Radicalization, Sleeper Cells, And The Threats America Faces

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We can't become so siloed, we're so focused on one threat at the exclusion of noticing

and gathering intel on and stopping other threats.

I'm Jessica Brosenthal.

The Senate has overwhelmingly voted to ban institutional investors from homebuy.

So will that eventually help supply and the high cost of housing?

New homes, newly built, newly constructed costs less on average than do existing homes.

That have been around and that rarely happens, that's a strange thing.

And I'm David Marcus, I've got the final word on the Fox News rundown.

It's an annual worldwide threat assessment and the Senate will get it today, the House

tomorrow.

Ad hearings featuring the directors of the FBI and the CIA and national intelligence.

Today after the director of the national counterterrorism center, Joe Kent stepped down, writing

in a resignation letter, he cannot in good conscience support the ongoing warn Iran.

Adding we started it because of pressure from Israel and Iran pose no immediate threat

to our nation.

I always thought it was a nice guy, but I always thought he was weak on security, very

weak on security.

President Trump also said this about Joe Kent.

It's a good thing that he's out because he said that Iran was not a threat.

Iran was a threat every country realized what a threat Iran was calling the regime vicious.

And you can't let them have a nuclear weapon if they got a nuclear weapon, I would say they

would have used it within 24 hours after having it.

And they would have had it if we didn't bomb them out.

And since the conflict with Iran started there have been four terror cases here in the

US.

And wearing a property of a lot T shirt, open fire outside an Austin, Texas bar killing

three people until police shot him dead.

Then in New York City, two men are facing charges accused of throwing bombs that didn't

explode into a protest outside the mayor's residence in last week.

A man shot up a classroom at Old Dominion University in Virginia, killing an ROTC instructor

injuring two others until students killed him.

In the same day, a man drove into a Michigan synagogue with a bomb and started shooting.

He was killed by security and that attacker was a naturalized citizen from Lebanon, where

his brother was a Hezbollah commander and recently killed in an Israeli air strike.

So there is a lot to focus on in today's Senate hearing.

Since October 7th of 2023, Hamas and then Hezbollah, the Iranian terror proxy group that

causes a lot of havoc around the world, they've been getting a lot of oxygen.

James Goliano is a retired FBI supervisory special agent now, a Fox News contributor.

In oxygen, which is publicity, attention, propaganda, that's the coin of the realm for

terror groups.

And I think that's why in the last two weeks, Dave, you've seen four independent individual

terror attacks were lucky that the the attack on Gracie Manchin, the two young teenage want

to be jihadists and this individual who drove his vehicle into the synagogue, into the

school, the Jewish school in West Bloomfield, they weren't Carlos the jackal level of sophisticated

bomb makers.

And so we're lucky on those ends, but still three people killed in the Austin, Texas shooting

an attack and one person killed in the in the ODU attack in North of Virginia.

So yes, that is going to get a lot of attention that is hearing.

So when we have a conflict like we're having now with Iran, does that awaken people who

are here and lurking in the shadows?

Yeah.

So let's break it down really quick for the listeners, you know, what is what is a sleeper

cell?

Well, sleeper cells can come from bad state actors.

I want you to think Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, they can also be from some of the

most deadly terror groups.

And I think across the last 20 years, you think the Taliban, you think ISIS, Al Qaeda,

Al Shabab, Boko Haram, the Houthis, those are the groups that every year contribute far

more violence and terror across the globe than any other groups put together.

So do we need to be concerned about that?

Absolutely.

We had a poor southern border for about four years where people were streaming across and

they were not vetted.

That's a problem.

And then also what is the purpose of a sleeper cell?

Where a sleeper cell is a person or a group of people, a conspiracy that lies dormant unless

and until they are either directed or inspired to conduct acts of sabotage, espionage and

terror attacks.

Yeah.

It's one thing to try to track a sleeper cell, but how do you track to somebody reading

stuff online and self-radicalizing?

I mean, those are the hardest ones to find and catch, right?

Yeah.

And it happens on both ends of the political extremism continuum, you know, whether it's

the left or the right, the fact that the internet can connect us around the globe and globalization,

if you will, it allows people who become disaffected, disenchanted, disenfranchised, a lot

of disses there, right?

And they can literally sit in their parents' basement with a laptop and to your point, they

don't need to be directed by ISIS or any of the other terror groups.

They can just read extremist propaganda and then hear a siren song and make that call

their own to go to act.

So I know in your time, you served when you were in the Bureau in Mexico.

We've certainly been dealing in the last several months with the threats of drug cartels,

even during the surge at the border, drug cartels were involved in that.

President Trump in his second term has been attacking drug smuggling boats off the coast

of South America.

He's been going after drug cartels in Mexico.

How big a threat is that when we're dealing with the United States and dealing with all

the other things that are going on?

Well, yeah, I mean, when you think about it, I mean, across, I mean, my gosh, at least,

you know, in modern times, at least in the last 50 or 60 years or so, narcotics trafficking

finances and has its fingers within almost any kind of crime or, you know, terrorism in

the sense that it funds it.

So it's a huge problem.

And then also think about it from this perspective, a week or so ago, the FBI director put out

a bulletin that said that we needed to be concerned during this time where we are currently

at war, even though it has not been, you know, approved by Congress or is not being called

a war, but we're taking actions, we're taking lethal actions against the Iranian regime.

We need to be concerned about the fact that the Iranians, now that now that drone warfare

is, is, you know, the status quo that the Iranians might try to employ drones against the

city of Los Angeles on the West Coast.

And how would they do that?

Well, they'd have to get their ships into international waters and then they'd have to

let one of their drones go and their drones are not nearly as good as our drones are.

They don't have the same payload.

They don't have the same ability to travel, you know, thousands and thousands of miles

like ours do.

But still, that's a concern and you mentioned Mexico.

What happens if they were able to get into Mexico with a capability to launch a drone from

the southern border?

So it is a very much a concern.

We share 5,000 mile border with Canada to the north and a 2,000 mile border with Mexico.

There are some on the left who are saying that in the new Trump administration, the FBI

directors fired dozens of agents.

They've also had counterterrorism prosecutors that have left.

And because of that, the claim is that some of the most capable, most experienced FBI

agents and officials and prosecutors are not there to work any more on the Iran and other

threats.

What do you think of that?

Look, I'm going to be fair about this.

Since the FBI has been a thing since 1908, so going back 118 years, there have only been

nine Senate approved FBI directors, Director Patel's number nine.

I served under four of them, but having said that, I don't agree with everything that the

current director is doing.

I do agree with the fact that changes need to be made and that yes, the FBI, whether it

was true or whether it was giving the impression had become politicized in the eyes of more

than one half of the American public.

It needed a shakeup.

It definitely did.

So this notion that because one or two or five or ten people have been reassigned or were

required to retire or were fired, that that means that the FBI is not capable of confronting

the Iranian threat.

I think that is absolute garbage.

One of the things that has been talked about for years before the current conflict with

Iran and some of the other things that have popped up.

The former FBI director, Christopher Ray, said over and over again at some of these kinds

of hearings.

Our number one threat is China.

We have been talking about China in the last couple of weeks, certainly with what's going

on with Iran.

Should we still keep a close eye on China?

You know, absolutely.

And you know, look, the former FBI director also testified in front of Congress and stated

that white supremacy was a persistent and a pervasive threat and that it was, I don't

know if it was, if it was director Ray or one of, you know, one of the senior FBI officials,

but certainly the Biden administration stated that it was the number one existential threat

to the homeland, white supremacy.

Now, we all can't stand skinheads and Nazis.

We all want to make sure that white supremacists are rooted out and if they're, you know, plotting

any type of violence that we get to it and we disrupt it and dismantle that organization

before it has a chance to do anything.

That's wrong.

And it's not true because radical Islam has posed a far greater threat within the homeland

and you can just go from 9-11 to where we are today.

And I think there have been 53 attacks or attacks that were that were disabled or dismantled

or disrupted right before they were set to go off.

So, you know, yes, I mean, it's China on the geopolitical end, a great threat, of course.

But the threat matrix evolves and that's what you have to do, whether you're a military

advisor or whether you're in the FBI, is you have to make sure that you're nimble and

that you're able to handle threats on multiple fronts.

You can't become so siloed or so focused on one threat at the exclusion of noticing and

gathering intel on and stopping other threats.

Do you think people should be more aware now than they haven't quite some time?

I think the notion of the Karen, the caricature of the nosy middle aged woman with their hair

cutting a bob whose paying attention to everybody else's business to her own detriment and everyone

else's has seriously hurt law enforcement and why is that?

Because people see things nowadays and they don't want to be called a Karen.

They don't want to be called a busy body.

They don't want to be yelled at and be called an Islamophob because they saw something

and they said, I should say something, but if I do, it's somebody's going to call me

a racist, a bigot, or a xenophob.

And I think that's how the deleterious effect on law enforcement's ability to leverage

the public.

Look, law enforcement can't be everywhere.

The FBI has 12,000 FBI agents in a country of what, 340, 350 million people.

And I think uniformed law enforcement in our country is probably in the neighborhood

of 700,800,000 sworn peace officers.

So we require the public to help us out with intel and to see something and say something.

But I do believe that the way our culture has shifted, people are being demonized for

doing so.

And I think we need to change the culture back.

James Galeano, new Fox News contributor, retired FBI Supervisory Special Agent, great

to talk to you.

Very, very good to have you on the show.

Thanks so much.

Dave, thanks for having me.

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This is David Marcus with your Fox News commentary coming up.

The median home price in the United States is nearly $400,000.

And while the National Association of Realtors says housing supply is loosening a bit and

prices are improving in some cities, it's still a mixed picture.

And they say affordable homes remain out of reach for many buyers.

The median first time home buying age is around 40.

Earlier this year, when asked about helping younger people get into homes, President

Trump said he didn't want to harm home values in the process.

We're not going to destroy the value of their homes so that somebody that didn't work

very hard can buy a home.

We're going to make it easier to buy.

We're going to get interest rates down.

But I want to protect the people that for the first time in their lives feel good about

themselves.

They feel like they've, you know, that they're wealthy people.

And earlier this year, the President signed an executive order meant to restrict institutional

investors from buying more single-family homes.

Now Congress is moving to codify this and support is bipartisan.

South Carolina Senator Tim Scott co-sponsored the 21st century Road to Housing Act.

But that just made a process today gives us an opportunity to restore hope for so many

people who want to just experience their version of the American dream, which is so consistently

home ownership.

The Senate passed it 89 to 10.

The bill's other co-sponsor Massachusetts Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren said it's

about housing supply.

Anybody who wants to try to block this bill is going to have to explain to the American

people why they don't want to see us build more housing.

She says this bill tackles the root cause of the housing crisis.

It will make sure that families own those homes, not giant corporations looking to jack

up the rent and squeeze every nickel of profit they can out of American families.

The legislation, among other things, bans institutional investors that already own 350

homes from buying more.

So will it work to free up housing supply?

I don't think it's really clear what the impact is going to be.

Jerry Willis is a Fox business network anchor and tonight at 8 p.m., FBN is airing an

in-depth report called hitting home, rebuilding the dream.

It may be smaller than you think and here is why because big investors, Wall Street investors,

the black rocks of the world and others who invested in single family homes after the

meltdown of housing way back in the arts, well, they've largely unwound that investment.

So today we see the big investors, those holding homes, 350 homes or more own only 1% of

the market.

And that is down from 16% of the market after the housing crisis.

And you might want to thank those companies for stabilizing housing prices after the wake

of the crisis because they came in as buyers at a time people did not want to hold houses.

So I mean, it's interesting how the worm turns and people change their minds on what

works and what doesn't work.

But what I can't tell you is that mom and pops are the big owners in the market.

When you talk about companies, small companies, people who own 10 homes or less are the ones

who own more houses than the people we typically associate with this big Wall Street banks.

And those are often meant to be passive income at some point for people.

These become sort of retirement investments, right?

Yes, they can definitely do that.

They now make up 60% of the market of all investor purchases.

And what I think is really compelling about this is this is happening in a very, you know,

defined geographic region of the country.

It's largely the Sun Belt, it's Atlanta, it's Memphis, it's down south.

And I think it's because there's more housing that's built down there.

There's more space to roam and to move.

You think of the area outside Austin was on fire with home building, for example.

But we're seeing even there a contraction in the investor profile at its peak in Memphis,

for example, large investors comprise only 4% of the market.

So I mean, I think it's been overstated for political reasons.

How important these institutional investors have been in the housing market.

And on this Senate bill, the National Association of Home Builders actually has a,

they like it generally, but they do have a problem with one part.

They say that despite some of what they like, the downside would be forcing new homes

to be sold within seven years.

They say that could actually reduce investment in rental housing and result in less production.

Do you think they're making a good point here, right?

Because why are you going to invest in that market if you have to unload it in short order?

By unloading the existing inventory right now, that means that people will be turned

out into the street probably at some point unless they can find somewhere else to live.

So I mean, there are not going to affect the people don't expect.

You know how that happens?

We think we're doing the right thing and then there's some provision in a law that does something

that we didn't see for see happening.

And I think that's the case here.

It's much more complicated than you think.

For example, one of the big claims is that, oh, if home builders would only build more houses,

well, you know, if you put a spade in the ground today, you're not going to get a fully

built house for another two years, probably, right?

I mean, it takes a long time to build a house and furthermore, these home builders face incredible

costs in terms of regulations when they do go to build.

Now, the good news for that is the White House came out with an executive order to reduce

federal regulations on housing when it comes to green demands for housing.

When it comes to even historic preservation, they are unrolling some of those requirements

which should speed up housing.

But for many areas, many parts of the country, like the Northeast in particular, the question

is where do you build?

There isn't a lot of room to build.

You know, to that point, Jerry, at the median home buying age for a first time home buyer,

it's gone up so much, right?

I think we're at 40 years old or close to it.

You kind of just touched on it, but why is that?

Is that a supply and demand issue?

Does it depend on the region or is something more happening underneath that?

Well, I just think it takes that long for people to put down enough money for a down payment,

right?

Because prices have gone up so far, so fast now they've stalled and we saw home prices

in the most recent month, when it up just three tenths of a percent.

And I think that's the smallest increase in like 16 years or something.

It's entirely possible that this market is slowly turning to a market that's better for

buyers than it is for sellers.

It's been a great seller's market for some time now.

Somebody's benefiting, right?

We think of it as being a terrible housing market, but in fact, people who want to sell,

it's been terrific.

But I think it's changing, and in fact, strangely, the National Realtor's Association forecast

a 14% increase in home sales this year, keeping in mind that sales are at 40 year lows.

So they see a rebound of some sort.

It's going to take lower interest rates to make that happen, I think, but you're seeing

all kinds of weird anomalies in the marketplace right now.

For example, new homes, newly built, newly constructed costs less on average than do

existing homes, homes that have been around.

And that rarely happens, that's a strange thing.

So you've got to keep your eyes open for opportunities that you might not expect, might

seem contrary to what you would typically see in a market.

Well, with lumber prices, with the prices of so many things that is really fascinating

to hear, do we know why is that?

Because the people who are holding onto the homes who live in existing homes are demanding

more money?

I think it's because across the country, builders are struggling to find people, particularly

first time home buyers, who can afford housing.

So they've been dramatically cutting prices.

They're offering all kinds of incentives to get people to buy.

They buy down interest rates, they buy down mortgage rates, they're all kinds of incentives

to get buyers into those homes.

So the fact that those prices are now less than existing, maybe not so surprising, but

I don't think I've ever seen it.

That's fascinating.

I know you heard this during the cabinet meeting earlier this year, the president said,

no, he wants to keep home prices high because this is how many people feel wealthy should

part of the effort though, what's the free market solution here to any government effort?

Is it like not making homes less valuable, but maybe helping those home buyers more

in some way?

Well, I find that every time the federal government tries to do something for home buyers, it backfires.

That's what we saw in the last housing crash.

I am sensitive to the idea of we're not going to rob Peter to pay Paul.

I am one of those people that owns a home and I don't want to see prices crash.

I think one solution that's been suggested is reducing the tax on gains from houses that

people make when they sell.

This is an issue in some high price markets where you're walking away with a lot of money,

but now the federal government is out with its hand out and that money you thought you

built, part of it belongs to Uncle Sam.

If that could be reduced, that would be a big help.

A lot of it is waiting out the market though.

I think it makes sense to try to get builders to build more with some of the ideas that the

White House has put forward, reducing regulatory burden in some cases that costs $90,000 of the

purchase price of a house in some cases.

So I think there's a lot of sense there, but you have to be careful because at the end

of the day, you don't know.

There could be something that happens years from now that was caused by relaxing those

rules.

Indeed.

The president wrote also last week that the Fed should drop interest rates immediately.

We know he really wants rates lowered and you've already referenced that rates do probably

need to come down for a lot of people to feel comfortable buying, but he made these remarks

or wrote this post.

I should say nearly two weeks after the strikes began on Iran.

And I'm just wondering with the geopolitical tensions we see, do you anticipate, especially

with higher energy prices, that the Fed would anytime soon lower rates?

Well, I can tell you Wall Street doesn't think it's going to happen right away because

you look at interest rate futures and it's not telling the story of immediate and large

rate cuts.

And we've seen, I think the most recent week rates are 6.11 percent for a 30 year mortgage

that's higher than it's been because it did break down below 6 percent.

You know, it's funny the way people think about this because in not all that logical,

when rates have a five handle on them, when they're below 6 percent, people are like,

oh, okay, well, I can work with that.

But if it's 6.01, you can't work with, you know, like it makes no sense the way people

think about this sometimes.

Look, I think we will eventually get some rate cuts.

The sooner we get out of Iran, the quicker we can get lower energy prices, lower mortgage

rates, and hopefully a rebound on the stock market.

And one more feature on that front with high energy prices, I know that doesn't just

impact our cars, right, petroleum is used to make a lot of things, including when it comes

to home building, like certain piping and insulation, that vinyl siding, a lot of us use our

construction companies feeling any of that yet, or is that maybe going to be a minute?

Well, that's a great question, I'm not sure I have the answer to that.

You know, there it is absolutely those costs flow right through the economy and its

improduction.

It's also moving materials from one place to another.

So you get to get that pipe to the house location.

You've got to take it from the producer to the location.

That's an increased cost and you've seen diesel through the roof.

We are going to see a little higher inflation from this.

How long it stays?

I don't know.

But hopefully it, you know, the market, I can tell you, is expecting it not to be lasting.

That's what I see.

When I look at the futures on a lot of these indicators, it looks like the market is saying

short-lived impact.

Okay.

Very good.

Fox Business Anchor, Jerry Willis.

Thank you so much for your time.

Thank you for having me.

Really appreciate it.

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It's time for your Fox News commentary.

David Marcus.

What's on your mind?

Timothy Chalamet is under fire and lost the race for best actor this week for saying just

about the most obvious thing in the world that nobody cares about ballet or opera in 2026.

Here's the exact quote from the Dune and Marty Supreme star during a recent CNN town hall.

Quote.

I don't want to be working in ballet or opera, things where it's like, hey, keep this

thing alive, even though no one cares about this anymore.

All respect to all the ballet and opera people out there.

The backlash was swift and severe.

According to the BBC, Canadian mezzo soprano, Deepa Johnny, described Chalamet's comments

as a disappointing take, while American artist Franz Sonsi wrote two classical art forms

that have been around for hundreds of years, both of which take a massive amount of talent

and discipline this man will never possess.

But today's pretty boy of Hollywood's point, who the hell are these people?

When I was 10 years old, the greatest ballet dancer in the world was Mikhail Berishnikov.

He was his famous, his Larry Bird or Doc Gooden, and the greatest opera singer of the time

was Luciano Pavarotti.

That's gone today.

Today, almost no American has the slightest idea who the greatest ballet dancer or opera

singer alive is, because it's not for them anymore.

The fine-performing arts have become a bubble of progressive intolerance.

They don't even want us unwashed non-believers involved.

The fine-performing arts are the last trench that the sad wokesters are hunkered downing.

The problem for opera and ballet, and indeed for straight theater and musicals as well,

is that they stop looking for audiences and started looking for grants.

A bunch of wok rich white people can give you money to produce the first Inuit opera,

but it doesn't mean anybody wants to see it, that includes Inuits.

Part of what Shalame is realizing here is that opera and ballet have spent 50 years

being protected, but protected from whom.

The drive to diversify and move away from the standard repertoire that everyone loves

for a reason made these art forms a delicate flower for the elites among us, not a strong

crop that feeds the soul of the masses.

Now, the same people who refuse to attend their supposedly beloved opera and ballet won't

grace the door of the Trump Kennedy Center performances as their own performance protest.

The upshot of which is that now there's no audience for these forms.

Sad to say opera and ballet may truly be dead.

There may be nobody left in those art forms who can breathe life back into their morose

woke corpses, but Shalame knows that maybe movies can avoid this fate.

Maybe.

I suspect that Hollywood's new non-offensive it guy will walk all this back, making me

long for the days of movie makers like John Casavetti's who know how to tell the industry

and the elites to stick at where the sun don't shine, but his point stands, it's absurd

to even argue.

Ballet and opera have rendered themselves irrelevant by placating the shibbolits of

wokeness and obeying its rules, until that stops they will remain dying forms.

I think Shalame is probably learned his lesson here and his chastisement may well stick,

but they can't chastise us, and when they want to invite us back into the fine arts

we'll be there.

But the makers and shakers of opera ballet, theater, painting, sculpture should be warned.

The while you fritter away your legacy of centuries, we might just be starting our own.

This is David Marcus, Fox News digital columnist and author of Sherade, The COVID Lies that

crushed a nation.