Hegseth & Caine provide update on the Iran War (04-08-2026--Hour2)

What's going on. Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to three on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all of the links, become a patron, go to thepetecleanershow dot com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button. Get every episode for free right to your smartphone or tablet, And again, thank you so much for your support. So this morning, Defense Secretary or Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, along with the Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Raisin Kane Dan Kane, they held a press briefing at the Pentagon to comment on give an update on the Iran war, but also the ceasefire. So we'll take a listen to what they had to say. Iran has been a threat to the United States and the free world for forty seven years, chance of death to America, targeting our people, killing Americans, lying and blackmailing. Their way toward a nuclear weapon. So they thought. No longer, not on our watch. Other presidents marked time and kick the can down the road. President Trump made history from the strike that took out Kasum Sulimani, to tearing up the disastrous Obama Iran Deal, to the precision campaign that obliterated Iran's nuclear sites in Operation Midnight Hammer, to the decisive military victory we. Just achieved in Operation Epic Fury. No other president has shown the courage and resolve of this commander in chief. President Trump forged this moment. Iran begged for this ceasefire, and we all know it as the President truth. This morning a big day for world peace. Iran wants it to happen. They've had enough. Operation Epic Fury was a historic and overwhelming victory on the battlefield, A capital v military victory by any measure. Epic Fury decimated Iran's military and rendered it combat ineffective for years to come. You see, in less than forty days, one of our combatant commands Central Commands sent Colm, using less than ten percent of America's total combat power, dismantled one of the world's largest militaries, the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism, proved utterly incapable of defending. Itself, its people, or its territory. We untied just a fraction of our strength, and Iran suffered a devastating military defeat. Together with our Israeli. Partners, America's achieved every single objective, on plan, on schedule exactly is laid out from day one. Iran's navy is at the bottom of the sea, whether it's the Solomony Class, their Frigate class, their prized drone, aircraft carriers, submarines, mind layers sunk. Iran's air force has been wiped out. Iran no longer has an air defense any sort of a comprehensive air defense system. We own their skies. Their missile program is functionally destroyed. Launchers, production facilities, and existing stockpiles depleted and decimated and almost completely ineffective. Iran shot hundreds and hundreds of missiles and attack one way attack drones. At our aircraft carrier. They were obsessed with it, and they never got even close. Every single one of those shots easily shot down miles and miles away from the Air Blincoln. They were blowing Ammo into fantasyland. Contrast that with most significantly, in last night's wave of more than eight hundred strikes, we finished completely destroying Iran's defense industrial base, a core pillar of our mission objective. What little they have left. Buried in bunkers is all they will have. They can still shoot, we know that their command and control is so decimated they can't really talk and coordinate. So they still may shoot here and there, but that would be very, very unwise. But they can no. Longer build missiles, build rockets, build launchers, or build UAVs. Their factories have been raised to the ground, set back in historic fashion. You see, had Iran refused our terms, the next targets would have been their power plants, their bridges, and oil and energy infrastructure, targets they could not defend and could not realistically rebuild. It would have taken them decades, and we were locked and loaded. They couldn't defend against it. President Trump had the power to cripple Iran's entire economy in minutes, but he chose. He chose mercy. He spared those targets because Iran accepted the cease fire under overwhelming pressure. The new Iranian regime understood that a deal was far better than the fate that awaited them. This new regime just happened to look at what happened to their predecessors. Their top leadership was systematically eliminated, their previous Iranian Supreme Leader dead, the Supreme National Security Council secretary dead, the Supreme Leader Office advisor dead, the Supreme Leader Military Office chief dead, the Defense Minister no longer with us, the IRGC commander dead, the Armed Forces General staff commander dead, the Intelligence Minister dead, the IRGC Navy commander no longer here, the IRGC Intel Chief. I mean, there's like fifty two of these guys. I skipped over a bunch, and I could go on and on and on to include the new so called new Supreme Leader. Wounded and disfigured. This new regime was out of options and out of time, so they cut a deal. They know this agreement means that they will never ever possess a nuclear weapon. Under the terms, any nuclear material they should have will be removed, and a material excuse me, they should not have will be removed. Right now, their dust is deeply buried and watched twenty four to seven overhead. The President has been clear from the beginning there will be no Iranian nuclear weapons period, full stop. Other presidents said it, President Trump did it. Operation Epic Fury less than six weeks clear, mission, decisive action, overwhelming firepower, America. First, a historic battlefield victory. For decades, Iran killed Americans with roadside bombs in Iraq, using cowardly proxies to do their dirty work while they hid safely in Tehran. They struck our embassies with car bombs and attacked from the shadows, never daring to face us toe to toe. They thought they could bleed America with impunity. Well they just learned the hard way what happens when you try to fight us directly. And even when they got lucky one time in forty days and down two of our pilots, they. Couldn't hold them. In a daring fourteen hour rescue operation, seven hours in daylight and seven hours of night, both pilots were recovered safely, not once, but twice. A daylight thunder run right up the middle of their country, boots on the ground, a midnight raid right up the middle of their country, boots on the ground, zero American casualties. The Iranians humiliated and demoralized. We control their fate, not the other way around. That's why they came to the table. Iran's defeat is America's retribution for every American loss to Iranian terror, especially those brave troops killed by Iranian made roadside bombs in Iraq that my generation knows so well, and for the suffering their regime has inflicted around the world. Now we have a chance at real peace and a real deal. The War Department, for now, for now, has done its part. We stand ready in the background to ensure Iran upholds every reasonable term. And as everyone knows, nobody makes a better deal than President Trump. All right, I'm gonna pause it right there. He's got some more comments and we'll hear from General Kine as well. All Right, if you're listening to this show, you know I try to keep up with all sorts of current events, and I know you do too, And you've probably heard me say get your news from multiple sources. Why well, because it's how you detect media bias, which is why I've been so impressed with ground News. It's an app and it's a website, and it combines news from around the world in one place, so you can compare coverage and verify information. You can check it out at check dot ground, dot news slash pete. I put the link in the podcast description too. I started using ground News a few months ago and more recently chose to work with them as an affiliate because it lets me see clearly how stories get covered and by whom. The blind Spot feature shows you which stories get ignored by the left and the right. See for yourself. Check dot Ground dot News slash Pete. Subscribe through that link and you'll get fifteen percent off any subscription. I use the Vantage plan to get unlimited access to every feature. Your subscription then not only helps my podcast, but it also supports Ground News as they make the media landscape more transparent. Sure, why not? Hello, Sean, Welcome to the program. Peter, how you doing? It's Pete, But I'm doing well. We got this, We got this white president l Pierre bragging about what we did. But what well, who's still in charge over there? Overwhere? In Iran? And Iran? You could kill all of them. This is what white people don't understand, this president and this. Wow, that's so racist. Anythink about it? Yeah? This because he's no you're racist, Sean. You're looking. Yeah, you just said all white people don't understand. That's kind of stupid. The guy, the guy to answer the phone me and him is real cool. I like him, you know, I mean him is real cool. That doesn't That doesn't obviate what you said. So let me let me you think all white people think think the same way. Well, when they want to dominate somebody to take they all like that, like this this country being doing for Iran. You got to go back before nineteen seven nine and other history with this country in the ran. So just don't all you white people just think about nineteen seventy nine, go back before nineteen seventy nine? What is trunt? You try to take this? Oh and they had a dominant president over there. Yeah are you talking about Yeah, you're talking You're you're talking about muscle deck right, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So you want to show do you remember what do you want to tell the story about what he did? Well, I just don't a little bit. You're the smart guy. No, what did he do? You You told me that all white people don't know this stuff, and so you should know it to say what it is that all white people should know. Well, only thing you didn't want to hear know their history from nineteen seventy nine when they win the No, no. No, don't tell me what we don't know. I want to know the thing that you know as a non white person is yeah, they had. A president over there just like just like everything in nineteen fifty three, they didn't want the British and Americans come over there and take they or they said no, so they. Got the CIA, got some people come over there and get the Shaw over there to try to take over the oil with they Solvegnant people like this country want people to be solvenant, so they try to. Take the oil and they said no, okay, so bad's all right' So okay, so we'll work with the construct that you've provided. So the right. So it's bad to take people's oil, right, it's bad to seize the property of others. That's what this country. That's what this country been doing on all of okay. So Sewan, you realize, hang on, Sean, Sean, hang on, hang on. So not only prior to nineteen fifty three, not only was that leader a tyrant, but also he began stealing the the businesses that had built the entire oil infrastructure. You know that right. He nationalized all of the investments that were made by the private sector. He stole them. That's what prompted the color that's what prompted the the overthrow of Mosadek, right, that was the that was the installation. Of the shop. And I tried to come and put one of their guys up. Yeah the shot people said yeah, and they said no. So my point no, no, no no, So then you had no. So then you had leftists in Iran band together with the Islamists because the leftists wanted to steal the private property of the businesses that built all of the plants and stuff. The leftists then made common cause this is the Red Green Alliance. They then banded together with the Islamists and they worked to overthrow the shaw and then the Islamists when and slaughtered all the leftists and took control of the country. And that's like this, son, let me tell you this. Don't people don't care about don He can stood up there brag about how many people we killed. He could kill one hundred thousand of them. They kill their own people. So we need to get off that bragging about how many people we killed. He's talking about they want to go to take over the regime. They haven't done that, so we need to get over. They have not said no, they've not said that they want to take over the regime. They've made that very clear. That's what your bresident said when he first bombed. He said, we won't take all the mugine. We want a new Virginia. No no, no, no, no, no no no. Sean, Sean hang on, Sean hang on. They listed Sean, they listed the objectives. Do you remember what the objectives were? What he said, just to kill? No, no, no, the right, the objectives. The objectives were removed the nuclear program, right, decapitate the navy, the army, destroyed the army and the navy, and remove their ability to threaten the neighbors with theiralistic missiles and their drones. Right, And that's what they're doing there. But that's what and that's so, that's what they've done. Now he Now they also added, look if the regime falls, because that's so what Israel wants is for regime change, right, so they did the decapitation strikes, and so if if the regime falls, the American government has said that would probably be better. We would, yeah, sure, definitely have another uh government that we can negotiate with. That's not you know, threatening all of their neighbors. That's more peace loving. Absolutely, that would be preferable. But that's not one of our objectives. That was ejected. Dumb dumb say that when he first wak. He did not. No, We've covered I've covered this for the last five weeks, Sean. He did not say what you met, Sean. I would submit that maybe you are hearing things that you believe to be true because of who is saying. It station all day. No, no, no, no, I'm. Not talking about the radio station, Sean. Sean. I'm not talking Sean. I'm not talking about radio stations. I'm saying I think you are hearing things because you hate Trump so much. You're hearing things that he says. He you don't even hear me. You're like, you're just not even. That's not even in my bocabulary. I hate nobody. I'm not like you. Yeah, I hate. It's not in my bocaulary. No, yeah, I'm sure. Yeah. Let me it's not. Let me make this last one. Yeah, sure about all white people and such, chest. Let me, let me, let me let y'all understand these white people understand. In nineteen seventy nine, I read this like I do read Besides, there was some black people and what did shall say? We ain't got nothing to do with y'all. We gonna let y'all go. So I don't have anything to get I hate for no people that they killing. I pray for them. Maybe they will change. But I don't have no problem. I don't I don't have him my hatred towards Ran. They ain't done nothing to me. They ain't done nothing to me. You need to look at this country to say, hey, this country. Had been doing Oh thank you Sean. There is another example of the demoralization syop right, Iran's never done anything to me personally, So I mean, yeah, they may have killed thousands of people over the years, kidnapped our people, held them as hostage, funded all the terrorist groups, but not me personally. So it's like kindergarten level thinking here. You know. Stories are powerful. They help us make sense of things, to understand experiences. Stories connect us to the people of our past while transcending generations. They help us process the meaning of life, and our stories are told through images and videos. Preserve your stories with Creative Video started in nineteen ninety seven and Minhill, North Carolina. It was the first company to provide this valuable service, converting images, photos and videos into high quality produced slideshows, videos and albums. The trusted, talented and dedicated team at Creative Video will go over all of the details with you to create a perfect project. Satisfaction guaranteed. Drop them off in person or mail them. They'll be ready in a week or two. Memorial videos for your loved ones, videos for rehearsal, dinners, weddings, graduations, Chris family vacations, birthdays, or just your family stories, all told through images. That's what your photos and videos are. They are your life told through the eyes of everyone around you and all who came before you, and they will tell others to come who you are. Visit creative video dot com. Oh, Sean Sewn Shawn Sean. So here's what happens. Whenever I let Sean get on the airwaves, he says stupid things, and people then yell at me for letting him on the airwaves, asking why, oh why do you put him on? And I get that. I explain this every time, though, is so you can hear a real world example of how these arguments are used against us. Right. Sewn is not the best ambassador for the argument, to be sure, but he does say these things that the left says and so you need to hear what the left says and then the response, right, how to respond to something that is being you know, promoted. And this is as I mentioned in the first hour, we are all in the psychological battle space here. Okay, there are foreign state actors, there are you know, influencers, quote unquote, there are a lot of people on the planet that are trying to demoralize the West, to make us hate ourselves, make us hate our country, make us not be proud of anything. Right, Sean articulates all of those demoralization effort efforts. He articulates all of it, right, even the thing that he said there at the very end. This is now one of the points that the Iranian regime is pushing out and the demoralizers keep pushing, which is that they released women and blacks from the embassy when they storm the embassy in seventy nine, and they they kidnapped and held hostage the it was right, it was about fifty or fifty five people, I forget the exact number. And at some point they then released women and black captives hostages. And you know why they said that was because they were oppressed by the oppressors. This is always the lens, people like, there's a reason why, like the Islamic regime is in an Islamo Marxist regime. That's why the left loved them so much. When the Ayahtola was saying, you know, we're all overthrow the shaw, We're going to bring in Marxism and all of this, the oppressor, oppressed lens is what they were applying, and that's why that's what they said. And so Sean parrots the Marxist propaganda that comes from the Islama regime, that came from the Iyahtola. That's why they did it because they know people like Sean, we'll parrot that line back to us, and then we'll feel bad. We'll feel like, oh, our culture isn't worth defending because it's look, you cannot beat us militarily. I mean, I think that's been on display pretty well for the last five weeks. And so what the Soviets always knew was that you got to demoralize him from the inside. And luckily, there are a lot of useful idiots their words, Lenin's word, his term, there are a lot of useful idiots that we can util that we can utilize to advance our aims. So that's why I entertain Sean, and sometimes I don't like He'll call in and I'll see him and he's wanting to talk about something that's silly or off topic or whatever, and I don't take him. So let's see here. This is Allen on the text line. Buck Sexton's book Manufacturing Delusion covers a lot of this interesting and says the Iranian regime don't oppress women, right exactly. Bebop in rock Thrill says, you can always paint yourself as a hero when you claim to decide with the victims and stand against the oppressors. Yes, right, you're the hero because you're defending the oppressed. You're liberating the oppressed. Remember, the issue is never the issue. The issue is always the revolution. That's you just plug and play. Whatever it is, whether it's you know, race or gender or you know the people's resources, it doesn't matter. It's always oppress or oppressed. Johnny wants to know if Sean is a paid personality. No, I do not pay him, but Johnny loves when he is on nine eight zero number. Says, I thought you were schooling Sean until he said nineteen seventy nine like twenty five times and totally redeemed himself. Seven O four Number says, when it comes to Iran opening the Straits of Hormuz, here's a tactic we haven't tried in a while. Maybe Trump should lean into the microphone and whisper, don't Yeah, that worked last time, right, didn't it? I think? Right? End with the illegal immigration. That's what Kamala Harris said too, don't come, don't right. Rick says, Sean can't hear because his mouth won't stop running. Josh says, tds alive and well. Bob says liberals have to rationalize any conservative win with false beliefs of history. Sean almost makes me miss winsday. Okay, well that's not true, Jordan. Come on now, Pete had his ball of yarn with Sean. Yes see, that's like. That's the other thing too. There's an old joke. Never argue with a political science major, because at some point you realize they like it, you know, they enjoy it. That's yes, every time I hear that gentlemen speak, I can feel my IQ draining from my ears. Joey says, as someone who has followed the Iranian mess since nineteen seventy nine. Hearing the Secretary of War say dead when referencing the Ayatola and his thugs, that's an answered prayer and warms the heart. Frank says, if Iran's military is decimated, how can Iran still open and close the straight? So, okay, there's not like any kind of a gait or anything. There are a bunch of boats that now don't have insurance because the insurance liability companies and then I think they call them P. And I clubs. I think there are six or seven of them. They said we are no longer ensuring boats going in that area, and so if there's no insurance, then they can't move their vessels. And so if this ends up breaking the lock that oh, actually I think there are only three. There's like Tokyo, London, and there's another one someplace I forget where the third one. I think it's like it's Middle East maybe, And if so, then we became the insurer. See, so we are leveraging the situation in order to gain control over that aspect as well. Here's a great idea. How about making an escape to a really special and secluded getaway in western North Carolina, Just a quick drive up the mountain and Cabins of Asheville is your connection. 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Call or text eight two, eight, three, six, seven seventy sixty eight or check out all there is to offer at cabins Offashville dot com and make memories that'll last a lifetime. Let me get Tara on real quick. Here, Hello Tara, Welcome to the program. Haytie. I at first said, I think you put them on Fire Entertainment, which is very entertaining. Then my heart finally got back to a different level because I've heard Sean many years. I think he's one of the only people that doesn't know, you know God. He's talked about God. You know, you got two ears and one mouth the entire time you were talking. He talks over I hope and pray he's not married, but you don't you I like having him on, but he does drive me. Just listen every now and then, Shawn or study reed. No, he says he does. And part of Sean's problem is that he tries to and there are others that do this too. He tries to slip insults into a larger argument that he's like ramping up to, and so when he drops the insults in there, he thinks, for some reason that I'm not going to drag him back to the insult and get him to defend that first, like, that's I just take what he says as it starts. And so he always tries to throw in these insults for and it usually derails his, uh, his train of thought. I think, well, that's what I think you're great at, and I think it's entertaining. I just have to I'm glad I wasn't driving. I would have pulled over. But he really confirms what you say when you talk about when you talk with us, you know what, idiot And then you get in the conversation with them. You just kind of let him talk. Yes, he doesn't, that's all he does is talk. Yeah, I love it. Thanks, I hate it at the same time. All right, I appreciate that, Tarah. I understand. It's kind of like it's like medicine. You know, it may not taste great, but you know it's it's good for you. And like I said, it's good to hear a real world, real time example of the psy op being run, so you when you hear it and you can identify it as it's occurring, right, because they want you to feel bad. That's the point. It's to demoralize, right. This from da on the text line, Trump never wanted to destroy infrastructure. He's purposefully, purposely mostly avoided it because he wants a free Iran to be able to recover quickly and start enjoying the prosperity that has been stolen from the Iranian people for fifty years. So when inevitably this truce fails, I don't think he will target the power plants, et cetera. Maybe some substations, but not destruction of main municipal plants. What will happen is we'll take control of Carg Island, which, by the way, we Hegseth said that we ran like eight hundred missions last night, so like right before the ceasefire is announced, like we were like finishing off these the defense industrial base, right, get all of that stuff cleared out, and then it's like, okay, ceasefire. But we we hit Carg Island yesterday or two days ago, fifty strikes, taking out the military installations on the island. So da we'll take control of Carg Island. This will strangle the Mullas economically because ninety percent of oil is exported from there. We will put troops on islands in the Strait, probably on shore, with probably some troops from Gulf States and take control of the Strait. When this happens, it is game over for the Mullas. Right. We took out their petrochemical plants, right, which was a big factor in there. It's like thirty five percent of their revenue. Right. Because the IRGC and the Mullahs embedded themselves in every facet of that society because Marxism, right, they control all of these industries, all of these sectors, and so that made these things targets. And they've been robbing the Iranian people for half a century. And they use the money to pay themselves, and they use the money to fund their proxy armies to buy weapons, to get raced towards the nuclear weapon. And so you deprive them of their funding, you dismantle all of that. You can't generate revenue. The currency is already in the toilet. People can't feed themselves. They haven't been working, right, Like, at some point you end up with a revolution against you. Now will it be successful? Well, that's why we have a second amendment here. But they don't over there, So hopefully we got them some weaponry. This is why they came to the talks yesterday. They are really worried about losing control of CARG, and we just hit the island defenses again. And they know Trump has been talking about CARG since the nineteen eighties. This is my prediction. I think that's a pretty sound prediction. I don't know if they're going to take out the power plants or the you know, electric generating plants. I don't know if they will actually do that, but he threatened bridges and power plants, and so maybe that's the that's the deflection, right, that's the faint haha, you fell for that. Meanwhile, we're taking CARG. All right. That'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast, so if you'd like, please support them too and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to dpecleanershow dot com. Again, thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.