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Smerconish

Will The Democratic Party Become The Party Of Democratic Socialism; Iran Moves To Block U.S., Israel Shipments From Strait Of Hormuz; How Biological Warfare Could Trigger A Global Catastrophe. Aired 9-10a ET

Aired August 08, 2026 - 09:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[09:00:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

I want them to feel and know that there's people out there who are there for them and they don't have to just do it alone. And that's the biggest consent, that's the biggest point.

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VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: So to Joe Gonzalez and the dads of Brooklyn Stroll Club, I see you. Thanks for joining me today. Smerconish is up next.

MICHAEL SMERCONISH, CNN ANCHOR: The Tea Party rides again. I'm Michael Smerconish in the Philly burbs. The name on the ballot, it was Abdul El-Sayed. And he didn't win in some deep blue House district. He won an entire state, a big state, a swing state.

And now everybody is asking the same question, can he win in November? I think it's the wrong question.

This is long ball. It's a game measured in decades, not election nights. And make no mistake, El-Sayed stands for everything that Donald Trump opposes. But he is rising exactly the way that Trump rose. The rise of democratic socialism on the left is 2010 all over again.

It's the Tea Party run from the opposite end of the spectrum. And if history rhymes all the way through, it doesn't end in Michigan. It ends with the movement owning the party. Quick facts and then some of the parallels.

El-Sayed won by one point without a majority in after being outspent nine to one. And no, he's not officially DSA. He calls himself a capitalist, but he ran on the movement's agenda with the movement's army, had Bernie support and ran against the establishment's chosen candidate. Close enough.

Don't take my word for it. The analysis of what took place in Michigan agree on nothing except for one thing that nobody noticed. Here's the Wall Street Journal from the right. "Democratic primary voters, quote, want candidates who share their anger no matter their policy views."

Jonathan Chait from the Atlantic. Left of center, "The insurgents won less on ideology than on," quote, "broad frustration with the party's failures." And the intercept from the left celebrating a quote, "pissed-off base just beat an out of touch establishment."

Right, center, left, they see the same engine, anger aimed at the party's own establishment. Well, 16 years ago, an engine like that got a name, the Tea Party. So why does the comparison hold? Here are six reasons.

First, nobody in Washington built either one of them. The Tea Party grew organically in spite of the Republican Party, not because of it. Same now, the DSA is a grassroots insurgency that treats its own party's leadership as its first opponent. You think I'm exaggerating. There's a leaked audio of El-Sayed telling a donor his plan for the Pennsylvania Democrat John Fetterman, quote, "Put one ogre on a pike and then everybody else gets the message."

Well, the Tea Party talked about Bob Bennett and Dick Lugar in the same way and then took them out. Two, both run on anger at a system that people believe is broken.

In 2010, the fuel was bailouts and debt. In 2026, it's rent, it's health care and billionaires. Different grievances, identical fuel, the conviction that the economy is rigged and the party establishment is in on it.

Third reason, both get outspent and it doesn't even matter. The establishment spent $62 million in Michigan. El-Sayed won anyway. Tea Party insurgents were buried in establishment money, too. And six years later, Jeb Bush's Super PAC spent north of $100 million, which only bought him a handful of delegates. When a movement runs on anger, money buys less than it used to.

Fourth reason, the DSA reminds of the Tea Party. The polls can't find them. Eric Cantor's pollster had him up 34 points. He lost by 11.

This week, Michigan's primary polls were off by double digits. Movements that live outside the system aren't measured well by the system's instruments.

Fifth reason, the first wave is always the truest believers. The Tea Party's opening act gave Republicans Christine O'Donnell and Sharon Angle and cost them Senate seats that they should have won.

Today's roster of insurgents includes candidates who want to abolish ICE, defund the police, pack the court. Some of these candidates can win, and some will blow races that Democrats could have won.

Exhibit A, Graham Platner in Maine, the insurgent who won the primary, then collapsed under his own baggage. The Tea Party did both in the same cycle.

Six, and this is the one that really matters. Eventually, the movement doesn't influence the party. It becomes the party. The Tea Party didn't stay a faction. It established a beachhead. And in 2016, Donald Trump walked right across it.

Reince Priebus and Paul Ryan, they swallowed hard. They then fell in line. And the Republicans who scoffed in 2010, today they work for that movement. It's already happening again.

Governor Whitmer and the party establishment back Haley Stevens. By Wednesday morning, they were lined up behind El-Sayed. Which raises the real question. Not whether El-Sayed wins Michigan, but who becomes the left's Donald Trump. The standard bearer who harvests all of this energy?

[09:05:12]

Probably not Bernie. He'd be 87 at the time of the next inauguration. Maybe it's AOC. Most likely somebody whose name we're not even saying yet.

Remember, in 2010, the man who would cash in on the Tea Party's chips was hosting Celebrity Apprentice. Now the skeptics have a point. Research published last week in the Washington Post showed that 55 percent of American adults wouldn't even consider voting for a democratic socialist. Only 15 percent like political leaders who wear that label.

Even among Democrats, it's one in three. Which sounds disqualifying until you remember that the Tea Party polled badly, too. Six years later, its heir was taking the oath of office. Unpopular today is not unelectable tomorrow. And there's another reason to believe this movement ends by owning the party.

Youth. Harvard's youth poll fielded in November among all Americans, 18 to 29. Support for capitalism is down to 39 percent. Among Democrats, 25, while 63 percent support democratic socialism. And Gallup?

66 percent of all Democrats now view socialism positively. That's against 42 percent for capitalism. The widest gap Gallup has ever measured.

Square that with the numbers that I just gave you. The label scares voters, the ideas don't, and the idea polls best with the people who'll be voting for the next 60 years.

It's why one of El-Sayed's best counties was Washtenaw, home of the University of Michigan, where he carried 60 percent of the vote. So, watch Michigan in November. It's going to tell us plenty. Democrats need to net four seats to take the Senate. Lose this one and the math gets brutal. But don't let the outcome fool you either way.

The Tea Party lost plenty of elections on its way to winning the whole thing. The beachhead is established. The energy is all on one side. Win or lose, this trend is here to stay Democratic Socialism, not a movement in the Democratic Party. It's the movement the party is becoming.

In 2010, the Tea Party knocked on the Republican Party's door, and six years later, they owned the house. This week in Michigan, somebody knocked.

I want to know what you think. Go to my website at smerconish.com and answer today's poll question. Will the Democratic Party become the party of Democratic socialism?

Joining me now, the co-chair of Bernie Sanders 2020 presidential campaign and former Ohio State Senator Nina Turner. Nina, nice to see you. I can see the Democratic socialism consuming the Democratic Party, but you heard my analysis.

I still think you have a tough sale for Independents, much less any Republicans who'd be necessary to win the White House. Your thought?

NINA TURNER, FORMER OHIO STATE SENATOR: Well, I agree with your analysis, Michael, every single point. But the one that really stuck out for me is that the label scares people, but the policies do not. When you have over 60 percent of the American people living paycheck to paycheck, when you have one person that has more wealth than 170 million people in these United States of America, you do have people who are angry, Michael. Our people in the United States of America, we work very extraordinarily hard.

Why should we have a class called the working poor? You should not be poor if you work every single day. And so that anger is fueling people across ideological lines as poll after poll is showing.

And so, I believe that if the uprising of the 21st century Progressive movement is to continue to blaze through, the way to get to independence is to take off the labels, as you so aptly, you know, laid out, and to talk about the policies that animate their lives. That people shouldn't have to file bankruptcy because they have a medical, a medical emergency that somebody should make. You should be able to make a living wage, that you should expect, that your children should be able to live the so-called American dream and be successful, as successful as you, or more as time goes on, that those are not the realities right now, Michael, in today's America.

SMERCONISH: Nina, present company excluded, can you sell it to people of color? I asked that question. I'm going to put on the screen a headline from the New York Times where they -- they were talking about where did El-Sayed when, where exactly did he lose? Stevens was strong in counties with major black urban centers.

Stevens showed particular strength in counties that are home to black urban centers, including Wayne County, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. El-Sayed won some of those precincts, but where you had individuals who were both older and black, he wasn't the victor. Your thoughts on that?

[09:10:02]

TURNER: Yes, well, certainly the progressive movement is going to have to do a better job. The more neoliberal branch of the Democratic Party has been cultivating a relationship with the black community for a very long time. I am in Columbia, South Carolina right now as the keynote speaker last night at the Lexington County NAACP. Most of that room was of elders.

There were youth there, but the elders dominated the room. And to a person, when I talked about Medicare for all, when I talked about making sure that their children have better lives, to a person, they cheered. So, I think if we start to get in there, the progressive movement is going to have to get in there and have these real conversations with the African-American community, it is not a foregone conclusion that progressives cannot win the African-American community. They can win over the African-American community.

And Michael, I think one key way to do it is through their children talk to the -- have those college students and high school students go back and talk to their grandparents and their parents about what they are going to inherit if this rig system is not changed. So absolutely.

And let me tell you something. I got to stand last night. I am a humanitarian, so yes, it can happen.

SMERCONISH: It's probably. It's probably because you're good on your feet, I assume. I'm not sure if it was because of the issues, but let me ask you this. I'm so glad you referenced South Carolina.

Do you believe that South Carolina was selected or is being selected right now by the DNC as a bulwark against democratic socialism? Put on the screen what Theodore Johnson wrote in the Washington Post.

"Perhaps the most telling clue the future of the party is its recently announced 2028 primary schedule. The first will be held in South Carolina, where a decisive majority of primary voters are black and prefer establishment candidates to progressive ones. By opening its nominating calendar in the south, the party offers its most loyal, loyal voters in the world, ensuring that geography, as much as ideology, sets the boundaries for the coalition."

Was South Carolina picked to thwart Democratic socialism?

TURNER: Absolutely it was. It was picked to thwart any progressive candidate. And Michael, DSA is being centered a lot here. But this is so much bigger than DSA, this movement to unify people across, you know, black, white, Asian, poor, you know, young, old.

Really started in the 80s with Reverend Jesse Jackson Sr. who does not get enough credit for trying to build the Rainbow Coalition. He stuck it to neoliberals in the 80s in both of his presidential runs. That is really where the modern-day progressive movement really starts. It starts with his election.

So, but absolutely, South Carolina was not chosen because the DNC or the upper echelons of the Democratic Party care much about what the black community has to say. It was chosen to thwart a progressive candidate. It was chosen more pointedly to help President Joseph R. Biden or to help then Vice President Biden become President Biden. And it is picked again for the same reason.

If the Democratic Party truly cared about what the black community had to say on these issues, Michael, then they would pick a state like Georgia where the complexities are a little different.

TURNER: Or North Carolina. I advocate -- I advocated here, I did a commentary here two weeks ago and I said North Carolina makes sense on paper. If you really want to cross section, respect the minority community and you pick a -- you pick a swing state.

Nina, thank you. I've got to run. I know how you're voting on today's poll question. I appreciate you being here.

For everybody at home, go to smerconish.com Here it is. Will the Democratic Party become the party of Democratic socialism? I'll give you the result at the end of the hour. Make sure that you're voting.

Thoughts from Facebook. I think you can follow me on Facebook and X, YouTube, et cetera. "Become? You mean will it finally say it out loud? Yes, of course. Workers of."

Well, Paul, right now, I mean, I went through the data in detail among younger, I was going to say youthful, younger Democrats, they like it. But the older Democrats, particularly Democrats of color, are not yet ready to be sold on this. When you present the ideas that Nina was talking about, when you present it as Medicare for all, when you talk about college tuition, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, there's -- there's more buy in.

So I see it. You know how I'm voting in this based on the commentary. I absolutely believe this is the Democratic Party of the future. I'm just offering that as analysis. Not for better or worse, but I think it's a hard sell to independents and to Republicans, certainly, of course, to Republicans.

Go vote on the poll question. Up ahead. Iran says the Hormuz deal is close. Do they see this as an opening to kick the U.S. out of the strait? Why University of Chicago professor Robert Pape says the complete reopening of the waterway may be the most difficult operational challenge since World War II, and one that will determine the fate of the world economy in the midterms. He joins me next.

[09:15:07]

Sign up for the newsletter@smerconish.com when you're voting on the poll question, you'll get the work of illustrators that include Rob Rogers.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

Iran and Oman close to finalizing a proposed framework to partially reopen commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. Iran aims to control traffic by demanding ships use separate routes. Inbound vessels would travel through a northern corridor near the Iranian coast. Outbound traffic would use a southern corridor near Oman.

However, major disputes over tolls, bans on U.S. and Israeli linked ships and security risks continue to affect operations. And according to Iranian media, Iran's parliament is reviewing a plan to ban ships linked to the U.S., Israel and other, quote, "hostile countries" from transiting the Strait of Hormuz until Tehran is compensated for war damage.

[09:20:10]

So, if Iran can keep threatening commercial shipping for weeks or even months, Washington could be left with a difficult choice. Surrender or escalate. My next guest says this has become one of the most difficult operational challenges the U.S. military has faced since World War II. And with the midterms approaching, the clock for resolution is ticking.

Joining me now is the director of the Chicago Project on Security and Threats who's advised every White House Administration from 2001 to 2024, University of Chicago Professor Robert Pape.

Professor, welcome back. You say the most powerful military on Earth can't open a 25 -- a 21-mile waterway by November and "you come armed," quote unquote, with three slides of your own. Show us the data.

ROBER PAPE, DIRECTOR, CHICAGO PROJECT ON SECURITY AND THREATS. Michael, it's very important to understand that the most difficult operation for America in World War II was the landing on Normandy that took two years to prepare. Let me show you why opening the Strait of Hormuz with air and naval power just is almost impossible to do in the next three months, probably even the next six months. And it is for operational reasons, not for philosophical reasons. If you'll show the first slide, please.

First thing you need to understand is scale. If listeners hear nothing else, remember the word scale. That is the biggest challenge. You'll see Iran is simply too large to suppress press when it comes to drones.

The Shahid 136 drone that is at issue here is about the size of a king size mattress. Yes, a little heavier, but about the same size. That drone has a range of over 500 miles. That drone only costs between 20 and 35 thousand dollars to produce.

Iran has thousands of those drones and we would have to shrink the number under 200 in order to stop those swarms of five to 10 drones hitting ships over and over on a weekly basis. But can we find those drones? Next slide please.

That 500 by 5 -- that 500 mile range means that Iran has a drone launch zone 500 miles by 500 miles. And that is the size on the left. That's the distance from those drones could be anywhere in that drone zone and still hit ships in the Persian Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman. And that is one and a half times bigger than California.

But the problem is worse than that because the scale is not just two by two, it's three dimensional. The next slide please.

You see in that 500 by 500 mile area are mountains, the Zagros Mountains. And those drones can be anywhere. They can be underground, they can be in the middle, they can be in crevices and launched from anywhere in those mountains.

Think about the mountains as a skyscraper where the drones could be in the basement, they could be on the first floor, they could be on the 77th floor. And you have to find the final 200.

Well, the Zagros Mountains are 10 times the size of the Empire State Building. And in that 500 by 500-mile area, you can put over a million and a half Empire State buildings. The idea that even our great air power, and I've talked with the U.S. Air Force, have nothing but the respect, great respect for them, that we're going to be able to find the final 200 in the next 200 days. Virtual -- impossible. I think we can drop the word virtual.

That these are the operational facts that we have to deal with.

SMERCONISH: Your book is literally called "Bombing to Win." Why can't we bomb to win?

PAPE: We don't have the ground forces that make air power successful. Michael, when we try bombing campaigns alone, they almost always fail, unless they're for truly minor issues that the other side simply doesn't care much about. I've studied every air campaign since World War I. For years, this is what I taught at the U.S. Air Force is what happens when you actually bomb countries, not IR theory.

[09:25:02]

And the fact of the matter is, air power alone and I want to stress alone is virtually never succeeds. When it succeeds is when the other side has very little at stake. And that's not okay.

SMERCONISH: Is the only -- is the only way. I'm limited on time, so give me the short answer. Is the only way in your opinion to secure the strait committing ground troops?

PAPE: There's two choices we have in front of us. Accept Iran's terms, give them all that money and they will use it to become powerful or ground forces. There's no third way.

SMERCONISH: Scary proposition and doesn't sound like it'll be resolved by the midterm election. Dr. Pape, thank you for your expertise.

Let's see what some of the social media reaction is. You can follow me on X and YouTube and Facebook.

It said, "Obviously, the U.S. made some serious miscalculations with regard to Iran. The Iranian regime, military and people understand the US very well. Iran is planning the endgame to their advantage."

Wayne, I remember we hosted Richard Clark and the nation's first cyber czar questioned and did so on my radio program as well whether we'd properly war game this. His opinion was that it doesn't seem like we had seriously considered their ability and willingness to close the strait. And I have said, lacking the credentials of a Richard Clark or a Robert Pape, that the greatest weapon in Iran's arsenal today is patience. Still to come, your social media reaction. And what would happen if

the next major national security threat wasn't a missile or a bomb, but a deliberately engineered pathogen?

That is the premise of biological war. A scenario that's a hot new book by investigative journalist Andy Jacobson. She'll be here.

I want to remind you. Go to my website. It's smerconish.com and answer today's poll question. Will the Democratic Party become the party of democratic socialism?

Register for the newsletter while you're there. You'll get the work of illustrators, including Eric Ali.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:31:33]

SMERCONISH: If you want me to read one of your comments during the course of the program, you've got to follow me on X or Facebook or YouTube.

Bad comparison. The tea party didn't want to tear up the constitution, get rid of the presidency, get rid of the U.S. Senate, take away private property.

Marco is saying that my comparison of the rise of the tea party, which then led to Donald Trump and democratic socialism now taking control of the party, is off for those reasons. In my commentary, I ran through six things that they have in common. I won't repeat them here.

I do see the parallels and -- it's interesting because at its core, that which motivated the tea party was anger at the status quo in the system, that the system was broken. And that's the same core that holds together democratic socialists. It's as if the two ends of the spectrum have now aligned with themselves.

I'm not saying democratic socialism takes control of the party today. I do think it happens in the future. If they're wise enough to rebrand it as a Scandinavian form of socialism, and obviously to shed things like defund the police and open the prisons, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Stick to Medicare for all and stick to college tuition and stick to income disparity and wealth inequality. And I think they'll have a message that Democrats and then some would buy into. More social media reaction to today's program so far.

Mr. Independent keeps pushing this Republican boogeyman narrative. Just as many moderates have been winning races as DSA candidates.

Frances, I'm all for the moderates who are -- who are winning the races. I'm all for what Senator Manchin is trying to do by giving attention to a handful of independents who are running in general elections against the odds. Think of Seth Bodnar in Montana by way of illustration.

If just two or three existed in the House of Representatives, given the margins, or look at last night's vote on the A.G. nomination, decided by truly one vote. Imagine if there were two or three Manchins in the United States Senate. The concentration of power would be in the hands of those independents, and we could pay less attention to the far-left and to the far-right. That's what I'm after.

More social media reaction. What do we have? No, this is to the question of are they headed for democratic socialism, meaning in the Democratic Party.

No. Losses in general federal elections will force a correction. Moves to the extreme ends of parties always self-correct in the USA. Losses in general federal elections will force a correction.

I'm not so sure about that. There were plenty of losses in 2010 of tea party candidates, and then they regained footing by 2012 and then provided those elements to somebody who knew how to harness them, that would be Donald Trump, in 2016. The same thing could happen if there's an appropriate spokesperson to emerge on the left.

It's not going to be Bernie. Bernie will be too old. I don't know that it's going to be AOC. Maybe it's somebody whose name we're not even uttering one more. I think I've got time for it. My favorite part of the show.

If Democratic Party becomes socialists, my party affiliation will become independent or maybe stop caring. MAGA has ruined Republicans. Believe socialists will totally destroy country.

Look, I hear you, Jeanne. It's largely a youth movement, but among Democrats capitalism today is viewed -- I gave you the data during the course of the commentary.

[09:35:04]

Capitalism is viewed less favorably -- how about if I say it this way? Socialism is more popular among Democrats than is capitalism.

If you told me that 20 years ago, I would never have believed it about the Democratic Party or any other swath of the country. But that's where we are today.

So, it's here and it's real. And it's not just a handful of candidates whose names are becoming household. There's a move afoot, and I believe it's taking control of the Democratic Party. It'll never sell in the nation at large unless they get rid of some of the elements that I -- that I referenced.

OK. The poll question today at Smerconish.com, go to my Web site right now. Here it is. Tell me what you think. Will the Democratic Party become the party of democratic socialism? I'll give you the results at the end of the hour.

Still to come, author Annie Jacobsen is here to discuss her chilling new book. It's called "Biological War: A Scenario." She draws on interviews with top military intelligence and public health experts, and explores how a single lab leak could trigger global catastrophe. The ethics of gain-of-function research, and why the threat of biological warfare may be far more real than most people realize. Sign up for the newsletter at Smerconish.com. We've got a great stable of political cartoonists. They include Jack Ohman, and you'll get his work with the newsletter.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:40:42]

SMERCONISH: With Dr. Fauci appearing before a Senate committee last week, we've been hearing the phrase gain-of-function research again. What does it actually mean?

Basically, it's where genetic modifications are made in an organism to change what that organism can do. This has many positive uses, but gain-of-function can also be another way to describe the beginning of biological warfare, such as when you modify a virus.

And as if we don't have enough to worry about already, the specter of such warfare still haunts the world. Think back several years ago to the beginning of the COVID outbreak, pretty scary stuff, required all hands on deck around the world. And yet COVID's lethality was not even 1 percent.

Now imagine an organism designed to kill, it's something like 100 percent. And to be easily transmissible, it would make nuclear war look like child's play. Sure, buildings would still be standing, but the people inside would all be dead.

Though biological warfare is a war crime and is covered by the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention, there's no guarantee that some lab out there isn't planning or engaged in it now. And even if no one tries to commit biological warfare, there's that not too unlikely scenario of another lab leak, a phrase associated with the COVID outbreak as well.

So, we need to think about the possibilities and to figure out how to prevent the worst, someone who's already done a lot of that thinking is investigative journalist Annie Jacobsen. Her specialty is war and weapons, not to mention government secrecy.

In 2024, she came out with "Nuclear War: A Scenario," and now she has a new best seller. It is called "Biological War: A Scenario." Annie joins me now.

Annie, your book is not science fiction. You kind of reverse engineered it from Pentagon documents and the people who planned this sort of thing. Walk me through how fast it moves. In other words, it starts with a lab leak in Siberia. In your scenario, how many days until total anarchy in the U.S.?

ANNIE JACOBSEN, AUTHOR, "BIOLOGICAL WAR: A SCENARIO": Well, I take the reader from outbreak, as you say, to anarchy in six days, because that is precisely what would happen if you have a pathogen that has been genetically modified to be hyper-virulent, like kill a lot of people, COVID killed one percent or less, there are pathogens, the one I use in my book, pneumonic plague has a 100 percent case fatality rate.

If you also modify that to be, you know, human to human transmissible, fancy word for airborne, and it is also modified to defeat medical countermeasures, vaccines, antibiotics, now you have a nightmare scenario at scale that is happening so fast there is just absolutely no way that the government can respond.

SMERCONISH: So in the book, you alternate between laying out the data, the history, the science, and then you paint the picture of this scenario. And there are any number of instances, as I read the book, where I found myself saying, wait a minute, is that actually true?

So, here's a detail that I couldn't shake. You have the Soviets working to engineer this plague so that the infected would feel more euphoric, so that they would go out and they would socialize. Is that true?

JACOBSEN: It is true. And it's a detail that was given to me by one of the world's subject matter experts on plague, Dr. Henry Hine. He worked at Fort Detrick at the USAMRIID facility. That's the Defense Department's only BSL4, that's a maximum containment facility, in America. And Hine, who told me that when they were working to develop -- try and develop medical countermeasures for plague in the early 2000 they -- you know, in the late 1990s is when they had learned the Russian scientists in their illegal program were inserting the gene for euphoria into the front end of the disease.

And you might say, well, why on earth would anyone do that? Well, if you feel terribly ill because you have plague, you're going to go home, get under the covers, and not infect a lot of people. But if you're feeling euphoria, you're going to naturally want to go out and socialize.

[09:45:02]

You might even wind up in a disco, which is where the scenario I write begins.

SMERCONISH: OK. And this then creates the damned if you do, damned if you don't scenario relative to gain-of-function research. Because if we think that some of our adversaries are engaged in this sort of experimentation, the only way, you correct me if I'm wrong, that we can be ready is if we too are involved in gain-of-function research. So, what should we be doing?

JACOBSEN: I mean, you've hit the nail on the head with the Catch-22 often of war gaming of actual warfare, which is, you know, sword and shield, you know, count -- an attack, offense, defense. And so, gain- of-function does exactly that. It's looking at pathogens and trying to give them more, you know, virulence, make them airborne, defeat medical countermeasures under the premise that you're actually doing defensive work.

So that if someone attacks you with a genetically modified weapon, you have some sense of how to perhaps make a countermeasure. But of course, we know from COVID that this creates an extremely dangerous situation whereby the threat, the risk, I think most people would tell you is so much greater than any potential reward.

SMERCONISH: You deliberately anchored so many plot points to something that has actually happened in COVID. The cruise ship, the wet market explanation, even an aircraft carrier that's taken out of commission. Why was it important to you that none of this be invented and that you were able to peg it to real events?

JACOBSEN: For the same reason I put my sources right up front. I list who I spoke to. I do this in nuclear war scenario, and I do it in biological war scenario.

I want readers to understand that these are scenarios that are gamed out by the Pentagon. It's not the only scenario. It's one of them. And so, you get the sense of this could actually happen. And people are thinking about this.

I'm not writing to terrify people. The point is really not panic as much as it is pressure, because once the regular folks, we the people, understand these are major threats, they exist, the government is trying to prepare for them and, in essence, knows there's nothing they can do, then we can all have a sort of more informed say in what we think about something. Like, for example, gain-of-function.

SMERCONISH: You know, we're all kind of tapped out on worry. There are so many things, climate change, the nuclear scenario that you painted, tangible war, kinetic war taking place right now with Iran, and between Ukraine and Russia, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

So I guess you've succeeded in elevating this and putting it on the list. Hopefully, there's not another book from Annie Jacobsen. I mean, I wish you all good things, but I can only imagine what you're going to come up with in the next scenario. Thank you, Annie.

Social media reaction from people w who are watching the program. Follow me on X. Maybe I'll read your comment.

And wasn't COVID a practice run on how we'd respond? Whether natural or weaponized, a process needs to exist in order to reduce exposure --

Gene, here's my thought on your comment. This is why I'm so frustrated with what's going on pertaining to the Senate and Dr. Fauci. I made the case here last week, if you really want to hear the man speak, and I do for all the reasons that Annie Jacobsen just put on our radar about the threat of biological war, then give Dr. Fauci immunity.

He has no excuse then not to come in and answer the questions and. And back off. The guy's 84 or 85 years old. Let's see what we can learn from him without threatening him that we're going to send him away to the slammer.

You still have time to vote on today's poll question at Smerconish.com. Can't wait to see which way this goes. I have no idea. When you vote, you'll see the result so far. Will the Democratic Party become the party of democratic socialism?

Sign up for the newsletter while you're there, you'll get exclusive editorial cartoons from the likes of Steve Breen.

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[09:53:35]

SMERCONISH: OK. There's the result so far, 30,152. Will the Democratic Party become the party of democratic socialism? Remember, I wasn't asking you what you're wishing for, but rather a prognostication. Two- thirds, nearly 64 percent say no.

I'm in that 36 percent. I think this is the trend that's going to engulf the complete party, especially through attrition of the voters. More social media reaction to today's program. What do we have?

Let's be real. Socialism is inevitable, another member of the 36 percent, I presume, driven by A.I. and tech. Many more jobs will be lost than gained, 30 to 40 percent unemployment means either blood in the streets or a guaranteed annual income. In other words, socialism.

Doug, I didn't even put that on my list. I thought of it, but when I was running through, I was concentrating on the parallels between the tea party movement as well as the democratic socialists. But if you ask me to expand on the reasons why I think it's happening, that would be high on my list.

More social media reaction. What do we have?

One word, scary. COVID taught us the divide becomes wider instead of drawing us together as a nation. Another such incident would destroy America. Let's hope it never happens.

Right. I mean, I wanted to have Annie Jacobsen here because she's written a hell of a book. The book is really, really great. Her purpose is not to scare the bejesus out of you, but it probably will at the same time.

[09:55:02]

And also because I was reading her book as Dr. Fauci was being browbeaten. By the way, when I use that word browbeaten, don't misunderstand. I want to hear what he has to say. I think that there are questions, including about gain-of-function research and the Wuhan lab and so many other things that I want there to be accountability, but that's not the way you're going to get him to speak. Instead, it's to treat him with some dignity and respect without the threat of him ending up on that long list of the DOJ being used for political purposes against Trump's enemies.

What worries me the most is that if anything near what Annie has written about should come, we're not prepared. We're not on the same page. God forbid there would be a replication of a COVID-19 like issue going forward, how in the world could we ever bridge the divide that exists in this country and get on the same page to protect the maximum number of Americans? That's what worries me the most.

All right. If you missed any of today's program, fear not. You can always listen anywhere you get your podcasts. We thank you for watching, and we'll see you next week.

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