As President Trump ramps up his rhetoric against Iran this week, his administration got an assist Thursday afternoon from a friendly Fox News host who downplayed the human cost of yet another war in the Middle East as “just a video game.”
After Jesse Watters jokingly introduced him as The Five’s “global affairs analyst” to laughs from the show’s other co-hosts, Greg Gutfeld proceeded to predict a completely bloodless conflict with Iran should Trump’s national security adviser, John Bolton, get his way.
Explaining that he got his “video game” analogy from the show’s prompter operator, Gutfeld added, “And I think that’s good news.”
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“We’re now in a time where it doesn’t matter how large your population is, because the population is no longer expendable in war. It’s now about the machines that you have,” he continued. “Drones are now replacing bones,” Gutfeld added, giving himself a pat on the back for the rhyme. “So, it will be stuff versus stuff, and fortunately for us, we have the best stuff.”
“How do you retaliate to something that isn’t human?” he asked, alluding to the drone reportedly shot down by the Iranian regime. “They took $160 million worth of machinery from us. We have to do that, which means either hitting some parts of their navy, or refineries, or whatever.”
“You retaliate with machines, but I think it’s good news,” Gutfeld added. “I think we’re moving away from hurling bodies at bodies.”
After initially tweeting “Iran made a very big mistake!” early Thursday morning, President Trump walked back his comments to reporters, explaining that he actually believes Iran’s actions may have been unintentional.
“Fortunately, that drone was unarmed, it was not—there was no man in it, it was in international waters but we didn’t have a man or woman in the drone, we had nobody in the drone,” Trump said, adding that it “would have made a big, big difference” if there had been.
