The Michael Knowles Show - Wired In Live： The World Reacts

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00:00:30.000 Good morning, everyone.

00:00:32.760 I am Cabot Phillips, live from Daily Wire HQ.

00:00:35.940 And this is a special breaking edition of Wired In Live.

00:00:39.280 This morning, I'll be speaking with top U.S. lawmakers, diplomats,

00:00:42.760 and intelligence officials to sift through all of the noise in Iran and get to the facts.

00:00:48.160 But first, let's recap what has taken place in the last 36 hours, because it has been crazy.

00:00:53.420 Yesterday, President Donald Trump launched Operation Epic Fury,

00:00:56.700 joining with Israel in a historic military operation targeting the Islamic Republic of Iran.

00:01:01.860 We now know that the U.S. targeted missile stockpiles, anti-air defenses, and nuclear facilities,

00:01:07.240 while Israel primarily went after senior personnel within the regime.

00:01:10.460 The goal was to score a decapitation strike, knocking out the most senior leaders as possible.

00:01:15.540 And that is just what happened.

00:01:17.960 Numerous high-ranking officials within Iran were killed, including head of the country's National Defense Council,

00:01:23.440 the top commander of the Iranian military, their defense minister, the military chief of staff,

00:01:27.760 and most importantly, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

00:01:30.700 President Trump confirmed the news last night, saying Khamenei, quote,

00:01:35.140 one of the most evil people in history is dead.

00:01:38.200 This is not only justice for the people of Iran, but for all great Americans

00:01:41.400 and those people from many countries throughout the world that have been killed or mutilated

00:01:45.560 by Khamenei and his gang of bloodthirsty thugs.

00:01:49.240 He was unable to avoid our intelligence and highly sophisticated tracking systems.

00:01:53.480 And working closely with Israel, there was not a thing he or the other leaders

00:01:56.860 that have been killed along with him could do.

00:01:58.680 This is the single greatest chance for the Iranian people to take back their country.

00:02:03.320 Overnight, videos flooded social media, showing Iranians around the world celebrating

00:02:06.920 with large demonstrations in Washington, New York, London, and all across Iran,

00:02:12.000 where thousands of people flooded the streets, dancing, honking horns, and setting off fireworks.

00:02:17.320 Have a look.

00:02:28.680 And especially remarkable footage, demonstrators tore down a large statue of the Ayatollah.

00:02:55.260 Watch.

00:03:15.440 Just stunning footage there.

00:03:16.900 And obviously, even more footage comes out every second from this country.

00:03:21.800 And we're going to be playing that throughout the morning as it comes to us.

00:03:24.600 Now, for their part, the Iranian regime says they will not be deterred by the death of their leader.

00:03:28.840 They've been adamant that they were prepared for a moment like this and have a succession plan in place.

00:03:34.360 For now, state media reports that an interim committee will run the country until a permanent leader is chosen.

00:03:39.840 Overnight, regime spokesmen vowed to enact revenge on the U.S. and Israel,

00:03:43.180 quote, with a force they have never experienced before.

00:03:46.660 At this hour, the United States and Israel have begun day two of their bombing campaign against Iran.

00:03:51.640 President Trump issued a statement warning the country that, quote,

00:03:54.580 Iran just stated they are going to hit very hard today, harder than they have ever hit before.

00:03:59.400 In all caps now, they better not do that.

00:04:01.900 Because if they do, we will hit them with a force that has never been seen before.

00:04:06.600 But to this point, earlier in the last 24 hours, those strikes had been largely effective.

00:04:10.880 Some missiles and drones have found their mark in Israel, Bahrain, the UAE, Jordan, and Kuwait.

00:04:15.960 We do have breaking news coming in just in the last few minutes.

00:04:19.420 I'm going to get right to that.

00:04:20.340 This is from U.S. Central Command reporting the first U.S. casualties in this operation.

00:04:26.280 They wrote, quote,

00:04:26.980 As of 9.30 Eastern Time, March 1st, three U.S. service members have been killed in action and five are seriously wounded as part of Operation Epic Fury.

00:04:36.220 Several others sustained minor shrapnel injuries and concussions and are in the process of being returned to duty.

00:04:41.740 Major combat operations continue and our response effort is ongoing.

00:04:44.740 The situation is fluid, so out of respect for the families, we will withhold additional information, including the identities of our fallen warriors, until 24 hours after next of kin have been notified.

00:04:55.480 So again, CENTCOM there reporting three American service members have been killed.

00:05:00.900 That is a major development here, something that President Trump also warned of when he first announced that the strike was going on.

00:05:07.120 He told the American people that there was a chance that service members would be killed in pursuit of a safer United States.

00:05:15.800 And now we know, according to CENTCOM, as of 9.30 a.m., at least three U.S. service members have been killed.

00:05:23.020 We're also now getting new details on the strikes yesterday that killed the Ayatollah and roughly 50 other senior advisors.

00:05:30.140 First, numerous reports say that the latest round of nuclear negotiations, which took place in Geneva, were essentially a ruse to keep Iran believing that a diplomatic solution was still on the table.

00:05:40.560 The U.S. wanted to avoid arousing suspicion that a strike was coming, so they kept the negotiations going.

00:05:45.360 The president had decided reportedly that the Iranians were simply stalling, that they never intended to make a deal or give up their nuclear ambitions.

00:05:52.340 And that ultimately is what led to this decision.

00:05:54.540 So, senior White House officials are now saying there were also credible intelligence reports from within Iran that the Supreme Leader knew he was running out of time and also running out of options,

00:06:04.780 and that he planned to launch a preemptive strike on U.S. service members in the region.

00:06:08.820 So, the administration is essentially saying they had no choice but to strike first to ensure that that Iranian response would be more muted.

00:06:16.320 Now, there are plenty of skeptics, especially those on the left, who do not believe that assessment.

00:06:20.720 They have drawn parallels to President Bush, assuring the American people there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and that warranted an invasion.

00:06:28.180 So, do not be surprised if we hear from President Trump and others in the White House in the coming days as they look to assure the American people that this was the best and potentially only option.

00:06:36.920 And that pushback from the left and from many who are skeptical of a broader military conflict in the Middle East, it's only going to grow as we now have these reports from Central Command that three U.S. service members have been killed.

00:06:49.480 Again, President Trump warned that could take place, but now we know that it has, in fact, happened.

00:06:55.040 Three Americans are now dead.

00:06:57.200 We now also know that on Saturday morning, Ayatollah Khomeini convened a meeting of his top military and intelligence aides above ground in Tehran,

00:07:04.200 and at the same time, two other meetings were taking place in the city.

00:07:07.380 Now, typically, these sorts of strikes take place at night, but the U.S. and Israel reportedly felt this was their best shot for a decapitation strike, and they took it.

00:07:15.500 The obvious question now is, who will fill the power vacuum in Tehran?

00:07:19.540 Could this ultimately lead to the collapse of the regime?

00:07:22.580 Joining me now to help answer those questions and more to kick things off today is Tim Rice, Daily Wire D.C. Bureau Chief, and Cassie Akiva, Daily Wire Foreign Affairs Reporter.

00:07:31.980 So, Tim, I want to start with you.

00:07:33.860 You are in D.C.

00:07:35.120 What have you been hearing from lawmakers?

00:07:36.900 What is the mood in the Capitol?

00:07:38.500 About the same as yesterday, but Congress has shifted into the expected phase two of its response to yesterday's attacks, which is they're now fighting with each other and demanding more information.

00:07:50.480 So, Congress had previously scheduled votes on potential intervention in Iran for this coming week.

00:07:57.060 Those have obviously been preempted.

00:07:58.880 Now we have the Democratic leaders of both the House and Senate calling for a referendum vote, essentially, in the next coming days to either condemn or affirm the president's strikes in Iran,

00:08:09.820 and also to attempt to, on some levels, curtail future action.

00:08:13.920 We're also seeing, you know, dissident Republicans like Thomas Massey and Rand Paul joining in those calls to prevent another forever war and curtail executive power.

00:08:24.600 And more than that, though, and this is likely going to change now that we've seen reports for casualties of casualties and fatalities.

00:08:31.300 But the other thing that the lawmakers are doing is they are grappling for information.

00:08:34.800 So, as we reported yesterday, Marco Rubio briefed the Gang of Eight, which is congressional leaders and the head of the classified intelligence committees from both houses.

00:08:43.040 Now, every other lawmaker wants to get in on the action.

00:08:46.700 There have been some private meetings, at least on the Republican side, late yesterday and early today.

00:08:51.940 But I expect to see a lot more public posturing calling for either support or condemnation of the president.

00:08:57.560 And more than anything, expect to see a lot of anonymous stories of such and such a lawmaker is furious that they weren't briefed on the attacks.

00:09:05.240 Yeah, we're going to be speaking with Senator Bill Haggerty in a moment.

00:09:07.860 And we're definitely going to get his take on that looming War Powers Resolution vote in the Senate.

00:09:13.340 So, Cassie, I want to get to you.

00:09:14.640 We know that Iran, they were very prepared for a strike that would kill the Ayatollah.

00:09:19.120 They had an entire succession plan in place.

00:09:21.740 We now know that there is an interim leadership council who is temporarily running the country until a permanent leader is chosen.

00:09:27.960 Walk us through that process.

00:09:29.200 Who is on this interim council?

00:09:31.640 And what does this replacement process look like?

00:09:33.820 Sure.

00:09:36.380 So, the first person on the council is President Masud Pezistan.

00:09:40.860 And then the second one would be Judiciary Chief Ghulmalasin Mohsen Enji.

00:09:45.380 I'm probably mispronouncing some of these names.

00:09:47.380 And then there's a jurist from the Guardian Council.

00:09:49.480 So, this is a group of three people.

00:09:51.060 Obviously, they're probably very hidden right now.

00:09:53.340 And they're supposed to lead the country.

00:09:55.180 Now, the Iranians are very prepared for this.

00:09:57.200 They have succession.

00:09:58.180 They have IRGC commanders spread out throughout the country.

00:10:01.320 They knew something like this could happen, and they're prepared to deal with it.

00:10:04.200 So, usually, there is a huge process of how they pick the next supreme leader.

00:10:09.060 You know, a lot of the mullahs come together, and they go through a very, like, legalistic process to figure out who the next leader is.

00:10:15.520 But they're obviously suspending that and having a short-term council to lead.

00:10:20.160 But I did just see that Israel has now launched new strikes on Tehran.

00:10:25.440 This has happened in the last few minutes.

00:10:27.760 Israel has declared air superiority over all of Tehran and all of western Iran.

00:10:32.880 So, they are in the skies, and they're not getting shot down.

00:10:36.000 And this is a big breakthrough throughout this conflict.

00:10:38.520 And I'm assuming they'll, you know, go to the rest of the country as well and get rid of those air defense systems.

00:10:43.780 So, again, the big question now, we have this, obviously, information vacuum coming out of Iran where it's difficult for us to glean too much about their internal processes.

00:10:53.320 But what are we hearing right now as to who could be the most likely or logical replacement for the Ayatollah when this is all said and done?

00:11:01.540 Right. So, a lot of people, I mean, previously, a few years ago, you would have said it would have been the Iranian president that mysteriously fell down in a helicopter.

00:11:10.800 Everyone thought he was going to be the successor.

00:11:13.580 You know, this is up in the air.

00:11:15.380 It could be anyone.

00:11:16.060 Israel is currently killing a lot of the senior leaders.

00:11:19.400 And if you haven't heard of how the work's been kind of divvied up between Israel and the U.S. during these attacks,

00:11:24.940 Israel's been primarily taking out leadership, and America has been primarily taking out facilities and military installations.

00:11:30.400 So, I guess we'll just see who's left standing, because Israel has already killed a huge portion of the chain of command in Iran.

00:11:39.360 So, I guess we'll see what happens there.

00:11:41.580 But I also want to point out that you were talking earlier about Iranian strikes on different countries in the region,

00:11:47.440 and the UAE just announced that they had shot down 96% of Iranian missiles.

00:11:53.540 That is highly successful.

00:11:55.120 Israel is close to that as well.

00:11:56.380 So, while the Iranians are shooting their missiles, and they're estimated to only have about 2,500, a lot of them are getting shot down.

00:12:03.220 So, it's only, you know, a few more days until Iran might run out of missiles.

00:12:07.120 Tim, let's get back to the political angle here.

00:12:09.360 Before these strikes, polling showed that a preemptive operation against Iran, frankly, was not popular.

00:12:15.800 The majority of Americans opposed such an operation.

00:12:18.240 But we also saw the same thing before the operation to capture Maduro in Venezuela, where people were not supportive.

00:12:24.200 But then they saw the results, and the majority ended up supporting that mission.

00:12:28.180 Do you think the same thing could happen here in Iran, given the overwhelming success of this move?

00:12:34.180 It's very likely.

00:12:35.280 I mean, first of all, you know, the sort of disclaimer is that war polling and polling around military action is kind of notoriously fickle.

00:12:41.700 And it always sort of vacillates depending on the mood, right?

00:12:44.420 I mean, there was a time when the Iraq war was polling, not super popularly, but, right, I mean, kind of better than it eventually polled.

00:12:52.800 And these things go up and down.

00:12:54.280 I think one thing that people are missing in this debate, and one thing we're hearing a lot here in Washington from the president's supporters,

00:13:00.060 is that it's very easy to fall back into the rhetoric of, he said no more forever wars.

00:13:05.260 He promised no more, you know, regime change in the Middle East.

00:13:08.280 And, yes, while this sort of smacks of that, I think much like we saw with Maduro,

00:13:12.300 the president and this administration are really hitting the message that their goal is not for it to be a forever war.

00:13:18.480 Their goal is for it to be decisive, successful, and then to hand things over to the Iranian people.

00:13:24.480 So I would expect to see a lot of vacillations in the coming days.

00:13:28.120 I mean, the two big news stories out this morning, obviously the fatalities, that's going to make this a little bit less popular.

00:13:34.800 But not an entirely equal counterbalance, but something else to throw into the mix,

00:13:39.080 the reports that former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been killed.

00:13:43.020 I mean, he was a big villain in the American political lexicon for a long time,

00:13:48.400 and in the formative years of a lot of people in our prime voting bloc.

00:13:51.360 So, I mean, this is a man who, much like the Ayatollahs, in a lot of American minds,

00:13:56.140 is synonymous with terrorism and tyranny in the Middle East.

00:13:59.320 So, again, I think we're going to see a lot of these one-two punches, something to boost the poll numbers,

00:14:04.100 something to bring it down.

00:14:05.660 It's also, I think, going to come down to when does Trump really start talking about this, right?

00:14:09.700 We've seen a couple of statements, a couple of truth social posts, again, mostly geared at Iran and the Iranian people.

00:14:16.060 But at some point, the president's going to come back to Washington.

00:14:18.820 At some point, he's going to get in front of news cameras.

00:14:20.980 And then that's a whole different ballgame.

00:14:22.760 Let's talk about what that might look like then, Tim.

00:14:24.740 Because, as you mentioned, Americans are hesitant to get involved in the Middle East,

00:14:30.720 even if it is a more touch-and-go operation like this one, in and out, not having boots on the ground.

00:14:36.400 But the White House was saying off the record to reporters or on background

00:14:40.520 that they had evidence of an imminent strike from Iran.

00:14:45.260 What are we hearing on that front?

00:14:46.660 And do you expect President Trump to make that the main thrust of,

00:14:49.100 hey, we had to go do this or else we were going to get hit,

00:14:51.920 beyond just saying, well, it's good for the Iranian people to topple this regime?

00:14:56.880 I think there's a good chance.

00:14:58.600 I mean, one never really knows what the president's going to say.

00:15:01.200 I think if I were the president's advisors, if I'm Caroline Leavitt or Marco Rubio or Susie Wiles,

00:15:07.000 I would be telling the president to actually take a different tact.

00:15:09.860 Because, again, that, as you mentioned at the top of the show,

00:15:13.060 that does sort of, people are immediately going to start thinking about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

00:15:17.760 The Bush administration, all of a sudden, this entanglement becomes 2003, and everyone's minds are made up.

00:15:24.140 What I think the president could do instead, and what I do think he will likely do,

00:15:27.540 is go back to the same posture that he usually takes after foreign entanglements, particularly successful ones,

00:15:32.900 which is talking and describing himself as the president of peace.

00:15:36.360 He's going to talk about all the wars that he's settled.

00:15:38.600 It's going to be some big number that, you know, will probably leave some head scratching saying 15 wars,

00:15:43.100 and you start counting on your fingers and trying to figure out what it is.

00:15:45.900 But he's going to talk about Venezuela.

00:15:47.560 He's going to talk about bringing on all the hostages from Israel.

00:15:50.400 He's going to talk about how, you know, he's talking tough with Putin.

00:15:53.500 He's going to talk about, you know, peace in Armenia and all these other places that he's sort of brokered talk.

00:15:58.880 So I think that is ultimately what it's going to come back to,

00:16:01.100 not switching the rhetoric away from we needed to neutralize this threat

00:16:05.860 and more to look at all that I am doing to create peace and stability in the broader world and make America safe.

00:16:12.280 Cassie, there have been reports from Israel that it was Israeli intelligence that was telling the U.S.

00:16:19.960 that the Ayatollah would be having this secret meeting above ground.

00:16:23.480 That was an important aspect there as well, that he would be above ground with his team.

00:16:28.220 Just tell us about that intelligence operation,

00:16:30.340 because even the fact that they were able to get footage of the Ayatollah's body confirmed out of the country,

00:16:37.260 how are they doing things like that and just how ingrained is Israeli intelligence within the regime?

00:16:44.520 I mean, there was a story a few years ago about how the man in charge of finding Mossad spies in Iran was actually a Mossad spy himself.

00:16:52.240 So Mossad is very ingrained in Israel, but they're not the ones taking credit for this.

00:16:56.880 The CIA is taking credit for knowing where Khomeini was,

00:17:00.760 and they say that they passed it along to the Israelis who carried out the strike.

00:17:04.860 So very coordinated.

00:17:06.660 This is much different than the 12-day war.

00:17:08.360 The 12-day war, Israel was by themselves until America came in with the B-2 bombers.

00:17:12.080 This is highly coordinated.

00:17:13.600 I kept asking because I was offline in the war start.

00:17:16.300 I kept saying, who attacked first, Israel or America?

00:17:18.480 And they attacked together.

00:17:19.680 So this is very coordinated.

00:17:21.800 And I just want to flag one more thing that we might be seeing the death toll of Americans go up,

00:17:25.560 because there were nine Israelis who were just killed in Beit Shemesh,

00:17:29.380 which is a highly American neighborhood in Israel.

00:17:32.280 We don't know the identities of these people yet,

00:17:34.260 and the death toll might be going up because there are some severely injured.

00:17:38.060 But I'm just flagging that because that might be a situation as well.

00:17:41.520 Yeah, I want to read this tweet again for people who are just now joining us,

00:17:46.020 that we have information coming in of American casualties.

00:17:49.800 I'm going to pull up that post right here from Central Command.

00:17:53.220 They wrote, as of 9.30 a.m. Eastern Time, three U.S. service members have been killed in action.

00:17:58.880 Five are seriously wounded as part of Operation Epic Fury.

00:18:02.140 Again, that's from CENTCOM.

00:18:03.080 That is about as cut and dry as it gets there.

00:18:06.340 So a lot of Americans now waking up to not just a flurry of deaths among Iranian leadership,

00:18:12.600 but also the first deaths among American service members.

00:18:15.480 Tim, what does this do to change the political calculus?

00:18:18.860 And how does this change the story?

00:18:20.600 Because no longer can the White House say, hey, we took Maduro with no casualties,

00:18:24.700 and now we took out the Ayatollah with no casualties.

00:18:28.900 That no longer is true.

00:18:31.120 How does that change things?

00:18:33.820 It immediately galvanizes the critics of the operation, of course.

00:18:38.300 But I think one thing that it does especially is it really galvanizes that handful of,

00:18:43.040 as I called them earlier, dissident Republicans.

00:18:44.980 Those sort of isolationist war critics like Thomas Massey and Senator Rand Paul.

00:18:50.680 She's not in Congress anymore, but former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia

00:18:54.560 has also been a very prominent voice on this front.

00:18:57.020 So you always see the line along, you know, they want to send your sons to die in the Middle East.

00:19:02.840 If they care about this war so much, why don't they enlist?

00:19:05.160 You hear that more from Republicans than from Democrats.

00:19:08.220 Democrats tend to criticize these efforts, you know, more along the lines of checking executive power.

00:19:12.500 That's what we hear from Tim Kaine and Ro Khanna, you know, not going into more debt,

00:19:16.920 saving money, focusing on domestic problems, allowing autonomy in other countries.

00:19:21.540 These are the, this is the way that Democrats oppose wars.

00:19:24.040 Anti-war Republicans oppose wars by saying American men and women are going to die,

00:19:28.480 and we do not want that to happen, right?

00:19:30.440 They are now, they are going to remind people that this is supposed to be an America first

00:19:35.100 intervention, administration.

00:19:37.080 They are going to say that this is not an America first policy if Americans are dying.

00:19:41.280 So I think we are going to see the critics who have already brought themselves out from

00:19:45.080 within the president's party, especially louder after this.

00:19:48.300 I think we are going, we can expect to see some more lawmakers.

00:19:51.760 I would keep an eye on some folks like Anna Paulina Luna and Lauren Boebert, some of these

00:19:57.060 other kind of former allies of Marjorie Taylor Greene who are sort of stuck very close to that

00:20:02.920 America first, no foreign wars part of the party.

00:20:06.740 Also, you know, the president's critics externally too, conservative voices.

00:20:10.840 We're going to start seeing a lot of that.

00:20:12.380 Yeah.

00:20:12.700 All right.

00:20:13.380 Tim, Cassie, thank you guys so much for coming on.

00:20:16.260 A very fluid situation, but we appreciate both of your insights.

00:20:19.900 Thanks, guys.

00:20:21.880 All right.

00:20:22.100 We're going to get now to Brian Hook, one of the leading experts on Iran.

00:20:26.240 He served as the U.S. special representative for Iran.

00:20:29.340 He was also the senior policy advisor to the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo.

00:20:33.180 So, Brian, thank you so much for joining us this morning.

00:20:35.980 Let's get right to it.

00:20:37.360 Because of your work, for years now, you have faced credible death threats from the Iranian

00:20:42.620 regime.

00:20:43.700 So, this has to be a remarkable weekend for you.

00:20:47.000 How does it feel seeing the death of the Ayatollah?

00:20:51.840 Well, I think more about American foreign policy than any of my own sort of, you know, personal

00:20:59.760 questions around these topics.

00:21:02.120 And so, you know, the Islamic Republic of Iran for 47 years has been engaged in really an

00:21:09.800 endless war against the United States and Israel.

00:21:13.260 And President Trump has had enormous success in the Middle East in his first term and now

00:21:18.280 in the second term.

00:21:19.220 I mean, you saw in the first term the defeat of ISIS and the Abraham Accords.

00:21:26.080 And then here we are in the second term.

00:21:28.880 We had another country join the Abraham Accords.

00:21:31.800 And now you have Iran largely on its back and in a very bad place as a consequence of

00:21:39.720 the 12-day war.

00:21:40.720 And now this effort to really change the trajectory of the Middle East towards something more

00:21:48.680 stable, something much more secular, something much more tolerant.

00:21:54.980 And I think these are all, I think the building blocks are in place for a much more stable and

00:22:00.620 prosperous Middle East.

00:22:02.220 What do you make of the men currently leading this interim council to replace the Ayatollah?

00:22:08.440 What should we expect from them?

00:22:11.060 Is there a chance that they take a diplomatic approach with Trump, sort of like we saw in

00:22:15.320 Venezuela with the new leadership?

00:22:16.580 Or do you think they're going to dig their heels in and fight even harder?

00:22:21.920 President Trump has offered all along the diplomatic track, which the regime has consistently

00:22:29.580 exploited.

00:22:31.420 I think that was a mistake.

00:22:34.020 And so here we are again, where the president is making very clear that there is an opportunity

00:22:40.820 to have good diplomatic relations with the United States.

00:22:44.000 But Iran has to end its enrichment so that we don't ever face the prospect of a nuclear

00:22:49.200 armed Iran.

00:22:50.920 We also need to end all of this proxy warfare, which has been such a danger to our troops in

00:22:57.460 the Middle East.

00:22:58.120 And they also need to end these long range ballistic missile productions, which could be aimed at

00:23:04.300 the United States.

00:23:05.960 And so regardless of who is in power, whether it's the Ayatollah or this triumvirate that's

00:23:10.780 in place, any sort of government that follows the death of the Ayatollah, there is an opportunity

00:23:16.860 to be at peace, not only with the United States, but also with Iran's Arab neighbors.

00:23:24.420 And that would be a very good thing because the biggest driver of terrorism and instability

00:23:31.020 in the Middle East has been the Iranian regime.

00:23:34.400 It has not been the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

00:23:37.740 It has been Iran's revolutionary expansionist regime that has fought proxy warfare for 47 years.

00:23:46.040 And one thing I've noticed here is that while we're in the middle of this conflict, we haven't

00:23:52.720 seen any of Iran's proxies attacking Israel.

00:23:56.880 And that is a testament to, I think, the resolve that the United States and especially Israel

00:24:01.780 has shown since October 7th to ensure that October 7th never happens again.

00:24:09.160 What more does that tell you about the fact that we haven't seen huge operations from these

00:24:13.500 proxies?

00:24:14.300 The Houthis issued a statement saying that they were prepared to help the Iranians and to

00:24:19.080 push back on the West, but we haven't seen this real flurry of activity from the Houthis.

00:24:23.400 Do you expect there to be more activity from their terror proxies?

00:24:29.320 They are so sufficiently degraded and their leadership has been so thoroughly eliminated

00:24:35.240 that I think they have lost command and control of any operations.

00:24:40.600 And so typically, this was always the fear from Israel and the United States, is that in

00:24:46.300 a conflict like this, you would have Hamas attacking Israel from one side, and you would

00:24:51.720 have Hezbollah attacking from the north, and you would have Shia proxies in Syria and Iraq,

00:24:56.600 and then you would have the Houthis in Yemen.

00:24:59.020 And all of these proxies would be firing at the same time on American troops and on Israel.

00:25:04.040 And look at what we see today, and we really shouldn't overlook the significance of this.

00:25:10.040 None of these proxies are active.

00:25:12.400 You're not seeing any sort of response from them.

00:25:15.660 And what that means is we are seeing the emergence of a new Middle East.

00:25:19.740 The attacks of October 7th by Hamas have massively backfired on everyone.

00:25:25.340 And Israel, I'm sorry, Iran, midwife, the creation of Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis,

00:25:33.480 all of these organizations.

00:25:35.660 And today, these organizations are in fragments.

00:25:40.580 They have lost any sort of power projection or operational capabilities.

00:25:45.400 And then we have Israel with aerial superiority over Iran.

00:25:50.260 By the way, in June, they did in three days what Putin has not been able to do in Ukraine in four years.

00:25:57.940 And then they've done it again with aerial superiority.

00:26:00.620 It's an enormous undertaking to pull that off.

00:26:04.640 And so I think this has been a very successful operation so far.

00:26:09.540 The president very much hopes that the Iranian people are going to fill the vacuum

00:26:13.680 that has been created by the death of the Ayatollah.

00:26:16.580 And we all very much hope that the Iranian people will have a government

00:26:21.100 that is truly representative of their interests.

00:26:24.640 You mentioned Putin there earlier.

00:26:26.540 Let's elaborate on that.

00:26:28.140 What do you expect to see from the Russians in the coming days?

00:26:31.380 And what does the success of this operation to date mean for Moscow?

00:26:34.760 These sorts of conflicts send a message around the world.

00:26:42.820 When Obama did not enforce his red line in Syria, that sent exactly the wrong message.

00:26:48.640 But I think President Trump's operations in Venezuela, now in Iran,

00:26:53.560 certainly send a message to President Putin, President Xi, Kim Jong-un in North Korea,

00:26:58.100 in Cuba, it doesn't matter, anywhere along that axis of resistance, this is a teaching moment.

00:27:06.700 America has no peer militarily.

00:27:09.320 And we pull off these spectacular and extraordinarily complicated operations and we do it successfully.

00:27:15.720 And so I think if you're President Putin, you have to wonder just how much of an alliance

00:27:20.740 you want to have with the Iranian regime.

00:27:24.200 And it really should have that effect of causing China and Russia and anybody else

00:27:28.860 to have second thoughts about getting too close.

00:27:31.840 Whether it's Iran or Maduro in Venezuela or in Cuba,

00:27:36.800 President Trump is sending a message to all of these countries,

00:27:40.660 you should choose your partners very carefully.

00:27:43.060 I think a lot of Americans are waking up yesterday and today maybe unsure of how to feel.

00:27:51.520 You know, there's this sort of secretive regime in Iran.

00:27:54.900 People don't know a ton about them.

00:27:56.520 So what are some things that you believe that the average American has wrong about Iran

00:28:02.300 or maybe misunderstandings they have about the way that this regime operates?

00:28:05.960 Well, ever since 1979 in that Iranian revolution and they took hostage our entire diplomatic corps

00:28:18.840 in Tehran and then whether it's all, I mean, the Iranian regime is responsible for the deaths

00:28:26.360 of thousands of Americans and even in Iraq alone, Qasem Soleimani was responsible for the deaths

00:28:34.120 of over 600 Americans.

00:28:36.780 And America has interests in every region of the world.

00:28:39.860 We have troops in every region of the world.

00:28:42.180 And it has been the consistent mission set of the Iranian regime to target American troops

00:28:47.640 and American civilians in every part of the world, not just in the Middle East.

00:28:53.620 And so I'm old enough to remember people tying ribbons around trees to remember the hostages

00:29:01.480 back in 1979.

00:29:04.300 And there has just been so much bloodshed.

00:29:08.520 And President Trump uniquely understands that.

00:29:11.120 He also understands the Iranian regime, you know, has never won a war and never lost a negotiation.

00:29:17.000 They're very good at these talks that just go on and on and on.

00:29:20.320 And I think Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff did their absolute best to try to help the Iranian

00:29:27.400 regime come to the table and come to a deal, come to a deal that would be around any nuclear

00:29:36.060 enrichment, the things I discussed earlier, and the regime miscalculated.

00:29:41.200 And so here we are today.

00:29:43.400 The Iranian regime has never been weaker in its history.

00:29:47.140 And I think its proxies have never been weaker.

00:29:50.320 This will create greater peace and stability in the Middle East.

00:29:54.300 We talked about Russia earlier and what this means for Putin.

00:29:56.940 Let's get to China, the other big player, other adversary.

00:30:00.260 We know they are heavily reliant on Iranian oil exports.

00:30:03.880 What else does this mean for President Xi?

00:30:08.000 The Chinese relationship with the Iranian regime has always been very transactional, which

00:30:13.040 is kind of how China's relationship with every nation is.

00:30:16.880 They engage in predatory economics under President Xi.

00:30:22.000 And for a country like China, they very much want cheap Iranian oil.

00:30:28.340 And because of President Trump's sanctions on Iranian oil, he was the first one to do that,

00:30:32.960 by the way.

00:30:33.400 President Obama, under the Iran nuclear deal, the United States was not allowed to sanction

00:30:38.540 any Iranian oil and all of the terror proxies that we've been discussing.

00:30:44.620 They're all financed by Iranian oil.

00:30:47.180 So if you can go after the oil, it changes everything because Iran is the central banker

00:30:53.580 for all of these terror groups around the Middle East.

00:30:57.220 And so China was able to buy a lot of Iranian crude at a discount because it was illegal to

00:31:04.360 ship the oil.

00:31:05.060 And so China very much enjoys cheap Iranian oil.

00:31:10.260 Under the first term, we were able to collapse Iran's exports and took it from something like

00:31:19.140 1.7 million barrels to functionally zero.

00:31:22.600 And that had a crippling effect on the economy.

00:31:25.620 I think it's going to be much harder now for China to continue buying the oil.

00:31:30.060 They're going to have to get it from somewhere else.

00:31:31.720 So they're going to have to, you know, get it through ship to ship transfers on these

00:31:37.260 shadow tankers that are floating around the world.

00:31:40.700 And so that's one piece of it.

00:31:42.800 I don't think it's much of an alliance.

00:31:45.680 The Chinese spread their risk around the Gulf.

00:31:48.860 They don't want to go so deep with any one country that they alienate others.

00:31:54.080 So they play a double game where they'll try to get what they can from Iran, but they'll

00:31:59.220 try to get what they can from other nations in the Gulf or the Middle East.

00:32:03.260 And so it'll continue being business as usual with the Chinese.

00:32:06.740 All right.

00:32:06.940 We will leave it there.

00:32:07.700 Brian, thank you so much for your expertise.

00:32:10.280 We really appreciate you coming on and breaking this down for our audience.

00:32:13.900 My pleasure.

00:32:14.540 And we're going to keep things rolling here.

00:32:16.840 We have a ton more guests to come.

00:32:19.560 And I just want to let all of you know, if you appreciate the live coverage that we're

00:32:23.660 doing here, and if you appreciate the fact that this is commercial free, you watch this

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00:32:36.160 So please go to dailywire.com right now, become a member so we can continue bringing breaking

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00:32:51.220 Head to dailywire.com right now and become a member.

00:32:54.440 So we're going to hear from a number of lawmakers and diplomats in just a few moments.

00:32:58.580 But just recapping where we are today, day two of Operation Epic Fury continues.

00:33:04.620 The big news that we have coming out of the Middle East right now is that we have our first

00:33:08.620 reported American casualties.

00:33:10.400 It's CENTCOM reporting just within the last hour that there are three American service

00:33:15.680 members who have been killed.

00:33:17.200 A number of other ones have been seriously wounded.

00:33:19.640 That number was at five.

00:33:20.980 So we now know that we have our first American service members killed as a result of this action

00:33:26.440 to disarm Iran.

00:33:28.420 And President Trump actually warned yesterday when he announced this operation that there

00:33:32.580 was the potential for U.S. service members to be killed.

00:33:35.080 Let's play a clip of that speech now.

00:33:42.980 U.S. personnel in the region.

00:33:45.760 Even so, and I do not make this statement lightly, the Iranian regime seeks to kill.

00:33:53.420 The lives of courageous American heroes may be lost and we may have casualties that often

00:33:59.940 happens in war, but we're doing this not for now, we're doing this for the future, and

00:34:05.920 it is a noble mission.

00:34:08.000 We pray for every service member as they selflessly risk their lives to ensure that Americans and

00:34:14.700 our children will never be threatened by a nuclear-armed Iran.

00:34:18.600 We ask God to protect all of our heroes in harm's way, and we trust that, with his help, the

00:34:26.340 men and women of the armed forces will prevail.

00:34:31.820 So again, President Trump last night warning when he announced this operation there was

00:34:36.740 the potential for U.S. service members to be killed.

00:34:39.820 We now know Central Command confirming three American service members have died to this point,

00:34:44.840 at least five others seriously wounded, shrapnel, concussions, and other injuries.

00:34:49.660 We're still waiting for the details on how those casualties occurred, but again, this is

00:34:54.340 going to change the calculus, President Trump warning of that last night.

00:34:57.760 We're now joined in studio by Tennessee Senator Bill Haggerty.

00:35:01.020 Senator, thank you so much for being here.

00:35:02.160 It's great to be with you this morning.

00:35:02.940 So let's get to the breaking news, and then we'll get big picture, but Central Command confirming

00:35:07.000 this morning three U.S. casualties.

00:35:09.180 How does this change the calculus of this operation?

00:35:12.080 Well, it's heartbreaking.

00:35:12.740 President Trump warned that this was likely to happen, but I think you need to add this

00:35:16.000 to the long list of murders and mayhem that the Iranians have caused this regime since

00:35:20.520 they took over.

00:35:21.780 You think back to 1983, what happened with our marine barracks.

00:35:25.680 They took over 200 lives there of American marines.

00:35:28.900 They've continued to consistently wage war either directly or through their proxies.

00:35:34.240 You think about what happened on October 7th of 2023.

00:35:37.440 1,200 people were murdered and slaughtered there, over 40 Americans included in that toll.

00:35:41.140 This is something that we're going to have to address.

00:35:43.740 President Trump was clear about this yesterday, that it could happen.

00:35:45.960 I pray that this is absolutely minimized.

00:35:48.260 I know the president does as well.

00:35:49.480 All of us do.

00:35:50.660 Now, let's get to the Senate.

00:35:52.080 Democrats largely furious over this operation, despite its success to this point.

00:35:57.260 A number of Democrat leaders are calling for a vote on a war powers resolution in an

00:36:02.200 attempt to block the president from taking further action.

00:36:05.200 How will you vote on that measure if it comes to the floor?

00:36:07.460 And what do you make of that effort?

00:36:09.280 I don't think it's going to be successful at all.

00:36:11.140 First, President Trump has been clear he's not waging war on Iran.

00:36:14.040 What he's doing is he's taking out their capability to harm us, to harm our allies.

00:36:18.820 He's taking out their short-term, short-range ballistic missile capabilities.

00:36:23.220 He's also taking out their ability to create the launchers that send those missiles in the

00:36:27.240 direction of our allies.

00:36:28.740 Also in the direction of commerce in the region.

00:36:31.040 20% of the waterborne oil exports in the world go through the Strait of Hormuz.

00:36:36.000 Because Iran has always used this as a choke point.

00:36:38.220 President Trump is reducing or eliminating that capability.

00:36:41.220 This is about American interest.

00:36:43.320 This is surgical.

00:36:44.500 And I think he's going to try to do everything he can to minimize the casualties.

00:36:48.060 As we said, sad that we'd have any casualties.

00:36:50.440 But also he's opened the door for the Iranian people.

00:36:53.120 We've seen the picture of people in the streets celebrating.

00:36:56.180 This is a generational opportunity for them to step up and take their country back.

00:37:00.660 Yeah.

00:37:00.740 So I'm interested in your take on the objectives here.

00:37:03.960 So President Trump initially saying that the main goal was to knock out the nuclear stockpiles,

00:37:08.880 to destroy the missile capabilities, the missile program.

00:37:13.020 If that is successful, but the regime is still in power, would you support the president continuing

00:37:17.820 this operation once that first military mission is successful to try and get the regime weakened

00:37:22.940 so that they could be toppled from within?

00:37:24.560 This regime has done nothing except shout, death to America, death to Israel.

00:37:29.520 And look at what's happened now in the wake of this most recent episode.

00:37:34.040 They've actually gone out and attacked their allies in the region.

00:37:37.500 I think the world's sentiment is turning against this regime.

00:37:39.720 They need to go.

00:37:41.140 The White House has said they had credible intelligence,

00:37:43.880 that Iran was planning a preemptive strike on American forces in the region.

00:37:49.020 Have you been given any evidence of those preemptive plans from Iran?

00:37:52.440 You know, I've not had those sort of intelligence briefings, but I can say this.

00:37:57.460 Iran has consistently positioned and postured itself so that it continued to create and reap mayhem in the area.

00:38:03.620 If you think about how unserious their negotiations have been,

00:38:06.700 when Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner left the negotiating table just this past Thursday,

00:38:11.740 there was no willingness of Iran to actually take this seriously.

00:38:14.880 They still kept taking everything off the table that were our red lines.

00:38:18.160 So it's clear they had no interest in peace.

00:38:20.260 They had no interest in negotiating.

00:38:21.360 All they're trying to do is what they've done for so many times before, which is just tap America along.

00:38:26.800 This president is unwilling to accept that, and I applaud it.

00:38:29.960 I think a lot of folks are interested in how long this can continue on.

00:38:34.080 President Trump has said days to weeks.

00:38:37.040 What do you know and what can you tell the American people about how long this can go,

00:38:40.920 just from a logistical standpoint?

00:38:42.300 What sort of stockpiles are we talking about?

00:38:44.360 And could that potentially open the door for our stockpiles to be drained?

00:38:48.420 And how long would those take to replenish?

00:38:49.740 I guess just walk us through the timeline of what you see.

00:38:51.440 I think the stockpile to look at is the Iranian stockpile.

00:38:54.480 They've got about 2,500 ballistic missiles.

00:38:57.100 They're going to be draining that stockpile.

00:38:59.260 President Trump is taking out their ability to launch that stockpile.

00:39:01.880 He's also taking out the stockpile itself.

00:39:04.300 What you will see is the Israelis now having complete control of the airspace over Iran.

00:39:08.400 They will not be able to, the Iranians, will not be able to protect or defend their stockpiles or their launching capability.

00:39:15.200 What's happening right now is that we are going through and searching and seeking and destroying all of that launch capability.

00:39:20.420 So I think that this is going to be denominated in days or weeks.

00:39:23.160 It's going to be very short, very surgical.

00:39:24.800 Again, this is not waging war on Iran.

00:39:27.380 This is going in and taking out a capability that they have used to wreak terror around the region.

00:39:31.800 And he's doing that in advance of Iran's stated program.

00:39:34.700 They wanted to take that 2,500 to 8,000.

00:39:36.980 They want to increase their ability to create and harass terror in the region.

00:39:42.340 So this is all about standing up for America's interests, standing up for allies' interests, and taking out a capability that has been used for far too long, for decades, to kill Americans, to harm and create mayhem in the region.

00:39:55.200 It's coming to an end.

00:39:56.060 Could you elaborate on the angle with regard to American interests?

00:40:00.280 Polling shows that Americans are very hesitant to support wars in the Middle East.

00:40:04.900 There's this hangover that's looming from Iraq and Afghanistan.

00:40:08.080 And I think people hear war in Iran and they think, or military action in Iran, and they think, is this going to be another conflict like that?

00:40:16.440 What is the case for why this is a beneficial thing for Americans?

00:40:20.620 Why this is good for folks here in Tennessee, the state where we both live?

00:40:23.260 Well, I can tell you why it's been bad since, what, 1979 when the regime took over.

00:40:28.200 We have seen nothing but instability and terror throughout this region.

00:40:32.180 Whether it's their being the number one state sponsor of terror, you think about what they've done through Hezbollah, what they've done through Hamas.

00:40:38.080 The Houthis, they've continued to consistently create havoc in the region.

00:40:42.520 We went in, what was it, eight, ten months ago, using bunker busters and took out their nuclear capability.

00:40:47.840 Operation Midnight Hammer was a complete success.

00:40:50.280 We told them that should be the end of their nuclear ambitions.

00:40:52.820 The Iranians turned right around and started back on that program again.

00:40:55.560 President Trump could not have been more clear.

00:40:57.620 They want to create havoc and mayhem.

00:41:00.200 And again, listen to what they say.

00:41:01.960 Death to America.

00:41:03.660 They need to be dealt with.

00:41:05.380 The time has come.

00:41:06.120 And frankly, they're at a weakened point right now.

00:41:08.540 This was the time to do it.

00:41:10.060 Have you been surprised by the lack of global support for Iran?

00:41:14.500 Their proxies not, you know, not really joining the fray here.

00:41:18.760 China and Russia both have been fairly silent.

00:41:21.380 Has that surprised you to see just how isolated Iran has become?

00:41:23.880 I think our adversaries should take careful note of this.

00:41:26.900 Same situation in Venezuela.

00:41:29.000 America goes in and acts.

00:41:30.340 Our allies step up with us.

00:41:32.100 These people have no allies.

00:41:33.600 These rogue nations have no allies.

00:41:36.080 It's a marriage of convenience.

00:41:37.840 If you think about it from China's perspective, they've been buying the illicit oil from Venezuela,

00:41:41.780 from Iran.

00:41:42.880 Those days are over.

00:41:44.060 If you think about it from Russia's perspective, they should look at this with great concern.

00:41:47.540 President Trump means what he says.

00:41:49.620 And he delivers on what he says.

00:41:51.420 Let's come back stateside.

00:41:52.500 The Department of Homeland Security has warned for years that under President Biden,

00:41:57.300 when we had millions of illegals crossing the border undetected,

00:42:00.420 we don't know who many of those people are.

00:42:02.340 The DHS has been warning that there were efforts, they believed, from Iran to send sleeper cells

00:42:08.000 across our border.

00:42:09.720 Do you have any reason to believe that there could be a threat here on American soil?

00:42:13.340 Certainly.

00:42:13.920 We've had that concern from the very outset of the Biden administration going back to 2021.

00:42:18.180 When Joe Biden collapsed the border, this is exactly what we were concerned about.

00:42:21.480 The potential of it happening.

00:42:23.140 I'd say this.

00:42:24.340 My Democrat colleagues who are pushing for war powers resolution should also be pushing to reopen the Department of Homeland Security.

00:42:30.400 They have shut it down.

00:42:31.740 Without a single Republican vote, it's time to make certain that we have the greatest capability that we can here in the homeland to protect ourselves.

00:42:38.120 And it's certainly the time to stop playing politics and keeping DHS shut down just so they can wave a political flag.

00:42:43.820 Tangibly speaking, how does that shutdown impact America's preparedness to protect our people?

00:42:49.040 Well, it takes our Coast Guard in a position.

00:42:51.840 Look, these men and women that are serving are continuing to serve.

00:42:55.820 They're patriots.

00:42:56.900 They step up and do the job.

00:42:58.280 But the fact that they aren't getting paid, again, just makes their lives much harder.

00:43:02.400 And why the Democrats want to exercise their political judgment in a way that hurts and punishes these people when they have nothing to do with the Democrats' frustration that, frankly, they don't have any message except resist Trump and resist anything at all costs.

00:43:17.940 And what they're doing is putting our nation in harm's way in the process.

00:43:20.260 Final word to the American people.

00:43:22.840 What should they be taking away from this operation?

00:43:25.120 What have we learned about President Trump's foreign policy?

00:43:28.020 That resolve matters.

00:43:29.420 That the U.S. has the most impeccable capability of any military in the world.

00:43:33.600 Think about the intelligence that was deployed here.

00:43:36.020 The precision that was used.

00:43:37.460 The fact that we knew exactly where these people were.

00:43:39.540 The Ayatollah.

00:43:40.500 The chief leadership.

00:43:41.340 They had the equivalent of a National Security Council meeting.

00:43:44.020 And they are gone.

00:43:44.940 Forty of the top leaders are gone.

00:43:47.140 I think the world should take note that our intelligence and our military capability are beyond compare.

00:43:52.240 Absolutely.

00:43:52.600 That is Senator Bill Haggerty from the great state of Tennessee, our home state.

00:43:56.600 Thank you so much for joining us.

00:43:57.420 Great to be with you, Senator.

00:43:58.220 Thanks so much.

00:43:58.700 We are going to keep things rolling.

00:44:00.180 More breaking news coming in every single hour.

00:44:03.300 We have first from Central Command the announcement that there were three U.S. service members who have been killed, at least five others injured.

00:44:11.560 So we are going to bring you new updates from there.

00:44:14.040 And we're now going to get to our next panel.

00:44:15.920 We have Bhatia Ungar-Sargan joining us.

00:44:19.420 So Bhatia, thank you so much for being here.

00:44:22.320 Also on the panel, we have Elizabeth Pipko.

00:44:24.820 So guys, let's get to this.

00:44:26.560 Bhatia, let's start with you.

00:44:28.580 When you woke up yesterday, you saw this news.

00:44:31.580 What was your first reaction?

00:44:33.240 You're smiling.

00:44:33.920 You look very happy.

00:44:34.720 What was your first reaction?

00:44:35.560 Thank you so much for having me.

00:44:38.780 It's really an honor to be here with you.

00:44:40.940 I'm smiling because I didn't find out in the morning.

00:44:43.380 I didn't find out until the afternoon because it was Shabbat.

00:44:45.880 And so we were logged off.

00:44:47.120 And the rabbi happened to mention it in shul.

00:44:49.260 We barely believed it.

00:44:51.180 And then, of course, logging on after Shabbat at 6.30 p.m.

00:44:54.200 and finding out that the Ayatollah was dead.

00:44:58.000 Jubilation.

00:44:59.080 That man wanted every American dead.

00:45:02.180 The idea that he was not an enemy of the United States is ridiculous.

00:45:06.200 I don't understand what people think they wanted the nuclear weapon for.

00:45:10.460 They opposed the West with every fiber of their being.

00:45:13.840 They opposed the idea of freedom with every fiber of their being.

00:45:16.780 And so the world is a much safer place.

00:45:19.380 Our grandchildren are going to be much safer because of the brave action that the president

00:45:25.580 took.

00:45:26.440 And, of course, I understand people who voted for him because he said no new wars.

00:45:30.780 I'm one of those people.

00:45:32.160 But the idea that this is anything like Iraq is just ridiculous.

00:45:36.120 It's utterly unthinkable that there will be American troops on the ground.

00:45:39.900 So we're praying for the troops.

00:45:41.180 We heard about these three troops who tragically have lost their lives.

00:45:44.480 I truly, truly hope that no more life is lost.

00:45:48.380 I'm praying every minute for it.

00:45:50.160 But the president is very keenly aware of where his base is on this.

00:45:54.740 And I think that he wants this to be over very quickly.

00:45:57.620 Elizabeth, let's get to you.

00:45:59.280 What do you make of the Democratic response that we've seen so far?

00:46:02.840 We know there's this push in the Senate for a war powers resolution condemning.

00:46:06.360 We've seen Zoran Mamdani saying that this was a terrible day for the world.

00:46:11.180 What do you think of that response?

00:46:12.900 And how is that going to play with the American people?

00:46:16.040 Well, look, it's not a surprise, right?

00:46:17.360 I think if any of us could have imagined that we were going to wake up to this news or, like

00:46:21.200 Bhatia said, actually, to turn on our phones to this news because I'm in the same boat

00:46:24.500 and imagine the Democrats would be supportive of that, no one would have believed that,

00:46:29.040 right?

00:46:29.160 We've seen what they stand for, which is basically just opposing anything that Donald Trump

00:46:33.360 happens to do.

00:46:34.640 They know that they can rile up their base with this.

00:46:37.540 That's kind of all they look for at this point is opportunities to rile up the furthest

00:46:41.540 progressive portion of their base and make sure that they're ready to go out and vote

00:46:45.460 in the midterms.

00:46:46.400 And unfortunately, that base is the same base that's been burning American flags on college

00:46:50.740 campuses, chanting death to America like the Iranian regime has done.

00:46:55.360 We've seen these protests.

00:46:56.520 We unfortunately know what these people stand for.

00:46:58.300 And the Democrats are really laughing in all of our faces, assuming that we don't realize

00:47:02.260 exactly what they're doing, which is standing against America and hoping that it works out

00:47:06.900 for them because they need those votes this November.

00:47:09.600 And that's kind of all that they have left in their party.

00:47:12.380 Yeah, Bhatia, let's get to November here.

00:47:16.060 We're still eight months away and folks have short attention spans these days.

00:47:20.300 But what sort of impact do you see this operation having on the midterms and on the GOP push

00:47:25.760 and pitch to voters?

00:47:28.500 It's too soon to tell, right?

00:47:30.000 It all depends on how it ends.

00:47:31.820 If, God forbid, we see, you know, lots of casualties on the American front, that's not going to

00:47:37.560 play to the president's, in the president's favor.

00:47:41.240 Right now, 54% of Americans already support the strike.

00:47:46.060 So, you know, the idea that there's somehow a divide in MAGA on this, expect to see a lot

00:47:51.860 of liberal media wish casting about that.

00:47:54.920 I think it's all nonsense.

00:47:56.680 You know, 54% of Americans supporting it.

00:47:58.820 How many of those do you think are Democrats?

00:48:00.680 Not a lot of them.

00:48:01.820 So I do think that this is a lot like the first strike in Iran in June to where before

00:48:07.320 it happened, most people said they didn't support it.

00:48:09.860 After it happened and it was so successful, you really saw a lot of support, including

00:48:13.380 up to 90% of Republicans supporting it.

00:48:16.340 So it really all depends on what happens next.

00:48:18.480 But again, never doubt the president's understanding of where his base is, regardless of what some

00:48:24.500 high-profile isolationist podcasters try to tell you.

00:48:29.160 Bhatia, I know we have to let you go in two minutes.

00:48:30.820 So I want to give you one more word here.

00:48:32.520 I'm interested in what you expect to see from the Iranian people.

00:48:37.160 You know, when we talk about regime change, it can be this vague concept.

00:48:40.380 But tangibly, what would it have to look like for the Iranian people to step up and topple

00:48:44.600 this regime?

00:48:46.140 Do you know what's interesting?

00:48:47.180 I don't think the president is looking for a total regime change.

00:48:50.600 I think he wants exactly what he got in Venezuela, which wasn't actually an extreme regime change,

00:48:57.100 right?

00:48:57.280 That would have been installing Maria Machado.

00:48:59.940 That's what the Bush era folks would have done.

00:49:02.140 And the president and Marco Rubio said, no, we actually don't want chaos here.

00:49:06.380 And if we do that, we risk a coup d'etat.

00:49:09.080 We risk the generals getting angry.

00:49:10.840 We're going to keep Dulce Rodriguez, who was Maduro's number two, and just say to her,

00:49:15.200 you like this job?

00:49:16.380 You know, how about being a little bit more pro-America?

00:49:18.700 That's what we're here for.

00:49:19.420 And I think they're pursuing the exact same thing in Iran.

00:49:22.220 They're not trying to install somebody who the West would love.

00:49:26.600 They're saying we need to get the nuclear threat off.

00:49:29.140 We need to get rid of the threat to the United States, to our children and grandchildren.

00:49:32.600 And the rest is really up to the Iranian people.

00:49:36.060 We wish them well.

00:49:36.980 We want them to win.

00:49:38.320 But we're not fighting this fight for them.

00:49:40.620 There is a maturity that this president is bringing to the table with Marco Rubio, where

00:49:45.320 they have a really clear understanding of they're rejecting both the Obama era appeasement

00:49:49.640 and the Bush era nation building and saying, we are America first.

00:49:54.620 We want you to do what's right for you.

00:49:56.420 We want to see freedom everywhere.

00:49:58.120 But we're trying to avoid chaos and create stability, which is why it was so important.

00:50:02.500 And for the Saudis to get on board here as well.

00:50:05.600 All right.

00:50:06.160 We are going to give you let's do one more.

00:50:08.860 I got one more question for you, Bhatia, and we'll make it a 30 second one.

00:50:12.000 How does the report of U.S. service members being killed change the president's calculus?

00:50:16.580 Do you think it does anything to change his strategy or the messaging around this operation?

00:50:21.260 You know, he said in his initial message to the American people that this could be a possibility,

00:50:28.420 which I thought was really correct to do, not to avoid the fact that this might happen.

00:50:36.740 He, of course, wants to avoid these kinds of casualties at all costs.

00:50:41.300 But again, he's protecting our children and grandchildren from having to face a nuclear Iran.

00:50:45.500 I think that if it does seem that the threat is big, I think that will change the calculus.

00:50:54.080 But as you pointed out, Kavit, you're not seeing the Russians or the Chinese coming to the Iranian regime's defense.

00:51:01.020 They've sort of abandoned them.

00:51:02.880 That all turned out to be, you know, fake allyship.

00:51:05.900 So I don't know how long Iran is going to be able to hold on.

00:51:10.280 But, you know, I think it does change the calculus.

00:51:12.640 Not these three poor souls, precious souls who we mourn.

00:51:16.280 But if this continues and it seems like there is a big threat to mass casualties,

00:51:20.580 I do think that will change the calculation for the president.

00:51:23.140 All right, Bhatia, always a pleasure to speak with you.

00:51:25.680 You can go watch Bhatia.

00:51:27.640 Elizabeth, thank you so much.

00:51:29.060 That's Elizabeth Pipko, former RNC spokesperson and Bhatia, host of Bhatia.

00:51:33.880 Guys, thank you so much.

00:51:34.880 We're going to continue going with all the breaking news that we have coming in.

00:51:38.200 Again, the United States launching day two of Operation Epic Fury with Israel.

00:51:43.880 There are ongoing airstrikes across the region.

00:51:46.740 The U.S. continues to hit missile sites, knocking out nuclear production facilities and knocking out missile stockpiles.

00:51:53.380 We believe that the Iranians' latest intelligence says they had 2,500 missiles before this.

00:51:57.500 They are burning through those stockpiles, launching them.

00:52:00.340 As we said, for lack of a better word, use them before you lose them because the U.S. is targeting them.

00:52:04.880 And they are hitting Middle Eastern countries throughout the region.

00:52:08.000 We've had explosions reported in Bahrain, Qatar, Jordan, the UAE.

00:52:12.580 There were explosions at high rises in Dubai.

00:52:14.980 In Israel, there were reports of a bomb that made it through, a missile that made it through.

00:52:19.560 And at this point, killed eight people in a residential neighborhood.

00:52:23.560 And the big news this morning, three U.S. service members confirmed killed.

00:52:27.040 We're going to read that update from CENTCOM.

00:52:30.460 At 9.30 a.m. Eastern time, we're confirming three U.S. service members have been killed in action and five are seriously wounded as part of Operation Epic Fury.

00:52:38.700 Several others sustained minor shrapnel injuries and concussions and are in the process of being returned to duty.

00:52:43.820 They go on to note that because of privacy for the families, they are going to withhold any further information.

00:52:49.960 But once we get news on how this took place, we don't know if these were some of the missiles that got through to some of these bases.

00:52:58.280 We do not know how these individuals were killed, but we will bring you the news as soon as we get it.

00:53:03.640 President Trump has been relatively quiet about this matter.

00:53:07.600 He posted a number of statements on Truth Social talking about all of this.

00:53:12.620 He had one where he warned that, quote, Iran just stated they are going to hit very hard today, harder than they have ever hit before.

00:53:19.840 They better not do that because if they do, we will hit them with a force that has never been seen before.

00:53:25.540 Thank you for your attention to this matter.

00:53:27.640 President Trump, again, going on later on to celebrate the death of Hamni, saying one of the most evil people in history is dead.

00:53:34.140 This is not only justice for the people of Iran, but for all great Americans.

00:53:38.180 He went on to say that this is the single greatest chance for the Iranian people to take back their country.

00:53:43.840 So President Trump, again, celebrating the death of the Ayatollah.

00:53:47.520 We also now know that at least 40 senior members of the Ayatollah's team were also killed in that decapitation strike.

00:53:54.220 There were three simultaneous strikes by the Israelis.

00:53:56.820 The Ayatollah was meeting with his top advisors from the intelligence and military community in Iran.

00:54:02.840 There were two other meetings going on above ground.

00:54:05.840 Right now, reports from the White House are saying that the Ayatollah did not believe that he was going to be targeted in the morning.

00:54:11.420 He was not in his bunker.

00:54:13.040 And the U.S., we believe, preferred to launch this strike in the middle of the night as they have in the past.

00:54:18.040 But when they saw that the Ayatollah was meeting above ground, they took the opportunity.

00:54:21.960 They said this might be the best chance we get.

00:54:23.860 And we now know that the U.S. and Israel were, again, successful in that operation.

00:54:27.940 We're now going to get to one of our reporters, Brekka Stoll, who has been on the ground in New York City.

00:54:34.040 She has been gathering some footage from protests.

00:54:36.860 So let's play some of that footage that we have from her protest that she attended in New York City yesterday.

00:54:41.820 And then we'll bring Brekka on.

00:54:42.840 Brekka,

00:55:12.320 First, I'll say I can smell that protest from here based on some of the individuals I'm seeing.

00:55:17.020 But what were some of the chants that you heard?

00:55:19.460 What was the main message from those protesters?

00:55:23.520 Well, the most concerning chant that I heard was when they were chanting,

00:55:27.620 you know, Donald Trump and the U.S.A. are the biggest threat in the world today.

00:55:32.220 And these protesters were very angry with the president.

00:55:34.840 And as you saw, that clip was in the middle of the street in New York.

00:55:38.020 And so right behind me, we walked all the way up 8th Avenue from Times Square to Columbus Circle, where I am now.

00:55:44.880 And they overtook, you know, one of the biggest cities in the country.

00:55:49.880 And how on earth are you able to take over a street like that?

00:55:53.320 Well, we found out it's actually through the mayor's office.

00:55:56.260 They obtained a permit in seven hours, Cabot, and were able to put on that production.

00:56:01.400 What do we know about who was organizing this protest?

00:56:06.460 Yes.

00:56:06.940 So as, you know, we talked about yesterday, we saw it was the Answer Coalition was part of it.

00:56:11.860 But then I'm also seeing reports of the People's Forum.

00:56:14.780 And apparently people are saying that that program has ties to the CCP.

00:56:19.320 And, you know, I talked to one of the protesters out here yesterday and I asked,

00:56:23.360 how did you find out about this?

00:56:24.820 And then she tells me about the group chats that they have

00:56:27.620 and the different roles that every protester can play in the group chats.

00:56:31.820 So they have sign makers, they have chanters, they have organizers,

00:56:36.100 and they have outreachers, flyer printers.

00:56:38.920 And we saw, you know, before the protest started,

00:56:41.740 people bringing in these large signs, these large wagons carrying supplies.

00:56:46.520 And you'll notice in that video, several of the signs are the same.

00:56:49.820 And it just shows that this is ready to go.

00:56:53.000 And it's very difficult to get kind of something of that scale,

00:56:56.020 a thousand people on the same page so quickly.

00:56:58.700 So you just know that there is some level of organization behind it.

00:57:02.880 People can see in the video you captured, this protest, it's a very dour mood.

00:57:07.160 People clearly very angry.

00:57:09.180 We saw a very different reaction from Iranians who were protesting,

00:57:12.840 not just in Iran, but protesting all across Europe.

00:57:15.960 Or I should say celebrating, not protesting, celebrating.

00:57:18.440 They were cheering.

00:57:19.960 There were American and Iranian flags.

00:57:21.660 People were very happy.

00:57:22.920 We're going to play some of that footage from Iran of people being excited.

00:57:25.300 Were there any Iranians there that were trying to talk to protesters,

00:57:28.800 telling them, hey, we're actually pretty happy that this evil tyrant was killed?

00:57:34.760 Oh, we saw one protester, you know, yell at the group saying,

00:57:38.320 you guys don't know what you're doing.

00:57:39.820 You know, you shouldn't be doing this right now.

00:57:42.180 But we didn't see that same level of enthusiasm or praise for the president.

00:57:46.320 And I think we just have to think about, you know, where we are.

00:57:49.000 We are in New York is one of the most liberal cities in the country.

00:57:51.920 You know, the state hasn't voted for a Republican president since Ronald Reagan in 1984.

00:57:57.860 And so I think we're just seeing that, you know, that group just may not be here.

00:58:01.660 And, you know, we weren't in any other areas, mainly just following that group of protesters.

00:58:06.500 And so that's what we were following yesterday.

00:58:08.620 All right, Brecca, we will leave it there.

00:58:10.080 Thank you so much for your reporting on the ground.

00:58:12.080 Stay safe there in the Big Apple.

00:58:13.660 Thank you so much, Cabot.

00:58:17.340 All right, again, we are tracking breaking news.

00:58:19.360 This is a special breaking edition of Wired In Live.

00:58:22.480 And if you guys appreciate the work we're doing, we're running live all morning.

00:58:26.120 We did this for hours yesterday.

00:58:27.680 No commercial breaks.

00:58:28.960 We just thank all of you.

00:58:30.140 We're able to do that because of our Daily Wire members.

00:58:32.400 So if you want to support the investigative work we're doing, support the live coverage,

00:58:36.160 support our reporters that are all around the country, all around the world, bringing you the truth,

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00:58:41.920 Become a member today.

00:58:43.100 You can join the conversation.

00:58:44.580 You'll get special access on our website as this breaking story develops.

00:58:48.460 So thank you again so much to our members.

00:58:50.720 All right, I want to turn now to David Friedman.

00:58:52.720 He's the former ambassador to Israel who is joining us now from Israel.

00:58:57.380 David, thank you so much for coming on.

00:58:59.000 It's a pleasure to speak with you.

00:59:00.420 Just walk us through the mood that you are experiencing right now in Israel.

00:59:06.280 Well, you know, it's an interesting question.

00:59:09.180 It's the mood, I would say, is overwhelmingly optimistic.

00:59:14.660 I'm grateful to President Trump.

00:59:18.740 I'm proud, incredibly proud of the working together, the collaboration between the U.S.

00:59:26.780 military and the IDF, which I think together has put together probably the greatest military operation in the history of the world.

00:59:33.800 So there's optimism that this enemy may finally be tamed, that there's pride.

00:59:41.020 But then, of course, there's concern because every few minutes there's a siren going off.

00:59:46.660 There's explosions everywhere.

00:59:48.480 I'm running in and out of shelters with my wife.

00:59:52.800 I have some kids here, some grandchildren here.

00:59:54.480 So it's difficult.

00:59:56.280 And, of course, just, you know, a couple of hours ago, there was a, you know, not to make light of it, there was a serious tragedy, a direct hit by a missile on a public shelter in a town called Beit Shemesh, where at least as of this moment, at least nine people were killed, including children.

01:00:14.800 And there's about 20 wounded.

01:00:16.100 So, you know, the mood overall is optimistic.

01:00:20.860 Israelis have been through this before.

01:00:22.280 But then there's also that component, which is incredibly sad and tragic.

01:00:27.600 Yeah, we'll just say, David, if you need to leave, if you need to go to seek shelter at any moment, please do that.

01:00:32.940 Our audience will understand.

01:00:34.500 So talk us through the dynamics.

01:00:36.020 Appreciate that.

01:00:36.900 Of course.

01:00:37.820 How is this different from the 12-day war?

01:00:40.780 What's the biggest difference?

01:00:41.820 The biggest difference is Israel has a true partner.

01:00:50.060 The Americans were very helpful in the 12-day war, but they adopted a defensive posture.

01:00:56.940 So they were there, as they have trained for many, many years in the past.

01:01:01.600 When I was ambassador, they were training these operations.

01:01:04.560 But those were training with regard to defense, to intercepting ballistic missiles.

01:01:09.800 And they performed a very valuable task, although in those days Israel did intercept most of the missiles on its own.

01:01:17.160 Now, offensively, you know, the big brother is coming to help Israel.

01:01:23.960 I mean, this is, you know, two carrier strike groups, the full weight of CENTCOM, the U.S. military intelligence.

01:01:33.700 So it's a completely different operation, completely different goals, I would add, as well.

01:01:41.360 And I think we're going to see very, very striking results as a result.

01:01:47.560 You know, President Trump is not going to let this drag.

01:01:51.300 This is not going to be, you know, a war where they're trading volleys.

01:01:55.680 You know, it's not going to be a war of attrition.

01:01:58.260 And Trump wants to end this, and he's going to end this just as quickly as he can.

01:02:02.740 And the Israelis are going to play an important role.

01:02:05.260 But this is America's show.

01:02:06.640 It's not Israelis.

01:02:08.080 It's not the Israel show.

01:02:09.600 It's the America show.

01:02:11.240 The big question now is how this interim council is going to respond.

01:02:14.920 Will they dig their boots in the ground further and, you know, launch even more strikes as a result of the Ayatollah killed?

01:02:21.760 What do you think we should expect to see from Tehran in the coming days?

01:02:27.520 Well, the first thing is to understand, is there really anybody there minding this story?

01:02:34.620 There's been such a decapitation of leadership.

01:02:37.420 It's not clear to me that there is anybody really fully in charge.

01:02:41.160 But beyond that, look, I think the first day or two of responses has been fully baked into the military, you know, for six months.

01:02:53.120 As long as these discussions have been going on, they've had a plan for what to do on the first couple of days.

01:02:59.760 We're quickly coming to the end of that period.

01:03:01.920 And now the question is, what do they got left?

01:03:04.400 You know, between the Americans and the Israelis, they're targeting the launchers, they're targeting the ballistic missiles.

01:03:11.300 They're doing everything they can with, by the way, you know, exquisite intelligence that, you know, no one else in the world has as to where the targets ought to be.

01:03:21.100 So America's continuing to pursue these targets.

01:03:23.880 Again, not a risk-free operation.

01:03:26.180 As you just announced, there were three unfortunate deaths and some additional casualties, heartbreaking that American soldiers, you know, would lose their lives here.

01:03:35.440 But they are, they're still, they've still got a lot of offense left.

01:03:39.880 And I think, you know, the Iranians are going to run out of gas.

01:03:43.480 I mean, it's, I don't know whether it's three days, four days, five days.

01:03:46.220 But, you know, the American goal is to get Iran as quickly as possible to a place where they're harmless.

01:03:54.640 They're harmless to their own people.

01:03:56.800 They're harmless to Israel, to the Gulf countries.

01:04:00.280 And I think that's a time that's quickly approaching.

01:04:04.800 We've seen a number of instances in the last few decades in the Middle East, in particular in Africa,

01:04:08.520 where tyrannical leaders were taken out, either deposed internally or killed by foreign militaries.

01:04:16.460 And there was this period of, you know, cloudiness.

01:04:19.400 We weren't sure what was going to happen.

01:04:20.380 And then there ended up being more instability as a result.

01:04:22.660 And there was more of a need for the U.S. to remain involved.

01:04:25.580 How do we avoid that happening this time around?

01:04:30.340 Well, that's a great question.

01:04:31.500 I think Iran is different than, let's say, for example, than Iraq, right?

01:04:38.340 Iraq was a place where there were, it was never really a nation with a kind of a cohesive culture and identity.

01:04:48.480 It was very tribal, very different groups that combined, you know, to kind of be kept under control.

01:04:54.540 Iran is a very different population.

01:04:56.000 I mean, they're not Arabs.

01:04:56.940 They're Persians, whatever that means.

01:04:59.380 I mean, they are culturally different.

01:05:01.780 They are, many of them are very well educated.

01:05:05.120 There is a, you know, an advanced movement already there, you know, for freedom and for democracy.

01:05:13.280 They've been held back only by the regime.

01:05:15.480 That's been their, that's been their, you know, their blockage.

01:05:18.800 Now, you know, will a complete annihilation of the Iranian military result in any loss of the regime?

01:05:27.740 It's unclear, but this will be the best opportunity, you know, in the history of the, since the beginning of the Islamic Revolution in Iran in the 1970s, this will be the best opportunity for the Iranian people to rise up, take back their country and reform their government and become allies of the West.

01:05:47.440 I don't know if it's going to happen, but the upside of that happening, if that does happen, even if there's, you know, some turbulence along the way, which I would expect, that opportunity for the future of that region and the world itself is so great, it really is worth taking the chance.

01:06:04.140 I mean, the consequence of not doing this, of doing nothing, is a brutal, theocratic, dangerous Iranian regime that will threaten our children and our grandchildren.

01:06:13.880 Do you believe that the Ayatollah would still be alive today if October 7th had not taken place?

01:06:21.860 Well, this is, you know, these are great, you know, philosophical questions that we can sit around and debate.

01:06:29.000 The answer is, of course, I don't know, but I think October 7th changed everything.

01:06:34.880 I mean, we're too close to October 7th to really understand its role in history, because, you know, from a historical perspective, it just happened yesterday.

01:06:44.940 But what it means, I think, is going to prove to be just as important, I think, as the Holocaust.

01:06:52.080 There'll be museums that will be dedicated to October 7th in the same way that we have Holocaust museums, at least in Israel.

01:06:59.080 But October 7th, I think, was the time that, you know, Israel realized and America realized that there were just certain, you know, certain governments, certain regimes, unfortunately certain people with whom there would be no reconciliation.

01:07:21.280 There would be no peaceful coexistence.

01:07:25.840 Israel learned it the hard way, you know, by seeing, you know, how Hamas had elected, Hamas was elected by the people of Gaza.

01:07:33.620 There wasn't a single Jew living in Gaza, not a single Israeli IDF soldier on the ground in Gaza.

01:07:40.020 And yet, you know, with all the money they got, all the aid they got, all the support they got from around the world,

01:07:45.120 they took their money and used it to build terror tunnels and weapons that they could shoot into civilian populations in Israel.

01:07:51.260 So that was a harsh realization, especially since the people that were most affected by October 7th were people on the South, you know, who had a very left-leaning, you know, perspective on life.

01:08:01.180 They really wanted to live with the Palestinians.

01:08:03.820 They wanted to help them.

01:08:04.560 They wanted to coexist with them.

01:08:06.240 And so these were the people who the Palestinians, you know, unceremoniously, you know, murdered, you know, raped, destroyed.

01:08:13.920 So that realization that sunk in in Israel and then kind of began to sink in elsewhere in the West, especially in America, I think made everyone realize that, you know, of course, Iran was behind this.

01:08:28.360 Iran was funding it.

01:08:29.140 Iran was supporting it.

01:08:30.520 Iran was praising it.

01:08:31.700 I think it caused, you know, those of us who were clear-headed to realize that, you know, you can only negotiate to a point with radical Islamic terror.

01:08:40.900 And at some point, you either succumb to it or you destroy it.

01:08:46.140 And I think the president has come to that view, and he gave every opportunity for the Iranians to, you know, to avoid this.

01:08:55.440 I mean, you know, just give up nuclear, you know, just give up, you know, nuclear enrichment, uranium enrichment.

01:09:01.980 The only purpose of that was for a nuclear weapon, so just give that up and reduce or eliminate your ballistic missile stockpile.

01:09:09.280 No one's attacking you anyway.

01:09:11.100 They could have done that.

01:09:12.120 They could have joined, you know, the community of nations.

01:09:16.160 Their economy could have been brought back.

01:09:17.780 I mean, they had enormous opportunities, and the people of Iran saw that, and it must have been heartbreaking for them to see, you know, how this played out.

01:09:25.700 But now they're celebrating.

01:09:27.300 I mean, I don't know if you saw some of the events in London.

01:09:30.740 In London, there's a huge Iranian population that's celebrating.

01:09:34.020 They're celebrating in Los Angeles.

01:09:35.900 They're celebrating in Great Neck, on Long Island, where there's a huge Iranian population.

01:09:40.220 The people of Iran, you know, apart from this regime, are quite happy right now.

01:09:44.740 One final question.

01:09:46.900 There's been a very vocal faction of folks on the right, podcasters, former TV hosts, some Republican elected officials, who have urged President Trump to sort of abandon Israel and stay out of the Middle East entirely.

01:10:02.800 And certainly they've been pushing the president to not get involved in this military conflict in Iran.

01:10:07.320 What does it say about that faction's standing within the White House that President Trump, you know, for the most part, ignored them and still moved forward with this operation?

01:10:18.180 I think President Trump has seen for months what they're made of, you know, the ugliness, the lying, the, you know, the willingness to adopt a position contrary to their prior positions,

01:10:36.740 just for clicks or to appeal to the lowest, you know, the lowest form of human life.

01:10:45.260 He knows what they are.

01:10:46.360 He knows.

01:10:47.120 And I think it's, I'm not surprised.

01:10:51.140 I've known the president for a very long time.

01:10:53.920 Look, I never thought he would pay much attention to any of them.

01:10:57.080 I think he'd prefer not to see a divide within the Republican Party, especially in an election year.

01:11:03.500 But short of that, he's not going to compromise his views because of these lowlifes.

01:11:07.980 And I think they were largely irrelevant before.

01:11:12.400 But I think, you know, as they say, we can safely relegate them now to the dustbin of history.

01:11:18.760 All right.

01:11:18.920 We will leave it there.

01:11:19.880 David Friedman, former ambassador to Israel, coming to us live from Israel.

01:11:23.480 Thank you so much for your time, Ambassador.

01:11:25.880 Thanks, Cabot.

01:11:26.580 Thanks for having me.

01:11:27.820 All right.

01:11:28.060 We're going to keep going with the breaking news.

01:11:29.880 Again, the big story for those just now joining us, Operation Epic Fury continues in the last few hours.

01:11:37.760 Strikes moving forward from the U.S. and Israel on Tehran and other sites across Iran.

01:11:42.980 Iran continuing to launch a barrage of missiles at a number of Middle Eastern countries targeting U.S. bases and also civilian populations in Israel.

01:11:50.360 At least one missile has made it through the Iron Dome defense system and has killed, right now, latest reports saying nine civilians in a heavily populated residential area of Israel.

01:12:01.720 And the big news, Central Command confirming this hour that three U.S. service members have been killed in action.

01:12:09.180 Five more have been seriously wounded as part of Operation Epic Fury.

01:12:12.180 They say the situation is fluid, out of respect for the families, will withhold additional information, including the identities of our fallen warriors, until 24 hours after next of kin have been notified.

01:12:22.740 That will be dominating the headlines today.

01:12:25.720 Understandably, three U.S. service members killed President Trump, warning that could happen.

01:12:30.160 And we now know that it has indeed happened.

01:12:32.600 So our thoughts and prayers with the families of those service members, our brave heroes who are engaging in this operation.

01:12:38.860 We're going to turn now to Brent Sadler, former senior Pentagon official and Heritage Foundation senior fellow.

01:12:44.680 Brent, the last few hours this operation has continued.

01:12:49.240 What has surprised you most in the first 36 hours, though, of this Operation Epic Fury?

01:12:55.860 Perhaps the timing in early morning or daylight hours.

01:13:00.400 As the Mullah and his 40 or so of his closest and most senior leaders were gathering, that's the most surprising.

01:13:07.900 We'll see how much of a strategic impact it is making.

01:13:11.680 But that one then followed closely by the just completely misguided or, I guess, confused, lashing out by the regime and its missile launches at all of its neighbors.

01:13:22.800 Many of them going after civilian apartment buildings and others.

01:13:26.780 Just a poor lack of discipline is surprising to me with their missile forces.

01:13:30.960 Do you believe that some of the attacks that the Iranians have launched, we saw in Dubai, for example, a number of high-rise apartments and other buildings that were struck that had seemingly nothing to do with the military.

01:13:42.360 Do you believe that they're trying to put pressure on those countries by saying, hey, if you're going to ally yourselves with the U.S., we're going to just strike indiscriminately and try and pressure you into telling the U.S., hey, wrap this thing up?

01:13:55.900 Yeah, that's one way of reading it, but I think it's more chaotic and more of a fear of like use it or lose it kind of syndrome because as these attacks were coming in and surprising the IRGC, which was pretty much had the finger on the trigger, I think they thought we're next.

01:14:14.740 So let's shoot it before we lose it because, again, hitting these civilian targets is just going to galvanize, and it already is, the countries in the Gulf to ally with the United States and Israel and enter into combat, which appears that we're on the track, too, because of this very misguided approach by the Iranians.

01:14:34.160 But not as surprising when you start to realize how fractured their leadership's become.

01:14:38.380 To this point, we have seen, again, three U.S. service members killed.

01:14:43.160 We've seen a number of civilians in Israel also confirmed dead.

01:14:47.240 But from a relative standpoint, when you take into account what we believe to be the thousands of missiles the Iranians have fired off so far, have you been surprised by the relative lack of success that Iran has been able to have and the relative lack of damage that they've been able to inflict as a result?

01:15:02.600 Again, I kind of go back to the lack of targeting discipline is really what's equating to this very ineffectual missile barrages.

01:15:11.380 They're not launching the large massed attacks that they did last summer because their command and control has been decapitated.

01:15:18.720 And in that confusion, they're making attacks as they see an opportunity rather than coordinating with drones and large mass missile strikes against, say, Israel or one target, but it's scattered across.

01:15:30.900 So I think this is the real reason behind the ineffectiveness.

01:15:34.440 That could change.

01:15:36.160 Hopefully it doesn't.

01:15:37.640 But this is going to last with this level of intensity, at least for the next few days as the targets and the threats are actually taken out.

01:15:46.200 And hopefully in the interim, the Iranian people stand up.

01:15:50.200 You spent years working within the Pentagon.

01:15:52.940 Walk us through what the options you believe are that are being presented to President Trump now from his military advisors.

01:15:58.640 Yeah, most of my time was operational in the Pacific, but dealing with providing the president many options, military options, is the key goal of the Pentagon and the military.

01:16:11.200 It's not to dictate or make the recommendation which to take, but to maximize the options.

01:16:16.660 And so by having two aircraft carrier strike groups, one in the eastern Mediterranean, the other one in the Arabian Sea, both within striking distance and very likely conducting very intensive operations, gives the president a reestat that he can adjust and maneuver his forces to send a signal, but also to affect certain military operational impacts like we're seeing right now in the pictures.

01:16:40.160 I asked this question to Ambassador Freedman just a moment ago, and I want to repeat it because I think it's on the mind of a lot of Americans right now.

01:16:47.300 We've seen so many times throughout history, even in the past few decades, where tyrannical strongmen were taken out and there was this celebratory period.

01:16:55.960 But then years later, there was even more instability as a result, and it ended up maybe making the region worse.

01:17:02.540 How do we avoid that happening again in this scenario?

01:17:04.860 Well, it appears that the folks in leadership in this administration are taking two recent historical events to mind.

01:17:14.560 One is the liberation of Iraq.

01:17:16.660 You're talking about the statues of bringing down Saddam Hussein, his eventual hanging as a war criminal.

01:17:23.120 But that was overshadowed by too rapidly vilifying and purging all of the Ba'athists.

01:17:28.580 Very similar type of circumstances in post-war Germany in the end of World War II, rather than just remove all the Nazis, we kept those that were needed at a lower level to keep the lights on and policing the streets until they could be transitioned out and fully vetted.

01:17:43.820 What we ended up doing by the de-pathification in Iraq in 2003 and 2004 is we turned all of them into enemies and into insurgents, and that's what bought us a very long war.

01:17:54.140 There's a smart way to go about that.

01:17:55.640 Afghanistan is another lesson that I think is being heeded.

01:18:00.060 Afghanistan is never going to be a replica of American democracy, but we thought, along with many Western European countries, that we could.

01:18:08.740 So you have to take the country for what it is and what its people, their aspirations and desires and culture, and apply your interest to that, making sure that Americans and American interests are being safely pursued.

01:18:20.080 I think in both cases, when I say both, I'm talking Venezuela and what could unfold in Iran, is give the space for the people to decide a government that is one that's responsive to their wishes, but also one that's not going to be a threat to Americans and American interests.

01:18:36.040 And it does take a degree of patience and a highly well-informed insight to the local politics and the local groups.

01:18:43.900 We'll see if we've got that in Iran.

01:18:45.980 It appears we've got that going along fairly well in Venezuela so far.

01:18:49.740 Final question, Brent.

01:18:52.400 What do you expect to see over the next few days?

01:18:56.300 Well, I expect we're going to see more of these sporadic and not clearly focused on a strategic insight missile launches.

01:19:04.440 The Iranians have upwards of 3,000.

01:19:06.460 They were in the process of rebuilding.

01:19:08.180 Some of their shipments from China were intercepted, but we have to assume that they had recovered all that they had lost and spent in the last summer during Operation Midnight Hammer.

01:19:20.000 That's probably going to continue for the next few days.

01:19:22.200 The Iranians are going to name new leadership.

01:19:24.760 It'll probably be a new target set unless they change dramatically the nature of the regime and go from one of hostility and violence and terrorism to one of peace and prosperity for their people and their neighbors.

01:19:36.160 Big if, quite frankly.

01:19:38.660 Yeah, that's all the time we have now.

01:19:40.000 Brent, thank you so much for coming on.

01:19:41.580 Appreciate your insight.

01:19:43.040 Thank you.

01:19:44.080 That was Brent Sadler, former Pentagon senior official.

01:19:47.380 So just want to, again, thank our Daily Wire audience.

01:19:51.080 We're able to do this live coverage.

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01:20:27.500 Well, as we get ready to wrap up our show, we're just going to repeat the top lines because so much is coming in.

01:20:32.700 This is a rapidly evolving situation.

01:20:34.080 Again, last night, we got confirmation that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had been killed.

01:20:39.700 A successful Iranian or Israeli strike on the Iranian compound took him out along with 40 or so other top officials.

01:20:47.880 The country's minister of defense was killed.

01:20:50.520 The country's chief of staff to the military was killed.

01:20:52.840 Top generals, the head of the IRGC was killed.

01:20:55.620 So this was a decapitation strike.

01:20:57.920 The big question now, how will Iran move forward?

01:21:01.080 Is this the beginning of the end for the regime?

01:21:04.440 That is what we are waiting to find out.

01:21:06.980 Now, the regime currently has a succession plan in place that they have implemented.

01:21:11.300 There are three men who have survived these strikes who are now on the interim leadership team, sort of a triumvirate leadership team right now.

01:21:19.640 So the United States is trying to ascertain how they are going to react.

01:21:23.980 Will they dig in even deeper?

01:21:25.780 Will they continue to fight?

01:21:26.860 They vowed that if the Ayatollah was targeted, it would be an existential threat on the livelihood of their regime and that they would launch war like they've never launched before.

01:21:35.940 Will they do that or will this regime take the similar approach to what we saw in Venezuela with Dilsey Rodriguez saying, I don't want the same fate that I saw Nicolas Maduro have.

01:21:46.180 I will play ball with the president.

01:21:48.420 That is what we will be tracking very closely over the next coming days.

01:21:52.720 And you can follow along with us at The Daily Wire.

01:21:55.120 We have a live 24-7 blog that is being updated on dailywire.com.

01:21:59.600 You can learn more about this developing story and you can learn more about the three U.S. service members who were killed this operation.

01:22:07.940 We learned that this morning, just a few hours ago, Central Command posting that three service members had been killed.

01:22:12.620 So we have our first casualties.

01:22:14.780 Once we learn more details on those casualties and if there are any more developments of that nature, that will be up on the live blog.

01:22:21.400 Go to dailywire.com and you can make sure to stay tuned there.

01:22:24.700 And also this entire stream, if you were joining us late, you can watch the entire thing start to finish along with all of our other coverage on dailywire.com.

01:22:32.220 Become a member so you can hop in the chat and join the conversation with our other members.

01:22:36.440 We'll make sure to monitor that for you as well.

01:22:38.520 But again, thank you so much for tuning in.

01:22:40.880 Thank you to our Daily Wire members who make streams like this possible.

01:22:44.400 This is a historic weekend.

01:22:46.920 We woke up yesterday knowing that the world and the Middle East would never be the same.

01:22:51.080 And today, we now know the Ayatollah is dead.

01:22:53.540 So too are three American service members.

01:22:56.000 We thank them for their sacrifice.

01:22:58.480 We pray for the safety of our military.

01:23:00.960 And thank you to all of our Daily Wire members for tuning in.

01:23:03.960 I'm Cabot Phillips, host of Wired In Live.

01:23:06.740 Thanks so much.

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01:23:41.040 To be with you.

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The Michael Knowles Show - March 01, 2026

Wired In Live： The World Reacts

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