Behind the Decision to Strike Iran | Masked Immigration Agents

(June 24,2025)
Aboard Marine One, a phone call and decision to strike Iran. Straight of Hormuz: What happens if Iran shuts global oil corridor? ‘Who are these people?’ Masked immigration agents sow fear in L.A., vex local police. How has food this bad survived the American market for so long?

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listenings KPI AM six forty the Bill Handles show
on demand on the iHeartRadio f Bill Handle. It is
a Tuesday morning, June twenty four. Quick word about this Saturday,
and I am going to be m seeing a concert
at the Walt Disney Concert Hall and it's the La
Lawyers Philharmonic and Legal Voices people in the legal profession, judges,

(00:26):
pair of leegals, attorneys and they're in the orchestra and
these world class musicians that decided they're going to make
a living instead of going into music. And you got
some great pieces that are going to be played, and
please join me. I'm in a tuxedo once a year
and I make an ass out of myself every day,
including Saturday night. So go to La lawyersphil dot org.

(00:51):
It's La Lawyers phil is in Philharmonic, La Lawyers phil
dot org. Ticket start at just twenty bucks and it
is a benefit, so great fun. I'd love to see
you there. Now. The decision to attack Iran we're talking
about by the United States was made, of course by

(01:11):
the president, and we now know when it was made
specifically and where it was made specifically. So President Trump
goes every weekend to one of his golf courses and
his resorts. He takes a weekend off and he is

(01:33):
flying over all these great houses. That neighbor is New
Jersey Golf Club. This was Saturday when he made his decision.
It was a board Marine one is where he did this.
So he's going He's on Marine one and he's going
to an airport near I think it's New Bedford, and

(01:55):
he receives a call from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and
Hexseith's it's time to make a final decision. Either you
move forward with the US strikes on Iran or abort
the mission. And he decided right there a board Marine one.

(02:17):
He had grown convinced that diplomacy alone was not going
to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. He gives
heccess the green light and says, you do it. It's
not the president orders. The president orders the Defense Secretary
to go forward. That's the same thing when the president
orders the bomb to be dropped. It's not like he

(02:38):
presses a button. He tells the Defense Secretary, who then
informs the Chief of Staff, and it goes through the military.
There are a couple of three levels of dropping the
big one, so it does go through levels. And so

(03:00):
hours later after we made the decision, the B two
bombers took off from their base in Missouri, thirty six
hour flight back and forth. Yeah, it's you know, where
do the pilots pee? Is there a bathroom aboard the
B two? There is, yeah, and many fridges and a microwave.

(03:23):
Do they sleep? I think there are only two pilots.
Do they take turns? You can't go thirty six hours straight?
I don't know that they must. Yeah, they have to
in the meantime. And they go there, and they go
over the target and drop the bomb, and you're done
and goodbye. And this was the culmination of a week

(03:43):
of behind the scenes double ration deliberations. And we know
what happened as a result of the bombing, And now
we don't know how much destruction. How much damage was
done to those nuclear facilities in Iran. The president has
said it was completely they were completely destroyed. CNN questioned

(04:07):
whether they were completely destroyed, saying, we really don't know.
The analysis hasn't come back. I don't know if Aran
will ever admit how much damage was done to those
underground facilities. The President this morning. I was watching this
live as he was boarding Marine one to go to

(04:27):
Andrews to get up board Air Force one to fly
to over to NATO, which is on the plane right now.
Laid into CNN for questioning his statements about total destruction,
I mean laid into CNN. And he laid into both
the Iraq and Israel in terms of the violation of

(04:50):
the quote truce that has been put into place, and
it is I've never seen him that mad. I mean,
he was screaming and reference to Israel and Iran, he said,
they don't know what the f they're doing saying it.
And so yeah, he's not happy at all with any

(05:14):
of it right now, and he's insisting on peace. I
think he's gonna win. I think he's gonna he is
going to prevail on this one. And then the issue is,
and this is the Democrats and Massey and a few
others saying we should not get involved in foreign wars.
Fair enough, you know, we have to. We're America first.

(05:36):
Trump ran on, we're America first, and we are not
going to be engaged in any foreign controversy, certainly in
any foreign conflict. But what they're saying Adam Schiff, who
is a California centator right now, said we saw no
evidence that Iran had made the decision to build a

(05:56):
bomb or was actually affirmatively building the mechanism, which takes time,
you know, ignoring the fact that they have been processing
uranium for years, and what the intelligence says is they
have reached the point that it's sixty percent pure. It

(06:17):
has to be ninety percent pure to create a bomb,
and they were just within days or weeks of successfully
doing that with the centrifuges that were particularly in fod
Row photo. I always get that screwed up, and it
was the only reason you would go to that kind

(06:40):
of purity. Even sixty percent purity is on the way
to make a bomb. There is no other reason. Iran
insists that it's all for peaceful purposes. You need two
to three percent purity of uranium to use in reactors
for peaceful purposes. There is no other reason. And Shiff

(07:02):
is saying they haven't yet decided that they were going
to physically put together the pieces, not just start manufacturing
the pieces, just put together the pieces. What the hell
are you talking about? Really? You know, this looks like
a nuclear duck. It walks like a nuclear duck, and

(07:26):
it certainly is a nuclear duck. And these people are saying, oh, no,
the decision hasn't been made, we should not get involved.
Now there is a constitutional issue. Did the president have
the power under the War Powers Act? And should the
president have gone to Congress to ask permission? And presidents
have and have not over the years. It's interesting that

(07:47):
Adam Schiff and the other Democrats are not laying into
Obama for having made a decision without going to Congress.
But hey, since it's a Republican why they hell not.
But the point is that Trump, and I think right,
he has said we cannot, under any circumstances let Iran
have a nuclear weapon, and Netanyahu has been pushing and

(08:09):
pushing and pushing for that and saying exactly the same thing. Now,
during this whole course, as it was hemming and hauling
and we didn't know which way Trump was going to go,
he was already in touch with Natanyahu. They were already
on the way behind the scenes. Do they serve lunch
on Marine One? I think I think they serve they

(08:30):
can serve a box lunch, because I don't think you know,
there's a they can cook up food. They can't on
air Force One just occurred to me, Okay, decided to
go there coming up. Uh, the biggest tool that Iran

(08:50):
has is not the bomb. No, there's something else. What
if it shuts down global oil? How does it do that? Well,
you've heard about the Strait of Horror Moves. And if
you look at a map, a world map, you will
see this little strait in which it is sort of

(09:11):
the water curves the ocean curves. North is Iran, the
south of it is Oman and the Emirates. And this
corridor of water is about thirty one miles wide and
that's it. That's where the world. Twenty percent of the
world's oil flows through it, and it's deep enough for

(09:35):
the biggest oil tankers in the world. In the first
half of twenty twenty three, twenty million barrels of oil
went through the Straits of Horror Moves per day, twenty
million barrels. And the oil comes from not only Iran,
but from a rock Kuwait cutter, Saudi Arabia, the Emirates.

(09:59):
And what's the worst case scenario If Iran does decide
that's going to do something pretty serious. If the attacks continue,
which right now look pretty good, although the truth is
very tentative at this point. Well, the head of I
six told the BBC there's the worst case scenario and

(10:21):
that is the blockade of the Strait by Iran, which
could blockade now it hasn't and it never has because
all of a sudden it puts the world in an
economic turmoil and at that point the Western world becomes
an enemy of Iran. That is a big, big move.

(10:44):
Would they do that maybe as a last resort Israel,
for example, which has no oil. And this is where
one of the issues where you know, God and the
chosen people. I've always questioned God choosing the Israelites because
as Moses leaves Egypt leading the Jewish people, God has

(11:06):
Moses turn left to where there is no oil instead
of turning right where it's full of oil. Can you
imagine the Jews having oil and controlling the world market
for oil. It would be a different world, it really would, Okay,
I digress. In the meantime, if Iran were to try

(11:30):
and block three thousand ships go through the Straits every month,
and they can do it. All they have to do
is mine the straits only thirty one miles and you
can easily mine those straits. I mean, Ron has a
very sophisticated navy. These are fast boats that it has.

(11:52):
They have anti ship missiles, they have a range of service,
surface vessels, submersible craft, submarines. You know Israel has a
submarine fleet. Did you know that out in the Mediterranean
they have six subs? Just thought I tell you that,

(12:13):
And it is you know, the authorities, those people know
are thinking that this is would be so devastating. By
the way, Iran has repeatedly threatened to close the Strait
of Hormuz in past conflicts, but it never has followed
through because it knows what would happen if it did.

(12:38):
So what has happened as a result of their threats
over and over again, oil exporting countries in that entire
region are developing alternative export roots pipelines actually that move
the oil. But the pipelines don't come close to the
number of ships or the of oil that can be

(13:01):
produced and moved. It is is it going to happen?
Only last resort. But one of the things about the Iranians,
and they have a history of this, and one of
the things that Iran in declaring victory over this war,
declaring victory over the United States and over Israel. Of course,
because they've won the war is that there has not

(13:23):
been an inch of Iranian land taken from the country
in all of the wars in recent history. Therefore, between
that and the truce, what does that mean they've won
the war. They've already announced that on television State run TV.
We have succeeded. We have forced the Israelis into a

(13:46):
truce because we have complete victory. Okay, sure, why not
now that happens on a regular basis. Nineteen sixty seven,
the sixty seven war, six Day War, the the Egyptians
said that they have taken out the Israeli air force,
and their planes were in the air and successfully fighting

(14:09):
off the Israeli air force coming in and attacking. There
was not one Egyptian plane that made it off the runway.
Every one of them were destroyed by the air force.
But in the Arab world, we win, you know, our
army is wiped out, our air force is wiped out.

(14:30):
Iran has its nuclear facilities decimated, its anti missile all
of its defenses gone. Israel has complete superiority on the air,
can bomb anything it wants and it can't be stopped.
But Iran has won. They've declared victory. Man, don't you

(14:51):
love it? Okay? Now, one of the things about immigration,
the Ice folks, is they're picking up people like crazyationally.
The announcement from the president was it went from We're
going to deport eleven million people. Okay, how's that for possible?
And then only the bad guys. Only people were looking

(15:14):
for the criminals, the real bad guys. Stephen Miller, who
is a real conservative and an advisor to the president,
is a big fan of picking up as many people
as possible, and he wanted three thousand people a day
picked up. Well, bad guys. You have to look for
the people at car washes. You just go there and

(15:35):
pick them up. The folks at home depot, those casual labors,
those Hispanic guys who simply want to work for moderate
wages and do casual labor. That's easy to pick up.
And that's what's going on. And these really aggressive immigration raids,
and the federal agents are masked, they're using unmarked vehicles.

(16:00):
Big problems for both law enforcement local law enforcement, and
how is that. Well, local law enforcement has been working
and dealing with local communities and trying to put together
a relationship. And because some of these ice agents have
police written on the back of their jackets, people are

(16:23):
conflating them and all of a sudden, it's the local
police that are picking people up, and they don't know.
No one knows the difference. In Bell last week, mass
men arrive at a car wash and begin detaining workers.
They're in a confrontation with residents and rights advocates, immigration

(16:46):
rights advocates. They were forced to leave the immigration folks.
I mean they were driving over curbs and islands to
get out. Pasadena last week, a man steps out of
his unmarked car at an intersection, takes out his pistol,
aims it at a group of pedestrians before returning to

(17:06):
the car. And then he turns on the red and
blue emergency lights emergency lights on his car, and off
he goes. And there was video of that, and so
people got his driver's license is a license plate A
let's find out. Well, guess what couple things. Federal agents

(17:28):
are not subject to the same controls as local police.
A policeman harasses you and arrests you without probable cause.
I mean that cop is in trouble. A federal agent
is immune can basically do whatever the hell he or
she wants. By the way, they track down that license

(17:52):
plate and you know what they found. It was a
cold plate. Is does that mean it's untraceable and typically
used by law enforcement in undercover criminal operations. You can't
trace it, and that's what the Feds are using. There

(18:17):
is effectively what people are saying. As these federal agents
show up as who are these guys, they're not clearly delineated.
Most of the time, they don't show warrants. They just
pick up people, detain them, question them, forget about probable cause.
Can you imagine local cops stopping someone simply because the

(18:39):
color of his or her skin. They're immune, and so
people are pretty upset about it. To say the least,
they wear vests. That's very funny. Karen Bess, is something
really interesting about the vests that a lot of them
were wearing the bulletproof vests said, these look like you

(19:01):
can buy these on Amazon. They're so cheesy. So we're
going to see we have gone from let's arrest and
deport the bad guys to well, if you are hispanic,
you know a lot of people I mean you look
at look at the parking lots of the home depots,

(19:25):
look at the car washes, and see how many people
are there and not showing up to work. A story
of food that I want to bring Neil into and
that is there is a state that did not grow
tomatoes which is now growing tomatoes, Florida. And why are

(19:49):
the Florida tomatoes becoming more and more prevalent. Well because
a twenty one percent tariff into against Mexican tomatoes start.
It's July four, and so here is Florida's tomato industry.

(20:10):
The guy who owns Litman Family Farms, one of the
largest growers of tomatoes in the United States, even he
admits the mediocrity of Florida feel grown tomatoes. Don't expect
the red, ripened, the vine ripe and tomatoes our grandparents grew.
We've got to get tomato from i Milaukee, Florida to

(20:34):
Saint Louis and your grandma's tomato wouldn't make it. So
you got to make choices. So that means breeding tomatoes
not for flavor, but for survivability against disease insects, shipping
Florida weather, heat, and another thing that some tomatoes are
bread for just to fit that hamburger patty perfectly. So Neil,

(21:01):
I have eaten tomatoes that are grown locally off of farms,
and it is a world of difference. Why why do
people put up with that kind of crap?

Speaker 2 (21:11):
You know, the points that you made are so American
that we're breeding them not for flavor, because keep in mind,
sugar is something that attracts bacteria, So when they're creating
these tomatoes and breeding them, they're pulling out things like
sugar so they don't attract the bugs, which changes the flavor,

(21:33):
the sweetness and all of those things. They also, like
you pointed out, want them to be able to travel.
So the more that you start tinkering with these things,
the more you are changing, you know, soils, you're genetically
modifying these things. You just get something that looks like
a tomato and that's it, basically.

Speaker 1 (21:55):
Yeah, not very flavorful. That rich tomato flavor you don't
get from tomatoes. How about the vine ripen tomatoes that
you get in the store with the little you know,
the vine part of it.

Speaker 2 (22:07):
I still think they're garbage personally, So you are better off.
And I tell people this on the fork port all
the time. You're better off getting a canned tomato that
was came from somewhere else, that was picked at its
prime and put into a can. Then you are getting
what looks like a fresh tomato on the vine that
is basically tasteless or maybe even mealy or something like that.

(22:30):
I can't stand the flavorless tomatoes that are out there,
and they used to be more seasonal. So now what
they're trying to do is keep them in season. And
you're throwing a lot of a lot of You're putting
a lot of boxes that need to be checked travel pesticides,

(22:51):
the appearance to keep the skins them looking good. You're
substituting that for flavor.

Speaker 1 (22:57):
Hey, let me ask you talk about cant tomatoes, which
I've ever done. Don't they get mushy? Uh? Where you're
getting like a real mush tomato.

Speaker 2 (23:06):
Yeah, it's not something you're gonna slice and put on
a you know, it's not something you're gonna put on
a sand burger, okay, or even a burger. But for
making a sauce, absolutely okay. You you uh, the Italian
tomatoes are going to be just wonderful in a can

(23:26):
and the ones that you're getting the on vine and
all that stuff there, A lot of them are just garbage.

Speaker 1 (23:31):
Well, how about when you buy tomato sauce or a
pizza sauce or you know, just a pasta sauce. Well
kind of tomatoes are used in.

Speaker 2 (23:39):
Those sand marzano the.

Speaker 3 (23:41):
Yeah, you know whatever, ragu or no, that's that's that
You're going to uh A a traditional Italian tomato.

Speaker 2 (23:54):
Like the sand barzana there.

Speaker 1 (23:55):
That's the that's the tomato itself. That is the one
you want. Yes, all right, So if I buy a
cheap bottle of prey Go tomato sauce, am I getting
good tomatoes?

Speaker 2 (24:08):
You know, I don't know exactly what's in there, but
there's so many preservatives and salt and all this other
stuff in there. But yes, any true Italian sauce or gravy,
if you will, is going to be those traditional tomatoes.

Speaker 1 (24:25):
Yeah, and now I was looking.

Speaker 2 (24:26):
You can find them on Amazon, I get you know,
if you can't find them in your grocer, you can
find them at a local Italian shop or on Amazon.

Speaker 1 (24:34):
Even I was looking forward today to a tomato sandwich
with lettuce and mayonnaise on wonderbread. There's just something about that.
A Florida tomato sandwich. We'll be back. Heirloom.

Speaker 2 (24:51):
You go to your local farmer's market, get a good tomato.

Speaker 1 (24:54):
Okay, kfi, I am sixty. You've been listening to The
Bill Handle Show. Catch my show Monday through Friday, six
am to nine am, and anytime on demand on the
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