We may not lobby the executive, but as we were talking about was a discussion earlier about Congress being representative to the people world, the White House has to be responsive to uh Congress. And so it's working with at the time our friends on the Democratic side of the aisle to apply pressure the way that they know how to an administration as it will be with this administration. I was talking about the people who will get appointed into some of these jobs. Look at the top level. You talk about Marco Rubio and Elise Sonatic and Michael Walls. Those three people have something in common. They all serve in common. They all have relationships with TA pack leaders from their communities. So the lines of communication are good should there be something questionable or curious that we need access to. You never know. One of the first candidates I ever met with as a pack professional in my job as candidates for Congress was a guy named John Racklin. He was challenging a long time incumbent member of Congress in Dallas. This guy looks like he could run the race. Let me go talk to him. He had a good understanding of the issues and couple of weeks you know he took the oath as the CIA director for crying out loud. I think he's the guy that had a chance to speak to. So there are there are I won't call lifelines but there are lifelines. I think if you're in Iran or you are um the or any of these other uh proxy terrorist groups and frankly probably the Russians or the Chinese, you're looking at the ways in which the international community so quickly moved on from October 7th and all of that to Israel Israel and you're probably taking away that a great tactic in war is to put as many civilians on the front lines as possible so that they can just get killed. And so so the the Hamas tactic had strategic effects because Israel finds itself isolated on on the international stage and and it's a and it was a tactic by Hamas to both to tear to terrorize on on the global stage. Um, number two, propaganda and disinformation. This is a mutually beneficial relationship. This is not just about the United States against Israel. This is a partner um that has flipped the script on what can be accomplished with military force in a way the United States military never conceived of doing against Iran and Iran's proxies across the Middle East. We get as much intelligence from Israel as we give to Israel. um they are doing things with our F-35s that we aren't doing with our you know so this is if if Americans because the crit the question is you know American criticism from the right and the left one thing that you hear that I think is common on the far right and the far left is that they don't want a young American men and women service members in wars from the police or anywhere so the way to not have young Americans on the line anywhere is to actually invest in strong partners who can defend themselves That's Israel. So I am very I have um watched the congressional machine learn the muscle memory of how to slow down executive action now because I was on the hill during the first Trump administration. So, um, what worries me is we talked a lot about the importance of bipartisan support and in the first Trump administration, uh, you all may remember that so different members of Congress for different reasons can put holes on proposed military sales to any country. And in the first Trump administration, there were holes on about 10 different sales to Saudi Arabia and UAE. And they lasted for a long time. Now, I'm not going to go into the details of what Democrats versus Republicans thought or what Trump administration argued, but the point is the Trump administration got fed up with members of Congress and they invoked something called a national security emergency, which is legal under the law for for how arms transfers happen and they overrode the objections of Congress and they just advanced the sales. But it took them two and a half years to get frustrated enough with Congress to do that. This time they overrode a whole proposed sales to Israel in about a week and a half. like so you know January 20th happened and before February is that is there had been an override of this um what I worry about that I think we just everyone who's a supporter of this relationship needs to be wary of um the manner in which sometimes it's not going to be about Israel it's going to be about congressional person legislative tussling but Israel is going to be caught and I'm worried about that executive poll I'm worried about it with things like the Sanders joint resolutions of disapproval. Even if he doesn't enforce a vote this time, we're not getting him four years without him forcing a vote. And it is not good for Israel and for this relationship to make members constantly have to vote on it. Even if they pass. That's not the point. The point is to not have the debate every time. And I actually think that the war of ideas is the crucial battlefront here. And I I'll give you an iterative example just so you can do you guys know. Imagine 5 years from now a staff a congressional staffer types into AI clause GBT that one GBT14 whatever right says is supporting Israel bad for American national security. the answer that they get back is going to be informed by the information that's on the internet today which is why punching back in the information sphere becomes so important I would argue exactly the wrong impulse because when you disengage you leave an open playing field for precisely that sort of incision that's going to inform national security decisions 5 years from now and by the say Congress is not using this because if the uh member of Congress if his or her elector will be fed that guy has information it will skew how they pressure him or her to vote or even to throw him or her out of office and pick somebody else. Right? So that informational right and it starts in academia but it doesn't end. [Music]