FOX News contributor Hugh Hewitt reacts to President Trump’s belief that Iran will capitulate sometime soon on Friday’s “Special Report” panel.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BAIER: Thanks for doing this. TRUMP: They are afraid to make a deal. They don’t know how to make a deal. They have never been put in this position before. BAIER: So you are going to hold out until they do? TRUMP: Well, I’m going to do what’s right. I have to do what’s right. BAIER: But the strait should be open, right? TRUMP: It should be open. They closed it in the past. They used it as a weapon. They are not using it as a weapon with me. And what they did, and actually what President Xi said last night, sort of smiling about it, he said, well, they closed the strait and then you closed them. BAIER: But you think they are going to capitulate sometime soon? TRUMP: Yes. BAIER: OK. (END VIDEO CLIP) TRACE GALLAGHER, FOX NEWS HOST: Well, let’s bring in our panel, FOX News contributor Hugh Hewitt, Susan Page, Washington Bureau Chief at “USA Today,” and FOX News senior political analyst Juan Williams. Thank you all for coming on. Hugh, to you first. Do you share the president’s optimism that Iran will capitulate? HUGH HEWITT, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: I do. I do. I just simply believe that they are out of money and they are soon going to have their will broken. I listened very closely to the exchanges that the president had with Bret, and that is, by the way, the way to interview the president. Best interview in the world. But you’ve got repeatedly ask the same question to get some nuances, and Bret did, and the president gave the nuance. He repeatedly said they are insane, they are lunatics, they are crazy. They cannot have a nuclear weapon. I think combat operations are going to resume shortly, and I believe he’s going to bring it to a successful conclusion, though it may take a couple more months.

Hewitt reiterated his position later on the panel:

GALLAGHER: It’s interesting. I thought one of the most interesting parts of the interview was when Bret played an interview that the president did before going to China where he was talking about that he wasn’t concerned about America’s financial situation. That may be a little bit out of context. And then he asked him about that, and the president’s response was this, Hugh. Watch. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TRUMP: When people hear me say it, everybody agrees. Short-term pain, it’s going to be short-term pain. But the pain is much less than people thought, because people thought that the oil would go up to $ 250. You know it was $ 99 yesterday, $ 99 a barrel. I thought it might go up to $ 200. I was OK with that, not that I wanted it, but you cannot let them have a nuclear weapon. They will use it on us. They will start off with Israel, wipe it out. The Middle East, wipe it out. It will go Europe. (END VIDEO CLIP) GALLAGHER: Yes, he is saying, look, for the time being, we need to hold our ground. HEWITT: He’s right, Trace. The Iranians — he also knows the Iranians lie about when they say. Yes, then the next day they say we didn’t say yes to. They are a lunatic regime, a regime run by fanatics. They can’t have nukes. The president noted they would use it on Bahrain, on Kuwait, on UAE, on Saudi Arabia. His whole point was we have to endure higher gas prices to keep these crazy people away from weapons of mass destruction, nukes. And they were on the glide path under the JCPOA for that and under the Biden administration. You don’t screw around with Donald Trump. You don’t change your mind. You don’t say yes and then you say no. This president is not for being tap, tap, tapped along. Again, I repeat myself. I think we are going back to full scale combat operation because we can’t let the lunatics shut the Strait of Hormuz either.

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