War in the Middle East: Israel Strikes Iran-What's Next?
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Welcome, it is Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you. It's so nice to have you with us. Many of you are listening on radio stations around the country to this show as well. We welcome you in and we want to say don't forget, download Verdict with Ted Cruz wherever you get your podcasts as we do this show three days a week. Senator, we've got breaking news.

And it is a major world event, Israel going after Iran, hitting targets there. This has obviously woken a lot of people up around the world as we're doing this show.

We are gathered right now at a time of war, that time when Israel is striking back at Iran, striking back to ensure that Iran does not acquire nuclear weapons. And you and I are recording this podcast. It is 12.07 a.m. on Friday morning. So the events may change in the next 48 hours, but at 12.07 a.m., the war is just unfolding. And we're seeing what's happening, and what's happening so far is

Israel's strikes by the early reports have been enormously effective. Israel has taken out the chief of the IRGC. Israel has taken out the successor to the chief of the IRGC. Israel has decimated Natanz, a major nuclear site in Iran.

And Israel is carrying out multiple military strikes right now as we speak. Now, I will say by the time you listen to this podcast, it may be Friday during the day and you're listening to the podcast. It may be Saturday or Sunday and you're listening to this show on the radio. Things may have changed by then, but right now we are seeing war in the Middle East. We are seeing Israel acting decisively to protect herself. And I will say there are several messages that every one of us need to hear, but the two that are most important

are number one, America stands unequivocally with the state of Israel. We are with Israel in her right to defend herself with no daylight whatsoever. And number two, a message to the Ayatollah. We have an enormous number of American servicemen and women in harm's way in the Middle East. The Ayatollah needs to understand if you strike out and attack American servicemen and women, if you kill even a single American serviceman or woman,

I am absolutely confident President Trump will respond with overwhelming force. And so the Ayatollah should know, do not attack America as a response to this military assault. Amen to that. And look, this is such a hard time right now for so many in Israel and so many that listen to the show have asked,

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888-488-4325. You can also go online to ifcj.org. Every dollar truly does help. Don't wait. Be the difference. Visit ifcj.org or 888-488-IFCJ right now. All right, Senator, so let's start with the basic question, and that is,

What, how did this begin? What have you learned being in Washington, D.C. about this strike on these Iranian nuclear sites and military targets? What do you know tonight that you can tell people listening? Well, let me say, first of all, I believe this attack was inevitable, that Iran was hell-bent on acquiring nuclear weapons. President Trump said repeatedly and unequivocally

that the only option for Iran was a complete and total dismantlement of their centrifuges, of their enrichment capacity, of their ability to enrich uranium. I led a letter with 52 Republican senators where we said, united, we agree with President Trump. This is the red line, complete and total dismantlement of their nuclear capacity. Now, what President Trump said is there's two ways they can do this.

One, they can do so peacefully through negotiations, and that's what the Trump administration was trying to do. Or two, if they refuse to dismantle, they will have the centrifuges dismantled through warfare. Well, this morning, the Iranian regime announced it was not going to shut down even a single centrifuge. Instead, it was going to build more.

that they were hell-bent on building more centrifuges, enriching more uranium, and they were on the path to a nuclear weapon. And I got to say, Ben, the consequences of the statements this morning were, number one, they were a gigantic middle finger to President Trump. They were saying, we don't care what you say. We want nuclear weapons, and we're not going to be dissuaded. We're not going to be deterred. But number two, they were a very clear message to Israel. Attack us now.

because we are barreling towards acquiring a nuclear weapon. And if you wait, you may find yourself with an enemy that has a nuclear weapon and that can detonate it over the skies of Israel and kill millions of Israelis. And so Iran set us on this course, and the government of Israel is acting to keep the people of Israel safe, but it is nonetheless an extraordinarily perilous time for Israel, for America, and for the world.

Senator, you just mentioned that this was inevitable and it does feel like it was a long time coming. And there was a question of who was going to do it. Was it going to be America? Was it going to be Israel? Clearly now we know this is Israel that is launching this preemptive strike. And some would even argue this was long overdue. Yes. And I will say President Trump announced on April 12th that Iran has 60 days to negotiate and agree to this 60 days.

This attack was launched on June 12th, Thursday, June 12th, exactly 60 days after that. That is not an accident.

Iran understood they had a time frame, but you got to understand the Iranians, when they negotiate, they want to delay. They want to delay. They want to continue to reap the benefits of Joe Biden and the Democrats weakness and appeasement and fuel the money that they received into developing nuclear weapons. And so Israel made the decision. They made the decision they were going to attack. They were going to attack on exactly the 60 day expiration of President Trump's deadline.

And I think that was driven by Iran beginning Thursday by saying, we're not changing a damn thing. We're going to keep building centrifuges. And effectively, we want a nuclear weapon and there's nothing you can do to stop us.

Israel acted to demonstrate that was not right. Senator, I want to also remind people we do this show as a podcast, so you can grab it three days a week wherever you get your podcasts. Don't forget, subscribe to Verdict with Ted Cruz. And let's get into what Netanyahu had to say as well. Senator, Netanyahu came out and spoke very boldly, not just to the people in Israel, but also to the world.

So on Thursday evening, as the military strike was beginning, Prime Minister Netanyahu addressed Israel and addressed the world. Here's what he had to say. Moments ago, Israel launched Operation Rising Lion, a targeted military operation to roll back the Iranian threat to Israel's very survival. This operation will continue for as many days as it takes to remove this threat.

For decades, the tyrants of Tehran have brazenly, openly called for Israel's destruction. They've backed up their genocidal rhetoric with a program to develop nuclear weapons. In recent years, Iran has produced enough highly enriched uranium for nine atom bombs. Nine. In recent months, Iran has taken steps that it has never taken before. Steps to weaponize this enriched uranium. And if not stopped,

Iran could produce a nuclear weapon in a very short time. It could be a year, it could be within a few months, less than a year. This is a clear and present danger to Israel's very survival. Eighty years ago, the Jewish people were the victims of a Holocaust perpetrated by the Nazi regime. Today, the Jewish state refuses to be a victim of a nuclear Holocaust perpetrated by the Iranian regime. Now, as Prime Minister,

I've made it clear time and again, Israel will never allow those who call for our annihilation to develop the means to achieve that goal. Tonight, Israel backs those words with action. We struck at the heart of Iran's nuclear enrichment program. We struck at the heart of Iran's nuclear weaponization program. We targeted Iran's main enrichment facility in Natanz. We targeted Iran's leading nuclear scientists working on the Iranian bomb.

We also struck at the heart of Iran's ballistic missile program. Last year, Iran fired 300 ballistic missiles at Israel. Each of these missiles carries a ton of explosives and threatens the lives of hundreds of people. Soon, those missiles could carry a nuclear payload, threatening the lives not of hundreds, but of millions. Iran is gearing up to produce 10,000 of those ballistic missiles within three years. Now just imagine,

Imagine 10,000 tons of TNT landing on a country the size of New Jersey. This is an intolerable threat. It too must be stopped. You listen to Netanyahu there, and not only was he very clear and direct, but it was, I think, an argument that if you're a sane person, wherever you are in the world, and you're looking at the position that Israel is in with Iran next door, they had no choice but to do this. Yes.

Look, as you know, I know Prime Minister Netanyahu very well. He is a friend. We've spent a lot of time together when he was in D.C. last month. He and I spent two, almost two and a half hours together, just one on one. I will tell you, in the 13 years I've been in the Senate, I've met a lot of world leaders. That's part of the job is you meet the leaders of foreign countries. There is only one who has taken my breath away.

I think Prime Minister Netanyahu, the adjective I've used for him, I've not used for anyone else, is Churchillian. Because I think he has a seriousness of purpose. I think he has a gravitas. He understands that he is facing literally a threat to annihilate the people of his country.

And he is committed to doing everything necessary to prevent it. You know, I'll tell you, when Obama was president and when Obama was negotiating and announcing the Obama-Iran nuclear deal, which was catastrophically devastating, the House of Representatives invited Prime Minister Netanyahu to come and address a joint session of Congress. And when that happened, I invited Elie Wiesel, who is the Nobel laureate, incredible, incredible man,

to come participate in a conversation with me on what the threat of a nuclear Iran was. Now, Elie, he wanted it to be very much a bipartisan event. So I invited Chuck Schumer to participate. He said no. I invited multiple Democrats to participate. One after the other after the other. They said no. Finally, I told Elie, no Democrat will participate. We did a gathering in the Capitol. We had over 500 people come in the Capitol to listen to Elie Wiesel.

talk about his experiences seeing the horrors of the Holocaust, seeing the horrors of evil in Nazi Germany. And I got to say, when Elie Wiesel talked about never again means never again and the greatest threat of another Holocaust on planet Earth.

is a nuclear Iran where these theocratic lunatics use nuclear weapons to murder millions of Israelis. It was powerful. It took my breath away to be sitting at the table with him. But it also spoke volumes that not a single Democrat was willing to be in the room. And I'll tell you, Ben, so on that speech on the Senate floor, I was there. I listened to Prime Minister Netanyahu's speech, which was powerful. It was incredibly important.

And we saw a vast number of Democrats boycott the speech, refuse to attend. We saw that again when the prime minister addressed Congress more recently. And again, Democrats boycotted the speech. Kamala Harris boycotted the speech, refused to listen to the democratically elected leader of Israel. And it is a sad dynamic that today's Democrat Party is dominated by the pro-Hamas factions.

Today's Democrat Party is in panic because right now far too many of their radicals sympathize with Iran over Israel. And that may sound like hyperbole, but you know what? We are going to see. I'm going to predict this. You and I, this is early Friday morning. We are going to see Democrat after Democrat saying to Israel, you need to restrain yourself. Not calling out Iran.

but calling out Israel because that is where the base of the Democrat Party is. Yes. Yeah, after the attack, they came out and said they must show restraint before they'd even been able to figure out what had happened in Israel. They're like, well, they need to show restraint. They must show restraint. Everything they have to calm down. The Biden administration over and over again said, do not kill the terrorists. Do not kill the terrorists. They cut off weapons to Israel. The radical left in the Democrat Party hates Israel, and that battle is only going to get worse.

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This attack took place, Israel on Iran. You were actually on the phone with the ambassador from Israel. What did he tell you about this attack? How long had they been planning this? What was the final decision that made this happen in the last several hours? Well, understand this show happens real time. It happens real time in real life.

You and I are recording this early in the morning, Friday morning. This podcast will come out later in the day on Friday, so some of you will be listening to this on Friday. Others of you will be hearing this on radio on Saturday or Sunday. And so the world may have changed. 48 hours at the time when a war is initiating is a mountain of time. What I can tell you is late Thursday night, as Israel was launching its attacks, before Iran has engaged in a counterattack,

I was on the phone with the Israeli ambassador to the United States, and he told me that the attack, at least so far, had gone extraordinarily well, that they'd taken out senior leadership of the IRGC. And I've got to say, by the way, that's a huge victory for the United States of America. The IRGC has murdered over 600 American servicemen and women.

They are grotesquely hostile to the United States, and for Israel to take them out is an enormous benefit to America. But at the same time, the Israeli ambassador told me that the instruction had gone out in Israel to the people of Israel, go to a bomb shelter, either be in a bomb shelter or be very near a bomb shelter, because they are anticipating early in the morning, Friday morning,

that Iran is going to launch a massive counterattack with ballistic weapons. And Israel has extensive anti-missile defenses, but Iran has sufficient volume that if they launch everything, they have the capacity to overwhelm the defenses. And so there is a very real possibility. The people of Israel are braced. They understand. Look, they're not playing games. They are playing with real stakes. They're playing with live rounds.

The people of Israel understand right now, as you and I are recording this, that we may see Israelis die right now because Iran has enough missiles that if they launch them all, there will be Israelis murdered in the minutes and hours ahead of us. But at the same time, Prime Minister Netanyahu made the decision. It's a decision I agree with. It's a decision that I think was right, which is the risk of

of Israelis dying and of Americans dying, if Iran acquires a nuclear weapon, is qualitatively different. That we could face, with an Iranian nuclear weapon, we could face millions murdered. And so, listen, I want to underscore what I said at the beginning of this podcast. Pray for the people of Israel.

And pray for our servicemen and women in harm's way because this is a very, very dangerous time right now. Well, let's talk about who is targeted and what this looks like moving forward from the standpoint of Israel. I mean, the objective here is clearly to put them back when it comes to their nuclear program. But they also went after people that were involved in that program, which is a really big way to move things backwards.

Yeah, look, this was a decapitation strike. It was targeted at the senior military leaders in Iran. It was targeted at the nuclear facilities in Iran. It was targeted at the anti-air assault facilities in Iran.

It was a very targeted but massively effective strike. Now, Iran is going to strike back. Understand that. That's not a possibility or a probability. It is a certainty that Iran will hit back. Now, what I hope Iran understands is they should not hit back at America. Hitting back at America would escalate this dramatically, and I will say—

The Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, he put out a statement Thursday night. Let me read his statement. Quote,

to protect our forces and remain in close contact with our regional partners. Let me be clear. Iran should not target U.S. interests or personnel. Now, look, I'm glad that the Secretary of State was putting out that statement defending our servicemen and women. I wish there had been more in that statement saying we stand with Israel. That was missing from the statement, and it shouldn't have been.

From my perspective, we stand unequivocally with Israel, but I understand why the Secretary of State didn't do that, which is that he's concerned that Iran may strike at U.S. military forces. Now, in my view, the way to prevent that is not to say to Iran, hey, we had nothing to do with that, which was the main theme of the Secretary of State's statement.

but rather to say, if you attack U.S. forces, the consequences will be overwhelming. I think Iran responds more to stick than to carrot, but we shall see, and it is, any way you look at it, an unbelievably dangerous time.

Senator, let's talk about some of the people that have been taken out here. There's two aspects of these strikes. One, nuclear scientists are being reported that they were targeted and have been killed, and that is the brains of the nuclear program. If you want to stop Iran from doing this, taking out nuclear scientists is absolutely brilliant. It's the computer system, the nervous system of everything they're trying to accomplish. That's incredible, but we also now know from...

Virtually every news agency is reporting this, that the IRGC terror chief Salami has also been eliminated. That is significant as well. Well, we now know that Hussein Salami is lunch meat. And I feel a little cheesy making fun of him. But then again, the guy is a racist, genocidal, homicidal lunatic. So I hope after Salami, Bologna and Pastrami both get eliminated as well.

And if you look at the head of the IRGC, he has responsibility for murdering over 600 U.S. servicemen and women. So if you love the men and women of the armed services, if you are grateful for friends, family, loved ones who have served defending this nation, then you ought to say tonight to the nation of Israel, thank you. Thank you for taking out the head of the IRGC

that is responsible for murdering hundreds of American servicemen and women. President Trump, when he was president the first time, he took out General Soleimani. And now, today, the Israelis have taken out Salami, a successor who is the terror chief of the IRGC, and he is now with his 72 virgins, although I will tell you, much to his dismay, those virgins are all Gomer Pyle, and it's not what he hoped for.

I've got to say, one of the best parts about this story, just side note, if you look up Salami on his pages on Wikipedia, it already says he's like the former guy in charge of the IRGC. I love the Internet when they get it right really quickly, Senator. It is amazing to see this moment in history because this is a moment in history. And I've got to ask you this.

Iran now is going to respond, I'm sure, in some way. I'm sure Israel is expecting that. You made it very clear tonight, America's warning, and from this administration. What happens next, and what is Israel expecting in your mind? Well, it depends on the escalation. I think it is 100% certain that Iran will respond by firing missiles at Israel. Israel gets that. They understand that. They're ready for that.

There is some real possibility that Iran will respond by firing missiles or other weapons at Americans. And I think if they do that, they will dramatically escalate this conflict. I think they will provoke if they murder American servicemen and women. I think you will see President Trump respond with devastating force. And so, again, my message to the Ayatollahs, do not do that.

Their response to Israel, I don't know what it will be. There is a risk that their response is devastating, that it is overwhelming. They have a massive number of ballistic missiles. So if they fire them all, the odds are significant that we will see a very large number of Israelis murdered. What I'm saying, Prime Minister Netanyahu understands. He knows that. He knows that by virtue of engaging in this attack tonight,

There's a real risk of a significant number of Israelis being murdered. But he did this because he knows that if Iran has a nuclear weapon, many, many more Israelis and many, many more Americans are at risk of being murdered. Look, the Ayatollah chants death to America and death to Israel. I believe he believes that.

And so acquiring a nuclear weapon is not just an academic question. If he gets a nuclear weapon, I believe he is trying to acquire one because he wants to carry out his promises of death to Israel and death to America. And that's precisely why Israel has launched this attack to stop him from getting that capability.

I also, Senator, want to play for you what the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations had to say on CNN earlier. Here is what he had to say when he was asked a couple of different questions about this strike. Also joining me is Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danone. And, Ambassador, it's great to have you here, sir. Just first, on the strike that we are seeing play out tonight and what this means, should we now consider Israel to be at war with Iran?

Prime Minister Netanyahu was very clear. We took a preemptive attack to defend ourselves, and we are targeting the nuclear facilities and the ballistic missile centers in Iran.

So, we don't go into declarations now, we take actions. We decided not to wait for Iran to attack us with nuclear capabilities. We knew that they were plotting to do that. And while they were talking with many countries and negotiating, they moved secretly with a military plan to attack Israel. And what we did was an act of self-defense.

And we have abilities. You know, Caitlin, 80 years ago when Auschwitz was liberated, we required the support of the Allies to protect our people. But today we have our own state, our own military, our own air force, and today we are protecting ourselves from another Holocaust.

I mean, these are much wider than the preemptive strikes based on what we've seen so far, especially in terms of targeting Iran's top military leaders as well as senior nuclear scientists kind of in mass based on what we have heard. Do you know how many of those top military leaders and nuclear scientists in Iran, the strikes against them were successful? How many of them have been eliminated tonight?

No, I cannot go into those details, but I can tell you one thing. Those people who were involved in the nuclear production, those who were putting together the ballistic missiles, they are targets, they are part of the machine.

that threatened Israel and other countries in the world. You know, if you look back at the attack that Israel took, whether it was against Iraq or Syria, who tried to develop nuclear reactors, I think today everybody can thank Israel for those actions. So maybe today some people are not sure about why we are doing it today, but down the road, a few years from today, the world will thank Israel for the actions we took today.

The world will thank Israel for the actions taken tonight. Is that the big takeaway from all of this? It should be, but understand that the pro-Hamas radical left in the Democrat Party is cheering on exactly the opposite side. So Ben Rhodes, many of y'all listening know who Ben Rhodes is. Ben Rhodes was a top national security official in the Barack Obama National Security Council. He is the lead architect of the Obama-Iran nuclear deal.

He is a hardcore leftist. And tonight he's miserable. So Ben Rhodes, late Thursday night, he tweeted out, quote, this is all so unnecessary. All of it. Everywhere. Understand, when Israel attacks Iran to take out the nuclear capacities, Ben Rhodes, the leading national security official for Barack Obama, is, I think Ben is in tears right now.

And listen, the Iran nuclear deal under Obama was a disaster.

Under Joe Biden, their top foreign policy objective was to have another Iran nuclear deal. The only thing that stopped it is Iran was so unreasonable they would not accept it. And there are so many in the Democrat Party right now that are cheering for Iran. I'll tell you what, I'm cheering for America, damn it. And I'm cheering for Israel. And people who are theocratic lunatics who say they want to murder us,

I am not dismayed that we are seeing a military force stand up and take them out and in particular take out their nuclear capacity. That is critically important. We do not want people who want to murder us to have the tools to do so. And I think Israel's attack did enormous benefit to America.

You mentioned taking away their tools, and one of their tools was going after their scientists. I mean, this is the brains behind everything. This took a lot of planning, and apparently it was incredibly successful as well. I mean, this is taking out their nervous system of the computer system, whatever you want to call it, for their nuclear program by going after the scientists. It's absolutely brilliant, and they pulled it off.

They did. It was executed with amazing precision. Now it's early. Look, you and I are both talking early in the morning, Friday morning. It is possible that problems develop later Friday, later Saturday, later Sunday. One of the challenges of doing a show like this at the beginning of military conflict is you don't know how things will shake out. But I will say this. So Benjamin Netanyahu is a strong conservative.

One of his predecessors as Israeli prime minister was Naftali Bennett. Now, Naftali had been previously Netanyahu's chief of staff, but then Bennett broke with Netanyahu and ended up becoming prime minister himself in significant part by opposing Netanyahu. But I want you to listen to this clip of former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett and

talking about what this is all about. Give a listen. Well, the Israelis had a siren across the country indicating that Israel's air force is conducting a

preemptive strike against Iran's military facilities and perhaps also the nuclear facilities. I want to remind you that Iran's about a week away from being able to obtain the amount of enriched uranium for 10 bombs. So this is not me saying this. This is the international...

nuclear community. And the goal ultimately will be to remove the nuclear threat from the Middle East and hitting the head of the octopus of terror that's been causing all of the mess we've seen over the past couple of years in the region. I mean, there it is. And I will say, when today's Democrats in the Senate and House

are to the left of that, are saying do not attack Iran. And we're going to see. I'm going to make a prediction in the hours and days ahead.

We're going to see a massive rise in the attacks from the anti-Semitic left, and the anti-Semitic left is growing bigger and bigger, and so those who hate Israel will be really vocal. And unfortunately, there's also a contingent on the anti-Semitic right. The anti-Semitic right is smaller than the left, but both of them are absolutely wrong. And you're going to see online people say, the Israelis are dragging us into war. I'm here to tell you the Israelis...

are acting to prevent war, to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons, and those nuclear weapons could well be used to murder millions of Israelis or millions of Americans. And so Israel is acting in self-defense, and I want to be clear, America stands with Israel.

Don't forget, please make sure you share this podcast wherever you can on social media as we continue to stand with Israel. Also, we will have the Week in Review. Maybe some of the big stories you missed this week will come out tomorrow as well. Hit that subscribe or auto-download button and grab my podcast as well, the Ben Ferguson Podcast, wherever you get your podcasts. And the Senator and I will see you back here tomorrow for the Week in Review.

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I'm Rodney Williams. And I'm Travis Holloway. Welcome to the Wealth Break podcast, a real conversation about finance. Let's be honest, building wealth doesn't look the same for everyone. I feel like sometimes being broke is a cycle and that we might have to revisit that. And we're not stopping at success stories. What happens when it doesn't go right? How do you cope with it? Because wealth isn't just about money. It's about creating a life where you thrive and help others do the same.

Listen to the Wealth Break podcast on the iHeartRadio app.

and what their stories tell us about the nature of bravery. Listen to Medal of Honor on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast. ♪