CNN/PBS host Christiane Amanpour and her ex-husband Jamie Rubin are among the top media personalities whose Israel-Iran hot takes look especially silly after President Trump announced a ceasefire on Monday. On their The Ex Files podcast recorded earlier that day, Rubin would claim “extremists” in the U.S. and Israel use Iran’s “death to America” sloganeering to justify a hard line towards Tehran while claiming Israel has no way of ending the war right before it did.
Rubin, a former Clinton diplomat, began with a sensible point, “But what we shouldn't forget and what's worth mentioning here as the United States faces war with Iran, and Israel is at war with Iran, is that the Iranian chickens regionally are coming home to roost. Remember this is a regime that backed Assad in Syria, who killed 500,000 Sunnis, who were trying to simply have their freedom, and Iran enabled Assad to stay in power. They have undermined the Lebanese government, they've undermined the Iraqi government, and they have been provoking the world since the day they started chanting ‘death to America’ and ‘death to Israel.’”
Despite giving several examples of the Iranian threat, Rubin claimed that only “extremists” take such eliminationist rhetoric, “Remember these extremists play off each other, so when Iran's regime promotes the idea of death to America, death to America, death to Israel, then the extremists in Israel and the United States take, pick that up, and say, ‘Look, they want to kill us all.’”
After October 7, is it really so hard to believe that when Iran says “death to Israel,” they are being sincere? Furthermore, 82% of Israeli Jews supported the attack on Iran. Are they all “extremists”
Further on in the discussion, Amanpour sought to switch topics, “But, you know, we need to stop for a minute because we got to go to the next part, Jamie, we’ve got to stop. Because this is important because, you know, could it also become a failed state and what will that mean? Anybody remember Iraq? We'll talk about it in the next part.”
Amanpour then lamented:
We want to talk about what's now being much more publicly and openly stated by both Israel and President Trump himself, which is the notion of regime change… So first and foremost, it's clear that Trump has been pulled into this moment by Netanyahu… Hegseth, Vance, all the rest of it said we're not at war with Iran; we're at war with their nuclear program. Now, Trump posts that why not regime change if Iran wants to be great again. So, again, it's being posited that this is Netanyahu getting into his ear and saying, ‘Now's the time, Now's the time.’ Jamie?
It’s quite clear that throughout this process, Trump has relished being unpredictable, and the regime change rhetoric was probably part of that. However, Rubin wanted Trump to be more direct, “Yeah, I think they're not understanding that when the president muses about regime change, that becomes perceived as American policy because when the president speaks, people pay attention to it. Regime change is a dumb policy.”
Rubin also claimed, “When the people of Iran try to stand up and change their regime, they get slaughtered by their own security forces, and I would hate to see the president of the United States inspire Iranians to try to protest or demonstrate, if they would in these circumstances and get slaughtered, and I don't see the regime as about to fall, and I think organizing ourselves around that is a terrible mistake. We need to figure out how to end this war.”
He also ridiculed the idea Israel may soon declare victory, “The Israelis can’t figure it out. I heard—I read today that they’re looking to bring this to a close, but how are you going to do it? They have the same problem in Gaza, the same problem all over the Middle East. Their military and intelligence capabilities are extremely successful, but their diplomatic capabilities under Netanyahu are a colossal failure. We should never have been in this situation if Netanyahu had made the right decisions about Gaza.”
We would never have been in that situation if Iran simply learned to live with its neighbors. If Iran didn’t chant “death to Israel,” Israel would not have as big of a reason to fear it.
Here is a transcript for the June 23-taped show:
Christiane Amanpour Presents: The Ex Files with Jamie Rubin
6/23/2025
13 minutes, 59 seconds
JAMIE RUBIN: But what we shouldn't forget and what's worth mentioning here as the United States faces war with Iran, and Israel is at war with Iran, is that the Iranian chickens regionally are coming home to roost. Remember this is a regime that backed Assad in Syria, who killed 500,000 Sunnis, who were trying to simply have their freedom, and Iran enabled Assad to stay in power. They have undermined the Lebanese government, they've undermined the Iraqi government, and they have been provoking the world since the day they started chanting “death to America” and “death to Israel.” Remember these extremists play off each other so when Iran's regime promotes the idea of death to America, death to America, death to Israel, then the extremists in Israel and the United States take, pick that up and say "Look they want to kill us all."
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: And what do you-- how do you read it?
RUBIN: Well, I believe that that's a regime rap, but they've organized themselves in opposition to the United States has been a central feature of their foreign policy from the beginning is to be opposed to the United States and to build a group of states and capability in the region— the famous, you know, Shiite arc of whatever they used to call that.
AMANPOUR: Shiite crescent.
RUBIN: The Shiite crescent.
AMANPOUR: But, you know, we need to stop for a minute because we got to go to the next part, Jamie, we’ve got to stop.
RUBIN: Okay, let's stop and go to the next part.
AMANPOUR: Because this is important because, you know, could it also become a failed state and what will that mean? Anybody remember Iraq? We'll talk about it in the next part.
Okay, welcome back to the conversation in this part of our episode we want to talk about what's now being much more publicly and openly stated by both Israel and President Trump himself, which is the notion of regime change. You know, we've spoken Jamie in the last part, you know, earlier bits of the conversation about what might happen, but that implies that this regime survives, and all the things we talked about is about what this regime might do, go dark, go this, go that, so first and foremost, it's clear that Trump has been pulled into this moment by Netanyahu.
There has been deep reporting notably by the New York Times about this so now the question is since he said this is not about Iran and his, you know administration, Hegseth, Vance, all the rest of it said we're not at war with Iran; we're at war with their nuclear program. Now, Trump posts that why not regime change if Iran wants to be great again. So, again, it's being posited that this is Netanyahu getting into his ear and saying, “Now's the time, Now's the time.” Jamie?
RUBIN: Yeah, I think they're not understanding that when the president muses about regime change, that becomes perceived as American policy because when the president speaks, people pay attention to it. Regime change is a dumb policy. I think if there's anything we learned in the last 20 years is that trying to organize our diplomacy and our use of military power based on our fundamental interests around questions of regime change is a terrible mistake because it's got a mixed record in some cases it's been successful, a la, Serbia briefly after the fall of Kosovo to the Kosvar Albanians, but a mixed record in Libya, an obviously mixed record in Iraq, and a mixed record in Afghanistan so regime change is not a sensible way to go.
The Israelis are exaggerating the ability of military power to bring down the regime. I don't believe that outside forces can bring down this regime. I believe that that will only happen when the people of Iran reach a threshold in which they are forcing their regime to change, that's possible, but in this circumstance that's not the way it happens and we've seen Christiane over the last 20 years what happens when the people of Iran try to stand up and change their regime, they get slaughtered by their own security forces, and I would hate to see the president of the United States inspire Iranians to try to protest or demonstrate, if they would in these circumstances and get slaughtered, and I don't see the regime as about to fall, and I think organizing ourselves around that is a terrible mistake. We need to figure out how to end this war.
The Israelis can’t figure it out. I heard—I read today that they’re looking to bring this to a close, but how are you going to do it? They have the same problem in Gaza, the same problem all over the Middle East. Their military and intelligence capabilities are extremely successful, but their diplomatic capabilities under Netanyahu are a colossal failure. We should never have been in this situation if Netanyahu had made the right decisions about Gaza.