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10 Minute Drill
Special Monday Rundown: Oscars, Terror Attacks, Warships in the Strait, another VA sanctuary scandal
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The Oscars get political. We've got the latest on a number of terror attacks and the Democrats shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security. The latest on Iran, the energy blame game, all of that and so much more on a very special Monday rundown episode of 10 Minute Drill. Everybody get up. Get up.
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B
The story of America is the story of an adventure.
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I can hear you.
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C
The rest of the world hears you.
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We are a nation under God, and I believe God intended for us to be free. As you're hearing this Monday morning, the federal government is on optional telework due to hazardous weather. The House of Representatives has also canceled votes for tonight Monday night. But first, the Oscars. The New York Times, being worried that the Oscars would not get political enough, had an op ed ahead of the award show challenging them to to not be complicit. The question is not whether actors should become politicians, but whether citizens who happen to be very visible, well, at a decisive moment, refuse to play the role that every authoritarian leader assigns them. Decorative proof that all is well on a night when the world is watching. A few clear words will not save the republic, but their absence may help end it. I think that's high degree of self importance. But whenever the urgency of politics comes up at the Oscars, I think of Ricky Gervais.
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D
If you do win an award tonight, don't use it as a platform to make a political speech.
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Right.
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D
You're in no position to lecture the public about anything. You know nothing about the real world.
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And of course, Hollywood did not disappoint on their biggest night.
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B
I should warn you, tonight could get political. Okay. And if that makes you uncomfortable, there's. There's an alternate Oscars being hosted by Kid Rock. Yeah, it's at the Dave and Buster's down the street.
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Note to war on free Palestine.
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When we act complicit when a government murders people on the streets of our major cities.
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Late last week, there were two major terror attacks that we wanted to start with today. First, at Old Dominion University, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Sierra Leone shouted Allahu Akbar and shot and killed an ROTC instructor while attempting to open fire on the rest of the classroom before being subdued by a number of cadets in that program. We found out later this person had previously been arrested and convicted for material support to terrorism in 2016. And for some reason, he was let out early in 2024. And everyone's asking why he wasn't deported. Despite being convicted of terror charges on Friday night, Virginia Governor Abigail Spamberger tried to blame The Trump administration suggesting that the FBI needed to focus more on core priorities. Spanberger will have a difficult time with that blame shifting attempt as more details of Muhammad Jablo the terrorist have come out, including the fact that he was let out early after completing a drug treatment program, even though his conviction had been for terrorism and supporting terrorism and not drug charges. But he also had his record essentially hidden from Old Dominion because of a law signed by former governor Ralph Northam, a 2019 social justice law that hid criminal histories from universities when people applied for admission. The other attack was at a synagogue in Michigan. A 41 year old man named Ayman Muhammad Ghazali drove his vehicle into the synagogue attempting to both open fire and also start a fire. He was badly burned but also killed by armed security before he was able to harm anybody. But it is another major wake up call to the country that the homeland is not currently secure and another major act of anti Semitic violence. In spite of this growing list of terror attacks, Democrats are maintaining their shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security, including TSA and a number of other critical operations. As we talked about last week, they were feeling serene about their shutdown. However, a major theme of the Sunday shows was Democrats being pressed on their shutdown. You heard late last week, Michigan Senator Alyssa Slotkin said it was time to fund the Department of Homeland Security after the Michigan synagogue attack.
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F
A ton of DHS folks, cbp. And so they are on the call and they are, they are doing their jobs. Certainly we need to fund the Department
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of Homeland Security, but still voted to keep it shut. New Jersey Senator Cory Booker was pressed on cnn.
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Isn't it time for Democrats to reopen and refund dhs? So first of all, Democrats have tried multiple times to try to get tsa, sisa, the Coast Guard funded. Republicans have refused time and time again to fund. Yeah, they want the whole agency. Fund the whole agency.
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That sort of concession at the end. They want the whole agency was quite telling. A congresswoman from Texas named Julie Johnson said she would love to end the shutdown.
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F
The government remains shut down over dhs. Is it time to end this shutdown?
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C
Well, I would love to end the shutdown. You know, we have a lot of brave men and women in the Coast Guard and TSA serving our nation that deserve to get paid.
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Mark Warner, senator from Virginia, said this.
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We have airline CEOs faulting Congress for not paying TSA agents. I've got video TSA workers on food lines because they just missed their second paycheck, half paycheck. Last time full paycheck this Friday. Why can't your leaders break this deadlock?
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I think we should. Now, if he really thinks we should, he knows what to do. At the same time, CEOs of 10 major airlines published a full page ad in the Washington Post on Sunday calling on Congress to pay TSA workers and stop using air travel as a political football. In the last government shutdown, one of the main signs that pressure was building too much on Democrats was Sunday shows shifting major coverage to pressuring Democrats. We will see if this has any impact on them as the homeland continues to be in more and more danger of attacks from the outside over to Iran President Trump announced over the weekend that many countries, especially those who are affected by Iran's attempted closure of the Hormuz Strait, will be sending warships in conjunction with the United States of America to keep the strait open and safe. One of the countries that President Trump challenged to take part in securing the strait was China. President Trump told the Financial Times last night that China should help reopen the strait because they get 90% of their oil from it. He also threatened to delay his trip to China later this month if China doesn't step up to the the plate and start helping. We'll be watching that situation closely all week, but another dynamic to watch is Cuba, president Trump told media just last night. Something will happen with Cuba very quickly. We've already seen demonstrations in the street and a lot of unrest, including a lot of rumors and reports that some of the leadership in Cuba was open to discussing some sort of leadership change in the United States Senate. This week we expect to see the opening of debate on a bill called the SAVE Act. Now, the SAVE act is election integrity legislation focused on things like voter ID and proof of citizenship. As Republicans have been saying for months now, voter ID has 80 to 85% support around the country. This in many ways should be a no brainer brainer. But one challenge for Republicans is the process piece of this. It requires 60 votes to pass a bill like this in Congress and right now There are not 60 votes for this. They've tried to navigate around this by talking about some other procedural options, including things like the talking filibuster. You'll remember if you've seen the West Wing or anything else, the talking filibuster really is the classic filibuster that requires the opposition to stand and talk at their feet until the other side gives up on a bill. The problem is it still requires 60 votes to end a talking filibuster and move to actually vote on legislation and right now it does not appear that there's a way to get there. And you do not have a majority of Republicans willing to end the filibuster, many of them still believing that it is the final layer of security between America and the crazy future that Democrats want for it with all sorts of terrible policies. Another issue that some Republicans have raised is concerns about federalizing election policy. You may remember that Democrats, when they were last in charge, their HR1 bill was a bill to federalize elections and take over control of states election authorities and require things like ballot harvesting, things like taxpayer funded election funds, and all sorts of things that Republicans and the overwhelming majority of Americans found to be totally abhorrent. Now, voter ID is not one of those things. We know voter ID is overwhelmingly popular, but elections have traditionally always been governed and overseen at the state level. So we will see where the debate goes this week and we'll track it closely in our following episodes. Dynamic that we previewed last week was the blame shifting effort from Democrats on energy. As President Trump's bombing of Iran has gone on and we've seen some short term spike in energy prices. Democrats like Gavin Newsom have tried to say that the gas prices their constituents are seeing are solely the fault of President Trump and the situation in Iran, hoping that people will forget the fact that California's already had record gas prices that were significantly higher than the rest of the country all year. And as we've been talking about with things like policies that shut down refineries in the state of California, California was already projected to see record gas prices of $8.50. The other point that I would make there is the fact that even though gas prices are up in the short term, they're still about $2 lower than they were in 2022 when Democrats intentionally drove up gas prices to try and force everyone into electric cars at the same time as they were passing a huge raft of tax credits for them. The Wall Street Journal had an incredible piece highlighting this exact dynamic from Alicia Finley. Gavin Newsom is driving up gasoline prices. One factor that she really leans into is the issue of refineries. Gavin Newsom is shutting them down. The other dynamic that Alicia covers is the fact that California leans heavily on foreign imports of oil and gas, and that is a major vulnerability for the state. And one reason that Gavin Newsom is doing everything he can to shift blame, because it is his policies that have led the state of California to rely so heavily on foreign countries like Iraq and Saudi Arabia. Even though California sits on some of the largest oil deposits in the country that could be accessed without major environmental risk and both shore up California's energy situation, lower energy prices for them, but also majorly contribute to American national security. Last thing in this rundown for today, another major terrible story out of Virginia Fairfax high school. A 19 year old El Salvadorian illegal immigrant currently enrolled as a junior was found to have groped 12 students. And when he was arrested, Steve Discano, a name that you're going to want to remember. He is the prosecutor who received major campaign funds from George Soros because he he was seen as a progressive prosecutor who would work as hard as he possibly could to let criminals, particularly violent criminals, out of jail. The same way that you may remember former San Francisco prosecutor District Attorney Chesa Boudin, who was recalled by San Francisco voters. He has a protege in Fairfax, Virginia, and by the name of Steve Descano. What we learned from local reporter Nick Minoc is On Friday, Steve Discano's prosecutor, Jenna Sands, agreed to release that suspect, the 19 year old El Salvadorian suspect, from jail, but a judge said no. At the same time, ICE lodged a detainer to try and deport or get access to deport this 19 year old illegal immigrant. But ICE said that Fairfax County Sheriff Stacy Kincaid would not honor that detainer to allow this serial groper and sexual assailant of teenagers to be deported. Now, one thing I just wanted to highlight here is as you see these crazy stories out of Fairfax County, Fairfax county is slated to take over large parts of five different congressional seats in the Virginia redistricting plan. We've talked about how the Virginia Democrat plan is to make all of Virginia into Fairfax. And when you see how poorly governed it is and when you see the kind of radicals they put in charge here, you have to consider whether you really want to create a congressional map that gives a place with such misguided leadership and voters so much power. That is all the time we have for today. We're going to get deeper into every single one of these stories throughout the week. But we wanted to give you a preview because we can already tell it's going to be a wild one. Thank you so much. We will see you tomorrow.