The Michael Knowles Show - Trump Bombs Iran： Michael Knowles Instant REACTION

00:00:00.000 Sorry to interrupt everybody's Saturday evening, though if you're watching this, then your evening was probably already interrupted.

00:00:06.180 For those who haven't caught the news, President Trump has ordered an American attack on Iranian nuclear sites.

00:00:12.940 The United States is now directly and officially engaged in the war in Iran.

00:00:18.420 These are the president's words.

00:00:19.980 We have completed our very successful attack on the three nuclear sites in Iran, including Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan.

00:00:30.000 All planes are now outside of Iran airspace.

00:00:32.540 A full payload of bombs was dropped on the primary site, Fordow.

00:00:36.060 That's the one that everyone's been talking about in the last week.

00:00:38.540 All planes are safely on their way home.

00:00:40.280 Congratulations to our great American warriors.

00:00:42.520 There is not another military in the world that could have done this.

00:00:45.180 Now is the time for peace.

00:00:47.040 Thank you for your attention to this matter.

00:00:49.740 There are going to be plenty of conservatives who are thrilled about this, who wanted to engage directly with Iran,

00:00:54.840 but there are going to be a lot of conservatives, maybe even more, who are not so happy with this news.

00:01:01.520 Because I think there are a lot of people who, even though we wanted to take out Iran's nuclear weapons, 0.91

00:01:05.880 or rather we didn't want Iran to develop nuclear weapons,

00:01:08.980 we were just kind of hoping the Israelis would take care of it and we would not have to be bogged down in another war in the Middle East.

00:01:13.620 I'm sure President Trump doesn't want to be bogged down in another war in the Middle East.

00:01:17.160 That is why he says, now is the time for peace.

00:01:19.620 Don't retaliate.

00:01:21.600 However, a lot of us, you know, with the memories of Iraq and Afghanistan,

00:01:26.580 say anytime the prospect of the U.S. and Mideastern war comes up,

00:01:30.560 we say, well, this is no good.

00:01:31.960 We don't want it.

00:01:34.080 I get it.

00:01:35.080 I get it.

00:01:35.480 I've expressed those opinions myself.

00:01:37.000 President Trump has expressed those opinions on the campaign trail.

00:01:39.600 However, I think the big takeaway from this decision is

00:01:42.640 no one should be surprised by it.

00:01:45.400 No one should be surprised by it, one, because President Trump, for 10 years now,

00:01:51.740 has said he will not allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon.

00:01:55.700 And he said that repeatedly in his old campaigns, in his most recent campaign.

00:01:59.600 So if people are suggesting that they voted for him because they didn't want the prospect of war in Iran,

00:02:04.940 then they weren't listening because he said it a lot.

00:02:07.240 He's been very consistent on that.

00:02:08.840 Two, the other reason why this could have been expected is, one,

00:02:14.980 Trump, even in the first term, was not totally a dove.

00:02:17.460 One of his biggest foreign policy moves was to take out the top Iranian general, Qasem Soleimani.

00:02:24.880 On top of that, he dropped the Moab, famously. 0.98

00:02:28.680 But he pursued a policy that he calls peace through strength, coming from Ronald Reagan.

00:02:33.560 So most of the time, he doesn't want to intervene in the affairs around the world,

00:02:38.860 or most of the time, he doesn't want to intervene in the wars around the world.

00:02:41.060 But in order to have the credible threat of violence, sometimes you actually have to do it.

00:02:45.320 You can't just bluff all the time.

00:02:46.980 But the third reason that I think people should not be surprised by this attack tonight is

00:02:52.540 a little line hidden in some of the reporting that's now coming out of the Pentagon about this attack.

00:02:58.160 Namely, the way the attack was carried out.

00:03:00.680 All day, people who have been tracking this stuff were tracking B-2 bombers

00:03:05.220 that were being sent into the Pacific, reportedly into Guam.

00:03:08.940 From Guam, the B-2 stealth bombers could fly over Iran and hit the targets.

00:03:13.960 People have been waiting for this all day.

00:03:15.880 Really, we've been waiting for it for a week and even longer.

00:03:19.420 However, one little line in the reporting says that the weapons that were dropped on the Fordo facility

00:03:24.940 were designed specifically with Fordo in mind.

00:03:28.760 In other words, the United States has been preparing for this military action

00:03:35.760 a lot longer than the past few weeks and a lot longer than the recent war in Israel in the Middle East

00:03:45.700 and a lot longer than this Trump administration and maybe a lot longer even than the first Trump administration

00:03:51.900 because we discovered the Fordo facility in 2009 or earlier.

00:03:56.960 It came to the international attention in 2009.

00:03:59.940 U.S. intelligence probably knew of it much, much earlier than that.

00:04:04.100 Which is why, whatever you feel about this, I think people are totally right to have trepidation

00:04:08.580 about the United States becoming directly involved in another war in the Middle East.

00:04:11.900 I share that concern.

00:04:15.040 I don't know that, I'm not one of the people who is jubilant tonight.

00:04:18.340 I'm glad that the American servicemen are now out of Iranian airspace.

00:04:22.580 I'm glad that Iran will not develop a nuclear weapon anytime soon.

00:04:25.480 I'm glad that President Trump launched a successful military operation.

00:04:29.100 But I'm not dancing for joy in the streets here.

00:04:31.080 I have a lot of trepidation about what comes next, which at this point now I think it's safe to conclude

00:04:39.120 the most likely outcome probably is regime change in Iran with the Ayatollah down in a bunker somewhere

00:04:44.800 and his chief means of protecting himself blown to smithereens.

00:04:50.760 But I'm not shocked.

00:04:54.080 I'm not surprised.

00:04:55.500 I'm not pulling my hair out or anything like that.

00:04:57.000 I usually am not in politics because if you're paying attention, you see how these things are going.

00:05:03.140 President Trump has been signaling for weeks at this point that he was prepared to use military action.

00:05:07.800 But this goes deeper than Trump.

00:05:09.240 There are grand strategic operations and objectives that are in place much longer than any one administration.

00:05:19.740 And we can bewail that and we can lament that and we can say that's undemocratic.

00:05:24.020 But that's how nations operate.

00:05:25.340 And so tonight's attack was not just a spur of the moment thing.

00:05:28.700 It's not as the left wing critics or even maybe some of Trump's critics on the right

00:05:31.580 are going to suggest some, you know, reflexive maneuver because, I don't know,

00:05:36.980 he ate a bad taco bowl at Trump Tower that day and felt like bombing a country.

00:05:41.240 That's not what's going on.

00:05:43.220 The attack this evening has been in the works for a very, very long time.

00:05:47.880 It is in line, it happens to be in line with President Trump's strategic vision and it doesn't

00:05:54.920 really come as much surprise.

00:05:56.660 What comes next is another matter.

00:05:59.700 President Trump will be addressing the nation tonight.

00:06:02.160 So that's all for now.

00:06:03.940 We'll see what President Trump has to say momentarily.

The Michael Knowles Show - June 22, 2025

Trump Bombs Iran： Michael Knowles Instant REACTION

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