America at a Crossroads: How Operation Epic Fury, Rising Terror Threats, Democratic Obstruction, and Media Propaganda Define This Moment As the world watches Operation Epic Fury reshape the balance of power in the Middle East, Americans at home face rising terror threats, political gamesmanship in Washington, and a media environment increasingly aligned with anti‑American narratives. The latest episode of Verdict with Ted Cruz captures this moment with striking clarity, weaving together the military, political, and cultural battles that define America’s fight for security both abroad and at home. What emerges is a sobering but empowering picture: America is winning where it shows strength — and suffering where weakness is politically engineered.
Operation Epic Fury: Crushing Iran’s War Machine and Reasserting American Dominance Senator Ted Cruz opens the episode with the hard numbers that tell the story: Iran’s offensive capabilities are collapsing under sustained, strategic U.S. pressure. In just eight days:
- Ballistic missile launches fell from 350 to just 15 per day
- Drone swarms dropped from peak 541 to only 12
- Iran’s air defenses have been neutralized
- Mobile missile launchers are destroyed in real time
- The Iranian Navy has been crippled
The U.S. has achieved total air superiority and full maritime dominance in the Persian Gulf. This is not a symbolic show of force — it is the systematic dismantling of a regime that has funded terrorism for nearly half a century. President Trump’s strategy is working because it is disciplined:
- Use precision weapons early to blind and cripple Iranian defenses
- Transition to gravity bombs once dominance is secured
- Cut off Iran’s financial lifelines
- Demand unconditional surrender
The result: Iran’s ability to wage war or fund terrorism is fading fast. And beyond Iran itself, Operation Epic Fury delivers a powerful check on China by securing energy chokepoints critical to Beijing’s economy — a geopolitical masterstroke the mainstream media refuses to acknowledge.
Rising Terror Threats at Home: The Real Consequences of Open Borders While U.S. forces dismantle Iran’s capabilities abroad, Americans face growing threats at home from extremist actors emboldened by years of open‑border policies under the Biden administration. The episode cites two recent and chilling examples:
- A dangerous IED attack in New York City
- An Islamist‑motivated assault in Austin, where the attacker wore pro‑Iranian symbols
Yet the media suppressed key details — especially that attackers shouted “Allahu Akbar” and displayed Iranian extremist ideology. When facts interfere with political narratives, the media buries them. Senator Cruz makes the core point clearly:
These extremists are here because Democrats opened the border and kept it open. With Islamist leaders issuing fatwas calling for attacks on Americans, the Biden-era border collapse is not merely negligent — it is dangerous.
Democrats’ DHS Shutdown: Political Theater with Deadly Stakes One of the most stunning sections of the episode centers on the Democratic Party’s refusal to fund the Department of Homeland Security. Every Democrat except John Fetterman voted against DHS funding. Their target? ICE — or so they claim. The truth?
ICE is fully funded because Republicans secured its budget last year. So who is being punished in the shutdown?
- TSA agents, now working unpaid
- FEMA workers, responsible for disaster response
- The Coast Guard, whose servicemembers can't pay rent
- Counterterror units, critical during a time of heightened risk
This isn’t resistance — it’s recklessness. Democrats know their base hates ICE, wants open borders, and demands symbolic activism. So they chose to defund the very agencies that protect Americans while pretending to “fight” ICE. Senator Cruz calls it what it is:
A radical political game endangering Americans during a terror surge.
Exposing the Obama–Murphy Nuclear Deal Lies One of the episode’s most powerful takedowns comes as Senator Cruz dismantles Senator Chris Murphy’s claims about the Obama-era Iran Nuclear Deal. Murphy insisted the deal “was
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome. It is Verdict with center. Ted Cruz ben Ferguson
with you, and it's nice to have you with us
around the country. We've got a lot to talk about,
including the latest on Operation Epic Fury. This regime is
being really just decapitated in Iran center, and this is
good news when it comes to national security.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Well, that's exactly right. We're seeing extraordinary results in terms
of the military conflict with Iran and the efficacy with
which this attack is removing the regime's ability to launch
missiles to launch drones. Let me give you the numbers,
because the numbers are really striking. So on day one
of this conflict, Iran launched three hundred and fifty missiles
(00:39):
ballistic missiles. On day two, it dropped to one hundred and
seventy five. On day three, it dropped one hundred and twenty.
On day four, it dropped to fifty. On day five,
it dropped to forty. On day six, it dropped to
thirty two. On day seven it dropped to twenty eight,
and on day eight it dropped all the way down
to fifteen. So they went from three hundred and fifty
(00:59):
ballistic missile launched a day to just fifteen launched today.
How about drone swarms, same pattern, Day one, two hundred
and ninety four, Day two, five hundred and forty one,
So they surged on day two, Day three two hundred,
Day four eighty five, Day five forty five, Day six
(01:20):
thirty eight, day seven thirty, and day eight twelve. So
what that means is that our forces have systematically taken
out number one, their air defenses. Number two, we've taken
out their missile launch sites and their drone launch sites.
Most of their missile launch sites are mobile, so what
happens is when they launch from a mobile missile launcher,
(01:42):
we lock onto it and take that launcher out. And
we've done that systemically. Now, early on we were using
smart bombs and guided missiles. That's very expensive munitions, and
you saw in the first few days of this conflict
a lot written saying that the rate at which we're
using munitions is not sustainable. Plan was never to use
sharp smart munitions for the entire duration of the conflict. Rather,
(02:05):
the plan was to use it to take out both
their defensive capacity and their offensive capacity. We've done that.
Now now having achieved air superiority, we're able to use
gravity bombs. We're able to use munitions, which we have
vast quantities of and which are much much less expensive.
In other words, President Trump and the military has achieved
(02:29):
total air dominance, has all but eliminated their ability to
launch ballistic missiles and drones, and meanwhile has achieved naval
dominance as well, taking out most of the ships in
their navy. That level of control has put us in
a position where we're we're seeing extraordinary success.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
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(03:10):
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(03:34):
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That's Compassion dot com. You talk about this extraordinary success
and it's something that I think so many Americans have
(03:57):
been concerned over what this means at home. You look
at gas prices, for example, let's talk about that for
a moment. The President has said, and many that are
analyst's military and say, look, if this is a short
term thing, this is going to be a short term pain,
and what you gain is massive compared to that in
the future, because this is how much Iran could hold
(04:18):
the world hostage. Look at this what has happened here recently,
and these prices have obviously jumped significantly. The President has
made it clear he thinks this is going to be
short term event and we're not invading. We are going
after regime change and then things will go back to normal.
Twenty percent of the world supply goes through the strati
war moves. That's another part of this and the calculation here,
(04:39):
So break that down a little bit so people understand.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Yeah, I think that's right. We have seen an energy spike,
and anytime there's a conflict in the Middle East, you
typically see oil prices spike, and gasoline prices spike. My
expectation is that will be a short term spike. I
don't expect this conflict to last more than a couple
of weeks, and I think you'll see gasoline prices drop
back down out And I will note President Trump has
(05:02):
a lot of credibility on this when when he came in,
we were seeing gasoline prices across the country in some
places six seven dollars a gallon, and those prices have
dropped all but in half. In Texas, you could routinely
buy a gallon of gas for between two and three
bucks a gallon, and so that that has been very effective.
I also want to make a broader point about analyzing
(05:24):
the energy component of what's going on. And there was
a Twitter thread by this analyst named Guy larn who
who is not a fan of Trump's, but I think
actually his analysis of the energy policy in the Middle
East was very insightful, so I want to share it
with you. So he asks, is Trump planning to venezuelas Iran?
(05:47):
This analysis analysis deviates from the mainstream media portrayal of
a fickle, senile or beab lead president. It assumes Trump
is evil but rational a thread. Now, I don't agree
with the evil characterization there, but the rest of this
analysis is quite insightful. So he continues, What is carg
Island and why does it matter? A tiny strip of
(06:09):
land half the size of Manhattan, nestled in the Northern
Persian Gulf one hour by boat from the Iranian shore.
Gazelle's roam next to oil terminals through which Iran exports
ninety percent of its crude. Iran's pre war signal. Before
the war, as American forces massed across the region, Iran
(06:31):
did something revealing. It ramped up carg exports from one
point five million barrels of oil a day to four million,
near record levels. That means that the Iranians read Trump
differently than the Western media does. They don't think he's
after regime change or democracy. They think he's after oil.
(06:52):
They might be right. NBC reported that Trump outlined to
his aids his vision for a post war Iran quote,
a new Iranian regime cooperates on oil productions, similar to
how the US and Venezuela are. The Venezuela template out
of Trump's own mouth. AI's Michael Rubin, a former advisor
to the George W. Bush administration, who is in direct
(07:15):
contact with the Trump advisors, is pushing the same logic.
Referring to the Revolutionary Guards, he says, quote if they
can't sell their own oil, they can't make payroll, meaning
that if the US seizes carg it doesn't need regime change.
It directly controls Iran's most important source of income. Everything
(07:37):
the US in Israel has done so far fits this strategy. First, quote,
decapitate and delegate. That was Israel's role commeny killed. The
Iranian leadership is in disarray. Now to whom do you delegate?
The answer isn't clear yet. So the US is reportedly
encouraging Kurdish rebellion in the north of the country, forcing
(07:59):
RAND to set send forces upwards and thin out their
defenses in the south where car goes. Meanwhile, the US
has systematically destroyed the Iranian navy operations, reaching as far
as Sri Lanka, where an Iranian warship was intercepted. Southern
RAND is being pummeled. These aren't random, They are clearing
(08:20):
the operational space for a naval seizure of kark Ian
bremer Kap captures the military logic precisely. The KRG island
isn't extensively fortified, and sits isolated enough that the US
destroyers could establish a credible defensive perimeter well offshore. The
US is also preparing to escort tanker convoys through the
(08:42):
Strait of Hormus and seeking financial mechanisms to ensure ships
after Lloyd's pulled out. These services aren't free. In practice,
the US would control the Straits, the jugular of global
energy trade. China can't respond militarily. It prepared its navy
to defend the Strait of Malacca, its other vulnerability. Approximately
(09:06):
eighty percent of China's imported crude oil and nearly two
thirds of its total maritime trade pass through the Strait
of Malacca. Having the US control the Persian Gulf, from
which China imports roughly half its crude and a third
of its gas, is a strategic catastrophe for Beijing. The
alternative deeper dependence on Russian energy practically natural gas from Siberia,
(09:33):
which is exactly what Beijing loathes. It does not want
to be dependent on the transactional putin step back Greenland, Panama, Venezuela,
now the Persian Gulf. Trump isn't leading the world through
alliances and institutions. He's seizing nodes, the choke points and
(09:54):
resource pools that make the world ANAI run. Whether it
works or not, this is is a coherent imperial strategy. Now,
I gotta say I don't agree with every word of that,
but that is very insightful analysis and helps you understand
why the American success in Iran. It's it's critically important
to our safety and the principal reason for going in
(10:16):
is to keep Americans safe from Iranian terrorism and aggression.
But it is also a very very powerful China pit play,
enhancing US economic security and national security.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
You know, one of the things you mentioned there is
what Americans worry about it. And you go back to
just some of the headlines that we're seeing right now.
One of them out of New York there was an
arrest made after a home made explosive caused terror scare
in New York City. This device that was hurled at Gracie.
I mean, it's some protests determined to be highly dangerous
(10:49):
ID cable of serious injury or death. People see this like,
well maybe, and again I think it's important to we
deal with this. They say, well, this is why maybe
we shouldn't have gone after Ran. And I think that's
flawed logic to think that way. These threats are threats,
whether we got there or not. And and and they're like,
I don't think there's a direct cause and effect. I
think there are bad people in the world that want
(11:10):
to commit Hanus crimes, and their timing may change because
of what we did Aran. But if you're a terrorist
in this country, the guy in this country through the
open borders or however you got in here and and
you're planning something or trying to do something, I think
it's in your DNA based on your beliefs you were
going to do it no matter what.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Well, and look, this vulnerability is here because for four years,
Joe Biden, the Democrats opened up our borders and basically
invited radical Islamic terrorists to come to this country. If
you if you look what happened in New York, New York,
you had islabists throwing dangerous IEDs capable of serious injury
or death. And and you know, ask yourself in the
(11:50):
reporting on this, have you seen a single news report
mentioned that the jihadists who threw the nail bomb into
a crowd New York City repeatedly shouted Allahu Akbar. I
haven't seen that. I haven't seen that on CNN. I
haven't seen that on MSNBC or the New York Times.
They don't want to cover that. And to be clear,
(12:12):
we saw the same thing in Austin a week ago
when the terrorists there wearing a sweatshirt that said property
of Allah, wearing a T shirt with an Iranian flag,
attacked a bar on Sixth Street in Austin. And again,
this is the terrorism, the vulnerability that President Trump is
acting to protect against. But I got to tell you
(12:34):
in the midst of this, look, we have an enhanced
risk for terrorism right now. It is obvious. Jihadis clerics
have put out a fat walk calling on terrorists to
try to kill Americans. And in the middle of this,
do you know what we did this week? We voted
again to fund the Department of Homeland Security, and every
Democrat except John Fetterman said no, we will not fund DHS,
(12:58):
the department literally created to defend us against terrorist attacks.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
You mentioned that, and let's go into that a little
bit more. This is all about politics, and it shouldn't be,
because this is about a national security issue, and I
think it's important to we take a moment explain exactly
why Democrats have wanted to keep this shut down going.
This is a partial government shutdown. It's something they're obsessed
with DHS. They don't like it, they don't like law
and order, they don't like ICE agents, and they're putting
(13:24):
our lives at risk. And they don't really seem to
care that that's what they're doing.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
They don't and understand it's all empty politics appealing to
their radical base. So the Democrats have decided they hate ICE.
They are the party of illegal immigrants, and they are
opposed to ICE. They are posed to law enforcement, they
are opposed to police. Now their DHS shutdown. Do you
know how many ICE agents are not being paid because
(13:49):
of it?
Speaker 1 (13:49):
How many?
Speaker 2 (13:50):
Zero? They are not defunding ICE. They are failing miserably
in any effort to defund ICE. Why because last year
when we passed the Working Families tax cut, the big
reconciliation bill, we funded ICE. We knew the Democrats would
play stupid games with it, so we said, fine, we'll
provide the funding for ICE. So ICE agents are being paid.
The DHS shutdown is not cutting off even a penny
(14:13):
for ice. The people they are cutting off, they're cutting
off the Coastguard, they're cutting off FEMA, they're cutting off TSA. Look,
if you're flying a plane, you could expect delays to
begin getting longer and longer and longer because those TSA
agents that have to check you in right now, they're
showing up at work and they are not being paid.
(14:33):
I just got off a plane yesterday thank the TSA
agents who were there, and they appreciated that. But they said,
you know, boy, would be nice to get paid, and
I agreed. I said, it is utter bs. I'm sorry
about that. You should be paid, and I just apologized
to them. Although to be clear, I'm voting to fund them.
But the Democrats are trying to ratchet up and inflict pain,
(14:56):
and they believe the media won't blame them when your
flight are delayed. They believe the media won't blame them
when coastguardsmen, you know, young men and women serving in
the Coast Guard, don't have the money to pay their rent,
don't have the money to pay their mortgage. They believe
the media won't won't blame them when FEMA, the people
in charge of responding to disasters are not being paid
and it slows down federal disaster response. The Democrats believe
(15:19):
the media will not blame them, so this is entirely
an effort to say screw you to ICE by not
cutting out ICE funding because they can't do that because
Republicans already paid for ICE, but instead cutting off the
funding for the rest of DHS that exists principally to
stop terrorist attacks. So they're telling you, I, Chuck Schumer,
(15:42):
I Democrat, hate ICE and hate law enforcements so much
that I'm going to increase the chance of a terrorist
attack in your community, just to tell the crazies in
my party how much I hate ICE.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
I want to go back to something else that we
also are seeing, and it's not just these these domestic
terrorist attacks here that may be inspired by what's happening,
but we're also now seeing this happen around the country.
Police are with the world, I should say, police are
investigating an explosion outside the US embassy for example in Norway.
What can you tell us about that? And the concern
(16:17):
that people have all over the world now for what
this with the reactions happening from these Muslim extremists.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
Well, Islamists are taking this time to engage in acts
of violence, acts of terrorism, and we could expect to
see more of this now. Understand, many of these Islamists
have been funded by Iran for years and so they
see their money stream, their money spigot, being cut off.
But we need, we need full capacity to protect ourselves
(16:44):
at a time that is dangerous. I believe what the
Democrats are doing is reckless and I pray that it
does not lead to it. But the Democrats action cutting
off the funding for DHS could very well cause more
terrorist attack, including potentially a catastrophicar Arist attack. And I'm
not aware of any of the Democrats who is expressing
(17:05):
any concern about this or is willing to do anything
about it. Look, they might leave DHS shut down, lead
these people not paid for the rest of the year.
They are radical enough to do this, and the media
is complicit in it, and it's the reason President Trump
is trying to resolve this conflict with Iran quickly. And
what President Trump has called for is unconditional surrender. That
(17:28):
he wants Iran to surrender, and he is systematically taking
out first their air defenses, then their missile launch capacity,
then their drone launch capacity, than their missile manufacturing capacity,
than their drone manufacturing capacity, than their military infrastructure, their leadership,
and at this point he is systematically degrading their ability
to fight back day after day after day. He is
(17:51):
exactly right to say this ends when the Iranian regime
says we surrender, and when they surrender, the result is
going to be that the theocratic despots who chant death
to America, who pay for terrorists to murder Americans, who
pay for hit men to try to murder President Trump,
they are out of power. We are not going to
(18:13):
allow that country to be led by lunatics who are
spending millions of dollars trying to murder Americans. That's what
victory looks like. I believe that's where we will end up.
But I will say at the same time, we are
seeing people spread propaganda and and and we're seeing two
groups that are spreading the same propaganda. Let's start with
(18:36):
with democrats. Let let's start, in particular with with Chris Murphy.
I want you to listen to what Chris Murphy has said.
Give a listen.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
Malla's in Iran. This is again Rubio's characterization, are mad men,
and they believe in holy war, and they believe in
killing the crusaders of the United States and the Jews
of Israel, and there is a special degree of unacceptability
for them having a nuclear So.
Speaker 4 (19:04):
Yeah, I don't disagree, But what I disagree with is
that an aerial military campaign or even the insertion of
ground forces can permanently dislodge Iran from having a nuclear weapon. Again,
you were talking about knowledge that can't be bombed out
of existence. So how do you stop a diplomatic agreement.
We had a diplomatic agreement. Barack Obama negotiated agreement in
(19:26):
which Iran was more than a year away from getting
a weapon. We had daily inspections scouring the country. It
was working. Donald Trump's advisors told him it was working.
He threw that agreement into the trash, which precipitated the
crisis that we are in today. This is a place
where diplomacy probably is the only true path to make
(19:47):
sure that Iran doesn't have a nuclear weapon.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
All right, let me ask you this sanator. He says
it was working. That is a flat out lie. And
I think most people have been following this would know
that he's acting like they just decided to go rogue,
referring to the Trump ministration just get into a war for
no reason at all.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
So what you just heard from Senator Chris Murphy is
utterly fact free propaganda. He's just repeating left wing talking points. Now, look,
Chris Murphy wants to run for president as a left
wing Democrat, as a successor to Bernie Sanders in terms
of a rabid socialist isolationist, and so facts are not
going to get in the way. One of the things
he said there we were having daily nuclear weapons inspections.
(20:28):
That is a lie. Under the terms of the Obama
Nuclear Deal Number one, there were multiple areas that were
off limits from inspection. What areas were off limit from inspection? Well,
one of them was Fordah, the military site under a
mountain where they were doing their nuclear weapons development. By
the way, Donald Trump dropped bunker buster bombs on Foidah
and took it out and destroyed it. But under the
(20:49):
Obama Nuclear Deal, nobody could inspect forida. And even when
we wanted to expect other areas of research, we had
to call the Iranians and get their permission and they
would inspect it for us. You know, I've sort of
joked that that's like calling up a drug dealer. Can
you can you imagine like the classic movie Scarface. The
(21:09):
scenario that Obama negotiated is basically that the DEA would
call Tony Montana, the drug dealer in Scarface, and go, hey, Tony,
would you check your warehouse and tell us if there
are any drugs there? And Tony would go yeah, man, yeah, man,
hold on, hold on, let me look, let me no, no,
no drugs there, We're clean. That is the Obama nuclear deal.
It was literally Obama calling calling up the Ayahtola, Hey
(21:31):
you got any nukes? No, man, we're good. We don't
have any nukes, no nukes here at all. All right, thanks.
That's the idiocy of the Democrats. They knew. And by
the way, the Obama ran nuclear deal sunset in fifteen years.
So after fifteen years Obama said, I We're fine with
your having nukes. Chris Murphy and the Democrats know that.
(21:52):
They don't care. That deal was designed to allow Iran
to get a nuclear weapon. I'll tell you when President
Trump and the first term pulled out of the Obama
Iran nuclear deal, it was exactly the right decision. I
had urged him to do so, and it set the
stage Iran is now, particularly after President Trump last year
(22:12):
bombed the nuclear weapons facility, Iran's nuclear program is way way,
way back, and yet they remain dangerous and they remain
absolutely committed to developing nuclear weapons. Now, the Democrats and
the press are trying to undermine President Trump. They're trying
to undermine the US military, and they're trying to bolster
(22:35):
Iran and the iatolas. Do you know who else is
doing that?
Speaker 1 (22:39):
Who else?
Speaker 2 (22:41):
Tucker Carlson and the rest of the so called woke right.
There's a group of isolationists folks on the right. It
is a small group, but they are loud and vocal.
And Tucker Carlson has now all but declared war on
President Trump's foreign policy. I want you to listen to
Tucker Carlson in his latest show, so I'm going to
warn you what he says here is shocking and it
(23:04):
is to the left of Chris Murphy. So it is
more anti Donald Trump than Chris Murphy and the Democrats.
Listen to Tucker Carlson.
Speaker 5 (23:12):
Unconditional surrender means foreign troops get to rape your wife
and daughter if they want. And everyone knows that, and
that has been If there's one consistent lesson of history,
it means unconditional surrender means foreign troops get to rape
your wife and daughter. Everyone can feel that. That's like
the most atavistic instinct there is. And so to avoid that,
(23:33):
people will do anything. And so that's why it requires
that level of force to get a population subdued to
the point of unconditional surrender. That's why. And so in
this case, of course, we don't have the ground force necessary.
I don't think Americans would voluntarily participate in it. I
just don't think we can do that. It would require
weapons of mass destruction. It would require presumably nuclear weapons
(23:56):
in order to do that. And let's stop, let's not
lie to ourselves. We're moving toward that.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
You hear Tucker there, and I mean you want to
talk about on hinge. That is like some of the
most anti American propaganda I've ever seen spewed by someone
like Tucker Carlson. It is a new low even for him,
and and the bar keeps dropping day after day.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
Look the phrase, the words someone like Tucker Carlson, you
don't even have to put that constraint. That is more
anti American rhetoric than anything I've ever heard Bernie Sanders say,
or even Chris Murphy what he said there. Listen, Tucker
continues to go to new Low's and new Low's and
part of it is President Trump this week said that
that Tucker Carlson is quote, not maga and not smart.
(24:39):
The more Tucker Carlson attacks Donald Trump, the more fringe
he gets. And so I think this was Tucker acting
out when when Trump said what was obviously true, but
Tucker just said, go back, rewind and listen to what
he just said. He said, number one, if Iran surrenders,
that American soldiers are going to rape their wives and daughters,
(25:00):
and in fact he said it twice. What utter and
complete garbage, you America hating Islamist fluffer. I gotta say
that makes me mad. I think of the servicemen and
men who in women, but the men in particular who
are risking their lives. And Tucker Carlson's standing there saying
if you surrender to America, American soldiers are gonna rape
(25:23):
your women. We have never done that. That is not
something America does. No, Tucker, American soldiers are not gonna
rape Iranian women. You know who rapes the people they
conquer Iranians do Islamists do? That is, in fact part
of what they do. Part of what they do is
is is that they rape women as a means of subjugation.
(25:45):
But Tucker's not gonna tell you that because Tucker is
now one of the leading proponents of sharia law in
the United States. He's literally an apologist for Islamist And
so now you might say, wow, that statement seems incredible,
it seems extreme. Here are a couple of data points. Number One,
during this war, the Iranian National Television is playing Tucker
(26:05):
Carlson's show in Iran. They view that as such valuable
propaganda they want the Iranian people to hear Tucker. Number Two,
the Muslim Brotherhood, by the way, Hamas is the Muslim
brotherhood in Palestine, and they are terrorists are tweeting out
Tucker Carlson's show. The Muslim Brotherhood is saying, this is
our spokesman. Man, this guy is good. I cannot recall
(26:28):
another major political figure on left or right who has said,
if you surrender to America, American soldiers will rape your women.
That's what Tucker Carlson just said that is grotesque. And
by the way, any soldier who sees Tucker Carlson, I
want to say, how dare you say that? American soldiers
know we would not and impugning our troops is disgusting.
(26:49):
And the second thing that Tucker said in that clip
is that Donald Trump is moving towards using a nuclear
weapon in Iran. No, he's not, Tucker as a complete
utter lie, that is false. We are not going to
nuw kran. It is only deranged. That's the sort of
thing the Ayatola would say. And you've got to ask yourself. Look,
(27:10):
some of you may think back to when Tucker was
on Fox News and he was actually said a lot
of things you and I loved that made a lot
of sense. This guy today is just a kook. And
even worse than that, he is the most prominent purveyor
of Islamist lies about America and about Donald Trump. Tucker
Carlson has gone full out to war with Donald Trump's
(27:34):
national security and foreign policy. And it is he and
Chris Murphy are now that they are comrades in arms.
He and Tucker Carlson and Chris Murphy and Bernie Sanders
and Elizabeth Warren and ilhan Omar and AOC, they all
have the exact same foreign policy, and it is anti
American and it is pro Islamist and it's dangerous as hell.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
Having just come back from Israel, I want to paint
you a picture. It's midnight, sirens are blearing, and you
have only seconds to grab your child and run. Now
imagine your elderly. Your legs don't work like they used to,
Getting downstairs feels impossible, and after all of that, you
end up in a bomb shelter for hours, even days,
(28:18):
because you can't make the trek again. This is what's
happening across Israel as Operation Epic Fury continues. Children are
being traumatized, families are just exhausted, and homes have been destroyed.
And that's why the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews
is there on the ground, bringing food, emergency equipment, care
(28:41):
for those children, and help for the elderly, and supplying
the bomb shelters and medical centers for critically needed essentials.
If you've ever wondered what it looks like to stand
for Israel and stand for good against evil, this is it.
And that's why I'm asking to now please Act give
forty five dollars right now to rush life saving essentials
(29:02):
to the vulnerables under fire. You can also call eight
eight eight for eight eight IFCJ. That's eight eight eight
for eight eight IFCJ. Join me and give and make
a real difference online at IFCJ dot org. That's IFCJ
dot org. We've got some breaking news as we are
(29:24):
recording this on Sunday. They have now named a new
leader in Iran and is the son of the former
leader there. That is someone that the presidents said is unacceptable.
Your reaction to that as well.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
Well, look, it's not surprising. The Malas are going to
get together and they're going to want another Mala to
be the Ayatola, and they want the country to continue
to be run by Islamist clerics who embrace a death cult.
And it's interesting. One of the things I'm going back
to Chris Murphy and what he said a minute ago.
(29:57):
You know, we rely on determ to stop the most
egregious acts of harm. Deterrence works with many countries because
you have rational actors. Let's take for example, North Korea.
So North Korea is an exceptionally dangerous part of the world.
Why does North Korea have nukes? Well, it goes back
(30:18):
to a previous Democrat president, Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton sent
a State Department employee named Wendy Sherman to negotiate a
nuclear agreement with Kim Jong Il, who was the father
of the current dictator Kim jongng. And the deal they
(30:39):
cut is that Bill Clinton agreed to send billions of
dollars to North Korea and in exchange for that money,
North Korea would promise not to develop nuclear weapons. Well
what happened, We now know what happened. They took the
billions of dollars, they used it to develop nuclear weapons,
and today North Korea has nuclear weapons. So it was
a spectacular failure. Fast forward to Barack Obama. Barack Obama
(31:02):
comes into office and he decides his signature foreign policy moves.
He wants to negotiate an agreement with Iran on nuclear weapons.
So what does he do. He actually goes and recruits
the same damn person, Wendy Sherman, to negotiate his Iran deal. Literally,
there are eight billion people on planet Earth, been there
is one out of eight billion who has screwed this
(31:23):
up previously as negotiated a deal to send billions of
dollars to a foreign dictator, and it's resulted in that
dictator using the billions of dollars to develop nuclear weapons.
That would be Wendy Sherman. That's who Obama brought in
and said, hey, can you do the same for us?
Now we live with the failures of the Clinton administration
in Wendy Sherman with North Korea, and Kim Jong un
(31:45):
is a dictator, He's meglomaniacal, He's dangerous as hell. He
is testing ICBMs, he is targeted explicitly target US citizens,
including Austin, Texas. He is a city that he has
said he's targeted before. However, our best protection is Kim
jongun knows if he ever used a nuclear weapon, the
(32:06):
result would be massive, overwhelming retaliation and his regime would
lose power that day. It would be the end of
his life if.
Speaker 3 (32:14):
He did that.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
As dangerous as Kim Jong un is, at least there's
some possibility of rational self deterrence. Here's what makes Iran
orders a magnitude more dangerous. When you're dealing with religious extremism,
when you're dealing with theocratic zealots who are in a
death cult who glorify death and suicide, rational deterrence doesn't
(32:40):
work the same way. So, for example, if the Iotola
detonated and nuclear weapons, say in Tel Aviv, or in
New York or Los Angeles, and let me be clear,
I believe if the Iotola could do so, he would
have done so already. The response would be overwhelming and devastating.
But the problem is when you celebrate death and suicide,
(33:00):
that normal cost benefit analysis does not apply. And so yes,
they've named a new Iotola. The Iotola is what the
son of the old Iatola. Okay, great, that is not
acceptable because President Trump has rightly made the decision We're
not going to allow US national security to be vulnerable
to religious zealots who are funding terrorism, who are funding
(33:25):
who are the number one funders of terrorisms worldwide and
have been for forty seven years. So Diatola number one,
Skippy Junior, is not going to get to take over either,
because allowing Iran to wage war and murder Americans is
not consistent with US national security.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
This year marks a critical moment for our country as
the opposition grows more aggressive and unapologetic. The fight now
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want to get real quick to one other thing you
talked earlier about DHS funding, and let's get to just
some of the concerns that people are having. You had
a midair panic as Southwest flight was diverted to Atlanta
due to a security threat amid Iranian terror feel fears air.
(35:40):
You also had a Fort Lauderdale bound flight diverts with
security scare. The pastors removed like these are real stories
that are happening, people are concerned about. And so my
question is how quickly can we get the Democrats to
understand that this funding is important. We've seen even at
Hobby Airport, where you and I fly out of allow
three and a half hour security lines, that is unacceptable
(36:03):
for the American people.
Speaker 2 (36:05):
Well, the only reason they will flip is if the
political pain becomes real to them. I think the Democrats
are listening to their zealots, to the people who want
open borders, who want ice abolished, who want the police abolished.
Who are cheering on when the Democrats defend criminals and
illegal aliens and gangbangers. Look go back to the State
(36:26):
of the Union address. It was powerful when President Trump
turned to the Democrats and said, I'll give you an
opportunity to decide right now, where do you stand stand
with me? Now? If you agree our principal responsibility is
to defend American citizens and not illegal aliens. Zero Democrats
(36:49):
zero stood and applauded. They all remain seated. That is
where their base is, and right now the media is
not holding them to a count. During the Schumer shutdown
last year that Chuck Schumer, the Democrats forced the longest
shut down in American history. Right before the elections last year,
(37:10):
one Democrat aide told a reporter said, We're going to
keep this shut down quote until airplanes start falling from
the sky. They feel immune from political consequences. That will
only change when they start to feel meaningful political heat.
That means the folks listening to this podcast, use your voice,
speak out, make phone calls, call centered offices, post on
(37:31):
social media, get other people right up ed speak about it,
and hold Democrats to account. They are endangering all of
our families by cutting off the funding needed to fight
terrorism at a time when the risks of terrorism are
unacceptably high. We need to do a better job protecting
(37:52):
the homeland, and the Democrats are being reckless at a
level I've never seen.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
Yeah, it really is incredible. Don't forget where we keep
updated on all these issues. So hit that subscriber auto
download button wherever you get your podcasts, share this podcast
on social media and the rest of five sorry review
if you wouldn't mind, and the Center I will see
you back here in a couple of days.
Welcome. It is Verdict with center. Ted Cruz ben Ferguson
with you, and it's nice to have you with us
around the country. We've got a lot to talk about,
including the latest on Operation Epic Fury. This regime is
being really just decapitated in Iran center, and this is
good news when it comes to national security.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Well, that's exactly right. We're seeing extraordinary results in terms
of the military conflict with Iran and the efficacy with
which this attack is removing the regime's ability to launch
missiles to launch drones. Let me give you the numbers,
because the numbers are really striking. So on day one
of this conflict, Iran launched three hundred and fifty missiles
(00:39):
ballistic missiles. On day two, it dropped to one hundred and
seventy five. On day three, it dropped one hundred and twenty.
On day four, it dropped to fifty. On day five,
it dropped to forty. On day six, it dropped to
thirty two. On day seven it dropped to twenty eight,
and on day eight it dropped all the way down
to fifteen. So they went from three hundred and fifty
(00:59):
ballistic missile launched a day to just fifteen launched today.
How about drone swarms, same pattern, Day one, two hundred
and ninety four, Day two, five hundred and forty one,
So they surged on day two, Day three two hundred,
Day four eighty five, Day five forty five, Day six
(01:20):
thirty eight, day seven thirty, and day eight twelve. So
what that means is that our forces have systematically taken
out number one, their air defenses. Number two, we've taken
out their missile launch sites and their drone launch sites.
Most of their missile launch sites are mobile, so what
happens is when they launch from a mobile missile launcher,
(01:42):
we lock onto it and take that launcher out. And
we've done that systemically. Now, early on we were using
smart bombs and guided missiles. That's very expensive munitions, and
you saw in the first few days of this conflict
a lot written saying that the rate at which we're
using munitions is not sustainable. Plan was never to use
sharp smart munitions for the entire duration of the conflict. Rather,
(02:05):
the plan was to use it to take out both
their defensive capacity and their offensive capacity. We've done that.
Now now having achieved air superiority, we're able to use
gravity bombs. We're able to use munitions, which we have
vast quantities of and which are much much less expensive.
In other words, President Trump and the military has achieved
(02:29):
total air dominance, has all but eliminated their ability to
launch ballistic missiles and drones, and meanwhile has achieved naval
dominance as well, taking out most of the ships in
their navy. That level of control has put us in
a position where we're we're seeing extraordinary success.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
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That's Compassion dot com. You talk about this extraordinary success
and it's something that I think so many Americans have
(03:57):
been concerned over what this means at home. You look
at gas prices, for example, let's talk about that for
a moment. The President has said, and many that are
analyst's military and say, look, if this is a short
term thing, this is going to be a short term pain,
and what you gain is massive compared to that in
the future, because this is how much Iran could hold
(04:18):
the world hostage. Look at this what has happened here recently,
and these prices have obviously jumped significantly. The President has
made it clear he thinks this is going to be
short term event and we're not invading. We are going
after regime change and then things will go back to normal.
Twenty percent of the world supply goes through the strati
war moves. That's another part of this and the calculation here,
(04:39):
So break that down a little bit so people understand.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Yeah, I think that's right. We have seen an energy spike,
and anytime there's a conflict in the Middle East, you
typically see oil prices spike, and gasoline prices spike. My
expectation is that will be a short term spike. I
don't expect this conflict to last more than a couple
of weeks, and I think you'll see gasoline prices drop
back down out And I will note President Trump has
(05:02):
a lot of credibility on this when when he came in,
we were seeing gasoline prices across the country in some
places six seven dollars a gallon, and those prices have
dropped all but in half. In Texas, you could routinely
buy a gallon of gas for between two and three
bucks a gallon, and so that that has been very effective.
I also want to make a broader point about analyzing
(05:24):
the energy component of what's going on. And there was
a Twitter thread by this analyst named Guy larn who
who is not a fan of Trump's, but I think
actually his analysis of the energy policy in the Middle
East was very insightful, so I want to share it
with you. So he asks, is Trump planning to venezuelas Iran?
(05:47):
This analysis analysis deviates from the mainstream media portrayal of
a fickle, senile or beab lead president. It assumes Trump
is evil but rational a thread. Now, I don't agree
with the evil characterization there, but the rest of this
analysis is quite insightful. So he continues, What is carg
Island and why does it matter? A tiny strip of
(06:09):
land half the size of Manhattan, nestled in the Northern
Persian Gulf one hour by boat from the Iranian shore.
Gazelle's roam next to oil terminals through which Iran exports
ninety percent of its crude. Iran's pre war signal. Before
the war, as American forces massed across the region, Iran
(06:31):
did something revealing. It ramped up carg exports from one
point five million barrels of oil a day to four million,
near record levels. That means that the Iranians read Trump
differently than the Western media does. They don't think he's
after regime change or democracy. They think he's after oil.
(06:52):
They might be right. NBC reported that Trump outlined to
his aids his vision for a post war Iran quote,
a new Iranian regime cooperates on oil productions, similar to
how the US and Venezuela are. The Venezuela template out
of Trump's own mouth. AI's Michael Rubin, a former advisor
to the George W. Bush administration, who is in direct
(07:15):
contact with the Trump advisors, is pushing the same logic.
Referring to the Revolutionary Guards, he says, quote if they
can't sell their own oil, they can't make payroll, meaning
that if the US seizes carg it doesn't need regime change.
It directly controls Iran's most important source of income. Everything
(07:37):
the US in Israel has done so far fits this strategy. First, quote,
decapitate and delegate. That was Israel's role commeny killed. The
Iranian leadership is in disarray. Now to whom do you delegate?
The answer isn't clear yet. So the US is reportedly
encouraging Kurdish rebellion in the north of the country, forcing
(07:59):
RAND to set send forces upwards and thin out their
defenses in the south where car goes. Meanwhile, the US
has systematically destroyed the Iranian navy operations, reaching as far
as Sri Lanka, where an Iranian warship was intercepted. Southern
RAND is being pummeled. These aren't random, They are clearing
(08:20):
the operational space for a naval seizure of kark Ian
bremer Kap captures the military logic precisely. The KRG island
isn't extensively fortified, and sits isolated enough that the US
destroyers could establish a credible defensive perimeter well offshore. The
US is also preparing to escort tanker convoys through the
(08:42):
Strait of Hormus and seeking financial mechanisms to ensure ships
after Lloyd's pulled out. These services aren't free. In practice,
the US would control the Straits, the jugular of global
energy trade. China can't respond militarily. It prepared its navy
to defend the Strait of Malacca, its other vulnerability. Approximately
(09:06):
eighty percent of China's imported crude oil and nearly two
thirds of its total maritime trade pass through the Strait
of Malacca. Having the US control the Persian Gulf, from
which China imports roughly half its crude and a third
of its gas, is a strategic catastrophe for Beijing. The
alternative deeper dependence on Russian energy practically natural gas from Siberia,
(09:33):
which is exactly what Beijing loathes. It does not want
to be dependent on the transactional putin step back Greenland, Panama, Venezuela,
now the Persian Gulf. Trump isn't leading the world through
alliances and institutions. He's seizing nodes, the choke points and
(09:54):
resource pools that make the world ANAI run. Whether it
works or not, this is is a coherent imperial strategy. Now,
I gotta say I don't agree with every word of that,
but that is very insightful analysis and helps you understand
why the American success in Iran. It's it's critically important
to our safety and the principal reason for going in
(10:16):
is to keep Americans safe from Iranian terrorism and aggression.
But it is also a very very powerful China pit play,
enhancing US economic security and national security.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
You know, one of the things you mentioned there is
what Americans worry about it. And you go back to
just some of the headlines that we're seeing right now.
One of them out of New York there was an
arrest made after a home made explosive caused terror scare
in New York City. This device that was hurled at Gracie.
I mean, it's some protests determined to be highly dangerous
(10:49):
ID cable of serious injury or death. People see this like,
well maybe, and again I think it's important to we
deal with this. They say, well, this is why maybe
we shouldn't have gone after Ran. And I think that's
flawed logic to think that way. These threats are threats,
whether we got there or not. And and and they're like,
I don't think there's a direct cause and effect. I
think there are bad people in the world that want
(11:10):
to commit Hanus crimes, and their timing may change because
of what we did Aran. But if you're a terrorist
in this country, the guy in this country through the
open borders or however you got in here and and
you're planning something or trying to do something, I think
it's in your DNA based on your beliefs you were
going to do it no matter what.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Well, and look, this vulnerability is here because for four years,
Joe Biden, the Democrats opened up our borders and basically
invited radical Islamic terrorists to come to this country. If
you if you look what happened in New York, New York,
you had islabists throwing dangerous IEDs capable of serious injury
or death. And and you know, ask yourself in the
(11:50):
reporting on this, have you seen a single news report
mentioned that the jihadists who threw the nail bomb into
a crowd New York City repeatedly shouted Allahu Akbar. I
haven't seen that. I haven't seen that on CNN. I
haven't seen that on MSNBC or the New York Times.
They don't want to cover that. And to be clear,
(12:12):
we saw the same thing in Austin a week ago
when the terrorists there wearing a sweatshirt that said property
of Allah, wearing a T shirt with an Iranian flag,
attacked a bar on Sixth Street in Austin. And again,
this is the terrorism, the vulnerability that President Trump is
acting to protect against. But I got to tell you
(12:34):
in the midst of this, look, we have an enhanced
risk for terrorism right now. It is obvious. Jihadis clerics
have put out a fat walk calling on terrorists to
try to kill Americans. And in the middle of this,
do you know what we did this week? We voted
again to fund the Department of Homeland Security, and every
Democrat except John Fetterman said no, we will not fund DHS,
(12:58):
the department literally created to defend us against terrorist attacks.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
You mentioned that, and let's go into that a little
bit more. This is all about politics, and it shouldn't be,
because this is about a national security issue, and I
think it's important to we take a moment explain exactly
why Democrats have wanted to keep this shut down going.
This is a partial government shutdown. It's something they're obsessed
with DHS. They don't like it, they don't like law
and order, they don't like ICE agents, and they're putting
(13:24):
our lives at risk. And they don't really seem to
care that that's what they're doing.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
They don't and understand it's all empty politics appealing to
their radical base. So the Democrats have decided they hate ICE.
They are the party of illegal immigrants, and they are
opposed to ICE. They are posed to law enforcement, they
are opposed to police. Now their DHS shutdown. Do you
know how many ICE agents are not being paid because
(13:49):
of it?
Speaker 1 (13:49):
How many?
Speaker 2 (13:50):
Zero? They are not defunding ICE. They are failing miserably
in any effort to defund ICE. Why because last year
when we passed the Working Families tax cut, the big
reconciliation bill, we funded ICE. We knew the Democrats would
play stupid games with it, so we said, fine, we'll
provide the funding for ICE. So ICE agents are being paid.
The DHS shutdown is not cutting off even a penny
(14:13):
for ice. The people they are cutting off, they're cutting
off the Coastguard, they're cutting off FEMA, they're cutting off TSA. Look,
if you're flying a plane, you could expect delays to
begin getting longer and longer and longer because those TSA
agents that have to check you in right now, they're
showing up at work and they are not being paid.
(14:33):
I just got off a plane yesterday thank the TSA
agents who were there, and they appreciated that. But they said,
you know, boy, would be nice to get paid, and
I agreed. I said, it is utter bs. I'm sorry
about that. You should be paid, and I just apologized
to them. Although to be clear, I'm voting to fund them.
But the Democrats are trying to ratchet up and inflict pain,
(14:56):
and they believe the media won't blame them when your
flight are delayed. They believe the media won't blame them
when coastguardsmen, you know, young men and women serving in
the Coast Guard, don't have the money to pay their rent,
don't have the money to pay their mortgage. They believe
the media won't won't blame them when FEMA, the people
in charge of responding to disasters are not being paid
and it slows down federal disaster response. The Democrats believe
(15:19):
the media will not blame them, so this is entirely
an effort to say screw you to ICE by not
cutting out ICE funding because they can't do that because
Republicans already paid for ICE, but instead cutting off the
funding for the rest of DHS that exists principally to
stop terrorist attacks. So they're telling you, I, Chuck Schumer,
(15:42):
I Democrat, hate ICE and hate law enforcements so much
that I'm going to increase the chance of a terrorist
attack in your community, just to tell the crazies in
my party how much I hate ICE.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
I want to go back to something else that we
also are seeing, and it's not just these these domestic
terrorist attacks here that may be inspired by what's happening,
but we're also now seeing this happen around the country.
Police are with the world, I should say, police are
investigating an explosion outside the US embassy for example in Norway.
What can you tell us about that? And the concern
(16:17):
that people have all over the world now for what
this with the reactions happening from these Muslim extremists.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
Well, Islamists are taking this time to engage in acts
of violence, acts of terrorism, and we could expect to
see more of this now. Understand, many of these Islamists
have been funded by Iran for years and so they
see their money stream, their money spigot, being cut off.
But we need, we need full capacity to protect ourselves
(16:44):
at a time that is dangerous. I believe what the
Democrats are doing is reckless and I pray that it
does not lead to it. But the Democrats action cutting
off the funding for DHS could very well cause more
terrorist attack, including potentially a catastrophicar Arist attack. And I'm
not aware of any of the Democrats who is expressing
(17:05):
any concern about this or is willing to do anything
about it. Look, they might leave DHS shut down, lead
these people not paid for the rest of the year.
They are radical enough to do this, and the media
is complicit in it, and it's the reason President Trump
is trying to resolve this conflict with Iran quickly. And
what President Trump has called for is unconditional surrender. That
(17:28):
he wants Iran to surrender, and he is systematically taking
out first their air defenses, then their missile launch capacity,
then their drone launch capacity, than their missile manufacturing capacity,
than their drone manufacturing capacity, than their military infrastructure, their leadership,
and at this point he is systematically degrading their ability
to fight back day after day after day. He is
(17:51):
exactly right to say this ends when the Iranian regime
says we surrender, and when they surrender, the result is
going to be that the theocratic despots who chant death
to America, who pay for terrorists to murder Americans, who
pay for hit men to try to murder President Trump,
they are out of power. We are not going to
(18:13):
allow that country to be led by lunatics who are
spending millions of dollars trying to murder Americans. That's what
victory looks like. I believe that's where we will end up.
But I will say at the same time, we are
seeing people spread propaganda and and and we're seeing two
groups that are spreading the same propaganda. Let's start with
(18:36):
with democrats. Let let's start, in particular with with Chris Murphy.
I want you to listen to what Chris Murphy has said.
Give a listen.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
Malla's in Iran. This is again Rubio's characterization, are mad men,
and they believe in holy war, and they believe in
killing the crusaders of the United States and the Jews
of Israel, and there is a special degree of unacceptability
for them having a nuclear So.
Speaker 4 (19:04):
Yeah, I don't disagree, But what I disagree with is
that an aerial military campaign or even the insertion of
ground forces can permanently dislodge Iran from having a nuclear weapon. Again,
you were talking about knowledge that can't be bombed out
of existence. So how do you stop a diplomatic agreement.
We had a diplomatic agreement. Barack Obama negotiated agreement in
(19:26):
which Iran was more than a year away from getting
a weapon. We had daily inspections scouring the country. It
was working. Donald Trump's advisors told him it was working.
He threw that agreement into the trash, which precipitated the
crisis that we are in today. This is a place
where diplomacy probably is the only true path to make
(19:47):
sure that Iran doesn't have a nuclear weapon.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
All right, let me ask you this sanator. He says
it was working. That is a flat out lie. And
I think most people have been following this would know
that he's acting like they just decided to go rogue,
referring to the Trump ministration just get into a war for
no reason at all.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
So what you just heard from Senator Chris Murphy is
utterly fact free propaganda. He's just repeating left wing talking points. Now, look,
Chris Murphy wants to run for president as a left
wing Democrat, as a successor to Bernie Sanders in terms
of a rabid socialist isolationist, and so facts are not
going to get in the way. One of the things
he said there we were having daily nuclear weapons inspections.
(20:28):
That is a lie. Under the terms of the Obama
Nuclear Deal Number one, there were multiple areas that were
off limits from inspection. What areas were off limit from inspection? Well,
one of them was Fordah, the military site under a
mountain where they were doing their nuclear weapons development. By
the way, Donald Trump dropped bunker buster bombs on Foidah
and took it out and destroyed it. But under the
(20:49):
Obama Nuclear Deal, nobody could inspect forida. And even when
we wanted to expect other areas of research, we had
to call the Iranians and get their permission and they
would inspect it for us. You know, I've sort of
joked that that's like calling up a drug dealer. Can
you can you imagine like the classic movie Scarface. The
(21:09):
scenario that Obama negotiated is basically that the DEA would
call Tony Montana, the drug dealer in Scarface, and go, hey, Tony,
would you check your warehouse and tell us if there
are any drugs there? And Tony would go yeah, man, yeah, man,
hold on, hold on, let me look, let me no, no,
no drugs there, We're clean. That is the Obama nuclear deal.
It was literally Obama calling calling up the Ayahtola, Hey
(21:31):
you got any nukes? No, man, we're good. We don't
have any nukes, no nukes here at all. All right, thanks.
That's the idiocy of the Democrats. They knew. And by
the way, the Obama ran nuclear deal sunset in fifteen years.
So after fifteen years Obama said, I We're fine with
your having nukes. Chris Murphy and the Democrats know that.
(21:52):
They don't care. That deal was designed to allow Iran
to get a nuclear weapon. I'll tell you when President
Trump and the first term pulled out of the Obama
Iran nuclear deal, it was exactly the right decision. I
had urged him to do so, and it set the
stage Iran is now, particularly after President Trump last year
(22:12):
bombed the nuclear weapons facility, Iran's nuclear program is way way,
way back, and yet they remain dangerous and they remain
absolutely committed to developing nuclear weapons. Now, the Democrats and
the press are trying to undermine President Trump. They're trying
to undermine the US military, and they're trying to bolster
(22:35):
Iran and the iatolas. Do you know who else is
doing that?
Speaker 1 (22:39):
Who else?
Speaker 2 (22:41):
Tucker Carlson and the rest of the so called woke right.
There's a group of isolationists folks on the right. It
is a small group, but they are loud and vocal.
And Tucker Carlson has now all but declared war on
President Trump's foreign policy. I want you to listen to
Tucker Carlson in his latest show, so I'm going to
warn you what he says here is shocking and it
(23:04):
is to the left of Chris Murphy. So it is
more anti Donald Trump than Chris Murphy and the Democrats.
Listen to Tucker Carlson.
Speaker 5 (23:12):
Unconditional surrender means foreign troops get to rape your wife
and daughter if they want. And everyone knows that, and
that has been If there's one consistent lesson of history,
it means unconditional surrender means foreign troops get to rape
your wife and daughter. Everyone can feel that. That's like
the most atavistic instinct there is. And so to avoid that,
(23:33):
people will do anything. And so that's why it requires
that level of force to get a population subdued to
the point of unconditional surrender. That's why. And so in
this case, of course, we don't have the ground force necessary.
I don't think Americans would voluntarily participate in it. I
just don't think we can do that. It would require
weapons of mass destruction. It would require presumably nuclear weapons
(23:56):
in order to do that. And let's stop, let's not
lie to ourselves. We're moving toward that.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
You hear Tucker there, and I mean you want to
talk about on hinge. That is like some of the
most anti American propaganda I've ever seen spewed by someone
like Tucker Carlson. It is a new low even for him,
and and the bar keeps dropping day after day.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
Look the phrase, the words someone like Tucker Carlson, you
don't even have to put that constraint. That is more
anti American rhetoric than anything I've ever heard Bernie Sanders say,
or even Chris Murphy what he said there. Listen, Tucker
continues to go to new Low's and new Low's and
part of it is President Trump this week said that
that Tucker Carlson is quote, not maga and not smart.
(24:39):
The more Tucker Carlson attacks Donald Trump, the more fringe
he gets. And so I think this was Tucker acting
out when when Trump said what was obviously true, but
Tucker just said, go back, rewind and listen to what
he just said. He said, number one, if Iran surrenders,
that American soldiers are going to rape their wives and daughters,
(25:00):
and in fact he said it twice. What utter and
complete garbage, you America hating Islamist fluffer. I gotta say
that makes me mad. I think of the servicemen and
men who in women, but the men in particular who
are risking their lives. And Tucker Carlson's standing there saying
if you surrender to America, American soldiers are gonna rape
(25:23):
your women. We have never done that. That is not
something America does. No, Tucker, American soldiers are not gonna
rape Iranian women. You know who rapes the people they
conquer Iranians do Islamists do? That is, in fact part
of what they do. Part of what they do is
is is that they rape women as a means of subjugation.
(25:45):
But Tucker's not gonna tell you that because Tucker is
now one of the leading proponents of sharia law in
the United States. He's literally an apologist for Islamist And
so now you might say, wow, that statement seems incredible,
it seems extreme. Here are a couple of data points. Number One,
during this war, the Iranian National Television is playing Tucker
(26:05):
Carlson's show in Iran. They view that as such valuable
propaganda they want the Iranian people to hear Tucker. Number Two,
the Muslim Brotherhood, by the way, Hamas is the Muslim
brotherhood in Palestine, and they are terrorists are tweeting out
Tucker Carlson's show. The Muslim Brotherhood is saying, this is
our spokesman. Man, this guy is good. I cannot recall
(26:28):
another major political figure on left or right who has said,
if you surrender to America, American soldiers will rape your women.
That's what Tucker Carlson just said that is grotesque. And
by the way, any soldier who sees Tucker Carlson, I
want to say, how dare you say that? American soldiers
know we would not and impugning our troops is disgusting.
(26:49):
And the second thing that Tucker said in that clip
is that Donald Trump is moving towards using a nuclear
weapon in Iran. No, he's not, Tucker as a complete
utter lie, that is false. We are not going to
nuw kran. It is only deranged. That's the sort of
thing the Ayatola would say. And you've got to ask yourself. Look,
(27:10):
some of you may think back to when Tucker was
on Fox News and he was actually said a lot
of things you and I loved that made a lot
of sense. This guy today is just a kook. And
even worse than that, he is the most prominent purveyor
of Islamist lies about America and about Donald Trump. Tucker
Carlson has gone full out to war with Donald Trump's
(27:34):
national security and foreign policy. And it is he and
Chris Murphy are now that they are comrades in arms.
He and Tucker Carlson and Chris Murphy and Bernie Sanders
and Elizabeth Warren and ilhan Omar and AOC, they all
have the exact same foreign policy, and it is anti
American and it is pro Islamist and it's dangerous as hell.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
Having just come back from Israel, I want to paint
you a picture. It's midnight, sirens are blearing, and you
have only seconds to grab your child and run. Now
imagine your elderly. Your legs don't work like they used to,
Getting downstairs feels impossible, and after all of that, you
end up in a bomb shelter for hours, even days,
(28:18):
because you can't make the trek again. This is what's
happening across Israel as Operation Epic Fury continues. Children are
being traumatized, families are just exhausted, and homes have been destroyed.
And that's why the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews
is there on the ground, bringing food, emergency equipment, care
(28:41):
for those children, and help for the elderly, and supplying
the bomb shelters and medical centers for critically needed essentials.
If you've ever wondered what it looks like to stand
for Israel and stand for good against evil, this is it.
And that's why I'm asking to now please Act give
forty five dollars right now to rush life saving essentials
(29:02):
to the vulnerables under fire. You can also call eight
eight eight for eight eight IFCJ. That's eight eight eight
for eight eight IFCJ. Join me and give and make
a real difference online at IFCJ dot org. That's IFCJ
dot org. We've got some breaking news as we are
(29:24):
recording this on Sunday. They have now named a new
leader in Iran and is the son of the former
leader there. That is someone that the presidents said is unacceptable.
Your reaction to that as well.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
Well, look, it's not surprising. The Malas are going to
get together and they're going to want another Mala to
be the Ayatola, and they want the country to continue
to be run by Islamist clerics who embrace a death cult.
And it's interesting. One of the things I'm going back
to Chris Murphy and what he said a minute ago.
(29:57):
You know, we rely on determ to stop the most
egregious acts of harm. Deterrence works with many countries because
you have rational actors. Let's take for example, North Korea.
So North Korea is an exceptionally dangerous part of the world.
Why does North Korea have nukes? Well, it goes back
(30:18):
to a previous Democrat president, Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton sent
a State Department employee named Wendy Sherman to negotiate a
nuclear agreement with Kim Jong Il, who was the father
of the current dictator Kim jongng. And the deal they
(30:39):
cut is that Bill Clinton agreed to send billions of
dollars to North Korea and in exchange for that money,
North Korea would promise not to develop nuclear weapons. Well
what happened, We now know what happened. They took the
billions of dollars, they used it to develop nuclear weapons,
and today North Korea has nuclear weapons. So it was
a spectacular failure. Fast forward to Barack Obama. Barack Obama
(31:02):
comes into office and he decides his signature foreign policy moves.
He wants to negotiate an agreement with Iran on nuclear weapons.
So what does he do. He actually goes and recruits
the same damn person, Wendy Sherman, to negotiate his Iran deal. Literally,
there are eight billion people on planet Earth, been there
is one out of eight billion who has screwed this
(31:23):
up previously as negotiated a deal to send billions of
dollars to a foreign dictator, and it's resulted in that
dictator using the billions of dollars to develop nuclear weapons.
That would be Wendy Sherman. That's who Obama brought in
and said, hey, can you do the same for us?
Now we live with the failures of the Clinton administration
in Wendy Sherman with North Korea, and Kim Jong un
(31:45):
is a dictator, He's meglomaniacal, He's dangerous as hell. He
is testing ICBMs, he is targeted explicitly target US citizens,
including Austin, Texas. He is a city that he has
said he's targeted before. However, our best protection is Kim
jongun knows if he ever used a nuclear weapon, the
(32:06):
result would be massive, overwhelming retaliation and his regime would
lose power that day. It would be the end of
his life if.
Speaker 3 (32:14):
He did that.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
As dangerous as Kim Jong un is, at least there's
some possibility of rational self deterrence. Here's what makes Iran
orders a magnitude more dangerous. When you're dealing with religious extremism,
when you're dealing with theocratic zealots who are in a
death cult who glorify death and suicide, rational deterrence doesn't
(32:40):
work the same way. So, for example, if the Iotola
detonated and nuclear weapons, say in Tel Aviv, or in
New York or Los Angeles, and let me be clear,
I believe if the Iotola could do so, he would
have done so already. The response would be overwhelming and devastating.
But the problem is when you celebrate death and suicide,
(33:00):
that normal cost benefit analysis does not apply. And so yes,
they've named a new Iotola. The Iotola is what the
son of the old Iatola. Okay, great, that is not
acceptable because President Trump has rightly made the decision We're
not going to allow US national security to be vulnerable
to religious zealots who are funding terrorism, who are funding
(33:25):
who are the number one funders of terrorisms worldwide and
have been for forty seven years. So Diatola number one,
Skippy Junior, is not going to get to take over either,
because allowing Iran to wage war and murder Americans is
not consistent with US national security.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
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want to get real quick to one other thing you
talked earlier about DHS funding, and let's get to just
some of the concerns that people are having. You had
a midair panic as Southwest flight was diverted to Atlanta
due to a security threat amid Iranian terror feel fears air.
(35:40):
You also had a Fort Lauderdale bound flight diverts with
security scare. The pastors removed like these are real stories
that are happening, people are concerned about. And so my
question is how quickly can we get the Democrats to
understand that this funding is important. We've seen even at
Hobby Airport, where you and I fly out of allow
three and a half hour security lines, that is unacceptable
(36:03):
for the American people.
Speaker 2 (36:05):
Well, the only reason they will flip is if the
political pain becomes real to them. I think the Democrats
are listening to their zealots, to the people who want
open borders, who want ice abolished, who want the police abolished.
Who are cheering on when the Democrats defend criminals and
illegal aliens and gangbangers. Look go back to the State
(36:26):
of the Union address. It was powerful when President Trump
turned to the Democrats and said, I'll give you an
opportunity to decide right now, where do you stand stand
with me? Now? If you agree our principal responsibility is
to defend American citizens and not illegal aliens. Zero Democrats
(36:49):
zero stood and applauded. They all remain seated. That is
where their base is, and right now the media is
not holding them to a count. During the Schumer shutdown
last year that Chuck Schumer, the Democrats forced the longest
shut down in American history. Right before the elections last year,
(37:10):
one Democrat aide told a reporter said, We're going to
keep this shut down quote until airplanes start falling from
the sky. They feel immune from political consequences. That will
only change when they start to feel meaningful political heat.
That means the folks listening to this podcast, use your voice,
speak out, make phone calls, call centered offices, post on
(37:31):
social media, get other people right up ed speak about it,
and hold Democrats to account. They are endangering all of
our families by cutting off the funding needed to fight
terrorism at a time when the risks of terrorism are
unacceptably high. We need to do a better job protecting
(37:52):
the homeland, and the Democrats are being reckless at a
level I've never seen.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
Yeah, it really is incredible. Don't forget where we keep
updated on all these issues. So hit that subscriber auto
download button wherever you get your podcasts, share this podcast
on social media and the rest of five sorry review
if you wouldn't mind, and the Center I will see
you back here in a couple of days.
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