Latest / The Ben Ferguson Podcast / Trump Wins Decisive Victory in Iran, Media & Dems Spin Furiously; What's Next?

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Trump Wins Decisive Victory in Iran, Media & Dems Spin Furiously; What's Next? · The Ben Ferguson Podcast

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome. It is Verdict with Center, Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson
0:04
Speaker 1: with you. It's so nice to have you with us
0:06
Speaker 1: around the country wherever you are listening. And we have
0:08
Speaker 1: got a lot to talk about tonight, especially with Iran,
0:12
Speaker 1: the effectiveness to the attack and the media trying to
0:16
Speaker 1: act like this was some sort of a failure.
0:17
Speaker 2: Center.
0:18
Speaker 1: It's been a very fun week to watch the spin
0:20
Speaker 1: games take place.
0:21
Speaker 3: Well, it's been an extraordinary week. Last Saturday night, President
0:25
Speaker 3: Trump acted decisively as.
0:27
Speaker 2: The commander in chief.
0:28
Speaker 3: He launched an attack on Iran that was brutally effective,
0:32
Speaker 3: incredibly efficient, defended America, kept us safe, and ever since then,
0:39
Speaker 3: it did several things. Number one, it produced a ceasefire.
0:43
Speaker 3: It caused Iran to come to the table and say
0:46
Speaker 3: we want peace, we want to end this war. That
0:48
Speaker 3: was powerful. But number two, it really has been striking.
0:52
Speaker 3: We've seen the media and Democrats go on full time
0:56
Speaker 3: spin patrol, go in lean in hard, say this was
0:59
Speaker 3: an effective, this was a failure. I got to say
1:01
Speaker 3: it is astonishing that the reaction of CNN and the
1:05
Speaker 3: Democrats when the President has a crushing military attack taking
1:09
Speaker 3: out Iran's nuclear weapon capability, is to say we stand
1:14
Speaker 3: with Iran and we think the American military is not effective.
1:17
Speaker 2: We're gonna break all that down. We're gonna break down.
1:19
Speaker 3: I had a classified briefing today for an hour and
1:21
Speaker 3: a half with our senior military leaders. I'm gonna walk
1:24
Speaker 3: through what happened, where things stand now in Iran, where
1:28
Speaker 3: they stand in Israel, and what's coming next, because what's
1:32
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1:34
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Speaker 1: All right to Senator. On Thursday, you attended a briefing
3:40
Speaker 1: on the Iran strike, And what did you learn compared
3:44
Speaker 1: to the propaganda that's being put out there by the
3:46
Speaker 1: mainstream media saying this was unsuccessful, that Donald Trump's overstating
3:51
Speaker 1: what actually happened here, and then everybody in our government,
3:54
Speaker 1: especially the DoD is just getting it wrong.
3:57
Speaker 3: Well, I spent an hour and a half at a
3:59
Speaker 3: classified brief presenting that briefing was the Secretary of State,
4:03
Speaker 3: Mark Rubio, the Secretary of Defense, the Director of the CIA,
4:08
Speaker 3: and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. And
4:11
Speaker 3: in the course of that briefing, I will say what
4:14
Speaker 3: they laid out is what I believed already, what I
4:16
Speaker 3: knew already, which was the incredible effectiveness number one of
4:20
Speaker 3: the Israeli attack, the twelve day war that Israel waged
4:24
Speaker 3: against Iran, that took out their senior military leadership, took
4:28
Speaker 3: out just about every general they were relying on to
4:31
Speaker 3: wage war against America against Israel. And I got to say,
4:36
Speaker 3: in terms of how Israel carried it out, it really
4:38
Speaker 3: was stunning. They took out one head of the IRGC,
4:43
Speaker 3: so I ran named somebody else. The next day, Israel
4:46
Speaker 3: takes out the next head.
4:47
Speaker 2: Of the IRGC. So I Ran named somebody else.
4:49
Speaker 3: The next day, Israel takes out the next head of
4:52
Speaker 3: the IRGC. I got to say, Ben, if they came
4:55
Speaker 3: to you and said, hey, Ben, you want to lead
4:57
Speaker 3: the RGC, I bet you at the end, but are like, no,
5:00
Speaker 3: thank you, because the instant you get named to that job,
5:04
Speaker 3: Israel takes you out. It did show the exquisite intelligence
5:09
Speaker 3: that the Massad has in Iran that as soon as
5:12
Speaker 3: someone got named to the head of that they were
5:14
Speaker 3: taken out within hours. They also took out virtually every
5:18
Speaker 3: one of the senior nuclear scientists in Iran, the scientists
5:23
Speaker 3: that were developing nuclear weapons. Israel took them out systematically.
5:27
Speaker 3: They bombed military installations across the country. They bombed just
5:31
Speaker 3: about all of their nuclear research facilities. Now the biggest
5:35
Speaker 3: challenge Israel faced is the most important nuclear weapons facility
5:40
Speaker 3: in Iran is called Fordo. Fido is built underneath a mountain,
5:47
Speaker 3: and it was built underneath the mountain for the explicit
5:49
Speaker 3: purpose of making it very difficult to bomb. And Israel
5:54
Speaker 3: lacked bombs that were sufficiently large to take out Florida.
5:58
Speaker 3: That's why the Iranians built it under the under mountain.
6:01
Speaker 3: The United States we have bombs that are designed to
6:04
Speaker 3: take out underground bunkers, and they're called bunker busters. They
6:08
Speaker 3: are thirty thousand pound bombs. They're massive bombs. They are
6:13
Speaker 3: the largest ordinance we have short of a nuclear weapon.
6:17
Speaker 3: And what happened Saturday night, So President Trump gave the
6:20
Speaker 3: order and seven b two stealth bombers left Missouri. They
6:26
Speaker 3: flew halfway around the world and then they delivered fourteen
6:31
Speaker 3: bunker busters. Twelve of them were delivered to Fordoh and
6:37
Speaker 3: the other two were delivered at a Tons and other
6:39
Speaker 3: nuclear weapons facility. Now at Ford Oh, you had the
6:44
Speaker 3: Iranians had tried to protect Florida, had tried to seal
6:47
Speaker 3: it up, and the bunker busters were designed to penetrate.
6:52
Speaker 3: So the way these bombs work, when they're dropped, they
6:55
Speaker 3: hit and they penetrate and they go deep underground and
6:58
Speaker 3: then they detonate underground, and there were two vents that
7:02
Speaker 3: these bombs were going through. And it is amazing the
7:07
Speaker 3: precision of the US Air Force that they dropped bunker
7:10
Speaker 3: buster after bunker buster after bunker buster down these vents
7:13
Speaker 3: that went all the way down and detonated every one
7:16
Speaker 3: of those bombs detonated on their targets. In addition to
7:20
Speaker 3: the fourteen bunker busters that were dropped, we had a
7:24
Speaker 3: submarine that fired thirty Tomahawk missiles at another nuclear weapons facility,
7:30
Speaker 3: pounding the living daylights out of it. And I will
7:32
Speaker 3: tell you, look, the assessment that we received is that
7:36
Speaker 3: it was devastating what President Trump said that night as
7:39
Speaker 3: we utterly obliterated their facilities. And one of the best
7:44
Speaker 3: indications of just how successful it was is how much
7:48
Speaker 3: the Democrats and the media went into spin mode almost immediately,
7:53
Speaker 3: trying to say this incredible success against our enemies.
7:56
Speaker 2: It didn't happen.
7:57
Speaker 3: It was not an incredible success, and it was based
8:00
Speaker 3: on an initial preliminary report from the DIA, the Defense
8:05
Speaker 3: Intelligence Agency, that assessed that the damage was moderate to severe,
8:13
Speaker 3: and the press went into massive spin mode to say, oh,
8:17
Speaker 3: it's only moderate, it's only moderate was not effective. That assessment,
8:21
Speaker 3: I believe is false. We're going to talk about that
8:24
Speaker 3: considerably more. I think the military attack launched against the
8:29
Speaker 3: Iranian nuclear weapons capability was devastatingly effective. And our troops
8:34
Speaker 3: are to be commended, and the commander in chief is
8:37
Speaker 3: to be commended.
8:38
Speaker 1: And Senator you said in this classified briefing that you
8:41
Speaker 1: received this week on Thursday, that what you got compared
8:45
Speaker 1: to what the media is trying to push drastically different.
8:48
Speaker 1: And that's exactly, by the way, with the DoD secretary
8:51
Speaker 1: had to say, Pete Headseth, take a listen.
8:53
Speaker 5: Sports are almost always wrong, They're almost always incomplete right anything,
8:58
Speaker 5: whether it's a squad level operation or strategic level operation.
9:02
Speaker 5: The initial reflections you get are coming at you at
9:05
Speaker 5: a high rate of speed from.
9:07
Speaker 6: A lot of different sources. So your job is to
9:09
Speaker 6: step back and assess them.
9:10
Speaker 5: And that's why we're urging caution about putting it premising
9:15
Speaker 5: entire stories on biased leaks to biased publications trying to
9:21
Speaker 5: make something look bad.
9:21
Speaker 6: How about we take a beat, recognize.
9:24
Speaker 5: First the success of our warriors, hold them up, tell
9:27
Speaker 5: their stories, celebrate that wave an American flag, be proud
9:30
Speaker 5: of what we accomplished. And in the meantime, I can
9:33
Speaker 5: assure you the chairman of his staff, the intelligence community,
9:36
Speaker 5: our staff and others are doing all the assessments necessary
9:39
Speaker 5: to make sure that mission was indeed successful.
9:43
Speaker 1: Doesn't seem like a very crazy idea, right, Let's take
9:46
Speaker 1: a moment and let's just go through the process. But
9:48
Speaker 1: the media ontce Donald Trump to be a failure so bad,
9:52
Speaker 1: even if that means putting our national security at risk.
9:55
Speaker 2: No, that's exactly right.
9:56
Speaker 3: And this was a defense intelligence assessment that was done
10:01
Speaker 3: in the immediate aftermath.
10:03
Speaker 2: Of the bombing.
10:04
Speaker 3: In these preliminary reports, they're trying to assess, they're trying
10:07
Speaker 3: to assess, do we need to bomb some more?
10:08
Speaker 2: Do we need to unload more ordinance?
10:10
Speaker 3: And this preliminary assessment concluded that the damage was moderate
10:15
Speaker 3: to severe. And mind you that, on the face of it,
10:19
Speaker 3: the analysis also said this was not based on any intelligence,
10:23
Speaker 3: not based on any intelligence from the data. It was
10:25
Speaker 3: just a preliminary assessment. Somebody, and we don't know who,
10:28
Speaker 3: We may never know who. Somebody leaked this to the press.
10:32
Speaker 3: Somebody who did not support what the president was doing.
10:35
Speaker 3: This was the deep state fighting back. This was the
10:37
Speaker 3: deep state trying to spread a narrative. It may have been.
10:41
Speaker 3: It is possible this was a Democrat congressman who somehow
10:44
Speaker 3: got this report. It's possible it was someone within the
10:46
Speaker 3: deep state that wanted to weaken the president, but they
10:49
Speaker 3: wanted to tell the story in the outset this was
10:52
Speaker 3: a failure. I think the evidence overwhelmingly demonstrates that this
10:57
Speaker 3: was not just a success, it was an incredible success.
11:00
Speaker 3: And by the way, in the wake of this report,
11:02
Speaker 3: the Secretary of State absolutely disputed at the Secretary of
11:07
Speaker 3: Defense absolutely disputed it. The President absolutely disputed it. And
11:12
Speaker 3: I will say, if you look at our bunker buster
11:16
Speaker 3: bombs are designed to take out underground bunkers. That is
11:21
Speaker 3: what their purpose is. We didn't just drop one bunker buster,
11:26
Speaker 3: we dropped fourteen. Each of them weighs thirty thousand pounds
11:32
Speaker 3: thirty thousand pounds of destructive blast force. That is over
11:38
Speaker 3: three hundred thousand pounds of explosives that were delivered on target.
11:44
Speaker 3: Every one of those bombs hit their target. And by
11:47
Speaker 3: the way, to the credit of our incredible servicemen and women,
11:51
Speaker 3: they turned around and flew all the way back to
11:53
Speaker 3: Missouri with zero American casualties. No plane was shot down,
11:57
Speaker 3: no American was injured or hurt. It was an incredible success.
12:02
Speaker 3: As we know, two other b two stealth bombers went
12:07
Speaker 3: west went over the Pacific Ocean. This group of seven
12:11
Speaker 3: went east over the Atlantic Ocean. Those who went west
12:14
Speaker 3: were a decoy, and it was designed to confuse the
12:18
Speaker 3: Iranians think that an attack was going to come come
12:22
Speaker 3: from the west rather than come from the east. And
12:25
Speaker 3: I will say the effect of that was that the
12:29
Speaker 3: Iranian air defenses, much of which the Iranian air defenses
12:32
Speaker 3: have been massively degraded by the Israelis to begin with,
12:35
Speaker 3: so their air defenses were incredibly weakened. But there was
12:38
Speaker 3: no Iranian plane that fired at our planes. There were
12:42
Speaker 3: not missiles that were fired at our planes. Look, this
12:44
Speaker 3: could have gone very differently, and in fact, I will
12:47
Speaker 3: make a contrast. Look, I was a young kid in
12:51
Speaker 3: nineteen seventy nine. In nineteen seventy nine is when the
12:54
Speaker 3: Iranian Revolution occurred and the Iyahtola then took over the
12:58
Speaker 3: American hostage Erican embassy and took took Americans hostage. And
13:02
Speaker 3: Jimmy Carter was the president there, and he was the
13:05
Speaker 3: weakest and most feckless American president we had ever seen
13:08
Speaker 3: until Joe Biden came into the White House and Jimmy Carter,
13:12
Speaker 3: in the midst of that hostage crisis, sent in a
13:15
Speaker 3: military force to try to rescue the hostages, and that
13:18
Speaker 3: military force crashed in the desert. Helicopters crashed with no
13:24
Speaker 3: opposing fire, nobody was shooting at them.
13:26
Speaker 2: They just crashed. And I got to say it, just
13:29
Speaker 2: it It.
13:30
Speaker 3: Emblemized just how incredibly weak Jimmy Carter's defense of our
13:36
Speaker 3: national security was.
13:37
Speaker 2: I was a little kid.
13:38
Speaker 3: I was ten when Reagan became president, and so I
13:41
Speaker 3: remember this as a child, and and it's I mean,
13:44
Speaker 3: you were you were barely a sparkle in your daddy's
13:47
Speaker 3: eye at the time, Ben, But but it was a
13:51
Speaker 3: powerful moment. And the contrast Jimmy Carter's helicopters crashing in
13:56
Speaker 3: the desert versus under Donald Trump, our bombers taking out
14:00
Speaker 3: the enemy with crushing effectiveness. That's a contrast that's night
14:05
Speaker 3: and day. And you know what, it's demonstrated by just
14:07
Speaker 3: how desperately the Democrats and the corporate media want to
14:11
Speaker 3: spen and say no, no, no, it was not nearly
14:13
Speaker 3: as successful as your lying eyes tell you.
14:16
Speaker 2: It was.
14:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're going to play for everybody in a moment.
14:19
Speaker 1: What headset had to say about the intelligent assessment and
14:23
Speaker 1: the new information that they have will do that in
14:26
Speaker 1: a moment. But finally, at least we're getting some decent headlines.
14:30
Speaker 1: Granted it's the Washington Free Beacon, but their headline was
14:32
Speaker 1: classified report that suggests Iranian nuclear programs still intact, likely
14:37
Speaker 1: relied on faulty info from Iranian sources. Former Intel officers say, so,
14:45
Speaker 1: let me get this straight. The media is getting their
14:47
Speaker 1: propaganda now directly from the Iranians. You can't make this up.
14:50
Speaker 3: Well, it's where the media is. CNN wants America to lose.
14:55
Speaker 3: They want a Ran to win, ABCNBCCBS, Washington Host, New
15:00
Speaker 3: York Times. They are cheering for our enemies and against
15:05
Speaker 3: the President of the United States, and sadly the Democrats. Look,
15:08
Speaker 3: the Democrats were sitting in the same classified briefing I
15:11
Speaker 3: was they heard about the incredible success of this military attack.
15:15
Speaker 3: I got to say, if the Democrats gave a damn
15:17
Speaker 3: about our country, they would come out and say, you
15:20
Speaker 3: know what, our servicemen and women are heroes, and they
15:23
Speaker 3: executed an incredible attack. And by the way, every president
15:27
Speaker 3: for the last thirty years has said Iran will not
15:30
Speaker 3: get a nuclear weapon. In this instance, President Trump acted
15:33
Speaker 3: decisively to take away their nuclear weapons capability, and the
15:37
Speaker 3: Democrats all ran to the TV cameras and said, this
15:39
Speaker 3: was terrible, this was terrible. We oppose our nation.
15:44
Speaker 1: Senator, I want to play for everybody. Pete Headseth at
15:48
Speaker 1: the Pentagon briefing about how effective this attack actually was
15:53
Speaker 1: and saying it directly to the media's phase.
15:56
Speaker 5: Take a listen peed some of the assessments that had
15:59
Speaker 5: been because whether it's fake news, CNN, MSNBC or the
16:05
Speaker 5: New York Times, there's been fawning coverage of a preliminary assessment.
16:10
Speaker 6: I've had a chance to read it.
16:12
Speaker 5: Every outlet has breathlessly reported on a preliminary assessment from
16:16
Speaker 5: DA I'm looking at it right now again. It was
16:21
Speaker 5: preliminary a day and a half after the actual strike.
16:24
Speaker 5: When it admits itself in writing that it requires weeks
16:27
Speaker 5: to accumulate the necessary data to make such an assessment,
16:30
Speaker 5: it's preliminary, it points out that it's not been coordinated
16:33
Speaker 5: with the intelligence community at all. There's low confidence in
16:37
Speaker 5: this particular report, it says in the report.
16:40
Speaker 6: There are gaps in the information.
16:42
Speaker 5: It says in the report multiple lynchpin assumptions are what
16:46
Speaker 5: this assessment a lynchpin assumption.
16:48
Speaker 6: You know what that is.
16:49
Speaker 5: It means your entire premis is predicated on a lynch pin.
16:52
Speaker 6: If you're wrong, everything else is wrong.
16:54
Speaker 5: And yet still this report acknowledges it's likely severe damage. Again,
17:00
Speaker 5: this is preliminary, but leaked because someone had an agenda
17:03
Speaker 5: to try to muddy the waters and make it look
17:05
Speaker 5: like this historic strike I wasn't successful. I'm gonna get
17:08
Speaker 5: to the chairman in a moment, because he's going to
17:10
Speaker 5: lay out the particulars for you.
17:12
Speaker 6: Based on his professional military experience. But here's what other
17:15
Speaker 6: folks are saying.
17:16
Speaker 5: THEDIA that put that report out says that this is
17:19
Speaker 5: a preliminary, low confidence report and will continue to be
17:23
Speaker 5: refined as additional intelligence becomes available. How about the Israeli
17:29
Speaker 5: Atomic Energy Commission? The devastating US strikes on Fourdeaux destroyed
17:33
Speaker 5: the site's critical infrastructure and rendered the enrichment facility inoperable.
17:39
Speaker 5: Have any of these quotes made their way into the
17:41
Speaker 5: new York Times or The Washington Post, MSNBC, CNN, any
17:46
Speaker 5: of these quotes.
17:46
Speaker 6: How about this one. This is a new one from
17:48
Speaker 6: the UN, the United Nations. No friend in the United
17:51
Speaker 6: States or certainly Israel. Often.
17:53
Speaker 5: Here's the head of the UN Atomic Energy Agency this morning,
17:58
Speaker 5: Rafael Grossi and Israeli strikes caused enormous damage to Iran's
18:04
Speaker 5: nuclear sites.
18:06
Speaker 6: Don't take my word for it. How about the IDF's
18:08
Speaker 6: chief of staff.
18:09
Speaker 5: I can say here that the assessment is that we
18:12
Speaker 5: significantly damage the nuclear program, setting.
18:15
Speaker 6: It back by years. I repeat years.
18:18
Speaker 5: The Iranian foreign minister, the spokesman, our nuclear instrations have
18:22
Speaker 5: been badly damaged.
18:23
Speaker 6: That's for sure. I'm sure that's an understatement.
18:27
Speaker 5: John Radcliffe, the director of the CIA, putting out a
18:30
Speaker 5: statement just last night. CIA can confirm that a body
18:34
Speaker 5: of credible intelligence indicates Iran's nuclear program has been severely
18:39
Speaker 5: damaged by recent targeted strikes.
18:41
Speaker 6: This includes new intelligence from.
18:43
Speaker 5: A historically reliable, very different than preliminary assessment with low confidence.
18:49
Speaker 5: He's saying, historically reliable and accurate source of method that
18:53
Speaker 5: several key Iranian nuclear facilities were destroyed and would have
18:59
Speaker 5: to be rebuilt.
19:00
Speaker 6: Over the course of years.
19:02
Speaker 1: You listen to all of that data, and I love
19:05
Speaker 1: how he laid it out. He's not just saying this
19:07
Speaker 1: is from our administration, this is from people that hate us,
19:10
Speaker 1: this from the UN, this is from Iran. Like, how
19:13
Speaker 1: the hell did you guys go with this report when
19:15
Speaker 1: it's so off from reality.
19:18
Speaker 3: Look, I think the evidence is indisputable and it's worth noting,
19:25
Speaker 3: he said. The Secretary of Defense said in that press
19:28
Speaker 3: conference that the Iranian nuclear weapons program has been set
19:33
Speaker 3: back years. I can tell you I spent an hour
19:36
Speaker 3: and a half in a classified briefing. I can't tell
19:38
Speaker 3: you what was in that briefing, but we heard nothing
19:41
Speaker 3: that was inconsistent with what the Secretary of Defense said
19:45
Speaker 3: in that press conference, which is that this military attack
19:49
Speaker 3: set Iran's nuclear program back years. It was incredibly effective,
19:55
Speaker 3: and so that has caused for celebration, which is why
19:58
Speaker 3: the Democrats don't want people to know about it. The
20:00
Speaker 3: media don't want people to know about it. But I
20:03
Speaker 3: have to say I mentioned at the outside of this
20:05
Speaker 3: program where we're going to discuss what happened, but every
20:09
Speaker 3: bit is importantly. We're going to discuss what's going to
20:11
Speaker 3: happen next and listen. It's one thing to talk about
20:15
Speaker 3: where the puck is today, but you've got to look
20:17
Speaker 3: at where the puck is going to be tomorrow, and
20:21
Speaker 3: where the puck is going to be tomorrow. There was
20:23
Speaker 3: a CNN report that came out this week that said, quote,
20:28
Speaker 3: the Trump admin Is considering offering i Ran a series
20:32
Speaker 3: of major benefits to bring it back to the negotiating table.
20:36
Speaker 3: According to the report, Washington is considering helping Iran establish
20:42
Speaker 3: a nuclear program for the purpose of producing civilian energy
20:47
Speaker 3: at a cost of about thirty billion dollars, easing sanctions
20:52
Speaker 3: and unfreezing billions of frozen Iranian dollars. And I will
20:57
Speaker 3: tell you within the Trump administration right now, there is
21:01
Speaker 3: a battle. There were voices within the Trump administration. These
21:03
Speaker 3: are the voices that opposed the strike on Iran, that
21:07
Speaker 3: wanted to have weakness and appeasement towards Iran, who are
21:11
Speaker 3: now saying, well, after the strike, after victory, we should
21:16
Speaker 3: flow billions of dollars to Iran. We should let them
21:20
Speaker 3: sell oil, let them sell oil to China. We should
21:23
Speaker 3: let them make billions. And I got to tell you
21:26
Speaker 3: this is the same failed approach of Barack Obama and
21:30
Speaker 3: Joe Biden. We should, under no circumstances allow the Ayatola,
21:36
Speaker 3: who chance death to America, who has been actively trying
21:40
Speaker 3: to murder President Trump. We should not let him win
21:42
Speaker 3: a windfall and get billions of dollars to use to
21:46
Speaker 3: wage war against America.
21:48
Speaker 1: How did we even get to this point where this
21:51
Speaker 1: was a real possibility. Where is this coming from? Because
21:55
Speaker 1: it is shocking. Like you said, you don't want to
21:57
Speaker 1: do the same thing. There was a failure with the
21:59
Speaker 1: last administrations where they're like, hey, here's billions of dollars,
22:02
Speaker 1: we'll put it on a plane, and here's a bunch
22:05
Speaker 1: of American money. You have a great day.
22:08
Speaker 3: Listen their voices in the Republican Party who have decided
22:11
Speaker 3: to embrace isolationism, who has decided to say we should
22:14
Speaker 3: withdraw from the world. You and I talked previously on
22:17
Speaker 3: this podcast about the interview I did with Tucker Carlson.
22:21
Speaker 3: I knew what that was going to be. I knew
22:23
Speaker 3: when I accepted that interview that Tucker was coming after me,
22:26
Speaker 3: that he was going to do everything he can to
22:28
Speaker 3: blast me, and he and I spent two hours. It
22:31
Speaker 3: was a It was a bloodbath. We were pounding the
22:34
Speaker 3: hell out of each other. But every single thing Tucker
22:38
Speaker 3: said about Iran and Israel proved wrong. Tucker said publicly,
22:43
Speaker 3: if America strikes Iran, we would be dragged into World
22:47
Speaker 3: War three. Thousands of Americans would be killed, and in
22:51
Speaker 3: World War three we would lose. Now, Ben, that wasn't
22:54
Speaker 3: slightly wrong, it wasn't a little bit wrong. It was
22:57
Speaker 3: totally catastrophically utterly false. Tucker also argued with me at
23:02
Speaker 3: great length, it's not true that Iran is trying to
23:06
Speaker 3: murder Donald J.
23:07
Speaker 2: Trump.
23:08
Speaker 3: Well, you know, it's one thing if you're a talk
23:12
Speaker 3: show host and you can just kind of yell into
23:14
Speaker 3: the microphone and ignore facts. But facts matter. The truth matters.
23:19
Speaker 3: It is an objective fact that Iran has been trying
23:23
Speaker 3: to murder Donald J. Trump has been trying to murder
23:26
Speaker 3: him for several years. And I pointed this out in
23:29
Speaker 3: the interview. I put it out afterwards. I put out
23:32
Speaker 3: the sealed indictment from the Department of Justice indicting Iranian
23:35
Speaker 3: hitmen who were here in the United States trying to
23:38
Speaker 3: murder Donald J.
23:39
Speaker 2: Trump.
23:40
Speaker 3: I put out video of President Trump talking about the
23:43
Speaker 3: Iranians trying to murder him. I put out video of
23:46
Speaker 3: senior Iranian leaders talking about their intention to murder Donald Trump.
23:51
Speaker 3: I put out a video that the IRGC put out
23:54
Speaker 3: an animated video of an Iranian drone murdering Donald Trump
23:59
Speaker 3: on the golf course at mar A Lago. And it
24:02
Speaker 3: is an objective fact. And this is where again the
24:06
Speaker 3: sort of isolationist rhetoric is weird, because when I said
24:10
Speaker 3: that Iran was trying to murder President Trump, and Tucker said,
24:14
Speaker 3: I've never heard that, and then he did his kind
24:16
Speaker 3: of weird, high pitched cackle. He then came back with
24:21
Speaker 3: this bizarre statement, Well, if that were true, that Iran
24:25
Speaker 3: were trying to murder Donald J. Trump, well then we
24:28
Speaker 3: should attack them immediately. We should nuke them. And I
24:32
Speaker 3: got to say, I kind of wondered if if like
24:34
Speaker 3: Tucker Carlson's old neokon. To be clear, Tucker carl said
24:38
Speaker 3: was someone who during the Iraq War, was a cheerleader
24:42
Speaker 3: for the Iraq War. He basically put on a short
24:44
Speaker 3: skirt and pom poms. I think the Iraq War was
24:48
Speaker 3: a mistake. I've been vocal about that for years. Tucker
24:51
Speaker 3: cheered it on. It is loopy. It is fruit loops
24:55
Speaker 3: to say you should nuke Iran because they're doing that. No,
24:59
Speaker 3: the right thing to do is what President Trump did,
25:01
Speaker 3: which is take out their nuclear weapons capability. And I
25:06
Speaker 3: got to say Tucker's voice and their allies of Tucker
25:10
Speaker 3: in the administration who were desperately trying to convince the President,
25:15
Speaker 3: do not attack Iran, do not take out their nuclear
25:19
Speaker 3: weapons capability, do not support it Israel, abandon Israel. They
25:23
Speaker 3: were wrong and they lost this battle. But the second iteration,
25:27
Speaker 3: and this is coming, is they're now saying, Okay, now
25:32
Speaker 3: that you've won, give the Iotola billions of dollars, because
25:35
Speaker 3: it works out really well. When you give billions of
25:38
Speaker 3: dollars to a theocratic lunatic who says they want to
25:41
Speaker 3: murder you and is still actively trying to murder you,
25:44
Speaker 3: that is incredibly foolish. And so I'm merging the president,
25:48
Speaker 3: don't listen to those voices. They were wrong before and
25:52
Speaker 3: they're wrong now. Do not send billions of dollars to
25:55
Speaker 3: the Iotola.
25:56
Speaker 1: Consider you had this to say on hit his show
25:58
Speaker 1: about as well.
26:00
Speaker 2: The El Sean.
26:01
Speaker 7: There are voices in the administration now that the president
26:04
Speaker 7: has scored an historic victory. Who are urging, Let's cut
26:08
Speaker 7: a deal. Let's let Iran sell oils, Let's lift all
26:10
Speaker 7: the sanction. Let's make this a victory for the Iyatola.
26:14
Speaker 7: Understand this, Iatola still hates America, a chance death to America,
26:18
Speaker 7: and he's been trying to murder Donald Trump, and so
26:21
Speaker 7: it would be a catastrophic mistake to flood billions of
26:25
Speaker 7: dollars into Iran.
26:28
Speaker 8: I agree with you. What if they use a proxy
26:30
Speaker 8: to attack Israel? Does that end the ceasefire? Because I
26:33
Speaker 8: would imagine that's plant that's the next plan.
26:36
Speaker 7: Real quick, you know, I will tell you one of
26:38
Speaker 7: the best indications of how successful this attack was. Within hours,
26:42
Speaker 7: Iran was rushing to have a ceasefire. That's because they
26:46
Speaker 7: are utterly decimated and weakened, and that's why they wanted
26:49
Speaker 7: to cease fire. But don't think for a minute they
26:51
Speaker 7: suddenly love America.
26:53
Speaker 2: Or love Israel. They still hate us.
26:55
Speaker 7: They are still our enemy, but we use taking away
26:57
Speaker 7: their ability to murder Americans.
26:59
Speaker 8: If they use a proxy to attack Israel, are they
27:02
Speaker 8: to blame?
27:05
Speaker 7: Of course they are the proxies. Hesbela and Hamas work
27:08
Speaker 7: for Iran. They pay for them and they control them.
27:12
Speaker 8: All right, Senator Ted Cruz, we always appreciate your time.
27:14
Speaker 1: Centator think hey, strong clothes their center and that's It's
27:18
Speaker 1: the truth. This is what people are trying to do now.
27:22
Speaker 2: It absolutely is.
27:23
Speaker 3: And I'll tell you one point that I made on
27:24
Speaker 3: Hannity that I think is powerful. We started this show
27:28
Speaker 3: by talking about how the Democrats in the media are
27:30
Speaker 3: trying to claim the attack was not effective. If that
27:34
Speaker 3: were true, why did Iran immediately want a cease fire. Look,
27:40
Speaker 3: Iran has been at war with Israel for years. They
27:44
Speaker 3: had been lobbing missiles, They had been funding Hamas and Hesbela.
27:47
Speaker 3: Understand Hamas more than ninety percent of Hamas's budget comes
27:52
Speaker 3: from Iran. Hesbela more than ninety percent of Hesbela's budget
27:56
Speaker 3: comes from Iran.
27:58
Speaker 2: Iran.
27:58
Speaker 3: When the Iatola chance death to American death to Israel,
28:01
Speaker 3: he means it. They have spent millions of millions of dollars,
28:05
Speaker 3: They have killed thousands of American servicemen and women. They
28:08
Speaker 3: have been the leading state sponsor of terrorism for decades.
28:12
Speaker 3: And after this, Look, Iran has had a really rough year.
28:16
Speaker 3: October seventh they funded October seventh and since October seventh.
28:21
Speaker 3: Hamas has been utterly decimated, Hesbela has been utterly decimated.
28:25
Speaker 3: But Sharrasad, who was their puppet leader in Syria, he
28:28
Speaker 3: has fallen. The Huthis who they were funding, who were
28:31
Speaker 3: attacking American ships and shipping through the Suez Canal, they
28:35
Speaker 3: are badly degraded. And now Iran when they were on
28:39
Speaker 3: the verge of acquiring nuclear weapons. Look, if you're the
28:42
Speaker 3: Ayatola and you're weak and you're collapsing, getting a nuclear
28:45
Speaker 3: weapon is your hail Mary. It's the one chance to say, Okay,
28:48
Speaker 3: we're relevant, we're strong. And then Israel devastatingly takes out
28:54
Speaker 3: their military capability, their air defenses. The entire course of
28:59
Speaker 3: this war, Iran had no control over their air defenses.
29:03
Speaker 3: Israel had total superiority. And then the United States when
29:06
Speaker 3: we went in and did our bombing run, Iran could
29:09
Speaker 3: not defend themselves. And then America comes in. I think
29:13
Speaker 3: Iran believed they could talk talk, talk and avoid any
29:16
Speaker 3: real consequences. I think they felt that Fida was deep
29:19
Speaker 3: enough under a mountain there was nothing they could do
29:21
Speaker 3: about it, and that America would never use bunker buster
29:24
Speaker 3: bombs against him. And by the way, Joe Biden never
29:27
Speaker 3: would have. The Democrats never would have. But Donald J. Trump,
29:30
Speaker 3: he's not an isolationist, he's not weak. He's not interested
29:34
Speaker 3: in a prolonged war. Note, we did not invade Iran,
29:37
Speaker 3: we did not send boots on the ground. We're not
29:40
Speaker 3: going there trying to turn them into a democratic utopia.
29:42
Speaker 3: We're not trying to turn them into Switzerland. The objective
29:46
Speaker 3: of the mission was very, very focused. It was to
29:50
Speaker 3: stop Iran from having nuclear weapons capability. And by the way, Ben,
29:54
Speaker 3: the reason I went on Tucker Carlson just a week
29:57
Speaker 3: ago was to make clear that Present Trump is right
30:02
Speaker 3: and Tucker Carlson was wrong. And I think I was
30:05
Speaker 3: unhappy with Tucker because he's been attacking President Trump. He
30:09
Speaker 3: said that President Trump was complicit in the attack on Iran.
30:14
Speaker 3: He claimed amazingly enough, that Donald Trump was not America first,
30:20
Speaker 3: that if you attack Iran, you're not America first. And
30:24
Speaker 3: President Trump quite rightly came back and said, look, I
30:27
Speaker 3: invented the damn term, and what I say is what
30:31
Speaker 3: America first is. And he said to Tucker, he said, look,
30:34
Speaker 3: if you want I ran to have a nuclear weapon,
30:36
Speaker 3: that ain't America first, because these lunatics want to kill us.
30:40
Speaker 3: President Trump is exactly right, and this has been I'll
30:46
Speaker 3: tell you. I texted him this week and I told him,
30:49
Speaker 3: mister President, this past week has been the single finest
30:54
Speaker 3: leadership you have.
30:56
Speaker 2: Had the entire time.
30:57
Speaker 3: And I'm incredibly proud the job you're doing as commander
31:01
Speaker 3: in chief.
31:02
Speaker 1: You know, one of the comparing contrasts that you talk
31:05
Speaker 1: about with these this administration in the past was brought
31:08
Speaker 1: up at the White House Press briefing room. Carolyn Levitt,
31:11
Speaker 1: I think did a great job of explaining the difference
31:14
Speaker 1: very much like you just described it. And here's what
31:17
Speaker 1: she said to the press about the real story here.
31:20
Speaker 9: Fani and regime was weeks away from being able to
31:23
Speaker 9: produce a nuclear weapon that would threaten the entire world.
31:26
Speaker 9: Before President Trump took this decisive action on Saturday night
31:30
Speaker 9: to obliterate their nuclear capabilities. The contrast and leadership could
31:34
Speaker 9: not be more clear. Barack Obama and Joe Biden sent
31:38
Speaker 9: palettes of cash American taxpayer dollars in a failed attempt
31:42
Speaker 9: to buy the Iranian regime's compliance with a weak and
31:45
Speaker 9: ineffective deal. President Trump sent a fleet of American warplanes
31:50
Speaker 9: to destroy Ouran's ability to produce a nuclear weapon. The
31:54
Speaker 9: United States and the entire world are safer because of
31:57
Speaker 9: this President's decisiveness. Fite agenda driven leaks by the fake
32:02
Speaker 9: news media aimed at undermining this incredible accomplishment achieved by
32:06
Speaker 9: President Trump and our brave fighter pilots. There is broad
32:09
Speaker 9: consensus emerging already that Iran's nuclear capabilities were indeed destroyed.
32:16
Speaker 9: The United States, Israel, the United Nations, and even Iran
32:19
Speaker 9: all agree they can no longer build a nuclear weapon.
32:23
Speaker 9: So what did the president? Why did the President immediately
32:26
Speaker 9: turn to obliterating after the Iranian nuclear threat? Securing peace?
32:31
Speaker 9: Within forty eight hours of the devastating strike, President Trump
32:35
Speaker 9: and his team broke her to historic ceasefire between Israel
32:38
Speaker 9: and Iran and officially ended the twelve day war. The
32:42
Speaker 9: Middle East is now shifting away from chaos in bloodshed
32:46
Speaker 9: and moving toward the beginning stages of a new era
32:49
Speaker 9: of peace, instability that President Trump has long called on
32:53
Speaker 9: them to achieve. This was unthinkable at this time last week.
32:57
Speaker 9: And this is what peace through strength looks like.
33:00
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just laying it out right to their faces. Right,
33:03
Speaker 1: this is what the president said, this is what he believed,
33:07
Speaker 1: this is what he was going to do. We're not
33:08
Speaker 1: back down. And she also said something else that also
33:11
Speaker 1: the d D said several different ways, how dare you
33:16
Speaker 1: not just give some accolades the men and women that
33:19
Speaker 1: risk their lives to pull this off and did it flawlessly.
33:23
Speaker 3: Look, peace through strength is exactly what this is. And
33:26
Speaker 3: the left that they have a bizarre view that weakness
33:30
Speaker 3: and appeasement somehow avoids war. Listen, if you look through history,
33:35
Speaker 3: the opposite is true. Weakness and appeasement encourages our enemies.
33:40
Speaker 3: They engage in more hostilities, you get more war. I
33:43
Speaker 3: have joked, but there is a reason nobody goes and
33:46
Speaker 3: studies at the Neville Chamberlain School of Foreign Affairs. Appeasement
33:53
Speaker 3: doesn't work. Donald J. Trump is a strong commander in
33:56
Speaker 3: chief just like Ronald Reagan was. And I'll tell you
33:59
Speaker 3: your family and my family, all of our families are
34:02
Speaker 3: safer because President Trump acted decisively to take out Iran's
34:06
Speaker 3: nuclear weapons capability.
34:08
Speaker 1: Don't forget We do this show Monday, Wednesday and Friday,
34:12
Speaker 1: and make sure that subscribe or auto download button wherever
34:15
Speaker 1: you get your podcast so you do not miss an episode,
34:18
Speaker 1: and also tomorrow on Saturday, we'll have the Week in Review,
34:21
Speaker 1: some of the top things we talked about this past
34:23
Speaker 1: week that you may have missed, so make sure you
34:25
Speaker 1: listen to that as well, and the Senate I will
34:27
Speaker 1: see you back here Saturday morning.