00:00:30.520We're just going to put our military at the disposal of other countries because they can tell Trump what to do with it.
00:00:38.540Quote, the attack came despite U.S. intelligence assessments that Iran's forces were unlikely to pose an immediate threat to the U.S. mainland within the next decade.
00:00:49.240But he did it anyway because Israel and Saudi Arabia told him to and he apparently does what they say.
00:00:55.780And now six American service members are known to have been killed and many more injured.
00:01:02.640There's also new reporting tonight that the U.S. embassy in Riyadh in Saudi Arabia has been hit by two drones.
00:01:08.680Washington Post is now also reporting that two Defense Department employees, U.S. Defense Department employees, have been wounded in an Iranian drone attack on a hotel in Bahrain.
00:01:17.380And I mean, in terms of what we are heading into and the kind of risk we're heading into, these are the sort of headlines that we're seeing tonight.
00:01:25.140Quote, earthquake in the Gulf, Iran war expands to a dozen countries in 72 hours.
00:01:32.000Just 72 hours after the U.S. and Israel began bombing Iran, the war has already consumed nearly the entire Middle East, reached the gates of Europe and raised new fears of attacks on American soil.
00:01:43.040This is the front page of the New York Times that we woke up to today.
00:01:47.480U.S. troops killed as blasts jolted Mideast, fear of wider war after Iran's response.
00:02:05.540That's there right next to Iran says Strait of Hormuz closed.
00:02:09.680Warns it will attack ships trying to pass.
00:02:12.080And indeed, just on the global energy front, we have seen natural gas prices spike by 50 percent in Europe.
00:02:19.700One of the world's largest exporters of natural gas is Qatar.
00:02:22.660Qatar now says they have stopped all production of natural gas.
00:02:26.220And indeed, Iran says it has closed the Strait of Hormuz, through which passes 30 percent of the world's oil and 20 percent of the world's natural gas.
00:04:38.580We're going to strip away all of that, Will.
00:04:41.620We're going to take down the ballistic missile systems, the drones capability.
00:04:46.300And whatever they, they made the decision to recover their nuclear weapons, but they haven't done much about it.
00:04:52.500And whatever that not done much about it is, we're going to take that down as well.
00:04:57.880So we're going to have a regime that is very, it's going to be challenged to govern.
00:05:03.440It's stripped away its leadership capability to do it.
00:05:06.440The infrastructure that supports and sustain that on the governance side, as well as on the military and police side and people that are repression, repressing the people.
00:05:19.600And then what, when you bring in the Israelis, they are attempting to set conditions to put this regime on a pathway for its collapse.
00:05:31.820They're not saying they're going to force its collapse.
00:05:35.180They're saying they're setting the conditions for its collapse.
00:05:38.080I think those objectives are pretty clear in terms of what we're trying to do here.
00:05:44.340Well, Michael, I think this is the second time this century that the United States has made a drastically bad mistake in terms of engaging in conflict in the Middle East.
00:05:55.080The first one was in 2003 when we invaded Iraq.
00:05:58.120And that ushered in then years and years of chaos and violence and terrorism.
00:06:04.480And we're just getting over 20 years of that confusion and chaos.
00:06:11.980Now we're going ahead and carrying out this major attack against a very large country, Iran, which is much larger than Iraq.
00:06:20.100And there's a lot of history here, obviously, in the region and so on.
00:06:24.020But what we've seen in the past several days is devastating attacks against Iran.
00:06:29.120And the Iranian government, the Iranian regime, is not relenting at this point.
00:06:32.780And that's why they're throwing everything they have at nearby targets, whether it be U.S. bases or the Gulf Arab states, whatever.
00:06:40.520This is such a tragic, senseless and needless loss of life that we're seeing right now.
00:06:46.880Voters have already arrived here to a polling side in Dallas as they are preparing to cast their votes in two increasingly competitive primaries in this race for U.S. Senate.
00:06:57.480On the Republican side, you have Senator John Cornyn, who is fighting for political survival as he is facing a challenge from the state's conservative attorney general, Ken Paxton, and Congressman Wesley Hunt.
00:07:10.020Now, this has been one of the most closely watched races of this cycle so far, and it's already drawn in a lot of money.
00:07:17.520The GOP and the Democratic primaries here in Texas amount to the most expensive Senate primaries in U.S. history.
00:07:25.380Now, Cornyn has tried to argue that some of the political baggage surrounding Ken Paxton relating to his past legal and personal scandals,
00:07:34.340that that would be detrimental to Republicans here in Texas in November if he is nominated.
00:07:39.200But Paxton so far has maintained a lot of support with a conservative base here in Texas.
00:07:46.320Now, polling has shown this three-way contest incredibly tight, and if no Republican receives a 50 percent majority, this will head to a late May runoff.
00:07:58.060We've been covering the varying explanations offered by Donald Trump and his cabinet for the war in Iran.
00:08:04.000Well, hours after launching the war in Iran, Donald Trump took to social media and seemed to link the military strikes to conspiracy theories
00:08:12.200that Iran was somehow responsible for his defeat in the 2020 presidential election.
00:08:17.360Those claims could be dismissed as wackadoo or bogus, but our next guest warns that it is actually a sign of what Donald Trump will try to do in our upcoming elections.
00:08:28.400Mark Elias writes in Democracy Docket this, quote, Donald Trump is planning to use his attack on Iran to justify a power grab over voting in the 2026 midterms.
00:08:37.880He adds that Trump's posts about Iran in the immediate aftermath of the strikes are, quote,
00:08:42.960just the latest instance of Trump citing foreign interference as a motivation or justification for unilateral executive action.
00:08:50.400Trump is setting the stage to claim extraordinary powers to take over the 2026 elections,
00:08:55.180from banning mail-in voting to imposing new obstacles to voting registration.
00:08:59.780All of this will be justified on the grounds of national security, an area where presidents enjoy their broadest powers
00:09:05.840and typically receive the greatest deference from the courts.
00:09:09.520What's clear to me is that Benjamin Netanyahu, who has long wanted to have this type of military operation against Iran,
00:09:16.540he was able to bring Trump along and got him to engage in something like this.
00:09:20.700The rationale that Marco Rupio gave today, well, they were going to get hit, so we knew that they were going to lash back,
00:09:36.520But going ahead and with these types of strikes, when we were engaged in negotiations with Iran,
00:09:41.520for the second time in a year, and for the second time in a year, while negotiations are underway, they get hit.
00:09:46.760So clearly, there's been deception to the Iranians, and my view is that Donald Trump, irrespective of the intelligence,
00:09:55.360irrespective of the fact that the nuclear program has been damaged and hobbled significantly as a result of last year's attacks,
00:10:02.080they are making things up about what the Iranians are doing.
00:10:05.440And when they say that the regime is tottering, it's not.
00:10:09.620Yes, there are a lot of Iranian people who despise the regime and hated Khamenei and are glad that he's dead.
00:10:16.940But also, the regime and the theocracy have a lot of people who supported them.
00:10:22.840It's a country of over 92 million people.
00:10:25.500And so they have their equivalent in the rural areas, conservative areas, the MAGA equivalent in Iran,
00:10:30.160that really has seen what the United States is doing now as just one more example of the United States carrying out violent attacks inside of the Middle East and directed against Iran.
00:10:41.920All very serious stuff, because he's going to package all of this up for two audiences.
00:10:47.420The first is his aggrievement audience, the people who want a permission structure to deny the outcome of elections that they lost.
00:10:55.320And then the second is, as I point out in the piece, the courts, because the courts are most deferential to presidents when it comes to foreign policy and national security.
00:11:05.660Like, that's a real thing. And we have seen a lot of damage be done.
00:11:09.700Look at the migrants who were shipped to the Gulag in El Salvador.
00:11:12.760You know, until that unraveled, there was a lot of damage done to those people.
00:11:16.760So I don't think this is going to be a smooth process.
00:11:19.240I'm optimistic that in the end we will we will fight this back and we will win in court, as we did in in in the aftermath of 2020.
00:11:26.520But everybody needs to keep in mind that, you know, there were moments of touch and go in 2020 and there were moments of touch and go in the post-election 2020.
00:11:34.700And ultimately, when Donald Trump didn't prevail in court, he incited a violent mob to storm the Capitol to try to overturn a free and fair election.
00:11:41.600So, you know, I'm optimistic, but I'm also realistic.
00:11:45.020And we need Nicole. We need to make sure that all of their institutions and all of our leaders have their spines steeled like they are not driven to pessimism.
00:11:58.140They're not driven to hopelessness, but they're also not blinded to what is in front of them and the challenges we're going to face.
00:12:04.960This is the primal scream of a dying regime.
00:12:12.560Pray for our enemies, because we're going medieval on these people.
00:12:17.780Here's the time I got a free shot at all these networks lying about the people.
00:12:22.040The people have had a belly full of it.
00:13:03.640This all-important Texas primary, and we're going to have a lot of coverage throughout the day on Real America's Voices and special coverage tonight.
00:13:12.400Grant Stinchfield and I will be co-hosting the Texas coverage.
00:13:16.160Grant from his Dallas, from the Dallas studio, and I will be north of Dallas.
00:13:22.580There's a lot going on as people go to the polls today.
00:13:26.060Remember, those early voting numbers, they don't look great, but a big part of the war and posse, a big part of the MAGA base just refuses.
00:13:37.020So we'll be monitoring the turnout throughout the day.
00:13:41.380Also, the war in Iran expands, not just to the Gulf, to capital markets and to Asia.
00:13:49.700We're going to have reports on Japan and Korea, all of it, and how this war is expanding, particularly the logistics chain.
00:13:56.380Chain, capital markets, which was very calm, I thought relatively calm yesterday because of the Revolutionary Guard saying they closed the Straits of Hormuz.
00:14:04.960And Qatar announcing, I think they can't ship, they're going to be able to ship at least gas for a while.
00:14:11.680Well, equity markets throughout the world hit.
00:14:16.060Gold, people are rushing to the dollar.
00:14:18.500The dollar is getting stronger as they're looking at that as a safe haven also.
00:14:24.400We're going to break it all down to you and give you a range of perspectives because, you know, the war and posse wants to weigh and measure this itself as it should.
00:16:27.260Like I said, today's a good day to go to Birch Gold, birchgold.com, promo code Bannon, end of the dollar empire.
00:16:32.980The eighth free installment's coming out, specifically about a strong dollar, what it would take and what that would mean, and what the opposite means also.
00:16:43.560But the other seven free installments are there online, birchgold.com, promo code Bannon.
00:16:48.380Talk to Philip Patrick and the team, particularly today when the geopolitical risks.
00:16:52.720Can we put the Financial Times headline up, front page of the Financial Times?
00:16:58.040Sam, you spent your career in this neighborhood.
00:17:01.360Did you ever think you'd see the day where, because it has taken people back that spent a lot of time there, that you actually saw the Sunnis and the Shiites?
00:17:09.920I mean, they went at it in the Iraq-Iran war, but I would argue that wasn't about religion.
00:17:16.860That was about hardcore geopolitics and just two nations living next to each other for thousands of years that hated each other.
00:17:23.860And, of course, what, a third of Iraq?
00:17:26.760The Vatican of Shiite, I think, is in Najaf, right?
00:19:12.660I should say the bridge exists for two reasons.
00:19:14.960One is so the Saudi military can roll in.
00:19:17.900The second is so all the Saudis around Dairan can drive across the bridge to drink and party at the end of the day.
00:19:26.700So you come across the bridge to Bahrain, and the rules are totally different.
00:19:31.480And then you go back and return to being devout when you return to Saudi.
00:19:35.980John Brennan, wasn't John Brennan, I know he's an analyst, but he did that merger when he ran CAA,
00:19:41.280merging the analysts with the guys like you, the operatives, the House of Lords, the House of Commons together.
00:19:47.540And I guess the House of Commons end up, he wanted the House of Commons to run things, not the operators.
00:19:52.240But wasn't he station chief, correct me, wasn't he station chief in Riyadh?
00:19:57.460Wasn't he station chief to the Saudis?
00:20:00.340Yeah, 100%, even though he was a DI analyst.
00:20:03.540Look, he's been sympathetic to the enemies of the United States forever and did his very best to destroy the capability of the CIA to do its job.
00:20:16.880And unfortunately, many of the things that he did still have not been undone.
00:20:22.040He subjected the directorate of operations to control by a coup, a corporate operating officer, bringing that straight from the corporate model.
00:20:30.460And actually, the first guy he appointed to be coup wasn't even a CIA officer of any kind.
00:20:36.280He literally just plucked him out of the corporate world and made everybody, including operations, subordinate to this guy who'd never done the job.
00:20:45.780Give you an idea of how thoroughly he just destroyed the capability of the organization.
00:20:53.400Brennan and other guys like this, you see him in the media, you see him in his opinion pieces, you see him on podcasts and these talk shows.
00:20:58.760They're, I don't want to say fanning the flames, but they look like they're all down for an expanded war.
00:21:06.020So President Trump is obviously controlling this right now, but these are the type of things in the law of unintended consequences, which is what war is all about.
00:21:17.220And one of the reasons that you've got guys now for these Gulf Emirates in these states, and of course MBZ is a guy that likes to get it on too.
00:21:25.580But this could really start to, particularly as people are pushed and they're pushed by Western advisors that have worked for them or been consultants of them for years and not even associated currently with the Trump administration or the U.S. government, sir.
00:21:41.860Yeah, well, Steve, look, I think it's crystal clear that a bunch of people here, I mean, a bunch of people outside of Iran who want us to lose however you define that.
00:21:52.360They want this thing to get ugly and bad and for us to take losses and they are cheering for the enemy.
00:22:02.220I mean, I note that the People's Forum, which is the so-called revolutionary incubator in the heart of Manhattan, and it's all funded by this guy, Neville Roy Singham, who's a CCP asset and operates out of Shanghai.
00:22:15.800I mean, from moment one, these guys and Code Pink and all of these folks have been out in the streets in fully funded foreign-connected efforts to undermine our war effort.
00:22:43.340You've had your hand on the pulse here, particularly the logistics chain and weapon systems and actual what you have to deliver because they are going through the military under Cain and President Trump is going through a pretty methodical takedown of degradation first and leading to destruction.
00:23:01.500But some of our best allies, like the Koreans and the Japanese, are noticing, hey, we're putting a call on folks to ship THAADs, patriots, et cetera, into the region.
00:23:13.920And they're sitting there going, well, hang on for a second.
00:23:17.180The main thing, as Captain Fennell says, the Chinese Communist Party is right here.
00:23:24.760First of all, what's happening in region, and then let's expand it out.
00:23:28.120Well, in region, as you point out, you know, the U.S. military has, with the Israelis, well, primarily the Israelis, as we're finding out, with U.S. support, we have degraded a lot of capabilities.
00:23:40.940Obviously, we assassinated many of their leaders.
00:23:49.680The bad is, clearly, we are depleting our stockpiles in the CENTCOM AOR a lot faster than even what was originally warned by General Cain last week, because I was told that.
00:24:08.420But if you go back and look at Jack, and he knows the president very well.
00:24:13.400I mean, quite frankly, he was a guy we offered a very senior job to.
00:24:17.500He really wanted him more than Mattis to be Secretary of Defense or National Security Advisor, but for, I think, his wife's illness, he couldn't do it in the first term.
00:24:25.240He's a guy the president really thinks the world of, and he's obviously a real neocon and been in the region forever.
00:24:30.920But when you talk about degradation, what Fennell and Cain are talking about is a systematic stripping that he says they can never come back from this, that they'll be essentially militarily fairly sophisticated, David, in the Stone Age when you finish with them.
00:24:48.400And that, President Trump, seems like, with raising Cain, they're going up the escalatory ladder to fieldstrip this so they can never rebuild it.
00:24:56.960Well, that, I think, is their plan, and I think we've been effective in some ways.
00:25:00.680But just to be clear, the objective was regime change.
00:25:04.360The regime is holding on, and we're finding out now with these missile strikes, they've been able to expand and do even more complex strikes on targets not just in Israel or against the U.S. in the region, but they're expanding it now to an entirely regional war that's now even roping in the French and the British as we're finding out.
00:25:24.680So this really could be a world, quote-unquote, world war because of all the powers involved.
00:25:30.000So to me, we have degraded the regime, absolutely.
00:25:33.880We've scored some key victories, like I said, with killing the Ayatollah.
00:25:37.420But the command and control structure, while it may be degraded, is decentralized and hardened enough where they are still able to not only continue fighting, but we are seeing them expand.
00:25:47.460Tel Aviv, my understanding is, was pounded for eight hours last night.
00:25:51.180Eight hours they were pounded by increasingly sophisticated and lethal missiles fired by these Iranian units.
00:25:57.800So to me, we haven't gotten the kill shot in.
00:26:01.520The Iranians are still fighting, and they're upping the ante every single day.
00:26:05.740So this is why we are having to pull on those stockpiles now.
00:26:08.800We're draining CENTCOM's stockpiles, I think, faster than even was anticipated.
00:26:13.420And now we're pivoting and going to the Asians and saying, we need our stuff back.
00:26:17.260And as I noted to you before we started, the South Korean press is running this quote from a South Korean political leader saying that we feel betrayed by the Americans.
00:26:27.420And now the Japanese are getting skittish because they're worried after South Korea gives over those systems, it's not going to be enough.
00:26:34.040And the Americans are going to come knocking at Japan next saying, hey, give us your stuff.
00:26:38.060So clearly the plan is to drain the CENTCOM AOR and then pivot and pull whatever we can from Indopaycom, which, as you know, then leaves a gigantic gaping hole for the Chinese in Taiwan or the South China Sea or the East China Sea to really have some real victories over us because we don't have the stuff anymore to shoot.
00:26:58.920Let me ask you, the pounding of Tel Aviv last night.
00:27:01.680Also, the first wave to me looked like they were kind of random, I shouldn't say random, but kind of pop shots.
00:27:07.580The hit on Bahrain and then some of the Gulf Emirates last night looked more systematic, do you agree, than day one?
00:27:13.640Yeah, what I think happened was just like the 12-day war, only it happened in a shorter time frame.
00:27:18.800So what happened was I think we did a lot of EM interference and I think we did a lot of suppression of enemy air defenses and we were in their sort of electromagnetic OODA loop there.
00:27:29.240And we really stymied the Iranians again, but they adapted.
00:27:33.000And this is the whole thing with the Iranians, and you have to give them credit, is they have been preparing for basically 47 years for something like this.
00:27:40.620So they have had the time to harden and to disaggregate their capabilities enough so they are survivable for round two, three, four, and five.
00:30:19.600Yeah, I think we're talking to some of the same people in some cases, too.
00:30:22.400But I'm not even talking about the videos that I'm seeing on Twitter.
00:30:26.200Or I'm talking about people that I know in the region or who are part of the year in the region and have a lot of ties.
00:30:33.080It is not being reported officially, obviously, because the Israelis won't let that out.
00:30:38.120But there are people who are living in Tel Aviv who are sharing things that they probably shouldn't be about what's going on in the streets and whatnot.
00:30:58.620I mean, President Trump, this was one of the reasons for the big move beforehand was that Tel Aviv was hit and hit very hard in those last couple of days before they brought the 12-day war to an end.
00:31:13.480Also, explain to people the OODA loop.
00:31:21.460So what we found in modern warfare, this was a theory, it's an acronym created by John Boyd, who was an Air Force general, real visionary.
00:31:28.800Then he went on and had a long career in business.
00:31:31.180And he came up with this theory called the OODA loop, Observe, Orient, Decide, Act.
00:31:35.540And for him, he started observing this phenomenon when he was in combat flying jet planes.
00:31:42.140And I don't remember which war he was in, but he was flying jet planes.
00:31:45.240And he realized warfare happens very quickly today.
00:31:49.280And you have to be able to observe quickly, orient your plane, decide to attack, and then attack without any hesitation.
00:31:56.580And you've got to do it faster than the other guy.
00:31:59.000And so he took that idea and he applied it to thinking and to thinking about leadership and things like that and systems management and things like that.
00:32:06.980And he applied it for the military, then he applied it in private sector.
00:32:13.060And you've got to not only be fast with the OODA loop, your own OODA loop, you have to be able to be so fast that you can disrupt the OODA loop of the other guy.
00:32:21.480And that's what you're seeing in modern warfare today.
00:32:24.120You're seeing us, you know, we got the Iranians in the first day.
00:32:47.920By the way, to show that the graybeards in our group, the Sam Faddis's and the Captain Finnell's, that I'm actually older.
00:32:54.880Remember, I remember getting the John Boyd briefing in the Pentagon, I think in 1981, 82, where he had that, I don't know, Sam, you've seen it.
00:33:03.460The briefing was like this thick because he was kind of a madman, but he was absolutely brilliant.
00:33:08.800It was really maneuver warfare, the OODA loop.
00:33:11.000I mean, he changed so much thinking in the Pentagon and the way we fight.
00:33:15.240Sam, the intelligence here is all important, right?
00:33:19.560Your assessment of how do you think, and I realize you have limited access to data, the classified, et cetera, with keeping this non-classified.
00:33:28.760Your assessment of how we're doing both on strategic intelligence, operational intelligence, how do you think we're doing?
00:33:36.020Because I believe some of the responses have caught people by surprise, particularly the way the Persians went after the Gulf states during Ramadan and how the Gulf states aren't shy about hitting back and hitting back quickly and asking the United States, hey, we need to come off the chain here because we may do something on our own.
00:33:56.980Well, Steve, I think, you know, intelligence is only as good as, I mean, you've got to have good intelligence, but you also have to have people that are willing to listen to the intelligence.
00:34:10.240I think the reality is that we are way too dependent upon intelligence that's been provided to us from the Israelis.
00:34:17.480And look, I don't fault the Israelis for pursuing their own national interests because that's what every country is supposed to do.
00:34:24.220But I think they, my personal opinion is they put a spin on this, that we were going to schwack these guys, hit them real hard, bomb them for a while, and then somehow magically the regime would topple and everything would be great.
00:34:41.500And as you know, I'm very skeptical of that from the outset, really skeptical of it.
00:34:48.720And so now we're into the realm of the Iranians decided to think for themselves, the enemy gets a vote, and they have improvised and adapted.
00:34:59.060So as Brandon was saying, you know, we've only got X number of interceptors.
00:35:03.880So you fire the ones that are your missiles that are most easily intercepted first and burn up our defensive capability.
00:35:11.380And then you actually shift into shots.
00:35:16.780And they are also now expanding the war.
00:35:19.360They have had the audacity to decide that they get to choose where this is fought and how it's fought.
00:35:25.760So increasingly, they're hitting energy facilities all throughout the region, obviously with the intent of taking oil and natural gas from the region completely off the market,
00:35:36.480which at least temporarily they seem to have succeeded in doing, just because people are cautious.
00:37:17.080You know, we are very much in a very high-tempo conflict.
00:37:20.860And I think that the president and Netanyahu really believed, and I think the president was following Netanyahu's lead on this, that, hey, if you kill, if you whack Khomeini, the whole regime will fall like a house of cards.
00:37:32.320Because that's what the Israelis think.
00:37:33.900The Israelis have this assassination mindset.
00:37:39.780But when it doesn't, you now have a situation where you've kicked over the hornet's nest, and all the hornets are coming after you and your friends.
00:37:46.240And it turns out you don't have enough stuff to whack them down.
00:37:48.740And so I think that, you know, I'm hopeful the Americans will adapt, like the Iranians have done, in the next iteration.
00:37:55.820But right now, I think this is a very badly planned operation.
00:38:00.060And I think that the president should declare victory now and come home and say, hey, I took care of the problem.
00:38:39.180But even General Rees and Cain was saying, hey –
00:38:42.820Steve, they had to fire Fred Kotcher because he had the balls to go out and say, hey, my boss is warning the president, and the president's not listening.
00:39:30.140If you do have this big wave that comes in the next 24, 48 hours and you begin to see the uprising of the Persian people,
00:39:36.920because the one thing we haven't seen is a mass uprising against the regime in the streets.
00:39:42.460Now, part of that is 30,000 of them or 20,000 of them were killed four weeks ago.
00:39:47.360I'm sure a lot of their leaders are that.
00:39:49.160But also people took that as an example that, hey, these guys are going to play hardball.
00:39:53.540Now they're backs to the wall because I think the regime and regime elements understand it's – that the forces arrayed against them,
00:40:02.000the Americans, the Israelis, now Saudi Arabia, UAE, they want them graveyard dead.
00:40:07.980So they're kind of backed into a corner.
00:40:09.900But do you think that part of it is to come in with this massive wave and see if you get the uprising that President Trump has warned over and over again?
00:40:18.480Hey, guys, it's your mission to overthrow these guys at the end.
00:40:53.120Was the intelligence good enough about what?
00:40:54.980Because President Trump, from the very first time he said it, now comes your hour of liberation, right?
00:41:00.640I do believe people thought that the Khomeini taking out the Ayatollah might have had a bigger impact.
00:41:06.520But do you see anything in the streets, given the fact that you used to live there, do you see anything in the streets of Tehran that would lead you to believe there's going to be a popular uprising right now, that the Persian people are going to take this in their hands and overthrow this Islamic Republic overlords?
00:41:23.560Steve, I'm going to echo Brandon's sentiment and say up front, I hope I am wrong.
00:41:30.360But no, I don't see any indication that it's going to say up front, I don't see any indication that it's happening, and I have never thought that that was a realistic prospect.
00:41:40.100As I said to you the other day, if there is any prospect for regime change, it'll come from some guys at senior levels effectively staging a coup and saying we're not riding this thing to the ground.
00:41:51.840But there's no guarantee at all that that's going to happen either.
00:41:57.360I think a number of guests have said over the last few days, we ought to stop talking about regime change, make this about degrading capabilities and taking things off the table and be prepared to at some point effectively declare victory and go home.
00:42:14.940If we're going to ride this, if we're going to ride this, if we're going to ride this idea of regime change, I think it's going to get even uglier.
00:42:24.180Sam, I want to give a shout out to the Bucks County thing.
00:42:26.620How did that go on those folks in there, the Patriots?
00:42:29.800That's one of the building blocks of taking our country back.
00:43:08.900Look, I spoke, and then to show you how motivated these people are, I then spent another three hours after I spoke standing there talking to people individually outside of the ballroom as they came up one after another just hungry for information.
00:48:03.620And quite frankly, the bureaucratic nature of the administration of the civilization has been passed down in an unbroken chain generation after generation.
00:48:12.880It's one of the reasons they're so hard to negotiate with, right, as President Trump found out.
00:48:17.740But you understand they're not just bad – the folks that run the Islamic Republic are not just bad hombres.
00:48:25.420They're tough and smart bad hombres, correct?
00:50:04.260There are a whole bunch of groups like that in Pennsylvania.
00:50:08.280I mean, people up in Erie come to mind who went into a dark blue city that had been democratic forever and who are out there.
00:50:21.700And they're not just – this is not just a white, rural Pennsylvania phenomenon.
00:50:26.340I mean, you're talking about blacks, Hispanics.
00:50:30.400I mean, good Lord, Hazleton, which is three-quarters Dominican right now.
00:50:35.380Precincts up there went 75 percent for Trump in the last election.
00:50:40.940And the MAGA movement – I was down there every other day in the run-up to the election.
00:50:45.900So you have incredible energy in this movement.
00:50:50.620Now, if the GOP understood that and accepted that and rode that and really fielded MAGA candidates, I think we would sweep the field.
00:51:04.300If there's a disconnect, it's – you get down to that level in Pennsylvania, you've still got way too many establishment rhino types being fielded.
00:51:14.060And then folks wondering, well, why aren't the MAGA voters showing up for them?
00:51:19.300Well, because – because you're dismissing them.
00:51:22.340Or you expect them to show up, but you don't actually listen to them.