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Rare Moment of Unity
00:15:10
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unidentified
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In a nation divided, a rare moment of unity. | |
| This fall, C-SPAN presents Ceasefire, where the shouting stops and the conversation begins. | ||
| In a town where partisan fighting prevails, one table, two leaders, one goal, to find common ground. | ||
| This fall, Ceasefire, on the network that doesn't take sides, only on C-SPAN. | ||
| C-SPAN, democracy unfiltered. | ||
| We're funded by these television companies and more, including Comcast. | ||
| Oh, you think this is just a community censor? | ||
| No, it's way more than that. | ||
| Comcast is partnering with a thousand community centers to create Wi-Fi-enabled lifts so students from low-income families can get the tools they need to be ready for anything. | ||
| Comcast supports C-SPAN as a public service, along with these other television providers, giving you a front-row seat to democracy. | ||
| Tonight I can report to the world that the strikes were a spectacular military success. | ||
| Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated. | ||
| It's Sunday, June 22nd, 2025. | ||
| The United States has attacked Iran, joining Israel's war with the Islamic Republic. | ||
| President Trump announced last night American bombers targeted multiple key nuclear sites in the country. | ||
| This story is developing and we'll be following it all morning with the latest reaction from U.S. and global leaders. | ||
| And we want to hear your thoughts on the United States entering the Israel-Iran conflict. | ||
| Our phone lines for Republicans 202-748-8001. | ||
| For Democrats, 202-748-8000. | ||
| And for Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| If you'd like to text us, that number is 202-748-8003. | ||
| Please be sure to include your name and where you're writing in from. | ||
| We're also on social media at facebook.com slash C-SPAN and on X at C-SPANWJ. | ||
| This story is leading the news all over the world, including on the front pages of newspapers here in the United States. | ||
| Here's the New York Times. | ||
| U.S. attacks Iran's nuclear sites. | ||
| B-2s drop payload of bombs as nation enters Israel's war. | ||
| The United States dropped some of the largest bombs in its arsenal on three nuclear sites in Iran on Saturday, President Trump announced on Saturday night, bringing the U.S. military directly into Israel's war with Iran and once again into the battles for influence in the Middle East. | ||
| We have completed our very successful attacks on three nuclear sites in Iran, the president wrote on Truth Social, his social media site. | ||
| He added that a full payload of bombs had been dropped on Fordo, the heavily fortified underground facility where Iran has produced near-bomb-grade uranium, leading to fears it could be on the cusp of building nuclear weapons. | ||
| All planes are safely on their way home, Mr. Trump wrote. | ||
| The Washington Post also has front page coverage of this story, going on to report, the president did not immediately say what kind of aircraft was used, but the strikes came after a fleet of B-2 spirit bombers departed Whitman Air Force Base in Missouri overnight Friday into Saturday, a U.S. official familiar with the issue said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. | ||
| The assault followed days of mixed messaging from the Trump administration. | ||
| The President had warned all of Tehran to evacuate, demanded the Iranian government's unconditional surrender, and threatened that its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, would be targeted unless demands were met. | ||
| Trump shifted again Thursday, saying he would wait as long as two weeks before deciding to attack, apparently signaling that he was intent on giving more time for diplomacy to work. | ||
| Now, here's President Trump's full address from last night. | ||
| Let's listen. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| A short time ago, the U.S. military carried out massive precision strikes on the three key nuclear facilities in the Iranian regime: Fordeau, Natans, and Esfahan. | ||
| Everybody heard those names for years as they built this horribly destructive enterprise. | ||
| Our objective was the destruction of Iran's nuclear enrichment capacity and a stop to the nuclear threat posed by the world's number one state sponsor of terror. | ||
| Tonight, I can report to the world that the strikes were a spectacular military success. | ||
| Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated. | ||
| Iran, the bully of the Middle East, must now make peace. | ||
| If they do not, future attacks will be far greater and a lot easier. | ||
| For 40 years, Iran has been saying, death to America, death to Israel. | ||
| They have been killing our people, blowing off their arms, blowing off their legs with roadside bombs. | ||
| That was their specialty. | ||
| We lost over a thousand people, and hundreds of thousands throughout the Middle East and around the world have died as a direct result of their hate. | ||
| In particular, so many were killed by their general, Qasem Soleimani. | ||
| I decided a long time ago that I would not let this happen. | ||
| It will not continue. | ||
| I want to thank and congratulate Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu. | ||
| We worked as a team like perhaps no team has ever worked before. | ||
| And we've gone a long way to erasing this horrible threat to Israel. | ||
| I want to thank the Israeli military for the wonderful job they've done. | ||
| And most importantly, I want to congratulate the great American patriots who flew those magnificent machines tonight and all of the United States military on an operation the likes of which the world has not seen in many, many decades. | ||
| Hopefully, we will no longer need their services in this capacity. | ||
| I hope that's so. | ||
| I also want to congratulate the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan Raisincane, spectacular general, and all of the brilliant military minds involved in this attack. | ||
| With all of that being said, this cannot continue. | ||
| There will be either peace or there will be tragedy for Iran far greater than we have witnessed over the last eight days. | ||
| Remember, there are many targets left. | ||
| Tonight's was the most difficult of them all, by far, and perhaps the most lethal. | ||
| But if peace does not come quickly, we will go after those other targets with precision, speed, and skill. | ||
| Most of them can be taken out in a matter of minutes. | ||
| There's no military in the world that could have done what we did tonight, not even close. | ||
| There has never been a military that could do what took place just a little while ago. | ||
| Tomorrow, General Kane, Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, will have a press conference at 8 a.m. at the Pentagon. | ||
| And I want to just thank everybody, and in particular, God, I want to just say we love you, God, and we love our great military. | ||
| protect them. | ||
| God bless the Middle East. | ||
| God bless Israel and God bless America. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Now earlier this morning, Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Aragati held a press conference in Istanbul responding to the attacks and accusing the United States of betraying diplomacy. | ||
|
unidentified
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The Islamic Republic of Iran calls on the Security Council to convene an emergency session to unequivocally condemn the criminal act of aggression by the United States against Iran and to hold the administration in Washington accountable for its violations of fundamental principles of United Nations Charter and of norms of international law. | |
| The responsibility of the IAEA and its Director General, who through evidence by us in favor of warmongering parties paved the way for the current violence and bloodshed, is now clearer than ever. | ||
| We call on the IAEA Board of Governors to immediately convene and carry out its legal responsibility in response to the dangerous U.S. attack on Iran's peaceful nuclear facilities, all of which have been under the agency's full safeguards and monitoring. | ||
| The world must not forget that it was the United States which, in the midst of a process to forge a diplomatic outcome, betrayed diplomacy by supporting the genocidal Israeli regime's launch of an illegal war of aggression on the Iranian nation. | ||
| Not content with such malain actions, the United States itself has now also opted for a dangerous military operation and aggression against the people of Iran. | ||
| In doing so, the U.S. administration holds sole and full responsibility for the consequences of its actions, including the Islamic Republic of Iran's right to self-defense under the principles of the United Charter. | ||
| In accordance with the UN Charter and its provisions allowing a legitimate response in self-defense, Iran reserves all options to defend its security interests and people. | ||
| President Trump also commented on Truth Social last night. | ||
| In regards to any potential retaliation, any retaliation by Iran against the United States of America will be met with force far greater than what was witnessed tonight. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Donald J. Trump, President of the United States. | ||
| Now, President Trump mentioned in his comments last night about that press conference coming up at 8 a.m. Eastern this morning. | ||
| That is going to be a news conference scheduled with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Joint Chiefs Chair Dan Kaine. | ||
| We'll be airing that here on C-SPAN. | ||
| We'll also be carrying it on C-SPANNOW and C-SPANRADO and C-SPAN.org. | ||
| Let's go to your call, starting with Vincent in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on our line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Vincent. | ||
|
unidentified
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Thanks, Tim. | |
| I don't know when I started a listener to this, but there's a big Satan and a little Satan, and I'm getting it wrong with Satan. | ||
| Is Israel the big Satan or is the United States still big Satan? | ||
| Okay, let's go to Jeffrey in Greensboro, North Carolina on our line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Jeffrey. | ||
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unidentified
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Good morning. | |
| Thank you for taking the call. | ||
| Please allow me to address a couple of things. | ||
| It's a very sad day. | ||
| It's a very sad day worldwide. | ||
| No one should be praising this man that's sitting in the White House. | ||
| And absolutely, the atrocities that's still going on with Gaza. | ||
| You don't hear about it no more. | ||
| Those people are dying and starving. | ||
| They have a right to live. | ||
| There are circumstances that surround all of this that we now take the word of a political opponent that can say for years, Benjamin and Laden has been saying that for years, that they had nuclear capability going way back 20 years, the same speech over and over. | ||
| It is just sad and disappointment that there is no diplomacy now. | ||
| It's just going by being like bullies. | ||
| You might as well call America bullies. | ||
| And remember this. | ||
| And I don't say this and wish this for our country, because innocent lives, just like them, is going to get caught up and swept up here in this country one day. | ||
| God is almighty will oversee the wrong that's being done. | ||
| And for people to think that we had a right without getting definitive confirmation to just do that, that is horrible, despicable, disgraceful. | ||
| And we have so much. | ||
| In eight months he's been in office. | ||
| What's going on still here in this country is absurd. | ||
| It's wrong on every level. | ||
| And if anybody does support that, you really need to look at yourself deeply as a human being because they have a right until definitively know the facts or you saw it. | ||
| We heard that once before. | ||
| Weapons of mass destruction. | ||
| Didn't we hear that before? | ||
| By one of our great presidents? | ||
| Didn't we hear that? | ||
| And what we do? | ||
| Invade another country for what, really, the prophecy of the oil. | ||
| So you got to question everything they're doing. | ||
| And what they already done is set in motion something very dangerous that is going to come. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Sue is in Southbury, Connecticut on our line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Sue. | ||
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unidentified
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Hi, good morning. | |
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| I just want to say myself that I look at things like a timeline. | ||
| And I think back to Trump when he was at the G7, you know, the whole time he was there, he was leaving. | ||
| So already, I think there were things being planned, and diplomacy was not one of them. | ||
| I don't think Congress is informed until after the fact. | ||
| I do believe a gang of eight, the Democrats, were not informed of this either. | ||
| I don't think there's any intelligence that the U.S. has that wasn't supplied from Israel. | ||
| So whose intelligence were we relying on in doing this? | ||
| Are we having our own? | ||
| We are relying on our foreign influence from Israel. | ||
| And I believe Israel has wanted to do this for a very long time. | ||
| And it does, again, it does take the burning question of why is Gaza still being bombed? | ||
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Why We're In Chaos
00:09:55
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unidentified
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Why are people still being killed? | |
| And it deflects totally now because now we could just say, oh, it's Iran. | ||
| It's a deflection. | ||
| And it's sad because people are dying. | ||
| And it's just chaos. | ||
| This is just creating a hot mess. | ||
| And to say this was an accessible mission, they have nothing to document that. | ||
| They're just saying we bombed these areas with our big, beautiful bombs and saying, oh, we're pretty sure, yeah, that this was successful. | ||
| I mean, I think they should give time to see and show some reporting that there's an actual outcome that benefited this action because it was not a legal action. | ||
| They never went through Congress. | ||
| I believe the president is supposed to do that. | ||
| So, Sue, I do want to read a bit from some reaction that we have from Congress. | ||
| House Speaker Mike Johnson posted on X, the President made the right call and did what he needed to do. | ||
| Leaders in Congress were aware of the urgency of this situation, and the Commander-in-Chief evaluated that the imminent danger outweighed the time it would take for Congress to act. | ||
| The world's largest state sponsor of terrorism, which chanced death to America, simply could not be allowed the opportunity to obtain and use nuclear weapons. | ||
| The president fully respects the Article I power of Congress, and tonight's necessary, limited, and targeted strike follows the history and tradition of similar military actions under presidents of both parties. | ||
| Patrick is in La Miranda, California on our line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Patrick. | ||
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unidentified
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Thank you. | |
| Yes, I believe that the president did the right thing. | ||
| They talk about diplomacy. | ||
| Iran has been a thorn in the side of our country for 46 years. | ||
| I'm telling you, the president did the right thing. | ||
| God bless America and God bless Donald J. Trump. | ||
| Ellis is in Augusta, Georgia on our line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Alice. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning. | |
| It's really sad that people is following President, well, I say President Trump, elected president. | ||
| It's really sad because he just can do anything he wants to do. | ||
| Republicans are not doing any, again, Congress are not doing anything. | ||
| You know, this man should have gone to Congress first before he have done that. | ||
| These people don't remember 9-11. | ||
| Do you remember 9-11? | ||
| It took years before they planned that. | ||
| And believe me, these people are not going to just lay down and let President Trump elected Trump do what he did last night. | ||
| It was against the law. | ||
| House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries made a statement on X echoing similar concerns, saying Donald Trump promised to bring peace to the Middle East. | ||
| He has failed to deliver on that promise. | ||
| The risk of war has now dramatically increased, and I pray for the safety of our troops in the region who have been put in harm's way. | ||
| President Trump misled the country about his intentions, failed to seek congressional authorization for the use of military force, and risks American entanglement in a potentially disastrous war in the Middle East. | ||
| First, the Trump administration bears the heavy burden of explaining to the American people why this military action was undertaken. | ||
| Second, Congress must be fully and immediately briefed in a classified setting. | ||
| Third, Donald Trump shoulders complete and total responsibility for any adverse consequences that flow from his unilateral military action. | ||
| Juliet is in Rockport, Massachusetts on our line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Juliet. | ||
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unidentified
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Good morning, Kimberly. | |
| And thank you so much for taking my call. | ||
| So I think we are witnessing a historical, monumental time in American foreign policy in the United States of America. | ||
| And what Donald J. Trump was able to pull off last night was nothing short of brilliant. | ||
| If you think about how he approached the weekend, on Friday, he said two weeks, two weeks. | ||
| His common refrain was everything is two weeks, and they were making fun of him on NPR about this. | ||
| And so people thought he's going to retreat to his golf for the weekend and go on to a little junket, whatever. | ||
| And this was the biggest surprise ever. | ||
| I didn't even know about this until three hours after it happened, and I was literally shocked. | ||
| It brought new meaning to the term shock and awe, if you remember that, from Bush's doctrine of a preemptive strike when he went into Iraq and toppled Saddam Hussein within mere weeks. | ||
| They found him in a little tunnel hiding. | ||
| But I'd like to just say a few things. | ||
| This is the Trump doctrine, and this is historical. | ||
| This will be studied the world over, what he did, was able to accomplish. | ||
| Now, right now, we're sort of in a phase where there is a like a maybe there'll be a raft hashman. | ||
| Maybe there will be. | ||
| Maybe they'll finally get Ayatollah Katami to come to the table. | ||
| He's been very recalcitrant, that is, Ayatollah Katami, and obstinate. | ||
| He should have known this was coming. | ||
| Donald J. Trump, what he was able to pull off, now there's a Russian word called Moskyrovka. | ||
| Look that up, Kimberly. | ||
| Moskyrovka is the hallmark of Russian warfare. | ||
| And what that word means is a little masquerade. | ||
| You might recall the little green men who went into Crimea. | ||
| Now, that's not a. | ||
| Dennis is in Delphos, Ohio on our line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Dennis. | ||
|
unidentified
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Hey, good morning. | |
| Thanks for taking my call. | ||
| Donald Trump has set this up in his first term. | ||
| We had an agreement with Iran, and they were following that agreement, and he tore it up because he's petty as can be. | ||
| And so now, whatever happens, he's caused this. | ||
| He wanted this, and now he's got it. | ||
| I pray and hope that our troops that are over in that area do not get attacked, and we do not have Americans getting killed over there. | ||
| This is a disgrace. | ||
| I cannot believe this man. | ||
| He lies about everything. | ||
| It's just a sad, sad day for America that we've got a guy in the White House who won't help Ukraine fight Russia. | ||
| He turned his back on that, and now he's going to drag us into another war. | ||
| That's about all I got to say. | ||
| Next up is Patrick in Florida on our line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Patrick. | ||
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unidentified
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Well, thank you for taking things. | |
| I've been watching C-SPAN for a little while, but did you guys ever mention that Ambassador Mike Suckabee has ties to the Israeli toll takers? | ||
| And a little history about Iran, which surprised C-SPAN didn't bring up your shield 50 books about Abraham Lincoln. | ||
| Looks like we've lost you there, Patrick. | ||
| Next up is Alan in Cleveland, Ohio, on our line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Alan. | ||
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unidentified
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Good morning. | |
| Hi. | ||
| Thank you for giving me a chance to speak my feelings. | ||
| Well, I've been supportive of the president. | ||
| I think that, you know, a lot of folks calling in, maybe they don't understand the history of Iran, but, you know, countries, I know they save Oliver and all of that. | ||
| But when you start saying death to America and death to this or that, who does that? | ||
| That's mental illness. | ||
| I think the idea, you know, the people of Iran are beautiful and wonderful people. | ||
| I think that hopefully this will help liberate them to decide what government they want now, whether they want the same government or whether they want a different government in the future. | ||
| But I think it was a beautiful thing. | ||
| And I think that the people that are calling in that are against it, I think 30% of the country is anti-American. | ||
| And I think that a lot of these people calling in would have loved it if Iran would have said a nuke here. | ||
| I just think it was a beautiful thing. | ||
| We need to liberate the country. | ||
| There's some recent polling on whether or not Americans support U.S. involvement in the Israel and Iran war. | ||
| This is reporting here from Axios saying a majority of Americans don't want the U.S. to get involved in the escalating war between Israel and Iran. | ||
| A poll this week, this was last week, found the big picture. | ||
| President Trump was slated, and again, the story is from last week, is slated to make a decision within two weeks on whether to join Israel in the effort to eliminate Iranian nuclear program, the White House said on Thursday. | ||
| And 60% of 1,512 polled Americans think the U.S. military should not get involved in the conflict between Israel and Iran. | ||
| According to an economist YouGov poll released this week, only 16% support U.S. military action and 24% are unsure. | ||
| This largely holds up across party lines, with 65% of Democrats, 61% of Independents, and 53% of Republicans opposing U.S. military intervention in Iran. | ||
| About as many people see Iran's nuclear program as a threat as those who oppose military intervention in the Israel-Iran conflict. | ||
|
Ernie's Critique of Trump
00:03:41
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| 61% of Americans view Iran's nuclear program as either an immediate and serious or somewhat serious threat to the United States. | ||
| Similarly, most Americans think the U.S. should engage in negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program. | ||
| That's true across 58% of Democrats and 61% of Republicans. | ||
| Ernie is in Toledo, Ohio on our line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Ernie. | ||
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unidentified
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Yes, I would like to say, as a Republican for 40 years and retired, I live in Toledo, Ohio. | |
| This whole thing that Donald Trump did, he didn't go through the right channels. | ||
| He just did it on his own. | ||
| When you escalate stuff like that, it should be the House, the Republicans, everybody come to agreement on something. | ||
| But this whole thing was written in Revelations. | ||
| Ernie, can you turn down your TV in the background and then continue your point? | ||
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unidentified
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Yes. | |
| Yeah, this is all written in the revelations in the Bible. | ||
| All the final war to end all wars will be in the East. | ||
| Right now, we're involved with Russia, and he doesn't go after Russia, Donald Trump, because he's scared to death of him. | ||
| He's insecure, Donald Trump. | ||
| He's a big bully. | ||
| And he's no good for this country. | ||
| He should be impeached a long time ago. | ||
| But this whole thing is going to turn into, if it turns into a lot of problems where we're involved, we have to put men on boots on the ground and everything there to Israel to help them. | ||
| This is not going to turn out good for the Republican Party. | ||
| They will doom their party. | ||
| And I just don't understand this. | ||
| I've said this to several Republicans in the House and Senate over the last years. | ||
| Donald Trump should never been president the first time. | ||
| He is dangerous. | ||
| He's nothing more than a con man, a coward, and a bully. | ||
| And a prejudiced man. | ||
| And he's trying to do everything he can to get attention. | ||
| Well, this really brought attention to him. | ||
| But we don't need this going on in our country. | ||
| We need to get this country back to normal. | ||
| I grew up in the 60s and 70s, and that's when the country was pretty decent. | ||
| All this came about from the 90s on. | ||
| But in the last 10 years, we've had more things in this country against us because of Donald Trump. | ||
| This guy wants all the attention he can get. | ||
| And it's a shame the Republican Party can't understand this because they're dooming their party. | ||
| And the Speaker of the House, in my opinion, is no better than Donald Trump. | ||
| He sticks with Donald Trump all the time on everything to protect him. | ||
| And it's a shame what's going on right now. | ||
| It's not just what he did last night, but over the last 10 years since he came into the picture and came down the escalate, everything's been going worse and worse. | ||
| I think we've got your idea. | ||
| Let's hear from Kimberly in Las Vegas on our line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Kimberly. | ||
|
unidentified
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Hi, hi. | |
| Hi, America. | ||
| I've been kind of holding my fire. | ||
| I haven't came on C-SPAN. | ||
| Normally, I was calling at least once a month before he came into before Donald Trump actually got inaugurated. | ||
| So, I've been kind of listening, watching C-SPAN. | ||
| I haven't said anything about him, but this is the day I decided to go ahead and start back and being reactivated. | ||
| The problem is, is that he, this is the worst decision that he's ever made. | ||
| He's going to, this is going to come back and haunt America that this president unilaterally decided to get us into another forever war. | ||
|
Ukraine-Russia Conflict Update
00:15:35
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unidentified
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I know a lot of people were upset at Joe Biden that he basically got us out of Afghanistan. | |
| But guess what? | ||
| Joe Biden didn't start a war. | ||
| He was not involved in a war. | ||
| We did not have boots on the ground. | ||
| This guy said, Trump said that on day one, he would basically negotiate a ceasefire with Hamas, I mean, with Gaza, I mean, on Gaza and Israel, the Palestinians in Israel. | ||
| He said that. | ||
| He also said that he was going to take care of the Ukraine-Russia deal. | ||
| That didn't happen, and now we're in another war. | ||
| They can't blame this on Joe Biden. | ||
| Joe Biden's not in office. | ||
| Kamala's not in office. | ||
| So you can't blame them. | ||
| This is all him. | ||
| And within the next month, I'll probably be calling back because we're going to now then show that we're going to be in a recession. | ||
| We've already had one quarter of GDP that was negative, and we're getting ready to have a second one. | ||
| Thank you, Kimberly, for taking my call, and God bless America. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Darryl is in Caldwell, Idaho, on our line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Darryl. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning. | |
| Basically, I was in the Marine Corps, and I joined the Marine Corps in 1961, and I was supposed to get out in 1965, September, but I had to stay in for four more months because Vietnam started. | ||
| So the 60s weren't such a hot year. | ||
| And what's interesting is we had atomic bombs. | ||
| Well, 50,000 of the Americans died in Korea, and then 58,000 died in Vietnam. | ||
| And I'm sitting there going, I thought because we had nuclear weapons, we were supposed to be safe. | ||
| And then the scripture says human nature is desperately wicked. | ||
| And then you've got Revelation that has its theories and ideas. | ||
| And then Matthew 24 says there will be a great tribulation. | ||
| And if there is no adherence to peace. | ||
| And so, Darryl, what do you think of the United States entering the Israel and Iran conflict? | ||
|
unidentified
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Well, the United States, basically, think of it like this here. | |
| Everybody knows that the Jewish lobbyists have a lot of money, and you're going to be in any kind of a situation with our government, whether you're a senator, a congressperson, or a president, vice president. | ||
| It takes tons of money to get those jobs. | ||
| So we live in a country that you have to buy your way into your authority. | ||
| And I have never voted for anybody, Kimberly, because I don't want to be responsible for your grandchildren or somebody dying. | ||
| So thank you. | ||
| Gary is in Corpus Christi, Texas, on our line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Gary. | ||
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unidentified
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Yeah, good morning. | |
| I think it's just fantastic what the president did. | ||
| It's about time he did it. | ||
| It should have been done a long time ago. | ||
| And now we can do what we did with our number one enemy. | ||
| We can do it. | ||
| One new number one enemy, and that's the Democrat Party. | ||
| All they do is hate, hate, hate. | ||
| Had nothing ever good to say about America. | ||
| Why don't they just climb back underneath the rocks and go to hell? | ||
| Let's listen to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's reaction to the strikes last night. | ||
| Congratulations, President Trump. | ||
| Your bold decision to target Iran's nuclear facilities with the awesome and righteous might of the United States will change history. | ||
| In Operation Rising Line, Israel has done truly amazing things. | ||
| But in tonight's action against Iran's nuclear facilities, America has been truly unsurpassed. | ||
| It has done what no other country on earth could do. | ||
| History will record that President Trump acted to deny the world's most dangerous regime the world's most dangerous weapons. | ||
| His leadership today has created a pivot of history that can help lead the Middle East and beyond to a future of prosperity and peace. | ||
| President Trump and I often say, peace through strength. | ||
| First comes strength, then comes peace. | ||
| And tonight, President Trump and the United States acted with a lot of strength. | ||
| President Trump, I thank you. | ||
| The people of Israel thank you. | ||
| The forces of civilization thank you. | ||
| God bless America. | ||
| God bless Israel. | ||
| And may God bless our unshakable alliance, our unbreakable faith. | ||
| Once again, we want to hear your thoughts on the United States entering the Israel and Iran conflict. | ||
| Our phone lines for Republicans, 202-748-8001. | ||
| For Democrats, 202-748-8000. | ||
| And for Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| If you'd like to text us, that number is 202-748-8003. | ||
| Please be sure to include your name and where you're writing in from. | ||
| We're also on social media at facebook.com/slash C-SPAN and on X at C-SPANWJ. | ||
| Now, back to your calls. | ||
| Rosemary is in Buffalo, New York on our line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Rosemary. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| How are you this morning? | ||
| Fine, thank you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I am so just devastated by this war. | |
| Why are we really in this war? | ||
| It is ridiculous. | ||
| This man has caused so much terror and hate and racism in this country. | ||
| It is ridiculous. | ||
| I just can't see us fighting in this war. | ||
| You want to go over there and attack these people. | ||
| It's bad enough what they're doing in Ukraine and Russia. | ||
| It's bad enough. | ||
| Our children and everything growing up with this hate and everything in this country. | ||
| This is just ridiculous. | ||
| Like my mother used to say, we're going to hell in a handbasket in this country, and we're the laughingstock of the world. | ||
| I don't see it being a Democrat, Republican, Independent. | ||
| How about just being a human being? | ||
| We all are not blind. | ||
| We can see what's going on with this man. | ||
| But they put him back in office anyway because they didn't want a woman. | ||
| So I am just devastated, and it's going to affect all us poor people because most of us, Buffalo is poor. | ||
| We're poor. | ||
| How about helping homeless and veterans and people that really need help in this country? | ||
| How about you take care of us? | ||
| How about Donald Trump take care of us? | ||
| All right, this is all I have to say, and thank you very much for letting me say my opinion. | ||
| David is in St. Paul, Minnesota on our line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, David. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey there, good morning. | |
| Yeah, this whole thing is really crazy because they say attacking nuclear sites was bad when Russia did it, but somehow when Israel and the U.S. bombed them specifically to destroy them and potentially cause radiation leaks, it's totally still cool and righteous. | ||
| That's a little complex to understand. | ||
| And I want to explain the death to America thing. | ||
| It's more of a turn of phrase. | ||
| It's like saying the F word America. | ||
| They're not literally saying kill every American. | ||
| It's a turn of phrase of frustration. | ||
| They also say death to traffic or death to the heat. | ||
| You know, it's not a threat to you. | ||
| There is a threat to you, however, and it is the terrorist state of Israel. | ||
| They are one of three countries that have bombed nuclear sites, and they have a secret nuclear program they will not let be inspected, and they are not signatory to the non-proliferation treaty, which Iran was. | ||
| So the only country illegally pursuing nuclear weapons is Israel, and we are also arming them, which is against the non-proliferation treaty, which we're not supposed to be arming countries that illegally seek nuclear weapons, which Israel has. | ||
| And again, Israel struck Iran first. | ||
| Israel's bombed every hospital in Gaza. | ||
| They bombed cities in Lebanon. | ||
| They're bombing Syria. | ||
| They've bombed Yemen. | ||
| There's one belligerent aggressor here, and it's not Iran, which we also staged a coup in in 1959 because they wanted to nationalize our oil, just like we did in Egypt, just like we did in Libya. | ||
| This is all about their resources, and we want to control them. | ||
| So, David, because you mentioned the risk of potential radiation leaks, I do want to read this post from the International Atomic Energy Agency from about 1 a.m. Eastern saying, following the attacks on three nuclear sites in Iran, including Fordo, the IAEA can confirm that no increase in off-site radiation levels has been reported as of this time. | ||
| IAEA will provide further assessments on the situation in Iran as more information becomes available. | ||
| Let's go to Kerry in Locust Grove, Georgia, on our line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Kerry. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Kimberly. | |
| Thank you for accepting my call. | ||
| I'm retired from the United States Navy. | ||
| And during that time, I spent two tours in the Persian Gulf, escorting oil tankers in and out of there. | ||
| And also was on the multinational force in Beirut, Lebanon. | ||
| This is really sad what's going on. | ||
| In my mind, it's just a repeat of some of the things that I went through. | ||
| And I really feel terrible for the people that are caught up in this that are going to probably die. | ||
| And God forbid if we send boots on the ground again. | ||
| And I think that the economy is really going to be affected because I was a navigator. | ||
| The Straits of Home Moves is only 21 miles wide. | ||
| They're going to shut that down. | ||
| They're going to shut it down. | ||
| And everybody's going to be affected. | ||
| I'm praying for us, praying for everybody in the world, but this is sad, really sad. | ||
| Bill is in Bethesda, Maryland, on our line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Bill. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Good morning, Bill. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
| What do you think of the U.S. entering the Israel and Iran conflict? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I'm against it. | |
| I think that the Israelis, the great Israeli army, should put troops on the ground in Iran. | ||
| I mean, they could send a demolition combat team in to take care of all those nuclear sites. | ||
| All we hear about is how great the Israeli military is, but the only thing I see on the evening news is that they're killing people who are queuing for food in Gaza. | ||
| Unarmed civilians. | ||
| And that's all I have to say. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Stanley is in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on our line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Stanley. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey there, how are you doing, Kimberly? | |
| This morning. | ||
| Good, thank you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Kimley, I don't agree with war, period. | |
| But as my Indian brother and sister would say, this president speaks with a fault, a fork tongue. | ||
| So you don't know what's true and what's not true. | ||
| But I want to say this before I hang up, Chamui. | ||
| Anybody that has loved ones in the military, you hug them. | ||
| You let them know you love them. | ||
| Because a lot of them soldiers are not coming back home forever. | ||
| Thanks a lot. | ||
| Have a good day. | ||
| Lois is in Lewiston, New York on our line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Lois. | ||
|
unidentified
|
What I want to say is that you have to look at the wider picture of what President Trump is trying to do. | |
| He is taking a page from Vivi Netanyahu's progress to a sustainable presidency, even though the man was under a corruption indictment, and he then brought the country into a larger war that keeps on escalating so he can continue in power. | ||
| Lest we forget, during the 2016 reign of the current president, he wanted to declare a national emergency, and that would then justify him retaining power in America as well. | ||
| The two of them are both corrupt and have their purpose to retain power and achieve greater corruption and money. | ||
| I cannot see, now, anyone could say that I'm not a person who is in favor of war, but I had five uncles, five, who served in everything from the Second World War to the Korean conflict. | ||
| I had two daughters in the military who were both officers and two grandsons today who are both officers. | ||
| So you tell me I'm not a war hawk, but I am also not in support of anyone who presumptively takes the decision to go forward in a lawful, unlawful escalation of a war that we don't even belong in. | ||
| And we should not have continued to provide them with armaments when we can't even support the war against Ukraine, Ukraine against Russia. | ||
| I am baffled at how little historical context the American people have. | ||
| Now, I'm a retired college professor, and then maybe that's why I read a lot. | ||
| But I have to say, anybody who looks into the history of America as an imperialistic country, no wonder the Iranians have this death to America. | ||
| We are the ones who took their oil and established a potentate named the Shah of Iran so that he would allow us to continue to exploit their natural resources. | ||
| Look in the history books, people. | ||
| You're leading, being led by a corrupt regime. | ||
| Okay, Chris is in Charleston, South Carolina on our line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Chris. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, ma'am. | |
| I wanted to point out a couple things. | ||
| I guess the media has a lot of amnesia on the history of how Iran has attacked American facilities, soldiers, or resources over the last 40-plus years. | ||
| You know, starting with the hostages back in 1979. | ||
| And we keep getting punched in the mouth for several decades, and we don't do anything about it. | ||
| Okay? | ||
| Trump has drawn a line in the sand and said, knock it off to Iran. | ||
| He gave him 60 days. | ||
| That was his red line. | ||
| Obama's red line, you know, that got vaporized. | ||
| Regarding the Israeli military, okay, it's not the military behind all of this. | ||
| It's the Mossad. | ||
| It's the Israeli Secret Service. | ||
| They're the intelligence collectors. | ||
| They've been doing it for, you know, since World War II, since they were Nazi hunters. | ||
| And it just, it's laughable about the overreaction of what's going on. | ||
|
Trump's Nuclear Stand
00:14:38
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|
unidentified
|
Iran doesn't deserve nuclear capabilities, period. | |
| Okay, they're not going to get it. | ||
| Trump has been made that very clear for the last 15 years. | ||
| You know, that's been one of his philosophies. | ||
| And whether you like it or not, I don't want a rogue terrorist country having nuclear capabilities where they can send dirty bombs through an open border that we've had during the Biden administration. | ||
| So I think Trump did the right thing. | ||
| And we're not going to get involved. | ||
| We're not putting boots on the ground. | ||
| That's not going to happen. | ||
| Everything we can do is going to be from the air. | ||
| We're untouchable as far as that's concerned. | ||
| Chris, I want to bring in now some video from White House Press Secretary Caroline Lovitt at a press briefing on Thursday. | ||
| This was obviously before these strikes. | ||
| And she was asked how to square President Trump's vow to end so-called forever wars during his campaign with, at that point, a potential military action against Iran. | ||
| Here's that exchange. | ||
| What's your message to everyday Trump supporters? | ||
| Not the Tucker Carlsons or other big names, but everyday Trump supporters, grassroots, voted for President Trump to stop the wars, rejected this in the primary, going into another war, but voting against Nikki Haley. | ||
| And they want to see non-U.S. involvement in this war. | ||
| What's your message? | ||
| Trust in President Trump. | ||
| President Trump has incredible instincts, and President Trump kept America and the world safe in his first term as president in implementing a peace-through strength foreign policy agenda. | ||
| And with respect to Iran, nobody should be surprised by the president's position that Iran absolutely cannot obtain a nuclear weapon. | ||
| He's been unequivocally clear about this for decades, not just as president, not just as a presidential candidate, but also as a private citizen. | ||
| In fact, I have some quotes for you. | ||
| In 2011, President Trump said, America's primary goal with Iran must be to destroy its nuclear ambitions. | ||
| We cannot allow this radical regime to acquire a nuclear weapon that they will either use or hand off to terrorists. | ||
| In 2015, the president said the problem is that Iran poses an existential threat to Israel, our Middle Eastern allies, and the United States. | ||
| And of course, the president has repeated that in his first term as president and his second term as president as well. | ||
| That's why he was adamantly opposed to the disastrous Iranian nuclear agreement that was implemented by President Obama. | ||
| And it's why he has given great latitude and given a lot of effort to achieving a diplomatic solution. | ||
| But he's been very clear. | ||
| Iran went for 60 days when he gave them that 60-day warning without coming to the table. | ||
| On day 61, Israel took action against Iran. | ||
| And as I just told you from the president directly, he will make a decision within two weeks. | ||
| Back to your calls. | ||
| Brian is in Gainesville, Florida on our line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Brian. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, good morning. | |
| Thanks for taking my call. | ||
| I think you're going to end up with a lot of IRA people in this country this morning. | ||
| And granted, I believe they all have a right to go ahead and speak. | ||
| I'm a little worried about the timing and the procedures of what we did. | ||
| I don't think we thought it through. | ||
| I really don't think we thought it through at all. | ||
| We forced Ukraine to give up their nuclear weapons back in 1991. | ||
| Look how well that turned out for them today. | ||
| We promised them safety and security, and that's just not happening. | ||
| Israel said that they've got air superiority over Iran already. | ||
| They've taken out a lot of their military machine, they've wasted a lot of ballistic missiles on an iron dome that's coming into Israel. | ||
| And I think they touted that they'd already taken out a third of their nuclear program. | ||
| So why did we have to go in? | ||
| I think that was more ego than it was strategy. | ||
| And I'm really worried that we don't have a second day initiative put together. | ||
| If the object was to take care of their nuclear problem, why do we need to keep bombing them? | ||
| Is it because we want access to their oil? | ||
| And did we really think that Iran is pretty intelligent? | ||
| I mean, if you've been able to go ahead and put the weaponry together to go ahead and develop a nuclear bomb, they're pretty intelligent. | ||
| We're not talking about a bunch of people who just live in tents in the sand. | ||
| So is it possible, and I'm sure they thought of this, that they could attach a nuclear or chemical weapon to a warhead and send it over Israel? | ||
| I wonder if that was thought through. | ||
| Or how about the 10,000 or 10 million immigrants that have already come to this country illegally? | ||
| How many of those people were Iranians? | ||
| Did you think these things through before you made those decisions? | ||
| I think he wanted to bomb Iran a week ago. | ||
| He had a shiny new toilet he wanted to use. | ||
| I appreciate it. | ||
| Ronald is in San Antonio, Missouri on our line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Ronald. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, ma'am. | |
| I think everybody should applaud the president. | ||
| It's nice to have a president that will stand up for everybody and do what he said he was going to do. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| John is in San Diego, California on our line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, John. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, good morning. | |
| You know, I woke up this morning on my ex-account, and there's a short clip of Trump just ripping into Bush on presidential debates and, you know, complaining about how the country was lied to about the weapons of mass destruction. | ||
| Well, you know, I mean, I feel the same thing has just happened again to us. | ||
| I am so disappointed in Trump. | ||
| And I am a hardcore MAGA guy, and I had so much support for this guy, and I just feel betrayed about this. | ||
| Trump has done the wrong thing. | ||
| We've literally bombed the wrong country. | ||
| Israel has been doing things over there that are just outrageous, un-American, slaughtering tens of thousands of people, attacking this Pearl Harbor-like attack on Iran. | ||
| It's just outrageous. | ||
| And we're buying into it, and we're supporting them, and we're providing them all the information and the intelligence. | ||
| And now we've just attacked them. | ||
| We've gotten sucked in to yet another war. | ||
| And it's just, I am so disappointed in this guy. | ||
| You know, he started off doing so many good things. | ||
| He got rid of the dual citizenship staff members all around him. | ||
| But now he's got these Raptor preppers around him. | ||
| And it's just, I'm just disappointed this morning. | ||
| And I was certainly hoping for him to be a real peacemaker out there, be a senior diplomat and bring all the parties together and promote peace in that region. | ||
| And that's not what he did. | ||
| He's done the wrong thing. | ||
| And I am disappointed. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| President Trump spoke about intelligence connected to Iran's nuclear program and contradicted the assessment of his Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, speaking outside of Air Force One on Friday. | ||
| Let's listen to those comments. | ||
|
unidentified
|
20 years ago, you were skeptical of a Republican administration that attacked the Middle East country on the idea of questionable intelligence of weapons of mass destruction. | |
| How is this moment different with Iran? | ||
| Well, there were no weapons of mass destruction. | ||
| I never thought there were. | ||
| And that was somewhat pre-nuclear. | ||
| You know, there was a nuclear age, but nothing like it is today. | ||
| And it looks like I'm right about the material that they've gathered already. | ||
| It's a tremendous amount of material. | ||
| And I think within a matter of weeks, or certainly within a matter of months, they're going to be able to have a nuclear weapon. | ||
| We can't let that happen. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I was very much opposed to Iraq. | |
| I said it loud and clear, but I was a civilian, but I guess I got a lot of publicity. | ||
| But I was very much opposed to the Iraq war. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And I actually did say, don't go in, don't go in, don't go in. | |
| But I said, if you're going to go in, keep the oil. | ||
|
unidentified
|
But they didn't do that. | |
| What intelligence do you have that Iran is building a nuclear weapon? | ||
| Your intelligence community has said they have no evidence that they are at this point. | ||
| Well, then my intelligence community is wrong. | ||
| Who in the intelligence community said that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Your director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard. | |
| She's wrong. | ||
| Back to your calls on the U.S. entering the Israel-Iran conflict. | ||
| Ted is in Pocatello, Idaho, on our line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Ted. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I'm a Democrat, and I think Donald Trump made the wrong mistake. | |
| I think they should bomb Israel because Israel just obliterated Gaza and it just keeps going on and on and on. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Gene is in New Jersey on our line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Gene. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thank you, C-SPAN, for including that Netanyahu clip. | ||
| It gave me clear insight into the kind of flattery that Netanyahu is capable of and the influence he has over Trump. | ||
| Second of all, I'm hearing people talk about Iranian history as going back a couple decades, a few decades, a hostage crisis. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Please look further back to the influence in the 50s in the way that the United States crushed the efforts of Iranian people for democracy. | |
| And if you haven't heard the name of Kermit Roosevelt, look it up. | ||
| And third of all, I hear the MAGA or Republicans generally talking about the mandate they have. | ||
| As I recall, the number of Republicans or Democrats either voting did not reach the number of people who were eligible to vote in this country and did not. | ||
| And I think that that gives a better picture of how divided the country has been in rhetoric. | ||
| While, in fact, many people have been very upset about the way the democracy has been attacked at this point. | ||
| That's it. | ||
| Thank you again, C-SPAN. | ||
| Ron is in Illinois on our line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Ron. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I just thank God that Prumps in office at this time. | |
| I mean, what would they be? | ||
| Where would we be right now if we said Joe Biden? | ||
| These Democrats, all these things you're seeing going on in the United States, these what you call protests, I call them riots when you're attacking police and soldiers. | ||
| That's not a protest. | ||
| It's a riot. | ||
| The United States has voted, put him in the office. | ||
| Thank God he's in the office at this time. | ||
| If he didn't go in now, Israel did not have what they need to take out these sites. | ||
| And if we didn't go in, those sites would still be around, and they would still have the ability to create a nuclear bomb. | ||
| I think he had his hands tied. | ||
| He had to go in at this time. | ||
| Otherwise, it would be us alone trying to stop them in the future. | ||
| The fact that Israel went in and is doing 90% of the work, we came in and just used what we had that they didn't. | ||
| I think that these people that are complaining about this were in a safer world with Iran not having a nuclear bomb. | ||
| I mean, they support every terrorist group around. | ||
| And I can't understand how Americans are not behind that. | ||
| I just don't thank God we don't have Joe Biden. | ||
| They'd be changing his diaper right now, not knowing what to say. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Next up is Brent and Cedric William Washington on our line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Brent. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| First of all, I want to start with all this Joe Biden stuff. | ||
| Joe Biden is not the president. | ||
| And if he was the president, we'd have a peaceful world right now. | ||
| But unfortunately, we don't. | ||
| But as far as what Donald Trump has done, I strongly disagree with it. | ||
| And frankly, everybody in America should be disappointed with Congress because it's Congress's job to declare no war, not president. | ||
| The Congress anymore just wants to sit on their hands and do nothing. | ||
| But what's really happened is we are all in extreme danger now because of what President Trump has done. | ||
| Our soldiers, even us civilians here in America. | ||
| And if something bad happens, it won't be Iraq's responsibility. | ||
| It'll be the responsibility of Donald Trump and the Israeli government, who is running Donald Trump like a puppet. | ||
| You know, this is just a sad, sad day for the entire world. | ||
| You know, I'm highly disappointed that anybody would call in supporting this when there was absolutely no proof that their nuclear program was for offensive purposes. | ||
| It was probably going to be used for, who knows, you know, power or whatever. | ||
| But that's not the point. | ||
| So we're going to need to wrap this up because we are waiting for in just a few minutes that press conference with the Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and the Joint Chiefs Chair Dan Kane, which we're going to be carrying here on C-SPAN and also C-SPAN Radio, C-SPANNOW, and C-SPAN.org. | ||
| Later on, we'll have joining us to discuss how the Middle East conflict could affect oil and gas prices. | ||
| We'll hear from analyst Stephen Shork. | ||
| And then once we get through that press conference, we're also going to have defense priorities, Rose Kalanik and American Enterprise Institute's Danielle Pletka here to discuss yesterday's U.S. military strikes inside Iran, as well as potential Iranian retaliation. | ||
|
Amy Semple McPherson's Disappearance
00:03:40
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| We will be right back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
This week on the C-SPAN networks, the House and Senate are in session. | |
| The House will consider several bills aimed at reducing undocumented immigrants in the U.S. Members will also consider funding for military construction projects and the Veterans Affairs Department as the first of 12 federal spending bills for 2026. | ||
| The Senate continues to vote on President Trump's executive nominations and may consider Republicans' tax and spending cuts bill if it is ready for floor action. | ||
| C-SPAN continues live coverage of Cabinet Secretary's budget hearings. | ||
| On Monday, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi testifies before a House Appropriations Subcommittee. | ||
| Tuesday, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. testifies before a House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee. | ||
| Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell will testify before two committee hearings on the Federal Reserve's semi-annual monetary policy report, first on Tuesday before the House Financial Services Committee and then on Wednesday before the Senate Banking Committee. | ||
| Wednesday, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, Russell Vogt, testifies before the Senate Appropriations Committee on President Trump's $9.4 billion rescission package request. | ||
| Watch live this week on the C-SPAN networks or on C-SPAN Now, our free mobile video app. | ||
| Also head over to c-span.org for scheduling information or to watch live or on demand anytime. | ||
| c-span democracy unfiltered it's a story from the 1920s 30s and 40s The book by Claire Hoffman is called Sister Center, Miraculous Life and Mysterious Disappearance of Amy Semple McPherson. | ||
| FSG, the publisher, further emphasizes that the story is, quote, the dramatic rise, disappearance, and near fall of a woman called Sister Amy, who changed the world. | ||
| Author Claire Hoffman, who has a master's in religion from the University of Chicago, says Amy Semple McPherson may not be known to many today, but she was a global star at the inception of global media. | ||
|
unidentified
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Claire Hoffman with her book, Sister Center, The Miraculous Life and Mysterious Disappearance of Amy Semple McPherson on this episode of Book Notes Plus with our host Brian Lamb. | |
| BookNotes Plus is available on the C-SPAN Now free mobile app or wherever you get your podcasts. | ||
| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Welcome back. | ||
| We've got a live shot there at the Pentagon where we're waiting to hear from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth as well as Joint Chiefs Chair Dan Kaine with their updates on the attack that the United States conducted on Iran last night. | ||
| And here with me for analysis on what's been going on, I'm joined by Rosemary Kalanick, who is with Defense Priorities and Middle East Program Director. | ||
| Thank you so much for joining us this morning. | ||
|
Precision Strike Against Iran
00:15:20
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|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| And also I'm joined by Danielle Pletka, who's with the American Enterprise Institute and is the Foreign and Defense Policy Studies Senior Fellow. | ||
| Welcome to Washington Journal. | ||
| Now, starting with you, Danny, can I just get your reaction to those strikes last night? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, they were quite decisive. | |
| I think that those of us who were paying close attention had a sense this was coming, that in fact the diplomatic process was not leading towards a resolution of the Iranian nuclear program, and that the president made a, I think probably for him, a tough decision and went ahead. | ||
| What was, I think, important was that we used pretty impressive firepower and that we used it for the first time, that we took out the Fordau Nuclear Enrichment Center, which is obviously the one that was deep, deep underground. | ||
| We took out Natan's, we took out the enrichment center at Isfahan. | ||
| And that, I think, I hope, begins to mitigate some of the threat from the Iranian nuclear weapons program, but also encourages them to come back to a diplomatic process with some serious goals in mind. | ||
| And Rosemary, what about you? | ||
| What was your reaction when you saw the news last night? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm afraid to say I think that this was a terrible mistake. | |
| Let me preface this by saying I hope I'm wrong. | ||
| But while the United States military is the best in the world, they executed this flawlessly. | ||
| This is ultimately not a military problem. | ||
| It's a political problem. | ||
| And you can't bomb a 20-year-old nuclear program out of existence with just some airstrikes. | ||
| I'm worried that this is going to draw the United States into a longer war with boots on the ground, potentially a regime change war, which is not in the U.S. interest whatsoever. | ||
| And I think while things look good now, in the short, you know, after the dust settles, we're going to find out that we haven't actually gotten all the nuclear components. | ||
| The Iranians have already said that they've moved materials out of these bases where we knew that they were, and they are somewhere else in the country, and we don't know where they are. | ||
| So ultimately, you can't bomb yourself out of this problem. | ||
| And I'm afraid that this will escalate to a broader conflict, and I sincerely hope that that does not happen. | ||
| Rose, Danny mentioned that this might help bring Iran back to the negotiating table. | ||
| Do you think that that's a likelihood? | ||
|
unidentified
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No. | |
| No, I don't think that's a likelihood. | ||
| I think the problem here is that it looks like, and we're going to be having the Defense Secretary come in in just a moment. | ||
| We see them filing in. | ||
| If you want to quickly finish your point and then we'll turn to this press conference. | ||
|
unidentified
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No, I think Iran would be crazy to come to the negotiating table because Iran thinks that this is a regime change war against them, right? | |
| They think this is an existential threat to them. | ||
| And I don't think they're going to come on stage now. | ||
| Let's listen. | ||
| Well, thank you for joining us this morning. | ||
| Last night on President Trump's orders, U.S. Central Command conducted a precision strike in the middle of the night against three nuclear facilities in Iran, Ford, Natan's, and Esfahan, in order to destroy or severely degrade Iran's nuclear program. | ||
| And as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs will demonstrate, it was an incredible and overwhelming success. | ||
| The order we received from our Commander-in-Chief was focused, it was powerful, and it was clear. | ||
| We devastated the Iranian nuclear program. | ||
| But it's worth noting the operation did not target Iranian troops or the Iranian people. | ||
| For the entirety of his time in office, President Trump has consistently stated for over 10 years that Iran must not get a nuclear weapon. | ||
| Full stop. | ||
| Thanks to President Trump's bold and visionary leadership and his commitment to peace through strength, Iran's nuclear ambitions have been obliterated. | ||
| Many presidents have dreamed of delivering the final blow to Iran's nuclear program, and none could until President Trump. | ||
| The operation President Trump planned was bold and it was brilliant, showing the world that American deterrence is back. | ||
| When this president speaks, the world should listen. | ||
| And the U.S. military, we can back it up. | ||
| The most powerful military the world has ever known. | ||
| No other country on planet Earth could have conducted the operation that the chairman is going to outline this morning, not even close. | ||
| Just like Soleimani found out in the first term, Iran found out that when POTUS says 60 days that he seeks peace and negotiation, he means 60 days of peace and negotiation. | ||
| Otherwise, that nuclear program, that nuclear capability will not exist. | ||
| He meant it. | ||
| This is not the previous administration. | ||
| The President Trump said no nukes. | ||
| He seeks peace, and Iran should take that path. | ||
| He sent out a truth last night saying this. | ||
| Any retaliation by Iran against the United States of America will be met with force far greater than what was witnessed tonight. | ||
| Signed, the President of the United States, Donald J. Trump. | ||
| Iran would be smart to heed those words. | ||
| He's said it before, and he means it. | ||
| I want to give recognition to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Joint Staff, General Eric Carrilla at CENTCOM, who did a phenomenal job, he and his staff, all of CENTCOM. | ||
| Policy across the board, this was a joint effort and across the Pentagon effort. | ||
| I want to recognize the pilots who flew those bombers, who flew those fighters, who flew those refuelers, warriors. | ||
| I want to recognize the sailors on those destroyers, in those subs, on those carriers, warriors, all of them. | ||
| I want to recognize our soldiers doing air defense, base defense, QRF, warriors, all of them. | ||
| Every American involved in this operation performed flawlessly. | ||
| And I want to give recognition to our allies in Israel as well. | ||
| This is a plan that took months and weeks of positioning and preparation so that we could be ready when the President of the United States called. | ||
| It took a great deal of precision. | ||
| It involved misdirection and the highest of operational security. | ||
| Our B-2s went in and out of downtown Tehran, not Tehran, excuse me, of these nuclear sites, in and out and back without the world knowing at all. | ||
| In that way, it was historic. | ||
| A strike that included the longest B-2 spirit bomber mission since 2001 and the first operational employment of the MOP, a massive ordnance penetrator. | ||
| The mission demonstrated to the world the level of joint and allied integration that speak to the strength of our alliance and our joint forces. | ||
| As President Trump has stated, the United States does not seek war. | ||
| But let me be clear. | ||
| We will act swiftly and decisively when our people, our partners, or our interests are threatened. | ||
| Iran should listen to the President of the United States and know that he means it, every word. | ||
| I want to give congratulations to our Commander-in-Chief. | ||
| It was an honor to watch him lead last night and throughout, and to our great American warriors on this successful operation. | ||
| God bless our troops. | ||
| God bless America. | ||
| And we give glory to God for his providence and continue to ask for his protection. | ||
| I turn it over now to the chairman for specifics. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Secretary. | ||
| Thanks for recognizing all of our folks out there doing our nation's work. | ||
| And nice to see everybody on this early Sunday morning. | ||
| Last night, on the President's orders, U.S. Central Command, under the command of General Eric Carrilla, executed Operation Midnight Hammer, a deliberate and precise strike against three Iranian nuclear facilities. | ||
| This was a complex and high-risk mission carried out with exceptional skill and discipline by our joint force. | ||
| I want to thank every service member, planner, operator that made this mission possible. | ||
| Their actions reflect the highest standards of the United States Armed Forces. | ||
| This operation was designed to severely degrade Iran's nuclear weapons infrastructure. | ||
| It was planned and executed across multiple domains and theaters with coordination that reflects our ability to project power globally with speed and precision at the time and place of our nation's choosing. | ||
| This was a highly classified mission with very few people in Washington knowing the timing or nature of this plan. | ||
| I'll refer you to the graphic on the side as I walk you through some of the operational details. | ||
| At midnight Friday into Saturday morning, a large B-2 strike package comprised of bombers launched from the continental United States. | ||
| As part of a plan to maintain tactical surprise, part of the package proceeded to the west and into the Pacific as a decoy, a deception effort known only to an extremely small number of planners and key leaders here in Washington and in Tampa. | ||
| The main strike package, comprised of seven B-2 Spirit bombers, each with two crew members, proceeded quietly to the east with minimal communications. | ||
| Throughout the 18-hour flight into the target area, the aircraft completed multiple in-flight refuelings. | ||
| Once over land, the B-2s linked up with escort and support aircraft in a complex, tightly timed maneuver requiring exact synchronization across multiple platforms in a narrow piece of airspace, all done with minimal communications. | ||
| This type of integration is exactly what our joint force does better than anyone else in the world. | ||
| At approximately 5 p.m. Eastern Standard Time last night and just prior to the strike package entering Iran, a U.S. submarine in the Central Command Area of Responsibility launched more than two dozen Tomahawk land attack cruise missiles against key surface infrastructure targets at Esfahan. | ||
| As the Operation Midnight Hammer strike package entered Iranian airspace, the U.S. employed several deception tactics, including decoys, as the fourth and fifth generation aircraft pushed out in front of the strike package at high altitude and high speed, sweeping in front of the package for enemy fighters and surface-to-air missile threats. | ||
| The strike package was supported by U.S. Strategic Command, U.S. Transportation Command, U.S. Cyber Command, U.S. Space Command, U.S. Space Force, and U.S. European Command. | ||
| As the strike package approached Ford and Natances, the U.S. protection package employed high-speed suppression weapons to ensure safe passage of the strike package with fighter assets employing preemptive suppressing fires against any potential Iranian surface-to-air threats. | ||
| We are currently unaware of any shots fired at the U.S. strike package on the way in. | ||
| At approximately 6.40 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, 2.10 a.m. Iran time, the lead B-2 dropped two GBU-57 massive ordnance penetrator weapons on the first of several aim points at Fordeau. | ||
| As the President stated last night, the remaining bombers then hit their targets as well with a total of 14 MOPs dropped against two nuclear target areas. | ||
| All three Iranian nuclear infrastructure targets were struck between 6.40 p.m. and 7.05 p.m. Eastern Time. | ||
| Again, that's about 2.10 in the morning local time in Iran, with the Tomahawk missiles being the last to strike at Esfahan to ensure we retain the element of surprise throughout the operation. | ||
| Following weapons release, the Midnight Hammer strike package exited Iranian airspace and the package began its return home. | ||
| We are unaware of any shots fired at the package on the way out. | ||
| Iran's fighters did not fly, and it appears that Iran's surface-to-air missile systems did not see us. | ||
| Throughout the mission, we retained the element of surprise. | ||
| In total, U.S. forces employed approximately 75 precision-guided weapons during this operation. | ||
| This included, as the President stated last night, 14 30,000-pound GBU-57 massive ordnance penetrators, marking the first ever operational use of this weapon. | ||
| I know that battle damage is of great interest. | ||
| Final battle damage will take some time, but initial battle damage assessments indicate that all three sites sustained extremely severe damage and destruction. | ||
| More than 125 U.S. aircraft participated in this mission, including B-2 stealth bombers, multiple flights of fourth and fifth generation fighters, dozens and dozens of air refueling tankers, a guided missile submarine, and a full array of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance aircraft, as well as hundreds of maintenance and operational professionals. | ||
| As the Secretary said, this was the largest B-2 operational strike in U.S. history and the second longest B-2 mission ever flown, exceeded only by those in the days following 9-11. | ||
|
Proactive Force Protection Measures
00:15:16
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| Well prior to the strike, General Carrilla elevated force protection measures across the region, especially in Iraq, Syria, and the Gulf. | ||
| Our forces remain on high alert and are fully postured to respond to any Iranian retaliation or proxy attacks, which would be an incredibly poor choice. | ||
| We will defend ourselves. | ||
| The safety of our service members and civilians remains our highest priority. | ||
| This mission demonstrates the unmatched reach, coordination, and capability of the United States military. | ||
| In just a matter of weeks, this went from strategic planning to global execution. | ||
| This operation underscores the unmatched capabilities and global reach of the United States military. | ||
| As the President clearly said last night, no other military in the world could have done this. | ||
| I join the President and the Secretary in being incredibly proud of the air crews, naval forces, cyber operators, planners, and support teams, and commanders who made this mission possible. | ||
| It is their skill, discipline, and teamwork that makes this operation possible. | ||
| I am particularly proud of our discipline related to operational security, something that was of great concern to the President, the Secretary, General Carrilla, and me, and we will continue to focus on this. | ||
| As we stand here this morning, many assets are still airborne, and we have hundreds deployed. | ||
| I ask that we keep our warfighters on their way home and our deployed service member in our thoughts. | ||
| Our joint force remains ready to defend the United States, our troops, and our interests in the region. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| We will take a few questions, Phil. | ||
|
unidentified
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Me? | |
| Yeah. | ||
| So is regime change off the table, Mr. Secretary? | ||
| And to the Chairman, you know, you said the battle damage assessment is still ongoing, but do you believe that some nuclear capability in Iran remains? | ||
| This mission was not and has not been about regime change. | ||
| The president authorized a precision operation to neutralize the threats to our national interests posed by the Iranian nuclear program and the collective self-defense of our troops and our ally, Israel. | ||
| Thanks for your question. | ||
| I think BDA is still pending, and it would be way too early for me to comment on what may or may not still be there. | ||
| But thanks for the question. | ||
| Green. | ||
| Green, no, behind you. | ||
|
unidentified
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Excuse me, Mr. Secretary. | |
| Can you tell me, was there a particular moment when the President decided to pull the trigger on this operation where he said, now, rather than being, you know, something in the holster, now we're going to pull the trigger on it? | ||
| I would just say, having the opportunity to witness his leadership, he was fully committed to the peace process, wanted a negotiated outcome, gave Iran every single opportunity, and unfortunately was met by stonewalling, which is why he gave them plenty of time to continue to come to the table and give up enrichment, give up the nuclear program. | ||
| But there was a, I won't say the particular moment, there was certainly a moment in time where he realized that it had to be a certain action taken in order to minimize the threat to us and our troops. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yeah. | |
| General, you say that General Carrilla increased force protection in Iraq, Syria, and Gulf, and those areas. | ||
| Were they given any advance warning the attacks were coming? | ||
| And also, Mr. Secretary, when were congressional leaders notified? | ||
| How long before the attacks took place? | ||
| Sir, to your first question, you know, the risk has clearly been rising over the last few weeks in the region. | ||
| Based on that and not a particular awareness of this operation, we've made smart decisions to minimize the risk to U.S. forces in the region. | ||
|
unidentified
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They were given no advance warning. | |
| No, sir. | ||
| And congressional. | ||
| They were notified after the planes were safely out. | ||
| We complied with the notification requirements of the War Powers Act. | ||
|
unidentified
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They were notified. | |
| They were immediately thereafter. | ||
| Yes? | ||
| Thank you, Secretary. | ||
| Two questions. | ||
| Do you believe you completely destroyed Iranian nuclear program? | ||
| And how about Iranian ballasted missiles? | ||
| Your ally as Israel always saying that is biggest threat. | ||
| And second question is very important. | ||
| What will be your next step if Iran or militias under Iranian influence on the region attack U.S. interests or allies in the region? | ||
| And you can chime in on this too, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| The battle damage assessment is ongoing, but our initial assessment, as the chairman said, is that all of our precision munitions struck where we wanted them to strike and had the desired effect, which means especially in Ford, which was the primary target here, we believe we achieved destruction of capabilities there. | ||
| Ultimately, wherever it may be, whether it's in Iraq or Syria or bases in the Gulf, as the President said, it would be a Chairman said, it would be a very bad idea for Iran or its proxies to attempt to attack American forces. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yes. | |
| Thank you, Mr. Secretary. | ||
| Regarding retaliations, Iran and North Korea are cooperating on nuclear and missile development. | ||
| Do you think there is a possibility that Iran, North Korea, and the other forces, such as China, will join forces to retaliate against the United States? | ||
| Well, unfortunately, because of the policies under the previous administration, we drove those countries together and ultimately that creates a challenging environment. | ||
| For this particular operation, the focus is on Iran and Iranian nuclear capabilities. | ||
| That's our focus here, is to not just say that they can't have, but President Trump has said from over 20 years, frankly, Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. | ||
| And ultimately, he decided this is the moment, given their stonewalling, when direct military action had to be taken to prevent that from happening. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yes? | |
| Thank you very much. | ||
| General Kane, I understand OPSAC. | ||
| I respect OPSAC. | ||
| Can you say at all what security procedures are being taken to protect U.S. troops in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East? | ||
| And Secretary Hekset, as a global war on terrorism veteran, what do you say to veterans who may be concerned the U.S. is getting into another open-ended war in the Middle East over weapons of mass destruction? | ||
| Thanks, sir, for the question. | ||
| I won't comment on what force protection measures are being taken in the region. | ||
| What I will say is we're being proactive and not reactive and being very thoughtful about ensuring that we do all that we can to protect our forces out there. | ||
| And I would just say, as the President has directed and made clear, this is most certainly not open-ended. | ||
| It doesn't mean it limits our ability to respond. | ||
| We will respond if necessary. | ||
| The most powerful military in the world is postured and prepared to defend our people. | ||
| But what the President gave us, as I said, was a focused, powerful, and clear mission on the destruction of Iranian nuclear capabilities. | ||
| Those were the targets. | ||
| That's what was struck. | ||
| That was overwhelming. | ||
| That's what was overwhelming. | ||
| That's what the Iranian regime needs to understand, as the President put out last night. | ||
| He wants peace. | ||
| There needs to be a negotiated settlement here. | ||
| We ultimately demonstrated that Iran cannot have a nuclear capability. | ||
| That is a very clear mission set on this operation. | ||
| Yes? | ||
| Hold on. | ||
| Yes, right there. | ||
|
unidentified
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Thank you, Mr. Secretary. | |
| Question for the Secretary and the Chairman. | ||
| How was this strike coordinated with the Israelis on a strategic level, militarily, and on a tactical level? | ||
| Was there any direct Israeli military participation in this operation? | ||
| Well, I would say certainly Israel had an incredible military success, especially at the beginning and ongoing in degrading Iranian capabilities, degrading Iranian launchers, MRBMs. | ||
| It's been incredible to watch what our ally Israel has been able to do. | ||
| And there certainly have been conversations. | ||
| I mean, General Karilla at CENTCOM has worked closely in the defense of Israel for many years. | ||
| And part of this operation was the defense of Israel and the ongoing defense of Israel. | ||
| But as it pertains to this strike, this was U.S.-operated and U.S.-led. | ||
| We took advantage of some of the preparatory work that's been done over the past week and a half in terms of axis of approach. | ||
| I won't get into the particulars, but as the Secretary said, it was a U.S. strike. | ||
| We made sure we were not in the same piece of airspace and sky. | ||
| Aside from that, that was the extent of it. | ||
| We'll take a couple more. | ||
| Yeah, right there. | ||
|
unidentified
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Question to the Secretary first. | |
| Are you concerned whatsoever now about the reaction from U.S. allies given the strike, particularly those in the Gulf? | ||
| And to the Chairman, if I may, I understand you don't want to speak to specific assets and force protection measures, but do you anticipate at least having to bring in any further assets from other theaters to aid in force protection over the coming days? | ||
| We certainly understand the challenges of allies in the region, and we have been respectful and in working in collaboration with them as it pertains to basing and sensitivities there. | ||
| Ultimately, they've got a lot of assets and people in those locations also where American troops are co-located. | ||
| So that's a consideration of ours. | ||
| We've been in close consultation with them and we appreciate the support that we have got. | ||
| Thanks for the question on sort of the global picture. | ||
| And as you know, that's one of my jobs is to look globally at the entire range of challenges. | ||
| We are always carefully considering our force posture around the world and then offering options to the Secretary and to the President. | ||
| I won't comment on any future things, but the American people should know that we carefully consider those moves around the world and try to modulate as needed our force structure in the region. | ||
|
unidentified
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Absolutely. | |
| Yeah, right here. | ||
|
unidentified
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Thank you. | |
| What communications are being sent to the Iranians right now and is there any possibility of diplomacy now or in the coming days? | ||
| I can only confirm that there are both public and private messages being directly delivered to the Iranians in multiple channels, giving them every opportunity to come to the table. | ||
| They understand precisely what the American position is, precisely what steps they can take to allow for peace, and we hope they do so. | ||
| Yes? | ||
|
unidentified
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The President may not want an open-ended conflict. | |
| The Iranians may disagree. | ||
| Are you prepared for a protracted war? | ||
| Well, anything can happen in conflict. | ||
| We acknowledge that. | ||
| But the scope of this was intentionally limited. | ||
| That's the message that we're sending. | ||
| With the capabilities of the American military nearly unlimited. | ||
| So Iran, in that sense, has a choice. | ||
| But we've made it very clear to them, this is nuclear sites, this is nuclear capabilities, this is the line that the president set, and we set that back. | ||
| Now is the time to come forward for peace. | ||
| But we, I think one of the takeaways from this as well is the unprecedented level of ongoing cooperation. | ||
| I can't speak highly enough of the chairman and his staff and General Carrilla in CENTCOM, what they've done to look around the corner, to pre-position, to understand how an operation like this comes together. | ||
| The scope and scale of what occurred last night would take the breath away of almost any American if you had an opportunity to watch it in real time. | ||
| And I think Tehran is certainly calculating the reality that planes flew from the middle of America and Missouri overnight, completely undetected, over three of their most highly sensitive sites, and we were able to destroy nuclear capabilities. | ||
| And our boys in those bombers are on their way home right now. | ||
| We believe that'll have a clear psychological impact on how they view the future, and we certainly hope they take the path of negotiated peace. | ||
| But I could not be more proud of how this building operated, of the precision, the sensitivity, and the professionalism of the troops involved in this effort. | ||
| I will take one more, we'll take one more question. | ||
| Yes, right there. | ||
|
unidentified
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Thank you, Mr. Secretary. | |
| Concerning the justification for these strikes, in March, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released their threat assessment, concluding, quote, Iran is not building a nuclear weapon, and Khomeini has not authorized the nuclear programs he suspended in 2003, unquote. | ||
| So what new intelligence does the U.S. have since then that the Iranians have changed their position on nuclear weapons? | ||
| And does this new intelligence come from U.S. sources and methods, or are we getting this information from other countries? | ||
| Well, I would just simply say that the President's made it very clear. | ||
| He's looked at all of this, all of the intelligence, all the information, and come to the conclusion that the Iranian nuclear program is a threat and was willing to take this precision operation to neutralize that threat in order to advance American national interests, reduce the Iranian nuclear program, and obviously collective self-defense of ourself and our allies. | ||
| So he looked at all of it, understood the nature of the threat, and took bold action I think the American people would expect in a commander-in-chief. | ||
| That's all we've got. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
|
unidentified
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Appreciate it. | |
| Mr. Chairman. | ||
|
unidentified
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Thank you. | |
| Mr. Chairman, do you have any of the WC-135 though? | ||
| Can you check the radioactive material? | ||
| That was Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Dan Kaine that were just speaking right now about the United States strikes on Iran last night. | ||
| I'm joined here for our roundtable discussion by Danielle Platka, excuse me, with the American Enterprise Institute, as well as Rosemary Kalanick, who is with defense priorities. | ||
|
Snapback Threat Posed
00:15:30
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| And I want to start with you, Danny, and get your reaction to what we just heard from our Pentagon officials about the strikes last night. | ||
|
unidentified
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Well, we didn't really learn very much. | |
| Let's be honest. | ||
| I think we learned that the president has finite goals, that he felt that the negotiations were not being taken seriously, that he gave Iran a deadline of 60 days to show some seriousness in those negotiations. | ||
| They did not do so and subsequently made the decision to directly address the threat posed by their nuclear enrichment and other nuclear sites. | ||
| And Rose, what were your thoughts on what we just heard from the Pentagon? | ||
|
unidentified
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Well, I was pleased to hear that the United States seemed to be trying to communicate to Iran that this is only a nuclear strike, that the U.S. does not want to get involved in regime change. | |
| The U.S. has not targeted Iranian troops. | ||
| Unfortunately, I think the reporter who asked the question, you know, the U.S. wants to keep this limited, but Iran may disagree, is right on there. | ||
| I was also struck by Hegsa saying that, you know, the U.S. military, its capabilities are unlimited. | ||
| Certainly its talent and its effort is unlimited, but our capabilities are already stretched. | ||
| We've lost three jets in the region to accidents alone. | ||
| So the idea that this is going to stay limited, I certainly hope that that is the case. | ||
| But facts on the ground suggest otherwise. | ||
| And the big takeaway, I think, is that this is not going to make an Iranian nuclear weapon less likely. | ||
| These strikes are going to make it more likely, more likely. | ||
| We'll be taking questions from our audience for our two guests. | ||
| Our line for Republicans, 202748, 8001. | ||
| For Democrats, 202-748-8000. | ||
| And for Independents, 202748-8002. | ||
| Now, staying with you, Rose, the Defense Secretary said that these strikes were able to meaningfully degrade Iran's nuclear capabilities. | ||
| What do you think of that assessment? | ||
| And do we have enough information at this point to make that judgment? | ||
|
unidentified
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We don't really know for sure yet. | |
| We don't have the battlefield damage assessment, as was mentioned in the conference. | ||
| I have no doubt that we blew Fordo and Natans and Esfahan to smithereens, but that doesn't mean that we got all of the aspects of the Iranian nuclear program, right? | ||
| Iran has been working on this for 20 years. | ||
| They have thousands of nuclear scientists. | ||
| You can't bomb the knowledge out of their brains. | ||
| It's not clear to me that we got all of the nuclear components, all of the stockpiles of uranium. | ||
| The Iranians are not dumb. | ||
| They probably moved those before these strikes happen. | ||
| So I am not at all convinced that we have gotten rid of all of the aspects of their nuclear program that are of concern. | ||
| And ultimately, the only way to do that is with boots on the ground. | ||
| Either IAEA inspectors, which means we have some kind of deal with Iran, right, to allow them peacefully to verify that everything has been destroyed, or what I fear most, U.S. boots on the ground to make sure that everything is destroyed. | ||
| That's the only way we'll really know for sure. | ||
| We heard in that press conference that they are hopeful this will lead to Iran reassessing its stance and its negotiating position. | ||
| What takeaways do you think Iran can take from these strikes in terms of what they bring back to the negotiating table if they come back at all? | ||
|
unidentified
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So I think that the Iranians, if they were smart, and they are outstanding negotiators, I really have a lot of respect for our Iranian interlocutors. | |
| I think the problem is that the mandate that they have is not to give up their nuclear weapons program. | ||
| And that's the issue. | ||
| This is all about delay and about tactical concessions that really don't go to the heart of the nuclear weapons program. | ||
| I think another thing that people need to understand, which is let's not say boring, but let's say part of the environment that a lot of people don't get is that the nuclear agreement that Barack Obama signed with the Iranians had a number of provisions that sunset it. | ||
| So controls on their missile program, controls on conventional weapon sales. | ||
| This October, something called snapback expires. | ||
| And that is extraordinarily important. | ||
| It was the fail-safe mechanism in that deal. | ||
| And what that meant was that if Iran was not in compliance, that parties to the deal could go to the Security Council and there would be no permission for a veto by the Chinese or the Russians or anybody else. | ||
| And that all international sanctions would be put back on the Iranians. | ||
| That would be truly devastating to Iran. | ||
| And a lot of what they're doing now is about getting past October. | ||
| But didn't we already kind of walk away from that deal? | ||
|
unidentified
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The United States cannot trigger snapback. | |
| That's exactly right. | ||
| But the decision by the British, the French, and the Germans has was, let's say, was prior to yesterday already made that they were going to go for snapback because Iran was not offering the necessary concessions to come back into compliance with what was called the JCPOA. | ||
| Rose, speaking of other countries, what is your assessment of the international reaction to these strikes? | ||
|
unidentified
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I think it's too soon to tell. | |
| And I'm not an expert on how the international, how Britain and France and Germany are going to react. | ||
| I mean, it certainly matters, but I would like to sort of go back to a few things that Danny said, if I may, which is referring to this as an Iranian nuclear weapons program. | ||
| U.S. intelligence has been consistent for a very long time that Iran was not, in our estimate, trying to get nuclear weapons. | ||
| And in fact, people have been arguing that Iran is on the verge of getting nuclear weapons for over 30 years, right? | ||
| Back in 1992, the task force of the House Republican Research Committee claimed there was a 98% certainty that Iran already had all or virtually all of the components required for two or three operational nuclear weapons. | ||
| In 1992, they said they already had them. | ||
| They were wrong. | ||
| In 1995, Iran might be able to build an atomic bomb in up to five years, Israeli and U.S. officials fear. | ||
| They were wrong. | ||
| Netanyahu testifies to the U.N. in 2012 with this picture of a bomb saying that Iran was a year away from getting nuclear weapons. | ||
| He was wrong, right? | ||
| Netanyahu also said that Saddam Hussein had nuclear weapons. | ||
| In 2002, he told Congress that, right? | ||
| And he testified to Congress that Saddam Hussein had nuclear centrifuges the size of washing machines. | ||
| So it's not at all evident that Iran had a nuclear weapons program. | ||
| That's not at all evident. | ||
| And I don't think that we should lose sight of that and lose sight of the fact that people have claimed that this has been on the verge of happening for over 30 years and they were wrong every time. | ||
| Now, my fear is that now it will happen because now that we've attacked Iran, we've given them every incentive to take their nuclear knowledge and go and get a nuclear weapon to deter future attacks from the United States and Israel. | ||
| Right? | ||
| That's what we've set in motion here. | ||
| It's a terrible mistake. | ||
| Terrible. | ||
| Now, this came up in the press conference itself. | ||
| One of the reporters asked a question about this. | ||
| Director of National Intelligence, Director Tulsi Gabbard, testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee back in March and also then minimized Iran's nuclear capabilities. | ||
| The IC continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Khomeini has not authorized the nuclear weapons program that he suspended in 2003. | ||
| The IC continues to monitor closely if Tehran decides to reauthorize its nuclear weapons program. | ||
| Danny, your response to what Rose was saying about the weapons programs and that clip. | ||
|
unidentified
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I didn't see Tulsi Gabbard there in the sit room when I looked at the pictures that the president tweeted out last night, so I'm not sure what role she's playing anymore. | |
| But look, it's important for people to understand that the way a nuclear weapons program works is that there are two models fundamentally for what we call breakout. | ||
| When you decide to actually load a nuclear core into a nuclear weapon or onto a delivery vehicle. | ||
| There is the North Korea model, which is that they use the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and all of its clauses to get the necessary expertise, then they break out and go boom. | ||
| And then there's the Japan model, which is a country that has the capability of breaking out within weeks, but has chosen not to have a weapon. | ||
| Nobody in this world wants the Islamic Republic of Iran, the premier state sponsor of terrorism, behind numerous wars, numerous attacks on the United States, an attempt on the life of the President of the United States, to be able to break out within weeks. | ||
| If Iran did not have a nuclear weapons program, there would be no reason that they would have been concealing their program from the International Atomic Energy Agency. | ||
| By the way, they're obligated to share that information. | ||
| They would not have been hardening elements of their program because, in fact, they don't need those elements of their program. | ||
| We have a nuclear cooperation agreement with, for example, the United Arab Emirates. | ||
| They don't have enrichment. | ||
| They don't have a secret cave which they're enriching to 60%, which is not allowed by the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. | ||
| Iran has serially refused to allow the International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors into their sites. | ||
| They have lied about their sites. | ||
| Now, again, they may not have made a decision to have a nuclear weapon tomorrow, but that doesn't mean that they can't have a nuclear weapon within weeks if they want to. | ||
| And that's what these warnings are about. | ||
| We have a lot of questions from our callers, and so let's start with Charles in Bentonville, Arkansas, on our line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Charles. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Let's assume that last night didn't happen, that the United States wasn't involved in preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. | ||
| Let's assume that Iran developed a nuclear weapon, put it on a missile, and struck Israel with a surprise attack. | ||
| What do you think the aftermath of that would be? | ||
| Rose, why don't you answer first and then Danny? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think the aftermath of what would happen would be clear, which is that Israel has a survivable second strike nuclear capability, and they would incinerate Iran immediately. | |
| That's what would happen. | ||
| And that is a powerful deterrent against Iran attacking Israel with nuclear weapons if they had them, which as far as we know, they do not. | ||
| Now, deterrence is not perfect, and I understand why Israel doesn't want Iran to get nukes. | ||
| I don't want Iran to get nukes. | ||
| Nobody should want Iran to get nuclear weapons, right? | ||
| But I don't think that we can overlook the fact that Israel has a powerful nuclear deterrence, and that matters. | ||
| Danny? | ||
| Israel is a country of 10 million people. | ||
| Iran is a country of 90 million people. | ||
| The population, the Jewish population of the world before World War II was 15 million more than it is now. | ||
| We still don't have the number of Jews in the world that existed in 1939. | ||
| I can understand why Israel doesn't want to test the power of its deterrence against Iran. | ||
| I think there's another really important element that we don't like to talk about that much, and that is the ideological nature of the Islamic Republic of Iran. | ||
| This is a regime that is ideological. | ||
| They are committed, of course, first and foremost to regime security. | ||
| They want to maintain their power. | ||
| But after that, they have said innumerable times that they wish to destroy the state of Israel. | ||
| There is no reason on earth why people should not believe them. | ||
| Michelle is in Montgomery, Alabama, on our line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Michelle. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, Kimberly. | |
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| I don't necessarily have a question because I am listening intently. | ||
| But one thing that I do want people to understand about Iran is that these are very intelligent people. | ||
| And everyone is worried about a dirty nuclear bomb. | ||
| But what about other weapons of mass destruction that are not nuclear that can be created? | ||
| And then another point that I had is why circumvent Congress out of this? | ||
| Have we lost sight of our laws, our Constitution? | ||
| Are we not following those patterns? | ||
| And it just seems like everyone is just okay with not going through Congress. | ||
| Thank you, Kimberly. | ||
| Danny, your response? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Let's start with Congress. | |
| The requirement is that the President notify the Congress of impending hostilities. | ||
| The President did so. | ||
| That is the requirement of the War Powers Act. | ||
| Then, presumably, if conflict continues and that requires combat, then the President must come to Congress after 60 days and ask for a declaration of war. | ||
| We are not in a situation where we are going to be in combat in 60 days, at least I hope not, and I suspect Rose agrees with me about that as well. | ||
| And so those conditions are therefore met. | ||
| I will say this. | ||
| The history over the last few decades of the War Powers Act and of presidents going into conflict without going to Congress for quote-unquote permission is pretty clear. | ||
| That happens more often than not. | ||
| Barack Obama went into Libya. | ||
| He did not seek the quote-unquote permission of Congress. | ||
| And in fact, the Constitution doesn't suggest that Congress needs to give permission. | ||
| Bill Clinton went into Kosovo. | ||
| Again, we were in that conflict for well over 60 days, did not seek a declaration of war from Congress. | ||
| This is a matter of conflict between the Congress and the White House, no matter what party is in control of either branch, but the idea that somehow the President needs permission is simply incorrect. | ||
| Before I get your comments on this, Rose, I want to read some responses on X from members of Congress. | ||
| Alexandria Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said last night: the President's disastrous decision to bomb Iran without authorization is a grave violation of the Constitution and congressional war powers. | ||
| He has impulsively risked launching a war that may ensnare us for generations. | ||
| It is absolutely and clearly grounds for impeachment. | ||
| Senator Tim Kaine said the American public is overwhelmingly opposed to the US waging war on Iran, and the Israeli foreign minister admitted yesterday that Israeli bombing had set the Iranian nuclear program back at least two or three years. | ||
| So what made Trump recklessly decide to rush and bomb today? | ||
| Rose, your thoughts? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
|
Military Might and Diplomacy
00:15:44
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|
unidentified
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So my thoughts on this are that there's a reason why the President is supposed to go to Congress before declaring war. | |
| And I agree with Danny 100%. | ||
| This is a bipartisan problem, right? | ||
| Like presidents of both parties have gone to war without talking to Congress. | ||
| And I would just point out that the examples that she mentioned are not particularly good examples of success, right? | ||
| Libya is a failed state in part because we bombed them, right? | ||
| The reason why the United States President is supposed to talk to Congress is it's supposed to generate public debate over whether or not this is a good idea to go in. | ||
| And the fact that we have not had that debate, right? | ||
| And the American people, quite frankly, are extremely against this. | ||
| There was a poll back in May, before all of this got politicized, right, by Brookings that said only 14% of Americans supported a military solution to the Iran nuclear issue, right? | ||
| So we went to war without debate, without weighing in, without listening to the American people. | ||
| And I actually think the American people are quite wise on these issues. | ||
| I think they understand what a hazard this is and how risky this is for the United States. | ||
| And by bypassing Congress, we've done a disservice to them. | ||
| Earlier this morning, Iran's foreign minister held a press conference in Istanbul condemning the US attacks as well as the Trump administration. | ||
| Let's listen to a portion of those comments. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The Islamic Republic of Iran condemns, in the strongest terms, the United States' brutal military aggression against Iran's peaceful nuclear facilities. | |
| It is an outrageous, grave, and unprecedented violation of the fundamental principles of the Charter of the United Nations and international law. | ||
| The warmongering and lawless administration in Washington is solely and fully responsible for the dangerous consequences and far-reaching implications of its act of aggression. | ||
| The US military attack on the territorial integrity and national sovereignty of a UN member state carried out with genocidal Israeli regime, carried out in collusion with the genocidal Israeli regime, has once again revealed the extent of the United States' hostility towards the peace-seeking people of Iran, | ||
| who will never compromise over their independence and sovereignty. | ||
| The Islamic Republic of Iran continues to defend Iran's territory, sovereignty, security, and people by all means necessary against not just U.S. military aggression, but also the reckless and unlawful actions of the Israeli regime. | ||
| While President Trump was elected on a platform of putting an end to America's costly involvement of forever wars in our part of the world, | ||
| he has betrayed not only Iran by abusing our commitment to diplomacy, but also deceived his own voters by submitting to the wishes of a wanted war criminal who has grown accustomed to exploiting the lives and wealth of American citizens to further the Israeli regime's objectives. | ||
| Back to your calls. | ||
| Laura is in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and our line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Laura. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| So I'm just very pretty much disgusted with all of it because I feel right now that the United States is no longer a diplomatic country. | ||
| All we're doing now is just trying to show our military might. | ||
| And I don't see how this will enhance anything towards peace in the Middle East. | ||
| As a matter of fact, it looks like it's going to make everything much more worse and probably drag us into a longer war with Iran. | ||
| And I don't understand how Netanyahu can get away with everything that he's been doing. | ||
| And even the United Nations has said and condemned everything that's been going on in Gaza. | ||
| And the United States just seems to back up all of his horrible moves and motives. | ||
| And it just doesn't seem like it's going anywhere but bad. | ||
| And yet we have a government here in the United States that's trying to cut billions of dollars of health insurance for the poor while they want to spend trillions of dollars in foreign countries that obviously Israel can fight its own war because it has all the military might of the United States weapons. | ||
| So I definitely think Rosemary, your person there, is much more measured in her thought. | ||
| I think the other woman, Danielle, is much more pro-war, and that's sad. | ||
| And I just think that, you know, this is not going to get us anywhere with no diplomacy. | ||
| And now the United States seems to have blown that up. | ||
| Laura, I want to give our guests a chance to respond. | ||
| Danny, I'll start with you. | ||
| What does a diplomatic solution look like here? | ||
|
unidentified
|
A diplomatic solution looks like Iran coming to the table, disclosing, as it is required, its treaty obligations under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, disclosing all of its nuclear weapons work, all of its enrichment work, all of its weaponization and miniaturization research. | |
| It requires that Iran come clean. | ||
| Coming clean will then lead to monitoring and a better understanding of Iran's nuclear weapons program. | ||
| The problem with diplomacy is that if diplomacy is not backed up by the threat of force with an interlocutor like Iran, they will continue with their program. | ||
| And that is why we have been negotiating with the Iranians on and off over a variety of issues for more than 20 years. | ||
| I haven't noticed that it has had an enormous effect on their program. | ||
| They have advanced, as Rose noted. | ||
| They have advanced from where they were not just 20, but 25 and 30 years ago to a point now where they have enough enriched uranium per the International Atomic Energy Agency for 10 nuclear weapons enriched to a level of 60%. | ||
| The permitted level is 3.67%. | ||
| So again, diplomacy is great as long as you can achieve your goals. | ||
| But diplomacy, just like war, is a tool. | ||
| It is not an end in and of itself. | ||
| Rosemary? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Iran was at the table. | |
| Iran was going to have another round of negotiations on the Sunday, Father's Day, after Israel struck, right? | ||
| The problem here isn't that we have to make these credible threats of force. | ||
| Our threats of force are credible. | ||
| What's not credible is our assurances that we won't attack them anyway, right? | ||
| There are IAEA inspectors on the ground in Iran, right? | ||
| Right now, right? | ||
| They're there right now. | ||
| And the problem is that no matter what, and Iran has not done itself any favors, right? | ||
| Iran screwed this up immensely, right? | ||
| But it's like it doesn't matter what Iran does. | ||
| It doesn't matter if they let in inspectors. | ||
| People just are not going to believe them and they're attacking them anyway. | ||
| Like if you're trying, if you're engaged in coercive diplomacy, right? | ||
| It's kind of like if you're trying to get someone's wallet and you're a mugger, right? | ||
| You point a gun at them and you say, give me your wallet or else I'll shoot, right? | ||
| That's something Trump has been very good at doing. | ||
| But there also has to be the promise. | ||
| If you give me your wallet, I'm not going to shoot you anyway, right? | ||
| And that's the promise that is completely non-credible now. | ||
| That's the assurance problem that the U.S. has not tended to. | ||
| Iran thinks that we're going to go in anyway. | ||
| So why are they going to keep negotiating with us after we've done this? | ||
| I mean, it's just madness. | ||
| Let's hear from Martin in Louisville, Kentucky on our line for Democrats. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Yes, I just want to make a couple of points. | ||
| Trump, after he became president, held a press conference with Netanyahu and said he is negotiating an end to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. | ||
| And for a few weeks, prisoners were exchanged. | ||
| Then both sides accused each other of violating the agreement. | ||
| And today, the violence is even worse. | ||
| He did the same thing with Russia-Ukraine. | ||
| He announced that he was negotiating an end to it, and now the violence is even worse. | ||
| So now the American Air Force is bombing these targets in Iraq that they say are a threat to us. | ||
| And it reminds me of back in the 1950s and 60s when the American government told us that communism is a disease. | ||
| And anywhere it starts, our army has to go put a stop to it or it will spread here. | ||
| It was a sickening idea. | ||
| The United States has never benefited from fighting the Vietnam War. | ||
| Okay, so they're bombing these targets in Iraq, in Iran. | ||
| But what is the result going to be? | ||
| Is it going to bring about peace like they say they want or is it going to make everything worse? | ||
| So I want to see what the result is. | ||
| The bottom line is they're not involving the American people any more than they want to be. | ||
| We don't have a draft today. | ||
| The price of oil is not going through the roof like it would have done 50 years ago. | ||
| So I want to see how long the American people will are going to tolerate all these military outrages. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Rosemary, do you want to respond to this idea of how the American people might be responding to this? | ||
|
unidentified
|
The United States American people are patriotic and they stand behind the U.S. military and they're probably very proud of what the U.S. military can accomplish. | |
| But I do also think that they understand that there is more to getting a political outcome than just bombing people alone, right? | ||
| It was quite clear before this conflict started that the American people did not want another war in the Middle East. | ||
| We know how this story ends. | ||
| In fact, it doesn't end. | ||
| That's the problem, right? | ||
| We still have forces in Iraq. | ||
| And, you know, I think that this is only going to make the situation worse because frankly, Iran is backed into a corner. | ||
| It's going to be very difficult for them not to retaliate. | ||
| I mean, if someone attacks you and you don't retaliate, then they're just going to keep attacking you forever, right? | ||
| Iran is going to retaliate in some way, probably against U.S. forces in the region. | ||
| And then what happens, right? | ||
| Once American forces are injured or killed, and I certainly hope that doesn't happen, but it's a possibility, right? | ||
| Then this is just going to escalate out of control. | ||
| This is an Economist YouGov poll from earlier this month asking about American support for the U.S. military getting involved in the conflict between Israel and Iran, finding that just 16% of U.S. citizens support in U.S. military involvement in this conflict, 60% saying no. | ||
| If you break that down by party ID, Democrats are 65% opposed to U.S. military involvement in this conflict. | ||
| Independents, 61% opposed. | ||
| Republicans, 53% opposed. | ||
| Danny, given this lack of support for effectively what just happened, what do you think is the path forward? | ||
|
unidentified
|
So, first of all, it's important to understand the answer to a different question in a poll, which is, is it okay if Iran gets nuclear weapons? | |
| The American people are up around 80% on no. | ||
| And the determination that the President of the United States made is that Iran was on a path to nuclear weapons, that they were not going to negotiate their way away, and therefore this required a military response. | ||
| Now, we have a really, really good way of dealing with this problem democratically in the United States. | ||
| We have elections. | ||
| You know, again, I can find a poll to support me. | ||
| You can find a poll to support a different point of view. | ||
| That's not the right way to talk about this. | ||
| The right way to talk about it is if you have a president that makes a decision and the American people don't agree, then the American people can do something about it. | ||
| Next year, the American people will be able to elect new members of Congress. | ||
| Let's see what they do about it. | ||
| But I think it's important to understand, and Rose mentioned a little bit before, a very cute analogy, which is, you know, if you are confronted by a mugger and you give them your wallet and they then shoot you, what's your assurance that they don't shoot you? | ||
| The problem with Iran is they've never given us our wallet. | ||
| You know, again, were there eye inspectors on the ground? | ||
| Well, no. | ||
| Actually, the IAEA, for the first time in 20 years last Friday, censured Iran for non-cooperation, listed a number of sites where they had found evidence of nuclear weapons research and nuclear enrichment where they had not been given access. | ||
| So the answer is not that inspectors were there and everything was going peachy. | ||
| What we were in the midst of was dialogue. | ||
| The problem is, again, dialogue has to lead somewhere. | ||
| I am all for talking to the Iranians. | ||
| I think the right answer to all of these things is not a quote-unquote military solution. | ||
| The right answer is absolutely a diplomatic solution. | ||
| But you need to get to that solution at some point. | ||
| It can't be an endless process. | ||
| Michael is in Kearney, Missouri on our line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Michael. | ||
| Michael, are you there? | ||
| All right, then let's go to Gary in Moorefield, West Virginia, on our line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Gary. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning. | |
| My question is: why did they have to go in and bomb in Iran and they haven't done anything at all to North Korea? | ||
| I mean, they're the ones that have had and do have the capability and ICBMs. | ||
| I mean, they've been dropping them all over the place. | ||
| And you think he's sitting by waiting? | ||
| He's sitting by just wasting, biding his time there in North Korea. | ||
| You know, he's getting nuclear subs so that they can ship them rascals out into the Pacific and hit any place in the U.S. | ||
| And, you know, everybody says what Iran does. | ||
| I've got very, very good friends, almost the son in Iran. | ||
| And I'll tell you what, you know, those are the people I worry about. | ||
| I had told them I could care less. | ||
| So, Gary, you raised an interesting question about North Korea. | ||
| Rose, do you want to respond first and then Danny? | ||
|
unidentified
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Yeah, so I mean, there's no question that North Korea is a larger threat to the United States than Iran. | |
| Iran doesn't have missiles that can hit the United States, right? | ||
| They don't have missiles that are anywhere near capable of doing that, right? | ||
| But the reason why the United States hasn't gone into North Korea is because North Korea already has nuclear weapons and they have successfully deterred us from getting involved. | ||
| And this whole incident, right? | ||
| Everything from North Korea to what's happened in Iran now is sending the message loud and clear. | ||
| If you don't want to be attacked by the United States, don't bother with all this IAEA crap, right? | ||
|
Why Nuclear Weapons Matter
00:13:44
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unidentified
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I don't, yeah, this is the message we're saying. | |
| Don't bother with all this. | ||
| Get nuclear weapons, right? | ||
| Go get nuclear weapons to make yourself secure. | ||
| This is going to have ramifications for nuclear proliferation all over the world and bad ramifications. | ||
| Danny? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Iran doesn't have to have anybody come and inspect. | |
| They do it because they're part of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. | ||
| So Rose is exactly right. | ||
| I think the problem is that this ship has already sailed. | ||
| The answer is clear. | ||
| If you want to be immune to outside interference, you get a nuclear weapon. | ||
| That's why Russia is in Ukraine right now, because Ukraine gave up its nuclear capabilities. | ||
| That's why after Libya gave up its nuclear capabilities, NATO and the United States, with the United States behind it, the Obama administration was willing to go in. | ||
| That lesson didn't need to be learned yesterday. | ||
| That lesson was learned long ago. | ||
| And the reason we don't deal with North Korea's nuclear threat is exactly as Rose suggested, because they have nuclear weapons. | ||
| If somebody had dropped a massive ordnance penetrator on North Korea at a propitious moment, perhaps they wouldn't have nuclear weapons right now, and we wouldn't be threatened in the Pacific. | ||
| They too at the time didn't have missiles that reached the United States. | ||
| They sure do now. | ||
| And guess who they cooperate with? | ||
| That's right, the Islamic Republic of Iran. | ||
| Russell, excuse me, Russell is in Augusta, Georgia on our line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Russell. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, during the eight years that Obama was president, he dropped thousands of bombs, at least 46 to 64,000, on seven countries. | |
| Congress knew nothing about it. | ||
| So these Democrats that are complaining about Congress not knowing it was strictly for security reasons that as few as possible know about it. | ||
| And I just wish these Democrats would consider what Obama did and approve of what Trump did. | ||
| Thank you, ma'am. | ||
| Rose, what do you think of Russell's comparison there? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I mean, I think that the Democrats are losing the threat here, right? | |
| I don't think this is a partisan issue, right? | ||
| Presidents of both parties have done this and have bombed countries without getting permission from Congress. | ||
| It doesn't mean it's a good thing to do, right? | ||
| And even when you get permission from Congress, right, it doesn't mean that you don't make mistakes. | ||
| But at least George W. Bush in 2003 spent the time to go to Congress and get the authorization, right? | ||
| And I do think that there is something to be said for having people on the record voting either in favor of a war or against a war, right? | ||
| Nobody in Congress has had to go on the record about this. | ||
| And all of the people who voted for the war in Iraq in 2003, that came back to haunt them. | ||
| Those were consequences electorally. | ||
| And I think that our current Congress members should be faced with that same consequence. | ||
| I think they should have to go on the record. | ||
| What do you think? | ||
|
unidentified
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So I'm not at all averse to the idea that Congress be accountable. | |
| I think you're absolutely right. | ||
| And this is the way that they have their cake and eat it, too. | ||
| They complain. | ||
| And I mean, I worked for 10 years at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. | ||
| They complain, but at the same time, they don't really want the responsibility because then, of course, they can, as you rightly note, be blamed. | ||
| On the other hand, and I'll say this, this is hugely important to understand. | ||
| The reason that Congress supported President George W. Bush on Afghanistan and on Iraq was because of 9-11. | ||
| I do not want us to have to suffer a terrible, terrible attack that takes thousands of innocent lives in order for there to be consensus between the White House and Congress. | ||
| And this is why I think it's vitally important that we deal with threats before they become fatal to the American people, as opposed to after events like 9-11, Pearl Harbor, other things. | ||
| Julius is in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on our line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Julius. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yes, I think the guests were just talking about accountability. | |
| And I think the think tanks that come on here in lie about the lies of AIPAC, about the lies of the billionaire countries. | ||
| What specific lies are you referencing, Julius? | ||
|
unidentified
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Accountable. | |
| Specifically, like leading up to the Iraq war, the march there, the WMDs. | ||
| It was lie after lie. | ||
| The CIA brought in somebody named Chalabi. | ||
| It was lie, lie, lie, lie, lie. | ||
| That's all I see in the media today. | ||
| I don't see them talking about Iran having allies such as Russia, China, North Korea, and that a war there could get these other world powers involved and result in a nuclear event. | ||
| It is not safe to attack Iran. | ||
| There is nobody credible with any common sense that's going to attack Iran, especially when you're doing peace negotiations. | ||
| Their negotiator that was going to Switzerland, Geneva, Israel actually tried to assassinate him on the way. | ||
| They assassinated the Hamas negotiator for peace as well. | ||
| Israel does not want peace. | ||
| Israel is a theocracy. | ||
| It's an apartheid state. | ||
| It's a racist, genocidal state. | ||
| So, Julius, I want to get our guests to respond to your question about the likelihood of other countries getting involved. | ||
| Danny, how likely do you think it is that there is that spillover effect that Julius was talking about? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I think that the Iranians would love for there to be a spillover effect. | |
| What we've looked at is that the Russians have been rhetorically supportive and not supportive in any other way. | ||
| The Chinese have been rhetorically supportive and not supportive in any other way. | ||
| Ditto for North Korea. | ||
| And that, I think, is part of the problem of membership in the Axis of Evil is that you're not really in an axis. | ||
| You're kind of in a talking shop. | ||
| They'll share nuclear technology. | ||
| They'll share missile technology. | ||
| They'll give the kind of weaponry that they might need in the future. | ||
| But when push comes to shove in a situation like we saw yesterday, the Russians are going to sit by the sidelines, as are the Chinese, as are the North Koreans. | ||
| I think the odds of a wider war involving these countries is precisely zero. | ||
| And all we need to do is look at A, what they did, and look at Russia's performance in Ukraine. | ||
| They can't defeat Ukraine, and they're going to take us on. | ||
| Rosemary, what's your assessment of the risk of any kind of other countries getting involved? | ||
|
unidentified
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Well, I completely agree with Danny. | |
| I don't think any of these countries are going to get involved. | ||
| They have no incentive to do so. | ||
| Russia has its hands full with Ukraine 100%. | ||
| I don't think they're going to get involved. | ||
| But I do think that Iran itself can cause enough problems for the United States that this can be extremely costly and difficult for us, just dealing with Iran. | ||
| We have a question we received via text from Craig in Finlay, Ohio, who says, there are two uses for nuclear energy, production of electricity and weapons. | ||
| Over the last 30 years, how much of Iran's energy production has come from nuclear energy? | ||
| I'll start with you, Rose. | ||
| Do you happen to know the answer to that question? | ||
|
unidentified
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I don't know the exact amount, but it is something very small. | |
| It is something very small. | ||
| The Iranian government is not particularly efficient with any of this. | ||
| They're trying to have more energy production from nuclear energy, and that makes sense to them. | ||
| Like, they are an oil-exporting country. | ||
| They want to export as much oil as possible and get their own domestic energy from other sources, right? | ||
| But there aren't, I mean, just for the record, there are other things you can do with nuclear energy, and you can use it for medical isotopes and all these other sorts of things. | ||
| But Iran hasn't done it because they're just not very good at building nuclear plants and putting them into production. | ||
| The Russians built a nuclear plant for the Iranians in the late 1990s that is not supplying electricity to Iran. | ||
| Iran's nuclear program isn't about electricity, and unfortunately, it's not about medical research either. | ||
| You don't need enough uranium that is produced by Fordow for, I mean, I would love to think that the Iranians are bringing their scientific know-how to advanced nuclear medical research. | ||
| And there may be some tiny, tiny corner, but that's not what this is about. | ||
| They're not using it for energy. | ||
| It's not a peaceful nuclear program. | ||
| And they cannot point to any success with their peaceful nuclear program over the 20 plus years of its existence. | ||
| All right, let's go. | ||
| Sure, go ahead, Rose. | ||
|
unidentified
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Oh, may I just respond to that quickly? | |
| I mean, you know, I agree with that. | ||
| They're not doing this for the medical research, right? | ||
| 100%. | ||
| But the point is, Iran figured out how to enrich uranium many years ago, and they could have been enriching it to weapons-grade uranium all along, and they have not, right? | ||
| Once you enrich to 20%, you basically figured it out well enough that you could enrich to 90%. | ||
| 90% is what you need for a bomb. | ||
| That's not what they've done. | ||
| But of course, they've gone beyond the 3.67%. | ||
| They've gone beyond 20%. | ||
| They've gone to 60%. | ||
| And why 60% is so important is that there is no civilian use for it, but there's also no weapons use for it, right? | ||
| This is Iran taking an extremely risky gamble that totally backfired against them. | ||
| But they're basically saying, hey, international community, we can go to 90. | ||
| We don't want to. | ||
| Please lift sanctions on us that have crippled us for 40 years, right? | ||
| It doesn't mean that they have an intent to go to 90 when they've been able to go to 90 for many years and haven't. | ||
| Let's get to a couple more questions. | ||
| David in Ohio on our line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, David. | ||
|
unidentified
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Hey, how you doing? | |
| So basically, I'm a veteran, and this has needed to happen for the past 20 years. | ||
| You know, a Democrat, Republican, Democrat, Republican. | ||
| If a Democrat would have done this, the Democrats would have been okay because Donald Trump done this. | ||
| He's the devil. | ||
| I got five TVs. | ||
| I'm looking at all the news. | ||
| They're already talking about impeachment. | ||
| You know, this needed to be done for years. | ||
| The time for talk was over. | ||
| You know, we can only talk so much about stuff. | ||
| Sooner or later, you have to act. | ||
| And I'm so glad that he acted. | ||
| We're in a newer world today. | ||
| I think a lot of people in the Middle East have woken up with a sigh of relief today that they don't have a nuclear weapon or won't have one. | ||
| They're done. | ||
| Probably. | ||
| Listen to me. | ||
| You have a good day. | ||
| Probably a good place for us to get your final comments. | ||
| Danny, you first? | ||
|
unidentified
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So we haven't talked a lot about the region and what David said is exactly right. | |
| Everybody in the region is, to use the expression again, having their cake and eating it too, issuing pro-forma denunciations and calling for the importance of de-escalation and dialogue, and meanwhile, popping champagne all over the foreign ministries and presidents of the presidential houses and palaces. | ||
| Because, of course, Iran is in the region. | ||
| Sure, Iran threatens us, they threaten our allies, they threaten our forces. | ||
| There's no question that Iran represents a threat to us, but these are Iran's neighbors. | ||
| And Iran has been trying to destabilize, has been committing terrorist attacks, and has, wherever it can, over the last four decades, four and a half decades, has been seeking to dominate the region. | ||
| And there is no doubt in my mind that there are celebrations, quiet celebrations, going on all over the region right now. | ||
| Final comments from you, Rose. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yeah, I'll just say, I mean, yeah, they're having their cake and eating it too, 100%. | |
| But I don't think that they will be celebrating this behind closed doors because I think that they understand that by striking Iran, you've given Iran every incentive to now try to go and get a nuclear weapon, to rebuild the facilities that they had, to take the nuclear scientists that they have trained and go and try again. | ||
| And that means that this could turn into an endless conflict, literally an endless conflict involving the United States. | ||
| I would also say that I am very worried about U.S. troops in the region, particularly troops in Syria and Iraq. | ||
| We have 40,000 troops in the Middle East. | ||
| Some of them are in hardened bases like in Kuwait and Bahrain. | ||
| But the guys in Iraq and Syria are super exposed to Iranian retaliation, super exposed. | ||
| They're victims of mission creep from the war against ISIS 10 years ago, right? | ||
| We need to get those guys out. | ||
| They're not in a safe place, and there's no reason for them to be there. | ||
| Well, thank you so much. | ||
| That's Middle East Program Director at Defense Priorities, Rosemary Kalanik. | ||
| Thank you so much for joining us. | ||
|
unidentified
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Thank you. | |
| And from the American Enterprise Institute, Danielle Pletka, thank you so much for your time and expertise this morning. | ||
|
unidentified
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It's a pleasure. | |
| And thank you to everyone who called in this hour. | ||
| Coming up, we are going to be taking more of your comments about the U.S. entering the conflict between Israel and Iran. | ||
|
Pivotal Moments in Civil Rights
00:03:35
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| Our phone lines again for Republicans, 202-748-8001. | ||
| For Democrats, 202-748-8000. | ||
| Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| We'll be right back. | ||
|
unidentified
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Tonight on C-SPAN's Q&A, University of Texas at Austin history professor Peniel Joseph shares his book Freedom Season and talks about the pivotal events of 1963 that impacted the civil rights movement in America. | |
| That year marked the centenary of Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, the assassinations of President Kennedy and Mississippi civil rights activist Medgar Evers, and the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, which killed four little girls. | ||
| 1963, I think, is the most pivotal year of the 1960s. | ||
| It's the year that gives us both triumphs and tragedies. | ||
| And it's really the year that makes the 1960s, the 60s. | ||
| So it's civil rights insurgency, it's the Kennedy administration going back and forth with activists like Martin Luther King Jr. and others about what to do next. | ||
| We see a right-wing insurgency. | ||
| George Wallace becomes one of the pivotal figures of the year. | ||
| And people like William F. Buckley in the National Review are engaged in a war of ideas with people like James Baldwin, who becomes the best-selling author and really perhaps the most pivotal figure in the entire year. | ||
| So it's really an extraordinary year. | ||
|
unidentified
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Penil Joseph, with his book, Freedom Season, tonight at 8 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN's QA. | |
| You can listen to Q&A and all our podcasts on our free C-SPAN Now app. | ||
| If you ever miss any of C-SPAN's coverage, you can find it anytime online at c-span.org. | ||
| Videos of key hearings, debates, and other events feature markers that guide you to interesting and newsworthy highlights. | ||
| These points of interest markers appear on the right-hand side of your screen when you hit play on select videos. | ||
| This timeline tool makes it easy to quickly get an idea of what was debated and decided in Washington. | ||
| Scroll through and spend a few minutes on C-SPAN's points of interest. | ||
| Weekends bring you Book TV featuring leading authors discussing their latest nonfiction books. | ||
| Here's a look at what's coming up this weekend. | ||
| University of Richmond School of Law professor Karina Lane, with her book Secrets of a Killing State, takes a critical look at the use of lethal injection as a method of capital punishment and argues that it's more brutal than it's widely understood. | ||
| Book TV's coverage of the 2025 Gold Coast Book Fair from Oyster Bay, Long Island. | ||
| Authors discuss Long Island history, American myths, the creation of New York City, and World War II spies. | ||
| And Chef Jose Andres, with his book, Change the Recipe, on the life lessons he's learned through the World Central Kitchen, a non-profit he founded in 2010 to feed people in conflict and disaster zones. | ||
|
U.S. Strikes and Diplomatic Pushback
00:04:47
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Watch Book TV every weekend on C-SPAN 2 and find a full schedule in your program guide or watch online anytime at booktv.org. | |
| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Welcome back. | ||
| We're going to return to our question from earlier this morning about your thoughts on the U.S. entering the conflict between Israel and Iran. | ||
| Before we get going, let's listen back to the President's comments last night when President Trump made the announcement and in his address that the U.S. had obliterated several nuclear sites in Iran. | ||
| A short time ago, the U.S. military carried out massive precision strikes on the three key nuclear facilities in the Iranian regime: Fordeau, Natanch, and Esfahan. | ||
| Everybody heard those names for years as they built this horribly destructive enterprise. | ||
| Our objective was the destruction of Iran's nuclear enrichment capacity and a stop to the nuclear threat posed by the world's number one state sponsor of terror. | ||
| Tonight, I can report to the world that the strikes were a spectacular military success. | ||
| Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated. | ||
| Iran, the bully of the Middle East, must now make peace. | ||
| If they do not, future attacks will be far greater and a lot easier. | ||
| For 40 years, Iran has been saying, death to America, death to Israel. | ||
| They have been killing our people, blowing off their arms, blowing off their legs with roadside bombs. | ||
| That was their specialty. | ||
| We lost over a thousand people and hundreds of thousands throughout the Middle East and around the world have died as a direct result of their hate. | ||
| In particular, so many were killed by their general, Qasem Soleimani. | ||
| I decided a long time ago that I would not let this happen. | ||
| It will not continue. | ||
| So we have been getting reaction from around the world to the U.S. strikes on Iran. | ||
| Here's a story in the Washington Post wrapping some of those up, saying nations react to U.S. strikes on Iran, with many calling for diplomacy. | ||
| Several close U.S. allies have urged a return to the negotiating table in the wake of American strikes on Iran while noting the threat posed by Iran's nuclear program. | ||
| Some of those reactions, including from the United Nations. | ||
| U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterre said he was gravely alarmed by the use of force by the United States, saying, quote, there is a growing risk that this conflict could rapidly get out of control with catastrophic consequences for civilians, the region, and the world. | ||
| He said in a statement on the social media platform X, I call on member states to de-escalate. | ||
| There is no military solution. | ||
| The only path forward is diplomacy. | ||
| British Prime Minister Kir Starmer called for Iran to return to the negotiating table to diplomatically end the crisis, saying stability was the priority in the volatile region. | ||
| The U.K., along with the European Union, France, and Germany, tried unsuccessfully to broker a diplomatic solution in Geneva last week with Iran. | ||
| Starmer said Iran's nuclear program posed a grave threat to global security, saying, quote, Iran can never be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon, and the U.S. has taken action to alleviate the threat. | ||
| From Russia, Dmitry Medvedev, who serves as the deputy head of President Vladimir Putin's Security Council, said several countries were prepared to supply Tehran with nuclear weapons. | ||
| He didn't specify which countries, but said the U.S. attack caused minimal damage and would not stop Tehran from pursuing nuclear weapons. | ||
| Russia's foreign ministry said it strongly condemned the airstrikes and called them a gross violation of international law, the UN Charter, and the UN Security Council resolutions. | ||
| Now, to your thoughts on the U.S. entering the conflict between Iran and Israel, we'll start with Richard in Kansas City, Kansas on our line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Richard. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yes, ma'am. | |
| Let's look at how we got here in the first place. | ||
|
Diplomacy In Flux
00:05:28
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| Diplomacy works, but it doesn't work when every four years somebody comes in and changes the diplomacy. | ||
|
unidentified
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Look at the money that Obama gave them. | |
| The diplomacy was working before Obama came. | ||
| Then he came in, gave them a couple hundred billions of dollars in cash. | ||
| It was their money, but they didn't have access to it before. | ||
| So what did they do? | ||
| Build more weapons, send stuff out to their terrorist groups. | ||
| You know, this is a theocracy that believes that they need to conquer the world. | ||
| And you either submit to Islam or you become a slave or you die. | ||
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unidentified
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Those are your options. | |
| People that think like that, you're not going to change their minds. | ||
| And all they've been doing is tagging along, tagging along. | ||
| Now, it would be very simple if they didn't want a war. | ||
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unidentified
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If they weren't doing anything, let the inspectors in. | |
| Let them see. | ||
| If you're not doing anything, why should you care? | ||
| Now, getting to the point about the president's authority, in 1972, the Senate put out a white paper called Emergency Powers. | ||
| And in that, it explains what has happened to the United States since 1933 is what is in that paper, that we have been under the Emergency War Powers Act until 1933. | ||
| And all that Congress has to do is repeal that to where the president doesn't have the power he has. | ||
|
unidentified
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But the Congress doesn't want to do that because then they're responsible and they don't want to take the slings and arrows. | |
| And that's why they gave the president the power that they do. | ||
| And I encourage all people to start reading these documents that come from the Library of Congress. | ||
| Educate yourself instead of being the I me's that all you care about is I and me. | ||
| And I listen to it all the time on C-SPAN. | ||
| The people that call in, I, me, I, me. | ||
| Richard, I think we have your idea. | ||
| Let's go to Rick in Cottkill, New York on our line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Rick. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning. | |
| Thanks for taking my call. | ||
| Love C-SPAN and love to continue listening to it for the rest of my life. | ||
| Yeah, the problem with your last two guests is they missed a couple key points. | ||
| First of all, you don't need a nuclear bomb. | ||
| You need what they'll probably focus on next is dirty bombs. | ||
| That's a whole different and much easier way to destroy a country, and you can slip five of them in a suitcase and scatter them throughout a country. | ||
| And that country might not necessarily be Israel. | ||
| It might be the U.S. and Israel. | ||
| And secondly, if anybody thinks North Korea is trying to. | ||
| Rick, your line is breaking up. | ||
| I don't know if you've moved further away from your phone. | ||
| Are you still there? | ||
|
unidentified
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Sorry. | |
| Yep, still here. | ||
| Yeah, North Korea. | ||
| Sorry, Rick, your line is too difficult for us to hear you. | ||
| Let's go to Ray in Aurora, Colorado on our line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Ray. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning. | |
| I hope you're having a fine morning, and thanks for taking my call. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| I'm affiliated with the Libertarian Party, and I have grave concerns about the aftermath of all these attacks. | ||
| And I want to go back to yesterday when Mark Montgomery from Foundation for the Defense of Democracies answered a question about intervention, about having any kind of military involvement. | ||
| And the way that he answered it as if the caller who was asking that question wants us to be fully isolated and not being able to talk, trade, or even get involved militarily or to even engage in any kind of discussion. | ||
| And I took grave offense at that. | ||
| You can advocate against military intervention and especially advocate against any kind of meddling like with 1953, which Montgomery attempted to downplay the effects of that. | ||
| So I would, I mean, it would be best if we had good relations with Iran. | ||
| I'm in favor of trade, travel, talking with them, having peaceful relations. | ||
| This whole mess goes back to 53, and it seems like that many in Washington have either learned the lessons or not learned the lessons and still repeat the mistakes and failures of the past. | ||
| Okay, let's hear from Julie in Douglasville, Pennsylvania on our line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Julie. | ||
|
unidentified
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Hi, good morning. | |
| What are your thoughts on the United States entering this conflict? | ||
|
Iran's Longstanding Troubles
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unidentified
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Well, I'm not really crazy about it, but I feel that Iran's been like a really pain in the butt for a long time. | |
| And I was really in second grade in 1979 when they took over and they ousted the shock. | ||
| And it upset me, and I was only in second grade. | ||
| And they took all those hostages, and I'm still mad about that. | ||
| So I actually think that it's not a bad thing. | ||
| And as long as we're not going to go put boots on the ground, I think that maybe it's just something that was a long time coming. | ||
| I mean, like, I'm not saying I'm happy about it because I don't want to see it escalate, but I think that they're horrible people. | ||
| I mean, not the people themselves. | ||
| You know what I mean? | ||
| Like the Ayatollah. | ||
| You know what I mean? | ||
| And when we talk about separation of church and state in the United States, I think people don't really realize that what they mean is that a church or religion shouldn't run our country. | ||
| And the church doesn't run our country. | ||
| We're not talking about not having prayer in school or five minutes of, you know what I mean, being quiet. | ||
| We're just talking about religion should not run a country. | ||
| And then unfortunately, that's what's going on there. | ||
| And they think that their religion is superior. | ||
| And I don't know, but I just feel that I'm kind of glad that they quelched it because they are scary. | ||
| Like their leadership is scary. | ||
| And I do think that they would get bigger weapons. | ||
| And they really have threatened Israel. | ||
| I mean, have threatened the United States. | ||
| So anyway, that's just how I feel. | ||
| I mean, I could be wrong. | ||
| You know, I mean, I'm going to say I'm completely right, but I just feel that Donald Trump did the right thing. | ||
| You know, President Trump did the right thing in quelching that. | ||
| You know, he didn't hurt anybody. | ||
| You know what I mean? | ||
| He just destroyed some nuclear sites. | ||
| And I think that was a good thing. | ||
| And maybe that'll keep them from doing something worse. | ||
| You know? | ||
| Okay, let's hear from Philip in Blue Island, Illinois, on our line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Philip. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning. | |
| Come on. | ||
| It amazes me when I listen to Netanyahu for the last maybe 15 years, especially going after Iraq because of Saddam and his so-called weapons of mass destruction. | ||
| And if we destroy Iraq, there will be peace. | ||
| And now he's coming full circle. | ||
| And I heard Lindsey Graham the other day repeat the sister, the Secretary of State, talking about the mushroom cloud and the sisters that were just on the phone talking about theocracies and how, you know, you frown at Iran for being Islamic, but you don't look at Lindsey Graham talking about following or the Jewish state talking about the Quran and God's chosen people. | ||
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President's Gamble
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unidentified
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All this is just a bunch of nonsense. | |
| And then you have this president who looks at his own intelligence leader, Gaffer, whatever her name is, and says she don't know what she's talking about. | ||
| Oh, she was wrong. | ||
| And setting up other particular leaders in his own party who shut up because you're talking too much and you don't know what. | ||
| And he's just going with his gut. | ||
| But more than that, he's going with the liar, Benjamin Netanyahu, who is telling him that Iran is close to having this. | ||
| I mean, it's the repeating the same lies, and you expected something different. | ||
| So I'm hoping that the U.S. troops that are on the front lines on this one would be safe and be cautious and don't just give yourself over to this. | ||
| This guy is a tyrant. | ||
| Trump is a tyrant. | ||
| I don't even know. | ||
| I don't even like even talking about the man because he's just so backwards in his thinking and reverses thinking. | ||
| And I'm not going to do this. | ||
| And then he does this. | ||
| And in closing, with it being Juneteenth, I just think that Juneteenth was sucking up too much of the energy. | ||
| And he had to do something this weekend to destroy it, my sister. | ||
| Thank you for your time. | ||
| Earlier this morning, there was a press conference at the Pentagon giving details of those strikes last night. | ||
| Here's the beginning of that press conference with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth speaking about the success of the military strike. | ||
| Last night, on President Trump's orders, U.S. Central Command conducted a precision strike in the middle of the night against three nuclear facilities in Iran, Ford, Natan's, and Esfahan, in order to destroy or severely degrade Iran's nuclear program. | ||
| And as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs will demonstrate, it was an incredible and overwhelming success. | ||
| The order we received from our Commander-in-Chief was focused, it was powerful, and it was clear. | ||
| We devastated the Iranian nuclear program. | ||
| But it's worth noting the operation did not target Iranian troops or the Iranian people. | ||
| For the entirety of his time in office, President Trump has consistently stated for over 10 years that Iran must not get a nuclear weapon. | ||
| Full stop. | ||
| Thanks to President Trump's bold and visionary leadership and his commitment to peace through strength, Iran's nuclear ambitions have been obliterated. | ||
| Many presidents have dreamed of delivering the final blow to Iran's nuclear program, and none could until President Trump. | ||
| The operation President Trump planned was bold and it was brilliant, showing the world that American deterrence is back. | ||
| When this president speaks, the world should listen. | ||
| And the U.S. military, we can back it up. | ||
| The most powerful military the world has ever known. | ||
| No other country on planet Earth could have conducted the operation that the chairman is going to outline this morning, not even close. | ||
| Just like Soleimani found out in the first term, Iran found out that when POTUS says 60 days that he seeks peace and negotiation, he means 60 days of peace and negotiation. | ||
| Otherwise, that nuclear program, that nuclear capability will not exist. | ||
| He meant it. | ||
| This is not the previous administration. | ||
| The President Trump said no nukes. | ||
| He seeks peace, and Iran should take that path. | ||
| And we're getting your thoughts this morning on the U.S. strikes on Iran last night, as well as our involvement in the conflict between Israel and Iran. | ||
| Let's go to Paul in Williamstown, Vermont, on our line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Paul. | ||
|
unidentified
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Thank you, and good morning, and thank you, C-SPAN, for being on the air. | |
| I'd like to start off with me being a United States Air Force veteran, covert operator, and was in the Middle East for quite some time. | ||
| And I'm a little concerned about what just happened because I think our administration that we have here in the United States don't do their homework. | ||
| They're all confused about the intel. | ||
| And for one thing that proves that is Richard Engel was on air this morning in Israel and said that the Iranians knew what was going on, and they removed all their goodies, I guess you might say. | ||
|
Donald's Foolish Act
00:15:45
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unidentified
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And they're in a different spot. | |
| So what happened last night was all for naught. | ||
| And then now it's zero. | ||
| And a spokesman for Iran talked this morning. | ||
| He's going to go meet with Putin in the morning. | ||
| What does that tell you? | ||
| Okay. | ||
| He just opened a big old Pandora's box, and it's just a matter of time before our troops over there are going to be getting mocked. | ||
| Then we're in another war with a region that has been fighting over religious regions for thousands of years, and they're not going to stop, no matter what. | ||
| I would just like to say that Mr. Trump is deranged. | ||
| He's narcissistic. | ||
| He's a liar. | ||
| And I apologize for him for lying to his supporters over these years because of the people that support him. | ||
| And other than that, God bless America. | ||
| And we've got to get this guy out of office because he's wrecking our country and wrecking our allies. | ||
| It's really sad stuff. | ||
| All right, let's hear from Jay in Niagara Falls, New York, on our line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Jay. | ||
| And can you turn down the volume on your TV, please, Jay, and then go ahead with your comments. | ||
|
unidentified
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No problem. | |
| Yes. | ||
| I just call it, I've never been into politics. | ||
| With all these presidents we've had until Trump 25, I watched Fox from morning till night, looking at all the other lies on the other channels. | ||
| But I get both sides. | ||
| But what we did after they've been torturing us for all these years that I've been watching, I wish I had been into history until now. | ||
| But, you know, now I'm learning. | ||
| Jay, can you just turn down the volume on your TV? | ||
| It's giving us a little bit of feedback. | ||
|
unidentified
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Can you hear me now? | |
| Is it better? | ||
| Just turn it all the way down and then go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
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It is all the way down. | |
| Okay, good. | ||
| I just, I want to say that Trump has done a great job. | ||
| He's fixing what Biden did, and it's going to take a while. | ||
| They can't expect him to do it in record time, what he's done in three months already. | ||
| So I just want to say, go, America. | ||
| I'm finally back into it. | ||
| And I wish Trump and his family all the best and America the best. | ||
| Jay, before, if you don't mind holding on for a moment, I want to play you a short clip of Trump on the campaign trail back in 2020, vowing to end so-called forever wars. | ||
| I want to look at that and then get your thoughts. | ||
| For decades, our politicians spent trillions and trillions of dollars rebuilding foreign nations, fighting foreign wars, and defending foreign borders. | ||
| But now we are finally protecting our nation, rebuilding our cities, and we are bringing our jobs, our factories, and our troops back home to the USA where they belong. | ||
| We will strike down terrorists who threaten our cities, and we will keep America out of these ridiculous, absolutely crazy foreign wars. | ||
|
unidentified
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We will do it. | |
| Countries you've never even heard of. | ||
| Jay, President Trump campaigned quite often on keeping America out of foreign wars. | ||
| What do you think of his choosing to make involvement in this conflict in particular? | ||
|
unidentified
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Okay, forever wars, as Wood said. | |
| And this, Leggy made it clear. | ||
| This was helping the end of their war. | ||
| Just because we don't want nuclear bombs, and they would not agree with us over 63 days, and they would not agree with us at the table. | ||
| So I totally agree with what he did. | ||
| And forever wars means boots on the ground, and there is no boots on the ground for us. | ||
| And he's going to do whatever it takes to make this America great again. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Next up is Sonia in Tampa, Florida on our line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Sonia. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, good morning. | |
| I want to say that I'm very just not surprised about what this president has done. | ||
| And I'm so tired of people comparing other administration presidents' decisions to what this administration president has done. | ||
| There's different circumstances to whatever decision-making, but what is upsetting is that this president deceived the public, deceived everyone, saying two weeks, two weeks, when he knew all along that they were planning this. | ||
| This type of strategic strike was already in the works. | ||
| I believe that Israel, when he went in and did this, that we had no choice, or whatever allies or decisions, or whatever communications he's had with Benjamin Benjamin Netanyahu. | ||
| I'm sorry if I said his name incorrectly. | ||
| He had already planned to go in, go in and strike. | ||
| And how can you ask someone to come to negotiate when you already have in the back of your mind that you're going to strike them? | ||
| We are showing bullying. | ||
| We're showing that we are not trustworthy. | ||
| And we are sitting here bragging about how strong our military is. | ||
| That's actually speak louder. | ||
| We don't have to sit there and brag about how strong we are and only we could accomplish this. | ||
| We're trying to set a tone of peace. | ||
| And that's not the type of tone that I see this administration doing. | ||
| It's very upsetting. | ||
| He's excluded everyone and has taken this upon himself. | ||
| And now where are we going to be at with this situation? | ||
| And I'm just very disappointed in this type of decision making. | ||
| And God bless America. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Kevin is in Concord, Ohio on our line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Kevin. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, good morning. | |
| I would just like you guys at C-SPAN during the baby Bush administration at the White House press correspondence dinner. | ||
| He ran that video where he was looking for weapons of mass destruction throughout the Oval Office. | ||
| And that really struck the nerve of a lot of people. | ||
| And at the time, it was not really put out there. | ||
| So if you could be kind enough to run that, it'd be a good refresher. | ||
| Well, peace out to everybody. | ||
| Have a good day. | ||
| Kurt is in Anaheim, California on our line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Kurt. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| How are you doing? | ||
| All right. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| What do you think of the United States entering the Israel-Iran conflict? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think it's cool, man. | |
| I think I like dropping bombs. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Ron is in Tyler, Texas, on our line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Ron. | ||
| Ron, go ahead and make sure to turn down the volume on your TV. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| How are you? | ||
| Fine, thank you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I would just like to say that most people should be more aware of what's going on with nuclear weapons. | |
| You know, there's nine countries in the world that has nuclear weapons, and I'm going to just name them off. | ||
|
unidentified
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United States, Russia, Great Britain, France, Pakistan, North Korea, China, Russia, and little tiny Israel. | |
| And so my next statement is: would God approve of Newts? | ||
| Because I don't think he would. | ||
| He said when he comes back in Revelation, I will destroy all weapons and turn them into powder. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So I think we need to be more careful about using nuclear weapons because the United States is the only one that has ever used nuclear weapons. | |
| We know about Hiroshima and Nakasaki. | ||
| And also, I'd like to mention that there's two people that's on the international criminal list as criminals doing genocidal things. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And those two people are Benjamin Netanyahu and Putin. | |
| So I think people need to be aware of what the United States is getting themselves into. | ||
| We have over 5,000 warheads, nuclear warheads, just a little bit shy of what Russia has. | ||
| So, Ron, just because you mentioned this, I want to bring up a chart from ICANN, which is an organization that tracks nuclear weapons all over the world. | ||
| And it has a list here of which countries have nuclear weapons, listing a total of 12,331 warheads in the world, the most being held by Russia, followed by the United States, then China, then France, then the UK, then India, then Pakistan, then Israel, and then North Korea. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You are absolutely right. | |
| Russia has the most with over 5,000. | ||
| The United States, I think, 5,300. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And Iran was trying to build its first one. | |
| And that statement that Iran has been trying to acquire nuclear weapons, that statement of lies has been around ever since the 60s and 70s. | ||
| They are about to build a nuclear weapon. | ||
| They are closed. | ||
| They are almost there. | ||
| And when Israel has nuclear weapons, and I question anybody to pull up Demona Desert Nagel nuclear research facility, where Israel has a clandestine nuclear program that's been around for years. | ||
| France knows about it. | ||
| The United States knows about it. | ||
| And they have the audacity to bomb Iran, who hasn't even completed one nuclear bomb. | ||
| And that statement that you just read shows how many nuclear bombs each country has. | ||
| Let me tell you, the last country that has nuclear weapons, number nine, is Israel. | ||
| And they're believed to have about 80 nuclear weapons. | ||
| So I hope the world understands what they're getting into and don't support what Israel is doing. | ||
| Don't support what the United States is doing because we're the first country that dropped two bombs on Hiroshima and Nakasaki. | ||
| So let's get to a couple more folks. | ||
| Let's hear from Keith in Denver, Colorado, on our line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Keith. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| I was just thinking and listening to all of these individuals who are calling, and I went back to the State of the Union address in 2020, 2003 when President Bush had indicated that there was an axis of evil. | ||
| He had noted three countries: North Korea, Iran, and Iraq. | ||
| Of those three, Iraq was supposed to be the easiest. | ||
| After 20 years not meeting a military or political objective, trillions of dollars spent on a war that didn't go anywhere. | ||
| Now, the President of the United States, this president, is invading a country that has not presented a clear and present danger to the United States. | ||
| The Israeli state, unfortunately, has engaged in war crimes against the Palestinian people. | ||
| They're saying they want to root out Hamas. | ||
| Hamas is a duly elected government in the Palestinian state. | ||
| As someone had previously mentioned, Israel is a nuclear power. | ||
| Why isn't the International Atomic Agency going in and taking a look at Israel's weapons? | ||
| They have become an aggressor. | ||
| We are complicit in this aggression. | ||
| This attack on Iran yesterday was unprovoked. | ||
| I'm thinking about the attacks on September 11th, and I could see now that the United States has placed itself squarely in the eyes of some Middle East countries, again, for no reason, supporting a friend who has not been dealing in good faith with the people in that region. | ||
| We have to reassess our relationship with what Israel's actions are doing. | ||
| Not saying that the people are bad, but certainly Netanyahu is corrupt. | ||
| Donald Trump has engaged in a foolish act yesterday. | ||
| And then looking at the clip from Hegseth, he's not talking about strategic objectives. | ||
| He's just saying, oh, President Trump is great. | ||
| If he says something, 16 days, 60 days, whatever, he's going to do it. | ||
| Listen to the president, listen to the president. | ||
| We have to get rid of these people and these sycophants who have no business in this government. | ||
| This is unfortunate. | ||
| This was a tremendously foolish act taken by this administration. | ||
| Keith was referencing that press conference from earlier this morning. | ||
| Also at that press conference, in addition to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan Kaine. | ||
| And he spoke about the military operation and some of the details of how it went down. | ||
| Last night, on the President's orders, U.S. Central Command, under the command of General Eric Carrilla, executed Operation Midnight Hammer, a deliberate and precise strike against three Iranian nuclear facilities. | ||
| This was a complex and high-risk mission carried out with exceptional skill and discipline by our joint force. | ||
| I want to thank every service member, planner, and operator that made this mission possible. | ||
| Their actions reflect the highest standards of the United States Armed Forces. | ||
| This operation was designed to severely degrade Iran's nuclear weapons infrastructure. | ||
| It was planned and executed across multiple domains and theaters with coordination that reflects our ability to project power globally with speed and precision at the time and place of our nation's choosing. | ||
| This was a highly classified mission with very few people in Washington knowing the timing or nature of this plan. | ||
| Back to your calls on your thoughts on the U.S. entering the Israel and Iran conflict. | ||
| We'll go now to Scott in Virginia on our line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Scott. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, good morning. | |
| How are you? | ||
| I'm fine, thank you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good. | |
| Nice to hear. | ||
| Hey, just I want to say that I find it hilarious that a lot of people are worried about Iran's nuclear program. | ||
| This has been the largest state sponsor of terrorism for 20 years. | ||
| Iran with highly enriched uranium is a threat to all of the world. | ||
| The caller earlier, calling from Vermont, said Iran may have taken their quote-unquote goodies out and hidden them around the country. | ||
| And so the strike meant nothing. | ||
| Well, he could not be more wrong. | ||
| The strike absolutely degraded their ability to continue enriching uranium. | ||
| There are many reports that they are getting farther and farther and enriching to a high-tech. | ||
| Scott, your line is starting to break up. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I don't know if you've moved away from your phone. | |
| No, I'm here. | ||
| I'm sorry. | ||
| But at the end of the day. | ||
|
Larry's Dirty Bomb Concern
00:07:02
|
||
| I'm sorry, Scott. | ||
| It looks like we've lost your line. | ||
| Let's move on to Alan in Princeton, West Virginia, on our line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Alan. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Let me get this volume down the rest of the way. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| There's a couple of things that I'm in my upper 80s that kind of come together. | ||
| First, Aman Poor casually and for a split second mentioned the dirty bomb. | ||
| And back a long time ago, when it was just U.S. versus Russia, and Adlai E. Stevenson, the vice president, because we'd have atmospheric testing, wrote the book, Fallout. | ||
| Now, this deals with what might be the immediate danger, as well as I can figure it anyway. | ||
| Well, I'm not an expert at nuclear physics, but I'm wrong ways. | ||
| That it would be possible, it would seem, that you could use less than weapons-grade uranium in fair-sized chunk. | ||
| And judging from that missile that came down and destroyed several blocks of a city there in Israel, that easily concerned about a terrorist attack here in the United States? | ||
| Well, with the United States, Russia, in the case of, well, I'm thinking about the use of that powerful missile to rein radioactive material, say, to take out the presenter of Tel Aviv. | ||
| Now, to get the United States, I doubt that a missile would go that far from Iran, but it could be put into a ship, and it might take out in New York, say, about everything south of Central Park. | ||
| I think we've got your idea, Alan. | ||
| Let's hear from Larry in Dallas, Texas, on our line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Larry. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, your previous callers just kind of stole my thunder. | |
| But one of the things we have to deal with is the dust has not even settled over there. | ||
| We have no first-hand knowledge of the success or failure of our attack, and we won't know for years. | ||
| And so we're going to have to sit back and watch and wait for their counter-strike. | ||
| And it will happen. | ||
| It may not happen today. | ||
| It may happen tomorrow, but it will happen. | ||
| And that's my comment. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Let's hear from Mark in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, on our line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Mark. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| I appreciate C-SPAN's effort here to be an honest broker in this conversation. | ||
| In that regard, though, I'd like you, as our host, to reconsider the frame you've been using to describe what's just taken place. | ||
| You've repeatedly called it the U.S. entering the war or the U.S. entering the conflict between Israel and Iran. | ||
| And it may be that in part, but I don't think that's the whole story. | ||
| Hasn't the U.S. its own interests here beyond the conflict between Israel and Iran? | ||
| Isn't the U.S. also responding to Iran's death to America rhetoric? | ||
| And don't we all are we also asserting our own power in that region, a region we import oil from? | ||
| I think that makes this action more than the U.S. intervening in someone else's war. | ||
| And I'd like you to reconsider that frame you've been using, please. | ||
| Thank you for raising that point. | ||
| This was something that was also brought up at the press conference this morning about the U.S. interest in preventing Iran from having a nuclear weapon. | ||
| Here's another portion of that press conference with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who was asked about the risk of a protracted war. | ||
| Here's that exchange. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The president may not want an open-ended conflict. | |
| The Iranians may disagree. | ||
| Are you prepared for a protracted war? | ||
| Well, anything can happen in conflict. | ||
| We acknowledge that, but the scope of this was intentionally limited. | ||
| That's the message that we're sending. | ||
| With the capabilities of the American military nearly unlimited. | ||
| So Iran, in that sense, has a choice. | ||
| But we've made it very clear to them: this is nuclear sites. | ||
| This is nuclear capabilities. | ||
| This is the line that the president set. | ||
| And we set that back. | ||
| Now is the time to come forward for peace. | ||
| But we, I think, but one of the takeaways from this as well is the unprecedented level of ongoing cooperation. | ||
| I can't speak highly enough of the chairman and his staff and General Carrilla in CENTCOM, what they've done to look around the corner, to pre-position, to understand how an operation like this comes together. | ||
| The scope and scale of what occurred last night would take the breath away of almost any American if you had an opportunity to watch it in real time. | ||
| And I think Tehran is certainly calculating the reality that planes flew from the middle of America and Missouri overnight, completely undetected, over three of their most highly sensitive sites, and we were able to destroy nuclear capabilities. | ||
| And our boys in those bombers are on their way home right now. | ||
| We believe that'll have a clear psychological impact on how they view the future. | ||
| And we certainly hope they take the path of negotiated peace. | ||
| But I could not be more proud of how this building operated, of the precision, the sensitivity, and the professionalism of the troops involved in this effort. | ||
| Eric is in Buffalo, New York, on our line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Eric. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| How are you? | ||
| Fine, thank you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I want to commend C-SPAN. | |
| You guys get criticized for not doing, you know, for this and that. | ||
| You guys give a fair assessment on both sides. | ||
| First of all, we've been crying weapons of mass destruction for how many years now, which got us involved in the early 90s. | ||
|
Screaming for Debt
00:03:41
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|
unidentified
|
I was in the service in 85 to 89. | |
| I was part of a helicopter squadron that escorted the tankers through the Straits of Hormuz in Operation Ernest Will. | ||
| And this has been going on for years, thousands of years, between the Palestinians and the Jews. | ||
| The easiest thing to do is say, try weapons of mass destruction. | ||
| First of all, Netanyahu's up for election. | ||
| He wants to project himself as the ultimate survivor, you know, savior of Israel. | ||
| Trump wants to distract from his big, beautiful bill. | ||
| It's all political. | ||
| You know, who's suffering? | ||
| The Palestinian people. | ||
| People in the United States scream for debt to Iraq, debt to Iran. | ||
| People in Iran are screaming death to America. | ||
| It goes back and forth. | ||
| It's like a tennis match. | ||
| This is crazy. | ||
| This is ultimately crazy. | ||
| What's it going to cost the United States of America, the taxpayers? | ||
| Billions, trillions of dollars, trillions of dollars. | ||
| And they think the immigrants are causing us money, you know? | ||
| It's just a never-ending political, horrible, you know, money. | ||
| So, Eric, I want to try to get to one more person before we have to end for the day. | ||
| Let's hear from Mary in Florida on our line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Mary. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I'm the mother of a U.S. Marine that was deployed three times to Iraq. | ||
| And I have to say, yes, at that time that we were told there were weapons of mass destruction. | ||
| This time, this president warned Iran for 60 days, told them that we did not want to have any type of war with them to stop their nuclear sites. | ||
| This is not fair to what people are saying about President Trump. | ||
| It's not fair. | ||
| He does not want boots on the ground. | ||
| Why isn't anyone talking about what Joe Biden administration did, having all of these illegal immigrants come into the country? | ||
| And yes, from Iran, from China, from all of these people that hate us. | ||
| They're always yelling and screaming, death to America. | ||
| What about all of these college students in this country that are burning our flag and getting away with it? | ||
| Donald Trump does not want boots on the ground. | ||
| That is actually all the time that we have for our show today. | ||
| Thank you to everyone who called in to share your thoughts. | ||
| We're going to be back with another edition of Washington Journal tomorrow morning, starting at 7 a.m. Eastern. | ||
| Thank you and have a good day. | ||
|
unidentified
|
President Trump addressed the nation following U.S. military strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities. | |
| The action came amid the ongoing Israeli-Iranian conflict. | ||