Why Now? (Ep. 2464)

26:10Premeditated act of killing someone suddenly or secretively, especially a prominent person. What could they possibly mean? Murder, the crime of unlawfully and unjustifiably killing a person. It's so unclear. It's so unclear. Okay, so now we've established that, yes, in fact, IRGC units have multiple times tried to kill prominent U.S. officials, including the president. You've had podcasts and hosts of content. I don't mean that. I like podcasts. I'm a podcast. Saying two opposite stories. When they want to argue that the government's hiding from this. On one assassination case. They're like, man, it was foreign governments.

26:52I'm like, well, we don't really have any evidence of that. And then when there's an actual foreign plot. They're like, well, that didn't happen.

27:01Folks, I'm getting a little exhausted with the bullshit around Trump. If you want to say Trump has no agency, OK, and he's getting dog walked around by all these people and his circle and the Israelis and the evil Jews and whatever and all this stuff, then just come out and say it and have the balls. Stop with the euphemisms and the stupidity and the word games and pretending like, oh, I don't know. I don't know what they were talking about. He just said it, Rubio. You just had Whitcoff on there.

27:35And a lot of this is the Israelis taking their own action against target states. Here's another one. It just happened this morning, just before we got in here. You got that Trey Yinkst thing from Fox, Guy? This just happened maybe 25, 30 minutes ago. There was a meeting of the Iranian Leadership Council to pick new leadership. Guy, they're going to have a problem picking new leadership. Why is that? because they're now dead. I don't, war is an ugly thing. It's just true. Play that clip from Fox this morning.

28:14Dan Bongino:The scene of one of these cluster munition impacts just outside of Tel Aviv, but I'm told by a senior Israeli official that the Israelis just struck the Supreme Council gathering where the Iranians were meeting to choose a new supreme leader. This is a significant development and, again, speaks to the Israeli intelligence about this war. They just targeted the meeting in Tehran where what's left of the leadership was gathering to choose a new supreme leader. The Iranians are continuing their attacks against Israel. Right now we are in the community of Bnei Brak. It's a religious community outside of Tel Aviv.

28:52Dan Bongino:And you can see where the police and first responders. Thank you, Lynn and Jeff in the chat and others. I'm just reading some of your comments. Here's Yao Ming in the chat. Trump doesn't answer to anyone, not Bibi or any other leader. Corn Link, Dusted. Yeah, they're not going to be picking a new leadership team because the leadership council to pick the team is dead. Yeah.

29:28Folks, you know, again, I can't emphasize enough as a I think the proof is in the pudding. My entire life, my my investments, my my passion has always been free speech. As long as you're not breaking the law or trafficking and, you know, whatever disgusting like material on the stuff that it's going to violate the TOS of a website. I am all about free speech. can't go and commit a crime on some of these platforms. You are entitled to an opinion. All I ask is that you're honest about it. I was very clear yesterday. I hope that I have a lot of concerns going forward too. A lot of concerns, as many of you do.

30:15But stop with the bullshit. The president's unclear about what the directives are. The president speaks discursively. You know that. He has had his people out there In an absolutely crystal clear manner Laying out the objectives Matter of fact, he did it himself I'm going to take a quick break on this I'm going to play for you yesterday The president's own words I don't understand his rationale or his objectives Did you miss this yesterday? He said it Don't say he didn't say it You could say And if you don't like it, go ahead and run with it I don't like these objectives But he said, here are the objectives.

30:55Don't tell me you didn't say, you're just advertising your own stupidity. I don't know what the objective is. Then maybe don't go on the air until you do some homework.

31:07People rely on you for information. Be honest about it. Then I saw one thing like, oh my gosh, people just now waking up to the, really? Really? Really? Quick break, and I'm going to show you the president saying it himself. Think about this. In 2006,$20 ,000 equated to roughly 33 ounces of gold at the spot price. At today's prices, those 33 ounces would be worth over$150 ,000. That would be quite an evaluation there. Smart Americans, I buy gold a lot. Smart Americans diversify a portion of their savings into precious metals. I buy gold from Birch Gold Group, B-I-R-C-H. I have for a while. I'm very happy with my investments there.

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32:37That's peace of mind. Reduce your anxiety about your financial situation. diversify get the peace of mind text Bongino b-o-n-g-i-n-o to 989898 again text my last name Bongino to the number 989898 today message and data rate supply thanks Birch Gold be appreciated now there are people out there again pretending they don't understand the president's objectives okay I'm gonna learn you now here's a learning session this is the edutainment educational portion of the edutainment, hat tip, boogie down productions, right? Of the edutainment show. I am going to play for you video of Donald Trump yesterday telling you again what the objectives are.

33:19So now you can stop saying if you're watching the show, you don't know what the objectives are. You disagree with him, but stop saying he hasn't been clear on it. He has. This is Donald Trump back in 1980. I want you to get back into his mindset, too, about how he processes these inputs and came to these objectives. Here he is back in 1980. talking about a situation that if you were alive when I was alive, I was just a kid when this happened, the Iran crisis, the hostage crisis that I ran when they raided our embassy and took our people hostage. I want you to listen to how Donald Trump felt about this back when it happened.

33:51This was a huge scar on America. Check this out. When you get the respect of the other countries, then the other countries tend to do a little bit as you do. And you can create the right attitudes. The Iranian situation is a case in point. That they hold our hostages is just absolutely and totally ridiculous. That this country sits back and allows a country such as Iran to hold our hostages, to my way of thinking, is a horror. And I don't think they'd do it with other countries. I honestly don't think they'd do it with other countries. Obviously, you're advocating that we should have gone in there with troops, etc., and brought our boys out.

34:31I absolutely feel that, yes. I don't think there's any question, and there's no question in my mind. I think right now we'd be an oil-rich nation, and I believe that we should have done it. And I'm very disappointed that we didn't do it. And I don't think anybody would have held us in obeisance. I don't think anybody would have been angry with us. And we had every right to do it at the time. I think we've lost the opportunity. For those of you who weren't alive when this happened, we have a really young audience and that's great. We love having it. I don't care who listens, what age, what demo, it doesn't matter to me.

35:05But if you were alive when this happened, the 400 plus days that our people were held hostage by the Iranians, this was a, I was a young, young kid. I'm not going to lie to you. It's not like I was like intensely involved in geopolitics. It was the news story every night. It basically destroyed Jimmy Carter because it made him look weak. This was the story. This impacted so many people, Donald Trump obviously being older than me, who were adults at the time, who basically never forgave the Iranians. I'm not telling you that's what incentivized to do this. I'm setting up why he did it by telling you what the objectives are.

35:40But I want you to see what's in his mindset about what happens when weak people like Carter and others allow this stuff to go on, like Biden's evacuation of Afghanistan prematurely and tactically and efficiently, how it incentivizes more behavior by scumbags who want to kill us. Trump has never changed. He doesn't want to send the message of weakness. Here's Donald Trump. This next one. This is Donald Trump on how, for those of you saying, oh, my gosh, Donald Trump, he's getting us into another Iraq. Really? Donald Trump was so bothered by how we extended the operation in Iraq without a clear metric, I think, for success or an exit strategy, that the wounded warriors would come home, bother him so much, he would talk about it all the time.

36:25Here's Donald Trump on this. Check this out. You know, nobody talks about the soldiers that are coming back with no arms and no legs. And I saw at Mar-a-Lago on Mondays, I make Mar-a-Lago my club that you know about. In Palm Beach. I make that twice now. On a Monday, I let returning Iraqi injured soldiers come to the premises. The most beautiful people I've ever seen, but they're missing arms and legs. They're with their wives. Sometimes they're with their girlfriends. And the tears are coming down the faces of these people. I mean, the thousands and maybe hundreds of thousands and the Iraqis that have been just maimed and killed.

37:02This war is a horrible thing. Now, President Bush says he's religious. And yet 400000 people, the way I count it, have died and probably millions have been badly maimed and injured. What's going on? Folks, he's never changed. You see him back in 1980 discussing the humiliation we had to endure when these scum Islamo fanatic radicals took our people hostage for over a year, humiliated the entire nation, how it scarred him. And he understands this invites further attacks. However, he's also been impacted by the Iraq war. He's talked about it all the time. How, one, it wasn't conducted right. We should have taken custody of the oil.

37:52How if we were going to do it, we should have been in and out. It should not have been an extended war. He's run on that too. The guy hasn't really changed. And I was talking about this before. He was clear on his objectives at the White House yesterday. He laid them out. Again, you can talk all you want. He wasn't clear. He was clear. Disagree with them or not, here they are. Check this out. objectives are clear first we're Destroying our ends missile capabilities and you see that happening on an hourly basis and their capacity to produce brand new ones and pretty good ones they make second we're Annihilating their Navy.

38:28We've knocked out already 10 ships They're at the bottom of the sea third. We're ensuring that the world's number one sponsor of terror can never obtain a nuclear weapon, never going to have a nuclear weapon. I said that from the beginning. They're never going to have a nuclear weapon. They were on the road to getting one legitimately through a deal that was signed foolishly by our country. And finally, we're ensuring that the Iranian regime cannot continue to arm, fund, and direct terrorist armies outside of their borders. so he's been clear on what the objectives are he just laid them out he literally said here are the objectives here are the objectives missile capacity making sure their ballistic missiles can't threaten the entire region and folks acting like the region doesn't matter to us when a good portion of the world's oil that powers your life your ability to like not freeze to death in the freaking winter, acting like that stuff doesn't matter is total bullshit and complete naivete.

39:39Got to get rid of their missile capacity because they've already told you and shown that they're going to use it. Second, we've got to get rid of their Navy and their ability to stop the traffic from exiting the Strait of Hormuz and a lot of the oil making its way around them. You got to get rid of their Navy. You don't want them to mine the place. So here's some video, by the way, of some of the destruction of their naval assets, upwards of 11 Iranian ships taken out. They can't have nuclear weapons because we don't want nuclear blackmail to happen and them to kill us. And we have to basically crush support for these terror proxies.

40:11Now, a lot of these people are acting after a lot of these results, by the way, have already been met. They're acting like they don't know what's going on, playing stupid. Just here's the problem. Here's how I see it. People aren't used to DC politicians. Donald Trump's a politician like anyone else. obviously ran for office people are not used to the dc political class actually doing stuff they're just not they're used to like roundabout rhetoric and constant bullshit and when stuff happens and happens fast like this they almost don't know how to respond so they process it as chaos when in fact it's just results and results quickly they're used to people talking they're just not used to people actually doing stuff.

40:55You've heard Democrats and other prominent Democrats run in the past on, man, you know, we're going to have to do something eventually about the Iranian nuclear program. Okay, he did it. He did it. You just don't like the fact that it happened quickly. Here's Brett Baer yesterday on Fox saying he spoke to Donald Trump and they're actually all stunned at the degree and how quickly this stuff happened. They were expecting a lot of this decapitation of the leadership and the destruction of a lot of these programs and facilities take up to four weeks. Some of it happened in a day. They just don't they're just not comfortable with the speed and the results.

41:27Check this out. Let's get off the phone with the president. He is very pleased with how things are going, obviously, is disheartened about the loss of life. And there may be more, he said, along the way. But as far as the progress, he said they are ahead of where they thought they would be. I want to read some of these quotes that I that I asked him and how he answered. He said that as far as a plan, they do have a plan, always had a plan. The intelligence, the level of intelligence that they've had up until this point is truly amazing. I asked, so what you're saying is that you know there is somebody on the ground in Iran that is going to rise up.

42:08Quote, yeah, I feel there is. I feel that and some of them are no longer with us, to be honest, because it was 49 leaders that were taken out. That was going to take four weeks, we thought, to get rid of the Iranian leadership. And it's always, you know, if they hide, it's a lot longer than four weeks. And they would have been hiding. We were shocked when we heard what was going on. We knew exactly what was happening and where. 49 leaders. And, you know, they're talking about using people now that nobody ever heard of, even though they don't know. They're using people, studying people to be the leader that even they don't know who they are There it is, folks He's been pretty clear Hey, I thought this would take up to four weeks We've already passed most of the metrics for success He does not, I think it really bothers people that he doesn't plan on a forever war And they don't know how to respond So you're seeing this again, extinction burst of craziness He's not telling us what the objectives are Here are the objectives Well, I don't like the objective.

43:12Which one don't you like? Regime change. Well, he killed people who were chanting death to America. That's part of the regime. Was regime change the goal? Maybe in the sense that we wanted the regime in charge now that was threatening us to die, but regime change in context of nation building, like we were going to sit there and change and fertilize and water the regime like we tried in Iraq. He's clearly not going to do that. He's been crystal clear about it.

43:46Do you see this commentator yesterday too? By the way, the embarrassing, humiliating defeat of the Iranian military. Embarrassing. Their goal was basically the Iranian military, one thing. Anyone telling you that we're going to try to project force outside of proxies, outside of Iran, is full of shit. Their goal is one thing. Preservation of the regime that are now dead. They couldn't even do that The destruction was so quick and rapid The people complaining about Oh my gosh, it's chaotic It's not chaotic You're just not used to processing so many results so quickly You're just not used to You're used to shit-talking all the time I saw this online As a military analyst Jake Bro I think it's real Jake Bro on X But just like a minute of how bad and humiliating the performance by the Iranian military was.

44:44And yet three days in, again, you got a bunch of doomers already complaining about it. Give it the movies not even over. Check this out. And as far as the active fighting in the war, Iran's already lost. This war has been going on for less than 48 hours. And in my opinion, Iran's military is already defeated. If they were going to score any serious hits against anyone, they probably would have done it in the first 12 hours. But Israel and the United States now control the skies over Iran. They're eliminating targets at will. All the most dangerous and highest priority targets have been already destroyed.

45:26If Iran was going to destroy like a battleship or an aircraft carrier, they would have done it by now. And Iran's response has been pretty embarrassing. The Iranian regime has fired missiles at nine countries, Bahrain, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and the UAE. The sporadic and uncoordinated nature of the attacks on a wide number of different targets has resulted in minimal damage being caused, despite such a large number of missiles being employed. SC Edmonds in the chat. Precision targets are not chaotic. They know what they're doing. This took planning, a lot of planning.

46:09Yes, yes, sir, or ma 'am, yes, it did. You don't like us being there? Fine. It's a republic. Opinions are everywhere. That doesn't mean they're good ones. What part of the mission exactly now bothers you? People clamoring about how they so strongly object to regime change. You want the Ayatollah back? I don't understand. I think you're confusing, again, nation building with regime change. Yes, of course they wanted to take out and decapitate the leadership that was planning to rebuild the nuclear program and shield it so they could blackmail the world with it. You know, folks, a lot of these regimes, they learned a lot from both Libya and the Iraq War.

47:03After we decimated what was thought to be, if you remember the original Gulf War I and II, Saddam Hussein's army was thought to be perilous. I mean, really like a relatively strong army for the region. They got destroyed. They got humiliated. I'll never forget a friend of mine when I was an agent telling me he was a tow missile operator, how pathetic the performance of the Iraqi military was. There were foreign heads of state that hate us, that watched that and said, gosh, if we don't go nuclear, we don't stand the chance. That's what the Iranians were trying to do.

47:41And Dems are basically admitting now, too. This is where, folks, everything has a purpose in the show. Purpose, purpose, purpose. The Democrats are basically in their analysts admitting now, too, that, you know what, we're going to paint this as kind of chaotic. It's not chaotic. It's just a series of results. It's like taking four or five finals on the same day. You're still going to take your finals in college and get a score. But, yeah, it's going to be busy because you're taking them all in the same day. This guy moves fast as president. He doesn't want finals over the course of six weeks.

48:12He wants them all in the same day because I told you he's transactional. I worked for him. I know him. He wants results and he doesn't want to wait. Here is Dan Turrentine, an analyst with Sean Spicer, who will be back. Supposed to be on today. We'll have him back at some point. They're now admitting the pace of the results, chaotic, is going to be like kind of their message going forward. I want you to watch this clip. And I'm not knocking this guy specifically, but watch how you start to see this word going forward. You're going to say, Dan wasn't kidding. Chaos. You're going to hear the word chaos.

48:48They don't mean chaos. They just mean they're uncomfortable with the results because it makes Donald Trump look good. Check this out. The party is all over the place right now. So, I mean, those are two separate questions. I think one thing that I just, and this is just anecdotal, found stunning was just the number of people I know who are apolitical or even Trump supporters who are like, I don't like this. Now, to Sean's point, they're kind of hoping that this works. But go back to what's Trump's weakness right now. not just in Iran, but everywhere, extreme and chaotic, right? Those are the frame that Minnesota, just even the Venezuela thing, while it got more popular, people were like, whoa, I woke up to, we went into Venezuela.

49:25Now to Sean's point, it was over within four hours, literally. And within eight hours, he was in New York or 12 hours, right? I do think there are a lot of people who are like, holy cow, we went. I mean, on Tuesday, he gave a state of the union. I think it was three and a half minutes on Iran. And on Wednesday, we were talking about whether people stood or not on immigration. And we are now talking about a regional war in the Middle East. So I think Sean is right. If this comes to a quick, if Iran capitulates, we get a new government that wants to work with us and there's peace. Trump's going to almost be on Mount Rushmore to some extent, right, that he pulled this off.

50:03Now, the reason I put this Dan Torrentine gentleman up in this clip is because at least he's fairly honest about it. I mean, I don't I don't have no hatred in my heart for anyone who's got a D in front of their name. But he's honest. If this results in the decapitation of the Iranian debt to America class and they can get even some semblance of a government that they're going to build. We're not building. We're not nation building. President Trump has said now four or five times to the Iranian people, this is your chance. You blow it. It's on you. He said that, correct? Sorry, I don't have the clip, but you've heard him say it.

50:42I just, you know, I usually bring the receipts, but I'll throw it in maybe tomorrow's show. He's already said it multiple times. This guy's fairly honest about it. You're going to see the word chaos thrown out there now every day. It does not mean chaos. He's saying to you right now, yeah, Democrats are all over the place. It looks chaotic. But the results, if they pan out, which I can almost guarantee you they will. If the results pan out, you're going to have to put this guy on Mount Rushmore. At least he's honest about it. Dan Turrentine. I'm happy to have him on, too. It's an interesting debate to have.

51:24folks as i said it is ridiculous to tell everyone how much you hate a movie where you're not you're not even to remember back in the old days no one here's as old as me but they used to have intermissions in movies remember that you just go out and get popcorn we're not even at the intermission from the 70s and 80s yet and you already think the movie sucks it's just i don't know folks i just find it fairly disingenuous It's not over Here's a very quick CNN clip Of They're saying what Donald Trump Apparently spoke to Jake Tapper And told him Guys, ladies This mission we're engaged in It's not even close to over yet Remember the whole Everybody whole The big stuff hasn't even happened yet

52:18Dan Bongino:check this out my colleague jake tapper that the big wave is yet to come so clearly things are going to be escalating not de-escalating in the future reuters trump tells cnn the big wave in war with iran is yet to come you think he's again you think he's lying i don't understand you and when when has he lied to you before he warned maduro don't screw around he did now he's in a u.s prison he warned the ayatollah us since 2016. We're going to wind up bombing you if you don't try to bomb us and kill us first. And now he's dead. The Iranians are just, I don't know what they're waiting for. Like for the entire, like the leadership council's dead.

53:05The leadership's dead. Now, the Iranians have big issues going forward, huge issues. Number one, so much of their leadership hierarchy, they're down from like the CEO to like a floor manager in the mailroom. Folks, these leaders have not been vetted for leadership qualities. And I don't mean that in a qualitatively good way. A lot of these fanatics, fanatics over there want to kill you. It doesn't matter if they're in the mailroom or not. But think about it It's a hyperbolic but necessary example You have a company like I don't know IBM You've got the chairman You've got the CEO And you've got board members Who've got 50, 60 years of leadership experience In some cases Some of these guys have been around forever It's a lot of experience If you wipe out the board The CEO The CFO The CIO The CSO The upper level managers and the mid-level managers, and then you're down to, like I said, the guy sorting mail in the mailroom.

54:09How do you vet this guy for leadership qualities? He hasn't done it yet. He's in the mailroom.

54:18In other words, he's giving the opportunity to the Iranian people, now that there is a big power vacuum, to go and take their country back, and he's telling them, you're not going to get another shot like this. We're not going to do it for you. The second problem they're going to have Obviously communication's an issue for them Every time they seem to communicate They all seem to die The problem is folks They don't know how they can talk What they can talk on Where they can meet If you can't talk and communicate Command, control, communications It is impossible to lead a country It is impossible to lead a country that large

55:03Third, there's going to be infighting Think about it You wipe out the entire hierarchy From the CEO down to middle management They're not that far yet But say they wipe out upper level management And the C-suite You're going to get infighting from people Who never expected to be in charge Joey Bagadonna is going to say Wait, I think I should be in charge No, no, it's my turn Because there's no hierarchy Because the entire hierarchy or chain of command Has been wiped out No one anticipated the mailroom guy. These are real problems now. That's why he's telling the Iranian people, we can't build this for you.

55:40It's yours. Take it. Take it now. Ladies and gentlemen, if they don't, it is on them. The only play left now for the mailroom guys running this place is to drive a wedge between us and regional partners in the area. That's their only play. You see it with this just indiscriminate launching of missiles, of drones. The Iranians don't know. They're engaged in a classic extinction burst. The Iranian mailroom leadership thought if we launch ballistic missiles and drones into Dubai, Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi, we hit some oil fields, that all of those regional players are going to say, oh my gosh, look at what's happening because of what the United States did.

56:34That's not what happened. So the Iranian mailroom leadership didn't get the result they wanted. Now everybody's pissed off at them, the Iranians that is, the Saudis and everyone else. Now they're just engaged in a classic extinction burst of behavior. I'm going to take my last break and I'm going to get back to what I mean. You'll see what I mean in a second. I'll show you some video and I'll show you what an extinction burst looks like. Jasmine's like, is this video a timeline cleanse? It's like a dog. I go, no, not at all. It may be, but it's not the intention. I'm going to show you exactly what an extinction burst looks like when you don't get the reward you wanted.

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58:55This is an excellent analyst and a good friend, Jim Hansen. He was on Fox explaining exactly this, that they're trying to drive a wedge and it's just not working. It's actually having the opposite effect. Check this out. The retaliation strikes hit a bunch of Arab states. Doesn't sound like a very strategic response. Why would they do that? Are they going after U.S. bases? It wasn't so much the U.S. bases. I think they were trying to drive a wedge between the Gulf states and the U.S. and get them to blame us for the fact that they're taking incoming fire. And I think that was a major miscalculation.

59:32You know, they may have actually taken the Abraham Accords, which was an agreement in theory mostly, and turned it into the Abraham Alliance of people who are all united against the Islamic Republic and wishing it to meet its demise so there can be prosperity and security in the region. Yes, well said, amigo. That is exactly what they're trying to do. Drive this wedge and the opposite happened. All of these regional players from the Qataris, the folks in Bahrain, the leadership in Bahrain and the Saudis are really getting pissed off now and not at us, at the freaking Iranians. Qatar carried out strikes in Iran.

1:00:14Saudi Arabia to soon follow Israeli reports. Here, look at this video of this Iranian oil facility. You think this is making the Saudis happy? Regardless of your feelings about any of these governments, whatever they intended to happen is not happening. The opposite is happening. So you're seeing this classic extinction burst. This video is meant to be funny. I saw this. I've had this bookmarked for a couple of days. because I send my daughter, my youngest daughter, I send her these dog videos of doodles sometimes. So, you know, then it pops up on your For You page. So this one popped up. And it's meant to be kind of a cute video of a dog, if you listen on Apple or Spotify, pressing this little thing for treats.

1:01:01And usually it presses the button and you'll see now it gets a treat. And the thing must run out of treats or something. And the dog is freaking out. this is what I talk about all the time in psychology it's known as an extinction burst of behavior you engage in an operant behavior pressing a lever and you expect to get whatever a can of coke after you put a dollar in and the coke doesn't come out every single organism that thinks that thinks I'm not talking about self-aware but thinks engages in this extinction burst of behavior where they start to freak out you see the dog doing it now maybe it's a timeline cleanse, maybe not but this is exactly what it looks like This is what the Iranians are doing right now This is what the mailroom guys are doing now They're freaking out because they thought they would get a response Everybody's going to come to our defense We can't believe you're bombing us This has all got to stop And that's not what happened at all

1:01:59Folks, at the beginning of the show, I discussed, as I've discussed often, that level 10 decisions like Donald Trump, President Trump is making now, you're not always going to be able to explain every single input. If there's 100 inputs that went into a decision, we are going to take out the Iranian ballistic missile facilities, their Navy, and decapitate the leadership over there. They're not going to be able to explain everything. Level 10 decisions are really hard. All you can ask is that the people in charge think clearly, explain what they can explain, and that later on over time when a lot of the stuff is declassified and does come out, then maybe everyone will be able to see all the inputs that went into it and the output will make more sense.

1:02:40But I can tell you having people in charge who are clear-eyed about what the threat is is absolutely a necessity. And you did not have that before, folks. I've been getting questions even yesterday. I addressed it yesterday on the show. So, you know, what do you feel the threat of sleeper cells in the United States are? Folks, there's always going to be a threat of a terror attack by an organizer group in the United States. There are a lot of people that want to kill us. It's not a mystery. However, in the past year, in this body full of briefings, I can just tell you everything is being done to disrupt any possible organized plot.

1:03:12I'm equally afraid of self-radicalized people doing insane and crazy things, as we've seen, who just use what happened in Iran as kind of a, you know, a mark to go crazy and shoot a place up. Because those are hard to stop. They're self-radicalized. They're not part of a larger comms network where they leave investigative breadcrumbs where we can go fine with some of the technology we have. However, I can assure you, the people in charge right now, Donald Trump's team at DHS, at CIA, and at the FBI, have reprioritized threats away from the Biden era where those entities were completely looking at, in my opinion, the wrong things.

1:03:55I always bring receipts. You have to take my word for it. He was a ridiculous speech by Biden talking about how the biggest threat in the country is white supremacy. Listen, any kind of racially motivated violence is always going to be a threat. It has always existed. This is the biggest, to be clear, this is the biggest threat in the country. I'm going to tell you something in my year there in the past year. I saw no evidence whatsoever. This was the biggest, biggest threat. Zero that this was the biggest threat. I'm going to tell you, I think they completely made this up. Because when I asked for evidence of it, it's a threat.

1:04:29the biggest threat? We're only argument on the margin here. I saw no evidence of that at all. Check this out. Don't ignore what our intelligence agency has determined to be the most lethal terrorist threat to the homeland today. White supremacy is terrorism.

1:04:50Folks, I'm just telling you, listen to me. I'm talking to the liberals too. I know you hate my guts. Listen, I know we don't like each other. feelings mutual, okay? But I had to work for you too. Obviously, I wasn't paid to be a political FBI deputy. I was paid to be the FBI deputy for everybody. I'm telling you, that's bullshit. It is a threat. It is not any racially motivated violence is a threat. You see it coming from all angles. The biggest threat, that's insane.

1:05:24Right, exactly, right? I didn't even, Look at these with the masks in the back. That's a good point, Justin. Can you sit still out of that? If you're listening on Apple and Spotify, go to, what are we, an hour and seven minutes in. Look at Pelosi, Pelosi with the blue mask, Kamala with the mask in the back.

1:05:44I'm telling you, I saw no evidence that that statement is true at all. Folks, results matter. He's got a different team in there now. And there's very little dispute that the I'm never going to tell you any of this mission accomplished bullshit. It's never accomplished. People want to kill us every single day. We've seen some of it and the possibility that someone may be successful at some point because we don't live in a surveillance state. You trade your liberty for security, as has been said many times, you will have neither. And I do not support a surveillance state didn't in my prior role either.

1:06:24that always creates a situation where someone can slip through the cracks and they're always going to be cracks because we don't have a surveillance blanket on everyone all the time there's an assumption of innocence in the united states even when you're charged with a crime but there is no question the people he has in charge now are not screwing around and that the world is a safer not totally safe but a safer place because we didn't screw around and we He understood the threat and didn't play political games like, what was the biggest threat? Oh, my gosh. With the masks on in the background.

1:06:59I put this tweet up yesterday. I thought it was important just to remind people who constantly tell you between the liberal media folks, oh, nothing's happening. The doomers, nothing's happening. Really? This is just kind of a short montage of headlines. Trump calls Khomeini's death justice for the American people. U.S. overdose and fentanyl fell. Inflation rate fell in November, defying expectations. FBI opens grand conspiracy probe on weaponization, opening door to special prosecutor. Fed seized$15 billion in Bitcoin, biggest seizure ever. Patel fires corrupt FBI agents in Arctic Frost. Ousted Venezuelan president Maduro reigned in U.S.

1:07:40court. I mean, it's just, whatever, I don't know what to say. You get the point. You can look at it on Twitter. I just said it to them to remind everyone out there that the team in charge is serious. This stuff takes time. We are not totally safe. We'll never be totally safe. But we are safer because we don't have people like Spaghetti Brains, the last president, spouting off nonsense with no evidence to back it up.

1:08:10Folks, this attack was structured methodically. He has smart people around him, the president, who know what they're doing. Radcliffe, Hegseth, Cash, the security team They know what they're doing This was structured this way for a reason Notice how they got Maduro first Energy, if you cannot power your war machine It's going to be really difficult to start the World War III we keep hearing about The Doomer's out there, everything's going to be World War III Thank the Lord it hasn't happened yet And we hope it doesn't But can we all agree, fair enough, that if you were going to start, quote, World War III, you were going to need power to do it?

1:08:55Nuclear, coal, natural gas, oil, correct? Diesel. I'm not crazy, right? You're not going to start it on a bunch of wooden flotilla boats like the Vikings, right? Can we all just start with that premise? President Trump and his team understands that. You can't power a war machine without power. So they go and get Maduro first and they secure regional basically petrochemical dominance because the United States is one of the world's largest producers of energy. Venezuela is up there too. Venezuela, the America hating Maduro is now in a U.S. prison. So now we've iced out Where some of our enemies were getting their power To power their war machine Try to follow Libs From this Venezuelan Dipshit who's now in a US prison So now he's locked off The Venezuelan supplies Look at his tweet By Peter Hassan Now all of a sudden With the Iranian leadership Being decapitated It looks like they're going to have a problem Powering their war machine from Iran too Politico, President Donald Trump's latest attack on Iran takes a big economic bite out of one of America's chief rivals China here's a chart here about Iranian and Venezuelan exports how they export most of their crude oil to where?

1:10:17China why am I bringing this up? now watch watch the euphemisms guys and the other ones playing ignorant what are you saying? this is a war for oil? no, I'm saying it is a military action meant to ice out another world war that requires power to fuel a war machine where they're icing out the power so there's no war machine for a world war. There's an economics show I really like. I watch a lot of the clips on a number of different platforms. You know Peter St. Onge, you've heard him many times. Here he is talking about, it's about a minute clip, exactly this too. How China all of a sudden is going to be suffering some kind of, And I'm not telling you it's going to be a catastrophic energy crisis, but it's enough to make them think twice about their war machine if they can't get the assets to power it.

1:11:09Check this out. But what happens in Iran does not stay in Iran because of the millions of barrels of oil Iran was exporting, 90 percent of which was going to China. Even higher than the 70 percent of Venezuela oil that was going to China. And none of it was being paid in U.S. dollars since both Venezuela and Iran are sanctioned on the swift dollar payment system. Now this is raising questions whether Iran was actually a strategic strike against China, who's already reeling from a real estate crisis and massive overcapacity in manufacturing, which is exacerbated by Trump's trade war. The background is China has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of the Ukraine war, gobbling up Russian oil and gas that used to go to Europe and getting it at a fat discount since it is sanctioned.

1:11:59This turned Russia into China's biggest oil and gas provider, and China now buys nearly half of Russian oil, which is about double its pre-war share. China was doing the same with Iran and Venezuela, buying their sanctioned oil at a fat discount, essentially buying shoplifted groceries on the street instead of going into Walmart and paying like everybody else, which gave it a big cost advantage.

1:12:25Again, another one of those inputs Donald Trump and his security team, President Trump had and the details of it, many of it, that's kind of an overview. The intricate details, many of them are probably classified. There was a war going on on the dollar. There was a war going on in the petrochemical energy market. You think this was just some half-assed, you know, ham sandwich decision on a Sunday night? Ah, let's just go bomb around like no one had thought this through. This was, a lot of this was strategy to intercept this cabal of American-hating countries that both wanted nuclear weapons and had them, all feeding off each other's teat to make sure they engaged in a long-term strategy to make sure that the United States was going to be brought to its knees.

1:13:17this was not figured out on a weekend over tea and crumpets. This has been thought out over time. I know. I was there. This whole strategy, it's not just one piece. They were trying to destroy our currency too. You see Donald Trump, you saw his true social post about bricks, right? Brazil, Russia and the like trying to use alternate currencies and things like that to destroy the dollar. Remember, every time a transaction in the energy markets is conducted, it's conducted in dollars. That's basically like a free loan to the U.S. economy. Now, sometimes that's not great because we can borrow a lot of money and the Democrats and some weak-kneed Republicans do.

1:14:06However, we're in what we're in now. And if the dollar is the reserve currency of the world were to fall apart tomorrow, which I sincerely doubt, but in exchange for Chinese currency instead, folks, interest rates would be like 20%. The whole economy would collapse. I'm just trying to make the point that this stuff is really complicated level 10 decision making and Kirby Smart was right a lot of times leadership involves making really challenging and hard decisions where you can't explain every single input you just can't and you just got to let people sometimes just kick you in the teeth and it sucks because you know they just don't know anything they just don't And the left-wing bullshit media, by the way, knows absolutely nothing.

1:14:59Them I want you to completely disregard. I want to show you these two clips. Just nail home my point. How these people in the left-wing media infrastructure, the doomers latch on to this too. They're talking about, oh, Donald Trump can't get his story straight. I said to you in the beginning of the show, he got his story straight. They asked what the objectives were. He said, here are my objectives. Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. The left-wing media can't get their story straight Here's a clip from ABC This is just the other day And I want you to pay very close attention to the answer This young lady gives here About the intelligence And how Iranians may have been Years and years away Somehow magically She has more information than Rubio That's incredible He's the Secretary of State National Security Advisor probably has a thousand other jobs too you know, you know more than Rubio?

1:15:53I don't understand. How do you know that? I'm just saying that the lady in the clip, I don't even know her name, I don't even care, at ABC. Serious question. Have you been in on any intelligence briefings, the PDB in the morning? Do you know? I mean, you sound very confident in your answer. How do you know that? You have Middle Eastern intel sources that you're not telling the government about? Are you a foreign agent? We don't know. I don't understand how you know that. Amazing how we're supposed to respect this person's opinion when they know absolutely nothing? Check this out. The Defense Secretary focused on this 47 years of violence covering from the Iranian regime, declined to lay out what the imminent threat was here.

1:16:31He talked about the nuclear weapons. Those were set back last year. He talked about the ballistic missiles, according to our Defense Intelligence Agency. Iran was about 10 years away from developing any kind of a missile that could hit the United States.

1:16:43Dan Bongino:Yeah, Georgia, back nine years away is what U.S. intelligence had concluded. okay, that's their story, you know, nine years away. Well, again, the president doesn't tell you everything he sees and he's not obligated to. He's obviously very transparent. That's just an objective fact, given the amount of media appearances he does relative to other presidents. Yet again, he was Jen Psaki, White House press secretary, just a few years ago saying the exact opposite. It's like they can't even, by the way, she's at MSNOW now. Sorry, that's always me at this time. Haley always wears it.

1:17:28Here's Psaki saying the exact opposite. Check this out.

1:17:31Dan Bongino:Iran has rapidly accelerated its nuclear program and reduced cooperation with international inspectors. Their breakout period is down from about a year, which is what we knew it was during the deal, to just a few weeks or less. Big hat tip, Mazemore, as always. You know, we love the Mazemore account on X. I'm sorry if I missed the hat tip earlier. I hate that. Gotta credit these creators. They worked their butts off at Mazemore, M-A-Z-E-M-O-O-R-E on X. A great account. These guys worked their butts off, folks. So pulling all these videos. And that was MRC, the one before. Folks, Pete Hegseth has done an incredible job as our secretary of war.

1:18:12He has. There were a lot of doubters. I mean, Pete's accountable like everyone else, just like me. Of course, everyone's open to criticism. I'm sure everybody can find something. But there's no doubt the secretary of war, Pete Hegseth, was dealt a shit sandwich when he went in there. Every single person of any partisan persuasion whatsoever should and can, or else you're lying, acknowledge the fact that we absolutely adore our warfighters, but that a lot of the leadership at the Pentagon was getting overly bureaucratic and out of control. Out of control meaning processes were broken, acquisitions were broken, leadership was too layered, it was really hard to make decisions.

1:18:54The Secretary of War was dealing with a lot. After the Maduro ops, midnight hammer, and this, he has got a CV, resume under his belt, where again, you're going to argue results, it's going to be hard to knock this guy. He's done an incredible job But he said something yesterday I really want to make sure You tattoo on your brain right now He said what I've been hinting at the whole show See how the show has an arc to it It's like the Laffer curve We always wind up back at the same spot Tell people what you're going to tell them Tell them and then tell them what you told them Leadership sometimes involves Making decisions where you can't Tell people all of the inputs You just can't.

1:19:39Pete's asked a question about ground troops. He answers the question, and then he says something you really need to hear. That, hey, I'm not going to tell you everything. Because if I tell you everything, I'd be broadcasting it to the world, and we'd basically be putting our troops in danger. Even if that not telling you anything, by the way, everything, makes us look bad, that's what leadership's about. Check this out. Are there currently any American boots on the ground in Iran? No, but we're not going to go into the exercise of what we will or will not do. I think it's one of those fallacies for a long time that this department or presidents or others should tell the American people this and our enemies, by the way, here's exactly what we'll do.

1:20:22Here's exactly how long we'll go. Here's exactly how far we'll go. Here's what we're willing to do and not do. It's foolishness. And so President Trump ensures that our enemies understand we'll go as far as we need to go to advanced American interests. But we're not dumb about it. You don't have to roll 200 ,000 people in there and stay for 20 years. Folks, I'm going to tell you something. I fought really hard during my time on the radio and the podcast before I left. I fought really hard for Pete. And I have to tell you, I'm really proud of that. I'm really proud of that because he he has done an incredible job incredible job he is dealing with a lot a lot of stuff he can't tell you a lot of stuff that bled over into our stuff I'm not talking about bureaucratized decision making entirely esclerotic environments it's really really their budget ours was 12 billion and theirs, forget it.

1:21:29That's like a tip in a restaurant for the Secretary of War. He's dealing with a lot. And I got to tell you, I don't think, I don't want to speak for Pete Baines. I'm pretty sure knowing Pete a long time, neither one of us expected that. I was just sitting in my office one day watching a movie, falling asleep on a Sunday night. It was late, and I got a call from the president asking me if I was interested. And I said, yeah, hell yeah. I'm pretty sure Pete, you know, was kind of surprised by a lot of it too. But he stepped up. And he deserves our support. And he's 100 % correct. And yet, here's the other side.

1:22:17You would think they would have learned something from the Vietnam era, you know, Jane Fonda bullshit they tried back then. believe it or not Hanoi Jane is back I'm not kidding I may have to cut this off early the beginning of the show we go through the clips to make sure it's the right sound and video and they're playing this and Guy did I not I'm like I can't I can't listen I don't know how much of this I know I got two seconds into it two maybe three I don't know how much of this I'm going to subject you to but I want you to be there's actually a strategic part of me putting on the show. I want you to expose their strategy.

1:22:52Their strategy is to paint this as a forever war, regime change, nation building, despite Donald Trump categorically denying the nation building and the forever war component because they know, sensibly so, that Americans don't want their kids, and I don't either, involved in foreign interventions without a proper exit plan. Remember Fox Connors' Rules of War? don't go to war alone don't go to war for long don't go to war unless you really have to here's hanoi jane with the vietnam comparisons and all this and i'm going to tell you why again why she's wrong based on facts if that's your kind of thing if you're a liberal watching check this out parents are pulling their children out of the rubble this dangerous and insane war against Iran not only violates international law and our constitution, but risks exploding into a vast war of mass proportion, taking the lives of many, including U.S.

1:23:58service people. It is yet again another war based on false information. And I can't help but think back to the Vietnam War. Here's Sergeant Major McGroin in the chat. At least she's been consistent since 69. You're correct. Consistently stupid. You were absolutely right, but good point. You see the comparisons they're trying to make? So I'm going to give you the fact-based ammunition you need to fight this rhetorical fight against stupid leftists in your life. I thought we're not doing forever wars. Forever? It's not even a week. What do you mean forever? Well, it's going to go on forever, has it?

1:24:39What are you, the Stygian witches? You can predict the future. Give me the eye. Do you have some ability to predict the future? I don't know about it. It's great. What stocks should I be betting on? So you don't know that, correct? So we can just shut that down because you have no idea what's going to happen. It hasn't even been a week. It's just like Iraq and Vietnam. It is. Really? Put up that Wall Street Journal piece by Mead. Trump tries to avoid the Iraq trap He then goes on to make the case in the piece, which is excellent That this is nothing like Iraq We don't have ground troops there As you heard Secretary Hegseth just say A little bit different than Iraq, correct?

1:25:20Iraq, ground troops Iran, no ground troops Guys, if I'm saying anything wrong Please correct me in the chat I'm just going by what the Secretary just said They're ground troops Iraq No ground troops Iraq But they're the same They're not the same You just heard me You're just lying Second, Iraq They made the mistake Of early on Not going into Baghdad I only say mistake Because then they went back in That was your target Which it was later We should have just done it the first time However They didn't make that mistake this time They went in They wanted to turn the nation over to the Iranians to build their own, build their own, build their own.

1:26:05That's not skipping. That's me saying it to you. Build their own nation. And the leadership, including the Aitollahs, was decapitated, unlike what happened with Saddam Hussein, where it went on for years and years. So they're not the same. They're not even close to the same. That doesn't mean crazy Jane Fonda and everyone as crazy as she is is not entitled to an opinion on it. Of course she is I'm just asking you to process facts They're not the same That's just bullshit

1:26:41And then you're going to hear the other thing Oh, this is universally unpopular Donald Trump's going to lose everything Oh my gosh, it's over folks It's over I'm not going to say who I had this conversation with last night But you know You're listening right now I get a text message last night Like, ah, man, all these people are turning on Donald Trump. You know how many times I've heard this, folks? Do you have any idea? I've been in the MAGA camp with Donald Trump since 2016, okay? I was not the earliest adopter. I've been candid about that. But I was a pretty early adopter. Do you have any idea?

1:27:22Tell me in the chat how many times you've heard this. We got him this time. This is it. The Republicans are definitely there. But it never happens. the political graveyard is littered with people who said oh we're going to take out Trump from the Republican side it never happens I've heard this a thousand times I texted the guy back please stop the insanity do you have any idea how many freaking times I've heard this here's a tweet I saw from a polling site about Trump's approval rating political polls new Trump approval. Now, this, to be fair, this is the last week. Approval. 50%. Disapproval.

1:27:5846%. If this drops in the same poll to like 36%, then maybe you got a point. It won't. It won't. Well, definitely Republican congressional approval is going to tank on this too. Okay, well, new generic ballot poll. March 2nd. Republicans, 50%. Democrats, 50%. I thought we were getting killed. I thought we were getting killed. I thought President Trump is historically unpopular. Congressional Republicans are going to get destroyed. That poll result was March 2nd. We'll see. I'm a facts guy. We'll see. Polls come out. By the way, I'm going to see fair polling, not liberal polling. Polls come out, and Donald Trump takes a 20-point drop in a poll.

1:28:46Okay, maybe you've got a point. But I'll make the point again. even if that were the case, I'm positive that's not going to happen, that sometimes leadership is about making really unpopular decisions. By the way, leave it to Politico for their, is this the first Republicans pounce we've done since I've been back on the air? You know Republicans pounce when left-wing outlets, Democrats like Politico, they never want to talk about Democrats' dumb decision-making. So when the Democrats do something stupid, they make it about the Republican reaction. Republicans pounce. Here, look at this one. Republicans use Iran strikes to pressure Dems and DHS funding fight.

1:29:27So just to be clear, Democrats shut off DHS funding in a time of national crisis. There's like a bombing campaign going on with the Debt to America crowd. The Democrats don't want to pay the Department of Homeland Security their literal name. And instead of Politico calling out the Democrats, they do the Republicans pounce. Republicans use Iran strikes. Once you see it, you'll never unsee it.

1:29:54All right, folks, we covered a lot of material today. Sorry about that mishap in the beginning, Anthony. I structured the show a certain way, and I got a little sideways on that one in the beginning. But I really appreciate you tuning in. This matters to me so much. Have a couple of favors to ask. I hate asking, but it's early. We're getting back. Our audience has been gone for a year. Please go to Apple and Spotify if you wouldn't mind following our show there. It's easy. It's free. It takes a minute. Just go to Apple Podcasts. Wherever you get your podcasts, click that follow button, Spotify as well.

1:30:23And then if you go to Rumble, rumble.com slash Bongino. Some of you are watching now, but if you're listening on those other platforms, hit that follow button. It's absolutely free. You'll get a notification when the show goes live every single day at 10 a.m. Eastern time. You can watch it on demand at any time. Download the Rumble app. Download the Rumble wallet. Check out Rumble Shorts while you're there. It's exploding. Very popular. Rumble.com slash Bongino. and check out Haley Karania and Vince at 12 and 8 a.m. respectively as well at Bongino Report. I'll see you all back here tomorrow at 10 a.m.

1:31:18See you next time.