C (2:44)

Joining us now is Victoria Coates, national security and foreign policy expert at Heritage Foundation. Victoria, thank you for coming on.

D (2:51)

Of course. Glad to be with you.

C (2:52)

So the US Is now guiding ships through the Strait of Hormuz. President Trump calls this Project Freedom. But Iran has already launched missiles at one of our warships while the US has sunk yet more of their boats. Are things going to escalate further? What is the latest here?

D (3:09)

I actually don't think so, John. I think Iran is doing what it can to harass and frighten or terrorize shipping. But the US Got two ships out. That's not enough. We need to have well over 100 a day coming out. But getting two ships out unmolested was pretty good stuff and demonstrates they can do it. They're routing the ships closer to Oman through those territorial waters. There's not that much that Iran can do to those ships without essentially declaring war on Oman. And they're firing off missiles at uae, which is very bad. But at the same time, it suggests to me they don't have the capacity to get as far as Israel anymore. So they're looking for more proximate targets.

A (3:48)

Yeah.

C (3:48)

You mentioned the uae. Iran did strike one of the refineries, as we understand it. What do you know about that situation?

D (3:55)

Right, so that's down in Fujira, and that's down where UAE is trying to use their pipeline to go around the Strait of Hormut. So we've got a couple of these different infrastructure workarounds that are allowing Saudi to move oil to the Red Sea, for example, and UAE to move it down into the Gulf of Oman. So, again, this is bad. But at the same time, what Iran is achieving here is not just damage to a UAE refinery. It's making the region furious with them. You know, Qatar is coming out saying, you know, that they condemn this attack. Syria is. These are countries that historically have been much more aligned with Iran. Now that they are all aligned against Iran, which is just going to increase their isolation. UAE has really performed admirably militarily throughout the course of Epic Fury and very, very well with our Israeli counterparts. So they have demonstrated some pretty strong capabilities and they are sick of being shelled.

C (4:51)

What do you think the net effect of this all will be on oil markets, if any? Both the ships traversing the strait, you said a couple got through. And this resurgence also of violence from Iran, will this affect anything?

D (5:04)

Well, I think we have seen a steady creep up in prices around $110 a barrel. That's not great for anybody. That's going to put a pressure on global economies. Obviously, the White House is very aware of that. But I think that's why they have a sense of urgency to break this Iranian bloc on the strait, start getting those ships out and hopefully demonstrate to the world that the Iranians can't make good on their threats.

C (5:30)

Now, on our side of the globe, American investors seem to be eyeing the oil market in Venezuela. We've seen a lot of reports over the weekend about this. What do we know about the potential for investment there? And is that helping at all give a sense of optimism about the oil markets in the future?

D (5:48)

Oh, I think so. And bear in mind the United States hit a record high of 12.9 million barrels a day recently. So we are pumping at full capacity. And in early January, when we had the first meetings on Venezuela, ExxonMobil, for example, said it was uninvestable, too unstable, wasn't going to do it. They just said this week that actually they're going back in. So in a period of months, we've had the transformation of Venezuela, not necessarily into Texas, but at the same time it has been stabilized to the point that it's now an attractive investment for US Energy majors. That is a great signal, actually, to send the people of Iran that if you make a different choice, if your atmosphere is different, you could be having the same kind of prosperity and development that Venezuela is having.

C (6:35)

Interesting to see that maybe Venezuela could be a model for something good in the future in terms of relationship with the U.S. thank you so much, Victoria, for coming on.

D (6:44)

That's certainly positive change. Thank you.

E (6:47)

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B (7:46)

Last weekend, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the FDA must reinstate a requirement for doctors to visit with women in person in order for them to dispense the abortion drug mifepristone. The drug manufacturer has seven days to appeal.

C (8:00)

Joining us now to discuss the latest Supreme Court order is Alliance Defending Freedom's Aaron Holly, who argued alongside Louisiana against the FDA at the district court. Aaron, welcome back.

F (8:11)

Thanks so much for having me.

C (8:13)

So can you fill us in on why the Supreme Court hit the pause button on this Fifth Circuit order?

B (8:19)

Sure.

F (8:19)

So it's a very standard sort of operating procedure at the Supreme Court when they get an application from a party who lost below. That application goes to a single Supreme Court justice in this case Justice Alito, because he's the justice for the Fifth Circuit and that justice will often or routinely issue an administrative state stay so that the the entire court can consider the request. So that's what happened. We've got the administrative stay and then the full court will weigh in.

C (8:48)

All right. So just sort of a standard procedural motion here. Why is it important for women to have in person visitations to receive mifepristone? We hear, you know, the abortion industry say that this drug is as is safer than Tylenol. Why is this argument being made that's so absurd?

F (9:07)

This drug is nothing like Tylenol. It has a black box warning according to FDA's own label. Before it took away the in person Visit, it sends 1 in 25 women to the emergency room. This is a high risk drug. And without that initial in person visit, a healthcare provider has no way to determine gestational age accurately, has no way to check accurately for ectopic pregnancies. And in fact, sometimes these drugs, as we have seen seen with plaintiff Rosalie Markovitz, are shipped to partners or spouses who wish to do women harm by coercing them to take abortion drugs. None of that would happen if there were the minimum requirement that a healthcare provider actually see and talk to a woman before prescribing a high risk drug.

C (9:54)

So we have Alito issuing this administrative stay as sort of standard operating procedure here. What is then next from the Fifth Circuit?

F (10:03)

Sure. So the Supreme Court has ordered a response from Louisiana by Thursday. We will submit that the drug manufacturers will probably submit a reply on Friday. And we're hoping that the Supreme Court issue this determination by next Monday. So it's a quick process. The court will decide whether to keep the stay in place or not. It might also determine that it should grant cert really quickly, maybe immediately and schedule briefing and argument on this important question of whether women should have safeguards for high risk drugs like mifepressto.

C (10:35)

So to be clear, that means sort of fast tracking this case.

F (10:39)

That's exactly right. And we've seen the Supreme Court do that more with cases on its emergency docket, actually scheduling argument and those sorts of things. We think the court should deny the request. We think they should keep in place the protections for women that were reinstated by the Fifth Circuit. But if the court wants to take it up now and have full briefing and argument, that would help women get that sort of relief as well.

C (11:03)

The Trump administration is the most pro life administration we've seen yet. Why is Louisiana suing Trump's FDA over abortion drugs?

B (11:12)

Sure.

F (11:13)

So as the lower courts have found, because it is suffering irreparable harm. There are nearly a thousand unborn babies in Louisiana that are losing their lives every month because pro abortion doctors are flooding the state with unlawful mifeprestone. Louisiana is also suffering economic harm and this doesn't even count for the emotional damage and others that that abortions cause to women like Rosalie.

C (11:37)

There is some frustration from the pro life side with the fda. Is that merited in this case?

F (11:43)

So in this case, the FDA has never defended the 2023 Biden era rems on the merits. We think that's right. But we also think that the Supreme Court, the lower court, should go ahead and reinstate safeguards for these drugs even as the FDA reconsiders that 2023 decision because Louisiana is suffering irreparable harm every day. There's no reason to wait for that review.

C (12:10)

Erin Hawley, thank you so much for joining us.

F (12:12)

Thanks for having me.

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C (12:42)

specialoffer the House Judiciary Committee has launched a major investigation into Act Blue. That's the Democrats primary fundraising platform. Republicans are alleging fraud and illegal foreign donations. We recently talked to the chair of the committee about the probe.

B (12:58)

Joining us now to discuss the ActBlue investigation is Ohio Congressman Jim Jordan. Congressman, thanks for coming on.

A (13:05)

You bet. Good to be with you.

B (13:06)

So to start, for listeners who may not be familiar, what is Act Blue? And then just put a, put into perspective what role it plays for Democratic politics.

A (13:15)

Well, they're the money machine, plain and simple. What was that? I think like 3.8 billion they brought in and then raised and contributed out to Democrat candidates, left wing candidates all over the country. I mean, there were congressional candidates in certain races raising 2 and 3 million every single quarter, largely coming from ActBlue. So this is the money behind the Democrat Party and the left and they've been part of Democrat politics for a long, long time. And of course, the concern is, we think that it looks like at least they were accepting foreign contributions, which is not allowed under our law.

B (13:50)

Can you walk us through what kind of allegations prompted this investigation and what kind of evidence you've actually seen?

A (13:57)

So first there was just the fact that they were raising these record amounts of money again, like first time candidates raising $3 million in a sing. We've never really ever seen anything like that. So there's all this money coming in and then you have, right after the 2024 election, you have the four top people at ActBlue in the fraud prevention and guaranteeing that there's no fraud in the platform. They all resign and then the general counsel is fired. But the general counsel is given a special severance package, gets paid like $170,000, signs an agreement, says he will not talk with anyone about this unless he first consults with Act Blue. So all that raised some concerns when we started seeing that information. So we brought those five people in for depositions and every single one of them took the fifth, would not answer our questions. And then we learn that a letter sent a few years ago from a colleague of mine, Chairman Stile, Brian Stile, of the House Administration Committee, he sent a letter to the CEO of ActBlue. And the letter said, tell us how you handled the foreign contributions or the possibility of receiving foreign. What did you do? The response that she gave said, we've got everything under control. We followed our rules, we followed our protocols. And then we learned that there was a letter sent by the CEO of ActBlue from their attorney. And their attorney said, you may want to amend your response to Congress because you may have misrepresented things. Now, that's a fancy way of saying you lied to Congress. And so this lawyer, too, by the way, was a big law firm here in town, Covington Burling. And the lawyer was Dana Remus, not a Republican, former White House counsel for Joe Biden. So it's like this was a Democrat lawyer. So all that is why we've been digging into this and we've got some documents that show they actually lowered their fraud standards in the run up to the 2024 election and then frankly didn't even follow the standards that they lowered. So we're going to have hopefully get them in for a hearing sometime in the near future and continue to dig into this.

B (15:56)

Now, have any top Democrats responded at all to this investigation?

A (16:00)

They just the top Democrats typically will say, like, oh, this is partisan, this is political. But it's not you're not allowed to have foreign contribution in American elections. We just, that's the law. And that's why we're looking into this.

B (16:12)

When is the deposition going to be?

A (16:13)

Well, we're looking for a hearing. We've done five depositions. Every single one of them took the fifth during those depositions on every substantive question that we had regarding this issue. And we're looking to bring them in. The CEO, we'd like to bring them in for a hearing in the, in the next month.

B (16:30)

All right. We're looking forward to it. Thank you so much for making time for us.

A (16:33)

You bet. Thank you.

C (16:35)

Thanks for waking up with us. And for those listening to the show, you can also now watch the show free on Daily Wire. Plus, we'll be back this evening with more news you need to know.