Sen. Lindsey Graham speaks on the attack in Tel Aviv, Iran's response, and the future of the Republican leadership in the House of Representatives, as well as the Iran situation, and how to deal with it all.
00:00:00.000The sentence before what you just played, I said, in fact, that this was for now and that it could all change.
00:00:08.080And the two threats that I identified that were the most acute on my mind at the time were tensions between Israelis and Palestinians, as I mentioned, and the threat from Iran.
00:00:19.640And so, yes, it is true that those two threats remained a real challenge to the long term stability of the Middle East region.
00:00:28.580And we've just seen this absolutely tragic attack.
00:00:31.240But at no point did the Biden administration take its eye off the ball of the threats to Israel.
00:00:37.380In fact, President Biden saw Prime Minister Netanyahu just weeks before this attack to discuss the security challenges facing the state of Israel.
00:00:46.360And we've continued to support them to as significant or greater an extent than any previous administration.
00:05:19.780Walk us through what's happened since, I guess, Thursday night or Friday with Jim Jordan.
00:05:25.620We were kind of shocked that Congressman Jordan had an affirmation vote privately, anonymously, right after the speaker nomination.
00:05:38.820Now, Jake Sherman and the team at the Punchbowl reported this morning that McCarthy did that.
00:05:46.080They said McCarthy put up that he wanted to do and had the affirmation vote.
00:05:50.020Why would that be done and where do we stand over the weekend?
00:05:52.400Well, I think we can safely say, and with breaking news just from before we came on the air regarding some of the holdouts now switching over to Jordan,
00:06:01.980that the wind is at the back of speaker-designate Jim Jordan.
00:06:05.600And I want to spend our time walking through what that means, what that doesn't mean.
00:06:09.860I don't believe that Jim Jordan is some messiah here to deliver the War Room posse every single dream that it could possibly envision from the speakership.
00:06:19.100I think we go into this with a good dose of realism and sobriety, but the wind is at our back, and here's why.
00:06:26.660We went into a contest between Jim Jordan and Austin Scott, and in that contest—
00:06:32.660But Scott was just a placeholder for the opposition.
00:06:34.700Well, he wasn't someone who had been long campaigning for the job but had become in a lot of these struggle sessions we've been having behind closed doors a leading voice for a good contingent of the caucus that was critical of me and some of my efforts.
00:06:51.680But that's not to say that their opinions should be discounted.
00:06:54.740I'm there in the struggle sessions to listen to people's criticisms of me and to try to be a better lawmaker for my constituents, for the country, and certainly for the Republican caucus.
00:07:12.780So there were 81 votes against Jordan.
00:07:14.800Then just about 30 minutes later, there were only 55 votes against Jordan.
00:07:19.280So you could see the more we're voting, the more the momentum kind of builds for the eventual Speaker of the House, Jim Jordan.
00:07:27.760Now, I believe we should have gone right to the floor, and that 55 in an anonymous secret ballot in the basement of the Longworth building probably would have dwindled to about 12 or 15.
00:07:39.860And then I think we could have had that vote if people needed to get a no vote on Jim Jordan out of their system.
00:07:45.800They could have gotten it out of their system.
00:07:47.080And then we should have come right back on Saturday, Sunday if necessary.
00:07:54.620The closed-door struggle sessions are only going to get you so far where people can hide behind their anonymity on behalf of their favorite lobbying group or interest group or special interest PAC or super PAC group or billionaire donor.
00:08:09.260When you've got to go on the House floor in front of all the lights, you cast your vote and you make your argument.
00:08:16.080And by the way, if people want to stand in the way of Jim Jordan, the way I stood in the way of Kevin McCarthy back in January, they should have to do it just like I did.
00:08:24.180On the floor, risking your political career, risking your committee assignments, risking all your capital.
00:08:30.520And I went and made the argument about the things that had to change in Washington, D.C.
00:08:35.160And the people came to my side and ultimately McCarthy came to my side.
00:08:39.220Now, turns out we saw over the last nine months he didn't really mean it with all of the commitments he had made.
00:08:44.360And so now we have to move forward with Jim Jordan.
00:08:47.920We just got news before we came on the air.
00:08:53.320It's blockbuster because all weekend we've been putting up that – and you had led the charge on this – that there was these old bulls, particularly from the south, these Armed Services Committee, Appropriations Committee that had locked together and were actually cutting a deal with the Democrats.
00:09:09.580Well, here's what I was worried about.
00:09:11.280I was worried that you'd get some of these defense hawks, my friends, my colleagues on the Armed Services Committee, and some of the appropriators particularly lashed into kind of the defense vector of appropriations.
00:09:26.720And you'd get – you had those folks actively talking.
00:09:28.980I just want to make sure the audience understands this.
00:09:30.940You're a defense hawk and you come from probably one of the most heavily defense areas, districts in the nation.
00:09:36.400Yeah, I don't know if it makes me a hawk, a dove, or an eagle, but I think we should have a strong military, the most capable military in the world, a military able to vanquish any foe, and then we should use it strategically, not for the benefit of someone's quarterly profits, not to answer some geopolitics question at the Georgetown School of Foreign Service, but to actually advance the interests of Americans.
00:09:56.720So some people say that makes me a hawk, some say it makes me a dove, but I believe in spending on America's defense because I'm not here to have my grandkids speak in Mandarin.
00:10:06.040So that I think created a coalition and those people were publicly saying over the weekend that they were willing to work with Democrats in a coalition government rather than working with Republicans.
00:10:21.720It deeply troubled a lot of state party leaders.
00:10:24.940That coalition, McHenry, would stick around or would this bring McCarthy back?
00:10:28.000Well, I think that this is what we might have been facing today, that at the beginning of the struggle session, some of the defense hawks could have stood up and said, we've made a deal with the Democrats.
00:10:37.240And the choice for all of you is whether or not we're going to take McCarthy back like some sort of jilted X or we're going to go into coalition government with the Democrats and that that would be a way to block our ability to even have the first floor vote on Jim Jordan.
00:10:54.380Because they would say Scalise had 60 votes against him or 40.
00:11:17.360To Kevin McCarthy's credit, he stood up before the conference when Tom McClintock attempted a resolution to re-nominate McCarthy, and he said, you all deserve to know that I've lost way more than eight, and it would be a higher number.
00:11:31.660So he not only knows that, he acknowledged it to our Republican colleagues.
00:11:36.020And so I don't want to hear Kevin McCarthy saying anymore this 96 percent, 4 percent talk because he stood up and said himself that there were more than eight people that would stand against any attempt for him to return to the speakership.
00:11:48.780Now, all of that, that was what we were working against.
00:11:50.540That was the battle space as we saw it, and so we had a lot of state party leaders, local activists really trying to encourage our friends and colleagues on these defense committees and on the Appropriations Committee to back the Republican nominee for speaker, Jim Jordan.
00:12:06.060So the Warren Posse worked all weekend on this on social media.
00:12:08.740People weren't taking a lot of phone calls, but it was social media.
00:12:42.240Yes, just before we came on the air, Mike Rogers, who had said publicly that he was contemplating working with the Democrats, is now endorsed Jim Jordan for speaker of the House.
00:12:53.180He said they had multiple positive, cordial conversations about the need to pass defense bills, the need to meet the functions of government, and Mike Rogers is now a yes on Jim Jordan.
00:13:05.000That thoroughly deflates this effort from Red District Southerners to serve as a ballast against Jordan.
00:13:13.040I think that is far less likely to happen.
00:13:15.300Can you just repeat that because this is huge.
00:13:23.760Yeah, it's arguably one of the most powerful, not the most powerful of all the committees.
00:13:27.720A made guy in Washington, D.C., by far, and he's a friend of mine, and we work closely together on a lot of priorities I care about.
00:13:35.000Look, the reason we have a great defense bill that really uproots a lot of the wokeness is because Mike Rogers was bearing down on it.
00:13:41.780Mike Rogers knows that this DOD is trying to take mission out of states like Florida and Alabama and Mississippi and move them to states with abortion on demand and that they care more about whether or not your third-grade teacher can identify the gender of your kid than whether or not we're putting military members and materiel in places to defend the country and advance our interests.
00:14:04.040So I'm not here to criticize Mike Rogers.
00:14:07.100I think it's a great thing, but to catch the signal here, if you're one of these other old bull made guys in Washington sitting in a ruby red district south of the Mason-Dixon line, I think that this is a message that holding out against Jordan is ultimately a fool's errand.
00:16:57.360But Jim Jordan is a historic figure for many people in this movement.
00:17:02.140You think, you've got to remember, we took out Cantor with Bratt, we took out Boehner, we took out McCarthy the first time,
00:17:08.840then Paul Ryan quit, now McCarthy and your amazing first time in history with a speaker.
00:17:15.600So much of this audience has been, you know, doing this for 10 or 12 years with us.
00:17:20.640Remembers the foundation of the Freedom Caucus and a fire breather that was Jim Jordan.
00:17:25.040I take them all on, you know, armor-piercing shell.
00:17:28.900It appears to some of our audience that as he's ascended to, you know, in office, and particularly in January,
00:17:38.060there were people who were incredibly disappointed that he was not a stronger voice in backing the hard eight or the magnificent six at that time.
00:17:46.680Also, since then, they just haven't seen it on judiciary.
00:17:49.440Many people come back and say it's like Trey Gowdy all over again.
00:17:53.720That's the Jordan that is beloved is Jim Jordan 1.0.
00:17:58.740It is what can we do on this Jim Jordan 2.0 to getting back to the 1.0?
00:18:03.800I want people to bookmark this discussion we're about to have because I don't want to pretend to this audience or anyone
00:18:10.000that Jim Jordan entering the speaker's office is going to mean we get everything we want.
00:21:23.840And if there is anyone who can bring along some of these America last Republicans that do make up our majority, it's going to be Jim Jordan.
00:21:31.480And the fact that he's now got so many folks who were hard against him just days ago publicly announcing their support for him means that we certainly have got a lot of momentum in upgrading the position.
00:21:43.740But there are going to be things like big tech where we don't agree with Jordan on.
00:21:47.720There are going to be things like January 6th that we don't – well, I don't think that's – I don't think it's that he's close to Google.
00:21:53.300I think that Jim Jordan has a neoliberatarian perspective on those things that is sincerely informed by his viewpoint.
00:21:59.800I have more of a neopopulist viewpoint on those things.
00:22:03.100So we're not getting someone who agrees with us on everything.
00:22:05.260But when it comes to the oversight, I do believe that there were people in Kevin McCarthy's operation who were putting a chokehold on some of the subpoenas and document requests and witness demands that I wanted to get out, that Mike Johnson wanted to get out, that Dan Bishop and Jim Jordan and Chip Roy wanted to get out.
00:22:24.080And so with Jim there, I think we're going to have a lot more runway and we're going to see a green light more than we see a yellow light.
00:22:30.060I want to get back to the CR and other things in a second, but I want to go back to something that – because I think this weekend is very important.
00:22:35.920And this audience, this is another victory for you when it happens because people went to the ramparts on social media for the phone calls and went to – as I kept saying, the biggest disappointment I've had is that block of southern Republicans in the south.
00:22:55.800It's deflating for them to have Mike Rogers now on the team, but Mike Rogers noted in his statement he's historically a team player.
00:23:03.620He was going to be a guy who was going to be with the team after this flirtation with the Democrats.
00:23:07.840Did we learn from the grassroots getting up in people's grills this weekend?
00:23:11.700Is this a way also to unite the conference?
00:23:13.840It's one of the things because we have a disconnection between the voting base of this party, right, the Trump populist, nationalist, America first voting base and the representatives of Washington.
00:23:25.200Is a way to do it what happened this weekend?
00:23:27.040Is that one way to help Jordan bring the conference together?
00:23:30.480We will unite the conference or we will cleanse the conference because if they come at us with some sort of bluff that these old guard Republicans in ruby red districts are going to go cut a deal with Democrats or force McCarthy down our throat, here's what I'm going to go tell them.
00:23:46.980Go cut your deal with Democrats and see what happens to you.
00:23:49.900And you know what, in a weird way, if these guys go cut a deal with Democrats, the Democrats were governing us all along anyway, right?
00:23:57.320And the veneer of a Republican majority was just an illusion the whole time.
00:24:02.180And you know what, if they go do that deal with Democrats and in the upcoming election, it results in us wiping out 6, 8, 12, 20, 30 of the Republicans who stand in the way of the America first agenda.
00:24:14.440That might be the greatest blessing of all of this.
00:24:16.760Let's talk about the critical path going forward.
00:24:20.660There's going to be a conference meeting tonight.
00:24:34.460I think that there will be one final play by the McCarthy folks to try to delay a Jordan vote, to try to reinsert McCarthy in some sort of double backflip.
00:25:23.820Because Jim Jordan is actually talking about another CR already, which, as you know, this audience's head is going to blow up.
00:25:28.560So just practically in governing, where are we?
00:25:30.860You know, we have passed funding for over 70 percent of the government, including our defense, including our Department of State and Foreign Ops.
00:25:38.960I mean, we made some deep cuts to Department of State and Foreign Ops.
00:25:41.960We took it back to 2014 spending levels.
00:25:44.560But that forced people to actually make zero-sum choices about how we deploy America's resources and which interests have primacy.
00:25:53.140So we've sent that over to the Senate.
00:25:55.300Today the Senate could take up and pass our state and foreign ops bill, which, by the way, includes a bunch of Iron Dome money in partnership with Israel.
00:26:03.300For all those that are worried we aren't doing enough in that front.
00:26:05.260They could have 70 percent of the government ready to be funded and wouldn't need to be included in a CR.
00:26:09.860You could go forward in conference and try to hammer it out.
00:26:12.120So the Jordan doctrine, which I've got to say I don't particularly agree with.
00:26:17.380I'm voting for the man more than the plan, and he knows that, and this audience should know that.
00:26:22.080But Jordan's plan is to pass this 1 percent cut CR and then to use that as leverage against big spending senators to try to get some of the policy from our single-subject appropriations bills woven in.
00:26:36.420You're saying he'll take the policy wins and give up the actual money?
00:27:19.740New York just announced they had 4,000 illegal aliens show up last week.
00:27:23.820It's getting worse in New York, not better.
00:27:26.380Where does Jordan stand on Ukraine right now?
00:27:28.800Well, Jordan and Scalise and Austin Scott, all these people who've run for speaker, have had to answer pointed questions about that.
00:27:35.600And the real challenge politically is you've probably got about 20 members who don't want to vote for anyone who would send one more dollar to Ukraine.
00:27:42.740And you've probably got about 20 members who don't want to vote for anybody who wouldn't give Ukraine a blank check.
00:27:49.960Jim Jordan has been voting with the America First agenda on Ukraine for a good majority of this.
00:27:58.320I don't think it really matters, though, because if we abide by the Hassert rule, which Jim Jordan says he believes binds him, you can't put that.
00:28:06.500So the administration is going to try to lash border to Ukraine, to Israel.
00:29:57.520The lead story in the Sunday New York Times, three columns, right-hand side, was about how the IDF and Mossad and Israeli defense military intelligence not just got caught unawares strategically,
00:30:21.620but also tactically, but also had the idea of there weren't troops up there for eight or ten hours.
00:30:28.420I mean, it is, in fact, they had a line in their buried lead that said, you know, could this have happened just from incompetence, or was there infiltration into intelligence?
00:30:55.880You're not an isolationist, but you've been the number one voice of we've got to stop these forever wars, and we have to put America's national security interests as paramount.
00:31:05.020Yeah, I think the risk of a forever war here is pretty limited based on the military operations that are going on and the extent to which Israel is just laying siege to Gaza right now.
00:31:16.660I think this is what got us to this position.
00:31:21.520Iran is becoming increasingly isolated in the Middle East because a lot of these Persian Gulf monarchies are run by guys my age in their 40s who were educated in London and New York and Los Angeles.
00:31:35.840And they want to turn westward, and particularly they want to get all their cash into Western real estate markets, Western financial markets, into other Western asset classes.
00:31:47.280Those asset classes are being closed off to Iran as a consequence of these sanctions.
00:31:51.580And then them being a player within Middle Eastern economies is diminishing as those assets are moving into Europe and moving into the United States.
00:32:01.500So I believe Iran caused this attack in southern Israel in order to get Israel to lay siege to Gaza so that Iran would then have some twisted moral justification to launch strikes in Israel.
00:32:18.580And then when Israel responds by launching strikes at Tehran, which I think is where this thing could be going, then you could see a lot of pressure from within the populace of these Gulf monarchies because while the leaders in Bahrain and Saudi and Qatar want to turn westward, their citizens don't want to.
00:32:41.020You hooked me at the beginning saying it's not going to be a forever war of the implication.
00:32:44.380It could be it could be nasty, but short.
00:32:52.700I think that that Israel would respond to any missile strikes.
00:32:57.440The last time I look, brother, the naval aviators that are trained in your district are sitting on two carrier battle groups right now in the eastern med as a warning to Hezbollah or anybody else.
00:33:08.120Right, and I actually think that's the right move because right now you're in an asymmetric war, and I think that having those carrier groups in the eastern med is the greatest deterrence for Lebanon or Syria or Iran or Iraq entering this war.
00:33:22.860But the deterrence is if you strike, we'll be there.
00:33:26.140The deterrence is actually that we will give combat air support to Israel if Hezbollah strikes.
00:33:57.340The whole point is to deter any type of state-on-state conflict.
00:34:01.420Do you believe that the – and this is why I'm so opposed to even special forces going for hostage rescue.
00:34:08.500As soon as any direct American involvement militarily in support of Israel in the region, the whole place gets lit up from Egypt all the way to our allies in Egypt and Saudi Arabia that all of a sudden the intrusion – you bring Turkey in.
00:34:25.960You've obviously got Persia in, but then you've got Egypt and everybody has to.
00:34:30.640The Arabs, the Turks, and the Persians all have to unite to drive the infidel out.
00:34:35.880I don't believe that's the case because I think that presupposes this belief in a separation between the United States and Israel that doesn't exist now.
00:34:45.940When it's U.S. equipment and materiel and U.S. planning, I mean you go to these bases in Israel, there's U.S. forces all over that are woven into the IDF tactically and operationally.
00:35:16.400I see no evidence currently that we need to pass a supplemental for Israel because the billions of dollars that we have invested in Israel has given Israel such a qualitative military edge that is central to U.S. foreign policy.
00:35:32.900Israel can exercise their will in Gaza, in the Golan Heights, in southern Syria.
00:35:40.220When you say exercise their will, this is a nation that could not defend their borders.
00:35:45.440First off, this has been two years in the planning at max and maybe a year, training, exercising, recruiting, all that, which they didn't see.
00:37:04.740How do you win the information war there when you have two million – I mean they order a million people out within 24 hours?
00:37:09.920Well, I think we need to be putting more pressure on Egypt.
00:37:12.240I think that – I think there's a deal to be done here.
00:37:14.600You know what Egypt wants more than anything?
00:37:16.180MQ-9 predator drones on cash flow financing to be able to do anti-terrorism stuff in the Sinai.
00:37:21.340And we have not been willing to give that to them yet in part because the Egyptian government engages in some extrajudicial killings of the Muslim Brotherhood.
00:37:30.500Well, I mean there are some who view that differently, I'll say.
00:37:36.300But if we did the MQ-9 deal and we did it on cash flow financing –
00:37:40.400But those drones are taking out the Muslim Brotherhood that actually have the bases out in the Sinai.
00:37:43.760Well, sure, under the best possible interpretation of that scenario, that's what they'd be used for.
00:37:49.400But I also think that that could get Egypt in a better position regarding the Rafa passage, regarding refugee camps, humanitarian assistance.
00:37:59.680Because I'm not for any of these Gaza refugees coming to the United States.
00:38:03.360You're with the Santas on that, 100 percent.
00:38:13.040Are we going to underwrite the – it's too many people have to go somewhere.
00:38:18.320They can't clearly stay in Gaza because it's going to be taken apart brick by brick and particularly the underground tunnels and not just tunnels, cities underground.
00:38:28.280Do they go to refugee camps in the Sinai?
00:39:20.680We are not the world's piggy bank, OK?
00:39:22.680And I think that this is an Arab problem that needs to be resolved by Arabs and frankly, I don't – I think where you miss it is this notion that there is this desire of the Arab world to unite against Israel on this.
00:39:37.440There is a lot more interest, I think, in preserving domestic politics for those monarchies.
00:39:43.440I strongly believe to the core of my being, having worked on this, that that is all totally, completely superficial.
00:40:30.200I think that these guys are trying – I think that these guys are trying to manage their domestic politics while at the same time not cutting off their future in the west.
00:42:04.320You've mentioned Turkey and I think that we've seen from Turkey that they behave very differently when they turn west than when they turn east.
00:42:12.780So Turkey that decides to be a part of this European crusade in Ukraine, very different than Turkey.
00:42:19.880Is there any doubt in your mind that CCP – because they've got a long-term relation with Persia and the output deal – that somehow they're in back of this with Persia to say let's suck the Americans into the Middle East and away from Taiwan?
00:42:29.580I was in a briefing with Republican colleagues yesterday about that very question, the extent to which Iran's animating of Hamas is really buttressed by Iran's growing relationship with the CCP, with China.
00:42:43.600And the case was made to me that while I'm looking – while a lot of the world right now is looking at the relationship between Iran and Hamas, the relationship between Iran and China is actually more dispositive as to what's going on here.
00:46:33.320And Colonel Harvey, your assessment, you're the guy, you're my go-to guy for the region.
00:46:39.120And Matt and I disagree on that, and that's fine.
00:46:42.420Matt has spent a lot of time and is very informed on this.
00:46:46.620I'm just, from having been there for the first time as a young lieutenant junior grade in 79,
00:46:52.440I look at the entire area with a jaundiced eye.
00:46:58.160Colonel Harvey, can you give us an assessment of where we are?
00:47:02.280Yeah, Steve, I, you know, I really appreciate Matt Gaetz being on ahead of time.
00:47:06.940And, you know, the focus needs to be on American interests, our economic interests, our security interests and the like.
00:47:14.780And I think those right now are tied to a successful effort by Israel to destroy and emasculate the Hamas in such a way that the world knows that it happened.
00:47:31.080And it has to be clear to everyone in the region and internationally that the IDF was successful.
00:47:38.620Let's keep in mind as we think about this that we've shifted into another gear here.
00:47:44.560We've gone from the administration saying they stand strongly with Israel to being focused on and talking about baby's heads being chopped off to saying,
00:47:54.280oh, the poor Palestinians, and we're barely over a week into this.
00:47:59.500And this is because our administration does not understand the stakes at play here.
00:48:06.800If we are not successful, if the IDF is not successful, then it will rebound against our stature and our influence,
00:48:15.680and it will increase our problems, not just in the region, but internationally.
00:48:20.880And there's a tie-in, and I think you touched on it in the previous segment, to what China and Iran are doing.
00:48:27.600Why would Hamas go through with this, knowing that it would be almost committing suicide?
00:48:33.260They were probably told that it was, they're going to take one for the team, Steve.
00:48:38.080And, you know, they've been operating an open-air prison.