NBC’s Richard Engle Says Netanyahu Is Having His ‘Best Day’ In a ‘Year’ With Trump Win: ‘Regime Change In Iran’ On the Table

NBC’s chief foreign affairs correspondent Richard Engle joined MSNBC on Wednesday to discuss what President-elect Donald Trump’s foreign policy might look like in a second term.

“Embracing Vladimir Putin and other dictators, Viktor Orban, around the world. Opposing the war in Ukraine, disavowing U.S. intelligence assessments and career diplomats. And when he was in the Oval Office starting a trade war with China. Some world leaders are celebrating Trump’s victory, while others are trying to put on a brave face,” began anchor Andrea Mitchell, adding:

Joining the discussion now is NBC News chief foreign correspondent Richard Engle. Richard, there is a divide. Europe very worried. The Persian Gulf leaders embrace and others in Saudi Arabia and UAE are divided. They have been, you know, very upset with Democrats ever since Barack Obama was in the White House. And they are very pleased with Donald Trump.

“I don’t think there’s too many people sitting on the fence. You either love him or you hate him,” Engle said as Mitchell mentioned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“Netanyahu is having the best day probably in the last year. Netanyahu has made it quite clear that he wants a new vision for the Middle East. He believes that Donald Trump is going to, you know, help take him there. It’s a vision of the Middle East in which Iran is significantly diminished. Maybe regime change in Iran,” Engle replied, adding:

Maybe attacking their oil facilities and energy facilities, which President Biden had explicitly said no to. We’ll see about a cease-fire in Gaza, but I don’t know if you noticed a couple of days ago, Jared Kushner put out a tweet saying he doesn’t support a cease-fire.

That now is a historic opportunity not to have a cease-fire and go back to the way things they were, but to transform the Middle East and enact this new vision of a Middle East with diminished Iran, diminished Hezbollah, diminished Hamas, a new kind of Middle East with the United States, President Trump and Netanyahu working in lockstep to get there.

“And Palestinian rights, which the Saudis paid lip service to at first and then more fully embraced. Because after the uproar over Gaza and where Palestinian civilians were treated, they had to as the price for normalization with Israel. But certainly, King Abdullah and Jordan and others and maybe even the Saudis, King Abdullah has to, because of the Palestinian population and him being next door to the West Bank. But Palestinian rights, particularly in Gaza, much less important. And then Zelensky, the pressure on Zelenskiy to negotiate with Ukraine. As we said just a few minutes ago, Donald Trump said he could settle that war in Ukraine in 24 hours,” followed up Mitchell turning the conversation to Ukraine.

“You know, I’ve been speaking to Ukrainians yesterday on Election Day and then today, the day after, we’re now all here trying to figure out what this means. And every country is trying to do the same thing. Everyone was watching this story. Everyone is now trying to figure out what the day after means,” Engle replied, adding:

And we saw President Zelensky, who’s one of the first people to come out and say, thank you. We were on the same page that he embraces President Trump’s vision for peace through strength. Of course, he doesn’t embrace President Trump’s vision for what’s going to happen in Ukraine, but he’s trying to curry some favor because his future, Ukraine’s future, the war’s future very much depends on ongoing US military support. But there’s also an irony here. The Biden policy wasn’t particularly working well for Ukraine.

What has been happening for the last couple of years in Ukraine has been the United States has been sending Ukraine weapons, but not enough weapons to win, just enough weapons to keep the war going. So many Ukrainians have actually come to the conclusion that they probably can’t take back militarily alone, that part of eastern Ukraine. They can’t take back Crimea with military means alone. Zelensky diplomatically, political plea for his own his own politics can’t really sign a peace deal giving away all of this territory to Russia. So forcing him into an agreement might not be totally, totally unpopular among among all Ukrainians.

Watch the clip above via MSNBC.