Latest / The Mark Simone Show / Ken interviews Armen Kurdian, a retired Navy Captain and foreign policy analyst.

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Ken interviews Armen Kurdian, a retired Navy Captain and foreign policy analyst. · The Mark Simone Show

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  Speaker 1: Now more of the Mark Simone Show on seven ten WR.
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  Speaker 1: Filling in for Mark. Here again is Ken Rosatto. So
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  Speaker 1: nice to be with you on a Friday. Remember the
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  Speaker 1: special weekend that this is Memorial Day. So remember try
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  Speaker 1: not to say the term happy Memorial Day, but you
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  Speaker 1: could say have a thoughtful Memorial Day, have a good
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  Speaker 1: Memorial Day, but happy. It's not supposed to be about it.
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  Speaker 1: To remember the people who died for us. They fought
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  Speaker 1: and die for us. But we thank the families who
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  Speaker 1: are left behind who had to deal with the loss
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  Speaker 1: of their loved ones, and thank you for that ultimate sacrifice.
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  Speaker 1: Seven to ten WR. You're listening to the Mark Simone
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  Speaker 1: Show on a Friday morning Again Ken rosattov from he
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  Speaker 1: used to be Channel seven for twenty years and it
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  Speaker 1: was with Channel five. Good to be filling in for
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  Speaker 1: Mark was a nice long weekend.
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  Speaker 2: Well.
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  Speaker 1: He is a twenty five year Navy veteran who's now
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  Speaker 1: running for congress in Southern California's forty ninth congressional district.
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  Speaker 1: We say good morning to Arman Curti and good to
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  Speaker 1: have you on.
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  Speaker 2: Good morning us. How y'all doing today?
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  Speaker 1: Good? Is Ken Risotto here and arman. You you are
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  Speaker 1: a twenty five year veteran. You were a Navy captain.
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  Speaker 1: So thank you, sir for your service. Before I even
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  Speaker 1: get into the other questions I was going to ask you,
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  Speaker 1: I wanted to see what it was, what Memorial Day
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  Speaker 1: means for you having served so many years.
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  Speaker 2: Thanks so much for that. You know, did we lose
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  Speaker 2: well naval aviators, Some DI mentored, some that I've worked
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  Speaker 2: in other air wings, and several of them gave their
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  Speaker 2: lives to their country and uh, you know in training
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  Speaker 2: accidents when they were working hard to better their skills
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  Speaker 2: and keep their keep their skills sharp. It's a very
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  Speaker 2: dangerous profession. One of them was my assistant operations officer. Uh,
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  Speaker 2: I dropped my squadron. He was he was involved in
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  Speaker 2: a training accident. So I always go back and think
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  Speaker 2: to those individuals that I personally lost. You know, some
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  Speaker 2: good friends, good folks that I had beers with and everything,
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  Speaker 2: and this it's sad and it's unfortunate. Even one of them,
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  Speaker 2: going all the way back to my time in ROTC,
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  Speaker 2: so one of the upper classmen to help train me
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  Speaker 2: and become a better officer. So that's what I hold
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  Speaker 2: in my Heart on Memorial Bay.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm glad you pointed that at Armor, because we
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  Speaker 1: tend to say for those who fought and died. I've
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  Speaker 1: been saying that, but you're right. Look, if you die
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  Speaker 1: in training, you're still giving your life for your country,
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  Speaker 1: and your family still has that devastating loss of their
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  Speaker 1: loved one. You still died serving the country. So I'm
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  Speaker 1: glad you pointed that out. It's very very important if
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  Speaker 1: you if you decide to sign up, and it's all voluntary,
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  Speaker 1: of course, if you decide to sign up and serve
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  Speaker 1: the country, you deserve all the honor and thanks of
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  Speaker 1: Americans for what you've done. Well. Now, just to shift
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  Speaker 1: years a little bit, we wanted to talk to you
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  Speaker 1: about how ninety four year old former Cuban dictator Raoul
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  Speaker 1: Castro is charged with conspiracy to kill US nationals, four
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  Speaker 1: council murder, destruction of aircraft from a nineteen ninety six
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  Speaker 1: shootdown of two unarmed civilian cessant planes operated by the
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  Speaker 1: Miami based exile group Brothers to the Rescue, and of course,
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  Speaker 1: Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche announced the chargers on Wednesday
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  Speaker 1: as a major step towards accountability. Do you think that
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  Speaker 1: that was done in order to let the ninety four
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  Speaker 1: year old Raul Castro know that he is next to
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  Speaker 1: be brought back to the US like they did to
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  Speaker 1: Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro.
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  Speaker 2: Now this is really really interesting. I mean, I think
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  Speaker 2: you just said that the guy's ninety four years old.
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  Speaker 2: He's a you know, I guess he's kind of a symbol,
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  Speaker 2: the last living symbol of the Cuban revolution of sixty
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  Speaker 2: years ago. The question is is the president really thinking
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  Speaker 2: about going and physically extracting him if they don't turn
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  Speaker 2: him over. And that's a very good question. You know,
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  Speaker 2: the Cuban military is not as capable as the Venezuelan
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  Speaker 2: military is. But Cuba is also ninety miles from our coast,
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  Speaker 2: So you know, if the President goes in and takes him,
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  Speaker 2: is Cuba going to retaliate? Are they going to strike
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  Speaker 2: back at us? Knowing that we could go right back
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  Speaker 2: at them really hard, but perhaps risking the political damage
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  Speaker 2: of you know, a few drones striking targets in southern Florida.
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  Speaker 2: Who knows this is this is a very interesting situation.
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  Speaker 2: He's done. The president has a very different calculus. Obviously,
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  Speaker 2: as we've seen to foreign policy, he breaks all the norms.
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  Speaker 2: Uh And I won't say that all the time, but
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  Speaker 2: you know, a majority of the time he tends to
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  Speaker 2: come out on top with with what he does. So
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  Speaker 2: I think a lot remains to be seen as to
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  Speaker 2: whether the value of actually doing that is beneficial. Remember,
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  Speaker 2: he's not the president of the country. Madudo was a
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  Speaker 2: president of Venezuela. This guy's just sort of a figurehead.
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  Speaker 2: If you look at the Cuban government, a lot of
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  Speaker 2: them are still very very much aligned. I don't know
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  Speaker 2: that necessarily moving him is going to change QBS behavior,
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  Speaker 2: which I think but the president really ultimately wants to see.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know it's I worked in Miami. I worked
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  Speaker 1: for the CBS station there for five years as an anchor,
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  Speaker 1: and one of my co anchors was her family all
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  Speaker 1: from Cuba. She was from Cuba. She was born in Cuba, Ileanavarrella,
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  Speaker 1: her name is. She was an anchor there for years
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  Speaker 1: in Miami, and she said that the biggest enemy of
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  Speaker 1: the Cuban people, of the Cuban people, that the Cuban
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  Speaker 1: people who come to South Florida send back so much
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  Speaker 1: American cash to help their relatives back home that it
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  Speaker 1: doesn't allow communism to collapse because without the cash influx
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  Speaker 1: from South Florida, Cuba would have folded thirty forty years
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  Speaker 1: ago for lack of money. They don't produce anything, but
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  Speaker 1: because the Miami Cubans sends so much over it, because
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  Speaker 1: they don't want their loved ones to starve, they send
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  Speaker 1: so much money over there that has propped up the
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  Speaker 1: government and as a result, it still survives and the
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  Speaker 1: people have not encountered. Don't get me wrong, It's not
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  Speaker 1: like they live high on the Hogshow to say they
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  Speaker 1: struggle soup lines and everything else. I have breadlines, I
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  Speaker 1: should say. But they would have probably toppled their government
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  Speaker 1: many decades ago if not for South Florida helping them out.
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  Speaker 2: You bring up a very interesting point, which is what
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  Speaker 2: Trump the same type of leverage he was using in Iran.
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  Speaker 2: When when you squeeze somebody, find it really squeezed someone financially,
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  Speaker 2: it causes major, in serious damage, you know, not just
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  Speaker 2: regular general sanctions. You know, back in the twenty sixteen
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  Speaker 2: twenty seventeen when he when the president puts those kinds
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  Speaker 2: of stations on Iran, they were unable to fund their
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  Speaker 2: proxies to the locals they actually wanted, and that was
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  Speaker 2: changed under the Biden administration. In the sense of a
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  Speaker 2: Cuba You're you're absolutely right. They don't produce anything precise
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  Speaker 2: to precides sugarcane. They you know, they're they're exceptionally isolated
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  Speaker 2: from most of us in the world. They got to
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  Speaker 2: the US allowed a Russian tanker to provide them some
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  Speaker 2: oil for humanitarian reasons. Then the President has said, you know,
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  Speaker 2: we're going to continue to allow this to happen, just
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  Speaker 2: for humanitarian but otherwise, you know, just enough so that
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  Speaker 2: the population doesn't suffer some massive humanitarian crisis.
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  Speaker 1: So because then it would be on us. Look right,
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  Speaker 1: if they sorry to step on you, because then it
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  Speaker 1: would be for just step up and save them. So
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  Speaker 1: it's like it actually helps us out by just letting
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  Speaker 1: the Russian tanker be there to help them.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, And you don't want to create, you don't
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  Speaker 2: want to hurt the people that you're trying to liberate,
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  Speaker 2: because then they'll unite against their government, what despotic or
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  Speaker 2: tyrannicalism may be. They they'll see them as the protector
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  Speaker 2: against someone who's trying to actually change the behavior of
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  Speaker 2: the Cuban people. It's going to require a lot more
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  Speaker 2: than that. It's going to aquire a lot more psychological operations,
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  Speaker 2: information operations, you know, you know, a Voice of America.
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  Speaker 2: You know, let's let's bring that back. Let's These are
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  Speaker 2: the kinds of things that you that they it's the
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  Speaker 2: idea that's not just a financial aspect, that we really
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  Speaker 2: need there in the island.
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  Speaker 1: And it's funny you say that because the AM radio
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  Speaker 1: stations in Cuba broadcast at five hundred thousand watts. Now
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  Speaker 1: in the United States, the maximum wattage for an AM
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  Speaker 1: is fifty thousand watts, like seven to ten war We're
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  Speaker 1: a fifty thousand wants station, which is powerful for a
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  Speaker 1: region for a little it's not a little went to
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  Speaker 1: Long Island, but it's not that wide. Five hundred thousand
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  Speaker 1: watts spreads out for about five hundred miles in all directions.
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  Speaker 1: At night in South Florida, you can hear the Cuban
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  Speaker 1: radio stations on AM better than you can hear the
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  Speaker 1: local stations, and that is to keep our signals out
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  Speaker 1: of their country on purpose. So it's interesting you talk
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  Speaker 1: about Voice of America. Before I let you go. Though.
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  Speaker 1: I want to ask you really quickly about the situation
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  Speaker 1: of Congress in California. You're running as a Republican in
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  Speaker 1: California's forty ninth congressional district. How's that looking? Because it
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  Speaker 1: pardoned me with redistricting and whatnot, what are the chances
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  Speaker 1: of having any Republicans elected to Congress in California? Now?
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  Speaker 2: It's always hard.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, did we lose? Armin What they did?
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  Speaker 2: They can hear me?
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, now we got you back. You dropped out for
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  Speaker 1: a second, We got you back.
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  Speaker 2: Sorry. Yeah. What they did they drew out a couple
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  Speaker 2: of candidates just to just curve them just right out
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  Speaker 2: of their district that they were actually running for. They
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  Speaker 2: put two other very popular Republicans in the same district.
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  Speaker 2: So it was a very very deliberate or malicious effort
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  Speaker 2: on their parts. But it is it's certainly not impossible.
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  Speaker 2: With the right messaging and on the right type of
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  Speaker 2: campaign strategy, you can go. I've always thought the Republicans
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  Speaker 2: tend to waste a lot of money in their campaigns
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  Speaker 2: and stuff that's not effective. I've been very, very focused
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  Speaker 2: on direct voter contact and the kind of messaging that
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  Speaker 2: connects with photos. You know, it's cost of living, it's education,
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  Speaker 2: it's jobs. We have the highest employment of any state
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  Speaker 2: in the country and one and a half million people
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  Speaker 2: who fled the state. That's tangible. Even the labor unions
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  Speaker 2: understand that. So it's it's it's all about that that
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  Speaker 2: that that kind of work, and also cooperating with down
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  Speaker 2: ballid candidates to help help them, help you, you help
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  Speaker 2: them kind of going forward. It's it's kind of an
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  Speaker 2: all hands on deck effort. California is not beyond saving.
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  Speaker 2: What is reflected in you see in the national media
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  Speaker 2: is that people aren't that crazy. We got some crazy
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  Speaker 2: people here, certainly, but it's not as crazy on mass
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  Speaker 2: as it might seem. And you know, if you work
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  Speaker 2: hard every now and then you pull off on the.
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  Speaker 1: Let's let's keep our fingers crossed. Twenty five year Navy
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  Speaker 1: veteran former Navy captain now running for Congress in southern
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  Speaker 1: in California's forty ninth congressional district, Arman Curdion, best of
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  Speaker 1: luck in the race. Thank you for coming on this
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  Speaker 1: morning and a thoughtful Memorial day for you. Slowly, thank you,
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  Speaker 1: thank you. Sken Razada went from mark on your Friday
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  Speaker 1: seven ten w o R will take your calls coming
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  Speaker 1: up next eight hundred three to two one zero seven
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