WarRoom Battleground EP 964: President Trump Gives Updates On The War In Iran
0 min
•Mar 10, 20263 months agoSummary
President Trump holds a press conference detailing military operations against Iran, claiming major strategic victories while signaling potential off-ramps from continued conflict. The episode features analysis from Dr. Bradley Thayer and Kurt Mills debating whether Trump's conditions for ending the war align with Israeli objectives or represent a pragmatic exit strategy.
Insights
- Trump is signaling flexibility on war duration, shifting from 'unconditional surrender' rhetoric to condition-based objectives focused on degrading Iran's military capabilities rather than regime change
- Significant strategic divergence exists between U.S. and Israeli war aims—Trump prioritizes counter-force targets (military infrastructure) while Israel appears focused on counter-leadership targets (regime change)
- Regional Arab allies (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar) are reportedly pressuring for de-escalation due to threats to oil infrastructure, desalination plants, and economic disruption from prolonged conflict
- Saturday night's military operations may have galvanized Persian nationalism rather than weakening the regime, potentially making future diplomatic solutions more difficult
- The unprecedented integration between U.S. and Israeli military command structures represents a historic shift in regional coalition dynamics compared to Gulf War I constraints
Trends
Shift from regime-change doctrine to limited military objectives focused on capability degradationGrowing tension between neoconservative foreign policy establishment and Trump's pragmatic realism on military interventionsRegional realignment: Arab states prioritizing economic stability over ideological conflict with IranMilitary technology emphasis: Laser systems and Patriots replacing traditional sustained operationsIntelligence and surveillance integration between allied militaries reaching unprecedented levelsOil market volatility tied to geopolitical military operations ($80-$120 barrel range)Debate over U.S.-Israeli relationship and alignment of strategic interests in Middle EastPotential shift from clerical dictatorship to military dictatorship in Iranian governance structureNationalist consolidation in Iran despite military losses, complicating post-conflict political outcomesDomestic political pressure from neoconservative factions to continue military operations indefinitely
Topics
Iran Nuclear Weapons Program DegradationStrait of Hormuz Security and Oil SupplyU.S.-Israel Military Integration and CoordinationIranian Ballistic Missile CapabilitiesRegional Coalition Dynamics in Middle EastRegime Change vs. Limited Military ObjectivesCounter-Leadership vs. Counter-Force Targeting StrategyOil Price Volatility and Energy MarketsIranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Leadership SuccessionNeoconservative Foreign Policy InfluenceLaser Weapons Technology DeploymentPolitical Risk Insurance for Commercial ShippingVenezuelan Oil Partnership and Sanctions ReliefU.S.-China Relations During Middle East ConflictDomestic Political Divisions on War Duration
Companies
Patriot Missile Systems
Trump highlighted Patriot air defense systems' effectiveness in shooting down Iranian missiles during operations
Tomahawk Missile Systems
Discussed as weapons system used by multiple nations; Trump suggested Iran may possess Tomahawks in context of school...
B2 Bomber Program
Trump credited B2 bombers with destroying Iran's nuclear capability in recent operations
People
Donald Trump
U.S. President conducting press conference on Iran military operations, signaling potential de-escalation while maint...
Benjamin Netanyahu
Israeli Prime Minister whose war objectives (regime change) appear misaligned with Trump's more limited military goals
Steve Bannon
Podcast host and former Trump advisor analyzing military strategy and discussing off-ramp conditions for ending conflict
Dr. Bradley Thayer
Strategic analyst discussing Trump's flexible realism approach and distinction between counter-force and counter-lead...
Kurt Mills
Foreign policy analyst warning against neoconservative pressure to continue war and advocating for negotiated settlement
Marco Rubio
Secretary of State praised by Trump for negotiating potential Cuban deal and handling diplomatic aspects of Iran situ...
Vladimir Putin
Russian President who Trump spoke with regarding Ukraine conflict and Middle East situation; expressed interest in be...
Xi Jinping
Chinese President with whom Trump maintains good relationship; Trump planning visit to discuss regional security matters
Jared Kushner
Trump advisor involved in negotiations and intelligence assessments regarding Iranian threat and military timing
Pete Hegseth
Defense official mentioned as advocating for continued military operations; Trump indicated potential disagreement on...
Lindsey Graham
Senator identified as neoconservative pushing for continued military operations against Iran
Mark Levin
Conservative commentator questioning whether Trump's strategy is condition-based or time-based operation
Delcy Rodriguez
Venezuelan political figure praised by Trump as effective leader in partnership model for potential Iranian governance
Mochitaba Khamenei
New Iranian Supreme Leader selected by regime; Trump expressed disappointment with choice and questioned his viability
Tom Cotton
Senator identified as neoconservative faction member pushing for continued military operations
Josh Hammer
Foundation for Defense of Democracies representative pushing for continued military operations
Danielle Pipes
Former Iraq War communications official and Netanyahu ally; criticized for advising continued military escalation
Quotes
"I will stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons. And all I'm doing is keeping my promise."
Donald Trump•Early in press conference
"We're winning very decisively. We're way ahead of schedule. It's our military is the greatest in the world, with the greatest equipment to the greatest people in the world."
Donald Trump•Mid-press conference
"Everything they have is gone, including their leadership. In fact, there are two levels of leadership. And even actually, as it turns out, more than that."
Donald Trump•Response to war duration question
"President Trump is absolutely a flexible realist, right? He adapts as circumstances change, as the battlefield dynamic changes."
Dr. Bradley Thayer•Analysis segment
"The president is going to have to tell the Israelis now the president is going to have to disappoint Lindsey Graham. He's going to have to disappoint and reject the foundation for defense of democracies."
Kurt Mills•Analysis segment
Full Transcript
And that was protected by granite. They wanted it protected. Granite's pretty good, but they wanted it protected by a lot deeper. They wanted to go a lot deeper. And they started the process while rapidly building conventional ballistic missiles. They were going to do it all at the same time, and threatened our overseas bases, and soon could have reached even our homeland. The regime's intention was to use this exponentially growing ballistic missile threat to make it virtually impossible to prevent them from obtaining a nuclear weapon. So as you probably saw, they had a tremendous number of missiles, most of which had now been used or destroyed, and very unsuccessfully used, because we have been able for the most part to shoot them all down. What incredible technology the Patriots have been unbelievable. And other things. And the laser technology that we have now is incredible. It's coming out pretty soon. We're literally lasers. We'll do the work of, at a lot less cost, do the work of what the Patriots are doing or what other things are doing. The situation was very quickly approaching. The point of no return in the United States found that intolerable, in my opinion, based on what Steve and Jared and Pete and others would tell them, he marked them so involved, that I thought that they were going to attack us. I thought that if we didn't do this at the time we did it, I think they had in mind to attack us. And if you notice, they did something which was very foolish, very stupid, I would say. They attacked their neighbors. And their neighbors were largely neutral, or at least weren't going to be involved, and they got attacked. And it had the reverse effect. The neighbors came onto our side and started attacking them, and actually quite successfully. If you look at Saudi Arabia, you look at UAE, Qatar, and others. But they were strong and they were smart, but they got attacked. Nobody, when I first heard it, I said, no, somebody made a mistake. That was no mistake. UAE had over a thousand missiles shot at it, knocked them almost all down. On the very first day I came down, the escalator in 2015, I said, quote, I will stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons. And all I'm doing is keeping my promise. Think of that, that was in 2015. I said it was a threat then, and a much bigger threat now, but no longer a threat, not for a long time anyway. We want to keep it that way. As we continue operation, epic fury we're also focused on keeping energy and oil flowing to the world. And I will not allow a terrorist regime to hold the world hostage and attempt to stop the globe's oil supply. And if Iran does anything to do that, they'll get hit at a much, much harder level. I will take out those targets that were easy and that I mentioned just before. We'll take them out so quickly they'll never be able to recover ever. If they want to play that game, they better not play that game. And the long run oil supplies will be dramatically more secure without the threat of Iranian ships, drones, missiles, nuclear menace, or anything so that's straight of war moves who's going to remain safe. We have a lot of Navy ships there. We have the best equipment in the world, inspecting from mines. Again, most of their ships are down at the bottom of the sea, but we will hit them so hard that it will not be possible for them or anybody else helping them to ever recover that section of the world. They do anything. In recent years, the regime and its terror proxies have launched attacks on hundreds of commercial vessels. We're putting an end to all of this threat once and for all and the result will be lower oil prices, oil and gas prices for American families. We've done that. We've done it. We brought it very low. This was just an excursion into something that had to be done. We're getting very close to finishing that too. In the meantime, during this brief disruption, the United States is offering political risk insurance to any tankers operating in the Gulf. So we're putting up risk insurance. We'll perhaps go alongside of them for protection. When I think it'll be necessary, if it is. And if they do anything, the price will be incalculable. It will be so great that they will have wished they never did it. Because you have to keep the straits flowing. With all of that, it affects other countries much more than it does the United States. It does really affect us. We have so much oil. We have tremendous oil and gas. Much more than we need. We have Venezuela now as our new partner, great partner. It worked out so wonderful. We're working with the administration, the President. And it's a massive source of oil, gas, everything. But we're in a very good position, but very unfair to other parts of the world, like China, as an example. I mean, we're doing this for the other parts of the world, including countries like China. They get a lot of their oil through the straits. So we're doing this. We have a very good relationship with President Xi and China. I'm going there in a short period of time. And we're protecting the world from what these lunatics are trying to do. And very successfully, I might add, we're also waving certain oil-related sanctions to reduce prices. So we have sanctions on some countries. We're going to take those sanctions off till the straightens out. And who knows? Maybe we won't have to put them on. There'll be so much peace. But when the time comes, the U.S. Navy and its partners will escort tankers through the strait. If needed, I hope it's not going to be needed. But if it's needed, we'll escort them right through. And we have the greatest mind-sweeping ability. We have the greatest ships. And all of the, we know exactly where their place will get them out of there very fast. But we hope we don't have any of that. And again, if they do that, if they play that game, we're going to hit them at a level that they have not seen before. So we're winning very decisively. We're way ahead of schedule. It's our military is the greatest in the world, with the greatest equipment to the greatest people in the world. Nobody's ever seen anything like it. A random to a very powerful country. They were going to take over the Middle East. If we did not hit them, they were going to take over the Middle East. They had thousands and thousands since their last hit. They had thousands and thousands of missiles and everything else. Most are now destroyed. But they were going to take over the Middle East. Those weapons were aimed at Middle Eastern countries that had nothing to do with this. They were going to take over the Middle East and they were going to try and destroy Israel. So we stopped it with good timing. And we're very proud to be involved in this. And it's going to be ended soon. And if it starts up again, they'll be hit even harder. Thank you very much for being here. Go ahead, any questions? Thank you. Thank you so much. Do you approve of Iran's new Supreme Leader? And secondly, can you tell us more about your call with Russian President Vladimir Putin today? What did you discuss? Yes, I had a very good call with President Putin. We had a lot of people on the line from our side, from his side. We were talking about Ukraine, which is just a never-ending fight. And when this tremendous hatred between President Putin and President Zelensky, I can't seem to get it together. But I think it was a positive call on that subject. And we obviously talked then about the Middle East. And he wants to be helpful. I said, you could be more helpful by getting the Ukraine Russia war over with. That would be more helpful. But we had a very good talk. And he wants to be very constructive. Yeah, please. Yeah, please. Thank you, Mr. President. On Iran, you called it an excursion. You said it would be over soon. Are you thinking this week it will be over? No, but soon. I think so. OK. And with respect to it. Very soon. Look, everything they have is gone, including their leadership. In fact, there are two levels of leadership. And even actually, as it turns out, more than that. But two levels of leadership are gone. Most people have never even heard about the leaders that they're talking about. So it's obviously been very, very powerful, very effective. Mr. Cuba, you said that Cuba wants to make a deal. Yes. What would the United States get in return for that? And why should Americans trust Marco Rubio to negotiate it? Well, Marco Rubio is doing a great job. I think he's going to go down as the greatest secretary of state in history. Look at what we've done as a presidency. Look at what we've done as an administration. They trust Marco. And so do the American people trust. He's been successful no matter where he's been. He also speaks the language, which is always nice and always helpful. But he's dealing. And it may be a friendly takeover. It may not be a friendly takeover. It wouldn't matter, because they're really in, they're down to, as they say, fumes. They have no energy. They have no money. They're deep trouble on a humanitarian basis. And we don't want to see that. But they were very, very bad to a lot of people, as you know, and a lot of people living on the Cuban American vote, which I got at record levels. Very important. Those people are very important to me. I know what they went through. They went through hell. Some of them have gone on to be some of the most successful people in the country. Cuban American business people. Some of them are like the most successful in the country. And a lot of them are friends of mine, because I've been fighting this battle with them for a long time. The Castro regime was brutal. But they lived off end as well. And now they don't live off end of end as well. It sends them no energy, no fuel, no oil, no money, no nothing. They lived without end as well, or they couldn't have made it. And we cut them off from everything else. So yeah, they're going to make either a deal, or we'll do it just as easy anyway. Yeah. Please. Go ahead. This is one of the things that really is an energy that's going to strike in a Tomahawk missile, likely destroyed that Iranian girls school. So will the Americans, will the US accept any responsibility? Well, I haven't seen it. And I will say that the Tomahawk, which is one of the most powerful weapons around is used by, you know, his sold and used by other countries. You know that. And whether it's Iran, who also has some Tomahawk say, I wish they had more, but whether it's Iran or somebody else, the fact that it's Tomahawk, a Tomahawk is very generic. It's sold to other countries. But that's being investigated right now. Yeah, please. Yeah, please. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. President, you've said the war is, quote, very complete, but your defense secretary says this is just the beginning. So which is it? And how long should Americans be working on this? Well, I think it could say it both. The beginning, it's the beginning of building a new country. But they certainly, they have no navy, they have no air force. They have no anti-aircraft equipment. It's all been blown up. They have no radar. They have no telecommunications. And they have no leadership. It's all gone. So, you know, you could look at that statement. We could call it a tremendous success right now, as we leave here. I could call it, or we could go further. And we're going to go further. But the big risk on that war has been over for three days. We wiped them out the first, in the first two days, when you think about it, it's incredible. We wiped out a big navy, very powerful navy. You know, these were ships, these were serious ships. These were ships that you buy when you want to win battles. They're all on the bottom floor. The sailors are all running off their ships. They refuse to get on the ships. The Air Force has gone. Everything's gone. The missiles are down to a trickle. The drones are down to probably 25%. And they'll soon be down to nothing. We'll have where they manufacture the drones or under fire, as we speak, they're being hit. So, the rest is going to be a determination as to my attitude along with the people in the Trump administration, what we want to do. Thank you. Yeah, please. Can I ask you, you mentioned you were going to wave certain additional oil waivers or sanctions. Can you talk a little bit more about that and address in particular? Well, we're looking at the oil prices down. We went artificially up because of this excursion into a very positive thing. I mean, this was an excursion that a lot of people wouldn't have done. I knew oil prices would go up if I did this. And they've gone up probably less than I thought they'd go up. But I don't think anybody thought we were going to be this quickly successful. This was a military success, the likes of which people haven't seen. We have the best military. We have the best equipment. We have, I believe, the best generals. We have the best. And this went very quickly. We talked about that with President Putin. He was very impressed with what he saw because nobody's ever seen anything quite like it. Iran was a very powerful military country with all of the missiles. Now, yet the double attack, yet the original attack with us in Israel and that knocked them for a loop. Then you had the B2 bombers which took out their nuclear capability. And they would have had a nuclear weapon within two weeks to four weeks. And they would have used it long before this press conference. And we might have had a much different press conference if we had a press conference at all. But it's been amazing. The military success that we've had is truly unprecedented. You said you've told your congressional colleagues that you will not sign any piece of legislation until the Save America Act has passed. Does that include the confirmation of Senator Mullen as your next DHS secretary? Does that mean a DHS funding bill? And Senator Thune said today it's not a matter of whether or not your Republican colleagues agree with the policy, it's about changing the process. In other words, getting rid of the filibuster to get some. So in order to get it, you're going to need Democrat votes. And what we're saying is the Save America, not the Save Act, which nobody knew what it was, the Save America Act, the Save America Act. And that's voter ID. We want voter ID. We want to be able to see a picture of the voter. We want to be able to see that the voters legitimate. We want very importantly, confirmation that this voter is a citizen of the United States of America. And we want no male in ballot scams. So we have exceptions for the military, for sick, for disabled, and for people that are away, business trips or whatever. Even vacations will be very liberal. We've added two things to it. No men in women's sports and no trans, gender, mutilization of our children. We don't want our, it's mutilization of our children. And we don't want that. So we added those two things. That's the five points. We have five very good points. It pulls at 86% with Democrats. Think of that. Well vote is 86% with Republicans. It's 98%. And the only one opposed to it is a Democrat leadership because they cheat. They want to cheat. So we added those two points. We're going for the gold. And we're going to have to fight like hell. Now certain things will happen. Certain things will take place. I'm here to do a great job for the country. But we don't have a country. If we're going to have elections that are so corrupt and so dishonest, like we've witnessed over the last period of time. As an example, virtually nobody has, like we, nobody has a system of mail-in ballots like we have. No other country in the world. France went away from it. They owe it. You know why? Because it's corrupt. And Jimmy Carter, when he had a commission, frankly, I think it's probably the best thing Jimmy Carter did. He said, you can't have mail-in voting because it's inherently dishonest. And it's turned out to be totally dishonest. So we're going to fight for it. Yeah. Yeah. That's the wrong activated any sleeper cells inside the US or reports that they have pressed that trigger button to activate those cells at least abroad. Well, we've been trying for a long time. We've been very much on top of it. One of the things we have to do is get the Democrats to stop the Democrats. They've got to shut down because, as you know, the apparatus that looks into that, Schumer and the Democrats have shut it down, which tells you they probably hate our country a lot. But the Democrats have to open that up. But we've got very, very good intelligence into that. We know a lot of different things that have happened that have been very bad. A lot of them came in during the Biden-open border period. But we have them under. We've got them. We're watching every single one of them. Yeah. We know a lot about them. The biggest problem we have is the Democrats shut down. We know a lot about them. But the shutdown doesn't allow us to do what we have to do. Do you have to take him out? Does he have a target on his back? You mean the new Supreme Leader? You mean the Sun? How can there be an Iran? Well, I don't want to say that. But, you know, I was disappointed because we think it's going to lead to just more of the same problem for the country. So I was disappointed to see their choice. Thank you, sir. You've said you have someone in mind to be the new Iranian leadership if not the IOTO, the Sun. What are you looking for in that person? Are you looking at someone internal given that you just said that their leadership has been designated by the White House? I like the idea of the internal and eternal. Come to think of it. But I like the idea of internal because it works well. I mean, I think we've proven that so far in Venezuela. We have a woman, Delcy, who has been president of the country, very respected, very, she's doing a great job. And it's, you know, no disruption. We had, as you remember, Iraq, where everybody got fired. The military got fired. The police got fired. The politicians got fired. There was nobody. And you know what they turned into ISIS? And we don't want that. So I would like to see people that are inside go now. They talk about the son of the Shah. They talk about other people. But you know, has it been there in many, many years? We have a formula that's been very good so far. And I think it'll continue to be good. The relationship is extraordinary with Venezuela, smart country. We've taken out 100 million barrels of oil. And it's right now in Houston being taken care of and made so beautiful. And you have to see this at work. They have, it's brought to the refineries, it's being refined in Houston, which is made exactly for that product. And so far, but it's 100 million barrels of oil. And now they have another 100 million barrels coming. And it's like a partnership. We're getting along so well with them. It's great for Venezuela and it's great for the United States. Yeah, please go ahead. Mr. President, you just suggested that Iran somehow got its hands on a Tomahawk and bombed its own elementary school on the first day of the war. But you're the only person in your government saying this. Even your defense secretary wouldn't say that when he was asked standing over your shoulder on your plane on Saturday. Why are you the only person saying this? Because I just don't know enough about it. I think it's something that I was told is under investigation. But Tomahawks are used by others, as you know. Numerous other nations have Tomahawks. They buy them from us. But I will certainly whatever the report shows. I'm willing to live with that report. Yeah, please. You said earlier that we've already won in many ways, but we haven't won enough. What do you consider enough? What's your baseline? They're not going to be starting the following day to develop a nuclear weapon, where they'll look at that man and some other people from the administration and say, all right, we're not going to do it. They were not willing to say that. And when Steve called up and he said that to me, I said, well, here we go. Let's do it the hard way. But the hard way, I think, is probably the easy way. When basically I can see that they will no longer have any capacity whatsoever for a very long period of time of developing weaponry that could be used against the United States, Israel, or any of our allies. We have great allies in the Middle East, great countries that are allies. And they were staying out of it until they got hit. Some day they'll have to do a story. Why did they do that? Why did they do that? But they were going to hit them. If I didn't hit them first, they were going to hit our allies first. I believe, upon information and belief, but I believe that he was going to, they were going to take over the Middle East. They were looking to take over the Middle East. Now had operation midnight hammer not taken place, that was definite because they would have had a nuclear weapon within a matter of weeks. But that took place. I was a setback. But look at the number of missiles they were able to buy and make over the last six months. And those missiles were aimed at various countries. And when you look at a thousand, over a thousand missiles shot at like UAE, they were looking to take over the Middle East. We got there first. Lucky. I'll tell you what, the Middle East and those countries, very rich countries, are very lucky that I was president, instead of somebody else. I don't think so. No, we get along very well on this. He was, I would say philosophically, a little bit different than me. I think he was maybe less enthusiastic about going, but he was quite enthusiastic. But I felt it was something we had to do. I didn't feel we had a choice. If we didn't do it, they would have done it to us. I felt based on the negotiations that were being had by Steve Woodcuff and Jared Kushner and Marco and Pete and everybody was involved. I felt that they were going to, that they were looking to tap us along before they hit. And I thought they were going to hit. And if they hit us first, that would have been a very bad thing. In the back place? About the straight, you mean? Yeah, well, I want to keep it open. I want to keep it good. You know, it doesn't pertain to us so much as it does to China. We're really helping China here and other countries because they get a lot of their energy from the straits. Look, we have a good relationship with China. It's my honor to do it. Yeah. You have called him an unacceptable choice. So does he have a target on his back? And how can you say that? I don't want to say whether or not he does because that would be inappropriate. But look, I had a target on my back because as you people wrote pretty well, they caught the assassin that was after me. So we just got them first, but they caught the assassin. They have him now in custody, those after me. So, you know, but people don't like to mention that, but they did catch him. And I'd like to congratulate our military, secret service FBI. All of the people that worked on that, but they did. Yeah, please. Go ahead. Thank you, Mr. President. You promised the Iranian people you would help them. This sounds like you're willing to end this fight after your military defectives have wrapped up. Is that, isn't that unbetrayal? Will I help them? I'd like to if they can behave, but they've been very menacing. You know, they're great people. They have an amazing population. It's amazing. Smart, brilliant, energetic. They have a great, I'd love to help them, but they have to be in a system that allows them to be helped. And right now, they're in a system that only allows failure. And I don't want that. And I want a system that's not going to be attacking us. We want a system that can lead to many years of peace. And if we can't have that, we might as well get it over with right now. Yeah, please. President, as of today, there have been eight U.S. military fatalities associated with the war in Iran. How many American deaths are you willing to have in this war? Well, as I said before, when you have conflicts like this, you always have death. And I was at the over yesterday. I met the parents and they were unbelievable people. They were unbelievable people, but they all had one thing in common. They said to me, one thing, every single one, finish the job, sir. Please finish the job. And I'll leave you at that. Thank you very much, everybody. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. President of the United States, with a press conference right there, took about 30 minutes. You know, I said yesterday in the Sunday morning show, given the intensity of the bombing on Saturday night, and this is why we're so thankful for Real America's voice, let's do the Sunday morning show, given the intensity of the bombing on Sunday night, I said several times because we had a packed show. So given what the President was saying about unconditional surrender and Pete Hexeth, which he reinforced on 60 minutes. I know it was shot beforehand, but what he reinforced on his plate last night. I said many times, well, we're not going to have an off-ramp by Tuesday. I was wrong. I guess we got an off-ramp on Monday afternoon. I think, Dr. Theroux, we're going to break it all down. The President's actually obviously been thinking about this a lot. Dr. Theroux, in Mark Levin, and people know I don't agree with Mark Levin a lot on things that are said, but Mark Levin is put up something. I just want to pull it up. My crack staff, my production staff, has sent this to me if I can pull it up. Mark Levin just put it out a tweet, and I'd like to have you respond to it, Dr. Bradley Theroux, and of course Kurt Mills going to join us here momentarily. The tweet is from Levin during this press conference, is a ran quote, a short-term excursion, unquote, or unconditional surrender and complete defeat. Is it a condition-based operation or a time-based operation, inquiring minds want to know? So Dr. Theroux, given what the President of the United States and Commander-in-Chief, who's been pretty adamant, at least over the last five or six days of, I think, during day 10, unconditional surrender, and pretty tough terms about what that unconditional surrender would look like. Did he set a condition that if they change out the leader, the new IOTO, the IOTO of Sun that's now the new head of the government as the IOTO, although the revolutionary guard still controls the day-to-day, if they make that change, that President Trump could see a way to bring down the military operations that we have here, sir? Well, Steve, the first point to make is that the President has a conception of what America's national interests are informed by his cabin, of course, and other actors as well. And so when he's making the point that we've won, perhaps we haven't won enough, but we soon will, once the situation continues, he referenced the ballistic missiles, the drones, for example, in essence, their ability to harm the U.S. and our national interests, Israel, and our allies in the region, then that's going to be sufficient. That's victory. And so that's the first point to recognize. It's President Trump who frames that. Second point to keep in mind is that President Trump is absolutely a flexible realist, right? He adapts as circumstances change, as the battlefield dynamic changes. He's seeing victory in terms of the campaign against the Navy, the Iranian Navy, which has been so successful. Straight of Hormuz does seem to be open, which is absolutely essential. Great success in the air campaign, great success against their air defenses. The nuclear campaign was taken out last year, and I'm sure there were additional targets that were at this time of round to hit that. And you have had great attrition in the regime, as he referenced two layers of the leadership have been removed. So from President Trump's perspective, U.S. national interests have been met or very soon will be met. So that I think is, that's his assessment, and that's the assessment that matters. Others who want to go on to, you know, an invasion of Iran or to go on to having some type of conquest of the totality of Iran, I think are losing that point. We have in our present that a consummate flexible realist who's able to advance our national interests, and when battlefield victory, U.S. national objectives have been met to recognize that, and not to continue in a way that would become self-defeating and that would lead to additional escalation, and that would lead to a continuation of a war that need not continue. And the U.S. has other adversaries, the Chinese Communist Party as well, to face. So there's much to like in what President Trump has said today. He covered a gamut, obviously, quite a few topics. But on the one hand, he's much more positive. Hang on one second. And of course, we've been, I think, part of the realist camp here, although supportive of the President, but the part of the realist camp. So there is a lot to like here. I just want to make sure that we fully understand it, because even I'm kind of confused here. But I just don't see, and I'm sure they've got back channel discussions going on. The Israelis have just come out. I think part of the United Nations, the Israelis are talking about a completely different alternative. I mean, they're all in not just simply for regime change. I think they're going for continue to go unconditional surrender. As I said on the show this morning, I think Saturday night was a big, it showed you a gap between our greatest ally in the United States, a big gap about what intentions were and what the follow-through was going to be. Anyway, Dr. Bradley Thayer, sir, Kurt Mel is going to join us in a second. Natalie's going to be back tomorrow morning. She's got a report out about the refugee situation, but I think everybody ought to pay attention. She says, going to dwarf whatever happened in the Syrian Civil War, Afghanistan, Iraq war, all of it. And it's very well thought through. Dr. Bradley Thayer is with us. The President of the State just had, I think, the most important press conference so far. Really the first time of press conference in this war, but took a ton of questions and answered them all. Shurka Morsha, break you're in the world. Imagine having the world's most connected financial insider feeding you vital information, the kind of information only a handful of people have access to. And that could create a fortune for those who know what to do with it. That's exactly what you get when you join our frequent guest and contributor, Jim Rickards, and his elite research service, strategic intelligence. 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First Trump spoke very clearly about the causes of this war. He said that we preempted Iran. Iran was going to hit us. Secondly he addressed the conduct of the war and conveyed that our military objectives had been met or were very close to being met. What were those objectives? We had to be at the point where the Iranian regime recognized that they were that they're unwilling to continue to develop the weaponry to hurt the United States. Our national interests in the region Israel and our Arab and other allies. Secondly regional hegemony Iran sought regional hegemony he said and that this action has stopped Iran's bid for regional hegemony. So in terms of the causes Iran was going to we preempted Iran from attacking and then the conduct our military objectives have been met or being very close to being met in terms of destroying the weaponry. He referenced the ballistic missiles that they're greatly down right that they're really now ragged in the ability of the Iranians to launch them and that the drones were down to 25 percent as he mentioned of those attacks. So that's very good news. The Iranian Air Force has been decimated and the Iranian Navy has been as well. The straits are open. Straight up for moves is open. So oil is able oil and gas is able to exit. Well, obviously. Yeah. People should understand people should understand that when the president leaked this or he shouldn't say, he talked to CBS news. He gave one of those phone interviews that he's now famous for and he said they're going to wrap this thing up and the markets completely turn around. I think oil is at 88 got up to 120 today. The market turned around. Bond market is kind of calm down. Everything. Hang on, Dr. Thayer. Kurt Mills. What just happened, sir? It's a fair question. I think the president is signaling an interest in an off ramp. I think this was a good press conference. I think this is good news. I think the president is seeing that the military options from this point forward are not particularly attractive. Like he doesn't want to quite wrap it up yet. And that will create the potential reality for spoilers who want to keep us in the war. The people that are messaging and we're messaging ahead of the press conference, frankly, on Monday that the war must go on. We're the same people who suckered the president into the war. The foundation for defensive democracies, Josh Hammer, Mark Levin, Lindsey Graham. They're going to message all night on Monday night that this was, yes, Mr. President. Thank you. Thank you. If the war, you shouldn't pull out here. Many of these folks are already poo-pooing the increase in gas prices that Americans are paying the pump, saying that it's the small price to pay for Israel's war. What? He put a condition there that I'm confused about this condition so help it make sense to me. He was pretty adamant that they had to select somebody. He wanted his hand and he said this to the last couple of days, he wanted to participate in choosing. He uses the Venice of Whalen model. He goes back to the Venice of Whalen model day and say, hey, we're closer than ever. They're ramping up all production. Things are working great because we had a person in there regime that would work with us and essentially report to us, although she doesn't like to admit that everybody knows it's kind of what's happening. He offered that as a framework or a template for what would happen in Iran, although a very, very, very different set of circumstances. He still said as a condition, we got to get somebody in there I like or this guy can't handle it. If that is still a condition until we would go home, we could be there for a while, correct? Potentially. Obviously, there's an open question about whether the United States is going to try to kill Moch-Taba-Haman-A, the new Supreme Leader, or Israel is going to try to kill him, frankly. Additionally, it's the question of whether or not they can, presumably Moch-Taba-Haman-A is going to be much more secure to the ground. But hang up, hang up. It's not, it's not, yeah, but it's not, I mean, yeah, so they killed this guy who's the guy's son. They don't like this hereditary thing anyway. they kill him, they got a 500 more guys who are just as dug in as this guy or more thousands. But what, what, what, what, their selection the other day was up in our grill saying, Hey, you want us to change not only we're not changing, we're going to get a younger guy who's supposed to be even more hardcore. They got plenty of those. So if the massage takes this guy out, at least their tendency to date has been, we're going to show continuity in that continuity is going to be to even harder than we were before. Am I wrong on that? No, no, this is why I think the president is getting bad advice. I mean, the reality is that Iran is a much different scenario than Venezuela. It is a, it is a tougher state. I mean, Venezuela wasn't lobbying Shahedrones to everybody in the Caribbean. Venezuela didn't have ballistic missiles that they could fire to Mexico. This is just a completely different scenario. The reality is, if the president wants an enduring relationship with this government in Iran, he's got to walk away from this war and come back to the negotiating table. If the Iranians will even come back to the negotiating table, ask the transition that you just crossed and tried. Okay, but then okay, but you just, okay, but you just walked in. Okay, then Leven and those guys are going to get their way. I know, I know, it's a great question. I know, but you just, you just set up, you just set up, and let me, let me just put another piece of information out there that the president served for the last 24 hours. Kuwait, Qatar, UAE, even the great MBZ, the tough fighter, MBZ in the Saudis, I think have been blowing up the phone lines going, what in the hell are we doing here? Right? These guys are crazy and they're lobbying hot ones over here. They're taking down our desalization. They're taking our water. They're, you know, Qatar warned forever we had a treat of parsley on here. I think that said that it could be five to seven years before Qatar gets their gas field back. Those guys are sitting there going, hey, they're trying to shut down our oil operations for years. They're trying to block those straights or removes. They are taken out of desalination and water is just as important here as oil. I think collectively they all, from what I'm hearing, all we're all over people today saying we got to see a plan to wind this thing down. But if the wind down is the president puts a condition that it's got to be a regime that's malleable to American influences, I think that and because of what happened Saturday night is a game changer. Do we have that dance senior thing? And here's why, Kurt and Dr. Thayer, I think it galvanized Persian nationalism. This is the one thing you didn't want to do. Once you galvanized Persian nationalism, it's the Persian people. It's not this Islamic Republic against this is why I think you haven't seen uprising in the street. Besides the fact that they killed 30,000 of their best, you know, guys who would get to the streets. I think part of this is now they look at it as a nationalistic cause because they look at it as Israel in the United States against them as a nation in a people. It's not this Islamic Republic which they hate and, you know, two-thirds of probably hate. Can't play the dance senior thing? Can't play the dance senior thing and I want to pick your brain on this, Kurt. I will tell you, Jessica, I have never seen integration between the United States military and another military, not just between the United States and Israel. Certainly that has never been the case, but the United States and any other sovereign military. I've never seen this level of integration. Aircraft from both countries, you know, in the skies above Iran at the same time, all feeding into a central command function, sharing the same information with between those aircraft, sharing the same intelligence, sharing in some cases the same command structure and chain of command. It's just total integration and don't take it for me. You can hear this from the Pentagon. U.S. Sencom put out a post yesterday with the Israeli flag and the American flag talking about how these air forces are just achieving total excellence and performing with incredible excellence and success and professionalism working together. It's really, they're attached to the hip. I think about the 91 Gulf War where the U.S. The Bush administration, the first Bush administration, asked Prime Minister Shamir, Prime Minister Visal of the time, to show restraint that Israel couldn't get involved. Why couldn't Israel get involved according to the Bush administration? Because that would fracture the coalition, which included many Arab countries. Israel and the Arab countries couldn't be seen in the Arab countries' eyes to be fighting on the same side. Now that is, we've been completely inverse that. Now you have Israel and the U.S. fighting side by side totally locked in and the Arab countries are joining that coalition. So we are living on so many levels through truly historic times that I couldn't even imagine in terms of the transformation in the region, potentially, and certainly the transformation in the relationship between the U.S. and Israel. Okay, that's not Steve Bannissan. His dance senior, and everybody knows dance senior is a, how do I say, former spokesman for the Iraq debacle under Bush, where he lied, ball face lied to the American people only every day. But he's also, let's say, quite close to the Netanyahu click in Israel. And he's 100% correct. They got guys, he says at one joint command, it is impossible to have happened on Saturday night, what happened on Saturday night with that structure. And it's from his lips, that structure to have, oh my God, the Axio story that sits there and even Lindsey Graham putting out a tweet afterwards, hey guys, we got to calm down. Unless the Israeli Air Force, the IDF and the senior command of visual ball face lied to the Americans. And I think right there, that was an inflection point. I believe President Trump, because they said, oh, he's going to have a heated conversation with Netanyahu. The allies are not together on this at all. Our war aims, and he's just saw President Trump. The war aims of President Trump look quite different than the war aims of BB Netanyahu, Kurt Males. And this is what I think Saturday night was an inflection point. President Trump was adamant. I don't want any oil assets to, I don't want any infrastructure touched, right? I'm trying to get the Persian people on our side. If we got to do things in Tehran, I want the bombing of like the Air Force command center that the IDF did take down, I think, on Saturday night, which is a hard target. But I don't want to spread this war into a Dresden type fire bombing of Tehran. That's exactly what I don't want, because you know what, then the Persians will dig in and will be here five years from now. This is to me the beginning of the separation led President Trump to this podium today to kind of say, hey, thinking about this, we got a couple of other things I want to do on my punch list, but we're out. Kurt Mills, your thoughts. Yeah, I mean, look, that dance in your person basically works for another country as far as I'm concerned, and all but name. And so, you know, this also was the Romney foreign policy person. This is a complete neo-conservative. It's not clear why this person should have purchased anywhere near the White House for a president who ran against all these people, but that's neither here nor there. I think the reality here, though, Steve, as you are alluding to is that the president is going to have to tell the Israelis now the president is going to have to disappoint Lindsey Graham. He's going to have to disappoint and reject the foundation for defense of democracies. He's going to have to reject Tom Cotton, or we're just going to do this again and again and again. The Iranian political system is opaque, so they put in the sun. But in many ways, it could be an opportunity there, the analysts to understand the country, which are a few in far between. Basically, are of the mind that this could be the moment that they are passing from a clerical dictatorship to more of a military dictatorship. That Mochitaba is in some sense the Katz Pa of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, and, you know, military dictatorships are not Jeffersonian democracies, but they could be more pragmatic. There are people in the system, the president himself, Pashashkion, his team, Arochi, they were, they won election two years ago on negotiating with the West, on negotiating with the United States, on negotiating with Donald Trump. You know, there are other people in their system who think, screw the Americans, we'll just deal with the Chinese and the Russians. And when we have, you know, black skies at 10 a.m. Teraan time, you're kind of indicating the hardliners in the system. So, yeah, again, other things on President Trump's punch list, talk about other things on President Trump's punch list in his term. He needs to take the off ramp here and the off ramp for a very, very, very long time. And I think Israel has been shown to the world as charlatans for this military endeavor. They are trying to spike oil to a bubble 120 dollars a barrel. They are shutting down air traffic. They are getting Americans out of 15 plus countries. You know, it is making Uncle Sam a pariah throughout the region and throughout the world. And we need to have debate on these guys. We need a long hard talk about what the US-Israeli relationship is. And I think it's going to come either sooner or later. And if it comes later, it's going to come in the Republican primary and it's going to be pretty nasty. Well, it's going to happen right now. I mean, the president has laid out some conditions. I mean, Levin just said, it's just times the base or conditions base. He's said the president has laid out some things that he wants to accomplish, that he thinks accomplishes his war objectives. And then we can move on. And part of that is obviously deal with the regime and what the regime is going to do. But the Israelis more than ever are all about regime change and destroying the regime. Those are two right now diametrically opposed. You know, the president did not mention unconditional surrender. He did not mention the total and complete destruction of their war-making capability. If you're going to take out any possibility of their power projection on their own people, as hard as this is to say, you're going to be there for a while because these people are not pushovers. They're hard to have the suppersion. Same guy as the Romans fought and the Greeks fought. They're still there. And now they're bigger and more powerful. Not that you couldn't take them down, but it's a process. And you've seen the targeting list. We've been going through. How do you think this plays out? Because you're right. The guys that want us to stay forever are already all over this. You're going to see it on Fox News tonight. You're going to see it on Fox in tomorrow. They're going to be, you know, saying President Trump, he can be Churchill here. Or you can, you know, you can actually look and try to get a peaceful exit. And they're all going to be for taking the hard way. And as you can tell, the hard way is not going to end next week or the week after the week after that, sir. I thought it was interesting that Mr. Sandoor went after George H. W. Bush. Of course, because attacking George H. W. Bush for not marching all the way to Baghdad in Gulf War I became the rallying cry for what became the neo conservatives. And they're the people who ruined Mr. Bush's sons presidency and helped ruin US position in the world. And so I think it's very interesting that they attacked H. W. Because they don't want President Trump actually to repeat the lessons from the Bush 41 White House, which is you can wipe out, you know, a tough military, but you don't go all the way. You don't do regime change. You leave the regime weakened and in place. And I think that's obviously at this point the best option for President Trump. If he leaves now, if he leaves now, this will be a bad memory. This will be this will be a moment of fracture within Maga. But I think Trump will be able to keep his coalition together. I think Trump will be able to compete in the midterms. If this is all we are doing, if Pete Higgsat is screaming at 60 minutes in July, it's going to be a major problem for the White House. Kurt, where do people get you now, particularly overnight, until we reconvene tomorrow morning, because I think it's going to be quite intense tonight? For sure. Yeah, it's the American conservative.com magazine founded in 2002 by Papu candidate friends against the Iraq war. We are now covering the Iran War wire to wire and my own work and addition to the magazines is at Kurt Mills at CURT and my LLS on X. Thank you, Steve. Thank you. Dr. Thayer, we got 90 seconds before we get a punch. Your thoughts? You fight a war to win the peace. And President Trump has explained the causes of this war, why we went to war, that was to preempt an Iranian attack. He also talked about the conditions, the conduct of the war that would lead to its end, right, to having the U.S. win the peace. And that was when the Iranian leadership said we're not going to continue in essence to bid on paraphrasing, but to build the ballistic missiles to reconstitute an air force and a navy that's going to be able to hurt U.S. national security interests, Israel and the allies in the area. So President Trump has a path to winning the peace. I would just say secondly and finally, Steve, that there are really three sets of targets here. We're talking about counter leadership targets, counter force targets and counter value targets. Counter leadership targets, the Israelis seem to have been driving. That was getting rid of the regime. Counter force targets were the military targets. That's what President Trump wanted to hit. Going after the ballistic missiles, going after the air force, the navy, the nuclear facilities obviously last year and continuing those attacks. And then the counter value targets, President Trump does not want to hit, right? Very importantly, because that ties into nationalism. If you start going after the value, what the society values, the oil, the infrastructure, the way people make their money, the sources of the economy, you're going to generate a tremendous nationalist reaction. Trump did not want to counter value target. He wanted to counter force target, very importantly, and maybe counter leadership targets. So he's got a pathway to peace. He can win the peace. Dr. Thayer Brant, where do people go to get you, particularly overnight, until we reconvene at 10 a.m. Eastern Standard Time tomorrow morning, sir. Yeah, Steve Brad Thayer at X and Bradley Thayer at Joe Shruth and Gator. Thanks very much, Steve. Thank you. Okay, oil went from what, 80 to 120 back to 88, market stabilized. I think President Trump saw when he ran up the Troublon with CBS with the response with this, but I think also the guys in the golf said, hey, look, you know, this could only get nastier. We got to think this through together. I think that's what's happening. President Trump's going to come under an intense barrage tonight, and it ain't from the Uranians. We'll cover it all and we'll see you back here at 10 a.m. Eastern Standard Time tomorrow. Remember, you get a vote in this. What do you think? We'll check that out tomorrow morning. Birch Gold. Now, maybe more than ever, you need to find out what a hedge is. Take your phone out, text ban it at 989898. Get the ultimate guide for investing in gold and precious metals in the age of Trump. Most importantly, get access to Philip Patrick in the team. That's which he talked to them. Talk to them immediately. We'll see you back here in the war room. Natasha Owens will take us out. We'll see you back here at 10 a.m. Eastern Standard Time tomorrow. At Guarantee, we will be on fire. We still need help from the boss. We need help from the boss.