Hello, everybody. Welcome to The Untold Story. I'm Martha McCallum. It's great to have you with us today. I'm also really thrilled to be joined by Benjamin Hall, who is Fox News Senior Correspondent,

hosted the podcast, Searching for Heroes with Ben Hall, and now in New York Times bestselling author,

or he was already, but he's about to be on the bestselling list again because he's out with a brand-new children's book that is called Read All About It,

and it's a heartwarming story about a little hedgehog that he carried with him on his most dangerous assignments.

And Ben, it's always great to have you with us.

Thank you very much for joining me.

So I want to get your thoughts on a few things that are going on internationally, which you're always extremely tuned into as a war correspondent.

And then I want to talk to you about your book,

which I read this afternoon, and it's darling and insightful. And I think everybody's going to want

to read this book with their children, too. So, but first, let me ask you a little bit about

the back and forth in Iran right now. You know, the word from the White House and the Pentagon,

and we're going to hear a little later this afternoon. We're speaking on Thursday afternoon.

I should point out is we're going to hear from Pete Hagsap, the Secretary of War, an update from

Florida, with the Admiral in charge of Central Command, Brad Cooper. So word today from the Iranian foreign minister is that they're ready for a ground war

and that they will win in a ground war and basically saying bring it on.

What's your reaction to where all of this is as we sit here on this afternoon on Thursday?

I think that Iran's main policy is trying to really push America to do things that won't work

domestically for President Trump.

So I think that egging him on, saying we are ready for ground troops to come in, he knows

is something that President Trump can't do.

And if he does, it's likely they will be caught up in a bigger quagmire.

You know, President Trump has said all along that he won't send troops in or large-scale troops in. And I think that the Iranians are really trying to egg them on in a sense and say, either we can beat you here, you won't stand up to us. And if you do, you'll end up with an insurgency like we saw in Afghanistan. That's a war you can't win. So bring it on. There's that. There's the rising oil prices, which is another tactic that I think Iran is really trying to push at the moment. And there's attacking all the neighboring states. It is saying, we are going to do the things that you are most, we think you are most afraid of. A regional escalation of the war, rising oil prices, and then bring it on. We will counter any troops that you send in.

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