00:00:00.000this is the primal scream of a dying regime pray for our enemies because we're going to
00:00:10.380medieval on these people here's not got a free shot all these networks lying about the people
00:00:16.980the people have had a belly full of it I know you don't like hearing that I know you try to do
00:00:21.140everything the world to stop that but you're not going to stop it it's going to happen and where
00:00:24.660of people like that go to share the big line? MAGA Media. I wish in my soul, I wish that any
00:00:32.160of these people had a conscience. Ask yourself, what is my task and what is my purpose? If that
00:00:38.900answer is to save my country, this country will be saved. War Room. Here's your host, Stephen K.
00:00:47.480back it's easter monday 6 april year of our lord 2026 um later today at one o'clock there's going
00:00:59.720to be a press briefing by the president united states about the situation in iran and potential
00:01:05.660ceasefire although i think that may have already been uh rejected by the um by the regime we're
00:01:13.720getting to all that we've got an all-star lineup of analysts and observers to walk us through this
00:01:19.100break it down all for you we're going to play and for those with a sensitive um ears or children
00:01:26.800we're going to play the newscast from yesterday's news as we always do in the cold open lets you see
00:01:32.260a wide range of what happened uh some of the language is a little harsh because they're
00:01:37.600quoting a true social that the commander-in-chief put out at 5 a.m eastern daylight time yesterday
00:01:42.980morning let's go ahead and let it rip to open the war room no longer he has just threatened iran in
00:01:49.600extraordinary graphic terms giving the iranian regime just over a day to either make a deal
00:01:54.720reopen the strait of hormuz or face hell if your children are watching be warned the president did
00:02:00.960not use polite language quote tuesday will be power plant day and bridge day all wrapped up in
00:02:08.020in iran there will be nothing like it open the fucking straight you crazy bastards or you'll be
00:02:14.820living in hell just watch we should note that destroying civilian power infrastructure is
00:02:20.440generally considered to constitute a war crime under international law though the president
00:02:25.100could argue that the infrastructure has dual use and also is utilized by iran's military
00:02:30.020sure so then how does this uh resolve itself because let's assume that you know there isn't
00:02:36.900a kind of totally dramatic escalation where you have a complete free-for-all, but Trump
00:02:42.200decides to do more bombing and then just quits in, say, 10 days or two weeks. The strait
00:02:48.000remains closed. At that point, is it left to, you know, countries like Saudi Arabia
00:02:53.520to find some way to negotiate with Iran and open the strait?
00:03:00.660For you, there's two great unresolved issues. One I know you'll talk about later, which
00:03:05.300is the nuclear issue. And we could be looking at, if you will, open-ended bombing by Israel
00:03:10.800and the United States, rather than having a formal negotiator arrangement, kind of red lines.
00:03:16.680And if and when Iran were to move against them, there would be recurring military activity.
00:03:21.780On the strait, it's what I've described as we broke it, you own it. The president could simply
00:03:26.660walk away and say, as he's posted, that the United States is not directly dependent on energy moving
00:03:33.120through the strait. And then I think it's unrealistic to expect the local Arab countries
00:03:38.700or the Europeans to free it up. So I think then we're looking at a long-term situation
00:03:42.940where Iran derives enormous revenue, not to mention political leverage, from operating the
00:03:49.780strait. And I would think that that ought to be an unacceptable situation. If you add those two
00:03:53.640things together, the strait and the nuclear, talk about being worse off after initiating a war of
00:04:00.120choice that didn't have to happen strategically and economically. The United States and the world,
00:04:05.880as your opening take suggested, would be far worse off than it was five weeks ago.
00:04:10.480President Trump is expected to detail the rescue of an American airman whose aircraft was blown out
00:04:14.620of the sky over Iran. He's also expected to take reporters' questions afterwards, and there are
00:04:19.460many. Why the expletive-filled social media post on Iran? Will he stick to his deadline of 8 p.m.
00:04:24.720tomorrow for creating, as he put it, hell on earth if Iran doesn't open the Strait of Hormuz?
00:04:29.820And what's happening with ceasefire negotiations?
00:04:32.660Hardly anyone could argue that Iran posed a threat to its neighbors,
00:04:35.900let alone to the United States, which sits roughly 6,000 miles away.
00:04:41.020Donald Trump effectively admitted this on Wednesday.
00:04:44.300We don't have to be there, but we're there to help our allies.
00:04:47.920It's worth noting that none of America's European or Asian allies were consulted,
00:04:52.880and many have spoken out against the war.
00:04:55.380In fact, reports suggest that Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu
00:04:58.820who sold Trump on this war, not because Iran was an imminent threat, but because its unprecedented
00:05:06.200weakness provided an opportunity to strike hard to effect regime change. Why else would Trump
00:05:13.480have closed his brief announcement at the start of the war by urging the Iranian people to rise up
00:05:19.760and overthrow the regime? A call echoed by Netanyahu in his own message. Tuesday will be
00:05:25.520power plant day and bridge day all wrapped up in one in iran there will be nothing like it
00:05:31.920open the fucking straight you crazy bastards or you'll be living in hell just watch praise be to
00:05:38.880allah end quote that's what the president of the united states has just posted so you have a
00:05:44.740theocratic regime with a lot of military power that has not been destroyed as much as the president
00:05:51.080and Secretary Hegseth want to talk about the body count, as it were, of missiles and launchers and
00:05:57.000the capability to shoot. Iran shot some more missiles into Israel just today. So you're seeing
00:06:05.060a regime that's hanging on, that is saying we are now being attacked. It's hard to overcome
00:06:13.80047 years of screaming at the U.S. and Israel that they are the great Satan.
00:06:21.060We're even worse Satans now because we seem to be killing a lot of civilians
00:06:25.400and trying to damage institutions which are rebelling against it.
00:06:29.940So I think it's going to take a lot longer time,
00:06:33.000and I agree with David Ignatius about letting it die its own death.
00:06:37.100I also agree with Mark that it's going to die eventually,
00:06:41.280but I think it's going to be much longer.
00:06:42.640So, Joe, I think we're still balanced between the two fundamental themes of this war, tactical brilliance of the United States military.
00:06:55.240It was demonstrated in a different way with this rescue mission, but it was an amazing feat of arms,
00:07:03.520showed off our special operations forces, the ways they can do things nobody else on the planet can.
00:07:08.480But it also showed that Iran can withstand our best punch and has got an asset in the Strait of Hormuz that it's very hard to take away absent diplomacy.
00:07:23.060I've been thinking that if Trump did go through with his threat to blow to smithereens every power plant, bridge, etc., that would probably make the straight-of-home moves impassable for decades.
00:07:38.980It would lead behind such ruin and rage that the idea of reopening it under any circumstances would be almost impossible.
00:07:46.600I'm not sure Trump thinks through the consequences of that action.
00:07:50.060So we're again at a moment where, to me, the path out of this towards something that will stabilize the region and achieve basic war goals of the United States requires us to work with our allies towards some kind of diplomatic solution.
00:08:11.900The idea you could just keep pounding the other guy and he's going to eventually say, OK, that's it.
00:08:17.320I think the evidence in this war points in a quite different direction.
00:08:22.780So far, aside from devastating Iran and crippling its already weak military, which was predictable in such a one sided contest, few of the desired results have been achieved.
00:08:37.320Key leaders have changed for the worse.
00:08:39.560The 86-year-old Ayatollah Khamenei, who famously banned the development of nuclear weapons, was killed and replaced by his son, who is said to be more hardline than his father.
00:08:50.940In general, the Revolutionary Guards, who have always been more militant, seem to be ascendant, which makes sense in times of war.
00:08:59.900The Strait of Hormuz, which was free and open despite many threats through 47 years of U.S.-Iran tensions,
00:09:07.460is now blocked by the new leadership, whom Trump terms much more reasonable.
00:09:12.600President Trump says that after a few more bombing runs, the Strait will open naturally,
00:09:18.040because Iran will want to export its own oil.
00:09:24.320It is open to Iranian oil, which is flowing freely, especially to China.
00:09:28.940The net result of the war is that Iran now makes about twice as much on its daily oil sales compared to before the conflict.
00:09:38.040In addition, if it continues to charge a reported $2 million per passing ship,
00:09:44.180Tehran will make hundreds of millions of dollars in additional revenue every month, enough to rebuild its military and more.
00:09:51.580America's Gulf allies now face a far more unstable and tense environment than they did before the war.
00:09:57.900Their business models require peace, stability and economic integration.
00:10:03.200Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had mended ties with Iran in 2023
00:10:08.520because he wanted to calm geopolitical waters to pursue his ambitious program of modernization.
00:10:16.480Today, all that progress is in jeopardy as oil exports are crippled
00:10:20.620and the region has gone from having a path to be an oasis of stability rather than a cauldron of conflict.
00:10:27.900We're learning more about the ceasefire and potential to see whether or not there could be a deal before the deadline tomorrow that the president has said.
00:10:36.020I should note he actually extended that.
00:10:39.580He then appeared to extend it until 8 p.m. tomorrow.
00:10:42.480But to see if these potential talks could at least be staved off for the time being.
00:10:47.460Because as we heard from the president, particularly in that expletive-laden post that he shared yesterday,
00:10:54.100really threatening to bomb Iran, saying that he would go after infrastructure and energy sites as well
00:11:00.860if they do not reopen the Strait of Hormuz by that 8 p.m. deadline tomorrow.
00:11:05.060So what we're learning is really the countries who we know have been crucial negotiators throughout this entire process,
00:11:10.240Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt, they are among those who have been pounding out a 45-day ceasefire
00:11:17.100to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and, again, try to buy some time before we could see
00:11:21.780the United States military really escalate their attacks on these different infrastructure sites.
00:11:27.700Now, the plan, we're told, was sent to the U.S. and Iran late Sunday and is viewed as a last-ditch
00:11:34.160effort to try and see if they could find an off-ramp to this war, again, even if it is only
00:11:39.720temporary. Now, we have also heard from the Iranians say that they said that they reject
00:11:44.620outright this idea of a temporary ceasefire. But of course, throughout this entire process,
00:11:49.140there's a lot we've been hearing publicly, not only from the Iranians, but also from the Trump
00:11:53.280administration, while things are happening, of course, private behind the scenes. I will say,
00:11:58.060we did hear from a White House official, they did confirm that this potential 45-day ceasefire is
00:12:02.980just one, they said, of many options that the White House is considering as they look ahead
00:12:08.260to how they want to proceed based on this deadline that the president has set for tomorrow.
00:12:14.140I think we read the headlines, you know, when President Trump took action to take on Iran.
00:12:20.480You know, for 50 years, presidents have talked about doing this.
00:12:23.960And he's the first one to do it and face the scrutiny of instant gratification.
00:12:30.120Everyone wants to know, is it two weeks? Is it three weeks? You know, give us a timeline.
00:12:33.680But he understood that it was going to take risk, and it was going to take some short-term hardships for a longer-term gain for our country, for my three boys' future, certainly.
00:12:48.780So I think this just shows that freedom is not free, and things have to be fought for and earned, and we have the best and the brightest in this country that are prepared.
00:13:00.300You think of those going in to rescue these pilots.
00:13:03.340They're trained, highly trained, the most trained people in the world to take this on.
00:13:07.880So my thoughts and prayers are with them.
00:13:09.940And this is the greatest country in the world, but it doesn't come without a cost.
00:13:16.700But so far, has any American military action ever racked up so many costs for so few games?
00:13:29.120Like I said, Easter Monday, 6 April, Year of the Lord, 2026.
00:13:33.580We're going to the White House at 1 o'clock, Real America's Voice.
00:13:36.900We're going to cover that and do some pregame analysis.
00:13:39.880The Israeli paper, Haritz, is just reporting now, up on zero hedge, that the commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guard is not prepared to agree to any concessions as part of a deal to end the war.
00:13:57.260So like I've said before, we're in it.
00:14:00.020President Trump threw down pretty hard yesterday, ticking time bomb, 8 p.m., I think, Eastern Daylight Time, Tuesday night is the deadline he's given them.
00:14:11.120We're going to get into all of it, the economics of it, the geopolitics of it, the national security, an incredible, incredible, incredible joint operation yesterday to retrieve the weapons officer on the F-15.
00:14:26.480just incredible. Of course, people are asking, was that really just a cover to go after the nuclear
00:14:32.860dust? We're getting to all of that this morning. Eric Bolling, Sam Faddis, Trita Parsi,
00:14:38.900and more, a cast of thousands here in The Worms. Short break, back in the morning.
00:14:56.480The dollar's convertibility into gold ended in 1971.
00:16:32.700Yeah, the president, what you're saying, was a combination of Patton, about Rommel, and the general in charge of the 101st Airborne at Bastogne, his response to the Germans.
00:16:48.280he was giving it to him with both barrels but sam fattis let me start with you i got eric
00:16:52.700up here a lot to talk about on the on the straight of her moves and the
00:16:56.040convergence of geopolitics and economics um
00:17:00.160there's all these rumors going around of course on the internet about yesterday's
00:17:06.800um really a 48-hour magnificent evolution as we call in the military to um
00:17:15.760um uh retrieved the weapons officer uh from the downed uh f-15 and of course a lot of people
00:17:24.960saying oh this is just a cover on a failed mission to go get the nuclear powder um your sense of
00:17:30.840things what i think is striking to people even least in part of the conspiracy theory
00:17:34.660is it was a pretty big firefight and there were a lot of seal team six and seals team six are
00:17:42.880kind of the the assassins right the these guys go in as all seal teams are incredible as all of our
00:17:50.300special forces delta force you know the green berets rangers all of it uh force recon for the
00:17:58.720marines the the special unit the air force has but send in seal team six and have their fight
00:18:05.200and we still don't know if they're casualties from that or not but i did i believe we lost two c130s
00:18:09.980um and then this morning that the iranian revolutionary guard told president trump
00:18:17.880no deals right nothing we're not giving we're not giving up on anything now that could change
00:18:23.520in 30 minutes but at least that's what the israeli papers are reporting your thoughts on that sam
00:18:28.740fattis right well first obviously uh all credit where credit is due to the amazing folks who
00:18:36.840pulled off this op and we got the weapons officer out alive. And as far as I know, we did not take
00:18:42.060any fatalities, although I do believe they were wounded. Okay, fantastic. Best military in the
00:18:47.100world. And we should thank God for that. We should also take stock of what happened and what it took
00:18:54.880to pull off this op. We had to send in, you know, this is not a chopper with a handful of guys that
00:19:01.260hopped off the side and picked up a guy. This was a major operation and a major firefight.
00:19:06.840And we ended up having to blow up two C-130s on the ground, I think a Little Bird helicopter as well.
00:19:13.980And then there were multiple other aircraft hit during the course of the overall operation.
00:19:20.820So, you know, some takeaways to come off the top of my head.
00:19:25.720We were told these guys were getting ready to quit.
00:19:29.120And in about three days of bombing, it would all be over.
00:19:32.680That is not what we saw on the ground in Iran.
00:19:51.020Well, we saw them in real time coordinate a very large operation to get this weapons officer and confront our guys.
00:20:00.600So obviously they can communicate, and they are still an effective force.
00:20:06.840We were also told, by the way, that their air defenses are no longer, are non-existent.
00:20:12.640Well, there's the F-15 that went down tells you that that is not true.
00:20:19.900I mean, we have destroyed some types of air defenses they have.
00:20:24.160they have in place now very asymmetric non-conventional air defenses like they literally
00:20:30.440have loitering munitions drones that just hover yeah yeah the the a-10 the a-10 also down by by
00:20:39.440the strait itself also i think a couple helicopters got hit i don't think anything went down but i
00:20:44.240want to go back to something you said from the beginning that they've got an operational plan
00:20:47.920because they they had a contingency this day was coming so it's not like CENTCOM central command
00:20:54.320they dispersed where this incredible rescue mission took place is in a pretty it's not a
00:21:03.220suburb of Tehran right it's also not near one of their major where they dispersed defense
00:21:09.400capabilities right it's a fairly remote uh part down uh close you know pretty close to Iraq
00:21:16.140So your theory is not just simply a Tehran and these other four or five big military installations they've got, but it looks like they may have dispersed all over, correct?
00:21:28.920Yeah, look, they spent 20 years watching the way we fight in Iraq and Afghanistan and elsewhere.
00:21:36.520They developed a plan knowing precisely how we wage war and knowing that it would begin with decapitation, taking out major sites, essentially trying to destroy command and control.
00:21:50.800Their response to that was to create 31 separate commands, autonomous commands all around the country, and those pieces continue to fight on their own.
00:22:01.760and at each and each one of those commands has access to everything you need to continue to fight
00:22:07.280including the external the military plus the basies the internal security guys the thugs
00:22:14.080that beat people up in the street they are all they they understood what was coming they have
00:22:19.720watched it for 20 years and they prepared for it so that's that's where we are now the theory that
00:22:26.840you were going to hit them real hard in Tehran and they would collapse was never viable. It
00:22:32.220didn't happen. It hasn't happened. It's not going to happen. So, okay, I'm not, that is not me
00:22:38.480saying we lose. It's just saying you need to accept that face reality and adapt. Our strategy
00:22:46.260has to be modified. We can't keep just thinking we'll repeat the same thing we've done and get
00:22:51.560a different result also this fantasy at least a fantasy up till now that there's going to be some
00:22:58.900massive uprising in the streets i think president trump said hey we sent some weapons because this
00:23:04.520gets down to are these people armed can they fight back against the internal security and
00:23:09.860we sent them to the kurds i think he said it looks like the kurds kept them which if i'm a kurds
00:23:15.720probably not a bad probably not a bad alternative the americans are going to send us weapons you
00:23:20.080Maybe we get them there and maybe we just keep them
00:23:23.240because we're always being double dealt by everybody.
00:23:38.580MBZ, who glazes President Trump all the time, he's not a friend.
00:23:42.440They're all looking out for themselves.
00:23:43.620And given what a cockpit that place is, right,
00:23:47.720maybe it's uh maybe it's uh to their benefit to do that but don't think you've got any friends
00:23:52.260over there you may have alliances of convenience yeah when it suits them hang on for a second
00:23:58.560sam let me get back to you in a second all this i want to go to the uh to the economics of it uh
00:24:04.880eric is it appropriate to say that even with the explosion of prices kind of over the weekend or
00:24:10.940for the last trades that people are kind of on tenterhooks now waiting for what president trump
00:24:16.460says at one o'clock and then this deadline which has been pushed i think theoretically to 8 p.m
00:24:22.640uh eastern daylight time on tuesday yeah he added 20 hours they're supposed to end this evening he
00:24:29.980pushed it to tuesday so very interesting phenomena happening but first of all regarding what's what
00:24:35.920sam was just talking about guys we've been talking about exactly what's happening right now for the
00:24:40.380past four weeks. We said, in fact, Steve, we sent, I sent a video of us talking this exact idea into
00:24:47.260Hankseth and into Susie Wiles that you need to bomb the literal daylights out of these folks.
00:24:54.140You need to take out their media, their infrastructure, their roads, their bridges.
00:24:58.820Maybe, you know, clearly there'll be civilian deaths in it, but that's what you need to do
00:25:02.560to get the IRGC back to the bargaining table, hat in hand, and then you can work out some
00:25:06.900negotiations. It feels like Trump is melding together this kind of the art of war, as Sam
00:25:13.200points out, with the art of the deal, which he is all about. And I just have this hope and suspicion
00:25:19.620that he's going to get what he wants. The other side of that is, I also know Trump, as you do as
00:25:24.280well, that he's not going to be, I guess, disrespected on a global stage with the IRGC
00:25:31.000telling him to go take a hike with all his attempts on negotiations. And I believe he will
00:25:36.140unleash hell on them. And I think that's what everyone's waiting for. Will this be the,
00:25:40.460you know, will we get another 45-day pause? Will we get a ceasefire? Will we get
00:25:44.220hell unleashed on Iran, which would be the oil markets? And so everything is kind of
00:25:49.440in limbo right now, very nervously trading a very tight range. Oil, $112 a barrel. Gasoline,
00:25:55.720up to $4.12 nationally a gallon. Brent is trading $130 a barrel right now. It could be a lot higher.
00:26:03.260If we do do Unleash Hells, bomb them back to the Stone Angels, you'll see probably a $150 barrel of WTI and $180, $200 barrel of Brent.
00:26:13.880And that would be very, very negative to the stock market.
00:26:16.980The other thing that you and I chatted about, Steve, offline was this idea that, you know, this is, even if all things ended right now,
00:26:25.540There's an international, I guess it was a UN study saying even if the strait were open today and ceasefire declared today, we're looking at months forward of pain at the pump, higher inflation, and maybe there's a possibility of sending the world into a global recession, which should be bad for everyone, us too.
00:26:45.600But again, there's an off-ramp Trump maybe thinking about various options, but he's got to portray that the only option to him left is to bomb the crap out of Iran, which I don't think is a bad idea.
00:27:00.020I think letting them know that he's willing to go and he's ready to go, that's what he's good at.
00:27:05.980And they've clearly seen that sometimes he talks, but the other times when he goes, he allows you to sell.
00:27:12.280you you're you're saying he's caught in an escalatory trap that he actually has to escalate
00:27:18.400now is that what you're saying because these guys say nothing over the weekend has shown hang on
00:27:23.280nothing over the weekend has shown they're even prepared to negotiate with people or talk to
00:27:28.520people directly there's something that jd's been up all night and trying to communicate with some
00:27:32.220guy but the the head the guys came back today and said we're not giving up on anything right
00:27:37.880we're not going to give one inch one concession i think they're coming back with their own 15 point
00:27:42.580plan i tell you what eric hang on for one second sam fettis eric bowling to kick off easter monday
00:27:49.140really an incredible heroic and it tells you about the really the valor of our because the
00:27:56.820equipment's incredible the communication is incredible when it gets down to it it's the
00:28:00.620valor and savvy and toughness and grit of our troops. The pilot himself, what climbed up to
00:28:08.5807,000 feet, injured. Just incredible. Incredible weekend. But we're now down into it. President
00:28:15.980at one o'clock from the White House. Short break. Back in a moment.
00:28:23.760Everyone's focused on how the conflict in the Middle East is raising oil prices,
00:28:27.280but there's another grim reality to this contention.
00:28:31.940Oil isn't the only resource being constrained.
00:28:34.340About one-third of global fertilizer trade happens through this region.
00:28:39.300And with spring planting season on top of us,
00:28:41.680American farmers are sounding the alarm,
00:28:44.000with some saying they can't afford to plant their fields.
00:28:47.080When one piece of the supply chain gets hit this hard,
00:28:50.320you know what comes next, higher fruit prices, reduced availability,
00:29:53.520um if sam let me get to what eric said do you think president trump right now is is a trapped
00:30:02.900in what we call the escalatory trap that he's got to he's got to go up to the he's got to go up to
00:30:08.060particularly if what haretz and some of the israeli media is reporting that the iranian
00:30:14.480guard because people don't really know who speaks for who what faction who's in charge i mean one of
00:30:19.540problems we got you've got the pakistanis and the egyptians the turks everybody's trying to
00:30:23.880organize the saudis you know you got a couple of guys here a couple of guys there but at least
00:30:28.980and harrett's a pretty good paper they they're saying the the the arena the revolutionary guard
00:30:35.160is saying hey here's what you think about your 15 points there's no deal there's no ceasefire
00:30:40.640we don't need a meeting we're going to send you over our 15 uh standby it sounds a little bit
00:30:46.680that they they almost sound like they they are taking the style of president trump
00:30:53.460and using against president trump sir yeah well i think we are potentially uh that's precisely
00:31:01.760where we are i mean this is what i mean by we tried something based on an idea we had of how
00:31:10.040what would happen that they would fold and now since that didn't work it appears our current
00:31:16.120our plan is, let's just do more of that without reevaluating, without stopping and thinking about
00:31:24.280what's really happening here. And as I keep saying, I mean, we're in this war, so we got to
00:31:30.820win this war. We don't have a rewind button. We can't go back and revisit that decision. We cannot
00:31:35.920walk away and have been defeated by the Islamic Republic of Iran. But we do need to think about
00:31:43.140why is it not working? And let's change that. So if we're going to bomb them, what are we going
00:31:51.440to bomb exactly, given that they have moved to a decentralized system? Because continuing to think
00:31:57.780we're just going to bomb certain key nodes and they will collapse is not enough. We also have
00:32:02.980to anticipate as we back them further and further into a corner, what are they going to do? Up until
00:32:08.020now, you and I have been talking about how the Straits of Hormuz are the center of gravity here,
00:32:12.640by which we really mean oil and gas coming out of the Gulf.
00:32:15.680Okay, but when you get the Iranians in a corner and really out of options,
00:32:20.980what happens when they decide to destroy the oil and gas infrastructure of the Persian Gulf?
00:32:27.420So you're not looking at reopening the Straits.
00:32:29.940You're looking at nothing's coming out of Kuwait and any other country in there.
00:32:34.600One of the reasons, yeah, one of the reasons we,
00:32:37.940and we're going to spend more time on this in the next couple of days,
00:32:40.280One of the reasons we went back in recent history and talked about the 1980s is as they've gone down on the command structure and taken out the senior people, they're getting into mid-level and below.
00:32:53.720These are all people that came in as volunteers, as first lieutenants, second lieutenants, non-commissioned officers, the nine-year-old, the 12-year-old kids that gave them a stick and said, the Iraqis over there, go charge, like in World War I and in Korea.
00:33:07.380um these are not we're not getting as you go down the ladder you're not getting to
00:33:14.400jeffersonian democrats uh or members or guys that went through the enlightenment you're getting the
00:33:20.380you're getting harder core people who their entire life their formation of them as young men
00:33:27.160was in a brutal war that was a war that they had to win against at that time saddam hussein in the
00:33:35.420west right and and so you're getting people that know how to dig in and these are persians to start
00:33:40.900with the layer on top of it this this radical theocracy right this martyr this whole philosophy
00:33:47.780and religion based around martyrdom these are you know these these are tough people formed
00:33:54.060in the crucible of an apocalyptic war which it was i think i think there was a million casualties
00:34:00.600yes over the eight years of that war uh and you think about in vietnam the the casualties i think
00:34:06.820we had 50 000 killed obviously tens of thousands of more casualties and millions on the vietnamese
00:34:13.200side this was and people should remember and this i told the sunday times i said i said look
00:34:19.940the military's had 12 000 sorties they're going to i think the target right now is 13
00:34:26.760five or 14,000 sorties before they say at least their initial mission is accomplished uh we've
00:34:34.200only had a couple planes shot down that that is a pretty remarkable but we're hitting these people
00:34:39.540we hit them again last night it's a relentless hitting of the kind of defanging and declawing
00:34:45.780of their conventional military apparatus sam but these guys are totally asymmetric now and they're
00:34:51.700going to fight an asymmetric war. And these appear to be people who would rather die than surrender
00:34:59.020or particularly capitulate to the great Satan, sir. Yeah. As I've said to you many times,
00:35:05.240I worked against the Iraqis and the Iranians for many years. The Iraqis were absolutely ruthless.
00:35:10.240The Iranians were every bit as ruthless, but frankly, a heck of a lot more organized in that
00:35:17.680sense and smarter in the way they operated and more dangerous. They were the folks you really
00:35:23.480had to watch yourself against. And your use of the term asymmetric is dead on, Steve. I mean, look,
00:35:28.680you know, we're worried about missile batteries and them shooting down planes the way
00:35:35.300we would. Okay, we should worry about that. But the fact of the matter is they've moved now to
00:35:40.580using these loitering munitions. And I'm not talking about things that go up in the air and
00:35:44.600and hit a tank on the ground. They're like sky mines. They go up and they hover thousands of
00:35:50.720feet in the air, and they have passive infrared sensors. And when your F-15 Strike Eagle comes by,
00:36:00.200they impact it. We're looking for radar systems. We're looking for SAMs. We're looking for all of
00:36:08.300this stuff and they have relatively cheap munitions hovering over key areas this is back to
00:36:16.340the psychology at least of the vietnam war right we're using massive conventional force
00:36:21.440and we're fighting an enemy that's fighting us very unconventionally and asymmetrically
00:36:26.420yeah uh hangar for in fact the bomb to the stone age came i think from curtis lemay
00:36:32.920in uh in the vietnam war hangover one second trita where do we stand haritz is uh is reporting that
00:36:39.800the revolutionary guard has responded to our feelers through various sources of trying to
00:36:46.460you know trying to try to have a climb down at least before tomorrow evening's um uh deadline
00:36:53.880and they're telling us hey no interest uh no deals um we'll come back to you later with our
00:37:00.340own 15-point plan. Your thoughts? I think the Iranians are open for negotiations, but they're
00:37:07.380not going to agree to a ceasefire unless they get what they want, because the track record of Israel
00:37:14.000and the United States for the last two, three years when it comes to ceasefires in Gaza and
00:37:18.540Lebanon has been very clear. Those ceasefires are rather quickly violated, and they're used in order
00:37:25.060to be able to regroup, rearm, and then relaunch attacks. So the Iranians are not going to fall for
00:37:29.700that. And particularly if it's these kind of phased ceasefires, first Iranians do everything
00:37:35.220up front, and then in phase two or phase three, the US responds with some concessions. Those are
00:37:40.920complete non-starters. And I don't think we should waste time on that because reality on the ground
00:37:45.760is this is not the type of scenario that existed before the war in which the US had a lot of
00:37:50.720leverage vis-a-vis Iran. Now the Iranians have a lot of leverage over the US as well. That requires
00:37:56.060real compromises, and that's going to take some time. But if you start off those negotiations
00:38:01.200with these kind of lowball offers, you're just wasting time, frankly. And right now,
00:38:06.880time is not on Trump's side. If I were him, I would move much faster towards real negotiations
00:38:11.560that did not require the audience to give up everything up front, and then the U.S. taking
00:38:16.020measures in phase two, because those are just non-starters. It's not going to work.
00:38:21.200Trita, help me out here and help the audience out. When you say real negotiations,
00:38:25.120President Trump this is one of the things that drove him crazy and you and I talked about this
00:38:29.640drove him crazy beginning that the Iranians would be in one room at the you know uh Whitcoff and
00:38:36.240Kushner in another room you have either someone from Oman or some intermediary passing notes back
00:38:40.960and forth who is he really supposed to negotiate with if you had a recommendation right now you
00:38:46.580got the Pakistanis working one thing the Saudis working another the Turks working another you've
00:38:51.480got guys coming up as spokesmen i mean if president trump wants to make a deal and talk to somebody
00:38:57.240and jd's been up all night the the media is telling us talking to somebody who is the president
00:39:03.340united states supposed to interact with that not only can deliver a deal or have a meaningful
00:39:08.620conversation about what you just talked about but also if they reached a deal could actually