David E. Sanger

And as we've talked about before, you know, you might be able to destroy some facilities, but it's not clear how you protect protesters, for example, by dropping bombs in Tehran.

That's right.

He talked about that operation.

He then brings into the hall… Chief Warrant Officer Five, Eric Slover.

the helicopter pilot who was part of the Maduro raid.

And who took incredible amounts of fire.

His leg was shattered.

He lands the helicopter despite the fact that he's bleeding, and the president describes this in somewhat gory detail.

And then, of course, they give the pilot the Medal of Honor right there in front of all of Congress and everybody who's watching.

So that was a little bit of a brilliant turn, because how could the Democrats not stand for the awarding of a medal to somebody that courageous?

And how could they not stand when he did similar awards for elderly veterans, some 100 years old?

Who had fought in World War II and Korea and Vietnam.

So at that moment, he sort of matched his martial tendencies with a celebration of great heroism.

I think there was an element of showmanship and an element of exploitation to it as well, because what he was doing was combining the experiences of these people in just wars, World War II, you know, and so forth.

Korea, where we were fighting for a nascent democracy.

And

Managing to try to merge that with what many would argue were less clear uses of American power.

And potentially illegal.

And we're headed to that debate about Iran, for sure, if he went ahead.

So...