Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 6/21/25 BREAKING: Trump Bombs Iran

Episode Date: June 22, 2025

The Breaking Points team discusses breaking news that Trump has bombed Iran on Saturday evening.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Each week I investigate a new case. If there is a case we should hear about, call 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murderline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, everybody. Some very big news that we can share with all of you. Crystal, if you want to go and put it up there on the screen, we'll read directly from Donald J. Trump's Truth Social. We have, quote, we have completed our very successful attack on the three nuclear sites in Iran, including Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan. All planes are now outside of Iranian airspace.

A full payload of bombs was dropped on the primary site, Fordow. All planes are safely on their way home. Congratulations to our great American warriors. There is not another military in the world that could have done this. Now is the time for peace. Thank you for your attention to this matter. We've also been informed by President Trump. We're recording this roughly around 8.30 p.m. Eastern time.

President Trump will be giving an address to the nation at 10 p.m. at the White House regarding our successful military operation in Iran. Quote, this is a historic moment for the United States of America Israel and the world Iran must now agree to end this war so it happened and yeah I mean turns out that the two weeks was actually a ruse basically to get all of the military Equipment in place. It does appear guys that this was done with the b2 bombers

The stealth b2 bombers capable of dropping these these massive ordinance penetrators Crystal if do we want to put up some images? If we can these were these are by the way, these are being dispersed right now by these really military Please keep that in mind, but they do at the very least for the moment that we're you know This account actually took those images down You know, so this is why we always have to be careful So we don't know what the images that have come out of there by the way, we don't actually know a lot even about the the attack itself Trump

You know is expected to perhaps announce details, but you know part of the reason I think that we're all doing this right now is This is it you know the dice cast like it's where we're at war with Iran And there's really just no getting around that very simple statement at this point We have not declared war on Iran and we are waiting for the White House to even muster the the legal justification Though if it exists if they point to anything, it will be dubious at the very, very best. I'm really glad you highlighted that because that's something that I think we should all really spend a lot of time on. I mean, this is one of the most extraordinary and aggressive independent unilateral actions

launched by a president of the United States ever. And I'm just, I'm struck by that. I'm struck by, in my opinion, just such a foolhardy decision given. I mean, the consequences that are unfortunately very likely to come. We have thousands and thousands of US service members. You know, the Straits of Hormuz is at risk. We have a naval base in Bahrain. We have air bases and US military bases in Iraq. And yeah, I mean, I spent my whole career and have met so many people who've suffered in the global war on terror. And it's, it's, it's really just terrifying,

you know, to think that we're right back and it's totally unnecessary. And let me just explain some of how this went down. You know, just tracking from the beginning. So first, we had the revelation that Israel had bombed a bunch of sites in Iran. The initial reaction from the Trump administration, from Secretary of State Marco Rubio, was to feign effectively surprise and say, oh, well, this was a completely unilateral action. Very shortly thereafter, it became clear from Trump himself that he was claiming credit for it. And they put out to the press that actually all of their recent attempts at diplomacy

and the claim that they were going forward with this next round of nuclear diplomacy talks that this was actually a ruse to create an ability for this Israeli surprise attack. Since then, we've had this whole will they or won't they very reality show-esque theater put on from Trump where he's seeking the advice from this one and different things are being leaked to the press and all sorts of misinformation and really the propaganda effort kicks into full effect. Suddenly, even though our director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, at the end of March told us the Iranians are not close to a nuclear weapon, they are not

pursuing a nuclear weapon. The IAEA says the same thing. We have no evidence that the Iranians are pursuing a nuclear weapon. But suddenly Trump and Fox News and CNN to a great extent as well, suddenly Iran is on the brink of a nuclear weapon. This is taken as effectively a fact, very WMD, Iraq war, the vibes are off the charts. You get this drum beat going. The question that he, the President of the United States is asking the American people isn't, hey, do you want a regime change? Which based on the reporting is what we have actually greenlit and the logic that he, the president of the United States, is asking the American people isn't, hey, do you want a regime change? Which based on the reporting is what we have actually greenlit and the logic that we're headed on already.

I mean, even all the strikes in Tehran, there weren't nuclear facilities in Tehran. So what are we doing there? The question that's being asked of the American people from the president isn't, hey, do you want to get involved in another idiotic, disastrous, like morally atrocious, illegal regime change war. Iran's about to have a nuke. We can't let them have a nuke. From there, the logic flows to this moment when we directly engage. But I don't want anyone to be fooled by the idea that we weren't already involved, that

this operation hadn't already been greenlit. We know from Reuters, we know from Ken Klippenstein that the regime change operation had already been greenlit. We know from Reuters, we know from Ken Clippenstein, that the regime change operation had already been greenlit by Trump. And I think a lot of the machinations that we've seen going back and forth over this ensuing time period has been mostly for show. And, you know, this was this was the intention effectively all along. And Crystal, just to add to that point, real quickly, you said that, you know, as Tulsi Gabbard said that the nuclear program was not up and running. What she also said is that it had not been running since 2003. Right. Come any shut it down in 2003. That's the intelligence

assessment that it's, that it has been dormant for more than 20 years, and the intelligence community believed that it remained dormant. There's one piece of news that I wanted to put up here that emerged today, which is relevant to this, which is, on Watch Media, really, really impressive. They have a ton of sources very close to senior leaders in Iran. They reported today that the Supreme Leader assembled what's called, as you see it here, the Assembly of Experts. This is in Iran's constitution, this is how they, and I'll scroll this up so if anybody

wants to pause and read this, this is how they determine their success. They've got this little 88 member clerical council. They sit down. They come up with candidates that are going to replace the Supreme Leader. And then they pick one. And that becomes the new Supreme Leader. So Khamenei is saying here, OK, this might be it for me.

I'm going to take Israel and the United States at their word. After this hospital was hit yesterday, the day before, Israeli President Herzog was saying, okay, Khomeini cannot live any longer. And there have been all of these reports that Khomeini is going to be killed by the Israelis, but Trump has been holding him back. We don't know whether or not we can believe any of this because we're in the fog of intentional disinformation in order to gain advantage in the war. What Khomeini is saying there, and he's been under pressure for years now because he's in his 80s.

It's like, guys, you need to come up with a successor, but he'd been pushing off this creation of a successor. So now today he's announced, all right, we're gonna do a successor. What does that mean? You can kill him, you can bomb the nuclear sites. What he's trying to signal is that the Iranian state is going to continue. From Israel, you hear them saying,

we need to get rid of this threat to us. We need to be done with this. It's like, be done with it how? Like it's it's a thing. It exists. It's going to it's going to it exists today. You can bomb it all night long. It will exist tomorrow and you can kill Khomeini and they'll have somebody else. Emily sorry just before you speak. Crystal could you put Ken Klippenstein's feed up? He has a report just out from a single minute ago, which is very important because there's two things that we all have to focus

on here right now. Regime change and potential escalation and retaliation by the both the Iranians and then escalation from the United States. So I'll read here from Ken, quote, the U.S. military is now briefing troops that it's strike on Iran, quote, will likely result in counter strikes on US bases and facilities in the Middle East and likely activate Iran and other foreign terrorist organization cells abroad, including the US to conduct strikes against US persons and facilities. According to a briefing I have obtained. So obviously Ken, great friend of the show with great reporting there, but that is the

nightmare. And that is why I'm so afraid that there is no stepping off this ladder now, that Donald Trump has again unilaterally put us on. You know, he says, peace. You know, you bomb a country and pay for prey for peace. As Ryan just highlighted, you know, the Iranian state is arguably, I mean, at this point, something Sorab Amari said on our show that I have really been thinking about is that in a way, you know, the Iranians were so infiltrated by Mossad

that initially it was a disaster and it was a total humiliation, but they've regrouped to a point where they've been able to militarily continue their activity against Israel, at least with some limited amount of success to the point where the Israel's own reporters are saying this place looks like Gaza. So that's their still, you know, military capability. We have to look to the Straits of Hormuz. The barrel boil price could go to $100 per barrel. All of our U.S. facilities in Iraq and in Syria. I mean, there's so many Iranian proxy groups all over the country of Iraq. The government of Iraq, by the way, will not be supporting us very much.

They protested our own action just today at the United Nations. And the Gulf Arab states also are not supportive of this. So the logistics operation is a total nightmare if this thing gets worse, two carrier strike groups in the region. So I just, you know, we have to highlight that. Go ahead, Emily, sorry.

Well, no, I was actually gonna ask you where we should be looking at retaliatory Action potentially happening. Literally rock is a big one Iraq is a really big one because Iraq is actually the place where our forces are probably the least protected and are very vulnerable Possibly to getting rushed by like those ground cut up has has bowl of folks Who have rockets who for now have not had the Straits of Hormuz is the biggest one. Also don't forget about the Houthis, which despite bombing the shit out of them for what,

like 10, 12 years straight now or something, it's still maintained. And Saqr while you're talking, let me put this up on the screen. This is your point. Secretary General of Al-Nujaba, Iraq's, Iraq is filled with these Iranian backed militia groups.

One of the biggest ones said, you bomb them, you know, we're going to target Americans, not just military, but also civilian. And there are thousands and thousands of Americans, you know, running around. Not to mention as a story that Crystal and I highlighted in our show, do you know how many Americans are trapped inside of Israel right now? Hundreds of thousands. There is no, there are no evacuation flights. The entire airspace is closed.

So we could possibly see something there. Who knows what the Iranian response will be. And we have what, 10,000 service members in Qatar? Which Qatar has been engaging in direct diplomacy with Iran saying like, look, we're not involved with this. Please don't hit us. Yeah. And Saudi and the UAE have been saying the same thing.

We're sorry that we are this close to the United States. We're not doing this. Please do not retaliate against us. Well, and twice, I think it really bears emphasizing, twice now, we used the pretext of supposed diplomatic negotiations as a ruse. I mean, how serious can you be about negotiations? Actually, Tim Dillon was making this joke, when you're killing the people you're negotiating with. Is that a serious? You're serious about diplomacy when you're murdering the people that you're supposed to be dealing with.

So now twice over the course of just weeks, we've used pretend diplomacy to run cover for bombing campaigns. So not only with Iran and the future, because now I'm sure Trump, when he comes out tonight, he's going to say, here's a few things I predict he's going to say. First, he's going to say, we tried, you know, that we tried, we were at the table with them, they just were obstinate. They wouldn't come around. We tried again.

They rejected us again. And he's probably, he may even say, Hey, now come to the table. Now let's, now let's come to a deal. Who in their right mind you're threatening right now to kill their leader. Actually, if you're Iran, you're thinking now, we should have had a bomb long ago to prevent exactly what's unfolding right now. So, Sagar, you were pointing out the polymarket odds of Iran developing a nuclear weapon have actually gone up because that is the actual logic that we've created.

And I want to emphasize this because this is so important in terms of thinking about where we're going to go next. Because now what the hawks are going to say is you can see the polymarket odds there. Now what the hawks are going to say is, well, maybe we took out Fordow, or maybe we degraded Fordow, but they still have these capabilities. And by the way, they can still build that. And we still have this evil regime in place.

And as long as they're in place, we can't feel safe that they're not going to build a nuclear weapon. And then, okay, so what do you do then? Oh, well, I guess we just have to take this regime out and let democracy flourish and, you know, install the Shah's phantom or whatever the bullshit is going to be. But that's the way this logic goes. And listen, Bibi Netanyahu knows that, right? But I also, I am so reluctant in a sense to bring him into this because there's all this

language, oh, we got dragged into war and Trump's getting tricked. Bullshit. Yes. This man promised to bomb Iran on the campaign trail. Multiple times. You can go look at the White House feed. They put out a very nice compilation of all the times that he said that Iran can't have a nuke and he specifically said that we should be bombing,

that their nuclear facilities should be bombed multiple times on the campaign trail. Okay, Joe Biden, million issues with him. According to the reporting, the Israelis have been pushing this regime shame operation for years at this point. And the Biden administration said, no, this would be too catastrophic.

This is a bad idea. No, no, no. From what we can tell, Trump did the same for a while. You know, this is not a good idea. I can see how this would go poorly. I can see how this would, you know, get us involved in all sorts of things we don't necessarily want to be involved with and got other priorities, et cetera. And then he gets to a point and he decides, you know, I'm bored with these

negotiations, let's just bomb them. Doesn't that seem quick? Doesn't that seem easy? And now here we are on this chain of escalation that it, listen, maybe we'll be wrong. Maybe they'll just bomb Fordow and that'll be it. And there'll be no retaliation. There'll be no fallout. We won't get pulled even further.

And maybe that'll be it. But it is very hard to see how that is what plays out here. Ultimately. I think I've said this before. I'll just reiterate it. The best case scenario right now is Libya. That is the best case. The best case is we came, we saw, we bombed, and we left.

Right? And it's 10 years, 10 to 15 years of chaos. It erupted into a 15 year civil war and the rise of ISIS. But then of course the beautiful democracy. Democracy rises like a phoenix. A thriving democracy that we have right now. I also, I think Crystal is so correct. Like Israel, Israel is both a primary and a secondary actor,

but at the end of the day, like they are the secondary actor now, especially with Donald Trump. One thing I do especially wanna highlight on the regime change front is I have been watching this Re up. I'll be stopped very closely Which which I know it sounds crazy But we talked about it here before Fox News is referring to this guy as his royal highness

Crystal if you want my latest tweet is specifically highlighting a Israeli report that came out just three hours ago. This is from Ynet news Inside of Israel this Emily Schrader, quote, multiple sources, there are discussions ongoing with the United States and the Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi for the day after the Islamic regime fails. So as you can see, that is a very, that look, I mean, I am forced at this point to take these seriously.

I also would highlight Pahlavi's latest tweet himself. He says says sources inside Iran say that regimes command and control structures are collapsing at a rapid pace. Meanwhile, the international community is beginning to realize the Islamic Republic and has no future. Our discussions about a post Islamic Republic Iran have begun. We have our Ahmed Chalabi. And I'll be honest, Ahmed Chalabi was way more legitimate as legitimate as he was. I think that's true.

And the Shah. Fail son. That's actually one of the things, Emily, I was thinking about today is like, I am actually in disbelief. As negative of an opinion as I have of Donald Trump, I am actually in disbelief that we're doing this again. And it's so much dumber because at least in Iraq where they bothered to have a propaganda show for us. They bothered, and we were all, after 9-11, we were galvanized, we wanted to do something. They put on the propaganda show and they had Colin Pallet,

they did the whole thing. I really want people to think about this. We have not been offered one shred of intelligence that suggests Iran was close to or developing a nuclear weapon. Our own intelligence community says they're not. The IAEA says they're not. And all Trump says is, well, I don't care what Tulsi Gabbard said. Trust me. That's basically it. And Sagar, I know you're reporting that none of the in new quote unquote new intelligence comes from our own intelligence community. We're trusting the

word of the Israelis. How many decades have they been saying Iran is the day or a week or a month or a year or whatever away away from a bomb. Yeah, I can… The stupidity? And like they think we are so stupid. And when I see the propaganda, and Fox News is the absolute worst, they're the ones out there calling the Shah fail son his royal highness and ready to put him right on the throne. CNN is egregious.

The little bit I watch of MSNBC was slightly more tolerable, I'll say, if you're going to grade them in terms of rank just because they're negatively polarized against Trump. But I can't believe how easy it is to whip these—well, I can. Sadly, I can. But it's astonishing to see how quickly you can whip these places up into total manufacturing consent, propaganda shops, regurgitating whatever it is that the administration wants them to, framing it in the way they want it to be framed. And it is so wild to me to see this all playing out again, but in a speed run, like social media AI slot version of what we got the original time.

So this is 24 minutes apart. 24 minutes apart, Matt Gaetz. On the one hand, he's saying, I'm so proud of this administration in reference to an Alex Ward report that Rubio has told European allies the Trump administration's preferred option with Iran is a diplomatic deal. Then after Trump posts on True Social that Fordow was bombed, Matt Gates says, President Trump basically wants this to be like the Soleimani strike, one and done, no regime change war.

Now for what it's worth, Matt Gates is somebody who, when he was in Congress, was adamantly in opposition to the way war powers have been used and abused by presidents in the last two decades. And actually the comparison with the Bush administration is interesting because I take issue with the way that George W. Bush used war powers, but at least they went, did some semblance of going to Congress. Yeah. And now we're looking at the imminent, potentially the imminent deaths of American service members in a war that

we have entered because we have just dropped massive bombs on another country with no congressional authorization. So I just want to say I've been checking in with sources, I know we all have, but a couple of things from just two people close to the administration, one referred to this and Crystal, this gets to the politics that you were talking about. One referred to this, and Crystal, this gets to the politics that you were talking about. One referred to this furiously as a betrayal and went on in all kinds of different colorful ways about how exactly this is a betrayal. Another says the staff at the White House is split pretty much down the center. That's their estimate on what this is.

A lot of people are being very vocal behind closed doors about being opposed to any use of force in this situation. Other people saying even more intense things from that. Some are worried that because the NSC was gutted not long ago, that you're going to have a lot of resentment in the NSC about what happened after the gutting of the NSC. So I think that's actually somewhat interesting to the point that you were making about we had that post of Michael Tracy posted Douglas McGregor at the Maha rescue the Republic rally on the National Mall a couple of weeks before the election where it was like barefoot

hippies and evangelical Christians I know know, because I went and covered it. And a lot of it was about peace. It was a lot of hope and change, optimism about Donald Trump being the peace candidate. And that's where you saw the like horseshoe of the hippies and mega evangelicals coming together under the banner of peace. I think it is really cheap talk to have people in the administration now leaking that JD Vance was reportedly being vocal against it. I think we're going to see a whole lot of ass covering through leaks in the next few weeks. I think a lot of that is really cheap. It also speaks to how powerful the war machine is.

This is something Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon were talking about in their conversations recently that once that thing gets going, if Donald Trump and the people around him are being cowed by it, it's over. Nobody will ever stand up to it. Whatever you think of that assessment, I think it's wrong because Trump is much more of a warmonger than people give him credit for. But whatever you think of that assessment. That was their view.

Look, I mean, this is all for another day. This is just a much bigger conversation about the failure of the quote unquote anti-war movement and all of this. I mean, I think for what it's worth, I don't think I ever said Trump would be anti-war. I was expecting him to be extremely pro-Israel. Did I expect him to bomb Iran? No. And I'll be honest about why. The main reason was because there actually was a professional project over the last four and a half years to basically operationalize, quote unquote, restraint style views. And the cope from a lot of the people on the inside was, yeah, he says a lot of shit

to get Miriam Angelson's endorsement. And look, of course you're gonna get, you know, you're gonna get, look, Gaza's gone. You know, I think I said that. I was like, that's gonna happen. And all of this. But in terms of active intervention, you know, the John Kelly and the Mattis style people

who were actually pushing this in the first term, they're out now, and so a lot of that influence won't happen. But instead, what's actually, it's fascinating. There's been an inverse where I can back up what Emily is saying. There is a massive amount of this administration which is furious about this decision. I'm talking all the way from the top to the bottom, inside of the White House and inside of the Pentagon, the State Department, the CIA, the ODNI, in terms of the political appointees. But this time around, the pressure is largely been from the extra, it's been Mark Levin, it's been the foundation, Defense of Democracies, it's been these major pro-Israel groups and specifically the coordination. Fox News, right?

The Murdoch family, the Israeli government is basically working hand and foot with those folks. And what they did, and this is really the indictment of Trump, and actually is gonna force me to rethink a lot of my priors, is what they did is they used the chaos and the lack of inner agency of Trump and his sheer accessibility of anybody he would talk to to influence a lot of his thinking

and to actually circumvent so much of his professional staff. So that's more of like an inside baseball thing. But I do want to return to the intelligence because this is a very important story. No matter what Donald Trump says, I'm telling you this and I can back this up. And one day the Iran War Study Group will come out into the, you know, as it did in 06, which showed that all the Iraq war Intel was bullshit. Well one day this will all come out. So unfortunately, you have to wait a little bit to see it in writing.

There is not one scrap of United States intelligence that backs up the claim that Iran was actively trying to make a nuclear weapon. Now what you're going to hear a lot about is something called highly enriched uranium. We're going to have Scott Horton on the show on Monday. He's going to break all this down in a much better way than I can. What they are going to claim is that having the capacity, the capacity, using that capacity of where they are at 60%, and then the timeline between 60 and 90%,

and then the timeline from there for assembly was the reason for the strike. Now, remember, this gets to the Tulsi Gabbard point about what she testified. I was just gonna pull up her most recent post. Go ahead, please do. Because what has happened is that Tulsi Gabbard point about what she testified. Her most recent post. Go ahead. Please do. Because what has happened is that Tulsi herself is now a turncoat.

She is the Colin Powell of this administration by faking the way that US intelligence actually thinks to present a false case for why this strike was supposed to happen. If you want to put it up, Emily. So here's what she says. She says, the dishonest media is intentionally taking my testimony out of context, spreading fake news as a way to manufacture division. America has intelligence that Iran is at the point that it can produce a nuclear weapon within weeks to months. Let me tell you something again. That sentence is complete made up bullshit. America does not have that intelligence. Israel

has that intelligence. And she knows it. America has Israeli intelligence. And she knows it. And she knows it. America has Israeli intelligence. This is how she's doing it. America has Israeli intelligence, according to your reporting, Sagar. And when she says, this is where it gets really Colin Powell-y, within weeks to months, produce a nuclear weapon within weeks to months. And that's where suddenly this becoming a crisis in the last few days doesn't even comport with her explicit statement there. Yes. And also, again- And she has the video there. You can listen to it. You can watch it. And you can read it too.

You can watch it. This is something we were talking about before. This is the new thing, is to put on a video and put some text with it that completely contradicts the video and just hope nobody watches it and puts two and two together. That's how dumb they think that we are. That's how dishonest they are. And listen, do you all think there will be a single resignation from this administration? I mean, if anyone was going to, it should be Tulsi. This was supposed to be her whole bit.

To the extent she had any shred of a principle left that she was still interesting and maintaining, this was it. And listen, when she didn't support honestly, Biden getting out of Afghanistan, which you know, was obviously like really unpopular and she was over on Fox News, I think she had a contributorship or whatever. She was conveniently absent for the first portion of it. And then she went on and you know, wasn't supportive of that. It's like, okay, you don't actually believe anything. And unfortunately, those of us who have been saying that, proven correct. You believe in your own ambition. You're going to say what you need to say to keep your job. And you have no shred of integrity. No one should trust a word out of your mouth.

Well, especially on the intelligence. Again, that is not American intelligence. It's Israeli intelligence. And by the way, the US intelligence community does not agree with that. And by the way, you know, just even stepping back even further, this claim that 60% uranium is just so magically easy to turn into 90% and then magically easy to put on top of a ballistic missile, which is then magically going to reach New York City. What the fuck are we talking about? Again, Scott will explain a lot of this, but I'm telling you, at a technical level, it is ridiculous, even on its face, if they wanted to, which they do not. And instead, Trump has fulfilled, this is another thing, I mean, it's not just my reporting,

it's New York Times as well. I didn't put this in there because it was already out. The only two things that America believes that would make Iran produce a nuclear weapon is hitting Fordo and assassinating the Ayatollah. So we just fulfilled one of them. Yeah. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. And they're trying for the other one, clearly trying for the other one.

I mean, and just like, can we be adults here and not be children? Why do they have this Hylian Richeranium? Because they need it for leverage to keep Israel from bombing them and us for bombing. It's a negotiating to, obviously, clearly, try for five seconds to think about how they may be doing things. Israel is wiping Gaza off the map. They've accelerated their level of massacres. These aid massacres have just continued endlessly day after day after day.

They have watched Israel turn Gaza into rubble, you know, destroy Haswell, like bomb all sorts of the neighborhood, and they're supposed to feel comfy, like, oh, sure, we'll just like disarm and give up, you know, any sort of credible deterrent threat against Israel nation that has at least 90 nuclear weapons and isn't in the non-proliferation treaty. Like, and Iran is supposed to just, you to just feel like they can sit back and be comfy and not be threatened

at all. Let's be grownups about this situation and understand what we're dealing with here. It's so insane to me and I'm already seeing a number of the MAGA figures who were claiming that they were against this. You've already got Charlie Kirk here out saying, with the weight of the world on his shoulders, President Trump acted for the betterment of humanity. For the next few hours,

spare us the armchair quarterbacking saga. Instead, trust our commander in chief. I told you, this is Versailles. And this is, you're so right. It's a perfect way to be questioned. Yeah. No, and that's it. And that's the danger of having a movement built around a cult of personality.

You've got your little views about what this movement is. It doesn't matter what Charlie Kirk or Steve Banner Tucker or anyone else thinks. America first is or MAGA is or whatever. At the end of the day. Literally Don Jr. It doesn't matter what Don Jr. thinks. No. It's what Trump thinks what he does. And if, I don't know, anyone who hasn't learned that

by this point, I don't even know what to say. Yeah. And continuing in this vein, I mean, for, yeah, look, MAGA and all that, that's probably the most insignificant story at this point, just because I don't think this is a political question now, because now this is in the hands of the Iranians and the U.S. military. It's not even in the hands of Congress. It's in the hands of a single man and the lives of literally millions of people are at stake. Remember Mr. Evacuate Tehran.

So I'm not exaggerating when I say millions of people's lives are actually here at stake. Let me put this up, guys, I'll spare you having to listen to Sean Hannity, but he's claiming here, I just spoke to the president, have new information appears the US completely obliterated Iran's top secret nuclear facility with six huge bunker buster bombs, two other nuclear sites wiped out with 30 Tomahawk missiles launched by submarines 400 miles away. Yeah, and they are they are gleeful over there. Gleeful. So RCP reporting that Trump and Netanyahu spoke after the strike was complete and the

US also gave Israel a quote unquote heads up before the strike. No surprise there, but uh, interesting that of course Trump immediately got on the phone with Netanyahu. That is crazy. Miss six is a lot higher actually than initially was telegraphed. Wow. Yeah, this is, uh, I was just looking here at the equivalent power of TNT. This is just shitload of TNT here that was dropped then

What soccer is a million dollars a pop so we're the actually the production costs. I don't even know I mean, that's probably the tech technical that doesn't even keep in mind a lot of the research is 2.4 metric tons of high explosive It doesn't it's not worth getting into the point is this is absolutely massive bomb. It's less than a It doesn't it's not worth getting into the point is this is absolutely massive bomb. It's less than a nuclear weapon, but it is still like it's very very significant to be dropped and then they said 30 Tomahawk missiles That were fired. Is that what he said 30 Tomahawk missiles from Sean Hannity? So I mean, that's an extraordinary By Probably indicates the US Navy was involved then in terms of where they were, in terms of how they were used.

It's again, here it does indicate we got two carrier strike groups there. We've got the Straits of Hormuz, which everybody is taking a look at. We've got all these bases in Iraq and in Syria. The potential here again for a serious, serious problem with US forces is very high and it will just lead to immediate snapback. The congressional question is very important as well. I mean, I don't expect anything to happen. It's just Thomas Massey and 45 other Republicans already the leaders of both chambers.

No, 45, you mean 45 Democrats. Sorry, Democrats. Yeah, I am. Yeah, he's the only Republican who had the balls to sign onto it. So Speaker Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune have both now approved of the strike. So the both two leaders of the Houses of Congress

are basically saying, hey, great job. They're not even saying that you had to come to us and to seek approval from Congress. I mean, and it's just, again, just demonstrates like we truly, like our fate is, you know, and it's just, again, just demonstrates like we truly, like our fate is in Trump's hands. And that's insane. And it is something now where he has,

he has created this situation. It's a situation where, you know, the domestic implications of this, I don't wanna undermine either. This whole, you know, this whole like DOJ anti-Semitism thing. I mean, by tomorrow, this show and everything we're saying is anti-Semitic. As we all know. That's a good point. It's going to be anti-Semitic to say that we've declared war, you know, an unconstitutional

war on Iran. We all know already, Emily, I'm sure you'll get this reference, famously Crystal in 2003, David Frum wrote a national review piece called Unpatriotic Conservatives. And do you know who he called anti-Semitic in that? Yeah. Oh, good. But do you know who he called anti-Semitic? Robert Novak, a Jew, converted to Catholicism. But yeah, no, it doesn't matter.

Nothing matters. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, proudly was apparently included in the 2025 version of unpatriotic conservatism from National Review. But that's my point is the propaganda effort, like Crystal is saying, is going to be crazy. I'm already seeing, Crystal, like you said, people- We can't underestimate it either. Oh, it's crazy. I mean, we covered the polling here. People don't want to believe it. It's

true. The people who are glee to those television screens, they're bringing on people again. And look, I hate to talk shit about people who served our country, but Fox News brings in a guy who's like a Delta Force operator. And I'm the only one being like, why do we have a former guy who participated in terrorism raids talking about a B-2 bot? And he's like, oh, President Trump had no choice. That was the immediate reaction that I'm watching over there. And I was like, to the untrained ear, makes sense. But to somebody who, you know, knows a little bit,

you're like, dude, you know, what are you talking about? You don't know literally anything about what's happening here. And you've got Sean Hannity beating his chest. Apparently the coverage on CNN is equal. I just saw Tommy Veeder and some of the Pod Save guys being like, hey, could anyone on CNN just like not cheerlead war with Iran?

I mean, even this is the one time they'll find their way to being able to praise Trump. Yeah, I heard Fareed Zakaria who's supposed to be one of the intelligent people there being like, oh, I think Trump really tried for the diplomacy. It's like, what part of murdering the negotiators makes you feel like he really gave the diplomacy his full try not to mention the fact he is the one who withdrew from the original diplomatic

deal that we were in and was working successfully. Thank you very much. But I think we should probably wrap this so we can get it uploaded and get it out and watch what the president has to say. One thing I have a note here Iranian TV is saying no nuclear radiation is expected and all enriched uranium has been removed from nuclear facilities in advance. That's according to Iranian state TV. So anyway, that's what they're putting out there. Last thoughts from you guys. What do you think the president is going to say tonight?

What do you expect his remarks? What do you expect the framing of his remarks to be? And sort of last thoughts on where you think we go from here. I think he's going to say, I had no choice. Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon, as I've said repeatedly, peace through strength. Iran, you should give up now and we can make a deal. I think that's large. And obviously a celebration of the B2s. Yeah. It's going to be very, yeah.

Peace framing. Yeah. And the, you know, the, oh, now we can make a deal, diplomacy now. What did his post say? It's like something about, you know, praying for Easter. Now is the time for peace. Now is the time for peace. As we're bombing them. Okay.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Last thing I'll say, my final word, because I really think this is so important, Sagar, from our looking at the polling, and Emily, I know you will see the same thing. I have never seen an issue where it matters more how the issue is framed. Yes. If you say, hey, we got to bomb them to keep them from getting a nuke, they're about to get a nuke. Guess what? You get a lot of Americans who are like, oh, that sounds, let's, we got to do that. When the question was framed as should America get involved in the war between Israel and Iran, basically like this is something they're doing, people are like, hell no, why would we do that?

And I'm sure if you ask people, hey, should we do a regime change war in Iran? They'd be like, are you high? Like, no, have you learned absolutely nothing? And so listen, we are, you know, we're doing all we can over here. Independent media has a much larger, vastly larger footprint than it did during the Iraq war. But I just, I really implore people to understand what is happening here. This is not about a nuclear weapon.

This is about a regime change war. And please make sure that, you know, whoever you're talking to speak about it in those terms, because that's what's really going on here. And that I know the American people will not support. Yeah, you're exactly right. All we can hope is that it fails. It somehow is stopped in its track. But I'm not optimistic tonight. I'm all right, guys. Well, we're going to watch what the president has to say. You know, we may be doing more breaking news videos over the course of the weekend. and we have already planned a monster Show for Monday. I'll just leave it at that as we're nailing in the guest lineup

But the people that you will like most want to hear from on this we are going to be fortunate to have joining us on Monday So thank you guys. Appreciate you all and we will see you soon Just like great shoes great books take you places through unforgettable love stories and into conversations with characters you'll never forget. I think any good romance, it gives me this feeling of like butterflies. I'm Danielle Robay and this is Bookmarked

by Reese's Book Club, the new podcast from Hello Sunshine and iHeart Podcasts where we dive into the stories that shape us on the page and off. Each week I'm joined by authors, celebs, book talk stars, and more for conversations that will make you laugh, cry, and add way too many books to your TBR pile. Listen to Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This week on Dear Chelsea with me, Chelsea Handler, Sophia Bush is here. Tell me how that feels to be considered a hot lesbian.

Quite an honor. You know what's funny? When you're actually more fluid with your sexuality, the swing goes from nobody gives a shit who you're sleeping with to you better identify exactly who you are so we can figure out what name to call you. And it's like, has nobody been paying attention to like all the hot girls I've been kissing on camera? Hi, I've always been here.

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