In an interview with Fox News Radio's Dave Anthony on the "Fox News Rundown" podcast, Hermening endorsed the military pressure campaign that the United States and Israel have mounted against Iran, a campaign that included the Feb. 28 strikes resulting in the death of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Hermening did not mince words about what he believes the stakes are.

"I do believe that the president absolutely did the right thing for the first time in more than 40 years. In this case, to deny the Iranian regime in their pursuit of nuclear weapons."

That quote lands differently coming from a man who lived inside the regime's cruelty as a young Marine sergeant, one of the Islamic Republic's very first American victims.

444 days: What captivity looked like

Hermening described conditions that most Americans have only read about in history books. He slept on a bare box spring. He was blindfolded and handcuffed. He recalled a fellow captive being beaten so severely that the man's teeth broke at the gum line. Over a year of his life vanished inside a building that was supposed to be sovereign American soil.

Speaking with Dave Anthony, Hermening recalled how faith sustained him during the ordeal:

"You get on your knees, and you pray that someday you'll be delivered out of that situation."

The hostage crisis of 1979 followed the creation of the Islamic Republic. For more than four decades since, successive American administrations negotiated, sanctioned, bargained, and, in some cases, paid. The regime survived every approach. Hermening's point is that none of it worked.

Operation Epic Fury and the regime's losses

The Feb. 28 strikes that killed Khamenei marked a turning point. A March 18 funeral procession in Tehran carried the coffins of Ali Larijani, the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, and Gholamreza Soleimani, commander of the Basij paramilitary forces. The broader military campaign has inflicted additional high-profile casualties on the Iranian security apparatus, and the U.S. and Israel continue to apply pressure.

In a separate appearance, Hermening told Newsmax that the escalating operation could mark "the beginning of the end" for the regime. He noted that many of Iran's leaders are "no longer leading," suggesting the strikes have significantly weakened the ruling structure.

While some in Washington have pushed back against the scope of Trump's Iran campaign, House Democrats moved to force a floor vote on an Iran war powers resolution, Senate Republicans shut down a parallel effort to limit the president's military authority. The domestic political fight continues, but the operational facts on the ground have shifted the balance.

A warning against installing Iran's next leader

Hermening did not simply cheer the strikes and leave it there. He offered a pointed caution to the White House: do not try to install the next leader of Iran. The transition, he argued, must be Iranian-led. The United States can support the process, but the Iranian people themselves need to determine their own future government.

That position aligns with what he told Newsmax, that if the regime falls, the replacement should "emerge from the Iranian people themselves, not be installed by the United States." It also tracks with President Trump's own public comments about post-Khamenei Iran, though the question of succession remains wide open.

Hermening's reasoning drew on something most foreign-policy analysts overlook: the Iranian people are unarmed. He made the case bluntly.

"If there is ever a textbook case for supporting the [Second Amendment], it would be Iran, because the Iranian people don't even have small arms."

That argument carries weight when you look at what the regime does to its own citizens. Earlier this month, Iranian authorities hanged 19-year-old champion wrestler Saleh Mohammadi along with at least two other men. Authorities had arrested three men during January's protests and later sentenced them, claiming the three killed two officers during the demonstrations.

A regime that hangs teenage athletes for protesting is not a regime interested in good-faith negotiation. And as an Iranian opposition figure recently warned, Tehran was reportedly rebuilding nuclear sites even while negotiating, a pattern that reinforces Hermening's core argument about the futility of diplomacy alone.

From hostage to congressional candidate

Hermening is not content to offer commentary from the sidelines. He is seeking the Republican nomination for Wisconsin's 7th Congressional District, a seat that opened after Rep. Tom Tiffany announced he would vacate it to launch a gubernatorial campaign.

His biography gives him a platform few candidates can match. He was the youngest hostage in the 1979 crisis. He served as a Marine. He spent over a year in captivity at the hands of a regime that still executes dissidents and pursues nuclear weapons. Whether that personal history translates into votes in northern Wisconsin remains to be seen, but it gives him standing to speak on Iran that no policy paper can replicate.

Hermening argues that the Iranian people themselves want to overthrow the regime, and that the current military pressure may finally give them the opening. He wants the U.S. to support that aspiration without repeating the mistakes of past interventions where Washington tried to hand-pick successors.

Forty years of half-measures

The through-line of Hermening's argument is simple. For more than forty years, American policy toward Iran oscillated between appeasement and half-hearted pressure. The hostage crisis of 1979 was met with a botched rescue attempt and eventual negotiation. The nuclear deal of 2015 offered billions in sanctions relief in exchange for promises the regime never intended to keep. Iran's proxy network expanded. Its missile program advanced. Its internal repression intensified.

Hermening lived through the opening chapter of that story. He slept on a box spring in Tehran while Washington debated. He watched a fellow American's teeth shatter under a beating. He prayed on his knees for deliverance.

Now he watches a president act, and says it is about time.

Four decades of restraint bought nothing but a stronger, more dangerous Iranian regime. The man who paid the price for that restraint at age twenty has a right to say so.