America is now coming in. They can do something very simple, which is start enforcing sanctions against Iran.

I mean, Iran doubled its GDP from the end of the Trump administration to now.

So if you notice, when Trump got elected, the Iranian currency dropped precipitously to the lowest in history.

So maybe America never has to fire a shot.

Maybe America, with a combination of enforcing massive sanctions

that bankrupt Iran, and with the recognition that Israel can hit Iran anytime, anywhere,

it brings Iran away from its nuclear activity. But I also believe that if they don't,

if they continue to pursue a nuclear bomb, I have no doubt that America, together with Israel,

and what it takes to stop that activity.

As part of our special series on the U.S. presidential transition period, I'm sitting

down with David Friedman, U.S. ambassador to Israel in the last Trump administration, one

of the chief architects of the Abraham Accords, and the author

of One Jewish State.

This is American Thought Leaders, and I'm Jan Ya Kelek.

Ambassador David Friedman, such a pleasure to have you on American Thought Leaders.

Thank you, Jan. Great to be with you.

So you had a pretty consequential term as U.S. ambassador to Israel.

Off the top of my head, there's something called the Abraham Accords that happened. Of course,

the embassy moved to Jerusalem. That was something that I think nobody really expected.

What do you think of the new pick for U.S. ambassador to Israel? What do you

think he's going to face? Well, Mike's a dear friend. I mean, really one of my closest friends.

I think he's going to be great. I couldn't be more excited about his pick. Obviously, he's coming into a different period in the relationship than when I came in.

...