The Matt Walsh Show - Breaking News: US Strikes Iran

Episode Date: February 28, 2026

After weeks of escalating tensions and failed negotiations, the United States has reportedly launched strikes on Iranian targets. The situation is rapidly developing. The Daily Wire is live with confirmed updates, expert analysis, and real-time coverage as events unfold. - - - Wired in Live is your front-row seat to the day’s biggest stories in politics and culture. Hosted by Cabot Phillips, this DailyWire+ exclusive delivers breaking news, sharp analysis, in-depth interviews, and the viral moments shaping the national conversation. Watch live every Thursday. Become a Daily Wire Member and watch all of our content ad-free: https://dailywire.com/subscribe 🍿 The Pendragon Cycle: Rise of the Merlin is now streaming exclusively on DailyWire+ https://dwplus.watch/ThePendragon - - - Privacy Policy: https://www.dailywire.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Good morning, everyone. I am Cabot Phillips. We are coming to you live from Daily Wire HQ for a special breaking edition of Wired in Live. After months of growing tensions, speculation, and ultimately multiple rounds of failed nuclear negotiations, the United States of America and Israel have begun a series of widespread air strikes targeting Iran in what President Trump called a, quote, massive and ongoing operation. The Department of War has dubbed this operation, Epic Fury. This story is rapidly developing. We're going to be getting new updates by the second. We'll bring you all of the latest news as it comes in.

But let's first start with what we know so far. And then we're going to get to some guests, including Michael Knowles and other experts from the region. President Trump announced this news early Saturday morning saying America will, quote, never be threatened by a nuclear-armed Iran. Again, we're still getting details, but it appears American strikes at the moment are focusing on Iranian nuclear sites, which the regime has worked to rebuild following Operation Midnight Hammer, along with naval facilities. For their part, the Israeli military is reportedly going after senior leadership within the regime. Their strikes have reportedly targeted top generals, the country's president and armed forces chief of staff,

and even the Ayatollah himself. We're still waiting for news on whether any of those men have been killed, but footage from Tehran shows smoke rising from a number of compounds that house the country's senior leadership, including the presidential palace. According to New York Times, satellite imagery appears to show that the Ayatollah's residence has been completely destroyed. Again, we're still waiting for his whereabouts, but there are also unconfirmed reports and footage that appear to show strikes targeting the home of former Iranian president Mahmoud Abmedadazab. His condition is not yet known either. Elsewhere, it's worth noting, Israeli media is reporting that Muhammad Pakpur, that's the head

of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, has been killed. So a senior leader there within the Iranian military confirmed killed. It's worth noting Iran's state-affiliated news agency published a list of officials that they claim were unharmed following the first volley of attacks. That list included a number of parliament members. The country's president and chief justice, they said were not harmed. However, it did not mention the Supreme Leader himself. There are rumblings on social media, rumblings in Israeli media that Israel feels confident

that their strikes may have taken out the Ayatollah. Again, that is not yet confirmed. But that will be the big question this morning. As the dust literally settles, everyone wants to know, has the Ayatollah been eliminated? Now, zooming out, according to numerous reports, this will not be a limited operation. Pentagon says these strikes will go on for at least the next few days, potentially even weeks. Right now, it appears as that the Pentagon is planning to launch one to two days' worth of strikes, wait for the dust to settle, reassess the damage on the battlefield, and then go back in for more. Again, this is going to go on. It sounds like for days to weeks, President Trump offered a sober warning that there may well

be American casualties saying, quote, this is what happens in war. Have a watch. My administration has taken every possible step to minimize the risk to U.S. personnel in the region. Even so, and I do not make this statement lightly, the Iranian regime seeks to kill. The lives of courageous American heroes may be lost and we may have casualties that often happens in war, but we're doing this, not for now. We're doing this for the future, and it is a noble mission.

We pray for every service member as they selflessly risk their lives to ensure that Americans and our children will never be threatened by a nuclear-armed Iran. We ask God to protect all of our heroes in harm's way. And we trust that with his help, the men and women of the armed forces will prevail. So the big question now is how Iran will respond. To give some context here, Iranian leaders have been saying for months that if the Ayatollah and other members of the country's leadership team were directly targeted, there would be, in their words, an unprecedented response.

It was the red line of sorts. They used the term existential threat to describe a potential attack on the Ayatollah. and now it appears that such an attack has taken place. It's already clear that this is a very different situation than what we saw back in June. That's when Trump first hit Iran in Operation Midnight Hammer. Now, remember, following those strikes, the Iranians offered a restrained,

mostly symbolic strike of their own in response. They targeted an American base in Qatar, sending 19 missiles. They actually went as far in that case as giving the U.S. advance notice that the strikes were coming, so most of their missiles were shot down and no casualties were reported. Basically, it was a face-saving measure from the Ayatollah.

The Iranians said if they were hit again, and especially if the Ayatollah's family and himself were targeted, that they would respond this time with the full force of their arsenal. And that appears to be happening. During Operation Midnight Hammer, the U.S. successfully targeted Iranian missile stockpiles early on. That significantly hindered their ability to launch retaliatory strikes. But this time, it looks like Iran is trying to fire off as many of those missiles as possible before they're potentially destroyed.

And we've already seen, again, an unprecedented flurry of explosions across the Middle East. The Iranian military in recent hours says they've already launched drones and missiles at Israel in what they're calling the first wave of retaliatory attacks. And the expectation from the Pentagon is that they will target any number of U.S. military bases across the region. There have been reports of explosions in Jordan, Kuwait, Dubai, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, and Qatar. The list is continuing to grow.

And at least some of those explosions do appear to have been on America. military bases. Again, because this is such a breaking story, we're waiting for details on whether there have been any U.S. casualties so far at the moment, we're told there have not been, but at least one of those explosions appears to have been significant. We're going to show you footage that reportedly depicts a missile targeting the headquarters of the United States Navy's Fifth Fleet in Bahrain. Again, you can see the magnitude of that strike. Reports again right now are that no American service members were harmed there. Fox says that thankfully the base had been largely evacuated. and that was a warehouse that had not been in use lately.

Now, the obvious goal of this operation is to knock out Iran's nuclear sites and weaken their military. But President Trump has also made clear that he supports regime change from within. In an extraordinary, really historic statement, Trump called this morning for the Iranian people to rise up and overthrow the Ayatollah's regime, saying, quote, take over your government. I say tonight, the hour of your freedom is at hand. Watch. Finally, to the great proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand. Stay sheltered. Don't leave your home. It's very dangerous outside. Bombs will be dropping everywhere. When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take.

This will be probably your only chance for generations. For many years, you have asked for America's help, but you never got it. No president. was willing to do what I am willing to do tonight. Now you have a president who is giving you what you want, so let's see how you respond. America is backing you with overwhelming strength and devastating force. Now is the time to seize control of your destiny

and to unleash the prosperous and glorious future that is close within your reach. This is the moment for action. Do not let it pass. Again, just historic, remarkable comments there from Trump directly telling the people of Iran to overthrow the regime. Now, the prospect of regime chains will ultimately come down to how the Iranian people respond to these attacks.

We've already seen massive historic demonstrations this year against the Ayatollah. And the White House is confident that sentiment will only grow as the regime continues to weaken or at least appear more weakened from within. To that point, we've already seen a number of videos that reportedly show Iranians celebrating this operation today. Here's one, for example, that appears to show students cheering the strikes. You can hear some of them yelling, I love Trump. For weeks now, Iranian leaders have been taunting the U.S. saying our aircraft carriers and jets, quote, will not do a damn thing in warning that they would send our ships, quote, to the bottom

of the ocean. Well, President Trump had a warning of his own in a response. Have a listen to another clip from that speech. It states armed forces. President Trump again there saying that the United States will make clear that they are not to be challenged and that the U.S. military is not to be trifled with. Now, as more and more Americans wake up to this news, many are likely asking about the timing. Why now? These strikes come less than 48 hours after a round of nuclear negotiations between the U.S. and Iran that the Iranians called productive. But clearly, the White House was not satisfied with what Iran was bringing to the table. For context, since retaking office, President Trump has been adamant that Iran could not be allowed to have a nuclear weapon. Last year,

he made diplomatic efforts to convince the Ayatollah to abandon his pursuit of nukes. And then when those talks failed, he launched Operation Midnight Hammer, decimating the country's nuclear program. But rather than pull back from their nuclear ambitions, U.S. intelligence says the country only doubled down on their efforts and that it was only a matter of time before they succeeded in producing a nuke. The two sides have held numerous rounds and negotiations over the last few months. And in the most recent talks, again, less than 48 hours ago in Geneva, White House Special Envoy's Steve Whitkoff and Jared Kushner offered what turned out to be, as we now know, President Trump's final offer.

It included three main demands. They wanted the regime to completely destroy its three largest nuclear sites. They said the Ayatollah must not only cease all nuclear enrichment, but hand over all of its enriched uranium stockpiles to the U.S. And finally, Trump demanded that any nuclear deal between, the two sides must go on in perpetuity, meaning Iran could never have a nuclear program. Now, when the latest rounds of talks ended on Thursday, there were reports that some progress was being made. Iranian officials said they would come back next week with a revised offer,

but there was a growing sense within the White House that the Iranians were simply stringing the U.S. along, sort of biding time so they could bolster their military preparations and race to potentially finish a nuclear weapon. As we've now seen, that led President Trump to take matters into his own hands. As you can imagine, responses to the war, both foreign against, are flooding in by the minute. One of the more critical statements came from Oman's foreign minister. He'd been serving as middleman this week in negotiations between the U.S. and Iran, and just 24 hours ago was on American media saying that progress was being made towards peace. He this morning published a scathing statement saying, quote, I'm dismayed. Active and serious negotiations have

yet again been undermined, either the interests of the U.S. nor the case of global peace or served by this. And I pray for the innocents who will suffer. I urge the U.S. not to get sucked in further. This is not your war. In Europe, leaders have taken a more cautious approach. EU head Ursula von der Leyen released a statement calling the operation, quote, greatly concerning. She urged both sides to de-escalate. For his part, French President Emmanuel Macron had a similar warning, saying that the, quote, outbreak of war carries serious consequences for international peace and security. But elsewhere, American allies praised the operation, even since, some who have been at odds with Trump lately.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albinese said his country, quote, supports the U.S. acting to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and to prevent Iran continuing to threaten international peace and security. And then in Canada, again, another previous rival of President Trump, Prime Minister Mark Carney released a nearly identical statement saying that Canada supports the United States. States side, we've seen a mixed reaction that, as you can imagine, largely broke along party lines, Republicans mostly lauded the strike, commending President Trump for protecting

America from Iranian aggression, while many Democrats slammed the operation accusing President Trump of illegally bypassing Congress to launch a war without their approval. So the other factor really complicating the situation is concern over how Iran could respond to an attack. There have been reports now for months that Iran could use some of their terror proxies in the region, some of the groups that they sponsor to launch asymmetrical. attacks on the West. And Pentagon officials also have reportedly warned or repeatedly warned to the White House that the regime could direct proxies not just in the Middle East to conduct retaliatory attacks,

but also in the United States. Remember, the DHS has warned for years that Iranian-backed sleep cells could have crossed the border undetected during the Biden administration. So again, all that to say, this attack does open up a new set of concerns. And let's get into some of those concerns now. We have Dan Briette, the former Energy Secretary of the United States, joining us now. Dan, let's start with the top line. What is your reaction waking up seeing this news today? A number of different reactions. I mean, obviously my background being energy, I'm looking closely at what this means for the energy markets. We're going to take a long look at this over the course of the next few days to see what happens. But my immediate, perhaps

larger reaction is for the people of Iran. It's a very exciting day. This regime has been devastating to this country over the last 40-plus years. And this presents a unique opportunity, as you pointed out in your opening. And as the president has said very clearly, to return this country to a democracy and to a freedom-loving place, as it has been for most of its history. Dan, in your opinion, if the Ayatollah has in fact been killed, again, that has not been confirmed. There is just speculation at this point. If that has taken place, what do you think we could see next? Well, it's going to be difficult to determine that in the next few days. You know, the regime itself has its own succession plan, if you will.

But it will be up to the people of Iran to determine whether or not that succession succeeds. I would suspect that they're, you know, given the amount of protests, given the amount of events that we've seen on the ground, especially with the younger folks who are leading many of these protests in the streets, I would suspect that that is not going to be acceptable to most of the people of Iran. Given what we've seen over the last few months, given what we've seen in the streets, I think there is a real hunger for change. And I think we're going to see some new leadership emerge from the people of Iran, not the regime of Iran. Having been in the president's cabinet, you understand his negotiating style, his tactics. Do you envision a scenario here where

President Trump launches a few days' worth of strikes and then tells Iran, hey, are you ready to come back to the table now? Or do you think it's a situation where he says, You had your chance to negotiate. The time for talk is finished. We're going to keep going with this until we say it's done. Yeah. I can't speak directly for the president, but he has been very clear about his desire for peace. So I think he will give the people of Iran an opportunity to resolve this peacefully.

So it wouldn't shock me and it wouldn't surprise me that you see some slowing down of the military activities over the course of the next few hours or days. But he is serious about changing this regime. and your lead-in was, I think, exactly correct. We saw this in 2017, 2018, and 2019 when we were dealing with what was then known as the JCPOA, which was the Obama construct for reducing their desire to produce nuclear weapons.

The tactics used by the regime at that point in time were very similar to what we saw in the last few weeks with Jared and Envoy, Special Envoy Whitkoff. It's delay, it's slowing things down, it's stringing things along to the point where they think that they're going to have some upper hand in the conversation. I think that's what angers the president. It is what I think drove his decision today to begin these attacks. It's, you know, it's not unusual to see this in the regime. He understands it very, very well. But again, as I said earlier, he is very, very interested

in seeing peace around the world and particularly in Iran. So it won't shock me that he gives him an opportunity to do the right thing, as he pointed out in his comments. One of the more fascinating developments this morning has been Saudi Arabia. They came out and issued a statement saying that they were frustrated with the, quote, brutal Iranian aggression, the missiles being launched towards their soil. They came out in full support of the United States saying they would join the U.S. effort here. What does that say about the region that you have Saudi Arabia now fully on board with the U.S.

operations? Speak to that more broadly. Yeah, well, I mean, don't forget that back. it was 2017, 2018, I forget the exact time frame, maybe 2019, I don't recall exactly which. It was Iran who attacked some of the Saudi infrastructure, some of their oil-producing infrastructure, the refining infrastructure as well. So there's been a tension there in the region for some time. I think Saudi, the Saudi-Arabian government, the governments of UAE and others recognize that for many, many years around has been a bad actor in the region, has been really a catalyst

for much of the tension that we face there today. So they're as anxious as anyone to see this regime perhaps go away or at least change its direction. The idea of a nuclear armed Iran is of concern for all of the countries in that region. So it doesn't shock me that Saudi Arabia and other governments will join with the U.S. in putting an end to this regime. Let's flesh that out a bit because you were instrumental in helping to organize the Abraham Accords. Do you see this as a potential catalyst for further unifying around the U.S. in the Middle East? I do. I do indeed. I think all of the folks, the conversations that we had back in the first Trump term were very, very constructive.

There is a true desire for peace in the region, a true desire for peace in the region. And I think that still extends today. It's still there today and people feel it. If you talk to folks on the ground, especially the younger folks, when you talk to them, They want this as badly as anyone else in the world. So, yes, I do think it will be, you know, a catalyst, if you will, for perhaps some new conversations that are an extension of the Abraham Accords. I do think you will see economic deals come together that will drive a lot of these conversations as well. They all understand that this is, you know, important to their economic future as well. It's not just a national security question here.

It is really about the growing economies. If you look at what's happened over the last few years with the production of energy, not just oil and gas, but nuclear power, for instance, in UAE, the development of data centers, the development of AI, all of these opportunities are available to the people of the Middle East as well, and they want to take advantage of them. And these are very talented, very capable people. We want them to be a part of that conversation. So it's an exciting day in that regard as well. What sort of leverage do you think this gives President Trump in his negotiations with other people? countries. When you were in the president's cabinet, were there times where President Trump would maybe exert pressure like this militarily or otherwise on a country? And it made your negotiations

with completely other countries easier. Oh, yeah. No, it, look, it does. I'll go back to what I said earlier. The president, I think, hesitates at some times. I mean, not in a good way. He doesn't want to do these things. It's not in his nature. It's not, you know, as you saw in his public comments, he wants peace. These are very, very difficult decisions. You don't come to this decision on a whim, and you don't do it in a matter of seconds. You do it with a lot of forethought, a lot of information at your disposal, and I know he struggled with this decision.

I just know that while watching him over the years. But once he makes a decision, he will follow through with it, and that's what you're seeing today. But look, what it does to other negotiations, I think it demonstrates clearly to other nations, to other leaders. He means what he says. If he says he's going to do it, he will do it. And to the extent that people want to pay attention to those words

and pay attention more importantly to those actions, they will treat them accordingly. And I think it helps, you know, understand. Once people have a clear idea of who this leader is, of who other leaders are, then we can have more constructive conversations and not just, you know, dance around these important issues as we move forward.

Final question that will let you go. As former Energy Secretary, you know better than anyone, the implications of what this means for Americans when it comes to oil prices, gas prices. Could this have a tangible impact for folks when it comes to the global oil supply? Not the global oil supply. So, I mean, what we're going to see and what we have seen today, as a matter of fact, in some of the oil features pricing, is that you'll see this short-term spike. You know, what we're talking about here is roughly 3% of the world's supply of oil coming into the marketplace.

Iran does roughly 3 million barrels a day. we consume or produce roughly 100 million barrels a day. Most of Iran's oil goes to China, so we don't see that in the U.S. anyway. But even if it were taken completely off the market, which I don't think it will be, Saudi Arabia has enormous capacity to fill that gap. The United States has enormous capacity to fill that gap. So I don't think the long-term effects of this type of action are going to be sustained high oil prices or sustained high gasoline prices over the course of the years.

I don't see that happening right now. The Strait of Hormuz obviously is very, very important. A lot of oil comes through that. I don't think Iran is going to close that. They may threaten it. I don't think they're capable of closing it, frankly. The U.S. Navy will ensure that it's open. But it's not in their interest to close it either.

That three million barrels that I talked about earlier is the backbone of their economy. They need that oil to get to China. So if they shut down the strait, they're cutting off their nose to spite their face. All right. Thank you so much, Dan Briette, former energy secretary, expert on all things, Middle East as well. Thank you so much for your time. Really appreciate you making it in. Thank you. Great to be with you. All right, again, we have breaking coverage here at the Daily Wire as President Trump and Israel launch joint strikes on Iran. Again, this story is very quickly developing, so we're going to be getting you the latest updates.

We're still waiting for information on the whereabouts and potential safety of the Ayatollah, whether he survived these strikes or not. But one thing is clear, an unprecedented morning in Iran. We're waking up to a new age in the Middle East, potentially. Joining us now to discuss what this all means is Fred Fleets, vice chair of America First Policy Institute, American Security. So let's get right into this, Fred. What does this mean? Has anything surprised you so far?

Give us the 30,000-foot view here. Iranian government had multiple opportunities, multiple off-ramps to avoid this. President Trump gave them 60,000. days last year to negotiate a deal. They played for time, tried to manipulate the talks like they've done with numerous Republican and Democratic presence. But this president is different. When he sets an ultimatum, he means it. He said in May, he wanted peace through strength and commerce with Iran, with China, with Russia, with North Korea. The Iranians ignored him. And then the ceasefire last

June that Trump negotiated. The Israelis did not want to agree to that. They wanted to keep attacking Iran. But Trump gave Iran an opportunity then. What did it do? It proceeded throughout the summer, throughout the beginning of this year, to rebuild its nuclear program, to rebuild its missiles. Then he started talks again this year. The Iranians also tried to manipulate them. So critics of this attack on the right and left should realize military force was not President Trump's first choice. And when other states try to game us, when they ignore ultimatums, and if we go along with that,

we undermine American credibility on the world stage. In your view, what was the red line here? Was it the protesters who were being killed? Was it the continued stalling that we saw during this negotiations? Do you think there was a singular moment that ultimately forced President Trump's hand here? I mean, obviously, the world was appalled when tens of thousands of Iranians were killed by the Iranian regime. And many, many more were maimed. You know, Iranian security forces were shooting at protesters in the eyes to be.

blind them. It was appalling. And the crackdown has continued since that time. I think the president was really outraged by that. He wanted that to stop. But just as important, and this may have happened in the last 10 days, I think there's been very compelling intelligence on how Iran is rushing to rebuild this nuclear missile program. They may be building 100 missiles a month, and eventually they would have an arsenal so large, they would be able to overwhelm Israeli air defenses. Now, Democrats in Congress have already been out enforced this morning saying that President Trump acted unconstitutionally, that he illegally bypassed them. What's your response to those Democrats who are saying that President Trump illegally bypassed them? Well, let's first give credit to Senator Fetterman,

who strongly supported this. We used to have bipartisan politics like that, that politics ended at water's edge. And I hope we have more Democrats who take a principal position like that. I don't think we will because of Trump derangement syndrome. The American people will, side. Do they think this attack was a good idea? Do they think it was a good idea to get rid of a regime that has been really at war with us for 47 years? As the president said yesterday, before he left the White House, as he said in his statement this morning. So how do you see this playing out? The White House is giving hints that it could be days, even weeks. If you had to guess with what you know of President Trump having worked so closely with him over the years, how long of the timeline

do you see for this attack? I think we probably could see a couple of weeks. I think there will be additional phases of this attack that we can't see right now because the initial phases were to take out missile defenses, missile launchers, and prepare for, I think, broader attacks to undermine the W&D programs and security forces that were being used to put down the Iranian people. Thankfully, to this point, reports are that there have been no American casualties. But I am interested. President Trump has been asked.

adamant that he does not want boots on the ground in the Middle East, that he does not want that for this situation. If there is a situation, God forbid, where a missile gets through to a U.S. base and kills a dozen U.S. service members, is there a way to avoid boots on the ground? Well, let's point out that our bases are at greater risk than Israel, because most of Iran's remaining missiles are short-range missiles. Iran shot most of its long-range missiles or had them destroyed last June. That's why we're just seeing dozens being fired at Israel right now. But Iran may have maybe 800 to a thousand short-range missiles. We can shoot most of them down. I'm sure there are very, very aggressive efforts right now to protect American assets and

American personalities bases. But frankly, by firing at these Gulf states, Iran is making this conflict worse for themselves. I think the Saudis may join us in attacking Iran right now because Iran attacked Saudi territory. Yeah, we did see that statement from Saudi Arabia offering at least verbal support for the U.S. The big question, as you mentioned, is whether that will lead to military support as well. So I'm interested in the political angle here. We have seen some on the right criticized President Trump saying that he campaigned as the president who would avoid foreign entanglements, avoid foreign wars.

He was the peace president. There has been some pushback on the right, to be fair, saying this isn't what I voted for. What is your message to people who are frustrated with this operation? That's why I started my remarks to say that Trump did not want to use military force, that he gave the Iranian government every opportunity to take an off-ram, to live in peace with the U.S. And there's critics of this operation, conservatives who watch this program, who aren't going to agree with it. And I didn't want to see military action taken against Iran unless absolutely necessary. But the president gave them multiple opportunities for an agreement to stop the threat to the region and to live in peace with us and with our allies.

The Iranian government did not want to do that. This is a government that is determined to destroy the state of Israel and build nuclear weapons. And President Trump correctly decided that is unacceptable. Final question, Fred, what do you think this means for Russia and China? In your view, how are they responding as they wake up to this news or as they get more intelligence? here. What can we expect to see from Putin and Xi? It's a huge setback for the Russians. Russia doesn't have many allies. They're getting weapons for the war in Ukraine from just two states, Iran and North Korea. And there's this so-called Axis that has been for with Russia, China,

and North Korea and Iran. Well, the Axis just lost a member, and it looks like the other members aren't doing too much to defend them. All right, we will leave it there. Fred Flights, Thank you so much from the American First, America First Policy Institute. Really appreciate you joining us on a breaking coverage today. Good to be here. All right. Again, for those just now tuning in a historic morning in the Middle East, the United States and Israel launching joint operations striking nuclear sites all across Iran.

They're also striking the residences of Iranian leadership. We've already had reports unconfirmed at the moment, but reports that top Iranian generals have been killed. We are still waiting, most importantly, on the whereabouts of the Ayatollah himself, unconformed rumors at this point saying that Israel is confident that they had a successful strike on him. But again, we are still waiting for confirmed reports as to his whereabouts. So as this story develops, we're going to continue bringing you all the latest news. But right now, I want to get to Aaron Cohen. He's a former IDF Special Operations veteran and host of the Aaron Cohen show. Aaron, I'm going to let you take the floor here. What is your reaction?

as you saw this news today. Look, here's where I'm at with this. Here's what I think matters. You know, this is no more games. This is no more warning shot. This is no more tit for tat. Excuse me. Deliberate, coordinated.

Daytime matters. Operation inside of Iran. Signals big. Nobody's hiding here. Nobody's sneaking around. It's confident. And look at the deep penetration that the U.S. and Israel was able to pull off.

and you don't assemble a strike package of this magnitude unless you've got the intelligence. Remember, BB took a trip about two weeks ago, week and a half ago he was meeting with Trump. Certain things we just don't talk about on the phone in Israel. So I think this was highly planned. I think this could be a low-key regime change here if in fact the reports that I'm hearing from Israel

and that Fox News and some of my other friends at Foxx are putting out major military IRGC leadership, including the Ayatollah, may in fact have been eliminated. And so it's the senior leadership for the IRGC have always been within strike scope. I want to make that clear. So that pressure at the highest level of the regime and taking out those leaders is what matters the most. So for decades, you know, the leaders, the leaders, of Iran believed they were insulated and that they could keep projecting that power through the proxies, attacking Israel, attacking the U.S., the military bases, the missiles, the enrichment they kept

pushing. This is all coming from the top of the leadership. And if in fact it's true and the leadership was taken out, it's no more attacking the middle, it's no more attacking the knees. So, you know, no more degrading the capability to slow them down, which is what the prior administrations have been doing for decades last almost 40 years. And so once that leadership gets hit, that deterrence equation changes. So this is a pretty big shift that we're seeing here right now. And as more of this information gets confirmed and the top tier regime

target packages are confirmed, then it's really going to change the, it's going to change the whole puzzle for the Middle East. One thing that really strong. struck me as this news started to break was that the United States appeared to be striking military sites, nuclear locations, naval bases, things of that nature, while the Israelis were primarily striking individuals going after the regime, going after top generals. Why do you think that is? Why was there a sort of delineation of duties between the two countries there? I don't think it's, I just think it's the operational flow and the layout. I think the U.S. has capabilities. They're going to be able to move quickly in certain directions. I can tell you that from

my sources in Israel over the last several months, the U.S. Special Operations Command, specifically in the Middle East, has been entrenched inside of Israel, helping with the Gaza situation to put together what that plan is going to be moving forward, you know, post-Hamas. So there's been a lot of coordinating with assets, both special operations assets and Air Force assets. So I think it's just coordination. I wouldn't be surprised if Israel had lead on certain pieces, the Americans had lead on other pieces. But again, I just want to be clear about what's being reported and how significant it is. We could be talking about the neutralization of Ali Khomeini, the Supreme Leader of Iran, Masoud Posseskian, the president of Iran.

Muhammad Pakpur, the IRGC commander-in-chief, may have also been eliminated. Ali Shamchani, who's the senior advisor to the Supreme Leader and former national security chief. And if those names were actually inside these strike packages, I say, who cares who killed him? Take him out. But what it does is it creates an entire new operational layout here. What sort of risk do you see for asymmetric warfare as a result of this? Obviously, there's a lot of attention being given to the military response from Iran. How likely do you think it is that Iran uses their terror proxies to launch attacks on soft targets,

using, you know, the Houthis to start retargeting more shipping tankers or using, you know, Hezboa, any other terror group that they could have, you know, ordered around for attacks? How likely do you think that is? It's a good question. Look, this is the way terrorism plays. You know what I mean? And matkifim. This is the way they work.

They strike. It's asymmetrical, like you said. You know, it's hit and run operations, guerrilla style. Here's why I'm out with that. When you target the leadership, you make it very difficult for these nodes to be able to continue any type of really long term sustainment against whether it's is. real, the United States nodes in the region. So again, I'm going to go back to the disruption here.

And again, when the U.S. hits, it hits very, very hard. I was just talking about this on Fox last night with Trace. You know, after what President Trump did to Maduro, grabbing him in the audacity of that operation, the fact that Trump allowed and sanctioned an operation to target the Ayatollah, will diametrically create a paradigm shift for the whole region. All of the Arab states will then start getting on board, which we're already seeing right now, Bahrain, Saudi. They're all speaking down to the Ayatollah

because they've been the gravity, the Islamic regime has been the gravity of all of the terrorism in the region. And so if these guys are gone, it's going to make it very difficult to continue any kind of long-term, sustained, operations against U.S. nodes and obviously against Israel. So obviously there's going to be pockets, but without central organization, remember, the Iranians fed Hamas, the Iranians feed all of that terror activity in the region.

The moment you take out the IRGC consolidation of power, the retaliation has become a lot more complicated. So I don't think this is going to turn into an Iraq 2.0 for any of the haters that are going to be out there going, oh my God, we're going to get dragged into another word. No, we're not. This has always been in special operations will always lead counterterrorism operations. So we just got to kind of see how the rest of this begins to unfold. Final question here. What do you think that Israel and the U.S. learned from the 12-day war back in June? It's a good question. I think that they learned that the Iranians have a very soft

white underbelly and that they rule with fear and that they rule with the idea of a nuclear weapon, which is why Trump went in there with Israel, its most powerful best friend, these two as a team, went in there and targeted the leadership. They probably softened up and hit the remnants of whatever nuclear capabilities the Iranian had left after that four Dow strike. So I think at this point right now, the lessons are these guys can talk and bark, but nobody understands big picture signaling better than President Trump. But I'm not the guy to get political, but I will tell you, we have an old expression. Which is you have to speak the language of the Middle East. And when you take down the kingpin

of the entire fulcrum of terrorism, the center of it, which has been pushing for 40 years, terrorism against the Americans, going back to the Marine barracks back in the 80s, feeding the Houthis, feeding Boko Haram, pushing ideology, feeding Hamas. When you take out that leadership, the lesson is clear. Trump will signal and be bigger than all of these terror leaders. and he's not afraid to take the full backing of the American might and push those aircraft carriers into the region, sprinkle in some of that incredible Israeli intelligence, and now you've got yourself a down regime.

So again, let's see what happens here, but this is a very historical shift in the region, which could bring quiet, not the opposite. And that's where I'm leaning towards. All right, we will leave it there, Aaron. Thank you so much for joining us on this historic day. really appreciate your insights. Appreciate you. Thank you.

Again, for those just now tuning in, breaking news coming out of Iran, the United States and Israel launching a series of airstrikes targeting Iranian facilities. At the moment, it appears that the United States has been targeting nuclear sites, looking to decimate the nuclear facilities that the Iranians were trying to rebuild after Operation Midnight Hammer. On the Israeli side, they have been targeting Iranian leadership going after the Ayatollah, senior members of the IRGC, senior members of the parliament. And we're still waiting for details on how many of those individuals have been killed.

But we know that President Trump and Israel were looking for a decapitation strike, where they would take out as many of the senior leaders as possible to create chaos. President Trump came out in an address overnight saying that he wanted the people in Iran to engage in regime chains, telling them that it was their time for freedom. and he was openly encouraging them to essentially go out and force the regime from power and to take out the Ayatollah if Israel has not already done it themselves, if the U.S. has not already done it themselves. So we're going to get now to Jason Brodsky.

He's the policy director at United Against a Nuclear Iran. Jason, an enormous day, your group united against a nuclear Iran. What does this mean to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power? Well, it's great to be with you. I think President Trump has undertaken a historic and unprecedented military operation against the Iranian regime. The operation is Operation Epic Fury, and indeed the Fury is Epic after 47 years of the Iranian regime, waging war against the United States. It was birthed at war with the United States, and it's continued to this day being at war with

the United States. It's taken our citizens hostage. It has killed Americans. It has blown the faces, arms and legs off of America. Americans, and this regime can't get a nuclear weapon. And President Trump has, in his own actions, demonstrated that to him, a deadline is a deadline, and U.S. redlines are red lines. And the Iranian regime is really not used to operating and dealing with the president who follows through on his threats and holds the regime accountable militarily. So I think the big question for a lot of Americans

waking up to this news this morning is why? Why now? Why are we going after? Iran now. And I think, you know, for Israel, there's a simple explanation of we are directly within reach of their missiles. But there are Americans who are saying, hey, Iran doesn't have missiles right now that can reach us. So what exactly is the threat? So make that case for us on why it was necessary now. What is President Trump's best argument for why he had to act preemptively? I think for a few different reasons. First of all, the Iranian regime had started to reconstitute its uranium enrichment capabilities, as Secretary Rubio has stated, and President Trump had warned the Iranian regime against doing so. It crossed a red line for President Trump, and the U.S.

acted as a result. That's first. Second is the Iranian regime has been perfecting its capability and ability to construct an intercontinental ballistic missile through the setup of what's called a satellite launch vehicle program. It's been using the program to create that ICBM development capability. It uses technologies that are directly applicable to the development of an ICBM that could reach the United States. And the Defense Intelligence Agency has assessed that by 2035 Iran could start producing those ICBMs that could threaten the United States. So it's important that we nip these threats in the bud, a diplomacy with the Iranian regime, which President Trump has tried repeatedly, has failed. Democrats have tried it. Republicans have tried it. The reality is that there is no durable diplomatic

solution to the Iranian challenge as long as this regime is in power. And I think President Trump acted as a result of that to advance U.S. interests, because it is in the U.S. interests that the Iranian regime be gone. Jason, stick with us here. We want to keep you on. We're also going to now bring in Tim Rice. He's the Daily Wire D.C. Bureau chief. I want to get both of your thoughts now on this clip I'm going to play in a second. But first, Tim, give us what the vibe is, for lack of a better word, in D.C. What are you hearing from lawmakers? What are we hearing from the White House out of the nation's capital? Not sure if Tim can hear us there. So we're going to now play this clip from President Trump and get a reaction here in a second. But here's President Trump talking about the potential

risk that is posed to U.S. service members. A really stunning moment here. Let's have a watch. My administration has taken every possible step to minimize the risk to U.S. personnel in the region. Even so, and I do not make this statement lightly, the Iranian regime seeks to kill. The lives of courageous American heroes may be lost and we may have casualties that often happens in war, but we're doing this, not for now. We're doing this for the future, and it is a noble mission. We pray for every service member as they selflessly risk their lives to ensure that Americans and our children will never be threatened by a nuclear-armed Iran. We ask God to protect all of our heroes in harm's way, and we trust that, with his help, the men and women

of the armed forces will prevail. All right, again, we're going to go back. We had some tactical issues there earlier, but Tim Rice, Daily Wire, D.C. Bureau Chief, joins our panel now. Tim, President Trump there, talking about the risk that has posed to American service members.

It appears right now, praise God, that no U.S. service members have been killed from the reports we've seen. But walk us through the vibe that you're hearing in D.C. What sort of things are you hearing from lawmakers on the Hill so far? Yeah, thanks, Cabot. I mean, it's about what you would expect down here in our nation's capital, which is to say that

Republicans are mostly marching in lockstep with the president, with the exception of Thomas Massey and a couple of other former congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Green, some other real MAGA isolationist diehards, and Democrats are largely breaking against the president, with the exception of Senator John Federman from Pennsylvania, who has sort of emerged, as we've, as we know, as a pretty erstwhile ally of Israel end of this administration when it comes to Israel and the Middle East. So I think one of the big things, though, and you mentioned the fact that there were no casualties, one of the main narratives that we're hearing from mostly the opponents, the Democrats, of those handful of Republicans, is, you know, the president ran on keeping us out

of ending forever wars, keeping us out of wars, they're saying, you know, no more Iraq, we don't want to go back to the global war on terror. And why I think what people are missing is that this president does not plan on this being a long engagement. He made it very clear in that early morning surprise speech, right? He said to the Iranian people, He addressed them directly. He said, once we go in and clear out the Ayatollah and the regime, I urge you to take over the government. This is your government.

It can be your country again. So I think what this president reminds us, right? Same thing with Venezuela. It would have been absolutely unconscionable a couple of months ago to think that we could go in, take a foreign leader, bring him out and be done and dusted in a matter of nine hours. I think similar thing going here. The president is saying, yes, I am in favor of regime change for Iran.

It is the best thing for America and American troops and our allies in the region, but United States service members will not be the ones actively changing that regime. Jason, I'm interested in your take. President Trump there talking about the risk to American service members. If there are service members killed, how far do you think the U.S. should be willing to go to ensure that Iran does not have a nuclear program? Do you think that boots on the ground could ever be a necessary proposition here? I don't foresee President Trump putting boots on the ground in Iran. He is demonstrating that this is an air power war. It is quite different from what happened with Iraq and Afghanistan. It's a very different model, as you just heard before. And so I think that this is also not just about the nuclear program. It's about the missile program. It's about the Iranian leadership, which is a lethal threat to the United States. And so it's a much broader mission.

here. And the idea is to create the conditions which collapse the Iranian regime and allow the Iranian people to reclaim their country. And it basically provides the time and the space and evens the playing field between the Iranian people who have been largely unarmed and the regime, which is very armed. And so that's the model here that I think the Trump administration is pursuing. and that's how it differentiates from the other conflicts that you just cited. And also, I think the president, as he stated in his remarks, he acknowledges that there is a risk of U.S. casualties. And he definitely demonstrates that there is that acknowledgement.

But the Iranian regime, what they're going to try to do in response, is to try to increase the political, economic, and military costs for the United States in any way they can to try to cut this operation short and to put pressure on the president to basically withdraw and cease the operation. And so that's the Islamic Republic's calculation and strategy. It's one of asymmetric endurance against a power like the United States, which has a much larger and sophisticated and more formidable conventional military. Tim, I want to get back to the pushback from Democrats on Capitol Hill.

they are very upset about this operation. But how much power do they actually have? What could they actually do, you know, from a congressional standpoint to try and prevent President Trump from taking action? It's a great question. So one of the main Democrats who's come out against this is Virginia Senator Tim Kane, Hillary Clinton's former running mate. And he has, to his credit, Tim Kane has been one of the leading voices on the Hill for about a decade now, maybe more than a decade, trying to repeal the sort of unlimited authorized use of military. force, the AUMF, that Congress passed in the wake of 9-11 at the onset of the war on terror, which essentially codifies and allows the executive branch to launch actions like this without

getting congressional approval. Right. So it says that the White House has to brief the gang of eight, which is Senate and House, majority and minority leaders and the ranking members and committee chairs of the intelligence and oversight committees in the House and the Senate, which they did. Marco Rubio did that before the attacks this morning. But because this law is still on the books, this now 20-some odd year old law, Congress really, you know, they can, they can, oh, they have oversight, they still technically have the power to declare war, but short of actually declaring war, there's not much they can do. They can criticize. And I mean, of course, also going back before the war on terror, right? There was precedent set with the Vietnam War. Like, this country has gone into actions, right, as dedicated troops put boots on the ground without congressional oversight. And this is, of course, partially due to the growth of the executive. But, and And I think this gets back to the congressional Democrats, right? Congress has sort of neutered itself.

It's given up its authority. Congress, we all know, it's supposed to be a co-equal branch. Lawmakers love to remind us that they're a co-equal branch. But we haven't seen much of that in the past 10, 15, 20 years. And that's not just a Democratic thing or a Republican thing. It's not just during this administration. It's during past administrations, Democratic, and Republicans. So, I mean, we'll see. Congress was set to vote on Iranian action early next week. But this was obviously preempted it. think, you know, not really entirely a criticism. I think the best thing that Congress can do right now is just voice their opinions, whether it's pro or anti. So I'm interested, Tim, also on the political angle here. If you look at polling data this week leading up to this strike, Americans were

quite split on whether they supported an attack. It was largely split along party lines, but the majority of Americans, for the most part, were not supportive of the idea of going in and taking a preemptive strike. Do you think President Trump really cares? We know on the campaign trail, he cares a lot about polling data. But do you think he actually cares that much if the American people are not super on board? Do you think he's confident they'll get on board as they understand and see the results? Walk us through that political angle here. Yeah, it's another great question, especially because, of course, we're staring down the barrel of the midterm elections. We already have this week pretty contentious Republican primaries going off in Texas, some special elections that are going to happen even before

November. I think to say that the president doesn't care is almost right. I think, I think, think that what we see here, and to your point, I think, yes, I'm sure that President Trump is a confident man, right? And we always say he is a salesman first and foremost. So this president is convinced that he can sell the American people on anything. But I think more than that, what you saw this morning is the president really acting as commander in chief. Of course the American people don't want a war. The American people are rarely going to want a war, right? I mean, even when it's, you know, after the attack on Pearl Harbor, you know, I don't know, let's look at the polling numbers after that. I'm sure most Americans still didn't want to go to

They don't want to see an entanglement. But sometimes as the commander-in-chief of the armed forces and as the leader of this country, the president of the United States is going to have to make a decision that is in the best interest of both the country, it's national security, and to a certain extent, our allies around the world because whether we like it or not, we do remain the world's policemen. So I think that whether or not the American people do come around to it, the president is doing what I think he thinks he needs to do. All right, we will end it there.

Guys, thank you so much for joining us, Tim, Jason. H.L's insight. We are going to continue to give breaking live coverage to our audience. Thank you guys again so much for coming on. So let's get now to just the overview of what's happening for everyone who is just waking up to this news, just tuning in. I know I woke up at 3.30 in the morning. My baby was crying. I happened to check my phone and saw what was going on. And there was obviously no going back to sleep then. And I think for many other Americans, you got that breaking news alert and you're waking up to a very different Middle East. So here's where things stand right now.

About six hours ago, the United States and Israel launched joint strikes on the Iranian regime across the entire country, north, southeast, west. There are hits going on everywhere. The U.S. military is mainly targeting military facilities going after the nuclear program, which was largely decimated under Operation Midnight Hammer. But the Iranians, according to the U.S., were trying to quickly rebuild that. Israel, for their part, going after leaders within the regime were still waiting on the whereabouts of the Ayatollah himself. scattered reports and rumors that he could have been killed. But again, that report has not been confirmed, but that is the big question. So to give us some answers on the day, let's go to Michael Knowles now host of the Michael Knowles show here at Daily Wire. Michael, I just want to get your reaction. You woke up and saw this news. What was your first thought? Well, first of all,

don't come to me for answers. Nobody has any answers on any of this. In fact, my recommendation to every American who woke up, maybe opened Twitter or their news ads. And so what's going on here? Maybe they got a notification is do not believe anything on social media for at least the next 48 hours. The amount of information warfare, the amount of propaganda that is flying around is crazy, though it's totally to be expected because this is not just a strike on a Latin American dictator. This is not just dropping the Moab in a war zone. This is a major, major military operation. this is the most significant military operation of either of President Trump's terms. A lot of us are not surprised by this. We've seen the buildup for a long time. It's like the

Venezuela operation in that we were building up military assets in the region for months. So while the White House was extending diplomatic olive branches to Maduro in Venezuela or to the Ayatollah in Iran, it was gradually building up those assets for a strike. So that's obviously come. Now, the issue here is that the Iran operation is not going to take 88 minutes. I think if you polled Americans and you said, do you support a strike with Iran if it will go as quickly as the strike in Venezuela and be resolved to simply? Probably 80, 90 percent would say, yeah, sounds good. Iran hates us. They chant death to America. We don't want them to have a nuke. Okay, that works. The problem is that already President Trump has told us this operation is going to go on at least for days.

could go on a lot longer. And there, I don't think Americans really support the war. If you look at the national polls, majority of Americans did not support a strike on Iran. When you focus specifically on Republicans, it's a little less clear, you know, there's more support, but it's still in many polls less than 50%. Now, just because the people ask for something or, you know, voice their opinion for something doesn't mean that that's necessarily the right policy. But we have to ask ourselves, what is the goal here in the Iran strike? President Trump tells us the goal is regime change. The justification for war is that Iran is building a weapon of mass destruction, and the further defense of the war is that the Iranian people want freedom. Sound familiar? This is exactly

the argument for war that we saw in the lead-up to Iraq in 2003. Now, that is not necessarily a bad thing. A lot of people will hear that and immediately react as though that is a bad thing. And And it could be. It could go to pot. The only difference here, though, is that President Trump has the best record on foreign policy of any president in many of our lifetimes. For me, other than maybe George H.W. Bush, and maybe including him, President Trump has a great record on foreign policy. So I think it's good to give him a little grace here to realize that he has a lot of credibility on foreign policy. But let's look at the real situation. The stakes are very. very, very high. If this thing goes south, it will be drawn out, at least more than the last

strikes. Already you're seeing bad optics coming out. Again, this is part of the war propaganda, but there's reporting that a school was struck, 53 kids injured or killed. Again, we don't have really verifiable information yet, but you're going to see bad optics on TV, you're going to see things drawn out. You could see American service members killed. This could be a very, very difficult situation for the White House. If this goes south, President Trump is risking not only his foreign policy credibility, but perhaps his whole presidential legacy in precisely the way George W. Bush did. However, if this works, if the United States ousts the Ayatollah, who has been an enemy of the United States since the regime took power in 1979, if the United States succeeds in regime

change in Iran and helps to bring about a more pro-Western and more popular regime there, this will be the greatest foreign policy accomplishment of any president in our lifetime since the end of the Cold War. So all of that to say, we don't know what's going to happen. And anyone who tells you what's going to happen tomorrow or the day after in a war is lying to you or ignorant. However, the one thing we know with certainty is the stakes could not possibly be higher for the White House. One thing I do want to point out, Iran's minister of foreign affairs recently gave an interview on NBC, I believe it was.

He is claiming that to his knowledge, the Ayatollah is still alive. Again, like you said, there's a lot of propaganda going around, but that is the first claim we've seen from the Iranian government that he's alive, but still waiting for confirmation there from other sources. So, Michael, bringing you back to the political angle, I'm interested in your take on. what this means for who has the most sway within the White House. It's no secret that Secretary of State Marco Rubio definitely has taken a more hawkish approach. We know Vice President J.D. Vance, more of the dovish approach. Does this give insight into who is winning that power struggle

when it comes to having the president's here? Well, you know, even that characterization, I wonder if that is part of the information warfare and propaganda here. Because, you know, we constantly hear from the media, not only on the left, but even sometimes on the right, that there's this war in the White House between, I don't know, Vance and Rubio or this department and that department. And yet, whenever we see them actually speak for themselves, there's remarkable unity. I've never seen a White House more unified in my life. You know, you have Vance and Rubio seem to get along like best buddies. And then President Trump effectively endorses Vance as his successor and calls for Rubio to join Vance as a ticket. So I don't really buy this idea that the White House is totally

divided at all. You also had the Vice President come out a few days ago and affirm the line that we've heard from other parts of the White House, which is that the Iranian regime, we have evidence that the Iranian regime is actively pursuing nuclear weapons. So I don't really buy that. I think that a lot of people are already in the horse race for 2028, and they're trying to project their own desires onto the White House looking ahead at the presidential election. I see a lot of unity in the White House on this point. And frankly, I see a lot of unity in the Republican Party on this point. Of course, the Republicans would love to get rid of the Iranian regime if we can do so at a low cost. However, the question really seems to be less about ideology or even geopolitical

goals than it is about feasibility. You know, are people really confident, in the ability of Risa Pahlavi, the crown prince, to just come in, bring stability to Iran. Do they really believe that, you know, a strike in a day or two days can take out the Iranian regime? Is that really feasible in the way that it was feasible to extract Maduro from Venezuela? And that remains to be seen. I saw some, again, I'm breaking my own advice by believing what I'm reading on Twitter. But it does seem that the leader of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps has been killed. I don't know if that's actually been confirmed.

That was going around some of the reporting. Yeah, it seems that the Ayatollah is still alive for now. Seems that the president is still alive for now. And so in that case, if the strike did not actually behead the Iranian regime, that would be a setback for the operation. And that would seem to explain why the operation is going to go on for several more days. Now that we're already in it, it would seem to require us actually to change the regime in Iran. Because if the Ayatollah remains in power, that's a major embarrassment for Israel and for the United States. And then, of course, if this drags on not just days, but weeks or longer, then you're in a situation where we might need formal declarations of war.

Congress is going to get involved already. You have Tim Cain, who was the vice presidential nominee under Hillary Clinton. Most people have already forgotten that. Tim Cain is already coming out and calling this a stupid, terrible military operation. By Monday, you're going to have half of Washington, D.C., calling for President Trump to be impeached over this. So the domestic political fight is going to be very, very lively. I don't think it's going to be a domestic fight within the White House. I think it's going to be the Democrats seizing, even if the Democrats might have supported a strike on Iran in principle, just like you saw in Iraq in the mid-2000s, you're going to get many Democrats who were totally open to this strike, opportunistically seizing on it to attack the Republican president.

Michael, stick here with us. I want to bring in now, though, Morgan Murphy, the former Pentagon press secretary and former senior advisor to Special Envoy Keith Kellogg. Morgan, I'm interested Michael was touching on the possibility that what it means for this operation if the Ayatollah has not been killed here. If that is the case, if he is still alive, what do you think that means? And what message is that sent to the rest of the world? I think it means it'll be dead soon. If he's if he's still alive, we'll hunt him down. That's what the president is doing with this strike force that he's assembled with a daylight operation, with a strike on a meeting. You know, it's really not a strike on Iran writ large and the people of Iran.

It's a strike on the Ayatollah and his regime, which have been at war with our country since 1979. There are a lot of Americans who kind of blissfully think that, oh, this is an optional. This is a war that we're conducting on behalf of Israel. But this regime has been after Americans since its very inception when they took 52 hostages in 1979 and kept them for over 400 days. Their attacks on the Marine Corps barracks, their attacks on our soldiers through proxies all over the Middle East, including when I was deployed to Afghanistan. And so many of our veterans today don't have legs because of the Iranian regime.

And we can't forget their attack, their threat to kill President Trump and our other leaders. So this is, I think, long overdue. Morgan, what do you make of the timing here? Why do you think the president chose today to make this statement? Well, I think the daylight attack is daring. It's out of our typical pattern of operations. And that's what you want to do in the military. You know, everybody today in Washington is an armchair national security advisor.

But when you look at the unpredictable way Pete Hague says Department of War is operating, they really are not playing by America's typical playbook of how we conduct an operation. So we attacked Venezuela and the dead of night. we reduced all the Chinese anti-air hardware to looking like it was purchased off at Timu. And here we are just flying in broad daylight into Iran. It's really breathtaking in its scope of operation. What do you make of the likelihood that there will be a relatively seamless transition of regime? You know, Cabot and I were just discussing, I think if Americans were confident that this operation would go

down in 88 minutes like Venezuela, you'd have practically 100% support for it. But there's this fear that Iran is a little bit more of a stable country. The Mullahs have ruled for a really long time, you know, almost five decades now. They might have contingency operations. So what are the odds that you could see someone like Reza Pahlavi come in and take control and unify the country versus civil breakdown and potentially even civil war? So, Palavi is interesting and has been in preparation for this moment for a long time. I read his statement this morning with interest. I've been following him pretty closely here for the past three months.

And he's very measured, very diplomatic. I think he's following in the King of Jordan's footsteps. And he's calling now for action on behalf of the people of Iran. If they follow that, then I think he has a legitimate claim to shepherding democracy or some other form of government in Iran. I don't think that's the administration's stated goal here. Trump is very transactional, very pragmatic. He wants what's best for the American people.

He's probably going to leave it to the Iranian people. I can't speak for the administration, but I imagine he's going to leave it to the Iranian people to decide what kind of government they want. He just doesn't want a government as diametrically opposed. to the United States, threatening our assets, threatening our allies, and aiding and abetting China. Michael, I want to get your reaction to some of the condemnation coming from Capitol Hill. Democrats in the Senate, for example, Mark Warner saying that the U.S. was poised to, quote, repeat mistakes of the past invoking the Iraq War.

We see another statement here. The American people have seen this playbook before. Claims of urgency, misrepresented intelligence, military action that pulls the U.S. into regime change. Ed Markey from Massachusetts saying it's illegal and unconstitutional. Other members going on, Tim Cain, Adam Schiff, saying a diplomatic solution remained the best way to end this crisis, slamming President Trump, a crisis of Trump's creation. What do you make of those messages? Well, the problem, we can take it in reverse order, the problem with the argument that we were just this close to diplomacy is President Trump has been trying diplomacy for his entire first year,

not to mention the first term, not to mention the United States has been trying diplomacy since 1979. So that's pretty preposterous. Likewise, the preference of the United States in Iran has been regime change since 1979. That was not always the case in Iraq. In fact, during the Iran-Iraq war, we kind of helped out Iraq. So, you know, here the battle lines are much more firmly drawn. However, I'll give a little credit to the Democrats. and people like Mark Warner, which is that the stakes are very, very high, and there is a risk of

repeating the mistakes of Iraq. There's no question about that. I think President Trump sees that. You know, we're talking about here is a preemptive war based on the threat of weapons of mass destruction and with a further justification that the people of the country want freedom. That is almost precisely the justification for war in Iraq. And so you're seeing a shift here in President Trump's criticism of George W. Bush. You're seeing a shift in what it means for President Trump to be the foil to George Bush. Initially, he was running against dumb wars, you know, against pursuing, say, the strategy of George W. Bush. What's interesting about the strike on Iran, it seems to me, is that President Trump is saying that the strategy of George Bush is not

necessarily all that bad. It's the tactics of George Bush that didn't work. In other words, Bush had it right in principle. He just totally bungled it during the Iraq war. And some people are going to be skeptical of that. The point that I keep coming back to, though, is that President Trump has an exceptional record on foreign policy. He's got the best record on FOPO probably in my lifetime. And so if anybody has the credibility to make that kind of a claim, it's him. But that said, the Democrats' attacks are going to keep on coming because the echoes from Iraq are manifest. I have one more question for Morgan before we let you go, Morgan. What does this mean for China specifically? I know there had been concerns that the U.S. could potentially deplete some of its stockpiles, and that could give China maybe more of an incentive to make a move on Taiwan. Do you think that this change anything for Xi in his calculus? Well, I'm going to speak blunt. So China, most of most Chinese assets are in their region. They're right there. You know, Taiwan is just 70, 80 miles off of the Chinese coast.

China has 10,000 commercial shipping vessels. We have about 500. So we are militarily would be very pressed to defend Taiwan. But we have a lot of other instruments of national power using the dime strategy, diplomatic, intelligence, military, economic. The M is just what most American presidents have defaulted to. This president, President Trump, is using all of the other instruments of national power to include taking oil off the table.

And most Chinese oil, most Chinese energy is imported. They import, they were importing at the start of President Trump's term, two million barrels of oil a day from Iran at a very discounted rate because Iran couldn't sell it elsewhere. They couldn't sell it to the civilized world, but the Chinese were all too happy to buy it up at a discount. And the president said, no. Trump said, we're not going to have that. And so between now and this morning, when he took office

and this morning, the import of Chinese Iranian oil to China dropped about 70%. I expected to drop a lot further as this plays out. So the strategy that I see, and Michael was speaking earlier to strategy, and I think he's right, the strategy here is more than, than just the Middle East. So many presidents have talked, I mean, all the way back to Obama have been talking about pivoting out of the Middle East. Well, it's one thing to abandon your allies and partners

and just pivot away and try to put out a fire in another region. It's something to resolve that issue. And that's what the president has done, I think this morning started the process of resolving the Iranian issue, which has been with the United States and our partners and allies in the region.

for five decades. And that is the significance. And if we can resolve it here and then pivot to China, I think we've shown them pretty adeptly. They're not going to have bargain oil for much longer. So many different angles to this story. Morgan, thank you so much for coming on. We appreciate your expertise very much. Glad to be with you. Thanks for having me. So we're going to keep Michael on. But first, I just want to thank our audience if you appreciate the Daily Wire's live coverage of moments like this one. The reason we're able to launch new shows like this one, Wired in Live, is because of you guys are subscribers. So if you're not a subscriber, go to dailywired.com right now, become a member. We've got breaking news, investigative reporting. We're helping to explain the

world. We can bring this programming again because of our members. So if you want to continue, if you want to join us in that fight, in that important work, please join us today. Go to dailywire.com and become a member. So we're now going to keep Michael on again. This is all breaking news as we go through this huge story today. We're going to keep Michael. And we're also going to bring on Tala Gudarzi, former deputy assistant energy secretary. Tala, let's just start with your 30-foot reaction to what's going on. We'll get into some of the details. Sure. Well, thanks so much for having me. I think first and foremost, this is an incredible day for the Iranian people. And I also Iranians all throughout the world. As a Persian American myself, it is incredible that

this is a day of liberation for the Iranian people. We've seen almost 30,000 people have died in the past couple of months, just fighting for their basic rights to sing in public, to vote, to practice a religion that they want to practice, to be able to go get drinks with their friends publicly, just basic freedoms that we in the United States, I think, take for granted. And that's what these people have died for. You know, the basic, the average range of those that have passed away have been ages 18 to 22. And again, that's only within the past couple of months, not to mention the atrocities that the Iranian people have faced for almost 50 years. My family themselves had to escape Iran, unable to return.

My father has been unable to return to his country since he was 14 and he's in his 70s now. And so this is an incredible moment for Persians everywhere. Persians have been protesting. I think it's throughout 20 countries for this very moment we're seeing now. And so I'm very excited and very eager to keep following the news. Yeah, President Trump had a message in his address saying that today is a day of freedom for the Iranian people. He encouraged them to take part in regime change.

Are you confident that the Iranian people will feel emboldened by this action to do just that? I believe so. I mean, when you see, we saw this morning, when you see, you know, Iranians within their own country cheering for missiles that are hitting their own country, I think that that is a really good message that the Iranian people are excited for change. They're chanting, you know, for, you know, pro things about President Trump. Actually, I think what's really interesting, and I wrote the quote here is Cyrus the great, the original founder of the Persian Empire. He said, whenever you can actually, you can actually. as a liberator, freedom, dignity, wealth. These three things constitute the greatest happiness of humanity. And that's what President Trump has essentially done. Two thousand, five hundred years later, what an incredible moment. Now, there are some reports out there that the Iranian government is claiming the Supreme Leader will give a speech. There are other reports, you know, the Israeli military saying that they feel confident he was killed. Let's assume that he was killed. walk us through what you think would happen within the country, something that people like your family have probably dreamed of for years now, but those first few moments, what that would be like?

Sure. Well, the first few moments probably gives me chills to sort of envision. I mean, I think we'll see the Persian people are very peaceful. They also love to sing, they love to celebrate. And so I think that we'll see a big return of that within Iran and a really big gasp of relief. that they've waited almost 50 years for. In terms of Ayatollah Khomey, you know, it's hard to say what's going to happen in that, but I think that the Persian people are ready for change, and hopefully they're going to go back to something that looks more like a democracy. Again, Cyrus the Great actually invented democracy when he put together the Cyrus Scroll that's actually in the British Museum currently because it can't even be held within its own country. And so I think we'll see a return to democracy, hopefully,

and lead to more peace in the Middle East. There's no question. You know, I think of my Iranian Persian friends here in America, probably the happiest people in the world. I have one Persian friend who told me, this is years ago, said the only reason I vote for Republicans is I think there's at least a slight chance they're going to bomb those mullahs.

And so I'm willing to take a chance. So obviously, this could be really, really great for the Iranian people. What is the case to the American people? I think there are a lot of Americans who say, look, great for them. It's unfortunate that they've suffered for 50 years under these mullahs, but really what does this have to do with me? Why are we risking American servicemen for this operation? Why are we risking getting bogged down in potentially another Iraq for this? And what are the odds that the Iranian people can actually, you know, keep things together if the Ayatollah has been killed

and, you know, lead to a solution that is both peaceful and more important quick? Sure. Well, again, I think it leads to peace the Middle East. and what that means for Americans here abroad or here at home is that, you know, it's going to be less, less instability within the world. I mean, it feels safer, honestly, to be, I'm in Washington right now. It feels safer, almost ironically, to be in Washington where an oppressive and terrorist regime may no longer exist. Also, you know, I formerly led the oil and gas portfolio over the Department of Energy, and, you know, Iran controls the Strait of Hormuz. you know, that will be very more positive for all those that are affected in the region.

You know, also they have 10% of the world's oil reserves. They have 15% of the world's gas reserves. It's going to be really great for the world economically for oil markets and gas markets. So we'll see. But I think overall, like I can think of zero negatives from what's happened this morning. Well, to the second point, I mean, one negative could be a protracted war, civil war, you know, U.S. military presence there that goes on for weeks or months or longer. So I agree. I think there are

many, from the standpoint of grand strategy, I think there are many good arguments to take out the Iranian regime. But I see a ton of downsides. And I think the people who are skeptical of the war are justified to be skeptical. So knowing basically nothing about the Iranian people in culture,

where would you put the likelihood that we're going to get some stability, hopefully if the Ayatoll is gone, you know, anytime soon. I think the difference is, is that the Iranian people actually want change within their own country, but also countries like Israel are helping with this. They've called it, you know, Operation Roaring Lion. The United States is behind this. Iran is very economically weak, and they don't have very many allies. Sure, China is abroad. Russia is busy. So with Ukraine, So I think, like, actually, the global stage is ripe for this sort of, you know, unrest.

And I think that it's a very unique opportunity and one that I, sure, there'll be unrest, you know, in the near term. But I don't believe it's going to last for long. Michael, I want to ask you a question because Iran's minister of foreign defense gave an interview with U.S. media, actually, and said that Iran was interested now in de-escalation and ready to talk once the joint U.S. Israeli strikes come to an end. If you're President Trump, what's your response to that? Well, this is a real possibility that occurred to me this morning, right when I woke up, everyone was just talking about the two options in Iran, which is do nothing and just try to send some angry letters and hope that the aircraft carriers off the coast of Iran would get them

to the table or, you know, light the whole place up and kill the whole government. There is a third option, which is show them that we know. know where they are. I mean, this strike this morning was on a meeting with the heads of government, so we had pretty good intelligence, even if we didn't succeed in killing the Ayatollah, which remains to be seen. But it shows them we know where they are. We're willing to actually do it. You know, it really ratchets up the pressure. And so, weirdly enough, there is a world in which the first day of strikes could lead to something of a diplomatic resolution, but probably if I'm sitting in the Pentagon right now, or if I'm sitting in the White House or Marse or Marrower.

Maralago, for that matter. All I'm reading that as is the Iranian government just trying to buy some time to get their act together. I think probably that third option, that weird kind of kinetic diplomacy, I think that's probably off the table. I think the die is cast and the U.S. is all in for regime change in Iran. All right, Tala, thank you so much for coming on. Really appreciate your insights. I know this is a very big day for your family as well. So thanks again. Thanks so much. All right, we're going to keep Michael on. We're going to bring Tim back in a second, but we are getting some new details coming in.

Our friend Jen Griffin over at Fox News is reporting that the U.S., for the first time today, used one-way attack drones in combat. I imagine those are similar to the sort of suicide drones that we've seen being deployed in Ukraine and Russia. So that was apparently the first time those drones have been used. She also reports Tomahawk missiles were used in the first volley of strikes and that one U.S. official says, quote, we have effectively suppressed their air defenses. That was a big part of this opening volley of strikes, was targeting the Iranian anti-air faculties

to make sure that they could pave the way for our future pilots to be coming in there. So that is big. We also have a report coming in from Mary Margaret Ollahan that I thought was pretty interesting here. She says that a White House officials tells her exclusively, Mary Margaret is our White House correspondent, that a White House official told her that Marco Rubio made calls to all eight members of the gang of eight in the Senate to give them a quote heads up ahead of time. He successfully connected beforehand with seven of the eight. One was unreachable.

Shout out to those seven senators that the information did not leak beforehand, but Mary Margaret, able to report that they were told ahead of time. The War Department, she says, also provided notifications to Armed Services Committee's early Saturday morning after the strikes began. So as this breaking story continues to develop again, for those just now joining us, the U.S. and Israel launching a joint operation against Iran to take out nuclear facilities to target members of their leadership. The big question remains the whereabouts of the Ayatollah, whether or not he's been killed, scattered reports there, nothing that we're able to confirm at this point. But this is a major

operation. This is not like Midnight Hammer that was more limited in its scope. This is certainly not like the capture of Nicholas Maduro. This is a major military operation, arguably one of the kicking off of one of the largest military operations in the Middle East since the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. So a historic day, no doubt. Joining us now from D.C. to continue our live breaking coverage, Tim Rice, Daily Wire, D.C. Bureau Chief and Michael Noles is still on as well. Michael, I do just want to point out there were people in the chat arguing before we kicked off. They said, I've got 50 bucks that Michael Noles is hosting the chat. Some people said, I think it might be Cabot to the chat, $50 if you said that it would be Cabot. Michael Knowles.

He's kind of the honorary host at this point. I was actually one of the people who put my 50 bucks down for Cabot because I wanted to hang out at my house on a Saturday morning. I'm not sure I can ever forgive the Pentagon and Israel for making me come to work on a Saturday morning. I know it's a minor point in the whole story of the war, but it is good. It does seem after 10 years of being dragged out of bed for various breaking news stories, I said we have we now have the breaking news guy, Cabot, let me sleep. But anyway, it's very good to be here regardless, especially because, as you say, Cabot, and for those who are just tuning in, this is a categorically different military operation than anything we have seen from Trump so far, first term or second

term. This is the real deal. Yeah, Tim, I want to get to what you're hearing from Washington. Democrats pitching a fit, for lack of a better term, so far. Has there been more of a unifying message? What is the singular message and talking point that we're getting from Republicans in defending this operation? So far, I think it's been mostly unified support for Republicans, but I will say it has been pretty muted. And I think that's entirely because congressional Republicans and, in fact,

members of the administration are waiting to take their cues from Trump. Rubio, likely war secretary Pete Hankseth, and the president has been strangely silent since this morning's message dropped. Originally, we were hearing that he was going to address the nation from Mar-a-Lago this morning. Now sources are saying that he's not going to address anyone on Saturday, which likely it seems, given, as you both gentlemen were saying, the size of this, I imagine it's a strategic choice to keep the president off the airways and hopefully away from the truth social and the ex-posts. But I do think that everyone's sort of waiting out to see what exactly the president is going to say, especially considering, as you mentioned earlier, Cabot, Americans don't really want this war.

And as we were saying earlier, you know, whether or not they come around to it or whether or not this is the right decision by the president, that doesn't change the fact that this is probably going to be a very, a little bit of it, if not a very unpopular action, at least for the next few days. And I think a lot of Republicans, especially those with potentially spicy midterm. contest coming up in November are happy to stay a little bit more on the sideline and just sort of go to the old classic thoughts and prayers. I think this is such an important point because if you look at the national polls, the vast majority of Americans don't want this war. And the Republicans are more favorable toward it than the Democrats are. But even the Republicans are sub-50 percent support in

most cases. And if it's over 50 percent, it's just barely. So it's a real political gamble for the president. But what's so amazing about that is that if this operation is successful, and I mean real successful, I mean like flip Iran, no protracted civil war, relative order, and turning the country that was as anti-America as it gets into a pro-America country, if that succeeds, you will obviously see a change in the popularity not only of this war, but of American interventions broadly. the reason that this Iran war has been unpopular in the lead-up is because Americans remember Iraq, which was horribly bungled. The Iran War is the Iraq War. In all of the justifications, in the political party that carried it out, it is an amazingly perfect analog.

So the only decisive factor over whether or not this will be viewed favorably or unfavorably is whether or not it succeeds. The Iraq war basically failed because of a ton of bungles all along the way. President Trump has proven that he is very, very good at conducting foreign policy. It's not clear if that will obtain in this case. This is, as we said, a categorically different kind of military operation. But if it does, it's not just going to flip the popularity on this war. It is going to fundamentally flip the way that Americans view their foreign policy. it might correct 25 years of real discouragement.

The president said after closing the border upon first taking office, he said, it turns out we didn't need new legislation, we didn't need a new philosophy, we just needed a new president, one who actually was willing to do this and do it differently. It sounds kind of similar there on foreign policy of saying, hey, you can keep more or less the same American way of thinking in the Middle East, but it takes just a different person actually implementing it. Tim, actually, I'll give this question to Michael because Michael, you know, Tim, I don't want to put you on the spot as a serious reporter. I can ask Michael this question. And if you look at this calendar, we're in the middle of Ramadan right now. Obviously, there's fasting going on for, you know, a billion Muslims worldwide. It's going to impact maybe their alertness, their energy levels. They're fasting all day. I'm not trying to be funny here. I'm being genuine. That is a consideration to take into account. Do you think that could play into the timing here for President Trump? Trump saying, hey, they might be in a weakened state right now. Yes, well, I don't live in New York City or Minneapolis, so I had forgotten that it was Ramadan.

But yes, all of these factors come into play, including even the timing of this attack. Most Israeli attacks on Iran happen in the middle of the night. So the fact that this one happened in the morning was a surprise. I was even joking with the producers. I said, obviously, Israel's playing a pretty big role in this attack. And I kind of thought they'd at least give me Shabbat. You know, I thought my Friday night and Saturday morning would be safe from having to come into work. So there are all sorts of elements that are unexpected here.

And, of course, President Trump's foreign policy is predicated on subverting expectations. Victor Davis Hansen, perhaps more than anyone, observed this in the first term, that people who are trying to place Trump in this box of foreign policy dove because he ran against the legacy of George Bush, or a foreign policy hawk because he said he was going to go, you know, beat the hell out of ISIS. That was a mistaken dichotomy. President Trump's real strength in foreign policy is unpredictability. He's going to go hug Kim Jong-un in Korea, and then he's going to take out the top Iranian general. And you don't know which Trump you're going to get that day.

So in terms of, you know, striking during Ramadan, I think probably what you would say is, yeah, every little bit counts when you're talking about the most consequential foreign policy move of a presidency. Tim, I want to get... You know, Kevin, I actually do have a serious... Let's hear it. Let's hear it. This is, I actually just, talk about perfect timing. I recently finished reading a book about the lead up to the Iranian revolution from the perspective of the Shah's government. And one of the most interesting things that I learned in this book is that in Shia Islam, which

Iran is a majority Shia country, and particularly in Iran, it is, and I'm not exaggerating here, I'm also not joking, it's basically always some kind of holy day. It's like the Catholic Church on steroids because there are holy days and weeks and months, and each day then has an attended period of fasting or of parades or of public flagellation or all sorts of, it's like a grid. Basically, when you get down to it, there's only like 80 days in the calendar year when the Iranian people are not fasting, marching, commemorating the death of a martyr or an Ayatollah or something like that. So I'm sure that the fact that this happened during Ramadan, yes, probably played a little bit into the strategic calculation. But I think when you get people like Ilhan Omar and some of the

president's other critics saying he did this on purpose, which again, setting aside the fact that that that's just sort of ridiculous and, you know, Hamas attacked Israel on a major high holy day for the Jewish people. I also think that it is a little bit like, it's kind of impossible to strike a ran when they're not in the middle of some sort of holy celebration. Yeah, that's a great point, Tim. Thank you so much, Tim, for joining us, Daily Wire, DC Bureau Chief. He'll be on the live blog all day on the Daily Wire website. Tim, really appreciate it.

Thanks, Cabot. All right, we're going to keep Michael on and bring on Representative Claudia Tenney from the great state of New York. Representative, thank you so much for joining us on this packed day. So let's get right to it. I want to get to the response from Congress, but first, your take on what has transpired in the last eight hours. Yeah, well, this is an incredible moment in history. President Trump has taken very courageous and decisive action against an enemy that we have had for so many years who is unrelenting and will not. Obviously, they didn't want to come to the table.

We didn't think they ever would. And President Trump has been sort of leaking that out a little bit, a little, let's say insinuating that without saying it directly. But this is a country that has, since 1979, has repeatedly caused harm to the American people. My son is actually a Marine, so bombing the Beirut barracks in 1983 to attacking our soldiers, killing our soldiers in Iraq and Iran, the proxies that they have funded and used against American citizens and our allies in the Middle East. There was really no other option. President Trump drew a red line, and this is where we had to. go. And, you know, this is not a full scale, you know, inland invasion. This is a tactical strike

against nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, which are what are, you know, causing harm to our, could potentially cause harm to our country. And this is a country that daily says death to America and death to Israel. And we are, as everybody knows, we're the big Satan. Israel's just on the way to America. Congresswoman, what do you make of the domestic politics here? Because especially as a member of Congress, you know, you've got your ear pretty close to the ground. And, you know, the polls leading up to this strike suggest that most people didn't not want to war with Iran. And a lot of people have a hangover from the Iraq War. And there are all sorts of worries. Do you think that the case for war, especially after Fordo, you know, this argument that we had obliterated Iran's

nuclear facilities, but now saying, but actually Iran is rebuilding them. And so they might be on the brink of it again. Is there some confusion in the argument for war? Basically, just how is this going to play at home? Yeah, look, I think that there is a lot of confusion because the American people have to understand the difference between peace through strength and the line being sort of pushed by isolation as saying that this is a full scale of war, which it's not. It's very tactical. It's very precise. And it's protecting us against an enemy in the region and giving the Iranian people and supporting them a chance for prosperity and to get away from the terrorism that they've known since 1979.

So I think there is a big distinction. This is not a full-scale war. We're not moving tanks or moving bases into Iran like we did in Iraq and Iraq and Afghanistan. I think this is a very different operation. It's very much more strategic. And I think, you know, obviously very well executed from what we know. We'll see what happens. We'll see what they follow it.

as nobody knows all the information. But domestically, I think a lot of people don't understand some of the isolationist arguments that really, I don't think, square up with what this operation is. This is not us invading a territory and moving in and setting up troops and setting up some kind of regime change. We're trying to stop their ballistic missile operations. We're trying to stop their, you know,

obviously their nuclear missile operations, which they've been lying about over and over and over again, about how they have not been enriching or attempting to enrich. So we know that. So I think there's a real distinction here between this and full-scale, you know, war and invasion into a country. Representative Tenney, I want to ask about something President Trump said where in the lead-up, much of the, you know, reasoning for a potential strike from Secretary Rubio and Vice President

Vance and Trump himself was focused almost entirely on the nuclear program and on those ICBMs. But in his address early this morning, President Trump repeatedly brought up regime change, telling the Iranian people, this is now your time, this is your day for freedom. So hypothetically, let's say the U.S. is able to quickly dismantle the nuclear program, we're confident that the military threat posed by those missiles and potential nukes, that that's been dispatched. If there is an uprising within the country towards regime change and the existing regime, whatever is left of it, is killing, thousands of people again. Do you think that that is a good enough reason for us to remain involved militarily? Well, first of all, the question isn't if there is an uprising, there has been an uprising against the Iranian regime. Think of the thousands and thousands of people across Iran who really just put themselves in harm's way to protest this regime and were slaughtered,

knowing that they would be slaughtered, they knew that they were going to be murdered and killed. They're willing to sacrifice their lives for this. So there is an uprising going on already, and there's been a lot of this has been happening. Obviously, there has been a huge discussion among the diaspora all over the world, particularly in America. I've been getting just inundated with text since early this morning from the people I know who are originally from Iran who are now in the United States. You know, this is like, I mean, they're like crying tears of joy that we finally have a chance for prosperity there. And I think what President Trump is talking about is not necessarily what I would call regime change, but facilitating

regime collapsed and allowing the Iranian people to now take over and form some kind of democratic principles that they never have been able to have for all these years since the fall of the Shah. So I think right now the question is, where is that going to come from? Who is the leadership going to be? And how can we as the United States facilitate the Iranian people rebuilding what was once a great country filled with people that were very well-educated? people that were sophisticated who were taken down by these mullahs in this sort of green-red revolution back in 1979.

Your colleagues on the Democratic side have been busy this morning slamming President Trump. You know, there's going to be a vote next week on the hill involving action in Iran. What is your message to Democrats saying that President Trump is acting illegally? Well, this is absurd. Of course, we've litigated all these this in the courts numerous times. and the presidents have won all the way through the last 20 or 30 years. So I will say to them, though, there are a couple of Democrat members who have praised this action, not directly to President Trump, but they've at least given credit to our military and their decisive action and the role that was played in the strategic planning

of this. So, you know, the Democrats are going to complain about anything and everything Trump. It doesn't matter. I mean, if Barack Obama had done this, it would have been the greatest move in the world. Unfortunately, they just have Trump derangement center, which we can see in everything that President Trump does, even though this has been quite an historic presidency in a little over a year. You already see Tim Kane up in the Senate losing his mind. Well, he always, every day, it seems he loses his mind over something, but he's losing his mind over this. However, this to me is one of the clearest echoes of Iraq. Everyone's focusing on the military aspects. What I'm focusing in on is the Democrats opportunistically taking advantage of this to attack a domestic political rival precisely as they did in Iraq.

Even Democrats who previously had supported were in Iraq. So from the domestic political scene, not from the standpoint of the voters, but from the standpoint of, say, Democrat members of Congress or senators, do you think that this could become a real issue for the White House? Where is the risk for President Trump on Capitol Hill? You know, I think it's very interesting. You raise that point because there's one thing about President Trump that continues to impress me and as always astounding to me is he never lacks the courage or the decisiveness. When he makes a decision, he goes all in, and he doesn't really care what people think in terms of the Democrats and who's going to be doing the pearl clutching and concerns.

But he always knows that the Democrats, no matter what he does, are going to react, even if it's policies that they support. He waves into their, you know, sort of wades into their territory, and all of a sudden they're vehemently opposed to things that they've stood for for decades. And so I don't know how you couldn't stand up for the Iranian people right now. You know, the reports are anywhere from 20,000, 25,000 to 37,000 people that were executed just for, you know, protesting on the streets. Isn't that what the Democrats are standing up for in this country? They're claiming that their first amendment rights are under siege.

the United States, and yet here's President Trump standing up for the rights of the Iranian people to stand up against a murderous regime, not only murdering its own citizens, but have murdered American citizens. You know, every Marine that lost their life in 1983 and all the different military service members that were murdered along the way by this regime, I mean, we should be standing in solidarity with those people, understanding that President Trump cares about them and he cares about standing up for what's right. I mean, this is not an easy, uh, action to take for someone like President Trump's who does not want to go in and wage full-scale wars. He ran against the Iran and the Iraq wars.

But what he's looking at is peace through strength and making strategic moves against, again, the ballistic missiles, the nuclear program, where this regime has repeatedly lied and continues to enrich, continues to threaten American, American citizens in their lives. He's standing up for America and our allies. Interesting, where are our allies standing up for us? I'm really grateful to see Prime Minister Carney put out a statement in support of America. I think it's really important as a person who represents the northern border of Canada in upstate New York. It's also interesting. You mentioned allies stepping up and maybe potentially unexpected allies.

There was a big statement today from Saudi Arabia coming out and denouncing Iran, further cementing their desire to partner with the U.S. in this operation. just how big of a shift is what we've seen in the Middle East lately under President Trump, where there's this budding relationship between Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern states in actually unifying with the U.S. against Iran. Well, it's very interesting because Saudi Arabia has been one of the biggest victims in the Middle East because of all the attacks from Iran directly to Saudi Arabia. And Saudi Arabia has been engaging back and forth with talks to join the Abraham Accords. And, you know, really, you look back at what President Trump,

accomplished in his first term with the Abraham Accords. It was historic. It is why I've nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize. I went and filled out the form with the Nobel Committee three different times, specifically citing the Abraham Accords because of its historic nature. And President Trump deserves the Nobel Peace Prize for that. I know he likes to rattle off a bunch of other different conflicts, but that really changed the world. And it brought other Arab nations in the Middle East to realize, wait a minute, we have a chance for peace and prosperity. also gave a lot of encouragement to people around the world,

and including in places like the green zone in Israel. I met with Arab Shakes last year in the Middle East, within Israel, within the green line from Hebron, who said, we love the Abraham Accords. We don't want the Palestinian Authority. We want a meeting in the Oval Office with President Trump to talk about us being some kind of relationship with the Abraham Accords,

some kind of peace and prosperity for our children. We want to work with our Jewish and Christian neighbors. We want, we're done with this, the Iranians, you know, sponsors of terror and Hamas and all. We don't want that anymore. We want peace for our children. So they realized that this Palestinian plight industrial complex was hurting their communities. And President Trump stood strong in the breach, like he often does, often, you know, leading the way and other people recognizing that. So Saudi Arabia has been, you know, I mean, it was, it is not inconsequential that one of the very first international trips that President

and Trump took in his first term was to Saudi Arabia, and he made an historic trip with the Saudis and others to Sharmal Shake this year. For peace talks, he set up the Board of Peace. He's doing so many things to try to help the people in those regions to actually see an opportunity for peace in the Middle East. That's why I continue to, I think he should win the Nobel Peace Prize. I know that it was gracious of others to give him to him, but I think he deserves it on his own.

You know, it's a great point you make about the Democrats in America, focusing on, you know, the plight of the Palestinians or whatever, because they'll don don the Kefaya, the Palestinian Kefya, which is a symbol of the client groups of the Iranian regime. And they obviously have an interest in affairs in that neck of the woods. They just don't want to stand with the Iranian people. It's also a very important point for those who are going to paint this as a battle, say, between the U.S. and Israel versus the entire Arab and Persian world. That's really not what's going on here. There are a lot of nations in the Arab world that really don't like Iran.

And so President Trump has done a great job of kind of carving out relationships, not just in the Middle East, but in Eastern Europe and elsewhere. So, you know, best case scenario, this really reshapes the region and allows us to focus on other areas of the world. But I wouldn't be a proper conservative if I didn't focus on all the potential downsides. You know, we conservatives tend to have a little less rosy outlook. So when you're looking at the potential fallout, let's say, you know, the Ayatoll is still alive. Let's say the Ayatollah is dead, but the country descends into some infighting civil war. Reza-Palavi, for instance, could not unify the country. Let's say that all of a sudden more American assets are being called.

So we don't have those tanks there now, but maybe some tanks are being called in. you know, where do you place the likelihood that this really could become a drawn-out conflict that is not only bad for the region, but politically consequential here in the United States? Yeah, there's a lot of risks. Obviously, we could see where is China going to go, what's going to happen with Russia, and, you know, they've obviously not weighed in on this, but, you know, China has been the biggest facilitator to Iran purchasing all their oil, giving them the money that they have been able to use to engage with proxies.

Not helping the Iranian people, by the way, but funding Hamas and all the other terrorist groups that have been disrupting the area. So the region, I mean the Middle East. So I do think, you know, as a conservative, I know obviously we're concerned about it, but I feel like right now President Trump is really, they set this thing up in such an interesting way.

You know, we have the USS Lincoln in the Arab Arabian Sea. You've got the Ford over on the other side, you know, protecting Israel. and protecting that flank of the United States. I think a lot of this has been done in a very selective, a very carefully planned way. It's not some random act. But I think that when it comes to who will take over the regime,

I think as long as we have cleared out the Mullahs and the IRGC, which has been run basically by the Mullahs as a terrorist group within Iran and around the world, around the region, I should say. I think it's going to be interesting to see who will emerge. I'm not sure it's going to be Reza Pavavi, you know, the Sun, Shaw. I don't know. Right now he has sort of a, you know, a popular position amongst the, you know, during this interim phase. But I don't think ultimately he may be the person, but at least in this stage, we'll see, I mean, it's just so undetermined right now where everything is.

But I think it's going to give the Iranian people a chance for peace. It's not going to be an easy time. Just it is in Venezuela right now. But I think you're going to, you know, this is giving them a chance. And I do think you're going to see a lot of support coming from major players like Saudi Arabia and others who have so. much at stake in this region to ensure that there's some kind of peace and transition plan and a plan for Iran in the future. This is a huge country with huge natural reserves, with the potential to be a great player in the Middle East. But, you know, obviously this is going to be, you know,

something that we're going to have to work through. It's not going to be something resolved in a matter of weeks or days or years. It's going to be decades long. Representative Tenney, we're going to leave it there. Thank you so much again. I know you have a packed day, a lot ahead this week. but thank you again from the great state of New York. Thank you. I appreciate. Claudia Tenney. All right. So for those just now joining us, first we want to thank you for watching the Daily Wire's

live coverage. And just remind you that the reason we're able to do this, the reason that we're able to do our investigative reporting and our live breaking news covers, the reason we have reporters all around the country that we're able to pull from is because of you, the members. So if you're not a member already, head over to DailyWire.com, become a DailyWire member, join the conversation, help support all of the work. work that we are doing. So quick recap, many of you, maybe our friends on the West Coast, just now waking up to this historic news after negotiations on a nuclear deal started to fall

apart between the U.S. and Iran, the United States and Israel have launched joint attacks against Iran. The Israelis were targeting members of the Iranian leadership team. Again, we are still waiting. There are different reports every 10 minutes. I don't want to just read off every little thing that I'm seeing on Twitter about the Ayatollah and his whereabouts, because as Michael mentioned earlier, so many of these early reports turn out not to be true. So we are going to wait for solid reporting about whether the Ayatollah is alive and well. We do know that the Iranian defense minister has come out on American media and said that once these strikes stop, that Iran will be open to peace talks once again and that they

urge the United States to de-escalate. Not much of a surprise there, President Trump essentially saying to them, hey, you guys have been stalling for weeks. They had their third round of negotiations over in Geneva with Steve Whitkoff and Jared Kushner this week. Obviously, the United States was not happy with the progress that was being made. The White House felt that Iran was simply biding time, trying to stall to rebuild their defenses, get ready for a war, and ultimately to try to attain a nuclear weapon. But President Trump stepped in. He offered an address in the early hours Saturday morning. We're going to play some of that speech for you now so you guys can see the message that we heard

from President Trump. It was a historic address, really remarkable scenes. Let's play some of that right now. Finally, to the great proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand. Stay sheltered, don't leave your home. It's very dangerous outside. Bombs will be dropping everywhere.

When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations. For many years, you have asked for America's help, but you never got it. No president was willing to do what I am willing to do tonight. Now you have a president who is giving you what you want,

so let's see how you respond. America is backing you with overwhelming strength and devastating force. Now is the time to seize control of your destiny and to unleash the prosperous and glorious future that is close within your reach. This is the moment for action. Do not let it pass.

Later on, in a really remarkable moment, President Trump conceded the fact that the Iranian response could lead to the casualties for the United States military. Obviously, that would open up an entire new can of worms on how the U.S. would respond. Praise God so far, there are no reports of American casualties, although there were some explosions reported at a U.S. naval facility. in the country of Bahrain. Thankfully, that base had been largely evacuated beforehand, and it looks like the warehouse that was hit was not occupied.

But we're keeping a very close eye on the explosions that are going on across the Middle East. Number of countries, Qatar, Dubai, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, all of those countries reporting explosions. And of course, Israel, their Iron Dome is working overtime right now, trying to shoot down a flurry of Iranian missiles. They said that they would respond, and they have, responded. The big question now that we are still waiting at this hour is the safety whereabouts of the Ayatollah. People in Iran, as you can imagine, holding their breath, waiting. We also saw

people in Iran celebrating. We had video coming out of school children dancing and celebrating. There are people in the streets. Let's play some of that video now of people in the streets right after these attacks broken broad daylight. Look at some of this footage. It's incredible. It's amazing to see. And we must mention these are the same streets in Iran where upwards of 10, 20, maybe even 30,000 protesters were gunned down, murdered by the regime for pushing back against the Ayatollah. And now we see people celebrating the streets. This is a government that chants death to America. This is a government that oppresses its people. Now we see the people rising up in a way. And President Trump saying, in that broadcast, the day of your freedom is here. This may be your

best chance in generations. So the eyes of the world now on Iran, waiting to see what sort of response we see from the people if this does, in fact, lead to the toppling of the Itold's regime to be one of the most historic moments in modern American history and certainly one of the largest moments in President Trump's tenure. So let's get now to Breka Stoll, Daily Wire reporter. Breka, you are in New York City. There's going to be a big protest there a little bit later. What is the vibe in the Big Apple? Well, Cabot, people are just waking up. They're just starting their days here in New York. And right now it is calm. But beneath the calm is, like you said,

these protesters organizing. We have, you know, as early as 8 a.m. 9 a.m. This group called the Answer Coalition. This is, you know, the Democrat Socialists of America are behind this. This nonprofit that is organizing a protest in Times Square that is happening at 2 p.m. today. And I've already spoken to Mayor Mondani's office. Currently right now, the mayor does not have anything on his schedule to come to these protests. And it's also very interesting because he has been actually silent on everything

going on in New York. And we know that's not necessarily normal for the New York mayor, Zoranamundani, because he's very active. We know whenever there's a foreign policy issue and he will voice it to President Trump. Well, we should give him, I think, condolences now. This is a very sad day for him that the life of a tyrannical Islamic radical is being threatened in Iran. So I think we should give him a space. I do want to touch on something you said there that this event is being organized by professionals. That's something that you've reported on. extensively at the Daily Wires, how a lot of these organic grassroots protests are anything. But tell us about some of these groups and who's behind this protest looming today.

Well, it's really remarkable because what you see, and I've seen it in Minneapolis as well, but these groups are able to summon protesters really at the drop of the hat. And how it works in Minneapolis is they use these names, and it's like these trademark names. They use one called Defend the 612. And this is perfectly legal, but they use those names because they want to sound local. But these are connected to larger nonprofits, often, you know, open society-backed. That's, as we know, George Soros. But they organized protesters to be able to mobilize at the drop of the hat.

And this group, the answer coalition is the nonprofit behind it is the Progress Unity Fund. And so I haven't, you know, personally verified to see whether that is connected to George Soros or one of those groups. But to be able to mobilize so quickly, I would think that that could be a possibility. Yeah, I'm not going to rely on hours and hours of investigative reporting to tell me that George Soros is probably involved in that in some way. We are getting some breaking statements in from the White House. So Breka, stay here with us, but I want to read this. This came in three minutes ago. The first statement from the press secretary of the White House since these attacks, she said,

President Trump monitored the situation overnight at Mar-Lago alongside members of his. national security team. The president spoke with Prime Minister Nanyahu by phone. Prior to the attacks, Secretary Rubio called all members of the gang of eight to provide congressional notification, and he was able to reach and brief seven of the eight members. The president and his national security team will continue to closely monitor the situation throughout the day. So Michael, Caroline Levitt, they are saying that they provided congressional notification, that they tried to do so beforehand. And how important is that for the White House to be keeping the Senate in the loop here? What does that tell you?

Well, legally, it's not all that big a deal because this isn't a formal war and so that you don't need congressional authorization for it. You know, it probably even more than a legal cover here, this is providing a little bit of political cover for the White House because they want to avoid the errors of the Iraq war, not just on the ground in the Middle East, but also political. politically, you know, where you had Democrats, including people like Hillary Clinton, who actually voted for the war coming out against the war afterward. So, you know, they definitely want a little bit of political cover here. This strike should not be any surprise to anyone. The U.S. has been inching toward it, sometimes leaping toward it for the past roughly half a century now. So, you know, it's, I don't think any of those seven members of the gang of eight who got the phone call, we're particularly surprised that this was happening. To Breckis' point on Mamdani being

uncharacteristically silent. I wonder if he's worried that the USS Gerald Ford and Abraham Lincoln are going to come to the East River next to liberate Manhattan. I'm joking, I'm joie, it's not going to happen, but he probably is in a moment of mourning right now. But starting, well, within minutes probably, but certainly on Monday, you are going to have, I suspect, a pretty unified Democrat party coming out against this. And the way that they'll be able to do that is either they'll come out against it in principle, people like Ilhan Omar or Rashida Talib, or they'll come out against it tactically. This is where I think you're going to see some of the squishier, whineer kind of senators like Chris Murphy would be one of my predictions, saying, you know, this isn't

the way to do it. You know, Trump. But this isn't, this isn't, maybe there's an argument to do it, but this isn't the way that it should have been carried out. But I think you're going to see pretty unanimous Democrat opposition. And I think you're going to see a fair bit of Republican opposition, certainly from the typical malcontents in the Republican Party, guys like Thomas Massey or Rand Paul, guys who were always kind of cutting against the current. But I think you're going to see some broader opposition because every member of Congress is up for re-election this year. and a lot of senators are up for re-election too, and they can read the polls, and they recognize that Warren Iran is not popular. And so I think even when you see support from the Republicans, it's going to be tepid support. It's going to be qualified support.

It's going to be members of Congress who are waiting to see what actually happens. You point to Caroline Levitt's statement there. We didn't really get any new information from that statement. You see that the president is not addressing the nation, at least at this point. today. I think that we are in this moment of wait and see because, as we've been saying for this whole broadcast, this is not just some minor operation. This is the biggest foreign policy operation we've seen of President Trump's entire tenure. People don't really know how it's going to go. And I think they're preparing for, you know, half a dozen or more contingencies.

And for our audience at home, I just want to remind folks, the gang of eight, those eight members of Congress that were briefed, those are eight members who legally are, supposed to be briefed before acts of war, as Michael pointed out, this may or may not qualify as that. But the eight members, it's four Republicans, four Democrats. It's the two heads of the Senate House Intelligence Committee as well as the House Intelligence Committee. It's then Speaker Mike Johnson, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. And then in the Senate, it's Majority Leader John Thune and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. So those are the eight members of the Gang of Age. So Breka, thank you so much for joining us. And we look forward to see a report

from these protests. Michael, you're going to stick around. We're almost finished. But first, to close us out for the day, we're going to bring in Alexander Gray. He's the former National Security Council, Chief of Staff. Alex, we've now had about eight hours since these attacks took place in Iran. The dust literally is starting to settle, but this appears to be just the beginning. What is your take? Well, thanks for having me. I think what I've seen so far is obviously the extraordinary skill of the U.S. military again on display. I think we've seen that President Trump, in the buildup that he did of U.S. assets in the region over the last couple of weeks, has had the intended effect. It gave him the ability to, based on how the negotiations were

going, he had the optionality to decide what level of force to use. He had a huge panoply of assets to choose from, which allowed him to kind of tack and weave based on. on the situation he found himself in. And it also allowed us to prepare with the appropriate air defense capabilities, the Thads, the Patriots, moving them into the region well ahead of time has so far seemed to limit the casualties when the Iranians retaliated, which is exactly the lesson that the president has learned from some of the things we saw in his first term when I had the privilege of working for him. And then the other thing is the Iranians have so horribly, strategically miscalculated by attacking very ineffectually, I should add, Arab states that host American

military bases. This may ultimately end up being the worst strategic mistake the Ayatollahs have made, and that is really saying something, because the Ayatollahs make a lot of huge strategic mistakes. But this could ultimately be a very profound historical change in the region, where you have the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, others, having no choice but to stand up and vocally defend U.S. aligned interests against the Ayatollahs because they have attacked civilian targets in some instances on the soil of Arab states. That is a really significant change in the regional dynamic. There's a famous scene in Lord of the Rings where the siege of Helms Deep begins. the orcs are attacking, and they're not really having much effect.

And King Theodin famously says, is this it? Is this all you can conjure? Thinking nothing's going to happen. And then a big explosion happened, the battle turned. Could we be in that moment right now of thinking, hey, the Iranian response has been ineffectual to this point. Most of their missiles being shot down or hitting bases that are unoccupied? Do they have more up their sleeve? What else is at their disposal?

Well, they certainly could have more at their disposal. You know, we've known for many years that the Iranians, particularly, frankly because the Biden administration had this insane border laxity, we know that the Iranians have been able to send and have tried for many years to send sleeper agents into the United States. That's a very real threat. That's not just some Tom Clancy novel. They have actually been trying to do that for over a decade. And frankly, in the last four, the four years of the Biden administration, that became an even more pernicious threat.

So we have to be looking at the threat to the homeland. There's no question. We have to be looking at the threat to the hemisphere, because Hezbollah operates in places like Cuba, Nicaragua. They did in Venezuela, hopefully until recently. So, I mean, there is a very real threat of Iranian retaliation globally. The one thing I would say, though, is we have heard for decades that the Iranians have been built up to be this, this. 10 feet tall. And so many of the analysts in the U.S. intelligence community, after every potential confrontation with Iran, say that they're going to retaliate with overwhelming force. And it's almost always incorrect. Iran is almost always overestimated. That's not to say that we should go the other direction and assume that they're totally impotent, but we need to think proportionally about what their capabilities are. We've now had three instances in the last year where they have shown themselves to be incapable of real retaliation. Again, let's not

underestimate them, but let's not also make them 10 feet tall and make strategic miscalculations based on thinking that they have capabilities that they just may not. Do you think the White House can tolerate a situation if the Ayatollah remains alive, if the government remains largely in place? Can the White House tolerate a situation in which the end result of this strike is the continuation of the Islamic regime in Iran? Look, I would make the argument, it may not be popular at this moment. Well, people are obviously, I think, excited to see the success that the U.S. militaries had thus far.

But I would make the argument that the ultimate American interest here is not regime change, the ultimate American interest. And I think that the White House, to my understanding, there are a number of people in the White House who likely feel the same way. The ultimate interest here is the nuclear program has to be destroyed, the missile program has to be destroyed, the proxies have to be destroyed. And ultimately, we have to be somewhat agnostic about what comes next, frankly, because we just don't have, we have, we have learned the lessons of playing God with these regime change efforts. The Venezuela model is a good model where we have influence. We do what we can to change the ultimate, you know, change the chess board a little bit, but we don't sit around.

like it's Iraq in 2005 deciding who's in charge of fixing the sewer system in Sober City. You know, we just, we can't go down that route again. I totally agree with you. I know, I know it's unpopular when people get a little bit of war fever, but, you know, I am viewing this almost entirely from the American interest perspective. When I hear people come on and say, this is wonderful for the Persian, I like Persian people, they're great, I love the food, I have good Persian friends. I don't care that much. I don't, you know, that is not my interest in the United States risking our servicemen to go to war. Other allied interests, I don't care that much. I care about the American interest. And so I agree. I think that's a really wise way to look at it.

Then, of course, the follow-up question is, is there a world? Like in Venezuela, where we take out the top, we say to the number two, hey, we're going to keep you in place. But if you start messing around, we're going to kill you is essentially what President Trump said to the current leader of Venezuela. You know, is there a world in which the Islamic regime, should we remove the Ayatollah or whoever, you know, even if we just, you know, chastise him? Is there a world in which we can leave this regime in place and trust that they will not continue their nuclear program? Well, look, I think that the theocracy, the Ayatollahs who be the hominis and hominis before him, we're not going to be able to deal with them. They are truly religious fanatics. There's no question there. But the IRGC, the Kud's force, some elements of the conventional military, they're hacks. They're, in many cases, they're looting the country for their own financial gain, the same way that the Maduro regime was, was doing.

We have the ability, I think, you know, these are not good people, but I'm with you, Michael. My interest is the American strategic interest. It's limiting what we're doing in the Middle East, focusing on the long. term threat from the Chinese Communist Party. And the way to do that is to make common cause like we have in Venezuela with people who have a self-interest in perpetuating their own power and their own wealth. It's not warm and fuzzy, but it's the reality of how power works in that region. And if we can find an IRGC commander, an Iranian Navy commander like Adelsea Rodriguez in Venezuela, that we can work with who's going to have an interest in perpetuating their own power,

and that serves America's core interests, that's something that I think a lot of people in the administration, and I know I personally would support that course. How do you see this impacting both Vladimir Putin and his calculus and also Xi and China? Well, I think the Chinese are going to be in a very difficult spot because the oil that they rely on to keep the Communist Party regime in place and to build their war machine,

President Trump, something that I don't think has been fully appreciated. President Trump has strategically over the last two months done more to hamstring China's economic and energy access than anyone has ever done. What he did in Venezuela and what he's now done with Iran, he is going to substantially degrade China's ability to, one, dominate the Middle East and two, to get that oil that they rely on. So the Chinese are in a very difficult position. are they going to openly align with the Ayatollahs?

That is going to be a fascinating thing to watch. I would not rule it out. You know, the Chinese have provided intelligence. The Chinese have provided all sorts of assistance to the Iranians over the years because they want that oil and they want to threaten the United States position in the region. But this puts Xi Jinping in a horrible, horrible spot. And it's another, I think, strategic. I'm with you again, Michael.

I'm not thinking about this from a perspective of ID. from a core American strategy perspective, what the president's doing here could very likely have positive strategic impacts well beyond the region. And the same goes with Russia, where I think Vladimir Putin is looking at this and he's saying, President Trump is clear-eyed about our threats and what has to be done to secure American interests. It's time to make a deal. It's time to bring the war in Ukraine to an end. And I think this strengthens the American position. in those negotiations because of how President Trump has demonstrated his resolve in Iran. So final question, Alex, these next 24 hours going to be critical.

There's so much we still don't know. But as we learn more information, what are you going to be watching most closely? Yeah, most closely will be Iranian retaliation. I think in the next 24 to 48 hours, who's right? You know, the analysts in Washington who have been predicting that Iran has these extraordinary retaliation. Palatoria capabilities that we've really yet to see. Are they right? Or are those of us who have felt for some time that,

well, Iran could certainly do some damage, that's a bit overstated. And we're going to know the answer to that, I think, relatively soon. And the other thing I'll be watching is what sort of opposition comes up in Iran? Are the people in Iran, are they going to feel that the Ayatollahs are on their last legs? will there be organic protests like in 2009? What will be the former Shah, the Crown Prince, the heir to the Shah? What will his role be?

And will people rally around him? Will he serve as a national unity figure for people who want to see a replacement to the Iatollahs? So those are some of the things that I think we're going to know a lot more about over the next 24, 4872 hours. So much to keep an eye on. Alex, we know this is a busy day for you. So thanks so much for making time. Thank you. That was Alex Gray, former National Security Council, Chief of Staff, and we are continuing to monitor

this situation. I'm going to get back to Michael in just a minute, but before we wrap up here, just a overview of what we know. For those just now joining us, the United States and Israel have launched strikes against Iran. The United States has targeted a number of nuclear facilities, those that were not destroyed in Operation Midnight Hammer, and those that were. being rebuilt. We've targeted those. We've also targeted a number of military installations and

naval sites, while Israel has predominantly gone after members of the Iranian leadership. We are still awaiting confirmation on the fate of the Ayatollah, but we do know that the Israeli military targeted him directly. There are scattered reports of a number of generals from the IRGC having been killed. Israel was looking for a decapitation strike, taking out the leadership, President Trump saying that the leadership, if they are taken out and even if not, that would motivate the people of Iran. He said, quote, this is your day of freedom. He said that this could be the best chance to overthrow the regime that we have seen in generations. And he said, you might not get a better chance in this one.

So President Trump urging this regime change to happen from within and to topple the Ayatollah. We have seen a large response from Iran. They said that they would send our aircraft carriers to the bottom of the ocean. They said that the U.S. military, quote, would not do a damn thing. But right now, the Iranian response has been largely thwarted. They have launched attacks. We've seen explosions in six to eight Middle Eastern countries. We're still waiting for the final confirmation. But places like Qatar, Dubai, we saw a military installation of the United States in Bahrain that was targeted, a naval facility there from the fifth fleet. A large explosion when a missile did get through. Thankfully, so far, no American casualties have been reported. We're also waiting for casualty numbers out of Israel. They have been bombarded. Their Iron Dome has successfully knocked out most of those missiles, but there are usually some that get through. So we will have all that information for you as it becomes available. Michael, I'm going to give you the final word here. We've been on for a few hours now. Again, still waiting for the dust to settle. But final word here,

your thoughts on the day so far. The shift that just occurred in Trump's message to his base is pretty monumental. Because one of the reasons, Trump was elected to close the border and build the wall. Trump was elected to fix the economy. Trump was elected to restore sanity on the common sense issues, the social issues, transgenderism, whatever. However, one of the big reasons that President Trump was elected and that he was able to even take over the Republican Party was in response to the Republican Party under George Bush.

And so one of the pitches that Trump supporters had was no more stupid wars in the Middle East. And I think some of the confusion that you're going to see coming out over the next few days, especially on the right, is that people will have heard that and thought it meant an emphasis on the wars in the Middle East part. And what President Trump is signaling today is the emphasis was actually on the stupid part. So the way to judge this is not going to be, in the actual kinetic actions, the actual movement of ships and placement of U.S. troops, the way to judge it is going to be on the efficiency and efficacy of carrying out that foreign policy. I think this is why you're not seeing a lot of statements out of the White House yet.

I think this is why President Trump is not really addressing the nation yet, is we don't really know how this is going to end up. The dust certainly has not settled yet. But this is going to be a hugely consequential action regardless of what happens. That's maybe the one certainty that we have right now is that this will fundamentally shift how we understand the Trump administration, MAGA, and U.S. foreign policy in a way that we haven't really had to rethink it in about a quarter of a century. So it's monumental. and the fact that you're seeing some reticence from the White House. The fact that you're seeing some caution in how they're presenting this,

I think tells you that everyone at the top appreciates the gravity, the weight of the moment. Yeah, it's certainly a historic day. We woke up to a very different Middle East than the one we saw last night when went to bed. Michael, thank you so much for gracing our stream today. It was a pleasure. You're welcome, Cabot. You're totally welcome. Thank you to all of our viewers who have tuned in.

I just want to say, if you appreciate the DailyWire's live coverage today, big moments like this one, go to DailyWire.com right now, become a member if you aren't. We're doing breaking news, investigative reporting. We have reporters all over the world, and we're all just trying to help explain the world. We're trying to bring truth. And we can do that because of our members. So if you want us to continue that message, continue that work, join us today. Go to DailyWire.com now and become a member. Thank you guys. so much for tuning in. We will have a lot more coverage. Go to DailyWyW.com, get the DW app. We have a live blog that is running with all of the latest information. We will sift through what is going on. Your news feeds are being bombarded with videos and claims, and there's a lot of misinformation going around. Our reporters and fact checkers are working to sift through to bring you

the truth. So go to DailyWire.com, stay up to date on our live blog, and we will end it there. I'm Cabot Phillips, host of Wired In Live here at The Daily Wire. Thank you so much for tuning in. In a place like Los Angeles, people don't stop being who they are. Writers, thinkers, creators, people with stories still unfolding. That spirit lives on at Kingsley Manor, a community shaped by individuality, creativity, and lives well-lived. So when the conversation turns to what's next, it isn't about stepping away. It's about continuing the story.

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