Fury over Operation Epic Fury

0:00It's the tip of the spare in the epic battle to defend the United States of America. The National Security Hour exposes the wolves and sheep clothing and then a various plots to undermine and destroy U.S. National Security. Welcome to the National Security Hour on the America Out Loud Network, Operation Epic Fury. What does that even mean? What's it about? I know so many of you are following what's happening with the United States eliminating over 40 of the most important leaders in Iran who have been. People like the Ayatollah Committee who were screaming for generations, ruling for decades, death to America, but a lot of people are saying why now?

1:02Was it catapulted because of Israel? What's the role of China, Russia, Iran, working with other people? I mean, we need to know what's happening behind the scenes and I'm bringing on two of my smartest friends. We're going to have a little roundtable discussion today and we're going to get a lot of answers so that you can know what's happening and really understand it in a better level than ever. Joining me is my good friend, Claire Lopez, and Claire Lopez, among the fact that she's had a range of expertise on media subjects related to China and Russia and the Middle East and specifically Iran. She also, I don't talk about this a lot, she served as a career operations officer with the CIA. And that, I think, well, make a lot of difference even in how we analyze this operation that's going on and with the people that support us and don't necessarily support us. The ones that understand us and the others that don't. Also, the honorable Scott Faulkner, we've had, I mean, I've had both these guys on my show

2:07so many times. They're like, regulars. And he was the first chief administrative officer of the U.S. House of Representatives. I mean, he reformed the integrity of the House operations and in fact, he wrote an incredible book about a lot of this and I want to talk to you about one other thing that he has in his background. See, I caught this today kind of like with my friend Claire. He advised the Dubai ports and customs and UAE Ministry of Interior on counterterrorism operations. And Dubai has been affected by this as the Straits of Horror News have been shut down. So Scott and Claire, welcome back to the show. Let's talk about this Operation Epic Fury and Claire, I'm going to start with you first. Why now? What prompted this now? Well, first of all, thank you, BQ, to be with you again and Scott to make your acquaintance

3:09as well. And just a few minutes ago, as a matter of fact, our Secretary of State, Marco Rubio was on the microphone and on the TV that we just all turned down in the background, talking exactly about that question. Why now? And the answer was that the information received by the United States was that not only did Iran have a nuclear weapons program that it was trying to reestablish rebuild from Straits last June 2025, but also was producing ballistic missiles to carry nuclear warheads and producing those at a rate that our interceptors could not keep up with. So when the information came to the United States that an attack, I guess by Israel, was

4:11imminent against the Iranian regime, the United States realized that we could not sit back and just wait for the retaliatory, certain retaliatory strikes to come from the Iranian regime. And so that is why we launched, and Israel together with us, closely coordinated these strikes, of course, for many, many weeks, months. I mean, Scott, what Claire was talking about is the building of these missiles and understands they were building like hundreds of ballistic missiles. Yes. The question I had in that, Marco Rubio was talking about, they said, well, how come the president did not notify the House of Representatives? And Marco Rubio said, well, they couldn't notify everyone, but they notified the gang of eight. Well, what does that mean? Who are the gang of eight? The gang of eight are basically the leadership of the House and the Senate.

5:11So that's majority leader, minority leader, majority whip, minority whip. And so they say you have those four plus the plus also, again, you have the whip, the deputy leader, so you have all those involved. So these are the ones that by having them, you've basically covered all bases in both parties in both houses. So that's the gang of eight. And he said that they had never before taken it to the Congress for, I guess, any war, any intervention, any kind of involvement to the Congress for their approval in history. Is that correct? Well, what you have is, you know, the last time Congress declared, formally declared war was World War II. I mean, all these actions since then, whether it's Korea, Vietnam, all the desert storm and all the rest, Grenada, I mean, none of these had a declaration of war in advance.

6:15So you know, Claire, what we'll remember here is that, according to the US Constitution, a declaration, formal declaration of war must come from Congress. But the president, according to Article II of the Constitution, is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces and therefore may use limited military operations. Because I think the limit goes up to, what is it, 60 days or 50 days, 60 days or 30 days for de-escalation, so 90 days. Okay. That may be used for the purposes of defense of the United States by deploying the United States military. Did President Biden utilize that at all? I mean, we're looking at things like Afghanistan situations where we've been involved in the past. Has that did the Congress or did other sides of the other Republicans, the Democrats oppose

7:22a president taking a position like this, like what we're doing here with Iran, for example, with Afghanistan. Is this something that has, you know, now it's because of Trump or is it the concern that there may be sleeper cells or a bigger war that will be happening on the, on the home front? It's all Trump's arrangement syndrome. It's just like, you know, both Biden and Obama launched cruise missiles and Tomahawks and all sorts of things and all sorts of people over their times and the Democrats require. Yeah. What I'm watching now is, you know, you kind of, when you get engaged in this sort of thing, who's with us and who's against us? Who supports this, and, you know, like you have people that are protesting in New York that thank the United States for liberating Iran. And then you'll have the mayor of New York who takes a position and says, shame on you.

8:22And then you have England where Starmer is taking a position that seems to be wavering. My question is, is it because he really believes it? Or is he concerned about his own position because of the Afghanistan files? Well, let's start with the United States. And here in the United States, we have, overall, one of the largest diaspora populations of Iranians in the world, Los Angeles being probably the greatest concentration certainly here in the United States. And yes, they were out, have been out, are out in the streets, cheering, dancing, celebrating the takedown of the Iranian regime, and in particular, the dispatch of the Iranian Supreme Leader, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, off to meet his virgins last Saturday of this past weekend.

9:22So that, that, that is, you know, the Iranian people, you know, now, if you're talking about Mayor Mamdani there in New York City, let's remember, he is not only a communist, he is an Islamic Shiite 12or. That means a follower of the 12 Imam, just like the Iranian regime is. So now as we're looking at this, I mean, a lot of people are concerned about the issue of, does this come to our own soil? Do we need to be concerned about sleeper cells? Do we need to be concerned about radical clerics that may be in this country that are, are, you know, preaching a prophetic showdown here on this soil. In fact, there is a quote off of a drudge saying that even Russia is saying, well, USA is only 249 years old. What does that all mean?

10:22Well, I think the first thing is, is that there have been, obviously, Islamic terrorism in this country for years. And remember the, the medical doctor who shot up all the people at that one, Texas army base, and Obama went to great pains to say it was just workplace violence, even though he had been part of the radical Islamic mosque here in northern Virginia and had actually done PowerPoint slides about Islamic revolution in the United States and the Obama people looked the other way, and then they wrote it off as, as basically just workplace violence. So this has been a fact of life. I mean, we just saw the Austin bar situation where somebody who basically was, had a, you know, Ali Akbar kind of moment and killed two people and shot up 14 others until he got shot. And so, you know, it's only, I mean, it's going to be a matter of time. I mean, we know that for the last four years before under Biden, 20,000 people showed

11:25and came into this, 20 million people came into this country that, and through wide open borders. I mean, we know there's a whole division of, of, of, of military age Chinese men that walked across the border in California. I mean, so the key is, is how fast can our homeland security round these people up? How fast can the FBI track them down? How fast can the NSA, National Security Agency intercept enough chatter to stay ahead of them? And your thoughts on, and you've got Claire there, who was a CIA operative at one point in your career? What are your thoughts on that? Well, I had no involvement in the Middle East during my career with the government. I was that entire 20 years in Russia division. So I was focused on it the same at, at that time, Soviet Union Russia. But what I will say is, Scott's absolutely right about the threat here in the homeland. I would point to 9-11.

12:27We know from the average versus been live in at all case, legal case, Southern District of New York, Judge George Daniels, who are which I was an expert witness and the ruling from George, Judge George Daniels in late December 2011 concluded ruling from the bench that Iran and Hisbalah were co-responsible with Al-Qaeda for the attacks of 9-11. There is no reason to believe that having gotten away with that, not one single president since GW Bush has ever so much as mentioned 9-11 and held the Iranian regime accountable. Why would they not think that they have carte blanche to do whatever they want in this country again? Let me ask you that. Let me ask one more thing here, and that is that what they are doing, what the Iranians have done and what Nadal has done that Scott was referring to in that attack down in Texas.

13:36There is nothing the slightest bit extremist or radical about any of that. That is straight up the middle, mainstream, normative orthodox Islamic doctrine. They and the Iranian regime, of course, are faithful, devout, true believers. And that is the threat we are facing here in the United States, not just those Chinese uncounted numbers, perhaps of what we call jungle tigers, a special brigade of the People's Liberation Army, but a very large presence of Hisbalah. I want to go to Scott real quickly. I think that Claire brings on an interesting aspect of this. Is it because we are kind of good people. We don't want to keep pointing fingers at people. We don't want to go back to 9-11, 9-11 happened. It's over. Yes, we read the names out every year at an event in New York City, but you have people

14:41that want to build them, ask and they want to build them not just in New York, but in Texas and around because we feel freedom of religion, are we not understanding the nature of what really has happened or what could potentially happen? Exactly. I mean, you're dealing with, in most cases, Islam wants to conquer the world. And as you go back to their original founding, Islamic warriors is what expanded Islam, not missionaries, not trade, it was all by the sword, and it's right there in the Koran itself. And so the whole issue of anyone who is an infidel is fair game, anything against the infidel's, including lying to their face, is fair game. And it's just the nature of their beast. And the fact that the question that a lot of people have, they may agree with that, but then they say, well, why would you poke it now?

15:44Why would you poke it now to a situation where people are saying the world is dealing with a concern about China, even with Taiwan? They've been looking what happened with the cartels in Mexico. We've seen protests in this country. We've been seen unsettling from leaders that have not seen us powerful and strong, whether it's UK or France, even Canada. Why poke the beast in the nose now? You got one. I'll tell you, and here's the reason. Not only has this Iranian regime never ever been held accountable for the attacks of 9-11, but in the intervening years, really since 1979, the Humeini Revolution, have been driving Pell Mel for the development of deliverable nuclear weapons and the ballistic missile delivery systems to carry them. Now, hold that thought, because we've got to take a break. I can't believe how fast it comes if you do.

16:46We're so great to have our good friends, Claire Lopez and Scott Fockner joining us here on the National Security Hour. I'm your host, Blankita Cullen. We've got so much more to cover in this hour, so don't go away. Hey, we're calling all patriots to Nashville, Tennessee, July 2nd, 3rd, and 4th for a powerful celebration of faith, freedom, and the American spirit. America outlawed the wellness company and clear, invited to join us for the 250-10 Nashville event. You'll experience best-in-class speakers, extraordinary voices from across America, bring an inspiring messages you won't forget. And on July 4th, get ready for the most spectacular by-work show in the country. Lighten up the Nashville sky, 250 years of liberty in America and 10 years of America outlawed news, stand and strong for truth, justice, and the nation we all love.

17:46You can save now with early bird pricing at americaoutlaw.news, forward slash Nashville, July 2nd, 3rd, and 4th. America outlawed news, 250-10 Nashville. Struggling with your health, energy, and constantly feeling hungry? Want to save money on the rising cost of groceries and dramatically improve your health? Go to chemicalfreebody.com, forward slash out loud today, get nature's super-multivitum and doctor-formulated green 85-juice formula, empower your immune system, cut your grocery bill, and save 20% on your first order. Feeling drained or mentally foggy? Recharge for the wellness company combines methylene blue and uralithin A to support mitochondrial health, boost energy, and enhance cognitive function. Visit TWC.health-outloud and use code out loud for 20% on your first order. You wouldn't go a day without brushing your teeth or washing your hands. What about washing your nose? I mean your nose does filter the air you breathe, air loaded with bacteria, viruses, and irritants.

18:51Make nasal hygiene part of your routine with clear. No messy bottles to fill, no drowning sensation. There is a natural drug-free saline with the added benefit of xylitol, which blocks bacterial and viral adhesion, available in stores and online at clear.com. That is x-al-e-a-r-dot-com. Welcome to the National Security Hour. I'm your host, lucky to come. Join by two wonderfully brilliant friends. My good friend Scott Faulkner, and we've talked about him and his amazing work that he's done in the House of Representatives in his career, but I found this fascinating thing when I really read the guy's bio, because he spent time in Dubai advising the ports and customs and the United Arab Emirates Ministry of the Interior on counterterrorism operations. Well, that's important right now as we're looking at this operation that's going on epic fury with Iran and my brilliant friend Claire Lopez, and Claire Lopez has done so much in

19:57her career as well. She's co-authored books, she's worked in intelligence, covering Middle East, Latin America, Russia, you name it, and I'm thrilled that she's back with us. And I have to tell you guys, this operation has now meant that you have Saudi Arabia being involved much more. And let's talk about what happens here. I'll start with you this time, Scott, with a straight subhormouse being shut down. Well, I think part of it is, is that that's why the US military right now is trying to sink the entire Iranian fleet. They already took out quite a few of the boats. I think nine, I think maybe more to come, plus their headquarters, because obviously that's their capability of mining the straits of hummus. The moment that you remove that and have full air superiority, you can begin clearing out those whatever mines or blockages they're trying to do. Because clearly that has been a choke point for decades, and Iran knows it, but I think

21:02their capability of making good on that threat is going to diminish as we speak. And you know, Claire, it's interesting because as we watch also other countries getting involved, Lebanon's getting more involved, Dubai was affected. Dubai had a drone that now people or some people are the tourists are in hiding. What's your take on that? Well, you know, you mentioned Saudi Arabia there at the beginning, VQ. And to tie that with the oil question that that Scott was just talking about, the Iranian regime has also, I think just today, attacked Ross Tanora. This is a very large oil pumping station processing station in Saudi Arabia. Is that in Iran? It is in Saudi Arabia, in that area, the oil area would be more or less in the upper central area of Saudi Arabia, if I recall, but the importance of that is that as Scott has mentioned,

22:09the Iranian navy now sits mostly at the bottom of the Persian Gulf, and its naval headquarters is taken out along with a lot of the command and control communication systems that would have allowed, you know, the coordination of something like blocking the straight of hormones. However, by attacking now the places of the production of oil like Saudi Arabia and maybe others to come, if they can, and we don't stop them, that's another way of bringing hurt to the global market for oil in the United States. We luckily, luckily, it's not luck. It's thank you, President Trump, our independent in the production of oil supplies as well as natural gas, but the prices of oil on the global market will affect all of us. Anyway, and so that is what Iran is aiming for right now to try to, you know, jack up those

23:15prices and make the hurt. Well, think about it. There was a period there that you had in this country, people were very opposed to fracking. You had a concern that we didn't want to, how we transported the oil, you know, we couldn't ship it a certain way, we couldn't send it on trains. We had different ways that were shut down for a long period of time. New, the new ability to gain contracts to drill in places like California, very prohibited, and couldn't seem to be able to, as the President uses the term drill, baby drill. So perhaps that will change. But the other thing I want to bring up to you all is this, okay, because as you know, I've talked about it with both of you on this program at different times. During the period of Chavez, when I worked overseeing voice of America and radio for Europe and Marti going into Cuba and radio and television in the Middle East, I would go to these countries,

24:19for example, Bolivia, Colombia, especially in Venezuela, where you would see a lot of presence, even billboards, celebrating Iran, and they tried to create their new form of the euro, which was the brick, which included Iran. So now I'm wondering, with the presence of Iran that had been pretty spread across Latin America, how does that potentially affect us and our own national security? Okay, I'll start. I just read a very interesting article yesterday, which explained really well how the Iranian regime, this one again from 1979 Revolution, merged communist Marxist, Maoist, France and the other one, a concept of the oppressed and the oppressors, the underclass of the

25:25world, if you will, there was an Ayatollah called the red Ayatollah Ali Shariyati was his name. And where was he from? And where was he? And this is Iran, I'll talk about it. And this was his concept of merging that, okay, the communist Marxist, Maoist, with the Shiite concept of being the underdog all the time to the Sunnis, if you will, but to the rest of the world, and merging these concepts together in a way that defined the Iranian regime from then until now, that they are perpetually attacked and the underdog and they are oppressed and they have the right and the duty and the job to fight back against world order that puts them down. And so how does that play out, Scott? What do you agree with that?

26:26Well, the key is is that we're talking all about ballistic missiles and nuclear thing, but what I think the real trigger point was is that the Iranian people were starting to rise up again. And you know, back in literally June of 2009, you had a very tainted election, a person by name of Musavi was a little bit more moderate in, at least in their bell curve. And he got like 34% of the vote, but everyone thought it was tainted, it was called the green revolution. They went, people poured into streets and Obama did nothing. And people got slaughtered and got put in prison and died out. Same thing happened in September of 2022, where once again, you had, in this case, this woman, Amani, who was killed because she wasn't wearing her hijab, right? And again, they poured into the streets and in this case, Biden stood back and did nothing. So here, now, the third time around people, you know, there's many reasons why the shopkeepers

27:29and others poured into the streets, even before the students did, that we now had another viable, broad-scale uprising, 30,000 plus people killed, many others imprisoned. And I think that that was, to me, the main trigger that we had to go in and regime change is the only way we're ever going to have true peace and true stability in that region. And so I think that that was the trigger, I mean, clearly the fig leaf is, let's get rid of the nuclear, let's get rid of the politics, but regime change has got, I think, is the main thing. We could not step back a third time and watch people who want to be free, get crushed. You know, as I've told you, both, on different times that you've been on the show, when I was working with the overseeing the Persian service, the, that ran on voice of America, we would get requests to run a series on how the American revolution happened, how the young people

28:32rose up to gain their independence, because people were so hungry to be able to get some independence that they had lost, because if you look at all photos of what Iran was like in the late 50s and the 1960s, and you know, there were no jobs, and it was very, I should say progressive on education for men and women, and then overnight, it seemed to change. One of the things that was mentioned today, because of the fact that we've been doing air strikes, I've been hearing that they don't have much of an air force, they don't have, they've not have any kind of reaction from the air, because they don't have that capability, is that correct? Yeah, it is correct. First of all, the jets that they fighter jets that they did have date back a very long time, literally to the Shah's time, that would be pre-1979, that Shah. But the other thing that's really important that's been taken out, certainly beginning in

29:33the attacks of April and October of 2024, and then later last year in June of 2025, literally all of Iran's air defense systems, they had S-300 from Russia, those were taken out in 24. They have not been replaced, Russia is kind of otherwise occupied at the moment. And in the attacks of last June 2025, more of the air defenses, some of those acquired from China, some others from Russia, were also obliterated. And so right now, when exactly as Scott says, our military declares air superiority, what they're saying is Iran has no more air defenses, skip the fighter jets, they're almost irrelevant at this point, but there's no more air defenses. So when those F-22 Raptor jets got stationed to the negative desert, southern part of Israel,

30:43very recently, their job was to finish whatever might be left clean up. Their job is to clear the way of any remaining remnants of air defense there might have been taking out the communications, the radar if there are any left. All of that, so that the other jet fighters and B-2s and so forth coming after clear pathway, Iran is essentially naked right now in terms of air defense. But they still have this capability that they've been building these ballistic missiles, Scott. You know, where does that capability come from? Who's better? Well, I mean, they've been building quite a stockpile. We're talking literally thousands and thousands of ballistic missiles. We have been taking out their launchers, but we still have, they have mobile launchers, which means that they are not as accurate as the stationary launchers.

31:46And that's why we're seeing these horrible attacks on civilian targets, you know, the Burj Dubai and Dubai, the office buildings and apartments in Manema in Bahrain. I mean, it's just, you know, even a couple being lobbed into Cyprus in the British Air Base there. It's really nilly. I mean, they're just trying in a solid like a wounded animal lashing out wherever it can. And they're hoping that it is backfired on them, thankfully, but they're hoping that attacking all these other countries in the region will give the country's pause to help us. In fact, it's still there resolved to help us because they're finally saying enough is enough. It's time to take this monster out. But my concern is this, you know, I, I, I think we have to think bigger. We have to look at the globe. We have to say is the enemy of my enemy, a friend to them, you know, when you have Russia saying that the United States is only 249 years old.

32:48Well, you know, that's a little subtle threat, you know, and they have, I, I saw with my own eyes an influence around the world in places you would be surprised and it looks benign. And even in places like Sudan, South Sudan, you know, Nigeria, places that you would not , we kind of don't think about where are the places that we should be paying attention to see if they are enablers assisting a threat. I mean, clearly you talked about, Haswell being diminished. What do you make of that? You know, be cool. I think you're getting at a very good point, but I would also look at the global situation as our President Trump, Marco Rubio, Pete Hegseth, at all of the cabinet. And that bigger picture includes not only Russia, which probably is, is, you know, looking

33:51very closely at what's going on to its former partner that supply Iran that supplied Russia previously with so many drones and also the drone capability to produce inside of Russia too. That's no more, but China, China, the cutoff of oil supply first from Venezuela. They're not getting any more of that. And now cutting off the something like 30 percent of all of Chinese imports of oil come from, came from Iran no more. What is China going to do? Not only that supply of the oil, which I don't know where they'll look, Russia, I suppose. Oh, I was going to say that, but also China's leadership in particular, the PLA, which is the People's Liberation Army, which has been in quite some tumult over these last several

34:51weeks, is also looking at the capabilities that have been unleashed against Iran and the ineffectiveness of whatever air, air defenses they had previously supplied to Iran, not helping them much at all. Scott, you want to comment on that? I see that our audience can't see it because we're only audio right now, but you're nodding your head. Well, I think the thing that we need to look at in broad context is that either by locker design, we have created a series of dominoes that are tumbling against the bad guys. By getting rid of Venezuela, we start to cripple Cuba by getting rid of Iran. We start to cripple Russia in terms of, like Claire said about the supply of drones and other equipment to Russia that gets crippled. We choke off the oil supply.

35:52Also leading up to this, we've been interjecting the ghost fleets of Venezuela and of Iran and hopefully we'll do more of that. If we can choke off the resources, we probably will topple Cuba later this year because they're totally prostrate right now. I mean, they can't even fuel up civilian planes landing at their airport anymore. So the key is that we're instead of a year ago where China and Russia and all the bad guys are on the march, we've got them all rocked back on their heels because all the different, the house of cards that they built because of American weakness and American complicity in some cases is completely falling apart. And we just have to finish the job. So the question will be when we come back, we have got so much more to cover. But our guest, one of the wonderful Scott, Faulkner and Claire Lopez, is we analyze this. Do we have to be careful to say that we've got them?

36:54We've diminished their capability so much or do we have to be smarter and look elsewhere and be more thoughtful and say, well, do we have sleeper cells? Or could they hurt us? Have they infiltrated any of our military? Have they infiltrated any of our schools? Have they infiltrated in some of the leadership in some of the countries we've been depending upon? We're going to continue this discussion with Claire and with all of you because the best is yet to come. We haven't gotten to all the heavy duty stuff. Stay with us here on the National Security Hour. I'm your host, Blanket de Colum, again, along with Claire Lopez and Scott Faulkner and you. Have you been looking for a healthy snack from the go? Well, not all energy bars are soft and sugary, bear bars are a crunchy, savory bar made from just six simple natural ingredients. Bear bars are plant-based, organic, gluten-free, contained six grams of protein and are low

37:58temperature dried for a unique crunch. Most energy bars are based on chocolate or fruit and are held together with serps or sweeteners. To learn more, just visit bearbar.com slash out loud. I'm Doug Evans, author of the Sprout Book and I'm also a father with a three-year-old daughter and that's why we grow sprouts. Did you know that you could take seeds, add water and get fresh organic vegetables in three to five days without soil, sunshine or fertilizer for under a dollar serving? That's the miracle of spouting and I want to share that with you. Go to thespoutingcompany.com slash out loud and use the code out loud for a special offer. Prepare for the next pandemic with the Wellness Company's Contagent Emergency Kit, designed by Dr. Peter McCullough. Get life-saving medications like Ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, plus a free nebulizer and a guidebook for safe use.

38:58Order now by going to TWC.health-forward-slash-out loud and use code out loud for $65 off your first order plus free shipping. For the United States, a semi-win centennial is upon us. The American experiment was a stroke of genius and a world of oppressors. July 4, 2026 marks 250 years since the sign-in of the Declaration of Independence. America out loud dot news is that place to awaken your heart, soul and mind to the out loud truth. Welcome back to the National Security Hour on the America Out Loud Network. I'm your host, Blinky The Column, with my great friends, Claire Lopez and Scott Faulkner. Man, I'll tell you what a heavy-duty discussion. And as we talk about Operation Epic Fury and you and I were talking Scott during the break,

40:04somebody had said to you, well, why are we fighting Israel's war? Well, is it really Israel's war or is it bigger than that? And as we talked about that and Claire has talked about the Hezbollah being a bit diminished, do we have to worry about them still being an effect and ISIS and any of the other bad guys joining together? Let's start with what you started with, Scott. What about that? Why are we are we finding Israel's war on this? Now we're fighting the world's war and even a lot of the Trump and a lot of his inner circle say, we're finishing a war that started in 1979. I mean, we have been at war with Iran this time. Iran has said death to America from the get-go and so the fact that we're finally now taking them on and hopefully putting them to bed once and for all is something for the world, not just for Israel. And what do you say, Claire? I would agree completely with that. If you want to look at the broader world perspective there, this is the free world

41:10of the independent Sovereign nation-state system versus the forces of aggression and empire building and invasion, warlords running rampant across the landscape. This is the free world against the forces of tyranny, yes. You know, I was thinking about Russia and of course Russia now talking about the United States and kind of hedging its fat, you know, putting foot in this camp and a foot in the other camp. Remember, we still have the issue of Ukraine. And how is Russia going to use its support or lack of support, helping the Iranian and Ayatollah next Ayatollah want to be if we don't support their push to get to gain territory in Ukraine? I mean, how are they going to mess with us in that regard?

42:13Claire? Probably watching pretty closely what is going on in Iran right now and the neighborhood and how the neighboring countries around Iran now being attacked by the regime have unified, you know, what had done move by the regime, they unified those countries against them. Russia is looking at that. And as well as we talked about, you know, the supply of whatever Iran was providing previously drones, drone technology more ended. That will not be happening anymore. And as well, I'm sure that Putin is keeping an eye on the technology, the incredible display of advanced technology by both Israel and the United States in things like targeting, very precise precision targeting of individuals and facilities, as well as the broader capability

43:16of Iran, of Israel, to be both great. I'm getting at the intelligence aspect of this, the infiltration capability. I think, of course, that they're working long have thought this because I've been working with them. I think Mossad has long been working with the internal resistance forces of Iran, not just the ethnic groups, but the M.E.K., the Mujahini Gulf. And I'm sure that Vladimir Putin and Sergey Lavrov and Dmitry Medvedev and the whole gang are watching all of that very carefully. Okay, so let me pull you into this, Scott, and to what she was saying. Well, you have the Mossad, and then working with the, you know, the anti-Homani resistance there, any Iran, but then would they be working them with the CIA, would they be with other countries that would have their own form of resistance organizations, similar to our CIA in other countries,

44:20would be working with them to build a coalition. Does that exist? I'm sure it does. I mean, we obviously on the police side, you've had Interpol for decades, but the key is here is that there has always been cooperation between Western intelligence services. And just like Claire said, the infiltration, and look at what happened in Russia last year, where the Ukrainians were able to have those trucks full of building supplies end up launching drones right by these different strategic airports. And also, the story just came out earlier today about Iran that, you know, the Iranian special forces or special intelligence set up a anti-Massad group and it ended up being run by Assad. Oh, my. So I mean, it was absolutely, I mean, I think all of these people are looking over their shoulder right now, and that's exactly where we want them to be. And the other thing of this is, I mean, and maybe it makes us look at the world a little bit bigger, you know, during World War

45:252 and other wars that we've had. We've had leaders that were very, you know, you think about, oh, my goodness, you think Winston Churchill, you think of all these leaders. They had bad, we had bad enemies like the Hitler, isn't we had Mussolini, and we had, you know, Hero Hiton, we had all these bad enemies, but we had strong leaders on the good side. So the question is right now, are we in a situation where some of the people that we count on as allies are not as strong, or they're in a situation where they're somewhat compromised, or you've got Macron in France, you've got Starmer in England, you do have a strong leader in Italy, but, you know, how about Germany? I mean, where do we go to count on people? We got certainly the Mexican President, she's got her hands full with her own problems there with the cartels. So, you know, we're looking at the leadership in a time, potentially, when this country could be at war, when do you make of it? Start with you Scott. Well, I mean, you look at Latin America right now that

46:30the entire west coast of South America is now pro-West, pro-Trump anti-communist leaders, and all the way down to milling in our gentiness. So we literally, you can almost draw this whole swath of conservative pro-West aggressively free enterprise leaders that were not there a couple of years ago. And like you mentioned, in Europe, and you have, well, you have some of the what's always unique, and this has goes back years now, is that the old war sawpact countries have better pro-Western, more aggressive anti-Russian people than the old guard western countries. In Europe, because we want you to be. The current clearly clarinated Charles De Gaulle. No, but I will say that will give a great deal of credit to President Trump for, I don't know, badgering our NATO allies from first term of his service President Trump now to the second

47:37administration to increase their, well, first of all, to to to pay up what they all already, but to increase their NATO contributions, defense contributions, up to five percent, which is what they are reaching for now. Some already are there. So you've got a much more robust NATO, and you know, nothing like having the bear at the back door to catch your attention. All right, so where do we see it going? We've got, we've got a few minutes here, and I want to get your expertise, all of you, I'll start with you first, Scott, and then we'll go back to Claire to see how you predict it plays out, because right now we just started. This is brand-new fresh. This is, you know, we haven't been engaged with this very long, and this we want to say it's going to be over, over, fast, but a lot of people are saying, don't, don't hold your breath. It's going to be a lot longer. How do you read it and what do you make of it?

48:38I think we have to decapitate more and more leaders. I mean, what's already happened, unless to a couple, literally, hours is that as, as another acting leader shows up, he gets killed. And so it's a, you know, very short tenure here, but I think part of the Middle East, in particular, Trump set the table back in his first term, where he had that, he attended that Suni, you know, basically the Suni concave that happened in Riyadh, and started to realize that the best way to think about the Middle East is going back through history, Shia versus Suni. And so he was able to, with that summit, forge relationships with the Suni network, which ended up laying the groundwork for the Abraham Accords. And so you're starting to have, and then the Suni people realizing, and of course, by reality, wink and a nod, they, they shared on Israel behind the scenes all the time, when Israel would go after Iran, either with cyber warfare or major attacks.

49:41So I think that this Suni versus Shia is playing out, as we speak, because clearly all the Suni countries are coming up against Iran. Do you see it that way too, Claire? Yeah, I do. And, you know, again, I think the biggest mistake that the, the desperate Iranian regime has made in these last few days is going after its neighbors. Why would you bomb your neighboring countries, including civilian targets, not just military bases? Why would you do that if you had hoped that they would be on your side? Well, they didn't think that through very well. What I will say, though, is the regime in Iran, and of course, as long as Khomeini was still around, you know, and whoever's left now, I guess Ahmed Bahidi has taken over the command of the IRGC, the positive on, but they had long planned for a time when they would need to turn to their bench.

50:43And they have set up the, you know, next in line, in each of these areas, the IRGC, the MOIS, the Ministry of Intelligence and Security, and also all of the other units, Cuds Force, Basige, and police. So they have a deep bench, but how many of them, when they get the tap on the shoulder, are going to be willing to raise up their hand? Oh, yeah, pick me, pick me. You have a comment from the man who replaced Khomeini, named Ari Larijani, who says they will not negotiate. Iran will not negotiate. Right. Yeah. Ali Larijani actually is the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran. He is not the successor to the Supreme Leader himself. That successor will be chosen by the Assembly of Experts in coming days, weeks. But there is a temporary leadership council,

51:46according to the Constitution, which includes Mosin Ajay, I guess he's still alive, head of the judiciary, the president, Mahmoud Pazeshkian, he's still alive, as far as I know, and this Ali Reza Adafi, who sits on both the Assembly of Experts and the Guardian Council, those three are officially the ones who are running the administration now, but you're absolutely right to point to Ali Larijani, because I think that the most powerful remaining force in the country is the past at all. So I want to go back to the enemy of our enemy is our friend. And we've discussed Russia to a degree, and Russia may be just kind of messing with us a little bit right now. Maybe not messing with the president, but kind of messing with the minds of the mainstream press, making people nervous. But what about China? Again, China, as we talked about,

52:52relied upon, they had a great deal with Venezuela, because Venezuela was going broke and they needed their oil, but now they're not getting anything back on that. But China still has a strong presence in Latin America. So how does Russia and China, and we've seen the situation with the cartels, but the cartels also have ties to Chinese cartels and Russian cartels. And those cartels are producing drugs and human trafficking that still goes on in our borders, regardless of whether Mexico is blown up or not. How do you play that one out, Scott? What, you know, the issue is, is can they wait out America? I mean, Trump will be out of office in January of, you know, 2029. And so the question is, and that makes this coming election in November, the most critical and literally in world history right now, because if the Democrats retake

53:52the House in particular, they're going to carpet bomb 24-7 investigations and impeachments of Trump and all of his people. And that's going to cripple our ability to move forward, and that would lay the groundwork for them retaking the White House in 2028. So we really have to win this fall. We have to make sure that the bad guys in China, in Russia, and in radical Islam that's left and the cartels can't wait us out. I mean, that's what they're banking on. And let me talk to you about this, Claire, because I noticed today that Marco Rubio has been emerging as the diplomats diplomat. And in many ways, people have said that he has his star shining brighter than the Vice President, because he has appearances of being able to completely understand or comprehend, you and I talk about the chessboard of political play. And what are your thoughts on that?

54:54Yeah, I'd have to agree with you. I think that Marco Rubio is emerging as the standout of this cabinet, this administration. I don't mean to cast aspersions on JD Vance, whose own stature is remarkable and his life story inspiring. But in the events that have occurred during just the first year and a bit of this administration, it is Marco Rubio. And I would add to that Secretary of War, Pete Hexeth, those two are the standouts. And you think is the same way, Scott, or do you disagree with me? No, absolutely. I mean, I think the key is, there's a huge swath of mega that wants to be isolationist, you know, build a wall and check out of the country and check out of the world. And that's not a reality where we, you know, an ocean doesn't stop the bad guys anymore. And so we have to have, just like during the Reagan years, you have to have that internationalist

55:55perspective of saying that everything connects to everything. And if we don't figure that out and stay ahead of it, we're going to be, we're going to have, you know, grief. Well, I'm telling you, I really enjoy having this roundtable with the two of you. It's so much fun because we've known each other all of us for a long time and have a unique perspective in different aspects. Me was the broadcasting around the world. And of course, Scott being so, you know, involved with the Congress and in particular the Hill and his own work. And you clear with everything you've done with intelligence and so many capacities, it makes it fun to kind of go into the depths of this to kind of get an idea where it's going. We've got like 30 seconds for each of you to give us your final thoughts. Start with you, Claire. All right. Very quickly, I would just say that we are only in the opening days of operation rising line operation, epic of hearing and there's much more to come. Stay tuned.

57:01And you Scott, we have a viable court of opposition, pro-West, pro-democracy people in Iran and in the diaspora. And hopefully they're being already sealed to go in and create a new, wonderful era for that country. Well, it's been a wonderful hour with the both of you and with our great audience as well. Thank you for joining us. And we'll be back again next week on the national security hour. Thank you, Claire Lopez, Scott Faulkner. And I'm Blanket the Column. We'll talk again soon.