Judgment Day Approaches: Congressman Randy Fine on Iran, Military Might, and Diplomatic Dilemmas

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But in the last few minutes, the chief negotiators for our intermediaries, Pakistan, one of them, asked for a two week reprieve from that deadline saying there's been significant progress made in Pakistan on this issue with negotiations with Iran. Concrete ideas movement, we'll see if the president accepts that or proceeds ahead with opening the Strait of Hormuz. We'll find out pretty quickly in just a few hours. That is the story that everybody, and I do mean everybody, is watching right now. Now, we've got a fantastic show ahead for you at the kickoff of today's show, Congressman Randy Fine. He weighed into this debate in a long interview we did last night, and he's from Florida. He's a big advocate of the president and ally of the president. He represents a pretty conservative district in Florida, and he himself said he hoped that the Iranians would make a deal, but he understood that the president needed to finish the job. So, you're going to hear that today. You're also going to hear from Colonel Rob Mayness, former Air Force Colonel. He understands everything about how we went and rescued that pilot in Iran over the weekend, the deleterious effect on the reputation of the IRGC, and then what lies ahead in what a next phase of the war could mean in terms of capabilities and destruction that the U.S. military could bring upon Iran and its military leadership. In between those two interviews, which will be Iran focused, of course, we're going to talk to Bob Costello, a great former federal prosecutor. He was the central player in yesterday's Supreme Court ruling. His name wasn't mentioned, but he was the lawyer advising Steve Bannon on how to proceed with testimony before the January 6th committee, advising him to hold out and let the committee work it out with President Trump if Bannon could testify without having to waive executive privilege. It turned out that was the right methodology, and as a result, the Supreme Court signed it with the current Justice Department and Steve Bannon and set in motion the likelihood now that Steve Bannon's conviction will be thrown out in the case dismissed. Bob Costello played a big part of that history. I played a big part in that role. And once again, it shows that people who follow the rule of law often get rewarded by the court system when it gets to the highest levels, i.e., the federal appellate level or the Supreme Court. Just the local district federal judges, not so much these days. But we got a great show. I am super, super excited to lean in on this and so much more. Congressman Randy Fine, former Assistant U.S. Attorney Bob Costello, Bannon lawyer, and Colonel Rob Mayness, back to back to back on this Tuesday edition. Now, I want to, before we go to commercial break, help you with some of the reporting I've been doing, in Iran. What's really going on? I think there's a schism that has developed in the last week between the remainder of the civilian leadership, i.e., those who don't wear military uniform in Iran, the foreign diplomats, the civilian leadership, and then the IRGC. I think the civilian leadership realizes how much Iran has been whooped, how much of its military capabilities have been struck and destroyed. It's no longer the power it was when it would saber-rattle and threaten and shoot and kill Americans and Westerners all across this globe, the Israelis, its proxies, its missile supplies are low, its Navy is gone, its air force is gone, its ability to make new weapons declining, it has drones, it has lots of missiles. But I think the civilian side is starting to take toll, the toll numbers, and say, you know, maybe a deal is a better path to go. The IRGC, on the other hand, has been holding out, wanting to have that war. Don't give in. Let's fight to the death. Let's put civilians around power plants so that they get killed by the Americans if they attack a power plant. Now, I think there's been a subtle shift in that balance of power, which has basically been a standoff inside Iran over the weekend. Two things happened. First, the IRGC, despite all of its rhetoric, despite all of its alleged military vaunt, was unable to capture an American pilot who was on the ground in enemy territory for two days. Couldn't get them. In fact, they fell for a head fake by the CIA. They lost a little street cred, these tough guys, IRGC. They couldn't even get a single wounded pilot captured. That probably lowered their reputation a little bit among the Iranian people. And a sign of that is that yesterday they executed some young people in a show of force because they knew their population was doubting their capabilities when they couldn't capture that American wounded pilot who was shot down last week. I think the second dynamic then is President Trump launched a decapitation strike on the IRGC and took out a whole bunch more of its leadership. Now, some of its intelligence chiefs and top brass have already been killed in the last few weeks by Israel. But last night, maybe another 50 or 70 of IRGC leaders were either badly wounded or disabled or outright killed. That takes a little bit off the equation and tips it a little bit more towards the civilian side. Not a guarantee, but I think that's the dynamic going on. We'll have to watch and see how it plays out tonight. We'll know at 8 p.m. or 9 p.m. when the president speaks. But let's stay close on top of it. All you got to do is watch JustTheNews.com or download the Just The News Apple and Android app and you'll have up-to-the-minute coverage, including the breaking news alerts that we are so well known for now. All right, we want to get to that commercial break because I want to get the congressman Randy Fine of Florida. 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And so President Trump said Tuesday will be power plant a bridge day that he'll take it to the Iranians in a way that we haven't seen before. Your thoughts on whether we're going to reach that moment and what it may mean for the turn of the war. Well, happy bridge and power plant Eve. I mean, I think President Trump has laid out very clearly that they will either get in line or it will be bombs away. And for those who are concerned about it, people need to understand this power plants that fuel the Iranian military, but also fuel civilian resources are legitimate military targets, bridges that the military uses, but also are used for civilians are legitimate targets. If you use these things in dual use, they are legitimate targets. And it is time for us to send an overwhelming message to the Iranian government that we are not going to put up with it so they can join the community of Western nations or they can get blown up. That's what President Trump has said. Now, I certainly hope they will see the light. They will come to what would be common sense and say, look, we're going to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. We're going to put down our weapons. We're not going to try to build a nuclear weapon. We're not going to try to build a missile to get that to the United States. And we can all live together in peace and harmony. But that's up to the Iranians. President Trump has made clear what will happen if they don't get in line. No. I'm Congressman. This administration has made it clear that they are savage in pursuit of their goals, but at the same time, they have balanced that with a delicateness and a way in which it seems very apparent that they are very precious with human life so as to not create any collateral damage, any civilian lives lost. But it is inevitable. How do you anticipate what should the message be to the Iranian people who could become collateral damage if this continues and the bridges and the power plants and such are damaged? Well, I hope the words gotten out. Don't be on bridges tomorrow night. And so I mean, that would limit the collateral damage. He's kind of announced the time and the place and civilians don't tend to be hanging around power plants. So I don't think you'll see civilians be injured in any of this, but we need to destroy the capability that Iran has to make war on us. And the fact that they engage in dual use doesn't get them off the hook. What we want is an Iran that wants to be part of that Western community of nations. A richer Iran, by the way, an Iran that can sell its oil at market prices, not at discounted rates, because it is sanctioned, which would be better for the Iranian people. But the problem that we face is we have an Islamic religious leadership that glorifies death and destruction. And for 47 years has made it their mission to destroy the United States. We simply can't allow that. And Donald Trump is trying to wrap up a war that for the Iranians has been going on for 47 years. I hope tomorrow is the day that it comes to an end. But that's up to the Iranians. It's not up to President Trump. What he has said is what we have tolerated for 47 years. We will not tolerate any longer. And that fanaticism makes it a little tricky to negotiate because we're used to people negotiating to common sense tactics. And if you're losing, you realize you're on the losing end, you make a deal. But the Iranians haven't always, have never, must always, never bided by those sort of agreements. The fact that we're now two or three tiers down in their leadership, that we've taken so much of the top sort of fanatic leadership out, does that open the opportunity that maybe people downstream aren't as fanatic? It might make a deal down the road. How much has that the inroads been made of just getting rid of the top leadership? Well, I certainly hope so because what they can see is what happens. I mean, I think particularly Israel has been ruthless in taking out the Iranian terrorist leadership. These are people acting in accordance with what they believe is their religious faith. And they have to make a choice, follow their religious faith or die. I mean, that's basically what it's come down to. And I certainly hope that this government, President Trump has shown a willingness to discuss and compromise in ways no previous administration has done. Look at what he's done in Venezuela saying, look, if you'll rejoin us, you will prosper. And I think President Trump has made that same offer to Iran, put down the efforts to create a nuclear weapon, put down the efforts to fire that nuclear weapon at the United States, and let's be friends, not enemies. That is an opportunity that the Iranian government has, but it's up to them. But we're not going to put up with this. And if you look at the efforts they made to take that Weapon Service Officer hostage, imagine that that happened on how terrible that would have been. We simply cannot allow a government like that to exist in this world. So I want to shift gears to something that, for whatever reason, Republicans in the House versus Republicans in the Senate, Republicans in the House seem much more incentivized to fund ICE, to end the shutdown and to get the Save America Act passed. Can you give us a status update on what's happening with ICE funding and how that coordinates with ending the shutdown? Well, the good news is the shutdown has come to an end because President Trump assigned an executive order to pay everyone that was affected by the shutdown so everybody could go back to work. But that is a workaround to a fundamental problem, which is the Senate, for whatever reason, wants open borders. I don't understand why. And they sent us a bill that does not fund ICE, that does not fund Customs and Border Protection. It's the Senate Open Borders Bill. What we've agreed is if the Senate will send us a second bill that Republicans can pass through reconciliation, that that will fund everything and then we can pass both of them. But what is extraordinary to me is the Senate has put these arcane rules that were mentioned nowhere by our founders, that are mentioned nowhere in the Constitution, that are only about 30 or 40 years old over the health and welfare of the American people. I did not come to Washington to protect Senate rules. I came to Washington to protect the American people and we're going to expect them to do the job and give us a bill that keeps our borders protected and deport illegal immigrants. Yeah. So you and the White House have been working on making sure that America wins the artificial intelligence race but does so responsibly. Recently, the White House announced they plan to create a sovereign AI stack, get that to the world through peaceful but well-regulated terms. You've got a companion bill that would make that a reality in Congress. Talk about the importance of this and what lies ahead in the legislative fight over it. Well, people could think about it this way. Think about a world in which we've got sort of the Windows architecture, right? You've got IBM computers and Windows and Microsoft Word going back to sort of the 80s versus a second method of computers, the Apple platform. Now, these were both American but imagine one of those was American and one of those was Chinese. Well, obviously the Microsoft platform was the one that became dominant and in much the same way, we want the American AI stack, hardware, software, all the different components working together to become the standard that people use around the world. We do not want it to become a Chinese standard and we have a real advantage right now in certain aspects of that stack but we need all of the different players to work together. Whether it's the software provider, the people making the microchips, the people making the servers, we want it to be integrated and then to make that a standard that can be sold around the world because that's going to be a big part of what makes this the second American century and much like our military has shown dominance over the last few days, we want our technology to do the same. Sir, I want to finish up. I know that you are talking to your constituents and making sure that they are heard for you and you've been talking about a lot of your accomplishments and I think that a lot of times we forget that federally, it's not always the business on Capitol Hill that you're dealing with, you secured I think $18 million in federal grants for your district. Tell us about those. Well, I'm excited. I got elected only one year ago this week. It was April 1st of last year, I got elected in April 2nd. I got sworn in so I've only been at congressmen for a year but a big part of what we do is trying to make sure that federal government money comes back to our district fairly and so a big issue in my district has been beaches. You know, Florida is known for our beaches but man has made decisions that require us to spend money to make those beaches resilient and put sand on them and so I've worked on issues related to that, roads, airports and all kinds of infrastructure over my district which is larger than the size of Connecticut and we've been very proud to bring home $18 million which is not bad for a guy who showed up basically in the middle of the ball game and had to figure out how to make it work. So we're very proud. I've got a great team that worked really hard to make that happen and we're starting to talk about that as we travel around the district during this Easter and Passover recess. Hey folks, don't go anywhere. We come back from the commercial break. Bob Castello, former parental prosecutor, former lawyer to Steve Bannon and to Rudy Giuliani. He was a major figure in yesterday's Supreme Court ruling. You didn't see his name but when you hear his story you realize how much he had to do in setting in motion the steps that now could lead to the dismissal of Steve Bannon's criminal conviction for contempt of Congress. Bob will explain all that after this message. All right folks, it's spring time. You know it, right? The grass is starting to go greener, the flowers are starting to pop out of the ground, you're pulling up some weeds, they're getting ready to get a good summer and our great time ahead of us in order. 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They love it too. Both of us can see and feel the difference almost immediately. It's FDA proven to reduce wrinkles on the entire face. Medical grade means it works. It stimulates my natural collagen and elastin. It's totally affordable and saves me a fortune in doctor visits. If you want to use the same medical grade technology at home that doctors use to treat wrinkles and slow aging, go to lightsim.com. That's lightstim.com. Use my promo code JustNews and you're going to save 10% off. One more time. That's the promo code JustNews at lightsim.com. Welcome back everybody. We have some big news to get to from the Supreme Court and it deals with our colleague Steve Bannon. Earlier today, the court gave the Trump administration a path to dismiss the criminal case against him over his failure to respond to congressional subpoenas. Now it of course would be a symbolic victory. Bannon famously already served jail time over this but it would be a victory nonetheless so with us to discuss this and much more. Is he attorney who represented Bannon during his criminal contempt case? Bob Costello. Bob, welcome back to the show. It's an honor to have you. Thank you. Just to correct one thing, I represented Steve Bannon throughout his negotiations with the January 6th committee and then I was one of three trial attorneys until I had to remove myself from the case because I was going to be a witness for Steve Bannon about the fact that he was not contemptuous. Steve Bannon had offered Congress that he would testify if either Donald Trump waived executive privilege or if they went to court and got a ruling that said the executive privilege was being improbably invoked. We told him in either case Steve Bannon will testify because history had shown that Steve Bannon had this exact same situation three times before and each time he testified when that committee went to Donald Trump and said will you consider withdrawing executive privilege and the president did and he did that in this case too at the end of the day but they had no intention of really eliciting information from Steve Bannon. What they wanted to do and what they accomplished was they wanted to put that what they viewed as the head of the MAGA movement in jail and that was their mission from day one and it wasn't just the congressional committee the January 6th committee it was the U.S. Attorney's Office in Washington D.C. specifically a fellow by the name of J.P. Cooney who I thought at the beginning was going to be a fair prosecutor turned out he wasn't and the proof of that is he's now running for Congress as a Democrat. What a surprise. It's a surprise surprise and thank you for that Bob. I want to ask you you know for Steve Bannon I guess maybe this feels like a victory but he already served the time and as you pointed out I mean this was political it was it was taking the head off of the MAGA movement. Does it send the message though to the legal community to the prosecutorial community that in the end ultimately things could or should be made right? Well in the end provided that you have Donald Trump as the president and a Department of Justice that's being fair the answer is yes. If you go back to the Biden Department of Justice the answer is no because they clearly just disregarded every opportunity we gave them to get testimony from Steve Bannon. He wasn't hiding he's a well-known figure we simply did everything right. I told them that Steve Bannon would testify provided the president waive the executive privilege because that privilege belongs to the president it doesn't belong to Steve Bannon. Once it's invoked he has no right to testify and we told him that but you know unfortunately I was left dealing with Benny Thompson who's not even a lawyer and he's the guy making decisions about matters that ultimately had to go to the Supreme Court of the United States. It's kind of silly isn't it? It is it's though you know you were a very successful prosecutor and one of the most competitive court districts in the country southern district of New York you always filed the rule and what happens here in this case I think what the Supreme Court said today is hey there are processes here and you jumped the shark you didn't follow them not you but the committee Biden Justice Department and two it does seem as though there's a nod to the ocean that even though Steve was a private citizen at the time he was advising the president that the executive privilege extends to private people who also give the president some advice. I want to get your thoughts on just what sort of things the court may have corrected today by taking this action. Well they certainly clarified the fact that a private citizen a non-government employee can be governed by executive privilege. The privilege belongs to the president when he decides to impart information to a trusted advisor whether that person is being paid by the government or is in simply a private citizen that's a decision made by the president should be honored and the president invoked executive privilege here so really he tied Steve Bannon's hands and Bannon was not legally allowed to break that. We tried to get around it by saying listen we've been down this road before Steve Bannon is testified before here if you really want his information here's what you should do and I put this in writing to Benny Thompson I explained to him simply ask the president if he's willing to waive executive privilege they refuse to do that and I said if you refuse to do that you have another route you can go to district court and get a ruling that the invocation of executive privilege is improper under these circumstances in either of those cases Steve Bannon will comply and when testify and provide documents but they didn't want to do that they simply wanted to have Steve Bannon say my hands are tied I can't testify and therefore they're going to find him in contempt and that's exactly what they did and they went to a willing department of justice in Washington D.C. the U.S. Attorney's Office because the vast majority of these contempt proceedings issued by Congress are not prosecuted and I thought since I think something like 70 or 80 percent of them weren't prosecuted that I would find a common sense person in the U.S. Attorney's Office and boy was I surprised because while I was attempting to get a declination from the U.S. Attorney's Office they were secretly trying to they tried to obtain my home office and cell phone records and that's outrageous you can't do that to a lawyer representing a prominent person like Steve Bannon of course they found nothing but that wasn't the the important point the point was that they tried to do it and the judge got very upset about this but he said I'll take care of this at the end of the case well he forgot at the end of the case to take care of our motion for sanctions against J.P. Coney who's running for Congress right now and so we reminded him when I say we it was David Shown and myself and we reminded him two additional times to take some action he could take the action of simply saying I deny your request but he didn't even do that it's left hanging to this day on that case I've never seen a federal judge do that but this one did well and and it wasn't just Bob Costello it wasn't just Steve Bannon and so many of these cases politicization seems to hang very heavy in its presence and I want to ask you about Rudy Giuliani I mean this is someone who like you I mean privacy was violated for him his home his office were raided and I know you've pointed this out the same FBI agents who were chanting at the bit to do that are the same ones who wouldn't go anywhere near Hunter Biden's laptop oh boy yes I told the agent the morning that Rudy Giuliani's apartment was being searched he called me at maybe 6.15 in the morning to the delight of my wife I might add and he put me on the phone with the agent and I said to the agent look I'm not trying to embarrass you I'm going to ask you a simple question do you know what a hard drive looks like and he said yes and I said can you describe it to me and he described it accurately I said now would you go with the phone and Rudy Giuliani into Rudy's office at the apartment in Manhattan I said are you there yes I said look on the desk and you will see three hard drives he said yes I see those I said well those are Hunter Biden's hard drives and his reaction was whoa whoa he I said according to the search warrant that you have you are required to see all electronic devices in Rudy Giuliani's apartment and those are electronic devices but I wanted to tell you in advance that those were Hunter Biden's hard drives he said oh no we're not touching those I said what do you mean you're not touching those you're required by the search warrant to touch those in fact you're required by the search warrant to seize those he said absolutely not we're not going anywhere near there he was adamant that he wasn't going to touch them now the interesting part was all he could look at on the desk was at the actual hard drives he didn't know what was in there he didn't know that those were Hunter Biden hard drives except for the fact that I told him and Rudy told him but they wouldn't touch those at all that was very early on which showed you that the FBI wanted nothing to do with any evidence that would implicate Hunter or Joe Biden and there was plenty of evidence on those hard drives that implicate both of them I mean that was that was a lesson I was learning that things were not as fair and square as they used to be I believed when I was a federal prosecutor the rules were completely different and Rudy Giuliani agreed these are not the same FBI these are not the same rules I don't know what's going on here they have an objective that they're trying to accomplish and they don't care what the evidence is that's that's my experience at least before we let you go the last five years have shown us that um attorney client privilege was pierced very lightly I mean very very aggressively but with very light concern or regard for the protection that the debate and speech clause was eviscerated 14-15 members of Congress were being targeted by these investigations so attorney client sensitive communications congressional work was supposed to be protected by the Constitution warrant how do we get back to a system where those two privileges are more sankrissant than they were in the five years around these sort of very controversial investigations we since you mentioned that topic I just want to add a little footnote here that that same lawyer JP Cooney who got my phone records uh in the banning case then went on to work for the special prosecutor and that those are the same people that took the phone records for all of those senators quite coincidentally they haven't have all be republicans so I'm pretty sure that that guy JP Cooney was involved in the second stealing of of evidence like that and the way you stop this is you have somebody uh impose sanctions for doing that I mean it's clearly in violation of the law but so far we gave Judge Nichols in Washington DC the opportunity to do that and he didn't act at all and we reminded him and he didn't act and we reminded him again and he didn't act he still hasn't acted but I hope that congress will push forward this investigation of arctic thrust and go after the same people who took the uh congrats congress and senators records their phone records because this is rate uh rampant and the important thing was in the hunter biden case they had an undisclosed search warrant on Rudy Giuliani's iCloud account what does that mean that means that since I didn't know and since Rudy Giuliani didn't know when I got hunter biden's hard drive I was communicating with Rudy Giuliani to say Rudy I have hunter biden's hard drive and you are not going to believe what's on this hard drive well that information was was being intercepted by the FBI the same people who had the hunter biden hard drive nine months before I did and verified that it was accurate and had not been tampered with where were those FBI people when the 51 CIA people put out that phony statement before the biden trump debate and said this is a product of Russian disinformation why didn't the FBI come forward and say oh no we've had that hard drive we examined it it's genuine they didn't do it they kept quiet and that's a real problem because you know if the FBI knew it the CIA knew it hey folks one more good one to go I love this guy he's one of the clearest thinkers one of the clearest communicators when it comes to the military and security strategy colonel rob manus up to finish up our show and talk a little bit more about Iran before we hit that 8 p.m. deadline right after this welcome back America if you didn't have a chance to watch the press briefing stay at the white house what the war secretary the cia director and president trump told us it is an extraordinary story the 48 hour scramble to rescue an american airman that was down in enemy territory in Iran subterfuge hundreds of special forces and other operators on the ground to make sure an american came home safely an extraordinary thing something cut out of a movie except it was real life in real time here to break it all down for us he's a retired air force colonel host of one of my favorite podcast the rob manus show he's also the founder of gator pack colonel rob manus colonel good to have you back on good evening john and Amanda great to have you on I can't think of a better person that was walked through this when I listening to those briefings today it is just extraordinary the complexity the sophistication and ultimately the success of a mission that probably was stacked against that airman that airman's badly injured he's an enemy territory and we still get him back before the iranians can follow him can I get him how did that happen and he's a colonel which means he's older than most of the other these these are out there good point and that it's something that the president and the secretary and the chairman all three focused on just for a little bit was the will to continue prosecuting their combat mission both of these aviators that found themselves ejected from their aircraft and in intimate deep in enemy territory the backseater being wounded and older by the way than all the other aviators that he's flying with had very good training back when they were very young second lieutenants I've been through the training that training sticks with me in my mind today I can recall it and that's why they're so effective especially the weapon systems officer he was separated from his pilot surrounded by enemy forces almost immediately the iranians put a reward out for the citizens to try to get the 90 thousand dollars or whatever it was so that's going to generate at least some people to come out and try to capture this guy and then he's hurt and he's he went through his training he got to the as high a ground as possible and folks if you're out there thinking about why physical fitness training is very important for air force officers this is it he had to have extremely good cardio having gone through all that adrenaline he's wounded he's running from the enemy and he's trying to get to a place where he can check in with our forces and get identified so they can come pick him up it was an amazing process just from the perspective of the crew members that were ejected from the aircraft and found themselves in enemy territory and then the operation itself especially to get the second officer picked up safely and get everybody back into friendly territory with zero casualties it was absolutely amazing I don't know if y'all realize this John but we actually went into enemy territory as deep as you could probably possibly go considering what's going on in the war effort made an airfield almost out of nothing operated from that airfield rescued this this airman who's up in the mountains over 7 000 feet with helicopters that we flew in on transport airplanes and then when we had a contingency and the c-130s got stuck and didn't take off we sent more special operations aircraft in to pick everybody up and in amongst all that there are firefights going on with the special operations forces and the iranian revolutionary guard corps that is trying to attack them and get this aviator and capture him it was an amazing operation absolutely it is a man colonel the military was demoralized under the last administration and that's not my opinion just look at record low recruiting under president Biden what message does this send to service members that this president this secretary of war they're they will know by no means leave anyone behind absolutely that's the message it sends to our military members but also to their mothers and fathers and grandparents who may not have any military experience this is what it means to be an american warrior whose country is dedicated to that individual being able to complete the mission for on behalf of the united states of america look we left 300 million dollars worth of aircraft burned up on that runway in deep inside iran because that equipment you can replace it in a year or a year and a half that is not expensive compared to what it takes to replace just one of these aviators and nothing can replace i think somebody said the 200 years of military tradition that says we don't leave anybody behind we will come for you and we will find you and we will get you out of whatever predicament you're in the the men that were POWs in vietnam for years and years and years lived by that and every american warrior lives by it today not just the airmen but even folks on the ground go through seary training because you never know when you might face the situation where you could be captured or have to be made yeah just stunning before we let you go there is a false narrative out there today that if president trump advances to the next phase of the war and attacks and power plants and some bridges used by iran's military to carry out their war against us that somehow would be a war crime or that it would be immoral on ethical take that on from the the law of the military bridges and power plants and airfields we're attacking the international airport in iran tonight it's a dual use facility which means it's used for military and civilian purposes so are power plants and so are bridges it doesn't really matter what the civilians that don't understand the law of armed conflict uh say is a war crime what matters is what's really a war crime or not and our forces are highly professional our staffs are highly trained and highly professional and when they select a target and they decide they're going to go kill a target john and amanda it's because that target is being used for military purposes to advance the enemy's mission and it's our job to remove that capability to advance our mission which is to destroy the government of iran so that it can never harm its own people or anybody else for all time all right folks that wraps up our tuesday edition of john sulliman reports a big thank you to congressman randy fine to the former federal prosecutor and great defense lawyer bob castello and of course to the retired colonel rob manus what a great show for all the latest updates in iran go to just the news dot com tonight or download the apple and android apps we will get you covered as quickly as possible back tomorrow to regular programming until then god bless you and have a great night