Bannon's War Room - Episode 5274⧸5275： WarRoom Special War With Iran

00:00:00.000 On Easter Sunday, here's what we've decided to do.

00:00:02.940 We're going to go back to the beginning of this war, 0.94

00:00:06.120 and we're going to show the chronology of it as we reported it at the time,

00:00:10.820 both through cold opens and our own reporting.

00:00:13.160 I want to thank the team at Real America Voice,

00:00:15.760 particularly our guys in Denver and also my own crack team here.

00:00:19.660 You're about to get an eyewitness account of how we got to this point

00:00:24.120 in this very bloody conflict that all of us on Easter Sunday,

00:00:28.580 on the Day of the Risen Christ that we all pray to God ends and ends shortly.

00:00:35.280 Now, a special edition of The War Room for Easter Sunday.

00:00:38.680 Israel has confirmed that the supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei,

00:00:43.140 has been killed as a result of those Israeli strikes that took place earlier today.

00:00:48.600 One of these sources saying that Israel actually has photographic evidence of Khamenei

00:00:54.460 showing his dead body. The second source told me that an official announcement is in the works,

00:01:03.280 although it is possible that the Israelis will allow President Trump and the United States

00:01:07.940 to make this announcement officially. But this is enormous breaking news here that the Israeli

00:01:14.980 government is confirming that the supreme leader of Iran was killed in Israeli strikes earlier

00:01:22.360 today. This is a day that many Israeli government officials have hoped would come eventually.

00:01:28.980 It is also, we should note, a day that many Iranian dissidents, Iranian protesters had hoped

00:01:34.980 would eventually come. And indeed, it has come now. And it is an earth shattering moment

00:01:40.260 for the Middle East and for the future of Iran. The most evil man on the frigging planet 1.00

00:01:48.860 is dead, stone cold dead, because of President Trump's resolve. And if we lose anybody in this 0.99

00:01:56.200 operation, they will have died a double death because they will have risked their lives and

00:02:00.960 sacrificed their lives to make us safer here at home. People have died and over two dozen others

00:02:06.620 injured after protests erupted at the U.S. consulate in Karachi. Hundreds of protesters

00:02:11.980 stormed the Pakistani port city's compound. The violent clashes are following the killing

00:02:17.700 everyone supreme leader. Donald Trump did what nobody else could do for half a century.

00:02:23.620 How do you like that? And you know why he did it? Because he loves this country.

00:02:27.860 You know why he did it? Because he's humane. He saw people slaughtered and he wanted to put an

00:02:31.680 end to it. That's why he did it. Now, it's time that we Americans have to come to grips with

00:02:36.820 something. We have a party in this country, the Democrat Party, that hates the country.

00:02:41.120 Here we are in the middle of a spectacular, spectacular, humane peace mission where people

00:02:47.380 were being slaughtered. They were being slaughtered right up to the minute. We attacked

00:02:50.760 them. We've been talking about it. They've slaughtered our soldiers. They've slaughtered

00:02:55.760 our citizens, our embassy personnel. They come into our country and try and assassinate 1.00

00:03:01.280 people. They're the biggest promoters of terrorism. And the Democrats immediately, knee-jerk, 0.83

00:03:06.840 they defend the terrorists, like to defend the illegal aliens and the criminals. There's 0.82

00:03:11.700 something wrong with that party. That at a time we should be celebrating the most spectacular

00:03:17.160 military act I've ever seen. Khomeini's gone in 20 hours while their president, Biden, was

00:03:25.100 funding the Iranians billions of dollars while Obama was paving the way for them to have nuclear

00:03:32.280 weapons. Donald Trump loves this country. He knows right from wrong. And we've had a real

00:03:39.120 psyop going on in this country for 10 years against this man where they try and pretend he's

00:03:44.360 the authoritarian. He's the dictator. No, they are. They talk about the War Powers Act of 1973.

00:03:52.560 Anybody who is a serious constitutional lawyer knows that act is unconstitutional.

00:03:59.800 I see all these lawyers writing these pieces like they're smart. They're dumb. And every 1.00

00:04:05.260 administration, Republican and Democrat, has questioned it, questioned it. But they haven't

00:04:11.380 brought it to the Supreme Court because neither the Congress or the president wants a resolution.

00:04:41.380 He put in the trauma

00:05:11.380 didn't want to see Iran hitting back and pushing back. 0.56

00:05:15.100 President Trump should have not started this war from the beginning.

00:05:18.180 It was a war of choice, but there was no necessity to start this aggression.

00:05:22.480 That was act of aggression.

00:05:24.080 Chuck Schumer is elected from New York.

00:05:26.260 Bernie Sanders is elected from Vermont.

00:05:29.020 They wanted the commander in chief to be elected by the entirety of the nation.

00:05:33.700 And they're even talking about impeaching him if they take the House of Representatives.

00:05:38.400 Ladies and gentlemen, we have an enemy within.

00:05:42.100 And it is the Democrat Party.

00:05:44.600 Every reprobate, miscreant, and malcontent is in that party.

00:05:48.820 The Marxists and the Islamists are in that party.

00:05:52.240 Do they act like they love the nation?

00:05:54.080 Do they?

00:05:54.580 When we have men and women in uniform, Democrats and Republicans in independence, fighting an enemy, fighting terrorists, the greatest terror regime in the world history, and we're winning.

00:06:08.320 And that's why they're going nuts.

00:06:10.380 We're winning.

00:06:11.380 This is so spectacular what's taking place.

00:06:14.540 And I want our troops to know something.

00:06:17.420 These people who are trying to undermine you,

00:06:20.380 they are a small percentage of the population.

00:06:23.300 We red-blooded Americans, we love victory.

00:06:26.960 And we love you.

00:06:29.340 You are of us.

00:06:30.920 And most of us have had relatives, if not ourselves, in the military.

00:06:34.580 Chuck Schumer means nothing to us.

00:06:37.000 Hakeem Jeffries means nothing to us.

00:06:39.040 You, Mr. and Mrs. America, we support our military, we support our commander-in-chief, we support victory.

00:06:47.920 This is a spectacular, spectacular military operation with our spectacular ally, the Israelis, with their spectacular prime minister.

00:06:57.060 It's working. It's effective. It's spectacular.

00:07:01.300 and these guys, we have to hurry back to Congress.

00:07:05.880 We need to have a vote on the War Powers Act of 1973.

00:07:10.440 This would be the same party that dragged us into Vietnam, right? 0.99

00:07:14.400 Was that a declared war?

00:07:16.000 No, it wasn't a declared war. 0.99

00:07:17.640 And I could go on and on and on about the hypocrites in that party. 0.97

00:07:22.400 It's their president that was about to hand nuclear weapons to this enemy. 0.97

00:07:26.160 It's their president who handed them billions of dollars in cash and so forth.

00:07:30.540 This president isn't going to put up with it. And he has it. God bless our president. God bless the prime minister of Israel.

00:07:38.840 The Israelis are striking targets in Iran's capital this morning. The U.S. operation is also expected to continue.

00:07:45.800 Do you think these two forces will be able to decimate all of the hardliners in the Iranian regime?

00:07:54.020 Good morning, Pamela. That's a great question. But the answer, the short answer is no.

00:07:58.020 So this is, you have to remember, this is an ideology that permeates the entire society.

00:08:03.300 Now, that doesn't mean that that ideology and the people that represent it aren't weakened.

00:08:08.880 They certainly have been weakened. There's no question about it.

00:08:11.800 But what we're talking about is really what is in people's hearts and minds.

00:08:15.980 And that is really hard to change, especially if they have the belief system that they've had for, what, 47 years now.

00:08:23.940 That's a really difficult thing to change.

00:08:25.940 The strikes that Israel and the United States have launched against Iran have been very directed at leadership targets,

00:08:34.340 taking out the head of the armed forces of Iran, taking out just a few minutes ago,

00:08:41.600 the IDF reported they were taking out two fighter jets, old fighter jets, F-4s and F-4s and F-5s,

00:08:49.160 that was about to take off from Tabriz Airport in Iran.

00:08:52.780 And that really shows that this is a multiple targeting effort.

00:08:58.240 In other words, what we're doing is we're taking out the leadership, but we're also taking out some of their instruments of power.

00:09:04.120 And that's going to go a long way to neutralizing Iran, but it is not going to completely eliminate the ideology behind this regime. 0.93

00:09:22.780 But what we are seeing is a very divided picture, of course.

00:09:37.440 I want to take the city of Isfahan, the second largest city in Iran, as an example.

00:09:41.380 We saw these massive pro-government rallies in the streets, people mourning, crying for the supreme leader's death.

00:09:48.400 You have to remember, of course, though, that Iran is trying to orchestrate an image of strength 0.93

00:09:52.400 Because just hours earlier, social media video shows people honking their cars in the streets, celebrating women, waving their hijabs in celebration again.

00:10:02.360 And that divided picture that we're seeing on the ground in Iran is, of course, reflected across the region.

00:10:08.840 You mentioned the attacks on the U.S. consulate in Karachi, where you see those protesters breach the initial security barrier and then bang on the consulates with sticks.

00:10:18.760 Very dramatic images, very similar to what we saw in the green zone in Baghdad, which is where the U.S. embassy is located.

00:10:25.060 There as well, flashbangs being used, security forces cracking down on protesters, angry about the death of the supreme leader.

00:10:33.040 But you're also seeing celebrations abroad as well, particularly among Iran's expat community.

00:10:39.240 There's a strong expat community here in London.

00:10:41.520 Some of them were out celebrating this weekend after the announcement of the death,

00:10:45.680 as well as in Los Angeles, of course, in the United States.

00:10:48.920 But then there's also some anger and some resentment in the U.S. as well.

00:10:52.100 There was a demonstration in New York saying, hands off Iran.

00:10:55.760 So as the memory of the Ayatollah is being debated and played out across the region and globally,

00:11:02.260 you're seeing this very divided reaction.

00:11:05.060 But very importantly, this is a man who's going to be remembered in his final months

00:11:09.200 for a brutal crackdown that killed thousands of Iranians.

00:11:15.680 here

00:11:27.060 here

00:11:33.940 here

00:11:38.780 all

00:11:42.360 We Americans like retribution, especially when it comes to dealing with terrorist

00:12:12.340 Khomeini is dead. He's not six feet under. He's in hell. He's got a river of blood on his hands.

00:12:20.180 And the Iranian people are going to be free. They're going to be free. America's going to be

00:12:24.960 safe. The Israelis are going to be safe. The world's going to be safe. No thanks to the UN.

00:12:30.220 No thanks to Europe. And most of all, no thanks to the Democrats. And if we lose anybody in this

00:12:35.200 operation, they will have died a double death because they will have risked their lives and

00:12:39.940 sacrifice their lives to make us safer here at home this is the primal scream of a dying regime

00:12:49.100 pray for our enemies because we're going to medieval on these people

00:12:54.180 here's not got a free shot all these networks lying about the people the people have had a

00:13:00.540 belly full of it i know you don't like hearing that i know you try to do everything in the world

00:13:04.340 to stop that but you're not going to stop it it's going to happen and where do people like that go

00:13:08.340 to share the big line mega media i wish in my soul i wish that any of these people had a

00:13:16.060 conscience ask yourself what is my task and what is my purpose if that answer is to save my country

00:13:23.840 this country will be saved war room here's your host stephen k van

00:13:30.540 It's Sunday, 1 March in the year of the Lord, 2026, the noble and honored dead of America.

00:13:42.340 We're going to get to that in just a minute.

00:13:43.980 Send come as put an announcement.

00:13:45.040 I want to thank Real America's Voice, Parker and Rob Sig, our entire team in Denver.

00:13:50.900 Also, our fantastic team here at the War Room.

00:13:53.260 We're going to go seven days a week because of like events have just happened here in covering this major military operation, as the president defines it, or war until that time it's deemed unnecessary to cover seven days a week.

00:14:09.560 So we'll be seven days a week. This is our first. And I want to thank we've got we're packed with some of the smartest minds about the region, the nation, geopolitics, military operations.

00:14:20.640 and I really want to thank them for changing their Sundays up to be with us.

00:14:25.620 Jack Posobiec, CENTCOM has just put out.

00:14:29.100 Lindsey Graham and Mark Levin, I mean, I think to torture the boardroom posse,

00:14:34.860 we'd play an hour of Mark Levin, just the over-the-top revolting comments of Levin.

00:14:43.100 But we'll spare you one in the cold open just to see what's playing on Fox 24-7.

00:14:49.400 We're trying to give you a, quite frankly, a more detailed and sophisticated look at what is actually happening.

00:14:55.860 Jack Posobiec, CENTCOM has just announced, I think, three Americans killed in action, many others wounded, sir.

00:15:03.960 Steve, that's right.

00:15:05.020 And I'm working right now with my sources at the Department of War within the Pentagon and other areas of the intelligence community and the military to be able to try to figure out exactly who that was.

00:15:18.420 CENTCOM saying that they're going to be holding back the information for 24 hours while family

00:15:23.900 members are contacted. We don't know exactly which it was. I'm trying to see if we can figure

00:15:30.160 out if they'll release at least which branch it was. Early indications seem to be, just based on

00:15:36.540 what I've seen, that this may be related to some of those on-base attacks, those strikes that we've

00:15:41.300 seen Bahrain, Qatar, some of the other ports all along the Middle East. But of course, we've also

00:15:48.180 seen attacks on U.S. bases otherwise. One of the interesting pieces that we've seen is that there

00:15:54.920 was a Sikorsky helicopter that was flown from Bahrain. It's known for medical combat rescue.

00:16:02.620 It was flown from Bahrain to Doha International. That's something that we're tracking to see

00:16:06.100 if that was related to this attack. But as we can see right now, this is not bloodless for

00:16:11.620 the United States. We've lost three American service members, and we're told four or five

00:16:18.000 in critical condition. CENTCOM, by the way, confirming that the IRGC had claimed at one

00:16:24.860 point that they had targeted the Lincoln with four ballistic missiles. This is just about an

00:16:28.840 hour ago. CENTCOM now confirming that the Lincoln was not struck by those ballistic missiles,

00:16:34.120 so this does not appear to be related to any attack on the Lincoln.

00:16:37.260 That's what I was asking.

00:16:37.940 And to be sure, if the Lincoln was hit by a ballistic missile, there'd certainly be more than four.

00:16:43.000 Well, let me ask you, the Iranians claimed earlier they had targeted the Lincoln with four ballistic missiles.

00:16:49.200 So CENTCOM's—because a lot of times the Iranians are, you know, obviously in the fog of war, the first casualty is truth. 0.98

00:16:57.160 They're always putting out—obviously the first hit yesterday they said was a girls' school that's still being worked through, whether it happened or not.

00:17:04.300 But did CENTCOM actually concur that four ballistic missiles had targeted the Lincoln?

00:17:12.180 Well, they said that the missiles did not come even close.

00:17:15.780 So I take that to mean that the missiles did target the Lincoln.

00:17:19.780 We know that Iran had supplied those anti-ship cruise missiles to the Houthis across the Arabian Peninsula there in the Red Sea area with anti-ship cruise missiles in the past.

00:17:31.840 So certainly this is within their capabilities to target the carrier.

00:17:36.160 Of course, the carrier would be the ultimate target for any of their strike forces, strike packages.

00:17:41.500 And that's why the carrier has that defensive screen with the standard missile three interceptors fired from the Arleigh Burke destroyers with their Aegis and their Aegis air defense systems.

00:17:52.180 They're fully capable. Again, we don't know exactly what the status was, how it was that those missiles did not strike.

00:17:58.200 Now, they're saying ballistic missiles, not cruise missiles.

00:18:00.240 That could be something that's lost in the wash.

00:18:02.460 But, of course, it remains to be seen exactly what capabilities they're bringing to bear.

00:18:07.200 But, yes, it does appear that it was targeted by missiles and the missiles, at least as of now, as we know, they have not been struck.

00:18:14.260 And, of course, if the carrier had been struck, we'd be seeing images and videos and Iran would be showing it everywhere. 0.92

00:18:19.900 I mean, this would be a high value target in terms of propaganda for them.

00:18:24.080 So we would know immediately if that were struck.

00:18:26.020 There was a carrier that Iran seems to have struck, or excuse me, a tanker that Iran seems

00:18:31.600 to have struck in the Gulf of Oman, the port of Oman, a Palau-flagged oil tanker that is

00:18:38.040 currently sinking right now, as well as, by the way, CENTCOM striking an Iranian naval

00:18:42.620 Corvette that is currently on its way to Davy Jones' locker.

00:18:46.480 Yeah, Captain Fennell is going to be on about this, the Straits of Hormuz, because that will

00:18:50.740 have a definite impact on oil markets tomorrow.

00:18:54.540 Jack, it's interesting.

00:18:55.340 I'm going to bring Eric Princeton now.

00:18:56.400 Jack, one of the justifications, rationale for why it had to go now, as the White House

00:19:01.900 said yesterday, is that they had intelligence that the Revolutionary Guard was going to

00:19:08.200 target American ... They were going to strike first and target particularly American vessels

00:19:13.160 in basis, but that's where they went.

00:19:15.520 Eric, it seems like it's not as intense as the strike that ended the 12-day war, but spectacular results, correct?

00:19:27.520 I mean, they took out the Ayatollah and its top 40 guys, what, having a picnic lunch in the afternoon or gathering. 0.51

00:19:35.500 The intelligence was pretty special in the fact they took the Ayatollah and 40 of its top guys out, sir? 0.55

00:19:41.940 look steve it's um i'm uh i'm not happy about the whole thing i don't think this was in america's

00:19:51.960 interest uh it's going to uncork a significant can of worms and chaos and destruction uh in

00:20:00.360 iran now who takes over you still have tens hundreds of thousands of irgc people uh that

00:20:07.240 will be positioning for to be number two to be the next rulers of that country um i i don't see

00:20:14.500 how this is uh in keeping with the president's manga commitment i'm disappointed well talk to

00:20:19.960 us about that about it because i've been putting up on social media he wanted he said regime change

00:20:25.300 he made this comment the other night the ayatollah's gone his 40 top guys are gone don't

00:20:30.460 you just toss it to the persians and say because he keeps saying rise up from the streets i haven't

00:20:35.300 seen massive demonstrations or massive people coming out in Tehran. There have been some

00:20:40.000 running around shouting they're supporting it. But is the plan to decapitate? Do you think the

00:20:46.200 president's accomplished that and now can just move on? I think, and again, who comes after that?

00:20:55.520 I don't know that there's a plan. These are ultimately solved by ground combat. I don't

00:21:01.260 think a regime has ever been changed by air power alone um it's wishful thinking and now it is

00:21:07.760 indeed cost american lives i don't um i don't buy the the argument that it was only because of uh

00:21:14.080 uh they were doing it to preempt when you when you load that many troops and that many aircraft

00:21:19.000 in an immediate area um you could almost guarantee a response but again how does the regime get

00:21:25.320 changed. I don't think that Reza Pahlavi is a strong enough leader to, even though there may

00:21:32.500 be some protest in Iran asking for him to come back, there's an absence of security apparatus

00:21:38.240 to get him done, to get him actually in power. Tell the audience about Chalabi. Pahlavi bringing

00:21:44.860 the shahs, the monarchists. Remember, everybody in LA, when he sees people in LA, everybody in 0.71

00:21:50.600 London. Their parents all left with the Shah. So they're monarchists. The monarchy solution here 0.94

00:21:58.140 is as close to ridiculous as you can get. He's like Chalabay, which, as you know, was on Fox 0.97

00:22:04.960 News in the run-up to Iraq war. This guy was going to be the Iraq Congress, National Congress. So he

00:22:10.600 got over there. Nobody ever heard of the guy. And he just got swept up in the annals of history,

00:22:16.120 never does been a history, never be heard from again. The monarchist, a reasonable alternative

00:22:22.340 and tell people how deep the IRGC goes and how deep the security apparatus with the mullahs goes

00:22:30.200 in in Iran. The IRGC is the most powerful force in the country. They're the ones that made money

00:22:37.240 from all the sanctions. They control the guns and and the muscle, not even the Iranian army.

00:22:43.680 um so i i don't know what the plan is to name some interim leader uh i i'm i'm um i am discouraged

00:22:54.720 and it will um it will uncork a lot of uh a lot of chaos in the area and i really wonder

00:23:01.740 what is the plan if there is not a clear um successor person that actually takes power

00:23:09.940 to try to keep some kind of interim government together.

00:23:11.980 It's and suggesting our foreign policy to Israeli foreign policy.

00:23:19.140 I have I have real issue with that.

00:23:21.300 I said it before. I said it weeks ago in your show, not that this should this should not be the path forward.

00:23:27.240 And the president chose to do it. I just wonder who pressured him that much to do it this way.

00:23:33.920 uh you're one of the president's biggest supporters you you've worked uh around and with

00:23:40.800 the administration the first time you've been a you've been i've known you now for what 15

00:23:45.300 almost 20 years uh you are certainly america first uh but you've seen all the conflict all

00:23:51.820 over the world you've been supportive what the president's done to date particularly things like

00:23:55.240 venezuela although and for hemispheric defense a lot of people are not even happy with that

00:24:00.020 just let's walk through this because you're an important voice here why are you disappointed

00:24:06.260 with what the president's actions have been if there is a if there is a viable ground force

00:24:13.280 that could seize and hold terrain and control terrain then i guess air power and a decapitation 0.64

00:24:21.100 strike makes more sense to me but uh clacking off against the leadership um

00:24:27.920 And leaving a real void right now, I I'm I'm concerned that it's going to ensue with a lot of chaos because who knows what other weapons the Iranians have stocked away and they're going to unleash on the region or what they would do inside the United States now. 0.98

00:24:47.220 So it is undoubtedly a bold move. I hope it was the president's decision alone to do this and that he wasn't arm twisted by supporters or billionaire donors around him to do this.

00:25:01.340 um they're they're saying now axios reports that if there had been a viable uh diplomatic

00:25:09.860 solution and the reporting is pretty deep on this that kushner and whitkoff did think they

00:25:16.100 were getting tapped along at the end that the persians really weren't addressing the issues

00:25:20.800 the americans needed to address particularly ballistic missiles and other things about the

00:25:24.440 nuclear program uh do you believe it's a it's a correct response the president's put down

00:25:30.560 They can't have a nuclear weapon. And I'm not really getting anywhere in negotiations to go in and take out the leadership.

00:25:37.620 Or do you think there's so many it's so deep in the Mula bench, in the IRGC bench that you're just going to get even worse bad hombres up there?

00:25:47.180 Why are we so worried about nuclear weapons now if we had all these strikes a few months ago that supposedly eliminated their nuclear program?

00:25:57.320 And again, if regimes get changed by, yes, removing the top management, taking away the inevitability, but then having a viable replacement, I have yet to see any evidence that there's a viable replacement anywhere that can actually seize control of what was a significant empire.

00:26:17.020 90 million people, intelligent, hardworking, with a lot of tech and a lot of capability, is not an easy endeavor to accomplish.

00:26:29.560 And so the air power alone, I'm concerned.

00:26:35.660 And I'm concerned that this is not our fight, that this is Israel's fight that we got dragged into. 0.84

00:26:41.260 And already, three Americans dead, five seriously wounded.

00:26:45.120 that's troubling to me uh you're you're uh you said you had to have a substantial ground force

00:26:52.180 really do regime change here you're not implying that that would have to be an american you're

00:26:55.980 saying oh or some com or some combination of uae not is not israel we're not uae uh iranians

00:27:03.820 iranians from across the the ethnic spectrum there that are willing to take up arms and go against

00:27:10.620 the IRGC and free themselves. So they have a huge army that's not IRGC. Now,

00:27:16.060 it may be equivalent to a militia. But you're arguing that to see regime change here, that

00:27:22.360 that army or some part of that organized that's not IGRC or maybe some rebel units from that are

00:27:28.300 going to have to lead the Persian people against the apparatus? Yeah. I mean, the natural option 1.00

00:27:33.860 here would be the Kurds, the Kurdish, the Iraqi Kurds supporting the Iranian Kurds to do it. But

00:27:42.380 this is an extremely bold move. I don't know why it was decided that I had to do it now.

00:27:50.680 I'm shocked. And I'm just wondering what political pressure was brought to bear

00:27:55.020 for the president to make this, because this is certainly not what he campaigned on.

00:27:59.160 Yeah, real quickly, we got two minutes. I know you got to bounce

00:28:01.680 because I know the president respects your opinion.

00:28:04.860 If you had a chance to talk to the president today,

00:28:07.480 what would be Eric Prince's recommendations to the commander in chief?

00:28:13.000 Don't ever contemplate ground troops in Iran.

00:28:18.180 You think that's even a possibility?

00:28:21.580 I didn't think this was a possibility today.

00:28:24.020 Over the last couple of days, Steve,

00:28:25.600 I didn't really think that he was going to do it.

00:28:28.220 eric prince uh where can people uh track you i know you got a podcast you've been busy uh all

00:28:34.820 over the world particularly in places like haiti chasing down bad guys bad hombres uh where can

00:28:40.200 people uh follow you sir at uh i'm on twitter at uh real eric d prince thank you sir appreciate

00:28:47.940 you taking time away on sunday to join us eric jack basobic we've got about a minute to break

00:28:52.680 your observations on eric prince who's one of the been one of the president's biggest supporters sir

00:28:57.620 Well, Steve, nobody knows this. Nobody knows this territory better than Eric himself. And, you know, it reminds me, in a sense, what he's talking about.

00:29:10.020 I wonder if he's drawing back from the lessons of Libya, where the United States came in, United States Navy predominantly with airstrikes on the infrastructure, airstrikes on missile defense, the leader being taken out.

00:29:22.880 People in that case rose up, but those people ended up being rebels.

00:29:26.580 They joined in with Al-Qaeda.

00:29:28.020 They joined in with ISIS, and it led to a mass civil war.

00:29:33.100 Yes, I think some very tough days ahead of us, although the top of the regime, Ayatollah, graveyard dead, 40 of his top associates, graveyard dead.

00:29:46.020 They've already announced it.

00:29:46.900 Akhmadinejad.

00:29:49.560 People forget.

00:29:50.640 Remember, he made the tour of the United States back at Columbia University years ago.

00:29:54.800 He was a quote-unquote rock star.

00:29:58.220 He's great here at Dead.

00:29:59.920 People loved him.

00:30:00.980 Jack, hang on.

00:30:02.240 Jack Pasoba's going to be with us.

00:30:03.600 We've got Brandard Weicker, Captain Fennell.

00:30:06.200 I think they've taken out a tanker in the Straits or Hormuz.

00:30:10.760 The war starts to expand.

00:30:13.320 Three Americans killed in action today, as reported by CENTCOM.

00:30:16.520 We're going to take a short commercial break.

00:30:18.500 We're going to turn to the war room.

00:30:20.640 Special coverage on Sunday.

00:30:22.860 Back in a moment.

00:30:39.480 Here's your host, Stephen K. Band.

00:30:42.060 Captain Fennell, as you know, was not just plane guard, but was ASW for any back then

00:30:52.540 potential Soviets if there was the fast attack of the Soviets where he'd get involved.

00:30:57.720 And how much does that concern you, Captain Fennell, to know that they may have a diesel

00:31:01.000 boat they actually slip out of Straits of Hormuz and even potentially threaten the strike

00:31:08.120 group, sir?

00:31:08.600 Well, we know that the Iranian naval order battle had somewhere from 28 to 30 submarines.

00:31:16.060 So this is not a surprise.

00:31:18.360 It's not some kind of a secret that they would try to use their naval forces to try to go after us.

00:31:24.240 But I think the reality is, is that we have been there for the Lincoln's been there for at least two weeks with her support ships and her submarines that are in escort of the strike group.

00:31:34.660 and they have had what we call air supremacy and sea supremacy. And so they are watching

00:31:41.540 the undersea domain. There are assets there that can provide information on where this is.

00:31:47.260 And so the Iranians can try it. They may get lucky. That's the risk of war. But I think at 0.91

00:31:52.780 this point, we haven't seen anything even close to getting near our carriers. The fact of the

00:31:58.800 matter is, we have knowledge of where they are. And so even before that slipped out,

00:32:03.820 We knew if it was leaving. So I think it probably slipped out before combat operations started, since we've already seen them attack and sink a Jamar class, Jamar class, not class, but this Jamar frigate that was in base in Shabahar, which people are talking about now.

00:32:22.260 Let me go back. You said air superiority, air supremacy, air dominance. To Brandon's thing, that we're still doing standoff. Do you think that we've taken out – I mean, is there any knowledge you have that we have taken out the Iranians' air defense and that we can have at them at will? 1.00

00:32:41.900 I think the Iranian air defense was already severely degraded in the strikes in June.

00:32:49.100 And then since then, and with all due respect to Brandon, he just told us that we had B-2s that flew from continental United States and flew over Iran and delivered ordnance.

00:32:58.500 We have Iranian or Israeli Air Force taking out two or three Iranian fighters, two F-5s and one F-4 that were trying to take off at Tabriz.

00:33:09.700 So we're operating over the country. We have, and doctrinally, the Air Force calls it air superiority where you have control for a time and air supremacy when you have more time, long duration and greater geographic areas.

00:33:23.940 So I believe that we're in the air supremacy phase. You can call it air dominance, but doctrinally it's called air supremacy. And I think we're operating at will over Iran with due regard, because there are man pads, man, portable air defense systems, handheld things that can still be a threat. 0.75

00:33:40.400 But for the most part, there are no strategic SAMs left in Iran that I am aware of that are being effectively employed.

00:33:47.940 So we are, what I said yesterday, we're in the process of defanging the Iranian military regime.

00:33:55.920 We have to take out their missiles, as the president said, the missiles, missile production industry.

00:34:01.160 We have to take out their Navy and all these coastal defense, cruise missile sites and artillery sites.

00:34:06.520 They have to be taken out. And we're doing that in a systematic way. There was over 900 sorties from the U.S. side attacks, probably with TLAM and aircraft. If you have two carriers, 200 sorties a day, that's at least 400 sorties flying off of the Ford and the Lincoln. And then the rest are from our ground-based air assets and TLAM.

00:34:29.180 So we're going through the target list and then we'll be going back systematically down that list, going for things that we may have missed and then being on call for what we call time sensitive targets.

00:34:42.820 So there's no reason to celebrate. There's no reason to be negative either.

00:34:47.340 We're in the war right now and we're we're going forward.

00:34:51.740 And I think what's really interesting is we haven't seen a lot from CENTCOM.

00:34:56.340 We haven't seen a lot from the Pentagon, the president either, because this is deadly serious.

00:35:02.080 And so for the past 35 years with CNN, when we did Desert Storm and we watched Baghdad, Bob tell us there was no problems.

00:35:10.120 We have been in this age of information where we expect to be hand fed all this information.

00:35:15.660 And I think President Trump and his team recognize we're at war.

00:35:20.040 People's lives, Americans' lives are at risk and our allies' friends are at risk.

00:35:24.420 And we're not going to be involved with being so concerned about running a public affairs campaign as we are more focused on taking out and defanging the Iranians and taking out their senior leadership, which is what the president said they're about to do and are doing. 1.00

00:35:39.780 Captain Finnell, let's talk about the straight-door moves and tankers and oil.

00:35:43.720 And also, I'm not sure I totally understand the Iranians' logic for trying to go after 1.00

00:35:50.440 the Gulf Emirates, at least in the first couple of days.

00:35:53.080 I mean, they're hitting, I think, Dubai, they hit Doha.

00:35:56.780 I think they hit, obviously, Bahrain, but even Saudi Arabia.

00:36:00.360 What's their strategy?

00:36:01.520 And are they going to have an impact on oil and the ability to get oil out of the Straits

00:36:06.540 of Hormuz?

00:36:08.580 Well, Steve, by just declaring that they were closing the strait, that pretty much started

00:36:12.820 the decline. If you look at AIS, Automatic Identification System, tracking through the

00:36:18.280 strait, it was starting to go down when they made the announcement. Then there's this attack that

00:36:23.280 was in the port in Oman, right there, south of Kesham Island, Bandar Abbas. So virtually now,

00:36:31.380 there's no traffic going through. There's reports of 150, 200 tankers sitting well outside south of

00:36:37.360 the strait waiting. So that will spike the oil price, no question. But the larger issue is,

00:36:43.880 and my assessment is, is that, and we talk about this when we talk about China, about this impact

00:36:49.260 of Xi and the purging of his generals and admirals. And we talk about the impact on the PLA.

00:36:54.620 But what we're seeing here in Iran is this decapitation of these 40 leaders plus others.

00:37:00.560 There's reports now today of riot police are being targeted also by our strikes, Operation Epic Fury.

00:37:08.800 And so we're going after the people that are terrorizing the people of Iran. 0.87

00:37:13.100 But it's like if you're a patient and you've been in a car wreck and you're in shock.

00:37:18.400 And what they need to do is get you to the hospital immediately.

00:37:22.040 And then they need to get you on medicine.

00:37:24.120 They need to get an IV hooked up and you need to be stabilized and you should take no more shock.

00:37:28.720 But what we're finding out is that the Iranians are continuing to be attacked.

00:37:34.140 We had the B-2 strikes that we talked about, even in this press release from CENTCOM that

00:37:38.420 just said that the alleged ballistic missile strikes or attack against the USS Abraham

00:37:43.740 Lincoln didn't even come close.

00:37:45.780 And more importantly, it said in the second part of that announcement, that press release,

00:37:50.500 flight operations continue.

00:37:52.620 So we're continuing to pound Tehran. 0.95

00:37:55.560 And so what we're seeing is a reaction. It could have been the last best orders that those on scene missile brigade commanders received from their leadership a week ago, two weeks ago.

00:38:07.260 Who knows? But we're not seeing anything that's coordinated. It seems sporadic.

00:38:11.540 It seems obviously to it does that does that surprise you, given their order of battle and naval forces, given their order of battle in air defense and air forces, given the supposedly strict discipline they had.

00:38:25.480 We only got about a minute. Is that surprise you that even with the American Israeli hits and on their common air, that it doesn't seem to be a more organized strike back?

00:38:36.980 I think they're in shock and their command and control has been destroyed or severely degraded.

00:38:42.940 And that's why we're not seeing anti-ship cruise missile attacks or anything at all against our fleet, which is good.

00:38:48.360 But we can't take that for granted.

00:38:50.080 We have to worry about mines as well and the submarines.

00:38:53.340 No question about that.

00:38:54.800 But we are in the advantage and we need to keep pressing until we defang them and destroy the military capability.

00:39:01.240 The political stuff we can talk about later.

00:39:03.920 We're going to talk about real quickly.

00:39:05.420 You had said you were always concerned Venezuela and the first strike were not like the Chinese Communist Party will counter in.

00:39:12.020 You'll have to do these in a situation where you're getting counter.

00:39:15.900 Are you are you are you do you put this at that level of counter that you were concerned about hitting American forces?

00:39:24.320 It still could happen. We have to be on our guard. We have to be on our guard.

00:39:28.500 This is not over. It's weeks away.

00:39:31.060 Now, I know you get a bounce. I want to thank you for being here.

00:39:33.320 your observations in the first 30 hours of this war? And what do you anticipate

00:39:37.240 we will see before we get back here, you back here in the next day or two?

00:39:42.400 Well, Steve, thanks for having me on. And again, we remember those that have fallen

00:39:47.540 today on the American side, obviously the others and civilians that have been killed as well.

00:39:54.140 My view is that, and I said yesterday, there was maybe 2000 targets. I probably undersold that

00:39:59.680 because I was thinking back of the Bosnian war with the Y2K of 2000 targets there. This is going 1.00

00:40:06.060 to have thousands of targets. We're working through the list. My concerns are what Jack

00:40:11.740 already mentioned is this idea of a lucky shot from a ballistic missile against one of our big

00:40:17.640 decks or any one of our ships that could have serious death. That would be something we really

00:40:24.320 have to be careful of. But I will just say, this is an organization, the military, U.S. military,

00:40:30.820 that has been in these waters for 47 years, understands the threat, and is doing everything

00:40:37.040 capable in our powers to make sure that that would not happen. But we need to watch for

00:40:42.380 all of that, but while we're continuing to drive forward and strike them. The new Ayatollah,

00:40:49.900 Ali Larjani said they stabbed the heart of a nation.

00:40:54.580 Their heart will be stabbed, too.

00:40:56.840 Listen to your enemy when your enemy says he wants to stab you in the heart.

00:41:00.540 Don't take that for granted.

00:41:02.200 We are on general quarters.

00:41:04.100 We have to be prepared for any kind of contingency while we continue to stab them in the heart.

00:41:10.300 Now, that may sound cruel, but that's what we're trying to do is defang them, take away all their military capability and take away that military leadership. 0.94

00:41:18.380 and those police that are murdering Iranians and then let the Iranians do what they need to do. 0.81

00:41:23.760 But for now, we have to be able to operate with impunity over the seas and the air in and around Iran.

00:41:31.360 And we have to be able to do that without fear of a shot being popped off or something like that.

00:41:37.420 So the strikes will continue for the next 24 hours. 0.76

00:41:40.980 Stabbed in the heart. 0.79

00:41:41.740 Captain Fennell, thank you.

00:41:42.680 Look forward to seeing you and talking to you this afternoon.

00:41:44.640 Great analysis.

00:41:45.280 not not exactly analogous but i think as a form of entertainment it can be enlightening to people

00:41:52.880 about the mahdi winston churchill wrote a book as a young subaltern called the river war uh about

00:42:00.980 the uprising of the mahdi in khartoum in sudan back in the 19th century uh they made a film about

00:42:07.840 it called khartoum starring charlton heston and sir lawrence olivier sir lawrence olivier plays

00:42:13.720 the Mahdi uh and it is absolutely I've always thought uh Charlton Heston plays General Chinese 0.97

00:42:19.780 Gordon uh who had taken on I guess the boxers and then um had then pivoted to um uh he was called

00:42:27.520 back to service to go take on the Mahdi down in Khartoum anyway fascinating but it shows you 1.00

00:42:32.740 the power that was inspired in this Muslim army by the Mahdi this mythical this kind of mythical

00:42:42.400 to us, but real to them. It's quite fascinating. And Churchill's book, The River War,

00:42:48.300 has still been one of the best descriptions. I remember the beginning of it. I can't believe

00:42:52.440 it. We're talking about stuff that we talked about at the very beginning of the global war

00:42:59.080 on terror. We have a Marxist, jihadist, Muslim mayor in New York City. And you're seeing 1.00

00:43:09.180 yesterday with the nail bombs and now everything coming out about his wife and her social media

00:43:14.480 account as a true hater. You have a Muslim, you have a Marxist jihadist mayor in the greatest 0.94

00:43:21.420 city in the world, the greatest city in the United States of America, the financial capital of the

00:43:26.020 world. These people think very differently than we do, very differently. And you can put on suits

00:43:34.840 and you go to conferences and you can, you know, talk about crypto and everything you're going to

00:43:40.220 do. They are two radically different civilizations. The Judeo-Christian West. And there's a lot of 0.54

00:43:48.060 splits sometimes between the Judeo part of that and the Christian part of that. But it has thousands

00:43:53.500 of years from Athens to Jerusalem, to Rome, to London, to Washington, D.C. and New York City.

00:44:00.060 You see this in this fight we've had in Texas.

00:44:03.320 It's all inextricably linked, but we're in it now.

00:44:06.760 We're in it.

00:44:08.440 It's like that scene in 12 O'Clock High when Gregory Peck walks in and is taking over the bomber command.

00:44:14.640 And he goes up for the first time, turns around these young pilots and said,

00:44:18.560 Hey, I don't want to hear this why we fight.

00:44:22.260 We're in a fight and we got to win it.

00:44:24.220 You saw yesterday in the dignified transfer, the first six came back home.

00:44:32.800 We've got to have their backs.

00:44:34.740 At the same time, we have to face reality of exactly what in the hell are we doing here?

00:44:40.760 What is the plan? What is the commitment?

00:44:44.300 We couldn't be in a more dangerous time as we are now in the beginning of the kinetic part of the Third World War.

00:44:52.060 And how do we bring it to a conclusion?

00:44:54.220 that's in the benefit of the United States of America, our citizens.

00:44:59.620 War Room. Here's your host, Stephen K. Vann.

00:45:08.040 Get here, Kurt. And there's reporting at this news site you've showed me coming out.

00:45:13.240 I guess I found it sent to you, but you know it quite well.

00:45:17.640 It's saying that President Trump, one hand, he's saying 30 days,

00:45:20.160 But there's also discussion that he may be looking for an off ramp in the next three or four days after he's pounded Tehran enough and eliminated enough of the of the leadership of Iran.

00:45:32.020 Your thoughts are. Yeah, I mean, we got here, frankly, at the behest of a foreign power.

00:45:37.860 I mean, as the rabbi notes, I'm not entirely clear or not entirely sure the appetite of the American people to absorb fatalities.

00:45:50.140 Three Americans have been killed. Five apparently have been grievously wounded.

00:45:53.420 And that's just what the government is conceding. Very notably, they're not telling us how they died.

00:45:58.780 And very notably, the leading intellectual architects of this war, people like Senator Tom Cotton, are arguing now.

00:46:06.040 they're already moving the goalposts to a small ground force, as he told the Sunday shows this

00:46:10.800 morning. This is an out of control war. And this is a war that is being driven, frankly,

00:46:17.320 by an older generation that has- Hang on, hang on, hang on, take a deep breath. When you say

00:46:22.700 out of control, as we've gone through the day, militarily, it's pretty systematic how we're

00:46:27.120 trying to take down their defenses and the leadership. Is that part out of control? Or

00:46:33.260 Are you saying the expanding nature of it is out of control?

00:46:36.500 I'm not entirely sure.

00:46:37.660 I mean, the Fifth Fleet just got hit yesterday.

00:46:40.080 I mean, it's entirely unclear, with the exception of the supreme leader, if the Iranian—I mean, the bombings, in a lot of ways, were less severe than the ones in June of 2020-25.

00:46:49.640 And the Iranian counterattacks are much more severe.

00:46:52.380 And the Israelis are going to try to escalate this to keep the U.S. in. 0.90

00:46:55.720 They just basically carpet-bombed Tehran. 0.80

00:46:58.360 They give the Iranians, quote, the Gaza treatment. 0.99

00:47:00.720 There was some idea that they were going to treat Persians any different than Arabs.

00:47:04.320 And I think there's going to be a real desire to keep President Trump in here.

00:47:07.960 I think the president has gotten very poor counsel.

00:47:10.580 And I do think it matters politically that he was the no more endless wars candidate in 2016 and 2024, particularly.

00:47:17.500 And this looks like an open betrayal of the base.

00:47:19.840 And now there's there there are there's an argument that this is different than the Bush era neocon wars.

00:47:24.940 But I will flag what Bush era neocon is not for this today.

00:47:30.000 Find me one name. Name one. Bolton is pleased as hell about what we're doing.

00:47:34.840 He went. He said his only regret is that he didn't convince Trump to do this in twenty eighteen.

00:47:40.140 Talk to me about Tom Cotton. Tom Cotton has been doing the Sunday shows today.

00:47:43.640 And when they put up a trial balloon, that means they're thinking of something.

00:47:46.760 What Tom Cotton has now said, just a small, just a small, a tiny, just a teensy ground for us.

00:47:53.400 Are they running that up the flagpole and seeing if anybody salutes?

00:47:57.140 For sure. Look, I mean, look, the president is impressed by Tom Cotton and he's an impressive guy. Double Harvard, young senator. He's very tall. He's a very careful veteran. Combat veteran, it used to be said. Yeah, people look at him and they see CIA director, defense secretary, president.

00:48:13.800 But the reality is, Cotton represents a constituency which is getting narrower and narrower and older and older in the American public.

00:48:21.820 And he is, frankly, a foreign policy radical.

00:48:25.220 He sees no real problem with the Bush legacy.

00:48:28.540 He's a former protege of the Weekly Standard editor, William Kristol, and he represents a strain of republicanism that Trump's initial rise was all about rejecting.

00:48:39.180 Remember, the never-Trumpers were the neoconservatives.

00:48:41.800 They still are in many respects.

00:48:43.800 Trump's entire rise in 2016, and you know this more than any American alive, Steve, was against these folks.

00:48:50.220 Amen. Amen.

00:48:51.660 The National Review that came out with that thing, never Trump or against Trump, one of the principal arguments was neocon.

00:48:57.940 President Trump had a totally different way of looking at it.

00:49:00.340 Before I leave you, Peter Baker, you just put a you retweeted something that Peter Baker said and put some commentary on it.

00:49:06.380 Now, Peter Baker is the chief White House correspondent for the for the beloved paper of record, The New York Times.

00:49:13.340 Talk to me quickly about this poll that he's just put up and your comments on it.

00:49:17.660 Yeah, so the polling initially conducted overnight on the strikes is overwhelmingly negative.

00:49:23.120 But most importantly and most central to this show, it appears that a majority of Republicans don't know why we're doing this and or don't support it.

00:49:30.920 So, look, I think it needs to be level set.

00:49:34.160 Tens of millions of Americans are happy that Donald Trump is the president.

00:49:38.100 I'm one of them. I don't regret my vote for President Trump.

00:49:42.100 I don't think Kamala Harris would be doing this better. But there is such a thing as motivation or opposition to the administration on it on discrete issues and a new war in the Middle East that looks a lot like the Iraq war, though it looks a lot like the same people making the arguments for the Iraq war.

00:49:58.220 And basically an argument that is mired in the past, respectfully to Chairman Kennedy, where Brian Kennedy, who I like a lot and consider a friend, he's arguing about military exercises that occurred in the 90s.

00:50:13.260 A lot of people who voted for President Trump weren't alive when these military exercises occurred.

00:50:17.860 Yes, Iran is an adversary of the United States, but it was not an imminent threat at all.

00:50:22.420 It wasn't an imminent threat in January of 2025.

00:50:25.580 This is not something that President Trump needed to handle for the interest of the United States.

00:50:29.320 It's an Israeli objective. 0.94

00:50:31.260 And why is it an Israeli objective? 0.75

00:50:32.680 Because Israel wants to expand in the Middle East. 0.90

00:50:35.320 Fine.

00:50:35.700 That's their prerogative.

00:50:36.700 But they shouldn't ask the American taxpayer or Republicans to support it.

00:50:40.580 I want everybody to go to American conservative.

00:50:43.300 By the way, one of the things I do find disturbing, if you look at Fox and the cheerleading on Fox,

00:50:47.620 you have guys like Mark Thiessen, who's one of the greatest haters of President Trump.

00:50:51.620 Some of these haters that hated President Trump tried to stop President Trump.

00:50:55.400 Mark Levin being one of them.

00:50:56.600 Mark Levin was one of the biggest haters of Trump.

00:50:59.000 Despised Trump.

00:51:00.040 He was a cruise guy.

00:51:00.880 I mean, the stuff he said about Trump was nothing but vile.

00:51:03.700 You see Fox and you see all these haters of Trump and they're glazing President Trump.

00:51:08.300 They're over the top.

00:51:09.380 And the same cheerleading you saw about the Iraq war, particularly in the first days.

00:51:12.740 And remember, folks, you got a long way to go on this thing.

00:51:15.980 So that's why you got we're trying to be as even handed as possible on the war because

00:51:19.700 want the war and posse to have all the information that's available.

00:51:23.080 Kurt, American Conservative was formed in the crucible of the Iraq war by the great Pat

00:51:29.560 Buchanan.

00:51:30.640 You're now the editor.

00:51:32.280 How do people get it?

00:51:33.160 And where do they go to your Twitter feed?

00:51:34.440 Your Twitter feed, like Rabbi Willicki's, everybody, we want people to immerse themselves

00:51:39.220 in information here and even partisan perspectives.

00:51:42.660 Where do they go, Kurt?

00:51:44.400 I mean, look, Thiessen was George W. Bush's speechwriter.

00:51:47.300 He's got Ukraine flags and Israeli flags in his Twitter bio.

00:51:50.900 This is an actual do loyalist, like not a conspiracy.

00:51:54.000 He's openly declared as such.

00:51:56.000 As for the magazine, thank you as always, Steve, for the audience.

00:51:58.420 And I appreciate the Star Wars cantina of perspectives you've had here.

00:52:01.800 I think it's a great show.

00:52:03.660 But the magazine is The American Conservative at theamericanconservative.com.

00:52:08.420 And my own feed, as you advertise, is at Kurt Mills, at C-U-R-T-M-I-L-O-S on X.

00:52:14.240 Thank you very much and take care.

00:52:15.460 Our prominent guest, Stephen, he's seen in Star Wars at the bar.

00:52:19.960 Thank you, Kurt Mills.

00:52:21.440 You're great.

00:52:22.640 War Room.

00:52:23.560 Here's your host, Stephen K. Vance.

00:52:31.200 But give us, I need your battle assessment of where we are after last night, sir.

00:52:36.600 In my opinion, the war is set to expand even more.

00:52:40.600 the Iran systems, as Jack was just noting, to now these more advanced systems. There is a massive

00:52:47.660 strain on the particularly Qatar and Israeli air defense interceptor arsenal. So if this thing

00:52:56.040 continues to go on, as you and I believe they will, then the defense of these countries gets

00:53:01.720 even more precarious. I also want to point out the Houthis have not yet opened up on the Red Sea.

00:53:07.080 The Saudis are moving most of their oil transportation away from the Strait of Hormuz into their Red Sea port.

00:53:14.660 I think the Houthis are waiting for them to be totally reliant on that, and then they're going to seal it up.

00:53:19.420 But we now have the issue of the Eritrean coastline.

00:53:23.600 The Ethiopians have taken operational control.

00:53:26.540 They are saying they're going to allow U.S. or Israeli forces to use ground-based missiles to break up the Houthi capabilities across the way in Yemen.

00:53:36.280 And what that means is, Steve, we're now talking about a war expanding, not just to Azerbaijan, not just to Beirut, you know, and all these other places, but now possibly in the Horn of Africa as well.

00:53:47.860 This war is not ending anytime soon.

00:53:51.400 Real quickly, your reporting drove the CEOs to come to the White House on Friday.

00:53:57.860 Give me a minute because I'm jammed for time.

00:53:59.440 What was the outcome of the CEO meeting on Friday with President Trump at the White House?

00:54:04.580 uh they probably said some very pretty things to each other but ultimately the reality is

00:54:10.080 there will not be the ability to surge production the way we need to do remember we need at least

00:54:15.900 200 uh tomahawks per year we're not producing anywhere near that in 24 months that is an

00:54:22.380 industrial bottleneck that has to be overcome and by the way who controls the rare earth minerals

00:54:27.300 that go into the creation of these systems that's the people's republic of china and they are

00:54:32.000 absolutely not going to let their their chokehold on that go away now if they meet with trump in

00:54:37.040 beijing they're going to tell him you stop the war or we're cutting you off from the rare earths 0.53

00:54:41.700 china is the beneficiary of all of this right now contrary to what some of the reporting earlier

00:54:46.720 was saying okay hang on where do people go to get your your reporting sir you can get me at

00:54:54.100 1945.com you can get me i'm the nat sec guy at emerald tv.tv and you can get me uh the weikert

00:55:00.700 report that's old though i don't really go there anymore uh and you can get me on twitter at we

00:55:05.420 the brandon well go to twitter i guess for the updates you can get all the books shadow war

00:55:11.360 a great primer if you need one on iran versus the united states uh thank you sir rabbi willicky

00:55:18.880 um look reasonable men can disagree about what's going on but i think the targeting situation and

00:55:26.060 I just think there are two sets of objectives here.

00:55:28.300 If we're really not working as an alliance,

00:55:30.440 no one could ever convince me of that.

00:55:33.200 But talk to us about Lebanon.

00:55:34.980 Talk to us about what's happening now.

00:55:37.600 Is that going to be a major incursion?

00:55:41.300 Is that strategic?

00:55:42.260 My understanding from reports of a major bombing campaign

00:55:47.000 early this morning in Lebanon by the IDF.

00:55:50.620 And it appears like preparations for a ground invasion.

00:55:56.060 Oh, a significant one. There's been there's been a fairly significant reserve call up and a lot of ground forces have moved up there.

00:56:04.160 They're absolutely the Israelis are absolutely planning for a ground invasion. 0.99

00:56:08.340 And you're absolutely right to refer to it as another front in this same war.

00:56:12.340 It very literally is because the Hezbollah is Iran. 0.62

00:56:17.780 They're not even we call them a proxy the same way we call the Houthis a proxy or the Iraqi militias a proxy.

00:56:23.880 but Hezbollah actually has a different relationship to Tehran.

00:56:27.620 They're actually an arm of Iran, meaning when Hassan Nasrallah was killed,

00:56:32.540 his replacement was appointed in Tehran.

00:56:34.720 They're actually like when the beepers blew up, one of the beepers was on the ambassador of Iran in Beirut.

00:56:41.020 So they're actually Iran. And that's an important point here.

00:56:44.480 So if Israel's at war with Iran, they're also at war with Hezbollah.

00:56:48.520 And Hezbollah made a massive mistake a couple of days into the war

00:56:51.940 where they started firing rockets at Israel as part of this war.

00:56:57.760 They started it here.

00:56:59.820 And the Israelis, I said this to you last time I was on your show,

00:57:02.420 it was a mistake that the Israelis were actually kind of hoping they'd make

00:57:05.720 because this goes back to the ceasefire with Hezbollah going back more than a year

00:57:10.160 where the Lebanese government committed itself to disarm Hezbollah by the end of 2025.

00:57:16.140 And of course, they did nothing of the sort.

00:57:17.740 They don't even have the ability to do it.

00:57:19.280 But the Israelis sat back and said, OK, you know, we'll give you a chance. Go for it to see if you can do it. 0.67

00:57:25.660 And and they never did. And the Israelis are once and for all going to go in there and get rid of this threat on our northern border. 0.98

00:57:33.560 And quietly behind the scenes, the Lebanese and some of them not so quietly, there's more public figures who are saying this.

00:57:39.900 They're grateful to the Israelis to finally liberate the country of Lebanon from this Iranian occupation it's been under for the last four decades. 0.84

00:57:47.520 So the Israelis are planning a real a real invasion. They're going to be they're already clearing out the populations from the southern part of Lebanon and looking to recreate a kind of buffer zone up to the Latani River, which is about 18 miles from the Israeli border, which is that entire area has been a kind of hornet's nest of Hezbollah tunnels and weapons depots and and towns that are basically Hezbollah operatives with their families. 0.72

00:58:15.780 So Israel, Israel means business this time and plans to once and for all rid Lebanon of Hezbollah. 1.00

00:58:23.800 And that's what's happening. Rabbi, you and I are friends.

00:58:27.540 But as you know, and people know, we disagree on a lot, but we're still friends.

00:58:31.300 One thing I've said is the Greater Israel Project brought on this disaster in Gaza and particularly what I call the two state solution of the Qatar of Qatar financing in Turkey, 0.91

00:58:42.740 being the security guarantee with President Trump's Board of Peace, and he's kind of signed

00:58:46.780 off on it. Last night, a helicopter was shot down, it looks like, or had mechanical problems.

00:58:52.620 I think it was actually taken out with a number of Qatar and Turkish military officials together.

00:59:01.000 Is the whole situation in Gaza, that whole framework of peace, is that just really by the

00:59:07.240 board? Is that not going to happen now, given the expanding intensity of this, particularly

00:59:12.500 if there's going to actually be ground troops in Lebanon, you know, the Arab nations and the

00:59:17.360 Persians are going to dig in even harder. Do you think the whole thing in Gaza is just over and 0.99

00:59:22.820 finished with? And we'll have to go back and think some of the Board of Peace, the Qataris as

00:59:27.580 financiers and the Turks as the security guarantors on the soil of Israel ain't going to happen. 0.61

00:59:34.880 Well, that's a great question. What's going to happen in Gaza? I think from the Israeli's 1.00

00:59:39.100 perspective. They're trying to kind of keep it in a holding pattern, keep it on a low boil

00:59:42.780 until we see which way things go with the war in Iran. Because dealing with the Gaza situation 0.62

00:59:50.160 where there's in a reality where there's no longer an Iranian regime, which is not a done deal yet,

00:59:56.020 but dealing with dealing with it where there's no longer an Iranian regime and no longer a Hezbollah

01:00:00.440 on our northern border is very different than dealing with it where there is. And we also don't

01:00:05.180 know where the Gulf states, Saudis, and even where they're all going to fall out in terms of

01:00:10.960 relations with Israel and relations with the United States after this is all said and done.

01:00:16.400 We don't know what's going to happen. If Lebanon is actually rid of Hezbollah and normalizes 1.00

01:00:20.940 relations with Israel, there's a lot of different pieces of the puzzle, including the Egyptians.

01:00:26.480 How are the Egyptians going to respond? They're always hedging and playing all sides of everything. 1.00

01:00:31.220 A big question is always the Saudis. You know, the Saudis are always also waffling, you know, not waffling. 1.00

01:00:39.300 They're always playing both sides of everything. And where that all shakes down is going to have a lot of impact on how we move forward with Gaza. 0.94

01:00:46.860 And I think from the Israeli perspective, we'd rather not deal with that head on. 1.00

01:00:50.980 And I think that that's why Hamas, no one's noticed this because there's been other headlines in the Middle East, but Hamas has been scrambling to restart negotiations just since this war has started because they're in a tight spot.

01:01:04.120 Their two patrons, Qatar and Iran, are at war with each other and they got themselves into a pickle where they they praised Ali Khamenei on the first day of the war and and said, you know, and we're cheering for Iran.

01:01:17.460 And the Qataris looked at them and said, you better walk that back or we're going to cut you off.

01:01:21.160 So they so they walked it back and told and condemned Iran for bombing its Arab neighbors.

01:01:26.360 And then Hezbollah turned to Hamas and said, what are you doing?

01:01:29.380 We've been standing with you for years and now you're condemning Iran.

01:01:32.000 So they they're stuck. But in terms of what's going to happen in Gaza, it's just going to have to wait until until the Iran war is over, because we don't know what the Middle East is going to be.

01:01:46.140 Rabbi, where do people get your content, particularly your videos are always, I think, great to give people the perspective of what's happening in Israel in a very accessible and clear minded way, although everybody may not agree with it.

01:01:58.000 You at least get it. That's fine. It's accessible. Where do people go?

01:02:02.000 And for your columns. Oh, thank you very much. So for my columns, you can go to the Jerusalem Post.

01:02:08.120 You can find my author page there. And for the videos, go to Israel three six five news on YouTube.

01:02:14.180 We're uploading videos multiple times a week, almost every day now. And Israel three sixty five action dot com.

01:02:20.760 That's the Web site you see up on your screen now. Just sign up there for our newsletter and you'll get news and information from Israel and won't cost you anything.

01:02:29.220 And you'll get our updates. You'll get all the videos, too. They're all up on that website.

01:02:33.080 And you can follow me on X at Rabbi P.W.

01:02:36.740 Don't be prepared, I don't know, Monday or Tuesday to go into this more.

01:02:40.580 But I was thinking over the weekend that one of the other great strategists, maybe arguably the greatest strategist and field commander combined.

01:02:50.140 in history. Alexander the Great had this issue about the same part of the world in

01:02:56.780 324 BC in a retreat from India, maybe a strategic repositioning, I think they would call it,

01:03:06.780 he and his generals, the War Council, because the Macedonians and Greeks, as hard as they were,

01:03:13.460 as tough as they were, going from Greece through Persia, all the way through the Khyber Pass

01:03:19.080 into india i think all the way the indish river maybe beyond they decided maybe we've gone too

01:03:24.520 far from our logistics chain and maybe it's time we go back and this concept was hey maybe we go

01:03:31.140 back and we'll go back to babylon right that's the nicest place and we'll we'll regroup and we'll 0.97

01:03:38.360 rethink and if you want to be the king of asia maybe we go back to egypt and north africa and

01:03:43.100 we do the whole thing and then you can call yourself the the king of asia all the way from

01:03:46.900 where we touched India all the way back through it.

01:03:51.060 At around this time in 324 BC, think about that.

01:03:55.360 2,300 years ago, 2,300 years ago,

01:04:02.700 probably the greatest expeditionary force,

01:04:06.120 at least from the West.

01:04:07.040 I realized Genghis Khan and these guys were too shabby coming from the East, 1.00

01:04:10.880 but the greatest expeditionary force to ever exist in the West

01:04:14.940 and really although they were mainly macedonians they had enough greek to be the foundational

01:04:22.220 pillar of democracy and debate they they had the same dilemma the same exact dilemma they were on

01:04:31.040 the retreat they decided it was going to be too hard too tough to take the entire army and march

01:04:37.980 it back through persia that uh what they were going to do is go along the coast of the what

01:04:43.180 they called the indian sea but really the north arabian sea and um because the arabs weren't 1.00

01:04:48.400 really a thing then weren't really a a known entity uh and they were going to put into a fleet

01:04:55.480 a fleet that would be just off the coast in the north arabian sea and would head through

01:05:00.880 wait for it the strait of hormuz and go all the way up past carg island all the way up past those

01:05:08.960 gas fields, which obviously back then no one knew about the wealth and how that would drive

01:05:14.960 the modern industrial society. They would go to the essentially Mesopotamia, the Tigris and

01:05:20.620 Euphrates, and they would take as many vessels as they could up to Babylon. And then the army would 0.71

01:05:26.340 disembark and march up there. And his army would go through

01:05:33.340 the Greek capital, visit the tomb of Cyrus the Great,

01:05:40.620 but they would trail him on the coast, the same exact coast.

01:05:44.360 And when you read the Greek historians that gave the eyewitnesses account

01:05:50.140 of that, it was, although they weren't fighting the entire way,

01:05:55.840 they had fought all the way over there, but coming back,

01:05:57.820 particularly in that part, it was absolutely brutal.

01:06:02.080 Why?

01:06:03.340 The land there is like the surface of the moon.

01:06:05.760 I've got the photos.

01:06:06.860 Maybe I'll show them here in a few minutes about the coastline.

01:06:10.020 It was not easy then.

01:06:13.020 And and these were pretty tough hombres.

01:06:17.400 Twenty three hundred years ago.

01:06:20.040 The greatest, probably military genius of the West, greater than Caesar, greater than Napoleon, Alexander the Great.

01:06:26.460 In fact, the one from Caesar to Mark Antony to Napoleon to all of them used as the template.

01:06:34.120 In fact, there are many stories about what Caesar went to the when he was in Egypt, went to the tomb of Alexander the Great.

01:06:43.020 The Cleopatra saw him and he weep and he wept because Alexander had done by the age of 31, 32, 33, what Caesar had not accomplished in his 50s.

01:06:54.280 going through the same logistics problem.

01:06:58.100 It's quite ironic.

01:06:59.740 And I think there's a lot we can learn from the Greeks

01:07:01.840 and a lot we can learn from those men

01:07:03.980 about exactly what we're biting off here.

01:07:07.860 Exactly what this has got to be thought through

01:07:09.940 with all the modern technology and everything going on.

01:07:13.900 Warriors are still warriors.

01:07:16.120 So this has got to be thought through.

01:07:17.500 We've got War Room.

01:07:18.800 Here's your host, Stephen K. Mann.

01:07:24.280 cleo pascal nothing uh warms my heart more here in the war room

01:07:29.880 than have someone introduce someone like you to the audience i don't know a year or so ago

01:07:34.660 uh and to be so dead spot on on diego garcia the expansion of this war and uh and of course

01:07:41.700 bb i think did a good job explaining hey look they do got the ability to deliver a farther beyond

01:07:47.340 than Israel and Qatar and and Saudi Arabia is they launched a ballistic missile towards

01:07:55.280 Diego Garcia, which you had pointed out for over a year here on the show, that how important

01:07:59.660 strategically it was.

01:08:01.240 The Persians think so, too.

01:08:02.920 If it was not, I think, for an Aegis class destroyer cruiser to take it down, there would

01:08:07.320 have been a could have been a catastrophic hit onto the atoll in the in the in the in

01:08:12.540 the the pier and the runway that is Diego Garcia.

01:08:16.700 Do you think the Brits now know that maybe that's an asset that we keep, ma'am?

01:08:23.600 I'm very grateful for the coverage on the war room of the situation in Diego Garcia.

01:08:29.580 There were two missiles launched out at one disintegrated effectively and the other one

01:08:35.320 was defended.

01:08:36.440 I think that this points to an even larger problem.

01:08:39.120 Admiral Hall was talking about NATO and UK capabilities, they're becoming increasingly clear that this is a serious problem and all of the UK assets, I think, need to be looked at.

01:08:50.800 There was a drone strike on one of their two bases in Cyprus, for example, and now the Cypriot government is talking about, oh, we're going to have to perhaps renegotiate or take a new look at having UK bases in Cyprus after this conflict is over.

01:09:07.280 That's another real serious problem for the U.S.

01:09:10.500 There are, I think, some major signals, intelligence operations going on out of Cyprus.

01:09:15.480 And we're seeing a degree of potential penetration of the U.K. government that raises concerns also in financial sectors where you've got that large embassy that they're talking about.

01:09:28.060 The Chinese are talking about building in London being built near some of the cables that transmit key information into and out of the city.

01:09:37.280 And of course, those transmissions are very time sensitive if you're doing trades or things like that.

01:09:42.760 And there was also reporting they've arrested a few people in the UK recently on suspected spying for the Chinese.

01:09:52.380 One of them, a labor advisor, spoke directly to Marco Rubio in December 24 about Chagos just before he became secretary of state.

01:10:03.220 So they are we're going to have to really look not not just at them being not particularly helpful, perhaps, as Admiral Hall was describing, but potentially being an actual vulnerability across multiple areas.

01:10:19.200 The CCP and all of this, give us your perspective.

01:10:22.740 I know you focus on Micronesia and the islands in the Pacific, the western part of the United States.

01:10:28.980 What is the third island chain?

01:10:30.560 And how are they taking this in right now? Because their oil has essentially been cut off, we think.

01:10:35.860 But now we're hearing, you know, last week that they're letting Chinese flag vessels through in Beijing.

01:10:41.680 How are they viewing this, ma'am?

01:10:44.500 I'm hoping that it's making them recalculate a little bit on the ground.

01:10:49.920 I don't see a lot of slowing down.

01:10:54.080 So I was recently in Yap and Palau and Guam. And in Yap, if you remember, we covered the Chinese rebuilding of that Imperial Japanese runway on Woolley Eye. That construction crew has now moved on to the main island of Yap, where the U.S. is putting in two billion dollars worth of infrastructure.

01:11:14.720 and according to Secretary Hegseth's public statements although the negotiations aren't

01:11:20.580 complete and this is where you get a concern I'm I look more at kind of the left of bang what

01:11:26.500 happens before things blow up so that hopefully things don't blow up that same Chinese company 1.00

01:11:31.400 that was doing the runway is on the main island doing a bridge which is in a location between

01:11:36.320 the port and the airport that the U.S. is looking at rebuilding and they've also settled in to do

01:11:42.900 over a dozen secondary roads on the island so from a situation of about a year ago where there was

01:11:49.400 essentially no chinese installed government linked operations on the island of yap

01:11:56.100 there's they're now settling in and they they do the relationship mapping figure out who they can

01:12:02.260 buy who they can influence and they're settling in for the long run so that runway which is about

01:12:07.520 400 miles from guam which they've completed they've completed the runway but they've left

01:12:13.220 behind on woolly eye containers and i don't know what's in the containers they also left behind

01:12:19.920 a couple of tenders one of them has sunk and has leaked oil into the lagoon so the locals are

01:12:25.580 having problems with their fishing supplies it's just it's not dialing down um so i hope that

01:12:32.780 they're reconsidering, but all of this, everything we've spoken about, the islands,

01:12:37.460 Dio Garcia, what's happening in Cyprus, this is all logistics. This is all about the four, 0.98

01:12:42.840 right? And unless we can kind of do a proper assessment and regain control on the logistics,

01:12:50.180 which is where the Chinese are trying to cut off the U.S. If you remember, Admiral Keating was

01:12:55.980 testified in 2008 that he was told by a Chinese official, you take Hawaii East, we'll take Hawaii

01:13:01.840 west and they're putting in place uh logistical control in order to um to try to make that happen

01:13:09.000 like happened with the japanese during the door too they're looking at the same map

01:13:12.580 uh cleo you're putting up great stuff all the time of us the geo strategic confrontation between

01:13:20.920 the chinese communist party in the united states of america where do people go uh uh x just my

01:13:27.220 name, Cleo, C-L-E-O-P-A-S-K-A-L. And I'm real Cleo still on getter.

01:13:37.020 Thank you, ma'am. Appreciate you. Thank you, sir.

01:13:39.980 Always great. Well, how's that going to go down with the President of the United States

01:13:43.660 referred to our NATO allies as cowards, quote unquote. How is this going to play with that

01:13:51.140 group and do you see any true participation even as feeble as they are because the houthis once 1.00

01:13:58.260 the houthis get involved in this and they may be the ace in the hole for the iranians once you get 1.00

01:14:03.500 the red sea that that's all about europe this whole thing's about europe and asia and the

01:14:08.540 president said to the american people said a couple times he said hey look maybe we just uh

01:14:13.380 maybe we just do do some more defanging and declawing this week and we head out and toss 0.98

01:14:18.480 to you and uh you go on uh you go on escort duty sir steve so much to wrap up here i have to say

01:14:28.320 if you'll forgive me the analogy much of um you know they're talking about defanging degradation

01:14:34.900 and all the rest of it i can't help but think that the the u.s israeli campaign so far if that's what

01:14:41.800 it leads to um you're going to say bye now over to you guys it's much like the opening five minutes

01:14:47.260 of team america um and and the liberation of paris from the terrorists look you know let's tie all

01:14:55.440 this together what was i saying just before the break that and the reason europeans don't want

01:15:00.300 anything to do with this is because politically they realize that a protracted third goal for

01:15:08.960 in as many decades is political suicide it's political it's politically toxic that's why

01:15:14.720 They want nothing to do with it. And that's why Marco Rubio is in the witness protection program, because anyone with 2028 ambitions doesn't want to be on this side of the microphone, this side of the television defending a war, which if it is still somehow going by the time of the midterms, by the time of 2028, it's kryptonite.

01:15:38.580 So let's look at what Scott Besson was saying

01:15:43.460 Again, using these words

01:15:45.740 Which we heard to justify the Ukraine war

01:15:49.220 The escalate to de-escalate

01:15:50.560 What is that signalling?

01:15:52.520 And what is President Trump's indication 0.96

01:15:54.860 That his European NATO allies are cowards

01:15:56.940 Are signalling? 0.94

01:15:58.160 I think, Steve, this is

01:16:00.060 And this is somewhat a communication strategy

01:16:02.580 Asymmetry between the US side and the Iranian side 0.75

01:16:06.440 When the U.S. when the Iranian side is signaling something, they're signaling it to Washington, D.C., almost 100 percent, of course, because there's very little Internet in Iran right now.

01:16:16.540 When the U.S. is signaling things, I'd say 75 percent of that signaling is to the U.S. domestic audience, specifically to MAGUS.

01:16:25.740 And that's where I would put the president's truth, social, verbal bomb on the Europeans that call him the couch.

01:16:36.220 That's meant for the US domestic audience. That's meant for MAGA.

01:16:39.900 EDEM, Scott Besson's saying let's escalate to de-escalate, because, of course, the key word that everyone is going to look at there isn't so much the escalation.

01:16:49.420 It's the de-escalation, because there is this instinctive view, I would suggest, in the administration that the toleration for this war, 0.91

01:16:59.120 While it's been high so far, it's going to taper off very, very quickly.

01:17:05.020 And that's what people want.

01:17:06.040 That's what people are going to hone in on and breathe that sigh of relief.

01:17:09.360 It's the de-escalation side of it.

01:17:11.560 Of course, the problem is that de-escalation really leads to de-escalation.

01:17:17.960 And that's why I think it's a pretty dangerous strategy.

01:17:21.040 As I was saying, though, let's wait for this 48-hour ultimatum to pass

01:17:26.160 and then see what kind of territory we're going to be in then.

01:17:29.120 Hang on. You've got about a minute or so. Give me your closing thoughts. We're going to have you back on during the week. Of course, you're doing the Wednesday and Friday show, which are extraordinary. Your thoughts as you leave us on a Sunday, sir, from Rome.

01:17:41.820 Yeah. OK, 60 seconds. Steve, I think Bibi had absolutely right in the cold open that the Iranian strike at Diego Garcia was an indication to the world, to America, that it that it has longer than was understood missile range. 0.84

01:18:00.420 it was considered to be about 2 000 uh kilometers um but now you know it's possibly and the upper

01:18:08.880 reaches around six and a half thousand kilometers that which which massively widens the amount of

01:18:14.260 damage that the iranians can do and it's not going to go down in the annals of fighting war with honor

01:18:19.780 what they're doing but it's certainly effective it's pretty much what the bad guy does in any

01:18:24.280 film that's ever been made put your gun down or the kid gets it and that's what iran is basically

01:18:30.860 doing right now it's not primarily focusing its targets on striking the united states but

01:18:36.840 striking the united states allies in the region it's effective and we'll we'll see um who blinks

01:18:43.020 first i think uh it's not just who blinks first i think we're going to find out over the next

01:18:49.460 couple of days do we have a cornered rat or we have a cornered grizzly that intelligence is uh

01:18:55.680 you know it's going to be quite important and we'll find out how good these intelligence

01:18:59.600 agencies are in dia and all of it ben uh where what's your uh social media sir till we get you

01:19:04.640 back on here my social media platform of choice getter harnwell is my surname tapping at harnwell

01:19:12.260 there i am pushing out my daily provocations on getter thanks to you enjoy the rest of the war

01:19:17.580 Well, first, Steve, let me speak to Palm Sunday in Jerusalem.

01:19:32.240 I know Cardinal Pizzaballa.

01:19:34.240 He actually contacted me after the Gaza debacle started, and he said the Holy Father had instructed

01:19:41.400 him to get involved. And he asked me to make a plan to build a whole refugee camp to take care

01:19:47.860 of the Gazan civilians and was blocked by the Biden administration. But imagine for the first

01:19:55.260 time in centuries since the Ottoman rule, hundreds and hundreds of years ago, Christians are denied

01:20:02.960 to have mass at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. This is truly unprecedented times. I cannot see

01:20:09.660 any legitimate reason, um, security wise to ban people from going to mass. I mean,

01:20:17.340 if they're going to mass, they're clearly, um, uh, in commune in community with their Lord,

01:20:24.360 if they're killed going to mass, I think they'll take that risk. It is a horrific affront to

01:20:29.840 Christianity. Um, and every Catholic evangelical, every Orthodox in America should be irate about 1.00

01:20:37.100 it. It is unprecedented and wrong. Second, we now live in a world of truth.

01:20:44.660 Hang on one second. Before we go to number two, I want to go back to number one.

01:20:51.160 My understanding after this story broke and with my inquiries, and that's we're trying to get Ben

01:20:56.200 up from Rome in the second hour, is was there any, to your knowledge, was there anything transmitted

01:21:02.780 to the church through official channels to tell him, because this is unprecedented for

01:21:08.340 hundreds of years since the Ottomans controlled Jerusalem.

01:21:13.100 Was anything communicated through official channels to the church that this might happen,

01:21:19.520 sir, to your knowledge?

01:21:21.720 Not that I know of.

01:21:22.940 In fact, the cardinal in his statement even said that he has been adhering to every request

01:21:28.960 and security structure.

01:21:31.420 He was not going with some grand procession, even he was going privately with another clergy to the church to say mass on Palm Sunday and barred.

01:21:41.560 So it's when you if you give a gun and a badge, you get a bigger one.

01:21:47.940 And perhaps that's the case of some security apparatchik in Jerusalem that doesn't care that it's a cardinal, has no respect for Christendom.

01:21:59.160 Uh, this is a really, really bad look for, um, look, you, you, it starts to take away, um, any understanding about, uh, or I guess it has the understanding of, of even Muslims that are, are angry at, uh, their access to Al-Aqsa Mosque. 0.84

01:22:18.920 Um, and again, it could completely unforced stupid error by, uh, Israeli security forces today.

01:22:29.160 Bullet point two, Steve. We live in a very, you know, in a world of transparent battlefields. 0.98

01:22:34.840 If you get within 30, 40 kilometers of the front line in Ukraine, you are completely at risk because of the amount of surveillance and drones sensors.

01:22:47.760 the idea that you're going to hide a amphibious ready group or mu with an lha that's probably a 0.70

01:22:57.540 what eight or nine hundred foot ship weighs 40 or 50 000 tons um believe me there's multiple

01:23:05.080 countries in the world that own the means to track that in real time and so if you by doctrine

01:23:13.040 If you try to get that entire amphibious group within a range of them starting to discharge their troops, they're going to be heavily and highly targeted for the same reason that they pulled the carrier air wing back mysteriously after the laundry fire on board the USS Ford.

01:23:37.160 So highly dangerous to put amphibious troops into that area because of their so many precision missiles.

01:23:46.120 And obviously, there's no surprise left.

01:23:48.700 If they somehow managed to get all those Marines off and move them somewhere else to launch an amphibious operation to try to force open the Straits of Hormuz, maybe.

01:24:00.100 But hard to do deception now.

01:24:02.600 And second, they truly don't have maritime superiority when the Iranians can launch as many missiles, drones and suicide, suicide vessels against them as they can. 0.93

01:24:14.540 could you um could you actually um do a uh without active arab support could you actually

01:24:24.780 take karg island from um the um could you actually go to karg island unless you got the lhas unless

01:24:32.840 you got the amphibious ready group at least part of the uh contingent into the persian gulf or

01:24:38.420 Would you do it stand off and station the helicopters and the and the Osprey, I guess it's some, you know, up in Qatar, you know, to the to that point, you know, up.

01:24:50.940 I think I think I think the view has in Iran, in Iran, Iraq.

01:24:55.440 I mean, is that as I recall that that you would have a maximum of 10 V-22s on board.

01:25:01.840 And so you're not going to move more than 20 or 30 troops per lift.

01:25:05.180 So, yeah, your initial assault in the Karg Island is going to be mighty thin because those aircraft have to cycle.

01:25:11.140 And that's assuming you don't have any losses for maintenance or for missiles.

01:25:16.800 Do you do a mass drop of the 82nd on the Karg Island?

01:25:20.880 Again, that's that's pretty sporty and a an airborne invasion in a place that has thousands and thousands of missiles, not to mention the Iranians have been learning. 0.97

01:25:34.960 They've certainly been paying attention to modern drone warfare and have certainly implemented FPVs down to the squad level.

01:25:44.200 I mean, you see videos of the Israelis in southern Lebanon losing tanks, losing armored personnel carriers to the same FPVs that the Russians have been using with great effect in Ukraine.

01:25:56.120 So it is, again, a fight against Iran. 0.93

01:26:02.820 They're not Arabs. 0.97

01:26:03.680 They're Aryans. They are highly intelligent, highly skilled warfighters, and it would not be the pushover by comparison that you see of the Iraqi army that worked.

01:26:20.860 The other thing the Iranians have done, seeing what the U.S. military did to Iraq in 2003 and 2004, where they decapitated all the military command structure, is they decentralized the decision-making into 31 military districts with a standing order to make war, as much war, for as long as you can. 0.94

01:26:40.960 And the only person that can countermand that is the supreme leader, not their minister of defense or their chief of the armed forces or their president, only the supreme leader.

01:26:50.780 So it's at that point even hard to negotiate with any of the other people that come to meet J.D. Vance or whatever.

01:27:01.760 And I think we just killed the head of the parliament, who was the other guy that was supposed to come and negotiate with J.D. Vance.

01:27:08.740 So I'm not sure that U.S. interests are even in parallel at all to Israeli interests because they seem to be whacking a lot more of the leaders. 0.74

01:27:20.040 taking those names off the board, people that are supposed to be negotiating peace with.

01:27:27.220 Look, clearly, President Trump, I keep saying, and Rubio picked it up, optionality.

01:27:32.720 He needs optionality, needs a range of alternatives, and you're never going to give your strategy.

01:27:37.520 That being said, the National Security Advisor, Marco Rubio, and the Vice President were pretty

01:27:42.860 adamant to go back to the military objectives. President Trump doesn't even refer to it as a

01:27:46.880 war anymore. It's a military operation. You've got those four or five objectives of, you know,

01:27:52.320 de-industrialize them, taking out the Navy, taking out the Air Force, their defense capabilities,

01:27:58.500 air capabilities. We have air supremacy now, or at least air superiority. You know, and Marco was

01:28:04.720 adamant or pretty adamant and repeated many times, we're not going to need combat troops for this.

01:28:09.020 is is is the combat troops we have in another 10,000 being prepped is that so president trump

01:28:17.420 has another option is it for leverage against these guys or how real how real do you feel right

01:28:23.220 now moving in to take uh to make sure they take that those those couple of islands down by straight

01:28:28.420 or whore moves and then karg island and you're thinking this through and putting in that logistics 0.60

01:28:33.740 base or that logistics premise, a predicate, how real do you think we're moving on with

01:28:40.640 the cheerleading of Mark Levin and Thiessen and all these other, you know, the Lindsey

01:28:43.840 Graham's of the world?

01:28:45.140 How realistic do you think it looks like combat troops?

01:28:49.320 Well, unlike the chattering classes in Washington, Steve, I've actually sailed through the 1.00

01:28:52.760 Straits of Hormuz on a sailboat, oddly enough, with a huge Blackwater logo on the sail doing

01:28:58.460 a race in the Dubai to Muscat race.

01:29:02.840 It's narrow.

01:29:03.740 And those two islands on the north side, one is Keshem and one is Larrick.

01:29:08.680 Keshem is the size of Okinawa. Larrick is the size of Iwo Jima. 0.78

01:29:12.540 Anybody that knows anything of American maritime amphibious history knows those names and how many thousands and thousands of soldiers were killed by a very dug in enemy.

01:29:24.620 Now, those islands are generally flat.

01:29:26.820 So even if you put guys over the beach and you take them, the bunkers, prepared fortifications, which I would imagine are there, worse than that, on the mainland Iran, there are mountains very, very close by,

01:29:45.520 which are also laced with caves, tunnels, and survivability from which can be launched rockets, missiles, and drones,

01:29:55.320 making both of those islands that you're trying to put, potentially putting Marines ashore, as one large beaten zone.

01:30:03.380 And I think it's important to think of other military history of a grand amphibious operation planned by the British in World War II at Gallipoli,

01:30:12.820 which is to try to take the Dardanelles and take out Turkey from the war.

01:30:18.500 And it ended very badly because they never seized the highlands.

01:30:22.320 And so seizing those highlands is ugly.

01:30:26.340 First, you know, look, CENTCOM undoubtedly over the last two years

01:30:31.540 had all their target sets that they wanted to hit in Yemen

01:30:35.660 to make the Houthis comply and to open up the Babel Mandaab Unlimited. 0.84

01:30:40.640 The only reason that was opened over the last year is because the Houthis allowed it. 1.00

01:30:45.900 It was not done by coercion by CENTCOM.

01:30:49.460 So my concern about CENTCOM saying, yes, we have another 3,500 targets to strike.

01:30:55.400 That's the ones that they think they know of.

01:30:58.380 And my comment about the captain saying, well, things are quiet and they're not really shooting back from the Straits of Hormuz.

01:31:05.320 As I read history, the Germans did not engage until the troops hit the beach.

01:31:14.720 And the Japanese did not open up on Iwo Jima or Okinawa until the troops hit the beach.

01:31:21.400 And so I really hope no one is considering some kind of a forced entry there because it will be a significant casualty event and a massive blow.

01:31:30.520 And I just hope that the administration is not going to give the enemy the fight that the enemy is expecting because it's not going to go well.

01:31:40.860 Now, on an even more serious topic, on Palm Sunday, look, whether it's some mid-level bureaucrat that went off the rails to block the cardinal from going to mass,

01:31:55.660 I'm told, I just read that he had asked for four people to go to the church, to live stream mass from there, and they even barred him from doing that.

01:32:06.400 That's an enormous problem. 0.97

01:32:10.860 And it's Israel showing a disdain for Christianity in the Middle East, and it's ridiculous. 0.98

01:32:16.820 War Room. Here's your host, Stephen K. Mann. 0.95

01:32:25.980 Dr. Thayer, you've got an update for us, kind of one of the updates, pretty startling.

01:32:30.240 What do you got for us, sir?

01:32:32.240 Well, the former Iranian foreign minister is sending up a trial balloon.

01:32:35.940 And former Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif has talked about the necessity of having a comprehensive peace plan to resolve what he calls a stalemate, that he's recognizing that this is not a war that Iran should continue or is going to achieve victory, identifying again as a stalemate and is calling for then the conflict to be resolved.

01:33:05.360 So that's a very important trial balloon, Steve, that shows.

01:33:10.340 Hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on.

01:33:12.660 Why do you think it's a why do you think it's a very important trial balloon?

01:33:16.500 You think he's got any authority to do it or he's just another guy throwing it up there?

01:33:22.860 I'm sure he's I'm sure that he's got ties to the existing the present Iranian regime.

01:33:31.640 And so I don't think he's just throwing spaghetti at the wall here.

01:33:36.800 If you look at the details of what he's saying, even though, of course, it's a bit ambiguous, again, it's a trial balloon, it's showing that there are elements in the Iranian government, if not the totality of the Iranian government, saying it's time to recognize that this is a stalemate.

01:33:57.900 uh as he as zarif identifies they'd be willing to uh give up the nuclear program in return for

01:34:06.740 lifting sanctions uh and uh the other points there of course uh are going to be important

01:34:13.240 but that's a huge step forward uh for um uh potentially bringing the the conflict to an end

01:34:20.060 um walk through we got about a minute i want to hear again your your thoughts on you don't

01:34:29.180 believe president trump is is is walked in like a lot of his critics saying it walked into an

01:34:33.600 escalatory trap uh before we go to break we got about a minute walk through your logic for saying

01:34:39.140 that because i think that's very big element of where we are strategically in this if true

01:34:44.220 Sure. If true, absolutely. So it begins, I think we need to recognize that President Trump is not boxing himself into any particular path. So he wants to maximize the optionality that he has, like every good statesman.

01:35:03.000 He wants to ensure that he's going to use only as much force as needed in this contingency, in this case, and not more.

01:35:13.520 At the same time, if he needs to do it, he will.

01:35:17.240 And he's got forces in the region now that can be deployed, as we've discussed this morning and as we've discussed previously.

01:35:27.040 So if he chooses to escalate, right, Moses only brought down 10 commandments from Mount Sinai, Steve.

01:35:35.440 He didn't bring down 11.

01:35:36.840 So we know the 11th commandment is not that you're going, if you escalate, you're going to get into a trap, right?

01:35:42.320 There's good logic, military logic for escalating in the right circumstances.

01:35:47.400 U.S. military history is replete with examples of escalating to bring about the defeat of the adversary.

01:35:57.100 Linebacker, too, of course, perhaps being most famous.

01:36:00.980 Or Allied Force, too, where we began to spread out the targets set from the military targets to the Serbian economic targets as well.

01:36:10.480 So, Dr. Bradley Thayer, give me your thoughts on a good Friday, sir, to sum up where do you think we are in this war?

01:36:19.520 Well, absolutely, Steve. I just want to say that in the Dark Ages, it was the Irish monks who saved Western civilization.

01:36:26.020 And if Western civilization is going to be saved again, it's going to be people like Julie and Brandon and the people who show up on Tuesday to ensure that Texas history is preserved, American history is preserved, and Western civilization is preserved, right?

01:36:43.100 That's absolutely essential because of Texas influence in the book market, in the educational market.

01:36:48.800 Do you want your kids taught by the Texas Board of Education or the California Board of Education?

01:36:54.420 And that's what everyone needs to ask themselves. And that's really the argument of the book, Steve. We've been in a long war against communism, a hundred years war against it. It was the ideology of the Soviet Union. It's the ideology of the Chinese Communist Party. Communism is illegitimate and it's hyper aggressive.

01:37:12.140 And the deep problems that we face, from the Chinese Communist Party to George Soros to the anti-Americanism of the Democratic Party, are responsible for that.

01:37:23.760 The neo-Bolsheviks have penetrated our identity, Western civilization. 1.00

01:37:28.680 We need to stand up and fight it.

01:37:30.740 The book explains why, but I'm proud to stand with Julie and with Brandon and other great folks, the folks who are going to show up on Tuesday to win the fight.

01:37:41.400 I want people to get, by the way, this is why Thayer is so special.

01:37:46.780 He makes a direct connection from Lindisfarne, the monastery at Lindisfarne,

01:37:51.520 and the Irish monks all the way to Texas, and what's going to happen on Tuesday.

01:37:56.440 And you know what? It's exactly the same.

01:37:58.900 You know, trying to keep away the barbarians, right, and the pagans, 1.00

01:38:04.300 and in this case the Islamists and the terrorists from poisoning your children.

01:38:08.400 Dr. Thayer, where do they go?

01:38:10.620 book's going to be out in the summer we're going to get it up on amazon here shortly where they go

01:38:14.620 to get your writings and most importantly your social media yeah brad therick x and bradley

01:38:19.860 therick getter and true thanks steve thank you and thank you for the update on the war

01:38:25.080 magnificent you and brandon were fantastic

Bannon's War Room - April 05, 2026

Episode 5274⧸5275： WarRoom Special War With Iran

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