Sean Hannity details President Trump's strategic decision to extend a three-to-five-day ceasefire in Iran, citing Pakistan's intervention and the IRGC's financial collapse due to a 90% trade blockade costing $500 million daily. He argues that striking Karg Island could permanently cripple Iranian oil reserves, leaving the regime with only a one-to-two-month cushion from its 200-million-barrel floating reserve. While condemning Democrats for risking nuclear war, Hannity highlights the release of eight female protesters and asserts that internal Iranian power struggles threaten the truce's stability. Ultimately, the segment frames the conflict as a calculated economic strangulation designed to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear capabilities without triggering global catastrophe. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Short Talk on Peace00:12:52
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800 941 Sean.
Now, I've got a lot to get to, and there's so much misinformation.
There's so much propaganda.
There's so much lying that goes on.
And there's so many groups of people that, and we'll get into this in detail about Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut.
I mean, just praying for the IRGC to be more successful than our own country and for the people of Iran.
It's kind of disgusting and sickening.
And there's just a complete lack of understanding.
None of what the president has been able to pull off, as historic a military victory as this has been, and what Israel and the U.S. have pulled off, is just never going to be enough for people.
And they don't understand nuance.
They don't understand that there are many, many things that go into a decision, such as wiping out the infrastructure of Iran, wiping out Karg Island.
I don't often talk about my conversations with the president, but I had one last night, and it was detailed, nothing that he would not be allowed to tell me.
And we talked at length about that and about a number of other things.
I don't usually talk about it when I talk to the president.
Do I, Linda?
You can verify this fact.
And I don't for a reason, but I have sources and information.
Now, I knew from other sources that when the president announced that there's going to be a slight extension of this ceasefire, I came on the air on TV last night, gave all the details because I needed time after the radio program to get the details.
And I was told in no uncertain terms that it was going to be very short lived.
And that the president was really doing it for two very specific reasons.
And I would add a third, actually.
But one is the prime minister of Pakistan pretty much was begging him to give them more time and explain to the president that they don't have regular communication ability that would allow for the people that had been negotiating previously in Islamabad to be communicating with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Because they can get on a phone.
Now, think about this.
It may sound stupid, but it's true.
It's not like any one of these leaders at this point, or so called leaders, or anybody in a position of power in Iran is going to be too keen on getting on a phone call, knowing the intercept capability of the U.S. and wanting to have a discussion about what they can agree and disagree on regarding a deal or a potential deal with the U.S.
It's not something that they could pull off that easily.
That's why there's been such confusion.
And the president also took into account, I think, as evidenced by before Israel struck, after 50 days, they had an opportunity to come up with a peace deal.
They didn't.
Day 51, the bombing began.
Even before Midnight Hammer, the president offered the Iranians a path to peace.
They chose not to take it then either.
And in this specific case, Epic Fury, the president again offered the Iranians an opportunity to come to the table, come to a peace agreement.
And when the president repeats before every one of these conflicts begins that he wants peace, he wants peace, he wants peace, he's not saying it for the sake of just being heard.
That is his preferable choice.
And Democrats, the liberal media mob, the isolationist lunatics that would forever burden your children and grandchildren with a nuclear armed Iran because they're just dumb and ignorant and know nothing about history, although they claim some of them to be great historians, which I find somewhat amusing.
And they would put the world at risk, and they will have learned nothing from the last century.
But okay, let people be stupid.
I have absolutely no inclination to listen to stupid.
And this president, he's the person that ultimately makes the decision based on every bit of intelligence, information available to him, and what's going on on the ground, what his negotiators are telling him.
And he also is somebody that reaches out and tries to get a wide variety of opinions from a lot of different people.
This is what the president said to me last night.
And it was as I expected.
It was not a shock to me that he said this.
He said, Sean, he goes, I can wipe this place out.
I said, I know, in 15 minutes.
He goes, No, I could do it in five.
He actually said those words to me.
I can.
He goes, I really don't want to.
Because if we end up going down that road, it's not just going to be the IRGC, it's not just going to be the guys in suits that would prefer a negotiated settlement or seemingly prefer.
I'm not sure if they're all coordinating or not.
Well, we'll know soon enough.
And he has that option on the table, and it's a very easy option.
And as I was explaining yesterday, it probably, if you want to prevent the potential for the Iranians to ever reconstitute or rebuild their weapons capability, be it nuclear, ballistics, air defense systems, probably the better option in terms of preventing that, fomenting terror in the region, would be to just wipe them out, obliterate them.
But with that comes a great cost to the 90 plus million Iranian people that desperately have been living in tyranny and oppression that want to get out from under it and want to regain their once great culture.
The Persian culture was a great culture, it has a rich history of contributions to humankind.
And that is also a factor in the president's mind.
The president, Democrats, and radical leftists would have you believe.
Oh, well, you know, taco president, and in spite of all of the action he's taken, they would still make that ridiculous claim.
Or they try to put him in a box and say, well, if he hits infrastructure bridges and other places, Carg Island, then those are war crimes.
So he can't win for losing when they're all legitimate military targets that have been used historically because they have dual purpose use, which means that the military needs the oil.
Therefore, he would be well within his rights to do it.
They transport their troops over bridges, he'd be within his rights to do it.
Other power infrastructure that could be used to constitute a counterattack against us, all legitimate military targets.
So that's what their point is.
Now, yesterday we reported on this program that the president put out a truth social post requesting that the Iranians, if they want to show good faith, that they can release and stop the execution of these eight Iranian women, some of them as young as 16.
I mean, they have their whole lives ahead of them.
Their major crime is they're protesting against the tyrannical regime that oppresses women.
And so the president just announced about an hour or so ago in a Truth Social post very good news.
I've just been informed the eight women protesters who are going to be executed tonight in Iran will no longer be killed.
Four will be released immediately, four will be sentenced to one month in prison.
I appreciate that Iran, its leaders, respect my request as president of the United States and terminated the planned execution.
I know he'll never get credit for standing up for women, will he, Linda?
I don't think he'll get credit for that.
Definitely not.
Now, I don't know if this is going to hold.
I mean, there is this power struggle that is ongoing within the country.
I don't know if it's the hardline Revolutionary Guard, the guys with the guns that now run the entire government, or if the Prime Minister of Pakistan is correct in his hope and optimism that the two sides.
Now, as it was explained for me from other sources, not from the President, is that the plan moving forward would be.
That they come up with their united response to the president's proposal.
That's it.
And that's what we're waiting for.
Now, the White House today was very, very clear that they are giving between three and five days for this to happen.
After that, all bets will be off.
And as the president was saying to me, those bets will be off.
That means that the president can.
You know, the president will follow through on what he's been threatening to do that he's been hesitant to do.
You know, based on the fact that the government of Iran is seriously fractured, unexpectedly so, and upon the request of the Field Marshal and Prime Minister of Pakistan, we have been asked to hold our attack on the country of Iran until such time as their leaders and representatives can come up with a unified attack on the country of Iran.
I'm sorry.
I have therefore directed our military to continue the blockade and, in all other respects, remain ready and able and therefore extend the ceasefire until such time a proposal is submitted.
So the blockade continues.
The option's all on the table.
The president, you know, is this going to be resolved one way or the other in a short time?
I know I've been saying it, but it is really true.
It's going to be the easy way, it's going to be the hard way, and there's not going to be any in between here in terms of what they do.
Now, I understand the argument.
You don't want to delay victory, but I don't think three to five days is that big a delay.
And the president, is he taking a risk for peace's sake?
Yeah.
Is he putting off the inevitable?
Maybe.
I don't have a crystal ball.
I can't tell you.
But the deadline now has been set.
He has access to the intelligence that he can't share, things that we don't know.
And it doesn't mean he was wrong to delay a return to active operations.
That is coming in short order.
I don't think there'll be another delay.
So, if the Pakistani leaders who have been trying very hard and putting their best foot forward are communicating to the president that they are having a hard time internally with varying factions and that we need to give them time to even communicate amongst themselves, our goal will remain clear.
We will end Iran's nuclear ambition permanently, we'll eviscerate their conventional weapons.
We've already done so, we've taken out their Navy, their air defense systems, and they will no longer be able to bully their neighbors.
And the Strait of Hormuz will remain open and completely.
You know, it's sort of like the president, and this is what I think he was saying to me last night, how I interpret it.
He can go full Sherman.
You ever hear the saying, Linda, have you ever heard go full Sherman?
In other words, I have not.
A colloquial expression.
It means like total war.
You go hard, deep in the paint, use whatever analogy you want, a strategy of overwhelming, unrelenting force.
That will target enemy armies, economic infrastructure, resources, civilian will to fight and sustain it.
And it draws directly from the Union General Sherman and his campaigns in the Civil War, especially his famous march to the sea.
And at that point, after capturing Atlanta, Sherman cut loose from his supply lines, led 60,000 troops on a 285 mile scorched earth march across Georgia to Savannah and later northward, destroying railroads, bridges, factories, telegraph lines, crippling Confederate logistics, and You know, avoided major battles with Confederate forces when possible, instead focusing on breaking the South's ability to desire to continue the war.
That is what it means.
And that's what the president is communicating without going into the historic precedents behind his thinking.
The president is far smarter than those people that have no interest in understanding him, even though he's been on the world stage for 11 years.
Washington Analysis of Months00:14:48
And the president did truth out to Iranian leaders who will soon be in negotiations with my representatives.
I'd greatly appreciate the release of these women.
Now, They say they're going to release the women.
We'll learn a lot and see if he does this.
See if they do this, rather.
We will learn a lot.
We'll learn a lot very, very quickly.
And I think the president, I frankly applaud his decision.
I'm not in a rush to destroy this country knowing it's going to impact 90 million people.
However, when measured against the ability of the Iranians to foment terror, to also have a nuclear weapon coupled with their very Very ugly, twisted, sick ideology is just not an option for me.
And by the way, in spite of, oh, the lowest polls ever, no, President Trump's approval rating hovering in the mid to upper 40s, according to the actual pollsters that know how to poll him.
I mean, it is the media is so abusively biased and corrupt.
Anyway, the White House did confirm the ceasefire is three to five days, and we'll see what happens and see if the Iranians within themselves.
Can somehow come to an agreement.
They did after Operation Midnight Hammer.
Remember that conflict, they ended that after 12 days.
They wanted out.
And if they're not able to assess how bad this is going to be, then that's going to be on them.
Whatever suffering the Iranian people go through will be on them too.
All right, 25 now till the top of the hour, 800 941.
Sean, if you want to be a part of the program, we have so much to get to today.
I got so much to tell you.
Anyway, I want to tell you two the one thing that's also factoring into the president's decision here.
And this he telegraphed in great detail last night, just before I went on the air.
And it was reiterated during this brief conversation I had with him yesterday.
It was actually fairly extended.
And he said, and as he was saying, I can wipe out this infrastructure in no time at all.
It's an easy decision to make in terms of the military aspects of it.
Here's where there was a pretty good analysis, I thought, from the New York Post today, because the ceasefire, though extended, you know, could end, it's going to end in three to five days.
Iran has fired on tankers.
They have played, you know, fast and loose with the Strait of Hormuz.
The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, the IRGC, not Iran's civilian government, is calling the shots.
They have the guns.
The guys in suits need to align with the guys with guns, and they need to.
Come to an agreement and what's acceptable, not acceptable, and then Donald Trump will see if there is a deal to be made here.
And, you know, and this is what Scott Besant was trying to say in a truth post that he put out yesterday that the Iranians now, they are at maximum capacity in terms of storing their energy, their oil that they have, which means that their wells are going to have to be shut down, which in and of itself is a monumental task if you ask any landman or anybody that knows anything about the oil industry.
And as one senior U.S. official confirmed this week, what the numbers have shown all along, and the reason the president. Has known this from the beginning is that Iran has no money.
They are broke.
They have an oil economy.
It is 90% of their economy.
They're broke.
We know it.
They know we know it.
And as the New York Post is analyzing it, which is different than what I thought about until I read it, if that's true, they're believing a deal is closer than the chaos that we're hearing about hour by hour.
Is suggesting, but only if Washington is using the right instruments.
Then they go into more specific analysis.
They're saying the air campaign produced real results.
I mean, think about this.
If what the Pakistani prime minister is saying to the president is that the IRGC and the guys that have been negotiating in Islamabad have a hard time reaching and communicating with each other because none of them dare pick up a phone for fear that they're going to be instantaneously killed by either Israel or the U.S.
That shows you the magnitude of fear that we have instilled in whatever third or fourth or fifth tier leadership that remains.
And Iran's nuclear infrastructure, we know, was severely damaged.
Their Navy destroyed.
Their air defense systems destroyed.
We have greatly reduced any capacity that they would have to even launch a ballistic missile, never mind their drone attacks on top of it.
So, those are all real significant gains.
They all know that that is the truth, although they might posture differently in public.
And remember, a lot of this is being put out there for the audience of the Iranian people as propaganda purposes and nothing else.
But this naval blockade announced by the president is cutting off 90% of Iran's seaborne trade.
That means the blockade has been a success.
And the Iranians have tried to disrupt it.
The Iranians have tried to create chaos.
The Iranians are acting as though they think that they can control eventually the Strait of Hormuz.
But the one country that's going to need the Strait of Hormuz the most is going to be Iran, more than any other ones.
The world is already looking for alternative routes, and they're finding them.
In terms of safe passage for oil out of the Middle East.
Now, if you look at Karg Island, they handle 90% of Iran's crude exports.
90%.
That's 1.5 million barrels of oil a day.
That's $200 million in revenue that they're not getting in on any given day just from that one source of revenue alone.
Their defense budget channels over half of those oil revenues go straight to the military.
With the IRGC taking the largest cut.
That money, you know, at the time they had 190,000 personnel.
We estimate now that they're down to about 130,000.
They've lost about 60,000 IRGC troops.
The blockade, which is different and separate from the Quds forces, which is their real military, and the Quds forces, while larger, you know, nobody's really heard a peep out of where they stand on all of this, but the blockade squeezes Iran's imports.
And has made outbound shipments far riskier.
That's where the $500 million, $400 to $500 million figure comes from.
And it doesn't even touch Karg Island's loading terminals, their storage tanks, their pipelines connecting the island to the mainland.
Now, Washington has struck Karg's weapons.
It has not struck Karg's wallet yet.
It's not the same target.
If you force Iran, and again, this is the military operation that would be a five minute operation for President Trump and our military.
If Washington strikes Karg's wallet and they force Iran to shut down production, which now is even happening on its own because the blockade's been so successful.
To lack the storage of it, that's going to risk long term reservoir damage, including potential permanent loss and what's called water coning and formation compaction, effects that could immediately and permanently reduce future output and cash flow.
Now, the second lifeline is the floating reserve of 200 million barrels of Iranian crude that sits on tankers.
In and around different areas in the Strait of Hormuz and nearby areas, and five months of export supply that the IRGC stockpiled before the war as a financial cushion, that's fine and dandy.
But even if they had a couple of months' worth, that's still not going to be enough to get them out of the economic stranglehold they're now in right at this moment.
And the blockade and planned boardings do not fully neutralize this.
As long as that reserve exists, the IRGC can sustain their current position.
How long they can do it, at most a month, two months, not going to go much longer than that.
So, a targeted strike on Karg's loading equipment, their trucks, their pumps, the manifolds, the loading arms that move oil from storage onto tankers, under normal conditions, the equipment can be repaired fairly expeditiously.
Under sanctions and spare parts not being available, the timeline now stretches into months, if not years, over time, depending on how bad the damage is.
So, these facilities directly fund the IRGC military operations.
And I'm going to tell you something as loyal as these people may seem, and as extreme as they may seem, once it impacts their life, because remember, usually IRGC members and Quds forces, they're among the highest paid inside Iran.
They live the wealthiest lifestyle.
This oil money does not flow to the people of Iran.
Although, hopefully, the idea would be that if they got.
You know, a different form of government and got away from this, you know, radical Islamic theocracy that has been oppressing its people, that that would all change.
Anyway, the other less conventional but potentially powerful step would be Washington could designate the entire floating reserve under IRGC sanctions and extend the blockade intercept authority to cover any tanker attempting delivery and offer China a structured escrow arrangement and proceeds.
From Iranian crude purchases would be held in a neutral account pending verified IRGC compliance.
I mean, there's a lot of ways that you can structure a deal where it's a trust but verified deal and not one where they give you their word and then five weeks later, you know, we're back where we were.
But anyway, there's another piece that came out too.
And I guess this goes directly to the heart of all of the naysayers, the radical left in this country that wants Trump to fail.
The Democrats that have been saying from day one the president has failed.
Meanwhile, it's one of the most successful military efforts in history.
And we did so with great precision, avoiding as much collateral damage as possible, targeting military targets, not targeting civilians the way the Iranians have been targeting civilians in Gulf states.
And obviously, in In Israel and Tel Aviv with their cluster bombs.
But when Operation Epic Fury began, Washington's class of foreign policy experts were warning that it would lead to several unintended, alarmingly negative secondary consequences.
And the consensus among the quote, intellectual hate Trump elitists on the left and the Democratic Party, and then the isolationist loudmouths that haven't learned a single lesson from history.
But anyway, it was that the administration was not doing the long term planning to prevent these bad outcomes.
I can tell you firsthand, every single thing that they have dealt with was thought about and planned for ahead of time, including the mining of the Strait of Hormuz.
That was not a shock to our military or to the president.
It was something we thought was likely when we went into this, knowing it would complicate things, but not preventing the president from achieving his ultimate goal, which is to have an Iran that doesn't have nuclear weapons.
You know, is the outcome, you know, really certain?
Yeah, if we use the right amount of military force, the outcome will be certain.
And they will not be a nuclear power.
What will the long term consequences be?
Well, that will be based on what these emerging leaders, you know, the choices that they make in the next 72 hours, next 100 hours or so.
It's really going to be on them.
And if you look at China, except for this one ship that appeared to have dual purpose ballistic missile fuel, you know, they've not been anywhere near this conflict.
China does not like this.
They get too much of their energy from that area.
They don't want this to go on, they don't want this to continue.
And let me see, this just came out.
This is actually pretty interesting.
The Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Lindsey Graham are now taking the first step to passing another reconciliation bill.
To fund our great border patrol, ICE agents.
Radical left Democrats, their so called leader crying, Chucky Schumer, one of the most incompetent senators in American history, will try to offer amendments during the process to divide Republicans.
Republicans need to stick together.
I love the idea of another reconciliation bill.
I really do.
So, with Iran losing $500 million a day, how much longer can they survive?
Now, the Iranians can't be allowed to string us along.
The White House has said it's a three to five day break.
At the request of the Pakistani prime minister.
And, you know, if you look at under President Trump's leadership as part of economic fury, you know, the Treasury Department is continuing to follow the money and target the Iranian regime's recklessness and those who enable it.
Scott Bessem put this out.
And the regime's being held accountable for their extortion of global energy markets and indiscriminate targeting of civilians with missiles and drones.
These designations that.
That they have put in place, these sanctions that they have put in place, now again, are now bringing this regime economically to its knees.
It's not very often that you have such a tactical advantage in war where an economy is based on one thing and pretty much one thing only, like we're witnessing here.
By the way, Linda, there's a lot of other news today.
New EBT Card Limits00:02:54
Did you see a black bear finally fell from a tree after being hit with a tranquilizer, a dart in Albany?
I hate seeing that.
I'm so sad.
Gosh.
Why do you overfeed your cat?
Oh, fuck.
Okay.
It's like it went to sleep.
It's not a big deal.
Yeah.
Did you feel what it felt like when he hit the ground?
He's going to feel that when he wakes up.
Congress's approval now at a record low 10%.
I never thought it could get that back.
You know, this Nazi guy, the Nazi tattoo guy, Platner in Maine, it looks like he may win the Democratic nomination.
Anyway, he says the overnight operation that took out Maduro and diverted Venezuela's oil to From America's foes to its allies was uniquely stupid.
How stupid is he for believing that?
There is, you'll like this because you now have kind of reignited your Catholic faith.
The world's oldest nun celebrated her 113th birthday on Long Island, New York.
God bless her.
You know, I interviewed Gary Breck.
We're going to drop the pod with Gary tomorrow.
And he says if you want to live to 100, it'll be your choice.
Can you believe that?
With AI?
Yeah, I choose not 100.
That's what I choose.
I'm good.
I don't think I want you to live to 100 either.
I'm not eight.
Jeez.
We're going to get into this with Nancy Grace and Nicole Parker.
I mean, there are 11 missing scientists.
This is not an accident.
There's something going on here.
I'm sorry, and I'm not a conspiracy theorist.
One Florida resident, there's a meltdown video.
I got to show it to you.
There are new limits for these EBT cards that people have.
No sodas, no ice cream.
What are we going to do?
Why don't you buy something healthy?
Why don't you get eggs and, I don't know, why don't you get eggs and some ground beef?
Eat something healthy.
I thought that was pretty funny.
I knew you'd be upset over the bear, but you know, you act like you're all into animals and then you overfeed your cat and you killed your cat.
Are you okay?
I'm not okay with that.
You leave my poor cat alone.
I'm very upset.
I'm upset that the cat was.
You know, seven times the size of a regular cat.
Listen, everybody needs to be healthy.
And that's why the EBT cards are being controlled because they're sick of people buying all the wrong stuff on it.
It's the best thing they ever did.
All right, when we come back, all right, if one person is missing an isolated incidence, if there's two, Nancy Grace says that's a coincidence.
If it's three or more, in the case of these scientists, 11 of them, no, that would be a pattern.