larry: thanks for watching, that's kudlow. please have a great weekend.

maria: good monday morning everyone. thanks so much for joining us this morning. i'm maria bartiromo. it is monday, april 15, tax day, breaking news right now, a new push for aid to israel as congress responds to iran's attacks on israel over the weekend. house speaker mike johnson told me yesterday on sunday morning futures. >> the house republicans and the republican party understand the necessity of standing with israel. we're going to try again this week and the details of that package are being put together right now. we're looking at the options and the supplemental issues. maria: it's unclear if the bill would be tied to the aid to ukraine and taiwan after israel intercepted attacks on saturday as a fight ensues over spending more money while the u.s. border has yet to be secure. >> what i would say to speaker johnson is hold your ground,

show some cahones. you passed aid to israel. tell chuck schumer to take it up and it's going to be paid for. maria: president biden claiming the u.s. stands with israel while adding that the u.s. will not be part of any retaliatory attacks on iran. we'll have live reports, full analysis all morning long. the flare up sending oil prices of the weekend. this morning, prices are pulling back. take a look where crude oil and brent p stands tomorrow, along with gold that's also pulling back. gold is down 7 and-a-half dollars right now. stocks are higher, futures indicating a gain at the start of trading, kicking off the new week and first quarter earnings news ahead of major bank profit reports, the dow industrials up 107. the nasdaq up 96 and s&p 500 higher by 24. we are waiting on mnt bank,

goldman sachs, bank of america, morgan stanley, a lot of first quarter results on the way this week including the major financials. european markets this morning are mixed. the eurozone, the ft 100 in london is declining 35, the cac quarante in paris is up 55, dax index in germany higher by 150. in asia overnight markets finished mostly lower. take a look at the asian indices. the shanghai c shanghai composi1 and-a-half%. joining us this morning, liz peek and john lonski. "mornings with marias" is live right now. it's time for the hot topic of the hour, iran's attack on israel are bringing renewed scrutiny to sanction relief which was provided to tehran right before this in october. hillary vaughn is live on capitol hill right now with more. hillary. >> reporter: good morning, maria. the white house insists that

waiving sanctions for iran did not give them resources for this attack even though he the administration just before signed a $10 billion sanctions waiver that gave iraq the ability to buy iranian electricity. >> due to sanctions relief program that the trump administration put in place, can only be used for humanitarian goods, doesn't go to the regime. and the idea that the regime was somehow felt like they were freed up to support these proxies because of that, it just doesn't comport with the facts. >> reporter: the white house insists that iran can only use the cash for food and medicine for their people. republicans are skeptical that president biden can guarantee that iran won't exploit this relief to fund their terrorist activities. the white house is brushing off accusations that easing sanctions emboldened iran, they're surging congress to pass funding for ukraine and $14 billion for israel. the president held a call with concongressional leadership to l

them to get it done and he also held a call with bibi netanyahu and he told them not to strike back against iran and if they do the u.s. won't support it. >> iran knows it cannot beat israel militarily. what it does aspire to do is make israel an impossible to place to live and visit. i don't understand why joe biden and the administration would leak to the media the contents of the conversation where he tells he doesn't think netanyahu should respond at all, part of the public game they're playing which frankly encourages iran and hezbollah. >> reporter: biden is saying don't hit back to israel, he also said don't to iran before they fired off 200 drones and missiles missile at israel. maria: the don't didn't go over billion. over well.

joining us now, retired marine star general, general arnold punaro. good to see you. thanks very much for being here. how many times did president biden say don't, don't, followed by antony blinken, lloyd austin. guess what? they t did. >> maria, it's always a pleasure to be with you. clearly, we have a massive failure of deterrence here. iran have crossed a rubicon they haven't done before. this attack was designed to bring hell and destruction against noncombatants. we've got russia, ukraine you,, hamas, china and taiwan pushing

the edge of the envelope. we have to significantly enhance our deterrence capability. we've got to beef up our military. it's got be credible. our adversaries have to believe we will use it. one of the ways roosevelt used to talk about, speak softly and carry a big stick. we've got to get our big stick back. one way to do it is to do what you did, you asked the speaker yesterday, is immediately papas the supplemental for israel, ukraine and taiwan. also, we've got to pass a tax on defense. the defense department cut programs in this budget because of the arbitrary caps that actually were used to destroy some of the iranian ballistic missiles coming into israel so these are totally self-defeating things and we need enhanced deterrence and it's not mutually exclusive with restraint. the more you deter, the less likely to have escalation. maria: it is not self-defeating to have the commander in chief at the white house tell bibi

netanyahu not to respond again? he actually on that phone call said you've got to win because you intercepted and allies intercepted the 300 drones so don't respond? on friday, the president said he was expecting iran to attack israel, quote, sooner rather than later, and he sent that message once again to iran, it's tnot the first time we heard it. it's the same m message they kep ignoring. >> what's your message to iran? >> don't. >> i have one word. don't. >> to any actor state or non-state trying to take advantage of this crisis to attack israel. don't. >> we have just one word. don't. maria: oh, god. give me a break. former secretary of state mike pompeo wrote this, so much for don't, when your secretary of state declares good moral ebbing veins between good and evil, you

have bad guys wreaking destruction. your reaction. >> the word don't is not deterrence. we never want to see anybody take options off the table. you tell your enemy or adversary what you will or won't do. one of the reasons iran is attacking israel is the e ayatollahs don't believe they have anything at risk. we need to put what they have at risk. for example, putting their oil revenues at risk, they're at five year highs, chinas' the biggest beneficiary. iran attacked saudis in 2019. we need to go after production of longer range ballistic missiles. we need to curtail their nuclear exploits. they have enough enriched uranium to build three nuclear weapons. we need to interrupt the transfer of their lethal weapons

to russia. deterrence is the key. deterrence and the restraint are not mutually exclusive. maria: i want to ask what you think should be the response from israel. president biden will be meeting with prime ministers of iraq and the czech republic after telling prime minister benjamin netanyahu after saying the u.s. would not be part of the counter offensive against iran if they retaliate. there was a joint statement condemning iran's attack. i asked john rat of cliff ratcly morning n futures about what he thinks of the failure of the biden administration and whether or not this highlights that failure. watch this are you expecting a response from israel to iran? >> absolutely.

and i think there should be. there must be. joe biden doesn't have any red lines. they get crossed. the israelis do have red line and a kinetic attack by iran into israel was a red line that must be answered. i think israel will act aalone here and they will consider and should consider a strong response that could target anything from iranian oil infrastructure, iranian military installations, iranian leadership, or perhaps iranian's nuclear facilities or nuclear program. maria: general, you just laid that out as well. do you believe that will happen imminently from israel? >> well, maria, let me talk about the short-term and the long-term. let me a take the long-term first because we've got to deal with that just as important as what israel may or may not do in the short-term. we've got to go back to a national defense strategy where we can deter and if we don't deter, if necessary, to fight and win two major wars on a

simultaneous basis. we don't have the capability today. we don't have the industrial capacity to implement it. we don't have the industrial capacity to implement our strategy. we're not as prepared as we need to be to deal with russia, china, north korea. israel is going to retaliate. they need to retaliate. the threat to your adversary deters escalation. it doesn't enhance and increases consideration. in crease escalation. i believe we should give a lot of credit to israel, the united states coalition partners and the arab nations that helped defeat this indiscriminate attack. we need to deal with the long-term and short-term statement. maria: quick break and then we're looking at markets and first quarter earnings. stay with us.

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let's take a look at futures this morning. markets are higher, dow industrials set to open up you better than 100 right now, up 116 on the dow, a third of a percent. nasdaq up 101, strength in tech this morning going into earnings. s&p 500 higher by 25. take a look at interest rates, 10 year treasury yield looks like this as we look at the 10 year, it is sitting at 4.57%. that's up almost 5 basis points right now. rates are moving higher. in the middle of all of the bank earnings that are coming this week, we're waiting on gold man sacks this morning. we've got more first quarter results coming this week including bank of america, morgan stanley, that will set the tone for markets this week. joining us now is cfra research director, ken leon of. thanks for being here. what are exec sta expectations t quarter profit reports. >> there's a lot going on. geopolitical risk. i think for the banks, what we're seeing is a healthy u.s. economy. we're not going into recession.

rates higher for longer. it's still okay. and last week going into this week we saw on the consumer side very healthy credit card activity. we didn't really see anything episodic in terms of credit risk and generally on rates the banks do okay with net interest income. this weak is much more important because we're talking about koao confidence is up. what will this mean for the capital markets, particularly equity underwriting and m&a. we think it's going to go higher quarter after quarter and i think david solomon of goldman sachs he had a lot on his plate trying to really reposition back to their core strengths away from consumer banking and talked about durable businesses that geld man has and how they're -- goldman has and how they're expanding into private equity. i think we'll hear positive news

from goldman. bank of america, brian moynihan, ceo, will speak about the strength of the consumer and then we'll have morgan stanley another day. maria: you have to believe that the capital markets can business will be improved from the quarter before because we've seen some deals in the first quarter. we've seen a lot of market action. so i understand your thinking there. are you expecting the issues of inflation and the geopolitical backdrop to be part of any of these comments in terms of guidance for '24? >> it's a great question. actually, our report this week from cfra first is, gee, the equity markets have been strong. we haven't seen a correction and we go back to world war ii, there's 24 market corrections and within four months we make back all those losses so markets can be volatile. the vix was up to 17 last friday. and we'll see that vol it the. i think for -- volatility. i think for corporate earnings we are seeing resilience and

we're seeing particularly in the areas that report for equity underwriting more in the pipeline president more significantly, and i cover private equity firms, there's about $2 trillion of businesses that they want to exit as part of their funds so this is enormous backlog. maria: it's a great point. we're also watching oil, obviously the attacks on israel over the weekend bringing uncertainty on a geopolitical level so we with wanted to look atioil. it's pulling back. the nature up has pushed oil close to $90. liz peek, jump in here. >> clearly, markets are relieved at the idea there will be no further escalation of the war. if israel does respond, i'm pretty sure oil prices are going to turn around, ken, and whats does that mean for interest rate cuts going forward and for inflation generally in your

view? >> yes, so interest rates really and energy prices, the u.s. is really not dependent on the mideast for oil. it affects global prices but for us really we certainly have adequate domestic supply. i don't believe that it would in any way slow down our u.s. economy. i think when we look at the u.s. economy, we can say that balance sheets are very healthy, demand is still very good and again, the u.s. economy's strong and a for the global banks here in in the u.s., our six largest banks, which is the biggest part of the financial sector, they are very healthy. they get 75% of their revenue from north america so we look global. we're always concerned and that's why i mentioned market corrections but they come back historically. maria: well, i mean, look, there are open questionse here. how broad is the iran, israel

conflict. that's going to be important. the second question is the fed. what will the fed do. ken, where are you in terms of the interest rate cut expectations this year? >> you know, maria, if we go back in time with alan greenspan, i think jay powell is getting better at a this. in the near term, the fed doesn't have to do anything and i think the financial media was talking six rate cuts early this year. we may not see any rate cuts this year, it might only be two, the second half of the year. for the riskier, risk-on investments that's going to throttle down, in part a valuation for growth equity. the u.s. economy is strong. they don't have to do anything right now. maria: we'll leave it there. great to see you this morning. have a great week. ken leon joining us. we'll be right back.

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>> way back in october we passed our israel support package. it's been sitting on chuck schumer's desk ever since. the house republicans and republican party understand the necessity of standing with israel. we're going to try again thus week. maria: the former president, president trump, has talked about the possibility of turning aid for ukraine into a loan, is that what you're considering? >> yes. i had a great visit with him on friday. when you talk about aid to ukraine he introduced the loan

lease concept which is a really important one, which is seizing assets of corrupt russian oligarchs to help pay for this resistance. these are ideas that i think can get consensus. we'll get this together and get it to the senate a get these obligations complete. maria: that was mike i don't my me he will try to add an israel bill this week. watch this. >> he's doing a really good jobb under very tough circumstances. we're getting along very well with the speaker. i get along very well with marjorie. it's a complicated process, i think it's not an easy situation for any speaker. it's unfortunate that people bring it up because right now we

have much bigger problems. i stand with the speaker. we had a very good relationship. maria: president trump there referring to marjorie taylor greene, the georgia congresswoman who threatened to bring a motion to vacate the spooker's chair. joining me to the talk about all of that is new jersey congressman jeff van drew, a member of the house judiciary, transportation and infrastructure committees. thank you for being here. what kind of aid do you want to see worked on this week? you all have already passed aid to israel as you just heard the speaker say, it's sitting on chuck schumer's desk. we're also understanding that any aid is tied to aid to ukraine. do you want to see that in the form of a loan like president trump has laid out? >> well, of course i would with want to see it in the form of a loan but not only that, i want to know what the path to victory is. you know, this president, biden, has said no matter how much money its takes, no matter how long it takes. i don't agree with that.

europe needs to stand up more. poland has done work. there's other countries that need to stand up more. we need to know what the path to victory is. we need it to be in the form of a loan. i would want an auto know where all -- audit to know where all the money has gone, over $120 billion that we've given people already. we should be worried about ukraine's borders but damn it, we've got to be worried about the borders in the united states of america, about the decay of our cities, about our inflation, about the record low numbers of people enlisting in all the branches of our military. we've got real issues in america. so before we do this, i want to make sure that we do it the right way and maria, most importantly, it is wrong and it is against everything we have stood for as republicans to jam these bills together. we were supposed to get rid of omnibus bills and putting bills together that don't belong together. a clean bill for aid to israel,

i support that. i absolutely support it. a clean bill to aid to ukraine, i've got to see how we go about it. if you jam them together, yay, imagine the position somebody like me is in. if it's a bad bill that comes forward for the aid to ukraine i've either got to vote for a bad bill because it's jammed together with israel or i've got to vote against a good bill for aid to israel. it's unfair, it's wrong. it's not what we should be doing. maria: why doesn't speaker johnson tell chuck schumer you already have the aid to israel, we passed it in the house, it's sitting on your desk, that's what we want to do now given that israel is just attacked. kentucky senator rand paul was with me yesterday, he slammed johnson for working with the democrats he said to approve more government spending. senator paul called out the speaker for voting with democrats on fisa. watch this. can we trust government to use fisa appropriately and legally? >> absolutely not. americans shouldn't be spied on by their own government.

speaker johnson was incredibly wrong. he broke the tie, he voted with the democrats. we have speaker johnson voting for the spending package. once again, with the majority of the democrats. as i see it now, i'm not so sure there's a difference between mike johnson being in charge and the democrats being in charge. the deficit this year will be 1.5 to $2 trillion and that's mike johnson's bill. maria: congressman, what about that? >> let me say this. speaker johnson, we have to support him now. we cannot vacate that position. we have to concentrate on one thing, i'm all about winning. if we get a majority in the senate, a stronger and more robust majority in the house and the president in place, president trump, we can do amazing things. however, i do agree with what the senator was saying. what he is saying is absolutely right. fisa, i was disturbed. i don't know how else to say it. i have stronger words.

let me be clear. ben franklin, all those hundreds of years ago, said those that would give up liberty for the sake of security deserve neither, nothing has changed. there was so much incorrect that was being put out there. t it would be 1.58% of case thas would require a warrant and those cases it was give me this because i know we don't have time to go all through it. if it was so good, if it was so safe, why would we basically exempt congress from it. congress ha has a different set of rules than everybody else in america. it's wrong and we shouldn't have done it. maria: you would think that you want a warrant to be able to spy on american citizens, you don't want american citizens' phone calls getting swept up with surveillance of potential enemies, foreign-born. so we'll watch this situation. >> if you sat there with me and saw what was going on, you would be so disgusted.

maria: wow. what do you mean? >> the things that you hear and see on judiciary. when you see the literally since the last time we renewed fisa to now and they promised us that there would be no abuse, that everything would be okay, millions of cases of abuse, agents looking up girlfriends and boyfriends, husbandses looking up wives, looking up people who are too conservative, too progressive, libertarians, people with whom you disyou yyou disyou aagreed in general,g nothing to do with national security. what happened last week was wrong. again, i support the speaker but i do not support this. maria: that's disgusting. okay. so in other words, hair they'reg a tool that is supposed to be a tool used to find and apprehend terrorists to spy on their husbands and wives to see if the they're cheating. that a is absolutely disgusting, congressman. thank you. we will keep following this very closely, sir. >> absolutely true.

maria: we appreciate your time. jeff van drew joining me this morning. quick break and then gordon chang is here with china's reaction to the turmoil in the middle east and whether the u.s. really thinks beijing can deescalate things. and then an unprecedentedded moment in time as president trump's hush money trial begins today in new york city. everything you need to know, coming up.

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he's accused of falsifying records to hide the true nature of payments to a lawyer that paid off an adult film star to keep an alleged you affair private. it's expected to last for six to eight weeks. jonatha>> it's going to be a challenchallenging jury. it's easier to find a stray manatee in man manhattan than a trump supporter. the jury pool will not be asked about their political leanings s he can assume that he's going to have a motivated judge and a fairly hostile jury. and it's one of the things that i think alvin bragg is counting on. this is an absurd case. he's counting on the fact that the jury may not demand a a lot, once they see who is sitting behind the defense table. >> jury selection could take up

to two weeks. jurors will be asked 42 questions such as where do they get their news from, do they follow trump on social media, if they've attended a trump campaign event. a weekend of severe storms across the northeast, late day thunderstorms sweeping across ohio, pennsylvania and today large hail, damaging winds, potential flooding, possible tornadoes threatening a huge portion of the central u.s., 40 million people are in the storm's path. texas, oklahoma, kansas city, under watch through today. the storm is expected to head east tonight. and then there's this, the end to the masters tournament, scotty scheffler claiming the second green jacket in three years. >> confirmed. [cheers and applause] >> scheffler shot a stellar 4

under on sunday, more reasons to celebrate a, he's also expecting at any moment a new baby. >> my priorities will change here very soon. my new son or daughter will be the main priority along with my wife so golf will probably be fourth in line but i still love competing. i don't plan on taking my eye off the ball any time soon. >> scheffler is heading only with $3.6 million in his pockets. looks like general motors is selling a large training ground once home to jack welch where he held staff lectures, with workshops and strategy sessions. a group of real estate investors reportedly purchasing the 60-acre campus for $22 million, part of the plan to split into three separate companies. seems to be the trend for companies, 3m and boeing looking to unload their campuses.

but a piece of history, as you know. maria: it is, cheryl. i spent a lot of time in crotonville. i took leadership classes there. my favorite class was something called building essential leadership skills and what i learned in that class was soi, standard observation impact. everything is an equation with significant sigma -- six sigma at ge. it was so useful a tool in terms of leadership. here's the standard, here's what i observed, here's the impact. i was very interested in that story that they're selling after having spent time there. chinas' foreign ministry saying they are, quote, deeply concerned about escalating tensions in the middle east after iran's attack on israel over the weekend. china also calling on, quote, influential countries to play a constructive role in maintaining regional peace and stability. here's white house national security communications advisor john kirby on fox news sunday yesterday on china's role in

deescalating tensions in the middle east. watch. >> i won't dispute the fact that china can do more. china should do more in terms of the middle east, in terms of the relationship that they have with tehran and yes, we've asked them to use that influence to a positive effect. i'll let president xi to speak to what he is willing to do or not. they haven't put that pressure on tehran. we want them to do that. maria: joining us know, the gatestone institute senior fellow, gordon cla chang back wh me. good to see you. it's interesting to see china reacting, calling on influential countries to have peace in the region. your thoughts? >> well, of course china is worried about escalation. because that means israel retaliating against iran. iran is china's proxy. iran has gotten financial support, diplomate ebbing, propaganda and weapons support. what we should think of is not

hhamas attacking is rate, they attacked on october 7 but hamas was iran's proxy and iran was china's proxy. escalation and all this, that's what you worry about in a general peaceful environment. we are now almost in a total war environment especially is rule because iran said it's going to destroy israel. we should be concerned about making sure that israel has the means to win, not worried about escalation and certainly china is not going to help in this. maria: it doesn't help with the commander in chief saying we're not going to be part of any retaliation and calling what took place this weekend a big win. how is 300 missiles and drones coming at you a win? so they were intercepted but that is not a win and to try to stop them from retaliating, the top u.s. diplomat for east asia is had in china today meeting with chinese officials as part of the ongoing effort to maintain open lines of communication with china.

german chancellor schultz is on a three day visit china, he'll meet with chinese president xi jinping. your thoughts on what could come of these meetings. >> nothing. nothing except delay and delay certainly helps china because china is engaged in bad conduct and it will continue to do so while we talk. talking sounds constructive. it sounds responsible. what the problem is, we've been talking intensively for three decades and china's he behavior has only gotten worse so it obviously is not the right thing to do. the problem is, when you have the state department top diplomat on asia, he's paving the way for blinken to go, you know, all we are doing is we're feeding the already inflated sense of self importance of chinese officials. it makes it more difficult to deal with. this is the wrong direction. we need to start imposing severe costs on some very dangerous conduct that china is engaged

in. maria: shouldn't we admit that china is complicit, that china has been supporting our adversaries. the biden administration claims u.s. intelligence shows that china has been helping russia boost military production as it faces a critical stage in the war against ukraine. we know this already. why aren't we hearing administration officials talk more about stopping china's support of r russia? >> we're not hearing that because if the biden administration were to acknowledge what is in fact happening, china's support for russia in ukraine, then they would have to do something about it and they don't want to. biden himself has been warning china over lethal aid but china's been supplying lethal aid russia interest the beginning of the war. china green lighted the war with the joint statement with russia issued 20 days before russia attacked. that's their no limits partnership. we should be thinking of china

attacking ukraine through russia, china and russia fueling insurgencies in north africa that look like wars and as we talked about china supporting iran's attack on israel. this is chinas' proxy wars. maria: there's a good story in the journal this morning called research for sale, how chinese money flows to american universities. this is another way that the ccp has been able to infiltrate american institutions by doing these contracts, paying for research, or out and out stealing research of our leading universities. correct? >> right. and it is not just the universities. of course it was the penn biden center but it's also chinese money going indirectly into think tanks and we've got to be extremely concerned. china uses every point of contact to subvert the united statesunitedstates. maria: of course. >> in the runup through to the election we'll see a lot of chinese misinformation through

the universities, tiktok, everything, you name it. maria: china wants to keep their guy in the white house, joe biden. the wall street journal reports nearly 200 u.s. colleges and universities held contracts with chinese businesses valued at $2.32 billion between 2012 and 2024. that's a review of the wall street journal. disclosures made by the education department. gordon, good to see you. we so appreciate your knowledge on the subject as always. >> thank you so much, maria. maria: gordon chang. we'll be right back. you're watching "mornings with maria" live on fox business. stay with us [c. investment opportunities are everywhere you turn. do you charge forward? freeze in your tracks? (♪) or, let curiosity light the way. at t. rowe price, we're asking smart questions about opportunities like clean water. and how clean water advances can help transform our tomorrows. better questions. better outcomes. t. rowe price

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maria: welcome back. as we have been reporting, iran launching more than 300 drones and missiles at israel in an unprecedented attack on the country saturday, roughly 99% of the attacks were intercepted. fox news' foreign correspondent trey yingst on the ground in israel with more. trey, good morning. >> reporter: maria, good morning. a massive attack against israel over the weekend with hundreds of drones and missiles. and it comes as president biden is set to meet today with iraqi prime minister, the pair likely to discuss this attack and a possible israeli response. we do know president biden has told israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu that the americans will not support or

participate in a counter strike against iran. in 40 minutes, the israeli war cabinet is set to meet in tel aviv. they will likely discuss the options that are currently on the table. israeli media said the war cabinet agrees there should be some sort of military response against iran but they disagree on timing and scope of such a response. the israelis were able with the help of the americans and other key allies to intercept the majority of the missiles and drones that were launched towards israel over the weekend but still some of them landing in the country causing damage to at least one israeli military base. and the question now is whether or not israel believes iran would of respond once again if they do launch a counter strike. the israelis are walking a del kate line, trying to -- del kate line, trying to avoid a regional war but are trying to send a message that an attack would not be accepted. maria: right of before this actually occurred we know there

was conversation and he debate around the israeli forces going into rafah. where does that stand? has that changed the calculation of israeli officials at this point? >> reporter: absolutely. you might remember just last week president biden said that it would be a mistake for the israelis to go into gaza's southern most city of rafah, nearly 200 days into the war between israel and hamas. he changed his tone as americans were able to review intelligence indicating iran was about to attack israel. overnight prime minister benjamin netanyahu said israelis are putting on pause that operation as they look to the broader threats from iran and proxies across the region so israelis will likely try to go into rafah at 1078 some point be focus shifted to iran and threat from proxies across the mideast. maria: they say they have to go into rafah because that's where the terrorists are.

>> reporter: and there are hostages that are still held by hamas inside gaza. they believe the majority of the hostages are being held in rafah. so there are ongoing negotiations. they're not going anywhere at this point. but there's real concern that not only will you have more hamas fighters but also those is riely hostages. maria: -- israeli hostages. maria: very important point. stay safe. trey ying on the ground in israel. i djohn, your reaction. >> this is a very difficult situation for israel. israel has to do whatever it thinks is necessary to defeat its enemies. when you stop to think about it, even before october 7, israel was subject to theses rocket attacks on a pretty regular basis. yes, with the advanced economies, the west you appeareo be quite dismiss sieve of the dangers it posed. perhaps we've been too

complacent for too long. this has to end. maria: liz, how do you see it? >> the biden administration has enabled iran to become a forceful player once again in the middle east. that was not the case when donald trump left office. they were broke. they were isolated. foreign reserves were nearly abolished. so this is the ultimate outcome of wreckless reaching out to iran where, by the way, the mullahs that are in charge never indicated for a moment they wanted peace in the middle east. they do everything they can to stir it up. there's one military objective here, maria, and only one which is securing israel and a making israel safe from t the belligerence of hamas, hezbollah and the other bad actors financed by iran. maria: we'll take a break, staying on the breaking news of the morning, the worldwide response to iran launching

missiles at israel. michael wal waltz is here to weh in after the break. morgan ortagus and newt gingrich will weigh in on the biggest stories of the morning. don't miss that. you're watching "mornings with maria" live on fox business. we'll be right back.

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