Verdict with Ted Cruz - April 06, 2026


Easter Miracle—Heroic Rescue in Iran plus Trump Threatens Massive Retaliation if Strait of Hormuz isn't Opened


Episode Stats


Length

34 minutes

Words per minute

169.14041

Word count

5,827

Sentence count

345

Harmful content

Misogyny

2

sentences flagged

Toxicity

14

sentences flagged

Hate speech

15

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Ted Cruz and Ben Fergusons talk about Easter and the Iranian Airman who was shot down over the mountains of Iran and how the CIA is going to make a movie out of it. Also, Ted tells the story of how he and his wife hid Easter eggs in their backyard.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.
00:00:02.660 Guaranteed human.
00:00:04.440 Welcome, it is Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you.
00:00:07.960 Hope you had a fabulous Easter weekend with your family.
00:00:11.680 It was a Easter miracle, Senator, as we have now gotten back that second pilot that was missing 48 hours in hell in Iran behind enemy lines.
00:00:21.280 I hope they make a movie out of this one, sir.
00:00:23.540 Well, I'm confident they will.
00:00:25.180 And let me first of all say he is risen.
00:00:27.400 He is risen indeed.
00:00:28.500 I hope you and everyone listening had a wonderful good Friday, a wonderful Easter.
00:00:34.760 I hope you spent some time with your family, that you gave your wife or your husband a hug,
00:00:39.940 you gave your kids a hug, and I hope you just spent, you know, we had the whole day together,
00:00:44.980 just went to church and hung out with the kids and had a great day.
00:00:49.220 And actually, I took my mom, my 91-year-old mom, on Easter afternoon out to see a new movie,
00:00:55.340 A Great Awakening.
00:00:56.380 Have you seen that movie?
00:00:57.600 it but i've heard so was it what was give me a review i i really enjoyed it it's all about the
00:01:03.580 great awakening in the united states and and and the the wave of of christianity that swept in the
00:01:11.220 in the the early 1700s that helped set the predicate uh for uh for the american revolution
00:01:18.960 and and it's about ben franklin is is a major uh protagonist and it was it was a fabulous movie
00:01:25.860 That's awesome.
00:01:27.400 So you went to the movies.
00:01:28.840 You had a good time.
00:01:29.940 People that don't know you don't realize you love going to the movies.
00:01:33.020 That's like your kryptonite.
00:01:34.480 If you want to spend time just asking to the movie,
00:01:36.960 he'll 99% of the time say yes.
00:01:39.660 Yeah, and I got to say,
00:01:40.580 so my mom said she heard the movie was really good.
00:01:42.520 She wanted to go see it.
00:01:44.240 And then I said,
00:01:46.800 Hey, Heidi, you want to go to a movie?
00:01:48.140 She goes, No.
00:01:49.300 I asked Caroline, you want to go to a movie?
00:01:51.020 No.
00:01:51.740 Catherine, you want to go to a movie?
00:01:52.940 No.
00:01:53.280 I said, Mom, you and me, we're going.
00:01:55.060 It was awesome.
00:01:55.860 We had a mom-dad date night, and it was really cool.
00:02:00.100 And she loves movies as much as I do, so we had a great afternoon.
00:02:02.640 That's awesome.
00:02:03.640 And then had family dinner after that.
00:02:06.120 And so we actually – all right, did you do this with your kids?
00:02:09.600 We hid Easter eggs in our backyard.
00:02:11.360 Did you all do that?
00:02:11.900 Yeah, the Easter Bunny did.
00:02:12.940 Yes, they did.
00:02:15.160 Okay, we have teenagers, so there's no longer any mystery.
00:02:19.000 We hide them.
00:02:19.340 So this is what I got at 5 a.m.
00:02:21.500 Wake up.
00:02:22.200 Wake up.
00:02:22.680 We got to go hide eggs.
00:02:24.000 Wake up.
00:02:24.440 And I was like, okay, I'm awake.
00:02:25.920 And it's like dark outside.
00:02:27.140 And I'm like dumping them outside out of the basket.
00:02:29.200 She's like, you're supposed to place them.
00:02:30.380 I'm like, they pick them up the same way.
00:02:31.620 I just dumped like a trail of tealers. 1.00
00:02:33.180 I was like, can I get back in bed now?
00:02:34.440 So yes, we did that.
00:02:36.460 So I will tell you, it shifts.
00:02:38.200 So these were no longer eggs filled with candy.
00:02:40.240 In this instance, they were plastic eggs filled with Post-its.
00:02:42.920 Oh, I was going to say money.
00:02:43.700 No, not money.
00:02:44.320 Okay, I was thinking pure hard cash.
00:02:45.800 Post-its.
00:02:47.260 So there was like a manicure.
00:02:49.140 There was a pedicure.
00:02:50.320 There was something from Sephora, something from Brandy Melville.
00:02:54.440 um a you got bougie eggs in your house i don't know it was look i've got a a 15 and about to be
00:03:01.660 an 18 year old daughter and and i will admit heidi was in charge of picking what was on the post-its
00:03:06.520 uh but but they were pretty excited to get them and there were other ones that just had
00:03:10.980 uh squishy little rubber duckies yeah yeah so so it was fun we had we had a great easter that's
00:03:18.740 But we did not have as amazing an Easter as an airman who was shot down over Iran. 0.84
00:03:25.760 And I got to say, look, this is, you're right, this will be a movie unless Hollywood, well, I mean, Hollywood does suck, but hopefully they don't suck this bad because this is a movie screaming to be written. 0.96
00:03:40.360 He was shot down over Iran. 0.99
00:03:42.880 He hid in the mountains.
00:03:44.520 The Iranians were hunting for him.
00:03:46.320 The CIA put out misinformation.
00:03:47.980 information. We went in under hostile fire, did a rescue, blew up a couple of our planes and
00:03:55.120 helicopters on the way out so the Iranians wouldn't get the technology. It was an amazing 1.00
00:03:59.000 story. We're going to do a deep dive on that in today's podcast. Yeah, it's a really incredible
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00:05:54.460 Senator, this story, which I love true stories.
00:05:58.120 You love movies.
00:05:58.820 We talked about that a moment ago.
00:05:59.940 I love true story movies.
00:06:02.260 I really hope they do a movie about this incredible feat.
00:06:06.060 You had an F-15 that was shot down in Iran, deep in Iran.
00:06:10.200 Both of the people ejected.
00:06:12.940 One of them was grabbed pretty quickly.
00:06:14.980 There was a fight to get him as well, a firefight to get him.
00:06:19.020 But they couldn't get the second guy quickly.
00:06:23.180 And that is when the CIA went to work, which is the part of the story which is just truly incredible.
00:06:28.760 They started putting out misinformation inside of Iran, claiming that America had actually gotten him.
00:06:36.040 But we were having to, in essence, take him out by land on foot so that it would drive the soldiers in the RGC and these and these other warlords, et cetera, that were looking for these militias that are looking for him in the wrong direction.
00:06:47.820 And they they probably saved his life more than likely.
00:06:52.860 Undoubtedly. Here, let's take a minute and go through the tick tock that The Wall Street Journal put out Sunday evening.
00:06:58.760 For nearly two days, injured and alone, a U.S. aviator hid in a remote mountain crevice
00:07:04.080 as Iranian forces and militias closed in on him with helicopters and drones.
00:07:10.320 God is good, the Air Force colonel had radioed once he reached an elevated ridge,
00:07:15.100 a message that was initially met with suspicion in Washington as a possible Iranian trap
00:07:20.000 as officials scrambled to verify he was still alive.
00:07:24.160 Early Sunday, he heard the heavier roar of U.S. aircraft and a barrage of fire as U.S. commandos reached him 200 miles deep inside Iran.
00:07:35.300 As they whisked him to safety, they blew up aircraft stranded on the ground rather than risk sophisticated military equipment falling into Iranian hands, leaving behind a final explosion and a plume of smoke.
00:07:49.180 The rescue mission that U.S. officials said unfolded in the craggy gorges of southwestern Iran was the kind of operation that military commanders both planned for and dread.
00:08:01.540 A downed American airman in enemy territory, hostile forces converging and early attempts faltering under fire.
00:08:09.860 The aviator, who hasn't yet been identified, had been one of two crew flying in an F-15E Strike Eagle with the aircraft call sign Dude 44.
00:08:22.660 Dude 44 is great. Dude 44 is a badass. I'm sure we're going to learn more about him.
00:08:27.960 Yeah.
00:08:28.240 When it was shot down by Iranian forces on Friday.
00:08:31.940 Shortly after the plane crashed, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and General Dan Cain,
00:08:36.020 Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, briefed President Trump about the situation,
00:08:39.860 according to U.S. officials.
00:08:41.740 They told him the Pentagon had long planned for this scenario and could rescue the airman.
00:08:46.360 Once the Pentagon confirmed the aviator's identity,
00:08:49.560 Hegseth rushed into the Oval Office to tell him and to seek a final order, officials said.
00:08:55.900 Trump immediately gave his approval.
00:08:58.680 We have to get him, Trump said, according to the White House Press Secretary, Caroline Leavitt.
00:09:03.540 The effort to recover the officer set off a sprawling, high-risk rescue mission involving some 100 special operation forces,
00:09:15.540 dozens of U.S. warplanes and helicopters, and a last-minute Central Intelligence Agency deception campaign to buy more time, the official said.
00:09:25.320 quote when airmen go down you can't get them in very tough countries like in Vietnam Trump told
00:09:32.720 the Wall Street Journal on Sunday morning he was able to climb climb up as wounded as he was
00:09:39.600 he was able to climb into a crevice the president continued saying the airmen could hear the U.S.
00:09:46.000 forces looking for him a lot of great things happened troops led by central command brought
00:09:53.280 a devastating array of firepower to keep its enemy at bay. Four B-1 bombers, part of a larger
00:10:00.340 air armada, dropped nearly 102,000-pound satellite-guided bombs, according to two U.S.
00:10:10.260 officials. MQ-9 Reaper drones also struck suspected fighters as they approached within kilometers
00:10:17.760 of the aviators hiding site the search for an american airman stranded behind enemy lines
00:10:24.040 jolted the u.s making what had been an abstract air war feel visceral beyond the grady footage
00:10:31.400 of explosions released by the white house in triumphant interviews and posts trump and some
00:10:37.560 of his allies have been calling the successful operation an easter miracle i hate when reporters
00:10:43.800 are snarky trump and his allies are calling it an easter miracle we go in and rescue an airman
00:10:48.500 behind enemy lines we can celebrate that that is extraordinary um and now the journal does note
00:10:58.540 the most famous rescue operation that the u.s has previously attempted in iran
00:11:05.480 aimed at freeing 53 u.s embassy staff hostages nearly 46 years ago had failed dramatically
00:11:13.640 after a series of mishaps punctuated by a fiery crash at a desert stagy area what a contrast go
00:11:21.760 back to jimmy carter yeah we've got our hostages that that the beginning of this this islamic 0.82
00:11:27.440 revolution is taking take an american hostage in the embassy jimmy carter sends in a rescue
00:11:33.960 mission and it crashes no opposing fire crashes in the desert and and and that that was one of
00:11:41.880 the pivotal pivotal acts that ended the jimmy carter presidency yeah this is night and day
00:11:48.960 and i gotta say our military the capacity of the american military is second to none
00:11:54.600 and every enemy of america is watching this and and every ally of america is watching this and
00:12:00.540 they're all shaking their heads in marvel by the way it's it's so interesting to see what the
00:12:04.500 president did as i was talking to a buddy of mine in the military early this morning he said to me
00:12:09.460 He's like, Benny's like, you need to understand what President Trump did that other presidents have not done.
00:12:14.680 He basically said, do whatever it takes.
00:12:18.540 Use whatever military might you need to use.
00:12:21.760 However many people you need to send to go and find our boy because we don't leave someone behind.
00:12:28.160 He said, we're talking still team six hundreds of special operations personnel.
00:12:32.480 I wrote this down.
00:12:33.880 Armed drones flying constantly overwatch over his location, strike aircraft engaging, intelligence assets tracking every movement on the ground.
00:12:44.640 This wasn't just a rescue.
00:12:46.520 He described it as a controlled battlefield inside Iran that the U.S. set up with no notice for a scenario that they knew could happen.
00:12:57.360 But he said this was a controlled, again, his words, a controlled battlefield inside of Iran.
00:13:03.800 And then he said, not only that, the U.S. intelligence went to work immediately.
00:13:09.040 He said the CIA spreading false information, suggesting the pilot had already been recovered, saved his life, he believes.
00:13:17.060 And he said, not only that, the Iranian forces, we know it worked. 0.95
00:13:21.640 It wasn't like they tried and didn't work because they said the Iranian forces reacted to the misinformation and they moved literally in the wrong direction.
00:13:30.400 That is what happens when you have a true leader in the White House who says, hey, we will do whatever it takes to get back our boy.
00:13:36.780 I think that's part of the story that people need to understand is when you have a leader like Donald Trump that says to the military leadership, do your job and do it well, do whatever it takes.
00:13:47.100 You just described those bombers overhead. You've got the CIA misinformation working.
00:13:51.840 You see the soldiers going the wrong direction.
00:13:53.900 That is buying time for not only them to do the rest of the planning, but to save his life.
00:13:58.720 Yeah, look, that's exactly right.
00:14:00.540 And I want to make another point on this, which is a strategic point about one of the things that makes the U.S. military so extraordinary and so unusual.
00:14:10.580 um like a lot of folks i was following the breaking news uh from iran and of this rescue on on x which
00:14:17.540 is the fastest way to get it and and one european uh commentator sent around a picture uh of the f-15
00:14:25.020 and two c-130s and and and tweeted said lose all of this to rescue one pilot and call it your
00:14:31.700 greatest military success of all time and and you know i i looked at that tweet that annoyed me but
00:14:38.100 then a fellow and i don't i don't know who this person is craig fuller he's freight attorney is
00:14:42.680 what his hashtag is he sent a a response that struck me as as really insightful and and in
00:14:48.820 fact so listen to his comment in response to the european puzzled why we would give up three
00:14:54.840 aircraft to save one airman during world war ii hitler was convinced that the americans lacked
00:15:01.620 the will to fight and that any who did would be quickly overwhelmed. When early reports arrived
00:15:08.260 from the battles in North Africa, German observers noted that Americans fought differently from the
00:15:14.920 Europeans. Rather than charging aggressively and risking heavy infantry casualties, U.S. forces
00:15:22.240 relied on overwhelming firepower, staying at a distance and expending vast quantities of artillery
00:15:29.740 with little hesitation. Thanks to unmatched industrial production and logistics,
00:15:36.700 fresh supplies were always available. This approach allowed the relatively smaller American units
00:15:43.860 to wear down much larger and well-entrenched enemy forces. In contrast, German and other
00:15:51.180 European doctrines often emphasized aggressive maneuver and were sometimes more willing to
00:15:57.840 accept high casualties to achieve objectives or to preserve key equipment. This material heavy
00:16:06.880 American style surprised many Germans, including Hitler, who had long dismissed U.S. soldiers as
00:16:14.860 soft and lacking in fighting spirit. He believed soldiers were cheap and expendable. He discovered
00:16:23.060 too late that Americans fought to conserve lives by expending machines and ammunition instead.
00:16:31.520 It was one of the many reasons for Germany's defeat, perhaps the hardest for some foreigners
00:16:35.960 to fully understand. Americans place a high value on the lives of our soldiers. Equipment
00:16:43.180 and shells can always be replaced. I thought that was a very insightful observation. Absolutely,
00:16:51.320 It was an incredibly successful mission.
00:16:53.440 We saved the airmen, and we can always build more equipment.
00:16:56.780 We can build more planes.
00:16:58.780 And that spirit is critical to why the American military is second to none.
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00:18:41.960 You know, several people that I talked to that are in the military over the last couple days,
00:18:45.520 they were really worried about the airman who was gone missing because they were like,
00:18:50.260 They knew what was going to happen to him if he was caught by the IRGC, by these militias.
00:18:56.760 He was a dead man.
00:18:57.540 And they were going to do it in a horrific way and probably film it and put it out there as propaganda to the world.
00:19:03.560 And that was what they were all concerned with.
00:19:06.100 They also said to me in text messages on Easter Sunday, I want you to understand, they said,
00:19:12.460 the morale booster of seeing that you have a commander in chief who says, I do not care what it costs.
00:19:20.260 says go go now get him go get him go get him and and use everything stop everything and use
00:19:28.160 everything to go get one man and then we'll go back to what we're doing but whatever it takes
00:19:33.640 there is nothing i'm going to say no to and they said they said to me they said ben it's been a
00:19:38.600 long time since men and women in uniform have felt that they have a commander in chief who truly has
00:19:44.560 their back in this way uh one of the things they said that was i also thought was very interesting
00:19:49.200 And I'm going to look it up now.
00:19:50.620 See, you looked up something earlier, but it was a quote.
00:19:53.880 And I want to quote this because it was so important what this individual said that's serving his country said, you know, go look at the comparison to Bill Clinton and what he did with American troops in Somalia.
00:20:06.200 He said, look at Barack Obama and what he did with Americans in Libya.
00:20:09.920 Look at Joe Biden, who abandoned 13 U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan.
00:20:13.500 Trump moved mountains to rescue one American in Iran, one American.
00:20:18.020 And if you're an American soldier right now, how fired up are you to serve Donald Trump knowing he's genuinely got your back?
00:20:25.620 Well, let me be clear. You're serving the United States. You're not serving Donald Trump.
00:20:29.780 But your commander in chief has your back, and that's a powerful thing.
00:20:35.460 And by the way, it's not just you and me saying that.
00:20:38.180 It's also Barack Obama's former secretary of Homeland Security.
00:20:42.820 Listen to Jay Johnson talking about this incredible rescue.
00:20:45.420 This operation for the first pilot and the second pilot, it's a remarkable exercise,
00:20:54.140 demonstration of US military courage, technology, power. I would encourage the President and the
00:21:01.580 Secretary of Defense, consistent with operational security, share as much of that with the American
00:21:07.020 public so that the American public can appreciate what goes into this kind of operation is more
00:21:12.540 complicated than the bin laden operation for example wow i'm not sure any of that saying
00:21:17.220 something that's coming from jay johnson that's pretty incredible yeah it is and and and i want
00:21:23.760 to drill down a little bit more on on what this does for the fighting spirit and the morale of
00:21:29.180 the entire military and and actually a a different tweet but but i thought very profound as well
00:21:34.820 uh from a fellow named john conrad on x here's what he said this is why americans are the deadliest
00:21:41.160 fighters on earth. I met a priest yesterday who just got accepted to chaplain school in Newport.
00:21:46.320 I asked him the obvious question, Marines or Navy? Navy, he said. His face fell a little.
00:21:53.200 He told me he could never be a Marine because every Marine is a rifleman, and as a priest,
00:21:57.380 he can't carry a weapon. He's hoping to get assigned to a Marine unit anyway. All chaplains
00:22:02.520 are Navy officers, so that's the only door in. I laughed. I felt a little bad about that.
00:22:07.540 Then I explained to him what devil dock means. The Marine Corps doesn't have medics. They use
00:22:13.860 Navy corpsmen. I told him, when you get out to the fleet, find a Marine sergeant with a couple
00:22:20.000 of purple hearts and tell him devil docks aren't real Marines. Be prepared to duck.
00:22:28.420 Marines are violently particular about who gets to wear their uniform. Navy corpsmen and Navy
00:22:34.380 chaplains who have eaten dirt alongside them in combat, qualify. Full stop. My dad was Air Force, 0.99
00:22:42.900 not even Navy. I remember going to VFW halls with him as a kid. Someone would ask him what service
00:22:48.100 he'd say Air Force, and the room would chuckle a little. And then they'd find out he was a medic,
00:22:52.960 and the air in the room changed. Something close to reverence. Dad hated being honored. He had one
00:22:59.980 line he used to deflect it. I didn't do much. Save your praise for my cousin, the PJ. That always 0.95
00:23:06.800 broke the ice. PJs are the Air Force special operators who go into hell to pull downed pilots
00:23:14.100 out. They will take casualties and are prepared to die to rescue a single pilot or crewman.
00:23:21.340 The math doesn't math out. Why would any combat force take multiple casualties
00:23:27.280 to rescue one Air Force jet jockey.
00:23:31.780 What the Padre is about to learn is that the military has a hierarchy
00:23:35.560 that has nothing to do with rank
00:23:36.860 and nothing to do with the service stitched on your chest.
00:23:40.860 Have you deployed?
00:23:42.180 Have you seen combat?
00:23:44.020 In every firefight, there are men who move towards the guns
00:23:47.200 and men who hang back.
00:23:49.120 And when the guy at the tip of the spear is pinned down,
00:23:51.900 bleeding, with rounds cracking past his head,
00:23:54.340 there is exactly one word he screams into the radio medic yep here here's the catch
00:24:01.580 and it is the whole reason america fights the way america fights that marine is willing to
00:24:08.600 push forward into fire because he knows the corpsman is coming he knows the medevac birds
00:24:15.780 will land in the hot lz he knows the devil dock will drag him out by his plate carrier if it comes
00:24:22.100 to that and if the medic can't help he has what dad called injuries incompatible with life he
00:24:30.580 knows that chaplain will crawl on his belly to administer last rites and deliver him to heaven
00:24:38.820 the f-15 pilot punching out over enemy territory knows the same thing he knows the pjs will move 0.64
00:24:46.080 heaven and earth to reach him and turn whatever is shooting at him into a smoking crater of hell
00:24:52.220 on earth on the way in. This is the quiet math underneath American violence. Our warriors are
00:25:01.180 the fiercest on earth, not because they're the more aggressive, not because they're better trained
00:25:05.580 or better equipped, although they are all of those things. They are the fiercest because they know
00:25:11.360 in their bones that when they key the mic and call for help help is coming in hot take that away
00:25:18.580 and you don't have the U.S. military anymore you have a security force I thought that
00:25:24.560 those two posts I thought were very insightful and they sum up a truly extraordinary and and
00:25:33.000 and unique aspect of the American military Canadian women are looking for more more to 1.00
00:25:40.220 themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world around them. And that's
00:25:44.420 why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast. I'm Jennifer Stewart. And I'm Katherine
00:25:49.620 Clark. And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women, entrepreneurs, artists,
00:25:55.340 athletes, politicians, and newsmakers, all at different stages of their journey. So if you're
00:26:00.480 looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us. Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on iHeartRadio
00:26:05.320 or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
00:26:08.800 And this brings us to the second part of the conversation
00:26:11.840 that is important, and that is a new warning.
00:26:15.000 Senator, coming from President Trump,
00:26:17.460 if there's anything that I've learned from President Trump
00:26:20.320 in his second term, there's two aspects of his foreign policy.
00:26:24.520 One is FAFO, and two is if you're an ally of the United States of America
00:26:29.160 and you don't stand with us, then his second foreign policy is,
00:26:32.220 Well, good luck to you, because we're not going to we're not going to keep funding and doing things like NATO or UN or whatever it may be.
00:26:38.840 If you're taking advantage of us, he's calling that out as well.
00:26:42.420 And the president has made it clear when he tells you there's a deadline for something, he means it.
00:26:48.480 There's a new deadline with Iran and Tehran and the leadership there.
00:26:53.660 And let's talk about what his new threat is by Tuesday.
00:26:57.260 Well, on Sunday, he sent out a truth social that reads,
00:27:01.240 Tuesday will be power plant day and bridge day, all wrapped up in one in Iran.
00:27:11.400 There will be nothing like it. 1.00
00:27:15.020 Open the effing straight, you crazy bastards, or you'll be living in hell. 1.00
00:27:22.340 just watch praise be to Allah President Donald J. Trump now I will say he did not abbreviate 1.00
00:27:31.180 effing but but but this is a PG rated podcast so I did um I will say also that after he sent that
00:27:38.960 true social the Wall Street Journal article that I quoted at the beginning of this show quotes it
00:27:44.560 and for the first time I've ever seen the F-bomb in the Wall Street Journal they did it quoting
00:27:49.840 the president of the united states i'm not aware of any precedent of a president dropping the f-bomb
00:27:55.160 but then again i'm not aware of any president dropping the level of bombs that he is dropping
00:28:00.440 in a concentrated focus that is having this kind of effect and look i think tuesday night is a very
00:28:08.440 serious deadline the president wants the strait of hormuz open and if you're an iranian leader 0.97
00:28:14.600 as bat crap crazy as those guys are i don't think they think this is a bluff yeah i i would think 0.98
00:28:23.960 not now they may be crazy enough just to say go ahead and do it and and that may be how much 0.99
00:28:28.080 they're holding on for dear life just to try to save control but i agree with you i don't think
00:28:33.020 he's bluffing at all well and and that's the challenge it is that the mullahs i i don't think
00:28:41.300 care at all about their people. You know, we talked before about comparing, say, the Nazi army
00:28:47.000 to the Allies during World War II, that Hitler was willing to send German soldiers in to die and
00:28:52.000 just have them mowed over. I think the same is true with the Mullahs. They're happy to have,
00:28:59.060 not happy, but they're willing to have as many Iranians die as need be. They believe they're 1.00
00:29:05.220 on a mission from God. This is, it is theocratic. And if thousands, look, they murdered, the Ayatollah 0.95
00:29:15.060 just murdered about 40,000 Iranians who were rising up in protest. So thousands of Iranians
00:29:21.060 dying doesn't bother them at all. Tens of thousands doesn't bother them at all. It may
00:29:26.060 prove to be the case that hundreds of thousands or even millions of Iranians dying doesn't bother
00:29:31.180 them. And so the question is, look, if the U.S. military takes out the power plants and takes out
00:29:37.840 the bridges, that kind of hard infrastructure, that doesn't get rebuilt overnight. That has
00:29:44.520 real and long-lasting damage to the economy in Iran. It imposes enormous consequences on Iran.
00:29:54.160 What I don't know is, does a theocratic mullah who's chanting death to America care about inflicting massive misery on the Iranian people and devastating the Iranian economy?
00:30:07.940 I guess we'll find out by Tuesday. I don't know the answer to that.
00:30:11.000 You know, what's interesting is, I was asked this question over the weekend, and it's one I want to ask you, Senator.
00:30:16.520 Someone said, all right, well, look, let's say we do this and we knock out their power plant.
00:30:20.420 What good does that do us? Because then we're just going to have to help them rebuild it one day.
00:30:23.800 My response was, what you don't understand is that may be what it is it takes for the people to really overthrow their government.
00:30:32.180 It'll also have a devastating impact on their military in general.
00:30:35.860 And it's another it's another way to fast track them losing control of their country. 0.83
00:30:40.960 That's the reason why I think the president saying, all right, fine, you guys aren't budging.
00:30:44.980 Well, then we're going to go to the next step here because I'm not backing down.
00:30:47.740 Yeah. And look, the president in his nationwide address said he was going to bomb them back into the Stone Ages. What's one of the aspects of the Stone Ages? Not having electricity, not having power, going back to lighting fires for light.
00:31:03.200 You take out all their power plants and they have no electricity, which is amazing for an oil rich country like Iran.
00:31:10.940 But you want to talk about grinding the economy to a halt immediately, grinding the military to a halt.
00:31:17.060 Everything runs on electricity.
00:31:19.640 And so shutting down power.
00:31:22.040 And by the way, you take out the bridges.
00:31:23.780 That means, you know, it's one of the things that I've learned.
00:31:26.680 I didn't realize when I was a kid how much of military effectiveness is logistics.
00:31:30.960 One of the incredible things our military is really good at is moving people and materiel, getting it in there, getting ammunition in there, getting food in there, getting fuel in there, moving it around.
00:31:44.420 All of that, logistically, we are extraordinarily, we, the military, not you and me.
00:31:50.260 I'm a lawyer, and you're even worse, you're a podcaster.
00:31:52.900 So we are not extraordinary logistically, but the military is.
00:31:58.200 Notice how I'm not a podcaster.
00:31:59.680 apparently you do this just yeah i was gonna say it just you just threw me under the bus without
00:32:03.820 i'm pretty sure the name of the show is behind me there but we just keep going there we go go ahead
00:32:07.720 yeah you know pot pot meat kettle um but look you take out the bridges and the ability to move the
00:32:15.620 military to move but anyone else to move you basically shut down uh commerce in the country
00:32:21.360 that puts enormous economic pressure on the country um look my hope is that that the end 0.90
00:32:28.660 game on this is the people rise up and say enough with these crazy mullahs we want you out and and 0.98
00:32:36.000 my objective has always been the president laid out his objective was which is to eliminate the 0.94
00:32:40.560 iranian military's ability to strike out and kill americans or kill our allies that's a very 0.86
00:32:44.880 important objective i think the objective should be to to to collapse this regime to have iran led 0.96
00:32:51.940 by a government that is not a crazy Islamist who wants to murder Americans. I don't care who it is, 0.99
00:32:58.960 as long as they're not actively murdering Americans. If they're not murdering Americans,
00:33:02.900 if they're not trying to murder Americans, I'm good with it. Now, the next step, if we've leveled
00:33:08.120 all their power plants, you get a new government in, the new government is going to have to rebuild
00:33:12.660 the power plants. Now, I will note that there is one advantage for rebuilding, which is Iran 1.00
00:33:18.620 has a crap ton of oil yeah and and so very quickly financially there's a revenue stream so you said
00:33:27.060 like people said to you well gosh we're gonna have to rebuild it i promise you if trump bombs
00:33:32.040 it the american taxpayers are not rebuilding it there is no scenario in which the end game is
00:33:37.360 trump writing a check now there may be a scenario depending on what happens where when you have a
00:33:42.780 new government, if they're a friend and ally with America, you could see assistance on the
00:33:48.200 construction that is paid for by Iranian oil revenues. It's possible that we help them build
00:33:53.980 it back where they're paying for it. But I don't envision any universe in which America is paying
00:34:00.880 for this. And I think anyone who knows Donald Trump knows that's right. Yeah, no doubt about
00:34:06.320 it. It's going to be very interesting to see what happens on Tuesday. We are going to cover it. That
00:34:10.220 I can promise you don't forget we do this show Monday Wednesday Friday so hit that subscriber
00:34:14.620 auto download button also you can watch this episode on YouTube as well so make sure if you're
00:34:20.300 a YouTube watcher that you put in verdict with Ted Cruz and you can watch this show there
00:34:24.060 and the center I will see you back here on Wednesday morning