Securing America with Frank Gaffney Podcast

Diana West, Michael Cutler, Gordon Chang and Mark Henshaw

DIANA WEST, Author of “American Betrayal” and “Death of the Grown Up”:

• Pope Francis’ speech near the Mexican border today
• Geert Wilders' death threats from political opponents as he gains momentum in the Netherlands
• Spring will bring more chaos for Europe as migrant flow continues

MICHAEL CUTLER, Retired Senior Special Agent of the former Immigration and Naturalization Services:

• Immigration to US likely to be encouraged by the Pope’s speech in Juarez
• What is the real number of illegal immigrants in America?
• Some Syrian refugees represent a threat to national security 

GORDON CHANG, Forbes.com columnist and Daily Beast contributor:

• China putting SAMs on Woody Island in the South China Sea
• Why the US shouldn’t join the “Law of the Sea Treaty”
• Symbolism of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit in Sunnylands, CA.
• President Obama’s commercial and geopolitical reasons for supporting the Trans-Pacific Partnership
• Threat of military coup against Kim Jong-un?

MARK HENSHAW, former CIA analyst, author of “The Fall of Moscow Station”:

• Overview of the new book, “The Fall of Moscow Station”
• Damage to the US caused by foreign intelligence services
• The CIA's "Red Cell"

Adm. James Lyons

Adm. JAMES “ACE” LYONS, retired Admiral in the United States Navy, served as Commander, U.S. Pacific Fleet from 1985-87:

• Possibility for cessation of hostilities in Syria and Iraq
• Chance that the US will play a larger role in defeating ISIS
• Iran’s role in Iraq and Syria

(PART TWO):

• President Obama took a backseat to Russia in Syria
• Turkey possibly adding ground troops in Syria
• Erdogan’s strategy to handle the Kurds
• Key to instability in the Middle East is the theocracy of Iran

(PART THREE):

• Sunni Arab states involving troops in Syrian civil war
• Iranian-North Korean alliance
• US sailors taken hostage by Iran

(PART FOUR):

• Could the Saudi’s buy a nuclear weapons from the Pakistani’s?
• Arab states uniting against the US and Israel

Claudia Rosett, Fred Fleitz, Dr. Keith Payne, Bill Gertz

CLAUDIA ROSETT, foreign affairs columnist/blogger at Forbes.com and PJ Media:

• Hermit Kingdom developing nuclear missiles that can reach the US
• Obama Administration and the UN only lobbing words at the Kim Regime
• South Korea deploying missile defenses and shutting down an industrial park at its Northern border
• Build up of an axis of nations and groups hostile to the US

FRED FLEITZ, CSP VP for Policy and Programs, former CIA analyst:

• Intelligence community presenting Congress with its annual Worldwide Threat Assessment
• James Clapper doesn’t know whether Iran will pursue nuclear weapons or not
• John Kerry’s diplomacy at it again in Syria’s “suspension of hostilities”
• Has the Obama Administration deliberately destroyed data on Islamic terrorism inside the US?

Dr. KEITH PAYNE, President and co-founder of the National Institute for Public Policy:

• New Russian national security strategy
• The Kremlin’s nuclear weapon “first use” policy
• Moscow’s long history of violating arms control agreements
• Putin’s goals of creating the most advanced weaponry man has ever seen

(PART TWO):

• NATO’s Flexible Response Doctrine compared to Russia’s “escalate to deescalate” doctrine
• Status of the current US deterrent posture
• Urgent need to reinvest in the US defense infrastructure

BILL GERTZ, senior editor at the Washington Free Beacon:

• Congressional threat briefing on Chinese continued cyber espionage
• Mike Rogers’ Senate testimony on the security of US critical infrastructure
• Threat of North Korea detonating an EMP device in the atmosphere, rendering the US electric grid useless
• Intelligence on China upgrading its long range ballistic missiles from one to three warheads
• US downgrading its Multiple Independently Targetable Missile capacity

Rep. Chris Stewart, Ambassador John Bolton, Rep. John Fleming and Peter Navarro

Rep. CHRIS STEWART (UT-2), Member of the House Select Committee on Intelligence:

• The Zika Response and Safety Act
• Drug trafficking from Latin America
• Obama’s plans to empty Gitmo and the threat to national security that it poses
• Tactical and strategic impact of Obama’s Clean Power Plan Initiative
• Struggle in the West over public land

Amb. JOHN BOLTON, Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Chairman of the Gatestone Institute:

• What to make of Vladimir Putin’s policies
• Russia’s role in the Syrian Civil War
• Increased US military presence in Europe
• Threat North Korea poses to national security

Rep. JOHN FLEMING (LA-4), M.D. Member of the House Armed Services Committee:

• Deficit hawks supporting HASC requests for more defense spending
• Assessment of the adequacy currently made in maintaining a safe, reliable, and effective nuclear deterrent posture
• Terror Finance Transparency Act
• What actions can be taken against North Korea?

Dr. PETER NAVARRO, Professor at the Merage School of Business at the University of California-Irvine, author of “Crouching Tiger: What China’s Militarism Means for the World”:

• Current state of the Chinese economy
• US trade deficit pays for Chinese defense budget
• How to address the trade deficit without hurting the US economy

(PART TWO):

• What Donald Trump’s 45% tariff on China would mean for US consumers
• With the decline of the economy, will the Chinese Communist Party use global aggression to hold on to power?
• Beijing’s claim to areas in the South China Sea creating inevitable conflict for the US

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