Good morning from South Dakota. Welcome back Dragon. I don't know if Michael told you, but I was on vacation last week. Also, everyone, have a great day.
You're you're retired, aren't you. Aren't you always on vacation? I mean, congratulations. If you were on vacation, I hope you enjoyed it. But so every day.
My complain about our friend over there in the bad Lands is that when he left for vacation, every day we got a new talk back from well, now I'm in you know, Amarillo, and now I'm in Oklahoma City or Tulsa, and now I'm in I don't know, Nashville or where the hell it was, and then went to silent, and then all of a sudden, I was like, I'm back home. Hmm, what were you doing in the meantime?
Secret missions?
Secret mission?
Yeah, which is happened to coincide with some of the planning for this very true, you know, kind of wonder kind of when what's going on? A quick recap of yesterday. So the Vice President JD. Vans appeared on both Meet the Press and this Week Well George Stepanah love love Us. He embodied the deliberate calm of a man who knows that the world just shifted in America's favor. There's a recalibration going on ever since news, ever since. You know,
it was funny because Saturday evening or frid sorry, Friday evening. Uh, I'm kind of like, uh, I want to I want to stay up and you know, because you know I always go to Betterarly, I want to know what Trump says. Three minutes and thirty five seconds. Bam bam, Thank you ma'am Internet, Here's what we did. Good night, God bless America. Van emphasized that the strike was not a prelude to war, but the opposite, that it was a calculated disruption of
a regime's most dangerous ambitions. He told Kristen Welker, I'll meet the press that we are not at war with Iran. We destroyed the Iranian nuclear program, and we did it without endangering the lives of American pilots.
Now that's not bluster.
Again, that's the strategic precision that I'm so impressed with the strikes. Seven B two stealth bombers operating under this veil of operational silence so complete that not even the seasoned analysts knew they left Missouri until after they had reached Guam. Those that were going westward to be a decoy,
the target Ferdeaux Natans Isfahan. Those are the three crown jewels of Ram's weapons program, all you know, embedded deep within those mountains, and yet we hit them with surgical accuracy using the GBU fifty seven AB massive ordnance penetrators, the MOPS.
You know, I find it kind of interesting.
We've got all this new language and I hear people talking all the time. It was kind of funny because I think maybe it was Saturday I use the term bunker buster, and or maybe as I mean way it was on the program, it was on X and only people that don't know really what they are refer to them as bunker busters. Well, you can find all sorts of military people that refer to them as bunker busters. But now we know they're GBU fifty seven A and
B also mops, massive ordnance penetrators insert sexual joke. There no civilian casualties, no boots on the ground, no room for Tehran to pretend that it was caught unaware. Vance put it very plainly and simply, Iran had been playing for time. They were hoping to bluff delay. They just simply wanted to outlast another administration. But the Trump administration Trump two point zero is not interested at all in performative art diplomacy. Vance said, we didn't blow up the diplomacy.
The diplomacy was never given a real chance by the Iranians. That is a factually true statement. Steve Whitcoff has been over in Cutter or Oman or wherever these talks have been going on, sitting around, waiting and waiting and waiting, and you know, getting dragged along. In fact, he told Trump, We're just they're just dragging us along. And then as soon as the operation was over, Trump emphasized, would we'd still like to negotiate? Of course, I know they won't.
But that thing diplomacy had failed, not because of lack of American patients, but because of iragn and duplicity. And that was echoed by Secretary of Saint Marco Rubio when he went on Face the Nation and Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo. Iran had buried centrifuges beneath three hundred feet of rock for a reason, and predictably, everything that was discussed on face the nation. She tried, Margaret Brendan did. She tried every which way she could to try to
convince her audience. I guess then, no, no, no, no, let's not what happened at all. Oh that's precisely what happened.
Take a listen.
Are you saying there that the United States did not see intelligence that the Supreme Leader had ordered weaponization.
Order it I think that question being asked in the media, that's any rolevant.
Question in US intelligence assessment.
You know it's not. Yes it was. I know that better than you know that, and I know that that's not the case.
But whether I love this, I have to say I told Dragon, you know, we have to have those damn pre production meetings again. Just drives me crazy. Oh my god, he came in here. You know you wanted to. He wanted to sit and talk and chat, you know, tell me about everything he does. Like, oh my god, just shut up. But anyway, I said to him, Marco Rubio has literally turned in to be I think one of the best Secretary of States that this country has ever had.
Listen again, I love this.
Margaret Brennan is trying to make the argument that well, wait a minute, what about weaponization? Well what does the word weaponization mean? Which Rupio will go on to explain why she's she's using language that doesn't mean anything. And as he points out, when she says, well we know he don't know. You do not know, and if you do know, I want to know how you know, because this is intelligence that I have that you do not have.
Are you saying there that the United States did not see intelligence that the Supreme Leader had ordered weaponization order?
That's irrelevant. I think that question being asked in the media. That's an irrelevant question me.
In US intelligence assessment.
You know, no, it's not. Yes, it was that political. I know that better than you know that, and I know that that's not the case. But no, it's not.
No, it's not No, I know that better than you do. And I'm telling you know, it's not.
Whether the order was given, and the people will say that it doesn't matter the order was given. They have everything they need to build nuclear weapons. Why would you bury? Why would you bury things in a mountain three hundred feet under the ground. Why would you bury? Why do they have sixty percent in rich uranium? You don't need
sixty percent and rich area. The only countries in the world that have uranium at sixty percent are countries that have nuclear weapons, because they can quickly make it ninety they have all the elements they have.
Why are they why do they have a space program?
Is a ron going to go to the moon? No, they're trying to build an ICBM.
But that's a question.
That's a question, that's a question of intent. And you know in the intelligence assessment that it was that Iran wanted to be a threshold. See you use those I'm talking on what the intelligence marches.
How do you know.
What the intelligence assessment says? You know, sometimes Margaret Brennan I think is a maybe she's into S and M or something, because she goes on and she just gets beat ooh vestment.
And that's why I was asking you if you know something more from it?
That's inaccurate representation of it. That's an accurate representation of it. That's not how intelligence is read, that's not how intelligence is used. Here's what the whole world knows. I forget about intelligence. But the IAEA knows they are enriching uranium well beyond anything you need for.
A civil nuclear program.
So why would you enrich uranium at sixty percent, right, if you don't intend to one day use it to take it to ninety and.
Build a weapon.
Why are you developing ICBMs. Why do you have eight thousand short range missiles in two to three thousand long mid range missiles that you continue to develop.
Why do you do all these things?
I have to everything they need for a nuclear weapon. They have the delivery mechanisms, they have the enrichment capability, they have the highly.
Enriched uranium that is stored.
That's all we need to see, right, Well has the regime that's already involved in terrorism and proxies and all kinds of things around.
They are the source of all.
Yes, and no one's disputing. No one's disputing that. I'm not doing that here. And they were censured at the IAEA for that enrichment and for violating their non proliferation agreements. I was simply asking if we had intelligence that there was an order to weaponize, because you said weapon is z See.
She does not get it at all.
She's so focused on her talking that you know her producers have put in front of her that she cannot She's not listening to what he says, her question is essentially this, how do you know that the Ayatola gave the order to weaponize? And Rubio's pointing out, that's not the question. It's not about an order to weaponize. They're weaponizing. That's why they have uranium at sixty percent and in just a day they can make it to ninety percent. Why I love the fact about why are they building ICBMs?
Are they building rockets because they want to go to the moon? No, because they want to put a warhead on top of it. The order for if you want to play this kind of semantics, the order for weaponization was done years ago when the Iatola said let's start up, let's start a military nuclear weapons program. And so they turned to North Korea to start getting advisors and getting help. And they build the program, and they start enriching the ury uranium, they start building the rockets so that they
can deliver the warheads. They start doing all those things. The order was given long long time ago. Sweet are they if you want to argue that, But his point is that's not how we assess things. We assess things of Okay, they're doing this, this, this and this, and when you add up this this, this.
And this.
It equals a military grade Nike your weapon. So that's all we need to know. Now, if she had asked, did he give the order to launch? Might be an entirely different question. It's just the media, the cabal is just you know, for those that don't listen to them. Remember I talked about on Friday and I talked about it again on Saturday. How now, with artificial intelligence, it's just hard to believe anything that you not just read. But now it's hard to believe almost anything that you see. Well,
it's not artificial intelligence in this case. But I don't know. I mean, I understand why, because everybody inside the Beltway wants to know who's on the Sunday shows and what they say. And it's just it's just like a little sorority. They just all have to say who's on today and who's saying what? And you know, who's going to get their hat handed to them. And this is the opportunity for the networks to really try to expose their biases.
And that's precisely what she's doing here. She has no clue, She truly has no clue what she's talking about because she's so blinded by her ideology that she can't see that. Oh, there's a lot lot bigger picture going on here than a technical question of whether or not the Iyatola has given an order to weaponize. That's not even the question. So go back to just well, let me just say this. Predictably, the press is going to try to recast this operation
as an escalation on our part. But when you look at the historical context, it's unambiguous. Every administration since Ronald Reagan has tried to cajole Iran with carrots and avoid the stick. And what have we gotten as a result of that? Now, don't closs over this. What have we gotten from every president who has tried to cajole do whatever they could beg Please borrow, bend over backwards, reach down and bend over and grab your ankles everything.
What have we gotten?
Hamas has the law, the hoothy militias, a shadow empire of terrorism that is all funded by Tehran, from the all of Beirut to the marine barracks in Beirut to the rocket pads in Gaza. Iran has never paid a price for this conduct until now. So for me, Ruvio was seasoned, He was sharp and he was unequivocal. They thought they could do with President Trump what they've done with presidents in the past and get away with it.
And they found out last night that they cannot. So I kind of put the critics of the president in two very predictable camps. The first are the Beltway moralizers who continue to pretend that Iran is just some misunderstood power whose calls for genocide are just rhetorical. Go to Israel sometime, watch the as I have watched the rockets being launched from Gaza, and then tell me it's just rhetorical.
The second, which I think is even more cynical, is a class of permanent Washington bureaucrats, politicos, k Street consultants, everybody, who see every single military maneuver as an opportunity to somehow rehabilitate their own sagging legacies. And I think both groups are entirely wrong. Trump, unlike Bush or Obama, is not nation building, and he's certainly not appeasing. What is he doing. He's engaging in deterrence, and this deterrence is
not rhetorical and it is not conditional. And Vance drove that point home when he appeared on Stephanopolopolis's program when he said, we did not attack the nation of Iran, We did not attack any civilian targets, we did not even attack military targets outside of the three nuclear webs facilities.
And that distinction matters.
It's the difference between just war, I don't mean just just like just war, just simply war, and reckless engagement. That's probably a hallmark of what you know. I refer to Trump two point zero. Maybe we ought to refer to Trump Doctrine two point zero. No nation building, no entanglements, but no appeasement, just results.
And so what happens.
Next, well, Rubio pointed that out. That's going to depend well let me quote him. It will depend on what Iran chooses to do next. It's up to them. And the President has made clear that if ron wants diplomacy, he's got that door wide open. And he's also said, but if you choose escalation, then we stand ready to respond with the same degree of clarity and precision.
But to do what.
To protect our assets, to protect our people, our citizens, and our military personnel. So if you choose to escalate and you come after us, they'll be holy hell to pay. So don't ignore the broader strategic message, and that is the strike reminds the world that the United States under Trump does not negotiate with threats, doesn't tolerate regimes who
use diplomacy as a cover for uranium enrichment. And it also reminds our allies Israel, George, Egypt in the oppolent that American strength is once again credible, and it reminds our adversaries that the air of multilateral drift is over.
I don't know why Democrats would be so upset about Trump's actions with Iran look to me to be mostly a peaceful bombing.
I love this audience. I forgot it.
I forget where I heard this, but I want you to listen to This is from top Gun Maverick. Is this life imitating art or art imitating life?
That's just creepy to me. That's just very, very creepy. Somebody mentioned this at on the text line.
And I want to just thank everybody, and in particular God, I want to just say, we love you God, and we love our great military. Protect them. God bless the Middle East, God bless Israel, and God bless America.
Thank you very much, Thank you, boom short sweet to the point.
Oh the US military carried out massive precision strikes on the three key nuclear facilities in the Iranian regime, Bordeaux, Natance and Esfahan. Everybody heard those names for years as they built this horribly destructive enterprise. Our objective was the destruction of iran nuclear and richment capacity and a stop to the nuclear threat posed by the world's number one state sponsor of terror. Tonight, I can report to the world that the strikes were a spectacular military success. Iran's
key nuclear and richmond facilities have been completely and totally obliterated. Iran, the bully of the Middle East, must now make peace. If they do not, future attacks would be far greater and a lot easier. For forty years, Iran has been saying death to America, death to Israel. They have been killing our people, blowing off their arms, blowing off their
legs with roadside bombs, that was their specialty. We lost over a thousand people, and hundreds of thousands throughout the Middle East and around the world have died as a direct result of the hate. In particular, so many were killed by their general Cassem Solmoni. I decided a long time ago that I would not let this happen.
It will not continue.
I want to thank and congratulate Prime Minister, bb Net and Yahoo. We worked as a team like perhaps no team has ever worked before, and we've gone a long way to erasing this horrible threat to Israel. I want to thank the Israeli military for the wonderful job they've done.
And most importantly, I want to congratulate the great American patriots who flew those magnificent machines tonight and all of the United States military on an operation the likes of which the world has not seen in many, many decades. Hopefully we will no longer need their services and this capacity.
I hope that's.
So, and I believe now interestingly, conservatives, liberals inside the Beltway, outside the Beltway, all across the political spectrum, is this raging debate about Congress has not declared war? Well, okay, is that what you want? Do you want Congress to now? I mean some have actually advocated we need to come back and we need to exercise our constitutional duty to declare war. Now that was put in the Constitution to put some limits on the executive. Do you think we're
engaged in a war. You see, I don't. We'll get to the the authorization for use of military force to AUMF in just a second. But I'm oh, not bewilders, not the white right word. Nothing bewilders me anymore. I guess I'm just fascinated by those that you would expect to be Trump supporters, Tucker Carlson, Steve Bannon to be like, Okay, this was very limited. This was you know, on point and just in and out, and that's all. We did. No civilians, not even I'm going to make an assumption
that there were workers inside the facilities. The three that we attacked and they brought, they've probably they've certainly been killed. But there was no attack on any military installations unless you want to count these nuclear facilities as military installations. But I'm talking about air bases or places where military personnel are located, or any of their launchers or anything else. It was just the nuclear sites and that was it. Yet Bannon goes off the deep end.
We can listen and people on Fox, Oh, it's good versus evil.
It's good, Yo, dude.
John Adams said, if you want to go, you know, don't go abroad from monsters to say they're monsters all over the world. We can do the good and evil everywhere, everywhere, everywhere?
Is that what we're gonna do?
It's good versus evil, let's go.
I would think if you're going to do good versus evil and kind of weigh them up, maybe we should be marching on Beijing.
Let's roll, let's do it. See.
I don't think that follows logically at all. Is Beijing a strategic.
Threat to us? Yes, so is Russia, so is North Korea?
But are they doing anything and have they done anything over the past forty years now?
Who knows?
Maybe some of the kind of strange accidents we have with the power grid, certainly cyber attacks, so maybe we are under attack in a you know, in an asymmetrical war with with the Chinese Communist Party. But nobody wants to skill bomb Beijing. Nobody wants to do that. Nobody wants to skill bomb Moscow, nobody wants to skill bomb Pyongyang. I mean, we know, you know, Kim Jong nun, little rocketman, is going to bitch and moan and make threats and
launch lobbs lobbs rockets into the South China Sea. He may mess up someday and accidentally hit Japan. We might have to do something. But that's a false equivalence.
I don't hear any voices there for that. It's interesting. Is Labaijing not worthy of that? It's because they're Chinese are not worthy of that?
Is that? What it is?
Is that?
What it is is that? What it is?
No.
I think a major FARA investigation should take place in Fox News.
I believe that thoroughly.
I think we need to see if they represent the foreign government.
News needs to go register with the Foreign Agents Registration Night for because Fox News is representing a foreign government? Is is this? Is this some form of anti Semitism?
Is this? Oh, the Jews control the media, Jews control Hollywood, Jews control the bankers. Is that what you're saying to you? Abandon agent?
I think you got to check the cell phone, see the data, check the emails. What was going back and forth? What they were pushing on the American people? What are they pushing on the American people? Where did this information come from? I think it's very I think it has to happen. You can't have somebody cheerleading you onto war. You have to sit there. We haven't been cheerleading against doing it. What we're saying, first off, number one, we believe it should be done right. We agreed that the
Mouli should not get nuclear weapons. We believe there's many paths to do that. President Trump was pursuing other paths as he was from the None of those paths, said We're going on the path of kinetic warfare.
None of them. Okay, none of them.
Well, we got jand it because last Thursday night had to do it, had to do it, had to do it, had to do it, had to do it, had to do it. Then we did with a sense of urgency. The phony sense of urgency had upsell. Now any regime change, regime change, regime change, gotta do it, gotta do it.
You're not Maga, You're not Trump. You're not team Trump. You're not team Trump.
A luck, bro.
We've been in these trenches with Trump a long time. We know who teammates are and who Arriva stays.
Wow, I'd just say that's a little bit crazy. So the two thousand and one Authorization to Use Military Force, I'm going to argue that it gave congressional approval for President Trump's decision to destroy Iran's nuclear facilities. It was passed after the nine to eleven attack, and it authorized the use of force against any nations who sponsored terrorism if it is in the national interest in the United
States to do so. I'll take a break here early because I want you to hear the exact language that Congress authorized.
That's next. Good morning from South Dakota.
Let's just say part of my trip, I was in Missouri, and that's all I can say about that.
Everyone, have a great day, all right, all right.
Before I go to John Bulten, who you would expect to say what he's going to say, let's go to Congressman Corey Mills on CNN.
I'm asking about the president's new post last night, where he did talk about regime change in a way that did seem different than what we heard. And then I was asking you if you supported US military strikes for the purpose of regime change.
But we've established that you do not.
So let's move on to a new subject, and that's.
The role of Congress in this.
I want to play some sound from your Republican College, Thomas Massey.
We haven't been briefed.
They should have called us all back and Frankly, we should have debated this war powers resolution that Rocanna and I offered instead of staying on vacation and doing fundraisers and saying, oh, well, the President's got this under control.
We're going to seed our constitutional authority.
So what's your response to Congressman Massey about that?
Oh, that's pretty sample.
The president, under Article two, section two has a limited executive war power authority. And it was Congress, though I disagreed with it, who abdicated our Article one section eight Claus eleven through thirteen war powers with the aumfs, these aum MEPs, these authorized use of military force has gone on since nineteen fifty seven, nineteen ninety one one and
two for the global war on terrorism. So if we consider Iran to be the largest state sponsor of terror, and we know that the one two AAMS was built on the idea of stopping terrorists around the globe, it does give the president the necessary war power authorities. And this is not in any way unconstitutional.
So you actually think that Iran is covered with the post nine to eleven aumvs.
Let me just ask that flat. Do you believe Iran is covered in that?
I think Article two Sections two war power authorities.
Yeah. Article two, Section two War.
Power Auctories of the Executive Branch covers this up to a sixty day period, and there was no decoration of war. This was a precision strike and this was not for the intention of con trying to inflate or escalate a war with Iran. It was just to stop their nuclear weapon capabilities.
I love it when a congressman actually knows what he's talking about. Now you would expect the following from John Bolton, because well it's former Ambassador John Bolton. Of course he's going to say this.
It was a side from boots on the ground.
But military strikes are still military action. And I'm not arguing whether or not it is a worthy goal. I'm just asking if regime change is a stated goal. Understands, self defense is part of international law, but US law, I think would seem to suggest that removing a regime in a country would be an act of war, either needing a constitute, either based on a constitutional authority or the.
War Powers Resolution.
Do you think the president has the authority to can direct new military strikes for the purpose of regime change?
Now, what's going on here?
What's the cabal shifted to what's what's their tactic now, get everyone to believe that Trump engage either engaged in with the Operation Midnight Hammer, or is planning to engage in regime change. But I guess the full scale invasion of Iran. That's what they're trying to get everybody to believe.
Oh my gosh, here's another forever war. Here's here's where we're going to go in and we're going to pull down the statues of the Ayatola and there'll be a glamoring everybody, you know, another color revolution, and then we'll back off and not support them, and there'll be another failed stay and we'll be there for twenty years. That's their argument. That's what they're trying to convince you of.
They cannot stomach, they cannot intellectually accept that that's not what Donald Trump did and he has no intention of engaging in regime change. And in fact, if you go to read that true social post about regime change, he's doing the typical trolling that he normally does. In fact, I would say that what he's trying to do is he's trying to get whatever dissidents there are both in this country and in that country in or on itself. That hint, hint, this might be a good time. You know,
the Ietola is hidden in the bunker somewhere. I've decapitated the Israelis have decapitated the military. You don't have any air defenses. You've got a bunch of drones that you're not using. And by the way, all of your proxies they've all shot, they've all shut down. They're not saying a word. They they have, they've been disemboweled. They have no leadership. They took don't Don't you even find it interesting that Hamas the houthis Hesbi law, Hesbelaw.
They've they have spent.
Billions of dollars on Hebe law. The Uranians have to stockpile hundreds of thousands of missiles and rockets, and Hesbe law has total siten, total sight. If that doesn't tell you who's in charge and if they're mere proxies for the Molahs in Iran, and I don't know what will So I got off track a little bit. Let's go through that authorization could to use some military force AUMF right after the news