Bannon's War Room - WarRoom Battleground EP 964： President Trump Gives Updates On The War In Iran

00:00:00.000 And that was protected by granite.

00:00:02.900 They wanted it protected.

00:00:04.400 Granite's pretty good, but they wanted it protected by a lot deeper.

00:00:10.020 They wanted to go a lot deeper.

00:00:11.240 And they started the process while rapidly building conventional ballistic missiles.

00:00:16.620 They were going to do it all at the same time.

00:00:18.560 It threatened our overseas bases and soon could have reached even our homeland.

00:00:23.540 And the regime's intention was to use this exponentially growing ballistic missile threat to make it virtually impossible to prevent them from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

00:00:34.240 So as you probably saw, they had a tremendous number of missiles, most of which have now been used or destroyed and very unsuccessfully used because we have been able, for the most part, to shoot them all down.

00:00:49.420 And what incredible technology the patriots have been unbelievable and other things.

00:00:55.660 And the laser technology that we have now is incredible.

00:00:59.080 It's coming out pretty soon.

00:01:01.180 We're literally lasers.

00:01:02.180 We'll do the work of, at a lot less cost, do the work of what the patriots are doing or what other things are doing.

00:01:10.360 The situation was very quickly approaching.

00:01:12.540 The point of no return and the United States found it intolerable, in my opinion, based on what Steve and Jared and Pete and others were telling me, Marco, so involved, that I thought that they were going to attack us.

00:01:28.040 I thought they would.

00:01:28.760 If we didn't do this at the time we did it, I think they had in mind to attack us. 1.00

00:01:33.100 And if you notice, they did something which was very foolish, very stupid, I would say. 1.00

00:01:37.680 They attacked their neighbors. 1.00

00:01:39.720 And their neighbors were largely neutral or at least weren't going to be involved.

00:01:46.880 And they got attacked.

00:01:49.080 And it had the reverse effect.

00:01:51.040 The neighbors came onto our side and started attacking them and actually quite successfully.

00:01:57.540 If you look at Saudi Arabia, you look at UAE, Qatar and others.

00:02:04.880 But they were strong and they were smart.

00:02:07.320 But they got attacked.

00:02:09.020 Nobody, when I first heard it, I said, no, somebody made a mistake.

00:02:12.580 There was no mistake.

00:02:13.880 UAE had over a thousand missiles shot at it, knocked them almost all down.

00:02:19.240 On the very first day I came down the escalator in 2015, I said, quote, I will stop Iran from 1.00

00:02:26.880 getting nuclear weapons.

00:02:28.920 And all I'm doing is keeping my promise.

00:02:31.400 Think of that.

00:02:31.900 That was in 2015 I said it.

00:02:34.900 It was a threat then and a much bigger threat now, but no longer a threat, not for a long

00:02:40.580 time anyway.

00:02:42.040 We want to keep it that way.

00:02:43.220 As we continue Operation Epic Fury, we're also focused on keeping energy and oil flowing

00:02:49.960 to the world.

00:02:51.380 And I will not allow a terrorist regime to hold the world hostage and attempt to stop

00:02:56.400 the globe's oil supply.

00:02:57.760 And if Iran does anything to do that, they'll get hit at a much, much harder level.

00:03:03.060 I will take out those targets that were easy and that I mentioned just before.

00:03:07.720 We'll take them out so quickly.

00:03:09.000 They'll never be able to recover, ever.

00:03:12.120 If they want to play that game, they better not play that game.

00:03:15.200 In the long run, oil supplies will be dramatically more secure without the threat of Iranian ships, 1.00

00:03:21.100 drones, missiles, nuclear menace, or anything.

00:03:25.560 So the Strait of Hormuz is going to remain safe.

00:03:31.120 We have a lot of Navy ships there.

00:03:32.840 We have the best equipment in the world inspecting for mines.

00:03:37.240 Again, most of their ships are down at the bottom of the sea.

00:03:41.760 But we will hit them so hard that it will not be possible for them or anybody else helping

00:03:48.680 them to ever recover that section of the world if they do anything. 0.60

00:03:53.020 In recent years, the regime and its terror proxies have launched attacks on hundreds of commercial

00:03:59.300 vessels.

00:04:00.220 We're putting an end to all of this threat once and for all.

00:04:03.780 And the result will be lower oil prices, oil and gas prices for American families.

00:04:10.660 We've done that.

00:04:11.320 We've done it.

00:04:11.800 We brought it very low.

00:04:12.760 This was just an excursion into something that had to be done.

00:04:17.220 We're getting very close to finishing that, too.

00:04:19.280 In the meantime, during this brief disruption, the United States is offering political risk

00:04:24.500 insurance to any tankers operating in the Gulf.

00:04:26.960 So we're putting up risk insurance.

00:04:29.500 We'll perhaps go alongside of them for protection.

00:04:35.420 We don't think it'll be necessary if it is.

00:04:37.800 And if they do anything, the price will be incalculable.

00:04:43.280 It will be so great that they will have wished they never did it because you have to keep

00:04:49.460 the straits flowing.

00:04:51.540 With all of that, it affects other countries much more than it does the United States.

00:04:55.700 It doesn't really affect us.

00:04:56.560 We have so much oil.

00:04:57.760 We have tremendous oil and gas, much more than we need.

00:05:02.100 We have Venezuela now as our new partner, great partner.

00:05:05.400 They've worked out so wonderful.

00:05:08.120 We're working with the administration, the president, and it's a massive source of oil,

00:05:15.520 gas, everything.

00:05:17.220 But we're in a very good position, but very unfair to other parts of the world, like China 1.00

00:05:24.700 as an example.

00:05:25.500 I mean, we're doing this for the other parts of the world, including countries like China.

00:05:29.940 They get a lot of their oil through the straits.

00:05:34.060 So we're doing this.

00:05:35.260 We have a very good relationship with President Xi in China.

00:05:38.120 I'm going there in a short period of time.

00:05:40.740 And we're protecting the world from what these lunatics are trying to do.

00:05:47.540 And very successfully, I might add.

00:05:50.120 We're also waiving certain oil-related sanctions to reduce prices.

00:05:54.900 So we have sanctions on some countries.

00:05:57.040 We're going to take those sanctions off until this straightens out.

00:06:01.120 And who knows?

00:06:01.740 Maybe we won't have to put them on.

00:06:02.980 There'll be so much peace.

00:06:04.400 But when the time comes, the U.S. Navy and its partners will escort tankers through the

00:06:08.720 strait if needed.

00:06:10.300 I hope it's not going to be needed.

00:06:12.000 But if it's needed, we'll escort them right through.

00:06:14.100 And we have the greatest mind-sweeping ability.

00:06:17.780 We have the greatest ships.

00:06:19.380 And all of them, we know exactly where their place will get them out of there very fast.

00:06:23.740 But we hope we don't have any of that.

00:06:25.700 And again, if they do that, if they play that game, we're going to hit them at a level that

00:06:29.480 they have not seen before.

00:06:31.080 So we're winning very decisively.

00:06:35.860 We're way ahead of schedule.

00:06:39.460 Our military is the greatest in the world, with the greatest equipment and the greatest

00:06:43.300 people in the world.

00:06:44.760 Nobody's ever seen anything like it.

00:06:47.360 Iran is a very powerful country.

00:06:49.160 They were going to take over the Middle East. 0.99

00:06:50.960 If we did not hit them, they were going to take over the Middle East. 1.00

00:06:54.420 They had thousands and thousands, since their last hit, they had thousands and thousands

00:07:00.080 of missiles and everything else.

00:07:02.500 Most are now destroyed.

00:07:04.500 But they were going to take over the Middle East. 0.98

00:07:06.640 Those weapons were aimed at Middle Eastern countries that had nothing to do with this.

00:07:13.000 They were going to take over the Middle East, and they were going to try and destroy Israel. 0.99

00:07:17.080 So we stopped it with good timing.

00:07:20.140 And we're very proud to be involved in this.

00:07:23.280 And it's going to be ended soon.

00:07:25.800 And if it starts up again, they'll be hit even harder.

00:07:31.180 Thank you very much for being here.

00:07:32.720 Go ahead.

00:07:33.040 Any questions?

00:07:35.100 Thank you.

00:07:36.040 Thank you so much.

00:07:37.820 Do you approve of Iran's new supreme leader?

00:07:41.260 And secondly, can you tell us more about your call with Russian President Vladimir Putin today?

00:07:46.260 What did you discuss?

00:07:47.320 Yes, I had a very good call with President Putin.

00:07:51.020 We had a lot of people on the line from our side, from his side.

00:07:54.240 We were talking about Ukraine, which is just a never-ending fight. 0.97

00:07:59.880 And when, look, there's tremendous hatred between President Putin and President Zelensky.

00:08:05.980 They can't seem to get it together.

00:08:08.200 But I think it was a positive call on that subject.

00:08:11.460 And we obviously talked then about the Middle East.

00:08:14.280 And he wants to be helpful.

00:08:18.520 I said, you could be more helpful by getting the Ukraine-Russia war over with.

00:08:23.140 That would be more helpful.

00:08:24.460 But we had a very good talk.

00:08:26.140 And he wants to be very constructive.

00:08:27.800 Yeah, please.

00:08:31.020 Yeah, please.

00:08:32.360 Thank you, Mr. President.

00:08:33.480 On Iran, you called it an excursion.

00:08:35.680 You said it would be over soon.

00:08:37.300 Are you thinking this week it will be over?

00:08:39.220 No, but soon.

00:08:39.800 You're talking about days?

00:08:40.440 I think soon.

00:08:41.100 Okay, and with respect to-

00:08:42.200 Very soon.

00:08:43.000 Look, everything they have is gone, including their leadership.

00:08:47.860 In fact, there are two levels of leadership.

00:08:50.140 And even actually, as it turns out, more than that.

00:08:52.400 But two levels of leadership are gone.

00:08:54.120 And most people have never even heard about the leaders that they're talking about.

00:08:58.100 So it's obviously been very, very powerful, very effective.

00:09:04.280 Back to Cuba.

00:09:05.240 You said that Cuba wants to make a deal.

00:09:07.660 Yes.

00:09:07.840 What would the United States get in return for that?

00:09:10.800 And why should Americans trust Marco Rubio to negotiate it?

00:09:13.960 Well, Marco Rubio is doing a great job.

00:09:16.380 I think he's going to go down as the greatest Secretary of State in history.

00:09:20.360 Look at what we've done as a presidency.

00:09:23.240 Look at what we've done as an administration.

00:09:26.700 They trust Marco.

00:09:30.500 And so do the American people trust.

00:09:32.840 He's been successful no matter where he's been.

00:09:35.340 He also speaks the language, which is always nice and always helpful.

00:09:39.180 But he's dealing.

00:09:40.220 And it may be a friendly takeover.

00:09:43.180 It may not be a friendly takeover.

00:09:44.680 It wouldn't matter.

00:09:45.240 Because they're really in, they're down to, as they say, fumes.

00:09:51.820 They have no energy.

00:09:53.880 They have no money.

00:09:56.340 They're in deep trouble on a humanitarian basis.

00:09:59.560 And we don't want to see that.

00:10:02.940 But they were very, very bad to a lot of people, as you know.

00:10:05.940 And a lot of people living on the Cuban-American vote, which I got at record levels, very important.

00:10:13.960 Those people are very important to me.

00:10:15.240 I know what they went through.

00:10:16.440 They went through hell.

00:10:17.340 Some of them have gone on to be some of the most successful people in the country.

00:10:22.160 Cuban-American business people, some of them are, like, the most successful in the country.

00:10:28.100 And a lot of them are friends of mine, because I've been fighting this battle with them for a long time.

00:10:32.520 The Castro regime was brutal.

00:10:34.760 But they lived off Venezuela.

00:10:36.240 And now they don't live off Venezuela.

00:10:38.140 It sends them no energy, no fuel, no oil, no money, no nothing.

00:10:42.920 They lived without Venezuela. 0.96

00:10:44.360 They couldn't have made it.

00:10:45.240 And we cut them off from everything else.

00:10:47.960 So, yeah, they're going to make either a deal or we'll do it just as easy anyway.

00:10:54.940 Yeah.

00:10:56.400 Please, go ahead.

00:10:59.420 Please, go ahead.

00:11:00.880 The Pressure is a Tomahawk missile likely destroyed that Iranian girl's school.

00:11:10.900 So will the Americans, will the U.S. accept any responsibility for that strike?

00:11:14.080 Well, I haven't seen it.

00:11:15.240 And I will say that the Tomahawk, which is one of the most powerful weapons around, is used by, you know, is sold and used by other countries.

00:11:23.760 You know that.

00:11:24.240 And whether it's Iran, who also has some Tomahawks, they wish they had more, but whether it's Iran or somebody else, the fact that a Tomahawk, a Tomahawk is very generic.

00:11:35.400 It's sold to other countries.

00:11:36.580 But that's being investigated right now.

00:11:42.140 Yeah, please.

00:11:42.720 Thank you.

00:11:43.360 Thank you.

00:11:45.120 Mr. President, you've said the war is, quote, very complete.

00:11:48.040 But your defense secretary says this is just the beginning.

00:11:50.880 So which is it?

00:11:51.900 And how long should Americans be prepared for this war to last four?

00:11:53.520 I think it could say both.

00:11:54.420 The beginning.

00:11:55.760 It's the beginning of building a new country.

00:11:58.260 But they certainly, they have no Navy.

00:12:00.100 They have no Air Force.

00:12:01.680 They have no anti-aircraft equipment.

00:12:05.720 It's all been blown up.

00:12:06.840 They have no radar.

00:12:08.280 They have no telecommunications.

00:12:10.660 And they have no leadership.

00:12:12.260 It's all gone.

00:12:12.960 So, you know, you could look at that statement.

00:12:16.140 We could call it a tremendous success right now as we leave here, I could call it.

00:12:21.920 Or we could go further.

00:12:23.760 And we're going to go further.

00:12:26.080 But the big risk on that war has been over for three days.

00:12:33.180 We wiped them out in the first two days.

00:12:36.260 When you think about it, it's incredible.

00:12:38.900 We wiped out a big Navy, a very powerful Navy.

00:12:42.040 You know, these were ships.

00:12:43.720 These were serious ships.

00:12:44.700 These were ships that you buy when you want to win battles.

00:12:47.780 They're all on the bottom floor.

00:12:50.800 The sailors are all running off their ships.

00:12:52.520 They refuse to get on the ships.

00:12:55.400 The Air Force is gone.

00:12:56.800 Everything is gone.

00:12:57.580 The missiles are down to a trickle.

00:12:59.600 The drones are down to probably 25%.

00:13:03.460 And they'll soon be down to nothing.

00:13:05.900 We'll have the, where they manufactured, the drones are under fire.

00:13:09.320 As we speak, they're being hit.

00:13:12.560 So the rest is going to be determination as to my attitude, along with the people in the Trump administration, what we want to do.

00:13:20.860 Thank you.

00:13:24.160 Yeah, please.

00:13:24.820 Can I ask you, you mentioned you were going to waive certain additional oil waivers or sanctions.

00:13:29.820 Can you talk a little bit more about that and address in particular?

00:13:32.900 Well, we're looking to keep the oil prices down.

00:13:35.160 We went artificially up because of this excursion into a very positive thing.

00:13:40.720 I mean, this was an excursion that a lot of people wouldn't have done.

00:13:43.340 I knew oil prices would go up if I did this.

00:13:46.360 And they've gone up probably less than I thought they'd go up.

00:13:50.500 But I don't think anybody thought we were going to be this quickly successful.

00:13:54.200 This was a military success, the likes of which people haven't seen.

00:13:59.760 We have the best military.

00:14:01.380 We have the best equipment.

00:14:03.060 We have, I believe, the best generals.

00:14:06.540 We have the best.

00:14:07.260 And this went very quickly.

00:14:11.440 We talked about that with President Putin.

00:14:13.700 He was very impressed with what he saw because nobody's ever seen anything quite like it.

00:14:19.120 You know, Iran was a very powerful military country with all of the missiles.

00:14:24.380 Now, you had the double attack.

00:14:26.280 You had the original attack with us and Israel, and that knocked them for a loop. 0.95

00:14:30.360 Then you had the B-2 bombers, which took out their nuclear capability.

00:14:34.300 And they would have had a nuclear weapon within two weeks to four weeks.

00:14:37.940 And they would have used it long before this press conference.

00:14:41.740 And we might have had a much different press conference if we had a press conference at all.

00:14:47.120 But it's been amazing.

00:14:49.320 The military success that we've had is truly unprecedented.

00:14:54.480 You said, you've told your congressional colleagues that you will not sign any piece of legislation

00:15:01.760 until the Save America Act is passed.

00:15:03.560 Does that include the confirmation of Senator Mullen as your next DHS secretary?

00:15:07.940 Does that mean a DHS funding bill?

00:15:10.080 And Senator Thune said today it's not a matter of whether or not your Republican colleagues agree with the policy.

00:15:15.480 It's about changing the process.

00:15:17.420 In other words, getting rid of the filibuster to get there.

00:15:19.220 So in order to get it, you're going to need Democrat votes.

00:15:21.600 And what we're saying is the Save America, not the Save Act, which nobody knew what it was.

00:15:27.300 The Save America Act.

00:15:29.180 The Save America Act.

00:15:31.480 And that's voter ID.

00:15:33.560 We want voter ID.

00:15:34.980 We want voter ID.

00:15:38.760 Be able to see that the voter is legitimate.

00:15:40.780 We want, very importantly, confirmation that this voter is a citizen of the United States of America.

00:15:49.840 And we want no mail-in ballot scams.

00:15:52.920 So we have exceptions for the military, for sick, for disabled, and for people that are away, business trips or whatever.

00:16:03.900 Even vacations will be very liberal in that.

00:16:06.720 We've added two things to it.

00:16:08.020 No men in women's sports and no transgender mutilization of our children. 1.00

00:16:13.340 We don't want our, it's mutilization of our children. 0.98

00:16:18.360 And we don't want that.

00:16:19.700 So we added those two things.

00:16:21.320 That's the five points.

00:16:22.380 We have five very good points.

00:16:25.680 It polls at 86% with Democrats.

00:16:30.060 Think of that.

00:16:31.080 The overall vote is 86%.

00:16:33.380 With Republicans, it's 98%.

00:16:36.100 And the only one opposed to it is Democrat leadership because they cheat.

00:16:41.420 They want to cheat.

00:16:42.140 So we added those two points.

00:16:44.360 We're going for the gold.

00:16:46.140 And we're going to have to fight like hell.

00:16:48.480 Now, certain things will happen.

00:16:50.660 Certain things will take place.

00:16:52.160 I'm here to do a great job for the country.

00:16:54.440 But we don't have a country if we're going to have elections that are so corrupt and so dishonest,

00:17:00.520 like we've witnessed over the last period of time.

00:17:05.080 You know, as an example, few, I mean, virtually, nobody has,

00:17:11.620 nobody has a system of mail-in ballots like we have.

00:17:16.780 No other country in the world.

00:17:17.960 France went away from it.

00:17:19.620 They all went, you know why? 0.62

00:17:20.580 Because it's corrupt.

00:17:21.940 And Jimmy Carter, when he had a commission,

00:17:23.700 frankly, I think it's probably the best thing Jimmy Carter did.

00:17:26.660 He said, you can't have mail-in voting because it's inherently dishonest.

00:17:30.620 And it's turned out to be totally dishonest.

00:17:33.500 So we're going to fight for it.

00:17:36.280 Yeah.

00:17:36.680 Has Iran activated any sleeper cells inside the U.S.?

00:17:42.760 There's reports that they have pressed that trigger button to activate those cells, at least abroad.

00:17:48.080 Well, we've been trying for a long time.

00:17:50.260 We've been very much on top of it.

00:17:51.900 One of the things we have to do is get the Democrats to stop the Democrats' shutdown.

00:17:57.320 Because, as you know, the apparatus that looks into that,

00:18:01.200 Schumer and the Democrats have shut it down,

00:18:03.580 which tells you they probably hate our country a lot.

00:18:06.500 But the Democrats have to open that up.

00:18:09.060 But we've got very, very good intelligence into that.

00:18:12.280 We know a lot of different things that have happened that have been very bad.

00:18:15.720 A lot of them came in during the Biden open border period.

00:18:20.220 But we have them under.

00:18:23.280 We've got them.

00:18:25.080 We're watching every single one of them.

00:18:27.600 Yeah, we know a lot about them.

00:18:30.000 The biggest problem we have is the Democrat shutdown.

00:18:33.060 We know a lot about them.

00:18:34.820 But the shutdown doesn't allow us to do what we have to do.

00:18:39.760 Do you have to take him out?

00:18:41.560 Does he have a target on his back?

00:18:43.020 You mean the new Supreme Leader?

00:18:44.400 You mean the sun?

00:18:45.720 How can there be an Iran with another Ayatollah? 1.00

00:18:47.300 Well, I don't want to say that.

00:18:48.940 But, you know, I was disappointed because we think it's going to lead to just more of the same problem for the country.

00:18:55.500 So I was disappointed to see their choice.

00:18:59.980 Thank you.

00:19:00.620 Thank you, sir.

00:19:01.760 You've said you have someone in mind to be the new Iranian leadership, if not the Ayatollah's son.

00:19:06.880 What are you looking for in that person?

00:19:08.460 Are you looking at someone internal, given that you just said that their leadership has been decided and wiped out?

00:19:12.840 I like the idea of, you know, internal and eternal.

00:19:15.720 Come to think of it.

00:19:17.300 But I like the idea of internal because it works well.

00:19:22.860 I mean, I think we've proven that so far in Venezuela.

00:19:25.800 We have a woman, Delcy, who has been, you know, president of the country, very respected, very, she's doing a great job.

00:19:34.640 And it's, you know, no disruption.

00:19:37.160 We had, as you remember, Iraq.

00:19:40.160 Everybody got fired.

00:19:41.560 The military got fired.

00:19:42.760 The police got fired.

00:19:44.340 The politicians got fired.

00:19:46.320 There was nobody.

00:19:47.340 And you know what?

00:19:48.720 They turned into ISIS.

00:19:50.840 And we don't want that.

00:19:52.200 We don't want that.

00:19:52.980 So I would like to see people that are inside go.

00:19:57.420 Now they talk about the son of the Shah.

00:20:00.020 They talk about other people.

00:20:01.860 But, you know, hasn't been there in many, many years.

00:20:04.060 We have a formula that's been very good so far.

00:20:09.460 And I think it will continue to be good.

00:20:11.540 The relationship is extraordinary with Venezuela, smart country.

00:20:15.760 We've taken out 100 million barrels of oil.

00:20:19.760 It's right now in Houston being taken care of and made so beautiful.

00:20:26.520 And you have to see this at work.

00:20:28.980 They have, it's brought to the refineries.

00:20:32.060 It's being refined in Houston, which is made exactly for that product.

00:20:37.520 And so far.

00:20:38.480 But it's 100 million barrels of oil.

00:20:41.760 And now they have another 100 million barrels coming.

00:20:45.080 And it's like a partnership.

00:20:47.100 We're getting along so well with them.

00:20:49.120 It's great for Venezuela and it's great for the United States.

00:20:54.260 Yeah.

00:20:55.200 Please, go ahead.

00:20:56.520 Mr. President, you just suggested that Iran somehow got its hands on a tomahawk

00:21:01.260 and bombed its own elementary school on the first day of the war.

00:21:04.220 But you're the only person in your government saying this.

00:21:06.260 Even your defense secretary wouldn't say that when he was asked,

00:21:08.780 standing over your shoulder on your plane on Saturday.

00:21:11.580 Why are you the only person saying this?

00:21:13.060 Because I just don't know enough about it.

00:21:14.960 I think it's something that I was told is under investigation.

00:21:19.320 But tomahawks are used by others, as you know.

00:21:23.640 Numerous other nations have tomahawks.

00:21:25.600 They buy them from us.

00:21:27.260 But I will certainly, whatever the report shows,

00:21:30.560 I'm willing to live with that report.

00:21:33.160 Yeah, please.

00:21:33.820 You said earlier that we've already won in many ways, but we haven't won enough.

00:21:40.040 What do you consider enough?

00:21:41.680 What's your baseline?

00:21:42.520 Where they're not going to be starting the following day to develop a nuclear weapon,

00:21:48.560 where they'll look at that man and some other people from the administration and say,

00:21:53.080 all right, we're not going to do it.

00:21:55.200 They were not willing to say that.

00:21:57.600 And when Steve called up and he said that to me, I said, well, here we go.

00:22:02.420 Let's do it the hard way.

00:22:03.700 But the hard way, I think, is probably the easy way.

00:22:06.260 When basically I can see that they will no longer have any capacity whatsoever for a very long period of time

00:22:13.980 of developing weaponry that could be used against the United States, Israel, or any of our allies.

00:22:22.660 We have great allies in the Middle East, great countries that are allies.

00:22:26.080 And they were staying out of it until they got hit.

00:22:29.940 Someday they'll have to do a story.

00:22:31.380 Why did he do that?

00:22:32.300 Why did they do that?

00:22:33.820 But they were going to hit them.

00:22:35.160 If I didn't hit them first, they were going to hit our allies first.

00:22:39.040 I believe upon information and belief, but I believe that he was going to,

00:22:46.560 he was, they were going to take over the Middle East. 0.83

00:22:49.300 They were looking to take over the Middle East. 0.99

00:22:50.880 Now, had Operation Midnight Hammer not taken place, that was definite.

00:22:59.140 Because they would have had a nuclear weapon within a matter of weeks.

00:23:02.620 But that took place.

00:23:03.860 That was a setback.

00:23:05.040 But look at the number of missiles they were able to buy and make over the last six months.

00:23:11.520 And those missiles were aimed at various countries.

00:23:14.500 And when you look at 1,000, over 1,000 missiles shot at, like, UAE,

00:23:20.240 they were looking to take over the Middle East.

00:23:22.080 We got there first.

00:23:23.300 Lucky.

00:23:23.820 I'll tell you what, the Middle East and those countries, very rich countries,

00:23:26.600 are very lucky that I was president instead of somebody else.

00:23:30.760 I don't think so, no.

00:23:39.720 No, we get along very well on this.

00:23:41.720 He was, I would say, philosophically a little bit different than me.

00:23:47.500 I think he was maybe less enthusiastic about going, but he was quite enthusiastic.

00:23:56.820 But I felt it was something we had to do.

00:23:59.900 I didn't feel we had a choice.

00:24:01.320 If we didn't do it, they would have done it to us.

00:24:03.160 I felt, based on the negotiations that were being had by Steve Whitcoff and Jared Kushner

00:24:09.500 and Marco and Pete and everybody was involved, I felt that they were going to,

00:24:15.260 that they were looking to tap us along before they hit.

00:24:17.700 And I thought they were going to hit.

00:24:18.740 And if they hit us first, that would have been a very bad thing.

00:24:20.900 In the back, please.

00:24:23.160 In the back.

00:24:31.460 About the straight, you mean?

00:24:33.560 Yeah, well, I want to keep it open.

00:24:35.820 I want to keep it good.

00:24:37.180 You know, it doesn't pertain to us so much as it does to China.

00:24:40.620 We're really helping China here and other countries,

00:24:43.780 because they get a lot of their energy from the Straits.

00:24:49.240 But, hey, look, we have a good relationship with China.

00:24:52.160 It's my honor to do it.

00:24:53.340 Yeah.

00:24:56.320 You have called him an unacceptable choice.

00:24:59.560 So does he have a target on his back?

00:25:01.460 And how can you say that?

00:25:02.140 I don't want to say whether or not he does, because that would be inappropriate.

00:25:04.820 But, hey, look, I had a target on my back because, as you people wrote pretty well,

00:25:09.940 they caught the assassin that was after me.

00:25:14.360 So we just got them first.

00:25:15.980 But they caught the assassin.

00:25:17.840 They have him now in custody that was after me.

00:25:20.220 So, you know, but people don't like to mention that.

00:25:23.920 But they did catch him.

00:25:25.120 And I'd like to congratulate our military, Secret Service, FBI,

00:25:29.240 all of the people that worked on that.

00:25:30.680 But they did.

00:25:31.200 Yeah, please.

00:25:31.600 I want to make the war almost over, though.

00:25:34.520 Go ahead.

00:25:35.160 No, go ahead, please.

00:25:35.880 Thank you, Mr. President.

00:25:37.080 You promised the Iranian people you would help them.

00:25:39.160 But it sounds like you're willing to end this fight after your military objectives have wrapped up.

00:25:43.440 Isn't that a betrayal of the people?

00:25:44.960 Will I help them?

00:25:46.420 I'd like to, if they can behave.

00:25:49.380 But they've been very menacing.

00:25:50.960 You know, they're great people.

00:25:52.600 They have an amazing population.

00:25:55.700 It's amazing, smart, brilliant, energetic.

00:26:00.220 They have a great people.

00:26:01.100 I'd love to help them.

00:26:02.160 But they have to be in a system that allows them to be helped.

00:26:05.260 And right now, they're in a system that only allows failure.

00:26:08.100 And I don't want that.

00:26:11.200 And I want a system that's not going to be attacking us.

00:26:13.780 We want a system that can lead to many years of peace.

00:26:17.540 And if we can't have that, we might as well get it over with right now.

00:26:21.120 Yeah, please.

00:26:22.020 Mr. President, as of today, there have been eight U.S. military fatalities associated with the war in Iran.

00:26:27.960 How many American deaths are you willing to have in this war?

00:26:31.220 Well, as I said before, when you have conflicts like this, you always have death.

00:26:38.860 And I was at Dover yesterday.

00:26:40.740 I met the parents, and they were unbelievable people.

00:26:43.480 They were unbelievable people.

00:26:44.760 But they all had one thing in common.

00:26:46.580 They said to me one thing, every single one, finish the job, sir.

00:26:50.620 Please finish the job.

00:26:54.440 And I'll leave you at that.

00:26:57.080 Thank you very much, everybody.

00:26:58.500 Thank you.

00:26:59.120 Thank you.

00:27:29.800 The Sunday morning show, given the intensity of the bombing on Sunday night, I said several times, because we had a packed show, also given what the president was saying about unconditional surrender and Pete Hexeth, which he reinforced on 60 Minutes.

00:27:49.960 I know it was shot beforehand, but what he reinforced when it was played last night.

00:27:54.260 I said many times, well, we're not going to have an off-ramp by Tuesday.

00:27:59.660 I was wrong.

00:28:01.840 I guess we got an off-ramp on Monday afternoon.

00:28:04.600 I think, Dr. Thayer, we're going to break it all down.

00:28:10.500 The president's actually obviously been thinking about this a lot.

00:28:13.480 Dr. Thayer.

00:28:15.480 And Mark Levin, and people know I don't agree with Mark Levin a lot on things that are said, but Mark Levin has put up something.

00:28:22.160 I just want to pull it up.

00:28:23.040 My crack staff, my production staff, has sent this to me, if I can pull it up.

00:28:29.800 Mark Levin just put out a tweet, and I'd like to have you respond to it, Dr. Bradley Thayer.

00:28:34.560 And, of course, Kurt Mills is going to join us here momentarily.

00:28:37.780 The tweet is from Levin during this press conference.

00:28:42.480 Is Iran, quote, a short-term excursion, unquote, or unconditional surrender and complete defeat?

00:28:49.400 Is it a condition-based operation or a time-based operation?

00:28:53.380 Inquiring minds want to know.

00:28:55.800 So, Dr. Thayer, given what the president of the United States and commander-in-chief,

00:28:59.180 who's been pretty adamant, at least over the last five or six days of, I think we're in day 10,

00:29:05.760 of unconditional surrender and on pretty tough terms about what that unconditional surrender would look like,

00:29:11.820 did he set a condition that if they change out the leader, the new Ayatollah,

00:29:16.100 the Ayatollah's son that's now the new head of the government as the Ayatollah,

00:29:20.900 although the Revolutionary Guard still controls the day-to-day,

00:29:24.260 if they make that change, that President Trump could see a way to bring down the military operations that we have here, sir?

00:29:35.760 Well, Steve, the first point to make is that the president has a conception of what America's national interests are,

00:29:44.020 informed by his cabinet, of course, and other actors as well.

00:29:47.380 And so when he's making the point that we've won, perhaps we haven't won enough,

00:29:53.460 but we soon will once this attrition continues.

00:29:58.240 He referenced the ballistic missiles, the drones, for example.

00:30:01.960 In essence, their ability to harm the U.S. and our national interests, Israel and our allies in the region, 0.75

00:30:11.020 then that's going to be sufficient.

00:30:12.880 That's victory.

00:30:13.900 And so that's the first point to recognize.

00:30:18.360 It's President Trump who frames that.

00:30:21.460 Second point to keep in mind is that President Trump is absolutely a flexible realist, right?

00:30:27.440 He adapts as circumstances change, as the battlefield dynamic changes.

00:30:35.360 He's seeing victory in terms of the campaign against the Navy, the Iranian Navy, which has been so successful.

00:30:41.800 The Strait of Hormuz does seem to be open, which is absolutely essential.

00:30:48.260 Great success in the air campaign.

00:30:50.340 Great success against their air defenses.

00:30:53.080 The nuclear campaign was taken out last year, and I'm sure there were additional targets that were hit this time of round to hit that.

00:31:01.780 And you have had great attrition in the regime.

00:31:05.620 As he referenced, two layers of the leadership have been removed.

00:31:09.800 So from President Trump's perspective, U.S. national interests have been met or very soon will be met.

00:31:18.480 So that, I think, is his assessment, and that's the assessment that matters.

00:31:24.100 Others who want to go on to, you know, an invasion of Iran or to go on to having some type of conquest of the totality of Iran, I think, are losing that point.

00:31:39.000 We have in our present that consummate, flexible realist who's able to advance our national interests and win battlefield victory, U.S. national objectives have been met, to recognize that.

00:31:53.980 And not to continue in a way that would become self-defeating and that would lead to additional escalation and that would lead to a continuation of a war that need not continue when the U.S. has other adversaries, the Chinese Communist Party, as well, to face.

00:32:16.960 So there's much to like in what President Trump has said today.

00:32:21.420 He covered a gamut, obviously, quite a few topics.

00:32:27.820 But on and on, there's much here that's positive.

00:32:30.980 Yeah, hang on one second.

00:32:34.780 And, of course, we've been, I think, part of the realist camp here, although supportive of the president, but part of the realist camp.

00:32:41.380 So there is a lot to like here.

00:32:43.060 I just want to make sure that we fully understand it because even I'm kind of confused here.

00:32:47.240 But I just don't see and I'm sure they've got back channel discussions going on.

00:32:53.020 The Israelis have just come out, I think, part of the United Nations.

00:32:56.040 The Israelis are talking about a completely different alternative. 0.98

00:32:59.300 I mean, they're all in not just simply for regime change.

00:33:01.820 I think they're going for continue to go unconditional surrender.

00:33:04.860 As I said on the show this morning, I think Saturday night was a big – it showed you a gap between our greatest ally in the United States, a big gap, about what intentions were and what the follow-through was going to be.

00:33:21.760 Anyway, Dr. Bradley Thayer is here.

00:33:23.080 Kurt Mill is going to join us in a second.

00:33:24.900 Natalie is going to be back tomorrow morning.

00:33:26.320 She's got a report out about the refugee situation, but I think everybody ought to pay attention.

00:33:31.160 It says it's going to dwarf whatever happened in the Syrian civil war, Afghanistan, Iraq war, all of it.

00:33:36.480 And it's very well thought through.

00:33:38.420 Dr. Bradley Thayer is with us.

00:33:39.900 The President of the United States just had, I think, the most important press conference so far.

00:33:46.240 Really the first time a press conference in this war, but took a ton of questions and answered them all.

00:33:52.000 Short commercial break.

00:33:52.840 You're in the war room.

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00:38:35.780 You saw the president speak at the Republican conference.

00:38:57.480 Then he went over and spoke again, very powerful, in front of the press, and then had a press conference that lasted about the speech and the press conference combined with the media lasted about 30 minutes.

00:39:11.160 Technically, you've got two other things you want to bring up or I think are quite important for the audience to understand about what President Trump said.

00:39:17.280 Can you give me that, Dr. Thayer?

00:39:19.880 Sure, Steve.

00:39:21.200 Absolutely.

00:39:22.000 First, Trump spoke very clearly about the causes of this war, right?

00:39:27.140 He said that we preempted Iran.

00:39:29.560 Iran was going to hit us. 0.99

00:39:31.560 Secondly, he addressed the conduct of the war and conveyed that our military objectives had been met or were very close to being met.

00:39:40.100 What were those objectives?

00:39:41.380 First, we had to be at the point where the Iranian regime recognized that they were unwilling to continue to develop the weaponry to hurt the United States, our national interests in the region, Israel, and our Arab and other allies.

00:40:03.060 Secondly, regional hegemony, Iran sought regional hegemony, he said, and that this action has stopped Iran's bid for regional hegemony.

00:40:14.820 So in terms of the causes, we preempted Iran from attacking, and then the conduct, our military objectives have been met or are being very close to being met in terms of destroying the weaponry. 0.87

00:40:29.460 He referenced the ballistic missiles, that they're greatly down, right, that they're really now ragged in the ability of the Iranians to launch them, and that the drones were down to 25 percent, as he mentioned, of those attacks.

00:40:48.140 So that's very good news.

00:40:49.740 The Iranian Air Force has been decimated, and the Iranian Navy has been as well.

00:40:56.240 The Straits are open.

00:40:58.500 The Straits of Hormuz is open.

00:41:00.840 So oil is able – oil and gas is able to exit.

00:41:06.140 Well, it's –

00:41:07.760 Yeah.

00:41:09.120 People should understand.

00:41:10.460 People should understand that when the president leaked this – or I shouldn't say leaked it.

00:41:15.440 He talked to CBS News.

00:41:17.340 He gave one of those phone interviews that he's now famous for, and he said they're going to wrap this thing up, and the markets completely turned around.

00:41:24.400 I think oil is at 88, got up to 120 today.

00:41:27.620 Yeah.

00:41:27.860 The market turned around.

00:41:28.960 Bond markets kind of calmed down, everything.

00:41:30.840 Kurt – hang on, Dr. Thayer.

00:41:32.380 Kurt Mills.

00:41:35.360 What just happened, sir?

00:41:38.860 It's a fair question.

00:41:39.960 I think the president is signaling an interest in an off-ramp.

00:41:43.840 I think this was a good press conference.

00:41:45.960 I think this is good news.

00:41:47.840 I think the president is seeing that the military options from this point forward are not particularly attractive.

00:41:55.020 But he doesn't want to quite wrap it up yet, and that will create the potential reality for spoilers who want to keep us in the war.

00:42:03.020 The people that are messaging, and we're messaging ahead of the press conference, frankly, on Monday, that the war must go on were the same people who suckered the president into the war.

00:42:13.700 The Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Josh Hammer, Mark Levin, Lindsey Graham, they're going to message all night on Monday night that this was, yes, Mr. President, thank you, thank you, thank you.

00:42:24.460 But you really need to do more.

00:42:25.840 You shouldn't pull out here.

00:42:27.220 Many of these folks are already poo-pooing the increase in gas prices that Americans are paying in the pump, saying that it's a small price to pay for Israel's war.

00:42:39.420 What – he did put a – he put a condition there that I'm confused about this condition, so help it make sense to me.

00:42:48.180 But he was pretty adamant that they had to select somebody.

00:42:55.120 He wanted his hand – he said this in the last couple – he wanted to participate in choosing.

00:43:00.460 He uses the Venezuelan model, and he goes back to the Venezuelan model today and say, hey, we're closer than ever.

00:43:06.680 They're ramping up oil production.

00:43:08.620 Things are working great because we had a person in their regime that would work with us and essentially report to us,

00:43:14.860 although she doesn't like to admit that everybody knows that's kind of what's happening.

00:43:19.480 He offered that as a framework or a template for what would happen in Iran, although a very, very, very different set of circumstances.

00:43:31.600 He's still said as a condition, we've got to get somebody in there I like, or this guy can't handle it.

00:43:38.040 What is – if that is still a condition until we would go home, we could be there for a while, correct?

00:43:48.580 Potentially.

00:43:49.360 I mean, obviously it's an open question about whether the United States is going to try to kill Moshtaba Khamenei, the new supreme leader,

00:43:55.720 or Israel is going to try to kill him, frankly.

00:43:59.020 Additionally, it's a question of whether or not they can.

00:44:02.160 Presumably, Moshtaba Khamenei is going to be much more secured and underground.

00:44:06.480 But hang up, but hang up. 0.71

00:44:07.080 But it's not – it's not – it's not – yeah, but it's not – I mean, yeah, so they kill this guy who's a guy's son.

00:44:11.620 They don't like this hereditary thing anyway.

00:44:13.680 They kill him.

00:44:14.800 They got 500 more guys that are just as dug in as this guy, or more, thousands.

00:44:20.340 That's – what – their selection the other day was up in our grill saying, hey, you want us to change?

00:44:26.520 Not only are we not changing, we're going to get a younger guy who's supposed to be even more hardcore.

00:44:30.500 They got plenty of those.

00:44:32.080 So if the Mossad takes this guy out, at least their tendency to date has been we're going to show continuity,

00:44:39.160 and that continuity is going to be even harder than we were before.

00:44:43.880 Am I wrong on that?

00:44:45.740 No, no.

00:44:46.520 I mean, this is why I think the president is getting bad advice.

00:44:48.180 I mean, the reality is that Iran is a much different scenario than Venezuela.

00:44:52.240 It is a tougher state.

00:44:54.640 I mean, Venezuela wasn't lobbying Shahid drones to everybody in the Caribbean.

00:44:59.400 Venezuela didn't have ballistic missiles that they could fire to Mexico.

00:45:03.660 This is just a completely different scenario.

00:45:05.840 The reality is if the president wants an enduring relationship with this government in Iran,

00:45:11.300 he's got to walk away from this war and come back to the negotiating table,

00:45:14.860 if the Iranians will even come back to the negotiating table. 0.60

00:45:17.720 As to the transition that you described.

00:45:20.220 Okay.

00:45:20.800 But then, okay.

00:45:21.680 But you just, okay.

00:45:22.620 But you just walked in.

00:45:23.600 Okay.

00:45:23.920 Then Levin and those guys are going to get their way.

00:45:25.940 I know.

00:45:26.300 I know.

00:45:27.040 Perhaps.

00:45:28.180 I know.

00:45:28.860 But you just, you just set up, you just set up.

00:45:30.800 Let me, let me just put another piece of information out there that the president's heard for the last 24 hours.

00:45:36.520 Kuwait, Qatar, UAE, even the great MBZ, the tough fighter MBZ, and the Saudis, I think, have been blowing up the phone lines going, 1.00

00:45:44.360 what in the hell are we doing here?

00:45:45.940 Right? 0.99

00:45:46.360 This is, these guys are crazy and they're lobbying hot ones over here. 0.94

00:45:50.860 They're taking down our desatilization. 0.96

00:45:52.420 They're taking our water.

00:45:53.260 They're, they're, you know, Qatar warned forever.

00:45:57.680 We had Trita Parsi on here. 1.00

00:45:59.220 I think they said that it could be five to seven years before Qatar gets their gas field back.

00:46:04.060 Those guys are sitting there going, hey, they're trying to shut down our oil operations for years.

00:46:08.960 They're trying to block the restraints of our moves.

00:46:10.880 They are taking out a desalination and water is just as important here as oil.

00:46:16.660 I think collectively they all, from what I'm hearing, all were all over people today saying, we got to see a plan to wind this thing down.

00:46:23.840 But if the wind down is the president puts a condition that it's got to be a regime that's malleable to American influences,

00:46:32.520 I think that, and because of what happens Saturday night is a game changer.

00:46:38.140 Do we have that Dan Senior thing?

00:46:39.220 And here's why, Kurt and Dr. Thayer.

00:46:41.840 I think it galvanized Persian nationalism.

00:46:44.900 This is the one thing you didn't want to do.

00:46:46.420 Once you galvanize Persian nationalism, it's the Persian people.

00:46:49.340 It's not this Islamic Republic against, this is why I think you haven't seen uprisings in the street besides the fact that they killed 30,000 of their best, you know, guys who would get to the streets. 0.91

00:46:59.220 I think part of this is now they look at it as a nationalistic cause because they look at it as Israel in the United States against them as a nation and a people.

00:47:07.420 It's not this Islamic Republic, which they hate and, you know, two-thirds of them probably hate.

00:47:12.000 Let me play, can I play the Dan Senior thing?

00:47:13.960 Let me play the Dan Senior thing and I want to pick your brain on this, Kurt.

00:47:16.360 I will tell you, Jessica, I have never seen integration between the United States military and another military, not just between the United States and Israel.

00:47:27.820 Certainly that has never been the case.

00:47:29.460 But the United States and any other sovereign military, I've never seen this level of integration.

00:47:35.540 Aircraft from both countries, you know, in the skies above Iran at the same time, all feeding into a central command function, sharing the same information between those aircraft, sharing the same intelligence, sharing in some cases the same command structure and chain of command.

00:47:53.880 And it's just total integration.

00:47:56.340 And don't take it from me.

00:47:57.240 You can hear this from the Pentagon.

00:47:59.180 U.S. CENTCOM put out a post yesterday with the Israeli flag and the American flag talking about how these air forces are just achieving total excellence and performing with incredible excellence and success and professionalism working together.

00:48:12.580 It's really they're they're attached to the hip.

00:48:16.440 It's it's I think about the 91 Gulf War where the U.S., the Bush administration, the first Bush administration, asked Prime Minister Shamir, Prime Minister of Israel at the time, to show restraint that Israel couldn't get involved.

00:48:28.620 Why couldn't Israel get involved, according to the Bush administration?

00:48:31.560 Because that would fracture the coalition, which included many Arab countries.

00:48:35.960 The Israel and the Arab countries couldn't be seen in the Arab countries' eyes to be fighting on the same side.

00:48:41.080 Now that is we've completely inversed that.

00:48:44.600 Now you have Israel and the U.S. fighting side by side, totally locked in, and the Arab countries are joining that coalition. 0.90

00:48:50.920 So we are living on so many levels through truly historic times that I couldn't have even imagined in terms of the transformation in the region, potentially, and certainly the transformation in the relationship between the U.S. and Israel.

00:49:03.340 Okay, that's not Steve Bannon saying it's Dan Senior, and everybody knows Dan Senior is a, how do I say, former spokesman for the Iraq debacle under Bush, where he lied, bald-faced lied to the American people only every day.

00:49:17.240 But he's also, let's say, quite close to the Netanyahu click in Israel.

00:49:24.920 And he's 100% correct.

00:49:26.000 They got guys, he says it, one joint command.

00:49:29.140 It is impossible to have happened on Saturday night, what happened on Saturday night, with that structure, and it's from his lips, that structure, to have, oh my God, the Axios story that sits there.

00:49:43.240 And even Lindsey Graham putting out a tweet afterwards, hey guys, we've got to calm down, unless the Israeli Air Force, the IDF, and the Senior Command of Israel bald-faced lied to the Americans.

00:49:53.800 And I think right there, that was an inflection point.

00:49:55.720 I believe President Trump, because they said, oh, he's going to have a heated conversation with Netanyahu.

00:50:00.180 The allies are not together on this at all.

00:50:04.060 Our war aims, and you just saw President Trump, the war aims of President Trump look quite different than the war aims of Bibi Netanyahu, Kurt Mills.

00:50:12.140 And this is why, I think Saturday night was an inflection point.

00:50:15.380 President Trump was adamant.

00:50:17.040 I don't want any oil assets, I don't want any infrastructure touched, right?

00:50:22.680 I'm trying to get the Persian people on our side.

00:50:26.820 If we've got to do things in Tehran, I want the bombing of, like, the Air Force Command Center that the IDF did take down, I think, on Saturday night, which is a hard target.

00:50:36.900 But I don't want to spread this war into a Dresden-type firebombing of Tehran.

00:50:42.880 That's exactly what I don't want, because you know what?

00:50:44.900 Then the Persians will dig in, and we'll be here five years from now. 1.00

00:50:48.520 This is, to me, the beginning of the separation that led President Trump to this podium today to kind of say, hey, I'm thinking about this.

00:50:56.740 We've got a couple other things I want to do on my punch list, but we're out.

00:51:01.000 Kurt Mills, your thoughts?

00:51:02.140 Yeah, I mean, look, that Dan Senora person basically works for another country, as far as I'm concerned, and all but name. 0.99

00:51:11.180 And so, you know, this also was the Romney foreign policy person.

00:51:14.580 This is a complete neoconservative.

00:51:16.020 It's not clear why this person should have purchased anywhere near the White House for a president who ran against all these people.

00:51:21.720 But that's neither here nor there.

00:51:23.280 I think the reality here, though, Steve, as you are alluding to, is that the president is going to have to tell the Israelis no.

00:51:29.460 The president is going to have to disappoint Lindsey Graham.

00:51:32.140 He's going to have to disappoint and reject the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

00:51:36.940 He's going to have to reject Tom Cotton, or we're just going to do this again and again and again.

00:51:42.200 The Iranian political system is opaque, so they've put in the sun. 0.97

00:51:46.600 But in many ways, there could be an opportunity there.

00:51:49.580 The analysts who understand the country, which are few and far between, basically are of the mind that this could be the moment that they are passing from a clerical dictatorship to more of a military dictatorship.

00:51:59.600 That Moshtaba is, in some sense, the cat's paw of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. 1.00

00:52:05.760 And, you know, military dictatorships are not Jeffersonian democracies, but they could be more pragmatic.

00:52:11.620 There are people in the system.

00:52:13.400 The president himself, Pesud Peshechkian, his team, Arachi.

00:52:17.200 They won election two years ago on negotiating with the West, on negotiating with the United States, on negotiating with Donald Trump.

00:52:26.440 You know, there are other people in their system who think, screw the Americans.

00:52:29.140 We'll just deal with the Chinese and the Russians. 1.00

00:52:31.000 And when we have, you know, black skies at 10 a.m.

00:52:35.560 Tehran time, you're kind of vindicating the hardliners in the system.

00:52:38.940 So, yeah, again, other things on President Trump's punch list.

00:52:42.940 Talk about other things on President Trump's punch list in his term.

00:52:47.880 He needs to take the off-ramp here and the off-ramp for a very, very, very long time.

00:52:52.540 And I think Israel has been shown to the world as charlatans for this military endeavor.

00:52:59.060 They are trying to spike oil to above $120 a barrel.

00:53:03.060 They are shutting down air traffic.

00:53:04.580 They are getting Americans out of 15-plus countries. 0.99

00:53:07.360 You know, it is making Uncle Sam a pariah throughout the region and throughout the world.

00:53:12.340 And we need to cut bait on these guys.

00:53:13.940 We need a long, hard talk about what the U.S.-Israeli relationship is.

00:53:18.080 And I think it's going to come either sooner or later.

00:53:20.780 And if it comes later, it's going to come in the Republican primary, and it's going to be pretty nasty.

00:53:25.700 Well, it's going to happen right now.

00:53:27.360 I mean, the president's laid out some conditions.

00:53:29.580 I mean, Levin just said, is this times-based or conditions-based?

00:53:32.800 He said the president has laid out some things that he wants to accomplish, that he thinks accomplishes his war objectives, and then we can move on.

00:53:43.320 And part of that is obviously to deal with the regime and what the regime's going to do.

00:53:48.520 But the Israelis, more than ever, are all about regime change and destroying the regime. 0.99

00:53:52.640 Those are two, right now, diametrically opposed—you know, the president did not mention unconditional surrender.

00:53:59.780 He did not mention the total and complete destruction of their war-making capability.

00:54:05.480 If you're going to take out any possibility of their power projection on their own people, as hard as this is to say, you're going to be there for a while.

00:54:13.660 Because these people are not pushovers.

00:54:16.240 They're hard—it's the Persians. 1.00

00:54:17.640 Same guys the Romans fought and the Greeks fought. 0.71

00:54:20.240 They're still there.

00:54:21.060 And now they're bigger and more powerful.

00:54:23.500 Not that you couldn't take them down, but it's a process.

00:54:25.940 And you've seen the targeting list we've been going through.

00:54:29.860 How do you think this plays out?

00:54:31.100 Because you're right.

00:54:31.580 The guys that want us to stay forever are already all over this.

00:54:35.200 You're going to see it on Fox News tonight.

00:54:36.620 You're going to see it on Fox and tomorrow.

00:54:39.500 They're going to be, you know, saying, President Trump, you can be Churchill here.

00:54:43.040 Or you can, you know, you can actually look and try to get a peaceful exit.

00:54:47.800 And they're all going to be for taking the hard way.

00:54:49.980 And as you can tell, the hard way is not going to end next week or the week after the week after that, sir.

00:54:55.120 I thought it was interesting that Mr. Senor went after George H.W. Bush, of course, because attacking George H.W. Bush for not marching all the way to Baghdad in Gulf War I became the rallying cry for what became the neoconservatives.

00:55:08.260 And they're the people who ruined Mr. Bush's son's presidency and helped ruin U.S. position in the world.

00:55:15.000 And so I think it's very interesting that they attacked H.W.

00:55:17.100 Because they don't want President Trump actually to repeat the lessons from the Bush 41 White House, which is you can wipe out, you know, a tough military, but you don't go all the way.

00:55:28.140 You don't do regime change.

00:55:29.280 You leave the regime weakened and in place.

00:55:31.620 And I think that's obviously at this point the best option for President Trump.

00:55:36.700 If he leaves now, if he leaves now, this will be a bad memory.

00:55:40.080 This will be this will be a moment of fracture within MAGA.

00:55:43.320 But I think Trump will be able to keep his coalition together.

00:55:46.420 I think Trump will be able to compete in the midterms.

00:55:48.480 If this is all we are doing, if Pete Hegseth is screaming at 60 minutes in July, it's going to be a major problem for the White House.

00:55:55.240 Kurt, where do people get you now, particularly overnight, until we reconvene tomorrow morning?

00:56:02.240 Because I think it's going to be quite intense tonight.

00:56:05.080 For sure.

00:56:06.080 Yeah, it's the AmericanConservative.com magazine founded in 2002 by Pat Buchanan and Friends against the Iraq War.

00:56:12.760 We are now covering the Iran War wire to wire.

00:56:15.440 And my own work and addition to the magazines is at Kurt Mills, at C-U-R-T, and my L-L-S on X.

00:56:22.060 Thank you, Steve.

00:56:22.820 Thank you.

00:56:25.460 Dr. Thayer, we've got 90 seconds before we get a punch.

00:56:27.820 Your thoughts.

00:56:29.700 You fight a war to win the peace.

00:56:31.540 And President Trump has explained the causes of this war, why we went to war.

00:56:37.440 That was to preempt an Iranian attack.

00:56:40.460 He also talked about the conditions, the conduct of the war that would lead to its end, right, to having the U.S. win the peace.

00:56:49.020 And that was when the Iranian leadership said, we're not going to continue, in essence, to build, I'm paraphrasing, but to build the ballistic missiles, to reconstitute an air force and a navy that's going to be able to hurt U.S. national security interests, Israel, and the allies in the area.

00:57:08.100 So President Trump has a path to winning the peace.

00:57:11.520 I would just say, secondly, and finally, Steve, that there are really three sets of targets here we're talking about, counter-leadership targets, counter-force targets, and counter-value targets.

00:57:21.920 Counter-leadership targets the Israelis seem to have been driving. 0.94

00:57:25.020 That was getting rid of the regime.

00:57:26.560 Counter-force targets were the military targets.

00:57:28.640 That's what President Trump wanted to hit, going after the ballistic missiles, going after the air force, the navy, the nuclear facilities, obviously, last year, and continuing those attacks.

00:57:41.580 And then the counter-value targets President Trump does not want to hit, right, very importantly, because that ties into nationalism.

00:57:48.000 If you start going after the value, what the society values, the oil, the infrastructure, the way people make their money, the sources of the economy, you're going to generate a tremendous nationalist reaction.

00:58:02.500 Trump did not want to counter-value target.

00:58:04.980 He wanted to counter-force target, very importantly, and maybe counter-leadership targets.

00:58:10.400 So he's got a pathway to peace.

00:58:13.020 He can win the peace.

00:58:15.240 Dr. Thayer, brilliant.

00:58:18.520 Where do people go to get you, particularly overnight, until we reconvene at 10 a.m. Eastern Standard Time tomorrow morning, sir?

00:58:25.100 Yeah, Steve, Brad Thayer at X and Bradley Thayer at Judge Ruth and Getter.

00:58:27.980 Thanks very much, Steve.

00:58:30.520 Thank you.

00:58:32.400 Okay, oil went from, what, 80 to 120, back to 88.

00:58:36.880 Markets stabilized.

00:58:37.940 I think President Trump saw when he ran up the trial balloon with CBS, what the response would this be.

00:58:43.780 I think also the guys in the Gulf said, hey, look, you know, this could only get nastier.

00:58:49.140 We've got to think this through together.

00:58:51.340 I think that's what's happening.

00:58:53.300 President Trump's going to come under an intense barrage tonight, and it ain't from the Iranians. 0.98

00:58:58.300 We'll cover it all, and we'll see you back here at 10 a.m. Eastern Standard Time tomorrow.

00:59:03.700 Remember, you get a vote in this.

00:59:06.440 What do you think?

00:59:07.660 Well, check that out tomorrow morning.

00:59:09.820 Birch Gold.

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00:59:26.040 That's what you need.

00:59:27.480 Talk to them.

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00:59:29.200 We'll see you back here in the war room.

00:59:30.840 Natasha Owens will take us out.

00:59:32.380 We'll see you back here at 10 a.m. Eastern Standard Time tomorrow.

00:59:35.860 I guarantee we will be on fire.

00:59:38.660 We still need help from the boss.

00:59:42.680 We need help from the boss.

00:59:44.240 We need help from the boss.

Bannon's War Room - March 10, 2026

WarRoom Battleground EP 964： President Trump Gives Updates On The War In Iran

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