Scoop: Rep. Zach Nunn and General Kenneth McKenzie on Trump's foreign policy: "The strikes against the Houthis are badly needed, long overdue"

President Donald Trump is getting backup on his lethal airstrikes against the Iranian-backed Houthi terrorists from one of America’s most decorated generals, Kenneth McKenzie. In the latest episode of the Republican Study Committee’s (RSC) Right to the Point podcast, obtained first by the Washington Reporter, McKenzie told Rep. Zach Nunn (R. Iowa) that Trump’s “strikes against the Houthis are badly needed, long overdue.” The two also discussed how to handle Iran’s sprint to nuclearization as well as March Madness finals.

“I'm glad that this administration chose to address the problem head on,” McKenzie, a retired Marine Corps general, told Nunn — himself an Air Force veteran and member of the RSC’s National Security Task Force. “We'd let this problem fester for a couple of years, and it could have been possibly addressed earlier at a smaller scale, but usually when you leave terrorist groups alone, they get worse over time, so we may have to put more effort into it than had we addressed them earlier. But I think it's the right course of action. This won't be a single strike, it will be a campaign, but we're off to a good start, and it's a very positive sign from this administration.”

McKenzie’s remarks came at a critical time for the Trump administration, which is embarking on a maximum pressure campaign against Iran, which Nunn called a “sea change” from the Biden administration’s “do nothing, maximum caution plan.” Nunn noted that “it's not just for Iran, but other leaders in the world are looking at this, whether they're in Moscow, Beijing, North Korea.”

Nunn and the RSC more broadly are poised to release a series of legislation aimed directly at countering a potential nuclear Iran in the coming days; his episode with McKenzie is the latest sign of an RSC messaging operation that is quickly capturing the messages of the day, and finding top-tier leaders to address them.

Nunn, for his part, also dismissed the so-called Signal-gate saga in which Trump administration officials posted in a Signal group chat about plans to attack the Houthi terrorists, as something that “beltway bandits” want to talk about. “I think more importantly, we saw a consolidated effort for an administration that wanted to take decisive action at a time and place of our choosing,” he said.

The Houthis, the subject of the Signal-gate-related strikes, McKenzie noted, “are true believers.” He explained that “they're an Iranian proxy group, probably the most radical of all the Iranian-sponsored proxy groups. Fundamental to their philosophy, which they emblazon all their literature, is ‘Death to Israel, Death to the United States.’ We should take them at their word when they say that. Of all the Shia groups in the region, including Iran and the Lebanese Hezbollah, they're the guys who immediately got behind Hamas when they launched their attack on Israel. And they have sought to attack Israel since October 2023. The problem they have is that Israel is a long way away, and they can't generate enough missiles to penetrate the very effective Israeli air defense system. So what the Houthis have done instead is they have chosen to close off shipping in the Bab el Mandeb. And they can do that because they're actually pretty good aeronautical engineers. They've been well supplied by Iran and increasingly, frankly, from Moscow, which should concern us.”

Another concern that McKenzie laid out with how the Houthis are closing down the Suez Canal is that “as a maritime nation, [this matters to America] not because a lot of our cargo passes through there. Frankly, it doesn't, but rather because, as a maritime nation, we support the principle of free passage of commerce on the global commons, wherever others are looking at how we act here in particular, I'm talking about the Chinese, they will draw conclusions from how we react to this. So this is an important step for us to take here to begin to reopen this vital maritime passage, again, not because of a need to defend Israel, because they can defend themselves, and not because we need to help other countries get their stuff through, but rather because it is in our best interest to have free passage on the global commons.”

One solution that McKenzie laid out is a reinvigorated shipbuilding industry in America. This can happen by having a workforce that is paid “at a level where they're going to be able to support themselves…and to work on submarines ships, because that's one of the great challenges.”

“China is building at a very rapid rate,” McKenzie said. “We are not building at that rate at all. The Navy has problems meeting its commitments right now because of a lack of ships and an inability to maintain the ships they have now, because of the paucity of shipyards and the inability to get to work through those shipyards. I think we're in a crisis on this.”

The duo also discussed the Houthis’ top backer, Iran, and what to do. McKenzie cautioned that “military action is a possibility” against the Islamic Republic, while adding that “the threat of military action is probably a greater weapon than military action itself…if we have the courage of our convictions, we can stop them.”

The opportunity for weakening Iran has never been greater, McKenzie noted, saying that “we're at a period of great opportunity now with Iran. Iran is as weak as they've ever been. Their principal partner, Lebanese Hezbollah, is off the table. Syria has imploded and is not able to do much of anything. Actually, the Iranians have fled Syria in large numbers. Additionally, their attacks against Israel have proven to be ineffective, while Israeli attacks against Iran have been surprisingly effective and low of cost.”

That groundwork was laid both by Israel and by three critical successes of the first Trump administration, McKenzie noted: Trump’s decision to eliminate Qassem Soleimani, “an evil man who was bound to do more evil,” the signing of the Abraham Accords, and Trump moving “Israel from the European Command Area of Responsibility in the Central Command Area of Responsibility.”

On the Iranian side, McKenzie said that “the number one goal of Iran's Iranian statecraft is regime preservation. They view themselves as a revolutionary regime that came to power in deposing the Shah in the late 1970s and they want to stay in power, and that's their supreme goal. [Their] number two is destruction of the State of Israel. Number three is ejection of the United States from the region. But here's the key thing, number two and number three will never challenge number one. I say this because Iran is susceptible to pressure, but in order to pressure Iran, you cannot say avoiding escalation is our highest priority, as has been said for several years. And at the same time, you can't consciously take Iranian targets off the table when you're talking about options going forward. And so I don't believe this administration is going to do either of those two things, which now opens renewed paths to directly pressure Iran.”

America’s goal in the region is a “non-nuclear Iran,” which President Donald Trump has reiterated repeatedly in recent days. “We want an Iran that doesn't possess a nuclear weapon,” McKenzie said. “We want an Iran that doesn't try to destroy Israel. We want an Iran that behaves as a responsible member of the family of nations. [Those] three broad things.”

More broadly, McKenzie spoke about the need to “invest intelligently in expanding defense industrial base.” People, he said, “are going to be hesitant to invest capital if they're worried you're going to shut it down in a year or two, we need to recognize that what we did in the eve of the Second World War were programs that remained around for decades. And industry has got to be convinced that's the case. So that's going to take leadership. I believe we have that leadership now to do that.”

Finally, McKenzie, an Auburn fan, also gave his predictions for the final March Madness results: it will be an Auburn-Duke finale, “and I’m picking Auburn.”