Brian Wilson is joining us in studio. Brian, how are you this morning? Welcome to the seven o'clock hour. Good morning to you, Dan. Good to be with you. So a lot going on in regards to Iran. They're now saying that they refuse to negotiate with the United States. President Trump is saying that the bombing campaign could take four weeks. And Joan, you said, actually, I was visiting with Brian in the studio, but you said the number of service members has now risen from three? To four, yes. To four. So now we have four. This is one of the troops that was injured in the initial attack in Kuwait. OK. And so he just succumbed to his injuries. OK. Thank you, Joan. And as President Trump said over the weekend, this is going to be a four-week campaign and we will probably see more casualties. And so I know that you, of course, been covering the terrorism of Iran for many, many years, of course, from your vantage point on Capitol Hill and Washington, D.C., covering various presidents as well. So give me your first question. During the first Persian Gulf War, I was stationed over at the Pentagon. I was relocated over there and then for the second war was working for Fox and did overnight coverage of that. And so, yeah, I mean, it brings back a great deal of memories of what we saw back then. Look, it seems like to me the initial strike was, I mean, I love the fact they had an opportunity and they said, OK, scrap the plan. Let's be flexible here and let's go with this opportunity. And apparently it was a real decapitation event. I mean, now the leadership of Iran is absolutely in shambles, but they still have some capability, as we've seen, lobbing missiles here and there all over that entire region, causing mayhem. I was quite surprised that they took that tack. Didn't seem to make a lot of sense to me. A lot of people were staying, you know, sort of off to the side and staying out of it. But when you start lobbing missiles in their direction, it's amazing how quickly they get involved. And that is what has happened. Iran bombed Dubai, Doha, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates. I don't know if there is any other than those. They're just trying to lay waste to the entire region, which sort of makes the case that everybody's been making. That's exactly right. That's exactly right. Do you think if they had nukes right now that they wouldn't use them? Of course they would. Absolutely. It is interesting because one guy, my feeling on this has been that, and I said on Friday, that I'm not sold on this because we don't know what is going to happen as far as a new government in Iran. And so was it a successful military strike? It certainly seems so. What's going to happen in the next four weeks? We're probably going to take out more of these Islamic Revolutionary Guards. They got to figure out who the new leadership is going to be. I still have reservations. I can I can have I can have some admiration for the way that we were able to to use the word that's being utilized, decapitated their government and some of their military capabilities, but still have reservations as far as what's next. Yeah, and I don't have the vision that, of course, the leader of the free world has right now. We don't know what intelligence he has that's not known generally. So, I mean, I'm willing to trust only because I think when you look at what happened in Venezuela, completely successful, this is a much bigger task. I mean, Iran is not Venezuela. No. It's a much more difficult task to go in there and try to operate in that environment. And there are going to be chaotic moments like we saw today where when you're shoving that much manpower and machinery and weaponry into a small area, there are going to be these moments of, as you said, fog of war where we make mistakes. And apparently that is what happened today as the Kuwaitis apparently shot down three of our F-15s. Well, at least we know that sort of their anti-aircraft stuff works. The good news is their anti-aircraft missiles work. The bad news is they got the wrong ones. Yes. Luckily, though, everybody parachuted to safety. Yeah, everybody was safe in that deal. But I've got to tell you, that stuff is just going to happen. It really is. And I would say the same thing about the chaos of the information. Information that you hear on day one may well change as we get deeper into this thing. And the initial reports are almost always wrong in a wartime situation. So take that into consideration. What you hear could be completely inoperative in 20 minutes. Yeah, you're absolutely right. And as things change and as new information comes in, perspectives changes. And you perfect the information over time. That is exactly right. Are you – last question here because there's other stuff we want to get to. But are you excited for the future of Iran? Well, I would certainly say it's going to be very interesting to see whether the protests that we saw on the streets of Iran can morph into some kind of actual leadership in government that can go forward. I don't know if the crown prince is the right guy for that or not. Reza Pahlavi, I'm just not sure. But one way or the other, I think Trump has a plan. He's hinted at it, but he hasn't really revealed it as yet. We'll have to see what happens. Let's transition to what's going on with NES. Now, everybody knows the story, the accusation against Senator Marsha Blackburn. It was made at, was it the Nashville, one of the liberal outlets that I don't read. But they said that Marsha Blackburn essentially was looking for preferential treatment from NES, made some phone calls and some emails, whatever it was, asking that her power be turned back on. And you have some sources within NES. I do have some sources, an employee of NES, and I believe this to be credible information. When you have a situation like that, within their ranks, they have a term for it. It's called a government call. Oh, we got a government call. And what happens is there's a guy by the name of Jack Patel who will actually call the lineman's personal cell phone number. They won't do it on the radio, and they won't do it on the company's cell phone because those are all recorded. But they will call an individual crew and say, look, it's Jack. I need you to get over here and work on this. This is a priority call. Is Jack Patella like a code name or is that like somebody's real name? That's his real name. Okay. Now, what is interesting, in this particular case, I cannot discern whether or not. I just don't know. Was it something that she requested or was it something they just volunteered? It could go either way. So I don't know that she called up and said, hey, I need priority. I don't think that was the case. But what I can confirm is it did happen. Somebody went over to her place and got her electricity back up and running. The bigger story here is that my source says that this happens all the time in a situation like this. and that the source believes that there were between 30 and 50 such calls handed out by dispatch during all of this. Well, here's the problem. There's a method of the way you go at this stuff. You go to the big lines first and you work your way into the smaller lines. When you take somebody off one of the major projects to go do a VIP call or what they call a government call, you are delaying the overall recovery significantly because you're taking people off what they really should be focused on, which is the bigger circuits first and working down then to the neighborhoods. That's the way it's supposed to be. So taking 30 to 50 of these so VIP or government calls dramatically delayed the overall response And that the thing that I think one of the things that we should know about The other thing that I learned from the source, I think it's pretty interesting. We heard them say that on day one, they had 160 crews. As it turns out, they have 131 crew full-time and 37 apprentices. that comes to roughly 160. So apparently that's what they had ready to go on day one. That doesn't sound like a lot. No, it's not, because when you look at some of the other utilities, they had like 1,000 crews standing by ready to go, and NES did not. Basically, they were ready to go with what they always have, which was woefully inadequate to get the job done. Now, it took them a little while to ramp up, and they eventually got thousands of people in here to work on these things. But in the early going, they were completely satisfied with just going with what they had on hand and didn't make, apparently, the recommendations or the moves they should have made to bring more people in and have them ready. That happened much later than it should have happened. I've spoken to some NES folks as well. They actually called the radio station when all of this was going on. I spoke to some folks on the air and some people off the air. But the rank and file at NES, the linemen and stuff, they knew that they weren't ready. They knew. I mean, it's always when I think you can do a lot of good in the military or in what's going on or with situations like this and going to the front lines, just talking to the people. They know what's going on. I once covered a hearing where some very junior enlisted people were actually asked to testify. and and at the end of it the senators turned and said this is probably the the best hearing we've ever had because we got real frontline information and don't ever discount what you're hearing from the people on the front line they know the situation a lot better than the the boneheads in the office did your source one of the things that is is i think part of this is that during the time when supposedly Marsha Blackburn's office senator was calling Teresa Bowles-Aplin, she was also calling for her resignation. So I do find it a little hard to believe that the senator would be on the one hand literally posting on X that she needed to resign and at the same time asking for favors. That just it seems bizarre to me. I don't think I don't think that my general feeling is and i don't i can't lock it down any further than this is is that some inquiries are made hey when do you think my power is going to be back on and and then the company then over reacted and said well let's let's make sure we take care of her she's out there in the public we need to make sure she's happy i mean i can see how that thought process would go i can't say that i i know that marcia blackburn picked up them hey get me up and running i need this is ridiculous I just don't – what I know of her, I don't think that sounds like her. And number two, if a staff person got a little rambunctious, that happens. Yeah, and you're right. Everybody wants to take care of the boss. Yeah, I can see NES just jumping on this like, okay, the senator and a possible future governor. This happens a lot. It happens with government officials. It happens with country music stars. not uh not country music stars apparently it does that's what i'm told so you know it happens a lot but what but the bigger issue the thing we ought to perhaps think about it more deeply is is um is is exactly how that much that delayed the other thing very quickly um uh the source indicates that you know there's some a lot of reporting i think the tennessee star and other did some reporting about how they cut back on their tree trimming budget. And everybody understands now, I think, that if you don't keep those trees trimmed, then you pay a price for it when you get into a storm like this. And what I'm hearing is that that all started back during the Megan Barry time, about 2018 window frame, when she came up with a canopy conservation program. Yeah. And you know that the city has its own horticulturist, horticulturalist. It's not easy to say, especially when you haven't had any coffee. No, I mean, we apparently have one, and apparently that's where I am told they started pulling back on some of the tree trimming as a result of the requirement or the request of then-Mayor Barry. Democrats. I'm just saying. Tree huggers, not power line huggers, clearly. Yeah, take care of your power lines. Do you think they've learned from this? Well, I hope they have. But I will tell you, what happens is the passage of time fades memories about how angry people are. They're angry now, and they have everybody's undivided attention. You've got the government's attention. You've got NES's attention. So if there's going to be a time to make a change, this is it. My thinking is when you set up one of these blue ribbon panels, that's a play for time. Let's kick this can down the road. When the Blue Ribbon Panel finally comes back with its recommendations, it'll be so far past the moment. Nobody will report on it much. Nobody will talk about it much. Everybody say, good report, duly noted, thank you very much, and that'll be the end of it. People don't like their trees being trimmed as part of it, but you've got to do it. I've lived in so many different cities. It's always the same where people don't like their trees trimmed. And then they get upset and they get angry and they say, look what you did to my tree. Isn't that the most? And they are ridiculous looking, I would say. Then why did they plant the tree under the power line? The power line was there first. I don't understand it. That's exactly right. And the frustrating part is it's every place I've lived. There's always been these tree canopy controversies. Right. And but then when everybody's power goes out, you start looking around the neighborhood. But, oh, look, that lady that complained in, you know, May about her trees getting trimmed, it was her tree that fell on the power lines. And now we have no power. That's right. So, I mean, you got to keep them trimmed. And a little thought, people, about where you plant your trees. There is that, too. I've never understood why, for example, we plant these trees on the street. Everybody says they're very sick trees. They don't have the kind of root system they need. And they're usually under a power line or some kind of utility. In my house, we actually chopped our trees down. I had to take a couple out of them. But I tell you what, that's not a cheap proposition. No, it's not. They actually came by and wanted me to trim my trees. And I said, oh, I'll trim the trees. And we just, I mean, Amy was like all in. And she was actually the one that wanted to see our trees cut down because she hated them. They were unhealthy and so on and so forth. From your source, last question. Is there any indication that NES has learned from this? Do you see the CEO as possibly stepping down? And will there be any changes? Well, there certainly was enough things, a number of things that went wrong. Certainly you could call, I would say, for the resignation. I don't see her surviving long term. you may see one of these things where well we're not going to do it right away because we're not going to give people the satisfaction of having called for her head and then getting fired but i but i think long term i would be very surprised if she's there in a year yeah and you know what you know it's going to make people really mad if she doesn't survive but she gets a golden parachute on the way out that will make people really really mad including yours truly brian thank you very much we keep us updated as this continues to develop Thank you Brian So we got Pete Hegseth and he is giving a briefing on what going on with Iran. One of the things that I thought was interesting is, I guess they said this is not a regime change operation. Yeah, yeah, this is not. They also laid out the reason why this is happening, why it's happening now. Everybody has been talking about, well, why now? Like they've been doing the same thing all along because president Trump told them, uh, according to Pete Hanks, Seth, you're not going to rebuild what we destroyed in June. Right. Yep. And they would not, they just would not commit to that. Uh, and so he said, uh, he told them, um, that he said operation, this was a quote from president Trump. I quote operation Epic fury is approved. No aborts. Good luck. Wow. Yep. Okay. And laid it out real straight. And Dan Cain, General Dan Cain, is also talking about it this morning. Real quick soundbite from him. Across every domain, land, air, sea, cyber, the U.S. joint force delivered synchronized and layered effects designed to disrupt, degrade, deny, and destroy Iran's ability to conduct and sustain combat operations. So they're pretty sure that this is doing them in quickly. All right. Thank you, Joan. Congressman Scott Dejarellay is joining us, of course. Congressman Chairman of the House Armed Forces Strategic Forces Subcommittee. I think I got that right. Congressman, how are you? Doing good. All right. So, I mean, obviously with, you know, things that you know about what's been going on, leading up to all of this. Just let's zoom out 30,000 feet. How do you think so far this military action is going? Well, first of all, I think it's extremely necessary. There's a lot of people criticizing the president for taking this action. But if you want to take it from 30,000 feet, you got to go back to 79 and you got to look at all the havoc that's been raised since then. And I could literally sit here and probably give you 10, 12 examples that you know about. I know about bombing Beirut, all the soldiers killed by Iran during the Iraqi war. And basically, you know, their state sponsorism of terrorism, they've sent all kinds of money and training to the Houthis, the Hezbollah, Hamas, and all the people that have been making damage to the shipping and people around the world. Iran is truly the mothership and so no matter how you want to look at this if, you know, Cain said it's not about a regime change it's certainly an opportunity for the 80 plus percent of Iranians who want a regime change to rise up and fight for their freedom so, you know, the problems were not going to go away the strike on their nuclear facility is what Trump was referring to or apparently Hegseth is now We'll get a more detailed briefing tomorrow. But the only reason I can think they wouldn't want to call it a regime change, maybe a regime change opportunity, is because we don't make a habit of assassinating leaders. Whether you went after Putin or Xi, it's just not something that we do. But at any rate, this is something long term that was not going to go away. It's been picking at us for 47 years. And if you're ever going to have peace or at least stability in the Middle East, then, you know, this is probably the best opportunity that we have. And Iran has managed to alienate the few maybe semi-allies they have by attacking them as well, thinking somehow this would create sympathy. And Iran doesn't seem to have any friends right now. So as long as Russia and China stays out of it, you know, I think we have a real opportunity for the people of Iran to take their government back. and, you know, all the terror that has been started. But there's a lot of brush fires that, you know, we can be looking for ahead. And I'll stop and let you chime in. Yeah, I mean, I think that, you know, there are a lot of issues at play here. There are, you know, the sleeper cells that I've been talking about off and on this morning. There's the terror attack. I believe that it was a terror attack in Austin, Texas, where a guy walks into this bar, opens fire. Two people have been killed, over a dozen injured. Guy had a property of Allah sweatshirt on. He had an Iranian-loving shirt on underneath the sweatshirt. They go to his car. Shocker, he's got a Quran. They go to his home, and he actually had a bunch of photographs of Iranian leaders. Now, you and I both know, because, Congressman, you and I have been talking for a long time. We don't know what in the world has come across the southern border during the four years of the Biden administration. This guy, though, he has been in in our nation since the year 2000. And it turns out that he had some he's got some crimes that he's like a convicted criminal. That's number one. Number two, he had a history of mental illness. Yet for some reason in 2013, we made him a naturalized citizen. So this and it turns out that, you know, this guy is, in my opinion, somebody that should not have been in our country. He was from Africa, by the way. Yeah, and he probably was a lone wolf. We'll see as the investigation goes on. Certainly an act of terrorism in his mind. But, you know, as you said, sleeper cells across the country. We all have to be super vigilant. You know, the Hezbollah launched on Iran. So they're probably the best funded and best trained of the of the terrorist groups. Hamas was kind of already decimated because of what went on in Gaza. The Houthis in Yemen, they expect to see trouble with them. And, you know, again, domestically, you know, we can probably expect more of what we saw in Texas. But we can pretend, stick our head in the sand, say if Trump hadn't done this, we wouldn't have lost. now four U.S. servicemen. And, you know, our prayers and thoughts brought to them and their families and everyone else who's injured and all the people over there fighting this fight. But Neville Chamberlain took this approach or the approach that Biden and Obama did with Hitler. And, you know, we had a major conflict. So ignoring the fact that Iran was not stopping after Midnight Hammer and what had happened to them shows that they were just going to rebuild. And so it's kind of like Hamas and Gaza. If you don't get rid of them, if you don't kill 100% of the cancer, it's not going to go away. But there is an opportunity here. I'm not saying it's 100% or it's going to happen, but this is the best opportunity in a long time to neutralize Iran, and who I would consider our third biggest adversary behind China, Russia, and then, of course, we still have North Korea out there. But it's going to be, you know, when Trump took office in 2017, ISIS was the dominant terrorist group, and he annihilated them literally in two to three months. And so if we stop the funding and the ability of Iran to fund their proxies, you know, they're going to continue to act out here over the next several months. But they're going to run out of funding. They're going to run out of training. They're going to run out of weaponry. And so we've got to keep the pressure on and hopefully an alliance will be formed with the Arab nations. And if the Abraham Accord comes to be comes to be reality and and these countries recognize Israel as a sovereign state, then there's actually a chance for at least a calming in the Middle East. I don't know if there's ever going to be peace in the Middle East, but I think that this this gives us a puncher's chance. I would agree with you but it does sound like the president did give Iran ample time for negotiations and conversation and they just seemingly refused And now we hearing and I find this interesting and I think there probably different factions within the Islamic Revolutionary Guard and what left of Iran government But you have some factions saying, yeah, they'll negotiate. But then you have other factions saying, no, we're not going to negotiate and talk to President Trump. So does that worry you at all, that right now there's different factions with, you know, different willingness to talk to the president? Yeah, it doesn't really bother me. It certainly doesn't surprise me. They're desperately trying to hang on to power. But this is a country with 92 million people. And they have a military force estimated anywhere up to a million people when you count all the different state police, the Revolutionary Guard, who's their most elite. But when you have, I don't know how you pull it, because if you say, yes, I'm against the regime, they'll hang you or shoot you or whatever. But from 22 to 26, they estimate that, you know, north of 80 percent of the citizens want a regime change. So it's you know, you've got to fight for freedom. We've had to do that. And I think we need to be able to help arm these people. We need to give them the capabilities to go up against the military that is there. They certainly outnumber them, but they don't have the means, really, or the organization to attack them. So what I hope to see is somewhat of a civil war and that a lot of the people that even participate in the military there will flip sides. And so, of course, the hardcores that are still alive that haven't been taken out are going to talk tough. They're going to continue to fight back. They're not just going to throw up their arms and surrender. But if you remember in 1991, Saddam Hussein had the fourth largest army. He was aggressive. He was taking countries, Kuwait, going into Saudi Arabia. And, you know, within 42 days, that thing was pretty much over in the first week. And, you know, we talk about casualties. We lost, I think, 48 troops in the first week. And then I think 148 total in combat. There may have been 300 because there was friendly fire and all that. But that was over 42 days. So there are casualties that take place. But, you know, it didn't take too long. Once you get air superiority, which we pretty much have now, we can do some real damage. And so, yeah, they're going to talk tough. And let's see how long they talk tough. You know, Saddam didn't just roll over and, in fact, you managed to stay in power. But I think that it's really up to the Iranian people and from the celebrations you see across the world, really. by Iranians who've been suppressed and oppressed by this regime. You know, this is our chance. We've given them their chance. Plus, you know, Trump's objective of further neutralizing their ability to build missiles that can reach the U.S. and Europe and build a nuclear weapon is also extremely important, too, as far as stabilizing their region. One of the interesting things, and I'll leave it with this, but, you know, in that culture, They embrace death. And so when it comes to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, I'd say, OK. If you want to embrace death, we can make that happen. I truly hope that we're able to, if these guys will not put down their weapons, as Donald Trump is saying. And essentially he said, the president said, offering them immunity and them putting down their weapons and helping Iran to come to a better place. Then, you know what? They got to do what they got to do. And we got to do what we got to do. So we'll have to wait and see how this whole thing turns out. Congressman, did we miss anything in this conversation? I feel like we covered a lot of ground. We covered a lot of ground, and there's a lot more we could cover. But, yeah, maybe we can come on again. Like I said, I'll get a lot more inside detail here in the next couple of days. And we'll watch this unfold and see how it happens. But I've got to believe that there's a lack of leadership. There's a lack of ability for them to communicate. We have cyber technology we used in the Venezuela attack, which inhibits their ability to communicate effectively. So there's got to be a lot of confusion there. And who do they really want to follow? Who wants to step up and be the next target? And so Israel is very good in terms of their intelligence. It's embedded. Our CIA is very good. And so, you know, whoever wants to step up next is probably going to be taken out. And so they've got to be demoralized. And tough talk right now doesn't mean much when you're getting your ass kicked. So we'll see, you know, how things shake out here as the thing progresses. Congressman, love it and looking forward. I know that the president is getting ready to talk to lawmakers. And I don't know exactly who he's supposed to speak to. But I know that there's going to be a lot of information forthcoming. Marco Rubio, by the way, did, as you know, speak to the, as they say, the gang of eight. And so there's a lot of Democrats who were saying, oh, he did notify Congress. He didn't notify Congress. Well, Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, did speak to the leaders of both parties from the House and the Senate. And Hakeem Jeffries, Schumer, they all were notified before we had a conference call yesterday. They were all notified before this happened. And this war powers resolution is bull. You know, we've declared war. The last time Congress declared war was, I think, 1942. And so, you know, this is a conflict. It's not a war. The president has the right to do this. If it gets prolonged and it turns into a Middle Eastern war, then Congress needs to get involved and approve it, approve funding. But right now he's low within his rights, just like Obama did in Libya and on and on and on. And so, you know, they're just doing anything to score political points right now. The Trump derangement syndrome is alive and well, and I'm sure that we're going to hear more than we care to this week from anti-Trump Democrats. Oh, yes, it's early. Well, we most certainly will. We've already had an earful on Saturday and Sunday. Congressman, always great to have you on and we'll have you on again soon. Congressman Scott Desjardins on Supertalk 99.7 WTN. WTN. One of the things, Joan, that Pete Hegseth was talking about and Raisin Cain as well, Dan Cain, one of the things that they said was that this is not Iraq and this is not going to be, you know, what some people would say, a forever war. This is going to be, you know, as Trump said, four, five weeks and then we are out of there. We do have some audio from Pete Hegseth. Just real quick, let me play one. I need some audio up. Let me play this audio bite from Pete Hegseth. It took the 47th president, a fighter who always puts America first, to finally draw the line after 47 years of Iranian belligerence. He reminded the world, as he has time and time again, being an American means something unbreakable. If you kill Americans, if you threaten Americans anywhere on Earth, we will hunt you down without apology and without hesitation, and we will kill you. There you go. So Pete Hegseth, one of many soundbites that will be playing it at 7.54 on Supertalk 99.7. Joan's got the news at 8. Joan. Yeah, we've got more on that press conference at the Pentagon this morning. And also the death toll in Karachi, Pakistan, after a bunch of guys tried to attack the U.S. consulate there. Stories coming up at 8 on Supertalk 99.7 WTM. I should. Did you hear? Did that snickering come through on the radio? It did. Definitely. I was trying to ignore it. We're talking about this in the five o'clock hour. So a bunch of a bunch of guys come to try to destroy our consulate in Pakistan. Yeah. Karachi, Pakistan. And well, they messed around and found out. They did. And they came armed with what? Sticks and stones. Sticks, rocks and tire irons. And we had guns. And they had a couple of pistols, but our guns were bigger and better. And probably with the Marines that were there, probably better shots as well. Oh, my gosh. They took one bite of a crayon and started pulling the trigger. Okay. Very good. Well, we'll continue to cover everything that is going on related to what is happening in Iran.
