Rep. Pat Fallon: Economic Pressure May Be the Key to Forcing Iran’s Hand

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Jason Rantz: Texas Congressman Pat Fallon, welcome to the show. How are you doing?

Rep. Pat Fallon: I’m doing well. I’m excited about what could potentially come of this so-called economic D-Day. So, first, sort of big picture, what’s your response to what was announced earlier today?

Jason Rantz: No, I think it’s a brilliant idea, and you have to use whatever levers are at your disposal. The Iranian regime is split in Tehran, Jason. There are some folks who are pragmatic and want to make a deal with President Trump. Then there are the hardliners, slash IRGC, who are operating in bad faith and have no intention of creating any kind of peace deal because they would be perfectly fine with us reducing that country to Afghanistan so long as they rule over the ashes.

Rep. Pat Fallon: The Treasury Secretary said any entity that effectively launders money for Tehran, for Iran, would be removed from the dollar system. And he gave foreign governments different deadlines earlier today. But what does that actually look like when the country on the other end is China? I mean, this is something that I imagine is kind of volatile, right? We don’t want to push them into Chinese currency.

Jason Rantz: Yeah, that’s true, too. So I’m sure they thought through this, and they’re betting and banking on most other nation-states complying.

Jason Rantz: Do you think they will comply?

Rep. Pat Fallon: Yeah, I mean, I would think they would. I haven’t really–no, I guess time will tell. But I think it behooves them to remain in the status quo because, you know, the Chinese economy is not the 10-foot giant that so many will purport it to be. It’s very volatile, and I personally think it is a house of cards because they’ve been artificially propping up their GDP with construction and home starts. They have ghost cities that are built for a million people, and they have 30,000 people living in them.

Jason Rantz: Yeah, no kidding. And that’s one of those bigger-picture issues that most people don’t really pay any close attention to. It seems odd, and I guess I understand why the attention is, of course, on Iran or on Russia. But is China kind of just slipping through the cracks, at least as it relates to the American public paying close attention to the threat?

Rep. Pat Fallon: That’s what China is after. I mean, Beijing, Jason, at the end of the day would love nothing more than to have an American malaise wash over the country and have us continually self-divide. That’s why they stoke the flames of it.

And look, with just the Ukrainian war, China–this is in China’s best interest, and Putin played right into their hands because it weakens Russia. It increases Russia’s dependency on China. And Ukraine isn’t really critical to Chinese interests one way or the other.

Iran’s a different story, inasmuch as the greatest ally China has on the global stage after Russia is Iran. Ironically, it’s the same for Russia. But the conflict in Iran threatens their oil supply. They are dependent on that, so they want that oil to flow. And they actually want some kind of a deal.

I’m sure they’re happy that the United States has expended the ordinance and treasure that we have. But we also had to do that inasmuch as we couldn’t have a nuclear Iran either.

Jason Rantz: Does the move today mean that military strikes or anything that might be prolonged is off the table?

Rep. Pat Fallon: I think they’re off the table. I think this is just another way to get to the goal, right? I mean, sometimes there’s several paths to the same goal, and this is one of them that might hasten it, because it’s certainly in our best interest to have the straits opened, Iran committed to not going nuclear, and then move on down the road.

Jason Rantz: What do you say to some folks on the right who have basically said, look, the reality is you can sanction them all you want. They’ve shown time and time again that they can withstand the economic sanctions. Really, the only way to end this is via just the military strikes, and that we didn’t go far enough. We didn’t finish the mission, as it were. And that’s the only thing that really will lead to some meaningful change. I think, at least in part, some of their criticisms are legitimate.

Rep. Pat Fallon: No, it’s true. The IRGC is having trouble paying their 180,000-some-odd troops right now. And they are fanatical, but one thing that fanatics like to do is eat. And if they cannot eat and if the economy is in shambles, then you have true chaos.

And you have to also remember, it is simmering under the surface. Eighty percent of the Iranian people hate the regime. Eight out of ten of them loathe it. They want to see regime change themselves. And that’s a volcano that’s not dormant. We saw flashes of some tremors, if you will, in January, and it’s about to explode.

So it’s possible that could happen, but I personally have been saying for several months, kind of to the beginning of your question, there’s got to be a comprehensive approach to this. It’s probably going to include arming the Kurds to a greater extent than we’re doing now, committing and making sure that our regional allies understand that we are committed to seeing this through, and then having them join us with some kind of special forces and dominating the air. But I don’t think anything like that will happen until, honestly, after November.

Jason Rantz: Congressman Pat Fallon, joining us on the line. There’s someone, maybe listening in Sherman, Texas, who’s paying about a dollar a gallon more than he was for gasoline a year ago. Obviously, for the last six months, we’ve been hearing the same thing, which is relief is on the way. And certainly gas prices are not what they were toward the start of all of this with Iran, but obviously it’s higher than what it was. So what do you say to that person?

Rep. Pat Fallon: Yeah, I’ve gotten those, Jason. I just did five in-person town halls, and that question came up every single time.

And what I tell them is both Bushes, both Clintons, Obama, Biden, Harris–you name the person–and President Trump all had one thing in common. Whether they were presidents or presidential candidates, they all committed that they would not sit by idly and let Iran have a nuclear weapon.

They have enriched it 60%. Every nation-state that has done that in the past has ended up producing nuclear weapons. Iran was danger-close to doing that. Literally, they had all the ingredients ready to go. They could have done it within days, if not weeks, and President Trump took action. I mean, it was inevitable that some president was going to have to do it.

Jason Rantz: What did folks say in response when you tell them that? I mean, are they generally understanding, but also impatient, or do they say, “Okay, you know what? This is all worth, at least the short-term pain”?

Rep. Pat Fallon: Yeah, I mean, the people that would attend those town halls, there were a few that were certainly left-of-center folks who definitely hated the president and were kind of blaming him for it. And that’s to be expected, honestly.

But most people kind of got it. It’s an uncomfortable truth that you wish you didn’t have to deal with. You wish we weren’t in this position. But really, Tehran forced President Trump’s hand.

Now I personally believe we have to see it through because look at the alternative. If we don’t see this through, if we don’t have new leaders in Tehran, at least the pragmatic ones that seem to be running Venezuela now, because that’s a different situation than after Maduro was seized, we know it’s going to be worse for us.

And, you know, we can’t have that. Because you take Iran off the table, you’re fundamentally changing the geopolitical landscape because Iran and China, after each other, lost their greatest ally.

Jason Rantz: Another political issue, I don’t know if it’s popping up during your town halls, but certainly not just in Texas, but around the country, has to do with data center projects, AI data centers in particular.

I know Governor Greg Abbott just froze every new data center project in Texas pending an audit that basically looks at, I think in large part, how much power it’s going to consume. How did we get to the point where the governor had to hit the brakes, and do you support that move?

Rep. Pat Fallon: Yeah, I do support the governor’s pause. I will say, and this came up, not surprisingly, at every town hall in Texas, there’s a right and a wrong way to do almost everything.

And, Jason, what I want your listeners to understand is data centers are driving the AI and quantum revolution. The one nation-state–and my audiences at the town hall all got this–the one nation-state that would love for the United States not to build one additional data center in our country is China.

This is a race between us and China because we would become technological vassals and then therefore subsequently vassal in its entirety to China if we didn’t do this.

But there’s a right and wrong way to do it. The right way, if you want to build the data center, is to alert the local community and get their buy-in. Don’t sneak it in there because that’s happening in our district as well.

Get their buy-in, go behind the meter, and make sure you have your own energy source. In Texas, that’s usually liquefied natural gas. Sometimes it produces so much power that they can actually transfer some to the grid, slightly lowering local residents’ energy bills if you do it really the right way.

Then you want to make sure that you have water resources that are going to–you can recycle the water. You don’t need it in–

Jason Rantz: Which is how most of these places operate, right? I mean, we’re talking about, I forget the exact technical term of that sort of inner loop of water that they basically reuse, and it doesn’t evaporate at the same level that you would otherwise see water evaporating.

So it seems like, outside of communities that are maybe dealing with a very hyper-local drought issue, the water crisis argument seems completely overblown to me.

Rep. Pat Fallon: Correct. And so many of these data centers, nobody’s talking about because they’re not controversial.

I have a good friend of mine from college who built a very large one, but he built it in an attainment area and a very sparsely populated region of Texas. Nobody complained because they did it the right way. They were behind the meter, et cetera.

Now, what’s interesting, too, and you need to point this out, I’d be remiss if I didn’t, is I was talking to Gwynne Shotwell, who’s the COO of SpaceX. And they’re going to be putting, in the very short-term future, they’re going to be putting data centers in orbit.

So this is a temporary issue because they’re far more efficient, apparently, in orbit. It blows my mind, but this is something that we probably won’t be talking about in a couple of years.

Jason Rantz: In just a couple of months from now, what will we be talking about as it relates to Texas and the race for both governor and Senate?

Rep. Pat Fallon: I think Governor Abbott’s in a great spot. I feel very confident that he’ll win. Obviously, Ken Paxton is in a dogfight right now.

And James Talarico–listen, I obviously wasn’t going to vote for James Talarico anyway. I call him “Talarico.” I think he’s funny. I think he’s a snake. But for me, he went beyond the pale to start pandering for Black votes by talking about Austin Metcalf’s murder, not knowing what the hell he was talking about.

Our family personally knew Austin Metcalf. He attended the same high school as my sons. I’ve been following this very closely, and it is an obvious premeditated first-degree murder. The killer is a scumbag that had trouble his entire life. He was about to commit a felony to some degree. He just didn’t know what he was going to do that day. Austin was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

He deserves, I personally think, life without the possibility , but he got 35 years. And for Talarico to sit there and say he only got convicted because there were no Black jurors is exactly that pandering BS that I cannot stand on the left because he has done nothing with his life other than regurgitate, sorry, occupy Democrat talking points.

So why is it so close?

Jason Rantz: Why is this so close right now, according to the polls? I mean, is Ken Paxton truly in trouble, or is this just the “wait until after Labor Day, when people start paying a little bit closer attention” situation?

Rep. Pat Fallon: I’m going to answer that with one word: yes. Both, I think, inasmuch as, you know, listen, Ken got impeached, I believe, of course wrongly, by the House, but the House–most Republicans voted for it. I mean, that’s baggage in a general election. It just is.

And he had other issues as well. It’s baggage. November electorates are different than what you’re going to get in a primary, certainly what you are going to get in a runoff primary.

That’s one thing. And then, secondly, to your point, the Republicans haven’t yet spent tens of millions of dollars telling all of Texas who James Talarico is.

The real James Talarico said lots of crazy things that don’t play well in November when he was a far-left, woke state representative in Austin. And I told Ken you should use the line, “James Talarico is perfect for Austin and terrible for Texas,” because he is.

Now, once people get to see that and hear that, I think that it can improve, of course, and probably end up pulling out. It will be tight.

We’re very fortunate the Democrats didn’t nominate some kind of a moderate, successful, self-made businessperson that was maybe of Hispanic extraction, because that person in this election cycle might do very well.

Jason Rantz: Well, we’re close to finding out how things are going to happen, how things are going to shake out. We’ve been talking with Congressman Pat Fallon. Thank you so much for coming on. I really appreciate it.

Rep. Pat Fallon: Thanks, Jason. You’re the best. Take care. God bless.