Speaker 1: And welcome to the Big Podcast. How are you on
Speaker 1: this Thursday? Today's the second day of April, Year of
Speaker 1: Our Lord, twenty twenty six. My name is Tom Sullivan.
Speaker 1: So we had a perfectly good show put together for
Speaker 1: today reaction to the President's speech last night and all
Speaker 1: of those matters going on, and then all of a
Speaker 1: sudden middle of the day today we find out that
Speaker 1: Pam Bondi, the Attorney General of the United States, is
Speaker 1: now the former in general. She was fired by President Trump.
Speaker 1: And this is I guess the timing of it is
Speaker 1: somewhat of a surprise, but I have said on this
Speaker 1: podcast I'd have to go search for it. I know
Speaker 1: I've done it at least twice where I have speculated
Speaker 1: on the fact that Pam Bondy is on the wrong
Speaker 1: side of President Trump and he's not happy with her.
Speaker 1: And primarily it was around remember the remember the Epstein story.
Speaker 1: I know that kind of disappeared, hasn't it. But it'll no,
Speaker 1: it'll come back, I presume. But in the meantime, when
Speaker 1: she was saying that I've released everything, and then they
Speaker 1: found out they hadn't, and she looked bad, and she
Speaker 1: looked like she was covering up and then I thought
Speaker 1: she was going to be given the acts. Well today
Speaker 1: it happened, and the President untruth's social I will read
Speaker 1: it to you. Pam Bondy is a great American patriot
Speaker 1: and a loyal friend who faithfully served as my Attorney General.
Speaker 1: Over the past year. Pam did a tremendous job overseeing
Speaker 1: a massive crackdown in crime across our country, with murders
Speaker 1: plummeting to their lowest level since nineteen hundred. We love
Speaker 1: Pam and she will be transitioning to a much needed
Speaker 1: and important new job in the private sector to be
Speaker 1: announced at a date in the near future, and our
Speaker 1: Deputy Attorney General and very talented and respected legal mind,
Speaker 1: Todd Blanche will step in to serve as acting Attorney General.
Speaker 1: Thank you for your attention to this matter, President Donald J. Trump. So,
Speaker 1: I I don't know what it was that caused this
Speaker 1: kind of came out out of the blue, even though
Speaker 1: a lot of people were expecting her to be the
Speaker 1: first one in her cabinet to be fired. Instead, it
Speaker 1: was Christy Nome, which we'll get to in a minute.
Speaker 1: But this is the way that usually when somebody's fired,
Speaker 1: they say yes, they're looking forward to their next career
Speaker 1: advancement and that will be announced soon. In other words,
Speaker 1: she doesn't have anything lined up, but apparently she's getting
Speaker 1: nothing but kisses on the way out the door. John Yu,
Speaker 1: who was a former deputy Attorney General, said this about
Speaker 1: the exit of Pam Bondy.
Speaker 2: Excellent point, Sancho about the timing, because maybe that's when
Speaker 2: Trump finally made up his mind, because it looked he
Speaker 2: had to leave that oral argument thinking that he's going
Speaker 2: to take a loss on what is one of his
Speaker 2: core central policy agendas and immigration. He just lost a
Speaker 2: tariff case at the Supreme Court a few weeks ago,
Speaker 2: and maybe after sitting in the courtroom watching how his
Speaker 2: attorney general was in charge of representing these positions at
Speaker 2: the Supreme Court was doing, he said, maybe we need
Speaker 2: a change. Maybe I was persuaded to take these risky
Speaker 2: cases up to the Supreme Court. And now that I
Speaker 2: see that we're on the lose. We've lost tariffs, we
Speaker 2: might very well lose on birthright citizenship. Maybe I need
Speaker 2: to have different lawyers.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: Look, being President Trump's lawyer is not a long term job, right,
Speaker 2: It's not about tenure. He switches lawyers like people switch
Speaker 2: shirts and clothes. So we shouldn't say at pambond he's
Speaker 2: somehow been singled out. You know, remember at this time
Speaker 2: in his first term, right, he was about to get
Speaker 2: rid of Attorney general sessions or replace them with Bill Barr.
Speaker 2: And that's the interesting question next is what kind of
Speaker 2: person is he going to replace Pam Bondi with. Is
Speaker 2: he could go for some inside Washington person of experience
Speaker 2: like Bill Barr, or go out outside Washington like he
Speaker 2: did with Pam Bondy in the first place.
Speaker 1: So John, you brings up the question outside of Washington
Speaker 1: or Washington insider. And with all the problems, if the
Speaker 1: House goes to the Democrats, then there's a high speculation
Speaker 1: that they will launch an impeachment. And you've also got
Speaker 1: to get somebody through the Senate confirmation to be your
Speaker 1: next attorney general. And the Senate theoretically should stay Republican.
Speaker 1: But it's close, it's very close. So in order to
Speaker 1: play it safe, let's see if John Hugh's thinking along
Speaker 1: the same line.
Speaker 2: That's exactly what I was thinking to If President Trump
Speaker 2: and his visors think that they're going to lose the House,
Speaker 2: I have every expectation that the House is going to
Speaker 2: launch an impeachment inquiry, just like they did in his
Speaker 2: first turn, and they will try to remove him from office.
Speaker 2: You would want someone, i think, who is more of
Speaker 2: an inside Washington, DC person who's gone through this before,
Speaker 2: someone like a Bill Barr from last time, someone who's
Speaker 2: already had experience fighting or working on impeachments, because that's
Speaker 2: going to drag down install the Trump administration again just
Speaker 2: like it did in his first arm. You need experienced hands,
Speaker 2: I think, to mount an effective defense.
Speaker 1: And the politics of it also plays into the hand
Speaker 1: here for both the Senate and the House.
Speaker 2: That's an important issue for the White House to consider,
Speaker 2: because of course they want to get it done before
Speaker 2: the November elections, because even though the odds aren't high.
Speaker 2: You know, our friend's Carl Rove, who's out of the
Speaker 2: studio to in Austin. He'll tell you, right, there's some
Speaker 2: chance that the Democrats could take the Senate. If that's true,
Speaker 2: you don't want to have a confirmation hearing for the
Speaker 2: Attorney General with the Democrats in charge. So they got
Speaker 2: to get it through it seems to me by the
Speaker 2: end of the summer.
Speaker 1: So what does Byron York think about all this with
Speaker 1: the Washington Examiner.
Speaker 4: Well, you know, up until last month when the President
Speaker 4: fire Christy Nome, he had he had a remarkably stable
Speaker 4: first year in office. By this time in his first
Speaker 4: term in office, he had fired three cabinet secretary as
Speaker 4: a Secretary of State Health and Human Services and the
Speaker 4: Veterans Affairs Secretary, and he'd moved another one, the Homeland
Speaker 4: Security Secretary, out of office to replace the White House
Speaker 4: Chief of Staff whom he had also fired. So there's
Speaker 4: been a lot of turnover, and there had been a
Speaker 4: lot of comment this time around that it was a
Speaker 4: much for stable administration. I think one thing that happened
Speaker 4: with the Christi non firing is that it went really
Speaker 4: well that the President did it. He found a good replacement,
Speaker 4: the replacement was quickly confirmed in the Senate, and things
Speaker 4: are moving now and they're not not a big drama.
Speaker 4: So I think the president has seen that perhaps he
Speaker 4: can make changes he wants without having a whole lot
Speaker 4: of hoopla around it.
Speaker 1: And speaking of hooplaw, apparently there are people in the
Speaker 1: conservative media ranks that are afraid to talk about this.
Speaker 1: But Christine nom was back in the news with a
Speaker 1: bunch of hooplaw this past week. Her husband never Nobody
Speaker 1: could figure out all these accusations about Christinome having an
Speaker 1: affair with Corey Lewandowski, and nobody could figure out what
Speaker 1: about the husband, he's right there. What's his story? Well,
Speaker 1: the story is that he has been a cross dresser
Speaker 1: for some time. He dresses up and puts fake boobs
Speaker 1: under his shirt, communicates with other crossdressers online, has paid
Speaker 1: dressing models men that are dressed up as women money
Speaker 1: to the tune of about twenty five thousand dollars. And
Speaker 1: Christineoam said that she and her family are devastated. She
Speaker 1: had no idea, but you can't help but think maybe
Speaker 1: she did. And that's marriage wasn't all that great, which
Speaker 1: is you tie the whole thing together. But it's a
Speaker 1: big hooplaw and no, I mean, who knows what goes
Speaker 1: on in somebody's house. She wound up shooting a couple
Speaker 1: of her animals. And this guy is running around dressed
Speaker 1: up and he's not trying to hide his face, and
Speaker 1: a bunch of photographs have come out of him dressed
Speaker 1: up as a woman, wearing women's clothes, and it's and
Speaker 1: his face is clear as of Belle. So a couple
Speaker 1: of problems in the Christinome household. But back to the
Speaker 1: problem today with Pam Bondy. Shannon Breem, who covers the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court she is a lawyer, had this to say.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Ben, I think that the Democrats are definitely going
Speaker 5: to push the envelope on that as much as possible.
Speaker 5: And listen, we've seen this on both sides of the aisle.
Speaker 5: Remember it was a bipartisan vote and threat of potential
Speaker 5: contempt that got the Clintons to sit down and have
Speaker 5: conversations that they were under congressional subpoena to have as well.
Speaker 5: I would imagine that Democrats are most certainly going to
Speaker 5: push to hear from Pam Bondy, whether they're referring her
Speaker 5: to her as the former AG or as a private citizen.
Speaker 5: They have a lot of questions for her, and we've
Speaker 5: seen a lot of back and forth. We saw what
Speaker 5: happened with Peter Navarro and Steve Bannon when they refuse
Speaker 5: to go testify. So a lot of new precedents have
Speaker 5: been set with them with the Clintons. So I don't
Speaker 5: think Democrats are going to give up on that conversation easily.
Speaker 1: So, in other words, expect the hooplaw involving Pam Bondi,
Speaker 1: even though she's out as ag that they'll do a
Speaker 1: circus as much as I can, especially if they retake
Speaker 1: the House. They will have all kinds of hearings to
Speaker 1: bring Pambondi, and she has been pushing back hard on
Speaker 1: them in prior testimony, so I think they're eager to
Speaker 1: try and make her come back and be tough on her.
Speaker 1: And then one more Mark Penn, who's the democrats strategist
Speaker 1: and polster, also had a sense that this was going
Speaker 1: to happen.
Speaker 6: Well, no surprise from the Hill, Republicans giving her mostly
Speaker 6: mild praise but raising some questions about the Epstein files,
Speaker 6: and Democrats trashing her as much as possible and just
Speaker 6: using it as kind of a way to attack the president.
Speaker 6: So I don't think you're getting anything unexpected here. I
Speaker 6: think really that the President does most likely doing this
Speaker 6: now because he thinks he could get a pick through
Speaker 6: in the Senate, you know, during this time, and of
Speaker 6: course the Democrats are going to take whatever pick he
Speaker 6: makes and try to discredit it and blow up an
Speaker 6: issue and say how he's politicizing Justice Department. All of that.
Speaker 6: It's just kind of the natural flow of events in
Speaker 6: Washington these days.
Speaker 1: That was the surprise news story for the day. We
Speaker 1: didn't see that one coming about the speech last night.
Speaker 1: Oh and let me go back one more thing about
Speaker 1: Pam Bondi. The President was frustrated with her because he
Speaker 1: wanted her he said so in oh on certain words
Speaker 1: on his true social He wanted her to go out
Speaker 1: and prosecute Leticia James, the Attorney General of New York,
Speaker 1: James Comy, former FBI director, and also to defend his
Speaker 1: desire for tariffs in court, and all of those were lost.
Speaker 1: There wasn't a case the courts throughout Leticia James and
Speaker 1: James Comy's cases, and on tariffs, the Supreme Court ruled
Speaker 1: in favor of the fact that he's got to go
Speaker 1: through Congress. We haven't heard anymore on that. And by
Speaker 1: the way, it's been one year and one day. Liberation
Speaker 1: Day wasn't April first, April second of last year anyway,
Speaker 1: It was a year since the tariffs have been put
Speaker 1: in place. So the question then becomes, how have they done?
Speaker 1: Have they changed anything as far as our trade deficit,
Speaker 1: are we getting more business with our foreign friends around
Speaker 1: the world. Well, Jamison Greer, the trade representative, had this
Speaker 1: to say in an interview earlier today.
Speaker 7: Well, you know, Trace, it's not what I think, it's
Speaker 7: what the facts show. When you look over the past year,
Speaker 7: manufacturing productivity has gone up to the highest level it's
Speaker 7: ever been. The past two months, we've had record breaking
Speaker 7: export numbers for the United States, over three hundred billion
Speaker 7: dollars in exports in January and February. We've seen the
Speaker 7: trade deaths that go down by twenty four percent since April.
Speaker 7: So Americans are making more stuff, they're getting paid more
Speaker 7: to make it, and they're selling more of it overseas.
Speaker 7: So on every account, it's been a big WINDID.
Speaker 1: Listen to me at any length of time. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm not a fan of tariffs, because again it's not
Speaker 1: my opinion, it's the facts. I'll use what Jamison said.
Speaker 1: The facts are clear, trade death trade tariffs are a
Speaker 1: negative for the economy for about any way you measure it.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to take Jamison's career to task because
Speaker 1: he says our manufacturing productivity is way up. Well, that's
Speaker 1: because there's most manufactured, not most. Many manufacturing jobs have
Speaker 1: been lost. Manufacturing employment is way down. So if you
Speaker 1: now have producing a product and you used to have
Speaker 1: five people working for you, now you've only got two
Speaker 1: people working for you, productivity looks like it's increased, but
Speaker 1: manufacturing jobs are way way down. As far as record exports,
Speaker 1: he couched it by saying over the last two months, well,
Speaker 1: two months, isn't much of a trend. Are exports? Yes,
Speaker 1: they are up exports. Let me look at my list
Speaker 1: here for February three hundred and fourteen billion. Last April,
Speaker 1: when the tre deficits were put in, our exports were
Speaker 1: two hundred ninety one billion, So our exports went from
Speaker 1: two hundred ninety one billion up to three hundred and
Speaker 1: fourteen billion, not a big increase. Most of it was
Speaker 1: gold and natural gas exports. As far as imports go,
Speaker 1: our trade deficit for the month of February, which just
Speaker 1: came out, fifty seven billion dollars more that we bought
Speaker 1: of their products than they bought of ours. So we're
Speaker 1: upside down by fifty seven billion. A year ago we
Speaker 1: were upside down by sixty billion. So can you say
Speaker 1: it's improved. He said that what do you say, trade
Speaker 1: deficits dropped by twenty four percent, It's dropped from sixty
Speaker 1: billion to fifty seven billion. I don't know. You you
Speaker 1: can rank that however you want. It doesn't look like
Speaker 1: the tariffs have really done that much one way or
Speaker 1: the other over the last year. And speaking of economic
Speaker 1: news coming out today, first time jobless claims, now, this
Speaker 1: is good news. Two hundred and two thousand first time
Speaker 1: jobless claims two hundred and two thousand people who got
Speaker 1: pink slips in the last week. That's not good, but
Speaker 1: it's a lot better than it has been. So that's
Speaker 1: starting to slow down. In other words, firing of people
Speaker 1: is starting to slow down, which is a good thing
Speaker 1: as far as interest rates go. A lot of this
Speaker 1: is because of the havoc going on, the chaos and
Speaker 1: in the world regarding oil prices and so forth. But
Speaker 1: our mortgage rates were announced this morning by Fanning Freddie
Speaker 1: Mack and they went up to They've been going up
Speaker 1: for five weeks in a row. We're up to the
Speaker 1: average mortgage rate in this country now six point four
Speaker 1: to six percent. A year ago it was six point
Speaker 1: six four percent, So basically about the same. That's where
Speaker 1: it was a year ago, but it's going the wrong direction.
Speaker 1: It's going higher, which is just not good news. So
Speaker 1: let's get to the story I was planning on starting
Speaker 1: with today, which was did you watch the President's speech
Speaker 1: last night? It was eighteen minutes in the White House,
Speaker 1: which is kind of interesting, Pam BONDI was at that
Speaker 1: speech last night. But any case, a lot of reaction
Speaker 1: to the President's speech. I was surprised that it was
Speaker 1: a little bit of going over what has been done.
Speaker 1: President does that alloted to his speech writer, likes to
Speaker 1: go back over what was done. I don't know what
Speaker 1: was new other than the fact that he said that
Speaker 1: there are going to be another two to three weeks
Speaker 1: roughly of where we're going to be bombing them. He
Speaker 1: said back to the own age if they don't open
Speaker 1: up the straight of horror moves, so he was threatening
Speaker 1: but also saying basically, we got a couple two or
Speaker 1: three weeks more. In any case, I thought the speech
Speaker 1: was fine. It was just again kind of marking place
Speaker 1: with where we were. Let's start with Brett McGirk. I
Speaker 1: find him to be very informed. He was former NSA guy,
Speaker 1: for the Middle East, for Iran in that whole area.
Speaker 1: He's worked for four different presidents, so he's pretty apolitical.
Speaker 1: Let's see what Brett McGirk thought about It.
Speaker 8: Started with the necessity. We talked about the necessity, the objective,
Speaker 8: that what's the plan. I thought the necessity laying out
Speaker 8: the bill of particulars in Iran was fairly effective, not
Speaker 8: entirely accurate, as he just pointed out. I think it's
Speaker 8: important to remind people of what Iran is about. It
Speaker 8: is a real threat. There are reasons to be doing
Speaker 8: what we're doing. I thought when he laid out the
Speaker 8: objectives and the plan, I don't think we heard too much.
Speaker 8: And my takeaway was that we might be in for
Speaker 8: an escalation of this war. I mean, he said, if
Speaker 8: there's not a d he put back on the table,
Speaker 8: not said he said, I deal good, the energy targets,
Speaker 8: everything else he'd been talking about. So if we were
Speaker 8: thought we might hear a de escalatory speech. So we're
Speaker 8: going to wrap this up in a couple of weeks.
Speaker 8: Actually heard something quite different that and he said he
Speaker 8: visits the family's at Dover and he said we must
Speaker 8: honor them by completing the mission, and then he basically
Speaker 8: threatened Iran that there's that we're going to prepare to
Speaker 8: send you back to the Stone Age. So I think
Speaker 8: this war's going to continue for some time. That's what
Speaker 8: That's what I heard, well, and that's inconsistent. I mean,
Speaker 8: one thing, he complained about the abomdministration and sanctions relief
Speaker 8: and everything. But if if Iran comes out of this
Speaker 8: controlling the Strait of her moves and being able to
Speaker 8: meet our ships that go through there and taking a
Speaker 8: cut of every ship, they're going to make hundreds of
Speaker 8: millions and billions of dollars. So that if that is
Speaker 8: the outcome here, strategically, that is not good if our
Speaker 8: objective is to contain Iran. Yeah, he called on our
Speaker 8: allies to come in and help in the Strait, and
Speaker 8: we might be willing to help, but I heard him
Speaker 8: say we kind of would lead that mission from behind,
Speaker 8: hoping that our allies might step up, which I'm not
Speaker 8: sure they're going to do. Becau it's a difficult mission,
Speaker 8: he said, it's easy, it's not. You got to have
Speaker 8: assets that can Caitlin shoot down anti ship missiles and drones.
Speaker 1: It's hard.
Speaker 8: We did this in the Red Sea with a small coalition.
Speaker 8: It's a very difficult military mission and strategic equation. I
Speaker 8: and the way we're talking about our allies every day,
Speaker 8: I don't see the allies really signing up to take
Speaker 8: on those mission. They should, I mean they should, It
Speaker 8: isn't they're interest to do it. I which just stay
Speaker 8: on them. But I think the straight up her news
Speaker 8: remains a very unresolved issue here. I didn't really hear
Speaker 8: an answer.
Speaker 1: So McGirk thinks that this may escalate, that it may
Speaker 1: go bigger and last longer. And the big question everybody's
Speaker 1: asking is, since they sent ten thousand marines plus twenty
Speaker 1: five hundred sailors plus there's already fifty thousand troops in
Speaker 1: the region US military troops in the region, are they
Speaker 1: sending them just for show or are they going to
Speaker 1: actually do boots on the ground. And that nobody had
Speaker 1: an answer to. Let's see Mark Short, former chief of staff,
Speaker 1: to Mike Pince, this is what he thought.
Speaker 3: I think he has a lot of support Leland. I
Speaker 3: think what you've seen is that there's a lot of
Speaker 3: influencers who proclaim that they speak for Magan and demonstrated
Speaker 3: they don't have a lot of influence that the majority
Speaker 3: of the President's support follow him personally and support him personally,
Speaker 3: and I think that flows throughout the Republican Party. I
Speaker 3: think he's got a lot of latitude there.
Speaker 1: So from Mark Short to former chief of staff for
Speaker 1: the President Mick mulvaney, Oh, I.
Speaker 9: Think they're worried about it because they think they know
Speaker 9: he can deliver. The question is are his threats still credible?
Speaker 9: The answer is absolutely they are.
Speaker 7: Yes.
Speaker 9: He's keeping the Iranians general guessing. He's keeping everybody guessing.
Speaker 9: That's how Trump works, right. But as long as the
Speaker 9: Iranians know we have the ability to do all of
Speaker 9: these things that he says, you have to take those
Speaker 9: threats credibly, including troops on the ground. I think he
Speaker 9: wants a deal. I think I think that's his preferred
Speaker 9: end game here. In fact, it's the quickest way to
Speaker 9: end things. I think the quickest way to open the straits,
Speaker 9: for example, is to just have a deal tomorrow to
Speaker 9: open the straits. If you have to do it arly,
Speaker 9: it could take weeks, if not months.
Speaker 1: Segment to do that. But look, I.
Speaker 9: Think that first of all, I'm not sure how many
Speaker 9: people in around actually would see the speech, it would
Speaker 9: just be the leadership. But they have to take the
Speaker 9: threats credibly. So when he says I want to talk
Speaker 9: or I'm going to blow you back in the stone Age,
Speaker 9: there is credibility.
Speaker 6: To that threat. And I think that's a you.
Speaker 1: Know, we're looking at Bill. He was responding to the
Speaker 1: fact that there are some so called mega influencers that
Speaker 1: are turning on the president and Mark Short doesn't think
Speaker 1: that's real. A guy who's been involved in international negotiations,
Speaker 1: General tith Tellogg looked at it this way.
Speaker 10: Full credit to President Trump. He's a first president that
Speaker 10: had the guts to do what he's done, and then
Speaker 10: the world breathes a lot easier because of that. But
Speaker 10: I think that theocratic government of Iran needs to be addressed.
Speaker 10: It's revolutionary. The Iranian Revolutionary Guards is a lot different
Speaker 10: than the army. They are two shepherd organizations, and as
Speaker 10: long as you got people like that in charge, with
Speaker 10: all conditioning they've had for the last forty plus years,
Speaker 10: I think there needs to be a complete change of government.
Speaker 10: You know, when you move from one to another, there's
Speaker 10: still radical and it's a radical government that it must
Speaker 10: be changed because you can always re arm, you can
Speaker 10: always try to rebuild something for the lord. As long
Speaker 10: as they have that theocratic government, that radical government in charge.
Speaker 10: I think we're gonna have problems with him in the
Speaker 10: Mid East. And the President has addressed that. Great credit
Speaker 10: to him on the first term. And there's this term
Speaker 10: as well.
Speaker 1: I heard a commentator on ABC last night talking about
Speaker 1: about regime change and he said, you can't replace Hitler
Speaker 1: with Himmler. Himler one of the top age to Adolf Hitler.
Speaker 1: They were from the same glove. So you can't replace
Speaker 1: the regime with another person of the theocracy. The same
Speaker 1: with the son of the previous Ayahtola. Know, you've got
Speaker 1: to have more than that. And the President seems on
Speaker 1: one hand that he's willing to talk to this new
Speaker 1: guy who is part of the old regime. I don't
Speaker 1: trust him, and Keith Tellogg doesn't either. Speaking of generals,
Speaker 1: how about General Jack Team.
Speaker 11: Well, first of all, I thought that speech was he
Speaker 11: ready nailed it and an update to the American people,
Speaker 11: clearly telling him again why are we doing this and
Speaker 11: how critically important it truly is for the stability of
Speaker 11: the Middle East and our own national interest and then
Speaker 11: gave us a sense of where we are. And it
Speaker 11: is remarkable the success that we've achieved against Iran's arsenal,
Speaker 11: that they had huge ballistic missile arsenal, huge drone arsenal,
Speaker 11: and certainly some other issues out there in terms of
Speaker 11: nuclear weapons and how we're going to deal with that's
Speaker 11: the straits of a moves, etc. But I think we're
Speaker 11: a little over thirty days into this operation. We're clearly
Speaker 11: more than halfway the timing he gets from his commanders.
Speaker 11: In other words, the President has always said, this is
Speaker 11: a condition based operation. I've assigned objectives for you to accomplish,
Speaker 11: and based on your accomplishing, those objectives will drive the
Speaker 11: length of it. He has been told by Prime Minister
Speaker 11: net Now and they need three weeks. He's been told
Speaker 11: by Admiral Bradley Cooper, he needs two weeks. That's the
Speaker 11: reason for the two to three weeks is taking place here.
Speaker 11: And he's going to let those assigned objectives drive the
Speaker 11: completion of this operation, and that is the right thing
Speaker 11: to do. Let the commanders make these calls. They're not
Speaker 11: people in the White House to make the call. And
Speaker 11: that's the way you want a national lead to behave
Speaker 11: in terms of working with his subordinates. So we have
Speaker 11: some work to do, and it still cleaning up drones
Speaker 11: and missiles to be sure. In nuclear he brought that
Speaker 11: up a little bit in terms of what's out there.
Speaker 11: I think he has a choice. Does he try to
Speaker 11: do more destruction of that capability or does he go
Speaker 11: in there and try to take that capability out. Anyway
Speaker 11: you look at it, he doesn't want your weapons. Obviously
Speaker 11: you get anywhere closed to the Iranians being able to
Speaker 11: execute it, which has been as number one concern about
Speaker 11: Iran from the outset. So we can have some assurance
Speaker 11: that he's not going to let that happen. And he's
Speaker 11: been steadfast and resolved about this. I give him a
Speaker 11: lot of credit. There's always impediments, there's always disappointments that
Speaker 11: take place, and he's got a media pounding all over
Speaker 11: him telling him there's no strategy here when there's a
Speaker 11: clear strategy. We don't have any objectives, and we have
Speaker 11: very defined objectives. By the way, if you ask these
Speaker 11: commanders out there and the IDF or in Sentcom, do
Speaker 11: they have clear objectives and what the end state is?
Speaker 11: You bet you they do as clear as they've ever had.
Speaker 11: So that's all good news. Work to be done for sure.
Speaker 11: Here in terms of some presidential decisions about nuclear straits
Speaker 11: of a moves, how do we handle that? And also
Speaker 11: car Gallen, which represents ninety percent of the distribution of
Speaker 11: oils just sixteen miles off the coast.
Speaker 1: One other point you would and brought up with the speech.
Speaker 1: He did not mention NATO, but lately he well, no,
Speaker 1: he kind of did a side slight to him talking
Speaker 1: about the fact that they need to go get it
Speaker 1: themselves if they It was like his true social speech
Speaker 1: yesterday hosting yesterday about we don't need straight up horror moves.
Speaker 1: You guys in Europe, you want to go get it,
Speaker 1: go get it, and don't you know, be brave. There
Speaker 1: was a little bit of that last night, but Mike
Speaker 1: Pompeo was asked specifically about are we bailing out of NATO.
Speaker 12: I think that's likely true, and it breaks my heart.
Speaker 12: I'm being someone who believed NATO was a very important
Speaker 12: set of allies for decades. I served an army in
Speaker 12: NATO operations in nineteen eighty six to nineteen eighty nine.
Speaker 12: But to watch them be so feckless not to be
Speaker 12: able to convince their own people, their own domestic audiences,
Speaker 12: of this matters, to explain to them why they're safer
Speaker 12: as a result of the United States, with our friends
Speaker 12: in Israel have done, and then to assist us in
Speaker 12: that mission set. I think, as Senator Graham said earlier
Speaker 12: on your show, I think there will have to be
Speaker 12: a fundamental rethinking about how it is the United States
Speaker 12: make sure we figure out exactly who our allies are
Speaker 12: and what we can depend on them for. I think
Speaker 12: there's a lot of work to do when this is over.
Speaker 12: President Trump said tonight, I hope they'll rethink their model
Speaker 12: and they'll get ready and go grab this. I hope
Speaker 12: they do too.
Speaker 1: And finally, not a political person, but a think tank person.
Speaker 1: We've used her a lot lately, Rebecca Heinrich from the
Speaker 1: Hudson Institute.
Speaker 13: No, I think that actually is a point where the
Speaker 13: Europeans are frustrated that they didn't know what the United
Speaker 13: States plans were. They were not asked to participate, and
Speaker 13: so that's part of their frustration. I do think that
Speaker 13: this kind of gets to my second point. This war,
Speaker 13: President Trump said, is going to be much shorter. He
Speaker 13: provided some historical context of these longer wars, and I
Speaker 13: think the opening up the Strait of Hormuz is he's
Speaker 13: kind of hinting that this is going to be something
Speaker 13: that's going to have to happen after we finish our
Speaker 13: primary objectives, which is to really weaken the Iranians ability
Speaker 13: to project power outside its borders. And then you're going
Speaker 13: to see I think the plan is an international coalition
Speaker 13: to escort these tankers. Kind of threw the Strait of
Speaker 13: Remussein to open that up. But that's going to be
Speaker 13: I think something that's going to happen from the President's
Speaker 13: perspective now after we finish our primary objectives, because he
Speaker 13: does want other allies to participate it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so her point is that they were never asked
Speaker 1: to get involved in this war in the first place,
Speaker 1: so to come along later and say you got to
Speaker 1: get involved, as she thinks, that's what the NATO members
Speaker 1: are upset about. But the question about will NATO survive.
Speaker 1: Mike Pompeo kannie ify and we'll see what happens with
Speaker 1: our friends over in NATO. But in this speech, the
Speaker 1: President said that this is what I was listening for
Speaker 1: was he going to cut and run or was he
Speaker 1: going to say we got to finish the job. He
Speaker 1: said the job must be finished and that the core
Speaker 1: objectives are in sight that horror moves, the straight of
Speaker 1: Horror moves. He said, well, reopen naturally. Rebecca Heinrich talked
Speaker 1: about the fact about you know, guiding and having some
Speaker 1: sort of other ships guiding ships through the strait of
Speaker 1: horr moves. Now I mean you they're not on the
Speaker 1: shoreline shooting at them. They can be one thousand miles
Speaker 1: away operating the launch of a drone and blow up
Speaker 1: a ship. So this it needs to be what the
Speaker 1: President I think was referring to about reopen naturally, is
Speaker 1: when all of the hostilities come to an end and
Speaker 1: we have disarmed Iran, then you can open up the
Speaker 1: straight of hormoves. But that's not going to be right away.
Speaker 1: And even if even if they could open this straight tomorrow,
Speaker 1: there's something like four hundred ships that are in the
Speaker 1: region waiting to go in to pick up oil. Well,
Speaker 1: can you imagine going to a gas station in your
Speaker 1: car number four hundred in line. It's going to take
Speaker 1: a while. This is not going to be the price.
Speaker 1: If there's an agreement and the iron it collapses and
Speaker 1: straight is open, prices will have a drop, but they're
Speaker 1: not going to go way back to where we were
Speaker 1: a month ago. It's because there's going to be a shortage.
Speaker 1: The ships can't load it up and get it around
Speaker 1: the entire world to get the global oil prices lower.
Speaker 1: In addition to that, like I said, there's going to
Speaker 1: be a line a mile long waiting to do that.
Speaker 1: But this has shaken. I had a lot of damage
Speaker 1: to the infrastructure, so all that has to be fixed.
Speaker 1: The President also in his speech last night, said there
Speaker 1: will be aggressive strikes over the next two to three weeks,
Speaker 1: and no mention, not a peep about ground forces. So
Speaker 1: it was just a presidential speech. There were no questions
Speaker 1: being asked by the media. But that's the rundown on
Speaker 1: what happened. So we got the attorney general has been replaced. Today.
Speaker 1: Last night the President gave us more direction about the war.
Speaker 1: Interest rates are going up, mortgage rates are up. Five
Speaker 1: weeks from the row. The trade deficit one year old,
Speaker 1: trade tariffs one year old, and the trade deficit is
Speaker 1: about the same as it was before. Our exports are
Speaker 1: up just slightly. So all of that is I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't give this an a for improving the economy
Speaker 1: and didn't improve it at all in my humble opinion.
Speaker 1: Speaking of the economy, shall we take a look at
Speaker 1: Wall Street demonstrated again today just how spiky this market
Speaker 1: is this morning after the president's speech last night. Like
Speaker 1: Brett McGirk said, he thinks he got out of it.
Speaker 1: He thought that the president's speech showed that we're going
Speaker 1: to be escalating our war effort, that it's not ending
Speaker 1: anytime soon. Well, Wall Street kind of got that impression too,
Speaker 1: because the Dow opened up this morning down six hundred points.
Speaker 1: That was at nine to thirty Eastern time, down six hundred.
Speaker 1: Then there was a rumor that the Foreign Minister of
Speaker 1: Iran was working with Oman to come up with some
Speaker 1: way to open up the straight of hor moves. So
Speaker 1: the market went from down six hundred to plus two hundred,
Speaker 1: an eight hundred point move in about twenty minutes. Then
Speaker 1: the market started going, oh, I guess this is all
Speaker 1: a bunch of headlines driving things. So the rest of
Speaker 1: the day the Dow was back to underwater, not by
Speaker 1: a lot, but it was upside down. The Dow finished
Speaker 1: down sixty one to close it forty six thousand, five
Speaker 1: h four, The S and P up seven, the Nasdaq
Speaker 1: up thirty eight, price of gold down one hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty dollars to four thousand and six ninety two, and
Speaker 1: oil went back up today it was treading around one
Speaker 1: hundred and twelve dollars. West Texas Intermediate finished up eleven
Speaker 1: dollars and sixty cents at one hundred and twelve dollars
Speaker 1: for a barrel of oil. So that's it for today.
Speaker 1: Thank you for coming by tomorrow. The markets are closed
Speaker 1: for good Friday. We will be back tomorrow and I
Speaker 1: hope to see you then