Tony Katz on Kharg Island Strike & 8PM Deadline

Why, from the heartland and the crossroads of America, it's Tony Katz today.

The president was clear, a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.

That is one heck of a statement. Tony Katz, Tony Katz today, good to be with you, good to be here.

Bombs dropping on Carg Island, K-H-A-R-G, this is where the Iranian oil goes through.

85-90% hard currency, the money to pay the IRGC, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the money to stay in power comes through Carg Island.

And it seems very clear, very obvious to anybody who has spent any time at all, thinking about any of this,

that the purpose of bombing Carg Island is to soften it up for the U.S. Marines.

It could be that we're softening them up to be able to put the Marines in there, or another force in there at some point.

So that makes sense, because before you go into some place, you're going to want to do everything you can to eliminate the opposition.

But it also could be just a symbolic that we were holding the sort of crown jewels of Iran hostage, and we could shift those targets from military sites to the energy sites that are there, the petrochemical complex and storage facility and so forth.

That is retired General Wesley Clark.

And certainly it can be said that with Trump, you never know which way things are going to go.

You don't know how it's going to play out.

But the statement was clear, a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.

I don't want that to happen, but it probably will.

However, now that we have complete and total regime change, we're different, smarter, and less radicalized minds prevail.

Maybe something revolutionary, wonderful can happen.

Who knows, writes the president.

He continues, we will find out tonight.

One of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the world.

47 years of extortion, corruption and death will finally end.

God bless the great people of Iran.

Revolutionarily wonderful.

Is he just utilizing this as the moment to explain to the people?

Now is the time.

The first talk was, this isn't about regime change.

This is about setting the conditions for the people to change the regime.

Well, that was never the case.

It was always about regime change.

We said so here.

When President Trump said it wasn't about regime change.

I said, no, it is when Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel said it wasn't about regime change.

I said, no, it is because it always was.

Well, we're setting the conditions so the people can do this.

Sure.

To quote the meme, sure, Jan.

But here we are now with the president in meeting regime change.

And now we see the bombing of Carg Island.

It could just be nothing.

It could just be symbolism.

Gearing up for everything that's supposed to take place at 8 p.m.

Now, people listen to this show at all different times.

You're listening to it live.

Somebody else is listening to the podcast.

Somebody else is listening to something else.

8 p.m. may have come and gone.

And I'm telling you, when that happens, don't be surprised if nothing happened.

Also, note that Iran is seven and a half hours ahead of us.

And if you say to me, Tony, do you just say seven and a half hours?

Yes.

It's seven and a half hours ahead of us in terms of time.

I don't know how it's going to go down.

I don't know what the president may do next.

The Iranians have, I should say, the regime

has citizens forming human chains around power plants.

Why?

Because President Trump said it's power plants and bridges.

That's what we're going to go after.

Now, the left ignorantly said that that's a war crime.

The left does not know what it's referring to.

We're not talking about power for the people.

Although they will be affected, it's the power used by the regime

to subjugate the people.

Power may have to go out for the regime to be broken.

Cracked, fractured, destroyed, eliminated.

Gone.

86.

I've got some other terms I can use, but I'm still on radio

and we don't do those things here.

Pzeziskian, the president, say more than 14 million proud Iranians

have so far registered to sacrifice their lives to defend Iran.

Is that right?

They registered?

When you say they registered, you put them on a list

and then took them and said, you stand here now.

Sounds like that's exactly what you did.

State Department is constructing Americans in Bahrain

to shelter in place.

J.D. Vance, making statements.

He spent the morning and he's in Hungary.

He was with Victor Orbán.

And J.D. Vance being very, very clear

that he hopes the Iranians, hoping that they make the right choice.

Confident that we can get a response, whether it's positive or negative,

we're going to get a response from the Iranians by eight o'clock tonight.

I hope they make the right response because what we really want

is we want a world where oil and gas is flowing freely

where people can afford to heat their homes and pull their homes

where people are going to afford to transport themselves to work.

That's not going to happen if the Iranians are engaged

in acts of economic terrorism.

So they've got to know, we've got tools in our toolkit

that we so far haven't decided to use.

The President of the United States can decide to use them

and he will decide to use them if the Iranians don't change

their course of conduct.

Now, if you're asking, do I think there's a division

between President Trump and J.D. Vance?

Oh, absolutely there is.

Absolutely.

Do I think that Trump has lost faith in J.D. Vance?

No, I don't actually believe that to be the case.

Trump goes with the hot hand and is Trump very enamored of the job

that Marco Rubio has done.

And the response that he gets?

Absolutely 10,000% no question.

No question about it.

J.D. Vance also stated clearly that there are two pathways

it can take to end this.

Still some things that we'd like to do.

For example, on Iranian ability to manufacture weapons

that we'd like to do a little bit more work on militarily

but fundamentally the military objectives of the United States

have been completed.

And saying that there's two pathways he said,

I think pathway one is where the Iranians decide

they're going to be a normal country.

They're not going to fun terrorism anymore.

They're going to be part of the world's system of commerce

and exchange.

And that's going to mean better things for them economically.

That's option A.

Option B is that the Iranians don't come to the table

and stay committed to terrorism, to terrorizing their neighbors.

Not just Israel, but of course their Arab neighbors too,

which is 1,000% true.

He continues, then the economic situation in Iran

is going to be continued to be very bad.

And frankly, it will probably get worse.

Yes.

Much, much.

Much, much worse.

As for this 8 p.m. deadline,

I don't know what to make of it.

He can tell everybody like he told Fox News,

oh, this is happening.

48 hours was happening.

Then five days was happening.

Then 10 days was happening.

So let's be clear about a couple things.

Just because the president says it's happening,

doesn't mean that it's happening.

We don't actually know what it is that is happening.

But we do know that clearly some moves were made today,

either to ensure that the whoever were negotiating with in Iran

knows that we're serious or to actually soften up the ground

to drop the Marines.

The USS Tripoli is an amphibious worship.

And it was dispatched with Marines to the area.

Ready to go.

You also have, in addition to it,

what is the name of somebody remind me?

What is the name of the whole group that the Tripoli is a part of?

There's an entire group that it's a part of.

And that group has been put together

has been put put to see ready to go.

We're going to send

the Tripoli, we're going to send other amphibious ships

and we're going to send support ships.

We're going to send the 82nd airborne.

Now we said this with this administration,

with this Pentagon, it could all be deception.

We're going to do these things over here.

We're going to do something else over there

or do nothing at all,

just to make the Iranians wonder which end is up.

Just to create stress,

just to help build misdirection

to create confusion

and to further sow the discontent

and maybe the cracking of the IRGC.

Very possible.

I would say more than possible,

probable, because you could be doing that

while deciding to do the other thing.

You could do that without doing the other thing,

which is the dropping of bombs

and the taking of the actual land.

But everything is set up.

Everything is set up.

There to go.

Now what comes next?

No one knows.

And let me be clear about this.

Every single person on your radio dial,

the influencers,

anybody on cable news who says they know

they're lying.

No one knows.

President Trump was very, very clear

in the presser yesterday.

And what he said was

was that he wanted to know who the leaker was

and you were like,

wait, what leaker?

There was a leak of information

that revealed that a pilot

was missing behind the enemy lines in Iran.

He wants to know who the leaker is.

He wants to know who the leaker is

and who in the media first got this

and he did discuss the idea

about saying go to jail.

We're going to go to that media company

that released it.

We're going to say national security,

give it up or go to jail,

meaning the source.

And of course,

the media went nuts.

There's a rare moment

where you can say,

okay, I can understand the going nuts.

I can understand that like,

oh, you can't threaten journalists.

We're not going to give up sources.

That's just not what's going to happen.

You can't make us give up sources

and that's that.

And they would be right.

There's a question of whether

or not you actually published those things.

I wonder if they even cared.

I wonder if the press even cared

about what would happen

or were they kind of hoping

that a soldier would get captured

because then it would look really bad for Trump.

Oh, that's a lot of good headlines.

And you say to me, Tony,

that's a disgusting way to think.

And I'm telling you,

I'm not the one thinking that way.

I think they are.

Because what they want is failure.

They've proven that.

Do they know what's going to happen?

No, they don't.

While they're,

as President Trump's saying,

a leaker here,

while they're engaged in that,

absolutely positively,

one could say it's clear as day

that this White House and this Pentagon

has been very, very good.

Very good.

I keep in the secrets.

They've been very good

at holding things close to the vest.

So where does this take us?

Where does this leave us?

What do we know?

We don't.

So can I give a piece of advice?

It's okay.

We're going to follow these things

as they happen.

We're going to engage with them

as we learn about them.

We'll discuss them.

That's that.

Does that mean you can't have an opinion on this?

Whether we showed or shouldn't,

of course not.

What kind of craziness?

Have any opinion you like?

Any opinion you want?

We may agree and we may disagree.

That's fine.

But we got to start from at least a place

of basic understanding.

If we're going to be involved as we are,

I want the United States to be successful

and I want the regime gone.

Maybe you want behavior change.

I want to see Americans come out of this

without another scratch.

I want to see the regime destroyed.

I would like to see the Iranian people

be able to live their lives.

And I would like to not have to think

about the Middle East for five minutes.

Ending any capacity to do harm

to the United States.

To do harm to our allies.

To do harm to our interests.

That's what I want to see.

The end of their ability to do it.

Now how we get there, we might disagree on.

But the idea that anybody knows

what Trump's going to do at any one moment?

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

That's not happening.

It's not happening.

No one knows.

That can be frustrating.

But let's take a breath.

And we'll figure it out together

as we get the information.

Right now, the bombing seems to be done

on Carg Island.

Let's see if anything's next.

I'm Tony Katz.

This is Tony Katz today.