Lankford on the filibuster and Iran

0:00This is Fly Out Day, her brand new show here at Punchful News. If you love the Daily Punch, join us every Thursday for even more fresh insight from lawmakers and reporters as Washington heads out of town. Subscribe to Fly Out Day wherever you get your podcasts. Hello and welcome back to the Punchful News townhouse for another episode of Fly Out Day. I'm Anna Palmer. Still, Jake Sherman. All right, Jake. What can we expect from today's show, our guest in the townhouse is the senior senator from Oklahoma, Mr. James Lankford. And first of all, a member of the class of 2010, which is his most, to me, at least his

1:02most important characteristic, also a member of the intelligence committee, somebody who's on the ethics committee on Homeland Security has a lot of balls in the air right now. But I mean, we're going to talk to him about a lot of things to save act, which is a save America act, depending on how you like to call it, Iran, which obviously the United States isn't a prolonged now conflict in the Middle East. There's just a lot to talk about with him. Absolutely. We are going to be with a reporter's panel right after that breaking down everything that Mr. Lankford said. We've got our very own Punchful News defense policy reporter, Anthony and Drogna, and senior politics reporter at Huff Poe, Egor Bobbick, to break down the Langford interview. We'll get right to it with Senator James Lankford after a quick word from our presenting sponsor, Southern Company. Presented by Southern Company. Southern Company is meeting growing demand. We're building new infrastructure, creating American jobs and helping keep costs down for all customers. Southern Company building the future of energy.

2:06Senator James Lankford, Oklahoma Republican, and more importantly, a member of the Vontid House Republican class of 2010, we're one of the only ones left. Yeah, not many left. Welcome to the Punchful News townhouse. We have a ton to get to. You are a member of the Senate Intel Committee, Homeland Security and Ethics, Lightwork and Finance Committee. That's right. All right. Let's start. You backed Trump's Iran strikes and voted against raining in his war powers. What's the actual objective now when you look at it? Is it deterrence? Is it regime degradation, regime change, or buying time? What's the state of play? Yes, to make them stop attacking us. I mean, ultimately, Iran's been attacking Americans and American citizens wherever we live since 1979. We just see it over and over again. The freedom of the foundation, the foundation of democracies, I'm trying to think of the FDD. Anyway, they did a study a couple of years ago on it that Iran had attacked American citizens 180 times. We just lose track of it. It has blots, Hamas, it's the Houthis, it is, Shia militants.

3:10It's Iran just attacking ships, whatever it may be. This constant attack from Iran over and over and over again, there has to be a moment that you say it's got to stop attacking us. The main target on this, stopping the nuclear program, obviously, we thought we stopped that last summer. They then said, thank you very much. We're going to restart it. The president saying, seriously, you're not going to have a nuclear program. It's not going to happen. Then stopping their ballistic missile programs, that's their delivery of nuclear weapons or conventional weapons at scale. There are unmanned aerial vehicles that have been so deadly in Ukraine and in all the area. Then stopping their navy from trying to be able to mind the straight or our moves, which they're trying to find ways to do anyway to shut down your national shipping. The goal is really to make them stop though attacking us. We have billions of dollars of resources and thousands of men and women that serve in that region solely because Iran is a threat. If we can ever keep them from being a threat, then a lot of that goes away on it. We don't have that kind of military build up in a lot of other areas of the world because we don't have a threat like that that's persistent.

4:12We'd like to make that stop. So it sounds like you think the semantics, what we call this, it just, you think it's unimportant effectively. It's us. Make them stop. Yeah. All the argument right now is, is it a conflict? Is it a war? Is it a whatever? If I was in Iran, I would think it was a war right now. I don't get into all the nomenclature on this. At the end of the day, this is going to make them stop long term. The president has been very clear on the regime. Obviously, I don't approve of the regime either. I don't see how it gets better with this regime in place because they are dedicated to killing all Jews across the planet, wiping Israel off the map and killing Americans wherever they may be. So that's intolerable. We learn from 9-11. If somebody far away radicals is not just noise, they could actually kill you. So you've got to be able to make that stop and to say, we're not your enemy to the Iranian people, but you also can just perpetually attack us over and over. So this has been widely kind of pulled as being very popular with the U.S. public.

5:14Should Congress hold hearings other than the administration can make the case to the public? Are they making the right case to the public? So the president put a big part of his state of union speech on this when he did the first half of it as domestic and then the second half is more foreign policy at the end of it. He made Iran a major feature of that. It was interesting. I would be able to say, the president has not made his case. I was like, apparently, you tuned out after the first hour of the two hour speech. I mean, it's two hours. I got it. But yeah, he made the case there on it within 48 hours. The president already sent over notification to Congress. Here's what I'm doing. Here's why I'm doing it. We had Hexteth. We had Rubio. We had John Radcliffe. We have all those folks in front of us. Literally the first full day that we were backing session after the war started. So they've already started the process of keeping us informed. I've had multiple different classified briefings on it since that time period. But yes, there is a need to be able to do public hearings to be able to make sure that gets out. Whether that's right in the middle of the start of a war, we're 12 days into it at this point. So it's still a very early process. But I mean, when does this, as somebody who, I mean, I care about congressional

6:19prerogatives, you probably do as well. I do. I just think when does this turn into a situation in which Congress needs to have a say? And I, is it, I mean, it doesn't sound like you're going to authorize war, right? You're going to declare war. Is it? I think the New York Times reported yesterday 11 and a half billion dollars in the first whatever, however many days, a lot of dough. There needs a more money at something I'd soon. That's really the moment when Congress speaks. It is. The administration told us very early on, like within the first 40 hours, we're going to have to come back for a supplemental request on this. We don't have just enough money in the seat cushions here. That's the moment where Congress has to step in and just say, let's debate this. Let's have the discussion. We've got to figure out how we're going to refill the tank from what's already been expended for missiles, for gravity bombs, whatever it may be, but anything that goes forward has to be in that supplement. What do they need? How much do you think they're going to be 50 billion? I don't know. At this point, I really don't. Not just being coy on it.

7:19I really don't have a good read on what that is. Have a hell of it. We're still talking a billion dollars a day and all likely to be able to maintain the war at the pace it's running currently. So the number's not small. I mean, that's like the total spending for the country of Armenia is 11 billion dollars a year. For there are total government, we just bit that in the first few days of the war. So it's not a small amount by any means, but it's also, are we going to maintain large scale basis in Saudi Arabia and UAE and Bahrain and Kuwait? All those bases are there and they're billions of dollars and thousands of people. They're solely maintained because of the threat of Iran. If we have the opportunity to be able to stop the threat of Iran, we have the opportunity to be able to say those are still our allies in the region. We're still going to be there, but not at the same level. Yeah, that's a long-term financial gain on the financial side, on the human side. We have, I don't know how many Americans at this point that have been killed by the Iranian regimes in section 79, I don't know how many. So if we can make that stop, that provides tremendous change on for Americans, but for

8:23allies like Israel that constantly live under the threat of Iran going to attack them again. And we have half a million American citizens at any point in Israel. That's a threat directly to us as well. All right, I want to shift gears a little bit. The nation's foreign surveillance authority expires next month. The White House wants a cleat extension. They said, House Rowans want to change the law. Where do you fall down? Is it clean? It's clean. We've made a lot of changes on it just a couple of years ago to add some additional oversight into it as what's called amicus so that behind the scenes, there is someone that's actually arguing the other side in front of the FISA courts. We've not had opportunity to really be able to see all of the extent on that, but we know there's been an extensive change behind the scenes and how that actually operates on it. A lot of people are dealing with data that's four years old before we made all the changes on it. I keep smiling people saying, yeah, that was true before, but we made changes on how the actual FISA program number one, we need to maintain the FISA program. It is incredibly important to our national security. It helps us get to the left of attacks every day serving on the intelligence committee.

9:26I'm telling you, we are very dependent on the ability to be able to know what's going to happen before it happens. We're living in a different level of security now than we were 20 years ago because we're able to see foreign threats before they come here. That's my next question. I mean, if 702 expires, which it does at April 20, it was the date, like what can't you do that not you, but what can't the intelligence committee to, you're not sitting at home surveilling these folks? I don't know. Yeah. What can happen the next day? Yeah, so the surveillance is really on foreign citizens. These are on individuals overseas that are plotting attacks. This is the ability for American intelligence to try to sweep as much as we can to be able to determine if someone playing an attack against Americans. If so, how do we actually engage with their local enforcement there to engage, to be able to notify them we see you, or to be able to do some kinetic activity to be able to say you're going to stop before you actually attack us. Again, this goes back to the lesson of 9-11. In 9-11, the studies all came out. There were ways we could have seen this coming. We didn't see it. Well, let's not do that again.

10:27So I have thousands of Americans died because we were apathetic and saying, yeah, we could have seen it, but we just chose not to. That's a terrible idea. But again, it is foreign focused and all the protections are to be able to make sure we don't accidentally get an American. I know shocking is it may seem occasionally foreigners talk to Americans. So the goal of the Pfizer protections is to make sure if a foreigner is talking to an American, we're focused on the foreigner, not on the American here. You can't actually try to sweep up some American in some study based on, yeah, they were talking to a foreigner. So we went after them. They have constitutional protections against every single American. You cannot do searches and seizures of American citizens period on that. But that constitutional protection does not extend to someone living in Iraq, right? If we find out there's someone in Iraq that is trying to come after us and to kill us, I want to know in advance. They do not have the same constitutional protections that my folks in Oklahoma do. So you see clean extension. There's members of Congress, representative Anna Plina Luna in particular who says that they want to add the Save America Act as part of this.

11:29Is that something that you could see actually happen? I'd love to see the Save America I get at it. I'd also love to see us get, fires at done. At the end of the day, I'm not willing to be able to surrender our national security for a fight that we're going to have over election security. Both of those are important. But if I've got a pick right away, am I going to be able to see a foreign terrorist come to attack me on Thursday or am I going to fight the fight on dealing with election security? I'm going to protect our national security every day. Yeah. Let's talk about the Save America Act slash the Save Acts. Yes. Let's start it saved then with Save America and save America plus plus, right? And the plus is adding an effective ban on mail and ballot. Right. With some exceptions, I think for people serving overseas and people who cannot go to the military, they cannot go to the ballot box, things like that. That's something that makes a lot of Republicans uncomfortable because you guys have been at you specifically. But Republicans have been quite successful with mail and ballot. I mean, then the charge, honestly, originally having success with it in Arizona and other

12:33states. And Kevin McCarthy got Trump to walk back back the last time he was in the White House. Where are you? So I don't see an issue with mail and ballots if they're done correctly. I'm going to give an example of correctly, my state of Oklahoma. Okay. I'll let you talk. I'll let you sing the Oklahoma song and it will just insert that right here. Sooner, my father in law is a Oklahoma grad. So, well, good, good for him, good education. So in Oklahoma, voter ID is required, whether you mail in or whether in person, either one. So mail in ballots in Oklahoma, you have to get a notary to be able to actually seal the envelope on the outside that they look at you. They check your ID. They then see you seal your envelope and then that gets mailed in on it. It's a very secure system. That would be banned under the first draft of this. And I think, okay, that is voter ID at every single level, whether it's mail in or in person. That would be something that Congress would not be able to pass for the whole country. So, but I look at it and I say in Oklahoma, we're serious about voter ID and we have a great

13:37turnout on this and that's not the issue. Only about 4% of the people in my state vote by mail, but it's often people that are in rural areas or people that don't want to do it a long line or people that are in assisted living facilities and such. They want to be able to vote, but they're not going to be able to get out that day. That's very common. But again, it's not a large number in our state, but ID is required to be able to do that. I don't want to be able to ban that practice. That's a very secure practice in my state. So we're working through the language right now to be able to make sure states that have secure systems to be able to do it. That's problem. On the flip side of this, let's talk California where you get a ballot and you can have a total stranger walk up to your door and say, I understand you have an absentee ballot, have you filled out yet and they'll say, no, will they say, bring it to the porch? We'll work on it together. I'll go turn it in for you. That ballot harvesting, there is absolutely no way to secure that ballot. It's impossible. If you hand a stranger or even an activist, 10 ballots and they're walking around collecting them from different people. No one knows.

14:38Did they change one of the things on it? Did they double count? Did you not vote for a candidate so they filled in? There's no way to actually know that. All that we can know is the ballot was turned in. We don't know what actually happened to the ballot. Ballot harvesting is the biggest issue that happens with mail and balloting and I think it's what the president's really targeting is to end that practice where there is zero opportunities and no security of the ballot. Yeah. All right. I want to shift gears because we had a lot to cover today. All right. The filibuster. Really even shifting gears that much feeling. That's really adjacent to what talking about this, which is you spent years defending the filibuster. It now stands in the way of President Trump's top priorities. Where do you stand on it? Is it time for the filibuster to go? No. No. filibuster is a core principle of how we actually operate as a Senate and as a nation. I think the country feels it more than they know how it actually operates. The Senate is the place where the grown-ups have to actually work it out. People that disagree have to sit down and figure out how we can actually solve this together.

15:41That doesn't have to happen in the house, doesn't have to have an executive branch, doesn't have to happen in the judicial branch. All those are majority places. But in the Senate, both sides have got to talk to each other. That is a uniquely American thing to be able to have. Now we had the talking filibuster for 100 and some odd years on it in 1917 that was changed to a cloture rule, two-thirds originally later changed the three-fists. That basic rule just says that senators have the option to be able to force each other to be able to talk. That I think is good for the country on it. And I think the country feels that I'm always going to be heard. If you're not being heard, and I think this was you all joked about in the 2010 House class that came in, I think a lot of the wave that happened during the 2010 class and at large overdrive, I think we had 63 seats that were flipped in that one year was because the country felt like I'm not being heard, I'm not being heard, because there were 60 Democrats in the Senate and they could do what they want. And so things moved incredibly rapidly. People felt like they were being heard in the whole country, push back on that.

16:45That's the emotion of our country and it really circles around how the Senate operates. And what they're saying is effectively put in a talking filibuster. Talking filibuster is entirely appropriate. It's within our rules that is not breaking the filibuster that's actually using it as it was originally done. The challenge of there's a reason it hasn't been successful in the century because there are so many ways to be able to get out of it. We could get into it and I'm all in to be able to fight the fight on the Save America Plus, whatever may be act name because I do think it's important that people trust their election. Whether they win it or lose it, they won't know at the end of the day they trust it. I would tell you in Oklahoma, all of our ballots are counted by about 1030 PM and then we look at New York and say, tell me again, why it takes a month for you to count your ballots. California just creates a sense of what's going on here in this that why do I go to bed and my person's leading in one state and then two weeks later suddenly they're losing. But let me on the talk to filibuster since you seem to be that for the talk on filibuster.

17:48I don't I don't the time filibuster didn't bother me at all. And the argument would be, I mean, you'd have a lot of amendments. First of all, it would jam up the Senate. It would for a long, long time. I mean, we just talked to Senator Holley's, he's for it. Yeah. He says, wow, we could actually do something with said realistically, he doesn't think it's going to happen. That's great. I don't realize again. I don't think it's going to work on it. And that's the hardest part. It is within the rules and the boundaries to be able to do. That's not breaking the rules that is the rules of the Senate to be able to operate. But there's a reason it hasn't been done so long because it doesn't work on it because eventually everybody tires out and says, okay, this is really not going to move. And it forces everybody to be able to sit down and talk to each other. Maybe you're saying maybe it's a healthy thing. Well, I'm well, depends on how it actually turns out and how healthy it ends up being. I don't you have to defeat a lot of amendments. You do have to defeat a lot of amendments and we don't have the votes. This is a math issue. And there are folks that are just mad at a handful of Republicans saying you're blocking everybody that wishes to people. I'm like, no, actually they represent their state and their people just like everybody else. Like I do, I represent the values of the people that I represent.

18:48They've represent the values there. Guess what? We as Americans don't all think alike on things fine, but we got to have the math to be able to make it work. There's a difference between it's the rules allow it and it's a good idea. Is it a good idea to be able to put several of our Republican senators that are up for election to have all these amendments that are going to fail? Is it an opportunity to be able to have amendments get added to the Save America Act that puts us in a weird spot to go? Okay, some things I don't like. Now I've got to add to Save America Act and now I've got to vote against the bill that I originally thought to be able to get on. Good point. All of those things are real that are out there. And so again, between practice, can we have the fight? Let's bring it up. Let's let the nation actually talk about it because when the Senate is fighting it out, there are folks and activists that track it and they want to know what are the two sides of it. Where do people stand in this really quickly? I was talking to someone yesterday and it's like, and you've been there at two o'clock in the morning when you're trying to defeat amendments on a voter Rama. That's not easy. It's like really hard because you have people who don't want to vote against it.

19:49That's correct. And it's rough. And people who are just sitting on Twitter all day and wrapping about things they don't really know about, they're like, yeah, it's really easy. It's tough. It's tough. It's tough. You have a good restraint by you. Not so much by me. It's tough stuff to be able to go through. It's difficult on it and you end up with the mass issue that's still continual. All right. Almost out of time, you're Jake, but I want to ask one last question, which is, don't get too long in talking about filibuster. No, I mean, this is a really, you know, as long as any show is ever going to talk with a filibuster, but I do want to talk. We are in clearly midterm election season. You've been running for a long time. What could be your 32nd pitch about why Republicans should keep power? Because we're going to continue to be able to focus on all of the economic issues that matter. I know that ends up being a distraction and all the noise of everything else on it. I can tell people back home right now that have a small business, a farm and ranch in Oklahoma. They're buying a tractor this year. They're buying a duly pickup this year that they've needed for years because they

20:50can do full expensing for that. That really matters. It's been the biggest issue that I hear from a lot of small businesses. I've had Domino's Pizza guy that owns one of the Domino's Pizza places in Southwest Oklahoma, caught me and he said, hey, I want you to know, my drivers work a lot of overtime and obviously they work for a lot of tips. My drivers have started turning in their taxes. They're getting refunds and one of them just bought a car. Said he's needed a car for a long time, but because he got a refund, because of the new tax on tips, no tax on overtime, it's made a big difference to that guy personally on it. He just randomly caught me on the street and said, you don't know me, but this is what's happening in my Domino's Pizza place. Those are real stories that are happening across the country. I had a lady that, my own personal focus group when I'm out and about. I'm at a Dollar Tree store with my wife. I love the Dollar Tree store. It's a great store. So I'm at a Dollar Tree store with my wife. There's a senior adult lady that's actually running the register. She catches me and she says, hey, thanks for the no tax on senior adults and they're so security.

21:51That is made a big difference for me personally. She's a working senior and she said, that's made a big difference for me. And then she said, tell all the rest of the people they need to get back to work. We got to ask you about the Senate seat. Who should stick a point for the Senate seat? Do you have a view on that? I don't actually. You know, I've talked to the governor and I've said, just don't send me a jerk. Send me some of that. It wants to work and wants to actually get stuff done. It is solely the governor who gets to choose that according to our state law. Okay. Kevin, her and his running. Are you before are you going to? I'm going to wait. I'm staying out of it. April 1, 2 and 3 is the filing for that spot. And what people, people, people think it is a special election. It's not. It's in November. Mark Wayne Mullen was elected in the special election. The normal cycle is actually this November. And so whoever files, April 1, 2 and 3, they're in the six year term at that point. Are you, are you going to endorse? Probably not. I didn't endorse the Mark Wayne Mullen ran. The Mark Wayne is a friend and I've known him for years. But I, I stayed out of that race later by work it out.

22:51I tell local homens, I have one vote like every other Oklahoma does. All right. You don't have to. Okay. All right. We will leave it there. Thank you so much, Senator. Presented by Southern Company. What if I told you there's a place where electricity demand is rising, but rates aren't. It's happening in the southeast. Southern Company is meeting growing demand while keeping costs down for all customers. We're building new infrastructure, creating American jobs and ensuring data centers pay their fair share so everyone benefits. Southern Company, building the future of energy. We are back to dig into that conversation with Punchwell News Defense reporter Anthony and Drogna and Egor Bobbick, senior politics reporter at Huff Poe. Thanks for being here. You both been here before. A second. Return. Return guest. Wow. That was a fascinating conversation with Senator Linkford. Jake, what was your top takeaway? You know, a few things. Number one, let's talk about the talking filibuster first and I work for you or work

23:54for everybody. I thought it was interesting. He's fine with the talking filibuster and you guys could talk more about the new answer this than I can as somebody who focuses on the better chamber of the house. But it was interesting. He thinks he's fine with the talking filibuster, but he doesn't think it's going to work. I mean, Egor, how do you parse that out for me? I thought it was very refreshing to hear from somebody who's not up for reelection about the realities of all hard, you know, passing this thing would be with talking filibuster, right? He's being honest. He's saying it's not going to work. He said he likes it. He wants to pass it. Again, Republicans are going to end up filibustering themselves. They're going to talk for days, you know, not going to be able to pass other legislation. And at the end, they're still not going to have 60 votes to do it. So, you know, it's just kind of a messaging exercise. I thought it was interesting, too, was to your point of like kind of how refreshingly honest it was. Yes, it would be a bunch of amendments. It's hard to either defeat them or not, but basically saying I'm for the build as it is, as it probably would be when it would came to the floor. But there would be amendments that I might not even be able to vote for.

24:55Because remember, a lot of these amendments would be at 50 or 51, right? So you would, simple majority. So who the hell knows what they could put up, right? I mean, I did not hear that part, that argument is part of this conversation. I think his approach is so indicative of how Senator Langford approaches the Senate. He's a diet and a little conservative from Oklahoma, but ultimately an institutionalist who understands and wants to expectation set about how the place actually can work. And I thought with the point you made Anna was, it's, it's right. Like this bill is going to get loaded up with stuff. The Democrats are going to be able to pass with the help of two or three Republicans. And then at the end of the day, I mean, I guess they could do a wrap around amendment, but that wouldn't pass. There's a lot of interesting things. Anthony, I want to talk about Iran for a minute. I thought he made a lot of news or a lot of news for us, but the stuff is going to be big. He said within 48 hours, and I didn't realize this and you're covering it more closely than I am. He said within 48 hours, the administration told them they're going to need more money.

25:58We had not heard that before. That was super interesting. But it's also indicative of the fact he's unable to give a census to what the size is going to look like. That's what we've heard with reporting the entire week on Capitol Hill. Even at this point in the conflict, there's not a clear census to what the size of that pack. I mean, you said, I think 40, maybe 50 billion. He has a number. I think it's going to be larger. My dad do things is going to be larger. It's crazy. They have three carrier groups in the Middle East right now that takes a lot of money to sustain. And the sheer amount of munitions that are going into this war is just crazy to me. Given what Republicans have said before about spending money, about deficits, now they're going to seek this emergency spending package, they're not going to look for it to be offset. I don't think. You know, how are they going to pass? Democrats are going to accept it. I always my next question. I don't know the answer to that. We've talked about this a lot internally and we wrote about it last week. I think Johnson, kind of even, I asked Johnson about it. I don't know what he said about it. Could they put it in reconciliation? I mean, the other pathway that I was just thinking about yesterday when I was on the phone with the source is like, do they have to load it up with like Ukraine money, domestic

27:01production on weapons and California, you're home state, do they have to give a bunch of money to California? Did I? I mean, is that a path? I don't. I don't think it would be enough to be honest with you. I don't agree. How strongly Democrats oppose this war? It would be suicide for Democrats to vote yes on this package. There might be a couple. There might be a couple. But in the end of the day, I don't think they're going to vote for it. In turning it into a Christmas tree, it just makes it all the more complicated. And yeah, it's going to be a scene as a must pass, although I don't necessarily think it is going to be a must pass. But everybody will want to get everything. E15, I'll be back. Oh, that's another point. I mean, that's like actually, I should just mention, I was thinking about this this morning, E15, this year round sale of E15 ethanol base fuel, they added that line a couple of weeks ago, no one's even talking about it anymore. They missed the deadline. That will end up in a package like this. You're absolutely right. This will be the thing, like the last gasp thing that wasn't there. I mean, this is also going to be a 2028 litmus test. Absolutely. And I think that when you think about that for both Republicans and Democrats that are

28:02looking at what is the next presidential, this to me is something where I think it's really tricky. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's like another example of the JD Vance wing of the party. You know, you think so versus the Marco Rubio wing of the party. I mean, Josh Hawley was on TV a couple of days ago saying it's time to declare victory. Let's get it over with. He said that. Yesterday, you were there. I don't know if you were there for that or you saw it, but Hawley said at the conference, which we had a couple of two days ago here in DC, Hawley said, like the sooner, the better, basically, like, let's, let's go, you know, and other Republicans want to set absolutely no parameters whatsoever. So that is a key source of division here that continues to play out among that. I mean, dude, Lankford wants to set no parameters. I mean, you asked him to define the mission. He's just like, destroy him. But it was interesting. I thought he had a very cogent argument in the sense of saying, you know, Iran has has is funding all these other groups in the law. We have all these bases that have these big, you know, big kind of, be, you know, personnel.

29:04They're all these things because of this kind of protracted threat of Iran that if we deal with it now, it is going to have a long term. I mean, and I thought it was interesting. He said that he's open, he's open to more hearings. Listen, I know Iran expert admittedly, but to quote an American poet, there's a lot of known unknowns here, right? We can say, let's end the war soon. What happens after? Who's going to take over in Iran after the straight of our moves? What happens there? Are we ever going to get rid of your control? You know, what happens to oil prices? I think he's going to snowball into a much larger problem. Anthony, I could predict, I'm curious your take on this, if Iran is defeated and define that however you want, there's no way we're closing all these bases in the, in the, in the Middle East and the Eastern Med and all these places that we, I mean, technology infrastructure, we put in money, we would already in there, but that's his point. He's making like, well, maybe we could scale back, they're never scaling those bases back. Are they? I don't, that would be my guess. I would agree with you. I think you have a very much akin to a too big to fail sort of situation over there.

30:04Once you deploy assets to an area, it's really hard to take them back. And what even a lot of China and, and, and other people building in Qatar and in Saudi and all these places, it's just not going to happen. All right. We are quickly ready for our time. We always end the segment with a, that's not going to fly, Igor. We need to get the Senate smells under control. It is getting dank in there. Plus one. Yeah. And the lunches often serve fish because a lot of old people in there, they can't handle much else in their stomachs. So the fish smell and the halls this week was horrendous. Smells like an old age hope. They need to switch out the menu or something, because it's not already on a more serious note. I think this knows. That was very serious to me. Okay. Are you tweeting about it? Yes, we do. That's true. That's true. But I think with regards to Iran, I think this notion of not having public hearings is not going to fly long term. We've heard in my colleague, Brianna Riley and I have not seen GOP chairs open to them at this point.

31:05Senator Langford, I actually cracked the door this morning. I thought that was pretty newsy and interesting. But ultimately, we saw all the countless hearings with Afghanistan, that withdrawal under Biden. I just think there needs to be scrutiny of this and it's not going to be sustainable for Republicans. Agreed. I'll do housing. I was really proud of the top of a bunch of news this morning with Brendan Peterson and Laura Weiss, which basically said, when Trump is not involved in legislation, the center of gravity is gone and Republicans just eat each other. And that's what's happening on, on, on housing right now. This housing bill, which is going to pass, it will probably have passed by the time this airs with the Senate and the Senate with the large bipartisan vote, House Republicans are like not interested. Johnson, Speaker Mike Johnson, House Majority Leader Steve Scalice are ready to go to conference. It is, and Trump is kind of just saying, like, let Congress do its thing. He is not directing and saying, you need to pass this, you need to pass this and, you know, and it's kind of a catch 22 because sometimes he gets too involved and it's not helpful.

32:07But they feel unmoored right now, like, like, he hasn't been engaged and they haven't been able to do anything. This is their one chance to do something on affordability for perhaps for the rest of this Congress and there, I think they're going to, you know, bungalow. I do looks like it now. All right. I'm going back to weather because I did it for a couple weeks in a row. What is not going to fly the DC weather? I mean, it was beautiful. Yes. Last night, took a walk in the mall and now it's snowing. It's raining. What is happening? I don't know. I'm so sick of it. But listen, the good thing is March Madness is underway. Yeah. All right. Let's do one shining. Yeah. And one shining event. We got about an hour and 20 minutes until GW tips against Fordham. The year you're going to be, how's the year you're going to go, you think? I don't want to talk about it on camera. And but the Connecticut, we do every day, the Connecticut Yukon Huskies are in the biggest tournament, obviously, in New York. And then the sweet 16 to lead eight are going to be here in Washington. So exciting. We're very excited for that. All right.

33:08Igor Anthony, thank you so much. We appreciate it. Thank you. All right, Jake. What a great show. I thought super duzy with Senator Langford, Igor and Anthony, a great round table. But I want to get brought there again. Drill down a little bit on housing. What is going to happen? Well, the house is going to come back into session next week and they're going to be confronted with a lot. They're going to be confronted with most likely a supplemental for, this is all the things we talked about today. Supplemental for Iran, Fiza is April 20th, they're going to have this housing bill, the Save America Act, which Johnson is trying to, the house is pretty worked up about this. They want the Senate to do the talking filibuster. I mean, even Langford says it ain't going to work, right? And the interesting thing, and you mentioned this, Anna Polina Luna, said it on this show first that she was going to try to attach Save to Fiza, which she has enough votes to stop it from passing without it. So like how that all plays out is going to be real, real interesting.

34:11Another thing I just think is like, where does the Trump administration get engaged? They got to get engaged on all these things. I mean, they have to. The housing is nowhere right now. Fiza is going to be tough, especially with the Save element, but also Jim Jordan told us in the show he's working on reforms to Fiza, clearly no one wants reforms to Fiza. And Langford doesn't, the administration doesn't. Supplemental is going to be an absolute nightmare for them. So the administration has to be engaged on all of these fronts, and like soon and aggressively. We will be covering it all. Thank you so much for watching. We really appreciate it. Have a great day, everybody. Great weekend. Go GW. Go Yukon, and stay safe. There's only one more way to think about what everything could happen if it wasn't left unsaid.