Now, on 105.9 FM and streaming worldwide on the WMAL app, O'Connor and Company. It's 7.07. Good morning. On this Monday, the second day of March and 48 hours after it could be one of the most historic military strikes in American history, certainly rectifying nearly five decades of tyranny at the hands of the theocratic authoritarians in Iran. If, in fact, this military strike is as successful as it appears and will lead to a free democratic regime in Iran with normalized relations with us in America as well as our neighbors and the rest of the world, President Trump, no doubt, will go down in history as one of the most consequential presidents since Franklin Roosevelt. We will continue to watch. What we do know, though, Bethany Mandel, is we've got a lot of help this morning to unpack this. If you missed our conversation with General Jack Cain moments ago, please get our podcast. Also coming up in 30 minutes, the former director of the CIA, Middle East, and North African Division will join us, Daniel Hoffman. Then 805 Jonathan Schanzer of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. And at 835, Jack Carr, former Navy SEAL and author. That's a good little group of people to talk to about this stuff. And you, of course. Yeah, it's pretty good. It's pretty good. Weird that you had your go-to Jew on the day after all of this. And I'll be here tomorrow as well. Well, considering how you control the media, it was inevitable. Yeah, it is. That's true. I mean, Bethany Mandel in particular, by the way. Not Jewish people writ large. I mean, just Bethany. Joining us right now, Joe DiGenova. Joe, we've got all the usual suspects here. Last I checked, people like Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, they were all fine with military strikes under the Obama administration, unilaterally under the War Powers Act when it came to Libya or Syria or ISIS and Iraq and what have you. But now they all tell me this is an illegal war. Joe, you know the law. Is this an illegal war? No, absolutely not. It's always wonderful to hear Tim Kaine launch out liberation theology every time there's a use of force by a Republican, but never saying anything about liberation theology when it's a Democrat. Thank you. The representative Thomas Massey and others have argued that absent a formal declaration of war, the president has exceeded his authority by starting these military strikes. They're absolutely and completely and utterly wrong. This military action stands on firm constitutional ground. It is a lawful order under Article 2 of the Constitution, which makes the president the commander-in-chief of the U.S. military forces. It is consistent with the War Powers Resolution. The president has notified Congress within the legal time frame. He has a 60-day limit to use those troops in combat, absent formal authorization from Congress. We are well within that limit. It accords with modern presidential precedent across both parties, whether it is Ronald Reagan in Grenada or Barack Obama in Syria or George Bush in Panama, et cetera, et cetera. The bottom line is presidents are authorized to use military force in emergency circumstances without the consent of Congress. And for those like Senator Warner, God bless him. He's such a he's such a lovely man, but he is really lost. I think he stayed too long at the fair. The truth is they all they all know. Senators Cain and Warner know that the president has this authority and their claim that he doesn't is just foolish and it makes them look stupid. So after Chuck Schumer came out of his meeting with the Gang of Eight with Marco Rubio, he looked pretty ashen. But he did say that – he said this is serious. The administration has to make its case to the American people. So I agree with you because I have – you have the expertise, not me, on the fact that what he has to do. But what do you think he should do? Do you think that the president should be making this case to the American people? Because I've spread a statistic that only one in four Americans supported these strikes. Well, first of all, I've been reading all of this nonsense about the president needs to make the case for this. If if if there is a sentient being who doesn't know that we have been at war with Iran since 1979, I don't know where they've been living. The president has already made the case. He made it in his opening statement when he announced the raids in Iran. We have been at war with Iran since 1979 when they took our hostages and kept them captive until President Reagan was sworn in, and miraculously they were all released because Iran didn't want to be bombed at that point. Since then, they have killed Americans all over the world. They have created terrorist activities and proxies all over the Middle East and the world. They have tried to assassinate three presidents of the United States. And for anyone who asks for a justification, they should go back to grade school. This is lunacy asking for a justification. I read the New York Times editorial, which claimed that there was justification in the first three quarters of the editorial. And then at the end, it asked that the president please lay out his justification. I mean, these people are loons. They're absolute loons. Joe, we would have asked you all about Epstein and the Clinton's testimony pretty much all morning long had it not been for these military strikes. But if we've got a few minutes here, did anything stand out to you? Hillary Clinton, she's a master at this sort of thing, and she was praised for her ability to, well, to lie, it seemed to me, claiming that she's barely met Ghislaine Maxwell. And I don't know what what stuck out to you as you saw the Clinton's testimony over the Epstein affair. Well, I what happened with the Clintons is exactly what I expected. She didn't remember anything with her stunning arrogance. And the president, of course, didn't know anything or see anything. And everything that he did while he was with Jeffrey Epstein was above board. Of course, we didn't see what happened below the waterline. But the bottom line is very simple The Clintons are what they are You would expect nothing less of them than to be disingenuous and to lie I think they really are sort of fascinating figures in history. They are always at the center of something sleazy, and they always contend that there's nothing wrong with them. And it's a wonderful part of American history that we can have a scoundrel and a scoundrel wife at the same time. The Americans have truly been blessed with characters in the White House. And the Clintons are probably the best example of two characters in the White House, undeserving of the offices they held. But nonetheless, the American people thought that was fine. And, you know, this is the judgment of the American people. They elected this clown twice. and, you know, God bless him. I still want to know how those billing records showed up, but, you know, I'll never get to the bottom of that. Finally, Joe, gosh, what a week it's been. Your impression of the president's State of the Union address. Last time we spoke to you, it was the day before the State of the Union. That seems a month ago, but from our seat, it was a masterful performance. Well, you know, interesting you should say that, Larry. My family and I have been discussing this, And I finally realized the day after the speech that it wasn't a speech. It was a movie. It was a movie. It wasn't a speech. And it was a spectacular movie. It never stopped. It had a crescendo. It had characters. It had a great storyline. And it was produced and directed perfectly. It wasn't a speech. It was a movie. And it won the Academy Award. Joe DiGenova, good to talk to you, my patriotic friend. Thanks for joining us today, as always. You bet. It's 7.15. As you watch the events unfold over the last 48 hours, I was struck, Bethany Mandel, by the women, the Persian women, the women of Iran, Those that are still in that country or expatriate Persian women all around the world living in the West, celebrating, specifically celebrating their liberty and the liberty of their sisters who have been brutalized by this regime. It is a remarkable thing to watch, and especially their commentary back to woke liberal leftist women here in America who just hate Trump. So it's you hear about the the oh, God, what's the TV show with the handmaid's tale? Handmaid's tale. Right. All the white women here in America who protested Trump by dressing up like handmaid's tale. And they literally have had they've been subjugated dressing similar to that in Iran for the last 50 years. And these same liberal women hate Trump so much that they are on the very wrong side of history here when it comes to liberating these women. That's – if I was to make a list of all the things that drove me from the left, that hypocrisy is darn near at the top. We were joking off air that when I was a kid, my mom used to show me this movie Not Without My Daughter. The Sally Fields movie, yeah. Yes. And it was because she wanted to warn me about the dangers of Islamism and, you know, radical Islam and the men who subscribe to that ideology. And she wanted me as a woman to just be aware of that in my choices of who to date and whom not to date. and you know my mom was a was a liberal she was a real actual liberal who believed in women's rights and she would have been like jk rowling who's horrified by what we're seeing with the transgender ideologies determination that we need to allow men into women's private spaces there's so few of liberals like my mother anymore who who raise their hands and say i'm sorry This is completely antithetical to everything I believe in. As a woman who believes in feminism and LGBTQ rights and all these things, they've decided to side with the bad guys. I will never understand it. Well, because the West is not – liberals or progressives are not liberal nor progressive. When you really boil it down and examine their ideology, they are anti-West. They are anti-Western ideas actually, which is not progressive or liberal when it all comes down to it. They're pro-Marxist, which – listen, the Islamists and the Marxists are the ones who have subjugated women. these countries more than any other civilization. But they can't square those ideals. Somebody proposed an idea, and it's a brilliant one, for a reality television show that takes the blue-haired, nose-pierced, radical, liberal, woke women in America and make them live for six months in one of the countries that embrace the ideals that they protest on behalf in the streets of America and see how they like it, see what happens. There's a really interesting genre, actually, of Western women who did what my mom told me not to do and dated these Islamist men. And they moved to these countries like Syria. And the stories of their families trying to get them out and them trying to signal to their families somehow that they're in danger and that they... It is one of my favorite genres of things to read. When Joe Biden was president, there were protests in the streets in Iran because a woman was beaten to death by the morality police, so-called, talk about Orwellian, after a strand of her hair had escaped from under a headscarf. At the time, Senator Tim Kaine, the Virginia senator, Democrat, posted on his social media account, again, this is when Joe Biden was president. We stand with Iranian women and all women who don't need morality police controlling their lives. And then a link to the New York Times article that was in 2022. Of course, Joe Biden and the Biden administration did absolutely nothing about that. President Trump has now done something about it. And Tim Kaine opposes President Trump's actions. He's not standing with women. None of them are. But again, not to dwell on the opposition. I want to celebrate the Persian women who have no more Fs to give, as they like to say, who are parading in the streets with their hair flowing and are putting videos out on Instagram and social media celebrating. And by the way they all dancing to YMCA and they thanking Donald Trump That right That right No I mean for all of the talk of him being the subjugator and he is the one that freeing millions of Iranian women And he will get no credit for it because he gets no credit for it ever with anything. But I mean, God chooses flawed people for epic missions. And was there ever a more epic mission than this one? You see these viral videos, by the way, of Iranian women, Persian women from the mid-1970s, the fashions, the miniskirts, the boots, by the way, which brought on the totalitarian, theocratic, radical Muslims. And our government, Jimmy Carter's government, all the intellectual foreign policy smart guys from the Ivy League, they all embraced the Ayatollah and said, oh, yeah, he's going to be great. He's going to bring peace and order to the region. And you look at what happened specifically, again, to the women of that era, where they were in terms of their cosmopolitan lifestyle and embracing Western values, and you look at what they've been through for the next five decades under the Ayatollahs and the Mullas. This could quite possibly be one of the greatest renaissance of culture and fashion and intellectual development in that region. And it'll all be thanks to the Persian women and Western countries like the United States and Israel for liberating them. I cannot wait to do this show from Tehran. You and I will go together. Oh, my gosh. All right. Let's not get ahead of ourselves. I mean, it's not safe to do it in L.A. Although the YMCA has become the anthem of the free Iranian people. They're playing it on loudspeakers in Tehran, too. What do – that's L.A. That's Gavin Newsom's California. What do Democrats do here? Every single Democrat who wants to be president has voiced their opposition to Trump's military strike here. How do they square this with the actual emotions in the streets? They're gaslighting us. That's what they're doing. That's how they're squaring it. They are gaslighting us. I saw I was just trying to find it while you're talking. There was a clip of a news reporter who was who was speaking in front of a crowd of protesters. And the protesters were all they weren't protesting. They were cheering President Trump. And and he was told by by his producer, we don't want to show that. And he looked at his phone and read it out loud and said, I'm not doing that. It was a local CBS reporter in Austin, Texas. It was Austin. I was looking at Atlanta. Yep, yep. It was fantastic. And yeah, no, there's been a shift. There's been a shift this weekend. Keep an eye on it. And most specifically, keep an eye on those incredibly newly liberated Persian women and those expatriate women who left Iran over the course of the last few decades. They're the ones who are the loudest voices. In fact, we're going to have one of them on the program tomorrow. Her name is Sana Ebrahimi. I've been watching her social media posts. She is brilliant, and she is living her best life right now. So you'll hear her voice coming up tomorrow. Right now at 725. Now on 105.9 FM and streaming worldwide on the WMAL app, O'Connor and Company. 737 coming up at 805, Jonathan Shanzer, Foundation for Defense of Democracies. And at 835, former Navy SEAL and author Jack Carr. It's Larry O'Connor with Bethany Mandel on the second day of March. Good morning, Bethany. Good morning, Larry O'Connor. For those of us who watched in awe and wonder as we were informed that the initial strike on the military compound and the Supreme Leader's Palace. By the way, if the leader of your country goes by the title supreme leader, you might live in an authoritarian country. Just FYI, that's a little tip for you. When the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, was killed in the initial strike, along with upwards to 40 senior Iranian officials and military officials, one marveled at the incredible intelligence victory to know exactly where these men were and how to get to them. And we may never know the full story as these things go, but maybe we can scratch the surface a bit with our next guest, Daniel Hoffman, former CIA director for the Middle East and North African Division, and also former senior executive clandestine service officer for the CIA. Mr. Hoffman, thanks for joining us. if that's your real name. That's my name, and it's a pleasure to join you this morning. So obviously our intelligence agencies have been focusing on Iran for decades now, ever since the hostage crisis, of course, of the late 70s. What kind of work went into this military strike on Saturday to successfully get those guys that needed to be gotten with one strike? Yeah, so I can tell you, based on my experience of having served many years overseas with CIA, including in war zones, when we're talking about find, fix, and finish operations, kinetic operations, where you're looking at a target, whether it's a terrorist target or, in this case, Iranian regime leadership, all of that relies on intelligence, human sources, signals intelligence. that's how you acquire the target. So those successful kinetic strikes on Ayatollah Khamenei, the head of Iran's IRGC, their minister of defense, top nuclear scientists and others, that's just a reflection of the intelligence that we had and then the precision of our military, which is just extraordinary. So this was an extraordinary tactical success. We've had a number of those at the start of this war with Iran, and it creates the opportunity for some strategic success. But whether we get there or not, you know, it's the Middle East, it's dynamic, and we'll have to wait for some things to play out in the coming days. Can you share a little bit about the details of how exactly we got them? Because I've seen reports, but you never know what to believe. From what I'm reading, they were all gathered together on Saturday morning, I guess, midday. And then we took them out. Are they actually that stupid to gather together in person? Well, they had assumed, which is a dangerous thing to do, that they could gather during daylight hours that we would strike at night So that was a bad decision on their part Secondly really bad idea for everybody to gather together at any one time because obviously if one person makes a mistake with their tradecraft, you're going to track everybody who's going to the same spot at the same time. That doesn't make a whole lot of sense. But the other element of that intelligence failure on the part of the Iranians was They got no heads up from the Russians, who typically – the Russians collect a lot of strategic intelligence on the United States. And in this case, once again, Vladimir Putin proved to be a not-so-great ally for the Iranians. And so, yeah, this is – these were strikes that took place that decapitated their leadership. Now, keep in mind that there are still – the IRGC has like 40,000 – they're roughly 40,000 strong. They're the ones responsible for killing at least 30,000 or more of those protesters. They're involved in a fight now which they consider an existential threat to their regime. And so we're going to face a real challenge if we're talking about overthrowing that regime. We've decapitated the regime, and we might get to a point where we change their behavior, not necessarily the regime itself. So what we want is for Iran to negotiate in good faith, eliminate their nuclear program, eliminate the ballistic missiles that target the region and beyond, and stop supporting proxy terrorists like the Houthis, Hamas, and Hezbollah. Well, I was going to ask you, what is the danger now? Based on your understanding of the region and CIA operations in the past, we're speaking with Daniel Hoffman, former director of the CIA for Middle East and North African Division. Would it be wrong to assume that we've got assets on the ground right now, either assets that we have a relationship with who are Iranian, or are there actually American assets there on the ground right now? Yeah, I wouldn't get into the specifics of what we have or don't have. All I can tell you is that when I used to testify on Capitol Hill and sometimes senators or congressmen would say that talk about one area, another as a denied area, so-called denied area, I would say that's not really true. We are literally everywhere and anywhere. There's no such thing as a denied area to the CIA or, for that matter, Israel. So when it comes to sources inside Iran, if you want to make an informed estimate about whether we have good sources or not, we and Israelis just take a look at the havoc that we're causing inside Iran right now. Iran is living in the fog of war. It is chaos. There is no command and control because when they go up on their communications, we track them and we kill people. So that's where we're at right now. And again, these are tactical successes. I can't emphasize enough the importance of where this leads strategically. That's why it's important that President Trump and his national security team will be starting briefings this week informing the public. Our citizens, fellow citizens, need to know where we're headed right now because a lot is at stake. I was going to ask you, if you were, you know, like a Tom Clancy novel, you were brought in to brief the president right now since you're the expert on the region. And you had to inform the president as to what the biggest dangers are now going forward for the next week or two. What would you tell him? Yeah, well, listen, Iran has opened the aperture on striking back. They've hit Kuwait. They've hit our troops at the Baghdad International Airport. They hit a Saudi oil refinery. The head of al-Qaeda, Saif al-Adha, enjoys sanctuary inside Iran. Iran is known to have global assassination hit squads. And they tried to kill the president here in the United States, Secretary Pompeo, and former National Security Advisor John Bolton. So all of us – I don't want to raise the alarm bells too much, but again, all of us need to be aware we're at war with Iran right now. And so, folks, just a public service announcement. If you see something, say something. I can tell you from my experience, state, local, federal law enforcement, And they are always happy to hear from concerned citizens about whatever they're seeing that in their gut doesn't quite look right. And so that's the challenge with Iran. They use this asymmetric hybrid warfare and sleeper cells in Europe and here in the United States. And I can tell you that our law enforcement, FBI, and intelligence services are tracking all this stuff closely and trying to detect threats and preempt them before any harm is caused. But we all I think we always rely on on on our citizens as well on the watch. I'm sorry to have to say that, but it's the world we live in. Appreciate it. Daniel Hoffman, former Langley dude. Thanks for joining us. And don't be a stranger. We'll we'll tap your expertise again in the future. All right. It's always a pleasure. Take care. Meredith and I were joking about what The Washington Post and New York Times op eds would be for the dictator, dictator, the authoritarian theocrat that oppressed women in his nation and has the stain of American blood on his hands over the course of the many decades. Of course, we're talking about the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who was killed in the original military strike. We were joking about it, but it turns out we were right. They did exactly what they always do, Bethany. They eulogized him. Let me just say they were harsher to Rush Limbaugh and Charlie Kirk in their obituaries of them than they were of this dictator. My favorite of the obituaries, and there's so many to choose from, unfortunately, was the Washington Post, which we were reasonably assured the end of democracy would come with the layoffs. But clearly, the layoffs were not extensive enough. Because let me just quote. Give us a dramatic reading, shall we? With his bushy white beard and easy smile. No, I'm not talking about Santa Claus. Ayatollah Khomeini cut a more avuncular figure in public than his perpetual scowling, much more revered mentor. And he was known to be fond of Persian poetry and classic Western novels, especially Victor Hugo's Les Miserables. Yes. When the Washington Post writes an obituary. Bushy beard. An easy smile. They make it sound like Santa Claus died. I, for one, when I think about a man who just murdered tens of thousands of his citizens in the last few weeks, my first thought goes to his bushy beard and easy smile. Yeah. And I'm sure that's what all of those people thought of before they were shot down in the streets of Tehran and throughout the entire country. His love of Les Miserables. How could a man who loves Les Miserables so much be evil? Exactly. Well, to be fair. It was the novel, not the musical. Oh, well, that changes everything. 754.
