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They did a great job in the last twenty four hours Divine and now mulroy from the CIA, and of course with mcmlroy's public service to the nation and to our military, mcmorroy joins the Lobo Institute. Nick, I want to get away from the talking points. People have to come out of press conferences and say the usual, what's really going on away from the media, the lights of the media in New Orleans.
So good to be with you guys. Obviously a horrible issue to discuss. I think right now law enforcement and especially the intelligence community is trying to determine whether this was just ISIS inspired, which it seems obviously that it was, or was it Isis directed, and they're going to be looking at all of this individual's communications, potentially is travel. There has been in reports. Do you travel to Egypt
and traveled to Canada. That doesn't mean that was anything done there, but they're certainly going to look at who he met and why he met them, and to try to determine if there was any direction or any support that was lended by main Isis, either in Syria or Afghanistan. And I think that's probably where they're looking right now to determine I guess, ultimate culpability when it comes to this horrendous attack.
Do we have a strategy for lone wolfs.
That's a good question, because it's very difficult. It's very difficult to determine who who's been self radicalized, as they call it. The only way to really do that, of course, is to kind of somehow get an informant into the mix. But when they're self radicalized, although this individual does look like for the FBI worked with other people, which does indicate that there was some kind of organization that might
have gone beyond the actual attacker. Doesn't mean it was, but it's very difficult if it's just one person, which is why it's so hard to stop these, you know, singular people that decide to either get a weapon and shoot up a public place or drive a truck into a public place. But that is what's really trying to be determined right now, and whether there was multiple people involved in this, it does appear from the FBI statements that there were, and then we obviously need to find
these individuals, capture them. They are a threat to the public right now.
Mick is there any reason to believe at this time that there's any connection between what happened in New Orleans and what happened in Las Vegas. Could they be connected at all?
So?
I know people have talked about the similarities. They both rant a truck from the same company. Both appear to be US Army veterans, which is obviously a horrible thing for any veteran. Myself included that should just be coincidence. But I think they are looking at the connection. There's potential that they served at the same location, at the same base. That doesn't mean they know each other or this is connected, but those similarities seem to be out there.
At least they're being reported, and I'm sure the FBI, which is in the lead of this both investigations, would be looking to see if there was a personal connection and whether there was anybody directing both of them to do this or not. I think it's too early to really have any direct knowledge of whether that's the case.
Micking your long career, you've had a lot of experience in the Middle East. We're going to have a new president taking office here in about eighteen days. What do you think the policy should be could be as it relates to the Middle East, trying to get some resolution there in twenty twenty five.
Well, I do think if we look at all the issues that are going on in the Middle East right now, the common denominator is are on They of course supported or support Hamas, they support Hezbola, they were basically given free reign in Syria, they support the Huthis, and yeah, Man, I think that is one of the main efforts that
the incoming Trump administration is going to focus on. They are likely to go back to what was called the maximum pressure campaign, which is a maximum amount of sanctions, some of some of whom were withdrawn with the Biden administration. I think they'll all be put back into place, and
potentially even more strict sanctions implemented. I think that's going to be the biggest shift when it comes to foreign policy, trying to starve, of course, the Uranian regime from being able to support say a billion dollars a year is a high estimate for how much they supported HEZBLA and try to force them back to the table because their economy is essentially collapsing.
The reality, I.
Think is at seven hundred and eighty five thousand per dollar, and they can't even keep the lights on, essentially in a country that's main main resources as energy. So it is teetering, and I do think the Trump administration is going to try to push them to point that they'll want to come back to the table on an agreement not to of course, develop a nuclear weapon.
And make one final question, Lisa Matteo and I were talking about this. I mean, Lisa's got to sit with a fam. I got to sit with a fim. Paul Sweeney's got to sit with a fim and try to explain all this. How do you is the real deal? How do you explain this violence, whether terror based or not in America? What do you tell kids? What do you tell people afraid to go on the subway, afraid to go to a bar, etc.
Well there's two parts, right, So one is if we adjust the way we live. We're a free country. We have freedom of association, speech, and we need to fight for it. And one of the way to fight for it is to utilize it. So if you start adjusting everything you do based on this, the terrorists win. But then again it's a very real threat. And in the United States, because of our freedom, that freedom includes you the right to bear arms, which means other people could
get those weapons. It is particularly troublesome when it comes to these large public events, so you have to make your own decisions. But I think it's a balance between those two. You can't let them dictate your life, them being the terrorist, but you have to be reasonable and proactive when it comes to your own security. So it really is is a balance. We can do better. I
think when it comes to protecting these public events. It's easy to be the Monday morning quarterback and look at everything that they didn't do, but I think collectively, rather than point fingers, we should just take every incident like this, do an after action, find out what didn't work and
what did work, and fix what didn't work. And I think that's what, unfortunately or we're going to have to do on each one of these events until we make it just so difficult for these terrorists to really be able to carry out these attacks.
Nick Mark, thank you for joining us today with the Lobo Institute. I have much more is