Speaker 1: Past two, one, two, three, four, five, and welcome to
the Big Podcast. Happy Friday to you. Today is the
twentieth day of June, Year of Our Lord, twenty twenty five.
My name is Tom Sullivan. So we got a lot
to cover today. General Keane, I've always liked to trap
whatever he's saying during the day because he's a very
smart guy. He runs the Institute for the Study of War.
He's not only a retired four star general, but he
really understands the deeper parts of this and so he well,
we have a big piece from him today. And also
there was a big court victory for President Trump. The
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the one that is the
most overturned. They cover the western part of the United
States West Coast mainly, and they ruled that Sorry, Governor Newsom,
you keep running around telling everybody that the President is
acting illegally. We backed the president. The court ruled in
favor of President Trump having control of the California National Guard.
So we'll get into all of that as well. There's
a Fox News pull out today. And what else have
we got here for you?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 1: Just breaking as we sat down to record this is
that Mahmoud Khalil, the guy that was a Columbia student,
has been in detention since back in March. The court
in New Jersey Federal Court in New Jersey ruled today
that he is not a flight risk and he's not
a danger to the public, so that they must release
him from detention. We'll see, obviously, I'm sure that's going
to be appealed. But the fight is one for Donald
Trump on the California National Guard and one for Khalil.
Mahmoud Khalil. On being released, he still asked to be
go to court about the charges that were against him.
Let's start with General Jack King. He may sound a
little laid back to you today because he was kind
of laid back. He was sitting on a sofa. He
was on the Outnumbered show on Fox, and he was
talking to the ladies about all the things going on
in Iron, and I thought that it would be helpful
to listen to what the general has to say. So
here is General Jack King.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Well, first of all, look at Iron's behavior. In a
language they've used for forty five years, the theme is
dominated we can't control the Middle East and the flow
of boil out of the Persian Gulf, drive the United
States military out of the region, so we lose our
influence in the region and destroy the State of Israel. Now,
when they used to say that, you know, in the
early days of the regime back in the eighties, people
would roll their eyes and say, well, they're not really
serious about that. They are dead serious about it. And
acquiring a nuclear weapon gives them two things. And the
first thing is the destruction of the State of Israel,
and the State of Israel has has to take that
existential threat seriously based on the language and a rhetoric
that they've exercised for all these years and their determination
to have a weapon. And secondly, it leads to a
nuclear arms race if they get a weapon in the region.
Henry Kissinger, who after a number of years on the
Defense Policy Board with him some twelve years, we actually
developed the friendship, which I was honored to have. He
told me, he said, Jack, you know, the most serious
challenge in my lifetime that we're facing is not the
calimity of World War two. It's Iran having a nuclear
weapon and the Arabs acquiring a weapon. Obviously to prevent
them using it, and it would likely given the volatility
of that area lead to the first nuclear exchange in
the world. So it is in US national interests that
are on not to have a nuclear weapons. Certainly our
ally is threatened by it, but the world is threatened
by them having a nuclear weapon because of who they are.
This is a diabolical, threatening regime. The fact that they're
mullers and clerics is a fraud. These are thugs and
killers who are running this regime for forty five years. Well,
Ran hasn't made a decision to have a nuclear weapon,
Are you kidding me? The only industry they spend more
money on is oil. This is an enterprise. Is that
at twelve sites, some of the buildings have there's twenty
five to thirty buildings on some of these nuclears. Their
academic universities are all tied to it in terms of
research that's done with it. This is a major, major enterprise.
And now they're within two weeks of being able to weaponize,
and because they haven't made the decision to do that,
we're absolutely in the same condition that we're in the
North Korea. They made a decision, let's say today, two
weeks later, now they have nine weapons. Now they're in
nuclear power. Isn't that what happened to us? And to
suggest that, well, maybe we shouldn't do anything because they
haven't officially made the decision a weapon. They for twenty
five years, they've taken every step that's humanly possible, not
only to develop a nuclear weapon, but also they put
into this major enterprise. And this is what some people
don't get is the Iatola has built an enterprise that's
redundant and resilient because he knows at some point it
would be attacked and he wants to absorb that attack,
survive it, recover and rebuild. And he is never going
to voluntarily dismantle his program with verification because it's gone.
He believes some of it will be left and I
can recover and rebuild. That's really where we are. That's
why no progress in negotiations have been made, and that's
why the only way to deal with this is you
have to forcibly dismantle the program. Yeah, certainly, Well, he's
had four or five meetings, and these are very detailed
meetings in terms of what should what is our policy overall?
And I think when you strategically look at it, I
would assume someone like Secretary of Rubio is saying, given
what the Israelis have done to the Iranians, and how
back on their heels they really are. You know, they
took down seventy of their air defense batteries, there's none left.
They've hit forty five military sites. They've hit every single
one of the nuclear sites, all twelve plus of them,
either damaged or destroyed them. There is no air force.
It is completely destroyed. They decapitated their military and scientific leaders.
As you know, and listen to this, Where are the
proxies who have missiles and rockets? Not a single one
of them is coming to their defense. I asked an
Israeli general, what's going on with hesbeler? Do they still
have missiles? He said, yes, General, they do. They have
They have thousands of missiles. And why aren't they coming?
Why aren't they defend They the Iranians organized hesbela primary
mission to defend Iran. They pump billions and billions of
dollars one hundred and fifty thousand rockets and missiles. Why
haven't they fired any of those in defense of Iran?
Speaker 5: He said?
Speaker 4: They have lost their will and they believe that Iran
is about to be finished. Where is Russia and China
and North Korea their strategic partners that then they have
been cooperating, coordinating and collaborating with each other for four
years during the Biden administration. Where is the assistance coming
to Iran given the situation they're in. They have plenty
of ballistic missiles, they have plenty of rockets, they have
all sorts of things that can come to Iran's a
not going near. It is isolated and most vulnerable it's
been in forty five years. So I think Rubio would
likely say this is a strategic opportunity for us to remove,
not to remove, but to end Iran's domination of the
region in their adverse behavior that has been going on
for all of these years. We can come close right
now to ending that, and maybe in the long run
the Iranians themselves internally will make a change themselves in
terms of that direction.
Speaker 1: So that's general Team's kind of broader step back, take
a look at the big picture sort of thing, and
he thinks, as you can tell, that this is about
ready to at least come to an end for Iran.
Mike Pompeo also very bright guy. He was the head
of his class at West Point, he was a congress
money Harvard law he was Secretary of State. He also
seems to have a pretty good handle on what's going
on in the Middle East.
Speaker 5: It doesn't square, it doesn't remotely square. Indeed, as the
first I've heard of that statement, I don't see that
statement as being remotely different from what they've been saying
four weeks. They've always said they'll have limits. Indeed, they've
had limits, and they've violated. They've cheated on those very
limits for years and years and years. So for the
Auranians to say now we still want to have some
limited amount of enrichment means they're still had to down
this same path. And I think President Trump will clearly
see that You're right. He has said zero enrichment. He's
also talked about unconditional surrender. It doesn't sound like the
Iranians are anywhere near that. And I'm confident that the
negotiations that can Tina will be done. As Secretary State
Schultz called it, in the shadow of power, because absent
that without what President Trump has done to set up
these conditions where the Iranians know that they could lose
it all, without that risk, without that power being prevalent
and visible. Negotiations are just another euphemism for surrender and capitulation.
Speaker 6: For twenty five years, American presidents have been pledging that
Iran cannot get a nuclear weapon, but only one Donald
Trump actually has done something about it and has said
that we're going to bring this chapter to a close soon.
So as you put it four to oh, they're deeply
buried underground. Nuclear bunker has to be closed one way
or the other. It can be closed the easy way,
it has to be immediate way.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I think Senator Cotton captured perfectly. It was great to
hear his voice. He and I have been working on
this for a long time together. He and I are
the ones that discovered that John Kerry Barack Obama's secret
side deals now gosh, almost a decade ago, which reminds
us all that it is time to put this dress,
to get all of the enrichment out of Iran, to
to finally put Israel a place where it can be secure,
and most importantly for the American people, to make sure
that we are safe and we don't have to live
under the threat of a nuclear armed Iranian regime that
has for years talked about death to our nation and
done everything it can to facilitate that. Both Vladimir Putin
and Shushinping, the leader of those two countries, have made
pledges to the Iranian regime. They've said, we're lifelong friends,
we have deep security relationships, and of course, to date,
while Iran's regime is threatened, they've done almost nothing to
support them. Not surprising, they picked a loser and now
can see that. I've seen this reports that they're moving
cargo of some sort into Iran. I don't know if
that's true or exactly what it might be, but if
the Chinese or the Russians were serious, they would have
they would have put their troops there, they would have
done what they could with their defense systems, they would
have created trouble somewhere else in the world. And instead
they've abandoned their erstwhile ally their regime in Iran. They
are clearly lu users from what Israel has done so far,
and completing this task will accomplish two things. One, it'll
take down their nuclear weapons efforts, ballistic missiles, all of
the development work that goes alongside of that. And second,
it will demonstrate to Shishiping who's thinking about Taiwan and
to Vladimir Putin, who has already invaded Europe, they will
recognize the President Trump is someone that is not to
be traveled with and is prepared to do the hard
work to deter them from further aggression.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so Mike Pompeo had the same exact comments that
General Keene had, which is, where are the allies that
swore that they would be there through thick and thin
for Iran. They had all kinds of agreements, they shook hands,
they had photo ops, and now when push comes to shove,
nobody is showing up to help Iran. And the report
that Pompeo did not know about, but it was apparently
reported by a couple of news agencies that are in
tay Ran. They've seen a couple of seven forty seven's
come in from China and they're not bringing in weapons
or not bringing in troops. If anything, the only guesses
they're evacuating Chinese citizens from Tehran. So that's also another
bad sign for the people that are running the country
of Iran. Another guy who has a good handle on
all of this is the former station chief for the
CIA in Moscow, Dan Hoffmann. This is his comment.
Speaker 7: So I think for the US intelligence community, the key
thing reflections from Iranian intelligence and the Supreme Leader and
the clerics to determine whether Iran really believes that President
Trump would indeed launch one of those bunker busting bombs
or a succession of them at the Ford oh site.
If Iran really believes that, and they believe that the
United States would support Israel militarily in action in Iran,
that might induce Iran to come to the negotiating table.
It's worth remembering that while we were holding negotiations over
a sixty day period with Iran, they were defiantly stalling
and refusing really to engage in any sort of diplomatic negotiations.
And so I think that's what the intelligence community can
do to support the President as he considers his policy options. Yeah,
I think it's important to remember what our strategic goals are,
what are our objectives, and remember that President Trump withdrew
from the JCPOA because of those nuclear the sunset clauses
on Iran's nuclear program, and because the JCPOA addressed neither
Iran's ballistic missile capability nor its support for proxy terrorists
in the region.
Speaker 5: And beyond.
Speaker 7: Israel is decimated Iran's terrorist network, and they're also decimating
Iran's ballistic missiles. If we can get to those three
elements of what concerns us about Iran's projection of power,
including the nuclear program, then no one is talking about
regime change necessarily, and imposing regime change from the outside
in a bombing campaign. I just don't think that has
a whole lot of potential for good. It's possible that
we might see something organic develop inside Iran, but we've
got to consider the fact that if indeed there were
regime change, what would follow might be even worse. What
we saw when the Soviet Union collapsed was that the
KGB operative in the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin eventually took charge,
and that wasn't necessarily a good thing for us. In Iran,
the military intelligence, the IRGC, they're the strong and they're
most likely to survive in the event of a regime change.
We can consider this war one if Iran's ballistic missile
capability is destroyed and we enter into some sort of
a settlement whereby Iran can no longer be a nuclear
threshold state and they no longer in rich uranium that
I think would be considered a victory. Israel may decide
on their own, and I'm sure they've got plans on
the shelf to I'll covertly infiltrate four to Doh and
perhaps seek to destroy the four nuclear facility. It's very
difficult because it's very deep underground. And if you're wondering
whether Iran is a real threat to the world with
a nuclear program, well that's evidence right there.
Speaker 5: This is not Iraq.
Speaker 7: This is absolutely clear where Iran has a nuclear program
that is a threat and needs to be dealt with now,
one way or another. I think the intelligence community needs
to rely on facts and not ideology. So whatever they
believe should be backed up by human intelligence and signals intelligence.
It's not anybody's opinion that matters. It's just based on
the facts. The president will make policy. The CIA recruits
spies and steals secrets, NSA steals signals intelligence and collects
what foreign military and leaders are saying, and all of
that informs the president. And frankly, what matters for Director
Raklif is to get his anim his smart Middle East
analysts out front to the White House briefing the president,
answering the president's questions so that the president can be
able to make the most informed decisions possible.
Speaker 1: So we're not talking just to a bunch of Republicans.
There was a Democrat, Bran Schneider from Illinois, congressman, and
he was recently on a fact finding trip over to
the Middle East, and as a Democrat, listened to his
comments as well.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think what we heard.
Speaker 8: So we visited Saudi Arabia, Buffrain, United Arab Emirates. We
weren't able to get in Israel, not because of security
we had arranged to go to Jordan and driving to Israel,
but because of house rules just prohibited that. But broader
picture of what we heard in every country is that
they know a nuclear armed Iran as an existential threat
to every country in the Gulf, every country in the region,
including Israel, and a threat to the United States. So
they want to do everything possible to make sure i
Ran cannot get a nuclear weapon. At the same time,
the longer this war goes on, the greater the chance
of it expanding and bringing in these other countries, and
so they want to move to the escalation as quickly
as possible. That was the message we heard everywhere we went. Well,
you know, I was first selected in twenty twelve, was
a threat.
Speaker 3: Then.
Speaker 8: I've spent more than thirty years working to make sure
Ran never gets a nuclear weapon. We have to do
everything necessary to ensure Iran never has a nuclear weapon.
That includes prohibiting them from enriching uranium to ninety percent.
Actually they shouldn't be enriching uranium at all, and includes
making sure that they don't have the capacity to convert
that enriched uranium into a nuclear weapon. That's the concern.
That's where Israel has assessed that they were ready to
move I've not seen the classified information yet. I just
got back in the country. But the United States is
united with Israel. I think united with our allies that
the rank and never have a nuclear weapon, and at
this point we have to do whatever's necessary to make
sure they can't move forward. Is those taking great steps
in dismantling arounds nuclear program. It's one thing to slow
it down, it's another thing to block it. We need
to permanently close every passive man has to nuclear weapon.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a Democrat, Congressman Brad Schneider out of Illinois.
So there's a the IAEA you'll hear a lot about
International Atomic Energy Agency. They are the ones that for
decades have run around the world and do inspections to
make sure that countries with nuclear bombs and nuclear power
that they stay within the rules. Everybody and their brother
now is saying there is no reason for Iran to
be doing anything about enriching uranium. And that's where Tulsea
Gabbert is kind of sounding a little bit goofy because
of the fact that she says, oh, yes, they're in uranium, large, large,
large amounts of uranium, much more than anybody else, but
we don't have any proof that they're building a bomb.
And well, what do you think they're doing with the
enriched uranium? What do you think they're going to do?
So listen to this guy. His name is David Albright.
He is one of the nuclear inspectors from the IAEA,
and he talks about it will take a few months
to build an actual weapon that can be on the
nose of a of a rocket, but it will only
take days for them to take that enrichment and make
it into weapon grade uranium. Here's the inspector, David Albright.
Speaker 9: Well, the program that's most worsome is there enrichment program,
and it's kind of symbolized by their rush in the
last six months to make as much sixty percent enriched
uranium as possible, which is just a hair brusts away
from having weapon grade uranium, so they could convert it
and just start having significant quantities of weapon grade uranium
in days and so. But the workhourse of that enrichment
program is in the tons underground in Richmond site, which
apparently has been pretty badly damaged. It's hard to do
a damage assessment because no one's Israel obviously can't get
in and there's no inspectors. Ford Ou is was was
actually a part of the old nuclear weapons program of
the early two thousands. That's where it was started. It
was called the Algader project, and after Iron kind of
shut down it's it's crashed nuclear weapons program and segued
into more of a more covert kind of preparatory program.
The ford Ou construction continued and it was exposed in
two thousand and nine. So it's always it's always in
Iran's mind, it's always been part of a nuclear weapons
effort and more than a civil program, and so it's
it's fortified, it's deeply buried, it's small, it has just
maybe one fifth to one sixth of the centrifuges at
the underground site in the tongs Had and so it
but it is because of its nature. It is a
natural place for Iran to try to make weapon grade uranium,
and so it's high on the target list of Israel. Well,
it's never been the job to make that assessment. And
in fact, there was a quote that was attributed to
Secretary our Director General Grossie. It was wildly taken, wildly
out of context. The IE is not in the business
of telling us if about secret nuclear weapons programs that
are in a sense hidden from the IA. They can
only do what they can, and they've done a lot.
They've don't covered Iran having on declared nuclear material that
it should have declared, it has on declared activities that
should have been and so it was able to prove
very clearly that Iran violated its obligations under the Nonpliferation
Treaty and that's what played out in Vienna a couple
of weeks ago. And so, but they're not in the business,
like an intelligence agency to assess how close is around
to a bomb what's the status of that program. They
could only do it if the country cooperates. They did
it in South Africa, for example, because the country cooperated.
So here, if you ask the question how close there's
the pre attack and there's post attack pre attack, we
at my institute would have assessed that they would have
needed about six months or a little bit less to
be able to build what we would call a non
missile deliverable nuclear weapon, and the time would have to
be spent on making the nuclear weapon itself. They can
make the weapon grade uranium extremely quickly. Now it's post attack,
things have changed. Behind the Israel has been really going
after the sites and people and activities associated with making
the nuclear weapon itself. And so our assessmentary because we
don't we're still collecting, is that Israel's extended the time
Iran needs to build a nuclear weapon by several months,
again independent of the weapon grade uranium. So I think
Israel is setting back their program and it's and and
I would argue they need more time now.
Speaker 1: In other words, Iran has been the facilities have been damaged,
so it has set back their ability to actually get
a missile with a warhead that is a nuclear weapon.
But at the same time, if if Iran, if Israel
had not damaged all of their locations, they probably would
be ready pretty quickly. But the other thing about this,
the city said it would take days to get weapons
grade uranium, which they could deliver through another way than
a missile. Don't forget the dirty bomb, don't forget some
of the other ways that they could deliver some sort
of nuclear weapon that would not be on the tip
of a missile. Now I've played for you. Brad Schneider
from the Democrat from Illinois, he says, absolutely, we have
to stop Iran in their tracks. They cannot be allowed
to have a nuclear weapon. But Senator Chris Coons, a
Democrat from Delaware, he says, next week in the Senate,
they are going to have a vote about whether or
not to give permission to the president under war powers,
and the war powers, as he has stated, belong to
the Congress. Here's Chris Coons. We're going to have one
next week.
Speaker 10: And I voted for a similar but not identical war
powers resolution when Senator came brought it before the Senate
a number of years ago. So we will have that
vote this coming week, and that will make it clear
that President Trump should not go ahead with a risky
and danger potentially dangerous strike on Iran without the approval
of Congress. As I've been saying all along, there is
time now for diplomacy and for consultation with Congress, and
for our central role to be respected by President Trump.
And I think we need to be a part of
this debate and conversation.
Speaker 1: I think we've all heard over the years that Congress
does have the power to basically declare war, not the President,
it's the Congress. But they've also given authorized authorized what
do they call it, a whims authorized military George Bush
got it for Iraq. And we'll see what they come
up with here. But they are looking like they are
going to take the position, at least the Democrats in
the Senate, of stopping trying to stop the President from
taking any action regarding Iran and any action helping Israel.
So let's look at some of the polling that's out
to Fox News poll It just came out yesterday, and
they ask a number of questions. One is, do you
think Iran poses a real national security threat to the
United States? Seventy three percent said yes, twenty four percent
said no. Do you approve or disapprove of israel decision
to launch military strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities? Pretty close? Actually,
forty nine percent approve, forty six percent disapprove. Next question,
do you think Israel israel strikes against Iran's nuclear program
will make the world a safer place or a more
dangerous place? Only thirty six percent believe it will make
it the world a safer place. Fifty nine percent say
it will make it a more dangerous place. I got
to tell you, I'm just the opposite on that. I
think Iran has been the center of danger in the
Western world for a long long time, and they keep
working and building as they threaten and threatened, threaten the US,
threatened Israel threaten a lot of people, but they're the
leader there, I think is an absolute nutjob, and he
is so ideologically driven that if he could get his
hands on a nuclear weapon, I think he would use him.
He wants to exterminate everybody in Israel. So I think
getting rid of Iran's leadership and their nuclear weapons systems
will make the world a safer place. Now, will somebody
else come along with nukes? That is also a rogue leader.
Probably you might even want to define some of them
that have nukes right now in that category. So it's interesting.
But I'm just on the opposite of that. Future of
the country and inflation top concerns for voters. It's always sad,
always about the economy and inflation. It comes in. Eighty
five percent of the people are extremely concerned about the
future of the country, and eighty four percent are very concerned,
extremely concerned about inflation and higher prices. Eighty percent are
very concerned about government spending. Seventy eight percent are concerned
about Iran getting a nuclear bomb, sixty nine percent concerned
about anti Semitism, sixty seven percent concerned about illegal immigration,
sixty six percent domestic use of US military troops and
response to protests, and sixty three percent still significant majority
are extremely concerned about the protest in the United States,
which brings us to Harry Enton, and he looked at
specifically Lost Angelus and the way it was handled by
the president. Here's Harrie Enton. Where are we well?
Speaker 2: I think we can say that Donald Trump has lost
the political battle when it comes to what has happened
out in Los Angeles. Donald Trump's net approval rating on
the Los Angeles process.
Speaker 1: Look at this.
Speaker 2: Overall way way way underwater, minus fifteen points. How about
among independents are those who don't identify with either major party?
Speaker 1: Way even lower?
Speaker 2: Look at that minus twenty four points on the net
approval rating. And of course, this is happening on what
should be one of Donald Trump's, in fact, the best
issue for Donald Trump, immigration, And yet when it comes
to these Los Angeles protests, fifteen points underwater overall and
twenty four points underwater among independents.
Speaker 3: No good.
Speaker 2: So you know, you see these numbers with concern to
the Los Angeles protests. But let's wind it out a
little bit, and I think this sort of paints a
picture for you and understanding why Donald Trump's net approval
rating on the Los Angeles protests are as low as
they are. Take a look Trump and immigrant arrests. He's
gone too far, that's the winner here forty nine percent.
Not too far, only forty percent. So you got a
nine point lead here. And again among those independents or
other category, you see fifty one percent of them say
Trump's gone too far. And what's so important to note
is that this poll was taken after after the Los
Angeles protests started, So this takes into account everything that's
gone on in Los Angeles at this particular point. If
the protesters idea was to focus the attention on Donald
Trump and bring attention to his immigration policies and bring
attention to the arrests that have been occurring of immigrants,
it seems to me that those protests have been successful
because you see here forty nine percent say Trump's gone
too far when it comes to the immigrant agress, compared
to just forty percent who say he's not gone too far.
You don't have to be a mathematical genius. No, forty
nine percent is larger than forty percent. So let's take
a look here, right, more ice raids at workplaces, these
workplaces where immigrants perhaps are here illegally are working. Look,
forty five percent approved. But again, what's the winner here?
Fifty four percent. Fifty four percent disapproved of the idea
of more ice arrests. And this again goes to what
these protests were all about in the first place, these
ice arrests at work. And it does seem again that
the American people are with the protesters on this. You
see here the majority saying that they disapprove of more
ice rates at workplaces. And I think it's so important
isis historically actually been rated fairly favorably, but their fable
ratings have been going down as these raids have been
going on. More issue and he's losing on his core
issue at this point. Again, he is losing in these protests, So.
Speaker 1: He may be losing when it comes to the poll
that Harry Inton does, and he's a very good pollster,
But at the same time, people ask or answer these
questions very strangely. When you have people that are saying
that they about the protest and whether or not this
is a concern, sixty three percent in the Fox News
poles said that they're extremely or very concerned about the protest,
and sixty six percent they they're very concerned about the
domestic use of military troops. I think that's where Harry's
picking up people are going on. I don't know about
bringing in the troops, but the police said they were overwhelmed. Meantime,
when all that said and done, as I started the program,
I told you that the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals
has ruled in favor of Donald Trump keeping control over
the California National Guard to respond to immigration protest in LA.
So this was they'd said. The judge in San Francisco
last week aired when he ordered Trump to return control
the Gavin Newsom. By the way, it was a unanimous
thirty eight page ruling three judge panel US Court of
Appeals Ninth Circuit said conditions in Los Angeles were sufficient
for mister Trump to decide that he needed to take
federal control of California's National Guard and deployed it to
ensure that federal immigration laws would be enforced. So it's
really rare when the Ninth Circuit favors a Republican president.
It's double triple, quadruple rare when you get a unanimous
ruling in favor of Donald Trump. So I presume the
State of California is going to appeal this. Don't know
if the Supreme Court will listen to it or not.
But that's so that's the mixed bag. Harry Inton says.
People say, I don't like the idea of using using
troops on the streets of Los Angeles. The Fox News
parl implied the same sort of thing, but the court said, yeah,
but the president has the authority. Former Acting Nice Director
Jonathan Fayhe weighed in on all of this today.
Speaker 11: Yeah, it's a huge win for President Trump and his
decision here, and for a couple of reasons. One, they
agreed with an alone substance he can use the National
Guard if these writers were interfered with his ability to
carry out his executive mission, in this case the ice
laws or the immigration laws. Second, they also made a
nod to basically deferential deference to the president. Basically, this
is his decision to make, so they which is a
lot different than a lot of these central courts have
been doing, which they haven't been recognized in a deference
to the executive branch. So huge win. The reaction from
Governor Newsom is quite remarkable. I mean sort of this
no King's nonsense, which is just the standard democratic talking point.
But what's also important substantively, the chief of police in
Los Angeles said before the National Guard was brought in
that they were overwhelmed with a situation. So this wasn't
just President Trump acting on his oone. This was seen
on the ground by local law enforcement. Ultimately, though, this
is a huge win for President Trump, a huge win
for the citizens of Los Angeles and America.
Speaker 5: And also huge win for law enforcement.
Speaker 11: That they're able to carry out their duties and they
get the support of the federal govern when local agitators, rioters,
even politicians are standing in their way.
Speaker 1: And Jonathan Turley, the Georgetown law professor, had this comment
about the case as well.
Speaker 12: Well, this was obviously something of a buzzkill for Governor Newsom.
I mean, it interrupted his narrative that he's defending against
the outbreak of tyranny. The court here is saying that, actually,
you're on the other side of the rule of law
on this one. That the statue gives the president this authority,
he has a discretion to make that decision, that any
violation of the statue was a highly technical one that
wouldn't justify what the District Court did here. And it
also freezes the District Court's decision, which was really problematic
for many You know, this is a district court judge
that suggested that President Trump was acting like King George,
and the opinion was sort of full of sort of
talking points we've seen out of some of the Democratic politicians.
All of that has been set aside by the Ninth
Circuit that says the president has this authority, he's likely
to prevail, and no, we do not believe the governor
has a veto on the deployment of National Guards personnel.
You could see what happened just last night in Oregon
that that is precisely the type of violence that the
President says he's trying to quell. He's trying to stop
this from going out of control. These are National guardsmen
that we're protecting federal buildings. They're not engaged in the
enforcement of immigration laws. And you know, the district court
in this case really said something I thought was pretty
extreme and unsupportable. He said, you know, yeah, the president's
ability to enforce federal immigration law may have been diminished,
but it wasn't eliminated entirely.
Speaker 5: And the Ninth Circuit said, what's that.
Speaker 12: I mean, you don't have to wait until your authority
is completely eliminated in order for you to act. The
statute is allowing him to deploy these troops to allow
the enforcement of federal law. And at the same time,
you had an LA politician democrat saying, you know, ice
in the federal government just needs to quote retreat and
then everything will be calm. Well, that's not going to happen.
Either federal law can be enforced by federal officials, and
it's going to go forward. They have ten cases still
in the pipeline, and that's not including what's called the
shadow docket or the emergency cases before the court, which
are quite significant in and of themselves. The term is
supposed to end next week. They could always extend that.
There's the injunction issue in the birthright citizens ship case,
which is of great importance to the administration. They've been
arguing that these individual judges are freezing the federal government
from important policy moves and program and they're trying to
confine that role. That could change a lot of these cases.
And that's just one of five very significant cases we're
still waiting for.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we'll waiting until next week. Most of those decisions.
The court session ends at the end of this month,
so they have basically another week to get some of
those very important rulings out. So we have phone calls,
and I looked over the phone, but we've got a
lot of great phone calls this past week. I thought
I would play some of them for you. Some of
the people that you might recognize. For example, let's start
off with salty.
Speaker 13: Oh, Tom, it's salty. I can't believe it. I got
this thing on the Facebook. Tom It said, I'm like
a number one saying, I don't know how that happened,
but I certainly embrace it.
Speaker 14: Buddy.
Speaker 13: I love you, and I am listening. There's the program
as I go to sleep at night, so it's like
you're telling me a lullaby, except for the world is
on fire instead. But anyway, I loved how you're reporting
on the news, and I loved your interview with I
believe her name was Lorie Holy Cow.
Speaker 14: Uh.
Speaker 13: Keep doing what you're doing, buddy, we'll talk to you later.
It's salty. Henderson's signing all.
Speaker 1: Yes, there's salty. He is the number one fan. And
Betty from Oklahoma City. She also gave me a call
earlier this week.
Speaker 14: Maybe they consider me some kind of rest which is
absolutely insane.
Speaker 3: But anyway, like I said, the little old women be
are seniors, grandmothers and.
Speaker 14: Great grandmothers like myself. We are scared to death, like
I said, want few bathrooms that are open and available
to us to go into because there's men using them.
And I do mean man, and do not think you're
going to force me to deny God Almighty and put
myself in danger of hell fire because of your food
is it's your insanity because God only created too a
man and a woman, and.
Speaker 13: There is no other. And anybody that goes along with that.
Speaker 14: Is denying God Almighty and putting their soul at risk
of hell fire.
Speaker 13: Worship and come back to sanity before it is too late.
Speaker 1: Because yeah, that's very Betty, And so Betty's upset about
these the trans use of bathrooms. Darla weighed in on
she watched the Armies two hundred and fiftieth birthday parade.
She loved it.
Speaker 15: Hey, Tom, it's Darla from Lockford, California.
Speaker 3: I just wanted to say that.
Speaker 15: I loved the military parade celebrating the two hundred and
fiftieth anniversary of the US Army. I thought it was
well done. I watched every single minute of it. I
felt pride and patriotism and I just I really really
loved it.
Speaker 1: Good. So did I, so did a lot of people.
And here's Brian from the Battle. Let's listen to what
he has to say.
Speaker 4: Hi.
Speaker 16: Uh, this Brian one of my great one of my friends,
great good friends in California. It's great great great grandfather
was came out of Arran. And uh, I'm American, American
and American born, and I have a strong consensus between Idaho, Utah, California,
and the from.
Speaker 3: Iranians that.
Speaker 16: They want a regime change now and they want the
current regie god period, no answer, but that there's no wavering,
no questioning about that at all. It's one hundred percent
from everybody I've talked to. And uh, I just talked
to another the Iranian guy in put Lake City this
morning at breakfast, and I talked to my friend in California,
great great great grandfather there was King of getter on
and he said, get her on with their regime right now.
That's what he said, quote unquote. So I'm sorry you
didn't get a hold of me to talk on radio,
but oh well, you have a great.
Speaker 1: Well you have a great day too, Brian and Alex
and YOUBA City, California. Here's Alex.
Speaker 3: Hi Tom, this is Alex, and I've always loved your show.
We got a chance to call in that appreciate podcast
and love what you're doing. Glad to get your audios
levels kind of adjusted. My one comment for you was
going to be now that you're on a podcast and
you're not really bound by the rules of you know,
radio broadcasting, and so honestly, I would love to hear
you just say that somethin's bullshit when something's bullshit, because
I think that would mean so much more just coming
from you, and I know you. I don't want to
blow up your audience and have it be a foul
out everything, but every now and then, when you just
call it like it is, I'd absolutely love to hear it.
Speaker 17: Buddy.
Speaker 3: All right, keep up the good work, hope things go
well for you, and take care. Thanks fight.
Speaker 1: I hope so too.
Speaker 4: No.
Speaker 1: I mean, I know you can swear on a podcast,
but this is not my style. But I but listen,
what can I say, Alex, thank you for the call.
I appreciate it very much. So let's let's wrap up
this phone call business for the week with the lady
we always put at the end of the comment line,
and that would be I've got I've got three different
calls from the comment line lady better known as Laurie,
and here's our first call.
Speaker 17: As a citizen of the great state of California. I
have a proposition for the good people of Pennsylvania. We
will trade you Senator Alex Padilla for Senator John Setterman,
and we'll even throw in Adam Schiff for make weight.
Speaker 1: That's a kind throwing Adam Shiff at the same time, Pennsylvania,
what do you think? And I don't think you're going
to buy into that. Here's Laurie number two for the week.
Speaker 17: I think we should help Israel. I don't think it's
going to get us into a forever war. But if
we don't help Israel, we may wind up in a
very short war on our own shores and we won't
win it.
Speaker 1: A little more ominous, a little more serious. And the last,
but not least, the comment line Lady Laurie talking about
the parade.
Speaker 17: So people are complaining that Donald Trump's birthday coincided with
a big military parade. I guess we should be grateful
he wasn't born on December twenty fifth, or they'd be
wanting us to cancel the Christmas season.
Speaker 1: Makes me laugh every time. So that's Those are some
of the phone calls for the week. The phone number
is the same as it's always been eight five five
two nine five sixty six hundred eighty five five two
nine five sixty six hundred. You can also find that
number and ways to hopefully find the podcast if you're
having trouble, but you're not if you're listening to us,
it's be on my website, which is Tom Sullivan dot com.
The markets today pretty tame, Dow up thirty five, SMP
down thirteen, NASDACK down ninety eight, so everything was pretty calm.
The price of goal down twenty six dollars, it's now
at thirty three eighty one, and oil barely moved. It
was down fourteen cents to close it seventy five dollars
for one barrel of oil. So that's it for today.
That's it for this week. Have yourself a wonderful weekend.
We're going to try this again on Monday. I hope
to see you then