Who’s in charge at the border?
KCRW's Left, Right & Center
KCRW
4.2 • 4.8K Ratings
🗓️ 2 February 2024
⏱️ 51 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
A drone attack on a United States military base in Jordan killed three servicemembers. President Biden announced that a decision had been made on responding to the attack, though details weren’t shared. The White House did say Iranian-backed militias responsible for several other attacks on U.S. troops in the Middle East can expect to be targeted. Will that be enough to deter the growing threat of a wider conflict with Iran?
The United States sued for the right to take down a nearly three-mile stretch of fencing and razor wire that the Texas National Guard erected last month. The Supreme Court ruled the government had the right to tear down the barriers to access the border, but as of now, the state still has the right to put more up. Will the state’s obstruction of the government at the border push Congress to agree to increased measures on immigration?
Conservative media had plenty of headlines about a possible Taylor Swift endorsement for President Biden. While it’s confusing on its surface, is there an underlying strategy to stir paranoia on the right?
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the left right and center everybody. I'm David Green and you know this is an election year and it's really easy to get caught up in the horse race and the politics. |
| 0:11.0 | We're going to spend a nice bit of this show talking about, you know, some serious |
| 0:15.8 | deep policy questions, foreign policy, immigration policy. Okay, then we'll get to Taylor |
| 0:21.2 | Swift, I promise. But let's start with foreign policy. |
| 0:24.0 | President Biden says he has made a decision about how the United States is going to respond |
| 0:29.0 | after three American service members were killed in Jordan by an Iran-backed militia. |
| 0:34.4 | We're not getting much more from Biden or the White House than that, though the |
| 0:38.4 | president did say we don't need a wider war, but he's not being specific yet telling us what his plans are. |
| 0:44.1 | Iran-backed militias have been targeting U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria since the war between |
| 0:49.0 | Israel and Hamas broke out, but this new attack in Jordan is the first to kill American service members. |
| 0:56.5 | Let's listen to Sabrina Singh, she's the deputy Pentagon Press Secretary. |
| 1:00.4 | I'm not going to get ahead of the president, I'm not going to get ahead of any decisions that have been made. |
| 1:04.0 | What I can tell you is the groups that are conducting these attacks, we know have Iran behind them. |
| 1:10.0 | They have the support of Iran. They are trained and equipped by Iran, but they are |
| 1:14.4 | operating within Iraq and Syria. They are attacking our forces there and of course tragically |
| 1:18.6 | in Jordan. So again, the president is going to take all necessary means that he feels to protect our forces to protect American interests, but I'm not going to get ahead of what military action looks like. |
| 1:29.0 | Okay, Sarah Isger and Moelithi are here as always. And you know, I let I want to ask you both you've been talking for years about |
| 1:37.0 | this threat from Iran and how the United States should respond we heard all the |
| 1:42.0 | debates over whether an Iran nuclear deal was |
| 1:44.9 | smart, was not, did it make us more likely to go to war with Iran or less likely. I |
| 1:52.0 | just want to help our listeners understand and think |
| 1:54.3 | through given all that context what's at stake right now and I don't want to |
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