'Fox News Sunday' on February 4, 2024

Interview

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"Well, the admiral is a good man. I think he does a good job telling a story that's hard to tell. Our national security is in free fall.

Morgan Ortagus made a very good point. Look at the record for the last three years. This is a symptom of a greater problem.

We withdrew from Afghanistan. The Taliban took over in 2021. Showing weakness, Putin invades Ukraine in 2022. In 2023, Hamas attacks Israel, killing more Jews than any time since the Holocaust.

2024, we're having Americans killed by Iranian proxies in the Mideast. They're pushing us all over the place. Our national security is in free fall.

Here's what works -- hit something they value. Soleimani was killed with a single strike. He was their General Patton and Eisenhower. There was nothing left but a smoldering car and a ring finger.

It worked. They got back in a box.

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Yeah, but they are in a box. I don't remember it like this, 160 attacks.

We kill one guy. We got out of the Iranian nuclear agreement. We cut their money off. They were the weakest they've been.

Now, they're the strongest, the most provocative.

Admiral, here's what we need to do. You need to hit something the ayatollah -- the ayatollah values. His leadership team like a Soleimani.

Or take him out of the oil business. If we hit their oil infrastructure, you don't need manned aircraft. They got four refineries you can see from space. If you knock one of them out, they would stop this. Our American troops are in harm's way.

If the goal is to deter Iran, you're failing miserably. If the goal is to protect American troops, you're not achieving your goal. If you're convinced Iran we don't want a wider war, they believe you. Oh, I don't want a war with you. They got the message. What they're not afraid of is us. They were afraid of Trump. They're not afraid of us.

Look what happened in Afghanistan in '21. Look what happened in Europe in 2022, 2023, Hamas attacks Israel. It is not working. We need to change our policy. People are not afraid of us. This idea of hitting hundreds of targets doesn't matter. The only Iranian we killed in Syria or Iraq is some dumbass that doesn't know to get out of the way. We gave them a weak notice. So if there are another round of strikes coming, I hope they really will hurt Iran in their pocketbook or kill their leadership because if you don't, nothing changes.

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Absolutely not. The admiral's dead, right? President Biden has all the authority under Article 2 to protect troops in the field. To those who want to get it approved by Congress, every Commander-in-Chief can protect our troops.

They're over there to prevent ISIS from coming back. They're just not on vacation. They're not hanging out in the mid-east. They're there to make sure ISIS and Al-Qaeda do not attack us here.

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Iran is trying to drive us out of the mid-east and the response we're giving is inadequate to the task. They do not believe or fear that we will hit what matters most to them, their oil infrastructure or their leadership.

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I think it is irresponsible and dangerous to unilaterally recognize a Palestinian state until you first achieve peace with Israel. It would be like recognizing the Germans in the middle of the Holocaust.

On October the 7th, there was an attack by Hamas that killed 1,400 Jews. They raped women, put babies in ovens. We will not reward them for that attack. I've been working with the administration. They've done a very good job of trying to get Saudi and Israel to end the Arab-Israeli conflict.

We need to deal with the Palestinian issue, but nobody in Israel is going to recognize a Palestinian state until there's first peace with Israel. Nobody in Israel is going to reward this attack. Nobody is going to give the Palestinian state after being slaughtered by Hamas.

So to my friend David Cameron, who I like a bunch, it is a horribly bad idea to talk about a Palestinian state unilaterally granted until there's first peace and security with Israel. You've got it backwards, so nobody in Israel is going to recognize a Palestinian state until Israel first has peace and security, and that's the way it should be.

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Well, the process, the oldest game in town is to bring an important piece of legislation, right, before a holiday or right before a break. So process-wise, we're not going to deal with this next week. It's too important.

Substance, I've been involved in the negotiations. What they have achieved, as far as I know, we don't -- we haven't seen it yet, is a real change in asylum. It's a real change in parole. It's a real change in exp-dotted removal.

Here's what Trump said. We do a very good job concerning the laws are so bad. They're not archaic. They're incompetent. It's not that they're old. They're just bad. And we can't get any Democrat vote to change them. That was in 2018.

There are Democrats willing to change the asylum law to make it better, to deal with parole, to enhance exp-dotted removal. Substantively, James Lankford, I think, has done a pretty good job. I'm going to wait and see what the final bill looks like. But on process, there's no way we're going to be jammed. We're not going to take up something this important, pass it right before a two-week break.

On the substance, how people keep an open mind. If you believe, as President Trump does, our laws are broken, well, you've got to fix them. H.R. 2 is the gold standard. It passed the House -- OK. Let me explain. You're dead right, Shannon. That's why you're doing this show. You're so smart. In the House, it involves two Republican votes, did not gain one Democratic vote. We hook H.R. 2 up on the floor of the Senate. We lost Rand Paul. We didn't pick up one vote. So bringing a bill that fails doesn't solve a problem.

You know how you solve a problem? You do what Lankford is doing. You sit down with the other side and you negotiate. I appreciate what Senator Lankford's done. To those who push H.R. 2, it's not going to happen. So if it doesn't happen, you've got to do something else.

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I hope that Speaker Johnson will look at the substance of it, and we'll see if it's worthy of being voted on in the House. But I want to just tell you that Senator Lankford is doing the best he can to fix a problem that's been around for a long time.

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It's pretty good."

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