On March 16, 2026, Washington Journal examines President Trump's escalation in the Iran conflict, demanding seven nations police the Strait of Hormuz amidst over 2,000 deaths and 800,000 displaced in Lebanon. While callers debate the morality of regime change versus energy security, Senator Booker blocks ICE funding despite TSA lapses, and a fact-check debunks AI claims about Trump starting wars. The broadcast concludes with historian Bob Crawford detailing John Quincy Adams' 1826 death on the House floor, contrasting his anti-slavery legacy with modern political divisions as Israel expands its forward defense in Lebanon. [Automatically generated summary]
President Trump said this weekend that the United States may strike Iran's Karg Island again following earlier attacks he described as having, quote, totally demolished much of the country's key oil export hub.
Iran's foreign minister said Tehran has not asked for a ceasefire and will fight, quote, as long as it takes.
The administration is preparing to announce a coalition to escort commercial ships through the Strait of Hormuz as oil markets remain volatile.
This morning, we're asking, do you approve or disapprove of President Trump's handling of the Iran conflict?
Here are the numbers.
Democrats, 202-748-8000.
Republicans, 202748, 8001.
Independents, 202748, 8002.
You can send a text to 2027488003.
Include your first name in your city-state.
And we're on social media, facebook.com/slash C-SPAN and X at C-SPANWJ.
Welcome to today's Washington Journal.
Start with a quick update from the Associated Press.
Trump calls for allies to help reopen Strait of Hormuz.
That's the headline.
It says, U.S. President Donald Trump said he has demanded that about seven countries send warships to keep the Strait of Hormuz open, saying the U.S. is negotiating with countries that are heavily reliant on Middle East crude to join a coalition to police the waterway.
Gulf Arab states, including UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Bahrain, reported new missile or drone attacks after Iran called for the evacuation of three major ports in the United Arab Emirates.
The first time it has threatened a neighboring country's non-U.S. assets, and the Dubai International Airport has gradually resumed some flights after a drone struck a fuel tank, causing a fire.
It says authorities said it was quickly contained and no injuries were reported.
Finally, the war has killed at least 1,300 people in Iran, at least 850 in Lebanon, 12 in Israel.
According to officials in those countries, at least 13 U.S. military members have been killed, including six in a plane crash in Iraq last week.
More than 800,000 people, nearly one out of every seven residents of Lebanon, have been displaced.
Well, let's take a look at President Trump last night on Air Force One talking about the coalition for the Strait of Hormuz.
And it's very hard to hear that given the sound of the jet, but this is Politico that has this article about it.
It says, Trump demands about seven countries join coalition to police Iran's Strait of Hormuz.
The president declined to name the countries the administration is negotiating with for protection for the strategic passage.
We are taking your calls this morning on the Iran conflict, whatever you would like to talk about.
We are here to listen and to hear your thoughts on that.
Democrats are on 2027488000.
Republicans 2027488001.
And independence 202748-8002.
We also have our Facebook here.
This is a posting that says, I approve Iranian people are needing help.
Michael Patrick says this, citizens of the U.S. have argued over the impact of Trump's presidency on the international order.
Some have argued that, quote, America is respected again.
However, considering the lack of response among our traditional allies in this conflict, it's clear that, at least with the countries in NATO, these countries don't want anything to do with what's happening in Iran.
Does that show respect?
Let's talk to Shea, who is calling us from Fort Pierce, Florida.
America, I tell you, we're in a mess as it always already was with our health care and all that.
And now we're spending all these billions of dollars for a war that we're not God.
You know what I mean?
If he was defending our country that was really, you know, they've been talking for years and years and years about what they're going to do.
Yeah, they're supposed to talk tough because they're trying to defend their own country.
But we should have stayed out of that.
People don't have the subsidies for the health care that they're not even talking about, that they could have extended for poor people to help them with health care.
And it's not hit yet because they tried to be slick about it because when it's really going to hard hit the people in this country, it's after the midterms.
They're trying to just baby the loan.
And then after that, it's going to be terrible for people of health care here in America and other stuff that's going on.
I think all that money that could have helped our country and still put in more pain because of the all and all of that.
80% of the oil coming out of the Gulf heads to Asia.
Only about 7, 8% heads to the Western Hemisphere.
And thank God for President Trump's energy dominance agenda.
Everything from opening up Anwar, new pipeline in Alaska, incentivizing fracking, what we're going to see come out of Venezuela and Guyana in the coming months and years.
This is why we have to be energy independent.
And I have to just say, it's a little rich coming from the progressive left, who has literally been at war against oil.
Literally, we're putting policies in place to drive up the price of oil in order to force Americans to buy EVs and go to wind and solar are now suddenly celebrating it or decrying the lack of it.
Like I said, it's a little bit rich.
We have the energy dominance in place.
But to your point on escorts, look, back in the 80s, under the tanker wars, then the last time Iran tried to constrain global energy supplies, you had French, United Kingdom, even Soviet Union forces in there escorting their tankers out that were heading to their markets.
And I think that's what President Trump is calling upon the world, saying the entire world is affected.
Iran can't hold your economies hostage.
And we certainly welcome, encourage, and even demand their participation to help their own economies.
And meanwhile, the U.S. military will continue to pound the Iranian military, their missile, boat, and drone forces to keep the straits open.
Let's talk to Ronald, Republican, Troy, North Carolina.
Good morning.
unidentified
Good morning.
I'm calling.
I think the attack, the Democrat Party has lost it.
They've offered a deeping.
And to me, it's like treason against our country, against Trump, treason against our nation, what they're doing to America, the Democrat Party, is wrong.
The argument the administration is making is that it's China that is really dependent on that oil going through the Strait of Hormuz.
Do you think that they would be willing to send warships to secure it so that they could have access?
unidentified
I don't believe so.
It's a good question, because they have huge reserves.
They've been building up their reserves.
We've been selling our reserves of oil off.
Also, China has been electrifying for so many years and wind power.
And they have obviously the largest electric car companies in the world.
They also have coal that they can get from other countries like Australia.
But they are building an electrification, so they don't need as much oil as they used to in the past.
I don't believe China will help.
China has been, we have been creating chaos.
China has been building things, and China will continue to build things in Africa, Roads Project.
In other words, we have totally destroyed with Trump.
Trump has totally destroyed the positive, the diploma, what do they call it, soft power that we used to have with USAID and the World Health Organization.
All these things that benefit people, that people look at us and say, thank you, United States.
And what we have done is just brought death and destruction.
Khomeini was a horrible man.
I don't want, I'm a Jewish member of the Jewish faith, and we have strong relations in Bangor here with our Muslim neighbors.
We had 500 people at an IFSDAR dinner in downtown Bangor on March 6th.
Just beautiful, wonderful feeling of joy and community.
I'm not in faith.
I support Israel, but I also support a two-state solution.
I don't support war or Netanyahu.
And he and Trump are two people that want to stay out of jail.
Under this FBI director, Cash Battelle, he has fired many of the top counterterrorism folks, counter-espionage folks.
And he has taken, and I reported this many times, close to a third of our FBI officers off doing counterterrorism or doing sex crimes and put them on immigration enforcement.
I knew this was going to come back and bite us.
And I believe, while there may not be a direct relationship here, we know in all of the offices they've taken these FBI agents off their critical cases and put them on immigration enforcement.
I think that was a mistake.
I want to find out how this guy was able to still be on the loose.
And we've got to get an investigation, but we've got to get an FBI that is back focused on protecting the homeland and preventing, whether it be terrorist or espionage taking place.
First, the thing about West Bloomfield: it is a city where everybody lives among everybody.
Jews live among Muslims who live among Jews and Christians and Hindus.
I mean, everybody just lives together.
We couldn't believe that an incident like this could happen, and we were absolutely horrified and shocked because we don't think of ourselves as homogenous.
We just are.
And the other thing I'd like to say is that people don't generally recognize this, but the military rank and file, the soldiers themselves, the seamen, airmen, they actually have their own order for commanders.
And if anybody has ever earned the Blue Falcon, I'm sorry, the Blue Falcon more than Donald Trump, I'd like to know who it was.
Donald Trump is absolutely probably the only president who has actually earned the Blue Falcon.
Leah, let's talk about Carg Island and sending the Marines.
If, as you say, the Marines are going to be on that island, it is very close to Iran.
So all they need to do is lob missiles and kill the Marines that might be stationed there.
What do you think of that?
unidentified
That's a possibility.
And in fact, it's a concern of mine, obviously, because Iran still has command and control and facilities, and they're launching drones.
And we're struggling right now to defend against those drones.
So there's a lot of moving parts here, and I can't really say what's going to happen.
The last thing I'll say, though, my main concern is the war would be fought by American soldiers in the towns coming from the towns, the National Guard.
And when I was in Vietnam as a combat Marine officer, the draft created all kinds of problems.
Well, when the people that are going to the Middle East, most of the people that have been killed so far, are National Guard.
And when you call up the National Guard and deploy, quote unquote, deploy them to places.
And when they deploy them, they don't really tell us where they're going.
The big problem right now would be energy prices, and we're watching and monitoring closely.
We're looking at things every day and seeing how quickly we progress.
The bottom line is, again, that the reason why futures markets for oil are dropping down towards 60 and even below 50 in the long run is that we expect that if Iran stops being this disruptive terrorist force in the Middle East, that there will be a boom in oil production and industrial production.
But think about the harm, the harm that this evil government has done to their own people.
Back in the 70s, before the revolution, Iran was the 17th largest economy of the world.
Jason, Zanesville, Ohio, Democrat, you're on the air.
unidentified
Howdy.
I just want to say how much I oppose this war.
I think that President Trump dragging us into another potential forever war after we've seen what's happened in Afghanistan and Iraq is not only irresponsible, it's dangerous, and it's going to be deadly for men and women my age.
So the counter argument to that is it would be a lot worse if Iran got a nuclear weapon.
What do you think of that scenario of Iran being in possession of a nuclear weapon?
unidentified
I don't believe we have anything to worry about regarding that.
We've heard that Iran was close to a nuclear weapon for years.
We had a deal in place during the Obama administration to keep them from enriching uranium and making a nuclear weapon, which was thrown away by the current president and his administration.
So, but Jason, they have said they have threatened Israel to wipe Israel off the map.
Do you think that would be a problem?
unidentified
I believe that would be a problem, but there is no good reason for the United States men and women to go die on a potential that there is no real proof would happen.
No, we never asked for a ceasefire and we have never asked even for negotiation.
We are ready to defend ourselves as long as it takes.
And this is what we have done so far and we continue to do that until President Trump comes to the point that this is an illegal war with no victory and you know there are you know people being killed only because President Trump wants to have fun.
Can I think it's I want you to respond to Aaron, okay?
Listen to this.
This was on X. Except for the military who have lost their lives, this has been the most successful campaign known to any military industrial congressional complex known on earth.
We've done the opposite of the status quo.
We didn't waste 20 years of boots on the ground to hand it to the enemies.
What do you think of that?
That this is the most successful military operation.
unidentified
I would say to Aaron that that sounds very familiar as to what we just heard six months ago, that it was a very successful plan.
We just obliterated their entire nuclear plan, right?
We set them back years.
And now six months later, they're within weeks again and again and again and again.
Caesar, when you say something needs to be done about it, and this has been a problem for 47 years, do you think that this is the right thing to do about it, in your opinion?
unidentified
I believe so.
You know, we have to do something about the nuclear possibilities of having it.
We can't allow them to have any sort of nuclear bomb or anything because they will turn around and use it.
They've got about 400 kilograms, over 400 kilograms of enriched uranium that they would still keep.
Would you be willing to put American boots on the ground in order to seize that nuclear material so that they would not be able to create a nuclear bomb at the end of all this?
unidentified
That's kind of hard to say.
I mean, I really don't want boots in the ground because I don't want this to extend more than it has to.
I think we have more powerful ways of getting to it.
But I think that's the ultimate way it's going to have to go in order to do this.
There's no way we can go there.
They're not willing to negotiate.
You know, like the other caller said, we were about to negotiate again, but they don't want no negotiations.
They just want to waste time and waste time on our part until we let go and we can't.
Let's talk to Michael Ardmore, Pennsylvania Democrat.
You're next.
unidentified
Yes, I served in the Marine Corps from 1993 to 2001, and I was assigned to one of those Marine expeditionary units that has been deployed with 2,500 Marines.
I'm really concerned about that because our Secretary of Defense, I think, who's a total clown who doesn't even have, who has limited experience in these matters,
I wish we had a Secretary of Defense who was an admiral or a general who would know what they were doing in planning that mission, because I think it's completely unclear whether they want the Marines to be on the ground on Carg Island or they want them to be on the ship.
I think it's completely undefined and it is putting our troops in harm's way and at risk.
Michael, let me show you what the New York Times is saying about that.
So it says how a Marine unit in the Middle East could open new phase of Iran war.
The unit's arrival in the coming days will give the Pentagon the ability to quickly launch raids.
It says deployment at about 2,500 Marines represents a new phase as Iranian forces increase their attacks on the strait.
The unit officially known as the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, according to two U.S. defense officials, will be in an unusual position given the problem vexing the Pentagon.
The Iranian military's ability to mine the strait.
It says U.S. airstrikes have forced the Iranians to forego their larger naval vessels and deploy fast boats carrying mines that can evade aircraft.
These boats would likely launch from an archipelago of islands closer to the strait.
It says the Pentagon will be able to quickly launch raids onto the islands with infantry Marines who will have logistics and air support.
That's according to a retired senior defense officials.
That raises the risk of escalation.
President Trump has been quick to authorize smaller-scale military operations.
It says he announced on social media on Friday that the U.S. military had conducted a large bombing raid on Carg Island.
That's at the New York Times if you'd like to see the rest of that.
Here is from Fox News Sunday.
This is more from U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Michael Waltz on the potential for U.S. forces on the ground.
The Pentagon's job, Secretary Hegzeth, Chairman Dan Kane, is to provide options to the president, to have forces that are trained, equipped, in position, and ready for whatever he chooses to do as commander-in-chief.
President Trump is ever going to take options off the table.
And I can tell you, as a former special operator, we have forces that are dedicated to handling WMD all over the world, should we have to seize it from a rogue nation or otherwise.
But what I can tell you, I'm confident, is that this isn't going to be another 2003 Iraq.
There are not going to be hundreds of thousands of troops occupying urban areas somewhere.
You know, certainly not Tehran.
But if the president has to dedicate limited options, very focused, very targeted options, I'm confident that's something that the Pentagon, an option that the Pentagon can and will provide him.
Here is Harvey, Buffalo, New York, Independent Line.
Harvey, you're on the air.
unidentified
Good morning.
My main thing is I think once you get into a conflict, this back and forth and not supporting our American military people overseas is a great negative.
Being a person that was in the Vietnam war era, you know, it was terrible that you couldn't come home in the uniform because people were so crazy about the war going on at that time.
We're in it.
We're going to stay in it.
We're going to do what we have to do there.
I am an independent, don't believe in war, but yet we're there.
And the worst thing is not to support our military people overseas and be negative about them being there and doing the job the president has asked them to do.
And Sheila on X says, I don't approve of anything with Netanyahu's fingerprints on it.
Celtic Tree says this on X, leftists are mad at Donald for doing what Kamala, Joe, Hillary, and Barack all said that they would do, which is make sure that Iran wasn't able to threaten the region with nuclear weapons.
And this is the Military Times saying that the supplemental forces would include up to 5,000 personnel and several warships, including the USS Tripoli, which is on its way to the Middle East from its home port in Japan.
You don't think it could be because it's a bigger threat, that Iran is closer to a nuclear weapon, that this was the best chance to take out the proxies because Iran is weaker now.
Tony Milton, Massachusetts, Independent Line, you're on the air, Tony.
unidentified
Yeah, good morning.
Thank you for having me on.
Unfortunately, a lot of people in this country don't realize that Iran has a radical regime that has been in existence for over 40 years.
And it's a very dangerous regime.
People don't realize that the capability that they have over the last, that they've built up over the last 40 years is very dangerous.
And I think not only did the U.S. recognize it in Israel, but so did the rest of the Arab world.
And people have to realize that this is a war that we can't avoid.
Unfortunately, it happened at this time.
Unfortunately, it happened under this president.
But it's a situation that this world has to deal with.
We cannot avoid this.
It's a regime that's built on murder, on lying, on cheating, on anything that they could do to push through their agenda of an ideology that goes against the world population.
Unfortunately, it's a war that we have to deal with.
And this has happened, and everybody hates wars.
I hate wars.
We all do.
But unfortunately, we've been living with this for 40 years.
This region has an opportunity now where all of the Arab countries have united against this country, and they're willing to go all the way to remove this regime.
Okay, but so we've had experience with regime change, like in Iraq and Afghanistan.
So do you think it's going to be a repeat of those?
unidentified
I don't think so.
I really don't.
I think people because I believe that the rest of the Arab world recognizes this has to happen.
If this country had nuclear weapons, just imagine what they would have done today.
I mean, this could happen, literally.
Honestly, this could happen.
The ideology that drives these people is very dangerous.
They're willing to die and kill millions of people with them thinking that there's another world or another heaven that they're going to.
They really believe this, and it's wrong.
And they're willing to kill not thousands, millions of people.
This is an ideology people have to understand exists and has to be removed, unfortunately, at a very expensive cost to lives, to Americans, to Arabs, to other Iranians, and to other Shiites.
There are a lot of Shiites that don't believe in this regime, but they have to live under them, and they have to be removed.
Thank you for all your hard, professional, personable, knowledgeable, hard work.
C-SPAN does a great job, and it gives us a good chance to see what people think.
It's sad that there's so many people that think that this is to cover up the F-STEAM thing.
That's delusional.
There's no evidence of that.
And the thing is, I like dogs, but if you have a rabid dog, you have to put it down.
And the Iranians are very intelligent people.
The students in the colleges are ready to create their own regime change, and it's going to take a military intervention to make that possible for them to get rid of these rabid people that are evil, wicked, maniacal.
And I mean, there's no resistance movement in Iran that is organized, that's armed, that is ready to take power in Iran, right?
Or what do you think of that?
unidentified
I've talked to hundreds of Iranian students, and they're ready to change the thing.
We're going to have to arm those people.
We're going to have to give them light arms, and we're going to have to neutralize 25, or I'm sorry, 250,000 evil, wicked, maniacal people that are part of this regime that's intimidating 90 million people.
It's just like North Korea, which is the fourth largest army in the world.
This is probably number 15, but it's a threat because they're well on the way to a nuke that can reach other countries.
Taking your calls for another few minutes on the topic.
Do you approve or disapprove of President Trump's handling of the Iran conflict?
Talk to Jack, Arlington, Virginia.
Democrat, you're on the air, Jack.
unidentified
Hey, good morning.
I 100% disapprove.
As a Democrat, I voted for Donald Trump because of his approach towards international relations.
So I'm, let's say, a seasoned former Marine.
So I really appreciated the Marines who've talked on the line.
And that I served in Iraq.
So this is from the 90s all the way to 2001, 2011.
I've served also in USAID in Iraq and in Afghanistan.
And I could tell you for sure, as someone who has a specialty in information operations, that a lot of your people who are like, you know, believe me, this, believe me, that.
No, no, no, speak to someone like myself or former CIA operators, operators, who know that this is made up, who knows that this is something that has been going on for decades and have pushed towards this idea of terrorism.
Now, on the question of Iran having nukes, no.
No matter what I say, I know that people have been convinced that this is true, that the Iranians have nuclear capability.
No, this is a message, a story, a Harry Potter book that is fantasy that's been created to drive what you see happening today.
Wait, wait, I'm not clear on what the fantasy is, Jack, that they are pursuing nuclear weapons.
unidentified
The fantasy that they were pursuing nuclear weapons.
I would argue that they are pursuing nuclear weapons now.
They will be because no matter what they tried, nothing worked.
Nothing allowed them to have nuclear capability, just like the Israelis have, just like we have, in order to expand their society, in order to make Iran, normal Iran, work.
JR, Grove City, Ohio, Independent Line, you're on the air.
unidentified
Yeah, I'm a son of a Vietnam veteran.
I was going to serve myself.
I graduated around the 2000 era when right before 9-11 happened.
So I would have been a soldier that would have literally been sent over to Iraq to hunt for weapons of mass destructions that they were claiming that they had at that point when literally we went over there.
We went through the whole change of the regime, as some of the callers are stating and stuff like that, to go ahead and to free the Iraqi people.
And I mean, that was a wonderful idea.
I understand it.
But at the same time, wasn't it really just George W. Bush cleaning up his daddy's mess that he had left when we literally went out of the Saudi Arabia war, everything else?
So, like, I do not agree with this in any way, shape, or form.
I have a 22-year-old son that is a special operations Marine that will literally be on the front lines if this war continues.
And it's not even an if this war continues.
This war is going to continue.
This is, like the last caller said, this is something that is literally a forever war.
This is a biblical war that has been going on and that will go on for probably the rest of our lives.
Do we have the means to keep up the bombing and everything else?
Yeah, we probably do.
But at what cost?
Are we going to bomb multiple schools?
Are we going to kill innocent people for what?
Like, what did Iran do to us at this moment that caused us to buddy up with Netanyahu, to buddy up with Israel, and then to go over and try to clean up a mess that we really have no reason to even be over there?
And like the other callers are saying, like, we should put boots on the ground and have a forever war.
Send your son or daughter over there.
And let's see how quick your opinion will change on if you think this should be a forever war.
And later at about 9.15 Eastern, we'll have a conversation with musician Bob Crawford of the rock folk rock band of the Abbott Brothers.
He turned his obsession with America's sixth president into a book.
It's called America's Founding Son, John Quincy Adams.
But first, after the break, we'll talk to Axios White House correspondent Mark Caputo with a preview of the week ahead at the White House as the Iran conflict enters its third week.
We'll be right back.
unidentified
Watch America's Book Club, C-SPAN's bold original series.
Sunday with our guest Hall of Fame baseball player and best-selling author Cal Ripken Jr., who has authored and co-authored more than a dozen books, including The Only Way I Know, Get in the Game, and a series of children's books.
He joins our host, civic leader, best-selling author, and owner of the Baltimore Orioles, David Rubenstein.
I thought writing kids' books were a good way to broach certain subjects that might have been tough when you're kids or whatever else in the backdrop of a travel team, travel baseball team, because we all worry about things as kids, and it was a way to communicate a good message through books.
So I just enjoyed the process.
unidentified
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I think both optimism, frustration, and concern at the same time.
Optimism because they have the data, they say, from the Pentagon that shows all of their targets are being hit.
And according to them, they're ahead of schedule.
Lots of missile silos and drone factories and the like being blown up.
And the Iranian Navy is at the bottom of the water.
So that's the optimism part.
The frustration is with a lot of the reporting that and a lot of the commentary on social media that indicates Trump might have gotten himself into a quagmire and what's being commonly called an escalation trap.
And then the concern is obviously the Strait of Hormuz, which has closed and causing gas prices, oil prices, and therefore gas prices to rise.
If you mix those three things together, I think that sums up the mood of Donald Trump and this White House revolves so strongly around Donald Trump that it also describes not just the White House, but also the administration itself.
I mean, they say there was, and it would make sense that there was.
There is an open question about how carefully those plans were made, how widely they were shared, and how quickly a good plan was implemented.
And I don't really have answers to those questions.
But certainly there is some reporting out there that Trump is frustrated with sort of the pace of this being closed and the fact that other countries aren't helping out.
Now he has called on them.
He called on them Saturday to help out an international coalition.
And the White House tells us, told the Wall Street Journal first, that he expects, Donald Trump expects that he will be able to announce what they're calling a Hormuz coalition of other countries to help escort vessels through the Strait of Hormuz and get more oil to the global market.
Well, certainly it doesn't help, especially if the military escort itself gets blown up.
And that's one of the great fears of this White House, perhaps of any defense department, is you don't want a multi-billion dollar piece of equipment sunk with a relatively cheap mine.
So exactly what this looks like and at what point they think it's clear is a great question.
One of the reasons I think you haven't seen more action faster and more of these ships running through the strait is out of this concern.
There are allegedly, or we are told there are minesweepers there.
There is also reporting that some old minesweepers that were in the region and were scheduled to be decommissioned were pulled out of the region right before the war.
And that's leading some people to think that the planning wasn't so great.
What we do know in the short term is there is this chess game now happening between Washington and Tehran.
There's some reporting was from CNN that Tehran has said will open the straits, or at least one official said from the Iranian government, that they'll open the strait, but only to cargo, oil cargo that is transacted in Shannon and not in U.S. dollars.
Most, if not all, petrol contracts and oil contracts are used with the U.S. dollars, which is sort of the world currency, so to speak.
And China, Iran, and a number of other countries, the BRICS countries, are trying to break that log jam.
And so Iran sees this as an opportunity to do that.
The White House officially isn't, but then the president does at different times.
So, you know, it's a war.
It's also a conflict.
And, you know, pick your poison here.
But the United States is spending something on the order or had spent on the order in the first 14 days or so, about $12 billion, expending all of his expensive ordnance, missiles, bombs, and spending it on the planes that have to take off and the personnel to staff the various military bases and the aircraft carriers and related strike groups.
So sure looks like a war to the people who are getting blown up, and it looks like a war to everyone else.
And whether the White House officially wants to admit that or not, who knows?
There is an irony, obviously, that Pete Hegseth was among those who insisted that the Department of Defense be renamed the War Department.
He constantly talks about warfighters, and now that war is going on, he's among those who are suggesting, like, well, this isn't war.
At least that's what the criticism of the administration is.
I'm going to play you Secretary Hegseth and also so this is Secretary Hegseth from March 3rd and then President Trump last Monday about the justification.
So these are about a week apart and then I'll get your comment.
Well, notably, the Secretary of War talked about the 12-day war and how this current conflict is expending more ordnance.
So by his own definition, this is a war.
I do have to say that one thing the administration has been consistent about, the president, not so much, but he said on the opening of the conflict of the war on February 28th that there are four objectives, military objectives for this action conflict, this war.
One was destroying the missiles and missile capability of Iran.
Two was sinking the Iranian Navy, just basically rendering it obsolete.
Three was eliminating its nuclear threat.
And four was eliminating Iran's ability and network of funding terrorist proxies in the region.
That was it.
Those are the four military objectives.
He also then laid out an additional one for the people of Iran to do to rise up and effectuate regime change.
Now, Trump at different times, he's taking reporter calls all the times.
He goes on stage and at press conferences and goes off message and off script and says what he wants.
But time and again, the administration refers back to those four objectives as the four things that will define this conflict and how the administration defines success in it and when it ultimately sort of withdraws.
And I would say withdraws from this phase of the conflict.
This is going to be probably an ongoing thing in Iran because, well, it has been for quite some time.
Obviously, the 12-day war was last week.
So when you look at the broader context of what Trump is trying to do, he's sort of laser focused, or the military, I should say, is laser focused on those things.
But as he sort of talked about an excursion, there are different things that crop up in war that change the tactical reality of the battle plan.
And as a result, you've got these two sort of major things that have arisen.
One is the Strait of Hormuz, which we've discussed.
The other is Karg Island.
It's 16 miles off the shore of Iran.
It handles about 90% of its oil.
And the president is eyeing whether to green light a takeover, a seizure, which would be boots on the ground of the small island of that strategically important and financially lucrative island for Iran, in the view of the Trump administration, that if they were able to take this, it would be sort of an economic knockout blow to Iran.
I mean, 90% of its oil, it produces about $78 billion a year in revenue.
That's half of the budget for Iran.
And if the United States controlled that, it would give the U.S. a leg up.
Now, this is one theory.
It doesn't mean the president is going to do that.
In the short term, we're told he's going to try to focus more on this Hormuz coalition and hope that that sort of works out and obviates the need to invade or to try to seize Carg Island.
But that's on the menu of options for Donald Trump.
And on Friday, he did announce and did show after green lighting a bombing raid on Parg Island where they took out, or appeared to take out the military installations there, but left all of the oil infrastructure.
So they're sort of softening it up for that inevitability if that actually happens.
If I shouldn't say inevitably, that possibility, if Donald Trump decides to move forward with that.
The United States and Israel have similar aims, but the Israelis seem, we are told, much more interested in regime change than the United States administration.
So Israel has told its local press, the press in Israel, that they have killed thousands of top military officials, IRGC officials, and regime officials in this effort to just attempt to decapitate and re-decapitate this government and this leadership structure they have in Iran.
One of the complicating things is what Iran calls this mosaic defense doctrine, which sort of diffuses and decentralizes a lot of power to survive decapitation strikes.
It makes it more difficult for them to have a clear chain of command and command and control, but it makes it sort of easier for them to operate in an environment like this where their Ayatollah was killed and 40 other leaders were killed and the opening day of the United States and Israel airstrikes on Iran.
At the same time, though, it enables them to sort of continue on in this environment.
And so far, I can't say that it's necessarily working.
I can't say it's not working, but the United States is having, or Trump has expressed some difficulty in having discussions with Iran, thinking that, well, you know, who are we really talking to?
Yes, they've appointed a new Ayatollah, but in the view of the United States, that Ayatollah doesn't really have half or nearly as much power as his father did.
We'll start on the independent line in Pinehurst, North Carolina.
Patrick, you're on the air.
unidentified
Yeah, good morning.
I've been watching your program now for the last several months, three of us here.
And I really enjoy hearing the comments from people.
As far as the conflict here that's going on now, I have one thought.
However, it becomes resolved, whether they change the regime or not, I think it's going to be difficult, okay, because these moolahs that it's like cocky roots is you kill 20 and 50 of them come back.
I think it's going to be very difficult.
But I would make it clear to Iran after this conflict, if they are still in power and they're still funding terrorists, that any strike from one of their proxies, we're not going after them.
We're coming back after you.
Your infrastructure, your electrical grid, communications, oil refineries, everything.
If that doesn't wake them up, nothing will.
Okay.
But we have to show these terrorists of will what real will is like?
And by the way, I'm unaffiliated.
I called on the independent line.
But Democrats, it's amazing.
They care more about their party than they do about the country.
Don't hear much of I cover the White House, so I can tell you what the White House thinks and does, but he has his political opinions, and it's a free country.
I hope things are well in Washington, D.C. for you and your country people.
This is regarding the Iran conflict, my comments and questions.
I'd like to begin, if possible, with just a brief comparator between the Ukraine conflict and what's going on in Iran.
And I hope your guest can consider this question.
There's a need to have the Iranian, in quotes, problem dealt with, and the choices, policy choices of the United States government between effectively controlling the Black Sea where the Ukraine conflict is continuing or controlling the Persian Gulf should be thought of as what is more important here.
From a Canadian perspective, it's very clear that this war against Iran had to happen now, because the Trump administration, I would bet, is very concerned they may lose control of both houses of Congress in the autumn elections.
And if that happens, any ability to deal with Iran will disappear.
And the next president may be a weak, far weaker president than President Trump.
Why does this matter?
Because Iran is a space, a country capable of putting satellites into space since 2009.
Once you have that capability, it's only a short skip and a jump to putting bombs, warheads, bacterial weapons, chemical weapons into the United States from Iran.
So there had to be a way of stopping, or at least attempting to stop Iran now.
And fortunately for the world, Donald Trump has taken this on.
Now, my question regarding Iran mainly regards to Karg Island and the revenues that Iran obtains via its oil exports from that island and the extremely high percentage of revenues, money, that is received by the Iran Revolutionary Guard as a result of oil sales.
The Iranian government for decades has allowed the IRGC to receive direct funds from the sale of oil rather than not even through the Iranian government mechanisms.
So if Karg Island is successfully seized or blockaded by the United States Navy, this would eliminate potentially almost all of the IRGC's funding that it's using to fight back against the American and Israeli actions today.
So question number two, first one was regarding the effectively, shouldn't we end this Ukraine conflict by shouldn't you end it by ceasing providing weapons and intelligence to Ukraine?
So if that war ends, there can be focus on Iran instead.
But regarding the Iran conflict, is it, in your guest's view, likely that the United States will be making a policy decision to take Karg Island or blockade it?
And then I say that in the context of the United States Navy currently and since the beginning of the war, having five major surface combatants, three frigates and two destroyers in the Persian Gulf north of the Hormuz Strait.
And none of these vessels have received any hits or attacks successfully from the market.
One of the things the United States wants to do is keep a lot of its European allies to help out in the Hormuz Strait.
And the one thing I think the Europeans wouldn't appreciate is if the United States backed off of helping Ukraine.
And I'm sorry if I'm not answering your question fully there, but that's just sort of my thoughts on whether we would sort of pull completely out of there.
I don't think that's likely given the sort of complexities and the chessboard, the puzzles, the puzzle pieces.
As for Carg Island, you've laid out what a lot of people in the administration have seen and think that taking that island would really put a stranglehold on Iran and force them to the table.
It also could just change the complexion of the war.
That is, Iran has shown that it is willing to strike the United States' allies in the Gulf region and not wage full-on warfare, but certainly attack not only civilian targets such as hotels, but also various oil and fuel depots.
There's a pipeline in Saudi Arabia that runs from the Persian Gulf over to the Red Sea and can accept, I can't remember how many, maybe about 8 million barrels of oil a day out of the 20 million barrels of oil that are produced in the Persian Gulf.
And so there is a concern that if the United States decides to launch this action against Karg Island, that it will trigger an Iranian response to blow up that oil pipeline and wage just all-out economic warfare.
In addition to that, this is boots on the ground.
This would be boots on the ground doing that.
There would be, charitably speaking, a messaging complication for Donald Trump to start to explain and start to tell people about.
That having been said, very few conflicts, very few wars actually happen without boots on the ground.
And this is a war.
This is an armed conflict.
Having and controlling that island would expose the men, the military personnel on that island to incoming fire and attacks from the Iranian mainland.
One of the reasons, one of the reasons that this action hasn't been taken is we are still sort of halfway roughly.
Well, we're starting our third week.
We're two weeks into this war that was launched.
Trump initially said about four to six weeks.
So two weeks in, we've got two to three more weeks of this sort of this heavy phase of the conflict he laid out.
That means there are many more targets to attack, many more missile silos, missile launchers, drones, drone factories, drone storage facilities to make it safer for a United States military action such as that, such as seizing Carg Island to happen.
I can't comment on the likelihood of it.
It's Donald Trump.
Donald Trump prides himself on what he calls strategic ambiguity.
His critics just call it craziness, but it makes it hard to predict what he's going to do.
And one of the things I've learned is try not to predict what he plans to do because it's just sort of unclear.
And his administration has cautioned us.
The president, yeah, sure, has discussed this, but until Donald Trump decides to do it, and you'll know when he does it, it's not a fact until that happens.
I'm not privy to all of the private conversations, but there's been different reporting that both we at Axios have produced and other media has as well that indicate at different times the president was too often surrounded by people who told him what they thought he wanted to hear and at other times was given a lot of negative feedback or gut check moments like, hey, if you do this, this bad stuff is going to happen.
And Vance, being among the more skeptical about the use of military action, was among those who was more likely, we assume and we hear, to voice some of those opinions to tell President Trump, if you do this, there are going to be various problems.
But the degree to which JD Vance voices objections, how vociferous he was about it, how opposed he is to the current action right now isn't very clear.
My suspicion and some of my reporting indicate that everyone in the administration, while they don't like the fact that the Strait of Hormuz is closed and that the price of oil is going up, nevertheless see this as a success currently because of Iran's diminished or apparently diminished capabilities in striking out with both its missiles and its drones.
I could answer the first one more easily than the second one.
The first question is, is Israel going to send its sons and daughters into war?
Absolutely.
There is a mandatory draft, the mandatory military service for most Israeli citizens, except for the conservative religious elite, which is a cause of friction within Israel.
And you will see, I can't say you will see.
A lot of indications are that Israel is preparing a ground war, an invasion of Lebanon to the north, because Hezbollah, the terrorist proxy of Iran, began firing missiles from Lebanon at Israel after the beginning of this war, and Israel is retaliating both with missiles and plans or has plans to move in to southern Lebanon.
As for an invasion of Iran itself, all indications are that's highly unlikely in the conventional sense.
The conventional sense is invasion, you have a massive force sort of taking the beaches or parachuting in and taking large sections of land.
That sort of boots on the ground invasion, whether by Israel or the United States in Iran, is unlikely.
Now, I'm saying unlikely, I'm not saying it's impossible.
The likely boots on the ground circumstance for Israel and the United States in Iran, as we've reported at Axios, the likelier, I should say, is having some sort of military force, special operators, special operations, special forces, going into very specifically chosen areas to find, to locate, to seize, to handle,
and to remove these alleged highly enriched uranium stockpiles that Iran has allegedly kept and produced in its effort or its desire to produce a nuclear weapon.
I'm saying allegedly, I'm just basing this on what our government and the Israeli government say.
That sort of operation is in the sort of distant future, is likely in the distant future, because they don't want to just parachute or fly in special forces, including scientists who would need to go along and perhaps even excavating equipment to dig out this stuff that had been bombed so much.
So it's a complicated endeavor, but it does entail a boots on the ground quality to it.
However, again, it's not that sort of conventional invasion force.
If you do see a more conventional invasion force, if you do see it, it would be at Carg Island, and that would be a lot smaller.
Just defaulting to my previous comments about how difficult it is not only to predict Donald Trump, but to predict the course of any sort of conflict or war in a circumstance like this.
And later this morning on the Washington Journal, musician Bob Crawford of the folk rock band The Abbott Brothers join us to talk about his new book, America's Founding Son, John Quincy Adams.
But first, it's more of your phone calls after the break in Open Forum.
Start calling in now.
The numbers are on your screen.
unidentified
On this episode of Book Notes Plus with our host, Brian Lamb.
Real quick for your schedule today at 2 p.m. this afternoon.
We've got a discussion about Turkey and its influence in Middle Eastern affairs as the U.S. and Israel continue military operations against Iran.
It's hosted by the Brookings Institution.
That's live on C-SPAN 3 at 2 p.m.
And also today, members of Congress, local leaders, and business executives convene at the Congressional City Conference to discuss housing affordability, clean energy, and transportation, among other topics.
That's from the National League of Cities.
Live coverage starts at 3.30 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN 3.
And that is also on the app C-SPANNOW and online at c-span.org.
When we'll get to your calls, we'll start with Ellen in Ohio, Line for Democrats.
Hi, Ellen.
unidentified
Yeah, I just want to say that this war shouldn't have happened.
It's just something for Trump to show off.
And I think he started it for all his buddies.
Like the guy in northern North Korea in Saudi Arabia with the print button.
They're in there.
Chris Putin.
And I can't even say his name, the prime minister in Israel.
He's doing this for them until they will tell him he'll never end the war.
He'll go on and kill more babies, More school kids and all the people, 150 that they've killed, and they don't know if those were men or women or kids.
They killed him because he doesn't like what they look like.
I'm sorry.
I just wish we could get him out of there.
He doesn't know what he's doing or how to.
When he appointed people, the only people, he didn't appoint anybody that knew what they were doing.
He appointed people that would come to him, do what he wanted them to do.
And I hate to think that the Republican Senate and the House will just keep letting him do whatever he wants to do.
I don't believe anything that comes across mainstream news, especially not Fox, because we have been systematically lied to since Trump was on the campaign trail.
So the president looks forward to meeting with President Xi in China.
This is a trip I know he's long been looking forward to, and I know President Xi has been looking forward to welcoming President Trump.
As for the dates, as you heard from the president last night, there's a possibility the trip could be delayed.
We'll keep you posted on that, but these are leader-to-leader conversations that are happening.
So as soon as we have an update, we'll provide the new dates.
Caroline, President Trump says that other countries should now step up to safe partnerships and strength of poor rulers.
Why should other countries that were consulted about this war that are involved in this war now put their troops in harm's way in this fear?
Because these other countries are benefiting greatly from the United States military taking out the threat of Iran.
The rogue Iranian regime has long not just posed a threat to the United States of America, but of course to our Gulf and Arab partners in the region.
As you see, I believe Iran has struck more than 300 civilian targets in our Gulf, in the Gulf region.
If you think about Europe, their ballistic missile capability that the United States military is currently wiping out was a direct and imminent threat to our European allies as well as our bases in the region, which is why President Trump took this action in the first place.
So these countries are absolutely benefiting from ensuring that Iran can never obtain a nuclear weapon.
This is something not just the United States, but the entire Western world has agreed with for many, many years.
So I think the President is absolutely right to call on these countries to do more to help the United States to reopen the Strait of Hermuz so that we can stop this terrorist regime from restricting the free flow of energy.
And the fact that they are doing so just underscores why President Trump needed to take this action in the first place.
President just told the UK a few days ago that he doesn't need airships, and now he says he does.
The president spoke on that last night.
He said that he wished the UK had stepped up sooner and quicker, but he continues to speak with our allies in Europe and is calling on them to do more, just as he did when he called on them to step up with respect to their defense spending in NATO.
He's calling them to do more here, and I think you'll see that come to fruition.
I would defer you to the Pentagon on that troop movement, and it's not something I'm going to get ahead of the commander-in-chief on.
And look, I'm not going to get ahead of him on any options that may be on the table for the president.
Right now, the president is being very clear to NATO and to our allies in Europe what he wants them to do.
And again, I think you're going to see that come to fruition.
I would just add on one scheduling note later this afternoon, you'll see the president yourselves.
He just told me he wants to bring you all in for the Kennedy Center board meeting lunch, so you can get ready for that if you're part of the pool today.
And then, of course, at 3:30 this afternoon, he will be signing an executive order alongside the vice president to formally launch the Anti-Fraud Task Force, which will investigate fraud across the country.
The Vice President will be leading that.
So you'll see them in the Oval Office later today.
So I'll leave it to the President to answer the rest of your questions.
That was the White House spokesperson, Caroline Levitt.
And we are in open forum.
So we'll go back to your calls now to Ralph, Nassau County, New York, Independent Line.
unidentified
Hi, Ralph.
Yes, hi.
Hi, my name is Ralph, and I'm calling, I'm always amazed at how naive and uninformed large segments of the American public is.
DHS Confirmation Hearings00:15:04
unidentified
To give a little bit of a background, I grew up in southside Jamaica, Queens.
Donald Trump lived in Jamaica Estates, literally across the tracks.
Back then during the Vietnam War, when my brother was drafted, those spoil-rich kids from Jamaica Estates got a free pass, i.e., Mr. Trump with his bone spurs.
Okay?
They're very quick to send other people's kids to war while their states stay nice and safe in the confines of their luxurious homes and what have you.
I remember walking through Jamaica Estates as a high school student going to a trap meet at Cunningham Park.
And when you walk through Jamaica Estates, As a young black man, you will swear you were somewhere in South Africa.
That's how segregated and how, I mean, you walk in through there.
I'm a high school student.
I'm just walking to get to my track meet.
You had private security, you had NYPD, you had neighborhood watch, and automatically, as a young man, you felt like you did something wrong.
Now, Donald Trump, I've been following this guy since he was a nobody.
I used to take the train to Hunter College, okay?
And I used to read the New York Post because of the sports section.
And when I'm finished with the sports section, I automatically turn to the page six.
And this guy would do anything to get on page six with the celebrities.
He's a nobody, and he's a con artist.
I also know of his father's history because his father got sued for discrimination in housing to regular working class folks that were looking for a place to stay.
They would go with the same identical qualifications, and nine out of ten, they would be refused where the white applicants would be given.
All right, Ralph, we've got to move on real quick.
Here's what Fortune magazine just published.
It says this.
Despite Greenland crisis, Trump suggests NATO owes him help on Iran war after U.S. support for Ukraine.
Quote, we've been very sweet.
The article says this.
Just two months ago, NATO was in the middle of an existential crisis over President Donald Trump's insistence that the U.S. take control of Greenland.
He threatened tariffs and refused to rule out military action, but eventually backed down.
It says this.
On Sunday, Trump demanded the alliance help him clear the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran has blocked since the U.S. and Israel launched their war.
Quote, it's only appropriate that people who are the beneficiaries of the Strait will help to make sure that nothing bad happens there.
He told the Financial Times.
He also said that he could delay his summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Quote, if there's no response or if it's a negative response, I think it will be very bad for the future of NATO.
That's at Fortune magazine.
If you'd like to read that, this is Beth in Chicago.
Democrat.
Hi, Beth.
unidentified
Good morning, Mimi.
Thank you for taking my call.
Well, it's been a while since I've been able to get through.
So, first off, you just went over this article, which I'm hearing, but now I'm seeing differently because of your time delay.
Okay.
So, regarding this Iran situation, President Trump allowed B.B. Netanyahu to get us involved in this.
I understand when we were in 9-11 that our allies came and supported us.
But as much as he's been bad-mouthing them and since he started a conflict, I excuse the allies from getting involved.
They shouldn't put their people in harm's way for something that the United States and Israel decided to start on their own.
Yes, I understand that he is excited about going over to China because he's talked about it.
He wants to see their military on full display.
They're marching.
He likes that kind of showmanship.
Another thing regarding him lifting the embargoes from Russia oil, I think that is a huge mistake because all he's doing is allowing Putin to recoup his money so that he could go harder against the Ukrainian people.
And in the meantime, there are the talks that Moscow is giving intel to Iran, which is putting our troops in jeopardy.
And Donald Trump and his no-brain is not understanding or seeing this.
And he doesn't have the qualified people around him because he got rid of qualified people because he was worried that they weren't loyal to him when everybody should be loyal to our country.
And there was a caller at the very end of our first segment that talked about a recording of President Trump.
We found this, we did find a fact-check on that from Yahoo, that recordings of President Trump ranting he would start a war or let the country starve to avoid releasing Epstein files are not real.
That is AI audio.
So please be aware of that.
And please do check things for AI videos, AI audio.
They can get very good these days.
But please do fact-check that kind of information.
Bill, Bettendorf, Iowa, Independent Line, you're on the air.
unidentified
Thank you for taking my call.
I've started watching C-SPAN.
I'm really excited and also interested in the different points of view.
I look at this war, and it's not an excursion, from a finance, economic point of view.
Why did we go into Venezuela?
Well, it was for the oil.
Why are we going into Iran?
Ultimately, I believe it's for the oil at the cost of troops being injured, U.S. troops.
And so to me, it can be spent any way you want politically, but we're making bad policy decisions when we can't spend money to help U.S. citizens, and we're benefiting the military business complex and also these oil barons in the United States, like in Texas,
where their stock prices are going through the roof because they are the real beneficiaries of war.
It's plain and simple.
You know, we were warned about this back before 1960.
It's a military business complex.
It's the oil companies that are benefiting, not the U.S. citizens.
He is going to be having his confirmation hearings.
It's scheduled for Wednesday for Homeland Security Secretary.
What are you watching?
And are you expecting any delays or issues with his confirmation?
unidentified
We're not expecting any major issues with his confirmation.
I mean, he will surely get broad Republican support.
And a few Democrats have also signaled that they're on board with his nomination, including Senator John Fetterman from Pennsylvania.
So it's likely not a question of whether or not he'll get it, but more of a question of what he'll do.
One thing that is sure to come up is going to be the enforcement of immigration and how the Trump administration has handled that and how Mark Wayne Mullen will handle that as the head of DHS going forward.
So, John, tell us about some of the things that you appreciate that President Trump has done.
unidentified
Well, I mean, I don't remember how many people remember 9-11, but if he wouldn't have done what he's done, look at there's already terrorist cells in the country.
I mean, look what he's done.
He's stopped eight wars.
He's the gas prices were really good.
Where I live in New York, it's very expensive for gas.
It was actually going down.
Everything was going down and looking up until the last week or so, which is something that needed to be done.
Because look at the terrorist cells in our country.
Yeah, say, what I think we are is in, my name's John, and nice to your program.
I think we're in a situation, I don't care what anybody calls it, but we're at war.
War is a terrible, ugly thing.
We are committed to it.
Maybe nobody else is going to step in and help us.
We need to go in there and completely decimate the country, completely 100% take it over, destroy the Royal Guard, and we need to be put in charge, and then let the people decide what kind of government they want, and we need to get out of there because it is about oil.
Bottom line, it's about oil.
That's what I think is going on.
We should look at it that everybody on the other side of that muzzle is our enemy.
I just, a few weeks ago, we were talking about comparing the historical sense of Nazi Germany and saying, well, you can't call the guy Hitler yet.
But I just had some reflection on that.
My father was 12th Armored Division, which has a museum in Abilene.
It used to be associated with Abilene Christian.
And there's some letters around the house that he wrote from boot camp.
His training was abbreviated about, you know, almost like an ICE agent to go to World War II.
And there was this one letter saying how the news of the news of what was going on in Germany wasn't so prevalent.
And he suggested that while waiting in line for his GI issues, he suggested that if Hitler was in charge of this, it'd be operated a lot faster.
And I don't know if that'd be so true with Trump's and Hegset.
I think they're kind of more like cheerleaders than strategists.
And another thing, my father, from his reflections, one time he said, imagine, you know, the idea, he wasn't a denier, absolutely not, but to say, like, to camp 6 million people up, which was greater Chicago area at that time.
So, John, going back to what you said about Secretary Hegseth and President Trump, what makes you think that Secretary Hegseth is not a good strategist?
What leads you to that opinion?
unidentified
He's a Fox News Entertainment host.
It's like David Letterman being put in charge of the, you know, except it's not as funny.
Yeah, I don't know why all these people claim they're Americans are calling up.
This war was necessary, unfortunately.
You know, these Democrats who are ridiculous, most of them, you know, this has to be solved now.
You know, what are they, all these pundits call up all these strategies?
Unfortunately, this is on Trump's watch, and he's a guy who does something about it.
And then they say, what's the strategy?
The strategy is to give Iran back to the Iranian people so they can get their economy going and get rid of this radical, deadly regime they have in there now.
That's another point in doing this.
Also, get rid of the nuclear threat.
Also, get back the straits of Formus so oil can flow through there freely to the free economic world.
Okay, well, my day job is as the bassist for the Avet Brothers, and we've been around for 25 years.
We're, like you say, I think folk rock band, I think that's an okay way to describe us.
I think we're in that Americana genre.
For those who haven't heard us, you know, we started out upright bass, banjo, guitar, me and two brothers with those like Everly Brothers type harmonies.
And then over the years, we've become more of a rock band.
Yeah, well, on the road, there's a lot of downtime.
And if you think about the rock musicians of the 60s, 70s, 80s, what did they do with their downtime?
They practiced the art of self-destruction.
Well, these days, myself, and I'm noticing a lot more musicians, we're making use of that time, working on other projects, exercising, trying to find like healthy food on the road.
But I found it, I love history.
I've always loved history.
And I used that time to research, and I wrote a book about John Quincy Adams.
And you were definitely going to talk about John Quincy Adams, but you said in a recent New York Times interview that you used to watch C-SPAN as a kid.
Well, in the early 2000s, traveling around the country on tour.
At this point, we weren't in a tour bus yet.
We were in a conversion van.
I picked up a book by historian Sean Willence, The Rise of American Democracy from Jefferson to Lincoln.
It covers that period between Jefferson and Lincoln.
Look, we learn about the Revolution in school.
We learn about the Civil War.
But what happened in between?
And so when I the story that Willence told, as it unfolded, I was just amazed by all the characters and all the crises the nation went through at the time.
See, First Amendment, you petition your government for a redress of grievances.
Back then, like today, we go online and we send a message in the email to our congressmen.
Maybe we stop by their local office.
Back in the 1800s, you literally sent a petition to your congressman and there was time set aside on the House floor for the reading of petitions.
And anti-slavery activists, abolitionists, they were like, let's flood Congress with these anti-slavery petitions.
That's how we'll have our voice heard.
And a lot of congressmen didn't want to read them.
But Adams was part of a small coterie of congressmen who were brave enough to read them.
Not because Adams agreed with them, but because he believed all citizens have a right to have their voices heard.
So when the gag rules passed, Adams thought, he's like, this is no longer about emancipation and slavery.
Now this is about the First Amendment.
And if you take away the right to petition your government, next will be the right to peaceably assemble, the right to freedom of religion, freedom of speech.
And he really became a First Amendment activist initially.
And that's a quote from Theodore Weld, who was an abolitionist of the time.
And you can make the argument that he did in a few ways.
In defying the gag rule, Adams would use, I call it verbal jiu-jitsu on the House floor.
You're not supposed to mention slavery.
If they're debating something else, he would start debating what the issue of the moment was, and he would turn it into a fight against slavery.
He always subverted the gag rule.
He did it many times.
In fact, they tried to censure him twice, and he defeated their censures.
That's one blow against the slave power, which they called, the abolitionists would call, the slaveocracy.
And then in the 1839, the Amistad, which was a mutinied slave ship that was found off the coast of Long Island, Adams defended those captives before the Supreme Court and wins.
And that was a pivotal moment in the anti-slavery fight.
I want to show you something and have you comment on a quote from your book.
And this is about his anti-slavery actions.
It says this: John Quincy Adams had long struggled with the issue of slavery.
Like his parents, he did not believe in owning enslaved people.
However, Adams accepted slavery as a reality in America, a political expedience to yield to Southern sentiment for the sake of preserving harmony in the Union.
Privately, he found it repulsive.
He preferred not to think about it at all.
The day would come when it was all he would think about.
Yeah, as Secretary of State, he defended, he argued with Great Britain about reparations for enslavers, Southern slaveholders who lost their slave property during the War of 1812.
You know, there was a big sense of not upsetting the status quo because if you mess with slavery, if you talk about it, if you try to change the way things are in the present, that will lead to a civil war.
It will lead to a dissolution of the Union.
So Adams, like many Northerners, didn't even want to talk about it.
And in fact, when the abolitionist movement really began to gain steam in the 1830s and 1840s, they received a lot of the violence that was perpetrated against them came in the North from their fellow Northerners who were just terrified that this anti-slavery movement was going to tear apart the nation.
Mike, Indianapolis, on the Independent line, you're on the air with Bob Crawford.
unidentified
Thank you for taking my call.
I appreciate the information on John Quincy Adams.
Just a question.
What party does Mr. Crawford believe that he would be part of today, a Democrat, Republican, or would he be an independent like most people, I think, in this country?
And if he could talk about what he thinks about America's involvement in foreign wars, I'll just hang up now.
And he, Mike asked about America's involvement in foreign wars.
But before you answer that, I want to show you what Senator Rand Paul said.
This was on March 5th, so this is very current.
He said this: But had Congress debated war with Iran, we would have been wise to recall the words of John Quincy Adams, who, as Secretary of State, advocated a foreign policy of restraint.
Quote: Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, Adams argued, there will America's heart, her benedictions, and her prayers be.
But she goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy.
And a few days later, Pete Hegseff used that same quote when he was talking about American policy in South America, that conference of the Americas.
And he used it in a different context.
So where does Adams stand on foreign wars?
He was, see, the Monroe Doctrine is like, it's like, we're not going to, okay, all these South American colonies were in revolt against Spain and their imperialist overlords.
And Adams was saying, Holy Alliance, Prussia, Austria, France, Prussia, you stay out of our hemisphere.
You don't belong here anymore.
Britain, you too.
We support these freedom movements in South America, but we're not going to get involved unless at some point we feel like we need to get involved.
So it's really vague.
Like, and I bet some of your callers know this better than I, but I've begun to ask myself the question, because I didn't, this wasn't the focus of my book, but in before World War II, the isolationist movement in this country, I wonder if they used that quote.
Let's talk to David, Republican, Poughkeepsie, New York.
David, good morning.
unidentified
Well, good morning.
Building on what was just discussed, I was wondering if Bob covered anything about John Clinton Adams' staunch opposition to paying tribute to the Barbary pirates back then and advocating instead for military action to secure the American shipping rights.
A lot of his letters were burned, were lost in a fire.
But he was the heel of, like, how I understand it, through Adams' eyes, at least, he was the heel of the cabinet.
He used his, the Treasury Secretary had a lot of spoils to spread around, a lot of patronage, and he used it to his political advantage.
And then also running was the Speaker of the House, Henry Clay, and of course, Andrew Jackson, the war hero, the hero of the Battle of New Orleans, a common man for the common man, but a wealthy man, an enslaver, owned over 100 slaves.
And so these four men are standing for the presidency.
And when the election comes and the votes are counted, Jackson has won a plurality, but not a majority.
He has come out of nowhere.
Adams is the one you think is going to win.
Reminds me of 2016, the resume of Hillary Clinton versus the populist fervor and popular appeal of Donald Trump.
And so Jackson, but he doesn't win a majority.
So what happens?
Well, based on the 12th Amendment, the vote goes to the House.
Every state delegation gets one vote.
Henry Clay, so the top three candidates are involved in that.
So it's Crawford, it's Jackson, and it's Adams.
Henry Clay cannot be president, but he can be Kingmaker.
And there are in Adams' diary, he talks about being visited by friends of Clay, and they talk about men and things and events.
Clay and Adams themselves meet personally.
Henry Clay hated Andrew Jackson.
Hated him.
Henry Clay wanted to be the first president from the West, not Andrew Jackson.
Andrew Jackson had a really controversial past, and the two men could not be more opposite.
So when the vote comes February 9th, 1825 in the House, Adams wins.
He wins 13 votes straight out, gives him the majority.
He is the president.
Not by the acclamation of the American people, but by the vote of a fail-safe vote in the Congress.
About a week or so after being president-elect, Adams names Henry Clay to be his Secretary of State, which, like I've said several times so far today, is a stepping stone to the presidency.
I'm presently reading David McCullough's biography about John Adams, John Q. Adams' father.
It's a fascinating and wonderfully written book.
I'm looking forward to your book.
But what I wanted to comment was on the parties, Democratic-Republican parties.
Of course, our Constitution back when in the time of George Washington, John Adams, and Alexander Hamilton, there were no parties that were favored until you just mentioned the Jacksonian Democrats.
And from the Jacksonian Democrats, they then, you know, we move into the Civil War and Reconstruction.
The comment that I want to make, I'm trying not to get ahead of myself.
With John Q. Adams, I really admire him because after he became president and then he lost the next election, he went back to Congress.
He actually defended the mutineers of the Amistad mutiny off of Long Island, which I thought was absolutely phenomenal, that a former president would go back to Congress and then defend mutineers who were against slavery.
So my point is, the Jacksonian Democrats who were for slavery, and they then evolved into the present-day Dixiecrats, who I call Dinos, Democrats in name only, and these Democrats in name only are the present-day faction of Republicans that are white supremacists and racist.
And so this I posed to Mimi, anytime a caller calls in and says that the Democrat Party were against slavery or against civil rights, please push back on the shibboleth that the Dixiecrats and the like are not the Democratic Party of FDR, of Harry Truman, of Bill Clinton, of Jimmy Carter,
Well, you know, we have similar names for really the Democratic Party.
The Whig Party was the party in the time of Adams.
It was the Whigs and the Democrats.
And of course, yes, the Democrats.
Martin Van Buren, who's a character in this book, he's the architect of that first Democratic Party, which was the Jacksonian Party.
They considered it the heir to the Jeffersons party.
And Van Buren's notable because he creates that top-down party structure, right?
There's a state party, and all these local parties feed into the state party.
The state party feeds into the national party.
They embrace conventions and he really, that two-party system, though the names have changed, though the ideals and the ideologies have changed, sometimes these parties, they just change different clothes.
They trade each other's clothes.
But the Dixiecrat Party was an insurgency.
This is not my area of expertise here.
I didn't write a book about the Dixiecrats.
It'd be a worthy book.
I didn't write it.
But the Dixiecrat Party was an insurgency within the Democratic Party, and they became ultimately Republicans today.
And when John Quincy, he would go, so her father was from Maryland and her mother was English and they lived in London.
And a lot of the American diplomats would go visit.
They had quite a scene at their house in London.
Mr. Johnson had like four or five daughters.
They were all very beautiful.
They all played music.
And so Adams would hang out there and he just kind of liked the scene.
He just kind of liked being there.
I think he maybe at first had a crush on one of her sisters and they get married.
But yeah, John and Abigail were not, they didn't think that a future president should have a foreign-born wife.
But love does what love does and they got married.
But it was a very difficult, and of course he was hard on his sons like his father was hard on him.
Also, we believe alcoholism ran through Abigail's family line and two of Louisa's and John Quincy's sons die.
One commits suicide.
Two months after he loses reelection, George Washington Adams jumps off the back of a steamship coming from Quincy to D.C. to help his parents move back north.
And then their other son, John Adams II, essentially drinks himself to death and dies in 1834.
And Charles Francis, just as John Quincy is his parents' surviving son, Charles Francis Adams, the youngest son of John Quincy and Louisa, becomes the surviving son, and he is the son that will become minister to Great Britain in the Lincoln administration and goes on to have a great career.
But in Charles Francis' diary, he's thinking about his brothers and he's wondering if alcohol, if alcoholism doesn't exist as a disease, but he wonders if this alcohol that his brothers have been so addicted to, he wonders, is this actually a disease?
I want to read another portion of your book just for the audience.
It says this, with one hand reaching back to the founding and the other reaching forward toward the Civil War, John Quincy Adams is a bridge and perhaps the best representation of America's tortured adolescents.
John Quincy Adams may not have been an extraordinary president like Washington and Lincoln, but he is our most extraordinary ex-president, a maverick, a public servant, an American hero.
He was not, you know, he was a minority president from the time he took the oath of office.
But what really killed him is his agenda for his presidency was infrastructure.
He wanted federally funded roads, bridges, canals.
He wanted to tie this nation together.
He wanted the government to invest in a naval academy.
He wanted the government to invest in a national university, a national university that was first proposed by George Washington.
And so in his first annual message to Congress, what we would today consider the State of the Union address, he says to Congress, when he's asking, he's laying out his agenda, he says, we cannot be palsied by the will of our constituents.
Basically saying, your constituents don't want to spend taxpayer dollars on these things, on infrastructure, but they don't know what's good for them.
We need to do this regardless of what they think.
And it was essentially, he essentially called half the nation a basket of deplorables.
And the Jackson men, and Jackson himself immediately jumped on that comment.
Palsied by the will of your constituents became the basket of deplorables of 1828.
Yes, you know, we will ease this crisis once Hezbollah will not be where they shouldn't be.
You know, we actually ask the population to evacuate the areas south of the Litani because we are operating there and we don't want to see civilian casualties.
So, as you mentioned, many people move to the north, and we welcome the NGOs that are supporting them.
But the main problem is that Hezbollah is still running the show, and the Lebanese government must take action.
They say the right things, but they don't take the right action.
So, they have to mobilize the Lebanese military to the south, make sure Hezbollah is not there.
That will allow our communities to go back to live safely, and for the southern Lebanese to go back to the south to live safely as well.
Thank you very much.
C-SPAN Unfiltered Facts00:02:27
unidentified
Congress returns later today as the Homeland Security Department remains partially shut down for a fifth week, with talks between Senate Democrats and the White House still at an impasse over funding ICE and reforming the Immigration Enforcement Agency.
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Members will consider several bills under suspension of the rules, including legislation to impose additional sanctions on Iranian oil buyers as U.S.-Israel military strikes continue on Iran.
Also, a Senate passed bill to reauthorize federal small business research programs for five years, providing smaller companies funding to develop new technologies.
Its funding lapsed over five months ago.
If approved by the House, that bill would head to the White House for the president to sign.
The Senate also returns later today at 3 p.m. Eastern.
Lawmakers will later vote to advance President Trump's nomination of Anna St. John to be a U.S. District Court judge for Eastern Louisiana.
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