Sean Hannity defends President Trump's Operation Epic Fury and Midnight Hammer as a decisive victory against Iran's existential nuclear threat, citing 460 kilograms of enriched uranium capable of creating 11 bombs. He dismisses Joe Kent's warnings as political maneuvering by an anti-military "crazed egomaniac," contrasting this with 89% MAGA approval and the destruction of over 7,000 targets. By aligning the strike with Reagan's peace-through-strength doctrine and historical lessons from WWII, Hannity argues the mission successfully prevents a nuclear-armed Iran rather than starting a forever war, while condemning media misinformation about the operation's success. [Automatically generated summary]
If you want to be a part of the program, it is 800-941 Sean.
If you want to join us, the left would like you to believe something that is just fundamentally false and not true.
And I know because I believe Steve Witkoff.
And Steve Witkoff was in the room with Iranian negotiators.
And Steve Witkoff could not be any more clear in terms of what the intentions of the Iranians he was negotiating with were as it relates to not posing an imminent threat to our nation.
I think personally, and I interviewed him twice, that this was, especially the second time, the clearest, most defining moment in this conflict and the president's decision to move forward with Operation Epic Fury.
And I think it bears repeating.
Now, Donald Trump, there's a lot of things that guide him.
And for those people that act like they know him and know his intentions and come up with really strange, bizarre at times, conspiracy theories that he's being controlled by Israel.
Israel's making the decision.
No, that's not true.
Or that BB influenced him.
I asked, no, that's not true.
Or that, you know, hawkish conservatives are just clamoring for war with Iran.
No, that's not true either.
And I know Donald Trump and his history backs up exactly what the Trump doctrine is.
And that is when he wiped out the ISIS Caliphate, you weren't getting daily updates because he was just bombing the living hell out of them.
And it went on for a number of weeks and wiped them out.
They grew under Biden and Obama.
And Donald Trump realized that that was an existential threat to America, just knocked him out.
It was not a small military feat.
It did not get the credit.
It did not get the attention that, frankly, it deserved.
He didn't make that big a deal over it, although it was a big deal because, I mean, he decapitated, defanged that snake.
You know, convert or die was a real existential threat to the free world.
And then, of course, he took out Soleimani, the world's worst terrorist.
And he took out Baghdadi and associates and all the terror that he has fomented.
And he dropped the mother of all bombs when he felt he needed to in Afghanistan.
This is not isolationism, but it also is in keeping with the Trump doctrine, no forever wars.
I can promise you from all I can see, all that I hear, and all that I understand, and I have a lot of sources that a lot of people that talk don't have.
And this is not going to be a forever war.
They are ahead of schedule.
There's never been a more successful military effort in the history of warfare than what we have now witnessed, what Operation Epic Fury has done.
I mean, they have more success today.
It just keeps growing.
But I want to address what the media is clinging on to because they don't want to report that part.
And the people that are angry, there's a lot of angry people out there.
The beauty about Donald Trump, and I'm just going to give you the secret sauce of how Donald Trump's mind works.
He will listen to anybody and everybody.
He will look at the intelligence.
He will get the briefings that none of us have access to.
He did task Jared Kushner and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff.
He did task them to go get a deal.
And he repeatedly said, I want a deal.
He wanted a deal before Operation Midnight Hammer.
And I think he probably was a little more hopeful that after Midnight Hammer and 14 bunker buster bombs that blew out and obliterated their nuclear facilities, that, hey, maybe they may be more inclined to make a deal this time.
But just to back it up, the president started building up our military forces in case they did not want a deal.
And lo and behold, he sends in Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner.
He wanted peace.
He kept saying, I want peace.
I'd rather make a deal.
I'd rather make a deal.
It's up to them.
And they cannot have a nuclear weapon.
Now, this really is fundamentally freeze-frame all of that.
That is fundamentally what the president's mission has been.
It's also been to degrade their ballistic missile systems.
It's also been to stop their reign of terror in the entire region and prevent them from ever becoming a threat to the United States.
Noble goals, but in keeping with the Trump doctrine.
Now, only time will tell if the president is ahead of schedule.
By my calculation, we're looking at about three, four more weeks, maybe a little longer, a little less, a little more.
I don't know.
And I would imagine that you will see a drawdown sooner rather than later.
He will not drag us into a quagmire.
But the principles that are guiding the president are critical to understand.
And this is what isolationists don't understand.
This is what the anti-Israel crowd doesn't understand.
This is what the radical left doesn't understand, nor do they want to understand.
And I just, there's no point in arguing what's stupid and no point in arguing with ignorance because there's a lot of it out there.
And I just happen to know so much of what I read and see and hear is complete atom bull shift.
It's just lying because there are principles that guide Donald Trump.
There's a method behind his madness, and there's no madness there.
There's actual genius behind it.
And that is he learned the lessons of history.
What lessons did he learn?
He learned the lesson of peace through strength through Ronald Reagan to build up the biggest, baddest, meanest, toughest military on the face of the earth.
He's trying now to expand out that military, which is why he proposed a $1.5 trillion military budget so that we don't ever fall behind.
We have to always lead militarily so we can defend the cause of liberty and freedom.
The price has been so high over our 250-year history.
So he learned that from Reagan.
He also learned from the last century.
He learned that when threats emerge, to ignore them is beyond foolish and that millions of lives potentially can be lost.
And those that fail to learn these lessons from history are doomed to repeat history.
He learned what happened in China with under Mao and Stalin and Russia and Hitler and Germany and Nazi Germany and fascism in Italy and Mussolini and Tojo in Japan and Pol Pot in the killing fields.
Because in the last century, and my father spent four years in the Pacific theater fighting in World War II, had many other relatives have fought as well.
Iran Threats and Historical Lessons Learned00:09:54
It wasn't pleasant and they lost friends.
My father would never talk about it.
But in that century, over 100 million people died.
And the president learned that historical lesson.
President also learned, I mean, in retrospect, thank God military technology is advanced.
We're seeing now the next generation of weaponry, something we have spoken of often on this program and on TV about.
And the next generation of weaponry is only going to get more sophisticated, where I would argue future conflicts, wars will probably be fought in air-conditioned offices, and they're not going to be fought on a battlefield like they were historically, which makes the need for a golden dome greater than ever.
So you have this guy that makes this big splash today and the Trump haters and the isolationist crowd and all those people that are mad that Donald Trump didn't take their advice.
Donald Trump takes counsel from everyone and then he makes up his own mind.
That is just an irrefutable fact.
Anyone that would tell you otherwise obviously doesn't know Donald Trump.
And anyway, so you've got this guy, Joe Kent, director of national counterterrorism, the National Counterterrorism Center, announcing his immediate resignation, citing irreconcilable opposition to the ongoing U.S. military operations in Iran.
He declared he could not, in good conscience, support the ongoing war in Iran and stating unequivocally that Iran posed, quote, no imminent threat to our nation.
Okay.
I've done a little digging, a little background work, and this guy has and has had his own agenda for some time, just to be very clear.
And it's now being reported by Fox News that President Trump knew his now former director of Counterintelligence Center was a known leaker.
He'd been shut out of White House intelligence briefings for months.
He was also shut out of any and all Iran war preparations.
And the DNI director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, was told that he should be fired, but that didn't happen.
They also are reporting and people are saying that Kent was clearly a source for the anti-military action radicals.
One person, former Deputy White House chief of staff and top Trump advisor, Taylor Bodowich, said that Joe Kent is a crazed egomaniac who was often at the center of national security leaks while rarely, never producing any actual work.
He spent all of his time working to subvert the chain of command and undermine the president of the United States.
This isn't some principled resignation.
He just wanted to make a splash before getting canned.
What a loser.
Okay, I can't testify to that first time.
I never met the guy, but he obviously wanted to make a splash.
We only have one commander-in-chief at a time.
And in this case, it's Donald Trump.
Well, let's take you to this statement, no imminent threat.
Steve Witkoff was the person along with Jared Kushner negotiating this.
Let's go to my interview with him.
Iran opened up the negotiations bragging about having 460 kilograms of 60% enriched uranium.
As you listen to this, understand 60% can be enriched to 90% weapons grade in a period of 7 to 12 days.
Listen.
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.
But they opened up by challenging us.
Their next statement to us was that they had 460 kilograms of 60% enriched uranium.
60% enriched uranium would take a week, maybe 10 days at the outside, to bring up to 90% weapons grade.
So it was a clear threat.
They were boasting about having it.
And they said that that was going to be something that was going to be very valuable at the same time that they were attesting to wanting nuclear for civil purposes.
There is no reason whatsoever to be enriching past 20% unless you're going for a weapon.
There is no reason.
Then Wickoff, in the interview with me, said Iran turned down the U.S. offer to convert.
In other words, for civilian purposes, you really need 10% enriched uranium and no enrichment capabilities.
That would obviously be backed by anywhere, any place, anytime inspections.
So, again, the context is this guy says there's no imminent threat.
You decide.
Here's Wickoff.
In terms of their enrichment, it was very, very clear they had plenty of 20% material.
That, by the way, was another telling sign of their insidious motives.
And as I said, they had the 60%.
We had a red line on enrichment.
However, we were willing to help them convert to a civil 123 non-enrichment program.
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.
And their response to that, you would think they would feel that that was something gracious.
But their response to us was that this was an assault on their dignity.
It's an assault on their dignity.
So free, civilian use, uranium, lowly enriched, can't enrich any further for 10 years, but really in perpetuity.
And then here's Wickoff.
Iran bragged that they controlled the 460 kilograms of enriched uranium and how this could be 11 nuclear weapons.
Listen.
And let me say this because I forgot this small little detail.
In that first meeting, both the Iranian negotiators said to us directly, with no shame, that they controlled 460 kilograms of 60%, and they're aware that that could make 11 nuclear bombs.
And that was the beginning of their negotiating stance.
So they were proud of it.
They were proud that they had evaded all sorts of oversight protocols to get to a place where they could deliver 11 nuclear bombs.
And here's the president responding to Kent leaving.
Director of National Counterterrorism, Joe Kent, he just resigned today.
He said he can't support your conflict with Iran.
What's your reaction to that?
And did you say that?
Well, I read his statement.
I always thought he was a nice guy, but I always thought he was weak on security, very weak on security.
I didn't know him well, but I thought he seemed like a pretty nice guy.
But when I read his statement, I realized that it's a good thing that he's out because he said that Iran was not a threat.
Iran was a threat.
Every country realized what a threat Iran was.
The question is whether or not they wanted to do something about it.
Even after Midnight Hammer, 14 bunker busters, they still would not give up their nuclear ambition.
Number one state sponsor of terror.
Here's the question.
Are you willing to risk for future generations a nuclear-armed Iran?
Or do you believe they truly believe that they want to wipe Israel and America off the map?
I happen to believe they mean it, but I can't convince others that don't.
Chucky Schumer is sure upset because we want to see where the money went.
Where's the money?
Maybe we should start with him.
How about it, Chucky?
Where is the dough?
Sean Hannity.
So it's a typical, you know, media distraction.
And we'll get into this on the other side.
There has never been a greater intelligence, military success story than there has been here.
And we'll give you all the updates.
It has been the most overwhelming, devastating intelligence, military success that we've ever seen in the history of warfare.
And this is not going to be a forever war.
That is not how Donald Trump rolls.
And as much as they want to convince you otherwise, some people with agendas, it's just not true.
And the world is and will be a much safer place.
And if you don't see that, I can't help you.
This March 17th, Dublin's very own talk show leprechaun, Sean O'Hannity!
Tax Cuts and Family Support Plans00:03:50
Top of the morning to you.
This is your right-wing ultra-conservative leprechaun, Sean Ohanity.
Happy St. Patty's Day and all you in New York.
Linda, aren't you glad you moved to Pennsylvania?
All those people in the street puking up green beer.
I mean, there's no part of me that misses that.
One of the worst days to be in New York City ever.
Speaking of worst days.
Well, I mean, now every day is the worst day to be in New York City because Mamdani is mayor.
I went through great spec, went into great specificity yesterday about all his tax proposals, including dropping the estate tax, you know, from you had a deduction of, you get to keep the 7.5 million, which, by the way, in New York, that's a lot of money for anybody.
But in New York, now he's dropping it down to $750,000.
If you own a closet in New York as an apartment and a dump, you probably paid $750,000.
That's pretty accurate.
Am I wrong in my assumption?
100% accurate.
100%.
It's nuts.
I mean, it's incredible how people live.
People that have worked.
Listen, they want to run everybody out of town.
Good luck with your empty, homeless, druggy city.
Good luck.
It's just sad, but he wants a 50%.
He wants to drop the deduction.
So in other words, you pay taxes on all this money.
And in New York, you're paying close to 60 cents out of every dollar in taxes, state, local, federal, city taxes.
And never mind, you know, add the property taxes.
It's over 60 cents of every dollar you make.
And now, if you die and you own anything, after $750,000, you get to keep that.
And then it used to be $7.5 million.
He wants a 50% city death tax.
We already have a 10% New York state death tax.
Not me.
I'm gone.
They also have a 40% federal death tax.
That's 100%.
You don't get to keep any or pass on any money to your family.
Bye-bye, New York.
You know, just like they keep more billionaires moved out of California announcing yesterday, I think it's going to keep growing.
Listen, Born on America's Darkest Day, radical Islamists, terrorists that were at war with us.
We weren't at war with them.
9-11 Commission report: A Tunnel to Towers Foundation has been helping America's heroes ever since.
And that means heroes like Detective Victor Vargas.
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Letter T, number two, letter T.org.
So this idea, and I'm not going to spend a lot of time, although we'll get Lindsey Graham's take on this.
Supreme Leader Decisions and Military Action00:11:21
This idea that it's not an imminent threat is just inaccurate.
And I understand people have their agenda.
And by the way, you know, by nearly 70% of people, two-thirds of people think that this effort, how can you not say it's successful?
What part of this has not been successful?
You know, the White House is calling this guy a craze loser and ego many.
I don't know anything about the guy.
It doesn't matter.
He's not the president.
End of sentence.
The president makes those decisions.
And the idea that these people passing on these conspiracy theories are so bizarre to me because they're just not true.
And he can act like the hero that he wants and goes out in this blaze of glory and hang out with his isolationist friends.
I don't care because either you agree with the president and agree with Steve Witkoff or you don't.
There's no convincing people to think rationally when they can't.
By the way, 89% of MAGA, the MAGA base supports this conflict in Iran.
Harry Enton, CNN, reported this morning on polling shows, yeah, MAGA, the movement created by Donald Trump, that they overwhelmingly back Operation Epic Fury.
That's like 9 in 10, 89% approve of the military action.
That is the MAGA GOP base.
This data came from recent NBC and CNN.
We actually have the clip of it.
Let's play it.
Marco Rubio's chances, according to the Calcium Prediction Markets, way, way up.
Okay, why?
Why?
Why are his chances way, way up?
Well, one of the reasons why his chances are way, way up is because the MAGA base really likes the U.S. military action in Iran.
Take a look here.
Okay, MAGA GOP on the U.S. military action Iran.
Look at this.
Nearly 9 in 10, 89% approve of the U.S. military action Iran.
That is the MAGA GOP base.
Just 9% disapprove of it.
This is tremendously popular among the Republican base.
And of course, Marco Rubio, Secretary of State, overseeing the effort.
It seems to me that a lot of people are taking that into account, including President Donald Trump, who has been smiling an awful lot at Marco Rubio lately.
All right, so there you have it.
In spite of the propaganda, I mean, there are people, you know, frankly, I don't even know if they ever were MAGA, but they're entitled to their views.
I'm a free speech absolutist.
I don't care what people say.
Here's where we are: more than 7,000 major military targets have been hit.
More than 100 Iranian naval vessels have been destroyed.
Their ballistic missile launches and drone attacks are now down by over 90, 95%.
It has been nothing but an utter humiliation for Iran's rogue regime.
And, you know, if you look at, you know, our fighter jets now fly with impunity, we own the skies over Iran.
You know, we are hunting their last remaining launchers, stockpiles, now going after the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.
Israel took out the deceased Ayatollah's personal plane.
You know, a new report emerging about his son, apparently the anointed leader.
And we told you this yesterday, two Intel officials telling the New York Post, the new Supreme Leader, the son of the old Supreme Leader.
Well, one that they are reporting in the New York Post that he's probably gay, which is a little ironic considering how gay men and how they treated women inside of Iran.
I mean, they would take the gay men and they'd throw them off of tall buildings and kill them.
And women were beaten if they didn't dress the right way or follow the draconian rules and never mind the tens of thousands of people.
But that's not why Donald Trump did this.
That was, you know, help is on the way, but we also had a clear present danger.
The president tried for a negotiated settlement, just like he did before Operation Midnight Hammer.
Now, we can't forget how this entire conflict started.
We took out the Supreme Leader and his 40 top people.
Then when the Security Council, some 80-plus people, met to pick the next Supreme Leader, they wiped out all of those people.
Now we're finding out today the top Iranian military official, you've heard his name.
He's been out there.
Ali Larajani is the Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council.
He was taken out last night, according to the Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz in a statement to the Associated Press.
The de facto leader, really, following the death, because the new Supreme Leader, nobody's seen or heard from him.
Apparently severely injured.
And the only reason he survived the same attack that killed his father is he was out in the garden.
Whatever that means.
I don't know.
I guess he was doing a little gardening.
But it has been, I would argue, the single greatest military mission, intelligence gathering success in the history of warfare, not just modern warfare.
Now, granted, you know, the next generation of weaponry is here, but it's only going to get more sophisticated as time goes on.
Hence, we've got to be on the cutting edge of this.
We've got to have the meanest, baddest, toughest kick-ass military on the face of the earth.
And all of this will be in keeping and, you know, I guess prove me wrong over time.
I want to see where we are a month from now, maybe sooner, maybe a little later, because Donald Trump will be winding this down and the mission will be accomplished.
And as the president said at the start of this conflict to the Iranian people, stay home for now, but you're going to get a once-in-a-generation opportunity and don't, you know, seize the moment.
Don't let it pass.
And Bibi said that moment is coming soon.
The de facto leader of Iran's terror regime and its chief of domestic security forces, dead.
Dead.
He was the de facto leader of the Iranian terror regime.
Now we're like, you know, you want to be the next supreme leader.
Linda, would you like to be the next supreme leader?
I told you already.
Make me the leader.
I'll take over Cuba.
I'll take over Iran.
I'll set all the people free.
I would love to do it.
Yeah, by the way, this is the story.
The son of the former Supreme Leader survived the initial attack that killed his father because he stepped outside the compound for a walk in the garden minutes before the blast and apparently was very severely injured.
There's apparently leaked audio from the meeting of Ali Khamani's compound revealing his son was with his father but stepped out to do something.
The telegraph reporting, the audio also revealed gruesome details about the strike with Iran's military chief being blown to bitch and all that was left to identify him was a few kilos of flesh.
And Ali Khamani's son-in-law was also found with his head split in two.
And this guy, the son, the new supreme leader, quote, in name only, you know, apparently barely escaped with his life, was severely injured.
Apparently, dozens of his senior officials, family members, they're all dead.
And the next level is dead.
They're all dead.
And this is how the Trump doctrine works.
Anybody that expects any less does not understand Donald Trump.
This is how he operates.
Now, if you don't see the wisdom, and I don't really feel any need to convince anybody of anything, but you know something we do.
We've been blessed with the greatest, freest, best country God gave man.
I've been able to have a free life, in part, because people like my fathers and my grandfather and uncles served in World War II.
But we should learn something from World War II.
We should learn something from the last hundred years, the last century.
And that when threats begin to emerge, such as this terrorist threat, the number one state sponsor of terror that's threatening to destroy you, and you see that they are hell-bet on weapons of mass destruction, you know, we'll never be able to quantify or calculate how many lives are likely saved because Donald Trump took this action now.
You're not going to be able to calculate that.
And, you know, in just the two weeks since this conflict began, Democrats voted again to defund the Department of Homeland Security.
Explain that one to me.
The president has put his China visit on hold, which I think is great.
The war is, there's never been a more successful effort.
But you're never going to believe that if you listen to the fake news media or the people that have these ridiculous agendas.
And there are people with agendas all over the place, left, right, sideways, they're everywhere.
Even the Atlantic had an article glimpsing victory in Iran.
The campaign has already delivered major wins for American national security.
Ask yourself, because this is the fundamental question.
Are you willing to gamble with a nuclear-armed Iran and that's the country, that's the world you're handing off to your children and grandchildren?
Or will history judge Donald Trump well through the prism of history?
Was Harry Truman right when he dropped the bomb on in Nagasaki and Hiroshima?
Can you calculate how many lives ultimately were saved by making that decision?
You can't.
Do I think it was the right decision?
I do.
They attacked us at Pearl Harbor.
They killed 2,500 Americans.
And they started the war.
And then we engaged in two theaters in the Pacific and in Europe.
When those guys were slamming the beaches of Normandy, as I said yesterday, imagine how the fake news media today would cover something like that.
By the way, Americans who fled Iran say their citizens are desperate for freedom, praying for this Islamic regime to fall.
Their moment is coming.
You know, CENCOMs are blasting Iran's claim they destroyed fighter jets.
It's just not true.
There's always a price to pay.
It's sad.
I wish evil didn't exist, but I just face the truth that it does exist.
You know, how do you describe Mao, China, Hitler, Germany, Stalin, Russia?
How do you describe Mussolini, fascism, Italy?
How do you describe Tojo, Japan?
How do you describe people that would strap bombs on their own children, promise them 72 virgins in heaven if they kill the infidels, innocent men, women, and children?
How do you describe a convert or die mentality?
How do you describe people that throw gay people off a roof and beat women or kill them if they don't dress and act a certain way?
How do you describe it?
You know, what part of this do you need to see before you open your eyes that there is wisdom in acting now while this is relatively easy and there's nothing easy about it?
Describing Radical Extremism and Urgent Wisdom00:01:18
Nothing.
Every military effort has risks.
It is dangerous.
We have the best, greatest military on the face of the earth.
We cannot praise our military enough.
But it is a question of, it really comes down to this.
Are you willing to hand off this country with a nuclear-armed Iran, Islamo-fascist killers, the number one state sponsor of terror, except hand off a nuclear-armed country with a fanatical regime that would hold the world hostage and in all likelihood, I believe with every fiber of my being, at some point down the road, use it?
You know, some people say, well, younger people are less inclined to support this.
Well, a lot of the my own daughter was born 13 days before 9-11.
01.
You know, do they really, did they really live through 9-11?
Do they really understand the Middle East?
Especially with our despicably failing educational, you know, indoctrination centers?