Trump to Iran: 48 hours before all Hell will rain down

And right now I do want to start by getting to the latest coming in here from Operation Epic Fury. President Trump just issuing a final warning to Iran saying that the Iranian regime has two days left to make a deal or quote all hell will rain down. The president posting on Truth Social within the last hour saying this right there on your screen again. Remember when I gave Iran 10 days to make a deal or open up the Hormuz Strait. Time is running out 48 hours before all hell will rain down on them. Glory be to God, President Donald J. Trump. Rather than traveling to Mar-a-Lago, President Trump has actually remained at the White House this weekend and we are hearing that he does have meetings that are getting underway throughout the day. Now today does mark five weeks since the U.S. launched its mission against the Iranian regime alongside Israel and I do want to pop up some of these photos right here that are now coming into our newsroom as we know that the search continues for a crew member who was on board a U.S. military aircraft shot down Friday over a mountainous region of central Iran. Fox News reporting this was an F-15E fighter jet and that one of the pilots was rescued but a search and rescue operation was immediately launched and still underway for that second pilot. Iranian state media putting out a message urging civilians in the area to look for and capture the pilot in exchange for a quote precious prize. Iranian state media also claiming that a U.S. A-10 warthog crashed near the Strait of Hormuz after being hit by Iran. As always a lot of developments here that are taking place so I do want to bring in Peter Duran, adjunct senior fellow there at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Peter as always thank you so much for taking the time to be here. Thank you Josh. And first off I want to ask you about that warning there that we just brought you that was issued by President Trump kind of an ultimatum saying 48 hours to make a deal or open the Strait of Hormuz or that's it quote unquote all hell will rain down. What do you make of that statement overall coming in? Well this is on brand for President Trump. He's been very clear and if there's one message that the Islamic Republic should internalize it's don't call President Trump's bluff. He has been consistent. He sets out a timeline. He says this is how long we have to negotiate. Once that timeline expires President Trump acts. Here's where we are right now. If it feels that we have turned a corner in this war it's because we have. President Trump is now in the end game phase of military operations. He has given the clerical regime in Tehran every opportunity not to get bombed and the longer they continue to resist the harder the bombing will go. I want to ask you a little bit about that ongoing search there for the pilot. One of two pilots who was involved in that crash that took place just yesterday. Again we do have these images that are coming in from Iranian state media on X via Fox News where you can see what is believed to be the aftermath or what they're claiming I should say is the aftermath of all of that. So when this search is underway and you hear Iranian state media report to civilians they are saying hey go out and find this pilot and we'll give you a quote precious prize. What does that say about Iran's thoughts on civilians and the fact that maybe they would actually help protect these Americans if they were able to find them? More importantly than that Josh, what is the clerical regime going to use to pay for a prize? Right now the Iranian rial is worth less than zero. So they're certainly not going to be paying out in money. Here's the more important point though. We have an American pilot who is out there we're praying for that pilot right now. Obviously all thoughts and hearts and hopes are with that pilot but let us also recall the level of casualties we have taken given the 5,000 or so sorties that have been conducted over the skies of Iran. The level of casualties we've taken, the two aircraft we've lost to hostile fire is very low. In fact it demonstrates that this is one of the best if I can say it that way conflicts we've ever conducted when we measure the number of aircraft we've lost. And of course important to note we have heard from President Trump. He spoke in primetime on Wednesday night and addressed all of this. Spoke about 20 minutes in length. Can you break down for folks out there some of what you took away from his remarks? Because a big part of that was saying that Iran's military has been essentially obliterated, decimated there. That's right Josh and here's the important part about President Trump's speech. He took the opportunity to talk to the American public and lay out in a very formal setting exactly what his goals are, how we are achieving them and what he expects the outcome to be. He has said this informally at press gaggles, getting on and off aircraft etc. But he took the opportunity to speak from the White House and lay out his plan. I was very encouraged by what President Trump said simply because it was a straightforward message to the American public. We are going to destroy the clerical regime's ability to export tear to threaten its neighbors and if anyone wants to negotiate with us we're happy to talk. But as you see right there President Trump is running out of patience. The clock is ticking for this regime and their options are rapidly limiting Josh. What about any unknowns? What are maybe some of the major unknowns at this point as we are today marking five weeks since the Operation Epic Fury began? The major unknown right now is how long the Strait of Hormuz is going to remain so-called closed. The remnants of the clerical regime have the ability to threaten but not necessarily forcefully close the Strait of Hormuz to commercial shipping. Right now all eyes are on this vital choke point and I really want to see exactly how the United States demonstrates its ability to escort convoys to show that we will not be threatened and the global commons as it's called shall remain open. Right now what you're looking at is some of the video that came in a bit earlier on today from the Israel Defense Forces showing yet another strike taking place over there in Tehran. They of course say that they have been targeting these military buildings, infrastructure, weapons production areas, all of those different locations there and you can see an explosion on your screen again coming in from the Israeli military a bit earlier on today. What is the coordination like right now between the U.S. and Israel? You and I have spoken about this over the past several weeks and really over the last several months I would say. So what is the current coordination? Has it changed in any way at all? Well this is the real lesson we have learned from this war so far. Israel has proven itself to be America's model ally. Now President Trump's national security strategy, his national defense strategy, it's already laid that out very explicitly saying Israel is America's model ally. In this operation Israel has demonstrated just that. It has shown that it is not the kind of ally that asks America to fight its wars for them but it is the kind of ally that helps us win ours. It has been remarkable and frankly Josh if we look around the world, if we look to Taiwan, if we look to other countries in Europe, we want to replicate the kind of relationship flying wingtip to wingtip, sharing fuel, intelligence and carefully selected fire on this clerical regime. We want to replicate that around the world. As far as any sort of end to this conflict, this war that's going on again, I keep saying it but today marks five weeks since Operation Epic Fury began. Of course Israel calling it Operation Roaring Lion. Do you see any end in sight? We know that Pakistan has said that it is acting as a mediator at this point then we hear from Iranian officials saying we are not going to take part in any of this. So is there an end in sight or is that not going to happen? I would be very cautious about putting too much hope in the Pakistan, we'll call it the Pakistani option to negotiate an end to this conflict. Josh if I had to wager one dollar on the outcome I'd say we have about 12 days left of active combat operations and then President Trump will make the decision whether or not he wants to continue. Eventually the oil market, the stock market and Congress will weigh in. After about 12 days that's when I think the real decision point will come. How do experts typically verify or challenge claims that are coming in from either side of a conflict here? We mentioned that these photos and I'm going to pop them up once again are from Iranian state media. They claim that they show the aftermath of that aircraft being shot down yesterday. We know as reports started to come in initially about this there was a lot of skepticism because you can't always believe what Iranian state media is saying, what they're putting out there. So how does the U.S., how do other agencies, departments, all of that go about determining whether or not something is true or very far from true? Josh there are two wars that are happening simultaneously right now. One is the war on the battlefield, it's the war in the air and skies above Iran and the other one is the war of information, the narrative war we can call it. Most of the time the Iranian regime has been proven to be wrong. They have a lot of bluster, they talk a big game but they can't back it up and oftentimes they're just lying flat out. Obviously with this downing of an American F-15 it's very sad but again given how many sorties have been flown over the skies of Iran it is remarkable that we have suffered so few casualties and lost so few aircraft. That's the important message to take away right now. What I want to do is pop this up on your screen. It's actually just coming in here from Secretary Marco Rubio, Secretary of State for the U.S. As he says until recently Hamadeh Soleimani Asfar and her daughter were green card holders living in lavishly in the United States. Asfar is the niece of deceased Iranian Major General Soleimani. She is also an outspoken supporter of the Iranian regime who celebrated attacks on Americans and referred to our country as the great Satan. This week I terminated both Asfar and her daughter's legal status and they are now in ICE custody pending removal from the United States. The Trump administration will not allow our country to become a home for foreign nationals who support anti-American terrorist regimes. What does something like that tell us about essentially the objectives here of the U.S. when it comes to ensuring that there are no people who are in the country who could potentially have any sort of connection maybe there to the current Iranian regime. Again we're talking about what appears to be the niece of Soleimani who we know was killed, taken out there by President Trump. Josh, General Qasem Soleimani was one of the most despicable human beings who has lived in many years. He was an awful person. He intentionally was responsible for killing many Americans, killing and wounding them and President Trump eliminated him and rightfully so. What Secretary Rubio is showing is that the time in which you could steal money from the Iranian regime and spend it lavishly in the West is over in the United States. We also see however that Canada and the United Kingdom and other European states have not followed suit the way we are doing here as seen from Secretary Rubio's statement. So what we are doing is closing the door to those individuals who have benefited from the parasitic regime in Iran. All right so the big question here what are you going to be watching for over the coming hours and days? You and I talk about this a lot and while we're on the air a lot of times we have different developments that come in like that post from President Trump as he issued the ultimatum but also just seeing that post coming in from Secretary Rubio. So what are you watching for as the hours progress, days and potentially weeks here? Well I'm going to be looking very closely at CENTCOM and the decision that Admiral Cooper will make. Let's recall that Admiral Cooper will make a decision at some point over the next week or so in which he's going to say Mr. President I think the risk is worth the reward to send our naval vessels into the Strait of Hormuz. Remember Josh we have been in military parlance attriting, that means breaking down, slowly attacking, slowly degrading the regime's ability to attack commercial shipping. Admiral Cooper is going to have to make a decision and that will be very simple. Is the risk worth the reward to send our naval vessels into the Strait of Hormuz? When that occurs the oil markets will cheer, the stock market will be very glad but it's going to fall to President Trump to make that call. All right and and Peter there's so much to discuss here. We've talked about this so many times and we get these developments that come in very quickly so we appreciate you joining us and helping to break all of it down. Is there anything else that you want to add? Feel free to go into detail but anything that you think maybe we missed that you want to make sure that we get out there? Well right now President Trump is employing what I would call maximum flexibility when it comes to the current state of the war. The old saying is fighting while talking, that's exactly what he's doing. We are opening up a channel of negotiations with the hope that perhaps the clerical regime will see reason. I have some low hopes that they will. I don't think they're going to accept President Trump's offer of peace. They are going to continue to fight and as we saw there with his statement they have about two days left and then whoever is remaining in charge right now won't be there for long. And of course Peter as I mentioned we're getting all of these different live images that are coming in. We've had a lot of different information developments that are happening there and I'm looking through some of the updates here trying to see if there is anything new before I let you go because you are a true expert there. As of right now no updates coming in within the last two minutes but I'm sure the second I hang up with you there will be another development there. Peter Duran there with the Foundation for Defensive Democracies. Thank you so much for taking the time to join us. Thank you Josh.