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unidentified
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| At our table this morning is John Elliott, former deputy assistant to the president in the Trump administration, former National Security Council spokesman in the Trump administration as well, here to talk about national security. | ||
| So, John Elliott, let's begin with this deadline. | ||
| The president set another one for Russia to come to the table with Ukraine and get a peace deal done. | ||
| The president has not said what the consequences will be for today's deadline. | ||
| It appears it'll be missed again. | ||
| What do you think of the president from just three weeks ago today in Alaska saying he within one week would have the Russian president and the Ukrainian president at a table together? | ||
|
unidentified
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Well, Greta, it's great to be on with you. | |
| And what I would say to that is there was a lot of momentum coming out. | ||
| That was an amazing trip in Alaska to get both planes arriving there at the same time, both of them sitting down and then both of them going back just a few hours after that. | ||
| And they really got down to details and they had a one-on-one. | ||
| And he came out of that with a lot of momentum and saying that, hey, there's possibly a breakthrough. | ||
| And the problem is that it takes two to come to an agreement there. | ||
| And so if Zelensky is not willing to sit down with Putin and Putin's not willing to sit down with Zelensky, that's a different impression than the president had coming out of that meeting. | ||
| And so it's not in the president's hands. | ||
| He said very much that he wants it to be something that he wants this to be closed as soon as possible and them to get to an agreement. | ||
| The problem is that the president said that he would get the solution on day one of his presidency, and that takes it's out of his hands. | ||
| It needs both sides to come together. | ||
| And both sides were so far apart and they remain far apart. | ||
| So the president can exercise a lot of pressure if he wants to go into the sanctions route or the tariffs route that would be put on countries like India that still deal and get their oil from Russia. | ||
| So there's going to be a lot of, it's up to the president how much pressure he wants to put on Russia because he's got a lot of cards, but he hasn't decided to play them yet. | ||
| Well, the headline that we were just, the deadline that we were just talking about, the president set the deadline two weeks ago. | ||
| This is from the Military Times. | ||
| Trump's two-week deadline for Russia to start peace talks comes and goes. | ||
| And you said it takes two. | ||
| This is a headline about the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, who was in Beijing. | ||
| And now he's been this week, traveled to a conference for Eastern countries on economics. | ||
| And here's the Hill newspaper. | ||
| Putin questions point of Zelensky meeting and offers a summit in Moscow. | ||
| Is he serious if he's offering a summit in Moscow when Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, has said that idea is dead on arrival? | ||
| He's tried to assassinate me numerous times. | ||
|
unidentified
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Well, but Zelensky, once again, what he said is that there would be no deal whatsoever unless Putin stepped down. | |
| That was his position two years ago. | ||
| And so, look, this is something where obviously it's tough for him to say that he's going to go into Moscow. | ||
| There's a security threat there, no question about it. | ||
| But this shows how far the sides remain apart. | ||
| And so, unless there's pressure on Putin and on Zelensky to just come together for something like this, the thing that President Trump has emphasized, which is important for everyone to keep in mind, is just the cost and human lives on both sides here. | ||
| And that's something that if you look at the Ukrainian people, they were 70% in favor of the war and continuing the war. | ||
| If you look at that now, they've lost so many people that the Ukrainians themselves want there to be a deal, and they have 30% approval of this entire war and continuing it there. | ||
| So you'd think that there would be some pressure on Zelensky as well as a lot of international pressure on Putin. | ||
| But once again, President Trump emphasized that this is just called, it's caused 100, rather a million dead and wounded on both sides. | ||
| And so this is something if you're putting your, if you're a Ukrainian mother and you've got an 18-year-old or even a 23, 24-year-old and you're putting him to the front, he's 85% likely never to come back or to come back wounded. | ||
| And so that's just a huge, huge toll. | ||
| That shows that this is something that's serious. | ||
| And so President Trump will, he has a lot of cards, but he's the one who has to decide whether to employ them or not because there are downsides, obviously, to having secondary sanctions on India, for example. | ||
| I mean, we rely on India for a lot of our economy, and so it's not as easy as just turning on a switch. | ||
| And he realizes that, so he's got it. | ||
| But at the same time, he really is committed to a ceasefire and to get this resolved as soon as possible. | ||
| So the ball's in his court, but he's got a lot of cards to play. | ||
| But he's very smart because he sees the ramifications of every move that he's going to make. | ||
| And he's the only one who has that vision right now. | ||
| President, while President Putin is in Beijing and meeting with other allies, you have European countries gathering together to discuss security guarantees for Ukraine, including their own boots on the ground possibly inside of Ukraine. | ||
| Washington Post story front page this morning, Trump to acts aid for European security. | ||
| Trump's administration intends to halt long-time security assistance programs for Europe, including an initiative to fortify the continent's eastern flank against a potential attack by Russia as it endeavors to recast Washington's role within NATO. | ||
| What do you make of that possible move? | ||
|
unidentified
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I think it's a smart move because a lot of people look at what we're doing here at home. | |
| And if you look at what President Trump's mandate was from the campaign, it was not to not to secure endlessly. | ||
| The if you look at Biden's position, he said that there will support Ukraine however long it takes. | ||
| And you look at that, that means a big commitment, not only financially from the U.S., but in giving weapons systems, et cetera, to Ukraine. | ||
| And so when you're talking about the actual alliance and what you just read, which is somewhat related to Ukraine but is directly on the alliance, we visited in the early part of this term with Secretary Pete Hegseth, and he delivered a very powerful message from the President that is, | ||
| look, we need to think about our commitment to Europe because if you take a step back, Greta, and you look at when NATO was founded, NATO was founded right after World War II when the European countries had nowhere withal to actually protect themselves and that's why they needed the presence including hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops on the ground in West Germany, etc. | ||
| So this is something where, look, we're in a totally different situation now. | ||
| This is, what, 70 years, 80 years after that. | ||
| And so if you look at the way that the European countries have so much, their GDP combined is close to the GDP of the U.S., so they can fund their own defense. | ||
| They've been used to having us as a crutch that they can really lean on. | ||
| And this is something where President Trump sees the problems in Venezuela, other problems in our own hemisphere. | ||
| And he's taking a position that Europe can do much of this on its own. | ||
| They have to step up and pay. | ||
| and pay for their own defense because we can support that. | ||
| But once again, this is something where if we provide those funds, et cetera, to them, he's already told them to step up and he's gotten a commitment, very historic commitment this summer to have them step up to 5% of their GDP funding on defense by 2035 and that's a historic agreement. | ||
| But at the same time, he needs to continue to tell them, look, you guys have the same amount of money as we have and you've got to invest much more and you've got to take responsibility for, for example, putting troops on the ground if you want to end the Ukraine war and there's going to be a security guarantee. | ||
| Nobody wants to have U.S. troops on the ground. | ||
| Most people don't even want to see air cover by the U.S. over there, even though President Trump reportedly has that still on the table. | ||
| But this is something where they have to really step up from the European standpoint. | ||
| They have plenty of aircraft there where they could have a no-fly zone if they want to or provide guarantees to Ukraine and there would be no need for the U.S. to be involved. | ||
| The U.S. has done a lot on Ukraine in terms of specific security guarantees. | ||
| And the president is very smart to tell Europe that, look, you guys can provide for almost all of your defense and we can just be there as an ally. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Well, we will talk about Venezuela as well because that is also part of national security. | ||
| Our topic here this morning with John Elliott. | ||
| Here's how you joined the conversation. | ||
| Democrats 202-748-8000. | ||
| Republicans 202-748-8001. | ||
| Independents 202-748-8002. | ||
| While we wait for your calls to come in, listen to the President on Wednesday in the Oval Office and his exchange with the reporter when the Polish president was visiting about a lack of process on a peace deal with Russia. | ||
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unidentified
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You've expressed many times your frustration and disappointment with Putin, but there's no action since you took your office. | |
| How do you know there's no action? | ||
| Wait, wait, who are you with? | ||
|
unidentified
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I'm with Polish radio. | |
| Okay. | ||
| How do you know there's no action? | ||
| Would you say that putting secondary sanctions on India, the largest purchaser outside of China, they're almost equal? | ||
| Would you say there was no action? | ||
| That costs hundreds of billions of dollars to Russia. | ||
| You call that no action? | ||
| And I haven't done phase two yet or phase three. | ||
| But when you say there's no action, I think you ought to get yourself a new job. | ||
| Because if you remember, two weeks ago I did, I said, if India buys, India's got big problems, and that's what happened. | ||
| So don't tell me about that. | ||
| From the Oval Office Wednesday. | ||
| Now, John Elliott, perhaps the reporter was referring to no action on the part of Russia. | ||
| Has Russia taken one step toward peace? | ||
|
unidentified
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Well, there's talk. | |
| We don't know what exactly the conversations are going on with Putin and the president. | ||
| Only the president has that perspective. | ||
| Once again, he's got a lot of leverage, and that's what he pointed out in that clip. | ||
| But when you think about he's the one who knows what the downsides are to these secondary and other level of sanctions that he's talking about with India, and he's already laid on some sanctions with a deadline with India. | ||
| And so to say that he is not starting to use those cards is just flat out wrong. | ||
| And he pointed that out to the reporter. | ||
| But once again, this is something where if you take a step back, this is a terrible situation we're in. | ||
| But I maintain, and a lot of analysts maintain, that we would not be in this situation were President Trump in office. | ||
| Or we know that when he was in office, Putin never invaded a for never invaded Ukraine. | ||
| And President Trump is the only president elected this century on whose watch Putin did not invade a neighboring country because, once again, he did with George Bush, and he went into Georgia when also with Obama. | ||
| He went into Ukraine the first time and took Crimea and most of the Donbass. | ||
| And here it is again. | ||
| He did nothing for the four years President Trump was in there. | ||
| So now President Trump has to play cleanup for what was put in there by the previous administration, by the Biden administration. | ||
| And a lot of people maintain that it was what Biden did when he had a terrible withdrawal of Afghanistan, where he demonstrated that weakness. | ||
| And that's something that only less than six months later, President Putin went into Ukraine, or rather, he went toward Kiev. | ||
| He was already in parts of Ukraine. | ||
| But anyway, this is something where people need to have that perspective as the president works very carefully to get this to a resolution because he was dealt these cards and he's the one who has to play cleanup now and he's doing that in a very very careful and measured way. | ||
| All right, we'll go to Scott who's in Olean, New York, Independent. | ||
| Morning, Scott. | ||
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unidentified
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Good morning, humans out there in America. | |
| I am the co-founder of the Human Party, but that's not why I'm calling this today. | ||
| This morning I heard something on news would disturb me, but I need to say this, Bruce. | ||
| If a gentleman was to tell me that they could find an end to both Palestine and the Ukraine war in one day, I would say that gentleman is not very intelligent, but I'm not here to say anything about that gentleman. | ||
| Oh, yes, I am. | ||
| This morning I heard on the news, and this is when I hear things God talks to me. | ||
| I heard that now we are no longer the Defense Department. | ||
| We are the War Department. | ||
| Okay, well, Scott, yeah, we'll talk about that, Scott, that the President is expected to announce. | ||
| Here's a Fox News headline: Trump to rename Pentagon, Restoring Historic Department of War and latest military move. | ||
| What does it mean? | ||
| You've spent a lot of time in national security circles. | ||
| What does it mean to name it, rename it the Department of War? | ||
|
unidentified
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Well, what he's doing there by renaming it the Department of War is going back to where it was right, in fact, all the way through World War II. | |
| So it's nothing new. | ||
| We've had the Defense Department only since World War II. | ||
| And so if you look at the executive office building that's right next to the White House, part of the White House complex, that was the Department of War building since the 1800s when it was built. | ||
| And so this is something where, look, it's historically been the Department of War for most of our history. | ||
| And this is a smart move by the President because what he's doing is he's demonstrating that we are on an offensive footing, not because we want to have endless wars the way other administrations have had, but showing that our capability is to be on our front foot as a nation militarily to be able, such as he did with that very good strike that he did on the cartels who were bringing illegal drugs toward our country. | ||
| And this is something where he's demonstrated that that is to be on an offensive footing and that sends a strong signal. | ||
| But when you look at whether it's the Department of War or Department of Defense, it's the same men and women in uniform. | ||
| And those are the most capable military on the planet. | ||
| And he's demonstrating that by showing that we're on offense, not defense. | ||
| Front page of the New York Times on the Venezuela issue, without arrest or trial, killing drug suspects. | ||
| And Charlie Savage writes in there, Mr. Trump is claiming the power to shift maritime counterdrug efforts from law enforcement rules to wartime rules. | ||
| The police arrest criminal suspects for prosecution and cannot instead simply gun suspects down, except in rare circumstances where they pose an imminent threat to someone. | ||
| Did he have the legal authority, the administration, to blow up that boat? | ||
|
unidentified
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I'll leave that to the lawyers. | |
| I'm not a lawyer, certainly not an international lawyer or any kind of lawyer. | ||
| But what I know as a Marine veteran and somebody who's been the National Security Council, been Senate Armed Services Committee, and looked at the way all this is hashed out, this is something where while I was on the staff of the National Security Council in the last, in the first Trump term, he took out Baghdadi, right? | ||
| And he took out Soleimani. | ||
| They were both designated terrorists. | ||
| The Trende Aragua and the other cartels, the Mexican cartels, were named on day one. | ||
| This is one of the first executive orders that the president signed, which was that they're terrorist organizations. | ||
| And so if we're able to go after Baghdadi, if we're able to go after Soleimani, that was a brilliant strike on Soleimani that happened just in early January of 2020. | ||
| And look, he was somebody, other presidents had the ability to take him out, and they were given an opportunity. | ||
| President Trump was briefed and he was given that opportunity, reportedly. | ||
| And he said that he's going to take the shot. | ||
| And this is something where clearly he was briefed ahead of time and it was up to him. | ||
| And he said with his counsel and others that he's going to take the shot. | ||
| Whether or not what legal underpinning that that has, we'll leave that up to the lawyers. | ||
| But the president always stays within the law. | ||
| And so this is something where he clearly has backup. | ||
| And if people are challenging him on that, I understand that he's gone to Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House, and actually today and yesterday are laying out that legal rationale. | ||
| But everybody agrees that that was a great move for him to do that because this is something that if Soleimani killed, if he killed, as he did, 4,000 Americans or close to 4,000 Americans with his special IEDs that he gave to the opposition in Iraq, then this is something that he was taken out for that. | ||
| And if you look at what happened with fentanyl and other drugs that are coming to the United States, on Biden's watch, he let that be an open border. | ||
| And there are 80 to 100,000 deaths per year. | ||
| Put that into perspective over four years. | ||
| You know how many we lost in World War II? | ||
| We lost 440,000 men in uniform there. | ||
| And this is something where you look at that's way more than Soleimani took out if you accept that he took out somewhere between two and up to two, three, four thousand Americans that were killed in combat there. | ||
| It pales in comparison. | ||
| So this is something that you need to send a strong signal. | ||
| He was given the ability to do that, and he took that shot. | ||
| And I'd say this is a 90-10 issue. | ||
| I don't think anybody argues with taking out the terrorists. | ||
| So good on the president. | ||
| You said the president is seeking that congressional approval. | ||
| The New York Times notes that trafficking of an illegal consumer product is not a capital offense, and Congress has not authorized armed conflict against cartels. | ||
| New York Times reporting and others this morning, in reaction, the Venezuelans flew jets over a U.S. Navy ship in show of force. | ||
| We're talking national security this morning. | ||
| Peter in Silver Spring, Maryland, Independent. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
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Hey, I appreciate you having the speaker on, and I would hope he would open his mind to other points of views than the ones he has about Ukraine. | |
| Give you a scenario. | ||
| Canada invades Michigan to take over our auto industry. | ||
| Americans die fighting to protect our auto industry. | ||
| And England comes and screams at us for causing all these deaths. | ||
| And why don't we just let Canada run over the United States because all these people are dying? | ||
| Russia took over the Donbass. | ||
| That is Ukraine's economic industrial heartland. | ||
| They're fighting to defend their country. | ||
| And you're complaining about them dying to protect their country? | ||
| Would you complain about Americans dying to protect our auto industry? | ||
| All right, Peter. | ||
|
unidentified
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Well, look, Peter, I think you always raise good points there. | |
| Most of the colors raise good points, but we'll give a different perspective to that. | ||
| If the U.S. were invaded by Canada, number one, Canada wouldn't invade the U.S. because the U.S. has the wherewithal to, nobody's going to invade our land as long as you have presidents that are committed like President Trump is to have the strongest military in the world. | ||
| So that's an inapt or an inapposite comparison. | ||
| So if you look, though, what the analogy would be is if Canada were to invade the U.S. and once again, there's a wild, wild hypothetical, but if they were to do that, the analogy is that we don't turn to Europe and we say, hey, Europe, why don't you come in there and let's say France and one country in Europe, France or the U.K. and you're now going to pay us as a country to fight that battle and you're going to arm us. | ||
| And if you talk about arming the Ukrainians, let's take a step back once again. | ||
| If you look at when Putin invaded on Biden's watch the first time, he invaded twice on Biden's watch when Biden had, and it wasn't just that he was vice president, he was given the purview of, or he was given the responsibility under Obama and by Obama to run policy on Ukraine. | ||
| That's why his son got involved in there with all the business dealings is because he was the point man on Ukraine. | ||
| Biden was. | ||
| If you look at Republicans on the Armed Services Committee, where I used to be a staffer, Lindsey Graham, John McCain wanted to arm them and give them Ukraine to push back against this invasion by Ukraine. | ||
| Guess who said no to that? | ||
| The Democrats led by Obama and Biden particularly said because he was the point man for Obama on those issues. | ||
| So what they say is we'll give them ponchos, we'll give them canteens, et cetera, but we're not going to give them any lethal force. | ||
| You know, the first president or presidential candidate has said that they would give him lethal force, and the first one who did was President Trump in 2017. | ||
| So if you don't think President Trump is committed to the security of Ukraine, once again, this is not the smart comparison whether Canada were to come in here is we don't look, President Trump doesn't look to a country in Europe to provide for our defense. | ||
| We can do that ourselves. | ||
| And he wanted, and other Republicans wanted to give Ukraine that ability back before President Trump came in office the first time. | ||
| And Biden said no and Obama said no. | ||
| So that's just the historic record. | ||
| So it's important to keep that in mind. | ||
| All right, we'll go to Carolina in Arizona. | ||
| Democratic caller. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I'm calling because my parents fought, and Mussolini, Hitler, Franco, all those dictator types. | ||
| And now we're looking at somebody who, my dad was a Marine, and we're looking at Marines that are being sent against Americans. | ||
| And I think that is totally shameful. | ||
| And as a kid, as far as hiding under desks because of Russia, then you have Trump greeting Putin, practically kissing his, you know what? | ||
| It's a shame. | ||
| You're turning away our friends. | ||
| Canada and Mexico are our neighbors. | ||
| We are a gigantic, gigantic group if we are together. | ||
| And I think that President Trump is a dictator. | ||
| My mother said he is a dictator. | ||
| And she was 94, and she said she was very afraid of what was going to happen to the United States with that crazy man in control. | ||
| So shame on him. | ||
| And my Marines are flipping in their graves that they are being used against Americans. | ||
| John Elliott. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, first I'd like to say that to your father, who is a father in your family, who are your father's service as a Marine, I had modest service for four years on active duty with the Marine Corps after college, and I consider that to be one of the best times in my life, if not the best time of my life, to be part of such a tradition. | |
| So semper fy to your family, both your father, grandfather, and the others in your family who are Marines. | ||
| And look, we understand that there is that Democrats, you're on the Democrat line, that there was a poll, I believe it was last week, that said that President Trump's approval among Democrats is 0%. | ||
| Okay, so we know that there's going to be issues where people look at different media and they have different contexts there. | ||
| But I don't really know when Marines are being used against Americans. | ||
| I don't know what that maybe that refers to LA where they're providing security for what's going on in there. | ||
| George H.W. Bush did the same thing. | ||
| And so this is something, if you're talking about the troops, for example, who are here in D.C., those are National Guard troops. | ||
| Those aren't active duty U.S. Marine Corps. | ||
| And this is something where the President looks at these things. | ||
| And he made the decision. | ||
| And we came, we're right next to the Union station here in the nation's capital. | ||
| And you can probably see over our shoulders that there are troops from the National Guard that are in Union Square area. | ||
| And that was just a squalid area where nobody wanted to go in and even go to the train there. | ||
| So good on the National Guard for protecting regular order here in Washington and good on the President to have directed that along with other supporting agencies like ICE, ATF, and others who are in this city. | ||
| On my way over here today, I looked at one of the worst areas that we would drive through here in D.C. and there were uniformed Secret Service people standing out there. | ||
| And you better believe they looked at one of the people who was possibly going to rob somebody and the guy took off on his bike. | ||
| And that's a very strong presence to be in there. | ||
| But I don't know what you're talking about about using Marines against other Americans. | ||
| I just challenge you on that. | ||
| That's not happening. | ||
| Here is Paul in Cleveland who texts us to say, with Russia, North Korea, and China forming a stronger alliance, is it a good idea to drive a wedge between the U.S. and our European allies? | ||
| Referring, of course, to President Putin meeting in Beijing with China and the Indian leader as well. | ||
| There's the picture on your screen. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Great. | |
| Well, this is something that is important to raise. | ||
| But once again, it was President Biden who took what was a very good relationship or at least a working relationship that President Trump had with Putin. | ||
| Remember, Biden met in Geneva with President Putin on, I think it was the first six months of his presidency. | ||
| And President Putin looked him in the eye. | ||
| And two months later, President Biden had a disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan. | ||
| And then President Putin, six months after that, just invaded Ukraine for the second time on Biden's watch. | ||
| Sticking with this president and what is happening in that summit, is it a good idea to the viewer's question to put a wedge between the U.S. and our European allies when they are meeting together and there's a military parade, etc.? | ||
| They seem to be forming an alliance there. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Right, but what it is, is it's weakness on the U.S. part that pushed Putin into the alliance with China. | |
| And that wasn't the case because President Trump had a very good relationship with President Putin, a very good working relationship. | ||
| And so you better believe if President Trump were in office in the four years between his first and second terms, that was something where Putin would not be over-cozing up to China because he had the good personal relationship with Putin and could talk them out of that and talk about where we can actually work together. | ||
| And so and He could do that now. | ||
| Well, what he did, he met in Alaska with Putin, and then remember right after that, he had all the European leaders come. | ||
| They blocked out their schedule to come with him, and they all stood in unity saying that, hey, look, there's two sides to this thing. | ||
| It wasn't just Putin there, but we also are showing resolve for Ukraine. | ||
| So there is an alliance here that's very strong with the European countries to get a very speedy ceasefire here because it's in everyone's interest. | ||
| We'll go to Max next. | ||
| Silver Spring at Maryland Independent. | ||
| Hi, Max. | ||
|
unidentified
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Hi, good morning. | |
| First of all, yeah, I've been to you, I frequent Union Station quite a bit lately, and usually when I travel to the city, I've seen those two vehicles. | ||
| They park two vehicles out in front of Union Station, and there's a man or a woman standing next to them in uniform. | ||
| They're doing nothing but being a photo op for the president. | ||
| Seriously, it's silly. | ||
| But that's not what I call for. | ||
| What I called about was to, so I have a feeling you've swam around in the same circles as John Bolton, and you probably know him. | ||
| You probably have met him or at least know him. | ||
| And he's being investigated by Donald Trump for basically doing the same thing that Donald Trump was busted for at Mar-a-Lago when they found the top secret documents in his bathroom, for instance. | ||
| And I'm curious how you feel about the investigation on John Bolton. | ||
| And does that make you question whether or not you can ever go against the president yourself in your job position? | ||
| Or how do you feel about that? | ||
| How do you morally connect the dots there? | ||
| That's a very good question. | ||
| So, look, I've always been, I didn't serve at all under Bolton. | ||
| I've always been skeptical of his neocon outlook, and that's probably why he didn't finish out his term or finish out his job in the president's term because they were at odds. | ||
| And so I came in right on the National Security Council staff with Robert O'Brien, who was the successor to Bolton when Bolton was fired by the president. | ||
| So what this is, though, this is about safeguarding classified information. | ||
| And that's something that we really need to hold everybody, no matter what administration to, including Bolton, including others. | ||
| If you look at mishandling classified information, that's something that just in March of this year, you had a former Defense Department official given three years in jail and fined $10,000 for mishandling classified information and to include giving it to people who had no classification or no security clearance rather. | ||
| And this is something that's very serious, needs to be taken seriously with Bolton. | ||
| As to the president, this was looked into. | ||
| I know that the FBI had some midnight raid or early dawn raid with sirens screaming and helicopters overhead at Mar-a-Lago, and that was directed by Biden. | ||
| Everybody knows that. | ||
| And so that was looked at by the courts, and it was looked at very heavily prosecuted by Jack Smith, the prosecutor, and they ended up having the case thrown out there. | ||
| So let's look at handling classified information is absolutely important. | ||
| That's something I was an intelligence officer in the U.S. Marine Corps over 30 years ago. | ||
| And look, if you were a Lance corporal or a young lieutenant in the Marine Corps in intelligence and you had that clearance and you were mishandling that, if you showed it to your wife, for example, if you showed it to somebody else as alleged here, that's something that you could go to jail for up to 10 years and be fined up to $500,000. | ||
| So this is something we need to take very seriously, no matter who is accused there. | ||
| It was looked at in President Trump's case, but hey, it needs to be looked at for other people. | ||
| I mean, I've made very clear, I mentioned that Secretary Pete Hegseth himself, look, he's been accused of disclosing classified information to his wife, and he should have the same scrutiny that Bolton has. | ||
| He should have the same scrutiny that any Lance Corporal in the Marine Corps did if he mishandled classified information. | ||
| Once again, you can be imprisoned up to 10 years for that. | ||
| It's deadly serious, and everybody who has a security clearance needs to keep that in mind and make sure not to violate that responsibility that they have. | ||
| And that's the case with Bolton. | ||
| It's the case with Hegseth. | ||
| It's the case with anybody who mishandles classified information. | ||
| This is deadly serious. | ||
| Lives are at stake a lot of times. | ||
| That's why we have the classification levels of top secret and secret and confidential. | ||
| That top secret means there'll be exceptionally grave damage to national security. | ||
| If that's disclosed secret, it'll be serious damage. | ||
| And confidential is also serious damage. | ||
| But look, this is something where those levels of classification need to be respected, no matter whether it's Bolton, Hegseth, anybody else in this administration. | ||
| And President Trump and Kash Patel, the FBI, have made very clear in Pam Bondi that these are standards that need to be upheld, but they should be done across the board, not just for troops who violate the law, but also for people like Bolton and, if need be, cabinet secretaries. | ||
| John is in Arlington, Virginia, a Republican caller. | ||
| John? | ||
|
unidentified
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Yeah, I think we should, in regard to this blowing up of that boat in the Caribbean, I think we should note that there's a big difference between al-Qaeda and these guys. | |
| Al-Qaeda was trying to kill Americans. | ||
| These guys are trying to make profit out of Americans. | ||
| A little reckless. | ||
| A lot of Americans die because of overdoses. | ||
| But it's not the same thing. | ||
| Especially when we had the option of going in there, grabbing the boat, and getting information about who these guys were and what they were doing. | ||
| We know that when you get a little trigger happy like they did in the Caribbean, bad things happen. | ||
| For example, when we were bombing Yemen, we bombed, well, I'll put it like this. | ||
| Somebody bombed the jail that killed 70 migrants from Ethiopia. | ||
| The Israelis didn't do it. | ||
| The Yemenis didn't do it. | ||
| And I don't think the Eritreans did it. | ||
| So it probably was us, but we haven't said too much about it. | ||
| The thing is, when you go around shooting stuff off, things happen. | ||
| And if you're going to blame the Iranians for, and it wasn't 4,000 people, that's as many people that was killed in Iraq. | ||
| It was around 600. | ||
| If you're going to blame them because Iraqis use those weapons, then we're responsible for the deaths of 50,000 Palestinians because we give aid to Israel. | ||
| All right, John, well, let's take that. | ||
| Let's take those comparisons. | ||
| John Elliott. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, look, once again, that Soleimani and the IRGC, the Republican Guard in Iran, he was a terrorist. | |
| He was designated as such. | ||
| And President Trump, on the first day of his office, once again, on first day in office, on January 20th, in addition to a raft of dozens, close to 100 executive orders, that one of those executive orders, I read it this morning, designates cartels, including Trend del Aragua, where these terrorists were reportedly from, from Venezuela, as terrorists that are potential targets, just like any other terrorists, just like Soleimani, just like Baghdadi. | ||
| So for this caller to say that one is different than the other, they are both terrorist organizations. | ||
| And if you talk about that they have no deaths or that they didn't kill Americans, they killed, under Biden's watch alone, close to the number of Americans that were killed in World War II from the fentanyl that came over that open border that Biden, when he opened that border wide up. | ||
| And you have, once again, 80 to 100,000 Americans were killed. | ||
| Most of these were young men and up to age 35 who sometimes didn't even, many times, didn't even know what drug they were taking. | ||
| And so if you say that deadly force is not authorized there, once again, I'm not a lawyer, but we'll leave it up to the lawyers to hash it out. | ||
| But President Trump has the best legal advice in the world. | ||
| And just like he was given the opportunity to take this vessel out, he was given the opportunity to take Solomoni out that no other president who had been given reportedly that same information that he decided to take this action. | ||
| And I think you would find that 90 to 95 percent of Americans say right on you, President Trump. | ||
| We will go to James next in Virginia. | ||
| Democratic caller, welcome to the conversation. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yes. | |
| I don't know how people can be so crazy to follow. | ||
| I don't call President Trump Donald Trump because he's a crook himself. | ||
| Where was all the secrets on his daughter and son-in-law and all of them was up there looking at Secret Service stuff with no secret clearance? | ||
| And then again, Trump is the one that got the money and say he's going to close the border and Mexico is going to pay for it. | ||
| And to check into Donald Trump, he owes Putin money. | ||
| That's why. | ||
| And it came through that Dutch bank in New York. | ||
| So that's why he's never going to go against Putin until Putin would kill him because of the money that he owe Putin. | ||
| All right, James there in Virginia. | ||
| Do you have any thoughts, John? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Absolutely. | |
| James, you threw a lot at us there. | ||
| And understand that you're not a fan of the president, but that's why we have a democracy. | ||
| So respect your opinions, but absolutely disagree with the facts is that President Trump did close the border. | ||
| Number one, is that he did that on the first week in office. | ||
| I went down along with Secretary Pete Hegseth and Tom Homan down to the border in El Paso. | ||
| And frankly, if I take a step back, I served on the border as a Marine in support of the Border Patrol back in 1992, where we were that back then the border was just six strands of barbed wire there. | ||
| And now President Trump wanted to build the wall. | ||
| He was blocked by Pelosi from building the wall. | ||
| And so now he's back and he put down in the first two weeks in office, he put the troops. | ||
| Actually, it was the first day in office. | ||
| He ordered troops down to the border, including Marines, put up barbed wire and others for porous areas where Democrats had blocked him from finishing the wall there. | ||
| And so, and to take a step back once again, when you were talking about Putin, if Putin is, if President Trump owes Putin something, then why didn't Putin invade a neighboring country on his watch while he was president? | ||
| So. | ||
| John Elliott, John Elliott here is with us this morning, former deputy assistant to the president in the Trump administration, former National Security Council spokesman with the Trump administration. | ||
| Let's go to William in Burlington, North Carolina, Independent. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| A couple of things. | ||
| I want to go back to this new coalition of the five new, I guess, axis of evil. | ||
| You can't blame Biden for that. | ||
| I mean, this happened on Trump's watch. | ||
| It didn't happen on Biden. | ||
| You guys always go back to Biden, Biden, Biden. | ||
| Everything's Biden. | ||
| When as an administration and as a group of people, do you take responsibility for anything that Trump does? | ||
| Everything is somebody else's fault. | ||
| It's not true. | ||
| They specifically did this because they're tired of the tariffs. | ||
| They're tired of Trump's bullying them. | ||
| And they said, we're going to stand together as a team now. | ||
| That didn't happen under Biden. | ||
| That didn't happen under Barack Obama. | ||
| You guys keep going back to a well that doesn't make any sense. | ||
| It's tried up now. | ||
| And blowing up a motorboat in the middle of the ocean is not bravery. | ||
| It's not lethality in the sense of, oh, look at us, we're strong and mighty. | ||
| It's cowardly. | ||
| You hit a boat that was speeding along with a plane from above and blew it completely out of the water. | ||
| How does that make us look like we're a good boy? | ||
| to leave this to bring you coverage of president trump all right thank you very much We'll start by signing three very important bills. | ||
| And Will, would you discuss them, please? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, sir. | |
| This is H.R. 2808. |