next week. If you think screaming worldwide on the W M. Al app O'Connor and company. Good Monday morning to you. It's 7 0 7 here on O'Connor and company. We're charging through this very busy day with lots of news. Latest on Iran. We haven't even gotten to yet, but reporters finally started reporting what they knew and more happening. Coming up at 735, we'll speak with Dr. Tom Jones, retired astronaut, about what's next for NASA and Artemis III, now that Artemis II is complete. 805 brings us Maryland delegate Lauren Arican talking about the sanctuary bill now in the state of Maryland. And then at 835, Steve Moore, economist, will give us his perspective and an economic perspective on the war continuing to wage in the Middle East. That's all coming up. I know and know it's not really a war, but you know what I mean. It's Larry O'Connor with Bethany Mandel. Good morning, Bethany. Good morning, Larry. What a pleasure to be with you again. Oh, it's a pleasure to have you. And it's a good time now that you're being nice to me to remind everybody that people should subscribe to you and download your podcast. That would be the Mom Wars. The Mom Wars. You'll only do that when I'm being nice to you. Correct. That you're trying to incentivize it. This is a very transactional relationship, Bethany. Fair, fair. It's not going to make me be nicer to you, but I'll consider it. It's a carrot and stick situation, so to speak. Joe Degeneres joins us now, former U.S. Attorney to the District of Columbia. Good morning, Joe. Good morning. Wow, Eric Swalwa. Who could have seen this coming? Everybody. It really is something. And I just want to sort of rewind a little bit or zoom out or however anybody would like to sort of rhetorically describe what I'd like you to do, Joe, because you were there. You and your wife were there as private attorneys and legal advisors during the Russian collusion hoax, during all of the horrific, unfounded allegations that were hurled at Donald Trump going back to 2016. And Eric Swalwa was right there in the midst of it while all of this was going on. What do you think about that? Well, Swalwa was in league with Adam Schiff as part of a dynamic duo whose job was to leak to the media false information about things that they said they had been told during intelligence briefings. They made it seem as if they had direct knowledge of connections between the president and the Russians and they continuously leaked that information to the press because of their linkage to the intelligence committee through Schiff. And of course, it was all false. It was all a lie. And what they did was in making those accusations public, they furthered the investigations into the president through the press. The press went along with it. Every very uncritical analysis of what they were being told. Schiff and Swalwa always had information, but they could never reveal what it was. Well, that of course, to any good reporter, is the end of the road. You either say, well, put up or shut up at that point. And of course, it is delicious to see Swalwa swooning now and having to get out of the governor's race. What I find fascinating is he's still a member of Congress. I just don't know how they're going to be able to do that. It also raises the specter of this slush fund that everybody knows about that Congress keeps and maintains with US tax dollars to settle cases by some people's estimations upwards to $20 million has been settled with staffers, employees of the federal government at the congressional level having to do with allegations just like this. And yet both Republicans and Democrats continue to vote to keep that secret. Well, it's absolutely unjustifiable. And this is public money and there should be an accounting for it. And where's where's Matthew and all these guys who were. Yeah, where's Rokana on this one? Thank you. Yeah, we're all these guys who always want to bring motions to the floor and special rules and discharge petitions. Why aren't they getting on board on this one? And the answer is they all are protecting themselves. This is a bipartisan scandal. The New York Times and the Washington Post haven't said much about it. Isn't that wonderful? But, you know, until we get some people with guts in Congress on both sides of the aisle, this will never be public. It should be. It's public money. It's not even a close call. So I'm not sure if you saw the president posted a tweet last night where he sort of made an AI image of himself, American flag in the background and flying ball legal in the back and he's dressed as Jesus. And it looks like he's anointing someone that was sick. Um, I don't know if you saw this image. I missed this. I didn't. You missed this. This is my entire Twitter feed. Are people mad about it? And even lots and lots and lots of conservatives are mad about it. I'm curious. Joe, did you did you see this tweet that happened last night? I did not. I am not a Twitter follower. I'm not a social platform guy. But I'm not surprised. The president is want to, uh, often say and do things that are, um, some would say are out where he just others would say are creative. I personally am not offended by anything anymore. As long as people like Eric Swalwell or in Congress and doing things, anything that the president does, does, pales in comparison to what other people are doing and have done. I mean, it just, it just doesn't bother me. The president is who he is. Um, you know, I did pay attention to his spat with the Pope, which I think the pope, I think the pope deserved the criticism that he got. I think the pope is interjecting himself in political affairs. And while he is the head of state of the Vatican city, which is a nation state, um, if he's going to do that, then he's going to have to accept the criticism that comes with it. And I think the pope, um, he's a very flawed pope. So I mean, I have to be careful or, you know, I just, I don't want to be excommunicated, but I think he's a real loser. I think he's a real loser. For the pope to suggest that there's never any, um, uh, uh, rational for why I mean, he's, he's like, he's contradicting Catholic's long held just worth theory set up by Thomas Aquinas and certainly. This is clearly a just war after four at 50 years of being assaulted by the Iranian government. So I really don't want to hear from the pope on this. Yeah. With, with all respect to the pope, and I do respect him, uh, when he's, um, speaking in his popely way about popely things, uh, and the faith and morals of our church, but this is not one of them. This is a political utterance of his, and he had nothing to say about the 30,000 slaughtered in the streets by the regime of Iran. So, uh, he needs, he needs to speak out about that before he speaks out about this. Uh, in my opinion, Mr. DeGeneva, um, can you shed some light on the, oh, go ahead, go ahead. No, I just said I couldn't agree more. Thank you, Larry. Um, can you shed some light on this back and forth with, uh, Judge Leon, uh, Richard Leon is usually a pretty solid judge here in DC. Um, and the ballroom and, and the suggestion that, uh, it needed to be halted. And then the DC circuit overruled that or put a stay on it, I should say, with the two to one ruling. So now we can construct some more and put a bet. What is getting lost here? Because I thought that why does Congress have to chime in on something with the ballroom construction if it's not federal money being used? Well, first of all, the people that sued do not have standing to sue. Now, Judge Leon, if he were, you know, true to his cloth would be looking first as they, you always do as a federal judge, do these people in front of me have the right to be here? And the first question you ever ask of a plaintiff, such as the groups that were challenging the construction of the ballroom is why are you here and what is your right to be here? These people have no standing. This case will be thrown out ultimately if it gets to the Supreme Court because they're interfering with the functions of the White House. It's a purely executive function. The building of this has nothing to do with this outside group. There's the, it's being funded by private money. There have been additions and subtractions at the White House for 200 years. This is utter nonsense. And I like Dick Leon. He's a very nice guy. I've known him for many, many years when he was a private lawyer. He seems like a pretty solid guy. Yeah. Yeah, but he stayed too long at the fair. The problem with all of these judges is that once they've got those robes on, you just never know what's going to happen. Huh. Yeah. Well, we'll watch it. It doesn't make any sense, especially when you know that this entire operation really is part of the emergency operation center for the White House, the secure bunker and everything that was underneath it. Of course. It had to be done. So you take the advantage of that to build the bag. And no, Trump's been talking about the ballroom, ballroom, ballroom, but that's really just Trump talking about what he's excited about. The other operation is incredibly important for the safe functions of the executive branch and the president's operations in time of an emergency. And it's not something the judge is supposed to be sticking his nose in on. Joe DeGeneva, always good to talk to you. Thanks for getting me in trouble with the poke, man. It's great. Anytime it's called a Vatican rag. Remember that song. Thank you, Joe DeGeneva. Bethany, I've seen the true social posts that you're referring to. It is, it is problematic to say the least. It is problematic. And I wonder the Trump social media team has a little out of control. They just need to, they need to downshift a bit. I understand he likes to tweak people, but stop. Did Donald Trump, Donald Trump is, is a lot of things, a lot of great things. He's not my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. He's not, he's not healing people. It's seven 15. Hi, I'm Joe Salci. I hosted the stacking Benjamin's podcast. Most economists agree small amount of inflation is actually good. Two percent is what you're going for. The wise everybody freaking out. Oh, because it's the fallout. People don't track their budget. You have this slow slipping that happens every month. To all of a sudden you go, man, I don't have any money. The reason is now two people go to a restaurant. The bill is 60 bucks for two. Two guys walking to a restaurant. They start screaming. It's hilarious. $60. Stacking Benjamin's following listen on your favorite platform. You may have heard my phone vibrating on my broadcast counsel here. Because the second I said that I had not seen that true social post, my phone blew up with my friends all sending it to me. Say, oh, you've got to see it. You've got to see it. Yes, there is there is President Trump emerging from the heavens dressed like like the savior. And he's reaching out an anointing the head. Who is he? It looks like Paul Newman. Who's that supposed to be in a hospital bed? That was unclear to me. I understand what this is. This is to me. This is take Trump seriously, but not literally. But I think it's just Trump. He likes tweaking people and just sort of he knows that this would express outrage, so he just likes to do it. You blamed the social media team. I don't think this is a team. This is him. He's on Claude or Grock or whatever. And and playing around at night on his phone. This is the same president who takes random calls from reporters at all hours. You know, maybe his phone had hit a lull and he decided he was going to play around on Grock. Such a boomer. No, maybe he lost a bet. I don't know. But I mean, this this really upset a lot of his sort of religious base of people who are Godfrey Christians. Yes. And they they view it as blasphemous. The very the very first reply with the most retweets on true social or retruths or whatever the hell they call it. It's from a account called Fight for Freedom USMC. Thank you for your service, Marine. And it says, Mr. President, with all due respect, take this down. Yeah, you are not Jesus. Even if this wasn't the intention, this is not a good look. I do not support this. And I know many others do not either remove it at once. You've probably already done too much damage with this meme. That's the very first and most popular reply to this. And this is on true social, which is a bit of a platform. Yeah, read the room. But this is not. He doesn't ever he doesn't apologize. He doesn't he doesn't backtrack things. And that is his greatest strength and his greatest weakness. I have seen somebody else tweet this photo out. This it's an AI rendering, by the way. And the reply or the description is America has been sick for a long time. President Trump is healing the nation. That's that's what this is supposed to imply. That's fine. He's he's healing as a doctor, perhaps, not as a a messiah. Again, why do I need to say that? All right, moving on 721. Let's get an update on the around war. Excuse me, the military. Incursion. Yeah, the military. We're not incurring on anything, although I guess now we are. The military response. The military response to 47 years of Iranian tyranny. The vice president, JD Vance, along with Steve Wicoff and Jared Kushner, engaged in a marathon negotiation session in Islamabad. And no agreement was reached. The vice president delivered a statement about that. We'll get to that in a moment. But the result of that is the president's decision to now move forward to open the Strait of Hermuse by blockading Iranian oil ports and enforcing sanctions on any tanker that pays Iran some sort of toll or fee to get through the strait. They've also begun mind sweeping operations. You remember we had on the program last week, we had Tom Sauer, who is a retired EOD officer who dealt with explosive ordinance disposal. And also we had the captain of the coal, the commander of the coal. Excuse me, join us on Friday to sort of say, yeah, you know, we don't need to like do mind sweeping and all of these things. What we need to do is blockade the he gave us a preview of this basically. Commander Lippold of the coal told us on Friday that the next step will probably be the Navy blockading Iranian ports and blockading Carg Island, et cetera. And here's the president last night making the announcement. I would say it's holding well. Their military is destroyed. Their whole Navy is underwater. You know that 158 ships are gone. Their Navy's gone. Most of their mind droppers are gone. We have a lot of people, as you know, at 10 o'clock tomorrow, we have a blockade going into effect. That'll be 10 o'clock tomorrow. Other nations are working so that Iran will not be able to sell oil. And that would be very effective. But what we want to do is we want to. And again, we don't need it. What we noticed and what we see and what I think is maybe my idea, maybe not. I don't know. But there are many boats heading toward our country to fill up with oil and then go and take it. So they're not going to go through the Hormone Strait. And ultimately, that'll be corrected. But in the meantime, they're using us. We have more oil because of drill baby drill. We have more oil than Russia and Saudi Arabia put together. So if you look at Russia and Saudi Arabia, two big ones, we have much more oil than they have put together. And what's happening is boats are coming over here. We don't have to go through the Hormone Strait. That fact check drew on that. The activity in the Gulf of America going to ports in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Texas have increased bigly with the US filling the gap for a lot of this stuff. But again, minesweepers from the United States Navy began operations on Saturday to clear out mines if there are any. I don't think they found any, actually. I think it's been a bluff. I don't think that the Strait is mined, but we shall see. And starting at 10 a.m. today, there will be begin an active navy blockade of these Iranian ports. Let's see if they are capable of responding and what that response looks like. And most importantly, they will put pressure now on countries who have been dealing with Iran through all of this, saying that there would be repercussions and penalties on any country dealing with Iranian oil. So it's been up to bit here now in terms of the activities against Iran, and we'll see what the results are. The bottom line is Iran still refuses to give up their nuclear ambitions. That's the bottom line. And well, the president is staying true to his word. It's 724. Now on 105.9 FM and streaming worldwide on the WMA L app O'Connor and company. 737. Good morning. It's Monday. It's the 13th day of April. It's O'Connor and company getting you where you need to go with everything you need to know. Oh, I just made that up. I like it. Getting ready to go with everything you need to know. Coming up at 805 Maryland delegate Lauren Eriken. She's trying to push back on this sanctuary state bill making its way through the assembly. And then at 835, Steve Moore, economist will give us his perspective on the state of Hormuz and what might happen with this new blockade that's been ordered. That's all coming up. That's Bethany Mendoza. I'm Larry O'Connor. Morning, Bethany. Good morning, Larry. Now let's talk to an astronaut. We love astronauts. He's the author of the new book Space Shuttle Stories. First hand astronaut accounts from all 135 missions of the Space Shuttle. He is Dr. Tom Jones. He is in fact a rocket man. Good morning, Dr. Jones. Great to talk with you. Good morning, Larry. Good morning, Bethany. Um, what a moment that was. I was recounting earlier. I was at a sports bar in Northern Virginia. Everybody was watching the masters and Meredith and I were watching the splashdown about 30 minutes out or the reentry. I should stay 30 minutes out from splashdown on our phones and the cocktail waitress saw what we were doing and said, Oh, hang on. And every television flipped to the feed, the coverage and the place went nuts. When those parachutes opened, it's really a great moment and a great achievement. Can you reflect a little bit on what we just did? It's a great moment for America. I've watched the whole thing live just as you did. And it was spectacular to see the crew of Artemis 2 return safely off with that Pacific splashdown. And that's a big milestone because for the first time since 1972, the United States has put human beings out there beyond the distance of the moon. We haven't been there since Apollo 17. And we did it this time with a bigger spacecraft, a more capable craft, the Orion spacecraft. And we had a Canadian on board to represent our international partners as we return to the moon in the next couple of years. So you just wrote a new book, Space Shuttle Stories, First Hand Astronaut Accounts from All 135 Missions. My biggest question for you about all of those sort of first hand testimonies is how much do they discuss God in their reflections of being in space? Out of the 135 shuttle missions over 30 years, I have an astronaut story for each one. And several people, of course, thank the Almighty for seeing them safely home to their families. I certainly wrote about it in the story of my last mission, where I was given this glimpse at the space station of creation, a tremendous gift to have that perspective. But I also felt incredible humility at the vast scale of the universe compared to this little guy. Yeah. Yeah. Victor Glover, the pilot of this mission, really wore his faith on a sleeve and it was inspiring for so many people watching this. And I think it really does. There's been a false choice, I think, in many people in the secular world that say you have to choose between science and God. And it couldn't be further from the truth. Can you tell us, Dr. Jones, what the next steps are? What will Artemis III look like and how big a leap is that going to be from two to three? Right. Before the Artemis II mission flew here on April 1st, NASA had reorganized its Artemis return to the moon program. So the next mission was going to be a lunar landing. That's no longer the case. So next year, they'll fly another moon rocket, the space launch system, with an Orion capsule on Artemis III that will go just to low Earth orbit, just a few hundred miles up. But they will dock rendezvous and dock with versions of the landers that are under contract to NASA for the eventual surface return to the moon. So that will all take place close to the Earth in a safer environment. And we can test out which of those two candidates from Blue Origin or from SpaceX best suits NASA's return to the moon program. And maybe by the end of 2028, we go back with Artemis IV and land on the moon. Okay. And when they land on the moon, it's not going to just be to hit golf balls. And Tula rounded a buggy as cool as that was back in the 70s. Are they actually going to begin the process of this lunar base? So at first, you have to get down to the surface, but with four people for a couple of weeks, probably one astronaut remaining in orbit for that duration. But then you very soon start to implant infrastructure, vehicles, landing pads, habitats on the surface. And by the early 2030s, I think the president has specified 2030 as the start date. You start replacing a research base at the south pole of the moon, where the water resources are located that we're trying to go after. Wow. So what kind of equipment are they going to have to bring up there to achieve that? Is that going to, are they going to have to bring up a lot of ships back and forth? Or are they going to be able to bring all that up in just a couple trips? Just wondering like how many launches are we seeing here? Oh, I think it's a regular series of launches, probably one piloted launch per year, accelerating into the 2030s. But the great thing about the American space program with NASA is that we've got these industrial partners with us. And so we can hire them for cargo delivery to the moon's surface, usually on one way trips, so they can lower down the habitats, the fuel supplies, the regenerative, equipment needed to extract water from the moon and then turn it into rocket propellant. So all that can be a commercial partnership along with the landers provided by NASA and its contractors. We got to leave it there. I appreciate you joining us. OK, thanks, Larry. Thank you, Dr. Tom Jones. Check out his website. It's astronautTomJones.com and the book Space Shuttle Stories, First Hand Astronaut Accounts from All 135 Missions. Next roll with Vernon Davis, the transformative journeys of athletes, artists and entrepreneurs. Ladies and gentlemen, lights out, Sean Merrim. I want to be the biggest and the best when I do. And so whatever it takes, I'll get it done in business and everything else. All I do is know how to fight and earn what I want. My man, Malik asks, what actor, comedian, what you want to collaborate with? Me, Jamie Foxley, Kevin Hart in a movie. We said it on Vernon Davis podcast. And so we'll circle back and be like, yep, it's going to clear. Next roll with Vernon Davis. Follow and listen on your favorite platform. Something's happening in Ireland, Bethany. Are you feeling your Irish roots tugging at you as we look at this story? Is it related to potatoes? No, beer. You know what? I don't need those stereotypes right now. My Irish brothers and sisters are taking to the streets of their protesting in increase in fuel taxes that their parliament has laid down. This has affected farmers, truck drivers, agricultural contractors, transport workers, businesses, obviously heavily dependent on diesel. And they've taken to the streets. They have protested vociferously, and it just started to steamroll and turned into a political movement where so many people outside of Dublin, outside of the, you know, metropolitan area felt like they have no voice and that no one was standing up for them. And it's made a difference. The streets have been flooded. Roads have been blocked massive protests with farm vehicles plowing through the cities and now officially they have cut these taxes around Ireland's government, Iran's government, Ferdinand Slip, Ireland's government over the weekend announced 500 million euros in tax cuts on motor fuel yesterday in an attempt to placate the protesters according to Politico. The clearances came a day after police backed by soldiers, broke a similar blockade of the country's only oil refinery at Whitegate and County Cork. But in some cases, police have refused to engage with these protesters and said, no, yeah, we're not we're not going to break this up because, well, frankly, they're on their side. So it's been it's been quite a remarkable thing to see. That's fascinating. I think that a lot of people, especially who live in these urban areas, don't totally appreciate how the trickle effect of of gas prices on things like their food prices. Yeah. And I wonder, you know, I wonder, I wonder how much revolt would have happened more generally if if those prices had been given an opportunity to trickle down to to customers. MMA superstar Connor McGregor, by the way, is one of the faces and voices of this movement. I believe he's running for office in Ireland. He's been taken to the streets with us, saying no more bleeding the Irish worker dry. They do have a way with their words, don't they? No more bleeding the Irish worker dry. He said no more sacrificing our families, our farms and our future on the altar of radical green ideology and endless foreign wars. We are Ireland. This is our stand for survival. This is our stand for sovereignty. This is Ireland first. It's great. Good for him. Only problem is they're way too cozy with Hamas. So, you know, fix that Ireland and I might be joining you in the streets. It's 753. This isn't your average podcast. This pot is about to be crazy. I don't even know what's going to happen. This is full send. It's just like a boy scrap. Join the party. We threw like a spontaneous party out of nowhere. It was crazy and we pulled off a crazy prank. Pranks, parties and viral culture at its wildest. Seeing like the guys that you brought in and like seeing their different personalities and stuff, it's been entertaining, dude. This could be the greatest content build of all time. The full send podcast. Dude, let's get ready to rumble. Follow and listen on your favorite platform. Let's do it.
