CIA Hijacking - July 9, 2026

**Cenk Uygur** (0:12)
Well, The Young Turks, Cenk Uygur, Ana Kasparian with you guys. Hell with the show for you guys tonight. Really interesting developments that you might not have heard in the Graham Plattner story and the Mitch McConnell story. Is he even alive? I mean, what an amazing circumstance that we find ourselves in where we can't trust anyone in government or anyone in media. And we have to wonder whether prominent senators are even alive, okay? And speaking of people who are alive or not, unfortunately, we do have tragic news in that the war has restarted. We're going to get to that in a second, but also on tonight's show, John Kiriakou, former CIA officer, will join us. That should be a very interesting interview. He apparently thinks that I hate him.
As far as I know, that's not true. So buckle up, fascinating interview today. How are you feeling, Kaspar?

**Ana Kasparian** (1:03)
I'm feeling okay. I'm feeling okay. I have a little bit of senioritis, meaning it's my last day before I go away for a week.
So let's get the show on the road.

**Cenk Uygur** (1:13)
Let's do it. You crazy? All right, let's go to the first story.
So what you're watching here is footage of US strikes on Iran that were carried out on July 8th. By the time we're going live now, the US has struck Iran 170 times in the last two days. So the war is definitively back on. And Iran is also striking us in Jordan and many other countries where we have bases. And of course, the Israelis are thrilled about what's happening. War, war, they're psyched and obviously it's a disaster for us, Iran, and the rest of the world, and it has more facts.

**Ana Kasparian** (1:57)
I sure do, and in fact, Israel isn't satisfied with simply going to war with Iran and having multiple theaters of war in the Middle East. They're of course still talking about the likelihood of going to war against Turkey, but let's focus on Iran for the purposes of this discussion because there was some confusion today following strikes that were seen in Chabahar in southern Iran. And at first, the thinking was, well, the United States has reignited this war, so those are US strikes. But it turns out that the United States came out and said, actually no, those were not our strikes. Then Israeli media confirmed that these bombings were carried out by Kuwait and Bahrain, meaning that some of our Gulf allies have decided to retaliate against Iran, even though Iran has been striking US military bases inside these countries. There were also some strikes in Abbas, which is the capital of Iran's oil producing province. And so the strikes that have been carried out by the United States this time around appear to be a little more strategic than the seemingly indiscriminate bombing the US was engaged in at the very beginning of this war. As for Israel, DropSite News is reporting that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the war with Iran is, quote, not over. While Defense Minister Israel Katz said Israel is prepared to strike Iran again with even greater force if it deems it necessary. Katz said the Israeli military is prepared to resume fighting to regain air superiority and strike Iran again, including a third time if necessary, adding the campaign is not over. Now, it's unclear if or more importantly, when Iran will retaliate against Israel because Israel is the whole reason why this war started in the first place, but so far it doesn't appear that Iran has taken any hits at Israel. Now US Central Command said late night on Wednesday that on Wednesday they had struck about 90 military targets to further degrade Iran's ability to attack commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. In fact, if you see the locations of the various US strikes, it's very clear that these strikes are intended to weaken Iran's capability in attacking commercial vessels.
Iran's Health Ministry said at least 14 people were killed and almost 80 people were injured over the first two days of the US strikes. So I'm sure that death toll is probably going to increase in the coming days. Now, Iran said that it did hit back with missile and drone strikes targeting US military bases in Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar.
Iran says that the US targeted railway bridges on the route to the holy city of Mashhad, where of course the late supreme leader was due to be buried. And they did continue on after a short delay with the ceremonies. But Iran's foreign ministry said that the attacks, while Khamenei's six-day funeral procession was underway signified Washington's inability to comprehend the depth of Iranians' patriotism and loyalty to the revolution's ideals.