Fox News contributor Mark Thiessen joined anchor John Roberts on Thursday to discuss the latest developments in President Donald Trump’s negotiations to end the conflict in Iran, which Thiessen warned risked putting the U.S. in a weaker position.

Roberts introduced Thiessen and noted, “He’s got a new column out today in the Washington Post titled ‘Trump Risks Snatching Defeat From the Jaws of Victory.’” Roberts continued:

You’re offering the president some advice here, including on X, where you said: “Here’s what Iran sees after being warned not to. They hit UAE and fired on a U.S. ship, and we didn’t respond. Instead, we suspended the Strait of Hormuz mission. They take that as weakness. They don’t think Trump is willing to bomb them again. They think they have leverage. He needs to prove them wrong.” What would you tell him if you had the honor?

“Exactly right. So look, first of all, let’s stipulate that Donald Trump’s decision to do this operation is one of the most courageous things an American president has done in my lifetime,” Thiessen replied. Notably, the U.S. did bomb Iran shortly after the segment aired on Fox. Thiessen continued:

No other president—four presidents said Iran can’t have a bomb—Donald Trump is the only one who did anything about it. But how you start a war and how you finish a war is as important as how you started it. And right now the Iranians are not seeing that Donald Trump has all the cards. They think they have the cards. He started Project Freedom.

Said if you fire on a U.S. ship or fire on U.S. allies, I’m gonna blow you off the face of the earth. And they did exactly that—they fired at a U.S. destroyer. They fired at our allies in the UAE. And we didn’t do anything. And then Marco Rubio announced that we’re ending Operation Epic Fury, and we’re now into Project Freedom. And then the next day we suspended Project Freedom. So what the Iranians see, if you’re looking at that from an Iranian perspective, you see weakness.

You see that the president seems to not want to enforce this blockade. That you’ve got this threat of attacking Gulf oil that is stopping him, not only from restarting the war, but also from opening the Strait of Hormuz. And you think that you’ve got all the cards. Now, they don’t have all the cards because Donald Trump can start the campaign again.

We’ve got double the firepower that we had at the start of the war, and he has that cocked and ready to go. They should have none of the cards. They should know that they have no cards. But they think they have cards because we’re sending signals to them that they have cards.

“So there’s this idea of a memorandum of understanding that might lead to some sort of peace deal. Here’s what Hugh Hewitt wrote about that on X. He said, ‘This would be a terrible deal. I hope the terms of any deal would be significantly stricter. No enrichment ever. Highly enriched uranium to us, stat. No more proxies. Turn on the internet. President Trump never gives up leverage. Why would he start now with Iran on the ropes?’ And then this from Ari Fleischer: ‘This is a far cry from unconditional surrender.’ You know, there’s a certain zigzag quality to where we are in terms of decision-making,” Roberts followed up.

“So Trump is trying to get a deal, and I understand that. But the fact is, the Iranians are not going to give him a deal when they’re emboldened. They think that they are dictating the pace of play. And so he needs a reset in order to show them who’s really in charge. What I would do if I were him is I would finish what he started,” Thiessen replied, adding:

Reopen Project Freedom, open up the Strait of Hormuz, and tell the Iranians that if you fire on our Gulf allies and try to target their oil infrastructure, we’re gonna destroy your oil infrastructure. We’re gonna blow up Karg Island—which is 96% of their oil—goes through Karg Island.

If we blow up Karg Island, their economy is destroyed. And then you unleash Israel to start the combat operations again. We take care of the Strait of Hormuz operation. Israel starts targeting their leadership, their energy infrastructure, their military bases. And you finish the job. And then if they’re not willing to capitulate at that point, then you say, “Okay, we’ve accomplished our military mission, and now we’re going to have a covert op to send arms to the Iranians.”

President Trump said this week: if the Iranians get guns, they’re going to overthrow the regime. So give them the guns. Let them overthrow the regime. The problem that he faces is that all of the accomplishments that he’s had in terms of taking down their nuclear capabilities and their military capabilities are necessarily temporary if this regime remains in power. Because even if he gets a deal, as soon as he’s gone, they’re gonna break it. The only way you guarantee that these stay is if the regime is gone.