Speaker 1: And hello, welcome to the Big Podcast on this Friday.
Today is the twentieth day of March, Year of Our Lord,
twenty twenty six.
Speaker 2: My name is Tom Sullivan, and we continue with keeping
you up to date on what's going on with the
war in the excursion, sorry in Iran. I know, I know,
there's a lot to catch up there because the strait
of horror moves is still the issue, and that is
causing prices of oil and gas and everything else to
go higher. And the President continues to lives as Donald
Trump has always been in his head. He lives in
what he wants to see, not the necessarily the reality
of today, but what he's dreaming about. And he continually says,
day in and day out that we are winning the war.
And I believe that we are, but it's they're still shooting,
and they're still dropping missiles and drones, and they've got
the straight up our moves where you can't know nobody's
going to go through there. So they still have leverage.
They still, as they say, have a vote. But here
it's the president today talking about where he thinks we are.
But I look at it not a criticism. It's just
always the it's the way he has lived. That's why
he has been successful, is he always kind of lives
the dream. And this is what he said today.
Speaker 3: It's going to be over with pretty soon. We've obliterated
the Navy. We've obliterated there just about everything there is
to obliterate, including leadership. The Navy's gone, Their air force
has gone, their anti aircraft equipment is gone. We're flying
wherever we want, Pete, we have no nobody even shooting
at us. They have, I mean, and as you know,
their leadership is gone. Their leaders are gone. They picked
new leaders, they're gone. They picked new leaders, they're gone,
and now they're looking for new leaders again.
Speaker 2: That's all true. The problem is is there's a lot
that they have prepared for a war, and they have
put a lot of their armament underground. We can't see it.
I mean, we've taken out everything that you can see,
but what about all the missiles, drones, ammunition, everything that
they have stored underground. For example, the Pentagon announced today
that they are going to be deploying three more warships
and twenty five hundred more marines. And there's still a
big question about why are the Marines going and this
was asked a press conference I believe yesterday, and the
President was right to answer. He says, I'm not going
to tell you. In other words, there's a reason now
a lot of people are speculating saying, well, they're going
to send them marines to go occupy this island, KRG Island,
which would shut off the ability of Iran to fuel
up the tankers that are coming in that they will
allow to go through the strait up Wurmus. But no,
that's not we don't know what's going to happen. But
General Cain, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, gave this summary
this morning.
Speaker 4: They're to the east now and penetrating deeper into Iranian
airspace to hunt and kill one way at time, since
the A ten ward Hoog is now in the fight
across the southern flank and is hunting and killing fast
attack watercraft in the Straits of Horror moves. In addition,
AH sixty four apaches have joined the fight on the
southern flank and they continue to work on the southern side,
and that includes some of our allies who are using
apaches to handle one way attack trying right.
Speaker 2: So yeah, that's actually pretty good news. I think they
have been trying to kill off the A ten ward
hog for I don't know. Every so many years the
government says that we want to stop making the war hoog,
and thank good as it's continued to be funded. It's
a slower moving jet, but it is designed to provide
groundcover for troops and it is very, very lethal, very
I don't know. It looks like it's one of those
planes that you can handle quickly, make burns, tight turns.
It's a lethal war machine. So they're using that and
the Apache helicopter, so they're moving more and more equipment
in there. I that wouldn't happen if the war was one.
It's close to being one, but there it's not going
to be one until the other side stops. Bibi net
in Yahoo doesn't talk before the microphones very often during
all of this, but he did today.
Speaker 5: Deaficult in Iran is trying to blackmail the world by
closing a key international maritime roots, the Straits of Homos.
Speaker 2: It won't work.
Speaker 5: Israel is helping in its own way and intel and
other means. The American effort to open the Straits of
Tijon of the Hormos runner, But I want to ask
you to imagine how the Itola regime would be able
to blackmail the entire world if they had ballistic miss
nuclear warheads.
Speaker 2: And that is the point that Israel has never stopped
worrying about because a ballistic missile with a nuclear warhead
was promised to land on them and wipe out Israel.
So no surprise on that comment. General teen always want
to find out what his day's thoughts are.
Speaker 6: Yeah, well, it's very significant. You heard it from the
President yesterday, also from a chairman and the Secretary of
War and Admiral Cooper who's a Sentcom commander. They're all
on the same page. We are making we're on plan
and making significant progress here and stripping away what our
mission is all the offensive capability that Iran has, and
we're well into that certainly. In dealing with that, we're
making certain that the straits of a mouse also is
getting a focus here for all the obvious reasons, and
that's why you see Apache helicopters being applied. The eight ten,
for our audience to understand, is a close air support
aircraft that's not like the normal fighter F sixteen, F fifteen,
F twenty two. It's really designed to support troops on
the ground. It flies at a slower pace, it's got
different kinds of munitions on it as well.
Speaker 2: So that is being employed.
Speaker 6: And what is happening here is that will take probably
ten days a couple of weeks to make certain that
if we bring vessels through the straits of a moves,
we minimize the risk significantly. We'd likely have to put
something on those ships also in terms of counter drone capability,
and there are fairly sophisticated capabilities that we can put
on there as a defensive measure. And by the way,
there was a misunderstanding with the Europeans. They thought they
we wanted them to do this immediately. I happen to
have a conversation with the Secretary General Mark Ruta. I said, no,
we don't intend to send any of our ships down
there until we minimize the risk. And I think that's
only opened up some discussion and said, listen, when we
ask the Europeans to do something since post World War two,
even though sometimes they may not agree with us, even
so sometimes they're begrudgingly, what do they finally do they
come along?
Speaker 2: Why they do that?
Speaker 6: Because the United States is indispensable leader, and they cannot
survive in NATO without the United States being a member
of it. That's the facts on the ground, and that's
we'll get their cooperation here. The other thing that's really
taken place, and you were reporting on it quite adequately here,
and that is taking down the organizations that support the regime.
This is Israel's mission, and you're stripping down leaders and
doing that, but also soldiers on the ground that are
out there. The Bazi militia is being stripped away right
on the streets of Iran. They're being killed day in
and day out, day in and day out. What is
that producing throughout these security forces and the IRGC. That's
the glue that holds this regime together. What it's being
defined as chaotic decision making and paranoia running through the
ranks of these organizations.
Speaker 2: That is good news.
Speaker 6: Doesn't mean they're going to collapse tomorrow, but what it
does mean is they're not the same organization they used
to be, and the Israelis are going to continue to
pound this organization and strip it away. This is what
keeps the regime in power, and weaken that to a
point where one people inside Iran that are close to
this regime and maybe even a part of it want
to change the leadership and make a deal with the
United States. That certainly is an option. Certainly, break it
so much that it's vulnerable to the protest movement itself.
That's a more remote option, but it's out there as well.
The facts are though, this regime is being stripped away
from its weapons and also its organization has sustain itself.
And what we got to do is stick right with
what we're doing. I've said it before and I'll say
it again. War is fundamentally a test of wills here
and the will of the regime. They want to survive
and recover and rebuild, and we're going to break that
so they can't do it.
Speaker 2: And that's fundamentally a will to do that.
Speaker 6: And all of our leadership is behind this and sticking
it to the end to make sure the objectives we
assigned ourselves Brian are actually achieved.
Speaker 2: And so the military people are. They're not emotional about it,
they're not political about it. They are just looking at
this as a punch list and they're going through methodically
to get all of the targets that they want. And
they've got to get into the underground, and we don't
know what they're gonna do with the thousands of marines
that are on hand, and the A ten Ward Hogs
and the and the Apache helicopters. There, there's there's they've got.
They've got more plans straight ahead. Mike Pompeu, former Secretary
of State. This is his this is where he is.
Speaker 7: Look, we've made an enormous amount of progress and an
incredibly short amount of time to achieve President objectives, and
we see the conflict than the straight. President Trump is
now moving all the resources necessary to get the straight
back open.
Speaker 2: It's encouraging to see. I think we're going to have
lots of partners.
Speaker 7: You mentioned the European partners when they went after a
Cutter's gas field, right the largest natural gas field in
the world. I think it united the Arab world, the
Gulf world as well. They understand that the risk from
this set of crazies and Iran still remains, and so
there's an enormous amount of strategic and operational work left
to do. But I'm convinced more than ever the deterioration
of control inside of Iran, the ability of the Iranian
people to one day get back their country will keep
every American safer. We'll get a permanent, permanent opening of
the Strait, not the one that we've lived under for ten, fifteen,
twenty years with iron pros and a threat. This will
be a more secure world with better energy pricing in
the decades ahead. Key war is difficult, but the reason
we build militaries, the reason we create capabilities, whether that's
the United States or Europe, is for exactly moments like this.
So the Europeans can't sit back and watch and let
someone else do the heavy lifting. They need to join
this effort. Of course there's risk, and of course there'll
be equipment that is damaged, and as we've seen sadly,
they'll be soldiers or sailors that don't survive or get injured.
But the need to keep oil floid, to keep energy moving,
to keep the world safe, to make sure we have
freedom of navigation in the seas, that's something that Europeans
should care about as well, and they should be prepared
to do the hard work to ensure that not just
for themselves but for all of us. And I hope
they'll join not when it's over, but when it really matters.
And when it really matters is today.
Speaker 2: Well, we're getting some reports that the NATO allies are
now saying okay, okay, okay, we will we will go help.
There's a lot of people that are interested in helping
get the straight of Hord moves open. Obviously they need
that for them, so they are starting to say that
they will help. The details are still apparently being ironed
out in some way or another. If you have any
second thoughts about Ran they had they kill a lot
of their own people, but one of their champion wrestlers,
an Olympic athlete, was one of three young men that
were I think he's nineteen or twenty years old that
were hung in the public today. They hang them because
of the fact that the young man and his friends
were opposed to the current regime. Here's Brett Velosovich, former
special ops guy, talking about how things work in Iran.
Speaker 8: Well, look, this is proof that Iran isn't just a
hostile regime. It's a regime that murders its own children
in public to stay in power. And Americans should think
about that for a second and ask ourselves, as good people,
should we ever tolerate it? We owe it to humanity
to do something about this evil today. It's right versus
wrong at its core, and you've got these Olympic athletes
speaking out, international outrage building, and yet somehow still there
are voices out there trying to soften what Iran is
or redirect blame. People want to spend time debating US
leadership while ignoring the character of the actual enemy.
Speaker 2: That's backward.
Speaker 4: The reality is our troops and our allies are.
Speaker 8: Facing a regime that tortures teenagers into confessions and then
executes them to send a message. You don't negotiate stability
with a regime like that, you remove its ability to
hurt innocent people ever again. And I just returned from
Ue this morning, where I witnessed the raw reality of
Iranian aggression hitting tourism centers of our closest golf partners.
And the leaders that I met in Dubai, they're crystal clear.
After absorbing hundreds of Iranian drone attacks, Iran's deporation a
desperate retaliation. It's not weakening us, it's forging an unbreakable alliance.
They told me straight up. These attacks are only strengthening
golf resolve to stand shoulder to shoulder with America power,
and they're preparing for sustained conflict over there. They've got
air defenses, active infrastructure being hardened, they're buying drone technology,
and there's a clear understanding. It only stops when Iran
is forced to stop, not asked, not negotiated with, but forced.
Speaker 2: The definition of winning is when they stop. They'll be
forced to stop, but when they stop is when you
will say, all right, we now have won. The military
the Pentagon has talked about the fact that they need to
go to Congress. They got it. They have to ask
for two hundred billion dollars more because, as Pete Hegseth said,
it takes a lot of money to kill bad guys. Well.
John Kennedy, Good, Republican senator from Louisiana, responded this way.
Speaker 9: I can assure you that we're not going to vote
to give two hundred billion or two billion or two
hundred dollars until we have hearings on money. I support
the war and if they if they need more money,
I'm going to vote to give it to them. But
my mama didn't raise a food when if she did,
it was one of my brothers. I'm not going to
give them a blank check.
Speaker 2: No, he's not a fool. He's not going to give
them a blank check. So they're going to have to
go explain what it is that they want the two
hundred billion for. Doug Hay, longtime Republican strategist, said, yeah,
a lot of Republicans that are going to be asking
questions about that.
Speaker 10: It is especially with those members of Congress who've only
been there for two or three terms or one or
two Senate terms. They were elected in the age of Trump,
and so the rhetoric that they've used and the policies
they've espoused. They talk about forever wars, not funding those
kinds of things. They also talk about deficit reduction. All
of this could fly in the face of what they've
campaigned on and acted on. As a member of Congress
now for several terms. It's a real challenge for them
moving forward again because the case will have to be made.
It makes those it makes those hearings very interesting, but
it says to the administration, you've got a lot of
work to do to get from point A to point B,
even with your own members. Because Republican members they're not
angry yet, but they really are getting apprehensive at the
actions that we're seeing without the explanation, and also with
gas prices and other prices, skyrocket airfare prices are rocketing
up as well. We're seeing this place after place. Republicans
are nervous.
Speaker 2: So do they have the patients? Do they have the will?
As General Keane always says, it's a test of wills.
Do they have the will to stay with this and
not give up? There are a number of members of
Congress that say, that's it. We need to pull our
troops out right now and bring them home immediately. And
I'm thinking, oh, so they want to cut and run.
That's their solution. And what do you do then, Now
that you've stuck a stick in the hornet's nest? Now,
what do you do about the hornets? What do you
do about Iran? If you just walk away and say, Okay,
never mind, we're not going to we're not going to
pursue this anymore. We're too far into it to turn around.
The question was will they get two hundred billion? Do
they need two hundred billion? That's for your elected representative
to try to figure out. As far as gas and oil,
we look here, the price is today average price for
the cheap stuff across the country according to Triple A
three dollars and ninety one cents. The winner again is
or the loser, however you want to look at it
is California. The average there five dollars sixty five cents,
with some of their counties up by Yosemite six dollars
and fifty cents for a gallon of gasoline, that is
in California. As far as diesel, they're now at five
dollars sixteen cents the average for diesel across the country.
Let me see what California, since they're so expensive on
regular gas. Yeah, diesel in California six dollars and sixty
six cents. That's what it is. So we're starting to
get into the question about the economy. The JP Morgan
came out with a report today talking about the fact
they're lowering their estimate of where the stock market will
be the S and P five hundred because of they
think recession fears may sync in. So Kevin O'Leary, mister wonderful,
I was asked about the price of gas and oil
going up in the chance of how all this impacts
the economy.
Speaker 11: Yeah, I can tell you now. The market doesn't think
that's the case. In order for this to really impact
the US economy and sustain a growth of inflation, I mean,
we had a pretty hot number, but for it to
really make a difference, you'd have to have oil above
ninety three dollars for more than three months, and that
would be major. We have political implications too, but the
market is not assuming it's going to take six months
to clean up this hermuous problem. You know, everybody hates war, obviously,
but we're now if you look globally at what the
assumption is right now, still, the assumption is it's going
to get cleaned up in the next thirty days, and
so everybody speculating. Nobody knows with certainty, and there's certainly
the Iranians have been more tenacious than many people thought.
I'm getting my read every day from my office in
Abu Dhabi a number of Today was a good day,
actually one of the days with very few drones.
Speaker 4: So we'll see if tomorrow's like that.
Speaker 11: And I see if I got three days in a
row with very few drones above Abu Dhabi, that would
tell me they've run out of stuff to shoot. Well,
I like history to be my guide, and it's very simple.
If you keep oil above ninety three dollars for three months,
you have problems. Because one thing about this commodity, it's
the input to every sector of the comedy.
Speaker 4: We have eleven sectors.
Speaker 11: Every single sector requires a reasonably priced energy source.
Speaker 2: And you know, we've talked a lot about.
Speaker 11: Alternative energy and new ID is a nuclear power. But
this shock has proven to the world that oil still matters.
Not some a lot, it matters a lot. And I
expect policy around hydrocompasc to change dramatically everywhere in terms
of securing a source of it at a price sort
of around the seventy dollars range. So you're going to
see that happen and a lot less money going into
alternatives that may not be good or bad, depending where
you sit. But clearly we didn't buy any insurance investing
billions of dollars in wind and solar. It's been practically
useless in helping us in this point right now. And
so I'm a pragmatic person. I'm just looking at it
saying what matters is figuring out how to open up
that spigot. And I've told this counts. It said this
countless times. There's a two mile wide at the thinnest
of the Hermuz. It's two miles wide. You got to guarantee,
you got to ensure that stays open. And I anticipate
the Japanese and others, even the Chinese, are going to
fund that insurance program going forward, and it could cost
billions of monell it's four or five billion, I don't know,
but that's a fraction of what it's worth. Because if
you hold that straight up for longer than three months,
everybody hurts, not just the US domestically, everybody, including our
adversaries China.
Speaker 2: I don't disagree with Kevin, but insurance isn't going to
put cruise on a ship that is in danger of
being blown up. Now, they're going to have to. They're
going to have to, like General Keane said, put some
anti missile defense systems on board these tankers as they're
going through the Strait of Hormuz. Something to be able
to deflect the missiles coming in on them so they
don't get hit. Anything short of that I don't think
is going to absolutely work. Nathan Sales, who is an
ambassador at large, he is also focus. Everybody is focused
on the Strait of Horror moves and the question, like
Kevin L. Leary said, he doesn't think it'll take a
month to get to solve that.
Speaker 12: We'll see the President is being his options open. And
the big picture here is we have to get the
Straight of Hormoves open. We have to deny the regime
in Iran the ability to hold commercial shipping hostage. So
then the question becomes how do you do it, And
there's actually a lot of different options. One is via air,
you degrade using our air assets, you degrade the Iranian
regime's ability to take shots at ships in the Strait
of Hormuz. Another option is via land, you send in
the Marines or some other expeditionary force to take carg Island,
which is Iran's major export terminal. Ninety percent of their
energy exports go through carg Island. Why does that matter
because now we've got a hostage and that's something that
we can trade for the Iranians reopening the strait. But
another option is a possible naval blockade, like we don't
actually need to take control of carg Island to deny
the regime the usefulness that the island presents to them.
You could impose something like a blockade or a quarantine
around it to prevent any ships from transporting Iranian oil.
So I think the President is putting the pieces in place,
but he hasn't made a decision yet on which of
these cars he's going to play try and reopen the straight.
Speaker 2: So we're wrapping up three weeks of this starting our
fourth week this weekend. And yes, they're getting through all
of these one by one. And what the President decides
and what his advisors advise on what to do about
the straight up our mouses, we still we don't know.
So let's move on to another problem that we're facing
in the country, and that is the fact that Department
of Homeland Security has not been funded. The Democrat said,
we're not going to fund tsa secret Service, coast Guard.
There's a handful of others in there that are part
of our nations secure. Are the cybersecurity people. And if
there was ever a time where we should be worried
about some sort of attack on our homeland, this would
be probably higher than average. Byron Donald talking about the
the fact that the funding has not happened for Department
of Homeland Security.
Speaker 13: No, because Chuck Schumer is a liar. Chuck Schumer is
playing politics. I want the American people to understand something.
The long lines at these airports, that's because of Chuck
Schumer and the radical Democrats, because they are trying to
use homeland security as a wedge issue against Donald Trump
for political power. That's exactly what this is. So his
whole line of asti Republicans is a joke and a lie.
It is not true. It's not real. The White House
has actually agreed to a couple of things body cameras
for ice agents, etc. But that's not good enough for
the Democrats. The Democrats want everything on their lists, but newsflash,
they're not getting everything on their list. So the fact
that Homeland security is now shut down, the fact that
our TSA agents aren't being paid, you're having longer security
lines at airports. Airports are now going to have to
start closing down certain terminals because they don't have the
manpower to get people through security. Not to mention, border
agents are not being paid. That leaves the homeland unsecured.
That is because of the radical left and Chuck Schumer.
They were defunding the police a couple of years ago.
Now they're defunding the security of this nation because they
want to play power politics before the midterm elections. This
is sick, and that's why they never deserve to have
power again in Washington, DC or anywhere else.
Speaker 2: So he said the long lines. It was interesting today
as I was getting ready to do the podcast, flipping
around various networks, and they all had a reporter with
the camera out at various airports around the country, and
there were some of them that had the countdown on
how long it would take to get through a line.
So I was watching this for a while and they
had let me look here at my notes. This was
earlier this morning. JFK twenty three minutes. That seems normal, Denver,
same twenty three minutes, Newark, steam minutes, Salt Lake City
fourteen minutes, Houston. They didn't say which Houston airport ten minutes.
Same with Orlando, and same with Minneapolis. Then a couple
of hours later I looked up and it was an
hour and a half, almost two hours. It depends upon
which airport and what time of the day, so it's
a roll of the dice if you're planning on traveling.
So then I thought, well, let's take a look at TSA,
they have a program where you can go online and
they will tell you how long the wait is at
whatever airport you want to check on. Well, the problem
with that is the people that maintain that system at
TSA are not at work, so that system is not working,
or if it is working, unreliably working, So you can't
do that. So then you can what the suggestion that
I found was whichever airport you're flying out of, or
you're connecting, and we're not connecting because you don't need
to go to TSA where you're returning from leaving, departing,
or arriving, check that particular airport's website. Most of them
have now a wait list, and again it's a guestimate
on their part, but there's a big difference between ten
minutes and an hour and a half. So it's another
part of the adventure of flying. My wife and we
were talking about taking a little trip and we both
looked at said, I don't want to deal with the
airports right now. I just don't want to. Here's some
of the travelers that are out there traveling and their reactions.
These are all people at airports.
Speaker 9: I had to pay a strange one hundred dollars to
push me and give me through the TSA line.
Speaker 2: Do better shop? Fix it even though you have three
hours before your flight.
Speaker 5: Are you sure you're gonna make it?
Speaker 4: I think I am.
Speaker 14: I will see you two days ago I made it.
Speaker 15: Ok Yeah, I asketimate it's about an hour and fifteen minutes.
Speaker 2: From this point. Okay, yes, I think I'll make it.
Speaker 5: Have you ever seen anything like this? Never?
Speaker 2: Never? They should be paid.
Speaker 9: They need to be paid.
Speaker 6: I feel bad for everyone except people in Washington, DC,
because they don't have to stand in line and they
don't have to deal with this.
Speaker 2: I wonder if they have special treatment at Washington airports
members of Congress so they don't have to stand in line.
That first lady, she was a very large lady and
apparently had trouble standing in for any length of time.
So she got one of those wheelchairs that they have
at the airport, and she had to pay just some
guy gave him one hundred dollars so he would push
her along the long line that they were waiting in.
But did you hear what she said at the end.
This is a lady in Atlanta, as she said, fix
it Trump, So she's blaming Donald Trump. So it doesn't
matter if something goes wrong, people that don't like Trump
are going to blame Trump. Trumps's on the opposite side
of this. He wants it open. He wants DHS funded yesterday.
So I thought it was interesting that she was thinking
just the opposite. Here's Sean Duffy, the head of Transportation.
Speaker 16: This is going to look like child's play. What's happening
right now. You're going to see small airports, I believe,
shut down. You're going to see extensive lines and air
travel is going to almost come to grid Holt stop.
Speaker 2: I don't know what the measurement is for a quote
small airport, but this isn't the first time. Now the
last couple of days they're talking about small airports may
need to shut down because they don't have the backup.
There's about ten percent of TSA officers that are not
showing up. So I mean it is it's down to
the It depends upon what time of day, it depends
upon when your flight leaves, It depends upon what airport
you're in and what airport you're traveling back on. George
Borak is the head of the TSA union.
Speaker 14: Hey, this is that as this continues, is going to
get worse. When you look at what we had in
a fall to fifty days that we had off a shutdown,
we have people that left, we have people that retired,
we have people acting director. Yes, they said we had
four hundred sumhad agents that have so far has signaled
that they're leaving.
Speaker 2: You know that number is going to grow exponentiously. They're
all warning and it doesn't matter whether you're the Department
of Transportation secretary or the union guy at TSA. They're
all saying it is going to get worse. I believe
that all right. Meantime, in Congress, there are still arguing
about the Save Act. This is the act that has
a number of elements to it. They're they're what they're
focusing on is that you need to show photo I
D when you vote. And the polling on that has
been very very strong. Doesn't matter Democrat, Republican, everybody is
of the same ilk. They're saying by large, large numbers
that people are in favor Democrats, Republicans, and independents huge
favor of photo ID when you vote. So the list
is essentially this, as far as Save America Act, you
have to photo ID when voting. That's what people are for,
but group of citizenship to register to vote, and that
is where they're saying, your real ID driver's license won't work.
That you have to bring us birth certificate and if
you're like me, you don't know where yours is. But
you can apply to the government agency wherever you were
born and they can send you a certified copy, but
it costs money. And passports, but half the country doesn't
have a passport. It will severely limit mail in ballots,
it will ban nothing to do with voting, ban trans
women in women's sports, and it will ban gender affirming
surgery for minors. So they're throwing other stuff in here.
It would seem to me more simple to just say,
do you want to require photo ID when you're voting.
That's essentially where John Fetterman is.
Speaker 15: It's a shame that they didn't make it more about
just ID to vote. They turned it into other things.
That they turned it into kind of a Christmas tree
and they're hanging all these things on it. But now
that's that's where we are. Two things must be true.
It's not rages the show idea to vote, but voting
by mail is an honorable, safe and secure way that
Republicans across our nation have been doing it.
Speaker 2: As the president's been very much against mail in voting.
I don't like it either. I think it's a recipe
for fraud. But at the same time, fact so you
apply through your DMV that that you want to vote,
but they never really there's nobody checking to see whether
you're a citizen or not. Up in Alaska. Lisa Rakowski,
the Republican senator, she doesn't like it.
Speaker 17: These are people who are eligible to vote, they're citizens
of our country. But if they're looking at a situation
where I'm going to have to spend one thousand dollars
to get me to where I can present my documentation
to vote, They're not going to do it.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 17: Disenfranchisement may not be the intent of the Save America
Okay Act, and I don't think that it is. I
think that that we will see.
Speaker 2: That the Republicans may have a better chance of getting
the Save America Act passed if they take some of
the onerous parts of it away. But right now they're
part of that law. The Stephen A. Smith, who is
getting more political every year, but the sports announcer always
outspoken guy. I like him a lot. He was being
interviewed by Kevin ky Leaves of Republican congressman from northern California.
Listen to the back and forth on Stephen A. Smith
and Kevin Kylie, what do you mean you don't have
voter ID in California.
Speaker 18: Yeah, California does not have voter I D. You don't
need to present it to register, you don't need to
present it to vote. As a matter of fact, the
state past the law forbidding voter i D. So cities
counties if they were bidding, they're not allowed to under
state law.
Speaker 2: What right there? The state of California.
Speaker 13: That's what the Republican is going to lean on.
Speaker 3: It an excuse to definitely push forth the say back
right there, right there.
Speaker 13: I can't believe it.
Speaker 2: He's right. I mean, it's crazy that they do not
require any photo ID at any time in the whole
registration or voting process, and that they have a law
that says you cannot create photo you can't require it.
So any of you counties in California, you think you
would like to forget it? So that yes, that is
what people look at and go, well, then how do
you know who's voting. You just don't. But Edward Isaac Dobert,
who is a Washington reporter, thought it was interesting. His
observation is, and I think he leans left, but he
is critical of the Democrats in this sound bite.
Speaker 19: But look on a political frame. One of the things
that I think is surprising to a lot of people
is that the Democrats have not figured out how to
take a proactive approach to this issue. It is, as Alex,
you're saying something where you see huge majorities in support
of photo ID, and Democratic response on this and on
so many things continues to just be no and not
a plan of their own, not figuring out some way
to make the argument, even though having Lisa Murkowski make
that argument for them. She's a Republican senator, and you
don't see Democrats saying here would be our plan to
take care of this.
Speaker 2: I think he nailed it. The Democrats are just the
party of no. Republicans come up with their various things,
and the Democrats say, no, Okay, what's your plan? Democrats?
And this guy leans to the left, he's a Washington
DC reporter and he's going they never come up with
a plan. They just say no to the Republicans thought
it was interesting, all right, Wall Street, Yes, another day,
another bunch of red arrows. Dow Jones Industrials down four
one hundred and forty three, the forty five thousand and
five seventy seven, the S and P five hundred, down
one hundred. That's a big drop for them. Nasdak also
a huge drop, two percent drop down four hundred forty
three on the Nasdaq. The price of gold continuing to
pull back sharply, down one hundred and thirteen dollars. Remember
it was well over five thousand. It's now at four
thousand and four ninety two. And oil, this is West
Texas Intermediate. It still keeps creeping higher and higher. And
by the way, let me again Brent. Brent crude is
mostly European. It's a it's a thicker, darker oil, harder
to refine. It's one hundred and twelve dollars. The spread
is usually a couple dollars, but West Texas is mostly
lighter crude, which is what we use mostly here in
the US. That's up to almost three dollars a day
to ninety just under ninety nine dollars, just under ninety
nine dollars again. Brent is one twelve West Texas at
ninety nine, just under ninety nine dollars for a barrel
of oil. So that's it for today. Thank you for
coming by, have yourself a wonderful weekend. Today's the first
day of spring. I hope you are having a nice
first day of spring, and we'll see you back here
on Monday.