Trump's offer to let Iran 'take out' two Californian cities brings Simon Marks back to James O'Brien
A day after his last visit, the Washington correspondent's reaction drew a comment section about fifteen times busier than an LBC clip usually sees in a full day.
LBC
Story of Why this story? The video opened at a pace of 747,248 views a day, 18 times a normal first day on this channel (41,955).
Trump invites Iran to 'take out' two Californian cities
Simon Marks was on James O'Brien's show only a day earlier, talking about a campaign email, as we reported here. This time the subject was much darker. The President had suggested he would let Iran "take out" Los Angeles or San Diego, and called that "a small price to pay."
Marks is O'Brien's regular voice from Washington, and in this clip he reacts to the remark. The description notes that leaders in California called it "reckless" and "deranged." The cities in the title are California's two largest, and San Diego is home to a large military presence. That helps explain why the line traveled so far beyond a London talk station's usual audience.
The clip passed 600,000 views in its first 16 hours. A typical LBC clip gets around 40,000 in a whole day. More than 2,000 comments came in over the same stretch. Many viewers write less about the words themselves than about the applause they say followed them. Others ask how a president can say such a thing about his own country and stay in office.
A second report from the same day also ran well ahead of the channel's usual first day. It covered a second death linked to a broken test tube at a plague research institute in Siberia, with Tom Swarbrick interviewing a former White House pandemic preparedness chief. An earlier clip on the same outbreak, with Andrew Marr, drew far fewer views.
Published on Trari
Read next
Is this your channel?
Share the story with your audience: in a community post, in your channel's description or on your socials. The text and the badge are ready.
You may use the picture, the badge, and link it to this story.
- Channel
- LBC
- Subscribers
- 1,530,000
- Channel views, last 7 days
- 13,941,197
- Channel views, pace per day
- 2,289,009 (on a normal day: 1,605,270)
- Video published
- October 6, 2026
- Video views so far
- 616,175 (less than a day online)
- Video views, pace per day
- 747,248
The numbers
Two news clips from the same day each ran many times past LBC's usual first day, and the Marks clip ran furthest.
💡 Test your knowledge
LBC's name once stood for London Broadcasting Company. What does it stand for in the station's slogan?
The station describes itself as "Leading Britain's Conversation," a slogan built on the letters of its name.
