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June 17, 2025 - Sean Hannity Show
33:26
Peace Through Strength - June 16th, Hour 1
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This is an iHeart Podcast.
Well, we're coming to your city Gonna play our guitars and sing you a country song We'll all be fired.
Highland of jail.
And if you want a little banging and yin-yang, come along.
Israel launched Operation Rising Lion.
Targeted military operation to roll back the Iranian threat to Israel's very survival.
This operation will continue for as many days as it takes.
Democracy is under assault before our eyes.
This moment we have feared has arrived.
And you compare them to those nondescript thugs.
It does look like a Gestapo operation.
Freedom is back in style.
Welcome to the revolution.
Yeah, we are coming.
To your cention you a contrast.
Sean Hannity.
More behind the scenes information on breaking news and more bold inspired solutions for America.
All right, thank you, Scott Shannon, and thanks to all of you for being with us.
Write down our toll-free telephone number.
It's 800-941 Sean.
If you want to be a part of the program, we got the president of the G7.
You've got these crazy protesters out there.
No Kings.
Crazy weekend.
We'll play a lot of audio throughout the course of the program today.
Obviously, is what is going on as it relates to the Israelis.
What they have been able to do is nothing short of miraculous in a very short period of time.
And they have put themselves in harm's way.
Military action is always something that you have got to go in with great trepidation and thought and understanding.
Now I happen to agree with President Trump.
President Trump, to his credit, gave the Iranians very stern warnings that they should negotiate a settlement.
And he was very clear when when I was with him in the Gulf States, and that would be Riyadh and Saudi Arabia, and then we went to uh Qatar Qatar, whatever you prefer to call it.
It's both are appropriate.
And when I went with him to Abu Dhabi in the UAE, his message was very clear every single day, multiple times a day, that the Iranians cannot have nuclear weapons.
You know, I noticed the president posted this weekend for those people who say they want peace.
You cannot have peace if Iran has a nuclear weapon.
So for all those wonderful people who don't want to do anything about Iran having a nuclear weapon, that is not peace.
I don't define peace as the absence of conflict and the absence of war.
Um, but we were on the uh look.
According to reports, you have to believe the people that have the intelligence and the intelligence was pretty crystal clear that the Iranians were hellbent on these nuclear weapon sites.
Why did they bury them three miles underground?
They did it in large part because they are that serious and committed to it.
What have we been watching unfold in the region now for a long period of time?
And that is the Iranians have emerged as the number one state sponsor of terror.
And frankly, I blame all of this on Joe Biden because the Trump sanctions in his first term were working and bankrupting the regime.
And it was Biden that turned a blind eye towards the sanctions that were effective because you had the population rising up against the Iranians, and Joe Biden turned a blind eye, and that that led to uh uh literally hundreds of billions of dollars in their coffers.
That led to a continuation of their nuclear program and their ability to build weaponry to foment terror and the terror proxies throughout the region.
And we see what's what's happened here.
Um now we are on the precipice of the Iranian regime having no nuclear weapons, and I ask everybody out there, do you think that is a good thing or a bad thing?
I think it's a good Thing.
If you look at what's happened so far in this conflict, the Israelis and and again when you factor in the last time I was in Israel, I went to this small border town, Gaza border town Starrot.
I've talked about it many times.
And this little town had gotten hit in the prior ten years to my arrival with 10,000 missiles in ten years.
The Israelis have been hit with hundreds of thousands of missiles, and and thank God the Iron Dome is up, but I've always said that the Iron Dome is only a short term answer.
It's not a long term answer.
We're watching unfolding here.
Well, what are the Israelis targeting?
They are targeting.
It looks like they took out two of their nuclear facilities.
There is a third, it's more complicated.
I'll get into that in a minute.
But what have the Iranians done?
They've been attacking civilian targets, heavily concentrated areas like Tel Aviv, because they want to inflict maximum terror, a maximum terror campaign against Israel.
It is the Iranians that helped help plot and scheme what happened on October the seventh, where they lost the equivalent of 40,000, if you again extrapolating out their population size versus the U.S., it would be the equivalent of 40,000 Americans dead in a day.
Uh if if such a similar attack at a similar level killed as many Americans as a percentage of the population versus the percentage of the population, never mind the kidnapping and the rape and the torture and the beheadings, all this video exists, all of which I have seen with my own eyes.
And so over the years, through their proxies, and that would be Hamas out of Gaza, Hezbollah, the Islamic Jihad out of Lebanon, that would be the Houthi rebels, that would be the Syrian militia, the Iraqi militia, and of course the ballistic missiles now, which I believe is resulted in in plan B. And so the Iranians now go out and they attack all these civilian targets.
What is amazing in in this military there was a window of opportunity here for the Israelis, and that is they knew based on April of last year, and they knew based on their their second attack that the entire missile defense system is inoperable thanks to their first attack in April a year ago, where they took out the Russian made system.
So right now, as we speak, the Israelis own the skies of Iran, which gives the world a window of opportunity.
Now I don't want I don't want to be I don't want to be flippant about this or nonchalant.
You know, there's always a risk involved in military action, but there's also sometimes a risk of military inaction, especially at the right time.
Um and this regime, unfortunately, was able to build up a lot of a lot of ballistic missile power and advance the nuclear program under Joe Biden.
And they've been fomenting terror in the entire region.
There's not one country in the region that wants the Iranians to have nuclear weapons.
If you go back, one of the untold stories in Donald Trump's first term was he was able to build an alliance with the United States and Israel and the Saudis and the Emirates and the Egyptians and Jordanians, and they were all sharing intelligence because they all against Iranian hid uh hegemony.
And where we stand today is Israel controls the skies of of Iran.
They took out two of their three main reactor reactors.
Now, the problem is this last nuclear facility that again to my thinking is you've come this far.
If you do nothing else, you gotta finish the job and take out any possibility in our lifetime that the Iranians can achieve their goal of nuclear weapons, because they'll hold the entire world hostage.
Now, if you don't see that or can't see that, or are unwilling if you're so risk averse that you're unwilling to deal with that truth and that reality, well, this is a regime, don't forget that it's chance death to America and death to Israel.
It's not just it's not they only because of the proximity of Israel is Israel bearing the brunt of all of this.
And the w what they will need, or one or two options exist to take out this deeply buried underground site that exists, and that is bunker buster bombs, which are thirty thousand pound bombs.
It may take two.
It may take one, I'm not sure.
Or a tactical nuclear weapon, which the Israelis can use if they want, if they choose to.
Now, I I I just I urge everyone to just stand back for a second.
You know, we've had to fight wars in this country, and I wish evil didn't exist.
I wish the Iranians would have taken Donald Trump up on his option for peace, and peace would be defined by they can't have nuclear power, but it would have been great incentives for them to join the world community, but you're asking radical exotic Islamists that believe in this ideology of convert or died to go along with that.
I agree with Donald Trump that America can't be involved in these forever wars uh ever again, and I have talked at length about the next generation of weaponry, which is now the re it is in the now.
It's not in the past, it's not something in the future.
I mean, everything Israel is doing for the most part, the only thing conventional is that they're they're they're controlling the skies and they're flying their jets and they're hitting those targets, uh, and the two main targets so far have been their missile batteries,
their missile systems, uh, which they have, you know, as many estimated about 3,000 long-range missiles that have 2,000 pound warheads on them, and that's what they're firing into Tel Aviv, and with ambitions to build out 4,000 pound missiles.
That is not something that any country can withstand, and I don't care how good the Iron Done system may be, it is imperfect as it is, and they want to inflict as much terror mass mass casualties as they possibly can.
Um so they're confronting this evil now while they have this moment of opportunity, and the president has been very clear, unambiguous in his message that this terror regime cannot have nuclear weapons, and their plan B is okay, they were assuming that they target the nuclear sites, so plan B was to build up this missile, these ballistic missiles that are capable of wiping out Israel as well.
And you know, I I'm I I just kind of agree with the president's philosophy on all this, pursue peace first, and then when they reject it, if they want to be the world's number one state sponsor of terror and chant death to America, what would the world look like if the Iranians that are targeting civilians now in Tel Aviv, if they had nuclear weapons behind them?
You know, no country in the region wants Iran with nuclear weapons.
Any country with any common sense, any person with common sense knows that would be an existential threat to everybody, and they could then therefore hold the world hostage.
They have repeatedly said they have a goal and desire to build missiles that would hit the continental United States.
Do you doubt that they would do that?
I do not.
You know, how many missiles?
You know, you got to ask yourself, put yourself in Israel's position for just a second and then ask yourself this question.
If a country was firing missiles at our country, how many missiles would need to be fired before you would say unleash hell and destroy the country responsible for attacking the United States?
If it was Canada, if it was Mexico, if it was Cuba, if it was a Latin American company, how many missiles would need to be fired at the United States before you would demand that the country's leadership take out this threat?
Thank you.
Because they've had hundreds of thousands fired at them, and uh at some point here, you can't define peace as the absence of conflict or the absence of war.
And if people are willing to do that with the with what they have at this point, uh you know, I really fear those that don't uh don't see this as a real clear present danger to the world.
Um, and I do blame Obama and Biden directly because they have done nothing but appeasement and appeasement hasn't worked.
I wish evil didn't exist.
We are where we are because this is a regime that is on their knees.
Now I'm reading today, Daily Caller has a piece that Iran is pleading for renewed negotiations after Israeli strikes, you know, have devastated the nations.
Let's see, they've taken out their scientists, their military leadership.
Uh reports that maybe they wanted to take out the Supreme Leader and that Donald Trump stopped that.
I don't know if that's true.
I don't even believe it to be true, to be very honest.
I don't believe a lot of what I read.
Top Iranian officials reportedly making plans to flee to Russia was in the Washington Free Beacon.
They know that their days of numbers.
I'm talking about the Supreme Leader Khamani, reportedly in talks to secure asylum in Russia, which probably would be a good place for him.
Um, but I don't think it should be America's goal for regime change.
I think you gotta just neutralize the threat, and I think you can do it, but uh it doesn't mean it's without risk because there are American targets.
Now all of a sudden Iran is defeated for the most part, and they want to hang on to their one remaining nuclear facility.
You see, there are other options here.
Either they agree to have it dismantled immediately, and at that point, they might be able to save their power grid in their country, which would be a prime easy target.
A lot of people don't know that they're powered by gas in Iran, but they are.
A lot of people don't know that all of their refineries happen to be on one island, and you could wipe out their ability to make money with just a couple of strikes.
The Iranian regime already is on its knees.
Again, not risk-free.
They still have ballistic missiles, and they have clearly shown they will target civilians and innocent people.
So nothing is risk-free.
But what is the greater risk you must ask yourself?
Is the greater risk the fact that they have ballistic missiles, or is the greater threat that they have no nukes?
Is the world better off without the Iranians having nuclear weapons?
Nobody's talking about boots on the ground, nobody's talking about a long protracted war.
Nobody's saying that this is without danger.
Nobody's saying that they like it.
I don't like it.
But I don't really see a choice.
And for those people that seem to be making the case, oh, this is a disaster.
Uh how big, how much bigger a disaster would it be if they had nuclear weapons?
How much bigger a threat would it be?
800, 941 Shauna's on number.
You know, if you think back there were always been an isolationist wing of the conservative movement.
Pat Buchanan probably represented it the most, and I always got along with Pat, very smart guy.
Uh, but he did have views that I absolutely disagreed with.
And um it is one of isolationism.
I don't believe that to not recognize a threat and deal with it early is just stupid, if that makes sense.
All right, check it out when you go to Hannity.com, June 28th.
That's actually not this coming Saturday, the following Saturday at 7 o'clock, Ruth Eckert Hall that's in Clearwater.
Uh those tickets are almost sold out, by the way.
And uh if you want to come, you'll have a great time.
It's gonna be irreverent, politically incorrect.
Uh we are not like the average idiot that you see on TV that is uh so left wing in terms of humor and uh not exactly celebrating patriotism, but we believe in celebrating freedom and fun, and no holds Bart.
There's gonna be, I mean, yeah, we're going there no matter where it takes us, but we're definitely going there.
And then uh the next night on the 29th, we're gonna be in at the Broward Center for Performing Arts.
That's Fort Lauderdale, Miami.
That's Boca, that's uh Delray Beach.
I was in Delray this weekend.
I love I love Atlantic Avenue in Delray Beach.
So cool.
Um had a great stake there.
Ugh, so delicious.
And anyway, that'll be on Sunday the 29th, as we had another fourth of July week.
Uh again, tickets on sale going fast, Hannity.com.
Uh, what's my favorite pasta sauce, Linda?
Silver pallet pasta sauce.
That's only one.
Well, you didn't say say it three times.
I was waiting for you.
Okay, say it three times.
Silver palette pasta sauce, silver palette pasta sauce, silver palette pasta sauce, and it's better than Prego and Rayo.
And now I have all their products in house, and I have tried them all.
Oh, it's amazing.
They're all good.
They're all great.
And and the thing is, what I love, it's not sauce, it's sauce.
But that, you know, well, let's put that aside.
Uh, I think we should do a poll on Hannity.com.
I think I'll win.
Just, you know, just for fun.
From the people that bring you grainberry cereal, which you also just remember these names when you go shopping, and you will not regret it.
Uh again, they control sugar, uh pack with antioxidants, high in fiber.
Uh, that's called grainberry cereal, the silver pallet pasta sauce, whole San Marzano and California tomatoes, delicious, and there's no added sugar, no junk, clean, honest ingredients, uh, garlic, basil, extra virgin olive oil, family-owned, quality driven.
It's absolutely delicious.
Uh, just go to the store, but just remember the name.
They have classic marinara, low sodium marinara, tomato basil.
If you like to make pizza, they got this silver pallet pizza sauce and vodka sauce as well.
It's how sauce should be when you go shopping.
It's grainberry cereal, silver palate pasta sauce.
Sauce, if you want to say, or gravy.
Exactly.
For those people for those people who say they want peace, you can't have peace if Iran has a nuclear weapon.
So for all those wonderful people who don't want to do anything about Iran, having a nuclear weapon, that is not peace.
Donald J. Trump.
That's the Trump doctrine.
He tried peace, did everything he could.
He bent over backwards for peace, and they have chosen to thumb their nose at the world.
They are the number one state sponsor of terror.
And people have to really wrap, you have to wrap your arms around what you're dealing with here.
How many, how many tens, thousand hundreds of thousands of missiles have the Iranians provided to their proxies to be fired into Israel to accomplish their stated goal of wiping Israel off the map?
Hannity, that's Israel's problem.
No, that's the world's problem.
Because after Israel, they chant death to Israel, then they chant death to America.
How many direct threats have they made to America?
What would it mean if they had a nuclear weapon?
What do you think the world would look like?
Do you think the world is better off without the Iranian regime, the number one state sponsor of terror having a nuclear weapon?
You know, do you do you believe that this is a moment of opportunity?
They don't have any air defense system right now, and right now the Israelis own the Iranian skies.
Is it better considering they reject and have rejected heretofore every opportunity to get rid of their nuclear weapon system, especially based on their history of terrorism and targeting civilians and targeting and helping proxy groups out, radical Islamists.
Do you think radical Islamists mean it when they believe in a caliphate, and that is convert or die?
You know, what did we learn anything about the 9-11 commission report?
They were at war with us.
We were not at war with them.
Does it mean we have forever wars?
I don't want forever wars.
Doesn't mean we have to have a military presence on the ground.
I don't want a military presence on the ground.
But there is a window of opportunity now with one nuclear facility buried deep in the ground left to remove this threat now and forever.
Then the Iranians will have a choice again.
And that is they can choose peace and they can keep their refineries and join the world community.
Uh, or and keep their power grid going.
Those are two layup targets for the Israelis.
Now, the Israelis over the weekend did show them that they have the ability to take out their refineries because they took one out.
But they could have taken them all out because they're all in the same direction.
The same island.
Anyway, the smoke and flames, you know, filling the sky over Tehran as Israel struck one of Iran's largest oil refineries and targeting more nuclear facilities.
It looks like they knocked out the two.
I mean, I'm sure we'll get an assessment that is accurate in the days to come, but it looks like they took out two of their nuclear facilities completely, but they attacked one of the largest refineries in South Tehran and uh their fuel and gas depot in Tehran during attacks late Saturday night and Sunday morning,
and officials with Iran's oil ministry confirmed the attack on the one of their largest uh refinery depots, which has at least eleven storage tanks located in an Afflane area.
Now this then becomes a point of leverage.
If the Iranian regime would like to keep their economy alive, so far the Israelis have not taken out their ability completely to make money.
Meaning that that is their entire economy there.
So far they have not taken out their power grid.
These are easy targets now for the Israelis, as we all know.
And I think the Israelis are pretty hell bent on just making sure that they get rid of the nuclear sites and that they remove that threat.
Um communications have been shut down for the Iranian people.
Interestingly, Elon Musk is back in the news because he said he has activated his satellite-based internet service, Starlink in Iran after the Islamic Republic's regime disrupted their ground bases access.
He said the beams are on in a post on X. And uh anyway, he made that announcement that the service is active.
Iran has blocked internet access for their citizens after Israel pummeled the country's nuclear facilities with missiles that took out, you know, they they obviously you know they've already taken out a lot of top people.
Now, I don't know exactly what role the U.S. should play here.
I do think it's in America's best long-term interests if they don't have nuclear weapons.
Beyond that, I think then they that their ability to foment terror.
This is this is Israel's conflict because they've been going after Israeli targets, although in many occasions they've been after American targets.
They killed Americans in Iraq, they killed Americans in in Lebanon and Beirut, they killed Americans in in other and other attacks as well.
So we do have a stake in this.
But I think the president's, you know, thoughts are perfect.
If you want peace, you can't have peace.
If Iran has a nuclear war, the world won't have peace.
The Israelis have said their iron dome missile defense system has been able to intercept 90% of these Iranian rockets.
They said that earlier today, providing their first statistics on the war.
Uh only five to ten percent of ballistic missiles hitting actual residential areas.
Look as good as their missile defense systems are, they're not perfect.
And these weapons that the Iranians are firing are bigger than they've ever been, which is one of the reasons why Israel had to act now.
And again, I ask how many missiles would have to be fired at an American town or city by a foreign adversary before you would expect your government to take them out.
I would say one.
Maybe for some people, two.
I don't know.
But for me, my threshold is one.
Not that I want war.
I want deterrence, and deterrence is military strength.
Peace is not defined by an absence of conflict or war.
Peace is defined by the ability to defeat your enemies if they ever attack you and prevent them from ever daring to attack you.
That's how I define it.
Uh there's nothing new about the prime minister's claim that Iran has tried to assassinate Donald Trump.
I don't know why that made so much news, but ever since Bibi told Brett Baer yesterday that Iran was plotting to assassinate Donald Trump, the media has been treating it like it's breaking news, and that revelation has prompted widespread speculation that Netanyahu was referring to some bombshell secret intelligence that Israel has showing that Iran was behind uh maybe the two attempts, one in Butler, one at Trump International.
But what Netanyahu undoubtedly was referring to was the Iranian plot to kill Trump that the FBI discovered last year when the DOJ actually indicted an Iranian agent who was recruiting a hit team to take out Trump.
Remember, it's been widely reported that we have Iranian assassination squads in this country.
But if you go back to the New York Post, for example, November 8th, right after the election, Iran instructed one of their agents running a New York City based criminal network to stalk and assassinate former President Trump in the 24 election's final weeks, telling him that money's not an issue.
An unnamed official in Iran's notorious Islamic revolutionary guard.
They, along with the Cud's forces were responsible for in part plotting, planning, scheming, providing the weaponry for October 2nd, uh, I'm sorry, October 7th, focus on surveilling and ultimately assassinating Trump.
This this is not new news for anybody that follows the news on a regular basis.
And if you want to take it a step further, if you go back to April of this year, you have this Islamist revolutionary newspaper, widely considered the voice of Iran's supreme leader, Khamenei, encouraging the targeted assassination of Donald Trump.
That's April 5th.
According to the Persian language article published, it said Trump is way out of line.
Any day now in revenge for the blood of Martyr Solomani, meaning General Solomon, who Donald Trump took out in his first term, a few bullets are going to be fired into the empty skull of his, and he'll be drinking from the chalice of a cursed death.
It is a death culture, unfortunately, which it wasn't, which evil didn't exist, but it does.
Again, did target one of their refineries.
I'm not sure I believe this UPI reported that President Trump cautioned Israel against taking out the Iranian Supreme Leader as part of their military offensive.
Uh Netanyahu apparently discussed it with Trump as an opportunity, opened up for Israel to kill Khamenei, but Trump shut it down.
Uh said it wasn't a good idea.
I just don't I don't really I don't think President Trump is that involved in deciding what Israel's going to do.
I think he asked Israel to give them 60 days.
He they gave him the 60 day window, and uh the Iranians just spent their time building up their ballistic missile system, thinking that eventually their nuclear sites are gonna get hit.
Um I like the parade on Sunday.
We'll play later.
Oh my gosh, these idiots all the weekend long with this no kings, no kings, no kings.
You know, Hitler, Hitler, Hitler.
We have Fang Fang Swalwell, Democrats, some of the dumbest protesters you'd ever want to meet in your life making these ridiculous comments.
We'll play all of that.
Uh and you know, by the way, Trump condemned the horrific attack of these two democratic lawmakers in Minnesota.
I mean, we've got to protect our elected officials.
Eric Swalwell, Mr. Fang Fang, Trump is America's Hitler.
Got a lot of Hitler talk again.
That worked so well for them in the twenty uh twenty-four election, didn't it?
Because that was their closing argument.
Didn't particularly work out that well for them.
You know, at this no kings protesting, and we'll play the audio of it later.
They're chanting 8647.
Thank you, Jim Comey.
Thank you, Mr. Higher Honor.
President Trump pointing out that our nation's ICE officers have shown incredible strength, determination, courage.
You know, every one of these problems is a Biden Harris Mayorchus problem.
We have known terrorists, assassination squads, murderers, rapists, gang members, cartel members, drug dealers in this country because of them.
Well, but Sean, they they took out an innocent person and and they were removed from the country.
They weren't here illegally, but they would just be a nice people.
Well, I have no doubt they're nice people.
And even the president said, you know, we're gonna try and really go after the criminals first and not hurt our farmers or people that need, and I guess, you know, they there is in place a program right now, if you self-deport, you're gonna get a thousand bucks and the ability to apply to come right back in.
I guess people can do that.
Um anyway, the the media coverage of this No Kings weekend, you would think it was the biggest thing in the world.
All it is is crazy people on the left.
And all they're doing is reinforcing to the American people how insane the left is.
And all they're doing is reinforcing that they haven't learned a thing from November 5th, and that they've doubled down on dumb, dumber, and even stupid, and there's been no introspection, there's been no course correction, and I don't even know at this point if they're even capable of it.
And if God forbid you're somebody like John Fetterman who said, Yeah, the 250th honoring our our army after on their 250th anniversary is a cool idea.
And he said, and he praised President Trump's military parade.
You would think he's, you know, the devil incarnate, according to the Democrats, because they're so locked into the Jasmine Crockett, AOC, grandpa Bernie, Elizabeth Warren squad wing of their party.
State Democratic lawmaker in North Carolina come under has come under fire for posting a photo of a no kings protest over the weekend featuring an image of a beheaded President Trump.
Akeem Jeffries is warning colleagues to act responsibly.
I think that's impossible.
You know, there was a good question.
I forgot where I saw this today.
You know, why are Democrats embracing 8020 issues and they're on the 20% side?
Open borders, opposition to deporting violent criminals, you know, championing the rights of men to play women's sports, opposition to Israel.
Why is that?
Because and it actually came up with a good conclusion because that's where they get their money from.
Makes sense, right?
800-941 Sean is our number.
You want to be a part of the program.
We'll get an update from Nathan Sales, former ambassador.
He served in the first Trump administration as ambassador at large for counterterrorism, acting under secretary of state.
We'll update you on the No Kings Insanity weekend and get to your calls 800 941 Sean.
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