Martha MacCallum: Tulsi Gabbard will be an earnest servant for the country

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That's meundis.com slash Spotify code Spotify. With me right now is Martha McCallum getting set to host her show at 3 o'clock today. I'll be on at some point, but right now we're watching a lot of intriguing hearings. First off, the good news, I think, because Tulsi Gabbard, I'm a fan. The former Democratic Congresswoman from Hawaii is now the newest director of national intelligence.

Yeah, I think that this is good news. I think she's an earnest servant of the U.S. government. She served her country in Iraq. She was there during some of the most heated times during the battle. She saw a lot. She understands the sacrifice that's made by the men and women who go to battle for our country.

So she has a lot of support behind her. The amazing thing is that we heard early on when some of these people were named. Oh, my gosh, that person's never going to get through. This one's never going to get through.

He lost only one, which was Matt Gaetz, who withdrew early on for defense. But the rest of them have sailed through. I would ask everyone to remember how difficult Brett Kavanaugh's process was for the Supreme Court, dragging on for weeks. I think some people anticipated you were going to see some of that based on different issues that came up along the way. But the president is getting his cabinet. This is what history has dictated for many, many years. And they're moving much more quickly than they did in his first term. Right. I guess the inflation report came through and the stocks are getting to dip.

We've lost 400 points. So inflation went up to three percent. Yeah, it continues to be a concern. Here's the thing about inflation.

It's very hard to get rid of it. The issue for the Federal Reserve is to nip it at exactly the right time. We were told by the Biden administration that this was transitional, that they weren't concerned about the prices of eggs and all the things that obviously people were very concerned about during the election.

Once it is in place, it is very sticky and it's hard to get rid of it. And that's what we're seeing now. It's not surprising that you're seeing this. And President Trump has said that he wants to have more control over the Federal Reserve. You want to see rates come down. He sees that as a good balance for the tariff programs that he wants to in place, put in place. So that's going to be another battle on his list. And we'll see how he does.

Right. So we've got a couple of things in the air right now. The press secretary is going to speak at one thirty this afternoon. He's going to speak at one thirty this afternoon. He's going to speak at one thirty this afternoon. This morning, the Ukrainian Defense Contact Group has had opening remarks over in Brussels.

Now everyone's on the on the train of we've got to bring this thing to an end. And Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense this morning, there's just no way you're going back to 2014 lines and there's no way that Ukraine should be in NATO and there's no way that Europe shouldn't bulk up their defense spending because we're going to pivot to the Pacific. And he's going to speak at one thirty this afternoon. And Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense, has said that he's going to negotiate with Vladimir Putin directly, who Martha seems that he's getting closer to getting to talks with this president. Unless that conversation has already happened with Vladimir Putin and that that is an accepted. To be in NATO, this has always been Putin's major sticking point. This is the only nation along that border that is not part of NATO. So it's no surprise that this is the nation that he invaded. He wants to pull back that territory so that he gets NATO off of his borders, at least in that one section. So none of this is that surprising. I think one of the one of the clear things, you know, Hegseth is the secretary of defense is clearly saying everything that President Trump said on the campaign trail, basically.

Right. It's the same terms that we've heard. So he is speaking with one voice, with the president of the United States on this, and they want to see resolution. I spoke with Yaroslav Trofimov yesterday, who's a great Ukrainian writer, Wall Street Journal chief foreign policy writer. So he knows the situation so intimately, having, you know, been raised in Ukraine and his family there. But, you know, he said people want the war to end and that even giving up some territory, they will not consider that territory to be Russian.

They will consider it to be part of a negotiation and part of something that needs to be reclaimed in the future. So Alexander Vinik is the Russian who is in U.S. custody, and he is being exchanged for Mark Vogel, who came out yesterday. Now Vogel, I should say he is somebody that has been convicted of cybercrime. They say he's a cybercrime kingpin.

So even though it doesn't sound like a that big of a thing, it is because what they can do to an economy, what can they do to steal, steal or or embed in in our infrastructure, which we're witnessing now that China reportedly has done. The Department of Justice under Vinik's operation, they say the B.T.C. facilitated over nine billion in worldwide transaction, serving as one of the main ways for cyber criminals to launder and move their criminal proceeds. He created that that cryptocurrency exchange, BTC-E. So he is now out.

It's not Victor Boot, the the the doctor of death. It's interesting, you know, because basically we heard there was no trade for anything for anyone. But now we're learning that this person is out.

It's certainly even if it is the case that this is a one for one. We understand there's another person who's going to be released today. We're waiting to get some details on that. But think back to the Iran deal to release people from Iranian prisons back to the United States. The exchange was six for six plus eight billion dollars on our side. And I remember talking to John Kirby, like, how is this an equal deal? So we'll see what the terms of this are. You know, it is troubling, especially in the context of what we're hearing in this Doge committee today about how cyber criminals have figured out how to tap into all of our benefit systems and drain them of money, billions of dollars, and direct it to towards things like human trafficking and drug trade. So, I mean, that makes me look at this guy and say, well, you know, what was he doing? Was he taking taxpayer money as well if he had an understanding of our systems and how to tap into them? I don't know. But this same issue in some way has been brought up this morning at this Doge hearing. Hi, everyone.

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Cut 30. Yeah, I hear there's another hostage prisoner that he's actually detained behind bars right now. Is there somebody else coming out today? Brian, I can't comment on that.

I know this. Adam Bowler is the special envoy for hostages. He's a friend of mine, great friend, by the way, and just a great guy.

And so whatever he's working on, I'm sure it's going to have a good result. So he didn't want to say much this morning because this is ongoing. He did bring me to this. Notice that Mark Fogel did not say anything negative about Vladimir Putin.

And neither did he. He said this part of a process and we'll see where this is going. He didn't say I was kept in probably the worst, most horrific conditions possible.

I've over had 400 injections or 600 injections. Who knows what they are? Evidently has back injuries, but he knows he was in jail for the wrong reasons. For reasons, he had medical marijuana on him. They said he was a, you know, a distributor of massive drugs or a drug kingpin.

They made up some ridiculous charges, but nobody's criticizing right now. And that's a tactic. Yeah, clearly, President Trump is working on a releasing this individual because he promised his mother at the Butler, Pennsylvania rally, of all places, right before he was shot at.

He promised Vogel's mother that he would bring him home. The president has said that he wants to have open discussions with Vladimir Putin. He this is, you know, the beginning, I think, of a much larger picture of trying to negotiate a number of things with Putin. I think that you're going to see this huge rare earth minerals deal, probably as part of this on the Ukraine side. And also Putin's not going to like that. He's not going to want the United States to get control of those rare earth minerals. It's one of the many reasons, but one of the top reasons that he went into Ukraine in the first place. The resources in Ukraine are plentiful.

They're helpful for building semiconductor chips and other technology. China, we've seen, is gobbling up the resources of this around the world. So this is important to Putin as well.

So it's going to be interesting to see how he reacts to that. Yeah, I mean, this stuff I can't get enough of. Also, when we come back, Martha, I want to leave some time.

Find out what's on your show. But I also want to talk about the Middle East and where it's heading. Yeah, King Abdullah here last week, Bibi Netanyahu.

Now they're talking about an Egyptian summit and Saturday, a deadline where all hostels need to come out. Meanwhile, the president is just keeping a breakneck pace. He's not slowing down. And he seems calmer.

The more intense he gets, the calmer he gets. It's just so fascinating. I'm just looking at the headlines now. MSNBC and CNN are desperate to create friction between Trump and Musk. They're desperate. Yes, absolutely. Well, look at what Time magazine did for them.

They put him behind the resolute desk. Elon Musk on the cover of the magazine. And Trump's retort was, are they still around Time magazine? I don't even know.

They still made Time magazine. I'm Emily Campagno, host of the Fox True Crime podcast. This week, author and criminal justice reform advocate Toby Dore joins me to discuss how she smuggled the man she loved out of prison. Listen and follow now at Fox True Crime Dotcom. Listen to the show at free on Fox News podcast plus on Apple podcast, Amazon music with your prime membership or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.