Chapter 1: What led Senator Cruz to advise President Trump on military action against Iran?
You were literally with President Trump the day before the strikes happened. Can you explain to us what the reasoning and the rationale are for this war?
I said, look, I think we should not miss this moment. America will be much, much safer. I believe the Ayatollah, if he had had a nuclear weapon, the odds are unacceptably high that he would use it. Why do you say that, Senator?
Chapter 2: What are the reasons behind the U.S. military intervention in Iran?
I don't want... to experience a world where the Ayatollah has a warhead and his only problem is, how do I get this to America to death?
There is this growing concern about the relationship between Israel and America, and that many people feel that it is not to the benefit of the United States now.
You mentioned Tucker Carlson. I believe Tucker's the most dangerous demagogue in America. Tucker interviewed Fuentes and nodded when Fuentes said his mission was to defeat global Jewry. By the way, not Israel, Jews. Do you think Cuba's next?
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Chapter 3: How does Senator Cruz view the threat of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons?
Before we start the interview proper, it's always good to ask particularly politicians about their journey, how they came to be where they are, and also how your journey influenced and shaped your views. Sure.
My journey, I'm a Texan. Like the both of you, I'm the product of my family story. For me, my hero my whole life has been my dad. My father was born in Cuba and grew up in Cuba. And as a kid, when he was 14, he began fighting the Cuban Revolution and fighting actually alongside Fidel Castro. And he did not know that Castro was a communist.
In fact, when I want to irritate my father, I will call him a communist gorilla. And he gets angry. He goes, I was not a communist. I was never a communist. But as my dad describes it, he said the revolution were a bunch of kids like him. They were 14 and 15 year old boys who didn't know any better. And Batista was was a dictator. He was corrupt. He was in bed with the mafia.
And so my father fought for several years in the revolution. And then when he was 17, they caught him and they threw him in jail and they tortured him and beat him badly. And they let him go.
Chapter 4: What insights does Cruz provide about the historical context of U.S.-Iran relations?
And at that point, my grandfather, my abuelo said, look, they know who you are. They're just going to kill you. And so my dad was a freshman at University of Havana at the time. And so he applied to three U.S. universities. He applied to University of Miami, LSU, and University of Texas, and UT let him in.
So 1957, my father takes a ferry boat from Havana to Key West, and then takes a Greyhound bus from Key West all the way to Austin, Texas. Shows up in Austin, can't speak English, has $100 in his underwear. And gets a job washing dishes, making 50 cents an hour. And he worked full time. He went to school full time.
And ended up earning a degree, going on to getting a job, starting a small business. Today, my dad's a pastor. Now, interestingly, my dad's younger sister, my tia Sonia, who just passed away a few weeks ago, and she was incredible. I called her my tia loca, my crazy aunt. She was still there after the revolution succeeded.
And so she saw that, and sadly, this is a pattern a lot of Latin America has seen, that they went as bad as Batista was, Fidel Castro was worse. And so she saw him declare that he was a communist, begin seizing people's lands, begin executing dissidents. And so Maitea Sonia fought in the counter-revolution against Castro. And she ended up being imprisoned and tortured by Castro's goons.
And that pattern, so she and my dad fought on opposite sides. When I was a little kid, I used to sit at the feet of my dad and my tia Sonia, and I would hear stories about freedom fighters. And that inspired, you know, I told that story at my tia Sonia's funeral just a few weeks ago. And I said, look, it's not often that somebody's entire life is inspired in significant part by his aunt.
But my aunt and my dad were both freedom fighters. And if you asked me as a little kid, five, six, seven years old, what do you wanna do in life? I would have said I want to fight for freedom. It's all I've ever wanted to do. And so now in the Senate, I have the incredible privilege of actually getting to do that.
And, you know, I think of the Senate as almost like the modern day Coliseum, where you strap on your armor and you go fight the barbarians.
And so there's no shortage. Senator, what do you know about communism that most Americans don't with your background?
Communism is the most evil, twisted, depraved ideology mankind has ever produced.
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Chapter 5: What are the implications of the military conflict for U.S. national security?
It has resulted in more murder, more suffering, more torture, more poverty, more misery than any ideology. It is unequivocally evil. I hate communists, and I don't hide it. They are everywhere that darkness has touched. It has oppressed and it is empowered. By the way, for the communists, look, Fidel Castro lived like a billionaire. Putin lives like he's a billionaire.
I mean, it's very good to be an uncontrollable despot. It just sucks for everybody else. And so I think defeating communism is incredibly important now. And it is communism is the antithesis of human liberty, of free enterprise, of individual freedom.
So, Senator, moving forward now to talk about the conflict in Iran, you were literally with President Trump the day before the strikes happened. Can you explain to us what the reasoning and the rationale are for this war?
Sure. Look, I I urge the president to launch this attack. As you noted, I was with him pretty much the entire day on Friday before the attack launched on Saturday. And so we were on Air Force One. We were flying down to Texas to Corpus Christi at a big event planned in Corpus Christi. So I was on the plane with him. And then he asked asked me to hop in in the beast, the presidential limo.
And it was just the two of us one on one. And pretty much the whole time, he was asking me what I thought we should do on Iran. And I said, look, I think we should not miss this moment. I think the regime is weaker than it ever has been. And we have an opportunity, if we can collapse this regime, America will be much, much safer. There are very few things
on planet Earth that would do more to improve American national security as much as seeing this regime collapse. And he asked me in The Beast, he said, well, look, do you think we should negotiate further? And I said, no.
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Chapter 6: How does Cruz compare the current situation in Iran to past conflicts?
I said, I don't believe they're negotiating in good faith. They are liars. I think the Ayatollah just wants to delay and delay and delay while they rebuild. And I said, as far as I'm concerned, the only deal you should be willing to take is the same deal you offered Maduro.
And Trump offered Maduro if he wanted to leave the country, he could go into exile, and he would be allowed to live out the rest of his days if he left and exited. And Maduro said no, and I suspect Maduro regrets saying no now. And I said, I could live with that deal for the Ayatollah, to give him and the mullahs the same choice. You can leave, And allow a new regime to come to power in Iran.
Or if you don't leave, the alternative is going to be a less than pleasant one. And so in terms of what are the objectives, I'll break it into two categories. Number one, what are the objectives the administration has stated? And number two, what I think the objective should be. So the administration has stated that the objective is to degrade the military so that they cannot strike out.
And so we've seen in the two and a half weeks that this military conflict has been ongoing. We've seen, number one, their air defenses essentially completely eliminated. We've seen their short and medium term, medium range missiles destroyed. all but completely eliminated as well. We've seen the missiles taken out. We've seen the missile launchers taken out.
We've seen the manufacturing capacity for new missiles taken out. Same thing for drones. We've taken out the drones, the launching facilities and the manufacturing.
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Chapter 7: What role does Senator Cruz believe Israel plays in U.S. foreign policy?
All of that has been taken out. We've also taken out almost the entirety of the Iranian Navy. The result has been that we have near complete air dominance over Iran. There's nothing Iran can do about it. And we have decapitated the regime. Obviously, the Ayatollah is gone. We've taken out many of the senior senior leaders in the regime. You keep having new leaders appointed.
That's how the administration has described their objectives. And on the terms of those objectives, I think they've accomplished a lot. The administration has not articulated its objective as regime change. And look, there's an obvious reason for that, which is after the Iraq war, I think people are wary of the words regime change. Understandably, for good reason.
The Iraq war, I think the Iraq war was a mistake, and I'm happy to talk about that and compare and contrast this to Iran. I, however, think our objective should be unequivocally collapsing this regime. And in my view, the decision to launch this attack was the most consequential decision President Trump has made in his second term.
Iran has been at war with the United States for 47 years since the Islamic Revolution, which began by seizing Americans and holding them hostage for 444 days. So that's how they started this journey. Iran, for the entirety of that time, has been the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism. They provide over 90% of the funding to Hamas, Hezbollah, to the Houthis.
They've killed nearly 1,000 Americans over that time. The Ayatollah hired not one but two squads of hitmen to try to murder President Trump.
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Chapter 8: What are the potential future scenarios for Iran and Cuba according to Cruz?
And I think an Iran that had a government that was not led by a radical Islamist who leads mobs chanting death to America, an Iran that had a government that was not actively trying to murder Americans, and by the way, succeeding, killing Americans year after year after year, that would be a much safer world for the United States and for our allies. And so I think that should be the objective.
Senator, I agree with you on that. Personally, I think Francis and I both thought that the 12-day war was a sensible thing to do if you could get the nuclear material. It seems that that didn't quite happen based on some of the satellite imagery and the fact that the United States is attacking again. But you're right.
And I think, you know, our conversations here in the United States with all kinds of people show this. The words regime change send shivers down a lot of spines. Rightly so. Understandably. So what is what is the vision of how because Iranian regime terrible. I don't think there's anyone in the world who disagree with that.
But there's one thing to get rid of them and another thing to replace them. What's what is the end goal here?
So let me I'm going to answer your question, but let me stop you when you said you don't think there's anyone in the world that would disagree. Sure, there's some people in the world. And by the way, there are some people who are not very far away from us. Most of the Senate Democrats look during the four years of Joe Biden.
The Biden administration flowed over one hundred billion dollars to Iran to keeping the regime in office. In a very real sense, the Biden administration was the most important funder for Iran. And Iran in turn was funding terrorists who were killing Americans, including the atrocities of October 7th.
In a very real way, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris flowed the money to Iran that paid for the training of those death squads. And so at some point, look, I understand Senate Democrats like to say, oh, we don't like the Ayatollah. You know what? If you give someone $100 billion, you don't dislike him that much. Like at the end of the day, actions speak louder than words.
And by the way, Barack Obama... has written in his memoir how when the Green Revolution was happening during Obama's presidency, that he made a very deliberate decision. Don't stand with the protesters. Don't encourage the protesters. Instead, support the regime. And so that the Democrat Party as an ideological matter. doesn't want to see the regime fall. And they're perfectly happy.
They've been happy to flow billions of dollars to them. Now, how do we get this regime to collapse? I think what we're doing right now is very effective. A combination of military pressure, removing their ability to wage war. What I have called for, I do not know if we're doing it, is arming the protesters. And I'll give you a story as to why.
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