CHARLES PAYNE (GUEST HOST): Newt, the question though, is with these increase of provocative acts, and now, of course, a direct attack on a U.S. drone, what do they gain by a military confrontation with America?
NEWT GINGRICH (FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR): Well I think that the Iranians are desperate. I think the various sanctions are really working. They've dropped from about 2 million barrels of oil a day down to 400,000, and it's going further lower. We've been very effective cutting them off in various businesses by just imposing sanctions so steep that a lot of other countries now are not doing business with them. And I think that the dictatorship is floundering. I think it's trying to create a sense of crisis in the hope that China and Russia and the Europeans will step in and try to push us back. And I think they're literally floundering, trying to say, you know, if you keep doing this, we're going to do more and more bad things. And, of course, we have, I think, basically two options. One is to back down, which I think is very unlikely with Trump, and the other is to say we're going keep squeezing you until you give up your nuclear program. And I think it's very clear from what Secretary Pompeo has said, bringing it -- because he's brought the other -- every Iranian-sponsored violent act in the region and really made clear it's not just the tankers that have been hit, but that there are a whole series of missiles fired at Saudi Arabian airports, various actions in Syria, actions in Yemen, and actions in Iraq. And so I think now the Iranians are beginning to be in a sense trapped and what you're seeing is desperation.
STEVE FORBES (FORBES MEDIA): Mr. Speaker, if -- what does Iran do next if they don't succeed in dividing us from the Europeans, the sanctions get harder and harder? What is this cornered regime going to do next?
GINGRICH: Well I would expect that it may well launch a series of terrorist bombings. I mean, they have the potential both in the United States and Latin America and Europe.
FORBES: Do you think they're ready to -- do you think we're ready to retaliate if they do that? Remember, the 30 years ago we had the tanker war, and they lost that one.
GINGRICH: Right, and then they lost it because we put forces in who were prepared to sink Iranian ships if necessary. Look, I don't think -- and I was a member of Congress at the time -- I don't think it's inconceivable that a couple of more provocations and the U.S. will simply take out the entire Iranian Navy, which we could do probably in three days. And I think, I think we're more likely to do that than we are to back down.
