Wired In Live: The World Reacts

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Good morning, everyone. I am Cabot Phillips live from Daily Wire HQ,

and this is a special breaking edition of Wired In Live.

This morning, I'll be speaking with top U.S. lawmakers, diplomats,

and intelligence officials to sift through all of the noise and run and get to the facts.

But first, let's recap what has taken place in the last 36 hours because it has been crazy.

Yesterday, President Donald Trump launched Operation Epic Fury,

joining with Israel and a historic military operation targeting the Islamic Republic of Iran.

We now know that the U.S. targeted missile stockpiles, anti-air defenses, and nuclear facilities,

while Israel primarily went after senior personnel within the regime.

The goal was to score a decapitation strike,

knocking out the most senior leaders as possible,

and that is just what happened.

Numerous high-ranking officials within Iran were killed,

including head of the country's National Defense Council,

the top commander of the Iranian military, their defense minister,

the military chief of staff,

and most importantly, Supreme Leader Ali Hamani.

President Trump confirmed the news last night,

saying Hamani, quote,

one of the most evil people in history is dead.

This is not only justice for the people of Iran,

but for all great Americans,

and those people from many countries throughout the world that have been killed or mutilated

by Hamani and his gang of bloodthirsty thugs.

He was unable to avoid our intelligence and highly sophisticated tracking systems,

and working closely with Israel, there was not a thing he or the other leaders

that had been killed along with him could do.

This is the single greatest chance for the Iranian people to take back their country.

Overnight, videos flooded social media,

showing Iranians around the world celebrating

with large demonstrations in Washington, New York, London,

and all across Iran,

where thousands of people flooded the streets,

dancing, honking horns, and setting off fireworks.

Have a look.

And especially remarkable footage,

demonstrators tore down a large statue of the Ayatollah.

Watch.

Just stunning footage there.

And obviously, even more footage comes out every second from this country,

and we're going to be playing that throughout the morning as it comes to us.

Now, for their part,

the Iranian regime says they will not be deterred by the death of their leader.

They've been adamant that they were prepared for a moment like this

and have a succession plan in place.

For now, state media reports that an interim committee will run the country

until a permanent leader is chosen.

Overnight, regime spokesman,

vowed to enact revenge on the US and Israel quotes with a force they have never experienced before.

At this hour, the United States and Israel have begun day two of their bombing campaign against Iran.

President Trump issued a statement warning the country that, quote,

Iran just stated they are going to hit very hard today,

harder than they have ever hit before.

And all caps now, they better not do that.

Because if they do, we will hit them with a force that has never been seen before.

But to this point, earlier in the last 24 hours,

those strikes had been largely effective.

Those some missiles and drones have found their mark in Israel,

about rain, the UAE, Jordan, and Kuwait.

We do have breaking news coming in just in the last few minutes.

I'm going to get right to that.

This is from US Central Command reporting the first US casualties in this operation.

They wrote, quote, as of 930, eastern time,

March 1st, three US service members have been killed in action

and five are seriously wounded as part of Operation Epic Fury.

Several others sustained minor shrapnel injuries and concussions

and are in the process of being returned to duty.

Major combat operations continue and our response effort is ongoing.

The situation is fluid, so out of respect for the families,

we will withhold additional information,

including the identities of our fallen warriors.

Until 24 hours after next of kin have been notified.

So again, sent comms there reporting that three American service members

have been killed.

That is a major development here, something the President Trump also warned of

when he first announced that the strike was going on.

He told the American people that there was a chance that service members

would be killed in pursuit of a safer United States.

And now we know.

According to sent comm, as of 930 AM,

at least three US service members have been killed.

We're also now getting new details on the strikes yesterday

that killed the Itolla and roughly 50 other senior advisors.

First, numerous supports say that the latest round of nuclear negotiations

which took place in Geneva were essentially a ruse to keep Iran believing

that a diplomatic solution was still on the table.

The US wanted to avoid arousing suspicion that a strike was coming.

So they kept the negotiations going.

The President had decided reportedly that the Iranians were simply stalling

that they never intended to make a deal or give up their nuclear ambitions.

And that ultimately is what led to this decision.

Senior White House officials are now saying

there are also credible intelligence reports from within Iran

that this Supreme Leader knew he was running out of time

and also running out of options.

And then he planned to launch a preemptive strike on US service members in the region.

So the administration is essentially saying they had no choice

but to strike first to ensure that that Iranian response would be more muted.

Now, there are plenty of skeptics, especially those on the left

who do not believe that assessment.

They have drawn parallels to President Bush assuring the American people.

There were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and that warranted an evasion.

So do not be surprised if we hear from President Trump and others in the White House

in the coming days as they look to assure the American people

that this was the best and potentially only option.

And that pushed back from the left and from many who are skeptical

of a broader military conflict in the Middle East

is it's only going to grow as we now have these reports from central command

that three US service members have been killed.

Again, President Trump warned that could take place.

But now we know that it has, in fact,

happened three Americans are now dead.

We now also know that on Saturday morning,

Ayatollah Hameini convened a meeting of his top military and intelligence

aides above ground in Tehran.

And at the same time, two other meetings were taking place in the city.

Now, typically these sorts of strikes take place at night.

But the US and Israel reportedly felt this was their best shot

for the capitation strike and they took it.

The obvious question now is who will fill the power vacuum in Tehran?

Could this ultimately lead to the collapse of the regime?

Joining me now to help answer those questions

and more to kick things off today is Tim Rice,

Daily Wire DC Bureau Chief,

and Cassia Kiva, Daily Wire Foreign Affairs reporter.

So, Tim, I want to start with you.

You are in DC.

What have you been hearing from lawmakers?

What is the mood in the Capitol?

About the same as yesterday,

but Congress has shifted into the expected phase two of its response

to yesterday's attacks,

which is they're now fighting with each other

and demanding more information.

So the Congress had previously scheduled votes

on potential intervention in Iran for this coming week.

Those have obviously been preempted.

Now we have the Democratic leaders of both the House and Senate

calling for a referendum vote,

essentially, in the next coming days

to either condemn or affirm the president's strikes in Iran

and also to attempt to, on some levels,

curtail future action.

We're also seeing, you know,

dissident Republicans like Thomas Massey

and Rand Paul joining in those calls

to prevent another forever war and curtail executive power.

And more than that, though,

and this is likely going to change now

that we've seen reports for casualties of casualties and fatalities.

But the other thing that the lawmakers are doing

is they are grappling for information.

So as we reported yesterday,

Marco Rubio briefed the gang of eight,

which is congressional leaders

in the head of the classified intelligence committees

from both houses.

Now every other lawmaker wants to get in on the action,

there have been some private meetings

at least on the Republican side

late yesterday and early today.

But I expect to see a lot more public posturing

calling for either supporter condemnation of the president

and more than anything,

expect to see a lot of anonymous stories

of such and such a lawmaker

is furious that they were briefed on the attacks.

Yeah, we're going to be speaking

with Senator Bill Hagridi in a moment.

And we're definitely going to get his take

on that looming war power's resolution vote in the Senate.

So Cassia, I want to get to you.

We know that Iran,

they were very prepared for a strike

that would kill the Itolla.

They had an entire succession plan in place.

We now know that there is an interim leadership council

who is temporarily running the country

until a permanent leader is chosen.

Walk us through that process

who is on this interim council

and what does this replacement process look like?

Sure, so the first person on the council

is President Masud Pezasan

and then the second one would be

Drew Sherry Chief

with Gol Malasini and Mosen Engi.

I'm probably mispronouncing some of these aims.

And then there's a jurist from the Guardian Council.

So this is a group of three people.

Obviously, they're probably very hidden right now

and they're supposed to lead the country.

Now, the Iranians are very prepared for this.

They have succession.

They have IRGC commanders

spread out throughout the country.

They knew something like this could happen

and they're prepared to deal with it.

So usually there is a huge process

of how they pick the next supreme leader.

You know, a lot of the Malas come together

and they go through a very legalistic process

to figure out who the next leader is

but they're obviously suspending that

and having a short-term council to lead.

So, but I did just see that Israel has now

launched new strikes on Tyron.

This has happened in the next few last few minutes.

Israel has declared air superiority

over all of Tyron and all of Western Iran.

So they are in the skies

and they're not getting shot down

and this is a big breakthrough

throughout this conflict.

And I'm assuming they'll, you know,

go to the rest of the country as well

and get rid of those air defense systems.

So, again, the big question now,

we have this, obviously, information vacuum coming out

of Iran where it's difficult for us

to glean too much about their internal processes.

But what are we hearing right now

as to who could be the most likely

or logical replacement for the IOTOLA

when this is all said and done?

Right. So a lot of people, I mean,

previously, a few years ago, you would have said it would

have been in the Iranian President

that mysteriously fell down in a helicopter.

Everyone thought he was going to be the successor.

You know, this is up in the air.

It could be anyone. Israel is currently

killing a lot of the senior leaders

and if you haven't heard of how the work

has been kind of debuting up between Israel

and the US during these attacks,

Israel is primarily taking out leadership

and America has been primarily taking out facilities

and military installations.

So, I guess we'll just see who's left standing

because Israel has already killed

a huge portion of the chain of command in Iran.

So, I guess we'll see what happens there.

But I also want to point out that

you were talking earlier about Iranian strikes

on different countries in the region

and the UAE just announced that they had shot down 96 percent

of Iranian missiles.

That is highly successful.

Israel is close to that as well.

So, while the Iranians are shooting their missiles

and they're estimated to only have about 2500,

a lot of them are getting shot down.

So, it's only a few more days

until Iran might run out of missiles.

Tim, let's get back to the political angle here.

Before these strikes,

polling showed that a preemptive operation

against Iran, frankly, was not popular.

The majority of Americans opposed such an operation.

But we also saw the same thing before the operation

to capture Maduro and Venezuela

where people were not supportive.

But then they saw the results

and the majority ended up supporting that mission.

Do you think the same thing could happen here

in Iran, given the overwhelming success of this move?

It's very likely, I mean, first of all,

the sort of disclaimer is that

war polling and polling around military action

is kind of notoriously fickle

and it always sort of vacilates depending on the mood.

Right? I mean, there was a time

when the Iraq war was polling not super popularly,

but right, I mean, it kind of better

than it eventually pulled

and these things go up and down.

I think one thing that people are missing

in this debate and one thing we're hearing a lot here

in Washington from the president's supporters

is that it's very easy to fall back into the rhetoric

of he said no more forever wars.

He promised no more regime change in the Middle East.

And yes, while this sort of smacks of that,

I think much like we saw with Maduro,

the president and this administration

are really hitting the message

that their goal is not for it to be a forever war.

Their goal is for it to be decisive, successful,

and then to hand things over to the Iranian people.

So I would expect to see a lot of vacillations

in the coming days.

I mean, the two big news stories out this morning,

obviously the fatalities,

that's gonna make this a little bit less popular.

But not an entirely equal counterbalance,

but something else to throw into the mix,

the reports that former Iranian president,

Mammud Ahmadinejad has been killed.

I mean, he was a big villain

in the American political lexicon for a long time.

And in the formative years of a lot of people

in our prime voting block.

So I mean, this is a man who much like the Ayatollahs

in a lot of American minds is synonymous

with terrorism and tyranny in the Middle East.

So again, I think we're gonna see a lot of these

one, two punches, something to boost the poll numbers,

something to bring it down.

It's also, I think, gonna come down to,

when does Trump really start talking about this, right?

We've seen a couple of statements,

a couple of truth social posts.

Again, mostly geared at Iran and the Iranian people.

But at some point, the president's gonna come back

to Washington at some point he's gonna get

in front of news cameras and then that's

a whole different ballgame.

Let's talk about what that might look like then, Tim,

because as you mentioned, where Americans are hesitant

to get involved in the Middle East,

even if it is a more touch and go operation

like this one in and out, not having boots on the ground.

But the White House was saying off the record

to reporters or on background that they had evidence

of an imminent strike from Iran.

What are we hearing on that front?

And do you expect President Trump to make that

the main thrust of, hey, we had to go do this

or else we were going to get hit beyond just saying,

well, it's good for the Iranian people

to topple this regime.

I think there's a good chance of it.

One never really knows what the president's gonna say.

I think if I were the president's advisors,

if I'm Caroline Levin or Marco Rubio or Susie Wiles,

I would be telling the president to actually

take a different tack because, again,

that, as you mentioned at the top of the show,

that does sort of, people are immediately gonna start thinking

about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq,

the Bush administration, all of a sudden,

this entanglement becomes 2003,

and everyone's minds are made up.

What I think the president could do instead,

and what I do think he will likely do

is go back to the same posture that he usually takes

after foreign entanglements, particularly successful ones,

which is talking and describing himself

as the president of peace.

He's gonna talk about all the wars that he's settled.

It's gonna be some big number that, you know,

will probably leave some head scratching,

saying 15 wars and you start counting on your fingers

and trying to figure out what it is,

but he's going to talk about Venezuela.

He's going to talk about bringing all the hostages from Israel.

He's going to talk about how, you know,

he's talking tough with Putin.

He's gonna talk about, you know, peace and Armenia

and all these other places that he sort of brokered talks.

So I think that is ultimately what it's going to come back to,

not switching the rhetoric away from,

we needed to neutralize this threat and more to look at

all that I am doing to create peace and stability

in the broader world and make America safe.

Cassie, there have been reports from Israel

that it was Israeli intelligence that was telling the US

that the Itolo would be having this secret meeting

above ground.

That was an important aspect there as well

that he would be above ground with his team.

Just tell us about that intelligence operation

because even the fact that they were able to get footage

of the Itolo's body confirmed out of the country.

How are they doing things like that?

And just how ingrained is Israeli intelligence

within the regime?

I mean, there was a story a few years ago

about how the man in charge of finding misad spies

in Iran was actually a misad spy himself.

So the misad is very ingrained in Israel,

but they're not the ones taking credit for this.

The CIA is taking credit for knowing where Kamini was

and basically that they passed it along to the Israelis

who carried out the strike.

So very coordinated.

This is much different on the 12-day war.

The 12-day war, Israel was by themselves

until America came in with the B2 bombers.

This is highly coordinated.

I kept asking because I was offline on the war start.

I kept saying who attacked first?

Israel or America and they attacked together.

So this is very coordinated.

And I just want to flag one more thing

that we might be seeing the death toll of Americans go up

because there were nine Israelis who were just killed

in Beit Shemesh, which is a highly American neighborhood

in Israel.

We don't know the identities of these people yet

and the death toll might be going up

because there are some severely injured,

but I'm just flagging that because that might be

a situation as well.

Yeah, I want to read this tweet again for people

who are just now joining us that we have information

coming in of American casualties.

I'm going to pull up that post right here

from Central Command.

They wrote, as of 9.30 AM Eastern time,

three U.S. service members have been killed in action.

Five are seriously wounded as part of Operation Epic Fury.

And that's from Sencom that is about as cut and dry

as it gets there.

A lot of Americans now waking up to not just a flurry

of deaths among Iranian leadership,

but also the first deaths among American service members.

Tim, what does this do to change the political calculus

and how does this change the story?

Because no longer can the White House say,

hey, we took Maduro with no casualties

and now we took out the Ayatolo with no casualties

that no longer is true.

How does that change things?

It immediately galvanizes the critics of the operation,

of course, but I think one thing that it does especially

is it really galvanizes that handful of,

as I call them earlier, dissident Republicans,

those sort of isolationist or critics like Thomas Massey

and Senator Rand Paul.

She's not in Congress anymore,

but former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Green of Georgia

has also been a very prominent voice on this front.

So you always see the line along,

they wanna send your sons to die in the Middle East.

If they care about this war so much, why don't they enlist?

Do you hear that more from Republicans than from Democrats?

Democrats tend to criticize these efforts,

more along the lines of checking executive power.

That's what we hear from Tim Cain and Rokana,

not going into more debt, saving money,

focusing on domestic problems,

allowing autonomy in other countries.

This is the way that Democrats oppose wars.

Anti-war Republicans oppose wars by saying

American men and women are going to die

and we do not want that to happen, right?

They are now, they are going to remind people

that this is supposed to be an America first administration.

They are going to say that this is not an America first policy

if Americans are dying.

So I think we are going to see the critics

who have already brought themselves out

from within the president's party,

especially louder after this.

I think we can expect to see some more lawmakers.

I would keep an eye on some folks like Anna Paulina Luna

and Lauren Bobert,

some of these other kind of former allies

of Marjorie Taylor Greene,

who sort of stuck very close to that America first,

no foreign wars, part of the party.

Also, the president's critics externally too,

conservative voices,

we're just not seeing a lot of that.

Yeah, all right.

Tim Cassie, thank you guys so much for coming on

a very fluid situation,

but we appreciate both of your insights.

Thanks guys.

All right, we're going to get now to Brian Hook,

one of the leading experts on Iran.

He served as the US Special Representative for Iran.

He was also the senior policy advisor

to the Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo.

Brian, thank you so much for joining us this morning.

Let's get right to it.

Because of your work,

for years now, you have faced credible death threats

from the Iranian regime.

So this has to be a remarkable weekend for you.

How does it feel seeing the death of the itola?

Well, I think more about

for American foreign policy

than any of my own sort of personal questions

around these topics.

And so, you know,

the Islamic Republic of Iran for 47 years

has been engaged in really an endless war

against the United States and Israel.

And President Trump has had enormous success

in the Middle East in his first term,

and now in the second term.

I mean, you saw in the first term the defeat of ISIS

and the Abraham Accords.

And then here we are in the second term.

We had another country join the Abraham Accords.

And now you have Iran largely on its back

and in a very bad place

as a consequence of the 12-day war.

And now this effort

to really change the trajectory of the Middle East

towards something more stable,

something much more secular, something much more tolerant.

And I think these are all,

I think the building blocks are in place

for a much more stable and prosperous Middle East.

What do you make of the men currently leading

this interim council to replace the itola?

What should we expect from them?

Is there a chance that they take

a diplomatic approach with Trump

sort of like we saw in Venezuela with a new leadership?

Or do you think they're going to dig their heels in

and fight even harder?

President Trump has offered all along

the diplomatic track,

which the regime has consistently exploited.

I think that was a mistake.

And so here we are again,

where the president is making very clear

that there is an opportunity

to have good diplomatic relations with the United States.

But Iran has to end its enrichment

so that we don't ever face the prospect

of a nuclear-armed Iran.

We also need to end all of this proxy warfare,

which has been such a danger to our troops

in the Middle East.

And they also need to end these long-range

ballistic missile productions,

which could be aimed at the United States.

And so regardless of who is in power,

whether it's the itola or this triumvirate

that's in place,

any sort of government that follows the death of the itola,

there is an opportunity to be at peace,

not only with the United States,

but also with Iran's Arab neighbors.

And that would be a very good thing

because the biggest driver of terrorism

and instability in the Middle East

has been the Iranian regime.

It has not been the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

It has been Iran's revolutionary expansionist regime

that has fought proxy warfare for 47 years.

And one thing I've noticed here is that,

while we're in the middle of this conflict,

we haven't seen any of Iran's proxies attacking Israel.

And that is a testament to, I think,

the resolve that the United States

and especially Israel has shown since October 7th

to ensure that October 7th never happens again.

What more does that tell you about the fact

that we haven't seen huge operations

from these proxies?

The Houthis issued a statement saying

that they were prepared to help the Iranians

and to push back on the West,

but we haven't seen this real flurry of activity

from the Houthis.

Do you expect there to be more activity

from their terror proxies?

They are so sufficiently degraded

and their leadership has been so thoroughly eliminated

that I think they have lost command and control

of any operations.

And so typically this was always the fear

from Israel and the United States,

is that in a conflict like this,

you would have Hamas attacking Israel from one side

and you would have Hezbollah attacking from the North

and you would have Shia proxies in Syria and Iraq

and then you would have the Houthis in Yemen.

And all of these proxies would be firing

at the same time on American troops and on Israel

and look at what we see today

and we really shouldn't overlook the significance of this.

None of these proxies are active.

You're not seeing any sort of response from them.

And what that means is we are seeing the emergence

of a new Middle East, the attacks of October 7th

by Hamas have massively backfired on everyone.

And Israel, I'm sorry, Iran, Midwife,

the creation of Hamas, Hezbollah,

the Houthis, all of these organizations.

And today, these organizations are in fragments.

They have lost any sort of power projection

or operational capabilities.

And then we have Israel with aerial superiority over Iran.

By the way, in June, they did in three days

what Putin has not been able to do in Ukraine in four years.

And then they've done it again with aerial superiority.

It's an enormous undertaking to pull that off.

And so I think this has been a very successful operation

so far, the President very much hopes

that the Iranian people are going to fill the vacuum

that has been created by the death of the Ayatollah.

And we all very much hope that the Iranian people

will have a government that is truly representative

of their interests.

You mentioned Putin there earlier.

Let's elaborate on that.

What do you expect to see from the Russians

in the coming days?

And what does the success of this operation today

mean for Moscow?

These sorts of conflicts send a message around the world

when Obama did not enforce his red line in Syria.

That sent exactly the wrong message.

But I think President Trump's operations in Venezuela,

now in Iran, certainly send a message to President Putin,

President Xi, Kim Jong Un, and North Korea in Cuba.

It doesn't matter anywhere along that axis of resistance.

This is a teaching moment.

America has no peer militarily.

And we pull off these spectacular and extraordinarily

complicated operations that we do it successfully.

And so I think if you're President Putin,

you have to wonder just how much of an alliance you want

to have with the Iranian regime.

And it really should have that effect of causing

China and Russia and anybody else

to have second thoughts about getting too close,

whether it's Iran or Maduro in Venezuela or in Cuba.

President Trump is sending a message to all of these countries.

You should choose your partners very carefully.

Yeah.

I think a lot of Americans are waking up yesterday

and today, maybe unsure of how to feel.

There's this sort of secretive regime in Iran.

People don't know a ton about them.

So what are some things that you believe

that the average American has wrong about Iran?

Or maybe misunderstandings they have

about the way that this regime operates?

Well, ever since 1979, in that Iranian revolution,

and they took hostage our entire diplomatic corps in Tehran.

And then whether it's all, I mean,

the Iranian regime is responsible for the deaths

of thousands of Americans, thousands of Americans.

And even in Iraq alone, Qasim Soleimani

was responsible for the deaths of over 600 Americans.

And America has interests in every region of the world.

We have troops in every region of the world.

And it has been the consistent mission set

of the Iranian regime to target American troops

and American civilians in every part of the world,

not just in the Middle East.

And so I'm old enough to remember people

tying ribbons around trees to remember the hostages back

in 1979.

And there has just been so much bloodshed.

And President Trump uniquely understands that.

He also understands the Iranian regime has never won a war

and never lost a negotiation.

They're very good at these talks that just go on and on and on.

And I think Jared Kushner and Steve Woodkov

did their absolute best to try to help the Iranian regime

make come to the table and come do a deal.

Come do a deal that would be around any nuclear enrichment

and the things I discussed earlier.

And the regime miscalculated.

And so here we are today.

The Iranian regime has never been weaker in its history.

And I think its proxies had never been weaker.

This will create greater peace and stability

in the Middle East.

We talked about Russia earlier in what this means for Putin.

Let's get to China, the other big player, how they're adversary.

We know they are heavily reliant on Iranian oil exports.

What else does this mean for President Xi?

The Chinese relationship with the Iranian regime

has always been very transactional, which

is kind of how China's relationship with every nation is.

They engage in predatory economics under President Xi.

And for a country like China, they very much

want cheap Iranian oil.

And because the President Trump sanctions on Iranian oil,

he was the first one to do that, by the way.

President Obama, under the Iran nuclear deal,

the United States was not allowed to sanction any Iranian oil.

And all of the terror proxies that we've been discussing,

they're all financed by Iranian oil.

So if you can go after the oil, it changes everything.

Because Iran is the central banker for all of these terror

groups around the Middle East.

And so China was able to buy a lot of Iranian crude

at a discount, because it was illegal to ship the oil.

And so China very much enjoys cheap Iranian oil.

Under the first term, we were able to collapse.

Iran's exports and took it from something

like 1.7 million barrels to functionally zero.

And that had a crippling effect on the economy.

I think it's going to be much harder now

for China to continue buying the oil.

They're going to have to get it from somewhere else.

So they're going to have to get it through ship-to-ship transfers

on these shadow tankers that are floating around the world.

And so that's one piece of it.

I don't think it's much of an alliance.

The Chinese spread their risk around the Gulf.

They don't want to go so deep with any one country

that they alienate others.

So they play a double game where they'll

try to get what they can from Iran,

but they'll try to get what they can from other nations

in the Gulf of the Middle East.

And so it'll continue being business as usual with Chinese.

All right, we will leave it there.

Brian, thank you so much for your expertise.

We really appreciate you coming on and breaking this down

for audience.

My pleasure.

And we are going to keep things rolling here.

We have a ton more guests to come.

And I just want to let all of you know,

if you appreciate the live coverage that we're doing here,

and if you appreciate the fact that this is commercial free,

you watch this on TV, you're getting

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We're not doing that here.

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and become a member.

So we're going to hear from a number of lawmakers

and diplomats in the just a few moments,

but just recapping where we are today.

Day two of Operation Epic Fury continues.

The big news that we have coming out of the Middle East right now

is that we have our first reported American casualties.

Scentcom reporting just within the last hour

that there are three American service members

who have been killed.

A number of other ones have been seriously wounded.

That number was at five.

So we now know that we have our first American service members

killed as a result of this action to disarm Iran

and President Trump actually warned yesterday

when he announced this operation

that there was the potential for US service members to be killed.

Let's play a clip of that speech now.

US personnel in the region, even so,

and I do not make this statement lightly,

the Iranian regime seeks to kill.

The lives of courageous American heroes may be lost

and we may have casualties that often happens in war,

but we're doing this, not for now.

We're doing this for the future

and it is a noble mission.

We pray for every service member

as they selflessly risk their lives

to ensure that Americans and our children

will never be threatened by a nuclear armed Iran.

We ask God to protect all of our heroes in harm's way

and we trust that with his help,

the men and women of the armed forces will prevail.

So again, President Trump last night warning

when he announced this operation

there was the potential for US service members to be killed.

We now know central command confirming

three American service members have died to this point,

at least five others seriously wounded,

strapped in all concussions and other injuries.

We're still waiting for the details on how those casualties occurred,

but again, this is going to change the calculus

President Trump warning of that last night.

We're now joined in studio by Tennessee Senator Bill Haggity.

Senator, thank you so much for being here.

It's great to be with you this morning.

So let's get to the breaking news

and then we'll get big picture.

But central command confirming this morning,

three US casualties, how does this change the calculus

of this operation?

Well, it's heartbreaking, President Trump

warned that this was likely to happen,

but I think you need to add this to the long list of murders.

You may have that the Iranians have caused this regime

since they took over.

You think back to 1983, what happened with our marine barracks?

They took over 200 lives there of American Marines.

They've continued to consistently wage war

the directly or through their proxies.

You think about what happened on October 7th of 2023?

1200 people were murdered and slaughtered there

over 40 Americans included in that toll.

This is something that we're gonna have to address.

President Trump was clear about this yesterday

that it could happen.

I pray that this is absolutely minimize.

I know the President does as well, all of us do.

Yeah.

Now, let's get to the Senate.

Democrats largely furious over this operation,

despite its success to this point.

A number of Democrat leaders are calling for a vote

on a war power resolution in an attempt

to block the president from taking further action.

How will you vote on that measure if it comes to the floor

and what do you make of that effort?

I don't think it's gonna be successful at all.

First, President Trump has been clear

he's not waging war in Iran.

What he's doing is he's taking out their capability

to harm us, to harm our allies.

He's taking out their short-term, short-range,

ballistic missile capabilities.

He's also taking out their ability to recreate the launchers

that send those missiles in the direction of our allies.

Also in the direction of commerce in the region,

20% of the water-borne oil exports in the world

go through the straightforward moves.

Iran has always used this as a choke point.

President Trump is reducing or eliminating that capability.

This is about American interest.

This is surgical.

And I think he's gonna try to do everything he can

to minimize the casualties, as we said,

sad that we'd have any casualties.

But also, he's opened the door for the Iranian people.

We've seen the picture of people in the street

celebrating.

This is a generational opportunity for them

to step up and take their country back.

I'm interested in your take on the objectives here.

So President Trump initially saying

that the main goal was to knock out the nuclear stockpiles

to destroy the missile capabilities and missile program.

If that is successful,

but the regime is still in power,

would you support the president

continuing this operation

once that first military mission is successful

to try and get the regime weakened

so that they could be toppled from it then?

This regime has done nothing except shout death to America,

death to Israel.

And look at what's happened now in the wake

of this most recent episode.

They've actually gone out and attacked their allies

in the region.

I think the world's sentiment is turning

against this regime.

They need to go.

The White House has said they had credible intelligence

that Iran was planning a preemptive strike

on American forces in the region.

Have you been given any evidence

of those preemptive plans from Iran?

You know, I've not had those sort of intelligence briefings,

but I can say this.

Iran is consistently positioned and postured itself

so that it continue to create and reap mayhem in the area.

If you think about how unsurious

their negotiations have been,

when Steve Whitkoff and Jared Kushner left

the negotiating table just this past Thursday,

there was no willingness of Iran

to actually take this seriously.

They still kept taking everything

off the table that were our red lines.

So it's clear they had no interest in peace.

They had no interest in negotiating.

All they're trying to do is what they've done

for so many times before,

which is just tap America along.

This president is unwilling to accept that and I applaud it.

I think a lot of folks are interested

in how long this can continue on.

President Trump has said days to weeks,

what do you know and what can you tell the American people

about how long this can go,

just from a logistical standpoint?

What sort of stockpiles are we talking about?

And could that potentially open the door for,

you know, our stockpiles to be drained

and how long would this take to replenish?

I guess just walk us through the timeline of ways.

I think the stockpiled to look at is the Iranian stockpile.

They've got about 2,500 ballistic missiles.

They're going to be draining that stockpile.

President Trump is taking out their ability to launch

that stockpile.

He's also taking out the stockpile itself.

What you will see is the Israelis now having complete control

of the airspace over Iran.

They will not be able to, the Iranians will not be able

to protect or defend their stockpiles

or their launching capability.

What's happening right now is that we are going through

in searching and seeking and destroying

all of that launch capability.

So I think that this is going to be denominated in days

or weeks.

It's going to be very short, very surgical again.

This is not waging war on Iran.

This is going in and taking out a capability

that they have used to wreak terror around the region.

And he's doing that in advance of Iran's stated program.

They wanted to take that 2,500 to 8,000.

They want to increase their ability to create,

you know, in harass terror in the region.

So this is all about standing up for America's interests,

standing up for Allies' interest,

and taking out a capability that has been used

for far too long, for decades, to kill Americans,

to harm and create mayhem in the region.

It's coming to an end.

Could you elaborate on the angle with regard

to American interests?

Polling shows that Americans are very hesitant

to support wars in Middle East.

There's this hangover that's looming from, you know,

Iraq and Afghanistan.

And I think people hear war in Iran

and they think, or military action in Iran.

And they think, is this going to be another conflict

like that?

What is the case for why this is a beneficial thing

for Americans?

Why this is good for folks here in Tennessee,

a state where we both live?

Well, I can tell you why it's been bad.

Since what, 1979, when the regime took over,

we have seen nothing but instability

and terror throughout this region.

Whether it's there, you know,

being the number one state sponsor of terror,

you think about what they've done through Hezbollah,

what they've done through Amos, the Houthis,

they have continued to consistently create havoc

in the region.

We went in, what was it, eight, 10 months ago,

using bunker buses and took out their nuclear capability.

Operation Midnight Hammer was a complete success.

We told them that should be the end of the nuclear ambitions.

The Iranians turned right around

and started back on that program again.

President Trump could not have been more clear.

They want to create havoc in Mayhem.

And again, listen to what they say, death to America.

They need to be dealt with.

The time has come and frankly,

they're at a weakened point right now.

This was the time to do it.

Have you been surprised by the lack

of global support for Iran?

Their proxies, not, you know,

not really joining the fray here.

China and Russia both have been fairly silent.

Has that surprised you to see

just how isolated Iran has become?

I think our adversaries should take careful note

of the same situation of Venezuela.

America goes in and acts.

Our allies step up with us.

These people have no allies.

These road nations have no allies.

It's a marriage of convenience.

If you think about it from China's perspective,

they've been buying the illicit oil from Venezuela from Iran.

Those days are over.

If you think about it from Russia's perspective,

they should look at this with great concern.

President Trump means what he says.

And he delivers on what he says.

Let's come back stateside.

The Department of Homeland Security has warned for years

that under President Biden,

when we had millions of illegal crossing the border,

undetected, we don't know who many of those people are,

the DHS has been warning that there were efforts

they believed from Iran to send sleeper cells

across our border.

Do you have any reason to believe

that there could be a threat here on American soil?

Certainly.

We've had that concern from the very outset

of the Biden administration going back to 2021.

When Joe Biden collapsed the border,

this is exactly what we were concerned

about the potential of it happening.

I'd say this, my Democrat colleagues

who were pushing for war powers resolutions

should also be pushing to reopen

the Department of Homeland Security.

They have shut it down.

Without a single Republican vote,

it's time to make certain that we have the greatest capability

that we can here in the homeland to protect ourselves.

And it's certainly the time to stop playing politics

and keeping DHS shut down just so they can wave

a political flag.

Tangibly speaking,

how does that shut down impact America's preparedness

to protect our people?

Well, it takes our Coast Guard in a position where,

look, these men and women that are serving

are continuing to serve.

They're patriots.

They step up and do the job.

But the fact that they are getting paid,

again, just makes their lives much harder.

And why the Democrats want to exercise

their political judgment in a way

that hurts and punishes these people

when they have nothing to do with the Democrats,

frustration that, frankly, they don't have it.

They don't have any message except resist Trump.

And resist anything at all cost.

And what they're doing is putting our nation

in harm's way in the process.

Final word to the American people,

what should they be taking away from this operation?

What have we learned about President Trump's foreign policy?

That resolve matters.

That the US has the most impeccable capability

of any military in the world.

Think about the intelligence that was deployed here.

The precision that was used,

the fact that we knew exactly where these people were,

the Ayatollah, the chief leadership,

they had the equivalent of a national security council meeting

and they are gone.

40 of the top leaders are gone.

I think the world should take note

that our intelligence and our military

capability are beyond compare.

Absolutely.

That is Senator Bill Haggerty

from the great state of Tennessee, our home state.

Thank you so much for joining us today, Senator.

Thanks so much.

We are going to keep things rolling,

more breaking news coming in every single hour.

We have first, from Central Command,

the announcement that there were three US service members

who have been killed at least five others injured.

So we are going to bring you new updates from there

and we're now going to get to our next panel.

We have Batia Ungar Sargon joining us.

So Batia, thank you so much for being here.

Also on the panel, we have Elizabeth Pipco.

So guys, let's get to this, Batia.

Let's start with you.

When you woke up yesterday, you saw this news.

What was your first reaction?

You're smiling.

You looked very happy.

What was your first reaction?

Thank you so much for having me.

It's really an honor to be here with you.

I'm smiling because I didn't find out in the morning.

I didn't find out until the afternoon

because it was Shabbat.

And so we were logged off.

And then what might happen to mention it in shul,

we barely believed it.

And then of course, logging on after Shabbat at 6.30 PM

and finding out that the Aya Tolla was dead.

Jubilation.

That man wanted every American dead.

The idea that he was not an enemy of the United States

ridiculous, I don't understand what people think they wanted

the nuclear weapon for.

They opposed the West with every fiber of their being.

They opposed the idea of freedom

with every fiber of their being.

And so the world is a much safer place.

Our grandchildren are going to be much safer

because of the brave action that the president took.

And of course, I understand people who voted for him

because he said no new wars.

I'm one of those people.

But the idea that this is anything like Iraq

is just ridiculous.

It's utterly unthinkable that there will be

American troops on the ground.

So we're praying for the troops.

We heard about these three troops

who tragically have lost their lives.

I truly, truly hope that no more life is lost.

I'm praying every minute for it.

But the president is very keenly aware

of where his base is on this.

And I think that he wants this to be over very quickly.

Elizabeth, let's get to you.

What do you make of the democratic response

that we've seen so far?

We know there's this push in the Senate

for War Powers Resolution condemning.

We've seen Zora and Mamdani saying

that this was a terrible day for the world.

What do you think of that response?

And how is that going to play with the American people?

Well, look, it's not a surprise, right?

I think if any of us could have imagined

that we were going to wake up to this news

or, like, if Batia said, actually,

to turn on our phone to this news

because I'm in the same boat.

And imagine the Democrats would be supportive of that.

No one would have believed that, right?

We've seen what they stand for, which

is basically just opposing anything

that Donald Trump happens to do.

They know they can rile up their base with this.

That's kind of all they look for at this point

is opportunities to rile up the furthest progressive portion

of their base and make sure they're ready to go out

and vote in the midterms.

And unfortunately, that base is the same base

that's been burning American flags on college campuses.

Chanting debt to America like the Iranian regime has done.

We've seen these protests.

We unfortunately know what these people stand for.

And the Democrats are really laughing in all of our bases

assuming that we don't realize exactly what they're doing,

what you're standing against America

and hoping that it works out for them

because they need those votes this November.

And that's kind of all that they have left in their party.

Yeah, Batia, let's get to November here.

No, we're still eight months away

and folks have short attention spans these days.

But what sort of impact do you see this operation having

on the midterms and on the GOP push and pitch to voters?

It's too soon to tell, right?

It all depends on how it ends.

If God forbid, we see lots of casualties on the American front

that's not gonna play to the presidents in the president's favor.

Right now, 54% of Americans already support the strike.

So the idea that there's somehow a divide in MAGA on this,

expect to see a lot of liberal media wish casting about that.

I think it's all nonsense.

54% of Americans supporting it.

How many of those do you think are Democrats, right?

Not a lot of them.

So I do think that this is a lot like the first strike in Iran

in June to where before it happened,

most people said they didn't support it.

After it happened and it was so successful,

you really saw a lot of support,

including up to 90% of Republicans supporting it.

So it really all depends on what happens next.

But again, never doubt the president's understanding

of where his base is.

Regardless of what some high profile isolation

and his podcasters try to tell you.

But I know we have to let you go in two minutes.

So I want to give you one more word here.

I'm interested in what you expect to see from the Iranian people.

You know, when we talk about regime change,

it can be this vague concept.

But tangibly, what would it have to look like

for the Iranian people to step up and topple this regime?

Do you know what's interesting?

I don't think the president is looking for a total regime change.

I think he wants exactly what he got in Venezuela,

which wasn't actually of an extreme regime change, right?

That would have been installing Maria Machado.

That's what the Bush era folks would have done.

And the president and Marco Rubio said,

no, we actually don't want chaos here.

And if we do that, we risk a coup d'état.

We risk the generals getting angry.

We're going to keep Dolce Rodriguez,

who was Maduro's number two and just say to her,

you like this job, you know?

How about being a little bit more pro-American?

That's what we're here for.

And I think they're pursuing the exact same thing in Iran.

They're not trying to install somebody

who the West would love.

They're saying, we need to get the nuclear threat off.

We need to get rid of the threat to the United States

to our children and grandchildren.

And the rest is really up to the Iranian people.

We wish them well, we want them to win.

But we're not fighting this fight for them.

There is a maturity that this president

is bringing to the table with Marco Rubio,

where they have a really clear understanding

of they're rejecting both the Obama-era appeasement

and the Bush era nation building.

And saying, we are America first.

We want you to do what's right for you.

We want to see freedom everywhere.

But we're trying to avoid chaos and create stability.

Yeah, I just wanted to tell you why it was so important

for the Saudis to get on board here as well.

All right, we are going to give you,

let's do one more, I got one more question for you,

Batiya, and we'll make it a 30 second one.

How does the report of U.S. service members

being killed change the president's calculus?

Do you think it does anything to change his strategy

or the messaging around this operation?

You know, he said in his initial message

to the American people that this could be a possibility,

which I thought was really correct to do,

not to avoid the fact that this might happen.

He of course wants to avoid these kinds of casualties

at all costs.

But again, he's protecting our children and grandchildren

from having to face a nuclear Iran.

I think that if it does seem that the threat is big,

I think that will change the calculus.

But as you pointed out, K, but you're not seeing

the Russians or the Chinese coming

to the Iranian regime's defense.

They've sort of abandoned them.

That all turned out to be fake allyship.

So I don't know how long Iran is going to be able to hold on.

But I think it does change the calculus.

Not these three poor souls, precious souls

who we mourn, but if this continues,

and it seems like there is a big threat to mass casualties,

I do think that will change the calculation for the president.

All right, Batia, always a pleasure.

Speak with you.

You can go watch Batia.

Elizabeth, thank you so much.

That's Elizabeth Pipco, former R&C spokesperson

and Batia host of Batia.

Guys, thank you so much.

We're going to continue going with all the breaking news

that we have coming in.

Again, the United States launching day two

of Operation Epic Fury with Israel.

There are ongoing airstrikes across the region.

The US continues to hit missile sites,

knocking out nuclear production facilities

and knocking out missile stockpiles.

We believe that the Iranians, ladies and tellgences,

they had 2,500 missiles before this.

They are burning through those stockpiles, launching them.

As we said for lack of a better word,

use them before you lose them

because the US is targeting them.

And they are hitting Middle Eastern countries

throughout the region.

We've had explosions reported in Bahrain, Qatar, Jordan,

the UAE, there were explosions at high rises in Dubai.

In Israel, there were reports of a bomb that made it through

and missile that made it through.

And at this point, it killed eight people

in a residential neighborhood.

And the big news this morning,

three US service members confirmed killed.

We're going to read that update from SENTCOM.

At 9.30 a.m. Eastern time,

we're confirming three US service members

had been killed in action and five are seriously wounded

as part of Operation Epic Fury.

Several others sustained minor shrapnel injuries

and concussions and are in the process

of being returned to duty.

They go on to note that because of privacy

for the families, they are going to withhold

any further information.

But once we get news on how this took place,

we don't know if this was,

if these were some of the missiles that got through

to some of these bases,

we do not know how these individuals were killed,

but we will bring you the news as soon as we get it.

President Trump has been relatively quiet about this matter.

He posted a number of statements on true social

talking about all of this.

He had one where he warned that, quote,

Iran just stated they are going to hit very hard today,

harder than they have ever hit before.

They better not do that.

Because if they do, we will hit them with a force

that has never been seen before.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

President Trump, again, going on later on

to celebrate the death of Hamani,

saying one of the most evil people in history is dead.

This is not only justice for the people of Iran,

but for all great Americans who went on to say

that this is the single greatest chance

for the Iranian people to take back their country.

So President Trump, again, celebrating the death

of the Ayatollah.

We also now know that at least 40 senior members

of the Ayatollah's team were also killed

in that decapitation strike.

There were three simultaneous strikes by the Israelis.

The Ayatollah was meeting with his top advisors

from the intelligence and military community in Iran.

There were two other meetings going on above ground.

Right now, reports from the White House are saying

that the Ayatollah did not believe

that he was going to be targeted in the morning.

He was not in his bunker.

And the US, we believe, preferred to launch

this strike in the middle of the night

as they have in the past.

But when they saw that the Ayatollah was meeting

above ground, they took the opportunity.

They said, this might be the best chance we get.

And we now know that the US and Israel

were again successful in that operation.

We're now going to get to one of our reporters,

Brekastol, who has been on the ground in New York City.

She has been gathering some footage from protests.

So let's play some of that footage that we have

from her protest that she attended in New York City

yesterday.

And then we'll bring Brekastol.

Then they asked.

Then they again found out that she's not in the center

as we watch and say,

First, I'll say I can smell that protest from here,

based on some of the individuals I'm seeing,

but what were some of the chance that you heard

what was the main message from those protesters?

Well, the most concerning chant that I heard

was when they were chanting, you know, Donald Trump

and the USA are the biggest threat in the world today.

And these protesters were very angry with the president.

And as you saw, that clip was in the middle

of the street in New York.

And so right behind me, we walked all the way up

to eighth Avenue from Times Square to Columbus Circle,

where I am now.

And they overtook, you know, one of the biggest cities

in the country.

And how on earth are you able to take over a street like that?

Well, we found out it's actually through the mayor's office.

They obtained a permit in seven hours,

Cabot, and we're able to put on that production.

What do we know about who was organizing this protest?

Yes, so as, you know, we talked about yesterday,

we saw it was the answer coalition was part of it,

but then I'm also seeing reports of the people's forum.

And apparently people are saying that that program

has ties to the CCP.

And, you know, I talked to one of the protesters out here

yesterday, and I asked, how did you find out about this?

And then she tells me about the group chats that they have.

And the different roles that every protestor can play

in the group chats.

So they have sign makers, they have chanters,

they have organizers, and they have outreachers, flyer printers.

And we saw, you know, before the protest started,

people bringing in these large signs,

these large wagons carrying supplies,

and you'll notice in that video several the signs are the same.

And it just shows that this is ready to go.

And it's very difficult to get kind of something of that scale,

a thousand people on the same page so quickly,

so you just know that there is some level of organization

behind it.

People can see in the video you captured this protest,

there's a very dower mood.

People clearly very angry.

We saw a very different reaction from Iranians

who were protesting not just in Iran,

but protesting all across Europe.

Or I should say, celebrating, not protesting, celebrating.

They were cheering.

They were American and Iranian flags.

People were very happy.

We're going to play some of that footage from Iran

if people were being excited.

Were there any Iranians there that were trying to talk

to protesters telling them, hey, we're actually

pretty happy that this evil tyrant was killed?

Oh, we saw one protestor yell at the group saying,

you guys don't know what you're doing.

You shouldn't be doing this right now.

But we didn't see that same level of enthusiasm

or praise for the president.

And I think we just had to think about where we are.

We are in.

New York is one of the most liberal cities in the country.

The state hasn't voted for a Republican president since Ronald

Reagan in 1984.

And so I think we're just seeing that that group just may not

be here.

And we weren't in any other areas, mainly just

following that group of protesters.

And so that's what we were following yesterday.

All right, Brekkah, we will leave it there.

Thank you so much for your reporting on the ground.

Stay safe there in the big apple.

Thank you so much, Gabit.

All right, again, we are tracking breaking news.

This is a special breaking edition of Wired In Live.

And if you guys appreciate the work we're doing,

we're running live all morning.

We did this for hours yesterday.

No commercial breaks.

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We were able to do that because of our daily wire members.

So if you want to support the investigative work

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support our reporters that are all around the country,

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So thank you again so much to our members.

All right, I want to turn now to David Friedman.

He's the former ambassador to Israel,

who is joining us now from Israel.

David, thank you so much for coming on.

It's a pleasure to speak with you.

Just walk us through the mood that you are experiencing

right now in Israel.

Well, it's an interesting question.

It's the mood I would say is overwhelmingly optimistic

grateful to President Trump.

Proud, incredibly proud of the working together,

the collaboration between the US military and the IDF,

which I think together is put together,

probably the greatest military operation

in the history of the world.

So there's optimism that this enemy may finally be detained,

that there's pride.

But then of course, there's concern

because every few minutes there's a siren going off,

there's explosions everywhere.

I'm running in and out of shelters with my wife.

I have some kids here, some grandchildren here.

So it's difficult, and of course, just a couple of hours ago,

there was a, not to make light of it,

there was a serious tragedy, a direct hit by a missile

on a public shelter in a town called Bayt Shamish,

where at least at this moment,

at least nine people were killed, including children,

and there's about 21 did.

So the mood overall is optimistic.

Israel has been through this before,

but then there's also that component,

which is incredibly sad and tragic.

Yeah, we'll just say, David, if you need to leave,

if you need to go to seek shelter at any moment,

please do that, our audience will understand.

So talk us through the dynamic.

Appreciate that.

Of course, of how is this different from the 12-day war?

What's the biggest difference?

The biggest difference is Israel has a true partner.

The Americans were very helpful in the 12-day war,

but they adopted a defensive posture.

So they were there, as they have trained for many, many years

in the past, when I was ambassador,

they were training these operations,

but those were training with regard to defense,

to intercepting ballistic missiles,

and they performed a very valuable task,

although in those days Israel did intercept

most of the missiles on and so on.

Now, offensively, the big brother is coming to help Israel.

I mean, this is two carrier strike groups,

the full weight of the Sencom, the U.S. military intelligence.

So it's a completely different operation,

completely different goals I would add, as well.

And I think we're going to see very, very striking results

as a result.

President Trump is not going to let this drag.

This is not going to be the case.

This is not going to be a war where they're trading volleys,

not going to be a war of attrition.

Trump wants to end this, and he's going to end this

just as quickly as he can, and the Israelis

are going to play an important role.

Well, this is America's show.

It's not Israel's show, it's the American show.

The big question now is how this interim council

is going to respond.

Will they dig their boots in the ground further,

and launch even more strikes as a result of the Itolla killed?

What do you think we should expect

to see from Tehran in the coming days?

Well, the first thing is to understand,

is there really anybody there minding the store

that's been such a decapitation of leadership?

It's not clear to me that there is anybody really fully in charge.

But beyond that, look, I think the first

day or two of responses has been fully

baked into the military for six months,

as long as these discussions have been going on.

They've had a plan for what to do

on the first couple of days.

We're quickly coming to the end of that period.

And now, the question is, what do they got left?

Between the Americans and the Israelis,

they're targeting the launchers,

they're targeting the ballistic missiles.

They're doing everything they can.

With, by the way, exquisite intelligence

that no one else in the world has,

as to where the targets ought to be.

So America's continuing to pursue these targets.

Again, not a risk-free operations,

as you just announced, there were three unfortunate deaths

in some additional casualties,

heartbreaking that American soldiers would lose their lives here.

But they are, they're still, they still got a lot of offense left.

And I think the Iranians are gun run out of gas.

I mean, it's, I don't know whether it's three days, four days, five days.

But the American goal is to get Iran as quickly as possible

to a place where they're harmless.

They're harmless to their own people.

They're harmless to Israel, to the Gulf countries.

And I think that's a time that's quickly approaching.

We've seen a number of instances in the last few decades

in the Middle East, in particular in Africa,

where tyrannical leaders were taken out,

either deposed internally or killed by foreign militaries.

And there was this period of cloudiness.

We weren't sure what was going to happen.

And then they're ended up being more instability as a result.

And there was more of a need for the U.S. to remain involved.

How do we avoid that happening this time around?

Well, that's a great question.

I think Iran is different than, let's say, for example,

in Iraq, but Iraq is a place where there was never really

a nation with a kind of a cohesive culture.

And an identity was very tribal, very different groups

that combined to kind of be kept under control.

Iran is a very different population.

I mean, they're not Arabs, they're like their Persians.

Whatever that means, I mean, they're culturally different.

They are, many of them are very well educated.

There is an advanced movement already there for freedom

and for democracy.

They've been held back only by the regime.

That's been there, that's been there, their blockage.

Now, will a complete annihilation

of the Iranian military result in a loss of the regime, unclear.

But this will be the best opportunity in the history

of the, since the beginning of the Islamic revolution

in Iran at the 1970s, this will be the best opportunity

for the Iranian people to rise up, take back their country

and reform their government and become allies of the West.

I don't know if it's going to happen,

but the upside of that happening, if that does happen,

even if there's some turbulence along the way,

which I would expect, that opportunity

for the future of that region in the world itself

is so great, it really is worth taking the chance.

I mean, the consequence of not doing this,

of doing nothing, is a brutal, theocratic, dangerous

around the regime that will threaten our children

and our grandchildren.

Do you believe that the eye tolla would still be alive today

if October 7th had not taken place?

Well, these are great philosophical questions

that we can consider rather debate.

The answer was, of course, I don't know.

But I think October 7th changed everything.

I mean, we're too close to October 7th

to really understand its role in history

because from a historical perspective,

it just happened yesterday.

But what it means, I think, is going to prove to be

just as important, I think, as the Holocaust.

There'll be museums that will be dedicated

to October 7th in the same way

that we have Holocaust museums, at least in Israel.

October 7th, I think, was the time that Israel realized

and America realized that there were just certain governments,

certain regimes, unfortunately, certain people

with whom there would be no reconciliation.

There would be no peaceful coexistence.

Israel learned the hard way by seeing

how Hamas was elected by the people of Gaza,

was in a single Jew living in Gaza,

and a single Israeli IDF soldier on the ground in Gaza.

And yet, with all the money they got, all the aid they got,

all the support they got from around the world,

they took their money and used it to build territories

and weapons that they could shoot

into civilian populations in Israel.

So that was a harsh realization, especially since the people

that were most affected by October 7th,

for people on the south,

who had a very left-leaning perspective on life.

They really wanted to live with the Palestinians,

they wanted to help them, they wanted to coexist with them.

And so these were the people who, the Palestinians,

unsurmoniously murdered, raped, destroyed.

So that realization that sunk in in Israel

and then kind of got to sink in elsewhere in the West,

especially in America, I think made everyone realize

that in, of course, Iran was behind this,

Iran was funding it, Iran was supporting it,

Iran was praising it.

I think it caused, those of us who were clear-headed

to realize that you can only negotiate to a point

with radical Islamic terror.

And at some point, you either succumb to it

or you destroy it.

And I think the president has come to that for you,

and he gave it every opportunity for the Iranians

to avoid this.

I mean, just give up, just give up nuclear enrichment,

uranium enrichment.

The only purpose of that was for nuclear weapons

to just give that up and reduce or eliminate

your ballistic missile stockpile.

No one's attacking you.

Anyway, they could have done that.

They could have joined the community of nations.

Their economy could have been brought back.

I mean, they had enormous opportunities

and the people who were on saw that.

And it must have been heartbreaking for them

to see how this played out, but now they're celebrating.

I mean, I don't know if you saw some of the events

in London.

In London, there's a huge Iranian population

that's celebrating.

They're celebrating in Los Angeles.

They're celebrating in Great Neckon,

a lot older, there's a huge Iranian population.

But people who are on, apart from this regime

are quite happy right now.

One final question.

There's been a very vocal faction of folks

on the right, podcasters, former TV hosts,

some Republican elected officials,

who have urged President Trump to sort of abandon Israel

and stay out of the Middle East entirely.

And certainly they've been pushing the President

to not get involved in this military conflict in Iran.

What does it say about that factions standing within the White

House that President Trump, for the most part,

ignored them and still moved forward with this operation?

I think President Trump has seen for months what

they're made of.

The ugliness, the lining, the willingness

to adopt a position contrary to their prior positions

just for clicks or to appeal to the lowest form of human life.

He knows what they are.

And I think it's, I'm not surprised.

I've known the President for a very long time.

Look, I'd never thought he would pay

much attention to that.

Any of them, I think he'd prefer not

to see a divide within the Republican Party,

especially in an election year.

But short of that, he's not going to compromise

his views because of these low lives.

And I think they were largely irrelevant before.

But I think, as they say, we can safely relegate them now

to the dustbin of history.

All right, we will leave it there.

David Friedman, former ambassador to Israel,

coming to us live from Israel.

Thank you so much for your time, Ambassador.

Thanks, Cabin.

Thanks for having me.

All right, we're going to keep going with the breaking news.

Again, the big story for those just now joining us,

Operation Epic Fury continues in the last few hours,

strikes moving forward from the US and Israel on Tehran

and other sites across Iran, Iran continuing

to launch a barrage of missiles at a number

of Middle Eastern countries targeting US bases

and also civilian populations in Israel.

At least one missile has made it through

the Iron Dome defense system and has killed right now

later reports saying nine civilians

in a heavily populated residential area of Israel.

And the big news, central command confirming this hour

that three US service members have been killed in action.

Five more have been seriously wounded

as part of Operation Epic Fury.

They say the situation is fluid.

Out of respect for the families,

we'll withhold additional information,

including the identities of our fallen warriors

until 24 hours after next up kin have been notified.

That will be dominating the headlines today,

understandably three US service members killed

President Trump warning that could happen.

And we now know that it has indeed happened.

So our thoughts and prayers with the families

of those service members are brave heroes

who are engaging in this operation.

We're going to turn now to Brent Sadler,

former senior Pentagon official

and Heritage Foundation senior fellow Brent.

The last few hours this operation has continued.

What has surprised you most in the first 36 hours

though of this Operation Epic Fury?

Perhaps the timing in early morning or daylight hours

as the Mola and his 40 or so of his closest

and most senior leaders were gathering.

That's the most surprising.

We'll see how much of a strategic impact it is making.

But that one and then followed closely

by the just completely misguided or I guess confused

lashing out by the regime and its missile launches

at all of its neighbors.

Many of them going after civilian apartment buildings

and others, just a poor lack of discipline

is surprising to me with their missile forces.

Do you believe that some of the attacks

that the Iranians have launched?

We saw in Dubai for example,

a number of high rise apartments and other buildings

that were struck that had seemingly nothing to do

with the military.

Do you believe that they're trying to put pressure

on those countries by saying,

hey, if you're going to ally yourselves with the US,

we're going to just strike indiscriminately

and try and pressure you into telling the US,

hey, wrap this thing up.

Yeah, that's one way of reading it,

but I think it's more chaotic and more of a fear of like

use it or lose it kind of syndrome

because as these attacks were coming in

and surprising the IRGC which was pretty much

had the finger on the trigger,

I think they thought we're next,

so let's shoot it before we lose it.

Because again, hitting these civilian targets

is just going to galvanize and it already is

the countries in the Gulf to ally with the United States

in Israel and enter into combat,

which appears that we're on the track too

because of this very misguided approach by the Iranians,

but not as surprising when you start to realize

how fractured their leaderships become.

To this point, we have seen, again,

three US service members killed.

We've seen a number of civilians in Israel

also confirmed dead, but from a relative standpoint,

when you take into account what we believe

to be the thousands of missiles the Iranians have fired off

so far, have you been surprised by the relative lack

of success that Iran has been able to have

and the relative lack of damage that they've been able

to inflict as a result?

Again, I kind of go back to the lack

of targeting discipline is really what's equating

to this very ineffectual missile barrage is.

They're not launching the large mass attacks

that they did last summer

because their command and control has been decapitated

and in that confusion, they're making attacks

as they see an opportunity rather than coordinating

with drones and large mass missile strikes

against say Israel or one target, but it's scattered across.

So I think this is the real reason

behind the ineffectiveness that could change.

Hopefully it doesn't, but this is going to last

with this level of intensity, at least for the next few days

as the targets and the threats are actually taken out

and hopefully in the interim, the Iranian people stand up.

You spent years working within the Pentagon,

walk us through what the options you believe

are there being presented to President Trump now

from his military advisors.

Yeah, most of my time was operational in the Pacific,

but dealing with providing the president

many options, military options,

is the key goal of the Pentagon and the military.

It's not to dictate or make the recommendation

which to take, but to maximize the options.

And so by having two aircraft carrier strike groups,

one in the Eastern Mediterranean,

the other one in the Arabian Sea,

both within striking distance

and very likely conducting very intensive operations

gives the president a real stat

that he can adjust and maneuver his forces

to send a signal, but also to affect

certain military operational impacts

like we're seeing right now in the pictures.

I asked this question to Ambassador Friedman

just a moment ago and I want to repeat it

because I think it's on the mind

of a lot of Americans right now.

We've seen so many times throughout history,

even the past few decades, where tyrannical strongmen

were taken out and there was this celebratory period,

but then years later, there was even more instability

as a result and it ended up maybe making the region worse.

How do we avoid that happening again in this scenario?

Well, it appears that the folks in leadership

in this administration are taken to recent historical events

to mind.

One is the liberation of Iraq.

You're talking about the statues of bring down Saddam Hussein

is eventual hanging as a war criminal,

but that was overshadowed by too rapidly

vilifying and purging all of the pathists.

Very similar type of circumstances in post-war Germany

and the end of World War II,

rather than just remove all the Nazis,

we kept those that were needed at a lower level

to keep the lights on and policing the streets

until they could be transitioned out and fully vetted.

What we ended up doing by the debathification in Iraq

in 2003 and 2004 is we turned all of them into enemies

and into insurgents.

And that's what bought us a very long war.

There's a smart way to go about that.

We didn't.

Afghanistan's another lesson that I think's being heated.

Afghanistan is never going to be a replica

of American democracy,

but we thought, along with many Western European countries,

that we could.

So you have to take the country for what it is

and what it's people, their aspirations

and desires and culture and apply your interest to that

and making sure that Americans and American interests

are being safely pursued.

I think in both cases, when I say both,

I'm talking Venezuela and what could unfold in Iran

is give this space for the people to decide a government

that is one that's responsive to their wishes,

but also one that's not going to be a threat

to American interest.

And it does take a degree of patience

and a highly well-informed insight

to the local politics and the local groups.

We'll see if we've got that in Iran.

It appears we've got that going along

fairly well in Venezuela so far.

Final question, Brent.

What do you expect to see over the next few days?

Well, I expect we're going to see more of these sporadic

and not clearly focused on a strategic insight,

missile launches.

The Iranians have upwards of 3,000.

They were in the process of rebuilding

some of their shipments from China that were intercepted,

but we have to assume that they had recovered

all that they had lost and spent in the last summer

during an operation midnight hammer.

That's probably going to continue for the next few days.

Yeah, Iranians are going to name new leadership.

That'll probably a new target set

unless they changed dramatically the nature of the regime

and go from one of hostility and violence and terrorism

to one of peace and prosperity

for their people and their neighbors.

Big if quite frankly.

Yeah, that's all the time we have now Brent.

Thank you so much for coming on.

I appreciate your insight.

Thank you.

That was Brent Sadler, former Pentagon senior official.

So just want to again thank our daily wire audience.

We're able to do this live coverage.

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So if you appreciate the daily wire

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and become a member today.

Well, as we get ready to wrap up our show,

we're just going to repeat the top lines

because so much is coming in.

This is a rapidly evolving situation.

Again, last night, we got confirmation

that Ayatollah Ali Hamani had been killed.

They successful Iranian or Israeli strike

on the Iranian compound took him out

along with 40 or so other top officials.

The country's minister of defense was killed.

The country's chief of staff to the military

was killed, the top generals, the head of the IRGC was killed.

So this was a decapitation strike.

The big question now, how will Iran move forward?

Is this the beginning of the end for the regime?

That is what we are waiting to find out.

Now, the regime currently has a succession plan

in place that they have implemented.

There are three men who have survived these strikes

who are now on the interim leadership team

sort of a triumvirate leadership team right now.

So the United States is trying to ascertain

how they are going to react.

Will they dig in even deeper?

Will they continue to fight?

They vowed that if the Ayatollah was targeted,

it would be an existential threat

on the livelihood of their regime

and that they would launch war

like they've never launched before.

Will they do that?

Or will this regime take the similar approach

to what we saw in Venezuela with Delce Rodriguez

saying, I don't want the same fate

that I saw Nicholas Maduro have?

I will play ball with the president.

That is what we will be tracking very closely

over the next coming days.

And you can follow along with us

at the Daily Wire, we have a live 24-7 blog

that is being updated on dailywire.com.

You can learn more about this developing story

and you can learn more about the three US service members

who were killed.

This operation, we learned that this morning

just a few hours ago, Central Command posting

that three service members had been killed.

So we have our first casualties.

Once we learn more details on those casualties

and if there are any more developments of that nature,

that will be up on the live blog at dailywire.com

and you can make sure to stay tuned there.

And also this entire stream, if you were joining us late,

you can watch the entire thing start to finish

along with all of our other coverage on dailywire.com

but come a member so you can hop in the chat

and join the conversation with our other members.

We'll make sure to monitor that for you as well.

But again, thank you so much for tuning in.

Thank you to our Daily Wire members

who make streams like this possible.

This is a historic weekend.

We woke up yesterday knowing that the world

in the Middle East would never be the same.

And today, we now know the IOTOLE is dead.

So two are three American service members.

We thank them for their sacrifice.

We pray for the safety of our military

and thank you to all of our daily wire members

for tuning in.

I'm Cabot Phillips, host of Wired In Live.

Thanks so much.

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