Trump Bombs Iran： Michael Knowles Instant REACTION
Episode Stats
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185.12244
Summary
Trump has ordered an American attack on Iranian nuclear sites. President Trump tweets: "We have completed our very successful attack on Iran's nuclear sites in Iran, including Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan. All planes are now outside Iran's airspace. Now is the time for peace."
Transcript
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Sorry to interrupt everybody's Saturday evening, though if you're watching this, then your evening was probably already interrupted.
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For those who haven't caught the news, President Trump has ordered an American attack on Iranian nuclear sites.
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The United States is now directly and officially engaged in the war in Iran.
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We have completed our very successful attack on the three nuclear sites in Iran, including Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan.
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A full payload of bombs was dropped on the primary site, Fordow.
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That's the one that everyone's been talking about in the last week.
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Congratulations to our great American warriors.
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There is not another military in the world that could have done this.
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There are going to be plenty of conservatives who are thrilled about this, who wanted to engage directly with Iran,
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but there are going to be a lot of conservatives, maybe even more, who are not so happy with this news.
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Because I think there are a lot of people who, even though we wanted to take out Iran's nuclear weapons,
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or rather we didn't want Iran to develop nuclear weapons,
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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.
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I'm sure President Trump doesn't want to be bogged down in another war in the Middle East.
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That is why he says, now is the time for peace.
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However, a lot of us, you know, with the memories of Iraq and Afghanistan,
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say anytime the prospect of the U.S. and Mideastern war comes up,
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President Trump has expressed those opinions on the campaign trail.
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However, I think the big takeaway from this decision is
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No one should be surprised by it, one, because President Trump, for 10 years now,
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has said he will not allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon.
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And he said that repeatedly in his old campaigns, in his most recent campaign.
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So if people are suggesting that they voted for him because they didn't want the prospect of war in Iran,
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then they weren't listening because he said it a lot.
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Two, the other reason why this could have been expected is, one,
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Trump, even in the first term, was not totally a dove.
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One of his biggest foreign policy moves was to take out the top Iranian general, Qasem Soleimani.
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But he pursued a policy that he calls peace through strength, coming from Ronald Reagan.
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So most of the time, he doesn't want to intervene in the affairs around the world,
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or most of the time, he doesn't want to intervene in the wars around the world.
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But in order to have the credible threat of violence, sometimes you actually have to do it.
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But the third reason that I think people should not be surprised by this attack tonight is
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a little line hidden in some of the reporting that's now coming out of the Pentagon about this attack.
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All day, people who have been tracking this stuff were tracking B-2 bombers
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that were being sent into the Pacific, reportedly into Guam.
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From Guam, the B-2 stealth bombers could fly over Iran and hit the targets.
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Really, we've been waiting for it for a week and even longer.
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However, one little line in the reporting says that the weapons that were dropped on the Fordo facility
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In other words, the United States has been preparing for this military action
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a lot longer than the past few weeks and a lot longer than the recent war in Israel in the Middle East
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and a lot longer than this Trump administration and maybe a lot longer even than the first Trump administration
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because we discovered the Fordo facility in 2009 or earlier.
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It came to the international attention in 2009.
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U.S. intelligence probably knew of it much, much earlier than that.
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Which is why, whatever you feel about this, I think people are totally right to have trepidation
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about the United States becoming directly involved in another war in the Middle East.
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I don't know that, I'm not one of the people who is jubilant tonight.
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I'm glad that the American servicemen are now out of Iranian airspace.
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I'm glad that Iran will not develop a nuclear weapon anytime soon.
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I'm glad that President Trump launched a successful military operation.
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But I'm not dancing for joy in the streets here.
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I have a lot of trepidation about what comes next, which at this point now I think it's safe to conclude
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the most likely outcome probably is regime change in Iran with the Ayatollah down in a bunker somewhere
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and his chief means of protecting himself blown to smithereens.
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I'm not pulling my hair out or anything like that.
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I usually am not in politics because if you're paying attention, you see how these things are going.
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President Trump has been signaling for weeks at this point that he was prepared to use military action.
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There are grand strategic operations and objectives that are in place much longer than any one administration.
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And we can bewail that and we can lament that and we can say that's undemocratic.
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And so tonight's attack was not just a spur of the moment thing.
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It's not as the left wing critics or even maybe some of Trump's critics on the right
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are going to suggest some, you know, reflexive maneuver because, I don't know,
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he ate a bad taco bowl at Trump Tower that day and felt like bombing a country.
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The attack this evening has been in the works for a very, very long time.
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It is in line, it happens to be in line with President Trump's strategic vision and it doesn't
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President Trump will be addressing the nation tonight.
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We'll see what President Trump has to say momentarily.