Alysa Liu's Story Represents the Beauty of the US and Its Freedoms: Analyst

Alyssa Liu, a winter Olympian from Oakland, California, is heaped in praise following yesterday's gold medal win. She's being called a quintessential American success story. Meanwhile, the United States continues its military buildup in the Middle East, which raises the question whether a strike on Iran is imminent. Joining us to discuss these topics is Taylor Hathorn, visiting fellow at the Independent Women's Center for American Safety and Security. Taylor, thank you so much for joining us today. It's been a hectic day with everything that's happening. But I know you've been following Alyssa Liu's story closely. She's coming home with two gold medals, one of those being the United States' first Olympic medal, gold medal that is, in women's figure skating since 2002, so decades ago. She's receiving overwhelming praise, not just for her performance, but her story and what she represents. So can you just discuss this with us? Yeah, I think many of your viewers that are watching might not even been alive the last time that we won something like this. So that's pretty exciting for us. I think that her story just represents the beauty of what it means to be proud of the nation that you're from. This nation is full of immigrants who came here from all over the world to build something wonderful and great. And I think the way the nation is rallying behind her and supporting her because of the, you know, sheer joy and pure love that she has representing her country is just a complete juxtaposition for the country that her parents fled from and were persecuted by China and really just shows the juxtaposition and what it means when you live in a nation that really values and honors individualism and values and honors the integrity of democracy and the beauty of what it can look like when you're a free and sovereign citizen. And so I'm just very proud of her and really excited for the way that she's choosing to represent our great nation. Yeah, you bring up that her father fled communist China. That was after the participation in the 1989 pro-democracy protest. Then both Alyssa and her father were spied on by the regime ahead of the 2022 Winter Olympics, following her social media posts condemning the regime's human rights abuses. Why do you think her story has struck such a chord with the American people? I just think that it shows that, you know, we are a nation that is really proud of all of our backgrounds and all of our heritages. You know, there's a really big narrative right now, especially with what's going on throughout the nation about the strong opinions about what, you know, the deportations and the arrests that ISIS is carrying out and the national debate that we have there, that we don't want people who are different from different backgrounds here. And that could not be further from the truth. And I believe that this is really showing the way that Americans of all colors and creeds are coming together and rallying behind her, because the sheer joy that she shows to appreciate and be thankful for everything that this nation has given her, for all of the opportunities that it provided, that level of joy and appreciation that she shows is something that we should all feel to live here, because we get to live in the freest, most beautiful nation in the world, where we get to be whoever we want to be. We write our own story if you work hard enough and you dig down deep. And she is a perfect example of that. I mean, who retires at 16 and then decides, you know what, I'm going to come back and do it again? Yeah, I mean, it is incredible what she did. But I think we can't talk about Elissa without mentioning Aileen Gu, right? A lot of contrast is being drawn between Elissa and Aileen, who's also a Chinese-American Olympian, but chose to leave the U.S. team and represent China instead. And Gu is currently the top-earning winter Olympian, earning millions, not from brand deals, but according to a report from The Wall Street Journal, millions from the Chinese regime itself. So, I mean, can you just explain for us why this goes deeper than merely what country an athlete chooses to play for? Well, the history of the Olympics, I mean, going back from the beginning of the Olympics, but specifically what comes to mind to me is just during World War II and just the juxtaposition of what the Olympics means for each nation and what we stand for. You know, you look at Hitler and Jesse Owens and then the stories there and, you know, the triumph that came because of the Americans during that Olympics, during that Olympic ceremony because of his race. And you see that, you know, we stand for something so beautiful and so great that we are this beacon of freedom. And then you've got someone like China who is like, okay, well, we'll take someone who was born in the United States, whose mother is Chinese, and we will pay her $23 million from the Chinese government, and she'll flip on her country. And if we can get enough people to do that, then, oh, well, we've got great Olympic teams. A lot of people don't know this, but in 2022, during the last Winter Olympics, over half of China's men and women Olympic teams and Olympic representation were actually foreign-born nationals. They're not even, they're not even Chinese-born citizens. And so this is a playbook out of China. This is complete authoritarianism, you know, paying for and buying what you want, including people. And, you know, I think that this raises a question of what should be allowed with the Olympics, because to my knowledge and my understanding, China does not allow its citizens to own dual citizenship. So whereas in the United States, you can have dual citizenship, and in many countries around the world, you can have dual citizenship, China does not allow that. So what that means is either she has committed fraud against the Olympics, or she denounced her United States citizenship, and we have some questions that need to be answered there. Yeah, I mean, those are great questions to raise. It is true. But I want to pivot now to Iran. The U.S. has been building U.S. military assets in the Middle East, leading to speculation that a strike on Iran could be imminent. Just give us how you're looking at it. I do think that a strike could be imminent, and I think that you're seeing a large buildup of military forces and military personnel in the area. I have several friends who were here recently, and now they are not. And, you know, you don't know where they're going, you don't know where they're deployed to, but you kind of have some kind of an idea, right? We see a major buildup of two major carrier strike groups, the Ford and the Lincoln, that have moved over the Middle East. That map does a really good job of showing you kind of what assets in the regions that they're in right now. And I think that this is signaling to Iran that this is not something that we are just saying, it is something that we are doing, and it is something that we will back up. And, you know, a really important point that I want to make about this is a lot of people are afraid that we are about to go to war. I do not believe that that is what is happening here. Donald Trump and this administration are selective interventionalists. They are very strategic about the things that they do and why. You look at every major conflict that we have either resolved or been a part of over the past year. You know, you look at the situation with Maduro, and every single time something like that happens, you hear, we're going to war. I do not believe that we are going to war, but we do need to stop Iran from enriching uranium, and we do need to stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. The fate of the literal world is at stake to make sure that Iran does not have that capability. Is there anything to say about the specific location of these military assets and what it indicates? Well, I mean, you're seeing a lot of force buildup in Oman, you know, in Saudi Arabia, and many of our strategic locations. And so they're getting close enough to be able to signal that, hey, we're here and we can attack and we can strike, but they're not quite there yet. They're at a safe enough distance to protect themselves from missile barrages and just to show a strength that the United States has the military might. I mean, the nation of Iran, the IRGC, the Ayatollah have been posting, you know, video game, you know, excerpts of Iran shooting down major planes and flight carrier groups in the United States. And so to me, I would signal that as a threat if the IRGC were posting things like that about me. And so I don't know why Secretary Hexeth and President Trump would feel any differently about that. So I understand, Taylor, you grew up in the in the region. So my parents lived there during the, you know, during the nuclear deal, the Iranian deal that we had. And it was really difficult to see it happen in real time because those of us who grew up in the region knew how horrific of an idea this was. We knew the ideologies of Iran. We knew the ideologies of the Ayatollah and the IRGC. We knew how they treated their own people. I went to high school with plenty of Iranians who told me regularly in our international relations history classes just what it was like growing up there and how different it was for their mothers and grandmothers who grew up there before the Iranian revolution happened. And so I think a lot of the countries in the Middle East who are ready to join the West in progressivism and in having enriched economies and in having freedom and having, you know, their nations look like the successful nations in the West have while still respecting and maintaining their own cultures and the things that make them, you know, beautiful, that make those regions beautiful, they're ready to see the Iranian regime out of that seat. You know, I think the only people who want to see them sit there still are China and Russia because it gives them an opportunity, gives China and Russia an opportunity to have a proxy and a location and a launching point in the Middle East for future conflicts. And, you know, we as the United States of America, many of these nations in the GCC are ready to see the Iranian people free and we're ready to see change. And I, you know, if that change is going to come right now through the Ayatollah and they can make up the concessions within the next 10 days, then we welcome that change. If a regime change needs to occur, then it needs to occur. But we cannot have Iran have a nuclear weapon and we cannot have, you know, a regime in place who is willing to threaten the life of our president and who is behind several assassination attempts and who's behind several proxies around the world that do harm to the United States of America. And finally, you know, the last thing that I would say is, I really encourage everyone to go back and listen to Marco Rubio's speech on the Senate floor in 2015, where he talked about the Iranian nuclear deal and the failure of President Obama and his administration and what this was going to look like. And truthfully, it shows you how great he is at this statecraft because he was right on the money with every single point. Okay, great insights from you today, Taylor. Thank you so much and hope you have a great weekend. You too.