The Trump-hostile, intervention-hating and Tehran-raised Christiane Amanpour, host of the PBS (and CNN International) show Amanpour & Co., devoted the first 20 minutes of Wednesday’s show to interviewing ranting liberal Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) about President Trump’s frightening incompetence and lack of planning before Israel and U.S. fighters took out Iran’s dictatorial leadership.
The slant came right out of the gate: "Conflicting rationales, moving goalposts, and still no day-after plan as the latest U.S.-Israel war on Iran expands. I ask Senate Democrat Chris Murphy has the U.S. got into something it doesn't know how to get out of?" Democrats will always find the Republicans unwise.
Amanpour found declarations of victory "chilling."
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: …..... While the U.S. says its heaviest attacks are still to come. His defense secretary, Pete Hegseth.
PETE HEGSETH, U.S. DEFENSE SECRETARY: I stand before you today with one unmistakable message about operation Epic Fury. America is winning, decisively devastatingly and without mercy.
AMANPOUR: Chilling! But five days in, the Trump administration is trying to project a clear and unified message after failing quite spectacularly to answer basic questions about the mission, including its objective justification, day after plan, and exit strategy. It's been called a war of choice by many since there was no imminent Iranian threat according to experts and analysts....
Encouraged thusly by Amanpour, Murphy spouted, “This is about as incoherent incompetence and confusing a rollout of military action overseas as I've ever seen.”
Amanpour set Murphy up with a question she knew the answer to, about how the war was polling poorly among Americans. Then she moved on to a question about Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urging the Iranian people to rise up, then used Murphy’s response to pre-condemn Trump’s supposed future inaction, by failing to send ground troops.
MURPHY: It seems that we are readying to leave the Iranian people out to dry, that we're going to tell them get out on the streets, and then we're going to give them no support. Reminiscent of Hungary during the Cold War, Iraq in the 1990s, there could be a slaughter afoot because the Iranian people think that the United States has their back. But Donald Trump, I don't think, has any intention to go that far.
AMANPOUR: That would be a terrible betrayal, Senator. The president has stood up in public over and again, urging them and promising them help is on the way. I know that Hegseth yesterday said this is not about regime change. So, what's changed, do you think?
After years of assailing him as dishonest, Amanpour couldn’t believe it when Trump didn’t sugarcoat the uncertainties of war (a statement even Murphy reluctantly assented to).
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: I guess the worst case would be we do this and then somebody takes over who's as bad as the previous person, right? That could happen. We don't want that to happen. It would probably be the worst. You go through this and then in five years, you realize you put somebody in who is no better.
AMANPOUR: I mean, honestly, it beggars belief. I mean, I literally cannot believe it.
That’s Amanpour’s knee-jerk hostility to Trump on display. Would Amanpour have preferred optimistic talk of being greeted as liberators, like in Iraq?
Amanpour indulged in a little nasty anti-Israel paranoia, as she is wont to do.
AMANPOUR: It's really hard to listen to this because it goes against all the things that the administration told us, that the Israelis told us. I want to just go back to what you said at the beginning. I think you said that, you know -- and Trump and Rubio had different things to say about who's wagging the dog, so to speak. Is this Trump being rolled or rumbled by Netanyahu, or is it Trump going willingly along with Netanyahu? Is this in the best Israeli interest or the best American interest, what's happening right now?....
After more ranting from Murphy, he went in for the tiresome, unsourced “Epstein” shot.
MURPHY: ….Maybe Trump was trying to distract from rising prices and the fact that he's probably at the middle of the biggest child sex scandal in the history of the country….
