Episode 4729: Tony Katz Today Hour 3 - 09/11/26

0:00Why from the heartland and the crossroads of America? It's Tony Kats today. While the focus may be on September 11th, you can't take the focus away from the fact that we are in a war. The president may not call it that, the White House may not call it that, it is what it is. It's a war with a round. It's a war that I still state we have to win by ending the regime. And now that we're hearing about the possibility of movement at something called pickaxe mountain conversations about what they might be working on next, there is no stopping this regime until they are stopped. They cannot be trusted. What kind of person believes that the Islamist 25 years post September 11th can be trusted. Tony Kats, Tony Kats today, good to be here, good to be with you. Steve Yates joins me right now. He is from the Heritage Foundation Heritage.org. His focus is China policy, but his life has been about world policy geopolitics, including

1:02his time in the Dick Cheney vice president's office. And of course, he was there in the White House on September 11th. I was just down the road as a restaurant manager over there on 9th and E and we both have our stories. I want to get to that in just a moment. Let's start with the Iranians funding the Houthi rebels in Yemen. They taking a choke point city called mocha like the coffee, MOCH, they are on the red sea trying to choke off the red sea and oil exports just like they are trying to do with the Hormuz straight. I'm trying to put more pressure on the United States and the globe on oil prices to get the U.S. to stop the economic siege. That seems to be what they are all about, what is the latest here and how does it get countered? Tony, it's an important angle on things. Just as by way of perspective, the first thing that the Biden administration did after inauguration day in 2021 on foreign policy was to end American arms sales to Saudi Arabia

2:08that were in support of an operation against the Houthis. And that sort of started a cycle where we were in that deficit in terms of capabilities. It's strained an alliance which has never been perfect, but important now in the sense that I think the right approach for the administration to follow is for Saudi Arabia to take the lead in basically mowing the lawn and managing the security affairs on their peninsula pretty much everywhere that isn't named an Emirate because the Emirates are capable of doing this on their own. And so really what we're seeing is the tentacles of the Iran regime amplifying what terrorists are able to do on the Arabian peninsula at, as you know, a very important key choke point. And as the president has talked about Hormuz becoming strategically less important over time, which is true, this other choke point is still important. And I think that the way forward is maximum support for Saudi Arabia doing whatever is

3:12necessary to eliminate the threat of the Houthis in Yemen. And I think there are ways to do that. They're not overnight solutions. But I don't think that the right approach is for America to expand its operational footprint too much. We have to grow out of the idea of America being the 9-1-1 for every problem, small medium or large in the world. And this falls into that category to me. Yeah. And that I think is the really astute observation here in that this is the other side of Saudi Arabia. They deal with the ran off of one coast. And Yemen is at the bottom of Saudi Arabia. They're connected by land, but the water, the Gulf of Aden heading into the Red Sea, that is Yemen. It is for other nations to handle. It's clear and obvious what the Iranians are doing. And that's what I want to get into. First, this should be for other nations to get involved with, hey, they're affecting how we are able to power ourselves.

4:16So when do those other nations do that? Is it about going to Saudi Arabia and saying, figure this out? Leave us alone. We're doing enough for you. You're welcome, by the way. Or is this for Saudi Arabia to go to Europe and say, get over here and give some assistance? I'm glad you made that latter point. I think both points are valid. But really, it might be one of those times where the United States says, hey, do you want to go together with us to Europe and say, you guys are the ones whose lives depend on this waterway economically and strategically? What are you going to do to make sure that we, the Saudis, are not going to be sanctioned by your sanctimonious leftists for doing what is necessary for you to economically survive against evil that doesn't share any of the values that our civilizations are built upon. And you somehow want to have us fight this with our hands tied behind our back. So whether it's arms sales or staying out of the way when it comes to sanctions and sanctimony

5:19about this Houthi regime, whether it's zero redeeming qualities for what the Houthis are and what they're about. And it's scalable in that the Europeans together with the Saudis ought to be able to make whatever the meaningful difference is for freedom of navigation, but also for peace on that peninsula. Talking to you, Steve Yates of the Heritage Foundation has also got the podcast. Is it Yates on States or is it States of Yates? I love that you bring that up, but it's nation states with Yates rolls off the tongue and has a certain sound quality to it. Yes, I can claim no credit for it because a good friend made the name and I couldn't approve upon it. So showed my limits of creativity. We actually have an episode that is our latest just saying, hey, let's take 30 minutes and talk about are we at war and just talked about the history of the founders debate when we've officially declared war the way it has largely understood the last time we did that was actually 1942. And what the the the president's authority is the what the Congress did in the Vietnam war

6:24are low points to him in and every president since has largely ignored or challenged the constitutionality of it, but it gets at that fundamental question. So anyone who wants to dial in nation states with Yates, we go into just the simple question of are we at war, but we also have an episode of 9-11 which we can we can talk about later too. We were like, yes, like podcasting and hopefully getting people to feel empowered to engage these conversations themselves. So they don't have to listen to a bald guy on TV or your radio. They don't know that you're bald. And when I explain you, you're the Fabio from the foreign policy experts talking to Steven Yates, Heritage Foundation, nation states with the eights, I just wanted to make sure I gave it. Thank you. The plug that that it is due, but you brought up something about Europe and you brought up these leftists, which immediately sent me, I didn't even have this on the rundown to discuss with you the conversation about the United Kingdom and how they decided to engage in these sanctions against Israel for settlements. Now I should say to you that I'm not somebody who has ever been swayed by the settler argument

7:28or conversation. I don't believe there are such things as settlements. I believe when land is won in a war as it was one in 67, it belongs to the winner. It belongs to the Israelis. I do not believe there is any conversation about whose land it is. Every international list that in the other, I believe is a bigoted fraud of a conversation that go on heights belongs to Israel. They want it just like California belongs to the United States. It is ours. End of discussion. But what the UK has done here in saying we're going to sanction these business as sanction is because these settlers and going after the Israeli government, it's caused the Israeli government to say, okay, we'll expel this ambassador. We'll expel this consulate. Oh, we might not sell you these medicines that we develop over here in Israel, right? The Israelis pointing at themselves there. And furthermore, maybe we'll work with the United States to get you, the United Kingdom, out of the F-35 strike fighter program. Lord only knows how that's going to affect business and trade, etc. Has the UK never minded I disagree with them?

8:33Has the UK made a strategic error in what they have done under this new Andy Barnum government? Yeah, I think the saying goes, jump the shark. It took me most of my life to understand what the heck that means. I was scared as a young child about the movie, JAWS, and why would anyone jump a shark? But basically, the leftists, and it's been a long, slow slide in the United Kingdom. There have been some alleged conservative governments that have contributed to this leftist slide. And of course, there are genuine leftist governments now. And I hope that there's an awakening in the UK like there needs to be, and is in some ways in other parts of the world. I say, look, these priorities are completely out of whack. You have the world's formerly most populous nation in China engaged in what is widely recognized as true genocide against a majority Muslim population in their northwest, the Uyghurs. And there are several clothing lines that depend on slave labor, genocide products coming

9:36out of that manufacturing hub. That is where your sanctions and moral eye are ought to be focused, not on settlement goods. And I firmly agree with the idea. I mean, the world is not fair, my grandfather taught me. And it might be that the settlers engage in behavior that I don't want to condone. At the same time, if you are a real country in the real world, you have a minuscule proportion of your national interest and your national economic interest tied in with that. And you're exposed in this other area. And if you won't talk about that other area, I can't take seriously your virtue signal on this other one. And that leaves aside, you know, who wins what? In the world of nation states, war is basically how boundaries have been set for millennia and almost all of human history. And when they're over, that's it. You can lament it. But there is no such thing as stolen land as people say. There's land that has been claimed by tribes and nations, but largely by militaries.

10:42And that's the way boundaries are set. And sometimes they're set by other countries because you're too weak to draw them yourself. But have they hurt themselves? Have they created an issue not necessarily with the Israelis in the United States, which it's possible, we'll forget to find out. But with other European nations, with other allies, have they created an issue that goes beyond just the economic or is this in your view an isolated case? And then there'll be fine relationships with other nations on other subjects. It's not isolated in the sense that I think the error that's being made here with low politics and low priorities, making higher priority problems, they might be making themselves ineligible for the five eyes intelligence relationship that we have had for decades. They might be making themselves ineligible for sensitive procurement. So as we want countries who have the wherewithal to amp up their military capabilities to do more to defend themselves and to protect their national interests without us having to

11:43do it outsourced for free to them, they are making themselves ineligible for the programs that could help them be leading partners in that kind of an enterprise. So I mean, the Australian government faces this challenge, the Canadian government heaven forbid faces this same problem maybe even worse in the UK government, basically in the same stew. Does any of this talking to Stephen Yates, the Heritage Foundation, nation states with the eights, that's the podcast, just find it on your favorite podcast platform? Do the Iranians look at this? Remember how we started the conversations and get emboldened and say, well, if they're at each other's throats, this is a good time for us to go about this strategy in Yemen because after all, we need the pressure on the US to end this economic blockade because it is indeed killing us. Yeah, well, there's a political warfare campaign at a foot. That is nothing new. We seem to be naive and willfully blind to it if you ask me.

12:44And part of it is that America is isolated. It's allies are weakened or lack trust in American reliability. I actually think from the Abraham Accords through to this current conflict, we have some major allies in the broader Middle East that are more vested in the alliance with the United States, more vested in partnership and burden sharing with the United States. But when they look at the UK preening on these kinds of issues, they see that they can have maybe a moment of opportunity to buy time, maybe survive, and continue to divide the Great Satan from the Little Satan and those that have traditionally allied with the Great Satan and the Little Satan. In fact, if the people are not getting the reference, Israel has been referred to as the Little Satan, and it wouldn't exist. And a lot of the territories we talk about fighting over now are really former British

13:44territories. And it's sort of the British Empire is responsible for some of the vestiges of what we deal with. And yet here they are exercising some version of high church that divorces themselves from the realities that they brought to the conversation. The next part of this is as we are watching Iran try and engage in another front and try and create some division try and show some strength. We also hear about them firing a different level of missile, different capability. My argument has been that when back into a corner and left with no other choice, they're going to unload whatever it is they can and the things they have held back for a moment just like this. What is it that we believe they have in the back for a moment just like this? Well, I think that what they have talked about having and what our intelligence community may have assessed they have is probably an overestimation of what they have. Doesn't mean we should be flippant or callous about what the risks are.

14:46I think they this theocratic regime see this as an existential struggle. And while we might toy it with ourselves about is this a regime change effort or not a regime change effort? They see this as an existential struggle. And you don't negotiate your way out of existential struggles. And so it's only going to be ultimate power forcing an end to this theocratic regime. That means either ending them as human beings on this planet or ending that regime as we've known it because the overwhelming pressure has compelled a break in that system and something else comes in that will probably be better but not good necessarily in the near term. But that's sort of the way the imperfect world goes. And so I mean, I think that's fundamentally the challenge that people have wanted not to face. I think the president's maximum economic pressure is the right way to responsibly hold things

15:48where they are to episodically use overwhelming power to do what is necessary is also a responsible use. It avoids the Iraq 2.0 boogie man while at the same time say we hear of reports of nuclear programs reviving we can hit those without anyone knowing about it from continental United States. And maybe that's what we have to do to Mo the lawn over the foreseeable future. We're not at what people think of as a ground war because that's not what it is. But we are going to engage in what are legally determined to be acts of war to stop the launchers to stop the nuclear sites in their place. And then hold the blockade and hold the financial measures in place. And we may have to do that for the foreseeable future but that's not an overwhelming financial or military burden when you think of Vietnam or Iraq or other kinds of things. It's manageable and we should make our allies pay for what we have to do to maintain the

16:51global order in a way that no other power can. We will leave it there this September 11th 25 years later. I appreciate you taking the time. Steve Yates is his name, the Heritage Foundation and of course nation states with the eights find it on your favorite podcast platform. More is coming up. I'm Tony Katz and this is Tony Katz today. And as for the markets on this day, well, they seem to be, you know, overjoyed because inflation is up. None of it made say by midday the Dow was up 500. Tony Katz, Tony Katz said, you know the Dow has just been a big hot mess over the last days because the war with Iran as we were just talking about with Steve Yates and things happening in the straight. And now they see just a little bit of pullback on the oil prices, just a little. I mean, we're still over $100 on the Brent crude, which comes out of the oceans.

17:51We're just under $100 a barrel on the West Texas crude, which comes out of the ground. And the markets like all fantastic. These people are insane. They're insane. The NASDAQ midday was up over 300. The inflation numbers are not good. The Fed is discussing rate hikes. Rate hikes. This is going down happening in real time. We got to a new high on the 10 year treasury today. You better get ready to see that thing pop over 5%. It is 10,000% going to happen. It's going to happen. We already see a housing slowdown, wait until you see mortgage rates, get well back over 7%. It's just going to stop. Nothing's you want going into a midterms. Oh, by the way, nothing's you want for a country.

18:51You don't want nobody wants this. Nobody wants this and it would all actually work if President Trump would sell the story. This is what's going to take. We had to more go it alone than we thought. Okay, but we are capable and we're going to deal with this now. So our kids don't have to deal with it later. It's all you would have to do. This tells him done it. But I am with Steve Yates. Aggressive pressure should be put on these other nations. You figure out what to do in the Red Sea. You catch your asses over there and make it happen. Don't you look at us. Handle your business. You were ridiculous children and he should call them ridiculous children. Pay attention to election results in Germany, the AFD. I think that's telling us a story about where some Europeans are with their leftist leadership. This is Tony Katz today. So day two of the Republican convention there in Dallas, this midterm convention and it was all about JD Vance.

19:52He is the story because he hit. He did it right. And part of what he did right is that he didn't focus just on, you know, those Democrats are crazy and those communists, all that. It's very, very true. No, what he focused on was here's what the future can be. Here's the America we should look towards. Now, his vision of America is far more nationalist than I am. We don't have, we don't share the same thoughts on what makes an American, what is America? He believes it is land. I believe it is an idea. I believe ideas are stronger and that's why it persists. That's why at last, and if we start to change this, we create for ourselves a disadvantage that is unnecessary. Tony Katz, Tony Katz today, an absolute pleasure to be with you. What do you argue that JD Vance is a nativist?

20:58Now a nativist, if we're going by definitions here, you know, dictionary.com definition of a nativist. A person who urges the promotion of the interests of inhabitants born in a country over those of immigrants, a person who advocates or engages in the preservation or revival of an indigenous culture. What's interesting is that all the people who want to give land acknowledgments, do they ever, they never get called a nativist, right? They never get disparaged in that way. I don't put the interests of inhabitants born in a country over those of immigrants. If those immigrants are legal immigrants and then become Americans because that's the point. The argument always needs to be that being able to become an American is an amazing concept. It is what gives us advantage. But what's imperative is that we have a standard. We have a standard to what it is to mean to become an American.

21:59We demand people uphold it. You come to the United States. You become a citizen and you hate the country and you try and undo it. We have every right. I would argue. We have every responsibility to throw those people out. Now I ask you, does that make me a nativist? No. Does that make JD Vance a nativist? No. I don't see things the way JD Vance does. I think his foreign policy is in every single way backwards. I think he's gotten everything wrong about Israel. I think he had it wrong about Ukraine. I think that his conversation about what America is is wrong. He does connect with a younger generation when he talks about a sense of pride. Now one can have a sense of pride. There's no issue with that. I'm proud to be an American. You may very well be proud to be an American too.

23:00That's different than the idea of nationalism, right? The idea of being in a nationalist movement. We have lots of names for lots of things. What we have with JD Vance though is a conversation about the very idea of America's soul. I mean, that really is what he's pushing. And I don't mind this conversation. I think we should have it out in the open. We should be asking ourselves what is it to be an American? What are the standards that we want upheld? How do we get this done? And I start where I start all things with the clear recognition that it does not take being born in the United States to be an American. We've said this before. There are plenty of people who have come from other countries who are more American than people who are born here. If only because Alexandria Casseux Cortez was born here, you take a look at Cubans who

24:05came to the United States. And then you take a look at their grandchildren today and they don't even understand what communism is. Why are we so mean to Cuba? Because screw the Castro regime and anybody who's associated with it. You think anybody actually has to give a good holy damn about Miguel Diaz Canal, the president of Cuba? You mean the Commie Pinto who's still ruining the people there now? Forget him. I'm saying that the idea that you have to be born here is not what makes an American. It is an idea. It is the ideals. It is upholding the principles, supporting, defending and protecting the Constitution of the United States. That's what it's all about. But let's get back to JD Vance's speech. Because JD Vance gave a good one. JD Vance did himself well and we should be clear that the Republican Convention, this midterm which got a lot of people saying, I don't know what do you know who's going to

25:08go. It's too expensive. It worked. It a thousand percent worked. And it's not just me saying it. Oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's the people over NBC saying it. There as we watch this whole thing clout and the balloons are starting to come down. I think there was a lot of skepticism even amongst Republicans about the utility of this. But they're in terms of stage craft. I think they pulled this off. It was really well done in terms of the optics. These pictures are going to resonate with some voters across the country. It's going to be able to be used by Republican candidates in places where they need to get Republican voters out. They cost a lot of money as you pointed out they had that money. And I think there are probably some Republicans that think there are worse things than they could have spent their money on this week. I mean, you don't get higher praise than that.

26:09And it's true. It worked. And there'll be conversations about what they charged here when people thought they got out of it there. But the visuals worked. And JD Vance worked the room very, very well. I think stupid well, including this talk about Abdul Al-Sayed and JD Vance's grandfather. I got to tell you a very personal and important thing to me is a few weeks back, one of the most amazing honors I've had as vice president, is I got to visit the steel mill where my grandfather worked for 40 years in my hometown of Middletown, Ohio. And standing on that floor, I thought about my papal, that's what I call them. And the 40 years he spent there as a union welder. I thought about what he wanted out of this country, out of his government. He wanted happy, healthy families. He wanted low taxes.

27:11He wanted a government that would look out for him and make sure his people had good jobs as long as they were willing to work hard and play by the rules. Simple stuff. Easy stuff. Common sense. Good government stuff. And despite everything that's changed since he died, the things he wanted are the things that I want and I think the things that every American patriot wants for our country. We want it for ourselves, we want it for our families, we want it for our children, we want it for our fellow Americans. But right after that visit, something interesting happened. The man the Democrats are running for Senate in the great state of Michigan, his name is Abdul Al-Sayed. He saw me describing what a decent man and my papal was genuinely a decent and good man. He saw me talking about my papal and his work and his history and what he loved and what he cared about and you know what old Abdul did?

28:14He asked mockingly whether I'd be willing to bring Usha back in time to meet papal. This is what he thinks of my grandfather. A man I loved and who loved his family unconditionally. Abdul looks at him, sees the color of his skin, sees his background and decides that he could never have loved my wife. Now the shocking thing is that Abdul himself was raised by his own white step grandparents. He knows exactly that kind of bond and what it looks like in a family. And he chose anyway to say that a man like my grandfather couldn't have loved from the bottom of his heart someone who looks like Usha. Well thanks be to God that my papal was a better man than Abdul Al-Sayed because I guarantee he loved my family every bit as much. If you don't understand how well that comes across, how well that crushes, that I disagree

29:16with J.D. He is not my first choice. I have never once said that guy ain't bright, that guy ain't capable and that he can't deliver a message. He can. He put Abdul Al-Sayed in the trunk. That's brutal because if you didn't catch the nuance in there allow me to help. He just called Abdul Al-Sayed a racist. He utilized the racist argument against him and man that is going to be hard to shake. You have the one chick, the Palestinian journalist referring to Hakeem Jeffries. By the way, you watched how quickly this went off the front pages. She called Hakeem Jeffries, the congressman from New York, the leader of the Democrats in the House of Representatives, a black man. She called him a monkey. She did that. And she said but not in the racist way. You know what the reaction was? This is wrong and nothing else happened. The media hasn't moved on it and you haven't heard anything about it. In America, she called a black man a monkey and nothing happened.

30:26That's today's Democratic Party. That's where the press is. The press wouldn't go after her. You pick the Republican, black or white or Asian or Hispanic who says that. There is someone in front of their house asking them questions. There are people bust to that person's house to riot in front of their home. People are crying in the streets about how much they're hurt. But a woman of color says that about a black man and she is Muslim, calls herself a Palestinian journalist and you don't hear word one. My gosh. Now I have to say this about JD Vance's grandfather. I can't use the term papa. I'm sorry. The vice president can call him when he calls me. It's his grandfather. I say grandfather. But I don't think I called my own grandfather grandfather. My father's father didn't long been passed away before I was born. My grandfather, Ruby, Rubin. I don't remember if I called him grandpa, granddad or grandfather.

31:27I don't know. My grandmother I just called Ethel. All of my knowingly adult life, my teens in adult life I referred, I called her Ethel. I did. I don't know. I'm not good with the nickname stuff. There's something that really rubs me the wrong way and it didn't bother her. So that was that. That was a really good speech, a really good part of that from JD Vance. But it wasn't actually his best work. His best work came when, and I swear to you, I'm going to describe it to you and I'm saying now, if you told me it was a plant, I wouldn't be surprised. It's just too impossible. Too impossible to believe that there is a Heckler. There's a Heckler in the room and the Heckler is waving a flag from Mexico. I think he's also waving a Palestinian flag.

32:30He's waving a flag and he's he's heckling JD Vance. And JD Vance responds. So what the people at home miss is that we just had a protester interrupting us and waving the Mexican flag. Well, my friend, if you love Mexico so much, get your ass over there. Go buy the plane ticket. He wins. You can call him a race, you can call him a big hit, it doesn't matter. He wins that fight. He wins. He does. What kind of person comes to a Republican convention waves a Mexican flag like it matters like we care. We're not angry at Mexico, but we're not Mexico. Now we don't want to be Mexico and why would anybody come from Mexico to the United States

33:30and want to be Mexico? Why didn't you just stay in Mexico? Look, I can have the philosophical argument with JD Vance and his supporters. I can have the material arguments, but there is no doubt that at this convention, he did well, he won, not Trump, he won. Now does it play long term to his chances for 2028? I don't know. Right? We, they're still plenty of Marco Rubio, there's going to be other players. Everyone's going to get involved, not as many people as on the Democrat side, but a lot of people are going to get involved. But did he hurt himself? Oh gosh, no. Right message. Well presented. The right bit of tough guy. He won the night. He won the convention and people are talking about it for sure. This is Tony Katz today. Find everything at TonyCats.com. I got to admit it's been a week. We got Labor Day.

34:30So it was a shortened week. My wife got into a car accident. She's fine. I mean, that was, that was me. You've had your own week. And then here we are 25 years after September 11. My gosh, it has been a week. I don't think we should just brush it off so quickly. I don't, oh, and then of course we've got all the liberal women out there who are supportive of killing your kids because you know you don't understand. I swear it's not something to laugh at. I hear you. And in addition, not only do you have the women who are supportive of those who kill their kids, but it's also really important that we remember those people who are black and might kill their kids. I, I hope this never happens again. We know statistically it really will. It will. I want us to have the same passion for people who don't look like Lindsay, who don't have

35:33her same access. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We don't have her same access and education, her melanin, her privilege. This happened. Oprah got women together and this is what they discussed. When a black woman kills her kids like Lindsay, Clancy, Clancy, Clancy, don't forget to support her too. It has been a week. Next week will be better. A race will try. Find everything at TonyCats.com Monday everyone. Take care.