SECURING AMERICA WITH FRANK GAFFNEY - NOVEMBER 1ST, 2025

Summary

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Securing America with Frank Gaffney – November 1, 2025

Podcast: Real America’s Voice

Host: Frank Gaffney

Featured Guests: Rod Martin, Robert Spencer

Release Date: November 1, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode of "Securing America with Frank Gaffney" dives into the geopolitical threats facing the United States—particularly from China and Venezuela—before pivoting to an intensive discussion on rising socialist and Sharia-supremacist influence in American politics, focusing on the case of Zohran Mamdani, a candidate for New York City mayor. Gaffney is joined first by Rod Martin for analysis on China and Latin American threats, and later by author Robert Spencer, who discusses his new book "Intifada on the Hudson" and the implications of a Marxist-Islamist mayoral candidate in New York.

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Key Topics & Discussion Points

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1. The State of the Chinese Communist Party and US-China Relations

Summary:
Gaffney and Martin begin by assessing the internal struggles within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the geopolitical chess ahead of the Xi Jinping–Donald Trump meeting in South Korea.

Main Insights & Analysis:

• Xi Jinping’s Grip on Power:

  • Gaffney calls the CCP leader’s control “tentative,” noting the recent fourth plenum and purges of top generals.
  • Rod Martin argues, “I think their days are numbered, but I wouldn’t want to put a calendar on it just yet... The military actually realizes that an invasion of Taiwan would probably be a debacle.” (04:20)

• Internal Power Struggle:

  • The rift is between Xi Jinping and top military figures, suggesting that the military might currently be the more cautious, strategically rational faction (05:00).

• Rare Earth Minerals and Decoupling:

  • The US is deeply dependent on China for rare earths, but the Trump administration is aggressively moving to diversify supply chains and bring refining capacity home.
  • “Donald Trump wants domestic supply to be sufficient to meet US needs…we need processing in the United States.” (Rod Martin, 08:30)

• Durability and Risks of New Trade Deal:

  • Martin believes a framework coming together in Malaysia “looks really strong” and that, “Beijing has sealed its fate—we’re going to decouple, and it’s just a matter of how quickly we can do it.” (09:14)
  • Gaffney is wary that cutting deals may “prop up the Chinese Communist Party” (09:51).

Notable Quote:

“The military actually realizes that an invasion of Taiwan would probably be a debacle… There’s a real rift, a real danger to them here, versus Xi Jinping, who is saber rattling like crazy.”
— Rod Martin (04:20)

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2. Elite Capture and American Policy Toward China

Summary:
Gaffney raises concerns about American political and economic elites’ “coziness” with the Chinese regime, referencing Lee Smith’s book "The China Matrix."

• “Leaders of the various sectors of our economy and political life… have thrown in with the Chinese Communist Party—they call it, as you know, captured elites.” (Frank Gaffney, 09:51)

• Martin contextualizes Trump’s “daylight and dark difference in how he approaches China” versus past presidents, arguing that “Trump is very busily trying to contain China and deprive it of the ability to afford a war.” (15:57)

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3. Venezuelan Threats and Latin American Geopolitics

Summary:
The focus turns to Latin America, namely Venezuela's evolution from “Cuba with oil” to a failed state increasingly tied to illicit activities and global adversaries.

Key Points:

• Venezuela’s Transformation:

  • “They are no longer Cuba with oil. Now they’re just Cuba. They’re broke. Nothing works.” (Rod Martin, 19:46)
  • Venezuela, now functioning like a cartel-state, is deeply involved in trafficking, election fraud, and reportedly hostile military activities with outside help (Russians, Iranians, Chinese, and Cubans).

• US Military Posture:

  • “We have now a carrier battle group…off the coast of Venezuela. We’ve been taking out Venezuelan go-fast boats…Trump definitely wants Maduro shaking in his boots.” (Frank Gaffney, 21:33)

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4. Interview with Robert Spencer: "Intifada on the Hudson" and the Mayoral Race in NYC

Summary:
The latter half centers on rising socialist and Islamist influence in US politics, focusing on Zohran Mamdani, a possible future mayor of NYC.

Key Analysis:

• Engineering the Candidate:

  • “The powerful left has done this. They have groomed and recruited and trained him...Soros money behind him…Council on American Islamic Relations…and so on…all share various characteristics: socialists, young, mediagenic, attractive, articulate, glib, non American background.”
    — Robert Spencer (26:27)

• Marxist vs. Socialist Label:

  • “He is actually a communist. He’s a real Marxist…called for the ultimate goal of seizing the means of production, which is the fundamental idea of communism.”
    — Robert Spencer (28:12)

• Chaos as Strategy:

  • Spencer sees Mamdani as a “chaos agent”: “He wants to bring about chaos in New York...It’s not an accidental byproduct…it is his actual goal to make New York a crime-ridden hellhole…that is how communists operate.” (31:35)

• Historical Patterns:

  • “Look at Marx, look at Lenin, look at Stalin, look at Mao…Every time this has been implemented, it has gone the same way. Why do we think it’s going to be different in this case?”
    — Robert Spencer (33:29)

Notable Quotes:

“The fact is that he can do an immense amount of damage by setting the city on a course toward total government control…He will drive out many of the businesses…tax base will vanish and then the city will go bankrupt.”
— Robert Spencer (30:10)

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5. The "Red-Green Axis": Marxism + Sharia

Summary:
Gaffney and Spencer probe Mamdani’s ideological fusion: Marxism and Sharia.

• Sharia’s Political Program:

  • “Both Marxism and Sharia are authoritarian and set against America…Mamdani has been going around New York…said more than once that he wants to show that Muslims have a place in this city and a place in City Hall…he’s talking about a real political program and an agenda that could be very detrimental to non Muslims in New York as well as to women.”
    — Robert Spencer (39:22)

• Dimitude & Legal Precedents:

  • Reference to the reduction of Jews and Zionist organizations to “second-class status” and risks to women’s rights if Sharia courts proliferate in New York (42:00).

• Taqiyyah (Religious Deception):

  • Spencer notes that Sharia allows, even obligates, dishonesty to advance the faith — thus, voters/institutions should not rely on public statements alone (43:42).

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6. Apocalyptic “Twelver Shia” Beliefs

Summary:
Spencer delves into Mamdani’s alleged identification as a Twelver Shia and the doomsday eschatology of that sect.

• Sect Background:

  • “The Twelver Shiites…are the official religion of the Islamic Republic of Iran…which chants death to America every Friday. The idea is that when Muslims are more persecuted than ever in history, the Twelfth Imam will come out of the well and Islamize the world...” (46:34)

• Geopolitical Concerns:

  • “Muslim leaders today in Iran…think they can trigger the persecution that will bring back the 12th Imam. Rafsanjani said, ‘We can nuke Israel…and that would be the persecution that would be severe enough to bring the boy out of the well.’” (48:55)

• Local Risk, Global Implications:

  • “This prospect of a guy who thinks creating the apocalypse is a desirable thing…could use New York City as a vehicle for doing that here as well, could he not?” — Frank Gaffney (49:35)
  • “Absolutely. And there’s just no preventing it, really, because he’ll be the one in charge of making the decisions.” — Robert Spencer (50:49)

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Memorable Moments & Quotes (with Timestamps)

• On China’s Economic Dependence:

  • “They really have to export. And there’s no combination of powers that can possibly absorb what they would lose if they lost access to the US Market.”
    — Rod Martin (07:30)

• On America’s Elite Capture:

  • “Captured elites…rot that is very very dangerous for our country and has been of enormous help to the Chinese.”
    — Frank Gaffney (09:51)

• On Venezuela’s Collapse:

  • “They are no longer Cuba with oil. Now they’re just Cuba. They’re broke. Nothing works.”
    — Rod Martin (19:46)

• On NYC's Possible Future:

  • “He is, in other words, somebody who wants to bring about chaos in New York…That is not his vision for New York…He wants to destroy the existing system.”
    — Robert Spencer (31:35)

• On the Twelver End Times Mentality:

  • “The idea of Twelver Shiism is that there were 12 imams…At a certain point, when the Muslims are more persecuted than they’ve ever been…the 12th Imam will come out of the well and start to conquer and Islamize the world.”
    — Robert Spencer (47:22)

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Important Timestamps by Topic

| Timestamp | Topic | Speaker |
|-----------|-------|---------|
| 01:29 | Opening, China preview | Frank Gaffney |
| 03:22 | Internal CCP turmoil analysis | Frank/Rod Martin |
| 07:30 | Trade and rare earths | Rod Martin |
| 09:51 | US elite capture by China | Frank Gaffney |
| 15:08 | US-China economic entanglement history | Rod Martin |
| 19:38 | Venezuela’s decline outlined | Rod Martin |
| 21:33 | US carrier group near Venezuela & strategic posture | Frank Gaffney |
| 26:27 | Zohran Mamdani: background & leftist funding | Robert Spencer |
| 28:12 | Mamdani’s Marxist ideology | Robert Spencer |
| 31:35 | Chaos as political method | Robert Spencer |
| 39:22 | Red-Green axis: Marxism/Islamism blend | Gaffney/Spencer |
| 42:00 | Implications for NYC Jews, women, legal risks | Robert Spencer |
| 46:34 | Twelver Shia beliefs and apocalyptic politics | Robert Spencer |
| 49:35 | Dangers of Twelver ideology in governance | Frank Gaffney |

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Conclusion

This episode delivers a stark warning about the vulnerabilities the US faces—internally and externally. The first half focuses on America’s strategic response to adversarial regimes in China and Venezuela, emphasizing the importance of economic decoupling and geopolitical vigilance. The second half, anchored by Robert Spencer’s “Intifada on the Hudson,” contends with the rise of radical ideologies at home, arguing that NYC stands at the precipice of a political experiment with national consequences — the fusion of Marxism and Sharia law in American electoral politics.

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For further reading:

• "The China Matrix" by Lee Smith
• "Intifada on the Hudson" by Robert Spencer

Listen to the full episode for a deeper dive into these critical topics.

Transcript

[Frank Gaffney]

This is an iHeart podcast.

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[Frank Gaffney]

Welcome to Securing America with me, Frank Gaffney. The program that's an owner's manual for protecting the country we love against all enemies, foreign and domestic, to the glory of God and his kingdom. We are still on the road. We are visiting with our friend Rick Green at the great Patriot Academy he runs in Fredericksburg, Texas. It is an extraordinary resource for training young people and not so young people, including yours truly, in matters ranging from the Constitution of the United States and firearm management. It's a very, very impressive effort and I'm deeply grateful to Rick and his team for hosting us. We're going to talk about China. Initially today, it's kind of top of mind because as this program is taped, the run up to the meeting between Xi Jinping and President Donald J. Trump in South Korea is in the offing as this program airs. Maybe shortly after that happens, but we're going to do a little crystal ball gazing with men whose perspicacity and his insights into very important issues of the day is second to none. That would be Rod Martin, chairman of the board of our Institute for the American Future and the host of the Rod Martin show and Rod Martin Reports and rodmartin.org, all of which are incredibly important resources in times such as these. Rod, it's good to have you back, my friend. Welcome once again.

[Rod Martin]

It's great to be here.

[Frank Gaffney]

So you're a member of our committee on the present Danger China. And you are a man who has thought long and hard about what the Chinese Communist Party is up to and the threat that it represents to our country. I want to talk to you a little bit at the sort of macro level, 300,000 foot, if you would, level about where the Chinese Communist Party is at the moment. We've just had the fourth plenum of the party and Xi Jinping has emerged. He's still in charge, as best we can tell. Some are saying it's a rather tentative hold on it, though, including Eva Fu, who is featured on your website at the moment, from the Epoch Times. What's your own assessment, sir, of the state of the ccp?

[Rod Martin]

I think their days are numbered, but I wouldn't want to put a calendar on it just yet. And we've been following this now for months, especially on my existence, where we have 275,000 followers. There's a reason everybody should know. We've been following the turmoil in the Chinese leadership now for months, and we've written a lot about [e-mail] and the bottom line is the military actually realizes that an invasion of Taiwan would probably be a debacle. They don't seem to have lost track of the fact that when the junta invaded the Falkland Islands in the 80s, six months later, it was out of power and, of course, utterly humiliated. So, you know, they, they seem to get that there's a real rift, a real danger to them here, versus Xi Jinping, who is saber rattling like crazy. And, and though we are about to sign a trade deal, I think, and I think it's a good one, they are constantly a threat. And the question is, does Zhang Youxia actually win this struggle? He's the top military leader, or does Xi Jinping, and that is unclear, he definitely came out badly. Xi did at the fourth plenum, but he held onto power. They purged nine top generals, all of whom were Xi loyalists, just a couple weeks ago. It's going to be interesting to see how this works out. But I think the biggest fear, which is more military control leading to war, actually may be wrongly placed. It may be the military that's sane.

[Frank Gaffney]

That's a fascinating thesis, and you're absolutely right. The churning that has been taking place in terms of military leadership, many of whom had been appointed to and were deemed to be loyalists of Xi Jinping, is pointed to as evidence that his hold on power is tenuous. And yet it does seem as though he is going into this meeting with President Trump expecting to be rewarded for his efforts to threaten our access to rare earth minerals, processed rare earth minerals, for example, and is this, in your sense, you know, whistling past the graveyard on his part, is it. Is it playing a weak hand shrewdly, or is the hand actually quite strong? And he may be somewhat weaker than he's been, but still strong enough to extract from Donald Trump trade concessions. And I'd be interested in your thoughts going beyond what you've said about the quality of this trade deal and more to the point, Rod, whether it is likely to have any durability at all.

[Rod Martin]

Yeah, I think it will. Look, the bottom line is China has built its entire economy on exports. It doesn't have a lot of domestic consumption compared to the rest of the industrialized world. The rest of the industrialized world, the average percentage of GDP that's consumption is over 60%. Theirs is not even 40. So they really have to export. And there's no combination of powers that can possibly absorb what they would lose if they lost access to the US Market. Now, are we going to cut them off entirely? In the short term, no, precisely because of rare earths and a handful of other things. But the truth is, what you have seen is a flurry of activity. You saw it early in the administration, and now it's ramping up to a bit of a flood of activity that is aimed at diversifying our supply, not just of raw rare earths, but of processed, refined rare earths elsewhere. And just decoupling that from China, maybe not entirely, but certainly enough. And the ultimate aim there. And we're seeing it in a big way. And I believe we talked about this last week. Donald Trump wants domestic supply to be sufficient to meet US Needs. He's willing to outsource some of that to Australia and some of that to Ukraine and certainly like to acquire or at least cozy up at some point to Greenland. There are all these different places that can help with supply, but ultimately, you have to have refining. China has 92% of the world's refining. You've got to bring that home or you're always going to be vulnerable. And, you know, we can have some processing in Australia, but we need processing in the United States. So in the short term, we can't fully decouple, but they absolutely can't. So I think we can get to a good deal here. I think the framework in Malaysia looks really strong, and it's going to be back and forth cat and mouse for a while, but I think Beijing has sealed its fate. We're going to decouple, and it's just a matter of how quickly we can do it.

[Frank Gaffney]

That's heartening. Rod, I must say I'm a little concerned that doing any kinds of deals with Xi at this point is going to be seen as helping to prop up the Chinese Communist Party, something that we have done successively under presidents of both parties. Our friend Lee Smith has just done a masterful book entitled the China Matrix in which he lays out in excruciating detail the various presidents, yes, but also leaders, elites, if you will, of the various sectors of our economy and political life as well, that have thrown in with the Chinese Communist Party, they call it, as you know, captured elites. And it's evidence, unfortunately, I think, of a rot that is very, very dangerous for our country and has been of enormous help to the Chinese. Rod, we have to take a short break. When we come back, I want to talk a little bit more about that, but broaden the lens and talk a bit about what China is doing in Venezuela and what Venezuela is doing, well, not only in the hemisphere, but here too. Be right back, folks. Stay tuned.

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[Robert Spencer]

Welcome back.

[Frank Gaffney]

We are visiting with what I consider to be one of the great free range minds of our time, that of Rod Martin. He is a member of the old PayPal mafia, back at the founding of that extraordinarily successful company. He has been a very successful entrepreneur and businessman in the years since. He's a man of profound faith as well as great political convictions and we are privileged to call them both a friend as well as a very valued contributor to this program. And Rod, we were talking about China and the backdrop to the trade deal. And to be clear, as we speak at least we don't really know exactly what's in this thing. But I think you're favorably disposed towards the idea that we have one, not least because of this issue of our dependency for the moment on Chinese exports of rare earth minerals, processed rare earth minerals at that. But I am concerned, Rod, about what is likely the knock on effect of this. Trump has been very clear eyed for a long time, as Lee Smith documents in his book the China Matrix about the threat we face from China. I think you're absolutely right. He's been doing a lot of things throughout this presidency to some extent. The first to decouple to wean ourselves from the dependencies on China for various things, including medicines and of course, rare earths. But the price of this, it seems, is further enabling the Chinese, for example. Just quickly and I'll ask you to respond to this on the 25th, excuse me, I think it was the 25th of February of this year, the President signed out an America first investment policy. Basically said we're not going to have them investing in this country in ways that are harmful to us and we're not going to continue to invest in their country in ways that are harmful to us as well, notably investing in companies that work for the Chinese military, the People's Liberation Army. That's almost certainly going to continue to happen notwithstanding this policy directive, which has largely not been enforced. But what are your thoughts as to whether really this is advisable if the practical effect is to keep our enemy a going concern?

[Rod Martin]

Well, micro and then macro. Right now, foreign direct investment into China has dropped 99% in three years, which is just extraordinary and clearly represents more than just US Companies pulling out. But they aren't pulled out. We still have a tremendous asset base in China and we have some dependencies like rare earths. We can't decouple from that immediately. We can and we will ultimately, but we can't in the short term. So there has to be a deal. We're going to have to work with them. I don't think it's a matter of propping them up. I think it's just a matter of practicality. We got to have some of their stuff, they got to have some of ours and we want them to buy our soybeans, not Argentinas. No matter how much we love Javier Melay and we totally do, and we're super excited about his big election win. But doesn't change the fact that in the short term we, we have coupled these economies, we're going to have to live with that to a degree, in the near term bigger picture. When George H.W. bush deliberately propped up the Communist Party in China in 1989, this is not unsurprising. I mean, he was ambassador to the, to the red regime before we had derecognized Taiwan. He was totally a China file. And the world looked differently. Let's be real. The Soviet Union was still around. We're still triangulating there, and they still have, at the time he did that, a per capita GDP of about $364. So very different world. But part of the reason Donald Trump is so hated by Bushworld is precisely because of his daylight and dark difference in how he approaches China. And I don't think we have anything to worry about there. I think Trump is very busily trying to contain China and deprive it of the ability to afford a war. And whether that's successful remains to be seen. But I think the struggle we're seeing in the high levels of Chinese leadership suggests that things may actually for once be going in a better direction.

[Frank Gaffney]

Well, we will be watching this closely and we'll take stock on what is in the deal and the implications of it for perpetuating the Chinese regime at a moment when it is on the ropes with you, Rod, and our other guests in the days to come. Let me pivot to something you touched there a moment ago on our own hemisphere, President Milei's resounding victory being very much a welcome one. Moving up the hemisphere to the top of South America, Venezuela. We have now a carrier battle group reinforced amphibious ready unit off the coast of Venezuela. We have been taking out Venezuelan go fast boats that are allegedly involved in one facet of the Venezuelan government's war on our country, a drug war in which it is engaged with the Cubans and the Chinese and the Iranians and the Russians and on and on. We had a fascinating interview the other day with two individuals who have been documenting other aspects of that war, including Ralph Pizzola and Gary Bernstein, describing what is really a full on effort by the government of Venezuela, actually a drug cartel called the Cartel Del Sol is to take down our country through election fraud and trafficking of various kinds and now threats of military character as well. What are your thoughts as to what's going on there, Rod, and what should be our course of action?

[Rod Martin]

Well, under Chavez, Venezuela was Cuba, but with oil, you know, they wanted to be the dominant socialist power in hemisphere. They were propping up Cuba, you know, with oil proceeds. They basically bought Danny Ortega's way back into Power in Nicaragua just doing all kinds of terrible stuff. They are no longer Cuba with oil. Now they're just Cuba. They're broke. Nothing works. The oil fields don't even work. They have the largest proved reserves of any country in the world and they can't produce anything because they kicked out the American companies that were running everything. And socialism is always a corrupt nightmare. So now they're kind of a cartel with a country because they have to actually have somebody to enforce and, you know, help keep Maduro in power. And they also need money. So, yeah, they're anybody's dog who will hunt with them, even ours. I mean, you saw Maduro was begging Trump the other day to come back in and run the oil fields. Well, why would we do that? That's kind of dumb. But we don't need their oil anymore. But regardless, yes, the Russians are present, the Iranians are present, the Chinese are present in a huge way. And, and by the way, all three of those countries are present in a huge way in Cuba. And that needs more attention than it's getting. But clearly Venezuela has Trump's full attention. We're moving the Ford Carrier Battle Group out of the Med to the Caribbean. We've got Marine Expeditionary units offshore. I mean, we're getting really serious here. I don't know if this is a huge bluff or if, if this is going to be surgical strikes on Caracas, who knows? But Trump definitely wants Maduro shaking in.

[Frank Gaffney]

His boots and he does seem to be doing just that. And the question is, will it result in the downfall of this political regime drug cartel operation, arguably the largest on the planet, and certainly a very dangerous one indeed for the United States of America. Rod Martin. We have to leave it at that for the moment. So much more to talk about. I look forward to our visit with you next week. In the meantime, keep up the great work you [e-mail] and check it out. Become a follower of Rod Martin at X. As am I. God bless you. Stay tuned, folks. We'll be right back.

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[Rod Martin]

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[Rod Martin]

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[Frank Gaffney]

We're back and so is Robert Spencer, one of our most prodigiously impressive contributors, an author of something on the order of 32 books may be dated it was about a week ago, but they crank out at the rate of high velocity canon. We're talking about today with Robert, the subject of his newest book. It is entitled Intifada on the Hudson the Selling of Zoran Mandani. And it is an extremely important book, one of the most timely I can imagine because within days we are expecting the subject of this book to become the elected member, mayor, I should say, of New York City come January. It is almost unimaginable that that could be the case, for reasons that Robert lays out in extraordinary, indeed excruciating detail in this impressive new book. We talked with him about it as part of an important Victory Coalition webinar earlier in the week and I commend that to you as as well. We had a number of other contributors, but Robert's book was kind of the centerpiece of it. You can find it at victoryco.org, victoryco.org and I urge you to do so. Robert is the executive, the director, I should say, of a wonderful organization, jhotwatch.org, a project of the David Horowitz Freedom center, which he is also a Shulman Fellow. Robert is, in addition to his best book length productions, the author of countless columns and essays and commentaries, many of which feature prominently at the online platforms PJ Media and Front Page Magazine. He's a dear friend as well as a real mentor to me and countless others and we're so grateful to him for taking time to talk with us today. Robert, welcome back and congratulations on this incredibly important new book.

[Robert Spencer]

Thanks very much, Frank. Good to talk to you as always.

[Frank Gaffney]

Let me start by asking you just to kind of level set on Zoran Mandani, a man who has until very recently been completely unknown to just about anybody. Though he had a stint in the state legislature of New York, what is it that has vaulted him to the position of quite possibly becoming the next mayor of New York City?

[Robert Spencer]

The powerful left has done this. They have groomed and recruited and trained him. He has Soros money behind him. He has money from the Council on American Islamic Relations and the Islamic Network in the United States behind him. He is one of a new template of candidates who all share various characteristics. They're all socialists. They're all young, mediagenic, attractive, articulate, glib, non American, that is he was born in Uganda. They're always of immigrant backgrounds. They are always non white to reflect the left's obsession with diversity, which of course is only skin deep and never extends to diversity of thought. And he is clearly one of the left's crop of candidates that represent their new strategy to bring socialism to the United States by means of these appealing young people who promised the world and will of course only deliver massive federal control or massive city control, in this case, over every aspect of life.

[Frank Gaffney]

You described him as a socialist, and I know that's the coloration that he goes by. A prominent member of the Democratic Socialists of America. In fact, arguably its legions of volunteers have been very much responsible for his success in the primary especially. But is that in fact an accurate description of his ideological alignment, sir?

[Robert Spencer]

Well, Frank, it is, but the distinction between socialism and communism is overstated in general and certainly in this case because, yes, he says he's a socialist. He is actually a communist. He's a real Marxist. He is very clear about this, although he denies the term because obviously it's still poison at the ballot box, are perceived to be nowadays in America. But he's clearly a Marxist, from many statements that I have in the book, that he has called for the ultimate goal of seizing the means of production, which is the fundamental idea of communism, that the government can controls everything and owns everything you do, that is you work for the government. This is something he's been quite clear about. And so his authoritarianism and his socialism are all part of his communism. And that should not be underestimated, despite his denials.

[Frank Gaffney]

So let me just be clear about this. You're saying that this chap coming out of nowhere basically, but groomed and packaged very, very skillfully, would become the mayor under the pretense that he's a socialist but is in fact a communist and means it when he talks about the kind of control over, well, not just the means of production, but populations that we associate with totalitarian communism in New York City, arguably the beating heart of American free market capitalism on Wall street and the like?

[Robert Spencer]

Yeah, and see, Frank, this has to be emphasized. People dismiss this and say, well, it doesn't really matter because what can he do? He'll be constrained all around, but the fact is that he can do an immense amount of damage by setting the city on a course toward total government control. He will drive out many of the businesses and industrialists in New York who are providing the jobs and contrary to his claims, providing much of the tax base. And so he will find that the prohibitive taxes he needs to deliver, or at least appear even to deliver on all of his free stuff promises, is going to vanish and then the city will go bankrupt, which will have immense repercussions for the entire country.

[Frank Gaffney]

Well, starting with New York City, of course, but I think that's a really important point to which we'll return here in a moment, Robert, but just in terms of what Marxists seek to do, and we'll come by the way in another moment as well to other aspects of his ideological alignments. But just staying with the communist piece. Talk about chaos as an instrument of acquiring and exercising power.

[Robert Spencer]

Well, the man is a chaos agent and this has to be emphasized. He is, in other words, somebody who wants to bring about chaos in New York. He does not want New York to be well governed and humming along and everyone is peaceful and safe and prosperous. That is not his vision for New York. What he wants to do is what his opponents are warning about. It's not an accidental byproduct of his idealistic dreams. It is his actual goal to make New York a crime ridden hellhole that people don't want to live in. And that will be a dangerous, dirty, dingy, poor place where people will be walking around in fear of their lives. Now you might think that's absurd. You're being hysterical. Why would anybody want that for a city he wants to be mayor of? That's how Communists work. They want to destroy the existing system. And even if he is not going to be President of the United States and not going to have control over the whole country, if he can create chaos in New York and destabilize and work toward destroying the existing system, that has a great deal to do with the overall communist goal of destroying the system in general and replacing it with an authoritarian regiment regime and justifying that authoritarian regime by means of the chaos they created. And that's what he will, will very likely do in New York.

[Frank Gaffney]

And again, Robert, this is not.

[Rod Martin]

You.

[Frank Gaffney]

Know, some sort of projection on your part. This is the playbook according to which Communists operate and have done so consistently throughout the sorry history of this agenda from Marxist day forward, is it not?

[Robert Spencer]

Yeah, absolutely. And you look At Marx, you look at Lenin, you look at Stalin, you look at Mao, you look at Cambodia, you look at Cuba, anywhere you want to go where. Socialism or communism, they always call it socialism. Remember, even though it was communist, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and so on. And the fact is that every time this has been implemented, it has gone the same way. Why do we think it's going to be different in this case? Just because he's a mayor and not a head of state. This is naive. He can do an immense amount of damage as mayor.

[Frank Gaffney]

Yeah, Robert, you know, some will say, well, it just hasn't worked perfectly to this point. But the next time communism will in fact result in the workers paradise will in fact produce. Well, I guess to use a Brooklyn Bridge at that. Robert Spencer. We have to take a very short break. When we come back, we're going to talk about some of the other things that should be terrifying to voters in New York City and disqualifying. It'll all sort itself out just very quickly. We've got 30 seconds or so. Making book on that. What do you think?

[Robert Spencer]

Okay. The architect of a communist society, Lenin himself did it wrong and Zohran Mamdani is going to do it right. 100 years later. I got a bridge to sell you too.

[Frank Gaffney]

A Brooklyn Bridge at that Robert Spencer. We have to take a very short break. When we come back, we're going to talk about some of the other things that should be terrifying to voters in New York City and disqualifying Prison Mandani's candidacy to be the next mayor of that city of Gotham. We'll be right back.

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[Frank Gaffney]

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[Rod Martin]

Foreign.

[Frank Gaffney]

We're back. And so is praise The Lord Robert Spencer, a dear friend, a valued colleague, a man who has made an outsized contribution throughout his professional life to our understanding of enemies seeking to destroy our country, whether they are of the left, the reds, if you will, or of what I call the Sharia supremacist caste Muslims who seek to fly the green flag, or maybe even the black one, over all the world, ruled in accordance with their totalitarian doctrine known as Sharia. Robert has written many of his some 32 books on subjects related to Muhammad and Sharia and the Quran. They are an extraordinary body of work. I don't know of anybody who is not Muslim, who understands better what this program is, what its agenda is and what it would mean for all of us who are not Muslim. And frankly, for an awful lot of Muslims who are not Sharia adherent, were their objectives the aspiration, the dictates of Sharia to be realized, namely an Islamic rule worldwide. And Robert, we've been talking about the subject of your new and splendid book, Intifada on the Hudson, the selling of Zoran Mamdani, namely the Democratic nominee to become the next mayor of the city of New York. And you've very powerfully indicted him, if I could use that expression. Sadly, it's only in the court of public opinion at the moment, but it might be required down the road in an Article 3 court, given that what he stands for as a Marxist is the subversion of our republic, the seditious overthrow of our government. But that happens to be a purpose he shares with another of his ideological attachments and that would be the Sharia supremacist one. Talk about how on the one hand you have this atheistic program of communism and on the other, this theocratic one of Islam that this one individual exhibits is a kind of personification of the so called red green axis.

[Robert Spencer]

Well, Frank, both Marxism and Sharia are authoritarian and set against America. Sharia is a full program for every aspect of life, including government and politics. And consequently, Sharia adherent Muslims see the United States as a primary competitor to the idea of Sharia as the perfect society on earth. And so they want to destroy America and impose a Sharia state here. Now, Mamdani is both a Marxist and a Sharia adherent Muslim. This means that he is the. He is a true believer in not just one, but two radical anti American ideologies that are internationalist and united in their determination to destroy the existing American system. And so Mamdani has been going around New York. It's interesting to note that he has Kept his Muslim identity to the very much to the background throughout his campaign. And only in the last few days has he started to be more open about it. But in talks at several mosques, it's part of his stump speech when he goes to mosques. He has said more than once that he wants to show that Muslims have a place in this city and a place in City Hall. And it sounds like standard political boilerplate and most people no doubt take it so such that way. But when he says it in a mosque to Muslims, it has to be borne in mind that Islam is a political and social system and not just a religion. And so he's not just talking about people bringing a certain set of values or a certain perspective into City Hall. He's talking about a real political program and an agenda that could be very detrimental to non Muslims in New York as well as to women.

[Frank Gaffney]

Well, when you say detrimental, Robert, with characteristic understatement, I think you are describing a circumstance that as you've documented in countless books, in accordance with the teachings of the Quran, in accordance with the dictates of Sharia, this requires at best something called dimitude and at worst it can be murderous, can it not?

[Robert Spencer]

Yeah. And you know, it's not as if he's going to impose second class status on non Muslims in New York City. Nobody is talking about something like that. However, he has already floated, as a New York City state assemblyman, he has already floated the idea of stripping all public funding and all assistance from groups or institutions that support Zionism. And so this is just dimitude by another name. In other words, he's going to reduce Jewish groups and organizations, including synagogues, to a second class status in New York. That is a penalty of their Zionism and in other words, their Jewish identity as a whole. And this is just one aspect. Another one is you take for example, the Sharia courts in Britain and they were promised that it would just be private arbitration and that they would refer cases where British law had a say to the British courts, for example, spousal abuse, which is not a crime in Islamic law in Sharia, but it is a crime in British law. And they didn't do it. They, they told the wives, just take it, this is Allah's will. Go back and try to please your husband. They did not send the abused women to British courts. Point being, if there are Sharia courts now established in New York, which Mamdani would no doubt support, then are they going to do the same thing? And who's going to be making sure that they are actually protecting women and sending abused women to the American courts. We can't trust a guy like that who is Sharia adherent to do such a thing.

[Frank Gaffney]

Well, we need to talk a little bit more about the practice known as Taqiyyah, which, as you've documented in your book, is not simply condoned by Sharia. It is obligatory when it advances the faith and further underscores the peril that not just Jews and not just women, but I think all New Yorkers face if they are not with his program, another reason why he should not be mayor. We've got one more coming up on the other side of this break. You're not going to want to Ms. Robert Spencer's comments about his role as a Twelver. Stay tuned. Welcome back. Once more, we are continuing this incredibly important conversation with Robert Spencer, one of our most serious sorts, scholars and monitors of what enemies of this country seek to do to us and for that matter, to others who embrace and wish to enjoy the fruits of Western civilization, Judeo Christian civilization. Robert is the author of countless books. The most recent one is Intifada on the Hudson, the Selling of Zoran Mandani, Intifad, of course, being an Arabic word for basically insurrection. And what you're talking about, Robert, is just that by electoral means, in this case, the stealth jihad, a term I think you coined that is so apt in this case. The analogy to the frog being boiled incrementally applies here, does it not? But I wanted to bring you to the next and perhaps most worrying aspects of Zoran Mamdani's background and personal predilections and ideologies. We talked about it at length in this webinar I mentioned earlier, Robert, you featured prominently in it and spectacularly so. It's available for [e-mail] folks. Please check it out because it addresses what is truly a terrifying aspect of Zoran Mamdani's program. Talk to us about it, Robert, and this term Twelver, which describes its provenance.

[Robert Spencer]

The Twelver Shiites are the largest sect of Shiites, and the shiites are about 10 to 15% of Muslims worldwide. The Twelvers are the official religion of the Islamic Republic of Iran, or that is 12. Rashiism is the Islamic Republic of Iran, of course, chants forces its people every Friday in the mosques to chant death to America. And the Ayatollah Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran, has explained and emphasized this is not just a slogan. This is the mission and the goal of our regime. And the idea of 12 or Shiism is a matter of grave concern for anybody who is not a 12 or Shiite because it's a kind of doomsday theology.

[Frank Gaffney]

The death cult.

[Robert Spencer]

Yeah, very much so. The idea of Twelver Shiism is that there were 12 imams who were the successors of Muhammad as the leaders of the Muslim community. And these are historical figures. Most of them were murdered by the Sunnis who were the majority of the Muslims. And of course there's a death penalty for heresy and apostasy. So the Sunnis thought the Shia were heretics and killed the imams. The imam eight was a hereditary office and the 12th imam was a little, little five year old boy who was killed in the year 874, about 1150 years ago. And he was probably killed by Sunnis. But according to Shiite mythology, he was not killed. He's hiding. He's an occultation. And he's hiding in a well between com, the holy city of the Shiites, and Tehran, the capital of Iran. And at a certain point, when the Muslims are more persecuted than they've ever been in history, he will come out of the well and start to conquer and Islamize the world and kill all the people who are not 12 or Shiites, or they will convert to 12 or Shiism. So why did.

[Frank Gaffney]

Let me just ask you, Robert, about this. The persecution of Muslims is an interesting choice of words. How does this fit into the practice of the Twelvers?

[Robert Spencer]

Well, this is the problem. This is where this becomes more than just a crazy story. There are Muslim leaders today in Iran who think they can trigger the persecution that will bring back the 12th Imam. And they want that persecution because it will bring the 12th Imam back. And they think like Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who was president of Iran from 1989-97. He said we can nuke Israel and Israel would be destroyed. And if they retaliate with nukes, we lose 10 or 15 million people and we still survive. And that would be the persecution that would be severe enough to bring the boy out of the well.

[Frank Gaffney]

And as I understand it, sort of the, the, the image that's conjured up here is of immense suffering and lamentations and the pleas for mercy we had in our webinar testimony from, among others, our friend Sam Faddis, who talks about the prospect that people who have these views, have these beliefs. If in charge of the security, a person, specifically Zoran Mamdani, in charge of the security of the city of New York with its airports and its ports and its road networks and rail Networks and so on. In his previous job, he was an undercover operative of the CIA for many years. But in his last job, he was responsible for protecting us against weapons of mass destruction, terrorism. And he says this prospect of a guy who thinks creating the apocalypse is a desirable thing, if he has his way, could use New York City as a vehicle for doing that here as well, could he not?

[Robert Spencer]

Absolutely. And there's just no preventing it, really, because he'll be the one in charge of making the decisions as to how to deal with whatever it is that he might be seeing coming in from the Islamic Republic. And that could be a dirty bomb. That could be assassination squads, which we've already seen the Islamic Republic send to New York City to kill the Iranian dissident Masi Al Nijad. They were discovered, but the next time, if the mayor's on their side, maybe they won't be.

[Frank Gaffney]

Yeah, maybe they'll be working for the New York's finest, the police force of New York City. We also know, by the way, that those hit squads have apparently been assigned the murder of others, including, I believe, President Donald J. Trump. This is such terrifying information. Robert, very quickly, what should people do at this point about this prospect?

[Robert Spencer]

Well, if you live in New York, you know what to do.

[Rod Martin]

Do.

[Robert Spencer]

Otherwise, we need to keep on trying to get the word out and making sure that people are aware that this is not just some kind of benign political candidate. Within the spectrum of American politics, Zohran Mamdani is a radically different entity who can cause an immense amount of damage whether you live in New York or not.

[Frank Gaffney]

Yes, and. And he is a prototype of what the communists and the jihadists, the red green axis, have in mind for all of us. Robert Spencer, thank you for Intifada on the Hudson, an incredibly important book. I hope it will be a wild bestseller and in the next couple of weeks especially. Thank you, my friend. Come back to us soon. Thanks for joining us. Hope you'll do the same next time. Until then, go forth and multiply. This is an I Heart podcast.