Nuns Sue New York & “Major Military Punishment” Promised from Trump | 7.23.26

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President Trump is promising major military punishment after Iran-backed militants begin striking tankers in the Red Sea.

**Georgia Howe** (0:41)
Meanwhile, the House passes a major defense budget while an attempt to curb Trump's war powers fails in the Senate.

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I'm Daily Wire executive editor John Bickley with Georgia Howe. It's Friday, July 24th. This is Morning Wire.

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Oil spikes past $100 a barrel while unemployment reaches a decades long low. We talked to an economist about how to interpret these latest trends.

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He's taking responsibility for keeping inflation under control regardless of geopolitical events and I actually believe that he's going to be doing that.

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And a new aid-in-dying law in New York has prompted a lawsuit for more than 10 Catholic organizations.

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The Iran-backed Houthis have begun to strike tankers in the Red Sea as part of a blockade against Saudi Arabia. Now President Trump is promising a severe military response.

**John Bickley** (1:52)
Joining us now is Steve Yates, a national security expert at the Heritage Foundation. Steve, thank you so much for coming on. Pleasure to join you. All right. So we have some significant action now in the Red Sea. We've been seeing this build up throughout the week.
Is this a new arena at least for this Iran conflict? And how significant is this new action there?

**Steve Yates** (2:14)
Well, the Houthis are for sure an Iran appendage. It's one that's been relatively quiet, in part, because we conducted a major military operation against them. But so have the Saudis and the Emiratis and others over time. And so this is one of those shoes that we have somewhat been waiting to drop. It is of concern because the biggest adjustment in the energy supplies has been moving away from the Strait of Hormuz choke point and they have been building pipelines and other routes to go around this way. And so this is a way for an Iranian proxy to say, not so fast we can complicate things with the threat of economic terror here, too.
But I strongly suspect that there will be a pretty strong response.
And it might not necessarily have to be an America-led response.

**John Bickley** (3:04)
Yeah, we have been very closely watching our allies in the region. You're saying we should probably be looking for them to take some sort of military action.

**Steve Yates** (3:14)
I would think so. I mean, the Saudis are basically the biggest power on the peninsula, and both of these straits are of strategic value to them. But first and foremost, the Red Sea has been a vital throughput. It is really the vital one for Europe as well.
But I would strongly suspect that the Saudis are going to weigh in because they have interests and concerns with the Houthi problem. And so do the Emiratis. And I think that this is just one of those areas, if we're going to have a broader strategic relationship with Saudi Arabia, as the administration is trying for and holding out Abraham Accords membership, possible civil nuclear cooperation, then one of the ways it pays its freight is managing some of these strategic issues. If we're preoccupied with Iran, you take care of the other mowing of the lawn.

**John Bickley** (4:04)
Now, the US did curb the actions of the Houthis several months ago. My timeline is off, but over a year ago, I believe.
How hard are they to rein in?

**Steve Yates** (4:15)
Well, it's just this constant gardening exercise. You never get to zero with radicals, and when all they have to do is fire one thing off once in a while to get an impact, is you're going to deal with risk management and perception management.
I still think the vital mission is to cut off the head of the snake in Tehran, and if the funding and training and equipping part of that is cut off, then we have a much better set of options in managing the tentacles of that, whether that is Hezbollah, Hamas, or the Houthis.