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Of any purchase of $100 or more. That's promo code Brian. Chairman Michael McCall joins us now. Congressman, welcome back. Hey, thanks for having me, Brian.
Good to be Doc. Hey, dude, the MOU, I think you and I both agree, was a prescription for disaster. And it seems the the Iranians didn't know how good they had it. And they were abusing it, and they shot at merchant ships. And now, finally, I think it's history.
How would you characterize where we're at right now in this conflict?
Well, I think we're going back to Plan A. I mean, the military was very successful at achieving the objective. They were put on hold pending this negotiation, this MOU. And look, I understand. the president wanting to negotiate this.
It's very important and uh rec Recognize who are you negotiating with, and it's the regime. And quite frankly, Brian, you and I don't have a lot of trust. In them, right, you can talk about Trust Verify. I was never really sanguine they were going to. come to an agreement on this MOU.
And if they did, they would violate it.
So now we're going back to w where we were prior to the ceasefire. It is my sincere hope Uh that the President unleashes the full strength of our military to achieve its objective. And that is to wipe out all launch pads from which they can launch Shahed drones, missiles, and then open up the straits. Take out the IRGC as much as possible, both by strikes and internally inside of Iran. Israel has assets.
In Iran, I think with this regime. You're always going to have a problem negotiating any sort of deal.
So I I hope the President's back on track. Uh, you know, like, if you're gonna do this, do it right. I'm with a Cold pal doctor, and you either go all in. or you don't go in at all. Here's what Alex Gray said, the former NSC Chief of Staff, cut seven.
Look, the Iranian people, this is ultimately their fight. And the Iranian people for years have been under the thumb of this murderous regime. And the only way, ultimately, the final, you know, the solution to this 47-year conflict is for the Iranian people to rise up and to reclaim their country. And to the extent that the United States can help facilitate that, that's the ultimate way that this is going to be resolved once and for all, is to give the Iranian people the freedom that they deserve. If there's a way for the U.S.
to help make that a reality, that's certainly in our long-term interest to do so. I know you can't give intelligence, but we just got to know if the Iranian people can get armed. We know they're brave. My you know, your the that uh your guess is absolutely correct. Uh, this does not end until the Iranian people rise up and take out this theocracy.
Assenti Ayatollah came into power in 1979. And you know, I've had briefings in that space, and I've asked them. You know what plans do we have? I knew the plans to take out the nuclear capabilities. I always thought we were in a little bit of a deficit.
was on uh the issue of Empowering the people to take their government back. To free Iran from the theocracy of the Ayatollah. And, you know, we never really had a good plan, Brian. We didn't have a, there was never a leader ready to go like the Ayatollah was with the Shah. We didn't have a source of weapons to go in to arm them against the IRGC.
And we didn't have a lot of good communications.
Now, we can still recover. I think getting Starlink in full in Iran, I think there was a plan by the CIA to get weapons in. That was held back for some reason. And Israel is very good at this. I think if we just assisted Them through our intelligence community inside of Iran to number one, take out the IRGC.
Without the IRGC, the Ayatollah. Uh has no power at all, and uh but I haven't seen that happening to date. And we bombed their barracks. We bombed the IRGC barracks. I don't know how many were sleeping there at the time.
Hopefully all of them. But we took that and they came back and hit our barracks in Jordan.
Now I'm wondering, Chairman, from you, what you know, do you believe that for them to be this precise, somewhere like China or Russia has to be giving them coordinates? Oh, I know they are. Uh Russia is giving them uh targets. uh targeting sites to kill Americans. Uh in fact they have and it's worked.
China is giving them technology. China is giving them Russia all the technology for their weapons. I saw that in Ukraine. They're also giving that to the Russians and Iranians. Russia is all in this fight with Iran.
So that's why I think, again, going back to the Lindsey Graham's sanction bill that I've worked on and we're still trying to get it to a good place to Get it done this week is so important because if you're hurting, if you're hitting Russia, You're also hitting Iran. I think a lot of people don't realize that Russia and China are aligned. And they're also aligned with Iran. All three of them are in this together. And North Korea.
And North Korea's in there as well.
So, what you're saying is, leave the bill as it is, because the President said, I want to add Iran to that sanctions bill. Anyone. Yeah doing any commerce, any business with Iran, we're going to sanction them.
So And then I saw Senator Blumenthal said, I think we kind of like it the way it is.
So where do you stand, Chairman?
Well, that's where we are right now. We are good to go. I think the president, I understand, I fully support. Further sanctions against Iran.
Now, Lindsay's bill had secondary sanctions. uh that would cover Iran's uh uh acquisition of defense articles from Russia. But it would also include any energy coming from Russia. That was already in the bill. Uh the president wants to add um uh Tougher sanctions on Iran and that personally I'm I'm all in favor of that, Brian.
I think it's a delicate balance with the Democrats. I think Lindsey always. Wanted this to be You know, bipartisan, bicameral. That's why he brought me in, and he wanted the White House behind it. And he worked his magic, you know, getting this done.
Of course, yeah, the Iran thing is is what's changed. And we're in current negotiations with the White House right now on that very issue. But you worry that if you have to do a rewrite, you're not going to get a vote this week.
Well, we have to. If we're going to change it at all, we have to either reintroduce it. or add an amendment onto it in the Senate. And that decision has not been made yet. Cheers to America's 250th birthday.
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So I'm watching now the President of the United States with the President of Lebanon. At which time I think this is on the table, that Lebanon's going to get some training and work with Syria. And I guess with Israel pulls out, and then Syrian troops, highly trained, will move in. and in theory, push out Hezbollah. But a lot of people look at this and say, man, they're going to be more loyal to Hezbollah than they're going to be even to the Lebanese government.
Where are you going to find troops that are going to be loyal to loyal enough or brave enough to push back this Iranian Finance Terror Group, how do you feel about this plan? Yeah, well, we've always supported Congress the Lebanese. uh military against Hezbollah, that fight. I know Israel is very m uh much involved in that. Uh you know Syria is in a very delicate uh position right now with their new president after uh uh El Shara was uh taken out and so And then you got the rise of of ISIS in there.
It's very, very complicated, Brian. I mean, Turkey has more of a presence than Russia. I mean, yeah, the proxies of Iran are part of the. bigger equation here. You you can't talk about Iran.
In an isolated vacuum, and not talk about Hezwa, not talk about Hamas, not talk about the Houthi rebels, because they are the tentacles of Iran and their extensions. Of Iran, in Lebanon, in the Gaza Strip, and also in Yemen. And now the Houthi rebels are talking about shutting out the Red Sea against Saudi Arabia. This is complicated. And I'm always of mindset that, like, it's a very serious decision to go in.
But once you do it, you got to do it right and you have to go all in. Otherwise, to do this back and forth and stop and start type thing, negotiate. Stop, hit them, stop, negotiate. I'm with Gerald Jack Keene on this one. Like, just.
Go in, our military can finish this. And then let's work on getting a new regime in power because That is the head of the snake, Brian. If you can take the head of the snake, which is the Ayatollah and the regime out. You will kill the tentacles and that is Hezbollah Hamas and the Huthi Rebels. Yeah, I mean, I think you're 100% right.
The Houthi rebels take over the Red Sea, that's going to complicate things. We'd have to get involved, even though their main problem is with Saudi Arabia. They had a preexisting rivalry there, but the result's going to be Saudis can't get their oil through, and it's a global market, so it's going to affect all of us. Have you seen a military plan, Congressman McCall, that shows how we open up the strait, regardless of Iran's permission or not? It's been described to me and we had a Pentagon visit scheduled this morning, but we had our conference.
It's getting rescheduled. But I you know, I was with Senator Roger Wicker yesterday, the Senate Armed Services Chairman. And we talked about this, that Uh look, there's a plan to do this. I think Cooper, the You know, CENTCOM Commander has a plan to do this. And part of the problem is that they have taken their launchers and their missiles and they put them back into these underground storage facilities where they have the nuclear.
material so getting to that is going to be Uh the uh tricky but achievable goal. That I think has to be done to then finally get the straits open. And I personally. believe there should have been and there should be some sort of clandestine operation. I think that the Israel can obviously take the lead on this, on getting this regime out of power.
I don't It will continue to be a problem as long as this regime is in power.
So I was talking to someone about people, Iran. Yeah. I want to talk about Ukraine. You got this honor in Ukraine because you've been steadfast in supporting this cause. It is the cause of the West.
And the way they're fighting five years later has just been phenomenal. How would you characterize what you saw on the ground two weeks ago when you were in Ukraine?
Well, I went farther than any U.S. official has gone on the front lines, and astounding. All I can say is remarkable. I was watching in underground undisclosed locations these live feeds of drone operations taking place, recapturing Russian occupied territory. The average lifespan, they told me, of a Russian soldier is days to hours.
And I actually saw that taking place. Also, they had their command and control center operations outside of Kiev that I went to, that's a massive. Facility. I went to one drone manufacturer, Skyfall, making 7,000 drones per day on a massive scale. Think about it.
One $1,000 drone can take out a Shahed drone. Whereas before, Brian, we were using a million-dollar interceptor to take out a $25,000 Shahed. This is where. We can learn something from Ukraine. I think we should be uh co-producing drones with the Ukrainians.
Uh And what they need desperately is what President Trump has given them. And that is these licensing agreements to manufacture Patriot interceptors because Right now, they're pounding Key with these ballistic missiles.
So, are you going to number one? Are the contracts been signed? Is that a done deal? And it's just the licensing or is it just Lucky Martin, I just got information yesterday, or moving forward with these agreements. I think the question now, Brian, is going to be.
Where are they going to um co-produce these uh Interceptors. Where, yeah, out of the country so they can do it and not get bombed.
So there was a deal on the table where the Ukrainians publicly offered, probably privately more specific, hey, we know how to stop the Shahed drones. We'll provide that to you. And Ukraine is helping the Gulf states. Have we given them an answer? Because it seems like we would benefit that too, especially protect our bases.
I mean, absolutely. I did meet with. The military and other officials are working on Golden Dome. you know, operations. And I asked him, Are you are you Are you using some of these Ukrainian Uh counter drone um um you know, uh drone uh missiles that they have and and they said, Yeah, they are str Militarily, the strategy is similar, Brian.
And Ukraine is taking out launch pads. In interior Russia, that deliver the Shaheds and the ballistic missiles. And the same thing happens with the Straits of Hormuz to take out the Shahed drones themselves, but also the launchers in Iran. And the launchers for the missile capability.
So, in a way, the two conflicts are similar, and certainly the offensive. Uh military defense articles being used by Russia being used by Iran, and that is the Shahed drone.
So much on the table. It's going to be a critical time. I think the president's going to decide whether or expand the war or I don't know what the option would be or continue to hit these targets, but I think it's sending a good message to Iran. In case you think we're just going to quit, or that it's over, or we're going to cut a bad deal. No, we're not.
So they gave it a shot. Just because I think it's the right thing to do, but now I think it's back to kinetic action. Congressman Michael McCall, thanks so much. Always great to talk to you, sir. Oh, and thanks for Brian.
Thanks for having me.
