Everyone. Thanks so much for joining us this morning. Welcome to sunday morning futures. Im maria bartiromoment bloodshed rising as a israel prepares to retaliate in a ground war against terrorists in gaza. Coming up, texas senator ted cruz on the implications of misfired Foreign Policy, plus, John Ratcliffe on who contact9ly has the precision weapons that hamas is using and what will a ground assault look like if in gaza saw. Retired general anthony data that is here with analysis. Then the wide open border and its impact, attorneys general from texas and iowa on the terrorist threat already inside the gates of the usa. Ken paxton and brenna bird are here on the impact on communities across the country. All of this happening as a Congress Battles over its own leadership. Former california congressman and former chairman of the Intelligence Committee devin nunes on the fight to be speaker and the role of the media throughout. Its all right here, right now on sunday morning futures. Maria and we begin this sunday morning with breaking news from israel as the war against Hamas Terrorists enters a 16th day. This morning a 1,400 israelis are dead, more than 4, 600 palestinians are dead including 32 americans killed. Now fears are how abouting that the war could spread to other parts of the middle east as iran continues its Terror Campaign through approximate i says. Joining me right now is Texas Senate Ted cruz who sits on the Senate Foreign relations and judiciary committees. Senator, good to have you this morning, thanks very much for being here. Maria, good morning. Good to be with you. Maria let me get your take from a policy perspective what you can do, what you and your colleagues can do in the face of this bloodshed. Well, this attack is the worst attack on israel in 50 years. This is, what happened on october 7th in the early mornings of of course 7th is the single largest mass murder of jews many a day since the holocaust in a day since the holocaust. And israel right now is, quite rightly, responding. And they are responding, Prime Minister netanyahu has made cheer that his objective is clear that his objective so to the utterly eradicate hamas. These terrorists went from home to home to home going after civilians, deliberately murdering the elderly, murdering women, murdering children. They would murder entire families simply because they were jewish. They violently raped women and young girls, publicly parading them in the street. They murdered and decapitated and burned alive toddlers and infants. This is horrific, and it is evil what Hamas Terrorists have done. Now, Going Forward theres several steps for u. S. Policy. Number one, we need to cut off the funding that has enabled this attack to happen. And what is so infuriating is over the last two and a half years joe biden and the Biden Administration have flowed nearly 100 billion to iran. Understand, hamas is a proxy for iran. Without iran, this would be no hamas. There would be no hamas. And the wall street journal has reported this attack was planned, funded and directed by iran, and yet the Biden Administration continues to allow billions and billions of dollars to flow to the ayatollah to be used to murder israelis and to murder americans. Maria that is exactly right, senator. And is right now we have iranian sympathizers working within the biden add administration, and that is why i started asking you what can you do about a it. Because these atrocities are continuing, and we have robert malley, apparently bidens chief negotiator in the iran nuclear talks, we have others that are still working in the administration that have been leading this effort to get the United States back into an iran deal, leading this effort to, in fact, lower the sanctions enabling iran to generate billions in revenue. And what are they doing with the money . They are empowering these terrorists. Well, and what you just mentioned with rob malley remains one of the greatest National Security scandals in our nations history. So rob malley was joe bidens chief negotiator for iran. Hes an incredible iran sympathizer. He is an ad a slow candidate can, a passionate advocate for the disastrous obamairan nuclear are deal. But he also has extraordinarily bad judgment. Hes been fired. Hes had his can security clearances stripped which i want you to pause and think just how bad does this conduct have to be to have his security clearances pulled by this ideological and radical white house. But we now know also that, among other things, three of rob malleys top advisers, his inner circle that he relied on, were iranian operatives. They were the recruited by the government of iran, they were directed by the Iranian Foreign minister, they reported to the Iranian Foreign minister. We have their emails now in which they discuss, one of them discusses with the foreign minister that his loyalties are with the government of iran, and he is there to do whatever they direct including making the the message from within the federal government that theres nothing wrong with iran having a nuclear stockpile. You literally had three iranian spies working in senior positions directly around the u. S. Government. One of them, as far as we know, remains a chief of staff in the department of defense to in this day with access to classified documents. And yet the Corporate Media cannot be brought to mention that three iranian spies were brought into senior levels of government with access to classified materials while working directly for iran, the same iran that just murdered 31 americans and 400 israelis 1400, the same iran directed by an ayatollah who regularly leads mobs chanting death to america and death to israel. Maria and we knew this, senator. I mean, we knew that while they were negotiating on the iran deal. Yes. Maria the ayatollah was saying death to america at that time. And this administration continued to pursue, to the pursue, to pursue. Yes. Maria why . You know, they have an ideological obsession. Number one, their approach to every enemy of america is appease ifment, and thats true whether its russia, thats true whether its china, whether its north korea, thats true whether its its venezuela, whether its iran. Their response, ive got9 to tell you, they have taught our enemies that the worse they are, the more money joe biden will give you. You know, i mentioned the 100 billion, and its worth focusing on that for a moment. A lot of folks now are talking about the 6 billion, the 6 billion got a lot of coverage. The Biden Administration spent 6 billion that was essentially ransom money to free five american hostages. Now, at the time that happened i said publicly, many others said publicly, this is terrible policy. Youre effectively putting a bounty on the heads of americans. Youre telling bad guys well pay you 1. 2 billion a person for every american hostage that you have, and i predicted at the time our enemies will take more american hostage as, and is iras bounty will take more american host an aings. They now have roughly 3200 israeli hostages 200 and about a dozen american hostages. So im sorry to say that prediction came through within weeks. But thats just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the money that went to iran. Before the 6 billion, the Biden Administration sent 10 billion that went from iraq to iran, and the biggest pot of money deals with the refusal of the Biden Administration to enforce Oil Sanctions. U. S. Law9 puts tough Oil Sanctions on iran. Biden came in, immediately stopped enforcing them. Today iran is selling 2 Million Barrels a day of oil. That has produced 80 billion roughly in revenue. That is funding these hamas death squads, that is funding the rockets, that is funding terrorism. And the Biden Administration, something that he could do today the he gave a speech last week. You know what was not in the speech . Su saying were going to enforce the Oil Sanctions, and were to going to cripple the Iranian Regime and take away their money. That still, joe biden and the democrats have still proven unwilling to do. Maria yeah, thats a great point. And it was just stunning to me to the understand the fact that while this administration was actually negotiating to pay money for those hostages, the iranians were actually planning on taking more hostages. And that is exactly what they did. Yeah. Maria they unfroze the money, they went in, a hamas went in and took more hostages. That is exactly what happened. I want to get your take on what happened with jack lew last week. Your chief heard the hearing of the former treasury secretary under president obama. He wants to be the next ambassador to israel. Is it going to pass . Well, i dont know. I think hes a terrible choice. I think you are see republicans voting against him. The question is, does every democrat vote party line in and they might. Jack lew was the treasury secretary under barack obama. He was one of the critical call point people for negotiating and implementing the obamairan nuke hard deal. Jack lew played a critical point in flowing over 100 billion to iran. That was catastrophically stupid then, it hurt american interests, it cost american lives. And now joe biden has taken the appeasement of barack obama towards iran, has taken it to another level. And he wants to put as the point person for the administration in israel someone who has funded in a very real way the death squads that are attacking israel. I think thats a mistake. This in ordinary times i think thered be a reasonable chance that some democrats would say, look, this is a bad choice and would vote no. Maria yeah. Right now the white house is saying, well, if you support israel, youve got to give us an ambassador there. I think itd be gate to have an ambassador this, itd be even better to have an ambassador who isnt responsible for funding the theocratic lunatics who are murdering your citizens and to have an ambassador there who hasnt implemented policies for years that that undermine the state of israel. We need to support israel, in the undermine israel and fund their enemies. Maria right. Real quick on the package that the president is asking, he wants to tie the money together, the money going to israel as well as money going to ukraine. Hes talking about humanitarian aid for the palestinians as a well. What about that package . Will it passes . Go . I think its a big mistake. I dont know if itll pass. But what the Biden White House and Chuck Schumer is doing is deep thely cynical. Israel military aid is enormously popular. Theres big, bipartisan support for Israel Military aid. Hes taking the popularity of supporting israel, and hes holding it hostage. The only the hostages are not just being held by hamas, the host an as are also being held by the Biden White House because hes saying you can have Israel Military aid if you pass everything i want on ukraine, if you pack e pass bidens Border Security funding. What it really is, is funding to accelerate illegal immigration can, to have more buses and planes taking Illegal Immigrants to every city in america. And if you pass all of his priorities, its a christmas tree, then you can have israel funding. What we ought to do is we ought to vote on a clean israel funding bill that provides the military aid they need, the weapons, the ammunition, the additional munitions for iron dome and davids sling and arrow ii and iii, the Missile Defense systems. If we voted on that, it would pass overwhelmingly. And i think joe biden and the democrats need to stop playing games with israel funding. And you mentioned also, maria, the funding for gaza . This has been another indefensible step of this administration. Joe biden has already sent hundreds of millions of dollars for gaza. I led 17 senators saying do not send that money, because it will go to hamas, and they will use it for terrorism. 145 democrat congressmen sent a letter saying do send that money despite the fact that it will go to terrorism, and we now know the Biden Administration assessed the matter, and they agreed with me. They concluded that there was, quote, a high likelihood this money would to to hamas and be used for terrorism. And then you know what they did . The they waived u. S. Antiaterrorism law and sent the money anyway. Biden wants to send more money the goz saw gaza that will be used to Fund Terrorism. Its the only thing they know allowed to do, funding terrorist, and its a very, very bad idea. Maria senator, we had been watching your work. Thank you so much for joining me. Thank you, maria. Maria senator ted cruz. Now heres a flashback from this program back in 2021. Watch. Path that the Biden Administration has chosen with respect to iran means that theres going to be chaos is and war in other places in the middle east. If you give iran more money to Fund Terrorism like theyve done in the if the past with the 100 billion that the obamaBiden Administration gave them in the first failed jcpoa agreement, theyre only going to do the that again. I think its really troubling, maria, that the approach that the Biden Administration has taken is to take our sovereign ally in the middle east, israel, and bring them down to the same level where theyve raised hamas, a terrorist organization, and said both parties are at fault. Maria yeah. I think thats really a tragic and troubling Foreign Policy approach. Maria and we welcome back to the program the former director of National IntelligenceJohn Ratcliffe. John, you could not have been more spot on in that interview back in may of 2021. Your reaction to what has played out. Well, maria, its its in the that i was good at predicting the future, it was that i was good at reading our intelligence reports. Look, throughout 2020 the Iranian Military leaders and political leaders were telling us as we listened in on their conversations, were broke. We cant afford to fun hamas. We cant to fund hamas. With we cant afford to pay our proxies to engage in this mayhem. Essentially saying, you know, the maximum Pressure Campaign of the Trump Administration was working, and iran was, you know, less dangerous than they had been at any point in time. And i think whats unfortunate, maria, is all of that intelligence which spoke so clearly was sheared with the Biden Administration shared with the Biden Administration. They were very much aware of that. Unfortunately, its this disturbing trend where they simply just ignored the intelligence. They ignored it in afghanistan and it led to disaster there, they ignored the intelligence at our southern border, it led tost disaster there, and they ignored the intention in the middle east, and its not being hyperbolic to say were on the verge of a war in the middle east. And, you know, to underscore just how, what a colossal failure the Biden Administration policy on iran is, is literally two weeks before this atrocity against both israelis and americans took place, you had president bidens National Security adviser, jake sullivan, bragging ab how great things were in the middle east saying it had never been quieter and he wasnt having to spend think time in the middle east. And so it really underscores, you know, the failure of the biden policy in iran. And its actually worse than what they did in afghanistan. Look, 13 americans died needlessly because they didnt follow what tour intelligence told us about a conditionsbased withdrawal in afghanistan. Thirty americans were butchered by hamas in these attacks two weeks ago. And i just, you know, again, its just unfortunate and a disturbing trend from this administration not to listen to the intelligence that was so clear. Maria and you gave them that that intelligence on the way out, didnt you . I mean, you explained all of this to your successor. Very clearly. I mean, you know, the intelligence on this was uni give call unequivocal, and that was iran was essentially broke. They were saying that themselves in the communications that we were able to listen to. 9 and the Biden Administration was very aware of that, and yet they reversed course. And, you know, you wonder why, maria . If well, what senator cruz just told you is now the inescapable truth. It turns out that iran was negotiating with iran, that in talking with the Biden Administration it was toiranian, antiisraeli negotiators on everything from Nuclear Negotiations to hostage a negotiations. And, you know, as we all sat there and wondered why such a bad deal, why would the Biden Administration enter into such a bad deal with iran time and time again, we now know that t