The Megyn Kelly Show - Trump's Successful Iran Mission, and the MAGA Case For and Against Strikes, with Emily Jashinsky and Victor Davis Hanson

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00:00:30.940 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at New East.

00:00:42.460 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.

00:00:45.680 I'm back from vacation and ready to dive back into one of the most consequential news cycles in recent memory.

00:00:51.660 My God, what has happened? I left for eight, nine days and all hell broke loose.

00:00:58.380 It's been an insane time here in our country. The news could not be bigger. I'll just take one quick moment to say thanks to all of you for the lovely messages while we were gone.

00:01:09.560 We had a great vacation with my family in Greece where we went through the Saronic Islands, which are just so beautiful.

00:01:17.120 I just can't say enough about that area of the world.

00:01:20.820 And the Greek people were absolutely lovely. So highly recommend and thank you for your patience while I've been gone.

00:01:27.480 I have a lot of feelings about what's happened and it's probably going to take us, you know, the next five days together to get through the current news, as well as a couple of the big stories that hit while we were gone.

00:01:39.860 But I just want to start with my overall thoughts. VDH is going to be here within a second, and I'm going to get into some headlines about this Iran deal.

00:01:48.480 Actually, I'll just bring those to you now and then I'll tell you my own thoughts.

00:01:50.760 First of all, as you by now know, on Saturday, President Trump took decisive action.

00:01:55.400 He bombed three of Iran's nuclear sites in a stunning display of American might and military power.

00:02:02.320 The president says he now wants peace. Vice President J.D. Vance said the U.S. is not at war with the Iranian people, but with Iran's nuclear program.

00:02:11.540 But there's more breaking news today with the reports of Israel now dropping bombs on Iran's capital city, Tehran, on targeted sites within it, as well as on access routes to the Fordow nuclear enrichment site.

00:02:24.720 Wonder why, right? Like who's trying to get in there and what are they trying to do?

00:02:28.620 So that's, of course, where one of the sites in which the U.S. dropped bunker-busting bombs from B2s as part of Operation Midnight Hammer, great name, over the weekend.

00:02:39.340 With all of this going on, Iran's supreme leader is reportedly hiding out in a bunker and has suspended all electronic communications with his commanders.

00:02:48.060 This is so interesting. This is exactly what made it so difficult to find Osama bin Laden when he was hiding out in the Abbottabad compound.

00:02:55.340 He wouldn't communicate with most people because he knew that it would likely be traced and he'd be found.

00:03:02.020 And ultimately, the CIA found him because there was one person who would come in on foot.

00:03:07.720 And once the CIA identified that guy as someone who was close to bin Laden, they started following him and that's how they found him.

00:03:15.280 So this guy's clearly taken a lesson from history, though President Trump has already said we know where he is.

00:03:20.220 So query what the truth is. But in any event, he's determined to try to conceal his location amid assassination concerns.

00:03:29.000 Forget the fact that, you know, Trump is saying we're not going to kill him right now, but he's got Bibi Netanyahu to worry about.

00:03:36.160 And I've heard no such assurances from the Israelis.

00:03:39.440 According to The New York Times, the supreme leader is giving orders only through a single trusted aide.

00:03:44.060 President Trump's administration appears 100 percent aligned on the actions so far.

00:03:49.780 But the president has faced criticism for the move from Democrats, the media and even some within the MAGA movement for this attack on the Iranian facilities.

00:03:59.880 OK, so in just a bit, Emily Jashinsky is going to be here.

00:04:02.600 She's the host of the new MK Media show After Party with Emily Jashinsky.

00:04:07.380 More on that in just a bit. And we'll get to Victor in one minute.

00:04:10.320 But I just want to give you my overall thoughts on it before we bring in a true expert so I don't cloud his expert analysis with my own armchair.

00:04:20.780 As for the division between the MAGA, more isolationist wing and the more neocon wing that still is very much present and not dominant, but president and large within the Republican Party.

00:04:34.280 I'll say this clearly the I don't know.

00:04:38.680 You don't have to be a neocon to be in support of what President Trump just did.

00:04:41.660 Iran is an enemy of the United States.

00:04:43.700 Iran has been the number one sponsor, state sponsor of terror against the United States for the past 46 years.

00:04:51.280 Iran is not just theoretically chanting death to America, as some absolute fools have been suggesting over the past few days.

00:04:59.340 They have actually been causing death to Americans for decades now.

00:05:04.920 Decades.

00:05:06.180 Our Marines, our Air Force, members of our military all over the world, including most recently in Iraq and beyond there.

00:05:17.320 So and not to mention what the Houthis have been doing.

00:05:19.400 I mean, Iran has several arms to it that are sponsored by it and assisted by it from Hamas to Hezbollah to the Houthis and beyond who have been doing its bidding.

00:05:30.340 It is ridiculous to suggest that Israel started this war with Iran.

00:05:34.820 Israel was attacked by Iranian proxy Hamas.

00:05:38.180 That's how this whole thing got started.

00:05:39.440 And if you ask me the reason we did what we did this weekend, it's because it all starts with 10-7 in that the Iranian proxies have been greatly weakened by Israel over the past two years.

00:05:54.460 Greatly weakened.

00:05:56.120 I mean, Hezbollah's in tatters.

00:05:57.680 Hamas is, too.

00:05:59.000 The Houthis just got bombed by President Trump for weeks, six weeks, by the way.

00:06:02.380 No one was saying he didn't have authorization to do it, just like they didn't say Obama didn't have authorization on the thousands of strikes he did that didn't have specific congressional authorization beyond the authorization of use of military force that was passed after 9-11.

00:06:17.200 Right.

00:06:17.520 Both presidents, many presidents have used it.

00:06:20.640 So, you know, from Bush to Obama to Trump and now Trump again.

00:06:24.560 So Iran has been killing Americans for a long time.

00:06:28.140 And the reason, I think, we had an American president who was willing to listen to the Netanyahu claims of, right now it's imminent, the nukes are imminent, is because Iran was so weakened it made sense now in a way it didn't before.

00:06:41.660 It was, in a way, less provocative to bomb Iranian nuclear sites right now than it ever has been before.

00:06:48.460 And it poses danger, sure, to our U.S. troops, especially on foreign military sites, but less now than it has in decades.

00:06:56.820 And so while I look at the isolationist right, for lack of a better term, and I think, OK, I see they've lost this one for sure.

00:07:05.220 There's no question.

00:07:06.280 My friend Tucker and others did and Bannon did not want this to happen.

00:07:13.820 They said they lost this one.

00:07:15.780 They had every right to be concerned and they have an ongoing right to be concerned.

00:07:20.380 Their objections are based on some very real and unfortunate recent history.

00:07:25.900 What happened in Iraq, chief among them, the absurd, failed nation building we tried under President George W. Bush, which was continued under Barack Obama.

00:07:37.380 It was a nightmare.

00:07:38.520 And even our troops have had it.

00:07:40.940 You know, like, look at the interviews we did here on this program with Sean Ryan.

00:07:44.200 Look how Rob O'Neill has turned on it.

00:07:45.860 Look how Pete Hegseth has churned on some of these missions, not the sacrifice, of course, made by our troops, but but just the folly of thinking we could swoop into the Middle East and create some Democratic Republican Republican in any way resembled our own or had shared values with us.

00:08:03.440 So we're a little jaded when it comes to Middle East meddling, understandably.

00:08:10.760 And the other piece of it that is real is Bibi Netanyahu is suffering right now when it comes to some large factions of the American people with looking like the boy who cried wolf.

00:08:22.820 All right. Now, I'm sorry, but I've been in the news business for 20 years now, and every single one of them, I've heard him say that Iran is months, at most a couple of years away from getting a nuclear bomb.

00:08:38.340 Every single one of them.

00:08:40.640 And we pulled a little montage of it over the years.

00:08:45.060 But I mean, we could have gone back to the 1990s with Bibi doing this.

00:08:49.880 Here's just a sampling.

00:08:50.720 The most dangerous of these regimes is Iran.

00:08:55.060 Only the United States can lead this vital international effort to stop the nuclearization of terrorist states.

00:09:01.820 But the deadline for attaining this goal is getting extremely, extremely close.

00:09:07.800 They're very close. They're six months away from being about 90 percent of having the enriched uranium for an atom bomb.

00:09:13.740 By next spring, at most, by next summer, at current enrichment rates,

00:09:18.360 they will have finished the medium enrichment and move on to the final stage.

00:09:25.440 From there, it's only a few months, possibly a few weeks, before they get enough enriched uranium for the first bomb.

00:09:35.020 You don't want this Iran to have neither nuclear weapons or the capability to make nuclear weapons to enrich uranium for a nuclear bomb in short order.

00:09:45.280 In a few weeks or a few months, they could do that unless that's changed.

00:09:49.420 With this massive capacity, Iran could make the fuel for an entire nuclear arsenal.

00:09:54.040 And this in a matter of weeks, once it makes that decision.

00:09:58.640 OK, so he said it a lot.

00:10:01.840 And I think a large portion of the American populace is reacting to that in not believing him and not believing him when he says it now and our president acts in response.

00:10:17.360 And clearly, our president is responding to the Israeli intelligence.

00:10:20.740 There was a New York Times report out just this weekend talking about how the Israeli intelligence showed it was it was dated.

00:10:30.720 Actually, this is wait a minute.

00:10:32.060 This is dated last Wednesday.

00:10:34.020 Israeli intelligence was showing that Iran was making cruder and faster efforts to get a nuclear weapon.

00:10:41.560 And the weaker the Iranians got, the closer they were moving to the bomb.

00:10:46.420 In other words, it sounds like it was an act of desperation, like we're going down.

00:10:50.780 We need it now.

00:10:52.300 In terms of the enrichment of uranium, Iran was days away from where it needed to be.

00:10:57.700 But there were other components it still required to complete the weapon.

00:11:01.280 It points out in the same report, however, that contrary to Israeli claims, senior administration officials within the Trump administration were unaware of any new intel showing the Iranians were rushing to build a nuclear bomb.

00:11:14.260 It seems clear to me that Trump was listening to BB's intel and not to our own.

00:11:21.780 And there are flaws with our own because we've had a director of national intelligence, not Tulsi, but we've had an office of DNI that since Obama was there to do one thing.

00:11:33.160 And honestly, the end of George W. Bush, too, to just say Iran doesn't mean it.

00:11:37.480 Iran's not actually going to do a bomb.

00:11:38.880 Don't worry, because there's zero appetite, especially even at the end of Bush to bomb Iran or to get involved in a new Middle East war.

00:11:45.900 And so they use the DNI office for years to be the excuse for not doing anything about it.

00:11:51.620 Oh, there's nothing.

00:11:52.360 Don't worry.

00:11:52.860 They don't really mean it.

00:11:53.480 They're not going to do it.

00:11:54.320 Don't worry.

00:11:54.740 And the Israeli intelligence, and I don't know whether it's real or not, to be honest with you, but it's certainly been consistent, saying they're inches away.

00:12:02.460 And what we saw most recently was the IAEA, which is the International Monitoring Organization when it comes to nuclear behavior, which was going in, though it was given more and more limited access at the Iranian nuclear sites, saying they have 60 percent enriched uranium, which absolutely no domestic energy program needs.

00:12:20.780 You need about 10 percent to do domestic energy or under.

00:12:24.860 You don't need 60.

00:12:25.940 That's they're moving towards a bomb.

00:12:27.500 Absolutely 100 percent.

00:12:29.100 And we're enriching enough energy to have, according to the reports, nine or 10 of them already.

00:12:34.120 We just we were we were pretending we didn't see it.

00:12:37.040 That's my take on it.

00:12:38.640 And not just mine, but many smart experts who've been watching the region because nobody had the appetite for a war with Iran.

00:12:45.200 And President Trump doesn't have the appetite for a war with Iran.

00:12:48.580 There's nothing inconsistent, not one word in the way Trump ran for office and the way he's handled this crisis.

00:12:54.800 He was never an isolationist.

00:12:57.200 I'm sorry he wasn't.

00:12:59.300 Part of MAGA is far more than Trump is.

00:13:02.600 We discussed this when I interviewed Marco Rubio talking about the factions of the party.

00:13:06.660 Trump's got a foot in both camps.

00:13:07.960 And Trump has not been shy about using American power where it made strategic sense.

00:13:14.600 And he thought.

00:13:16.180 That it would well serve the United States.

00:13:19.180 There was a there was a tweet that Noah Pollack put out just this weekend, which is excellent.

00:13:24.600 It reads as follows.

00:13:25.700 This endless war shrieking is ridiculous.

00:13:28.160 Trump bombed the Houthis for six weeks, then ended it.

00:13:30.680 He fought ISIS for around two years, defeated them, then ended it.

00:13:34.540 Trump killed Soleimani and did not engage further.

00:13:36.520 He degraded al-Shabaab in Somalia for three years and then ended it.

00:13:40.560 Trump's record of not dragging us into another endless war is impeccable.

00:13:44.820 There is something in between targeted military strikes and endless war.

00:13:49.500 And Trump and, yes, Netanyahu saw the opportunity for it in bombing the nuclear sites of a now weakened Iran,

00:13:58.700 whose proxies are in no position to fight back the way they would have been even five years ago.

00:14:03.640 So I don't think they have the capacity to respond in the way some are fearing.

00:14:11.060 And I don't think they are.

00:14:13.380 They are inclined to go that route.

00:14:15.200 I know they're martyrs.

00:14:16.400 I know they love the jihad.

00:14:17.980 They hate the infidel.

00:14:19.140 They mean death to America.

00:14:20.400 But I think they understand that escalating this will risk everything they care about.

00:14:27.360 And for sure, from, you know, the Ayatollah's ability to go on, though he's already 86, to the Islamic regime in general.

00:14:37.360 So that's my own back of the envelope take.

00:14:40.920 Now let's bring in somebody who is an expert in warfare and has been studying this whole thing very closely.

00:14:46.700 Victor Davis Hanson, senior fellow of the Hoover Institution and author of The End of Everything.

00:14:51.580 He joins me now.

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00:15:54.000 Victor, so great to see you. Thank you for doing this.

00:15:57.980 Your thoughts on it all.

00:16:00.280 I agree with all of what you said.

00:16:03.140 One thing about the clips with Netanyahu, they were interspliced with actual action.

00:16:08.040 For example, they had the Stupniks virus that destroyed 6,000 enrichment devices.

00:16:15.340 And in addition to that, they had, as long ago as 15 years ago, began assassinating the first generation of nuclear physicists.

00:16:25.520 And then everything slowed down, as we remember, under Trump.

00:16:29.900 He cost them $100 billion in oil revenues by having the embargo and the sanctions.

00:16:35.900 So each time Bibi said that, he was trying to alarm us.

00:16:40.140 That's true.

00:16:40.900 But Israel was taking action, sometimes in concert stealthily with us.

00:16:46.360 I think you're really right about the degraded sense of Iran.

00:16:50.980 If we had said the day after October 7th, with less than two years,

00:16:57.340 the formidable shock troops of the Middle East terrorist corps, Hezbollah, are going to be neutered and humiliated,

00:17:02.900 no one would have believed us if we had said the strongest outpost for Iran as far as a nation-state is Syria,

00:17:11.780 and it's the depot for terrorist munitions, and it's going to be gone, the Assad dynasty is going to be gone.

00:17:18.080 We wouldn't believe you.

00:17:19.160 If somebody had said Russia is going to be out of the Middle East finally after John Kerry and Obama have invited them in,

00:17:26.640 they're going to have no footprint anywhere in the Middle East, and they're going to be bogged down in their own war,

00:17:31.600 no one would have believed this.

00:17:32.780 If we'd said, as you mentioned, the Houthis, which was designated a terrorist organization by Trump in the first term,

00:17:39.220 then that rubric was relieved.

00:17:41.300 If they're going to be sort of inert now, and Hamas is going to be a subterranean remnant,

00:17:46.920 no one would believe this.

00:17:47.980 But the main thing is, no one would have believed this if you said in 20 months,

00:17:53.360 Israeli and American pilots are going to be flying at will all through Iranian airspace.

00:17:58.680 There's going to be no ability to knock anybody down.

00:18:01.220 They have no air defenses, and they basically lost all momentum, if not the program itself, in nuclear acquisition.

00:18:09.780 So it's kind of a surreal—I think a lot of us think when we say forever wars or be careful,

00:18:15.940 we're talking about an Iran in two senses, one pre-October 7th.

00:18:22.480 But even that pre-October 7th had this formidable reputation.

00:18:26.280 But one thing we knew about the Iranians, they weren't popular anywhere in the world.

00:18:31.020 Even the Chinese and Russia, who have a long history of anti-Islamicism,

00:18:36.220 whether it's the destruction of Grozny or, in the case of the Chinese, the Uyghurs,

00:18:40.580 they don't like—they didn't want them really to have a bomb.

00:18:44.040 They were useful, a useful asset, but they didn't incur any goodwill.

00:18:48.600 Nobody liked them.

00:18:50.460 And they were really the reason why the Americans, after the threat of bin Laden faded,

00:18:55.380 why we were even there in the Middle East anymore.

00:18:57.700 It was for all the turmoil.

00:18:59.360 But they had this formidable reputation.

00:19:02.080 You don't dare do—even Ronald Reagan was afraid to really retaliate directly at Iran,

00:19:06.960 who sponsored the Marine barracks murder and the destruction of our embassy in Beirut.

00:19:12.420 And they had this reputation, but it wasn't based on reality.

00:19:15.740 And it was kind of shattered this last two weeks.

00:19:20.340 And I think that we're still stuck with the idea that they can do all of these formidable things.

00:19:25.380 But they actually are in a state of panic right now.

00:19:28.880 And that's—and if—I agree with everything Rubio said and Vance.

00:19:34.460 We don't want to get into nation-building, et cetera, et cetera.

00:19:37.380 Trump has kind of tweaked that a little bit.

00:19:39.660 But I think the biggest danger, just to finish, for the Iranians is the military,

00:19:44.520 because they have taken out the top 20 or 25 generals with the closest ties to theocracy.

00:19:51.200 And everybody else, the subordinate generals, know they're going to be on the list,

00:19:55.100 and their time is coming up.

00:19:56.800 They know that the people of Iran are not only angry but humiliated,

00:20:00.840 that over the last half century almost, they've spent probably a trillion dollars

00:20:05.320 on nuclear acquisition, subterranean enrichment, Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria, the Houthis,

00:20:13.460 and it's all up in smoke.

00:20:14.920 And they're impotent.

00:20:16.060 They're being humiliated every day.

00:20:17.600 So if there's going to be a regime change, and I'm sure it's going to be the people,

00:20:22.280 I think it's going to be somebody in the military who's going to say to the people,

00:20:26.160 we didn't do this, they did, the theocracy did.

00:20:29.320 And I even think that's probably a small chance.

00:20:31.700 But nevertheless, there's a lot of turmoil and a lot of impotence on the part of Iran right now.

00:20:38.080 And it's a very different situation.

00:20:39.780 And we shouldn't be stuck in pre-October 7th Iran fears about what they're going to do.

00:20:45.040 I mean, they're going to try to do something, but it's not going to work.

00:20:48.760 I think that's right.

00:20:50.060 That's exactly right.

00:20:50.700 You can't look at today's Iran and equate it with the Iran of five years ago, even.

00:20:55.280 And when you're equating the possible retaliatory danger, which is what the commander in chief

00:20:59.360 has to factor in, he's he doesn't want to see American troops get killed or American

00:21:03.860 civilians.

00:21:04.380 And, you know, the just the danger has gone down.

00:21:08.880 It's not eliminated and it never will be.

00:21:11.100 And what you're getting now, Victor, what we're at risk of seeing now is these, you know,

00:21:16.240 people who didn't want to see it, some of the more extreme ones.

00:21:20.820 When when and if Iran does anything to retaliate and we suffer any American losses, I told you

00:21:27.260 it, you see, it wasn't worth it.

00:21:30.260 And I just like you can't run a country that way.

00:21:34.200 No, I mean, the last day that Barack Obama was in office on January 19th of 2017, his

00:21:42.720 Parthian shot to us was he unilaterally without congressional authority or consultation sent

00:21:49.200 B-2s, the very same bombers that Trump sent.

00:21:52.480 He sent them all the way to Libya to bomb Libya.

00:21:55.140 And he had been bombing in Libya since 2011, and it didn't result in anything but chaos

00:22:01.680 and destruction and killing.

00:22:03.760 And I had gone to that country in 2007.

00:22:06.800 And whatever we said about this monstrous Gaddafi, his children were starting to take over.

00:22:12.020 And he was anti-Islamic at that point.

00:22:15.280 He wasn't good.

00:22:16.000 He wasn't bad.

00:22:16.660 But it was better than the alternative we have now.

00:22:19.340 No one said a word on the Democrat.

00:22:20.740 Tim Kaine was the head of the Democratic Party, the DNC, I think, in 2015.

00:22:26.440 And he didn't say he had never said a word about any of this.

00:22:29.800 And, you know, you make a good point about the MAGA.

00:22:33.100 They agree.

00:22:34.160 They have good points, but the base that is skeptical.

00:22:36.840 But they agree with 85 percent of the Trump agenda.

00:22:39.980 And they're going they can't go anywhere because the alternative is Democratic insanity.

00:22:44.940 So they're going to they're going to offer criticism.

00:22:47.740 And, you know, Tucker, our friend Tucker, he said in that tumultuous debate with Ted Cruz,

00:22:54.700 he was surprised when Ted Cruz suggested that Tucker might not know that they tried to kill Trump.

00:23:01.100 Well, that alleged Afghan assassin was indicted.

00:23:06.100 He was indicted by the Biden DOJ in November of 2004.

00:23:09.460 And he it's pretty clear the evidence that's mounted that they did try to kill him.

00:23:14.020 And Tucker responded to that by saying, if that were true, I would support nuking Iran.

00:23:18.980 That was what he said.

00:23:20.480 So, I mean, he he he has criticisms, but he he's a Jacksonian in a way, too.

00:23:27.980 And so that's what Trump was.

00:23:29.820 And you're absolutely right.

00:23:30.740 And he never ran on anything other than in a cost of benefit analysis.

00:23:35.060 I'm going to find a way to maintain, preserve and enhance deterrence for the U.S.

00:23:41.040 so we don't have to get in forever wars.

00:23:43.420 And sometimes that means Soleimani.

00:23:46.320 That means Baghdadi.

00:23:47.660 That means ISIS.

00:23:48.740 That means taking out the Wagner group.

00:23:50.980 But these are self-limiting situations that on a cost of benefit analysis help our strategic stability and safety.

00:23:59.000 That's all he was.

00:23:59.820 He never said anything else.

00:24:01.520 He was not an isolationist and he wasn't an interventionist.

00:24:05.260 And I think people forget that about him.

00:24:09.940 The critical left, some on the right now trying to challenge this, like President Trump didn't have the constitutional authorization ability to do that.

00:24:22.920 It's so absurd that not only did he have the right under Article two of the Constitution to drop these bombs.

00:24:31.260 You have a very strong case.

00:24:32.700 He had the duty to do it to protect the homeland.

00:24:36.480 There's actually a very strong argument there.

00:24:38.320 And he 100 percent had the ability under the authorization for the use of military force.

00:24:44.000 Of course, the AUMF that was passed after 9-11 with Congress's approval.

00:24:47.740 That is a congressionally approved document that both sides of the aisle rushed to approve post 9-11, even though they didn't technically we didn't Bush didn't even need it.

00:24:58.040 Then he could do what he needed to do.

00:24:59.500 We've been attacked.

00:25:00.100 So that's still in place.

00:25:02.440 And it allows the commander in chief to respond to any threats, including anticipated threats.

00:25:07.160 And there's no requirement that it be imminent, none whatsoever.

00:25:10.340 So it'd be great to update that for the more modern day warfare we're facing and like how it's all weird, you know, insurrectionists who aren't exactly, you know, necessarily state sponsored in all cases.

00:25:20.960 Andy McCarthy makes a great point on this in his own podcast, which everyone should listen to it from this past Friday.

00:25:24.840 But there's no question that this was authorized and was not extra legal in any way, Victor.

00:25:30.860 No.

00:25:31.440 And there was de facto precedent.

00:25:33.300 Obama used predator drone assassinations constantly.

00:25:36.980 And even he even joked about it.

00:25:39.060 The White House correspondents, he said, if anybody wants to date my daughters, be careful.

00:25:42.660 It's called predator.

00:25:43.800 It was kind of a sick joke.

00:25:45.480 And then, of course, we had John Brennan, who lied under oath.

00:25:48.640 And then when he was asked, are you killing collaterally?

00:25:52.060 And well, no, we haven't killed.

00:25:53.580 And then he had to retract that and apologize for perjuring himself.

00:25:57.400 And then we get into Joe Biden.

00:25:59.080 I mean, there were 300 attacks essentially all over the Middle East that he didn't respond to.

00:26:03.400 But finally, he did a little bit, four or five times.

00:26:05.980 But he did.

00:26:06.980 No one on the left said, you can't hit back or you can't preempt unless you have congressional authority.

00:26:13.980 So, and the same thing with the Houthis, both Biden and Trump.

00:26:17.680 But Biden anemically responded or preempted and attacked the Houthis.

00:26:22.340 So, it's kind of, I mean, there used to be a Democrat, there used to be people within the Democratic Party that were to the right of Donald Trump, believe it or not.

00:26:33.200 You can see those old clips of Hillary Clinton ask when she was contemplating a run for the presidency, what would you do about Iran and the nuclear?

00:26:41.380 She said, it sounds horrible, but I would obliterate it if they were getting a bomb.

00:26:46.400 And I'm not condoning what she said, but that was a strong wing of the Democratic Party.

00:26:52.680 And that is completely vanished now.

00:26:55.380 And partly because there's kind of a nihilism, not a kind of, there is a nihilism now in the Democratic Party.

00:27:01.740 Whatever Donald Trump says or does, it has to be evil and stopped at all costs.

00:27:07.360 And the result of that extremism is they become characters of themselves.

00:27:11.380 They really have.

00:27:12.800 They're not serious.

00:27:13.420 Andy pointing out in his own podcast the following that there was an 1863 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, note the timing, that if the United States is under threat from an external force, the president has the duty, the duty to act and to use whatever force is necessary to protect the homeland.

00:27:33.240 That's that's a constitutional interpretation long before the AUMF, then came the AUMF, which made very clear that any organization that aided the attacks or those who perpetrated them and any move necessary to prevent future attacks on the United States is authorized by this congressionally approved document.

00:27:54.620 Congress has the power to declare war.

00:27:57.240 We're not doing that.

00:27:58.700 In fact, we're doing exactly the opposite.

00:28:00.980 The New York Times came out with a headline the night of the bombings that read it was America enters war with Iran.

00:28:10.840 Well, that's not that's not quite right.

00:28:12.940 New York Times and J.D. Vance clarified it, Victor, by saying we're not at war with Iran.

00:28:17.680 We did not go to Congress.

00:28:19.320 We did not need to do that because we're not declaring war in Iran.

00:28:22.440 We're doing targeted strikes.

00:28:24.220 And you just made reference to it, Victor.

00:28:25.900 But here's just a little montage of Barack Obama doing exactly the same.

00:28:30.360 I don't remember AOC or the likes of AOC demanding that he be impeached, as we're seeing now.

00:28:36.340 But here's just a montage of him and his military strikes strikes and him talking about them.

00:28:41.160 Last night, on my orders, America's armed forces began strikes against ISIL targets in Syria.

00:28:48.140 Today, at my direction, the United States launched a targeted operation against that compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

00:28:57.100 Today, I authorized the armed forces of the United States to begin a limited military action in Libya in support of an international effort to protect Libyan civilians.

00:29:09.180 What? Libya? This is what you're pointing out? Like, Libya? What? To protect Libyan civilians?

00:29:15.820 What? Spare me.

00:29:18.300 The viability of any operation, you can judge by the poverty or the persuadedness of the critics.

00:29:29.300 And so as you start to look at all these different critics, the Arab world, everybody said the Arab world would go up in flames.

00:29:34.620 But what's happening in the Arab world was on spec that they're privately communicating to the Iranians who are right across the Gulf.

00:29:43.360 We didn't have anything to do with this. We're innocent.

00:29:45.760 Then they have public announcements that they deplore the escalation.

00:29:50.420 They would like calm.

00:29:51.260 And then they're privately, frantically saying to us and the Israelis, if you're going to do this, please end it.

00:29:57.620 Don't leave a wounded Iran on our doorstep.

00:30:00.260 So we support you only if you destroy their complete nuclear program and defang them.

00:30:06.540 Then you look at China and Russia.

00:30:09.000 China, they get 80 percent of their pre-embargoed oil.

00:30:12.560 They buy 80 percent of Iran's oil.

00:30:15.180 They get 50 percent from the Gulf.

00:30:16.840 The last thing in the world they want is any more upheaval.

00:30:20.600 So they're not saying anything other than everybody calm down.

00:30:23.920 Russia, there's tide down in Ukraine, and they're just the opposite.

00:30:30.160 They don't really mind that there's turmoil because every time there is, the price of Russian oil goes up and they profit.

00:30:36.720 And so Medved has said all these crazy things that maybe somebody will give a new – that's his – he's just kind of a bulldog.

00:30:43.160 Just to tell the audience, Medved, who used to be president during, like, the two years Putin couldn't be, has come out to say, well, you know, we'll just give him a nuke now.

00:30:50.800 We'll give him a nuke now.

00:30:51.720 Go ahead.

00:30:52.000 And he's not going to do that because he knows that Australia and South Korea and Taiwan and Japan could have nukes in one week if they wanted.

00:30:59.600 And they would all work much better than the Iranians.

00:31:01.800 And we're the only people who really tell them you're under the nuclear shield.

00:31:05.720 If we had said tomorrow we can't protect you countries, we suggest you go nuclear in the way that North Korea went nuclear with its patent China, they would go ballistic.

00:31:16.240 So they're not going to – there's no real threat there.

00:31:19.300 And everybody said they're going to have World War III.

00:31:21.420 It's not going to happen.

00:31:22.500 And then you've mentioned the American left.

00:31:24.660 They don't have a persuasive argument.

00:31:26.540 They're contradictory.

00:31:27.940 They're hypocritical.

00:31:28.920 Well, the MAGA people, I think we've all said that they have some legitimate concerns, but they're not going to turn on Donald Trump.

00:31:37.500 They understand that what he did and what he represents and what he will do is in line with 85 percent of the things they say.

00:31:44.700 And so they're going to voice their complaints and then they're going to get back in the fold.

00:31:49.980 Because, Victor, the reality is like you – as burned as many people feel in this country from Iraq and Afghanistan,

00:31:56.120 the reality is Donald Trump has a country to run and to keep safe.

00:32:00.740 And you cannot wave off ongoing and future dangers out of fear of the so-called forever war or because we made bad decisions in the past.

00:32:12.980 You have to factor those in and allow them to, you know, shape what I want and what I don't want out of this.

00:32:18.000 But you can't just cower in fear and Neville Chamberlain your way through foreign policy for the next 30 years because of those two awful outcomes.

00:32:27.820 No, and they're not at all synonymous or even close to what he's doing.

00:32:32.340 And the Democrats, I mean, if we had this conversation three weeks ago, they were using the opposite argument.

00:32:38.220 They were calling him a taco.

00:32:39.480 Trump always chickens out.

00:32:41.940 He gives deadlines.

00:32:43.300 He gives threats about use of force and terrorists.

00:32:47.020 And then he always chickens out.

00:32:48.680 That whole smear is completely vaporized now.

00:32:52.000 Nobody's even talking about taco.

00:32:54.660 So it's whatever they throw, whatever they think might stick.

00:32:58.380 But the only real essential question is, is the world at large and the United States in particular safer now or before Trump did this?

00:33:09.680 And I think it's clear that the Iranians may try to redo it, but they don't have any physicists.

00:33:16.620 They don't have command and control.

00:33:18.300 They don't have the infrastructure to do it for years.

00:33:20.420 And more importantly, people say, well, they can do it.

00:33:23.180 They can rebuild.

00:33:24.040 Well, if you have a normal president, he can do the same thing much more easily than they can rebuild again.

00:33:30.340 And he can do it again.

00:33:31.700 He can just say to them, in five years, if you do this, we're going to have even bigger bunker busters.

00:33:36.520 And we'll do it again because we do not want you to destroy the Middle East in the way that you've done.

00:33:42.420 And so we have a lot more options and we have a lot more assets and capability if we have the right president there.

00:33:51.540 And the weird thing about it is, Megan, finally, is that each one of those clips that you showed of Barack Obama was kind of a machismo, I'm the tough guy, under my order, I did this.

00:34:04.560 And they all accused Trump of that.

00:34:07.320 But he was the only president, and I'm not just trying to defend him, but when he talked about Ukraine or Iran, he was the only one in my lifetime who said, the first thing he said, this is a complete waste of human life.

00:34:19.580 This killing is terrible. We're killing all these young people.

00:34:22.960 And when they said, why didn't you hit after Soleimani?

00:34:25.720 He said, I didn't want to kill a bunch of people.

00:34:28.080 And then they said, why didn't you hit them after Saudi?

00:34:30.540 I didn't want to kill them.

00:34:31.780 And then when he said, we're not at war with it.

00:34:33.680 We don't want to kill Iranians.

00:34:34.880 We don't want to hit civilian targets.

00:34:36.240 It was very ironic that the so-called warmonger, maybe it's because of Builder, and he thinks that as a Builder, it makes no sense to blow things up, you should build.

00:34:45.900 But maybe he's actually a humanitarian beneath all of that crude verbiage and braggadocio in a way that so-called suave humanitarian community organizer Obama wasn't.

00:34:59.640 He was actually kind of boasting that he had, and that's why he joked about killing people with predators.

00:35:05.260 And he thought it was kind of, I don't know, he was very insensitive to the effects of what he did.

00:35:10.800 And Trump actually is much more worried about killing people for no reason.

00:35:16.160 And you saw the same insensitivity with Biden.

00:35:18.120 Trump met, he met with Steve Bannon, he met with Charlie Kirk, he met with his, part of his base.

00:35:23.780 Yeah, he and Tucker's, like, Trump did hear out the other side.

00:35:27.160 He just decided against them.

00:35:28.780 No, he didn't.

00:35:29.620 And you saw the same thing in Afghanistan with Biden, that we had the Marines killed.

00:35:33.080 Nobody really, I mean, Biden looked at his watch.

00:35:36.220 And people, and it was all, and then we killed an innocent, you know, this was, I think Milley said this was a righteous hit.

00:35:43.100 And we killed a family of Afghans, and he was calling it righteous strike until he had to withdraw that.

00:35:49.660 So this idea that Trump, they're calling him a war criminal, he's the first president that actually, he measures very, he would have never attacked, whether you support him or oppose him, he would have never attacked Iran on the day that Israel did.

00:36:07.220 He waited until their assets were attrited.

00:36:11.320 And the weird thing about it is, everybody said, we're the puppet of baby Netanyahu.

00:36:17.040 The Israelis were the ones that destroyed Hamas, they destroyed the capabilities of Hezbollah, they created the conditions under which the Assad dynasty evaporated.

00:36:29.360 They hit the ports, they hit the airfields of the Houthis, they destroyed the Iranian defenses, they depleted a lot of their missiles.

00:36:37.080 And after that, we went in.

00:36:40.620 And the result of that is, because that had happened, the ability of all of these terrorist tentacles to hit us is much less than it would be otherwise.

00:36:50.740 Yes, Trump's detractors want us to believe he just wanted in on the action.

00:36:55.340 He saw Bibi with all these military accomplishments, and he wanted to glom on, that's not it at all.

00:37:01.580 Trump is, he cares about American personnel.

00:37:04.900 He cares about Americans.

00:37:05.820 He doesn't want, for both humanitarian and political reasons, a bunch of Americans getting killed on foreign bases or domestically.

00:37:13.060 It was, Bibi created a runway that was far more clear for U.S. action than I think even Trump expected.

00:37:23.320 That, plus the weakening of all their proxies.

00:37:25.820 I think Trump had a discussion with him.

00:37:27.580 I think he said, you know what, this is your existential enemy right on your doorstep.

00:37:33.020 We're going to help you, but we don't like to help.

00:37:35.800 We've been burned by allies that don't help themselves.

00:37:38.680 So show me what you're going to do.

00:37:40.280 And he did, and then he said, at some point, and it was kind of smart to say, we're going to have a one to 14-day window,

00:37:46.720 because it reified the idea that he could carry out a threat, because they were saying at that time, he's just talking, he won't do it.

00:37:53.940 And he knew that each day he waited, the window of surprise was closing.

00:37:58.480 It gave him time to assemble the assets.

00:38:00.720 It showed that he wanted to negotiate.

00:38:03.360 He gave a window for, if it was possible, for Israel maybe to take out.

00:38:09.040 And he waited and waited.

00:38:10.980 And still an off-ramp, still an off-ramp, if the Ayatollah would take it.

00:38:14.720 And he wouldn't take it.

00:38:16.160 And Trump said publicly, I get the feeling that they are jerking us around, which clearly they were.

00:38:22.080 I've got to ask you quickly, Victor, because I know we're up against the clock.

00:38:25.040 Yeah.

00:38:25.900 Just a minute, because I know you study this stuff for a living, the magnificence of the American military.

00:38:33.840 And I get it.

00:38:35.200 I understand people are like, we just, we had fancy tools and we wanted to use them.

00:38:39.220 No, it was so much more complex than that.

00:38:41.280 But it was, from my standpoint, beautifully executed by the Pentagon.

00:38:47.120 I tip my hat to Pete Hegseth, who has come under withering fire for the first four months of the administration.

00:38:52.560 But not a word leaked out of this.

00:38:54.380 The Pentagon went into lockdown.

00:38:56.320 It didn't leak.

00:38:57.140 Our boys, yes, the New York Times and Jennifer Griffin of Fox got upset that Pete used the term, our boys, because apparently there was one female pilot.

00:39:05.300 I guarantee you, she's a tough badass who doesn't give two shits whether they're referred to as boys.

00:39:11.500 Went over there and got business taken care of.

00:39:14.060 Here is just a bit from Pete Hegseth, an oppressor yesterday morning at 8, talking about how it was done.

00:39:19.480 Iran is certainly calculating the reality that planes flew from the middle of America and Missouri overnight, completely undetected over three of their most highly sensitive sites.

00:39:32.980 And we were able to destroy nuclear capabilities.

00:39:36.540 And our boys in those bombers are on their way home right now.

00:39:40.480 We believe that will have a clear psychological impact on how they view the future.

00:39:44.860 And we certainly hope they take the path of negotiated peace.

00:39:47.560 Your thoughts on that piece of it, Victor?

00:39:50.440 Well, I mean, if you were a stranger from a strange land and somebody told you that they're going to take off from a base in Missouri, and then they're going to refuel several times and fly 7,000 miles for 16 hours.

00:40:03.560 And then they're going to drop these huge 30,000-pound bombs through a hole the size of, or a target the size of a kitchen table.

00:40:10.600 And as they get into Iranian airspace, they're going to meet fighter escort, and they're only going to be there 25 minutes.

00:40:18.560 And then they're going to go all the way back.

00:40:20.620 And the defense secretary, who has been accused of having aides that leak, leak, leak, leak, is not going to know anything about it because there were reporters at the Missouri base just waiting to see those things.

00:40:34.500 And then this elaborate ruse, not just that they were going to Guam, but apparently three of them peeled off to go to Guam.

00:40:40.920 It was brilliantly planned. There was no leaks. And it's a funny kind of forever war when no Americans are killed on the first day of hostilities, and apparently very few Iranians and probably no Iranian civilians.

00:40:57.560 So everything about it was professional. And I think it reflects in a way, we don't talk about it, but if we had this conversation a year ago, Megan, we were 35,000 to 45,000 recruits down in the military.

00:41:13.960 And the military was not honest with us, the Obama generals, excuse me, the Biden hierarchy.

00:41:20.000 They were saying, oh, it's because people are out of shape or they're in gang activity or we have to compete with private.

00:41:26.660 It wasn't. It was a sense of DEI and weaponization of the Pentagon and Lloyd Austin, Mark Milley testimonies, the humiliation in Afghanistan and the particular demographic that had traditionally generation after generation joined the military and had died at double their numbers in the demographic and at Iraq and Afghanistan.

00:41:50.000 At the point of the spear in combat, they weren't doing it. They just said, you know what, I'm not going to send my grandson to go over the end of the Pentagon and be indoctrinated and have all the DEI and I'm just not going to do it.

00:42:04.200 And then go to a place like Helmand and be on the front lines and be ridiculed as a white racist or they're not going to do it.

00:42:11.060 And that's all ended now. And there's a sense that the military is back to its original mission, which is battlefield efficacy.

00:42:20.000 And I think it's really improved the morale of the military. And I think they know they're going to get the weapons they need.

00:42:26.020 Yeah. Very proud of them. That was perfectly executed.

00:42:30.180 I mean, not for nothing, but I'm on our way over to Greece. It was like a very long flight.

00:42:34.200 For the first time, I finally got around to watching Top Gun Maverick, which so many people have been pointing this out, but I get the references now.

00:42:41.660 But it was, it was like the mission in Top Gun Maverick was basically the mission that our guys just had to do.

00:42:48.400 It's very eerie in the way that movie Contagion with Matt Damon and Gwyneth Paltrow really like completely nailed what would happen during the COVID-19 lockdowns.

00:42:57.380 I know it. I know it.

00:42:57.920 This movie completely predicted our military situation.

00:43:01.040 Yeah. The thing about, you said, just finishing, you mentioned that there was an anger that they didn't, they said boys instead of women.

00:43:08.900 If she was, I think she was the only female pilot in the B-1 program that was.

00:43:13.100 Yes.

00:43:13.360 You know that if there is such a thing as Iranian terrorist cells, you wouldn't want to be identified as the only woman.

00:43:23.280 That wouldn't be too hard to find.

00:43:25.000 You could go on the internet and say, which woman, is there a woman in the B-2 program and find her name?

00:43:30.460 So, I mean, that would be silly to identify who she was.

00:43:34.180 It's just ridiculous.

00:43:35.020 These people on the left have, you can't say you guys anymore if there's a woman in the crowd.

00:43:39.060 Well, guess what?

00:43:39.660 We do and we don't want to be lectured.

00:43:41.320 All right, quickly, regime change.

00:43:44.520 President Trump sent out a tweet last night saying, you know, well, what if, what if, why wouldn't they want regime change?

00:43:49.900 You know, if this current leadership stays the way it is, my God, make Iran great again.

00:43:54.900 Then today, Caroline Levitt went on Fox and said, basically, he was talking about an initiative from the Iranian people.

00:44:01.580 The president believes the Iranian people can control their own destiny.

00:44:05.140 J.D. Vance, Marco Rubio, both made clear, we're not interested in regime change.

00:44:09.020 I haven't heard Netanyahu sign on to that.

00:44:13.180 So what do you think is likely to happen when it comes to possible regime change?

00:44:17.020 Yeah, I think what the confusion was with the aim of the mission versus the consequence.

00:44:21.740 It wasn't the aim of the mission, but if that was a consequence, Trump had said, I'm not going to oppose it just because that wasn't my intention.

00:44:27.780 I would welcome it if that's a consequence.

00:44:31.500 Real quickly, we've, you know, we had the Green Revolution in 2009.

00:44:36.540 Obama sat mute for 11 days.

00:44:39.400 It was crushed.

00:44:42.040 It's kind of like the Aesop's fable of bellying the cat.

00:44:45.200 The mice want to be warned when he comes, but the first mouse who does it's going to get killed.

00:44:49.480 No one volunteers.

00:44:50.260 So it's very hard to protest because it's a terrorist police state.

00:44:55.700 That said, as I said earlier, I think there's a lot of military people that are now going to come into positions of command and control to replace the most obsequious pro-Iranian.

00:45:08.540 And not that they won't be themselves, but they know they're going to be targeted to be killed.

00:45:12.740 They know that people are angry, that they've been humiliated.

00:45:15.260 If you're an Iranian and you're walking the streets of Tehran and you look at and there's a mushroom-shaped conventional bomb cloud at Qom or Natanz or anywhere near you, or you see pictures of it, and then you say to yourself, those were billions of dollars that we never had for streets, for sewage, for water, for health care.

00:45:36.020 And then you hear about Hamas and Hezbollah getting all this money and becoming completely ineffective and impotent.

00:45:44.380 It's one thing to waste money, but it's another thing to waste money and be humiliated in the process.

00:45:49.740 And they've been humiliated, the military and the theocracy.

00:45:52.720 And I think a lot of people in the military are going to start pointing fingers at somebody and saying the people are very, very angry, and we can't protect them when we were impotent.

00:46:02.220 But it was the other people who were killed, and it was the theocracy.

00:46:06.360 And the longer that Khamenei is in seclusion and not visible, it's going to be very hard for him because he's in a Nasrallah, lose-lose.

00:46:16.340 Nasrallah did that, and finally people were saying, is he chicken that he wants us to get killed?

00:46:21.000 And then when he started to communicate with people, he was killed.

00:46:24.400 He was killed.

00:46:25.120 And I think he knows if he keeps hitting Israel, they're going to kill him.

00:46:30.660 The Israelis will, if he keeps doing it.

00:46:32.900 And he knows that.

00:46:35.000 And by the way, just the whole talk of like, if there's regime change, they're going to descend into civil war.

00:46:41.160 We're getting ahead of ourselves.

00:46:42.440 We're not pushing for regime change.

00:46:44.260 We're not.

00:46:44.780 I think Trump, Caroline made that clear.

00:46:47.740 His tweet was ambiguous, and she's cleared it up.

00:46:50.040 And all of his top emissaries are saying, it's a no, that's not our thing.

00:46:53.280 I mean, yeah, we didn't break it, so let's go slow.

00:46:58.080 Yeah.

00:46:58.720 Yeah.

00:46:59.540 Let's go slow, and we'll cross that bridge when we get closer to it.

00:47:02.600 We broke the nuclear program, but we didn't break the society itself.

00:47:05.660 It's their business to do what they want.

00:47:08.560 Victor, so glad you made the time for us this morning.

00:47:11.080 It's wonderful speaking to you.

00:47:12.320 Thank you for being here.

00:47:13.140 Thank you.

00:47:13.940 Thank you.

00:47:14.980 Didn't you want to hear from him?

00:47:16.000 I was dying to hear from him so, so much on this.

00:47:19.900 There's a lot more to go over.

00:47:21.080 There are a lot of political implications to all of this, and there's other news, too.

00:47:25.020 And there's also the launch of a new MK Media show with Emily Jashinsky, who I know you guys

00:47:30.180 love, and so do we.

00:47:31.160 She is the host of the newest one.

00:47:32.560 It's called After Party with Emily Jashinsky.

00:47:35.300 It's going to air live.

00:47:36.660 It's going to be our first live streaming show on YouTube, and we'll be right back with her.

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00:48:45.300 We're talking Trump and Iran, the MAGA moment, and more with the next MK Media Podcast Network

00:48:50.860 star, Emily Jaschinski.

00:48:53.580 You know Emily, of course, well.

00:48:54.940 She's been on this show more than nearly any other guest, 35 times, actually.

00:49:00.380 You know, her is one half of the lovely EJs, and now she's got her own show on the MK Media

00:49:06.420 Network.

00:49:08.420 It's called After Party with Emily Jaschinski.

00:49:09.900 What's different about this one, among other things, is it's going to be live on YouTube.

00:49:14.600 It's our very first streaming show at 10 p.m.

00:49:17.340 Eastern, and it premieres tonight.

00:49:20.420 Here's a taste of the trailer.

00:49:22.640 Hey, everyone.

00:49:23.360 It's Emily Jaschinski, your host for an exclusive After Party.

00:49:27.060 And the VIP guest is you.

00:49:28.480 Starting June 23rd, I'm inviting you into my home twice a week for an exciting new show

00:49:33.340 direct from MK Media.

00:49:35.260 It promises to be something that's largely lacking in the conservative space.

00:49:39.400 A free-form, unfiltered, authentic conversation about pop culture and the news after the sun

00:49:44.420 goes down.

00:49:45.280 Don't bullshit us.

00:49:46.800 You are not brave.

00:49:48.100 We'll talk big picture politics.

00:49:50.000 Whatever consultant came up with that was actually onto something, even if their idea was wasted

00:49:54.040 on a doomed candidate.

00:49:56.020 Media.

00:49:56.480 So even by their own objectives, they're too dumb.

00:50:01.240 Current trends.

00:50:03.240 And we'll share a lot of laughs, too.

00:50:06.720 It appears that he has been completely outsourcing his business to a 24-year-old who's, like, to

00:50:13.720 put it crassly, sleeping with him.

00:50:15.540 After Party with Emily Jaschinski, the late-night show you didn't ask for, but won't forget.

00:50:21.000 That's amazing.

00:50:22.360 So excited.

00:50:23.480 Okay, don't forget.

00:50:24.220 But it's live tonight on YouTube, 10 p.m. Eastern.

00:50:27.880 And her first guest is our pal Tucker Carlson.

00:50:31.520 You heard his name mentioned a couple times in the first hour.

00:50:33.500 He's all over the news these days.

00:50:34.660 So a great guest.

00:50:35.720 Again, that'll be live.

00:50:36.900 So uncensored, unfiltered, and breaking.

00:50:40.540 Go ahead and subscribe now on YouTube and on all podcasts and social platforms to support

00:50:45.580 and enjoy Emily's show, AfterPartyEmily.com, AfterPartyEmily.com.

00:50:52.180 EJ, congrats.

00:50:54.100 Great to see you.

00:50:55.060 And how excited are you for tonight?

00:50:56.920 I'm so excited.

00:50:58.220 Thank you so much for your support.

00:51:00.020 I'm really grateful.

00:51:00.860 I can't believe your team counted how many times I've been on the show.

00:51:04.120 Oh, it's just an incredible number, 35 times.

00:51:08.280 That's how much we love.

00:51:10.140 It's amazing.

00:51:10.840 Oh, my gosh.

00:51:11.280 Every time it just makes my day.

00:51:12.640 So thank you.

00:51:13.560 Really excited and so excited to have Tucker on.

00:51:16.180 Could not think of possibly a better guest to jump on live tonight.

00:51:20.380 So we're really excited.

00:51:21.420 Yes, yes, that'll kick it off with a bang.

00:51:24.500 And it'll be great to hear him respond to, you know, him being in the news so much over

00:51:28.760 the past week.

00:51:29.680 He's obviously had his own show, but it's different when you get to ask him and he's

00:51:33.340 very forthcoming.

00:51:34.140 I think you guys will have a great exchange.

00:51:35.320 I'm looking forward to watching it.

00:51:37.660 OK, you're going to have a lot to talk about right now.

00:51:40.540 There's news breaking out of the White House.

00:51:42.140 President Trump, we believe right now, is in the situation room dealing with what looks

00:51:46.220 like Iranian retaliation against not one, but so far two.

00:51:49.980 This is one oh three p.m. in the afternoon.

00:51:52.920 We are recording this.

00:51:54.040 It's live on Sirius XM Triumph Channel 111 attacks on our bases.

00:51:57.780 Iran has launched six ballistic missiles at U.S. bases in Qatar, according to open source

00:52:03.980 intel.

00:52:04.500 The New York Times saying, per Jonathan Swan, a senior White House official confirms they're

00:52:08.840 aware of a potential attack by Iran against the American base in Qatar.

00:52:12.440 Quote, the White House and the Defense, the Department of Defense are aware of and closely

00:52:15.840 monitoring potential threats to Al-Udeed Air Base in Qatar.

00:52:20.520 In addition, open source intel reporting explosions reported at U.S. Al-Assad Air Base in Western

00:52:28.600 Iraq and also reporting, quoting the IRGC, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, Operation Fatah's

00:52:38.280 blessing against the American Al-Udeed Base in Qatar has begun.

00:52:43.800 The New York Times' Eric Schmidt goes on, the main base in Qatar, Al-Udeed Air Base, the

00:52:49.260 forward headquarters of U.S.

00:52:50.360 CENTCOM, has 10,000 military and civilian personnel.

00:52:54.260 It's heavily fortified by an array of air defenses that have been on high alert in recent

00:52:58.500 days anticipating an Iranian retaliatory attack.

00:53:02.500 This is posted by Breaking 9-1-1, an online news source purporting to be air defenses seen

00:53:09.060 activated over Doha, Qatar after Iran fired a barrage of missiles at it, likely targeting

00:53:14.540 again the Al-Udeed Air Base where U.S. forces are stationed.

00:53:19.280 Let's watch.

00:53:19.660 I don't know what the protections are over our air bases.

00:53:49.280 In these areas, you've got to think that the United States, which is largely responsible

00:53:54.940 for Iron Dome over Israel to begin with, has done as much to protect American troops at

00:53:59.340 these outposts, these air base in Qatar and Iraq.

00:54:02.660 But we will see.

00:54:03.840 Now, this is also just coming through.

00:54:06.940 Hold on.

00:54:08.760 Alarms have been reported at Ali al-Salem Air Base in Kuwait.

00:54:13.040 But yeah, so one in Bahrain, one in Kuwait.

00:54:20.100 Reports of three direct hits on the U.S. base in Qatar, reports Charlie Kirk.

00:54:24.440 No initial reports of U.S. casualties.

00:54:27.680 Let's pray that's true.

00:54:29.640 So we're seeing the Iranian response right now, or at least the beginning of it.

00:54:33.480 Emily, what do you make of it?

00:54:35.200 Well, yeah, that last question is really critical.

00:54:37.020 No casualties so far.

00:54:38.560 So right now, the question is whether this is a kind of carefully choreographed back and

00:54:45.380 forth between the United States and Iran.

00:54:47.980 If Iran responds in a way that does not, for example, kill American troops, then perhaps

00:54:56.020 a larger conflagration can still be avoided.

00:54:58.920 I tend to think the possibility of that is tragically very low.

00:55:02.420 And I'm still incredibly, deeply concerned about the risks to the lives of Americans.

00:55:08.700 There are 40,000 American troops in the region.

00:55:10.900 So if Iran has its nuclear program almost totally destroyed, that's also a critical question.

00:55:17.900 I know you talked about that earlier in the show.

00:55:19.780 But if that happens, they've spent decades building this up.

00:55:23.660 What do we expect from them retaliation-wise?

00:55:25.980 Do we expect them to actually come to the negotiating table?

00:55:28.580 Or do we expect them to escalate with more and more military strikes?

00:55:32.480 And then if Americans die in all of this, you can expect a much more robust response from

00:55:39.920 the American president, from the American military.

00:55:42.240 And that's where this becomes an all-out war.

00:55:46.580 So what's happening right now is, I mean, basically we're seeing the future of this conflict in real

00:55:52.500 time, depending on the reports that we're getting in minute by minute right now to determine

00:55:56.820 whether or not this escalates.

00:55:59.380 I mean, this is, of course, the concern that the, you know, J.D.

00:56:03.920 Vance says, we're not at war with Iran.

00:56:05.540 We're at war with their nuclear program.

00:56:07.560 The thing is, Iran has a say.

00:56:10.060 They have a say in that.

00:56:11.440 And if they don't just accept that we blew up their nuclear program, or at least most of

00:56:15.980 it, and they fight back by doing things like this, and American blood and treasure is

00:56:21.000 spilled, military or not.

00:56:23.660 I mean, civilian is next level because, of course, you know, it's not that we're OK with

00:56:27.440 our military getting killed, but it's a different matter to kill American civilians, which we

00:56:31.620 did not do in targeting around nuclear sites.

00:56:35.900 Then, yeah, the president's got to respond.

00:56:38.220 Our president's got to respond, even though we know Trump doesn't want war with Iran.

00:56:41.420 I believe in that he doesn't want war with Iran, but he's not going to sit back and not

00:56:44.340 respond.

00:56:46.300 Right.

00:56:46.880 And yeah, exactly.

00:56:47.840 That's and that's where it's if you're the American president, you have to respond, even

00:56:53.320 if you have dubs in your ear saying this is the time to get to the negotiating table and

00:56:58.480 this is the time for peace.

00:56:59.980 Well, if you are somebody who believes in the doctrine of peace through strength, which

00:57:04.040 Donald Trump absolutely does, then you're going to feel as though you have no choice

00:57:07.940 but to retaliate.

00:57:09.600 And especially if the lives of American soldiers or, God forbid, American civilians are lost.

00:57:14.480 And so what we're looking at right now over Qatar and Kuwait is critical.

00:57:19.080 There's also potentially now that Iran has been damaged very heavily on the military level,

00:57:25.260 the potential for attacks on the homeland domestically.

00:57:29.220 There's a potential for sleeper cells to be activated in the United States, certainly

00:57:34.100 because Iran now has to rely on asymmetric warfare, given the attacks that they have faced from

00:57:40.020 Israel and the United States in the last couple of weeks.

00:57:41.920 So this is a really, really dangerous time.

00:57:44.340 And not just as we're looking at those images of what's happening over the skies of Kuwait

00:57:49.000 and Qatar.

00:57:49.880 This is a very, very dangerous time throughout the entire world.

00:57:54.520 And we're just again, we're waiting minute by minute, kind of bracing ourselves to see

00:57:58.320 what comes of this, because we could end up just in the next couple of days into a full

00:58:04.020 blown sort of post 9-11 war.

00:58:06.520 Obviously, things are different.

00:58:07.320 It's not apples to apples with Iraq or Afghanistan, but this could escalate into something that

00:58:12.380 looks much more familiar to us very soon.

00:58:15.120 I just don't know how Iran's going to do that.

00:58:17.620 They've just been so hobbled by Israel.

00:58:22.260 And I believe that they will launch things like this against the air bases in the region

00:58:27.140 to try to make a point.

00:58:28.120 But their ability to continue this on and on, highly questionable.

00:58:32.480 I mean, Israel's taken out all of their top commanders of the IRGC, certainly of their

00:58:39.260 nuclear program.

00:58:40.580 They've cut off the head of every single snake growing militarily in Iran.

00:58:45.620 It's going to be a very difficult matter for them to conduct any sort of ongoing warfare

00:58:50.060 against anyone, never mind the United States of America.

00:58:54.380 I hope so.

00:58:56.660 And I actually, I think the best case scenario of all of this, the best case scenario of

00:59:00.960 the strikes, and again, I'm sort of in the position where I was like, I hope that I'm

00:59:04.340 proven wrong when the strikes were launched, because to me, it seemed like a, it's a smaller

00:59:09.440 percentage possibility that what happens from all of this is we see retaliatory strikes

00:59:14.880 like we see right now.

00:59:15.780 There are no American casualties, no American deaths, and Iran ends up at the negotiating

00:59:20.560 table.

00:59:21.080 Um, I am one of the people that believed that was a smaller possibility, but if that's actually

00:59:25.840 what plays out, uh, then that really is the best case scenario.

00:59:29.160 Then you do end up going to the negotiating table because Iran realizes that, as you said,

00:59:33.980 I mean, the head of Hezbollah, the head of Hamas, uh, Israel has absolutely done significant

00:59:39.120 damage, uh, to Iran's operations, terrorist operation worldwide.

00:59:43.560 And inside Iran too, not, not just the proxies, but inside Iran with respect to the, uh, revolutionary

00:59:49.920 guard.

00:59:50.420 I mean, it's, they, they, they did their homework on who is running Iran's military program.

00:59:56.240 And those people are almost all dead.

00:59:59.360 And, you know, the Ayatollahs in hiding and not communicating with anybody, like they're

01:00:04.020 not in a strong position.

01:00:05.500 This is the one thing they do have.

01:00:07.040 They have ballistic missiles and you can thank Barack Obama for that.

01:00:10.760 By the way, this is Barack Obama's doing.

01:00:13.680 He's the one with his ridiculous Iran agreement who made sure they would have access to their

01:00:19.200 ballistic missiles.

01:00:20.080 The same agreement that Tommy Veeder and these other pod save America guys are out there praising

01:00:26.700 like it was going to set us on the road to peace until the evil Trump blew it up when he became

01:00:32.060 president in term one.

01:00:33.200 But that's what we're watching rain down on our guys right now.

01:00:36.100 Emily, just adding to this again, sourcing open source Intel, which has been right about

01:00:41.000 everything so far.

01:00:42.340 That doesn't mean they're always right.

01:00:43.340 I don't exactly understand how it works.

01:00:45.420 Sirens continue to sound at U.S. bases across the Middle East, including in Syria, Iraq,

01:00:52.060 Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE and Oman.

01:00:55.980 Now, that would make sense because when one of our bases in the region is under attack or

01:00:59.900 possibly two, they would be sounding the alarm at all of them, getting everybody on high alert.

01:01:04.340 And again, the president's in the situation room right now.

01:01:07.320 I'm sure Secretary Hegseth is there.

01:01:10.100 He's probably got Radcliffe of the CIA there coming, chairman of the Joint Chiefs.

01:01:15.300 They're all going to be there momentarily if they're not there now trying to figure out

01:01:18.620 what our response is going to be, because you do.

01:01:21.140 I mean, I do think it matters in these moments, Emily, that President Trump does not want a

01:01:25.180 forever war.

01:01:26.000 He doesn't want an open war with Iran, but he's not afraid of them either.

01:01:32.680 Right.

01:01:32.900 And he has to sort of walk that line right now.

01:01:35.900 And it's the same thing with Vice President Vance and Secretary Hegseth.

01:01:39.440 Both people who have openly been talking about ending forever wars.

01:01:44.280 If DNI Tulsi Gabbard is there, she is another voice from that section of the MAGA movement

01:01:49.100 and actually just from American politics.

01:01:50.960 So we know that there are a lot of people with an ideology that's different than what

01:01:56.160 was in the situation room in 2003, 2005, even honestly, 2009.

01:02:02.360 So there is there is something different.

01:02:04.920 And I know that might sound like cold comfort to people maybe who have relatives, family

01:02:09.680 members serving overseas right now.

01:02:11.380 But I do think there's definitely something to be said for that.

01:02:14.180 I don't think the president or even elected officials, J.D.

01:02:18.980 Vance, on the cynical political level, I think they realize that the American public is both

01:02:25.500 not in favor of a long entanglement in Iran, in the Middle East.

01:02:29.860 But on the other hand, the American public has complicated opinions on this and also doesn't

01:02:34.200 want to see American service members or American civilians be killed and not retaliate.

01:02:40.260 So it's an incredibly difficult question, both in substance and in the political side of

01:02:45.240 it.

01:02:45.400 So they have a lot to balance right now because every every move, if they want to get to the

01:02:52.880 peace table, every move is going to be absolutely critical.

01:02:57.720 And who knows what's happening behind the scenes, the back channel communications between other

01:03:03.060 Arab countries, between Arab countries and other partners in the region.

01:03:06.920 Who knows what the Israelis think is best in their next moves and how that may compare and

01:03:13.420 contrast with what the American president thinks is in his best interest.

01:03:17.580 So there's just so much we don't know about.

01:03:19.680 We won't for days to come.

01:03:21.040 We'll just be able to tell based on what's happening, playing out in front of us.

01:03:25.580 Mm hmm.

01:03:26.260 I mean, the other problem we don't we have is we haven't seen the intelligence that Trump

01:03:29.720 has seen.

01:03:30.560 We don't you know, it's hard to be super critical of the guy when we don't know everything he

01:03:35.240 knows.

01:03:35.520 We know some we know what The New York Times has reported in the first hour.

01:03:38.480 We talked with BDH about their report saying that Israeli intel showed Iran was accelerating

01:03:45.680 its nuclear efforts.

01:03:47.140 And actually, the IAEA confirmed that they not only confirmed 60 percent enrichment, but

01:03:53.040 the IAEA confirmed acceleration by Iran.

01:03:56.740 I just wanted to point this out because I didn't get to it in hour one.

01:04:00.880 They did see a step up.

01:04:03.440 IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grassi has previously warned that Tehran has enough

01:04:09.360 uranium enriched to near weapons grade levels to make several nuclear bombs if it chooses

01:04:14.620 to do so. And regarding its centrifuges, verified that Iran had increased the number of operating

01:04:21.260 cascades by 12 to a total of 27 at its underground nuclear plant in Natanz, said that there had

01:04:30.500 been that they had significantly increased production and accumulation of highly enriched

01:04:35.100 uranium and that it was of serious concern.

01:04:38.660 And that was as of this past November.

01:04:41.900 So it both the both the Israeli intelligence, which, of course, we know has been pushing

01:04:45.980 in one direction, but also the IAEA has said that Iran did it did accelerate, has been accelerating

01:04:51.280 in recent months, making it look like they wanted that bomb like they they felt things falling apart and

01:04:59.080 were getting ready to gin up their last best weapon.

01:05:03.400 And that could be what President Trump was looking at when he said, let's take them out, because what we

01:05:09.900 had from Tulsi was a report in March that was only cited in part by reporters looking to embarrass

01:05:17.220 her. Caitlin Collins of CNN got in Trump's face on Air Force One and said, oh, your your director of

01:05:23.920 National Intelligence said that the Ayatollah had not restarted its atomic weapons program and

01:05:30.780 is not making a nuclear bomb. And Trump said, well, I I've seen different intelligence and I don't

01:05:36.120 listen to her. And the truth is, Tulsi did say that in a report, just like every DNI has said,

01:05:41.780 every DNI has said that for years now. But she also added the second piece, which is but they are

01:05:49.460 enriching uranium at a seriously dangerous level and one that is totally inconsistent with a domestic

01:05:56.960 energy program. No one who's using nuclear or uranium for domestic energy needs 60 percent

01:06:02.960 enriched. What you need to get a bomb is 90 percent enriched. And it's pretty easy to go from 60 to 90.

01:06:09.600 It's much more difficult to go from zero to 10 and from 10 to 60 like they did and already had

01:06:15.340 accomplished. So that's where we are right now, where you've got intelligence going to the president

01:06:20.660 from our own domestic sources that is mixed from Israeli sources that's not mixed and from the IAEA

01:06:27.740 that has really no reason to lie in a way that makes Iran look bad. That may have been a further

01:06:33.180 alarm. So I don't you know, it's it's very hard to sit in our armchairs and question Trump's decision.

01:06:40.000 It's one of the things the hawks and the doves, this is an interesting point, may agree on going

01:06:44.480 forward, is that if it seems and the New York Times has reported this and other nuclear experts have

01:06:50.540 pointed this out in the last day or so, if it seems as though Iran did move some of its nuclear material

01:06:59.460 in trucks, reported the reports of trucks leaving the sites and transporting stuff out on I think it

01:07:06.900 was Friday. And so if that's the case, you may have the hawks and doves agreeing actually that Iran still

01:07:13.660 has nuclear capabilities, that they weren't significantly damaged, that you have to do a lot

01:07:19.640 more work. I mean, they were significantly damaged, but not totally destroyed. Meaning if you're going to

01:07:24.440 spend the millions and millions of dollars on these strikes with the intent of utterly destroying and

01:07:29.500 decimating Iran's nuclear capability, then there's still a lot of work left to do. And I'm actually kind of

01:07:34.380 interested in that, Megan, going forward. The intelligence, it's obviously from the armchairs here in the

01:07:40.320 U.S. really difficult to understand as civilians, what's going on behind the scenes. I totally agree

01:07:46.020 with that. So I'm just curious going forward, like to what extent the people who want more

01:07:51.100 involvement in Iran, they want an escalated military presence from the United States,

01:07:56.760 and the people who say, wait a minute, let's stop doing this, actually agree that Iran still has

01:08:03.820 some measure, some capacity to start enrichment really rapidly. That's the thing that J.D. Vance

01:08:09.940 and Tulsi Gabbard have pointed to, is that the enrichment was at a level such that you could

01:08:14.360 very quickly go from zero to 100, from civilian to military use. And so I think that's one of the

01:08:22.160 big questions on the table right now, as to what does that ability, to what extent does that ability

01:08:26.420 still exist? Well, the other question is, after Israel began with an attack in Iran, I mean, again,

01:08:35.920 this is, they didn't begin this war. They were attacked on 10723 by an Iranian proxy, Hamas.

01:08:42.020 But when Israel attacked Iran directly, we did see a response from Iran that was, I mean, it was,

01:08:50.700 it's significant. They're raining down missiles on them. But there's been a question for a while now,

01:08:56.400 about whether Iran has the capacity to really unleash hell on Israel or anybody else at this

01:09:03.080 point. And like what they're doing right now at these military bases, maybe a check the box situation

01:09:10.180 where it's like, we need to do something. We're not going to just let them attack us, but we're going

01:09:16.980 to make sure that we minimize casualties. And they've done this before. They did this with the United States.

01:09:21.640 I think it was 2020, in 2020. And this, as I say it, the New York Times reports as follows.

01:09:29.640 Iran coordinated the attacks on the American air base in Qatar with Qatari officials and gave advanced

01:09:36.060 notice that the attacks were coming to minimize casualties, according to three Iranian officials

01:09:40.380 familiar with the plans. There it is. The officials said Iran symbolically needed to strike back at the

01:09:46.840 U.S., but at the same time, carry out in a way that allowed all sides an exit ramp. They described

01:09:52.460 it as a similar strategy to 2020 when Iran gave Iraq a heads up before firing ballistic missiles at an

01:09:58.480 American base in Iraq following the assassination of its top general, Soleimani. So, and by the way,

01:10:05.660 the open source Intel reporting, Iran's Supreme National Security Council says it launched as many missiles

01:10:10.880 as the number of bombs used by the U.S. in its strike. If that's what this is, and by the way,

01:10:17.700 Qatar's saying that its air defense systems have successfully thwarted the attack and intercepted

01:10:23.240 the Iranian missiles. So they do have Iron Dome of their own. And there's no loss of American life.

01:10:29.420 I mean, this would be this, this, this won't escalate things at all, right? If they make an effort,

01:10:35.220 they launched the same number of bombs we launched, and none of our guys gets killed because they gave an

01:10:39.640 advance warning and they evacuated the, you know, the, the areas or they, they were ready for them.

01:10:45.920 That's, I guess, about as good as we could hope for Emily. Yeah. I mean, that would be hugely

01:10:50.160 vindicating to president Trump and it would prove me wrong. It would prove, uh, if, if that turns out

01:10:54.560 to be the case and these indications are actually really positive, like a rare glimpse of, um, optimism

01:11:00.140 amidst all of this turmoil, if that's what happens and it looks like it's going in that direction,

01:11:05.580 that is vindicating for Donald Trump. It proves people like me wrong. Um, and so that's a really,

01:11:11.640 really good sign, uh, because that would signal that it was similar to what happened after the

01:11:17.000 killing of Soleimani, that it was this kind of choreographed, uh, back and forth. Iran knew it

01:11:21.840 had to retaliate. Now, one of the things that concerns me is there are reports just in the last

01:11:26.000 couple of weeks that Iranian nationalism is rising, uh, because of the strikes in Israel, meaning

01:11:31.860 that their own public may desire something that looks more, that looks different than this, that,

01:11:37.340 uh, you know, maybe this could be coupled with sleeper cell activity in the American homeland.

01:11:42.560 I don't want to sound too pessimistic because this is really good news, um, as awful as it is to watch

01:11:48.300 this happening and praying right now that it remains the case. Everyone is safe and there are no

01:11:53.440 casualties, but that would be vindicating for people who said it was possible to do a, a targeted,

01:11:58.780 precise strike, uh, nearly destroy all of Iran's nuclear capabilities, set them back significantly,

01:12:06.680 and then get them to the negotiating table. This is the type of thing that should signal,

01:12:11.520 uh, they're ready to talk more with Steve Witkoff and with the Trump administration. Uh, I would assume

01:12:17.920 that's what this indicates. It's not necessarily the case. It's not a given. Um, but this is a,

01:12:23.620 obviously in the, in the most twisted way, a positive sign. Um, if this reporting from the

01:12:29.420 New York times is born out and even know what we're going to be discussing them, what are we

01:12:33.220 going to be discussing at the negotiating table? What we wanted was for them to end their nuclear

01:12:36.940 program. They jerked us along. And so we ended it. I mean, we annihilated it. It may not be, you know,

01:12:43.440 a hundred percent gone, but it's 90% gone. That's my back of the envelope guess. They're still

01:12:49.000 assessing the damage and all that. But I mean, let's face it, it's been absolutely devastated by these

01:12:52.820 bombs. It's not still an operation they can rebuild. But the point is, what are we negotiating?

01:12:56.800 Stop dropping ballistic missiles on, on Israel. Okay. Good luck with that. I mean, that's

01:13:01.380 inspectors, by the way, I think that's one of the things, you know, like Israel's got to negotiate

01:13:05.600 that that's kind of between them. And like, look, Israel's got that one handled. What are we

01:13:12.140 negotiating? What we care about is the Iranian nuclear program and we just took care of it.

01:13:17.680 So I just like the Ayatollah is not going to behave in good faith. And we've seen that Trump,

01:13:24.140 Trump treats everybody like they can be negotiated with to his credit. And he went in there saying,

01:13:30.340 let's talk it out. We can have a beautiful Iran with a thriving economy. Let's do this thing.

01:13:35.520 Same as he did in Saudi Arabia and everybody. And then he realized that he's dealing with

01:13:39.860 a bunch of radical Islamic jihadists whose mission in life is to martyr themselves and kill the

01:13:47.380 infidels like us, not the Iranian people, but those who run its regime. And eventually that resulted in

01:13:54.700 a big number of bombs getting dropped on Iran's nuclear facilities. I just don't know, like what,

01:13:59.260 what is there left to talk about with these people?

01:14:01.600 I think going forward, the Trump administration will probably want, and this was at issue in the

01:14:06.000 Iran nuclear deal, they'll probably want inspections. And those, like that's, that's going to be one of

01:14:10.800 the sources of back and forth. If they, if Iran, if that's the case and they're, they are at the

01:14:16.180 negotiating table, they'll say, we need to be able to inspect more clearly, more reliably what you're

01:14:22.520 rebuilding going forward. But if you're Iran, I mean, that's the other, that's the other massive

01:14:30.000 unanswered question, uh, open question right now is, is how does Iran see all of this in its own

01:14:37.320 interest? If it wants to, I assume that Iran has every intention of rebuilding its nuclear program.

01:14:43.960 I mean, this is a decades long enterprise and a sort of, they saw as a centerpiece of their

01:14:49.520 negotiating power, um, the world over. And obviously that's, you know, from the American perspective,

01:14:54.960 of a massive mistake, but I don't know that they've been dissuaded from using it as a bargaining chip

01:15:00.960 going forward. So yeah, I mean, that makes it seem like any negotiations would be dead on arrival.

01:15:07.100 I don't, I don't know what they could talk about at this point. I think that's a really, a great point

01:15:11.880 because it's like, well, if they're in the process of rebuilding, why are we even going to talk to them

01:15:17.300 after just spending hundreds of millions of dollars risking American ships lives to basically almost

01:15:22.580 destroy the program completely. And by the way, Israel assassinated all the heads of their nuclear

01:15:27.180 program. So it's going to be a little tougher to rebuild than, uh, it would have been five years

01:15:32.000 ago. Like the say we will about the Israelis, they don't F around. Like once they've decided

01:15:38.260 you're a problem for them and they go in militarily, it's not going to, it's not going to go well for

01:15:42.980 you. And they, they did their homework. They obviously have a lot of Intel inside of Iran,

01:15:46.940 which is their chief enemy, which exists to destroy Israel. And it has been saying that this

01:15:52.140 Ayatollah has been saying that for decades now, dying to kill Israel. And, uh, Israel finally

01:15:58.760 had enough in the wake of everything that's happened over there. So I just don't, I'm not

01:16:01.900 sure what the next step is going to be. And I'm not sure what, what Iran has left to offer us.

01:16:07.020 Uh, that would, you know, I mean, I guess everybody's looking for an off ramp. If that's true,

01:16:10.460 that'd be great. They say they won't do it anymore and they allow more inspections. You know,

01:16:14.920 they've, they've kind of stopped allowing as many inspections, but they still have allowed some

01:16:18.180 by the IAEA. That's okay. They say that they'll allow more and they won't do it anymore. And we

01:16:23.520 pretend that's real. And then we don't bomb them anymore. And we get out and they stopped

01:16:27.800 retaliating against our bases. Okay. I guess that would look okay. Um, but the most important thing

01:16:33.320 that needed to happen just happened on Saturday night, which is, you know, the bombing. I don't

01:16:36.780 know when you, when you say they would prove you wrong, are you in the camp of those who don't

01:16:41.300 believe we should have dropped the bombs on Saturday? Yeah. And just because I think the risk,

01:16:46.800 and I don't think this with any 100% certainty. Um, I think, you know, anybody who said that they

01:16:51.520 knew for sure what would happen if Donald Trump struck the Iranian sites was wrong. I mean,

01:16:56.500 there was no way to know for certain what would happen. I thought the probability was unacceptably

01:17:01.000 high that this would pull us into, uh, just inevitably onto the slippery slope of escalation.

01:17:07.960 So I would be surprised if Iran's response is exactly what the New York times is reporting now,

01:17:13.160 but I wouldn't be shocked. Um, because to your point, their leverage has been significantly

01:17:18.880 damaged. The thing that still gives me an enormous amount of concern is just what you laid out their

01:17:24.320 intention for what Iran should be as they see it on the world stage, um, because of Islamism,

01:17:30.820 extreme Islamism, like all of that gives me really, really, um, serious pause about whether,

01:17:37.120 even if we see a kind of carefully choreographed response where they're, uh, telegraphing that

01:17:42.100 they're about to do it and they give this advanced notice and there are no deaths and no casualties.

01:17:47.220 Um, if we see that, I still am really nervous that something's going to happen here in the United

01:17:52.020 States. I'm still really nervous that there's going to be more provocations going forward because

01:17:56.820 I just have a hard time believing that they're willing to, uh, you know, just completely capitulate

01:18:01.800 at the same time. Your point is really compelling about their lack of leverage and the amount of,

01:18:06.740 of leverage that they've lost in negotiations, uh, which by the way,

01:18:10.000 were ongoing in the last few months with the Trump administration. So I don't know what's going to

01:18:15.500 happen, but I'm still pretty worried about escalation though. This is a good, good sign.

01:18:21.160 Let me ask you this. Cause I'm, I'm curious about this. I spent the week off as you know, but

01:18:26.620 I listened to everybody. I was listening to my neocon friends over at commentary. I listened to all of

01:18:32.340 Tucker's podcasts, which are a hundred percent the other way, uh, listen to Bannon, you know, all of it.

01:18:37.200 And so I, I find the difference in opinion, very compelling, very interesting, very sincere. I'm

01:18:44.260 like, I have almost no tolerance for the people who, you know, look at Tucker and just say he's

01:18:48.080 an anti-Semite. That's such bullshit. He doesn't want another middle East war. It doesn't make him

01:18:54.040 an anti-Semite. It's ridiculous. There are a lot of people with a very good faith belief that this is

01:18:59.680 the wrong move for us. And that's, that's okay. This nonsense from like AOC that he should be impeached

01:19:04.920 is just absurd, absurd. There's no, okay. Get back to me when you've read the constitution or

01:19:11.280 get a law degree because you sound like an absolute fucking idiot. There is absolutely

01:19:15.920 no ground to impeach the president. He 100% was within his constitutional authority and his

01:19:21.000 congressionally authorized authority to do what he did on Saturday. Okay. But as for whether it's a

01:19:26.240 good idea, that's a debate we should be having. And look, you know, if we could get congressional

01:19:31.220 approval of the specific action, fine, I'm okay with that too. If you want to bring it to Congress,

01:19:34.860 go ahead and see, see how that goes. I don't think it's necessary, but go for it if you want to.

01:19:39.980 In any event, I am curious as to what you think he should have done. Like, let's say he was in a

01:19:47.500 position where BB comes to him and says, they are accelerating. I know I've said this 10,000 times

01:19:53.960 for the past 25 years. I know I said, but I'm telling you this time it's real. And he has reason

01:20:01.100 to believe Netanyahu because of the compromised state Iran is in, having seen all of its proxies

01:20:07.100 get beheaded over the past year. You know, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis more recently, like it's not

01:20:15.220 doing well. And it's scariest arms have really been hurt as a result of their attack on Israel and

01:20:20.520 Israel's response and what we did to the Houthis and the, the war, the, the, the naval battle that

01:20:25.460 we saw just, you know, a couple of months ago. So let's say Iran was in a panic and that data was

01:20:30.640 real. Like it's accelerating. And we actually do believe, and you totally believe that they will

01:20:35.960 use a nuke against Israel and possibly against the United States. Although that just, I mean,

01:20:41.060 that's guaranteed self-destruction, but, um, he, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, H George W. Bush

01:20:50.000 have all said that Iran cannot get a nuclear weapon. They can't. It's just this president,

01:20:56.680 forgive me, but he, he had the balls to actually do something about it. I mean, I said to my friend

01:21:01.380 in texting the other day, I'm like the wrong administration officials got the nickname big

01:21:05.440 balls. It's Trump like this required massive balls. It's just, the guy's got a very steely spine

01:21:14.540 and zero F's to give. Like he does. He can't be pushed around. He can't be scared. He had a near

01:21:20.300 death experience that changed his view. I think of his own consequential life and in our place in

01:21:25.920 the world. Anyway, for all those reasons, Trump did what nobody else would do. So what would you

01:21:30.380 have done if they, you know, like what should he have let them do? Just if, if he believed that

01:21:35.020 intel, just let them, let them get it. We, I think you're hypothetical about the Intel is what's most

01:21:41.040 difficult for me because I, you know, if you, if you are just a civilian and you have to rely on the

01:21:48.580 reporting and the fog or strategic leaks about what the Intel is. Uh, so for example, my colleague

01:21:54.780 Sagar has reported that we don't have any American Intel. We have Israeli Intel, um, that Americans are

01:21:59.960 relying on because Mossad has a impressive operation in Iran. No doubt about it. Right. Uh,

01:22:06.380 and that's really, again, difficult for a civilianist to back and say, because we've been told

01:22:11.140 for 25 years, they're going to have the bomb within a year, six months, weeks. We ran that,

01:22:16.820 but it's out of BB. So it has a boy who cried wolf feel to it. And you're talking about American

01:22:22.660 lives potentially. Yeah. And you know, I was re re reading, uh, some of the reporting from like

01:22:28.220 Judith Miller and others back in 2003, um, about, you know, the, the lead up to the Iraq war the other

01:22:34.780 day. And again, I get, it's not apples to apples, but when you're reading it, you just realize how

01:22:39.880 eerily similar to the pattern of selective leaking is. There are some people who do, uh, I think for,

01:22:45.960 you know, unfortunate reasons, it's not that they're bad people, but that they prefer military

01:22:50.440 action who are strategically leaking things in a way that would push us down the slippery slope.

01:22:55.740 I accept all that. And I don't disagree, but let me, let me ask you about like the IAEA report

01:22:59.820 about 60% enrichment and even Tulsi's testimony, Tulsi's very dovish testimony that there is zero

01:23:06.540 reason why they'd be enriching this much if it were purely for domestic energy purposes.

01:23:10.940 Right. I mean, like no one, no one seems to be disputing that 60% enrichment thing. There's

01:23:14.940 zero reason for them to do that unless they're making a nuke. And in fact, the reports are,

01:23:19.000 they probably already have enough for nine or 10 of them at least. So what about that? Because

01:23:22.960 do you think that's made up too by, by the warmongery military industrial complex crew?

01:23:28.080 They got the IAEA to say that. That's what's so hard for me. I mean, I genuinely don't know. And

01:23:34.780 I'm not an expert on nuclear proliferation, but from the outside, um, whether or not they're able

01:23:40.500 to go quickly from A to Z is a hugely important question. If like where they are right now puts them

01:23:46.740 in a place we're just in a matter of, and this is critical because even Tulsi Gabbard said this,

01:23:50.700 the quote was weeks or months. Okay. But months could be, you know, 15 months.

01:23:56.380 It doesn't have to be, but okay, but let me, okay. I'm going to, and I'll give you the floor

01:23:59.360 back, but it doesn't have to be imminent. I think what Trump is thinking is they're weak.

01:24:04.960 They're the weakest now they've been in decades. All of their favorite arms have been cut off or

01:24:10.140 severely hobbled. So there's no better time. They can do the least damage to our troops at these

01:24:14.140 outposts and God forbid domestically now that they've ever been able to do, at least in the past 46

01:24:18.820 years, they've been killing Americans throughout that entire time. Undisputable, undisputable,

01:24:23.880 indisputable that they've been killing hundreds of American Marines, American air force, American

01:24:29.420 personnel at base after base throughout those 46 years, including in Iraq and Afghanistan. Okay.

01:24:33.760 So now you've got your chance. That's what's different to me. The reason we have a president

01:24:39.000 willing to accept that is really Intel. And again, maybe it's real because Iran's in a different

01:24:44.800 position right now. It's possible. They really did say, Holy shit, pedal to the metal. We need

01:24:49.220 this. But even if they didn't, I think the difference is we have a president who looked

01:24:54.160 at the scenario and said, now is the time that I've got to be honest. Like there's no, there's

01:24:59.120 never been a better time. And I know what everyone else has always known, which is of course they are

01:25:05.240 building toward one. And here's the other thing that, uh, we haven't talked about yet that gives

01:25:10.900 me a little bit of pause. And again, I'm happy to be proven wrong, but I do think also there was a

01:25:16.100 sudden, um, and JD Vance was posting about this last week. There was a sudden shift, um, from Israel

01:25:24.480 and then from the United States that I am very curious about because there were diplomatic options

01:25:30.840 being explored by Steve Witkoff, who I think has done a really, um, a really brave thing over the

01:25:37.320 last several months, last six months since Donald Trump was inaugurated and opened up some important

01:25:41.940 conversations. So I'm curious if the diplomatic options were actually exhausted. And again, I get

01:25:48.040 obviously all of the challenges of, of having negotiations with Iran, but the, the sudden change

01:25:54.200 to me, I'm without getting back into the Intel conversation. I'm genuinely curious if that was

01:26:00.540 based on intelligence that had changed very suddenly, or if, because Israel moved to the

01:26:07.680 strikes, we ended up not having diplomatic options that we could continue pursuing. And then, uh, the

01:26:14.400 diplomatic options are now off the table in a way where they could still be explored if in this

01:26:19.560 situation. I mean, that, that to me is a huge question about going back to what Donald Trump should

01:26:24.020 have done. Um, could Donald Trump have said to Netanyahu, we are close to having a deal that is

01:26:31.240 better than risking escalation with Iran. I'm curious about that. Um, I, I don't know. Again,

01:26:37.580 it's hard from the outside, but I'm genuinely very curious. It sounds like, well, it sounds like what

01:26:42.000 we're, we're hearing from the reports is that, uh, if our Intel went to Trump and said,

01:26:47.160 well, it's done. He baby's going to do it. And including Radcliffe at CIA said it's the ship

01:26:53.840 has sailed. He's doing it with or without us. And Trump accepted that as a reality. And Israel's

01:26:58.840 obviously in a very difficult position right now. It's been attacked brutally and it's at war with

01:27:04.120 everybody. And I realized that's a lot of American detractors over here of president Trump's decisions

01:27:09.820 feel like we're being led around by Israel. We're fighting wars that aren't ours. And that I am

01:27:17.940 open-minded to that too. I mean, I understand it's like, we got our own problems. Like we can't be

01:27:23.620 fighting Israel's problems, but it is an American problem. If Iran gets a nuclear weapon, like it,

01:27:28.800 I think that is potentially problem. I don't think it's the same as like, well, what, well, Israel has

01:27:32.580 one. Well, I mean, they're not radical Islamist jihadis. Do you not understand the difference? Like

01:27:37.940 go do two minutes of research on what radical Islamic jihadis want to do the, to the United

01:27:42.800 States or any America. And I'm, I have zero tolerance for the people who say it has nothing

01:27:47.120 to do with our values. It's the fact that we've been too bellicose and too warmongery in the

01:27:52.960 Middle East bullshit. Do your homework about radical Islam. They want to kill all of us,

01:27:58.960 all of us. They'd like everything. It is not just a fucking chant death to America. They actually

01:28:04.680 want it to happen. They've been working to kill American troops for the better part of five

01:28:08.580 decades now. And it's not going to change. They they've made really clear what they want and how

01:28:12.600 they feel about us. So they cannot have a nuclear bomb. Like they cannot in the same way ISIS, when it

01:28:18.520 was around, could not have a nuclear bomb. Like the people who are dedicated to killing America,

01:28:23.380 this is not a good idea. So I think Trump saw an opportunity and took it. And I totally believe

01:28:29.000 he's anti forever war. And I believe that Tulsi and JD Vance and Steve Whitcoff, all of whom I think

01:28:38.200 are much closer to Tucker's view to your view too. We're, we're probably much more slow rolling on

01:28:45.560 this, like probably much more like, well, wait, maybe it's not a good idea, but they're all standing

01:28:50.460 behind him now. Not for nothing, but here's what Tulsi actually testified to at that March hearing

01:28:55.640 before Congress, SOP 15. The IC continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon

01:29:02.020 and Supreme Leader Khamenei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program that he suspended in 2003.

01:29:08.680 Iran's enriched uranium stockpile is at its highest levels and is unprecedented for a state without

01:29:14.900 nuclear weapons. Yeah, that's the second part. It's unprecedented for a state without, of course,

01:29:21.640 it's, there's no reason for 60% enriched uranium. If all you want is your lights to go on, by the way,

01:29:29.360 it's one of the richest oil countries in the world. It does not need nuclear energy. Um, and why would

01:29:36.980 it do it when it's so controversial, given the, the fact that it's a wash in oil, right? It's just,

01:29:43.020 I mean, to me, it seems very clear, but anyway, okay. Standby. We have more with Emily Jashinsky.

01:29:46.960 She's not only our friend, she's the host of after party with AJ and, uh, you've got to tune

01:29:53.060 in tonight live at 10 on YouTube, um, to see her interview Tucker. Very interesting to hear his POV

01:29:59.680 in the wake of what we just saw with Iran's retaliation. These days, it feels like everyone

01:30:04.320 has an agenda, the media, big tech, but let me tell you about ground news. They do not filter the

01:30:10.500 news. They show how stories are being shaped, spun or ignored entirely. So you can decide what to

01:30:15.980 believe ground news is an independent app and website built to give users control over their

01:30:21.480 newsfeed. It aggregates coverage from across the political spectrum and breaks down how each outlet

01:30:26.460 is framing the story, including bias ownership and what key details might be missing. If you're

01:30:31.200 tired of being told what matters or what doesn't, it might be time to take the power back. Ground news

01:30:36.200 is offering 40% off their unlimited access vantage plan for a limited time. This offer is available

01:30:41.820 exclusively at ground news.com slash Megan. That's ground G R O U N D news. N E W S.com slash

01:30:49.320 Megan. Don't let anyone else decide what you get to see. Take back control of your newsfeed

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01:31:57.260 That's just thrive health.com promo code M E G Y N. I'm Megan Kelly, host of the Megan Kelly show on

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01:33:00.620 Emily Jaschinski is back with me now. She's the host of After Party with Emily Jaschinski live on

01:33:10.220 YouTube at 10 p.m. Eastern kicking off tonight. Go subscribe now to After Party Emily. That makes

01:33:16.980 you sound like a fun girl. After Party Emily on YouTube. You know, when we were coming up with

01:33:22.640 names for the show, the amount of times that we were bouncing them back and forth and we're saying,

01:33:27.260 okay, so that makes me sound like a stripper. Like it happened like 10 different times. We

01:33:31.080 would come up with a really good idea and then be like, no, can't do that.

01:33:34.760 Wait, that reminds me. Doug just sent to our family text chain. There's this website that gives you

01:33:41.160 your pirate name, your pirate name, and this is how you come up with it. You got to give your,

01:33:47.060 okay, your first name is Emily. It starts with an E. So your, your first name and your pirate name

01:33:51.600 is Broken, Emily. What's your, what's the first letter of your middle name? B. Broken Knuckles.

01:33:59.380 That's your second. And then your last name is a J. The Gasly. Broken Knuckles. The Gasly. That's

01:34:05.500 your pirate name. I mean, we should have just called the show that. Why didn't we go with that? Mine is

01:34:11.700 Filthy Guns the Hideous.

01:34:14.060 And another idea for the Megyn Kelly show. You can change the name. It's never too late.

01:34:23.200 Anyway, so it's going to be very fun and it's going to be a huge hit. And I haven't,

01:34:26.740 I have a suggestion for you on your first guest after Tucker, maybe tomorrow or the next show.

01:34:32.440 And I think that person should be Ariana Grande because she's got a lot of thoughts, Emily,

01:34:37.500 a lot of thoughts on Trump's bombing of Iran. And she, um, has endorsed the AOC tweet saying that

01:34:44.940 he should be impeached. Ariana Grande, who, as far as I know, has done nothing other than sing and

01:34:52.460 dance, which is fine. She seems to be very good at that. Would like us to listen to her political

01:34:56.760 opinions now, in particular, her constitutional opinions on whether he's gone too far.

01:35:02.120 And the reason she's qualified to make this conclusion is because of the segments she did

01:35:08.700 for years on Nickelodeon as follows. Sometimes I wonder if you can get juice from a potato.

01:35:23.680 Did that air on Nickelodeon?

01:35:25.360 Ah! Come on! Give up the juice!

01:35:30.600 Yikes!

01:35:31.700 I'm thirsty!

01:35:33.420 In another video, Ariana's pouring water on herself in what seems like a very sexual manner. And

01:35:38.040 people started saying, this feels inappropriate for children.

01:35:42.680 That's from the Quiet Onset documentary about the Nickelodeon problems. And she was exploited as a

01:35:49.300 young person. It's not nice. It's actually quite sad. But now she's decided to take that troubled

01:35:54.500 youth and turn it around to make constitutional judgments about our president. Your thoughts?

01:36:00.040 Well, I would love to know if she ever got juice out of the potato, because that is genuinely a good

01:36:04.440 question that I hadn't thought of before. But other than that, I mean, we're about to go back to,

01:36:10.460 I mean, this depends, obviously, on what the escalation looks like. And we just talked about

01:36:14.480 that. And I know you talked about that with VDH. But if we all remember, Zoomers don't, what it was

01:36:19.700 like, though, in 2000 and around 2005, when public opinion on the Iraq war started to change, it was

01:36:26.880 just a constant onslaught of celebrity armchair punditry about what's happening and the president.

01:36:35.200 And again, like some of the division that people sense in our politics today, it's amusing to some

01:36:41.460 extent to hear Zoomers like be so exhausted and fatigued with it. Because, I mean, people remember what

01:36:47.340 it was like in the mid 2000s. And it was really, really ugly. I feel like we have amnesia kind of

01:36:54.520 culturally about how ugly politics and culture was during that time in the Iraq war, the Afghanistan

01:37:00.480 war. And it was a lot of that fueled by celebrities wading into these waters in really divisive ways

01:37:07.460 that were also very, I think, offensive to everyday Americans. I mean, we don't have to relitigate what

01:37:14.680 happened with the Dixie Chicks. But part of what did happen there is people took offense to the fact

01:37:19.260 that they were overseas. And they were talking about the American president in a way where they

01:37:24.380 were speaking to an audience in, I think it was London. It was in England. And it was just infuriating

01:37:29.580 to a lot of people who like literally burned Dixie Chicks CDs. And I don't think that stemmed exactly from

01:37:34.900 a disagreement with the politics of what they said, as much as it was like, how dare you?

01:37:40.760 How dare you trash talk the American president to people in the UK? So things could get really

01:37:47.660 ugly culturally very soon, too. I think that Ariana Grande needs to put more thought into how to add

01:37:55.180 one half an ounce of fat back onto her body than she does thinking about President Trump being impeached.

01:38:02.280 Obviously, she is in the middle of a crisis. I'm sorry, but this woman looks ill. She is beyond

01:38:07.980 skinny. She looks dangerously thin. And someone needs to do an intervention to help her. I'm not

01:38:13.600 saying this to be snarky. I genuinely think someone needs to help this woman. She's obviously

01:38:18.200 troubled. And I think weighing in on this is just her latest folly. She was caught on camera a couple

01:38:23.320 years ago saying, I hate Americans. Now here she is talking about Trump having needing to be impeached.

01:38:30.440 There's a lot that went on, I think, on that Nickelodeon set that's never been fully

01:38:34.380 threshed out. And I think Ariana Grande should work on her own well-being and keep her constitutional

01:38:40.180 thoughts to herself. OK, Emily Jashinsky tonight. Say again how they can find it. They go you go to

01:38:46.500 youtube.com and you type in what to pull up. That's right. After Party with Emily, you can go

01:38:51.640 to afterpartyemily.com. Again, does sound like a strip club, but you can find all of your information

01:38:57.040 there. If you listen to podcasts, it'll be there. Head on over 10 p.m. tonight, live with Tucker,

01:39:02.920 all kinds of questions for him. So it's going to be a lot of fun.

01:39:06.880 So you get you have some fun with Emily and you get some of your best friends there when

01:39:09.700 Tucker Carlson shows up live to respond to whatever the hell is happening in the country

01:39:13.260 at that point. I can't wait. I will be one of the ones tuning in. Thank you so much, Em.

01:39:18.700 Thank you, Megan. All right. See you tonight. And we are back tomorrow with our friends from the

01:39:22.860 fifth column. Can you imagine them on all of this? I cannot wait. We'll see you then. Great to be back

01:39:28.060 with you guys. Thanks for listening to The Megan Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

The Megyn Kelly Show - June 23, 2025

Trump's Successful Iran Mission, and the MAGA Case For and Against Strikes, with Emily Jashinsky and Victor Davis Hanson ｜ Ep. 1093

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