On The Hill: July 26, 2026

Good to have you along. It is Sunday, July 26 and we welcome you in here to Fox 5's On the Hill. I'm Tom Fitzgerald. We're going to begin on the headlines. That takes us to the Middle East. The U.S. military says it is pausing airstrikes in Iran after nearly two weeks of intensified attacks. This comes after the war expanded with the Houthis, Iran's proxy in Yemen. They've been attacking ships in the Red Sea, even still President Trump says diplomatic efforts are continuing, but also warns more strikes are impossible. Stop executions in Iran now! That was the scene in Washington, D.C. as protesters were calling for what they say is an end to political oppression in Iran. The group gathered in front of the Lincoln Memorial yesterday. A number of Iranian-American communities have gathered here to say no to executions in Iran, no to torture and free all political prisoners. And the only way that we got to get our message across to the world is that the real enemy of the Iranian regime is the people of Iran that are willing to sacrifice their life for freedom and democracy, and that is what we have to get behind. Again, those Iranian freedom protesters gathering at the Lincoln Memorial. That demonstration went on throughout the evening. For more on this, we want to welcome back Rebecca Grant. As you know, she is a national security analyst and vice president of the Lexington Institute. Rebecca, it's good to talk to you, and it's important to talk to you right now because this situation with the Iran war seems to be changing week to week. We mentioned at the top of this broadcast the Houthis are now launching attacks. They are an Iranian proxy. Why are they getting involved in this? The Houthis are back in action because they are trying to put pressure on shipping through the Red Sea. Not enough for Iran to try to terrorize the shippers in the Strait of Hormuz. They're extending that terror weapon over to the Red Sea as well. Now, the Houthis were hit very hard by the U.S. Navy about a year ago in Operation Rough Rider, so their capabilities aren't what they once were. But this is part of Iran's desperate ploy to scare the international shippers and put pressure on the U.S. I'm here to tell you it's not going to work. U.S. Navy, U.S. Air Force dominance in that region. But, Rebecca, you mentioned capabilities. This war between the United States and Iran has been going on for months now, and if we hit the Houthis that hard to impact their capabilities, how are they still able to respond and cause all this trouble? The problem is that because this is now basically a terror campaign, when the Houthis are able to target one or two ships, as they have, or to hit a couple of Saudi Arabian oil refining facilities, this is enough to scare the international maritime community and make them reroute and redeploy their cargoes. And that's exactly what we don't want to see. So it only takes a little bit of force at this point for Iran to use this as a terror weapon. No real tactical military effect, but it scares off the shipping traffic. All right, so let's talk about Iran's capability. Secretary of Defense Pete Hedges was up on the Hill this week. Senator Patty Murray had a very pointy question for him because she said the administration has repeatedly said that they have decimated Iran's military and wanted to know how is Iran able to continue their efforts in the Strait of Hormuz. Obviously, we had that attack in Jordan and Iran, Iraq rather, which cost American lives. Where is Iran getting its capability right now? Are others helping them? Well, Iran's capability really has been degraded by the original phase of Operation Epic Fury, 13,000 sorties. So whereas we used to see a couple of years ago 300 missiles heading to Israel, a couple of weeks ago maybe 10 or 20, now we're looking at sort of almost single missile and drone attacks. It's a lot less than it was, and they've taken away their power projection capability. But no one has ever said that that means zero attacks. And because the IRGC has decentralized command and control, they're able to launch a drone, launch a missile. Iran is trying to inflict U.S. casualties to push us out of the region. But again, because we have this air and sea dominance, that's not going to happen. And the recent 13 days of strikes cleaned up a lot of their facilities and command and control along the coastline, which should help us get traffic flowing through the Strait again. Big question for a little bit of time we have left here, Rebecca. It's gone quiet the last couple of days. The United States seems to have been pausing some of these efforts. Are we kind of in a de facto ceasefire right now, or could this start up again? It could go either way. So the blockade is still on, and that is the number one pressure point now. Also, I think Central Command worked through their targets around the coast and directly related to the attacks in Hormuz. But this also means 50,000 U.S. service members still there, ready to go big any time they're ordered to do so. Rebecca Grant is the vice president of Lexington Institute. Rebecca, we always thank you for your insight and analysis. We appreciate it. We'll talk to you soon. Coming up next, we're going to take a closer look at Maryland's economy. Why did CNBC rank Maryland the second worst economy in the country? Fox 5's On The Hill continues right after this. Welcome back. Fox 5's On The Hill. Want to look at the economy right now, specifically the state of Maryland. Maryland's economic rating took a big hit in the latest CNBC rankings. It came in 36th overall doing business. Now, it ranked Maryland's economy the second worst in the country, the sixth highest for the cost of doing business, and also had some of the highest corporate tax rates in the country. The Maryland business community says there are chronic problems that are structural in nature and that the state, they believe, needs to act faster to attract and grow more businesses. Joining us, Mary Cain. She's the president and CEO of the Maryland Chamber of Commerce. So, obviously, this is not good news for Maryland's economy. What do you make of this, though? These lists can be a little tricky sometimes. Yes, they can be. However, this is nothing new. This has been happening for a number of years. We've been in the bottom ten for the cost of doing business for at least five or six years. So it's not a new thing, and it wasn't really shocking, at least to us, when the CNBC rankings came out. When I talk to business owners about what they need from the government, it's not a mystery. Taxes, taxes, taxes. They say their taxes are too high. It's forced some companies to look at other locations, even leaving the state at some times. When businesses say this, what do they need? What do they need? Actually, they need predictability, because you never know. Every time our General Assembly goes into session, we have a structural deficit in Maryland. So the first thing to do is to look at the business community and say, oh, well, how can we get more money there to plug the budget hole? That's how we got the tech tax. One thing we keep hearing from politicians sometimes is that businesses need to pay their fair share. Do businesses pay their fair share in Maryland? In Maryland, absolutely. We have one of the highest corporate tax rates. We, only for small businesses, it's the S-Corps LLC, we cap expensing at $25,000, whereas the federal minimum and most of the states around us is $1 million. And let's talk about the makeup of an organization like the Maryland Chamber of Commerce, because I think sometimes people hear Chamber of Commerce and they think these big highfalutin companies. A lot of your members are small business owners who started those companies by themselves? That's exactly right. And we have about 7,000 members all throughout the state of Maryland, and we range from, like, Tony's Pizza to Marriott. But Marriott was once a small business, too. Let's not forget that. The hot shops. Exactly. It'll be their 100th anniversary coming up. But it's really, yeah, it goes through the gamut. So you've got this situation where you've got this structural deficit. We're hearing it's going to be even worse next year. You've got politicians who politically are in an environment right now where they don't want to raise taxpayer taxes. So they look at the corporate tax increases and the corporate tax structure. What's the answer from your side as far as how they can address this? Because they need to make this money from someplace. So is it raising taxes or cutting taxes? It has to be a combination. Okay? There really needs to be and we need to look at some of the unfunded mandates that have come into play over the past five years. These were put in place before Governor Moore came in, and it's really driving our budget deficits. When you pass laws with no direct funding stream, you have to find the money from somewhere. And the money has to come from somewhere. Mary Kane is the president and CEO of the Maryland Chamber of Commerce. She's going to join us on Fox Local in just a little while. We thank you so much. We're not done talking about this yet. Coming up next, we're going to talk with Maryland's Deputy Commerce Secretary for his take on the economy. Fox 5's On the Hill continues right after this. Welcome back. Fox 5's On the Hill. I want to continue our conversation about Maryland's economy having been ranked the second worst economy in the country, according to CNBC. Factors like high taxes and federal job cuts impacting doing business in the state, CNBC says. We want to bring in now Ricardo Ben. He is the Deputy Commerce Secretary for the state of Maryland. Deputy Secretary, thanks for being with us. So let me put the blunt question to you right now. Are they right? Does Maryland have the second worst economy for businesses? Well, Tom, good morning, first of all, and thank you for having me on the show. A couple of quick points that I just wanted to emphasize. So the CNBC rankings actually looks at a broader set of factor ten factors. And there are a number of them where Maryland's position significantly improved, including infrastructure, quality of life, cost of doing business, business friendliness and cost of living. But of course, the one that garners significant attention is the economy and in particular sort of the one year movement during 2025. That movement really is due to the nearly 30,000 jobs that were lost due to changes in federal policy, as well as the millions of dollars that were lost in terms of funding programs that would go to organizations like NIH. The National Science Foundation and others. And so the impact of those policies were really fully reflected in last year's ranking because there's a lagging impact. But Governor Moore himself has said repeatedly, though, that the Maryland economy needs to branch out from being dependent on the governor. And, you know, the state of Virginia also lost upwards of 20,000 jobs through the Doge program that was implemented by the Trump administration. Do businesses have a point here, though, that the state needs to be more business friendly because you do need to generate revenue, especially when you're running these structural deficits the way you are? I'll tackle both of those points in turn. On the first point, yes. And part of that diversification strategy is what we've enacted in terms of what we call our winning the decade strategy to focus on key lighthouse sectors. And the reason why those are important is that we are focusing on the sectors of the future, the ones that are going to drive significant growth in Maryland. And those weren't picked by happenstance. Right. So when you talk about the areas of life sciences, aerospace and defense technology to include quantum technologies, artificial intelligence and cybersecurity. These are areas that are significantly growing and significant growth will happen across the state. And so that's the reason why we revamped our economic development strategy. I think also to your second point, when you look at perhaps comparisons between Virginia and Maryland, it's important to look at the details. All right. The Maryland's structure has a heavier reliance on federal civilian agencies, whereas Virginia's is tilted a bit more towards DOD. And and those policies were the federal policies had a much greater impact on federal civilian agencies than they did on the other components. And so that's why you'll you'll see some differences in terms of the impacts within Maryland. So just to wrap this up, we've got about 45 seconds. What's your prognosis? What's your outlook? Do you think what you put in place right now is going to be able to attract these businesses into Maryland that you need in order to generate this revenue? Absolutely. Listen, you know, we recognize that we are shifting and focusing on these sectors of the future and it will take some time for those impacts to be realized. But our North Star is really the number of new companies that we're attracting to the state. And that's evidenced by what we're already seeing. AstraZeneca, Samsung Biologics, NatureCell. All of these companies are choose major companies are choosing to set up in Maryland because of the changes that we're enacting in terms of our policies. Maryland's deputy commerce secretary, Ricardo Ben, joining us live. We appreciate your time. We hope to have you back real soon. Thank you very much. All right. On the Hill continues in just a moment. We're going to talk live with Maryland Congresswoman April McClain Delaney. We'll be right back after this Fox 5s on the Hill. Welcome back, Fox 5s on the Hill. This Sunday, House lawmakers passed a big bunch of bills before leaving town for their August recess. In the mix, a budget framework to avoid another government shutdown, funding for the war with Iran as well as a controversial voter I.D. bill. It is not clear if any of these bills will pass the United States Senate. For more on this, we want to welcome back in Maryland Democratic Congresswoman April McClain Delaney to the program. Congresswoman, it's good to see you. Good morning. How are you doing? We're doing well here. We wanted to know, you were pretty busy in the House the last couple of days. But is any of this going to get wheels underneath it in the Senate? Because there does not seem to be the kind of enthusiasm in your neighboring House for some of this legislation as there is in the House of Representatives. Well, they do seem to be a little bit more of the grownups in the room, unfortunately. From the NDA to the reconciliation to the War Powers Act, it's been an incredible whirl. But yeah, I mean, while Americans are struggling to make ends meet and we need to tackle affordability, we keep coming back again and again to some pretty partisan bills which don't really address the problems we need to address. And as you know, I ran on common sense, common ground in my initial race. And it's hard to find it in this Congress. I know you've been talking to people in your district about grocery prices. The Associated Press yesterday had a startling graphic on the rise of grocery prices since just in 2018 as well, too. Now, this week, your Democratic leader, Hakeem Jeffries, was asked if the Democrats have a strategy to end the war in Iran. He said, we have to work on that. But while Democrats have been very loudly pointing at the grocery prices, has there been an articulated plan for the Democratic Party, if you were able to take control of the House once again, to start moving on grocery prices? Do you have a way to get them down or are you just pointing your finger right now? Excellent question. Excellent questions. And yes, we do. Before the midterms, but right now, we are singularly focused on the accountability, affordability and health care, obviously restoration. But we have several task force across our caucus looking at, you know, rising energy costs, day and elder care, housing. Of course, we just passed that large housing affordability bill recently. But we are really looking at, you know, sorry, these tariffs. We have to stop these unbelievably up and down red light, green light tariffs, which are driving up costs and economic uncertainty. Obviously, the war is also putting incredible pressure on on costs. But also we're looking at, you know, eliminating junk fees, you know, understanding how we can work across grid levels and alternative sources to drive down energy costs. And really looking at algorithmic pricing, how, you know, we want to look in this AI tech age to make sure that there is an ability for consumers to to not be really manipulated. And, you know, food co-ops. I mean, we've been looking at many different issues and particularly elder and daycare, which sometimes is more than the cost of rent or housing. So we have been focused on it. Meanwhile, you know, our opponents across the aisle as opposed to helping, you know, make ends meet. We are singularly focused on voter denying voter access and even politicizing. I think this war in a way which really is making our country less strong, less healthy economically. But even just now, you listed, you know, several issues right there. Today is 100 days until the midterm election. So what do you see out of all that that you just mentioned there? What do you see is the single most important issue that voters, when they go to these polls this fall, are going to vote on? I think the economy, economic certainty with respect to their jobs. And, you know, we've had, you know, over 30000 federal jobs eliminated. But all of those then trickle into a lot of our small businesses. But I think it's economic uncertainty and affordability. And we are really looking at ways to address this and and also to address trust. I mean, if you look at the lettuce, can we eat our lettuce? If you look at many of the functions of our federal government, what are being stripped and undermined? I think that, you know, there is not this trust that we are able to handle these problems. And I'm working. You know, I have to say I'm so proud to be part of Team Maryland. I saw the earlier CNBC report about, you know, Maryland not being as competitive. I think we have been hit more than any other state in terms of being in the bullseye of Trump's eye. And we are really, we're really working together, federal, state and local to address. We thank you so much. We've run out of time. April McClain Delaney, Congresswoman for Maryland's 6th District, joining us live. I want to thank you as well for joining us here on Fox 5's On The Hill. We'll continue on Fox Local in just a moment. Coming up at 9, Fox 5, it's Fox News Sunday with Shannon.