THE SHOW NOTES: Iran

Mar 02, 2026

Welcome! Donald Trump has agreed to speak to Iran’s new leadership.

🚨 BREAKING: U.S. Air Force fighter jets were mistakenly shot down by Kuwaiti air defenses.

🔥 HACK: Iranian television stations were hacked for several minutes, during which Trump and Netanyahu broadcast their messages after Israel hacked the Iranian prayer app.

🚀 COOL: Israel used its laser air defense system against rockets launched from Lebanon. - X

👉 MUST READ: Iran didn’t adapt to America’s playbook. Russia and China already have - Treviño at Fox News

‼️ YES: Half a Million Syrians Didn’t Have To Die - Commentary

🇮🇷 GO READ: The height of Iranian influence was October 6th, 2023. -X

🫏 SCOOP: Iran strikes inject chaos into Dem primaries - Axios

🛢️ STAT: Iran and Venezuela make up 17% of China’s overall oil purchases. - X

🎧 IMPORTANT: Make sure you check out my new podcast, Four Things To Know This Afternoon.

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QUOTE OF THE DAY:

Donald Trump to Jake Tapper, “We haven’t even started hitting them hard. The big wave hasn’t even happened… The big one is coming soon.”

Iran

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is dead following an unprecedented operation that utilized bleeding-edge military power and months of high-level intelligence gathering between the United States and Israel.

Details: Following the death of Ali Khamenei, the US and Israeli military have struck more than 2,000 targets inside Iran, achieving air superiority and eliminating the internal institutions responsible for last month’s brutal crackdown.

First: Jennifer Griffin now reports that, for the first time ever, the United States used “one-way attack drones” targeting the regime’s naval facilities and “underground facilities” likely associated with the nuclear program. In another first, Israel used its laser air defense system to stop Hezbollah rockets.

How we got here: As nuclear talks between Iran and the US continued before Saturday morning’s attack, the Trump administration offered Iran “free nuclear fuel forever” for civil demands, which would eliminate any excuse for Iran to continue uranium enrichment on their own. Iran declined, suggesting they were looking to buy time, which was the final straw for President Trump. This is from Axios:

The U.S. and Israel wanted to “signal that there was no imminent strike, so that Khamenei and the others would feel safe,” one Israeli intelligence official said.
A senior Trump administration official told Axios there was surprise that Khamenei wasn’t hiding underground, but added: “Even if he were below ground, we would have gotten him.”

One official notably told Axios, “Iran could have prevented this by negotiating in good faith. They didn’t.”

The Democrats’ response is worse than you think:

Oil

One of the largest oil refineries in the world was struck by an Iranian attack drone in Saudi Arabia, forcing the facility to close and driving up oil prices.

The attack on Ras Tanura, which produces 550,000 barrels of crude oil per day, forced the facility to close and could trigger direct military retaliation from the kingdom, according to sources near the AFP.

This is from Bloomberg:

The daily rate to hire very large crude carriers on their benchmark route from the Middle East to China has topped $200,000 a day, an increase of more than 600% this year to the highest since early 2020. The surge is already affecting oil prices.

JP Morgan’s take on the impact on the oil market.

“The main risk in our view remains that the regime could lose command and control over the IRGC—as highlighted by the recent attack in Oman—which would introduce a far more unpredictable and destabilizing scenario for regional oil supply and markets. Retaliation from Hezbollah could further amplify these risks. A prolonged escalation—especially if Iran applies economic pressure—could push prices much higher. We estimate that if the conflict lasts more than three weeks, GCC oil producers would exhaust storage capacity and would be forced to shut in production. Under this scenario, Brent could trade in the $100-$120 range. Given the timeline of these unknowns, we are not making changes to our existing price forecast at this stage.”

POLITICO: Putin’s friendship has limits — as Iran just found out

As Tehran was being pounded by U.S. and Israeli bombs on Saturday morning, its top diplomat dialed Moscow’s number.
On the other end of the line, according to an official Russian statement, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov offered his Iranian counterpart sympathy and promised his — verbal — support.
Iran, thus, became the latest country after Syria and Venezuela to feel firsthand what partnership with Russia does, and doesn’t, mean.

Full story at Politico.

Hegseth

"Turns out the regime who chanted 'Death to America!' and 'Death to Israel!' was gifted death from America and death from Israel."

LIVE

An Iranian Sky News Australia anchor, live on-air, said in Persian, “A message to the late Supreme Leader: You son of a b*tch, burn in Hell!"

WSJ: Israel Hacked Popular Iranian Prayer App to Urge Defections

Israel hacked a popular Iranian prayer app to send notifications to potentially millions of phones Saturday morning urging the country’s military personnel to defect from the regime and join a fight to liberate the country, according to people familiar with the matter.
The app, BadeSaba Calendar, is intended to help Muslims track prayer times and has wide reach within Iran. It has been downloaded over 5 million times from the Google Play app store alone. The burst of app notifications Saturday morning were sent in Persian and included a message that “help has arrived,” according to various screenshots posted on social media.

Full story at WSJ (paywall).

Tweets that caught my eye:

Market snapshot:

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Kathy

Mar 2

Seems that any president prior to Trump COULD have prevented Iran from building the power and weapons that they did. Because they did not, and Obama aided Iran even more, it takes a lot more to put an end to the regime. Sadly, if we let the democrats have power back in their hands, with radical islamists and "democratic socialists", aka communists being the majority, it will all be for nothing.

3 replies