BONUS： Trump Bombs Iran-Decisive Strike Obliterates Iran's Nuclear Weapons Capacity
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Summary
In this episode, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Sen. Ben Fergus (D-Maine) discuss President Trump's decision to strike Iran's nuclear facilities and destroy their centrifuges, which allowed Iran to continue enriching uranium.
Transcript
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Welcome, it is Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you.
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Senator, we got really not a lot to talk about today.
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You got 60 days to figure out what you want to do.
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What a message to the world with what just happened in Iran.
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Well, this weekend was incredibly consequential.
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President Trump made the decision to take out Iran's nuclear capability.
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Israel had been bombing Iran for over a week, and yet there were certain facilities,
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particularly the Fordow facility under a mountain in Iran, that Israel lacked the capability to take out.
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Tucker Carlson and I went round and round on this.
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Tucker did not want the United States to engage in this bombing.
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I believed that we should act decisively to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons that they could use to murder Americans.
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And this weekend, President Trump resolved the issue by ordering an incredibly successful attack,
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an incredibly beautifully orchestrated attack that devastated Iran's nuclear capability with no casualties on our part.
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We're going to talk about what exactly happened, what the consequences are, and what to expect in the days and weeks coming up.
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It truly was consequential, and it was one that I think made not only America safer, but the rest of the world.
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And we're going to break down how we got to this moment and what the president had to say about it as well in a second.
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So, Senator, let's just talk about the 60 days was the deadline.
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And it was the fact that they were so close to being able to get a nuclear weapon.
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President Trump gave Iran 60 days to reach a deal.
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The deal, the terms he set out, was that the deal must entail complete and total dismantlement
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Every centrifuge being dismantled, being shut down.
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And then on the 60th day, the Ayatollah announced nothing.
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We're going to keep enriching weapons, keep enriching uranium.
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And the entire purpose is to develop a nuclear weapon to be able to use it against Israel or
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more to the point, against the United States of America.
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On the 61st day, Israel began the aerial assault with incredible precision.
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And I've got to say, by the way, the precision of the Mossad in terms of identifying senior
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military officials in Iran, taking out one after the other after the other.
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You know, every person that got named the chief of staff of the IRGC, it seemed within
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Then they named a new chief of staff of the IRGC.
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And within hours, he got taken out, one after the other after the other.
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I've got to tell you, that call saying, hey, Ben, you're the new chief of staff of the IRGC,
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I think people stopped answering their phone calls.
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It was almost like they were Hezbollah terrorists getting paged.
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However, as incredibly effective as Israel's attack was on the senior military leadership,
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as incredibly effective as Israel's bombing attack was on nuclear facilities, there were
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certain facilities they did not have the equipment to take out.
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Fordow was built into the base of a gigantic mountain, and it was built to withstand aerial
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So at midnight on Friday, the B-2 strike package left the continental United States.
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The main strike package was comprised of seven B-2 bombers, which flew for 18 hours into the
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Those seven B-2 bombers dropped 14 Bunker Buster bombs.
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By the way, this is the first battle use of these bombs in history.
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In addition to that, 75 precision guided weapons were used during the operation.
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More than 125 U.S. aircraft participated in the mission, including B-2 stealth bombers, multiple
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flights of fourth- and fifth-generation fighters, dozens of air refueling tankers, a guided missile
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submarine, and a full array of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance aircraft, as well
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as hundreds of maintenance and operational professionals.
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And suddenly, the crown jewel of their nuclear weapon operation was destroyed, was devastated,
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Let me start by saying congratulations to the incredible airmen who led this attack, the
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fighting servicemen and women who risked their lives.
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This was a dangerous combat operation and who carried it out with absolute precision.
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But I also want to praise President Trump for having the strength of resolve to say, we will
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not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon and we will do whatever it takes to stop it.
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And tonight, we are saluting our brave servicemen and women and the commander-in-chief who sent
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I want to ask you a question, and we're going to go backwards and talk more, obviously, about
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But there is a new headline and a real concern that has come up, and that is about, okay, how
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And one of the big concerns that's really been brought up, it's being written about right
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now, I'm seeing articles pop left and right on this, is the possibility of Iranian sleeper
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You and I have been talking about this now, unfortunately, for years, that the wide-open
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southern border was allowing for people on the terrorist watch list to get into this country.
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And the numbers are also, I think, shocking of how many Iranians came across our southern
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border, that we just, or the Biden administration, I should say, just let them into this country
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and let them walk freely, and we just let them go.
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And that is something that every American should be really concerned about right now.
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And understand, I am not remotely Pollyannish about the threats we are facing.
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You know, you and I talked in the last podcast about the interview I did with Tucker Carlson,
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where he got all agitated and said, well, it could be dangerous if we attack Iran, that
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Yes, it is very, very dangerous right now.
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I just think it is more dangerous to have a theocratic lunatic like the Ayatollah who chants
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death to America and death to Israel, who calls Israel the little Satan and calls America
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the great Satan, to let a lunatic like that have nuclear weapons, which could kill millions
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One of the things to understand, you know, a lot of the commentators, particularly those
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who don't want to see us stand up to Iran, they say, this is all for Israel.
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Because the Ayatollah is actively developing an ICBM program.
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Ben, you don't need an ICBM to go from Iran to Israel.
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Iran is right now firing hundreds of ballistic missiles into Israel.
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They need an ICBM for one purpose and one purpose only, which is to carry a nuclear warhead
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They were actively developing the capability to detonate a nuclear bomb over a major American
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hit city, whether New York or Washington, D.C. or Los Angeles.
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And the president acted decisively to say he's not willing to wake up one morning and
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discover that millions of Americans have been murdered because the commander in chief didn't
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The most likely is a continued and even an escalated barrage on Israeli civilians.
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More ballistic missiles being launched into Israel targeting civilians.
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And I think there's a very real possibility that we will see potentially hundreds of
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Israelis killed in the days ahead, that that's that's Iran striking back Israel and the United
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States, both targeted military facilities, military leaders.
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They're lobbing missiles into densely populated urban environments, hoping to kill as many
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A second escalation that is a very real possibility is an attack on U.S. servicemen and women in
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And we have thousands of servicemen and women stationed in the Middle East.
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Now, I will tell you, President Trump has made unequivocally clear to Iran, do not do this.
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If you kill American servicemen and women, the consequences will be massive.
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I spoke with President Trump just over a week ago, and I said, Mr. President, thank you.
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You are keeping our servicemen and women alive because Iran knows the consequences of attacking
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But that's a second escalation that is entirely possible.
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The third escalation, Ben, is the one you referenced, which is terrorism here in the
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United States or abroad, but in the United States in particular.
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We had four years of open borders under Joe Biden.
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We had 12 million illegal immigrants flood into this country.
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And I think there is the very real risk of sleeper cells, of Iranian sleeper cells, carrying
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out an act of terrorism, whether targeted at U.S. servicemen and women or targeted at civilians,
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targeted at a shopping mall, targeted at a sporting event, targeted at some place where
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they could commit a significant act of mass murder.
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I am confident the Trump administration is doing everything humanly possible to protect
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And so all of us need to, number one, be praying, be praying for our friends in Israel,
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be praying for our servicemen and women in harm's way, and be praying here in America that
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We need to be watching because it is dangerous right now.
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But understand, even if some or all of these escalations happen, these escalations are less
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dangerous than what the world would be like with the Ayatollah, with a nuclear weapon that
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The chances of that scenario have dropped dramatically this weekend because of President
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You know, you hear the numbers, by the way, and I just want everyone to hear what Tom Homan
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He was talking about the number of nationals of Iran released into the interior of this
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So I pulled numbers this morning just from a CBP under Joe Biden.
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There was 1,272 nationals of Iran released in the country between OFO and the Border Patrol.
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And you compare that to the Trump administration, zero, right?
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And right now, because of President Trump's leadership, we have the most secure border in
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my lifetime, most secure border in history of this nation.
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So that was President Trump's big win on securing this nation.
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So we're not releasing people in this country, special interest aliens, aren't crossing that
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But under Joe Biden, we had over 10 million people cross that border.
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But my biggest concern from day one, beyond the fat and all, beyond the sex trafficking
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women and children, were the two million known gotaways.
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We don't know who they are, where they came from, because they got away.
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Because Border Patrol was so overwhelmed with the humanitarian crisis that Biden created,
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that over two million people crossed the border and got away.
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That is my biggest concern, and that's what created the biggest national security vulnerability
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You listen to the way he describes this, Senator, and he's talking about, look, Iran wanting
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to hurt us, and the possibility of sleeper cells here, directly is a border security issue.
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And so this brings two of the biggest reasons why so many people listening to the show voted
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for Donald Trump, why you advocated and supported him and voted for him as well, and I did too.
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And it seems like, look, Iran has, in essence, been waging a slow war on the U.S.
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Hell, the U.N. was asleep in advocating for Iran now.
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And literally, we now understand how vulnerable we are because of their actions.
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1,200 Iranian illegal immigrants released into this country by Joe Biden and the Democrats.
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In any sane world, every Democrat in Congress tomorrow would be asked, why did you release
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Are you worried about terrorism from the 1,200 Iranian illegal immigrants you released into
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What possible interest did America have in releasing these?
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The contrast, under President Trump, the number is zero, which is what Tom Homan just said there.
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As Homan rightly noted, the even more troubling number is 2 million gotaways.
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We just know there are over 2 million people that we have signs they crossed the border and
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So some combination of those are murderers, some are rapists, some are child molesters,
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some are gang members from Venezuela or elsewhere.
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And some of those, in overwhelming likelihood, are terrorists, whether Hamas terrorists, Hezbollah
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terrorists, Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists, or specifically Iranian terrorists.
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And I will say this is a time for law enforcement in every jurisdiction to be vigilant and for
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And, you know, in the wake of 9-11, it was frequently repeated, if you see something, say
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But four years of open borders exposed real vulnerabilities to us.
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And the one thing I'll say is I have confidence that the Trump administration is doing everything
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Let's talk a little bit about the liberal logic that has been coming out of so many Democrats
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And the people who seem to be obsessing over Iran's response, implying that their response
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is Donald Trump's fault that they're going to respond, are the same idiots that were not
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Sadly, today's Democrat Party sides with every enemy of America.
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Look, J.K. Rowling tweeted this weekend about this person, India Willoughby.
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Now, I'll confess, I have no idea who India Willoughby is.
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But J.K. Rowling tweeted, India, a fan of women hating, gay hating, authoritarian regime,
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So, I went and Googled who is this India Willoughby person.
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And it turns out, according to Wikipedia, quote, she is Britain's first transgender national television
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And think about the mindset of a leftist who, this transgender newsreader in, I guess, the
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UK, is like, even though the Ayatollah wants to murder me, I stand with the Ayatollah rather
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That is how messed up leftists are right now.
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They're like, oh, homicidal, theocratic, women-oppressing, gay-murdering, torturing,
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And then you go back to also the quotes that people have been posting.
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And I think it's really important that history reflect.
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You go back to Bill Clinton, Senator, and he said that Iran couldn't get a nuclear weapon.
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Hillary Clinton, when she was a senator, Secretary of State, and running for president, said Iran
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Barack Obama said that he cannot get a nuclear weapon.
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You had Joe Biden that said they couldn't get a nuclear weapon.
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And then all of the left's like, you can't do that.
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And understand, the reason we are here is because of Barack Obama and Joe Biden.
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Barack Obama negotiated the disastrous Iran nuclear deal.
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That flooded billions and billions of dollars into Iran.
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Listen, remember, Obama literally flew $1.7 billion of cash, unmarked bills on a pallet to
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That agreement set the stage for Iran to get nuclear weapons.
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And just now, in hindsight, what really was that deal?
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Was that deal a, hey, I don't want to have to deal with you guys, so let's just, you
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kind of play nice with me, and then I'll kick the can down the road to another administration?
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You know, when Barack Obama first became president, he went and gave a speech at the University
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of Cairo in Egypt, and in that speech, he said Iran has a right, and he used the word
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That is, I'm familiar with the right to the pursuit of happiness.
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I'm not familiar with a right to possess thermonuclear weapons.
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And at the end of the day, I think Barack Obama and his entire team came in with an
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ideological view that America's role in the world is fundamentally illegitimate, that we
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Look, as you know, my last book was Unwoke, How to Defeat Cultural Marxism in America.
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They view America as illegitimate, and therefore, they view that we have no business, we have
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no right stopping Iran from getting nuclear weapons.
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Listen, the Obama-Iran nuclear deal would inevitably lead to Iran with nuclear weapons.
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They're fine with that outcome, because they believe America has no right to prevent it.
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If you've got a lunatic who's saying death to America, and we have the power to stop
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him from getting nuclear weapons, we will use that power, because the commander-in-chief
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And I've got to say, by the way, the useful idiots across the globe, hey, you've got the
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Democrats today who are all chirping about, how dare you act to stop Iran from getting
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We also had the Secretary of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, who put out a statement.
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Quote, I am gravely alarmed by the use of force by the United States against Iran today.
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This is a dangerous escalation in a region already on the edge and a direct threat to
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There is a growing risk that this conflict could rapidly get out of control, with catastrophic
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consequences for civilians, the region, and the world.
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I call on member states to de-escalate and to uphold their obligations under the UN Charter
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At this perilous hour, it is critical to avoid a spiral of chaos.
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I tweeted, of course, the UN sides with Iran.
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Clown face emoji, clown face emoji, clown face emoji.
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The only thing they couldn't decide is which chant they agree with more strongly.
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Quote, death to Israel or, quote, death to America.
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And you've got to wonder, what's the point of being involved if this is how insane they
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But by the way, Ben, I also observed, I think Tehran would make a lovely UN headquarters,
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just located right there, maybe on the smoldering ashes of Forda.
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We can put the UN there, and they can all get together with their anti-Israel hate and
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their anti-American hate, and they can sit there and glow radioactive while they talk about
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Look, that's who they—this should not be complicated.
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Iran, like—let me ask you, Ben, seriously, put yourself in the head of the UN Secretary
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How do you look at this and say, where do I stand?
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Like, what thought process goes through your brain?
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Yeah, what's the upside of doing that, and why?
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And especially if you know what Iran just did and how many terrorist organizations they've
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supported that are just beyond—I mean, factually accurate.
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Hamas, Hezbollah, and the UN's like, we got you.
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It is—and that's the reason why I think it delegitimizes the United Nations to the
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Now, in contrast, I want you to listen to President Trump Saturday night as soon as the
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A short time ago, the U.S. military carried out massive precision strikes on the three
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key nuclear facilities in the Iranian regime, Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan.
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Everybody heard those names for years as they built this horribly destructive enterprise.
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Our objective was the destruction of Iran's nuclear enrichment capacity and a stop to the
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nuclear threat posed by the world's number one state sponsor of terror.
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Tonight, I can report to the world that the strikes were a spectacular military success.
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Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated.
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Iran, the bully of the Middle East, must now make peace.
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If they do not, future attacks will be far greater and a lot easier.
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For 40 years, Iran has been saying death to America, death to Israel.
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They have been killing our people, blowing off their arms, blowing off their legs with roadside
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We lost over a thousand people and hundreds of thousands throughout the Middle East and around
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the world have died as a direct result of their hate.
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In particular, so many were killed by their general, Qasem Soleimani.
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I decided a long time ago that I would not let this happen.
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I want to thank and congratulate Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu.
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We worked as a team like perhaps no team has ever worked before.
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And we've gone a long way to erasing this horrible threat to Israel.
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I want to thank the Israeli military for the wonderful job they've done.
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And most importantly, I want to congratulate the great American patriots who flew those magnificent
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machines tonight and all of the United States military on an operation the likes of which
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Hopefully, we will no longer need their services in this capacity.
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I also want to congratulate the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan Raisin
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Cain, spectacular general, and all of the brilliant military minds involved in this attack.
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With all of that being said, this cannot continue.
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There will be either peace or there will be tragedy for Iran far greater than we have
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Tonight's was the most difficult of them all, by far, and perhaps the most lethal.
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But if peace does not come quickly, we will go after those other targets with precision,
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Most of them can be taken out in a matter of minutes.
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There's no military in the world that could have done what we did tonight, not even close.
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There has never been a military that could do what took place just a little while ago.
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Tomorrow, General Cain, Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, will have a press conference
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And I want to just thank everybody, and in particular, God, I want to just say we love
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God bless the Middle East, God bless Israel, and God bless America.
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I do got to, I have to say at the very end there, his part was so sincere about thanking
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You could tell he was very concerned about the safety of our men and women in uniform.
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He was so thankful for what they did and accomplished.
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And there was also, I think, a warning in there.
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That, in other words, don't mess with us, because if you do, you may meet these people
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But if you come after American interests, we will defend ourselves and we will come after
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you, which brings us to the questions in our, all right, what's next moving forward?
00:29:29.440
Well, let me say one thing that struck me listening to President Trump on Saturday night, which
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is the president is old enough, and I'm old enough to remember the 1970s.
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And Ben, you're 10 years younger than I am, so you don't remember the 70s.
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But when Iran took American hostages at the embassy, when the Iranian revolution happened
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and they took American hostages, Jimmy Carter was president.
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Jimmy Carter sent a military operation, a U.S. military operation, to rescue the Americans
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And not all military operations happen like the one did this weekend.
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The Jimmy Carter military operation, he sent in helicopters, and the helicopters crashed
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And it was a level of ineptitude and incompetence on the part of the Carter administration.
00:30:24.180
It played a pivotal role in Ronald Reagan winning in 1980 because the inability of the president
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to protect our nation was perfectly encapsulated by our troops crashing in the desert.
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When the president, when the commander-in-chief gave this order, he didn't know what the result
00:30:43.360
It could have resulted in an American plane crashing.
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It could have resulted in an American bomber being shot down by a fighter plane.
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It could have resulted in an American bomber being hit by surface-to-air missiles.
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We had these stealth bombers fly halfway around the world, carry out an incredibly precise precision
00:31:05.520
By the way, it also could have resulted in one of the bombs going awry and instead of taking
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out one of these facilities, hitting a civilian location and killing a large number of innocent
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And I want to credit the military, the military, for their precise execution of this.
00:31:24.300
But I think when the president was thanking God, listen, you and I have never been in the
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position of ordering our servicemen and women into combat in a circumstance where you know
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that that order could literally be sacrificing their lives.
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And I think the president was feeling real gratitude that this operation proceeded so successfully.
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And even if it had proceeded with American casualties, we obviously would not want those casualties.
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But I think the president was very much focused on his responsibility to protect American civilians
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from the threat of an Ayatollah with a nuclear weapon.
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So this could escalate further, but I think the president is laser focused on his job.
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Oh, we're going to get drawn into a long foreign entanglement.
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Now, boots are going to be on the ground before you know it.
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The odds, right, the odds of American boots on the ground in Iran are essentially zero.
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I do not believe President Trump has any interest in American boots on the ground.
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I don't have any interest in American boots on the ground.
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This was a limited and very targeted bombing run to take out Iran's capability to develop
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nuclear weapons, nuclear weapons they could use to murder Americans.
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And so the prospect, you know, people are saying, oh, this is another Iraq war.
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Nobody wants a long American war in the Middle East.
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But what we do want is what we have, a commander in chief who is strong and who will act decisively
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And I, for one, am immensely grateful that Donald J.
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It's very clear there's a warning from this president.
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If Iran is dumb enough to retaliate against Americans in the Middle East, maybe even shutting
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down the Strait of Hormuz, what is the president's obligation moving forward on that?
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Well, one of the consequences of the bombing run is the parliament in Iran did vote to shut
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At the end of the day, the Ayatollah is the decision maker.
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So it's not clear if Iran is going to do so or not.
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If it did so, it would impact America, but it would impact China even more.
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Roughly half of the oil that China uses travels through the Straits of Hormuz.
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A very small percentage of American oil travels through there.
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But that being said, if the Straits of Hormuz were shut down, it would impact America because
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I think if they try to shut down those major trade routes and commerce routes, I think
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we will see force to open them up because Iran does not have the right to shut down the
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ability of America and the rest of the world to engage in trade and commerce.
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I think the most likely escalation is going to be continued attacks on civilians in Israel
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because at the end of the day, I think the Ayatollah and the Mullahs, they hate the Jewish
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And murdering innocent civilians is something that they believe in.
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I worry, as I said, about the risk of terrorist attacks as well.
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The people of Israel, I know the government of Israel, the Iron Dome, they're working hard
00:35:14.120
And here at home, law enforcement and Homeland Security and the Department of Justice are
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all working hard to intercept and stop any terrorist attack before it occurs.
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But understand these are dangerous times, but they're dangerous times because we have
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And that's why the responsibility that the president has is so grave and serious.
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And I will say, listening to President Trump speak Saturday night, I think there are times
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where the weight of the job really falls on his shoulders and he feels it.
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And I think Saturday night was one of them because it was an incredibly consequential moment
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in our nation's history and a very positive moment of the president standing up and saying,
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my first responsibility is to defend America and I will not shirk from that responsibility.
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