Israel vs. Iran, Who's Winning, What's Next & Will America Bomb Fordow
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Welcome, it is Vertical Center Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you, and we've got a lot to unpack on the show, especially when it deals with the issue of Iran and where we are right now. Well, Israel is winning massive victories in Iran, that they have decimated Iran's military leadership. We've seen one chief of staff after another after another of Iran's military taken out.

Israel. We have seen nuclear facilities across Iran taken out by Israel. The attacks have been incredibly effective. Iran is striking back. They are firing ballistic missiles into Israel trying to kill civilians. Israel is attacking military targets. Iran is attacking civilian targets. So far the degree of success has been spectacular.

But yet the question remains, what is America's role? What do we do? Is America, is the Trump administration going to be directly involved in taking out the Fordow nuclear facility in Iran? We're going to break that down in this podcast. Yeah, I want to also just talk to you real quickly about what you can do to help the people in Israel. And we've been talking for a long time about an organization called the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews.

And right now, after you're witnessing what is happening, you may say, you know what? I want to stand with the people in Israel. And what we're saying, it is disturbing. Anti-Semitism on the rise, not just in the Middle East, but even here in America. We're seeing Jewish schools that are being targeted, synagogues that are being threatened, families that are living in fear. And it's a whole other level of pain that we're witnessing in Israel.

And that's why I want you to get involved with the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews. They're on the front lines and they're giving food and shelter to so many displaced Jewish families that are under threat. They're also literally, as we speak, building bomb shelters just for children to be able to save more children with all of the rockets that are coming in.

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888-488-IFCJ. That's 888-488-4325. You can also give securely at ifcj.org. That's ifcj.org. Every dollar helps. Don't wait. Be the difference. ifcj.org or 888-488-IFCJ. All right, so Senator, you started your day very early dealing with this issue of Iran first off.

Well, I did. I spent two hours in my office first thing this morning doing an interview with Tucker Carlson. Now, you and I both know Tucker well. We like Tucker.

I agree with Tucker on 80% of the issues. I think he's been fantastic on a ton of issues. He's been fantastic on securing the border. He's been fantastic on standing up to COVID lockdowns, to standing up to COVID vaccine mandates. He's been great on free speech. He's been great on the Second Amendment. We agree. And in fact, I will say during the idiotic COVID lockdowns, Tucker's monologue every night on Fox was the single best thing on television.

which I told him at the time, and I agree with him. I will say on foreign policy, Tucker has gone back crap crazy. He's gone off the rails. He is suddenly a hardcore isolationist. And so he asked, he asked about a month ago, hey, I'd like to come interview. And I knew he was coming in to interview me, and it was not going to be pleasant. He disagrees with me on foreign policy. So we were going to have a rough and tumble fight. We agreed to this interview a month ago.

And yet it ended up happening today, right when Israel and Iran are in a war. And Tucker has spent the last several days attacking Donald Trump.

And saying Donald Trump is, by the way, was just really odd. Can we talk about that? There's a lot of people that are shell shocked right now saying, like, what is happening? Tucker Carlson, who's usually hanging out with Donald Trump during the campaign and up on stage is now attacking Donald Trump. This is not what anyone was expecting. Yes, he's blasted Trump as complicit in this horrible attack. And he keeps saying World War Three is going to happen. And he's been just over the top. And I will tell you.

We sat down, we did it in my office, and it started off, look, I did not intend to get combative, but it started off his first question. He was throwing haymakers at me, and he was coming at me. And it was a two-hour interview. The interview will come out tomorrow.

at 1 p.m. And so you can watch the whole two-hour interview. And he attacks Trump. He blasts what he calls the AIPAC lobby. And he spends 20 minutes focused on how he thinks the AIPAC lobby is...

is dominating American foreign policy. And I will tell you, it gets pretty rough because I... For people that, by the way, don't know AIPAC, can you explain what that is? So AIPAC is the American-Israel Political Action Committee. And it is a group of Americans who care about standing with Israel. And...

Tucker argued they are a foreign lobby working for the government of Israel that should register and should be prosecuted for not being registered. And it was just unhinged. And I get, like, their conspiracy sections of the Internet that are worried that, like, AIPAC is running the world. It's just not reality. And he didn't like it when I called him out on it, and I did. He also—there's a completely surreal portion—

where I pointed out that Iran is actively trying to murder Donald J. Trump, has hired hitmen. And he just said, that's not true. I've never heard anything about it. I don't know anything about it. Well, it happens to be a fact. It happens to be DOJ has indicted Iranian hitmen for trying to murder Donald Trump. Did he not know that, by the way, when you brought that up? Or was he refusing to accept that reality? He insisted I was lying. He was just like, that's not true. So I'll say this. Today's podcast is on Wednesdays.

Friday's podcast, we're going to break down in depth this interview because it's important. The foreign policy divide...

I think isolationists, those who oppose. And by the way, I went back at Tucker and I said, OK, is there any military intervention that Trump has done that you agreed with? And he wouldn't agree with anything. And it's just in my view, and I lay this out at length and listen, Friday's podcast, we're going to do a deep dive. But traditionally, there have been two polls in Republican foreign policy analysis, interventionist and isolationist. I think they're both wrong.

I consider myself a third point on the triangle. I am a non-interventionist hawk. I am very reluctant to engage in military conflict, just like Trump is. But I also believe in peace through strength. The best way you avoid war is being strong enough your enemies don't want to stand up to you. And I got to say, Donald Trump, the first term and the second term,

I am very hard-pressed to think of a single foreign policy decision that I disagree with, and that's not accidental. I spend a lot of time talking with the president, and on foreign policy, he has agreed with me overwhelmingly. We're on the same page.

Tucker is not. He thinks Trump is wrong. And if you listen to the rhetoric, and he's right now, as we're sitting there, it is 1225 a.m. Tuesday night. He's putting out little snippets like blasting me, and his view is anyone who wants to stand with Israel and stand up to Iran is a crazy warmonger. I just...

I think that's wrong. I don't think Trump is a crazy warmonger. I think he's a strong commander in chief. I think he is defending America. I think he's defending Israel. And I think he's standing up to a theocratic zealot who wants to murder as many Americans as he can and as many Israelis as he can.

By the way, the quote all day that's been going through my head with this is one of my favorite quotes of yours when you say, we live in interesting times. And it is an interesting day when you and Donald Trump are together and Tucker Carlson is against the two of you. We are living in interesting times. It's actually, it's a quote, it's an old Chinese curse.

And so the Chinese curse is, may you live in interesting times. And it's meant to be that that's going to be a real problem. And I say all the time, we do. We live in interesting times. And it means the challenges facing America and the world are massive, but also the opportunities are massive. And I got to say,

I love living where we are right now. I think America, you know, President Trump has said we're in a golden age. I think there's an enormous amount of truth to that. We have a strong president who's fighting for America, who's defeating our enemies, who's fighting for freedom, who's fighting for free enterprise. We've got Republican majorities in the House and Senate. It's an exciting time right now.

It really is. So let's give an update. And obviously, we're going to deal with that interview on Friday. But let's get into the meat and potatoes of what's happened in the last 48 hours. And a lot of it comes down to some news that has obviously caught the world by surprise. Number one, we know that the president said where the leader of Iran is. We could have taken you out if you wanted to. We've decided not to. However, we may also be engaging and standing with Israel in some sort of

attack on Iran and that would specifically be on their nuclear program. Let's break all that down as well. Yeah. So,

If you look at what Israel is doing, they have been surgical in their precision. They have taken out senior military leaders. And by the way, if you didn't listen to Monday's podcast, you should listen to Monday's pod. We break down, we list all of the senior military leaders they've taken out. One after the other after the other. I mean, it is the leaders of the IRGC. It is the chief of staff of the military. It's at the point where if you're an Iranian military officer and they say, hey, Ben,

You want to be head of the Iranian military? Your answer should be hell no. No, I'll pass on that. Yeah, because I'm dying in 24 hours because Israel has been so effective. They literally promote someone. Boom, they're dead. Promote someone. Boom, they're dead. And it's a little bit. It reminds me of when Israel did the Pager operation against Hezbollah and the Pager operation against Hezbollah.

Hezbollah leadership gave pagers to terrorists, and Israel planted little bombs in the pagers. They detonated them, and it was the most accurately targeted military attack, I think, in history. Yeah. Because Hezbollah leadership decided, who gets the pagers?

Only the people who were bat crap crazy enough that we want terrorists able to page at a moment's notice to go kill people. So they gave the pagers to him. They blew up and they either killed or wounded a ton of Hezbollah terrorists. The next day, Israel had a second operation where they had walkie talkies that Hezbollah was using.

And the walkie-talkies had bombs in them, and they started exploding. And the beauty of it is Hezbollah terrorists, I think those guys were terrified of phone rings, and they'd jump and run screaming. Like, it was incredibly effective. And I actually think what Israel is doing against the military leadership is similar, where if you're an Iranian soldier, you're looking around going, wait, every time someone gets promoted to run this thing, they die the next day. That is...

is fantastically effective in terms of limiting Iran's ability to wage war, limiting Iran's ability to wage war against Israel, limiting Iran's ability to wage war against America, limiting their ability to sponsor terrorism. So that has been incredibly effective. They're also taking out Iran's nuclear scientists. And so this is all about you have a crazy Ayatollah who is a religious zealot

who routinely chants death to America and death to Israel, and he's trying to build nuclear weapons, and he's trying to build ICBMs. And here's an important point, Ben. An ICBM stands for an intercontinental ballistic missile. You don't need an ICBM to get to Israel. Iran is attacking Israel with ballistic missiles. An ICBM, the intercontinental aspect of it,

is entirely to take a missile to America. The reason Iran is building ICBMs is they want to be able to carry a nuclear warhead to the United States of America and detonate it in the skies of New York or Los Angeles or Washington, D.C., and murder as many Americans as possible. And so President Trump has been incredibly consistent, saying Iran will not get a nuclear weapon, period, the end.

And in fact, I want to play a montage of a couple of minutes of President Trump saying this over the years. For more than a decade, he has said this line. And yet some observers, including Tucker, are acting shocked that President Trump is saying Iran can't get a nuclear weapon. He has said this without deviation for more than 10 years. Give a listen. You cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon. You cannot let it happen because Iran

Bad things will happen if that happens. But everybody stopped. They were ready to make a deal. We would have made a deal that was great for everybody. No nuclear weapons. You can't give nuclear weapons. Now they're going to have a nuclear weapon. Don't let Iran have nuclear weapons. That's my only thing I have to tell you today. Don't let them have it. They would have never had them, including Iran. We would have. They can't have a nuclear weapon. That's all. They can't have nuclear weapons. It's too dangerous.

too destructive, too powerful, they can't have it. But I wanted to make a deal with them, no nuclear weapons, you can't have nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons are the single greatest threat to this world, to the whole world. And Viktor Orban understands that and some others do too. I just don't want them to have a nuclear weapon.

and they weren't going to have one and they cannot have a nuclear weapon that was the only thing the one thing I said you cannot have I just didn't want Iran to have a nuclear weapon I said you know we're gonna make a great deal everybody's gonna be happy you're gonna be rich as hell again everything's gonna be great but you cannot have a nuclear weapon you can't let Iran have nuclear weapons Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon very simple they cannot have a nuclear weapon instead

We have a very hostile country that wants nuclear weapons. Can't let that happen.

The main thing is Iran can't have a nuclear weapon. That was my main thing. The deal was a simple deal. Iran can't have a nuclear, you know, it can't have a missile, can't have a nuclear missile. It cannot have that nuclear capability. You listen to the president. By the way, we've got another nine and a half minutes of the president saying this over and over again. Yeah, that clip is 16 minutes long. So we literally cut it short. I was like, look, we can't play a 16 minute clip on the podcast. But that is insane.

President Trump, for more than a decade, I'll tell you a story. So back in the 2016 presidential election, Trump and I are running against each other. And I organized a rally on Capitol Hill against the Obama-Iran nuclear deal. And we had thousands of people come out against it. And I was saying, this is a terrible deal. It will result in Iran getting a nuclear weapon. And I invited Donald Trump to come to the rally.

And Trump, look, he and I were running against each other. We were friends, but we were opponents in that race. And so I remember Trump showed up and he's like, Ted, why the hell did you invite me to your rally? I don't understand. We're running against each other and you invited me to your rally. And I said...

I said, Donald, it's real simple. When you show up, you bring a crap ton of TV cameras and the press all covers it. And I care about this issue. And if we do not stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, we are endangering the lives of millions of Americans. And so Trump and I together in the middle of the campaign where we're campaigning against each other, we stood on the stage together and said, we agree Iran cannot get a nuclear weapon.

And America must do whatever is necessary to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. We were unified a decade ago in that. That has been Trump's consistent position. So I've got to say it's remarkable watching the Tucker Carlson's of the world react with shock. Why the hell does Trump want to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon? The reason is simple. And this is where, look, in foreign policy, people think in a very binary sense.

Either you're an interventionist who wants to invade every country on earth or you're an isolationist who never wants to engage in military force. Both views are wrong. The touchstone for military action should be protecting the vital national security interests of the United States. The reason President Trump is standing with Israel, Israel is doing a massive favor to us. Every one of us should stop and say thank you.

to the tiny nation of Israel. It is the size of the state of New Jersey. Yeah, it's not big. A lot of people don't realize that. It is tiny, and they are actively taking out Iran's nuclear capability right now. And...

Listen, those nuclear weapons, if Iran developed them, there's a real possibility they would be used against Israel. But there is at least an equal possibility they would be used against America to murder millions of Americans. And so it's not American soldiers. It's Israel that's taking this out. Yeah. And let's bring in this new aspect, because this is some of the breaking news. President Trump has called for Iran's unconditional surrender and also called the Supreme Leader, President

out saying, look, we know where you are. You're an easy target. You might want to hurry up and get a deal done here. Clearly, the president's not advocating for regime change. What he is advocating for is making sure that they never get a nuclear weapon. Well, and I will tell you on the point that he said, we know where you are. He said it in reference to protecting American servicemen and women. And when this war broke out, we did a podcast that night and we said, listen,

Every one of us should pray for the people of Israel because we're going to see a massive ballistic missile onslaught of Israel. And we're going to see a lot of Israelis killed. You know, I talked on Sunday night to a good friend of mine whose mother is in Jerusalem right now. And he said his mom, since this war has started, he said she hasn't slept a night because every night they wake up at two or three in the morning and they rush. The air raid sirens are going off. They rush to a bomb shelter because they're facing incoming missiles constantly.

That's a hard circumstance, and so I will say to all of our listeners, pray for the people of Israel. That is hard. They are doing this because the risk of an Iranian nuclear weapon is a massive murder of Israelis, potentially on the order of magnitude of the million. So it is the right thing for them to do. But Israelis are dying. They're dying every day because Iran is targeting civilians. But secondly, hold on, let me make this other point, Ben.

Iran, there is a real threat of Iran targeting American servicemen and women. And we've got thousands upon thousands of servicemen and women in the Middle East. And I will tell you, I called on Sunday, I called President Trump. And I said, hey, I just want to tell you thank you for what you're doing on Iran and Israel.

You are doing an incredible job. In the last few days, these have been some of the best days you have had as president because President Trump is standing unshakably with Israel, which is where we should be. But he's also made absolutely clear to Iran, if you attack American servicemen and women, you will face a devastating response. And as you noted, the tweet he sent said,

He said directly to the Ayatollah, we know where you are. And the point is clear. If you kill American servicemen and women, to be clear, Iran could kill some of our soldiers. I mean, they could fire enough missiles that we would have active duty military killed.

And what Trump has said as the commander in chief is if you do that, you are going to regret it because we are going to strike back. You cannot attack American active duty military. And thank God Trump is being a strong commander in chief. Joe Biden could never get that sentence out of his mouth. But President Trump is protecting our servicemen and women. So I called him on Sunday and just said, hey, thank you. It's making a real difference protecting our servicemen and women.

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Let's also talk about what's happened with the air superiority or the lack of security that Iran actually had over their own country. Yes. And and that could also spell trouble for the leadership in Iran, because now the people may realize, wow, we may have been played by these these these horrible leaders.

And there is total air superiority now by Israel or anybody that wants to go after Iran. So Israel and potentially America have complete air superiority over Iran. And Israel has taken out Iran's air defenses. So they're not able to stop Iran.

Israeli jets in the air and the bombers are bombing the hell out of. As of two days ago, there had been over 720 military strikes in Iran. The number is substantially higher now. I don't have the current number, but it was 722 days ago. And Iran is not able to do anything about it because their air defenses have been destroyed.

And so they're just sitting ducks. They're just, and I will tell you the dynamic. So there's a delicate question. Israel has been able to, and it actually has succeeded in taking out Israel.

a massive amount of the military leadership of Iran. They have also succeeded in pounding the hell out of Iran's nuclear facilities, like the Natanz facility, which is where they do much of the nuclear enrichment. Israel has bombed the living crap out of it.

The one exception that Israel is not able to take out is the Fordow nuclear research facility. Now, Fordow is built literally in the base of a mountain, and it was built into a mountain particularly to withstand a bombing attack. And Israel does not have the military hardware to take out Fordow. Their bombs are not big enough. America does. We have bunker buster bombs that are 30,000 pounds.

that are massive bombs that can take out an underground, under-mountain nuclear facility like Florida. Israel also does not have bombers that are big enough to carry a 30,000-pound bomb. That's a big-ass bomb. And so the B-2 bomber, which America has, is big enough to carry that bomb. Israel doesn't have bombers that big.

And so one of the open questions, Israel has asked America, will you fly in the B-2 bombers and drop your bunker busters on Fort O and take it out? As you and I sit here at 12, what is it, 1243 a.m. on Tuesday night, Wednesday morning.

I do not know if President Trump's going to do that. This is being actively debated. It could, by the time this podcast comes out, it is possible that America will drop those bunker busters. I think that is a real possibility in the next few hours, in the next few days. And, and,

In my view, with that being said, then I got to ask this question so that people understand. I said this earlier tonight on Chris Cuomo's show and I said on Pierce Morgan's show and I said on Fox the same thing. I am not in favor. But then you're going on a lot of lefty shows. Pierce Morgan fighting the commies every day. My fight. Yeah.

You know, is like, does Bernie Sanders have a show, AOC? Like, are you going on with Xi of China? I'm trying to go on with Tucker next, you know, and just see if I can explain to him what my foreign policy is. But I'm not in favor of putting troops on the ground. Donald Trump's not in favor of putting troops around. Neither are you. Absolutely. No, no, no. No troops on the ground. So what we're advocating for is simply this. If America gets involved...

It would be to do exactly what you just said. It would be to do what Israel can't do to take out a nuclear program, which is a threat. Yes, to drop a couple of bombs, to drop a couple of bombs that Israel can't like their bombs are not big enough to take out Fordow. And I will say this from a perspective, my overwhelming touchstone is,

is what protects American national security interests, what keeps Americans safer. It's America first. It's President Trump's foreign policy. That is my foreign policy. And I will say, when he and I talked on Sunday, his comment, when I was telling him, you're doing a great job, what you're doing is fantastic, his comment is, he said, Ted, on foreign policy, you and I are twins. And that's right. I agree with him on foreign policy. The reason...

There is, I think, a compelling argument for America to take out Fordow. Is Fordow, they are doing research on nuclear weapons technology. They're trying to develop nuclear bombs. They're not doing it because the Ayatollah thinks climate change is a problem and he wants to create civilian nuclear power generation. It is entirely creating a bomb that could murder millions of Americans or millions of Israelis. They put it in the basement of a mountain because they didn't want to be bombed.

Only America can take them out. And I got to say, I think dropping those bombs, I have zero interest. We will not send boots on the ground. We're not going to invade Iran. And I have zero interest in coming into the country and trying to turn it into a democratic utopia. Look, it would be wonderful if Iran woke up tomorrow and it was Switzerland. But I'm not willing to risk your children or my children to go in and fight a war to make that happen.

It is a very different calculus to say

Should we drop a couple of bombs and take out a lab and facility where they're developing nuclear weapons to murder Americans? And I think that's a compelling argument. And I got to say, I think there's a real possibility in the next few hours or days. That's exactly what's going to happen. Final question on this. If Donald Trump does, in fact, make this decision, I actually don't think this is a tough decision or a hard decision. I think it's a simple decision, as you described it, of

We must protect the homeland and we must protect our allies at the same time. And we're both a target. And we know what Iran would do if they got a nuclear weapon. And we know that even if they didn't do it, they might give it to their proxies to do it as well. You add all that up. I think this decision is actually pretty clear. If the president does that.

And we move forward. There's also this big obsession in the media now that there's a massive divide in the MAGA world, and this is going to split the Republican Party. I actually think it's going to be a blip, and we're going to move back on to all the issues that we do agree on. I'm not taking the bait on that. I want your take on it as well. Yeah, look, so I did Sean Hannity this evening, and Hannity had a poll that just came out that showed 75% of Americans agree with President Trump.

that we should act against Iran to prevent them from getting a nuclear weapons using. And the question in the poll was whatever means necessary. 75%. I don't know that 75% of Americans agree on butterflies or rainbows or peanut butter and jelly. Like that's a big percentage in today's divided world. And so it is frankly a handful of,

of people who are disagreeing. Tucker is really an outlier on this. And I made the point, and we're going to talk about this. Friday's pod is going to be all about this. But Tucker used to be, 20 years ago, Tucker was a neocon interventionist who was a cheerleader for the Iraq war, and he practically had on a short skirt and pom-poms. I think the Iraq war was a catastrophic mistake.

And so I think he was far too interventionist. And Tucker does, too. He thinks he was wrong. And I respect that. Look, look, intelligent people will assess change circumstances and be willing to change their position based on the facts. And so I respect that he changed his views. But the point I made is.

is he went from being an interventionist far too eager to send in the Marines to being an isolationist who says we should never ever use the military even when we've got a lunatic theocratic zealot who's trying to murder Americans and has murdered hundreds of Americans. And so I actually think that view is a really fringe view in America. It's a fringe view in MAGA.

And it's a fringe view across the country. And I think the American people want a president who's going to say we will protect ourselves against people who want to kill us. That's exactly what Donald Trump is doing. Yeah. Well, don't forget that we will be doing another show on Friday and that will be a big show in response to the interview with Tucker Carlson. So make sure you join us for that.

Hit that subscribe or auto-download button as well, and make sure that you don't miss a single episode. We do this Monday, Wednesday, Friday. We're also up on YouTube now as well, so if you listen to shows on YouTube, you can do that also. And the Senator and I will see you back here Friday morning.

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