Here's Channel nine weather forecast.
Could be mostly cloudy today, partly cloudy today high have fifty nine down to thirty three over night with partly cloudy skies. Tomorrow Yes, yes, mostly cloudy with high forty four. Also overnight clouds with a low thirty four and on Sunday another cloudy day with I have fifty seven, forty five degrees Right now if you've have krsee talk station. Time for a traffic update. Chuck Ingram from the.
US the out Tramping Center. Expect more and you see help.
More clinical trials, more treatment options for personalized care, more chances to get you back to being you visit you see help dot com. Sat found seventy five continues slow through walck button northbound break lights off and on from Buttermilk into downtown and improving report of a broken down on the left hand side northbound seventy one in the tunnel.
Chuck Ingram on.
Fifty five KRC Deep Talk Station.
Eight twenty eight fifty five kr C the talk station. AM very happy Friday to you. Have you been looking forward to this all morning? Please to welcome to a fifty five karossee morning show. And I fin went through his CV. We would spend the entire balance of the fifty five Carssey Morning Shore going through. It's an impressive one. It's Francis Rooney. Briefly though, he's a former US Member of the House Representatives, US Ambassador to the Holy See,
so working there at the Vatican. Represented Florida's nineteenth Congressional District in the House of Representative between twenty seventeen and twenty twenty one. Between two thousand and five and two thousand and eight, he served as US Ambassador to the Holy Sea, appointed by George W.
Bush.
And he actually wrote a book about diplomacy at the US Holy See relationship with the title The Global Vatican. Been on a ton of private boards, advisory councils, He's written gobs and gobs of articles. Again, I have to spend a long time going through that also. Fellow lawyer graduated from Georgetown University at Georgetown University College of Law. Welcome to the fifty five Kosey Morning Show France.
This Rooney. It's a pleasure to have you on today. Thanks for having me on and take you four days to read your resume. My friend.
Anyway, I gotta ask you out of the gate I don't know anything about being an ambassador before we get to Donald Trump's foreign policy, which is what we're gonna be talking about this morning, at least as a primary topic. Ambassador to the Holy See, the Vatican the entity that runs the Roman Catholic Church, but also enjoys basically diplomatic
status along the lines of any other country. So when I think about the current Pope, and he's a rather outspoken individual, maybe we can tie this into foreign policy to some degree, But he keeps telling the United States
to welcome all of these illegal immigrants flowing into our country. Now, if you're the ambassador to the Holy See, is that something that you would have a conversation with him or them about their policy position about what we are doing and what they should or should not be saying about it.
Oh?
Yeah, for sure, I'd be taking it up with the the Secretary of State of the Holy See.
But I did the same.
I did the same where I was over there about Iraq and the the CIA renditions, you know, and that we have a disagreement with you. That's what diplomat is all about, is is fine, you know, airing disagreements in a civilized manner and seeing where you can come to some kind of consensus on the discussion.
And the outcome.
Okay, Because you know, if I was in that role, I would you know, I can be rather short with my words and clear in my convictions. I'd be like, wait, a second Vatican isn't wide open to all people in all mankind flowing in and out of the general area. You would you've got gates, you've got locked, you won't let people in. How about sharing your space if you think it's the right thing for America to do. You know, that's the kind of retort that I would want to launch.
This, this, this would be.
I was very fortunate to be over there with Pope Benedict, very clear eyed German, very pro United States, really loved the First Amendment and what it had brought in terms of freedom of expression and religion. And this guy is he's your basic Latin American liberation theologist who will never think the developed world is doing an effort for the list developed world.
Yeah, and I got to be honest with you and go ahead the.
Late to foreign policy.
I mean I did write it out bed against the Pope when he came out and said, well, you know, in some ways, Putin is right that the expansion of NATO made him feel insecure and in some ways justifies what he did. I thought that was ridiculous thing I've ever heard of.
My wife, It's ridiculous. He's the Vatican is in a NATO.
Country, right, and they're lucky to be there too.
Believe me, most people in the Vatican are really glad about that, just I know.
Okay, Well, that allows me to pivot over to Donald Trump's policy relatively Ukraine and Russia. Donald Trump has been saying since he was on the campaign trail that once he was get elected, he was going to solve the problem. He was going to negoti she had some sort of settlement Russia right now, at least is by by my understanding, or at least the appearance, they have the upper hand.
Ukraine keeps losing soldiers, they can't replenish the lines, they keep getting eliminated, and Russia keeps making more and more advances into Ukraine. And with that in mind, how do you see Donald Trump resolving or having some role in resolving the war there.
Well, I think you're absolutely right. It's a war of attrition kind of the Civil War in the United states. The country with the most resources ultimately will probably win. And that's starting to play out. I mean, the Ukrainians beat them for a year and a half and now Russia's beating them for and hopefully Trump can deliver what he talked about on the campaign trail is that he is going to work with Putin and Europe to come to some kind of solution whereby they'll probably keep. We're
not going to get them out of Croatia. I mean, I have CRIMEA. You can forget that. So we try to come up with a solution that's more like a North and South Korea deal. Maybe even we get the European countries to police the border for US.
I don't think NATO should be doing it.
That's fair enough, and I'll agree with you on that. I guess I find it curious and maybe you can solve us, you know, answer my question or my curiosity on this, Francis Roney. We under Nixon administration, we open up trade relations with the China. With the Chinese Chinese, you know, obviously communist party then since the revolution they were and then communists, and of course we had Mao's Little Red Book that we can all read. The extent
you have any doubt about that. But we normalize trade relations with China, and I think much to our regret now, since China literally manufactures all these things that we rely on.
How it is it that after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the fall of the Soviet Union we didn't come to some more perhaps I can use the word beneficial relationship with them, that we didn't seek to become trading partners with the former Soviet Union and try to shape and develop the direction that Russia has gone since then.
Well, I mean some of ways we did.
I mean remember when Kendall, the don Kendall, the CEO PepsiCo, went over and open PepsiCo and Russia and McDonald's went over there in the early thaw period during.
The Nixon administration.
Yeah, we certainly didn't develop a trade link like when we just turned over the keys of China and said, God, make everything and take advantage of us.
But I guess the demonization. I feel like we're in a second Cold War now, the way the Democrats go on about needing to fund Ukraine in order to fight the evil Vladimir Putin and oh my god, it's gonna He's going to invade all the NATO countries, et cetera, et cetera, which seems I mean, if it's taken him this long to deal with Ukraine, I really doubt they have designs on any of the NATO countries. It will be,
you know, an insurmountable hurdle for them. But that this this demonization of Putin and the Russians generally speaking, not that I'm a b apologist, but just has so reminiscent of the Cold War. I just wonder why they are embracing that concept.
Yeah, it's it's kind of brought it's kind of brought out a very militant train among the liberals. Yes, and it's it's it's without rational rationality because even though Putin's written clearly that he wants to take back all the former Iron Curtain countries, I agree with you, I don't think he can do it. And if we can get somehow a European force stationed in the Ukraine, that's going to make it that much more difficult for him to do it, because like it or not, he's got of lived with Europe.
Former Ambassador of the Holy See and member of House of Representative for instance, running my guest today now pivoting over to Trump's foreign policy, A lot of it has to do with tariffs. He's been threatening tarriffs, promising tariffs, and in fact, it looks like some of them are going to go into effects soon. Do you think he can accomplish his goals relative to any given country that he hopes to tariff without harming the American public because
you know, pick an economists. Some of them are thinking it's not going to be a problem, but many of them say, well, you know, tariffs are going to make everything more expensive here in the United States. How do you see this playing out, Francis.
Well, he's threatened a lot more tariffs in his first term than he ever put on, and then once they put on some, they made a lot of exceptions. So it's I think a lot of it as a negotiating posture. I mean, he definitely effectively used tariff threats to get AMLO to do what we need to done in Mexico concerning immigrants, and I think he's going to do the same thing with Shinbaum and the rest of Latin America. Those are positive developments. You know, he made Columbia take
the immigrants back because of the threat of tariffs. But when you get to broad based tariffs on European and China, it will make our costs go up and it could be inflationary.
It's a gamble for him.
Yeah, I suppose that is correct. How can you deny it?
And in so far as China is concerned, obviously, if there is an existential threat to our company country coming from some particular company, obviously our country would obviously be China, as opposed to say an Iran or a North Korea. But China obviously a very powerful and growing military force and designs on literally everything in the South China see, including that pesky situation with Taiwan. What are we going to do about that? Do you anticipate China actually invading Taiwan?
How is Trump going to approach China so far as dealing with that concern that that.
Adversary.
I think there are a lot of real negative threads here.
I mean, I'm not sure that the American people would defend Taiwan right after all the Bush Wars. I'm not sure that our military can do that much anyway. We have a lot of ships that are in such bad repair they can't stay very long we haven't built any ships in years AEI. The American Enterprises too, did a study a few years ago that about twenty five percent of the military budget does not pertain to military readiness. I think we're more of an employment factory than we are fighting force.
And that's a.
Problem, it really really is.
And of course our as you point out, and it just pains me to think about the readiness of our navy. Notably, we haven't built new ships in such a long long time. Do you think hag Zeth is going to have any inroads in that and creating a more effective fighting force.
I don't know, but yeah, we spend over half of what the entire world spins on defense.
We can't build a ship.
China spins about a third of what we do. They seem to be building ships.
We're going to put an exclamation point on that statement. Francis Rooney, A real pleasure having you on the fifty five Cars Morning Show today. Maybe we can tap into your resources down the road at some point. But appreciate the insights and thoughtful comments this morning, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend.
Sir you too, thank you very much for having me on.
My pleasure, my distinct pleasure, Francis Rooney, it's a thirty eight fifty five KRS detalk stations. Stick around, you can call. We've got time to call five one, three, seven, four, nine, fifty five hundred, eight hundred and eighty two three talk pound five fifty on AT and T phones. Hang around and be right back. After these fifty five KRC cybersecurity threats a