President Trump threatens to destroy Iranian bridges and power plants by 8 p.m. on April 7, 2026, following a failed deal and the downing of an F-15E during airmen rescues. While callers debate Geneva Convention violations against civilian infrastructure, guest Brad Bowman details how Russia and China supplied Iran with targeting data and missile fuel since 2019. Strategist Chuck Rocha notes that despite these geopolitical stakes, voters prioritize gas prices over foreign policy, creating a disconnect between Trump's "Stone Ages" messaging and the economic concerns driving midterm election dynamics. [Automatically generated summary]
President Trump has warned Tehran that if it does not agree to a deal and reopen the Strait of Hormuz by 8 p.m. Eastern tonight, the U.S. will begin a massive campaign against the country's infrastructure.
In a press conference yesterday, the president stated that every bridge in Iran could be decimated and every power plant put out of business by the end of the day.
He also mentioned targeting desalination plants and oil wells.
This ultimatum has sparked a debate over the rules of engagement.
Legal experts point to the Geneva Conventions, which strictly forbid deliberate attacks on civilian objects.
However, the administration has said that it views these sites as dual use and necessary for Iran's war effort.
As the 8 p.m. deadline approaches, we want to hear from you.
Do you think the U.S. should escalate, de-escalate, or stay the course in Iran?
Republicans call us on 202-748-8001, Democrats 202-748-8000.
And Independents, 202-748-8002.
You can text us on 202-748-8003, include your first name in your city-state, and you can also reach us on social media, facebook.com/slash C-SPAN and X at C-SPANWJ.
Welcome to today's Washington Journal.
Let's start with that press conference that I just mentioned.
Here's President Trump talking about threats to Iran if they don't reach a deal.
We have a plan because of the power of our military, where every bridge in Iran will be decimated by 12 o'clock tomorrow night, where every power plant in Iran will be out of business, burning, exploding, and never to be used again.
I mean complete demolition by 12 o'clock.
And it'll happen over a period of four hours if we wanted to.
We don't want that to happen.
We may even get involved with helping them rebuild their nation.
And you know what?
If that's the case, the last thing we want to do is start with power plants, which are among the most expensive things, and bridges.
You saw the bridge, the bridge one.
We were very close to a deal.
And then I got a call from Mr. Witkoff, Mr. Kushner, and JD saying, I think they're breaking the deal.
I said, tell them that's okay.
Don't worry about it.
But tell them to look out their window and watch.
And within 45 minutes, I gave the order to knock out the biggest bridge.
I gave the order, knock out the biggest bridge in, I believe, the Middle East, but the biggest bridge in Iran.
And within 10 minutes after I gave that order, that bridge was over.
The question is, should the U.S. escalate, should it de-escalate, or stay the course in Iran?
What do you think should happen as that 8 p.m. Eastern deadline approaches?
That's tonight.
Here's what the Iranian president just put out on X.
He says, more than 14 million proud Iranians have so far registered to sacrifice their lives to defend Iran.
I too have been, am, and will remain devoted to giving my life for Iran.
That's Masroud Pazashkian, the president of Iran.
This is what Axios has put out: Trump's tipping point: destroy Iran's infrastructure or give talks a chance.
The article says that the president faces a momentous decision on a tight timeline, carry out his threat to obliterate Iran's infrastructure beginning at 8 p.m. Eastern, or push his own deadline again to give negotiations a chance.
It says that he has threatened to destroy every bridge and power plant in Iran by midnight, among other options that would have devastating consequences for ordinary Iranians and spark dangerous retaliation across the region.
Mediators from Pakistan, Egypt, and Turkey are working to avert that outcome by brokering a deal or at least putting time back on the clock.
It says a senior official told Axios, quote, if the president sees a deal is coming together, he'll probably hold off, but only he and he alone makes that decision.
A defense official said they were skeptical there would be any extension this time around.
It says that this account is based on interviews with six officials and sources with direct knowledge.
Trump might be the most hawkish person in the top echelons of his administration on Iran, according to a source.
This is a quote here: The president is the most bloodthirsty like a mad dog.
Another U.S. official said, downplaying stories that Defense Secretary Hagseth or Secretary Marco Rubio were egging him on.
Quote, those guys sound like doves compared to the president.
Following confirmation of active rescue beacons and on the direction of the Secretary and by order of the President, a rescue operation was launched with the stated purpose of bringing both Americans home safely.
As the Secretary said several hours later on the morning after positively locating the front seater call sign Dude 44 Alpha and aware of an aggressive ongoing search by the enemy, a U.S. Central Command plan was approved by the Secretary and the President.
Shortly thereafter, a U.S. Air Force Combat Search and Rescue Task Force comprised of A-10 Warthogs in their Sandy role, and I'll describe what that is in a minute.
HC-130 Combat King 2s, HH-60 Jolly Green 2 helicopters, and Air Force Special Warfare Airmen, a package comprised of combat rescue officers and para-rescument operators, audaciously penetrated enemy territory in broad daylight to find, fix, and recover Dude 44 Alpha from behind enemy lines.
This was an incredibly dangerous mission, an incredibly dangerous undertaking, but a filled promise made to every American warfighter that you will not be left behind.
We will always come find you and we will always bring you home.
Over the next hours, the search and rescue task force crossed the beach, entered Interranian airspace, protected by a fighter strike package, and moved into the objective area all under fire.
En route, as some of you have seen on social media, the helicopters took gas off the C-130s and pressed onward and forward up into the objective area.
While this was ongoing and out in front of them, the Sandy flight of A-10s and other remotely piloted aircraft, drones, and other tactical aircraft were violently suppressing and engaging the enemy in a close-in gunfight to keep them away from the front seater and allow the pickup force to get into the objective area.
During this engagement, one of the Sandy aircraft, the one primarily responsible for communicating with the downed pilot, was hit by enemy fire.
This pilot continued to fight, continued the mission, and then upon exit, flew his aircraft into another country and determined that the airplane was not landable.
This was one of our A-10 Sandy aircraft.
The pilot then made the decision to eject over friendly territory and was quickly and safely recovered and is doing fine.
After picking up Dude 44 Alpha, the HH-60 Jolly Greenfight was engaged by every single person in Iran who had a small arms weapon.
And one of the aircraft, the trailing aircraft, took several hits.
The crew sustained minor injury and they are going to be fine.
So the question is, do you think we should escalate?
Do you think the president should carry through with the threats against infrastructure?
unidentified
He definitely we definitely should escalate because Iran, just this morning I saw that they, their life, they will put their life on the line and they don't care about their people.
Sid in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, Independent Line, you're on the air.
unidentified
No, being in the military and also having served our country for 20 years, I don't support it.
I think we do have to proceed with caution and negotiations should be on the table.
I don't think the Iranians, Iranians that support the invasion, don't really support blowing up their infrastructure so that they will be left with nothing.
I don't think that's so.
I think negotiations should be on the table and every other option than completely decimating them should be considered.
Iran calls for human chains to protect power plants as Trump's deadline nears.
This is in the Associated Press that says that airstrikes pounded Tehran on Tuesday, and Iranian officials urged young people to form human chains to protect power plants hours before the expiration of U.S. President Donald Trump's latest deadline to open the Strait of Hormuz.
It says Trump has extended previous deadlines, but suggested that the one set for 8 p.m. in Washington was final.
And the rhetoric on both sides reached a fever pitch, leaving Iranians on edge.
Here's Patricia, Washington, D.C., Democrat.
Good morning.
unidentified
Good morning.
I would always say that diplomacy should rule over above and beyond anything else.
All of the diplomatic relations have fallen to the wayside.
I think escalating this whole situation to the point of collective punishment where civilian infrastructure will be targeted is very, very bad.
We have seen what is going on over in Palestine, where basically all the buildings, all the infrastructure has been decimated.
And now the war is extending over into Lebanon.
We're at war here in Iran.
The Middle East is about to explode.
And what is the root cause is our country.
We're over there in the Middle East where we should be taking care of individuals here in this country.
There is a need here for health care, a need for Medicare and Medicaid.
All the money that we're spending on this unauthorized war is just not good.
We have to remember: when you reap what you sell in life, so we're over there causing all of this disruption.
Eventually, it could come here to America.
I wish that they would tone down all the rhetoric about blowing up the infrastructure.
The people over there need their bridges.
They need their electricity just like we do.
So I would hope and pray that a more diplomatic solution will come about because sitting there, Trump was never authorized by Congress for this war.
So, Mickey, let me ask you about the threats against the infrastructure being considered war crimes if you hit, for instance, a desalination plant, something that is not used for the military.
What are your thoughts on that?
Would you encourage the President to go through with that?
unidentified
Well, I don't know what war crime is in this regard.
It seems like we're in a war.
They don't have any problems blowing up people in our country or hurting our people in our country with their little cells of terrorists.
They certainly don't have any, they didn't cry at all what happened on October the 7th.
This is what military.com says about that the laws of war.
It says the United States is bound by the four Geneva Conventions of 1949, which provide baseline protections for civilians and civilian objects.
It says the U.S. has not ratified Additional Protocol 1, which contains the most detailed articulation of modern targeting rules.
Despite non-ratification, the U.S. accepts the core targeting principles such as distinction, proportionality, and precautions are part of customary international law.
The Department of Defense law of war manual reflects this position and governs U.S. military practice.
As a result, U.S. obligations closely track the substance of Additional Protocol 1.
It says, under U.S. law, attacks must be directed at military objectives.
The DOD defines a military objective as an object that makes an effective contribution to military action and whose destruction offers a definite military advantage.
Bridges are civilian objects by default, but can become lawful targets if they are used for military logistics or troop movement.
The key is functional use, not category.
You can read more about that at military.com if you'd like more details.
Here's Matthew in Washington, D.C., Independent Line.
Laws of War Manual00:15:25
unidentified
Thanks and praises for C-SPAN.
Yes, I'm a 68-year-old black man.
I ain't never seen so many dysfunctional people lead this country.
And to go to war and kill thousands of women and children for unjust causes, you're going to reap what you sow.
America has never been good since its founding, stole this land from the Indians, raped, tortured, and brutalized Africans that come here to build this country.
And this is the thanks we get.
This is the worst administration ever on the face of the earth.
And Representative Jason Crowe says this, it's a war crime to bomb schools, power plants, and bridges.
And Michael on Facebook says President Trump is on the verge of committing major war crimes if he does so.
He is no better than Putin or Netanyahu, both who are wanted in The Hague.
And Hakeem Jeffries, minority leader in the House, says Republicans are threatening to cut Medicare and Medicaid to pay for Donald Trump's reckless war of choice in the Middle East.
Get lost.
When, Knoxville, Tennessee, Democrat, what do you think?
unidentified
Well, I'm in a state now, and I mean in a condition where I don't really know what to think about this, but I've been following closely since the very beginning of all, and I have noticed a pattern, and that pattern has been consistently to try to bully forward on issues that I think most Americans do not agree with.
I don't understand, but I do understand that there is a sort of a militancy that wants to hurt people and a lack of compassion that's withdrawing the help that people need in order to live.
I anticipated in Trump's first term when he lost that he would try to hold on to power.
I never anticipated it to be on the scale that it was.
He had it set up, really, and I know I'm starting to sound like a conspirator, but we know from the records that he did talk about military, you know, martial law and things like that at that time.
I think something like this is coming.
I think we're being overwhelmed by people who are not taking a stand.
The Roman Empire lasted, I think, 400 years.
We've lasted 250.
The amazing thing is, one of our former presidents said it only takes two things to keep this democracy afloat, and that is to be informed and to vote.
And we're losing that.
People are making a cult of things, and they're just angry about everything.
We have got to wake up.
We have got to wake up.
One man is going to bring down our democracy if we don't stiffen our spines, remember what we were taught as children about conscience and responsibility, and stop this.
And do you think that that would have, I mean, do you think that that might turn the population against the United States?
That's, you know, one of the fears being cited is that the Iranians will not support the United States if they don't have drinking water and electricity, et cetera.
unidentified
No, I think it's going to cause the whole Iranian population to go against its leaders.
Here's Robert in Caspian, Michigan, Independent Line.
Good morning.
unidentified
Good morning.
This is Robert from the fascist town of Caspian, Michigan.
My business here, I want to state something that's kind of factual too.
These negotiations that Trump was doing with Iranians, the three people that were negotiating with him, one of them was his son-in-law, I guess.
But it wasn't seemed to be much of a negotiating team like it was with other world leaders.
And the world leaders that Trump was negotiating with, he negotiated personally with Putin.
He negotiated personally with North Korea.
He negotiated personally with a few other world leaders.
But why didn't he negotiate personally with Iran's leader?
You know, at least for picture purposes, like he did, you know, for photo ops, I guess.
But anyway, I don't think it's right for him to be bombing civilians.
I don't think he shouldn't be, you know, and my theory, too, I think we're trapped over there in that Gulf.
If we go to leave with all our ships and that, they're going to bomb the heck out of us when we try to cross the Homo Straits, or that's what you want to call it.
But, you know, I mean, it looks like we could be trapped over there.
They could bomb us as we try to leave, where we try to go through the straits.
You know, if we start taking all of our ships out of there, you know, they're over in that Gulf with the UAE, I believe, the United Emirates and Saudi Arabia and all the rest of them.
If we go to leave, we've got to leave through the straits, don't we?
I don't understand how people can follow a cult, the cult of this leader that talks like the worst teenager.
This is our leader, and we expect for the world, the leader of the world, supposedly, that ignorantly just cannot understand that diplomacy that he talks about the Plan,
he talks about President Obama's plan for peace, for talking about nuclear.
What is happening?
I'm 75 years old.
Never in my wildest dreams did I think the peace movement, the world peace movement, how much money and how much resources do we keep giving to this, to war?
We can't afford safety net for old for seniors, for children, no childcare.
All right, and let's hear from Mustafa in Philadelphia, Republican.
Good morning.
unidentified
Good morning.
From my perspective, I believe the United States should be taking a stronger stance with Iran when necessary.
History has shown that weakness can sometimes invite more aggression.
So I think clear resolve and deterrence are important for maintaining stability and protecting our interests.
That said, I also believe any escalation should be measured and responsible of the goal of preventing a larger conflict and keeping Americans and innocent people everywhere safe.
Christina in Decoyne, Illinois, Democrat, you're on the air.
unidentified
Good morning.
I believe this has gotten really out of hand.
I mean, in the beginning, the first words were that we have to, of the president, were that we have to go over and protect the protesters from the evil regime.
And now we're wanting to bomb women and children.
Things like that just make you angrier.
If someone came to DuCoin, my hometown, Little Bitty Town in southern Illinois, if they came in here and started killing women and children, whether we believed that they were right or wrong, we would become angry and then it would turn us into terrorist combatants.
We would fight back because they had done something wrong.
I do not understand why the word diplomacy has seemed to have vanished from our vocabulary.
I just think this is one of the worst things.
I mean, he is the absolute least, you know, diplomic, diplomatic person I think I've ever seen in my life.
And I am frightened.
I have friends that work here in Duquesne that are from Yemen, which is a constitutional republic hanging out down there underneath Saudi Arabia.
One side is the Red Sea.
The other side is United Arab Emirates.
The other side, the bottom side, is the Gulf of Oman.
They just went over and they're not in this.
They just went over and got their parents out and took them to Malaysia.
And so Christina, when you said you're afraid, what are you afraid of?
Do you think that there could be attacks here in the United States?
unidentified
I'm afraid that it's going to create more selves, People who normally would not be combatant will look at us as thinking all of us are against all Muslims.
And all of us are, you know, because if you boil it down to it, most people feel this is a holy war and that they, well, I think it's also a war for oil and power and, you know, places to build new Trump towers.
Trump's leadership throughout this war has been utterly disastrous.
I mean, I think the war was a bad idea in the first place.
But he's done absolutely everything to alienate our allies, alienate our partners, drive people away from us.
He's bounced all over the place on what the goal of the war was.
He set these deadlines and reset the deadlines and moved them all over the place, speaking often in very incoherent fashion.
So it really confuses the whole situation.
And these threats mean, look, the United States of America is not supposed to go around bombing civilians, at least not the United States of America that I want to represent.
I don't know what Trump's vision of that is, but even beyond the sheer violence and just immorality of threatening to bomb, much less actually bombing civilian targets, what is it going to accomplish?
You know, all it's going to accomplish is it's going to harden the resolve of the regime and strengthen them.
The Iranian people will now see this as a war against them and as the regime being the only thing that is standing between them and our bombs.
It is the exact opposite of what we said not just under Trump, but for years, and that is we support the Iranian people, we oppose the regime.
The Iranian people are not responsible for what the Islamic Republic is doing.
And now Donald Trump's rhetoric throughout this war has kind of said the exact opposite, that we are at war with all of Iraq.
So these threats are deadly, wrong, immoral, but also strategically stupid in terms of the long-term goals that we should be trying to accomplish.
He said, threatening to target power plants and other non-military targets is not strength.
If those words become orders to destroy civilian infrastructure with no valid military purpose, it's hard to see how they would not violate the laws of armed conflict.
This is Congressman Raja Krishna Murthy, who says, threatening to bomb power plants, bridges, and other civilian infrastructure betrays the values America is supposed to stand for.
We are a nation of laws, of moral leadership, and of respect for innocent human life, not reckless threats that put civilians in the crosshairs.
And this is Ali, who's calling us from North Carolina on the line for independence.
Let's hear from Dawn in Burke, Virginia, Republican.
Good morning, Dawn.
unidentified
Hi, good morning.
Thank you for taking my call.
So I just, you know, I don't necessarily agree with some of the wording and language that the president uses, but I do want to say that, you know, we're dealing with a country that, speaking of, you know, Iran, we're dealing with a country that has no value of human life.
And I'm not saying that because they don't.
We shouldn't.
But what I do want to say is: do you think they care about what they would have done to that pilot if they would have found him?
Do you think that they care now what they did to us for 911?
I mean, people need to start remembering these things.
And this is Charles Independent, Phoenix City, Alabama.
You're on the air, Charles.
unidentified
Good morning.
I'm a 20-year veteran in the military.
I did 20 years, and looking back, this should not happen.
For those that want this to happen, what I would say is that you be the first in line to put a uniform on or either have one of your loved ones put a uniform on, and then you will have a different look at how this is supposed to go down.
So keeping in Iran, leaving Iraq to the side for now, but going with Iran, when you say that they're a radical regime, that they're bent on self-destruction, so destroying them further doesn't really help, does it?
Or what do you think of that opinion?
unidentified
Well, you see, that's all they understand.
Every leader over there is that way.
I mean, think about if you want me to put Iraq to the side, but it's a lesson on Iraq.
And let's hear again from President Trump from the press conference yesterday when he was asked about the possibility of violating the Geneva Conventions.
unidentified
Deliberate attacks on civilian infrastructure by way of the Geneva Conventions and international law.
Who are you with?
I'm with the New York Times, Zolen from the New York Times.
And because they're not going to have a nuclear weapon.
And if somebody that takes my place someday is weak and ineffective, which possibly that will happen because we had numerous presidents that were weak, ineffective, and afraid of Iran, we're never going to let Iran have a nuclear weapon.
And if you think it's okay for people that are sick of mind, that are tough, smart, and sick, really sick, ideolog, you know, from a policy standpoint, from a standpoint, any which way you want to say, mentally, these are disturbed people.
If you think I'm going to allow them, and powerful and rich, to have a nuclear weapon, you can tell your friends at the New York Times, not going to happen.
So you no longer have credibility at the New York Times.
Because the New York Times said, oh, Trump won't win the election, and I won in a landslide.
I won every swing state.
New York Times said, oh, Trump won't win the election.
New York Times has no credibility.
The credibility they have is it used to be all the news that's fit to print.
A great, the old gray lady, it was great, but they're running on past fumes, and you can't keep doing that.
And that press conference, we have it in its entirety on our website at c-span.org if you missed it.
We are taking your calls now to Susan in Pennsylvania, Line for Democrats.
Good morning.
unidentified
Good morning.
My name is, well, you know my name well, Susan.
The way I feel about the war is that it should not be going forward like this.
Donald Trump has to have guardrails.
I think he should have had guardrails.
But I was wondering how he could be doing all this.
So I wanted to look up about Project 2025, which he always said he didn't know anything about it.
But as soon as he got in, he put all the people in there.
And I just looked it up on Google, and it said that based on reports regarding the second Trump administration, leaders aligned with the Project 2025 philosophy and appointed by Donald Trump have implemented a highly aggressive, force-driven policy toward Iran, moving beyond the maximum pressures framework initially outlined in the 2025.
But in either case, I feel that he has had no guardrails against him as he did the first time because he fired anybody that would say anything that would go against what he wanted to do.
It's just not the American way.
He is just with Hegset.
They've proven themselves just to be able to kill people, bombing them, fishermen, who knows, they say drug dealers in the water.
How could this be going on in America?
It's not American.
I called my three representatives yesterday and told them that I feel that Trump is running rogue without any guardrails, and I blame my Republican congressman.
He should be speaking out and saying something, led by just following him like he's God.
I call them kind of every so often, but I did say if this war goes on, war crimes that they will be committing by bombing without the infrastructure of this country that they're going to need to live, people, killing people, it's not right.
All right, so I spoke to, I left the, I spoke with a representative there with the, as I said, the three.
Federman had no one answering the phone.
Usually, McCormick doesn't have anyone answering the phone.
This time he did.
But I mean, it's just not.
I felt I had to call them because if it's before they're going to do it, I'm going to have to let them know how I feel.
He says, you have to look at where you actually are to evaluate, not where you wish you were.
Do you think stopping now would be a good thing for the U.S. in the future or not a good thing?
And this is what Scott says.
I don't believe they know what they are trying to accomplish.
Until they know that, they need to just coast for a while and not escalate anything.
And here is another Scott in Bowie, Maryland, Independent Line.
Go ahead, Scott.
unidentified
Yeah, good morning.
I'm definitely against this attack on Iran.
I would say that for all your listeners, and everyone probably knows this already, but to attack a nation that you say negotiations have been going on for the last 47 years, unless you can prove that for the last 47 years, there's been attacks on U.S. bases, U.S. property, where we live, and things of that nature, there is no cause for the U.S. to go in and bomb these people.
Also, the argument of not letting another country get a nuclear weapon, I don't believe that any country should have nuclear weapons.
However, it is ironic that the only country that has ever implemented and used nuclear weapons feels like they are in the position to dictate to every other nation whether or not they can have nuclear weapons.
So, Scott, as far as attacking the United States, Iran has attacked the United States through its proxies.
unidentified
Again, do we, and I'm not saying that they haven't, but I'm saying for the last 47 years, that's the common theme.
I don't know if that's Republican theme or whichever group is pushing out that for the last 47 years, it's been a constant attack on the U.S. That's also like saying when people throw a rock and hide their hand, that they haven't initiated some other attacks in some shape, form, or fashion, where it would be economic or supporting an opposition group to cause these things to happen.
And here is Melanie in Albemarley in North Carolina, Republican.
You're on the air, Melanie.
unidentified
Yes, I'm just calling in to say that I am a Republican.
I support a lot of what Trump does, but this is going too far.
It's going to create a humanitarian crisis over there and bring a whole bunch of unrest.
Me personally, as an American, if the government does something here to where it would affect me, to where I had to leave, financially, I'm not able to do that.
So we're putting a lot of people at risk that they're stuck over there and it's just not right.
Let's talk to Virginia in Arizona, Line for Democrats.
Good morning.
unidentified
Good morning.
I have to say I am a dedicated Democrat, and I am so disgusted with this entire situation.
But here's the problem: now that we're there, now that we're there, if there is enriched uranium, and that's the reason we went there, we need to have the courage ourselves to go in there, whatever it takes, and get that uranium.
And I don't think we should be blowing up bridges or infrastructure.
I think we should be putting our money where our mouth is and actually finishing the job we say we're doing, making sure that straight is open.
We have to stand up for what we say we're there for.
When you say finish a job, you say that you can't negotiate with them.
So what does that look like?
Does that mean that you just keep bombing until they do negotiate, but you said that they won't negotiate?
So what's the solution, Alan?
unidentified
I think it's a two-fold deal here.
You keep bombing to weaken them to just keep working on toward a regime, focus on that at the same time, try to negotiate.
But the third point I'd like to put is help to weaponize the people to stand up against what's left over once this is finished so we can move on where it's more peaceful for the whole world.
There's a lot more coming up because we've got the Foundation for Defense of Democracies Brad Bowman joining us to break down the latest updates on U.S. military operations against Iran.
But first, it is Breaking Defense Pentagon reporter Ashley Roque joins us to discuss her latest reporting on the U.S. conflict with Iran.
We'll be right back.
unidentified
C-SPAN is as unbiased as you can get.
You are so fair.
I don't know how anybody can say otherwise.
You guys do the most important work for everyone in this country.
I love C-SPAN because I get to hear all the voices.
You bring these divergent viewpoints and you present both sides of an issue and you allow people to make up their own minds.
I absolutely love C-SPAN.
I love to hear both sides.
I've watched every morning and it is unbiased.
And you bring in factual information for the callers to understand where they are in their comments.
This is probably the only place that we can hear honest opinion of Americans across the country.
You guys at C-SPAN are doing such a wonderful job of allowing free exchange of ideas without a lot of interruptions.
Thank you, C-SPAN, for being a light in the dark.
In a divided media world, one place brings Americans together.
According to a new MAGA research report, nearly 90 million Americans turn to C-SPAN, and they're almost perfectly balanced.
28% conservative, 27% liberal or progressive, 41% moderate.
Republicans watching Democrats, Democrats watching Republicans, moderates watching all sides.
Because C-SPAN viewers want the facts straight from the source.
So yesterday President Trump and Secretary Hagseth and Dan Kaine spoke about that rescue operation of the American airmen in Iran.
Can you tell us about that and what it looked like?
unidentified
Sure.
So there were some details given yesterday, some details definitely left out.
Essentially what they said was after the F-15E went down last week, President Trump seemed to confirm that it was a shoulder-fired heat-seeking missile that actually took down the aircraft.
There was two separate rescue operations with about 150 air 55 aircraft.
They went in.
First they went and rescued the pilot and then after that they spent the better part of the weekend going after the other, the second airman, the colonel.
There were some problems with landing planes and wet sand.
The airmen sort of like went up and alerted the U.S. of where his location was.
And then at that point the CIA started disinformation campaign to say that sort of ground forces were escorting him in a different location, how they detained him, while the military went in and actually rescued him.
Lots of aircraft lost in that, including multiple helicopters, two airplanes, U.S. military airplanes got stuck and were destroyed, but he was taken out.
This is the Times of Israel saying that airstrikes on Karg Island have targeted military strikes.
So is that something new?
I believe we have hit Carg Island before.
unidentified
Yes, but this comes right after President Trump's speech in the White House yesterday, where he walked through what happened with getting the two airmen out.
This is potentially an escalation of what's going to come.
There is a deadline that Trump has imposed of 8 p.m. Eastern tonight, and so this seems preemptive ahead of that.
There was reports that Iran has rejected a 45-day ceasefire proposal that had been on the table.
Iran said no.
What does U.S. targeting look like right now, given that there doesn't seem like a ceasefire is on the table?
unidentified
It's not clear.
So yesterday during that press conference, Trump was flanked by the CIA director along with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan Kaine.
He said, still working on negotiations, sort of in limbo, what he's actually asking for isn't clear.
Is it the Strait of Hormuth opened up?
He seems to hint that that's part of it.
And then also, you know, no more ballistic missiles.
It's just not clear what the president is asking for at this point.
But then at the same time, Iran has countered with a 10-point plan, supposedly, which includes the strait being reopened and then no more fire.
And so part of that would be sort of a fee for the boats coming through that would be sort of split to help pay for what's incurred in Iran and what's occurred and to go to Oman as well.
So what targeting looks like, it's not clear.
Trump did not lay out the grand plan.
What he said is if the deadline passes and he does not accept what Iran has offered, that over the next four hours he would destroy the country, starting with bridges and power plants.
What do you mean it's been floated and not been delivered?
unidentified
It hasn't been delivered.
So it's all fluid.
The Pentagon asked the White House to add $200 billion to pay for war operations.
The White House hasn't actually approved that yet or given the green light for it then to be delivered to Congress and then debated at this point and marked up.
So it's still that number could change.
It could go up.
It could go down.
It's just not clear.
But that $200 billion potentially would pay for Tomahawk missiles, Patriot interceptors, a whole array of interceptors that are being run through at this point in the conflict.
So we don't actually know how much they have gotten.
unidentified
We don't.
There's reporting out there, and you talk to analysts, they are concerned about some of these interceptors running out, whether it's the Tomahawk or the Pac-3.
Those are some of the top twos that they're definitely interested in and keeping an eye on.
What's also been these analysts have also said to keep an eye on is foreign military sales.
Because we're not just producing the Patriot or the PAC-3 or the Tomahawks for the U.S. military.
Also the production base within the country also sells them to foreign militaries, whether it's Japan Switzerland, other countries, and there's a potential that they've been in a pipeline waiting for those munitions, but then the?
U.s will sort of circumvent them, push them to the back of the line to fill up their stockpiles.
Uh, do you know anything about possible retaliation?
unidentified
I mean, retaliation is always on the table um, but at the same time there are military bases, U.s military bases and ally bases within the region that is easier to target.
So there could potentially be retaliation within the?
Mike Jarrettville, Maryland Republican LINE, you're on with Ashley Rokey.
unidentified
Hey, good morning.
Uh, real quick here.
So president Trump talked about uh, the press having some kind of a leak.
Uh, with this second pilot that they were trying to pick up that the press leaked.
It all over the place.
Listen, i'm really upset with the American press.
Uh, to begin with um, you know when this war first started a few weeks ago I know CNN called had was interviewing the Iraqi foreign minister, I mean really on what he thought about uh, the war.
Uh, maybe in Second World War we should call you know, like it's the comp.
The comparison I like to make is during the Second World War um, perhaps I mean we didn't call Joseph Goebbles uh in Germany and uh ask him what he thought about, what the United States was doing.
So I was wondering if your guests maybe could just talk real quick about uh, what Trump is talking about, how the press uh violated uh.
You know he's investigating them apparently.
Maybe we could talk about the press and their bad behavior a little bit please, thank you.
And before you do that That, Ashley, just this is NBC NEWS.
It's the headline: is Trump threatens to jail journalists in Hunt to find leaker of Iran fighter jet story?
Tell us what happened.
unidentified
So, I guess let's back up a little bit.
So, the press does not have the same level of access right now within the Pentagon that it used to.
Just a couple of months ago, we had desks within the Pentagon.
If there was ever a question, we could walk to desks of officers, go grab somebody, and very, these are like not classified settings to ask, clarify information.
Now, we are calling these same people and getting information.
We're going to different sources, getting information.
What is not clear is what the president is talking about with that reporter specifically and what is classified about that.
There was a disinformation campaign going on, and it's not clear what exactly the reporter potentially did or did not do correctly, but it's not even on that person.
It is on the person who shared the information.
If it was classified, it is up to that individual to have known it was classified and then knowingly shared it.
And you guys have not been allowed back into the Pentagon, even with the court order saying that it so.
unidentified
The way it's going right now is when there is a press briefing, we show up, even with those who are credentialed.
We show up about two hours early, we get badges, there's a background check done on us, and we're escorted directly into the briefing room and we're escorted out.
That's for press briefings.
If we are going to do meetings with officials, we go through the front door after a background check, and we are escorted into the meeting with that said individual and then escorted out of the building.
There is still litigation pending right now and court orders.
They are potentially allowing our badges back.
Every outlet is approaching it differently at this point.
But there is a library off campus.
Well, it's on campus, but you have to go to the Pentagon and hop on a shuttle to get to a library that we will have desks at at this point.
What's going to ultimately happen is a question mark.
It came up again yesterday in the press conference.
I mean, this was an operation undertaken by the U.S. and Israel.
There was concern.
There was Operation Midnight Hammer in the summer that destroyed nuclear facilities and uranium enrichment facilities that are reportedly under rubble at this point.
When the U.S. and Israel embarked on this, they did not tell allies and partners.
Most of the NATO members did not know ahead of time.
In Baltimore, Line for Democrats, Dorothy, you're on the air.
unidentified
Good morning.
I just want to say this administration, I think, has really made a mess.
They didn't think about the pros or the cons of this war.
Drone Surveillance Launchers00:11:55
unidentified
I'm going to give you all some advice and then a suggestion.
You know that their bombs are located right here in the United States and they're called gas stations.
And you look at who's running those gas stations.
They're not Americans.
They're bombs.
And they could use them to attack this country.
I'm suggesting this: that people need to get water, non-perishable foods, and generators that have solar powered.
Because they're going to retaliate if Trump does what he says, that we might have a chance, but he's trying to destroy a whole country of people, their water, their infrastructure.
We're going to be, something bad may happen.
I don't know it will, but it may.
Because gas stations are bombs everywhere in this country, and people of the other countries are running those gas stations.
We just got a new truth social post by President Trump.
I just want to share with people who say this, this came out at 8.06 a.m.
A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.
I don't want that to happen, but it probably will.
However, now that we have complete and total regime change, where different, smarter, and less radicalized minds prevail, maybe something revolutionary, revolutionarily wonderful can happen.
Who knows?
We will find out tonight, one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the world.
47 years of extortion, corruption, and death will finally end.
God bless the great people of Iran.
That is what President Trump has put out about 15 minutes ago, 10 minutes ago.
Any comment on that?
Do you have any information on kind of where this is going tonight?
As the, I mean, we're under 12 hours away from that deadline.
unidentified
It's a lot to unpack.
It follows sort of the messaging yesterday from the White House in the press room with the president.
One moment, it could be complete destruction.
The next, he's not sure what is going to happen.
So it seems to be teetering, and he actually responded to a reporter that he wasn't sure which way he was going to lean.
It might be up to the last moment, is the way he sort of phrased it.
He's also, when he was pressed yesterday during the press conference about human rights and international law and also the actual potential death of thousands of Iranians, from his vantage point, he said that the civilians of Iran are with him and support it.
He didn't back that up with anything.
So it really seems to be There's both options on the table, both verbally and then over Truth Social.
Mike, Indianapolis, Independent Line, go ahead, Mike, you're on the air.
unidentified
Yes, I don't like everything that the president does, but I think it's always cheaper to keep what we can by having a strong military to deter other people than to get us involved in more wars.
There's no question we need to rebuild after the attack that we've had on Iran to restock our weaponry to keep us strong.
And I think people need to remember that the cost of not stopping the enemy has what happened when we got attacked in 9-11, has what happened with Pearl Harbor, and what happened with when gas prices went up with OPEC and oil embargoes in the 1970s was very detrimental to the United States.
Going back to the planes that were shot down, there was an F-15E and there was an A-10.
Can you tell us a little bit about those airplanes, what they're used for, and if you know anything about what it was that shot them down?
unidentified
So the aircraft can do surveillance, also dropping weapons to target either launchers, drone production facilities, the F-15.
There's different uses for them.
What shot them down, the president yesterday when he was talking from the White House, seemed to confirm that it was a shoulder-fired heat-seeking missile, is what he said, that shot down the aircraft.
More details about that have not been put out in the public domain from either the Pentagon or from the White House at this point.
And as far as how much this has been costing the American taxpayer, we've heard a billion a day.
What do you know about just operations, the munitions, and the planes that have been lost?
unidentified
Okay, so the cost per day.
The Pentagon has not been transparent with the public at this point, or even lawmakers.
Lawmakers are voicing concerns that they don't even have a grasp of what the cost of these operations are.
Could be a billion per day, could be more, could be less.
When you factor in losing these aircraft and other weapons, that goes up higher than just dropping munitions and the manpower and the oil or the gas, the aircraft.
So the cost we do not have a grasp on right now.
With budget season here and you have the secretary, defense secretary heading to the hill and some other people have going, there might be more forthcoming of what the cost is, especially as they start marking up the bills and looking at a supplemental.
Potentially lawmakers could be asking more questions before they greenlight money for the operations.
Tell us about that, what it can do and what it's used for.
unidentified
Yeah, so it can definitely be used for surveillance as well as targeting.
So the numbers that are up in the air, I do not have those numbers for you right now or how many have been shot down, but those are up to target launchers facilities as well.
And do we know Iran's drone capability and how quickly they can produce more drones?
unidentified
We don't.
So they primarily rely on the Shaheed, which is so much cheaper per unit, a couple hundred thousand dollars versus maybe a million plus for an interceptor to down it.
So what their facilities or their capabilities are right now has not been detailed.
It's not clear how much we've degraded what they can produce, what they had in stockpiles, and or what they're still able to produce right now and where.
Later, we'll have Democratic strategist Chuck Rocha in.
He is joining the conversation to talk about the midterm elections.
But next, Foundation for Defense of Democracy's Brad Bowman discusses the latest updates on the Iran war.
unidentified
Stay with us.
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Intelligence Sharing Risks00:15:28
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So your thoughts on President Trump's statements yesterday at the press conference and kind of the ultimatum that is set to expire at 8 p.m. on Iranian infrastructure.
Yeah, no, I think we're at an important moment here in this war.
As many of your viewers will know, the president has said that if Iran does not come forward with good concessions and makes a deal, that there will be quote, no bridges, end quote, or quote, no power plants in Iran.
And of course, he put out a message on Easter that was riddled with expletives threatening that.
And then we saw the post this morning talking about ending a civilization and so forth.
So very, very strong, unusual rhetoric, to say it politely.
I think the president obviously wants the Strait of Hormuz through which roughly 20% of maritime oil flows in normal times to be opened.
That is a good goal.
That is important to the world.
It's important to Americans.
If you don't believe me, look at what you're paying at the gas station to fill your car with gas.
So there's important U.S. national security and economic interests to open the strait.
He's clearly trying to apply pressure.
But let's just be clear, deliberately threatening to target civilian infrastructure as a tool of punishment or coercion when there's no military purpose or use of that infrastructure is not only unlawful and cruel, but I'd say it's counterproductive.
I mean, one is that, you know, we've said from the beginning that the Iranian people are our allies.
The Iranian people are the ones that have had more, thousands, thousands of them have been killed by this regime that wants to retain its grip on power.
And we're not going to see regime change without the Iranian people taking action.
But if you are attacking them, then they are more and more Iranians are going to think we're the villains rather than this regime, which has killed thousands of them.
That's one reason why it would be counterproductive.
It's kind of intuitive, right?
If someone's your friend and your ally and you want them to work with you, you don't attack them.
You don't deprive them of energy that they need for maternity wards or for clean water and things like that.
It's also going to help the regime.
It's, you know, this regime is trying to solidify its grip on power that's had since 1979 by deceiving Iranians in the world that it's a true and legitimate and credible and benign representative of the Iranian people when it's far from that.
And so we would simply be giving this regime talking points that it will use to retain its power and build domestic unity against the United States of America.
And then lastly, I think it will absolutely erode further international and U.S. domestic support for steps that need to be taken both now and the future against Iran.
And you really don't have to be a prophet, if you will, to predict how Iran's going to respond.
They're going to respond with even more attacks on energy infrastructure in Gulf Arab states, and that will exacerbate the global economic crisis and the energy crisis.
There is, there is, but it will be very, very costly.
America will take casualties in that effort, and there's several different ways you could do it.
But if the goal here is to apply pressure on the regime so that they make a deal that's acceptable to American national security interests, there are other ways to achieve this potentially.
One might be that, you know, what we've seen, we've talked about like a complete blockade of the strait.
That's not exactly accurate.
We've seen a small number of vessels, some of them with energy, going through the strait, many of them, interestingly, to China.
And so Iran continues to export some oil, and we know what it's doing with that revenue.
It's building its ballistic missile program or trying to reconstitute it.
It's supporting terrorism.
It's oppressing and persecuting the Iranian people.
We don't want that.
So what you could do with American naval assets outside the Strait of Hormuz, on the eastern side of the strait, when you see Iranian vessels with Iranian oil, you could interdict those.
I'm not talking about taking someone else's oil.
I'm not talking about stealing it, nothing like that.
I'm saying you interdict it and you prevent the Iranian regime from getting that money and you put it in and then you use that to help the Iranian people.
And the message to Tehran would be, you will not export oil yourself until you open the strait.
I want to ask you about the rescue of the American airmen.
Given that you are a you were a Black Hawk helicopter pilot and there were Blackhawks involved in that, I wanted to get your perspective on that rescue mission.
This rescue mission was one of the most impressive military operations I've seen in a long time.
The bravery, the competence, the dedication of the combat search and rescue crews, the scale of it, the bravery of the pilots, so the pilot and the weapons officer, you know, to do some of this during the daytime.
This is just incredible.
And, you know, there's a lot in the news to be concerned about right now and frankly to feel bad about.
But one thing that we can feel good about is that our military has an ethos that if you're a pilot or if you're any service member and you're caught behind enemy lines, we're going to come get you because we understand the value of a single life.
And so we are willing to put many, many people in danger to save one life.
And I think that says something really wonderful about our ethos in the United States military that we should be very proud of.
And we understand that human beings are more important than equipment.
You know, everybody was talking about these planes that we had to destroy because they got caught in the mud.
And this came up in the press conference yesterday.
Unfortunately, a lot of things that we're hearing from the podiums in Washington, D.C. these days are just not accurate.
You know, I would encourage your viewers, if you want to have some facts, you know, look at what CENTCOM is putting out.
And there's a lot of people confusing key phrases that military experts understand.
One is destroying versus degrading.
Those two words have very different meanings.
Destroying means destroyed.
It's done.
It's over.
It's destroyed.
Degrading means it's damaged, but it could be restored.
And so the truth is, is that America has air superiority in certain places, if not over the whole country.
But air superiority basically means you can conduct operations, but that doesn't mean the adversary has no means to fire back.
And that's exactly what we saw with this F-15E that was shot down.
So Iran's Navy, we've seen more than 155 Iranian vessels damaged and destroyed, but they still have a lot of small boats.
We've seen their Iranians' ballistic missile program severely degraded, but they're still firing some ballistic missiles.
And the drone problem shouldn't be a surprise to anyone.
You know, more than four years after Putin's invasion of Ukraine, and we've seen how they've used drones there, the drone problem is going to be more problematic.
So great progress in degrading and nearly destroying Iran's Air Force.
Great progress in severely degrading Iran's Navy, and great progress degrading their ballistic missile arsenal and the defense industrial base that supports it, but they still have the means to hit back.
And we need to understand that Iran is not Venezuela.
Iran is not even Iraq.
This is a very different country.
The Iranian people are the proud heirs of a great civilization and members of great civilization.
We should respect them.
We should not do anything to hurt them.
And we should constantly remember that the difference between the Iranian people and this regime, which is the world's worst state sponsor of terrorism.
If you'd like to join our conversation and you have a question for Brad Bowman of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, you can start calling in now.
Republicans are on 202748-8001.
Democrats 202-748-8000.
And Independents 202-748-8002.
You can also text us your comments.
I want to ask you about the enriched uranium, Brad, apparently somewhere in the middle of Iran.
It could have been moved.
What would an operation, what would a military operation look like to go in and seize that material?
It's about 440 kilograms of 60% enriched uranium and bring that out of the country.
I think you're right to highlight that because if you ask me what is the core American national security interest here, and in strategy, you begin with the end or the objective.
The core, the most important, the vital American objective here is making sure a regime that has been a systematic sponsor of terrorism and terrorist groups since 1979 does not acquire the world's most dangerous weapon.
And that means doesn't acquire nuclear weapons that they could use against us.
So We've severely degraded, if not destroyed, Isfahan and Fordo and Natans and those abilities, but there are other sites such as Pickak Mountains.
And we don't know, I don't, as I sit here with unclassified information and analysis, I don't know for sure the location of those hundreds of kilograms of highly enriched uranium, of course, which you would use in a nuclear weapon.
So ideally, that would be destroyed or we would have obtained that.
But getting that, assuming the U.S. intelligence community knows where it is, could be very, very difficult, right?
So think about what happened with the down pilot, right?
When you send, it's one thing to do airstrikes and naval strikes.
It's another thing to send ground troops in, as we saw with the downed aviator, because then our comparative advantages are less and you have more casualties.
And if the Iranians know exactly where you're going, you don't have to be, you know, patent to figure out that they're going to set a trap and it will be one of the most difficult missions you can imagine going deep, deep underground potentially and trying to find this needle in a haystack.
So if there's another way to either destroy it or bury it, my advice would be to do that because the administration is struggling to maintain domestic support for this operation.
There are all kinds of reasons for that.
I would have liked to see more respect for the American people and for Congress and for our allies and not wait four or five weeks to talk from them from the Oval Office.
And if you send in ground troops, you will have to do something like that.
It will be one of the most difficult missions you can imagine.
I sadly predict there would be casualties and that would erode support even more for taking steps that are necessary to achieve our core objective that I described earlier.
Let's talk to callers and start on the line for Democrats in Marietta, Georgia.
James, you're on the air.
unidentified
Yes, sir.
I get that you were in the military and that you probably have a hard time coming to grips with this, but like we have a president who every action he does seems to basically help Russia.
I know people don't, you know, people don't want to talk about collusion in 2016, but Russia is using this to their advantage and they're giving Iran targeting information to literally attack our troops.
So do you feel that Trump is basically a freaking agent of Russia?
I actually mentioned earlier how Russia was providing targeting information to Iran and even more than that at our think tank at our Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
We've been doing a two-year study on how China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea are working together across all domains of power, including the military domain, to help each other.
And we've documented more than 600 instances of that cooperation across five categories since 20 from 2019 to December 31 of last year.
And you're absolutely right that Russia is helping Iran.
They're not only helping them with targeting information, they're helping them with drones.
And a lot of people missed, and I posted this on my X account, that Moscow agreed in December to provide Iran these man pads, these man portable air defense systems, these shoulder launch systems that are going to be delivered in future years.
But I would just highlight for listeners that the president, according to Axios and others, said that that's how this F-15E was shot down.
So I'm not necessarily saying it was those Russian man pads, but Moscow has signaled a desire to help the Islamic Republic of Iran reconstitute its air defenses.
So you cannot be an Iran hawk and credibly be squishy on Russia.
And let me just add China very quickly.
China has shipped sodium perchlorate to Iran both before and after the 12-day war in June of last year.
Sodium perchlorate is a chemical precursor that used to make ammonium perchlorate, which fuels ballistic missiles.
So these ballistic missiles that are hitting American bases, they're hitting our Gulf Arab partners and hitting Israel, some of them may be guided by Russian intelligence and fueled by Chinese chemicals.
And Brent, if you could just spell out, aside from Russia benefiting from the Iran war because of the higher price of oil and gas, what else are they getting out of this?
What are they benefiting from all the support that they're giving to Iran?
Yeah, so after Putin's unprovoked naked aggression, massive reinvasion that he launched in February 24, 2022, really one of the first nations, the first nation to step up and help Putin was the Islamic Republic of Iran.
It provided Russia the Shahed drones, 131, 136, others that played a pivotal role in the early months of that conflict.
It also provided all kinds of other munitions.
Iran even sent Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps advisors to Crimea to help the Russians.
So, you know, this isn't some hallmark talking point here I'm giving to you.
This is tangible cooperation.
And so what's happening is you have Russia starting to pay back some of those IOUs.
And obviously, those Russian S-300 air defense systems didn't prove very formidable for American Israeli pilots.
But if this regime remains in power, which it appears that it will for at least a while, then we can expect Russia to increasingly help Iran rearm.
And as Iran rearms, that means we're going to have another conflict sooner.
And when that conflict happens, it will be more costly.
So Russia and Iran are partners.
They're not allies as we would think of them, but they're absolutely helping each other.
And Iran wants weapons from China.
China has been reluctant to give full-fledged weapons because they don't want to anger Arab countries with whom they have a more important economic relationship.
But as I said, they've been providing those sodium perchlorate to them and dual-use support, which is the same strategy that China uses to support Russia, North Korea, and Iran.
They help their defense industrial bases.
They help make them more powerful.
They help them hurt us and our partners, but they do it in a sneaky dual-use way so as to avoid the American European sanctions.
Deborah, Republican, Westchester, Ohio, you're on with Brad Bowman.
unidentified
Yes.
In 632, Mohammed the Prophet died.
And by 634, the Muslim conflicts, Muslim conflicts started.
And they actually, you know, they destroyed the Byzantine Empire in the Iberian Peninsula, which is now Spain and Portugal and Gibraltar.
They were there.
And then there was, and it took eight centuries, 800 years, for a small Christian army in the northern part of Portugal and Spain to begin to eventually push down.
And then when Ferdinand and Isabel in Spain, the Catholics, when they were in power in Spain, there was an eight-year siege that finally got rid of the Muslim conflict.
They interrupted trade, which brought about, helped to bring about the Dark Ages during that same time period.
I actually appreciate the historical anecdotes there.
I'm a student of history myself.
I think we can learn a lot from it.
Sometimes Americans don't spend enough time looking at history.
You can come up and look at some more recent history to understand what we might be up against.
Look at the Iran-Iraq war and look at the suffering that Iran was willing to go through during that war and their determination not to surrender.
So I think some of the rhetoric emanating from Washington fails to appreciate all respect to Venezuela and the people of Venezuela.
It fails to respect the deep, proud civilizational pride and history that Iranians have.
And I think it's really important, let me just underscore this point, it's really important to distinguish both as a matter of principle and laws of war, but just prudence between the Iranian people and this regime.
And I think it's also very careful to be, it's also very important to be careful with religious terminology, right?
We don't want to make this a religious war for all kinds of reasons.
One is that the vast majority of Muslims are good people and peaceful people who want to live in peace with people of other faiths.
So that's what we all should want, you know, as many of us just celebrated Easter last weekend.
But there are is a subset of individuals within Islam, and I don't call it Islamic, I call them Islamist, who have what I would say is a sick ideology that blurs the distinction between civilian and military, combatant and non-combatant.
And that's the ideology of this regime.
That's the ideology of al-Qaeda, of ISIS, of Hezbollah and Hamas.
There are important differences between those groups for sure.
And we could spend a lot of time talking about them.
But all of them, to some degree or another, blur the distinction between military and civilian.
We Americans should not.
We should not.
That's what separates us from the al-Qaeda terrorists who attacked us in 9-11.
They deliberately and systematically tried to murder and did murder civilians for political purposes.
America should not do that.
We should distinguish between combatant and non-combatants, not only because it's lawful and it would be cruel to do otherwise, but because, as I said earlier, it will be counterproductive and we will become more like the people we are fighting.
You know, I think the post that the president put out on Easter, really the holiest day of the Christian calendar, was inappropriate and below the office of the president and not helpful.
And so I think America is a country that is diverse, that is wonderfully diverse.
That diversity is not a weakness, and that diversity comes in many forms, not only racial diversity, but religious diversity.
And I think if we make this a religious war, then we are going to push away allies and partners in the Muslim world that we are going to need to be successful, and we will regret doing so.
I do keep mentioning 1979 because that's when the Islamic Revolution, the Islamic Republic of Iran seized power.
And what happened in 1979, right?
I actually was around.
I was quite young, but I was around and do remember.
And I remember that they seized our hostages and held them for over 400 days in our embassy, talking about a violation of the rules of law.
And then I would need about an hour to run through the full train of what's happened since then, but just a few highlights.
In 1983, we had Tehran's terror proxy in Lebanon kill over 240 U.S. service members in the Beirut barracks bombing.
And more recently, in Iraq, we had the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its Kudz force design particular IEDs and explosively formed penetrators for the purposes of killing American troops in Iraq.
They smuggled those across the border, trained Iran-backed Iraqi militias to use them, and more than 600 U.S. service members did not return home to their families as a result.
If you're familiar with what happened on October 7th, that was Hamas.
Hamas has received support from Iran.
The list goes on and on and on.
You have the Houthis in Yemen.
The Houthis have conducted the worst assault on maritime shipping in decades.
The Houthis get a lot of their support and weapons from Iran.
So when I say they're the worst state sponsor of terrorism, unfortunately, this regime continues to earn that title.
If you want peace, stability, and security in the Middle East, the number one threat to that is the Islamic Republic of Iran.
And the tragedy here is that if the Iranian people could finally get a government that represents their true interest, we would have great relationships with them because there is alignment between what the Iranian people want and what America wants.
But unfortunately, this regime is more focused on a nuclear program and ballistic missiles and drones and domestic oppression.
And that's where they're spending the resources, including the resources they're getting from oil exports.
We have a question here on X, sorry, on text from Jimbo in Bakersfield, California.
He actually sent this for our previous guest, but I want to ask it to you.
And it says, could you speculate as to how much death and destruction Israel is willing to tolerate from Iran until Israel uses tactical nuclear weapons to encourage Iran to stop the drone and missile strikes on Israel?
It's true that Iran has launched a lot of ballistic missiles at Israel.
Let me give you some numbers.
In April 2024, you had approximately 120 ballistic missiles launched toward Israel.
In October 2024, you had 200 ballistic missiles launched toward Israel.
And then in June of last year, during the 12-day war, you had roughly 550 ballistic missiles launched toward Israel.
And so it is not an exaggeration to say that this regime was sprinting to expand its ballistic missile program for the purposes of attacking American bases, our Arab partners in Israel, and that they would get to a point where they would be able to overwhelm air defenses of the United States, Israel, and our partners and kill civilians and use that as a shield potentially to build us to advance this nuclear program.
So, Israel has expended a lot of its aero interceptors, its air defense interceptors, and that may explain some of the missiles that we're seeing going through.
And we also see Iran using cluster munitions.
These are kind of like these munitions, instead of having a unitary warhead, it's like a shotgun blast that spreads over a wider area.
It's a tool that can be used against opposing military forces, but when you use it against cities, it's a tool of terror.
And unfortunately, we've seen Iran using that against Israelis as well.
Well, I think diplomacy, we should try for it, but we should not make it an idol or an end in itself.
Diplomacy is a means to an end.
What are the core American objectives here from my perspective?
I said it already.
We don't want the world worst state-sponsored terrorism to have nuclear weapons.
We want to address their ballistic missile program, which has been a primary means by which they attack their neighbors and our troops in Israel.
And we want them to end their systematic support for terrorism.
And we want the Strait of Hormuz open.
Those are core American national security and economic objectives as I see it.
And when I say in their nuclear program, I mean no enrichment.
Unfortunately, I don't see any evidence that this regime, and let's be clear, we've had regime decapitation, but we have not had regime change.
I don't see any evidence that this regime will agree to a deal that does what I just did in a transparent, legitimate, and durable way.
So that puts us in a tough position.
So I am worried that this regime will make promises it has no intentions to fulfill and will simply try to use any agreement as a patient pathway to reconstitute its ballistic missile program, to build its drone program, and begin to make additional progress once again toward a nuclear weapon.
So do you think the Iranian regime would use a nuclear weapon if they got it, or do you think they would just use it as deterrence, as, for instance, North Korea, nobody's attacking North Korea because they have a nuclear weapon?
You know, that's been a long-standing decades-long debate.
People who are smart have different views on that.
I think it is absolutely true that there are some individuals within this regime in Iran who have an apocalyptic end-of-days worldview.
And I don't really want people like that to have nuclear weapons.
So they might, but what I know for sure this regime would do would be much more aggressive if they had nuclear weapons in supporting terrorism, conducting terrorist attacks, and conducting conventional attacks.
So if you don't like the way the Islamic Republic of Iran has behaved since 1979, you really won't like how they behave once they have a nuclear weapon to hide behind.
And I think it's really important in this moment that we remember that the oath that U.S. military officers take is not to a leader or to a party, but to the Constitution of the United States.
Later on in the program, we'll be talking to Democratic strategist and founder of Solidarity Strategies, Chuck Rocha, about the Democratic Party's path to the midterms.
But first, it's open forum.
You can call in now.
It's 202-748-8001 for Republicans, 202-748-8000 for Democrats, and 202-748-8002 for independents.
We'll take your calls when we come back from the break.
unidentified
Best ideas and best practices can be found anywhere.
Before we get to your calls, an open forum, I just wanted to make sure you're aware of the Artemis II update.
This is the front page of today's Wall Street Journal.
Astronauts Ride Into the Record Books.
Says the astronauts of NASA's Artemis II lunar mission steered their Orion craft into the record books on Monday, flying more than 252,756 miles from Earth before swinging around the moon's far side and beginning their return home.
That number is the farthest any human has gotten away from the Earth.
And that is now a record until, of course, Artemis III, when that happens.
Let's go to the calls now to Jerry Parks, Arizona.
Republican, you're on the air, Jerry.
unidentified
Hi.
I would just like to say that I know people that have the that have grown up with the attitude that the Iranian regime has.
And it doesn't matter what you do to them.
They believe in dying for their cause and what they believe in.
And you cannot destroy enough around them to stop that.
And what this administration is going to have to do if they don't realize this is that they have to go in there and they have to eliminate every one of them.
So do you think the present, the ultimatum that is at 8 p.m., do you think that that should happen?
Do you think that the infrastructure should be targeted?
Or do you think that that won't do anything?
Our previous guest said that it would be counterproductive.
unidentified
It would be counterproductive because of allowing them to have to rebuild to have a modern civilization.
But that's what these people have to suffer through to get rid of this regime.
If you allow even half a dozen or a dozen of them to live, they will start over and build up again, and they will just come at America in another way.
But that's that they will do it because they believe since they were, I will say, it's an American term, since they've been in diapers, they have been brainwashed and taught to believe that their religion is absolute and they have been taught from diapers to die for their cause.
And the only way you can get rid of that kind of threat is to wipe those people out.
I just wanted to say that it's really striking that Republicans or people of a Republican mindset want to solve problems by annihilating enemies or supposed enemies.
I'd like to point out that I don't think and can recall of any other nation but the United States of America that has openly and actively used weapons of mass destruction to destroy perceived enemies.
What we're doing now is basically guaranteeing that the whole world, a whole world of non-Christian, kind of anglified people and mentalities, will not think of us as a great oppressor, which is what we've done for decades and years throughout the world.
This will not solve any problem in Iran or generally any country that wants independence from American aggression or oppression.
And Abdel, there's also the belief of the Mahdi, the hidden Imam that is supposed to come back, but I think that's just for Shia Muslims, not Sunnis.
unidentified
No, that's true.
That's true.
Like even for Sunni, they have that, but it's totally different purpose.
So it's going to be in another way.
So it doesn't have to do with the antichrist and coming back.
But that's one.
The second thing, this war, basically, I feel like having a hard time to understand why the U.S. is going to this war at first, right?
Because Iran, I mean, it's not the best regime for sure, even for Muslims.
They don't like it.
Sunni, they have always problems with the regime in Iran.
They never get along.
But at the end of the day, it's really not a threat to the U.S. At the end of the day, the nuclear program, Iranian nuclear program, they always said that we want it for peaceful things.
We don't want that.
And if you remember, there were inspections happening in Iran, and they were never...
But Abdel, do you believe that it was for peaceful purposes or it was for a bomb?
Because you don't have to enrich up to 60% for peaceful purposes.
unidentified
Right, but it has to be like up to 90%, if I'm not mistaken, right?
But what I'm trying to say is that the nuclear weapon, like they have the right as Israel have.
That's something that I want to ask your guests, basically, because if they want basically a free region of nuclear weapons, basically Israel should be one of the first because that's the only nuclear officially.
I mean, they never really recognize it, right?
But we know that Israel have nuclear weapons.
So why Israel have the right to have a nuclear weapon where area like where other countries cannot even have it for like peaceful, as they mentioned, right?
I cannot tell you if they their intentions.
And it's, I mean, I disagree.
And I don't want nuclear weapon to be in that area because it's going to be a huge mess if anything happened.
And I don't know about this, but I heard about a protocol in Israel where they say that if there is an existent threat to Israel, they have a protocol that's going to basically just send nuclear everywhere.
Like they want to have the end of the world, right?
So my point is that the area should be basically free nuclear weapons.
Let's talk to Oscar in Spruce Pine, North Carolina, Republican.
Good morning.
unidentified
Good morning, Mimi.
I'm 89 years old.
I spent 25 years in service, so I've been around a while, and I am a died-in-the-war Republican.
And I just got a few things to say about the people that are always doubting President Trump.
Invariably, the elitist older than their people that call in, they will say sometime that he is not my president.
Well, I got a flash for them.
If they're a legal citizen of the United States, he is your president.
However, if you are an illegal citizen of the United States, please call in and say that, and maybe Ash will come see you in a day or two.
And one more thing about President Trump.
They always call in and say, oh, he's such a failure.
He bankrupt a half dozen businesses, including the casino, my lord.
And he's got all these charges against him, and he's just a loser at everything.
All I've got to say is that if I was a multi-billionaire and president of the greatest country on earth, I think I'd consider a little bitter than what they're saying.
Well, I just want to ask, why is it that only Israel has the right to exist?
I mean, they have taken land from all those people there.
They're supposed to give back the war from the land from the seven-day war.
And wasn't that NYU financing Hamas before the October 23 kidnapping?
You know, people have amnesia a lot, and they don't remember nothing.
But my mind is good.
And most of the Jewish people on the network, so that's all we hear.
Israel has the right to live, to exist.
Nobody else has the right to exist.
And I think it's really bad because they've been bombing Palestine out of existence and claim they're going to take it.
And one more thing.
The Republicans are really something, you know, with their amnesia.
You know, yeah, President Trump is our president.
When they stated all the time that Obama bad wasn't their president, you know, it's just so pitiful that this court, and they talk about the rain syndrome, that's what they have because Trump could do anything and it's okay.
It started out as kind of a quandary, but then the more I thought about it, the better I liked it.
And I propose that we get a certain type of boots on the ground in Iran.
And that type would be we bring back Cindy Noam as the former director of Homeland Security and let her round up all the ICE police in the United States.
We get them on military airlift command and we get them to Iran where they can get some true urban law enforcement training and see how things progress.
But if Saul had done his job, and you'll have to go to the Bible to find out what I'm talking about, we wouldn't have this problem today or this conversation.
We wouldn't have had 9-11, hijacked planes, none of that.
These people are a problem, and Trump needs to take care of it.
I guess the nuclear issue Lady brought up and another gentleman before, the reason why Iran should not have weapons-grade nuclear weapons is because they're the ones chanting death to America, death to Israel.
And that's why Israel should have that right to have it and exist because they're not threatening their neighbors like Iran is and Iran has been doing for many, many years.
To go back to the start of all this, yeah, you know, it is messy.
Trump should have maybe contacted people and got other people on board.
But here it is, it's on our lap right now.
And I think we need to support not only the president, but NATO should be involved.
The Arab nations should step up and provide troops to say, to force the issue through diplomacy first to say, hey, stop.
So try just hang up now and then call me back on the Independent Line and we'll take your call.
Barbara and Harrison, Maine, Republican, you're on the air, Barbara.
unidentified
Hi.
Thank you for taking my call.
I just want to say that we should be united at this point, not polarized for the sake of our troops.
And as far as our president goes, we must stand united regardless of how we feel at this point, as we have done to most presidents during wartime or conflicts.
America Back Stronger00:07:16
unidentified
So I do ask the American people not to be so wimpy and to stand up a little bit and deal with the gas prices or anything else at this point, just to keep our troops, help our troops, help our country get this conflict over with.
And I will have to say, too, that Congress has been doing nothing to help in this situation.
They're only just being derogatory with everything.
And what role do you think Congress should be playing, Barbara?
unidentified
Well, first of all, Congress always acts on things after the fact.
They should be acting on any laws of common interest immediately.
They shouldn't be taking months or years, and they should not be taking up the Epstein case or any individual case because priority should be for laws for all the people.
Today you've made history and made all America really proud, incredibly proud.
We have a lot of things to be proud of lately, but there's nothing like what you're doing, circling around the moon for the first time in more than a half a century and breaking the all-time record for the farthest distance from planet Earth.
Humans have really never seen anything quite like what you're doing in a manned spacecraft.
It's really special.
I want to personally salute and congratulate Commander Reed Weissman, pilot Victor Glover, mission specialist Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen.
And I also want to thank the entire amazing team at NASA, headed by Jared, who's a very special guy, by the way.
And you all made this day possible.
You've really inspired the entire world, really.
Everybody's watching.
They find it incredible.
I just watch you go to the back of the moon and people haven't been there in a long time, we can say, but it's going to be more and more prevalent because we're going to be doing a lot of traveling and then you're going to ultimately do the whole big trip to Mars and that's going to be very exciting.
So you look at, we had no astronaut has been to the moon since the days of Apollo program.
The Apollo program was also very special, but that was 50 years ago.
And at long last, America is back, and America is back in many ways stronger than ever before with the hottest country anywhere in the world.
And this is what Aaron is referring to: a true social post this morning at 8:06 a.m., where Donald Trump says a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.
I don't want to, I don't want that to happen, but it probably will.
On the Republican line in Topeka, Kansas, Harold, you're on the air.
unidentified
Good morning, C-SPAN Lishers.
I live in Topeka, Kansas, which is the home of Forbes Field, which is also the home of the 190th Air Wing refueling Kansas Coyotes, who are in Iran right now, doing a very proud, strong job for Topeka.
And here's Rich, Schenectady, New York, Independent Line.
Good morning.
unidentified
Yes.
Hello.
My name is Rich.
I'm from Schenectady, and I'm a senior citizen.
I've seen many presidents come and go, but I've never, ever, in all my years, ever experienced anyone with the like this man that's in the White House.
He truly should be in a straitjacket, not in the White House.
He's a mental moron, and he's just, I think his goal is he's going to rule the world.
He's going to ruin this country.
He's taking this whole country down.
I don't understand how this, the people of the United States, can just let this one spoiled brat of a person who's never taken a breath of normal person air in his life, just like take this whole country down and we just sit there and let him do it why?
I don't understand it.
I I just I just can't comprehend this.
President Mental Moron00:02:17
unidentified
Please, people wake up.
Wake up before it's too late.
Don't let this con man grifter, Corrupt president in history.
He is a Democratic strategist who will discuss the Democrats' chances of taking the House and the Senate in the upcoming midterm elections.
We'll be right back.
unidentified
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C-SPAN takes you where decisions are made.
Democrats Focus Affordability00:15:44
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C-SPAN is your unfiltered connection to American democracy.
So that shows a momentum of dissatisfaction that we see across the country.
But a special election is a different than an off-year election, but it's also good for your listeners to know that an off-year election is much different than a presidential election.
What do I mean by that?
In a presidential election, which we went through in 2024, there was a giant turnout.
Donald Trump, and I give Donald Trump a lot of credit, he got a lot of people to show up who weren't regular voters.
In an off-year election, which we're heading into, normally about 35 to 40% of the folks who participate in a presidential election do not come back.
So it's the base of both parties and the most active people.
And it's more about turnout than it is persuasion.
And you kind of know who they are from year to year.
And what you've described in the state rep races are special elections that have just happened because somebody retired, they gave up, something happened.
And then you have even more of the base of the base show up in a special election.
And so what you see there is a more of a motivation right now by Democrats, which is a great sign for us headed into the midterm along with history.
History that we're fighting right now is normally the party that comes into power.
The other party normally picks up seats, and that's went on throughout history.
It's only been twice in the history of our great nation where that didn't happen.
Republicans control everything in Washington, D.C.
They control the presidency, the House, and the Senate.
So it's easy to make them the FOIA because they're in charge of everything.
You can be mad at Democrats, and you have your right to be mad at Democrats, but Democrats aren't controlling any lever of power.
So right now, you have a bunch of Republicans that are mad because of what they're seeing with the wars, but even more Democrats that are mad, and they're not in charge, so they're looking for a way to lash out.
And this upcoming election and the special elections that you mentioned are just two of the things that we're seeing.
There's a new poll out by Gallup of just this week that talked about a quarter of all Americans that they talked to have skipped meals to make sure that their children ate.
They were in the same quarter of people said that they were looking at turning their thermostat down just so they could afford their utility bills.
What you see is a crisis of affordability, and I think that's where Democrats are going to focus.
Well, you've had this administration, and I heard a lot of your callers earlier talk about the war, talk about what's going on overseas, all of the things that's been going on in the Oval Office with one world leader after another, which is an important part of the presidency.
But right now, every voter that I talk to are really hyper-focused on what's happening in their neighborhood with their prices, with the price of gasoline, the price of groceries.
That's what I hear over and over from voters all around the country.
One is they were promised by this president that he would bring prices down on day one.
Prices have never come down.
When folks hear that you're going to do something about inflation and people say that they're going to fix that, stopping inflation fixes it, but that's not what they think.
They think that prices are going to come down to pre-Biden, pre-COVID prices, and they just haven't, and they've continued to go up.
And now you have a president and a Congress who says, maybe we need $1.3, $1.5 trillion to pay for this war when we don't have money to pay for health care.
He just said last week for daycare and things that people have to worry with every single day.
Well, let's hear what President Trump said yesterday at that press conference when he was asked about the deadline for ending the war in Iraq, and then I'll get your response in Iran.
unidentified
Your messaging on the war has moved from the war is coming to an end to war going to be bombing Iran to the Stone Ages.
And we've heard a range of those kind of messages.
Well, I think if you care about the Iran war, if that's your number one issue, you want to hear a solution.
And he's saying he's negotiating, he's giving days.
But what I'm finding with voters, with folks who plan on voting in the upcoming election, this war is not one of their priorities.
And the only thing that they see in reflection to this war is the price of the gasoline that they're paying for and that they're reminded of each week when they go to the gas station or the price of their utility bills.
I keep going back to that because I run campaigns for a living.
And when I talk to voters, the Iran war or what's going on with negotiations or if they have a nuclear bomb or not is not the number one thing on their agenda.
The number one thing on most working families is, what am I going to pay for things this week?
And what am I going to have to, to that Gallup poll, cut off or not eat today to make sure that my kids eat.
They probably have the biggest impact because what we just spoke about is this is a turnout election for the midterms.
We know the people who love Donald Trump.
We know the people that are Democrats who hate Donald Trump.
But there's a group of folks in the middle who just want their government to work.
They want their government to get out of their way.
And they want prices to come down.
Those are the people that will really determine the number of congressional seats either party would need either to retain power or to pick up power.
So I'm most focused on them.
And that universe is getting bitter, bigger.
And let me finally say this.
Of registrations right now, especially with young people, especially with young Latinos, more folks are registering as independents than either party because they are frustrated with both parties.
The Latino vote may be the most consequential vote in the U.S. right now because they're swinging back and forth.
It used to be we talked about soccer moms or these blue-collar hard hat steel workers.
Right now, because Latinos are becoming such a growing part of the electorate, and this is mainly second and third generation English speakers, my grandparents came here as immigrants.
These folks were looking for an outlet because they're not tied to either party.
And you saw them swing dramatically for Donald Trump.
But now in the last four or five elections, you've seen them swing back.
And I'm talking about elections in Virginia, New Jersey, the Miami Mayor, and what just happened in this Texas primary in March.
All right, let's talk to callers and start with Joan in New Jersey, Independent Line.
Joan, you're on the air.
unidentified
Hi, good morning.
How are you?
Thank you for coming on this morning.
The one thing I want to talk about, and I've called here before and I feel like I get cut off every time I try to have this conversation.
And I heard another caller call in on Sunday with the same topic around racial resentment and the Democratic Party having this stigma of being a party that's sort of the giveaway party.
Like the Democrats are the one that gave away affirmative action, gave away food stamps, gave away equality, DEI, all these different things.
I don't think the Democrats are allowing and giving the other half of the country the grace and the acknowledgement to talk about these issues and letting them know it's okay because it does come across as racist when there are folks that feel that way,
that they don't like DEI, that they don't like to see the advancement of black people, that they don't like to know that they're black women or black men that have jobs that were historically a white man's job, right?
And there's a lot of hate and resentment in this country around that.
And if the Democrats do not start having that conversation and making it okay for white people who are resentful for the different type of programs that came about to kind of level this country out and also remind them, this country is no way leveled.
There is still a lot of people that have not, that are minorities and people of color that are still one or two percent of doing better than we were in the 60s.
But for some reason, there is a temperament in this country that's willing to support white nationalism to bring back the days of when they felt they were supreme.
But it's this hidden sort of like we can hide behind MAGA and Donald Trump and Stephen Miller and all these people with these hateful policies because they're pushing that agenda for us.
And if you're listening, nobody talks about this on TV very often, is the folks who actually are the strategists behind these campaigns are the power brokers.
And that is a white male and white female dominated area to where my firm, which is one of the only 100% minority owned and operated, is less than 1%.
So we've been trying to make space for people of color in consulting as the, we just talked about this Latino diaspora is becoming such a huge part.
The black diaspora has been such a historic part.
So I've been saying if you want to reach black and Latino voters, you should have more of those folks be the strategists or have be the campaign managers helping putting together public policy that actually helps those communities.
And I think that's when you'll see a Democratic Party and other folks be more reactive to that when they're at the table.
Bobby, Boynton Beach, Florida, Independent Line, good morning.
unidentified
Yeah, hi, and hi, Chuck.
You're doing a great job.
I agree with almost everything you've said.
What I'm concerned about right now is the fact that we have a Democratic Party and we have a Republican Party that are not speaking to one another.
They've abdicated all responsibilities toward what is going on with respect to Iran.
We have a president that, I mean, the war itself right now is a war of choice.
It's not, we haven't, there's been no act of war coming from Congress.
And frankly, my children and my grandchildren, because I'm an elderly person, I have great concern for their health and welfare with respect to domestic issues that seem to be, they're being ignored at the present time.
And I think that the Democrats and Republicans have got together, have got to get together and do the same thing they did when Tip O'Neill was speaker, and they need to negotiate and compromise with one another.
I have a great answer to this question, and it's really the crux of everything that's wrong with our government.
Let's take for one example the system that we run in.
And there's 435 congressional seats.
And you should know, and your viewers should know, that of the 435, 400 of them are very safe Republican seats or Democratic seats.
And what do I mean by safe?
That means that they've been drawn by state legislatures to be so Democratic for Democrats or so Republican by Republicans that they cannot be beat by the opposing party in the general election.
So what does that mean?
That means the only way you can beat those folks is if you beat them in their primaries.
For a Democrat on the Democratic primary, Republicans on the Republican primaries.
This is really important.
So what does that mean?
That means you have to run to the far right if you're a Republican or the far left if you're a Democrat to make sure that you don't have opposition from that part of your party because it's only base voters, y'all, who vote in those primaries.
So that leaves 30 districts, 35 districts to your point, that you really have to come to the middle, talk to Democrats and Republicans because you can be beaten the general elections.
In the Tip O'Neill days, there were over 100 of those districts that were marginal seats that could flip back and forth.
So you had more people coming together to look at commonality and look at maybe I would be okay getting 70 or 80 percent of that bill, even though I disagree with 30 percent.
You very rarely, because if folks do that in the modern Congress, they will get primaried either from their far right by the Republicans or by the far left by the Democrats.
And that's the reason we're in the position we're with the do-nothing Congress.
Look, if the straits get open and gas prices come down, I think that the American people will make that decision.
I don't need to.
You just talked about every special election that has happened since Donald Trump has been president, and no Republican has picked up a single seat because the Americans are mad.
Not Chuck Rocha.
If that was in fact true, they would not be losing elections after Donald Trump.
He'd be winning bigly, as he says.
And I don't hope for war, and I don't hope for the prices to go up.
I hope we get out of this war.
I was never in favor of this war to begin with, and I hope that nobody gets in any more deaths in this war whatsoever.
I don't wish for my president to fail.
I wish he would bring prices down the way that he said on day one, and I wish Americans could all get along.
What do you make of the argument that Democrats are just against President Trump because it's President Trump and that whatever he does or whatever he says, even if it's good, Democrats will say it's bad?
And that's what a lot of these, remember we just talked about the consultants?
That's what a lot of them will tell their candidates to do.
They're like, look, the Republicans are shooting themselves in the foot, and they're in charge of everything.
If we do nothing, we're going to win back Congress.
And if we do nothing, we'll probably win back Congress by, my guesstimation, I've been running campaigns for 35 years.
We'd win it back by seven, eight, ten seats.
But if we say why we're against him and what is our vision for America and what vision we would have to put a check on this government and give a vision forward, I think that would go from picking up 10 seats to picking up 30 seats.
I think that's what America wants.
They're frustrated, there's no doubt.
But will Democrats say, and here is our vision for the future and why we're against the war and why we're against the things that we're seeing from the Republicans?
You have to do both things, Democrats, at the same time.
Listen to me carefully.
You have to tell the American people why they should fire the Republicans and give them the reason why you disagree with Republicans.
But then also give your vision for the future of this country going forward and what you want to see going into 2028 and the next presidential election if you really want to reset the political pillars in our country.
That means, what does it mean that I talk about these things in my profession, but a horrible map means that there's very few places that have states that are blue or purple where we could flip a seat to make it Democratic.
Let's start with: we need three seats to get the majority.
I feel like we can flip a seat in North Carolina and Maine, but that would still put us one seat down, and we would have to hold Georgia and Michigan.
Now, I think we can hold Georgia and Michigan because it's a year after the president's got elected.
So at least, where can we pick up the one more seat?
Well, we may pick it up in Iowa.
We may pick it up with Sherrod Brown in Ohio.
We may pick it up with Palatone in Alaska or Texas.
But all of those are pretty red states, and I'm wishing to pick up just one.
And if we just pick up that one, the viewers should know it's still 50-50, and Vice President Vance would still break all of those ties in the Senate.
So it gets really hard for Democrats.
But I think it's a special year because you have somebody like Vinman running in Florida, which nobody thought Florida would be in play.
But Vinman has just raised more money in the first quarter of his race than anybody ever has.
He's a veteran.
He's a refugee.
There's all of these great candidates running in places that might, and I say might, have a chance, like in Florida, Texas, Ohio.
There's even a bigger story than that, and that is everybody compares this election cycle to 2018 when Democrats won back the House after Donald Trump was first elected.
It was the same history that we've been talking about.
And folks would say, well, it's probably going to play out a lot like that, Chuck.
Do you see any differences?
The biggest difference is this money piece.
Not as much as the Democratic or the Republican National Committee.
They don't play as much in Senate races.
They will in governor's races.
But the biggest difference is the $300 million that Donald Trump has in his super PAC.
Donald Trump did not have that his first time in.
And Donald Trump will spend that money to defend Republicans.
And Democrats should get ready for that because when we won back the House in 2018, we outspent the Democrats outspent the Republicans almost five to one in House and Senate races.
With that $300 million that the president has, that's going to level the playing field for money.
And it could have, it could have, big it could have, a big effect on these midterm elections.
But that's the biggest difference between 2018 and what we're seeing now.
Well, first, I want to thank Robert for his service and his family's service.
I think, especially at a time when we're overseas and we're bombing folks, that's, you know, I think a lot about my grandfather, who was in World War II.
And when he brought up the Geneva Convention, and I was on TV earlier today talking about this, is that one of the points that folks bring up is that if you go to start bombing civilian-type entities like bridges and power grids, that would fall out of the realm of what we should be doing and the code of ethics within military.
But the real point and the real difference between that and what we saw back when the Geneva Convention was written, and I said this, is that we have social media and we have so much more information swirling around.
Some of that's fake.
Some of that is whatever you want to call it.
But you just have lots of incoming on people.
And the real difference right now is because folks have so many outlets for their frustrations.
This great program, other programs, is like, where does this fall on the scale?
Yeah, folks don't think that he should be bombing water Selenium plants for cutting off water electricity people, but where does that fall in today's world where they're, I'm going to go back to this because this is what I keep hearing from working families across the country, Democrat, Republican, or Independent, is like, this week I got to figure out how to make my bills.
And I realize that Iran is a terrorist country and they've supported lots of bad things.
But what does that have to do with what I'm trying to deal with here at home and just make ends meet every single day?
And those are the two conflicting messages.
And we'll see which one of those wins as we move into the midterms.
Craig in North Carolina, Independent Lion, you're on the air.
unidentified
Yes, ma'am.
I'd just like to tell this gentleman, if Iran just went and they gave up all their nuclear material and let the governments give them material that was way, way undergrade and not where they could use it for a nuclear weapon.
And if they opened up the straits, they could end this thing right now.
So he's saying that Trump is terrible for doing what he's doing, but Trump went in there for these purposes.
And if they just caved, why in the world wouldn't everybody be saying, hey, you know, Donald Trump is right.
If they did these type of things, I would stop this thing now.
I would help them rebuild.
I would help them do whatever it took.
But if they don't do these two things, I cannot let them have that material in order to make a nuclear bomb.
He's bombing all of the people that all of the Arabs in his area.
They're not fighting him.
They're not bombing him.
But they're sending bombs over.
They will bomb anybody with this nuclear weapon to take over the world.
So all they have to do is say, I give up, come in here, take the material, know it's gone, and we will be a good society for the world.
Mr. Rocha, I'm so glad that I get a chance to talk to you.
I follow you, and you make a lot of common sense of things that people like myself, working people, really appreciate.
I have a comment and then a question for you.
My comment is, is that recently I know we've all seen this post-it that Mr. Trump put out about the people over in Iran.
He used some vulgar language, which myself and a number of people I know thought that that was just really above and beyond what he should be doing.
I guess I look at it as a saber-rattling and, you know, kind of upping the, how can I put it, the threat of violence, you know, like almost like a bully on the street.
My question is, do you think, based on what you were just talking about, the fact that he sit there, bombed them, where they had no capacity of making any type of nuclear bombs, do you think if the president, and I use that term loosely, had went in using diplomacy before starting this bombing, that we could be looking at this situation in a different, from a different view?
Because I mean, it's known.
It's a given that America is a superpower.
That's my question and everything.
So I'll take my answer off the air and thank you, sir.
Will, thank you for your nice comments and thanks for the follow.
I like to break down my statements.
For those of you at home, you should know I've never been to college.
I grew up in a trailer house in East Texas.
I was a teenage father and I worked with my hands.
These calluses are real.
And I always defer back to my grandmama and my grandfather who raised me on a farm in East Texas about like, where would they be today?
And I think about when I was, I'm old.
So I remember the threat of Russia and the nuclear bomb and how we all had those drills in high school.
Remember when we got under like getting under the desk was going to save us.
But we kind of had an understanding and we trusted our government.
And I think even Donald Trump, who I don't like and I disagree with, if he went to the American people and to the Congress and said, look, there's a threat here.
Hey, we didn't get all their nuclear stuff when we dropped the bombs a year ago.
Now we're afraid they're going to have a bomb in a couple weeks.
So we're going to go in here with Israel and we're going to do this thing.
We're going to get in.
We're going to get out.
We're going to do this.
And gas prices may bump for a little bit, but I promise you, I got a plan, and here's my plan.
American people just want a president who's going to be honest with them and be upfront with them.
And would we be in a different situation if that went on?