Operation Epic Fury

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There was the real likelihood of American casualties, and unfortunately, on Sunday with his update, he had to address that issue because three Americans have been killed in combat and another five wounded. Earlier today, CENTCOM shared the news that three U.S. military service members have been killed in action. As one nation, we grieve for the true American patriots who have made the ultimate sacrifice for our nation, even as we continue the righteous mission for which they gave their lives. We pray for the full recovery of the wounded and send our immense love and eternal gratitude to the families of the fallen. And sadly, there will likely be more. Before it ends, that's the way it is. Likely be more, but we'll do everything possible where that won't be the case. But America will avenge their deaths and deliver the most punishing blow to the terrorists who have waged war against basically civilization. They have waged war against civilization itself. 312-6-4-2-5600 to give us a call or text. Do you agree with Trump's characterization of this as a righteous mission, quote-unquote? It's a righteous mission. This is maybe perception-wise a war of his choosing, but he used his Article 2 Powers here. because he believes there is an imminent threat, and that's the redevelopment of the Iranian nuclear program, nuclear weaponization program. And, you know, there's fatigue with this on-again, off-again effort to derail Iran's nefarious activities, whether it's developing nuclear weapons or underwriting. terrorist organizations throughout the region. There's no regime that has killed more Americans over the last 47 years than the Iranians. And Trump drew a red line, as the Wall Street Journal opined over the weekend. He drew a red line when the mullahs slaughtered 25,000 to 50,000 protesters when they took to the streets in January. and he is manning that red line that he drew, unlike other presidents, say, for example, Barack Obama and Syria. 312-642-4-2-50-600 to give us a call or a text of Chicago's morning answer. Now let's rewind back to Saturday because the eight-minute speech that he gave on Saturday really provided the thought process and the framework. outlined the objective, which is all important. He first made the announcement this way. A short time ago, the United States military began major combat operations in Iran.

Our objective is to defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime, a vicious group of very hard, terrible people. Its menacing activities directly endanger the United States, our troops, our bases overseas, and our allies throughout the world. For 47 years, the Iranian regime has chanted death to America and waged an unending campaign of bloodshed and mass murder, targeting the United States our troops and the innocent people in many, many countries. Among the regime's very first acts was to back a violent takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, holding dozens of American hostages for 444 days. In 1983, Iran's proxies carried out the Marine barracks bombing in Beirut that killed 241 American military personnel. In 2000, they knew and were probably involved with the attack on the USS Cole. Many died. Iranian forces killed and maimed hundreds of American service members in Iraq. The regime's proxies have continued to launch countless attacks against American forces stationed in the Middle East in recent years, as well as U.S. naval and commercial vessels and international shipping lands. It's been mass terror, and we're not going to put up with it any longer. Yeah, and that walk-through history was important in the history of the last 47 years. And it really only scratches the surface. You could include in 1983 the... excuse me, in 1984, when one of its proxies, Hezbollah captured, kidnapped the CIA station chief, William Buckley in Beirut, who died in captivity. In 84, when Hezbollah carried out the truck bomb attack on the U.S. Embassy annex in Beirut that killed 24, all the way up to the president. I mean, right now, you have a man on trial. facing life in prison in this country, Pakistani man, who was in this country to carry out an assassination plot against the President of the United States, that president of the United States, President Trump, that was thankfully thwarted, but Iran, it's believed, according to federal prosecutors, Iran was behind it. In addition to their general assassination program in the West and specifically in America, that was detailed on 60 minutes just last year, including with respect to Iranian refugees exiled in America who face surveillance and threat of assassination on a daily basis from that regime. So let's not forget who we're dealing with and how long we've been dealing with them. And I'll have some comments on that in a second, too, that just struck me over the weekend that I took to X to post.

Michael, South Side, you're on Chicago's morning answer. Good morning, Dan. Thank you for taking my call. As far as I'm concerned, the bombings are long overdue. And one other point worth mentioning, I'm glad that President Trump did not go to Congress first before he authorized the attacks. I cannot imagine, you know, the president of the United States having to go head and hand to the squad. including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in order to protect American citizens. I say bravo President Trump. Thanks for the call, Michael. Well, it is worth noting that the gang of eight was briefed. So there was a congressional briefing on it in a bipartisan nature. Yeah, I mean, the press corps, the Margaret Brennan's of the world, decrying the failure to brief Arab states. that are allied with us on this, but they're Arab states nonetheless. I mean, the idea, you know, particularly the attack on the compound that took out the Supreme Leader, Comenei and all of those other senior leaders, I mean, that was highly sensitive information. And they, according to reporting, moved up the launch. to daylight hours because they had this opportunity that they wanted to take advantage of. And so you can't go around briefing every member of Congress and the Gulf states and so on and so forth. And he did not need, he does not need, did not need a War Powers Act resolution from Congress to do what he did. And for those who are trying to find a way to oppose Trump, When this is very difficult to oppose, particularly Democrats, particularly given everything they've also said about the Iranian regime. And the Iranian people, including Iranian Americans, taking to the streets and celebrating Trump and thanking Trump and thanking Beebe, Iranian flags with Israeli flags, with United States flags, with American flags, and none of them are on fire. That's a pretty rare occurrence. The Iranian people wanted this. They were begging for this. And they're celebrating what America and in conjunction with Israel has done here thus far. So difficult to figure away if you're just a, you know, TDS suffering knee-jerk leftist and you have to oppose Trump no matter what he says and no matter what he does, which is a lot of what we saw. But it's difficult to. forge that ground so you try to pretend like you're wrapping yourself in the Constitution and invoking the War Powers Act, which could be an issue at some point, but it wasn't an issue this weekend. Dennis, Crystal Lake, you're on Chicago's morning answer. Hey, Dan, it's good to hear you. Hey, I'm going to give just a quick timeline. I'm not even a goal in what I ran how many hundreds of thousands of their own people they've killed. This started in 1979 with our embassy. But let's not, and then the rescue mission in the 80 to try to get our hostages, 14 plus died. Then we go into the Marine barracks in 83. I was in the service then. And my ships and my brothers and my cousin ships were all in that area that I'm talking about. Then he mined the straits of whore moved in the late 80.

Samuel B. John Roberts, USS Tripoli. They took major mine hits. He already mentioned the USS Cole. Right. He had his hands in that. He had the Cobar Towers. The embassies in Sudan and Tunisia. I could go on and on, Dan. And this, that old man with the beard, that guy has got his feet and he doesn't have any versions. And he's getting his ass whooped by my grandmother. Okay, thanks for the call, Dennis. Something else, and we'll pick this up on the other side, but Trump restating the point here. And the point is the non-negotiable is Iran cannot have nuclear weapons. It has always been the policy of the United States, in particular, my administration, that this terrorist regime can never have a nuclear weapon. I'll say it again. They can never have a nuclear weapon. That is why in Operation Midnight Hammer last June, we obliterated the regime's nuclear program at Fordot, Natanz, and Isfahan. After that attack, we warned them never to resume their malicious pursuit of nuclear weapons, and we sought repeatedly to make a deal. We tried. They wanted to do it. They didn't want to do it. Again, they wanted to do it. They didn't want to do it. They didn't want to do it. They didn't know what was happening. They just wanted to practice evil. But Iran refused, just as it has for decades and decades. They've rejected every opportunity to renounce their nuclear ambitions, and we can't take it anymore. Yeah, and to that point, Mark Dubowitz over Foundation Defense and Democracy. defensive democracies posted over the weekend. Recent satellite imagery shows construction underway at Pickax Mountain where Iran is constructing a nuclear facility that goes deeper underground than Fordow, which Trump just mentioned taken out back in June, as well as reconstruction at SPND, which is the Organization of Defense Innovation Research. in Iran and a talagan two facility inside the parchen military complex where Tehran conducted weaponization activities previously. So there's no doubt despite, of course, the propaganda you hear from their mouthpieces like Hargachi, the foreign minister, that they were... Well, that they didn't get the message that was sent last June, to put it quite bluntly. Hear about the big stories of the day. Then talk about them right here on Chicago's morning answer on AM 560. The answer.

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Even so, and I do not make this statement lightly, the Iranian regime seeks to kill. The lives of courageous American heroes may be lost, and we may have casualties that often happens in war, but we're doing this, not for now, we're doing this for the future, and it is a noble mission. Noble and righteous mission, a question on the floor. 312-642-5600. He also had two specific calls in his initial announcement on Saturday. One to the IRGC, the Republican Guard. To the members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, the armed forces and all of the police, I say tonight that you must lay down your weapons and have complete immunity or in the alternative face certain death. So, lay down your arms. You will be treated fairly with total immunity, or you will face certain death. And he, the White House has reported that there are many who have surrendered per the call and the devastation that's already been wrought and was delivered within minutes of the beginning of the strikes. So that's good news. He also had a message to the Iranian people, basically. I'm delivering as promise, but now you got to deliver. in terms of taking your country back. Finally, to the great proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand. Stay sheltered. Don't leave your home. It's very dangerous outside. Bombs will be dropping everywhere. When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations. For many years, you have asked for America's help. But you never got it. No president was willing to do what I am willing to do tonight. Now you have a president who is giving you what you want, so let's see how you respond. America is backing you with overwhelming strength and devastating force. Now is the time to seize control of your destiny and to unleash the prosperous and glorious future that is close within your reach. This is the moment for action. Do not let it pass. And here's just some of my initial thoughts when the news came over the transom. You know, first of all, the Iranians just have completely misunderstood Trump. He is unpredictable, but he has patterns. And clearly the now departed Supreme Leader was a slow learner.

as were his theocratic buddies, remedial students that were used to getting passed on by an internationalist system disinclined to deal with problem children like the Mullahs in Tehran, the world's biggest problem children. And so my suggestion, as I made last week, Well, first of all, the suggestion, which proved prescient, at the beginning of the week when we were talked to Steve Vibucci, which we'll do later this morning, is, you know, Trump put them on a 15-day clock, which is probably more like a seven-day clock. And that's what it was. As soon as the indication was given that he wasn't happy with how the talks were proceeding, with all of the resources that were deployed to that region, what happened Saturday morning. It wasn't a surprise to me. It clearly was a surprise to the Iranians. But playing Wakamala offers at least the prospect of altering their incorrigibility by putting their commitment to martyrdom to the test. And as I said, some are more committed to others, for example, those reportedly of members of the IRGC that have surrendered. But that's what has to be done with terrorists and their henchmen. Every time. And I want to get to some dumb reaction to this too. But first, Craig in Mount Greenwood, you're in Chicago's morning answer. Hey, good morning, Dan. Thank you so much for taking my call. Well, first of all, before you make a main point, it's like Trump's exactly right with regard to this is really beneficial to the American people because these other presidents and really don't, weren't thinking of the best interest to the U.S. allowing this whole big industry and just a whole country to become a threat to Americans all over the world and they're getting real close to being a threat to us at home. So that's all exactly right. But, you know, most people don't stop and think about how we call my Iranians. This place was Persia. And back in about the 30s or so, they changed the name. And all that, and those people have been under siege and basically captive for the 47 years that we talk about. And they were a beautiful people, very smart and productive. That band over there was beautiful, lakeshore, like, like. complexes, there's stores, and everything was beautiful there. People were beautiful. There's all this stuff like that. So this here really is an opportunity of like something really, really monumental. Thanks for the call, Craig. Yeah, no, I mean, a lot of individuals still, you know, of Iranian extraction, if you will, refer to themselves as Persians and they harken back to that Halcyon time that you were describing as opposed to the last 47 years. There's no question about that. Rita Panahi is a news presenter for Sky News in Australia. This was the closing line of the commentary she offered. I want to conclude this editorial with this message to be late, supreme leader. Pedersag, Khark-Bissad, Besu's to Jahannan. Rowan. Translated.

You son of a bitch, burn in hell. Any questions? Someone else interesting on this score. Moshe Madara. Moshe Madara, she is a they. She, they, is a Democrat. She they is a successful venture capitalist. She co-founded a fund in the wellness and beauty space with none other than Gwyneth Paltrow and her Vijay-J smelling candles, you'll recall. Anyway, she is a first generation Iranian, American, born in Lexington, Kentucky. Listen to what she had to say on CNN, much to the chagrin of Dana Bash and the CNN power structure, I'm sure. There is no getting around dismembering this Islamic Republic. It is non-negotiable. It is not a want to have. It is a have to have. And it's not just for the Iranian people. I think you have to trust the Iranian people. We know this government better than anyone else. When you dismember and decapitate this regime, you are going to see a change in the Middle East in Venezuela, in China, in Ukraine. And I think, quite frankly, their ideology has really, it's caused a lot of problems for us worldwide. We need to take it seriously. And I think at this point, we have a trend. tremendous opportunity. This will be like ending the Soviet Union, the Berlin Wall. This is a transformational moment for humankind, for security. And as an American, as an American, this is in our interest to complete it. So I am a Democrat. I have been a huge Democrat. I am incredibly disappointed with my party. I do not see myself in them in this moment. Boy. If I had a nickel for every time I hear somebody with some common sense, at least in some areas of policy, say that. I'd be a very, very wealthy man these days with the neo-Marxist party being on the wrong side of even some of their most ardent constituents. It's tough to keep that solidarity and marginality paradigm together when interests collide. Yes, interests collide. And again, just to restate the tough talk we heard. during the 2026 campaign cycle. From none other than one Kamala Harris, you remember her? This is what she had to say on 60 Minutes about Iran. Which foreign country do you consider to be our greatest adversary? I think there's an obvious one in mind, which is Iran. Iran has American blood on their hands, okay? This attack on Israel, 200 ballistic missiles, what we need to do to ensure that Iran never achieves the ability to be a nuclear power, that is one of my highest priorities. So if you have proof that Iran is building a nuclear weapon, would you take military action? I'm not going to talk about hypotheticals at this moment. Yeah, right. First of all, I mean, Iran's not the greatest threat to the nation overall. It's the biggest state sponsor of terror. But of course, China is our primary adversary. But rather than quibling about that, tough talk on Iran, which we've heard from Democrats and Republicans for, well, 47 years. But if you really believe what you're saying,

then you have to back it up with action at some point, don't you? That was the point that John Fetterman made on Maria Bart Romer show yesterday. And also, let's also be clear. I'm tired of seeing people, you know, go on social media and saying, we can never allow Iran to acquire a nuclear bomb. And Israel always deserves insecurity, and they deserve to exist. Well, if you're not willing to do about it. You know, then it must just be empty words. You know, are you really, does it matter? No, but when President Trump was willing to do the kinds of things that are necessary to provide those things. Now, if you really want to prevent Iran to acquire a nuclear bomb, you know, he did try to negotiate with them. You know, there has been treaties. You know, there has been other negotiations that never worked. And they had 900 pounds of just below weapons grade weapons. So, you know, here. Are you really committed or are you just going to drop empty tweets and just try to have it both ways and pretend that it really matters? And that's why I'm going to support that. As a Democrat, I know. That's absolutely the right thing to do. And so for me right now, the world is better. And now China and Russia are now condemning that. You know, China is buying the Iranian oil, and that's how Iran underwrites the proxies and that regime. Yeah. And they all think China is going to sell them their hypersonic missiles, not too. That would be aimed right at American ships, too. So, I mean, that's right. The Chinese communists get about by about 55% of their oil from Iran. So, yeah, we'll get to the China piece in a second. But the point he was making about, yeah, oh, no, the tweets and the emojis and the pins and the empty rhetoric on 60 minutes. Does it mean anything or not? Well, for so long, America's enemies were pretty convinced and understandably so that it didn't mean anything. I would say now they're less convinced, wouldn't you?

John in Chicago. Hey, Dan, good morning. You know, I'm old enough to remember the duck and cover drills in grammar school. We were little kids because of nuclear attack on the U.S. from Russia. And then you grow up. I went the Army, and I spent seven months a year in the woods with nuclear missiles because of Russia. And now... Iran threatens us and the world with theirs. I support the president what he did. Thanks for the call, John Roberts in Bloomingdale. Good morning, Dan. How fast do we forget? Trump was the negotiator. He's going to keep us out of wars. He's going to end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours. All of you people on this channel have Trump zombie syndrome, my friend. You are a Trump zombie. Thank you. Thanks, Robert. Yeah, I think I said at the time, like during the campaign, when he was all ended in five minutes, all ended 24 hours, that I think we all understood that to be hyperbole. We're taking him literally, taking him seriously. And there's been a serious effort that's been made to resolve that, hasn't there? So what would you have him do to resolve it, Robert, since you're an isolationist, attack Russia? Is that what you want to do? And then you'll criticize him for... being a warmonger. The idea of being a negotiator and abhorring war, which any decent person does, by the way, abhors war, death and destruction. I mean, did we not learn peace through strength from Reagan? Do we not have an acolyte of that approach in Trump? Has he not efforted to be a peacemaker? wherever possible. What do you do with those who imperil you and those for whom you have, over whom you have responsibilities, or to whom you owe responsibilities is a better way to put it? What do you do with such a person or such a regime in this case, since we're talking state actors? What do you do? You know, if you want peace, you must prepare for war. All aphorisms are true, including that one. And so you must be willing to man the lines that you draw, right? So I guess if you're an isolationist like Robert, you can just blithely ignore the prospect of state sponsors of terror like Iran obtaining. weapons with existential capacity like nukes. You just say, we're going to completely ignore what the rest of the world is doing and pretend we'll just be Fortress America and we'll just do our own thing and whatever anybody else does, we won't respond. We're going to be rigid ideological pacifists.

Does that make sense? Does that sound practical, pragmatic? Do you think that is in America's national security interest to take that iconoclastic approach that Robert from Bloomingdale and others who imposed upon Trump views he didn't have? You know, because he was a Rorschach inkplot for them. He was attacking the right people, and he was saying some of the right things. So I'm going to interpret it a way favorable to a position I hold, even if it's not the position that he actually holds. That's Robert in Bloomingdale. And there's a lot of people like that. So you can take the position like Tucker Carlson did, who called the attack on Iran, quote, absolutely disgusting and evil, unquote, and predicated on provable lies. He went through about a 15-minute dissertation, which I'm not going to address in detail. So you can take that approach, but I don't really have time for it because I don't consider that particularly intellectually robust or mature. Phil and Norridge. Good morning, Dan. You know, I find it amusing. None of these people ever see anything about... Obama, bombing more countries than any other president except for FDR, and how he ran three terms, and nobody cries. All no kings and we're all Trump zombies. And really, when you think about it, we've got to protect ourselves nuclear-wise. And it's been going on since, what, the 40s? And we're sitting here playing these nuclear footballs all day. They must hate the Jews and must hate Israel. Because it's like, why are they cheering? for people like Obama, who's paying these people off in airplanes for cash. And he's allowed all those terrorists. He comes saying, oh, everybody not jumped to conclusions for, we had to listen to that for years. And people are celebrating in these countries where Trump's helping them. And our leftists are... angry that those people are happy. Thanks for the call. You have the very interesting contrast of Iranian women celebrating both there and here and the suburban offals, you know, the angry white leftist females protesting. Tells you a lot. This is the morning show. More Chicago radio listeners are choosing. This is Chicago's morning answer. An AM 560. The answer. Business owners, now's the time for your business to make the move to a locally owned business bank. Hi, Mike Gallagher here to let you know that you don't have to look far. Signature Bank was founded in Chicago with a simple mission to help companies like yours grow, succeed, and thrive. Their decisions are made locally by a terrific team that knows your name, cares about your business, and invests in your success. That's why Signature Bank is my bank. I'm a customer. As business owners, they knew that local family-owned businesses we're not getting the help they needed or deserved. So, I invite you to reach out to my friends at Signature Bank today. Write the number down. Remember this phone number. Signature Bank, 773-467-5630. And learn all about this great bank, 773-467-5630, or visit them online at SignatureBank.Bank. That's SignatureBank.com. Signature Bank makes commercial banking personal. Member FDIC, Equal Housing Lender.

This is Chicago's Morning Answer with Dan Proft on AM 560. The answer. know you're such a pain in the eye. I doff my cap to one Steve Dahl, Chicago Radio Legend, Steve Dahl. That's Steve Dahl and Teenage Radiation in 1979, ahead of their time. And now their time has come, 47 years later. That's fun. I like a good parody song. That was a good one, don't you think? All right. You know, you've got to have leaven some of this. I know this is heavy stuff. War, life and death, nuclear proliferation and so forth. A little bit of a leavening, and thankfully we had Steve Dahl in the archives for that. I did want to get to a couple of more reactions as the Dems are groping in the dark, trying to find a position they can hang on to to satisfy their deranged base, Trump deranged and just generally deranged. with a few, you know, some of them are not interested in serving their base like John Fetterman, I mentioned last hour. Look at the kind of people that are grieving that or now protesting that. You know, even on, even on Columbia University, you know, one of the student groups just announced on Twitter saying, death to America. Wow. Like, I mean, it's just like, this is what I'm saying. Look at the kind of people that grieve for that garbage. Yeah. Yeah. And like that's the point. And I'm going to be on that side. For me, As a Democrat, I think Democrats country over party. Yeah. You know, what the base demands means nothing to me. What's the right thing and the right side of history is what happened with Epic Fury. Yeah, the question is the right thing. If you can move beyond making this all about personality, and that includes, I guess, Trump voters like Robert from Bloomingdale, who can't move beyond Trump to the substance of the matter. And it certainly includes these hysterics that have taken to the streets like 200 or so did over the weekend in the loop to protest on behalf. On behalf of the leading state sponsor of terror in the world, people like Rashida Tlaib posting on social media, you don't free people by killing them and destroying their country. Well, you know, I don't know. I'm going to defer to the Iranian people who took to the streets all over America.

As I mentioned before, flying Iranian flags, Israel, Israeli flags were flying, American flags were flying all together, celebrating, thanking Trump, thanking Beebe, hopeful for their country's future now. Even begrudgingly, the D.C. Press Corps had to offer some. admissions to this reality. CBS News Desk. The Iranian people, what are you hearing from them tonight? We know they're celebrating. What's the feeling? It's an incredible dissonance that they had to choose war over a regime, but they were willing to do it. Thank you, Donald Trump. Thank you, Benjamin Netanyahu. Thank you, America. It's not death to America after they killed the leader. The Americans and the Israelis did it. It's not death to Israel and death to America. It's thank you. It's a new day dawning. But very early days. Very, very early days. So we'll have to see what comes. But it's the Iranian people that have been telling me over and over and over again. We want this. CNN in L.A. covering the rally there. Since we've gotten here, it has amassed a large number of people. And the celebration is striking. We got here just moments after initial reports, initial rumors of the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had just started to trickle from Iran to this diaspora community. And people were jumping in excitement, hugging each other, crying, saying that basically they've been waiting 47 years for this very day. Jessica. It is the reason so many of them have come out here today. I want you to hear from one of them specifically his thoughts right after learning that the Supreme Leader of Iran was dead. When is the last time you saw people in Israel and Iran dancing on the streets and excitement? And when is the last time you've ever heard of a country coming out and dancing because they're excited that foreign powers are attacking them? 312-642-2-5600 to give us a call or a text. Let me offer this commentary that I posted over the weekend and get your reaction. Trump may be impetuous rhetorically, but he is calculating strategically. In his first term, Trump set in motion this decapitation strategy you're seeing play out right now. against a regime that has killed more Americans than any other over the last half century by ending the Obama appeasement approach and initiating the Abraham Accords, followed by taking out Soleimani. Trump brought the Gulf states in further isolating Iran and put a marker down that he would enforce the red lines he drew. No more on again, off again dithering by the United States. He continued to remove doubt and billed to the moment upon us with Operation Midnight Hammer last June, taking out the nuclear program.

In fact, rather than destabilizing the Middle East as his mealy-mouth critics contended, Trump stabilized it. The feared Iranian response has been anemic thanks in part to the chaos Trump inflicted by taking out its senior leadership. The concern that U.S. strikes would be condemned by the Arab world and instigated regional war combined with asymmetrical Iranian-backed Islamist terrorist attacks with tacit support from China and Russia has not materialized either. Quite the opposite. As among other things, the Arab states being attacked by Iran are being drawn. even closer to the United States and Israel, while the primary funding source for Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis is marginalized. Certainly, perils still exist. Thousands of American soldiers are in harm's way. Does the rogue regime survive in some diminished capacity by turning inward to stave off a popular revolt? That's a question. What comes next if this regime is indeed overthrown? That's a question. Reza Pahlavi Plavi's contending that he's poised to take over notwithstanding. Those are questions. Those are unknown. I mean, they're not clear, I would say. However, as Victor Davis-Hanson recently observed, I'm quoting him, it's been the dream of eight presidencies going back to Jimmy Carter all the way to Donald Trump to have some type of regime change. Of course, there's one exception in Barack Obama. Trump has brought America closer than she has ever been to the fulfillment of that dream of eight presidencies minus Obama. And he's done so over the course of time by taking... creating and taking opportunities as with the Abraham Accords to slowly but methodically build the kind of coalition that further isolates Iran and puts them in this position where, yes, they're responding. But I mean, this is Soviet quality propaganda. from the foreign minister Abbas Araghchi over the weekend on this week. We've just reported that 40 senior commanders were killed in the first minutes of the strike. How much damage has this done to your military infrastructure? Well, we have lost some commanders. That is a fact. And the names are already announced. But another fact is that nothing has changed in our military capability. This is exactly what happened last time. You remember in June when Israel attacked us, they killed some of our top commanders at the beginning of the strikes. But they were replaced very soon.

Less than 12 hours, we were able to start retaliation. This time, it was even, you know, faster. In less than two hours, we started to retaliate by attacking, you know, Israeli targets and, you know, American bases in the region. And we have continued to do so. So our military is in place. They are capable enough to defend our country. Even more, they are more prepared and capable than previous war before 12-day war. Quality-wise, quantity-wise, they are in a better position. And I've seen you have dean, you have seen how they, you know, acted so far. Yeah. I mean, this is far from over, thus Trump's commitment to a 30-day campaign at this juncture. within the War Powers Act prescription, by the way. But that Black Knight routine that Argotchi is doing merely a flesh wound, no. That is not what's happening or has happened already in 48 hours. On the surgical strike that took out the Supreme Leader and so many senior mullahs. Really interesting. Wall Street Journal has it, but this geopolitical analyst, Shanaka Anselm Pereira, has a good write-up on this, too. They did not bomb Iran, talking about the United States and Israel. They waited for Iran's entire leadership to sit down in the same room, and they bombed, then they bombed Iran. Months of intelligence. Thousands of hours of surveillance and signal intercepts. One variable. The moment the Supreme Leader of the President and Senior Military Command gathered in a single location at the same time. That moment was 8.15 in the morning on Saturday. Every previous Israeli strike on Iran came at night. June of 2025 launched in the darkness, October 24 after midnight. Iran's entire air defense doctrine is built around the assumption that Israeli attacks in the dark. Israel attacked in broad daylight because the target was not infrastructure. The target was a meeting. Reuters confirmed strikes targeted Khomeini and Paso-Shikian. That's Tucker Carlson's buddy. I have a nice chat with him. Not going to be able to do that anymore. CNN confirms months of joint U.S. Israeli planning. Israel officials gathered. Israel officials confirmed the strike hit the location where Iran's top officials were gathered. It wasn't clear at the time of this writing that whether or not Ali Khamenei had escaped, but now we know he did not. Iran's leadership now knows three things. Israel knew where the meeting was, knew where they were meeting, Israel knew when they were meeting, Israel knew who would be in the room, and everything we watched over the past month, all of it was, you know, in terms of scrambling of resources, all of it was delivery architecture for one precision strike on one gathering. And this, I mean, he's focused on Israel here, but CIA reportedly had a lot to do with this intel gathering, too, as one would expect.

Every future meeting of Iran's senior leadership now carries one question. Does Israel know about this one too? This is not a military operation. This is the destruction of institutional trust inside a regime. Every general who sits with, well, he writes, Kamanei, you know, after this, because again, it wasn't clear that he had been eliminated. But next man up, who's Ali Larijani. So you could just, where you have Comenei in this right up, you just insert Alijani. Every IRG commander who receives a meeting summits will calculate whether attendance is duty or a death sentence. Every secure facility in Tehran has been proven insecure. In June of 2025, what Abbas Araghchi, the foreign minister was referring to, Israel in the United States killed 30 generals in the opening minutes of that campaign. That was brute force across dispersed targets. This was a scalpel. One meeting, one moment, months of patience. Iran fired missiles at six countries in retaliation. Most were intercepted. One civilian dead from the debris in Abu Dhabi. Saudi Arabia responded by pledging all of its capabilities against Iran. The Gulf Coalition that did not exist yesterday, it exists today because Tehran built it by attacking everyone simultaneously. That's what I was referencing when I'm saying. All this does is push the Gulf states, the Abraham Accord States at minimum closer to the United States and Israel and further isolate Iran.

Israel traded one morning of precision strikes for the permanent destruction of Iran's command cohesion. This is not a battle. This is checkmate disguised as the first move. 312642-5600. And here's that moment. Boom. That was actually from clear and present danger, but it felt the same, didn't it? When you're reading how this went down, it feels like the hit on that cartel compound and the meeting of all those cartel heads from a clear and present danger, doesn't it? I figured I'd squeeze a movie reference in there. Jerry and Norridge are on Chicago's morning answer. Good morning, Dan. Thank you very much for taking my call. You're doing a great job on covering this. Thank you. With all of these, excuse me, with all of these rockets and drones that are raining down on Israel with this so-called retaliation from Iran, can they not pinpoint where these things are coming from and kind of like level that area so that will be eliminated forever? What are the chances of a sleeper cell doing something nasty here in America? Well, I mean, you know, thanks for the college here in both scores. On the last point, we may have had an instance of that in Austin over the weekend. Excuse me, that mass shooting by that guy from Senegal who was naturalized, I think, in 2013. He came here in a tourist visa, then he married an American woman. Killed three, wounded 14 at the bar in Austin. Wearing a property of Allah shirt and a copy of the Koran in his car is the reporting. So was that inspired by the U.S. was inspired by Epic Fury? Maybe. We'll see. But, yeah, I mean, that's always a concern. You know, the existence of Islamist terrorists is a concern. And I'm sure you heard the reporting about local police departments and state police being on heightened alert, particularly around major cities, once the combat operations were announced for that very reason. We understand. We've been through this. So that's part of it. I said nothing is without peril here. And, you know, Israel and the dome and their intel and their infrastructure can thwart a lot of those attacks and has, but not everything. You saw, especially when you target civilian installations, apartment buildings, schools, hospitals, you know, some of those attacks will inevitably.

inevitably result in death, and I think there was reportedly half a dozen Israelis who's been killed. So, yeah, I mean, this is serious stuff, no question. Dawn in Naperville. Hi, good morning, Dan. Thank you for taking my call. I think it's important to note for historical context and current contacts that today and tomorrow is Purim. And if nobody is familiar with that, Purim is the celebration of the salvation of the Jews from when they were in Agent Persia. And there was an orphan named Esther. There's a book of Esther in the Bible, and this is about her. But she was a Jewish orphan, and she went from being a Jewish orphan, and God placed her to be the queen of Persia. And she had an uncle named Mordecai who warned her about the killing that was ordered for the Jews by Haman. And God used her, and she had said, there's a famous line from that book that says, for such a time as this. So I think, you know, the scripture is about warning and blessing, and it gives us wisdom, and it helps us to understand that evil doesn't stop itself. It doesn't mean that God can stop evil in a heartbeat. He's near and he's watching, and he's watching to see if we're going to be strong and courageous. And, you know, in Revelation, it does warn. It warns people not just about being unbelieving about him, but Jesus also condemns those who are cowards, cowardly. So we have to make sure that we're going before the Lord. We're not fearful. We don't need to fear. We only fear the Lord, because he is the one that is in control and on his throne. And so if we can just look to him, I pray that Israel, I pray that the people in Iran, I pray that America. seeks peace through Jesus. And I pray that we will be a united front to stop evil. And that's my prayer. Thanks for taking my call. All right. Thanks, Don. Appreciate it. Jerry, Milwaukee. Yeah, good morning, Dan. This is a brilliant strategy by Trump. And for me, the... The first step in this was taking Maduro out because he wanted to get rid of the one threat in our hemisphere first. And he wanted to get Nets get rid of Iran because they were willing to attack the United States with nuclear weapons. And once that happened, China would jump in, North Korea would jump in, Russia would jump in. anyone else against the United States would jump in, and we could not defend ourselves against all these fronts. Well, thanks for the call, Jerry. I mean, it's a little, well, China's already in, in Venezuela, in Iran. We'll get to that. A lot of this was about China, but we'll get to that in a bit. Leo Roger Wicker Park.

Yeah, they already mentioned the peril of thousands of martyrs spreading across the country for the next generation to take revenge. But also Canada has built a large port on the West Coast to supply China with oil. And that's one of the reasons why Canada is now going to India and making a deal with them. So in a way, Trump has created a whole new economic leverage that doesn't depend on the Middle East. Thanks for the call, Leo. David and Leport, Indiana. Good morning, Dan. Big fan of the show. I just wanted to bring up the point that who's loving what happened over the weekend is Bill Clinton. Because didn't he just give like a whole? Trump just bailed him out and didn't even realize it. Yeah, well, he did have a deposition on Friday. Hear about the big stories of the day. Then talk about them right here on Chicago's morning answer. On AM 560, The Answer. Only the biggest stories. Only the biggest guests. And only the biggest opinions. This is AM 560, The Answer.

Top of the morning, Dan Proff here. One reaction I did want to zero in on from congressional neo-Marxist was Virginia Senator Mark Warner. Now, this guy is on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. So you'd think he'd come up with something that was, you know, passable in terms of logic. But here was his... criticism of sorts of President Trump's decision to launch on Iran. I think the president has started a war of choice. There was no imminent threat to the United States. So the decision to put our service members in harm's way. and bases around the region in harm's way was entirely based upon the president's decision, not an imminent threat to America. I think it is incumbent that the President of the United States comes before the American people and the Congress and makes the case of why he has chosen to go to war at this point. You know, ironically, Dana, if... If the president had chosen to take one of these actions back in early January when the Iranian people were on the streets in the millions, you could make a case because that might have nudged the regime into... dramatic change. He couldn't make that choice because the aircraft carrier that would have assisted that operation was off the coast of Venezuela at that point. And our allies in the region, in Europe in particular, who would have been helping us make that choice in January, were very focused on the president's crazy folly around Greenland. So the fact that he has chosen now, why now as opposed to a few weeks from now to have given the negotiations a bit more time to see if they play out. Now, listen, I will be the first to acknowledge having the supreme leader and other major leaders of the Iranian regime eliminated is good for the region, good for the world, but for anyone to pretend or to assume that this is over at this point.

I mean, okay. So let me just understand something, Senator. So what happened was good, but it should have been done three weeks ago or it should be done three weeks from now. And Trump should make the case of the American people, which he did on Saturday morning. and ultimately address Congress, which you can, but nothing is over, even though the president has already publicly committed to basically a four-week campaign, recognizing nothing is over. But other than that, really a trenchant critique from Senator Mark Warner. There's something else to the timing of this. And by the way, I will get to the Clinton depositions, but we've got to guess now. So we're sticking on this topic. But, you know, hang on in Laporte and elsewhere. But the timing of this, as I've been mentioning, we'll get to where we're going to get to it right now, China. Good piece in over at the free press by Zinabraboa, who is a scholar at the Hudson Institute. A lot of the timing of the attack can be explained in one word, China. By the way, just as an aside, Mark Warner, he should have attacked or could have attacked when there were millions of people in the streets. That's when you want to launch a missile attack? You want to start air strikes when there's millions of innocent civilians in the streets of Tehran? Okay, I digress. Back to China. She writes, in late December, when the largest protests of 79 erupted in Iran fueled by the economic freefall and a population that no longer believed in the regime's strength, the government responded with the massacres. prompting the EU to designate the Revolutionary Guard, a terrorist organization, further isolating the regime, which Trump has been effectively doing methodically when he either created opportunities or seized them since his first term. All right, now hold on. Yet China was moving to put it back together. the Islamic Republic. Weaker than any point in history, but China was on the cusp of moving to put it back together. Last week, it was reported that Tehran was close to finalizing a deal for Chinese-made supersonic anti-ship cruise missiles, which actually John Fetterman mentioned during his appearance on Baderoma. Supersonic anti-ship cruise missiles capable of threatening American carriers now amassing in the Persian Gulf. Earlier, Chinese suppliers shipped more than 1,000 tons of sodium per chlorate, a key missile propellant ingredient, to an Iranian port enough to rebuild a substantial portion of the ballistic missile stockpile that Israel spent 12 days destroying. Why would Beijing do this? And what does that mean for the United States? And she goes on to look at the broader global context in which Iran plays a role in service of China. Start with the oil. China buys more than 80% of Iran's crude oil exports at steep discounts. You know, and they travel on those ghost fleets that have been much discussed, both on that side of the world as well as here, vis-a-vis Venezuela, you know, pre-Moduro's capture. So just, you know, that overlay, that overlay, that China overlay is key.

to perhaps understanding exactly the timing in addition to the need to have some time to put together a response once you drew the red line about protesters that you had confidence could be executed with precision with respect to taking out senior leadership and the minimization of the possibility of casualties. There's also this report out. Chinese are now leaving Iran like crazy. The price of a one-way ticket to Beijing has gone to 3 million won, which is like 425 grand. What are the Chinese so afraid of? According to a Taiwanese news source, they have done so many bad things in Iran, such as helping the Iranian regime crack down on protests, that the Iranian people despise them. And they don't want to be without a seat when the music stops, if indeed it does for this regime. Interesting. A lot more complicated than some of the superficial analyses and, you know, pathetic groping in the dark for a passable political position for your base like Mark Warner was doing that are being bandied about at current. For more on all this, pleased to be joined by David Dowd. He is with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. where he is a senior fellow focused on Lebanon and Hezbollah. David, thanks for joining us. Appreciate it. Thank you for having me on. What is your assessment of the, as Trump said, the righteousness of these strikes and the potential that this regime is toppled? Well, I think those are two separate questions. In terms of the righteousness of the strikes, look, the Iranian regime, since it came into existence, has set about transforming the region, the Middle East, into a region of chaos and war. I mean, they've built up proxies in Lebanon, in Iraq that have set about bringing war, destruction upon their host countries in the name of a foreign cause, in the name of Iran's interest. As we saw on October 7th, one of the Iran's proxies, Hamas, and another Palestinian Islamic jihad brought yet another conflict, yet another destructive and bloody conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. Tehran has an interest in preventing Israeli-Palestinian peace from ever being achieved. And this is setting aside that both actors also have agency, but Iran has been adding fuel to the flames. So this is a regional destabilizer. This is a regime that has brought the death of hundreds of thousands of Syrians just to keep Bashar al-Assad in power because his presence served their interests. And, you know, the Iranians themselves can speak to the horrors that they suffered at the hands of this regime. So in terms of the righteousness of the cause, I think there are a few causes in recent history that are as righteous as at least constraining. crippling the regime in Iran. Now, whether, the second question, whether this campaign has the potential to bring about a change in the regime in Iran is a separate question. What we seem to be experiencing now is sustained operations by the United States, by Israel, to cripple the Iranian regime, cripple its military capabilities, but ultimately,

If history has taught us anything, it's that air campaigns don't bring about regime change. And this is my President Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Nathanielo have called on the Iranian people to seize this opportunity and finally put this regime out of commission. And much, if not everything, will depend on the Iranian people taking that step. And look, we've seen from the protests over the past couple of months and over the past several years, the Iranian people are... willing to shed a lot of blood in the name of their country. So this may be the moment for them to finally seize as President Trump put it. Well, the other thing to, I mean, address this argument made by the Hudson Institute fellow talking about China as the real backdrop of this because Iran is increasingly isolated. China was basically its economic lifeline. and China may be a turning tail on Iran now, or certainly it may not be as well positioned to cement these deals that were in the offing, further isolating and weakening Iran and further perhaps pushing the Chinese Communist Party out. Look, I think there's perhaps merit to that argument. There was an alliance between Iran and several other actors, including China. They have a joint interest in weakening American global hegemony. But China isn't as ideologically fixated on the pursuit of that goal as... The Iranians are. The Chinese are self-interested there. As far as I understand, right? I'm not a China expert by any measure. But as far as I see it, the Chinese don't seem to be pursuing an ideological imperative to weaken American global hegemony to dismantle the international order that the United States is built and replaced it with their own ideologically inspired order. The utility that Iran had for China is in a confrontation with the United States. Iran is our main regional adversary. The stronger Iran and its proxies are in the Middle East, the weaker. The United States are in this region, which is rich in natural resources that are critical to Europe, to the United States, trade routes that are critical to the United States and Europe. So, you know, strengthening Iran at that moment, if you're trying to confront the United States, serves your interest. But if you're making deals with the United States on the side or if Iran's already weakening and it can't do that job, then for China, for Beijing, it's not worth it to go down with a sinking ship anyway. Right, exactly. Just gratuitously confront the United States. So I can say I agree with that assessment. And the debilitating impact, how debilitating is the impact on those proxies you mentioned, Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis? Well, it remains.

Excuse me, it remains to be seen because if I may say the genius of the Iranian model is to build up proxies, especially when it comes to ideologically loyal proxies like Hezbollah. The link between Iran and Hezbollah is not one that's based on material support. It's not based on money. If all the funds and all the weapons were to stop tomorrow or today from Iran to Hezbollah, Hezbo would still remain loyal and obedient to Iran. So the link is ideological. Because of that, What Iran can do with these proxies is allow them to build up a degree of autonomy. Weapons production capabilities, fundraising, and Hezbollah has all this. They have domestic productions capabilities. They have fundraising channels. So would if the regime were to be severely weakened or even their regime change in Iran... An entity like Hezbollah would be severely weakened. At the same time, it would still have the means to self-perpetuate, assuming nothing else happens. Now, obviously, Hezbollah decided to bring a war upon itself yesterday. So that may, you know, shape Hezbollah's faith a lot more than what happens in Iran alone. And what's your, I know this is very early stage, so it's difficult, but your assessment of how this impacts the prospects for, you know, the Board of Peace that's come together and trying to achieve some cessation of hostilities and resurrection of Gaza. Look, again, like you said, it's too soon to be said. What we can say for certain is that so long as the Iranian regime was allowed to remain intact, was allowed to rebuild its internal capabilities after the June, June 2025 war and rebuild its resistance act is the less likely that any initiative that would have brought about peace in Gaza, like real peace, not just a cessation of hostilities for the next few years. any chance of Israeli-Palestinian peace. Iran would have worked actively to undermine that. I mean, October 7th, the October 7th attack, as far as we can assess, was launched to derail Saudi-Israeli-Israelization because it would not have been in Iran's interest. for, you know, the birthplace of Islam and the birthplace of Judaism to finally come to peace. It would have taken the religious dimension out of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Saudi Arabia, having positioned itself or been trying to position itself as the new leader of the Arab and Islamic world, could have then shepherded Israel and a Palestinian entity towards peace. It's sort of taken away one of Iran's main causes for intervention in the region, one of Iran's main sources of support in the region. So Iran could not sit there and watch the liquidation of the Arab-Israeli conflict occur. The liquidation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict occur, they had to keep the flames alive. So so long is this regime and it's... Sorry, yeah.

Well, that's rather ironic because with Iran's retaliatory strikes, now they're driving those countries closer to the United States and Israel by extension. Well, again, there's a certain foolishness to this. You know, I'm sitting here and racking my brain over why Hezbollah would even intervene in this conflict as they did yesterday, for example. Again, this is my area of focus. And... Frankly, I can't explain it because if you think that the Iranian regime has a chance of survival, then you don't want to widen the confrontation. You don't want this confrontation to be as quick and as painless and to leave as many of Iran's direct and proxy assets in place as possible. So you have more to rebuild with the day after. But if you think that Iran is going down, the regime is in existential danger, Then why surprise Israel with only three rockets? I think Hezbollah's opening barrage was somewhere between three and six rockets that thankfully did no damage. Most of them landed in open areas. But if you're going to go down, why go down with a wimper? If you know if you're in for a penny, you're in for a pound with the Israelis, the Israelis should have known that the Israelis were going to launch a war. If so much they bullet crossed the border from Lebanon into Israel. And yet they chose this very underwhelming way to put themselves on the course of demise. It doesn't make any sense why the proxies are reacting in this way and why the reaction has been, in many cases, overwhelming. David Dow is a senior fellow at Foundation for the Defense of Democracy, focused on Lebanon and Hezbollah, as we've been discussing. David, thanks so much for joining us. Appreciate it. Thank you for having me on. And David joins us on Chicago's Morning Answer. Before you see it on TV, share it on Facebook or read about it in the paper. Hear it here first. This is Chicago's Morning Answer on AM 560, The Answer. This is Chicago's Morning Answer with Dan Proft on AM 560, The Answer.

what how broad the support that Reza Pahlavi enjoys really is. He is trying to ingratiate himself to Trump, no doubt, with this comment. You know, the president says, Maga, we said, Miga make Iran great again. And in that sense, I think that a different Iran, that now will be at peace with the region, work with our neighbors, will bring an element of stability, will be good for American national security, but most importantly, an opportunity to be successful in terms of, economic growth and what have you. Just by a change that we hope to bring to the table, that would be probably over a trillion dollars worth of impact and revenue to the American economy just by Iran's market being open to America and how much we stand to benefit from billions of dollars willing to be invested into Iran. All that was needed was for this regime to no longer be there. And I think that is something that should be important to America and Iran both. For more on this, please be joined by Stephen Bucci, served America for three decades as an Army Special Forces officer and top Pentagon official. Now visiting Felt-Aherjured Foundation's Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies. Stephen, thanks for joining us. Appreciate it. It's my pleasure. Thanks for having me back on the show, and obviously you got lots to talk about this morning. Yeah, so, you know, the prospect, I know it's early, but the prospect that you could actually have. a real paradigm shift in Tehran. And is there any sort of obvious player or individual that emerges in your mind or we hope should? Is it Reza Pahlavi? Is it somebody else? Do we know? Well, I can tell you, I seriously doubt it's the Secretary of the National Security Council that you talked about. You know, he's still doing the Death to America thing and talking the typical Iranian bluster. Well, he may not make it to the other side either. I mean, I'm not talking about him. Yeah. He's kind of on the next list.

I don't think that's going to be a possibility that's acceptable to the Iranian people. You know, you might get a group like that to say, okay, we'll get rid of the nuclear enrichment, we'll get rid of the ballistic missiles, we'll stop funding terrorism around the world, but those guys, I wouldn't trust them as far as I could throw them. And I don't think the Iranian people will either. So then you move to the next set of options. The Crown Prince is one. But, you know, we saw it during the operations in Iraq that the draw of the expats sounds really well, briefs really well, but isn't always what the people inside the country are looking for. So, you know, he may turn out that the people embrace him, they love him, and he's the man, but that is still definitely remains to be seen kind of situation. Is that leave something in the middle? Some unnamed guy from inside the country that stands up, the people in the country rally around him, and they demand some sort of democratic... to replace what, you know, the monarchy they had before and the crazy Mullah regime that they've been living under for the last 50-plus years, or almost 50 years. And we can... And we can be certain that this has all been game planned out by Intel. They're obviously not going to disclose who they prefer or what they think, how they think this could go because they don't want to look like they're installing somebody there. It's got to be something that, you know, comes from the people up, not from America over, right? Yeah, even more so than in Venezuela. Venezuela, you know. level of operation. We took out Maduro in Venezuela and some of his military guys. We didn't do anything near what we're doing in Iran right now. And it was a very different situation. So they're going to the successor in place kind of thing. That made some degree of sense for now. We're still working with that. We still got our thumb on them to try and change it. With Iran, I don't think that's going to be acceptable. We have to have a new government to make this work. And it can't be one that's just, you know, the mullahs take off their robes and put on a tie. Yeah, right. I don't think that's going to cut it. And I think the Iranian people, even whatever the intel community.

but hopefully somebody who can convince his people, I have your interests at heart. I'm going to work with people that are good to us, and I'm going to fight against people that would harm you. And that kind of message will resonate with the, frankly, very educated, very, in many cases, sophisticated population of Iran who want normality. And they haven't had that. And part of that, I would expect, as we were talking about last hour with David Dowd from Funding for Defense of Democracies, would be for this new government, a decoupling from China. I mean, you can't have, you know, the Chinese doing supersonic missile deals and propping up their crude oil industry if we're going to, if you're going to be aligned with America in the West. That's right. And I think they realize they don't have to do those kind of things if they're not spending all of their money, funding terrorism around the world, building intercontinental ballistic missiles they don't need because you can't really use those to deliver nice carpets and stuff like that around the world. And for sure, don't need nuclear weaponry. Okay, if they want that, we were trying to set up that kind of deal with. You know, it gets enriched outside the country. It gets delivered to them. They run it in their power plants. They don't really need that. They got oil to use. But if they suddenly became part of the Green Coalition and they want somebody else to take all that dirty oil, that can probably be accommodated around the world, that would have the effect of putting China back in its place. would draw funding and support away from Russia. So, you know, a lot of good things can happen here. They just have to, you know, find a leader who's willing to make the deals to do that. And it doesn't mean we need somebody to be a toadie to America or Donald Trump. We need somebody who can manage that country and make it a legitimate, you know, contributor. So if this campaign is sustained for the next four weeks, as Trump has indicated, do you have any doubt that we're going to get regime change there? I think we will. Yeah, I don't think you're going to see the mullah's light stay in power. That's just, I don't believe so. Particularly if it goes four weeks. You know, we've obviously shown the inclination, the Israelis for sure have. We want to go beyond that. This is not a primitive raid where you just knock down some structures and some headquarters, take out a few missile facilities, and then walk away when they can still rebuild it all. This is going to be pulling the route here with the leadership, with those capacities that, frankly, the country doesn't need, and the rest of us...

with its neighbors and the rest of the world. Have you been surprised by the Iranian retaliation? I mean, it strikes me, you know, all things considered as rather anemic. Well, nobody was hurt. Oh, but it hit a building. You know, calm down. You know, this is not a coordinated, comprehensive, retaliatory campaign. This is, oh, my God, we're in trouble. Start pushing a button. And I think that was already set. And again, it was set, but not terribly effectively. And, you know, which, to be honest with you, is not surprising because they... Shortly as people say, you know what, I really didn't like these guys anyway and walk away and the fact that just logistically, they're going to start running out of schlitz. And that's going to bring this thing to a conclusion quickly, particularly as every time one of those launchers rolls out and starts to elevate its...

we want to yeah in there that's what cut you know a wax over it finding this stuff and then taking it out so this is i'm not sure to go last four weeks i'd like to see it go less that well sure that that's what cotton was referring to is you know taking out the archers rather than the arrows that's what's happening exactly The response from, you know, the reflexively anti-Trump, like noted Russia collusion propagandist, Adam Schiff, this is the position that basically congressional neo-Marxists have landed on. This is what he said to Clinton Foundation donor zero on his little show. The Ayatoll Ali Khamenei led a regime that brutalized its own people, launched attacks around the world for almost 40 years. So is the president right to take him out? No. You're right about the I told that he was a brutal dictator. This is a murderous regime. But at the same time, it posed no imminent threat of attack to the United States. That's what we got. We got War Powers Act invocations, no imminent threat. You have to talk to Congress, even though we're just going to dither. We don't really want to do anything, that sort of thing. Your response to the no imminent threat argument. Well, as a guy who knows lots of people that have died because of Iran, I would say they have been a threat for a long time. We have been at war with Iran for a long time by their choice. The Beirut barracks bombing. I knew Marines who died there. I knew no other Marines.

improved IEDs that were used in Iraq, all came from Iran. I'm sorry, they don't get the protection of international law. They were a criminal organization, a criminal regime, doing terrorist activities around the world. They're getting exactly what they deserve. They are ideological, true believers to the point of trying to kick off, you know, their little fringe part of Shia Islam's apocalypse. They are, were and are an imminent threat to the United States as they stand. And I'm sorry, I wouldn't have talked to Adam Schiff about it either beforehand because he would have immediately announced like John Kerry did that this was coming and put more people at risk. are all security risks. You know, Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar were security risks. There was no way they should have been consulted ahead of time. The big gate was notified and just as the War Powers Act, as it's developed, has used as a standard. And no, he doesn't have to get Congress's permission.

to remove a threat to the United States. If Adam Schiff didn't think they were a threat, he is even dumber than I thought he was. Stephen Bucci served America for three decades as an Army Special Forces officer and top of an official. Now visiting fellow Heritage Foundation's Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies and don't underestimate how dumb Adam Schiff is, Stephen. That's the mistake you made. I stand corrected. Yeah, yeah. Stephen, thanks as always, appreciate it. and we'll talk to you next week. You too. And Stephen joined us on Chicago's Morning Answer. Hear about the big stories of the day. Then talk about them. Right here on Chicago's Morning Answer. On AM 560, The Answer. If you're looking for the latest news, insight into what it means, and the sharpest opinion, there's only one station in Chicago where you can turn, and it's this one. We're AM 560, The Answer. Top of the morning, Dan Proff here, New York City Subway Stories. How's it going under the newly minted Zohran Mamdani the Connie? He got a shout out during the City of Union. That was fun. About those highly paid snow shovelers, as long as they have two forms of ID. Can qualify. This woman posted about her husband's recent experience on the subway. My husband was on a crowded train yesterday when a homeless woman got on, pulled down her pants, and peed all over the train in front of everyone. He hasn't stopped talking about it for the past 24 hours. It's the single most traumatizing thing that's happened to him in New York City. Well, I think he better buckle up if that's the most traumatizing thing that's happened to him to date. Let's check in, see how things are going. I'm sure they're off to a fast start. Pleased to be joined by our friend Chris Whalen, Chairman of Whelan Global Advisors, editor for the institutional risk analyst, and author of Inflated Money, Debt in the American Dream, Second Edition. Chris, the most traumatizing thing that's happened to you in New York, particularly in the subway, if you'd like to share.

We've all seen warriors. But, you know, survived. It's sad about that story of the homeless woman because there are so many people trapped in New York who can't leave. They're literally prisoners of Mayor Zohran Mamdani. And I think it's only going to get worse. Because, you know, there's nothing that progressives can do about inflation. They cause the problem, first off, with our progressive friends in Washington. And now they've read about it and they offer supposed solutions to people in New York City. But, you know, think about it. What's the federal poverty line right now, $40,000 a year? You can't even exist in New York for $50,000 a year. You can't exist in New York for $100,000 a year. So what happens to these people? Well, well, if the mayor, excuse me, the governor and the assembly would have the courage to raise the state income tax on millionaires, then everything would be fine. No, they'll all move to Florida. We're moving, by the way. I'm going to be your neighbor soon. Really? Yeah. Whereabouts? We're going to be just north of you in Estero. Oh, very nice.

They don't build ranches anymore. They build two-storied. They can cram them all in and sell you the house for $2 million. And they don't build golf courses anymore because the land is too expensive. Builders get it first. Well, I got some good news for you. That old corkscrew in Astero that David Hoffman bought, he's going to redo that and turn it into a private club for a man of your stature. So it's going to be right there. I don't see a wildcat. Wildcat's a great club. Great. Yeah, well, you also have, I mean, Astero, you also have two Ritz Residences, or you have a Ritz Hotel and a Ritz residence in Estero. It's crazy, the development. It's funny how that works. Well, yes, but they limit it and they have very tough zoning in Estero, unlike the other town. They won't let you just build anything you want, and this has actually resulted in one of the big home builders sitting on a large development property because they can't meet the zoning requirements. Well, that's how good. I'm very happy for you. That's wonderful. We'll do in studio in Naples. Yeah. Yeah. And we'll do a home and home. I haven't played Wildcat Run. Oh, yeah. Anytime you want. Lovely. Beautiful. All right. Good. All right. So we're just sticking on taxes for a second. This is interesting. If the Yankees or the Mets are thinking about picking up. Merrill Kelly from the Diamondbacks. You might want to think again, the San Diego Padres thought they had secured a deal for Merrill Kelly from the Diamondbacks with an offer $40 million for two years. But that's not good enough. He's deciding to stick with the Diamondbacks that are offering the same payout over three years. Why wouldn't you take $20 million? over two as opposed to i mean 40 you know 20 million year over two as opposed to what turns out to be you know about 16 and a half over three Oh, because of California's tax burden. It doesn't make, it's like the story about Sam Darnold that, you know, it cost him money to play in the Super Bowl. It doesn't make economic sense. Merrill Kelly either is smart or he has a good agent. It doesn't make economic sense for me to take that deal in San Diego as opposed to stick with the deal. The Diamondbacks are offering me in Arizona. And, you know, if you're a high-end performer and you spend any time at all,

Yeah, right, exactly. You know, Jay Lowe, and you do a show at Medicine Square Garden, they whack her by the day. And I, you know, this is going to end badly. That's all I can say. Hey, something else that's gaining some steam, real popular. We're going to... restart and spread out Section 8 housing in Illinois for all the suburbs. You know, I think they call it affordable housing. I call it Section 8 because, you know, that's what it is and it has the proper connotation as opposed to this utopian connotation. But in Illinois, there is legislation afoot to provide. accessory dwelling units often refer to as granny lots that are currently in area zone for single family homes because according to some left wing thing tank. Illinois has a shortage, and I don't know how they calculate this with such specificity, but of course it's accurate and can't be questioned. Illinois has a shortage of 142,000 homes and needs to build 227,000 units over the next five years to keep up with demand, even as the state is seeing people flee like it's on fire. But okay, sure. What do you think about, and I'm sure Zohran Mamdani is going to go down this road to the road that Brandon Johnson is going on, which is like turned the financial district into Section 8 housing towers. So the big push, you know, we got this affordability problem, Chris, and we have a shortage of houses on the market, so Section 8th of the places. That'll create some more space. Well, it's not a left-wing idea. Let me tell you, one of the proponents of changing zoning.

You don't be much more conservative than that. But part of this is, I mean, part of it is zoning, but the real part of it is subsidy. That's the point. Oh, yeah. And it doesn't work. It's like New York. When you talk about Section 8 landlords, these are people who are on the brink of default because they can't make enough money on the property to take care of it and then have anything left over for themselves. There was a case. gotten into office, tried to intervene in the sale of about 5,000 rent-stabilized units in New York City. And, you know, the developer was going bust. Another one was queued up the bottom. I don't know why. And Zohran Mamdani has actually said in his filing, which the bankruptcy court rejected, that there was... His solution, by the way, is to get rid of the landlord, any kind of equity ownership in the property and then run them, you know, as, you know, forwards of the state. And that's what we have here. We have half a million units that are owned by the city in New York, Dan. And they can't take care of those. Well, right. I mean, it's like the Chicago Housing Authority and the, you know, the towers back in the day. But, I mean, they just scatter side is the same thing. They want.

intended on them. And meanwhile, people like us are moving to Florida. And by the way, Florida and Texas want to get rid of property taxes, which is a way of getting rid of the progressive model for public school. Well, in Florida, yeah, in Florida, it's really interesting. Now, the proposal out of the House is eliminate non-school property taxes for all homesteaded properties and probably something less robust will come out of the Senate. But the conversation is about reducing property taxes. I mean, it's going in that direction. Who wants to reduce them more? Who wants to give people more? you know, more equity in their homes and protect home values. And meanwhile, New York City, I mean, it's just an incredible stat last week. The Zohran Mamdani's proposed budget for New York City is bigger than the actual state budget for the state of Florida, which has three times a population. It's crazy. It's the crazy.

So they have no flexibility in their income. And the cost of running these properties goes up every year. So the only answer is for the city to subsidize it, as you say, right? But that's got a limited lifespan, too, because they can't keep up with the cost increases. Eventually, they'll have to sell those properties and let them be redeveloped. And you know what? They'll build condos. They won't build rentals. The fallout from the Supreme Court decision on tariffs, is that now, you know, and I know there's more litigation that still has to happen with respect to the questions about things like rebates. But has that now been sort of priced into the market and the jitters about this being, you know, a cataclysmic? event in engendering all sorts of chaos are subsiding? Oh, yeah. I never thought it was significant. Last year, I told our readers to ignore the tariff announcement by Trump. It was a great trading opportunity, by the way. That was your signal to come in and buy a lot of stocks.

financial companies, software companies, AI, all of this Petrius from last year. Last year is going to go down as a remarkable year. A lot of spec, a lot of craziness, a lot of hubris. And this year we're going to come to Jesus. I think you could see a major bank crisis in this country this year, simply because of all the silly loans and the unused credit, by the way, that's available to these companies. It's just sitting there. You know, we're talking about trillions of dollars. And is it any particular sector that you're zeroing on? Tech broadly defined. Yeah, but you're seeing like, even though like Salesforce is getting hit and there's this sort of run against software companies right now, but you're still seeing record revenues. Well, record reported revenues, but remember, a lot of these companies are walking wounded. Many of them have defaulted. They can't pay their debt. So you know what they do? They pay people equity, payment and kind. And this is what we call poop, which is principle on original principle. It's a wonderful acronym. Everybody in the risk community knows about this. Some of the regulators know about this, but the banks are forbearing on these loans. They're looking the other way. Amy Diamond said it. He said, you know, when you see one of these things, you know that there are more cockroaches. And that's what we've got. There was a default in the UK by a company called MFS, a mortgage lender. And guess what? They double pledged all the collateral. So some of the big guys like Apollo and BPG are looking at big.

And I think when we talked, you were pretty sanguine that the... plummeting value of commercial real estate was not going to be an anchor and banks that would survive that. And they seem to mostly have. But just looking at Chicago, I mean, we have to see more and more buildings that are selling for pennies on the dollar of what they sold for even four or five years ago. And I just, I mean, somebody has to be taken in the pants. And I just wonder if you think that still is a problem area out there, generally speaking. Oh, it is for older properties. bondholders in what we call the commercial market market. But banks, too. Banks tend to hold the better stuff, and they finance the rest of it in the bond market. So it's bond investors who are going to get slack. And so your overall outlook from this year is a reckoning?

We had falling default rates, even though everybody thought there was going to be a recession, you remember, in the 2023? Nope. So for the last year, we've had reported default rates falling, even though you can hear screaming and yelling in the background. Like you said, commercial. So this year, I think the regulators and frankly... So when Scott Bessent is out there pumping the BBB and its impact and the cap the expense that's going on and that's going to be, you know, this is the eight, this is the first year of the golden era. You're saying no. No, I think we could have yet another financial crunch by the end of Trump too. You know what happened in the first run? We had COVID, right? Yeah. Oh, for sure, for sure. I mean, under the, I mean, in places like Illinois, Jersey, I'm some New York to search into, too, under the weight of the negative multiplier of property taxes alone. Oh, totally.

Chris Whalen, sober, very sobering discussion today with Chris Whalen, chairman of Whalen, global advisors, editor of the institutional risk analyst and author of the book, Inflated Money, Debt, the American Dream, Second Edition. Chris, thank you as always. Have a great day, Dan. I'll see you in Florida. Love it. Glad you're coming down, and Chris joined us on Chicago's Morning Answer. It's News, Opinion, Insight. This is Chicago's Morning Answer. On AM 560, The Answer. This is Chicago's morning answer with Dan Proft on AM 560. The answer. Top of the morning, Dan Profft here. Ibrahim Callan is an illegal alien from Sierra Leone. His visitor of visa expired in 2024. He has been arrested while training to be a Delaware County Prison Corrections Officer and charged by local police there for rape, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, sexual assault, aggravated indecent assault, false imprisonment, and indecent assault. But wait, it gets worse. We're in Delaware. Delaware County Prism sent him back into the community despite an ICE immigration detainer. So ICE officers from the Philadelphia office had to arrest him at large in the community a couple weeks back in February. A man enters the country illegally from Sierra Leone, applies to be a corrections officer to prison, is hired. During the training, he's charged with, it sounds like, you know, kidnapping and rape and a bunch of other violent crimes. He's arrested. Ice puts a detainer on him. Prison lets him go because it's sanctuary. They're in a, quote-unquote, sanctuary for predators. And then ICE has to go track him down in the neighborhoods. Over and over and over again. It's got to be maddening for... Angel families. It really does. And the occasion of last week, both the State of the Union address, as well as the declaration of Angel Family Day on February 22nd, I thought it would be good to check back in with our friend Joe Abraham and get his perspective. He's been quite busy I've seen. really providing leadership on this issue through giving interviews and willing to talk about it and write up eds about it. And some parents, you know, and you don't judge. Some parents are comfortable doing that and others are not, but it's important to have leadership from those families who have been victimized through the lawlessness that is endorsed by, well, I don't know, a party that represents approximately half the country. I don't know. Joe Abraham is the father of Katie Abraham, of course, who was killed in Illinois by a person here illegally when she was down visiting friends at U of I. Joe, thanks for joining us again. Appreciate it. So I know you went to the White House for the Angel Family Day thing, right?

Yeah, we were at the White House on Monday. It was a great, you know, Dan, it was a mixed feeling, right? Because it was great that Donald Trump has recognized us where, say, J.B. Pritzker has tried to erase us, erase and ignore Katie's life and death. But I also had mixed feelings because it was almost disbelief, Dan, that this is where we are as a country now, that we were so irresponsible and insidious. in the prior administration and the current administration here in Illinois, that now we've got so many of these angel families that are suffering and in pain. And now we have to have a day to recognize that. I honestly, truly never thought we'd ever be here, but here we are. Yeah, I thought one of the more poignant moments that I saw online from the events of that day. was the reading of the names of the victims. And that took almost five minutes to read the names of victims of families and attendance. I mean, that's a lot of names. And some people are more pronounced than others in terms of got more notoriety. And some families are more, as I said, public about it than others. And that's fine, however you want to handle it. But just the sheer amount of names should really hit people. Yeah, and honestly, a very small group of families that our, you know, life has been altered because of irresponsible and reckless policies. But think about the tens of thousands. Not everyone died like Katie, for example, but think of the tens of thousands of victims out there due to these awful policies. And I remember back in June 2025, J.B. Pritz, who was yelling. at congress when we were sitting there where he ignored me in katie's life at the uh congressional hearings he said the big beautiful bill will kill people and therefore it should never pass Meanwhile, the fact that he's just untethered to hypocrisy and he's so comfortable with it, meanwhile, he does nothing to readdress or reassess his damaging sanctuary policies. Have they not killed people? Yes, but he continues to double down. And it seems to me now that I'm paying attention, more attention, I should say, the fact that the J.B. Pritzker's of the world are so comfortable with hypocrisy. is really distressing. And I don't know why Illinois, I'm talking to Illinois voters. You've got to help us. This is not a compassionate man. And God forbid anything happens to any Illinois voters. He will turn his back on you as fast as he can. And he will not care. He will not be sympathetic. You will be an inconvenience that he will try to erase and ignore. So what kind of feedback are you getting from the very public stances you're taking, from the editorials you're writing, from the interviews you're giving? How do people receive you, particularly if they sort of are inclined to disagree with you? Are they respectful or are they just so?

radicalized, I guess, by these policies and the rhetoric of politicians like J.B. Pritzker that you feel heat from them as well. You know, Dan, at this point, I don't really care what anyone says. I'm sort of in the grave of Katie. So what are they going to do? I am not worried about anything when it comes to that, right? I'm in such a place that bring it on. I don't even care. But what kills me, what I don't understand is where ideology is first, right? This is your North Star. And this North Star is blinding you because... You know, when it comes down to the only thing you have is your team and your ideology and policies that are reckless, it doesn't matter as long as it's your team doing it. To me, is just not very coherent and it's not thoughtful, right? So when the J.B. Pritzklers of the world are... setting up the state in such a miserable way. And then they do not have any consideration. They don't do the hard work of trying to understand what's happening within the state and why everyone's leaving. And the hard work is just left to the side and you take the easy way out. You kick the side door open and you let hundreds of thousands of people running around our communities. We have no idea who they are or what they're all about. And that's not okay. Well, the flip side, so let me ask the flip side, the positive side. I know you recently gave a talk up in Newtrier on the North Shore for Newture neighbors. And I just wonder maybe like people are hearing your story that do agree sensible policies, immigration law enforcement, things like that. But, you know, it takes sort of a motivational story. And in this case, unfortunately, a tragic story sometimes to get people to engage. And I wonder if you're... encouraged by the talks you're giving and what you're doing, the feedback you're getting that is getting people engaged on the issue? Yes. So it's been pretty positive, Dan. Actually, I have to say one. I think there's a group of... People that are just so ideologically driven, that nothing will change there. But I do feel a sense, the ones in the middle, maybe the left middle, are listening and understanding that this is not okay and how the state is being run and how we were treated is not okay. So I do feel... You know, one at a time, we're making a difference. I know I just set up a substack so I could put my writings in there. And a lot of people have mentioned that to me. So this is my first foray into that. But yeah, Dan, I get exactly what you're saying. I'm sorry. I misunderstood. There's a group that will never move. And I think we are reaching one at a time just so folks can understand that we can do better and we can be more thoughtful and we could be less partisan.

and we can be less hypocritical. So I do think that resonates a little bit. Yeah. Yeah, that you're getting to, you're reaching some of the people who are reachable is essentially what you're saying. But that's encouraging because that's, you know, that's the mission field. The people that are fully engaged there, you know, you got them, the people that you said have ideological blinders on, you're not going to get them. So it's that all that would, you know, the vast. middle there of people who are sort of marginally engaged and try to be reasonable and empathetic to people who are who have been wronged as your family has um you know that's encouraging i mean i think it's encouraging to believe that there are people in chicagoland uh that still fit that description frankly yeah i got to be honest with you they are willing to listen and and whether they whether they move away from like say the j b pricksos i'm not sure but they're willing to listen they are distressed on how the state and our politicians have handled, handled this. I think they start to realize that the chaos in the streets, let's say, from ICE is starting to, they're starting to understand when I talk about that, that the J.J.B. Pritzker of the world, the Tony Proicles and Mayor Johnson, they need ICE so they have something else to talk about. And then even the hypocrisy, like, let's say up in Minnesota, Dan. You know, there's two people that put themselves, look, no one should ever die. I've been there. I bury a child, so I understand this. But no one should. put themselves in a bad situation and in the middle of a law enforcement situation and think the outcome is going to be good. And to do it for fallen politicians, corrupt politicians is just so unacceptable to put yourself in that situation. Now, the other thing is where the hypocrisy comes in, when the millions were at the border, people dying on the journey. people being raped, kids being exploited, kids being lost. Cartel's making billions of dollars now because we're moving people around and we've allowed that. Where were they down in the southern border? Where was the principal? You should have, if you cared so much about these people, you should have went down there. You should have said, we need an orderly process to allow millions to bum rush the border. It doesn't help anybody. Doesn't help the citizens, which are responsible for. and doesn't help the actual migrants bum rush from the border. You're not helping anybody. Look at the guy who killed Katie. They didn't help him a wit. And now he'll spend decades in jail. You know, bang up job, Illinois. You killed a young woman. And now you're going to have to support a guy in jail for years. He didn't help him on his health. You didn't help him in his language. You did nothing. It was a free. Think about how many of these people they call our neighbors that are in our communities.

For example, again, the guy who killed Katie, had HIV in our communities. Was he reckless? Yes, I believe he was. We know we had multiple partners. Couldn't read or write, couldn't speak Spanish or English. driving around in our communities, where was the help Illinois gave him? Now he's going to spend decades, hopefully, in jail. So Illinois has failed at every single turn. And to think that these politicians have the face to stand up to the voters and say, put me back in office. As a matter of fact, politics that I can tell now that I'm paying attention is the only industry that you can fail. and get promoted. I would have been fired 15 times over if I behave like this and performed like this on my outcomes. The time that you spent with other angel families in D.C., what is that like? Is that cathartic for you and your family to just exchange stories and talk about what people are respectively doing in their communities? It's so... It's so painful, Dan. I don't know how else to say to listen to these stories and these families going through what we're going through. People don't seem to realize that you can't just brush us off. Like our whole lives have been altered. We are in a dark wilderness trying to find a new path. We thought we had Katie the rest of our lives. My only joy before January 25 was watching my three children grow up to be productive, good people. And my only challenge was how is my work-life balance going to happen so I can spend time with them? This has completely altered our lives. And think about the tens of thousands of lives that have been altered. And it's not okay to brush us off. I mean, the media, to me, has been disgusting on this topic. They want it to go away because of their ideology. And that's not okay. That's not good enough. That's awful. You are not truth-tellers. These media folks, these outlets like the New York Times and CBS and ABC, all these people. CNNs of the world are very, very, should not be listened to. They are not serious. They're actually silly. They're, they have no North Star other than their ideology and that's what blinds them. They ought to speak up and talk about these angel families. You don't have to talk about me. I would love to talk about them and the nonsense they spew. I would love to do that. But don't talk to me then. Go talk to other families. There are. So many. You probably can't figure out who to pick. You've created so many of these angel families. And it's just not right. And it's not the way things get done. Well, Joe, I appreciate you continuing to take up the fight. Hopefully it will inspire more to do so. Joe Abraham, father of Katie Abraham, Joe, thank you as always. Appreciate it. Thank you. And appreciate it.

And Joe joins us on Chicago's Morning Answer. The stories you need to know to start your day. This is Chicago's morning answer on AM 560, The Answer. If you're looking for the latest news, insight into what it means, and the sharpest opinion, there's only one station in Chicago where you can turn, and it's this one. We're AM 560, The Answer. Top of the morning, Dan Prop here. Okay, so it was Hill Dog. Secretary of State Cancalls on Thursday, and then it was Bill Dog on Friday. The Clintons finally sat down for depositions. Behind closed doors, the House Oversight Committee, the committee chaired by James Comer, to talk about everything they didn't know about Jeffrey Epstein. And actually... I don't know. It was about as underwhelming as I expected it would be with categorical denials. And actually, House Republicans sort of making a bit of a mess of it. So Hillary Clinton wanted transparency, but House Republicans didn't. Do you believe this was a fair hearing, and do you still want to testify publicly even though you did this deposition? Well, I'm not going to do it again. You know, they had a chance to do it in public, and I wish they had done it in public. And I think they're making the wrong decision, avoiding doing it in public. I thought it was very repetitive. I thought that they asked literally the same questions over and over again, which didn't seem to me to be very productive. And then, as I said, toward the end, you know, there were other questions that were totally off subject. So if they are going to fulfill their responsibilities to... literally investigate the investigations, which is what they originally said was the scope of their work, I think they could have spent the day more productively. She might be right, unfortunately. Now, I did note this coverage. I thought this was an interesting nugget that came out of the deposition of Hillary. Hillary Clinton says she only recalls meeting Epstein that one time when she murdered him. I thought that was newsworthy. That's the Babylon B, so I may have to fact-check that. She was also asked after the deposition about the picture of Galane at Chelsea's wedding. Can I ask, why was Ghislaine Maxwell? Thank you. I thought that Chelsea Clinton's wedding in 2010. She'd already been mentioned in a civil lawsuit by Virginia Dufrey before that. Jeffrey Epstein had already been convicted before that. She came as the plus one, the guest of someone who was invited. Thank you, everybody. Thank you all. Wait, wait, wait. Well, who was she the plus one of?

This is like the sort of thing that you'd want to see maybe in real time and make sure that the proper follow-ups were asked and we get some information in a timely fashion. So you knew enough to know her and though she was there as somebody's plus one. So tell us more. But as she said, it was quite repetitive. and she nicely lobbed the whole matter back into Bill's Court. Not quite Melinda Bill Gates, but something along those lines. You want to know something about... Epstein and what was going on with Epstein stuff. You've got to have to talk to my husband. Can you talk to us a little bit about how you have processed and reacted to the fact that the former president, your husband, Bill Clinton, is referencing the Epstein files numerous times, including in some photos featuring women? And how have you been pursuing preparing for the deposition that is coming tomorrow? Are you 100% confident that there isn't anything that the former president knows about Epstein's crimes? I am, and I think the chronology of the connection that he had with Epstein ended several years before anything about Epstein's criminal activities came to light and that he was charged and sadly given a sweetheart deal, which, as I said in my statement, Had that not happened, perhaps his predatory behavior could have been stopped earlier. But I think it is fair to say that the vast majority of people who had contact with him before his criminal pleas in 2008... were like most people. They did not know what he was doing. And I think that that is exactly what my husband will testify to tomorrow. Wait, was Galane Bill's plus one? Come on. Was Galane Dono Shalala's plus one? Nothing? And you have no interest in these women he's pictured with and no knowledge of them. It's just all part of a vast right-wing conspiracy. James Comer. offered this sort of summary on Hillary's testimony, which is unremarkable but consistent with what I was gathering from Hillary, which is you're going to have to talk to Bill. The number of times that she said, I don't know, you'll have to ask my husband was more than a dozen. And I'll put it like that. Okay, so let's ask him. Bill defended Hillary. He better. I have a feeling. That's the deal.

Yeah, he's very upset about Hillary being whistled in. That wasn't right. The girls and women whose lives Jeffrey Epstein destroyed deserve not just justice but healing. They've been waiting too long for both. Though my brief acquaintance with Epstein ended years before his crimes came to light, and though I never witnessed during our limited interactions any indication with what was truly going on. I offered the little I do know in the hope that it would help prevent anything like this from ever happening again. I also have to say something personal. Republicans made Hillary testify yesterday, and she had nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein. Nothing. She has no memory of ever even meeting him. She neither travel with him nor visited any of his property. So whether 10 people or 10,000 people were subpoenaed, including her, was simply not right. Not right. And there's no more substantive paragon of moral rectitude than Bill Clinton, I always say. 312, 642, 5600. If you want to weigh in on this, although it's just there's not really much to weigh in. I don't know how to go to a job. The Inquisitor just did behind closed doors. They probably shouldn't have been behind closed doors, as I said. But it doesn't sound like anything important occurred. that we're going to get any closer to anything resembling a clearer picture. And sort of a leading indicator of that is some of the headlines coming out of Bill Clinton's deposition were things like, you know, bipartisan support for Bill Clinton's answering of questions during his deposition and so on and so over. That all sounds like it was very chummy, very collegial, and thus by definition.

particularly futile. But he did want to know, go on the record because he's released this video after his deposition. He's going to beat them to the punch. Another reason why it should have been public and in real time. So you don't have this propagandizing right after them controlling and sort of framing the message. And he says unequivocally, You know, we've been here before. Something akin to I did not have sexual relations with my best friends underage sex slaves, something like that. So here's what I told the committee. First, I had no idea of the crimes Epstein was committed. No matter how many photos they show of me, I have two things that at the end of the day matter far more than any interpretation of 20-year-old photos. I know what I saw and more importantly what I didn't see. And I know what I did, and more importantly, what I didn't do. I saw nothing and did nothing wrong. Yeah, of course. It did not have sex relations. If someone who grew up in a home with domestic violence, not only would I not have flown on his plane if I had any inkling of what he was doing, I would have turned to men myself and led the call for justice for his crimes, not the sweetheart deal that he got. But even with 2020 hindsight, I saw nothing that ever gave me real pause. We're only here today because Epstein hit it from everyone so well for so long. And by the time it came to light with his 2008 guilty plea, I had longstop associating with it. When the video of my testimony today has released, I hope it will motivate everyone to go in front of Congress to say what they know. I hope it will motivate the Justice Department to finally release all the files and to ensure that this never happens again. The survivors deserve that. He's very concerned about the survivors, as you would expect. He saw nothing. He knows nothing. He did nothing. Hmm.

history rhyming, if not repeating itself. John and Janesville. Hey, I just started interrupting that Bill said that Hillary had no memory of meeting that scene. It sounded like her when she was testifying before the Benghazi committee, how she didn't have any memory of anything. She just had a bad memory altogether. Well, I think it cuts in and out a little bit, John, depending on what she's trying to remember or what she's asked to recall. I think, you know, there's some... short-circuiting that occurs. Same thing with Bill when he's not parsing words. Bill, Northwest Side. Yeah, that sounds like the end epitomizes why they call him slick Willie isn't, doesn't it? Yeah, although I just, I don't really think it's that slick. I think it, thanks for the call, Bill. I mean, I think, I just, again, so do you recall those women your pictures in the hot tub with and the other pictures of you? yucking it up with Jeffrey Epstein. So like when you were in a hot tub with that chick who I know you can't remember and nothing happened. What was that environment like? Like what else was going on? What were the conversations with Jeffrey Epstein about the young women that were hanging around you and him when you were hanging around him? You know, paint a picture for us. Give us the context. Because you had no inkling that he was doing anything on Tord until 2008 when he's convicted of. basically being a pedophile. No inkling. Really? No idea that something was a little off-center with that guy. So, okay, well, so like, let's show, here's a picture. There's you. There's a girl and a jacuzzi, the two of you together. So you remember that conversation? You remember that girl? Maybe we could do a little bit due diligence. They have to know who the girl is now and provide a little bit more background here. Maybe she said something that could be used to inquire. the former president used for inquiry with the former president to see if we've got a different recollections of what did or did not occur what he did or did not know i mean that with a photographic evidence of presence that is that indicates at minimum the appearance of compromise then it seems to me like I want like the whole, you know, fill me in on all that. Give me all the details. I don't know that happened. It doesn't sound like it did. George in Aprilville. Yes, Dan. No one could leave you in a haze better than to quit their Clintons. Yeah. Thanks for the call, George. Lee and Hammond. You know, it seems like what scandal is this now? What's the count like 278? It seems like it bounce along from one scandal to another one. Nothing in Washington changes. All they get is a lot of meetings, a lot of hot air and all that kind of thing, and nothing changes, which tells me that that swamp is actually, I don't think.

It's a quagmire. It's the Amazon. I don't know what it is, but it looks like it'll never be cleaned up because they don't want it cleaned up. Why answer to the American people, when it seems like they're having a good old time there in D.C., they can care less about what happens to the public out here. They just do whatever they want. Thanks for the call deep. Yeah, that swamp is deeper than it looks, isn't it? Dan Prop, Chicago's morning answer. The more you listen, the more you'll know. This is Chicago's morning answer. Morning answer. On AM 560, the answer. All right, I have another exhibit in support of my evidentiary case that sports press corps, just an adjunct of the political press corps, these... Mostly clowns want to be taken so seriously. So they weighed into substantive issues. So they're not just another guy who could be in your fantasy sports league, baseball, football, whatever. I give you Canadian hockey analyst Steve Dangle. He is hot. He's very upset with Team USA for allowing themselves to be compromised by President Trump. And he's got a message for President Trump. and anybody else who thinks Canada is going to be the 51st state. Much of an inferiority complex, Mr. Dangal? What people have a problem with? Trump, besides being directly responsible for the murder of American citizens through his ICE Gestapo, with the context of Canada, he threatened our sovereignty. He threatened in those players taking pictures with Karoline Leavitt and shit. Don't think we haven't forgotten with her smile on her face. That looked a little different at the time. But that smile on her face. What does that mean? Hey, we look forward to the U.S. beating our soon-to-be 51st state Canada. You f***, nah. We'll never be your 50 first date. And that's got nothing to do with hockey. That's got everything to do with you showing up at our front door with guns and tanks and shit. Of course we're going to feel a certain type of way about that. And you're the captain of a Canadian NHL team, Austin, Brady. Connor Hallibuck might as well be. Quinn until a couple months ago. Quinn until a few months ago. And you shook hands with that. Fuck you. That dude threatened the place where I live and actively continues to do so. And I'm supposed to just look at you and feel fine about that. You go have a good cry. Steve Dangle. Hockey Canadian hockey analyst. Some tough talk from those Canucks again, huh? Yeah. That's fun.

All right. Yeah, I mean, you know, try again in four years. What the hell? This is the morning show. More Chicago radio listeners are choosing. This is Chicago's Morning Answer. An AM-560, The Answer. Thanks for listening to Chicago's Morning Answer podcast sponsored by Signature Bank. Signature Bank takes pride in helping customers grow their business and provide unmatched banking expertise. custom financial solutions, and the industry's best technology. So whether you're a business looking for a deposit relationship or needs a ready source of financing, signature bank is the right bank for you. Call today at 773-467-500 to hear how signature bank can help your business grow and thrive. Member FDIC, Equal Housing Lender.