Lindsey Graham warns Iran’s Ayatollah regime—linked to the 1983 Beirut bombing (241 U.S. deaths) and Iraq/Afghanistan IEDs—must fall to stop nuclear threats, citing Trump’s Operation Epic Fury’s success: 60 Iranian missiles down to six, drones from 900 to ~200. He slams Obama’s $150B cash-for-nuclear-deal and Europe’s delayed support (Britain’s aircraft, France’s carrier), while calling Iran’s foreign minister’s NBC claim of readiness for U.S. invasion "delusional." Domestically, Graham targets Virginia’s Abigail Spanberger for sanctuary city policies (e.g., blocking ICE on Abdul Jallo) and tax hikes on candy, guns, and Uber rides, with Bryce Reeves exposing her 287g flip-flops and DEI push. A Missouri caller ties AI to Iran’s rapid nuclear/terror risks, framing the conflict as a clash of "evil vs. righteousness," while Hannity underscores AI’s dual-use danger—urging decisive action before rogue states weaponize it. The episode frames Trump’s strike as a pivotal move to end Middle East terrorism and enable Saudi-Israel peace. [Automatically generated summary]
Hour to Sean Hannity Show, 800-941-Sean is our number if you want to be a part of the program.
So a lot of people, for whatever reason, they have their own agenda and they make proclamations in spite of everything that Donald Trump has done to explain why we are taking this action in Iran.
It's fairly spectacular to me.
He laid it out in great specificity, great detail, that they're never going to obtain a nuclear weapon.
Operation Epic Fury will ensure the terrorist regime's proxies can no longer destabilize the region or the free world and attack our armed forces.
Also annihilate the Iranian regime's navy so they can't bomb and plant mine the Straits of Hormuz and stop the free flow of oil at market prices and destroy their deadly ballistic missiles, which have been getting stronger and having more range than ever before.
Senator Lindsey Graham, the great state of South Carolina, is with us.
Senator, welcome to the program.
Thank you, my friend.
This tired is stupid.
Well, it is stupid.
You'd be stupid to believe that the Ayatollah would not use a nuclear weapon if he had it.
You would be stupid to believe that he has not been trying to get a nuclear weapon for years.
You'd be stupid to believe that if he had a ballistic missile that could reach America, he wouldn't use it.
You were stupid to believe that Hitler didn't want to kill all the Jews.
You were stupid to believe he did not mean it when he said he wanted an Aryan race to dominate the world.
Stupid cost a lot of people their lives.
Donald Trump is not stupid.
Donald Trump is firm.
He's resolved.
He tried to end the threat regime, the threat matrix coming out of Iran against us through diplomacy.
What did he want?
Stop missile production at the level they were at that could reach America one day.
Abandon forever your nuclear weapons ambition and stop supporting Hamas Hezbollah and the Houdis who are terrorist proxies.
In 1983, the Hezbollah terrorist organization Lebanon attacked the Marine barracks.
Ronald Reagan put the Marines in there as part of the Lebanese Civil War.
220 Marines were killed, three soldiers and I think 18 sailors.
Reagan, the great Reagan, withdrew.
Biggest mistake.
And that just fueled the idea that you could kill Americans and get away with it.
Donald Trump tried diplomacy after Midnight Hammer when we obliterated their nuclear program.
It wasn't long until they were back at it.
So I think President Trump believed that the Ayatollah is a religious Nazi, that he wants to purify Islam, that he wants to destroy the Jewish state and come after us as Christians because we're infidels.
People should have believed Hitler.
Donald Trump has decided to destroy this regime's capability to produce weapons that could harm America to ever get a nuclear weapon and take their ability to fund terrorism off the table.
If you don't like that, you're making a huge mistake.
Everybody said in the past they can't have a nuke.
Well, Donald Trump's going to make sure they won't.
Everybody said in the past Maduro was a bad guy.
He was an arco-terrorist drug dealer.
He needed to go.
Well, Trump did it.
The problem is, no matter what Trump does, the left hates him.
If they had a contest of who's the worst person in the world in terms of threats, BB, Trump, or Ayatollah, and Europe and the hard left, the Ayatollah would.
Well, you'd be right up there also.
I'd be not far behind you, but you definitely would beat me in that category.
Man, you would be tied for fourth, but here's the point: the operation is exceeding every expectation.
They fired 60 ballistic missiles on day one.
They fired six in the last couple of days.
900 drones were launched on day one.
They're down to about 200.
Israel and the United States are doing a great job of destroying the launchers.
The next 12 days is going to be just holy hell unleashed on the regime.
President Trump said that today.
The worst is yet to come for Iran.
So we have a massive campaign coming.
Epic Fury is going to be successful.
It's going to collapse the regime.
And BB said on your show two or three nights ago that when the regime collapses, the mothership of terrorism, the Iranian regime collapses, the gateway to peace will open.
And that will include Saudi Arabia getting back to the table, trying to do a peace deal with Israel, which would end the Arab-Israeli conflict.
The biggest dividend for the terrorist state of Iran to be destroyed and replaced with something better is it opens up peace in the region and it prevents Iran from ever threatening America again.
They got a lot of American blood on their hands.
And President Trump was right to do diplomacy.
He was right to end it.
Can you imagine what would happen if we let this go on for another year, 100 missiles a month, let them go back to building a nuclear weapon?
So President Trump did the right thing to my Democratic friends.
You just lost your way.
It's not just the Democratic friends.
It's other people that make these bizarre proclamations or come to these ridiculous conclusions like, oh, BB, you know, we're fighting this war on behalf of Israel.
No, Donald Trump understands history.
I've talked often about the last hundred years.
You know, Mao, China, Stalin, Russia, Hitler, Germany, Mussolini, fascism, Tojo, Japan, Pol Pot, the killing feels.
All told, estimates are over 100 million human souls destroyed in the name of some ism, but it's all evil any way you look at it.
Many have talked about stopping the Iranians from getting nuclear weapons.
You know, Biden And Barack Obama's answer was to drop cargo planes full of cash and other currency, billions of dollars on a tarmac and help them build out their nuclear facilities.
How stupid is that?
Well, they were fools.
People miscalculated Hitler.
They thought he was normal.
They thought he wrote a book and he didn't mean it.
He just wanted certain German-speaking territories back into the hands of Germany.
They miscalculated that he was a homicidal maniac, wanted to destroy the Jewish people and create an Aryan master race.
Well, Donald Trump now believes, and correctly so, that the Ayatollah is a religious Nazi, wants to purify Islam, kill all the Jews, and come after us.
Now, about Israel: Israel's a friend, not an enemy.
Israel's a great ally.
They're punching way above their weight.
But 220 Marines, 18 sailors, and three members of the army were killed by Hezbollah in 1983.
We've got a lot of dead Americans and very severely wounded Americans from Iraq and Afghanistan because of the IEDs manufactured in Iran.
Most of the weaponry going into Iraq and Afghanistan, and a lot of it, came from Iran.
When they chant death to America, they mean it.
So this is not about Israel dragging us into a fight.
This is about us finally fighting a regime that wishes to destroy our way of life.
When they chant death to America, they mean it.
So they've been at war with us since 1979, killing Americans, terrorizing the region.
And Donald Trump is called a question on Iran.
This regime will collapse due to the military operations of Israel and the United States, and there'll be a gateway to peace that opens.
They've always hated us.
They've been trying to destroy us.
And finally, Donald J. Trump is the first president of the United States that's going to stop them in their tracks.
We should be celebrating the death of the Ayatollah, and we should be celebrating the military operation called Epic Fury.
But they hate Trump so much.
It's sad, and it's quite frankly sick.
If you have time for one last question, let me know.
I know you have to run.
You have time for one more?
Yes.
Okay.
So I have been critical of Europe.
Europe is a shadow of its former self.
It is despicable the way France and Spain and Great Britain have reacted to all of this.
Number one, number two, how do you envision this peace process?
You've been to all of the countries in the Middle East, every one of them.
You know all these leaders in the Middle East.
You know MBS straight on down the line.
You know, how does this impact our future relations with both continents?
It changes everything.
I mean, the reason we don't have peace between Saudi Arabia and Israel today is because of October 7th.
October 7th was an attack against Israel designed to destroy efforts to get Saudi Arabia and Israel to make peace, which was a nightmare for the Ayatollah.
When the Arabs and the Jews make peace, it leaves Iran out.
So they were desperate to stop it.
Now, the ultimate revenge of October 7th is the destruction of this regime.
So Europe, I was at the British Embassy last night.
They're actually now beginning to help us using British aircraft to defend the skies and to defend us from attack.
The French are now moving an aircraft carrier into the region that can be helpful in terms of the drones and the ballistic missiles.
Late to the game, but better late than never.
As to the region itself, nobody wants the Iranian regime to go down more than the Arabs who have suffered under it.
Nobody wants it to go down more than the Iranian people.
One last thought.
To all these people who asked me what's next, how do you know it's going to be better?
Isn't it a slander against the people in Iran who've been dying by the tens of thousands to suggest they're no better than the Ayatollah?
Do you believe these people are going out by the millions and being slaughtered by the tens of thousands because they want to continue the practices of the Ayatollah?
I am hopeful that the people that are in the streets, one day will take their country back and will be a friend to America.
It will be up to them.
But they admire Trump.
They very much see President Trump as a friend.
So to suggest that the protesters are no different than the Ayatollah, it really is slanderous.
And have you heard one Democratic congressman or senator cheer the protesters on?
What did President Trump say?
Keep protesting.
Help is on the way.
Well, help is not on the way anymore.
It is there.
This is a very sad day for Europe and the Democratic Party when they cannot muster the courage to stick with the protesters.
They represent the best of humanity, but people in Europe are beginning to change.
Everybody loves a winner.
And here's what I predict.
When Trump brings down this regime, everybody's going to see him as the biggest winner on the planet.
And the pathway to peace will be open because he had the guts and, quite frankly, the common sense to end this madness.
I have never been more proud of President Trump than right now.
I talked to him last night.
I talked to him this morning.
He's going to see this through.
Pray for our troops.
This is a big deal.
The biggest thing in 2,000 years in the Mideast is upon us thanks to President Trump and our men and women in the uniform.
Senator Lindsey Graham, South Carolina, I know you've been up to your eyeballs on this from the very beginning, and you've traveled to every country in the region and tried to prevent this day from coming.
The Iranians were just that stubborn.
They learned nothing from Midnight Hammer.
We appreciate you being with us, sir.
God bless you.
Now, if you look at the lead up to Operation Epic Fury, I mean, it was amazing, the saber-rattling by the Iranian leadership.
You know, they made images and visuals of Iran sinking American ships.
Yeah, the only ships that are sunk is their entire Navy is gone.
It's done.
It's obliterated.
The leadership wiped out the next generation of leadership, they're wiped out.
And it just, they're like delusional.
The Iranian foreign minister went on NBC News and literally in this video from Tehran saying that his country is ready for a U.S. ground invasion.
That is all propaganda to get the American people that don't want boots on the ground worked up.
Here's what he said.
President Trump has not ruled out boots on the ground in Iran.
Are you afraid of a U.S. invasion in your country?
No, we are waiting for them.
You are waiting for the U.S. military to invade the ground troops?
Yes.
Because we are confident that we can confront them, and that would be a big disaster for them.
So you're saying that Iran is ready and willing to take on the U.S. military if there were to be ground troops?
Well, we were ready for this war even more than the previous war.
Well, just like the dead supreme leader, just like everyone else and their leadership that's been wiped out, this guy is completely delusional.
All right, we've got a liberal on the line.
This could be fun, Linda.
Sam in Pittsburgh.
What's up, Sam, the liberal?
Sean, how are you?
Great to talk to you.
Great to talk to you.
Glad you called.
Hey, so I'm pretty into the news, and I try to follow what's going on.
We're currently $32 trillion in debt, and we've been giving Israel about $80 billion for the last 20 years.
And in that time, we could have paid for free school lunches, we could have paid for universal pre-K, we could have paid to reduce school class sizes.
My question to you is: how are we paying for this?
Because I'm told we're broke.
We're not broke, number one.
Number two, the best way to increase revenues to the government is to grow the economy.
Reagan doubled revenues in eight years.
I think Trump will have pretty much the same success as he had in his first term in terms of growing revenues to the government by expanding the economy.
How do we afford it?
Well, yeah, the American taxpayers pay for all of it.
Eliminating the waste, fraud, and abuse in states like Minnesota, New York, and California, I think, will go a long way to bringing back hundreds of billions of dollars.
That will help.
Donald Trump is different than every other leader that we've ever had.
And if you look at Maduro being taken out in Venezuela, I think they have more than paid us back by arresting those narco-terrorists with oil that they have given to the U.S.
And I would imagine the same thing will happen with Iran when all is said and done.
That's my guess.
And that's what makes Donald Trump unique and different.
And that's the way he rolls.
And they will pay for their own liberation.
Virginia's Trick-or-Treating Bill00:10:32
Any other questions?
Yeah, I have a question.
Do you remember how many U.S. troops were sent to Iraq to die?
Too many.
And I'm going to tell you something else.
We're never going to fight wars like that again.
Military technology is advanced, as I've been describing, the next generation of weaponry, and we see it on display right now.
And thank God we've had people like President Trump in his first term that has advanced the next generation of weaponry.
Anyway, I appreciate your call.
800-941-Shauna's on number if you want to be a part of the program.
All right, quick break right back when we come back.
Abigail Spanberger, how radicalized she has become.
And this is not the platform she ran on.
We'll explain when we come back.
So we watched two races, the New Jersey race and the Virginia race.
Glenn Young, I think, did a great job as governor of Virginia, the Commonwealth.
And there was a woman running, Abigail Spanberger.
We tried to warn you about her, and just her stated positions were bad enough, but there's so much that she stood for that she kept secret from the people in the Commonwealth.
And she's as radical as AOC and every squad member out there.
And it's kind of a shame.
Senator Eric Schmidt called out Spanberger for refusing to work with ICE.
That's just one example.
Here's what he said.
The sanctuary status that many of these jurisdictions, there's about 11 that matter the most in this country.
But what is that about?
What does that really mean?
It means that the local leaders will not tell ICE when rapists and murderers and criminals are released from prison so they can be deported.
Think about that.
Think about that.
That's what's happening.
And by the way, it's happening in Northern Virginia.
The new governor just today said that this brutal killer, Abdul Jallo, an illegal immigrant from Sierra Leone with more than 30 prior arrests, who brutally stabbed to death Stephanie Minter, a mother, an American citizen less than 50 miles from here, she will not work with ICE.
If for some reason this monster gets released, she will not let ICE know when he's being released.
Think about that.
That's what is happening in this country.
Well, now it's hitting Roy Cooper, who is running for the Senate in the great state of North Carolina.
That incident of that woman on a train.
It was a Ukrainian woman, Linda, if I remember correctly.
Well, was apparently in custody, and he's the one that let this person out.
Unbelievable.
But in addition to everything else, I mean, she keeps talking about the affordability agenda, affordability crisis.
Oh, okay.
Her answer is adding local sales taxes in every Virginia county and city, new personal property taxes and, you know, on electric leaf blowers and electric landscaping equipment.
Electric.
I mean, good grief.
A huge employer tax.
Okay, that means you pay more for everything you buy that's produced in the great Commonwealth of Virginia, her gun and ammunition tax, new income tax brackets, a delivery tax going after Amazon and Uber.
That tax is passed on to you.
It includes Uber Eats and FedEx and UPS, an investment income tax, an event tax.
You have an event.
Oh, you got to pay for that too.
Taxes on that.
A storage facility tax, a gym membership tax, a dog walking tax, a dog grooming tax, a counseling tax, digital personal property tax, you know, new car taxes and highway use fees, increasing the in hotels and a hotel tax in Arlington, statewide speed cameras, another way to pick your pocket, vehicle repair tax, home repair tax, dry cleaning tax.
There's nothing this woman's not taxing.
It's insane.
How's it happening?
We wanted to bring in Virginia Senator Bryce Reeves to discuss her, quote, affordability agenda.
Doesn't sound that affordable to average people that live in the Commonwealth.
Well, Sean, good afternoon to you.
It's pretty tough down here in the General Assembly these days.
I'll tell you, we passed a bill yesterday.
Talk about all those egregious taxes.
Here's one that's going to even affect just normal families.
We're going to start managing trick-or-treating.
We have a trick-or-treating bill.
believe that and it actually says it in the bill.
So I don't know that any of my colleagues there Hold on.
A trick-or-treating bill?
What's a trick-or-treating bill?
You got to pay taxes on the candy they give you?
You can't make it up.
I am not kidding you.
You cannot make this stuff up.
It's been just...
Oh, come on.
You're making this up.
So what?
They're going to tax the families that get free candy by knocking on somebody's door?
I never liked Halloween anyway.
It turns kids into liberals that think they can knock on somebody's door and get something for free.
Well, that's probably true.
Probably true.
But the reality is this.
She said one thing when she's in Congress.
She didn't have to really.
I mean, if you look at her vote, she voted 96% with Nancy Pelosi, but she could hide in that 400-plus Congresspeople down there or up in D.C.
The reality is I had a conversation with her at the beginning of her term.
I gave her some laudatory comments based on who she appointed as the Secretary of Veterans Defense Affairs, our adjutant general, great people, solid, rock, solid soldiers.
You know, good, good choice.
Within a matter of hours, you already mentioned it.
She got rid of 287G.
We have one of my constituents who was brutally murdered in Northern Virginia.
The senator spoke about that.
You mentioned him.
And it's been one thing after another thing after another thing.
And I actually told her one day, she's kind of snuck up behind me, being her typical self.
And, you know, I let her have it.
And she was pretty upset with me on the New York Times article where I quoted her saying the only difference between her and Mamdani is at least Mamdani will admit he's a socialist.
And she didn't like it so much.
She somehow got me removed from a very powerful committee down here.
Just a couple of days ago, they killed another bill that had come through the Senate unopposed over in the House.
So she's playing for keeps.
And all your listeners need to understand this, especially in conservative states, that Democrats in Virginia are running the playbook and they're running it very efficiently.
They don't care what laws they violate.
They don't care if they violate the Constitution.
I don't even think they really understand the oath that they take.
Most of them don't believe in God, so that oath is negated by their beliefs.
And the reality is they're going to try to run these plays in every conservative state where we have majorities.
And I'm so glad that you have me on today so I can shout to the rooftops, to my colleagues in the other states: be prepared.
This midterm, I think Virginia is going to help President Trump in his regards to holding the House because of so great-reaching overreach of what the Democrats have done in Virginia this year.
And everything that you mentioned is true.
But they can say you're a liar.
They can say all these other things.
They call you all kinds of things, Sean, as you know this.
But the reality is those things are coming through.
They are getting rid of our firearms, our Second Amendment rights.
They are taxing everything.
You mentioned that about the firearms, red flag laws.
It's all coming through.
And it's a sewer and it's pouring straight into Virginia.
And we are contaminated.
You know, Governor Yunken, God bless him.
I wish we still had him because he left us $2.7 billion surplus.
And we were number one and number four, respectively, on CNBC's best states to do business.
Mark my words, in one year, we will be down with Maryland in the low 30s, probably 40s, maybe even last at this point.
But that's, hey, that's affordability, Sean.
Remember what they said.
They ran on affordability and they've done everything but that.
Everything but affordability.
And people are going to wake up and start believing the truth.
I'm speechless.
I cannot believe.
What other programs is she now supporting, endorsing DEI?
What she's doing with education, what she's doing with police.
What else is going on?
It's all coming back.
She's threatened our sheriff, our constitutional officers, if they sign these 287G agreements, that she's going to go back into the comp board and take some of their monies away from our sheriffs to do that so she can make sure that we are an absolute, what do you call that state?
You know, immigrant welcoming state.
And it's just horrible.
She signed the bill that's going to allow us to get gerrymandered to no end in violation of the Constitution.
By the way, didn't our initial court ruling stop that?
We did.
We had an initial one.
We had a second one, but the Supreme Court literally just came down.
I think it was either yesterday or earlier this morning.
They're allowing it to go forward.
But let me just, I just, while you got me, I just want to read this to you.
This is the Scott versus McDougal, and this is the court's warning to the legislature.
As you know, they don't want to really get involved in this thing.
In 2020, Virginians voted by 66% to get rid of gerrymandering it to this committee that pretty much split our state equally.
Now the Democrats are saying they want fairness, and they want 10 Democrats to one Republican, and they've been pushing this thing through, and it's costing us $5 million just to have it.
But they said, involve weighty assertions of invalid against the process employed by the General Assembly in an effort to submit a proposed constitutional amendment to the citizens of the Commonwealth.
These issues are of, now get this, grave concern to the court.
So they're giving a warning here to the legislature to say, you guys are violating the law, basically.
We're not going to interject because they haven't interjected in an election since 1920.
So you're not going to see them.
We'll have to go to this referendum.
And if it wins, they're still going to interject.
And if it loses after the election's done, they're going to interject.
And I think they're going to find that the Democrats have violated the Constitution.
Well, we need to know before the election, we need a final decision before.
Hopefully you can get that done.
We appreciate your time, Virginia.
Senator Bryce Reeves, thank you, sir, for that update.
We appreciate it.
All right.
Kai is next.
He's in Missouri.
Kai, how are you?
Glad you called.
Thanks for being patient, sir.
For sure.
Thanks for taking my call.
I've been a longtime listener.
Thank you.
Faster AI, Greater Risk00:03:45
When I was like eight years old, I'm 33 now.
And I appreciate everything you've done just growing up.
Look, Grandpa, I've been listening to you for 35 years.
No, I'm only teasing.
Thank you so much.
I appreciate it.
Real quick, I actually got in trouble growing up for calling one of my siblings a Democrat.
Why'd you get in trouble for that?
They probably were a Democrat.
I don't know.
But I wanted to talk to you about AI and how it basically makes everything easier, cheaper, faster, and advanced way faster.
And then in that, how it relates to Iran and evil.
Evil is what this is about.
It's not about who has a nuke, who doesn't have a nuke.
It's about evil.
And I think that AI is advancing that faster than ever.
And if Iran gets a hold of the right AI, they don't need to advance their nuke systems fast.
Not that they won't be able to because they could use that AI to advance it quickly.
But AI can be used to do anything.
So this becomes not a debate about gun control, who has nukes and who doesn't.
It becomes a debate about evil and righteous.
And I think Trump sees that.
I think he sees that we need to take out evil where evil is.
It doesn't matter what gun they have.
If they don't have a gun, they'll use a semi-truck.
They'll use a car.
They'll use a manure bomb.
It doesn't matter what it is.
Evil needs to be stopped where it is.
You're not wrong.
What we thought AI would be able to do in five years, it's now capable of doing.
It is moving exponentially faster than anybody anticipated.
I remember years ago, you know, being frustrated that there was a book out called the Anarchist Cookbook, and it would tell you how to make bombs.
I mean, describe in detail how to do it.
And that infuriated me.
And the idea that, yeah, AI can be used for evil purposes should scare the living daylights out of every man, woman, and child because you know that evil people have access to it just like we do.
And I've urged this audience to become very familiar with AI.
It is a powerful, powerful tool.
It is incredibly brilliant.
You know, a friend of mine that's very close to Elon and one of his top guys, he has said to me repeatedly, and he rolls his eyes when I start arguing with him about it.
He says, whenever you want to think, don't.
Just ask Grock.
And I know what he's talking about.
I know what he means.
He's not wrong.
I mean, in the course of this show, I mean, every day I'm using Grok if somebody's asking a question and I want more specifics, specific details for an answer.
So I think your fear is well-founded.
Yeah, there are a lot of safeguards when it comes to AI, but when evil gets a hold of it, they take those safeguards away and they do what they want with it.
And so that is an imminent threat.
Maybe nuclear missiles aren't an imminent threat at the moment.
I mean, we've been talking about that for 30 years with Iran.
But with this, it becomes imminent.
And other things, right?
Listen, like any advancement in technology, it can be used for good and for evil.
It depends on the intent.
I'm sure that our top military brass are way ahead of what we're talking about here and looking for ways to counter anything that any evil rogue regime may be thinking about doing.
Listen to the Risk00:00:28
Listen, Kai, I got a roll.
I'm up on the clock, but I do appreciate your good call.
Thank you for being with us.
We really appreciate it.
800-941-Sean is on number.
You want to be a part of the program news roundup.
Information overload hour coming up straight ahead as we continue.