Securing America with Frank Gaffney Podcast

Dr. Harold Rhode, Diana West, Rick Fisher, Jasvinder Sanghera

Dr. HAROLD RHODE, Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Gatestone Institute, and former Turkish Desk Officer at the Department of Defense:

• Weak negotiating tactics that make the Administration’s red lines meaningless
• How U.S. concessions to Iran are forcing a coalition between Israel and the Sunni Arab Gulf governments
• Differences between nuclear deterrence tactics used against Iran and the former Soviet Union

DIANA WEST, author of “American Betrayal: The Secret Assault on Our Nation’s Character:

• A Senate decision to allow the Iran deal to pass through Congress with a simple minority vote
• The expulsion of cartoonist Lars Vilks from his home by the Swedish government due to his “defamatory” depictions of the Prophet Muhammad
• Ways in which multiculturalism and an Islamic incursion into Western society is creating drastic demographic changes

RICK FISHER, author of “China’s Military Modernization: Building for Regional and Global Reach”:

• A new Office of Naval Intelligence study highlighting Chinese maritime forces expanding, modernizing, and increasing their global power projection capability
• Enhancements within the PLA Navy that suggest China is taking a “wartime footing”
• Beijing’s adventurism in the South Atlantic in efforts to start a second Falklands War

JASVINDER SANGHERA, forced-marriage survivor, founder of the U.K-based Karma Nirvana, and author of “Shame”:

• Manifestations of honor based violence and forced marriages
• Sanghera's campaign to raise awareness, debunk myths, and discuss why these issues are human rights abuses
• Methods for ending biases towards honor based violence and forced marriages within Western law enforcement

Rep. Steve Russell, Doug Bandow, Andy McCarthy, Luis Fleischman

Rep. STEVE RUSSELL (OK-5), Vice Chairman of the House Committee on Government Oversight and Reform’s Subcommittee on National Security:

• What the rise of IS shows about the importance of pairing diplomatic, informational, and economic efforts with military success
• Iraqi security forces' ongoing offensive in Tikrit
• Issues surrounding the stalled AUMF in Congress
• An argument for fixing or abandoning the current agreed framework with Iran

DOUG BANDOW, Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute:

• A look at the persecution of Christians and other religious minorities throughout the world
• Uproar over Pope Francis's use of the term "genocide" to describe the mass slaughter of Armenian Christians at the hands of the Ottoman Turks
• Should the Catholic Church do more to protect Christians living abroad?
• Crafting a refugee resettlement policy that protects the most oppressed but also prioritizes national security

ANDY MCCARTHY, Contributing Editor with National Review Online and former federal prosecutor:

• Can there be any Iran "agreement" with a mutual understanding of duties and obligations?
• Assessing the potential for Congress to serve as a check on unilateral executive actions toward Iran
• Thoughts on Rep. Ted Yoho's (FL-3) effort to delineate the term “high crimes and misdemeanors”
• Making the case for a Select Committee on Presidential Lawlessness

LUIS FLEISCHMAN, Editor of the Americas Report of the Center for Security Policy’s Menges Hemispheric Security Project:

• President Obama's plans to end U.S. "imperialistic aggression" in Latin America
• Why removing Cuba as state sponsor of terrorism hides the true nature of the Castro regime
• U.S. sanctions against seven Venezuelan officials for human rights violations met with protests by Brazilian government

Dr. Matthew Kroenig

PART ONE:

• Scrutiny of a recent fatwa from Iran's Supreme Leader claiming that the West need not worry about a nuclear-armed Iran
• What diplomatic rhetoric and support for terrorist proxies suggests about Iran's hegemonic ambitions
• Israeli and Pentagon warnings about Iran's nuclear capabilities

PART TWO:

• The new nuclear framework: simply “an agreement to agree”
• An Iranian "exemption" to the U.S. policy of preventing states from enrichment and reprocessing nuclear technologies
• Factors making it impossible for inspectors to properly monitor all undeclared nuclear facilities
• Vast specificities laid out in the original framework that are cause for concern

PART THREE:

• Assessing the possibility for Iran to have a peaceful nuclear program without enriching uranium
• UAE and Saudi Arabian claims they want to have the same nuclear rights that Iran will soon be granted
• Russia and China’s role in the current negotiations

PART FOUR:

• Weighing limited strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities as an alternative to the current deal
• Where Israel stands on working with Washington vs. using military force against Iran
• Logistics of how the Fordow nuclear facility could be taken out
• Differences between uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing

Amb. Eric Edelman, Bill Gertz, Mark Krikorian, Richard Manning

Amb. ERIC EDELMAN, Former Ambassador to Finland and Turkey, Former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy:

• Conflicting "factsheets" from each party of the Iranian nuclear talks
• Does this deal drive a metaphorical stake through the heart of the Non-Proliferation Treaty?
• U.S.-Israeli relations in light of the series of concessions made to Iran

BILL GERTZ, senior editor at the Washington Free Beacon:

• Danger in an agreement not mentioning Iran’s nuclear program at Parchin
• Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes comments regarding sweeping verification capabilities
• Adm. William Gortney of Northern Command on China’s nuclear submarine patrols
• A new “third offset” policy towards robotics and automated systems
• Secretary of Defense Ash Carter's claim that the TPP is “worth one carrier to the U.S. military"

MARK KRIKORIAN, Executive Director of the Center for Immigration Studies:

• The new deportation policy of the Mexican government will do little to stem the summer surge of migrants from Central America
• Administration’s in-country refugee processing service “paroling” migrants into the U.S.
• Does a congressional vote for Loretta Lynch amount to a vote for executive amnesty?

RICHARD MANNING, President of Americans for Limited Government:

• How the Trans-Pacific Partnership would rewrite the economic rules of the world
• Why the TPP is misleadingly referred to as a free trade deal as appose to a regulatory agreement
• Recommendations for Congress and an overview of their Constitutional treaty power

Fred Fleitz, Dr. Jaime Suchlicki, Dr. Peter Vincent Pry, Joe Katzman

FRED FLEITZ, Senior Vice President for Policy and Programs at the Center for Security Policy and former CIA analyst:

• Why the Iranian nuclear "deal" is more akin to a disagreement
• A rejection of Ben Rhodes' statements on inspections by Iran's Supreme Leader
• How the current framework actually decreases the time necessary for Iranian breakout

Dr. JAIME SUCHLICKI, Director of Cuban and Cuban-American Studies at the University of Miami:

• Implications of Cuba's sale of heavily-subsidized Venezuelan petroleum on the raw market
• Disparity in President Obama's relationships with the Venezuelan Maduro regime and Cuba's Raúl Castro
• Reports that Cuba will soon be taken off the list of state sponsors of terrorism, despite its ties to Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas

Dr. PETER VINCENT PRY, Executive Director of the Task Force on National and Homeland Security, and former CIA analyst:

• Takeaways from the Maryland substation’s power surge that caused blackouts in Washington, D.C.
• NORAD and Northern Command's return to EMP-hardened Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado
• What the 2013 nuclear crisis with North Korea revealed about U.S. missile defense weaknesses
• Efforts to “island” individual state electric grids

JOE KATZMAN, Principal at C.A.T. Consulting:

• The “qualitative edge” of American military accomplishments and deterrent capability
• Moore’s Law and an explanation of procurement costs of weapons technology for the U.S.
• “Third Offset Policy” of the Pentagon in a world where advanced weapon technology is becoming easier for all to access
• Increasing dependence on offshore suppliers for U.S. military hardware

Ryan Mauro, Diana West, Jim Hanson, Katherine Zimmerman

RYAN MAURO, National Security Analyst for ClarionProject.org

• Anti-tax activist Grover Norquist's ties to Sami Al-Arian, a Palestinian-American civil rights activist indicted on terrorism charges
• Al-Arian's efforts to pressure the George W. Bush administration to turn national security manners into issues of civil rights
• Nefarious dealings of an organization stared by Norquist, the Islamic Free Market Institute
• A warning from an FBI informant that the International Institute of Islamic Thought, a major financier of Al-Arian’s dealings, was attempting to infiltrate the U.S. government

DIANA WEST, author of “American Betrayal: The Secret Assault on Our Nation’s Character:

• Dutch politician Geert Wilders' campaign to prevent the “Islamization” of his native Netherlands and the rest of Europe
• Shariah law's advancement into Western civil liberties
• Is Islam expansionist, according to its authoritative text and history?
• Will Wilders be prosecuted for his recent comments in Vienna?

JIM HANSON, Executive Vice President of the Center for Security Policy, and former Army Special Operations officer:

• Conflicting accounts from Washington and Tehran regarding the nuclear "agreement" framework
• Lessons from Bill Clinton's failed deal with North Korea
• The futility of inspections via the IAEA
• The worldwide reach of the Global Jihad Movement in Africa

KATHERINE ZIMMERMAN, Research Fellow and lead analyst on al-Qaeda for the American Enterprise Institute’s Critical Threats Project:

• Yemen’s transition from “managed chaos” to civil war seen in the post-Arab Spring political marginalization of the al-Houthi group
• Funding, weapon shipments, allegations of military training, and on-the-ground advisors given to the Houthi rebels from Tehran
• Yemen’s strategic position on the Red Sea and, from there, the Suez Canal
• How the Sunni Arab Gulf Coalition and Shia Iran are using the conflict in Yemen to expand the greater sectarian war in the Middle East
• Limited U.S. options going forward in the Arabian Peninsula

Rep. Chris Stewart, J.Peter Pham, Andy McCarthy, Kevin Freeman

Rep. CHRIS STEWART (UT-2), House Intelligence Committee member and member of the House Appropriations Committee’s State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Subcommittee:

• Nuclear proliferation in the Middle East: the most dangerous threat to this generation
• The "military instillation" obstacle in the original Iran framework agreement
• The role Congress will play – if any – in a final nuclear agreement with Iran

Dr. J. PETER PHAM, Director of the Africa Center at the Atlantic Council:

• Last week's assault on Garissa University College—Kenya's deadliest terrorist attack since the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombing
• Repercussions of an imbalance in training and equipment between Al-Shabaab and Kenya's police force and intelligence service
• How will the newly-elected President of Nigeria Gen. Buhari combat Boko Haram?
• Signs that David Axelrod and the Obama administration possibly influenced the recent Nigerian presidential elections

ANDY MCCARTHY, Contributing Editor with National Review Online and former federal prosecutor:

• Is the President's collusion with a foreign power against Congress' wishes worthy of impeachment?
• Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) and politicized prosecutions
• Why the window for Hillary Clinton to testify on Benghazi is closing fast

KEVIN FREEMAN, Founder of the National Security Investment Consultants Institute and Senior Fellow at the Center for Security Policy:

• Responses of European governments to the invitation to join the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank
• Where Russia stands on a Chinese-led alternative to the IMF and World Bank
• Efforts to transition the renminbi to reserve currency status to market China's debt to the international community
• Should Congress give President Obama authority to fast track the U.S. into the Trans-Pacific Partnership Trade Agreement?

Claudia Rosett, Amb. Roger Noriega, Stewart Baker, Gordon Chang

CLAUDIA ROSETT, Journalist-in-Residence at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies:

• More questions than answers left after the framework agreement with Iran
• Concerns over the international community's ability to verify the Iranian nuclear program going forward
• Are U.S. diplomats giving a sales pitch on Tehran's nuclear program to the rest of the world?
• How Iranian crude oil tankers have avoided sanctions enforcement

Amb. ROGER NORIEGA, former Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs:

• Push and pull factors resulting in the influx of Central American migrants to the U.S.
• Will Cuba be removed from the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism?
• Venezuela leads the fight against President Obama’s foreign policy in Latin America
• Reasons why the Maduro government is refusing to engage diplomatically with the West

STEWART BAKER, Former Assistant Secretary for Policy at the Dept. of Homeland Security and Former General Counsel of the NSA:

• Does the electric grid face a catch-22 between reliability and security?
• Debunking the myth of untraceable hackers
• Evidence of an initial period of vulnerability for Hillary Clinton's private email server

GORDON CHANG, author of “The Coming Collapse of China”:

• Beijing’s attempt to internationalize the renminbi as a reserve currency to eventually replace the U.S. dollar
• Xi Jinping is aligning with the Chinese military to attack the historic notion of factionalism in China
• Signs that a potential bond default is at hand in the People’s Republic of China
• Fissures in China’s semi-command economy

Fred Fleitz, James O'Keefe, Bill Gertz, Riki Ellison

FRED FLEITZ, Senior Vice President for Policy and Programs at the Center for Security Policy, and former CIA analyst:

• Post-mortem on the apparent “breakthrough” framework in Lausanne, Switzerland
• Claims made by Iranian officials that recent State Department and White House statements were false
• Does the proposed framework give IAEA monitors access to “secret and undeclared” sites in Iran?
• Tehran's troubling ties to Pyongyang in weapons research
• The warning Sen. Bob Menendez's (D-NJ) indictment is to other Democratic Senators against voting for additional Iranian sanctions

JAMES O’KEEFE, Founder and President of Project Veritas:

• O'Keefe's undercover investigation of pro-ISIS support at Cornell and Barry (FL) Universities
• Attack on America through its academic institutions

BILL GERTZ, Senior Editor at the Washington Free Beacon:

• Too early to tell if preliminary agreement will completely prevent Iran from getting the bomb or just delay it by a mere ten years
• Israel characterizes Iran as an “existential threat” while the Saudis consult Pakistan’s nuclear forces in hopes of deterring Tehran
• Communist China increases funding to cyber warfare program while U.S. companies brace for the #OpIsrael attack
• A Russian INF violation with the test flight of the RS-26 long-range missile
• The political message the Pentagon sent to Beijing by clearing U.S. F-18 fighters to emergency land in Taiwan

RIKI ELLISON, Chairman and Founder of the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance:

• What American and Israeli troops serving in the Middle East think of the developments in the Iranian nuclear talks
• How close is Iran to having an ICBM delivery system?
• Needed U.S. responses to the North Korean threat
• Chinese and Russian efforts to develop a kinetic, maneuverable warhead delivery system
• Obama’s history of slashing missile defense funding in Europe and on the home front

Andrew Stiles, Daniel Greenfield, Rowan Scarborough, Jessica Vaughan

ANDREW STILES, Digital Managing Editor for the Washington Free Beacon:

• "What I saw in Iran"
• Glimpses of a disconnect between the Iranian regime and the Iranian people
• Is there an opening for regime change in the Islamic Republic?
• The Iranian perspective of the nuclear negotiations

DANIEL GREENFIELD, Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center:

• A working relationship between Iran and the Islamic State
• Why chaos in Iraq will likely to lead to an Iranian-friendly Shi’ite regime in Baghdad
• Is there a potential for a Sunni partition in Western Iraq, into Syria?
• Arab League creating a joint multinational military force

ROWAN SCARBOROUGH, national security correspondent for The Washington Times:

• Islamic State recruitment is a worrisome test of counterterrorism policy
• The difficulties in tracking those who would join the Islamic State
• Assessing American counterterrorism options, both domestically and abroad
• Why a desertion charge may be the least of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl's concerns

JESSICA VAUGHAN, Director of Policy Studies at the Center for Immigration Studies:

• A continued influx of MS-13-affiliated minors pouring across the border from Central America
• Flaws in the current government deportation policy
• Looking at prior successes of ICE’s crack down on street gangs as a reference for the road ahead