The Daily Signal - The Future of ISIS After the Death of Baghdadi

Episode Date: October 29, 2019

The leader of ISIS is dead. The man who directed so many brutal killings, tortures, and atrocities took his own life in a tunnel after being hunted down by U.S. forces. What does that mean for the fight against ISIS, both in Syria and abroad? Today we discuss that with Jim Phillips, a Middle East expert at The Heritage Foundation. Plus: Kanye West’s full embrace of the Christian faith is doing pop culture a new one. We discuss his latest album and film. We also cover the following stories: President Trump blasts Chicago leaders in their own backyard. Rep. Katie Hill, D-Calif., resigns over affair scandals. 7 in 10 millennials say they would vote for a socialist; 1 in 3 are "favorable" to communism. The Daily Signal podcast is available on Ricochet, iTunes, Pippa, Google Play, or Stitcher. All of our podcasts can be found at DailySignal.com/podcasts. If you like what you hear, please leave a review. You can also leave us a message at 202-608-6205 or write us at [e-mail]. Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Tuesday, October 29th. I'm Rachel Del Judas. And I'm Daniel Davis. The leader of ISIS is dead. The man who directed so many brutal killings, tortures, and atrocities, took his own life in a tunnel after being hunted down by U.S. forces. So what does that mean for the fight against ISIS, both in Syria and abroad? Today we'll discuss that with Jim Phillips, a Middle East expert at the Heritage Foundation. Plus, Kanye West's full embrace of the Christian faith is doing pop culture a new one. We'll discuss his latest album and film. And don't forget, if you're enjoying this podcast, please be sure to leave a review or a five-star rating on iTunes and encourage others to subscribe. Now on to our top news.

President Trump spoke Monday at the annual gathering of police chiefs in Chicago, where he criticized that city's high crime rate and status as a sanctuary city. He called Chicago embarrassing to us as a nation and said Afghanistan is, a safe place by comparison. The city's police chief was absent from that gathering, and the mayor, Lori Lightfoot, refused to take a meeting with the president. While he was there, Trump signed an executive order, creating a commission to study the root causes of crime. The Post ran out headline Sunday calling him an austere religious scholar.

They later changed the phrase to an extremist leader. Pompeo criticized the post in an interview with Fox and Friends. I think it's appalling and sick of the fact that they've, frankly not apologized for taking this man who was the head of the terrorist organization that beheaded people that did the kind of things that we were just talking about with respect to Kayla Mueller, who led a caliphate that threatened large pieces of the Middle East and indeed presented risks to the United States America. The fact that a national newspaper would describe this person as an austere scholar

in their headline, in the immediate aftermath of the achievements of President Trump and the administration is truly appalling. ISIS was quick to select a new leader over the weekend. The terror group picked Abdullah Kardashian, a former officer of Saddam Hussein. Newsweek cited a regional intelligence official who said Kardashian was already in the thick of day-to-day operations with ISIS. His nickname is The Destroyer. California Democrat Katie Hill is resigning from Congress amid allegations that she had

unethical sexual relationships with her campaign and office staff. On Monday, she tweeted, It is with a broken heart today that I announced my resignation from Congress. This is the hardest thing I have ever had to do, but I believe it is the best thing for my constituents, my community, and our country. Hill has been under a House ethics investigation in light of the allegations. She admitted to having an affair with a female campaign staffer, but has thus far denied having a sexual relationship with Graham Kelly,

her legislative director. Well, on the Republican side, another House member is retiring. Congressman Greg Walden of Oregon announced he would not run for re-election in 2020. He said the time has come to pursue new challenges and opportunities. Walden was first elected in 1999 and is now the ranking member on the Energy and Commerce Committee. He's the 17th House Republican to announce retirement this year. The European Union is kicking the Brexit can down the road until the 31st of January in the hopes that a UK election will keep the United Kingdom from leaving the European Union.

and negating Prime Minister Boris Johnson's date of leaving the EU this week. The deal, which was reached on Monday by 27 ambassadors from countries within the EU, adds three months to Britain's membership in the European Union and allows the UK to leave earlier if it and the EU both ratify the withdrawal deal that Mr. Johnson agreed to with the leaders of the bloc's member states earlier this month, according to the Wall Street Journal. Well, millennials continue to be lured by socialism, and a concerning number are friendly to communism.

That's according to a new poll conducted by UGov and the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation. That poll found 7 out of 10 millennials are somewhat or extremely likely to vote for a socialist candidate. By comparison, only 4 out of 10 Gen Xers and 3 out of 10 baby boomers said they'd vote for a socialist. In addition, 1 out of 3 millennials

said they were favorable to communism. And when it comes to securing freedom, and equality, only 57% of millennials said they think the Declaration of Independence does a better job than the Communist Manifesto. Up next, we'll speak to Jim Phillips about the recent killing of ISIS's leader. Tired of high taxes, fewer health care choices, and bigger government, become a part of the Heritage Foundation. We're fighting the rising tide of homegrown socialism while developing conservative solutions that make families more free and more prosperous. We're joined out more at heritage.org.

We're joined now by Jim Phillips, Senior Research Fellow for Middle Eastern Affairs at the Heritage Foundation. Jim, thanks for your time today. Sure, thank you. So the head of ISIS is now deceased. President Trump announced over the weekend, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is dead, was actually killed himself as he was about to be captured by U.S. forces in Syria. Jim, how big a deal is this in the fight against ISIS? Well, this is a major victory for the Trump administration's war against ISIS, and it's a huge defeat for ISIS.

It's not likely to be decisive in the sense of spelling the end of the organization, but I think it is the beginning of the end. Although Baghdaddy may be replaced as the top leader, it's unlikely that any successor will have the same degree of effectiveness that he had, and that successor is going to be much more concerned with his own personal security than in launching attacks on the West. So this was a very good day for the U.S. And it sounded like a pretty elaborate intelligence operation,

kind of reminiscent of the bin Laden raid in Pakistan. Yeah, I think there were similarities in the sense that it was piecing together multiple pieces of a jigsaw puzzle over time. And it's unclear, at least to me, exactly which of the pieces was the final piece that sealed his fate. But it does appear that at least some of the leads came from Iraqis that were interviewed by Iraqi intelligence. and the information was passed on to the U.S., which acted on it in Syria. Something really quickly that I thought that was particularly sad. When President Trump was talking about what happened on Sunday, he had mentioned that 11 children were rescued from the compound,

but that Baghdadi brought three of his own kids and ended up deadening his vest, killing himself and his three kids. And I haven't seen a lot talked about this in the media. So is this something, it seems to be that terrorists tend to do, use children as human shields, and should we be talking about this more? Yeah, I think it's something that's very common among al-Qaeda and ISIS leaders that know they could be targeted by air strikes.

They also know that the U.S. tends to put off air strikes if there's excessive numbers of children there, although at least some of these were their own children, you know, that is one of the tactics that they use to avoid. being targeted once they're found. Well, Baghdaddy really had positioned himself as this kind of God-ordained leader of ISIS, right? I mean, saying he was descended from Muhammad and so forth. And it seemed as followers believed that.

I mean, they were following him. Do you think that they will be demoralized by his death, or do you think they'll just kind of move on and the snake will grow another head and they'll just keep going on? Well, I think ISIS has shown itself to be a hydroheaded organization in the past in the sense if you cut off one head, another will emerge. But it's going to be difficult to replace a head that is as important as Baghdaddies because he was one of the co-founders of ISIS and was in from the beginning. and a lot of the very extensive webs that ISIS weaved led to him. It's going to be difficult for any one leader to get in the center of that web again. Psychologically, this is a huge blow, and to the extent that some of his followers may have

subscribed to some of his religious propaganda about being favored by God, then this latest news that he lost God's favor in a very big way is bound to be extremely demoralizing. Is that how they would interpret it? I mean, I know there are some terrorists would say that, you know, they go straight into heaven. If they die as a martyr, would they interpret this as the loss of God's favor on him? Well, I think there are many different motivations that bring people to an organization like ISIS, Much of them a desire for power, for money, for taking part in sex slavery. But there was a small, I would say, proportion of people that were attracted out of religious zealotry. And those are the ones, I think, that will see his humiliating demise as a sign that he did not have the favor of Allah,

as he claimed. President Trump, during his speech on Sunday, said he wanted Baghdadi's death to be an example to other people thinking about joining ISIS, and Trump said that Baghdadi died whimpering, crying, and screaming. Do you think that will discourage fighters from joining ISIS? I doubt there's too much that the president could say that would actively discourage him. And, in fact, he should be careful what he says because it may rebound and, um, trigger them to sign up.

But I think what he was aiming for is to take away the aura of honor that Baghdaddy may have had in certain circles that see killing Americans and other things to be honorable activities because of the way he died. Although the fact that he died. that he committed a suicide in some respects would be more encouraging to his followers because it showed that he had control at the end rather than losing total control and just being picked off by American soldiers. So, you know, I think the president was trying to depress the reputation of Baghdaddy, but I'm not sure that his words will accomplish that in the Middle East. Well, the Washington Post got a lot of blowback over the weekend when it ran a headline in the obituary

referring to Baghdadi as an austere religious scholar. And today the headline reads, extremist leader, so clearly they changed that. Why do you think the Post would characterize him as an austere religious scholar? That is so far off base when you looked at the totality. totality of what this man did and, you know, the size of his crimes. Yes, he was trained as a religious scholar, but to lead with that description is just beyond belief to me. And I'm not sure why they would pick that as even the title of obituary. It's just crazy. Well, ISIS has already tapped a new leader. His name is Abdullah Kardash. What do we know about him? Well, he's believed to be a

very close aid to Baghdaddy. He formally was trained like Baghdaddy was as Islamic specialist. There's very little known about him or what he's likely to do. But, hopefully he won't be around too long if they're able to exploit along a lot of the information that they've uncovered in this raid. They've already struck at one of Baghdaddy's other raids and killed him. So we'll see what other leads are developed. Well, zooming out a bit, looking at ISIS as a whole, what's the direction of ISIS right now? Is it possible that in light of the U.S. withdrawing from Syria that ISIS could make a comeback,

or does it look like this is a decisive blow ISIS is on the way out? Well, this is a huge blow, but it's not clear that it's totally determinative yet. ISIS made a big bloody comeback in Iraq after the U.S. withdrew 2011 and reached its peak in 2015. So it's possible that ISIS could make a comeback in Syria, but it's not as likely given that even if the U.S. totally pulls out, which it isn't right now, it's still maintaining hundreds of soldiers in eastern Syria. But even if the U.S. did totally pull out, the Syrian regime, Iran, Russia, and has bought. all are opposed to ISIS and would resist it from arising to the heights that it had risen to before. But that said, it's important to remember that ISIS has 14 different franchises.

And although it's on the defense and on the verge of defeat in Iraq and Syria, it still is expanding elsewhere. in Asia, in Africa, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, Philippines. So we haven't heard the end of ISIS. All right. Well, Jim Phillips, appreciate your time today. Thank you. Thank you. Do conversations about the Supreme Court leave you scratching your head? If you want to understand what's happening at the court,

subscribe to SCOTUS 101, a Heritage Foundation podcast, breaking down the cases, personalities, and gossip at the Supreme Court. Closed on Sunday. You my chick fillet. You're my number. Raise our sons. Train them in the faith. Do temptations.

Make sure they're wide away. Follow Jesus. Listen and no more living for the culture. We nobody's slave. All right, that is from the track. Closed on Sunday off of Kanye West's new album, Jesus is King, which has been getting all the buzz of the last few days. days. Kanye is

repping his newfound Christian faith in music, public interviews, Sunday services every week, and a short IMAX film that went along with the release of the album. And actually, a few of us gathered here in the studio right now all went and saw the IMAX film and have been

following the phenomenon. So we've got Lauren Evans, one of our producers. Mark Geinney, another one of our producers. Thalia Rampersad, behind the glass recording us. Rachel Del Judas, also still in the studio. Guys, what were your reflections on either the film that we saw or really any of this phenomenon that we've been kind of watching the last few days? The album is incredible.

I love the album. I have to say I was disappointed that closed on Sunday was not on the IMAX film because it's my favorite song off the album. And I love it so much. Actually, it was. It was in the very last. scene when he's with his baby, he's like humming it. It was the credits sound actually in the movie, but for some reason they had the voting down first.

Okay. But you make a good point. You make a good point because it, I mean, a lot of the music in the film was like really different from the album. You wouldn't necessarily be able to tie them together. It was, it was the, like the film itself, it felt more like a worship service, I think, which was interesting and like a good experience. But I love Close on Sunday because it's kind of like, to me,

I see it as like a mandate to especially men. I love like this, I don't know, it's kind of like this leadership position. Connie's taken on talking about raising your sons, training them in the faith, asking and teaching sons to raise this temptation, protecting your daughters. I love the dad and like the leader that he is espousing in this song. He literally says stay off my land and get your hands off my family. Which is awesome. I love that.

So, okay, so a little bit of context. The film is like set in the wilderness out west because Kanye has spent a lot of time out in like Wyoming these days. And it's a big gospel choir that's just gathered there in like kind of a dome-ish. I guess I don't know how you would describe it. Almost like an underground chapel that has this like big circular skylight in it. You can see the sky from it from within it. But yeah, a lot of like just choral music, gospel choir stuff. what did you all think? Well I think too the choir is a big attribution to him coming to know Christ and I found a quote that he had said in one of his interviews saying by having the luxury of having an amazing choir around me every Sunday I come to know the truth and joy of Jesus Christ. This album has been made to be an expression of the gospel and to share the gospel and the truth of what Jesus has done to me. And when I think of the goodness of Jesus and all that he has done for me, my soul cries out.

So I think that's pretty powerful alone. And then to see that he uses the choir and just the formation of the building itself in a circular formation and how they have this whole cut out in the top, just really pointing everyone who's watching it as well as the choir singing to the heavens and putting the focus on that, I think was really interesting and definitely a prominent theme throughout the film itself. So there was no way you could go and see that film and not have like a deeper conversation after. afterwards in regards to the content and what Kanye is doing now. I thought his being out in the wilderness there was interesting. It kind of reminded me of John the Baptist going out into the wilderness before Jesus is coming, you know, and kind of the inauguration of something big. Like you get the sense that he's the lone voice crying out in the wilderness and he's declaring

something, like he's declaring another person, not himself. And you just get the sense of anticipation. Like something could be big, like culturally, spiritually. he's such an influential figure and yeah and he says his favorite verses like actually from John no it's not John the Baptist it's Jesus when he says

repent and believe the gospel here's what I thought was amazing though about all this is when like because I'll confess that when Kanye started this whole journey my kind of thought was like oh gosh you had doubts here we go well of course I mean Kanye super talented

hugely egotistical though I mean very talented man like he's he's like entitled to be proud of himself. I am a God. He calls himself, Jesus. He said, I am God. We think back to the infamous Taylor Swift incident, right? All these sorts of things that we think, oh my gosh, there are so many celebrities I would

put on the list for impacting the culture and going through this. Not that you don't want everyone to come to Christ eventually. But when I listen to it, it definitely I had that same sense. that like he is not directing the attention toward himself. This feels very sincere and this feels like it's directed towards something else. Like in the film you couldn't really find him. He was kind of there in the middle

of a bunch of other gospel choir people and they're all wearing the same like outfit. Yes, absolutely. And I find it's a good reminder because so often like you can look back in the scripture, you look everywhere that, you know, it seems to be that people like God doesn't, there's

the saying like God doesn't call the qualified, he qualifies the called. Right? And so all of these people throughout history have been these very unlikely people who suddenly we find in these kind of situations. So it's really cool. It's cool to see it working in Kanye. It's interesting you say that because one of his songs is called Hands On. And he kind of responds to the criticism he's gotten from other Christians, kind of like you were saying, kind of wondering if he's legit. And then he admits like, yeah, I understand your hesitancy.

You know, he's got a past for sure, very public past. but then his response is not for people to get over it and accept him. His response is just, he says, like, pray for me. That's his response. Like, lay your hands on me, pray for me. I thought it was like a really humble thing to say and the kind of thing you would hope to see. So while we had a great time going to see the movie, I don't know if I would recommend others to see it. We walked in at 6 p.m.

And we were walking out at 6.30. I checked my watch. It's only 36 minutes, right? Yeah. Not even. It was 28 minutes. because there was a minute trailer. And it just kind of...

It was $15. It was $15. And it felt unfinished. I think it was really, there were really powerful moments in it. And they spent a lot of time really reflecting on the acquires faces. But walking out, I was like, I don't think that was worth $15.

And then yesterday I watched the free live stream of his Sunday service, and that was two hours. And that was incredible. And I don't know why he just didn't record that and make that the IMAX movie. One other point that I loved, and I love kids, and I love the pro-life movements, and maybe this is me just wanting to see the beauty of that he had him bringing his son. But one of the last songs, he had Psalm in his arms, and he was singing to him,

and you couldn't really see you could just see part of his chest. He's holding the baby. And the song he was singing was use this gospel. And he's telling his son basically, like, this is the truth. Jesus is the way and the truth in the life. use this gospel as you grow as you mature. And that was, I think, the second last or the last song. It was very close to the end.

And I love that picture of kind of looking forward, training up a new generation, Kanye using his role as a father and having his son there and telling him, obviously he's very little now. He's not going to understand all the words that they are being told to him as a baby. But just that image of him being a father and training him up in the ways of Christ as a father should do was really special and beautiful. So this album has been well received by a lot of people, including us. I will note that all of us here professed the Christian faith. A lot of other people are not so happy about this album.

They think it's boring or they think it's, you know, they miss the old Kanye. Like on Twitter you hear people saying, I miss the old Kanye. What is this with the new Kanye? Which I thought is interesting because that's kind of fitting given like the Bibles talk about the old man and the new man. Like, yeah, this is a new Kanye. So that's just what it is. But, you know, do you think that his celebrity will sustain itself? Do you think that this, you know, evangelistic turn that he's taken is going to, I mean, it might succeed.

It might convert people, but do you think he will stay the kind of king of pop culture that he's been for like the last decade? I think time will tell. And I think it will be interesting to see, obviously, this is, I mean, he's even himself. saying pray for me. This is a new walk in my faith life. But I think that if for some reason he doesn't stay at the top of the list when it comes to pop music, I think

that in a way is a test of where are you at in this? Like is this truly a conversion or is this something that you were doing just to pull in a segment of the market, so to speak, that you haven't reached before. And I think if maybe it doesn't succeed and he still remains faithful, you know,

who knows maybe he'll end up being a worship pastor, somewhere, maybe he'll end up leaving the music. I mean, we don't know what will happen, but I think it'll be interesting to see whether it's successful or not, like, if his faith stays a paramount focus or if it's just kind of something that sort of falls by

the way side as time goes on. I think time will tell. Well, he seems to not really care what people think. I guess that's kind of a mark of him, like he's kind of been like that for a long time. Like when he went out all out for Trump last year, he was getting all kinds of flack and he didn't care what people thought.

And now he seems to be applying, just applying that now with Christianity. The fact that the five of us are gathered here talking about this, I think is just a testament to, one, how radical the change is and how radically different what we're seeing now in Kanye is. And I think, too, a result of his conversion will be that there are going to be people that are falling off. There are going to be fans that fall off and maybe some of his celebrity status will drop. But again, to your point, Daniel, his past has been very public, but now hearing what he's professing and what he's proclaiming will only open up new doors and new opportunities, which will be very interesting to see where that takes on. And I'm super excited. Keeping up with the Kardashians is about six months behind where they are in real life. Yeah.

So they just cut up his conversion. Yeah. So I can't wait to see when these episodes come out around the album. Because remember, it was Kim who wrote down the tracks. on the hotel notepad and tweeted out. So he's married to Kim Kardashian. I can't see him going away in pop culture for a long time. I'm also a little bit fascinated by the,

he seems to have had kind of this, unless I'm understanding my Kanye timeline, which I'm very well maybe off the Kanye timeline, but my understanding is that he had kind of a political sort of reawakening. And then we learn more about this like religious theological kind of reawakening. and I wonder about the relationship between those two. He seems to become politically outspoken and then religiously outspoken. And I wonder, you know, maybe the fact, like what impact that has on people?

Like, are they more receptive to his message or less coming in with like having received his political background first? Like I just, I'm just really intrigued by the way that plays. I don't know how it's going to play out. Yeah, I don't know which one came first. I mean, he was going Trump before his convention. version. I feel like he was. But, you know, he was also starting the Sunday services before he actually officially said that he converted. Well, remember, his first big song was Jesus walks. And he talks a lot about the influence that his late mother had on his life. So there's definitely a

foundation. I think this is just the time that he actually fully came to Christ. One of the question I wanted to ask you guys is, do you think he'll get involved in like the pro-life movement. There was a video circulating on the internet recently that he was critical of like the Democratic Party for a whole host of things and he said that he didn't like the fact that he

as a black person was expected to vote for Democrats and then he made a comment about how Democrats were like forcing us to abort our children or that was the language he used and then he said yeah now they're dead do you guys

think he I mean some people are I saw a live action on Twitter, or maybe it was another pro-life group, was saying, is he going to be at the March for Life in January? Is he going to start this activism? I mean, that would be interesting, wouldn't it? Well, if there's one thing we know Kanye hates, it's confrontation. Not really. So, no, I wouldn't be at all surprised if he stepped into that debate.

And I think it's interesting to, well, I mean, I think after the album came out, there was an article that had quoted him in an interview. I forget who the interview was with, but he had mentioned that he was asking people who were on the set of Jesus' King on his short film to abstain from premarital sex. So he is speaking out, which I also love. So what he's said in interviews

shortly after this movie is any indication. I mean, I have a feeling it's possible he could get involved in the police movement because he's already speaking out on really important societal issues that are in the conversation right now. Okay, so if you didn't get enough Kanye talk on today's episode of Daily Signal, I want to give a quick plug for my podcast Problematic Women. It comes out Thursday morning, and we're going to dive into this even deeper. Spoiler alert, they would not let me make Kanye West problematic woman of the week,

but we will definitely really talk about all of this and get into even more detail. Thanks, Lauren. And thank you, Mark and Thalia. Of course. We're going to wrap it up there for the day. Thanks for listening to The Daily Signal Podcast brought to you from the Robert H. Bruce Radio Studio at the Heritage Foundation.

Please be sure to subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, or Spotify. And please leave us a review or rating on iTunes to give us any feedback. We'll see you again tomorrow. The Daily Signal podcast is executive produced by Kate Trinko and Daniel Davis. Sound design by Lauren Evans and Thalia Ramprasad. For more information, visit

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