John Cardillo examines Trump’s May 2018 withdrawal from the JCPOA, calling Iran’s uranium enrichment a breach despite European signatories’ (UK, France, Germany, Russia, China) economic ties, and sanctions as justified leverage. He praises Netanyahu’s intelligence coup—105K files exposing Iran’s deception—and defends Gina Haspel’s CIA confirmation amid "fake news" attacks, contrasting her with Brennan’s politicized leadership. Europe’s weak response to Iran’s escalation post-exit reveals prioritizing trade over security, while Trump’s strategic messaging to Iranian dissidents mirrors Reagan-era tactics. Cardillo predicts Republicans will hold House and Senate control in 2018 midterms, dismissing "blue wave" fears, and endorses Scott Ullinger as a viable GOP candidate in Pennsylvania’s 9th District, framing him as the true populist alternative. [Automatically generated summary]
Today, on off the cuff declassified, President Donald Trump pulled us out of that disastrous Iran deal.
It's no more for the United States.
Former CIA station chief Scott Ullinger joins me to discuss that and incoming CIA director Gina Haspel.
More allegations being leveled against President Trump's personal attorney, Michael Cohen.
Is there any there there?
Or is it just more fake news?
And four states decided primaries last night ahead of the 2018 midterms.
I'll tell you what that means for either a blue or a red wave in November.
President Trump removed the United States yesterday from the disastrous Iran deal, and it was one of the most outstanding statements I've ever heard from a sitting United States president.
Speech was short.
It was only about 20 minutes all in.
It was succinct.
It was direct.
It was powerful.
And it sent many nuanced messages.
And we're going to talk all about those right now.
The speech was very clear-cut.
Iran was cheating on the deal.
They're enriching nuclear materials for weaponization.
We can't have it.
The deal was embarrassing.
Obama sent them money.
John Kerry was violating the Logan Act out there trying to sell that deal.
We're going to be talking about John Kerry, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton's reactions in a second.
They're in a minute or two.
They're embarrassing.
But Trump was very, very forceful.
Now, one of the other things that came from this is that the Iranian regime, Rwani and Khomeini, basically after the deal said they're going to start enriching uranium and ramping up their weapons production.
They're threatening the world.
They proved our point, didn't they?
Because it was only the U.S. that withdrew from the deal.
The U.K., France, Germany, Russia, China, they're all still in the deal.
So what Iran is saying to all of them are, you don't matter.
We were playing you guys like fools.
Hell, we were playing the U.S. like fools too, until this new guy came in, saw through our BS and called us on it.
So now that he's called us on it, now that he and Netanyahu have called us on it, what do we have to lose?
I'm not going to listen to you idiots.
We're going to enrich our uranium.
If you don't like it, too bad, do something about it.
And Russia's patting them on the back and saying, wait, what we wanted all along.
Good move.
Because you know what?
The U.S. was being played.
We were being played.
Kerry and Obama were Patsies.
That's not the word I want to use.
The word I want to use begins with B and ends with itches.
That's how Iran treated Kerry and Obama.
The Mullahs in Iran saw them as weak and ineffective and soft, and they walked all over them.
Trump called the deal defective at its core.
Now, Iran's leader honestly warned his country might start enriching uranium more than before, like I had mentioned a little bit ago.
And what kind of message does that send about the respect Iran has for the European nations?
He has none.
The European Union is pretty much no more.
They're yesterday's news.
They're obsolete.
They have no power.
They're just worried about preserving their oil interests with Iran.
They don't want Iran to raise the price of oil on them.
So they're doing whatever Iran says.
Now, Iran knows that the U.S., they have no leverage with the U.S. We're going to be the largest net exporter of producer and exporter of crude by 2023, and we're already ramping up natural gas.
And it's a ludicrous assertion.
Anybody who believed, anybody in the Obama administration who believed that Iran was playing around with nuclear materials for scientific research and medical applications is a moron.
Iran is flush with oil and natural gas.
They don't need nuclear power.
Why would they spend all that money developing nuclear power when they're sitting on massive reserves of fossil fuels that can power their country for the next infinite amount of years?
No, and you don't bury centrifuges.
Now, this move by Trump is also going to penalize.
So Trump, after removing us from the deal, said that he was immediately imposing some of the harshest sanctions.
He's also penalizing any countries that do business with Iran.
And I believe that that was aimed at Germany.
We know that Germany sold Iran the binary components for the chemical weapons used in Syria.
I think that was a loud and clear message to Germany.
American company Boeing, Secretary of Treasury Steve Mnuchin, said Boeing is going to have the deal that was approved revoked to sell aircraft to Iran.
We are clamping down Airbus as well.
We pulled Airbus's right to sell Iran aircraft.
Now, these are sanctions that'll hurt Iran.
Iran's going to save a rattle, but of course, the minute they did, Obama and Kerry folded like cheap suits packed in wet cardboard.
I mean, these two guys have zero spine.
Can't even call them men.
Terrible.
Now, the administration is going to impose sanctions on Iran immediately, but it's going to allow businesses to wind down their operations.
It's going to give them time.
And Trump left the options open-ended, right?
At the end of the speech, well, near the end, because we're going to get into what he did at the very end of the speech, which is very, very important.
During the speech, he was absolute.
Terrible deal, defective at its core.
Iran was developing terrible weapons.
They were going to use them.
They were going to give them to countries or share the technology with countries like Yemen and Syria, which is why countries like Jordan and Saudi Arabia are on our side in this whole thing.
Yemen and Saudi Arabia have had a volatile relationship.
Jordan has been a good ally for us in the war on terror.
They don't need the trouble.
They don't need the trouble.
Now, we know Iran's ultimate goal is the Shia Crescent and the eradication of Israel.
Iran also is very close with Hezbollah and Hamas.
Interestingly, they're not very close with the other terror factions in Syria, but they are with Hezbollah and Hamas.
Hezbollah, of course, is now picking up seats in the Lebanese parliament.
And Hezbollah has always, well, for the recent past, has controlled Lebanon with proxies and de facto.
Well, now, Hezbollah picking up seats in their legislature gives them actual public control of Lebanon, which sits right on the coast with Israel, which gives Iran a very large land bridge over to Israel to destroy Israel, gives it the warm water access and the Medit desires.
It gives Russia that warm water access.
It's a disastrous situation letting Iran grow as a nuclear power.
There's no upside.
But Obama and Kerry, they knew this, but they had more sinister motives.
The U.S. isn't dependent on Iranian oil.
So we get why China and Germany and UK and France were playing ball here.
The U.S. had no reason to play ball.
It was just Obama and Kerry's desire to be loved by third world thugs and really their policy of appeasement.
They were so terrified, so afraid of their own shadows.
They balked every time somebody barked that they gave in.
It was embarrassing to the United States.
Trump was criticizing the deal.
Mitch McConnell said the deal was flawed from the beginning.
But Nancy Pelosi, of course, said it's a rash decision that isolates America, not Iran.
Well, she's wrong.
No, it isolates Iran.
We're America.
The world looks to us.
We're not Iran.
See, Democrats see us as equal, and we're not equal.
And that's the fundamental problem with progressives of the Democratic Party.
They think we're equal to Iran.
We're not.
We never will be, nor do we want to be.
Now, let's talk about the end of Trump speech.
Then we'll get into the really irritating statements from Obama and Kerry.
The end of Trump's speech was full of things that I thought were some of the most diplomatically and strategically brilliant moves I've ever seen a president make.
Most importantly, well, equally as importantly of what came next.
He spoke directly to the Iranian people.
This was really critical because the left was salivating for him not to do that.
So at the end, they could say, see, Donald Trump doesn't understand international diplomacy.
He's just a bull in a China shop.
He embarrassed us.
He lumped the mullahs in with the Iranian people.
Except he didn't.
Trump is a guy in his early 70s, and he remembers that life was pretty good under the Shah.
I was a little kid when the Islamic Revolution happened in 1979.
And I remember news, being like four or five, six years old, the news on how Iran was a friend of the U.S.
And then this Islamic Revolution came and they held our hostages for a year and Jimmy Carter was played like a fool by the Ayatollah Khomeini and then Ronald Reagan was elected and the hostages were released and Iran fell into this abyss of Muslim, theocratic, oppressive rule.
Well, people my age, people in their 40s like me, people in the late 30s even who were really little kids, remember what life was like under the Shah.
Their parents remember vividly how good it was.
The Iranian people, with the exception of very few are by and large secular, oppressed by a violent Muslim regime who used the revolutionary guards as their modern negestapo to suppress revolution, to suppress freedom.
So people in Iran are not the mullahs.
They're not the Muslim theocratic ruling class.
And Trump knows that, and he addressed them.
And that drove the left insane because he took the air out of one of their opposition points towards Trump.
As importantly, Trump mentioned North Korea at the very end of the speech and told us that while he was speaking, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was in the air to North Korea to meet with Kim to finalize the details of Trump's meeting with the North Korean and South Korean leaders.
And they said they've got a place, a time, a date, a whole bit.
They didn't tell us where.
It's classified for security reasons.
But it was very important that he mentioned North Korea because he was talking to North Korea.
He was saying to North Korea, look what just happened to Iran.
I'm imposing the toughest sanctions they've ever seen.
This will happen to you if you even think about stepping a millimeter out of line.
And make no mistake, Iran was watching.
North Korea was watching.
And lastly, when Trump left the room, camera followed him.
It always does.
And then it hung for a second or two as he was walking back into the White House from that press area.
And you saw Vice President Mike Pence and National Security Advisor John Bolton standing in the doorway waiting for the president, with their hands.
That sent a message to the world that we're a unified team.
All this press, all this fake news about discord in the White House is nonsense.
We're a unified team.
Bolton Pence and I are unified on our foreign policy.
This is not Barack Obama, John Kerry, Susan Rice, Ben Rhodes, Hillary Clinton.
This is not the weak F team.
This is the A ⁇ team.
We're a unified front.
The world is on notice.
A strong America is back.
And then right after that, a friend of mine, the new ambassador to Germany, Rick Rinnell, very proud of Rick.
He's going to be an outstanding ambassador.
He put Germany on notice about an hour afterward.
He's in lockstep with the administration.
And with Mike Pompeo as an ambassador, he reports to Mike Pompeo.
And Rick also talks directly with the president.
They're very friendly.
He put them on notice, Germany, you better stop doing business with Iran.
This is such a departure from the weakness of the Obama administration.
Such a departure.
So let's look at weak Obama's statement.
Obama issued this very long statement, but I'll read some in substance.
He wrote, quote, in a democracy, there will always be changes in policies and priorities from one administration to the next.
But the consistent flouting of agreements that our country is a party to risks eroding America's credibility and puts us at odds with the world's major powers.
No, it doesn't.
Iraq's just upset that the United States is strong again.
He and his Zelenskyite buddies wanted to fundamentally weaken us.
He wrote also, the reality is clear.
JCPOA is working.
No, working.
It would be working if he wasn't trying to relate to everyday American.
Now, this is moronic.
So he keeps going on and on and on, and he talks about how one of my favorite is that he, my favorites in here is that he says that Israel is less safe because of this.
Meanwhile, Netanyahu is, I'm not going to read his whole statement.
I forget if it's Obama or Kerry.
One of them said that Israel is now less safe because of this, but nobody asked Israel because Netanyahu called President Trump's decision an historic move.
The embassy is opening in Jerusalem.
The U.S. Embassy is opening in Jerusalem early next week, and they're naming a little park after Donald Trump.
So Israel seems to be on board with this.
They feel much safer with what Donald Trump did, but Obama and Kerry are, of course, saying that Israel is less safe.
Let's read John Kerry, loser John Kerry's statement.
Quote, today, today's announcement weakens our security, breaks America's word, isolates us from European allies, puts Israel at greater risk.
Yeah, so it was Kerry that mentioned Israel, not Obama.
Puts Israel at greater risk, empowers Iran's hardliners, and reduces our global leverage to address Tehran's misbehavior while damaging the ability of future administrations to make international agreements.
No rhetoric is required.
The facts speak for themselves.
Instead of building on unprecedented non-proliferation verification measures, it's a nice way of saying toothless, toothless measures.
You couldn't do anything.
Let Iran enrich uranium, and you could only inspect the places they would let you inspect.
This decision risks throwing them away and dragging the world back to the brink we faced a few years ago.
No, we were always at the brink.
You moron, you guys, you and Obama decided to put your heads in the sand and make believe Iran was nice.
The extent of the damage will depend on what Europe can do to hold the nuclear agreement together.
Well, apparently not much, because Iran said they're going to start enriching uranium even more.
They don't respect Europe.
And it will depend on Iran's reaction.
America should never have to outsource those stakes to any other country.
This is not in America's interest.
We should all hope the world can preserve the nuclear agreement.
There was no nuclear agreement, John Kerry.
The only agreement was Iran got to enrich nuclear materials for weaponization while you looked the other way.
Do you think people are stupid?
Now, Hillary Clinton, I've got to find her tweets, because she was out there ranting and raving as well.
Let's read what Granny Dementia had to say.
He wrote, as Secretary of State, I helped negotiate the crippling international sanctions that brought Iran to the table.
It would be much harder a second time now that our credibility is shot.
You're not going to get a second chance, Hillary.
You're never going to be president.
Get over it.
It will also be harder to deal with other threats like ballistic missiles and terrorism.
Iranian Dissident Revelations00:09:33
Now we have no leverage and Iran is free to do what it wants.
Read what President Obama wrote about it here.
Again, not true.
A strong U.S. is going to keep Iran in check.
Not like you, idiots.
Look, this has nothing to do with international agreements.
If anything, all the left is saying, no, nobody's ever going to trust us again.
No.
Now the world knows we're never going to enter into an agreement from a position of weakness again.
Now, when you enter into an agreement with the United States, you better be damn well sure you can hold up your end of the bargain.
if you don't, you're going to wind up like Iran and North Korea.
A lot going on in the world with regards to our intelligence agencies, this massive intelligence coup by Israel in which we cooperated.
We've got the Iran deal.
We're exiting the Iran deal.
And Gina Haspel will be facing tough questions from the Senate on her confirmation as an ex-CIA director.
I want to bring in somebody who knows far more about this than most others, my good friend, former CIA station chief, Scott Eulinger.
Full disclosure, Scott is a candidate for Congress in Pennsylvania's ninth Congressional District's GOP primary.
I am supporting and endorsing Scott, but he's here today, not as a candidate, but really as a subject matter expert.
Scott, thanks for being here.
All right, let's start with very briefly the Israeli intelligence operation.
The left is saying, oh, we already knew all this stuff and we shouldn't have pulled out of the Iran deal.
This was quite the intelligence coup on the part of Israel.
Really, Iran is humiliated by this intelligence failure.
And this is the kind of thing with so much domestic opposition to the regime.
This is another reason to show that the regime is incompetent and can't even manage national security.
The whole Arab world is laughing at this coup on the part of Israel.
Of course.
Right.
Now, you operated in and around Iran.
This has to be, the embarrassment has to be exacerbated by the fact that it's Israel.
I mean, there would be embarrassing.
That's right.
The U.S. or Jordan or France, but it being Israel has to raise this by infinite magnitudes in terms of embarrassment, right?
We have to remember that's right.
You know, they always have the Muslim world always has a very odd view of Israelis.
They loathe them, but at the same time, they fear them.
They look upon Israelis as being superhuman and incredibly smart.
So, you know, and people able to do things that no other people are able to pull off.
And so this is, you know, I guess another example of that.
But the other thing is that, you know, the international community is saying, oh, this is information we knew before.
And a lot of that, some of that is partially true.
But the point is, is that this brings, this forces the liberal community to admit that, you know, we know the Iranians were lying, but we pretended not to see it.
So they've known all along that the Iranians are a bunch of serial liars.
And this, the fact that this information is now in their face forces them to basically confront the fact that they probably did know the Iranians were lying, but now they're compelled.
Now it's obvious that they went into the deal knowing this.
Right.
Now let's move over to the Iran deal.
President Trump's press conference yesterday, a statement really, because he only took about three questions, was, I thought, and look, I'm a Trump supporter.
I'm a partisan.
You were a Trump delegate.
But objectively analyzing this, I thought it was one of the most presidential statements I've heard in a very long time.
It was clear, decisive, succinct, lasted about 20 minutes.
He said all the things we expected him to say.
The deal was defective at its core.
It was a terrible deal.
Iran was cheating.
They were lying.
He's immediately placing the sanctions back on Iran.
They're going to be some of the most restrictive.
But I want to talk about the nuance.
Now, you were with the CIA.
You understand the diplomatic nuance.
I thought there were three things that happened that were very interesting to me.
One is that he drew the distinction between the Iranian people who were under the Shah and spoke directly to them.
Two was that at the end, he mentioned North Korea and that Secretary of State Pompeo was in the air there.
So I felt like that speech was really for North Korea as much as for Iran.
And third, when he left the room, the camera briefly hung when he walked back into the White House on the shot of Mike Pence, Vice President Mike Pence, and National Security Advisor John Bolton.
To me, that was purposeful.
And Trump was telling the world, forget the fake news.
We're a unified team.
There's a new sheriff and new deputies in town.
What was your takeaway?
You're exactly right about the unified front.
And it is very important what he said.
And it was really laudable.
He talked about, you know, he praised Persian culture and he did make a distinction between the leadership and the people, because that is the real vulnerability here.
You know, what we've seen in the past couple of years, street demonstrations this year in particular, that the regime is really embattled right now.
And this is going to further put them on the defensive.
There is recent Israeli humiliation, some strikes in Syria that killed Iranians by showing that the Western world is pushing back and the people are increasingly dissatisfied.
So he's empowering them by saying, basically, almost the underwritten, what he didn't say, but it's apparent is that if there were, for instance, street demonstrations to break out, the United States would not be afraid to support them.
So this is a very Reagan-esque kind of thing where we did the same thing with the Soviet Union.
Reagan always tried to empower the Russian people against their oppressors.
And so it's the same kind of thing here.
So that's a really, that's really positive news.
But what I want to see, the next step I want to see is I want to see him meet with leading Iranian dissidents, which would positively infuriate the theocracy in Iran.
Oh, it certainly would.
And such a great point about Reagan, right?
Because I always say it wasn't mutually assured destruction.
It wasn't ICBMs pointed at each other that brought the Berlin Wall down.
Ultimately, it was McDonald's and Moscow and Levi's genes being smuggled in.
It was capitalism and the Russian people's desire to have these Western goods that brought that wall down.
But I think Reagan stimulated that, right, by riling the people up and letting them know, hey, if you do rebel, we're there for you.
And I think that's what I'm saying.
And he also read.
And he also called them what they were.
He called them an evil empire, which actually gave heart to dissidents worldwide that, wow, here's an American president who's actually willing to speak the truth because too many times it was buried in diplomatic language.
But he said, look, they're an evil empire and that's that.
So, you know, Trump is moving in that direction and putting a lot of pressure on the mullahs in Iran.
Now, you make a great point about him meeting with Iranian dissidents because Iran is very unique insofar as those who fled the Shah and came to the U.S., not all of them, but a vast majority, pretty wealthy, highly educated, successful people.
That's right.
These are not people that, I mean, these are people that run very, very large corporations.
They're physicians, they're attorneys, they're professionals in finance.
They're qualified to step in and prop up a very effective government and a very effective economy.
You know, I mean, you could say, I guess in a lot of ways, it's similar to the Cuban community in Florida.
And very much.
They are.
And they're ready to do it.
You know, the Iranian dissident groups are very important.
I know, for one thing, we talk about when you talk about intelligence.
I know one of the Iranian nuclear facilities, let's say six or seven or eight years ago, that the U.S. intelligence had no clue about was revealed by Iranian dissident groups.
Iranian dissident groups did their own intelligence work and publicized for the first time worldwide that Iran had a facility located in one area that Western intelligence had no clue about.
So they're a very valuable group and they're really to be lauded and supported.
And like I said, what do you think the likelihood is?
I mean, obviously, we know Israel had to have someone on the inside, somebody who realized in Iran that the Muellers were insane and they were driving the world toward nuclear war because you couldn't get that kind of access unless someone was helping you, correct?
Oh, yeah, of course.
There's no question about it.
And having recruited Iranians myself, it's fascinating, but it's not as hard.
The problem is getting in front of the person.
But once you start talking to them, or if you're able to meet them securely, you know, everyone knows everyone basically hates their regime unless you're going to talk to some hardliner from the IRGC or something.
So, you know, it's a matter of what are they willing to do to support what they believe.
You know, so most of them just are fed up with the corruption and the corruption and of the Iranian regime.
And they're tired of how it infringes on their lifestyle, how they can't travel, how they're an international pariah.
So it's somewhat easy to motivate these people.
Hey, look, you know, you're in a position to help us.
You need to help your country, help your country against the mullahs, and give us this information.
So the Iranians, I'm sure these Israelis have numerous inroads into the Iranian dissident community.
Yeah, which would have been impossible without.
Now, by IRGC, of course, mean the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, right?
Right, exactly.
And effectively, the SS of the regime.
Yeah, they'll like the SS, Estapo, and special operations all rolled into one.
And that's right.
Right.
With the sprinkling of the old brutal KGB.
That's right.
Operations Officer Needed00:04:20
Let's move on to Gina Haspel.
Now, did you ever interface with her while you were at CIA, but you worked there?
Your careers overlapped.
Positive, negative.
What have you heard about her from the rank and file if you didn't work with her yourself?
So I didn't work with her, but I've certainly heard positive things.
Now, yesterday, I believe there was a statement put out by 75 former CIA officers endorsing her.
And I certainly believe that that's appropriate.
This is one of those footballs that the Democrats love to try to play in terms of they use it as a way of attacking the quote torture policy.
But in fact, we have to all remember that the CIA is not a policy organ.
It does what this told.
They're an instrument of policy.
They're not a policy maker and try and explain that to people.
But it was the what they're really criticizing her for, Scott.
Correct me if I'm wrong, is that she presided over a black site in Southeast Asia while was it Anwar al-Al-Laki or was that who they were saying?
Was that the site?
I think, yes.
Right.
He was waterboard.
Now, first of all, I couldn't care less if we drowned this guy.
I mean, he's a terrible, terrible guy.
But then it turned out, well, that was all fake news.
She was stationed at that particular black site.
Bothers me that the fact that that black site exists was even linked to the press.
Forgetting that for a moment, she was stationed there, but at a time when Al-Alaki wasn't even there.
And so that's typical of the peace media.
Right.
That's typical of the drive-by media that do things like that.
And, you know, she, like I said, has an excellent reputation and she is an operations officer.
She would be the first operations officer running the CIA since the days of William Colby in the 70s.
Because after that, we basically have just presidential appointees like ex-former President Bush and intelligence and intelligence managers, but not people who've worked in the field as an operations type.
So that's, I think that that's something that the agency needs at this point because thanks to all the politicization we're seeing, we saw under the Democrats, you know, the agency like the FBI is having, you know, is feeling its oats a little bit with a loss of reputation.
Yeah.
Thanks to, you know, thanks to disgraceful people like former CIA director Brennan.
So let's get somebody from the field in there as a way of like enhancing morale and somebody who really has walked the walk.
So, you know, it's funny when you said that she was an operations officer, I immediately FBI just popped into my head.
I literally saw the letters FBI because that's been a complaint.
The rank and file agents I know, people like Bobby Chacone, I have him on the show pretty much as much as I have you.
And one of the criticisms is always the FBI brings in these DOJ lawyers who've never worked a day on the street.
They weren't even analysts at the FBI.
They typically come out of DOJ.
They were prosecutors or civil division attorneys.
Now they're running the world's premier law enforcement organization.
It's got to be, there's a fundamental disconnect.
And I would imagine that would say as well.
You know, look, I want an operations officer at the helm.
The operations people are the ones putting their lives on the line.
The analysts do great work and they protect America, but they're not in the line of fire.
They're not operating behind enemy lines, right?
We need an operations person to understand how these things happen and what the stakes are, correct?
Yeah, there's no question about it.
And, you know, they understand better the new, you know, she may have a language or two under her belt, and she just understands the nuances of dealing with foreign officials, with foreigners, having handled sources through her career.
So I applaud it.
And hopefully the Democrats will not be too obstructive with this confirmation process.
Now, how do you think she was able to survive and actually get a positive endorsement from Brennan?
Was she just smart at playing those office politics?
Right.
I think that that may be the case.
And the fact that she's a woman, I think, may have also, you know, even though she's a good officer, would maybe partially shield her from maybe some of the more, and I'm sure she's also less partisan and she tries to steer a middle course.
So that also helped her politically, which is fine because that's exactly what you want, actually.
We don't want somebody who does it.
You don't want somebody who's too far to one side or the other, you know, and so that's a good thing.
And then so the same thing that may have insulated her from some criticism is something else that maybe would make her a more effective leader at the agency.
Why She Survived00:04:05
So you operated extensively against Russian assets, recruited Russians for the United States.
What do you think Russia's next move is with Iran now that we've pulled out of the deal?
Do they pat him on the back, wink and nod, and tell him to go develop weapons or does this concern Russia?
I mean, that's the, I think that, I think that Russia will proceed cautiously.
Russia will try to, in this case, support Europe in trying to get Trump back to the table.
Or, you know, Trump left the door open a little bit.
He did leave it open a little bit.
He said if Iran is willing to come back and be more logical and responsible, he's willing to talk to him.
So the Russians will try to play that up with the French and other countries who want to see basically their business deals like Airbus and things like that go through with the Iranians.
So they will support the Europeans in this regard.
In the end, though, they're going to have to accept defeat if Trump decides not to totally break the deal, which I think is appropriate.
So yeah, we'll just have to see.
I mean, it's going to take at least six months.
The sanctions will take hold, but it's going to take several months for that to happen.
You know, our new ambassador in Germany commented on that.
Yeah, you know, Rick Brinnell, he's a friend of mine.
And Rick, and I believe, did you meet Rick last time we were in DC?
No, actually, I didn't.
That's right.
He had come in.
We were all in a restaurant together.
Right.
And Rick had left right before you came in, or you had actually left to drive back to Pennsylvania before he came in.
And then that's a meeting that could happen.
You guys have a lot to talk about.
But Rick was on top of it.
Ambassador Grinnell.
I mean, within an hour, he was basically putting German companies on notice that, hey, wind down your business operations.
We're not here.
That's right.
Exactly.
It was appropriate.
And of course, he was criticized for that, but that was a good warning to give, you know, because that's the way it is with the harder sanctions.
It's going to be a choice of dealing with the United States or dealing with Iran.
And that's the way we've got to use our economic power as another way to leverage our diplomatic power.
And so, you know, totally appropriate statement and totally appropriate actions.
You know, that's this is welcome to the real world of power politics.
You know, we abandoned that under Obama with our leading from behind ideas, but now we're playing, you know, the grown-ups are back in power and we're doing it the way it's supposed to be played.
So now, last question, Scott, because we're running out of time.
Didn't it send a message to the world that the UK, Germany, France, even Russia and China pretty much got played by Iran, that Iran had no intention of honoring this deal?
Because right after we pulled out, Iran said, we're going to ramp up our uranium enrichment.
We're going to weaponize now even harder, even faster, even more aggressively.
I mean, what is that saying to the world about the clout that the European nations, China, and Russia hold with Iran?
Isn't that Iran spitting in their faces?
It is, but they will, but they will absorb that blow basically in hopes of helping revive their increasingly kind of flatline economies with increased business to Iran.
So they're going to choke that down and just pretend it wasn't said so they can move forward with the business deals, which generally speaking has been the Europeans' attitude for several years now.
They just, that's all they see right now with kind of flat economic growth without like basically the, you know, the regulatory policies and the economic growth policies of President Trump.
Without those, they depend on increasing market share in places like Iran, which were cut off from world trade for the most part by the sanctions.
So they're going to just eat it and just try to move forward with and try to and try to keep maintain this deal or convince Trump otherwise, you know?
You know, I wish Europe had more of a backbone.
Scott, as always a pleasure.
Thanks very much.
Tell them about, tell the audience about your race really quickly.
Full disclosure, I'm endorsing Scott.
I'm helping Scott.
We need guys like Scott in Congress.
Where can they find out more about your race?
And if they live in Pennsylvania's 9th District, vote for you.
If they live in Pennsylvania, volunteer, help out your campaign.
Right.
Well, people can certainly check out my Facebook page, Scott Ullinger for Congress.
And they can also check out my online, my page, which is at scottforpa.com, scottf-o-r-p-a.com.
I'm on Twitter also at scott4pa.
And so, yeah, get involved.
We're doing really well.
Columbus Nova Donations Debate00:09:44
Just a couple more days till the May 15th primary, and I'm very optimistic.
The word's gotten out about my rhino opponent.
People understand, you know, he's a false kind of a guy, and that I'm the real Make America Great Again candidate, Sebastian Borka.
We'll be traveling to the area.
I'm seeing a lot of activity on social media about this.
All right, Scott, good luck in the race.
We'll see you soon.
Thanks very much.
More allegations being leveled at Donald Trump's personal attorney, Michael Cohen.
An NBC news story says Cohen got $500,000 from Russian oligarch Victor Vexelberg.
The allegation is coming from Michael Avenatti, Stormy Daniels' lawyer.
Well, NBC puts up this massive headline on a blue background, bright white letters on a blue background, bold font.
Daniels lawyer.
Cohen got 500K from Russian oligarch Victor Vexelberg.
Wow, it makes it seem like he was in bed with the Russians, right?
Just under it.
Michael Avenatti provided no documentation for his claims, which he posted on Twitter.
The Stormy Daniels attorney is just saying something.
Here's what he said.
He wrote, and this was yesterday at about 5 p.m., he wrote, Michael Avenatti, Stormy Daniels lawyer, wrote, after significant investigation, we have discovered that Mr. Trump's attorney, Mr. Cohen, received approximately $500,000 in the months after the election from a company controlled by a Russian oligarch with close ties to Mr. Putin.
These monies may have reimbursed the $130,000 payment.
Avenatti said that his investigation uncovered that $4.4 million flowed through a First Republic bank account linked to essential consultants, Michael Cohen's firm, from October 2016 to January 2018.
Essential consultants of the company Cohen created before the 2016 election, and he used to wire $130,000 to Stormy Daniels to stop her from going public with the alleged affair with Trump, blah, blah, blah.
So what?
So what?
The lawyer, personal lawyer to Donald Trump, did what every other person close to somebody who won an election or was looking to win an election would do, and they set up a consulting company so that they could engage in government affairs consulting.
Everyone in the world does it.
Everyone does it.
John Podesta did it.
His brother did it.
Corey Lewandowski did it.
We do it on both sides.
I do political consulting.
I do communications work.
I'm a guy who's on air.
Candidates often call me to help with their media, their branding, their image, to media train them for interviews.
It is a many, many people and entities do that.
It's such a minor non-issue.
I don't even know where to begin.
So anyway, this company that supposedly put the money in, company called, that sent essential consultants, Cohen's company, to half a million dollars is called Columbus Nova.
Columbus Nova is not hiding.
Now, Avenatti alleged that Columbus Nova is controlled by the Russian billionaire oligarch, Victor Vexelberg, and his cousin Andrew Introtter.
However, Columbus Nova didn't hide.
They issued a statement.
It says in a statement, it's from the NBC newspiece, an attorney for Columbus Nova said the management firm is owned and controlled by Americans and not Vexelberg, who's president of the Russian conglomerate Renovo Group.
Here's the statement from the attorneys for Columbus Nova that paid Cohen's firm the $500,000.
Quote, after the inauguration, the firm hired Michael Cohen as a business consultant regarding potential sources of capital and potential investments in real estate and other ventures.
Commonplace.
You hire somebody close to the president, somebody who now has access to his business contact because he's now blinded from them.
He's got a firewall up between himself and his former business contacts.
The president does, but you were his personal attorney.
You have them.
Why wouldn't you capitalize on that?
It's not illegal.
It's not unethical.
It's not improper.
It's business.
The claim that reports today that Victor Vechselberg used Columbus Nova as a conduit for payments to Michael Cohen are false.
The claim that Victor Vexelberg was involved or provided any funding for Columbus Nova's engagement of Michael Cohen is patently untrue.
Neither Victor Vexelberg nor anyone else other than Columbus Nova's owners, who are Americans, were involved in the decision to hire Cohen or provided funding for his engagement.
Now, Columbus Nova was listed as a partner company of Russian Renovo Group until November 2017.
But again, what?
So what?
It's a large company.
It's illegal for American companies to do business with Russia.
You have a multi-billionaire Russian and his rich cousin here in the U.S. that owns this company.
Why wouldn't they do business together?
There's nothing dubious about this.
This is perfectly legal business.
It's just that Russian has become a buzzword now for all that's evil.
It's so stupid.
It's even dumber that NBC News runs the headline the way they do what they should have run the headline as.
The headline should have read, American firm debunks claims that Russian oligarch paid Michael Cohen to pay off Stormy Daniels or paid Michael Cohen for Stormy Daniels.
That's what it should have said.
Lawyers for American firm destroy claim that Russian oligarch paid off Stormy Daniels through Michael Cohen.
That would have been an honest headline.
That would have been a non-fake news headline, but no, NBC couldn't do that now, could they?
Now, they're making a big deal about the fact that the CEO of Columbus Nova, Andrew and Trader, made political donations over the past two years.
He's an American.
That's what he's allowed to do.
He donated $29,600 to the Republican National Committee in June of 2017.
He had donated it to the DNC, the Democratic National Committee.
This wouldn't be a story.
In June of $35,000 to the Trump Victory Pact that same month, and then a quarter million dollars to the Trump inauguration fund.
Columbus Nova has also registered many alt-right internet domains.
So the domains return an error message.
Alt-right internet domains.
I guarantee you those domains are like conservativerepublicans.com.
That's alt-right to NBC News.
Now, Vexelberg was questioned by Mueller and let go.
No charges against the guy.
He got off a private jet in New York.
FBI agents approached him.
They questioned him.
And this all stems from the fact that Vexelberg showed up at the same dinner in Moscow as General Flynn back in 2015.
I mean, they are reaching.
Now, Vexelberg was one of the Russian oligarchs sanctioned by the Treasury Department, but he has not been accused of wrongdoing.
In Mueller's investigation with Russian meddling, nothing.
Nothing.
They're simply demonizing this guy, his company, his cousin, who's an American, by the way, and his cousin's company, demonizing them because they dealt with Michael Cohen.
Nobody else is even commenting on this.
It's nonsensical.
Now, Avenatti said, Thermi Daniels' lawyer, the stripper, probably, you know, porn star stripper, who knows what else she did for monies, lawyer, this pillar of society, that he also uncovered here: four payments of just under $100,000 made by Novartis to Cohen's Essential Consulting in late 2017 and early 2018.
So what?
Novartis is a pharmaceutical company.
They hired a business consultant.
So what?
So what?
I mean, why is that even news?
ATT made four payments each of $50,000 to Essential in late 2017 and early 18 to provide insights into understanding the to provide insights into understanding the new administration.
They lobbying or legal work for ATT, and the contract ended December 2017.
So what?
It happens every single day.
Major corporations pay large sums of money to people who know a prominent politician well so they can understand how to engage them when they go into meetings.
Perfectly legal, commonplace business.
Korea Aerospace Industries made a $150,000 payment to Cohen's firm in November 2017.
Again, so what?
They wanted advice on how to lobby Trump.
Maybe they just wanted to understand protocol what kind of guy he was and what color tie they should wear to the meeting.
But again, so what?
Big corporations hired a lawyer who ran a consulting company who had insights into the new presidential administration.
They hired him for those insights.
In Washington, D.C., K-Street is full of firms that do this every day.
It's exactly what the Podesta Group does: Tony Podesta, John Podesta's brothers' firm.
You don't see one story on their far more dubious dealings.
So, in the final analysis, Michael Cohen did nothing wrong engaging these companies, nothing at all wrong.
And this is just more fake news from NBC.
West Virginia Race00:05:00
Several states had primary elections yesterday ahead of the 2018 November midterm.
Now, from what I see, excuse me, things are looking pretty good for the Republican Party.
The one that everybody was watching was West Virginia, where this very strange guy, Don Blankenship, who had a television commercial about China people and Mitch McConnell's China family and Cocaine Mitch, ditched cocaine Mitch for the kids.
It was weird ad.
He's a weird guy.
He served time in prison.
Now, that one didn't really bother me as much.
I think it was very heavy-handed.
It was during the Obama administration, serve time, a year in jail for a misdemeanor because of a mine accident.
But people in West Virginia didn't mind that too much because they said that mines have accidents.
It was really his videos that hurt him.
But more importantly, President Trump and Donald Trump Jr., as well as many other prominent Republicans and media people, myself included, were telling voters not to vote for Don Blankenship because he had no chance whatsoever.
No chance whatsoever of beating Joe Manchin, Democrat Joe Manchin, in the general election.
Now, Patrick Morrissey, West Virginia's attorney general, won the race.
And Morrissey was one of the candidates that Donald Trump suggested people vote for, the other being a local politician named Evan Jenkins.
It was pretty much either Morrissey or Jenkins can easily beat, well, or will be competitive against Joe Manchin.
I shouldn't say easily.
Not a true statement.
Joe Manchin is still pretty popular there.
His popularity has waned, but he has a base.
But either one of those was a far better option to challenge Joe Manchin, far more competitive.
And if Trump's policies continue, Manchin's in trouble.
So West Virginia, I think now we have a candidate in the Attorney General.
He's already won statewide office.
This is another statewide run.
He knows how to run statewide.
He knows how to win statewide.
Good choice on the part of people in West Virginia and encouraging going into the 2018 midterm.
Indiana had two interesting races.
One of them was a congressional race for Vice President Mike Pence's former seat.
And the Republican nominee is now brother, his brother.
His brother was a shoe-in.
His name is Greg Pence.
And he won the congressional primary.
He's a Marine veteran.
He owns two antique malls, and he ran a now out of business chain of tobacco shop.
And he's very well liked, very popular, and he's already favored to win the seat in the general election.
Another big win for the Trump administration to have the vice president's brother sitting in Congress.
A pretty big deal.
An Ohio's high-profile governor's race, the Attorney General Mike DeWine, won that one for Republicans.
They'll probably hold the governor's mansion.
And I couldn't be happier.
We need more Republican governors.
And those were really the big ones.
And in Indiana, there was a Senate race.
A guy named Braun.
What was Braun's?
What is Braun's first name?
He's a very wealthy candidate.
I believe it's Mike Braun.
He won the Republican nomination for Senate in Indiana.
And he is a, yeah, he's a very wealthy businessman.
He loaned his campaign $5.4 million.
He owns a large auto parts chain, chain of auto parts, an auto parts distribution business.
And so he won there.
And again, a guy that can self-fund like that is going to raise a lot of money.
He'll be running against Joe Donnelly, who's the incumbent Democratic senator.
And so this is telling to me going into the midterm, but I like that we're picking candidates who can win.
Very glad that we rejected Blankenship.
And I think Republican voters are very aware of the debacle that happened in Alabama with Judge Roy Moore.
They don't want to see that happen again.
And I predict that when Doug Jones has to run again, which I believe is, when is Doug Jones running again?
I think 2020, right?
He was a special election for Jeff Session's seat.
I don't believe Doug Jones will be in the Senate.
I believe a Republican picks that seat back up and Alabama goes back red.
But very encouraging, good candidates in these seats going into the midterms.
Hopefully Indiana's a pickup.
And I think that Mike Pence's brother wins handily.
And now West Virginia is very competitive.
So we might actually see pickups in the Senate, not losses.
I do not believe a blue wave is coming.
I think Republicans are going to retain the House and Senate.
The economic news is too good.
And you combine that with North Korea pulling out of the Iran deal.