Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool

All Episodes

Previous Next

June 13, 2025 - The Charlie Kirk Show

01:43:21

THOUGHTCRIME Ep. 87 — Israel Strikes Iran: Live Reaction

Large

Audio Only |

Scroll

Time	Text
	Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.
	Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.
	I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.
	Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.
	I want to thank Charlie.
	He's an incredible guy.
	His spirit, his love of this country, he's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA.
	We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.
	That's why we are here.
	Noble Gold Investments is the official gold sponsor of The Charlie Kirk Show, a company that specializes in gold IRAs and physical delivery of precious metals.
	Learn how you can protect your wealth with Noble Gold Investments at noblegoldinvestments.com.
	That is noblegoldinvestments.com.
	It's where I buy all of my gold.
	Go to noblegoldinvestments.com.
	OK, everybody, it is Thursday.
	We are going live and we are going quick because it is now official.
	Israel has conducted a military strike in the middle of the night against Iran.
	We were watching the situation very closely, privately.
	We had sources that were telling us that this was imminent and it has now happened.
	Israel has struck Iran.
	These are the first images coming out of Tehran.
	This is going to be your go-to news destination.
	We're streaming live here on Real America's Voice.
	Thank you, Parker and Rob, for this breaking news report.
	We're also on Rumble.
	This is the biggest story on the planet right now.
	Israel has launched a preemptive strike against Iran.
	And what is going to happen next, we will see.
	We have with us Blake and also Jack Posobiec as we try to process this here in real time.
	Jack, I'll go to you first.
	Jack, you and I kind of saw this looming the last couple of days.
	We will get to that.
	But first, we want to just talk about the human cost and what that will entail here.
	Jack, your reaction to this is we kind of saw this slow walking in our group chats these last couple of days.
	Well, Charlie, that's right.
	We're hearing, and again, we're still trying to figure out exactly what the scope is of this attack.
	We're seeing the videos streaming in.
	These are from the past couple of minutes here.
	It does seem to be an airstrike, hearing information about jets breaking the sound barrier over northern Iraq as they sped towards Tehran.
	This attack reportedly taking place there.
	Of course, we're not sure whether or not other sites that have been Reportedly linked to Iran's nuclear program have been hit.
	This does appear to be a fighter jet-based air strike rather than a missile strike.
	Of course, it all remains to be seen in terms of, as you say, casualties and BDA.
	So when I was a junior intel analyst, the first thing we're taught is BDA after any strike battle.
	Damage assessment.
	So what is the goal?
	What was the effectiveness of the strike?
	And is what was struck destroyed?
	Is it capable?
	Is it a certain percentage capable?
	We'll see.
	Now, of course, Iran knows this as well.
	This is why most of their nuclear facilities and certainly the research facilities are placed underground.
	And so very hard to be able to conduct any analysis directly of any underground structures, of course, just given the nature of what we have.
	Plus the fact that it's the middle of the night in Iran, though I'm sure a lot of reports will be coming out as we go.
	We're going to be continuing that up.
	And of course, we're going to be continuing to look at coverage of a potential fallout or retaliatory strikes from Iran against Israel or perhaps U.S. targets within the region.
	This, of course, is why the State Department was putting out that information regarding military personnel and evacuations, non-essentials being sent home, things like this over the past 24 to 48 hours, because the indications certainly were there.
	President Trump, of course, posted and said a number of things today about how the U.S. would not be involved directly, that he was directing all of his administration to focus on diplomacy.
	And we know, of course, that Whitcoff is still, as we know, at least as of before this took place, that there would be there would be meetings held this weekend.
	I'm reading this report now here.
	Initial reports of explosions at Natanz and Fordo in Iran.
	So, yes, these are the main nuclear facilities of Iran that are separated.
	Can we get maps?
	So Natanz is very, very inland.
	I hope people understand.
	I mean, that is incredibly inland.
	We saw this developing throughout the night.
	Well, you know, their night, but our afternoon, we were like, this is happening, this is happening.
	And it's amazing how many people who think they actually know what's going on are, like, super surprised on chats, like, what's happened?
	Like, guys, the last couple hours, if you weren't paying attention, this is what was happening.
	So walk us through the map, Blake.
	Blake, why don't you do this?
	We have the map of Iran on screen here, just the geography of the entire region.
	This was a multi-hour flight from Israel to Iran.
	Blake, this is a major operation.
	Please, Blake, walk us through it.
	Yeah, exactly.
	So Iran's not as big as the United States, but it is a fairly large country.
	I think if you overlaid it, I think it'd be about the size of maybe one quarter of the United States, maybe even one third of the continental United States.
	So it's a large country, and it doesn't border Israel.
	In fact, you have to fly over at least two additional countries to get there.
	They probably flew over Jordan and Iraq.
	And it's a long flight.
	If you look at that map, you can see little kind of red cylinders, red pillars.
	Those are their uranium enrichment plants.
	So that's where they're taking uranium and they're running it through centrifuges to make it enriched uranium, which is what you would use for a nuclear weapon.
	And so those are almost certainly the primary targets.
	There are already reports of explosions there.
	We will see if those are confirmed.
	Maybe we'll actually get video of it eventually.
	But those will be the places that you want to hit if your desire is to take out a nuclear program.
	But they're in the mountains, I believe.
	At least one or both facilities, they're built underground, so they're difficult to get to.
	So there's been a lot of talk about how this would unfold because the U.S. has some very heavy, we call them bunker-busting munitions.
	They're designed to pulverize very deep underground facilities.
	Israel doesn't have access to those weapons, and we've been hesitant to supply them or give them any access to them.
	And so if we're not involved in this, there's been talk that Israel may have to modify its plans and may have to strike it several times so they could strike it, see if there's any damage, do follow-up hits, and so on.
	But these are difficult places to reach.
	They would be flying several, probably about They're deep inside Iranian airspace.
	They are presumably well defended, so we may learn maybe whether any planes were shot down or whether there's any attempt to shoot them down.
	We're going to be seeing this all unfold very quickly.
	This is breaking news all within the last 20 minutes.
	And so, Jack, help everyone in the audience understand kind of the timeline here.
	I mean, on Sunday there were supposed to be more talks.
	Why did Israel strike even though there were more talks between the United States and Iran and kind of short-circuit that?
	Please, I mean, Jack, tell us.
	This is a little confusing to our audience.
	Well, Charlie, as we've seen from President Trump, President Trump was very explicit on this.
	And even back in April, when Prime Minister Netanyahu came to the White House and was really pushing for strikes on Iran to be conducted jointly between the United States and Israel, those strikes, of course, were rejected by President Trump.
	That plan was rejected, and it was reported there were some other elements.
	Of the administration, or at least the U.S. government writ large, that we're also working on planning those potential strikes.
	This has been something that Israel has wanted for a long time, strikes on the nuclear program.
	Obviously, they've been targeting their nuclear programs for a decade plus at this point, ever since they embarked on it in the first place.
	Of course, this is all about uranium enrichment, and this has become sort of a jump ball between what you're seeing as the neocons and the I would say the anti-war crowd out there, one crowd pointing to saying, well, wait, there is no nuclear weapons program in Iran.
	the neocons pointing to, well, there's this continued uranium enrichment, which could potentially be used for nuclear weapons, even if there isn't a nuclear weapons program.
	And so this being the impetus for wanting to have a And of course, the political situation in Israel, obviously quite chaotic, given everything that's going on since the end of the ceasefire back in March between Israel and Gaza, the situation with the Hamas terrorists going on, the ongoing war there.
	So a lot of chaos in their internal politics, as well, even a vote on potential early elections that took place just last night in the Knesset in Israel, which Netanyahu survived, but I believe by less than 10. So here's what I don't understand.
	I'm not an expert, though.
	We don't yet know where all the strikes are.
	We are seeing here on BBC, so why are they striking Tehran?
	On the map, there's no nuclear facilities in Tehran.
	Am I mistaken here?
	There's a research reactor there.
	But striking the capital seems to be a major escalation.
	Blake.
	Yeah, I don't want to presume It could be that there are military facilities there they want to hit, so that could be elements of their military command structure.
	Maybe that's where some of their like fighters are based or they're like air defenses.
	So there's any number of reasons they could hit it because presumably they're banking on even if they want to strike the nuclear targets.
	They're so...
	And so I don't know what they would be aiming at, but there's any number of possible reasons they would go for it.
	Okay, so this is happening live right now.
	For those of you that are just tuning in, Israel has launched preemptive military strikes on the interior of Iran against nuclear reactors.
	So, Jack, I want to throw this to you from an intel standpoint.
	You can kind of see this building.
	Yesterday you saw Tom Cotton.
	And Lindsey Graham say, hey, you know, are they close to a bomb in Iran?
	Are they close to a bomb in Iran?
	The skeptics would say that, well, we've been hearing that for the last 30 years, that Iran is close to a nuclear weapon, close to a nuclear weapon.
	So, Jack, as from an intel standpoint, was Iran close to a nuclear weapon?
	Now, the question of is doesn't really mean anything.
	So tell us, you know, what is really going on here, and can we trust the intel agencies?
	Well, Charlie, this, of course, has been one of the most fractured debates that's gone on from the intel community and members of the U.S. political community, as well as the Israeli political community, as I mentioned before.
	Prime Minister Netanyahu really pushing for these strikes, of course, for quite some time, years in many cases, and has directly targeted these facilities with a variety of cyber attacks and other attacks over the years.
	The question comes down to, and the intel community's official assessment, everyone I've talked to in the intel community has always, and even from my time there, has said that Iran did not have an active.
	Weapons of mass destruction program in the sense of having an actual nuclear weapons program.
	But what they were doing was this uranium enrichment.
	And then the question, of course, and even, by the way, even D&I Gabbard, who many people pointed to and say that obviously she's no hawk, even she pointed out that their uranium enrichment was much higher, at a much higher yield than anyone would need for only a fuel program.
	We're only for nuclear energy.
	and so a lot of the war hawks have been pointing to that saying look it's clear that they're going to do this in order to uh in order to try to ratchet up their their ability for um their ability for escalation and so one of the things though that people pointed to is say well iran Trump, of course, ended Obama's Iran deal, which was a total handoff to them back in 2018.
	He ends this thing after the pallets of cash, and he had run on it, of course.
	Back in 2016, the Obama deal.
	And so after ending that deal, that's really when Iran pushed towards this enrichment to say, we are going to essentially kind of have a middle ground of saying, well, we're not restarting the program, but we are enriching this uranium, which of course puts them in a situation to say, well, they would potentially be able, if they chose, to use that in a weapon at any time.
	That being said, though, You know, that's my distillation of the intel on both sides there.
	That being said, we do know that Iran had been, it seems in good faith, conducting these negotiations with Steve Whitcoff, having meetings with him as appointed by President Trump.
	We saw President Trump earlier today saying that he had directed all members of his administration to pursue negotiations and diplomatic measures.
	And something where you've also seen in reports, I believe The Guardian had actually put out at one point that there was a potential for Russia to come in and be the guarantor of this program.
	Russia, of course, being the country that finished the building of the Bushir nuclear power plant, which we had on the map a minute ago, that's there on the coast.
	That is their completed nuclear power plant, the only one function.
	And so this had been a potential triangulation, if you will, of the negotiations between Ukraine, Russia, Israel.
	And Iran to say if the Russians were able to come in, this would be something that Obama's Iran deal had never considered, although it is kind of similar to one of the Syria deals prior to the Red Line back in 2013, where Russia came in and was the guarantor of Syria's chemical weapons.
	China also played a small role in that.
	And so there was really a lot of potential for talk regarding this.
	Now, of course, it remains to be seen what will happen because we don't know what the fallout will be.
	Both locally from, again, whether or not these facilities were destroyed.
	I think there are a lot of questions as to whether or not Israel had the capability of actually being able to really take out the program, given the fact that they are underground.
	Blake was mentioning that Israel doesn't have the bunker buster bombs that the U.S. has to be able to go after those underground facilities.
	And then, of course, whether or not Iran decides to blame the United States or claim this as some kind of proxy attack and cancel the negotiation.
	So a lot of that is going to be up in the air, just as the Israeli jets are up in the air right now over Iran.
	Blake, on the ground, what is going on in Israel?
	And do we know the breadth or the depth or the scale of these military strikes?
	And walk our audience through exactly the technical side of what just happened, probably what's happening right now.
	There are probably jets still right now, we know this certainly, in the air that are coming back from Israel.
	And we kind of saw this happening real time in our group chats.
	We're like, oh, there are sources that hear jets over Iraq.
	I mean, we kind of had a little bit more of a heads up than that.
	Blake, before you do that, everybody watching, I want to hear from you, freedomatcharliekirk.com.
	Do you support Israel striking Iran preemptively?
	I want to hear from you, freedomatcharliekirk.com.
	We're very interested, freedomatcharliekirk.com.
	Blake, your thoughts.
	Okay, yeah.
	So first of all, if you want the absolute breaking stuff, I'm monitoring...
	israeli news sites uh the jerusalem post hearts those are going to be where you get any info from the israeli government the idf as quickly as possible also of course on x it was very funny how you know we were seeing on xo reports of planes flying reports of explosions and then i'm looking at the new york times i'm looking at cnn it takes them Are you kidding me?
	And, you know, yeah, I think we were live before CNN even had a little, you know, thing up top.
	But I want to read what's, Jerusalem Post has kind of a breaking, steadily updated thing where they're getting the info from the IDF, the Israeli Defense Forces.
	And so what they say is, first of all, there are warning sirens have been set off to get the public ready for a potential Iranian counterattack.
	No ballistic missiles have been fired yet, but there are thousands of them.
	According to the IDF, so this is their justification for action, they said that Iran had enough uranium to weaponize it to nuclear levels to make 15 nuclear weapons within days.
	This is what the IDF says.
	In recent days, they say, Iran developed a plan with Hezbollah and Hamas and other proxies to destroy the state of Israel, potentially including attempts to attack via all borders including Egypt and Jordan.
	The IDF says this was, quote, a point of no return.
	Benjamin Netanyahu has entered the security cabinet.
	They're having some high-stakes meeting of the cabinet.
	This might be answering your question about why they would hit Tehran.
	IDF targets include commanders, bases, as well as nuclear sites, though the main goal is the nuclear sites.
	The IDF claims they believe Iran was taken by surprise and was attacked in places they did not expect.
	That would potentially answer the question of why they would do it now, rather than waiting through the weekend.
	There might be an element that they had already given up on the process, but they didn't want to tip their hand that they had given up by waiting for negotiations over the weekend to fail.
	Jerusalem Post continues here.
	Israel has had strong coordination with the U.S., but Israeli military officials refuse to say whether America was pre-updated or fully coordinated into the current attack.
	And that's all the relevant info we have now, and they're constantly adding to this.
	So I think this is statements that are coming from an IDF person as we speak, and it's middle of the night there.
	So, this is all unfolding in life.
	Help me understand, though.
	Blake, help me understand this.
	Negotiations were going on.
	This is the Just the News headline.
	This is not Charlie Kirk's opinion.
	This is Just the News from John Solomon.
	Just the News headline is this, which is, Israel launches attack on Iran in defiance of Trump's urgings.
	So, help me understand.
	It seems like negotiations were going on.
	Do we even know enough about that?
	So, basically, fill in the blanks here.
	So I believe Trump had said there was some sort of deadline to make a deal, I think a few months ago.
	And that deadline was right around now, or maybe it even just passed.
	But Trump has always been...
	He'll always say, Iran can't have a nuclear weapon.
	He is not willing to allow that to happen.
	but he's Trump the dealmaker.
	He's always going around saying, I am...
	I'm ready to make a deal.
	I'm hopeful for making a deal.
	And we saw it just today.
	He's saying, I'm committed to reaching a diplomatic resolution of this.
	Now, him saying it today, there's a couple possible interpretations.
	One is he genuinely was still seeking that deal and was trying to message, please make the deal before something happens.
	Or there's the possibility...
	And we've seen several attempts to communicate that just before the strikes happened.
	I believe Axios, I think, was reporting that there was communication.
	Someone in the White House, I think Witkoff, said the White House has disassociated itself from any Israeli attempt.
	They might know about it, but they're not.
	We're cooperating with it.
	So whether that's true or not, I think we're certainly going to see the U.S. government claim that we were not involved in this because obviously once this has happened, our biggest concern is our American troops in Iraq, in Kuwait, in Saudi Arabia, in whatever bases we have in the Middle East, are they going to be in danger of being hit?
	And so what does the retaliation then look like?
	We got Tyler Boyer in the chair, which I actually want to ask the political question to Tyler next, because I'm also, this is going to schism MAGA terribly online.
	I mean, you are going to see, I don't want to say a MAGA civil war, but it's going to be a MAGA online food fight, the likes of which is going to be very, very hard to navigate.
	We saw this coming, but apparently that was not...
	And that's fine.
	Maybe there's stuff that we don't know.
	But Jack, how could Iran respond?
	And what do you have to say, Jack, to this idea that there might be Iranian sleeper cells in America that Joe Biden allowed in the country?
	We had 10 million people come into the country.
	Are there Iranian sleeper cells right now in America that then could be activated by the mullahs?
	Well, Charlie, of course, the answer is yes, that could Iran have gotten sleeper cells in the United States?
	I think that's increasingly likely and and almost certainly they have operatives within the United States.
	Also, Iran is famous for.
	Look, we just saw the Ukrainians launch this huge kamikaze-style drone attack deep within Russian territory.
	It would be very easy for Iran to do something like that or to have smuggled such types of things across the U.S. border in the Biden years where there was no operational control of vast swaths of the U.S. border other than by the cartels.
	So it would be it would be very simple for them to just pay the cartels to allow them to do such a thing.
	When it comes to direct retaliation, though, I think more than likely at this point, unless unless more information comes in at this point, it seems as though their retaliation will be.
	They certainly can.
	They have the capability to do so.
	They have a robust ballistic missile program.
	They have two, by the way, two militaries in Iran, the nominal Iranian forces, the regulars, as well as the IRGC, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.
	Those are the forces that are directly Subordinated to the Ayatollah.
	So there's the Ayatollah's forces and the country's forces.
	It's a little bit different than we do in the United States, as it would be.
	But certainly they have ballistic missile capability, and I would expect that that is what they use, again, in strikes on Israel.
	Obviously, we'll see, you know, I think Israeli Air Force bases, potentially whatever bases were used to conduct this strike, would probably be the most likely attacks.
	So, Tyler, let's talk.
	I mean, we're monitoring the situation in real time.
	Actually, let me just check one of my sources here.
	Okay, this is one of my sources who has...
	Jack, how right were my sources today?
	Charlie, you...
	Down to the exact minutes.
	So, you guys can watch all the chattering people on TV, but we have good sources here.
	This seems to be like an all-out attack and possibly the start of another regional war.
	That is what I am—that's what—again, you guys can say that's not true, but this is from very, very good intel.
	I mean, I'm seeing here that Jerusalem Post just continues to update, and they say there are mixed reports of a possibility that Israel has targeted Iran's chief of staff.
	That would be presumably—I think I've got his name here—General Mohammed Bagheri.
	General Mohammed Bagheri, chief of staff, that would be the— Basically the top general, you know, like Milley was chief of staff under Biden.
	I can't remember who our chief of staff is right now.
	But, like, top general.
	So if you're trying to decapitate the top of their military, you've moved beyond just a limited strike on their nuclear sites, and you are attempting to hobble their entire military apparatus.
	We need to confirm that.
	We don't know that for sure.
	This is a report.
	Mixed reports from Jerusalem Post, so they're presumably drawing on Israeli sources what the IDF is saying.
	Not confirmed.
	The world is waking up to the power of gold.
	National banks are scrambling to secure it.
	According to the World Gold Council, central banks added 1,000 tons of gold in 2024, the third straight year of net gold buying.
	They understand what many investors don't.
	Gold is real money.
	Unlike paper currency, gold's value doesn't disappear with inflation, reckless government spending, or market crashes.
	Now, Noble Gold Investments makes it easy for you to claim As our new administration works to reverse the economic chaos of the past, market swings are inevitable.
	When uncertainty rises, you need something solid, something to keep you on the path to financial freedom.
	Gold can be that foundation.
	And right now, when you make a qualified investment, Noble Gold will send you a free tenth ounce of a cold coin.
	Visit NobleGoldInvestments.com.
	That's NobleGoldInvestments.com.
	The world is turning to gold.
	Shouldn't you be looking into doing that too?
	If there's going to be, let's just say from the get-go, we're in a fog of war situation.
	We're receiving this information as much as anybody else.
	People know people know who Charlie is.
	People know who I am.
	People know who we know.
	But that being said, everyone is in the fog of war on this situation.
	So just caveat everything.
	And we'll do our best.
	We'll do our level best.
	And if there's anything that we put out that ends up being being corrected, we'll certainly make sure to be able to update that as well.
	So we're drinking from the fire hose just as much as everybody else trying to make sense of this out there.
	So, yeah, the senior Israeli official said high probability that Iran's chief of staff was eliminated.
	And that Israel began this attack with direct elimination of many IRGC commanders.
	This is not just a targeted attack against nuclear facilities based on what we are reading.
	This seems like Israel that is calling the bluff against Iran.
	And the question is, guys, is this going to drag America into a war against Iran?
	Who wants to take that one?
	And that's the real question.
	I mean, I think the debate's already started.
	It's pretty much a wildfire on X, which is, you know, if there's one thing, if you could probably sum up President Trump's campaign from 2024, it was that electing me is going to prevent World War III.
	Is that fair to say with the conversation with Kamala?
	And so this was one of the biggest promises, if not the biggest promise of the campaign, is with me, you get less war.
	I'm an anti-war president.
	I'm a guy that makes sure that conflict does not happen across the world.
	I'm looking for the best and most reasonable deal to make.
	I'm the deal guy.
	And, you know, right now we kind of went into this week going, well, if President Trump isn't strong enough with the rioters in L.A. That's going to be problematic.
	If President Trump is not strong enough on the border, we've known this all throughout and provides any kind of amnesty to illegals and to the anti-American protesters that we've seen in California, that's going to be a problem.
	But war with Iran, I would argue, is going to spin out into something here that's much bigger than what I think we even are realizing right now.
	But they're going to try to blame Trump for war, regardless of how hard he fights against it.
	So this is multi-regional is what it looks like.
	Speaker Johnson yesterday announced he's actually going to be addressing the Israeli Knesset on June 22nd.
	So let me ask the audience.
	Ten days from now.
	Email us, freedom at charliekirk.com.
	If it's true, if it's true, and if it's true that Israel is striking Iran more than just nuclear facilities and they're going after chief of staff, according to Amir Safardi, who's very, very well respected and is very well sourced, he says, quote, high probability that Iran's chief of staff was eliminated.
	Iran began this attack with the direct elimination of many IRGC commanders.
	So if it is more than just targeting Iranian nuclear facilities, does that change your level of support?
	Email us, freedom at charliekirk.com.
	Breaking news from Reuters.
	Iran's leadership holds top security meeting senior Iranian official to Reuters.
	They are planning an all-out response.
	And now I have the second person that is predicting this is going to be a regional war.
	Quote, Bagheri is second in command after Kwamele.
	And it's very possible that the Israel attacks took him out tonight.
	Man, holding a meeting.
	I hope they're holding it via Zoom, because I feel like I always read about these meetings getting blown up.
	But, yeah, yeah, so second-in-command under, and, like, they're saying second-in-command under the Supreme Leader, who is a religious cleric.
	He's not a military commander.
	And just because we've repeated it, IRGC is the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
	So just so we are clear, taking out Bajeri would be the equivalent of assassinating J.D. Vance and Susie Wiles together.
	That's essentially how the Iranian government works, to the best of our understanding.
	That would be the combined lethality.
	So the IDF spokesperson has just said, quote, the IDF launched a preemptive strike to damage the Iranian nuclear program.
	Dozens of Air Force aircraft recently completed the opening strike.
	Opening strike.
	The public must obey the home front commands.
	Iran has been a threat for quite some time.
	And it looks like they went after more than just nuclear facilities.
	So how do we think the Trump...
	There's going to be hell to pay if this was done in defiance of Trump.
	Well, that's the question, right?
	We're seeing that.
	That's he came out very publicly today and said negotiations, negotiations, negotiations.
	And so.
	by the way, all of Israel, and the entire stability of the region, not to mention what it would do to the fallout of oil prices?
	Here we are at the beginning of summer, folks, beginning of summer, and we've got a war kicking off.
	In the Middle East, which has, and if these indications are true, has all the hallmarks of something that could incite a wider regional war.
	What do you think that's going to do to gas prices, to supplies, to everything else as we look at the very beginning of the summer?
	Certainly, this is not what, and yeah, Israeli media is, now again, Israeli media.
	Is saying that this was coordinated with the United States.
	I'm going to wait to hear from our own presidents of the United States when it comes to something like that.
	But of course, that is what they're putting out right now.
	Again, we just saw President Trump a few hours ago say negotiations.
	And of course, there was a lot of reporting.
	Yeah, that's true.
	They're just getting this as but it could be a translation thing.
	So this is Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who says the following.
	Tonight, Israel took unilateral action against Iran.
	We are not involved in the strikes against Iran, and our top priority is protecting American forces in the region.
	Israel advised us that they believed this was necessary for its self-defense.
	President Trump and the administration taken all necessary steps to protect our forces and remain in close contact All being said, that is a very, very neutral statement from Marco Rubio.
	That was not a supportive statement at all, by the way.
	That was, in fact, what he's attempting to do here is put distance.
	So what he's trying to do is put distance between the United States.
	Look, the United States has 40,000 to 50,000 troops in the Middle East writ large.
	So yes, of course, we have combat troops and a variety of troops on the ground in Iraq and Syria.
	But of course, we have troops all over.
	The Persian Gulf.
	Of course, DOD calls it the Arabian Gulf, but I'm not in uniform right now, so I'm going to say Persian Gulf, because that's what most people know.
	And a variety, a variety of targets right across the Gulf.
	When you're talking about Qatar, when you're talking about our troops in Bahrain, our troops in Jordan, our troops in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, just all over the place, all over the place, not to mention, I believe the Carl Vinson aircraft carrier, the carrier battle group is there, and the Truman is there.
	Certainly within the region as well.
	Plus, we know that back in April during these, the Houthi strikes, when all that was going on, there were B2 bombers that were flown to Diego Garcia.
	Now, that's not within range of Iran.
	But of course, there were a lot of people saying that those bombers could potentially be used if a wider regional war were to break out.
	And well, we could be looking at the very beginning of a wider regional war right now.
	And you got to believe with that response.
	Yeah, Tyler, go ahead.
	I was just going to say that response from Marco Rubio.
	I mean, Marco Rubio historically has not been a person to shy away from, you know, over the course of his long career from Neo Connie type, you know, excitement.
	It's happened in the past with him.
	And so for him to come out and, you know, obviously he's a changed man.
	He's a lot of a different guy today than he was then.
	But for him to come out and make that very clear statement, I think is reassuring for a lot of Trump supporters who are listening to this.
	And I hope that that's the case for most that are watching this, is that the president has made a commitment.
	And I don't think they would come out that rapidly, that fast, with that statement if that wasn't true.
	Sorry, Charlie.
	No, it's fine.
	I want everyone to email us, freedomatcharliekirk.com.
	So here's the sequence that I'm most afraid of.
	Let me walk you through it.
	Israel strikes.
	Iran retaliates big time.
	There is a regional war.
	The U.S. is then pressured to send more aid to Israel.
	MAGA will likely resist sending more aid to Israel based on the emails that I'm getting right now.
	And I want to hear from you guys, freedomatcharliekirk.com.
	By the way, there are initial reports, it's fog of war, that a high-rise apartment, a Initial reports of missiles launched by Iran towards Israel.
	So the question is, do you guys support sending U.S. money and military aid to Israel?
	Email us, freedom at charliekirk.com.
	We're getting thousands of emails.
	I want to read them.
	I want to analyze what you're thinking in real time here.
	And do you believe that this was an act of self-defense by Israel or an offensive position?
	Again, the emails are so largely overwhelmingly against the Israel doing this.
	I'd say it's probably a 99 to 1. But email us, freedom at charliekirk.com.
	Jack, your thoughts?
	Well, Charlie, we did the same thing with emails earlier.
	For human events, and it was a similar ratio.
	There were a lot of people calling for saying, why is this something that should be done now when we're in the midst of negotiations?
	Why not trust President Trump?
	Why not trust the work that Steve Witkoff is doing and try to find a way where certainly we know that President Trump has been committed to peace?
	This obviously is not the path towards peace.
	This is the path towards a wider regional war.
	And of course, hearing whether or not it's true that there were strikes in some of these other regions, whether it be Yemen on the Houthis who are Iran's proxy force there or other areas.
	The goal, of course, would be to incite a wider regional war or perhaps provoke a unified response from the Arab countries against the non-
	And so the question is, of course, I think on everyone's mind, how large will Iran's retaliations be?
	And quite frankly, how far are these strikes going to go?
	Is this the first round, or is this the opening salvo of strikes?
	And if it's simply this and we can all go to bed, perhaps that's one thing.
	But I don't think that's how it's going to be.
	I just saw an interesting point.
	Also, Tyler, I think, Tyler, there's going to be some major protests and riots in the country coming up in the next couple of days.
	And one interesting comment that just came through from a person I really trust just said, hey, please don't forget, we just saw the statement from Marco Rubio.
	That's fantastic.
	Don't forget that Kamala Harris could be president right now.
	Imagine a world in which this...
	Or does this happen much faster, much earlier, which I think it probably would have.
	Something of this nature is probably, they're probably a little bit bummed actually that Trump got elected because they were wanting to strike much more quickly.
	And again, depending upon where you're at on the spectrum with that, but I'm just so grateful that Kamala Harris is a president right now.
	Can you imagine the amount of instability?
	That we would have across the world.
	And she would be like, so Iran is this big country.
	Oh, can you imagine?
	In the Middle East.
	Cute.
	And they have a nuclear program.
	A nuclear program is what enriches uranium to make...
	And yeah, you'd want to die the whole time.
	The whole time.
	She'd be in front of Congress right now trying to talk down to Speaker Johnson.
	It would just be a terrible, terrible situation.
	And to Charlie's point, there's going to be protests.
	There's going to be backlash.
	And the Democrats are in a really bad, precarious position right now because they've been the antagonizers of war across the world.
	And so you're not going to have prominent Democrats coming out and doing it the same way that they did to Bush.
	That it's not going to be the same recourse that they will have with members of Congress.
	So it's going to be really interesting politically how this is going to play out.
	That's why I think it's so important for MAGA to stay firmly on the side of opposing war.
	And I think that that's probably majority of expectations from Republicans.
	Probably 80-20, I would guess.
	75-25.
	Somewhere in there.
	So the politics of this are quite interesting.
	I'm trying to understand the situation on the ground.
	So Iran has declared a nationwide state of emergency.
	Netanyahu says, quote, this operation will continue for as many days as it takes.
	There are multiple reports of residential buildings that are being collapsed, multiple residential buildings in Tehran on fire or collapsing after Israeli airstrikes on Iran's capital.
	So this is just the beginning.
	But help me understand, Jack, if this is just going after nuclear reactors or nuclear weapons, are they striking the apartment buildings because maybe there were generals there?
	This seems a lot broader than just a targeted strike against Iranian nuclear reactors.
	Well, Charlie, that's possible.
	Also, another possibility could be, and I think you see this quite a bit in Ukraine, where they may have been conducting attacks and potentially targeting command structures, command and control structures within Tehran.
	Of course, that's where Iranian leadership is.
	And the reason that you're seeing these hits on Apartment buildings and residential buildings rather than on command and control centers of the higher leadership.
	This is what happens potentially when you see missiles that are shot down, when you see interceptors, when you see debris, when you see these various types of munitions, you get blowback.
	And so that blowback ends up hitting the, you know, might hit the tower, but not take it out, conduct debris.
	That's where you're hitting civilians on and getting that collateral damage.
	Unfortunately, as the parlance is, the civilians do become that damage if it is one of those situations where there's a missile shoot down from Iranian air defense missiles or potentially if a missile malfunctioned.
	But of course, as you say, if there were a general or some high-level official, some cleric inside, then that was being targeted if they were the second-in-command.
	Potentially, although the question is, would they really be living in a civilian high-rise like that?
	And so a lot of this is going to shake out.
	We're still in the fog of war, but this is war.
	This is what war is like.
	Wars are never, they never go the way you think they're going to go.
	Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face and the enemy gets a vote.
	The enemy gets a vote.
	And so this has always been the nature of warfare from the very early days.
	And so we will see.
	We will see what happens.
	Are they able to ratchet up the escalatory ladder before Iran can respond with significant attacks?
	The ballistic missiles?
	Will Israel be able to shoot down ballistic missiles with the Golden Dome?
	What do Iran's allies do?
	What does Russia do?
	What does China do?
	Will American forces in the region face retaliatory measures?
	Again, all of this really coming into question here as we determine the initial battle damage assessments from what we're being told, at least, is the opening salvo of strikes.
	Okay, let's go to cut 519.
	This is the official statement from the IDF 519.
	For years, the Iranian regime has called for the destruction of the state of Israel.
	Planning and advancing concrete military plans to do so.
	Over the past few months, intelligence has shown that Iran is closer than ever to obtaining a nuclear weapon.
	This morning, the IDF began preemptive and precise strikes targeting the Iranian nuclear program in order to prevent the Iranian regime's ability to build a nuclear bomb in the immediate time frame.
	We have no choice.
	We are operating against an imminent and existential threat.
	We cannot allow the Iranian regime to obtain a nuclear weapon that would be a danger to Israel and the entire world.
	This operation is for our right to exist here, for our future and for our children's future.
	The State of Israel has the right and the obligation to operate in order to protect its people and will continue to do so.
	The IDF conducted significant preparations for this operation.
	We are well prepared, both in defense and offense, to defend ourselves.
	The IDF will continue to defend the state of Israel.
	So, Blake, I want to throw this to you.
	Blake, is it, and I'm not even taking a side here, is it self-defense to strike another country that is threatening you?
	Is that in the rules of war, in the kind of way that we look at?
	The doctrine of self-defense is striking another sovereign country self-defense.
	I mean, the frustrating answer is it depends.
	If like an attack is imminent, I think there's general agreement.
	Like if you know with certainty an enemy is about to attack you, then striking in advance is...
	I think most people would concede that it's acceptable, it's just, it's probably the right move.
	The line, of course, is when do you actually know that sort of thing?
	And when are you actually just sort of recklessly provoking wars with anyone you perceive as a threat?
	Or if you're elevating threats in your own mind and creating them where they wouldn't necessarily exist otherwise.
	And I think...
	I think in 1992 or 1993 is the first time Netanyahu, I think he was just a member of the Knesset then, he said Iran was three to five years away from getting a nuclear weapon.
	And then about three years later, he said they're one to two years away from a nuclear weapon.
	And then he said, you know, they're six months to a year.
	He was saying that around the time of the Iraq war.
	He was saying that during Obama's administration.
	He was saying that during Trump's first administration.
	We have literally been here.
	I'm hearing about Iran's being close to a nuclear weapon as long as I have been alive.
	And I'm not 20. I'm over 30 here.
	And so they've been pushing this a long time, and that's going to color any claims like, oh, this time we're dead serious.
	They were about to build a nuclear bomb.
	I just remember in 2013, so much stuff.
	Oh, they're a few months away from having a nuclear bomb.
	And then even if they do, that doesn't equate to them actually using a nuclear bomb.
	So you'd have to go on to that level too.
	Pakistan has nuclear weapons.
	They're an Islamic country with an Islamic government.
	And that actually hasn't led to nuclear war.
	North Korea is an extremely loopy country.
	They have nuclear weapons.
	That is scary.
	I don't like that at all.
	But it hasn't led to a nuclear war.
	And so that's going to color how people react to this.
	I want to flag because we have a few of these donations.
	Marisha91 said, everyone agrees that war is bad.
	No one agrees on when war is necessary.
	I've got to disagree with that one.
	I'm not sure Lindsey Graham agrees that war is bad.
	I think some people think war is fun.
	War is exciting.
	War gives them that tingle down their leg.
	You have to remember, there's some people that explicitly go into politics because of war.
	that they love war so much that they go in.
	And again, there's some really great people who serve in our military who become...
	They've lived it.
	It's been part of it.
	That's why they go in is to use what they've learned to be helpful.
	And there's others that go in and that have made significant sums of money from the concept of war.
	And there's lots of people who love it.
	Private student loan debt in America totals about $300 billion.
	About $45 billion of that is labeled as distressed.
	YReFi refinances distressed or defaulted private student loans that others will not touch.
	YReFi doesn't care what your credit score is.
	You can finally take control of your student loan situation with a plan that works for your monthly budget.
	Go to YReFi.com.
	Do you have a co-borrower?
	YReFi can get them released from the loan.
	You guys have got to check it out right now at YReFi.com.
	That is YReFi.com.
	So check it out right now.
	That's YReFi.com.
	Call 888-YREFI-34 or log on to YReFi.com.
	May not be available in all 50 states.
	Do you have a co-borrower?
	Well, YReFi can help you guys out.
	Privacy and loan debt in America totals $300 billion.
	Go to YREFI.com.
	That is YREFI.com.
	May not be available in all 50 states.
	Go to YREFI.com.
	And so, I guess the question is, Jack, the escalatory response here, what could Iran do if they go all out to try to respond to Israel?
	and will they loop the United States or Saudi Arabia into that?
	Well, yeah, Charlie, like I said, in any...
	military scenario, your assessment, you want to usually create two most likely and most dangerous.
	So I said earlier that the most likely course of action will be strikes on Israel's military strikes on their We'll see if Israel is able to counter that.
	And now, as we're learning more about these strikes on Iranian leadership, well, I'm sure that Iran's generals and the leaders of the IRGC, as well as Somalas, they're probably going to be calling for strikes on Israeli leadership as well, I would say, including the Knesset building itself, where Speaker Johnson is supposed to be speaking himself in just 10 days.
	That, again, depends on the level of this opening salvo and whether or not there are more waves of strikes planned.
	Fighters traveling Mach 2 would take about two hours, excuse me, 45 minutes to reach Tehran from Tel Aviv.
	45 minutes to an hour between salvo so we'll know pretty soon here since the first round of strikes is about one hour ago if there's another round of strikes taking place tonight we'll know that pretty soon it should be occurring and so If if they want to go further than that, of course, hitting Israeli energy infrastructure, hitting Israeli civilian targets, as well as potentially even threatening holy sites, of course, all could be on the table.
	Most dangerous scenario, of course, could be the the shutdown.
	I know people say it all the time, but just to explain it, that's a critical choke point.
	It is the mouth of the Persian Gulf.
	It is a very narrow strip of water through which 20% of the entire world's oil supply flows through on a daily basis.
	And so putting mines in the Strait of Hormuz or putting out these picket ships from the fast attack boats, from the IRGC and the IRGC Navy.
	Could all be potential threats to that civilian merchant shipping and to those supertankers traveling through this trade of Hormuz.
	This would, of course, roil energy markets and be used to be able to essentially hold hostage the entire world's economy.
	So let me ask.
	So, Blake, do you think that the Iranian mullahs get stronger or weaker?
	So, Blake, do you think the Iranian mullahs get stronger or weaker?
	With an attack like this, this can actually consolidate bad guys'hold on a country.
	Look, the West hates us.
	They're attacking us.
	I know it's hard to tell, but I can actually see a scenario where the bad government gets more.
	More popular here.
	What do you think?
	Yeah, definitely.
	I think in the context of the situation, unless like incredibly strong proof is offered that they that as the IDF claims they were about to assemble nuclear weapons and launch an attack, which.
	I it sounds it's a very strong sounding claim to me that you could see in the Jerusalem Post.
	They were claiming that they were planning to build about a dozen nuclear weapons.
	They would be able to assemble them quickly.
	And they were planning an attack on Israel, including via the Egyptian and Jordanian border.
	They were essentially claiming a like pan Middle Eastern plot to attack Israel, like a six day war type scenario when, you know, the overall situation is, you know, They've basically stayed out of this one.
	I'm really interested in what the basis of that claim is.
	And so what you have is they were in negotiations with the United States.
	Obviously, relations are bad.
	We've had some missile exchanges back and forth.
	There's certainly room to claim this was already a very low-level war, especially when you take into account that Hamas is to some extent a proxy.
	Hezbollah is definitely a proxy of Iran.
	There's already a lot of conflict between the two.
	They'll certainly be able to claim we did not take this radical step and we were still in negotiations with the United States.
	And combined with the fact that their population already doesn't like Israel that much, the wider Middle East doesn't like Israel that much, I think this is going to not be great for their reputation.
	I imagine Israel's calculation was this is dangerous enough.
	We don't really care about our reputation on this one.
	That is going to be their attitude on it.
	Now, how this unfolds from here, I get scared by the fact that our ability to control what happens here is very limited.
	Essentially, Iran has the chance to decide how they want to respond and how much they want us involved.
	Right now, I think our attitude here, you know, you, Charlie, Tyler, Jack, our attitude is we don't want war.
	And I think most of MAGA is saying the same thing.
	We don't want a war.
	We don't want this war to involve us.
	That's easy for us to say now.
	But Iran has thousands of ballistic missiles.
	Now, maybe they shoot all of them at Israel, but maybe they lob them at a bunch of bases and in two days there are 200 dead U.S. troops who got blown to smithereens by an Iranian response.
	What do we do then?
	Truthfully, what do we do then?
	Like, people are going to be outraged and hundreds of U.S. troops are dead.
	What do we do?
	And the thing is, is Iran might decide to do that because they might make the calculation.
	America lost in Afghanistan.
	America is very indebted.
	America is overstretched.
	What if you want to dare America to try to deploy 100,000 troops into Iran?
	And if people don't visualize this, you might think, okay, we whacked Saddam.
	That was pretty easy.
	Iraq is a flat country.
	It's just a bunch of people along two rivers in this relatively flat desert.
	Iran is three times the size of Iraq.
	It has three times as many people as Iraq did when we invaded it.
	It's heavily mountainous.
	It's heavily spread out.
	It has spent way more time preparing for a war against the United States.
	By which I mean, Iraq was this sort of play army.
	like they were trying to pretend to be America.
	So they had tanks and they had dudes with machine guns and they had fighter jets, Iran actually, like, is more self-aware that they are outmatched by the United States.
	So, for example, they have a navy, but it's like all little motorboats that you can put little suicide bombers on, and you try to sail them up to a boat and blow it up.
	They have a ton of drones.
	They have a ton of stuff that is designed for a weak country fighting against a strong country.
	And yeah, We can drop a ton of bombs on Tehran.
	We can drop a ton of bombs on any other place.
	Not as many because we gave a bunch of them to Ukraine.
	But I don't know that we actually have the ability to just take 100,000 U.S. troops, 200,000 U.S. troops and try to occupy Iran in some regime change war.
	And I think Iran might realize that and think, make my day.
	America, we're going to try to get you sucked into this because we hate you and we're going to And if they decide to do that, I don't know if we at this point have the power to stop them.
	If they kill hundreds of U.S. troops, I don't know that there will be the political will to say we have to stay out of this one.
	People will want revenge.
	We have John Solomon.
	Okay, John is here.
	John from JustTheNews.com.
	John, you have an article that's going viral right now saying that Israel defied Trump's urges.
	Please tell us about the reporting, John Solomon, and what led to this incredible historic event of Israel's strike against Iran.
	Some breaking news just a few minutes ago.
	Marco Rubio telling Iran, do not attack our troops in the Middle East or anywhere.
	Because we did not join Israel in this attack.
	Israel acted alone.
	That is Marco Rubio's statement just put out about three minutes ago.
	There's a news alert on Just the News.
	Yeah, listen, I think the Trump administration wanted more time to try to get an Iran deal in place.
	They believe that Iran is a little further from having a nuclear weapon than Israel's assessment.
	Not far different.
	Months in the US assessment, weeks in the Israel assessment.
	And Israel had some urgency, believing that there might have been another sort of proxy attack in the wings with Lebanon.
	I think the president said, hey, you feel like you got to protect yourself?
	Protect yourself.
	But we're not sanctioning this.
	This is your action, not ours.
	And Bibi went ahead and did it.
	So we'll see how that plays out.
	There are four things going on right now.
	The president has a cabinet meeting going on right now, even as Marco Rubio issued that statement.
	The FBI is mobilizing all of its counterterrorism experts to make sure that no Hezbollah cells.
	We know we have lots of Hezbollah cells on our soil here in America.
	We know some.
	We don't know some because of what came in during the Biden years.
	There will be a full alert for all counterterrorism outfits in the country to be looking for any suspicious activity that would suggest that Iran has given some signal to its sleeper cells here to attack on U.S. things.
	All military personnel have been on alert for two days already in the Middle East, but they'll be watching for all signs that Iran tries to drag, as you said, drag U.S. into this attack by attacking our troops.
	All of that is ongoing as we speak right now.
	But it is true that Trump didn't want this attack tonight.
	He told Netanyahu, if you got to do it because you feel like you have an imminent threat, you do it, but you do it on your own and you have to deal with it, what the consequences are.
	So we're watching things really closely.
	I think, Mark, the Rubio statement is very important.
	It's a very strong statement.
	It's very seldom that the U.S. has said, hey, Israel's on their own on this one.
	But that's what Rubio just said.
	Well, so, John, how does that then manifest from military aid missiles?
	Because if Israel is going to get into a regional or a kinetic war, then at what, I mean, Because I can tell you right now, our audience is so against what Israel is doing right now, just looking at the emails.
	Does this mean that the U.S. aid to Israel is over?
	I don't think so yet.
	Listen, Donald Trump has still been a strong supporter of Israel.
	Donald Trump has fresh in his mind atrocities that Iran allowed and funded and caused to happen on October 7th, which was their 9/11.
	I think the president will I think we will continue to support them in the short term.
	That's the guidance I got earlier today.
	The Trump White House knew this was going for two days, so there's been no surprise about it.
	It really comes down to how does Iran react in the next several days?
	Does it try to drag another Western or American ally into this, attack Saudi Arabia, attack Iraq, attack our troops and some of our forward-leaning bases in the Middle East?
	That will have one calculation.
	I think Iran is pretty smart to know that they don't want to poke the bear unless they're ready for a real war.
	Keep in mind that some of Iran's military protection has been diverted to Russia.
	So it doesn't have as full a complement as it would have had two years ago before the Ukraine war began sucking up resources from Russia.
	So that's another piece that goes into the calculus.
	My guess is this is a four or five day operation between both sides.
	Then there'll be a truce.
	And then America will go back to the bargaining table and say, "Let's not have another one of these.
	Let's get this done." Now, if Israel hits successfully a major nuclear site and Iran is really upset and they actually caused damage and set the program back, Iran might want to prolong it.
	But we'll wait and see.
	A lot needs to be sorted out.
	There's always propaganda in the early moments of the war.
	some of Israel's statements tonight.
	We just don't know if they're true, right?
	We don't know if there We don't know if there's been some acceleration.
	We do know one thing.
	About two hours ago, the UN Atomic Weapons Agency said that Iran is more out of compliance than it's been in a long time on its nuclear obligations.
	That is something that comes from a body that's more generally sympathetic to Iran.
	It is a warning sign that Iran might be moving ahead with a nuclear weapon.
	But I think the US is going to let Israel fight this on its own.
	Okay, so a question here, John.
	So the Iranian jets are now airborne, heading towards Israel, it looks like, according to reports.
	And so this will likely escalate in the coming days.
	How do you see this as far as the MAGA movement?
	What do you think the sentiment is amongst the rank and file politically?
	Because that kind of very...
	John?
	Yeah, listen, I think the MAGA movement is going to take its cues from President Trump.
	They trust President Trump.
	He has created a far more stable world just in the first four or five months.
	They'll be looking for cues for the president.
	Marco Rubio's statement is the first cue.
	Iran, we didn't do this.
	This is your beef with Israel.
	You take it up with them.
	Now, if Iran tries to drag us in, American sentiment and the MAGA movement will move very quickly.
	And Donald Trump, as he has shown previously, when he took out Soleimani in 2020, won't hesitate to use military might.
	And we could harm Iran pretty heavily, pretty quickly.
	I know a ground war is not of anyone's interest.
	But our air superiority over Iran would be significant.
	Their drones wouldn't work on us because we don't have a significant forward-leaning location where they can deploy their drones.
	We could put some big hurt on it.
	I think Iran knows that.
	How this plays out, I think it's about a seven or eight day war.
	I think Iran and Israel will fight it out until they get tired for a while and then they'll take a pause and assess the damage.
	Donald Trump's moment to get people to the bargaining table and see if we can resume negotiations.
	Okay, let's play Bibi Netanyahu's statement.
	Cut 523, please.
	Moments ago, Israel launched Operation Rising Lion, a targeted military operation to roll back the Iranian threat to Israel's very survival.
	This operation will continue for as many days as it takes to remove this threat.
	For decades, the tyrants of Tehran have brazenly, openly called for Israel's destruction.
	They've backed up their genocidal rhetoric with a program to develop nuclear weapons.
	In recent years, Iran has produced enough highly enriched uranium for nine atom bombs.
	Nine.
	In recent months, Iran has taken steps that it has never taken before.
	Steps to weaponize this enriched uranium.
	And if not stopped, Iran could produce a nuclear weapon in a very short time.
	It could be a year.
	It could be within a few months, less than a year.
	This is a clear and present danger to Israel's very survival.
	So, John, the counterargument that people will say is that we've been hearing that for the last 20 to 30 years.
	John?
	Yeah, that's true.
	I've certainly heard it for the last 10 or 15 years.
	And then there was a pause with the 2016 Obama.
	Deal, though Iran did continue to work behind the scenes.
	I will tell you this.
	I've always taken the grain of salt that Iran's getting really close to a nuclear weapon.
	But in the last eight months, both people who are very liberal and have been very supportive and tolerant of Iran have told me they have really accelerated.
	We're seeing a level of behavior we haven't seen.
	That was really the message today in the UN.
	Atomic weapons statement that came out, which I think surprised Iran.
	They didn't think that was coming.
	The Trump intelligence people believe that there has been an acceleration.
	That's why they moved more aggressively into negotiations.
	Remember, Donald Trump wasn't that interested in Iran negotiations during the election.
	But he saw the intelligence when he came in, and he made a calculated decision that's in the world's interest to try to negotiate.
	I do think there's been an acceleration based on the 360-degree I don't know.
	The Trump administration will take for the first few days until things sort itself out.
	Jack, do you have a question for John here?
	Jack Posobiec here on Real America's Voice.
	Jack.
	Going back to John's question regarding the sleeper cells, I would like to hear more about what we know about potential sleeper cells that came in under Biden.
	Oh, yeah.
	That is a really, really big concern.
	Inside the FBI, inside the larger Intelligence Committee.
	There were some here already.
	We thwarted an attack in 2011 and 12 against the Saudi Arabia ambassador, Abu al-Jabbar.
	But we barely caught that.
	We got lucky on that one.
	And the open border allowed so many people to come in.
	You saw all those passports that Ben shows on air all the time.
	A lot of them were Iranian.
	There is grave concern that there are far more than we know of.
	The FBI, since the moment Kash Patel got in, has put a big press in to get all the identities of anyone they think could be Even remotely associated with radicals.
	But three months isn't enough to undo the damage of four years of Joe Biden.
	So that is the gravest concern.
	And, you know, we deal with some of these lone actors and even Al Qaeda is the rookie leagues of terrorism compared to Hezbollah.
	Hezbollah are the best of the best.
	And they probably sent their best sleeper cells to America.
	So it is something that we're all going to have to be on alert.
	Hopefully, Iran will take Donald Trump at his word that We don't support it.
	We still want a negotiation.
	And if you poke this bear, you're going to regret it.
	According to CNN, the entire Iranian general staff, including the head of all military, several senior Iranian nuclear scientists, all eliminated tonight, Intel suggests.
	That was their targets.
	I can tell you from talking to Israel in the last couple hours that this was more than just a nuclear strike.
	This was a decapitation strike against their military, particularly the Republican Guard leadership.
	So they're achieving more than just a preemptive nuclear strike.
	They're trying to wipe out the military control and command capabilities Yeah, and so Iran is a big country and a proud country, John.
	I want to play this here, actually.
	Let's play Cut 526.
	This is CNN's reporting.
	First, Caitlin, something I just heard from a senior Israeli official who says that according to Israeli assessments, There are very high chances that the entire Iranian general staff, including the head of the Iranian general staff of the Iranian military and several senior Iranian nuclear scientists, were all eliminated in the Israeli strikes tonight.
	So here's where our audience is a little confused, John.
	It was told to be a nuclear issue.
	If it was just about taking out nuclear reactors, then...
	So help us understand that.
	As I said, these early statements that Israel give often has a little bit of propaganda.
	It often has a little bit of misdirection.
	Listen, I'm not unconvinced that when the president said he had sent Whitcoff back as an ambassador that it wasn't a head fake to make the Iranians think they had more time because the Iranians were, even though Donald Trump signaled for two days.
	I can tell you from what I've heard on the ground and from our own intel before I got on air here, the Iranians were caught a little flat-footed, even though they were being told.
	So it's possible that Wyckoff and the idea that he was coming back to the region might have lulled them into some complacency.
	They were caught a little bit flat-footed.
	They could have all been at a meeting preparing, thinking they had another day before Israel.
	What's our war plan?
	And Israel could have sniped them tonight.
	That is what happens when war gets started, right?
	All rules are set aside.
	I know for certain from talking to my Israeli sources that beyond the nuclear reactor targeting, there was the decapitation strategy to get some of the Iranian National Guard and those generals that were most capable in the nuclear warfare to be knocked out tonight if they could get.
	John, please tell the audience how people can support Just the News, some of your reporting, and what are you keeping your eye on most closely in the coming hours and days?
	FBI response is going to be number one.
	Are they concerned?
	Do they begin to issue terrorism warning on our site?
	Do we wake up tomorrow morning to any news that U.S. troops have been engaged by Iran overseas?
	I'm hoping not.
	I think the Trump administration right now has some level of confidence that won't happen.
	But those are wild cards that change this dynamic very quickly for the United States.
	Everybody can keep up with us at JustTheNews.com and Jay Solomon reports on all social media, including Truth.
	Thank you so much, John.
	Really appreciate it.
	Thank you.
	Great to be with you guys.
	Alright, Blake, Jack, catch us up.
	What are we reading?
	What are we seeing?
	Nothing too immediately breaking now.
	I mean, it's just the standard stuff.
	You have the narratives of obviously the possibility that the general staff is getting taken out.
	I really don't want to underplay that.
	That would be a huge escalation.
	You see, there's always this dance.
	Some people have said this could be a big nothing burger because, of course, we've had exchanges with Iran in the past.
	We took out, what was his name, the Revolutionary Guard commander that we blew up.
	Soleimani.
	And then after that, they kind of buzzed our bases.
	And then there was some stuff where Iran shot a few missiles at Israel's way.
	They've done it twice.
	So we have these like, You're hitting stuff that wasn't hit before.
	It's not going to invite the same scale of response as before, I believe.
	Charlie Kirk here.
	Crime is skyrocketing.
	You may already own a firearm, but before you face the financial and emotional weight of pulling the trigger, consider Berna.
	Berna's less lethal launchers fire tear gas and kinetic rounds designed to incapacitate attackers for up to 40 minutes, giving you time to escape and call for help without deadly consequences.
	I use Burna.
	My family all has them.
	And now meet the new compact launcher, an amazing product.
	Sleek, slim, and hits like a sledgehammer.
	But the size of a smartphone, it's perfect for a concealed carry.
	Comfortable, discreet, and confidence building.
	It fires at 400 feet per second with 41 joules per square inch of stopping power.
	That's enough force to halt a threat cold without the legal and moral complexities of lethal force.
	What I love about Burna is they're proudly American.
	Over 80% of their compact launchers components are sourced in America, and each unit is hand-assembled in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
	Best of all, Berna is legal in all 50 states.
	No background checks, ships directly to your door.
	Trusted by hundreds of police departments and government agencies around the world.
	Visit Berna to learn more.
	That is B-Y-R-N-A dot com.
	So, Blake, talk about this here.
	Residential buildings targeted in Tehran.
	Top Democrat on U.S. Armed Services Committee condemns Israel's reckless escalation.
	Israel believes that the chief of Iranians' nuclear scientists and program in IDF was killed.
	So, Blake, is it fair to say this is beyond just a strike on nuclear facilities?
	Yeah, very clearly it's beyond that.
	We're blowing up buildings in Tehran.
	That is not their nuclear program.
	Their nuclear program is these enrichment facilities that are in the mountains of Iran.
	They're underground.
	They're hard to hit.
	You're not going to be seeing a lot of footage of those getting hit because they're not where a bunch of people are.
	But when you see them hitting buildings in Tehran, that's them going after Iranian officials, Iranian generals, Iranian military command and control.
	You know, if they're preparing for a normal war, that they're worried about the conventional response of the Iranian forces.
	So this is not merely a strike on their nuclear program.
	It's the opening volley of what could be an extended air war, and I shudder to say it's potentially some sort of ground war.
	Like, they don't have a land border with Israel, but they have a land border with Iraq.
	That's a country where we have soldiers.
	There's a lot of room for this to escalate.
	And a big thing to know about wars is once they begin, they evolve in directions that nobody can predict and you can't necessarily expect and you definitely can't control.
	To put this into perspective, Charlie and Blake, the Democrats right now are more concerned about Senator Padilla right now than they are anything having to do with...
	Yeah, Hakeem Jeffries did a post about...
	Yeah, like after this had begun, just, oh yeah, I'm talking about this other thing.
	No, they are completely focused.
	They're completely trying to obfuscate any kind of responsibility on either side of this major, major world changing, like to your point, world changing issue.
	I mean, this is going to be a historical moment probably for how.
	We talked a little bit in the chat about Russia, what Russia's response is going to look like in the midst of war with Ukraine.
	It's going to be a very interesting moment that happens now where things have to move.
	Dominoes have to fall.
	And the Democrats, the best they can do, the best they can muster up, Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, Nancy Pelosi, all of their most recent posts within the last hour, last few hours, have been about Alex Padilla.
	And him, you know, rightfully getting thrown to the ground.
	So this is how unserious the Democrat Party is.
	And this is part of the reason why the Democrats are losing so much ground with the American people is that we're watching, you know, really serious things happen right now.
	And you have really serious players at the table like, you know.
	Former Senator Marco Rubio, who's now Secretary of State, who's been doing an incredible job.
	He's getting extremely high approval ratings.
	Some of the highest that we've seen out of administrative members for the last three presidents.
	And we can't even get the Democrats to come out of their hole to give their response.
	And they clearly don't have one.
	And that's bad for America because what the Democrats are doing is they're posturing the So, you know, the answer, John Solomon was just talking about what happens tomorrow.
	You were talking about what happens tomorrow when Americans die.
	And that's where the big boys actually have to make a decision on what do we do as an American people?
	What are the decisions that we have to make?
	What's the listening that we have to do to people?
	And you have half of Americans represented, effectively half of Americans, slightly less this last election, represented by Democrats.
	Who have nothing to say.
	And they are torn ideologically within their own party in defending Jewish people and going after the Jewish people and their identity that revolves around Israel.
	So we're in a really interesting time right now where we are going to be...
	which is that a lot of people have had a lot of negative things to say about Congress because of their lack of ability to pass basic cuts.
	And now we have a real conflict on our hands.
	And the Trump administration being able to show up and handle this correctly and appropriately and be a true world leader, especially in the shadows of a really devolving Democrat Party, is, I think, a really great opportunity for Republicans.
	But this is an opportunity for us to unify.
	Talk about things.
	Come together behind closed doors.
	Figure out things before you go out and start spouting off stuff because the Democrats are positioning themselves to have a unified message.
	That's why they're not saying anything.
	That's why their last posts are about Padilla.
	That's going to be a very interesting thing, what they come out with.
	And it may not be very smart.
	It could be a very haphazard type of move that they make.
	I mean, Chuck Schumer is clearly not on his game.
	Jeffries, again, 37 minutes ago, 38 minutes, 40 minutes ago, he's posting about Padilla in the middle of all this.
	You can't be a serious future speaker of the House.
	No one can look at that and say you're serious.
	Guys, I was just going to throw in.
	I know I said this earlier, but I'm going to say it again.
	There's going to be hell to pay between President Trump and B.B. Netanyahu.
	If Netanyahu did this in defiance of what Trump asked him to do.
	This, of course, as we know, has been a huge crux of their relationship.
	They've gotten into it before, going back to 2020, even going back to the Soleimani strike.
	And, of course, we know that a regional war is the very last It's the very last thing that he asked for.
	It's the very last thing that he wants right now.
	And so this idea that President Trump would be totally okay with this after spending all day saying negotiations only, the question is, what did he say to Netanyahu?
	When did he say it?
	And of course, what's he going to come back and, and respond?
	And of course, of course, if Israel does, and I'll And if Iran does retaliate by raining missiles down on Israel, then will the U.S. be drawn in?
	And that's the bigger question here.
	Will the U.S., again, the 40,000 to 50,000 U.S. military personnel, the carrier strike groups, the Red Sea, the Strait of Hormuz, the bombers down in Diego Garcia, all the rest of this, are they going to be sucked in?
	Is the United States about to be sucked into yet another war in the Middle East?
	Because that's exactly the opposite of what I campaigned for, what President Trump campaigned for back in Pennsylvania and Michigan and Wisconsin.
	And I was with him at all of those states.
	And I don't think the people of those rallies were campaigning for a wider regional war in the Middle East.
	Yeah.
	And I mean, we have right here.
	This is just changes sent this over.
	According to Washington Post, U.S. defense official says Israel's attack is likely to provoke a strong Iranian response and then Israel will likely ask the United States to help counter Iran's response.
	And that is where this is going to become a real challenge.
	Frankly, is like, OK, it's easy to say we oppose war now, but this Iran really has a huge amount of control over where this goes.
	And they can decide.
	We want this to be a big thing that we suck America into.
	I think that would be kind of suicidal of them, but they are radical.
	And another thing is, once you start big wars, countries can behave irrationally.
	They can decide to expand things.
	I mean, if you want to draw on historical examples, everyone's endlessly thinking about World War II.
	Like, in World War II...
	We didn't declare war on him.
	He declared war on us.
	And that was a highly irrational thing to do.
	But wars make people behave irrationally.
	That is one reason you should be very, very careful about starting them.
	Jack, does Trump's recent relationship with Putin change the calculus of this entire thing?
	Well, I think there's going to be a lot of questions.
	And I would certainly I'll say right now, I certainly hope that the United States is coordinating on all fronts.
	Obviously, Iran.
	Again, we know this is what the Russians have been asking for.
	Lavrov has said so many times in all of these meetings and his head in his meeting with Secretary Rubio as well, that what they're looking for is a wider negotiation with the United States on all fronts, not just Europe, not just And this had been potentially an area where the Russians could be partners with the United States.
	Russia does not, has never said they wanted Iran to have a nuclear weapon.
	Iran having a nuclear weapon is an issue for Russia even more than it's an issue for the United States, because if there's regional instability in the Middle East, that's right in Russia's backyard.
	They have borders throughout that region.
	That's a key part of Central Asia.
	Again, Russia has a massive land empire, so they've got borders from Europe to Central Asia to the Middle East, all the way out to China and Mongolia in their Far East, and even, of course, touching Japan in a sense.
	And so this Strategic calculus between the United States and Russia could be absolutely critical right now between Trump and Putin.
	And if Trump and Putin, I'm sure President Trump, by the way, is talking to a variety of world leaders tonight.
	We know the White House has convened this cabinet meeting.
	We know that the Situation Room has been active all day at the White House.
	So I'm sure that President Trump has been in communication with many world leaders.
	And I would expect to be speaking with Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, and many others this very night.
	I think it's going to be very interesting.
	Some people, there are some speculation that the Ukraine-Russia conflict that's going on right now, it plays at a huge...
	based off of this whole thing which also is a dynamic of the outcomes from these strikes that are happening which is Maybe there's some immediate positives that come from that because of the concern that I think so many of us had about that.
	Democrats will shout and scream and say, oh my gosh, now we are giving too much power again to Russia and everything else.
	It's going to be a very interesting outcome.
	But I do think a net positive of this is perhaps it does close that window.
	Perhaps it does bring Russia to the table.
	Perhaps it does bring some working together to ensure that there is peace in the Middle East.
	Who knows?
	You know, guys, and I'll say this as well, you know, for for anyone who's sort of in that we've talked about this before, that's sort of like elder millennial band or just millennials in general, the Gen Y's out there.
	So speaking to them as opposed to the the the Gen Z's and I know Gen Alphas and others who are watching.
	I hear my Gen Alpha son in the other room right now, by the way, that.
	And certainly it reminds me of the era of going into Iraq.
	And I just wanted to I wanted to ask you guys if that, you know, my memories of that are so clear.
	And I remember all of the things that we were told all that this is going to make the world safer.
	This is gonna be good for America.
	This is gonna be helpful.
	We're shutting down a weapons of mass destruction program.
	And it's like.
	It's like I've seen this movie before, and I feel a lot of those same arguments and a lot of those same emotions of the time, but at the same time is that, you know, we've got social media now, we've got this immediate rapid response from X, and you sort of, you remember that even if you think that the war is a good idea going into it, it sort of gives you this overarching look where you have the ability to think.
	You know, secondary effects, tertiary effects, those could potentially be far worse and far wider reaching than anything that came before.
	And how do we know about this?
	Well, we have the history of the Iraq war and the history of the global war on terror, the recent history, even with the fall of Kabul that we can point to and say, yeah, this went really, really wrong, even though we thought these were great ideas going into it.
	I just for for Tyler and Blake, I didn't know if you guys had had any reflections or if it if it Yeah, well, my thought is, if I think about how it feels different from then, I mean, certainly the right is totally different.
	The right was in a very raw, raw mood.
	And we should acknowledge, I guess I should say not everyone was.
	There were people on the right.
	Pat Buchanan was one of them.
	There were others who said, This is not what conservatism is about.
	This is not what putting America first is about.
	This is a huge blunder.
	People warned about that.
	We should remember that.
	Our blood was up over 9-11, and I think it's taken a long time for us to come around to this, but I think there's now a pretty widespread acknowledgement that Because of 9-11, because of the national tragedy we suffered, that we made a big mistake.
	We got ourselves involved in conflicts that had no clear objective, that had no clear end point, that were hugely expensive, and that produced no real long-term good for the United States.
	In fact, if you really want to go back, you could say a lot of the enduring problems America has right now that we're trying to solve with Trump Go back to that post-9-11 period and us making the wrong decisions.
	We had a blank check.
	Bush could have done anything he wanted after 9-11.
	He could have said, this happened because we had an open border and we need to fix that or the country's doomed.
	Or this happened because we're dependent on foreign countries.
	We need to make sure all of our manufacturing is in the United States.
	Instead, he invaded a foreign country and he shot the deficit up super high.
	And we're still dealing with both of those things.
	Totally different country.
	What I remember is that America, it felt like we were invincible.
	It felt like we could do just about anything.
	And we were overconfident.
	And so I definitely feel different now.
	We are a nation that is far more aware of our limitations, to be honest.
	Okay, guys, here we are.
	Can you hear me okay?
	Everyone good?
	Yes, we can hear you, Charlie.
	Can you hear me?
	Great, great, great, great.
	Okay, so it looks like the second round of attack is happening.
	Everybody, hello, if you are just tuning in.
	It looks like it is escalating even further.
	Israel has decided to strike Iran preemptively.
	This is one of the largest preemptive strikes that we have seen between any two sovereign countries in quite some time.
	And this has huge American domestic political implications.
	I'm going to make a prediction right now.
	these kind of no kings protests that we're seeing this weekend.
	They're gonna be hijacked by all the pro-Hamas stuff.
	We're gonna have all intersectionality back in the streets.
	Iran State TV says, quote, unconfirmed reports say that Israel has much That is from Iranian state TV.
	And so this is now going to have major American domestic implications, questions of should we continue to finance Israel?
	Should we continue to sell armaments?
	And as you very well know, I'm very pro-Israel on this show.
	I'm just simply interpreting the political dynamics here.
	And I could tell you right now that the audience, you guys, We must support the United States.
	With information and with resources.
	So the question is also, I think fundamentally at its core, how does the America First foreign policy doctrine and foreign policy agenda, let's just say, stay consistent with this?
	This right now is going to cause, I think, a major schism in the MAGA online community.
	We're not seeing that yet, though, right, Tyler?
	I mean, I'm seeing it a little bit in my XFeed, but Tyler, it seems, you know, I don't want to say over.
	It's somewhat unified, but what are we seeing so far in the right-wing community?
	It's still early.
	I mean, it's still early, but so far, I mean, we were talking about this because things are happening very rapidly in real time.
	And we know war is such a hotly debated topic, particularly in kind of the new right, what we call it, like the MAGA movement.
	I like the new right we talk about all the time, which is very anti-war.
	So you have a lot of millennials who voted in record numbers for Donald Trump this last election, who were kind of raised under that anti-Bush.
	Remember Liz Cheney, the Bushes all endorsed against President Trump basically twice in a row.
	And they lost.
	They lost big time because the right has shifted so far into the anti-war space.
	So this is a huge deal.
	But yeah, I think right now you're seeing a lot of people really happy with the response from President Trump's team, from Marco Rubio, his statement they put out there.
	I think that was a brilliant thing to do to make sure that that statement is out there.
	But I think what's coming, like you said, Charlie, is that there's going to be...
	It's going to get hijacked by the well-funded groups that are out there on the left, by C4s, political action committees, big nonprofit groups, C3s, that are all so pro-Hamas, they're all so pro-anti-Israel, that they're all so pro-Israel.
	And so I think your guess is great.
	It's a lot of great intuition is that we're going to see a lot of that.
	And I don't think Americans are going to love that.
	And I think it's actually going to push people more to the side of Israel, because I think the scariest thing here is, is that we, you know, it starts this debate of being...
	People will start running with that narrative.
	And I think that that's probably really negative for the MAGA movement.
	I think the MAGA movement needs to focus on, hey, we have all these really crazy pro-Hamas actors that are on the streets that are burning stuff down.
	And that's not good for America.
	That's here.
	That's here right now.
	And so I think that's really smart, Charlie, to look at that.
	So, Jack, help me understand this.
	If we knew the attack on Iran was coming, how were these generals so exposed?
	I mean, we're still kind of being told that Iran was taken by surprise, that Iran didn't see this coming.
	Help me understand that, because this was the longest wind-up of an attack that we've seen.
	In fact, you and I knew this was happening, like, hours as it was developing.
	Jack Posobiec.
	Yeah.
	And Charlie, even you and I spoke this morning very early and heard that it was a strong possibility.
	We both took to Twitter X and were posting messaging about it.
	And people were saying, why are Jack and Charlie posting about?
	And Iran, you know, strikes on Iran at, you know, 7 a.m. and 8 a.m. when no one's talking about that.
	And then as the day went further, people started to realize what was going on.
	And then, yeah, we got that confirmation.
	Charlie, this remains to be seen exactly.
	What went down here?
	So there could very well have been potentially operatives on the ground, Mossad operatives on the ground in Tehran that knew about safe houses, that knew about these types of locations, that new sites that they would be taking into.
	There are some reports that Israel may have So it's possible that even if the generals were moved to a safe house or were in concert with moving, if their forces had been penetrated by Israeli intelligence, then they could have been able to find out exactly where they were to conduct these strikes.
	Again, I'm not saying that's exactly what happened, but it may not be that they were taken by surprise.
	It may be very well that Israel conducted a large scale intelligence or just even deception operation to make it seem as if they didn't know what the locations of these generals and leaders were.
	But in fact, they did know after all, there's there's lots of ways that this can be done.
	And again, this is why some of those indications were given when they were given.
	The question, of course, really, I think for a lot of people is what's the what's the scale of this?
	And how is this going to be returned?
	But but yes, it can be done as we're seeing.
	OK, so look.
	Blake, you're kind of a military historian.
	How do these things usually end between Israel?
	Israel does very well in short wars and short conflicts.
	Blake, your thoughts?
	Well, what's so different about this one is Israel, I mean, they have a lot of wars, but their wars that are big ones are against their neighbors.
	So they have a very strong track record in wars they beat.
	Egypt in several wars.
	They beat Syria in some wars.
	The Six-Day War was them versus Egypt, Jordan, Syria.
	Those are all countries that border them.
	You can have a conventional land war with them.
	With Iran, Iran is far away.
	Iran is very big.
	So you can kind of have back-and-forth bombing.
	Obviously, Israel has the technology to do that.
	They just did this.
	It's, like, they don't have the Air Force to, like, strategically bomb Iran into, like, total submission.
	They can kind of bomb them as much as they want, but they don't have unlimited munitions.
	We don't even have unlimited munitions.
	I mean, Iran is, I believe it's a bigger country than Ukraine.
	It has many more people than Ukraine.
	And you can see, like, we see the limitations of how far munitions can go in that country.
	Now imagine you don't have a land border with that country, and it's even bigger, and it's more mountainous.
	We don't actually have a great model for this kind of conflict for them.
	Israel is a country that's fought its immediate neighbors in conventional wars.
	It's fought counterinsurgencies in Gaza, in the West Bank, and in Lebanon.
	But this isn't a conflict that we have a model for how it's going to go.
	And so I can't easily say how it's going to unfold.
	And that's why I say like we have to be ready for it.
	And I feel like we have to hope that they don't want this to be a big one.
	But it's possible that we may have set them off so much they decide to escalate.
	I cannot understand.
	First of all, this is a credit to Israel.
	I just got to be honest.
	Can we put this up on screen, the pictures I just sent?
	These are the Iranian generals, Iranian commanders.
	So I, in America— Okay?
	It's, again, must be a credit to Israel here.
	How is it that these four lunatics that work, just as a side note, for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, who are now all dead and eliminated, when they woke up, did they really not take precautions to protect their military leaders?
	I cannot understand this.
	Like, I just...
	It is...
	Blake, can you help me process this?
	Like, we all knew this was coming.
	Was it just the bombs were so powerful or missiles were so powerful they penetrated any bunkers they might have been in?
	Help me understand how these four guys, who knew this was like the longest wind-up ever.
	We're gonna do it.
	We're gonna do it.
	Oh, we're doing it, and then it still is.
	There was no deception involved here.
	It must be that the idea was that Israel was able to get within their networks and inside their networks.
	Maybe Iran thought negotiations were coming Sunday, but even they could see the writing on the wall of what Israel was doing, and they could tell they had no intelligence network of when Israeli airplanes took off from Israel.
	Anyway, Blake, help me understand this.
	It's perplexing to me.
	I mean, it's not an easy one to answer, to be honest.
	I guess the most boring take is they were able to hit them with this forewarning because perhaps Israel has the intelligence to say, we know that when there is a war that's going to break out, actually this is their safe house.
	This is where they're actually supposed to go when they worry that Israel is going to launch some sort of strike on them.
	It could be an answer like that.
	Israel's intelligence service has always been a lot more effective than ours.
	The CIA has a long legacy of extremely embarrassing failures.
	Mossad has a history of successfully assassinating its enemies in foreign countries.
	They've done it in Egypt.
	They've done it in the United Arab Emirates.
	They've done it in Lebanon.
	They have done it, apparently, in Iran.
	We may not know anytime soon exactly how they pulled it off, but they...
	Now, how they were caught off guard by the strikes themselves?
	I don't know.
	It seems like we knew it was coming.
	X knew it was coming.
	At some point, let's go to the most rural, remote part of Persia in a bunker.
	At some point, you're like, okay.
	Then still, it's either cockiness or humorous or pride.
	I would just say the beeper.
	This attack they were able to conduct just a few months ago was very significant in terms of their intel operations and shows a high degree of capability.
	So I wouldn't put anything past them.
	So this is the final thought here.
	Israel has attacked at least six military bases around Tehran, including Parshin, residential homes at two highly secure complexes for military commanders, and multiple residential buildings around Tehran, what appears to be target assassinations according to four senior Iranian officials.
	But again, I want to hear your thoughts.
	Are you supportive or not?
	And look, I am pro-Israel here.
	And of course, I'm America first, first and foremost.
	I'm very worried that this could escalate into a war that could then draw America in.
	But Israel's a sovereign country.
	They made a decision.
	President Trump says, look.
	This is what you wanted.
	Knock yourself out.
	They did it without American support, American help.
	I am afraid of what this could escalate towards.
	We're going to keep a close eye on it.
	We'll be broadcasting live tomorrow.
	Thanks so much for listening, everybody.
	Email us, as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.

▲