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MORNING GLORY: Trump has restored the GOP as the party of defense and deterrence
By Hugh Hewitt
Published March 24, 2026
As the fourth week of the battle with Iran opened, President Donald Trump announced a window of opportunity for negotiations. With whom no one outside of the president and his closest advisors knows. The president did not halt strikes on Iran, and Israel continued to pound its long list of military targets as well as the regime’s massive apparatus of repression while the U.S. focuses on degrading the military-industrial capacity of the mullahs. Iran is a country with shattered defenses and no ability to project targeted force. This was accomplished in three weeks. No wonder someone wants to negotiate even as others tell our left-wing media that Iran is winning.
Commentators have lots of takes, almost invariably driven by their support of, or hatred for, either the president, Prime Minister Netanyahu, Israel as a whole or some combination thereof.
No "takes" matter. The conflict will be judged twice: When major combat operations conclude and a year thereafter. There is an unquestionable level of success in "defanging" the regime while decapitating its senior leadership. While no civilian can know, we can guess chaos rages within the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps ("IRGC") as it both tries to survive and at the same time sees the command structure that remains jockeying among themselves for power in a post-war Iran.
PENCE BACKS TRUMP’S IRAN STRIKES, SAYS PRESIDENT ‘IGNORED’ GOP ISOLATIONISTS
Among the crucial results achieved thus far is clarity about the Iranian regime. It can never be trusted by anyone within striking distance of its missile array. It has no boundaries on which countries it will attack and zero concern for civilians. Like its proxies in Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis, the IRGC will hide among the civilian population to save their skins. Their "battle plan" is simply to spray missiles far and wide and threaten the Strait of Hormuz. That’s it. That’s what they have left.
It’s not nothing. They may cause a global recession. They have certainly incentivized the construction of alternative delivery routes for oil and natural gas. Even if the Strait is opened via combat operations and warship escorts, if the Iranian regime remains in power, it will be a priority for the impacted sellers and buyers of Gulf energy to diversify delivery and supply.
But the regime has been conclusively proven to be frail on the offense, and thoroughly penetrated at every level. The Americans and Israelis know almost everything there is to know about the Iranian leadership, and they will have the same degree of knowledge about the C Team that is stood up if any regime survives at all. The powers that remain long ago lost the support of the Iranian citizenry and now the world knows it has almost zero striking power left and only one card — the ability to threaten the Strait.
A regime that murdered 35,000 of its own people for protesting its many failures is living on borrowed time. The president and the prime minister can escalate or accept a truce, can destroy the country’s power grid or simply pulverize the length of the Strait. Eventually, the near-collapse of the facade of power will be as complete as that of Hamas.
TRUMP DELAYS XI MEETING AS IRAN CONFLICT LETS US STRONG-ARM CHINA’S OIL SUPPLY
In undertaking this mission, President Trump fully restored the American deterrent that was forfeited by President Biden’s collapse in Afghanistan. Trump demonstrated again the remarkable power of the American military and solidified the most important relationship with America’s most important and powerful ally — Israel.
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He has also exposed the hard truth — difficult for people who recall Margaret Thatcher, Francois Mitterrand and Helmut Kohl among others — of the sclerosis that has seized most of "old" Europe. The frontline states — Poland, Finland and Sweden, are the new cornerstones of "new Europe" and Ukraine may be counted on their rank. The old allies? We would be fools to trust in them to be of any help in a crisis with China. They are spent.
With all that clarity comes one more impossible-to-deny truth. With America involved in a battle with a terrorist regime, the Democrats repeatedly chose in vote after vote to keep the Department of Homeland Security shuttered and unfunded. It is a ridiculous and wildly irresponsible political stunt, of course, as the entire party has crumbled into a hot mess of extreme positions of the left on every issue. There is simply no trusting the Democrats to put aside partisanship even in a time of raging battle. Extraordinary and unprecedented, but undeniable and true.
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The Pentagon has asked for $200 billion in additional funding to cover the conflict with Iran. I hope President Trump, Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader Thune resolve on a reconciliation process to provide that (and more if needed) as well as Department of Homeland Security funding for a few years and push it through as quickly as possible. If the GOP focuses on security at home and abroad, it will reclaim a chance to hold its own come November.
Voters may not care for this or that about President Trump and the GOP, but the spectacle of the Democrats risking America to make talking points for MS-NOW audiences should leave an enduring impression: The Republicans are the party of security at home and abroad. The Democrats couldn't care less.
Hugh Hewitt is a Fox News contributor and host of "The Hugh Hewitt Show" heard weekday afternoons from 3 PM to 6 PM ET on the Salem Radio Network, and simulcast on Salem News Channel. Hugh drives Americans home on the East Coast and to lunch on the West Coast on over 400 affiliates nationwide, and on all the streaming platforms where SNC can be seen. He is a frequent guest on the Fox News Channel’s news roundtable, hosted by Bret Baier weekdays at 6pm ET. A son of Ohio and a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Michigan Law School, Hewitt has been a Professor of Law at Chapman University’s Fowler School of Law since 1996 where he teaches Constitutional Law. Hewitt launched his eponymous radio show from Los Angeles in 1990. Hewitt has frequently appeared on every major national news television network, hosted television shows for PBS and MSNBC, written for every major American paper, has authored a dozen books and moderated a score of Republican candidate debates, most recently the November 2023 Republican presidential debate in Miami and four Republican presidential debates in the 2015-16 cycle. Hewitt focuses his radio show and his column on the Constitution, national security, American politics and the Cleveland Browns and Guardians. Hewitt has interviewed tens of thousands of guests from Democrats Hillary Clinton and John Kerry to Republican Presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump over his 40 years in broadcasting. This column previews the lead story that will drive his radio/ TV show today.
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https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/morning-glory-trump-has-restored-gop-party-defense-deterrence