Bill O’Reilly told NewsNation’s Leland Vittert Monday night about a brief phone call he had with President Trump.

BILL O’REILLY: Earlier today, very briefly, I texted with President Trump. He doesn’t want to use American air power at this point, because that would cause some problems with China and Putin. He would rather have the Iranians surrender-which he believes they will. That’s what he believes: that the Mullahs are through. They will have to sign a deal. The deal will be that weapons inspectors go to every facility working on the nukes. They identify what they have, and then the Iranians themselves, under United Nations supervision, will destroy a lot of their arsenal. That’s what the deal would entail. Mullahs don’t want to do that, obviously, President Trump believes it will happen. LEELAND VITTERT, NEWSNATION: Why does Trump believe he can trust the Iranians? BILL O’REILLY: It’s not a matter of trust. This is going to happen real fast, so that the weapons inspectors will be in there. They’ll identify what’s happening, and then the mullahs will be ordered to destroy it on the spot. If they didn’t, then B-17s [sic] would move in. The signal that the mullahs are panicking is the flight out of Tehran-that’s why the President mentioned it, Get out of town! There are about ten million people in Tehran; their lives are disrupted. They are afraid-they don’t like the Mullahs anyway, especially the young Persians. They don’t like the Mullahs. The Mullahs now sense their own army might turn on them-and it’s entirely possible that would happen. So, President Trump’s strategy is to play this out a little longer, because Israel is getting stronger while Iran is getting weaker. You just said they’re running out of ordnance-they can’t replace it. They’re also having food shortages. It’s hard to ship food into Iran now, and Iran doesn’t grow enough to feed its population. There’s a lot on the table, and the signals coming from the Mullahs now are: We’re serious-we’ll make a deal, according to the President. LEELAND VITTERT, NEWSNATION: You seem to be skeptical. I am extraordinarily skeptical of why we would ever allow, when you have the boot on the neck of the Mullahs, why give them a way out of anything? That allows them to stay in power? BILL O’REILLY: Well, for how long? NATO and the United States believe that the Iranian people are going to overthrow that government. They’d rather have that happen than ignite worldwide terrorism. Remember, if you go in, all-out with American bombers, you’ll really jack up the terror potential against this country. We’re not afraid-we, the American government, if we can avoid that, it’s better. LEELAND VITTERT, NEWSNATION: You think terrorists now won’t act because our bombers haven’t been there? They might hate us just a bit less, because we’re only supporting Israel defensively instead of offensively? Come on. BILL O’REILLY: Nah, I wouldn’t say that-but there is more chance people would become emotional in those precincts and act out more quickly than they might otherwise. LEELAND VITTERT, NEWSNATION: We;re at the point, where after fifty years, we could finally get rid of the Ayatollah. We could finally topple the tyranical cult-genocidal regime in Tehran that’s caused enormous loss of life, strife, and terrorism across the Middle East. President Trump figured out in his first term that Iran is the problem, not the Israelis, and not the Palestinians-Iran is the problem. You have a chance to get rid of the Ayatollah. But it seems he’s so obsessed with a having deal of any kind, that he’s willing to give up this golden opportunity to eliminate America’s sworn enemies who chant Death to America. They won’t stop chanting Death to America just because they surrendered a few centrifuges. Bill. BILL O’REILLY: I just don’t know if your viewpoint is realistic. Maybe it is. But Iran still has an army protecting the Mullahs-and the mullahs are now underground somewhere. I don’t know if it’s that easy. there will be consequences.

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