Speaker 1: And hello, Welcome to the Big Podcast on this Monday.
Today is the second day of March, Year of Our Lord,
twenty twenty six. My name is Tom Sullivan. Forgive my
nasal ly. I went out and found myself a cold
bug somewhere, so I'm suffering under a cold. But the
event today, it's all about the war. It's all about Iran,
it's all about what we're doing. It's all about what's
going on in the Middle East of various countries. And
so I have a lot of people I'll play them
for you that have been asking throughout the day what
are our objectives? That the president keeps coming up with
different objectives. One is to do regime change. Another one
is to get rid of their ballistic missiles. Another one
is to you know, there's four or five different things
the president has said and people are going, well, what
does you want? And I found that the biggest objection
so far is not from the Democrats. Democrats, of course
they're the loyal opposition to the president, but what they
are doing is they're being a little careful about being
too critical. It's interesting to watch, it's interesting to listen to.
But the real opposition to President Trump on this effort
to go after Iran. I've heard more criticism coming from
the right than from the left, and it makes me
wonder about the lot of people talking about a split
within the Maga Crown that mega. A lot of people
voted for Donald Trump because he said I want to
end the endless wars, and he has been touting his
success of ending all these various wars since he'd been
back in the White House. So what's he doing getting
is into this quagmire. I heard Meghan Kelly was complaining
the conservative Marjorie Taylor Green really upset about Donald Trump
and Colter, the big conservative writer, She's all upset about it.
I mean, it goes on and on and on. But
I thought, I think I'll do this backwards today instead
of giving you the build up to the end. Mark
Rubio just held not a news well, yeah, kind of
a news conference in the hallway of the Capital. He's
over at the Capitol briefing lawmakers on what's going on,
and so it's a little bit echoey, but it will
be better than my nasally voice. Here's what Marco Rubio said.
This is late this afternoon, and I think he answered
a lot of the questions that a lot of the
complainers have had. Here's Marco.
Speaker 2: He's conducted this operation with a third clear goal in mind.
I haven't got a chance to see a lot of reporting.
I don't understand what the confusion is. Let me explain
it to you, and I'll do it once again as
clearly as possible.
Speaker 3: Perhaps you'll report it that way.
Speaker 2: The United States is conducting an operation to eliminate the
threat of Iran's short range holistic missiles and the threat
posed by their navy, particularly to naval assets. That is
what it is focused on doing right now, and it's
doing quite successfully. I'll leave it to the Pentagon and
the Department of Ward to discussed the tactics behind that
and the progress that's being made. That is the clear
objective of this mission. The second question I've been asked
is why now. Well, there's two reasons why now. The
first is it was abundantly clear that if Iran came
under attack by anyone, the United States or Israel or anyone,
they were going to respond and respond against the United States.
The orders had been delegated down to the field commanders.
It was automatic, and in fact it bared to be
true because in fact, within an hour of the initial
attack on the Leadership Compound, the missile forces in the
South and in the North for that matter, had already
been activated to launch, in fact, those that already been prepositioned.
The third is the assessment that was made that if
we stood and waited for that attack to come first
before we get them, we would suffer much higher casualties,
and so the President made the very wise decision. We
knew that there was going to be an Israeli action,
We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces,
and we knew that if we didn't preemptibly go after
them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher
casualties and perhaps even those killed. And then we would
all be here answering questions about why we knew that
and doing that. Going back to the purpose, the purpose
of this is to destroy that missile capability. Why does
Iron want that signicial capability? What they are trying to
do and have been trying to do for a very
long time, is build a conventional weapons capability as a
shield where they can hide behind. Meaning there would come
a point where they have so many conventional missiles, so
many drones, and it can inflict so much damage that
no one can do anything about their nuclear program. That
is what they were trying to do is put themselves
in a place of immunity where the damage they can
inflict on the region would be so high that no
one can do anything about their nuclear program or their
nuclear ambitions. They are producing, by some estimates, over one
hundred of these missiles a month. Compare that to the
six or seven interceptors that can be built a month.
They can build one hundred of these a month, not
to mention the thousands of one way attack drones that
they also have. They've been doing this for a very
long time, and by the way, they've been doing it
under sanction. Do you see the attacks they're conducting right now.
They're attacking airports, they're attacking hotels, They're hitting not just
military bases, they're attacking our embassies directly. They're attacking facilities
that have nothing to do with war or with military
And that's a weekend Iran, that's in Iran, despite years
of sanction.
Speaker 3: Imagine a year from now or a year and a
half from now.
Speaker 2: The capabilities they would have to instoot damage on us
it's an unacceptable risk, especially in the hands of a
regime that's run by radical clerics. The Ayahtola is a
radical was a radical cleric. That entire regime is led
by radical clerics who don't make geopolitical decisions.
Speaker 3: They make decisions on the basis.
Speaker 2: Of theology, their view of theology, which is an apocalyptic
one that has to be taken very seriously as well.
So that was the purpose for what this operation is
all about. That's what it's focused on. As the President
said earlier today, it is on or ahead of schedule.
I will defer to the Department of Order discuss the
progress being made at a tactical level. But it was
the right decision and an important decision for the safety
and security of the world.
Speaker 3: Away does Hongress.
Speaker 4: Hathaway is the President and as Congress.
Speaker 3: In the rep. Did you found long leavers of yours
in minute?
Speaker 2: They're absolutely was an imminent threat, and the imminent threat
was that we knew that if Iran was attacked, and
we believed they would be attacked, that they would immediately
come after us. And we were not going to sit
there and absorb a blow before we responded. Because the
Department of War As says that if we did that,
if we waited for them to hit us first after
they were attacked and by someone else, Israel attacked them,
they hit us first, and we waited for them to
hit us, we would suffer more casualties and more adjusts.
We went proactively in a defensive way to prevent them
from inflicting higher damage. Have we not done so, there
would have been hearings on Capitol Hill about how we
knew that this was going to happen and we didn't
act preemptively to prevent more casualties and more loss of life.
Was forced to thrive because of it. Invent Israel natcha no. First, well,
let me two things I would say. Number one is,
no matter what ultimately, this operation needed to happen. That's
the question of why now for this operation needed to
happen because Iran in about a year or a year
and a half would cross the line of immunity, meaning
they would have so many short range missiles, so many
drones that no one could do anything about it because
they could hold the whole world hostage. Look at the
damage they're doing now and this is a weekned Iran
imagine a year from now.
Speaker 3: So that had to happen.
Speaker 2: Obviously, we were aware of Israeli intentions and understood what
that would mean for us, and we had to be
prepared to act as a result of it.
Speaker 3: But this had to happen no matter what.
Speaker 5: It was.
Speaker 6: There a very President Trunk said overnight that his top
choices to now rope with Iran were killed in stress.
Does the United States have a firm plan for how
they intend to handle this power back in Iran to
ensure that ironbok ward line.
Speaker 5: It does not.
Speaker 2: So two things and two things can be true. Number
one is our mission and our focus is the destruction
of the ballistic missile capabilities and their ability to manufacture them,
as well as the threat posed by their navy to
global shipping.
Speaker 3: That's their objective.
Speaker 2: That said, we would not mind, we would not be heartbroken,
and we hope that the Iranian people can overthrow this
government and establish a new future for that country and
would love for that to be possible. But the objective
of this mission is the destruction of their ballistic missile
capabilities and of their naval kit.
Speaker 7: So are you saying that as on Matt, are you
saying that there is no responsibility, no band where the
US so at least play a role in whatever normal funds.
Speaker 2: I mean, we might well see how circumstances play out.
But you I'm telling you what the objectives of this
operation on the objectives of this operation are to destroy
their ballistic missile capability and make sure they can't rebuild it,
and make sure that they can't hide behind that to
have a nuclear program. That's the objective of the mission.
That said wundantly clear. We would love for there to
be in Iran that's not governed by radical Sheiah clerics.
As I've said myself repeatedly for years, the leadership of
that country does not reflect the people of Iran, and
I think that's been pretty apparent in the protests that
you've seen. If there's something we can do to help
them down the road, we'd obviously be open to it.
But that's not the objective. The objective of this mission
is the destruction of their ballistic missile.
Speaker 7: On will for the United States time now, regime change
is not not well from the United States for many,
many decades.
Speaker 1: How do you sure to be American.
Speaker 7: Of it that things will not get worse for the
next regime that runs the American places.
Speaker 2: Yet, well, we would love to see this regime be replaced,
and ultimately, as the President has said, he cause no, no,
but let me finish my answer. As the President said,
he would love for the people of Iran to use
this as an opportunity to rise up and remove these leaks.
They've been wanting to remove them from a long time.
We've seen successive waves of protests, and we've seen them
slaughter people. Okay, but the objective of this mission is
to make sure they don't have these weapons that can
threaten us in our allies in the region. That's why
we're doing what we're doing now. And while we would
love to see a new regime, the bottom line is,
no matter who governs that country a year from now,
they're not going to have these ballistic missiles and they're
not going to have these drones to threaten us. That's
the objective of this mission is to deny them the
ability to use ballistic missiles to threaten their neighbors, to
threaten our bases, to threaten our presence in the region,
and ultimately as a shield behind which they can do
whatever they want with their nuclear weapons. Ambition. We were
not going to let them hide behind that. And that's
why this was such a critical mission to undertake now
while they were at the weakest point, and not a
year from now where they could inflict even more damage
and perhaps already be behind that point of immunity.
Speaker 3: Are you and then you.
Speaker 4: Yes, If your pridings in Congress have said that that
they should have a role, they should be able to
weigh in year and there are going to be war
powers and resolutions votes Congress later this week, why not
notified Congress ahead of this and just Congress.
Speaker 1: We did.
Speaker 2: We notified Congress. I mean we notified the Gang of A.
We notified congressional leadership. There's no law that requires us
to do that. The law says we have to notify
them forty eight hours after beginning hostilities. We've done that.
I think the notification went today. But we did notify
members of Congress in advance. But we can't notify five
hundred and thirty five members in Congress. The congressman vote
on whatever they want. But there's no law that requires
us to do that. And I want to say something
to because I see people on TV. Look, that's fine
if they want to take a war powers vote, they
can do that. They've done that, They've done that a
bunch of times. But there's no people keep saying that
we have there's no law that requires the president to
have done anything with regards to this to begin with.
No president's presidential a ministration has ever accepted the War
Powers Act as constitutional. Not Republican presidents, not democratic presidents.
That said, we have followed a notification at forty eight hours,
we're here today. I've done more Gang of Eight briefings
then I got in the four years that Biden was
president and I was a member of the Gang of Eight.
All of that said, we've complied to the law one
hundred percent, and we're going to continue to comply with it.
We've done the notification, you know, and we're officially to Congress,
but we did notified members of Congress. We just can't
notify five hundred and thirty five people, that's not possible.
But we did the Gang of Eight twice. I briefed
them last week and then I called them the night
before the operation.
Speaker 8: We'd sell us what united is the sector of the
administration that was about the strike on the building in
Sulfing me wrong.
Speaker 3: The Iritians siety was the school points of lawgeability flood. Yeah,
I've seen those reports.
Speaker 2: I don't have I would refer you not because I'm
not trying to answer your question, but I don't want
to get it wrong. The Department of War would be
investigating that if that was our strike, and I would
refer your question to them, and I'll make sure they're
aware that you have that question. But we'd like to
know American an American missile. Well, the United States would
not deliberately target a school. Our objectives are missiles, both
of the ability to manufacture them and the ability to
launch them and the one way attract drones. That's what
would be our focus, and that's what we would be
focused on. We would have no interest and frankly, no
incentive to target civilian infrastructure. The Iranians are, on the
other hand, targeting civilian infrastructure.
Speaker 3: You guys have seen it. I'm sure you've seen it.
Speaker 2: They're hitting hotels, they're hitting embassies, they're hitting airports, they're
hitting oil infrastructure. Geld you go, you'll well, it'd be
very tragic. But I can't speak to the details behind
it because I just don't have it, it would be
a tragic outcome of it's happened. I don't have the
details as to what led to it, but what is
clear that the United States whould not target deliberately target
a school.
Speaker 1: So that was the news conference late this afternoon from
Marco Rubio, and again it answered a lot of questions
people have been asking all day long. Just to get
you up to date on statistics, we now are up
to six Americans have been killed, eighteen have been seriously wounded.
The Iranians came out and said, not only are they
firing missiles at a number of Arab countries, they're they're
firing missiles at a number of friendly Arab nations. They
have been hitting Doha and Dubai, Bahrain, Ri Odd the
UAE Kuwait Oman Sentcom says that US bases are under
constant fire, so they've yes if they're in a weakened state.
They had this all plotted out to be able to
go after everybody and everything. Now a lot of analysts
are saying that this is a mistake for them to
fire missiles at Arab neighbors, because those Arab neighbors are
now definitely turning on Iran. They may have been maybe
possibly supportive. Now no way are they going to do that.
The run is also announced that the Strait of Horror
Moves has been closed, and they vow that they will
hit any ship that tries to get through the Straight
of hor Moves. So oil prices there are seven to
well right now when I'm looking at the trading of
West Texas Intermediate, seventy one dollars and some change. So
it did shoot up. It was up to seventy three
a little maybe an hour or two ago, So seventy
one dollars. And I suspect what this news about the
Straight of hor Moves, that those oil prices could go higher,
and you and I will see it at the gas
pump here within a few days, no question about it.
What about the analysis of what's going on, Dan Hoffman
Ili Kim, he's the former CIA station's chief. He knows
where the bodies are buried, and I thought his action
to what's going on with this war was interesting here.
Speaker 9: Dan, absolutely, and listen. If there's one thing I learned
from having served in war zones overseas, it's the extent
to which we've developed this extremely sophisticated trade craft at
CIA where we were able to find and fix and
with the US military's awesome precision kinetic strikes finish our targets,
whether they are terrorist targets or leadership targets in Iran.
In this case, I could say from experienced CIA probably
had human sources as well as signals, intelligence and overhead reconnaissance.
They produced the analysis that showed that there was going
to be this gathering. Really awful trade craft on the
part of the Iranians to meet in one location the
presidential office. That's a high value target for US, one
that we would have been watching anyway, and for the
Ayatola to be there and the head of the IRGC others,
that was just a bonanza for our targeters. And good
on the military and CIA for having this fused capability
that we've seen developed since nine to eleven with extraordinary results.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the deathcount from the headquarters in Iran, forty seven
of Iran's top leaders from the Iotola on down were
killed in this attack. They knew where they were, they
had Dan said it was crazy for them to have
all those leaders in one room at the same time,
but they knew it, and we don't know how they
knew it, but they knew they would be there, and
Capawi a little bit of a trick. I guess there's
a lot of people thought that the CIA only operates
under the cover of darkness. This was in the afternoon.
Here's what Dan had to say about it.
Speaker 9: There's no rules for when we attack or don't attack
daytime rates, nighttime rates. Sure, we prefer to do things
under the cover of darkness. But the two words I
heard at CIADAY most often, especially in war zone's work,
it depends and we'll roll with it. And in this case,
the benefit of launching those strikes, albeit a more difficult
strike during the daylight, was extremely just fantastic for the
war effort to decapitate so much of Iran's leadership with
this one strike. And the other thing that I would
just highlight here is that Iran has typically relied on
Russia for strategic intelligence about the United States, and I
just wonder if this case, whether the Iranians might not
be too pleased that the Russians didn't give them any
warnings about US capability and intentions to strike Iranian leadership.
Speaker 1: So Marco Rubio was talking about the fact that they've
been building one hundred ballistic missiles a month and they
have a huge stockpile. They've been doing it for a year.
Dan was asked about, well, did you know about these things?
Speaker 9: This is another responsibility for the Intelligence Commune. It's not
just sniping Iranian leadership targets, but it's also conducting inventory
of Iranian capability, whether it's ballistic missiles or enriched uranium.
And in this case, the US military is going to
rely on those intelligence assessments about where the ballistic missiles
are located and then take appropriate action. Just for historical reference,
I would highlight the Gulf War back in nineteen ninety one.
We don't want to stop the conflict too soon and
allow Iran to retain the ballistic missiles that they could
use to harm us down the road.
Speaker 1: CIA has almost like James Bond type of tricks up there,
so they knew that the medium was going to take place,
and forty seven of the top leaders were killed in
that raid. We have Brett McGirk, former National Security Advisor Guy,
let's get him here to talk about what he thought
of this whole operation.
Speaker 10: Well, I took away from that b thing was actually
particularly General Kine, who I've worked with quite a bit
over the years clarifying that the US military objective here
this is very important. You might remember, Kate, we talked
last week when we were on air about if a
president orders military action is not very clear in his
own mind what he wants to achieve and how he
wants to achieve it. That's how you get into mission
creep and kind of endless war scenario. And the President
has made all sorts of statements since this started. What
I saw that briefing do was that the US military
objectives is to degrade Iranian military capacity, particularly its missiles
and drones, its navy, it's ability to project power outside
his borders. That is a classic military objective, and more
in the realm of an achievable objective, trying to orchestrate
political outcomes through military power, particularly air power, getting to
your point about boots on the ground is just almost
an impossible task for the military. And that's what I
really heard particularly General Kin doing, like, look, the military
objective is folks on Iranian military capacity. That's what Admiral Cooper,
the sen KONNK commander's focused on. And this is going
to go on probably for some period of weeks, but
it is not a military campaign. You're promising some political
end state in Iran, which again, airpower really cannot cannot deliver.
Speaker 1: You know, I've heard I've heard a flag officer saying
that for years that you cannot win a war just
from the air. That's where the question comes down to, Well,
you've got to put boots on the ground. And that's
the question that everybody's asking today is are you going
to put boots on the ground. The President said essentially no,
but but if we need to, we will.
Speaker 10: Back to McGirk, I think of the last again, forty hours,
not a long time, so it feels like a lot
has happened, and it has extraordinary I mean, the entire
military leadership command structure, supremely run down, has been eliminated,
and Iran has now is trying to demonstrate that its
regime is resilient, disappointed in interm Council under its constitution,
is trying to re establish some command to control. Very
unclear exactly what is happening inside Iran. I do think
strategic initiative air superiority, we have that over the skies,
but Iran is also demonstrating and it has medium range
missiles to hit Israel, and it has short range missiles
that can hit the golf and there, Kate, there's one
inflection point here that will play out over the next
day or so. Because of those attacks into the golf,
the Golf States are now talking about acting in self
defense against Iran's missiles, as are the UK and France.
This has changed because this was just a US Israel
military operation. The Golf States wanted to stay out of it,
the Europeans were on the sidelines. And now potentially because
Iran is launching these missiles just all over the place,
including out civilian areas, including at UK facilities in Cyprus.
This morning, Reform reports you might now have a kind
of a broader coalition. I can focus on that more
narrow objective. So that's something I'm watching. Does what Iran
is trying to do is just wreck such Mayhem and
the golf with energy supplies and everything else that the
Gulf States and others start calling Washington saying, hey, you
have to stop this. So far it's having the opposite effect,
and you see this coalition emerging, but it's just too
early to We have to all have some humility here
of how this will unfold, George Kennon one of our
great diplomats, and wars have a momentum of its own.
Once they start, events happen and transpire, and that's why
staying focused on core objectives is so important. I hope
the administration can do that, because the President has stated
a number of objectives here over the last couple of
days since this started.
Speaker 1: So speaking of others supporting us, where is well, it's
not a NATO impact because Iran is not part of NATO,
but and neither is Israel. But our friends, the people
that we count on to do things together. France is
not an active participant in offensive strikes. They say they're
ready to take proportionate action to protect partners in the
Middle East, whatever that means Germany and the UK. They
aim to prevent further Iranian missile and drone attacks, but
they're not doing anything offensive. No, there's no direct involvement
in France or the UK or Germany. Here is the
Prime Minister of Great Britain, curious Darmer basically weasling out.
This is the Prime Minister answering questions in Parliament in
the House of Commons today.
Speaker 8: Thank you, mister Speaker, the Prime Minister's reaction at the
end of last week compared to many to be both
anemic and disappointing, and of variance with the other five
I nationists. Will he read the analysis of the Shadow
Attorney the Noble and Learned case Lord Wolfson, which shows
not only the British active engagement and support is within
international law, but that those who seek to use international
law to constrain us in these circumstances have the effect
of leaving tyrants and murderers in place to continue perpetrating
their vile deeds of impunity.
Speaker 11: Yeah, mister Speaker, we obviously coordinate with our Five Eyes partners.
We were dealing with a specific request to take action
and that was important that we applied the principles that
actually have been applied by successive governments, which is to
ask the question and get legal advice on the question,
is there a lawful basis for what is proposed and
does it have a viable thought through plan.
Speaker 3: It's not a legal question.
Speaker 11: It's about exposed exposing our military personnel to action that
risks their lives, making sure that it is lawful before
we ask them to do that. I think that is
the duty of the Prime Minister's previous prime Minister's taken
exactly the same approach. I will, of course read the
Shadow Attorney's advice, but I'm very clear in the advice
that I received and I will not commit. I will
not commit our military personnel to unlawful action. That is,
that is not what they would expect and deserve pay.
They are entitled to better than that, not.
Speaker 8: All of them until there as as I've mentioned that
from Iraq to.
Speaker 1: You heard them grumblin he said that he won't commit
his military people to this whatsoever. That the person that
stood up, obviously was from the opposition party and said
that he's sounded a kneemic and weak. Here's Mark Mike
Pompeo after hearing that, listening to that, it's pretty pathetic,
pretty weak. Not demonstrating the rear resolve.
Speaker 12: The fact that you're talking to attorneys instead of doing
the hard work of making sure you defend your own
people and work alongside your partner, the Americans, is that
is most unfortunate. I think on the ground, I think
they're actually doing more than Prime Minister actually spoke to.
They know the seriousness with which this threatens their own
country threatens British folks who are sitting in a wouldabi
in Dubai in Kuwait City, they get it. But for
him to give this kind of political, merely mouth legal
response seems to me to actually embolden the Iranians at
a time when we should all be punishing them.
Speaker 1: So it just makes you wonder if we get in trouble,
how many of them are going to come to our aid.
They don't want to put themselves in jeopardy. Meantime, the
concern here in our homeland is the fact that there
are sleeper cells here, and they keep testifying that there
are in fact many sleeper cells from Iran that are here.
This goes back to last summer. Pam Bondi was testifying
before a committee in Congress and was asked about Iranian
sleeper cells.
Speaker 3: They have sleeper sales, we think here.
Speaker 13: We have thus far arrested fifteen hundred illegal Iranians in
our country. That is something that I would like to
talk about in a classified settingle But yes, have they
invaded our country absolutely, So.
Speaker 1: That brings up the concern about are they going to
activate terror cells here in the US. While there was
a shooting over the weekend in Austin, Texas. It was
a very popular restaurant slash bar. People were sitting outside
and this one guy that has had a white shirt
on that said property of Allah, and he had a
T shirt underneath that had some symbols of Iran drove
up and shot and killed two people and fourteen were wounded.
Here's the head of the FBI in Austin, Texas.
Speaker 5: Obviously it's still way too in the process to determine
an exact motivation, but there were indicators that on the
subject and in his vehicle that indicate potential nexus to terrorism.
In terms of specifically what type of terrorism, We're just
at this point prepared to say that it was potentially
an active terrorism all right.
Speaker 1: So that's from the head of the FBI in Austin, Texas,
Paul Morrow, former NYPD guy. It reacted to.
Speaker 14: This well, as we all said post nine to eleven,
you have to go about living your life right.
Speaker 1: But let's break it down real quickly.
Speaker 14: It is essentially three large categories of how I rank
could come at us on the home front. The first
is that they deploy one of their own assets. That's
the most worrisome, but the most difficult. That said, they've
tried it in the past. A number of years ago,
using the cartels in our southern border, they tried to
get somebody into America to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador
here in New York DEA and dedicted that through their
window into the cartels. It was great work. Kudos to them.
That's the kind of stuff that Iran has tried right now. However,
they don't have a lot of resources. It's like the
Russians with the sleeper cells and kind of stuff to
make the movies. Iran has their hands full of overseas
as it is. I adjudge that more dangerous are the
last two categories, which is one of two things. Either
they reach into the country to somebody that they are
judged to be a friendly, either somebody who has come
in through our border in the past, or somebody that
they see online some of these characters on campus that
we hear about that are in simply with Iran and
not America. Those are, to use the Leninist term, useful
idiots for our adversaries. Or the last category, which is
what I think we just saw in Austin, which is
somebody that has no contact with the regime, but is
just inspired because they're like minded. That's very difficult in
a First Amendment society to interdict. That's what we ran
against so heavily relative to isis because of the Internet.
These people are receiving these messages and they can pop
off at any time. You're not tracking That's right, That's
what I meant by a First Amendment society exactly if
you're not tracking them and you can't stop them from
going online and receiving the kind of messaging that's out
there on various websites and various apps now as well,
many of which are encrypted. It's got even more hard
to do the kind of work that my people used
to do so effectively. It's even harder now because of
the encrypted apps and all the other options that are
out there they'll use, for instance, these days gaming platforms.
We saw that actually in the Jarlie Kirk case, where
there was a gaming platform that was reportedly used for messaging.
So it's a much wider, broader landscape. And you gotta
remember something else too, the open border matters. You have
the fact that we had Venezuela housing a lot of
these people, making it a node for Iran and people
like he below. The former vice president of Venezuela on
the Maduro is a guy named Tarika Alasami. And if
that doesn't sound like a Spanish name to you, it's
because it's.
Speaker 3: Not all right.
Speaker 14: So you have that, you have the Triborder Reachi, you
have HESBLO, very active down there. The good news is
that Donald Trump's administration has closed off the border to
some extent flipped Venezuela, so it won't be that kind
of a safe haven. So at least we've stopped the bleeding.
But what's done is done, and we had four years
if these characters able to infiltrate us, and we don't
know where they all.
Speaker 1: Are, we certainly don't, so keep your fingers crossed and
if you see something, say something. Meantime, Wall Street today
was well, it was ugly right out of the gate.
We had a weekend of all this activity, and so
when we started trading, the Dow Jones industrials went down
about five six hundred points. But when all was said
and done, market looked around and said, okay, down seventy
three at the close, so recovered a lot from the
early sell off down seventy three, the dow at forty
eight thousand and nine oh four s and P. It
was also a big sell off that came back to
a gain of two points. Deck same story came back
to a gain of eighty points. Price of gold run
to safety up ninety five dollars to five thousand and
three forty three, and oil was up to seventy three. Well,
there's two major quotations for oil. This is West Texas Intermediate,
which is the broadest measure. It was up on the
On the other Brett Crude, it was up to eighty
dollars at one point, but it settled down. Oil on
the West Texas Intermediate, which is the number I give
you every day, up four bucks to seventy one dollars
at the close. So that's it for today. Thank you
for coming by. We will try this again tomorrow and
I hope to see you then