This is Gary and Shannon and you're listening to KFI AM six forty, the Gary and Shannon Show on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
The unmatched capabilities and global reach of the United States military, as the President clearly said last night, no other military in the world could have done this, and that means.
The while we knew that, and that's maybe one reason why you saw a scaled back military parade, because we were about to put on the real parade over the weekend.
We knew this was happening. We knew that only we could do it.
We knew That's why Israel was sidling up to Trump in in such a way for the past months and or years.
This was the goal.
You know, you look back at what happened on October seventh, and you know, you realize that that was essentially a nine eleven esque see change in the global power balance shift because there was going to be.
Hama, specifically funded by Iran to a degree, had just signed its own death one exactly.
And now why they didn't do the math on the long game, I don't know. It makes you wonder even more so in the same questions we're asked with nine to eleven right. And I hate to be one of those crazy conspiracy theorists people, but you just wonder, you know, this is what Israel has wanted for a very long time to.
Knock out, well not just Israel, other places around sure, you know the Middle East have shuddered at the idea of Iran having a nuclear weapon. For example, I heard this interview today former ambassador Kurt Volker, ambassador to NADO. He said, Listen, you're not going to see a lot of headlines like Saudi Arabia's cheering patting anybody on the back, but they're very happy that Iran was knocked down a couple of pegs over the weekend.
Whether it's Israel, whether it's Saudi Arabia, whether it's the UAE. Having Iran in a much weaker position is something that they're going to be happy about. There's still some risk right now, as Israel and Iran will continue to fight, but Iran is in a much much weaker position, and I think they're happy about that, and I think they're looking for an opportunity down the road to actually begin the process of renewing their effort to normalize relations with Israel.
I will say quickly that there is something going on in the Middle East right now. The Qatari government has completely shut down their airspace, and Katar happens to be I want to get the terminology right because I wrote it down. Qatar is home to the largest US military base currently in the Middle East, l Udid Air Base.
About eight thousand Americans live there, according to the According to the State Department, we know there are forty plus thousand within range of an Iranian attack if they decide to try to mount something against US. And there are some sources who had suggested that Katar specifically may be that target because of that air base, the American airbase that is there.
So that's something that's developed within the last half an hour.
So well, we may be chest thumping and taking a victory lap Iran does not seem to be striking a conciliatory tone. Yesterday, the Foreign Minister vowed to respond, said that Trump administration understands only the language of threat and force. The Iranian regime is one that rules by fear. Has been so well documented throughout our lifetimes, and so the only question left on the table is do they have anything to back that up with. I don't think they do.
I think they're the weakest they've been again in a very long time. I don't know my lifetime, but problems I've been paying attention well.
And I think that has prompted. You know, yesterday President Trump on truth Social talked about or hinted at maybe regime change. And we're not supposed to call for it, like the.
That's not the goal.
Each country's supposed to make that decision for themselves. We're not supposed to fomented. But at the same time, Caroline Levitt outside the White House today was saying, yeah, listen, it's not up tossed to really make that decision. But she's like, if you guys want to, now might be a great time.
The President's posture and our military posture has not changed. The President was just simply raising a question that I think many people around the world are asking. If there was Iranian regime refuses to give up their nuclear program or engage in talks. We just took out their nuclear program on Saturday night, as you all know. But if they refuse to engage in diplomacy moving forward, why shouldn't the Iranian people rise up against this brutal terrorist regime?
Listen.
If I'm in the White House Press Office, I pipe in those birds sounds every single time, every single time, even if there's no birds.
I say every press conference ever again, no matter where it is, the birds just make everything feel so much more calm down.
Okay, I have to bow down to you.
Because you called this one hundred percent that this was going to happen. I was still I was still not sure that it was going to happen. And I completely fell for the ruse that they had put out there for everybody, and I gobbled it up. If I was a fish, I would be the first fish to be taught the two weeks ruse, the two weeks the oh look there's B two's flying to Guam. Wait a minute, that seems like a It seems like a really long way to go around. Couldn't you go the other way?
Yes?
Yes they could, and they did because I'm a dummy.
Well, when we.
Talked about their ability to fly their five hours non stop and the B twos were on the move, I was like, let's go, oh, no, it's free positioning.
I was like, no, it's not.
Well, the ones and the ones that we knew of, Yeah, well we'll talk about the RUS when we come back, because it's it's pretty I feel stupid.
Dud, don't feel stupid. Don't feel stupid.
But I'm hoping that I just know what I know about people and what I know about Trump. This was way too good for him to pass up. And I also know because I'm the same way. He has a lack of patience. He wants to be badass, and he wants to be badass yesterday, and I understand that mentality.
We also have a chance for you to win a thousand dollars coming up right after the break.
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You're listening to Gary and Shannon on demand from KFI AM six forty.
Situation in the Middle East is going to be the big topic for the day. There was a very sad story that still is creating some massive issues over in West la and that was two people killed on the four or five very early this morning, including one an LAPD sergeant who had stopped his patrol vehicle to help in another accident when somebody hit and hit him and
he eventually died at UCLA Medical Center. But they are setting up outside the medical center for a very grave scene which is the escort of the body from the hospital we assumed to the coroner's office. Hundreds of police officers, firefighters, first responders of all types have lined that area.
So it's a story that we'll talk more about.
We'll get into the ruse how misdirection was used to throw me off and everybody else, about what exactly was going on and how far along we were in the planning for these military strikes against Ron.
We'll get to that in a second. First chance for you to win one thousand dollars.
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So it would be wild if there was a massive change in Iran. The sun of the last us Backshaw, who's been in exile for forty years, is calling for this, saying, do not repeat the mistakes of the past, do not
throw this regime a lifeline. The destruction of the regime's nuclear facilities alone will not deliver pieces names Raisa Paalvavi and he's the exiled son of that toppled Shaw, and he says, you're right to be concerned about stopping nuclear weapons and securing regional stability, but only a democratic transition in Iran can ensure those goals are achieved and are lasting. He's calling for a return to the way things were when we back to his father back in the seventy eight seventy nine.
Yeah, that this is and we've seen it over and over again. You use the term in the first segment that Iran is at its weakest. The rulers in Iran are now at their weakest point that that we've ever seen, probably since nineteen seventy nine. Okay, so late last week, Caroline Levitt, White House spokesperson, said this, I.
Have a message directly from the President, and I quote based on the fact that there's a substantial chance of negotiations that may or may not take place with Iran in the near future. I will make my decision whether or not to go within the next two weeks.
Wait a minute, two weeks.
That was just Friday that you said that, and then about twenty four hours later, we're dropping big ass bombs on this place. Okay, There's a couple of things that were at play in all of this. Number one is just misdirection is a good idea. If you're about to put American lives at risk, you want to try to create you want to keep the sense of surprise, and that's definitely what was done with that two weeks statement. The other thing was headfake, decoy, whatever you want to
call it. A bunch of B two bombers take off from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, turn on their transponders so that everybody who's got a flight aware account can see where they're going, and they headed this way. They came out over California and flew towards Guam, headed west over the Pacific, when a bunch of other B two bombers, seven of them specifically, went.
The other way, headed east Tehran.
Now, all of that is, all of that was going on there was an interesting aspect of military leadership that was a little bit concerned. Remember before Caroline Leavitt read that statement about two weeks, we'll make a decision in two weeks, President Trump had taken to truth social to tell everybody to evacuate from Tehran. Remember that there was some concern down at Sentcom that he was telegraphing the next move, which is way, hold u second, don't tell
everybody that we're coming. That's not going to that's not going to help us keep the element of surprise. So then they come up with the I'll decide in two weeks kind of thing. The biggest threat they had to operational security was going to be the open source intelligence that was available. So they were able to manipulate that open source intelligence, let everybody believe that they were going the long way around the barn, when in fact, knock, knock, knock,
here they come. Everything's done. The Israelis were able to go in and basically knock out every single piece of anti aircraft defense that Iran had. Major Jack Keen, we've talked about before, go ahead, Uh.
Go on, I was gonna say.
Major Jack Keen explains why on Saturday night, early Sunday morning, depending where you were when it happened, not a shot was fired at dozens of airplanes that made their way into Iranian airspace.
The Israelis knocked out the advanced S three hundred and S four hundreds from Russia, and Russia does very good in missile defense systems on a parallel to us, and they took care of that in October, and then they came back as a result of the initial stage of the operation. Nagel about business the same way we do. The first thing we knew we're going to deal with a country, a nation state is to bring down their air defense systems. We don't bring anything else in until
we've done that. They took down the remaining seventy air defense batteries that existed, all of them. That is why no shot was fired. Now that the B twos, they obviously are stealth bombers, and we had stealth fighters participating in that, and they would likely not be detected in any event. But what the Israelis did deserve huge amount of credit.
Okay, I want to talk about the specifics you mentioned. You had the seven B two Spirit bombers flew east from Missouri to Iran.
Yeah, the group of B twos flying west.
Like I said, even when I saw that the b twos were flying west, I thought they were making the whole grand trip because like I just didn't believe that, Like, you're not gonna fly b.
Twos to the West for reap?
Is that?
Like, what are you talking about anyway?
Normal training exercise.
We knew it was a go. We knew it was a go when we saw the movement of the B twos. I do was a go when we saw the movement of the B twos. But Operation Midnight Hammer came with not just the payloads, but it came with the support aircraft, and it came also with the submarine launching the cruise missile. So want to get into all that because it's just fascinating to hear about the specifics and the logistics of wargames.
And there's been a name that has kind of emerged as the architect in its General Dan Kine, who is a bad ass.
He was the guy who explained I mean, he was reiterating what the President had said.
As the President clearly said last night, no other military in the world could have done this.
So Dan Cain did a briefing with Pete Haigseth, who, by the way, has emerged very strongly from Signalgate, was that even the name of it, yes, okay, and didn't reveal the plans.
Oh no, So that's.
Good, exactly exactly. We'll talk about the specifics and we come back.
You're listening to Gary and Shannon on demand from KFI AM six forty.
So we are talking about all the details about the operation to bomb three nuclear sites in Iran, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff saying it was the largest B two operational strike in US history, inflicting extremely severe damage and destructions to the targets. When after the nuclear sites, today you're seeing Israel go after the sites
that mean something to the theocracy that is Iran. But we mentioned General dan Kin before the break, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff saying that this was a highly classified mission. Even if we knew was happening, very few people in Washington knew the timing or the nature of this plan.
Which is also interesting because we've seen a lot of members of Congress come out and say we weren't even briefed on it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, we're not asking your permission, which we don't do anymore.
We're just going to go for it.
Why the hell would we brief Why would you waste time briefing a member of Congress if you weren't asking them for the rubber stamp?
Yeah, and listen, the War Powers Resolution does give the president a lot of leeway when it comes to that. I talked about it yesterday when it came in, and the irony, No.
Is irony the right word.
The hypocrisy, I'll just say that, the hypocrisy of certain politicians coming out and saying, I can't believe this president didn't come to Congress for permission, despite the fact that every president going back to Reagan has done something very similar in some capacity.
Operation Midnight Hammer as it's called, of course, Oh my God, included seven B two Spirit bombers of lou East from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri to Iran.
We mentioned the group of B two's that went. Yes.
Meanwhile, that eighteen hour flight east by the bombers would draw payload on Iran. It required multiple inflight refuelings as the planes crashed across the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. The bombers would meet up with US fighter jets and support aircraft once over land in the Middle East. We're talking complex,
tightly timed maneuvers. When you see the air shows right in Huntington and the way that they are able to move so tightly, and how they're able to maneuver, the choreography, just the flight feel, the whole math of the entire situation. This is what they trained for and it came off.
Without a hitch.
And you mentioned the timing as well.
Yeah, they did twelve of those mop bombs on four to oh, they did two on Natans and then the rest the thirty Tamahawk missiles hit Ishfahn and Dan Kane again, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, explained that those Tomahawk missiles were you know, I think it was about three hundre miles away in a submarine. Those were launched before any of the bombs started dropping, so that all of this thing would happen in a very very tight window.
Just prior to the strike package entering Iran, a US submarine in the Central Command Area of responsibility launched more than two dozen Tomahawk land attack cruise missiles against key surface infrastructure targets.
At s Fahind and listen, I know that the geography of those three different sites is relatively spaced out, but could you imagine that the twenty minutes or twenty five minutes of ever loving sheer hell that existed in those spaces in that very very small amount of time.
Well, and just the pure adrenaline of the people carrying out this mission, he said, Iron's fighters did not fly Aron's surface to air missile systems did not see us throughout that mission at those three sites. We retained the element of surprise. More than one hundred and twenty five US aircraft participated in this mission.
All told, there was a moment yesterday as well when the first of those B two bombers came back and landed at Whiteman Air Force Base. And there's a it's a sense of it's a sense of awe when you think about the thirty seven and a half hours I think is at the official time, the thirty seven and a half hours that pilot and copilot are sitting in that pretty cramped cockpit.
This is I mean, this is this is it.
This is exactly why that bomb was developed, was specifically to go after hardened underground Iranian nuclear facilities twenty plus years ago when they started developing this thing.
This was the mission.
They had in mind specifically, and it was finally able to be played out over over the weekend.
Apparently there was a final phone call from Steve Whitcoff, special envoy to the Middle East, which played a major role, told Trump in the weeks leading up to the strike, that the Iranians not serious at all about a nuclear deal and they haven't been. There were a lot of Trump tweets over the weekend unearthed about how he was calling out Obama back in twenty twelve, twenty thirteen. Oh, I bet he's going to go after Iran to appear strong. Oh, he's got to do this.
Well.
They gave Iran a lot of breathing room Biden did, Obama did.
Trump did.
And now that breathing room window has closed and Iran drug their heels way too much. They thought they were getting away with this, and it was the wrong place and time with this president at this moment. With what happened on October seventh, all the arrows pointed to now and that's exactly what happened.
That was the phone call that was picked up. There was one that was not picked up. The New York host was reporting yesterday that Trump tried to call the Ayatola literally tried to call the Ayatola before the attack to say basically, this is your absolute last chance. Yeah, and he never picked up. I don't listen to.
You have like twelve hours or something like that.
Yeah.
Never, He wasn't able to get a hold of the Iyatola because the Iatola is sitting in a cave somewhere being guarded by thirty of his best sons.
I don't know.
Do you think they still.
Hide in caves or was that a narrative that we were fed during you know, the post nine to eleven world where everyone's hiding in caves.
He's in a bunker somewhere. I don't know a cave bunker. You know, depends on the air lashing unit. Okay, So here's the other question. Battle damage assessments take time. What do we know about exactly what is left?
We don't know.
We don't know the full story about how much damage was carried.
Out, and where is the uranium?
And where do we go?
We've been put on a worldwide caution alert putin by the way, what does he think about all this and what has he said.
We've got that for you as well.
You're listening to Gary and Shannon on demand from KFI AM six forty.
There have been explosions heard in Cotter. Again, I mentioned that the largest American military base in the Middle East is the Aludad air Base. They're in Cotter, about eight thousand citizens. Apparently Americans are there. The most of the equipment, at least the airplanes and other things that were not in hangars had been moved out of that area. But there are reports of some explosions in the area. We're not sure specifically if it was at the air base or not.
Yeah, they did close their airspace and anticipation of this as well. And like I mentioned earlier, Israel has expanded its war to include the targets associated with the struggling regime. The striking the gate of the Tehran prison notorious for holding political activists. They hit the headquarters of a military for the force there that suppressed recent protests. So they are going after it seems like full full steam ahead
for pushing for this resime. Regime change is a completely different looking Aroun, both quite.
Literally and symbolically.
So we know that we got some of the first satellite images to show the aftermath of the strikes on these three nuclear sites that are essential to Iran's nuclear program and the To be honest, it's kind of hard to figure from satellite images how damaged they would be. Obviously, they're underground, and that's the uh, that's the going to be the needle in the haystack figuring out what's going
on below ground. The post strike satellite pictures, at least at FOURD do oh, one of the most important ones shows six tiny well from space, six tiny little holes. We know that there were twelve of those mop bombs dropped on FOURD DOH and the way I was hearing it yesterday, they were exact enough with their targeting that once the hole was punched by one of those mops, a second one went straight down that same shoot. That's pretty amazing. The other question is now, of course, President
Trump said that it was complete obliteration. I'm not sure the exact term he used, but there's no way he could possibly know that just yet. Mike Lawler, Congressman out of New York Republican, was in favor of these strikes. He was asked about, Well, okay, the president says, they were obliterated.
How do we know they were going to continue to find out more information in the days ahead, And obviously the intelligence is critical, but eliminating these nuclear facilities is critical in terms of preventing Iran long term from being able to have a nuclear weapon. Obviously, if they moved in rich uranium, that is something that we are going to have to evaluate and address.
But so despite the claims of a complete, fully obliteration of these nuclear phacites, the extent of the damage won't be known for days, possibly even weeks.
Vladimir Putin, by the bye says that extra regional powers are being drawn into this conflict. Now what does that mean. Well, Russia has bought weapons from Iran. They signed a twenty year strategic partnership plan earlier this year. It does not contain a clause that addresses mutual defense. However, Vladimir Putin's saying today, all this brings the world to a very dangerous line. They haven't been that closely tied in bed together.
Iran has not been impressed with Russia's support so far, according to sources and the Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey ragdabob.
Nailed it.
Asked if Iran had requested military help, he was quoted as saying, we interact with Iran in many areas. It is clear that it would be irresponsible for me to disclose the content of the contacts they are being conducted, including today, given all the circumstances.
So he basically said nothing.
Here's the thing, like, Iran is in a very weak position, so finds Russia. Russia is not in a strong position. They are tapped out after this lasting conflict with Ukraine. They got nothing to give, They got nothing to give. So you're looking at the most weakened Russia and Iran that we have seen of they're kind of left tweedling their thumbs.
Yeah.
Dimitri Medvedev, who is now a lieutenant to Vladimir Putin, was once the president. He said, other states now are basically champing at the bit to give Iran nuclear weapons. Who I don't know who he's talking about, but he seems to think that there will be others that will line up and gladly hand over a nuclear weapon to Iran. That seems pretty highly unlikely.
Even I mean, at this point, well I'm not a nuclear scientist, but at this point, even if you handed him the weapon, they wouldn't even have what it takes to to use it.
Well, then it becomes the backpack dirty bomb kind of thing.
As how they would use it and what are you going to do with that? Right, that's going to be nothing, That's going to be a tear drop in an ocean.
Well, there is there is a concern. No one knows where the eight hundred and eighty pounds of uranium is.
We'll talk about that when we come back to Gary and Shannon.
You've been listening to The Gary and Shannon Show. You can always hear us live on KFI AM six forty nine am to one pm every Monday through Friday, and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio ap