What Happened in Iran?

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I don't know that I'm doing victory parades for the
most recent military strikes against Iran just yet. So as
we all know, on Saturday, the United States participated in
an operation dropped a bunch of bunker buster bombs at
the Iranian nuclear facility at FORDAU and two other sites

(00:22):
also engaged in bombing operations. Go in, bomb get out.
If that is indeed the end of the story, that's
great mission accomplished. President Trump did it. He threaded the
needle between to the scilla and charybdis of our great

(00:50):
fears regarding Iran. On the one hand, not doing anything
and letting Iran get a nuclear weapon not going to happen.
That's on the one side. On the other side, the
risk of getting drawn into a longer, more involved war.
I don't know that we can confidently say that we're

(01:14):
out of the risk of that latter thing. We need
to wait to see what happens, because there's still a
lot that could happen. Iran is certainly weakened, it is
certainly in a much worse place. The Israeli attacks led

(01:35):
to the decimation of its major military leadership. Worse than decimation,
by the way the word decimate is really cool. It
comes from this practice in the Roman Army when the
Roman Army, when a particular army unit had behaved in
a horrible, dishonorable, disobedient way, decimation was a punishment meted

(01:58):
out on that unit of the army, which basically meant
that every tenth man was just executed and they would
have to run among their fellows while their fellow soldiers
beat them to death. Yeah, that'll get your attention. Okay,
I guess I better straighten up and fly right as

(02:19):
I'm beating one of my fellow soldiers to death, and
it could just as well be me anyway. The Iran anyway,
the Iranian military leadership has been completely decimated. It seems
that their nuclear development capacity has been decimated. I don't know,

(02:41):
I would imagine. So there's intelligence assessments sort of indicating that, yes,
it seems like the Ford out site was completely destroyed,
or at the very least, if it's not completely destroyed,
it is very close to completely destroyed. I'm not so

(03:01):
one hundred percent certain about what Iran's capacity was. I
don't know that anyone in the West is really one
hundred percent certain about what Iran's capacity was for actually
developing nuclear weapons. I feel like we've had people warning
that Iran is on the you know, on the one
yard line of developing a nuke. Ohle, They're only a
month away from a nuke. They've been only a month

(03:23):
away from a nuke for like, you know, the last
twenty years. So forgiving me if I'm a little skeptical
to that point. But I'm not the guy in the
Oval office. I'm not the guy getting the intelligence directly
from the Israelis and from American intelligence sources, So I
don't know Trump does. So that those were the two

(03:46):
big risks was letting Iran alone and letting them develop
a nuclear weapon, which I think is intolerable. I think
it gives even if Iran doesn't use it, it gives
them an intolerable amount of negotiating leverage within the region
and gives them standing in status while they continue to
be the world's chief exporter of terrorism through their various proxies.

(04:12):
So it stops that from happening, but does it draw
us into a broader conflict? And this is what I'm
afraid of, and I don't think we can know that
right now. Iran is clearly I would say, not going
to take this lying down, or they have to. I

(04:33):
think they have to demonstrate some kind of response in
order for the regime in Iran to maintain some shred
of credibility. And this is one of the geopolitical things
about Iran. There's all these people have been saying, all
these people pushing for regime change in Iran, they've been saying.

Speaker 2 (05:00):
Well, eighty percent of the population doesn't even like the
Islamic Republic. Eighty percent of the population doesn't even like
the rule by the Ayatolas. They don't like the current
Islamic Republic. You know, remember that Iran was under the
shaw and it was this open, westernized, you know, Middle
Eastern country in the seventies. It's like, okay, but that

(05:23):
was in the seventies. We don't know what it's like now.

Speaker 1 (05:28):
We don't have a grasp on what actual Iranian popular
sentiment is right now, whether that population is actually largely
satisfied with the Islamic Republic, whether they are largely dissatisfied
with the Islamic Republic, whether they are maybe dissatisfied but
unwilling to overthrow them, dissatisfied with the Islamic Republic, but

(05:51):
maybe also still really hating Israel and really hating America.
You know. There there was a story someone mentioned on Twitter.
I think it was Gray Connolly, whom I followed. Was
a really interesting guy. He's an Australian lawyer and a
military historian. He was noting that during the Iraq Iran War,

(06:13):
the son of the Sha who had been oustered. You know,
the Iran was governed by this guy, the Sha Shaw
was in charge. He gets thrown out and the Iranians
replace him with the Islamic Republic and ruled by the Iatolas.
During the Iraq Iran War, the son of the Shaw

(06:33):
volunteered to the Islamic Republic to let him come back
and fly warplanes because he was a pilot, to fly
warplanes to help the Islamic Republic in their fight against Iraq.
Because basically, I guess there was sort of this attitude
of like, Okay, yeah, we disagree about our internal Iranian politics,

(06:55):
but boy, we don't like these Iraqis, so we're gonna,
you know, let me come back to I realize you
oustreed my dad, but let me come back to volunteer
to fight for you. I mean that's the and he
brings up that point just to demonstrate the Iranian people
may not like the Shah. I don't know, maybe they do,
maybe they are excuse me, the Iranian people may not

(07:18):
like the existing Islamic Republic of Iran. Maybe they do,
maybe they don't. But there's no that doesn't necessarily follow
that they'll be so delighted at Israel and America for
blowing up all their nuclear sites and decimating Iran's you know,
capacity militarily as a country, and that they'll be so

(07:38):
delighted with it that they'll overthrow the Islamic Republic. That
does not necessarily follow at all. Maybe, if anything, it
hardens their support for the Islamic Republic. And that's the
other thing is is this sense that American political sentiment
can shift very significantly as a result of current events.

(08:03):
I think popular support for Donald Trump went up after
the assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania. Stuff happens, and it
changes Americans' attitudes towards politics. I wouldn't be surprised if

(08:23):
support for Trump went up a little bit after this
Iranian strength. So I would say in Iran, probably it's
the same thing. Do we think that Israel and America
blowing up a bunch of stuff in Iran. Is that
going to make the Iranians more inclined towards them and
less inclined towards their current ruling government. I don't know.

(08:48):
I don't necessarily think so. I think, if anything, it's
going to make them continue to be more angry at Israel.
It's not like Middle Eastern populations need more of an
excuse to hate Israel, and they all, you know, they've
been fairly consistent about not liking the United States. And

(09:11):
if you hate Israel and you hate the United States
and they keep attacking you, maybe you retreat to being
more supportive of the Islamic Republic rather than less now,
unless the Islamic Republic shows itself to be totally ineffectual.
And I think that's what we're gonna wait and see. First,

(09:33):
we heard different stories, reports, indications that the Iranians might
engage in you know, one of the consistent things that
happened in Iraq was you would have Iranian backed militias
operating in Iraq who would fight and kill Americans. And
that's where Iran had so much blood on its hands.

(09:55):
It's why President Trump killed their General Solomani back during
the first Trump administration was because they kept funding these
different militia groups in Iraq that would attack American soldiers.
So there was this indication, this thought very shortly around
the time of the bombing, that Iranians would ramp up

(10:17):
their attacks on American military personnel currently operating in Iraq
and in Syria. Maybe that'll happen if they do. What's
the United States going to do? I mean, sit there
and take it? Presumably not. And this is where we

(10:39):
got to see what kind of a involvement, what kind
of developed involvement takes place after this. That's the rub
So that's why I'm not at a point of saying, ah,
yes we did it, we declare victory President Trump perfectly
thread of the new We're not on the hook for

(11:02):
regime change. Well, we don't know that. Could these events
precipitate some kind of toppling of the existing Iranian regime?
And if it does, what kind of babysitting would whatever
new thing comes into its place need? And will our
neocon foreign policy establishment be okay? If say Russia tries

(11:25):
to come in and nurse whatever new thing comes aboard,
just as they will not be okay with that. And
that's the thing with that's the thing I'm so concerned
about with regime change. I think people are proposing this
idea that if we do just a couple more air
strikes we could topple the Iranian regime, that maybe the
Iranians ready to get rid of the Ayatola, and maybe

(11:47):
we do a couple more air strikes, maybe we could
even take Komani out, could take the Ayatola out, and
then a new regime. And how much better would that
be if the Islamic Republic was not governing Iran, if
the Iranians had some other kind of government that was
going to just not be the world's leading state sponsor
of terrorism, Well that'd be great. But I think it's

(12:11):
crazy to think that such a government wouldn't need babysitting
in the form of American soldiers. Of course it would
need that. I mean, just think about it. First, If
they topple the Islamic Republic, it's not like, you know,
it's not like zero people support the current Islamic Republic.

(12:34):
Clearly millions and millions and millions and millions of people do.
Probably a large percentage of the army does of their
military forces do? And again it is relevant Ted Kruz
to understand that there are ninety million people in the country,

(12:54):
twice as many, twice as many people as live in Iraq,
almost to as many people as live in Afghanistan. So
if a new good government comes aboard, I find it
hard to believe that there won't be some level of
civil war, and then the United States will have to decide, Well,
it's very much in our national interest not to have

(13:16):
the Islamic Republic running things, and it's more in our
interest to have this side win. So what are we
gonna do? Are we gonna just sit there and let
a civil war break out? Have these two sides duke
it out. Russia may very well support one side over another.
And if the Russians get involved, boy, the pressure will

(13:37):
be on us to get involved. See this is why
regime change would have been a terrible idea. I think
that that there's no way regime change happens quickly. I
mean I would support regime change too if I knew
it could be quick, snappy, easy, see you later. Ayatola
come back in Shaw and the Shaw is greeted with

(13:58):
garlands of flowers and has one Iranian approval rating. That's
not gonna happen. It just won't that that that's ridiculous
to think that that's gonna happen. So now it maybe
we haven't gotten to that point, And I think that's

(14:20):
why I've been saying all along. Oddly enough, the one
person I trust more than anybody in all this is
Donald Trump. And I feel like this time with Trump,
rather than last time, he's surrounded by advisors who all

(14:44):
kind of think simpatico with him. I think Vance very
much is aligned with Trump. I don't think there's a
weird thing like there was, you know, under Trump, like
Mike Pence didn't agree with him about a lot of things.
I don't think Vance is like that. I think Vance
is very much believes in Trump on a lot of things.

(15:05):
Maybe maybe one or two things they might I think
Vance is probably more socially conservative than Trump. But I
think Vance is totally on board. I think Rubio is
totally on board. I think Hegxeth is totally on board.
If anything, I think Tulci Gabbard as the head of
the Director of National Intelligence, I mean, she seems to

(15:27):
be upset and isolated because she didn't even want to
do this. She didn't even want to do this initial
military strike. And seems on the outs that way. But
it doesn't seem like there are too many people that
It really doesn't seem like there are too many people
in the administration who are talking about regime change. Everyone

(15:50):
is afraid of being drawn into a broader conflict and
doesn't want to do something that would draw into a
broader conflict. So oddly enough, I feel like I trust
Trump more than I trust anyone else. But he did
take this step, and we won't know the ultimate success

(16:11):
of it. I think you honestly, this is the kind
of thing. It's like, it's like when a football team,
you know, has their draft during the NFL Draft and
they get a slate of players and it's like, Wow,
what a great draft. It's like, well, you don't know
if it's a great draft. You've got to wait like
two or three years. You might have to wait like
at least a year and maybe two years before you
can fully assess whether the forty nine ers draft in

(16:35):
you know, twenty twenty five was particularly good. I mean,
we got to see how these players develop. I feel
the same way with this air striking against a ron
We can't be one hundred percent sure that it was
successful until we wait a little to assess. All right,
when we return, We'll have more discussing all of this,

(16:57):
and I might even dive into the question of the
constitutionality legality of the president doing this air strike in
the first place. That's next on the John Girardi Show.
One thing to note about all this is where do
the American people stand? And then more specifically, where do

(17:18):
Trump supporters stand the American people. I feel like this
is one of the problems about pulling the American people
about military interventions is do you support a limited intervention
of just a bombing attack on Iranian nuclear sites? Like,
if you present the question as, hey, what if the

(17:40):
ultimate best case scenario happens and we're totally not drawn
into a larger conflict and it's just a limited, one
time run and it destroys all of Iran's nuclear capabilities, Yeah,
overwhelming majority of Americans are like, oh, that's great. Sure. If,
on the other hand, you pull it as do you

(18:02):
want the United States involved in another Middle Eastern conflict,
Everyone's gonna say, well, no, that sounds terrible, and it
does sound terrible. And that's the problem with how do
you pull these things to actually gauge American popular sentiment. Now,
there's one way of pulling. You know. One poll that's
been brought up is that only thirty one percent of

(18:24):
Americans actually view Iran as a serious threat. True, but
it's also the American people don't know much about Iran.
Our policy makers don't know much about Iran. Ted Cruz
didn't even know how many people lived in Iran. I
continue to think, by the way, that that was not

(18:44):
a gotcha question that Ted Cruz got the idea that
you're a United States senator, you might be called to
vote on this. You're on the air saying you want
regime change, you damn well better understand how difficult that
would be. And one of the things of understanding out
difficult that would be is having some sense of how
big and populous Iran is, which makes the whole regime

(19:07):
change thing way harder. So this notion that anyway Ted
Cruz annoys me to no end. I find his shtick
to be tiresome. He is preachy, preening, self laudatory. I

(19:31):
can't stand listening to him for more than like five
minutes anyway, somehow like not that Donald Trump isn't you know,
it's so weird. I have more like I'm more capable
of listening to Trump praise himself because I think Trump
it's part of his it's obviously shtick, like some of it,
like it's so over the top sometimes about how everything

(19:54):
he does is the best and greatest that it's like funny.
But when Cruz does this fun oh oh Shuck's just
a simple, normal guy who went to Harvard Law School
and is a very high level lawyer, and it's a
very incredibly ambitious, high level political operative. But I'm just
a normal Texan just like you. I just cannot stand
Ted Cruz anyway. So I'm basically I long and short

(20:21):
of this is I don't exactly even know where the
American people are. I think the thing is, in all likelihood,
the American people will follow success or follow failure. If
this is all and we destroyed Iran's nuclear program and
we're not going to really be drawn into any larger

(20:41):
conflict other than if there's just a few little scraps
with Iranians trying to attack Americans in one or two
isolated places and that's it. And long term, we're not
even thinking about this. Americans will look back on this
whole episode and think, great, what a success. If, on
the other hand, we get drawn into a much longer,
more protracted conflict, Americans are not going to be happy

(21:04):
about this. And I disagree with some of the sort
of maga super maga folks who didn't want to get involved,
who are saying Donald Trump is burning the bridges of
his magabase. His magabase will be abandoning him for this
decision to break his promises and get us involved in
the Middle East. First of all, the only thing, if

(21:30):
there is one thing that Trump supporters love, it's Trump.
That's it. They are more inclined to trust him than
any Trump aligned commentator ever. If you know, they like
Elon Musk only in so far as he travels with
Donald Trump. They like Tucker Carlson only in so far
as he travels with Donald Trump. They like Candess Owns

(21:50):
only in so far as she travels with Donald Trump.
They liked Elsea Gabbard only in so far as she
travels with Donald Trump. If all of those people leave
and say Trump has abandoned his principles. You know where
most Trump supporters are still gonna stick with. They're still
gonna stick with Trump. He's the guy who has their
loyalty end of the day. That's just the reality of
how most Trump supporters are gonna go. And again, I

(22:19):
don't think that most Trump supporters are dogmatic about this.
I think they broadly don't want protracted, long Middle Eastern
involvement Middle Eastern wars. But I think everyone on the
Trump pro Trump side was like, that was awesome when
Trump took out Sulimani and was worth it and it
didn't pull us into a much broader conflict and took
out this guy who was killing a bunch of Americans.

(22:41):
Good job. I think they're gonna view this if this
intervention winds up having the limited long term effect that
the Solamani attack did. I think Trump supporters are not
gonna give a crap about the fact that, oh, he
bombed another country. I think think they're gonna be okay
with it because for one thing, they trust Trump. They

(23:05):
like Trump, and the thing that they don't it's not
any intervention in the Middle East that they don't like.
What they don't like is getting US involved in a
long protracted nation building project. That's what most of the
American population doesn't like. So I don't think we're out
of the woods yet. I think there's still a chance
of us getting pulled into some broader thing. But I

(23:32):
certainly don't think Trump supporters are gonna flee now. When
we return, I want to talk about the legality of
Trump initiating these strikes. That's next on the John Gerardi Show.
I want to talk about a point that it's a
little tired and it's a little hackneyed because it keeps
happening every time a president decides to initiate a strike.

(23:56):
The question sort of rises ineffectually from conservatives. Didn't he
need to, like ask for authorization of military force first?
Doesn't Congress need to vote on this? And I want
to think about it, and I want to talk about
it as far as historical precedents and sort of the
ideas behind it. Now, the Constitution vests in Congress the

(24:22):
power to declare war. It is firmly with Congress. Okay,
Congress declares war now. The president is, however, the commander
in chief of the military. And it's long been sort
of established thought that the president does not need to

(24:48):
wait for Congress in order to engage in defensive activity. Right,
the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor. The Japanese are attacking Pearl Harbor.
Soldiers in Hawaii who see the planes coming in and
dropping bombs. A soldier runs to an anti air gun,

(25:12):
and the officer says, no, no, no, no, no, you
can't shoot. Congress hasn't declared war. No. Okay, the Japanese
drop bombs. The President immediately gets on the horn and says,
all right, we got to get aircraft carriers over there immediately,
We got to launch attacks on We know that they're
Japanese here here. Immediately launch attacks so we can repel

(25:33):
their advance so that they don't get to the West coast. Okay,
the President doesn't need to wait for Congress to declare
war first before he does that for defensive stuff. Everyone
is pretty much agreed that, yes, if the president is
repelling an imminent threat, he doesn't need to wait for
congressional authorization before he acts. However, the decision to declare

(26:03):
war seems to be a kind of policy decision. If
it's a decision about declaring war to stop someone who
is posing an imminent threat that is not yet there.
Basically the thought is that, well, Congress has to decide it,

(26:27):
and there are a lot of sort of classical classical history,
Greek and Roman sort of precedents for that that the
founding fathers, I think were very deliberately imitating. So in
the ancient world, in the Mediterranean world of kind of

(26:47):
Greece and Rome, those cultures, specifically, many of the city states,
the poll as, the singular polis plural polays, many of
the individual pollais of the Greek and Roman worlds. So
you got the Roman Republic over here in Italy, and
then you had all these individual Greek city states, you know, Corinth, Thebes, Sparta, Athens,

(27:14):
et cetera. They wound up developing more democratic political systems,
political systems in which the citizenry, however defined, and the
citizenry being a citizen was a kivas in the Key

(27:36):
West in the Roman system, or a polytase in the
Greek sense. It was a very restricted, small group of people.
Not everyone was a citizen. It was usually limited to
adult men, non slaves, and they would extend citizenship only

(27:59):
very reluctantly. I think in some city states, I think
it was Athens. You'd only be a citizen if you
could prove that you had a grandfather who was a
citizen or something, which is kind of seems how do
you eventually become a citizen. They were very stingy about
granting citizenship, and so foreigners living and working in the

(28:24):
city would be in a different status, and very often
those people were more concerned with trade. The idea was
that your citizens, and actually sometimes citizenship was qualified by
like property qualifications. The people who got to vote. That

(28:45):
this was the basic rule, with some exceptions, but this
was the effective thing. The people who got to vote
were the people who were going to fight. The people
in the Roman Republic and in the individual Greek city
states who got to vote were the people who were
going to fight if it came down to a war.

(29:05):
So if you were the person, if you were one
of the people who was going to be fighting, you
got to be part of whatever sort of deliberative body
of citizens they had for voting on legislation. And there
was greater or lesser degrees what the citizen assembly was
able to vote on. In Greece, the citizen Assembly was

(29:27):
incredibly powerful and could vote on all kinds of things.
Greek had a pretty much a pure democracy. Someone would
propose legislation, it could be debated, and in the broad
debate of all the citizenry, someone could suggest amendments and
they could change it. Blah blah blah blah blah. Now
in the Roman Republican system, their various popular assemblies, they

(29:50):
could only vote up or down on a piece of
legislation that had already been debated and proposed, often by
the Senate. So the Senate got to be the deliberative body.
They got to decid do we want to do this,
and they'd fashion some proposal. It would be called the
sinatus consultum, the proposal of the Senate, and the people
could only just vote up or down on it. There's

(30:11):
no no amendments, no free wheeling debate, but the citizenry
would get to vote on things. And in Rome it
wasn't one man, one vote. It was basically the weight
of the vote of someone who had more property was

(30:32):
greater than the weight of someone who had less property.
But the idea also seemed very much tied to military service.
Both in the Greek world and in the Roman Republic.
The kinds of property qualifications in Rome that you needed
to have was basically, can you afford your own hop

(30:53):
light armor? Can you afford your own armor? In Greece,
it was can you afford your own hop light armor?
With the hop light armor was the kind of Greek
armor used in the Greek system that there was a
certain specific kind of sort of heavily armored infantrymen, and

(31:14):
the idea was basically, our city state is not going
to war unless the people say we're going to war.
We're not going to leave this up to the decision
of one man, one magistrate. If we're going to war.
The guys who are going to do the fighting, they're

(31:36):
the ones who are going to decide. And this may
have been part of the reason, not just you know,
the brutalization of human nature that led to slavery or
the you know, the chauvinism of the ancient world against women.
The women weren't going to fight, The slaves weren't going
to fight. The foreign merchants living in the city, they

(31:58):
weren't going to fight. And the really poor who couldn't
afford any armor, they weren't gonna fight either. They don't
even have armor. The people who are gonna fight, they
were the ones who decided. And this some people think
this is why Athens actually developed its democracy as a

(32:19):
more pure democratic form of government. People think Athens was
able to develop that because, well, the property qualifications for
fighting as an Athenian were not as great as the
property qualifications you need to fight as say a Spartan.
Why because Athens had a navy. Athens chief military might
was in her navy. You don't need a full set

(32:42):
of hoplight armor to be in the navy. You just
got to, you know, pull an oar. But your life
was on the line just as much as anybody else.
So that was kind of the classical model. The people
decide if they're going to vote, and this is part
This is why for these broad decisional questions of should

(33:06):
we go to war or shouldn't we not talking about
an emergency situation of repelling an attack, but something where
it's a war somewhat of choice. We have received these
acts of aggression, how are we going to respond? Do
we resort to diplomacy? Do we resort to this? The

(33:27):
founding fathers put that decision in the hands of Congress,
and in two deliberative bodies, one the Senate, the idea
being the Senate. This was the counsel of wise, experienced elders.
That's what senate means. It's the gathering of old men,
the gathering of the elders. Senex is the Latin word

(33:50):
for an old man. The senatus is the old guys club. Okay,
it's the old men gathering club. And the Senate in
Rome was posed of It was usually older men, but
it was men who had already held some kind of
public office magistracy within the Roman Republic. And the former
consuls were, you know, the eldest senator who was a

(34:13):
former consul was who was called the princept sonatus, the
head of the Senate, the prince of the Senate, the
chief of the Senate. He always got to spoke first,
to speak first. And the idea was, well, why are
we letting any Joe Schmoe do this. Let's have our
former generals, former magistrates, officers, Let's let them have a
first crack at deciding what is whise here. That's our

(34:36):
Senate in the United States was manifestly patterned off of that. Now,
the nature of the United States Senate is much different
from what it was at the founding at the founding,
senators were picked by the state legislatures. Today they're directly
voted on by the people of those states. But also
the decision of whether to go to war was with
the House. Why is it with the House of Representatives. Well,

(34:59):
the House repe Andatives the closest thing we've got to
direct democracy. It isn't purely direct democracy. It's not all
of the citizens of the United States of America voting
up or down should we go to war. But the
House Representatives comes to Washington in a system of proportional representation.
Every member of the House represents roughly the same number
of Americans. Members of the House Representatives are up for

(35:24):
re election every two years. The shifting tides of American
opinion can be reflected in the House of Representatives and
its makeup. You could have a huge Republican majority one year.
Two years from now, it could be completely gone, replaced
with a huge Democrat majority, or a huge this majority,
or a huge to that majority. The House is responsive

(35:45):
to the day to day changing views of the American people,
and those are the two bodies we put our war
making decisions on. Now the President will try to argue that, hey,
I have authorization to do this. In a number of ways,
the President might try to say, look the two thousand

(36:07):
and one Authorization for Use of Military Force to Combat Terrorism.
That justifies my actions. Iran is a constant, continual state
sponsor of terrorism that they've attacked. They've killed hundreds of
American servicemen, particularly in Iraq. Their proxies have done all

(36:28):
kinds of horrible things, including most recently the October seventh attacks.
More recently than that, the ongoing Houthy attacks that are
threatening American shipping. Iran continues to be a dangerous, ongoing threat.
They're developing a nuke, they could be getting close. This
is a defensive thing. I don't need to wait around
for Congress. I already have one, a Congressional Act from

(36:48):
two thousand and one authorizing me to do this, and
my inherent power to act in a defensive way to
protect American interest. Okay, I see those arguments. I still
kind of feel like it would have been better to
have Congress debate this. I think it was a choice
whether we went to this war or not, and we

(37:09):
would have really benefited from Congress debating it. I think,
so when we return, should we build a new Bulldog Stadium.
Next on The John Girardi Show, there's a story about
whether or not if Presno State got a new football stadium,
and if it was kind of more like the new

(37:29):
football stadiums that like San Jose State build that Sacramento
State's about to build, et cetera, if this could be
a real cash cow for Fresno State. I guess I'm
just gonna say this, I'd like to see Bulldog Stadium
more consistently selling out Before I commit to that, I

(37:49):
feel like too often a lot of folks in Fresno
just kind of fall away if the team loses two
or three games, and before I commit more taxpayer dollars
to that, I'd like to see some pretty committed commitment
by the city. I don't want it to be another
Grizzly stadium where they struggle to fill in. That'll do it,

(38:09):
John Girardi Show. See you next time on Power Talk