Sean Hannity Show - Iran, Trump’s Red Line, and the Fight Over Truth
Aired: 2026-03-12
Duration: 29:34


=== Bill O'Reilly's Simple Man (08:55) ===

[00:00:00]  This is an iHeart podcast.
[00:00:02]  Guaranteed human.
[00:00:03]  All right, Leonard Skinner, simple man.
[00:00:20]  That can only mean one thing on this radio program.
[00:00:23]  That is all things self-proclaimed simple man.
[00:00:26]  That means all things Bill O'Reilly, all things O'Reilly at billo'reilly.com.
[00:00:31]  Mr. O'Reilly, sir, how are you?
[00:00:33]  Great to have you.
[00:00:34]  I know it's your favorite time of the week.
[00:00:36]  We appreciate you being here.
[00:00:38]  You know, Wednesdays has replaced Saturdays.
[00:00:43]  That's your favorite day of the week.
[00:00:46]  Yeah, here we go.
[00:00:48]  All right.
[00:00:49]  So I know billo'reilly.com is all things Bill O'Reilly.
[00:00:53]  And now you're going to, you're, you're expanding out your empire.
[00:00:57]  And I've never gone here with you.
[00:01:00]  And you're going to do a longer form Mike Wallace style interview program on top of your nightly newscast, whatever it is that you do, and your message of the day.
[00:01:10]  And you've got your own thing going on, and it's doing very well.
[00:01:14]  And I'm very happy for you.
[00:01:16]  And you still do radio, I think.
[00:01:18]  I'm not sure if you're going to keep that up.
[00:01:21]  So you're busy, and I admire that.
[00:01:25]  But what you called it is where I've never gone there before with you.
[00:01:30]  Long time ago, you worked at a show called Inside Edition, long before you were ever at Fox.
[00:01:35]  People may not know that.
[00:01:37]  And you had a bad day.
[00:01:39]  Let's put it that way.
[00:01:41]  And you got really pissed off.
[00:01:43]  And one day, somebody leaked that tape and it just went viral, viral, viral.
[00:01:48]  They even did like, you know, dance edits of this thing.
[00:01:52]  I never asked you about it because I figured it might be a little tender, sore subject, but you're kind of owning it by calling the longer form interview.
[00:02:01]  We'll do it live.
[00:02:02]  Yeah, my staff turned on me due to that at all.
[00:02:09]  And they demanded it.
[00:02:11]  These are all younger people.
[00:02:13]  And because they thought it was funny.
[00:02:17]  It is funny.
[00:02:18]  It's hilarious.
[00:02:20]  Yeah, I mean, I'm anchoring Inside Edition, and I turned that program around from an absolute disaster to a very, it's all I'm here today, profitable enterprise.
[00:02:31]  And the staff on this certain day just couldn't deliver the videotape on time.
[00:02:38]  And we had to do.
[00:02:40]  Okay, you got to stop.
[00:02:41]  Just don't dig a bigger hole.
[00:02:45]  I'm respecting the fact that you're owning something that probably you wished wasn't public, but as a good friend, I've never gone there with you, but you now open the door.
[00:02:55]  You know, this is one of the things if you're in the public eye, whatever you have done or did or said, I mean, it just, I mean, I'm still being asked questions, but what I said on a college radio station in 1987.
[00:03:11]  Sure.
[00:03:12]  It's unbelievable.
[00:03:13]  It just sticks with you forever.
[00:03:15]  And, but I thought it was cool that you owned it.
[00:03:18]  And I think people will respect that.
[00:03:21]  Let me get to the kicker of the story.
[00:03:23]  So I was 12 years old when this happened.
[00:03:26]  You were not 12 years old.
[00:03:28]  Go ahead.
[00:03:29]  Somebody took the tape and sold it.
[00:03:33]  They sold it to a far left website who then put it out.
[00:03:42]  From what I understand, it meal, a lot of money selling that tape.
[00:03:47]  I decided to turn it around.
[00:03:50]  And tomorrow will be the first episode with Rob Schneider, who has an amazing, and you're going to want to watch this because he dissects Jimmy Kimmel and what happened to Jimmy Kimmel.
[00:04:01]  Because Schneider knows that world.
[00:04:03]  He's a comedian, ex-Saturday Night Live guy, and he's a Trump supporter.
[00:04:08]  And what he says about Jimmy Kimmel is fascinating.
[00:04:11]  So anyway, I'm imitating you.
[00:04:13]  You've got the long form.
[00:04:15]  I've watched a couple of them that are good.
[00:04:17]  And so I said, look, man, you can do it.
[00:04:19]  I can do it.
[00:04:20]  So it begins tomorrow on billoreilly.com and all of our distribution points.
[00:04:25]  It's never going to break through until you have me on.
[00:04:28]  You know that.
[00:04:29]  Sure.
[00:04:30]  And anytime you want to come on, you're welcome.
[00:04:32]  You know that.
[00:04:34]  Yeah, but I don't want to, that has to be in person.
[00:04:36]  I find that podcasts have to be in person.
[00:04:39]  So it's chill.
[00:04:41]  And we have Matthew Kachuk, by the way, two-time Stanley Cup winner in a row.
[00:04:46]  They're the Stanley Cup champs and now Olympic hockey gold medal winner.
[00:04:54]  And his whole family, they like hockey legends.
[00:04:56]  And I'm like, I'm doing a wide variety of stuff that you understand the restrictions and the format in radio and TV that you have short segments, you got to get quick answers.
[00:05:08]  I don't want quick answers.
[00:05:09]  I want to delve deeper.
[00:05:10]  I want to know more about the person.
[00:05:12]  Like Stephen A. Story to me when he got held back in the third and fourth grade.
[00:05:18]  They didn't have a name for it back then.
[00:05:19]  It was dyslexia.
[00:05:20]  And hearing his father say to him, say to his mother, he's never going to be smart and how devastating that had to be for him, but also motivating.
[00:05:30]  And then, you know, then his family, you know, surrounded him, his sisters and others, and helped him.
[00:05:38]  And look at the great star he is today.
[00:05:39]  He's a mutual friend of ours.
[00:05:41]  And I'm so happy for him.
[00:05:43]  Overcoming adversity, you realize everybody has a story to tell.
[00:05:48]  And I don't think you've ever told your whole story.
[00:05:50]  I don't think you've ever told what it was like for Bill O'Reilly.
[00:05:54]  I think you've told only the parts you want to tell.
[00:05:58]  Well, I wrote a book called A Bold, Fresh Piece of Humanity, which the nuns called me in third grade.
[00:06:06]  A lot of that in there.
[00:06:08]  But, you know, people think I'm an egomaniac, but I'm really not that interested in talking about myself.
[00:06:13]  So I'm like you.
[00:06:14]  I'm curious about people and what they've been through and how they've come out the other side to be successful.
[00:06:23]  And I dug out the old Mike Wallace show Nightbeat, which was on in the 1950s.
[00:06:30]  And Wallace, I think, was the best interviewer ever.
[00:06:36]  Do you ever watch the show biography he did?
[00:06:39]  Yeah, he's brilliant.
[00:06:41]  And if I'm directing Nightbeat instead of Wallace, who passed away, it's me.
[00:06:48]  And there's a trend in this country for people to want longer form.
[00:06:53]  And so you and I are delivering that.
[00:06:55]  And I think we're both going to be successful in doing it.
[00:06:59]  I love doing it.
[00:07:00]  It's a lot of fun.
[00:07:02]  And I know that there's this space now where everyone's looking for an instant click and algorithm.
[00:07:10]  And they feel they have to be more incendiary, more outrageous, drop more F-bombs.
[00:07:15]  That's just not our style.
[00:07:17]  We're not going to do that.
[00:07:18]  I mean, I'll say Adam Schiff, except I'll say the word, but I'm just being real and who I am.
[00:07:24]  And you know what?
[00:07:26]  I'm not at this point in my life.
[00:07:27]  I'm not angry.
[00:07:28]  I'm not in competition with anybody.
[00:07:31]  And I have nothing to prove except I want to do great programming for an audience.
[00:07:36]  That's what I want to do.
[00:07:37]  And that's who I'm serving.
[00:07:38]  And I don't care what the critics think or other people think.
[00:07:42]  And I think you're at that point in your life as well.
[00:07:45]  Yeah, let me give you some advice, Hanity, as somebody who's older than you, not by much.
[00:07:50]  No, a lot, but that's okay.
[00:07:52]  So both you and I, Irish guys from working class backgrounds on Long Island, very similar upbringings.
[00:07:59]  So we've established what they call legacies.
[00:08:02]  Okay?
[00:08:03]  What a legacy is, is a body of work that people respect.
[00:08:07]  Now, of course, not everybody likes you and me, and they disagree with us on issues, but we have proven to the country and the world that we're professional people and we deliver a good product.
[00:08:21]  You stain your legacy when you get involved with personal invective.
[00:08:28]  So the people who are doing that on social media, they get a short-term gain.
[00:08:34]  They get people to click over to watch them call people names or denigrate them in all kinds of different ways.
[00:08:42]  But the body of the public does not respect that.
[00:08:48]  All right, quick break right back.
[00:08:49]  All things Simple Man, Bill O'Reilly on the other side.
[00:08:52]  All thingsO'Reilly at BillO'Reilly.com.
[00:08:54]  Then we'll get to your calls coming up.

=== Nuclear Weapons Grade Enrichment (15:21) ===

[00:08:55]  800-941-Sean, our number if you want to be a part of the program.
[00:09:02]  All right, we continue our final moments with all things self-described, Simple Man.
[00:09:07]  All things Bill O'Reilly.
[00:09:08]  AllthingsO'Reilly at BillO'Reilly.com.
[00:09:10]  All right, I'd be negligent if I don't pivot here and get your thoughts on where we are with Iran.
[00:09:16]  And the two very specific things that I want to get your thoughts on.
[00:09:21]  And, well, this broke just before we came on the air today, that Iranian intelligence, New York Times reporting, operatives, their intelligence operatives signaling an openness to talk with the CIA to end the war.
[00:09:35]  Obviously, they're getting clobbered.
[00:09:38]  Now, I don't think Trump is going to be open to that.
[00:09:41]  Number two, I had Steve Witkoff on.
[00:09:45]  I am tired of misinformation, conspiracy theories being peddled.
[00:09:50]  One, you and I both have known Donald Trump for over 30 years.
[00:09:53]  He's a man of his own mind.
[00:09:55]  He doesn't do anything he does not believe he wants to do.
[00:09:58]  But Steve Witcoff, Middle East envoy, along with Jared Kushner, they went and the president sent them on a real mission.
[00:10:06]  He did not want to have any conflict.
[00:10:09]  He preferred a peaceful solution.
[00:10:12]  And Steve went into great specificity and detail of what happened behind the scenes.
[00:10:17]  And in that negotiation, they offered, okay, if you want civilian use, low-grade, low-enriched uranium, we'll give it to you for free in perpetuity.
[00:10:26]  In those negotiations, they declared they had 460 kilograms of enriched uranium at about 60%.
[00:10:34]  In about a week or two, you can be up to 90% enrichment, and that is weapons-grade uranium at that point.
[00:10:42]  That means, and he made a statement prior to this Epic Fury beginning that we're within weeks of them having a nuke.
[00:10:48]  That would have allowed them to have anywhere between 10 and 11 nuclear weapons.
[00:10:53]  So I don't think the president had a choice.
[00:10:57]  If anybody, and you're a historian, if anybody has any knowledge of history in the last century, and you and I discussed this a week ago, you know, it is far better to kill a Hitler before they do, before mass death and a modern-day holocaust emerges.
[00:11:17]  I think we agree on that.
[00:11:19]  Okay, a few points.
[00:11:21]  So my book, Confronting Evil, which is out, says exactly that.
[00:11:25]  That if you're going to let evil go and you're going to accept a level of it, it's going to get worse.
[00:11:31]  That's number one.
[00:11:32]  Number two, on your television program, Witkoff, the main negotiator for the United States, stated what you just said.
[00:11:40]  So the people who hate Trump, the Democrats aren't going to believe Witcoff, but I do.
[00:11:46]  I believe him.
[00:11:47]  Okay.
[00:11:48]  So that information goes back.
[00:11:51]  And then, number three, I had a person-to-person, rather lengthy telephone call with President Trump, just him and me, about a week before this action started.
[00:12:04]  And he asked me about a negotiation rather than a military strike.
[00:12:09]  And we, I can't give you the specifics, but I said you can try it and should try it, but it's probably not going to work.
[00:12:21]  All right, because the Iranians, number one, are liars.
[00:12:24]  They break every treaty they sign and ask Obama and Biden about that.
[00:12:29]  Okay.
[00:12:30]  And number two, they don't believe that you're going to start something.
[00:12:35]  And that was my point to the president.
[00:12:38]  Now, going forward, I do believe that there will be an outreach from whoever is running the country in Iran to President Trump to try to negotiate some kind of ceasefire.
[00:12:55]  I believe that will happen.
[00:12:58]  And I think that if they capitulate, that the president will take that.
[00:13:05]  All right.
[00:13:06]  And that should start, I would say, within a week to 10 days.
[00:13:12]  I think America and Israel want to punish the Iranians a little bit more, knock out a few more things so they have no offensive capacity.
[00:13:23]  But I am expecting a restart of the negotiation and a capitulation from the Iranians.
[00:13:30]  Now, it won't be, they won't say that, but that's what it'll be.
[00:13:35]  Well, I will tell you this, Bill O'Reilly, that the one thing that can't happen, and it was interesting to see that the new Supreme Leader, apparently, according to some reports, including the Jerusalem Post, was injured already, obviously announcing him taking over for his father.
[00:13:54]  His own father, reportedly, in his own will, did not want his son to be the next Supreme Leader.
[00:14:00]  And there was a lot of conflict during the vote, and there's questions about whether or not he actually won that vote.
[00:14:04]  But putting all that aside, there would have to be a change.
[00:14:09]  In other words, the Islamic revolution, those leaders, those loyal, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and others and police departments are going to have to lay down their arms and let a more democratic republic hopefully emerge.
[00:14:25]  I don't think Donald Trump would accept anything other than that, but I don't know.
[00:14:29]  Well, the problem is that they'll say they'll do it and then they won't do it.
[00:14:33]  That's always the problem.
[00:14:34]  It's always a problem.
[00:14:36]  At this point in history, it's worth President Trump trying to get this thing settled that the West wins.
[00:14:46]  Not just the United States, but the West.
[00:14:49]  And to send a message that, look, we're not going to let this stuff happen in Afghanistan or Syria or wherever it may be.
[00:14:57]  All right.
[00:14:57]  You're on notice.
[00:14:59]  Listen, we're just short on time, but we do appreciate you being with us.
[00:15:03]  As always, all things simple man, Bill O'Reilly of billoilly.com.
[00:15:07]  Mr. O'Reilly, sir, appreciate you.
[00:15:09]  Thanks for being with us.
[00:15:10]  Good luck in all your endeavors.
[00:15:12]  And as always, thank you for being here.
[00:15:14]  All right, Hanny.
[00:15:15]  Thanks for having me on.
[00:15:16]  Now, I do believe that this interview that we did with Steve Witkoff last night was very deep, very profound.
[00:15:23]  It's the second time I've had him on.
[00:15:25]  And Steve Witkoff laid out in great specificity and detail as he and Jared Kushner sat with the Iranians, and the Iranians came to the table and they were cocky.
[00:15:36]  You would think after Midnight Hammer, they wouldn't be so cocky.
[00:15:39]  We think they may have learned a lesson or two.
[00:15:41]  They did not.
[00:15:43]  And they proceeded to make the declaration that it was their inalienable right to have nuclear weapons and enrichment.
[00:15:51]  Okay.
[00:15:52]  And it's and Witkoff answered, yeah, and it's our right, by the way, to tell you to you can't.
[00:15:59]  And so it started there.
[00:16:00]  They were being cocky.
[00:16:02]  But remember, they've kind of been trained to do this, although Midnight Hammer should have altered their thinking.
[00:16:09]  And then they went on to say that they had, you know, enough 60% enriched uranium, which would be 460 kilograms, I believe, or 80 kilograms, whatever the number is, and that would equal 10 or 11 nuclear weapons that they'd be able to build because it would only take to enrich uranium from 60% to weapons-grade 90%.
[00:16:35]  That can happen in a matter of a week or two.
[00:16:38]  And that quickly, they will have weapons-grade uranium.
[00:16:43]  That means they can build the bomb.
[00:16:45]  That means the world, they would be an existential threat.
[00:16:49]  Now, there are some people, isolationists, and some people that don't understand the Trump doctrine.
[00:16:55]  Trump on his own said very clearly they cannot have a nuclear weapon.
[00:16:59]  That's why 14 bunker busters were dropped on their nuclear facilities in the first place.
[00:17:05]  And then they went right back to pursuing, you know, bigger ballistic missiles and also enriching uranium.
[00:17:14]  And of course, they are bragging about having all this uranium in their possession.
[00:17:18]  And that means they can turn it into weapons-grade uranium whenever they feel like it.
[00:17:23]  Now, Donald Trump had said again and again and again, he wants a deal.
[00:17:28]  He doesn't want to have a conflict with Iran.
[00:17:32]  Steve Witkoff, and I'm going to play all this interview because it's critical that people understand there's a lot of lying going out there that Donald Trump was influenced by BB or Israel or Fox News.
[00:17:44]  I mean, it's just crap.
[00:17:45]  It's a lie.
[00:17:47]  Donald Trump, I've known him over 30 years.
[00:17:49]  I can promise you one thing.
[00:17:51]  He will listen to everybody, but then he makes up his own mind.
[00:17:55]  You know, I don't know if you noticed, Linda, that I'm under fire by people that didn't like the fact that he didn't listen to them.
[00:18:04]  Now, people don't know what I gave my opinion about what I think should happen, but I never told Donald Trump what to do or not do.
[00:18:12]  I wouldn't be so bold to do it.
[00:18:14]  He has information that I don't have access to.
[00:18:17]  But I did agree with his declaration, just like Biden's declaration, just like Harris's declaration, just like Obama's declaration, just like Clinton's declaration, that Iran can never have nuclear weapons.
[00:18:31]  The only difference is they thought they could bribe the supreme leaders and mullahs into being very nice and cooperative.
[00:18:39]  Well, they just gave them the money to build out their nuclear weapon systems and other weapon systems and foment terror as the world's number one state's vons are a terror.
[00:18:49]  But, you know, to put to bed, at least for intelligent people that want the truth, not those people that have agendas, not those people that are isolationists, not those people that don't understand the Trump doctrine.
[00:19:04]  But if people want to really understand Donald Trump's thinking on this, I think it all goes back to the president saying over and over again, I'd prefer peace.
[00:19:12]  I'd want a peace deal.
[00:19:13]  And he wasn't wasting his time.
[00:19:15]  He sent Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner on a mission to get a peace deal.
[00:19:19]  Here's my interview with Steve Witkoff.
[00:19:22]  You are so crystal clear, Steve, on this program.
[00:19:25]  I am tired of people not hearing you and not hearing the president.
[00:19:30]  Number one, the president sent you on a mission.
[00:19:33]  He meant it when he said he wants a deal.
[00:19:35]  Did he not?
[00:19:36]  He did, Sean.
[00:19:38]  were tasked with determining if we could get a deal that achieved his objectives and a deal that could be enforced and a deal that they would not break.
[00:19:47]  And we were intent on getting it if we could.
[00:19:50]  All right.
[00:19:50]  Iran cannot have nukes.
[00:19:52]  Let's see.
[00:19:52]  Hillary Clinton said it, Barack Obama said it, Joe Biden said it, Commer Harris said it, and Donald Trump said it.
[00:19:59]  And the president, again, was begging them basically for a deal.
[00:20:03]  Now, they made this negotiation impossible.
[00:20:08]  There are two parts of this.
[00:20:09]  I want you to explain, number one, what you offered and what their demand was in response to your very generous offer.
[00:20:17]  Well, first of all, Sean, they opened up with telling us that they had the inalienable right to enrich, to which we responded that from President Trump, that we had the inalienable right to stop them from enriching.
[00:20:33]  But they opened up by challenging us.
[00:20:36]  Their next statement to us was that they had 460 kilograms of 60% enriched uranium.
[00:20:44]  60% enriched uranium would take a week, maybe 10 days at the outside, to bring up to 90% weapons grade.
[00:20:53]  So it was a clear threat.
[00:20:54]  They were boasting about having it.
[00:20:57]  And they said that that was going to be something that was going to be very valuable.
[00:21:03]  At the same time that they were attesting to wanting nuclear for civil purposes.
[00:21:08]  There is no reason whatsoever to be enriching past 20% unless you're going for a weapon.
[00:21:16]  And then finally, and this was all in the beginning meeting, they said to us, and this was some challenge, you're not going to get from us diplomatically what you could not achieve militarily.
[00:21:30]  Now, yes, we had destroyed their three main enrichment and conversion centers, Natans, Asfahan, and Fordot.
[00:21:38]  That was clear.
[00:21:39]  They, of course, didn't want to admit it.
[00:21:42]  But think about the notion of beginning a negotiation by saying that we would not be able to get diplomatically what we couldn't achieve militarily.
[00:21:52]  We did achieve militarily, but they were basically saying that we didn't, and they weren't going to give it to us anyway.
[00:22:00]  Steve, I paid very close attention.
[00:22:03]  I always pay close attention to what's in the press and what you say.
[00:22:06]  I've known you for a long time.
[00:22:08]  When they told you they had 460 kilograms of enriched uranium at 60%, you and I both know that to get that to weapons grade, 90% enrichment, would take a matter of weeks.
[00:22:20]  You made that statement public before anything happened.
[00:22:24]  At that point, that was a clear and present danger, was it not?
[00:22:30]  Not only to the region, but to the United States.
[00:22:33]  Do you believe it was a threat?
[00:22:37]  Sean, it's a week to a week and a half away from bringing it up to weapons grade.
[00:22:43]  There would be no purpose to bring it up to weapons grade unless you had or were seeking a weapon.
[00:22:50]  That's one.
[00:22:51]  So it was very, very clear to us that with that amount of weapons grade material, that they had every intention of seeking a weapon.
[00:23:01]  It was not logical to think anything else.
[00:23:05]  And I believe they would hold the world hostage.
[00:23:08]  Let me go to the second part of this.
[00:23:10]  You talked about, you know, enriched uranium below 20% for civilian purposes.
[00:23:15]  I would even argue with all their oil, they wouldn't need that.
[00:23:18]  But with that said, you were very clear that you offered this low-level enriched uranium for civilian purposes.
[00:23:26]  Now, I want to be very clear.
[00:23:28]  You told me you offered it to them for free, whatever civilian uranium they would have, in perpetuity, if they would not enrich.
[00:23:39]  And that obviously would include genuine American inspectors anywhere, any place, anytime, I assume, was included.
[00:23:46]  That's correct.
[00:23:47]  Well, oversight protocols were very basic here because they violated all the protocols.
[00:23:52]  They threw the IEAE out in June after Midnight Hammer.
[00:23:57]  And if you're doing something for civic innocently doing things for civilian purposes, why would you need to throw out the oversight people from the IEAE?
[00:24:10]  So oversight protocols were embedded and critical to this process.

=== Israel Bidding and Red Lines (02:14) ===

[00:24:17]  In terms of their enrichment, it was very, very clear they had plenty of 20% material.
[00:24:24]  That, by the way, was another telling sign of their insidious motives.
[00:24:31]  And as I said, they had the 60%.
[00:24:34]  We had a red line on enrichment.
[00:24:37]  However, we were willing to help them convert to a civil 123 non-enrichment program.
[00:24:44]  And what you're referring to is, as a little extra, we suggested to them that we would provide fuel to them for free for a long period of time.
[00:24:56]  And their response to that, you would think they would feel that that was something gracious.
[00:25:02]  But their response to us was that this was an assault on their dignity.
[00:25:07]  Now, it was very, very clear that that was an excuse, a subterfuge to hide behind the fact that they needed enrichment, required enrichment, not because they were doing anything good, it's because they had to get to a weapon.
[00:25:21]  That's how they felt that they would have increased power in the Mideast, and it would have changed the dynamic in the Mideast, and we couldn't allow it.
[00:25:28]  A second North Korea in the Mideast would have been untenable.
[00:25:32]  And everybody on our foreign policy team knew it, and the president was very clear-minded about it.
[00:25:41]  You know, there are a lot of conspiracy theorists out there.
[00:25:44]  I've known the president for 30 years, Steve.
[00:25:47]  He's a man of his own mind.
[00:25:48]  If he makes up his mind, it's his mind.
[00:25:51]  People suggesting, oh, who's doing Israel's bidding?
[00:25:54]  And I asked Bibi, Bibi actually laughed when I asked him, or Israel's bidding.
[00:26:00]  Do you believe, as somebody that's been in the room negotiating with them, that a nuclear-armed Iran, and the president talked about future generations in the beginning, would it at some point become a real clear present danger to our country, maybe sooner than later?
[00:26:16]  They were a clear and present danger, in our opinion, right then and there in those negotiations.
[00:26:21]  It was clear to us.
[00:26:23]  And the president was exhaustive in asking us what space we felt we had to get a deal done.

=== Save Act and Midterms (03:03) ===

[00:26:31]  We felt we had no space, and we reported it to him earnestly.
[00:26:37]  He showed incredible courage and leadership here, Sean.
[00:26:41]  The country ought to be very gratified that we have him leading.
[00:26:46]  You know, after Midnight Hammer, after Midnight Hammer, Steve, he would have thought they would have learned something.
[00:26:52]  Apparently not.
[00:26:53]  Steve Witco, now let the record be clear for everybody.
[00:26:57]  We appreciate you being on with us.
[00:26:58]  Thank you, sir.
[00:27:00]  All right, that was Steve Witkoff, the Middle East envoy.
[00:27:03]  And he can't be any more clear than he was right there as to why Donald Trump made the decision that he made to, in fact, engage in Operation Epic Fury.
[00:27:14]  And by the way, he gave the Iranians 50 days before Operation Midnight Hammer.
[00:27:22]  We got to update you on the Save America Act.
[00:27:26]  We have the House Majority Leader, Jon Thune, saying he doesn't have the votes yet.
[00:27:32]  Mike Lee is going to update us on the standing filibuster, what the options are available.
[00:27:36]  It is coming to the Senate floor.
[00:27:37]  That I can confirm.
[00:27:39]  Chucky Schumer on the Save Act, he thinks it's undermining the vote.
[00:27:44]  That is the only prayer Republicans have in the midterms.
[00:27:47]  No, I don't think so, Chucky, but let's play it.
[00:27:49]  On the Save Act, Donald Trump has given Republicans in Congress a ridiculous ultimatum.
[00:27:56]  Help him thoroughly undermine our democracy, or he will bring all legislation to a screeching halt.
[00:28:03]  What kind of president is this?
[00:28:05]  Sounds like a pouting second grader.
[00:28:08]  Even though it's clear that the SAVE Act has little chance of becoming law, Donald Trump is still hell-bent on getting Republicans to ram this bill through the chamber because he thinks undermining the vote is the only prayer Republicans have in the midterms.
[00:28:21]  Isn't that pathetic?
[00:28:23]  Republicans think they're doing so bad that they must undermine democracy and prevent tens of millions of Americans from voting?
[00:28:31]  Donald Trump has said it himself.
[00:28:33]  He said if Republicans can pass the SAVE Act, it'll guarantee the midterms.
[00:28:38]  Let me read that again.
[00:28:39]  Donald Trump says if Republicans pass the SAVE Act, it'll guarantee the midterms.
[00:28:45]  This is outrageous.
[00:28:47]  Chuck, let's see.
[00:28:48]  First he said it's Jim Crow 2.0.
[00:28:50]  Now he's out there suggesting that millions of people will be kicked off the voter rolls.
[00:28:56]  Why?
[00:28:57]  Because they can't prove they're citizens.
[00:28:58]  Maybe they shouldn't be on there to begin with.
[00:29:00]  Just saying, just a thought.
[00:29:02]  I don't know.
[00:29:03]  Possibly.
[00:29:04]  Anyway, when we come back, Mike Lee and Ted Cruz in particular have been strong advocates of the standing filibuster.
[00:29:11]  Jon Thune says they don't have the votes for it yet, but Mike Lee also making the case that if you keep the vote open, then the possibility of more people coming on board exists.
[00:29:21]  We'll find out the latest strategies on this, update you on the other side, and your calls coming up as well.
[00:29:27]  800-941-Sean, if you want to be a part of the program.
[00:29:30]  This is an iHeart podcast.
[00:29:32]  Guaranteed human.