:22.0 | What's the end game? |
| 1:24.5 | And there was really nothing. |
| 1:26.1 | I mean, frankly, nothing. |
| 1:27.0 | We'll play the clip in a second, |
| 1:28.1 | but I guess I was a little bit taken aback at how open they are to the idea that there is no |
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