Speaker 1: And as we consider what has happened domestically in just
Speaker 1: the last few days, not just the hurricane, but also
Speaker 1: the dock worker strike, that has not been all the
Speaker 1: news cycle has brought us. As this campaign enters its
Speaker 1: final five weeks. Also news from the Middle East. As
Speaker 1: Ran yesterday launched one hundred and eighty missiles at Israel.
Speaker 1: Those were largely intercepted. But this is something that was
Speaker 1: talked about on the debate stage last night. It was
Speaker 1: the very first question that was fielded by Walls in
Speaker 1: Vance and this is sum of what Senator Advance had
Speaker 1: to say.
Speaker 2: Iran, which launched this attack, has received over one hundred
Speaker 2: billion dollars in unfrozen assets thanks to the Kamala Harris administration.
Speaker 3: What do they use that money for?
Speaker 2: They use it to buy weapons that they're now launching
Speaker 2: against our allies and god forbid, potentially launching against the
Speaker 2: United States as well. Donald Trump recognized that for people
Speaker 2: to fear the United States, you needed peace through strength.
Speaker 3: They needed to.
Speaker 2: Recognize that if they got out of line, the United
Speaker 2: States global leadership would put stability and peace back in
Speaker 2: the world.
Speaker 1: So for more on what's happening in the Middle East,
Speaker 1: and the paul surrounding it. We turned now to Democratic
Speaker 1: Congressman Seth Moulton of Massachusetts, who is of course a
Speaker 1: veteran and a member of the House on Armed Services Committee. Congressman,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for being with us. We heard
Speaker 1: that kind of notion not just from Jdvans, but many
Speaker 1: Republicans yesterday as the attack was on going in in
Speaker 1: its aftermath, a suggestion that it could have been a
Speaker 1: result of this administration being too soft on Iran. Is
Speaker 1: there any validity in that?
Speaker 4: No, I mean, let's just go back in time a
Speaker 4: minute to the Trump administration and understand what their policy did.
Speaker 4: They pulled out of the nuclear agreement, which not only
Speaker 4: kept Iran over a year away from a bomb, but
Speaker 4: gave us very tight surveillance on exactly what they were doing.
Speaker 4: So even if you're someone who just believes that we
Speaker 4: ultimately need to strike them militarily, we had the intelligence
Speaker 4: back then to know exactly where to hit them.
Speaker 3: But Trump pulled out of that deal.
Speaker 4: As a result, Iran accelerated its nuclear program so that
Speaker 4: now they're within just a few weeks of producing a bomb,
Speaker 4: and Trump replaced that program that deal with what he
Speaker 4: called a maximum pressure campaign, and his Secretary of Defense
Speaker 4: testified before our committee on the Hill. He said there
Speaker 4: were three goals of the maximum pressure campaign. One to
Speaker 4: keep them away from building a nuclear weapon, Two to
Speaker 4: force them to the negotiating table to get a better deal,
Speaker 4: in three to reduce their support for other militias in
Speaker 4: the region. On all three counts, Trump's plan failed miserably
Speaker 4: because they're way closer to making a bomb, they were
Speaker 4: pushed further away from the negotiating table, and we've seen
Speaker 4: the effects of their support.
Speaker 3: For militias in the region.
Speaker 4: So the reality is that our Iran policy is in
Speaker 4: tatters because of Donald Trump, not because of the Biden
Speaker 4: Harris administration.
Speaker 5: Well, I wonder, Congressman, and welcome back, what you think
Speaker 5: Israel's next move should be. They're promising a significant response
Speaker 5: to what happened yesterday, and I just wonder your thoughts here,
Speaker 5: as a combat veteran marine, what would be considered proportionate,
Speaker 5: what would be appropriate? I know that the Biden administration
Speaker 5: is trying to contain this, but should Israel not strike
Speaker 5: at Iran's nuclear program?
Speaker 4: Well, Joe, Proportionate and appropriate are really important questions here,
Speaker 4: Not just for Israel, but for the United States, because
Speaker 4: let's be clear, we do not want to get drawn
Speaker 4: into a war in the Middle East with Americans fighting
Speaker 4: and dying and taking our eye off the ball in
Speaker 4: the Pacific where our number one national security threat, something
Speaker 4: that Democrats and Republicans agree on is with China's threat
Speaker 4: to Taiwan. So how do we achieve that while also
Speaker 4: sending Iran a very strong message that they can't just
Speaker 4: shoot one hundred and eighty ballistic missiles at Israel, a
Speaker 4: close ally of ours, with impunity. So there has to
Speaker 4: be a response, but it has to be a response
Speaker 4: calibrated correctly to send a very strong, definitive message to
Speaker 4: Iran but also not start a w war that involves
Speaker 4: the United States.
Speaker 3: I remember back to decisions.
Speaker 4: We made in Iraq where when we first by marine
Speaker 4: unit first showed up in Naja, a town that had
Speaker 4: been controlled by the army. The army had this uneasy
Speaker 4: truce with the militants that allowed them free reign in
Speaker 4: parts of the city. We thought that was totally unacceptable,
Speaker 4: so we initially made a huge show of force with
Speaker 4: our patrols right into places the army refused to go
Speaker 4: in part to draw out the militants, to make them
Speaker 4: attack us so that when so that then we could respond,
Speaker 4: have a fair fight, and ultimately finish them off. That's
Speaker 4: an example of where we wanted to provoke a response.
Speaker 4: In many ways, this is kind of the opposite. You
Speaker 4: want to send a very clear message to Iran, but
Speaker 4: ultimately it's a message of deterrence, not something that provokes
Speaker 4: a wider war that's not in Israel's interests nor in
Speaker 4: the interests of the United States.
Speaker 1: President Biden was asked as he was boarding the plane
Speaker 1: bound for South Carolina today Congressman if he would support
Speaker 1: an attack on Iran's nuclear sites. He answered no, Is
Speaker 1: that because it is too great of a provocation.
Speaker 4: Well, that's the question, really, and we have intelligence estimates
Speaker 4: that can try to get at this. What would Iran's
Speaker 4: response be if we tried to take out their nuclear facilities? Actually,
Speaker 4: the most important question that we have to ask is
Speaker 4: how quickly would they reconstitute their nuclear capabilities and would
Speaker 4: they then just go right to producing a bomb?
Speaker 3: Whereas up until now.
Speaker 4: Even though they're very close they have the weapons material
Speaker 4: to produce a bomb, they haven't actually built a nuclear weapon.
Speaker 4: That's a really important question because I get the fact
Speaker 4: that it sounds like a great opportunity here, you know,
Speaker 4: just bomb their nuclear program into oblivion. But what happens
Speaker 4: next really matters. And if what happens next is that
Speaker 4: they very quickly reconstitute their program but actually then have
Speaker 4: live nuclear weapons because they say, Okay, we learned our lesson,
Speaker 4: we're not going to let this happen again, then we've
Speaker 4: actually taken a step backwards. And that's why the President
Speaker 4: is being very careful about advising Israel on whether or
Speaker 4: not to target their nuclear program as opposed to all
Speaker 4: sorts of other targets like the ballistic missile program that
Speaker 4: was actually used against Israel.
Speaker 5: For this response, Congress, when we had a recent conversation
Speaker 5: with you about stolen valor and some of the criticisms
Speaker 5: accusations against Tim Walls misrepresenting some of his military service record,
Speaker 5: I expected this was going to come up in the
Speaker 5: debate last night. These are charges that JD. Vance has
Speaker 5: repeatedly leveled against Tim Walls, and we never went there.
Speaker 5: And I just wonder what your thought was, if that
Speaker 5: might be what we call progress at this current moment
Speaker 5: in American politics.
Speaker 4: Well, I'm an optimist, Joe, and I'd like to say
Speaker 4: that's progress because the debate last night, if there's one
Speaker 4: thing you can say about it, it was actually quite respectful,
Speaker 4: and that's the kind of political dialogue that we should
Speaker 4: see in the United States of America. Now, there were
Speaker 4: a lot of things that jd Vance said that were
Speaker 4: simply untrue. I'd love to get not only too respectful,
Speaker 4: but too truthful when.
Speaker 3: We have a debate.
Speaker 4: But the fact that they didn't just attack each other's
Speaker 4: service was certainly heartening to I think many of US
Speaker 4: veterans who were watching last night.
Speaker 1: Well, I think a lot of us were surprised by
Speaker 1: the true political conversation, substantive policy conversation that these two
Speaker 1: seemed to be having. But there was not just a
Speaker 1: military service thing that was avoided on the stage, and
Speaker 1: maybe that is to the benefit of the American people,
Speaker 1: but other subjects as well, like the ongoing war in Ukraine.
Speaker 1: There wasn't even a direct question asked about policy when
Speaker 1: it comes to China, though the candidates did work that
Speaker 1: into some of their answers about other subjects. As we
Speaker 1: have these foreign policy conversations surrounding the Middle East. Was
Speaker 1: there something missing last night, Congressman, did the American people
Speaker 1: need to hear from, say jd Vance what his views
Speaker 1: were on Ukraine.
Speaker 4: Look, I think there's a lot missing because even though
Speaker 4: political presidential elections are almost always focused primarily on domestic issues,
Speaker 4: that's usually how presidents win elections. This is an incredibly
Speaker 4: dangerous time for us in the world. And we've got
Speaker 4: this conflagration in the Middle East that could explode all
Speaker 4: overnight into an all out war drawing in the United States.
Speaker 4: A Siezing Ping could choose to invade Taiwan any day,
Speaker 4: which would literally start World War three. I mean, we're
Speaker 4: talking about war games that predict this goes nuclear. So
Speaker 4: everybody in the world would be affected by a war
Speaker 4: in the Pacific. And of course, we have an ongoing
Speaker 4: conflict in Ukraine that's absolutely devastating, not only to the
Speaker 4: Ukrainian people, but to economies around the world and to
Speaker 4: you know, it's a real threat to the future of NATO.
Speaker 4: Donald Trump is on Putin's side with Ukraine, Let's not
Speaker 4: mince words. He is on Russia's side in their war
Speaker 4: of aggression. He refused to even say in his own
Speaker 4: debate whether he wanted Ukraine to win. I mean, this
Speaker 4: is unbelievable, and yes, jd Vance should have been asked
Speaker 4: to answer that question and explain this horrendous, really traitorous
Speaker 4: policy that he and his boss have when it comes
Speaker 4: to the war in Ukraine and the threat that it
Speaker 4: poses to all of Europe. So that's a very important
Speaker 4: topic and I sure wish we got into it last night.
Speaker 5: Indeed, a couple of other things I wish we'd heard
Speaker 5: more about. Congressman.
Speaker 3: It's good to see you.
Speaker 5: Thanks for helping us understand and distill what we saw
Speaker 5: and heard last evening. Seth Moulton, the Democrat from Massachusetts,
Speaker 5: beaming and loud and clear in the city of Boston
Speaker 5: on ninety two nine FM our new signal in Boston