Fight Over Iran’s Future pits Trump-era hawks against critics, framing U.S. strikes as a preemptive strike to dismantle Iran’s nuclear program—citing $70B cash transfers under Obama/Biden and Khamenei’s defiance of uranium deals. The segment claims 40 Iranian leaders were eliminated in minutes, dismissing domestic opposition as "anti-Semitic" or isolationist while comparing inaction to appeasing Hitler. A North Carolina caller echoes fears of nuclear threats destabilizing families, contrasting Trump’s "future-focused" leadership with Biden’s alleged funding of terror via Hezbollah. The debate hinges on whether military action—rooted in Christian conservatism—is the only way to prevent a "Pol Pot-style" regional tyranny or if diplomacy still holds sway. [Automatically generated summary]
That means all things Bill O'Reilly, all things Bill O'Reilly, of course, at billo'reilly.com.
This is his favorite half hour of the week.
Mr. O'Reilly, sir, how are you?
You know, I'm driving into your favorite place, New York City.
You have my sympathy.
It's not my favorite place.
I can't stand it with all the traffic.
All right, we got a lot to talk about.
And I'm going to start out in a way that's a little bit different.
And I want to get your no-spin take on it.
And look, the Iranians are modern day radical, Islamic, fascist.
And we know that they have been fomenting terror, killing Americans.
I can go through the whole history of it.
You know it as well as I do.
The audience knows it as well as I do.
And after Operation Midnight Hammer, you would think they would have learned something.
I had Steve Wickoff on the other night when negotiating with the Iranians, and it's like they learned nothing, and they were reconstituting their nuclear program, rebuilding their ballistic missiles programs and their drone programs.
And obviously, they only do it because they want to terrorize the entire region.
Now, if we care, and you're a historian, if we care about future generations, and I know you do, you care about your children, future grandchildren, future great-grandchildren, it's our obligation to leave the world a safer place for them and a better place than what we found it.
And Donald Trump had a very hard and fast rule, which I completely agree with.
Iran can never have nuclear weapons.
And they, once again, were pursuing them.
They learned nothing from Midnight Hammer.
So I don't see that the president had a choice.
He would have preferred a deal that said they even offered to give them civilian-use uranium in perpetuity for free.
And they wouldn't take that deal because they would never give up their nuclear weapons ambitions.
So I want to ask you the question this way.
Through the prism of the critics, even within the conservative movement, the isolationists in our movement, this is not in America's best interest.
America's acting on behalf of Israel.
First of all, Donald Trump acts on behalf of Donald Trump, what Donald Trump thinks.
Nobody convinces Donald Trump to do something he doesn't want to do.
You can't pressure that man.
You know it.
I know it.
We've known him 30 plus years.
But that is the short-sightedness of the analysis of some.
And I want to get your take on that.
Because I think they're stupid.
Well, there's a little bit more to it than being stupid.
There's deception.
So this conflict with Iran is almost exactly like the conflict with Afghanistan after 9-11.
It's almost exactly the same thing.
So you'll remember the Taliban was harboring al-Qaeda.
They wouldn't give them up.
And the American government said, we're going to go on in.
And if you're not going to cooperate, we're going to remove you from power, which is exactly what happened.
Okay?
Now, the problem was that back then, the Bush administration believed that they could change the Afghan political system, and that turned out to be false.
They couldn't do it.
They couldn't do it in Iraq either.
But they did remove the heinous individuals that were causing so much pain and suffering.
So you would think that the Trump administration has learned that historical lesson, and I believe they have.
They're not going to use the cliche boots on the ground.
If I hear that one more time, I'm going to hit somebody with a boot.
Okay?
That's not in the car.
You know it wouldn't be smart to hit me with a boot, Bill.
You know that, right?
But you don't say boots on the ground too much, do you?
No, I say the Trump doctrine is no forever wars and no boots on the ground or no, we're not sending troops on the ground.
But military technology is advanced.
We don't need to.
Okay.
So now what you have is a theocracy in Iran that basically said to everybody, not just the United States, we're going to do what we want.
And that includes we're going to build and we'll use them for anything we want to use them for, which violates every nuke treaty and all that.
And the rest of the world, almost all of them, say, okay, go ahead.
One exception, the United States.
Now that takes courage to do that, to stand pretty much alone.
Israel is our ally, and Israel obviously has a tremendous motivator because Iran can Israel right now with ballistic missiles.
All you got to do is put the nuke on the end of the missile and boom, you got that.
So Israel's on board.
But that's all.
The rest of them's just playing games.
The UN, the Vatican, the EU, NATO, you know, Spain, you you can't land planes.
So it's just another example of how the world is cowardly and looks away from evil.
And that's why I wrote the book Confronting Evil.
It's exactly the same thing.
History repeating itself.
Now, inside the United States, we actually have Democrats.
Murphy in Connecticut is the worst of them, the senator, who are rooting for us to lose, Hannity.
They hate.
Well, Hakeem Jeffries actually said we will lose this war.
And I'm like, are you watching the same thing I'm watching?
Yeah.
And he wants it.
I don't know about Jeffreys wanting it, but I know Murphy does.
And he wants his own country to lose.
I mean, that's beyond anything.
Even if you dissent from the action.
And you can make a legitimate point that we didn't have to do it now.
Could have done it in May or August, okay, because they're not on the verge.
But the weakness was shown, and that's why President Trump jumped in.
Once the uprising happened, and there were 30,000 Persians killed, according to the estimates that came out of there, then the Trump administration says, now's the time to go.
Because we might be able to knock out the top leadership, which the United States and Israel has.
And then the Persian people would rise and replace that government.
That is ill-defined.
We don't know whether that will happen.
But that's why it happened.
The action happened now.
And you're absolutely right.
I talked to President Trump, as you do, about the offer that he made, the Mullahs, and it was a very generous offer, just like Maduro.
Just like Maduro.
Bill, I know what the offer is.
They would offer and they would provide for them any uranium they may need for civilian use, low-grade, not highly enriched uranium.
They couldn't have enrichment facilities.
They would have all of the uranium they needed for civilian use for free and in perpetuity.
We would give it to them.
That was the offer.
You can't get a better deal than that.
But they don't want peace.
So these are who want death.
They want death.
They fund death.
They are terrorist enablers.
You see Hezbollah now attacking Israel.
That's all Iranian money.
And then I'm so furious about the Biden administration when these people step up, Kamala Harris, and say, oh, hey, you sat there for four years and pumped in $70 billion to Iran.
That's what you did for four years.
You pumped in $70 billion.
Where do you think that money went?
And these people...
So did your buddy Obama.
He sends in cargo planes full of cash and other currency.
How sick was that?
But the Biden people were worse because the Kerry was the Secretary of State.
Kerry knew, and you haven't heard anything from John Kerry.
He must be hiding out in Nantucket.
He ends in a blanket work because he knew, and that intel was passed on to Biden and his people that these Iranians are not going to stop.
But even knowing that, Biden continued to pump billions of dollars into Tehran.
My God.
And I want to make one more point.
Yeah, make your point.
I have one more question about this.
Okay.
If you watched ABC's World News tonight, last night, we're losing the war, Hannity.
Did you know that?
No, I missed that part.
No, we got to surrender.
We got to surrender.
We've got to surrender.
Is that what they're saying?
Oh, man.
You know, they wonder why Legacy Media is dead.
All right, quick break.
Right back.
All things Simple Man, Bill O'Reilly, on the other side.
AllthingsO'Reilly at BillO'Reilly.com.
Then we'll get to your calls coming up: 800-941-Sean.
Our number, if you want to be a part of the program.
Looking for fake news, you won't find it here.
You're with Sean Hannity on the air now.
Comments with all things self-described simple man, all things Bill O'Reilly.
All thingsO'Reilly at BillO'Reilly.com.
All right, so we do have one thing in common.
And you're more of a historian than I am, but I did a lot of historical research for the book I wrote years ago, Deliver Us from Evil, Defeating Terrorism, Despotism, and Liberalism.
And I brought this point out now a number of times.
And if you go back to the last century, my father spent four years in the Pacific, for example.
If you go back to the last century and you look at Mao in China and Stalin in Russia, Hitler, Germany, Mussolini, fascism, Tojo, Japan, Pol Pot, the Killing Fields, it is estimated, and if you want to correct my numbers, please do, about 100 million plus human souls were murdered in the name of whatever ism it is.
And, you know, we've got to learn the lessons of history.
Gavin's Warning00:12:04
We had a window of opportunity here.
We gave the Iranians a chance to choose peace.
I think the president went above, above, and beyond.
But he also had the principle: we're not going to let you hold the world hostage with nuclear weapons.
We know that's your ambition, and we'll make a deal with you.
This is the deal.
I just explained it.
They said no, and President Trump has enough knowledge of history to understand we owe it to future generations not to imprison them under the threat of being hit with a nuclear weapon by these radical Islamo-fascist lunatics that were running Iran that are now dead.
And I will tell you one other thing: the fact that new military technology, advanced military technology, allowed, you know, within the first 30 seconds of this conflict to take out the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, and 40 of the other top officials, and yesterday to take out the special counsel designed to pick his successor.
Now we're hearing that it might be Ali Khamani's grandson that takes over.
It doesn't matter.
That person will probably be dead before this is all said and done.
But not having that wisdom and insight makes the world unstable.
And what frustrates me is those people that claim even to be America first don't have the wisdom that this is in America's best interest to not allow people that say death to America, chant death to America, death to Israel, to have these brutal weapons of mass destruction because they will then hold you hostage, and those lunatics probably would use it.
They don't respect human life.
They think they're doing God's will.
America's always had a strain of isolationism, even with Hitler, Charles Lindbergh, Joseph Kennedy.
They're all saying to FDR, no, you can't give England any weapons.
You can't do this.
You can't do that.
We've always had it ever since the George Washington era.
But in theory, you're right.
Here's the problem.
There is a problem.
This is an enormous risk for President Trump.
Enormous.
Because it has to play out the way Venezuela did.
It has to be perceived as a victory.
Now, there's no time limit on it, as the networks would, you know, screaming, how long, how long?
You know, you're an idiot.
And they really are idiot sanity.
I know they are.
They are.
They're so dumb.
I don't even pay attention to them anymore.
Shocking.
We have about 30 seconds, so I'll let you wrap it up.
Okay.
It's a risk for President Trump because if it doesn't work out, if it is a stalemate and the Persians don't overthrow, he's going to get hammered in November.
It's a risk.
Donald Trump is a risk taker, number one, and he does what's right and doesn't think about the consequences, number two.
And that's the part of Donald Trump that I admire the most.
That's it.
I mean, it's either he's putting future generations above any political considerations, and I admire it.
And I even admire you, Mr. O'Reilly.
I don't know why I'm saying that, but I do.
Oh, no.
Thanks, Ed.
All right.
All things simple, man.
Bill O'Reilly at billo'reilly.com.
Sir, we appreciate you.
Thank you for being with us.
This is a tipping point moment.
There are very few Democrats, only one I can think of, that understand that the Iranians that have been fomenting terror, killing Americans all of these years, and have been feverishly looking for nuclear weapons.
And all these past presidents have done everything from bribe the mullahs in Iran, the supreme leaders, to kissing their ass and begging them, pretty pleased with sugar on top.
Don't continue to build out your nuclear facilities.
It is a radical regime that is an existential threat to the entire world.
Specifically, they want to target the United States and Israel.
It's not that complicated.
You don't need to be a foreign correspondent to understand it.
And then you have people that want to play into the either isolationist wing that is within the country.
And O'Reilly was right.
There's always been that wing in the country.
Or you have the I Hate Donald Trump crowd, which just wants to go against anything that Donald Trump ever says or does.
And this is amazing to me because Gavin, I don't even know where Gavin was.
He's never home.
He never does his day job.
He's a world traveler.
He's a full-time Trump stalker.
Now he's a full-time ex-poster, tweety bird, podcaster, author, world traveler, doing everything except helping his state of California, which has deteriorated to a level that is incomprehensible to anybody that has a brain.
And he's not doing the job he was elected to do.
He just wants to be president and he doesn't care.
And this is now him giving in to the radical base of the left wing in this country that doesn't support Israel, that doesn't support safety and security.
The same people that defund the Department of Homeland Security, defund ICE, the same people that want to defund dismantle the police, no bail laws, sanctuary cities in states like California.
That's Gavin Newsom.
That is what he would offer if he were president of this country.
He cannot be elected.
I don't think he's electable, but that's a separate issue.
He might have the look.
He may sound smooth.
He may be slick like his hair, but he'd be a horrible president, like he's a horrible governor.
Gavin Newsom now wants to appeal to the radical I Hate Israel wing of his party.
And now he's claiming for the first time that I know of that he's open to an arms embargo on Israel.
This is what he said.
Do you think, looking down the road, that the United States should consider maybe, you know, rethinking our military support for Israel?
It breaks my heart because the current leadership in Israel is walking us down that path.
Where I don't think you have a choice but that consideration.
Israel did not make up Donald Trump's mind.
That is a lie.
That is a falsehood.
It is either made by those that are anti-Semitic or those that have no understanding of the region.
I'm not sure which category he's in.
And then he calls Israel an apartheid state.
It is anything but an apartheid state.
Christians live in Israel.
Arabs live in Israel.
Listen to Gavin talk about it.
But the issue of Bibi is interesting because he's got his own domestic issues.
He's trying to stay out of jail.
He's got an election coming up.
He's potentially on the ropes.
He's got folks, the hard line, that want to annex the West, the West Bank.
I mean, Freeman and others are talking about it appropriately.
It's sort of an apartheid state.
They couldn't even, I mean, we're talking about regime change.
For two years, they haven't even been able to solve the Hamas question in Israel.
Talking about cigars and like Bugs Bunny, you know, gifts that the prime minister got, a trial that's gone on for 10 years that's not going anywhere.
Then he goes further, criticizing President Trump for having no plan on Iran.
Now, no plan?
Within 30 seconds, they took out the supreme leader and the top 40 leaders within Iran.
They've taken out their ballistic missile sites, their air defense systems.
We own the skies all over Iran.
We've been sinking their ships left, right, and sideways.
It's been one of the most shock and awe, you know, successful military endeavors that we've ever seen in history.
And I have no idea what the hell he's talking about because, and he has minimized the deaths of Americans, but he's thinking about the future.
A nuclear-armed Iran would be a forever existential threat to the continental United States.
And Donald Trump said, not on his watch.
That will not be his legacy.
But here's how Newsom sees it.
I hope it's not in everybody.
He had no plan, no strategy.
He had no interest or desire to engage you, me, all of us in understanding the why, why now?
What's the imminent threat?
What are the intended and unintended consequences?
The prospect of this becoming a regional war, was that thought through?
Who was going to take over for the supreme leader, particularly after you went through 49 others?
And now today, Trump says, well, maybe it doesn't work out.
Maybe we get someone who's worse.
But nothing was more damning, I think, of the moment and this administration and who Donald Trump is.
It goes to the heart of who he is than his press conference yesterday or his remarks where he was lamenting the live, now it's six, but four Americans that died.
And he mentioned them in passing and then went on to mention in great detail the drapes and the Imperial Palace on the East Wing that he's building in, you know, and went on to talk about the pile drive with real passion and conviction.
It says everything about Donald Trump.
You know, it says everything about Gavin Newsom.
He actually made the case.
It was Joe Biden's special pleader.
Joe Biden and Obama giving the Iranians billions of dollars in cash and other currency.
Oh, that was a brilliant strategy.
This guy is obsessed with Donald Trump.
Just obsessed with him.
And a guy that does nothing to help his own state.
You can't even get a building permit in the Pacific Palisades.
It's pathetic.
Let's get to our busy telephones.
800-941-Sean, if you want to be a part of the program, let's say hi to Troy in North Carolina.
Hey, Troy, how are you?
Glad you called.
Yeah, good to talk to you, man.
I was just, I wanted to talk about like Hakeem Jeffries and listening to what you were saying about Newsom and stuff.
What they don't, and I believe they do realize it, but the sad part is if, you know, like affordability and young families wanting to start, you know, start a family.
And just like in California, how many young families are excited to start a family in California?
I bet a whole lot less than it used to be.
You know what I mean?
So then you look at Iran.
I've got five kids myself and thinking how are they ever going to be excited about starting their lives, affordability, and having children, buying homes, any of that.
If you're, if Iran has a nuclear weapon, that not that they're, they may use it, but they're definitely going to use it.
Why Conservatism Matters00:02:24
Where is the peace of mind?
Where is the excitement when that is what you, there is no excitement, there is no peace of mind.
There is no starting of the family.
There is no worrying about affordability or gas.
What is more important?
Worrying about gas or worrying about a nuclear weapon being shot.
You know what I mean?
I'm looking at this party and I'm looking at the Democrats and they're cheering for American failure here when the world we already know is now a safer place as a result of Midnight Hammer and this Operation Epic Fury.
It just is.
And where's the Democratic Party?
They're still, you know, they defund the Department of Homeland Security when Joe Biden and Kamala Harris let in, you know, 14 million and 12 million, 14, we don't know how many millions of people unvetted from over 200 countries, including known terrorists.
And now we have to clean up that mess with knowing there may be Iranian sleeper cells in the country, a party that's in favor of amnesty for people that did not respect our laws, borders, sovereignty, a party for open borders, sanctuary cities and states, defund, dismantle the police, and, you know, and no bail laws.
I mean, I just, what does this party stand for?
What's happened to these people?
All common sense is missing from all of them.
I have no patience for any of them anymore.
I don't have patience for dumb people.
I've had it.
I've had it with all of them.
Yeah.
Well, luckily, there's enough conservative Christian people in our government and our cities and our states that that's the only reason why it hadn't completely fallen apart.
Is there's enough conservative Christian people that is involved in this country that keeps it from falling.
Because if you left it all to them, if you gave them all control, all decisions that are being made by them, do what you will with it, it would all crumble.
You know what I mean?
It would all fall.
We wouldn't even have a country.
But luckily, we have enough conservative Christian people that keeps it moving.
And we just got to keep raising our children to be conservative.
Well, Christian conservative.
Let me say it that way, because that's the most important way to say it.
But if we can keep more of that and get more of that in our country, we'll get back.
That's what Make America Great Again is about.
Enough Conservative Voices00:01:15
That exact statement.
Christian conservative people.
That's what, and it doesn't matter what color you are, but Christian conservative people is what makes America great.
Period.
People with wisdom learn the lessons of history.
And I went over this with O'Reilly.
And if we don't stop emerging threats as they pop their head up and take them out early, then we are then risking the future of our children and grandchildren in a world that they will inherit.
That is the wisdom behind this very difficult but very important mission that President Trump has partnered with Israel on.
It's in our best national interests.
It's in our best national security interests.
And it's in our kids' and grandkids' best interests.
And the world is a safer place.
And I think on the other side of this, my hope is that we're going to see a peace that hopefully is lasting in the Middle East, one that has not been achievable up to this point.
Anyway, I appreciate you.
Thank you, Troy.
All right, quick break right back to our busy phones.
Here's our toll-free number.
It's 800-941-Sean, if you want to be a part of the program as we continue.