Speaker 1: And we are back with another edion of the Federalist
Radio Hour. I'm Matt Kittle, Senior Elections correspondent at the
Federalist and your experienced Shirpa on today's Quest for Knowledge.
As always, you can email the show at radio at
the Federalist dot com, follow us on x at FDR LST,
make sure to subscribe wherever you download your podcast, and
of course to the premium version of our website as well.
Our guest today is Victoria Coates, former national security advisor
in the Trump First Trump administration and Vice president of
the Heritage Foundations Catherine and Shelby Cullam Davis Institute for
National Security and Foreign Policy, today talking about Victoria's new book,
Battle for the Jewish State. Timely conversation really at any time,
but none more so than today. Welcome to the program.
We appreciate you joining us on the Federalist Radio Hour.
Speaker 2: Thank you for having me met.
Speaker 1: You just returned from or recently returned from the Middle East.
What is the mood like on the ground there post election?
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, it's a fascinating time to be there. And
I was in Israel then in behind for the Security conference,
and the mood in Israel is somber, you know, after
a year of war with one hundred hostages still in Gaza.
But at the same time, I think very anticipatory of
a return to the very close coordination we had during
the first Trump term between the United States and Israel,
and I think maybe a fresh appreciation for how critical
that relationshiphip is, how much work it merits, it takes,
but it also merits to get it right and great
benefits to both our people. And then, you know, being
in the Gulf, the mood is maybe a little bit
more at buliant because they also felt the first Trump
term was something of a golden age. They felt extremely
neglected by the Biden administration. There's been virtually no contact
between the administration and for example, Bahrain. They all feel
very abused over the fact that their fossil fuel producers,
they get a lot of blame, a lot of criticism
for that, even while the administration is pleading with them
to produce more. So it's kind of a catch twenty
two situation for them. You know, they really welcome the
United States. It's kind of putting back on our mantle.
Is one of the three great energy producers in the world. Yes,
that's competition for them, but they also see, you know,
a plentifully applied, well priced market, stable market as something
that comes with the United States playing that role. So
so overall very positive.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you noted how much damage has been done over
the last four years between in the relationship in the
United States between the United States and the countries of
the Middle East. Really because of the I guess you
could call them the priorities. It seems so disjointed the
foreign policy initiatives of the Biden administration, particularly as it
related to the Middle East.
Speaker 2: Yeah, really, it really is. And one thing that I know,
in a way made me happy was some Israeli counterparts
told me that they had been hearing from their friends
in the Gulf. You know here, here's what it is,
kind of welcome to our boat, that their position perception
has been that for years the United States relationship with
Israel was uncle crackable, it's very very close. Well, they
felt the United States was not always the most reliable partner,
and they were actually joking in a kind of macabre
way with the Israelis. Well, now you know how we feel,
you know, in the United States turns it on and off.
So I think that has been very much their perception
of the relationship over the last four years. And it's
really why I wrote the book to the Battle for
the Jewish State to make clear, you know, these are
two dimetrically opposed policy approaches to the region. This is
not random. And you know, four years of the Trump
administration brought us the Abraham Accords, which have endured, which
is I think a great mercy for the world over
the last four years. But the four years of Biden
and Harris have resulted in you know, war, conflict, terrorist attacks,
you know, great instability in the region, and I think
it's really important to document both of those so people remember,
you know, this is just a series of accidents. These
are very deliberate policy.
Speaker 1: Choices, indeed, and everything was reset so tragically on October seven,
two twenty three. I mean, that's really at the heart
of the Battle for the Jewish State, because we're talking
about the battle for the existence of the sustained existence,
the very existence of that state and the Jewish people.
The events of October seven, two thousand and seven were
horrifying enough, but how horrifying has it been to watch
the response of Americans. Some Americans anyway on college campuses.
You know, the whole notion.
Speaker 2: Of those who.
Speaker 1: Forget their history or doomed to repeat it kind of
got lost over the last year plus in this country.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, and that's you know, that's maybe the critical theme
of the book and why the subtitle is how Israel
and America can win. And the premise then is that
October seventh was only the beginning, that that was the
opening battle in what is emerging is really a civilizational war.
But that war is against both Israel and the United States.
Israel's in the crosshairs first, it's smaller. I think our
enemies perceive it as being easier, and there's this sort
of historic animist towards towards Jews that they're trying to
harness there. But make no mistake about it, Matt, their
ultimate target is the United States, and so much of
the work that we do both at Heritage and the
Federalist is dedicated to preserving that. So what I wanted
to do with the book is give us all more
ammunition to defend ourselves against this attack which is coming.
And as you said, you know, these people have revealed
it themselves. I think they've been some decades in preparation
as the critical theory has taken a stranglehold on our
academic institutions. That is an academic approach that holds that
both Israel and the United States are uniquely illegitimate states
because we are both what they call subtler colonialists. I
had to study up on that one. I wasn't familiar
with it. But what it means is that we were
both created by people who came from elsewhere, and rather
than sharing a single ethnic identity the way you could
say neither the French do, for example, or they used to,
we are made up sort of a melting pot of
external folks who have appropriated land from the indigenous people
unfairly and most importantly illegally. And so our two nations
then are uniquely imperialist, bigoted, racist, and ultimately, as I said, illegal,
And there is a vast now bibliography on this, which
is in the most elevated peer reviewed academic journals used
routinely in Sillavide. So I delved into that so your
listeners won't have to. They can get enough of this
smattering of it in the battle for the Jewish State
to earn them for argument. But it's really remarkable that
the links to which they will go to demonstrate the
illegality of the United States and Israel. And so this
is coming for both of us. And we have now
at least a generation, if not a generation and a
half of American undergraduates who have been indoctrinated in this.
Speaker 1: Indeed, it is so inculcated now for the last couple
even few generations, building on, building on, And so as
you talk to officials in Israel, and as you continue
to work on this in your book, as you dealt
with it, there have to be some serious trust issues
in Israel about the United States in general. And I
know there must be a feeling of relief post election,
but Israel really, I think, did not know where it
stood with the United States in the Biden administration because politics,
and particularly divisive Dei style politics, put the Israel state
I believe, in the crosshairs even more so. It was
almost a feeling of aiding and abetting their enemies in
some corners of the United States. Are they dealing with
trust issues right now with the US?
Speaker 2: Oh, oh, for sure. And I think the fact that
the pro Hamas demonstrations started almost as quickly as the
hesbe La rockets started right after October seventh. So we
had hes Blah attacking Israel from the north in solidarity
with Hamas, and we had Americans taking to the street
to test in favor of Hamas. And I think, perhaps
even more damningly, we had elements within the Biden Harris
administration publicly demonstrating in support of Hamas. And you know,
you see it from almost the very beginning of the
administration response, even overnight on October seventh. You know, as
everyone was trying to figure out what was going on,
you had the State Department Office of Palestinian Affairs, which
was not enough as we had during the Trump administration,
but they had it during the Biden Airs administration. They
were tweeting out o restrained on both sides, Their knee
jerk response to the largest terrorist attack in Israel's history,
the most deadly day for Jews since the Holocaust was
restrained on both sides. Their reaction was concern about how
Israel would retaliate against the Palestinians, not how Israel would
defend itself from this hideous attack, and that just continued
to play out. You know, we had you know, they
threatened they were going to have a walkout of work
day in solidarity with Hima. There turned out to be
a snowstorm in DC, and as you know, Matt, you know,
a quarter of an ache of snow shuts things down
in the nation's capital. So they wound up not having that,
but they threatened to do it. And yeah, I mean
they are literally snowflakes. And you know this, this has
gone on throughout the administration, where weapons systems have been
slow walked. Uh. You know, there have been insistence on
aid to the Palestinians through various means that are utterly impractical.
You know, one of my favorite stories in the book
is about the world's central kitchen, chef Jose Andres's charitable institution,
which I'm sure has done admirable work elsewhere in the world,
that doesn't make them experts on the Middle East. And
I had a former State Department colleague, a career diplomat,
tell me, right before the State of the Union this year,
you just watch they're outsourcing the policy in Israel to
Chef Andres, And I said, you've got to be kidding me.
I mean, he's a celebrity chef, you know, I like
his food trucks, but I really don't want him doing
our Middle East policy. They well is and what it
turned out was he was Nancy Pelosi's guest at the
State of the Union, and they're the ones who insisted
on that crazy three hundred million dollars secondary Peer humanitarian
Peer into Gaza, which killed an American, wound up washing
up on shore, and was ultimately dismantled because it was
utterly and effectual. And then recently it was revealed that
ten percent of the World Central Kitchen employees in Gaza
are Hamas. And so this is what we're handing this
all over to, you know, and the State Department has
really abdicated its leadership role to folks who are infiltrated
by hamas. Same thing with the United Nations Release Relief
Works Agency or UNRUM, you know, also complicit in October
seventh and actually participate. Some of their members participated or
employees rather participated in the attacks. And we're still sending
taxpayer dollars to these people. It's madness.
Speaker 1: It is absolute madness. And I think that Peer is
emblematic of what we've experienced in the last four years.
Do you believe that I know there were a lot
of influences that affected this election cycle, but do you
believe those examples? And I think the image that we
see in Afghanistan, you know, the disastrous withdrawal, those things
stayed in the mind of the American voters. How much
of that in Israel, how much of what happened in
terms of the protest at places like Columbia and U. C.
Speaker 2: L A.
Speaker 1: And across our campuses, how much of that became a
guiding point in these elections for a lot of Americans
in how they voted.
Speaker 2: This was a unique election in many ways. I think
we all hope it was unique. I'm sure you all
for your sleep deprivation and whatnot. Hope it's not always
this way. But you know, it allowed us to compare
those two records, as I said earlier, And also I
think national security issues were a much bigger piece of it,
because usually when I'm advising politicians, I tell them, if
you're talking about foreign policy for more than ten percent
of the time, you're losing. Don't do it, you know,
stick to the issues that matter to your voters. But
this year, these were the the issues that mattered. And
you know another reason I wrote the battle for the
Jewish State is the majority of Americans mercifully continue to
support the US Israel relationship. Most people don't know why, though,
you know they reflexively want to be supportive of Israel.
They have some understanding that the relationship is valuable, but
not you know the history of it, why it's changing,
you know what it could be. So I wanted to
be to all that because I think it was a
campaign issue much more than when one would expect, and
it didn't really play out. I think the way the
Democrats expected. Their biggest problem was actually not the Arab
American votes in Michigan, although that was a concern. Their
big issue was the youth voter demographic, because in the
grand scheme of things, the Arab American vote isn't that big,
but the eighteen to twenty nine year old demographic is
why Joe Biden was elected in twenty twenty and what
preempted the Red Wave in twenty twenty two. And those
are the folks who have been indoctrinated in this anti
Semitism in academia to a disproportionate extent. I think when
the ADL started polling on anti Semitism, forty years ago.
What they saw was anti antisthemic views tended to be
more in an older demographic, and the younger demographic tended
to be less antisemitic, and that gave them the impression
that if they just waited this out, you know, it
would be a way to combat anti semitism almost passively.
And has turned out though in over the last twenty years,
is that anti Semitism among young people has just mushroomed,
while the older demographic tends to be less anti semitic.
And that's then a problem because if you just waited out,
it's going to metastasize. So that's something I think the
Democrats had to contend with because they needed that vote.
But the problem was they were perceived by that group
as being too pro Israel, that the fact that they
were arming Israel at all was problematic. The fact that
you know that they were not just blanket condemning the
Yahoo government was too pro Israel, and so they wound
up really losing that demographic, and I would say that's
what lost them the election.
Speaker 1: But it is horrifying at many levels to think about
this that eventually the defenses in the United States against
anti Semitism will age out, and this indoctrinated generation that
is anti Semitic is so pro Hamas at the end
of the day, you know, they talk about pro Palestinian.
The real issue here is, you know, representing and supporting
these terrorist movements Hamas and Hesbala and others that simply
do want to destroy the State of Israel and take
down Jewish people at the same time. Eventually, if this
sort of stuff isn't stopped in the American school systems,
if we don't have a real change here in the
educational system, what do we expect from our foreign policy,
in our relationship with Israel moving forward a decade from now,
or what have you.
Speaker 2: That's why this is such a critical moment and why
again when I wrote this book, is it's not enough
at this point to have a president who is obviously
pro Israel and not anti Semitic, as President Trump is.
He has observant Jewish grandchildren, so I don't think you
can accuse him of that. But that's not enough anymore
that because what's been revealed since October seventh is that
it is a real and malignant and active threat to
us here at home. And so one of the things
I recommend in kind of the What's Next section at
the end of the book is a reconfiguration of the
anti Semitism Special Envoy, which has existed at the State
Department for a while, to deal with international anti Semitism.
That you reconfigure that you take that person into the
White House and don't make them just an international envoy.
Also give them a seat on the Domestic Policy Council,
which would be unique. President Trump would be the first
president to do this, and empower that person to work with,
say the Justice Department, on legal penalties for institutions that
permit this. I was interested to see a headline cross
recently that the diversity, equity and inclusion officer at the
Union Diversity of Michigan had been let go over rampant
anti semitism in their public remarks. This is the person
who's supposed to be advocating for diversity. It shows you
how empty and counterproductive these initiatives are. They're not actually
for diversity or inclusion. Therefore the exclusion of those they
find questionable and in that case, Jews become part of
the oppressor class. And it was interesting, you know, you
just raise the support for terrorism as we've been following
this store of Luigi Mangioni, the twenty six year old
who gunned down the United Healthcare CEO. That is his
mindset that this guy was an oppressor. I am an
impressed person and for that reason, whatever I do is legitimate.
Same thing with Hamas. They are the oppressed, The Jews
are the oppressor. Therefore October seventh becomes a legitimate expression
of grievance. And that is what is so deeply dangerous here.
And we have to understand, you know, it is it
is focused on anti Semitism, but it's not confined to it.
And if we, you know, accept the kind of glorification
of Hamas, or the glorification of a killer like Luigi Mangioni,
you know that, then we are buying into what I
think is a fundamentally flawed and destructive worldview.
Speaker 3: Indeed, this liberal Attorney general thinks it's Amazon's fault. The
Watched Out on Wall Street podcast with Chris Markowski. Chris
helps unpack the connection between politics and the economy and
how it affects your wallet. The Age of DC is
going after Amazon because of delivery times in rough neighborhoods.
Maybe if he would go after the crime, the deliveries
would come quicker. Amazon's just protecting their employees. Whether it's
happening in DC or down on Wall Street, it's affecting
you financially.
Speaker 1: Be informed.
Speaker 3: Check out the Watchdot on Wall Street podcast with Chris
Markowski on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: We are our guests today in this edition of the
Federals Radio Hour. Victoria Coates, former National security advisor in
the first Trump administration, Vice president of the Heritage Foundations
Catherine and Shelby Clem Davis Institute for National Security and
Foreign Policy. Her new book is The Battle for the
Jewish State. How Israel and America Can Win. And that
is really the tie here. Israel and America no better
ally in the world than Israel, particularly on the Middle
East front, particularly when it comes to the real nexus
of world security and security in America principally. Let me
ask you this, how much damage have we done over
the last four years on this immigration policy, if that's
what you can call it, Basically that left the front
door of the United States wide open to terrorist threats.
Speaker 2: This is really, i think also a critical issue for
the twenty twenty four election is the approach to immigration
and the fact that this administration, buying into the worldview
we've just been discussing, feels that a closed border is
actually immoral. We don't actually own the United States, so
who are we to say who can and can't have it?
And that is an ideological approach to immigration. I think
they also bought into the narrative that all of these
folks who are coming in wi't vote Democrat and perpetuity.
What we found is legal immigrants actually vote Republican, increasingly,
particularly on the Hispanic community, which tends conservative in their
social values. And you know, the folks who have come
in legally and established businesses and lives for themselves really
resent you know, this, this mass, unfettered migration, which threatens
them economically as much as anyone. And then on top
of it, as you point out, we have, you know,
the very dangerous elements who've come in, and you know,
every day there's another horrific story of an illegal immigrant,
you know, murdering, raping, kidnapping American citizens. And then on
top of it, we have tens of thousands of known
terrorists who have come in and simply been let go
and so these are everyone from the Latin American drug
cartel and gang elements to military age Chinese males to
known terrorists from the Middle East, and so, you know,
I think Tom Holman has been a wonderful visiting fellow
at Heritage during the Biden Herris excuse me administration, who
now obviously is going back into the Trump administration to
do his good work. You know, he is an incredible
tool for President Trump to use to try to get
this under control. But you know, I'm worried about the
next thirty nine days as all this is going on
and there's not a clear leadership presence in Washington, you know,
what might happen over the holidays. So so hopefully we'll
get through this period. But it is it is true.
There's a real and present danger you know in our
population of folks who are are are not just supportive
of Hummas, but potentially are Hamas. And has belot no
doubt about it.
Speaker 1: It seems to be a fire sale going on in
national security from the Biden administration. Take a look at
all that is happening, and we'll get to one of
the more serious points in the Middle least coming up
in just a moment. But are you concerned. You mentioned
in these final few weeks before we get to the inauguration,
I have heard from some folks in the know about
national security, domestic security, they are concerned about inauguration day itself.
How about you?
Speaker 2: Oh? Absolutely, I mean there are all sorts of kind
of flash points. I mean Christmas Day will be one
New Year's Eve, inauguration, you know, where you have large
numbers of people moving around. It's hard to keep track
of folks. You know, these these are kind of weak
points that you know, if you're a terrorist, you might
you might try to target them. And you know, what
we're seeing out of the Biden administration is just incredible drift.
They are, you know, on the one hand, sort of
trying to tie President Trump's hands as much as possible
by you know, spending money at a ridiculous clip, which
is the one thing extremely good at, and on the
other hand, just kind of letting the rest of the
world run am up. And one of the things that
was very disturbing is right in the lead up to
the ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hesbealah and Lebanon, there
were reports that the administration had prepared as many as
seven punitive United Nations Security Council resolutions against Israel, and
we're using those as pressure. And of course this has
happened before. Unfortunately, there's a bipartisan history. For example, the
George W. Bush administration on the way out the door
of staining on a resolution that condemned Israel for that
round of violence in Gaza. Then the Obama administration did
it as well on an on a resolution that condemned
Israel for the settlements. So this has happened before, and
I would be surprised if we make it through January
without some kind of action up to an including potentially
the recognition of a Palestinian entity as a legitimate state.
Speaker 1: That's so I was going to ask you as well,
how meaningful do you think the ceasefire agreement brokeered by
the Biden administration they, particularly the current Secretary of State,
who has had a riddled record of failures on the
foreign policy front. How meaningful and lasting is the ceasefire?
And is the ceasefire potentially going to prove more dangerous
than the actual war that was going on in Gaza?
Speaker 2: I think for the moment, the ceasefire is fine as
far as it goes. The president came out and insisted
this was a permanent ceasefire piece had broken out. Well,
that's just factually inaccurate. The ceasefire not coincidentally expires two
days after the inauguration. It was a sixty day arrangement.
As it has turned out, it has allowed Israel to
take much more aggressive action in what has happened in
Syria unexpectedly, and so they have needed that break with Lebanon.
The other thing that's interesting about this, Matt is given
the collapse in Syria, which I know we'll get into.
You know, this is a deadly blow for Hesblah in
the collapse in Syria, the deadly blow for Hesbela in Lebanon,
because Syria is the land bridge that Iran has been
using to run weapons fighters money to Hesbelah. That's now broken.
And whatever we think of the new leadership in Syria,
they are not fans of either Iran or Hesblah. So
that is that's probably going to endure. And we've also
seen the Israelis be able to take what they're calling
a buffer zone. They say it's not permanent, we'll see,
but additional territory around the goal on heights in Syria
to protect Israel in this case actually from the new
leadership of Syria, which may have does have Isis and
al qaiatized and makes them a danger on another front.
But as it's turned out, I think that ceasefire for
these sixty days has proven useful, but not I think
for the reasons that the Biden administration intended interesting.
Speaker 1: So onto Syria, what do we expect from this new regime? Now?
The old regime is we all know, not a friend
to liberty America or you know, basic human rights values.
Certainly weren't a friend to Israel. But what do we
get from this Pandora's box that's just been opened so
many times? We see, you know, this void that goes
on when you have regime change filled by the next
group of terrorists, international terrorists. What do you make of
the new regime if you will? In Syria.
Speaker 2: That's the classic warning for the Middle East, which is
there's always a worst monster. You know, you think you've
gotten the worst one and you're going to get rid
of it and you're going to replace it with something marvelous,
and nope, it turns out to be a worst monster.
That said, you know, I think it is a good
day for humanity that the Asad grip on Syria has
been broken. The horrific images and videos that are coming
out of the folks who have been so horrendously tortured
by a Sad over decades. Bear in mind his father Hafez,
and he used chemical weapons against their own people, repeatedly
prompting President Trump, for example, to take two separate military
actions against them to to degrade their ability to do that.
So so really, our horrific regime thermally allied with Russia
and Iran. So a good thing that that regime is gone.
But then, as I said, there can be a worst monster.
This HTS group led by Abu Muhammad Algolani Uh named
for the Golan Heights. Interestingly, uh, you know, they are
all Isis and al Qaida alums. They claim they have
renounced this and they're going to be inclusive technocrats. That's
nice to hear, but I'd like to see what they
actually do. There are concerning reports of they're threatening Christian groups.
The government that they announced is exclusively made up of
very extremist Muslim males, not a single woman or a
minority to be found in the slate that they announced.
And you know, Israel has taken, as I said, very
dramatic action to both destroy the Assad Arsenal and they
believe the chemical weapons were done in conjunction with the
United States. But you know that that is good. But
it shows you that Israel is not leading, leaving anything
up to chance, not going to allow these, you know,
these very advanced weapons that Asad had amassed from Iran
in Russia to fall into the hands of the current
government of Syria. And then finally, the other kind of
bad problem we potentially have here is the HTS folk
are backed by Turkey, and in the northeast of Syria
we have the so called Syria and Democratic Forces the SDF,
which are backed by the United States and have been
partners in the battle against Isis, which means the battle
against HTS, and are the ones who are holding tens
of thousands of ISIS prisoners in that region. So very
curious to see if HTS and SDF I apologize for
the alphabet soup. That's why there's a three page acronym
list at the beginning of the battle for the Jewish State.
My mother, I can't deal with this. You have to
have an acronym list. I've got to have something to
refer to here, So I am sympathetic to that. But
if HTS and SDF start fighting, that essentially puts the
United States against Turkey, fellow NATO member. So that is
another potential, real bad problem here.
Speaker 1: We never can have a moment of relief or relaxation,
can we. It reminds me of the Federalist Elections Team.
You know, we report all year long and all of
this the election integrity battles that are going on throughout
the states, particularly swing states, and you get to the
election and the election is decided and there aren't very
many controversies. But yet there's so much more work to
be done. Obviously, and these, as you said, these agreements
can fall apart very quickly. New regimes can be worse
than the old regimes. Or as the old who song goes,
meet the new boss same as the old boss. You know,
that's what we're dealing with here. But principally, your book
does offer a roadmap on how Israel and America can win.
But I think it's key as we wrap up our
conversation to drive home the point that the world cannot
win without an Israel, and Israel is under constant threat.
So how do we deal with that major equation moving
forward in the Trump years.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really just a fundamental difference of approach to
what is being done on the left. You know, what
we've talked about, the delegitimization of Israel and the United States.
You know, as I look at the world, meant if
I want to do good things for humanity, that means
I want to preserve and protect the United States of America.
You know, by any factual measure rather than fantasy measure,
the United States has been the greatest force for good
in history. You know, more people liberated, lifted out of poverty,
no and no imperialism. You know, we thought two World
Wars didn't take an inch of territory, and that has
set up the United States apart. Doesn't make us perfect.
You know, We're a work in progress, of course, as
we all are. But it means that if I want
to improve humanity's position, the worst thing I could do
is undermine the United States and increasingly, by extension, Israel.
And I hate to date myself this way, but when
I was born, Israel was twenty years old. It was
still very much in the conceptual phase. They had fought
the previous year, the Massive War of nineteen sixty seven,
which gave Israel its modern form. It's now seventy six
years old, and one measure is the US News and
World Report sort of list of influential countries. They're now
number eighteen, and so that's an extremely powerful ally for
the United States. And as I've been studying the issues
since October seventh, I mean, obviously I've been working on
the Israel relationship many many years, and paid my first
visit ten years ago in the company of my then boss,
Senator Ted Cruz, who actually wrote the forward to the
Battle of the Jewish State about about anti Semitism and academia.
So that's another reason to check it out. But I
now have no idea how many times I've been to Israel.
When I entered the country on my most recent trip,
they asked me that, and I said, you tell me,
I have no idea, And so it's you know, it's
kind of percolating for me that this is becoming a
civilizational war, that the enemies of the success represented by
Israel and the United States, want to take us out
to prevent others in the developing world, other partners and
allies from drawing closer to us, and you know, joining
this kind of much more pro human you might say, approach,
approach to world affairs. So, you know, I think it's
really important in a way, October seventh, if it has
a U useful function, it is a wake up call
that these enemies are real and they're coming for us.
But the good news is is that they don't differentiate
between us. You know, one of the points I like
to make is that, you know, those terrorists on October
seventh didn't ask for anybody's passports. They didn't care if
they were killing or kidnapping Americans, who we have at
least four who are still being held in Gaza fifteen
months on. You know, they just wanted to kill Jews
and more broadly, kill anyone even remotely associated with Israel.
They killed Muslims and Christians as well, because that was
the point. And so, you know, realizing we're in this struggle,
you know, strengthening the institutions, and I would put again
Heritage and the federalists in that category that are trying
to defend ourselves. You know that that is what we
can do going forward, and I think the election of
reelection of President Trump so resoundingly is a really hopeful
sign that the American people are waking up to this
as well.
Speaker 1: Indeed, and I do believe there are hopeful signs. I
also am a student of history, and I know that
nine to eleven was a profound wake up call. But
how long do we remain awake is always the question,
and it's the question that should guide our foreign policy.
Awake and sober. We have not, been, unfortunately awake and
sober on these fronts over the last four years, and
the world is a more dangerous place because of it.
Thanks to my guest today, Victoria Coates, former national security
advisor in the Trump administration and vice president of the
Heritage Foundations Catherine and Shelby Colum Davis Institute for National
Security and Foreign Policy. Her new book very compelling in
these very dangerous times. The book is The Battle for
the Jewish State, How Israel and America can win. Thanks
so much for joining us, Victoria.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Matt, you've been listening to another edition of the Federalist
Radio Hour. I'm Matt Kittle, Senior correspondent at the federalist.
We'll be back soon with more. Until then, stay lovers
of freedom and anxious for the fray.