June 13, 2025 • 36 mins
Hour 1 of The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show delivers a powerful and timely breakdown of the breaking news surrounding Israel’s unprecedented military strike on Iran’s nuclear and military infrastructure. Broadcasting live as the story unfolds, Clay and Buck provide exclusive insights from their recent visit to the White House, including a private meeting with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office just hours before the Israeli operation commenced. The hosts emphasize the strategic brilliance and secrecy of the mission, highlighting how President Trump and his administration maintained operational security while publicly signaling diplomacy. Drawing on Buck Sexton’s CIA background and Clay Travis’s recent travels to Israel, the duo analyzes the geopolitical implications of the Israeli airstrike, which targeted Iran’s nuclear facilities, ballistic missile infrastructure, and senior IRGC leadership. They describe the operation as potentially the most impressive tactical aerial strike of the 21st century, comparing its precision and scale to historic military campaigns. The hour features a live report from Newsweek’s Josh Hammer, broadcasting from Tel Aviv, who shares firsthand accounts of life under missile sirens and the Israeli public’s overwhelming support for the strike. Hammer underscores that across Israel’s political spectrum, there is near-universal consensus on the existential threat posed by Iran’s nuclear ambitions. He also notes the quiet approval from key Arab nations like Saudi Arabia and the UAE, despite their public condemnations. Clay and Buck explore the broader Middle East dynamics, including the fallout from Hamas’s October 7th attack, the weakening of Hezbollah, and the strategic miscalculations by Iran and its proxies. They credit President Trump’s leadership and the current administration’s discipline in avoiding leaks and maintaining a strong deterrence posture. The hosts also discuss the potential for lone-wolf terrorist responses and urge vigilance while dismissing alarmist claims of World War III. The hour concludes with commentary on domestic law enforcement, featuring a viral clip from Brevard County Sheriff Wayne Ivey, reinforcing law and order in Florida.
Make sure you never miss a second of the show by subscribing to the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton show podcast wherever you get your podcasts! ihr.fm/3InlkL8
For the latest updates from Clay and Buck, visit our website https://www.clayandbuck.com/
Connect with Clay Travis and Buck Sexton:
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to today's edition of the Clay Travis and Buck
Sexton Show podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Welcome in What a day we are destined for here
on a Friday, rolling in to Father's Day weekend. Major
news breaking yesterday evening, as we suggested, might well be
the case, based on our read of the situation, Israel
(00:26):
attacks Iran and goes once and for all for a
knockout blow when it comes to Iran's ability to get
nuclear weapons. Buck made the travel back. I believe he
was in the air when the attacks started on his
way back to Miami. I am still in Washington, d C.
City of DC really much of a mess right now
(00:48):
for many reasons, as it always is, but in particular
huge parade tomorrow for the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary
of the Army and all of that underway streets being
shut down. The timing on this very interesting. But Buck,
speaking of interesting, I was able to get in had
the passport. They let me in to the White House yesterday.
(01:10):
You and I had the opportunity on look. Any day
you get to go meet with the President in the
Oval Office and have a chat is a pretty big day.
But in conjunction with the fact that the attack happened
a few hours after we left. There are for those
of you inclined that like pictures, there are tons of
pictures of us with President Trump, with Jade Vance, with
(01:34):
Caroline Levitt. All of that is up on social media.
You guys can track it out. We had a great
conversation with President Trump. He wanted to let all of
you know how much he appreciates you. Oval Office meeting.
Met also with security related officials in the Oval Office
(01:54):
and in the West Wing area. Trying to tiptoe up
to exactly what I can say, but Buck, I think
it's fair the CIA background. We also were at Langley
this week. You and I had a very clear sense
that the moment of truth for Iran was at hand,
and I was not surprised when attacks happened last night.
(02:16):
I think they did a really good job of pretending
that they didn't know, but when they withdrew a lot
of the families from the Middle East, it was a
sign that they expected things to happen. What's your take,
based on your background in the CIA and based on
the evidence that continues to unspool about these attacks. Yeah,
so the timing was remarkable. Let me just first say
(02:39):
that from everything we have seen on the reporting of
this strike, the Israelis may have pulled off the most
impressive tactical aerial strike ever. I don't know if anything
could compare to what they have been able to accomplish
in this twenty four hours. I'm talking from a purely
(03:01):
military perspective, from a target set and assessing collateral damage,
assessing the specificity of the targets. This is really unprecedented.
And now the Israelis have world class military hardware, in
part because of the United States, in large part, I
think because of the collaborations that we have with them.
(03:23):
But what they've pulled off here, Clay, is nothing short
of remarkable. However one feels about the strike, I'm merely
looking at this right now from the practitioner and tactical perspective. Now,
the run up to this was particularly interesting for Clay
and me. Obviously, the run up for this was decades
of Iran funding terror, playing all kinds of games with
(03:48):
the inspectors and with the deals, and the Israelis had
finally just had enough. Trump opened the door for them
and tried to say, look, Iran, you really want to
do a deal, because we're not messing around anymore, and
they they messed around and they found out on this one.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
Now, Clay, we were there.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
We were in the Oval Office with the President, as
you mentioned, spoke to and spent time with all the
West Wing staff, Caroline Levitt, Steven Miller, all the superstars
we talk about on this show, and we just wanted
to be there to get some time with them, talk
to them about how things are going. But we did
particularly have a national security component of our time there.
And I'm telling you about this all for a reason.
(04:27):
One is Clay had never been to Langley. As you know,
my old stomping ground really did bring back a lot
of memories. I did not make Clay turn on the
James Bond theme music and we drove in, but I
thought about it. But we had a very good talk
and the contents were off the record. But we did
ask everybody we met with, are we allowed to say
that we met with you recomfortable with that? And they
(04:47):
all we all we got approval and all that. So
Deputy Director CIA, other senior CIA staffers, I won't get
into all their titles, Deputy director National Intelligence, director of
National Intelligence.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
We talked to everybody. The one thing that was really interesting,
claud was they were eager to speak to us, particularly
about the DOGE.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
And restructuring components of government, things like that, right, the
thing what you would assume we would talk about, and
you know, again I won't get into the specifics, but
we could talk about in the broadest terms. The moment
you or I asked a question about Iran, you could
just feel that the ever ever in the room got
a little tense, yes, and didn't want to talk. Now
(05:25):
when you're talking to us about the other things that
were under discussion, and then you discuss Iran and all
of a sudden. This was to the point where I
texted my brothers the night before the strikes and I said, guys,
I think they're going I think they're going in. I
didn't want to say this publicly because I didn't know.
No one told me, and too, you know, you don't
want to be wrong on something like this, and also
I didn't want anyone to get ahead of it, right,
(05:46):
I mean, you want the Israelis to have the benefit
of surprise. But I had a very strong feeling that
I only shared with Clay an immediate family.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
I said, Okay, I think this is happening.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
President Trump brought us into the Oval and was in
full Trump mode now he knew the strike was about
to happen. And Susie Wiles, who is the White House
Chief of Staff, we wanted to go by and just
just say thank you, Susie, do an amazing job, and
you know this White House and all heartfelt by the way.
You know, what we say to you on this show
on the air, which is our public record, right is
(06:15):
what we wanted to say to them in person about
how this is going. I don't have criticisms of this
administration so far, you know, maybe some suggestions, but no criticisms.
Susie Wilds was we found out from just somebody passing
by in the situation room, and Clay and I were
sitting there going, hmmm, the situation room. That's an interesting
place for the White House chief of Staff to be
right in this moment. And then we had talked to
(06:37):
our friends on the Secretary of Defensive Staff and the
Secretary of States staffs.
Speaker 3 (06:42):
About meeting up.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
How many kept having meetings moved around anyway, Long story short,
we've known for the last twenty four hours or so
that this was coming and it was interesting to be
by the decision makers here. Now it wasn't an American strike,
of course, but they all knew that this was going
to happen, and Trump's poker face. I would not want
to sit across the table from him in a poker
game play. I think it was masterfully played. And we're
(07:04):
gonna go to Israel and talk to a variety of
different people. Josh Hammer up next, So we're gonna break
here in a couple of minutes. Just so you know,
Scott Jennings is going to join us CNN's chief pugnacious
pundit when it comes to defending sanity on that network
is actually in Israel as well. Yell Eckstein, who obviously
(07:26):
many of you know from the IFCJ. Her flight was
turned back on route to Israel. She is still in
the United States. And we're going to talk with Ben
Shapiro of the Daily Wire, So a lot of different
people we're going to talk about. We got a lot
of guests reacting to what is a monumental day. I thought, Trump,
Marco Rubio, Pete hag Seth, jd Vance, Susie Wiles, everybody
(07:51):
that was involved here played it masterfully, in particular the
Trump press conference that he had right before we went
in for our meeting Bock, I mean, were hanging out
with him in the middle of the afternoon as the
final preparations for the attack are going. But he said
publicly that we were still effectively negotiating with Iran when
he knew that Israel's attack was coming. In the side
(08:13):
of Israel. They actually leaked that net and Yahoo was
going to be having to attend one of his children's
weddings to make the Iranians think nothing was ominous or
about to happen, and was a little bit like Michael
Corleoni at the christening and then all the bosses got whacked,
(08:35):
you know, is settling all accounts, settling all family business.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
It was a bit of that. And to your point,
I mean, Trump continued.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
He also he had his meeting with us, He had
the Senate and House leadership coming to the coming to
the event. I just think they knew exactly what was coming,
but they did not leak any of it. They kept
it extremely close to the vest, and as a result,
I think this was one hundred percent the right call.
(09:04):
Now I was over in Israel in December and in
some of my meetings with top Israeli officials, they said,
now is the time to make the move. Now they
said it a little bit. I think we had the
Speaker of the House, Speaker of the Kanesse over there
on this program letting it be known. I think that
basically he thought the time to attack Iran was now,
(09:26):
and they waited. Trump tried to get Iran to agree
to peace, and this seems to have been an incredibly strategic, successful,
decapitation style attack. We will continue to break all of
that out for you, but we're going to Israel with
Josh Hammer. He's a senior editor at large at Newsweek,
author of Israel and Civilization. He is in Israel right now.
(09:49):
We come back, we'll see what it sounds like on
the ground there. Tomorrow marks a major milestone two hundred
and fiftieth anniversary of the US Army, also President Trump's
seventy ninth birthday. Sponsor Pure Talk, founded by a veteran.
This month, Pure Talk is giving one thousand men and
women who've served our country an American flag from Allegiance Flag.
(10:09):
When you switch your cell phone service to Pure Talk,
you're contributing to that Pure Talk team believes every service
member who's faithfully served this country deserves to proudly fly
an American flag, one made in America. Just switch your
cell phone service to pure Talk this month, and a
portion of your monthly rate will go to provide the
flags to deserving veterans. With plans from just twenty five
bucks a month for unlimited talk, text plenty of data,
(10:32):
you can enjoy America's most dependable five gene network while
cutting your cell phone bill in half. Just dial pound
two five zero say the keywords Clay and Buck. Puretalk's
a US customer service will get you switched hassle free
in as little as ten minutes. Again, pound two five zero,
say Clay and Buck. To support veterans to switch to
America's wireless company, that's pound two five zero say Clay
(10:55):
and Buck. Save one thousand dollars and support America's heroes
at pure Talk. Our friend Josh Hammer joins us now
from the outskirts of Tel Aviv. He's the author of
Israel and Civilization, Senior editor at large for Newsweek. Hammer
(11:18):
glad to hear you're safe and things are going okay
so far. Tell us bring us as much as you
can into the on the ground story. How are the
Israeli people feeling, what are the security precautions? Tell us
what's going on around you.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
Yeah, Bud, thanks for having me. It's been a heck
of a week so far as things have not exactly
gone according to plan. To put it mildly, so, the
first thing happened a couple of nights ago. We were
out at dinner in Telaveria on the Sea. Nice sushi dinner,
you know, hoping for a romantic evening that was quickly
interrupted by citywide sirens for a hoopy ballistic missile attack.
(11:52):
So we ran with the baby stroller to the bomb
shelter before finishing our dinners. That was kind of just
a preview of things to come. So we woke up
this morning at three am local time to massive sirens
all throughout the country and ran to the bomb shelter.
So so I've been up buck since three am multile time,
and you know, it's it's been. It's been a heck
of a day. I guess. I can tell you that
(12:13):
on the ground it's very early quiet. There are virtually
no cars here on the road. The folks who I'm
staying with here in the house where I'm at. Who
went to the supermarket to get goods for the Sabbath,
the Shabbat on the weekend is over there, apparently, waiting
in line at the market for two hours. So it's
kind of like a hurricane. I mean, I've written out
hurricanes before you. I mean maybe if you've ever been
(12:34):
to the supermarket on the eve of a massive storm,
you know that all the produce is totally sold out there,
the bread is sold out, the line around the corner.
Apparently it's hurricane like conditions here. A million dollar question
obviously is what is Aron and now going to do?
But the Israeli people are tough, They're resilient and tranquly,
buzzing kind of a weird way. I'm actually really.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
Happy to be here at the sumner, Josh, what would
you assess? And I know it's hard because Israel has
a lot of people, but what kind of approval ratings
do you think as you sit there twelve hours after
the attack, sixteen hours after the attacks started, do you
think there is an Israel for attacking Iran?
Speaker 3 (13:10):
Right now?
Speaker 1 (13:13):
Oh? Here in Israel, clay Iran is not a contentious issue.
This is a very important point to get across. There
are a lot of contentious issues here in the Israeli
political spectrum. So there's a lot of disagreement about the
Palatine Arabs. What do you do with them? Two state solution,
one state solution, all that, there's a huge dispute here
when it comes to the issue of the draft exemption
into the military for the Hirad being the so called
(13:34):
old Orthodox. There are definitely contentious issues here in Israel.
Iran is not one of them. I actually have this
memory of chatting with a far left member of the
Connected back in twenty sixteen. This guy was so far left,
a literal self that self described marks that he's actually
a supporter of Bernie Sanders's twenty sixteen credential campaign. That's
why I was chatting with him nine years ago. And
(13:55):
I say that because even this guy, who is such
a leed to far left t die. Even he was
pretty hawkish when it comes to Iran. So if you
are a Jewish israel I, think Arab Israeli, study different conversation.
But Juwish is really is here across the entire political spectrum.
Understand that Iran is the existential threats and that at
the IBS mantra of never again means never again, if
(14:18):
that actually is to be taken seriously, that an operation
of likes which we saw last night simply had to
happen at some point.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
Do you have any sense, Josh of surprise at the
lack of military or effective military response from the Iranian
side of the equation. As we begin to dig in
more to this, and we will over the course of
the show today, the mapping of targets, the ability to
hit simultaneously, the ballistic missiles program, along with the natan's
(14:48):
nuclear facility and other nuclear facilities, along with senior leadership,
along with I mean, it's a stunning array of targets,
hundreds of planes that hit you know, over a hundred sites.
Speaker 3 (14:59):
But how much.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
Worry is there that there will be a major military
strike versus the terrorist cells dispersed? That has always been
a concern with Iran.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
So we saw preview of this last year, right, So
twice last year, in both April and October, Iran launched
a massive bullistic missile barras barrage at Israel. So the
higher one was October. It was it was like one
hundred and eighty three bolistic missiles or something like that,
and Israel's missile defense system held up. Not a single
Israeli was harmed, not a single hair. Every single Asraeli
(15:33):
was harm which is pretty remarkable in its own rights.
So we'll see if Ron is able to do more
than that. I suppose color me skeptical for at least
two reasons. One is on the Israeli North you have
their top roxy head ball, which has been completely decimated
at this point. They are a total shell of what
they want to were, and headflaw was very much Iron's
(15:53):
insurance policy there. That's kind of sort of damicles hovering
over Israel, essentially trying to prevent Digit from striking so
heaslows and taken care of. And then the literal actual
people buck on the ground in Iran, like the actual
IRGC top generals, like the physical people who would actually
get on the phone and call the shots, are mostly
dead at this point. So I'm skeptical as to what
(16:16):
could happen. But having said that, we're not taking any precautions.
My wife and I we are supposed to go to
Jerusalem this weekend spend the Sabbath there. I supposed to
have to talk my book in Jerusalem Sunday night. We
essentially canted all that. We're just we're buckling down here
in the safe house. We've got a nice big bunker
bomb shelter rooms, so we're not taking chances, certainly not
taking any chances, especially as a new father. But on
(16:37):
the other hand, I'm pretty skeptical that Iran can can
can do anything of much significant piosity.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
I think this is important and we're going to dive
into it more, Josh, and we appreciate you joining us
from Israel book. By the way, is Israel and Civilization.
There is actually a great deal of support for Israel's
attacks from other Middle Eastern countries, Muslim countries. They also
wanted Iran not to have nuclear weapons. That's an important
(17:04):
part of this, and I don't know that it gets
widely discussed, but Iran was seen as a pariah state
by many Muslim countries as well.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
Oh one thousand percent. No, Look, the Saudis and the
Amordis have put out condemnatory statements, but that's just what
the Arab countries do play as you know, I mean,
they're they're basically very cowardly when it comes to the
public space and statements there. But privately, I mean Muhammed
bin Taman is definitely smiling ear to ear and Riatta
right now. There is no doubt about that, with the
exception probably of the Emir and Doha Katar Tantar being
(17:37):
Iran's closest sooning arab ally and even some of these
rogues Northern African Muslim brotherhood adjacent to rogue states like
Algeria Tunisia both the pretty radical government, but the vast
majority of the Arab world that matters, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, Egypt,
Jordan countries like that.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
We got to stay safe, buddy, Thank you, get Israel
and civilization, thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
Yes, stay safe.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
If you have a family, you have a responsibility to
think about their welfare long after you're gone. You need
a will, maybe both a will and to trust. You
know only a third of Americans have a will. Not
expensive or burdensome now though to write one, thanks to
trust and will dot com. Make sure you have out
a legal document that spells out exactly how you want
things to go.
Speaker 3 (18:18):
When you're no longer around.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
Writing a will infinitely easier thanks to trust in will
dot com. Simple, affordable result will give you peace of mind,
not to mention, your families will have clarity after you pass,
hopefully keeping them from continuing to battle over the things
that you leave behind. Trust and will dot Com don't
put it off? Trust and will dot Com do it today?
(18:50):
Obviously major breaking news, biggest, maybe the most consequential shift
in dynamics in the Middle East, certainly sence October seventh.
But Buck, you said something that I think is important,
and I was tweeting some about this last night. We've
talked about it before I went over in December. And
one of the things that I just I couldn't stop
(19:12):
thinking about is and you well know this motivation. Why
do people do the things that they did? And I
was looking as I walked around at all these kibbutz's,
as I went to the Nova Music Festival, and I
saw these innocent people who were murdered in cold blood,
twelve hundred of them. The decision to go in by
(19:33):
Hamas on October seventh, it seems to have been motivated
in some way on a fear that through the Abraham Accords,
Saudi Arabia was going to normalize relationships with Israel, and
that would undercut Iranian power in the region. But you
mentioned it in the open of the show, and I
think this is important to think in the larger context here,
(19:56):
the fallout since October seventh is a tremendous miscalculation. Hamas
to a large extent has been wiped off the face
of the earth, and many of the people who supported
Hamas in any way have had their homes destroyed. I mean,
the entire Gaza region is a shell of what it was.
I see so much of this clay through the lens
(20:18):
of what we used to call the gi Watt the
Global War on Terror, which was a fight of civilization
against Chihatism. Hamas and the Mullahs in Tehran. They are
very much of the same belief of the same approach.
The similarities are extensive, and they're also Jie Hottists. So
(20:40):
you start with that. And one thing that I always
feel doesn't get enough attention is that, especially when they
did the document exploitation and they looked in the aftermath
of the bin Laden raid, Bin Laden was surprised by
the skill and ferocity of the American response to Yes
nine to eleven. Now I understand people say, oh, but
Afghanistan and the Taliban's hands, you know, twenty years later
(21:02):
and Iraq got very messy and they were okay, yeah,
that's all true, But it can also be true that
we killed al Qaida guys all over the world. Yes,
what happened to us on September eleventh. For those who
actually understand where the Gwatt was, and this is important context,
was supposed to happen over and over again. They were
planning those kinds of mass casualty blots, and now there
(21:25):
were some that were pulled off, the London you know,
the London two bombings, the Madrid bombings, but there were
so many more that were disrupted. And when you look
at al Qaeda leadership, the al Qaeda figures that were
taken out over the years, it was hollowed out, a
lot of it through drone strikes, but a lot of
it also through capture kill operations on the battlefields that
(21:46):
we had. So Clay, I think the Iranians, and I
think that their client terrorist regimes in either Lebanon with
Hesbalah or Hamas in Gaza, I think they misjudged the
both ferocity and capability of the Israeli response here. And
this is a new era in the Middle East. As
a result, totally Hamas decapitated. Interesting choice of words, both
(22:11):
figuratively and sometimes literally, unfortunately for them hes Bola and Syria,
and I think we deserve I think again, the Trump
team deserves a lot of credit here in Trump one
point zero. What happened all the time? Buck leaks so
many times. Whatever the Trump team was gonna do, New
York Times put it on the front page.
Speaker 3 (22:33):
There was opposition to it.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
They did not move quickly, and they did not protect sourcing.
Trump had a press conference today yesterday where he basically
equivocated on both sides. I was texting with our producer
Alley because she sent me a clip and it's like, hey,
Trump saying, hey, we can still work on this, and
then Trump saying maybe we can't work on this. But
he essentially let it be known that he was still
(22:55):
publicly negotiating.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
Heg Seth went to.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
A baseball game last night with his kids right before
the attacks started. This is I think, the ability to
hide the fact that we had knowledge of this, even
the initial statement of Rubio, Hey this is an Israeli attack,
we were not involved. It is a incredible accomplishment by
(23:19):
Israeli intelligence and it reminds me buck remember when they
had all the pagers blowing up for Hesbola, and they
had been working for years to be able to have
that moment arise. Israel has been working for years on
their plans to attack Iran, take out their leadership, and
keep them from being able to respond in kind. I mean,
(23:41):
I know Iran keeps saying, hey, we're going to respond,
and let me say this. If you're out and about
in the United States, I would say, keep your head
on a swivel because a lone wolf response, unfortunately from
a terrorist, could happen. But the ability I think of
Iran to respond in kind is almost non existent because
(24:03):
Israel has taken out so much of their leadership and
so much of their weaponry. And even when they did
respond and sent one hundred missiles in or whatever, the
Golden Dome or whatever it's called in Israel shot down
every dar is golden, theirs is iron. Okay, we've got
the Golden Dome, they've got the iron Dome. The Iron
Dome worked really well in Israel. And there were some
(24:23):
people out there on the right even who were saying, oh,
we had no knowledge that you think Israel's going to
attack Iran and Trump's not going to know that they
have decided to go. Now, whether we use our own
ships and our own missiles in our own planes is different. Well,
this is the statement from Secretary of State Mark Rubio
that came out right around the first hour or so
(24:44):
of the attack. This is what he put out tonight.
Israel took unilateral action against Iran. We are not involved
in strikes against Iran, and our top priority is protecting
American forces in the region. Israel advised us they believe
this action was necessary for self defense. Trump and the
administration have taken all necessary steps to protect our forces
and remain in close contact with our regional partners. To
(25:06):
let me be clear, Iran should not target US interests
or personnel. So that was from the Secretary of State.
I think that's a statement to just make it very well,
like he says at the bottom, let me be clear
that this is this is Israel taking the action. I'm
sure we gave intelligence support and moral support to this
from the administration once the decision was made by Netanyahu
(25:29):
and the IDF to go. But this was Israeli forces,
just like in you know, Ukraine is fighting Russia. We
may be giving Ukraine a lot of help and we are,
but Ukraine he ins are fighting Russia. We are not
fighting Russia. And Israelis are striking Iran. We are not
striking Iran. And if Iran were very foolishly to try
to expand that into attacks on US interest, the response
(25:52):
will be something that will make them regret it. I
can assure any Iranian I er GC who happens to
pick up this show probably pretty god likely, but you
do not want to test the Trump administration in this
moment by attacking US interest. To your point, some maniac
somewhere who gets his hands on not just a gun,
but on a vehicle, and we know the kind of
(26:12):
Jihadis attacks, that's a threat. But keep in mind that's
been a threat all along as well, just based on
what's going on in Gaza, then just based on the
fact that these maniacs hate us no matter what we do.
So don't ever forget that that threat level is a constant.
Let me play this because I also think this is important.
You touched on it. They may put out or I
(26:33):
think Josh Hammer said it. They may put out statements
that say, oh, my goodness. We are so outraged right
some of these different Middle Eastern countries about Israel attacking Iran,
But the leadership is saying different things behind closed doors.
Mohammad MBS Mohammed Ben Solomon actually went on back in
(26:55):
twenty eighteen. I believe this was sixty minutes. I don't
have the effective location here, but it is sixty minutes,
and he said that the Ayatola was very much like
Adolf Hitler. Now I know Hitler combinations are comparisons are common.
I'm not sure you hear him made very often common
(27:18):
and usually usually overblowed.
Speaker 3 (27:20):
Correct.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
But also I'm not sure you usually hear one Muslim
country leader calling another Muslim country leader Hitler. But this
kind of gives you a little bit of a window
into MBS and what the Saudis are telling the Americans
behind closed doors. Remember Trump was just in Saudi Arabia
last month. Listen to cut six.
Speaker 4 (27:42):
I've seen that you called the Ayatola cow Any the
new Hitler of the Middle East. Absolutely why and you
need because he wants to expand. He wants to create
his own project in the Middle East, very much like Hitler,
who wanted to expand at the time, many countries around
the world and in Europe did not realize how dangerous
(28:02):
Hitler was until what happened happened. I don't want to
see the same events happening in the Middle East. Does
Saudi Arabia need nuclear weapons to counter Iran? Saudi Arabia
does not want to acquire any nuclear bomb, but without
a doubt, if Iran developed a nuclear bomb, we will
follow suit as soon as possible.
Speaker 3 (28:21):
Okay, I think that's important.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
Again, that is what seven years ago, but that is
what he was saying publicly. So for people out there
who think, and there are people who are very prominent
in arguing this, this is going.
Speaker 3 (28:34):
To be World War three.
Speaker 2 (28:35):
Everybody in the Arab world is going to line up
behind Iran actually privately, and sometimes you say things differently
privately as the leader of a country, then you might
say publicly. I know some struggle to understand that privately,
many of these country leaderships are saying the same thing.
And it didn't get a lot of attention at the time.
(28:55):
But let me rephrase and go back to this. When
wermalized relations with Syria, it went a long way towards
creating space for Ron to be able to attack like
this because we gave to the Arabs in the Middle
East that was considered to be an incredible gesture of
goodwill by the United States on behalf of a new
(29:17):
government that frankly, we don't know how it's going to
go there, but we normalized relations with them, legitimize them,
and that then creates space to allow I think this attack.
This is always a very powerful counter narrative to the jihadists,
whether they're Sunni or Shia, and it is they want
to believe. And this goes back like I said, bin
(29:39):
Laden or Hamas they or the Iyahtolas. They want to
tell their people that they have to do the things
they're doing because we insist on oppressing them and making
their lives miserable and killing them for no reason. Essentially,
that's a very baseline version of their worldview. And the
truth is, whether it's Israel or America, we actually want
(30:01):
these countries to be stable and prosperous and happy and
you know, and successful. That's better for everybody. This is
what this is why Trump actually as the ultra capitalist,
it has a special diplomatic uh secret weapon or secret
power fuel, which is he's like look, I want to
get rich. I want you to get rich. I want
(30:22):
everybody getting rich at the nation state level, you know,
I want company. I want countries to be building companies
and selling us stuff and we sell them stuff. You know,
there are so many countries around the world, Clay, we
don't think about We don't have any problems with them.
We hope things are going great there, right, and they
don't lose a night's sleep about us.
Speaker 3 (30:38):
Syria is in a position how to choose what what
do you want you want to be?
Speaker 2 (30:42):
Do you want to be Jordan where you know there's
basically no crime and uh, you know, people go to
school and they're happy and they play soccer and they say,
or do you want to be some third world hell hole?
Speaker 3 (30:53):
And it's going to be up to Syria at some level.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
And you know, Gaza made their choice, and Israel tried
numerous times to hey, hey guys, if Gaza had stopped
firing rockets and had wanted to act like a responsible
nation state, there were the basis there was wide open
for I know we make we make jokes about this,
but for it to become like you know Trump Alago
on the Mediterranean right, I mean a new development site.
(31:18):
They chose, and they chose poorly. And this is a
very powerful counter narrative to the Jihattist and it's true
of Israel's, true of us. We want peaceful, stable, prosperous neighbors.
And if people are willing to play that game, let's
do that Iran. Let's see what the future of the
Iranian regime is. This is obviously very destabilizing for the
(31:39):
Mullas because they oppress everyone with the oh, but we're
the lions in this fight on your behalf not so much.
You can't claim you're a lion and go out like
a lamb, which is what Iran is doing right now.
And they took all of this money, billions and billions
of their people's money, and for two generations they claim
(31:59):
they were going to wipe Israel off the face of
the earth, and instead Israel just wiped them to a
large extent so far, their leadership out and they can't
even respond despite two generations to get ready. Look, and
I hope, and you know, I'm one of my big
things in life is don't celebrate early. And I know
that there's a lot that can still happen here. I'm
(32:20):
just gonna say this. The people are saying world War three,
that's that's crazy. They're just wrong because Russia and China
don't care that Iran just got its nose bloodied in
this way. They just don't care. They don't care about it.
They don't care about their own people. Trust me, they
don't care about Iran. They're not going to war over Iran.
That is looney tunes talk. So just put that aside
(32:40):
for a minute. I think that the Israeli strike so
far maybe the most impressive tactical military strike.
Speaker 3 (32:49):
It's certainly the twenty first century.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
And I think that you'd have to go back to
when Saddam's you know, half of his army was lined
up on the highway leaving Kuwait and going back into
a rock and it was just target practice for our aviators.
I mean, that's what ended up happening, for something like
this to be so one sided. Remember when we killed Solomoni.
Speaking of your point in World War three trended, but
(33:13):
Israel just took out his replacement, General Ismael Guyani that
is officially announced head of the IRGC is.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
The Islamic Revolutionary GUARDCORE, so he is down.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
They have wiped out a lot. We'll talk about this
and more. By the way, we're going to go back
to Israel, where our friend Scott Jennings from CNN happens
to be at the top of the next hour and
see what it's like for an American who was in
the media that happens to be in that country right
now while this is going on. In the meantime, summer
time of year, a lot of us take on home
repairs while the weather's good outside. But man, you know
(33:51):
there's a ton going on when it comes to thunderstorms.
In fact, Lee Filter, America's number one gutter protection company,
We'll go the distance to make sure your gutters won't
be clogged by leaves, branches, woofleballs, who knows what else.
When your gutters are clogged downpours can cause overflows that
lead to costly damage. Expense comes in the form of
repairing your walls, foundation footing, sizeable renovation work. Protect your
(34:14):
home right now With leaf Filter, America's number one gutter
gutter protection company. You can get thirty percent off your
entire order right now. Go to leaffilter dot com slash
clay to get started. Leaf Filters trusted pros will clean
out realigned, seal your gutters, and install award winning patented
technology that's been trusted by over a million homeowners. Great
last minute Father's Day gift reminder. Father's Day is Sunday.
(34:37):
For those of you who have not prepared, give Dad
the gift of not having to do more chores. Go
to leaffilter dot com slash clay schedule your free inspection
thirty percent off your entire purchase leaffilter dot com slash clay.
That's l eaf filter dot com slash clay. See your
representative for warranty details. Obviously, big news the attack of
(35:07):
Israel on Iran. We're going to continue to discuss that.
Going to talk with Scott Jennings from CNN at the
top of the next hour. But I did want to
play this quickly for all of you. This is Brevard
County Sheriff Wayne Ivy. I love everything he said about
protesters cut thirteen.
Speaker 3 (35:26):
Listen.
Speaker 5 (35:27):
If you resist loft loorders, you're going to jail. Let
me be very clear about that. If you block an
intersection or a roadway in Brevard County, you are going
to jail. If you flee arrest. You're going to go
to jail tiled, because we are going to run you
down and put you in jail. If you try to
mob rule a car in Brevard County gathering around it
(35:49):
refusing to let the driver leave in our county, you're
most likely going to get run over and dragged across
the street. If you spin on us, you're going to
the hospital and then jail. If you hit one of us,
you're going to the hospital and jail and most likely
get bitten by one of our big, beautiful dogs that
we have here.
Speaker 3 (36:10):
If throw a.
Speaker 5 (36:11):
Brick, a fire bomb, or point a gun at one
of our deputies, we will be notifying your family where
to collect your remains at because we will kill you
graveyard dead. We're not going to play.
Speaker 3 (36:24):
I love this guy, Buck.
Speaker 2 (36:25):
That is what I love to hear from our police
out of your state of Florida. So proud of Florida,
Baby Florida.
Welcome to today's edition of the Clay Travis and Buck
Sexton Show podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Welcome in What a day we are destined for here
on a Friday, rolling in to Father's Day weekend. Major
news breaking yesterday evening, as we suggested, might well be
the case, based on our read of the situation, Israel
(00:26):
attacks Iran and goes once and for all for a
knockout blow when it comes to Iran's ability to get
nuclear weapons. Buck made the travel back. I believe he
was in the air when the attacks started on his
way back to Miami. I am still in Washington, d C.
City of DC really much of a mess right now
(00:48):
for many reasons, as it always is, but in particular
huge parade tomorrow for the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary
of the Army and all of that underway streets being
shut down. The timing on this very interesting. But Buck,
speaking of interesting, I was able to get in had
the passport. They let me in to the White House yesterday.
(01:10):
You and I had the opportunity on look. Any day
you get to go meet with the President in the
Oval Office and have a chat is a pretty big day.
But in conjunction with the fact that the attack happened
a few hours after we left. There are for those
of you inclined that like pictures, there are tons of
pictures of us with President Trump, with Jade Vance, with
(01:34):
Caroline Levitt. All of that is up on social media.
You guys can track it out. We had a great
conversation with President Trump. He wanted to let all of
you know how much he appreciates you. Oval Office meeting.
Met also with security related officials in the Oval Office
(01:54):
and in the West Wing area. Trying to tiptoe up
to exactly what I can say, but Buck, I think
it's fair the CIA background. We also were at Langley
this week. You and I had a very clear sense
that the moment of truth for Iran was at hand,
and I was not surprised when attacks happened last night.
(02:16):
I think they did a really good job of pretending
that they didn't know, but when they withdrew a lot
of the families from the Middle East, it was a
sign that they expected things to happen. What's your take,
based on your background in the CIA and based on
the evidence that continues to unspool about these attacks. Yeah,
so the timing was remarkable. Let me just first say
(02:39):
that from everything we have seen on the reporting of
this strike, the Israelis may have pulled off the most
impressive tactical aerial strike ever. I don't know if anything
could compare to what they have been able to accomplish
in this twenty four hours. I'm talking from a purely
(03:01):
military perspective, from a target set and assessing collateral damage,
assessing the specificity of the targets. This is really unprecedented.
And now the Israelis have world class military hardware, in
part because of the United States, in large part, I
think because of the collaborations that we have with them.
(03:23):
But what they've pulled off here, Clay, is nothing short
of remarkable. However one feels about the strike, I'm merely
looking at this right now from the practitioner and tactical perspective. Now,
the run up to this was particularly interesting for Clay
and me. Obviously, the run up for this was decades
of Iran funding terror, playing all kinds of games with
(03:48):
the inspectors and with the deals, and the Israelis had
finally just had enough. Trump opened the door for them
and tried to say, look, Iran, you really want to
do a deal, because we're not messing around anymore, and
they they messed around and they found out on this one.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
Now, Clay, we were there.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
We were in the Oval Office with the President, as
you mentioned, spoke to and spent time with all the
West Wing staff, Caroline Levitt, Steven Miller, all the superstars
we talk about on this show, and we just wanted
to be there to get some time with them, talk
to them about how things are going. But we did
particularly have a national security component of our time there.
And I'm telling you about this all for a reason.
(04:27):
One is Clay had never been to Langley. As you know,
my old stomping ground really did bring back a lot
of memories. I did not make Clay turn on the
James Bond theme music and we drove in, but I
thought about it. But we had a very good talk
and the contents were off the record. But we did
ask everybody we met with, are we allowed to say
that we met with you recomfortable with that? And they
(04:47):
all we all we got approval and all that. So
Deputy Director CIA, other senior CIA staffers, I won't get
into all their titles, Deputy director National Intelligence, director of
National Intelligence.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
We talked to everybody. The one thing that was really interesting,
claud was they were eager to speak to us, particularly
about the DOGE.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
And restructuring components of government, things like that, right, the
thing what you would assume we would talk about, and
you know, again I won't get into the specifics, but
we could talk about in the broadest terms. The moment
you or I asked a question about Iran, you could
just feel that the ever ever in the room got
a little tense, yes, and didn't want to talk. Now
(05:25):
when you're talking to us about the other things that
were under discussion, and then you discuss Iran and all
of a sudden. This was to the point where I
texted my brothers the night before the strikes and I said, guys,
I think they're going I think they're going in. I
didn't want to say this publicly because I didn't know.
No one told me, and too, you know, you don't
want to be wrong on something like this, and also
I didn't want anyone to get ahead of it, right,
(05:46):
I mean, you want the Israelis to have the benefit
of surprise. But I had a very strong feeling that
I only shared with Clay an immediate family.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
I said, Okay, I think this is happening.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
President Trump brought us into the Oval and was in
full Trump mode now he knew the strike was about
to happen. And Susie Wiles, who is the White House
Chief of Staff, we wanted to go by and just
just say thank you, Susie, do an amazing job, and
you know this White House and all heartfelt by the way.
You know, what we say to you on this show
on the air, which is our public record, right is
(06:15):
what we wanted to say to them in person about
how this is going. I don't have criticisms of this
administration so far, you know, maybe some suggestions, but no criticisms.
Susie Wilds was we found out from just somebody passing
by in the situation room, and Clay and I were
sitting there going, hmmm, the situation room. That's an interesting
place for the White House chief of Staff to be
right in this moment. And then we had talked to
(06:37):
our friends on the Secretary of Defensive Staff and the
Secretary of States staffs.
Speaker 3 (06:42):
About meeting up.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
How many kept having meetings moved around anyway, Long story short,
we've known for the last twenty four hours or so
that this was coming and it was interesting to be
by the decision makers here. Now it wasn't an American strike,
of course, but they all knew that this was going
to happen, and Trump's poker face. I would not want
to sit across the table from him in a poker
game play. I think it was masterfully played. And we're
(07:04):
gonna go to Israel and talk to a variety of
different people. Josh Hammer up next, So we're gonna break
here in a couple of minutes. Just so you know,
Scott Jennings is going to join us CNN's chief pugnacious
pundit when it comes to defending sanity on that network
is actually in Israel as well. Yell Eckstein, who obviously
(07:26):
many of you know from the IFCJ. Her flight was
turned back on route to Israel. She is still in
the United States. And we're going to talk with Ben
Shapiro of the Daily Wire, So a lot of different
people we're going to talk about. We got a lot
of guests reacting to what is a monumental day. I thought, Trump,
Marco Rubio, Pete hag Seth, jd Vance, Susie Wiles, everybody
(07:51):
that was involved here played it masterfully, in particular the
Trump press conference that he had right before we went
in for our meeting Bock, I mean, were hanging out
with him in the middle of the afternoon as the
final preparations for the attack are going. But he said
publicly that we were still effectively negotiating with Iran when
he knew that Israel's attack was coming. In the side
(08:13):
of Israel. They actually leaked that net and Yahoo was
going to be having to attend one of his children's
weddings to make the Iranians think nothing was ominous or
about to happen, and was a little bit like Michael
Corleoni at the christening and then all the bosses got whacked,
(08:35):
you know, is settling all accounts, settling all family business.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
It was a bit of that. And to your point,
I mean, Trump continued.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
He also he had his meeting with us, He had
the Senate and House leadership coming to the coming to
the event. I just think they knew exactly what was coming,
but they did not leak any of it. They kept
it extremely close to the vest, and as a result,
I think this was one hundred percent the right call.
(09:04):
Now I was over in Israel in December and in
some of my meetings with top Israeli officials, they said,
now is the time to make the move. Now they
said it a little bit. I think we had the
Speaker of the House, Speaker of the Kanesse over there
on this program letting it be known. I think that
basically he thought the time to attack Iran was now,
(09:26):
and they waited. Trump tried to get Iran to agree
to peace, and this seems to have been an incredibly strategic, successful,
decapitation style attack. We will continue to break all of
that out for you, but we're going to Israel with
Josh Hammer. He's a senior editor at large at Newsweek,
author of Israel and Civilization. He is in Israel right now.
(09:49):
We come back, we'll see what it sounds like on
the ground there. Tomorrow marks a major milestone two hundred
and fiftieth anniversary of the US Army, also President Trump's
seventy ninth birthday. Sponsor Pure Talk, founded by a veteran.
This month, Pure Talk is giving one thousand men and
women who've served our country an American flag from Allegiance Flag.
(10:09):
When you switch your cell phone service to Pure Talk,
you're contributing to that Pure Talk team believes every service
member who's faithfully served this country deserves to proudly fly
an American flag, one made in America. Just switch your
cell phone service to pure Talk this month, and a
portion of your monthly rate will go to provide the
flags to deserving veterans. With plans from just twenty five
bucks a month for unlimited talk, text plenty of data,
(10:32):
you can enjoy America's most dependable five gene network while
cutting your cell phone bill in half. Just dial pound
two five zero say the keywords Clay and Buck. Puretalk's
a US customer service will get you switched hassle free
in as little as ten minutes. Again, pound two five zero,
say Clay and Buck. To support veterans to switch to
America's wireless company, that's pound two five zero say Clay
(10:55):
and Buck. Save one thousand dollars and support America's heroes
at pure Talk. Our friend Josh Hammer joins us now
from the outskirts of Tel Aviv. He's the author of
Israel and Civilization, Senior editor at large for Newsweek. Hammer
(11:18):
glad to hear you're safe and things are going okay
so far. Tell us bring us as much as you
can into the on the ground story. How are the
Israeli people feeling, what are the security precautions? Tell us
what's going on around you.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
Yeah, Bud, thanks for having me. It's been a heck
of a week so far as things have not exactly
gone according to plan. To put it mildly, so, the
first thing happened a couple of nights ago. We were
out at dinner in Telaveria on the Sea. Nice sushi dinner,
you know, hoping for a romantic evening that was quickly
interrupted by citywide sirens for a hoopy ballistic missile attack.
(11:52):
So we ran with the baby stroller to the bomb
shelter before finishing our dinners. That was kind of just
a preview of things to come. So we woke up
this morning at three am local time to massive sirens
all throughout the country and ran to the bomb shelter.
So so I've been up buck since three am multile time,
and you know, it's it's been. It's been a heck
of a day. I guess. I can tell you that
(12:13):
on the ground it's very early quiet. There are virtually
no cars here on the road. The folks who I'm
staying with here in the house where I'm at. Who
went to the supermarket to get goods for the Sabbath,
the Shabbat on the weekend is over there, apparently, waiting
in line at the market for two hours. So it's
kind of like a hurricane. I mean, I've written out
hurricanes before you. I mean maybe if you've ever been
(12:34):
to the supermarket on the eve of a massive storm,
you know that all the produce is totally sold out there,
the bread is sold out, the line around the corner.
Apparently it's hurricane like conditions here. A million dollar question
obviously is what is Aron and now going to do?
But the Israeli people are tough, They're resilient and tranquly,
buzzing kind of a weird way. I'm actually really.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
Happy to be here at the sumner, Josh, what would
you assess? And I know it's hard because Israel has
a lot of people, but what kind of approval ratings
do you think as you sit there twelve hours after
the attack, sixteen hours after the attacks started, do you
think there is an Israel for attacking Iran?
Speaker 3 (13:10):
Right now?
Speaker 1 (13:13):
Oh? Here in Israel, clay Iran is not a contentious issue.
This is a very important point to get across. There
are a lot of contentious issues here in the Israeli
political spectrum. So there's a lot of disagreement about the
Palatine Arabs. What do you do with them? Two state solution,
one state solution, all that, there's a huge dispute here
when it comes to the issue of the draft exemption
into the military for the Hirad being the so called
(13:34):
old Orthodox. There are definitely contentious issues here in Israel.
Iran is not one of them. I actually have this
memory of chatting with a far left member of the
Connected back in twenty sixteen. This guy was so far left,
a literal self that self described marks that he's actually
a supporter of Bernie Sanders's twenty sixteen credential campaign. That's
why I was chatting with him nine years ago. And
(13:55):
I say that because even this guy, who is such
a leed to far left t die. Even he was
pretty hawkish when it comes to Iran. So if you
are a Jewish israel I, think Arab Israeli, study different conversation.
But Juwish is really is here across the entire political spectrum.
Understand that Iran is the existential threats and that at
the IBS mantra of never again means never again, if
(14:18):
that actually is to be taken seriously, that an operation
of likes which we saw last night simply had to
happen at some point.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
Do you have any sense, Josh of surprise at the
lack of military or effective military response from the Iranian
side of the equation. As we begin to dig in
more to this, and we will over the course of
the show today, the mapping of targets, the ability to
hit simultaneously, the ballistic missiles program, along with the natan's
(14:48):
nuclear facility and other nuclear facilities, along with senior leadership,
along with I mean, it's a stunning array of targets,
hundreds of planes that hit you know, over a hundred sites.
Speaker 3 (14:59):
But how much.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
Worry is there that there will be a major military
strike versus the terrorist cells dispersed? That has always been
a concern with Iran.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
So we saw preview of this last year, right, So
twice last year, in both April and October, Iran launched
a massive bullistic missile barras barrage at Israel. So the
higher one was October. It was it was like one
hundred and eighty three bolistic missiles or something like that,
and Israel's missile defense system held up. Not a single
Israeli was harmed, not a single hair. Every single Asraeli
(15:33):
was harm which is pretty remarkable in its own rights.
So we'll see if Ron is able to do more
than that. I suppose color me skeptical for at least
two reasons. One is on the Israeli North you have
their top roxy head ball, which has been completely decimated
at this point. They are a total shell of what
they want to were, and headflaw was very much Iron's
(15:53):
insurance policy there. That's kind of sort of damicles hovering
over Israel, essentially trying to prevent Digit from striking so
heaslows and taken care of. And then the literal actual
people buck on the ground in Iran, like the actual
IRGC top generals, like the physical people who would actually
get on the phone and call the shots, are mostly
dead at this point. So I'm skeptical as to what
(16:16):
could happen. But having said that, we're not taking any precautions.
My wife and I we are supposed to go to
Jerusalem this weekend spend the Sabbath there. I supposed to
have to talk my book in Jerusalem Sunday night. We
essentially canted all that. We're just we're buckling down here
in the safe house. We've got a nice big bunker
bomb shelter rooms, so we're not taking chances, certainly not
taking any chances, especially as a new father. But on
(16:37):
the other hand, I'm pretty skeptical that Iran can can
can do anything of much significant piosity.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
I think this is important and we're going to dive
into it more, Josh, and we appreciate you joining us
from Israel book. By the way, is Israel and Civilization.
There is actually a great deal of support for Israel's
attacks from other Middle Eastern countries, Muslim countries. They also
wanted Iran not to have nuclear weapons. That's an important
(17:04):
part of this, and I don't know that it gets
widely discussed, but Iran was seen as a pariah state
by many Muslim countries as well.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
Oh one thousand percent. No, Look, the Saudis and the
Amordis have put out condemnatory statements, but that's just what
the Arab countries do play as you know, I mean,
they're they're basically very cowardly when it comes to the
public space and statements there. But privately, I mean Muhammed
bin Taman is definitely smiling ear to ear and Riatta
right now. There is no doubt about that, with the
exception probably of the Emir and Doha Katar Tantar being
(17:37):
Iran's closest sooning arab ally and even some of these
rogues Northern African Muslim brotherhood adjacent to rogue states like
Algeria Tunisia both the pretty radical government, but the vast
majority of the Arab world that matters, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, Egypt,
Jordan countries like that.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
We got to stay safe, buddy, Thank you, get Israel
and civilization, thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
Yes, stay safe.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
If you have a family, you have a responsibility to
think about their welfare long after you're gone. You need
a will, maybe both a will and to trust. You
know only a third of Americans have a will. Not
expensive or burdensome now though to write one, thanks to
trust and will dot com. Make sure you have out
a legal document that spells out exactly how you want
things to go.
Speaker 3 (18:18):
When you're no longer around.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
Writing a will infinitely easier thanks to trust in will
dot com. Simple, affordable result will give you peace of mind,
not to mention, your families will have clarity after you pass,
hopefully keeping them from continuing to battle over the things
that you leave behind. Trust and will dot Com don't
put it off? Trust and will dot Com do it today?
(18:50):
Obviously major breaking news, biggest, maybe the most consequential shift
in dynamics in the Middle East, certainly sence October seventh.
But Buck, you said something that I think is important,
and I was tweeting some about this last night. We've
talked about it before I went over in December. And
one of the things that I just I couldn't stop
(19:12):
thinking about is and you well know this motivation. Why
do people do the things that they did? And I
was looking as I walked around at all these kibbutz's,
as I went to the Nova Music Festival, and I
saw these innocent people who were murdered in cold blood,
twelve hundred of them. The decision to go in by
(19:33):
Hamas on October seventh, it seems to have been motivated
in some way on a fear that through the Abraham Accords,
Saudi Arabia was going to normalize relationships with Israel, and
that would undercut Iranian power in the region. But you
mentioned it in the open of the show, and I
think this is important to think in the larger context here,
(19:56):
the fallout since October seventh is a tremendous miscalculation. Hamas
to a large extent has been wiped off the face
of the earth, and many of the people who supported
Hamas in any way have had their homes destroyed. I mean,
the entire Gaza region is a shell of what it was.
I see so much of this clay through the lens
(20:18):
of what we used to call the gi Watt the
Global War on Terror, which was a fight of civilization
against Chihatism. Hamas and the Mullahs in Tehran. They are
very much of the same belief of the same approach.
The similarities are extensive, and they're also Jie Hottists. So
(20:40):
you start with that. And one thing that I always
feel doesn't get enough attention is that, especially when they
did the document exploitation and they looked in the aftermath
of the bin Laden raid, Bin Laden was surprised by
the skill and ferocity of the American response to Yes
nine to eleven. Now I understand people say, oh, but
Afghanistan and the Taliban's hands, you know, twenty years later
(21:02):
and Iraq got very messy and they were okay, yeah,
that's all true, But it can also be true that
we killed al Qaida guys all over the world. Yes,
what happened to us on September eleventh. For those who
actually understand where the Gwatt was, and this is important context,
was supposed to happen over and over again. They were
planning those kinds of mass casualty blots, and now there
(21:25):
were some that were pulled off, the London you know,
the London two bombings, the Madrid bombings, but there were
so many more that were disrupted. And when you look
at al Qaeda leadership, the al Qaeda figures that were
taken out over the years, it was hollowed out, a
lot of it through drone strikes, but a lot of
it also through capture kill operations on the battlefields that
(21:46):
we had. So Clay, I think the Iranians, and I
think that their client terrorist regimes in either Lebanon with
Hesbalah or Hamas in Gaza, I think they misjudged the
both ferocity and capability of the Israeli response here. And
this is a new era in the Middle East. As
a result, totally Hamas decapitated. Interesting choice of words, both
(22:11):
figuratively and sometimes literally, unfortunately for them hes Bola and Syria,
and I think we deserve I think again, the Trump
team deserves a lot of credit here in Trump one
point zero. What happened all the time? Buck leaks so
many times. Whatever the Trump team was gonna do, New
York Times put it on the front page.
Speaker 3 (22:33):
There was opposition to it.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
They did not move quickly, and they did not protect sourcing.
Trump had a press conference today yesterday where he basically
equivocated on both sides. I was texting with our producer
Alley because she sent me a clip and it's like, hey,
Trump saying, hey, we can still work on this, and
then Trump saying maybe we can't work on this. But
he essentially let it be known that he was still
(22:55):
publicly negotiating.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
Heg Seth went to.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
A baseball game last night with his kids right before
the attacks started. This is I think, the ability to
hide the fact that we had knowledge of this, even
the initial statement of Rubio, Hey this is an Israeli attack,
we were not involved. It is a incredible accomplishment by
(23:19):
Israeli intelligence and it reminds me buck remember when they
had all the pagers blowing up for Hesbola, and they
had been working for years to be able to have
that moment arise. Israel has been working for years on
their plans to attack Iran, take out their leadership, and
keep them from being able to respond in kind. I mean,
(23:41):
I know Iran keeps saying, hey, we're going to respond,
and let me say this. If you're out and about
in the United States, I would say, keep your head
on a swivel because a lone wolf response, unfortunately from
a terrorist, could happen. But the ability I think of
Iran to respond in kind is almost non existent because
(24:03):
Israel has taken out so much of their leadership and
so much of their weaponry. And even when they did
respond and sent one hundred missiles in or whatever, the
Golden Dome or whatever it's called in Israel shot down
every dar is golden, theirs is iron. Okay, we've got
the Golden Dome, they've got the iron Dome. The Iron
Dome worked really well in Israel. And there were some
(24:23):
people out there on the right even who were saying, oh,
we had no knowledge that you think Israel's going to
attack Iran and Trump's not going to know that they
have decided to go. Now, whether we use our own
ships and our own missiles in our own planes is different. Well,
this is the statement from Secretary of State Mark Rubio
that came out right around the first hour or so
(24:44):
of the attack. This is what he put out tonight.
Israel took unilateral action against Iran. We are not involved
in strikes against Iran, and our top priority is protecting
American forces in the region. Israel advised us they believe
this action was necessary for self defense. Trump and the
administration have taken all necessary steps to protect our forces
and remain in close contact with our regional partners. To
(25:06):
let me be clear, Iran should not target US interests
or personnel. So that was from the Secretary of State.
I think that's a statement to just make it very well,
like he says at the bottom, let me be clear
that this is this is Israel taking the action. I'm
sure we gave intelligence support and moral support to this
from the administration once the decision was made by Netanyahu
(25:29):
and the IDF to go. But this was Israeli forces,
just like in you know, Ukraine is fighting Russia. We
may be giving Ukraine a lot of help and we are,
but Ukraine he ins are fighting Russia. We are not
fighting Russia. And Israelis are striking Iran. We are not
striking Iran. And if Iran were very foolishly to try
to expand that into attacks on US interest, the response
(25:52):
will be something that will make them regret it. I
can assure any Iranian I er GC who happens to
pick up this show probably pretty god likely, but you
do not want to test the Trump administration in this
moment by attacking US interest. To your point, some maniac
somewhere who gets his hands on not just a gun,
but on a vehicle, and we know the kind of
(26:12):
Jihadis attacks, that's a threat. But keep in mind that's
been a threat all along as well, just based on
what's going on in Gaza, then just based on the
fact that these maniacs hate us no matter what we do.
So don't ever forget that that threat level is a constant.
Let me play this because I also think this is important.
You touched on it. They may put out or I
(26:33):
think Josh Hammer said it. They may put out statements
that say, oh, my goodness. We are so outraged right
some of these different Middle Eastern countries about Israel attacking Iran,
But the leadership is saying different things behind closed doors.
Mohammad MBS Mohammed Ben Solomon actually went on back in
(26:55):
twenty eighteen. I believe this was sixty minutes. I don't
have the effective location here, but it is sixty minutes,
and he said that the Ayatola was very much like
Adolf Hitler. Now I know Hitler combinations are comparisons are common.
I'm not sure you hear him made very often common
(27:18):
and usually usually overblowed.
Speaker 3 (27:20):
Correct.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
But also I'm not sure you usually hear one Muslim
country leader calling another Muslim country leader Hitler. But this
kind of gives you a little bit of a window
into MBS and what the Saudis are telling the Americans
behind closed doors. Remember Trump was just in Saudi Arabia
last month. Listen to cut six.
Speaker 4 (27:42):
I've seen that you called the Ayatola cow Any the
new Hitler of the Middle East. Absolutely why and you
need because he wants to expand. He wants to create
his own project in the Middle East, very much like Hitler,
who wanted to expand at the time, many countries around
the world and in Europe did not realize how dangerous
(28:02):
Hitler was until what happened happened. I don't want to
see the same events happening in the Middle East. Does
Saudi Arabia need nuclear weapons to counter Iran? Saudi Arabia
does not want to acquire any nuclear bomb, but without
a doubt, if Iran developed a nuclear bomb, we will
follow suit as soon as possible.
Speaker 3 (28:21):
Okay, I think that's important.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
Again, that is what seven years ago, but that is
what he was saying publicly. So for people out there
who think, and there are people who are very prominent
in arguing this, this is going.
Speaker 3 (28:34):
To be World War three.
Speaker 2 (28:35):
Everybody in the Arab world is going to line up
behind Iran actually privately, and sometimes you say things differently
privately as the leader of a country, then you might
say publicly. I know some struggle to understand that privately,
many of these country leaderships are saying the same thing.
And it didn't get a lot of attention at the time.
(28:55):
But let me rephrase and go back to this. When
wermalized relations with Syria, it went a long way towards
creating space for Ron to be able to attack like
this because we gave to the Arabs in the Middle
East that was considered to be an incredible gesture of
goodwill by the United States on behalf of a new
(29:17):
government that frankly, we don't know how it's going to
go there, but we normalized relations with them, legitimize them,
and that then creates space to allow I think this attack.
This is always a very powerful counter narrative to the jihadists,
whether they're Sunni or Shia, and it is they want
to believe. And this goes back like I said, bin
(29:39):
Laden or Hamas they or the Iyahtolas. They want to
tell their people that they have to do the things
they're doing because we insist on oppressing them and making
their lives miserable and killing them for no reason. Essentially,
that's a very baseline version of their worldview. And the
truth is, whether it's Israel or America, we actually want
(30:01):
these countries to be stable and prosperous and happy and
you know, and successful. That's better for everybody. This is
what this is why Trump actually as the ultra capitalist,
it has a special diplomatic uh secret weapon or secret
power fuel, which is he's like look, I want to
get rich. I want you to get rich. I want
(30:22):
everybody getting rich at the nation state level, you know,
I want company. I want countries to be building companies
and selling us stuff and we sell them stuff. You know,
there are so many countries around the world, Clay, we
don't think about We don't have any problems with them.
We hope things are going great there, right, and they
don't lose a night's sleep about us.
Speaker 3 (30:38):
Syria is in a position how to choose what what
do you want you want to be?
Speaker 2 (30:42):
Do you want to be Jordan where you know there's
basically no crime and uh, you know, people go to
school and they're happy and they play soccer and they say,
or do you want to be some third world hell hole?
Speaker 3 (30:53):
And it's going to be up to Syria at some level.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
And you know, Gaza made their choice, and Israel tried
numerous times to hey, hey guys, if Gaza had stopped
firing rockets and had wanted to act like a responsible
nation state, there were the basis there was wide open
for I know we make we make jokes about this,
but for it to become like you know Trump Alago
on the Mediterranean right, I mean a new development site.
(31:18):
They chose, and they chose poorly. And this is a
very powerful counter narrative to the Jihattist and it's true
of Israel's, true of us. We want peaceful, stable, prosperous neighbors.
And if people are willing to play that game, let's
do that Iran. Let's see what the future of the
Iranian regime is. This is obviously very destabilizing for the
(31:39):
Mullas because they oppress everyone with the oh, but we're
the lions in this fight on your behalf not so much.
You can't claim you're a lion and go out like
a lamb, which is what Iran is doing right now.
And they took all of this money, billions and billions
of their people's money, and for two generations they claim
(31:59):
they were going to wipe Israel off the face of
the earth, and instead Israel just wiped them to a
large extent so far, their leadership out and they can't
even respond despite two generations to get ready. Look, and
I hope, and you know, I'm one of my big
things in life is don't celebrate early. And I know
that there's a lot that can still happen here. I'm
(32:20):
just gonna say this. The people are saying world War three,
that's that's crazy. They're just wrong because Russia and China
don't care that Iran just got its nose bloodied in
this way. They just don't care. They don't care about it.
They don't care about their own people. Trust me, they
don't care about Iran. They're not going to war over Iran.
That is looney tunes talk. So just put that aside
(32:40):
for a minute. I think that the Israeli strike so
far maybe the most impressive tactical military strike.
Speaker 3 (32:49):
It's certainly the twenty first century.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
And I think that you'd have to go back to
when Saddam's you know, half of his army was lined
up on the highway leaving Kuwait and going back into
a rock and it was just target practice for our aviators.
I mean, that's what ended up happening, for something like
this to be so one sided. Remember when we killed Solomoni.
Speaking of your point in World War three trended, but
(33:13):
Israel just took out his replacement, General Ismael Guyani that
is officially announced head of the IRGC is.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
The Islamic Revolutionary GUARDCORE, so he is down.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
They have wiped out a lot. We'll talk about this
and more. By the way, we're going to go back
to Israel, where our friend Scott Jennings from CNN happens
to be at the top of the next hour and
see what it's like for an American who was in
the media that happens to be in that country right
now while this is going on. In the meantime, summer
time of year, a lot of us take on home
repairs while the weather's good outside. But man, you know
(33:51):
there's a ton going on when it comes to thunderstorms.
In fact, Lee Filter, America's number one gutter protection company,
We'll go the distance to make sure your gutters won't
be clogged by leaves, branches, woofleballs, who knows what else.
When your gutters are clogged downpours can cause overflows that
lead to costly damage. Expense comes in the form of
repairing your walls, foundation footing, sizeable renovation work. Protect your
(34:14):
home right now With leaf Filter, America's number one gutter
gutter protection company. You can get thirty percent off your
entire order right now. Go to leaffilter dot com slash
clay to get started. Leaf Filters trusted pros will clean
out realigned, seal your gutters, and install award winning patented
technology that's been trusted by over a million homeowners. Great
last minute Father's Day gift reminder. Father's Day is Sunday.
(34:37):
For those of you who have not prepared, give Dad
the gift of not having to do more chores. Go
to leaffilter dot com slash clay schedule your free inspection
thirty percent off your entire purchase leaffilter dot com slash clay.
That's l eaf filter dot com slash clay. See your
representative for warranty details. Obviously, big news the attack of
(35:07):
Israel on Iran. We're going to continue to discuss that.
Going to talk with Scott Jennings from CNN at the
top of the next hour. But I did want to
play this quickly for all of you. This is Brevard
County Sheriff Wayne Ivy. I love everything he said about
protesters cut thirteen.
Speaker 3 (35:26):
Listen.
Speaker 5 (35:27):
If you resist loft loorders, you're going to jail. Let
me be very clear about that. If you block an
intersection or a roadway in Brevard County, you are going
to jail. If you flee arrest. You're going to go
to jail tiled, because we are going to run you
down and put you in jail. If you try to
mob rule a car in Brevard County gathering around it
(35:49):
refusing to let the driver leave in our county, you're
most likely going to get run over and dragged across
the street. If you spin on us, you're going to
the hospital and then jail. If you hit one of us,
you're going to the hospital and jail and most likely
get bitten by one of our big, beautiful dogs that
we have here.
Speaker 3 (36:10):
If throw a.
Speaker 5 (36:11):
Brick, a fire bomb, or point a gun at one
of our deputies, we will be notifying your family where
to collect your remains at because we will kill you
graveyard dead. We're not going to play.
Speaker 3 (36:24):
I love this guy, Buck.
Speaker 2 (36:25):
That is what I love to hear from our police
out of your state of Florida. So proud of Florida,
Baby Florida.
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show News
Hosts And Creators
Clay Travis
Buck Sexton
Show Links
WebsiteNewsletterPopular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
Ridiculous History
History is beautiful, brutal and, often, ridiculous. Join Ben Bowlin and Noel Brown as they dive into some of the weirdest stories from across the span of human civilization in Ridiculous History, a podcast by iHeartRadio.