In short
Megyn Kelly and guest Sagar Anjeti discuss the U.S.-Iran war’s claimed tactical successes vs alleged strategic failures, the Strait of Hormuz’s economic consequences, and domestic blowback including rising U.S. terror attacks. They also debate whether the war is driven by nuclear concerns and how escalation traps work.
Guests
Sagar Anjeti is co-host of Breaking Points with Crystal Ball; he argues Pentagon/administration claims often overstate results and that air power can’t easily dislodge regimes. The episode also includes segments with Isabel Brown and Brianna Lyman (poetry segment mentioned, but their backgrounds aren’t provided in the transcript excerpt).
Key claims (Anjeti)
Hegseth’s “crushing” narrative is contradicted by visible Iranian leadership presence during Quds Day in Tehran and by historical evidence (Professor Robert Pape) that air power alone rarely ends wars. Iran’s retaliation is framed as asymmetric economic warfare aimed at allies and global shipping. The conflict is described as an “escalation trap” (LBJ-style “breaking point” logic) that can force open-ended commitments like occupation, not just strikes. The war is portrayed as strategically harmful to U.S. deterrence against China due to interceptor and munitions depletion.
Notable examples
Quds Day parade in Tehran; Bloomberg reporting ballistic missile firing remaining constant; comparisons to Vietnam (body counts vs strategy) and Iraq/Afghanistan (tactical wins vs long-term failure); specific U.S. incidents including a tanker crash over Iraq and synagogue attack in Michigan; economic examples tied to Hormuz including diesel/fertilizer price spikes, potential helium shortages affecting chip production, and commercial shipping disruption.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOThe Iran War Coverage
0:00 to 0:20
Megyn discusses the overwhelming media focus on the Iran war and its implications.
“And let me tell you, game day is serious business at my house.”
The Iran War Coverage
0:34 to 0:58
Megyn discusses the overwhelming media focus on the Iran war and its implications.
“Choose Power Home Remodeling and remodel how you think about remodeling.”
The Iran War Coverage
1:41 to 3:18
Megyn discusses the overwhelming media focus on the Iran war and its implications.
“And if you were to check any news site, you would think the only thing going on in the world is the Iran war because everybody's devoted to it right now.”
Recent Terror Attacks in America
3:18 to 5:24
Details on recent domestic terror attacks linked to the ongoing war tensions.
“He was ultimately taken down and killed by heroic students in the ROTC class.”
Military Reports and Skepticism
5:24 to 7:12
Sagar Enjeti joins to analyze military claims and the realities of the Iran conflict.
“against a CNN report that hit late last night, claiming the U.S.”
Discussion on Military Strategy and History
7:12 to 14:00
A critical examination of military strategies in Iran and historical parallels.
“Put it in perspective for us because you have diametrically opposed information coming now.”
The Reality of Iran's Political Landscape
14:00 to 18:00
Explore the complexities of Iran's regime and the challenges of regime change.
“And so that's why those frameworks matter.”
The Economic Implications of War
18:00 to 22:50
Understand the potential global economic fallout from the conflict and rising prices.
“Well, this is one of the things that many people who are skeptical about the war are worried about.”
The Effects on Global Food Supply and Resources
22:50 to 27:20
Discuss the impact of war on food production, diesel, and essential resources.
“But he, a month ago, diesel gas was at$3.65,$0.66 a gallon.”
Political Ramifications of Economic Pain
27:20 to 28:00
Analyze how economic struggles influence U.S. politics and party approval ratings.
“And President Trump, what was the one thing he was able to really brag about at the State of the Union?”
Show all 50 chapters
Republicans and Senate Projections
28:00 to 28:30
Discussion on current Republican projections for the Senate amid economic concerns.
“With his little economic graphs, he was pointing out that now for the first time in months, the graph has gone so far down in terms of what it looks like in terms of whether the Republicans might lose the Senate.”
Impact of War on the Economy
28:30 to 29:24
Exploration of how the ongoing war is affecting mortgage rates and economic stability.
“That's only a five percentage point lead on whether the Republicans will hold on to the Senate saga.”
Media Critique of Foreign Policy
29:24 to 30:10
Analysis of Secretary Hegseth's criticisms of media reporting on U.S. foreign policy.
“So we're already watching the spiral for equality of life here at home.”
Consequences of the Growing Conflict
30:10 to 32:44
Discussion on the escalation of conflict in the Middle East and its implications.
“He's not happy with the media headlines in sort of an extraordinary moment that we're really not used to from somebody in this powerful position.”
U.S. Military Strategy and Commitment
32:44 to 34:30
Examination of U.S. military strategies and commitments in the Asia-Pacific region.
“As we're speaking, CENTCOM just reported that all six who are in that refueling aircraft are dead.”
Strategic Concerns Over Resources
34:30 to 36:51
Discussion on the strategic implications of U.S. military resource allocation and its allies.
“We have actually fired so many munitions in just these two weeks with that interceptors.”
Escalation Trap in War
36:51 to 39:59
Insight into the political dangers of war escalation and historical context.
“This is not a war that any of us support.”
Historical Context of Military Engagements
39:59 to 42:00
Reflection on past military engagements and their unpredictable outcomes.
“So that's why you don't get into these damn things in the first place.”
The Unpredictability of War
42:00 to 45:50
Exploring the complexities and unpredictability of military conflicts and their unexpected outcomes.
“Nobody in August 1914 said we're still going to be at war in four years.”
Military Operations and Consequences
45:50 to 49:00
Discussing the implications of military operations in Iran and the potential for escalation.
“And that caused even the crazed lunatic Lindsey Graham to say to Israel, you might want to watch what you bomb.”
Bill O'Reilly's Insights on Iran
49:00 to 50:20
Analyzing Bill O'Reilly's claims about Iran's nuclear capabilities and the U.S. response.
“We'll continue the discussion, but take the minute to go.”
Bill O'Reilly's Insights on Iran
51:14 to 51:37
Analyzing Bill O'Reilly's claims about Iran's nuclear capabilities and the U.S. response.
“Me, Reese Witherspoon, in London, ordering fish and chips so often they might start wrapping me in paper.”
Revisiting Nuclear Threats from Iran
52:20 to 56:00
Further discussion on the claims surrounding Iran's nuclear ambitions and the associated risks.
“And that's why Steve Whitcoff communicated to Trump like they're just never going to make a deal.”
Iran's Threat and Regional Conflicts
56:00 to 57:26
Discussion on Iran's military actions and the implications for regional stability.
“47 years of saying death to America, death to Israel.”
The Complexities of U.S.-Israel Relations
57:26 to 1:01:42
Exploration of the U.S.-Israel alliance and its impact on Middle Eastern geopolitics.
“decisions, not really sure what's even worse.”
Negotiating with Iran: Mistakes and Misunderstandings
1:01:42 to 1:05:22
Analysis of the U.S. negotiations with Iran and the implications for future talks.
“We don't have interests there nearly as much as the country of Israel does.”
Nuclear Proliferation and Global Reactions
1:05:22 to 1:06:40
Examining the potential global consequences of nuclear proliferation amidst conflict.
“this action has now probably been the cause.”
Trump's Foreign Policy Decisions: A Retrospective
1:06:40 to 1:10:02
Reflecting on Trump's decisions regarding the Middle East and their long-term effects.
“So 2 ,500 Marines up to going to the Middle East, according to this report from the Wall Street Journal.”
Messianic Complex and Iran's Leadership
1:10:02 to 1:11:48
Discusses the implications of messianic beliefs in Middle Eastern politics, particularly regarding Trump and Israel.
“And so, you know, Trump in this case, I think he just believes in his own either messianic complex, which Bibi continues to feed into.”
Critique of Military Interventions
1:11:48 to 1:13:17
Explores the consequences of military interventions in the Middle East, emphasizing lessons learned from Iraq and Libya.
“It takes a while for Syria also to fall apart.”
Disappointment in National Security Officials
1:13:17 to 1:14:18
Expresses frustration with national security officials' shift in stance towards military action in Iran.
“But the reports are today, just today in Politico, there's a report about J.D.”
Vice President's Skepticism on Iran
1:14:18 to 1:15:50
Analyzes the vice president's previously skeptical stance on military action in Iran despite current support.
“I don't believe for one second that J.D.”
Debate on Iran's Nuclear Facilities
1:15:50 to 1:17:25
Debates the effectiveness of prior strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities and the misleading narratives surrounding them.
“And so in some ways, yeah, can we sympathize with the vice president job?”
Israel's Military Campaign History
1:17:25 to 1:19:17
Reflects on Israel's military campaigns in Iraq and Syria and the potential outcomes of the current situation with Iran.
“New York Times were disputing in their reporting saying, that's not true.”
The Need for Caution in Foreign Policy
1:19:17 to 1:20:29
Emphasizes the importance of caution and accountability in U.S. foreign policy decisions regarding Israel and Iran.
“I don't even really begrudge them for acting that way.”
Transition to Culture Panel
1:20:29 to 1:21:54
Sets the stage for a lighter discussion on cultural topics following the serious conversation about Iran.
“So we're going to bring on a culture panel in a second.”
Transition to Culture Panel
1:22:22 to 1:23:04
Sets the stage for a lighter discussion on cultural topics following the serious conversation about Iran.
“Relief Factor loves hearing from pain-free customers and hopes they can help you next.”
Stephen Colbert's Departure and Cultural Commentary
1:23:08 to 1:24:00
Discusses Stephen Colbert's long goodbye and critiques the media narratives surrounding motherhood.
“The absurd Stephen Colbert goodbye tour continues.”
Stephen Colbert's Departure and Late Night Comedy
1:24:21 to 1:26:26
A critical discussion on Stephen Colbert's exit and the current state of late night comedy.
“Let's start with Stephen Colbert, who just is completely overestimating the amount that anybody's going to miss him.”
Hollywood's Disconnect and Political Commentary
1:26:26 to 1:28:43
Analyzing Hollywood's perception of comedy and its political implications.
“If people are watching it in the evening, clearly means that you are the funniest person on the face of the planet.”
James Tallarico's Rising Influence
1:28:43 to 1:31:44
Examining the political rise of James Tallarico and his controversial remarks.
“That would be a much more interesting man to play.”
Christianity and Radical Politics
1:31:44 to 1:34:46
Discussion on the intertwining of Christianity and progressive politics in modern discourse.
“Is it going to be someone like a Zoran Mamdani that's holding Muslim prayer services in the New York City mayor's mansion and Gracie mansion?”
The Regret of Parenthood in Modern Culture
1:34:46 to 1:37:41
Exploring a controversial piece on parental regret and societal perspectives on motherhood.
“Now we're not great on immigration, but we're very solid on the trans issue.”
The Joys of Motherhood vs. Societal Expectations
1:38:00 to 1:40:39
Exploring the personal joys of motherhood in contrast to societal pressures and misconceptions.
“It's the vast, vast majority of time now.”
The Joys of Motherhood vs. Societal Expectations
1:40:40 to 1:41:25
Exploring the personal joys of motherhood in contrast to societal pressures and misconceptions.
“because no one wants her in any place else in the world.”
The Joys of Motherhood vs. Societal Expectations
1:42:41 to 1:43:08
Exploring the personal joys of motherhood in contrast to societal pressures and misconceptions.
Challenges of Parenthood: A Critical Discussion
1:43:08 to 1:50:44
Addressing the struggles of new parents and societal expectations regarding family and career.
“channel, Sirius XM 111, and on the Sirius XM app.”
Meghan Markle's Expensive Retreat: Worth It?
1:50:44 to 1:52:00
Discussion on Meghan Markle's luxury retreat and the implications for attendees.
“I've told the story before, but at our school's career night, I urged the head of school to, I'm like, it's great, you can bring in the doctors and the lawyers and the journalists and whomever else you want.”
Critique of Meghan Markle's Event
1:52:00 to 1:57:33
Discussion about the details and implications of Meghan Markle's event and her public persona.
“They say that what you're going to get is a gala dinner, an in-person conversation with Megan, Duchess of Sussex, a powerful women's session with renowned therapist, Dr.”
Cultural Commentary on Authenticity
1:57:34 to 2:01:56
Exploration of the concept of authenticity among public figures and its impact on youth.
“being such a virtue for young people in particular.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00It's Charles Barkley here with Wayfair. And let me tell you, game day is serious business at my house. If I'm grilling, chilling, and watching hoops, my outdoor setup better be ready to play. That's what Wayfair wins. From patio seating and umbrellas to grills and grill accessories, Wayfair's got it all. And it shows up fast. I'm talking fast and easy delivery. So level up your grill game and your outdoor chill game and head to Wayfair.com to get your outdoor space ready for the season. Way fair, every style, every home. Exterior Remodels Inner Monologues. Brought to you by Power. The house looks good.
0:35Like, really good. That siding? Stunning. The roof? Elevated. Windows? I mean, wow. The process? Smooth. The neighbors? Jealous. Choose Power Home Remodeling and remodel how you think about remodeling. Schedule your free quote on windows, siding, roofing, and doors at powerhomeremodeling.com. Power. Our work shows. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at New East.
1:12Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show. and day five from our remote tropical location as my children celebrate spring break. But I am not. I'm happily with you guys in the mornings and with my family in the afternoons. And that's been working out okay for me. I'm not going to lie. There was some evening celebration last night, which is making this morning slightly fatigued for me, but not bad. Not bad. It's great to be with you all. There is so much happening in the world. As you know, it's been like drinking from the news fire hose. And if you were to check any news site, you would think the only thing going on in the world is the Iran war because everybody's devoted to it right now.
1:52I mean, truly, it's like, it's amazing to me how news disappears when a big story comes because every reporter in the world is obsessed with Iran. I wouldn't say we're obsessed with it, but we're very, very concerned about it. And this is part of the challenge is figuring out what's real, what's propaganda, not just from their side, but from our own, and how the war is really going. Defense Secretary of War Pete Hegseth had another presser this morning with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Dan Cain, and came out swinging. He too has a job of trying to spin us. I mean, that's part of his job. And he's good at it because he comes from TV and Fox News.
2:34And so So with him too, I respect Pete and obviously advocated for him, but you've got to be somewhat skeptical as a reporter and a news consumer about the just sweepingly positive reports he gives and also the sweepingly negative reports the president's critics drop online. It's been an effort even for us, and we're in the news business, and my team and I have been working together for 20 years, some of us. And even we are struggling to figure out whom to believe and where to discount the reports. While all this happens, not surprisingly, already we are seeing an increase in domestic terror attacks here at home.
3:17There were two troubling incidents yesterday here in America. You know, one terrorist previously convicted of attempting to provide material support to ISIS might have wanted to have eyes on this guy, shot and killed the chair of Old Dominion University's military science department and wounded two others. He was ultimately taken down and killed by heroic students in the ROTC class. That terrorist was a naturalized citizen from Sierra Leone. And in Michigan, how's it going in Michigan, guys? How's everything out there? A naturalized citizen from Lebanon rammed his car packed with explosives into the Temple Israel Synagogue.
3:58All right, luckily, the only person killed in that attack was the attacker. And truly, it is a blessing. But that guy rams his truck in there full of explosives, starts shooting. 30 of the teachers and others, and the firefighters too, I think it was, and the cops have been hospitalized due to smoke inhalation because he set the car on fire and then he also started to shoot up the room, the facility, but amazingly no one else was killed. We saw the terrorist attack down in Austin. We're going to see more and more of this because this is how radical Muslims who are over here in America will start their retaliation.
4:39This is what they can do. They may not be able to defeat the U.S. military, but they can do this. They can grab a gun and go shoot up a bar in Austin. or go to a temple. The meantime in Iran, the U.S. is staying on offense, with the military saying today will be the heaviest day of attacks yet. President Trump pushing back on the narratives in the corporate media. He's posting on True Social this morning. If you read the failing New York Times, you would incorrectly think we are not winning. Watch what happens to these deranged scumbags today. They've been killing innocent people all over the world for 47 years, and now I as the 47th president of the United States of America and am killing them.
5:16What a great honor it is to do so, unquote. Secretary of War Pete Hexeth, as I mentioned, taking to the mics and pushing back hard against a CNN report that hit late last night, claiming the U.S. underestimated Iran's capability to shut down oil shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. Watch. Or more fake news from CNN. reports that the Trump administration underestimated the Iran war's impact on the Strait of Hormuz. Patently ridiculous, of course. For decades, Iran has threatened shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. This is always what they do, hold the Strait hostage. CNN doesn't think we thought of that.
5:58It's a fundamentally unserious report. The sooner David Ellison takes over that network, the better. That reference is to Paramount CEO David Ellison, whose company agreed to acquire CNN's parent company earlier this month, with the deal expected to be finalized later this year. Joining me now for a reaction to all of this and more is Sagar Anjeti. He's co-host of Breaking Points with our friend Crystal Ball. Our sponsor, the Electronic Payments Coalition, says Washington politicians are always getting in your wallet, and now they're messing with your credit card. They say your credit card and the security it offers are under attack and that Senators Dick Durbin and Roger Marshall want to change the nation's payment system to benefit corporate megastores like Walmart and Target at the expense of everyday Americans.
6:47Credit cards can keep your payments secure and provide rewards that families use to help make everyday purchases more affordable. The Electronic Payments Coalition says the Durbin-Marshall mandates would let corporate megastores cut corners on credit card processing, routing transactions over cheaper, untested networks with weaker security and fewer protections. Find out more at guardyourcard.com and consider telling Congress to guard your card. Sagar, welcome to the show. Great to see you again. Put it in perspective for us because you have diametrically opposed information coming now. Pete Hegseth, the way he spoke about this war this morning was we are just crushing it.
7:26We are moments away from ending I'll give you a little bit more. Here he is on SOT1. Listen. We said it would not be a fair fight, and it has not been. Over 15 ,000 enemy targets have been struck. Their missile volume is down 90%. Their one-way attack drones yesterday, down 95%. They are exercising sheer desperation in the Straits of Hormuz. Something we're dealing with. We have been dealing with it, and don't need to worry about it. Soon and very soon, all of Iran's defense companies will be destroyed. Iran's leadership is in no better shape. Desperate and hiding, they've gone underground, cowering.
8:10That's what rats do. With every passing hour, we know and we know they know that the military capabilities of their evil regime are crumbling. So do we believe that's true? I do not believe that that is true, Megan, and I think that you did a very important caveat near the top. It's not a personal call out for anybody involved. You and I have been involved with this business to see many people take that Pentagon podium and almost all of them lie directly to your face in a time of war. So let's just assess the facts as we actually know them. The latter one where Secretary Haig said that Iranian leaders are hiding like rats in a ground is literally categorically untrue.
8:49Actually, today was the Quds Day parade that happened in the streets of Tehran where the entire Iranian top echelon actually took to the streets with a crowd of tens of thousands around them. the national security advisor, the foreign minister, all giving statements in the streets being followed by the security guards with cameras that were in front of them, effectively saying, we are not afraid, as you could actually hear Israeli and U.S. strikes that were happening in the background. Right. So there you go. You can actually literally see it in front of you. They don't look like rats. They were hiding in the ground to me on the statement that were happening there at the top about Iranian missile production.
9:26That is a very, very difficult claim to assess. But we can look to history. Yesterday, I interviewed Professor Robert Pape. I highly recommend everybody go and engage with his work. He's the preeminent American scholar on air power, and he has consistently noted that air power alone is almost impossible to dislodge a regime, which is really what this war is about. Now, even in terms of reducing the enemy's ability to produce, let's assess that through history. We do know, of course, even with allied bombing near air superiority over Germany, the German war production actually peaked in the year 1944.
10:02We also know that the Iranians have had 47 years, of course, as the president said at the top in his Truth Social post, to plan and to disperse their entire production facilities underground, many of which are inaccessible. So we may have hit 90 % or 95 % of what we know about, but of course, there are unknown unknowns in war, as Donald Rumsfeld used to say to us at the height of the Iraq war. And I also will say this, you know, Bloomberg reported just this morning, Iranian ballistic missile firing has actually remained constant through the war, especially when you match it, you know, they're saying that their strikes are reducing, our strikes are actually reducing as well compared to the original first days of the war.
10:42And I really want people to remind, I want people to put in some historical context of what's happening here. A lot of the statements from Secretary Hegsteth and General Cain really remind me of General Westmoreland from MACV or Military Assistance Command Vietnam. What they would emphasize are these amazing numbers, the body count. We killed 292 Viet Cong yesterday and we bombed X amount of hectakers, removing them from the enemy. But what about the strategy? So while we were killing these millions of North Vietnamese or Viet Cong, were we winning the war? And the answer was no, right? It says strategically, it was a massive defeat.
11:17So do not get distracted, as many of us saw in the Iraq war with shock and awe. Well, Shakinah was a supposedly incredible military success, but strategically it was a nightmare because it led to a civil war, ethnic sectarian conflict, and some 7, 18 years of occupation in Iraq, not to mention Afghanistan. We easily defeated the Taliban, but it took 20 years, and of course they're back. So we need to actually assess the strategic picture from a high level and not fall for what the military always likes to do about numbers of targets that have all been hit. And also just take a look at some of the things that have happened to us.
11:54Let's take a look at our strategic picture, our domestic picture. And we're watching already seven Americans who have been killed in action, four just yesterday who have been confirmed dead in this tanker crash that happened over Iraq to remain missing. A French soldier was tragically killed also yesterday, one of the first KIA that they've had, obviously, in quite a long time, not to mention thousands of Iranian civilians, Lebanese civilians as well, civilians in Israel. There are soldiers in Kuwait, civilians all across the Gulf who've had debris who have fallen on them. So this is a regional and global conflict now at this point.
12:33that we unleashed, that we chose to go over and unleash, which I want to return back to in a second because there was an interesting discussion between Glenn Beck and Bill O 'Reilly. O 'Reilly claimed to have information clearly from the White House, although he didn't source it that way, on why we got into this war, and I'd love to get your take on it. Before we get to that, though, you mentioned Professor Pape. He was very interesting. University of Chicago on your show. We pulled a little bit of it. Recommend going back and listening to the whole podcast for everybody. But here's Sop 13. Four.
13:02So as this thing unfolds, we need to understand that we really, really have touched off the escalation trap in a way. And the biggest problem is that President Trump just is losing control. And he's going to try to get the control back. But so, too, did Lyndon Johnson. I was going to say, that's the LBJ trap. We can call it that. It's the LBJ trap. It's the same. They're, I think, mesmerized by this illusion of control of escalation. And you even hear President Trump saying, when will Iran reach the breaking point? That was exactly the rhetoric of LBJ. How can we break the back of the North Vietnamese?
13:45And that search for the breaking point, there's actually articles with those titles. The search for the breaking point, you see. And that language, I mean, I don't think Trump probably went back to the speeches of LBJ. This is the reality of the frameworks. The frameworks force this, you see. And so that's why those frameworks matter. Well, that's what's scary, Sagar, because, you know, I was talking to some guys last night and they were very supportive of the president and this war saying, we're going to get in there. We're going to get rid of these mofos at the top, the Ayatollah and his top henchmen.
14:22And we have a real shot at returning Iran to the 1970s Iran where the women were walking around in Western clothing. And we have a government that's friendly to the United States. But then when you get down in the nitty-gritty of how? Have you considered the IRGC, like how strong they are, how entrenched they are, how many of them they are? How are we going to get them to put down their guns? Who exactly is going to make them do it? What members of the regime have yet to fall, and how are we going to take them out? Like it gets a lot more complicated. Oh, beyond complicated. And with great respect to those individuals, that's incredibly magical thinking.
14:55And I think you're falling for some memes about photos of women in Tehran and not the reality of a country of 93 million people. Okay, one third of the United States population. Let's remember and just think about how you might be able to transpose a picture, let's say, of Los Angeles and try and take that as representative of the entire nation. It would be ridiculous, of course. So let's just understand, first of all, that we're dealing with a highly complicated country. Now, also, let's take it back to the work of Professor Pape, and this is the scariness of it, is that initially it's very clear that the White House expected an enormous tactical and strategic success.
15:29They would have smashing strikes. They would take out the highest salon of the regime. The regime would immediately fold, and then they would come and that they would say, OK, cry uncle. They would surrender. Instead, what happened is they went for maximal retaliation with what they have in their arsenal, which is asymmetric warfare. They want to inflict maximum economic pain on the American and global economy. They also want to be able to strike to every U.S. ally. They want to use up a vast portion of U.S. interceptors and munitions. Hopefully we can return to that because our defense readiness picture right now is a nightmare after only just 12 days of war, dramatically weakening us vis-a-vis China and our ability to project power across the globe.
16:08But really, this is the history of all wars. What happens is that you have an initial expectation of success. The enemy gets a vote. And so what happens is it morphs from an initial tactical encounter, let's say, between the U.S. military and the Iranian military to now, if we want to break the back, as Professor Pape said there, then we must engage in total war. And to engage in total war, that means we have to remove the capacity of the Iranian people to make war upon the United States on the Gulf and to close the Straits of Hormuz. That is not just regime change. That requires occupation. That requires nation building.
16:44And that is effectively what we are in an escalation trap of right now. And this is why we never succeeded in Vietnam, because we tried to exactly copy this mistake. LBJ very often would think that dropping bombs, let's say the number of bombs in World War II, was equivalent to success. Obviously, that was not the case in that conflict. What would have needed would a literal occupation of the entire country, a commitment to staying there forever, to consistently engage in counterinsurgency, to build the nation, what we did in Germany and in Japan. You've mentioned and I've talked about with Tucker about unconditional surrender.
17:24Unconditional surrender, let's be very clear, requires dropping atomic bombs. It requires a full style occupation. Remember, the Soviet Union took 400 ,000 casualties in 1945 alone, advancing on Berlin. That's what unconditional surrender means. It means you break the back of the enemy and completely destroy their capacity, their will to fight, occupy them, and then rebuild and impose your martial will upon their soul. These people will fight to the death. And unfortunately, that is the project that we are now engaged in in conjunction with the nation of Israel. Well, this is one of the things that many people who are skeptical about the war are worried about.
18:06Because now that we're in this fight and, you know, now what is Iran's goal with respect to Israel now? I mean, more than ever, for sure. They already wanted to wipe them off the face of the map. That really was a goal. But now have they backed off of that now that they've been attacked? Obviously at Israel's behest and explicitly per our secretary of state and others. So what does Israel do? Like it's already been reported that Trump understands this decision has to be made in tandem with them. even though this is a country of 9 million and we have 350 million and we have our own concerns here.
18:37Apparently, we're treating ourselves as equal partners in this thing as opposed to the senior partner. And what incentive does Israel have to stop this thing before there's complete annihilation of everyone at the top of the Iranian regime, which means tens of thousands? And if we stop before then, what does Israel do? I mean, what weapons do they unleash on Iran and where does that take us? Right. Of course, Israel is a nuclear-armed power. And by the way, they're much more likely to use their nuclear weapons, actually, than we are, considering the asymmetry exactly what you just talked about.
19:09That's why they became a nuclear armed power. But this is where let me make it very clear is that Israel and the United States have completely divergent interests. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave a speech just yesterday where he bragged about how Israel is now becoming a, quote, global superpower. This is effectively his goal in getting the United States into this conflict. The United States and Israel have completely divergent interests in Iran. In Israel, what they want is total regional hegemony. They could care less what happens to Iran, whether they have the Ayatollah in charge, which is over a rump state, whether it's a thriving democracy, they could care less.
19:46What they want is a literal civil war rump state, which they can easily control, which is what happened in Syria. Now, not to mention the refugee crisis that came out of Syria. Not any Syrian refugees that are in Israel, but there's a lot in Europe, aren't there, and in Turkey, and a lot of our NATO allies. For them, destroying the state and actually destroying the regime is the point because they want to eliminate Iran as a polity that is capable not just under the Iranian regime but ever from being able to pose a regional threat to their hegemony in the region. The United States has an immense interest in stable Iran.
20:24Why? Look at the Strait of Hormuz crisis that's happening right now. You don't want jihadists and groups to be able to control various different portions of the strait. Already, Donald Trump has the highest gas prices of his entire presidency as of this morning. Diesel is on its way to$5 a gallon, which, as we all found out under Biden, means massive food inflation for all of us because anything that needs to be trucked across this country, that has the price of diesel baked into that good whenever it gets to a store that all of us are going to consume. I'll just interrupt you briefly. So my husband wrote a book called The Mysterious Case of Rudolf Diesel.
21:02And it was about the inventor of the diesel engine who lived in the late 1800s, early 1900s. And he was the Elon Musk of his time. He won the World's Fair in 1900 with his new exciting engine. And the reason we have diesel gas is because you have a diesel engine. It's like this guy who most people think diesel is a lowercase word. It's not even a proper noun, but diesel was the man who invented it. And his engines are everywhere, everywhere. The entire world economic society is based on the diesel engine, much more so than the gas engine that the rest of us use for our cars. And when Doug came on my show, my husband, to promote the book, we talked a little bit about how ubiquitous diesel gas and the diesel engine is and just how dependent the entire world economic system is on the diesel engine and diesel gasoline, which is currently skyrocketing.
21:48Here's just – we pulled this out just to – because no one can say it quite like Doug did. Watch this. This is the guy whose engine power, it's the most important power source over the last 100 years in the world and continues to be our most important power source. When you consider a piece of fruit grown in a tropical region, all of the farm equipment used to grow that fruit is diesel powered. It gets loaded onto a truck. Anything larger than a passenger car and a third of the passenger cars also is diesel powered. It goes down to port where a crane, diesel-powered, loads it onto a cargo ship.
22:22100 % of cargo ships. I think there's one Russian nuclear cargo ship that doesn't really work well. Cargo ships are all diesel-powered. It goes across the oceans into a port, back onto another truck to a train. Almost all trains are diesel-powered and have been through the 20th century. So nothing moves without the diesel engine. It completely powers our global economy. We wouldn't look anywhere near what we look like today without diesel. A month ago, diesel was it, right? It's interesting, right? Yeah, that's awesome. Doug Frank does his homework. But he, a month ago, diesel gas was at$3.65,$0.66 a gallon.
22:58And today it's at$4.89, as you said, almost$5 a gallon, which means it's not only going to hurt people who drive cars with diesel engines, it's going to hurt the entire world economy for the reasons Doug just outlined. Absolutely. Well, shout out to Doug. I'm going to have to buy his book because I became obsessed with the price of diesel during the Biden crisis because this is exactly what happened, especially after the war in Ukraine. But let me zoom out even more because it's not just about diesel and gas fertilizer. So fertilizer is skyrocketing in price. A significant portion of it actually comes through the Straits of Hormuz.
23:34Already, our own farmers are reporting spot price increases of up to 70 percent. All of us know that's going to be passed on to us with food. What's actually even more tragic is that what that means is that while Americans and first world countries will just have to pay a lot for food, third world countries will actually go without – we could have a full-blown crop shortage if this war continues going on. I'll give you another one, helium. Almost 30 percent of the world's helium comes from Qatar. Qatar currently, all of that helium is bottled up with the Straits of Hormuz. That is vital to chip production.
24:07So TSMC, semiconductors, what the entire global economy is currently running on with respect to AI. We've already seen all that helium begin to come down and offline. What that means for all of us is a chip shortage, which means what we saw in the COVID crisis where people were buying cars with no electronics in them. There were shortages of, let's say, phones, laptops, computers. I mean, the ripple effect of this already almost two-week war is titanic to the global economy. Now, people may say I'm being alarmist, and you're right. I am being alarmist because I currently expect what Robert Pape has laid out there is an escalation and continuation of hostilities.
24:49And let's take the word of the secretary of defense of the president and of the Israeli prime minister that this is going, quote, four to five weeks, four to five weeks of this much oil offline is going to be a literal nightmare for many of us. Now, we can mitigate some of that, which what they're doing with the Jones Act and the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. But I'm setting the global context so that Americans and people who are listening to the show can say, what am I really getting out of this? And I think that's the most vital question for all of us. I've seen a lot of criticism of people like you and I who are skeptical of the war, and they're like, you never would have made it in World War II.
Read the full transcript
25:23That was multi-year. And I'm like, well, we were attacked in that one, and we were declared war on by the Nazis. This is a little bit different because there was no congressional authorization. There's no real case that was even made by the president. We just decided to do it, I guess, on behest of the state of Israel. There was no preparation. There was no buy-in. I mean, just this morning, the White House press secretary is retweeting a poll from Mark Dubowitz, who's one of the preeminent regime change lobbyists here in Washington, where it literally says there's only 41 percent of all adult approval for the war.
25:59And I think like 27 percent approval whenever it comes to independent voters. I'm not bragging about that if I were the White House. And that is an unpopular war at the beginning. I mean, do you remember the Gulf War? President Bush, H.W. Bush, had 90-something approval rating, and he lost the election. George W. Bush had titanic support for the war in Iraq, shamefully, I think, because many of us were duped by the mainstream media at the time. But even that, of course, became a quagmire and a nightmare. And people think that it took years. It actually didn't. By 05, people were well and fed up with the Bush administration and their case for the war.
26:38And so we are on track for an accelerated timeline, actually, for many Americans saying, why am I paying X amount for groceries? Why am I paying$4 a gallon at the gas pump? I mean, do you know what the price of gas is in California? It's like$5.35 a gallon. There's like tens of millions of people who live out there. So it's already a nightmare. And we're talking about today. Going into this conflict, before we launched this conflict, the rating of foreign policy with average Americans in terms of importance was like literally down at the bottom without any percentage points above three at the most.
27:13Everyone was saying the number one issue is my pocketbook. I can't afford anything. Inflation is making the groceries too expensive, my mortgage too expensive, my car too expensive, my gas too expensive. And President Trump, what was the one thing he was able to really brag about at the State of the Union? Gas prices. He was very proud that he had brought down gas prices. which are now starting to skyrocket again because of all of this, which, as we discussed, will jack up all the other prices too. It doesn't stop when oil goes up at gasoline. And meanwhile, when asked, like, do you care about foreign policy, like literally nobody said yes.
27:43It was like Ben Shapiro and Mark Levin said, yes, I do, and drove that number up to like one percentage point. Even the caring about crime had fallen way down. It was the economy, the economy, the economy in terms of people's issues. And still Republicans were losing. Still they were rejected to lose the House. Now, what's his name? Is it Nate Silver? Yeah, Nate Silver. With his little economic graphs, he was pointing out that now for the first time in months, the graph has gone so far down in terms of what it looks like in terms of whether the Republicans might lose the Senate. March 31st, there was a huge gap between Republicans and Democrats when it comes to projections on the Senate and which party will win it in 2026.
28:25Wow. As of today, it's 53-48 Republicans over. That's only a five percentage point lead on whether the Republicans will hold on to the Senate saga. And it's directly correlated to the beginning of this war. So like the losses, the economic pain that's about to be foisted on the people, the unhappiness that's going to be foisted upon people who are already focused on the economy, not foreign policy. And now the potential loss of the U.S. Senate. Think you want to see Republican approval ratings drop. Watch them lose the Senate. Yeah. Yeah, you're absolutely right. Not to mention mortgage rates, housing that I'm 33 years old.
29:00That is the number one issue for my cohort. My ability to buy a house, to have children, to be able to raise them where I want to and not have to have both parents working like 90 hours a week in order to just say, you know, strapped for cash to be able to afford whatever lifestyle, which is like a bare minimum compared to how it used to be. And by the way, mortgage rates ticked up already as a result of this war to 6.11 percent. So we're already watching the spiral for equality of life here at home. And look, let's take the president's State of the Union. Iran was like minute 70. It was the longest State of the Union in history.
29:35He barely spent any time on it. And then a week or so later, we're already launched into this foreign adventurism, which the White House really, I have to assume, believed that it would just be easy. This morning, Secretary Hegseth lambasted the media for that report about what they expected. Yeah, go ahead. Let me play that. Yes. So Hegseth came out swinging against the media. CNN was one because he was mad that they had written that we had not anticipated the Iranians closing the Straits of Hormuz. And he was like, of course we anticipated that. Don't be ridiculous. But he had wider criticism for all the media.
30:10He's not happy with the media headlines in sort of an extraordinary moment that we're really not used to from somebody in this powerful position. But here's how that went in SOT2. No quarter, no mercy for our enemies. Yet, some in this crew, in the press, just can't stop. Allow me to make a few suggestions. People look up at the TV and they see banners, they see headlines. I used to be in that business. And I know that everything is written intentionally. For example, a banner or a headline, Mideast War intensifies, splashing on the screen the last couple of days, alongside visuals of civilian or energy targets that Iran has hit because that's what they do.
30:55What should the banner read instead? How about Iran increasingly desperate? Because they are. They know it and so do you, if it can be admitted. Another example of a fake headline that I saw yesterday, war widening. Here's a real headline for you for an actual patriotic press. How about Iran shrinking, going underground? I mean, patriotic press is a problematic term because we don't get paid to be patriotic. We get paid to just report the facts, and whether they reflect well on America or not, we're supposed to report the facts. Now, it's also true that we shouldn't run around bashing America as a knee-jerk reaction, pulling down American flags from the background of our shots like they made me do at NBC.
31:42But a patriotic press in times of war has no obligation to just do puffery on behalf of the administration. Keep going, Sagar. Oh, absolutely. Let me just – yeah, let me linger on that because I was raised in Bush country, and here's a phrase I remember very well. To support our troops, you have to support the war. That is the mindset that Secretary Hegseth is saying. And no, Mr. Secretary, that is not how we will be supporting our troops. We will be supporting our troops by accurately reporting the news and also mourning our dead, which again, by the way, we were told during the Iraq war you cannot properly mourn the dead without supporting the war.
32:19It's actually the height of anti-patriotism or cultish insanity behavior to do the opposite. So let's – I mean I can't even believe that he's upset with the headline Iran or Middle East conflict widens. That's empirically true. We had 10 different nations which were embroiled in this conflict. At the beginning of this segment, I just talked about multiple US service members who crashed and were tragically died in that incident. By the way, that just got updated. Yeah. As we're speaking, CENTCOM just reported that all six who are in that refueling aircraft are dead. Originally, we thought it was four and two had survived.
32:53All six are dead. So the death toll now up to 13 service personnel at least killed in this war and hundreds more wounded. Keep going. Yeah. 13 Americans who are now dead. I mean, look, I got to say, my heart breaks for these people. And one of them, the one story that stuck with me the most is Declan Cody. He was 20 years old. He was born four to five years after 9-11. What are we doing here? One of these other sergeants in the Space Force, he was 26 years old. That's how long ago, that's almost how long ago 9-11 was. Just consider that. This person who's dying in a Middle Eastern conflict who was born four to five years after this entire mess was unleashed on the globe.
33:33That's how bad our strategy and our leaders have failed us in this moment. So let's just zoom back to what the secretary is saying. He's basically lambasting the press for accurately reporting the widening of the conflict, the debts here of American service members, and not just releasing press releases, basically touting his target packages or number of strikes. We have learned too much that these so-called numbers and target packages and all of this that get purported as tactical successes often result in strategic failure. And just bringing it really back to America and its own interests. I also think like, what is the number one national security interest of the United States?
34:13It's to deter a conflict with China and it is to protect our allies in the Asia Pacific. Why? 50 % of GDP will be in the Asia Pacific in just a four year period. President Trump also sees his relationship with China as the preeminent relationship that he has to manage. Well, how's that going for all of us? We have actually fired so many munitions in just these two weeks with that interceptors. These are the most, some of the more highly advanced interceptors that are able to shoot down incoming Iranian missiles that we actually already have had to pull them out of South Korea. Now, let me remind everybody what the GDP or the bilateral trade relationship between the United States and South Korea is$240 billion.
34:52Do you know what it is with Israel? $50 billion. Israel is like number 50 or something down on the list. The entire GCC, I think, is more than all of Israel. GCC or the Gulf countries that we are also allegedly supposed to be protecting, many of whom are all saying we have been abandoned by the United States. They're prioritizing Israel over us. They're totally re-questioning their security relationship. All of these bases, to hundreds of millions of dollars in damage, has already been done. We are watching the press. I read the daily South Korean press. They are all asking questions. Is America still here for us in Japan, in Taiwan?
35:29There are op-eds and things flying around the Asia-Pacific looking at the amount of munitions that we are expending and saying, how are these people supposed to defend us? They don't even care about us right now, and they're wasting it on this useless conflict. Also, we are inflicting maximum damage on these economies. Japan gets 90 % of all of its oil from the Middle East. They've already had to do a massive strategic petroleum reserve release. Their stock markets, we're nothing compared to them. At one point, they were down 14%, 15 % just in a single week of trading as a result of this war. These are real allies, okay?
36:06Samsung, you know, Seoul, South Korea, we fought and died with these people in the Korean War. They sent many troops over to fight with American troops in Vietnam. Japan, I mean, God, what, the number three trading partner in the world? Taiwan is a top ten trading partner as well. They've got to be asking some serious questions about the capacities of not just the U.S. military, if we were to defend them, which is an open and a fair question, but even the munitions that we'd be able to give them because we've got nothing left. The Financial Times, many others, saying that we have already expended, quote, years of munitions in just a 10-, 12-day conflict.
36:40So this is a strategic nightmare. And again, for what? I'm willing to expend those munitions if it is critical to the national security interests of the United States. It's a war of choice. This is not a war that any of us support. It is a war that's going to inflict pain on us here at home. It's destroying the country of Iran. It's actually making them, if anything, stronger, the Iranian regime, which allegedly this entire thing was supposed to be about, and they're hardening. They're going to fight to the death, and they've made that very clear now. They're not rolling over as easily as we apparently thought they would.
37:12The interceptors are a real problem. We don't have enough to combat the missiles and the drones that the Iranians are unleashing, not just on us, but on our military bases in the Gulf countries and on the Gulf countries themselves are allies who we've agreed to protect. And some of them have come saying, did you give any thought to what would happen to us? Did you plan on how to protect us as we're seeing bombs rain down on Dubai, for example, which is taking a lot of incoming, many of our other friends in the Middle East who are genuinely friends of ours and great trading partners who are now feeling exposed and like we didn't live up to our promises, not to mention all the problems you mentioned because of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
37:54And Pete Hexeth says that we did plan on the closure or what would happen in the Strait of Hormuz. But if we did plan, then why is it closed? Why can't we get ships through there? Why can't commercial vessels get through right now? President Trump threw out. We'll have the U.S. Navy escort ships that want to go through it. But that quickly went away because he was reportedly told we are actually not ready to do that. Our military can't do that. And there was also blowback on whether American parents want to see their sons and daughters on U.S. ships risking their lives to get oil through the Straits of Hormuz to send off to China.
38:27Is that really the mission? And all in the name of Israel, by the way. It's not even for a war that's helping the United States. So right now we're not doing that. So the Iranians do have an effective veto over this. And there's a real question about how we ever can secure it. How can we – because they've got potentially mines set up in the Straits. They've also got missile launchers on the shores that are proving problematic for us. And there's a – I've heard credible military experts say without sending ground troops in to go stand along the shorelines of the straits, we're not going to be able to secure this in a way that's going to satisfy commercial shippers.
39:04You're exactly right. And guess what? By the way, even for those military experts, I hope that they also informed you that if you want to put troops on the shoreline, then you also have to have troops in the rear to make sure that nobody can fire. on the troops on the shoreline. So that would be a massive deployment. This is the escalation trap that Professor Robert Pape talked about, is that you find yourself in an unexpected situation politically. What did LBJ often say? I'm not gonna be the first American president to lose a damn war. That's what he would often say in the situation room. And he would push them to escalate, to escalate, to escalate.
39:35And at every point we would say, okay, let's send more American blood into the battlefield. And that will change it this time. And at every point, what we found out is that we were losing strategically while allegedly winning tactically. And that's what actually a full-blown ground troop invasion of Iran and securing of the Strait of Hormuz, that would be the definition of a supposedly tactical success. Because even at that point, let's think about what the cost of that would be, not just for the sustained deployment, the political and strategic implications. So, yeah, we might lower the price of gas, but now we're in a multi-decade occupation of the country of Iran and fighting an insurgency with the Civil War and a collapse of the state and refugee crisis, which is flooding the entire region.
40:20So that's why you don't get into these damn things in the first place. And I'm very worried. I do not see a way that this president will be able to get himself out of this one without – That's the thing. No one doubts, I think, few doubt that Trump doesn't want that, that he thought this could be quick, cut off the head of the snake, and we're going to have a better Iran. He definitely doesn't want some extended Middle East war. Trump does know that that would be a political death knell to any future Republican election over the next five, six, seven, maybe ten years. But the risk is that we're saddled with it because what if they – how are we going to reopen the Straits of Hormuz?
41:03Like, what is the plan to do that? Are we actually going to risk American lives by escorting commercial vessels through there? What are we going to do about mines? Are we going to risk American service personnel getting blown up in the name of reopening this passageway? And by the way, what is the American appetite for the loss of blood and treasure over there? There was one thing when we had Al-Qaeda killing 3 ,000 Americans one day who just went to work. It's another when we started it. And the basis for starting it, which I'm going to get to in a second, is really, really questionable. But let me make one point first.
41:35Now we have 13 dead U.S. service personnel, which is the same number that died at Abbey Gate, Sagar. And after we had Abbey Gate under President Biden, where he tried to pull all the troops out of Afghanistan, and it was a disaster, and it wasn't well run, and we had people holding on to our airplanes as they were flying out of Bagram, which we gave up the base, his approval rating fell and it never recovered it never never recovered here's a here's a chart that shows where it went down and it never went back up and that's the last thing we know now we've got 13 one week into the war a week a week plus um where does that go right because yeah great wars it's it's not it's not easy to predict how the deaths are going to happen this was a refueling plane saga it wasn't even shot down by the iranians it wasn't even you know it was a it was an accident midair that wasn't brought down by friendly fire or enemy.
42:28Right. Remember this, guys. Nobody in August 1914 said we're still going to be at war in four years. The plan was for a six week quick war and excursion, all like the ones that we had seen before. This is why, by the way, I think that the Venezuela operation ended up being a nightmare because it convinced the president and many of the inner circle of those around him that that's how easy all military operations could be. And I mean, and I opposed that vehemently at the time. And I think it looks pretty good in retrospect is that this mindset of this madness, right, of just we can go in and we can do whatever we want.
43:05Well, we've all seen there's a lot of military history books that are behind me. What the way the great men operate, we can all understand this. It's like a gambler at the craps table who's on a hot roll. Statistically, it shouldn't be working, but it's working and it's working and it's working. But eventually that seven is going to come up. And that's exactly what has happened now in this Iran conflict. So you just laid out the Straits of Hormuz. I have bigger questions about not just this. That's an economic question. I have a question specifically about Iranian missile development the longer that this goes on, because then the entire raison d 'etre for this war, the casus belli, is supposedly nuclear material.
43:41Well, by the Trump administration's own admission, that nuclear material has not been secured. How do you secure it? Oh, you're going to have to send special operations. Problem. The Iranians know you're coming. So to protect those special operations, you'd have to deploy a large ground force to secure the entire area to battle all of the people who would want to target your special operators while they're going and securing that. In modern-day warfare with satellites, et cetera. Right, exactly. So think about the nightmare and the logistical implications of each of these supposedly easy off-ramps.
44:15So the off-ramp here, Trump can go get the nuclear material and declare victory. Oh, wait, but that's going to take a titanic American ground deployment, thousands of troops, who knows how many casualties. He needs to secure the Straits of Hormuz. Great. Now we just signed up for a huge nation-building and or exercise. size. Nobody in the Iraq war. I mean, do you remember Donald Rumsfeld? He said, I don't know if it'll take six days, you know, six, six weeks or six months, but I can tell you it's not going to be more than a year. I remember all of these things. Yeah. I mean, Dick Cheney said that about Iraq.
44:48Nobody in 2001, October of 01 would have said we're withdrawing from Afghanistan in 2021. You think LBJ wanted to be in Vietnam in 1968? That's the point of all of these examples is that You get into them, and they become open-ended even when you wanted it closed because you are no longer in a controlled system. We could control the diplomacy between these two nations, but we cannot control this now, especially with Iran in the classic situation of asymmetric warfare but with nothing to lose. They have nothing to lose except to fight to the death. They have a hardened political will. Their population was supposed to rise up.
45:30Didn't happen. Totally fake, right? I mean, instead, we're actually seeing a huge rise of nationalism in the entire country. So now what? We want to foment a civil war? Part of the problem is the bombing of their fuel depots, their oil depots, which literally caused oil to be raining down on the faces of the Iranian people, their children, their babies in strollers, anybody who goes outside now after that happened. And that caused even the crazed lunatic Lindsey Graham to say to Israel, you might want to watch what you bomb. Actually, you might have gone too far. I mean, when Lindsey Graham is telling you you've gone too far in your bombing campaign, something very, very wrong has happened.
46:09But you mentioned that this is a war of choice, which I agree with. This is not what the administration says. Of course, the administration says we had no choice. Trump says I had a feeling. I believed that they were about to develop a nuke, that they almost had a nuke. And now we had an interesting conversation that I heard today between Bill O 'Reilly and Glenn Beck, in which O 'Reilly seems to be shedding more light on that. We're going to play part of it for you now. Watch. Reached a period in time, in history, where the CIA, NSA, all of our intel jibed with the United Nations and said, look, we knocked out a lot of their nuclear capacity in June of last year.
46:51But they have satellites and are close to being able to put together 10 nuclear bombs. Okay, 10. And I don't think the Trump administration is going to mind me saying this, even though it hasn't been made public. But I'm a reporter and I have the information. So Ms. Saad went in and said, look, on this Saturday, the Ayatollah and 25 of the Stugs are going to be in this place at this time. So what do you want to do? Now, that was after three months of negotiations with the Iranians to stop their nuclear weapons program. And the last negotiation in Geneva, Switzerland, the guy, the foreign minister of Iran walks in and says, you know what?
47:42We're not stopping. Blank you. We don't care what you say. We're not stopping. And Whitcoff, our chief U.S. negotiator, had a report back to Trump. So that's the information Trump has. Number one, they're close to 10 bombs. Number two, they're all going to be drinking tea on Saturday morning in this spot. And number three, they're saying blank you to the U.S. government. They're not going to stop. That's how the decision was made. But the president believes that he will be victorious in the next month or so. Puts us into April, puts us into China with Xi. And he believes he's going to have momentum after basically dismantling Iran, because that's what they're doing now.
48:31They're just wiping out its capacity to do anything, which is not easy. And that's why you're seeing the short-term pain. Now, people believe what they want to believe, and the president is no exception. If it comes his way, then he becomes a great president, which he wants, his legacy. If it doesn't, then Republicans will probably lose in November. So that's where we are. A lot to unpack there, Sagar. We've got one minute, so we have to take a break on SiriusXM. We'll continue the discussion, but take the minute to go. I'm privileged to be alive to have Bill O 'Reilly lie to me twice in my life about WMT in the Middle East.
49:11I'm sorry, that's preposterous. That is – there's no evidence for that from the IAEA. If that were true, the Trump administration would have said it. Remember, the only reason that they say that we're in this war is that Israel forced our hand and that even whenever it comes to nuclear, they say that they were creating a ballistic missile shield for their potential nuclear capacity. There's been no DNI release, no CIA release, no even fake Colin Powell vial that can be held up, no yellow cake, no Judy Miller. So if there were even a remote case that that were true or as true as WMD in Iraq, they would have said it.
49:47They didn't say it because it's complete nonsense. That is completely manufactured consent afterwards that is being put out there to justify some of the feelings for the people that want to continue to be in this war. And if you don't believe Sagar, I'm going to play for you when we come back. Top Netanyahu advisor, Ophir Falk, who gave an interview to NBC's Richard Engel on the reasons we got into this war. And we will see what he says on whether there were 10 or 11 nuclear bombs that Iran was close to. Stand by. Quick break. More with Sagar right after this. Think about this. In 2006,$20 ,000 equaled roughly 33 ounces of gold at spot price.
50:27At today's prices, those 33 ounces would be worth about$165 ,000. That's why many smart Americans diversify a portion of their savings into precious metals. And it's why you should consider buying gold from Birch Gold Group. For thousands of years, gold has been a store of wealth. And today, it's a crucial part of any balanced strategy. Even better, Birch Gold can help you convert an existing IRA or 401k into a tax-sheltered retirement account in gold. Just text MK to the number 989898 to receive your free info kit on gold. There's no obligation, just useful information. With an A-plus rating from the Better Business Bureau and tens of thousands of happy customers, let Birch Gold help you diversify with gold.
51:07Now that's peace of mind. Again, text MK to the number 989898 today. Picture this. Me, Reese Witherspoon, in London, ordering fish and chips so often they might start wrapping me in paper. I'm traveling with my Wells Fargo Autograph Journey card, so I earn rewards wherever I book travel. Five times points with hotels, four times with airlines, three times on restaurants and other travel, and one point on other purchases. Imagine getting rewarded for eating a toad in the hole. Wait, what is a toad in a hole? Visit wellsfargo.com slash autographjourney. Terms apply. Game day at my place is kind of a big deal.
51:46If I'm grilling, chilling, and watching hoops, my outdoor patio setup better be ready to play. That's where Wayfair wins. From patio seating and umbrellas to grills and grilling accessories, Wayfair's got it all, and it shows up fast. I'm talking championship-level fast and easy delivery. So level up your grill game and your outdoor chill game and head to Wayfair.com now to get your outdoor space ready for the season.
52:16Back with me now, Sagar Anjeti, co-host of Breaking Points. So we were discussing Bill O 'Reilly's statement that his reporting reflects that Iran was close to 10 nukes, that they went to Trump and said the Ayatollah and his thugs are having a meeting and there's an opportunity, and that after three months of negotiations with the Iranians, the foreign minister of Iran had said, we're not stopping the nuclear enrichment, so go F yourselves. And that's why Steve Whitcoff communicated to Trump like they're just never going to make a deal. And Trump felt that he had no choice. Now, let's just stay on number one for a second here, that they were about to get 10 nuclear bombs.
52:57This is what top Netanyahu advisor Ofer Falk just told Richard Engel. Now, just listen. Listen to Richard Engel repeatedly try to get to what exactly was the imminent threat. Now, you would think, given this, you would say right off the top, they were close to 10 nuclear bombs. That's the imminent threat, Richard Engel. Watch how this goes, SOT10. What information did you have that Iran was about to carry out an imminent attack? One good indication was that for 47 years, they've been saying death to America, death to Israel. Believe it. That's 47 years, but why that day? And they were ramping up their capabilities with the ballistic missiles.
53:36They're stringing along the negotiations. They always lie. Listen to your negotiators. They'll tell you the truth. They're stringing them along. They always lie. And it was an imminent threat. And we removed that imminent threat. I still don't understand what the imminent threat was, that they were going to attack Israel, attack American bases, attack the U.S. An imminent threat of what? All of the above. All of the above. They were threatening their neighbors. Look at what they're doing now. They're shooting at all their immediate neighbors. You know, the mask is revealed. These guys, it's a death cult that not only called and killed Americans for 47 years and Israelis for 47 years, now they're killing their neighbors.
54:15Of course they're attacking, they're firing now because they're under attack. There's a hot war going on. I'm trying to understand what started this war. They slaughtered thousands, tens of thousands of Iranians. They slaughtered them on the streets. 30 ,000 innocent people were slaughtered on the streets in a matter of days. It's a death cult. It's a death cult, and we're removing that threat. President Trump said that Iran was weeks away from developing a nuclear weapon and potentially using one. Is that Prime Minister Netanyahu's assessment as well? Well, we know that they wanted it. We know that they were planning it.
54:53We know that was the imminent threat. You see today what they're doing with the oil. They're blackmailing the world with the oil. They would blackmail the world with the nukes. President Trump is saving the free world right now. But were they just weeks away from having a nuclear weapon? Well, that was their intention. I don't know if it was weeks or months or whatever it was, but it was an imminent threat. And certainly the ballistic missiles that they were trying to bury underground would have been immune. And then what? We'd leave this threat for our kids, for our grandkids. No, we've got to do it now.
55:29I'm sorry, Saagar, but there it is, black and white. You, the top advisor in Netanyahu, would say, Richard, they were within weeks of having 10 nuclear bombs. That's an existential threat to Israel. What choice did we have? How many times, he said 47 years, they've been saying death to America, death to Israel. Also, they have ballistic missiles, which they were ramping up, and they were stringing along the negotiators. Nothing, nothing about nuclears. And then he says, so it was an imminent threat. Engel says, what? What was the imminent threat? You know, everything. It was all an imminent threat.
56:04Look at them now. They're shooting at their neighbors. It's a death cult. 47 years of saying death to America, death to Israel. Richard Engel. Of course they're shooting now. It's a hot war. But they slaughtered tens of thousands of their own people. Now this is a new reason, the slaughtering of their own people when they protested a few weeks ago. It's a death cult, Richard Engel. Were we weeks away from having a nuke in Iran or not? Well, we know that they wanted it. They wanted it. They were planning it. So no, that's another way of saying no. It was a desire, but not a capability. And Richard Engel again says, were they weeks away?
56:36And he says, well, it was an intention. It was their intention. So that's an imminent threat. And they had the ballistic missiles. Again, back to the ballistic missiles. Even Israel has abandoned the nonsense about the nuclear bomb about to come from Iran, but we're still hearing this from our own administration and obviously the reporters to whom they are talking.
57:26Yeah, you're exactly right. decisions, not really sure what's even worse. But you could see very clearly that they are not even trying to sell that level of BS right now. And this actually highlights the problem of getting in bed with Israel in this conflict, because again, we have very divergent goals. They want to collapse Iran as a polity ever capable of making war upon them or restraining any of their regional ambitions, be it in Syria, be it in Lebanon, be it in the West Bank, be it in Gaza, be it in Egypt potentially. I wouldn't put that one off the table or with Turkey, which is a NATO ally.
58:03And let's not forget that the Israeli prime minister or the former Israeli prime minister, Naftali Bennett, has already declared that Turkey is the next one. And as well, let me play that. Let me play that because he keeps doubling down on this. Like he, this is Naftali Bennett. We're not even two weeks into our war with Iran and he's already threatening one with Turkey. It's like, well, exactly how many of our friends in the Middle East are we going to attack in order to please Israel? We've already heard that we may be attacking Cuba, maybe taking over Cuba soon. And now we're hearing about Turkey.
58:37He keeps saying it over and over. Here is the latest. Let me just ask you whether there's a risk of further confrontation with Turkey based on comments that you've said in the past. Well, we need to ensure that Erdogan doesn't create a new alliance of radical Islam Sunni version, meaning an axis between himself, Jolani, Qatar and Hamas. we we've been facing for many decades the shiite radical islam and i hope that turkey doesn't choose to foment terror and islamism uh in in its power it's up to turkey ultimately if they seek peace we definitely want peace but if they try and surround us with terror we will not sit idle Go ahead, Sagar.
59:36Yeah, Turkey, by the way, is the country that we have an actual treaty obligation to defend in NATO, shall I remind everybody, and actually has had two ballistic missiles fired at them at our bases, which are in Turkey. We've had relationship with Turkey for so long that, remember, the missiles that were stationed there were the precipitous conflict of the Cuban Missile Crisis back in 1962. That's how long our relationship with that nation, our military relationship, goes back. But again, it just highlights their regional ambitions. Also, his idea that he cares about Jolani, the al-Qaeda leader in Syria, is ridiculous.
1:00:11They love Jolani. They helped put him in power. Why? Because he doesn't care that Israel wants to basically annex and control a significant part of his country and is effectively giving up any claim over the Golan Heights. It's about Israeli regional hegemony. They cannot have a powerful Islamic state like Turkey with a NATO alliance of the United States, which poses any regional threat to their hegemony. That's why Prime Minister Netanyahu brags about becoming a, quote, global superpower. And I don't even contest that at this point. You have effectively either controlled or co-opted the world's preeminent superpower for your own regional designs, and you have nuclear weapons.
1:00:51That is just empirically true at this point, but that's their aim, not our aim. Our aim is stability in the region is actually balancing our alliances. This entire region, by the way, while, yes, it may be important, it's not nearly as important as the Asia Pacific. It is a giant magnet that sucks U.S. resources, attention, money from all of these other important problems, be it the Asia-Pacific, be it the mortgage rates of my friends and their ability to buy houses, be it the gas price that all of us will have to find a diesel. And every time we go to the grocery store and to buy something that's been trucked from across the country.
1:01:31And that's the problem with this entire thing. It's been 20-something years now of my life of this magnet just sucking the life force out of this nation. I'm not talking about Israel. I'm talking about the Middle East as a region. We don't have interests there nearly as much as the country of Israel does. I want to ask you how did this happen? Truly, who talked Trump into this? I do want to talk about that. But before we get there, let me just stay on the O 'Reilly reporting for one second and what he was saying about the negotiations, about how they just came in and they were obstinate. and Trump realized they were tapping us along.
1:02:05And like, they just said, F you, that the Iranians said, F you, we're gonna do what we want. I mean, I beg to differ because we watched this unfold. To me, you tell me, but to me, it seemed like we went in there with a list of demands that in no world were they ever going to agree to. And sure enough, they didn't, but they were discussing it with us and that we were in the midst of a negotiation, which they thought was in good faith when we then bombed them. And there's a real question about whether American credibility is intact or in tatters after that. Oh, it absolutely is, because we were literally negotiating them with them twice before we ended up bombing them.
1:02:39They said, fool me once, shame on you, but fool me twice. At this point, why should they take any sort of negotiation or diplomatic action seriously? I can tell you unequivocally, I have sources that were involved in these negotiations, and I can tell you exactly what went down in those rooms. What happened is that while the United States was demanding, quote, no nuclear weapons. What we were actually demanding is no nuclear enrichment, literally of any kind. Even that I can somewhat understand. But remember, those two things are very different, nuclear weapons and nuclear enrichment. Remember when Trump would say they won't say the magic words?
1:03:13That's what he was referring to, not nuclear weapons, nuclear enrichment. Now let's go further down the list. What they don't like to emphasize is that we also told them that they have to give up their ballistic missile program, that they have to basically give away any defensive ability, that they have to stop Israel from wantonly attacking them at any time or place of their choosing, and they have to give up this nebulous term of, quote, supporting terror. There was never any definitional term that was given to them, oh, you can't support Hezbollah anymore, you can't do this. They basically just said you have to stop supporting terrorism in the region.
1:03:47Remember, the JCPOA, the Iran deal, which is how most of you may know it. Now, there's a lot to criticize about the deal with sunset clauses, etc. It took like two and a half years to negotiate with some of the world's preeminent nuclear experts actually writing down certain levels of enrichment, of enforcement. There was none of that that was involved in the Wyckoff-Kushner negotiations. negotiations. And so the Iranians basically were presented with, first of all, ridiculous demands, but second, changing demands, changing terms from the presidents of the United States, who would say one thing about nuclear weapons, but allegedly it's meaning another thing about nuclear enrichment, and then also being presented with effectively surrender.
1:04:26If you gave up your ballistic missile program, that is surrender. You are now in Israeli - And they do need to worry about Israel. Yeah. Look at it. I mean, are they wrong? I mean, they're not wrong, right? And this isn't a defense. I'm not saying these are good people. But you I have a source who sat directly across the room from Kim Jong Un in back in 2000, 2018, 2019. And they said, Why won't you give up your nuclear weapons? We're offering you all of this money. And he said, You ever see that video of Gaddafi who was sodomized on TV? That's why I won't give up my nuclear weapons. And he hasn't.
1:05:00And guess what? Kim Jong Il, he might be one of the most vindicated men in all of history for no one invading North nuclear weapons program. No one's invading North Korea who's got an ICBM capable of hitting the continental United States. Kim family will live and die on the throne of North Korea. I think it's a horrible thing, but that is reality. Now look at the lesson for the world. I would say actually this action has now probably been the cause. We will look back at this as the cause of the most nuclear proliferation in all of history. Already France has said that they are going to accelerate their nuclear weapons development.
1:05:36Poland said that they're going to do it. Japan and South Korea are having discussions about what that would look like. You've got Saudi Arabia with its relationship with Pakistan. You have India and Pakistan as well. So you've got regional allies. I can guarantee you civilian nuclear science programs in any small country in the world is going to explode within the next 10 years. And if you were an adversary of the United States, You should now pay attention to the fact that the so-called axis of evil, the only one left standing, is the one that sprinted to a nuke and always rejected any efforts by the United States to constrain them.
1:06:12This just hitting via the Wall Street Journal, the Pentagon is sending a marine expeditionary unit to the Middle East. They're moving this unit as Iran steps up its attacks on the Straits of Hormuz. According to two U.S. officials, Pete Hegseth has approved a request from CENTCOM, our military body that oversees the Middle East, for the expeditionary unit typically consisting of up to 2 ,500 Marines. Yeah. So 2 ,500 Marines up to going to the Middle East, according to this report from the Wall Street Journal. The move comes, reports the Journal, as Iran's attacks on the strait have paralyzed traffic through the strategic waterway, disrupting the global economy, driving up gas prices, imposing a major military and political challenge for President Trump.
1:06:57A Pentagon spokesperson declined to comment. Again, that's the Wall Street Journal, which suddenly is very friendly with the Trump administration. They've been sort of on the odds in terms of domestic policy. But when it comes to the neocon policies of yesteryear, they are lockstep together, Sagar. So there we have it. That's hope and pray for the safety of those Marines. Let's get to the big question, though. But how did this happen? Because truly, we could run the soundbite. We haven't run it, but we have one queued up. It's got about 20 examples of President Trump when running saying, I don't want war.
1:07:30There won't be a war in the Middle East. If you vote for the other side, you're going to get war in the Middle East. The last thing we want is war with Iran. Like he's on camera so repeatedly saying it. And there's been a war within the Republican Party, you know, a civil war, a rhetorical war about the neocons versus the more isolationist wing. All the young Republicans are in the isolationist wing. I mean, if you want to bet on the future of the Republican Party and keeping people in it, you would side with the isolationists because there's not a person under the age of 40 who's a voting Republican who's in favor of this.
1:08:02They are the ones in that small minority that they keep showing when they show the people who are in support of this. Cora Maga reportedly supports this 90 percent, but the Republican Party, it's more like 77 percent, which is not great. That is actually not great for the Republican Party because the entire Democratic Party is against it and over 72 percent of independents are against it. So how did this happen? Who convinced him? Look, I mean, this is the age old question, but honestly, I think we just have to be honest. I think it was Trump. I think Trump became enamored with his own success in Midnight Hammer and with Venezuela, and he started believing and huffing, you know, all of this Fox News and Wall Street Journal and Rupert Murdoch cheerleading.
1:08:47Maybe he believed Bibi. Look, again, I have no idea what's going on with that relationship, but obviously Bibi and Lindsey Graham are very good at massaging and, you know, feeding into his ego. And he had enough of a recent data set of, quote unquote, successful in his eyes, military operations, obviously failures, I think, now that we can look at them in retrospect or totality with what's currently happened. And he said, no, I'm not going to heed these warnings. I am unique. I am the Uber mentioned, and I am able to succeed here where no other president can. It would not put him all that different from many of the presidents who are lined up behind me, who believed many of the same things about themselves.
1:09:27That's why I've been I unfortunately had to bring out my George W. Bush book behind me very prominently. And there's a reason for that is that I'm just living, I guess, through the exact same playbook. You know, don't forget, Megan, George W. Bush in 2000 ran a campaign where he wanted to withdraw from the world. He criticized foreign adventurism. He didn't want to be the president of neoconservatism. And he ended up in that situation. Honestly, I'll even defend him a little bit. He had to contend with 9-11, where we actually were attacked on 9-11 with 3 ,000 Americans who were killed. That was a defensive war, not Iraq, but Afghanistan.
1:10:01Right, exactly. And so, you know, Trump in this case, I think he just believes in his own either messianic complex, which Bibi continues to feed into. But also Bibi, by the way, is recently talking about the return of the Messiah, if anybody is interested. You know, I don't know if the Israelis know this. You do know we have Google Translate, right? There are a lot of people who speak English and Hebrew. We see what you're saying. Whenever you're not saying it in your perfect English. He's talking about global superpower, the return of the Messiah, Amalek, and the biblical Old Testament stuff.
1:10:32But I can only speculate. Who signed up for that? Certainly not me. I can tell you maybe Mike Huckabee did. He's maybe the only one. But yeah, in terms of Trump— Messianic is the last thing we need in Iran, whether it's the promise of the return, which cannot be orchestrated by man, or in the head of any leader. because the only thing that gets you through this life is humility when it comes to the Middle East, in particular the Middle East, which is a lesson Trump has learned. Trump was one of the first critics of the Iraq War. He saw that it was folly before virtually anybody else. He was very outspoken against it at a time when that was not popular for anybody who said that they were a Republican, and yet he was there.
1:11:13But it seems to me you're right. I don't know if we can declare. I think even though I didn't support the Venezuela operation, I'm not sure if you can say that that was not successful. I mean, Maduro's out of there. Well, I meant in the context of leading to Iran. So like - Yeah, the mindset. Yeah, in the mindset. As in like, yeah, it was a modest, what is it, 4 million barrels of oil they're claiming per day. Sorry, there's like 20 million a day that are currently caught in the Strait of Hormuz, even strategically. Like, that's ridiculous. I also think everyone should learn the lesson at this point.
1:11:42Remember, Libya was allegedly a success until it wasn't. Do you remember how far Benghazi was from the initial no-fly zone? It takes a while. It takes a while for Syria also to fall apart. So anybody doing mission accomplished in the first month or so is ridiculous. I'm very much in wait or see mode. But I'm talking about strategically the mindset which led to Donald Trump. And that's where people just need to be more honest here. Like this is Trump. OK, Trump is the one who decided to do this. Yes, BB, Israel, you know, they drive a huge critic of Israel and many of the things that they have said.
1:12:14But it's Trump. He's the one who gave the go order. And I also think it's a dramatic failure of the vice president and of a significant part of the higher echelon of the national security establishment who are currently in Washington who lied to my face. And I'm not just talking about one individual. I'm talking about multiple. Whenever they went on camera and they said that war with Iran is not on our interest. I have been a part of the professional America First movement, whatever you want to call it, which is kind of an elite network of not elite in the sense that we're better than anybody else.
1:12:46But, you know, people who work in professional politics in Washington, war with Iran was the number one thing we agreed that we weren't going to do. There was an entire staffing project that was built around this, around foreign adventurism, learning the lessons of the war in Iraq, of diplomacy. And now this administration and to have those same officials now be not just complicit, but actively arguing for that in a way where they literally lied to our face some year ago. I've said it before. It's the greatest professional disappointment of my life. But the reports are today, just today in Politico, there's a report about J.D.
1:13:22Vance. The headline is Vance was skeptical voice in White House on Iran strikes that hold on. I pulled screen grabbed it. Yeah. Vice President J.D. Vance was skeptical. He's long questioned U.S. intervention abroad. He's publicly defended Trump's Iran operation, but White House officials revealed that the vice president made his opposition known in the lead up, pulling the curtain open after months of speculation about Vance being far more tepid about military action than Trump. Vance, let's see, Vance is, quote, skeptical and is, quote, worried about success and, quote, just opposes the war on Iran.
1:13:55A senior Trump official said via text message the official was granted anonymity to speak about the VP's views. A second senior Trump official said, quote, his role is to provide the president and the administration, you know, all points of views of what could happen from many different angles. And he does that. But once the decision has been made, he's fully on board. His well-documented skepticism of U.S. military engagement forged in his experiences serving in the Marines, paired with his more subdued tone on Iran and so on. It goes on from there. Now, I believe that. I don't believe for one second that J.D.
1:14:26Vance wanted us to invade Iran. I don't believe that. But I think his job is to, now that we're doing it, be supportive of his president. I think it's ridiculous to think J.D. Vance would be out there saying, I disagree with President Trump. We shouldn't be doing this. I mean he'd be kicked to the curb so fast by Trump. you know, it would make your head spin. So what are you talking about him or someone else? It's not just the vice president. It's a lot of the people who work around the National Security Council. It's about the, you know, people in the Pentagon, on the joint staff, many of the appointees.
1:14:57I don't want to get too personal here because, you know, it's one of those where, you know, I don't even necessarily make sense. I'm just giving you my own report that many of the people who work for the president and in a variety of different ways all agreed this was the one thing that we didn't want to do. We did not want to go to war. This was the one thing that is absolutely true. Like it is literally the one thing like and that's where everyone's like, oh, well, Trump, he's hawkish. Yeah, we know. OK, I never expected Trump to be like a dove on Israel, especially after the Miriam Adelson donation.
1:15:28I was very clear eyed about that. I honestly am shocked that they've even restrained them from taking over the West Bank. That's more than I would have initially expected out of this administration or at least officially taking over the West Bank. But Iran, again, Iran and Ukraine were the two things. I thought we were all rock solid here. These were the things that we weren't going to do and repeat the mistakes of the past. And so in some ways, yeah, can we sympathize with the vice president job? Sure. I mean, John Nance Gardner famously said it's not worth a warm bucket of warm spit. I think spit is the politically correct term he used there.
1:16:03I think he said piss, actually, back in the 1930s. Maybe that's true. You know, he's the most powerless man in Washington. But there are a lot of people in the Pentagon and others on the National Security Council staffers all the way from the low level up to the high, who I know for a fact were people who, you know, not that long ago were preaching against the neocons. And what did Stephen Miller said? Like, Kamala will send your sons to war. They sent all this stuff out in public. I mean, look, many of us believed it, not just because of what they said in public, but again, because of the professional network of people who really made it, you know, one of their missions to replace the so-called Bush neocon establishment and guide the country in a better foreign policy direction.
1:16:45That's why I've said it's a great professional disappointment. And what they say, Sagar, what their president's defenders say in response to that is, but he's always been adamantly opposed to Iran getting a nuke, and he's made that clear over the years. That's also true, which is why, like, for example, yours truly, when we struck Iran's nuclear facilities last June, I actually did think that was a good idea. I did defend the president on that one. You know, it's like, okay, that he has been clear on that. if we have like a clear site and we know we can take them out, okay, then we used, it was a pinpoint.
1:17:14We went in, we got, we went out. It was, you know, beautifully executed. And we were told that we quote, obliterated the nuclear facilities, which people like the Washington Post and the New York Times were disputing in their reporting saying, that's not true. We did not obliterate. The president and the administration, Hegseth all said obliterated. And I accepted that. And I reported it to my audience, obliterated. And now they come back a few months later and say, we've got to bomb them because not obliterated. And then people said, what did you said? Obliterated. And then the administration is like obliterated, but still more.
1:17:45But oh, now 10 bombs, though. What? What? Right. We're being lied to. That's the bottom line. We're being lied to. And we're and we're we're doing it while as we send in twenty five hundred Marines now. Right. Well, I can tell you at some point you have to say, I don't believe what I'm being told. Right. Megan, I can tell you why I oppose that strike. And it's because I knew that Israel was involved. And let me tell you two other countries where Israel struck their nuclear program and said that it was all done and they would never have to do it again. Iraq and Syria. Anyone want to tell me how those countries are doing today?
1:18:15What ended up happening to both of them? They got politically collapsed, destroyed, turned into civil war, either conquered, invaded, or messed with from the outside. I knew that this wasn't the beginning. Once you break the seal here on Midnight Hammer and you open the door for regime change with the Israelis and all of their BS around how we need to go to war with Iran. By the way, it was also clear during the 12-day war, while yes, the U.S. did Midnight Hammer, which was the alleged obliteration of the nuclear program, they were going for broke then too. Remember, they were broadcasting regime change messages.
1:18:49They were striking large parts of the security establishment. They would have killed the Ayatollah then, maybe if Trump had led them, but they definitely killed as many people as they possibly could. So they made it clear that regime change was their goal. I was almost certain that once the dam broke on that strike, that we would get back to where we are. And that's exactly what happened, unfortunately. And so, you know, look, this gives me no pleasure to say, I just I've studied enough of Israel's military campaigns in history to know that when they do that, and especially when they get somebody like Trump, that they're going to go for broke for their own security interests.
1:19:23I don't even really begrudge them for acting that way. I just kind of wish No, it's us. Security establishment, which we do the same. Correct. I mean, you know, at some point you can't fault Netanyahu for pushing his own self-interest and that of Israel. It's really up to us as the senior partner to say, not in our best interest. The answer is no. You've been trying to force this on every president for the past whatever decades, and they've all withstood you, and we will withstand you too. The answer is no. I have to think about the 350 million Americans who elected me, not the 9 million Israelis who have a different goal.
1:19:53It is not consistent. Anyway, Sagar, you've been amazing on this. I've really, really appreciated your coverage on your show, on Tucker, here, and I'm grateful to have you back on our show again to help our audience understand that there's more than one view on this. It's not just the Fox News way. There are a lot of very smart, right-leaning, conservative minds who have very good reasons for opposing what Trump is doing. Well, thank you very much for having me, Megan. I think you've had immense courage in your coverage. I know it's not easy to come under all of that fire, and I just encourage you to keep it up on behalf of the country.
1:20:25So thank you. God bless you. Thank you so much for being here and send my love to my pal, Crystal. It's a funny story for you. So we're going to bring on a culture panel in a second. But Crystal Ball and I met back in my Fox News days. She was running for office, I think in Virginia, if memory serves. And she made national headlines. She had an interesting name, obviously, Crystal Ball. And she got like, I don't know if you might call it revenge porn today by her, I think it was ex-husband who leaked some. It was a PG photo of her, like in her college days, and he tried to like sink her run. And we had her on as a guest, like just to talk about the news story around her.
1:21:04And we bonded instantly. We talked about the name. We talked about what was going on. So that didn't – politics didn't wind up working out for her, but she wound up getting into the cable news biz. And she's a Democrat. She's not a Republican. She's been very critical of the Trump administration. But – and there have been, obviously, with her, with me, with everybody, controversial moments. But I have to say, I've always found her to be a good person, somebody who reports as honestly as she can. She's coming from a place of honesty and trying to find real truth. Our politics are extremely different, but I've always respected her, vice versa.
1:21:35And she's the one who brought Sagar and Jetty into my own world. So I appreciate that as well. They've got a great show. So, okay, we are moving on. Up next, we are going to bring in our culture panel because there is some stuff happening there. And don't we need a lighter note? I mean, Iran is so heavy. the troops, the death, the regime change, the potential quagmire. I love President Trump. I'm totally rooting for Pete Hegseth. I still am a supporter of all of them. I just disagree with this particular action so much, but it brings me no joy to sit and have a conversation like that. And yet I do feel actually a patriotic duty to do it.
1:22:12It is a patriotic duty. That's how I view it. even if you disagree, I think it's important to hear this side, right? You can get the other side virtually anywhere in Republican politics. Relief Factor loves hearing from pain-free customers and hopes they can help you next. One user, Bill, said, quote, I've been crawling under sinks and working long hours for decades. My back and knees took the punishment, and I thought pain was just part of the trade, but Relief Factor surprised me. Within weeks, I was working without wincing. I could get down on the floor and get back up again without thinking twice.
1:22:41Bill knows hard work. He knows pipes, tools, and long days on the job. What he didn't know is how good life feels when pain stops tagging along. Maybe it's back pain or knee issues that's slowing you down, but Relief Factor may be able to help. Relief Factor is 100 % drug-free. It targets the inflammation that causes pain, so you can move better, feel better, and actually enjoy life again. Try the three-week quick start for just$19.95. Go to relieffactor.com or call 800-4-RELIEF. And let's see if you're next in getting out of pain.
1:23:13The absurd Stephen Colbert goodbye tour continues. Why won't he just leave? Why can't he just close the curtains and walk away as opposed to the long, long, long goodbye? We'll get to it in a second. As well as a new piece out in New York Magazine detailing the multiple regrets that women have about having children. Nice. Who sits around and says, what can we highlight? Let's find moms who can't stand their kids. That'll be a great article. I mean, truly only deranged leftists would even want to highlight that that kind of a thing. And then there's James Tallarico, who is going to be the Democratic candidate for Senate in Texas, who continues to be a goldmine when it comes to weirdness.
1:23:56And sadly, he's leading in the polls versus either John Cornyn or Ken Paxton. Now, that's disturbing. Query whether those polls are accurate, but like he's up by a fair amount, which ought to scare us all. Here to discuss it all, Isabel Brown, host of The Isabel Brown Show on The Daily Wire, and first-time guest, Brianna Lyman, host of Countdown to Freedom and elections correspondent for The Federalist. We love The Federalist. Isabel, Brianna, great to see you both. Thanks for being here. Let's start with Stephen Colbert, who just is completely overestimating the amount that anybody's going to miss him.
1:24:31I like this long goodbye. I've never seen anything like it because he had like a year to say goodbye, and I think it's finally going to happen in May, which can't come soon enough. And here he was last night, John Lithgow, on his show, reading a poem for Colbert. Would you look at this? And I tell you, brace your stomachs. The time has arrived for us all to prepare for the doleful departure of Stephen Colbert. How will we last in the gaping black hole that's left in the absence of this merry soul? We've been lavished with laughter for 20 straight years from the genius between Stephen's two mismatched ears.
1:25:17Why does his exit stir up such despair? What mysterious magic imbues late night's air? So why is he cancelled? Why trash all that pleasure? Why yank off the air this beloved national treasure? Oh, my God. Steven's tale is a lesson for all who come after. Beware of a boss with thin skin and no laughter. I just threw up a little in my mouth. I can't, Isabel. I can't with this. Like, you would truly think that this was like a Johnny Carson type, you know, beloved by the whole country where we could all get behind. Oh, we're going to miss him. He's just retiring because he's older now. He wants to play golf, right?
1:26:04But this is he is one of the most controversial people in America. He's being let go because his ratings suck. I don't think that made the poem. No. And honestly, Megan, that's the part that I'm still scratching my head over, not just related to Stephen Colbert, but all of the late night hosts lately. There's this understanding in Hollywood that late night is the epitome of making it and having your own show. If people are watching it in the evening, clearly means that you are the funniest person on the face of the planet. I don't think that's true anymore. And a TikToker is getting infinitely more views than your average late night host and is infinitely funnier in modern American culture.
1:26:42So I really think this is more of a passing of the torch to whatever the next medium is going to be the same way that independent and alternative media are outshining legacy news coverage of everything going on in the world. And I'm anxious to see what comes next, because I think this will breed a new level of creativity and actual comedy coming back to American culture. None of that was funny at all. It was unbelievably cringy. No, and it's amazing to see, like, they always call the Trump fans like MAGA cults, you know, that they're cult members, Brianna. But it's like you look at that, that weirdness by John Lithgow towards Stephen Colbert, who's a truly hateful man.
1:27:19I mean, he loathes half the country. That's cult-like behavior. yeah it is cult-like behavior and you see that in the poem because he sits back and he's basically saying i don't know why stephen colbert is getting the axe and it just goes to show you what kind of bubble all of the hollywood apparatus lives in that they don't understand that when people used to tune in for late night comedy like johnny carson you wanted to step away from the everyday politics the negativity you don't get that anymore when you watch kimmel colbert the rest of them because all it is is shoving their political views down your throat with a few laugh soundtracks in the background.
1:27:54And people are tired of that, which is why the ratings are tanking, but they themselves don't see it. So until they see it, they're not going to rectify the problem. But think about your own life. Like for whom would you sit down and write a long poem like that? Like an ode, like a true love story. Is it anyone on TV? You know, is it somebody like, like a Stephen Colbert? I guarantee they don't know each other. This is just like an aderant fandom that is humiliating to John Lithgow, who is, of course, of the left. I remember he played Roger Ailes in that movie Bombshell and was so quick to come out and like shit all over Fox News.
1:28:35Roger Ailes is like, well, then why'd you star in the movie? Because he had the chance to make him look terrible. That's what he enjoyed about it and had only negative things to say. It's like, wouldn't it be more interesting if you could find some complexity in this character and see that there really was a tug of war between this guy who gave his employees cancer treatments that he didn't have to pay for and this guy who did wind up sexually harassing other employees? That would be a much more interesting man to play. But no, he sees anybody on the right as a villain and a monster. I think he used that term, monster.
1:29:03Okay, monstrous numbers coming out of Texas when it comes to this James Tallarico. I mean, I feel like people like us normies look at this guy and his insanity and say, there's no way this person is going to do well in Texas. And my pal Jesse Kelly assures me he's not going to. So I'm going to go with Jesse. But the polls look bad for Republicans on this. I'm trying to pull up RCP. No, this is the latest poll that just hit out of Senate in Texas. And it shows Tallarico with 48 and Cornyn 42. Keep in mind, we don't know who the Republican will be yet. It's either Cornyn or Paxton. and 49 to Paxton's 42.
1:29:40So he's beating Paxton by seven points. He's beating Cornyn by six points right now. That's terrifying because listen to, here's just one example of his madness. This is him speaking at his home church, St. Andrews in 2025, SOT 53. Christ is the immigrant deported without due process. Christ is the senior deprived of their social security benefits. It's Christ is the protester kidnapped in an unmarked vehicle by plainclothes officers. So a little concerned, Isabel, about how it's not I don't even would describe that as tight, like a seven point lead for Tallarico is actually pretty solid. It's kind of scary.
1:30:23It is scary. And honestly, Megan, it should be scaring a whole lot more people on the political right. I keep hearing that this guy's so crazy. He's so insane. No one will ever vote for him. But I don't think that's generally how the political left is viewing James Tallarico. He is a shining star and potentially the new face of the left because he comes across so normal, shockingly. I know. I know that might be insane for some of your viewers to hear, but they're not covering the more egregious things that James Tallarico is saying, things like defining woman as a lens through which to defeat patriarchy or saying that Mary, the mother of God, is the reason that we should all be pro-abortion, as if we didn't have Jesus Christ come into the world through an unexpected pregnancy.
1:31:06These are the things that he's saying, not just on the campaign trail, but from the pulpit. And yet it's being twisted and manipulated by the media as this form of toxic empathy, where it comes across that you're the person who really cares about the marginalized. You are the person who's doing everything they can to love and accept their neighbor. And in reality, it's actually so hateful for society that you're seeing the erasure of women, you're seeing advocacy for the slaughter of innocent children and a complete twisting of Christianity, the foundation upon which our country was built. I think this is a really scary moment for the left as they grapple with their options of who's going to be our face moving forward, because that's not yet answered.
1:31:45Is it going to be someone like a Zoran Mamdani that's holding Muslim prayer services in the New York City mayor's mansion and Gracie mansion? or is it going to be this facade of Christianity that looks appealing to the average independent voter or someone who's on the fence, but in reality is pushing this extreme leftism just right under the surface? If that's the answer, it's very scary. Brianna, I look at this guy, I actually think he is more radical than Jasmine Crockett. She was squad friendly, but she didn't engage in this kind of extreme rhetoric when it came to Christianity or peddling these far, far left progressive views under the guise of Christianity and God-fearing speak.
1:32:27Here's one. This is bizarre. This is truly bizarre. Listen to what he said when asked a very simple question just in August of 2023. This is top 54. Something that you love that's not family or friends. I love, I'm just saying this because it's on my mind, the trans children who showed up yesterday at the state capitol to advocate for their humanity. They shouldn't have to, but it was an inspiration to watch. Who would say that? That's so bizarre. Like, who do you want to help? Who desperately needs psychiatric intervention? Who's being abused by parents who are working out their own woke politics on their children?
1:33:11Yeah, maybe. But like, who do you love outside of family and you go to trans children. Your thoughts on him? Yeah, yeah. And he could have said anything. He could have said, what do I love? I love football, right? Something that would actually resonate with the majority of Americans and in particular men, because Democrats have lost young men 18 to 29 in large swaths. So they have to work to get them back. But no, he went to trans children and he said they're fighting for their humanity. There is nothing humane about cleaving healthy breast tissue off a child. There is nothing humane about mutilating their body.
1:33:41And we have seen so many detransitioners come out and talk about that mental and physical impact of their choices that they made when they simply were not in the right frame of mind. And instead of getting them the psychiatric help that they need, he wants to double down on this. And to Isabel's point about Christianity, look, we have heard for years that Christianity is the greatest threat to democracy, right? White Christian men are going to tear this country down. But when James Tallarico wants to launder his radical progressivism through his very convoluted interpretation of the Bible, Suddenly it's okay.
1:34:12It's cool. And actually the media is salivating at how he's normalizing Christianity and bringing back Christianity in a way that's okay for the mainstream media because they get to decide what's okay and what's not. Yeah, because somehow now it reinforces all of their weird worldviews, but that's not real Christianity. I mean, this is why when I took a one day excursion into the Episcopalian church, I walked right out of there as soon as she started the homily because it was a female priest talking all about how we need to trans our children and support the trans children. And I was out of there and went right back to my Catholic church, which doesn't engage in that nonsense.
1:34:47Now we're not great on immigration, but we're very solid on the trans issue. And it's one of the many reasons I remained an observant Catholic. All right. Not completely far afield from that soundbite is this piece that I mentioned in the intro from New York Magazine's The Cut. And it's a piece all about regretting being a parent. I mean, truly only the left would sit around and say, you know, it'd be a great thought piece on how many parents hate their children. And they actually managed to find people who hate their children. The one mother they highlight is leaving them. Like she's actually going to peace out because she doesn't want to be with her children anymore.
1:35:23And she doesn't seem to feel particularly bad about it. It ends with my husband and I are taking steps to separate and he's willing to take on the role of a single parent, which makes me feel incredibly guilty. Oh, you're a good person then. But I can't live this life with him anymore. I'm not the parent my son needs. I don't feel anything for him. And I don't want to wait it out for years and walk out when he has actual memories. Oh my God. She talks about how it's been a year, genuinely. If there is a hell, I've been living it since I gave birth. When my son was placed on me, I didn't feel anything.
1:35:57It was surreal. This is a 27-year-old North Carolina mother of a one-year-old. And the more you listen to this woman, the more you think she's doing the right thing. She should get the hell away from that child because all I can think, Isabel, is I feel bad for her baby. Maybe now he has a shot if the father remarries of finding a mom who actually loves him. That was exactly my first thought when I read this piece as well. And it hits me all over again hearing you read those words out loud, Megan, because I'm in the exact phase of life that this young mom is in. I'm 28, so I'm one year older than her, but my daughter will be one at the end of next month.
1:36:30And my last year has been so full of the most magical purpose giving moments that I could have ever asked for in my life. I am such a different person today than I was a year ago when I was anxiously awaiting the birth of my daughter in all of the best ways. But how they are presenting this through this article is asinine and completely disgusting. The brainwashing that they're willing to do to tell young women that motherhood will ruin their life. The way that they teased this article on X, New York Magazine actually tweeted out the three examples of the things you'll lose when you become a mom are disposable income, peace of mind, and a lazy weekend at home.
1:37:08Of course, they'll never tell you that your bank account will never love you back. Lazy weekends are always better when your baby is falling asleep on your chest and you're watching football as a family on the couch and peace of mind. I mean, what a more beautiful way to highlight watching your daughter laugh for the first time that you'll never get to feel otherwise. And now they paint you as a good person if you all out abandon your children. I really think this is the end result of decades-long programming against young women to try to convince us to never want to get married or have children in the first place.
1:37:38But now that they can't do that because we know it's an innate desire baked into us by God, how women are created with this nurturing instinct. Now, even if we lost you and you ended up becoming a mom, we'll just convince you to leave that experience because it's so bad for you. How tragic. I'll tell you. So my kids now, I have three. Congrats on the birth of your daughter. They're now 16, 14, and 12. And there's so many fun. It's the vast, vast majority of time now. It's like 98 % fun and 2 % work at this point. There's more work when they're little. But I will tell you this is about one of the things I miss most about when they were really little, like babies like yours, which is not in the New York Magazine, the cut piece, is in the morning when you walk into their room and they're in their crib, you know, and they're babies and like they've just woken up and they're so happy to see you and they're so sweet their hair smells so good they when they can finally start standing and they hold on to their little crib rails and they're looking at they're so thrilled when you walk in there it's like there isn't an amount of money that you can place on that um i can't quite understand somebody who would commission a whole piece on highlighting only the financial downsides brand i i don't think that you're a mom yet right But when you look at this, does this pull you in any one direction?
1:38:56Do you think to yourself, oh, yeah, no, I better not have kids because look what's going to happen to me? No, if anything, I think of they missed out on writing about all the things that moms gain. You know, my mom talks all the time about all the things she gained by having me and my sisters. And I actually feel bad for this young woman because, remember, my generation has been taught that we should go out and pursue our career and nothing else. That marriage and motherhood are shackles that you have to break away from if you want to succeed. And we've been taught that women don't actually have any intrinsic value, but we have a lot of value.
1:39:26No other person can be a mother, right? No other person has that, you know, kindness and warmth. And we should embrace that and celebrate that. And I unfortunately think that this young mom probably bought that lie, hook, line, and sinker, that she has to be only a career woman and not a mother. And now it's impacting her offspring, which is just awful for this child. Yeah. Now she sees him as an inconvenience that she has to deal with as opposed to an enhancement who will make her life better. And just like the folly of suggesting, oh, there's a lot in here about how, oh, you know, if I didn't have kids, I could just go for a walk and no one would bother me.
1:39:59It might be an isolated life, but it would be a peaceful one. This one woman writes, a different lady, if I could go back, I'd redo everything. My fantasy is an alternate universe where I graduated, I went straight to a doctorate program and lived alone. I mean, like she writes, I would go for walks whenever I wanted. I would go swimming at the end of the week. It would be isolated but peaceful. It's like my future's over now with nowhere else to go. Well, my daughter's is about to begin. It's an ugly feeling. These people have been taught wrong. They've been raised wrong. They're looking at it all wrong.
1:40:31You fold your child into your life. You don't give up your life because of your child. If you're looking at it that way, you're doing it wrong. There's more to discuss. We're going to take a quick break, and we will be back with the panel to finish this discussion and move on to the moron, Megan Markle, who wants you to pay$2 ,000 to go listen to her in Australia. because no one wants her in any place else in the world. I want to tell you about Veracity. It's transforming the way we think about health by focusing on the real root cause of so many issues, metabolism. Their metabolism Ignite formula has become the go-to for many.
1:41:05It's the number one doctor recommended GLP-1 booster and a natural GLP-1 alternative. Veracity says there are no side effects, no allergens, that it's just a plant-based blend clinically shown to reduce hunger by 85 % and help people lose an average of nine pounds in 90 days. Consider making the switch to GLP-1's The Natural Way. Head to veracityhealth.co, C-O, and use the code MEGAN for up to 60 % off your order. Once again, that's veracityhealth.co for up to 60 % off, and make sure you use my promo code MEGAN so they know I sent you. Picture this, me, Reese Witherspoon, in London, Ordering fish and chips so often, they might start wrapping me in paper.
1:41:48I'm traveling with my Wells Fargo Autographed Journey card, so I earn rewards wherever I book travel. Five times points with hotels, four times with airlines, three times on restaurants and other travel, and one point on other purchases. Imagine getting rewarded for eating a toad in the hole. Wait, what is a toad in a hole? Visit wellsfargo.com slash autographed journey. Terms apply. For the first time since 1994, the FIFA World Cup is coming to the U.S., Mexico, and Canada. And while you can't be in three places at once, you can watch all the galazos, backheels, and drama with Sling TV. Sling gives you instant access to the World Cup without overpaying or overcommitting.
1:42:28Watch the games starting at just$24.99 a month. And with games happening stateside, you won't need to quietly sneak into your living room for a 3 a.m. kickoff. Yep, Sling lets you do that. Visit sling.com to learn more.
1:43:08channel, Sirius XM 111, and on the Sirius XM app.
1:43:16Isabel Brown and Brianna Lyman are back with me now, and picking up where we left off with that one woman who said, you know, my future's over now. She's a 30-year-old European mother of three, and she says, I felt like, this is after she gave birth, first of all, she says, we went home, everything was a nightmare. I breastfed my daughter, but I couldn't pick her up because she had had an incision during the birth that left her unable to move from pain. My husband had a month and a half of paternity leave, but the only helpful thing he did during that time was change her diapers, though he did it with a reluctant expression on his face.
1:43:53I had the feeling he never believed how much pain I was in. My mom helped, but she didn't like being disturbed at night. And even during the day, she was afraid of holding the baby or changing her. Already now I'm thinking reading this, you have a bad support system. You don't have a good marriage. you don't have a great husband, and you kind of have a pain in the ass mother. You should have set yourself up better with help from a friend, maybe a sister. You should have married better, that's obvious, and discussed what the expectations would be for shared parenthood when you had a baby. Clearly, you forgot all that.
1:44:21She writes, it felt like I'd been tricked into this. Everyone who wanted me to have a child, my husband, my family, knew they weren't going to lose much while my freedom and identity went down the toilet. Now, that's amazing to me because your freedom and your identity only go down the toilet, Isabel, if you allow it to. You're a working mother right now. Your identity is not only intact, but known by many, many people thanks to the fact that you're out there doing a podcast, having it all. I know you're not allowed to say that anymore, but you are having it all. P.S. It is possible with certain compromises.
1:44:55Yeah. You know, growing up, Megan, my mom always worked full time and she used to say to us three girls that she was raising, you can have it all, but not at the same time. And I've heard different variations of that growing up. But my favorite way that anyone has ever put it was actually from Charlie Kirk a few weeks before he died. He was explaining to a mutual friend of ours who was going through the trenches of parenthood with a very demanding job at the White House and asking, how do you possibly do it, Charlie? You're always on airplanes, and yet you always find time to be with your family.
1:45:22And his answer was, I have a really great team. And our friend laughed and said, okay, fine. So you have a bunch of nannies and you have people who help you at night. and he stopped him and said, no, I have a really great team. It's you, it's our co-workers, it's our friends, it's the people who help us out, no holds barred. And so I think when I hear complaints like this, I'm realizing over time that usually this is less about the family unit of the immediate family there and more about the lack of a village. And in society, we're so normal cutting off your extended family over disagreements of just trying to shoulder it on all by yourself.
1:45:57that's not how you're supposed to deal with this with new life coming into the world. And it really does take a village, be it your coworkers, your friends, your family, the people that you can lean on in that time of support. But because babies aren't out and about everywhere, they're not being taken to restaurants or on airplanes or even on the train to and from work. People aren't used to this idea of needing to pitch in and help these new young families. And I think it's really time for a resurgence of that. Honestly, you married poorly. If you've got a husband who doesn't want to change the diapers and who you feel disdain for after you have the child.
1:46:28And even with your mother, you could sit down and say, mom, I need your help. I know you don't like changing the diapers, but I can't afford a babysitter. I can't afford a nanny. You're it. I'm ill. I've got this incision. I need your help. Like most mothers, if you spoke to them, frankly, would probably step it up. And certainly the husband should step it up. Like these people need to marry better or improve their communication. And then Brianna, they're the ones in this article who are obsessed with money, which is a different kind of God for a different kind of person. And if that is your God, you really should reconsider having children unless you're rolling in dough because they will place a financial strain on you.
1:47:04Here is, they describe this gal as a Rhode Island mother of a six-year-old and a three-year-old. Now she says she had a daughter who was colicky her first year of life. That is very stressful for sure. Then at work, I couldn't put in 70-hour weeks anymore or attend trainings while breastfeeding, so I fell behind. Well, obviously. I mean, like, you're an idiot if you think you're not going to make any sacrifices from bringing another human into your life. Yes, correct. You're not going to be working 70 hours. Boo fucking hoo. Like, there are a lot of gunners. And I know a lot of women on Wall Street, and that's true gunners, who did have to step off the fast track for a couple years, especially when their kids were young, but got back on because they're brilliant and they're gunners.
1:47:44So they actually are going to work and make it up if that's their choice. Others decide this baby is the be-all, end-all, and I have no wish to put myself back on that track. But here's what this woman writes. I live for bedtime. Those two or three hours at night that I squeeze all my living into. She's doing it all wrong. We'll watch movies or play video games, and every now and then I'll try to work on an art project, but by the time I've set everything up, I'm exhausted and it's time for bed. Having a kid turns you into a morning person the way being chased by a bear turns you into a runner.
1:48:16I actually thought that was kind of funny. Okay, but then she writes, but we recently spent all our savings buying a more expensive house because we lived in a terrible school district, and it got us talking. I was able to say to my husband, our life probably would have been better if we didn't have kids. And he was like, you know what? You might be right. I love our children, she writes, and would never want them to think mom and dad would be happier if I weren't here. but thinking about our life without them, I would be happier overall. So for her, it boils down to the almighty dollar. She thinks she'd be richer financially, not richer overall, but richer financially if she just didn't have these two pesky children.
1:48:58First, let me just say that if I was one of these children, I would be so heartbroken when I come of age and can read this and read what my parents wrote about me because no matter how much they express their love to me. I would always feel some kind of guilt in the back of my head that I have encumbered their life in some kind of way. Having children is one of the most selfless things you can do because you do have to pour a lot into a child. And I know I say this as someone who doesn't have a child, but I've seen other parents do it. And it's extremely rewarding, but it's also important just for the betterment of society.
1:49:27And I think that my generation in particular, there has been a major shift. We are a very narcissistic generation. Everything is about us in the immediate, in the now. We don't think long term and we don't really care who we hurt, whether it's a child, our own child, or even someone that we're speaking to, a friend, a boyfriend, whatever it may be. But if you go back just throughout American history in particular, family was the core of a functioning society. You don't have a functioning society without not only a functioning family, but two parents in the household, which is again, something Charlie Kirk spoke about all the times, the importance of having a mother and a father, right?
1:50:03What did the government do in the late 60s early 70s that broke down that family unit and I think you're seeing those repercussions now when you have young mothers who abhor the idea of a strong family unit who abhor the idea of being a mom and again to the hyper obnoxious you know independent girl boss regime that we've all been taught I think a lot of women feel like they are not fulfilling their ultimate societal goals unless they are working 70 hours a week and bringing home a big paycheck because as a culture we've said that being a mother is burdensome right if you choose to be a mother, not a career woman, there's something inherently wrong with you.
1:50:35So we need to change the conversation around what it means to be a mother and celebrate women who want to be a mother and a worker, just a mother or just a worker. Yes, completely agree. I've told the story before, but at our school's career night, I urged the head of school to, I'm like, it's great, you can bring in the doctors and the lawyers and the journalists and whomever else you want. And you should really, really consider bringing in a stay-at-home mom. You should remind these young girls at this all-girls school, this is an amazing path for you. And have somebody stand up there and say, this is why I find it so rewarding.
1:51:10It can be done and there's nothing wrong with it. And it actually is a job and it's available to all of them. If only they prioritize love, relationship, and nurturing and caring the way a mother must do. Okay, let's move on. Megan Markle would like you to spend$2 ,200,$2 ,288 in fact, to spend time with her. You can, if you lock down an early bird ticket, you can get it for$1 ,930,$1 ,900 and$1 ,930. And for this, you can see her at a luxury retreat in Australia where she will be headlining some gathering of women for the podcast, this is not her podcast, quote, Her Best Life. You have to act fast if you want in because it happens Friday, April 17th through April, Sunday, April 19th.
1:52:01This is being hosted by Australian podcast host Jackie O 'Henderson and Gemma O 'Neill, who have recruited Megan, although it later came out that she called them to lead the event, which will focus on powerful conversations, relaxation, laughter, and unforgettable experiences. They say that what you're going to get is a gala dinner, an in-person conversation with Megan, Duchess of Sussex, a powerful women's session with renowned therapist, Dr. Justine Corey, meditation and manifestation session with Gemma, yoga session to start the day, and a beautiful sound healing experience. By the way, when you talk about a gala dinner, you will not be actually like seated at her table.
1:52:44She just might be there. And they want you to know that while you might get a photo app with her, it will be a group photo app. You will not be getting one-on-one, even if you pay for the VIP experience. Now I just did a tour. If you paid for the VIP experience, my listening audience knows you met me one-on-one and we had a picture together. It's the bare minimum you can do for your fans. But with Megan, you might be treated to a massive group ensemble photo, and it'll only cost you two grand. Isabel, how quickly can you get there? Oh, Megan, you know, I really stopped paying attention to anything Megan Markle has ever said.
1:53:21After on her Netflix series, she told young women that her best tip for hosting guests at your house was to take pretzels out of a plastic bag and put them into a different plastic bag and then put them out on your kitchen counter. She is so unbelievably out of touch with where normal people are at. And it's a shame, really, because growing up, I used to love watching Suits. I thought she was a pretty great actress, but she can't even act like a woman of the people. I mean,$2 ,500 plus for a group photo and listening to her speak at a dinner at a larger retreat that sounds fascinating. I would love to know what sound therapy actually is to fix everything wrong in my life as a young woman.
1:54:02It just goes to show you that these people like these late night comedians and even many of these politicians that are running for office here on the left are so in their own reality. We are living in two completely different universes. Oh, Brianna, the way she describes herself in like the billing for this event tells you everything you need to know about her. First of all, this is billed as a girl's weekend like no other. She bills herself as a mother, wife, entrepreneur, and humanitarian. She says, recognized by time and vogue as one of the world's most influential women. I mean, literally nobody believes that.
1:54:40She remains a dedicated champion of mental health and the rights of women and girls. The marketing material also refers to her record-breaking podcast archetypes and her globally celebrated Netflix series, With Love, Megan, and her lifestyle brand, As Ever. Both Archetypes and With Love, Megan were dropped by Spotify and Netflix, FYI. And there was absolutely nothing record-breaking about her stupid podcast, which was insufferable. And no one listened to. The pablum that this woman puts out there. One of the world's most influential women. What a joke. Well, I think they're living in a fantasy world.
1:55:25So in that case, it may actually be accurate. And it's funny, out of everyone I've spoken to or I've read about online, I have never seen or heard a positive review of Meghan Markle. Everyone finds her to be so insufferable and so disingenuous, which is why in part her Netflix series got canceled, because it felt very scripted. And a royal expert told Fox News that this was an opportunity to get to know the real Meghan, because she's faced so many battles and hurdles. Every single one of them has been self-inflicted, right? She is so obnoxious and people can send that off of her. Right, so every battle, losing your Netflix series or have to fight for one, it's because nobody actually wanted to watch you.
1:56:05They were just trying to create this persona around you. But it's very hard to do when her husband, Prince Harry, seems like a sympathetic victim of what she seems to be is a narcissist. She seems to be so self-absorbed. She thinks she's holier than thou. She feels like she's the kind of person that sits down and lectures you. That's not someone I would want to spend close to$3 ,000 to see. So here's the piece about this is in the Daily Mail. She foisted herself, Isabel, onto this event. They write, she is understood to have reached out to the organizer, her best life podcast host, Gemma O 'Neill, after being put in touch by a mutual friend.
1:56:41The presenter revealed she had initial reservations and almost turned down Meghan's offer, but concluded her podcast audience, quote, deserved it. So I don't like that doesn't speak well for what she thinks of her audience. No, what have they done to Gemma to deserve this? You know, I'm not even remotely surprised that Meghan Markle created this opportunity for herself. She arrived in the UK with the expectation she was going to be welcomed with open arms as a member of the royal family. We all know how that went. They then fled and ran to the United States as their safe haven and refuge. And no one wants to listen to a single word that this woman says.
1:57:21So I imagine a world tour is probably coming in 2026 because they're running out of places to try out for new material and new conversations here. But I also think this is a really important larger social commentary about authenticity being such a virtue for young people in particular. Gen Z is so attracted to real people being completely authentic to themselves. It's why get ready with me. TikTok videos as people are putting on their mascara in the morning or podcasters who are wrapped up in a blanket in their basement seem to be resonating so much more poignantly with young people than multi gazillion dollar TV networks or even former members of the royal family.
1:58:00when there's an element of inauthenticity and this facade there, instantaneously, we can smell it out for what it is. And she is the perfect example of that. And you won't be surprised to see, okay, so we don't know this podcast, of course, but we did take a look at this Her Best Life podcast to see what was it that attracted Meghan Markle to it such that she asked them if she could headline their event and they reluctantly agreed. Here's a little clip from August of 2025, SOT61. one. I went to the puberty session at the kids school. Oh yeah. And she said, obviously the correct names are penis and vulva.
1:58:34Oh. And I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. And even one of the mums who I'm friends with next to me, she goes, vulva. And then the kids were saying, so mum, is it a vagina or is it a vulva? I'm still confused about my own body parts. And I I reckon most females are. What would you call if you're in a relationship? Yeah. And you're talking about your privates? Oh, yeah. Oh, I'm not going to say. Baby. My vulva is so wet for you tonight. Living my best life. Classy. Classy, Brianna. I can see exactly why she was attracted to it, you know, because she's all about fighting for women and girls and their vulvas.
1:59:19yeah you know this is actually a really good example as to why podcasts like girls gone bible is so popular now because young people in particular especially young women um we're kind of tired of being told that we have to be you know overly sexual um or sexualize ourselves in order to break the patriarchy they don't do it in a classy way they do it in an inappropriate way um and i think as a generation we've really lost that sense of decorum and young people want that because we want standards, right? Standards holds a society together. If you meet those standards, you're a good functioning member of that society.
1:59:50If you don't meet those standards, you're kind of an outcast, but everybody wants to be part of something. And talking about your body parts in such an open way like that, it doesn't make you cool. It actually is a turnoff for a lot of young people who want to find a podcast that they can relate to. That's not really that relatable. I don't sit around talking about those things to my girlfriends. No, no, no women talk like this. This is so ridiculous. You're right. It's not cool. It's classless, which is why she was attracted to it because she mistakes classlessness for cool, for something that makes her sort of relevant and edgy.
2:00:24And it doesn't, right? She's lost that long ago. And like this woman is casting around for some sort of an audience that might love her. Remember they took their, they went on a tour, she and Harry, and she reportedly felt great about how she did in Australia. This is, I think, where the place where she was demanding people to like massage her feet because she was pregnant. And she was like, oh, poor me. I can't believe I'm not getting paid for this shit. But she, in her mind, has like a fan base in Australia. So she reached out to them. She knows there isn't one, God forbid, in the UK. There isn't one in the United States at all where she's a laughing stock.
2:01:00There's not even one in Canada where they went in their interim stay and where she shot the show Suits because she's turned everyone off. To know her is to loathe her. So she's starting to go to more and more remote locations where she hasn't been exposed that much to try to find some trickling amount of fans so she can keep her grift going. It's not going to work. Ladies, what a pleasure. I'm so happy that you gave us this lighter half an hour at the end of a very tough week when it comes to news and its heaviness. I thank you both for being here. Thanks for having us. Yeah, we need a little culture in our lives.
2:01:39That New York magazine, the cut piece, was just absolutely absurd. Hopefully, okay, well, next week, we have week two of spring break, and we will be continuing to be on a remote location. But I think we have something else in store for you. So we will tell you about that on Monday, and I hope you have a great weekend, and we'll see you then.
2:02:02Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.
2:02:12So you're saying with Hilton Honors I can use points for a free night stay anywhere? Anywhere. What about fancy places like the Canopy in Paris? Yeah, Hilton Honors, baby. Or relaxing sanctuaries like the Conrad and Tulum? Hilton Honors, baby. What about the five-star Waldorf Astoria in the Maldives? Are you going to do this for all 9 ,000 properties? When you want points that can take you anywhere, anytime, it matters where you stay. Hilton for the stay. Stitch Fix. Stop shopping. Get styled. Not today, sweatpants. Somebody's wearing jeans that fit. Wow! No photos, please. I'm just a regular dad who happens to have a stylist.
2:02:53I really look my best when someone else makes the decisions. Hey, we can all see you two-way mirrors. Just share your size, style, and budget, and your stylist sends personalized looks right to your door. Stitch Fix. Get started today at stitchfix.com. I want to hug you. I'm going to hug you. I'm coming in for a hug.
From the publisher
Megyn Kelly is joined by Saagar Enjeti, co-host, "Breaking Points," to discuss the facts about America’s war in Iran two weeks into the conflict, the mixed messages we're seeing from the Trump administration and others, major strategic questions about what the actual endgame is in the region, the massive financial impact the Iran war is having on the American people, why surging diesel prices will drive up food costs across the country, the financial and political ramifications if the war goes on months, the importance of getting to the truth about why America attacked Iran, the growing risks of escalation as the conflict continues, what could happen next if the situation spirals beyond the initial strikes, how President Trump’s success with last year’s strikes on Iran and the Venezuela mission may have influenced his decision to go to war with Iran, why some advisers believed another rapid victory was possible, growing debate inside the Republican Party about the war, and more. Then Isabel Brown, host "The Isabel Brown Show," and Brianna Lyman, host, "Countdown to Freedom," join to discuss the absurd dramatic poem actor John Lithgow delivered to Stephen Colbert, the broader decline of late night comedy, Colbert's long ridiculous goodbye tour, why the GOP should be concerned about Texas Democrat James Talarico potentially winning the Senate seat, how he uses Christian messaging to frame progressive policies, his insane past comments that are coming to light, a disturbing NY Mag article featuring women talking about why they regret having children, the complaints about how motherhood affects career and finances, the broader cultural shift away from family-centered values, Meghan Markle's ridiculous retreat, and more.
Enjeti- https://breakingpoints.locals.com/support
Brown- https://www.youtube.com/@theisabelbrown
Lyman- https://x.com/briannalyman2
Herald Group: Learn more at https://GuardYourCard.com
Birch Gold: Text MK to 989898 and get your free info kit on gold
Relief Factor: Find out if Relief Factor can help you live pain-free—try the 3-Week QuickStart for just $19.95 at https://ReliefFactor.com or call 800-4-RELIEF.
Veracity Selfcare: Head to https://VeracityHealth.co and use code MEGYN for up to 60% off your order
Follow The Megyn Kelly Show on all social platforms:
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/MegynKelly
Twitter: http://Twitter.com/MegynKellyShow
Instagram: http://Instagram.com/MegynKellyShow
Facebook: http://Facebook.com/MegynKellyShow
Find out more information at:
https://www.devilmaycaremedia.com/megynkellyshow
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.


