Transcript
A (0:00)
High interest debt can be a real vibe killer. Credit cards, personal loans and more can make you feel uncomfortable even in the sanctuary of your own home. Well, what if you knew that SoFi could help you leverage your home's equity to feel more at ease? It's called a SOFI Home Equity Loan, and it could consolidate your debt at a typically lower interest rate than existing debt with lower monthly payments, and all while keeping your existing mortgage rate. View your rate@sofi.com payoffdeb today, mortgages originated by Sofi bank and a member FDIC, NMLS 696891 terms and conditions apply.
B (0:28)
Equal Housing Lender President Trump is the most courageous commander in chief in modern American history. There is no question about this. What he just did is the bravest move by a President of the United States of my lifetime, bar none. Without a doubt. And today I'm going to go through exactly why he did what he did, why he did it, when he did it. We're going to go through many of the objections to what he is doing. We're going to go through what's happening on the ground. We're going to talk with people who are affected by it. Let's begin with this. The President of the United States made the unbelievably brave decision, and it was a brave decision to move to end the threat against America and her allies in the Middle east. The core threat, the Iranian regime that has been percolating, militating, killing Americans and American allies since 1979. That is the first thing to recognize about what President Trump did. President Trump is doing so because he understands what it means for America to get rid of long standing enemies. Because he understands that the use of force is a necessary component when it comes to America's geopolitical position in the world. He is doing so because he understands better than any American president of my lifetime that America does not need to get bogged down in a long, prolonged hundreds of thousands of troops on the ground wars, that America needs to flex her power while when necessary and do the thing that is right when necessary in order to protect her core interests. One of the things you're hearing tonight from critics of the President is that there was no direct attack on the United States, therefore no sort of military action ought to have been undertaken with regard to Iran. First of all, historically speaking, that's not true. The Iranian government has been responsible for the death of hundreds, if not thousands of Americans over the course of time, ranging from the 1983 barracks bombing to in Lebanon via its proxy Hezbollah to the death of hundreds of American soldiers in Iraq during the Iraq War. The Iranian regime has also been responsible for the murder of people abroad, ranging from Europe to South America to obviously, the Middle east, where it has activated its proxies against American allies, not just Israel, but also including Saudi Arabia, UAE and other countries in the region. The Iranian government is the leading sponsor of terrorism on planet Earth. It has been for decades. The President decided to end that threat earlier this morning. So first of all, the idea, again, that America has never suffered direct attack or has not recently suffered direct attack from Iran is not true. But people say, okay, well, it wasn't a direct attack. Right now, Iran didn't attack a tower in New York. That's true. But that is not the only reason why you take out a regime, why you go after the leadership. And let's be clear. As of right now, it is becoming increasingly clear that the United States, along with Israel in these airstrikes. For those who have been up on the news today, some of you may be ahead of the news where I am, because again, I'm drinking from a fire hose just having come off of the Sabbath. Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of Iran, is apparently dead. That is according to the President of the United States. According to Israel, Ali Shamkhani, the head of the National Defense Council, who is the head of legitimately the entire defense apparatus in Iran, also dead. Mohammad Pakpour, commander in chief of the irgc. That's the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. That's not the Iranian army. It's a different thing. The Iranian army is responsible for protecting the borders of Iran and doing kind of normal army things. The IRGC is responsible for quashing dissent, for spreading terrorism throughout the region. It is essentially the praetorian guardian for the leadership of Iran. All the political leadership, people like Massoud Pesheki and the president, totally irrelevant. The ayatollahs select. The supreme Leader of Iran, selects the people who are capable of running and the people who are capable of serving in those temporary political positions. The IRGC is his militant wing. Mohammed Pakpour is dead. Amir Nassar is dead. The Defense Minister is dead. So what the United States is doing right here is recognizing that there was a unique opportunity presented by the situation on the ground in Iran for a change of direction in Iran, which will totally upend the politics of the Middle east and of the world in a tremendous, tremendous way. Let's start with the geopolitics here. What's the geopolitical reason for the United States to be involved because geopolitics affects Americans. It does. Geopolitics affects Americans. America takes action abroad in order to affect its geopolitical position. This, for example, is why. If, for example, China were to threaten Taiwan, that would affect Americans, because Americans, we get semiconductors from Taiwan. Also, if China continues to expand its footprints, then that means that America's economic interests and military interests are threatened. Pretty obviously. Iran acts as a linkage. The current regime acts as a linkage between China and Russia. It provides enormous amounts of oil to the Chinese machine. It gives the Russian war machine its shahed drones. And of course, it acts as a check and balance against the United States in the Middle East. That is what Iran historically has done. In order to understand what President Trump is doing geopolitically, you have to understand the consequences in if he didn't do it. If President Trump had left the Iranian regime in place after it murdered 32,000 of its own citizens in violation of the president of the United States red line, if the Iranian regime continued to rebuild all of its military and nuclear facilities, which is what it was doing, if it continued to do that and President Trump did nothing, the geopolitical consequences for the United States would have been disastrous. Why? Because China looks at that, and maybe they make that move on Taiwan. Russia looks at that, and maybe they really up the ante in Ukraine. President Trump is the president who will not allow under any circumstances, the threat of force to go away. He understands better than anyone that the credible threat of American military force, he doesn't like using it. He doesn't want to use it. But the credible threat of American military force is the thing that keeps America in the driver's seat globally. That is what he was doing. He is pushing China off the ball with regard to Taiwan. He is pushing Russia off the ball with regard to Ukraine. And yes, of course, he is getting rid of the cancerous regime in Tehran, which has spread its terror tentacles all over the world, predominantly in the Middle East. But yes, also in Europe, where it has pursued terrorist attacks. Yes, in South America. Yes. In Latin America. There is no question that were the Iranian regime to go away, which absolutely could happen here. Even just the defenestration of the ayatollahs, by the way, means regime change. Definitionally, it means that a regime change has already been effectuated because that guy's been in charge, the ayatollah, Ayatollah Khamenei, he's been in charge of Iran since 1989 in the same way that it was effectively a regime Change for the United States to take Nicolas Maduro out of Venezuela, even if it meant that one of his deputies ended up in power and the United States just squeezed Venezuela so as to push them away from our enemies and control what they are doing in our hemisphere. Changing out the top of the regime in Iran will have massive repercussions. Massive repercussions. So geopolitically, excellent move by the President of the United States. There is unique opportunity. Unique opportunity here is important. I know there are a lot of people who think that in order for the United States to justify any military action, again, we are not talking about a military action involving hundreds of thousands of American boots on the ground. That'd be a different thing. The notion that in order to justify any military action at all, a threat must either be exactly imminent. Meaning like they're going to blow up a building in New York right now, or that there has to have been a direct attack is asinine. By that standard, Ronald Reagan never should have gone to Brandenburg Gate and called for the fall of the Soviet Union. Because while the Soviet Union had nuclear missiles pointed at the United States, they were not on the verge of using those nuclear missiles against the United States. They were simply a geopolitical threat to the United States. Opportunities that are blown, historically speaking, lead to significantly worse after effects, historically speaking, not sometimes. Every single time. Bill Clinton failing to kill Osama Bin Laden in the late 1990s when he had him in the crosshairs, the consequence was the USS Cole in 9 11. The unwillingness of the west to to topple the Bolshevik regime in its earliest iterations in Russia failing to sufficiently support the whites against the Reds in Russia led to a full century of Soviet sponsorship of mass murder. The United States unwillingness to help Shanghai Shek fight back against the Communists in China has led to the rise of the Chinese Communist Party, responsible for not only the deaths of tens of millions of its own citizens, but the main geopolitical threat facing America today. In other words, when you have an opportunity to effectuate serious change at relatively low cost, you do it. You do it. And the United States has complete air superiority. Why? Because after the 12 day war last year, in which Israel essentially defenestrated the air defense systems in Iran, the United States had essentially a clear airway to go and take out huge numbers of Iranian regime targets. The opportunity was, was there. Not only that, that opportunity had become even greater because the Iranian people were tired of living under this regime. The Iranian rial right now is so dirt cheap, it would take 1 million Iranian Riyals to amount to 75 United States cents. And so the Iranian people were tired of that, which is why they rose up in December of last year and started mass protesting in the streets. So the opportunity is for the people to take charge of their future with the help of the United States from above. And that's what President Trump is saying. He's saying, we're not going to put hundreds of thousands of troops on the ground and just effectuate a regime change. We are going to take out the people who are most threatening to you. Now go do the thing. Now go take control of your own country. That's what he was doing in that magnificent speech earlier today, the best speech, in my opinion, of President Trump's presidency. Truly presidential stuff from the president. So you have an incredible opportunity, a unique opportunity. Geopolitically, you have a necessity to do this, because if you do not do this, China takes the lead. And this is also true with regard to, for example, Afghanistan. The reason that Vladimir Putin decided to invade Ukraine is because the United States withdrew like ignominious cowards from Afghanistan under the pusillanimous President Joe Biden. Donald Trump does not play like that. He does not play like that. President Trump is a uniquely testosterone filled president, there's no question about this. The President of the United States has. That is a dude with cojones, for sure. And what he is doing here is transformational. Transformational. If you understand the entire politics of the Middle Eastern region and you understand the linkage between China, Iran, Russia, and you also understand Iran's sponsorship of every major terrorist group in the region, essentially, from the Houthis down in Yemen to Hezbollah in Lebanon to Shia militias in Iraq to rebellious forces in Jordan to rebellious forces pretty much everywhere else in the Middle east, you understand that a once in a lifetime opportunity to end the regime is on the table. And so what we've seen from this ballsy president over the course of the last few months are a change of regime in Venezuela, effectively. Because if you're squeezing them so hard that they squeak and they're basically under America's control, that is a regime change. You are seeing that attempted now in Iran. You are seeing that probably going to happen in Cuba. You're watching America remake the world in its own interest. In its interest, because it is good for America. When terrorist regimes that oppose America and shout death to America and sponsor terrorist groups that are anti American and try to develop nuclear weapons and try to develop ICBMs and try to develop massive terror exporting and then work hand in glove with all of our enemies to provide them oil and provide them drones. It turns out it's really great for America when that goes away. So as I said, there are a bunch of objections that have sort of been put forth here. People claiming this is not America First. Now again, I'm a little confused how it would not be America first for our chief enemy in the Middle east to go away. You're gonna have to explain that one to me. If we were talking about millions, hundreds of thousands, tens of thousands of American boots on the ground fighting house to house in Tehran the way that the United States did in Baghdad, then you'd have to make a stronger case. And I will by way of side point here, make a point made by my friend Ben Domenech, who's now over working with us here at Daily Wire. Ben Domenech made a great point a little bit earlier this evening to me. He said, here's the thing about American foreign policy. You can explain until you're blue in the face why things are good for Americans. If they end well, Americans like it and if they end poorly, Americans hate it. Americans knew precisely why we went into Afghanistan. Because AL Qaeda murdered 3,000American citizens. That war went poorly and Americans turned against it. And you can fail to explain properly why Americans make a foreign policy action. And if it ends well, Americans are basically okay with it or triumphal about it. Americans like victory and they do not like losing. The president has no intention of losing here. This bizarre notion that the President of the United States who campaigned against the Iraq war, who is by nature hesitant to get America involved in long term war, making that somehow he is going to be a redux of George W. Bush's Iraq war is asinine on its face. So why exactly is this America First? Well, as I say, because it is in America's interest for our big enemies to be changed to go away. Would it be America first if America were able to, with minimal loss of even American resources, topple, say the Chinese regime? The answer there is, of course it would be if we could snap our fingers and that regime changed into a friendly regime, would that be a good. Of course it would be unique opportunity, a geopolitics that favors the move, a President who is willing to do the hard thing. That's what is happening in Iran right now. So a lot of people are trying to cite George Washington suggesting that that this is all about a permanent alliance, that permanent alliances are bad and we shouldn't go abroad in search of enemies. To destroy the world is a lot smaller than when George Washington was President of the United States. And we should note that even shortly after George Washington was President of the United States, the Americans went to war with the Barbary pirates off the coast of Africa because they were threatening our sailors. This is not about long standing alliances, although it turns out that allies who are strong and capable and helpful because it turns out the iaf, the Israeli Air Force was also flying sorties over Iran and providing intelligence on targets and apparently involved in the blowing away of Ayatollah Khamenei. It turns out that that's actually quite useful to the United States. You know, it's not useful bad allies, allies who don't actually pull their weight, who don't have military wherewithal. Say for example, allies like Qatar, where you have a gigantic Al Udaid air base that they prevented the United States from using. What are we paying for? Exactly. So when people talk about George Washington and how somehow Washington's perspective that we shouldn't have permanent allies, that America's interests always come first, somehow that's in conflict with this. Of course it's not in conflict with this. It is directly in line with this. I mean, George Washington as a general was allied with the French in order to defeat the British. And then the United States turned around during Washington's administration and Adams administration and said, well, I guess we're gonna have to ally a little bit with the British because we do not like the French Revolution either, or at least stay neutral. Those are all based on America's interest. So the question is right now, is this in America's interest? The case for no is pretty weak. What is the thing that is not in America's interest? Irani. Iran's regime changing. How is that? Please explain. That's, that's the question that critics need to answer here. How is it not in America's interest for Iran's regime to change? Please explain in detail. Please explain, because that is the, that's the question that needs to be asked because I'm being told that it's not in America's interest by some people. So please explain why it's not in America's interest. I just explained why it is in America's interest. Please explain to me why it's not in America's interest for the United States to pursue this action against the Iranian regime, which has been again a five decade threat to America's interests abroad, ranging from threats to Gulf shipping which resulted in the United States blowing away the entire Iranian Navy. In 1988 to the building of nuclear weapons, which again, they were rebuilding. And one of the sort of bizarre arguments that's been made here is that they weren't rebuilding. There's no evidence they were rebuilding. I mean, here is a picture, this is from like two weeks ago, of facilities that were being rebuilt in Iran. Because it turns out that President Trump was right. America's midnight hammer operation did do significant and heavy damage to the Iranian nuclear facilities. But they immediately started rebuilding, hardening. They immediately started upping the ante. Here you can see the rebuilding of facilities. You can see the difference between the original picture and then the rebuilding of the buildings. Right. Buildings don't exist on the left side. They do exist on the right side. Here you can see actual building activity happening on the ground, rebuilding of the building. Iran was moving toward a thing. So the question was, how imminent was it? I have a question. Why do you have to wait until the murderer is in your living room in order to stop him? Is that a moral obligation? It seems to me stupidity. If you have the opportunity to stop him now, stop him now. President Trump saw the opportunity not only because of the protests in the streets, which provide the possibility of a true alternative in Iran for the first time in half a century, but also because again, Israel and the United States did extraordinary damage to Iran's forward capacity in last year's 12 Day War. That extraordinary damage, by the way, is why so far Iran's response has been pretty feeble. And it has been. They fired some hundreds of missiles at Israel. A couple of got through, hit in Tel Aviv, one hit in Jerusalem, I believe, one death so far. Iran has also apparently struck targets across the Middle east, but in truly ineffective ways. Not a gigantic shock. They struck a target in Kuwait. They hit a couple of targets in Jordan, apparently they hit in Bahrain. They tried to hit a navy base in Bahrain. They hit a hotel in Dubai. They struck Al Udaid in Qatar. None of these did truly significant damage. No one was. The number of deaths on the other side have been minimal. Minimal. And one of the things that has happened in the modern age is the sort of bizarre notion that war is totally cost free. Of course it is not. But America's military is just that damned good. And by the way, our American military, my God, they're unbelievable at what they do. My God, truly extraordinary at what they do. They kick ass beyond all recognition. President Trump is at the head of a military that is world dominant. It is an extraordinary military. The bravery of the men and women of the armed forces and by the way, not just their bravery, their unbelievable capacity, how good are they at this? Can we just stop for a second and marvel at that? If you put aside the bitching for a second, can we just stop for a second and say that are men and women the military? I know that sometimes in our, in our sort of conversations about the military, they are treated as though they are China dolls or victims, as though they're in the military to never do anything and that they are never to take a risk. Okay? These people are brave. They sign up for it and they kick ass beyond all recognition. It's insane. It's insane. Okay, I want to point out here, just take a. Take a moment. We can only provide you. We've been covering this all day. We can only provide you coverage of this because you subscribe over at Daily Wires. You absolutely should. We've been covering breaking news at Wired and Live with Cabot. We have editorial coverage and we're going to keep covering this all the time. It is the thing we do. We also couldn't be able to cover this sort of stuff without the support of our sponsors. One of our favorite sponsors is Preborn. They save the lives of the preborn. Obviously. Right now, thousands of women are being told the same heartbreaking lie. That abortion is their only choice, that they're on their own, that there's no way forward. That, of course, is not true. Everything shifts. The moment an expectant mom walks into a Preborn Network clinic and sees her baby on the ultrasound. In that instant, her chance of choosing life doubles. Listen, ultrasound is magical. We are pregnant with our fifth. It totally changes the way you see your own baby. If you're a mom trying to decide whether to keep your baby, please stop by Preborn. They do amazing, amazing work. This is what preborn does. You give to them. They help women get ultrasounds. Babies get saved. That's what it's about. One preborn donor put put it beautifully. She said, my mother chose life. That's the only reason I'm here. That's why I give to preborn. A donation of 28 bucks provides one ultrasound that could save a life and impact generations to come. Let's make this the biggest life saving year we've ever seen. Call £250. Say the word baby. That's £250 baby. Or visit preborn.comBen donate securely today. Again, that's preborn.comBen. preborn.comBen alrighty. So again, some of the other objections that have been pointed out put out there is that Somehow Iran was a paper tiger, post Soleimani. So back in, during the first Trump administration, the United States struck Qasem Soleimani. This is January of 2020. January 2020, just before he left office, he struck President Trump, Qasem Soleimani, the head of the IRGC Quds Force, in a drone strike and killed him. An amazing move by the President at that time. Okay, so yes, he's been gone. Yes, the 12 day war damaged the Iranians. And so people are saying, well, you know, if they were a paper tiger, why are we doing this? Because they're a paper tiger. That's when you do it. What are you supposed to wait until they're not a paper tiger? That seems kind of stupid to me. Again, do you have to wait until the guy who you know is going to rob your house goes out and purchases a bevy of weapons and works out at the gym for six months? And then you say, well, now he's a threat. Now he's really a threat. His intention's been the same the entire time. But I'm gonna wait until he's super duper dangerous and then I'm gonna do it. Opportunity, opportunity, that's what this is about. President Trump recognizes like a hawk, opportunity. And what he is doing right now is striking when the opportunity is available. You can see it by the way. You know, you want to know how things are lining up. The people who are protesting and the people who are happy today internationally, who's happy? Iranians and Persians globally, very, very happy. CCP not so happy. The Chinese, not so happy. Now, there have been questions raised about the legality of this action. Let us be clear about military action. My favorite is when people start citing the war making power of Congress under the Constitution. Cool beans, guys. You know, in the last actually declared war of the United States was like full scale declared war of the United States. It was World War II. The that is not the way that war has been done in the United States for a very long time because the opportunity is simply too quick. You gotta move fast. And so there is something called the War Powers Resolution. It requires the executive branch to go justify its action before Congress within 60 days of military action beginning. If you think this operation is lasting two months, you're outta your mind. I would be absolutely shocked if there is ongoing this type, this level of military action happening two months from now. Listen, I'd be a little surprised if it's happening two weeks from now, to be honest with you. Given the overwhelming air power of the United States now, of course, there are people who are very concerned about civilian casualties. On the other side, there is apparently a missile that hit an Iranian school. It is totally unclear whether that missile was a misfire from the Iranians, which has happened a lot, or whether it happened from a mistake, a mistaken target. War is horrible. Military action is horrible. It is not clean. It is not meant to be clean. Okay, but obviously every civilian life lost in Iran is regrettable. That is certainly not what the administration or the Israelis are attempting to do. Clearly, they're launching some of the most strategic military strikes in the history of humanity right now. Again, because of the unbelievable technological prowess and skill of the United States military and also our allies in the Middle East. Every life lost is a tragedy. I've noticed that many of the people, nay, virtually all of the people who are placing extraordinary focus on the Iranian school that was horrifically struck today didn't give two bleeps about the 32,000 protesters moaned down by the Iranian regime. So they're perfectly Happy to let 88 million people live under the tyranny of the Ayatollahs, mowing down tens of thousands of people at a time that they have no problem with. No protest, nothing. But if in taking out the Ayatollahs, a mistake is made and an Iranian school gets hit, I guess it's all game over. I mean, we have to stop. That's nonsense. It's absolute nonsense. Okay, finally, a lot of people talking about the electoral consequences. This is somehow going to stop people from voting for Republicans in 2026. Okay, here's the deal. If America succeeds, it won't. If it turns into a prolonged war, then it will. Pretty simple. Americans like winning and they don't like losing. Americans like short wars and they don't like long wars. This kind of bizarre notion that, let's say it is currently February, let's say that this thing is over by April. Whatever has happened has happened by May. The election is in November. Is your theory that if the Iranian regime falls, which is the goal here, that if the Iranian regime is replaced with something friendlier or more usable, or even if there's an ongoing chaotic multi multiplayer battle inside Iran for control, in which, by the way, the Iranians are trying to take control of their country? And also you don't have a centralized power shooting its own people and developing nuclear weapons, are you saying that that is going to be the thing that convinces people not to vote Republican? That's the thing that, like, of all the things, it's not going to be inflation. It's not going to be the idiocy of people on the Republican side of the aisle pursuing every dumb ass conspiracy theory and nonsensical rabbit hole they can find. It's not going to be the groiper juxtaposed stupidity of high ranking members of the commentary. No, what's really going to do it is that America killed Ayatollah Khamenei. That's really what's going to off Americans. Yeah, sure. All right, I'm gonna have to see the data on that one. And then finally, people saying that Trump is going back on no new wars. Well, again, Trump pledged no new Iraq wars or Afghanistan. If your definition, the definition of war has kind of changed, don't you think it's changed a little bit? I've seen some people today saying that if this proceeds and we lose one American soldier that it wasn't worth it. And I just have a question, I just have a question. By what standard is any military action then worth it? Any it is not possible to have a military action that is worth it by that standard. Which I think is kind of the point from some folks are joining us online is Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas. He of course is a military veteran himself and has been quite outspoken on the need to do something about the Iranian regime. Senator Cotton, thanks so much for your time. Really appreciate it.