00:10:30.420It's at the point with where if you're an Iranian military officer and they they say, hey, Ben, you want to be head of the Iranian military?
00:10:52.720It reminds me of when Israel did the pager operation against Hezbollah and the pager operation against Hezbollah.
00:10:59.980Hezbollah leadership gave pagers to terrorists and Israel planted little bombs in the pagers.
00:11:05.040They detonated them and it was the most accurately targeted military attack, I think, in history because Hezbollah leadership decided who gets the pagers.
00:11:17.140Only the people who were bat crap crazy enough that we want terrorists able to page at a moment's notice to go kill people.
00:11:25.340They blew up and they they either killed or wounded a ton of Hezbollah terrorists.
00:11:32.000The next day, Israel had a second operation where they had walkie talkies that Hezbollah was using and the walkie talkies had bombs in them and they started exploding.
00:11:41.220And the beauty of it is Hezbollah terrorists, I think those guys were terrified of phone rings and they jump and run screaming like it was incredibly effective.
00:11:50.320And I actually think what Israel is doing against the military leadership is similar, where if you're an Iranian soldier, you're looking around going, wait.
00:11:58.940Every time someone gets promoted to run this thing, they die the next day.
00:12:05.040That is fantastically effective in terms of limiting Iran's ability to wage war, limiting Iran's ability to wage war against Israel, limiting Iran's ability to wage war against America, limiting their ability to sponsor terrorism.
00:12:19.780So that has been incredibly effective.
00:12:21.260They're also taking out Iran's nuclear scientists.
00:12:24.980And so this is all about you have a crazy Ayatollah who is a religious zealot who routinely chants death to America and death to Israel.
00:12:35.000And he's trying to build nuclear weapons and he's trying to build ICBMs.
00:12:40.880An ICBM stands for an intercontinental ballistic missile.
00:12:45.060You don't need an ICBM to get to Israel.
00:12:48.020Iran is attacking Israel with ballistic missiles.
00:12:51.820An ICBM, the intercontinental aspect of it, is entirely to take a missile to America.
00:12:58.780The reason Iran is building ICBMs is they want to be able to carry a nuclear warhead to the United States of America and detonate it in the skies of New York or Los Angeles or Washington, D.C.
00:13:11.360and murder as many Americans as possible.
00:13:13.680And so President Trump has been incredibly consistent saying Iran will not get a nuclear weapon, period, the end.
00:13:24.740And in fact, I want to play a montage of a couple of minutes of President Trump saying this over the years.
00:13:31.200For more than a decade, he has said this line.
00:13:33.520And yet some observers, including Tucker, are acting shocked that President Trump is saying Iran can't get a nuclear weapon.
00:13:40.140And he has said this without deviation for more than 10 years.
00:16:31.300And if we do not stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, we are endangering the lives of millions of Americans.
00:16:37.960And so Trump and I together in the middle of the campaign where we're campaigning against each other, we stood on the stage together and said, we agree Iran cannot get a nuclear weapon.
00:16:49.900And America must do whatever is necessary to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.
00:17:09.780And this is where, look, in foreign policy, people think in a very binary sense.
00:17:14.860Either you're an interventionist who wants to invade every country on Earth or you're an isolationist who never wants to engage in military force.
00:18:13.820And let's bring in this new aspect because this is some of the breaking news.
00:18:17.420That President Trump has called for Iran's unconditional surrender and also called the Supreme Leader out saying, look, we know where you are.
00:18:27.100You might want to hurry up and get a deal done here.
00:18:29.620Clearly, the president's not advocating for regime change.
00:18:32.420What he is advocating for is making sure that they never get a nuclear weapon.
00:18:35.520Well, and I will tell you, on the point that he said, we know where you are, he said it in reference to protecting American servicemen and women.
00:18:44.100And when this war broke out, we did a podcast that night, and we said, listen, every one of us should pray for the people of Israel because we're going to see a massive ballistic missile onslaught of Israel.
00:18:57.720And we're going to see a lot of Israelis killed.
00:18:59.780You know, I talked on Sunday night to a good friend of mine whose mother is in Jerusalem right now, and he said his mom, since this war has started, he said she hasn't slept a night because every night they wake up at two or three in the morning and they rush, the air raid sirens are going off.
00:19:15.380They rush to a bomb shelter because they're facing incoming missiles constantly.
00:19:27.100They are doing this because the risk of an Iranian nuclear weapon is a massive murder of Israelis, potentially on the order of magnitude of the millions.
00:19:37.700So it is the right thing for them to do.
00:19:42.380They're dying every day because Iran is targeting civilians.
00:19:46.980But secondly, hold on, let me make this other point, Ben.
00:19:50.780Iran, there is a real threat of Iran targeting American servicemen and women.
00:19:55.640And we've got thousands upon thousands of servicemen and women in the Middle East.
00:20:01.020And I will tell you, I called on Sunday, I called President Trump and I said, hey, I just want to tell you thank you for what you're doing on Iran and Israel.
00:20:12.180In the last few days, these have been some of the best days you have had as president because President Trump is standing unshakably with Israel, which is where we should be.
00:20:21.700But he's also made absolutely clear to Iran, if you attack American servicemen and women, you will face a devastating response.
00:20:32.700And as you noted, the tweet he sent, he said directly to the Ayatollah, we know where you are.
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00:21:50.160Well, let's also talk about what's happened with the air superiority or the lack of security that Iran actually had over their own country.
00:22:00.880And that could also spell trouble for the leadership in Iran because now the people may realize, wow, we may have been played by these horrible leaders.
00:22:10.960And there is total air superiority now by Israel or anybody that wants to go after Iran.
00:22:17.900So Israel and potentially America have complete air superiority over Iran.
00:22:23.480And Israel has taken out Iran's air defenses.
00:22:26.460So they're not able to stop Israeli jets in the air.
00:22:30.120And the bombers are bombing the hell out of – as of two days ago, there had been over 720 military strikes in Iran.
00:22:38.900And the number is substantially higher now.
00:22:41.480I don't have the current number, but it was 722 days ago.
00:22:45.360And Iran is not able to do anything about it because their air defenses have been destroyed.
00:22:56.200Israel has been able to – and it actually has succeeded in taking out a massive amount of the military leadership of Iran.
00:23:04.980They have also succeeded in pounding the hell out of Iran's nuclear facilities, like the Natanz facility, which is where they do much of the nuclear enrichment.
00:23:17.260Israel has bombed the living crap out of it.
00:23:20.060The one exception that Israel is not able to take out is the Fordow nuclear research facility.
00:23:28.120Now, Fordow is built literally in the base of a mountain.
00:23:31.340And it was built into a mountain, particularly to withstand a bombing attack.
00:23:40.140And Israel does not have the military hardware to take out Fordow.
00:23:46.820We have bunker buster bombs that are 30,000 pounds, that are massive bombs that can take out an underground, under-mountain nuclear facility like Fordow.
00:23:58.600Now, Israel also does not have bombers that are big enough to carry a 30,000-pound bomb.
00:24:13.780And so one of the open questions – Israel has asked America, will you fly in the B-2 bombers and drop your bunker busters on Fordow and take it out?
00:24:24.440But as you and I sit here at 12, what is it, 12.43 a.m. on Tuesday night, Wednesday morning, I do not know if President Trump's going to do that.
00:26:09.400And I will say when he and I talked on Sunday, his comment when I was telling him you're doing a great job, what you're doing is fantastic, his comment is he said, Ted, on foreign policy, you and I are twins.
00:26:25.940The reason there is, I think, a compelling argument for America to take out Fordow is Fordow, they are doing research on nuclear weapons technology.
00:26:38.020They're trying to develop nuclear bombs.
00:26:39.860They're not doing it because the Ayatollah thinks climate change is a problem and he wants to create civilian nuclear power generation.
00:26:48.220It is entirely creating a bomb that could murder millions of Americans or millions of Israelis.
00:26:53.540They put it in the basement of a mountain because they didn't want to be bombed.
00:27:15.860It would be wonderful if Iran woke up tomorrow and it was Switzerland.
00:27:19.120But I'm not willing to risk your children or my children to go in and fight a war to make that happen.
00:27:26.720But it is a very different calculus to say, should we drop a couple of bombs and take out a lab and facility where they're developing nuclear weapons to murder Americans?
00:27:38.680And I think that's a compelling argument.
00:27:41.140And I got to say, I think there's a real possibility in the next few hours or days that's exactly what's going to happen.
00:28:10.920I think this decision is actually pretty clear.
00:28:13.260If the president does that and we move forward, there's also this big obsession in the media and out there's a massive divide in the MAGA world.
00:28:20.860And this is going to split the Republican Party.
00:28:22.420I actually think it's going to be a blip and we're going to move back on to all the issues that we do agree on.
00:28:30.800Yeah, look, so I did Sean Hannity this evening.
00:28:33.440And Hannity had a poll that just came out that showed 75 percent of Americans agree with President Trump that we should act against Iran to prevent them from getting nuclear weapons using.
00:28:45.380And the question in the poll was whatever means necessary.
00:28:48.70075 percent, I don't know that 75 percent of Americans agree on butterflies or rainbows or peanut butter and jelly.
00:28:59.260Like that's a big percentage in today's divided world.
00:29:03.140And so it is frankly a handful of people who are disagreeing.
00:29:39.300Look, look, intelligent people will assess changed circumstances and be willing to change their position based on the facts.
00:29:46.760And so I respect that he changed his views.
00:29:49.200But the point I made is he went from being an interventionist far too eager to send in the Marines to being an isolationist who says we should never, ever use the military, even when we've got a lunatic, theocratic zealot who is trying to murder Americans and has murdered hundreds of Americans.
00:30:08.180And so I actually think that view is a really fringe view in America.
00:30:13.100It's a fringe view in MAGA, and it's a fringe view across the country.
00:30:19.260And I think the American people want a president who's going to say, we will protect ourselves against people who want to kill us.
00:30:27.120That's exactly what Donald Trump is doing.
00:30:29.860Well, don't forget that we will be doing another show on Friday, and that will be a big show in response to the interview with Tucker Carlson.