April 22, 2024 • 35 mins
In this episode, Tudor interviews Congressman Bill Huizenga from Michigan. They discuss the current situation with Iran and the Biden administration's approach to dealing with the country. They highlight the dangers of Iran's nuclear program and its support for terrorism. They also discuss the need for strong leadership and unity within the Republican Party. The Tudor Dixon Podcast is part of the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Podcast Network. For more info visit TudorDixonPodcast.com
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Tutor Dixon Podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
I have someone who identifies as my congressman on today,
and I say identifies because he was at one point
and got districted out. But I refuse to accept that,
and I'm assuming he does also, So thank you so
much for being here. I have Congressman Bill Heisinga from
Michigan with me today.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
Well, good to be with you, Tutor, longtime listener, first
time participant in the Tutor Dixon Podcast. But I will
accept your your kind I guess that's kind. These days,
it gets a little funny anytime you're identifying as something.
(00:43):
But I will I will take it. I will still
represent you and like minded people that are trapped. I
mean living in the third district of Michigan now, and
we'll just call it. You know, I'm in the fourth.
Maybe it's the three point five district.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Hill is because when I came to Washington with my
daughter's eighth grade class, Congresswoman Skulton blew us off, even
though she was supposed to bring us our passes, and
we had to go to you, and you saved us.
So I do not forget those things, and neither have
the children, because.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
I won't let them.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
It's such a good mom, I know.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
I like, remember our congresswoman how she ditched us. Yeah,
tell all your friends.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
This is a bad move with someone with a podcast.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
All right, So all right, all right, so no, but
let's get to something serious. You've re taught me how
to say Iran.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
You mean Iran?
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Now I have to say Iran. Yes, yes, Iran.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
It's like you're going to go to Italy or are
you going to go to Italy?
Speaker 2 (01:45):
I hope I get to go there one day and
be out of Michigan for a little bit, So I'll
take either one.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
But I don't want to go to Iran.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
Yes, no, I don't. I don't either. But in fact,
you would be wondering with this administration, Uh, they it
feels like they're trying to buddy up to Iran or
Iran or whatever you want to call it. It's bad news.
And you know, we obviously we saw this over the
over the weekend with the unprecedent again I hate that word,
(02:15):
but the never before seen direct attack on Israel from Iran. Uh,
the way that it the way that they had conducted
that over the weekend, and we came back to Washington.
Actually I came back early on on Monday, UH to
be a part of a floor debate about sanctions on Iran.
(02:36):
And you know the problem with this administration right now
is that they have softened and rolled back sanctions that
have been put on Iran over number of years, even
pre dating, uh, pre dating President Trump. So yeah, what
we what we saw with the with the Trump administration
was uh, you know, the maximum pressure and this has
(02:59):
been appeasement. They're trying everything they can to get them
pulled back into to the world stage.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
So I think this is what people don't understand when
you talk about this, and when you say pre dating Trump,
let's be honest, that means that these are sanctions that
were in place when Biden was vice president and he
decided to get rid of these.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
And when you talk about sanctions, I think sometimes.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
People are like, I don't really understand what that means
and why that's helpful. But those who are really preventing
them from making massive amount billions of dollars on oil,
and that's why they now have so much power. With
money comes power. They have energy that creates money, that
creates power, and when you have power in the hands
(03:42):
of a known terrorist, organization. And let's be honest, it
is the number one state sponsor for terror in the
world comes out of Iran.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
I can't even say it now.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
But this is why, this is why even the Obama
administration had controls on Iran, saying you can't do all
of this. So why would Biden. It wasn't even just
that he let the say he took the sanctions off.
They also sent them money. I mean, there is a
massive amount of money going into this country.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
Yeah, there is. And so it's kind of interesting. The
two committees I sit on right now, the Financial Services
Committee and the Foreign Affairs Committee, both have direct nexus
to what's going on. And here's how most of those
sanctions work. It's predominantly it is going through banking, because right,
(04:36):
money makes the world go round. And an oil, which
is a world commodity everywhere in the world, it's paid
for in US dollars, hard dollars, and it's traded that way.
What we had seen that had been building up and
then really under maximum pressure from the Trump administration was
(04:58):
a ratcheting down any exports allowed out of Iran and
getting that oil into the world market. What we've seen
with the Biden administration is a loosening and an encouraging
of that. And we've had a number of hearings in
both committees actually about what's been going on. And here's
(05:21):
how this is working. Treasury Department has to issue a
license if yours a sanction that is on saying, you know,
you're not allowed to use a banking system, or you're
not allowed to use the swift payment system, or you're
not allowed to use a system that will link federal banks,
for example centralized banks together and allow that transfer of
(05:44):
money back and forth. If you need an exemption on that,
you have to get a license from the Department of Treasury. Well,
they've been granting those, and what we have seen is
a massive increase in the amount of oil that's been
coming out of Iran and going into the world market. Now,
what they've done under the Trump administration try and squeeze
(06:07):
that down. Because there had been countries like Korea, South
Korea and others that were very dependent on Iranian oil,
they allowed these these licenses to be issued so that
they could have a certain amount of it flowing to
in this case South Korea, and then South Korea was
paying for it in their local their their local currencies
(06:29):
and it was staying in the bank. And what what
happened Treasury has expanded those licenses. Now, as you can
imagine the South Korean this is a this is a true,
uh true example. The South Koreans were a bit nervous
about having all this money, and because our law here
in the United States says if anything bad happens with
(06:50):
that cash, you are held responsible. South Korean Bank, so
they they were very eager to get it out of
their banking system. And what happened is it was transferred
to a bank in Oman, and so there's ten billion
dollars sitting in a I'm sorry in this case, I
(07:12):
think it was Katar Katari Bank. That had been oil
money that's been going out. Now, what else has been
going on parallel is Iran has been kind of basically
sneaking the oil out. They've been using something called a
ghost fleet, which is all these oil tankers that are
(07:34):
flagged in one particular country. And there's been a massive
number of them that have been flagged in Panama who
then either change flags, or they never really put up
their flag, or they stop using their internationally required transponder
to keep track of where they are, and they start illicitly,
(07:58):
illegally moving this oil into mostly China now and along
the way they're going to these mini refineries they call
them teapot refineries where they're taking the crude oil and
they're starting to refine it and then they bring it
all the way and mostly to China. So here we've
got China is utilizing this Iranian oil. We know that
(08:21):
they've got a number of relationships that are still active
and involved, and we've got the Biden administration basically turning
a blind eye. They know about this ghost fleet, they're
not doing anything about it. They know that the banking
system has been abused, yet they still continue to issue
these licenses and we're trying to stop that.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
Well, they knew about this attack coming.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
I mean, we had a seventy two hour warning of
Iran going on, that they were going to attack. And
you say, I think people need to understand the reason
you say unprecedented is in the past, we've seen Iranian
proxies go after Israel, but this is the first time
they've said, hey, we're attacking. And the funny thing to
me is you've got Christopher Ray out there warning that
(09:07):
we are in the most danger we've ever seen. We've
got all of these red flags. There's concerns from all
of these countries. You talked about China, there's concerns from China, Russia, Iran,
all of these different countries we have concerns about, and
yet they're openly saying they're coming after us. I mean,
if you go to X, this is what blows my mind.
If you go to X right now and you look
(09:29):
up what they call the Supreme Leader of Iran and
I would say, the Ultimate murderous Dictator of Iran his
Twitter account, his ex account, he's regularly tweeting out that
he's coming after Israel, that he's coming after anybody who
is a Zionist. He's going to take all these Zionist
(09:49):
regimes down. He is making these threats openly. We're like,
are we really having to interview the FBI director to
know this? You can literally go to X. There's not
even shy. They're not worried about Joe Biden's don't no.
Speaker 3 (10:03):
That is absolutely correct. And you know, by the way,
the United States falls into that same category, that zionist
category for them, these are not our friends, these are
not people who we should be welcoming to the world stage.
Yet this administration is doing that. I have a theory
(10:24):
on that. It seems to me out here in DC.
Democrats have so lashed themselves to this notion that somehow
Iran is pivotal and is like the tent pole that
is going to hold up the Middle East. And it
(10:44):
goes back to the Obama administration's nuclear Iran nuclear deal
and agreement. And they are so invested into this. I mean,
everybody's got to remember there was billions of dollars in
cash literally dumped off of an air plane onto the
tarmac in Tehran. And oh, by the way, the US
(11:04):
law said, you can't use US currency. So what did
our what did our treasury do at the time. It
converted it for them into euros and Swiss francs, all right,
so that they could technically get around it. That certainly
was not the spirit of the law. And that's the
kind of of attitude that we saw in the Obama administration.
(11:25):
It's carried over into the Biden administration. Why because frankly,
are a bunch of the same people, and you know
Bob Gates, who happened to be Barack Obama's Secretary of
Defense and nailed it when he said that Joe Biden,
Jake Sullivan, and Anthony Blink and our secretary of State
have been at the center and wrong on every major
(11:48):
foreign policy issue for decades, and these are now the
people who are directing our foreign policy.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
Let's take a quick commercial break. We'll continue next on
the Tutor Dixon Podcast. You know, it's ironic that we
hear about President Carter as being the worst president in
American history, and yet it was really Iran that was
a problem for him too. He had all of those
hostages taken. You saw Reagan come out and save those people.
(12:18):
We have a similar situation in Joe Biden. I would
say he has overtaken Jimmy Carter as the worst president
in the history of the United States and his connection
to a terrorist nation. The questions people are asking is
why didn't he do something in those seventy two hours
to strike Iran and say you're not going to come
(12:39):
after Israel, we are going to defend Israel. And why
is he telling Israel to back off right now? Is
this really just a situation where he's so afraid of
losing power because he sees what's happening. Look at the
Golden gate Bridge last week. Look at oh Hair Airport,
You've got all these protesters. Look at our state of Michigan.
You had one hundred thousand uncommitted voters come out and
(13:01):
say to Joe Biden, we don't like you. Is this
Iran thing because he's afraid of power or does it
go deeper?
Speaker 3 (13:10):
I think there absolutely is an element of the political
in this. You know, the progressive hard left is not
just anti Israel. They really are truly pro Iran. And
I mean we've seen that in various protests, you know,
hands off Iran. We've had people who have been voting.
(13:34):
In fact, today we voted on a resolution condemning Iran
and the attack on Israel. And there was I believe
it was fifteen or sixteen of the basically squad and
squad adjacent folks who voted against it. And the interesting
(13:56):
thing was I had a constituent on the floor. So
here's what we can do is we can take we
can take kids that are under twelve onto the U
onto the floor of the US House. And happened to
have a young man from from Holland who who was
along and we had him on the floor and he's
looking up at this at the board and he says, so,
(14:20):
why are there only a couple of few people voting no?
And so I explained, well, you know, they believe differently.
I'm trying to be as neutral and you know, I'm
not trying to embitter the kid at twelve, but like.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Me, who's like, remember Hillary Scolton left you? Yeah, okay, yes,
give your credit for that.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
But then he asked, well, what is what is this?
And I explained to him what it was, and this
kid looks at me and he like literally goes really.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
Yeah, even at twelve, he gets it.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
Yes, And a twelve year old is getting it still
in the world, can Jamal Bowman and Omar and Talib
and AOC and and all the others not understand this?
Hank Johnson, well, Henk Johnson will think Iran might tip over.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
If we you know, well, and Jamal, I mean he's
not even sure what a fire, Yeah, what door to
go alarm is? So yeah, I mean some of these people,
you know, maybe it's just education, they aren't really aware.
I don't know, can be a great optimistic I agree, Yeah,
I'm joking. I'm joking, But I mean, look, we have
Rashida to Lee right here in Michigan who refuses to
(15:26):
condemn any of these acts. That's the thing that I
think is the most disturbing is Hamas is Iran when
they won't come out and say these are actually heinous acts.
I mean, we talked about going to Iran. I couldn't
go to Iran as a woman, I couldn't go to Iran.
These people that are defending these terrorist nations, who are
(15:46):
in the LGBTQ community, you're just like me, you.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Can't go there.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
These are not countries that are safe for people to
go to, and there's a reason we're not going there.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
Yeah, it's always amazing seeing these LGBTQ plus plus for
Gaza signs. It's like, yeah, if you went to Gaza,
guess what, you'd get stoned? Right, So you know, and
that has happened, like literally physical harm has come to
people of that persuasion, and you know, look, they have
(16:18):
a very different mentality. I mean, this is Ilhan Omar's
famous well on nine to eleven, some people did things right,
that's called terrorism.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
And this is what is so bothersome to me about
the Biden administration. We have Americans who were taken hostage.
This was not just an attack on Israel. This was
an attack on everyone. And especially knowing that we have
Americans that were taken hostage, and I've never heard him
say their names.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
Yeah. Well, and the amazing thing is to me, is
he now it has the equivalent of basically during World
War Two, Franklin Roosevelt going to Churchill, Hey, you know,
you really need to stop this bombing of dress didn't thing,
you know, Uh, there, there's there's there's some things that
are going on that we don't like, right, I mean,
(17:07):
just second guessing of an ally like that. They've got
to figure out what the response is. Uh. And and look,
I talked to people on a regular basis who are
in in Jerusalem and in Israel, and uh, you know,
they're hearing the jets every night, They're hearing the alarms
and the sirums that are going off. They know that
(17:28):
this is still an active war zone with what's going
on not just in Gaza, but in the in their
country as well, in in in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv
and in the areas outside of that. I was talking
to one one young man who was in the northern
part near the Sea of Galilee about a week ago,
(17:50):
and he said they were up on a on a
hillside and they literally witnessed an explosion that happened, Uh,
not that far away, so I felt, you know, you
could feel the wave. And so I mean, this is
this is a real firing war that Israel is in
yet and everybody in the administration and that are peacefully
(18:11):
demonstrating are trying to somehow portray that only Israel is
the aggressor and that they just if they just simply stopped,
then everything would just be returned back to normal. Well
that's not the case.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
What about Okay, so you're you're no US financing for
Iran Act?
Speaker 1 (18:32):
What happens next with this?
Speaker 3 (18:34):
Yeah? Well it passed the package and actually this was interesting.
So we had leadership within the committee when I had
first introduced it, and we passed it last fall last November. Uh,
Maxine Waters and others on the committee actually fought against it.
We passed it with bipartisan support out of committee. It's
(18:55):
on the floor. She and Democrat leadership and the Treasury
Department all lobbied against it. And I went and talked
to some of my Democrat colleagues who I've had some
relationships with and we've we've worked on some other things together,
and what they were telling me about how active Treasury
was in trying to dissuade them, it was really stunning, frankly.
(19:21):
But here's the good news. We still got two hundred
and ninety four votes against one hundred and five opposed
to it, So one hundred and five Democrats voted against it,
but we got the remainder of them to actually vote
for it, so we had over two thirds of the
House of Representatives pass it. So that's a strong case
that we're trying to make to the Senate. We're going
(19:42):
to find out. We're trying to get that included in
any sort of package that might include aid to Israel.
We would like to get this language in there so
that it locks it down. And what specifically the language
of the bill says is you don't have access to
the US financial system, and we talked a little bit
(20:03):
about what that looks like before. But you also Iran
are no longer eligible for the World Bank Projects or
the IMF, the International Monetary Fund, and in two thousand
and one, the IMF granted something that's called special drawing
rights that countries have. They granted around five billion dollars
(20:27):
out of this special drawing rights program. And guess what,
our Treasury Department, the Biden administration didn't object.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
So why is the Treasury Department so sensitive to Iran?
Speaker 3 (20:39):
We've been trying to figure that out, and again I
kind of go back to I think this is because
the administration is so tied to this Iranian nuclear deal
that had been cut under Obama. And this is why
they all collectively lost their minds when President Trump rescinded
it and Iran went back to producing the fissile material. Well,
(21:06):
guess what they had never really stopped we found out later, right,
And so why they are so tied to this is
just baffling sometimes. But we're hoping that we're going to
be able to get it into a package that passes
the House here again it would be basically the second time,
and that that it can get some action over on
(21:26):
the Senate.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
M It's interesting.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
That's like bureaucracy at its finest. You have the Treasury
who is trying to manipulate the electeds.
Speaker 3 (21:35):
Yeah, well it was interesting. I was on with Stuart
Varney on Fox Business. I guess yesterday or maybe the
day before, and he looked. He looked at me after
I'm describing this, he goes, you're fighting the deep state,
aren't you. I mean, this is like literally the deep state.
And it's like, yeah, it is. I mean, this is
this is what we battle against every single day when
(21:56):
we when we're going up against these regulators and these
and these diplomats that they believe that they know better
and want to shape the world in their vision. Well,
guess what. Congress gets elected by the people and and
we get to have a say in this and they
don't like that. So that's absolutely what we're fighting.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
Yeah, that's what for people who always hear that term
and don't really get it, this is it. It's those
career people. They weren't elected. They're in there and they're
manipulating one way or another, and it is messing up
the system. That's what That's what Trump said he would
take care of. Couldn't do that all in his first term.
I believe that's why they're so scared a second term.
Speaker 3 (22:38):
Oh absolutely, I mean he was. He was able to
come in and if you talk to anybody that was
involved in the State Department for example that there was
so much pushback against this administration, against Trump administration. You know,
Reagan tried to do this, and there was a guy
(22:59):
named Don Reagan who worked for him, and he wrote
a book called Reagan's Terrible Swift Sword, and it was
basically recounting his efforts and trying to go into the
bureaucracy and and weed it out and make sure that
that it's actually following the directives of the administration rather
(23:20):
than what they think is right. And you know, it's
it's just kind of stunning. As we've seen a massive,
massive growth of government through COVID and all these other things,
it's just gotten more entrenched and so it's harder and
harder to weed out. They count on, frankly, the sort
(23:41):
of instability in the House and in the Senate. They
figure that they can sort of wait elected people out
and ultimately they'll they'll win, and so what we can't
let them do is just win.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
Let's take a quick commercial break. We'll continue next on
a Tutor Dixon podcast. Historically, there's the argument of term limits,
no term limits, and at least when you have someone
who's elected, they can be unelected, and these people have
no term limits that the people that you never hear
of are the people that are really, really dangerous behind
(24:17):
the scenes. But I have to bring it up because
you brought up chaos and chaos in the House and
we are hearing that there is another motion to vacate
for Speaker Johnson now. And I'm confused by this because
I know Trump has been out there with the speaker.
And I will just say, I'm going to give you
a little bit of like the behind the scenes. I
(24:39):
was talking to a big Republican supporter in the state
of Michigan, and I was talking to him about what
he was going to do coming up in these elections,
and he said, you got to understand, I am talking
to other big Republican supporters and we are sick and.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
Tired of this chaos.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
People are mad that they are seeing this, and I
don't get it because so we're hearing today that there
have been people behind the scenes saying, get rid of
this one person rule, get this out of it, and
put it into a bill that you're going to get
rid of this. Why should this rule be there because
we don't elect I don't elect you to go in
there and tell everybody what to do and be alone
(25:15):
as a dictator. I mean, that's not what Congress is for.
It's not for one person to be able to make
a decision like this.
Speaker 3 (25:22):
Well, Tutor, we've we've fallen into and can't seem to
get out of a circular firing squad mentality. And look,
we've seen it with state parties, We've seen it with
local county parties. We've seen it with the House and
the national parties. There's people more interested in fighting internally
(25:44):
than they are about fighting our political opponents. And you know,
whether you're in a county party or whether you're at
the national party, or whether you're in the US House
or the US Senate, you have to realize who are
the philosophical enemies of our ideas? And you know, the
(26:04):
idea of what the proper size role and scope of
government isn't an internal debate. I mean we might have
some fractional disagreements about what needs to be happening with
whether it's a spending bill or whether it's you know,
an education policy or you know, something along those lines,
you know, banking regulation. It's the other side that has
(26:27):
so radically departed from any sort of semblance of reality
to how the world works. And yet here we are
with people more interested in purifying the ranks. I mean,
they it feels like they would rather be one hundred
percent right and lose than eighty percent right and win.
And yeah, I don't I don't know about your listeners,
(26:51):
and and but I know enough about you that I
think you think like I do. Ronald Reagan had it right.
You know, if you agree with me on eighty percent,
we're friends and allies. Now I might go back and
try to get the rest of you know, agreement. But
you know, we haven't been able to take any of
this incrementalism in which the Democrats are brilliant at doing
(27:15):
this is they boil so many frogs slowly. It's just
it's stunning, right, right, how they do that. And you know,
we don't seem to have the patience for that. And
what's what ultimately happens is because we can't hold together,
we end up losing ground even further than we would
(27:35):
if we had just stuck together and taken less than
perfect I think.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
That there has to be a discussion that there's a
reality to that position. When you have a when you
have Democrats in the majority in the Senate and a
Democrat president. It's not as though Speaker Johnson can just
he has to negotiate. I mean, life is about negotiation.
How can we not say, well, let's see how he
does when we have a President Trump in office, and
let's fight for that, because right now this kind of
(28:02):
stuff is harming our chances of having a President Trump
in office.
Speaker 3 (28:07):
It is, and we have heard that behind the scenes
from the Trump organization and people involved in that, which
is why I believe you saw the President hosting him
down at mar Lago and holding this press conference with
him and talking about him positively. You know, look, at
(28:29):
the end of the day, Mike and I meaning Mike
Johnson and I may not agree on everything, but I've
got to have a leader who's going to be able
to walk into a room with Chuck Schumer, the Biden
administration and frankly Mitch McConnell and know that he's got
standing to say if he's going to do something and
(28:49):
can do something and negotiate and withhold something, that he
actually is able to do it. And this sort of
sort of democlets that hangs over his head is one
that I think is going to be hanging over every
speaker's head unless we do something like look at changing
(29:09):
it now. This motion to vacate rule was something that
we had had in place for not quite two hundred years,
but for a very very long time in the House
of Representatives. And how I describe it as like all
of us had the launch code. We all had the
nuclear launch code. We were just smart enough not to
use it. The person who realized that she was in
(29:32):
real trouble was Nancy Pelosi, and she was afraid some
of the squad members were going to use it. And
that's when they changed the rule. And I believe it
was a twenty five vote threshold. A part of the
negotiations that Kevin McCarthy had was this reverting back to
a one vote or one call for the motion to vacate.
(29:58):
A lot of people believe it was a personal grudge
that that brought it about. But nonetheless, here we are
uh with with this rearing its head again. And I
can tell you if if we were to go through
that again, forget it. Just we have we have no
standing to negotiate. We might as well pack it up,
(30:20):
go home and just wait for the election. And there's
some people who think that might be a good strategy,
it's not. Uh, it's that is not ultimately going to
help us and our case when we have to go
in front of the voters in a couple of months.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
It's it's not.
Speaker 2 (30:36):
I mean, like I said, it's a combination of voters
who are fed up and voters who are also big
supporters of the party who are saying I'm going to
I'm going to hold back my support. And for people
out there who say, well, just go out and knock
doors with the grassroots, it takes all of us. It
takes every one of us. We've got to get we have.
We can't leave a vote on the table. You just
can't walk away from anybody right now. We've got to
(30:58):
make sure we are going up against a machine, a
well oiled machine, and these kinds of things.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
Right now, get through this election. If you want to do.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
Something afterward, if you think you can test things afterward,
let's just get through this election. And I know you
know that I'm a little luxury today because I'm looking
at this and I'm going, oh gosh. And we're calling
people and saying, hey, come and help in Michigan, and
they're going, we don't like what it's going on in Washington,
and so it is incredibly frustrating. Before I let you go,
(31:28):
we talked a lot about Israel, and I just want
to give our listeners an opportunity to be able to
help out over there, because I know that our listeners
are very loving and very caring, and I just want
them to hear what is possible, because it's been over
six months since the brutal attack by Hamas on our
brothers and sisters in Israel, and since then, the attacks
(31:49):
on Israel have increased, with Ran and its proxies, as
we were just talking about there launching hundreds of drones
and missiles, and the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews
is on the ground now addressing all of those urgent needs.
And that's why I'm partnering with IFCJ today. Your life
saving donation can help provide security needs like placing bomb
(32:09):
shelters in communities with Israel that need it most. When
that siren goes off, guys, these people, I mean, this
is the stuff we just don't even understand.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
We don't live this.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
They have fifteen seconds or less to get to safety.
IFCJ has helped renovate and install nearly three thousand bomb
shelters to date. As Israel and her people live with
the harsh reality of terror every day, your support will
help address emergency security needs such as food, utility, equipment
for bomb shelters, flack jackets, and other essentials for the
(32:40):
needs of people in Israel. So we are asking you
guys today to give fifty dollars or any amount you
can to help provide life saving aid. You've heard us
talking about it, you know the need. If you can
do it, please visit SUPPORTIFCJ dot org. That's one word,
it's support IFCJ. Thank you guys for considering it. Bill,
(33:03):
I know that you've been incredibly supportive. I know you've
had family members over there. I know you know what
it's like.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
I mean when you talk about these kids over there
seeing this.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
Bombing happening, I think it's something that in America we
just take for granted, we never have to deal with that.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
For those guys over there, it's terrifying.
Speaker 3 (33:22):
Yeah, it is, and it's a reality of life for
them that we don't really have an understanding. You know.
For you and I nine to eleven is seared into
our minds, our kids. You know, my oldest barely remembers it,
and your girls are too young. I mean, most of
(33:44):
my staff doesn't really remember actually watching it and what
it was like and what we're seeing. This toxic combination
of places like Iran and the funding that's going on
and an open porous border the way that it is
is both not just on the southern border, but also
on the northern border. We got issues there. That's going
(34:05):
to have to be another podcast. We'll have it to
talk about that our country is in danger, and Western
Europe is in danger, and we've got to make sure
that our country doesn't have a repeat of that. And
you know that's going to take vigilance. So and elections.
Elections do matter, and we've got to make sure that
(34:26):
we have a change and at sixteen hundred Pennsylvania Avenue.
But in the meantime, we're going to keep fighting the
best that we possibly can and make sure that our
allies have the resources that they need.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
Well, thank you for fighting. We appreciate it, and thanks
for coming on today. Congressman Bill Heusingott, thank you so much.
All right, Thanks Tutor, and thank you all for joining
us on the Tutor Dixon Podcast for this episode and others.
Check out tutordixonpodcast dot com and subscribe, or go to
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
And join us next time. Have a blessed day.
Welcome to the Tutor Dixon Podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
I have someone who identifies as my congressman on today,
and I say identifies because he was at one point
and got districted out. But I refuse to accept that,
and I'm assuming he does also, So thank you so
much for being here. I have Congressman Bill Heisinga from
Michigan with me today.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
Well, good to be with you, Tutor, longtime listener, first
time participant in the Tutor Dixon Podcast. But I will
accept your your kind I guess that's kind. These days,
it gets a little funny anytime you're identifying as something.
(00:43):
But I will I will take it. I will still
represent you and like minded people that are trapped. I
mean living in the third district of Michigan now, and
we'll just call it. You know, I'm in the fourth.
Maybe it's the three point five district.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Hill is because when I came to Washington with my
daughter's eighth grade class, Congresswoman Skulton blew us off, even
though she was supposed to bring us our passes, and
we had to go to you, and you saved us.
So I do not forget those things, and neither have
the children, because.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
I won't let them.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
It's such a good mom, I know.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
I like, remember our congresswoman how she ditched us. Yeah,
tell all your friends.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
This is a bad move with someone with a podcast.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
All right, So all right, all right, so no, but
let's get to something serious. You've re taught me how
to say Iran.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
You mean Iran?
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Now I have to say Iran. Yes, yes, Iran.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
It's like you're going to go to Italy or are
you going to go to Italy?
Speaker 2 (01:45):
I hope I get to go there one day and
be out of Michigan for a little bit, So I'll
take either one.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
But I don't want to go to Iran.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
Yes, no, I don't. I don't either. But in fact,
you would be wondering with this administration, Uh, they it
feels like they're trying to buddy up to Iran or
Iran or whatever you want to call it. It's bad news.
And you know, we obviously we saw this over the
over the weekend with the unprecedent again I hate that word,
(02:15):
but the never before seen direct attack on Israel from Iran. Uh,
the way that it the way that they had conducted
that over the weekend, and we came back to Washington.
Actually I came back early on on Monday, UH to
be a part of a floor debate about sanctions on Iran.
(02:36):
And you know the problem with this administration right now
is that they have softened and rolled back sanctions that
have been put on Iran over number of years, even
pre dating, uh, pre dating President Trump. So yeah, what
we what we saw with the with the Trump administration
was uh, you know, the maximum pressure and this has
(02:59):
been appeasement. They're trying everything they can to get them
pulled back into to the world stage.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
So I think this is what people don't understand when
you talk about this, and when you say pre dating Trump,
let's be honest, that means that these are sanctions that
were in place when Biden was vice president and he
decided to get rid of these.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
And when you talk about sanctions, I think sometimes.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
People are like, I don't really understand what that means
and why that's helpful. But those who are really preventing
them from making massive amount billions of dollars on oil,
and that's why they now have so much power. With
money comes power. They have energy that creates money, that
creates power, and when you have power in the hands
(03:42):
of a known terrorist, organization. And let's be honest, it
is the number one state sponsor for terror in the
world comes out of Iran.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
I can't even say it now.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
But this is why, this is why even the Obama
administration had controls on Iran, saying you can't do all
of this. So why would Biden. It wasn't even just
that he let the say he took the sanctions off.
They also sent them money. I mean, there is a
massive amount of money going into this country.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
Yeah, there is. And so it's kind of interesting. The
two committees I sit on right now, the Financial Services
Committee and the Foreign Affairs Committee, both have direct nexus
to what's going on. And here's how most of those
sanctions work. It's predominantly it is going through banking, because right,
(04:36):
money makes the world go round. And an oil, which
is a world commodity everywhere in the world, it's paid
for in US dollars, hard dollars, and it's traded that way.
What we had seen that had been building up and
then really under maximum pressure from the Trump administration was
(04:58):
a ratcheting down any exports allowed out of Iran and
getting that oil into the world market. What we've seen
with the Biden administration is a loosening and an encouraging
of that. And we've had a number of hearings in
both committees actually about what's been going on. And here's
(05:21):
how this is working. Treasury Department has to issue a
license if yours a sanction that is on saying, you know,
you're not allowed to use a banking system, or you're
not allowed to use the swift payment system, or you're
not allowed to use a system that will link federal banks,
for example centralized banks together and allow that transfer of
(05:44):
money back and forth. If you need an exemption on that,
you have to get a license from the Department of Treasury. Well,
they've been granting those, and what we have seen is
a massive increase in the amount of oil that's been
coming out of Iran and going into the world market. Now,
what they've done under the Trump administration try and squeeze
(06:07):
that down. Because there had been countries like Korea, South
Korea and others that were very dependent on Iranian oil,
they allowed these these licenses to be issued so that
they could have a certain amount of it flowing to
in this case South Korea, and then South Korea was
paying for it in their local their their local currencies
(06:29):
and it was staying in the bank. And what what
happened Treasury has expanded those licenses. Now, as you can
imagine the South Korean this is a this is a true,
uh true example. The South Koreans were a bit nervous
about having all this money, and because our law here
in the United States says if anything bad happens with
(06:50):
that cash, you are held responsible. South Korean Bank, so
they they were very eager to get it out of
their banking system. And what happened is it was transferred
to a bank in Oman, and so there's ten billion
dollars sitting in a I'm sorry in this case, I
(07:12):
think it was Katar Katari Bank. That had been oil
money that's been going out. Now, what else has been
going on parallel is Iran has been kind of basically
sneaking the oil out. They've been using something called a
ghost fleet, which is all these oil tankers that are
(07:34):
flagged in one particular country. And there's been a massive
number of them that have been flagged in Panama who
then either change flags, or they never really put up
their flag, or they stop using their internationally required transponder
to keep track of where they are, and they start illicitly,
(07:58):
illegally moving this oil into mostly China now and along
the way they're going to these mini refineries they call
them teapot refineries where they're taking the crude oil and
they're starting to refine it and then they bring it
all the way and mostly to China. So here we've
got China is utilizing this Iranian oil. We know that
(08:21):
they've got a number of relationships that are still active
and involved, and we've got the Biden administration basically turning
a blind eye. They know about this ghost fleet, they're
not doing anything about it. They know that the banking
system has been abused, yet they still continue to issue
these licenses and we're trying to stop that.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
Well, they knew about this attack coming.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
I mean, we had a seventy two hour warning of
Iran going on, that they were going to attack. And
you say, I think people need to understand the reason
you say unprecedented is in the past, we've seen Iranian
proxies go after Israel, but this is the first time
they've said, hey, we're attacking. And the funny thing to
me is you've got Christopher Ray out there warning that
(09:07):
we are in the most danger we've ever seen. We've
got all of these red flags. There's concerns from all
of these countries. You talked about China, there's concerns from China, Russia, Iran,
all of these different countries we have concerns about, and
yet they're openly saying they're coming after us. I mean,
if you go to X, this is what blows my mind.
If you go to X right now and you look
(09:29):
up what they call the Supreme Leader of Iran and
I would say, the Ultimate murderous Dictator of Iran his
Twitter account, his ex account, he's regularly tweeting out that
he's coming after Israel, that he's coming after anybody who
is a Zionist. He's going to take all these Zionist
(09:49):
regimes down. He is making these threats openly. We're like,
are we really having to interview the FBI director to
know this? You can literally go to X. There's not
even shy. They're not worried about Joe Biden's don't no.
Speaker 3 (10:03):
That is absolutely correct. And you know, by the way,
the United States falls into that same category, that zionist
category for them, these are not our friends, these are
not people who we should be welcoming to the world stage.
Yet this administration is doing that. I have a theory
(10:24):
on that. It seems to me out here in DC.
Democrats have so lashed themselves to this notion that somehow
Iran is pivotal and is like the tent pole that
is going to hold up the Middle East. And it
(10:44):
goes back to the Obama administration's nuclear Iran nuclear deal
and agreement. And they are so invested into this. I mean,
everybody's got to remember there was billions of dollars in
cash literally dumped off of an air plane onto the
tarmac in Tehran. And oh, by the way, the US
(11:04):
law said, you can't use US currency. So what did
our what did our treasury do at the time. It
converted it for them into euros and Swiss francs, all right,
so that they could technically get around it. That certainly
was not the spirit of the law. And that's the
kind of of attitude that we saw in the Obama administration.
(11:25):
It's carried over into the Biden administration. Why because frankly,
are a bunch of the same people, and you know
Bob Gates, who happened to be Barack Obama's Secretary of
Defense and nailed it when he said that Joe Biden,
Jake Sullivan, and Anthony Blink and our secretary of State
have been at the center and wrong on every major
(11:48):
foreign policy issue for decades, and these are now the
people who are directing our foreign policy.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
Let's take a quick commercial break. We'll continue next on
the Tutor Dixon Podcast. You know, it's ironic that we
hear about President Carter as being the worst president in
American history, and yet it was really Iran that was
a problem for him too. He had all of those
hostages taken. You saw Reagan come out and save those people.
(12:18):
We have a similar situation in Joe Biden. I would
say he has overtaken Jimmy Carter as the worst president
in the history of the United States and his connection
to a terrorist nation. The questions people are asking is
why didn't he do something in those seventy two hours
to strike Iran and say you're not going to come
(12:39):
after Israel, we are going to defend Israel. And why
is he telling Israel to back off right now? Is
this really just a situation where he's so afraid of
losing power because he sees what's happening. Look at the
Golden gate Bridge last week. Look at oh Hair Airport,
You've got all these protesters. Look at our state of Michigan.
You had one hundred thousand uncommitted voters come out and
(13:01):
say to Joe Biden, we don't like you. Is this
Iran thing because he's afraid of power or does it
go deeper?
Speaker 3 (13:10):
I think there absolutely is an element of the political
in this. You know, the progressive hard left is not
just anti Israel. They really are truly pro Iran. And
I mean we've seen that in various protests, you know,
hands off Iran. We've had people who have been voting.
(13:34):
In fact, today we voted on a resolution condemning Iran
and the attack on Israel. And there was I believe
it was fifteen or sixteen of the basically squad and
squad adjacent folks who voted against it. And the interesting
(13:56):
thing was I had a constituent on the floor. So
here's what we can do is we can take we
can take kids that are under twelve onto the U
onto the floor of the US House. And happened to
have a young man from from Holland who who was
along and we had him on the floor and he's
looking up at this at the board and he says, so,
(14:20):
why are there only a couple of few people voting no?
And so I explained, well, you know, they believe differently.
I'm trying to be as neutral and you know, I'm
not trying to embitter the kid at twelve, but like.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Me, who's like, remember Hillary Scolton left you? Yeah, okay, yes,
give your credit for that.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
But then he asked, well, what is what is this?
And I explained to him what it was, and this
kid looks at me and he like literally goes really.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
Yeah, even at twelve, he gets it.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
Yes, And a twelve year old is getting it still
in the world, can Jamal Bowman and Omar and Talib
and AOC and and all the others not understand this?
Hank Johnson, well, Henk Johnson will think Iran might tip over.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
If we you know, well, and Jamal, I mean he's
not even sure what a fire, Yeah, what door to
go alarm is? So yeah, I mean some of these people,
you know, maybe it's just education, they aren't really aware.
I don't know, can be a great optimistic I agree, Yeah,
I'm joking. I'm joking, But I mean, look, we have
Rashida to Lee right here in Michigan who refuses to
(15:26):
condemn any of these acts. That's the thing that I
think is the most disturbing is Hamas is Iran when
they won't come out and say these are actually heinous acts.
I mean, we talked about going to Iran. I couldn't
go to Iran as a woman, I couldn't go to Iran.
These people that are defending these terrorist nations, who are
(15:46):
in the LGBTQ community, you're just like me, you.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Can't go there.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
These are not countries that are safe for people to
go to, and there's a reason we're not going there.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
Yeah, it's always amazing seeing these LGBTQ plus plus for
Gaza signs. It's like, yeah, if you went to Gaza,
guess what, you'd get stoned? Right, So you know, and
that has happened, like literally physical harm has come to
people of that persuasion, and you know, look, they have
(16:18):
a very different mentality. I mean, this is Ilhan Omar's
famous well on nine to eleven, some people did things right,
that's called terrorism.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
And this is what is so bothersome to me about
the Biden administration. We have Americans who were taken hostage.
This was not just an attack on Israel. This was
an attack on everyone. And especially knowing that we have
Americans that were taken hostage, and I've never heard him
say their names.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
Yeah. Well, and the amazing thing is to me, is
he now it has the equivalent of basically during World
War Two, Franklin Roosevelt going to Churchill, Hey, you know,
you really need to stop this bombing of dress didn't thing,
you know, Uh, there, there's there's there's some things that
are going on that we don't like, right, I mean,
(17:07):
just second guessing of an ally like that. They've got
to figure out what the response is. Uh. And and look,
I talked to people on a regular basis who are
in in Jerusalem and in Israel, and uh, you know,
they're hearing the jets every night, They're hearing the alarms
and the sirums that are going off. They know that
(17:28):
this is still an active war zone with what's going
on not just in Gaza, but in the in their
country as well, in in in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv
and in the areas outside of that. I was talking
to one one young man who was in the northern
part near the Sea of Galilee about a week ago,
(17:50):
and he said they were up on a on a
hillside and they literally witnessed an explosion that happened, Uh,
not that far away, so I felt, you know, you
could feel the wave. And so I mean, this is
this is a real firing war that Israel is in
yet and everybody in the administration and that are peacefully
(18:11):
demonstrating are trying to somehow portray that only Israel is
the aggressor and that they just if they just simply stopped,
then everything would just be returned back to normal. Well
that's not the case.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
What about Okay, so you're you're no US financing for
Iran Act?
Speaker 1 (18:32):
What happens next with this?
Speaker 3 (18:34):
Yeah? Well it passed the package and actually this was interesting.
So we had leadership within the committee when I had
first introduced it, and we passed it last fall last November. Uh,
Maxine Waters and others on the committee actually fought against it.
We passed it with bipartisan support out of committee. It's
(18:55):
on the floor. She and Democrat leadership and the Treasury
Department all lobbied against it. And I went and talked
to some of my Democrat colleagues who I've had some
relationships with and we've we've worked on some other things together,
and what they were telling me about how active Treasury
was in trying to dissuade them, it was really stunning, frankly.
(19:21):
But here's the good news. We still got two hundred
and ninety four votes against one hundred and five opposed
to it, So one hundred and five Democrats voted against it,
but we got the remainder of them to actually vote
for it, so we had over two thirds of the
House of Representatives pass it. So that's a strong case
that we're trying to make to the Senate. We're going
(19:42):
to find out. We're trying to get that included in
any sort of package that might include aid to Israel.
We would like to get this language in there so
that it locks it down. And what specifically the language
of the bill says is you don't have access to
the US financial system, and we talked a little bit
(20:03):
about what that looks like before. But you also Iran
are no longer eligible for the World Bank Projects or
the IMF, the International Monetary Fund, and in two thousand
and one, the IMF granted something that's called special drawing
rights that countries have. They granted around five billion dollars
(20:27):
out of this special drawing rights program. And guess what,
our Treasury Department, the Biden administration didn't object.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
So why is the Treasury Department so sensitive to Iran?
Speaker 3 (20:39):
We've been trying to figure that out, and again I
kind of go back to I think this is because
the administration is so tied to this Iranian nuclear deal
that had been cut under Obama. And this is why
they all collectively lost their minds when President Trump rescinded
it and Iran went back to producing the fissile material. Well,
(21:06):
guess what they had never really stopped we found out later, right,
And so why they are so tied to this is
just baffling sometimes. But we're hoping that we're going to
be able to get it into a package that passes
the House here again it would be basically the second time,
and that that it can get some action over on
(21:26):
the Senate.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
M It's interesting.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
That's like bureaucracy at its finest. You have the Treasury
who is trying to manipulate the electeds.
Speaker 3 (21:35):
Yeah, well it was interesting. I was on with Stuart
Varney on Fox Business. I guess yesterday or maybe the
day before, and he looked. He looked at me after
I'm describing this, he goes, you're fighting the deep state,
aren't you. I mean, this is like literally the deep state.
And it's like, yeah, it is. I mean, this is
this is what we battle against every single day when
(21:56):
we when we're going up against these regulators and these
and these diplomats that they believe that they know better
and want to shape the world in their vision. Well,
guess what. Congress gets elected by the people and and
we get to have a say in this and they
don't like that. So that's absolutely what we're fighting.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
Yeah, that's what for people who always hear that term
and don't really get it, this is it. It's those
career people. They weren't elected. They're in there and they're
manipulating one way or another, and it is messing up
the system. That's what That's what Trump said he would
take care of. Couldn't do that all in his first term.
I believe that's why they're so scared a second term.
Speaker 3 (22:38):
Oh absolutely, I mean he was. He was able to
come in and if you talk to anybody that was
involved in the State Department for example that there was
so much pushback against this administration, against Trump administration. You know,
Reagan tried to do this, and there was a guy
(22:59):
named Don Reagan who worked for him, and he wrote
a book called Reagan's Terrible Swift Sword, and it was
basically recounting his efforts and trying to go into the
bureaucracy and and weed it out and make sure that
that it's actually following the directives of the administration rather
(23:20):
than what they think is right. And you know, it's
it's just kind of stunning. As we've seen a massive,
massive growth of government through COVID and all these other things,
it's just gotten more entrenched and so it's harder and
harder to weed out. They count on, frankly, the sort
(23:41):
of instability in the House and in the Senate. They
figure that they can sort of wait elected people out
and ultimately they'll they'll win, and so what we can't
let them do is just win.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
Let's take a quick commercial break. We'll continue next on
a Tutor Dixon podcast. Historically, there's the argument of term limits,
no term limits, and at least when you have someone
who's elected, they can be unelected, and these people have
no term limits that the people that you never hear
of are the people that are really, really dangerous behind
(24:17):
the scenes. But I have to bring it up because
you brought up chaos and chaos in the House and
we are hearing that there is another motion to vacate
for Speaker Johnson now. And I'm confused by this because
I know Trump has been out there with the speaker.
And I will just say, I'm going to give you
a little bit of like the behind the scenes. I
(24:39):
was talking to a big Republican supporter in the state
of Michigan, and I was talking to him about what
he was going to do coming up in these elections,
and he said, you got to understand, I am talking
to other big Republican supporters and we are sick and.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
Tired of this chaos.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
People are mad that they are seeing this, and I
don't get it because so we're hearing today that there
have been people behind the scenes saying, get rid of
this one person rule, get this out of it, and
put it into a bill that you're going to get
rid of this. Why should this rule be there because
we don't elect I don't elect you to go in
there and tell everybody what to do and be alone
(25:15):
as a dictator. I mean, that's not what Congress is for.
It's not for one person to be able to make
a decision like this.
Speaker 3 (25:22):
Well, Tutor, we've we've fallen into and can't seem to
get out of a circular firing squad mentality. And look,
we've seen it with state parties, We've seen it with
local county parties. We've seen it with the House and
the national parties. There's people more interested in fighting internally
(25:44):
than they are about fighting our political opponents. And you know,
whether you're in a county party or whether you're at
the national party, or whether you're in the US House
or the US Senate, you have to realize who are
the philosophical enemies of our ideas? And you know, the
(26:04):
idea of what the proper size role and scope of
government isn't an internal debate. I mean we might have
some fractional disagreements about what needs to be happening with
whether it's a spending bill or whether it's you know,
an education policy or you know, something along those lines,
you know, banking regulation. It's the other side that has
(26:27):
so radically departed from any sort of semblance of reality
to how the world works. And yet here we are
with people more interested in purifying the ranks. I mean,
they it feels like they would rather be one hundred
percent right and lose than eighty percent right and win.
And yeah, I don't I don't know about your listeners,
(26:51):
and and but I know enough about you that I
think you think like I do. Ronald Reagan had it right.
You know, if you agree with me on eighty percent,
we're friends and allies. Now I might go back and
try to get the rest of you know, agreement. But
you know, we haven't been able to take any of
this incrementalism in which the Democrats are brilliant at doing
(27:15):
this is they boil so many frogs slowly. It's just
it's stunning, right, right, how they do that. And you know,
we don't seem to have the patience for that. And
what's what ultimately happens is because we can't hold together,
we end up losing ground even further than we would
(27:35):
if we had just stuck together and taken less than
perfect I think.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
That there has to be a discussion that there's a
reality to that position. When you have a when you
have Democrats in the majority in the Senate and a
Democrat president. It's not as though Speaker Johnson can just
he has to negotiate. I mean, life is about negotiation.
How can we not say, well, let's see how he
does when we have a President Trump in office, and
let's fight for that, because right now this kind of
(28:02):
stuff is harming our chances of having a President Trump
in office.
Speaker 3 (28:07):
It is, and we have heard that behind the scenes
from the Trump organization and people involved in that, which
is why I believe you saw the President hosting him
down at mar Lago and holding this press conference with
him and talking about him positively. You know, look, at
(28:29):
the end of the day, Mike and I meaning Mike
Johnson and I may not agree on everything, but I've
got to have a leader who's going to be able
to walk into a room with Chuck Schumer, the Biden
administration and frankly Mitch McConnell and know that he's got
standing to say if he's going to do something and
(28:49):
can do something and negotiate and withhold something, that he
actually is able to do it. And this sort of
sort of democlets that hangs over his head is one
that I think is going to be hanging over every
speaker's head unless we do something like look at changing
(29:09):
it now. This motion to vacate rule was something that
we had had in place for not quite two hundred years,
but for a very very long time in the House
of Representatives. And how I describe it as like all
of us had the launch code. We all had the
nuclear launch code. We were just smart enough not to
use it. The person who realized that she was in
(29:32):
real trouble was Nancy Pelosi, and she was afraid some
of the squad members were going to use it. And
that's when they changed the rule. And I believe it
was a twenty five vote threshold. A part of the
negotiations that Kevin McCarthy had was this reverting back to
a one vote or one call for the motion to vacate.
(29:58):
A lot of people believe it was a personal grudge
that that brought it about. But nonetheless, here we are
uh with with this rearing its head again. And I
can tell you if if we were to go through
that again, forget it. Just we have we have no
standing to negotiate. We might as well pack it up,
(30:20):
go home and just wait for the election. And there's
some people who think that might be a good strategy,
it's not. Uh, it's that is not ultimately going to
help us and our case when we have to go
in front of the voters in a couple of months.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
It's it's not.
Speaker 2 (30:36):
I mean, like I said, it's a combination of voters
who are fed up and voters who are also big
supporters of the party who are saying I'm going to
I'm going to hold back my support. And for people
out there who say, well, just go out and knock
doors with the grassroots, it takes all of us. It
takes every one of us. We've got to get we have.
We can't leave a vote on the table. You just
can't walk away from anybody right now. We've got to
(30:58):
make sure we are going up against a machine, a
well oiled machine, and these kinds of things.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
Right now, get through this election. If you want to do.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
Something afterward, if you think you can test things afterward,
let's just get through this election. And I know you
know that I'm a little luxury today because I'm looking
at this and I'm going, oh gosh. And we're calling
people and saying, hey, come and help in Michigan, and
they're going, we don't like what it's going on in Washington,
and so it is incredibly frustrating. Before I let you go,
(31:28):
we talked a lot about Israel, and I just want
to give our listeners an opportunity to be able to
help out over there, because I know that our listeners
are very loving and very caring, and I just want
them to hear what is possible, because it's been over
six months since the brutal attack by Hamas on our
brothers and sisters in Israel, and since then, the attacks
(31:49):
on Israel have increased, with Ran and its proxies, as
we were just talking about there launching hundreds of drones
and missiles, and the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews
is on the ground now addressing all of those urgent needs.
And that's why I'm partnering with IFCJ today. Your life
saving donation can help provide security needs like placing bomb
(32:09):
shelters in communities with Israel that need it most. When
that siren goes off, guys, these people, I mean, this
is the stuff we just don't even understand.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
We don't live this.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
They have fifteen seconds or less to get to safety.
IFCJ has helped renovate and install nearly three thousand bomb
shelters to date. As Israel and her people live with
the harsh reality of terror every day, your support will
help address emergency security needs such as food, utility, equipment
for bomb shelters, flack jackets, and other essentials for the
(32:40):
needs of people in Israel. So we are asking you
guys today to give fifty dollars or any amount you
can to help provide life saving aid. You've heard us
talking about it, you know the need. If you can
do it, please visit SUPPORTIFCJ dot org. That's one word,
it's support IFCJ. Thank you guys for considering it. Bill,
(33:03):
I know that you've been incredibly supportive. I know you've
had family members over there. I know you know what
it's like.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
I mean when you talk about these kids over there
seeing this.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
Bombing happening, I think it's something that in America we
just take for granted, we never have to deal with that.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
For those guys over there, it's terrifying.
Speaker 3 (33:22):
Yeah, it is, and it's a reality of life for
them that we don't really have an understanding. You know.
For you and I nine to eleven is seared into
our minds, our kids. You know, my oldest barely remembers it,
and your girls are too young. I mean, most of
(33:44):
my staff doesn't really remember actually watching it and what
it was like and what we're seeing. This toxic combination
of places like Iran and the funding that's going on
and an open porous border the way that it is
is both not just on the southern border, but also
on the northern border. We got issues there. That's going
(34:05):
to have to be another podcast. We'll have it to
talk about that our country is in danger, and Western
Europe is in danger, and we've got to make sure
that our country doesn't have a repeat of that. And
you know that's going to take vigilance. So and elections.
Elections do matter, and we've got to make sure that
(34:26):
we have a change and at sixteen hundred Pennsylvania Avenue.
But in the meantime, we're going to keep fighting the
best that we possibly can and make sure that our
allies have the resources that they need.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
Well, thank you for fighting. We appreciate it, and thanks
for coming on today. Congressman Bill Heusingott, thank you so much.
All right, Thanks Tutor, and thank you all for joining
us on the Tutor Dixon Podcast for this episode and others.
Check out tutordixonpodcast dot com and subscribe, or go to
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
And join us next time. Have a blessed day.
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