Trump: Oil Prices to Fall After Iran War, Will Cut Off Trade With Spain | NTD News Today March 3

Welcome to NTD News Today. Here are today's top stories. U.S. and Israeli forces actively targeting Iranian missile launchers. The latest updates from the expanding war in the Middle East. The U.S. shut its embassies in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait after drone attacks. As Iran retaliates across the Middle East, the State Department urges Americans to leave the region. President Trump says it's too late for talks with Iran. And the President says the U.S. has a virtually unlimited supply of weapons as U.S. operations against Iran continue. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Noem's testimony comes as Congressional Democrats demand that DHS overhaul its immigration enforcement tactics. The first major primary elections of the season are underway. Today, voters in Texas and North Carolina pick their nominees for the 2026 midterms. Today is Tuesday, March 3rd. You're taking a look at Beirut, Lebanon overnight there. And I'm Kevin Hogan. The war in the Middle East is expanding. Israeli forces are positioning themselves in southern Lebanon to fend off attacks by the Hezbollah terrorist group. The Israeli Defense Forces call this an enhanced forward defense posture, not a ground maneuver into Lebanon. They say they aim to create an additional layer of security for the residents of northern Israel so that they wouldn't have to evacuate their homes. This comes after Hezbollah terrorists launched rockets at Israel amid the war in Iran. Israel responded with a series of preventative strikes on Hezbollah military structure. And Israeli forces say Hezbollah will pay the price for aligning with the Iranian regime. And Israel is also actively targeting the Iranian regime's missile launchers, defense systems, and live fire arrays with 60 strikes flights. It says it destroyed the Iranian regime's leadership compound in Tehran overnight. The U.S. military also hunting down Iranian missile launchers. U.S. Central Command says the regime uses these launchers to fire indiscriminately across the Middle East. The U.S. military says it is taking down the threats without apology or hesitation. While operations on Iran are underway, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visiting an air force base in central Israel today. We continue to strike Iran with force. Our pilots are over the skies of Iran and Tehran and also over the skies of Lebanon. Hezbollah made a very big mistake when it attacked us. We have already responded with force and we will respond with even greater force. The Prime Minister is providing an update on the fourth day of Operation Roaring Lion, or what the U.S. calls Operation Epic Fury. Netanyahu tells the Lebanese government and people to protect themselves against Hezbollah, saying Israel will continue to do what is necessary to protect itself. Israel also warning residents of more than 80 villages in southern Lebanon to evacuate. This comes as the Hezbollah terrorist group says it was ready for an open war with Israel. Netanyahu is appearing alongside Israel's Defense Minister and Chief of Staff at the air force base. The U.S. is closing its embassies in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait today. The U.S. Embassy in Riyadh is also warning of immediate missile and UAV threats over Dharan, a city in the eastern part of Saudi Arabia, directing residents to shelter indoors. Dharan is also a major administrative center for the Saudi oil industry. Black smoke was seen rising over Riyadh's diplomatic corridor, which houses foreign missions. The Saudi Defense Ministry said the attack appeared to involve two drones, but did not specify their origin. Hours later, the ministry said eight drones were intercepted and destroyed. Iran has fired hundreds of missiles and drones at Gulf states hosting U.S. air bases, including the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, and Jordan. Most of the strikes appear to have been intercepted. A drone also reportedly struck the U.S. embassy compound in Kuwait yesterday. The embassy said today it would close until further notice, citing regional tensions. As Iran strikes countries in the Middle East, Secretary of State Marco Rubio is addressing Americans currently in the region. Rubio posted a video last night advising U.S. citizens to leave more than a dozen countries. Here's that story. At the Department of State, our number one priority is the safety and the security of American citizens everywhere in the world. The State Department is warning Americans to leave the Middle East immediately. With what's going on in the Middle East with Operation Epic Fury and the cowardly attacks that we're seeing from Iran against Gulf countries, I wanted to take this chance to speak directly to Americans who are in the Middle East. The department's saying it has ordered the departure of non-emergency U.S. government personnel and family members from Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, and the UAE, citing serious safety risks. The department is also urging all Americans to leave those countries as well as Iran, Egypt, Israel, the West Bank, Lebanon, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Yemen. The U.S. embassy in Jordan issued a statement Monday saying all U.S. staff have temporarily departed the embassy compound in Amman due to a threat. The U.S. diplomatic mission did not disclose additional details, but the announcement comes not long after Iran-backed Iraqi terrorist group Kitab Hezbollah threatened to attack American military bases in Jordan. The State Department activated a 24-7 task force, surging personnel and resources necessary to help provide American citizens with up-to-the-minute safety and security information. Speaking after a congressional briefing yesterday, Rubio said the U.S. was going to strike Iran harder in the coming days. I'm not going to give away the details of our tactical efforts, but the hardest hits are yet to come from the U.S. military. The next phase will be even more punishing on Iran than it is right now. Rubio clarifying the U.S. objective is not regime change in Iran, but it is something they would like to see happen. The objectives of this operation are to destroy their ballistic missile capability and make sure they can't rebuild it, and make sure that they can't hide behind that to have a nuclear program. That's the objective of the mission. That said, abundantly clear, we would love for Press on how long the U.S. military would remain focused on Iran, Rubio said, as long as it takes. Meanwhile, Rubio said the Trump administration will take action to mitigate rising energy prices as the price of oil spikes. Rubio said Treasury Secretary Scott Besson and Energy Secretary Chris Wright would announce the plans today. This terroristic regime led by radical clerics has the ability, potentially, to shut off 20 percent of global energy. That's the kind of leverage they have because of their Navy. We're going to destroy their Navy. But there is a plan in place. We anticipated this could be an issue. Energy prices surged after strikes by Tehran forced shutdowns of oil and gas facilities across the region and disrupted shipping in the crucial Strait of Hormuz. The U.S. Embassy in Israel says it is unable to evacuate or directly assist Americans departing Israel. Officials advise people to evacuate via the land crossing to Egypt in the Sinai Peninsula. The crossing will be open 24 hours a day. The news comes as regional air travel remains disrupted. U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee today saying the embassy is receiving a high volume of evacuation requests while staff remain sheltering in place. Huckabee says there are very limited options, adding that it's unclear when Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv will reopen. Oil and natural gas prices keep climbing as the war with Iran continues for a fourth day. Brent oil futures jumped six percent and the U.S. benchmark is up the same amount. And drivers are seeing the biggest one-day jump in gas prices since Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the price jumping 11 cents overnight. The average price is now $3.11 a gallon. The spike follows the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a key global oil route. The conflict also hitting global markets, with all three major U.S. stock indexes down in pre-market trading today. The Dow Jones Industrial Average falling over 1,200 points this morning, a 2.5 percent drop. If it holds, it would be the index's first 1,000-point decline since last April. U.S. stocks also opened with sharp losses yesterday, but markets later recovered. President Trump says Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not force him to launch the U.S. military operation in Iran. He says he may have forced Israel's hand instead, adding that he believes Iran was going to attack first. Trump made the remarks ahead of a bilateral meeting with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. Here's a clip of the president's comments. That is coming along, as you see, very well. They have no Navy. It's been knocked out. They have no Air Force. It's been knocked out. They have no air detection. That's been knocked out. Their radar has been knocked out. And just about everything has been knocked out. So we'll see how we do. But we're doing we're doing very well. We have a great military, and they're doing a fantastic job. So we'll be talking about that. And we're talking about some very big trade deals. And those I know will work out, too. So we are on the same page in terms of getting this terrible regime in Tehran away. And we will talk about the day after what will happen then if they are out. We have to talk about our trade agreement, which I would like to be in place as soon as possible. And we have to talk about Ukraine. There are too many bad guys in this world, actually. And this is an issue we have to talk about, because we all want to see this war coming to an end as soon as possible. But Ukraine has to preserve its territory and their security interests. And, well, we will talk about that. Did Israel force your hand to launch these strikes against Iran? Did that involve pulling the United States into this war? I might have forced their hand. You see, we were having negotiations with these lunatics, and it was my opinion that they were going to attack first. They were going to attack. If we didn't do it, they were going to attack first. I felt strongly about that. And we have great negotiators, great people, people that do this very successfully and have done it all their lives very successfully. And based on the way the negotiation was going, I think they were going to attack first. And I didn't want that to happen. So, if anything, I might have forced Israel's hand. But Israel was ready and we were ready. And we've had a very, very powerful impact because virtually everything they have has been knocked out now. Their missile count is going way down. Amazingly, they're hitting countries that were, you know, let's call them neutral, right? They lived together for a long time. They — I think they were surprised. I was surprised. I think it — and now those countries are all fighting against them and fighting strongly against them. Someday, they'll write a story and they'll say why they did that. But they hit countries that had nothing to do with what's going on. They were sort of leaving everything alone. All of a sudden, they get — they had missiles shot in, which shows you the level of evil that we're dealing with. They'll hit people that were actually at least somewhat friendly and had no problems with it. Also hitting only civilian places — hotels and apartment buildings. And we're hitting them where it is much more appropriate. We're hitting them very hard. And the big-scale hitting goes now. They no longer have air protection. They no longer have any detection facilities at all left. And so they're going to — they're going to be in for a lot of hurt. These are bad people. These are people they killed. I guess it's 35,000. It's coming out 35,000 over the last three weeks. Well, I don't know if there's a worst case. We have them very much beaten militarily from a military standpoint. They're still lobbying some missiles. At some point, they won't even be able to do that because we're hitting all of their carriers. We're hitting all of their missile stock. You know, they built up all these missiles over the last few years. They had a lot of them. They've shot a lot of them. And we're knocking out a lot. I guess the worst case would be we do this and then somebody takes over who's as bad as the previous person, right? That could happen. We don't want that to happen. That would probably be the worst. You go through this, and then in five years, you realize you put somebody in. It was no better. So we'd like to see somebody in there that's going to bring it back for the people. And we'll see what happens with the people. You know, they have their chance. And we've said, don't do it yet. If you're going to go out and protest, don't do it yet. It's very dangerous out there. A lot of bombs are being dropped. But I would say that would be about the worst. I guess he is. Some people like him. And we haven't been thinking about too much about that. It would seem to me that somebody from within might maybe would be more appropriate. I've said that he looks like a very nice person. But it would seem to me that somebody that's there, that's currently popular, if there's such a person. But we have people like that. We have people that were more moderate. You know, these were radical lunatics. And you know what they get? They get nothing. All they do is kill people. Well, because it happened all very quickly. We thought and I thought maybe more so than most, I could ask Marco. But I thought we were going to have a situation where we were going to be attacked. They were getting ready to attack Israel. They were getting ready to attack others. You're seeing that right now. And a lot of those missiles that are heading in, those are stationary. Those were aimed there for a long period of time at these other countries. So I think I was right about that. We attacked first. And if we didn't, it could have been, you know, look, we're really decimating them. They're being decimated. And if we didn't, and by the way, we have massive amounts of ammunition. We have the high end. A lot of it was given away stupidly by Biden, very stupidly for free. And I'm all for Ukraine, but they gave away a lot. As you know, when I give away ammunition, everybody pays for it. The European Union's paying for it. Then they can do what they want with it. But they are giving it, let's say, to Ukraine. And it's OK. The president also commenting on the rising oil prices. Watch. I have never had more compliments on something I did. People felt it's something that had to be done. So if we have a little high oil prices for a little while, but as soon as this ends, those prices are going to drop, I believe, lower than even before. Trump also said he has instructed Treasury Secretary Scott Bessett to sever trade relations with Spain. He said the move came after Spanish leaders blocked the use of their military bases for U.S. forces. He added that the U.S. could use the bases if it chose to, but he told them, quote, we don't want to. In the same meeting with the German chancellor, Trump called the Iranian regime's ideology evil. He said Iran had retaliated against neighboring countries not involved in the conflict. A Georgia father has been convicted of second degree murder and involuntary manslaughter after his son allegedly shot and killed two students and two teachers at a Georgia high school in 2024. A jury found him guilty for giving his teenage son the gun he allegedly used in the shooting. Prosecutors had alleged that Colin Gray gave his son cult access to a gun and ammunition. And even though he was aware of the 14-year-old's mental health issues, Gray testified in his own defense, claiming that he never believed his son would commit a school shooting. Gray isn't the first parent to be convicted for the actions of their child. In 2024, jurors convicted two parents of manslaughter after their teenage son killed four students at his high school in Michigan. A jury found that the parents gave their son a gun and ignored warning signs leading up to the 2021 shooting. Colt Gray has pleaded not guilty. The judge in his case has set a hearing for this month. And voters in two southern states are headed to the polls today as North Carolina and Texas hold the first major primary races of this election season. And today's Melina Wisecup joins us to break down what to watch for. The top race to watch tonight will be for a Texas Senate seat. There are competitive races on both sides of the aisle, but for the Republicans it will be even closer. You have four-term incumbent Senator John Cornyn up against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. They're both abiding for the Republican nomination. President Trump has said good things about both candidates, but endorsed neither. Right now, polls show Paxton is leading. They have advantages, huge financial advantages, and their thought is the people of Texas won't really have a choice. We will go out and tell everybody that John Cornyn loves Donald Trump, which he does not. And on the other side of the aisle, you have Democrats once again pushing to win a Senate seat in Texas. We have Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett up against State Representative James Tolerico. If you have voted for Democrats, but you're tired of Democratic politicians always folding, you've got a place in this campaign. But whoever wins the Democrat primary will still face an uphill battle because no Texas Democrat has won a statewide election since 1994. There are also a few House races to keep an eye on, where Democrats might be more vulnerable after redistricting. One example is Texas' 34th district. You have one Trump-endorsed candidate, Eric Flores, competing against former Congresswoman Mayra Flores for the Republican nomination. They're vying for a chance to unseat Democrat Vincent Gonzalez. As for North Carolina, the big race to watch in this state is in District 1. Five Republican candidates are competing to take on Democrat Don Davis. He already had a tight win two years ago in a Trump-won district. Though Don Davis is uncontested on the Democrat side, Republicans have made this race more competitive through redistricting. Polls close at 7.30 in North Carolina, closing at 8 and 9 p.m. in Texas. Reporting from Washington, D.C., Melina Wyska, NTV News. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem is testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee. During the hearing, ranking member Dick Durbin criticized the department's immigration enforcement efforts. You and your agency rush to brand these victims as, quote, domestic terrorists. We have ample video evidence and eyewitness testimony proving you are wrong. Your statements cause immeasurable pain to these families. Do the right thing. Do you retract these statements identifying these individuals as domestic terrorists? No, Senator Durbin, when we have these situations happen, we always offer our condolences to those families, and I offer mine as well. These are tragic situations, and I can't imagine what these families go through in losing a loved one. What I will say is we always work to provide the American people with as much information as possible, that we're relying on reports from the ground and from agents that are there, and working to be transparent, and we'll continue to do all we can to provide the accurate information and the facts to people as we can. Durbin pushed for what he called a humane way to deal with immigration enforcement. Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn responded to his comments, criticizing the Biden administration's immigration policies. To me, there is nothing sensible and humane about allowing millions of people to violate the rule of law in the United States, and I yield to you for a response. Yes, well, thank you, Senator. When you look at the Biden immigration policies, I think Senator Durbin is ignoring the consequences of illegal immigration. Over 30 percent of the young girls that crossed that border during that invasion were raped and brutally harmed by people along the way. There's nobody that crossed that border, came in from Mexico, that didn't have to pay a cartel member to get into this country. Those cartels have been enriched and made sophisticated and professionalized by the money that Joe Biden facilitated putting into their pockets by allowing that invasion to happen and funneling people into the cartel's hands. I also would say that 4,000 people died during that invasion. When people were coming into this country, died because of the inhumane circumstances that were going on, from the heat that they were having to deal with, from drowning in the river. It was not humane what we saw being facilitated by the Biden administration. Noem's testimony comes as congressional Democrats demand that DHS overhaul its immigration enforcement efforts. Until that time, Democrats have refused to agree to new funding for the department. Republicans are pushing back, saying the DHS needs funding after the strikes on Iran and the FBI's warning of elevated threats here in the U.S. Noem is scheduled to testify before the House Judiciary Committee tomorrow. President Trump says he will attend the White House's Correspondence Association dinner for the first time as president. Trump says he was asked very nicely to be honoree at this year's dinner. The president said he is accepting the invitation in honor of the nation's 250th birthday, adding that many of the correspondents now admit he is truly one of the greatest presidents in the history of our country. Trump declined to attend during his first term over his view that much of the media was unfairly biased against him. The president also did not attend in 2025, the first year of his second presidential term. Fighting in the Middle East is ongoing as we are in day four of Operation Epic Fury. Iran and its terror proxy, Hezbollah, putting much of the entire region in a line of fire. Breaking down the latest is NTD's Washington correspondent, Jack Bradley. Jack, how is the U.S. responding to this? Well, Kevin, we have President Trump coming out in his meeting with the German chancellor there saying that reports of today, while Iran was picking its successor for the now-killed Iranian leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Israel struck the building that they were choosing the successor in. So this just goes to show the strength of U.S. and Israeli intelligence. Meanwhile, a couple of Iranian drones hitting the U.S. embassy in Saudi Arabia, and thankfully no one was hurt as the embassy was empty before the drone strike. And now the State Department is warning of imminent attacks on Da'ran in Saudi Arabia. The U.S. embassy in Da'ran putting out this statement today. They say there is a threat of imminent missile and UAV attacks over Da'ran. So do not come to the U.S. consulate. Take cover immediately in your residence on the lowest available floor and away from windows. Do not go outside. Now, overnight, new departure orders issued by the State Department for 14 embassies across the region. They say to leave by any means available due to the emerging threats there. The U.S. embassy in Jerusalem now says that it's unable to evacuate American citizens from Israel. And there's no U.S. government-sponsored evacuation flights as of now, and citizens are relying mostly on commercial means. But most airports remain shut down. And many of the Gulf countries at this time have been taking ballistic missile and drone strikes from Iran. Now, there are reports of these Gulf countries getting ready to launch a counterstrike against Iran. So far, it's been defensive, shooting down those missile and drones. That's because Iran, they've been firing at hotels, airports, and residences in the UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, and even Lebanon, where the Hezbollah terrorists reside. There's many more countries throughout the region that are taking hits from Iran. The UAE already coming out saying that they have enough munitions to combat and strike attacks on Iran. Now, Trump has been building relationships with these countries' leaders over the past year. These relationships may now be strengthened even more so going forward with a common enemy, Iran. President Trump posting on Truth Social late last night saying, quote, their air defense, Air Force, Navy, and leadership is gone. They want to talk. I said too late. Now, he wrote in a separate post this, the United States munitions stockpiles have at the medium and upper medium grade never been higher or better. As was stated to me today, we have a virtually unlimited supply of these weapons. He goes on to say that the United States is stocked and ready to win big. Now, there are a lot of these reports coming out of Americans being trapped in the region currently, and those that are currently, they should go to step.state.gov and they can register there for the latest security updates for whichever region they are in, in the Middle East. Kevin. Yeah. Thanks for that, Jack. And we just spoke to a former Navy SEAL officer who says that Iran is just launching this act of desperation, you know, striking, like you said, these hotels, civilian infrastructure, and other countries in the Gulf states around. But now, Jack, how is Congress responding to this? Right. So a fight in Congress is coming right now. We have Congressman Thomas Massey and Ro Khanna who say that they want to force a war powers resolution to the floor this week. If passed, that would limit President Trump's authority to conduct these strikes. But those against that say that the president is following the law. Take a look. Clearly, this is a war of choice, not a war of necessity. The idea that we would move a War Powers Act vote right now, I mean, it will be forced to the floor. But the idea that we would take the ability of our commander in chief, the president, take his authority away right now to finish this job is a frightening prospect to me. It's dangerous. And I am certainly hopeful and I believe we do have the votes to put it down. Now, that war powers resolution is unclear if it will have enough votes to make it through, like the speaker said, and maybe shut down, Kevin. Very comprehensive update from you, Jack. Thank you. Now, let's get a big picture overview of the conflict between the U.S. and Iran and learn about some potential outcomes from Michael Prejant, a Middle East expert and former intelligence officer. Michael, it's good to have you here. Can the attack on Iran knocking out the regime's leadership lead to democracy and freedom in Iran? Well, as a former military guy, I can't do hope, right? I can't hope that that's the outcome. We have to look at indicators on the ground. What we do know is that the regime has been its leadership has been degraded, so they will find ways to replace people. But as they're replaced, they are attacked by Israeli airstrikes with a combination of U.S. and Israeli intelligence. What we need to do is keep the regime from being able to take back control of the cities and allow the people in Iran the time and space to change their government. This needs to have an Iranian face. But they have been asking us to provide air cover and to target the regime, and that's what the United States and Israel is doing. Yes, and Michael, 49, that's how many Iranian leaders have been taken out just in the first round. There may have been other rounds subsequently thereafter. So what would that look like? President Trump is saying they might not even know anyone who's at the end of that list when that time comes. Right, so it's key that those targets were taken out in the daytime, right, on day one of the operation. They were in a relaxed mode. They thought because the sun rose, that meant there would not be a strike window from the U.S. or Israel, so they kind of relaxed their security posture. In that, intel assets on the ground were able to confirm that meetings were taking place, and there were three simultaneous strikes that took out top leadership across the board, from the Supreme Leader to his councils and to the IRGC leadership. What's happened since then is that replacements have been targeted. There are intel assets on the ground that are able to identify moving target indicators and targets of opportunity, and that's what we're seeing now. As this continues to go, it's going to be harder and harder to target these individuals because they will take their uniforms off. They will go to civilian clothes. They will go to try to blend into the population. Their cells will start using mosques and schools to operate from, and we're starting to see a video and photos of that actually taking place, where IRGC members are holding key meetings in schools or mosques, and that is always an issue, because if the U.S. hits it or Israel hits it, then it becomes this media campaign against Operation Epic Fury. Thank you for dissecting that, and everyone's hoping for the best. You mentioned hope. Now, there have even been what have been described as potential sleeper cell terrorist attacks in Austin, for example. Is there a realistic risk of future terrorist attacks being provoked against the U.S. as a result of the Iran conflict, and how can that be mitigated? Okay, so you have to look at what happened over the last two years in this country, or actually the last three or four years in the United States. We've allowed a lot of people in, and as a former counterinsurgency intel officer, all I need to do is find 10 people that are willing to conduct attacks. So if I was a terrorist leader, I would basically find a 10-man cell somewhere to be able to conduct an October 7th-style attack on people just going about their day. We also have the lone wolf, right? This guy in Austin is a lone wolf. He's not tied to Tehran. They didn't reach out to him and say, go kill people, but he decided to embrace it as championing this cause to get revenge for the Supreme Leader's death. That is likely to continue. But I'm very worried about these 10-man cells all across the country, and they don't have to be tied directly to Iran. They just need to see a window of opportunity. These would be Sunni cells. These could be cells tied to Lebanese Hezbollah, to al-Qaeda, to ISIS. So that is a real threat. And so local law enforcement and our intelligence community need to be talking to each The FBI needs to be working with local law enforcement and the IC, but we know we don't have the people to be able to do all of this. So even the private sector could help identifying some of these cells, but law enforcement has to actually go after them. But I'm very concerned about that. Very interesting, Michael. Yes, keep a close eye. Now, President Trump says that he will still visit China soon. China, authoritarian regimes stick together like birds of a feather. They're backing Iran and supporting it in all this and verbalizing that. Now, how could U.S. strikes on Iran affect this potential meeting between President Trump and Chinese regime leader Xi Jinping? I think there are several elements, right? We've seen Chinese air defense assets fail against the United States and fail against Israel. So China knows that their equipment isn't up to par in actually dealing with a U.S. airstrike or an Israeli airstrike. China exports these military systems, and most countries buy three of them to make sure one of them works. They cannibalize the other two to make one work. We also know that this is having a huge economic strain on China, with the Strait of Hormuz being clogged up right now as these oil companies try to get the insurance, the war risk insurance, to make sure they can continue to navigate. But we see China not really helping Iran militarily. Iran's turning out to be a bad return on investment. China has not been able to sustain this $480 billion economy with the amount of money that they poured in since the JCPOA, the Iran deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action was put in place. So there are a lot of things. Trump will go with the upper hand when he goes to visit China. The United States is demonstrating, sending a message to Russia and China that this is what our military can do. Supply chains, everybody talks about that. The capitalist society, if there's a need, there'll be a supply. And I'm not worried about munitions running out because defense contractors are already ready to backfill in any shortages anywhere. Makes perfect sense. Deterrence, deterrence, deterrence. Peace through strength. We've heard that many times from the White House. Now, what needs to happen to ensure that this assault on Iran will lead to a safer Middle East and a safer world? If I'm not mistaken, in Iraq, you had a vacuum, you had millions of people, a million people die, the advent of ISIS. How do we prevent all that and move forward in a constructive manner? Well, the goal needs to be that Tehran or the regime cannot fund terrorism, cannot continue to build its missile program, cannot continue to seek a nuclear weapon. We have to remember that the 20-year war in Iraq, the enemy of the United States, al-Qaeda, the Shia militias were all funded by Iran. In the 20-year campaign in Afghanistan, Iran funded the Taliban, the Haqqani Network, and al-Qaeda. So we need to be able to take that away. So if the president basically degrades their nuclear capability or decimates it, and degrades their ability to advance their technology on ballistic missiles, and decimates their drone industry, then he can say the Middle East is safer. It's not going to be safe as long as the regime is intact. So regime change at the end of this, again, has to be organic. But that is the real goal. That is the goal of the Iranian people. And that is the goal of this military operation. We just won't make the mistakes we made in Iraq. We will not say that the people on this chart, their underlings, we cannot say that you guys are all disqualified from Iran's future like we did with the Ba'ath Party in Iraq. Anybody tied to Saddam, whether it was a doctor, teacher, technocrat, was excluded from polite society and not allowed to be in the economy. We learned from that. You cannot push these people into the insurgency because they're really qualified to be very effective. So we have to get them to defect. We have to get them to pledge that they're going to work with the United States and our Gulf allies and drop the debt to Israel, drop the debt to America and stuff, and be a prosperous economy. Look where you're located. Look at what you are able to export. Look what you're able to control. If you're a peaceful country, there's going to be a lot of benefits to that. But we have to let this be organic. It has to be the Iranian people that change the regime. We can provide the military capabilities to make sure the regime cannot mass and go after protests in certain towns. All of our targets right now are targets of opportunity. We are watching for military movements. We are watching for launchers. We are watching for drone setups. All of these things take about 30 minutes to an hour to get set up, but it takes a couple hours to move. So we're looking at all of that. If we can degrade the regime's ability to crush their population, like they did during the last two months, then the people will have a chance to do something. But we need to see something from the people on the ground once these airstrikes start dwindling. Yes, very good conversation. While we still have it on the line, Michael, let's talk big picture. We've seen the Iran hostage crisis. Trump talks about 47 years of oppression and violence from the Iranian regime. The shadow war that just went on for so long. And then you had October 7th, the systematic degrading of first Hamas and then later Hezbollah. And then now the Gulf countries being indiscriminately attacked by Iran, them now turning their opinions and sights against Iran. And then, of course, the U.S. bombardment. So what's the future of Iran with all those things collapsing at the same time? Meanwhile, the Iranian people being victims of the regime and wanting change, possibly, in their own way. Not to mention all of the media operations, Israel taking out Hezbollah-linked news organizations. And those are all the things that we know about. We don't know what else the CIA and other Mossad and everything else the United States is doing behind the scenes to put further pressure. Right. Well, the Hamas playbook is not going to work here with Iran. We've already seen misinformation on attacks, killing innocents, school children, things like that. That was a failed rocket. That was a failed surface-to-air missile that hit that school. So the Hamas playbook is not going to work. So what do I see? Right now, Iran is desperate, but I think they're more focused. They're focused on energy infrastructure, attacking our Sunni regional allies so that they put pressure on the Trump administration to allow dialogue, to allow some sort of pause in these operations. And when the airstrikes do stop, it doesn't mean we're not still in the sky looking for targets of opportunity. Our intel is able to identify key leaders. So there'll be a lot of things that we continue. My biggest concern is that the president decides to just stop and claim victory, short of actually allowing the time and space for the Iranian people to take back their government. That's my main concern, is that this doesn't continue and meet all of its objectives, that at some point it says, this is good enough, let's stop. Very valuable insight from you. Good enough is not going to work. Understood. Yes. Michael Pregent, thank you for coming on. Thanks for having me.