Ep. 2218 - Israel’s DEVASTATING Offensive Continues…While Trump Plays 4D Chess
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All right, folks, a ton coming up for you today on the show. It is a firehose opportunity.

of news. All the latest from the Middle East, Israel wrecking Iranian military capacity, Iran firing missiles into civilian areas in Israel. What comes next will be joined by everybody from Amit Segal of Channel 12 in Israel to Senator Tom Cotton to talk about that. The latest on this Minnesota legislative shooter who has now been caught. Plus, President Trump's military parade and the No Kings protest, just a stacked show first. The mob is back in the streets, burning flags, torching cars, attacking cops.

Once again, the legacy media call it justice, but we've seen this movie before. At The Daily Wire, we don't sit back, we fight. We build platforms they can't cancel. We tell stories they can't control. We create the future they cannot burn down. Join millions of people who still believe in truth, courage, and common sense at dailywireplus.com. Well, the situation in the Middle East,

has gotten very hot. Obviously, Israel is absolutely wrecking the Iranian military and nuclear capacity. That is the actual story. Ignore all of the trash that you're seeing on X about how really Iran is doing amazing in this. Iran is not doing amazing in this war. This is not

Mike Tyson versus Lennox Lewis or something. This is Mike Tyson versus a deranged leprechaun. And the Mike Tyson here is Israel. And the deranged leprechaun is the Iranians. Essentially, the way that this is working is that Israel has taken out nearly the entire top layer of the Iranian military. Israel has taken out a wide variety, maybe up to 90% of the nuclear capacity of Iran. We'll get to the base in Fordow in just a moment. Israel has taken out one third of the ballistic missile launchers in Iran. Israel has complete air superiority over Iran. Complete.

meaning the anti-aircraft defenses in Iran are not existent. Israel has been flying continuous sorties in daylight in Iran for days on end. Remember, this attack started U.S. time, Eastern time. It started Thursday night. It is now Monday. Israel has been flying continuous sorties since Thursday night into Monday all the time. It has not stopped from one moment. Israel has been striking targets in Iran constantly.

In fact, very good summary on where things are from Abu Ali Express, which is definitely a Telegram account worth following. Listing where things currently stand. Here's what Iran has achieved. Iran basically has decided that what they were going to do is, in response to Israel's attacks, fire ballistic missiles at population centers in Israel, which shows the difference, by the way, between the regimes. Israel is striking military targets, military political targets, nuclear scientists, very targeted strikes. Iran is firing...

is firing ballistic missiles, large-scale ballistic missiles, directly into the population centers and killing old people and children in Tel Aviv. The number of people who have been killed thus far is approximately 22 people have been killed thus far in Israel. Israel, meanwhile, has destroyed the vast majority of Iran's military capacity. So,

Iran is in a bit of a box, as we'll discuss in just a few minutes with regards to their ballistic missile program, because every time they fire a ballistic missile, they're revealing the location of a ballistic missile launcher. And Israel is then destroying the ballistic missile launchers. In fact, last night, there was a home front command warning that went out. So there is a system in Israel called home front command where they warn Israeli civilians what to do, where to get to shelter, when to get to shelter and all the rest. There's a home front command that went out late last night.

in the middle of the night in Israel. And it told everybody to get to a shelter. And then for two hours, nothing happened. Now, normally when there's a home front command, there's going to be what's called a red alert. The air raid sirens go off within minutes. This time there's a two hour delay. Why? Because Israel was so sophisticated and exact in taking out the missile capacity that they were preemptively destroying the launchers on the ground. It took the Iranians two hours to find the capacity to fire a bevy of missiles into Israel. So that's how effective Israel is right now.

Again, Iran is sort of in a catch-22 with regard to its ballistic missile programs. If it fires hundreds of ballistic missiles, Israel will immediately identify from where those missiles were fired and destroy the launchers, meaning that they are incapacitated for future use. If Iran does not fire, then effectively they have no response to Israel's destruction of their military capacity. So Abu Ali Express sums up where things are after three days of war. Iran's achievements, approximately 380 ballistic missiles were launched from Iran toward Israel.

Approximately 100 UAVs were launched from Iran toward Israel. Those would be the drones. There was some significant damage caused to buildings in Israel at the impact sites. And you're seeing a lot of that film on places on TV, CNN, Fox News. And it's true. There have been a couple of buildings that have been severely damaged in Israel. That is not the same thing as what Israel is doing to Iran.

and the attempt by the media constantly to draw a comparison as though these are two heavyweights slugging it out wrong. Because here's what Israel has accomplished in the last three days. First, about 120 out of 360 Iranian ballistic missile launchers were destroyed. Second, around 15 senior nuclear scientists were eliminated, including nine of the top nine.

Dozens of senior officials in the Iranian security apparatus were eliminated, including the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, the chief of staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, the heads of Iranian intelligence, including those of the IRGC, the commander of the Air and Space Forces of the Revolutionary Guards and his senior command, the commander of Khatam

Al-Anbiya, the commander of the Tehran police. That last one is important because if there were to be a sort of popular uprising, it'd be his job to put it down in Tehran. Iran's air defense systems have been completely destroyed or rendered ineffective. Iran has no capacity to stop Israel's F-35s and F-16s from simply flying sorties unhindered across Iranian airspace.

The nuclear facility in Natanz was destroyed. We'll get to that in a moment. The level of destruction and the sophistication with which Israel took out the centrifuges at that Natanz facility. The nuclear facility in Isfahan was heavily damaged. The heavy water facility in Iraq was also attacked. There was minor damage inflicted on facilities that were adjacent to Fordo. Now, again, Fordo remains the sort of outstanding Israeli task at this point because it's located 90 meters underground encased in cement.

Now, they can't actually do everything they need to do to develop a nuclear weapon at Fordow, but that is sort of their outstanding capacity thus far. Government offices in Tehran are being routinely attacked. Israel is taking out the Iranian television station today. Israel destroyed a refueling aircraft for Iran. Israel has been destroying fuel depots and a refinery in Tehran. And by the way, there is plenty more that Israel can do. Israel can take out ports. Israel can take out the oil fields. Israel still can take out Ayatollah Khamenei.

So again, what is happening is one of the most successful military operations in modern history. And anyone who's telling you different that this is a widespread conflagration or regional war, or it's going to escalate into something different. There is no evidence of that, certainly. And anyone who's telling you that this is two sluggers just beating each other up, that is a lie. This is not Russia-Ukraine. This is not going to be a long lasting war where months in these two parties are still battling it out. That is not the way this is going to go. Israel is absolutely wrecking Iran right now. They are wrecking Iran.

Now, again, they have not yet taken out Fordo. When it comes to Natanz, when it comes to Natanz, Natanz is one of their big nuclear facilities. And Israel has been striking pretty much every element in the chain of their nuclear program. According to the Wall Street Journal, the IAEA, the International Atomic Energy Agency, said that there was a sudden loss of power at Natanz. It wasn't just that Israel hit actually the nuclear facility. They actually destroyed the power source to the nuclear facility.

For some reason, the Iranians had thought that they were insulated from that and they had left the centrifuges on. And so that may have destroyed many of the roughly 14,000 underground centrifuges. They're still running and there's a sudden power outage. These are very sensitive machines. And so they spin off. And when they spin off, the centrifuges are broken. The long cascades of centrifuge machines, which spins to produce uranium, are fragile and they can break if they are not shut down gradually. So Israel was capable of essentially shutting them down all at once, suddenly breaking many of them.

An Israeli official said there were indications the underground portion of Natanz facility may have imploded. Iran has also struck critical parts of the supply chain for making a bomb. At Iran's Isfahan complex in central Iran, Israel took out four buildings, two of which are must-haves for a nuclear weapon. One is Iran's uranium conversion facility, which turns uranium into a gaseous form it needed to feed it into centrifuges. The second was Iran's fuel fabrication plant, which converts enriched uranium into uranium metal, which makes up a large part of a nuclear warhead.

So again, outstanding work by the Israeli Air Force, just on a raw military level. Now, what about Fordo? So Fordo is, again, the big outstanding issue right here because Fordo is, of course, really, really heavily insulated.

So I asked Perplexity what munitions would Israel require in order to destroy the Iranian nuclear facility at Fordow. And Perplexity explains, to effectively destroy Iran's Fordow nuclear facility, Israel would require specialized bunker-busting munitions capable of penetrating deeply buried fortified structures. The facility, located 90 meters underground within a mountain, presents unique challenges due to its depth and reinforced construction. So either a GBU-57 massive ordnance penetrator, an MOP,

The 30,000 pound MLP can reach approximately 60 meters through earth or 18 meters through reinforced concrete. But Fordow's depth exceeds even that capacity. Even to carry that would require a B-2 or B-21 raider. Presumably, Israel could try to use a repeated slew of GBU-31B or GBU-28 bunker busters. Those were the ones that were used in strikes on Hezbollah's underground facilities.

So they'd have to drop a bunch of those in a row. So obviously, this is the big challenge for Israel. So with all of that said, what exactly has to happen? Well, one of two things has to happen. Either the Iranian regime is going to give up Fordo because they are sustaining so much damage that the only way to retain their actual leadership of Iran is to give up Fordo voluntarily in the same way that Muammar Gaddafi gave up his nuclear facilities, his nuclear ambitions, or they're

There will have to be some sort of special commando raid by the Israelis or some other special plan by the Israelis or the possibility of a one B2 sortie by the Americans. And here's where President Trump's strategy comes into play. I'll get to President Trump's strategy in a moment because it's like true strategy.

Truly, Ford, he checks what the president has done here. The president of the United States has, with no use of American military personnel, devastated the Iranian nuclear resources to the point that Iran is begging the Americans to come to the table now, begging the Americans to come to the table now. And President Trump has said, listen, all options are still on the table. It may be that if Fordo is still in operation a couple of weeks from now or a week from now and the Iranians will not come to the table,

That one B-2 sortie ends Fordow and that there is no capacity for Iran to fire back because Israel has already destroyed all of the ballistic missiles that would have been outgoing to any place that threatens Americans. And that is part of the strategy, I believe, at this point. The Wall Street Journal says Iran's largest uranium enrichment site in a ton has been damaged, as has Isfahan.

Meanwhile, the enrichment site at Fordow, which is buried deep under a mountain, has not been touched. The enriched uranium at Fordow is believed to be enough to produce several bombs. The danger is that if Iran retains the nuclear fuel it has already enriched, as well as the centrifuges to enrich more, the country could sprint to make a bomb. This is where the United States comes in. Israel lacks the deep penetrating bombs and the heavy bombers to deliver them that could do more damage to buried sites. The U.S. has both. Israel would like the U.S. help in taking out those nuclear sites. President Trump seems reluctant to do so for reasons he and the administration haven't explained.

President Trump endorsed the initial attacks, though he continues to suggest the bombing could increase the chances of a negotiated deal to dismantle Iran's nuclear program. So I think that this is what President Trump is doing. President Trump is basically using the Israelis as the bad cop and he is the good cop. He is saying to the Iranians, listen, we can just let the Israelis off the chain. The Israelis are doing what they're going to do and we don't control them. They're their own country. They didn't even have permission to go in the first place. They can do what they're doing. And you can continue to weather that as best you can. But at a certain point, if you are prone,

And this continues. And you won't give up Fordo. We don't know. Maybe there will be a B2. Maybe we'll give Israel use of a B2. Maybe we'll find some other way with Israel. Maybe Israel will do it on its own. You just don't know what's going to happen next. And this is very smart by President Trump. And President Trump has played this absolutely brilliantly. If you had told people just a few years ago that Iran's nuclear regime would be on the precipice of collapse with zero regional fallout, zero,

And the United States would not have expended a single offensive missile in that effort to this point. People would have thought that that was genius level stuff because you know what it is? It's kind of genius level stuff.

Alrighty, folks, tons coming up. All the updates still from the middle of the war. Amit Sehgal at Channel 12. Senator Tom Cotton's going to stop by. Tucker Carlson attacking the president of the United States, really attacking him. We get to all of it. First, Pure Talk, my wireless company, a veteran-led company, believes every man and woman who has faithfully served this country deserves to proudly fly an American flag made in America. And that's why Pure Talk is on a mission to give an allegiance flag, the highest quality American flag, period, to 1,000 U.S. veterans in time for the patriotic holidays.

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slash Shapiro switch is really easy. Their coverage is excellent. The price is lower. What exactly do you have to lose? Plus you're supporting America's veterans. Head on over to pure talk.com slash Shapiro right now. Also right now, things are very, very hot between Israel and Iran. Iran has been firing bevies of missiles into the center of Israel, directed directly at civilian areas. Families across Israel are right now living in their safe rooms. Literally. I have friends who literally are living in their safe rooms right now. Israel,

Israel's Operation Rising Line has been highly successful. It doesn't mean that people in Israel are not suffering. Of course they are. And this is where the IFCJ comes in. The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews is on the ground delivering life-saving aid where it is needed most. IFCJ provides emergency food, shelter, trauma support, and security upgrades, including bomb shelters and fortified hospital units. In

In the past year alone, IFCJ has helped over 2 million people supplying basic needs to the elderly, Holocaust survivors, new immigrants, and children traumatized by war. As Israel's defenders stand ready, IFCJ stands with them, funding bulletproof ambulances, supporting first responders, offering comfort to those in line of fire. Your support means food for the hungry, safety for the vulnerable, hope for a nation under siege. Now, as the world watches and uncertainty grows, you can make a difference through donations. Together, you can bring light to the darkest moments. Visit benforthefellowship.org to donate today. That's one word, benforthefellowship.org.

to donate. Well, Prime Minister Netanyahu was on Fox News with Brett Baier over at Fox News last night, and he was explaining why he decided to make the move right now. He said, we faced a dual existential threat, says the Prime Minister. Because we were facing an imminent threat

threat, a dual existential threat. One, the threat of Iran rushing to weaponize their enriched uranium to make atomic bombs with a specific and declared intent to destroy us. Second, a rush to increase their ballistic missile arsenal

The capacity that they would have 3,600 weapons a year, new weapons within three years, 10,000 ballistic missiles, each one weighing a ton, coming in at Mach 6, right into our cities, as you saw today. And then in six years, 20,000. No country can sustain that, and certainly not a country the size of Israel. So we had to act. It was the 12th hour. We did act.

So again, he's pointing out two threats and one of them is already materialized. And he's saying if the second materialized, you're talking about the possible annihilation of Israel. The ballistic missile threat already materialized. You're seeing video of those ballistic missiles falling into the center of Tel Aviv. One nuclear tipped missile means millions of people dead. At the very least, hundreds of thousands of people dead. So for all of these supposed...

peace lovers who are seeking to prevent nuclear war. It seems like the best way to prevent nuclear war is to prevent the people who are firing ballistic missiles into populated cities from getting nuclear weapons to attach to those ballistic missiles. And that is the point that Netanyahu is making right now.

As far as regime change, there's been a lot of talk about regime change in Iran, like what happens next. Now, clearly, the Iranian regime has been weakened. This is the weakest point for the Iranian regime since 1979. Qasem Soleimani, the president of the United States, Donald Trump took out on January 3rd, 2020. He had vowed that he was going to create a ring of fire around Israel and that he would make it impossible for the Iranian regime to be put

on its back. He said that Israel is going to be surrounded by the Houthis in the south, by Hamas in the Gaza Strip, by Hezbollah in Lebanon, by the Assad regime in Syria, by terrorist groups in Iraq.

And right now, Israel has an open lane, a complete aerial freeway from Israel into Tehran. So every element of that failed. Every element of Qasem Soleimani's dream has been completely destroyed and defeated. So is regime change something that Israel is looking for? Well, the Israelis have said, look, we're not interested in trying to foist regime change. But if it's the only way to end the nuclear threat, then that's the only way to end the nuclear threat. Here's Prime Minister Netanyahu last night with Brett Baier.

So is regime change part of the effort here? Could certainly be the result because the Iran regime is very weak. I think it's basically left with two things. It's plans to have atomic bombs,

and ballistic missiles. That's basically what Iran has. They certainly don't have the people. 80% of the people will throw these theological thugs out. I mean, they murder them. They oppress them for 46 years. They've yearned for freedom. I mean, they shoot women because their hair is uncovered. They shoot students. They just suck the oxygen from this brave and gifted people, the Iranian people.

Okay, so there's Prime Minister Netanyahu saying that could there be regime change? Sure. Again, Ayatollah Khomeini so far has not been a target of the Israelis. We'll get to a fake leak in a moment because there are people in the administration who are trying to leak against the policies of the president of the United States. That is very obviously true. President Trump, for his part, continues to play good cop. And again, this is smart stuff from the president of the United States. So the president was asked yesterday about his continued support for Israel and President Trump said, yeah, obviously.

- Will the US continue to support Israel in its defense? - We do, yeah. Thank you very much, everybody. - President Trump also was asked about the possibility of a deal. And he said, "Sure, there could be a deal, but you know, sometimes people just have to fight." - Well, I hope there's gonna be a deal. I think it's time for a deal and we'll see what happens, but sometimes they have to fight it out, but we're gonna see what happens. I think there's a good chance there'll be a deal.

Yeah. And what he means by that is that Iran is going to come to the table. You're watching an epic geopolitical version of good cop, bad cop playing out in real time. President Trump is the good cop. The United States is the good cop. Israel playing the bad cop. President Trump put out a tweet via Truth Social to that effect. Quote, Iran and Israel should make a deal and will make a deal just like I got India and Pakistan to make in that case by using trade with the United States to bring reason, cohesion and sanity into the talks with two excellent leaders who are able to quickly make a decision and stop.

Also, during my first term, Serbia and Kosovo were going at it hot and heavy, as they have for many decades. And this longtime conflict was ready to break out into war. I stopped it. Biden has hurt the longer term prospects with some very stupid decisions, but I will fix it again. Another case is Egypt and Ethiopia, their fight over a massive dam that is having an effect on

Again, good cop, bad cop. And how can you tell that it's having an effect? Well, because the Iranians are sending some rather mixed signals. So yesterday...

According to Reuters, Iran told mediators Qatar and Oman that it is not open to negotiating a ceasefire while under Israeli attack. They said they will only pursue serious negotiations once Iran has completed its response to the Israeli preemptive strikes. Oh, but that's not what they are saying as of today. So according to the Wall Street Journal,

Iran has been urgently signaling it seeks an end to hostilities and resumption of talks over its nuclear program, sending messages to Israel and the United States via Arab intermediaries, Middle Eastern and European officials said. In the midst of a ferocious Israeli air campaign, Tehran has told Arab officials that they would be open to returning to the negotiating table as long as the U.S. doesn't join the attack. What they're afraid of is that the United States is going to blow up Florida. That's what they're afraid of. They also passed messages to Israel saying it is in the interest of both sides to keep the violence contained.

But with Israeli warplanes able to fly freely over the capital and Iranian counterattacks inflicting minimal damage, Israeli leaders have little incentive to halt their assault before doing more to destroy Iran's nuclear sites and further weaken the theocratic government's hold on power. This is correct, obviously. Ayatollah Khamenei is currently hiding in a bunker somewhere in northern Tehran. And so the choices for the Ayatollah are very simple. The choices are very simple. Either they give up Florida and their entire nuclear program,

Or the regime's in serious trouble. Because if you think that Israel went into this without any plan whatsoever for Florida, you got to have another thing coming. They wouldn't have done this if they didn't have any plan with Florida, for sure. Now, again, what's happening right now is that Iran's only response to this is to fire these large ballistic missiles at population centers in Israel. And you can see the video. I mean, the video is pretty stunning.

Again, they're just firing these missiles directly where they think people are. That is it. They're not targeting military facilities. They're not attempting to take out strategic targets. This is B-roll video. You can see it here. This is actually video that is from Iraq across the border. You can see all these missile launches into the stratosphere there. And obviously, there's been damage done in Tel Aviv. It's clip 26. You can see the damage that's been done to residential areas of Tel Aviv.

Again, collapse of a building. Again, the death so far in Israel has been every death is a tragedy on both sides. Obviously, the tragedy is on the hands of the Iranian government. But in terms of military comparative terms, the death has been minimal on the Israeli side. Part of that is because Israel has been preparing its own citizens for the possibility of war like this for literally decades. There is a building program in Israel.

called Tamim 38. It is deliberately designed to retrofit all old buildings in Israel so that they are safer against bomb attack. Israel has hardened its hospitals against bomb attack. They actually have subterranean facilities designed in case of a bomb attack. That's because they live in the world's worst neighborhood. And so they've been prepping for this for years. Whereas obviously Israel's opponents are happy to watch its own civilians die. Israel is not. And what that means is that people have been going into their safe rooms and by and large, if you're in the safe room, you are safe.

in Israel. So Iran is in serious trouble at this point. How serious is the trouble that Iran is in right now? So serious that Vladimir Putin is basically giving them the drowning high five meme at this point. So all those folks out there, particularly on the isolationist right, who are suggesting Russia is going to step in here, Russia is going to do something. Somebody will step in. No one is stepping in. No one is stepping in. Iran has no serious allies at this point. They are prone. They are on their back.

That's just the reality. Anyone who is telling you different was lying to you. Vladimir Putin contacted President Trump yesterday at the urging of the Ayatollahs, according to Israel Hayom, to address the conflict. And apparently Putin asked Trump basically to call off the Israelis. And Trump said no. And so Putin went back to Khamenei and he didn't say we're upping our support for you. He said, well, bud, you're on your own. Maybe you might want to make a deal because otherwise we got room for you to bunk over here next to Bashar al-Assad.

But remember, the Russians abandoned Assad too. I mean, if you go back a year, the Russians were talking about how Assad was one of their key allies. And a year later, Bashar al-Assad is bunking somewhere in Moscow and Syria is being run by a man who now says that Israel has a clear runway over Syrian skies, which is something he said publicly yesterday. Already tons more coming up. Tucker Carlson attacking the president, overtly attacking President Trump, saying the president isn't America first. Plus Senator Tom Cotton stops by first. My work schedule has been

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That Vladimir Putin is desperate to uphold the honor of the Iranian regime is not true. It's not true. The Iranians are isolated and they're in serious trouble. That is the current status of the war right now. What's the end game for that war? Joining me online is Amit Segal, his chief political analyst for Israel's leading news outlet, Channel 12 News, as well as the country's most read newspaper, Yediot Aharonot. He also anchors Israel's highly watched Meet the Press. Amit, thanks so much for the time. Really appreciate it. Thank you, Ben.

So why don't we start with where the war stands after four days? Essentially, Israel has done an incredible job, it appears, of knocking off the top levels of the Iranian military. They've taken out certain nuclear sites like Natanz. The big questions remain, Fordo, what Israel plans to do with the regime? Why don't you give me the update on where you think the war stands right now?

I'm sorry to give an American audience an allegory with football, with the European football, aka soccer, but it's the equivalent of Israel leading 5-0. And now we are in the last minute and all the Iranians can do is just, you know, try to hit the players. Not to win the game, but to cause damage, to prevent them from playing in the next season. This is what is happening. Israel actually took...

90% of the assets, of the nuclear assets of the Iranian regime, 33% of the launchers, I think 25% of the missile, the ballistic missiles, and 100% of the Iranian deterrents.

The idea of an Iranian new Persian empire that rules the Middle East was shattered and everyone in the Middle East is hearing the noise as we speak. Now, what Iranians can do is try to kill as many Israeli civilians as possible in order to deter Israel or to try to create conflict.

some kind of a balance, but it's definitely not the case. Now, as for Fordoo, Fordoo is like the back plan for the fallback position for the Iranian nuclear program. You can do many of the things there, not everything.

Because it's 90 meters under the ground, it's very protected. The U.S. Army can do it. The Israeli Army can do part of it. Now, here's the thing as for a for-do. In order to do something in for-do, you have actually to have people who know what to do. They are all dead by now.

Nine out of the nine most influential nuclear scientists are dead. And I don't think there would be a high demand if someone is recruiting for office for this new job, because it does not promise a long life expectancy.

So the question at this point is sort of where this goes from here. So obviously, the IAF has essentially an open runway all the way from Israel to Tehran. There was a warning this morning, Eastern time, that people should get out of particular areas of Tehran because Israel is hitting military and political targets in Tehran after Tehran has been firing missiles directly into population centers in Israel. So far, Israel's

air defenses have performed really, really well, but obviously you're talking about hundreds of missiles that have been fired into Israel. These are large missiles with significant payloads. And so there have been many people injured. There've been some who have been killed in Israel, but on balance, as you say, there's no question that Israel has been absolutely rocking the Iranian regime while the Iranians are basically just attempting to kill Israeli civilians and not being extraordinarily successful

at it. So what is the end game here? How much longer is it going to take for Israel to achieve its strategic goals here? And is Ayatollah Khamenei on the target list as well?

Well, okay, so let's begin with the life expectancy of the war. Israel's most successful war was the Six-Day War, and Iran's most well-known war was the Eight-Year War with Iraq. So they can breathe for a longer time, they are a longer country, but first, Israel eliminated their ability to produce many ballistic missiles.

Israel took their anti-aircraft systems. So if they shoot, let's say, 75 missiles a night in order to overcome Israel's anti-missile systems, it means necessarily that within 30 days this war is over for the Iranians.

More than this, Israel has already taken one third of the launchers, which means that as time passes, Israel recognizes and destroys more than before. So I would say they have more for two, three weeks, unless they actually abandon the strategy of trying to overcome the Israeli aircraft systems and Israeli anti-missile systems and

They turn to the Yemenite option of firing one ballistic missile a night and then they have for three years. I don't think they will take the risk because Israel can escalate three, four more levels while Iranians are only left with this option. Israel, for instance, can eliminate the Iranian economy by attacking Bandar Abbas port. Israel can take the oil and gas industry, which accounts for 85%

of the Iranian economy. Israel can eliminate Khamenei, as you said. One day he'll have to get out of his bunker somewhere in northern Tehran. By the way, Israel knows where he is. And he would be killed. So I think it leads me to the conclusion that Iranians are seeking a quick end to this conflict before Fardu is destroyed and the Iranian economy would vanish.

And so that brings up the question of the American involvement in all of this. President Trump has suggested that he would like to reach an off-ramp here. Obviously, there's a bit of good cop, bad cop that's being played here, where Israel is the bad cop slapping the Iranians around. And the United States is saying to the Ayatollahs, listen, if you want to preserve Fordow, if you want to preserve your lives,

then you really should come to the table. Iran has not evidenced tremendous willingness to do that at this point, probably because they believe that if they give up Fordow, then that will put them in a position where their regime falls inside the next couple of years anyway, because they're deeply worried that without a nuclear future, that their regime is in danger.

Where do you think the possibility of negotiation lies here? Or is Israel just going to continue for the next few days upping the ante? As you say, it's kind of a catch-22 for the Iranians. If they continue to fire these missiles, even if Israel doesn't eliminate the launchers, they run out of missiles. And also, every time they fire a missile, Israel's blowing up the launchers. I mean, last night, there was a Home Command front in Israel, Home Front Command, put out a warning to Israelis that they should all stay near their safe rooms. And for two hours, nothing happened. And that was because Israel was...

preemptively blowing up all of the launchers in Iran that were going hot before they could launch the missiles. So Iran is really stuck in a box here. What does the off-ramp look like? Do you think Iran takes it?

I think Iranians, they have a very narrow path, not to victory, but to actually end the war. They must react, must retaliate in order to preserve the standing of the administration in the eyes of the Iranian people and the entire Middle East. And on the other hand, they cannot escalate too much because of all the reasons I've just mentioned. So what I think is that they must end the war. Now, here's the thing.

I'm not sure that the Iranians these days, and this Ayatollah Khamenei, the 86-year-old and a very sick and not very stable Khamenei, is the smart guy that we have known in the past. We were lectured about Iranians have, you know, a 3,000-year experience in bargaining in the bazaar. But I have to say that, and you know, because we talked about it privately a few times over the last few months, that...

We couldn't believe our eyes to see Iranians so reluctant to make any concessions. They just drove Trump to let Israel, to greenlight Israel, to attack Iran. So here's the thing. Rationally speaking, they must actually bring the war to an end. But from what I'm hearing and the fact that the Iranian parliament today passed a resolution to leave the anti-profileration treaty,

It leads, it almost forces the U.S. to act. And that's why I wouldn't gamble on the Iranians because they don't act rationally.

So, you know, as far as this is concerned, obviously, the missiles continue to fly into Israel. As we've said, the death count in Israel at this point is not high by comparative standards, but you're talking about civilians who are being killed in Israel. So what is the attitude on the ground, considering that, again, these missiles are falling in central Tel Aviv, which is a highly populated area?

Yes. So they can actually fire at the Aviv. They actually tried to do it. 22 Israeli citizens and tourists were killed over the last three nights. It's not a very pleasant experience to be in the shelter three times a night, although you get used to it. You know, my grandmother was born in London and she spent the blitz in the bound city of London.

They experienced a death toll of 40,000 Britons and just a comparison. So Israelis will stand, they will stay firm, they will stand firm and they will survive. You hear amazing things from people who lost their homes and say to the IDF, just

just keep buggering on, as Winston Churchill said. So I'm quite optimistic about the spirit, the Israeli spirit. And I think that it's not the case, to say the least, with the Iranian people. Just a few minutes ago, the IDF issued a warning for more than a million citizens in Tehran to leave their homes because Israel is about to bomb the Iranian television.

The television that actually spreads poison, anti-Jewish, anti-Semitic poison. So this is just a hint of what Israel can do without, of course, bombing civilians. Well, that's Amit Sehgal from Channel 12. Remember to check out his telegram, which is the best source for information on the war and Israeli politics generally. Amit, thanks so much for the time. Really appreciate it. Thank you so much. Thank you so much.

Already coming up, two Minnesota state senators were shot to death over the weekend. We'll bring you all the news updates first. When you're covering breaking news and political developments the way we do here, you can't always stick to that normal nine-to-five schedule. Stories break all the time. Having the flexibility to manage my time effectively, that's not just a luxury.

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Now, meanwhile, while one of the most transformative geopolitical events of our lifetime is taking place, the entire shifting of the Middle East away from Iran and its allies, the complete destruction of the Iranian octopus, top down, all the arms off. While that is happening, there are still people on both right and left who have horseshoe-theoried around and somehow found this to be absolutely terrible. Apparently, Iran should have remained, and not only should they have remained in power, the Ayatollahs, but they should be able to pursue their nuclear weapons program. And all of this is just, it's unthinkable.

The Democrats who are saying this, I have to say, are some of the stupidest people on earth. Truly, truly stupid people. So Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, he says, you know what would be great is that we could have done more sanctions. That would have been the thing. Would it though? Would it though? Iran was gaining breakout capacity with its nuclear facilities. Iran had already been subjected to serious sanctions by the Trump administration.

They were trying to break out specifically to evade sanctions. And so his solution was more sanctions as opposed to what? Just stand back and let Israel do what Israel needs to do. What a fool Richard Blumenthal is. I think we ought to strengthen sanctions against Iran, which is a non-kinetic, a peaceful means of exerting pressure.

President Trump tried all of that. And the Israelis said, the Iranians are not budging. Again, you have to wonder at the Iranian stupidity in their negotiating tactics with President Trump. Truly stupid. President Trump gave them 100,000 opportunities here to take the off ramp. And the Ayatollahs said no. And so President Trump unleashed a strategy, this good cop, bad cop strategy with the Israelis. He's still saying, listen, you guys want to negotiate? Let's do it. But the Iranians are going to have to give up their nuclear program. That's all. That's the ask. The nuclear program goes away.

But don't worry, Richard Blumenthal is not even close to the dumbest Democrat on the line here. Tim Walz, a man who is almost vice president of the United States. This absolute bag of tools. He's not just he's not just a tool. He's he's the entire bag of tools. He was speaking at the Center for American Progress, and he suggested that we need Chinese intervention to broker a peace deal here. Dude, I know you spent time in China in your youth.

You can stop being a Manchurian agent at this point. Like, seriously, I wonder how good the money is for Tim Walz, because I can think of no other explanation why you would imagine that the Chinese communist regimes regime, one of the most vicious regimes on planet Earth and a geopolitical enemy of the United States ought to broker peace in the Middle East. What a fool Tim Walz is.

Now, who is the voice in the world to negotiate some type of agreement in this? Who holds the moral authority? Who holds the ability to do that? Because we are not seen as a neutral actor. And we maybe never were. I don't want to tell anybody that. I think there's a lot of people who say you always leaned one way in this. But I think there was at least an attempt to be neutral.

somewhat of the arbitrator in this. We saw President Carter do it with with Begin and Sadat. We've had certain wins along the way that were actually mutually beneficial both ways. Now I ask who that is and I mean consistently over and over again, we're gonna have to face the reality. It might be the Chinese.

Unbelievable. What an absolute wow, wow, wow. Again, that guy was almost vice president saying the Chinese should broker peace in the Middle East. Hey, let's just be clear. There's only one president in my lifetime who has seriously brokered peace in the Middle East. His name is Donald J. Trump. It was Donald Trump. He brokered the Abraham Accords. And when this is all said and done, the Middle East will be transformed because of Donald Trump. Because of Donald Trump. Period. End of story. And Tim Walz is absolute genius.

just nothing burger of a human being. Calling in the Chinese for aid? At least we know where his heart is. Meanwhile, Ben Rhodes, a former senior advisor to Barack Obama. Ben Rhodes, whose literal name, I'm not even kidding you, his nickname in the White House under Barack Obama was Hamas. That was his literal nickname.

And he was advising Barack Obama. He tweeted out, war is breaking out because Trump pulled out of the Iran deal and got humiliated by Netanyahu while trying to negotiate his own. And he's got to have a military parade for his birthday. The weakest strongman. What a fool he is. What a fool he is. War is breaking out because Barack Obama gave Iran a clear pathway to a nuclear bomb. And President Trump has been trying to backfill that problem ever since. It was because of Ben Rhodes that this became an issue.

Ben Rhodes. But don't worry, there's also help from the right side of the people on the right who have now declared that they are the leaders of MAGA, not Donald Trump, actually. It turns out that they, they are the great leaders of America First and MAGA. So Tucker Carlson put out a statement on Friday in his newsletter letter in which

He suggested that the United States was, quote, complicit. Not to me as Donald Trump was complicit in Israel's, quote, unquote, act of war. The title of the newsletter was that this could be the final newsletter before all out war in which he suggested basically World War Three was going to break out.

The newsletter says, while the American military may not have physically perpetrated the assault, years of funding and sending weapons to Israel, which Donald Trump just bragged about on Truth Social, undeniably placed the U.S. at the center of last night's events. Washington knew these attacks would happen. They aided Israel in carrying them out. Politicians purporting to be America first can't now credibly turn around and say they had nothing to do with it. Our country is in deep.

So Donald Trump is purporting to be America first. Only Tucker Carlson, who tours Moscow supermarkets to talk about how good the bread is and how he wishes that our subway system ran just like Moscow's. Only Tucker Carlson, who does interviews with the leadership of Qatar and talks about how they are an amazing ally to the United States while they simultaneously support Hamas. Only Tucker Carlson, who hosts people like Daryl Cooper,

the greatest and most honest historian in America, according to Tucker Carlson, who over the weekend suggested that America should launch missiles against Tel Aviv. Only Tucker Carlson is truly America first, not Donald Trump, not Donald Trump, who built the America first movement, who built MAGA, only Tucker Carlson and his friends are truly MAGA and America first. And then Tucker over the weekend doubled down on this,

He said the real divide isn't between people who support Israel and people who support around or the Palestinians. The real divide is between those who casually encourage violence and those who seek to prevent it between warmongers and peacemakers. Again, this is Tucker's stick is that anyone who opposes him is a warmonger who wants more war. He just loves war, loves, loves. OK, please. Who are the people who love or just desperately want war?

So he actually says, he says, who are the warmongers? They would include anyone who's calling Donald Trump today to demand airstrikes and other direct US military involvement in war with Iran. On that list, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Rupert Murdoch, Ike Perlmutter, and Miriam Adelson. At some point, they will all have to answer for this, but you should know their names now. So first of all, I'm not aware that any of those people are directly calling Donald Trump and saying that he must directly intervene in this current conflict. Second of all,

His suggestion that you're a warmonger if you want the Iranian nuclear program to end. And I guess Donald Trump is a warmonger because Donald Trump wants the nuclear program to end. And you know who said that? Donald Trump. Because you know who the actual leader of MAGA is? Donald Trump. He created MAGA. It is Donald Trump who created the America First movement. It is not Tucker Carlson. And it is not Marjorie Taylor Greene, who similarly put out a tweet saying, quote, everyone is finding out who are the real America First MAGA and who are fake and just said it because it was popular.

So I guess that Donald Trump is not the real America first MAGA. Only Marjorie Taylor Greene, an obscure congresswoman from Georgia until Donald Trump tapped her on the head, is the real America first MAGA.

Does anyone slobbering for the U.S. to become fully involved in the Israel Iran war is not America first. Who are the people who are slobbering for the U.S. to become, quote unquote, fully involved? Literally no one has called for a ground invasion of Iran. No one. No one has suggested that the United States ought to be fully involved in a gigantic takeover of Iran, a regime rebuild. No one is calling for that.

Even if you're calling for a single airstrike on Fordo, you know what that looks a lot like? It looks like a single airstrike on Qasem Soleimani, which President Trump did in 2020 and was ripped by people like Tucker Carlson, who said that it was going to turn into a regional war. Here's my big question for folks like Tucker. When he suggests that there are these people who are calling Donald Trump and demanding he do things, who does he think is the decision maker?

The decision maker in the White House is Donald J. Trump. Donald Trump has taken the same position on the Iranian nuclear program since literally the first minute he came down the golden escalator. He has not changed. Not one iota. Does Tucker really think that Donald Trump is so manipulable that he gets a call from Ike Perlmutter and suddenly he changes his entire perspective on the Middle East? What a low opinion Tucker Carlson must have of Donald Trump's capacities. And he thinks that he can manipulate him from the outside?

or that others are manipulating him in that particular way. By the way, President Trump fired back at all of this over the weekend. He did an interview with The Atlantic, and he was asked about whether the move runs counter to America first. And Trump said, well, considering I'm the one that developed America first, and considering that the term wasn't used until I came along, I think I'm the one that decides that. Yes, for those people who say they want peace, you can't have peace if Iran has a nuclear weapon. See, this is what not stupid people say.

Because President Trump is a not stupid person. But the people who are attacking him today

have predicted that BRICS, Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, in economic union, they're going to get involved in this in some form or fashion. That's what those people say. President Trump is not one of those people because he's not a stupid person. Quote, so for all of those wonderful people who don't want anything to do about Iran having a nuclear weapon, that's not peace. Correct. And nothing has changed. He's been saying that the entire time. The entire time he's been saying that. The president of the United States. So,

Again, all the isolationists who are horseshoeing around and having fun, happy times with all of their friends on the left retweeting each other. We should just note who those people are and what they actually believe about the president of the United States, about America first, about MAGA, and their complete acquiescence to the idea that a nuclear Iran seems to be fine for the world. An asinine notion rejected by anyone with half a brain.

Okay, joining us on the line to discuss all of this and more, Senator Tom Cotton from Arkansas. He's chairman of the Intelligence Services Committee and serves on the Armed Services Committee as well. Senator Cotton, thanks so much for taking the time again. Hello, Ben. Good to be back with you.

So obviously, when last we talked, it was before Israel had launched its preemptive attack on Iran, destroying an extraordinary number of Iranian assets, most of its top military layer, pretty much all of its nuclear scientists. Israel has taken out a wide variety of its nuclear facilities. The big one that is left largely intact is Fordow, which is the one that's buried some 90 meters underground in cement. They have also taken out a wide variety of ballistic missile launchers. They said today that they destroyed about one third of Iran's entire ballistic missile launcher, Kopech.

The media are covering this as though this is sort of a tit for tat. The reality is something very different, which is that Israel appears to be absolutely destroying the Iranian military capacity while Iran has been in really almost terroristic fashion, just firing waves of ballistic missiles into civilian centers. What do you make of the state of the war right now?

Well, Ben, I think you nailed it. I mean, on the one hand, you have Iran, the world's worst state sponsor of terrorism, shooting missiles into residential neighborhoods, killing innocent women and children. On the other hand, you have a highly precise, very well-planned, extraordinarily well-executed Israeli campaign against military targets.

and personnel in Iran. As you say, this is all driven, of course, by the threat of a nuclear Iran. What both Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Trump have always said, the world cannot tolerate Iran with nuclear weapons or a nuclear weapons program to include enrichment capability. There are a few key sites that

in Iran that have to be eliminated one way or the other. But also what Israel has to do to make sure that they can get to those sites both now and in the future is destroy Iran's air defenses. It appears as of Monday, they've done that, that they have established total air superiority over Iran for their aircraft.

and also destroy those ballistic missiles and launchers that can target Israelis. And you can see by the volume of ballistic missiles being fired day after day after day, they seem to be having great success there as well. So as President Trump said, we back Israel to the hilt. We've helped protect Israelis. We've helped protect the 700,000 Americans inside of Israel. And we can only hope that Iran now understands that Israel and America means business.

Now, President Trump has played this about as perfectly as you can play this, meaning that Israel is taking out an enormous number of Iranian nuclear assets and Iranian military assets

at very essentially zero material cost to the United States. The United States is helping shoot down missiles that are coming at Israel and has already obviously militarily funded the Israeli military. Israel, of course, spends billions of dollars on American military material every single year. With all of that said, right now, Iran has been wildly degraded. The president is telling the Iranians, you need to come to the table and basically give up Fordo, give up your nuclear program, and then you get to live. But if not, you know, then the Israelis are going to do what they have to do, seems to be the position of the administration at this point.

Yeah, Ben, I think that's right. President Trump has kept open the possibility of negotiations. He's urged the ayatollahs to come back to negotiate while they still have something to negotiate with. Again, the linchpin of this campaign is the key nuclear sites, especially the enrichment sites.

Israel is starting to hit some of those. Whether or not they have yet succeeded in eliminating any of them is to be determined. But it would be an inconclusive outcome if Iran retains any ability to enrich uranium after this conflict ends. So those sites are going to have to be closed one way or the other.

Senator Cotton, obviously the big question that's being asked by folks is what it will take to, for example, end Fordow. Presumably, if the Iranians want to come to the table, they are going to have to give up Fordow. They're going to have to give up what's left of Natanz. Natanz appears to have been severely damaged.

There's been a lot of talk about the possibility of the United States using one B-2 sortie essentially to take out Fordow. The president seems reluctant to do that unless it's sort of kind of last ditch, meaning that all other options have been exhausted at that point. Where do you think the American decision-making stands and where should it stand with regard to Fordow?

Well, the president has been very clear that he's keeping all options on the table. He's been clear about that since he came back to the White House in January. And that's I think he's still holding out the possibility to the Ayatollahs that they could negotiate some kind of ceasefire that would probably include the closure of Fordow voluntarily. But as I said, Fordow, along with the Tons, if it's not yet totally destroyed and certain parts of the Isfahan site,

are going to have to be closed one way or the other. I think anything else would be an inconclusive outcome to this campaign. I think the president is just leaving the ball in the Ayatollah's court about how it's going to be closed. And I'd make one final point too, about the early hours of this campaign, when you had Mossad agents inside of Iran that were assembling drones there to use against senior military and terrorist leaders inside of Iran and some of their missile sites as well. Uh,

Once again, as with the beeper operation against Hezbollah last fall, it's clear that Israel had a few tricks up its sleeve. And I don't think the Ayatollahs should wager that they don't have another card or two to play, even when it comes to deep buried sites like Fordow.

So Senator Cotton, one of the things that has been kind of apparent and shocking is how many people on the sort of isolationist right have been railing against the president's position on this, directly attacking the president on his position on this. Their suggestion, of course, is that this was going to turn into a full-scale regional conflagration in which all sorts of parties were going to be drawn in. So far, that appears not even to be remotely the case.

Essentially, it appears that the Ayatollah actually called up Vladimir Putin and asked him if there was a way out of this. And Vladimir Putin, after talking to President Trump, went back to the Ayatollah and said, no.

no, you're going to have to actually negotiate or you're in serious trouble right here. There don't seem to be a lot of forces coming to Iran's defense here, Iran's support. The only sources that I see that are coming to any sort of material defense of Iran, really the Chinese flying in some resupplied parts, it appears, for ballistic missile development from the east. That appears to be the only intelligence that I've seen suggesting any level of outside support for anything that Iran is doing. Otherwise, Iran is totally isolated and their skies are naked.

Yeah, Iran is totally exposed because Israel has suppressed all their enemy air defenses. On the domestic political front, you know, Ben, you would expect to see Democrats criticizing President Trump, as they have. It's disappointing to see some

self-appointed so-called MAGA influencers criticizing him, saying that he is violating his own America First foreign policy or he's betraying the MAGA movement. And remember what President Trump said in the Atlantic interview over the weekend. He's the one that created the MAGA movement. He defined the America First foreign policy. So-called influencers who don't have any responsibility or accountability for

to the American people through their votes in our constitutional system, yet one authority over policy are trying to police the boundaries of the president's own movement and the president's own foreign policy. And as he said in that Atlantic interview, they say they want peace. You can't have peace with a nuclear Iran. You just can't have peace

a peaceful world if Iran is enriching uranium and working on the weaponization of a warhead and preparing to get nuclear weapons. Again, we've seen over the weekend, they're willing without nuclear weapons, not just to terrorize America, but also to fire ballistic missiles into civilian neighborhoods. So I think the president has...

played this just right. He is supporting Israel all the way. He's warning Iran not to harm a single American, especially our troops in the Gulf. And we'll see, again, what the Ayatollahs are willing to do now that they understand that Israel and America mean business.

Between President Trump and the Prime Minister Netanyahu in Israel, essentially they ended not just Qasem Soleimani, but also Qasem Soleimani's dream. So the president, of course, authorized the killing of Qasem Soleimani, who is the leader of the terrorist arm of the IRGC. Back in 2019, Soleimani had essentially said publicly that he had created an entire ring of fire around Israel that was going to make it impossible for anyone to ever target the Iranian regime. He name-checked Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, terrorist groups in Iraq.

the Syrian regime, and pretty much all of those groups have now been defenestrated and left completely prone by the Israelis with American material support. And that's thanks to President Trump, Prime Minister Netanyahu. The world has changed and the outcome of what is happening right now

If the president should have earned the Nobel Prize for the Abraham Accords, I don't think there's any doubt that given his support right now and given the changing face of the Middle East and also what could come next after this, I think people are neglecting the fact that once there is some sort of either agreement cut with the Iranians to denuclearize or the Iranian regime is forced to denuclearize, it's going to completely change the region. I mean, the Abraham Accords is just going to be the beginning.

Yeah, without question, man. And the strike in Qasem Soleimani is a good example of how you deliver peace through strength. Some of the same voices now who are saying that, oh, this conflict is going to create World War III,

We're also predicting World War III back in 2020 when President Trump ordered the strike that killed Iran's terrorist mastermind. Yet we didn't have World War III. We had an Iran that was chasing and pulled in its horns. Those voices right now are making preposterous claims like somehow the BRICS countries, Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, are going to rush into Iran's aid and we're going to see World War III. Does anyone really take seriously the idea that Brazil and India and

And South Africa is going to come to Iran's aid. And as you said earlier, Russia has already refused to. Ben, just like Russia refused to come to the aid of its longtime client, Bashar al-Assad, last fall in Syria. They told him he was on his own and he was on his own on a flight to Russia just a few days later. So when push comes to shove, once again, the strong horse in the world, especially in the Middle East, is the United States and Israel.

That's Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas. Senator, thanks so much for your time and your insight. Really appreciate it. Thank you, Ben. Meanwhile, the big story over the weekend was this horrifying shooting of a Minnesota state legislator as well as her

her husband by a man who then went on the run, his 57-year-old, who has a bit of a checkered social media history and apparently had some sort of mental break. According to the Wall Street Journal, a man suspected of shooting two state Democratic lawmakers was arrested late Sunday after authorities tracked him into an area with crops and woodland in rural Minnesota. The capture of the 57-year-old ended a two-day manhunt that left the community on edge following the killings of state Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark Hortman, and the shootings of Senator John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette Hoffman.

State prosecutors are charging the suspect with murder. The Democratic politicians were shot early Saturday morning in what Minnesota Governor Tim Walz called an act of targeted political violence. The shootings were the latest in a surge of violence against elected officials in the United States. That, of course, is horrifying and it is, of course, quite real. There has been a surge in political violence against high profile figures. Now, of course, the media immediately jumped in to try and locate the sort of ideology of the shooter. And it turns out

that this person had a sort of strange history, for sure. According to the Wall Street Journal, he had built a scattered career that included food companies, retailing and pastoring, according to public records and his online post. He'd been living with his wife in a rural area outside the Twin Cities, staying a few nights a week at a rental home in a working class Minneapolis neighborhood with a couple of roommates. He's apparently working overnight shifts for an organization that handles eye donations. On Friday night, he parked his Prowler style vehicle from his security business at the house and went to his room.

According to Carlson, who is David Carlson, one of his roommates, Carlson knocked on the door, but the suspect said he was tired. So Carlson left him alone, reasoning he was sometimes on call for the I donation firm and might have to be up in the middle of the night. And then he woke up on Saturday to a troubling text. The alleged shooter said he was going to be gone for a while and maybe dead shortly, according to local media reports. He thought he was going to self-harm, but that's not actually what happened. Apparently, this person voted for President Trump and was against abortion, considering it murder.

Apparently, he sort of had quasi right wing mainstream political opinions, although, according to The Wall Street Journal, trying to identify his political leanings is challenging based on available public records.

Apparently, there's a list in the suspect's vehicle, including other prominent public officials that included dozens of names of prominent Minnesotans who support abortion rights, including many Democratic lawmakers, as well as abortion providers, according to an official who had seen the document. Online Post paints a picture of the suspect as a devout Christian and pastor who preached at a church in the Congo. Apparently, he quit most of his jobs before his last trip to Africa and was struggling to build back a solid income. That appears that he was getting more and more erratic over time.

Meanwhile, Senator Amy Klobuchar had just met with one of the lawmakers before the lawmaker was shot. And here she was paying tribute to the slain lawmakers. I just wish everyone...

in the world, political world, knew this woman like we know her in Minnesota, loved by Democrats and Republicans. Started out, we started out together in politics, moms with young kids. And somehow she was able to balance getting to know every doorknock, every house in her district while raising two children. Girl Scout leader, she was

She taught Sunday school. And when you think about political violence and the statistics of political violence, you've got to realize the people who are behind it and a true public servant that we lost. President Trump, for his part, immediately condemned the assassin, of course. Absolutely terrible. Absolutely terrible. And they're looking for that particular man right now. Thank you.

And now one thing that is worth noting here is the difference between the reaction of people on the right to what appears to be a purported right winger shooting a couple of Democratic lawmakers and the response on the left to various attacks on Republican lawmakers and people who are associated with capitalism. So Luigi Mangione, the suspected murderer of the UnitedHealthcare CEO, has fan clubs, late night comics praising him, talking about how wonderful he is, how he's really just the vanguard.

When Senator Rand Paul was attacked by a crazed neighbor, there were people openly making jokes about that, both online and in the media. In this particular case, you cannot find a single person anywhere who is saying that this is good or decent or part of a broader, well-justified movement because it isn't. Because it isn't. The idea that increased tenor of political rhetoric leads people to bubble over

I've said for a while that obviously there's truth to that, but one of the factors there is the reaction to horrifying events.

The universal condemnation from the right of this shooter is demonstration that this is not the sort of activity that is well accepted on the right. You cannot say the same. I wish you could. Honest to God, I wish you could say the same about the left when they are busily praising people like Luigi Mangione. Joining us on the line to discuss how exactly the suspect was caught is Brandon Blackburn, former CIA counterterrorism officer who spent his career conducting operations throughout the Middle East. Thanks so much for joining us. Good morning, Ben. Thank you for having me.

So let's talk about the manhunt for the shooter of the suspected shooter of this Minnesota lawmaker. How did this unfold? How did law enforcement finally get this person? Well, it really came down to the old adage, see something, say something. So by all accounts, a citizen and a

You know, it was just going by her daily about her daily life in a rural area, saw something unusual and a man crawling through a basically a farm farm setting out in the countryside. And she made the right phone call and made the right decision to report it. But it's pretty phenomenal if you consider Ben in this day and age.

that this high profile of an event led to a nearly 48-hour manhunt for somebody who, for the last two days, has become public enemy number one.

So, you know, what do we actually know about the shooter at this point? Obviously, there's a lot of speculation about who he is, what his motivations were. You saw early reports that he was politically on the left, and you saw later reports that he was politically on the right. It appears from the reporting so far that he appears to be somebody who suffered a psychological break is what it actually looks like. But what is your take on the suspect? And that's what it comes down to in all of these cases, Ben. It's really a mental health issue. And

And anybody who is wired to take their political beliefs to the extreme, really under the guise of stochastic terrorism, we need to address the root cause of this problem. And at the end of the day, we need to let the dust settle.

let the investigation unfold to really see what his motives and intentions are. Like you said, in the last 48 hours, there've been a bevy of accusations about his political leanings, his moral beliefs and values that may have been the driver. But at the end of the day, this and others like him are mentally ill individuals. And if you peel back the bone and flesh and looked at their mapping,

you know, of their anatomy and their brains and their wiring, they unfortunately have something inside them that allows them to take to think it's OK to enact violence against someone with whom they do not agree. And that's the that really is the root cause of all of these types of cases that we're seeing, unfortunately.

So, Brandon, one of the things that I think was so disturbing to people about this particular attack, aside from the obvious, was it was the fact that the suspected shooter in this particular case apparently posed as a police officer to gain access to the home of the of the victim where she and her husband were.

were then murdered. What should this teach law enforcement in the future about how to handle situations like this? If you are handling security for politicians, and right now it's a very fraught time in American life, we're seeing increased amounts of violence against prominent people. How would you be handling these sorts of questions?

Well, I think you have the law enforcement component, but it's also unfortunately the general public need to be aware. And there needs to be a dialogue between the two sides respectively about how we engage with law enforcement, what our expectations of them should be when announcing themselves and when approaching us and vice versa, because everybody is on high alert right now.

And we need someone to step in, whether it's a group, an industry, somebody with a public profile to really tamp down the rhetoric. Because if you look at the last few years, Ben, this tribalistic society in which we have found ourselves is just continuing to escalate and evolve into, again, what I call stochastic terrorism. We're seeing incendiary rhetoric, we're seeing implicit incitement by public figures, and

And that needs to be addressed as much as, you know, our men and women in uniform who are just trying to do their best for their communities.

You know, Brandon, one of the things that I find really interesting about about sort of the fallout from this, then the aftermath of the murder of the UnitedHealthcare CEO. There's a widespread public sentiment that it was justified, that it was fine. People came to the defense of the suspect in the case. He has a fan club, all of this sort of stuff. You didn't see anything remotely like that from the right in this particular case. So the lawmaker was killed as a Democrat. I can't name a single figure on the right, either, you know, in politics or even online who is celebrating that. That does seem to be a bit of a difference.

I agree with you 100 percent. And I'll take it a step further, Ben. If the media gets a hold of any indication that this guy was in fact a Republican conservative, a Trump supporter, we are going to know more about his life in the next 24 to 48 hours than we do, for instance, about Elias Rodriguez.

who three weeks ago pretty much did a very similar type of assassination. And we know very little about him, uh, relative to what we already know about this, uh, this shooter in Minnesota. So the media has, has an incredible responsibility, uh, in these cases to, to treat them all the same, because we are getting to the point where either all of it's acceptable or none of it is. And that's a very scary, uh, you know, uh,

place to find ourselves as a society. Again, it's the implicit incitement by our public figures and the media that is really a root cause of much of what we're seeing. That's Brandon Blackburn, former undercover CIA counterterrorism officer. Really appreciate your time and your insight.

Thank you, Ben. All righty, folks, the show continues for our members right now. So much more to get to. President Trump had this big military parade on Saturday. Of course, Democrats were protesting en masse. No Kings, no Kings. We'll get to that. Remember, in order to watch, you have to be a member. If you're not a member, become a member. Use code Shapiro. Check out for two months free on all annual plans. Click that link in the description and join us.