Transcript

How the Trump Admin Will Avoid a "Quagmire" in Iran PLUS Next Steps on Greenland, with VP JD Vance

From Megyn Kelly · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 14 min · 3,069 words · 31 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "How the Trump Admin Will Avoid a "Quagmire" in Iran PLUS Next Steps on Greenland, with VP JD Vance", an episode of Megyn Kelly published February 4, 2026 (14 min, about 3,069 words). It mentions 5 people, works and ideas, including Donald Trump, Iran, Greenland, Bill and Hillary Clinton.

What this episode is about

The discussion focuses on the contrasting perspectives within the Republican Party regarding U.S. foreign policy, particularly towards Iran, where one faction prioritizes domestic issues and sees national interests being sidelined, while another advocates for a more aggressive stance to support Iranian protesters. Vice President JD Vance defends President Trump's approach, arguing that his foreign policy efforts are intertwined with enhancing American prosperity and security through investment and reindustrialization.

Key takeaways

  • Trump's critics say focus on Iran distracts from domestic woes; but foreign threats loom larger than they seem.
  • Investment trends indicate a reversal; foreign money is now revitalizing American industry instead of the other way around.
  • Nuclear proliferation worries aren't just rhetoric; one rogue state with nukes could ignite a chaotic arms race in the Middle East.
  • The president walks a diplomatic tightrope: appeasing hawks while considering long-term solutions over immediate militaristic responses.
  • America's choice isn't merely freedom versus tyranny; it's navigating a complex web of regional power dynamics and historical entanglements.

Who speaks in this episode?

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 3:00: Iran, Donald Trump
  2. – 6:00: Bill and Hillary Clinton
  3. – 9:00: Greenland
  4. – 12:00: Donald Trump
  5. – 14:04: Birch Gold Group

Notable quotes from "How the Trump Admin Will Avoid a "Quagmire" in Iran PLUS Next Steps on Greenland, with VP JD Vance"

  • Don't think people look, the president is going to have to engage in foreign policy. But this president, I think, is much more focused on the home front than any president in…
    about Donald Trump · at
  • On Operation Midnight Hammer. What he has been very clear on if you go back to 2015, 2016, 2021, 2025, the president has said consistently, we can't let these people have a nuclear weapon. Now, why does that matter to America?
    about Iran · at
  • Worried about the next 30 years. We have to make sure that you don't look what I really worry about, and I think this is, obviously I disagree a lot with Bill Clinton, but Bill…
    about Bill and Hillary Clinton · at
  • More than we originally had. So first of all, again, I think it's important to define the interest here. Greenland is very important to America's national security. Our entire…
    about Greenland · at
  • Birch Gold can help you convert an existing IRA or 401k into an IRA in gold. Just text MK to the number 989898 to receive your free info kit on gold.
    about Birch Gold Group · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

  • Donald Trump — Person · Referenced political leader / decision-maker · 2 mentions · first at
    Central reference point for the discussion of 'America First' foreign policy, Iran nuclear red lines, diplomacy vs. military action, and alliance realignment (NATO/Europe, Russia/China).
  • Bill and Hillary Clinton — Person · Referenced political comparator / criticized prior president · 1 mention · first at
    Invoked as a contrast case on nuclear proliferation policy—speaker claims Clinton 'let North Korea have a nuclear weapon' to argue for stricter nonproliferation toward Iran.

Places & events

  • Iran — Place · Setting · 2 mentions · first at
    Central to the discussion about U.S. foreign policy, nuclear proliferation, and the Republican party's internal factions.
  • Greenland — Place · Setting · 4 mentions · first at
    Discussed in the context of U.S. national security and missile defense systems.

Sponsors

  • Birch Gold Group — Product · Sponsor · 1 mention · first at
    Promoted as a solution for diversifying savings into precious metals amidst economic uncertainty.

Full transcript with timestamps

There's a very large faction of the Republican party that says, "What are we talking about Iran for? What do you mean America first? Let's focus on our own problems, affordability, all these things." And they think President Trump has spent too much time focused on overseas issues anyway. And they definitely don't want to get involved in Iran. And then there's a larger faction, another faction that is also large that's more neoconi that says, "We missed an opportunity. We let those protesters down. You know, the windows closing. We should be more aggressive militarily. They are right now."

Where do you fall? Well, so first of all, I I hear the criticisms out there that the administration is too focused on foreign policy. I just have to defend the president. I don't think that's true. I think that certainly when you're the president of the United States, you do have to conduct foreign policy. We're the most powerful country in the world. But what I see him every day, he's laser focused on how do we make the American people more prosperous and more secure in their own country. That's what our immigration policy is about, which we've taken a raft of crap over. Uh that's what our crime policy is about. That's, you know, even the foreign policy stuff.

Much of the president's foreign policy has been focused on reshoring industry, on using tariffs to force people to reinvest in the United States of America. So the global criticism, I just don't think people look, the president is going to have to engage in foreign policy. But this president, I think, is much more focused on the home front than any president in my lifetime. And he's gotten a lot I mean, look, $18 trillion in new investment. The country's finally starting to re-industrialize from other countries who are investing into the United States of America. That has been the exact opposite for our our entire lives, Megan. It has been American money building factories overseas. Now it's other money coming in to build factories for American workers and the American people. That's big. By the way, we're not going to see the full benefits of that for years, maybe even a decade. But that's the sort of investment in the

country that really pays long-term dividends. Now, Iran specifically, like what should we do with Iran? Okay, a couple things. First of all, it's the president's decision. He will ultimately decide how we handle this particular Iranian situation just like he decided on Operation Midnight Hammer. What he has been very clear on if you go back to 2015, 2016, 2021, 2025, the president has said consistently, we can't let these people have a nuclear weapon. Now, why why does that matter to America? Number one, the world's largest state sponsor of terrorism, like you you you think it's bad when we have a domestic terror attack where a couple of people die, and you're right. What happens when the same people who are shooting up a mall or driving airplanes into buildings have a nuclear weapon? That is unacceptable. And it's not just them because if the Iranians get a nuclear weapon, you know who gets a nuclear

weapon like the next day? The Saudi Arabians. And then somebody else in the Gulf Arab state. And so you have nuclear proliferation on a global scale. The biggest threat to security in the world is a lot of people having nuclear weapons. So what the president has said is Iran's not going to get a nuclear weapon. We're going to work with China and Russia and any country, whether they're friend or whether we're a little more competitive to try to draw down the amount of nuclear weapons that exist in the world. I think that's the most important thing you could do for peace and stability.

And and the question is, what do you do to enforce that red line? Okay, Iran can't have a nuclear weapon. That is the stated policy goal of the president of the United States. It's so funny. Sometimes you have people who are saying, well, the president's too belligerent. And then sometimes you have people who say, "Well, the president he he's talking about diplomacy and he's talking about negotiating with the Iranians. We shouldn't negotiate. We should just bomb them." What the president's going to do is is he's going to keep his options open. He's going to talk to everybody. He's going to try to accomplish what he can through non-military means. And if he feels like the military is the only option, then he's ultimately going to choose that option. I I I I can't I'm not obviously even if I knew what we were going to do, I would not tell you. Uh and your and your many millions of listeners, but I I

feel like people have to remember this is not about like look, I grew up in the Iraq generation. I literally I enlisted I enlisted in in the Marine Corps as an idealistic young kid right after 9/11.

I went to Iraq in 2000 or I enlisted in 2003. I went to Iraq in 2005. I am very cognizant that the Middle East leads to quagmireers. Trust me, so is the president of the United States and we're we're hearing that. We we know that's out there. But more importantly, we know the history and the president does not he has no interest in repeating the history of Iraq. What he does want to make sure is that there's a totally separate issue which is you don't let crazy people get nuclear weapons and then lead to a nuclear arms race all over the world. This is this I mean you're tell you you tell me whether this is about nuclear weapons right now or not. But what we're seeing in Iran is these protests on the street. Not as much anymore because they've been killing a lot of the protesters. But it's should we go in there and help the protesters get rid of this regime? Like get rid of the Ayatollah, which

let's face it, it's much different in Iran. The regime goes well beyond the Ayatollah. It's not like Venezuela where take Maduro.

It's a lot more complex. Even if we got rid of the Ayatollah, there'd be a whole bunch of others just like him, part of the regime. And so the last thing most Americans want to hear is what we heard in Venezuela, which is now we're running Iran.

Yeah. The president is very aware of all this stuff, Megan. But I'll tell you, you know, protests, you know, counter regime. I mean, look, in a perfect world, what I love it, if a bunch of freedom loving Iranians, who, by the way, are amazing. They're brave people. If you know anything about the Persian people, they're like an incredible group of human beings. If they took over their own country and had a government that was much more friendly to the United States of America, would that be a good thing? Absolutely, that would be a good thing. But fundamentally, what the president has always been focused on, even with this most recent round of protests, you saw, I think his most recent truth, or at least one of the more recent communications he made about Iran, it's nuclear weapons base. We are still focused on this question of ensuring they don't get a nuclear weapon. And here's the good thing.

Because of what happened last summer, I feel 100% confident that even if the Iranians were rushing towards a nuclear weapon, they couldn't get one during the Trump administration. But we're not worried about the next three years, worried about the next 30 years. We have to make sure that you don't look

what I really worry about, and I think this is, you know, obviously I disagree a lot with Bill Clinton, but Bill Clinton fundamentally decided, you know what, we're just going to let North Korea have a nuclear weapon. We're not going to do anything to stop it. What happens if 30 years from now the number of nuclear countries it's less than 10, maybe about 10. What if it goes to 100? What if every military in the world has a nuclear weapon? What if a crazy person gets elected in some random outpost of the world that you and I couldn't even find on a map and now all of a sudden a crazy guy has access to nuclear weapons?

Nuclear proliferation that is very much a bad thing and something an America first foreign policy should focus on. That is certainly where the president is most worried about

when it comes to defending uh the homeland. The president's been looking northward to Greenland and to Canada.

But he's been very focused on Greenland. Yes. And you tell me what we got that made him say, "Okay, now I'm happy." Because he gave that speech at the UN like we need to have Greenland and we need to own it because no one would defend something on lease. Yeah. But then by the end of the UN uh summit, he came out saying, "Yeah, we're satisfied, but we seem to only have gotten permission that we might have had already to build more military bases on a couple of their outposts."

No, we we we definitely have gotten much more than we originally had. So So first of all, again, I think it's important to define the interest here. Greenland is very important to America's national security. Our entire missile defense system, by the way, would be inoperable if the Russians or the Chinese controlled Greenland. So, God forbid, I don't think it's going to happen to be clear, but god forbid some foreign country launches a missile, an ICBM at the United States of America, we couldn't defend ourselves if a foreign country controlled Greenland. And by the way, the Chinese and the Russians have both expressed an interest in controlling Greenland. Okay, so what is the defensive mechanism for Greenland?

You have a population of about 60,000 people on a massive territory, right? That that's like the size of my hometown and I didn't grow up in a big town. And then on top of that, you have Denmark, which has been one of the better NATO allies to be clear, but has still radically underinvested in security compared to the Russians and the Chinese. So the president has said very simply, we are on the hook for this island. Like it's one of those unwritten rules that everybody knows that if the Chinese and the Russians affected one of our critical missile defense systems, we would necessarily defend that. But we're not getting anything for it. This is an unfair situation. The United States has no ownership over this island and we don't get any of the benefit. So, let's actually rewrite the rules here a little bit and say if the United States is going to protect the entire world's missile defense system, primarily our

own, but other people benefit from it, we should get some benefit from the bargain. Now, it's interesting because I actually was sitting in this room um one of the rare times I've used this ceremonial office for official business. Me and Marco and a lot of the the leaders from Denmark and Greenland had a great conversation and it's funny when you see

this one where they ran for their cigarettes when they exited the building. Maybe I think they did. They were stressed.

I did not follow up. I I I did not see what they did afterwards. We had a good meeting. It's so funny to me because the Europeans, they're so friendly in private and they're willing to make a lot of accommodations and then publicly they attack us and they say, "We're not going to work with the Americans. We're not going to do anything with the Americans." I'm sorry. It's all bogus. We all know, everybody knows that this situation is going to come to a resolution. I think it's going to be a resolution that's good for Europe. Most importantly, it'll be a resolution that's good for the United States of America. But the idea that they haven't made any accommodations or concessions to the United States, it's not true.

Are we at the beginning of a new world order where we move away from Europe and toward anything else, maybe even potentially Russia if we can get past what's happened here? I mean, there's a real question about that given some of the speeches you've made to the European Union, some of the speeches that President Trump has made,

what's happening culturally in Europe, what's their crackdowns of on free speech, and they they just look less and less like we do.

Yeah. And there's a real question about whether there's a massive shift happening now in terms of world alliances long term.

Well, there's definitely, I think, a new world order. I think the president has sought to it. There's a new world order in trade. There's a new world order in globalization and the way that we invest in our economy versus, you know, foreign supply chains. uh there's a new world order and and that the president is willing to shake up some old alliance structures. I mean NATO I think is much different because of the president's leadership than it was 10 years ago. Sort of coasting. It was effectively a protectorate of the United States of America. Obviously you saw what happened in Venezuela. So yeah, the president is putting his stamp on world history but fundamentally in an America first way.

Like that that is the orienting focus. And so when people say well you can't work with with Putin on anything because you disagree with the Ukraine invasion. Well, the president said very clearly, Putin should not have invaded Ukraine. We're going to try to work and bring that to an end, but there might be some areas of cooperation, too. His attitude is not, you're our friend, you're our enemy. We're going to go to war with our enemies, and we're going to be, you know, we're going to give our friends everything without asking questions. His attitude is, we're about alliances. And you could have a country where we have a 90% aligned interest, but we're going to disagree on 10% of issues. Meanwhile, we may disagree with Russia on a lot, but we may agree on some things. And I and I do think that is a fundamental reorientation. The other thing that's much different, Megan, about the president's foreign policy and just the

way that he does business, and it's look, there there's a lot that I've learned from him, but this is nearly at the top of the list of the things I admire about the president of the United States, is he will talk to anybody. Like, you know, when he was thinking about who to make as vice president, he was talking to the gardener at Mara Lago. He told me that and I said, "Well, sir, what did the gardener at Mara Lago said? This really matters to my life. And but but you know when people say you shouldn't talk to this person, right?

You shouldn't talk to Kim Jong-un of North Korea because that's that gives him something for nothing. No, I'm going to have a conversation. We're going to actually conduct diplomacy. If we have to use the military, he's obviously not afraid to do it when he feels like he needs to. But the willingness to just communicate and break down barriers is very important. This is by the way, Megan, one thing I would say about the Iranians that is just really weird to me and I don't understand their system and I frankly think that it makes diplomacy with them extraordinarily difficult is the person who makes the decisions in Iran is the supreme leader. Okay, the president arson senses doesn't have a lot of Jews doesn't really matter. The foreign minister seems to talk to the supreme leader and that's mainly the person that we've communicated with. But it's a very weird country to conduct diplomacy with when you can't even talk

to the person who's in charge of the country. That makes all of this much more complicated. And uh it it makes the whole situation much more absurd. Like he can pick up the phone and call Putin. He can pick up the phone and call Xi. Even countries that we have very hostile relations with, he can pick up the phone, you know, North Korea. He met the guy at the 38th parallel. It is bizarre that we do we can't just talk to the actual leadership of a country. It's really it makes diplomacy very very difficult.

International disputes, inflation, rising national debt, digital currency. There is a never- ending list of reasons that gold has risen over 700% in the last 20 years. And a never- ending list of reasons smart Americans diversify a portion of their savings into precious metals. with Birch Gold Group. Gold can thrive during uncertainty, which is why it's a crucial part of a balance strategy. It gives you peace of mind given all the events that could impact the US economy. See if holding gold in a tax sheltered retirement account is right for you.

Birch Gold can help you convert an existing IRA or 401k into an IRA in gold. Just text MK to the number 989898 to receive your free info kit on gold. There's no obligation, just useful information. With an A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau and tens of thousands of happy customers, consider letting Birch Gold help you diversify with gold so you too can have peace of mind regardless of the uncertainty. Text MK to the number 989898. Thanks so much for watching. If you like what you just saw, hit the subscribe button for more clips and full episodes.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "How the Trump Admin Will Avoid a "Quagmire" in Iran PLUS Next Steps on Greenland, with VP JD Vance"?

Megyn Kelly (Guest), J.D. Vance (Guest).

What is "How the Trump Admin Will Avoid a "Quagmire" in Iran PLUS Next Steps on Greenland, with VP JD Vance" about?

The discussion focuses on the contrasting perspectives within the Republican Party regarding U.S. foreign policy, particularly towards Iran, where one faction prioritizes domestic issues and sees national interests being sidelined, while another advocates for a more aggressive stance to support Iranian protesters. Vice President JD Vance defends President Trump's approach, arguing that his…

What is mentioned in this Megyn Kelly episode?

5 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Donald Trump, Iran, Greenland, Bill and Hillary Clinton. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "How the Trump Admin Will Avoid a "Quagmire" in Iran PLUS Next Steps on Greenland, with VP JD Vance"?

The episode runs 14 min; the transcript is about 3,069 words in 31 timestamped sections.

More from Megyn Kelly

About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated February 5, 2026.