TRIGGERnometry - Why I Told President Trump to Attack Iran - Sen. Ted Cruz

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00:00:51.100 You were literally with President Trump the day before the strikes happened.

00:01:03.780 Can you explain to us what the reasoning and the rationale are for this war?

00:01:06.880 I said, look, I think we should not miss this moment.

00:01:12.040 America will be much, much safer.

00:01:14.620 I believe the Ayatollah, if he had had a nuclear weapon, the odds are unacceptably high that he would use it.

00:01:21.100 Why do you say that, Senator?

00:01:23.520 I don't want to experience a world where the Ayatollah has a warhead and his only problem is, how do I get this to America to death? 0.99

00:01:32.280 There is this growing concern about the relationship between Israel and America and that many people feel that it is not to the benefit of the United States now.

00:01:41.740 You mentioned Tucker Carlson. I believe Tucker is the most dangerous demagogue in America.

00:01:45.120 Tucker interviewed Fuentes and nodded when Fuentes said his mission was to defeat global

00:01:50.820 Jewry. By the way, not Israel, Jews. Do you think Cuba is next? 0.94

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00:02:03.580 Access their free library of world-class educational courses at hillsdale.edu slash trigger.

00:02:10.300 senator welcome to trigonometry before we start the interview proper it's always good to ask

00:02:17.300 particularly politicians about their journey how they came to be where they are and also how your

00:02:22.840 journey influenced and shaped your views sure uh my journey i'm a texan uh like like the both of

00:02:30.840 you i'm the product of my family story uh for me my hero my whole life has been my dad

00:02:36.700 my father was born in Cuba and grew up in Cuba. And as a kid, when he was 14, he began fighting

00:02:45.360 the Cuban revolution and fighting actually alongside Fidel Castro. And he did not know

00:02:51.800 that Castro was a communist. In fact, when I want to irritate my father, I will call him a

00:02:56.900 communist guerrilla. And he gets angry. He goes, I was not a communist. I was never a communist.

00:03:02.520 but as my dad describes it he said the revolution were a bunch of kids like him they were 14 and

00:03:08.600 15 year old boys who didn't know any better and batista was was a dictator he was corrupt he was 0.80

00:03:15.120 in bed with the mafia and so my father fought for several years in the revolution and then when he

00:03:21.240 was 17 they caught him and they threw him in jail and they tortured him and beat him badly and and

00:03:28.920 they let him go. And at that point, my grandfather, my abuelo said, look, they know who you are.

00:03:35.960 They're just going to kill you. And so my dad was a freshman at University of Havana at the time.

00:03:41.600 And so he applied to three U.S. universities. He applied to University of Miami, LSU,

00:03:47.020 and University of Texas, and UT let him in. So 1957, my father takes a ferry boat

00:03:54.160 from Havana to Key West, and then takes a Greyhound bus from Key West all the way to Austin, Texas.

00:04:01.560 Shows up in Austin, can't speak English, has $100 in his underwear,

00:04:07.200 and gets a job washing dishes, making 50 cents an hour. And he worked full-time, he went to school

00:04:13.920 full-time, and ended up earning a degree, going on to getting a job, starting a small business.

00:04:21.380 today, my dad's a pastor. Now, interestingly, my dad's younger sister, my Tia Sonia,

00:04:28.540 who just passed away a few weeks ago, and she was incredible. I called her my Tia Loca,

00:04:33.960 my crazy aunt. She was still there after the revolution succeeded. And so she saw that,

00:04:42.700 and sadly, this is a pattern a lot of Latin America has seen, that they went as bad as

00:04:46.780 Batista was, Fidel Castro was worse. And so she saw him declare that he was a communist,

00:04:52.060 begin seizing people's lands, begin executing dissidents. And so my Tia Sonia fought in the

00:04:58.760 counter-revolution against Castro. And she ended up being imprisoned and tortured by Castro's goons.

00:05:07.840 And that pattern, so she and my dad fought on opposite sides.

00:05:12.360 When I was a little kid, I used to sit at the feet of my dad and my Tia Sonia,

00:05:16.840 and I would hear stories about freedom fighters.

00:05:20.140 And that inspired me.

00:05:22.100 You know, I told that story at my Tia Sonia's funeral just a few weeks ago,

00:05:26.120 and I said, look, it's not often that somebody's entire life is inspired in significant part by his aunt.

00:05:33.060 But my aunt and my dad were both freedom fighters.

00:05:37.600 And if you asked me as a little kid, five, six, seven years old, what do you want to do in life?

00:05:43.580 I would have said I want to fight for freedom.

00:05:45.720 It's all I've ever wanted to do.

00:05:47.940 And so now in the Senate, I have the incredible privilege of actually getting to do that.

00:05:53.340 And, you know, I think of the Senate as almost like the modern day Coliseum, where you strap on your armor and you go fight the barbarians.

00:06:01.580 And so there's no shortage.

00:06:04.600 Senator, what do you know about communism that most Americans don't with your background? 0.86

00:06:10.620 Communism is the most evil, twisted, depraved ideology mankind has ever produced.

00:06:16.860 It has resulted in more murder, more suffering, more torture, more poverty, more misery than any ideology. 0.99

00:06:24.800 It is unequivocally evil. 0.97

00:06:27.560 I hate communists and I don't hide it. 0.99

00:06:30.740 They are everywhere that darkness has touched. It has oppressed and it is empowered. By the way, for the communists, look, Fidel Castro lived like a billionaire. Putin lives like he's a billionaire. I mean, it's very good to be an uncontrollable despot. It just sucks for everybody else. 0.98

00:06:52.500 And so I think defeating communism is incredibly important.

00:07:01.360 And it is communism is the antithesis of human liberty, of free enterprise, of individual freedom.

00:07:08.880 So, Senator, moving forward now to talk about the conflict in Iran, you were literally with President Trump the day before the strikes happened.

00:07:16.780 Can you explain to us what the reasoning and the rationale are for this war?

00:07:20.360 Sure. Look, I urged the president to launch this attack. As you noted, I was with him

00:07:26.440 pretty much the entire day on Friday before the attack launched on Saturday.

00:07:31.460 And so we were on Air Force One. We were flying down to Texas to Corpus Christi at a big event

00:07:35.380 planned in Corpus Christi. So I was on the plane with him. And then he asked me to hop in the

00:07:40.760 Beast, the presidential limo, and it was just the two of us one-on-one. And pretty much the whole

00:07:45.860 time, he was asking me what I thought we should do on Iran. And I said, look, I think we should

00:07:52.420 we should not miss this moment. I think the regime is weaker than it ever has been.

00:07:58.960 And we have an opportunity if we can collapse this regime, America will be much, much safer.

00:08:06.320 There are very few things on planet Earth that would do more to make improve American national

00:08:12.780 security as much as seeing this regime collapse. And he asked me in The Beast, he said, well,

00:08:20.720 look, do you think we should negotiate further? And I said, no. I said, I don't believe they're

00:08:25.900 negotiating in good faith. They are liars. I think the Ayatollah just wants to delay and delay and 0.99

00:08:31.660 delay while they rebuild. And I said, as far as I'm concerned, the only deal you should be willing

00:08:36.900 to take is the same deal you offered Maduro. And Trump offered Maduro if he wanted to leave the

00:08:43.220 country, he could go into exile and he would be allowed to live out the rest of his days if he

00:08:48.240 left and exited. And Maduro said no. And I suspect Maduro regrets saying no now.

00:08:55.640 And I said, I could live with that deal for the Ayatollah to give him and the mullahs the same

00:08:59.880 choice. You can leave and allow a new regime to come to power in Iran. Or if you don't leave,

00:09:05.660 the alternative is going to be a less than pleasant one. And so in terms of what are the

00:09:10.700 objectives, I'll break it into two categories. Number one, what are the objectives the administration

00:09:15.360 has stated? And number two, what I think the objective should be. So the administration has

00:09:20.840 stated that the objective is to degrade the military so that they cannot strike out.

00:09:26.220 And so we've seen in the two and a half weeks that this military conflict has been ongoing.

00:09:33.040 We've seen, number one, their air defenses essentially completely eliminated.

00:09:37.820 We've seen their short and medium-term, medium-range missiles all but completely eliminated as well.

00:09:45.900 We've seen the missiles taken out.

00:09:47.180 We've seen the missile launchers taken out.

00:09:48.860 We've seen the manufacturing capacity for new missiles taken out.

00:09:52.640 Same thing for drones. 0.99

00:09:53.680 We've taken out the drones, the launching facilities, and the manufacturing.

00:09:58.120 All of that has been taken out.

00:09:59.420 We've also taken out almost the entirety of the Iranian Navy.

00:10:05.120 The result has been that we have near complete air dominance over Iran.

00:10:10.660 There's nothing Iran can do about it. 0.98

00:10:12.420 And we have decapitated the regime.

00:10:14.860 Obviously, the Ayatollah is gone.

00:10:16.380 We've taken out many of the senior leaders in the regime.

00:10:21.240 You keep having new leaders appointed.

00:10:25.000 That's how the administration has described their objectives.

00:10:29.420 And on the terms of those objectives, I think they've accomplished a lot.

00:10:35.120 The administration has not articulated its objective as regime change.

00:10:39.760 And look, there's an obvious reason for that, which is after the Iraq war, I think people are wary of the words regime change.

00:10:49.240 Understandably, for good reason.

00:10:51.460 The Iraq war, I think the Iraq war was a mistake, and I'm happy to talk about that and compare and contrast this to Iran. 1.00

00:10:58.180 I, however, think our objective should be unequivocally collapsing this regime.

00:11:05.720 And in my view, the decision to launch this attack was the most consequential decision

00:11:11.900 President Trump has made in his second term. Iran has been at war with the United States for 47

00:11:19.960 years since the Islamic Revolution, which began by seizing Americans and holding them hostage for 1.00

00:11:25.700 444 days. So that's how they started this journey. Iran, for the entirety of that time,

00:11:31.900 has been the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism. They provide over 90 percent of the 0.79

00:11:37.420 funding to Hamas, Hezbollah, to the Houthis. They've killed nearly a thousand Americans over

00:11:42.980 that time. The Ayatollah hired not one, but two squads of hit men to try to murder President 0.80

00:11:51.800 Trump. And I think an Iran that had a government that was not led by a radical Islamist who leads 0.86

00:12:00.680 mobs chanting death to America, an Iran that had a government that was not actively trying to 1.00

00:12:06.340 murder Americans, and by the way, succeeding, killing Americans year after year after year, 0.97

00:12:11.520 that would be a much safer world for the United States and for our allies. And so I think that 0.87

00:12:17.780 should be the objective. Senator, but there's lots of, I agree with you on that. You know,

00:12:22.400 personally, I think Francis and I both thought that the 12 day war was a sensible thing to do 1.00

00:12:26.540 if you could get the nuclear material. It seems that that didn't quite happen based on some of

00:12:30.680 the satellite imagery and the fact that the United States is attacking again. But you're right. And I

00:12:36.700 think, you know, our conversations here in the United States with all kinds of people show this,

00:12:41.080 the words regime change send shivers down a lot of spines, rightly so.

00:12:46.860 Understandably.

00:12:47.560 So what is the vision of how, because the Iranian regime, terrible. 0.99

00:12:53.900 I don't think there's anyone in the world who would disagree with that.

00:12:56.600 But there's one thing to get rid of them and another thing to replace them.

00:13:00.940 What is the end goal here?

00:13:03.120 So let me, I'm going to answer your question, but let me stop you when you said you don't

00:13:06.220 think there's anyone in the world that would disagree with that.

00:13:08.580 Sure, there's some people in the world.

00:13:09.780 And by the way, there are some people who are not very far away from us.

00:13:13.180 most of the Senate Democrats. Look, during the four years of Joe Biden,

00:13:18.140 the Biden administration flowed over $100 billion to Iran, to keeping the regime in office.

00:13:27.220 In a very real sense, the Biden administration was the most important funder for Iran. And Iran,

00:13:34.680 in turn, was funding terrorists who were killing Americans, including the atrocities of October

00:13:40.180 7th. In a very real way, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris flowed the money to Iran that paid for

00:13:45.800 the training of those death squads. And so at some point, look, I understand Senate Democrats

00:13:50.460 like to say, oh, we don't like the Ayatollah. You know what? If you give someone $100 billion,

00:13:55.520 you don't dislike them that much. Like at the end of the day,

00:13:59.480 actions speak louder than words. And by the way, Barack Obama has written in his memoir how when

00:14:06.700 the Green Revolution was happening during Obama's presidency, that he made a very deliberate

00:14:11.420 decision. Don't stand with the protesters. Don't encourage the protesters. Instead,

00:14:15.680 support the regime. And so that the Democrat Party as an ideological matter

00:14:21.520 doesn't want to see the regime fall. And they're perfectly happy. They've been happy to flow

00:14:28.000 billions of dollars to them. Now, how do we get this regime to collapse? I think what we're doing

00:14:33.920 right now is very effective. A combination of military pressure, removing their ability to

00:14:39.880 wage war. What I have called for, I do not know if we're doing it, is arming the protesters.

00:14:47.680 And I'll give you a story as to why. You know, 30 plus years ago when Tiananmen Square happened.

00:14:55.980 I remember at the time, right after Tiananmen Square, the NRA ran a full page ad in six U.S.

00:15:03.260 universities, newspapers, ran it in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Washington

00:15:09.820 Post, Chicago Tribune, L.A. Times and USA Today. And the ad was just a giant picture of Tiananmen

00:15:17.080 Square packed with people. And I still remember the words. The ad said last week, over a million

00:15:22.660 people rose up in protest in Tiananmen Square. Imagine what would have happened if they had had

00:15:28.380 guns. Senator, but isn't that exactly the problem here? Because the people who would have risen up

00:15:34.640 and who may have used those guns are dead because they were all slaughtered by the regime. And now

00:15:39.460 you're bombing the regime in order to get people to rise up who are no longer there.

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00:17:05.340 Some are. And look, we don't have a precise measure on how many people the regime murdered

00:17:09.560 anywhere. The estimates range from 10,000 to 40,000. It's certainly clear that they've killed

00:17:15.380 many, but you've got a nation of 92 million people. And look, I remember that ad about

00:17:21.260 Tiananmen Square because I sat there and thought, you know what? A million people rising up who are

00:17:26.080 armed, that's not a protest anymore. That's a revolution. And the same would be true. Look,

00:17:31.620 part of why the regime was able to murder 10 to 40,000 people is you had soldiers with machine

00:17:37.640 guns and you had people on the other side with rocks. That doesn't work when you have that kind

00:17:42.240 imbalance. When both sides can defend themselves, you get a very different dynamic. Let's go for a

00:17:49.020 moment to why this is different from Iraq, because I want to be very clear. I think Iraq was a serious 0.99

00:17:57.840 mistake. And if you rewind, go back to the 2016 presidential election in the United States.

00:18:03.740 So in that election, with 17 Republicans run, if you set aside Rand Paul, whose foreign policy

00:18:13.080 views are kind of on one fringe, if you set Rand aside, of the 16 remaining candidates,

00:18:19.340 there were two and only two who opposed the Iraq war, me and Donald Trump. Everyone else thought

00:18:26.260 the Iraq war was a good idea and defended it. Now, why did I oppose the Iraq war? Because I 0.98

00:18:31.860 think it made America less safe. What I have argued for is the central touchstone for every

00:18:37.880 foreign policy decision, every military decision should be protecting the vital national security

00:18:46.040 of the United States of America. Saddam Hussein was a bad man. He was a monster. He was a tyrant.

00:18:51.600 He was murdering his own people, but he was also killing terrorists. We came in and we toppled 0.99

00:18:57.580 Saddam Hussein, and the terrorists took over and began killing Americans. That didn't make us 1.00

00:19:02.340 safer. It made us less safe. By the way, we did the exact same thing in Libya. Gaddafi, again,

00:19:06.900 a terrible man. America came in and toppled him. He was killing terrorists. Instead, 0.96

00:19:11.920 the terrorists took over. They began killing Americans. That was a material harm to our 0.98

00:19:17.460 national security. Why is Iran different? Iran is different because the Iranians are murdering 1.00

00:19:22.400 Americans. They are waging war with us, whether the Democrats want to acknowledge it or not. 0.99

00:19:27.580 And so removing from power Islamists who are actively trying to kill Americans makes us safer. 0.98

00:19:36.700 Now, Iraq was compounded because the mission became nation building, because the mission

00:19:44.880 became put hundreds of thousands of boots on the ground for years at a time. And a lot of folks in

00:19:53.200 the Republican Party thought, you know, our mission is to promote democracy. Democracy is

00:19:57.160 wonderful. And we are the global police who will promote democracy across the globe. I think that's

00:20:02.540 completely misguided. I think democracy is great. I think we should advocate democracy. The bully

00:20:07.340 pulpit, I am all for advocating democracy. But I'm not willing to send our sons and daughters to die

00:20:13.880 to try to turn countries in the Middle East into Switzerland. I think that was a big mistake.

00:20:21.900 So what is the administration trying to turn around into? This is the question that I think

00:20:26.120 that I haven't heard a persuasive answer from anybody, not just you.

00:20:29.360 Well, look, I think they haven't articulated it because they are wary of using the words

00:20:34.160 regime change. So that's why they have said regime change. What they haven't said is what

00:20:39.220 the next bit is. Look, if you listen to Pete Hegseth, if you listen to Marco Rubio,

00:20:43.240 they're not embracing regime change. They're saying we want to degrade the drones and the

00:20:48.520 missiles, they're talking about the specific and discrete military objectives, which are

00:20:53.720 meaningful. What I'm saying unapologetically is I want a government that is not an Islamist 1.00

00:21:00.640 government that is trying to kill us. I want it too, Senator, but how is that going to happen?

00:21:06.120 Okay. Because if you keep killing them, they seem to get less moderate, not more, 0.91

00:21:10.580 from what I'm observing. Look, at some point, this regime stays in power through brute force. 0.94

00:21:16.340 they stay in power through military might. As you remove their ability to repress the people,

00:21:21.900 at some point it's up to the people of Iran to govern themselves. But taking out the people who 1.00

00:21:28.480 are the Islamist dictators removes them from the equation. And then, look, I am largely agnostic as 0.93

00:21:36.120 to who the people of Iran choose. There are different people that are competing. And as far

00:21:40.660 as I'm concerned, as long as it's not someone trying to kill us, my focus is protect Americans.

00:21:46.340 And so if they want, look, there are different discussions. If they have a democratically elected leader, there's discussions about the Shah's son as an interim leader. I'm ambivalent on that. That's their choice.

00:22:00.660 What I'm not ambivalent on is having a leader in place and a government in place that is not waging war against us.

00:22:11.480 And I think the president's job is to be commander in chief focused on keeping Americans safe, protecting American lives.

00:22:18.300 I think that's what we're doing.

00:22:19.440 And what's your assessment on the time frame that's required for this?

00:22:22.240 because I was just looking before we started, the calciots of the Republicans holding the Senate

00:22:27.860 at the midterms have gone from 82 percent three months ago to it's now 50-50. And it's narrowed

00:22:34.400 very much since this conflict has started. So given that there may well be, the Republican

00:22:39.320 Party is very much behind this war, but there may well be a domestic price to pay, particularly the

00:22:44.720 longer this goes. Yeah, look, I'll confess I am skeptical of things like prediction markets for

00:22:49.860 elections. I think there are some areas where prediction markets can be quite accurate.

00:22:54.360 In my experience, prediction markets reflect the conventional wisdom at the time. So to give you

00:23:00.760 an example, the prediction markets in the 2016 presidential election at this point said Jeb

00:23:06.440 Bush was the runaway favorite and he was going to win. And so that was the conventional wisdom

00:23:10.900 at the time. And that's where the prediction market was. I don't disagree with the proposition

00:23:16.520 that politically, where we are right now is a challenging position for Republicans,

00:23:21.520 that if the election were held today, there would be a very good chance we would lose the House,

00:23:27.700 and we could lose the Senate as well. Now, obviously, I hope that doesn't happen,

00:23:31.820 and we do have seven months until Election Day, so we've got time. And I think we've got a

00:23:38.300 remarkable record of success, much of which has not been communicated to the voters. And so I

00:23:44.300 think we've got a real record to campaign on. And I don't believe that what is happening in Iran

00:23:51.200 will be front and center on November. I don't think that this will extend. If it extends that

00:23:55.720 long, we've done something wildly wrong. I don't believe it will. I think the president said at

00:24:00.180 the beginning, this is going to be a matter of several weeks. This is not, I don't think

00:24:04.740 the president is envisioning anything that extends multiple months, much less multiple years. I think

00:24:11.960 I think this will prove a very different military involvement than Iraq did.

00:24:18.320 Senator, so you've got Cuban heritage, I've got Venezuelan heritage, and Constant has Russian

00:24:23.600 heritage. We know how autocratic regimes work. We know that it's not just the people at the top,

00:24:29.740 but they have the tentacles, which they use to control people, in particular the IRGC,

00:24:35.200 Islamic Revolutionary Guard, numbering roughly around 200,000 highly trained soldiers, many of

00:24:40.840 whom are fanatical. They are Islamists. How are you going to deal with them? Because they are the 0.97

00:24:47.180 ones keeping essentially the Iranian people. Let's be honest, they're the ones keeping them 1.00

00:24:54.860 in control. And that's where this military campaign, I think, is making a difference,

00:24:59.480 because you're taking out significant numbers of the IRGC as well. You're weakening the apparatus

00:25:04.480 the regime has to oppress the people. And look, weakening the regime, we're at an interesting

00:25:11.680 moment in time because there is a very real possibility in the next six months, we could

00:25:18.980 see new governments in Iran, Venezuela, and Cuba. And if we end up with governments in those three

00:25:28.020 countries that want to be friends with America rather than are enemies with America, that would

00:25:34.400 be the biggest geopolitical shift since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Now, let me be clear.

00:25:38.780 There are a thousand ways that can go wrong. I'm not being Pollyannish and saying, oh,

00:25:41.880 everything's wonderful. But on any objective level, the regimes there are weaker than they

00:25:47.560 have been in our lifetimes. That is a moment of enormous opportunity. And so, look, at some level,

00:25:57.340 it's going to be up to the people of Iran if they want a new government to step up and insist on

00:26:01.980 that. I do think the president's putting pressure, weakening the regime and weakening the oppressive

00:26:11.160 power of the regime makes them more vulnerable. And that, at the end of the day, I think that

00:26:18.300 increases the safety of Americans. And the other challenge that you're facing is the Strait of

00:26:22.900 Hormuz at the moment, because when you look at the natural resources going through there,

00:26:27.960 The petroleum, the liquid natural gas, the fact that it's been shut and it's been closed.

00:26:35.940 And let's be honest, that is Iran's main trump card. 0.99

00:26:38.040 That is a very real issue, not just for America, but for the globe in general.

00:26:42.500 Unquestionably, though, I will note the Europeans who are more impacted by the Strait of Hormuz closing than America is.

00:26:48.780 The Europeans have said, well, gosh, we don't like it, but we're not willing to do much, much about it.

00:26:53.260 Identifies Venezuela.

00:26:54.180 That sounds very on brand for Europe at the moment, we say as Europeans, unfortunately.

00:27:00.860 Look, the Strait of Hormuz is no doubt a critical choke point.

00:27:05.420 And Iran, I think part of the reason that we're seeing them go after the Strait is because I think they're in desperate straits, that they are so weakened they don't have very many options left.

00:27:18.620 And look, we've seen, for example, we've seen a short-term energy price spike.

00:27:24.180 Now, listen, if energy keeps soaring and if you end up with gas prices much, much higher, you know, you asked politically about the election.

00:27:32.860 High gas prices historically have not been good for elections.

00:27:36.000 People are pissed.

00:27:37.400 Now, I don't believe that'll happen in the long term.

00:27:40.600 I think we're seeing a short term spike.

00:27:42.240 Anytime you have military conflict in the Middle East, you predictably have a spike in the price of oil and the price of gasoline.

00:27:48.280 I mean, if we can bring if we can see a stable regime in Iran that is not waging war with us and if the Iranian energy can come to the global market free of sanctions and free of conflict, I think long term that has a significant downward pressure on the price of oil and the price of gasoline.

00:28:07.220 And I also would point out that even with the spike we've seen, the price of gasoline is still significantly lower today than it was under Joe Biden.

00:28:16.020 And so we saw under the Trump administration and Republican Congress, the price of gasoline basically cut in half.

00:28:23.440 And then we've seen about half of that go back up again during this conflict.

00:28:28.320 I think the conflict will be short lived and I think you'll see prices fall when that happens.

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00:30:02.920 But we're looking at, for instance, a significant gas field in Qatar being bombed.

00:30:08.260 Yes.

00:30:08.700 And it's now being shut down.

00:30:10.320 People within Qatar are saying it's going to take three to five years for it to be up and running and to be fully functional.

00:30:15.040 And that is responsible for 15% of the world's natural gas.

00:30:18.900 And you're going, this is unsustainable, surely?

00:30:21.280 Well, look, that was bombed by the Iranians, and it is an amazing statement that Iran, when this military conflict started, began firing missiles at practically every one of its neighbors. 0.95

00:30:34.720 And ironically, the Arab world is more united behind this military conflict than Europe is, and I think it's because they understand the threat of their neighbor. 0.95

00:30:45.080 And listen, when the Ayatollah says death to America, I believe him. 1.00

00:30:52.640 I don't think those were empty words.

00:30:56.220 One of the reasons why I have been leading the fight to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon is I believe the Ayatollah, if he had had a nuclear weapon, the odds are unacceptably high that he would use it.

00:31:11.360 And let's.

00:31:12.620 Why do you say that, Senator?

00:31:13.580 because he was a theocratic zealot who embraced a death cult that celebrates suicide.

00:31:22.240 So let's compare and contrast Iran to North Korea.

00:31:27.200 You know, if you go back, let's go back to the Bill Clinton administration.

00:31:30.500 Bill Clinton administration was negotiating with Kim Jong-il, Kim Jong-un's dad,

00:31:35.440 and cut a deal. And they said, okay, if you don't develop nuclear weapons,

00:31:44.420 we will give you billions of dollars. And Kim Jong-il said, great deal, happy to do it.

00:31:49.200 Well, what happened? They took the billions of dollars, they turned around and developed

00:31:52.940 nuclear weapons. And now North Korea has nuclear weapons. And they regularly threatened to use

00:32:01.440 them. They threaten to use them on their neighbors in Asia. They threaten to use them on the United 0.71

00:32:05.740 States. North Korea claims they have missiles that can go. In fact, Austin, Texas has been

00:32:09.840 one of the targets they have identified as a nuclear target. Now, look, Kim Jong-un is

00:32:16.840 narcissistic and unstable and a megalomaniac. But perhaps some modicum of deterrence is possible 0.95

00:32:27.460 because the one thing Kim Jong-un understands is if he were, God forbid, to use a nuclear weapon,

00:32:33.440 his regime would end that day. The response would be devastating, and he wants to stay in power.

00:32:38.720 It would have been a much better world if he didn't have nuclear weapons, but there's at least

00:32:42.260 some modicum one can hope of deterrence. What is qualitatively different when religion comes 0.98

00:32:48.120 into it, when a theocratic zealot comes into it, is that ordinary cost-benefit analysis doesn't work

00:32:54.520 nearly as well. So look, if the Ayatollah had a nuclear weapon, I think there is some real chance, 0.98

00:33:02.400 and I don't know what the possibility is, but it's real that he would detonate that weapon

00:33:07.940 in Tel Aviv or New York or Los Angeles. Now, if he did that, the result would be an

00:33:16.280 overwhelming military response and a response that predictably would take the lives of many

00:33:21.620 Iranians if he detonated a nuclear weapon. Here's the problem. I think the Ayatollah might have been 0.92

00:33:26.040 just fine with that. If he got to kill lots of Jews or he got to kill lots of Americans, 1.00

00:33:30.900 I think with religious zealotry, that might be an acceptable tradeoff to him. And so my view was 1.00

00:33:39.660 as a matter of national security, we should do everything necessary to prevent Iran from 1.00

00:33:46.960 from acquiring a nuclear weapon. And I will say, one of the additional justifications the

00:33:51.360 administration has used for this military conflict is that Iran was rapidly building up

00:33:57.540 its short and medium term missile stockpile, building over 100 missiles a month, and they

00:34:03.160 were building them up and building them up. And the administration was concerned that they would

00:34:07.440 get such an overwhelming stockpile of missiles that it would be extremely expensive in terms of

00:34:15.380 loss of lives, to engage in military conflict with Iran. And they would do that essentially 0.68

00:34:20.360 as a shield to then be able to develop nuclear weapons, that they were developing these short

00:34:25.940 and medium term missiles to be able to inflict massive pain and loss of life on all of their

00:34:31.000 neighbors. And so the administration said, we don't want to be sitting here a year from now

00:34:35.520 where their stockpile and their drones are so massive that to go in and try to take out their

00:34:41.000 nuclear facilities risks a massive loss of life. I think that is a reasonable justification as well.

00:34:50.420 But all of this is keyed on, are you protecting America? Are you keeping Americans safe?

00:34:55.980 I am completely with you on the fact that Iran should not be allowed to get nuclear weapons.

00:35:01.040 I don't think there's any evidence to suggest that they were ever likely to be able to hit

00:35:04.900 Los Angeles or New York. Tel Aviv, maybe. Tel Aviv, maybe. Although, look,

00:35:09.800 there's more than one way to hit a target. Do they have an ICBM that could cross the ocean? No.

00:35:16.160 Although they had an ICBM program, they were trying to develop an ICBM. And I would point

00:35:19.900 out to people all the time, the I in ICBM stands for intercontinental. You do not need an ICBM

00:35:26.340 to hit Israel. They wanted an ICBM for one purpose, which was to carry a nuclear warhead

00:35:32.800 to the United States. So they were trying to develop it. But I will point out beyond that,

00:35:37.420 look, if you have a nuclear weapon, there's more than one way to deliver a warhead. And if they

00:35:41.760 could find a way to get it on a ship or another cargo carrier to put it in a container and put

00:35:46.380 it in Manhattan, you don't have to have to deliver the warhead using a missile. And so I don't want

00:35:52.320 to experience a world where the Ayatollah has a warhead and his only problem is how do I get this 0.89

00:35:58.680 to America to detonate? And look, I appreciate that this question, you know.

00:36:03.200 And I'll point out, London could be another target. I think he would have rather murdered Americans than the British, but London is certainly another target you could envision him striking.

00:36:13.860 We are little Satan. 0.93

00:36:15.960 No, I think that's Israel. But nonetheless, I mean, I appreciate the president can't think in the terms that I'm about to describe, but nonetheless, it's not a much more likely explanation of why Iran was seeking nuclear weapons.

00:36:27.960 is actually the reason that North Korea was seeking nuclear weapons, i.e. to deter aggression

00:36:32.520 from Israel, from the United States, and to prevent the very things happening now. And the

00:36:37.440 worry for some people is actually this conflict has created an incentive structure that will only

00:36:42.520 accelerate the attempts to get nukes. So I don't think that's right. And I will say, look,

00:36:48.840 there's a reason the Ayatollah referred to Israel as the little Satan and America as the great 0.97

00:36:55.160 Satan. As I said, when he would lead mobs chanting death to America, I believed him. I don't think it

00:37:00.960 was empty rhetoric. I think he believed it with all of his heart. And his whole life, he had been

00:37:05.260 carrying it out. He had been murdering Americans. So we knew it wasn't empty rhetoric. He murdered 0.87

00:37:09.600 every American he could and every chance he could. And listen, there are some, if you look at the

00:37:16.100 Biden administration, their approach, they dealt with every foreign conflict with weakness and

00:37:22.560 appeasement. And those on the left think, well, that's how you avoid war. Well, it's amazing.

00:37:27.360 When Joe Biden came into office, there was peace and prosperity across the globe.

00:37:32.500 And we had two military conflicts break out simultaneously. Russia invaded Ukraine,

00:37:37.140 and we had October 7th and the Gaza war that unfolded. And I think both of those

00:37:41.780 were in a very direct way caused by Joe Biden's weakness, that our enemies,

00:37:46.060 when Biden withdrew from Afghanistan in an absolute debacle of incompetence that,

00:37:54.020 among other things, cost the lives of 13 American servicemen and women.

00:37:59.220 I said at the time, I said, this has made the world much more dangerous. I said,

00:38:04.760 the odds of Russia invading Ukraine have just increased tenfold, and the odds of China invading

00:38:09.220 Taiwan have increased tenfold. And our enemies have looked to the Oval Office. They've taken

00:38:14.780 the measure of the commander in chief. And they've concluded that he's weak and feckless.

00:38:19.400 In contrast, Donald Trump, our enemies are terrified of him. And I think America is safer

00:38:25.840 when our enemies are afraid of the commander in chief. Appeasement increases the chances

00:38:32.200 of military conflict. I've joked, there's a reason nobody goes and studies and gets a degree from

00:38:37.880 the Neville Chamberlain School of Foreign Affairs. It doesn't work. Appeasement encourages bullies

00:38:44.000 and tyrants. And so you see, look, when Trump went into Venezuela and arrested Maduro and his

00:38:52.000 wife, that had a profound impact and it resulted in our enemies. I think it reduced the chance

00:39:00.720 of conflict. Now, you said, well, couldn't Iran want nukes to avoid people attacking them? Look,

00:39:06.340 if they weren't killing everyone, nobody would be attacking them. This is not a military. The

00:39:11.720 United States is not an aggressor seeking conquest. We're not trying to conquer the land and make it

00:39:17.780 an American territory. We're not an expansive regime. We're acting to stop people from killing

00:39:24.400 Americans. That's a very different thing. And so the justification of the Ayatollah you suggested, 0.92

00:39:30.160 well, I want to get the tools to kill a lot more Americans so I can keep killing the Americans I 1.00

00:39:35.580 can now, that doesn't pass the smell test. One of the other things that's become, you know, 0.99

00:39:42.580 we've traveled around the United States many, many times before, but we've been here for a

00:39:45.760 couple of weeks now talking to all sorts of people on camera and off. As you'll be aware,

00:39:50.060 as we're recording this yesterday, a counterterrorism official resigned, Joe Kent.

00:39:55.980 And he's saying, I mean, I thought there were a lot of baseless things about Israel that he said

00:40:01.900 in the statement. But broadly speaking, he's actually saying something that many people are

00:40:07.700 now openly saying, which is that Israel and the United States have different objectives in this

00:40:13.660 conflict. And in fact, it is Israel's objectives that are being satisfied while Americans are not. 0.73

00:40:18.380 Look, I think that is silliness. And I actually think Israel had very little to do with why the 0.92

00:40:22.780 United States is engaged in this military conflict. President Trump is acting to keep America safer.

00:40:28.160 I can tell you when I talked with him about it, Israel didn't even come up.

00:40:32.280 We talked about the Iranians killing Americans. 1.00

00:40:35.060 Like in my conversations with him, Israel was not even part of the conversation. 0.82

00:40:39.380 It was simply this regime has been tried to murder Trump twice, hired hit men to murder

00:40:47.100 Trump twice.

00:40:47.860 He was not happy about that.

00:40:48.960 He doesn't understandably.

00:40:51.260 And this was all about keeping Americans safe.

00:40:54.720 That was his reasoning.

00:40:56.400 How do you square that, forgive me for interrupting,

00:40:58.580 but how do you square that with Secretary Rubio's statement,

00:41:01.720 which he sort of walked back, but nonetheless,

00:41:03.800 a lot of people felt that when he was talking about this,

00:41:06.460 he basically quote-unquote gave the game away when he said,

00:41:09.260 well, Israel was about to attack, so we had to jump in there 0.96

00:41:12.420 before we were attacked in response.

00:41:13.920 I can't tell you why he said that.

00:41:15.680 You'd have to ask him why he said that.

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00:43:46.480 My reasoning was very straightforward, which is this Ayatollah and this regime is a serious threat to the United States. 1.00

00:43:56.020 It's not a theoretical threat. It's a threat that's reality.

00:43:58.780 Let me make a broader point on you asked about Joe Kent.

00:44:03.380 I don't know him personally. I know of him.

00:44:06.180 But I will say, I think he embodies, let's talk philosophically for a second.

00:44:12.240 For a long time, people have thought about foreign policy, particularly foreign policy

00:44:17.160 among Republicans in the United States, as essentially a bipolar world.

00:44:22.160 That you're either an interventionist and you want to go invade other countries and

00:44:26.880 engage in military conflict, or you're an isolationist.

00:44:30.740 You want to withdraw from the world and never engage in military conflict.

00:44:34.620 And, you know, sort of the paradigmatic interventionist would have been a John McCain.

00:44:38.780 And the paradigmatic isolationist would be a Ron Paul or Rand Paul.

00:44:42.700 And those are treated as the only two options.

00:44:45.880 I can tell you, I've always thought both were wrong.

00:44:49.340 I don't agree with either one of them.

00:44:51.280 And I think most Americans don't agree with either one of them.

00:44:54.420 I've always described myself as a third point on the triangle.

00:44:57.700 And so I call myself a non-interventionist hawk.

00:45:03.840 Now, what does that mean? It means, as I said before, that every decision is keyed on protecting the vital national security interests of the United States.

00:45:11.960 So you don't engage in military conflict, to engage in nation building, to promote democracy, to defend norms.

00:45:19.340 That was a popular phrase in the Obama administration. I don't know what the hell it means to defend norms, but I'm not willing to have U.S. soldiers die to defend norms.

00:45:26.460 I am willing to put the U.S. military in harm's way to protect Americans and save America's

00:45:32.620 lives, American lives. That's why we have a strong military. And so it means, let's take,

00:45:39.800 for example, when Obama was president and he talked about bombing Syria and he drew a red

00:45:48.520 line of chemical weapons and Bashar Assad crossed that red line. And when he talked about engaging

00:45:56.080 in military conflict. I did not immediately reject it. I said, OK, let me listen to the

00:46:02.020 commander in chief. Let me hear your argument for why this protects U.S. national security.

00:46:09.040 And I could have envisioned. So at the time, Bashar Assad had chemical weapons. He was using

00:46:14.600 chemical weapons against his own people. I could have envisioned conceivably a military operation 0.96

00:46:21.160 that I would think makes sense and would support. So I wanted to listen to him.

00:46:25.600 And I will tell you, I asked in both classified settings and in public settings. At the time,

00:46:29.800 there were seven major rebel groups in Syria, many of which were affiliated with radical Islamic

00:46:38.380 terrorists, al-Qaeda, al-Nusra. And I said, OK, let's say you go in and topple Assad.

00:46:45.720 How do you stop the radical Islamic terrorists from taking over? And if al-Qaeda has chemical 0.76

00:46:50.980 weapons. We've made the world much worse. As bad as Bashar Assad is, he's not using those weapons

00:46:55.800 on Americans. Al Qaeda would love to use those weapons on Americans. I'm not interested in having

00:47:01.080 terrorists who hate us get weapons they can use to kill us. When you asked them those questions,

00:47:07.200 the answers of the Obama administration were incoherent. They were all over the place. They

00:47:10.680 said at one point, John Kerry said, we're going to launch an unbelievably small attack.

00:47:16.660 It was like, OK, well, what the hell is the purpose? And look, I could have envisioned,

00:47:19.840 let's say there was a mission to go in. We knew where the chemical weapons were. They were in one 0.98

00:47:25.320 warehouse. We're going to send in a squad to get the chemical weapons and remove them. 0.93

00:47:29.160 And I could envision that being targeted in a way that might make America safe.

00:47:36.880 Obama administration never articulated anything like it. And so I vocally opposed that military

00:47:42.040 action because it didn't make America safe. Contrast this with Iran. Iran has been actively 1.00

00:47:49.300 killing Americans and has plans to continue killing Americans. What is interesting, when I 0.67

00:47:54.560 say non-interventionist hawk, I think there are two presidents in modern times that reflect that

00:48:01.160 same philosophy. One is Donald Trump. Now, Donald Trump doesn't articulate it using the same language

00:48:07.300 I do. But if you look at Trump's foreign policy and national security policy, virtually every

00:48:13.820 foreign policy and national security decision Trump has made, I agree with. And that's not

00:48:19.780 accidental because for many of those decisions, I've been advocating those choices. And so he's

00:48:24.940 agreed with me as we've talked about them. The other president who had a very similar philosophy

00:48:29.640 was Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan called it peace through strength. You look at it in eight years

00:48:36.240 as president, the biggest country Reagan ever invaded was Grenada. He was not one of the

00:48:43.120 interventionist whose solution to everything was send the Marines. We see a country, let's invade

00:48:47.080 it. We see a country, let's invade it. I'm not interested in that. But he simultaneously

00:48:52.760 rebuilt the military, bankrupted the Soviet Union, and won the Cold War without firing a shot.

00:48:59.720 That is peace through strength. That's another way of saying being a non-interventionist hawk.

00:49:05.160 Don't invade everybody, but be strong enough that you defeat your enemy.

00:49:08.800 Well, you've made your point, but forgive me, I must drag you back to Israel. And it's not because it's a personal obsession of mine, actually, at all. But this is an issue that comes up in a lot of conversations now. And of course, it is being driven by people like Tucker Carlson, increasingly others as well.

00:49:25.160 do you not accept that there is a growing concern about the relationship between Israel and America

00:49:35.900 and that many people feel that it is not to the benefit of the United States now?

00:49:40.280 So look, there is a growing anti-Israel sentiment, certainly on the left,

00:49:45.320 and there is a sliver on the right. And so let's break. And by the way, it's not just an anti-Israel

00:49:51.660 sentiment. There is growing anti-Semitism that is getting materially worse. And in the United

00:49:57.880 States, it was about a decade ago that anti-Semitism and vicious anti-Israel animus

00:50:06.360 began rising on the left. And I think the Democrats' leadership by and large just looked

00:50:11.820 the other way. They just hoped it would go away. And I think it's all but completely consumed their

00:50:17.220 Party. I mean, today there is a very real pro-Hamas contingent of the Democrat Party.

00:50:23.400 And the remaining Democrats, even if they don't agree with that extreme, they're terrified of

00:50:28.880 them because that's where the energy, the money, the power in the party is. Look at all of the

00:50:33.240 Democrats who made the trek up to Manhattan to support Comrade Mandami. That's where the

00:50:39.860 Democrat party is today. On the right, in the last 18 months, I've seen more antisemitism on

00:50:48.560 the right than I have at any point in my life. And I think it is growing. You mentioned Tucker

00:50:53.060 Carlson. I believe Tucker's the most dangerous demagogue in America. And he is obsessed. He

00:50:58.520 hates Israel. He is attacking Israel on a daily basis. He's attacking Jews on a daily basis.

00:51:04.420 And I will say, and there are others, there are a handful of podcasters and voices that are

00:51:08.860 amplifying these views. Look, anti-Semitism is a gateway to anti-capitalism and anti-Americanism.

00:51:17.880 Mondami is a great example of the green-red alliance that Marxists and Islamists come 1.00

00:51:24.060 together because they hate the same people. And so, look, you've seen it with Tucker that he starts

00:51:29.480 by, he has one crackpot historian on his show who says Winston Churchill was the villain of World

00:51:35.740 War II. Yeah, we weren't fans of that one. He then has another crackpot professor who says

00:51:42.320 there's a good argument America should have supported the Nazis and intervened on behalf 1.00

00:51:46.500 of the Nazis in World War II. And Tucker gazes adoringly as he's saying this. He has said he

00:51:55.280 thinks America should apologize to Osama bin Laden's family. He has said he doesn't know that

00:52:00.480 Hamas is a terrorist organization. He thinks they may just be a political group. He's also said

00:52:04.980 there's no one on planet Earth he hates more than Christian Zionists, and he's identified by name, 0.99

00:52:10.060 me and Mike Huckabee, as the two people he hates the most. Not only has he gone down the road where

00:52:16.180 he is defending Islamists, defending Iran, he had the president of Iran on and did this fawning 0.59

00:52:20.860 interview, asked no difficult questions whatsoever. He had Nick Fuentes, who is a

00:52:25.940 open Nazi. And by the way, I don't use the term Nazi lightly. But when you say, as Fuentes has 0.56

00:52:33.500 has said, I like Hitler, I agree with Hitler, and Hitler was very, very cool. I view that as 0.99

00:52:39.840 somewhat tautological. If you say you agree with Hitler, then you're a Nazi. You're saying it. 0.84

00:52:44.140 That's not an adjective I apply unless someone's views make that clear. Tucker interviewed Fuentes

00:52:53.280 and nodded when Fuentes said his mission was to defeat global Jewry. By the way, not Israel, Jews. 0.97

00:53:01.660 Fuentes told him every year he celebrates Stalin's birthday now let me ask you what kind of freak 0.97

00:53:11.140 even knows Stalin's birthday I don't and I don't care he was one of the most evil men to have ever 0.96

00:53:16.120 lived as you know very well but and by the way Tucker has also defended Mondami and defended

00:53:25.340 Maduro like you go down the road where you're defending Islamists you're defending enemies of 0.60

00:53:30.420 America that, that as you start, start down this road, it is a very problematic road. And, and at

00:53:37.200 least on the right, it is still a minority on the right. So if you look at, for example,

00:53:42.800 supportive, and by the way, Tucker hates president Trump. He opposes everything about his foreign

00:53:47.900 policy and he's attacking president Trump on a daily basis. Now he's too chicken to actually

00:53:52.540 say that. So instead of saying that he's attacking Trump, he just has every clown who hates Trump on 0.99

00:53:58.640 his show to attack his policies, but he won't actually say the name. Look, I've resolved I'm

00:54:06.020 not going to sit quietly and watch my party destroyed by the same forces that have destroyed

00:54:11.720 the Democrat Party, because I don't want to wake up in five years and find both national parties

00:54:18.800 in the United States unequivocally anti-Israel and viciously anti-Semitic. And I think that is

00:54:25.100 a possibility. And I'm going to do everything humanly possible to stop that from happening.

00:54:31.020 Tucker's views are still fringe, but they're being heard by young people. And if young people don't

00:54:36.840 hear a response to it, that's how both parties are lost to this poison. Senator, but it must

00:54:43.120 concern you that the longer that this war goes on, the more casualties on either side, but

00:54:48.080 particularly on the American side, ratchet up, the more we're going to see this anti-Semitic virus,

00:54:53.560 mine borrows, which is how I like to call it, being spread.

00:54:56.880 Look, I don't want to see more American casualties. As I said, I don't think this will be a longstanding

00:55:03.160 military conflict. I expect it to be a matter of weeks and not extended. And to be clear,

00:55:11.600 if the proposal from the Trump administration had been let's invade Iran and put hundreds of 0.95

00:55:16.240 thousands of troops on the ground and let's stay there for years, I'd say hell no. Like,

00:55:20.840 my mission is not to turn Iran into Switzerland. If they want to turn themselves into Switzerland, 0.91

00:55:25.540 knock yourself out. I think the mission should be to protect America. And that is a much more

00:55:32.160 focused mission that I believe the president is directly focusing.

00:55:40.140 And is the problem as well that you've got the two main people, your greatest allies are Israel 0.89

00:55:45.600 involved in this war. Are your objectives different? Do Israel want a complete regime change?

00:55:53.260 Sure. I assume so. I actually don't. I haven't seen them articulate that objective, but I assume

00:55:58.720 so because for the same reason, it would be unequivocally in America's interest to see a

00:56:05.240 regime in power that doesn't want to murder Americans. The same is true for Israel. They'd 0.97

00:56:09.900 like a regime in power that doesn't want to murder Israelis. That's a natural, when you have 1.00

00:56:15.200 a leader who with religious fervor chants death to America and death to Israel, you would expect

00:56:20.440 both America and Israel to be like, wait, that that's not good. I'm reminded of during the Obama

00:56:25.320 administration, John Kerry was secretary of state. And there was an editorial cartoon of the Ayatollah

00:56:31.580 going death to America. And John Kerry says, well, can we meet you halfway? But like, there's not a

00:56:38.820 middle ground compromise. And let me be clear. America supports Israel because it is unequivocally 0.60

00:56:45.900 in America's national security interest to support Israel. Why is that? Because we get massive 0.86

00:56:51.000 benefits. Number one, the Mossad is an incredibly effective intelligence agency, and they share that

00:56:56.740 intelligence with us. We're seeing this right now in this war with Iran. How is it? You look at the

00:57:01.900 12 day war, the 12 day war last year, which Israel weighs almost the entirety of. We did virtually 0.98

00:57:08.540 nothing. The only thing we did in the 12-day war was the one thing Israel couldn't do, 0.93

00:57:12.520 which is they did not have bunker buster bombs that were big enough to penetrate into the base

00:57:17.760 of a mountain where Fordow, the Iranians, had built their nuclear weapon research facilities 0.99

00:57:23.000 in the base of a mountain precisely because Israeli munitions couldn't take it out.

00:57:27.600 The only country that had bombs big enough to do that was the United States. And so we sent our B2s 0.85

00:57:32.440 over, delivered those bunker busters, took out the nuclear weapons facilities and left.

00:57:37.200 hugely successful. You look at how the 12-day war proceeded. Israel took out the air defenses

00:57:43.900 almost immediately. They systematically took out the leadership, one after the other after the

00:57:48.960 other. If you remember the IRGC, you asked about the IRGC. In the 12-day war, you'd have one head

00:57:53.700 of the IRGC. Israel would take them out. The next day they'd appoint someone else. Israel would take

00:57:59.640 them out. By the third or fourth day, I can't imagine what it was like for them. I told them

00:58:03.860 to say, hey, you want to be head of the IRGC? No, no, no, get Bob to do it. It was literally

00:58:09.540 the precision of the intelligence penetration that Israel had of Iran was spectacularly

00:58:17.280 effective. That benefits America. Israel shares our values. It is a free market democracy that

00:58:26.460 is allied with America. Their intelligence benefits America. Their military, the enemies

00:58:32.960 of Israel, the people who want to kill Israel also want to kill America. So every time Israel 0.92

00:58:39.840 takes out a Hamas terrorist or a Hezbollah terrorist or an IRGC terrorist, they're doing 0.80

00:58:45.300 it in their own national interest, but it also is making America safer because those terrorists 0.97

00:58:49.460 are eager to kill Americans. And so we are friends with Israel because they are fighting 1.00

00:58:58.540 people who want to kill us. And so it is making Americans safer. That's why. And look, conspiracy

00:59:04.940 theories, you look online and it's amazing. Everyone blames the Jews for everything.

00:59:11.380 I think that's unhinged. And so, and I don't want to see, as you described it, that mind virus 0.95

00:59:17.900 spread. And so, and I find it amazing that the Tucker Carlson's of the world

00:59:25.000 can look at what happened on October 7th, where Hamas terrorists cross over into southern Israel.

00:59:33.840 They target civilians. They go house to house. They murder the elderly. They murder children. 0.92

00:59:39.880 They rape women and little girls. They kill 1,200 people, including dozens of Americans. 1.00

00:59:45.900 It was one of the largest terrorist attack on Americans in U.S. history. 0.96

00:59:49.540 they take even more people hostage where they violently assault and rape them

00:59:56.060 and I don't understand the Tucker Carlson's of the world that can look at that and say you know 0.60

01:00:01.480 I'm with those Hamas terrorists who are raping and killing people and not the people who are 1.00

01:00:06.300 the innocent victims and then are fighting back to defend themselves against monsters you know I 0.95

01:00:12.220 I don't know you know when I see these left-wing activists who who go on and on I you know I ask

01:00:19.140 them, I say, look, in World War II, were you rooting for the Nazis? Like at the end of the

01:00:23.060 day, there is a difference between targeting civilians and murdering civilians deliberately,

01:00:29.480 which is what Hamas does. It's what Hezbollah does. It's what Iran does. And defending yourself 0.97

01:00:35.300 and taking out terrorists or trying to murder your citizens, which is what Israel does. And 0.85

01:00:39.720 it's what the United States does. I actually, the left-wing anti-Semitism makes perfect sense to me 0.97

01:00:44.280 because it is the logical conclusion of the work worldview where you have oppressed groups which

01:00:49.320 tend to be dark-skinned etc and they're weak militarily and you have white straight whatever 0.99

01:00:55.320 which they think israel is because they've never been i assume um and they are the oppressors and 0.99

01:01:01.020 so they must be uh increasingly uh it is exactly the marxist ideology of oppressor and victor that's

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01:02:30.100 It's trigonometry at sheath.com. Speaking of Marxist ideology, you alluded to Cuba.

01:02:37.340 um president trump's alluded to cuba do you think cuba is next i hope so um i don't know

01:02:45.100 uh i think we have a greater likelihood of it there was a bit of a right smile there i must

01:02:50.340 observe look i all right i mentioned that my tia sonia passed a few weeks ago

01:02:56.740 when she was in the hospital and she was dying i told her at the time i said tia

01:03:02.080 we just arrested Maduro and the Cuban government is going to fall and and she was in her last

01:03:09.860 moments but I will tell you the smile that was on her face it was a wonderful thing just to share

01:03:15.580 that with her in her last moments here and I think there are millions of Cubans I've never

01:03:20.240 been to Cuba I I look forward to going but I want to go when Cuba is a free nation when they're not

01:03:26.220 under the jackboot of communist oppression.

01:03:30.240 Well, why were you so convinced to be able to tell your aunt that it's going to happen?

01:03:33.980 So look, if you look at the history of Cuba, for the first four decades,

01:03:37.720 they were dependent upon, and in many ways, a satellite state of the Soviet Union.

01:03:42.960 And they were dependent on the Soviet Union for energy and for money.

01:03:47.120 Then America wins the Cold War.

01:03:48.920 We defeat the Soviet Union. 0.88

01:03:50.780 And suddenly Cuba became dependent on Venezuela.

01:03:53.120 and the Faustian bargain they cut with Venezuela is that Venezuela would provide Cuba with oil

01:03:59.420 and with money. And Cuba provided Venezuela with thugs, with soldiers and thugs to oppress the

01:04:08.220 people. And the know-how to how to turn a liberal democracy into a communist state. Yes. And so you

01:04:13.360 look, when Maduro was arrested, he was surrounded by about 100 Cuban soldiers. It was Cubans who 0.99

01:04:18.980 regarding Maduro. And when we arrested Maduro, what that did is it removed the lifeline of oil

01:04:30.400 that was coming to Cuba from Venezuela. So they're no longer getting oil from Venezuela. For a brief

01:04:34.900 period of time, Mexico stepped in to the breach and was providing oil to Cuba. And President

01:04:39.880 Trump quite rightly leaned on Mexico and said, stop it, cut off the oil. You look at Cuba right 1.00

01:04:45.860 now, their economy is an absolute free fall. The public transportation has been shut down.

01:04:51.560 They've run out of jet fuel. And that economic crisis is powerful. Now, will the regime fall?

01:04:59.500 I don't know. Because you've got six decades of a machinery of repression that is built up.

01:05:09.060 And that machinery is hard to dislodge. But I will say the economic pressure is massive.

01:05:15.860 And, and so, and it is weakening the existing government. I'll tell you a story about Cuba.

01:05:22.580 So my, my Tia Sonia has went back to Cuba several times and she described to me one time she went

01:05:29.840 back and she was visiting a friend of hers from high school. And she said, this guy was kind of

01:05:35.180 a mid-level communist party apparatchik. And, and he had in his living room above the sofa,

01:05:41.520 he had a painting or a photo of Fidel Castro hanging, like that was the main thing hanging

01:05:46.900 on the wall. And she described how he walked her into the kitchen and he closed the kitchen drapes

01:05:54.980 so that no one could see in. And he sat down at the kitchen table and she said he burst into tears

01:06:00.600 and he just began weeping. And he said to her, he said, Sonia, I look at you. And she was there

01:06:07.560 with my cousin, Bebe. And Bebe is my first cousin. She's this vivacious Latina. She's beautiful. 0.66

01:06:14.920 And he's crying. And he said, I look at you and I look at your daughter.

01:06:18.720 And she's so happy. And she's so joyful. And she has such a bright future ahead of her.

01:06:26.440 And he says to her, he said, I was too much of a coward to escape. And I've consigned my children

01:06:35.600 into misery. You had the courage to get out of here and your daughter has an incredible future.

01:06:41.660 And she said he sat at that table and wept for about 10 minutes. Then he got up and he went to

01:06:47.020 the sink and he turned on the sink and he got some water and he like cleaned his face and he smiled

01:06:52.800 and opened the drapes. Look, that's what's happening in Cuba. And so it is my prayer that 0.95

01:07:00.040 this economic pressure is enough to cause the regime to collapse. And by the way, the upside

01:07:06.500 for Cuba, if you actually had a government in Cuba that was democratically elected, that you

01:07:13.160 had free elections and free speech and freedom of religion, and that wanted to be friends with

01:07:17.400 America, I think you would see, I think you could see in Cuba what Hong Kong was in the 1990s. You

01:07:24.360 could see an oasis of free enterprise. There's a massive Cuban-American community in the United

01:07:30.160 States who would love to come back and invest billions in the island. I think you would see

01:07:34.880 a tourist, they're 90 miles away, some of the most beautiful beaches on planet Earth.

01:07:40.160 I think the prosperity and abundance that could come from Cuba with a government that was not a

01:07:48.120 communist regime is enormous. So will that happen now? I don't know, but I think the pressure is

01:07:53.940 greater than it ever has been. Senator, I believe you've sown the seeds of the next conspiracy,

01:07:58.460 given that you have a cousin called Bebe. They will not hear the end of that. But thank you so

01:08:05.340 much for giving us your time. The last question we ask all of our guests is, what's the one thing

01:08:09.360 we're not talking about that we really should be? You know, it's interesting. This week, Palmer

01:08:15.340 Lucky, the tech executive, came and had lunch with all the Republican senators. And Palmer's

01:08:21.720 friend of mine. And I know Palmer quite well. And he's an amazing tech entrepreneur. In fact,

01:08:27.060 I said at the lunch that I think Palmer and Elon Musk are the two most important

01:08:31.260 tech entrepreneurs in the country. And he's an innovative thinker.

01:08:34.940 And he's talking about everything he's doing at Andrew, which is amazing. And like Elon,

01:08:39.620 both of them, they don't just think outside the box. They don't know there's a box.

01:08:43.600 Like it's, I love, both are really good friends and I love watching how their minds work.

01:08:48.980 um i asked him i i said look you're really good at thinking outside the box

01:08:54.820 what is the future of military conflict what what is the future of military conflict in 10 years

01:09:01.880 and what should we be afraid of if you were an enemy how would you attack the united states and

01:09:10.220 he raised in particular for a non-nation state i mean he talked about all sorts of things where

01:09:16.760 the future of war is going. Obviously, things like drones and AI, although he actually said

01:09:21.060 that would be slower than many people think. We'd still be using B-2s and F-35s and a lot of the

01:09:26.740 legacy equipment for 10, 20, 30 years. He talked about subterranean warfare that he thought would

01:09:34.220 be a component going forward. But in terms of a vulnerability, something very few people are

01:09:39.160 talking about that Palmer mentioned, he said he worries about our vulnerability to a bioweapon

01:09:45.600 attack, that we don't have nearly sufficient defenses to fight against and the ability to

01:09:56.840 spread. And, you know, he pointed out, look, COVID, which at the end of the day, in terms of

01:10:02.360 mortality, there are many bioweapons whose mortality is orders of magnitudes worse than

01:10:09.960 COVID. COVID shut the world's economy down for a year and inflicted trillions of dollars of

01:10:16.180 economic harm. And he pointed out that we're not nearly prepared enough to defend against that

01:10:24.540 kind of threat. And I think that's when you talk about the kind of things that we ought to be

01:10:29.440 worried about. Those are the kind of threats that I think are really dangerous. And by the way,

01:10:33.640 he talked about also the ability to bioengineer a virus or some germ that could potentially target

01:10:45.200 individual races, could target families, could target people. And so he said, you know, look,

01:10:56.160 do you think if the Ayatollah could create a virus that would kill Jews that he wouldn't be 0.96

01:11:02.900 eager to release it. And you know what? Maybe his scientists are wrong and it doesn't just kill 0.86

01:11:06.760 Jews. It kills everybody. Like that kind of danger is something. We are in a dangerous world, 1.00

01:11:16.940 but when he raised it, all of us now, look, the United States government is doing a lot of

01:11:20.800 research to combat against that. But I think we need to be doing more because that kind of

01:11:25.580 asymmetric attack has the potential to do enormous damage.

01:11:29.940 It's interesting you mentioned that.

01:11:31.060 My father was a biochemical engineer in the Soviet Union.

01:11:33.660 He's retired now.

01:11:34.480 But it's something that he always said to me that one day this will be possible.

01:11:38.520 And it's actually the most terrifying weapon that human beings will ever have come up with.

01:11:42.820 Particularly because I think we often overestimate what we know.

01:11:48.160 So let's take COVID.

01:11:49.620 I think it is overwhelmingly likely that the COVID virus escaped from a Chinese government lab.

01:11:56.200 I think it is likely, although I wouldn't say overwhelmingly likely, that it was bioengineered in that lab,

01:12:02.920 that they used gain-of-function research to make it more contagious, to increase its ability to impact humans.

01:12:11.960 And I think it's entirely possible they were doing so in what they thought was a defensive way to learn about how to protect humans.

01:12:21.060 I have not seen any compelling evidence that the Chinese deliberately released COVID.

01:12:27.840 Although I haven't seen evidence one way or the other, but given the very shoddy protections,

01:12:32.400 particularly at the Wuhan Institute for Virology, I think what is most likely is there was a lab

01:12:37.200 leak where you had lab workers who were infected and then went into the community and other people

01:12:40.460 got infected. And then I think the Chinese government, in fact, I know the Chinese government

01:12:44.700 affirmatively covered it up and was complicit in its spread. But there, I think they probably

01:12:53.700 thought, oh, we know what we're doing, and we're just researching, and then, oops, they screw up.

01:12:58.720 And that, by the way, is a nation state with trillions of dollars of resources. If you take

01:13:05.000 a couple of terrorists in a stood-up lab in a warehouse somewhere, you would imagine even less

01:13:13.320 expertise, which has the potential,

01:13:15.380 you know, God forbid, for a virus that

01:13:17.300 could kill

01:13:18.200 millions or more.

01:13:21.860 Senator, thank you for coming on the

01:13:23.480 show. It's been an absolute pleasure. On that cheery

01:13:25.420 note, it's very on brand

01:13:27.260 for our show to end on something very depressing.

01:13:29.520 All right, I'm going to end on something happier

01:13:31.400 instead.

01:13:33.180 Directly behind me

01:13:34.180 is a painting of Ronald Reagan

01:13:36.920 standing in front of the Brandenburg

01:13:39.300 Gate. And up

01:13:41.320 top,

01:13:41.720 are the words tear down this wall in German in the style of the graffiti.

01:13:47.640 And the reason that's on the wall is I think those are the most important words uttered by

01:13:52.200 any leader in modern times. And let's wrap on this. I'm going to tell you the story behind that

01:13:56.600 speech. Three times, the State Department crossed that sentence out of the speech.

01:14:04.160 And three times, Reagan wrote it back with his own hands.

01:14:08.040 And the State Department argued to him, said, Mr. President, you can't say this.

01:14:11.720 this is too provocative. This is too bellicose. And here was their killer. It's too unrealistic.

01:14:17.480 It will never, ever happen. The Berlin Wall will stand till the end of time. And Reagan,

01:14:23.540 with a twinkle in his eye, he said, don't you understand? This is the whole point of the speech.

01:14:29.960 Less than three years after he gave that speech, the Berlin Wall was torn to the ground.

01:14:35.320 and it wasn't torn down by American tanks bulldozing it. It wasn't bombed to the ground

01:14:45.120 by American missiles. It was the power of American leadership, of truth, of standing up against

01:14:52.120 tyranny that resulted in the Berlin Wall being torn down. So when I talk with optimism about

01:14:58.940 what could happen and what I hope will happen in Iran and Venezuela and Cuba. It is with that

01:15:05.580 example that when America stands and leads, freedom is an incredible and a powerful thing,

01:15:13.900 and shining a light of truth on tyranny and oppression can be transformation.

01:15:28.940 this video without any advertising at all. No pop-ups, no interruptions, nothing. Go to

01:15:34.420 triggerpod.co.uk and join thousands of our supporters who watch all our interviews with

01:15:39.760 bonus content ad-free. No script, no filter, just one of the funniest people on the planet

01:15:47.540 sharing her unique take on modern life. Don't miss Fran Leibovitz. May 8th, Roy Thompson Hall.

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TRIGGERnometry - March 22, 2026

Why I Told President Trump to Attack Iran - Sen. Ted Cruz

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