The Dan Bongino Show - Have They Done The Impossible? | Episode 67

Episode Date: June 18, 2025

President Trump's relentless campaign against illegal immigration may have finally paid off. Also in this episode: we discuss the developments in Iran with Gabriel Noronha, the former State Dep. Advisor for Iran.  Wages For Blue-Collar Workers Increase By Nearly 2 Percent Under Trump ⁠https://dailycaller.com/2025/06/17/blue-collar-workers-nearly-2-percent-wage-increase-trump-scott-bessent/⁠ Pentagon Mobilizing Military Personnel To Support ICE ⁠https://dailycaller.com/2025/06/17/pentagon-mobilizing-military-personnel-to-support-ice/⁠ Tulsi Gabbard Accuses Media Of Taking Her Out Of Context After Trump Addresses Iran Assessment ⁠https://dailycaller.com/2025/06/17/tulsi-gabbard-donald-trump-odni-iran-nuclear-intelligence-uranium-enrichment/⁠ Sponsors: Fatty 15 - ⁠fatty15.com/VINCE⁠ Bon Charge - ⁠boncharge.com⁠ and use the code VINCE Brickhouse Nutrition - ⁠takelean.com⁠ Promo code: Vince20 Helix Sleep - Helixsleep.com/VINCE Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey there, welcome to Vince. Good to have you with us on a Wednesday. We've got updates on border security in the United States, the wishes by Democrats that Trump would actually run a police state. That is going on right now. And updates on what is happening with the war in Iran, including with a guy who used to work for President Trump

as one of the Iran experts, Gabriel Nararonha, is gonna join us today. We've got a lot to get into. Man, I'm glad you're here. The best damn audience in media, thank you for that. Always such a nice way to start the day, talking to you live on rumble.com slash Vince.

We're on the podcast, that's where you can listen to me. Thank you for that. Hey, I gotta thank the sponsors of this show that make all of this possible. Did you know, you know, you ever think about aging at all? Did you know that it is possible to slow it down? Dramatically, it is. As you get older and your energy starts to go down,

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starter kit by going to fatty15.com slash Vince. Use the code Vince at checkout. These statements and products have not been evaluated by the FDA. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Well, we have a brand new record on the border, zero, or as they might say across the border, settle. Zero, zero border crossers released into the United States last month. Well, that's pretty epic.

I love those details. In fact, Customs and Border Protection sharing this wonderful news late yesterday saying, thanks to the tireless efforts and diligent work of the men and women of CBP and the leadership of the president and secretary, Christie Noem, USBP, the border patrol, customs and border protection, CBP, released zero, zero, not a single one,

zero illegal aliens into our country in May. That is down from more than 62,000 in May of last year. This administration has seen the fastest improvement in American border security of all time. Well that's great news. That is really really good news. You know in a world where you and I are demanding maximum results, that number, that number zero, that's what we call maximum results results that's the best it can possibly be Now you don't you can't get better than this Tom Holman locks this thing down Zero people taken into custody by the federal government and then released into the United States in prior months where there's been any exceptions to this whatsoever

Tom Holman told us about this. The only time the very limited exceptions they made where they took illegals into custody and then brought them even deeper into the United States was when they were witnesses, relevant fact witnesses to various crimes that were being prosecuted in the United States or there was some sort of dramatic health crisis. Somebody was on the verge of death. So they said, okay, let's take them for a time. Let's bring them into the United States. Let's heal them up. That's it. But otherwise it's not happening at all.

And in fact, last month it didn't happen at all. Zero releases into the United States. This is a massive sea change, maximum results. I get that it's easy in the headlines to focus on the stuff where there's shortfalls, where there's things that aren't happening, or you're worried that there's not enough progress. I'm here to tell you, this is one of those moments

where we should say, thank God that they're hitting their marks. They're hitting them at perfectly zero, zero released into the United States. So a great update there. Also Tuesday night, last night, Tom Holman, Mr. How you doing, gives us another update here on what is going on with the president's leadership

and the number of people they've encountered on the border. Here's Tom Holman last night. He said, President Trump's leadership has resulted in the most secure border in this nation's history. In just the last 24 hours, the last 24 hours, the Border Patrol encountered a total of 95 illegal aliens across the entire southern border. 95 encounters of people trying to cross the entire southern border. That is the lowest number ever recorded. Again, ever recorded. Compare that to the Biden administration. They

surpassed more than 10,000 per day. On top of that, they released them, the vast majority of them into the United States of America. How many did we release under Trump in May? Zero. Zero releases 95 encounters, record lows. Tom says, of course, compare that to the 62,000 that Biden released last year in May. And then he goes on to say that, look, to continue this great work and make it permanent, we have to get that big, beautiful bill passed. We have to.

So we can finish the job. So we can have the biggest deportation operation that the American people voted for. God bless the men and women of CBP and ICE. President Trump is the game changer. Thomas D. Homan, U.S. border czar. How you doing? Okay. So how you doing? I'm doing well. I. Border Zahra. How you doing? Okay. So, how you doing?

I'm doing well. I'm doing a lot better now that you're in office. Thank you for that. Thank you for that. Tom Homan's serious about this. You doubt Tom Homan, Chet? You doubt him at all? You doubt any component to the Tom Homan role

in this government? I realize that even in Trump administrations, there are gonna be people from time to time who get jobs, and you're like, are you really up to snuff? Are you really on my side? You really serving me well? Are you really dedicated? Are you waking up and spending every meal just stewing over the mission and how much

and how fervently you need to attack that mission? I don't have that doubt with Holman. Yeah, that's right. Holman's got it going on, says XC Psych. Holman's got it going on. I love Tom, says Southern Patriot, 1776. No doubt, says Carol Ann Royal. Yeah. No doubt. So Tom Holman, Tom Holman's good. I know he was on with Steven Crowder yesterday. I gotta go back and check that out because I heard that there was some good conversation

there. But very, very happy to see. Also, Holman, the update I was giving you yesterday, and I'll reiterate here, Holman has got the deportation numbers up to two thousand per day He just told the Washington Post this past week Why is he talking to the Washington Post forget the Washington Post just come talk to me Tom just come talk to me I'll give you how you doing when you show up. How you doing Tom? How you doing? Yeah, how you doing? So we bring them back in we'll talk to them. We'll find out where they're at I know they want to get 3,000 a day minimum and they gotta get this big, beautiful bill passed.

They've gotta get this big, beautiful bill passed. That's gonna help them a lot. All right, so that's the update there. Now, I just wanna remind you something of something when it comes to the border and the lies that the left told, because they tell these lies, these are lies of expedience,

they just lie in the hopes that they'll convince the voters to go for it. But it is worth rubbing in their faces how dishonest, deceitful, and disgraceful they are. It really is. Just grab them by the back of the head and just rub their face in their lies. And this is true in the case of Joe Biden

and everybody else who was reading from the same script from the Democrat party last year during the election. Take a look at cut four here. Here's what Joe Biden had to say about why there were 64,000 people being released into the country in any given month by Joe Biden. Every day between now and November the American people are going to know that the only reason the border is not secure is Donald Trump and his MAGA Republican friends. The only reason, the only reason the border is wide open is because of the guy that we are prosecuting endlessly and who's trapped in courtrooms as we try and stop him from becoming president of the United States again. That's the only reason. The only reason is civilian Donald Trump decided to kick open the

border to create political damage for the Biden administration. It's the only reason. Of course, that was in every conceivable way a lie, deceit, horse crap. So here you have Joe Biden saying, oh, it was Trump's fault. You know, actually, no, Trump locked it down. What did Trump say in the joint session of Congress? What did he say? It turns out we didn't need new laws. All we needed was a new president. So President Trump comes in,

he's focusing the resources of the federal government on America's top priority, which is getting control of our country again. Getting control of our country. So good update there. And these control of our country. So good update there and these people are just ridiculous. They're ridiculous in every conceivable way. You know, right now, Democrats are trying to, they have been as long as Trump has been president of the United States in the intervening years and now while he's president again, they're trying to convince the voters that the president runs a police state, that he's an authoritarian

tyrant who's bashing down the doors of American citizens ready to deport them at a moment's notice. You've seen this over and over and over again. Democrat members of Congress claiming that they're scared that Trump is going to arrest them. Jim Acosta on his random podcast after he got canned by CNN claiming he's going to be arrested or the Democrats are going to be arrested or Jasmine Crockett is going to be arrested for no apparent reason other than they don't like Trump, therefore Trump's going to arrest

them. It's crazy. But here's the problem they're running into. Trump's not going to people's homes and arresting them. Trump's not sending the cops to Jasmine Crockett's pad to arrest her. That's not happening. They're not banging down the doors. They're not getting SWAT teams out there. They're not putting boats behind their houses.

They're not calling out CNN film crews to capture all of it. They're not going to airports and putting them in leg irons for no reason. They're not doing that. They're not treating them like Mark Halk was treated. They're not doing that. Or Peter Navarro or General Flynn. Nothing like that is happening. In fact, the only people who are being arrested like Mark Halk was treated. They're not doing that. Or Peter Navarro or General Flynn.

Nothing like that is happening. In fact, the only people who are being arrested are the people who are breaking the law. It's a very simple structure. If you break the law, there are consequences for you. And so what's happening right now is Democrats are desperate, desperate for attention from their base and desperate to create the theater around this idea that somehow Trump is running a police state. And they're so desperate, they're actually willing to attack police officers in order to be placed in handcuffs. That's what keeps happening over and over and over again.

So let me just give you an obvious example from this past week. There's a no-name California Senator, again, who nobody had ever heard of. His name is Alex some, what is it again? Padilla, Alex Padilla from California took to the floor of the United States Senate yesterday in order to relive what he was casting

as some sort of war crime, human rights violation, when he was arrested for like five seconds, detained for five seconds, by federal law enforcement after he tried to rush the stage where you had DHS Secretary Kristi Noem speaking in LA. This lunatic tried to rush the stage, demanding her to answer questions at a moment when she was literally in the middle of a speech. Secret Service sees this guy, FBI sees this guy, and they say, yeah, that's a threat. We're not going to let that happen. And then they gently take him and he's like, I'm a senator. I'm a senator. They bring him to the hallway and then they very carefully lay him down like a little

baby. They laid him down. They practically swaddled him as they gently asked him to put his hands behind his back so they could put handcuffs on. And so that's enough for Alex Padilla to act like the worst thing ever happened to this guy, that he was mistreated at levels that require the UN's intervention.

Take a look at Alex Padilla yesterday on the floor of the United States Senate. Here he is, crocodile tears and all. You've seen the video. I was pushed and pulled, struggled to maintain my balance. I was forced to the ground He's crying Show me a tear and then flat on my chest

And it's those handcuffed and Marched down a hallway Repeatedly asking why am I being detained? Not what yeah, did they tell me what Because they thought you were a lunatic I pray you never have a moment like this And he's like declaring I'm a senator, I'm a senator. Okay, sure you are, buddy. Let's go this way. We've got a straight jacket for you.

But I'm a senator, he says. He's got like a pasta strainer on his head. Yeah, okay. Crazy person. You're a psychopath. You're a psychopath. And, and, you know, to top it off, the whole point of all of this is because Trump didn't come to Alex Padilla's house and arrest him. That all of their fear mongering is not coming true. It was all just horseshit. It was all a lie. It was never going to happen. None of these guys were just going to be arrested at their homes. What do they think they are? Republicans? What do they think they are?

Christians? Catholics celebrating the traditional Latin mass? Who do they think is in charge? Joe Biden? No. When a, when, specifically when President Trump is in charge, all they're doing is following the law. If an American, I don't care who you are, if any person, illegal alien or otherwise, makes a rush at the DHS secretary, well you damn well are right that federal law enforcement is going to put cuffs on your ass. That's ridiculous. The whole

thing is preposterous. And they were they were totally gentle with him. And yeah, he wasn't wearing his senatorial pin or any of that stuff. It was it was nothing. He was creating a scene. The outcome he desired was the cops grabbing him and putting handcuffs on him. He's probably upset that they didn't rough him up more. The whole reason he has to explain in such unrelenting detail, and then I was on my knees, and then I was in a hallway, and then I was on my chest. The reason he's got to tell you all of those very boring details in a dramatic way

is because he doesn't have exciting details to share with you. He's full of garbage. And so that's Padilla. That's Padilla trying to make all of this seem like a big deal. And he's not alone. He's not alone. We get another one this week,

a mayoral candidate in New York. He's the New York City comptroller. His name is Brad Lander. And you had DHS officials who were trying to move an illegal alien through a hallway at the courthouse. And this psychopath, this Democrat psychopath decides to link arms with the illegal in order to drag him away from the police, trying to impede the officers,

trying to obstruct their process. And in, trying to impede the officers, trying to obstruct their process, and in the process, according to the officers, assaulting them as well. And so, you know, again, nobody went to Brad Lander's house. Nobody was bugging him. There's no police state here. This guy just started straight up violating the law. And when you F.A., well, it turns out in the Trump administration, you also F.O. Here's Brad Lander, another Democrat, making a run at the cops.

Do you have a judicial warrant? Do you have a judicial warrant? Can I see the judicial warrant? Can I see the warrant? I will let go when you show me the judicial warrant. Where is it? Where is the warrant? You're not you show me the warrant. Where is it? Where is the warrant? You'll let go when you show me the warrant.

I would like to see the warrant. I'll let go. I'd like to see the warrant. Where is the snow? Take him in! Step back! You don't have the authority to arrest U.S. citizens. Step back! You don't have the just making up laws. Yes they do. You violate the law they can arrest you.

I was just standing here do you hear him instantly lying to the police now all the cops saw it all the feds saw it that were around them, they saw what he was doing. He was grabbing the suspect and trying to pull the dude away from the police officers. He was shoving the cops in the process they say. He was assaulting them in other words. And he's caught on camera and then he's like, well you don't have the authority to arrest me like this. What website did you get that info from? Of course they have the authority to arrest you. You obstruct cops, you assault police officers? Yeah, they're gonna put handcuffs on you.

That makes all the sense in the world. And then he says, I was just standing here. Oh yeah, sure buddy, you were just standing here. So instantly lying, instantly lying. Don't believe your lying eyes. I was just standing here the whole time. Yeah, right. Desperate for attention.

That guy's running for mayor, and that's how he thinks he's gonna get attention. Whatever happened to the good old days? Remember when people used to just streak across a football field with a gambling website tattooed to their back? Remember that? You want attention?

Just run out in the middle of the Super Bowl. Wah! And you got like an address on the back of your, and like an permanent marker under your back. Now these guys are assaulting police officers for attention and to try and create this theory that, well actually we live in a police state. In fact, today there's a report in the New York Times

which is just the best, it's just the best. The New York Times has a piece up saying that Democrats are very desperate to be seen It's just the best. The New York Times has a piece up saying that Democrats are very desperate to be seen in all of these images. That images of handcuffed Democrats are starting to pile up in Trump's crackdown is the New York Times piece. Images of handcuffed Democrats are starting to pile up in Trump's crackdown.

Now, there's a couple of things about this headline that I wanna point out. One, it is weird that Democrats breaking the law is receiving attention, says the New York Times. There's normally not images of this. Normally, images aren't piling up. Normally, it's just happening and nobody's focused on it. So this is crazy, images are piling up.

They say federal agents have been arresting a growing number of the party's elected officials, fueling liberal outrage and conservative accusations that Democrats are carrying out. Publicity stunts. Yeah, it's not conservative accusations. It's just true. It's just true. Yes, conservatives are pointing that out, but it's true. These are publicity stunts. But I do love this. I love this is one of those moments where you see this and I thought this morning as I was drinking my blackout coffee and I'm looking at this thing and going, well, this is what I voted for.

I voted for handcuffing Democrats who break the law. In fact, I voted for handcuffing anybody who breaks the law. Isn't that wild? Oh, they're arresting these people. A United States Senator forced to the floor and handcuffed by federal agents for interrupting a news conference. A mayor taken into custody

by masked officials in military-style fatigues. A political candidate pushed against a wall and handcuffed in a dispute and an immigration courthouse. You see, with tensions rising over President Trump's mass deportation policies, the government crackdown is extending to the political opposition. And no kidding, you punch a cop, you're getting arrested. How hard is this? They mentioned this year, LaMonica

McIver, let me pull up LaMonica. They said earlier this year, this is already happening over and over. Earlier this year, FBI agents arrested a Milwaukee judge on charges that she had shielded an undocumented, that's an illegal alien they're referring to, from federal agents. And then last month, federal agents arrested Ross J. Baraka, the mayor of Newark, remember? Because he trespassed at a federal facility.

Then they later charged Representative LaMonica McIver of New Jersey, see the New York Times what they say here, in connection with a clash outside an immigration detention center. Look at the language, this language, this is how the media deceive. This right here is what the media specialize in. That little section of that sentence

is a euphemism for assaulting a police officer in connection with a clash outside an immigration detention center is how they describe it. No, she was charged for assaulting police officers, multiple police officers. This is the media specialty right here, what you just witnessed in connection with a clash outside an immigration detention center. What a bunch of garbage.

Leading Democrats are once outraged by the Trump administration's actions against immigrants, which have ensnared some American citizens, they say. Yeah, if you're wrapped up in illegal immigration, you're gonna get ensnared and keenly aware of how thorny the issues of immigration and law enforcement can be for their party, yada, yada, yada. But again, here's the core point that I'll emphasize here, and then we've got some other things to get to. Democrats are upset that Trump is not the monster that they pretended he is. They're upset that he's not the monster that they pretended he is.

They're upset that he's not coming to their door, not kicking it in, not sending Tom Homan in, that there aren't raids on civilians, on American citizens who are not credibly accused of breaking any laws or anything. Instead, they're upset that Trump is enforcing the law, getting the invaders out of our country. And they want to pretend like Trump is being mean to Americans. So what do they do? They assault police officers just so they can end up in handcuffs. And we cannot mock these people enough.

We cannot call them out enough. We cannot walk away from this and let them control the narrative. Instead, we have to seize every time they do this and rub it in their big, stupid faces. I think that's the key. Let me thank the sponsors of this show. That includes Bone Charge. Love Bone Charge. The infrared sauna blanket. I'm telling you, this is really cool.

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I haven't boned up on French lately, but bone charge works. Okay. Let me see here. We've got quite a bit going on. We've got everything that's going on in Iran right now. And let me just postulate something right now for you about the Iran debate. I know it's heated on social media right now. There's a massive, massive debate going on among people who, by the way, all support President

Trump. They all voted for him. I don't care what the left says about any of this. Their minds are shot. They're just completely gone on this subject. But on the right, there's a real and constructive debate going on, I think, about how do we get involved in Iran? What's in the American interest? And how do we ensure that we don't get sucked into some sort of quagmire again? Because that keeps happening over and over. If you let the establishment control this, if you let the establishment, not Donald Trump, not President Trump, I'm talking about the establishment, if they can pull the strings on this, they're going to give us the worst possible outcome. So I don't want them pulling the levers on this. I want President Trump pulling

the levers on this. He's President Trump pulling the levers on this. He's the guy I voted for. This is what we do in our constitutional republic. We empower the president of the United States to make these big decisions. And for far too long, those decisions have been wrested away from them. So I'm trusting Trump here.

And so that's the reason, I mentioned yesterday in some detail, as we are getting closer to strikes on Iran by the United States, that the president has two really big priorities that he's laid out over the years. One, keep us out of crazy wars. This is on foreign policy.

Keep us out of crazy wars. And two, Iran can't have a nuclear weapon. Iran can't have a nuclear weapon. Now, forgive me for being skeptical of the establishment's take on Iran because they've been telling us for the last what 30 years or so that Iran is weeks away from getting a nuclear weapon. Well, if you keep saying that, that's like the climate change people over 10 years away

from the planet being destroyed. I'm sorry. I can't trust you on this subject. I can't trust you on this subject because you keep telling me something and then the passage of time demonstrates that you weren't telling me the truth. So let's just stop that but at the same time President Trump who has dealt with this deep state dealt with this Intel community and Knows the rigging that goes on here. He believes right now that it is a real threat that they're on their way

JD Vance had a great tweet thread on this yesterday. He pointed out that like look Iran has Whatever you think of any of this, Iran has clearly enriched uranium well beyond what you need for civilian nuclear use. And there's really, you and I both know, there's really only one explanation for that because you wanna weaponize it. If you were just doing it for civilian research,

you don't bury it under a huge mountain called Fordo. That's the mountain that they're thinking about bunker busting right now with American aircraft. So those are all important ways to look at this. But that debate that we're seeing online, first of all, God bless the right for having debates. I prefer that. The left has this fascistic stranglehold

on what you're allowed to say and when you're allowed to say it, whether it's about vaccines or about transgender garbage, whatever. The right has real and generally healthy debates. Now, right now it's reached a fever pitch. People are accusing each other of all sorts of hyperbolic things. Like if you hesitate about jumping into another war,

people are accusing you of being a stooge of Iran. What are you a stooge for Iran? Because you don't like, no, I just would like to pause and hesitate and think this through. And then simultaneously, if your position is like, hey, look, maybe bunker busting Fordo is good, but let's pause on this whole regime change thing. If that's your position,

people are like, oh, you're for another quagmire. You're forgetting us into perpetual war. I don't like that. I think that these are false that these are false hyperboles being dropped into a very heated debate. What I want out of all of this is just an immense amount of sobriety, honest assessments. There's a clip going around right now

of Tucker Carlson talking to Ted Cruz. He did an interview with him, the teaser clip that was released yesterday. And in it, Tucker asks Ted, Senator Cruz, what the population of Iran is? What's the population of Iran? And Senator Cruz didn't have that information in mind. He didn't know off the top of his head.

And the two of them begin debating the subject pretty fiercely. And Ted Cruz cast it as, oh, you're trying to engage me in trivia, whatever. I don't know the answer off the top of my head, but what is it? And Tucker points out that it's 90 million people. That's ten times, by the way, the size of Israel. And the point that Tucker is clearly trying to make, and I know him well, is look, if you're a serious person who's engaged in serious foreign policy decisions, especially at a position of leadership like a Senator Ted Cruz,

it is really important that you know the fundamental breakdowns of the country that we're about to get into a broader war with. It's worth it. What is the sectarian breakdown in the country? What's the, you know, what kind of populations live there? What percentage are actually Persian? You know, there are 15,000 Jews that live in Iran. What's going to happen to them? That's a little known detail, 15,000 Jews that live in Iran. What's gonna happen to them?

That's a little known detail, but they do. They live in Iran. It really matters. What does the power vacuum create? Is there gonna be a migration crisis as a result of a broader war? If a regime change occurs, if the Ayatollah is killed in all of this.

What is China's role in all of this? What is the Strait of Hormuz gonna look like? Who's gonna control it? 20% of the world's energy. Just fundamental questions about what comes next. That's super reasonable. That is super reasonable to ask these questions. And so we're gonna do some of that coming up.

Gabriel Nerona is gonna join us here in just a moment. Looking forward to chatting with him. He is an Iran expert. He worked with President Trump in the last administration. And I just have a million questions, and Gabriel's a perfect guy to ask them. So we'll talk about that in just a moment. Before we get there, I gotta thank the sponsors.

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Okay, let's dive into the issue of Iran right now. Joining me on the Vince program is Gabriel Naronha. He is with Polaris. What's the full name of this organization again? Polaris National Security. Let's ask Gabe. Gabe is here. Hello, Gabriel Nerona.

Hey, how are you? Good morning. Good to talk to you again. Remind me Polaris. Polaris National Security. It's a thing I started about four years ago. That's right. Okay.

The Polaris National Security. Well, thank you as always, Gabriel. Nice to talk to you again. And Gabriel worked in the Trump administration. He was the key guy on Iran. Gabriel, we're seeing a lot of developments here right now with Iran. The debate seems to be, will there be bunker buster bombs dropped on this deep underground nuclear enrichment facility in Iran? Do you anticipate that that'll happen? So I think at some point, probably yes, but look, there's two things to think about first.

One is there's a large, nearly 1,000 kilograms of highly enriched uranium already in Fordome. And so the thing that comes through my mind is you wanna actually take that uranium out. You wanna be able to measure it, dispose of it properly. You know, my Tom Clancy novel idea is, let's say there's a bunker buster bomb, but all the uranium's down there, you know,

sometime down the road, people can go excavate it, get all that uranium, and that's not something I would want to have happen. And so I think there's actually, there's some value in going in on the ground first, taking out the facility, blowing up from the inside inside and then the other part is the fact that it's just a really valuable heavily fortified facility that's where I kind of want to blow up you know the mountain just to deprive the regime of a future

site it could reconstitute its nuclear program in they spent years building this site out. Yeah. Yeah. So you're the first, I've heard talk about this component of it. So when you say going on the ground, do you mean Israeli forces would do that? I mean, obviously there's an immense risk to human life

by sending ground troops into Iran. Absolutely, yeah. I'm out of the view that US ground troops should be involved in this operation at all. I just I don't think it's necessary. I've always said, look, this problem is core to US national security interests, but it is even more important to Israeli national security interests. And so if they want to be the ones leading the charge, that's fine with me. I think there's a good role for the United States to play, whether that's intelligence, whether that's aerial refueling. There are lots of other things behind the scenes.

But yeah, I think Israeli commanders can go in. And one of the things that we've seen the last almost week now of this conflict has been Israel taking out so much of the command and control, the top leadership, laying the groundwork so that if they are doing a ground operation, they've again paved the way for it to be successful to limit opposition and have full ability to take out any response forces that they encounter along the way.

It does seem to me, and you tell me in your expert assessment here, that no matter what happens here, it does seem like this will end up being a regime change operation, doesn't it? I mean, Khamenei is, I mean, he's functionally losing control over all of his leadership because they're all being killed with each passing day. And in the end, it looks like Israel and even quite a few people in the United States are sort of set on unseating him. Do you anticipate that he will be removed as leader by force? Yeah, that's a really interesting question. You know, I asked this to my Israeli colleagues the other day, and they said, look, it's not our goal of the operation, but it might happen as a

result of it. And if you look at the foundations of the regime, they've always been kept in power for the last, I'd say the last decade in particular, through brute force, through the ability to have their forces cracked down on any protests and slaughter, you know, as many as 1,500 people back in 2019 to retain power. And so what Israel's doing right now is they're taking away all that connective tissue that enabled the regime to suppress protests. I kind of don't see Hamenei making it out alive out of this. are taking away all that connective tissue that enable the regime to suppress protests. I kind of don't see Hamenei making it out alive out of this, whether that's from his own people, whether that's from the Israelis, whether that's from President Trump, possibly.

I think he is losing every grip on power. But when we talk about regime change, my question is, I'm not sure who comes in with an alternate force to actually sweep them away. I see a bit more of regime collapse, where the regime will simply not have the ability to govern anymore. The top generals are dead. It's lost all legitimacy, and it kind of crumbles away. But I'm not exactly sure what comes after that. That's... Isn't that a key component to all of this? Obviously, look, you have a pressing national security consideration. The president ran on preventing them from getting a nuclear weapon.

J.D. Vance, who has been urging restraint, comes out yesterday and of course points out that this nuclear enrichment is at absurd levels that is well beyond civilian use, saying, look, there's a perfectly good case to be made here and I trust President Trump to handle this. Got all that. But that point you just made, that it's hard to tell what comes next, shouldn't that be a primary policy consideration here, what that vacuum might create?

Because as you know, China has a vested interest in all of this. 90% of the energy that comes out of Iran goes to China. The Strait of Hormuz is on the line. 20% of the energy that flows around the world to China. The Strait of Hormuz is on the line. 20% of the energy that flows around the world comes out of the Strait of Hormuz. And in Iran, there's a wide variety of different ethnicities, including, as I was mentioning a moment ago, 15,000 Jews live in Iran.

I think there are any number of chaotic scenarios that can take place in the wake of the regime collapsing. You're absolutely right. I'll say one thing, when I was working in government, I was a little irritated that we didn't have better planning for what would happen if the regime did collapse. This was always sort of the problem of the important, but not the urgent.

And even so, in the last few months, I was telling my colleagues and friends saying, hey, we need to start planning. We need contingency plans. We need to think about reaching out with the opposition. Again, not necessarily saying that we should have a policy of regime change, but the regime change may come. Look at Syria.

We didn't have a policy regime change there, but the government got swept away, and a new government came in. And frankly, we were completely unprepared for it. We hadn't predicted it. We didn't really know the guy. We hadn't built relationships with the guy. And so we were months behind the ball on actually coming to any proactive solution there. And so that's the mistake that we've been making on Iran for a long time now, I think, is, again, trying to conflate the, oh, we don't want regime

change, which is fine. That's a fine position. But we have to be prepared. And so talking to most of the opposition groups are based either in the US or Europe, because if they're inside Iran, they've all been killed or they're in prison. And so I regularly talk to all the opposition groups. What I tell them is, look, I'm not going to make the choice on who's going to be the next leader of Iran. That's going to be your, that's the Iranian people's choice. But I want to have relationships with you. I want to be able to leader of Iran. That's going to be your, that's, that's the Iranian people's choice. But I want to have relationships with you. I want to be able to say, hey, we can work together. Yeah, we can have security arrangements, all

that. And so yeah, we should we should be thinking through that aggressively at the top levels of US government right now. Is so that again, on on this subject, I've seen a bunch of people claiming that the I believe it's the grandson of the Shah stands ready to go back in and possibly be the leader. Is there any reason to believe that the Iranian people are on board with that kind of plan? Yeah, so that, yeah, it's the son of the last Shah. His name is Reza Pahlavi.

He lives in northern Virginia. He's, you know, when you look at polling of Iranian inside Iran, and you said if you had a free and fair election today, who would you vote for? He gets about 35 to 40% of the vote. So he's actually massively popular inside Iran. And that's largely because there's a lot of Iranians that say, you know, we hate this regime.

Let's go back to the good old days under the Shah. Let's continue either a monarchy or, you know, we hate this regime. Let's go back to the good old days under under the Shah. Let's continue either a monarchy or you know what a lot of folks have suggested. And if you talk to a policy himself, he'll say, look, I don't need to be a monarch. I don't need to be king. Let me help lead a peaceful democratic transition. Let me be a figurehead. Let me be a stabilizing force. And so look, I've talked to him. I think he's a very stable, sober him. I think he's a very stable, sober person. I think he's got good leadership skills. But you're right. It is very difficult to install sort of someone that's lived in Northern Virginia for most of his life into a foreign country, which he hasn't lived in since 1979. It's risky. Again, we don't have

fantastic options. Also, we don't have fantastic options. Also, there's a sentiment that clearly exists all around the world that the United States keeps installing leaders and then the resentment that ensues leads to even more chaos. So that again, I don't know if we want to leave the whole world with that impression that we just installed some U.S. person to run Iran going forward. That said, I have to ask Gabriel, kind of in the lead up here to U.S. involvement, or more dramatic U.S. involvement

in the form of these bunker busters, I see a lot of people are making comparisons to the 2003 lead up to Iraq and what's going on in Iran right now. And especially with Iraq, these claims of like, look, there's all these WMDs, they've got mustard gas, we've got to go in, we've got to grab this stuff. And so simultaneously what's happening is a lot of people

are looking at the many years of claims about Iran's proximity to a nuclear weapon, which is like, oh, they're just days away, or they're weeks away from having a nuclear weapon, which as you know, having tracked this for a living, that's been the claim for as long as I've been alive. They've been, they've always been just a few weeks away from having a nuclear weapon. And so after a while, it begins to feel very synonymous with the lead up to Iraq, which is like, oh, wait a second, what's really going on here? So tell me,

take me if you can, through your thinking about what distinguishes these two countries and the way we should think about them. So you know I think a lot of experts talk about the Iranian nuclear program the wrong way and that's why the public got this impression that oh they're just stringing us along. So there's always been two separate timelines. One's always been classified and the other has always been a bit more public. The public one is the, you know, they are X days, X weeks, X months away from having the fissile material for a nuclear bomb. And that's always been public. It's, but what Iran has done is they've steadily decreased that number so that they're closer and closer, but they've never made that decision of, Oh,

we're actually going to break out. But they wanted to have that flexibility. But what was really concerning was on the classified side, and this is what caused Iran ultimately, sorry, it caused Israel to actually strike, was the getting the 15 or so components that you need to actually create a warhead, putting them all together and be able to use them to actually detonate something. My understanding is that Israel had detected Iran had built all 15 components of those bombs. And that was one of their main considerations for why they said we're actually going to go strike now.

The difference with Iraq is, look, Iraq was very faulty intelligence. It was premature. And look, it was done in the wake of 9-11, where frankly, the best explanation I can give is that taking down Afghanistan was too easy, and we were looking for something else to hit because our rage was so great after 9-11. Here in Iran, this has been a problem that's metastasized for, again, for two decades, for four and a half decades, if you look at it the long way. So I think there was really solid intelligence. I've seen a whole lot of it myself when I was in government. This was, again, a really serious program, a country of 90 million people, a lot of top scientists,

a very concerted effort built across 15, you know, 12 nuclear sites to develop this thing, and they were getting close. So how much did October 7th play a role in all of the things we're seeing right now? Because it does seem like the Israelis kind of decided that rather than playing the game of defense that they've been playing for many years, just trying to protect their own borders, instead, they said, okay, after October 7th, we're just going after our enemies wherever we can find them. So they went after Hamas, they went after Hezbollah,

they of course did that famous pager attack on Hezbollah. They've been striking now inside of Iran very aggressively. Israel has decided rather than, instead of playing a game of defense, that they're gonna go on offense against their enemies. And it looks like straight up to wipe out what remains of them. How much has that motivated the timeline

we're looking at right now? You're absolutely right. They said, we're not gonna go on defense. We're gonna do preemptive action to defend ourselves. But there's one even bigger consideration I think October 7th had on this. And that was Iran's great strategic mistake They were actually their strategic planners were actually somewhat upset about October 7th

Because they said Hamas jumped the gun and they did it before Iran was ready to have sort of their final Confrontation with Israel and so what they had intended is they said hey if we're gonna do something Let's do it all together, but Hamas jumped the gun. They got eliminated by themselves. No one stood up for Hamas. Hezbollah fired a number of rockets time over time. The Zis fired off a few, but Iran itself stayed back. And what that allowed was Israel could just wipe out Hamas by itself. And then they took out Hezbollah entirely by itself. And now Iran was completely defenseless. Its whole strategy was we're going to have Hamas and Hezbollah as our conventional deterrents.

We're going to have 140,000 missiles and rockets aimed at Tel Aviv, and if they ever are stupid enough to attack us into Iran, we'll obliterate Tel Aviv and Haifa and other Israeli cities. What October 7th did, incidentally, is it created a path for Israel to have its dream scenario of picking off these proxies one by one until there's just Iran left and then it could eviscerate it just by itself. Again, obviously October 7 itself was a horrible tragedy massacre, but strategically pretty good for Israel in the long term that we're seeing now. Okay, so tell me about Iran's military capabilities as you understand them today. The president yesterday posted a truth social that we, he just sort

of I think he was referring to the Israeli Air Force have control of the skies of Iran right now. We've got complete control. And it seems like a lot of the missile strikes, the ballistic missiles and the drones that they've been sending to Israel have had, although some of them have detonated, some of them have made impact, a lot of them are being intercepted and fewer and fewer by the day are even being launched, which might mean that they're exhausting some of their supply here. And additionally, the Iranians are saying this morning that if the United States gets directly involved by striking Iran, the Supreme Leader is threatening

to strike US military bases in the region. We're gonna start attacking Americans, he says. What are their capabilities? What is the likeliness of their ability to be able to pull off attacks on both Israelis and the United States? Well, first, the Air Force is basically non-existent at this point. All their planes they had were from pre-1979, so they're pretty much useless to begin with and even more so now. Israel's taken out almost all the air defense sites. They've taken out most of the radars, they've taken out any of the Russian S-300s

that were protecting sites. So Iran can't strike any air targets. What this means is that Israel can have total impunity. They can go anywhere, their aircraft can fly anywhere, strike anywhere without much fear of being taken down. That is something that Russia was not able to do in three years of war against Ukraine. It has never been able to achieve air superiority. It hasn't even come all that close, frankly. So that's the big game changer. Iran's ballistic missiles, they were supposed to have about 2,000 thousand at the start of the war. They've only been able to fire about 400 off and that's largely because Israel's destroyed all the launchers

or maybe not all the launchers but a really solid number of them. So if you look at the rate of missiles they're able to fire per day, started at about a hundred a day, now they're down to about 25 a day. Pretty pathetic and so Israel's Iron Dome can intercept almost all of them. If you told me a year ago that the Operation to Take Out Iran's nuclear program would result in only 12 Israeli fatalities, I'd say that you're lying. That just wasn't conceivable. And so again, that's where we are today. If they are threatening US bases, look, yes, they will be able to get off a couple dozen missiles at US bases. We'll be able to shoot down a lot of them, but not all of them. And so, yes, we could probably have US fatalities, I would guess

in the single digits, but if they get lucky with a hit on a bearish or something, yeah, you can have a lot more. But they don't have the desire, frankly, to get into a multi-front war with the United States and Israel. That would be the end of the regime. And I think they know that. And so they're talking a lot of bluster right now. The Iranian state media said that last night was supposed to be a night that would be remembered for centuries, and there'd be some incredible development and incredible strike back and they did nothing. They hit an empty piece of ground in Israel somewhere and that was it.

So is it your impression that they are essentially neutered militarily? That there isn't much they can do in the face of all of this? I mean, it does strike me, you know, all the talk about the population of Iran. It's a big country, 90 million people is a lot of people. Do the Iranians have a meaningful army at their disposal to create havoc? So they've got, you know, decent ground forces, but those ground forces would have to go all the

way to, you know, a thousand miles across across desert to hit Israel. That would be a joyful experience for the Israeli Air Force. They're Navy, they've got some destroyers, but not too much. Again, yeah, they're basically neutered. And what happens a week, two weeks from now, when the Israeli campaign is over or wrapping up, is there will be nothing significant to speak of, frankly. So again, I never want to be so callous and say, oh, we can just hit them with no consequences.

They can't do anything. Might be premature. But I'd say barely anything is probably the right response, unless they get lucky with a direct hit. OK, so who might rush to their defense, Gabriel and Irana? Are you concerned about any outside forces getting involved as a result of all of this? I mentioned China before. China has not been shy about doing military exercises with the Iranians in the past, and they obviously work very closely together. China buys all of their oil, so in terms of countries that are very

linked, you've got the CCP being very closely aligned with the Supreme Leader. Do you anticipate outside forces getting involved? You know, I would have thought that Chinese would have been more interested in doing something. Again, I think you lay out a pretty good case why it's in China's interest to have intervened, but they've made zero signs

that they're actually going to do anything. I think that's probably because they don't want to annoy the Arabs or the Israelis and they see this as a as a failed project It's sort of you're you're propping up a failing company with a loan And you know that company is gonna go bankrupt and I think that's sort of how they see it that it's yeah They wish they could have survived but they had made bad decisions and they're going to have to suffer the consequences by themselves. Russia is out. They've got their hands full in Ukraine. They're barely trying.

They're trying to push the offense there and they can't do it. So the simple answer is no. No one is going to come to their aid. No one's going to come to the defense. They've spent the last 45 years conducting terror attacks in just about every country on earth. They've tried to topple governments everywhere around the region. And so they have zero friends.

The only friends they had were Hezbollah was their was their only key proxy that was supposed to be their salvation in this moment. That was the whole plan that they were the four deployed forces. It does seem like they've alienated much of the Arab countries in the whole plan. But they were just seem like the forward deployed forces. And it does seem like they've alienated much of the Arab countries in the Middle East. The Qataris, I guess, are probably the closest linked to the Iranians.

But beyond that, they don't have not a lot of people are looking at them in the region and going, man, I really hope that country continues. Yeah, I think Qatar is the closest to them politically because they're a little bit more aligned in terms of sort of the spectrum of Islamist movements.

But they have very little military to speak of. They have a US military base, the largest military base in the Middle East is in Qatar, so they weren't ever going to act there. When I've talked to the Arabs, when I go to Saudi Arabia, I've met with MBS. Look, these guys are thrilled at what's happening today. You know, I imagine they don't drink a whole lot of alcohol, but it's reserved for occasions like this. Again, they're going to put out press releases, which talk about Zionist entities conducting

a genocidal war and all that kind of stuff. That's for show for their publics. The leadership hates Iran. It's been their number one enemy for years. The reason that UAE made peace with Israel, frankly, they said, hey, we have the same enemy. You guys are trying to do the righteous thing and doing our work for us. So again, I think what you'll actually see out of this is closer Israeli Arab ties than before, because people are, one, incredibly impressed

at what Israel's done, and two, they sort of say, we don't have to posture for that many people anymore. The Iranian regime was one of the ones fomenting so much of the anti-Israel speech, and now with them gone, there's a little bit less performance that they need to do. All right, if President Trump can pull this off he's gonna be historic for yet another reason. Gabriel Naronja you worked for him at the State Department grateful for your time today and continue the good work at Polaris

National Security. Thank you Gabriel good to talk to you. Always a pleasure. That's Gabriel Naronja appreciate him getting in here and yeah, it's look this is this goes right back to the core point I just want to know what the hell is gonna happen I just want to know what the hell and I know it's impossible to predict everything You know, there's gonna be elements that we're all gonna miss to all of this But it does strike me that it's within the American interest to know. Okay, well, we're gonna use Missiles and strike Iran what comes next American troops having their lives threatened Will there be missiles that strike American bases

as a result of all this? That matters a lot. And I know that there are people out there who want to be casual about all this, like, oh yeah, American lives, like it's fine, we should be there and we should definitely be a war. And this is like Lindsey Graham. Look at what Lindsey Graham said yesterday, cut five,

here he is on national television. Can you guarantee that? Can President Trump in any form? I can't, I can't. I mean, can you make the commitment that this would not lead to a longer war? I can guarantee you that if the Ayatollah gets a nuclear weapon, he will use it.

I believe that with all my heart and soul. So the men and women who serve, they're the ones going, not people answering a poll. And if you ask them, would you be willing to risk your life to stop the Ayatollah from having a nuclear weapon? you ask them would you be willing to risk your life to stop the autola from having a nuclear weapon all of them would say yes because it makes their country our country safer so we live in a world where you've got to come from problems you want to win war three Lindsey Graham says 100% of American troops want to go fight in Iran what the hell is wrong

with that guy? You know, again, wherever you are on any of these issues, if you're from a restraint or if you're taking out the nuclear program, the worst person you could possibly have go on national television to talk about all of this is Lindsey Leroy Jenkins Graham, who comes rushing in and is like, let's bomb them all, let's go to war, let's go to war with Agrabah. No, let's not is let's bomb them all let's go to war let's go to war with

Agrabah no let's not let's let's let's settle down. Cooler heads should prevail we need sobriety not whatever inebriation that was. Everyone needs to go the military wants to go to war relax settle down son settle down adults are speaking I don't know what you're doing it's not that uh it's it's it's unreal we'll keep tracking the breaking news news today. There's there's all sorts of breaking news, including the president just installed at his own expense two gigantic American flags at the White House. That's a great legacy. That'll last forever. I love that. But also, we're keeping our eyes on the skies. What's going on? Will there be the bombing campaign in Iran? I'll keep tracking the details

for you. Thanks as always for joining me on VINCE. I appreciate you being here, whether it's on the podcast or the live stream, rumble.com slash Vince. Always love talking to the best damn audience in media. And coming up today, I've got the radio show. Always do that 12 to three each weekday Eastern time. We got a big show ahead, huge show ahead. You can also join me for that live at rumble.com slash Vince or wherever your local radio stations might be.