BONUS POD: Regime Change Already Happened?—Total Energy Knockout if Iran Balks

This is an I Heart Podcast.

Guaranteed Human.

Two questions regarding the financial possible war.

Back during the Persian Gulf War, 1999 to 1991,

Arab countries paid for the vast majority of the

cost of the war.

Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the UAE.

Who's paying for the cost of this war?

Will those Arab countries step up to do just that?

Well, I think it's something the President would be quite

interested in calling them to do.

I won't get ahead of him on that, but certainly it's an

idea that I know that he has and something that I think

you'll hear more from him.

You're listening to the 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson.

Good Tuesday morning.

Nice to have you with us on the 47 Morning Update.

We've got two big stories for you this morning.

First up, the President of the United States of America

has new statements on Iran and it can change everything

overnight.

Plus, Secretary of State, Marco Rubio.

He's now on record talking about what's next,

including the Strait of Hormuz.

But before we get to that, I want to take a moment and ask you

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It's the 47th morning update and it starts right now.

Story number one.

Welcome back.

It is the Ben Ferguson show.

It is nice to have you with us.

Donald Trump has come out talking about who he's talking to in Iran.

The new regime they're in place.

And the President also made it very clear if they do not agree with the negotiations with America,

we will blow up their power infrastructure easily.

They better make a deal.

Now, President Trump suggesting in a message on Monday morning

that a new and more reasonable regime is taken over Iran

and is talking with Washington DC.

He warned yet again he is willing to obliterate Iran's energy infrastructure, his exact words.

If the talks do not lead to a durable agreement.

Trump made the declaration a message on his website through social.

What remains of the Iranian government after the elimination of the Supreme Leader

has repeatedly denied Trump's claim that it is in conversations with the American government

also stating that it has responded to America's proposals,

which would be impossible without a conversation.

Now, President Trump smiling through that in a statement saying

that not only is America pursuing a regime change in Iran,

but the regime change has already happened, saying the United States America's

and serious discussions with a new and more reasonable regime

to end our military operations in Iran.

He followed up that comment with a threat.

Great progress has been made, but if for any reason,

a deal is not shortly reached, which it probably will be.

And if the Hormuz straight is not immediately open for business,

we will conclude our lovely stand Iran by blowing up and completely obliterating

all of their electric generating plants, oil wells, and Carg Island,

and possibly all desalization plants,

which we have purposely not yet touched.

The President went on to say,

this will be in retribution for our many soldiers and others

that Iran has butchered and killed over the regime's 47-year reign of terror.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Now, President Trump is seriously weighing also a military operation

we're being told to extract nearly a thousand pounds of highly enriched uranium from Iran.

And while the Iranian government is not responded directly to Trump's statement at press time,

the Foreign Ministry spokesman confirmed on Monday that Iran had received

and was contemplating negotiation messages from the United States.

At the same time, that individual also dispairs the proposals as being unrealistic,

illogical, and excessive, but his statement nonetheless confirmed the existence

of some form of communication between individuals in power in Iran

and the White House specifically Donald Trump.

Quote, our position is clear.

We are under military aggression.

Therefore, all our efforts and strengths are focused on defending ourselves,

according to translation by the Saudi outlet there.

The government of also Pakistan claimed last week that it was mediating talks

between America and Iran, handing Tehran a 15-point proposal from the White House.

Trump shortly thereafter claimed that Iran, quote, gave us most of the points

and that he would be asking for a couple of other things.

The President also announced that he would not target any energy infrastructure

in Iran through April the 6th.

That would be Easter Sunday.

Talks are ongoing, and despite erroneous statements to the contrary

by the fake news media and others, they are going very well, the President said.

Thank you for your attention in this matter.

He also claimed that Iran was begging for a deal contrary to the declarations

in Iranian state media, clearly to keep the people in Iran in line.

Also, indicating the existence of talks and those talks actually being very real,

was the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, known as the IAEA,

who told Italian media on Wednesday that talks about the Iran War

would take place in Pakistan as early as this past weekend, another example of confirmation.

Three weeks of war have left their mark, which caused a lot of damage

affected Iran's economic, energy, and productive infrastructure.

This will make the conversation, quote, a little bit different.

Now, Pakistan did host talks on the Iran War this weekend,

but reports indicated that neither Iran nor the United States of America,

quote, participated instead, the event offered an opportunity for Pakistan

to discuss the war with officials from Saudi Arabia and Turkey, as well as Egypt.

Now, according the Egyptian Foreign Minister, the objective of the talks is to de-escalate

tension and encourage a negotiating process between Iran and the United States of America.

To spare the region, comprehensive chaos.

The Pakistani government also added that while Iran did not directly participate,

Pakistani officials had a phone call with the Iranian Foreign Minister to discuss Tehran's position.

Now, most of Iran's response to the current hostilities by the United States has been

to target its neighboring countries with misal and drone attacks, including Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

Other countries Iran has bombed include Kuwait, Qatar, the UAE, Israel, Cyprus,

Iranian officials have claimed the strikes are intended to target American and Israeli sites,

but in reality, they are targeting a variety of civilian sites instead,

including energy facilities in many of the Gulf states.

Next, story number two.

Which brings us to a one-on-one interview done on Good Morning America on Monday morning,

with Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

I think it's incredibly important you hear what Marco had to say.

Take a listen to the interview.

Mr. Secretary, thank you for joining us this morning.

Let's talk about the President's comments over when I talk about taking the oil on Carg Island.

How would he do this? Why would he do this? Want to take ground troops?

Well, first of all, it's important to remember the objectives of this operation from the very beginning.

We are destroying Iran's Navy.

We are destroying their ability to their misal launchers by a significant percentage.

We're going to wipe out their defense industrial base,

meaning their ability to make new missiles and new drones in the future,

because, opposed a great threat to the region, this Iran that you're seeing now,

this is Iran at its weakest point.

Imagine them two years from now if they had thousands of more missiles,

thousands of more missile launchers and factories to make even more.

That was an unacceptable risk.

It needed to be addressed, and President Trump is addressing it.

Now, they are making threats about controlling the Hormuz Straits and perpetuity,

creating a tolling system and the like.

That's not going to be allowed to happen.

And the President has a number of options available to him if he so chooses to prevent that from happening.

Obviously, I'm not going to discuss what those options are.

We're not going to discuss military tactics.

The Department of War would be in charge of those things.

I'd refer you to them, but obviously they're not going to discuss it with you either.

But there is a way forward here to achieve our objectives.

We are going to achieve our objectives in a matter of weeks, not months.

Well, let's talk about taking the oil,

because the President laid out that objective last night,

and taking the oil will take ground troops, won't it?

Well, again, the Iranians are threatening that they're going to set up some permanent system

in the Straits of Hormuz where they get to decide who goes through international waterways.

That will never be allowed to happen.

By the way, the rest of the world should take note of that.

They have more at stake there than we do.

We get very little of our energy in this country coming through the Straits of Hormuz.

The rest of the world gets a lot more.

That said, the President has several options at his disposal,

and the Department of War is preparing optionality for the President

for this and various other contingencies that might arise.

That's what always needs to happen, situations like this.

But what I want the American people and the people watching this broadcast to know

is that fundamentally what this is about is the destruction of their Air Force,

which has been largely achieved, the destruction of their Navy,

which has been largely achieved, the destruction of their factories

that they make all these weapons with, which is we're well on our way to achieving,

and a substantial reduction in the number of missile launchers that they have

so that they cannot continue to threaten their neighbors in the future.

All of those objectives are being met ahead, on or ahead of schedule,

and should be able to achieve in a matter of weeks.

As you're speaking, though, the President is expanding the objective

just a couple of minutes ago.

He put out a post on Truth Social saying that we're in discussions now

with a new and more reasonable regime in Iran, but he also added

that if those discussions don't yield fruit,

the United States will blow up and completely obliterate all of their electric generating plants,

all their oil wells, and carg island, and possibly all desalination plants,

which we have previously not yet touched, is what he said.

That's a great expansion of the objectives.

Well, I think the first point the President makes is he prefers diplomacy.

As I said, those efforts are nascent.

There is messages bringing Rayleigh back and forth,

some conversations going on, including through intermediaries,

and he always prefers that.

Look, if the Iranian regime had come forward at any point in the past

and said, we're going to walk away from our nuclear ambitions,

we're going to do nuclear energy the way every other country in the world primarily,

almost every other country in the world does it,

and that is through a peaceful means in which you bring in the fuel,

and it's supervised, and so forth.

We're going to stop supporting terrorist groups across the region.

Look at this region.

Every single terrorist group in this region has a link to the Iranian regime.

Every single one, the Houthis, Hezbollah, Hamas, the Shia militias

that are attacking everyone out of Iraq, every single one of these groups

and all of these stabilization in this region,

tracks directly back to the Iranian regime.

Those things have to be addressed,

and if Iran had been willing to address us in the past,

we wouldn't be having this interview on this topic right now.

They're refusal to do so, and they're continuing move towards one day acquiring

a nuclear capability.

These people are lunatics. They are insane.

They are religious zealots who can never be allowed to possess a nuclear weapon

because they have an apocalyptic vision of the future,

and all of their neighbors know that, by the way,

which is why all of their neighbors have been supportive of the efforts

working out.

You call them lunatics, but the President just had this post

where he says we're in discussions with a new and more reasonable regime.

Let me try to pin you down on that.

Who is this new and more reasonable regime?

Is the United States is in direct contact with them?

Well, I'm not going to disclose to you who those people are

because it probably would get them in trouble with some other groups of people inside of Iran.

Look, there's some fractures going on there internally.

And at the end of the day, I think that if there are people in Iran who now

have an everything that's happened, are willing to move in a different direction for their country,

that would be great.

Imagine in Iran that instead of spending their wealth,

billions of dollars supporting terrorists or weapons had spent that money

helping the people of Iran, you'd have a much different country.

So we are always hopeful that that would exist over there.

It's unfortunate. The people of Iran are incredible people.

The people who lead them, these, this clerical regime, that is the problem.

And if there are new people now in charge who have a more reasonable

vision of the future, that would be good news for us, for them, for the entire world.

But we also have to be prepared for the possibility, maybe even the probability

that that is not the case.

But the president says they are.

Is that the case or is it not?

I'm just trying to get some clarity on that.

What I mean is, yeah, you have people that are saying some of the right things privately.

Obviously, they're not going to put it out in press releases

and what they say to you or put out there for the world doesn't necessarily reflect

what they're saying in our conversations.

But at the end of the day, we have to see if these people end up being the ones in charge

seeing if they're the ones that have the power to deliver.

We're going to test it.

We are hopeful that that's the case.

There are clearly people they are talking to us in ways that previous people in charge in Iran

have not spoken to us in the past.

Some of the things they're willing to do, some of the things they're saying they're willing to do.

Obviously, they have to go do it.

We're going to test that proposition very strongly because we always prefer

to settle things through negotiation and diplomacy.

But we also have to be prepared for the fact that that effort might fail.

That we are dealing with a 47-year-old regime that still has a lot of people involved in it.

Who aren't necessarily big fans of diplomacy or peace.

And if it fails, the war expands?

What's that I'm sorry?

If it fails, the war expands?

Well, this operation, and that's what this is, is about very specific objectives.

The president laid them out on the first night of the operation.

I'll repeat them to you now because I hear a lot of talk about we don't know what the clear objectives are.

Here they are, you should write them down.

Number one, the destruction of their Air Force.

Number two, the destruction of their Navy.

Number three, the severe diminishing of their missile launching capability.

And number four, the destruction of their factory.

So they can't make more missiles and more drones to threaten us in the future.

All of this so that they can never hide behind it to acquire a nuclear weapon.

That was our objective from the beginning.

That remains our objective now.

We are on pace.

And in fact, ahead of schedule on some of those things.

And we are going to achieve those things in a number of weeks, not in a number of months.

Mr. Secretary, thanks for time this morning.

It's really interesting to see how much the media is willing to change, alter, and lie to you.

To try to make you think that somehow what we're doing in Iran is a failure.

When clearly in reality, it's a massive success already.

And the Secretary of State, being very clear, the Trump doctrine is working.

Thank you for listening to the 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson.

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