Today's Poll Question: Should Scott Pelley Have Been Fired?

**SPEAKER_1** (0:01)
Get ready to vote on today's daily poll question at smerconish.com.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:05)
But first, Michael explains it for you right here.

**SPEAKER_1** (0:08)
Welcome to The Smerconish Podcast from SiriusXM.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:11)
For Independent Minds.

**Michael Smerconish** (0:14)
Hello, hello, hello, hello, hello. Today is Monday, it's the 8th of June. It is early morning as I speak.
And I offer you some amuse bouche before I get to the Monday poll question at smerconish.com because I just finished the note.
Every day, well, Sundays, I try and take off. But every day in the smerconish.com daily newsletter, I pen somewhere between 225 and 250 words on the news of the day. And I actually wrote about today's poll question, but I'm not going to publish it today. Today's poll question pertains to Scott Pelley from 60 Minutes. But because of the news relative to the Middle East, Israel and Iran trading missiles, I had something else I wanted to say. So here, let me hit you with it, and then we'll get to the poll question. I said, back where we started. Not just the missiles, though those are flying, too. I mean the deeper problem. Israel doing what it wants and the United States scrambling to respond. Today is day 100 of the Iran War. Israel and Iran exchanged missile fire for the first time since a ceasefire was declared two months ago. Iran's Revolutionary Guard struck two Israeli military bases. Israel responded by hitting radar sites and petrochemical targets across Iran. Yemen's Houthis warned that they would target Israel-affiliated ships in the Red Sea. A deal that Trump says is within reach is now in serious jeopardy. What triggered the latest round, Israel struck Beirut's southern suburbs without warning, in defiance of Washington's request to stand down. Iran retaliated, and here we go again. According to Axios, Trump called Netanyahu and told him to hold off on striking back, that a deal was close, and then he called the Financial Times, and Trump said, I call the shots, I call the shots, he doesn't call the shots. To which I say, that sounds less like confidence than remorse. Because remember what Secretary Rubio told Congress on day one, quote, We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action. We knew that they would precipitate an attack against American forces. And we knew that if we didn't preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties.
In other words, Israel was going to strike regardless. The US followed, Netanyahu pushed the timeline, and Washington got flat-footed.
So, here we are today. Trump says he calls the shots, but Rubio admitted on day one that Israel forced our hand, and 100 days after, Israel is still acting unilaterally, suggesting that Netanyahu has been calling the shots all alone. All along. All along. All along.
Yeah, that's where we are, and it's pretty grim. Pretty grim. Pretty, pretty grim on day 100

**SPEAKER_1** (3:13)
The Smerconish Podcast from SiriusXM.

**Michael Smerconish** (3:17)
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**SPEAKER_2** (4:46)
The Daily Poll Question at smerconish.com.

**SPEAKER_1** (4:48)
A non-scientific social political question designed to spark broader discussions about current issues.