June 22, 2025 • 37 mins
In Hour 2, Gary Hoffman dives deeper into the aftermath of Operation Midnight Hammer. From the B-2 stealth bombers to the bunker-busting payload, Gary breaks down how this mission pulled off the impossible — and what it signals for the future of warfare. He covers Iran’s vow to close the Strait of Hormuz, nuclear threats from Russia, and plays chilling audio from U.S. and Iranian officials. With no U.S. casualties and no leaks, Gary questions: has Trump just redefined modern warfare? And are we now entering an era where wars are fought from the skies and screens, not the trenches?
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Next hour, you're gonna hear Chris Merrill's take on everything
that's been going on for the last say, almost twenty
four hours or so. Of course, the United States hit
Iran right where it hurts. President Trump is now calling
for regime change in Iran. He's also been taking talks
calls with other Allied leaders about exactly what's going on.
(00:28):
The United States used seven B two bombers to embark
on an amazing thirty seven hour flight from Missouri, of
all places, to deliver bombs to three different nuclear facilities,
four toh Natans and Ishfahan.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
They're in Iran.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
This was the core of the nuclear infrastructure that Iran
had refused to give up. Bombers did drop the GBU
fifty seven, these massive ordinance penetrators for the first time ever.
And as we mentioned last hour, this is exactly what
they were designed for. Twenty plus years ago. The military
(01:09):
designed bunker buster bombs, these massive, massive bombs because we
knew that Iran was developing their nuclear facilities underground and
we needed a way to use them if if we
were ever going to do it.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
This was the way that we were going to have
to do it.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan Caine,
was part of that news conference this morning with Secretary
of Defense Pete Hegseth.
Speaker 4 (01:33):
All three Iranian nuclear infrastructure targets were struck between six
forty pm and seven zho five pm Eastern time. Again,
that's about two ten in the morning local time in Iran,
with the Tomahawk missiles being the last to strike at
Esfahan to ensure we retain the element of surprise throughout
(01:54):
the operation.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
Now that's an amazing thing.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
You think about the submarines that launched these Tomahawk missiles.
They were two hundred and fifty three hundred miles away
from their target, and they started launching the Tomahawk missiles
before the bombs were dropped, even from these B two bombers,
so that all of it would time out exactly together.
And as he mentioned, the window of actual activity was
(02:19):
pretty small there. The main weapon again was this massive
ordnance penetrator. It's about thirteen and a half tons one
bomb thirteen and a half tons, and again it's not
from the explosives. The explosives are about two and a
half of that two and a half tons, But most
of the weight of this bomb comes from the reinforced
(02:41):
casing that it's in. That it basically bores through the rock,
the mountain, the earth, all the reinforced concrete that they
believe was used to build these nuclear facilities underground, and
then uses the guidance system to obliterate the underground infrastructure,
basically detonating at a prescribed depth underneath. These were if
(03:06):
you remember the mother of all bombs, the MOAB that
we've used.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
We used it once.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Actually I shouldn't say we've used it a lot, but
we used it once in Afghanistan. This was the first
time we've ever used this massive ordnance penetrator and it's
about twenty bombs that we had as of yesterday, and
now we used fourteen of them. So we're going to
start building some more complimenting all of this. And I
(03:33):
mentioned the submarines that launched in thirty Tomahawk land attack
cruise missiles from about two hundred and eighty miles away
that targeted Natanz and Ishfahan, previously damaged but not irreversibly
destroyed in the Israeli attacks. Dan Kane again, all three
where I heard that one? How about this one?
Speaker 4 (03:53):
Just prior to the strike package entering Aroan, a US
submarine in the Central Command area of responsibility launched more
than two dozen Tomahawk land attack cruise missiles against key
surface infrastructure targets at s Fahind.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Okay, when we come back, I want well, we've got
plenty of time to get through this. There is In
the next segment, I want to talk about the B
two bomber itself because you may think, you know, how
do a pilot and co pilot survive a thirty seven
hour flight. This is a round trip from Missouri to
the hills of Tehran and back thirty seven hours? How
(04:30):
do you survive that? We'll talk about the B two specifically,
but Tomahawks. The Tomahawk missiles have been exported to the UK,
to Australia, to the Netherlands. Of course, Israel's past request
to purchase the Tomahawk missiles has been denied up to
this point. The specific submarines that launched the Tomahawks, We're
not quite sure, but potentially the USS Georgia, but at
(04:53):
this point not officially identified as to who which I
should say, which of the American submarines actually were used
in all of this. Now, the other fascinating thing about
this to me was the surprise behind all of this.
(05:14):
Last week, President Trump was pretty coy about exactly when
this was going to happen. And if you remember, it
was basically that we were going to see within two
weeks we would see some sort of an action where
he was going to make a decision within two weeks,
and it sounds like, based on what we know about
what has happened in the last twenty four hours, he
already had that decision made, when in fact, the when
(05:40):
he made the comment, he knew that the decision was
made to attack Iran's nuclear facilities. The B two bombers
that attacked flew in from Missouri. Right what we saw
late last week, I mean, this feels like it was
ten days ago, but it was two days ago, was
that there was a different set of B two bombers
(06:03):
that took off towards the West Pacific. And as well
as we were watching six B two bombers make their
way to one of our bases in Guam, the real
attack B two bombers were going the other direction. They
were taken off from Missouri, they made their way east,
(06:27):
they went into attack the most important nuclear sites. They
hit these to facilities where the bunker busters were going
to have the greatest, the greatest success.
Speaker 3 (06:36):
We knew that.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
I mentioned the submarines firing the cruise missiles, but it
allowed us to get the bombers over around faster and
with a lower risk of detection, because we were telling
them to look over here, look over the Pacific, not
the Atlantic.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
Look over here.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
And maybe the attack was going to be coming from Diego, Garcia,
which is where we have a base, which is much
closer to Iran than Missouri.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
Duh.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
The timing also helped hide what the aim was in
the first place. The President did say he was going
to take probably up to two weeks in order to
try to give diplomacy a chance to work. There had
been no order given to ready a B two strike,
they said as of Saturday morning. The net effect with
all of this was that Iran probably believed it had
(07:23):
more time than it actually did. One of the defense
officials who was talking about those B two's moving to
Guam said, yes, this was a decoy, indeed, that hiding
them and preserving the element of surprise was critical in
all of this, but that Trump gave the final order
to go ahead yesterday afternoon East Coast time while he
(07:45):
was at his private club in New Jersey, and administration
official told the Wall Street Journal the goal was to
create a situation where everyone wasn't expecting it. The Pentagon
confirmed all of that this morning when they talked about
the B two bombers that were headed to headed west,
another group quietly split off and headed east to attack Iran.
(08:06):
And again I mentioned this at the beginning, just in
the two o'clock hour, that when I was following some
of those Open Signals Intelligence Twitter accounts, they were referring
to the B two's that were headed towards Guam and
suggesting that an attack might be mounted from Diego Garcia.
And in fact, that's not what we did. So all
(08:29):
of that stuff is pretty fascinating. The President I mentioned,
was talking about regime change a few last hour during
a Trump social post truth social posts Sorry, he wrote,
it's not politically correct to use the term regime change,
but if the current Iranian regime is unable to make
Iran great again, why wouldn't there be a regime change?
(08:50):
And then wrote m IgA make Iran great again. We'll
come back and I want to get into this B
two bomber. It's not the tiny little thing that you
might think it is. There's plenty of opportunity for the
pilot and co pilot to stretch their legs, even lay
down and take a nap while the other guy's flying.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
We'll talk about the inside of a B two bomber
and we come back.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
Gary here and we'll be here until four o'clock.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
Chris merylll come on then and continue to keep an
eye on what's going on around the world. Of course,
the big question now is going to be what can
Iran do to retaliate, if anything, in terms of poking
back at the United States after we completely apparently completely
decimated their nuclear program. The Iranian parliament has apparently voted
(09:48):
to close the Strait of Hormuz, which may not sound
like a big deal, but it is a pretty vital
shipping channel. About twenty percent of our daily oil supply,
not just hours, but the world's daily oil supply goes
through the Strait of Hormus. Could block about a billion
dollars in oil shipments per day is the expectation. And
(10:10):
if that's the case, well then we're going to see
oil prices go back up.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
Probably.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
I saw a place this morning that suggested one hundred
and thirty one hundred and thirty five bucks a barrel,
so it would come into effect pending a final decision
by the Supreme Council by Iran. The other issue is
that former Russian President Dmitri Medvedev has taken to social
media to suggest that President Trump pushed the United States
into another war and said the enrichment of nuclear material
(10:40):
and now we can say it outright, the future production
of nuclear weapons will continue. This is again, this is
a Vladimir Putin puppet guy, former President Dmitri Medvedev. Medvedev
said a number of countries are ready to directly supply
Iran with their own nuclear warheads. So we know that
the un Secure Council has been meeting in New York.
(11:05):
The other issue is that NATO has a big meeting
coming up this week. NATO members agreed today to a
big increase in their defense spending target of five percent
of GDP, as demanded by President Trump. Spain said it
did not need to comply. We'll see how that goes
in the meeting. Over the week, NATO officials had been
(11:26):
pretty anxious to find consensus on a summit statement ahead
of the gathering that's supposed to start on Thursday, sorry, Wednesday,
and we'll see. President Trump as of right now, is
still scheduled to go to this NATO summit in Europe
starting on Wednesday. The B two stealth bombers that were
(11:47):
used to attack these nuclear facilities have all landed again
their back home Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, and
back safely. It appears that not an Iranian shot was fired.
So that is not only a testament to the stealth
capabilities of the B two and the other aircraft that
(12:08):
we have that were escorting them in and out, but
the Israeli ability to knock out the air defenses that
Israel are sorry that Iran used to have that Iran
used to have.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
So the B two stealth bombers.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Used to attack the enrichment plant are equipped with toilets, microwaves,
and a cooler for snacks.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
Sometimes, I mean, this is this is.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
Far and above what I would have expected to see
in a military airplane, except we know the B two
is designed for the longer range attacks like this thirty
seven again thirty seven hours round trip. This fleet took
off from Whiteman just outside of Kansas City late Friday
(12:58):
night early Saturday morning for this e eighteen hour ride
across the world. Refueled several times in mid air, in fact,
when taking off, because it's carrying thirty sixty thousand pounds
of bomb, probably didn't have a lot of fuel, so
that or the fuel that they did have was going
to be used up on takeoff. So for such long
(13:20):
trips to be bearable. In all of this, very high
tech bombers had their cockpits that are outfitted with many refrigerators,
a microwave to keep their to keep their crew fed alert,
little toilet, little fake toilet. It's not fake, it's real,
but fake in that it's not a full size I'm
assuming even enough room in the cockpit for one pilot
(13:45):
to lay down and rest while the other flies. The
plane it's been around for thirty years, almost entered service
in nineteen ninety seven. Each one of them costs about
two billion dollars. As of right now, we have nineteen
of them. Thankfully, we didn't lose and like I said,
I don't think a shot was fired at them. We
lost one in a crash back in two thousand and eight,
(14:06):
but for the most part, our B two fleet is intact.
This is pretty stunning, pretty amazing in that this is
the future of warfare. The ability for us to reach
out and touch Iran from our home soil has got
(14:26):
to be pretty puckerage, pretty puckery perhaps for Iranian leadership.
In fact, Pete Hegseth said as much this morning in
that news conference from the Pentagon.
Speaker 5 (14:36):
Kuran is certainly calculating the reality that planes flew from
the middle of America and Missouri overnight completely undetected over
three of their most highly sensitive sites, and we were
able to destroy nuclear capabilities, and our boys in those
bombers are on their way home right now. We believe
that'll have a clear psychological impact on how they view
(14:59):
the future, and we certainly hope they take the path
of negotiate a peace. But I could not be more proud.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
So a couple of things that we're going to do
in the half an hour that we have left here.
One of them is discuss this war powers resolution and
how it is that a president has the ability to
do this. The president does have the ability in certain
circumstances to use military power without going to Congress first,
(15:26):
even though the Constitution gives Congress the power to declare war.
That's a technicality these days. So we'll talk about that,
and also some questions that arise in all of this.
What does Iran do? How does the world react to this?
The world didn't stop and it doesn't start again on
Monday morning. This is an ongoing thing. What other countries
(15:49):
have been saying about all of this, What is in
store for the NATO summit that's coming up this week,
What the UN is going to do, if anything, as
a result of all of this. I also want to
point out that Mike Pence, the vice president, the vice
president in the first term with Trump, he was interviewed
earlier today about what this decision was, and we'll hear
(16:12):
from the former vice president in just a couple of
minutes when we come back.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
Three nuclear facilities in Iran with seven B two stealth bombers.
This thirty seven hour flight from Missouri delivering these massive
ordnance penetrator, these bunker buster bombs into the at least
two of those facilities, and these Tomahawk missiles against others
that had been softened up, shall we say, Israel kind
(16:42):
of loosened the top for us, and we ended up
taking the top off of the jar.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
I mentioned a couple of things.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
Number one is that Mike Pence, former Vice President, was
interviewed earlier today about what his reaction was to this
decision by President Trump.
Speaker 6 (16:57):
You know, the President and I've had our differences with
resulted in me staying out of the twenty twenty four race.
But I have to tell you, I couldn't be more
prob of President Trump's decisive leadership in this moment, or
the extraordinary professionalism and courage of our armed forces that
brought about this historic mission. I mean, I must tell
(17:18):
you I saw last night as really a continuation of
the policies of our administration.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
He went on to talk about how the first Trump
administration did everything they could to isolate Iran from the
international community because they refused to give up their nuclear ambitions,
among other things. Now the Iranians, of course, have come
out and suggested that this was awful.
Speaker 3 (17:43):
It was bad. We knew it. The condemnation came from
the Foreign Minister.
Speaker 7 (17:46):
The Islamic Republic of your own condemns in the strongest
terms the United States brutal military aggression against Iran's peaceful
nuclear facilities. It is an outrageous, grave, an unprecedented violation
of the fundamental principles of the Charter of the United
(18:07):
Nations and international law.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
The other thing about this is it's twenty twenty five.
We can't keep anything secret. We can't do anything in Washington,
DC without having some leak somewhere. And Jennifer Griffin for
a Fox News a Fox News reporter has worked at
the Pentagon now I think for twenty years, basically almost
(18:32):
twenty years, and described the operational security that surrounded this thing.
Nobody knew that this was going on outside of a
select few people in Washington, DC and at the Pentagon.
Speaker 8 (18:46):
This is an operation. In the last eighteen years since
I've been at the Pentagon, I've never seen such operational security.
There was nobody speaking about this, any of the preparations.
There was a complete lockdown, almost a blackout of information
for the last few days. I'm sitting here in the
Pentagon right now, I can tell you the hallways are empty,
(19:06):
and all of the information is coming right now out
of the White House. That is a significant achievement because
there were no leaks about the timing. Now, sometimes I
think those who a lot of the flight trackers, the
open source intelligence flight trackers that flight radar did indicate
some of the when the B twos took off from
(19:28):
White Men, But again, nobody really expected that it would
take place this evening.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
If you looked at the moon that I'll cut her
off there just because she's going to go on and
talk specifically about phases of the moon, which is important
when you're doing an airstrike, and that's why they were
waiting for or you took advantage of the fact that
the moon is waning right now.
Speaker 9 (19:49):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (19:49):
I wasn't paying attention to an astronomy class.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
But she pointed out the open source intelligence that is available,
and there are a lot of different accounts on social
media that follow things like flight trackers. And one of
the things that I felt for was the B twos
that were taking off and headed west across the Pacific
towards Guam. That's not how we attacked them. We went east.
(20:14):
We the b twos went east from Missouri, refueled several times,
dropped their payloads, and came back thirty seven hour round trip.
But I was one of those who was falling for
the open source information that suggested that maybe it was
going to come from the west, that B TWOS would
go to Guam and then to Diego Garcia and then
use Diego Garcia as sort of the launching point for
(20:37):
the attack itself. Also mentioned that this is going to
draw congressional ire, if you will, because of the suggestion
that this was an overreach of presidential authority that Congress
has to vote. There are some Democrats who are saying
that this was grounds for impeachment the president's decision to
(20:58):
go about these strikes without informing Congress. But the basics
of what does give the president the authority to do
this Article two of the Constitution, Article two, Section two.
The President serves as commander in chief of the US
Armed Forces, and is thereby empowered to direct military operations
(21:21):
and to deploy troops as necessary.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
This has come up in court.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
It has been reiterated by the Supreme Court and others.
This does grant the president the right to conduct limited
military strikes in defense or during emergencies without the approval
of Congress. I'm amazed that these members of Congress don't
either don't know that or they're willing to ignore it
(21:47):
simply because they want to make political points. But this
is the way it has been, not just for Republican
presidents either. I mentioned Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, George W.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
Bush.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
Almost all of the presidents we've had in the last
forty or fifty years have had some amount of military
operation at their disposal and have used the protection of
the second of Article two of the Constitution in order
to do that. The War Powers Resolution of nineteen seventy
three also does require the president to notify Congress within
(22:19):
forty eight hours of launching military action, and then limits
an engagement to sixty days unless Congress gives the approval
for further action. Think of Bosnia, Kosovo, Syria, Libya. Presidents
have used that limited duration clause to justify actions without
getting Congressional permission. So this is not an unusual thing. Yes,
(22:44):
I understand why everybody believes that Congress wants I should
say why Congress believes Congress wants to have a say
in all of this, But that does not necessarily have
to happen again. The last time the Congress declared war
was World War II. Truman got into Korea without a
formal declaration of war. Reagan authorized actions in Grenada and
(23:05):
Lebanon and Libya.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
George H. W.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
Bush went into Panama, Clinton went into Kosovo. Obama did
air strikes on Libya, Cruz missiles in Syria. Trump previously
did the Solo Moni drone strike, which he used and
referred to last night in his address. So all of
that stuff has to be kept in mind when we're
talking about whether or not the president has the ability,
(23:28):
the legal ability to do this, because for all intents
and purposes, there's no evidence that he doesn't. I mentioned
that the president was pretty busy on social media as well.
On truth Social he wrote, the damage to the nuclear
sites in Iran is said to be monumental. The hits
were hard and accurate, great skill shown by our military.
(23:49):
He said it's not politically correct to use the term
regime change, but if the current Iranian regime is unable
to make Iran great again, why wouldn't there.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
Be a regime change?
Speaker 2 (23:58):
And then he wrote IgA instead of maga Niga. I
guess you'd pronounce it, make Iran great again. And then
a tribute to the pilots of our B two bombers.
Great B two pilots have just landed safely in Missouri.
He wrote, thank you for a job well done, and
then signed but misspelled his name. So what comes next?
(24:21):
What does this week hold in the aftermath of the
bombing of these nuclear sites by the United States?
Speaker 3 (24:31):
How does Iran respond?
Speaker 2 (24:33):
I think the first thing that they want to do
is cut off the strait of horm Moves. They want
the world to suffer like they suffer. Irani and television
did report that the parliament there in Iran had approved
a measure to close the straight of horm Moves. That's
about twenty percent of the daily supply of oil to
(24:55):
the world.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
That's how much.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
That's about a billion dollars worth of oil, and the
immediate results of that could see get well gas prices eventually,
but oil prices around the world could spike to one
hundred plus dollars a barrel. The oil futures are up
just a little bit, maybe about three or four percent,
(25:20):
so we'll see exactly what happens when the markets really
get revved up.
Speaker 3 (25:23):
For the day. What are Republicans do in all of this?
I mean, obviously we've seen.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
Members of Congress from both sides condemned the president. Thomas
Massey is one Republican, for example, who has come out
and said that he is going to introduce a resolution
to condemn this call to military action without congressional approval.
Speaker 3 (25:45):
But what about others.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
You got Marchie Taylor Green, You got at least Republican faces,
maybe not politicians like Tucker Carlson, Steve Bennon who do
not like this idea, did not like this idea. Steve
bann was at the White House this week and apparently
told the President that this would be a bad idea,
and he still did it. Today he talked about great unity.
(26:10):
The President did great unity among Republicans following the strikes,
and called on Republicans to focus on getting attacks and
spending legislation to his desk, returning to the domestic plan,
the domestic goals that he's got, referring to that big
beautiful bill it's supposed to be in the Senate. Democrats,
they've hit the president.
Speaker 9 (26:29):
We know.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
We saw Bernie Sanders at a rally last night said
that this was unconstitutional. The crowd was chanting no more wars.
AOC AOC hard to say said that this was grounds
for impeachment. They've avoided impeachment talk for the most part,
it seems, for the last couple of months in the
(26:51):
president's second term. And this might change some of that.
But presidents in both parties have done these things. They've
done taken these limited milllitary strikes without going to going
to Congress to get permission.
Speaker 3 (27:04):
I just I just went through the whole list of them.
Is this different?
Speaker 2 (27:09):
This is this a changer for for Trump because to
this point, and leading up to the campaign or during
the campaign, I should say, he was a guy who
was averse to foreign conflicts. One of the things that
he campaigned on was keeping us out of foreign wars.
(27:30):
He talked in the first the first term, of getting
Americans back into the homeland so that they could protect
the homeland and not protect these these countries that weren't
our friends. It's more likely that this is sort of
a one off than sort of a sea change for
(27:51):
him in trying to get involved in international affairs like this.
But he took the opportunity to basically I don't know
if I would say there was riding piggyback on Israel
because of Israel's recent attacks on Iran and their ability
to soften up the infrastructure. But the timing was couldn't
(28:12):
have been better. And then finally, who has Trump's ear
We know Senator Lindsey Graham has sort of echoed the
late John McCain's call to bomb, bomb, bomb bomb Iran,
remember that when he was singing the Beach Boys. It's
also they said some critics of Trump. Former National Security
(28:35):
Advisor John Bolton has been a fan of this move.
Former Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, who has had plenty
of conflict with Donald Trump, said that this was a
great idea. So we'll see as these next few days
pan out and we start to see this new I
mentioned it earlier, but this news cycle, once it starts
up tomorrow morning is going to be full of people
(28:58):
both criticizing and praising the President for this. All right,
we'll continue wrap things up here in just a couple
of minutes, get a quick chat with Chris Merrill and
talk about what's going on.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
For his couple of hours, you're listening to KFI AM
six forty on demand.
Speaker 3 (29:14):
Yep, we'll be back at tomorrow nine am.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
Of course, picking up right where everybody else leaves off
when it comes to coverage of not just the American
military strikes on Iran, but any unrest downtown.
Speaker 3 (29:28):
There were some protesters. We had Michael Monks.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
Down there, but I don't know if they were afraid
of him or exactly what they were afraid of. But
they didn't materialize in the numbers that we were expecting.
So we will keep an eye on that. Chris Merril's
going to come up in just a couple of minutes. Man,
what a crazy couple of twenty four hour cycles we've had.
Do you get the feeling that this is a game
(29:54):
changer for President Trump in terms of his reputation. You know,
he's talked about keeping US out of foreign wars. This
is one of the most dramatic military events that the
United States has been involved with for a couple of decades.
Speaker 3 (30:12):
Yeah, yeah, you know, I I and talking to me. Yeah,
of course I am. Oh, I never know.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
I didn't know if I was on the air or not.
Speaker 9 (30:20):
I don't have any ideas I'm mailing it in today.
Speaker 3 (30:23):
I'm mailing it well at least.
Speaker 9 (30:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (30:27):
No.
Speaker 9 (30:28):
It is really curious, though, Gary, because you do have
you made mention of Steve Bannon at the White House
telling him don't do it. You got margor Bie Taylor
Green saying don't do it. You've got Tucker Carlson saying
don't do it. But then you've got sort of the
the old guard saying do it, good plan, way to go.
Uh And so, yeah, which Trump are we seeing? I
guess is a question, right, is this is this the
(30:49):
Trump that is the hard line right wing maga, the
the isolationists, the non interventionalists, the stay out of geopolitical matters,
or is this the Trump who's influenced by a legacy
of dominance and power and authority. So it kind of
puts kind of puts the two at odds. And I
(31:11):
don't know, is this the opening salva. We're gonna ask
that on the talk back today. Is this a one
and done situation? You know, does a RAN no better?
Or is this just the beginning. My concern is not
that this is something that we're going to see escalate
right now. My concern is they say, well, I RAN
is at least a decade off of a nuclear weapon,
But at some point somebody in the Middle East is
(31:33):
going to get ahold of nuclear weapon, right, And so
my concern is not the escalation today, tomorrow, this week.
My concern is the escalation a year, two years, five years,
ten years down the line. Because one thing we know
from people in the Middle East, they've been at war
for such a long time. Yeah, they don't have short
memories like we do. You know, they are willing to
(31:53):
play the long game, that's for sure. And you mentioned,
I mean the outside influences on whatever goes on in
the Middle East. Russia is one of the main players
and always has been, and has been I guess a
good ally of Iran.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
The former president Dmitri Medvedev had come out and said,
among other things, that the strikes on those nuclear facilities,
the American strikes were not that successful, that everything had
been moved, everybody had been evacuated. So really, as as
destructive as they may have been, Iran was ready for it.
But his big deal was that he said a number
(32:32):
of countries are ready to directly supply Iran with their
own nuclear warheads.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 9 (32:38):
And so this is such a tough one too, because
how much of this is just Medvedev talking out of
his butt, right, you know, just saber rattling a little bit.
Speaker 3 (32:48):
Or cluster, I think is the official term?
Speaker 1 (32:50):
Is that it?
Speaker 3 (32:51):
Yeah, it's very am I write that down.
Speaker 9 (32:53):
I'll put that in my notes for right now with that,
but bluster, okay.
Speaker 3 (32:57):
Very good?
Speaker 9 (32:59):
So yeah, is that the case? Is he is he
now saying, oh, boy, you know you have you have
opened a can of worms. You can't put the genie
back in the bottle. We're gonna mix metaphors all night.
Or is this is he saying geo, uh, we really
have nothing, so we're just gonna bluff our way out
of this.
Speaker 3 (33:15):
I mean, it.
Speaker 9 (33:15):
Wouldn't be unlike Russia to say, oh, we can go
the long run. I mean that was Gorbachev, right. Gorbachov
was like, listen, we had to basically call off the
end of the Cold War because we were just out
of everything.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
You know, So what what happens? I mean, I don't,
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (33:30):
I don't know who to believe right now.
Speaker 9 (33:32):
And it's said because I don't necessarily believe the US government,
and I don't mean that in a negative manner. The
US government is not gonna tell the people all of
their military operational plans and capabilities. That would be foolish, right, So,
I mean all we are sort of casual observers just
hoping that if somebody does get a bomb, they don't
decide to take it out on the Olympics, right, because
(33:53):
that would be a real downer for the Olympics next year.
Speaker 2 (33:56):
Yeah, I wouldn't look good on the poster, I mean
no in terms of marketing, and probably not be the greatest.
Speaker 9 (34:02):
But a little tough, right, but rough on that.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
And I do I mean, I'm a little fascinated, I'll
be honest with with the mechanics of you know, seven
b two bombers flying thirty seven hours round trip. I mean, yeah,
that that's an amazing that's an amazing, amazing accomplishment for
the men and women that were involved in the actual
exercise itself, it was.
Speaker 3 (34:27):
That's pretty incredible, especially with what'd you call it the
fake toilet. Yeah, that's not the right word. But no,
I'm not sure.
Speaker 9 (34:35):
I'm not sure. It's not comfortable. Well I looked at
it's actually called the butt bluster is what they have them.
But yeah, yeah, massive ordinance penetrator. I'm sure you're so right,
about very good, very good. You're so you're so right
about that, about the misdirect and then the other operational
things that we did. I mean, Iran didn't even know
(34:56):
that we dropped the bomb until the bomb hit the ground.
Oh yeah, because they were too busy worried about all
the other incomings at the time. And meanwhile the B
two just kind of flies fast and high overhead and
just takes care of business, whips around, comes on back.
But I was hearing the reports yesterday from ABC just
like you were that. Oh you know, B two bombers
are headed to Hawaii where they'll be refueling, and the
(35:17):
speculation was, well, if they're going to Hawaii to refuel,
that means they must be fully loaded, because you know,
they gotta have all that room for the fuel. Excuse me,
all that the capacity for the bombs. I couldn't carry
all that fuel. And then come to find out, you know,
that was just a decoy.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
Yeah, we and we've all seen that magic trick before
where you know, they're they're taking your watch off while
you're looking, you know, across the room, and then all
of a sudden they give you your watch back and
the little.
Speaker 9 (35:42):
Razzle, dazzle, a little magic going on there.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
So this is, you know, this is gonna be the
big topic I'm assuming for the Chris Meryl show coming up.
We did see you may not have the same visuals
that I have, but we did see a couple dozen
people outside the Federal building over there. I believe it's
the one in Westwood where people are holding signs and
stuff like that. But in terms of the protests that
(36:05):
we thought we were going to see downtown or anywhere
in LA they really haven't materialized the way we thought.
Speaker 9 (36:11):
I got the poster earlier that said, you know it's
the big the no more war in the Middle East.
We won't die for oil, profit or empire, and that
was supposed to be going on today at New City Hall,
and it just like you said, kind of pat but
also Gary, you met a great, great point too about
fuel prices are likely to increase, you know, price oil,
would you say one hundred and thirty five dollars a barrel,
which would be pretty close to a record.
Speaker 3 (36:32):
I think yeah.
Speaker 9 (36:34):
And so you know, Lord knows we're so tired of
not paying enough for gas. At some point, if we
have a war for oil, when does our gas prices go.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
Down, when do we get in the oil that's yeah,
no kidding, Yeah, we'll see where that goes.
Speaker 3 (36:49):
I haven't heard the latest. I know that they're supposed to.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
You know, it's what one o'clock in the morning, I
believe Iran time right now. So there is a there
is movement from the Iranian parliament to shut down the
straight of horror moves and if that's the case.
Speaker 3 (37:06):
Then then we're all in for some some pretty it's
jarring numbers for the for oil prices, well.
Speaker 9 (37:14):
Not only that, but any other shipping that comes out
of that area too that has to move through there.
Oil obviously is a big one, but then other shipping
has to be re routed.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
KFI AM six on demand
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Next hour, you're gonna hear Chris Merrill's take on everything
that's been going on for the last say, almost twenty
four hours or so. Of course, the United States hit
Iran right where it hurts. President Trump is now calling
for regime change in Iran. He's also been taking talks
calls with other Allied leaders about exactly what's going on.
(00:28):
The United States used seven B two bombers to embark
on an amazing thirty seven hour flight from Missouri, of
all places, to deliver bombs to three different nuclear facilities,
four toh Natans and Ishfahan.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
They're in Iran.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
This was the core of the nuclear infrastructure that Iran
had refused to give up. Bombers did drop the GBU
fifty seven, these massive ordinance penetrators for the first time ever.
And as we mentioned last hour, this is exactly what
they were designed for. Twenty plus years ago. The military
(01:09):
designed bunker buster bombs, these massive, massive bombs because we
knew that Iran was developing their nuclear facilities underground and
we needed a way to use them if if we
were ever going to do it.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
This was the way that we were going to have
to do it.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan Caine,
was part of that news conference this morning with Secretary
of Defense Pete Hegseth.
Speaker 4 (01:33):
All three Iranian nuclear infrastructure targets were struck between six
forty pm and seven zho five pm Eastern time. Again,
that's about two ten in the morning local time in Iran,
with the Tomahawk missiles being the last to strike at
Esfahan to ensure we retain the element of surprise throughout
(01:54):
the operation.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
Now that's an amazing thing.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
You think about the submarines that launched these Tomahawk missiles.
They were two hundred and fifty three hundred miles away
from their target, and they started launching the Tomahawk missiles
before the bombs were dropped, even from these B two bombers,
so that all of it would time out exactly together.
And as he mentioned, the window of actual activity was
(02:19):
pretty small there. The main weapon again was this massive
ordnance penetrator. It's about thirteen and a half tons one
bomb thirteen and a half tons, and again it's not
from the explosives. The explosives are about two and a
half of that two and a half tons, But most
of the weight of this bomb comes from the reinforced
(02:41):
casing that it's in. That it basically bores through the rock,
the mountain, the earth, all the reinforced concrete that they
believe was used to build these nuclear facilities underground, and
then uses the guidance system to obliterate the underground infrastructure,
basically detonating at a prescribed depth underneath. These were if
(03:06):
you remember the mother of all bombs, the MOAB that
we've used.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
We used it once.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Actually I shouldn't say we've used it a lot, but
we used it once in Afghanistan. This was the first
time we've ever used this massive ordnance penetrator and it's
about twenty bombs that we had as of yesterday, and
now we used fourteen of them. So we're going to
start building some more complimenting all of this. And I
(03:33):
mentioned the submarines that launched in thirty Tomahawk land attack
cruise missiles from about two hundred and eighty miles away
that targeted Natanz and Ishfahan, previously damaged but not irreversibly
destroyed in the Israeli attacks. Dan Kane again, all three
where I heard that one? How about this one?
Speaker 4 (03:53):
Just prior to the strike package entering Aroan, a US
submarine in the Central Command area of responsibility launched more
than two dozen Tomahawk land attack cruise missiles against key
surface infrastructure targets at s Fahind.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Okay, when we come back, I want well, we've got
plenty of time to get through this. There is In
the next segment, I want to talk about the B
two bomber itself because you may think, you know, how
do a pilot and co pilot survive a thirty seven
hour flight. This is a round trip from Missouri to
the hills of Tehran and back thirty seven hours? How
(04:30):
do you survive that? We'll talk about the B two specifically,
but Tomahawks. The Tomahawk missiles have been exported to the UK,
to Australia, to the Netherlands. Of course, Israel's past request
to purchase the Tomahawk missiles has been denied up to
this point. The specific submarines that launched the Tomahawks, We're
not quite sure, but potentially the USS Georgia, but at
(04:53):
this point not officially identified as to who which I
should say, which of the American submarines actually were used
in all of this. Now, the other fascinating thing about
this to me was the surprise behind all of this.
(05:14):
Last week, President Trump was pretty coy about exactly when
this was going to happen. And if you remember, it
was basically that we were going to see within two
weeks we would see some sort of an action where
he was going to make a decision within two weeks,
and it sounds like, based on what we know about
what has happened in the last twenty four hours, he
already had that decision made, when in fact, the when
(05:40):
he made the comment, he knew that the decision was
made to attack Iran's nuclear facilities. The B two bombers
that attacked flew in from Missouri. Right what we saw
late last week, I mean, this feels like it was
ten days ago, but it was two days ago, was
that there was a different set of B two bombers
(06:03):
that took off towards the West Pacific. And as well
as we were watching six B two bombers make their
way to one of our bases in Guam, the real
attack B two bombers were going the other direction. They
were taken off from Missouri, they made their way east,
(06:27):
they went into attack the most important nuclear sites. They
hit these to facilities where the bunker busters were going
to have the greatest, the greatest success.
Speaker 3 (06:36):
We knew that.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
I mentioned the submarines firing the cruise missiles, but it
allowed us to get the bombers over around faster and
with a lower risk of detection, because we were telling
them to look over here, look over the Pacific, not
the Atlantic.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
Look over here.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
And maybe the attack was going to be coming from Diego, Garcia,
which is where we have a base, which is much
closer to Iran than Missouri.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
Duh.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
The timing also helped hide what the aim was in
the first place. The President did say he was going
to take probably up to two weeks in order to
try to give diplomacy a chance to work. There had
been no order given to ready a B two strike,
they said as of Saturday morning. The net effect with
all of this was that Iran probably believed it had
(07:23):
more time than it actually did. One of the defense
officials who was talking about those B two's moving to
Guam said, yes, this was a decoy, indeed, that hiding
them and preserving the element of surprise was critical in
all of this, but that Trump gave the final order
to go ahead yesterday afternoon East Coast time while he
(07:45):
was at his private club in New Jersey, and administration
official told the Wall Street Journal the goal was to
create a situation where everyone wasn't expecting it. The Pentagon
confirmed all of that this morning when they talked about
the B two bombers that were headed to headed west,
another group quietly split off and headed east to attack Iran.
(08:06):
And again I mentioned this at the beginning, just in
the two o'clock hour, that when I was following some
of those Open Signals Intelligence Twitter accounts, they were referring
to the B two's that were headed towards Guam and
suggesting that an attack might be mounted from Diego Garcia.
And in fact, that's not what we did. So all
(08:29):
of that stuff is pretty fascinating. The President I mentioned,
was talking about regime change a few last hour during
a Trump social post truth social posts Sorry, he wrote,
it's not politically correct to use the term regime change,
but if the current Iranian regime is unable to make
Iran great again, why wouldn't there be a regime change?
(08:50):
And then wrote m IgA make Iran great again. We'll
come back and I want to get into this B
two bomber. It's not the tiny little thing that you
might think it is. There's plenty of opportunity for the
pilot and co pilot to stretch their legs, even lay
down and take a nap while the other guy's flying.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
We'll talk about the inside of a B two bomber
and we come back.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
Gary here and we'll be here until four o'clock.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
Chris merylll come on then and continue to keep an
eye on what's going on around the world. Of course,
the big question now is going to be what can
Iran do to retaliate, if anything, in terms of poking
back at the United States after we completely apparently completely
decimated their nuclear program. The Iranian parliament has apparently voted
(09:48):
to close the Strait of Hormuz, which may not sound
like a big deal, but it is a pretty vital
shipping channel. About twenty percent of our daily oil supply,
not just hours, but the world's daily oil supply goes
through the Strait of Hormus. Could block about a billion
dollars in oil shipments per day is the expectation. And
(10:10):
if that's the case, well then we're going to see
oil prices go back up.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
Probably.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
I saw a place this morning that suggested one hundred
and thirty one hundred and thirty five bucks a barrel,
so it would come into effect pending a final decision
by the Supreme Council by Iran. The other issue is
that former Russian President Dmitri Medvedev has taken to social
media to suggest that President Trump pushed the United States
into another war and said the enrichment of nuclear material
(10:40):
and now we can say it outright, the future production
of nuclear weapons will continue. This is again, this is
a Vladimir Putin puppet guy, former President Dmitri Medvedev. Medvedev
said a number of countries are ready to directly supply
Iran with their own nuclear warheads. So we know that
the un Secure Council has been meeting in New York.
(11:05):
The other issue is that NATO has a big meeting
coming up this week. NATO members agreed today to a
big increase in their defense spending target of five percent
of GDP, as demanded by President Trump. Spain said it
did not need to comply. We'll see how that goes
in the meeting. Over the week, NATO officials had been
(11:26):
pretty anxious to find consensus on a summit statement ahead
of the gathering that's supposed to start on Thursday, sorry, Wednesday,
and we'll see. President Trump as of right now, is
still scheduled to go to this NATO summit in Europe
starting on Wednesday. The B two stealth bombers that were
(11:47):
used to attack these nuclear facilities have all landed again
their back home Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, and
back safely. It appears that not an Iranian shot was fired.
So that is not only a testament to the stealth
capabilities of the B two and the other aircraft that
(12:08):
we have that were escorting them in and out, but
the Israeli ability to knock out the air defenses that
Israel are sorry that Iran used to have that Iran
used to have.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
So the B two stealth bombers.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Used to attack the enrichment plant are equipped with toilets, microwaves,
and a cooler for snacks.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
Sometimes, I mean, this is this is.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
Far and above what I would have expected to see
in a military airplane, except we know the B two
is designed for the longer range attacks like this thirty
seven again thirty seven hours round trip. This fleet took
off from Whiteman just outside of Kansas City late Friday
(12:58):
night early Saturday morning for this e eighteen hour ride
across the world. Refueled several times in mid air, in fact,
when taking off, because it's carrying thirty sixty thousand pounds
of bomb, probably didn't have a lot of fuel, so
that or the fuel that they did have was going
to be used up on takeoff. So for such long
(13:20):
trips to be bearable. In all of this, very high
tech bombers had their cockpits that are outfitted with many refrigerators,
a microwave to keep their to keep their crew fed alert,
little toilet, little fake toilet. It's not fake, it's real,
but fake in that it's not a full size I'm
assuming even enough room in the cockpit for one pilot
(13:45):
to lay down and rest while the other flies. The
plane it's been around for thirty years, almost entered service
in nineteen ninety seven. Each one of them costs about
two billion dollars. As of right now, we have nineteen
of them. Thankfully, we didn't lose and like I said,
I don't think a shot was fired at them. We
lost one in a crash back in two thousand and eight,
(14:06):
but for the most part, our B two fleet is intact.
This is pretty stunning, pretty amazing in that this is
the future of warfare. The ability for us to reach
out and touch Iran from our home soil has got
(14:26):
to be pretty puckerage, pretty puckery perhaps for Iranian leadership.
In fact, Pete Hegseth said as much this morning in
that news conference from the Pentagon.
Speaker 5 (14:36):
Kuran is certainly calculating the reality that planes flew from
the middle of America and Missouri overnight completely undetected over
three of their most highly sensitive sites, and we were
able to destroy nuclear capabilities, and our boys in those
bombers are on their way home right now. We believe
that'll have a clear psychological impact on how they view
(14:59):
the future, and we certainly hope they take the path
of negotiate a peace. But I could not be more proud.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
So a couple of things that we're going to do
in the half an hour that we have left here.
One of them is discuss this war powers resolution and
how it is that a president has the ability to
do this. The president does have the ability in certain
circumstances to use military power without going to Congress first,
(15:26):
even though the Constitution gives Congress the power to declare war.
That's a technicality these days. So we'll talk about that,
and also some questions that arise in all of this.
What does Iran do? How does the world react to this?
The world didn't stop and it doesn't start again on
Monday morning. This is an ongoing thing. What other countries
(15:49):
have been saying about all of this, What is in
store for the NATO summit that's coming up this week,
What the UN is going to do, if anything, as
a result of all of this. I also want to
point out that Mike Pence, the vice president, the vice
president in the first term with Trump, he was interviewed
earlier today about what this decision was, and we'll hear
(16:12):
from the former vice president in just a couple of
minutes when we come back.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
Three nuclear facilities in Iran with seven B two stealth bombers.
This thirty seven hour flight from Missouri delivering these massive
ordnance penetrator, these bunker buster bombs into the at least
two of those facilities, and these Tomahawk missiles against others
that had been softened up, shall we say, Israel kind
(16:42):
of loosened the top for us, and we ended up
taking the top off of the jar.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
I mentioned a couple of things.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
Number one is that Mike Pence, former Vice President, was
interviewed earlier today about what his reaction was to this
decision by President Trump.
Speaker 6 (16:57):
You know, the President and I've had our differences with
resulted in me staying out of the twenty twenty four race.
But I have to tell you, I couldn't be more
prob of President Trump's decisive leadership in this moment, or
the extraordinary professionalism and courage of our armed forces that
brought about this historic mission. I mean, I must tell
(17:18):
you I saw last night as really a continuation of
the policies of our administration.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
He went on to talk about how the first Trump
administration did everything they could to isolate Iran from the
international community because they refused to give up their nuclear ambitions,
among other things. Now the Iranians, of course, have come
out and suggested that this was awful.
Speaker 3 (17:43):
It was bad. We knew it. The condemnation came from
the Foreign Minister.
Speaker 7 (17:46):
The Islamic Republic of your own condemns in the strongest
terms the United States brutal military aggression against Iran's peaceful
nuclear facilities. It is an outrageous, grave, an unprecedented violation
of the fundamental principles of the Charter of the United
(18:07):
Nations and international law.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
The other thing about this is it's twenty twenty five.
We can't keep anything secret. We can't do anything in Washington,
DC without having some leak somewhere. And Jennifer Griffin for
a Fox News a Fox News reporter has worked at
the Pentagon now I think for twenty years, basically almost
(18:32):
twenty years, and described the operational security that surrounded this thing.
Nobody knew that this was going on outside of a
select few people in Washington, DC and at the Pentagon.
Speaker 8 (18:46):
This is an operation. In the last eighteen years since
I've been at the Pentagon, I've never seen such operational security.
There was nobody speaking about this, any of the preparations.
There was a complete lockdown, almost a blackout of information
for the last few days. I'm sitting here in the
Pentagon right now, I can tell you the hallways are empty,
(19:06):
and all of the information is coming right now out
of the White House. That is a significant achievement because
there were no leaks about the timing. Now, sometimes I
think those who a lot of the flight trackers, the
open source intelligence flight trackers that flight radar did indicate
some of the when the B twos took off from
(19:28):
White Men, But again, nobody really expected that it would
take place this evening.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
If you looked at the moon that I'll cut her
off there just because she's going to go on and
talk specifically about phases of the moon, which is important
when you're doing an airstrike, and that's why they were
waiting for or you took advantage of the fact that
the moon is waning right now.
Speaker 9 (19:49):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (19:49):
I wasn't paying attention to an astronomy class.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
But she pointed out the open source intelligence that is available,
and there are a lot of different accounts on social
media that follow things like flight trackers. And one of
the things that I felt for was the B twos
that were taking off and headed west across the Pacific
towards Guam. That's not how we attacked them. We went east.
(20:14):
We the b twos went east from Missouri, refueled several times,
dropped their payloads, and came back thirty seven hour round trip.
But I was one of those who was falling for
the open source information that suggested that maybe it was
going to come from the west, that B TWOS would
go to Guam and then to Diego Garcia and then
use Diego Garcia as sort of the launching point for
(20:37):
the attack itself. Also mentioned that this is going to
draw congressional ire, if you will, because of the suggestion
that this was an overreach of presidential authority that Congress
has to vote. There are some Democrats who are saying
that this was grounds for impeachment the president's decision to
(20:58):
go about these strikes without informing Congress. But the basics
of what does give the president the authority to do
this Article two of the Constitution, Article two, Section two.
The President serves as commander in chief of the US
Armed Forces, and is thereby empowered to direct military operations
(21:21):
and to deploy troops as necessary.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
This has come up in court.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
It has been reiterated by the Supreme Court and others.
This does grant the president the right to conduct limited
military strikes in defense or during emergencies without the approval
of Congress. I'm amazed that these members of Congress don't
either don't know that or they're willing to ignore it
(21:47):
simply because they want to make political points. But this
is the way it has been, not just for Republican
presidents either. I mentioned Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, George W.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
Bush.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
Almost all of the presidents we've had in the last
forty or fifty years have had some amount of military
operation at their disposal and have used the protection of
the second of Article two of the Constitution in order
to do that. The War Powers Resolution of nineteen seventy
three also does require the president to notify Congress within
(22:19):
forty eight hours of launching military action, and then limits
an engagement to sixty days unless Congress gives the approval
for further action. Think of Bosnia, Kosovo, Syria, Libya. Presidents
have used that limited duration clause to justify actions without
getting Congressional permission. So this is not an unusual thing. Yes,
(22:44):
I understand why everybody believes that Congress wants I should
say why Congress believes Congress wants to have a say
in all of this, But that does not necessarily have
to happen again. The last time the Congress declared war
was World War II. Truman got into Korea without a
formal declaration of war. Reagan authorized actions in Grenada and
(23:05):
Lebanon and Libya.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
George H. W.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
Bush went into Panama, Clinton went into Kosovo. Obama did
air strikes on Libya, Cruz missiles in Syria. Trump previously
did the Solo Moni drone strike, which he used and
referred to last night in his address. So all of
that stuff has to be kept in mind when we're
talking about whether or not the president has the ability,
(23:28):
the legal ability to do this, because for all intents
and purposes, there's no evidence that he doesn't. I mentioned
that the president was pretty busy on social media as well.
On truth Social he wrote, the damage to the nuclear
sites in Iran is said to be monumental. The hits
were hard and accurate, great skill shown by our military.
(23:49):
He said it's not politically correct to use the term
regime change, but if the current Iranian regime is unable
to make Iran great again, why wouldn't there.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
Be a regime change?
Speaker 2 (23:58):
And then he wrote IgA instead of maga Niga. I
guess you'd pronounce it, make Iran great again. And then
a tribute to the pilots of our B two bombers.
Great B two pilots have just landed safely in Missouri.
He wrote, thank you for a job well done, and
then signed but misspelled his name. So what comes next?
(24:21):
What does this week hold in the aftermath of the
bombing of these nuclear sites by the United States?
Speaker 3 (24:31):
How does Iran respond?
Speaker 2 (24:33):
I think the first thing that they want to do
is cut off the strait of horm Moves. They want
the world to suffer like they suffer. Irani and television
did report that the parliament there in Iran had approved
a measure to close the straight of horm Moves. That's
about twenty percent of the daily supply of oil to
(24:55):
the world.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
That's how much.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
That's about a billion dollars worth of oil, and the
immediate results of that could see get well gas prices eventually,
but oil prices around the world could spike to one
hundred plus dollars a barrel. The oil futures are up
just a little bit, maybe about three or four percent,
(25:20):
so we'll see exactly what happens when the markets really
get revved up.
Speaker 3 (25:23):
For the day. What are Republicans do in all of this?
I mean, obviously we've seen.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
Members of Congress from both sides condemned the president. Thomas
Massey is one Republican, for example, who has come out
and said that he is going to introduce a resolution
to condemn this call to military action without congressional approval.
Speaker 3 (25:45):
But what about others.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
You got Marchie Taylor Green, You got at least Republican faces,
maybe not politicians like Tucker Carlson, Steve Bennon who do
not like this idea, did not like this idea. Steve
bann was at the White House this week and apparently
told the President that this would be a bad idea,
and he still did it. Today he talked about great unity.
(26:10):
The President did great unity among Republicans following the strikes,
and called on Republicans to focus on getting attacks and
spending legislation to his desk, returning to the domestic plan,
the domestic goals that he's got, referring to that big
beautiful bill it's supposed to be in the Senate. Democrats,
they've hit the president.
Speaker 9 (26:29):
We know.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
We saw Bernie Sanders at a rally last night said
that this was unconstitutional. The crowd was chanting no more wars.
AOC AOC hard to say said that this was grounds
for impeachment. They've avoided impeachment talk for the most part,
it seems, for the last couple of months in the
(26:51):
president's second term. And this might change some of that.
But presidents in both parties have done these things. They've
done taken these limited milllitary strikes without going to going
to Congress to get permission.
Speaker 3 (27:04):
I just I just went through the whole list of them.
Is this different?
Speaker 2 (27:09):
This is this a changer for for Trump because to
this point, and leading up to the campaign or during
the campaign, I should say, he was a guy who
was averse to foreign conflicts. One of the things that
he campaigned on was keeping us out of foreign wars.
(27:30):
He talked in the first the first term, of getting
Americans back into the homeland so that they could protect
the homeland and not protect these these countries that weren't
our friends. It's more likely that this is sort of
a one off than sort of a sea change for
(27:51):
him in trying to get involved in international affairs like this.
But he took the opportunity to basically I don't know
if I would say there was riding piggyback on Israel
because of Israel's recent attacks on Iran and their ability
to soften up the infrastructure. But the timing was couldn't
(28:12):
have been better. And then finally, who has Trump's ear
We know Senator Lindsey Graham has sort of echoed the
late John McCain's call to bomb, bomb, bomb bomb Iran,
remember that when he was singing the Beach Boys. It's
also they said some critics of Trump. Former National Security
(28:35):
Advisor John Bolton has been a fan of this move.
Former Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, who has had plenty
of conflict with Donald Trump, said that this was a
great idea. So we'll see as these next few days
pan out and we start to see this new I
mentioned it earlier, but this news cycle, once it starts
up tomorrow morning is going to be full of people
(28:58):
both criticizing and praising the President for this. All right,
we'll continue wrap things up here in just a couple
of minutes, get a quick chat with Chris Merrill and
talk about what's going on.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
For his couple of hours, you're listening to KFI AM
six forty on demand.
Speaker 3 (29:14):
Yep, we'll be back at tomorrow nine am.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
Of course, picking up right where everybody else leaves off
when it comes to coverage of not just the American
military strikes on Iran, but any unrest downtown.
Speaker 3 (29:28):
There were some protesters. We had Michael Monks.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
Down there, but I don't know if they were afraid
of him or exactly what they were afraid of. But
they didn't materialize in the numbers that we were expecting.
So we will keep an eye on that. Chris Merril's
going to come up in just a couple of minutes. Man,
what a crazy couple of twenty four hour cycles we've had.
Do you get the feeling that this is a game
(29:54):
changer for President Trump in terms of his reputation. You know,
he's talked about keeping US out of foreign wars. This
is one of the most dramatic military events that the
United States has been involved with for a couple of decades.
Speaker 3 (30:12):
Yeah, yeah, you know, I I and talking to me. Yeah,
of course I am. Oh, I never know.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
I didn't know if I was on the air or not.
Speaker 9 (30:20):
I don't have any ideas I'm mailing it in today.
Speaker 3 (30:23):
I'm mailing it well at least.
Speaker 9 (30:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (30:27):
No.
Speaker 9 (30:28):
It is really curious, though, Gary, because you do have
you made mention of Steve Bannon at the White House
telling him don't do it. You got margor Bie Taylor
Green saying don't do it. You've got Tucker Carlson saying
don't do it. But then you've got sort of the
the old guard saying do it, good plan, way to go.
Uh And so, yeah, which Trump are we seeing? I
guess is a question, right, is this is this the
(30:49):
Trump that is the hard line right wing maga, the
the isolationists, the non interventionalists, the stay out of geopolitical matters,
or is this the Trump who's influenced by a legacy
of dominance and power and authority. So it kind of
puts kind of puts the two at odds. And I
(31:11):
don't know, is this the opening salva. We're gonna ask
that on the talk back today. Is this a one
and done situation? You know, does a RAN no better?
Or is this just the beginning. My concern is not
that this is something that we're going to see escalate
right now. My concern is they say, well, I RAN
is at least a decade off of a nuclear weapon,
But at some point somebody in the Middle East is
(31:33):
going to get ahold of nuclear weapon, right, And so
my concern is not the escalation today, tomorrow, this week.
My concern is the escalation a year, two years, five years,
ten years down the line. Because one thing we know
from people in the Middle East, they've been at war
for such a long time. Yeah, they don't have short
memories like we do. You know, they are willing to
(31:53):
play the long game, that's for sure. And you mentioned,
I mean the outside influences on whatever goes on in
the Middle East. Russia is one of the main players
and always has been, and has been I guess a
good ally of Iran.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
The former president Dmitri Medvedev had come out and said,
among other things, that the strikes on those nuclear facilities,
the American strikes were not that successful, that everything had
been moved, everybody had been evacuated. So really, as as
destructive as they may have been, Iran was ready for it.
But his big deal was that he said a number
(32:32):
of countries are ready to directly supply Iran with their
own nuclear warheads.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 9 (32:38):
And so this is such a tough one too, because
how much of this is just Medvedev talking out of
his butt, right, you know, just saber rattling a little bit.
Speaker 3 (32:48):
Or cluster, I think is the official term?
Speaker 1 (32:50):
Is that it?
Speaker 3 (32:51):
Yeah, it's very am I write that down.
Speaker 9 (32:53):
I'll put that in my notes for right now with that,
but bluster, okay.
Speaker 3 (32:57):
Very good?
Speaker 9 (32:59):
So yeah, is that the case? Is he is he
now saying, oh, boy, you know you have you have
opened a can of worms. You can't put the genie
back in the bottle. We're gonna mix metaphors all night.
Or is this is he saying geo, uh, we really
have nothing, so we're just gonna bluff our way out
of this.
Speaker 3 (33:15):
I mean, it.
Speaker 9 (33:15):
Wouldn't be unlike Russia to say, oh, we can go
the long run. I mean that was Gorbachev, right. Gorbachov
was like, listen, we had to basically call off the
end of the Cold War because we were just out
of everything.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
You know, So what what happens? I mean, I don't,
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (33:30):
I don't know who to believe right now.
Speaker 9 (33:32):
And it's said because I don't necessarily believe the US government,
and I don't mean that in a negative manner. The
US government is not gonna tell the people all of
their military operational plans and capabilities. That would be foolish, right, So,
I mean all we are sort of casual observers just
hoping that if somebody does get a bomb, they don't
decide to take it out on the Olympics, right, because
(33:53):
that would be a real downer for the Olympics next year.
Speaker 2 (33:56):
Yeah, I wouldn't look good on the poster, I mean
no in terms of marketing, and probably not be the greatest.
Speaker 9 (34:02):
But a little tough, right, but rough on that.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
And I do I mean, I'm a little fascinated, I'll
be honest with with the mechanics of you know, seven
b two bombers flying thirty seven hours round trip. I mean, yeah,
that that's an amazing that's an amazing, amazing accomplishment for
the men and women that were involved in the actual
exercise itself, it was.
Speaker 3 (34:27):
That's pretty incredible, especially with what'd you call it the
fake toilet. Yeah, that's not the right word. But no,
I'm not sure.
Speaker 9 (34:35):
I'm not sure. It's not comfortable. Well I looked at
it's actually called the butt bluster is what they have them.
But yeah, yeah, massive ordinance penetrator. I'm sure you're so right,
about very good, very good. You're so you're so right
about that, about the misdirect and then the other operational
things that we did. I mean, Iran didn't even know
(34:56):
that we dropped the bomb until the bomb hit the ground.
Oh yeah, because they were too busy worried about all
the other incomings at the time. And meanwhile the B
two just kind of flies fast and high overhead and
just takes care of business, whips around, comes on back.
But I was hearing the reports yesterday from ABC just
like you were that. Oh you know, B two bombers
are headed to Hawaii where they'll be refueling, and the
(35:17):
speculation was, well, if they're going to Hawaii to refuel,
that means they must be fully loaded, because you know,
they gotta have all that room for the fuel. Excuse me,
all that the capacity for the bombs. I couldn't carry
all that fuel. And then come to find out, you know,
that was just a decoy.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
Yeah, we and we've all seen that magic trick before
where you know, they're they're taking your watch off while
you're looking, you know, across the room, and then all
of a sudden they give you your watch back and
the little.
Speaker 9 (35:42):
Razzle, dazzle, a little magic going on there.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
So this is, you know, this is gonna be the
big topic I'm assuming for the Chris Meryl show coming up.
We did see you may not have the same visuals
that I have, but we did see a couple dozen
people outside the Federal building over there. I believe it's
the one in Westwood where people are holding signs and
stuff like that. But in terms of the protests that
(36:05):
we thought we were going to see downtown or anywhere
in LA they really haven't materialized the way we thought.
Speaker 9 (36:11):
I got the poster earlier that said, you know it's
the big the no more war in the Middle East.
We won't die for oil, profit or empire, and that
was supposed to be going on today at New City Hall,
and it just like you said, kind of pat but
also Gary, you met a great, great point too about
fuel prices are likely to increase, you know, price oil,
would you say one hundred and thirty five dollars a barrel,
which would be pretty close to a record.
Speaker 3 (36:32):
I think yeah.
Speaker 9 (36:34):
And so you know, Lord knows we're so tired of
not paying enough for gas. At some point, if we
have a war for oil, when does our gas prices go.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
Down, when do we get in the oil that's yeah,
no kidding, Yeah, we'll see where that goes.
Speaker 3 (36:49):
I haven't heard the latest. I know that they're supposed to.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
You know, it's what one o'clock in the morning, I
believe Iran time right now. So there is a there
is movement from the Iranian parliament to shut down the
straight of horror moves and if that's the case.
Speaker 3 (37:06):
Then then we're all in for some some pretty it's
jarring numbers for the for oil prices, well.
Speaker 9 (37:14):
Not only that, but any other shipping that comes out
of that area too that has to move through there.
Oil obviously is a big one, but then other shipping
has to be re routed.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
KFI AM six on demand
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