This week, Representative Mike Waltz of Florida joins us to discuss America-first foreign policy as President Trump’s designation for National Security Advisor in the new administration. While Waltz is in the throes of planning for the transition, he shares his foreign policy priorities and proposes a vision for the revival of American strength abroad. Waltz offers his perspective on the fate of NATO, and why domestic American energy is an essential component of American foreign policy. He also discusses what Middle East diplomacy might look like after the Abraham Accords, and how outer space and cybersecurity are part of his policy calculus as well. Don’t miss this important conversation on this latest episode of The Sunday Special! - - - Today’s Sponsors: Collars & Co - Get 20% off your first order when you use code BEN at: https://collarsandco.com Tax Network USA - Seize control of your financial future! Call 1 (800) 958-1000 or visit https://www.TNUSA.com/Shapiro Helix - Exclusive Discount for my Listeners! htttps://www.HelixSleep.com/BEN
Chapter 1: What are Mike Waltz's foreign policy priorities?
Mike Waltz is a Green Beret who served as an army officer in some of the most volatile regions of the world, deploying multiple times to the Middle East and Africa and earning himself four Bronze Stars for his exceptional achievements.
He then continued to serve the public after his military career, becoming the first Green Beret elected to Congress in 2018, where he quickly became known for his deep understanding of national defense issues. In today's episode, Mike Walz shares his perspective on the fate of NATO, why domestic American energy is an essential component of American foreign policy.
He also discusses what Middle East diplomacy might look like after the Abraham Accords and how outer space and cybersecurity are part of his policy calculus as well. Representative Mike Walsh's profound experience and commitment to the defense of American interests abroad will be critical to the success of the next administration.
Don't miss this important conversation on this latest episode of The Sunday Special. Congressman, thanks so much for stopping by. I really appreciate it. Yeah, sure. Great to be with you. A lot going on. Yeah, just a little. So tell me about what your day looks like now. So obviously you're still presiding over what you had in Congress.
I mean, you had that whole role, and now you're moving into the NSA role. And it turns out that, I was joking with you a moment ago, that this is like that meme of the dog looking around, everything's on fire. The world's on fire pretty much everywhere. So what does your day look like?
So I thought I was already kind of in fourth gear on the Armed Services Committee and a subcommittee chairman there of readiness on Intel, the Intelligence Committee in the House, the Foreign Affairs Committee, the Oversight Committee. And then I had this little thing called the Assassination Task Force, you know, added on as an additional duty. But what?
since President Trump gave me the honor of nominating me as his national security advisor, I found three more gears that I didn't know I had and working with a man that is in 10th gear. He has not... He has... hitting the ground running. I've never seen anything like him. His engine just does not stop. And it's part of it's keeping up with him. Part of it's building the team.
And part of it is really having a lot of conversations about how we're going to conform the system to his style. Frankly, I think some of my predecessors who were who were great tried to conform him to the kind of the national security apparatus. And that just did not work for a lot of reasons.
And then coordinating with the fantastic team that he's putting together between Pam Bondi and Marco Rubio and Pete Hegseth and Tulsi Gabbard and crew to really make sure we are all on the same page with him going forward. So it's a lot.
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Chapter 3: What is the future of NATO according to Mike Waltz?
Chapter 4: How will domestic American energy influence foreign policy?
And now they're right back to where they were and they're selling 90 percent of that oil to China. And as President Trump said on the campaign trail in his first term, he looked at China and said, you got to stop buying from them or you can't buy from us. I mean, foreign policy speak, that would be secondary sanctions on Chinese buyers, refiners, shippers of Iranian oil.
So that's something we'll take a hard look at. The House already passed those sanctions. They've been sitting on Schumer's desk like a whole lot of other things that could have helped out Israel in the last couple of years. Those secondary sanctions have been sitting there for over a year. Right. So it is the cash. It's the nuclear program. And you're right.
Israel has taken decisive action to extinguish this vaunted ring of fire that was threatening him.
Meanwhile, nature abhors a vacuum and the Iranian vacuum is being filled by a couple of forces. Hopefully it'll be filled by the Kurds. The Israelis are defending their own security, as you mentioned, by taking the other side of Mount Hermon in Syria, although they're basically attempting to delimit the border to prevent al-Qaeda and ISIS-associated forces from invading the Golan Heights.
It's a defensive action, as Prime Minister Netanyahu has said. One of the things that's arising from this, because of the rise of HDS, is the threat of HDS to Jordan and Saudi, who are also American allies. The Jordanians are deeply afraid of extremism moving across the border of Syria. They've already closed all the border crossings. Jordan, of course, is a very tenuous regime.
It's a Hashemite dynasty sitting on top of 70% Palestinian population.
My wife is a Jordanian Catholic, so yeah, whose mother came through Ellis Island Christian persecution, you know. decades and decades ago.
So I, yeah. Exactly. And so Jordan is deeply afraid, obviously, of Islamic extremism taking over that country. Saudi is deeply concerned with Islamic extremism extending into its sphere as well. Some of the rebels were seen on tape talking about how they want to take Mecca. You know, the Saudi regime, one of the priorities for the Trump administration had been in term number one. Mm-hmm.
finishing off the Abraham Accords by getting Saudi into the Abraham Accords. Now that Israel has defenestrated so many of its enemies, that could be seen as an opportunity for the Saudis to take with President Trump coming into office.
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Chapter 5: What are the implications of the Abraham Accords?
And with the withdrawal from Afghanistan that now is essentially Osama bin Laden's dream, and we haven't even talked about what's simmering over there, what happens over there, will not stay over there, but to have another ISIS caliphate that we have to clean up again. I mean, those are all our critical issues. national interest.
And I always want to take it back to that because, you know, as I'm in my town halls and we're talking Drew's and this, you know, like, look, why does this, you know, I'm a mechanic. I'm going week to week. I'm trying to get my kids off to school. You know, why does this matter to them?
And that, you know, all of those things matter, not to mention things like 80 percent of global shipping having to be diverted because of a ragtag bunch of terrorists that, you know, we couldn't take on in the Red Sea. So.
I mean, that's exactly right. And the world has gotten really small. I mean, the fact is that, for example, Iran losing its financial capability, that's going to have a heavy impact on what happens in places like Ukraine, because actually it's Iranian drones that are being used by the Russians in Ukraine.
And Russia, of course, was involved in the Middle East and Russia is involved in Europe and Russia has a burgeoning relationship with China. All of these issues are interconnected and trying to sort of separate off regions of the world. There are some regions of the world that don't have major impacts on the rest of the world. I mean, frankly, large portions of Africa.
But the reality is that if you're looking at the Middle East, which, again, has many thoroughfares for shipping or is the supply of oil for many of America's adversaries or is the supply of tech. And allies. Or is this a source of a lot of military tech? I mean, a lot of the military tech that America uses is actually developed in Israel as add-ons to, for example, ISIS-8s.
Chinese money going to Tehran, buying their oil for cents on the dollar, and then the drones flying into Russia and the missiles going into Russia that we're then spending against in Ukraine and the terrorism that's exploded across the Middle East. I mean, one could argue it's our money with our trade.
with our trade deficit going into China, going into Iran, then flowing into Russia in the Middle East. So it's one of the reasons the president is so focused on these trade deficits because it's really, in many ways, our money from our market that's flowing around the world and then often our adversaries are using against us that we then have to spend against in our own defense budget.
So it's almost a double counting.
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