Verdict with Ted Cruz - June 27, 2025


Trump Wins Decisive Victory in Iran, Media & Dems Spin Furiously; What's Next？


Episode Stats

Misogynist Sentences

3

Hate Speech Sentences

25


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.
00:00:02.660 Guaranteed human.
00:00:05.520 Welcome.
00:00:06.160 It is Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you.
00:00:09.160 It's so nice to have you with us around the country, wherever you are listening.
00:00:12.700 And we have got a lot to talk about tonight, especially with Iran, the effectiveness of
00:00:17.480 the attack, and the media trying to act like this was some sort of a failure.
00:00:22.220 Senator, it's been a very fun week to watch the spin games take place.
00:00:26.200 Well, it's been an extraordinary week.
00:00:27.800 Last Saturday night, President Trump acted decisively as the commander in chief.
00:00:33.260 He launched an attack on Iran that was brutally effective, incredibly efficient, defended
00:00:38.920 America, kept us safe.
00:00:42.080 And ever since then, it did several things.
00:00:44.660 Number one, it produced a ceasefire.
00:00:48.240 It caused Iran to come to the table and say, we want peace.
00:00:51.600 We want to end this war.
00:00:52.880 That was powerful.
00:00:54.180 But number two, it really has been striking.
00:00:56.280 We've seen the media and Democrats go on full-time spin patrol, go in, lean in hard,
00:01:03.700 say this wasn't effective, this was a failure.
00:01:05.840 I got to say it is astonishing that the reaction of CNN and the Democrats when the president
00:01:11.520 has a crushing military attack taking out Iran's nuclear weapon capability is to say,
00:01:17.620 we stand with Iran and we think the American military is not effective.
00:01:21.740 We're going to break all that down.
00:01:22.960 We're going to break down, I had a classified briefing today for an hour and a half with
00:01:27.280 our senior military leaders.
00:01:28.580 I'm going to walk through what happened, where things stand now in Iran, where they stand
00:01:33.400 in Israel, and what's coming next, because what's coming next matters intensely.
00:01:38.800 Yeah, it really does.
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00:03:41.560 So, Senator, on Thursday, you attended a briefing on the Iran strike.
00:03:46.780 And what did you learn compared to the propaganda that's being put out there by the mainstream
00:03:51.520 media saying this was unsuccessful, that Donald Trump's overstating what actually happened
00:03:56.700 here, and that everybody in our government, especially the DOD, is just getting it wrong?
00:04:00.680 Well, I spent an hour and a half at a classified briefing.
00:04:05.440 Presenting that briefing was the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, the Secretary of Defense,
00:04:10.600 the Director of the CIA, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
00:04:15.440 And in the course of that briefing, I will say what they laid out is what I believed already,
00:04:20.740 what I knew already, which was the incredible effectiveness.
00:04:24.440 Number one of the Israeli attack, the 12-day war that Israel waged against Iran,
00:04:29.680 that took out their senior military leadership, took out just about every general they were
00:04:35.440 relying on to wage war against America, against Israel.
00:04:39.160 And I got to say, in terms of how Israel carried it out, it really was stunning.
00:04:43.840 They took out one head of the IRGC, so Iran named somebody else.
00:04:49.060 The next day, Israel takes out the next head of the IRGC, so Iran named somebody else.
00:04:54.120 The next day, Israel takes out the next head of the IRGC.
00:04:57.700 I got to say, Ben, if they came to you and said, hey, Ben, you want to lead the IRGC?
00:05:02.520 I bet you at the end, people are like, no, thank you, because the instant you get named to that job,
00:05:08.720 Israel takes you out.
00:05:10.040 It did show the exquisite intelligence that the Mossad has in Iran,
00:05:15.900 that as soon as someone got named to the head of that, they were taken out within hours.
00:05:20.440 They also took out virtually every one of the senior nuclear scientists in Iran,
00:05:26.420 the scientists that were developing nuclear weapons.
00:05:29.660 Israel took them out systematically.
00:05:31.540 They bombed military installations across the country.
00:05:34.880 They bombed just about all of their nuclear research facilities.
00:05:38.140 Now, the biggest challenge Israel faced is the most important nuclear weapons facility in Iran.
00:05:45.640 It's called Fordo.
00:05:47.220 Fordo is built underneath a mountain, and it was built underneath a mountain
00:05:53.060 for the explicit purpose of making it very difficult to bomb.
00:05:57.380 And Israel lacked bombs that were sufficiently large to take out Fordo.
00:06:02.340 That's why the Iranians built it under a mountain.
00:06:04.680 The United States, we have bombs that are designed to take out underground bunkers,
00:06:10.940 and they're called bunker busters.
00:06:13.080 They are 30,000-pound bombs.
00:06:15.480 They're massive bombs.
00:06:17.340 They are the largest ordinance we have short of a nuclear weapon.
00:06:21.660 And what happened Saturday night, so President Trump gave the order,
00:06:24.900 and seven B-2 stealth bombers left Missouri.
00:06:29.860 They flew halfway around the world, and then they delivered 14 bunker busters.
00:06:37.360 Twelve of them were delivered to Fordo, and the other two were delivered to Natanz,
00:06:43.880 another nuclear weapons facility.
00:06:45.240 Now, at Fordo, you had the Iranians had tried to protect Fordo, had tried to seal it up,
00:06:52.200 and the bunker busters were designed to penetrate.
00:06:56.920 So the way these bombs work, when they're dropped, they hit, and they penetrate,
00:07:01.380 and they go deep underground, and then they detonate underground.
00:07:04.980 And there were two vents that these bombs were going through.
00:07:08.600 And it is amazing the precision of the U.S. Air Force that they dropped bunker buster after bunker buster
00:07:15.900 after bunker buster down these vents that went all the way down and detonated.
00:07:20.500 Every one of those bombs detonated on their targets.
00:07:23.900 In addition to the 14 bunker busters that were dropped,
00:07:28.100 we had a submarine that fired 30 Tomahawk missiles at another nuclear weapons facility,
00:07:34.640 pounding the living daylights out of it.
00:07:36.260 And I will tell you, look, the assessment that we received is that it was devastating
00:07:41.920 what President Trump said that night as we utterly obliterated their facilities.
00:07:46.680 And, you know, one of the best indications of just how successful it was
00:07:51.280 is how much the Democrats and the media went into spin mode almost immediately trying to say,
00:07:58.180 this incredible success against our enemies, it didn't happen.
00:08:01.640 It was not an incredible success.
00:08:03.320 And it was based on an initial preliminary report from the DIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency,
00:08:11.800 that assessed that the damage was moderate to severe.
00:08:17.480 And the press went into massive spin mode to say, oh, it's only moderate, it's only moderate,
00:08:22.860 it was not effective.
00:08:24.540 That assessment, I believe, is false.
00:08:27.060 We're going to talk about that considerably more.
00:08:29.780 I think the military attack launched against the Iranian nuclear weapons capability was devastatingly
00:08:37.560 effective and our troops are to be commended and the commander in chief is to be commended.
00:08:43.140 And Senator, you said in this classified briefing that you received this week on Thursday
00:08:46.740 that what you got compared to what the media is trying to push drastically different.
00:08:52.340 And that's exactly, by the way, what the DOD secretary had to say.
00:08:56.700 Pete Hedsteth, take a listen.
00:08:58.500 Ports are almost always wrong.
00:08:59.760 They're almost always incomplete, right?
00:09:01.840 Anything, whether it's a squad-level operation or a strategic-level operation,
00:09:07.280 the initial reflections you get are coming at you at a high rate of speed from a lot of different sources.
00:09:12.620 So your job is to step back and assess them.
00:09:14.920 And that's why we're urging caution about premising entire stories on biased leaks to biased publications
00:09:24.860 trying to make something look bad.
00:09:26.400 How about we take a beat, recognize first the success of our warriors, hold them up, tell their stories,
00:09:32.700 celebrate that, wave an American flag, be proud of what we accomplished.
00:09:36.180 And in the meantime, I can assure you the chairman and his staff, the intelligence community,
00:09:40.720 our staff and others, are doing all the assessments necessary to make sure that mission was indeed successful.
00:09:47.460 Doesn't seem like a very crazy idea, right?
00:09:49.700 Like, let's take a moment and let's just go through the process.
00:09:52.760 But the media wants Donald Trump to be a failure so bad, even if that means putting our national security at risk.
00:09:59.440 No, that's exactly right.
00:10:00.980 And this was a defense intelligence assessment that was done in the immediate aftermath of the bombing.
00:10:08.220 And these preliminary reports, they're trying to assess, they're trying to assess, do we need to bomb some more?
00:10:12.860 Do we need to unload more ordnance?
00:10:15.380 And this preliminary assessment concluded that the damage was moderate to severe.
00:10:21.460 And mind you, on the face of it, the analysis also said this was not based on any intelligence,
00:10:27.640 not based on any intelligence from the data.
00:10:29.760 It was just a preliminary assessment.
00:10:31.880 Somebody, and we don't know who, we may never know who,
00:10:34.300 somebody leaked this to the press, somebody who did not support what the president was doing.
00:10:39.660 This was the deep state fighting back.
00:10:41.380 This was the deep state trying to spread a narrative.
00:10:44.380 It may have been, it is possible this was a Democrat congressman who somehow got this report.
00:10:49.700 It's possible it was someone within the deep state that wanted to weaken the president,
00:10:53.600 but they wanted to tell the story in the outset this was a failure.
00:10:57.560 I think the evidence overwhelmingly demonstrates that this was not just a success, it was an incredible success.
00:11:05.060 And by the way, in the wake of this report, the Secretary of State absolutely disputed it.
00:11:11.080 The Secretary of Defense absolutely disputed it.
00:11:13.160 The president absolutely disputed it.
00:11:16.320 And I will say, if you look at our bunker buster bombs are designed to take out underground bunkers.
00:11:24.860 That is what their purpose is.
00:11:27.420 We didn't just drop one bunker buster.
00:11:30.580 We dropped 14.
00:11:32.740 Each of them weighs 30,000 pounds, 30,000 pounds of destructive blast force.
00:11:40.740 That is over 300,000 pounds of explosives that were delivered on target.
00:11:48.480 Every one of those bombs hit their target.
00:11:51.560 And by the way, to the credit of our incredible servicemen and women, they turned around and flew all the way back to Missouri with zero American casualties.
00:12:00.800 No plane was shot down.
00:12:01.960 No American was injured or hurt.
00:12:04.380 It was an incredible success.
00:12:06.300 As we know, two other B-2 stealth bombers went west, went over the Pacific Ocean.
00:12:14.160 This group of seven went east over the Atlantic Ocean.
00:12:17.640 Those who went west were a decoy, and it was designed to confuse the Iranians, think that an attack was going to come from the west rather than come from the east.
00:12:28.980 And I will say the effect of that was that the Iranian air defenses, much of which the Iranian air defenses have been massively degraded by the Israelis to begin with.
00:12:39.980 So their air defenses were incredibly weakened, but there was no Iranian plane that fired at our planes.
00:12:46.140 There were not missiles that were fired at our planes.
00:12:48.760 Look, this could have gone very differently.
00:12:50.200 And, in fact, I will make a contrast.
00:12:54.240 Look, I was a young kid in 1979.
00:12:57.280 In 1979 is when the Iranian Revolution occurred.
00:13:00.840 And the Ayatollah then took over the American embassy and took Americans hostage.
00:13:07.120 And Jimmy Carter was the president there.
00:13:09.260 And he was the weakest and most feckless American president we had ever seen until Joe Biden came into the White House.
00:13:15.040 And Jimmy Carter, in the midst of that hostage crisis, sent in a military force to try to rescue the hostages.
00:13:22.560 And that military force crashed in the desert.
00:13:25.700 Helicopters crashed with no opposing fire.
00:13:29.760 Nobody was shooting at them.
00:13:30.820 They just crashed.
00:13:31.620 And I got to say, it just it emblemized just how incredibly weak Jimmy Carter's defense of our national security was.
00:13:41.980 I was a little kid.
00:13:43.080 I was 10 when Reagan became president.
00:13:45.100 And so I remember this as a child.
00:13:47.580 And it's I mean, you were you were barely a sparkle in your daddy's eye at the time, Ben.
00:13:53.800 But but it was a powerful moment in the contrast.
00:13:58.580 Jimmy Carter's helicopters crashing in the desert versus under Donald Trump.
00:14:03.020 Our bombers taking out the enemy with crushing effectiveness.
00:14:08.040 That's a contrast that's night and day.
00:14:10.080 And you know what? It's demonstrated by just how desperately the Democrats and the corporate media want to spin and say, no, no, no.
00:14:17.100 It was not nearly as successful as your lying eyes tell you it was.
00:14:21.280 Yeah, we're going to play for everybody in a moment.
00:14:24.140 What Pete Hedgeth had to say about the intelligence assessment and the new information that they have.
00:14:30.040 We'll do that in a moment.
00:14:31.140 But finally, at least we're getting some decent headlines.
00:14:34.580 Granted, it's the Washington Free Beacon.
00:14:35.980 But their headline was classified report that suggests Iranian nuclear programs still intact, likely relied on faulty info from Iranian sources, former intel officers say.
00:14:49.220 So let me get this straight.
00:14:50.400 The media is getting their propaganda now directly from the Iranians.
00:14:53.540 You can't make this up.
00:14:55.420 Well, it's it's where the media is.
00:14:58.020 CNN wants America to lose.
00:15:00.320 They want Iran to win.
00:15:01.440 And ABC, NBC, CBS, Washington Post, New York Times, they are cheering for our enemies and against the president of the United States.
00:15:11.060 And sadly, the Democrats look, the Democrats were sitting in the same classified briefing.
00:15:15.660 I was they heard about the incredible success of this military attack.
00:15:19.940 I got to say, if the Democrats gave a damn about our country, they would come out and say, you know what?
00:15:25.040 Our servicemen and women are heroes, and they executed an incredible attack.
00:15:30.120 And by the way, every president for the last 30 years has said Iran will not get a nuclear weapon.
00:15:36.140 In this instance, President Trump acted decisively to take away their nuclear weapons capability.
00:15:41.180 And the Democrats all ran to the TV cameras and said this was terrible.
00:15:44.720 This was terrible.
00:15:45.940 We oppose our nation.
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00:16:17.360 Senator, I want to play for everybody, Pete Hedtseth at the Pentagon briefing about how effective this attack actually was and saying it directly to the media's face.
00:16:31.300 Take a listen.
00:16:32.840 Read some of the assessments that have been provided because whether it's fake news, CNN, MSNBC or the New York Times, there's been fawning coverage of a preliminary assessment.
00:16:45.640 I've had a chance to read it.
00:16:46.880 Every outlet has breathlessly reported on a preliminary assessment from DIA.
00:16:53.420 I'm looking at it right now.
00:16:55.780 Again, it was preliminary a day and a half after the actual strike.
00:17:00.020 When it admits itself in writing that it requires weeks to accumulate the necessary data to make such an assessment, it's preliminary.
00:17:06.560 It points out that it's not been coordinated with the intelligence community at all.
00:17:11.700 There's low confidence in this particular report.
00:17:14.240 There's, it says in the report, there are gaps in the information.
00:17:17.440 It says in the report, multiple linchpin assumptions are what this assessment, a linchpin assumption, you know what that is?
00:17:25.140 That means your entire premise is predicated on a linchpin.
00:17:27.900 If you're wrong, everything else is wrong.
00:17:30.200 And yet, still, this report acknowledges it's likely severe damage.
00:17:35.100 Again, this is preliminary.
00:17:36.120 But leaked because someone had an agenda to try to muddy the waters and make it look like this historic strike wasn't successful.
00:17:43.720 I'm going to get to the chairman in a moment because he's going to lay out the particulars for you based on his professional military experience.
00:17:50.060 But here's what other folks are saying.
00:17:51.160 Have any of these quotes made their way into the New York Times or the Washington Post, MSNBC, CNN?
00:18:21.520 Any of these quotes?
00:18:22.280 How about this one?
00:18:22.780 This is a new one.
00:18:23.460 From the UN, the United Nations.
00:18:25.960 No friend of the United States or certainly Israel often.
00:18:29.200 Here's the head of the UN Atomic Energy Agency this morning.
00:18:33.420 Rafael Grossi.
00:18:34.980 U.S. and Israeli strikes caused enormous damage to Iran's nuclear sites.
00:18:41.780 Don't take my word for it.
00:18:42.760 How about the IDF's chief of staff?
00:18:44.400 I can say here that the assessment is that we significantly damaged the nuclear program, setting it back by years.
00:18:51.460 I repeat, years.
00:18:53.780 The Iranian foreign minister, the spokesman.
00:18:56.880 Our nuclear institutions have been badly damaged, that's for sure.
00:19:00.480 I'm sure that's an understatement.
00:19:02.860 John Radcliffe, the director of the CIA, putting out a statement just last night.
00:19:07.320 CIA can confirm that a body of credible intelligence indicates Iran's nuclear program has been severely damaged by recent targeted strikes.
00:19:17.140 This includes new intelligence from a historically reliable, very different than preliminary assessment with low confidence.
00:19:24.420 He's saying historically reliable and accurate source and method that several key Iranian nuclear facilities were destroyed and would have to be rebuilt over the course of years.
00:19:37.800 You listen to all of that data, and I love how he laid it out.
00:19:41.720 He's not just saying this is from our administration.
00:19:44.680 This is from people that hate us.
00:19:46.280 This is from the UN.
00:19:47.040 This is from Iran.
00:19:48.100 Like, how the hell did you guys go with this report when it's so off from reality?
00:19:52.500 Look, I think the evidence is indisputable.
00:19:56.820 And it's worth noting, he said, the Secretary of Defense said in that press conference, that the Iranian nuclear weapons program has been set back years.
00:20:09.880 I can tell you I spent an hour and a half at a classified briefing.
00:20:13.340 I can't tell you what was in that briefing.
00:20:14.980 But we heard nothing that was inconsistent with what the Secretary of Defense said in that press conference, which is that this military attack set Iran's nuclear program back years.
00:20:28.380 It was incredibly effective.
00:20:30.920 And so that is cause for celebration, which is why the Democrats don't want people to know about it.
00:20:35.980 The media don't want people to know about it.
00:20:37.560 But I have to say, I mentioned at the outset of this program, we were going to discuss what happened.
00:20:43.560 But every bit as importantly, we're going to discuss what's going to happen next.
00:20:48.300 And listen, it's one thing to talk about where the puck is today.
00:20:52.080 But you've got to look at where the puck is going to be tomorrow.
00:20:54.400 And where the puck is going to be tomorrow, there was a CNN report that came out this week that said, quote,
00:21:02.680 The Trump admin is considering offering Iran a series of major benefits to bring it back to the negotiating table.
00:21:11.060 According to the report, Washington is considering helping Iran establish a nuclear program for the purpose of producing civilian energy at a cost of about $30 billion, easing sanctions and unfreezing billions of frozen Iranian dollars.
00:21:32.680 And I will tell you, within the Trump administration right now, there is a battle.
00:21:36.900 There are voices within the Trump administration.
00:21:38.760 These are the voices that oppose the strike on Iran, that wanted to have weakness and appeasement towards Iran, who are now saying, well, after the strike, after victory, we should flow billions of dollars to Iran.
00:21:54.380 We should let them sell oil, let them sell oil to China.
00:21:58.180 We should let them make billions.
00:22:00.300 And I got to tell you, this is the same failed approach of Barack Obama and Joe Biden.
00:22:06.440 We should, we should, under no circumstances, allow the Ayatollah who chants death to America, who has been actively trying to murder President Trump.
00:22:16.700 We should not let him win a windfall and get billions of dollars to use to wage war against America.
00:22:23.520 How did we even get to this point where this was a real possibility?
00:22:28.220 Where is this coming from?
00:22:30.180 Because it is shocking.
00:22:31.380 Like you said, you don't want to do the same thing that was a failure with the last administrations, where they're like, hey, here's billions of dollars.
00:22:38.120 We'll put it on a plane.
00:22:39.080 And here's here's a bunch of American money.
00:22:41.460 Have a great day.
00:22:42.500 Listen, there are voices in the Republican Party who have decided to embrace isolationism, who has decided to say we should withdraw from the world.
00:22:51.480 You and I talked previously on this podcast about the interview I did with Tucker Carlson.
00:22:56.360 I knew what that was going to be.
00:22:58.280 I knew when I accepted that interview that Tucker was coming after me, that he was going to do everything he can to blast me.
00:23:04.660 And he and I spent two hours.
00:23:06.440 It was a it was a bloodbath.
00:23:09.320 We were pounding the hell out of each other.
00:23:10.940 But every single thing Tucker said about Iran and Israel proved wrong.
00:23:15.720 Tucker said publicly, if America strikes Iran, we would be dragged into World War Three.
00:23:23.580 Thousands of Americans would be killed.
00:23:25.900 And in World War Three, we would lose.
00:23:29.080 Now, Ben, that wasn't slightly wrong.
00:23:31.000 It wasn't a little bit wrong.
00:23:32.420 It was totally, catastrophically, utterly false.
00:23:35.920 Tucker also argued with me at great length.
00:23:38.000 It's not true that Iran is trying to murder Donald J.
00:23:42.900 Trump.
00:23:43.780 Well, you know, it's one thing if you're a talk show host and you can just kind of yell into the microphone and ignore facts.
00:23:51.540 But facts matter.
00:23:53.060 The truth matters.
00:23:54.040 It is an objective fact that Iran has been trying to murder Donald J.
00:24:00.260 Trump has been trying to murder him for several years.
00:24:03.480 And I pointed this out in the interview.
00:24:05.140 I put it out afterwards.
00:24:06.000 I put out the sealed indictment from the Department of Justice indicting Iranian hitmen who were here in the United States trying to murder Donald J.
00:24:14.480 Trump.
00:24:14.740 I put out video of President Trump talking about the Iranians trying to murder him.
00:24:20.120 I put out video of senior Iranian leaders talking about their intention to murder Donald Trump.
00:24:26.060 I put out a video that the IRGC put out, an animated video of an Iranian drone murdering Donald Trump on the golf course at Mar-a-Lago.
00:24:36.960 And it is an objective fact.
00:24:39.300 And this is where, again, the sort of isolationist rhetoric is weird.
00:24:43.260 Because when I said that Iran was trying to murder President Trump and Tucker said, I've never heard that.
00:24:50.900 And then he did his kind of weird, high-pitched cackle.
00:24:54.980 He then came back with this bizarre statement.
00:24:58.560 Well, if that were true that Iran were trying to murder Donald J.
00:25:02.500 Trump, well, then we should attack them immediately.
00:25:04.820 We should nuke them.
00:25:06.180 And I've got to say, I kind of wondered if, like, Tucker Carlson's old neocon, to be clear, Tucker Carlson was someone who, during the Iraq War, was a cheerleader for the Iraq War.
00:25:18.840 He basically put on a short skirt and pom-poms.
00:25:22.040 I think the Iraq War was a mistake.
00:25:23.820 I've been vocal about that for years.
00:25:26.120 Tucker cheered it on.
00:25:27.840 It is loopy.
00:25:29.160 It is Froot Loops to say you should nuke Iran because they're doing that.
00:25:33.920 No, the right thing to do is what President Trump did, which is take out their nuclear weapons capability.
00:25:40.700 And I've got to say, Tucker's voice and their allies of Tucker in the administration, who were desperately trying to convince the president, do not attack Iran, do not take out their nuclear weapons capability, do not support Israel, abandon Israel, they were wrong.
00:25:59.240 And they lost this battle, but the second iteration, and this is coming, is they're now saying, okay, now that you've won, give the Ayatollah billions of dollars.
00:26:10.780 Because it works out really well when you give billions of dollars to a theocratic lunatic who says they want to murder you and is still actively trying to murder you.
00:26:19.260 That is incredibly foolish, and so I'm urging the president, don't listen to those voices.
00:26:25.760 They were wrong before, and they're wrong now.
00:26:28.560 Do not send billions of dollars to the Ayatollah.
00:26:31.640 And, Senator, you had this to say on Hannity's show about as well.
00:26:35.040 Something else, Sean.
00:26:36.240 There are voices in the administration, now that the president has scored an historic victory, who are urging, let's cut a deal, let's let Iran sell oils, let's lift all the sanctions, let's make this a victory for the Ayatollah.
00:26:49.640 Understand this, Ayatollah still hates America, he chants death to America, and he's been trying to murder Donald Trump.
00:26:56.560 And so it would be a catastrophic mistake to flood billions of dollars into Iran.
00:27:02.940 I agree with you.
00:27:04.520 What if they use a proxy to attack Israel?
00:27:07.100 Does that end the ceasefire?
00:27:08.240 Because I would imagine that's the next plan.
00:27:11.520 Real quick.
00:27:12.320 You know, I will tell you one of the best indications of how successful this attack was.
00:27:17.140 Within hours, Iran was rushing to have a ceasefire.
00:27:20.500 That's because they are utterly decimated and weakened, and that's why they wanted a ceasefire.
00:27:25.380 But don't think for a minute they suddenly love America or love Israel.
00:27:29.040 They still hate us.
00:27:30.240 They are still our enemy, but we have taken away their ability to murder Americans.
00:27:34.260 If they use a proxy to attack Israel, are they to blame?
00:27:40.260 Of course they are.
00:27:41.460 The proxies, Hezbollah and Hamas, work for Iran.
00:27:44.740 They pay for them, and they control them.
00:27:46.400 All right, Senator Ted Cruz, we always appreciate your time, Senator.
00:27:50.260 Thank you.
00:27:51.040 Strong close there, Senator, and it's the truth.
00:27:53.880 This is what people are trying to do now.
00:27:57.060 It absolutely is, and I'll tell you one point that I made on Hannity that I think is powerful.
00:28:01.880 We started this show by talking about how the Democrats and the media are trying to claim the attack was not effective.
00:28:08.280 If that were true, why did Iran immediately want a ceasefire?
00:28:15.840 Look, Iran has been at war with Israel for years.
00:28:19.180 They have been lobbying missiles.
00:28:20.780 They have been funding Hamas and Hezbollah.
00:28:22.780 Understand, Hamas, more than 90% of Hamas' budget comes from Iran.
00:28:28.320 Hezbollah, more than 90% of Hezbollah's budget comes from Iran.
00:28:33.340 Iran, when the Ayatollah chants death to America and death to Israel, he means it.
00:28:37.660 They have spent millions and millions of dollars.
00:28:40.360 They have killed thousands of American servicemen and women.
00:28:43.760 They have been the leading state sponsor of terrorism for decades.
00:28:48.300 And after this, look, Iran has had a really rough year.
00:28:52.240 October 7th, they funded October 7th.
00:28:55.240 And since October 7th, Hamas has been utterly decimated.
00:28:58.460 Hezbollah has been utterly decimated.
00:29:00.660 Bashar Assad, who was their puppet leader in Syria, he has fallen.
00:29:04.500 The Houthis, who they were funding, who were attacking American ships and shipping through
00:29:08.800 the Suez Canal, they are badly degraded.
00:29:11.780 And now, Iran, when they were on the verge of acquiring nuclear weapons.
00:29:16.360 Look, if you're the Ayatollah and you're weak and you're collapsing, getting a nuclear
00:29:20.800 weapon is your Hail Mary.
00:29:22.140 It's the one chance to say, OK, we're relevant, we're strong.
00:29:25.680 And then Israel devastatingly takes out their military capability, their air defenses.
00:29:33.000 The entire course of this war, the 12-day war, Iran had no control over their air defenses.
00:29:38.800 Israel had total superiority.
00:29:40.180 And then the United States, when we went in and did our bombing run, Iran could not defend
00:29:44.920 themselves.
00:29:45.580 And then America comes in.
00:29:48.040 I think Iran believed they could talk, talk, talk and avoid any real consequences.
00:29:52.680 I think they felt that Forda was deep enough under a mountain, there was nothing they could
00:29:56.120 do about it, and that America would never use Bunker Buster bombs against them.
00:30:00.940 And by the way, Joe Biden never would have.
00:30:03.180 The Democrats never would have.
00:30:04.740 But Donald J. Trump, he's not an isolationist.
00:30:07.260 He's not weak.
00:30:08.800 He's not interested in a prolonged war.
00:30:11.160 Note, we did not invade Iran.
00:30:12.940 We did not send boots on the ground.
00:30:14.820 We're not going there trying to turn them into a democratic utopia.
00:30:18.240 We're not trying to turn them into Switzerland.
00:30:19.800 The objective of the mission was very, very focused.
00:30:24.980 It was to stop Iran from having nuclear weapons capability.
00:30:28.780 And by the way, Ben, the reason I went on Tucker Carlson just a week ago was to make clear
00:30:34.540 that President Trump is right and Tucker Carlson was wrong.
00:30:39.120 And I think I was unhappy with Tucker because he's been attacking President Trump.
00:30:44.180 He said that President Trump was complicit in the attack on Iran.
00:30:49.820 He claimed, amazingly enough, that Donald Trump was not America first, that if you attack
00:30:57.140 Iran, you're not America first.
00:30:59.240 And President Trump quite rightly came back and said, look, I invented the damn term.
00:31:03.700 And what I say is what America first is.
00:31:08.020 And he said to Tucker, he said, look, if you want Iran to have a nuclear weapon, that ain't
00:31:12.520 America first because these lunatics want to kill us.
00:31:16.200 President Trump is exactly right.
00:31:19.280 And this has been, I'll tell you, I texted him this week and I told him, Mr. President,
00:31:25.040 this past week has been the single finest leadership you have had the entire time.
00:31:33.160 And I'm incredibly proud of the job you're doing as commander in chief.
00:31:37.540 You know, one of the compare and contrasts that you talk about with these, this administration
00:31:42.000 in the past was brought up at the White House press briefing room.
00:31:45.780 Carolyn Levitt, I think, did a great job of explaining the difference very much like you
00:31:50.680 just described it.
00:31:51.460 And here's what she said to the press about the real story here.
00:31:55.040 The Iranian regime was weeks away from being able to produce a nuclear weapon that would
00:31:59.880 threaten the entire world before President Trump took this decisive action on Saturday
00:32:05.060 night to obliterate their nuclear capabilities.
00:32:08.140 The contrast in leadership could not be more clear.
00:32:11.580 Barack Obama and Joe Biden sent pallets of cash, American taxpayer dollars, in a failed
00:32:17.360 attempt to buy the Iranian regime's compliance with a weak and ineffective deal.
00:32:22.020 President Trump sent a fleet of American warplanes to destroy Iran's ability to produce a nuclear
00:32:28.580 weapon.
00:32:28.940 The United States and the entire world are safer because of this president's decisiveness.
00:32:35.140 Despite agenda-driven leaks by the fake news media aimed at undermining this incredible
00:32:40.360 accomplishment achieved by President Trump and our brave fighter pilots, there is broad consensus
00:32:45.620 emerging already that Iran's nuclear capabilities were indeed destroyed.
00:32:50.580 The United States, Israel, the United Nations, and even Iran all agree they can no longer build a nuclear weapon.
00:32:58.260 So why did the president immediately turn to obliterating after the Iranian nuclear threat?
00:33:05.680 Securing peace.
00:33:07.180 Within 48 hours of the devastating strike, President Trump and his team brokered a historic ceasefire
00:33:12.860 between Israel and Iran and officially ended the 12-day war.
00:33:17.280 The Middle East is now shifting away from chaos and bloodshed and moving toward the beginning
00:33:22.580 stages of a new era of peace and stability that President Trump has long called on them
00:33:28.540 to achieve.
00:33:29.420 This was unthinkable at this time last week.
00:33:32.400 And this is what peace through strength looks like.
00:33:35.260 I mean, it's just laying it out right to their faces, right?
00:33:38.960 Yes.
00:33:39.160 This is what the president said.
00:33:41.240 This is what he believed.
00:33:42.520 This is what he was going to do.
00:33:43.820 We're not back down.
00:33:44.420 And she also said something else that also the DOD said several different ways.
00:33:50.580 How dare you not just give some accolades to the men and women that risked their lives
00:33:55.540 to pull this off and did it flawlessly?
00:33:58.380 Look, peace through strength is exactly what this is.
00:34:01.760 And the left, they have a bizarre view that weakness and appeasement somehow avoids war.
00:34:08.260 Listen, if you look through history, the opposite is true.
00:34:11.380 Weakness and appeasement encourages our enemies.
00:34:15.340 They engage in more hostilities.
00:34:17.200 You get more war.
00:34:18.660 I have joked, but there is a reason nobody goes and studies at the Neville Chamberlain School
00:34:24.820 of Foreign Affairs.
00:34:27.180 Appeasement doesn't work.
00:34:29.820 Donald J.
00:34:30.480 Trump is a strong commander in chief, just like Ronald Reagan was.
00:34:33.880 And I'll tell you, your family and my family, all of our families are safer because President
00:34:39.120 Trump acted decisively to take out Iran's nuclear weapons capability.
00:34:43.700 Don't forget, we do this show Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
00:34:47.360 And make sure you hit that subscribe or auto download button wherever you get your podcast
00:34:51.540 so you do not miss an episode.
00:34:53.460 And also, tomorrow on Saturday, we'll have the week in review.
00:34:56.960 Some of the top things we talked about this past week that you may have missed.
00:34:59.920 So make sure you listen to that as well.
00:35:01.440 And the Senate, I will see you back here Saturday morning.
00:35:05.020 This is an iHeart Podcast.
00:35:07.560 Guaranteed human.