The Charlie Kirk Show - Iran Is Israel’s War, Not America's

00:00:00.000 Hey, everybody.

00:00:00.000 Charlie Kirk here, live from the Bitcoin.com studio.

00:00:04.000 Israel decapitates Iran.

00:00:05.000 We go through the facts, and then we present it from a pro-American standpoint as well, with a cautionary tale.

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00:00:34.000 Buckle up, everybody.

00:00:35.000 Here we go.

00:00:36.000 Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.

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00:01:34.000 We saw this happening in real time yesterday.

00:01:37.000 The news heard around the world.

00:01:40.000 We were live streaming last night, and it's important in times like this, in situations that involve war and kinetic conflict, to report the facts and to stay calm, collected, with a lot of precision, not to get too excited, not to get involved in hyperbole or be very measured in your reporting.

00:02:00.000 In fact, I believe you, the audience, that's why you keep on tuning in.

00:02:04.000 Right now we are the number one conservative podcast in Apple News because we did a late-night stream all about the Israeli strikes on Iran.

00:02:12.000 And you can count that this program will have a pro-civilization, pro-American view on all these things.

00:02:19.000 We're going to tell it like it is.

00:02:21.000 We're going to report all the facts of exactly what has happened.

00:02:24.000 So what occurred?

00:02:31.000 The bombing campaign is continuing.

00:02:33.000 Here is what is so remarkable, is that Israel was involved in a little bit of a deception campaign. 0.72

00:02:39.000 Totally legitimate.

00:02:41.000 There's nothing wrong with deceiving your enemy.

00:02:44.000 Israel said, oh, Netanyahu's going to go to a wedding and we're going to try to...

00:02:51.000 We might go to D.C. and have some talks and some diplomacy.

00:02:55.000 And amazingly, Iran let its guard down. 0.78

00:03:01.000 Israel was able to infiltrate the inner circle of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.

00:03:08.000 They were able to infiltrate the top levels of the IRGC.

00:03:14.000 And we're going to learn a lot more of what happened in the days and weeks.

00:03:17.000 Of exactly what has happened.

00:03:19.000 But this was not merely just a bombing attack against Iran's nuclear facilities.

00:03:24.000 It was a decapitation strike against the entire Iranian military.

00:03:30.000 They took out Mahmoud Bagheri, the Iranian chief of staff, general staff, the head of their military.

00:03:37.000 That is like the equivalent of taking out J.D. Vance and Susie Wiles.

00:03:42.000 They took out Hossein Salami.

00:03:46.000 The commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guard.

00:03:48.000 They also hit the following targets.

00:03:50.000 The capital in Tehran.

00:03:52.000 Natnats, where Iran enriches uranium. 0.88

00:03:55.000 Tabris, where explosions have been reported near a nuclear research center and two military bases.

00:04:02.000 Kermasha.

00:04:03.000 I'm butchering these pronunciations, but whatever.

00:04:06.000 West of Tehran, where an underground facility storing ballistic missiles was hit near the Iraqi border.

00:04:11.000 Plus other major cities like Isfahan and Iraq.

00:04:15.000 Iraq.

00:04:16.000 A-R-A-K. 1.00

00:04:17.000 Well, not Iraq yet.

00:04:19.000 The country.

00:04:21.000 Iran's air defenses appear to have been totally compromised, offering no resistance at all to Israeli airstrikes.

00:04:28.000 And to the knowledge that we have right now, and again, this could change at any moment, it looks as if not a single Israeli aircraft has been shot down.

00:04:37.000 Again, it's the fog of war, so we do not know yet, but we don't have any reports.

00:04:43.000 Of any Israeli aircraft that has yet been taken down.

00:04:48.000 Israel was apparently able to execute some stunning infiltrations, such as smuggling explosives directly into Iran in advance of the strike.

00:04:59.000 Regardless of your opinion of Israel, even if you hate Israel to your core, you have to have remarkable respect for Mossad.

00:05:10.000 And their military for what they were able to pull off here.

00:05:15.000 Understand that Iran knew this was coming.

00:05:17.000 And without getting into too many details, we knew this was coming.

00:05:21.000 In fact, I was talking to Blake and Andrew and I'm like, guys, unless my sources are totally wrong, in about two hours, Iran is about to get lit up like a Christmas tree.

00:05:34.000 I knew it was coming.

00:05:35.000 A lot of other reporters I was talking to knew it was coming.

00:05:39.000 And Iran still was infiltrated because it seems as if that Israel was able to infiltrate at such the highest levels of the Iranian government.

00:05:47.000 They used the looming attack as a way to gather all of these senior Iranian officials together to then strike them.

00:05:58.000 Remember, we moved out all diplomatic and non-essential staff.

00:06:02.000 This was somewhat of a deception surprise attack, but this was the longest wind-up.

00:06:07.000 Here it comes.

00:06:11.000 And it does beg the question, is Iran a paper tiger?

00:06:16.000 And we'll explore that later, which is, wait, I understand that Intel shows that they were close to a nuclear weapon, but there's a little bit of a contradiction here of if they really don't have any air defense systems, And they're this foolish and kind of a third world country. 0.98

00:06:33.000 It really makes you wonder, like, how sophisticated of a threat this actually is.

00:06:38.000 However, it's happening.

00:06:40.000 And Israel is a sovereign country.

00:06:42.000 And they made, and you have to just say this, they made an incredibly ballsy move with a lot of chutzpah.

00:06:49.000 Took a lot of chutzpah for them to do this. 0.93

00:06:52.000 And we're going to find out in the next couple days and weeks and months the ramifications of that, especially from a pro-American standpoint, which I want to get into.

00:06:59.000 But they also killed some of the nuclear scientists.

00:07:02.000 That's 564.

00:07:04.000 By the way, if you want to just have entertainment, watch this show of me trying to pronounce these ridiculous Persian names. 0.55

00:07:11.000 Faridun Abbasi.

00:07:12.000 I think I got that one.

00:07:14.000 Mohammed Mehdi Tarajanani, the physicist and president of the Islamic Azad University in Tehran.

00:07:21.000 The Israeli operation was not just airstrikes.

00:07:24.000 The Israeli Mossad Intelligence Service has operatives on the ground conducting covert sabotage operations on missile and air defense sites.

00:07:31.000 And it's ongoing.

00:07:33.000 Israel right now has complete command over the air of Iran. 0.51

00:07:39.000 No one really could have anticipated that.

00:07:41.000 No one could have predicted it.

00:07:43.000 And this is why no planes have been shot down, and Bibi Netanyahu and the Israeli government, they're basically having an all-you-can-eat buffet in Iran.

00:07:51.000 They've had these targets basically in their tickler file for quite some time.

00:07:56.000 They've had these targets, like, hey, here they are, all over Iran for quite some time.

00:08:01.000 And they're like, why are we going to stop now?

00:08:03.000 we're just going to keep on going.

00:08:04.000 This is a dream for Israel in the sense where 562, which I think is a very important picture.

00:08:19.000 Yes, some residential buildings were struck, but that's some pretty remarkable precision.

00:08:24.000 This visual is something, and on podcasting, you just have to take pause and be like, that's as good and as sophisticated of a military that I think you'll ever see.

00:08:33.000 So here you have, for those that you can't see it on podcasting, a high-rise residential building in Tehran where the neighbors above and the neighbors below, literally, they were able to, either through a drone or through a fighter jet, have a precision missile go to, what is that, like the 8th floor, but not the 9th floor, not the 7th floor, and they decided not to take down the entire building.

00:08:55.000 And I do think that is a necessary picture where the stereotype and the prejudice against Israel is that, oh, they take down residential buildings just for fun and to go after civilians.

00:09:05.000 I think that picture is a very important picture that I hope is included in the international narrative that Israel actually decided not to take down that entire residential building because that would have been a narrative collapse alongside an apartment collapse.

00:09:21.000 Because if they would have taken down the entire building, first of all, innocent people would have unnecessarily died.

00:09:27.000 And I'm sure some people did.

00:09:28.000 I mean, you can't.

00:09:29.000 Maybe the missile would have continued into another apartment building. 0.86

00:09:32.000 However, it looks as if the apartments above and below are largely still intact.

00:09:36.000 We don't know all the details associated to it.

00:09:38.000 But Israel very well could have collapsed the entire building. 0.50

00:09:41.000 And they could have said, hey, you know, these are command and control centers.

00:09:44.000 What's the big deal?

00:09:45.000 That's another picture that shows that the apartments kind of above and below.

00:09:49.000 Are kind of untouched.

00:09:51.000 And part of this also is that Israel's strategy here is they know that many of the everyday rank-and-file Persians hate the Iranian regime.

00:09:59.000 They hate the Iranian regime, and they don't want to try to turn the Iranian people against Israel unnecessarily.

00:10:06.000 They're trying to fight a war of liberation.

00:10:08.000 A very risky war, and I want to just make sure that's very clear.

00:10:12.000 In this fog of war, it's easily caught up in the overemphasis on the military action.

00:10:18.000 We're going to talk about this from an American standpoint.

00:10:21.000 Where does the base stand on this?

00:10:24.000 Israel has a right to do what they want to do.

00:10:27.000 There's a risk-reward calculus.

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00:11:28.000 So that's a little bit of the analysis of the what has happened.

00:11:31.000 Now I want to spend a little bit of time from an American standpoint and also from a conservative movement standpoint and kind of where the base stands.

00:11:38.000 But here is where we stand right now.

00:11:41.000 Right now, Iran is getting blown up. 0.95

00:11:44.000 And currently, America has faced zero blowback or any consequences.

00:11:49.000 And Israel's operation against Iran has been far more successful. 0.88

00:11:53.000 As of right now, than anyone could have dreamed.

00:11:56.000 No one could have dreamed that they're taking out the entire core of the Iranian military.

00:12:02.000 Not to mention bombing after bombing of nuclear reactors and airports and military sites.

00:12:09.000 And in some ways, for many people in this audience, and also for those of us that want to see civilization succeed, this is very satisfying to watch.

00:12:19.000 But we must also caution you.

00:12:22.000 And the Iraq War and the Afghanistan War show us that it might not necessarily continue that way.

00:12:27.000 The first weeks of the Afghan and the Iraq War looked incredibly easy. 0.71

00:12:32.000 Remember shock and awe?

00:12:33.000 Shock and awe looked like, wow, there is no situation that we can't handle.

00:12:40.000 Iraq will bend to our will. 1.00

00:12:42.000 And for those of us that are America first, but also are very sympathetic to Israel, this has always been our cautionary tale, which is that war... 0.60

00:12:52.000 Military strikes are usually much murkier and complicated than it might seem on TV.

00:13:01.000 Our generation especially, and the base of the Republican Party, we have never seen a triumphant, declarative military victory.

00:13:09.000 And I hope everybody in the audience understands that.

00:13:12.000 Everybody in MAGA that says, you know, keep the strikes going.

00:13:15.000 And I totally get it.

00:13:16.000 I see it from that perspective.

00:13:18.000 But also understand that the base of MAGA has never seen a declarative victory.

00:13:22.000 And I can tell you right now, our MAGA base does not want a war at all whatsoever.

00:13:29.000 They do not want U.S. involvement.

00:13:31.000 They do not want the United States to be engaged in this.

00:13:35.000 And let's just go 569.

00:13:37.000 This is a picture of the Iraq shock and awe bombing you might remember.

00:13:41.000 It felt as if we were going to steamroll Iraq and this would be like a two-month operation similar to the Persian Gulf War back in 1991. 0.70

00:13:49.000 But the Middle East has a tendency to draw you in.

00:13:53.000 It is the land of sand and death, as President Trump would say.

00:13:57.000 The last major war that America clearly and definitively won is the Gulf War.

00:14:02.000 And even that led to the second Iraq War. 0.70

00:14:04.000 Before that, it was World War II.

00:14:06.000 And the Korean War, you could argue, had some real good upside with the creation of South Korea. 0.88

00:14:12.000 Wars are not profitable endeavors.

00:14:15.000 And even from a pro-Israel standpoint, Israel does not benefit from long conflicts or long wars.

00:14:21.000 The shorter the conflict, the better it has always been for Israel. 0.88

00:14:25.000 That's why they prefer deceptive, immediate, and violent action.

00:14:31.000 We as conservatives must be very morally clear as to what side we are on, but we must resist the siren song of displacing dictators in lands we do not understand and we have no business running.

00:14:46.000 And I just want to have a cautionary tale because it can feel very good and seem very good, and it objectively can be good.

00:14:54.000 When I see a picture of that apartment building, I kind of just have awe, and I'm like, man, I struggle to, like, install my TV.

00:15:04.000 I need someone to help me set up the Wi-Fi.

00:15:07.000 Like, Mikey, get in here, set up the Wi-Fi.

00:15:10.000 I mean, what they do in the tech room is like the most impressive thing.

00:15:13.000 They got guests, and they got Zoom, and they got different televisions, and they got audio stuff.

00:15:19.000 And look at this.

00:15:20.000 They're sending missiles to the 8th floor, but not the 9th floor or the 7th floor.

00:15:25.000 I mean, I marvel at that, and you should too.

00:15:33.000 They are a proud and they are a big country.

00:15:35.000 Persia was once a great power.

00:15:37.000 They have a memory, a very serious memory, of being respected.

00:15:42.000 And this was a humiliation.

00:15:45.000 This was an absolute humiliation of the Iranian regime and mullahs, and it is continuing. 1.00

00:15:51.000 Iran could say that they're going to just go march 900,000 troops into Iraq.

00:15:55.000 The Iranian play is they're... 1.00

00:16:10.000 They're going to go after Americans, they're going to go after Saudis, they're going to go after everybody imaginable, just to create a big mess and to try to draw the world into it. 1.00

00:16:19.000 Because understand, the Iranian people are widely respected and not necessarily are always in sync with leadership.

00:16:27.000 But if and when the people of Iran feel like Persia is being defaced and humiliated and disrespected, we don't know where that is going to go.

00:16:36.000 And that's my final reason why I am always skeptical of military intervention.

00:16:42.000 And when a lot of the sometimes warmongering wing gets too excited, you don't know, actually.

00:16:48.000 You need to have a lot of humility.

00:16:50.000 You do not know how things are going to work out.

00:16:53.000 It is impossible.

00:16:54.000 You could try to predict it.

00:16:55.000 You could pray.

00:16:56.000 You can hope.

00:16:57.000 But when you start saying things will guarantee happen, like in Libya, overthrowing the regime will be easy, and then everything after was a disaster.

00:17:05.000 Some humility is necessary in these moments.

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00:18:26.000 I want to bring Josh Hammer, who's actually here live from Israel, and I hope he is near.

00:18:34.000 I don't say that lightly because Israel is going to likely respond. 0.79

00:18:40.000 Israel is going to receive a huge response from Iran. 0.85

00:18:42.000 I just want to finish one final thought, though.

00:18:44.000 The Iranian people are the opportunity, not the enemy here.

00:18:49.000 But I can say concretely, here is where I stand and where the MAGA base stands.

00:18:53.000 We do not want U.S. boots on the ground.

00:18:55.000 We do not want American kinetic involvement.

00:18:58.000 This is Israel's war. 0.94

00:18:59.000 This is Israel's And with that, we welcome Josh Hammer from Newsweek, great man and very clear thinker, host of The Josh Hammer Show, and author of Israel and Civilization.

00:19:13.000 So Josh, I mean, I have to ask the kind of elephant in the room, how many paces, how many steps are you from a bomb shelter?

00:19:19.000 God forbid you have to go there.

00:19:21.000 Yeah, I'm laughing, but I probably shouldn't be laughing, Charlie.

00:19:23.000 You know, we woke up at 3 a.m. local time here.

00:19:25.000 The whole country had sirens nationally.

00:19:28.000 And, you know, we have our six-month-old baby here.

00:19:31.000 It's actually our first time flying with our babies.

00:19:32.000 So it's no joke.

00:19:33.000 So we immediately went down to the bombshell from the house where we were staying.

00:19:37.000 We soon learned within minutes that the sirens were not due to incoming rocket fire.

00:19:42.000 Instead, the IDF Home Command did sirens nationwide to essentially alert the people that There was the potential of imminent retaliation there.

00:19:52.000 That, I think, was what the IDF was most concerned about.

00:19:54.000 They were concerned about imminent, immediate retaliation.

00:19:57.000 There's now been over 12 hours, actually far more than that, since that.

00:20:01.000 And I think that the threat level has decreased.

00:20:04.000 But to your very first question, Charlie, there's a bomb shelter probably 30 or 40 steps over there.

00:20:08.000 So God forbid I can make a dashboard and I think I'll be okay.

00:20:11.000 Well, yeah, and I hope everyone in the audience understands that that's now become normal life in Israel.

00:20:15.000 And so you are outside right now, which is great.

00:20:18.000 Praise God.

00:20:18.000 You can see the sun.

00:20:19.000 But I have so many questions here, and I'm just going to kind of go to stuff I can get from you that I can't get from the cable networks.

00:20:26.000 What is the vibe?

00:20:27.000 You're there with your kid.

00:20:29.000 You are there with so many people you care about.

00:20:33.000 What is the morale like on the ground?

00:20:36.000 Do the Israelis support this?

00:20:39.000 Well, this whole trip, and Charlie, like you, I've been to Israel a number of times.

00:20:42.000 This whole trip thus far has been So my wife and I were getting dinner the other night in the Tel Aviv area on the ocean.

00:20:50.000 There was a massive siren.

00:20:51.000 We ran to a bomb shelter.

00:20:53.000 It turns out that there was a Houthi ballistic missile incoming from Yemen.

00:20:56.000 That was just two or three nights ago.

00:20:59.000 And now this is the mission of all missions, what Israel is calling Operation Rising Lion, the operation inside Iran.

00:21:06.000 Charlie, I'm here in the broader Tel Aviv area.

00:21:09.000 As you can see in the background here, the sun is solely starting to set, the Jewish Sabbath. 0.95

00:21:15.000 Here we were planning to be in Jerusalem, but we didn't want to get in the car and drive an hour and a half.

00:21:20.000 No, can't do that.

00:21:21.000 God forbid, getting stuck in traffic with a lot of missiles.

00:21:23.000 Again, we have a six-month-old, so we're being smart state parents here and there.

00:21:26.000 So we're locking down.

00:21:28.000 Now, what I can tell you is that the locals here, the roads are empty.

00:21:31.000 The roads are basically like a ghost town.

00:21:33.000 The supermarkets, it's like a hurricane.

00:21:35.000 I've gone through hurricanes living in Florida back home.

00:21:37.000 I've lived in Houston, Texas, Miami, Florida during hurricanes.

00:21:40.000 Anyone who has been to a supermarket during a hurricane knows that the shelves are just totally, you know, you can't get any food items.

00:21:46.000 There's a line around the door curling around the supermarket.

00:21:49.000 Same thing here.

00:21:50.000 It feels like a hurricane-like condition right now.

00:21:52.000 Again, I guess we're going to see what actual hurricane in the form of an Iranian retaliation actually comes here.

00:21:57.000 But the thing about the Israeli people, Charlie, and holding aside the Arab Israelis, it's a little more complicated. 0.84

00:22:02.000 But the thing about Jewish Israelis, which are still the vast majority of the Israeli people, there is full consensus as to the Iranian issue.

00:22:09.000 There are a number of very, very divisive issues here in Israel.

00:22:12.000 Bibi Netanyahu, the two-state solution versus one-state solution with the Palestinian Arabs, the issue of the Haredi ultra-Orthodox draft into the idea.

00:22:20.000 There are a lot of very contentious issues here in the Israeli domestic political spectrum.

00:22:24.000 But there's one very important point, I think, for your audience to know.

00:22:26.000 It's that the Iran issue is not a contentious issue.

00:22:29.000 I remember speaking back in 2016, during the 2016 presidential cycle, I spoke with a far-left member, a Jewish member of the Knesset, their legislature here.

00:22:36.000 Charlie, dude was so far left, he was an actual Bernie Sanders supporter, I kid you not.

00:22:41.000 And even this guy.

00:22:42.000 Even this guy, who was a total peacenik on the Palestinians, a total liberal on all domestic issues, you name it there, even he was very sober and hawkish-minded on Iran, because there was an understanding here that Iran actually genuinely is the existential issue, and that if the IDF's mantra that never again means never again, if it means anything whatsoever, then Iran has to be dealt with at some point. 0.58

00:23:03.000 It turns out that they dealt with it, or at least started to deal with it, while I happened to be visiting the country here.

00:23:07.000 I'm now going to refer to you as our Israeli war correspondent.

00:23:10.000 We're going to have you on as much as you.

00:23:12.000 I have so many questions here, Josh.

00:23:15.000 Just a more technical one while I have it on top of my head.

00:23:17.000 I'm guessing that this will be a Shabbat that is largely not honored by the military in the best possible way, right?

00:23:23.000 I mean, it's not like the whole country is just going to go to sleep while Iran could launch a bunch of missiles. 0.67

00:23:28.000 Am I correct in that regard?

00:23:30.000 Look, everyone has to do what they can here.

00:23:32.000 So, you know, not to get too deep in the weeds of Jewish law, but there is a well-known Jewish principle known as p 'chulach nefesh, which basically means that there's an overwhelming imperative to save a human life at all costs.

00:23:43.000 And when human life has to be saved at the expense of desecrating the Jewish Sabbath or any other of the violation of Jewish law, it has to be done there. 0.89

00:23:51.000 So, for example, Charlie, back home in Florida, where I pray, I pray to a local synagogue near the beach.

00:23:56.000 There's a guy who has a walkie-talkie there because he's actually an emergency driver for Hatzalah, the emergency services there.

00:24:02.000 So he's allowed to do that for reasons of Pukuach Nefesh. 0.99

00:24:04.000 So similarly here in Israel, when there is an active threat of the world's leading state sponsor of Jihad, potentially launching God knows what kind of missiles, drones, or whatever we'll have here over the next 48, 72 hours, who the heck knows. 0.51

00:24:15.000 Yes, I think people are going to interpret Pukuach Nefesh and take it into their own hands.

00:24:21.000 It's just so – I have so many questions, but I hope people understand that even in the midst of all the terror, or It's just pretty amazing.

00:24:31.000 I'm turning off my phone, Charlie.

00:24:33.000 Well, it's remarkable.

00:24:34.000 So, Josh, let me ask you.

00:24:35.000 So, now let's get more to the technical side.

00:24:38.000 Are you surprised?

00:24:40.000 What is your reaction, I should say, to the fact that Iran has not really responded yet?

00:24:45.000 That we're coming on almost a 24-hour marker and...

00:24:52.000 Why is that, and is it because that Israel is just having a feeding frenzy in the interior of Iran right now? 0.73

00:24:58.000 So it's such a real-time, minute-by-minute situation that it's a little hard to keep up with everything.

00:25:02.000 I did hear maybe about 30, 45 minutes ago that there were rocket sirens in northern Israel.

00:25:07.000 I assume that is from Hezbollah in Lebanon, or at least the remnants of Hezbollah in Lebanon, because Hezbollah has been dealt such a crippling blow over the past year or so by Israel.

00:25:17.000 But Iran, Charlie, and this is why Israel apparently felt that this was the time to actually launch this. 0.59

00:25:22.000 That was literally decades in the making, was that they had done such an amazing job at crippling Iran's various proxies. 0.98

00:25:29.000 Hezbollah, in particular, in Lebanon, with their massive 100,000-plus precision-guided missile arsenal, that was always the Iranian regime's sort of Damocles, hanging over the Israeli people here. 0.90

00:25:40.000 It's right on the Israeli border up north there.

00:25:42.000 And Israel knew that if they were to ever launch a serious operation against Iran, then Hezbollah would just rain down lots and lots of missiles on Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, or all the population corridors there.

00:25:52.000 Hezbollah has not been literally eliminated, but they, I mean, you know, 80, 90 percent, I mean, they are on really, really, really weak knees right now.

00:25:59.000 So the path was really, really clear.

00:26:01.000 And then inside of Iran itself, you look at just the sheer number of the top-ranking IRGC, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the general staffers that apparently have been killed over the past 12 to 18 hours there.

00:26:12.000 I mean, Charlie, I think we're literally talking about a situation where the actual physical men who would literally call the shots are perhaps no longer with us.

00:26:20.000 It's a pretty astounding thing to do.

00:26:22.000 And so let me ask you, so then it looks as if Israel is continuing a bombing campaign against Iran.

00:26:32.000 I mean, how else can Iran respond if their missile capacity is largely disabled?

00:26:39.000 Well, look, they have the potential to try to launch extraterritorial assassinations. 0.99

00:26:44.000 Charlie, I'll be honest with you.

00:26:45.000 In a weird way, I actually almost feel safer if you're in Israel than if I were back home in the United States.

00:26:50.000 I live in Florida, so Florida is kind of the exception to the rule.

00:26:53.000 Florida is an incredibly safe place to be Jewish.

00:26:56.000 It's an incredibly safe place, frankly, to be anyone.

00:26:58.000 But I do think in a time like this about more exposure.

00:27:02.000 Jewish communities, Israeli expatriate communities in blue jurisdictions.

00:27:06.000 I think a lot about New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, places like that at this time there.

00:27:11.000 Because those are the places where the local government is not necessarily going to be up to speed at protecting vulnerable, soft targets, synagogues, kosher restaurants, things like that at this time here.

00:27:20.000 Living here, or not, I don't live here, but being here in Israel at this time here and having...

00:27:27.000 I feel pretty good for the most part there.

00:27:29.000 But they do have the capacity, Iran. 0.97

00:27:31.000 Iran has a lot of sleeper cells. 0.78

00:27:32.000 They have a lot of sleeper cells, a lot of lone wolf agents, a lot of people all throughout the West, a lot of these crazy radicals, the Mahmoud Khalils on the university campuses, a lot of folks who are pledging and vowing to take up not necessarily full-on jihad in an ISIS-style caliphate here in the Middle East, But just engaging in lone wolf style attacks, very similar to what the Marxists did in slaughtering, brutally assassinating the two Israeli diplomats in Washington two weeks ago.

00:27:56.000 So that's the kind of soft lone wolf target that I'm actually most scared of at a time like this.

00:28:00.000 I'm less scared about whatever is coming from Iran in kind of a paradoxical way, even though I'm right here kind of in the crosshairs of fire. 0.77

00:28:07.000 Yeah, I mean, I literally put up on Twitter, I'll read it to the audience, which is, Biden let millions of people into America.

00:28:15.000 Iran might activate some sleeper cells against Americans to stay armed. 0.55

00:28:19.000 And I mean, that goes for all people, right?

00:28:21.000 Is the Iranian sleeper cells into the interior of the United States. 0.87

00:28:25.000 Can Israel win this without United States troops?

00:28:29.000 So it totally depends how you define when.

00:28:32.000 Charlie, it seems to me that Israel is not at least at this moment seeking to decapitate the head of the snake.

00:28:38.000 Again, we'll see.

00:28:38.000 It's a very, very fast time situation there.

00:28:40.000 It seems to me like if they were going to take their shot at the Ayatollah at Khamenei, it probably would have happened in the wee hours of the morning.

00:28:47.000 Again, what do I know?

00:28:48.000 I'm just kind of playing a speculation game here.

00:28:51.000 But the goal of this operation, so far as I understand it, is simply to neutralize the nuclear threat.

00:28:56.000 And if that is the goal, if that is the goal, Then I think that Israel has already shown that it's fully capable of doing that. 0.69

00:29:02.000 Just to take one example, I mean, they had a large, large number of Iran's nuclear facilities.

00:29:07.000 Just to take one example, Natanz, which is maybe the most infamous of all of the Iranian uranium enrichment facilities.

00:29:13.000 Natanz has been kind of front and center of all these can Israel strike Iran debates for the past 15, 20 years now.

00:29:19.000 These debates have gone back a long time.

00:29:21.000 Israel has, as by all accounts, according to the IAEA, the UN International Nuclear Watchdog, they call it, Natanz has been completely obliterated.

00:29:29.000 There is no more Natanz nuclear facility.

00:29:31.000 I mean, that is an astonishing, astonishing thing right there.

00:29:34.000 So again, if the goal of the Israeli operation, Rising Line, I think is the name that the IDF is giving it, if the goal is to neutralize the Iranian nuclear threat, then I think they are fully capable of doing this on the run. 0.86

00:29:46.000 There's not going to be a ground invasion or anything like that there.

00:29:49.000 It's not going to happen.

00:29:50.000 I mean, the logistics of that are just impossible to even contemplate.

00:29:53.000 I don't even know what that looks like.

00:29:54.000 I mean, the tanks start rolling over Iraq.

00:29:56.000 I mean, it's not going to happen.

00:29:58.000 So the goal of this is tactical aerial strikes to neutralize a harrowing threat of the world's number one state sponsor of jihad, these fanatical Islamists who genuinely believe in 72 virgins in heaven and all that there. 0.96

00:30:10.000 The goal is to decapitate their capacity to launch a nuclear strike on Israel, Europe, anywhere else.

00:30:16.000 If they were to ever acquire, God forbid, intercontinental ballistic missile technology.

00:30:20.000 And so far, they've been very successful.

00:30:22.000 And I think, God willing, that they will continue to be very successful.

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00:31:24.000 Josh, I want to put this up here.

00:31:30.000 We did this on X last night.

00:31:32.000 I asked our audience, 323,000 people voted.

00:31:35.000 Should the U.S. get involved in Israel's war against Iran?

00:31:38.000 88% said no.

00:31:39.000 I can't imagine you're surprised by that, though, Josh.

00:31:42.000 So, as someone who's in Israel and cares about Israel but is also an American, Walk me through your reaction to that and how you think this plays out politically.

00:31:50.000 Yeah, Charlie, I don't think the U.S. really has to get involved.

00:31:53.000 I have never once actually in my entire commentary career called for the U.S. to directly get involved in military or kinetic action against Iran because, frankly, it's not my stance.

00:32:01.000 I thought that the first Trump-era maximum pressures economic campaign was very successful there.

00:32:07.000 And then beyond economic pressure and placing crippling sanctions on the oil and natural gas exports to the Chinese Communist Party above all there, I've always thought that Israel could take the military end of the bargain and do a nice thing.

00:32:19.000 All that essentially is needed from the United States is to cast the various vetoes at the UN National Security Council and things like that there.

00:32:28.000 But, Charlie, I would suggest that another way to view it actually is this way.

00:32:33.000 Iran obviously is an existential threat to Israel. 0.99

00:32:37.000 It is a major threat to other countries, but it is a larger threat to Israel, and I think it would be sloppy analysis to try to needlessly conflate the degree of the threat to Israel to others there.

00:32:46.000 It is a threat to the United States, but not the exact same threat.

00:32:48.000 Having said that, it is a threat.

00:32:50.000 Iran definitely does have American blood on its hands for 46 years, going back to the hostage crisis that launched the regime and ended the Jimmy Carter presidency, going back to the 241 U.S. Marines slaughtered at the Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, from Hezbollah, the top Iranian proxy, the 500 to 600 American soldiers killed by Qasem Soleimani supplied IEDs on the roadside of Al-Anbar and Fallujah during the Petraeus counterinsurgency, during the Bush administration, and on and on and on we go there.

00:33:16.000 So I think another way of viewing this is as far In securing not just its own national interest, it happens to be an existential interest in this case there, but also then ultimately conducing to the enhanced and greater safety and security of the United States, of our European allies, and so forth and so forth.

00:33:36.000 The United States, Charlie, today and for the foreseeable future, is a safer and more secure place because of what Israel is doing inside of Iran. 0.97

00:33:43.000 This is a very, very key point there.

00:33:45.000 Again, this was needed for Israel. 0.51

00:33:46.000 Israel is acting as any sovereign nation state would do in its own national interest here. 0.60

00:33:50.000 But the key thing, and I...

00:33:55.000 But the key thing here is that when it comes to the Middle East, and this is kind of what you expect of an ally from a national Israelist foreign policy paradigm, the key thing is that Israel's national interest in this region is overwhelmingly Venn diagram-overlapped with the American region.

00:34:09.000 The degrees may actually vary for sure.

00:34:11.000 I will happily and readily conceive that there.

00:34:12.000 But again, America is a safer and more secure place today from Israel simply doing this. 1.00

00:34:18.000 In fact, America in many ways is benefiting, frankly, on the cheek, because we're not actually sending in any kind of troops.

00:34:23.000 And no one is calling for that, by the way.

00:34:24.000 No one is seriously, literally, I haven't found a single person who's actually calling for that there.

00:34:28.000 Josh, please stay safe.

00:34:33.000 I know that you are in a calamitous situation right now and we'll be praying for you and praying for your family and praying for the peace in Jerusalem.

00:34:41.000 Thank you so much.

00:34:41.000 God bless you, Charlie.

00:34:42.000 Thank you.

00:34:44.000 I want to just go a little bit deeper into the politics here.

00:34:47.000 And we talked about the cautionary tale.

00:34:49.000 These military operations are almost oversimplified in the media, and they kind of have an immediate crescendo and then some complication as one proceeds.

00:34:58.000 I could tell you, though, that young MAGA especially, the more online you get, the more skepticism there is about America getting involved in this, in the quagmire, in the nonstop flow of military intervention in the Middle East.

00:35:16.000 And the base will diverge from some orthodox opinions on Israel that you might hear on cable news or in the mainstream media, where the base might have diplomatic and sentimental support towards Israel, which, of course, I've demonstrated over a very long period of time, which the question is, though, how much money, how much funding are we getting involved, and to what extent does that lead towards?

00:35:42.000 Because I could tell you right now, A primary concern from the MAGA base, it is a phrase I hear all the time, Charlie, this is just to get the war contractors wealthier.

00:35:52.000 Charlie, this is just to get people that are in the permanent war machine more money.

00:35:57.000 They want more war and not peace.

00:35:59.000 I hear this all the time from those of you in the base.

00:36:02.000 And with that, I want to hear from you right now.

00:36:04.000 I want to be flooded with emails.

00:36:06.000 Freedom at CharlieKirk.com.

00:36:08.000 Should we send more aid to Israel?

00:36:10.000 Should we send military support?

00:36:11.000 Should we not send any support at all?

00:36:13.000 Email me, freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:36:16.000 That is freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:36:17.000 Thanks so much for listening, everybody.

00:36:19.000 Email us, as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.

The Charlie Kirk Show - June 13, 2025

Iran Is Israel’s War, Not America's

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