Washington Journal Open Phones examines C-SPAN's live Artemis II coverage before pivoting to escalating Middle East tensions, where President Trump expressed optimism for an Iran deal while simultaneously considering military seizures of oil and uranium. Viewers debated troop deployments amidst a record 44-day government shutdown, contrasting support for ground raids with fears of casualties and drone threats. Senator James Lankford addressed congressional approval needs as experts noted Iran's asymmetrical warfare tactics and alleged Russian intelligence sharing, ultimately highlighting the complex geopolitical web involving China, Russia, and Ukraine that complicates U.S. strategic objectives. [Automatically generated summary]
More U.S. military arrive in the Middle East as President Trump expresses optimism for diplomacy, telling reporters aboard Air Force One last night when he returned to Washington, D.C., that there is a potential for a deal and it could come soon, of course, with some of his normal caveats.
We're doing extremely well in that negotiation, but you never know with Iran because we negotiate with them and then we always have to blow them up.
Whether it's the B-2 bombers or just terminating as an example the Iran nuclear deal done by Barack Hussein Obama, probably the worst deal we've ever done as a country, one of the dumbest deals we've ever done.
But I terminated it unfortunately, otherwise, right now, they'd have a nuclear weapon.
Then we did the attack with the B-2 bombers and we stopped them from having nuclear.
And now we had to blow them up again.
And we will probably, I think we'll make a deal with them.
That was President Trump on the prospects of a peace deal with Iran and the U.S.
He says that that could come sometime soon.
Now, as he was talking to reporters aboard Air Force One, the Financial Times published this article, and the headline here is: Donald Trump says the U.S. could take the oil in Iran.
U.S. President tells the FT that he's considering seizing strategic Karg Island even as negotiations continue.
If you just scroll down a little bit, he said Donald Trump says he wants to take the oil in Iran and could seize the export hub of Karg Island as the U.S. sends thousands of troops to the Middle East.
The president told the Financial Times in an interview on Sunday that his preference would be to take the oil, comparing the potential move to Venezuela, where the U.S. intends to control the oil industry indefinitely following its capture of strongman leader Nicolas Maduro in January.
The president's comments come as the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran has thrust the Middle East into crisis and sent the price of oil surging by more than 50% in a month.
Bent crude oil rose above $116 a barrel on Monday morning in Asia near its highest level of conflict began.
Trump said, quote, to be honest with you, my favorite thing is to take the oil in Iran, but some stupid people back in the U.S. say, quote, why are you doing that?
But they're stupid people.
Now that comes as overnight, the Wall Street Journal published an article which says that the president is weighing, quote, a military operation to extract 1,000 pounds of uranium from Iran, according to U.S. officials.
The headline here is Trump weighs military option to extract Iran's uranium.
Now, if you scroll down just a little bit, it says that he's weighing that military option.
It says Trump hasn't made a decision on whether to give the order, the officials said, adding that he is considering the danger to U.S. troops.
But the president remains generally open to the idea, according to the officials, because it could help accomplish the central goal of preventing Iran from ever making a nuclear weapon.
The president has also encouraged his advisors to press Iran to agree to surrender the material as a condition for ending the war, according to a person familiar with Trump's thinking.
Trump has been clear in conversations with political allies that the Iranians can't keep the material, and he has discussed seizing it by force if Iran won't give up at the negotiating table.
Pakistan, Turkey, and Egypt have acted as intermediaries between the U.S. and Iran, but Washington and Tehran haven't yet engaged in direct negotiations to end the war.
A quote from Caroline Lovitt here says, it's a job of the Pentagon to make preparations in order to give the commander-in-chief maximum optionality.
It does not mean the president has made a decision.
The Pentagon didn't comment, and a spokesperson for the U.S. Central Command declined to comment.
So let's turn to some phone calls.
Robert from Massachusetts, a Democrat.
You are first.
Good morning, Robert.
unidentified
Good morning, Abraham Worcester.
I know you might not be able to pronounce Wisdom, Massachusetts.
I want to start out first.
When everybody talks about the 47th war in Israel, it's been 47 years since Palestine had lost their land to the Jews.
The Jews, the American Jews, and the Jews in Israel, they got so much money where we got a war going on right now.
When Donald Trump came out, when he first came back, he said, Jews would not replace us.
All right, let's turn now to James Lankford, a Republican, who was asked yesterday on Meet the Press, NBC's Sunday morning program, whether or not the Congress would have to approve if the president made the decision to send troops into Iran.
Let me ask you bluntly, Senator, do you believe President Trump would need congressional approval if he in fact does want to put U.S. boots on the ground in Iran?
If we have a long-standing war that's happening, go back again to what happened in Iraq or in Afghanistan.
Yes.
If this is to protect Americans and to be able to make sure that we're in there for a season and we're stopping and getting out, that's very, very different.
So again, this is all contingent.
It's an interesting question to be able to talk about on the political side, but really the focus needs to be on how do we make them stop attacking us.
That's the main focus.
The president has the authority to be able to prevent someone from attacking us.
That is what he's doing right now.
If we're going to have a long-standing occupation, that's a very different issue.
But I don't think that's even what President Trump is even talking about.
We're not trying to be able to go in and to be able to occupy the country or to be able to have a long-standing long-term war.
No one wants to see that.
So I'm looking forward to us getting this mission complete and getting out of there.
So that was Oklahoma Senator James Lankford talking about whether or not President Trump would have to go to Congress to get approval to send in ground troops.
One article that published over the weekend from the Washington Post, the headline here is, the Pentagon prepares for weeks of ground operations in Iran.
If President Trump approves a plan, such an effort would mark a new phase of the war that could significantly, that could be significantly more dangerous to U.S. troops than the first four weeks.
If you just scroll with me, here it says, the Pentagon is preparing for weeks of ground operations as thousands of American soldiers and Marines arrive in the Middle East for what could become a dangerous new phase of the war should President Donald Trump choose to escalate.
Any potential ground operation would fall short of a full-scale invasion and could instead involve raids by a mixture of special operations forces and conventional infantry groups, said the officials.
All spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss highly sensitive military plans that have been in development for weeks.
Such a mission could expose U.S. personnel to an array of threats, including Iranian drones, missiles, ground fire, and improvised explosive.
It's unclear Saturday whether Trump would approve all, some or none of the Pentagon's plans.
Doug from Ohio, an independent.
Good morning, Doug.
unidentified
Good morning.
I got to say, I am totally against this war all the way.
The only reason we went to war is to cover up the Epstein files, of course.
And Trump's a greedy man.
He wants the money.
I'm just wondering, is he a protected pedophile or is he a pedophile protector?
But the war is just stupid.
It's going to cost American lives.
And it's all because of the rich man's greed.
You know, everybody, the rich man's making money on this war, and the poor guys are going to go suffer.
Reminds me of Vietnam, reminds me of Afghanistan.
It reminds me of all the sickening wars we've been in lately.
The best thing to do is get that man out of office, please, people.
Remember, are you right?
And we're American citizens, and we don't need that man as president anymore.
So our question is: do you support or oppose the use of ground troops in Iran?
unidentified
I absolutely oppose the use of any troops.
I oppose the bases that the Americans have installed over the years to set up this war.
I think that the American public does not understand that this war has been going on for years, and we're just at the point of maximum escalation.
I don't think that the American people are being told the truth about the war.
We see practically nothing.
We talk about a few soldiers that got killed or were injured or maimed, but what about all the people that are there that are being destroyed by American bombs that are in the Middle East?
As the last president of the United States, which Donald Trump is, and I want to memorialize this, because this is what was said by the Honorable Minister Louis Flora, that this is in fact the last and final third world war.
So we must take proper actions to prepare ourselves for what comes next after this.
This country is operating the way that it started, might makes right.
And this is why we're in this predicament that we're in now, because the president and a lot of American citizens believe that if we have the power and the willingness to use the power against people that are not strong enough to fight against us, then we should be able to take it.
And it's there for because they're not strong enough to fight against us.
We're going into countries taking presidents, taking oil, taking, taking, taking.
That's how we took this country.
We came here.
They came here.
They took the land.
They took people.
This is how this country operates.
Unless we recognize that empire is fall.
And eventually we're going to get what we're doing to other people.
And we're not going to like it.
We need to fix the way we operate.
Unless when we get the bully pushback on us, we're not going to appreciate people taking what we gain.
And Trump, he claims that we're pumping oil over here like crazy.
We've got so much, you know, that we have the biggest country here that pumps the most oil.
Then why aren't we just pumping our oil and using it ourselves instead of shipping it all over the world and stuff, just exporting it and stuff.
And as for this war, it's horrible.
And I've heard talk that he was thinking of reinvoking the draft, which I think is a horrible thing.
And if he does, the first two that should go is his two oldest sons, which you'll never see happen because he'll pay off somebody just like daddy pay it off to keep him out of the Vietnam War and stuff.
Now, I don't believe that the president has advocated for restarting the draft, but there have been other allies who have said that.
And earlier in March, I believe Caroline Levitt, the White House press secretary, declined to rule out starting a draft, saying basically that she's not going to make red lines for the president.
Willie from Texas, a Republican.
Good morning, everyone.
unidentified
Good morning.
Good morning.
I'm absolutely for getting ground forces on the troops on the ground.
Risky Ground Troop Push00:15:30
unidentified
Again, when you take a look at what we're trying to do here, we've already diminished all of Iran's capabilities.
The only thing that we need to do now is to kind of put a just kind of put a band-aid, not a band-aid, but just put some ground troops on the ground to block and protect all of the oil that we have down there in Carg Island and other islands like it.
What we have here are some elements that can get in there and ensure that it's going to be when and if it is going to be right for the Iranian people to come out and start getting rid of the Republican guards and the rest of those folks.
And they can do that with their own people.
What we're trying to do is to ensure that there's going to be something left of Iran, and our troops on the ground will be able to do that.
The Marines, the 82nd Airborne, I would like to have some tanks in there, but nonetheless, I think that, yeah, absolutely, we ought to have them in there, and then we can continue on with the mission.
Once the mission is complete, Ms. Jasmine, once the mission is complete, we will bring all those folks back home.
All right, Willie from Texas, they're a Republican.
Just because he mentioned taking the oil and putting boots on the ground there, I turned to a Guardian article.
The headline is, How could U.S. forcibly reopen Strait of Hormuz and what are the risks?
If you bear with me while I scroll just a little bit, it says, Iran's chokehold on the strait through which a fifth of the world's oil trade normally passes gives Tehran leverage that Trump understands, sending oil prices rocketing more than $100 a barrel.
The president has said he is prepared to give diplomacy a chance, though bombing Iran continues.
But he also said on Sunday that he wanted to, quote, take the oil.
Trump has two military options to open the strait: seizing territory or deploying a massive naval presence in the waterway.
Even the limited ground incursion being considered risk, the kind of body count that could sink a presidency, experts say for Iran, boots on the ground would be a red flag.
Emma Salisbury, a senior fellow in the national security program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, said she believed Trump would not be able to resist escalating the conflict by capturing one of Iranian islands in the Gulf.
And of course, he's talking about Carg Island there.
Our question this morning is: do you support or oppose the use of ground troops?
unidentified
I would be willing to pay $20 a gallon for gasoline from our car if those ground troops and if Trump and the United States military would make sure that my children and my grandchildren and myself are not incinerated by these crazy people over there.
And they are crazy, as you've well seen.
They strike out.
They'll kill anybody in their beds.
They'll kill babies and everything else.
And people just have to retaliate back with a similar thing.
And we don't want to do that.
Just like Israel didn't want to have to go into Gaza and do what they did.
But in order to keep these crazy people squelched, you've got to do some type of measures because you know darn anybody knows darn good well that they're going to use that nuclear material to hold their other country's neighbors hostage as well as us and the world.
And as long as they think they're crazy, then that's what will happen.
We'll all just submit to what they want and what they do.
I'm opposed to this war because this war is going to be terrible for us because if we put troops on the ground, it's not going to be a regular army fighting a regular army.
These people in Iran, they hit and run.
They'll send missiles, they'll send drones, they'll hit our forces, and we have body baggage coming back to America.
I want to take a moment to make a direct call to President Trump and Congressional Republicans saying we cannot have American troops on the ground in Iran.
This is going to be such a risky operation.
And for what purpose?
I mean, everything I see with Carg Island, it's just about adding leverage for diplomacy.
When we see about potential efforts to open up the Strait of Hormuz, again, this is not an end to this war.
This is something that will only prolong it and increase the risk at a time that we've seen already so many service members put at harm's way and this administration not giving them everything that they need.
Well, this is something that has been looked at time and time again.
An operation of that magnitude would likely take days, if not weeks, to be able to do.
So what are you going to do?
Have U.S. service members?
Where are they going to bunker down?
Where are they going to get provisions?
The amount of supply is needed.
And just keep in mind, Jake, that over half of American service members killed in Iraq and Afghanistan were killed by IEDs, often at the hands of Iranian-backed militia groups.
It wasn't just the ballistic missiles that was the threat.
So putting them in that kind of way is so risky.
And again, at what cost?
And certainly without Congress's approval, and by proxy, what that means is it would be without the American people's approval.
And I just want to say there's a reason why Donald Trump is not coming before the American people for approval for this war.
It's because he knows what the American people feel, which is that they don't want this, that they want a government that is focused on them lowering costs.
And not only is he not lowering our costs, he's increasing it.
And now it's the American people that are paying for this Iran war, $200 billion that they want, instead of helping us lower health care costs, helping us lower costs, certainly groceries, and now our gas prices are through the roof.
And so the American people clearly don't want this.
So that was California Democratic Senator Andy Kim on CNN yesterday morning talking about the president's potential use of troops on the ground in Iran.
John from Mount Laurel, New Jersey, an independent.
Good morning, John.
Our question this morning is: do you support or oppose the use of ground troops in Iran?
unidentified
Hey, Jasmine.
Yeah, I'm definitely opposed to sending in troops.
It's just a slippery slope, and once you get into war, it's hard to get out.
I mean, what happens when there's a dramatic escalation and dozens of U.S. service members die?
How do we expect to hold an island when Iran is a massive country?
It's three times larger than Iraq, and drones can be sent from all over the country to hit our troops.
It's just an excuse to enter the mainland.
I mean, Iranians may not want their regime, but they don't want America and definitely don't want Israel and their country either.
Folks that are calling in supporting this war are just really deluding themselves.
It's going to be Iraq 2.0 and all the folks in Iran and the military, the IRGC, et cetera.
They're all way more.
I mean, if you think about Iraq, the Baathist regime, they were kind of let go and then all of them became the commanders of ISIS or al-Qaeda.
It's the same thing in Iran.
It'll just be worse because they're more well-trained and more well-funded and more well-resourced.
Resourced.
And I just want to say all these folks calling in, the big tough military guys in support of war, in support of sending our troops off to die.
I mean, look at your leader, Donald Trump, and the way that he treats PO, the way he treats the memory of POWs, of service members in general, Robert Mueller and John McCain, and how he spit all over the graves of Robert Mueller and John McCain and called them losers for being American war heroes.
How do you all think that Donald Trump's going to treat our service members?
They're pretty much not telling everybody how many people are getting injured already in this war.
There's going to be no reports about the dead soldiers that come back in coffins.
And it's just a disgrace how you all can support this man who does not support our troops and really is just wrecking our country.
Now we have some messages from text message and online about folks responding to our question of do you support or oppose the use of Iran troops or ground troops in Iran, excuse me.
The first is from Richard, who says, I support the Middle East countries taking out the Iranian extremist regime.
We should work with our allies in the area, giving air support.
Another comment says, only if it's to secure the uranium and they plan on leaving after that.
From Scott, non-disclosed, he says, oppose unless we want to fight another Afghanistan where we lose blood and treasure and get nothing for our effort.
In the end, the key is to arm and support the rebels within to take down the regime and assist them with intelligence and air support.
Steve Hendrick says, ask me when it's not a hypothetical question.
I have a feeling U.S. involvement is going to end pretty soon.
And Gerald Ernest says, we need to do whatever necessary for our great president to bring peace to our country.
Elizabeth from Maryland, an independent.
You're next.
Good morning, Elizabeth.
unidentified
Good morning.
Now, I am totally opposed to it, to any war.
War is never the answer.
I am a child of war.
The Russians came when I was a little girl to East Prussia, where I was born, and we fled and we hid.
And the fear, nobody ever talks about the children that are left and are also killed.
Think about how many children are going to be killed.
How many children are going to be affected with their fathers are killed or injured.
We don't even have to talk about killing.
We have to talk about injuries, how these men come back damaged, how many came damaged emotionally from Afghanistan, from any war.
So why does this president, who never did anything for anyone, for this country, he is going to go to war?
He doesn't even probably know what war is all about.
He has never been in it.
So why do we want to cause more damage?
Get out of Iran.
Leave Iran alone.
Why doesn't Saudi Arabia fight that war or Egypt go and fight them?
Why do we?
Why do we?
This country needs to be built stronger, not weaker.
And that will not do anything for us and certainly not for the people that are being killed and losing a loved one, either in this country or in any country.
Just because we've had two people now mention the amount of injuries from the Wall Street Journal on March 27th, it says more than 300 U.S. troops have been injured in Iran's war.
CINTCOM says, after four weeks of war with Iran, 13 American service members have died and 303 have been wounded in action, according to a spokesman for the U.S. Central Command, which is responsible for American military in the Middle East.
Of those wounded, 273, or about 90%, have returned to duty.
10 have been seriously wounded.
Moore from Georgia, calling in on the former military line.
Good morning.
unidentified
Good morning.
I'm a retired military.
I'm a disabled guest from Vietnam.
And I don't think what most folks are seeing is the act the casualty after that.
And all these people that are saying those folks over there is crazy.
I want to remind them of Hume Shima and not going to say in Japan.
We dropped two atomic bombs.
All this talks about everybody crazy to drop a bomb on you.
And the one country dropped a bomb.
That's us.
We don't need no war in our ground.
I've not won a ground or fight since World War II.
Now, yesterday on Fox News, top Democrat of the Armed Services Committee Adam Smith was arguing that the U.S. military campaign to this date has not been effective, something that he said formally on our program.
So the military campaign isn't working any better than diplomacy did, and it's coming at a much higher cost.
13 service members killed, hundreds wounded, thousands of civilians killed, the entire Middle East shut down, gas prices skyrocketing, fertilizer prices skyrocketing, which is impacting our farmers who are already impacted by the tariffs that were placed on them.
Enormous cost, and you are no further along in the goals than you were with that diplomacy.
Well, I mean, let's be honest, it's a lot of troops.
It's not, as we've been saying, you know, when we think of boots on the ground, sometimes people think that's a large ground invasion, kind of like what we saw in Iraq in 2003.
That's, you know, maybe 150 up to 200,000 troops.
This number is more for smaller targeted operations and the type of forces that they are, the 82nd airborne Marines, this is for limited incursions, such as the president has been talking about taking Karg Island to open up the Strait of Hormuz or possibly going after the nuclear, the enriched uranium for the nuclear program.
So this isn't what they call a ground invasion force, but still, it's a lot of forces, and no matter how you look at it, it is, you know, you're putting troops in harm's way.
And military experts say that there's no doubt that there will be casualties.
And this is very dangerous for U.S. servicemen.
So whether you agree with President Trump's decision or not, it is dangerous for U.S. forces.
Now, the White House's public position has been that they are engaged in diplomacy and in negotiations.
The president says direct, indirect.
Other folks say they're just indirect conversations.
Pakistan is becoming a leader in some of these negotiations between Iran, who they have good relationships with, and the U.S. Over the weekend, the foreign minister says that Islamabad could host talks between the U.S. and Iran.
Okay, there, you know, I think people are getting caught up in semantics, whether they're direct or there are not direct negotiations between the U.S. and Iran sitting there.
This is whether it's Pakistan or whether it's Turkey, Qatar.
There are a lot of intermediaries talking to the Iranians, talking to the U.S., trying to bridge the differences.
Usually, and when you look at negotiations with Iran over the years, you don't sit down till you feel like the gaps are narrow enough that you're going to make progress sitting down talking to one another.
When you look at these proposals, the U.S. sent that 15-point plan, and the Iranians then came back with their five-point plan.
President Trump's plan was for conditional surrender.
Give it all up, give it all up your bad activities, no nuclear weapons, don't do anything, open up the strait.
And the Iranians are saying, pay us for what you did, don't ever hit us again, give us control of the Strait of Hormuz, and make sure that Israel doesn't hit us again.
So you can see how far apart the two sides are.
And so that's why I don't, people that I talk to say they're so far apart right now that they think that this will go on for a lot longer.
But, you know, you also have to remember that the Iranians are saying, well, this is just the pretext for a ground invasion.
You're bringing all these troops to the region.
And remember what happened last June.
Remember what happened just a month ago?
The U.S. and Iran were having these direct talks sitting at the table when the bombs started flying.
So there's a lot of skepticism on the Iranians' part.
Yet they are still engaging in negotiations while both sides are, you know, President Trump is sending a lot of troops to the region.
And the Iranians are, you know, obviously getting ready for possible ground troops in some way.
I mean, that's kind of the point here, right, is that the Speaker of Iran's parliament basically accused President Trump and his administration of fronting diplomacy while they're actually, quote, secretly planning a ground invasion.
I mean, I wonder if you could talk a little bit more about this deficit of trust.
How difficult is it to actually have negotiations when one side clearly does not trust the other?
And has the U.S. made the case of why this time with Iran is different?
Well, Ronald Reagan used to say, trust but verify.
So when two enemies are sitting down eventually to talk, obviously there's no trust.
But as everybody has been saying, that the U.S. and Iran technically have been at war in some, whether it's a Cold War or for decades.
And so there is no trust.
The hope, and nations don't necessarily negotiate based on trust.
They negotiate based on their interests and whether each side thinks that they have leverage.
Now, the U.S. thinks it has all this leverage because they did hit, Jasmine, about 13,000 targets already, and they have significantly weakened Iran's weapons program, the missile program, the launchers, the interceptors, all of that.
But the Iranians feel they have leverage because they are controlling the Strait of Hormuz.
They're making pain across the whole region and causing oil prices to spike.
And so each side feels that they have leverage.
And it looks like both sides are trying to use as much leverage to see what they can get out of those talks.
I think because the sides are so far apart, it's still a ways away before they can come to an agreement.
But that doesn't mean that each side, neither side wants this war to continue.
Speaking of pain, the Iranian regime says that if the U.S. were to send in ground troops, that they are prepared to attack American and Israeli universities in the region.
Obviously, there's been this constant concern of a wider regional war if the U.S. did in fact strike.
And now, of course, they have.
What's the concern here?
And is there a concern for the Pentagon that Iran could still do this despite the fact that they have decimated a large part of, say, their naval ships?
But what are they doing while they're using less missiles?
They're using all these drones.
So while a missile costs over a million dollars, drones could cost much less.
And so they're now what they call is asymmetrical warfare.
So while the U.S. and the Israelis are using bombs and strikes, the Iranians are being much more, I don't want to use the word innovative because that sounds positive, but they're using what they call asymmetrical, cheaper, low-tech versions.
And they're still making, they're still getting a lot of bang for their buck, if you will.
And so another thing that Iran does is it uses terrorist attacks.
We've seen over the years the Iranians have launched terrorist attacks, for instance, against an Israeli bus of tourists in Bulgaria.
So the concern is not just that Iran is going after nation, the U.S. interests and allies in the region.
Could they launch terrorist attacks?
There are sleeper cells of Iranian terrorists throughout the world, you know, military and intelligence analysts believe.
So it's not just about the threat to U.S. forces in the region.
It's a threat to about Americans in the region.
And you have to be concerned about Americans here at home.
But talking about Iran and terrorism, obviously the U.S. says that they are one of the biggest sponsors of terrorism, terrorism-aligned groups.
Iranian-backed Houthi rebels are now joining in the fight, adding in that dynamic.
What threat do they pose in this already kind of complicated theater where you have obviously a ground invasion in Lebanon from Israel and the theater in actually Iran?
Yeah, the Houthis are interesting because they really got pummeled after October 7th.
So the Israelis see this as a continuation of October 7th.
They started going after the Iranian proxies, Hamas and Gaza, Hezbollah and Lebanon, and you see what they're doing in Lebanon, a similar attacks to the Hezbollah infrastructure in southern Lebanon.
And they also went after the Houthis that were in the Red Sea attacking ships, attacking Israeli interests.
So the U.S. and Israel really went after the Houthis at the time.
So when you see right now, this is really the first start of the Houthis getting involved.
And the question is, did the Iranians kind of save them for later while after a lot of these targets, as you said, were hit and they needed more, because the proxies are much weaker, Hezbollah is much weaker.
The Houthis are now getting involved.
And they're also, they have other areas of the Gulf, like this other strait in the Red Sea, Baba Mindab Strait, that this is the Saudis, if you will, back door to get some of that oil out.
If they go after that, then you're really choking off all oil getting out of the region.
And so now the Houthis, this could be another front, not just for Israel, Israel's fighting on several fronts, but for the United States to go after the Houthis as well.
Don't forget, President Trump tried these negotiations with Russia.
They weren't fruitful.
I think President Trump has gone back and forth between whether he trusts Vladimir Putin, whether he doesn't trust Vladimir Putin, because Vladimir Putin is not doing anything to end this war with Ukraine.
Intelligence analysts have said, yes, Russia is supplying these, they're supplying intelligence targets.
You see that these weapons from Russia are going back and forth between Iran and Russia in the Ukraine war.
Now they're sending them back to Iran for this war.
And it really complicates it.
And the interesting thing, you know, President Trump is not talking about it, and the administration isn't talking about it publicly, but privately they acknowledge that Russia and Iran, everyone knows that they're very close, but that they are supporting Iran's attacks against the United States.
And that severely complicates relations with Russia.
And it also, you saw that President Trump released some of the oil, allowed Russian oil to be sold on the market to ease the oil prices.
That helps Russia in its war against Ukraine because it gives Russia billions of dollars.
I think the Ukrainians are interesting because they have been the leader in this drone technology.
So one of the reasons you see President Zelensky more getting involved in this war is he's gone to the region, he's offered assistance to U.S. allies in the region for some of this drone technology.
And the Ukrainians do have very good intelligence.
So I think I'm looking to see how the U.S. deals with Russia on this going forward.
Because on one hand, they want to end the war in Ukraine.
They don't want Russia supporting Iran, but they also need some of that oil to ease the market.
So it's really a complex situation for the U.S. dealing with all these different theaters.
One is before we put ground troops in there, we ought to ask all good people of Iran to leave the country and then just drop about 30 mega bombs on the thing and just flatten the whole thing and then go in with our troops and they would be safe.
The second point I'd like to make is that the people that are always crying about somebody going to die of our troops in the country, they never compare it to the 70 million babies that the Democrats have killed in this country in our abortion clinics.
Historic Government Shutdown00:03:26
unidentified
That's where the death loss really is in our country.
And that would solve Social Security problems if we hadn't killed all our babies and they would be working and producing and we'd have all our great-great-grandchildren to take care of us.
And the third thing is the religion that these people hold in the country of Iran is to bring everybody in submission.
And you can see that even in their practical life, how they take women and if they don't wear their headdress or they speak up or anything like that, they take them and beat them so bad their bodies are almost like hamburger.
So we can't expect any mercy from them.
They're set.
They believe that they have the right to lie to anybody.
All right, Mark, let me actually turn to something else that we're tracking this morning, of course, is the partial government shutdown that continues because they did not pass any resolution over the weekend before senators went on recess.
The headline from NBC here is: DHS funding lapse is now the longest government shutdown in U.S. history.
The partial shutdown, the rest of the federal government is being funded, excuse me, hit a record on the 44th day, Sunday.
If you just scroll down a little bit, it says an ongoing funding lapse at the Department of Homeland Security cross into new territory Sunday when it became the longest partial government shutdown in history.
Now on its 44th day, it breaks previous record when the department and the rest of the federal government went without funding from October until mid-November.
This time around the rest of the federal agencies and departments are funded.
Negotiations to reopen DHS were dealt a major setback Friday after House Republicans voted to pass a short-term funding bill that has no viable path in the Senate.
That came hours after the Senate passed a bipartisan bill to fund all of DHS except immigration and customs enforcement and customs and border protection.
House GOP leadership rejected the bill with Speaker Mike Johnson calling it a joke.
Now yesterday, back on Meet the Press, Republican Senator James Lankford spoke about the House and Senate Republicans not being on the same page when it comes to DHS funding.
It seems like Republicans are not on the same page here, but let me ask you big picture because you're a member of both the Homeland Security and Intelligence Committees.
Federal officials have been warning about the war with Iran creating a heightened threat environment in this country.
Republicans are in charge of all three branches of government.
Given that and the strain on airport security caused by this shutdown, is air travel and airport security safe right now.
That was Senator Lankford talking about the shutdown.
Now, of course, both the Senate and the House have gone on a two-week recess.
There is no expectation at the moment that they would come back to vote to reopen the government.
Helen from Long Beach, California, a Republican.
Good morning, Helen.
It's open forum.
You can talk about whatever you'd like.
unidentified
Oh, morning.
Yeah, I'm going to piggyback on your last speaker about the troops, 50,000 being moved into Iran.
And what I was hearing your speaker say, she was reflecting a lot of accuracy.
My question is: well, not my question, but my thought is on this issue: is Trump wants to deal with China, especially on the tariffs.
And he's also wanting to break this new, it's called the New Development Bank.
And its primary members are Russia, China, Brazil, India.
And Iran was about to become a member of this bank, and it's thriving.
It's doing very well.
And it's working with second, third world countries to bring up their quality of life, parity in the economic world, instead of the U.S. global dollar controlling it all.
Anyway, I think Trump's main reason for invading Iran is to knock out Iran, which is a major ally of Russia and China and also North Korea.
And I think he's trying to do what he did in Venezuela, which was also a strong ally of China.
So I'm kind of going, going into it, some might seem kind of circular in my what I'm seeing, but this has to do with economics.
This has to do with Trump maintaining U.S. global dollar, his investments, U.S.-Israel investments.
But now, when she mentioned asymmetrical warfare, this is what I've been reading.
It's horizontal, asymmetrical.
It's what is happening, it's the Arab world, the Muslim world, may come to Iran's rescue regardless of prior alliances with the U.S., Saudi Arabia, and so forth.
What does not look good for the U.S.?
I keep going back to Vietnam, and we didn't win that war, and it was protracted, went nowhere, and caused many senseless deaths.
And I'm wondering if Trump is too arrogant to realize he's not going to walk into this region and knock it out like he did Venezuela.
So anyway, New Development Bank.
It was also known primarily, it was also known previously as BRICS, B-R-I-C-S Development Bank.
In this holy week, President Trump and the First Lady are joining in prayer with Christians celebrating the resurrection of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.