The Ben Shapiro Show - Israel’s DEVASTATING Offensive Continues…While Trump Plays 4D Chess

00:00:00.000 All right, folks, a ton coming up for you today on the show.

00:00:02.000 It is a fire hose of news.

00:00:04.000 All the latest from the Middle East.

00:00:05.000 Israel wrecking the Iranian military capacity.

00:00:07.000 Iran firing missiles into civilian areas in Israel.

00:00:11.000 What comes next?

00:00:11.000 We'll be joined by everybody from Amit Segal of Channel 12 in Israel to Senator Tom Cotton to talk about that.

00:00:17.000 The latest on this Minnesota legislative shooter who has now been caught.

00:00:21.000 Plus, President Trump's military parade and the No Kings protest.

00:00:24.000 Just a stacked show first. 0.58

00:00:25.000 The mob is back in the streets, burning flags, torching cars, attacking cops.

00:00:28.000 Once again.

00:00:29.000 The legacy media call it justice, but we've seen this movie before.

00:00:32.000 At The Daily Wire, we don't sit back.

00:00:33.000 We fight.

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00:00:39.000 Join millions of people who still believe in truth, courage, and common sense at dailywireplus.com.

00:00:44.000 Well, the situation in the Middle East has gotten very hot.

00:00:48.000 Obviously, Israel is absolutely wrecking. 1.00

00:00:50.000 The Iranian military and nuclear capacity.

00:00:53.000 That is the actual story.

00:00:55.000 Ignore all of the trash that you're seeing on X about how really Iran is doing amazing in this war. 0.56

00:00:59.000 Iran is not doing amazing in this war. 0.86

00:01:00.000 This is not Mike Tyson versus Lennox Lewis or something.

00:01:04.000 This is Mike Tyson versus a deranged leprechaun.

00:01:06.000 And the Mike Tyson here is Israel and the deranged leprechaun is the Iranians. 1.00

00:01:10.000 Essentially, the way that this is working is that Israel has taken out nearly the entire top layer of the Iranian military.

00:01:16.000 Israel has taken out a wide variety.

00:01:18.000 Maybe up to 90% of the nuclear capacity of Iran.

00:01:21.000 We'll get to the base in Fordow in just a moment.

00:01:24.000 Israel has taken out one-third of the ballistic missile launchers in Iran.

00:01:27.000 Israel has complete air superiority over Iran. 0.90

00:01:30.000 Complete.

00:01:30.000 Meaning the anti-aircraft defenses in Iran are not existent.

00:01:34.000 Israel has been flying continuous sorties in daylight in Iran for days on end.

00:01:39.000 Remember, this attack started U.S. time, Eastern time.

00:01:43.000 It started Thursday night.

00:01:44.000 It is now Monday.

00:01:46.000 Israel has been flying continuous sorties.

00:01:48.000 Since Thursday night into Monday, all the time, it has not stopped.

00:01:52.000 For one moment, Israel has been striking targets in Iran.

00:01:56.000 In fact, very good summary on where things are from Abu Ali Express, which is definitely a Telegram account worth following.

00:02:04.000 Listing where things currently stand.

00:02:06.000 Here's what Iran has achieved. 0.90

00:02:08.000 Iran basically has decided that what they were going to do is, in response to Israel's attacks, fire ballistic missiles at population centers in Israel, which shows the difference, by the way, between the regimes.

00:02:17.000 Israel is striking military targets, military political targets, nuclear scientists, very targeted strikes.

00:02:24.000 Iran is firing ballistic missiles, large scale ballistic missiles directly into the population centers and killing old people and children in Tel Aviv.

00:02:33.000 The number of people who've been killed thus far is approximately 22 people have been killed thus far in Israel.

00:02:38.000 Israel, meanwhile, has destroyed the vast majority of Iran's military capacity.

00:02:46.000 Iran is in a bit of a box, as we'll discuss in just a few minutes, with regards to their ballistic missile program.

00:02:51.000 Because every time they fire a ballistic missile, they're revealing the location of a ballistic missile launcher, and Israel is then destroying the ballistic missile launchers.

00:02:58.000 In fact, last night, there was a Homefront Command warning that went out.

00:03:02.000 So there is a system in Israel called Homefront Command where they warn Israeli civilians what to do, where to get to shelter, when to get to shelter, and all the rest.

00:03:09.000 There's a Homefront Command that went out late last night in the middle of the night in Israel, and it told everybody to get to a shelter.

00:03:16.000 And then for two hours, nothing happened.

00:03:18.000 Now, normally, when there's a home front command, there's going to be what's called a red alert.

00:03:21.000 The air raid sirens go off within minutes.

00:03:23.000 This time, there's a two-hour delay.

00:03:24.000 Why?

00:03:25.000 Because Israel was so sophisticated and exact in taking out the missile capacity that they were preemptively destroying the launchers on the ground.

00:03:33.000 It took the Iranians two hours to find the capacity to fire a bevy of missiles into Israel. 0.98

00:03:39.000 So that's how effective Israel is right now. 0.71

00:03:41.000 Again, Iran is sort of in a catch-22 with regard to its ballistic missile programs.

00:03:45.000 If it fires hundreds of ballistic missiles, Israel will immediately identify from where those missiles were fired and destroy the launchers, meaning that they are incapacitated for future use.

00:03:54.000 If Iran does not fire, then effectively they have no response to Israel's destruction of their military capacity.

00:04:00.000 So Abu Ali Express sums up where things are after three days of war.

00:04:04.000 Iran's achievements.

00:04:05.000 Approximately 380 ballistic missiles were launched from Iran toward Israel.

00:04:09.000 Approximately 100 UAVs were launched from Iran.

00:04:14.000 Those would be the drones.

00:04:16.000 There was some significant damage caused to buildings in Israel at the impact sites.

00:04:19.000 And you're seeing a lot of that film on places on TV, CNN, Fox News.

00:04:23.000 And it's true. 0.56

00:04:23.000 There have been a couple of buildings that have been severely damaged in Israel. 0.56

00:04:26.000 That is not the same thing as what Israel is doing to Iran.

00:04:29.000 And the attempt by the media constantly to draw a comparison as though these are two heavyweights slugging it out wrong.

00:04:36.000 Because here's what Israel has accomplished in the last three days. 0.72

00:04:39.000 First.

00:04:40.000 About 120 out of 360 Iranian ballistic missile launchers were destroyed.

00:04:44.000 Second, around 15 senior nuclear scientists were eliminated, including nine of the top nine.

00:04:49.000 Dozens of senior officials in the Iranian security apparatus were eliminated, including the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, the chief of staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, the heads of Iranian intelligence, including those of the IRGC, the commander of the Air and Space Forces of the Revolutionary Guards and his senior command, the commander of Khatam al-Anbiya, the commander of the Tehran Police.

00:05:09.000 That last one is important because if there were to be a sort of popular uprising, it would be his job to put it down into Iran. 0.67

00:05:15.000 Iran's air defense systems have been completely destroyed or rendered ineffective.

00:05:20.000 Iran has no capacity to stop Israel's F-35s and F-16s from simply flying sorties unhindered across Iranian airspace.

00:05:29.000 The nuclear facility in Natanz was destroyed.

00:05:31.000 We'll get to that in a moment.

00:05:33.000 The level of destruction and the sophistication with which Israel took out the centrifuges at that Natanz facility. 0.91

00:05:39.000 The nuclear facility in Isfahan was heavily damaged.

00:05:41.000 The heavy water facility in Iraq was also attacked.

00:05:45.000 There was minor damage inflicted on facilities that were adjacent to Fordow.

00:05:48.000 Now, again, Fordow remains the sort of outstanding Israeli task at this point because it's located 90 meters underground encased in cement.

00:05:55.000 Now, they can't actually do everything they need to do to develop a nuclear weapon at Fordow, but that is sort of their outstanding capacity thus far.

00:06:02.000 Government offices in Tehran are being routinely attacked.

00:06:05.000 Israel is taking out the Iranian television station today.

00:06:09.000 Israel destroyed a refueling aircraft for Iran.

00:06:12.000 Israel has been destroying fuel depots and a refinery in Tehran.

00:06:15.000 And by the way, there's plenty more that Israel can do.

00:06:18.000 Israel can take out ports. 0.94

00:06:19.000 Israel can take out the oil fields. 0.58

00:06:21.000 Israel still can take out Ayatollah Khamenei.

00:06:24.000 So, again, what is happening is one of the most successful military operations in modern history.

00:06:29.000 And anyone who's telling you different, that this is a widespread conflagration or regional war or it's going to escalate into something different.

00:06:35.000 There is no evidence of that, certainly.

00:06:37.000 And anyone who's telling you that this is two sluggers just beating each other up, that is a lie.

00:06:41.000 This is not Russia-Ukraine.

00:06:42.000 This is not going to be a long-lasting war where months in, these two parties are still battling it out.

00:06:47.000 That is not the way this is going to go.

00:06:48.000 Israel is absolutely wrecking Iran right now. 0.92

00:06:51.000 They are wrecking Iran. 1.00

00:06:53.000 Now again, they have not yet taken out Fordo.

00:06:56.000 When it comes to Natanz, when it comes to Natanz, Natanz is one of their big nuclear facilities.

00:07:02.000 And Israel has been striking pretty much every element. 0.96

00:07:07.000 According to the Wall Street Journal, the IAEA, the International Atomic Energy Agency, said that there was a sudden loss of power at Natan.

00:07:15.000 So it wasn't just that Israel hit actually the nuclear facility.

00:07:18.000 They actually destroyed the power source to the nuclear facility.

00:07:21.000 For some reason, the Iranians had thought that they were insulated from that and they had left the centrifuges on.

00:07:26.000 And so that may have destroyed many of the roughly 14,000 underground centrifuges.

00:07:30.000 They're still running and there's a sudden power outage.

00:07:32.000 These are very sensitive machines.

00:07:33.000 And so they spin off.

00:07:35.000 And when they spin off, the centrifuges are broken.

00:07:37.000 The long cascades of centrifuge machines, which spins to produce uranium, are fragile, and they can break if they are not shut down gradually.

00:07:43.000 So Israel was capable of essentially shutting them down all at once suddenly, breaking many of them. 0.92

00:07:49.000 An Israeli official said there were indications the underground portion of Natan's facility may have imploded.

00:07:54.000 Iran has also struck critical parts of the supply chain for making a bomb. 0.99

00:07:58.000 At Iran's Isfahan complex in central Iran, Israel took out four buildings, two of which are must-haves for a nuclear weapon. 0.95

00:08:03.000 One is Iran's uranium conversion facility, which turns uranium into a gaseous form needed to feed it into centrifuges.

00:08:09.000 The second was Iran's fuel fabrication plant, which converts enriched uranium into uranium metal, which makes up a large part of a nuclear warhead.

00:08:17.000 So again, outstanding work by the Israeli Air Force, just on a raw military level.

00:08:22.000 Now, what about Fordo?

00:08:24.000 So Fordow is, again, the big outstanding issue right here, because Fordow is, of course, really, really heavily insulated.

00:08:30.000 So I asked perplexity what munitions would Israel require in order to destroy the Iranian nuclear facility at Fordow?

00:08:37.000 So, either a GBU-57 massive ordnance penetrator, an MOP, A 30,000-pound MLP can reach approximately 60 meters through Earth or 18 meters through reinforced concrete, but Fordow's depth exceeds even that capacity.

00:09:07.000 Even to carry that would require a B-2 or a B-21 radar.

00:09:11.000 Presumably, Israel could try to use a repeated slew of GBU-31B or GBU-28 bunker busters.

00:09:19.000 Those were the ones that were used in strikes on Hezbollah's underground facilities.

00:09:23.000 So they'd have to drop a bunch of those in a row.

00:09:26.000 So obviously, this is the big challenge for Israel.

00:09:28.000 So, with all of that said, what exactly has to happen?

00:09:31.000 Well, one of two things has to happen.

00:09:33.000 Either the Iranian regime is going to give up Fordo because they are sustaining so much damage that the only way to retain their actual leadership of Iran is to give up Fordo voluntarily in the same way that Muammar Gaddafi gave up his nuclear facilities, his nuclear ambitions.

00:09:48.000 Or there will have to be some sort of special commando raid by the Israelis or some other special plan by the Israelis or the possibility of a 1B2 sortie.

00:09:58.000 By the Americans.

00:09:59.000 And here's where President Trump's strategy comes into play.

00:10:01.000 I'll get to President Trump's strategy in a moment because it's like true, truly for each other what the president has done here.

00:10:07.000 The president of the United States has, with no use of American military personnel, devastated the Iranian nuclear resources to the point that Iran is begging the Americans to come to the table now.

00:10:18.000 Begging the Americans to come to the table now.

00:10:20.000 And President Trump has said, listen, all options are still on the table.

00:10:23.000 It may be that if Fordow is still And the Iranians will not come to the table. 1.00

00:10:34.000 That one B-2 sortie ends Fordow, and that there is no capacity for Iran to fire back because Israel has already destroyed all of the ballistic missiles that would have been outgoing to any place that threatens Americans.

00:10:45.000 And that is part of the strategy, I believe, at this point.

00:10:49.000 The Wall Street Journal says Iran's largest uranium enrichment site in Atans has been damaged, as has Isfahan.

00:10:56.000 Meanwhile, the enrichment site at Fordo, which is buried deep under a mountain, has not been touched.

00:11:00.000 The enriched uranium at Fordo is believed to be enough to produce several bombs.

00:11:03.000 The danger is that if Iran retains the nuclear fuel it has already enriched, as well as the centrifuges to enrich more, the country could sprint to make a bomb. 0.62

00:11:10.000 This is where the United States comes in.

00:11:12.000 Israel lacks the deep penetrating bombs and the heavy bombers to deliver them that could do more damage to buried sites.

00:11:16.000 The US has both.

00:11:17.000 Israel would like the US help in taking out those nuclear sites. 0.56

00:11:21.000 President Trump seems reluctant to do so for reasons he and the administration haven't explained.

00:11:25.000 President Trump endorsed the initial attacks, though he continues to suggest the bombing could increase the chances of a negotiated deal to dismantle Iran's nuclear program.

00:11:32.000 So I think that this is what President Trump is doing.

00:11:34.000 President Trump is basically using the Israelis as the bad cop, and he is the good cop.

00:11:38.000 He is saying to the Iranians, listen, we can just let the Israelis off the chain. 1.00

00:11:42.000 The Israelis are doing what they're going to do, and we don't control them. 1.00

00:11:44.000 They're their own country.

00:11:46.000 They didn't even have permission to go in the first place.

00:11:48.000 They can do what they're doing.

00:11:49.000 And you can continue to weather that as best you can.

00:11:52.000 But at a certain point, if you are prone, And this continues.

00:11:56.000 And you won't give up Fordow.

00:11:58.000 We don't know.

00:11:59.000 Maybe there will be a B2.

00:12:00.000 Maybe we'll give Israel use of a B2. 0.98

00:12:03.000 Maybe we'll find some other way with Israel. 0.99

00:12:05.000 Maybe Israel will do it on its own. 0.98

00:12:06.000 You just don't know what's going to happen next.

00:12:08.000 And this is very smart by President Trump.

00:12:10.000 And President Trump has played this absolutely brilliantly.

00:12:13.000 If you had told people just a few years ago that Iran's nuclear regime would be on the precipice of collapse with zero regional fallout.

00:12:23.000 Zero.

00:12:25.000 And the United States would not have expended a single offensive missile in that effort to this point.

00:12:31.000 People would have thought that that was genius-level stuff because you know what it is?

00:12:35.000 It's kind of genius-level stuff.

00:12:36.000 Alrighty, folks.

00:12:37.000 Tons coming up.

00:12:38.000 All the updates still.

00:12:39.000 From the middle of the war, Amit Segal at Channel 12. Senator Tom Cotton's going to stop by.

00:12:43.000 Tucker Carlson attacking the President of the United States.

00:12:46.000 Really attacking him.

00:12:47.000 We'll get to all of it.

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00:13:53.000 Also, right now, things are very, very hot between Israel.

00:13:57.000 And Iran. 0.53

00:13:58.000 Iran has been firing bevies of missiles into the center of Israel, directed directly at civilian areas.

00:14:04.000 Families across Israel are right now living in their safe rooms.

00:14:06.000 Literally, I have friends who literally are living in their safe rooms right now.

00:14:10.000 Israel's Operation Rising line has been highly successful.

00:14:13.000 It doesn't mean that people in Israel are not suffering. 1.00

00:14:15.000 Of course they are.

00:14:16.000 And this is where the IFCJ comes in.

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00:14:59.000 Well, Prime Minister Netanyahu was on Fox News with Brett Baer over at Fox News last night, and he was explaining why he decided to make the move right now.

00:15:07.000 He said, we faced a dual existential threat, says the Prime Minister.

00:15:11.000 Because we were facing an imminent threat, a dual existential threat.

00:15:17.000 One, the threat of Iran rushing to weaponize their enriched uranium to make atomic bombs with a specific and declared intent to destroy us. 0.88

00:15:26.000 Second, A rush to increase their ballistic missile arsenal into the capacity that they would have 3,600 weapons a year, new weapons within three years, 10,000 ballistic missiles, each one weighing a ton, coming in at Mach 6 right into our cities, as you saw today.

00:15:45.000 And then in six years, 20,000.

00:15:48.000 That's no country can sustain that and certainly not a country the size of Israel.

00:15:53.000 So we had to act.

00:15:54.000 It was the 12th hour.

00:15:55.000 We did act.

00:15:58.000 So, again, he's pointing out two threats, and one of them is already materialized.

00:16:02.000 And he's saying if the second materialized, you're talking about the possible annihilation of Israel.

00:16:05.000 The ballistic missile threat already materialized.

00:16:07.000 You're seeing video of those ballistic missiles falling into the center of Tel Aviv.

00:16:12.000 One nuclear-tipped missile means millions of people dead.

00:16:16.000 At the very least, hundreds of thousands of people dead.

00:16:18.000 So for all of these supposed peace lovers, It seems like the best way to prevent nuclear war is to prevent the people who are firing ballistic missiles into populated cities from getting nuclear weapons to attach to those ballistic missiles.

00:16:32.000 And that is the point that Netanyahu is making right now.

00:16:36.000 As far as regime change, there's been a lot of talk about regime change in Iran.

00:16:39.000 Like, what happens next?

00:16:40.000 Now, clearly, the Iranian regime has been weakened.

00:16:42.000 This is the weakest point for the Iranian regime since 1979.

00:16:45.000 Qasem Soleimani, who the president of the United States, Donald Trump, took out on January 3rd, 2020.

00:16:50.000 He had vowed that he was going to create a ring of fire around Israel and that he would make it impossible for the Iranian regime to be put on its back.

00:16:58.000 He said that Israel was going to be surrounded by the Houthis in the south, by Hamas in the Gaza Strip, by Hezbollah in Lebanon, by the Assad regime in Syria, by terrorist groups in Iraq.

00:17:08.000 And right now, Israel has an open lane, a complete aerial freeway from Israel into Tehran.

00:17:15.000 So every element of that failed.

00:17:17.000 Every element of Qasem Soleimani's dream has been completely destroyed and defeated.

00:17:21.000 So, is regime change something that Israel's looking for?

00:17:24.000 Well, the Israelis have said, look, we're not interested in trying to foist regime change, but if it's the only way to end the nuclear threat, then that's the only way to end the nuclear threat.

00:17:32.000 Here's Prime Minister Netanyahu last night with Brett Baier.

00:17:35.000 So, is regime change part of the effort here?

00:17:40.000 Could certainly be the result because the Iran regime is very weak.

00:17:44.000 I think it's basically left with two things.

00:17:46.000 It's plans to have atomic bombs and ballistic missiles.

00:17:50.000 That's basically what Iran has. 0.96

00:17:52.000 They certainly don't have the people. 0.89

00:17:53.000 80% of the people will throw these theological thugs out. 0.99

00:17:57.000 I mean, they murder them. 0.98

00:17:59.000 They oppress them for 46 years.

00:18:00.000 They've yearned for freedom.

00:18:02.000 I mean, they shoot women because their hair is uncovered. 0.99

00:18:05.000 They shoot students. 0.68

00:18:07.000 They just suck the oxygen from this brave and gifted people, the Iranian people. 1.00

00:18:13.000 Okay, so there's Prime Minister Netanyahu saying, That could there be regime change? 0.94

00:18:18.000 Sure.

00:18:18.000 Again, Ayatollah Khamenei so far has not been a target of the Israelis.

00:18:22.000 We'll get to a fake leak in a moment because there are people in the administration who are trying to leak against the policies of the president of the United States.

00:18:29.000 That is very obviously true.

00:18:32.000 President Trump, for his part, continues to play good cop.

00:18:35.000 And again, this is smart stuff from the presidents of the United States.

00:18:38.000 So the president was asked yesterday about his continued support for Israel and President Trump said, yeah, obviously.

00:18:45.000 Will the U.S. continue to support Israel in its defense?

00:18:48.000 We do, yeah.

00:18:49.000 Thank you very much, everybody.

00:18:54.000 President Trump also was asked about the possibility of a deal.

00:18:57.000 And he said, sure, there could be a deal.

00:18:58.000 But, you know, sometimes people just have to fight.

00:19:02.000 Well, I hope there's going to be a deal.

00:19:04.000 I think it's time for a deal and we'll see what happens.

00:19:07.000 But sometimes they have to fight it out.

00:19:10.000 But we're going to see what happens.

00:19:11.000 I think there's a good chance there'll be a deal.

00:19:15.000 Yeah, and what he means by that is that Iran is going to come to the table.

00:19:18.000 You're watching an epic geopolitical version of good cop, bad cop playing out in real time.

00:19:22.000 President Trump is the good cop.

00:19:23.000 The United States is the good cop.

00:19:25.000 Israel playing the bad cop. 0.74

00:19:26.000 President Trump put out a tweet via Truth Social to that effect, quote, Iran and Israel should make a deal, and we'll make a deal, just like I got India and Pakistan to make. 0.52

00:19:33.000 In that case, by using trade with the United States to bring reason, cohesion, and sanity into the talks with two excellent leaders who were able to quickly make a decision and stop.

00:19:40.000 Also during my first term, Serbia and Kosovo were going at it hot and heavy, as they have for many decades. 1.00

00:19:44.000 And this long-time conflict was ready to break out into war.

00:19:47.000 I stopped it. 0.99

00:19:48.000 Biden has hurt the longer-term prospects with some very stupid decisions, but I will fix it again. 0.93

00:19:51.000 Another case is Egypt and Ethiopia. 0.99

00:19:53.000 Their fight over a massive dam that is having an effect on magnificent Nile River.

00:19:56.000 There's peace, at least for now, because of my intervention, and it will stay that way.

00:19:59.000 Likewise, we will have peace soon between Israel and Iran.

00:20:01.000 Many calls and meetings now taking place.

00:20:03.000 I do a lot and never get credit for anything, but that's okay.

00:20:05.000 The people understand?

00:20:06.000 Make the Middle East great again.

00:20:08.000 Again, good cop, bad cop.

00:20:09.000 And how can you tell that it's having an effect?

00:20:11.000 Well, because the Iranians are sending some rather mixed signals.

00:20:13.000 So yesterday, according to Reuters, Iran told mediators Qatar and Oman that it is not open to negotiating a ceasefire while under Israeli attack.

00:20:21.000 They said they will only pursue serious negotiations once Iran has completed its response to the Israeli preemptive strikes.

00:20:28.000 Oh, but that's not what they are saying as of today.

00:20:31.000 So according to the Wall Street Journal, Iran has been urgently signaling it seeks an end to hostilities and resumption of talks over its nuclear program, sending messages to Israel and the United States.

00:20:41.000 The Arab intermediaries, Middle Eastern and European officials said.

00:20:44.000 In the midst of a ferocious Israeli air campaign, Tehran has told Arab officials that they would be open to returning to the negotiating table as long as the U.S. doesn't join the attack.

00:20:51.000 What they are afraid of is that the United States is going to blow up Florida.

00:20:53.000 That's what they are afraid of.

00:20:54.000 They also passed messages to Israel saying it is in the interest of both sides to keep the violence contained.

00:20:59.000 But with Israeli warplanes able to fly freely over the capital and Iranian counterattacks inflicting minimal damage, Israeli leaders have little incentive to halt their assault before doing more to destroy Iran's nuclear sites. 0.51

00:21:08.000 And for the weekend, the theocratic governments pulled on power.

00:21:11.000 This is correct, obviously.

00:21:13.000 Ayatollah Khamenei is currently hiding in a bunker somewhere in northern Tehran.

00:21:18.000 And so the choices for the Ayatollah are very simple.

00:21:21.000 The choices are very simple.

00:21:23.000 Either they give up Fordo and their entire nuclear program, or the regime's in serious trouble.

00:21:27.000 Because if you think that Israel went into this without any plan whatsoever for Fordo, you got to have another thing coming.

00:21:33.000 They wouldn't have done this if they didn't have any plan with Fordo, for sure.

00:21:37.000 Now again, what's happening right now is that Iran's only response to this is to fire these large ballistic missiles at population centers in Israel.

00:21:46.000 And you can see the video.

00:21:47.000 I mean, the video is pretty stunning.

00:21:49.000 Again, they're just firing these missiles directly where they think people are.

00:21:51.000 That is it.

00:21:52.000 They're not targeting military facilities.

00:21:54.000 They're not attempting to take out strategic targets.

00:21:56.000 This is B-roll video.

00:21:58.000 You can see it here.

00:21:58.000 This is actually video that is from Iraq across the border.

00:22:02.000 You can see all these missile launches into the stratosphere.

00:22:07.000 There.

00:22:08.000 And, obviously, there's been damage done in Tel Aviv.

00:22:12.000 It's clip 26. You can see the damage that's been done to residential areas of Tel Aviv.

00:22:22.000 Again, collapse of a building.

00:22:25.000 Again, the death so far in Israel has been, every death is a tragedy on both sides, obviously.

00:22:31.000 The tragedy is on the hands of the Iranian government. 0.91

00:22:32.000 But, in terms of military comparative terms, the death has been minimal.

00:22:36.000 On the Israeli side, part of that is because Israel has been preparing its own citizens for the possibility of war like this for literally decades.

00:22:44.000 There's a building program in Israel called Tamim 38 that is deliberately designed to retrofit all old buildings in Israel so that they are safer against bomb attack.

00:22:54.000 Israel has hardened its hospitals against bomb attack.

00:22:56.000 They actually have subterranean facilities designed in case of a bomb attack.

00:23:00.000 That's because they live in the world's worst neighborhood, and so they've been prepping for this for years.

00:23:04.000 Obviously, Israel's opponents are happy to watch its own civilians die.

00:23:07.000 Israel is not. 0.96

00:23:09.000 And what that means is that people have been going into their safe rooms.

00:23:11.000 And by and large, if you're in the safe room, you are safe in Israel.

00:23:15.000 So Iran is in serious trouble at this point.

00:23:17.000 How serious is the trouble that Iran is in right now?

00:23:20.000 So serious.

00:23:22.000 And Vladimir Putin is basically giving them the drowning high five meme at this point.

00:23:27.000 So all those folks out there, particularly on the isolationist right, who are suggesting Russia is going to step in here.

00:23:33.000 Russia is going to do something.

00:23:34.000 Somebody will step in.

00:23:35.000 No one is stepping in.

00:23:37.000 No one is stepping in.

00:23:38.000 Iran has no serious allies at this point.

00:23:40.000 They are prone.

00:23:41.000 They are on their back.

00:23:43.000 That is just the reality.

00:23:45.000 Anyone who is telling you different was lying to you.

00:23:47.000 Vladimir Putin contacted President Trump yesterday at the urging of the Ayatollahs, according to Israel Hayom, to address the conflict.

00:23:57.000 And apparently, Putin asked Trump basically to call off the Israelis, and Trump said, no.

00:24:03.000 And so Putin went back to Khamenei and he didn't say, we're upping our support for you.

00:24:06.000 He said, well, bud, you're on your own.

00:24:09.000 Maybe you might want to make a deal because otherwise we got room for you to bunk over here next to Bashar al-Assad.

00:24:14.000 But remember, the Russians abandoned Assad too.

00:24:18.000 I mean, if you go back a year, the Russians were talking about how Assad was one of their key allies.

00:24:23.000 And a year later, Bashar al-Assad is bunking somewhere in Moscow and Syria is being run.

00:24:28.000 By a man who now says that Israel has a clear runway over Syrian skies, which is something he said publicly yesterday.

00:24:33.000 Already tons more coming up.

00:24:35.000 Tucker Carlson attacking the president, overtly attacking President Trump, saying the president isn't America first, plus Senator Tom Cotton stops by first.

00:24:42.000 My work schedule has been rather busy as of late, especially because of the extended show.

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00:26:49.000 So again, the idea that Vladimir Putin is desperate to uphold the honor of the Iranian regime is not true.

00:26:56.000 It's not true.

00:26:58.000 The Iranians are isolated and they are in serious trouble.

00:27:00.000 That is the current status of the war right now.

00:27:03.000 What's the endgame for that war?

00:27:05.000 Joining me online is Amit Segal, his chief political analyst for Israel's leading news outlet, Channel 12 News, as well as the country's most read newspaper, Idiot Akharonot.

00:27:13.000 He also anchors Israel's highly watched Meet the Press.

00:27:15.000 Amit, thanks so much for the time.

00:27:16.000 Really appreciate it.

00:27:18.000 Thank you, Ben.

00:27:20.000 So why don't we start with where the war stands after four days?

00:27:23.000 Essentially, Israel has done an incredible job, it appears, of knocking off the top levels of the Iranian military. 0.58

00:27:29.000 They've taken out certain nuclear sites like Natanz.

00:27:31.000 The big questions remain, Fordo, what Israel plans to do with the regime?

00:27:35.000 Why don't you give me the update on where you think the war stands right now?

00:27:37.000 I'm sorry to give an American audience an allegory with football, with the European football, aka soccer, but it's the equivalent of Israel leading 5-0.

00:27:49.000 And now we are in the last minute and all the Iranians can do is just, you know, try to hit the players. 1.00

00:27:58.000 Not to win the game, but to cause damage, to prevent them from playing in the next season.

00:28:03.000 This is what is happening.

00:28:04.000 Israel actually took...

00:28:21.000 The idea of an Iranian new Persian Empire that rules the Middle East.

00:28:26.000 Was shuttered and everyone in the Middle East is hearing the noise as we speak. 0.99

00:28:32.000 Now, what Iranians can do is try to kill as many Israeli civilians as possible in order to deter Israel or to try to create some kind of a balance, but it's definitely not the case.

00:28:45.000 Now, as for Fordoo, Fordoo is like the back plan for the fallback position for the Iranian nuclear program.

00:28:52.000 You can do many of the things there.

00:28:56.000 Not everything.

00:28:58.000 Because it's 90 meters under the ground, it's very protected.

00:29:02.000 The U.S. Army can do it.

00:29:04.000 The Israeli Army can do part of it.

00:29:08.000 Now, here's the thing as for Fordoo.

00:29:11.000 In order to do something in Fordoo, you have actually to have people who know what to do.

00:29:16.000 They are all dead by now.

00:29:18.000 Nine out of the nine most influential nuclear scientists are dead.

00:29:23.000 And I don't think there would be a high demand if someone is recruiting for office for this new job because it does not promise a long life expectancy.

00:29:38.000 So the question at this point is sort of where this goes from here.

00:29:41.000 So obviously the IAF has essentially an open runway all the way.

00:29:46.000 From Israel to Tehran, there was a warning this morning, Eastern Time, that people should get out of particular areas of Tehran because Israel is hitting military and political targets in Tehran after Tehran has been firing missiles directly into population centers in Israel.

00:30:01.000 So far, Israel's air defenses have performed really, really well, but obviously you're talking about hundreds of missiles that have been fired into Israel.

00:30:07.000 These are large missiles with significant payloads.

00:30:10.000 And so there have been There have been some who have been killed in Israel.

00:30:15.000 But on balance, as you say, there's no question that Israel has been absolutely rocking the Iranian regime while the Iranians are basically just attempting to kill Israeli civilians and not being extraordinarily successful at it. 0.71

00:30:26.000 So what is the endgame here?

00:30:28.000 How much longer is it going to take for Israel to achieve its strategic goals here?

00:30:32.000 And is Ayatollah Khamenei on the target list as well?

00:30:35.000 Well, okay.

00:30:37.000 So let's begin with the life expectancy of the war.

00:30:41.000 Israel's most successful war was the Six-Day War, and Iran's most well-known war was the Eight-Year War with Iraq.

00:30:50.000 So they can breathe for a longer time.

00:30:54.000 They are a longer country.

00:30:55.000 But first, Israel eliminated their ability to produce many ballistic missiles.

00:31:02.000 Israel took their anti-aircraft systems.

00:31:04.000 So if they shoot, let's say, 75 missiles a night in order to overcome Israel's anti-missile systems, it means necessarily that within 30 days this war is over for the Iranians. 0.88

00:31:19.000 More than this, Israel has already taken one third of the launchers, which means that as time passes, Israel knows and recognizes and destroys more than before. 0.70

00:31:32.000 So I would say they have more for two, three weeks, unless they actually abandon the strategy of trying to overcome the Israeli aircraft systems and Israeli anti-missile systems, and they turn to the Yemenite option of firing one ballistic missile a night, and then they have for three years. 0.68

00:31:51.000 I don't think they will take the risk because Israel can escalate three, four more levels while Iranians are only left with this aircraft. 0.95

00:32:13.000 Of the Iranian economy.

00:32:16.000 Israel can eliminate Khamenei, as you said.

00:32:19.000 One day he'll have to get out of his bunkers somewhere in northern Tehran. 0.74

00:32:22.000 By the way, Israel knows where he is and he would be killed. 0.86

00:32:27.000 So I think it leads me to the conclusion that Iranians are seeking a quick end to this conflict before Fordu is destroyed and the Iranian economy would vanish. 0.51

00:32:43.000 And so that brings up the question of the American involvement in all of this.

00:32:46.000 President Trump has suggested that he would like to reach an off-ramp here.

00:32:49.000 Obviously, there's a bit of good cop, bad cop that's being played here, where Israel is the bad cop slapping the Iranians around. 0.94

00:32:55.000 And the United States is saying to the Ayatollahs, listen, if you want to preserve Fordow, if you want to preserve your lives, then you really should come to the table.

00:33:01.000 Iran has not evidenced tremendous willingness to do that at this point, probably because they believe that if they give up Fordow, then that will put them in a position where their regime falls inside the next couple of years anyway, because they're deeply worried that without a nuclear future, that their regime is in danger.

00:33:16.000 Where do you think the possibility of negotiation lies here?

00:33:19.000 Or is Israel just going to continue for the next few days upping the ante, as you say? 0.54

00:33:22.000 It's kind of a catch-22 for the Iranians.

00:33:24.000 If they continue to fire these missiles, even if Israel doesn't eliminate the launchers, they run out of missiles.

00:33:29.000 And also, every time they fire a missile, Israel's blowing up the launchers.

00:33:31.000 I mean, last night, there was a home command front in Israel, home front command, put out a warning to Israelis that they should all stay near their safe rooms.

00:33:39.000 And for two hours, nothing happened.

00:33:41.000 And that was because Israel was preemptively blowing up all of the launchers in Iran that were going hot before they could launch the missiles.

00:33:48.000 So Iran is really stuck in a box here. 0.63

00:33:50.000 What does the off-ramp look like?

00:33:51.000 Do you think Iran takes it?

00:33:52.000 I think Iranians have a very narrow path, not to victory, but to actually end the war.

00:33:58.000 They must react, must retaliate in order to preserve the standing of the administration in the eyes of the Iranian people and the entire Middle East.

00:34:07.000 And on the other hand, they cannot escalate too much because of all the reasons I've just mentioned.

00:34:12.000 So what I think is that they must end the war. 0.73

00:34:16.000 Now, here's the thing.

00:34:17.000 I'm not sure that the Iranians these days, and this Ayatollah Khamenei, the 86-year-old and a very sick and not very stable Khamenei, is the smart guy that we have known in the past. 1.00

00:34:29.000 We were lectured about Iranians have, you know, a 3000 year experience in bargaining in the bazaar.

00:34:36.000 But I have to say that, and you know, because we talked about it privately a few times over the last few months, that...

00:34:47.000 They just drove Trump to let Israel, to greenlight Israel, to attack Iran.

00:34:52.000 So here's the thing.

00:34:54.000 Rationally speaking, they must actually bring the war to an end.

00:34:58.000 But from what I'm hearing, and the fact that the Iranian parliament today passed a resolution to leave the anti-profederation treaty, it leads, it almost forces the U.S. to act.

00:35:13.000 And that's why I wouldn't gamble on the Iranians, because they don't act rationally. 1.00

00:35:19.000 So, as far as this is concerned, obviously the missiles continue to fly into Israel.

00:35:25.000 As we've said, the death count in Israel at this point is not high by comparative standards, but you're talking about civilians who are being killed in Israel.

00:35:33.000 So, what is the attitude on the ground, considering that, again, these missiles are falling in central Tel Aviv, which is a highly populated area?

00:35:41.000 Yes.

00:35:42.000 So they can actually fire at Tel Aviv.

00:35:43.000 They actually tried to do it.

00:35:44.000 22 Israeli citizens and tourists were killed over the last three nights.

00:35:50.000 It's not a very pleasant experience to be in the shelter three times a night, although you get used to it.

00:35:57.000 You know, my grandmother was born in London and she spent the blitz in the bombed city of London.

00:36:03.000 They experienced a total of 40,000 Britons, and just a comparison.

00:36:11.000 So Israelis will stand, they will stay firm, they will stand firm, and they will survive.

00:36:16.000 You hear amazing things from people who lost their homes and said, and say to the IDF, just, you know, keep buggering on, as Winston Churchill said.

00:36:25.000 So I'm quite optimistic about the spirit, the Israeli spirit.

00:36:29.000 And I think that, um, Just a few minutes ago, the IDF issued a warning for more than a million citizens in Tehran to leave their homes because Israel is about to bomb the Iranian television, the television that actually spreads poison, anti-Jewish, anti-Semitic poison.

00:36:53.000 So this is just a hint of what Israel can do without, of course, bombing civilians.

00:37:00.000 Well, that's Amit Segol from Channel 12. Remember to check out his Telegram, which is the best source for information on the war and Israeli politics generally.

00:37:08.000 Amit, thanks so much for the time.

00:37:09.000 Really appreciate it.

00:37:09.000 Thank you so much.

00:37:10.000 Thank you so much.

00:37:11.000 Already coming up, two Minnesota state senators were shot to death over the weekend.

00:37:15.000 We'll bring you all the news updates first.

00:37:18.000 When you're covering breaking news and political developments the way we do here, you can't always stick to that normal 9-5 schedule.

00:37:22.000 Stories break all the time.

00:37:24.000 Having the flexibility to manage my time effectively, that's not just a luxury.

00:37:27.000 That's what we actually do here at The Daily Wire.

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00:38:22.000 Now, meanwhile, while one of the most transformative geopolitical events of our lifetime is taking place, the entire shifting of the Middle East away from Iran and its allies, the complete destruction of the Iranian octopus, top down, all the arms off. 0.84

00:38:34.000 While that is happening, there are still people on both right and left who have horseshoe theoryed around and somehow found this to be absolutely terrible.

00:38:41.000 Apparently, Iran should have remained, and not only should they have remained in power, the Ayatollahs, but they should be able to pursue their nuclear weapons program, and all of this is just, it's unthinkable. 1.00

00:38:50.000 The Democrats who are saying this, I have to say, are some of the stupidest people on earth. 1.00

00:38:54.000 Truly, truly stupid people. 1.00

00:38:55.000 So, Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, he says, you know what would be great is that we could have done more sanctions. 1.00

00:39:00.000 That would have been the thing.

00:39:02.000 Would it, though?

00:39:03.000 Would it, though?

00:39:04.000 Iran was gaining breakout capacity with its nuclear facilities.

00:39:09.000 Iran had already been subjected to serious sanctions by the Trump administration.

00:39:14.000 They were trying to break out specifically to evade sanctions.

00:39:17.000 And so his solution was more sanctions, as opposed to what?

00:39:20.000 Just stand back and let Israel do what Israel needs to do? 1.00

00:39:23.000 What a fool Richard Blumenthal is. 0.95

00:39:26.000 I think we ought to strengthen sanctions against Iran, which is a non-kinetic, a peaceful means of exerting pressure. 1.00

00:39:37.000 President Trump tried all of that, and the Israelis said, the Iranians are not budging. 1.00

00:39:41.000 Again, you have to wonder at the Iranian stupidity in their negotiating tactics with President Trump. 1.00

00:39:46.000 Truly stupid. 1.00

00:39:47.000 President Trump gave them 100,000 opportunities here to take the offram. 1.00

00:39:51.000 And the Ayatollahs said no.

00:39:53.000 Until President Trump unleashed a strategy, this good cop, bad cop strategy, with the Israelis. 1.00

00:39:58.000 He's still saying, listen, you guys want to negotiate?

00:40:00.000 Let's do it.

00:40:01.000 But the Iranians are going to have to give up their nuclear program.

00:40:03.000 That's all.

00:40:03.000 That's the ask.

00:40:04.000 The nuclear program goes away. 0.94

00:40:07.000 But don't worry, Richard Blumenthal is not even close to the dumbest Democrat on the line here. 0.59

00:40:11.000 Tim Walz, a man who is almost vice president of the United States. 0.99

00:40:16.000 This absolute bag of tools.

00:40:18.000 He's not just a tool.

00:40:19.000 He's the entire bag of tools.

00:40:22.000 He was speaking at the Center for American Progress, and he suggested that we need Chinese intervention to broker a peace deal here.

00:40:28.000 Dude, I know you spent time in China in your youth.

00:40:32.000 You can stop being a Manchurian agent at this point.

00:40:35.000 Like, seriously, I wonder how good the money is for Tim Walz, because I can think of no other explanation why you would imagine that the Chinese communist regimes regime, one of the most vicious regimes on planet Earth and a geopolitical enemy of the United States, ought to broker peace in the Middle East. 0.99

00:40:49.000 What a fool Tim Walz is. 0.97

00:40:52.000 Thank you. 1.00

00:40:58.000 Who holds the moral authority?

00:41:00.000 Who holds the ability to do that?

00:41:02.000 Because we are not seen as a neutral actor.

00:41:04.000 And we maybe never were.

00:41:05.000 I don't want to tell anybody that.

00:41:07.000 I think there's a lot of people who say, you always leaned one way in this.

00:41:10.000 But I think there was at least an attempt to be We're somewhat of the arbitrator in this.

00:41:15.000 We saw President Carter do it with Begin and Sadat.

00:41:18.000 We've had certain wins along the way that were actually mutually beneficial both ways.

00:41:22.000 Now I ask who that is.

00:41:25.000 And I mean, consistently over and over again, we're going to have to face the reality.

00:41:30.000 It might be the Chinese. 0.92

00:41:34.000 Unbelievable.

00:41:35.000 What an absolute wow, wow, wow.

00:41:37.000 Again, I was almost vice president saying the Chinese should broker peace in the Middle East.

00:41:41.000 Hey, let's just be clear.

00:41:42.000 There's only one president in my lifetime who has seriously brokered peace in the Middle East.

00:41:45.000 His name is Donald J. Trump.

00:41:47.000 It was Donald Trump.

00:41:48.000 He brokered the Abraham Accords. 0.99

00:41:50.000 And when this is all said and done, the Middle East will be transformed because of Donald Trump.

00:41:54.000 Because of Donald Trump.

00:41:56.000 Period.

00:41:57.000 End of story.

00:41:57.000 And Tim Walz is absolute, just nothing burger of a human being.

00:42:02.000 Calling in the Chinese for aid? 0.91

00:42:04.000 At least we know where his heart is.

00:42:06.000 Meanwhile, Ben Rhodes, a former senior advisor to Barack Obama.

00:42:10.000 Ben Rhodes, whose literal name, I'm not even kidding you, his nickname in the White House under Barack Obama was Hamas.

00:42:16.000 That was his literal nickname.

00:42:17.000 And he was advising Barack Obama.

00:42:19.000 He tweeted out, war is breaking out because Trump pulled out of the Iran deal and got humiliated by Netanyahu while trying to negotiate his own.

00:42:25.000 And he's got to have a military parade for his birthday.

00:42:27.000 The weakest strongman. 1.00

00:42:29.000 What a fool he is. 1.00

00:42:30.000 What a fool he is. 1.00

00:42:31.000 War is breaking out. 1.00

00:42:33.000 Because Barack Obama gave Iran a clear pathway to a nuclear bomb, and President Trump has been trying to backfill that problem ever since.

00:42:40.000 It was because of Ben Rhodes that this became an issue.

00:42:44.000 Ben Rhodes.

00:42:44.000 But don't worry, there's also help from the right side of the people on the right who have now declared that they are the leaders of MAGA, not Donald Trump, actually.

00:42:52.000 It turns out that they, they are the great leaders of America First and MAGA.

00:42:57.000 So Tucker Carlson put out a statement.

00:43:01.000 On Friday, in his newsletter, in which he suggested that the United States was, quote, complicit.

00:43:08.000 Donald Trump was complicit in Israel's, quote, unquote, act of war.

00:43:11.000 The title of the newsletter was, this could be the final newsletter before all-out war, in which he suggested basically World War III was going to break out.

00:43:19.000 The newsletter says, while the American military may not have physically perpetrated the assault, years of funding in sending weapons to Israel, which Donald Trump just bragged about on Truth Social, undeniably placed the U.S. at the center of last night's event.

00:43:30.000 Washington knew these attacks would happen.

00:43:31.000 They aided Israel in carrying them out. 0.99

00:43:33.000 Politicians purporting to be America first can't now credibly turn around and say they had nothing to do with it.

00:43:37.000 Our country is in deep.

00:43:39.000 So Donald Trump is purporting to be America first.

00:43:42.000 Only Tucker Carlson, who tours Moscow supermarkets to talk about how good the bread is and how he wishes that our subway system ran just like Moscow's.

00:43:49.000 Only Tucker Carlson, who does interviews with the leadership of Qatar and talks about how they are an amazing ally to the United States while they simultaneously support Hamas. 0.76

00:43:59.000 Only Tucker Carlson, who hosts people like Daryl Cooper, the greatest and most honest historian in America, according to Tucker Carlson, who over the weekend suggested that America should launch missiles against Tel Aviv.

00:44:12.000 Only Tucker Carlson is truly America first, not Donald Trump.

00:44:16.000 Not Donald Trump, who built the America first movement, who built MAGA.

00:44:20.000 Only Tucker Carlson and his friends are truly MAGA and America first.

00:44:25.000 And then Tucker over the weekend doubled down on this.

00:44:28.000 He said, the real divide isn't between people who support Israel and people who support Iran or the Palestinians.

00:44:33.000 The real divide is between those who casually encourage violence and those who seek to prevent it, between warmongers and peacemakers.

00:44:39.000 Again, this is Tucker's shtick, is that anyone who opposes him is a warmonger who wants more war, just loves war, loves, loves.

00:44:45.000 Okay, please.

00:44:47.000 Who are the people who love war, just desperately want war?

00:44:51.000 So, he actually says, he says, who are the warmongers?

00:44:53.000 They would include anyone who's calling Donald Trump today to demand airstrikes and other direct U.S. military involvement.

00:44:59.000 On that list, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Rupert Murdoch, Ike Perlmutter, and Miriam Adelson.

00:45:03.000 At some point, they will all have to answer for this, but you should know their names now.

00:45:06.000 So first of all, I'm not aware that any of those people are directly calling Donald Trump and saying that he must directly intervene in this current conflict.

00:45:16.000 Second of all, his suggestion that you're a warmonger if you want the Iranian nuclear program to end, then I guess Donald Trump is a warmonger because Donald Trump wants the nuclear program to end.

00:45:25.000 And you know who said that?

00:45:26.000 Donald Trump.

00:45:27.000 Because you know who the actual leader of MAGA is?

00:45:29.000 Donald Trump.

00:45:30.000 He created MAGA.

00:45:31.000 It is Donald Trump who created the America First movement.

00:45:34.000 It is not Tucker Carlson.

00:45:35.000 And it is not Marjorie Taylor Greene who similarly put out a tweet saying, quote, everyone is finding out who are the real America First MAGA and who are fake and just said it because it was popular.

00:45:46.000 So I guess that Donald Trump is not the real America First MAGA.

00:45:49.000 Only Marjorie Taylor Greene, an obscure congresswoman from Georgia until Donald Trump tapped her on the head. 0.96

00:45:54.000 Is the real America First MAGA?

00:45:58.000 Which is anyone slobbering for the U.S. to become fully involved in the Israel-Iran war is not America First MAGA.

00:46:03.000 Who are the people who are slobbering for the U.S. to become quote-unquote fully involved?

00:46:07.000 Literally no one has called for a ground invasion of Iran.

00:46:10.000 No one.

00:46:11.000 No one has suggested that the United States ought to be fully involved in a gigantic takeover of Iran.

00:46:18.000 A regime rebuilder.

00:46:19.000 No one is calling for that.

00:46:21.000 Even if you're calling for a single airstrike.

00:46:24.000 On Fordow, you know what that looks a lot like?

00:46:25.000 It looks like a single airstrike on Qasem Soleimani, which President Trump did in 2020 and was ripped by people like Tucker Carlson, who said that it was going to turn into a regional war.

00:46:33.000 Here's my big question for folks like Tucker.

00:46:36.000 When he suggests that there are these people who are calling Donald Trump and demanding he do things, who does he think is the decision maker?

00:46:42.000 The decision maker in the White House is Donald J. Trump.

00:46:46.000 Donald Trump has taken the same position on the Iranian nuclear program since literally the first minute he came down the golden escalator.

00:46:53.000 He has not changed.

00:46:54.000 Not one iota.

00:46:56.000 Does Tucker really think that Donald Trump is so manipulable that he gets a call from Ike Perlmutter and suddenly he changes his entire perspective on the Middle East?

00:47:04.000 What a low opinion Tucker Carlson must have of Donald Trump's capacities.

00:47:10.000 And he thinks that he can manipulate him from the outside or that others are manipulating him in that particular way.

00:47:17.000 By the way, President Trump fired back at all of this over the weekend.

00:47:21.000 He did an interview with The Atlantic.

00:47:24.000 And he was asked about whether the move runs counter to America first.

00:47:28.000 And Trump said, well, considering I'm the one that developed America first, and considering that the term wasn't used until I came along, I think I'm the one that decides that.

00:47:37.000 Yes.

00:47:37.000 For those people who say they want peace, you can't have peace if Iran has a nuclear weapon.

00:47:42.000 See, this is what not stupid people say. 1.00

00:47:44.000 Because President Trump is a not stupid person. 0.99

00:47:46.000 But the people who are attacking him today have predicted that BRICS, Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, an economic union, they're going to get involved in this in some form or fashion. 0.98

00:47:58.000 That's what those people say. 0.99

00:47:59.000 President Trump is not one of those people because he's not a stupid person. 0.98

00:48:02.000 Quote, so for all of those wonderful people who don't want anything to do about Iran having a nuclear weapon, that's not peace. 0.99

00:48:07.000 Correct.

00:48:08.000 And nothing has changed.

00:48:09.000 He's been saying that the entire time.

00:48:11.000 The entire time he's been saying that.

00:48:15.000 The President of the United States.

00:48:18.000 So, again.

00:48:20.000 All the isolationists who are horseshoeing around and having fun, happy times with all of their friends on the left, retweeting each other.

00:48:29.000 You should just note who those people are and what they actually believe about the president of the United States, about America First, about MAGA, and their complete acquiescence to the idea that a nuclear Iran seems to be fine for the world. 0.98

00:48:42.000 An asinine notion rejected by anyone with half a brain. 0.94

00:48:47.000 Okay, joining us on the line to discuss all of this and more, Senator Tom Cotton from Arkansas. 0.98

00:48:52.000 He's chairman of the Intelligence Services Committee and serves on the Armed Services Committee as well.

00:48:55.000 Senator Cotton, thanks so much for taking the time again.

00:48:58.000 Hello, Ben.

00:48:58.000 Good to be back with you.

00:49:01.000 So obviously when last we talked, it was before Israel had launched its preemptive attack on Iran, destroying an extraordinary number of Iranian assets, most of its top military layer, pretty much all of its nuclear scientists.

00:49:13.000 Israel has taken out a wide variety of its nuclear facilities.

00:49:15.000 The big one that is left largely intact is Fordow, which is the one that's buried some 90 meters underground in cement.

00:49:22.000 They have also taken out a wide variety of ballistic missile launchers.

00:49:25.000 They said today that they destroyed about one third of Iran's entire ballistic missile launcher capacity.

00:49:30.000 The media are covering this as though this is sort of a tit for tat.

00:49:32.000 The reality is something very different, which is that Israel appears to be absolutely destroying the Iranian military capacity while Iran has been in really almost terroristic fashion just firing.

00:49:44.000 Well, Ben, I think you nailed it.

00:49:49.000 I mean, on the one hand, you have Iran, the world's worst state sponsor of terrorism, shooting missiles into residential neighborhoods. 0.65

00:49:55.000 Killing innocent women and children. 0.88

00:49:56.000 On the other hand, you have a highly precise, very well planned, extraordinarily well executed Israeli campaign against military targets and personnel in Iran.

00:50:07.000 As you say, this is all driven, of course, by the threat of a nuclear Iran, what both Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Trump have always said.

00:50:14.000 The world cannot tolerate Iran with nuclear weapons or a nuclear weapons program to include enrichment capability. 0.91

00:50:20.000 There are a few key sites.

00:50:22.000 In Iran that have to be eliminated one way or the other. 0.99

00:50:26.000 But also what Israel has to do to make sure that they can get to those sites both now and in the future is destroy Iran's air defenses. 0.77

00:50:34.000 It appears as of Monday they've done that, that they have established total air superiority.

00:50:40.000 Over Iran for their aircraft. 0.59

00:50:42.000 And also destroy those ballistic missiles and launchers that can target Israelis.

00:50:47.000 And you can see by the volume of ballistic missiles being fired day after day after day, they seem to be having great success there as well.

00:50:55.000 So as President Trump said, we back Israel to the hilt.

00:50:58.000 We've helped protect Israelis.

00:51:00.000 We've helped protect the 700,000 Americans inside of Israel.

00:51:03.000 And we can only hope that Iran now understands that Israel and America means business. 0.51

00:51:10.000 Now, President Trump has played this about as perfectly as you can play this, meaning that Israel is taking out an enormous number of Iranian nuclear assets and Iranian military assets at very essentially zero material cost to the United States.

00:51:24.000 The United States is helping shoot down missiles that are coming at Israel and has already obviously militarily funded the Israeli military.

00:51:31.000 Israel, of course, spends billions of dollars on American military material every single year.

00:51:35.000 With all of that said.

00:51:37.000 Right now, Iran has been wildly degraded.

00:51:38.000 The president is telling the Iranians, you need to come to the table and basically give up Fordow, give up your nuclear program, and then you get to live. 1.00

00:51:44.000 But if not, you know, then the Israelis are going to do what they have to do, seems to be the position of the administration at this point.

00:51:51.000 Yeah, Ben, I think that's right.

00:51:53.000 President Trump has kept open the possibility of negotiations.

00:51:57.000 He's urged the Ayatollahs to come back to negotiate while they still have something to negotiate with.

00:52:02.000 Again, the linchpin of this campaign is the key nuclear sites, especially the enrichment sites.

00:52:10.000 Israel is starting to hit some of those.

00:52:12.000 Whether or not they have yet succeeded in eliminating any of them is to be determined.

00:52:18.000 But it would be an inconclusive outcome if Iran retains any ability to enrich uranium after this conflict ends.

00:52:26.000 So those sites are going to have to be closed one way or the other.

00:52:30.000 As Senator Cotton, obviously the big question that's being asked by folks is what it will take to, for example, end Fordow.

00:52:37.000 Presumably, if the Iranians want to come to the table, they are going to have to give up Fordow. 0.98

00:52:41.000 They're going to have to give up what's left of Natanz.

00:52:42.000 Natanz appears to have been severely damaged.

00:52:44.000 There's been a lot of talk about the possibility of the United States using one B2 sortie essentially to take out Fordow.

00:52:50.000 The president seems reluctant to do that unless it's sort of kind of last ditch, meaning that all other options have been exhausted at that point.

00:52:58.000 Where do you think the American decision-making stands and where should it stand with regard to Fordow?

00:53:04.000 Well, the president has been very clear that he's keeping all options on the table.

00:53:07.000 He's been clear about that since he came back to the White House in January.

00:53:12.000 And I think he's still holding out the possibility to the Ayatollahs that they could negotiate some kind of ceasefire that would probably include the closure of Fordow voluntarily.

00:53:23.000 But as I said, Fordow, along with the Tons, if it's not yet totally destroyed, and certain parts of the Isfahan site. 1.00

00:53:30.000 Are going to have to be closed one way or the other.

00:53:33.000 I think anything else would be an inconclusive outcome to this campaign.

00:53:36.000 I think the president is just leaving the ball in the Ayatollah's court about how it's going to be closed.

00:53:41.000 And I'd make one final point, too, about the early hours of this campaign when you had Mossad agents inside of Iran that were assembling drones there to use against senior military and terrorist leaders inside of Iran and some of their missile sites as well.

00:53:56.000 Once again, as with.

00:54:13.000 So, Senator Cotton, one of the things that has been kind of apparent and shocking is how many people on the sort of isolationist right have been railing against the president's position on this, directly attacking the president on his position.

00:54:26.000 On this, their suggestion, of course, is that this was going to turn into a full-scale regional conflagration in which all sorts of parties were going to be drawn in.

00:54:33.000 So far, that appears not even to be remotely the case.

00:54:36.000 Essentially, it appears that the Ayatollah actually called up Vladimir Putin and asked him if there was a way out of this.

00:54:41.000 And Vladimir Putin, after talking to President Trump, went back to the Ayatollah and said, no, you're going to have to actually negotiate or you're in serious trouble right here.

00:54:48.000 There don't seem to be a lot of forces coming to Iran's defense here, Iran's support.

00:54:52.000 The only sources that I see that are coming to any sort of material defense of Iran, really the Chinese flying in some resupplied parts, it appears, for ballistic missile development from the east.

00:55:00.000 That appears to be the only intelligence that I've seen suggesting any level of outside support Yeah, Iran is totally exposed because Israel has suppressed all their enemy air defenses.

00:55:15.000 On the domestic political front, Ben, you would expect to see Democrats criticizing President Trump, as they have.

00:55:23.000 It's disappointing to see some Self-appointed so-called MAGA influencers criticizing him, saying that he is violating his own America First foreign policy or he's betraying the MAGA movement.

00:55:36.000 And remember what President Trump said in the Atlantic interview over the weekend.

00:55:40.000 He's the one that created the MAGA movement.

00:55:43.000 He defined the America First foreign policy.

00:55:46.000 so-called influencers who don't have any responsibility or accountability to the American people through their votes in our constitutional system, yet want authority over policy, are trying And as he said in that Atlantic interview, they say they want peace.

00:56:06.000 You can't have peace with a nuclear Iran. 1.00

00:56:08.000 You just can't have a peaceful world if Iran is enriching uranium and working on the weaponization of a warhead and preparing to get nuclear weapons. 0.96

00:56:17.000 Again, we've seen over the weekend they're willing without nuclear weapons.

00:56:21.000 Not just to terrorize America, but also to fire ballistic missiles into civilian neighborhoods. 0.57

00:56:27.000 So I think the president has played this just right.

00:56:31.000 He is supporting Israel all the way.

00:56:33.000 He's warning Iran not to harm a single American, especially our troops in the Gulf.

00:56:39.000 And we'll see, again, what the Ayatollahs are willing to do now that they understand that Israel and America mean business. 0.86

00:56:47.000 Between President Trump and the Prime Minister Netanyahu in Israel, essentially they ended not just Qasem Soleimani, but also Qasem Soleimani's dream.

00:56:55.000 So the president, of course, authorized the killing of Qasem Soleimani, who was the leader of the terrorist arm of the IRGC back in 2019.

00:57:03.000 Soleimani had essentially said publicly that he had created an entire ring of fire around Israel that was going to make it impossible for anyone to ever target the Iranian regime.

00:57:11.000 He name-checked Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis terrorist groups in Iraq.

00:57:16.000 The Syrian regime.

00:57:17.000 And pretty much all of those groups have now been defenestrated and left completely prone by the Israelis with American material support. 0.94

00:57:24.000 And that's thanks to President Trump, Prime Minister Netanyahu.

00:57:26.000 The world has changed.

00:57:27.000 And, you know, the outcome of what is happening right now, if the president should have earned the Nobel Prize for the Abraham Accords, I don't think there's any doubt that given his support right now and given the changing face of the Middle East and also what could come next after this, I think people are neglecting the fact that once.

00:57:49.000 I mean, the Abraham Accords is just going to be the beginning. 0.98

00:57:52.000 Yeah, without question, man.

00:57:53.000 And the strike in Qasem Soleimani is a good example of how you deliver peace through strength.

00:58:00.000 Some of the same voices now who are saying that, oh, this conflict is going to create World War III.

00:58:07.000 We're also predicting World War III back in 2020 when President Trump ordered the strike that killed Iran's terrorist mastermind. 0.90

00:58:15.000 Yet we didn't have World War III.

00:58:16.000 We had an Iran that was chastened and pulled in its horns. 0.97

00:58:19.000 Those voices right now are making preposterous claims like somehow the BRICS countries, Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, are going to rush into Iran's aid and we're going to see World War III.

00:58:32.000 Does anyone really take seriously the idea that Brazil and India?

00:58:36.000 And South Africa is going to come to Iran's aid.

00:58:39.000 And as you said earlier, Russia has already refused to.

00:58:41.000 Ben, just like Russia refused to come to the aid of its longtime client, Bashar al-Assad, last fall in Syria.

00:58:49.000 They told him he was on his own, and he was on his own on a flight to Russia just a few days later.

00:58:54.000 So when push comes to shove, once again, the strong horse in the world, especially in the Middle East, is the United States and Israel. 0.95

00:59:04.000 Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas.

00:59:06.000 Senator, thanks so much for your time and your insight.

00:59:08.000 Really appreciate it.

00:59:10.000 Thank you, Ben.

00:59:11.000 Meanwhile, the big story over the weekend was this horrifying shooting of a Minnesota state legislator as well as her husband by a man who then went on the run, his 57-year-old, who has a bit of a checkered social media history and apparently had some sort of mental break.

00:59:26.000 According to the Wall Street Journal, a man suspected of shooting two state Democratic lawmakers was arrested late Sunday.

00:59:31.000 After authorities tracked him into an area with crops and woodland in rural Minnesota, the capture of the 57-year-old ended a two-day manhunt that left the community on edge following the killings of State Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark Hortman, and the shootings of Senator John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette Hoffman.

00:59:46.000 State prosecutors are charging the suspect with murder.

00:59:49.000 The Democratic politicians were shot early Saturday morning in what Minnesota Governor Tim Walz called an act of targeted political violence.

00:59:55.000 The shootings were the latest in a surge of violence against elected officials in the United States.

01:00:00.000 That, of course, is horrifying and it is, of course, quite real.

01:00:03.000 There has been a surge in political violence against high-profile figures.

01:00:08.000 Now, of course, the media immediately jumped in to try and locate the sort of ideology of the shooter.

01:00:14.000 And it turns out that this person had a sort of strange history, for sure.

01:00:20.000 According to the Wall Street Journal, he had built a scattered career that included food companies, retailing and pastoring, according to public records and his online post.

01:00:27.000 He'd been living with his wife in a rural area outside the Twin Cities, staying a few nights a week at a rental home in a working-class Minneapolis neighborhood with a couple of roommates.

01:00:36.000 He's apparently working overnight shifts for an organization that handles eye donations.

01:00:40.000 On Friday night, he parked his prowler-style vehicle from his security business at the house and went to his room.

01:00:46.000 According to Carlson, who is David Carlson, one of his roommates, Carlson knocked on the door, but the suspect said he was tired, so Carlson left him alone, reasoning he was sometimes on call for the eye donation firm and might have to be up in the middle of the night.

01:00:57.000 And then he woke up on Saturday to a troubling text.

01:01:00.000 The alleged shooter said he was going to be gone for a while and maybe dead shortly, according to local media reports.

01:01:05.000 He thought he was going to self-harm, but that's not actually what happened.

01:01:08.000 Apparently, this person voted for President Trump and was against abortion considering a murder.

01:01:13.000 Apparently, he sort of had quasi-right-wing mainstream political opinions.

01:01:18.000 Although, according to the Wall Street Journal, trying to identify his political leanings is challenging based on available public records.

01:01:25.000 Apparently, there's a list in the suspect's vehicle, including other prominent public officials.

01:01:30.000 That included dozens of names of prominent Minnesotans who support abortion rights, including many Democratic lawmakers, as well as abortion providers, according to an official who had seen the document.

01:01:39.000 Online Post paints a picture of the suspect as the devout Christian and pastor who preached at a church in the Congo, apparently.

01:01:45.000 He quit most of his jobs before his last trip to Africa and was struggling to build back a solid income.

01:01:51.000 That appears that he was getting more and more erratic over time.

01:01:57.000 Meanwhile, Senator Amy Klobuchar had just met with one of the lawmakers before the lawmaker was shot, and here she was paying tribute to the slain lawmakers.

01:02:06.000 I just wish everyone in the world, political world, knew this woman like we know her in Minnesota, loved by Democrats and Republicans.

01:02:15.000 We started out together in politics, moms with young kids, and somehow she was able to balance getting to know every doorknock, every house in her district.

01:02:26.000 While raising two children, Girl Scout leader, she taught Sunday school.

01:02:32.000 And when you think about political violence and the statistics of political violence, you've got to realize the people who are behind it and a true public servant that we lost.

01:02:44.000 President Trump, for his part, immediately condemned the assassin, of course.

01:02:50.000 Absolutely terrible.

01:02:52.000 Absolutely terrible.

01:02:53.000 And they're looking for that particular man right now.

01:02:57.000 Thank you.

01:02:59.000 And now, one thing that is worth noting here is the difference between the reaction of people on the right to what appears to be a purported right-winger shooting a couple of Democratic lawmakers and the response on the left to various attacks on Republican lawmakers and people who are associated with capitalism.

01:03:17.000 So, Luigi Mangione, the suspected murderer.

01:03:21.000 of the UnitedHealthcare CEO has fan clubs, late night comics, praising him, talking about how wonderful he is, how he's really just the vanguard.

01:03:29.000 When Senator Rand Paul was attacked by a crazed neighbor, there were people openly making jokes about that, both online and in the media.

01:03:35.000 In this particular case, you cannot find a single person anywhere who is saying that this is good or decent or part of a broader, well-justified movement because it isn't.

01:03:46.000 Because it isn't.

01:03:48.000 The idea that increased tenor of political rhetoric leads people to bubble over.

01:03:54.000 I've said for a while that obviously there's truth to that, but one of the factors there is the reaction to horrifying events.

01:04:01.000 The universal condemnation from the right of this shooter is demonstration that this is not the sort of activity that is well accepted on the right.

01:04:09.000 You cannot say the same, I wish you could, honest to God, I wish you could say the same about the left when they are busily praising people like Luigi Mangione.

01:04:17.000 Joining us on the line to discuss how exactly the suspect was caught is Brandon Blackburn, former CIA counterterrorism officer who spent his career conducting operations throughout the Middle East.

01:04:25.000 Thanks so much for joining us.

01:04:27.000 Good morning, Ben.

01:04:27.000 Thank you for having me.

01:04:30.000 So let's talk about the manhunt for the shooter, the suspected shooter of this Minnesota lawmaker.

01:04:36.000 How did this unfold?

01:04:38.000 How did law enforcement finally get this person?

01:04:42.000 Well, it really came down to the old adage, see something, say something.

01:04:45.000 So by all accounts, a citizen who was just going about her daily life in a rural area saw something unusual and a man crawling through basically a farm setting out in the countryside, and she made the right phone call and made the right decision to report it.

01:05:04.000 But it's pretty phenomenal if you consider, Ben, in this day and age.

01:05:09.000 That this high profile of an event led to a nearly 48-hour manhunt for somebody who, for the last two days, has become public enemy number one.

01:05:21.000 So, you know, what do we actually know about the shooter at this point?

01:05:25.000 Obviously, there's a lot of speculation about who he is, what his motivations were.

01:05:29.000 You saw early reports that he was politically on the left, and you saw later reports that he was politically on the right.

01:05:34.000 It appears from the report.

01:05:45.000 It's really a mental health issue.

01:05:47.000 And anybody who is wired to take their political beliefs to the extreme, really under the guise of stochastic terrorism, we need to...

01:06:01.000 And at the end of the day, we need to let the dust settle, let the investigation unfold to really see what his motives and intentions are.

01:06:11.000 Like you said, in the last 48 hours, there have been a bevy of accusations about his political leanings.

01:06:18.000 His moral beliefs and values that may have been the driver. 0.99

01:06:22.000 But at the end of the day, this and others like him are mentally ill individuals. 0.73

01:06:28.000 And if you peel back the bone and flesh and looked at their mapping of their anatomy and their brains and their wiring, they unfortunately have something inside them that allows them to think it's okay to enact violence against someone with whom they do not agree.

01:06:47.000 And that really is the root cause of all of these types of cases that we're seeing, unfortunately.

01:06:54.000 So, Brandon, one of the things that I think was so disturbing to people about this particular attack, aside from the obvious, was the fact that the suspected shooter in this particular case apparently posed as a police officer to gain access to the home of the victim where she and her husband were then murdered.

01:07:11.000 What should this teach law enforcement in the future about how to handle situations like this?

01:07:15.000 If you are handling security for politicians, and right now it's a very fraught time in American life, we're seeing increased amounts of violence against prominent people.

01:07:22.000 How would you be handling these sorts of questions?

01:07:24.000 Well, I think you have the law enforcement component, but it's also, unfortunately, the general public needs to be aware.

01:07:31.000 And there needs to be a dialogue between the two sides, respectively, about how And we need someone to step in, whether it's a group, an industry, somebody with a public profile to really tamp down the rhetoric.

01:07:53.000 Because if you look at the last few years, Ben, this tribalistic society in which we have found ourselves.

01:08:00.000 It's just continuing to escalate and evolve into, again, what I call stochastic terrorism. 0.77

01:08:06.000 We're seeing incendiary rhetoric.

01:08:08.000 We're seeing implicit incitement by public figures.

01:08:12.000 And that needs to be addressed as much as our men and women in uniform who are just trying to do their best for their communities.

01:08:21.000 Brandon, one of the things that I find really interesting about the fallout from this is in the aftermath of the murder of the UnitedHealthcare CEO, there's a widespread public sentiment that it was justified, that it was fine.

01:08:31.000 People came to the defense of the suspect in the case.

01:08:33.000 He has a fan club, all of this sort of stuff.

01:08:35.000 You didn't see anything remotely like that from the right in this particular case.

01:08:39.000 The lawmaker who was killed was a Democrat.

01:08:41.000 I can't name a single figure on the right, either in politics or even online, who is celebrating that.

01:08:47.000 That does seem to be a bit of a difference.

01:08:50.000 I agree with you 100%.

01:08:52.000 And I'll take it a step further, Ben.

01:08:54.000 If the media gets a hold of any indication that this guy was in fact a Republican, conservative, a Trump supporter, we are going to know more about his life in the next 24 to 48 hours than we do, for instance, about Elias Rodriguez, who three weeks ago pretty much did a very similar type of assassination.

01:09:16.000 And we know very little about him relative to what we already know about this shooter in Minnesota.

01:09:23.000 So the media has an incredible responsibility in these cases to treat them all the same because we are getting to the point where either all of it's acceptable or none of it is.

01:09:34.000 And that's a very scary place to find ourselves as a society.

01:09:41.000 It's the implicit incitement by our public figures and the media that is really a root cause of much of what we're seeing.

01:09:50.000 That's Brandon Blackburn, former undercover CIA counterterrorism officer.

01:09:54.000 Really appreciate your time and your insight.

01:09:55.000 Thank you, Ben.

01:09:57.000 Alrighty, folks.

01:09:57.000 The show continues for our members right now.

01:09:59.000 So much more to get to.

01:10:00.000 President Trump had this big military parade on Saturday.

01:10:04.000 Of course, Democrats were protesting.

01:10:07.000 We'll get to that.

01:10:08.000 Remember, in order to watch, you have to be a member.

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The Ben Shapiro Show - June 16, 2025

Israel’s DEVASTATING Offensive Continues…While Trump Plays 4D Chess

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