Conservative media personality and former Fox News host Megyn Kelly sharply criticized President Donald Trump’s handling of the recent U.S.–Iran conflict, describing the resulting ceasefire as resembling a “surrender” by the United States—even as she acknowledged supporting the decision to end the fighting.
Speaking in an interview on Piers Morgan Uncensored, Kelly offered a blunt assessment of the agreement reached between the Trump administration and Iranian officials, a two-week ceasefire brokered with the help of Pakistani mediators.
“You got to say, the deal sounds very much like surrender on our part, which I’m in favor of. I mean, great. This needed to end, ugly, or any other way, it needed to end. It was folly to begin with. It was folly throughout. It remains folly,” Kelly told Morgan.
The ceasefire came shortly before a deadline Trump imposed for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a critical global shipping route. Despite the pause in hostilities, Trump warned that U.S. forces would remain positioned in and around Iran and could carry out further strikes if Tehran failed to comply with a broader agreement.
Yet Kelly’s critique extended far beyond the ceasefire itself. In a wide-ranging and at times blistering exchange with Morgan, she questioned how the conflict began and why Trump embraced it in the first place—pointing in particular to the influence of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“What led Trump, what, at 79 years old, to sit in there in that situation room when Bibi Netanyahu was seated as an equal?” she asked. “Trump didn’t even sit at the head of the table. Trump sat at the side of the tables and Bibi was across from him as an equal in the American situation room. What led him to sit there and buy what that guy was selling hook, line, and sinker when every other president was able to see through that liar? What was it?”
Kelly cited reporting from journalist Maggie Haberman and co-author Jonathan Swan, which described internal skepticism from top U.S. officials—including CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio—about intelligence presented by Netanyahu.
“Because he was told the next day by our own top advisers, from the chairman of the Joint Chiefs to the secretary of state to the vice president, that these are lies and that these objectives are not going to be attainable. Don’t believe him!” Kelly said.
She acknowledged that limited military gains may have been possible but rejected the broader claims made by Trump about the outcome of the conflict.
“We might be able to wipe out the Ayatollah, not regime change, Ayatollah. And we might be able to decimate some portion of their missiles and their military. OK, that’s true,” she said. “But the goals as stated by Trump when we did pull the trigger. We’re all over the board into this moment.”
Kelly was especially critical of Trump’s assertion that the U.S. had achieved regime change in Iran.
“He’s pushing the BS claim that we effected regime change. No, we didn’t! It’s the same regime, just different players. There isn’t somebody more moderate in there at all. We have no reason to believe that.”
Instead, she argued, the outcome may have strengthened more hardline elements within Iran.
“In fact, it looks like the Iranian Revolutionary Guard is in control now, which is far more radical. And the fatwa that had allegedly been issued by the Ayatollah on developing nukes is gone.”
She added that Iran now appears to hold increased leverage, both economically and strategically.
“Iran is more powerful economically. It controls the Strait and now is demanding the lifting of all sanctions against it.”
Kelly also criticized what she described as Trump’s shifting position on a proposed 10-point plan to resolve the conflict.
“And what Trump did with that 10-point plan was go from Monday saying, no, not good, to Tuesday saying, very workable. We can do it as a means of saving face to bail off of his insane threats about annihilating an entire civilization.”
Her frustration extended to Trump’s rhetoric more broadly, including social media posts in which he referenced extreme military action.
“I don’t know about you, but I am sick of this s—! I’m just — I’m sick of it. Can’t he just behave like a normal human? I mean, honestly, like the president — ‘3D chess’ — just shut up,” she said on her podcast. “F—ing shut up about that s—! You don’t threaten to wipe out an entire civilization. We’re talking about civilians, just casually in a social media post.”
Ultimately, Kelly placed responsibility for the conflict on a combination of external influence and presidential decision-making.
“So I don’t know how we got here, Piers. I’d like to know just as much as anybody else, but all I can think in my head, based on what I’ve read in the paper, is we got her thanks to Bibi Netanyahu, Lindsey Graham, and Mark Levin.”
“And ultimately, President Trump, that’s not to take agency away from the president, who was bamboozled. I don’t know why he was too weak to say no. He was too gullible to see through the lies.”
“One way or another, he allowed himself to be pushed into this insane conflict.”
Watch the full video here.
Kelly; GET A LIFE!
You are neither a conservative ( you’re a RINO ), nor a rational thinker.
If Iran was to be allowed to develop nuclear bombs, and a missile delivery system for those bombs that could reach the U.S., Iran would most certainly use those bombs on us!
But then we’d hear the libs yell and howl that Trump didn’t do enough to stop Iran from getting those ‘articles’ which they, in this scenario, used against us.
And we’d, then, have a great many dead Americans and a much bigger war to have to fight against Iran ( and possibly other commie nations too ).
Trump is damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t, in the view of the libs.
In my view; I agree with MOST ( not all ) of what Trump is doing and has done!
I consider him one of, if not the best, president this country has ever had ( although I am not in favor at all of some of his poor use of language. STOP CUSSING! ).
NO fool its a Pause NOT surrender
Surrender is when all Iran is wasted or the Govt regime is