RADIO: Iran Campaign Has Been Near-Flawless Militarily But the Information War Remains Unresolved
President Trump spent Easter Sunday delivering what his supporters described as a characteristically layered performance, moving from a heartfelt public reading of John 3:16 and a message about the resurrection of Christ to a profanity-laced Truth Social post warning Iran that Tuesday would bring simultaneous strikes on power plants and bridges unless the Strait of Hormuz was opened immediately.
Scott McKay, publisher of The Hayride and senior editor at The American Spectator, joined Amy Jacobson and Jim Yurio on Chicago’s Morning Answer to assess the state of the Iran campaign, the dismissal of Attorney General Pam Bondi, and the continuing Senate debate over the Save America Act.
On Trump’s Tuesday deadline, McKay said he expects the administration will likely target infrastructure in southern Iran with more direct military utility for opening the strait rather than broadly striking power generation facilities across the country. He framed the public threats less as a binary ultimatum than as a strategic unpredictability play, keeping Iranian leadership uncertain about what comes next while maintaining the credibility of maximum escalation as a genuine option. The distinction he drew is between bluffing, which he said Trump is not doing, and using the threat of the biggest available stick to shape the negotiating environment in advance of any potential settlement.
On the rescue of the two downed F-15 crew members over the Easter weekend, McKay said the operation will almost certainly become a major Hollywood production and described it as among the most compelling military stories in recent American history. He noted the intelligence community’s deception campaign, which released false information indicating the weapons officer had already been recovered in order to redirect Iranian search efforts, caused considerable confusion in American social media feeds as well, with many people briefly believing the operation was complete before the reality emerged. He said the rescue represents the kind of information war victory the American side has largely been missing in the broader conflict, noting that from a kinetic military standpoint the campaign has been about as close to flawless as any in recorded history, with Iran’s navy, air force, and much of its missile program effectively destroyed, yet the information environment continues to produce commentary suggesting Iran is winning simply because the regime has not yet collapsed. He said anyone who believes the Iranians have won should be prepared to specify who exactly the trophy gets sent to.
McKay addressed a geopolitical and energy market analysis circulating from a commentator named James Thorne, which argued that the disruption to Strait of Hormuz oil flows may actually serve long-term American strategic interests by forcing a realignment of global energy markets. The thesis, which McKay said he finds worth taking seriously, is that America as a massive energy exporter benefits from a world in which energy markets are regionalized rather than fully globalized, with a Western Hemisphere market anchored by American, Canadian, Mexican, and Venezuelan production serving as a dominant supplier to Europe and Asia. In such a configuration, particularly as manufacturing becomes more energy-intensive and less labor-intensive through automation and artificial intelligence, the country controlling abundant energy exports holds enormous economic leverage. He acknowledged the short-term pain of oil at potentially one hundred and fifty dollars a barrel but said the long-term strategic position that emerges from such a realignment could be exceptionally favorable to the United States, and that Trump’s four decades of thinking about international trade makes it reasonable to suspect this dimension of the situation has not been lost on him.
On the dismissal of Bondi, McKay said the report that she may have provided information to Representative Eric Swalwell about an investigation involving him would, if accurate, fully explain her removal, though he expressed some personal difficulty believing anyone would go out of their way to do a favor for Swalwell. Beyond that specific allegation, he said there has been a building frustration within Trump’s political base over the absence of indictments against figures widely seen as having violated the law, including former intelligence officials who promoted the Russia collusion narrative and the fifty-one intelligence community signatories who labeled the Hunter Biden laptop story Russian disinformation ahead of the 2020 election. The handling of the Jeffrey Epstein file, in which Bondi publicly promised rapid release of materials and then delivered nothing for an extended period, he said was always going to cost someone their job eventually.
On the Save America Act, McKay responded to actress Meryl Streep’s public suggestion that the legislation would force married women who have changed their names to re-register their voter eligibility before November elections, dismissing the argument as having already been thoroughly debunked and noting that the bill does not affect voters already registered. He said anyone currently on the voter rolls is not impacted by the new registration requirements, and suggested that Streep’s political commentary contributes little beyond confusion on questions she has not studied.
