John Hayward, Breitbart National Security Editor Joins!

**Nigel** (0:00)
It's The Hammer and Nigel Show. My name is Nigel Jason Hammer is here. We'll go straight to the hotline and bring on Breitbart's National Security Deputy Editor John Hayward. Oh my goodness, what a difference a couple of weeks makes. We haven't talked to you for a couple of weeks, John. You're covering all things I ran in the United States.
What in the world? So we've had this memorandum of understanding. We've had a ceasefire, the ceasefire is off, the ceasefire is on. Well, I have no idea what is going on right now at this point, but I do understand that it's very volatile and very important, even to our listeners here in the middle of the United States. Can you maybe fill us in on the latest between Iran and the United States?

**John Hayward** (0:43)
Well, it seems like we fought at least six wars with Iran since the last time I talked to you. It's been up and down quite a bit, but basically what happened most recently was that they supposedly had an agreement between the US and Iran called the Memorandum of Understanding. And among other things, it obliged Iran to allow shipping to pass through the Strait of Hormuz, which is this vital waterway that Iran is trying to control. And Iran started shooting at ships in the Strait of Hormuz earlier this week. They attacked at least three tankers and damaged one of them quite severely. And the US said, well, that's it, you violated the agreement. So we launched about 90 to 100 punitive strikes across Iran over the last couple of days. And then President Trump said after doing that, they're calling me, they want to make a deal again. So we're going to resume some kind of negotiations. But Trump did say, you know, we've been here before, but Trump did say he did not consider the ceasefire to be in effect as of today. He broke the ceasefire. It's still broken. But we're going to talk.

**Nigel** (1:38)
What military? I'm curious, because I keep on hearing that Donald Trump and the the administration, the Pentagon, the military has decimated Iran's ability to respond. What military capabilities does Iran possess that concerns the Pentagon planners the most?

**John Hayward** (1:59)
Well, they still have a lot of short-range missiles and drones. Iran is a specialist at creating these very low-cost, easily constructed, one-way kamikaze drones. And they still have quite a few of those. They still have an arsenal of short-range missiles. And they have this bunch of little boats, little motor boats, which Iran itself refers to as the mosquito fleet. And those boats are, you know, tiny, but they can still be a huge threat to a slow-moving shipping tanker that is not ready to fight off a boarding party or deal with shoulder-launch missiles or anything that those boats would throw at them. So, they still have significant threats to tankers, which are very vulnerable.

**Nigel** (2:33)
And then you mentioned that the Strait of Hormuz, is that actually a sustainable strategy for Iran or more of a just kind of a temporary disruption?

**John Hayward** (2:48)
There has been a lot of head-scratching over that. It's a very narrow waterway. Iran has a huge coastline along the Strait. So, you know, between mines, missiles and their drones and so on, it's really not hard for them to terrorize shipping the way they've been doing. And it has been hard for us to stop them. But these last couple days of attacks, these 90 strikes that we are act up over the last few days, have seemed to be a little different than anything we previously did. They're hitting power, infrastructure, trade, bridges, roads, and some other things Iran can't deal with. And the US. National Command said that we shot a whole bunch of those little boats out of the water. We probably didn't get them all. But I think we blew away enough of them to make the Iranians a little nervous about the mosquito boat strategy. I wouldn't want to be on one of those boats if I was them.

**Nigel** (3:30)
And when you hear that Iran know they want to make a deal, they want to come back and make a deal, are you rolling your eyes like I can almost hear you rolling your eyes, John? We're speaking with Breitbart's National Security Deputy Editor John Hayward. Just like I hear Donald Trump rolling his eye, oh, they want to make a deal now? Yeah, sure, they want to make a deal.
Is there a deal to be made at this point?

**John Hayward** (3:54)
Well, I think two days ago, President Trump himself said the Iranians were evil, crazy, and cuckoo, I believe was this exact word. And there was no way to make a deal with people that are like that. And now he says we are going to talk to them about something. He sounds a little different this time, that the talks he's talking about are technical, as he puts it. So maybe he's still hoping to upset the regime, tip the apple cart, maybe disempower their military over there. I'm not sure what the play is. But one really interesting development today is that a bunch of explosions were reported across Iran. And our guys, the US Central Command, said we didn't do it. So whatever that was, that could have been some kind of an insurgent movement, or it could have been the other Middle Eastern countries that Iran keeps attacking, finally getting sick to death of them and beginning to counterattack. They've been hitting Bahrain, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar. They've been bombing all of their neighbors throughout this and they keep accusing them of harboring Americans and they claim this is what they're shooting at. So if those countries have finally had it and they're going to start counterattacking against Iran, that would be a game changer.