CHAIRMAN RICK CRAWFORD 3-31-26
Showing mention at 9:43 — highlighted below
Transcript
36 segmentsHey, I'm Chris Van Fleet. Go behind the scenes and beyond the headlines with the biggest names in pro wrestling and beyond. Jeff Jarrett, great to see you. In this business, the story behind the scenes, so much more entertaining than what you see on camera. Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Paul Heyman. Mr. Heyman. You are a master at the little things. That's how you turn good into great. What does it take to achieve greatness? Whatever it takes I'm willing to do. That's an Emmy winning performance. How about it? Insight with Chris Van Fleet. Follow and listen on your favorite. platform. And good Tuesday morning to you. Welcome back to First News. Final day of March 31st, just about 20 minutes in front of 9 o'clock. And now joining us on the American leak detection phone lines are congressmen from the First District of Arkansas, Representative Rick Crawford. And Congressman, good morning to you. How are you today? I'm good morning. We appreciate the other time today. Congressman, last Friday you and President Trump, you hosted farmers from around the country at the White House. I know National Agriculture Day was last week as well, but what was the get-together about last Friday with our farmers at the White House? Well, I mean, it's basically a celebration of American agriculture. That was basically an opportunity for the president to thank farmers personally for everything that they do. I think farmers are often... overlooked in the whole national security scheme of things. But the reality is food security is national security. And so these farmers that are out here day in and day out, making sure that we have something to eat is not just, you know, for their health. I mean, it's actually a national security imperative that we'd be able to food and clothe ourselves on our own terms. And I think the president gets that and he wanted to make sure farmers understood that he gets it. And I think it's great that you got everybody together at the White House sticking with the farmers. I'm sure you've seen the stats that are out there that say that Arkansas leads the nation in farm bankruptcies right now over the last year or something like that. But I'm being told that here in Arkansas, the money that's going to come from the farmer's bridge aid, $12 billion, I believe is what that was. It won't necessarily be enough to actually bail them out of their current losses on the year. And so what needs to be done next, especially in terms of... of Arkansas farmers? What do they need from the government, especially to keep them out of bankruptcy court and to keep those farms running? Well, I think we need to re-examine our policy. The current structure is designed to pay in arrears, and that is to say you have your current crop year. That's when the damage is done. Right. And when you trigger a payment, when the market conditions are such that it triggers a payment. you won't receive that payment for 12 to 14 months. Yeah. And so that is a flaw in the policy that basically doesn't provide the relief when it's needed. So if the conditions are bad enough that they trigger... a payment, the payment ought to come in the crop year where the damage is done, not a year or longer before you receive the benefit because then in many cases it's too late. And that's what we're seeing is over a period of three or four years where we've seen these kind of market conditions that would trigger a payment and then the payment comes in too late to be of any assistance. And so when we see those conditions continue over a three, four year period,
You know, it's not any surprise that we may see more farmers facing bankruptcy or, you know, dealing with other conditions, financial conditions that make it difficult for them to function. Well, and I know that we do appreciate your work on this year. You've always had the farmers as a top priority. And so that's definitely appreciated as we talk with Representative Rick Crawford this morning. The war in Iran has even raised, you know, fertilizer costs for our farmers right now. That's another situation that they're dealing with. But there is a lot of talk right now that possibly President Trump is getting ready to, you know, try to get into peace talks, maybe end this war here sooner than later. If the U.S. winds things down now, do you feel like? the objectives are being accomplished in the Middle East, or do you feel like that there's still more that needs to be done before we can actually get to a comfortable place for peace? I want to try to characterize the end states for the president, but I will say this. I know that everything's been done up to this point has been very methodical, very precise. And obviously addressing some key military objectives, one of the other issues that obviously has come up is the Strait of Hormuz. And I don't think we're really paying close enough attention to what that means. And think about, you know, the global supply chain prior to... these strikes on Iran, I think you have to understand first, the American people realize, I hope, you know, that we've been on war footing with Iran since 1979. I mean, we've been at war with Iran for 47 years, whether anybody wants to acknowledge that or not. I mean, all you have to do is go through the timeline starting in 1979, and throughout that intervening 47 years, there are a number of attacks that the Iranians are responsible for, not to mention. The contribution to against U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan over a 20-odd year period. So this was something, I believe, was necessary. As it applies to their ability to enrich and create nuclear weapons, that was real and imminent. And if it wasn't, there was still the lingering fissionable material that could have been used for dirty bomb strikes in various ways. I think it was necessary to do what's being done right now on the other side of it. I think what you're going to start to see is a reset in the global marketplace as it applies to petroleum products, oil and gas coming out of the Gulf region, and a big part of that is going to be getting Venezuela back into the supply chain. So I think we're seeing, obviously, a short-term hike in oil prices. A lot of that is speculator-driven. I mean, they just look at those conditions and go, all right, we've got to bid up the price of a barrel of oil. But in real terms, as it applies to the supply, you're talking about 20% of the global supply in the Strait of Hormuz, much of which is being offset by Venezuelan product now entering the marketplace. So this is going to start to level off as the spec traders recognize, okay, we don't necessarily have a real...
threatening supply issues. Then the question is, what are we going to do about the Strait of Hormuz? Right. You see Iran trying to act like the Panama Canal and charge toll. Right. They won't be able to hold that position for very much longer. Number one, illegal, because they only have sovereignty 12 miles off of their own coast. And Oman has as much claim to the Strait of Hormuz as Iran does. And so I think you're going to see that level off and you'll start to see that transiting. sooner rather than later where we get back to normal. So Oman is going to lay a claim to that as well, and then we're going to see, you know, the idea that I think, you know, global opinion will start to work against Iran even more than it already is. So, I mean, there's just a whole lot of things to consider here with regard to, you know, where we go in the next three to four weeks. Yeah, no, it will be obviously a lot to keep track of it and watch as this does play out, as we're talking with Representative Rick Crawford this morning. Over a week ago, it's kind of in the same vein. You held a meeting as the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee about global threats facing the United States right now, and I'm sure this is amped up because of the war with Iran. But what can you tell us about that meeting? What type of information came from it that you can at least talk about publicly? You know, I've been on this committee now for eight plus years, and every year we have a global threats assessment or an all-threats assessment, open hearing, and then we'll go into the closed setting. And I can tell you that Iran has always been a topic of conversation the entire time. And it certainly was in this case, you can imagine. But I think the continuing concern. is China. And, you know, their presence here in the United States, the counterintelligence threat that they present to the U.S. homeland, their desire to supplant the United States economically, militarily, politically, industrially, and otherwise continues to be a threat. And we have to start. really taking that more seriously than we have been. We're in a Cold War with the Chinese Communist Party, and we need to make sure that we're doing everything we can. We haven't had such a lax CI posture since the Cold War. So I would like to see us really step up our counterintelligence capability as applies to protecting the homeland. And China is, to me, the preeminent threat to the American way of life. Well, and obviously, you know, having safety here in the homeland, probably part of that at least points towards funding the Department of Homeland Security and, of course, still have the partial government shutdown going on. The Senate passed a funding bill last week. The House rejected that, passed a different short-term funding bill. What was not liked about what the Senate sent over? Well, because basically stripped out funding for ICE and CBP. I mean, we're sitting here talking about Homeland Security and what the Democrats would like to see is an open border and the inability for the United States government to expel illegal immigrants. And, you know, there's a reason for this. What they want to see is more...
voters coming across the border illegally, that improves their odds going into a midterm election. And listen, there is a senator from Connecticut, Senator Chris Murphy, who flat out said the quiet part out loud that the Democrats were more concerned about illegals, what he called undocumented immigrants than they are about American citizens. He said it unequivocally. You can go look at the video where he said that on, I believe it's one of the CBS shows. So they're basically telling us who they are, where they stand, and what they think about American citizens versus folks that are here illegally. And that's an absolute travesty. And it points to the fact that the Democrat Party has no leadership. Yeah. Yeah, I saw that statement and I was blown away. And you're right. He said the quiet part out loud, which, you know, it's just, it's hard to believe that that is the thought of any American, really. It doesn't matter what party they're with. But do you expect any movement on this before Congress is back in session in a couple weeks? Well, you know, the Senate could, you know, look, they sent that thing over by unanimous consent at 3 o'clock in the morning. Right. So they could easily. by unanimous consent, adopt our continuing resolution that would fund DHS. They're choosing not to. Don't know why. That's a question for folks who maybe understand the Senate better than I do. And this is part of the problem that, you know, we don't understand the way the Senate works. And sometimes I think that's by design to keep the American people guessing. But the reality is there's an arcane rule package that governs the legislative process. over there on the Senate side, and it's frustrating to most Americans when we see that we have these pressing needs and we can't get anything done because the Senate can't get off the dime and do the things that they're supposed to do. Yeah, no, and that's, you know, sentiments all across the country at this point that, you know, they're not doing what they're supposed to do. One other topic I wanted to hit before we get done today, Congressman. Today's the runoff election here in our state for several positions, which means the next election will come up in November. You're going to be part of that with both the Democrat and a libertarian challenger for your seat in Congress. What's your game plan between now and the November elections on the campaign trail? Do you have anything specific that you're planning to do? you ramp up the campaigning? Do you wait until August, September to get things really going for the November election? How do you approach it? Well, I mean, I think when you're on a two-year election cycle, I think you have to understand that you're kind of always in that position where you've got to be out engaging with folks. You know, every time you can. Like I was down in the Lono County, spent the day down there yesterday, going over to Mississippi County today. And, you know, we're trying to hit every county all the time as often as we can, as frequently as we can. And that's, you know, it's not really about campaigning. It's about letting people know that you're working for them and you're hearing what their concerns are. Every county is different. Every community is different. They all have different needs. And if you're not out there hearing from them directly and getting a pulse on what their needs are, and that's going to be bad for you come election time. So we always stay very, very active traveling the district and listening to stakeholders in various industries. Agriculture, the steel industry is really important.
healthcare education, you know, we just, you name it. I mean, we're, we, unfortunately, we have to burn a lot of, a lot of gas because I've got 31 counties, but we're spread out over a big portion of the state and we cover a lot of ground. Well, and looking forward to seeing you out on the campaign trail and just out on the normal trail. As you said, you're always out there moving around the state when you're home on these recesses. And so definitely appreciate the work that you do. And also appreciate you joining us here on the show this morning, Congressman. And I hope you have a good rest of the week. And hope you and the family have a happy Easter. Thank you. I appreciate it. Same to you, brother. The United States Soccer Federation presents the U.S. Soccer Podcast. I'm your host, Megan Klingerberg. One thing I promised you is an all-access pass that you wouldn't get on any other show. And we found out that whoever comes on scores a goal. Burhope, Freeman, trustee. U.S. soccer podcast magic is real people. We still got plenty of coverage all throughout this World Cup. Okay, let's get into it. The U.S. Soccer podcast, presented by Henko. Follow and listen on your favorite platform.