Name: ‘Amateur hour’: Buttigieg slams Trump, Hegseth’s Iran war approach
Uploaded: 2026-03-15T21:32:02.000Z
Duration: 9 min 41 s
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Secretary Hegseth went so far as to say that the Strait of Hormuz is open.

Adverbs of manner

Other than the fact that there would be fire against vehicles transiting the strait, this is clearly amateur hour as the war in the Middle east escalates.

My next guest says that we've seen this movie before.

Joining us now, former Transportation Secretary and Afghan war veteran Pete Buttigieg.

I want to play something that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said earlier this week about how this war differs from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

This is not endless nation building under those types of quagmires we saw under Bush or Obama.

Our generation of soldier will not let that happen again.

You're also a part of that generation of soldier.

What I'm worried about is not the soldiers and the people who are serving.

What I'm worried about is their political leadership.

You know, we lived through a war that was sold to us on false pretenses when I was younger.

This war has not been sold on any pretense.

The president just went ahead and did it.

Here's the biggest thing that has not changed since the war in Afghanistan or the war in Iraq.

The biggest thing that has not changed is who pays the price.

We have now seen 13American service members killed.

And when you prepare to go to war, the thing you think about, the thing you most dread, is your family being the ones to get that knock on the door.

More than a dozen American families have now gotten that knock on the door.

And the president has basically assured us that there will be more where that came from.

And while they're paying the ultimate price, every American is paying some price right now.

Mortgage rates are up because of this war.

Food is going to be more expensive because of this war.

And of course, the price of gas that we're paying at the pump is more expensive because because of this war.

So the Trump administration argues that they needed to take action to take out Iran's nuclear weapons program and Iran's ballistic missile program because when they came into office, the Biden administration, your administration, had done nothing in four years to stop Iran from building a nuclear weapon, developing ballistic missiles, funding terrorism around the world.

I mean, for one thing, the president assured us that the nuclear program, President Trump assured us that the nuclear program was, in his words, obliterated just a few months ago.

And let's also remember that in the past, Iran's nuclear program was contained without a shot being fired.

President Trump thought he could get a better deal than the Obama administration did.

he went off and launched a war without planning, without being ready for even some of the most basic things.

I mean, it is a certainty that the military would have advised him that the Straits of Hormuz would have been closed, that that was a likely scenario.

And yet they're talking about this and clearly acting as though they didn't think this would happen.

Other than the fact that there would be fire against vehicles transiting the strait.

This is clearly amateur hour at the Pentagon and in the White House.

And again, the price is being paid by all of us.

You can also just tell from the administration's attitude toward this war, the fact that they're putting out videos, treating this like a video game.

This is not a video game for the families of the fallen.

And then just this week, we saw campaign fundraising materials being put out, emails where the President's committee, The president's political operation, was raising money off of images of him at a dignified transfer.

Any politician who does that has no business leading American troops in the war.

If the president is willing to raise campaign funds over the bodies of America's war dead, he is unfit to be the commander in chief.

Congressman, I mean, President Trump just said a few hours ago on social media that Iran has been beaten.

This has been the big mistake of the administration.

You can argue we never should have done anything with the war, but

I would say the biggest mistake is just not preparing the American people for it.

And then when you realize this is going to take a few days longer than you think right now, a couple weeks longer, then it's just constantly, oh, that's right, we already won, though.

And I think the President, in his own way, we've seen this before, is panicking because the market takes a hit, because people are turning against him, and

I just think he needs to level with people and say what the truth is.

That's the leveling with the American people.

Because in January, President Trump was saying help is on the way.

And now it seems pretty clear that regime change is not necessarily in the cards.

And the Iranian people are squeezed between the airstrikes and a regime that is extremely brutal.

I mean, people tell me that there are roadblocks Everywhere.

An 88 year old was telling me that he was made, forced to get off his car to open up his trunk at a gunpoint.

Tehran was under intense bombing last night and so was the city of Isfahan.

And people are just waiting, waiting to see what's going to happen.

The reason you're hearing some uncertainty or mixed signals is because they have two choices.

We're going to end Iran's military capabilities and end their ability to project terror and force abroad.

The second choice is whether you take their oil infrastructure out, their oil export infrastructure.

If it looks like there's going to be a regime that rises in place in Iran that we could deal with and it would be peaceful for the region, you'd leave that infrastructure intact.

If it's not going to happen, it's not going to happen.

I'm just telling you it's not going to happen.

Like, I mean, just, I don't see, at least at this point, any notion that there's going to be some sort of reasonable government.

then in that case, we have to leave it decapitated militarily and unable to export oil to China and Russia.

You've been out there talking to people in the field about the midterms.

Are the American people engaged in the war?