Securing America with Frank Gaffney Podcast

Michael Bastasch, Diana West, Tom Donnelly and Bruce Klinger

MICHAEL BASTASCH, Investigative Reporter at The Daily Caller:

• Supreme Court puts a hold on Obama’s Clean Power Plan
• Administration demanding military give priority to climate change
• Implications of the fracking tax 

DIANA WEST, Nationally syndicated columnist, author of “American Betrayal” and “Death of the Grownup”:

• Donald Trump’s plans for national security
• The Democratic Party’s embrace of socialism
• PEGIDA protest shut down in France

TOM DONNELLY, Co-director of the Marilyn Ware Center for Security Studies at the American Enterprise Institute:

• Adequacies and deficiencies of Obama’s budget proposal regarding defense
• Obama’s harm to the military
• Shrinking US Naval Fleet

(PART TWO):

• Which Presidential candidate can secure a mandate to rebuild the military?
• Disconnect between the military and the civilian population
• Implications for the military if they are required to factor in their carbon footprint during times of war

BRUCE KLINGNER, Senior Research Fellow for Northeast Asia at the Heritage Foundation’s Asian Studies Center:

• North Korea’s recent ballistic missile tests
• Current officials in Pyongyang reneging on prior international arms agreements
• Allying with China against the Kim Regime
• US reassurances to South Korea regarding the THAAD Missile Defense System

Dakota Wood

DAKOTA WOOD, Senior Research Fellow of Defense Programs at the Heritage Foundation:

• Is Russia the greatest threat to the US today?
• Putin’s plans for strategic nuclear forces
• China’s military power and ambition

(PART TWO):

• China’s 3,000-mile tunnel system and nuclear program
• Beijing’s possible weaponization of space
• North Korea’s recent aggression and ballistic missile capability

(PART THREE):

• Current status of the US military
• Deteriorating military strength emboldens enemies and leads to a loss of life
• Cultural differences have to be accounted for in the way the US interacts with the world

(PART FOUR):

• What resources are necessary to rebuild American strength?
• Current US spending on the military
• Threats the next president will face

(PART FIVE):

• US hasn’t done nuclear weapons testing for over 25 years
• Lack of industrial capacity in America to rebuild warships and aircraft
• Women in combat, possibly subject to the draft?

Gordon Chang, Luis Fleischman, Michael Braun, Michael Baca

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

• North Korea’s satellite launch yesterday
• Pyongyang’s plans to sell missiles to Iran
• What long-range rocket capability means for US security?
• Currency sinkhole in Japan and China

LUIS FLEISCHMAN, author of “Latin America in the Post-Chavez Era: The Threat to U.S. Security,” Adjunct professor at Florida Atlantic University:

• The Zika virus in Latin America
• Economic conditions in Venezuela spurring more immigration to the US
• Cuban immigration has increased enormously since Obama’s naturalization announcement in 2014
• Gitmo as a Cuban, Russian and Chinese naval base

MIKE BRAUN, Managing Partner at SGI Global, LLC, former Assistant Administrator and Chief of Operations at the DEA

• The DoD’s ability to contribute to monitoring of Drug Trafficking has diminished since 9/11 and has fallen to the Coast Guard and DEA
• Unprecedented levels of cocaine and heroin trafficking from Mexico to the US
• Violent criminality that accompanies drug trafficking
• Criminal justice reform as it relates to the war on drugs

MICHAEL BACA, DC based Africa consultant:

• Current status of Boko Haram
• Economic challenges facing Nigeria
• Jihadist threats to the African continent

Rep. Doug Lamborn, Brendan Brown, Rep. Brian Babin, Dakota Wood, Bill Gertz

Rep. DOUG LAMBORN (CO-5), House Armed Services Committee, Vice Chairman of the Subcommittee on Strategic Forces:

• Gitmo prisoners may be sent to federal prison in Colorado
• US Arab allies concerned about Iran
• Review of the hostage taking of US sailors
• President Obama’s new defense budget
• Vulnerability of the US electric grid

BRENDAN BROWN, Chief Economic Advisor at Mitsubishi UFJ Securities International:

• Economic consequences if Britain departs from the EU
• China’s most recent market downturn tied to the West?

Rep. BRIAN BABIN (TX-36), Chairman of the Space Subcommittee on the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee:

• The Resettlement Accountability National Security Act
• Obama’s choice in visiting a Baltimore mosque
• Does China maintain space dominance?

DAKOTA WOOD, Senior Research Fellow at the Heritage Foundation:

• History as an indicator for the US defense budget
• Increased funding in Europe to deter an expansionist Putin
• A look at the expensive bombing campaign against ISIS

BILL GERTZ, senior editor at The Washington Free Beacon:

• Russian assertiveness in Syria
• Chinese Communist Party defector in the custody of US intelligence
• Increased Chinese cyber attacks on big data
• Beijing invited to Proliferation Security Initiative despite its weapons sales to North Korea and Iran

Patrick Poole

PATRICK POOLE, National Security and Terrorism Correspondent for PJ Media:

• President Obama’s visit to the Baltimore mosque is emblematic of the Administration’s CVE (countering violent extremism policies)
• Islamic societies in this country and what we know about their relationships to the Muslim Brotherhood
• America has been suborned by enemy operatives 

(PART TWO):

• How does the Muslim Brotherhood differ from terror organizations like Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State?
• Systematic outreach of the Obama administration to the wrong Muslims
• Obama administration’s response to public petition to make the Muslim Brotherhood a designated terror organization

(PART THREE):

• DHS and State Department shutting down investigation that could have uncovered critical evidence in preventing the San Bernardino attacks
• CVE encouraging domestic terrorism
• Civilization jihad becoming militant in the US similar to what’s happening in Europe

(PART FOUR):

• Censorship of NYPD’s radicalization report
• Is mosque surveillance necessary?
• How Muslim communities are used as shields for radicals
• President el-Sisi’s crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt

(PART FIVE):

• Conflagration between the Egyptian government and the Muslim Brotherhood
• President el-Sisi’s speech at Al-Azhar University
• The Obama administration’s embrace of radicals domestically and around the world 

Diana West, Samuel Bendett, Joseph Humire and Fred Fleitz

DIANA WEST, nationally syndicated columnist, author of “American Betrayal” and “Death of a Grownup”:

• Geert Wilders’ resistance to Europe’s infiltration of Islamism
• Europe has brought Tahrir Square into every town square
• What the US can learn from Europe

SAMUEL BENDETT, defense and foreign policy analyst:

• Russia’s plans for global dominance
• What Putin’s aggression may mean for former Soviet satellite states
• How the West was overly optimistic about democratization after the fall of the USSR

JOSEPH HUMIRE, Executive Director at the Center for a Secure Free Society:

• What will Cuba look like after the death of the Castro brothers?
• Cuba’s internal population control
• Islamist penetration of Latin America

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

• Iran’s shopping spree with sanctions relief
• How JCPOA will play into the elections & possibly hurt Clinton’s presidential bid
• Upcoming Syrian peace talks

Jed Babbin, Dr. Mark Moyar, Dr. Victor Davis Hanson, and Andy McCarthy

JED BABBIN, Former Deputy Undersecretary of Defense in George H.W. Bush Administration, Senior Fellow at the London Center for Policy Research:

• Assessing the damage of former Secretary Clinton’s private e-mail account to human intelligence
• Hillary Clinton’s pay-for-play tenure as Secretary of State
• Is FBI Director Comey likely to resign if Hillary is not indicted? 

Dr. MARK MOYAR, Visiting Scholar at the Foreign Policy Initiative, member of the Hoover Institution Working Group on the Role of Military History on Contemporary Conflict:

• Assessment of the on-the-ground situation in Afghanistan
• Is Afghanistan conflict still considered a war?
• Continued cooperation between Al-Qaeda and the Taliban
• Level of U.S. support needed to help the Afghans maintain a degree of control

Dr. VICTOR DAVIS HANSON, Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, weekly columnist at National Review:

• Obama administration’s appeasement of Putin
• Consequences of immigration crisis for Europe
• How a national implementation of California immigration policies would change America
• What it would mean for homeland security if the Afghan government fell

ANDY McCARTHY, former federal prosecutor:

• Levels of classification for government emails
• Holding Hillary Clinton accountable
• Obama’s upcoming visit to a Baltimore mosque
• Ted Cruz’s Iowa Caucus victory

John Wohlstetter, Dr. David Adesnik, Dr. Harold Rhode, and Gordan Chang

JOHN WOHLSTETTER, Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute and the London Center for Policy Research:

• Tepid response of the authorities in response to the sexual assaults in Cologne, Germany
• Multiculturalism blinding the Obama administration
• NYPD’s mosque surveillance 

Dr. DAVID ADESNIK, Policy Director at the Foreign Policy Initiative:

• National security issues such as the Iran Deal and Syria crisis taking center stage at today’s Iowa Caucus vote
• FBI investigations open in all fifty states regarding Islamic State operatives
• CVE narrative used to obscure not inform
• Consequences of ignoring shortfalls within the US armed forces

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

• Tense relations between President Obama and Israel
• Failure of JCPOA to moderate Iranian regime
• Erdogan and Gulen feud 

GORDAN CHANG, Fox News Contributor, author of “The Coming Collapse of China":

• Chinese reaction to recent freedom of navigation exercises conducted by U.S. Navy in Paracel Islands
• North Korea’s missile deals with Iran
• South Korean interest in the missile defense system THAAD
• Chinese buying oil for their strategic petroleum reserve