Now on 105.9 FM and streaming worldwide on the WMALA, O'Connor & Company. 806, good morning Thursday, the second day of April, busy day here on O'Connor & Company, coming up in 30 minutes, Kurt Schlichter, senior columnist at Town Hall, he'll help us through it. It's Larry O'Connor with Cassie Smedley. After yesterday's Easter lunch event at the White House, where the president basically did a stand-up routine, and then of course that was following the arguments at the Supreme Court of our Birthright Citizenship, and then later in the evening the launch of the Artemis II mission to the moon. And now, and then immediately after that at 9 PM you had the president addressing the nation, the current status of the military action in Iran. It was a very, very, very busy day for the president, especially considering that last element, probably the most important element after a long day, to help us break down exactly what was said and what the path forward is for the American military. General Jack Keane, he's a retired four-star general, chairman of the Institute for the Study of War, and a Fox News senior strategic analyst. General Keane, thanks for joining us. Yeah, delighted to be here, Larry and Cassie, thank you. So the president said last night that basically this is one of the most successful military campaigns in just 32 days. No country has suffered and been debilitated at the level that Iran has in such a short period of time. Would you concur with that assessment? I would concur with the fact that particularly in the time frame that we've taken this on, I mean, we're just somewhat over 30-something days, and the amount of setback that Iran has suffered as a result of that is certainly significant in that short period of time, yes. One focus right now on the military objectives has to do with the Strait of Hormuz, because that is what's sort of becoming a choke point there for international oil distribution. That's affecting the price of oil, it's affecting the price of gas, and if Americans are feeling any repercussions from this, that's what it is. So when the president says, because we don't get our oil there, but it does affect the price of oil, he says to the countries that can't give fuel that number one, either they should buy from the United States or number two, just go to the Strait and take it yourselves, how feasible is that? I mean, if they go and they just say, okay, let's just take this oil, aren't they setting themselves up for an attack from Iran that could in fact devastate that oil tanker? Yeah, well, in my own mind, I don't think we should cease our operations obviously against Iran and leave them in control of Gulf oil distribution. I think that should be a task we assign ourselves and make certain that the Straits are open. I know for a fact that we have detailed plans to be able to do that with an acceptable risk. In executing that, and I know the Central Command is prepared to do that. If the president told them today, they could execute that mission. I get that and I appreciate that. And I suspected that we had a plan to do this. My question is, is it feasible when the president says to the UK or France or whoever, if you're upset about the trade or Hormuz, you want your oil, just go and take it. Just go. We've already done the heavy lifting. Is that feasible for those countries? Well, certainly. I mean, it would take them considerable amount of time. I've talked to the Secretary General more than once about this. This is Mark Ruta. I mean, for them to organize the capability to do it, to get in the region to be able to do that. Yeah, certainly they can put something together to do that. They have air power themselves. Some of the European countries do have navies. I've always thought we've been a little off going after NATO about this. I really think it's select European countries who are dependent on Persian Gulf oil, as well as Asian countries that are involved, that it's not necessarily a NATO issue. But nonetheless, yeah, that would take a considerable amount of time. I mean, even in my discussions with Ruta, because they, when they first got the request, they thought it was, they needed to be there immediately. I said, well, it's going to take you a week or two to get there with your resources to begin with. I mean, we're talking about opening this up. The United States opens it up and turns it over to allies and partners, and also recognizing we would likely have to leave some capability there with you to assist you if you didn't have that capability. That to me is a feasible plan. But yeah, certainly they can, it would take them time to organize something like that. It looks like they're attempting to do something that would storm the Prime Minister to UK having a meeting with multiple nations. I understand the reasons and the argument for European countries getting involved here. What about Middle Eastern countries and what is, what should be their involvement or their responsibility to maintain the, hopefully we're on the cusp of stability, but maintain the stability, maintain this new arrangement with Iran? Well, I think, I think it could be maintained. Obviously, it's resource intensive. And that's why the United States even needs help to do this. I mean, we have naval ships in the area obviously doing offensive and defensive missions and the position accordingly. We would have to strip away some ships to be able to do escort duty. And it, you know, so ideally it's two ships, two warships, escoring a couple at best in a ship convoy. And that's pretty intensive. You just don't go back in 20 minutes and pick up two more ships. So when you lay out hundreds of ships are moving, this is really quite a considerable undertaking. But it is definitely feasible in terms of military operation. So when the president says that he thinks that the military operation should end shortly, that was the word he used. And he also said that he's dealing with some more reasonable people right now who appear to have some authority in Iran. And he's hoping that they can make a deal. But over the course of the next three weeks, we're going to start pummeling them as he put it into the Stone Age. What, from your perspective, what exactly does that look like? And what exactly are we trying to secure from these more reasonable negotiators on the Iranian side? Well, my own sense of it is we are still dealing with people who are radical ideologues in Iran. I mean, they may not be the top leaders that were in those positions and have subsequently been killed. But these are not nationalist versus radical ideologues. These are not people in the army, say, who don't represent the ideology of the top tier. These are people still very much committed to the ideology of what Iran stands for. That's the reason why after the 12-day war we're here doing this operation because Prime Minister Netanyahu and the president both came to the same conclusions and persisted by their intelligence services and also their military leaders that Iran has gone right back to its old objectives. And nuclear weapon ballistic missiles, considerably amount of drones influenced the Middle East and support their proxies. So that ideology and the leaders that are there that we're talking to, they still represent that view in my mind. I don't think there's any way we're going to have a deal with the Iranians here. I mean, we're holding that out as a whole, but I don't believe for a minute that the president privately believes that he's going to make a deal with these radical folks. He would like to make a deal. I get that. But the reality is they're not in a deal-making business. They don't want that. They want to personally survive. They want the regime to survive. They believe that the regime survives and the United States pulls away. That somehow that is a victory of sorts for them. The Marines who are currently poised off the coasts of Iran and are ready to execute missions there on the ground, obviously it's not an invasion force or an occupational force in any way whatsoever. These Marines will be there to do very specific missions. Again, without, obviously I don't want to reveal state secrets or anything like that, but would you expect those Marines, if they are deployed to be there to sort of acquire or occupy certain strategic facilities, be it oil or power or that sort of thing, and have the defenses been softened enough at this point where this could be a relatively easy mission? Do you understand my question? Yeah, sure. I mean, we've been working on reducing Iran's ability to retaliate and certainly deal with the Straits of Amuse. That's how to focus, to deal with Karg Allen. So our audience understands that's the distribution point for the tankers to load up off the coast of Iran. 90% of their oil moves through that distribution point. Yeah, so Central Command has been attempting to reduce whatever retaliation they would have if and when we used ground forces, either assist with the Straits of Amuse or with Karg Allen. But I really think we're overthinking this issue in terms of ground forces. And I understand it because they're there and we're working through a whole bunch of options in terms of what's going to take place. I'm not going to get into the details of it myself. But I do believe if we put ground forces any place in that theater, believe me, we will do that understanding what the risk is, and in the minds of the commanders, it's an acceptable risk, but we would not put them there. All right, thank you, General Keene. I appreciate you joining us as always. I know that you are sort of plugged in on all these things, so I appreciate it so much. And I'm sorry if I put you, there's a thing, I know you're not going to answer any questions about specific plans or, it drives me nuts when reporters say, when are you going to send ground forces? Like no one's going to tell. We're never going to say anything like that out loud. So thank you for answering while at the same time maintaining obvious some confidentiality here in this. Appreciate it, sir. Yeah, sure. Always enjoyed being with you and Kathy. Thank you. Thanks. It's 817. Vince Colonese is redefining news talk with the Vince Show. It is a reflection of your response to this program that we get to take this thing to the next level. These gigantic shows. This is going to be so much fun. It's unbelievable. In-depth interviews, live-caller interactions, and a front-row seat to the most important conversations of the day. I've got updates. I've got big stories. We'll sort through the truth of what's really going on to buckle up. Here it comes. The Vince Show. Following, listen on your favorite platform. Cassie, yesterday the president woke up right in early, listened to our program, as he does every day. Then, God and the Motorcade was taken to the Supreme Court. The session at the Supreme Court began, I believe, at 10 a.m. Sat there on a bench along with everybody else in the gallery while the arguments were made. Got back in the car, went back to the White House, and then eventually later in the evening he witnessed the moon launch. He did all the briefings, of course, that the president does, and all the way did some point out in the phone with Thune and Johnson and hammered out the deal for the Department of Homeland Security's funding. At 9 p.m. addressed the nation on the military conflict in Iran. While all this is going on, he took a break in the middle of the day around 12, 1 o'clock in the afternoon, and attended an Easter lunch in the East Room of the White House with invited dignitaries. A typical day for Donald Trump in the White House. The man's got to eat. Might as well do it with a hundred of his friends. Celebrate Easter. And what's the press's review of all of this? He sounded tired. Yes, during his speech, he sounded tired. Yeah, I assure you Jake Tapper would be asleep in his soup at dinner if he had to keep up the same pace. But I got his pause for a minute with all that other stuff going on. His performance at the Easter lunch was extraordinary. He went up to the podium to give some remarks, and of course what happened was an ex-tepparenius improvisational Don Rickles-esque stand-up routine, including one moment specifically, Erica Kirk, the widow of Charlie Kirk, was there and as you know, Erica Kirk has been obviously through a nightmare with the assassination of her husband. She's got young children. It's an awful thing. And of course, now you've got commentators who have been saying horrible things about her, some even suggesting that she in some way engineered or knew about this and that the conspiracy theories are insane. What are going on out there? Some speculating that she was having an extramarital affair with Vice President JD Vance. I mean, he goes on and on. I don't know how horrific somebody has to be to start criticizing a young widow with toddlers, for God's sake, how evil. So Trump pointed this out in his own way when addressing Erica Kirk. Listen to this. As we prepare to celebrate, I think old Happy Easter. Do we have that? Everyone happy? Anybody that doesn't want on, love darling? Wow, this is a good table. I like that table. You're doing well, right? Okay. I think you should sue him, but you know, I told her, you ought to sue somebody. They're so jealous of Erica. I said, you ought to sue their... I can say it, you're not allowed to say this. You have to be nicer. Sue their off. But I want to thank all of those who are helping us honor Holy Week here. That made me the best part right there. I hope you sue... The weave. Yes. I hope you sue their bleep off. Anyway, as we celebrate Holy Week... On an unrelated note, Candace Owens is now releasing an episode where she's calling for the release of Tyler Robinson, the man who has been arrested for killing Charlie Kirk, because, you know, he couldn't possibly have done it. He's not Jewish or something. I don't know. But there really is an episode here having to do with forensic analysis of the bullet fragments or something. I don't know. I just... My gosh. That's a woman who needs help and... Yes. Yeah. Anyway, he then turned... Then he looked for J.D. Vance in the crowd. J.D. Vance, by the way, has a brand new book coming out called Communion about his conversion and return to the Catholic faith. I just saw that. Fantastic. He's a pretty good writer, that J.D. Vance, you know. He's done okay with his other memoir, He'll Billy Elegies. I know, he's had a sell-a-book, yeah. So, listen to Trump as he looks for J.D. Vance and then spots him in the crowd. The White House, including Vice President J.D. Vance. I think J.D. is J.D. here. What is he saying? Hi, J.D. He's lost weight. He got a little thinner and I'm looking for... I'm looking for a heavy set, gentlemen, and now I find a perfect looking specimen. And he's doing a great job. There is something about Trump where he does this when he's got athletes at the White House, when they're celebrating a championship or something. He likes to point out really attractive fit men, if you notice. Not in like a Kristi Noem's husband kind of way. I just mean, he's impressed with very fit, physically fit men. Yes, and he has... When you talk about... when you inserted the imagery of Noem's husband, it just got me off court. Sorry, I didn't mean to set you up. But I think the Trump associate, you know, the shoes, the well-tailored suits, that all of this is about, you know, shows discipline and shows respect for the office. But that's poor J.D. I was looking for a heavy set, man. Right. And by the way, the president... and J.D. has never been like that big. But the president, respectfully, sir, not quite a swimsuit model. So it's funny that he calls it out on everybody else. Thank you. Also, he, by the way, explained how he was going to be giving a speech later about Iran. And he asked J.D. right there in the middle of the Easter lunch, how's the deal going with Iran? Listen. He's working on the deal, right? How's that moving? Is it okay? The big deal? You see it happening? So if it doesn't happen, I'm blaming J.D. Vince. If it does happen, I'm taking full credit. I think it'll be... I think it has to happen. I think they're desperate. Also, by the way, he also mentioned this speech, and this is what he told the audience there at the Easter lunch. Tonight I'm making a little speech at 9 o'clock, and basically I'm going to tell everybody how great I am. Where's the lie? He just went on and on. It was like a half hour stand-up routine, and we've never had a president quite like this. Nor dare I say will we ever take it or leave it. And oh, by the way, alleluia Christ has risen. Happy Easter. All the rest of it. Sue their bleeps up. 825. Action. Next roll with Vernon Davis. I'm your host, Vernon Davis. Okay, y'all, thank you. Thank you. That's my... Each of us. Through my example, on the field, off the field, during game day in practice, that was one way that I led, because then it led to success. Next roll isn't about what's next. It's about why they do it. My man, Bobby Bones. Like, I've had a lot of stuff happen, bad and good, and so I don't have any fear of mixing it up. That's powerful, man. Next roll with Vernon Davis. Follow and listen on your favorite platform. On the web, O'Connor & Company. WMAL. It's 8.36. Good morning. You're listening to O'Connor & Company here on your favorite radio station. I'm a venture to say. WMAL. It's Larry with Cassie Smedley. Cassie, Chris Plant takes over in 30 minutes. Are you prepared for that hurricane? I hope that you are. Joining us right now is a senior columnist at the Mighty Town Hall. He's also an author of several books, both fiction and nonfiction. He's a retired colonel from the United States Army, and he's also a retired lawyer. So basically we can ask Kurt about, well, 80s music. Kurt Schlickter joins us. Good morning, Mr. Schlickter. Ohoy. Oh-la! Ohoy! Didn't know we were going to go bilingual so quickly, but that's fine. Kurt, your quick recap of the Supreme Court arguments yesterday over birthright citizenship. Earlier today, Mark Cracourian from Center for Immigration Studies said, yeah, you know, I don't think they're going to throw this thing out completely. I don't think they're going to grant President Trump's executive order, but I think they're going to say, you know, Congress can say something about it, let Congress determine what it means to be a, you know, having a loyal to your sovereignty or under the jurisdiction of a foreign country. How do you, I don't know why you need Congress to explain what it means to have jurisdiction of a foreign country, but I guess that might be how it shakes down. What do you think? Well, first of all, I think the Supreme Court is likely to dodge the constitutional question completely and just rule on the executive order side, basically. Well, it doesn't matter what the Constitution is. He doesn't have the power to do this as an executive order, and that allows them to avoid the constitutional issue, which is what they're supposed to. They're supposed to avoid constitutional issues when they can. If they do do the constitutional issue, sorry guys, the birthright citizenship stuff is going to stay. That is my considered opinion, having litigated for 30 years, including the current courts of appeal. Keep in mind, you know, a lot of people are very upset about that. I would prefer the birthright citizenship not be upheld. Beyond upset, I'm more confused than anything else, because I don't quite see how you get there. It's clear that the 14th Amendment was meant to be a tandem with the 13th Amendment, which freed the slaves here in America. And of course, you had to then answer the question, what do you do about these people now that they're here? And you say that they're citizens because they're not under the jurisdiction of a foreign country. They were born here, even if they weren't granted citizenship when they were born here. We're in a very different world now. This hasn't to do with slavery. This has people coming here and exploiting this for various reasons. If somebody's here for a week visiting Disneyland in Anaheim, and the woman goes into premature labor and gives birth, those people are not Americans. The parents aren't Americans. They were tourists. So how is the 14th Amendment suddenly going to make that baby an American citizen? Well, it's not suddenly doing anything. It's been doing that for about 150 years. That is the current understanding of the 14th Amendment. And it is not an insane interpretation of what the 14th Amendment means. Again, I would prefer the other side. I would prefer what you're arguing. But the simple fact is that, A, the 14th Amendment is not a very good example of clear writing. I see. Let me just put that way. There are a number of things that play. For instance, people are arguing, well, the situation has changed. Wait a minute. We're conservatives. We don't do the living Constitution. The Constitution doesn't change when the situation changes. The Constitution changes when we amend the Constitution. So that argument, I would not work, at least on me. But what does under the jurisdiction mean? And there were some good hypotheticals that I didn't particularly like, but I thought they were incisive. For instance, somebody, okay, well, you're a born of Iranian parents, but you're on American soil. The Iranian government says, well, you're an Iranian citizen. You have to come serve in the army. Are you under the jurisdiction of the Iranian, of the foreign government because it says so? Or are you not? Do you have to go, as an infant, do you have to go through a formal denaturalization process in the other country that claims your allegiance? I mean, how do we decide that you're under someone's jurisdiction? The other country says you are. Are you not? Are you not because you're like, oh, no, I'm not. Can you turn around and go, oh, wait, yes, I am later? I mean, these are real questions. And you also have a practical issue, which is what do we do with people who are citizens today under a birthright citizenship? Do they lose that? Or do they lose that after a certain date? These practical concerns are going to matter to the court. Now, I know people are going, well, come here are the arguments for it. I get it. I'm a lawyer. I always walk in thinking my arguments are right. So does the other side. OK, simply because you have an argument doesn't mean you're going to win. And a court, a courts are naturally very, very reluctant to make major changes by themselves. And let's face it, we're asking for a major change. We are asking for a completely different way of granting citizenship. And the way we're doing is saying, you know, for like 150 years, we've been totally wrong. Now, if we're totally wrong, we should change it. But that's a big ask. And in a practical matter, judges don't like to do big things. That's right. OK, so I get that this is an uphill battle for the government. But I'm sure we were talking about it earlier. I'm sure you heard Contanje Brown Jackson's line of questioning. Is there any part of the justices that might change their vote because they don't want to be associated with her in that line of questioning? I think it's a fair question. Are you saying that she's so dumb people who got, you know, I had this one understanding of the Constitution. I realized she agreed with me. So I figured out I got to be wrong. That's right. John Roberts' legacy will be he agreed with Contanje Brown Jackson on this important issue. I wouldn't want that as my epitaph. I think it will agree with her. I think they'll come to the same conclusion for different reasons. Contanje Brown Jackson is, I like her consistency because I always know how she's going to vote. She's going to vote whatever liberals want. You know, last a couple days ago, she said, government absolutely has a right to tell you you can't do conversion therapy. And then last year she was like, a government has absolutely no right to stop somebody from, you know, snipping off his genitals to conform to the delusions of his much-housed mommy. I mean, a completely opposite ruling and she zero consistency on the actual law, but 100% consistency on what blue-haired nose ring sexually dysfunctional white whip. Kurt Schlichter is our guest in your columnist at Town Hall. Kurt, as a retired member of the military, and I know that you are in support of our military strikes against Iran, and at the same time you have concerns about, you know, getting trapped and stuck into another Middle East problem, of course, only 32 days in, but given those two interests, what did you take away from the president's speech last night? Well, I was glad the president came out and told normal Americans what was going on. I thought the Democrat response was hysterical and girlish in the worst sense of the term. He's crazy! He's not, did you hear it? He was like a normal person. He just came out and explained things. I love when Democrats do that because normal people look at him and go, Are you people insane? Because he seemed pretty clear to me. Yeah. Look, we're clearly winning this war. People keep going, Kurt, what's the timeline? The timeline is when we're finished. We need to have a little patience. This isn't a forever war. It's not a forever war if you win it. But this has to get done. And the real test is 10 years from now when all the podcast cons who are, Oh, see? Iran hasn't done anything. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 10 years from now, Iran hasn't done anything you'll be bragging about. And it's because Donald Trump took care of it. He solved a problem. He's taking a huge political risk with very little political benefits because you don't get a lot of benefit about the dog that doesn't bark. Look for Kurt Schlickers, regular columns at townhall.com and most specifically look for some upcoming columns that might be revealing some exciting news about Kurt and Larry on the seven C's. I'll leave it at that. Oh, oh, my friend. Thanks for joining us. 845. Vince Collin A's is redefining news talk. I'm Vince Collin A's host of the Vince podcast. I'm bringing you the truth beneath the headlines of all of the nation's top stories. In-depth interviews. I'll make sure newsmaking interviews with the top guests on the whole planet. And I'll ask the questions you only dream of other interviewers asking. And a front row seat to the most important conversations of the day. This is a show with an obsessive focus on what's good for America. You are going to love Vince. The Vince Show. Follow and listen on your favorite platform.
