President Trump declares the war all but won as Iran's leadership fractures. We've accomplished more in one week than anyone thought possible. We've wiped out their Navy. We've wiped out their Air Force. We've wiped out most of their missiles. We look at the military gains and political headwinds as the operation reaches its 10th day. I'm Daily Wire, executive editor John Bickley with Georgia Howe. It's Monday, March 9th, and this is Morning Wire. In total, six arrests were made today in connection with the events. Bomb threats shake New York, Kansas City, and Oslo as fears grow with Islamic terror attacks. And we talked to an expert on the fallout so far from Epic Fury. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know. These days, the big shift in hiring is all about skills-based hiring, focusing on what people can actually do instead of where they went to school or the titles on their resume. 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That's ZipRecruiter.com slash wire. The conflict in Iran escalated over the weekend with the U.S. and Israel stepping up their bombing campaign as the Islamic regime struggles to maintain its grip on power. Cabot Phillips, host of The Daily Wire's new show, Wired in Live, joins us now with the latest, A Cabot. So this conflict now in its 10th day, a lot took place over the weekend. Catch us up to speed. What do we need to know? Yeah, the U.S. and Israel continued to establish air superiority in Iran, which has allowed them to broaden the scope and intensity of their bombing operation. In the last 48 hours, new strikes targeted Iranian fuel depots and energy infrastructure for the first time. And in an effort to further destabilize the regime and weaken their ability to fight back, the strikes took on just a new level of intensity. Extraordinary footage from Tehran showed enormous fires climbing hundreds of feet into the sky, engulfing the city in thick black smoke. It was apocalyptic. Now, to this point, the Iranians have largely been alone, with little help being offered from their allies. But over the weekend, numerous reports quoted anonymous U.S. officials saying that Russia has begun providing the regime with sensitive intelligence regarding the location of American warships, aircraft, and other military assets in the region. If true, this would mark a major escalation in the conflict. But for his part, President Trump on Saturday did not seem overly concerned by this story. I have had no indication of that whatsoever. If they are, they're not doing a very good job because Iran is not doing too well. So the president, very confident in the progress of the campaign. What are we hearing from the Iranian leadership at this point? Well, over the weekend, they continued to launch missiles at American and Israeli bases and embassies and also heavily populated civilian areas. And many of those attacks have also been launched, it's worth noting, from military facilities located near schools, neighborhoods, and mosques. Daily Wire reporter Cassie Akiva has more on that point. to not leave their homes. This comes after Admiral Brad Cooper says the Islamic regime is firing both suicide drones and ballistic missiles from densely populated civilian areas. This new directive is basically just telling Iranian citizens that their safety cannot be guaranteed and that they should stay home and away from these areas that these missiles and weapons are being shot from. And then on Saturday, there was this really bizarre series of events. We heard from the country's president, Masoud Pazeshkian. He appeared on Iranian airwaves to quote, apologized to the neighboring countries that were attacked by Iran, claiming, quote, our armed forces, when there were no commanders present, acted on their own authority. He went on to say, quote, from now on, Iran should not attack neighboring countries or fire missiles at them unless we are attacked by those countries. But within hours of that statement, the regime was once again launching missiles indiscriminately. It just gives an idea of the chaos and confusion within the Iranian ranks. Keep in mind, part of their strategy behind attacking countries across the Middle East was to put pressure on the U.S. The Iranians were reportedly confident that their strikes would cause countries in the region to go to America and say, hey, we don't want to be caught in the crossfire. Hurry up and wrap this thing up. But to date, that strategy has backfired and actually had the opposite effect as the region has become furious with the regime and actually pushed several Arab states closer to the U.S. For his part, President Trump reiterated this weekend that the time for negotiating has passed and that he'll only stop the bombing once the regime offers an unconditional surrender. It's where they cry uncle or when they can't fight any longer and there's nobody around to cry uncle. On Sunday, Iranian state media reported that top clerics had named Ayatollah Khomeini's son, Mushtaba, as his successor. This came hours after President Trump told ABC that whomever the Iranians pick, quote, is going to have to get approval from us. Now, as we mentioned at the top, we're into day 10 now in this operation. How is the American public responding to it? Yeah, while President Trump is so far very satisfied with the military state of the operation, it is still fraught with political risk. While the vast majority of Republicans support his handling of Iran, polling shows that anywhere from the high 40s to even 60 percent of Americans as a whole disapprove of this operation. And look, those numbers could get worse if more service members are killed or the conflict escalates and broadens further. And to that point, we just learned on Sunday that a seventh U.S. service member was killed. They ended up succumbing to injuries suffered in an earlier attack by the Iranian regime. And then further complicating matters, politically speaking, is the risk of higher gas prices caused by the conflict here at home. But with midterms looming and Americans largely restless about the state of the economy, every penny paid at the pump matters with voters. So just one more thing here for the Trump administration to balance. Indeed, and we're going to touch on a couple of those topics you just mentioned in later segments. Cabot, thank you so much for reporting. Absolutely. 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Let's get you started with 20% off and free rush shipping so you can add lean to your healthy diet and exercise plan. Visit TakeLean.com and enter WIRE for your discount. That's promo code WIRE at TakeLean.com today. A series of potential Islamic terror attacks in the U.S. and Europe have sparked inquiries into what ties they might have to the operation in Iran. Here to discuss a few of the frightening situations is Daily Wire contributor Tim Pierce So Tim let start with the bomb threat in New York City over the weekend What happened there Yeah authorities have arrested two men in connection with a potential terror attack during a protest in New York City. One makeshift bomb was thrown and another was dropped as counter-protesters clashed with anti-Islamic protesters outside of New York Mayor Zoran Mamdani's official residence. Daily Wire reporter Breka Stoll has more. At around 12.15 p.m., a man identified as Amar Balot threw a bomb into the protesters. Witnesses said as he threw the bomb, he shouted, Allahu Akbar. He then dropped a second bomb. There was a lot of focus on Mayor Mamdani's response to the incident since the suspects appear to have been Islamic. Well, he finally responded yesterday and focused his attention on the far-right organizer of the protest rather than the Muslim bomb suspects, who he didn't even reference. He only noted that an explosive device was used in response to the anti-Islam protest. Now, one of the big questions around this attack is whether or not it's connected to the ongoing military operation in Iran. Here was New York City Police Commissioner Tish over the weekend. As of now, there is no indication that this is related to the ongoing hostilities in Iran, but the investigation is still ongoing given the heightened threat environment. Whether or not it is connected to Iran, the conflict does appear to be on the minds of law enforcement in situations like this. That makes sense. Now, there was another serious situation outside of the U.S. embassy in Norway. What happened there? Yeah, in this case, an explosion actually did go off. Authorities suspect that a bomb was planted and exploded outside the U.S. embassy in Oslo early Sunday morning around 1 a.m. local time. Authorities already suspect terrorism and that it may be connected in some way to Operation Epic Fury in Iran. The blast caused some minor damage to the entrance to the embassy's consular section, and nobody was harmed in the attack. But this isn't the first attack on a U.S. embassy since the strikes began, though it does warrant special concerns since this happened in Europe. Israeli embassies have been targeted as well. On Friday, authorities in Azerbaijan, just to the north of Iran, say they foiled an Iranian plot to attack the embassy in Baku. Right. Certainly embassies are on high alert right now. There was also another situation on a Southwest flight over the weekend. And then there was the Kansas City airport incident. What happened here stateside? So on Friday night, a Southwest flight from Nashville to Fort Lauderdale had to be rerouted to Atlanta over what an airline spokesman called a possible security matter. Videos of the arrest show passengers being made to put their heads down and hands up while officers escorted a man off the plane. Those watching the show on video can see a bit of what that looked like. The plane was swept by canine units and passengers eventually got to their destination in Florida with a significant delay, of course. Authorities haven't given much information, but an eyewitness account on social media said that the man may have been seen texting threats after he had trouble storing his bag. Then there was another air travel incident on Sunday afternoon. Authorities in Kansas City evacuated the city's airport over a potential threat. They helped thousands of people on the airport's tarmacks while law enforcement investigated, but that threat was later deemed not credible. While all over the country, people are on edge. Tim, thanks for reporting. Good to be on. The economic and political effects of Operation Epic Fury are stretching across the globe. Joining us now to discuss is Victoria Coates, national security and foreign policy expert at the Heritage Foundation. Victoria, thank you so much for coming on. Of course. Great to be with you. So we've begun to see this conflict affect energy prices, oil and natural gas in particular. Do you see this as temporary due to the conflict in the Middle East or a broader logistics issue? No I definitely see this as temporary but it still going to be quite severe because we had the Qataris shut down natural gas production for the first time in 30 years So this is a generational occurrence We had Kuwait the world fifth largest oil producer start to curtail production And the thing is John, this will take some time to turn back on. It's not just a switch you flip. So when you do shutter the wells, it takes a while to get them back into production. The good news is we have a lot of barrels on the water, not just those Russian barrels everyone's talking about, although those are something of an insurance policy in the short term. But there are lots of Kuwaiti barrels, a lot of Saudi barrels. So all of that, once it starts to move, will alleviate the immediate crisis. So Americans here at home, should we expect, should we sort of brace for higher prices? I think definitely. You might want to fill your tank up today and get through the next week or so if you can. But I think the raise will be certainly noticeable, but I don't think it's going to be $200 a barrel oil as some of the real doomsayers are predicting. Is there anything that the U.S. can do to bring prices down in the short term? Well, we can start to release additional supplies from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. I don't favor that. That's not really the purpose of the reserve. It's not supposed to be a price-adjusting mechanism. And I think we need to pay a lot more attention to it going forward, to refilling it when prices are low. But certainly this raise in prices is going to have a really beneficial effect on our energy sector. The good news is this will encourage all of our wildcatters, the rest of the folks, both for natural gas and for oil, that they should expand their exploration and their production. So is it fair to say then long term, this could have beneficial effects for the U.S. prices and the economy? Absolutely, because this means we'll be in a better position to sell more natural gas to Europe, for example. They're still buying way too much from Russia. And so, you know, short term, yes, maybe we are taking a little bit of pressure off the Russians. But long term, if we ramp up production, we have more to sell then to countries like India than regions like Europe. Now, turning to the military situation for Iran, is there a military toast? I mean, Trump is basically declaring that this war is over. How big a deal is it that all their ships have been taken out and they don't seem to be able to defend their airspace anymore? Right. And this has been pretty dramatic. We have essentially control of both the air and the sea, and there's absolutely nothing they can do about it. So I think what has been demonstrated here in terms of American power is an extremely important global message that President Trump is sending. Final question. There's a lot of fear right now about potential acts of terrorism. We've had a couple of scares already. How would you gauge the risk factor of any potential sleeper cell activity here at home? This is a real problem, both here at home and in Europe. And we know that the Iranians have moved some close to 800 Iranian nationals across the border. Those are the ones we know about during the Biden administration, and they are certainly a menace. But the way the Iranians operate in this space is they tend to hire nationals from third countries. So they were hiring Eastern Europeans, for example, in Australia when they were doing attacks on Jewish sites. And we had the man from Senegal in Austin, Texas, who apparently was inspired to do this. So it's not enough to just look for Iranians. You have to look for the kind of behavior that suggests someone is looking for a soft target to attack. And unfortunately, I think that is all too likely in coming weeks. Well, Victoria, as always, we appreciate your insight. Thank you so much for joining us. Of course. Anytime. Thanks for waking up with us. And for those of you listening to the show, now you can watch for free on Daily Wire+. We'll be back later this evening with more news you need to know.
