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Just yesterday, Pakistan said they were going to nominate Donald Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize.
That news came.
Out a few hours before the news came out that Americans had struck the Iranian nuclear sites. But I thought that was kind of a fun, interesting thing of the
craziest weekend that we've seen in quite a while. Hey, it's Gary here until four o'clock today as we follow a couple of things that are going on, not just the military action against Iran of course that we saw yesterday and into overnight, but also Michael Monks downtown just keeping our eyes on that situation down there, because we know, as we've seen the last couple of weeks, things downtown can get kind of out of control if we don't keep an eye on them.
So that's why we put.
Michael Monks down there on his own sort of Operation Midnight Hammer, if you will. The strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities were spectacular, and I mean that in not just the positive sense of they were a good military move.
They were spectacular in that the mechanism of the American military worked to a t. It seems and that is a pretty amazing thing when you think about seven B two bombers that took off from the United States, flew thirty thirty plus hours round trip for about two minutes of excitement, and then all the way back in that thirty seven thirty thirty thirty seven hour trip. We've already seen some of the images of B two bombers landing at Whitman Air Force Base there in Missouri, where the
B twos are often stationed. We'll talk a little bit about, among other things, the deception that took place. There's a certain amount of operational security that you have to have in any sort of military operation like that. That's part of the reason why the White House likely didn't go to Congress to seek any sort of war powers resolution or.
Anything like that.
The president doesn't have to these people that are screaming for the you know that this was an unconstitutional No, it wasn't it. You may be upset, but it was not unconstitutional. The president has a lot of power when it comes to things like this, strikes like this, military events like this, so that wasn't necessarily a problem. But there's a lot of operational security that goes into it.
And we hear say in the media or in the general public, we often fall for the things that they want us to fall for, and I was one of them.
I was following a couple of different.
Operations sorry, open signals, intelligence, Twitter feeds, and this is just you know, the stuff that everybody has access to. It's just a matter of knowing where to find it. None of it is hidden. But there was a lot of information about some B two bombers and tankers that had taken off from the West coast of the United States. There were some tankers that had taken off from Travis Air Force Base up in northern California and were headed on their way to Guam. And I think that was
probably Friday morning that we saw that. And what we actually saw was an incredible diversion because if we in the general public and the government of Iran believes that the attack is coming from that side of the planet, when in fact it was coming from the other side the much shorter route. I say much shorter, it's still seven thousand miles or so between between Missouri and Tehran. But they were as surprised, we assume, as everybody else was about what was going on, and think about this,
think about the cup. If that's the diversion that everybody was kind of keeping their eyes on the South Pacific and our military assets in Guam, And is that where the pilots are going to be taking off from. Maybe it's Diego Garcia, that tiny little island that's out in the Indian Ocean, that would be much closer, but still a pretty hefty skip to get up to Tehran. One hundred and twenty five different aircraft involved in this attack on Iran. All three of the nuclear sites we know
sustained severe damage. In fact, President Trump on truth Social just a few moments ago, posted the damage to the nuclear sites in Iran is said to be monumental. The hits were hard and accurate. Great skill was shown by our military. Thank you. A short time after that, he posted on truth Social, it's not politically correct to use the term regime change, but if the current Iranian regime is unable to make ira great again, why wouldn't there
be a regime change? And then instead of Maga m aga, he wrote mega m IgA, make Iran great again, and then adds a handful of exclamation points just to just to make it officially, Donald Trump. So over the course of the next couple hours, we're going to go through some of what we know has been the reaction, especially from members of Congress, to this. It is almost not entirely but it is almost predictable down party lines about what both people are going to say, what both parties
are going to say about the attack on Iran. But like I said, it's not entirely down political lines, and there are some standout Republicans who are in complete disagreement with President Trump about exactly what happened. So Iran has warned of consequences. Tiffany played for you the foreign minister from Iran talking about how the United States can't rest on its laurels, always be on the lookout, head on.
A swivel, all of that sort of stuff.
It's not as if Iran has the same capability to promote terrorism here as they used to. That doesn't mean we're completely immune to it, but they do not have the reach that they once did. So we'll talk about all of this as we go through what's going on today, the fallout from this. We get any more statements, of course, from the White House or from the Pentagon or from the Israeli government or the Iranian government. A lot of
things in play. Will definitely bring those to you. But when we come back, we're going to talk with Michael Monks. He is downtown a couple of different protests that are supposed to materialize today, and we'll see how things are going, and he's keep an eye on that for Operation monks Hammer downtown.
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
It's gary.
It will be here till about four o'clock and then somewhat normal programming, we believe after that. Of course, we're talking about the United States hitting three nuclear sites in Iran in an overnight operation one hundred and twenty five aircraft, most notably seven of our B two bombers that were there. It's almost a third of the entire fleet that we have. All three of those nuclear sites in Iran did sustain
severe damage. President Trump did say that I'm trying to go through his social poster, the damage to the nuclear sites in Iran is said to be monumental. The hits were hard and accurate, great skills shown by our military. He also wrote a short time ago on truth social the Great B two Pilots have just landed safely in Missouri. Thank you for a job well done. Donald J. Trump, President of the United States. I had to sign it because it's his own account.
But Washington.
By the way, the White House says that they did send a message to Tehran urging them to engage in peace talks, but Iran's foreign minister said that that was not going to happen. Also, the New York Post is reporting that they actually tried to get a hold of the Iyetola at the very last minute before those airstrikes.
According to Axios, three officials have told Axios President Trump greenlit the attacks after the back channel in Tehran was unable to get the Supreme Leader on the horn that has pushed for diplomacy hit this as snag when Iotola Ali Camene allegedly went into radio silence because he was afraid of an assassination attempt. That was big news in the middle of the week last week when the suggestion came out that Israel had a plan to assassinate the Ietola,
but Donald Trump put the kibosh on it. There has been plans for some protests in downtown Los Angeles and Michael Monks is there our protest, Maven who has been keeping an eye on this, If all the ones you've seen in the last two weeks, it sounds like this. This one is low on the scale for you, Oh.
Definitely much calmer than what we had been used to. And what started at twelve o'clock was a hastily thrown together anti war protest. That was the main message. A group of folks who just wanted to speak out against potential war with Iran. That was the dominating theme of the speakers and the participants and all of the signage that was created, along with occasional references to immigration or gaza and those sorts of things. Even some messaging against
Democrats as well. So a bit of a hodgepodge of a protest, but mostly focused on anti war. This was outside La City Hall and it drew about fifty people and some of the organizers, some of the participants were also involved in that massive protest last week with the no Kings messaging. This didn't quite reach the turnout of that.
Are you getting to the point where you are familiar with some of these faces out there, starting to recognize people.
You know bit at least the words I can usually predict the chance, and that's always true when you cover local government. You know you're gonna get a c sapayda or that sort of thing. You know what the message is going to be. Certainly, what's been hard to keep track of is wish flag we're waving this week. It's gotten so confusing that I noted with Tiffany in the last hour that a flag salesman showed up to this protest and stood just outside of it selling different flags.
So if you're waving the American flag or the Mexican flag, or the Palestinian flag, or now maybe the Iranian flag, there's a buck to be made.
Yeah, And if you could combine some of those flags together. We've seen some of those half and half flags. Those we have those a hot item right now here on the street vending scene.
Is there fatigue do you think?
I mean, we've seen a lot of people out on the streets for the last couple of weeks, But is this something that's gonna generate enough heat for people to come on out?
I asked one of the organizers this when I interviewed him last hour. Was look because he was off all of the different issues that they're concerned about. And I thought, it's not just a list that you've just rated off. These are all individually items that have led to massive demonstrations, even here in Los Angeles, downtown Los Angeles.
So how do you keep that?
I guess energy towards all this.
Think about what we've gone through just in the past year between Palestinian oriented marches and then you know what we've seen so far this year against President Trump or an immigration enforcement. It's just been a constant stream of large, massive protests. I don't know that today is an indication
that they've lost energy. I just am not sure if they know where to go next, physically where to go, because when you're doing an anti war speech, you know, you show up at the government building, I suppose, But it didn't draw the crowd that we had been seeing. I don't know if it's a loss of energy, if it's a loss of organizational structure, or yeah, just people who have protest fatigue. But this was a bit of a bust. Yeah, I'm sorry, I shouldn't editorialize like that.
There were fifty people who expressed themselves enthusiastically, but it did not amount to the size of crowds that we've been seeing the.
No editorialized for you and say it sounds like it was a bust.
It is funny.
I mean, we saw some of the flyers on social media that suggested the no More War in the Middle East protest we won't die for oil, profit or empire, and that it was supposed to be today at twelve pm city Hall. And obviously City Hall is a central gathering place, but Los Angeles City Hall has nothing to do with a decision to send me two bombers halfway around the world and back with the giant, giant ordinances.
So I'm curious. I mean, I get your point of they probably I don't know exactly what to do next or who to target.
It was so sudden, you know, I do the show on Saturday night and Tifany goes on at five. I go on at seven, and you know, just before she went on the area yesterday at five is when we got the message from President Trump that this had all
taken place. So we're still not even twenty four hours removed from the public acknowledgment from the White House that these military strikes took place, and so the rapid response from this group may not be as swift as maybe some of the more leftist organizations who organize those rapid responses against immediate immigration enforcement. Not just that we're going to take a stand in general against it, but like there's there's immigration enforcement happening right now on this block.
In Maywood and a crew shows up.
I mean, this is a group that needs some time, it looks like, in order to gin up the type of enthusiasm that we saw for them a week ago at the No Kings. They do have other events planned, because some of these organizers are involved in that fifty to fifty one group that planned the No Kings and the Hands Off Medicare thing a couple months prior. They have plans for July four, they have plans for July seventeen. They're already promoting those and you can probably expect a
decent turnout for those. But it doesn't seem like the type of organizers that can turn it on a dime and get folks out the way that some of the leftist groups can. Here.
Yeah, I think you make a good point as well, because this is this is kind of a sanitized thing. I mean, it's an event that took place halfway around the world for years, for decades, we've been hearing that Iran is the largest state sponsor of terrorism, so it's they're already characterized as sort of the bad guys in this and then we do something to cripple their ability to continue terrorism and in this case, to develop nuclear terrorism.
So it's almost as if, yeah, we clearly don't want to lose American men and women service members and put them in harm's way, but it's also fuck. I mean, you could argue it's on the whole a positive. So there's going to be a harder it's going to be harder to pull people, you know, into a protest and get them fired up for something that happened and they know, no,
they know nothing about it. You know, it's not affecting that, it's not affecting their their streets, their neighborhood, their community in general. It's could be argued it's as a as a positive.
So exactly, I think that's great analysis, that's exactly right. We did hear some folks try to compare Iran to Text as I heard one of the speakers say they have universal healthcare in Iran, we don't have that here. And then you know that people want to talk about the restrictions on women in Iran.
There are these restrictions on women in Texas.
Why don't we invade Texas if we need to invade over some of these things. It was it was clear that outside of the generic no war message, it was hard to find something to really sink their teeth into in terms of getting some enthusiasm beyond that general message, because there were just a lot of different statements going on out there.
All right, what's your plan? Well, i'll tell you.
We were hearing that there was going to be another protest related to immigration enforcement outside that federal building, the roy Ball Federal Building here in downtown La I saw about one hundred demonstrators who marched along Los Angeles Street, still in the overpass over the one oh one.
And they quickly dissipated.
I don't know where they disappeared to, but it looks like there's a bit of a festival going on at Olvera Street al Pueblo, So I don't know if they just went in and blended into that. They were peaceful. They didn't do anything except wave some signs and cheer, and as of now, as of just two minutes ago, when I went past the backside of that building where a lot of these heated confrontations with law enforcement and
military have taken place. It's just six guardsmen guarding the garage and not a single protester in sight at this point.
Good, good y, honor, good calm Sunday afternoon.
Then, hoping it calms down. I am going to be at the ready for you, Gary. I know that if Gary Hoffman is in that seat on a weekend, something horrible has happened in the world.
So we are always ready to help you out when you need us.
Yeah, that I couldn't sleep, my nap didn't work out, something like that. Michael Monks, Downtown, LA for KFI News. Thanks man, you got it all right. We will continue and again continuing coverage of not just the strikes on Iran, but the fallout. There was also an event that took place in Michigan. There was a shooting at a church today. I'll talk a little bit about that when we come back.
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Gary Hoffman in until four o'clock today. Chris Meryl will be along at that point. Krazer's sitting over there in the newsroom. We're trying to figure out everything that's going on. Of course, with the American strikes on Iran. There was a story Nash story though up in Michigan, Wayne, Michigan. This morning, there was a shooting at a community church at cross Point Community Church, an active shooter was declared.
This is a suburb of Detroit by the way.
Security guard at the church shot and killed this guy before officers were able to get there, and the reason the security guard had time to take aim at him was because one of the deacons who was showing up to church ran him over with his truck. The deacon hit and clobbered the guy with an f one point fifty and then the church security guard was able to come over and finish him off. They said that no
one else at the time was hurt. Only one person, the security guard himself, was the one who was injured. The shooter did fire multiple shots into the church, but did not actually go into the building. There were about one hundred and fifty people in there at the time. They were live streaming the service when it happened. It
had more kids in there as usual. Showed the moment when people inside became aware of what was going on and you can hear people yelling, get down, everybody to the back, and then again he was hit by a truck and then shot and killed by a church security guard. So that was in Wayne, Michigan today. So Operation Midnight Hammer, that is what this is being called. One hundred and twenty five aircraft were involved in the strikes on Iran.
The three nuclear sites all considered to have suffered severe damage, although at this point we don't know exactly how severe. The head of the United Nations Nuclear Watchdog group said, the extent of this is still unclear, despite some satellite images that are out that now show that the bombs
literally moved mountains in some respects. The chief of the the International Atomic Energy Agency excuse me, Raphael Grossi, confirmed that yes, the strikes did hit, and that they hit the most fortified nuclear site called Ford Doh during an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council. That is, I believe it's still going on actually today in New York. And what he said was craters are visible at the Fordah site, Iran's main location for enriching uranium, indicating the
use by the United States of ground penetrating munitions. We knew that this is consistent with the statements from the United States, but he said, given the fact that Fordah is underground, neither the IAEA or anyone else has been able to access to assess the damage. Specifically, along with the damage at Ford OH, several buildings and entrance tunnels had been destroyed at the Ishfahan nuclear site and additional
damage at Natan's as well. One of the guys that I was listening to earlier today talked about the specifics of these munitions, and again we've talked about We spent all week on the Gary and Shannon Show talking about these bunker buster bombs. This is retired Admiral Mark Montgomery who said this specific these GBU fifty sevens, this is literally exactly what they were designed for underground Iranian nuclear facilities.
Myself and many of the other retired generals and animals who've worked this issue for you know, almost fifteen to eighteen years. You know, from the initial planning the Massive Ordinance penetrary was conceived two or three administrations ago. So the idea that we're finally using it is about time. We have cycled our forces through the Middle East so many times, particularly the Navy and the Air Force and the Army's air defenders that it really impacts our readiness.
So actually doing this strike now there's a path through to to not being so critically involved in the Middle East all the time because we've removed the number one threat to Middle East peace, the Iranian nuclear No.
Sorry I cut him off.
The other point about what this guy was saying, again, retired Rear Admiral Mark Montgomery, is that this kind of operation where you've got airplanes in the air for hours and hours and hours at a.
Time, is not entirely unusual.
It was a big lift obviously, like I said, one hundred and twenty five different aircraft that were involved, including those seven B two bombers, but that this specific bomb that was dropped fourteen of them to be exact, was what made this the unusual operation that it was.
What was unique was the dropping of the of the massive ordinance penetrators at twelve at four to Doah and two at Natans. Now, those pilots had practiced it hundreds of times, but they had not used an operational weapon this way. What we can see in the imagery are six entry points at four to oh, which I.
Think is twelve.
Weapons, you know, because they tend they tend to put one right down on the other after it creates a channel, so that twelve on four to doh is going to cause a lot of damage. And then the two at Natan's I think was clean up. The Israelis left us some work to do there, knowing that a massive ordinance penetrator would be a better weapon to go after the centrifuge halls. So that's those fourteen massive ordinance penetrators.
Fourteen fourteen of them again seven by two bombers. That's about a third of the fleet that we have. And I mentioned earlier that some of them were sent to Guam to kind of distract everybody, and then that was almost all of the GBU fifty seven's that we have produced to this point. It's not that the explosives are as make that a fifteen ton beast, it's the way it's constructed with that hardened steal so that it can
penetrate the ground before the secondary explosion. Now I mentioned that there are congressional reactions to the American strikes on Iran, and again some of them are via some of them are people that you would not expect to be criticizing President Trump, but Tim Kaine ran for vice president with Hillary Clinton against Donald Trump and Mike Pence. He said that this is an overreach of presidential authority. He asserted that Congress has to vote before initiating offensive military actions,
which is not entirely true. He warned of the risk of getting the US into a prolonged Middle East conflict without the backing of the electorate. Listen, there is that there is a possibility of that, but we've been involved in the Middle East for decades and we will be for decades regardless of how this plays out. I think it's important to point out that other Arab states, they're not mad that Iran does not have a nuclear weapon or is now back into the Stone Age in terms
of its nuclear program. Other Arab states are not unhappy about that. They are just fine with this. They may put out statements that say that the United States did something we can't go back from.
Or blah blah blah. They do not want Iran to have a nuclear weapon.
Chuck Schumer, of course, called for the Senate to immediately hold a vote under the War Powers Act to reassert Congress's role in declaring war as we've seen before, this is not a war. Congress has not declared war since World War Two. And think of all of the military conflicts we've gotten into, some for years at a time. Think Afghanistan or Iraq, or Vietnam, or any number of conflicts that we've been in that did not require Congressional approval.
Haakim Jeffries, minority leader in the House, accused the President of misleading the public and bypassing Congress. He's listen, he's got to mislead the public. In a situation like this, you can't, for just for the protection of the men and women that are going to be there at the tip of the spear, you can't tell everybody what's about to happen. That's why he was so coy about his two week warning. Remember that on Thursday or Friday, whatever it was. Now Thomas Massey is a surprise to me
only that he's a Republican, the Republican from Kentucky. I mean, this guy goes to the beat of his own drum. He has introduced, with Congressman Rocanna from here in California, Democrat, a joint War Powers resolution stating that the action was not constitutional without prior congressional authorization.
Again, every I shouldn't say every.
Most presidents have some military action under their belt where the opposing party raises their hands and says, this is the unconstitutional use of the American military, and it's never the case. This one is going to be similar. There are people who are going to claim that this was an unconstitutional use of American military power, and there's no evidence that that's the case. So we'll talk more about
what this means for Iran going forward. Is there anything that Iran can do to poke back at the United States. It's Gary Hoff, but I'm in for I don't know who. Normally it's Tiffany. Usually it's in this spot right something like that. I'm Usually it's nap time for me, So it changes every weekend. Good rotating cast of characters.
You're listening to KFI AM six on demand, of.
Course, doing the regular show tomorrow, So at nine o'clock we'll pick up on some of the information that we are going to be getting in we assume overnight tonight and into tomorrow about the extent of damage on the strikes for strikes on three of Iran's nuclear sites. Of course fourd oh Natans and Ishfahan. This was Operation Midnight Hammer. We know that at least seven of these B two
bombers carried fourteen of the mops. These GBU fifty seven massive ordnance penetrators, the bunker buster bombs and then Tomahawk missiles were also fired from submarines. President Trump said that this was very successful, spectacular military success. And of course the final damage evaluations are still pending, notably for the deeply shielded facilities like four to H which is why we hit those, we believe with twelve of those mops.
I've mentioned just before that break about some of the congressional reactions to the strikes on Iran, and as I mentioned, the War Powers Resolution of nineteen seventy three does set out some specifics of what the president is allowed to do, but also what he is required he or she is required to do in the event that he calls for military action. The War Powers Resolution nineteen seventy three actually limits the ability to commit troops to an armed conflict
without congressional approval. It requires the President to notify Congress within forty eight hours of deploying troops, and it mandates a withdrawal after sixty days unless Congress comes in and authorizes the use of force, which is a pretty wide ranging amount of stuff that a president can do without getting approval from Congress. Now, again, some people have already
suggested that this was grounds for impeachment. I think Alexandria Ocassio Cortes, the She and Rashida Talib and Bernie Sanders have all said that this was grossly unconstitutional, which again isn't. Senator Lindsey Graham a Republican out of South Carolina, he has been calling for this for a long time, so he was a supporter. But so was John Fetterman, the
Democrat out of Pennsylvania. They took a position of support for these strikes, said that this was the right call to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
He had a whole trio of others.
Roger Wicker, Republican out of Mississippi, Jim rish out of Idaho, Mike Johnson out of Louisiana speaker. They supported this. They said that this was limited, It was decisive that there is no intention of regime change or a forever war. I mean the regime change thing is different because we know that President Trump has kind of addressed that in a truth social post. But this boots on the ground deployment myth that's floating out there is not going to happen.
We are not going into Iran with boots on the ground, because that would entail an absolute slaughter of somebody, whether it's American military men and women, Iranian civilians, the Irani military. That's not what we're interested in. Warren Davidson of Ohio, Marjorie Taylor Green of Georgia. They actually are Republicans that were at least concerned about this. They have talked about
constitutional concerns about this. They have said before that in that farthest right side of the MAGA movement, they do not want to get involved in any more foreign wars. The President will tell you the White House has already said this is not war with Iran.
But to use.
To use Speaker Mike Johnson's words, this was limited, that this was decisive. Jasmine Crockett has said that Congress must authorize military force before any president launches a strike, and again that's just simply a mis interpretation of the War Powers Resolution of nineteen seventy three. For example, for example, Bill Clinton ordered air strikes on Bosnia ninety five. Also, Bill Clinton ordered air strikes on Kosovo in ninety nine without price congressional authorization.
There was also a vote.
Congress did vote to pass the pass, sorry tried to vote to pass the resolution that would authorize continued NATO bombings in that Bosnia and Kosovo episode, but it failed.
Barack Obama in twenty eleven authorized airstrikes in Libya part of a NATO operation, again without congressional approval, and the administration argued, just like the Trump administration is, arguing that it didn't need authorization since it wasn't a full scale war, prompting debate over what does entail or what does require an actual Congressional vote under that War Powers resolution from.
Nineteen seventy three.
So they're going to talk about it, They're gonna yell about it, They're going to raise their voices about it. We've seen members of Congress talk about it all day today, and you could bet when the new cycle again starts the first thing in the morning, going to be doing it much much more. I mentioned also the ongoing suggestion that Iran has some sort of ability to strike back at the United States.
It doesn't appear that they do, clearly.
The United States has tens of thousands of military men and women within range of offensive weapons that Iran does have, but their capability has been degraded so much by the ongoing now ten days I believe of Israeli air strikes against their ballistic missile production facilities, against their missile launchers, that it doesn't appear that Iran has the capability of
coming after the United States in any real way. So now the concern is their proxy units, whether it's Hesblah or Hamas to a much lesser extent, but the Huthis in Yemen could gum things up if they start targeting American warships there in the Persian Gulf area, so something. All of this stuff is still going on. When we come back, we'll hear from a bunch of the leaders
the President's address from last night. Pete Hegseth and as a Secretary of Defense and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also had a very early news conference this morning and talked about the incredible success and bravery of the men and women who pulled this thing off late in the middle.
Of the night.
So we'll talk about all of that stuff still coming up in the next hour.
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