The Megyn Kelly Show - Israel at War, Hamas Terror, Biden Response, Anti-Semitic Uprisings in U.S., with Sen. Ted Cruz, Ric Grenell, and Victor Davis Hanson | Ep. 643

Episode Date: October 9, 2023

Megyn Kelly begins the show by discussing the horrific details of Hamas’ unprecedented attack on Israel, why this is like Israel's 9/11, the terrorist's targeting of women and children, the Americans killed and taken hostage, and more. Then Megyn is joined by U.S. Senator Ted Cruz, to discuss what could really be behind Hamas' horrific attack on Israel, the Biden administration's past financial positions that could have encouraged and enabled the attack, what Iran's association with Hamas could mean for America's foreign policy, anti-Semitism coming from some in the House of Representatives and others on the progressive left, the alarming pro-Hamas and anti-Israel rallies happening in New York City and beyond, the Biden administration's tepid response to the terror attack, and more. Then Ric Grenell, former acting DNI Director, joins to discuss what the U.S. should be doing in order to get back the hostages taken by Hamas, the Pentagon negotiations and how Donald Trump succeeded in diplomacy when he was in office, the media's outrageous response to the terror attack, and more. Then Victor Davis Hanson, author of "The Dying Citizen," joins to discuss the Biden administration’s foreign policy and how it relates to Hamas’ attack on Israel, the chilling details behind Iran meeting with Hamas, and more.Follow The Megyn Kelly Show on all social platforms: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/MegynKellyTwitter: http://Twitter.com/MegynKellyShowInstagram: http://Instagram.com/MegynKellyShowFacebook: http://Facebook.com/MegynKellyShow Find out more information at: https://www.devilmaycaremedia.com/megynkellyshow

Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at noon east. Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show. What a day and what a weekend. It has been an absolutely brutal weekend of news, as our world is now different today than when we last talked on Friday. We've watched as Hamas terrorists carried out a coordinated, unprecedented holiday attack on Israel. Many now calling this Israel's 9-11. Israeli officials putting the death toll so far at 700, but it's expected to continue rising. I've seen 900 as well. At least nine Americans are among the dead. This is not including the number who have been kidnapped and are now in

the custody of these Hamas terrorists. The brutality of this attack is unlike anything many of us have seen, especially when it comes to Israel. The terrorists, unsatisfied with simply taking innocent lives, proceeded to mutilate the bodies, parading young victims in broad daylight through the streets. It's been unbelievable. It's been very difficult to watch just on X, formerly known as Twitter. Never mind when you think about the poor people who actually had to go through it. One of the deadliest scenes taking place at a music festival along the Gaza-Israeli border. In this video, taken moments before the attacks began, you will see young people dancing, having the time of their lives. Look at this. They all look like they're about 20 years old.

But as the video pans over, you see the beginning stages of the attack with dark plumes in the sky above. You start to see what appear to be hang gliders coming in above the skies where the young people are celebrating. And then came in armored vehicles and Hamas terrorists with machine guns. And the young people began running for their lives as the sound of gunfire rang out behind them. The latest reporting, at least 260 young people were killed. Their dead bodies are now being gone through by the Israelis. One of the festival goers was Shani Loki, a German-Israeli woman. In one of the most disturbing scenes from this weekend, videos emerged of Shani being displayed seemingly dead, at a minimum unconscious, nearly naked,

as the terrorist held weapons above her body and shouted Allahu Akbar in celebration. We've chosen to show you the video. Here it is. It's absolutely disgusting. We're not going to be showing you all the videos, but just a few brings home what actually happened there. Her mother, Shawnee's mother told CNN last night that she was on the phone with Shawnee as her daughter tried to find a place to hide. Shawnee then stopped responding to the messages and her mother only found out what happened to her when friends started sending her the video, which showed her daughter being driven into the Gaza strip. Her mother is holding out hope that perhaps her daughter was still alive in the video. Uh, we just don't know. She, she may be, although the appearance in that truck looked very much like

someone who's no longer alive. The media is reporting, though, that 70 to 100 people have been kidnapped and taken hostage, among them civilians, children, and grandmothers. And Shawnee's mother said she wanted the video shown. It's too horrific to take in. The videos that we've been seeing all weekend show Hamas terrorists and note to the media, it's not militants. Just stop. This is terrorism. Torturing, kidnapping, and absolutely just murdering young women, grandmothers, children,

babies, not to mention the young men whose lives have been taken. We always sort of go to the most vulnerable as we should. Babies and children are in a different league, but we shouldn't make light of the amount of life that's been lost belonging to Israel's next generation young men, like those guys who are at the music festival too, just trying to enjoy a good time. Another young woman was seen on video being put on the back of a motorcycle. This has gone viral as well. She can be heard screaming, don't kill me, as she is driven away. It's believed some of these people are now being held in locations across Gaza, being used as human shields because this is what Hamas does.

They are intentionally trying to complicate Israel's efforts to strike back because they know Israel doesn't like to target civilians, because they know Israel does everything within its power to protect the Palestinian civilians, never mind the Israeli civilians who have been captured and are now being used as human shields. There are videos out of young Israeli women, presumably captured from places like that music festival, because there are possibly a dozen of them in the films that I have seen sitting in what looks like some sort of an abandoned building, presumably in Gaza, terrified, crying, holding one another. And you can hear rockets coming down. They know very well what the Israeli government is going to do in response to this terror attack.

And they're terrified. They're hoping that they can live through the retaliation. And Israel has zero desire to target its own civilians, never mind Palestinians and Hamas, but it must. And now it will have to figure out how to spare the innocent human lives as it tries to retrieve its citizens and ours who are being held hostage at this moment. There are reports of terrorists going door to door. One mother telling CNN she had been on the phone with her 16 year old and 12 year old who were home alone at the time. They heard gunshots. She heard the door break down. Imagine the terror, a 12 year old, a 16 year old on the other line, and you're not with them. mother, her terrorist screaming in Arabic and her younger child saying to them, quote, I'm too young to go. And then the phone went dead. She hasn't heard from her children since. I want you to keep this in mind as we get to in a minute, the leftist response, the radical leftist response by people like the 31 student groups at Harvard, by people like elected representatives from Cori Bush to Rashida Tlaib. I want you to think about the 12-year-old who said,

I'm too young to go and hasn't been heard from since, okay? Because their response has been utterly inhumane, as inhumane you could argue, as the terrorists who grabbed those children to begin with. Israel has now called up some 300,000 reservists. Gaza is now under blockade. And we may be on the verge of witnessing a ground invasion. How else will Israel do it? How are they going to get their people back if not a ground invasion? Meantime, around the world, we've witnessed many celebrating the Hamas terrorists behavior,

including some right here in the United States. We are fortunate enough today to begin with Ted Cruz of Texas. Senator Cruz, thank you so much for being here. I do want to start with what you've done because I've been following it. There have been few greater champions of Israel in the United States Congress than you. And you've met with resistance time and time again under this administration. I'm not trying to blame this on Joe Biden. I understand who's to blame. But the United States' role in facilitating the enrichment of Iran and of Hamas has to be examined. So let's just start there with the money and what exactly you've been objecting to for the past few years. Well, Megan, you are exactly right. What is unfolding in Israel right now is truly horrific. This is being widely

referred to as Israel's 9-11, and it is of that degree of magnitude. We're seeing atrocities carried out against innocent civilians that have not happened since the Holocaust. We are seeing death squads of Hamas terrorists who are going house to house and murdering every individual in the house, murdering women, murdering children, murdering the elderly, murdering infants. We're seeing these death squads viciously raping women and children in front of their parents, in front of the entire street. We're seeing bodies paraded in front of everyone. We're seeing people who have been kidnapped and tortured paraded and held out as trophies and then taken back to be used as human shields to guard the missiles, to guard the military headquarters of Hamas. This is a human rights violation and a war crime of a level

that just takes the breath away. And there are many reasons to be infuriated about this, but one of the most fundamental is what you are seeing on your screen was in a very, very real sense paid for by Joe Biden and the Biden administration. Since Joe Biden became president, he has flooded roughly $50 billion to the government of Iran, to the Ayatollah. And understand, Hamas, those terrorists that are raping and murdering and torturing and killing women and children, they work for Iran. They are Iranian proxies. They are paid for by Iran. They are controlled by Iran. Now, how did Joe Biden send $50 billion to Iran? Well, most recently, he sent $6 billion that was explicitly on its face,

a ransom, a ransom for five Americans who'd been kidnapped. In doing so, he set a bounty, he set a price that the going price for kidnapping an American is $1,200,000,000. As I said at the time, the chances of other Americans being kidnapped have just escalated. Well, we've seen in the last few days, there are multiple reports of numerous Americans that are among those who've been kidnapped now that the Biden administration has set a price for what they'll pay for kidnapped Americans. But it wasn't just the $6 billion, because a few weeks earlier, the Biden administration sent an additional $10 billion. That was money that was coming from Iraq, and the Biden administration sent it to Iran. That ups the total to $16

billion. But even that dramatically understates it, because from the very beginning, the Biden administration refused to enforce the American sanctions on oil sales. The most effective thing we've done against Iran is sanction their oil sales, which had crippled their economy and brought their economy to its knees. Joe Biden came in. He refused to enforce the sanctions on those oil sales. Right now today, Iran is selling two million barrels of oil a day because Joe Biden wants them to. He allows them to. And collectively, all of that money that has gone to the Ayatollah is roughly 50 billion dollars. That money is paying for the rockets that are murdering Israelis. That money is paying for the death squads. And their attack

was planned and directed by the Ayatollah and the brutal regime in Iran. It's been confirmed. I mean, the Wall Street Journal had a report pointing that out, that not only did they plan it, not only did they sanction it, but they met, the Iranians met with Hamas in Beirut a couple of months ago and gave the go ahead and sat down and planned it. I mean, this is clearly an Iraniananian operation and hamas pulled it off and we'll get to how on earth they managed to pull it off because i think a lot of our friends in israel have been living under the belief that they were safe thanks to iron dome and so on and and discovered similar to the way that we did on 9 11 that despite israel's strength and amazing amazing intelligence capabilities and so on, this was a catastrophic

failure. And all of that will have to be seriously looked into. But what's likely to happen now, Senator? What's likely to happen? Because Israel hasn't yet unleashed its full force in response to this. And now they're looking at a possible addition of Hezbollah from Lebanon in the north. We're looking at Iran. I mean, I mean, could there be a direct war there with Iran since they're behind this? What what about the United States? I mean, how grave is this moment? Look, all of that is possible and all of that is on the table. Let me say first where you started. You're right that the Iron Gnome system, their missile defense system is incredibly sophisticated. It has saved thousands and thousands of lives because it intercepts rockets as they're coming in before they can murder civilians. These death squads went house to house to house. They went to a rock concert where students were enjoying a concert and they just fired indiscriminately, murdering the concert goers.

They went to bus stations and just murdered everyone standing at the bus station. And so this is a military invasion that is seeking to commit indiscriminate murder and in particular to target civilians. This is not aimed at military targets. This is aimed at infants. They are murdering infants. They are in some instances murdering the children. In other instances, they're murdering the parents and kidnapping the infants and bringing them back to Gaza. I am sure that Israel will engage in a serious retrospective about how the Hamas troops were able to make it out of Gaza and into Israel. There was clearly a security failure on Israel's border there. That's a question that will be addressed as time goes forward.

But you're right. There's an enormous risk from Lebanon to the north where you have Hezbollah. Hezbollah has thousands upon thousands of guided missiles, missiles that can target civilian population centers. There is a significant expectation that Hezbollah will step in as aggressively as Hamas is doing right now. They're also backed by Iran. Both are backed by Iran. Both are controlled by Iran. And, you know, I have to point out also, if you look at Hamas and Gaza, it's not just the money to Iran that Biden is responsible for. One of the very first things Joe Biden did is sent hundreds of millions of dollars into Gaza. And I actually led a group of 17 senators pressing the administration not to send money to Gaza because that money was starting to go straight to Hamas.

We've now discovered that the Biden administration, they agreed, they concluded that there was a very high likelihood the money would go to Hamas and be used for terrorism. And nonetheless, they sought and received a waiver, a waiver from U.S. terrorism laws, because it's illegal to send money that you know will be used for terrorism. They concluded, yes, Hamas will use this for terrorism, but we want to send it anyway. I'll tell you also, there were 145 Democrats on the other side in the House who wrote a letter demanding that the Biden administration fund Gaza and let that money go to Hamas. One of those was Colin Allred, the Democrat who's running against me, who said the Biden administration needed to send those millions, even though they knew that that money would be used for terrorism. Well, you're seeing the money that Biden sent being spent right now carrying out war crimes of a degree not seen in a very, very long time.

They did know. And this is just with due respect, anybody who thinks it's Ted Cruz, Republican, partisan speaking, that's not it. This has been reported on widely in the media. The Washington Free Beacon did a great report on seeing those warnings inside the administration saying this money is going to be used for terrorism. You know, this is very risky. And the Biden administration overruled it and said we're sending it anyway. And you were leading it. I think you got 18 other senators to go along with you saying this.

We should not be doing this. We should not be doing this. We know exactly you should give money to Gaza. You know, there's there's Palestine and then there's Gaza. Gaza is run by Hamas. If you give money to Gaza, it's going to be used by Hamas to target Israelis and Americans. And that's exactly what appears to have happened. It's there has to be at some point some accountability on our own part for administration policy. And I'll get to their response in a minute, the ridiculous tweets and so on. But I want to spend a minute more some more time time on, on what actually happened in Israel.

Senator, I don't understand. Like, I don't, I don't, the, the amount of, like, this must have been in the planning for months, right? Because they came over the fences. They use bulldozers to bulldoze down the fences, which, which are dug deep into the ground. It's not like these are like the fences that we have in some parts of our border, which are easily penetrated. We showed video of the hang gliders coming out. And then there were also paragliders, which have like more of a motor that they use. The Israelis should have been able to see all of that. You can't just turn on a paraglider and learn how to use it in a day. You would have had to get one and practice with it. And the one thing that the Israelis do do, they don't prevent any

food or water supplies going to Palestinians or the Gazans, but they do prevent weapons and anything that can be made into a weapon from going into there. And yet all of this somehow got through and was made. And not to mention machine guns. I'm being told American machine guns that the terrorists were seen using to kill. Like, how on earth did they get all of these? Well, there needs to be a full investigation to every one of those questions. You're right, the Israelis try very hard

to prevent material that can be used for weapons. But part of the problem is the U.S. government and U.N. aid organizations flow cash into Gaza. They call the cash there for things like humanitarian relief, but they send things like pipelines to build water pipes so that people can have fresh water at the homes. And Hamas takes those pipelines and instead cuts them into rockets and uses the material to turn them into weapons of war. That pattern has carried on over and over and over again. As you know, I do a podcast every week called Verdict with Ted Cruz. We do it Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Today's podcast is entirely on this topic, and it walks through the fundamental difference between Hamas terrorists

and the IDF, the Israeli Defense Forces. Hamas terrorists deliberately, they use human shields. They use innocent civilians to protect their military, to protect their weapons. So for example, in 2014, the last time there was a major rocket shelling of Israel from Gaza, the headquarters, the military headquarters of Hamas in Gaza was in the basement of a hospital, a hospital that was treating Palestinian women. And they were doing it for a very deliberate purpose, that it gave the Israelis two choices, both of which were terrible. Choice number one is decline to attack Hamas's headquarters. That means their military headquarters is immune for

military attack and they can continue to plot murder and acts of war from that headquarters. Option number two is Israel decides to take out that headquarters. If they did so, they would destroy the hospital as well. And the result would be you would see women, you would see infants dead, Palestinian women, Palestinian infants. But let's be clear, Hamas is using Palestinian babies, Palestinian mothers as human shields because they know if Israel has to take them out, that those images will be shown by CNN, will be trumpeted around the world by the New York Times, and the corporate media will be useful idiots using those dead Palestinian children as weapons to attack Israel. Hamas does that all the time. They keep rockets and missiles in the same buildings as kindergartens

because they want to use their Palestinian kindergarten children as human shields. All of these babies and toddlers they're kidnapping now from Israel. It is very likely they will place those babies and toddlers by missiles, by military targets, by the headquarters of Hamas, again, to now use not just Palestinian babies, but Israeli babies as well as human shields. That is a war crime. In fact, in 2014, I authored a bipartisan resolution, myself and Kirsten Gillibrand, Democrat from New York, condemning the use of human shields as a war crime specifically by Hamas. It passed the Senate 100 to nothing. Well, that's what they're doing right now. And Israel is going to respond. They're going to respond vigorously. They're going to take out the Hamas leadership. They're going to take out the Hamas terrorists. They're going to act to free their kidnapped individuals. And a big question now is how aggressively is the Biden administration going to undermine and attack Israel every step of the way? We're already seeing multiple Democrats calling for a ceasefire, even as women are being raped and murdered.

The response of Democrats is do nothing in response. Just let the terrorists be. That makes no sense. America should be standing with Israel against this barbarism and these horrific war crimes. It's unbelievable. We've seen the initial response from the Biden administration through this Palestinian working group that that Trump disbanded within the State Department was to call for a ceasefire. This is before this is this is as if what with the Twin Towers still burning and in rubble. Yes, we had been told ceasefire, stand down. You know, no further violence is appropriate. Then they deleted the tweet. And then after that became a controversy, at 4 p.m. yesterday, Tony Blinken, Secretary of State, tweets out about his conversation with the Turkish foreign minister saying,

Turkish foreign minister and I spoke further on Hamas's terrorist attacks on Israel. I encourage Turkey's advocacy for a ceasefire. What? And the release of all hostages held by Hamas immediately. Later, they had to delete that. And then they put out a different tweet saying, oh, I spoke with the secretary, encouraged Turkey's continued engagement and highlighted the U.S.'s unwavering focus on halting the attacks by Hamas. Now, here's my question. They were smart enough to delete the tweet twice. But what's the actual policy? When Blinken spoke to the Turkish foreign minister, did he actually, as he said the first time, encourage Turkey's advocacy for a ceasefire? Because that appears to be what we're doing behind the scenes. No, like let let Turkey do it. Let Egypt do it. Let other people go out

there and say ceasefire, ceasefire, which is what we actually want in this administration, as opposed to Israel defending itself. Well, the first tweet that the State Department sent out right as the war began, as these invasions began, as the murder and kidnapping and rape began, that came out at three in the morning U.S. time. And I saw it at the time and I responded immediately and said that it was utterly disgraceful and disgusting that everyone involved in writing or approving the tweet should be fired immediately. I will say in response to my highlighting it and calling them out, they deleted the tweet within an hour. And they subsequently said this is not State Department policy. Never mind that it was sent from the Office of Palestinian Affairs on the official State Department

Twitter account, that they ran away from it when they were called out. All of this happened between three and four in the morning, the night the war began. Since then, you know, there's a simple tell that you can have that when anyone in the administration, when anyone in Congress uses the word, you know what they mean. And that word is ceasefire. They keep using the word ceasefire and ceasefire. They're referring in particular to military action. And what they mean by ceasefire is Israel do not attack Hamas. They're not asking the terrorists to stop. They don't expect the terrorists to respect a ceasefire. What they are asking for is let there be no consequences to thousands and thousands of Israelis being murdered, wounded, raped, tortured, kidnapped. Let there be no consequences at all.

No nation could allow that to happen. There will be consequences and the military consequences. Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's prime minister, I know very well. I've spent a lot of time with Bibi. He is a man with a sense of gravity, a sense of seriousness. He understands his responsibility to protect the people of Israel. And I have every confidence that the Israeli military is going to go into Gaza and is going to target the Hamas leadership and is going to either capture or kill the leadership of Hamas, is going to take out and destroy the rockets and the weapons that they have, is going to find the terrorists who are committing these acts, is going to capture or kill those terrorists, is going to free as many of those hostages as

possible. And one thing to understand also, the way the IDF goes in, they go to extraordinary lengths to avoid civilian deaths. So for example, they have the cell phone numbers of everyone in Gaza. So if they're going to attack a particular building that is a Hamas military asset, that is a headquarters, that is where military equipment is stored, they will send a text to every person in the building saying, get out of the building now. They will drop on the top what are called knock bombs, which basically just make a loud noise, but don't blow up. And that's designed to be a warning to say, get out of the building. If you're a civilian, if you're not a terrorist, get out of the building because this building is getting ready to be destroyed.

They have sent text to civilians in Gaza saying the following area are safe zones. You should go there if you're not involved in hostilities because we are going to take out these military facilities. You know what Hamas is telling the Palestinians? Don't leave the building. Don't leave the military site. Don't get you and your family to harm's way. Why? Because we want your dead body for the idiots in the press to parade around to say, see, those Israelis killed these citizens that we kept right here so they would be killed. It is horrific and evil. And, you know, I'll put it this way. It's actually a way Netanyahu put it during one of the earlier rocket attacks. He was talking about how Iron Dome missile

interceptors in Israel intercept their rockets and stop them from killing Israeli citizens. And what Bibi said, he said, we use our missiles to protect our citizens. They use their citizens to protect their missiles. Those are not morally equivalent. Those are not the same. One is a nation defending itself. The other is a grotesque act of terrorism. We have Rashida Tlaib, of course, predictably, she's the only Palestinian American member of Congress tweeting out finally, she went silent and then finally tweeted out the path to a peaceful future must include lifting the blockade, ending the occupation and dismantling the apartheid system that creates the suffocating, dehumanizing conditions that can lead to resistance. 100 percent. She blames

Israel. That's what this tweet is. You've got Cori Bush, who, as far as I can tell, has done absolutely nothing in her life other than protest the police killing of Michael Brown, which was brought on by Michael Brown himself. So said Eric Holder, Obama's DOJ attorney general. She's that's how she she came became famous. She said Michael Brown was unfairly killed by the police. It was a lie. Michael Brown had attacked the officer. And that's why the officer shot him. That's what Obama's DOJ found. In any event, she became a star and has been pushing to defund the police all along. And now she wants to take it out on the innocent Israelis to her, her never ending life of grievance. Uh, and she came out today, uh, same thing, similar messaging to what we just heard from Talib. Um, I mentioned

the 31 student groups at your alma mater, Harvard coming out, similar messaging, Lawrence tribe, uh, Harvard professor emeritus, unbelievable, saying that this is Bibi Netanyahu wagging the dog to deflect from his domestic turmoil when it comes to political disputes. Then later, I mean, after just a shitstorm unleashed on him, he came out and said, oh, you know what? I hadn't really fully appreciated what was going on in Israel before I sent that. I mean, but the reaction from the established left, Senator, has been absolutely disgusting. Well, unfortunately, in today's Democrat Party, anti-Semitism has been normalized. We've seen the rise of the squad. We've seen the rise of AOC and Tlaib and Omar and Cori Bush and these radical leftists, they loathe the state of Israel. They are

blatantly anti-Semitic. They embrace BDS, boycott, divestiture, and sanctioning, targeting Israel, and they wallow in those sentiments. Each of them have had multiple anti-Semitic tropes that they rolled out previously. You'll remember a few years ago when the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi tried to pass a resolution condemning anti-Semitism. And it turned out she couldn't get her conference to agree. The Democrats could not come together and clearly condemn anti-Semitism. They ended up watering it down to just a general condemnation of hatred of any kind for anyone whatsoever, just blurring it all into a bland statement. I'll tell you when that happened, Megan, in the Senate, I was deeply dismayed and I wanted to see, could the Senate do better?

So I went to Tim Kaine, the Democrat from Virginia. Tim is a friend of mine. He's a liberal Democrat, but he's not nuts. And I said, Tim, do you think there's a chance we could bring Republicans together and clearly and unequivocally denounce anti-Semitism? Tim agreed to work with me on it. The two of us drafted a resolution that clearly explicitly denounces anti-Semitism, that it denounces BDS as an explicit form of anti-Semitism, that it denounced the statements made by the squad members as anti-Semitic and unacceptable. We took that resolution. Tim and I went to the Senate floor. We did not know if a Senate Democrat would stand up and object. They did not. And our resolution passed 100 to nothing. The fact that the Senate needed to do that because the House of Representatives couldn't, because Nancy Pelosi could not take up the resolution that the Senate passed because her conference was unwilling to condemn anti-Semitism. That's what you're seeing now. The reaction-

You've got some raging anti-Semites in the halls of Congress. Thanks a lot, Minnesota. And at Harvard. Thanks a lot, Missouri. Thanks a lot, the Bronx, where AOC purportedly came from. I mean, they're open about it. They're not even trying to hide it. Yes. And they're the reason why a lot of this money does get funneled over there. They really see Israel as the aggressor.

And even in the wake of what we just described at the top of the hour, they don't have the thoughtfulness to just pump the brakes a minute. Just take it easy. I mean, there are literally parents desperately searching for their babies right now. We saw the murders in the streets with our own eyes. We saw, we didn't post it, a bus stop full of elderly women, dead, murdered, toppled over. Just, I mean, who would murder a baby, an elderly person? Evil, just absolute evil.

And all they want to do is say, well, they're evil too. They're evil. Israel's evil too. And Megan, the images that people are saying, yes, it is invoking that it is Israel's 9-11. In another way, it's Israel's Pearl Harbor and that it is a military attack that is directed. But for a great many Israelis and for a great many Jews in America, when they see these images, the association that is impossible to avoid is the association with the Holocaust. Because we have not seen since the Holocaust, death squads systematically going from house to house to house and just murdering

entire families, murdering the mother, the father, the grandmother, the grandfather, the babies, teenagers, toddlers, infants, just indiscriminately slaughtering families for one reason, because they are Jewish. That is the reason, in the view of these terrorists, they deserve to be murdered. And we are seeing crowds cheering the murder of entire families. We're seeing crowds, tragically, not just in Gaza. We're seeing crowds in other countries, including in regions of America. We're seeing people cheering it on. And the argument, you know, you mentioned that I went to Harvard. I'm a graduate of the Harvard Law School, and I have to say when I see 31 student groups look at terrorists committing mass murder, committing torture, committing rape, trying to commit genocide, committing kidnappings, targeting infants, and they're cheering them on and saying, Israel's to blame. It's your fault, they're saying to the Israelis, that your children are being murdered and raped. That's truly horrific. That is a level of ideological hatred,

bigotry, and blindness that unfortunately is becoming far too common at our so-called elite academic institutions. Their minds are being poisoned and you got 31 groups all standing around saying, yes, yes, yes, we're with the monsters doing the killing. It's amazing. There was a time when Harvard was the most elite of the elite and you'd say, oh, geez, I wonder, my kid could go. I could never go there. Maybe my kid, I don't want my kids going anywhere near that place. I don't want them interacting with these lunatics and these 31 student groups. There's probably a fair amount of the professors who are sympathetic towards that position. I don't want them anywhere near those people. I want them on the outside condemning them and making their own voices heard. But this is just too dark to stomach. Stand by because we just got word on what President Biden is now doing.

You won't be surprised when you hear what it is more with Senator Ted Cruz. As we were just talking about, we have seen celebrations in support of this Hamas terrorism around the world, including right here at home in New York City. A rally was held yesterday with participants chanting from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free. Take a listen. From the river to the sea. From the river to the sea. Palestine will be free. Take a listen. That's enough of that. They held signs stating when people are occupied, resistance is justified and quote, end all US aid to apartheid Israel and violence quote, by any means necessary. These are Americans. These are Americans sitting out there in Times Square. Unlike the left, it's not that I feel they don't have a right to be there,

but their message is insane. Up in Canada, our friends over at Rebel News caught video of young men cheering, waving flags, and honking in support of the Hamas-led terrorism attack on Israel. Look at this. They're having a great time. They're thrilled. They're thrilled. Ontario's premier, that's Canada's version of a governor, Doug Ford, there called these, quote, hate rallies that have no place in Ontario, saying they're reprehensible and disgusting. He's not wrong about that. Yet they continue. In Australia, pro-Palestinian protesters demanded that Australia cut ties with Israel and, quote, free Palestine. Free Palestine! Free Palestine! It's amazing. There's no sobriety. There's no moment of honoring the dead, those who are still in harm's way and suffering. And Senator Ted Cruz, not that these people are relevant to the discussion, but it is somewhat telling. Actor Josh Gad put out a tweet, and he's got family in Israel,

in support of Israel, and had to post a second tweet saying, my God, the amount of negative incoming I received for saying just I stand with Israel. Kylie Jenner, again, her reaction is not important, but the backlash is telling. She has 400 million followers on Instagram. She similarly put out the Israeli flag with the I stand with Israel. She had to delete it an hour later because there was so much blowback to her in just putting it. I mean, these same people are probably posting Ukrainian flags as we speak. But when it comes to Israel, very different story. Well, there is a normalization of anti-Semitism, of hatred for Israel among the left today. We see it in our university campuses where Jewish students are regularly afraid to be identified as Jewish students, to wear a yarmulke, to wear clothing that identifies that they're Jewish, because the virulent hatred

for Israel is such that they endure harassing. They endure that they see Hillel centers that are vandalized, that have swastikas drawn on them. And the growth of this among the radical left is a very disturbing problem, especially because so-called mainstream Democrats don't stand up against it. They don't stand up. As I described a few minutes ago, Pelosi was not able to get the people who are celebrating across the world, both in the U.S. and abroad, those are the same people who were celebrating after September 11th. After the towers went down on September 11th, you had the very same people cheering because there's a simple truth. Those who hate America hate Israel, and those who hate Israel hate America. The radical left is angry. It is violent. It embraces terrorism. The Ayatollah in Iran, to whom Joe Biden has sent $50 billion, he regularly chants in front of mobs of crowds, death to America and death to Israel. The two are interrelated. He literally, to forgive the interruption, he literally tweeted out in the

wake of this, quote, God willing, the cancer of the usurper Zionist regime will be eradicated at the hands of the Palestinian people and went on from there. By the way, that tweet stayed up finally after all these people said, how does that get, you know, how does that live on Twitter on X? They put a warning on it, which is fine under Elon Musk. He's trying to allow, you know, people to see it. Now you have to click on if you want to see it. But the point is, I mean, can you the Ayatollah is on there and Trump for years was kicked off. I want to tell you about President Biden because we don't have that much time with you left

and I want to get to this. He called a lid on any press available. He's done. He's done working. As of noon, that happened as we went to air. Yeah.

Senator, he's done, I guess, for the day. And this was his message after, I mean, for 12 hours, absolutely nothing. Absolutely nothing. Then a paper statement, 14 hours,

finally he released a statement. The American president was sleeping. It seems the 3 a.m. phone call came and he didn't pick up because he said he didn't hear about this until 7.30 or 8 the next morning. It had been going on all night. Finally, he managed to put out a statement. You tell me whether his heart is even in this. I don't.

Well, you watch it. Today, the people of Israel are under attack, orchestrated by a terrorist organization, Hamas. The United States stands with Israel. We will not ever fail to have their back. You know, the world's seen appalling images. Thousands of rockets in the space of hours raining down on Israeli cities. When I got up this morning and started this at 7.38 o'clock, my call,

Israel has the right to defend itself and its people, full stop. There's never justification for terrorist attacks. And my administration's support for Israel's security is rock solid and unwavering. Let me say this as clearly as I can. This is not a moment for any party hostile to Israel to exploit these attacks to seek advantage. The world is watching. So what's happening here? What's happening after, you know, given all the money that you already described that we've given to Israel's enemies, and he's saying the right things, at least in front of that microphone, not via his State, at least in front of that microphone, not via his State Department. But in front of that microphone, he's smart enough to say the right things. So what's happening here? You know, the immediate question that leaps to mind is,

are you going to stop the money? Are you going to stop sending money to the vicious terrorists who are committing these atrocities? And are you going to enforce the oil sanctions? Iran is selling 2 million barrels of oil a day. They did so yesterday. They'll do so today. They'll do so tomorrow. Each and every day, Joe Biden continues to compound it because his administration, their holy grail, their white whale of foreign policy, is they want to enter into a nuclear agreement with Iran that is a complete capitulation, that allows the Ayatollah, the person directing these terror attacks, to have nuclear weapons. And the only thing that might be worse than what we're seeing now is seeing this instead playing out with a mushroom cloud over Tel Aviv. And instead of

talking about thousands who've been kidnapped or tortured or raped or murdered, we might be talking about millions who were murdered in a nuclear attack. That's what Biden- Is there any chance that the Iran deal goes forward after this? According to the Biden administration, yes, it remains their obsession. They cannot be dissuaded by facts. Look, before this war attacked, before this war began, Iran was actively trying to murder the former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, the former National Security Advisor to the President John Bolton, and the former Assistant

Secretary of State Brian Hooks. Every month, the Biden State Department spends over $2 million simply providing security because the Iranian hit squads are trying to murder them. At the same time, Biden and his underlings are sitting down with Iran, swilling Chardonnay, laughing and negotiating a deal. And in fact, and I forced Blinken to answer this under oath, I said, Mr. Secretary, is it true that the State Department's spending $2 million a month in security to stop Iran from murdering these former senior officials? He said, yes, that's true. I said, is it true that your

State Department asked Iran while you're negotiating with them to stop actively trying to murder former U.S. officials? He said, yes, that's true. And is it true? They said, no, we will not stop trying to murder them. And he said, yeah, that's true, too. He acknowledged nothing wrong with any of this. Finally, I just asked him, Mr. Secretary, would you agree that murdering a U.S. Secretary of State is a pretty big deal? And Tony Blinken was forced to laugh and say, well, yes, is a pretty big deal. And Tony Blinken was forced to laugh and say, well, yes, that is a big deal. And I said, then why the hell do you sit down and negotiate with them and give them billions of dollars and pretend that they're real good faith

negotiators when they are trying to murder us? That is the degree of zealotry in this Biden administration. Now, there will be a question of how much support should come from the United States. You know, you've seen the numbers on support for Ukraine going off the cliff among Republicans. What what's your take on that? Israel is a different it's a different story. It's a very important ally in a very important region. But, you know, the attitude, the appetite right now for getting us further involved in external conflicts. So how do you see that? Listen, I believe Israel is fundamentally different. America should stand with Israel, period. We should ensure that Israel has the weapons it needs to defeat Hamas and to defeat Hezbollah. If Hezbollah gets actively engaged in this, we should ensure that they have the time

to do so. Now, that doesn't mean we should send U.S. soldiers into harm's way, but it does mean we should provide the military support that is necessary. And every bit as importantly, America needs to defend Israel in the international sphere because the left, the haters of Israel will try to attack it and try to demand a ceasefire, which means Israel surrender to the terrorists. America needs to make clear, no, Israel must defeat the terrorists, not surrender to them. Hmm. Do you think it's relevant? I mean, we have Mike Pence out there today saying, you know what, this is also a problem with Republicans like Trump, like Vivek Ramaswamy and Ron DeSantis wanting to stand down and lead from behind. That's not America. We need to lead

from, you know, he's back sort of in the Reagan policies when it comes to foreign policy. What do you make of that? Look, there are real disagreements about Ukraine policy with the Biden administration and among the candidates running for president. I understand those disagreements. I disagree with how the Biden administration has implemented this war in Ukraine. Among other things, they've sent billions of dollars to Iran. Iran is using some of that money for drones that the Russians are using to kill Ukrainians. So just like the Biden administration is funding Hamas to wage war on Israel, the Biden administration is also funding Iran for Russia to wage war on Ukraine. They're funding both sides of the war. It's incoherent. That being said, this war was caused by Biden's weakness. And I wouldn't put it in the middle of the disagreements in the Republican primary. Senator Cruz, thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Joining me now for more analysis is former acting director of national intelligence under the Trump administration and ambassador to Germany, Rick Grinnell. Great to have you here today.

I want to start with this because we left off on this note with Ted Cruz. We actually have the Mike Pence soundbite. And this is going to be debated at length now when it comes to American policy and how we're going to respond, how an active role, how active and a role we should be playing. Here's Mike Pence yesterday on America's role in this whole thing. This is what happens when we have leading voices like Donald Trump, Vivek Ramaswamy and Ron DeSantis signaling retreat from America's role as leader of the free world. Look, what happened in Ukraine was an unprovoked invasion by Russia. What happened this weekend was an unprovoked invasion by Hamas into Israel.

And I really believe now more than ever, both the debate within the Republican Party and the debate within America is whether or not we're going to once again stand without apology as the leader of the free world, as the arsenal of democracy. What do you make of it, Ambassador? One of the reasons why I think we in the America first foreign policy world want to think about these issues only in accordance to what is good for America and putting America first is because we need to be able to prioritize when America would get involved. I've been a big proponent of not giving just unlimited amounts of money to Ukraine because I didn't see how it immediately impacted the United States. Certainly, we are the leader of the free world and we should be pushing peace

agreements. But in moments like this with Israel, this is the whole reason why we say why we should be saying no to Ukraine. We don't want to deplete all of our munitions and hardware in Ukraine when we are when they're needed in Israel. And so I think we have to stand with our ally Israel right now. And by the way, I actually believe that there's a lot of Arab countries that also are secretly standing with Israel. They don't want a big, huge Middle East war. And so hopefully, Anthony Blinken is working behind the scenes. Now is the time to have really an incredibly tough diplomatic effort, a diplomacy surge. When you go and you talk to the Turks and you talk to the Lebanese and you talk to the Egyptians and the Syrians, including the Russians,

the Russians can play a very important role right now by making sure that Syria does not get involved and that their border with Israel is not penetrated to open up another front. The Russians have a lot of influence in Syria right now, and we should be talking to them. I think America has a lot of influence on Lebanon and Egypt, and that's where moving some of our hardware in immediately is a diplomatic action. I don't like to try as a diplomat, try to push the military option. But I do think for diplomats who are negotiating to have a credible threat of military action behind the diplomats only helps the diplomats at the table. So where do you see this going? Because this is what I was trying to ask Ted Cruz.

This could, it could get very, very bad. It could go well beyond Israel and Hamas. It could involve Hezbollah. It could involve Iran. It could involve even potentially us. What do you see as the most likely outcome? Well, look, it's hard, it's hard to talk about these issues and do hypotheticals because you certainly don't want to give weight to any one thing and make it come into fruition because you're talking about it. So I think most people are going to be very hesitant. But I think what you just touched on is exactly the fear is that it really could get into all of these different areas. I think Turkey right now is a key, key ally. Remember, they're a member of NATO. They've been a member of NATO since 1951. We have a lot of people I would put into the camp of Democrats who are very skeptical of Turkey and they want to push them away. Certainly,

the Biden administration has not been a good friend to Erdogan. The Biden administration hasn't been a good friend to the Saudis. And we need the Saudis right now. I go back to my point is I'm not sure that Arab governments are all unequivocally on the part of the Palestinians. I believe that the Iranians, for instance, they don't care about the Palestinians. They're using them. Now, look what's happening. You have the Iranians pushing Hamas to start this war. And now look at what's going to happen to Gaza. Look what's going to happen to the people inside that area. Do you think that Iran is going to take those refugees? They're going to take care of those refugees? No, they're using them as pawns. And the more that we can make clear to the Arab people in this region that they are being used by Iran, the better. And I do think that we'll get help from the Saudis,

the Egyptians, the Lebanese, even the Syrians and the Turks on this message. I mean, there are some who are saying, first thing, I think this was Josh Hammer, who's a syndicated columnist, was saying, first thing is we need to evacuate as many civilians from Gaza as possible and ideally move them to Egypt if Egypt would help. And then we need to raise Gaza, we meaning Israel and us with our assistance. We need to raise Gaza and make it look like a parking lot. There cannot be any getting along with the folks in Gaza. Hamas has proven that if you want to get rid of Hamas, you've got to get you got to raise Gaza. And, you know, with

with the caveat that I just said, trying to get Egypt to take as many of the civilians as it will. What do you think of that? I've worked at the State Department for 12 years, Megan, you know that, and I'm a diplomat and I try to talk about peaceful solutions. I think in this particular instance, it's very difficult to think about what the peace is. I'm all for Israel being able to defend itself and take the time to root out the problem. I don't know what that means, but I certainly know I want to give Israel enough time. Here is one of the problems with Josh's assumptions. I don't think Egypt is going to take these individuals. If they were going to take them, they would have taken them a long time ago. They've got a wall keeping the Palestinian people out and not able to go into Egypt. But I

do think, you know, out of the 21 members of the Arab League, that we should be able to sit down again with a diplomatic surge. And I don't have faith with Anthony Blinken being able to do this. He certainly hasn't been able to come up with a peace plan for Ukraine, even though the Chinese have one. But I do think right now the State Department has a lot of foreign service officers who are really good. Let me highlight one, a woman who is right now being held up as U.S. ambassador to Egypt. She's a career Foreign Service officer, and she would be amazing. But guess who's holding her up? Bob Menendez, who's supposed to be the Egyptian government expert.

But he doesn't want the Foreign Service officer going in. And I believe that the reason he doesn't want her going in is because when she was in Bulgaria, her top issue was getting rid of corruption. She rooted out corruption and was a corruption czar in Bulgaria. And that was her top priority. And she wants to do the same thing in Egypt. And guess what? Bob Menendez doesn't want her there. He's holding her up. So we need to have these foreign service officers who are good and not every one of them are good, but she's very good and she needs the support and we need to have an ambassador in Egypt. What, you know, I realize that you're not a former defense secretary, but the situation of trying to get back the hostages, nine of whom are ours.

Very difficult. At least nine Americans now sitting there wondering whether we're coming to get them. We paid, what, as Ted Cruz said, 1.2 billion per prisoner to Iran to get our people back. Now we got at least nine Americans who are prisoner to Hamas. We can't just sit back and say, oh, I guess it's Israel's problem, right? I mean, what should we be doing and what do you anticipate Israel doing? Because

there are minefields, there are booby traps. It is not easy to go in and steal back any hostage that Hamas has taken, nevermind hundreds of them, the women, the children, the Americans, everyone that they, Hamas, I mean, you've got to give them credit for smartly making it a lot harder for Israel. I mean, this is just because Israel cares. They care about life. Yeah. Look, America's top priority has to be getting these individuals back, whether it's a hostage or someone who has been killed. We've got to bring the Americans home. So what I would advocate is the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense need to sit in the Oval Office and they need to both present their plans how to do this. Again, a diplomatic surge. You've got to get the

Egyptians to start helping. You've got to get the Saudis to start helping. You've got to get Lebanese and Turkey, go to Erdogan. And if you can't get our people freed as Americans by making it very clear, we're trying this diplomatically. If you're not going to release the Americans, then the Pentagon is going to come in and they will not negotiate. And the Pentagon needs to have a plan. We have the most amazing American men and women who know how to go in and rescue Americans. They do it the world over. When I was U.S. ambassador to Germany, we were called upon by the Germans to rescue some of their hostages, and we do it. This is what America does. And so I believe that the Americans on the Pentagon side need to be prepared if diplomacy fails. We need to have a small window for diplomacy. I'm not naive about this. Probably

not going to work, but we need to have a surge. I don't understand why Anthony Blinken is not in the region right now. Get on a plane. He has his own plane and immediately start talking to these capitals and try to come up with something that would help. And if he finds in 48 hours that we cannot come up with a diplomatic, peaceful plan, He needs to be warning all of these governments. The United States is coming in to get its people and the Pentagon is coming in right behind the diplomats who are trying to negotiate and the Pentagon doesn't negotiate.

This is the difference between a threat of military action and a credible threat of military action. Donald Trump always had a credible threat. Matter of fact, Chancellor Merkel once told me, the problem with your president, Mr. Ambassador, is that I never can figure out what he's going to do next. And I remember thinking to myself, don't smile, don't laugh in her face, but this is exactly what we need for American diplomacy is a president who is not predictable. Well, I mean, I think a lot of us are thinking about that right now,

about whether they would have done this had it been a president Trump. I mean, it's bad enough what they've done to the Israelis, but you're taking American hostages. You're taking American hostages now. Now you want to mess with the United States of America directly. I just can't bring up one point on that. There's a tweet, an old tweet when President Trump was was president. And I saw it circulated yesterday where President Trump says he warns Iran in a tweet. You touch one American and you will live to regret it. And that statement was so credible that we didn't have the Iranians messing with Americans then. We didn't have Americans.

Even Rick on 9-11 of this year, Trump tweeted out or truth doubt. I don't have it someplace here, but it was it was saying that this Iran deal where we paid the six billion would lead to the bad guys taking additional American hostages? Of course, they're upping the ante. Bloomberg News, no friend of conservatives reported at the end of August that the Biden administration was on the record confirming that they were easing the sanctions from Iran and Iran was beginning to sell more oil. Their oil spiked. Look, once again, when the Iranians see that the Biden administration is easing the sanctions, letting them sell oil, giving them $6 billion, telling the Europeans that they can absolutely start doing trade with the Iranians. And then we see the pro-Iranians Americans getting security clearances and moving inside the State Department and the Pentagon.

What do you think message that message is that's sent to the Iranian radical regime? They've had this utopian vision about Iran, right? It's like they really thought, just like Obama thought, that we could just hold hands and forget all about all that terrorism stuff. You know, things are looking a lot better. They had just sent out some tweet, Anthony Blinken did, saying the Middle East hasn't been this quiet in years. And then there was Trump. My team sent me his truth from Truth Social on 9-11 this year. Can you believe crooked Joe Biden's giving six billion to the terrorist regime in Iran? That money will be used for terrorism all over the Middle East and indeed the world. This incompetent

fool is destroying America. He had the audacity to announce this terrible deal today, September 11th, to pay for hostages will lead to kidnapping, ransom and blackmail against Americans across the globe. And of course, it was Iran behind what we're seeing right now in Israel with Hamas. It was Iran. And that and, you know, it's we can get into the six billion and how it went down. But money's fungible. We said that they could get this payment that they were owed out of South Korea and they knew it was coming and they cut a deal. They've obviously been helping Hamas plan this for months and the Wall Street Journal has confirmed it. So diplomatically, as you talk about, you know, these groups, Saudi Arabia was just about, well, maybe that's too optimistic, but was seriously

considering signing a deal to improve relationship, the relations with Israel, similar to the way we saw Egypt and Jordan do when Trump was president. And now there's some concern this could derail that, though there's a preliminary indication from the Saudis that it won't. The Iranians do not want that deal for all sorts of reasons. They do not want the Saudis getting closer to Israel. And all these entities like Egypt, like Jordan, like the Saudis who get a little closer to Israel, they're not getting any closer to Iran. So Iran gets further ostracized. Israel gets less ostracized. But will this have the effect? Some are speculating of making the Saudis back off of that deal. Well, I think this whole war is about the Saudi-Israel peace negotiations and the fact

that the Iranians don't want it. Look, let me just say one thing that's really important. Donald Trump and the Trump administration absolutely believes in engagement. Joe Biden has tried to engage with Iran. The problem is the Democrats for years keep going back to engagement, even though engagement doesn't work. I believe that engagement is sometimes key. Take, for instance, when when President Trump went to North Korea, looked at Kim Jong Un and said, hey, let's try talking.

Let's try to to to engage here. And it worked. A lot of times engagement doesn't work and you have to, you know, use military force and take out Qasem Soleimani, as President Trump did, because he was the leading leader of terrorism. And so what I like about the Trump policy is that he tried engagement. He was willing to try engagement, but he was also willing to evaluate whether or not it worked quickly and to do something else. Sanctions. Remember when Pastor Brunson was in Turkey, what did President Trump do? He told Erdogan, well, shut down your economy. You don't want to return, Pastor Brunson? Well, I give you 48 hours because I'm going to shut down your economy. That credibility that Trump has with someone like Erdogan worked. They returned him. Peaceful, totally diplomatic, using tools like sanctions,

like tough statements, like engagement. But President Trump is also willing to use the military in specific instances. And that's what I think is needed right now. We need to be able to have both a diplomatic plan as well as a military plan. And that's where I have a lot of trouble with the Biden administration. We have lots of war plans. The Pentagon seems to be doing really well with having a plan of action and a request for more money for more war. But we literally do not have a State Department that's functioning right. Anthony Blinken has been evacuating our embassies regularly, sometimes first. We're the first ones to evacuate in a situation. And we're not utilizing diplomacy. But yet, what is he doing? He's talking about, and I don't make this up,

culinary diplomacy, music diplomacy, and the art embassies program is being expanded. The problem, too, here is that not only did Israel have a massive intelligence failure, we did, too. I mean, we also keep a very close eye on Hamas in this region. It's in our interest for all the reasons we've been discussing to maintain a peace there. And we apparently got caught just as off guard as they did. And I referenced it a second ago, but here's Jake Sullivan, the national security advisor. Last week, he was appearing at the Atlantic Festival. This is last week. Listen. And what we said is we want to depressurize, deescalate, and ultimately integrate the Middle East region. The war in Yemen is in its 19-month

truce. For now, the Iranian attacks against U.S. forces have stopped. Our presence in Iraq is stable. I emphasize for now because all of that can change. And the Middle East region is quieter today than it has been in two decades. Clearly, we had no idea. Well, look, I don't know if you saw this. Let's see if your staff can pull up this tweet. Jeff Morrell, I tweeted it out just a little bit ago. Jeff Morrell, who was the former head of CIA, a big Democrat, signed the letter, the 51 individuals who said that Hunter's laptop was Russian disinformation and you shouldn't

look at it. Jeff Morrell just this morning said it's not an American intelligence failure. individuals who said that Hunter's laptop was Russian disinformation and you shouldn't look at it. Jeff Morrell just this morning said it's not an American intelligence failure because the violence happened in Israel. And he says that would be like saying on 9-11, it was an intelligence failure for Israel because they didn't suspect what was happening in our country. That's not the way allies work. That's's not the way allies work. That's certainly not the way the U.S.-Israeli relationship works. We share a lot of intelligence. By the way, Five Eyes is another organization that should be sharing all of this intelligence.

So we already see the Biden team, and I put Morerell in that because he's worked very closely with the Biden team, scrambling to say this is not our fault, this is not an intelligence failure from America, but of course it is. Wow. Yes, looking for it. Here we go. My team just sent it to me. Mike Morrell this morning saying, let's see, NBC News stated implied that the Hamas attack on Israel

was a U.S. intelligence failure. Let me be clear. This was not a U.S. intel failure. The equivalent would be saying that 9-11 was an Israeli or U.K. intelligence failure. Yeah, you're exactly right. It's just as you said. I've got to ask you about the media. It's really no surprise what they're doing, but they're doing their own sort of old tricks. The headlines in the news have been absolutely ridiculous. I'm biased against Israel and in favor of Hamas. I mean, Hamas in favor of Hamas. They refuse to call them terrorists. They refuse. Even Joe Biden's calling them terrorists. Even his administration using the word terrorist. It's like, that should be the green light

for the Washington Post and the New York Times. But they're apparently too left to even take that marching order and they've stuck with militants. Here was the Washington Post headline yesterday. Israel formally declares war against Hamas as hundreds killed on both sides. Oh, my God. Tells you absolutely nothing about who started it, what's being done.

I actually tweeted this out. Here's here's my alternate headline where I'm running Washington Post. Hamas terrorists murder, kidnap hundreds of innocents in unprovoked attack. Israel acknowledges it's war. I mean, just so people can see the difference in what the media is doing. This morning on Morning Joe, Rick, there was this exchange where the ADL's Jonathan Greenblatt, I mean, that's a far left organization now, far left. But this guy, even this guy had too much on Morning Joe in the way they were characterizing things. Watch this. I am angry. I am angry with the world that allowed the dehumanization of

Israelis and sanitized the terrorism of Hamas. I must say, I love this show and I love this network, but I've got to ask who is writing the scripts? Hamas, the people who did this, they are not fighters, Jonathan. They are not militants. And I'm looking right at the camera. They are terrorists. It is a barbarian who rapes and brutalizes women, who kills children in front of their parents. I mean, it's something when you even have somebody on the set of Morning Joe calling out the network. You know, I'm really glad that you ran that clip. I didn't see it.

I don't watch Morning Joe. But, you know, you, Megan, have a ton of independent listeners. So many people that I know that either are not really that political or don't really like Republicans and Democrats listen to you. And what I just want to point out is that this is, as you say, a very far left activist, Democrat activist, who is now saying that MSNBC has gone too far, the media have gone too far, that this woke type policy has taken over and that we've lost common sense. And I appeal to all of the people that listen to you in this podcast to really understand what that means is that when you're losing Democrats, activist

Democrats, because the Democrats have literally gone crazy and lost common sense. You really need to be able to pull this back. You got to stop voting for these people. They're radicals and they're really changing our country. And I'll finish with this. I have a lot of friends in my life who are first and second generation Americans. And the left wants you to think that they are all voting for Democrats. But actually, every first and second generation American that I know is absolutely conservative. They look at what's happened to the media, the DC media, the White House press corps, and they say, wow, all they are is parrots for the ruling party.

I left that. That's what I escaped from. And they see it very clearly. And they're the canaries in the coal mine for the rest of us in America. It's really disheartening. You look at what's happening on the national level and you see Trump who sends out some not nice posts about people like Elaine Chao. He may or may not have handled the documents perfectly. The other side is trying to trans our kids. I mean, literally cutting boys' penises off saying, you know, because some random parent says, yes, I think he's actually a girl. And doing this, funding Iran, despite the fact that they know what will happen,

funding Hamas, despite the fact that they know what will happen and leaving, you know, Israel twisting in the wind. So now they come out and try to say the right words to try to reassure us that their hearts are in the right place. But their actions have been leading, have been contributing to this chaos, to those murders, to that death. And we're supposed to just, I guess, sit in our offense about Trump's, you know, not using the King's English and vote for for Democrats. I don't. Rick, you've been very consistent on this all along and a true voice of reason on this. And I am grateful to you.

Thanks for being here today. All the best. Thank you. Up next, another voice of reason. It's really going to be good to talk to him. His tweets over this weekend have been invaluable, like especially invaluable. Victor Davis Hanson joins us to put it all in perspective. Victor Davis Hanson joins me now. Victor, I want to get your reaction to this whole thing. Let me

just start with this though. So far though, former president George W. Bush and former president Donald Trump have both addressed what we're seeing, the terrorist attack by Hamas on Israel, nothing, nothing from Bill Clinton or from Barack Obama. In fact, Obama's last tweet from Saturday, which is the day this had unleashed it when it started overnight Friday, was for decades. Nargis Mohammadi has been a vocal advocate for women and girls in Iran. This Nobel Prize is a well-deserved recognition of her courage and the hope that she represents not only for women in Iran, but women fighting repression and violence around the world. How about the women who actually were the victim of repression and violence in

Israel? No words for them. Former President Obama, nothing to say about the children being murdered in Israel. So far, I guess he couldn't find time to actually use his little thumbs and tweet something out. Your thoughts on it? Well, he can't because the policy that the Biden administration has implemented came from Barack Obama. Remember when Obama left office on news that Donald Trump was going to cut off all aid to the Palestinian Authority. And they had been warned, just as Biden had been warned by their own State Department, that that money was fungible and would end up in the hands of Hamas. So their idea of making up the Middle East was to be neutral and therefore maybe tilt against Israel and the Gulf states and create, I guess they call it creative tension, and support Iran somewhat and Hezbollah and Hamas, and there would be a balance there, and the United States

would then be the adjudicator. And they had natural sympathies with revolutionary regimes. And it was a disaster. And so Biden came in, and what did he do? He put Robert Malley, and Robert Malley was a complete anti-Semitic bigot. And the first thing he did was try to renew the Iran deal. And now what's happened, the FBI is investigating him for disseminating classified documents and putting pro-Iranian activists in important billets in the State Department. And Anthony Blinken, what has he done? He said, you were misinforming people, he said, to suggest that Iran may have given money to Hamas in anticipation of getting $6 billion. That was really poor aisle. He said, we haven't given them the money. We didn't release

the South Korean money yet. But of course, Iran knew it was coming, so they made the necessary adjustments in their budget. And they've given 100,000 rockets to Hamas. And of course, then Blinken just today had to delete another tweet where he and the Turkish foreign minister called for a ceasefire. And same thing with whatever the U.S. State Department, U.S. Affairs Bureau, Palestinian Affairs Bureau, you remember that tweet right after the killing, they said that there should be immediate ceasefire. So something's wrong with our government when they tweet and then the Secretary of State and the State Department have to dismantle that tweet because they're embarrassed that it's even beyond the pale for their own party, as you showed in that clip.

And when you give, Jake Sullivan just gave a talk a week ago, Megan, where he bragged that this was the quietest time he'd ever seen in the Middle East. So they knew what they were doing. Yeah, they knew what they were doing. They were trying to bring Iran in and normalize it and normalize Hamas. And Hamas and Iran played them like a fiddle. And they just acted as if they were peaceful and they want engagement, where for months they planned and planned and planned this mass murder.

And now they're very defensive because the world is watching and they know what happened. When they, I mean, it's really chilling if you think about it. We gave them that $6 billion. We approved the release of that $6 billion to Iran on 9-11. That's when we announced it here. And at that moment, we know from The Wall Street Journal's reporting they were meeting. Iran was meeting with Hamas to plan this this terrorist attack. I mean, so what are we going to do about it? What what are we going to like what the defenders are saying? Well, it has hasn't technically been released yet. It's still sitting in South Korea. OK, are we going to are we going to like what the defenders are saying? Well, it has hasn't technically been released yet. It's still sitting in South Korea.

OK, are we going to are we going to stop it? Are we going to shut it now? What are we going to do? What are we going to do when it comes to Iran? Because it looks like right now, not only are we not going to stop it, but we're going to continue on with the Iran, the Iran deal that's become an obsession for the Obama and Biden team. We are going to continue because Secretary Blinken just said a few hours ago that

he saw there was no evidence that Iran had planned this. That's what he said. He had not seen any evidence. And their way of thinking, the more that, yes, the more that you indulge Iran and Hamas, they will interpret that magnanimity to be reciprocated in kind. And they look at it as weakness to be exploited, not to be reciprocated in kind. And they have nothing but contempt for us. And they know that, but they have something about Israel. They've adopted this revolutionary fervor in the United States left that somehow the success and the humanitarianism, the democratic institutions of Israel, cause people in that area to feel envious or jealous or angry. And they buy into that. Neocolonialist, neo-imperialist Jews in the Middle East shouldn't be there. And it's prevalent in the democratic

part. And it's very ironic because they keep talking about MAGA and semi-fascist MAGA and the MAGA tail wagging the Republican dog. And actually, the radicalization of the parties was in the Democratic Party. And you can see these insane postings by the squad members and a lot of their identity politics caucus members and what we see with the Democratic Socialist protests. And they're captive to that group. And that means they're not able to maneuver in a normal way. And that's why we have all these calls from so-called

statesmen in the Democratic Party and the Biden administration calling for equality or symmetry or ceasefire. So they don't, it's really boggling that a bunch of murderers come in and they murder people in their homes maybe 900 1000 1100 we don't know and then they say okay let's call it quits now and just stop and i was really struck by that that statement in the u.s uh palestinian affairs state department tweet where they said that this cycle of violence and terrorism is bad, but the violence in response to it is bad. And I thought to myself, do they believe that about Ukraine? What if we just said, well, Vladimir Putin's terror, it's okay,

and it wouldn't do any good for the Ukrainians to reply with violence because it would just accelerate the cycle of violence. So it's something about Israel that they target and they make exceptional, they get rid of norms, they just focus on Israel in a way they don't to any other, and they're never consistent. And why, I don't know. I have a suspicion, but our State Department government have been kind of infiltrated by these hard leftists. It's, I mean, it certainly appears that way, given the tweets that they've sent out for them to follow up with the Turkish ambassador tweet or foreign minister right after they already had to take down that other tweet from the state department. They already learned their lesson or should have. And as I was saying earlier in the show, before you got here, Victor, the thing that concerns me about the tweet saying, oh, from Blinken, just spoke with the Turkish foreign

minister and we will back their call for a ceasefire, the Turkish call for a ceasefire. Then he had to take it down. Then the new cleansed tweet didn't have that in it. Well, that doesn't change the substance of the conversation the two men actually had. And I don't think he would have written in a tweet that we had agreed to back Turkey's call for a ceasefire if we hadn't actually said that, right? So that's clearly where we actually stand. We want a ceasefire. We want it immediately. Truly, it's like saying to the United States as the towers were burning, you know what? Hold your fire. Yeah, ceasefire. Now's the time to de-escalate. You've got to remember, Turkey just sent an armed drone into a U.S. installation that the U.S. Air Force shot down. About nine months ago, it threatened our NATO, other NATO partner, Greece, and said that one morning the Greeks would wake up and missiles would be falling down upon them in Athens. They have 75 to 80 overflights every month in the Aegean into Greek airspace.

They tried to block Sweden of all countries from joining NATO. And they're selling arms right now to Russia in the Ukraine conflict. And we couldn't trust them with F-35 assembly components. They were giving the information to the Russians. So that's a problem. And everybody knows that they have the second largest army in NATO, and we can't do anything about it, we think. And we have a nuclear base there, a base with apparently nuclear weapons, which is also problematic. But Turkey is a very, very different Turkey than it was 15 years ago. And the idea that Blinken on the

aftermath of this disaster, this genocidal attack, the idea that he would partner with the Turkish foreign minister to call on Israel to stop whatever it is planning to do is really amazing. It's kind of despicable. It really is despicable. Excellent perspective. Can I read this to you? This is just breaking. This is dark, Victor. It's breaking on the Daily Mail. It was retweeted by our friend Ben Shapiro. The spokesman for the Hamas, Al-Aqsa brigades has stated that if Israel continues to conduct airstrikes on civilian homes in the Gaza Strip, they will be forced to begin executing hostages and posting the videos online. Well, I mean, there's no difference from them and ISIS, is there? And remember how ISIS rebirthed because when Obama came into power, he picked whom to be his ISIS advisor, Robert Malley. And Robert Malley, within months, had empowered ISIS to take over most of

Iraq. And then Donald Trump came in and said he was going to bomb the proverbial SHIT out of them, and he did. And that was the end of it. And so, I don't think that that threat is going to stop the retaliation from Israel. If they execute Americans, then it'll be very interesting to see what we're going to do about it. But I would like to see all aid to all the Palestinians be cut off as it was during the Trump administration, when they didn't do this. They didn't do this. And I think we should have a travel ban from anybody in the West Bank and Gaza, because you know what's going to happen? There's going to be a lot of refugees and people who want out of Gaza. And the first place they're going to want to come is the United States and Europe.

And I think that would be a disaster to let any of them in. We should have a travel ban. We should secure our border immediately. When you have 8 million people coming in and Iran is bragging that that's an open conduit for them, there's no way to check things. And it gets back to this idea that when we elected Joe Biden, people were told that he was not able to stand up to the job. He was non-compos mentis, and we all know that. He should be giving an hourly press briefing. He should have the main players be talking to them. And yet we have Blinken and Sullivan, one who assured us there was nothing wrong and the other that we should have a ceasefire. Lincoln got this job because during the 2020 campaign, in a brilliant move, he called Mike Morell up and had 51 intelligence officers lie to the nation that this laptop, right before the

debate, was helpful to Joe Biden and perhaps to the election. And Jake Sullivan got the job probably because in 2016, he did something similar by trying to fabricate the so-called ping story that the Trump towers was communicating with the Russians. They both were completely disproved, but it didn't matter. So these jobs are rewards for that political service, which was really unethical during the campaigns. And so when this duo came in, I saw what they did and we saw what they did at Anchorage when the Chinese dressed them down, and they just stood there and took it. It's been downhill for both of them ever since. Well, this tweet, what's happening, all of it just makes me think, my God, how soon can November 2024 get here?

We're in danger now. We're actually in danger. I think we're really in danger. You've been sounding the alarm on this for a long time. I mean, from Afghanistan to Ukraine to now this, I mean, there are real consequences to the American stance in the world and how people perceive us and our willingness and our capabilities to stand up for what's right. So can you put some perspective on that? Well, it's very reminiscent of the collapse of the Carter foreign policy in 1980. Right at the end of 1979, the Russians went into Afghanistan.

There was all this Russian nuclear missiles were pointed at West Germany. And it was the same idea that if you virtue signal, we've been doing that since the Biden administration came in. And so there was, you know, we won't react to Ukraine, the invasion, if it's a minor offensive, Putin goes in. And then you talk about maybe he went in because of Afghanistan. No, no, no, that had nothing to do. It was a one, we had a righteous strike when we took out those people and we had a wonderful airlift. And they really insult our intelligence. And there's been more of that. That's what I get so angry about when Blinken says there's no connection from a promise that $6 billion is on the way to the Iranians in anticipation of that freeing up other money. And he says anybody who says that is misinforming.

And that's just a blatant lie. And so these countries all around us now, we have Russia and China and North Korea and Iran, and perhaps Turkey. And we have, it's a very multi-polar dangerous world right now. And we've drained 250,000 artillery shells out of our strategic Israel stock that was designed just for this type of emergency. We've been taking those stocks and sending them to Ukraine. And the idea was that Americans would put munitions of all sorts on Israeli territory. If Israel got in an existential conflict until we got the airlifts going, they could draw on these. And what did the Biden administration do? It was kind of the counterpart of drawing down the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. They just drew them down. They didn't

refill them. And they sent them to Ukraine. So they're destructive people. They're really nihilist. And it's going to be very difficult to get through the next year and a half. As you know, the Republican Party's having a bit of a internal conflict over Ukraine and whether we need to be more Reagan-esque, you know, lead from the front. And we're America, we're the leader of the free world, and we need to stand up to the, you know, regional bullies like Putin. Otherwise, we're going to get a lot more incursions in other countries. And is this really America's problem? You know, it's a complicated region. We've spent enough and we have our own problems and so on. I've heard a lot of people online saying if you are horrified by what you're seeing Hamas do to Israelis, you should pay closer attention to what the Russians are doing to Ukrainian children and women. And there are hideous videos and stories of that, too.

Is it the same? Is that a fair comparison? It is not. And it's not because of morality. It's because of geostrategic reckoning. And by that, I mean, we all support giving Ukraine the wherewithal to protect itself. And we've done that. And I've supported it. You've supported it. But to win that war according to their own agenda as they define it is to get back all of the land. We can understand that from February 24th, 2020. But they want to get back Crimea and Donbass, which Obama, when they stole it under his tenure and Trump and Biden never said that that was going to happen. They never said it once. Now that is the position of us in support of Ukraine. And that requires, to be frank, preemptive or at least deep strikes into Russia. And the problem I have with that is never in the history of proxy wars have the United States used a proxy or aided a proxy to attack a nuclear superpower. We didn't do it in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Korea. And any time that the Soviets did that to us in Cuba in 62, we went to DEFCON 2 immediately. And when they did it in 1917, the Germans used Mexico on the Zimmerman telegram

and promised them New Mexico and Arizona if they would help us, help the Germans. We went to World War I over it. So that is a very touchy subject when you start giving aid to a third party who uses that wherewithal to attack the motherland. It doesn't mean it's not justified. It does not mean it's not strategically rational to do that. It just means that when you have a nuclear power, it's a different sort of circumstances. And yet, blindly, we just say, on to Moscow. So, they've had drones hit the Kremlin. They've taken out the Black Sea Fleet. They've hit fuel dump. Yes, that's very good. It helps Ukraine defend itself. But incrementally and insidiously, we are egging on the Russians. And every time they

threaten us or threaten the West, we say, oh, that's just more Putin's boilerplate. Yes, maybe so. But at some critical point, it will not be. And we're going to find ourselves in a very difficult position. Whereas we could say there's 600,000 wounded and dead, probably more like 800,000. This is Stalingrad Verdun nightmare. Let us protect the Ukraine so it can get back to February 24th lines. And let's negotiate the Crimea and the Donbass. You say that and everybody says you're appeasing. So they just want to go on and kill, kill, kill.

And I think it's very dangerous what we're doing. It's very different than backing our closest ally that's a democratic country. And notice one thing. Israel didn't announce martial law on the suspension of elections like Ukraine did under its existential threat. It's still a functioning democracy in a way Ukraine is not. And if I mean, if Israel ceases to exist, to pretend that that's not a massive foreign policy crisis for America is to to be completely dense. Victor Davis Hanson, thank you so much. Appreciate hearing from you. Thank you. Amazing Twitter game, too, by the way. X game. Listen, before we go, I just I hope everybody will say a prayer for those families who are in harm's way right now.

I'm thinking about those children and those women and the men, too, in those terror tunnels, terrified about what's coming their way. And now if these barbarians actually start executing these innocents on camera, all one can hope is that it will result in the full force of the world raining down on them to make sure this never happens again. My prayers are with all of them. I know yours are too. We'll see you tomorrow.