- Welcome to the Siren Podcast, Amy McGrath,
candidate for Senate in the great state of Kentucky. - Hi, Amy. - Hey, good to be with you. - I am so excited to talk to you. I wish we were talking under better circumstances,
but ever since this war, that is the word for it, any Ron began since Donald Trump started it. I've wanted to pick your brain. I've seen you on TV. I've seen what you're doing on social media.
Your perspective on this is so important and so clear-eyed. So let's start with what are your thoughts on the entire engagement and where we are now and what we got out of it?
- Well, this is a war that never should have been started.
We got nothing out of this. I think right now as it stands, this is the worst strategic defeat in my lifetime. Now, I've spent my entire life in defense of our country in the military and at the strategic level.
I know more about the strategy than Pete Higgs at those.
“He spent his entire life at the tactical level, okay?”
And you can win battles all day, and still lose the war. Look at Vietnam, look at Afghanistan, okay? So what did we get out of this? Did we get regime change?
No. Did we get their nuclear program, you know, annihilated, destroyed forever? No. And I can talk about that a bit if you want.
Did we get unconditional surrender which Donald Trump wanted at the very beginning? No. Do we get them around to stop funding terrorist groups? No, they're gonna continue to do that.
What did we get out of this? We nearly destroyed Iran's army and navy. Okay, remember, they didn't have much of a navy to begin with, and they're Air Force.
“They don't have the same structure that we have.”
They do asymmetric warfare, okay? We destroyed some of their missile capacity. They still have 50% of it. And meanwhile, they still have their enriched uranium that could become weapons grade, and they could get a bomb.
There's no guarantee they won't. We have no inspectors there. Their missile capacity is still at 50%. They still have drones and mines and all these small speedboats to shut down the straight-up formus,
which is still right now essentially shut down. Having nine vessels go through that are all Iranian vessels does not equal the straight-up formus open. It's not open, okay? And right now, Iran is profiting into the future.
They want to profit, like use it as a toll. So we're gonna pay for this in the future. We've also given them sanctions relief. We've killed thousands of people. I should have started that out with that.
That's probably the most important.
That is the most important piece. Hundreds of kids, we've gotten 13 American troops killed or hundreds more wounded. We've got our own base of struck. We've got ammunition, the US munitions depleted.
And our standing in the credibility in the world has been deeply damaged. Our allies don't trust us. Our enemies can't negotiate with us. Now, because we assassinate them, right?
We've given Russia sanctions relief. Putin's got a big win out of this. We've fractured NATO. We spent billions of taxpayer money. Gas prices are up.
And we're just at the beginning, Joe, of a global economic and energy crisis, probably of epic proportions. We're just at the beginning. Just came out this morning that inflation is back on the rise. Why?
Because of this war, right? That's, I mean, that's where we're at.
It was never explained to any of us.
It was never-- the case was never made before the American people was never made before Congress. We can't even trust the things that they're saying with a reporting of one of the strikes, the deadly strikes that sent six of our troops home and flagged our coffins of the reporting, not matching up with what Pete Hugseth said happened. Again, they're doing this unilaterally, and no one understood the point.
I'm not sure that they understood the point of why we're going in. So what does that feel like for our troops?
“Like, what if you're on the ground of your flying missions?”
And again, you have been very clear. There's no criticism of our military. You talked about tactically versus strategically. That's a big, big difference. There's no criticism of how our military has carried out these operations at all.
Yeah. That's a really good question. I actually had a long phone conversation with one of our troops over there right now.
Someone who said to me, we weren't told anything when this thing started.
And it's very concerned about what the end game is.
“Understand that this particular service person said to me, we lost this thing on day one.”
We didn't have a reason to do this. We were either puts us in a box where we either have to do a major invasion. Or we lost strategically, like what I just outlined, the straight-of-formuces closed. And this particular person was very concerned about the force protection that wasn't there. And it doesn't appear to be there where this person is.
And to me, I'm very worried about this because we also see reports that this administration did not even coordinate with our merchant marine vessels that were in the Persian Gulf at the time. We stranded our own cadets, our own magic, and there, who are, I mean, it's just, it's a disaster. Um, of epic proportions.
“And if you go back today one where, you know, hey, supposedly this was to get rid of their nuclear”
program, you know, anybody that has studied this stuff that knows national security knows, that there's no military solution for Iran's nuclear program, it's going to require diplomacy inspections and international cooperation. But force, because we knew for 47 years we've been doing work games on this very scenario. And anybody with a brain has said, don't do this.
You know, the Republicans like to say, well, only President Trump's had the courage to do this. He's the only president that's had the current, no, man, he's the only president to dumb enough. And in fact, John Kerry said last night on TV that, that BB and that young, who tried to convince
“Obama to do this, and, and, and, and, and, and, of course, he's, no, that's dumb.”
And he tried to convince Bush to do this, and he said, no, that's not tried to convince Biden to do you know, this is dumb. Well, he, he got, he convinced the dumb president, I just, I got to say it. And we had a deal, we had a diplomatic deal, you know, the Republicans will say, oh, Obama gave them pallets of cash, and for what, right, let, let, let's, let's go back
in time. I would argue, and you're the expert here, but Iran seems to be in a better position, maybe not militarily, but in terms of, they're, they're economically, in terms of, they are, absolutely, we are giving them way more money. Now, then what, the sanctions relief that was given, or, that, that, that, under the Obama
deal, we, we are in a much worse position. They still have, they still have their, weapons great, or their highly enriched uranium, and we have no inspectors in there to, to see what they're going to do with it. And they now control the straight-of-war news, 20 to 25% of the, of the world's oil goes through there, natural gas, it's going to drive prices up for everybody, and no end-in-sight.
They have, they have more strategic power now than they did six weeks ago.
I want it, before we pivot to domestic stuff, I just want to sort of take a second to reflect
on something that was only a few days ago that is already no longer in the new cycle, which is that the president of the United States posted that there would be the extinction of a civilization, a civilization will die tonight. I just, I feel like we've moved past that a little too quickly, overall, because I was listening to, you know, some people talking on NPR that were experts on all of this, and
they said, just, just those threats in and of themselves are war crimes. If the fact that he didn't follow through on them, thank God, he didn't follow through on them, but like, to me, this is one of the biggest stories of my lifetime, that I feel like we've completely normalized, and then the next day yesterday, I guess, it was, he was talking about the next conquests, whatever that looks like, Cuba, I don't know, you know,
with the thing is the sliding scale, so like, what are your thoughts on just the insanity
of the fact that he was talking about the extinction of a civilization of 90 million people,
the president of the United States of America, the commander-in-chief of our armed forces.
Yeah, this is why so many people are calling for the 25th Amendment right now...
think that's going to happen because he's surrounded himself with a bunch of yes men, but, you
“know, this is, these are the words of an insane man, man, and I never thought I would see”
this in my lifetime from an American president. Look, there's only one weapon that could do damage to destroy civilization, we all know what that is, right? And it's, it's a nuclear weapon, and nobody wants to talk about this, but that is exactly what I'm worried about, is exactly what I'm, this is, this president is unhinged, his words themselves, the threats themselves are a moral, and if he acted to bomb innocent civilians or order our military, now I know
a military is very professional, this is obviously why Pete Hickseth tried to fire all the, all the jags and all the officers at the very top, because there can be some gray area with, with regards to civilian infrastructure, and is that a target, it shouldn't be a target. If we do that, we are committing war crimes no different than what Vladimir Putin has been doing in Ukraine, but this is, this is our president right now, and you're absolutely right to be focused on it,
because with so much going on, we tend to just, oh, well, that was yesterday's news. Oh my god, yeah, yeah, and he has, like you said, a yes men in Pete Hickseth who will carry out any orders, it seems that he gives, who has no regard, just like Donald Trump in my estimation, no regard for human life, I mean, Hickseth was talking about fire raining from the sky, and there was no real line, no quarter, there was no real line between, you know, what is a civilian
infrastructure, what is the legitimate target, it didn't seem to be distinguishing these things, and with Trump with, historically, you know that when he says something out loud,
“you should take it seriously, but also that he's forecasting the kinds of things that he will do,”
and Hickseth had that mass of firing of all of those other generals, and then you have that juxtaposed with the video that some members of Congress put out, Jason Crowe, Mark Kelly, etc. where they tried to criminally charge them, they tried to get Jeanine Piero, she did put this before grand jury who thank God, was like, you can, you could have died at him so much, and they were like, ah, but they were imploring the military, reminding the military, the military, that is, they're
oh, to refuse unlawful orders, and it's like, and yet here we are, and the head of the Department of Defense, I refuse to call the Department of War, even though that's what they want to call it,
and the Commander-in-Chief are basically giving them orders potentially that would conflict
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one skin, with the code Jojo, at one skin.co/Jojo, I'll say it again, get 15% off at one skin, with the code J.O. J.O. at one skin.co/J.O. J.O. I've got the link and code in the description and pinned comments, so you don't have to go digging for it. Try it, see what you think. I genuinely love this stuff, and I'm picky as hell, so that should tell you something. That's right. I mean, Pete Higgs-Seth does not understand what honor is. You know, we talk about honor in the United
States military. Part of that is doing things like following the laws of war, decency, proportionality.
“Those parts are very important parts. When Pete Higgs-Seth says, "We're not going to give them any”
quarter." Well, most Americans don't even know what, what does that mean? I'll tell you what that means. That means that if the enemy waves the white flag and surrenders, we will not shoot them in the head. When Pete Higgs-Seth says, "We will give no quarter." He's telling them, "We're going to kill you no matter what." And that is not what we do in America. As against the Geneva Convention,
it is against the laws of war, is against our honor. When we won in the Second War war,
The Germans who were surrendering wanted to surrender to the United States an...
because we would not kill them upon surrender. And that actually also helps protect us in the military.
Now, we just saw an aircraft shot down less than two weeks ago. Listen, we could go. And we want them if that aircraft had been captured. We want them to abide by the laws of war. Make them a prisoner of war. So when it's all done, we can get that air crew back at the end of
“hostilities. Well, we don't want them to torture and shoot them in the head. That's what Pete Higgs-Seth”
just said that he was going to do. That's not America. That's what Vladimir Putin does. And so that people need to understand those words and better. Yeah. Well, we could talk about this all day,
because it also sends a message to the troops. Whatever, you know, good or bad.
It obviously signals some things and behavior. We saw that. I think there were patches, blackhawks. I forget as I have the same, I'm not sure what those helicopters were that did the kid rock fly by and the over Nashville. And we saw what Higgs-Seth signal to the troops because they were under investigation for doing things they weren't supposed to do. And then Higgs-Seth went on Twitter and said, no, no, no investigation. You patriots carry on. You know, these messages,
again, like coming from a family of a lot of people who served, it's order is everything. And chain of command is everything. And, you know, doing following the correct procedures and protocols is everything. And once all of that's gone and once it looks like from the top down, they're rewarding behavior that fits in with what they want, not necessarily what they're supposed to do, this is terrible. This is life and death stuff. Even though it seems to go, it's just a fly by.
Well, it's a blatant politicization of the military. It's, you know, using the military as you're like tool, your toy. It's your toy. And you can go on an enjoy mission as long as it's, you know, pro-Trump. That's fine. No, it's not fine. You know, and, and it's also what what Pete Higgs-Seth has done to stop the promotions of women and persons of color. I mean, this is like, it is the height of like the most mediocre unqualified secretary of defense we've ever had to insert himself
in the in the promotion process of the services, because he doesn't like women. Women who, by the way, are all smarter. All more qualified way way more qualified than he is at his job. I mean, it's just, yeah, it's the height of stupidity. But all of that said,
“does not, in my mind, I, I think compared to what Pete Higgs-Seth and Donald Trump have done”
in giving us the worst strategic defeat in my lifetime in this Iran war. And that, that is the consequence. We all, and we want to talk about, you know, he hates women and all of that other stuff. The consequences, the man is not qualified. He's unfit. Both of them. Right. And when you travel around Kentucky, you know, campaigning for your Senate run, this is something that in my friend group, this is Pierce That Bubble. My friends don't talk about politics very much, but the price of
gas first of all, price of everything. This war that they don't understand, this is Pierce That Bubble.
What are you hearing? What are people talking about when it comes to everyday life right now, but this war, and it's impact on everyday life. You just mentioned inflation. Gas prices, they're saying a 41% of the number I heard today, and that they could potentially go higher,
“and inflation is highest. It's been at least in two years. So, what are you hearing from people?”
Yeah, so I hear this a lot, and I hear it, let me preface this by saying it's not just from Democrats. I talk to people who are independent. I talked a three-time Trump voter a couple of days ago, who said to me, "What are we doing? What are we doing?" People do not understand why we went into this war. There was no justification to the American people. Remember, the President did a state of the Union address, 48 hours prior to starting this war,
and didn't talk about it all. People are just like, "Why is this happening?" There's no plan, there's no timeline. The objectives have been all over the place
From the very beginning, and now folks are starting to see it, and they reall...
gas prices, which have just skyrocketed. And I think people are hopeful for like, "Oh, ceasefire,
okay, maybe gas prices will go down." No, they're not going to go down. I'm just going to tell you. They're not going to go down anytime soon. And I feel like, you know, we're in a long, many months of this, if not longer. And it's all, we have shot ourselves in the foot here, not only from a strategic standpoint, but also an economic standpoint. We are making the high prices, high energy prices, high grocery prices, everything. A lot of it was because of the tariffs a year ago,
which is still terrible policy, by the way, and still happening. And then we made a worse with this war. I mean, we're just doubling down tripling down on stupid. Right, all while he talks about building
an arch and a ballroom, et cetera, et cetera, spending $377 million. I think it's the number to
refurbish the, the, whatever, where they live inside, what is that called? Residence in the White House.
“With, with foreign steel, remember that part. And that's the thing. Like, people aren't stupid.”
People, this is the thing that I think is one of the greatest miscalculations is that they keep saying, it's the hardest country in the world. We've the hottest economy in the world. And you could tell people that all day long, but they're not feeling it. They're looking around and like, does anything feel like it's going in the right direction for you right now? And, and they're running away from Republicans as fast as they can all across the country. I mean, you know, Kentucky's one of those
interesting states where, yeah, I mean, you have two Republican senators, Rand Paul has actually
been surprisingly, I guess, not that surprisingly. One of the saying adjacent voices. And I like really kind of like, my body does a weird thing when I say that. But Kentucky, you have a democratic governor. I mean, the people of Kentucky are also not stupid. And so they're looking at this. I'm sure right now going, no, I don't want any more of this. You don't know, I mean, like, what, I mean,
“I'm not going to get a Democrat and Mitch McConnell seat. It would be great. And that's what”
I'm, that's what I'm going to do. And, and it's about connecting the dots for people. Like, you know, a lot of the, what, what, what, what, what, Kentuckians are feeling right now is literally because of what's happening in Washington. I mean, the tariffs that drive up prices, this war that drives up prices, that is all preventable. And it is all happening because of this president and because of Republicans in Washington, they are doing this. And so people are feeling it. I talk to people
every single day. You know, that we've got folks that their energy bills are higher than their rent. We've got people who can't afford healthcare because of the affordable care subsidies going away. All of that is because of Republicans in Washington. And that is the connection that we have to make in this, you know, pretty red state. But as you, as you mentioned, we have a great Democratic governor who has been able to, you know, talk to and listen to and hear not only
“Democrats, but also moderates and independence. And that's the challenge that I have. And that's what”
I intend to do. And I talked to, like I say, I talked to people every single day. And that's how you do it. Yeah, they've been a rubber stamp on all of it, including the war powers resolution that they gavled out. They wouldn't even let that come to a vote. The Republicans are just so feckless in Congress right now. And, and, and they're really just an arm of his administration. They don't consider themselves to be a co-equal branch of government, which is really, really sad. But before we close
and I've kept you already too long and I apologize. But there's this also, this part of this we're talking before we started about, um, as moms. You know what I mean? Like, this is existential for me. This, this undergirds everything is what kind of a country I want to model for my kids right now, right? Like, this, this is a scary time for them to look at the president of the United States talking about the extinction of an entire civilization. But also, you know, just equity and
kindness and empathy and all of those things, um, but I'm also honestly concerned because I have us almost 17-year-old son. And I am afraid of things like a draft. Do you know what I mean? Like, I know that sounds maybe hyperbolic, but that is something. But also, I want to leave this country better off for my kids than than what I found. And, and right now, it's moving in the opposite direction on everything. So, like, as a, as a mom, you know, what, what are your thoughts
on this moment for our kids and what's at stake for, for future generations? Well, that's why I'm
Doing what I'm doing.
in the sand and say, I'm just going to let, I'm just going to weather this storm. No, no, no,
“this, this matters. We're spending a billion dollars a day in an unnecessary war. We don't need to”
be then. That's jacking up prices on everybody. That is killing people. And, and I often think, because my kids, you know, they watch TV. They see things. My, my children are 13, 11, and 9.
Particularly my 13, and my 11-year-old. And they'll, they'll ask me questions. Like, what,
what are we doing? What is this place around? Why are we there? You know? And, and also, I just, I feel like I have to, whenever our president comes on TV, I have to turn it off. Yeah. I, I cannot trust my kids watching our president because he's so unhinged. And because I don't, I, I think that what he might say is not decent. Yeah. And what he might tweet out is not decent. And so that to me hurts me. Like, the leader of my country, I,
I don't trust with my children. Yeah. Thought out. Right. So, I, you know, I feel like
“the only way to change it in a democracy that I fought for. That my husband fought for”
is to be a part of the system to try to change it. And that's why I'm running.
Well, it's always so great to talk to you. And, and I, I share my same, we have the same
why, which is my kids too. I thank you for your service. I, I've talked with this so many times, but I hold people who serve in the United States military in the highest regard. They were better served by me not serving because I'm Brad and I know myself well enough to know that I would not. I've wanted to inflict to myself on them, but I'm grateful. I turnally grateful for your service, but I'm also grateful for your public service and for your dedication to fighting
to protect and preserve this democracy for for our generation for our children's generation and beyond. Thank you so much, Amy. And, and, and we'd love to talk again as you go through this race, because boy, boy, can I not wait for the day when I get to say Senator, Amy McGrath,
“and I won't stay at it. We're going to stay out of this. It's really important. It's an important race,”
and it's an important year. So it really is. And I'm so glad to have you in this fight. Thank you so much, Amy. We'll talk again soon. You bet. Take care. Thank you, too.
