Skip to content 3/9/2026 A NYC Terror Attack, Operation Epic Fury, Securing Elections, and Correctly Disseminating God’s Word Mar 9 · 59 min ...more
3/9/2026 A NYC Terror Attack, Operation Epic Fury, Securing Elections, and Correctly Disseminating God’s Word
March 9, 2026 · 59 min
Terrorism abroad may be linked to attacks at home as Iran names a new Supreme Leader, and funding DHS remains threatened as Congress and the President seek to establish better election integrity.
Series Washington Watch with Tony Perkins - Video March 9, 2026 · 59 min · Washington Watch with Tony Perkins - Video
Terrorism abroad may be linked to attacks at home as Iran names a new Supreme Leader, and funding DHS remains threatened as Congress and the President seek to establish better election integrity. ...more Show the full description Show less Terrorism abroad may be linked to attacks at home as Iran names a new Supreme Leader, and funding DHS remains threatened as Congress and the President seek to establish better election integrity.
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In this video 0:00 Iran War Updates and Foiled NYC Terror Plot11:09 Biblical Stewardship, Iran Strategy, and DHS Crisis21:54 Terror Threats: Radicalization, IEDs, and Iran's Hardline Turn38:27 Biblical Lens on Security, Politics, and Scripture in Policy
Iran War Updates and Foiled NYC Terror Plot 0:00 Hello. I'm Tony Perkins, president of Family Research Council and host of Washington Watch. Thanks for tuning in. Every day, we offer a biblical perspective on the news as well as insightful interviews with elected0:11 leaders, newsmakers, and cultural experts. We have a great program planned for you today, but first, get up to speed on the top headlines with the Washington Stands news brief.0:26 Welcome to the Washington Stands news brief. I'm Casey Harper bringing you today's big stories. The war in Iran has entered its tenth day of fighting. Here's the latest. Tragically, a seventh US service0:38 member has been killed in the war against the Iranian regime. Meanwhile, the Pentagon reports 3000 targets have been hit and that they've sunk or at least damaged 43 Iranian ships. On0:50 top of that, over 300 missile launchers have been destroyed, which is likely why Iran's return fire has decreased by about 90 percent. That's according to US officials. In fact, over the weekend, president1:02 Donald Trump said Iran's military is now, quote, almost nonexistent.1:07 I think we've accomplished more in 1 week than I ever thought possible. We've wiped out their navy 44 ships. We've wiped out their air force, every plane. We've wiped out most of their missiles. You see, the1:19 missiles aren't coming much anymore. We've also hit the manufacturing, areas where they make the missiles very hard. Yeah. Their drone capacity is way down. Yep.
1:31 And we've heard of where it hurts. Yes. Including including about every form of leadership you can have, we've wiped out.
1:39 Notably, Iranian leadership has chosen a new Ayatollah, Mosthabah Khamenei, the son of the now dead Ayatollah. He's a hardliner, unfriendly to the US, and Israel has already promised to target him.
1:51 Now some questions that could change things up. Will the Houthis get involved? They could resume their war with Saudi Arabia or restart attacks on ships in the Strait of Hormuz. 20 percent of the world
2:03 world's oil goes through that Strait or at least it did before the war. And all of that means the gas prices will go up. In fact, they already have. According to triple a, gas prices have risen to a
2:15 national average of 3 dollars and 50 cents a gallon. That's a major jump since the war began. In fact, 1 month ago, gas prices were only 2 dollars and 90 cents a gallon on average.
2:27 But the new military push may not be limited to the Middle East. President Trump over the weekend announced the America's Counter Cartel Coalition. That's a military coalition of more than a dozen nations south of the
2:39 border to take on drug cartels. The president has been striking drug boats in the Pacific Ocean and Gulf of America. He's also took out Venezuela's leader, Nicolas Maduro, citing Maduro's support
2:51 of drug trafficking into the US. Then Mexico took out a top cartel leader, El Mencho, which, of course, led to a violent outburst from that cartel that left dozens killed. Now
3:02 it seems the militaries of several countries will be working together for coordinated strikes on the cartels.
3:09 But on this historic day, we come together to announce a brand new military coalition to eradicate the criminal cartels plaguing our region. And you have a lot of it. 1 of the things when
3:21 we were talking backstage, you were telling me the the crime, the the cartels, and we're knocking the hell out of them. Where we can, we're gonna go heavier. The heart of our agreement is
3:33 a commitment to using lethal military force to destroy these sinister cartels and terrorist networks once and for all. We'll get rid of them. We need your help. You have to
3:45 just tell us where they are.
3:47 We'll keep you updated on that story as it develops. Now 1 last story before we go. Luke Cornett, he's the center for the San Antonio Spurs, and he's taking fire for taking a courageous stand.
3:59 When the Atlanta Hawks announced they were partnering with the local Magic City strip club for marketing, Cornett said the NBA shouldn't do it. He said the NBA rather should promote an atmosphere that's protective
4:11 and respectful of the daughters, wives, sisters, mothers, and partners that we know and love. Sounds like common sense. But right now, it looks like the NBA is
4:23 not budging. And that is today's news. I'm Casey Harper. You can dive deeper at the Washington Stand, which is Family Research Council's outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview.
4:35 You can also check out our longer conversations on the outstanding podcast online. As for us, we're back tomorrow with more stories that matter.
4:52 From the heart of our nation's capital in Washington DC, bringing compelling interviews, insightful analysis, taking you beyond the headlines and sound bites into conversations with our nation's leaders and
5:03 newsmakers, all from a biblical world view. Sitting in for Tony is today's host, Jody Heiss.
5:10 The defendants are charged with attempting to provide material support to ISIS using a weapon of mass destruction, transporting explosive materials, interstate transportation and receipt of
5:22 explosive materials, and unlawful possession of destructive devices. As alleged in the complaint, the defendants were inspired by ISIS to carry out their attack.
5:35 Well, that was NYPD police commissioner Jessica Tisch earlier today giving an update on Saturday's foiled terror attacks in New York City. Welcome to this
5:47 March ninth edition of Washington Watch. I'm Jody Heise, senior fellow here at the Family Research Council and deeply honored today today to be sitting in for Tony Perkins.
5:58 Alright. Coming up, reverberations continue to be felt even here in America as the US and Israeli military operations against Iran now enter the second week.
6:10 I'll be discussing what's unfolding here in the US and in the Middle East when I'm joined in just a few moments by Texas congressman Michael Cloud, and then later by doctor David Desnick at the
6:22 Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Plus, we'll discuss Saturday's foiled attacks on New York City when we're joined by former FBI special agent
6:34 and former Navy Seal, Jonathan Gilliam. So all that and much more straight ahead.
6:46 Well, now we are in the second week, day 10 to be exact, of the attacks taking place in Israel and the son of Iran, excuse me, and the son of Iran's
6:58 former and slain supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei is, now the country's new leader, and president Trump has recently said that he did not want him
7:10 to be in power. And joining me now is Washington state reporter Casey Harper. Casey, hope you had a good weekend.
7:19 Thanks, Jody. You too.
7:21 Listen. Before we get into this, I do wanna jump into what's happening in Iran, but, thank you personally for filling in for me this past Friday. I typically host the Friday
7:33 shows and was unable to this past week, and you, my friend, did an outstanding job. Thank you for filling in. I appreciate it.
7:40 Oh, praise the lord. Thank you, Jody. It was an honor to fill in. It's it's harder than it looks. You make it look easy, but it's it's not.
7:47 Oh, well, you you do a great job. Alright. So, we've got a new leader in Iran. Walk us through the latest what you're hearing.
7:56 Yeah. This is a big development and not really a good 1 for the United States or Israel. 56 year old Mosheb Akhmini is the son of the deceased, Ayatollah that, Israel and the US took out not too long ago, and
8:08 now he's the Islamic Republic's third supreme leader. He has close connections to the revolutionary guard. He's a hardliner. Now he's been declared because of that, he's been declared unacceptable by president Trump. And
8:20 you may remember, Jody, president Trump publicly said he wanted to have a say in who the next Iranian leader would be. Now Israel said they are gonna start targeting this new Ayatollah, so we'll see how long he lasts.
8:30 But the president said it's a big mistake to appoint him. Meanwhile, US and, Israel continue their strikes on Iran. In fact, we have a clip here of secretary of state Marco Rubio talking about the president's
8:42 objectives in the mission.
8:44 The goals of this mission are clear, and it's important to continue to remind the American people of why it is that the greatest military in the history of the world is engaged in this operation. It is to destroy the
8:54 ability of this regime to launch missiles, both by destroying their missiles and their launchers, destroy the factories that make these missiles, and destroy their navy.
9:04 Now, of course, as you know, Jody, a seventh US service member was tragically killed in the fighting.
9:12 It's, quite interesting what's going on there. We'll see what unfolds with this new leadership there. Casey, if I can turn with you to a little bit more domestic news, but not too far distantly
9:24 related as so far as terrorism is concerned. In the fight there, we had an explosion over the, weekend outside the residence of New York City's mayor, and the investigation
9:36 is indicating that it may be ISIS related. What can you tell us about
9:42 that? Yeah. All all reports indicate a ISIS inspired Islamic terror attack in a city that is all too familiar with them. So some of the details here, we have 2 men who threw this homemade bomb at really a protest
9:54 and counter protest outside Mayor Mamdani's mansion in Manhattan. Those men have been charged with terrorism as you indicated. Now the explosive devices were ignited during the protest. Now the first
10:06 protest was, protesting what they called an Islamic takeover of New York City, and then that drew a much larger counter protest which led to this face off. And we have a clip here of mayor Mamdani
10:17 talking about the incident earlier today.
10:20 This was a vile protest rooted in white supremacy entitled, stop the Islamic takeover of New York City. While I found this protest appalling, I will not waver in my belief that it should be allowed to happen.
10:32 Ours is a free society where the right to peaceful protest is sacred.
10:37 Now 1 of them in charge reportedly said he wanted to launch an attack that was did more damage and was more deadly than the Boston marathon bombing. Jody, thankfully, the explosive devices did not go off, so his
10:49 plan, did not come to fruition.
10:53 Alright, Casey. Thank you so much, for this report. We actually have, a former FBI agent and Navy Seal who will be joining us later in the show to discuss the
11:05 heightened risk that we could be seeing here in the United States as a result of the conflict with Iran. So you wanna stay with us. I wanna go ahead now and turn back to this escalated
Biblical Stewardship, Iran Strategy, and DHS Crisis
11:17 war in Iran and the impact that it's having here in the United States. And joining me now to discuss this and more is congressman Michael Cloud. He serves on the House Appropriations Committee as well as
11:29 the Oversight and Government Reform Committee. He represents the 20 seventh congressional district of the great state of Texas. Congressman Cloud, welcome back to Washington Watch. Always an honor to have you.
11:41 Well, thank you. Good to be talking with you again, Jody.
11:44 Well, listen. Before we get started, I do wanna get into a lot of this, but first of all, I wanna say thank you for the other day. You set the record straight on the, what the Bible has to say. It was during a
11:56 hearing that took place last week and a a Democrat witness cited Matthew 25 to justify tax funded social programs and and you answered
12:08 very respectfully but accurately about what the Bible, has to say. And so let me just why don't we just start there? What what compelled you to say what you said?
12:21 Well, I've been in a number of these hearings, and you often see Matthew 25 thrown about, never in context. Sometimes it seems to be the only, I would say, scripture, but it's not even a full
12:32 scripture. The only half scripture that the left would seem to know. And they use it to justify all kinds of spending. And I thought it was important to go through and just kinda put this in context about what was really
12:44 being talked about, in that chapter and who Christ was talking to. He was talking to his disciples and it was actually a private meeting with his disciples. It wasn't even 1 of his open air arenas speeches
12:56 so to speak. And so he he was talking to us about what we should be doing, how we should be taking care of our neighbors and and doing those different kind of things. And and so many times
13:08 this gets used to, to to justify every sort of social program that the government is doing. And we know, in Corinthians, it talks about that charity is
13:20 something that's given of a free will and not by compulsion. And taxes certainly are by compulsion. And so, you know, we believe in, generosity. Certainly, we should be giving, taking care of our neighbor. That should be
13:31 extension of how who we are, but we're almost 40000000000000 dollars in debt, and so we've got to prioritize and the federal government has a specific constitutional, duty and priority, and
13:43 and scripture talks about the role of what the federal government's supposed to be doing or a government's supposed to be doing. It's a different role than the family. It's a different role than the church, in the
13:54 community. And so, you know, it's important that we kinda put all these things in context as we begin to weigh scripture, especially in the in the context of government policy.
14:04 Well, it does my heart a great deal of good to know you're there and that you you courageously and respectfully stood up and and put truth on the table. So I thank you for that. Turning now
14:16 to some news of the day type items. The the escalated war in Iran has certainly had an impact here in the US, everything from security issues to the economy itself. So
14:28 what's your message to Americans as we're going through this time?
14:33 Yeah. I think it's important. 1 thing I don't hear talked about enough is really the larger scope of what's being done here. If we recall that president Trump came in, into office for the
14:45 second term, and when he was, we were looking at China, had a 20 27 as kind of the target date to start World War 3 potentially. And and what the president's doing here in Venezuela and
14:57 here in Iran, these are in a sense chess moves to avoid that larger conflict, with China that would envelope potentially many, many, many nations. And
15:08 so, certainly, Iran, has been no friend to the Middle East. You the talking points you heard going into this was, you know, if we ever did what needed to be done with Iran, you know, the whole Middle East would be in an
15:20 uproar against us. And that's exactly what we've seen as the opposite where we see other nations, maybe not to the extent we'd like, but but they're certainly not joining in the fight with Iran. They're saying these guys
15:31 have been a menace to our region. We want peace for our kids. We want peace for our family. We want peace for our our region, and and what that means is taking out the capability of Iran to do, evil things,
15:43 in their region and around the world.
15:46 You know, and it's fascinating in a bad kind of way to me that during the time of heightened security concerns, that we have here in our own country, Democrats continue to hold the Department
15:59 of Homeland Security hostage. What do you make of what's happening there? What are they doing?
16:04 Well, this comes after 4 years of having the borders be an open sieve where the you had these dangerous individuals come in across our border with no checks, you know. And so when we're concerned about what's going on in
16:15 our country, it goes back to that. And then on this end, they're not gonna fund the Department of Homeland Security. It it boggles the mind of what they're trying to accomplish. Yeah. We want our our
16:26 communities to be safe. We want our federal law enforcement paid. Thankfully, so many of them working, and doing the the important work anyway right now, but the fact that their families would have to struggle with
16:37 figuring out how to make ends meet. And I remember during the last shutdown, you had families, you know, people working in DHS who were having to hawk a television to meet the bills, that week. And, of course, you know,
16:48 once the shutdown comes back and you get paid again, you can't just get that back for the same price, you know. And so it's it's it's a blow to those who are on the front lines serving and protecting, who, you know, put
16:59 on the Velcro and the body armor every day to protect our communities. It it's tragic after 4 years of open borders that they won't even fund the security of our homeland.
17:10 Yeah. It's it's it's unbelievable to even think about. Real quickly while I have you, I wanted to get your take. Yesterday, the president on Truth Social, made a a comment that he
17:22 would not sign another bill until congress, specifically the senate, passes the Save America Act. Your thoughts on that?
17:31 I can tell you I'm right there with you, and with the president on this. I I know a number of representatives have have been talking about this that, you know, if they're not gonna pass our legislation
17:43 that the vast majority of the American people want, 80 to 90 percent of the American people want, we should not be taking up any of their bills. You know, it's what the president said in the State of the Union. This
17:53 needs to be the next thing that gets done. This is the thing that allows us to continue to have secure borders and allows us to do all the other good work that needs to be done. Americans across the political spectrum
18:05 want safe and secure elections. This is how we get it done. And and the fact that the senate, would consider even, you know, just because of the inconvenience of having to go through a talking filibuster, for
18:16 example, not push on this when we have our servicemen and women, in harm's way. You know, it's tragically if you have paid the ultimate price and and we can't go through the inconvenience
18:28 of talking filibuster, come on. What are you here to do, if if not serve the American people?
18:33 Texas congressman Michael Cloud, a dear friend, a giant for Christ, and a giant in congress. Thank you for joining us on Washington Watch. Alright, friends. Coming up, we'll discuss what took place
18:45 in New York City, and we'll have a special FBI agent joining us to discuss. Stay with us.
18:54 But in the course of human events, it becomes But in the course
18:58 of human events, it becomes necessary for 1 people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another. And to assume among the powers of the earth The separate and equal station to which the laws of
19:06 nature
19:07 And of nature's god entitle them.
19:09 A decent respect to the opinions of mankind
19:12 requires that they should declare the causes
19:14 which impel them to the separation.
19:17 We hold these truths to be self evident.
19:20 That all men are created equal.
19:22 That they're endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights.
19:26 That among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
19:30 That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men. Deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
19:38 Happy 200 and fiftieth.
19:40 Happy 200 and fiftieth.
19:41 Happy 200 and fiftieth.
19:43 Happy 200 and fiftieth birthday, America.
19:45 May god bless America. You see, America has freedom for a purpose. The question is, are we living by that purpose
19:58 today? See, the founders understood we as a nation would be accountable to God for what he had granted to us. Us. They sought freedom for a purpose, and that
20:10 freedom was given to us as a nation for that same purpose, to serve God, to honor him, and to live as a people under his authority.
20:20 At the 20 26 National Gathering for Prayer and Repentance in Washington DC, members of Congress, state leaders, evangelical leaders, and intercessors from across the nation
20:33 united as 1 voice in prayer.
20:36 Heavenly father, thank you so much for this gathering. We do repent, and we ask for your continued favor and blessing over our nation even when we don't deserve it.
20:44 I thank you that because of the shed blood glorious righteousness of your son, Jesus Christ, a sinner such as myself can boldly approach your throne.
20:56 You said that you helped the humble and we are asking just now that you would help us, Lord.
21:17 We pray that you humble us, help us to follow after you with all our hearts so that we can see righteousness exalted in this nation and this nation restored to you. We know this not by our power. It's not by our
21:29 might. It's by your spirit.
21:30 Freedom has a name. His His name is Jesus. And freedom has a purpose. It is to honor and glorify you. We pray that we would return to that purpose. Amen.Show more
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