School of War - The Iran War and a New World Order in Asia, with Rep. Michael Baumgartner

Episode Date: June 2, 2026

Rep. Michael Baumgartner, who represents Washington’s 5th Congressional District, joins the show from Singapore at the IISS Shangri-La Dialogue. What was the tone and significance of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s speech? How are the Asian economies fairing in lieu of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz? And what is the future of the American-led order in East Asia? 03:07 - Tone of the Shangri-La Dialogue 05:30 - Asia and the Strait of Hormuz 09:35 - The UAE's Distance from Iran 11:47 - America's Role in Asian Security 13:06 - Asia's Reaction to Trump's China Summit 15:25 - The Diversity of Asia 16:54 - Pete Hegseth's Speech 19:07 - The CCP's Control of China 20:59 - Korean and Japanese Views on China 24:07 - Drones and Autonomous Warfare 24:50 - Vietnam's Reinvention 28:07 - Singapore-U.S. Relations 30:21 - Paused Arms Sales 34:00 - Iran and Electoral Politics Follow along on Instagram, X @schoolofwarpod, and YouTube @SchoolofWarPodcast Find more at The Free Press. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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free of charge. BetMGEMGEMP operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming, Ontario. What is the future of the American order in East Asia? And how is that part of the world doing in light of economic problems stemming from the closure of the Strait of Hormuz? Well, who better to speak to about these issues than School of Wars roving diplomatic and defense correspondent? This is, of course, Congressman Michael Baumgartner, who talked to us from the Munich Security Conference some months ago. Now he's at Shangri-Law in Singapore at the Defense Conference there. That's where Pete Hegseth gave a big speech about the U.S. defense relationship with Asia and leaders of that region came from all over to talk about the future of Asian security.

We're going to go through all of the hot topics there and more. Let's get into it. It is a prescription for war. The Lopjean-Nus 1741, a date which will live in empty. A bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a state. We continue to face a great situation in the ground. People are not seeing feelings. We'll fight on the beaches. It will fight on the landing ground.

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Hi, I'm Aaron McLean. Thanks for joining School of War. I'm delighted to welcome back to the show today. Congressman Michael Baumgartner. He represents Washington State's Fifth District. He has a career in Washington politics. Before that, he served in Iraq with the State Department. He's worked in Afghanistan. Most importantly, this is his now second appearance on School of War. It's kind of a roving, uh, Foreign diplomatic correspondent. You talked to us last time from Munich, Michael, this time you're in Singapore reporting from the sidelines of the Shangri-La conference. How are you and how are things? Doing great. It's great to be back on the show. It remains one of my favorite podcast.

And I'm delighted to be your diplomatic roving foreign defense conference correspondent. I think we'll have an interesting discussion. You know, there's so much we could talk about. I'll clarify, this will also explain my Sunday. casual in comparison to your professional attire. But Sunday morning here in the United States, which it's important to say these things when we talk about current events because things change so quickly. And I guess what is it for you? Is it Sunday evening? Sunday night, Sunday night in Singapore. That's right. That's right. And you've had a long day of meetings and work.

You were in Vietnam before you came down there for the conference itself in Singapore. I mean, one thing that's been on my mind is just how that part of the world, whether it's the Vietnamese you were speaking with or just for that matter, different delegations you're speaking with in Singapore, how they're reacting to events in Iran generally and their economic consequences, specifically the consequences of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz specifically. So using that as kind of an anchor point, Michael, just kind of give us the scene. Like, what do you see? What are you hearing out there? Sure. Yeah, I came into the conference kind of with two big interests. One was about U.S. China and the region and the other of the immediate issues of Iran's, frets to the Hormuz impacts on that. I would say that China and the U.S. was the overall dominant theme of the conference. We did, I did ask, you know, I met with, and here what happens at the conference, I should say, is it's a, it's a series of both plenary sessions where we heard like Secretary Hegsteth made a very interesting speech. And we, you know, we might touch on. between his speech and Secretary of Rubio's speech at Munich, differences in similarities,

but also we've had non-stop meetings with basically national security advisors, Minister of Defense, and senior military leaders of all of the Asian countries. So really a great opportunity to ask lots of questions from them, share dialogue, and really kind of really filled out my understanding of Asia. I would say just kind of set the scene since last time I was on about Munich, you know, the big question in Munich dealt with a regional bully, of course, which was Russia. And a big question in the Shangri-Rola dialogues deals with a different kind of, for lack of, for lack of a better term, bully in respect to China.

But I would say there are two very different situations. And frankly, the European problem set is much easier. You know, the European bully is poor and small compared to its neighbors. and really the task there is is to get the Europeans to spend a little less time at the beach and a little less time less than a techno and get more capable militaries

and get their act together to deal with an adversary they shouldn't be able to handle. China is much different with respect to Asia because while Europe is rich and in similar, Asia is growing and very diverse. And while Europe is really a land issue,

Asia is really a sea lanes. issue. And so all of these countries, as they look at China, there's just a geographic reality of China and also a reality that China has a much bigger role to play through its economy, not just its military. So the Asia problem set is much more complex than the European problem set in terms of going into these dialogues in discussions. But I think that's an important, unimportant contrast. You know, on the Iran and Hormuz issue, which was really top of my mind when I came in, you know, I found that it's matters, it's reverberating, but frankly, the energy situation was a little more muted than I expected. I thought we might go into meetings hearing, you know,

please, please America, you know, our economies can't take it anymore. But it wasn't like that on the oil sector. A lot of these countries are subsidizing the shock. So they're taking the buffer with their people, although prices are up. And they have, while it is acute, they have found other ways to get oil and refined products, and whether that's purchasing more from the U.S. or other places around the globe. Not to say that it's not a very significant issue, but a lot of them kind of said, hey, for the next six months, we can basically handle it. But by the same token, they also said that they're more worried about things like fertilizer and other petroleum-related products, but not necessarily oil and refined fuels.

So that was an interesting takeaway. The only thing about Hormuz that they really wanted to stress was that it could not set a precedent and that Iran could not be thought to win in that sense because, you know, you saw while they walked it back, the Malaysian finance minister, a few weeks ago said, well, we can charge a toll. And that was very resoundingly pushed back on by Singapore and other countries. And they did walk that back. But certainly, again, the Asia issue with their regional hegemon really is an issue of sea lanes and they need to be kept open. So they want it solved, but they also want to make sure that Iran is not left with the sense that

or other people are not left of the sense that sea lanes can be shut down. That's really interesting because it is sort of the, I would say, the emerging conventional wisdom that the United States has some level of insulation, at least in the short to middle run from the closure of the strait. True of China as well, interestingly, despite the fact that it's in East Asia because of all the work it's done to make its economy a little bit more self-sustaining, rely more on coal produced at home than oil imported for the Middle East stuff like that. But that these smaller Southeast Asian nations like Vietnam, Singapore, etc. that they're really the exposed one. So it's interesting that you didn't hear the level of alarm that I think people would have, it sounds like you yourself expected to hear. And it also gives some sense to, you know, in this sort of, you know, this is my characterization, you'll have your own characterization, but in the sort of difficult stalemate right now that the United States in Iran are in,

it gives some support to the president's claim that time may actually be on his side. Because if the global economy is not actually going to collapse, then maybe there's a case that the Iranian economy essentially will collapse first before we start to see, you know, regional recession in Southeast Asia and commodity shortages. Though I will say if I wanted to pull the threadbical, the one thing that you said sort of in passing that caught my ear was like fertilizer shortages. Yeah. Which sounds sort of dry and technical, but I don't think we'll be so dry and technical when,

you know, the price of food sky rockets everywhere. No, I think that's right. And I don't want to underline the, I mean, I don't want to underplay the oil because they are real. and we talked about them, but it was a sense that, you know, there's a roughly a six-month buffer and that they have been able to find, speaking broadly, other products that could be brought to the market. You know, I listened to your excellent live podcast with Neil Ferguson, actually in the airport on the way through. And I would say for now, you know, his statement, the oil marks are getting it wrong, and he would be a bet on the upside. I know, I think his, I hope not too many of your listeners took him.

It took his advice on that just based on what I heard here. But, you know, we'll see on that. But certainly petroleum products like fertilizer, like products that go into plastics, you know, aluminum. These issues, you know, are real and more acute. I would say just not vis-a-vis this meeting, but I did have dinner with the UAE ambassador to U.S. last week on my way over here. and was interesting to hear how much the UAE feels like it is proactively taking steps to insulate itself from Iran. It does not want to be left in a situation where they are dependent on them as well, too, whether it's working on their pipeline, other ways to get products out.

And so, you know, people have real interests and they react. But, you know, it is a complex situation. but I would say overall, I did not hear the sense of drastic panic and alarm that I thought I might have heard on the straits. So let me ask you a question that it tees off and sort of your broad characterization of how the Asian security situation is just different in some ways more complicated than the European security situation. And just to ask you to draw out this contrast between the Munich conference, which you attended and what you've just participated in out there in Singapore. You know, in Europe, not that the Europeans are of one mind or that there aren't chinks in the armor and lots and lots of problems, all of which, of course, are true. But, you know, Russian behavior in Ukraine, not to say, you know, occasionally shooting a drone into Romania has happened last week, things like that, you know, has generated a pretty widespread sense of alarm and seriousness amongst the Europeans. And to the extent that they've got complaints they have, they have and ought to have.

have complaints about their own level of preparation for that, but then they're also, they've got to worry eye on the United States about, you know, the level of commitment we're going to have to them considering a threat from Russia that they take more or less seriously at this point, sometimes despite themselves. In Asia, of course, there is no NATO, just to state an obvious fact up front. And second of all, attitudes towards China, much more complicated and ambivalent. And I just want you to just use that as a theme to sort of talk about what you're hearing in seeing there, Secretary Revio came to Munich and gave kind of a resetting speech in certain respects about the U.S. European relationship. Talk about how these different Asian countries

are thinking through their own relationships to the United States in the one hand, but China and the other, what role Secretary Hegst's that speech may have played in the midst of all that. Just sort of give us a sense of what's going on. Sure. You know, the first is, as every country would say, and I had in all these meetings we had, you know, I would ask questions. like, you know, do you expect China to move on Taiwan? What is, what do you make of the purges recently in China? You know, what is, what do the Chinese people think? What are your people think about China?

So, you know, I had asked similar questions across all the groups. So I think it developed a pretty good sense. I mean, the first thing they would all would say is that, you know, we have a, we have, we want more of a relationship with America. We want America in the region, but we know that America doesn't have to be in the region. that's a choice America makes. You know, China is not a choice. It's a geographic reality that China is here. So, you know, a lot of what President Trump did, what we did as members of Congress and what President, what Secretary Hexeth was doing was trying to reaffirm that, that America will be here and try to reduce the likelihood of the Asian countries sort of hedging towards China. Because, of course,

the way they deal with China also depends on whether America is going to be here. On that note, with Trump's trip to China, I would just say that while in the U.S., there were various commentary of, well, what was the purpose of the trip? Did we get anything about it? Resoundingly, the Asians were pleased that Trump was there in China. They want America and China talking frequently. They want America and China to have an accommodation in Israel. So they thought as a positive that President Trump was there. I would also say, having gone through Vietnam, that really is one of the key countries where there's the most potential for, for improvement with the U.S. in a strategic sense with Vietnam. It was really telling for members of Congress to come through Vietnam because not a lot of

members of Congress go to Vietnam. We were the first ones to go this year. It had been, I think, a couple of years since members had been to, a lot of, when members do go, the time to go through Hanoi, but there hadn't been anybody in, in Hoechelman City or Saigon for some time. And, but that is probably the, the place where congressional, diplomacy has had the biggest impact. And the Vietnamese talk about a lot, Senator McCain, Senator Leahy's impact, the impact, how Vietnam went from such a bloody adversary to now such a good ally with probably the most positive view of America in the entire region. So it really is really a kind of a phenomenal story when you think about the U.S. and in Vietnam

and where we've been and where we're going. But again, with China, it's a, you know, they have a largely have a security relationship with U.S. and an economic relationship with China. China is, they know China is doing nefarious things throughout the region, you know, particularly in reclaiming sea lanes, running illegal gold mining operations in some areas, doing a lot of public information campaigns in their countries. But they also, in the Asian sense, you know, they don't want to play up the negative aspect of that role with China of what's going on. So there's a difference between the governments, sometimes in the people, where I think the people in Europe would uniformly have a sense of that Putin is a bad actor. It's more mixed out here with China.

Certainly the Vietnamese have historical legacy. But in other countries, it's more mixed. And they see because their governments don't want to play up that those China divides. Also, you know, just think about the diversity of the region. You know, Indonesia is one of the largest countries in the world and the largest Muslim country in the world. The Philippines is a Catholic country in archipelago. They're two different kinds of island nations. You know, Cambodia is very poor and small.

Singapore is small and rich. You have the northern Asian countries like Japan and North Korea that are rapidly trying to be top tier militaries. And then you have other countries like Malaysia that are, you know, somewhere in the middle. So that's where I say there's greater diversity here in complexity than in Europe. Europe because I think the difference between, you know, Romania and, you know, in France and in Poland would be less acute than it would be across. Or, you know, certainly not that, you know, Europe is uniform. But it's just, it's more complex. And that's why ASEONs, they don't have a security arreliament, but they do have ASEON. And ASEON only works if there is consensus because, you know,

they have to look in their regional interest. And so if Vietnam has an issue or the Philippines have issues and they certainly have different approaches. You're dealing with China having aggressive behavior in the South China Sea. China has claimed land islands and sea lanes with their nine dash land that both those countries claim. But to work in consensus, you know, they would have to bring countries like Cambodia or Laos along that would be hesitant to that. So there's, is that a complexity indifference. If I might just kind of comment on Hegsses speech versus Rubio's speech, you know, we talked about Rubio's speech. It was, I think, very significant, certainly in the moment, because it was a reset, or at least had some contrast to what Vice President Vance had done

the year before. I think your characterization was Rubio gave a pep talk at Munich, whereas Vice President Vance had given a butt chew in the year before. But both Rubio at Munich and Hegseth here at Shangri-R-R-Law basically gave the overall message that there's no more free rides with the U.S. and it was to urge partner countries that we're going to partner with countries that want to partner with us and get up to three and a half percent spending on GDP and display real defensive capabilities, real capabilities. And that was the message of both. But Rubio did his through an appeal to common culture in history in that kind of pep talk, whereas Hegss said, hey, we're not going to moralize a lecture. This isn't about values. It's

about real interests. And that's something the Asians, I think, respond to just in their own way that understand each other's interest, and we can work from there. So similar use of those two speeches. Now, one of the thing that was kind of interesting as a subplot to the conference, a couple weeks ago, the U.S. Commanding General for Korea was speaking on a podcast, was covering on a podcast to, I think some defense students at college in Hawaii. I think he was in Hawaii speaking to Simmons College, and he made a comment that Korea was an aircraft carrier between Japan and China and kind of a dagger in the heart, and that became a bit of a diplomatic incident. He was actually in the room and was kind of called out on that issue. So Hengssef, to his credit, just had the

commanding general stand up and address that, and he made the comment of context, but it's, for some of your listeners, would be interested in the diplomacy of that. I think that South Koreans felt that they were under, my read was they felt they were under pressure from their Chinese to say how, you know, is this true that you're going to have America in that late? But it was kind of a sub-th Complex with that. So, and then just finally, you know, on the Chinese, you know, I had, I was the first House Republican to go to China since in six years last, last fall and accompanied by the, a Democratic colleague. And I would say that this trip has really helped me under, I understand China more than even my trip to China.

just talking to these various ministers and folks. And one thing is that just kind of uniformly it was persp, and things of asking about the purges that have gone on. It was just that, you know, everything in China is really about the control of the Chinese Communist Party and has to be seen, you know, to that end. And in questions about, would, you know,

do they think they were likely on 2027 to see action in Taiwan versus status quo and those sorts of things? You know, it was really, we have to look at the lens of, is it add to the control of or potentially weaken the control of the Chinese Communist Party? And one of the comments was if China, that as long as Taiwan did not force China's hand, that they felt confident in the status quo, but that if China went, that they would have to win because the Chinese Communist Party could not signal the seriousness of this issue and then show weakness or strength if they didn't. that issue. And so there was a lot of chairman of Shi sort of ideology and understanding as a Stalinist, a Stalinist government from the backdrop. But that was, you know, really, I think, really well worthwhile for defense leaders and members of Congress just to come out and listen to

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Yeah, just on the Korea thing for a second, I was struck. I mean, it's been a few years since I've been there, but I was struck. This is actually towards the end of the last decade. I was in Japan and Korea kind of back to back. And I was struck by the difference in attitudes towards China in the two countries, the Japanese much more hawkish. The Koreans, arguably with the same sort of, you know, to an American who had not been that familiar or studied the issue that carefully,

it might be surprising how much more hawkish the Japanese were than the Koreans and how much more complicated the Korean attitude was in the sense in Korean politics that on some level they're going to need a relationship. it with China, kind of no matter what, for a variety of reasons. And so just less freedom, really, to, you know, to call out bad Chinese behavior or other sorts of things like that. It really was quite striking. And it sounds like that. It hasn't really changed. Yeah, that's right. You know, and I would say, complex is there. I would say in one of the most kind of astute and scholarly senior government officials I talked to in the region, as we talked about, I asked him, I said,

you know, so I said, I don't want to give any indication this is likely to happen because America is going to be here. But what would the region look like if we had the thought experiment that for some reason America wasn't here? You know, what would be the ramification of that? Would you all be vassal states of China or what would happen? And, you know, he said, well, the real worry is that he said, Japan would not allow itself to happen as a proud country that's very capable. And they said, so you what really talking about then is nuclear proliferation in Japan and very likely nuclear proliferation in South Korea at the very least, and then Vietnam that was growing and more capable. So it really was a question of the stakes out here

isn't just can you keep sea lanes open or not with the U.S. role, but it really was what does the globe look like towards potential new proliferation and nuclear Armageddon as you see proliferation? And that was really in this, again, a very season of scholarly review really was kind of the bottom line stakes for what was going out here. And I thought that was pretty telling as well, too. But certainly the complexity, you know, on the Vietnam issue, I would just say, you know, they have, you know, the Vietnamese have stood and fought and have a quiet confidence with respect. They're in no way looking for conflict with anyone. They have their forenows of no military bases, no use of force on those things. But also, they do have a sense of pride. And I think, confidence from their most recent engagements with the U.S. in China compared to some others, but also we're looking they are going to buy the first set of C-130s from the U.S. And look at, we would like to see, of course, across all these countries, increase U.S. defense sales, because that's good for not only our interoperability, but also we don't have enough

defense industrial base without foreign military. sales to be able to scale up. And so, you know, when it comes to deterrence, you know, we talked about, like in that piece I wrote for National Review, deterrence is really about industrial capability now and how rapid things could go. And then just as you, none of your listeners would be surprised to hear, of course, with the impacts of Iran and really Ukraine, you know, everything is, is drone warfare, autonomous systems, understand the future and the capability. So just a real strong defense presence and company here. And I think, you know, the autonomous stuff is coming more quickly than maybe I had realized even at, you know, at Munich, we heard a lot of those conversations,

but I think even just in the months since the Munich conference, you know, these companies seem more capable and more advanced on getting autonomous swarms and these kind of things quicker, at least that's on the horizon. Yeah, that was such a fascinating place. I regret that I've never been. they're both my parents, uh, served there. My dad in the army. My mom was a secretary, uh, for the U.S. Army in Saigon, uh, during the war. Um, and I've never made it over. And I am fascinated by this recent turn to, to better relations between the two countries. Um, uh, I, I think Kissinger once referred to the Vietnamese as the Prussians of Southeast Asia. Um, uh, and I'm just, I don't,

I don't know, I don't know exactly where this question is going, but, um, uh, uh, you know, they do have this seriousness about China, in part just due to their proximity and the fact that they fought a war with them and what was that, 79. It was actually the last time China fought a major war, if I'm not mistaken. So that's their last real taste of military action. Let me just ask you a very open-ended question, see what comes from it. What was the most interesting meeting you had there? What surprised you the most?

Well, let me just say on the Vietnam thing first because I think about a lot. You know, this was my second trip to Vietnam. The first time I went to Vietnam was right. after my year in Iraq in 2000 for the surge. And, you know, that was a good year, but a very, very tough year. And I thought it would be good for me mentally to see Vietnam because I'd heard it was doing well. We used to study the, the cords program. And when I was doing some counterinsurgency work in Baghdad, and we used to study the Vietnamese

counterinsurgency. And I remember going to Thailand and then up to Cambodia, and I took a boat down the river into Vietnam. And I remember seeing Kentucky fried chicken all over the place. And Ho Chi Minh kind of looked like Colonel Sanders. And I was like, you know, who won the war? But it was really great to see the development. And, you know, they still have a Stalinist government at the top.

But, you know, they are so entrepreneurial and capitalists now. And it really is, you know, if Francis Fukuyama oftentimes kind of gets stereotyped as being wrong about the end of history. But, you know, he might have been right in just the Vietnam case. And, you know, I had the opportunity to ask the foreign minister, you know, because one of things they are lobbying the U.S. government to do is we currently, our Department of Commerce, designates them as a non-market market-based economy, and it very much bugs them. There's not a lot of ramifications if we change the designation, but they very much watch this designation changed. And, of course, on their maps, it said, you know, Socialist Republic of Vietnam, it's the Vietnamese

Communist Party, and here they are, you know, pounding the table with the Americans, you know, designate us as a market-based economy, please. And so, I asked their foreign minister. I said, you know, how did this happen? You know, and of course, you know, in the background, they give credit to on the diplomacy with America and friendship to people like Senator McCain and the rapproachment that went on. But on the economy, you know, he was just very blunt.

He said, well, you know, we tried central planning and it didn't work very well. And so it was just for the good of our people. So I would say overall that every American just because of our history really should go to Vietnam. And just because, you know, it is, I think it's inspiring. You feel good. You feel good about America and the future, just as future man and humankind for going to Vietnam, think out what's possible. I would say, you know, the most interesting, probably meeting overall when I was here was really talking to the Singaporeans because, you know, Singapore is, you know, probably the, is a six, is a small island of six million people.

about half of them are actually Singaporean citizens. The rest are immigrants. And it was a swamp that used to be part of a swampy island that used to be part of Malaysia. And with Lee Kuan Yu, who was a committed anti-communist and somebody that could just determined to create a country that governed really well, you know, they've built the country that ranks highest on free market economy and lack of corruption in a country that is, you know, one of the richest countries in the world. GDP here is over $100,000 per person. And it's not without his problems. But he was very committed to a strong U.S. defense

relationship. And the Singaporeans take quiet pride when the Filipinos had a period where they didn't want U.S. forces based in the Philippines that Singapore welcomed them here. But the Singaporeans are also kind of the consonant diplomats of the region and, you know, strong relations in terms of understanding with the Chinese. And I think there were sort of the wise man of the region. But in those conversations, it was really that, you know, America needs to show presence, but also find a way to get along with China

and that the countries here can't be forced to choose because it's just not, they're not going to choose between the two countries. And even though all of them have a list of things that, you know, is kind of bullying behavior from China behind the scenes, they still have to figure out a way to deal with that as an economic and security reality. And the U.S. presence, you know, is going to allow them to do that. So that was probably the most interesting, you know, meeting overall.

And then certainly hearing that exchange between the South Koreans and relaying to our commanding general probably, you know, brought things home some of the complexities of the diplomatic relationships here. One last question for you at Congressman, because I know it's getting late there and you've got places to be. But one other subplot of this conference were the Secretary of War's comments on arm sales to Taiwan. Obviously, kind of a fraught issue. And, you know, he was asked this question. He was sort of asked, is it true that arms sales are paused because of, you know, our needs in Iran, which was a message that had been, you know, circulated prior to his coming out to Singapore.

report. And he basically rejected that characterization. It struck me from, it was hard to, from city where I said it was sort of hard to read what his intentions were. He didn't, he, he basically said, no, it's not because of that. And I'll leave it to you to characterize what his answer actually was. But it struck me from a messaging perspective. He was kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place. He didn't want to admit that we do have magazine depth issues as a consequence of the Iran war. but on the other hand, it's obviously a grave step to suggest that we are pausing or the arm sails are on pause in some sort of, as some sort of consequence of the summit with Xi. So I'm curious how you would characterize it. It's a great question.

And we did a press roundtable with right after his speech. And this is the same thing that New York Times, the Wall Street Journal of Washington Post, and the economists all wanted to talk about. I'll go in a little more depth with you than I did with them. If you listen to Hegs' speech, he talked about helping countries that want to help themselves and have showed commitment to doing that. There is a domestic reality, a political reality right now with the two political parties in Taiwan, one of which controls the parliament where some defense spending has failed in their budget of their own spending. And so if you were, I would just posit that that if you thought about Heggs's,

a speech after thinking about what's going on internally in Taiwan and a speech where he was talking to folks across the region. So in his speech, he lauded praise on the South Koreans and the Japanese for hitting the three and a half percent mark. Ironically, as he was speaking, there was a journalist. And to the credit, one of the interesting things that Schengar-Law is the Chinese now don't participate at a high level because they're uncomfortable that there's open Q&A, and they can't, it was described to me that the senior Chinese have felt like they can't participate well in the free flowing. Also, I think someone, one of the business officials who's been going here a long time said something like eight out of the 10 senior

leaders from China who've previously spoken here have now been purged from the government. So it hasn't worked out well for them. But in any event, as after HECS speech, there was a, someone spoke from and said, hey, New Zealand's only at 1% right now. And maybe they'll get to 2%. Does that mean New Zealand's freeloaders? And so the HECF was, well, yeah, it does. You know, he was quite direct, really. It is in his answer at the 3.5% mark.

So I think that question with Taiwan might be, to Bith, I won't speak for Secretary Hexeth. But I would say also at the same time, he did talk very clearly about maintaining the status quo. The status quo was not going to change. And we as members of Congress have served. certainly, and remember, you know, it's Article 1 before Article 2 have talked about, you know, it's our desire to see Taiwan funded. So, you know, that's the way that we answered that question. I just want to, you know, before we close up, just because as a member of Congress,

I think might be interesting for your listeners because Iran really is the hot topic. You know, these Asia and China issues are really the big picture, but Iran is such the issue of the moment and kind of how to think. I would say, you know, and I just came off of of, you know, nearly two weeks at home before I came out here where I was going across the district. And one of the things I was really interested to hear from my district is what are my voters, the people I work for think about what's going on in Iran. And, you know, I am somebody that supports the president's actions in Iran. And I've dealt with the Iranians myself. And, you know, to me, Iran having a nuclear weapon would be like Osama bin Laden or, you know, Adolf Hitler having a nuclear weapon with

their jihadist messianic forces. So, and I would also say that, you know, in my own election, I, I outperformed President Trump by about 13 percent last year. And so if anybody has bandwidth to start, I think, confidently talk about Iran amongst my colleagues, it would be, it would sort of be myself. And I did feel comfortable. And I feel like, you know, we can defend my, my prediction. But also, you know, I would say for House Republicans and some of my members that in, you know, closer swing district. See, I think there's a real political reality there on things. And so one of the things that I've sort of thought, been thinking through is, you know,

in ancient times there was a fighting season and then there was a farming season. And sometimes the fighting would pause. Well, the reality, if you had to go home and maintain, you know, your food source, it would be interesting to see, you know, has the electoral realities playing here. And I give President Trump a lot of credit for doing things that are politically difficult in this respond. I'd like to see him continue to take a tough line with Iran, but which is all just to say, I think we still have a lot of options in Iran. And, you know, and things might be different for Iran in December that they are now. And they would probably behoove them to take a good deal now because America will continue to have a lot of options.

The political realities may be different in December than they are now. Congressman Michael Baumgartner, it is always a pleasure to speak with you. I hope you'll continue to check in with us from time to time, maybe from these international conferences, but maybe under other circumstances as well. Wish you safe travels on your way home. And thanks for representing the United States out there. Thanks, Aaron. I'm always ready to get into it.

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