Episode 4479: Tony Katz Today Hour 2 - 03/26/26

0:00The all-new 2026 Toyota RAV4 is here, building on everything drivers know and love about Toyota, with a redesigned look and modern tech that makes life behind the wheel easier than ever. The new RAV4 comes standard as a hybrid, providing smooth, efficient performance for both city streets and longer journeys. Enjoy the legendary reliability Toyota is known for in the all-new 2026 RAV4. Learn and shop more at toyota.com. Toyota, let's go places. Live from the heartland and the crossroads of America. It's Tony Katz today. They're going to have another no-kings rally, ladies and gentlemen. Why? Because why not?

1:00Honestly, the answer is John Belushi in Animal House. Why Pinto? Why not? Two they are. Tony Katz. Tony Katz today. Good to be here. Good to be with you. Find everything. Over at Tony Katz.com. But I mean, there are a couple of things to get to. A couple of things to you dig into. Let me bring in Ed Morrissey of hotair.com, where he is the Capo Dittudi Capo over there. You have been doing a fair amount of writing, young man. As you off do and I was going through some of the lists of your writings and before we get into what's going on with no kings and what the left has presented itself as, whether it be regarding Iran or regarding Department of Homeland Security and its funding there as we still have four hour lines getting to airports.

2:04Pentagon is ramping up for a final blow. What final blow? I mean, we've come to the place where we keep hearing this is the last straw. This is the last moment. Oh no wait, I'm going to give you a chance to talk to us. Is this Trump in a level of magnanimous? Like I don't want to have to do this or is this Trump just playing a game and knowing that's all going to have to come to quite literally ending the IRGC? I think it's the latter and I think that the delay that you've seen in the ultimatum regarding the street of Hormuz has been to allow him to assemble enough assets to do this final, this final blow plan. This is from Axios' Burak Reveed who is reporting on this at about the same time that they were doing the televised cabinet meeting today, the live cabinet meeting, and he's reporting that there's probably going to be boots on the ground. It will probably not be in the mainland though. It'll be on either Carg Island or other islands that are actually within the street of Hormuz are very close to it that Iran uses to control the traffic that goes through

3:08the street. Some of these are disputed islands, by the way, UAE claims sovereignty over a couple of these islands, but Iran still controls them at this point. And the question is, which island will we actually land on? Will we actually put boots on the ground? Are we just simply going to destroy all the facilities on a particular island? Are we going to see Carg Island, which is a long-term strategic target because that's where the Iranians export their oil, or are we going to focus on the street itself and try to make sure that they can't impact traffic? So let's talk Carg Island because we had talked about this on the show a couple weeks ago and what the moves were. We talked about it separately and you actually wrote about our conversation. I appreciated that. If that they're going to send the USS Tripoli, which right now were told based on just the searches at Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean and making its way, it might have already left and be closer now. If you're going to send 2500 troops with the USS

4:09Tripoli, if you're going to send 4000 troops on these amphibious warships, it seems odd to me at the time that you would be talking about sending troops that would take you 10 to 14 days to get there. If you want to take Carg Island, it's a seal team. It's something else. Boom, you take Carg Island. Now, Steve Yates of Heritage Foundation has been very clear that he can't just take it. There might be some entrenched interest there that'll be a little more difficult than we may realize what that doesn't mean. It's not insurmountable. It was the idea of, I'm not going to buy into, it's going to take you 14 days to send troops over there and you're not going to make a move earlier, the deception game. It didn't work out that way. That was my thought process at the time. Right. But they really are sending them in. It really is taking this level of time and no matter how you slice it, whether it's Carg Island or something else, it is now officially a boots on the ground's conversation. So somewhere has someone has to do the math. I do the math of what do you do to get rid of the IRGC because that's my take on winning. They do the math of what can the

5:12American people tolerate? What is the appetite for such a thing? So walk me through what it is you're hearing and where you are on what is the appetite for boots on the ground in a foreign conflict. Well, I think they're trying to stretch out Iranian defenses. I think Carg Island is so obvious that probably whatever defense assets they have right now, the Iranians are probably focusing on defending Carg. By opening these things up and it's not like these are mysteries, I mean, the islands are there and everybody knows that they're there. But by opening these up as potential targets, the Iranians now have to stretch whatever defenses they have across multiple potential landing points. This is sort of similar to what we did with the Germans in World War II during D-Day. We kind of fainted at the Kalei and ended up in Normandy and froze there not just their frontline units but also the reserve units were held in reserve

6:13for Kalei because Hitler was convinced that we were coming in in Kalei. The issue here, I think, is that the Iran just doesn't simply have a whole lot of defensive assets. Israel says that killed most of the naval command, which was controlling these assets, at a meeting overnight, last night, including the IRGC naval commander who was actually doing the Street of Homo's operation. And so I think what you're seeing is this sort of ramp up. Now, you talked about whether or not Trump was trying to get a deal or trying to or just trying to stall. He's probably trying to do both. I think it would be great if he could just get the IRGC to to quit. And so he's been doing that. But most of this, I think, has been a stall. And I would say that looking at it today, I would expect them to try to go after the smaller islands first, or I don't know, smaller, but the ones that are closer to the actual

7:14straight, because Trump has been doing sort of an escalation. Trump and Israel, we should say both, has been doing a sort of escalation as this war has gone on. They have been taking out military targets. The IRGC has been aiming at everybody in the region and going after commercial assets. So we started going after commercial assets. They went after more commercial assets. And I think what he's doing is he's saying every time you escalate, we're going to escalate more and we're going to escalate on your directly at your interests. And I think that this is another thing. Maybe Carg Island is the ultimate target here. But he may hold that reserve for yet another escalation after whatever it is. It's going to come at the end of the ultimatum that expires tomorrow night. It's going to talk to Ed Morrissey of hotair.com. Grab yourself a quick drink. Let me ask the question. As I do, there are. And I'm not speaking out of school here. We know who these people are. Some of these people

8:20we used to work with. And then they have taken on a whole new, interesting and unique persona at Morrissey talking to Ed Morrissey of hotair.com. There's this, there's definitely a piece, a large piece of the political app that wants Trump to fail. They are engaged in a full on demoralization of American troops. And I put Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut Front and Center of this group. Then there is this group of the woke right. Whether you want to call them the Tucker puppets or whatever it is you want to call them. Oh, I called them the Tucker puppets. Did you not know that? Tucker puppets is good. I like I learned that. So that's great. I'm here for you. That is copyright, Tony Katz. All rights reserved. Right. Wait, wait. Do you see the working model? It's fantastic. I just haven't figured out whether the Tucker puppet is Marionette or it's the hand right up. It's the hand right up. It's the hand right up. Wait till we get nasty emails from the Hoads twins. The question, yeah, I care. You're scary. You're really tough.

9:26It is the why it is, and I don't, I don't make this argument for them, but I do make this argument for the law in the woke right. It's as if they want us to lose. They want us to stop, walk away, keep the Iranians regime intact, and learn our lesson that we shouldn't be doing these things. I concern myself that there are people who pay attention to this, specifically 20 to 29 year old men, that younger male demo. I could serve myself that that's this is what they're following. If they were following the point, they said that they were in their following this. This is bad stuff for the future of America. It is. And I mean, this is, I'm having a conversation with Professor Gerald Steinberg earlier today about international law in American law and in regards to wartime and basically international law is a myth. But this is the basis of what all this is.

10:27Well, Trump is, this is Trump's illegal war. And we have to make sure that you don't do illegal wars. There's plenty of room to discuss the wisdom of this choice. But there's no, there's no, there's no, this isn't an illegal war. There's no such thing really as international law. There is just simply agreements between nations about how they want to operate. And most of those don't have the force of law because they aren't in treaties that have been at least in terms of the United States. They are in treaties that have been ratified by the Senate. So they're not, they don't have a force of law inside the United States either. They certainly don't have, there's no, there's really no legal basis for any of this. And if there were, if there was such a thing as international law, Iran would have been in violation of it for the last several decades because it was a signatory to the nonproliferation treaty and pursued nuclear weapons anyway. So in one sense, this is law enforcement. This is a law enforcement action. It's about 20 years overdue. And it reached a critical mass at this point in time. Donald Trump saw Iran as a

11:33clear and present danger, which is the quasi legal standard here for initiating military action. And he's not the first president to put Iran in that position. In fact, every American president has talked about the threat that Iran poses to America and America's interests. Donald Trump is simply the first president who's actually done something about it. The other people who seem to want to see a loss here is because they hate. I argue that the political left hates Trump more than they love their country. I don't know where I'm off base in that in that argument. Trump losing means their power. Trump losing means their opportunity. And we see it in a multitude of ways. But the left's response to this is that let's bring back no kings, which was successful for them when they did it the first time. And now their plan is to bring back no kings. They're going to have the big rally in St. Paul,

12:34a place where you used to live. And they're going to bring out Bruce Springsteen, Joan Baez and James Fonda. This is the octana gerians or the octana gerians fight back. This is, you know, everybody has to bring not only their own lawn chair, but their own oxygen. This is these are the people who mocked us because Kid Rock did a half time show. And you're bringing out Joan Baez because Peter Paul and Mary were already too busy playing the local home already too dead. Actually, it's only one of them still around. I didn't know which one. So I just I don't know which one he is either. I'd be safe. It's only one of them still extent at the moment. And by the way, what's what are the ticket prices for Bruce Springsteen's concerts? Because of late, it's been in the high three digit category, mid to high three digit category, to get tickets to his, you know, ordinary average guy concert populist. He's very

13:41much populist, except when it comes to his ticket prices. And this has been actually an ongoing issue with Springsteen's concerts anyway, only the rich, only people who are wealthy can actually afford to attend these things. So they can feel, they can feel like they've put on their done gris and, you know, have a working man experience. I mean, this whole thing is, you know, it's a, it's a fugacy. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's a pretense. It's a conceit. I think conceit is actually the best word for this. It's a conceit. And the idea that you're going to drag Jane Fonda last scene complaining that she didn't get a chance to do the Robert Redford, you know, memorial at the Oscars because she did four films with him. And, and Barbara Streisand only did one. These people are, have become caricatures of themselves. I mean, I guess I, I think they're going to have Bernie Sanders there, right? Oh, yeah. I mean, if you're going to have, I think this is the scenarios you got to have, you got to have Bernie Sanders. He's the second

14:42youngest of the people that are appearing in these, in these events. The event runs from 230 to 345. And Jello will be served. It's going to be a country kitchen buffet, which is just, which is just on the 494 loop, by the way, folks, and just get yourself over on the 494 loop and, and a country kitchen buffet is the after show. Don't forget to try the green beans now with fresh new sauce. Yeah, no, this is very much old sauce. This is, this is the sixties have not yet quite died yet. You know, rather than no Keynes, can we just have no sixties? But remember the music, you, you can be in the retirement home. But you're hitting the point. They're engaged in a retrospective of what they think made them valuable instead of actually doing something valuable. 100,000 people show up. Do we believe that this translates to power come November?

15:43I don't think so. I mean, it's hard to say it won't be this. This will not be the catalyst of this. This is going to be all the old showing up for one last raw of the flower power. And maybe a few people who are, you know, have an interest in older music. But that's it. I mean, this is a, this is a demographic that's already set, crystallized, fossilized, I guess at this point. It is not an expanding demographic. This is, this is a nostalgia to her for old revolutionaries who are bitter. They basically wasted their lives on it. I didn't have it on my bingo car that no kings will be brought to you by prune juice. And sure, brought to you, and sure. Yep. Soon we'll see Phyllis Diller talking about Polydent. Well, that would also be a neat trick. Yeah, she is also dead. I know. I knew that one.

16:46You're killing me. You're killing me. Ed Morrissey hot air.com. I appreciate you being with us. Morris coming up. This is Tony cats today. The all new 2026 Toyota RAV4 is here building on everything drivers know and love about Toyota with a redesigned look and modern tech that makes life behind the wheel easier than ever. The new RAV4 come standard as a hybrid, providing smooth, efficient performance for both city streets and longer journeys. Enjoy the legendary reliability Toyota is known for in the all new 2026 RAV4. Learn and shop more at toyota.com Toyota. Let's go places. So much has been made of Jimmy Kimmel mocking Senator. I'm sorry. Secretary Mark Wayne Mullin for having been in business in his life. Tony cats. Tony cats today. Good to be with you. Mark Wayne Mullin who he told this joke. It wasn't so much of a joke. Before he was like to the

17:51Senate, Mark Wayne Mullin was a low level MMA fighter and a plumber. That's right. We have a plumber protecting us from terrorism now. He worked for a super Mario. Why not Mark Wayne? It's not a good joke. And people took this and said, you know, the amount elites hate the working class is something else. And then people said, why are we making fun of Mark Wayne Mullin who as the story goes, Mark Wayne Mullin took over his family's business because his dad was ill and then turned it into something great. So I don't know his whole story there. But as someone noted, wait a second. Alexandria, Acacia Cortez was a bartender. What in the world is this that we make fun of Mark Wayne Mullin but we don't make fun of Acacia Cortez? And then I saw this post from a guy named Alan Parsa. AOC graduated with honors from

18:57Boston University with double degrees in economics and international relations. Mark Wayne was the only senator without even a bachelor's degree. And that's why it's okay to make fun of him. The elitism still shines because there are two things that this tells us. First, that an economics degree from Boston University doesn't teach you anything about economics. Because if Acacia Cortez has an economics degree and she believes in the green New Deal, she doesn't know anything about the economy at all. And the degree is nothing more than a shield from any bit of criticism. Well, you don't have a degree in economics. And it teaches us the second thing, the more important thing. The college degrees should not be seen as the indicator of talent, intellectual decency. The college degree is nothing more than the shield against criticism. The college degree comes from saying all the things that the college wants you to say,

20:02not because you actually have a mastery or an understanding of the subject at hand. You want my proof? David Hogg, I'm done here. College degree doesn't make you decent. You think sheepskin makes someone smart? We've seen what they put out. The college is put out. Kids who can't do an interview without their parents present. People who actually said gender studies was a good major. But the elitists won't stop eluting. They really do hate everybody else. Said what they do. I'm Tony Katz. Three more things, Tony Katz. Tony Katz today, guys, an absolute pleasure to be with you. These are stories that should be headlines, but don't always make it to the headlines. I think it's important to share them with you. The government shutdown still continues where you have the Democratic Party overjoyed that they're creating long lines,

21:11overjoyed that they're making things difficult. They think that this is a winner. They think that this is a great, great position to be in. And they're saying so. They're not even shy about it. There's this Democrat on news nation. You will keep this going until Republicans agree to that. Will you keep this going to still make going into Republicans agree? You will keep this going until Republicans agree to that. Will you keep this going to still make going into Republicans agree? Why not? Because it's ridiculous. Because you're impacting lives. Listen, I am not a fan of the TSA. I'm not shy about this, but they're not getting paid and it's wrong. They're not getting paid because you won't fund DHS. Well, we're willing to fund TSA separately. Can you don't get to play like that? And so we're clear. Your strategy failed. Now, I thought your strategy was going to work

22:15because I thought Republicans took too long to fighting it. They took too long to build out what is clear, which is you, the Democratic Party, are keeping people from getting paid. You're creating the long lines. You're creating the issues. You're creating the discontentment and airports where things are already bad. You, Democrats are doing this. And then they started. The Republicans didn't move fast enough on tying them to it, hanging around their necks because Republicans are ridiculous. So then I stated that Democrats coming in with the strategy, but we'll fund TSA. Yeah, that's, it's going to have movement. And then you'll have some kind of deal Republicans missed our moment. And what has happened? Democrats don't have it.

23:16They don't, they don't have, they have not been able to win this fight. I know this because we're still in it. Republicans all of a sudden grew a spine. Oh, honey. Democrats don't have the arguments with the people. They're not winning this. And yet more and more Democrats. I think not paying TSA agents is not advancing our ability to undermine support for Donald Trump and the Republican Party. And that's just a logical thing because it's not 1932 or what hell it is. That's a very logical problem. So is this Democrat Adam Smith actually saying, wait a second, if we don't pay these people, it's not like it helps. But listen to what he said again. You see, we take it as, oh, they're admitting that not paying

24:18them doesn't help them. But listen to what it is he thinks will help him and help Democrats. Oh, I think you got to hear this more than once. I think not paying TSA agents is not advancing our ability to undermine support for Donald Trump and the Republican Party. Oh, so you want to pay TSA agents because you think you're losing a battle and the real battle is undermining support for Trump and the Republican Party. It's not, we called it again. This is starting to become way too easy, guys. Did we or did we not say ice authoritarian Epstein? These are the three subjects that the Democrats are running on for the midterms.

25:22It has nothing to do with policy. It has nothing to do with philosophy. It all has to do with hate Trump. How do you go to Trump? How do you attack Trump? How do you tie Trump? How do you do this to Trump? That Trump? It's all Trump all the time. Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump. We said that. I did an entire event a couple of weeks back. I had a right there on the big screen for people. Ice authoritarian and Epstein, these are the three pillars that the Democrats are going to be running on. And here's Congressman Adam Smith. If you hear it again, making the argument. I think not paying TSA agents is not advancing our ability to undermine support for Donald Trump in the Republican Party. And that's just a logical thing because it's not 1932 where we're to the hell it is. That's a very logical problem. Why push a policy when you can attack a guy? The Alinsky rules for radicals are well-in-effect kids.

26:26Pick the target, personalize it, freeze it and polarize it. That's what's happening. And as for those people on the long lines, as for those people dealing with the TSA problems, they're speaking to reporters and they're being clear. I think this is clean there, a producer landed, but finger on the dump button just in case. I'd like to see our congressmen stand in this line and see if they enjoy it like the normal everyday voters do. So remember this when you vote in November about who caused this. That would be the Democratic Party. That would be the Democratic Party. Now he is right about one thing. And there is a very, very large miss going on because what we said was that the Republicans should be out there handing out bottles of water, handing out food and apologizing for what Democrats are doing to them, doing to the people.

27:27There was a story that Nancy Mace, I don't know if this is true. Nancy Mace, I think, has made some very serious missteps over the last week. Nancy Mace, it's reported, was heading to an airport where, of course, people are waiting on lines for hours. And she was escorted to the front of the line. There you are, Congresswoman. And there was also a video of Congresswoman, Debbie Wasserman Schultz doing the same thing, front of the line. She states that the video is a misrepresentation. Last week she flew through New York and waited in the standard TSA line like everybody else. She believes all members of Congress should do the same.

28:33And she also said that this is not a DHS escort. She has a Capitol Police escort because she gets 1,300 death threats a year so she needs to travel with security for protection. I don't actually deny that that could be happening to her. So she wants to be clear that she is not trying to cut the line. I think it is really important for every member of Congress to stand in those lines. Just like I thought it was important to reach out and be at your airport in your state, in your city, in your municipality and be helping people and understanding what they're going through. The first person to cut the line, which will be Bernie Sanders, by the way, that's the person who gets vilified. The people struggle, the people suffer because if you're incapable of these and you get whisked right through, goes back to that elitism conversation regarding Jimmy Kimmel. And it is absolute elitism. Over there at Loyola, where you have the

29:46murder of Sheridan Gordon, sorry, Gorman, I apologize, G-O-R-M-A-N. She was murdered by an illegal immigrant. And by the way, you have not read the name wrong, the name of the illegal immigrant is Jose Medina Medina. That's the actual name. The Loyola school paper, right, Loyola University Chicago, they wrote an article about this. The original headline read a legal immigrant, a charge and murder of Sheridan Gorman, DHS involved. They changed it to immigrant man, charged in murder of Sheridan Gorman, DHS involved. Why did they change the headline? They changed the headline because according to the editor in a note that was put on the paper, the headline didn't reflect the most important elements in the story and it was taken down minutes later to prevent any further harm to effective

30:50communities and community members. And you're like, what does that mean? Additionally, they write, in the body of the original post, we describe the man who is charged as an illegal immigrant quote unquote, using language provided by the Department of Homeland Security. That language is not aligned with the associated press style nor does it align with the values of this newspaper. No human's existence is illegal and we quickly changed our wording to reflect that. The college newspaper changed the headline, discussing the murderer of a 19-year-old woman who did nothing wrong. They changed the headline because it could have been offensive to call him an illegal immigrant when he was in the country illegally. There's broken and then there's broken

31:50and then there's that. And it is up to us to ask ourselves, where are we sending our kids? And it's up to university students to say, where in the world do I want to go? Why in the world would you want to go to a school that is so unbelievably cowardly and so protective of murderers that they would rewrite a headline because illegal immigrants is the most insulting thing there. It's like the alderman there in Chicago, oh wrong place, wrong time, she probably startled him. Rod Blagoivich, the former governor, thinks that this was a gang initiation. I don't know if he's right or he's wrong about that. He's done more hard time than me, so maybe he knows things. But it is, this is a great example of how broken, how disastrous

32:52the left is and how much they have wrecked younger people. I mean these people are adults are in college. But you apologize to the murderer for saying illegal immigrants. Your classmate was killed and it could have been you and tomorrow it might be you. We're talking about murder and you think the issue is illegal immigrant. He is an illegal immigrant. The word is illegal immigrant. Yes, people can be illegally, illegally here. And the idea that no human being is illegal, correct, but they might do illegal things. This is a great example of how the left lies about language and they do this to self-soothe because this way they're protected from hard conversations, weak, shallow, ugly, hateful.

33:55I would use more words, but I'm not sure these Loyola students are really required to study any vocabulary at all. I'm Tony Katz. This is Tony Katz today. The all new 2026 Toyota RAV4 is here, building on everything drivers know and love about Toyota, with a redesigned look and modern tech that makes life behind the wheel easier than ever. The new RAV4 comes standard as a hybrid, providing smooth, efficient performance for both city streets and longer journeys. Enjoy the legendary reliability Toyota is known for in the all new 2026 RAV4. Learn and shop more at toyota.com. Toyota, let's go places. There was a really interesting thread. I should post this at Tony Katz.com. It was a thread on the Twitter X, written by a Mikhail Kotorkowski, me on Tony Katz. Today, ex-political prisoner in Russia, leader of the Russian opposition. I don't know him. 177,000 followers on the Twitter X.

35:03And he writes and I also read some secondary accounts where they're able to back this up. And there is, this is the accounting of how the Russians have handled the war against Ukraine. You're like Tony, I don't care about the war against Ukraine. I'm not talking about funding here. I'm talking about, are we all fully aware of what the Russians have lost? The human cause, now we did discuss when we were discussing this, you know, on the regular, that the Russians just throw bodies at this thing. They don't care what bodies they throw. They're just going to throw bodies at the thing. But according to Kotorkowski, the internal documents say that more than 28,000 soldiers were assigned to a single Russian division in 2024. For those of you who know things, military, the argument made here is that a wartime strengthen on the scene, 14,000, which would mean that an entire division's worth

36:09the personnel was lost in one year, which would mean killed, wounded, beyond returned, captured or missing. And it starts going through the numbers. This thread starts going through the numbers. And you realize that how Putin is running things in this war against Ukraine, where he is just losing human beings left and right. This is how a progorsion was the guy who run the Wagner group and basically mercenaries. They would have this core group of guys, and then they would get all these extra bodies and let the bodies be expendable. But those bodies were guys who were convex. They didn't really know they're like, stay in jail or come do this and take your chances. Putin is just grabbing people off the streets of Moscow or whatever. They don't know anything. They're not trained. There is no training happening. They don't even understand where they're at. They're just here. Fire the gun that way. They have made no advancements whatsoever. They've advanced

37:16over two years, 50 kilometers. You may travel more than that for your community. They are losing bodies and it is ugly. This is Tony Katz today. The Toyota Tundra and Tacoma are built to keep going, backed by Toyota's reputation for legendary reliability. Step into a Tundra with the available I-Force Max Hybrid engine, delivering impressive torque and serious towing power, or take a look at Tacoma with an available power liftgate. So gear goes in fast and the adventure keeps moving. Toyota trucks are built to last year after year, mile after mile. So drive one home today. Visit Toyota.com for more Toyota. Let's go places.