Verdict with Ted Cruz - BONUS POD： Regime Change Already Happened？—Total Energy Knockout if Iran Balks

00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.

00:00:02.580 Guaranteed human.

00:00:04.780 Two questions regarding the financial cost of the war.

00:00:08.020 Back during the Persian Gulf War, 1990-1991,

00:00:11.560 Arab countries paid for the vast majority of the cost of the war.

00:00:15.820 Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the UAE.

00:00:18.480 Who's paying for the cost of this war?

00:00:21.240 Will those Arab countries step up to do just that?

00:00:23.800 Well, I think it's something the president would be quite interested in calling them to do.

00:00:27.440 I won't get ahead of him on that, but certainly it's an idea that I know that he has and something

00:00:33.280 that I think you'll hear more from him on. You're listening to the 47 Morning Update with Ben

00:00:38.560 Ferguson. Good Tuesday morning. Nice to have you with us on the 47 Morning Update. We've got two

00:00:43.060 big stories for you this morning. First up, the President of the United States of America has

00:00:47.820 new statements on Iran, and it can change everything overnight. Plus, Secretary of State

00:00:54.360 marco rubio he's now on record talking about what's next including the strait of hormuz

00:01:00.240 but before we get to that i want to take a moment and ask you to help the people in israel with my

00:01:05.820 friends at the ifcj working right now on the ground for all those in need a sacred season

00:01:12.880 is approaching passover when we remember god's deliverance the night he brought his people

00:01:18.320 out of bondage and into freedom this year many of God's people will observe in darkness under

00:01:24.720 the shadow of war across Israel red alert sirens pierce the air families run to shelters with

00:01:32.360 seconds to spare elderly men and women fear they'll be left behind and parents are comforting

00:01:38.840 their frightened children as explosions shake the night sleeplessness and uncertainty have become

00:01:44.960 daily life in israel and passover reminds us that god hears the cries of his people

00:01:50.820 and answers with love and compassion and that's why the international fellowship of christians

00:01:56.880 and jews is on the ground in israel right now they're providing food and emergency supplies

00:02:03.200 equipping bomb shelters and caring for elderly holocaust survivors just as his people once 0.96

00:02:10.060 cried out for deliverance vulnerable israelis need your help today with your generous passover gift

00:02:16.780 it shows you stand with god's people and if you are ready to stand with the people of israel

00:02:22.280 then stand with the ifcj and help you can call them 888-488-IFCJ that's 888-488-IFCJ to rush

00:02:35.420 your gift right now or you can give online at ifcj.org that's ifcj.org it's the 47 morning

00:02:45.700 update and it starts right now story number one welcome back it is the ben ferguson show it is

00:02:51.360 nice to have you with us donald trump has come out talking about who he's talking to in iran

00:02:57.280 the new regime they're in place and the president also making it very clear if they do not agree

00:03:02.840 with the negotiations with America,

00:03:05.100 we will blow up their power infrastructure easily.

00:03:09.360 They better make a deal.

00:03:11.240 Now, President Trump suggesting in a message on Monday morning

00:03:14.380 that a new and more reasonable regime has taken over Iran

00:03:18.020 and is talking with Washington, D.C.

00:03:20.380 He warned yet again he is willing to obliterate Iran's energy infrastructure,

00:03:25.600 his exact words, if the talks do not lead to a durable agreement.

00:03:30.400 Trump made the declaration in a message on his website, True Social.

00:03:34.660 What remains of the Iranian government after the elimination of the Supreme Leader

00:03:38.240 has repeatedly denied Trump's claim that it is in conversations with the American government,

00:03:44.580 while also stating that it has responded to America's proposals,

00:03:49.140 which would be impossible without a conversation.

00:03:53.020 President Trump, smiling through that in a statement,

00:03:56.000 saying that not only is America pursuing regime change in Iran,

00:03:59.840 But the regime change has already happened, saying the United States of America is in serious discussions with a new and more reasonable regime to end our military operations in Iran.

00:04:11.920 He followed up that comment with a threat.

00:04:14.580 Great progress has been made, but if for any reason a deal is not shortly reached, which it probably will be,

00:04:21.500 And if the Hormuz Strait is not immediately open for business, we will conclude our lovely stay in Iran by blowing up and completely obliterating all of their electric generating plants, oil wells and Carg Island and possibly all desalization plants, which we have purposely not yet touched. 0.90

00:04:44.140 quote unquote. The president went on to say this will be in retribution for our many soldiers and

00:04:50.720 others that Iran has butchered and killed over the regime's 47 year reign of terror. Thank you 0.86

00:04:57.540 for your attention to this matter. Now, President Trump is seriously weighing also a military

00:05:02.580 operation, we're being told, to extract nearly a thousand pounds of highly enriched uranium from

00:05:09.080 Iran. And while the Iranian government has not responded directly to Trump's statement at press

00:05:14.200 time, the foreign ministry spokesman confirmed on Monday that Iran had received and was contemplating

00:05:21.340 negotiation messages from the United States. At the same time, that individual also disparaged

00:05:28.180 the proposals as being unrealistic, illogical, and excessive. But his statement nonetheless

00:05:34.060 confirmed the existence of some form of communication between individuals in power in

00:05:39.780 Iran and the White House, specifically Donald Trump. Quote, our position is clear. We are under

00:05:47.640 military aggression. Therefore, all our efforts and strengths are focused on defending ourselves,

00:05:54.180 according to translation by the Saudi outlet there. The government of also Pakistan claimed

00:05:59.780 last week that it was mediating talks between America and Iran, handing Tehran a 15-point

00:06:06.740 proposal from the White House.

00:06:08.620 Trump shortly thereafter claimed that Iran, quote, gave us most of the points and that

00:06:13.920 he would be asking for a couple of other things.

00:06:17.000 The president also announced that he would not target any energy infrastructure in Iran

00:06:21.420 through April the 6th.

00:06:22.780 That would be Easter Sunday.

00:06:24.600 Talks are ongoing.

00:06:25.560 And despite erroneous statements to the contrary by the fake news media and others, they are going very well, the president said.

00:06:32.880 Thank you for your attention to this matter.

00:06:35.240 He also claimed that Iran was begging for a deal, contrary to the declarations in Iranian state media, clearly to keep the people in Iran in line.

00:06:45.980 Also indicating the existence of talks, and those talks actually being very real,

00:06:51.240 was the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, known as the IAEA,

00:06:55.940 who told Italian media on Wednesday that talks about the Iran war would take place in Pakistan

00:07:02.700 as early as this past weekend.

00:07:05.800 Another example of confirmation.

00:07:08.320 Three weeks of war have left their mark, which caused a lot of damage,

00:07:12.680 affected Iran's economic, energy, and productive infrastructure.

00:07:17.460 This will make the conversation, quote, a little bit different.

00:07:21.240 Now, Pakistan did host talks on the Iran war this weekend,

00:07:25.020 but reports indicated that neither Iran nor the United States of America, quote, participated.

00:07:31.180 Instead, the event offered an opportunity for Pakistan to discuss the war

00:07:35.600 with officials from Saudi Arabia and Turkey, as well as Egypt.

00:07:40.240 Now, according to the Egyptian foreign minister,

00:07:42.000 The objective of the talks is to de-escalate tension and encourage a negotiating process between Iran and the United States of America to spare the region comprehensive chaos.

00:07:52.960 The Pakistani government also added that while Iran did not directly participate, Pakistani officials had a phone call with the Iranian foreign minister to discuss Tehran's position.

00:08:03.820 Now, most of Iran's response to the current hostilities by the United States has been to targets its neighboring countries with missile and drone attacks, including Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

00:08:15.080 Other countries Iran has bombed include Kuwait, Qatar, the UAE, Israel, Cyprus.

00:08:21.580 Iranian officials have claimed the strikes are intended to target American and Israeli sites.

00:08:26.480 But in reality, they are targeting a variety of civilian sites instead, including energy facilities in many of the Gulf states.

00:08:35.680 Next story number two, which brings us to a one on one interview done on Good Morning America on Monday morning with Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

00:08:44.820 I think it's incredibly important you hear what Marco had to say.

00:08:48.560 Take a listen to the interview.

00:08:50.020 Mr. Secretary, thank you for joining us this morning.

00:08:52.900 Let's talk about the president's comments overnight, talking about taking the oil on Karg Island.

00:08:58.100 How would he do this? Why would he do this? Won't it take ground troops?

00:09:01.700 Well, first of all, it's important to remember the objectives of this operation from the very beginning.

00:09:05.740 We were going to we are destroying Iran's Navy. 0.99

00:09:09.340 We are destroying their ability to their missile launchers by a significant percentage.

00:09:13.080 We're going to wipe out their defense industrial base, meaning their ability to make new missiles and new drones in the future,

00:09:18.400 because it posed a great threat to the region.

00:09:20.140 this iran that you're seeing now this is iran at its weakest point imagine them two years from now

00:09:25.440 if they had thousands of more missiles the thousands of more missile launchers and factories

00:09:29.420 to make even more that was an unacceptable risk it needed to be addressed and president trump is

00:09:33.980 addressing it now they are making threats about controlling the hormu straits and perpetuity

00:09:39.400 creating a tolling system and the like that's not going to be allowed to happen and the president

00:09:43.520 has a number of options available to him if he so chooses to prevent that from happening

00:09:48.020 happening. Obviously, I'm not going to discuss what those options are, and we're not going to

00:09:51.720 discuss military tactics. The Department of War would be in charge of those things. I'd refer you

00:09:56.940 to them, but obviously, they're not going to discuss it with you either. But there is a way

00:10:00.460 forward here to achieve our objectives. We are going to achieve our objectives in a matter of

00:10:04.660 weeks, not months. Well, let's talk about taking the oil, because the president laid out that

00:10:08.460 objective last night, and taking the oil will take ground troops, won't it? Well, again, the Iranians 1.00

00:10:14.200 are threatening that they're going to set up some permanent system in the Straits of

00:10:17.920 Hormuz where they get to decide who goes through international waterways. That will never be

00:10:21.480 allowed to happen. By the way, the rest of the world should take note of that. They have more

00:10:25.260 at stake there than we do. We get very little of our energy in this country coming through the

00:10:29.340 Straits of Hormuz. The rest of the world gets a lot more. That said, the president has several

00:10:33.960 options at his disposal, and the Department of War is preparing optionality for the president

00:10:38.400 for this and various other contingencies that might arise. That's what always needs to happen

00:10:42.840 in situations like this. But what I want the American people and the people watching this

00:10:46.560 broadcast to know is that fundamentally what this is about is the destruction of their air force

00:10:51.240 which has been largely achieved the destruction of their navy which has been largely achieved

00:10:55.520 the destruction of their factories that they make all these weapons with which is we're well on our

00:11:00.500 way to achieving and a substantial reduction in the number of missile launchers that they have

00:11:04.940 so that they cannot continue to threaten their neighbors in the future all of those objectives

00:11:08.900 are being met ahead on or ahead of schedule and uh and should be able to achieve in a matter of

00:11:14.720 weeks as you're speaking though the president is expanding the objectives just a couple minutes

00:11:18.940 ago he put out a post on true social saying that we're in discussions now with a new and more

00:11:24.220 reasonable regime in iran but he also added that if those discussions don't yield fruit the united

00:11:30.440 states will blow up and completely obliterate all of their electric generating plants all their oil

00:11:35.340 wells and karg island and possibly all desalinization plants which we have purposely not yet

00:11:40.200 touches what he said that's a great expansion of the objectives well well i think the first point

00:11:45.540 the president makes is he prefers diplomacy as i said those efforts are nascent there is messages

00:11:50.240 being relayed back and forth some conversations going on including through intermediaries

00:11:54.200 and he always prefers that look if the iranian regime had come forward at any point in the past

00:11:59.460 and said we're going to walk away from our nuclear ambitions we're going to do nuclear energy the way

00:12:04.100 every other country in the world primarily almost every other country in the world does it and that

00:12:08.160 is through a peaceful means in which you bring in the fuel and it's supervised and so forth we're

00:12:12.800 not we're going to stop supporting terrorist groups across the region look at this region

00:12:16.480 every single terrorist group in this region has a link to the iranian regime every single one

00:12:20.880 the houthis hezbollah hamas the the shia militias that are attacking everyone out of iraq every

00:12:26.980 single one of these groups and all the destabilization in this region tracks directly

00:12:31.060 back to the iranian regime those things have to be addressed and if iran had been willing to

00:12:35.200 addressed us in the past we wouldn't be having this interview on this topic right now their

00:12:39.340 refusal to do so and their continuing move towards one day acquiring a nuclear capability 0.97

00:12:44.140 these people are lunatics they are insane they are religious zealots who can never be allowed 0.95

00:12:49.560 to possess a nuclear weapon because they have an apocalyptic vision of the future and all of their 1.00

00:12:53.700 neighbors know that by the way which is why all of their neighbors have been supportive of the

00:12:57.320 efforts we're conducting you call them lunatics but the president just had this post where he

00:13:01.300 says we're in discussions with a new and more reasonable regime let me try to pin you down

00:13:04.880 on that who is this new and more reasonable regime is the united states is in direct contact with

00:13:10.140 them well i'm not going to disclose to you who those people are because it probably would get

00:13:13.660 them in trouble with some other groups of people inside of iran look there's some fractures going

00:13:17.260 on there internally and at the end of the day i think that if there are people in iran who now

00:13:21.800 given everything that's happened are willing to move in a different direction for their country

00:13:25.980 that would be great imagine in iran that instead of spending their wealth billions of dollars

00:13:30.680 supporting terrorists or weapons had spent that money helping the people of iran you'd have a

00:13:35.180 much different country so we are always hopeful that that would exist over there it's unfortunate

00:13:39.320 the people of iran are incredible people the people who lead them these this clerical regime

00:13:43.900 that is the problem and if there are new people now in charge who have a more reasonable vision

00:13:48.320 of the future that would be good news for us for them for the entire world but we also have to be

00:13:52.800 prepared for the possibility maybe even the probability that that is not the case but the

00:13:57.780 The president said they are. Is that the case or is it not? I'm just trying to get some clarity on that.

00:14:02.460 Well, what I mean is, yeah, so you have people that are saying some of the right things privately.

00:14:06.560 Obviously, they're not going to put it out in press releases and what they say to you or put out there for the world doesn't necessarily reflect what they're saying in our conversations.

00:14:14.120 But at the end of the day, we have to see if these people end up being the ones in charge, seeing if they're the ones that have the power to deliver.

00:14:19.460 We're going to test it. We are hopeful that that's the case.

00:14:21.860 There are clearly people there talking to us in ways that previous people in charge in Iran have not spoken to us in the past.

00:14:29.080 Some of the things they're willing to do, some of the things they're saying they're willing to do.

00:14:32.580 Obviously, they have to go do it.

00:14:33.980 We're going to test that proposition very strongly because we always prefer to settle things through negotiation and diplomacy.

00:14:40.380 But we also have to be prepared for the fact that that effort might fail,

00:14:43.680 that we are dealing with a 47-year-old regime that still has a lot of people involved in it

00:14:48.660 who aren't necessarily big fans of diplomacy or peace.

00:14:51.540 And if it fails, the war expands. What's that? I'm sorry. If it fails, the war expands.

00:14:56.560 Well, the war is this operation. OK, and that's what this is. It's about very specific objectives.

00:15:02.420 The president laid them out on the first night of the operation. I'll repeat them to you now because I hear a lot of talk about we don't know what the clear objectives are.

00:15:09.040 Here they are. You should write them down. Number one, the destruction of their air force.

00:15:12.680 Number two, the destruction of their Navy. Number three, the severe diminishing of their missile launching capability.

00:15:19.420 And number four, the destruction of their factory so they can't make more missiles and more drones to threaten us in the future.

00:15:25.280 All of this so that they can never hide behind it to acquire a nuclear weapon.

00:15:29.860 That was our objective from the beginning.

00:15:31.420 That remains our objective now.

00:15:33.300 We are on pace and, in fact, ahead of schedule in some of those things.

00:15:36.660 And we are going to achieve those things in a number of weeks, not in a number of months.

00:15:40.420 Mr. Secretary, thanks for your time this morning.

00:15:42.420 It's really interesting to see how much the media is willing to change, alter and lie to you.

00:15:47.840 To try to make you think that somehow what we're doing in Iran is a failure.

00:15:52.340 When clearly in reality, it's a massive success already.

00:15:56.140 And the Secretary of State making it very clear, the Trump doctrine is working.

00:15:59.760 Thank you for listening to the 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson.

00:16:04.200 Please make sure you hit subscribe wherever you're listening to this podcast right now.

00:16:09.480 And for more in-depth news, also subscribe to the Ben Ferguson podcast.

00:16:13.940 And we will see you back here tomorrow.

00:16:15.700 This is an iHeart Podcast.

00:16:19.140 Guaranteed human.

Verdict with Ted Cruz - March 31, 2026

BONUS POD： Regime Change Already Happened？—Total Energy Knockout if Iran Balks

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