Victorious night for socialists in New York City. Mayor Mamdani goes three for three over Hakeem Jeffries. Replacing liberals with radicals. What it means for the part of this city I'm in right now and ultimately the midterms. I'm going to start with that, Senator Sheehi.
Thanks so much for being with us. I'll sit down so we can have a Zoom shot here.
So Senator, do you think this is a New York bubble with the rise of socialists, because you're on the floor with Democrats on a regular basis, or do you think this is spreading throughout your opposing party? I think it's a systemic widespread for all Democrats, Brian. I mean, this isn't just New York. We're seeing the DSA brand spread from coast to coast. And it's kind of this imported red-green alliance, which most people don't know about.
But, you know, Marxism and Islamism go back a long ways. Mamdani is the poster child for it. The red-green alliance, which is the Marxist, socialist, communist ideology of constant social revolution, of rising up against whatever establishment there is, has been wedded to the Islamist movement for quite some time. I mean, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, oddly enough, is connected to this. I mean, the revolution in Iran in 1979 was very much a woven-together product of the Red-Green Alliance.
And the New York City DSA movement that we're seeing now, led by Mamdani, who's the poster child, is that as well. And they're the vanguard. They are giving political permission. For Democrats to mirror these policies from coast to coast. Abdu al-Sayed in Michigan.
Michigan's not exactly a hotbed of socialism. I mean, it's an old rust belt state of factory workers and, you know, blue-collar people. But apparently, now the Democrats' choice for Senate is also a Democrat socialist who is also an Islamist. And of course, anti-Semitism now appears to be an accepted platform of the Democrat socialists.
Now, I think the Democrat Party has a choice now. They're at a crossroads, or I should say they're at a Y in the road. Are they going to work as an establishment?
Now, Keem Jeffries, Chuck Schumer, are they going to work to say, listen, we are not the party of anti-Semitism. We're not the party of socialism, Marxism, and communism, which has killed more people than every other ism combined in the history of mankind. Are we going to be the blue-collar labor party that we used to be or not? And I think that that struggle is happening as we are watching right now. And I think it's pretty clear which side's winning.
I want to talk about the. I hear you, and I could play a ton of soundbite that'll just abhor you, free Palestine, abolish ICE, abolish prisons. One of these women actually went on abolishing prisons. Can you imagine this? Let alone everything else they stand for.
But doesn't it sound familiar? Do you remember the hostages when they luckily were able to get out of the tunnels in Gaza? They said that their captors were celebrating the protests in America, and there was communication between them. Why would they be looking at Columbia University and celebrating and have communication between them, like Mahmoud Khalil and some of those links? Don't you think that needs to be fully explored?
I don't, I mean, it should be explored, but I think it's pretty evident why. It's because throughout history, and this is the Islamist. Movement has focused on a global caliphate. This goes back to the 700s AD when you saw a very new religion, which was Islam. Obviously, Prophet Muhammad, and you know, the 620s to the 680s, as the Sunnis and Shias split as a diversion, it really wasn't a religious split, it was a cultural one between the Persians and the Arabs, who were sharing a religion but refused to, of course, come together in the ideology of that religion.
And in the 700s, it became an expansionist religious empire to create a caliphate. And all the way up through Iberia and Spain, and all the way to Constantinople, which at one point, Constantinople, today is Istanbul, was the largest Christian city in the world. Of course, now it's a seat of a major Muslim nation in the Ottoman Empire.
So the expansionist belief of Islam is always they want to create a global caliphate of Sharia law. And that's not conspiracy theory. That's just quite literally what they say. That's what the Quran is what they've done.
So it makes all kinds of sense for a radical terrorist group in the middle of Gaza to celebrate that their ideology is now being promulgated. In the greatest city of the greatest nation on earth, right in New York, in the heart of New York City, Columbia University, one of our greatest institutes of higher learning traditionally, at one point led by Dwight D. Eisenhower. Imagine that. Dwight Eisenhower, after being a five-star general, before becoming president of the United States, was the president of Columbia University.
Imagine that today. Imagine what happened today on the Columbia campus with all these lunatic, Hamas, Jew-hating communists. if they put an American war general in charge of Colombia, you'd have an absolute it would make Antifa look like child's play.
So those terrorist groups look to the U. S. and see that we have these, of course, funded Um Muslim protests across the nation. Celebrating their ideology. It validates them.
And of course, that is their mission, is to spread this murderous ideology around the entire world in any way possible.
So Senator Tim Sheehy with us now. Please watch on the stream.
So Senator, the big story, of course, the talks that are going on with Iran, the Strait of Hermuz has rebounded. They had 93 vessels going from Friday to Sunday, 32 prior to the weekend. About 100 ships per day is the goal, and they're getting there.
So would you say the talks are progressing in a way that you're happy with? Or are you concerned with the fact that they got immediate sanctions relief and are cashing in on their oil at full market rate?
Well, of course, I'm deeply concerned any time we allow any revenue recognition to be realized by the IRGC. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps is the murderous brigade, essentially, that runs Iran. They are an organization that is bent on terror destruction. And any Revenue, any cash, any money, any intake to the Iranian nation flows directly to the coffers of the RGC and is then redirected into their expansionist efforts. Of course, the straits being open, the product of that will bring down gas prices.
That's good for the global economy, that's good for America. Of course, we want our nation to succeed in these talks. I don't want to be fighting Iran for another 47 years. I don't want to be bombing Iran for another 47 years. And I hope that the delegation is successful in finding an off-ramp.
The goal of this is not to find an off-ramp. The goal of this is to make sure that this murderous barbarian regime stops killing Americans, stops killing our allies, and stops spreading terror around the world. And I think it's important we don't conflate those two goals. The goal is not to have an off-ramp. The goal is to solve a very serious threat to America.
And those things can diverge at some point. And if we find that Iran is recognizing revenue and then redirecting that cash into terrorist activities, bullets, bombs, rockets, missiles, and insurgent groups, then we have to put an immediate stop to it. And we can open the straits by force, and we should open them by force should they decide once again to attempt to close them. Have you seen the war plan that would allow the force to be opened by force? Have you seen it?
Yeah, I mean, we've had that plan on the book since the 80s, Brent, as you know. I mean, this is not the first strait of Hermuz crisis we've faced. And when we hear that straits are quote unquote closed, as I've tried to explain to a lot of people this past several months, there's not a chain link fence they pull across. There's not a magical gate they shut and say they're closed, you shall not pass. It's a matter of commercial risk tolerance.
And the insurance industry has a far lower tolerance for risk, for hull, risk for loss. Than they have in previous generations. And the last time we had a real straits crisis in the 80s, you know, the insurance industry. Had more of a tolerance for commercial risk. The truth is, if 100 ships try to drive through the strait, the 95, 98, 99 of them will make it through.
But that 1% is a level of risk that the insurance industry is not willing to backstop. And that's where Project Freedom came in, where we could provide an insurance backstop U.S.-backed guarantee with military protection for vessels. And scaling that up to a broader, more expansive operation is possible and should be done.
So we're very capable of opening the straits. It just comes at a cost that, of course, the president has to make the decision of the risk to our forces, and the industry has to make the decision of risk to their balance sheet.
So the straits, Iran does not have the power to close the straits. They have the power to impose risk on vessels passing the straits. And when that risk reaches a certain level, the industry says we're not going to take it. Cheers to America's 250th birthday. Get 20% off your first purchase at FoxnewsWineshop.com with code FN Radio20.
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History isn't just in textbooks. It's the story of us, the United States. 2026 marks 250 years of America. And throughout the year, Bill Hammer takes listeners on a journey through the 250 most impactful moments in American history. From the spark of revolution to the battles for freedom.
The ideas, inventions, and decisions that changed the world. The 250 most impactful moments in American history podcast. Listen and follow now at FoxnewsPodcasts.com. We're at the New York Times today, and they say right now, ships going through have to give 48 hours' notice. And Iran says they're going to be issuing their own insurance and they're going to be charging fees.
It's an infrastructure they're setting up to take over in 60 days. The president told me today it's not true. What do you think? I hope it's not true. And I think what we see with this messaging difference between the admin and the Iranians, this is not a reflection of the president's administration.
This is a reflection of the constitution. Counterparty, we are dealing with, which is a regime that has zero belief that they need to adhere to agreements with America or any Western nation. They view that their mission for a global caliphate supersedes any legal mechanism, national or international, and they will just say whatever it takes to get things done.
So I have no doubt they are telling Vance and Kushner and Witkoff and the Europeans exactly what we want to hear, and they turn around and do something else. And that's who we're dealing with. That's the reality of our counterparty in these negotiations. Senator, I talked to someone extremely close to the negotiations who said there's moderate forces and then there's the supreme leader forces, and that we're trying to prop up the moderate forces. Do you believe that they're playing good cop, bad cop, and there are no moderate forces?
For example, they label the Speaker and the President as a moderate force within the realm of the Iranian party. Is it a mistake to think there is some? I think it's a mistake to believe that our definition of moderate may apply there. We have to realize, like, let's not let the window move too far here. Moderate in Iran is still, by our standards, people who still want us dead.
They still hate America. They still have no desire to be friends with us. But maybe they're willing to say, listen, let's hold off on the killing of our own people and fueling proxies for a bit until we lick our wounds. Whereas the extremists are welcoming the destruction of the they're welcoming this confrontation. But I do think we are dealing with multiple factions.
There's no question that our negotiating team is having to deal with the fact that we're not dealing with a unified counterparty. We're dealing with multiple factions within the Iranian regime because we've obviously decimated a lot of their leadership. And some of those factions probably genuinely do want to make a real deal to bring hostilities to an end.
Some of them probably want to find a way to recognize revenue and bring cash in to wait out the clock and wait out Trump so that they can get to a new administration, whether it's Republican or Democrat, and roll the dice and say we're going to be treated better next administration. And there's probably a group too that says, we just want to fight. We want to fight and we want to show the fight of the great Satan will happen. And they're spoiling for that fight. General Donahue, four-star general I've had a chance to meet and be on base in Germany as well as in North Carolina.
And he's got this reputation of being maybe the finest active general in our Army for every day that he was wearing that, having a star on his shoulder.
Now he's up to four. He was let go last night. And he was fired. Um and I don't know why. But it seems to be a personal animus with somebody within the Secretary of War's cabinet, because I know he's had not from talking to him, he's had no negative interactions.
You know him too, and you know w who a war fighter is. and who knows politics to go far in the military. What do you think of General Donahue and how do you feel about it being let go?
Well, there's no question that C.D., as we all call him, is one of our absolute best general officers. There's no question he's, you know, a tremendous career service. And we both come from the special operations world, and we've both worked together on some of the same units over our deployment.
So tremendous respect for C.D., and it definitely is a loss to the nation. He's retiring. You know, from my understanding, he was going to retire and did retire. I just saw him a few weeks ago in Europe. And, you know, my understanding was he was retiring.
I didn't hear that he was specifically fired per se. Oh, he was told to retire. How about that? He was told. Yeah, I think it was clear that he was showing that there's not going to be a next career progression for him.
So I think you're right in that point, that there was not going to be a next step. Listen, that's a loss. I have a great relationship with our Secretary of Defense, Secretary of War now, and I think Peace is doing a much needed realignment of the GOFO, the General Officer Flag Officer Corps. I think that there would have been a great benefit to the Army for CD to have a future role. Whether that was his choice or someone else's choice, the bottom line is he's retiring and moving on.
He's leaving an incredible career behind him. But I think there's no question it'll be a loss to the Army. But we also have some fantastic leaders across the rest of the formation.
So it's a loss, and CeeDee's a great man. But at the same time, I think Hagseth and his team are doing a much-needed realignment and also a reduction of the GoFo Corps. We had way too many GoFossleg officers. But it's like telling Tom Brady to retire at 35, knowing he'd win three more Super Bowls by the time he's 45. JD Vance said this about Israel: do the one where it says, wake up.
Over the last three months, two-thirds of the defensive weapons that have protected your homeland have been built by American hands and paid for by American tax dollars. The problem for Israel is not Donald J. Trump. And anybody in Israel who thinks their biggest problem is the President of the United States needs to wake up and smell the reality of the situation that the country is in. We're up against the break, but your thoughts about that.
Listen, at the end of the day, Israel is our closest ally in the region, hands down. And it's true the rest of the world is turning on Israel right now, but that's not something we should revel in. That's something we should be extremely disturbed by because they're fighting for their very survival. And they're probably the only nation in that region that truly reflects American values. And there's no question I'll stand with them always, not because of some APAC influencer campaign, as everyone loves to say.
It's simply because they are the only beacon of democracy, freedom, and liberty in the region. They've been our closest ally from intelligence to military cooperation. I'd be quite honest to say I believe we've gotten more out of our partnership with Israel than they have over the years because their ability to collect intelligence, help us target, and help us know what's going to happen before it happens has saved many, many American lives. Senator Sheehy, I couldn't agree more, and you're the one doing it. Senator Tim Sheehy, thanks so much.
Good luck in your meeting with the President today. All right. Thanks, Brian.
