Speaker 1: Welcome to today's podcast sponsored by Hillsdale College, All Things
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Speaker 1: from the Relief Factor Studio West. I'm beginning the program
Speaker 1: with the former Israeli Ambassador the United States, former Deputy
Speaker 1: Prime Minister of Israel, doctor Michael Oran. You can follo
Speaker 1: him on exit d R Michael Orran, Ambassador Oran. I
Speaker 1: think we're about to get into a battle with Iran.
Speaker 1: I don't care about the talks tomorrow unless they give
Speaker 1: them the Assaud option and Hamini capitulates, which I don't
Speaker 1: see happening. That's where I think it's going. What do
Speaker 1: you think.
Speaker 2: I think so too.
Speaker 3: I think so too.
Speaker 2: Let me dug down a little bit and just what's
Speaker 2: happened of the last week.
Speaker 4: Because we sort of opened with that drone approaching the
Speaker 4: USS Lincoln. I'm getting shot down at a champ by
Speaker 4: Iranian missile boats. Try to take over an American tanker,
Speaker 4: American flag tanker in the Gulf of for moves.
Speaker 2: Why would Heron do this big question?
Speaker 4: Why would he ron try to provoke the United States
Speaker 4: into launching a war now?
Speaker 2: And the answer is this, I think the Irinians understand what.
Speaker 4: You understand, Hugh, that these negotiations are going nowhere that
Speaker 4: maybe they can conceive part of their nuclear program. What
Speaker 4: is their conceed It's it's half destroyed at least already.
Speaker 4: And secondly, you know they're not going to give up
Speaker 4: their support for terrorist groups. They're not going to give
Speaker 4: up their missile program. This is in their DNA, It's
Speaker 4: who they are. And so the question is when does
Speaker 4: the America strike. And since America's building up his forces
Speaker 4: very rapidly in the Middle East, now that.
Speaker 2: The hw Bush aircraft charriage is on route in approaching.
Speaker 4: The area, the Irrinians would rad to have this, have
Speaker 4: the America attack earlier or rather than later.
Speaker 2: And they think they can maybe survive it, and they maybe.
Speaker 4: Can cause prohibitive damage to American naval vessels and forces
Speaker 4: in the Middle East and force and cease fire.
Speaker 2: They are relying on the experience they.
Speaker 4: Had last summer when the Ryans fired rather performatively at Katar,
Speaker 4: and Trump quickly called for ceasefire.
Speaker 2: They were going to make up his calculation on this.
Speaker 4: But that's what I'm thinking to me, there's no other
Speaker 4: reason why this drone approached the USS Lincoln. Why these
Speaker 4: missile boats try to take an American flag tanker is
Speaker 4: to provoke the United States into a military confrontation sooner
Speaker 4: rather than later.
Speaker 1: So, Michael, why would they want to do that because
Speaker 1: we've already got there a lot of force. I assume
Speaker 1: they will strike at Israel. Israel will join in. It
Speaker 1: will be an overwhelming punishment that I think will end
Speaker 1: up with regime decapitation. Do they not believe that?
Speaker 4: I think that right now they understand that the United
Speaker 4: States position military deployment in the Middle East is not
Speaker 4: as a height.
Speaker 2: It's far from it.
Speaker 4: Right now, you have one aircraft carrier there, best of
Speaker 4: my knowledge, the aircraft carriers about ninety planes. Of those
Speaker 4: about seventy warplanes. You have other planes safe in the area,
Speaker 4: You have bases. But listen, even generally, even in President
Speaker 4: Biden on October eighth, twenty twenty three, cent two aircraft
Speaker 4: carriers off the coast of Lebanon the Ford in the
Speaker 4: Eisenhower and that was considered a formidable force, not a
Speaker 4: force for war, but war.
Speaker 2: For preventing war. And you need a much bigger build
Speaker 2: up if.
Speaker 4: You're going to take on a country of ninety million
Speaker 4: people that is more than the size of France and
Speaker 4: Germany combined. It is a very huge country, armed with
Speaker 4: thousands of rockets, many thousands of drones, and then it
Speaker 4: has positions throughout the Middle East. It has all these proxies.
Speaker 3: And you know all.
Speaker 2: The difficulties the US Navy had in fighting the Goodies.
Speaker 4: I have a colleague who was an officer in the
Speaker 4: US Navy was involved in that in that campaign, told
Speaker 4: me it was the biggest combat operation that the US
Speaker 4: Navy has had since World War Two.
Speaker 2: Messages from the Hoodies alone.
Speaker 4: And had a very difficult time because they were firing
Speaker 4: between thirty and forty rockets at US Naval vestas every day,
Speaker 4: and they had to do all these face if maneuvers.
Speaker 4: In fact, at one point one of the airplanes off
Speaker 4: the aircraft carrier went into the ocean because they were
Speaker 4: moving so fast trying to swivel to avoid these oncoming rockets.
Speaker 2: Well, you're going to get that from many.
Speaker 4: Different directions from Iran, from the Syrian and Iraqi Iran
Speaker 4: backed militias.
Speaker 2: They also have rockets, and it's going to be a
Speaker 2: big challenge.
Speaker 4: The last time we spoke here we talked about I said,
Speaker 4: remember the Sheffield right and the HMS the British destroyer
Speaker 4: that was hit by an Exocet missile file by the
Speaker 4: Argentinians during the Falklin Boards of nineteen eighty two. I
Speaker 4: think we also have to remember the coal and two thousand,
Speaker 4: the US naval vessels that was hit by a suicide
Speaker 4: speedboat in Odden Harbor and Yemen in two thousand. Iran
Speaker 4: has many, many of these speedboats. The hooties are perfectly
Speaker 4: willing to blow themselves up.
Speaker 2: They're big on market. So you're going to have you
Speaker 2: coming at something like the USS.
Speaker 4: Abraham Lincoln is going to have all the thrones, all
Speaker 4: these rockets, all these missile boats coming at you. It
Speaker 4: is going to be quite a challenge. So in order
Speaker 4: to meet that challenge, you have to build up, build
Speaker 4: up anti missile capability which is unrivaled anywhere in the world,
Speaker 4: and that takes time, and I think dat armies understand that,
Speaker 4: and they don't want to give President Trump at that time.
Speaker 1: So ambasorin, I don't think Trump will go until he
Speaker 1: has everything there. But as Admiral Montgomery said on this
Speaker 1: program the day or Friday before the Monday we last talked,
Speaker 1: no doubt we have one or two Ohio class Tomahawk
Speaker 1: missile carrying submarines. We have all of the Air Force
Speaker 1: assets that have been moved to the variety of bases,
Speaker 1: and we have the Israeli Air Force, and we have
Speaker 1: the first carrier and the second carriers en route. If
Speaker 1: we cannot decapitate a regime or overwhelm it with force,
Speaker 1: with that, then the United States isn't a superpower and
Speaker 1: we don't have to invade. We're not going to invade.
Speaker 1: If we can't do it, that can't be done. What
Speaker 1: in fact Israel to do if we begin that campaign.
Speaker 2: Before I answer that, let me tell you.
Speaker 4: Let me tell you about whether America, what America can
Speaker 4: and cannot do. I think the expectation is not just
Speaker 4: a whole. The expectation is that once America acts against
Speaker 4: the regime, that the people once again rise up. Typicular
Speaker 4: they see that the regime's hands are tied, that it's
Speaker 4: on its hind legs, they'll rise up again. And that
Speaker 4: is where the regime gets its koudi gras, not to say,
Speaker 4: from American missiles, but from its own people, as.
Speaker 2: It should be, by the way, and here we get
Speaker 2: to the reason why nine Arab and Muslim.
Speaker 4: Countries pressured President Trump to go back to the negotiating
Speaker 4: table even after the Iranians have balked at meeting with
Speaker 4: the President and other Arab Middle East term representatives in
Speaker 4: acre Instable this week, and they move the talks to Aman.
Speaker 4: It's interesting, Hugh, that these these nine countries share Israel
Speaker 4: in America's interest in removing the nuclear threat from around,
Speaker 4: removing the ballistic missile capability from on, and stopping Iran
Speaker 4: support for terrorist groups throughout the.
Speaker 2: Middle East of the world. That we all agree on.
Speaker 4: That there's one point we are not on the same page,
Speaker 4: and it's this.
Speaker 3: It's this.
Speaker 4: These countries want to see a weakened, emasculated Iran. They
Speaker 4: don't necessarily want the Iranan regime to fall, because if
Speaker 4: you see a regime falling as a result of a
Speaker 4: popular uprising, that won't be good.
Speaker 2: For those countries.
Speaker 4: They aren't democracies and they don't want that precedent, so
Speaker 4: they would like to see just Iran, you know, sort
Speaker 4: of defangt toothless.
Speaker 2: But I think the United States and.
Speaker 4: Israel together care about the Iranian people and care about
Speaker 4: run Asi, and that sets us apart. Now as to
Speaker 4: what Israel do. Israel defend itself. Israel has immense capabilities.
Speaker 4: We're talking about an air force. The number of actual
Speaker 4: airplanes we have is classified, but it is in the
Speaker 4: hundreds plus other capabilities. We also have submarines.
Speaker 2: We also have a.
Speaker 4: Navy, and I measure that all of these assets will
Speaker 4: be brought to bear. We will also have to spend
Speaker 4: a tremendous amount of energy on missile defense because the
Speaker 4: audience have these missiles.
Speaker 2: They are quite large.
Speaker 4: I think the last time I spoke on the Protram,
Speaker 4: I talked about the warheads, which are about twenty times
Speaker 4: the size of a rocket that has follow a rocket that.
Speaker 2: Hamas will fire.
Speaker 4: That our safe rooms can be of little utility of
Speaker 4: protecting us in the face of these massive rockets.
Speaker 2: They can take down a neighborhood, and we're going to
Speaker 2: have to have quickly quickly to locate the launchers.
Speaker 4: The point is Iran may have one thousand, five hundred
Speaker 4: ballistic missiles left, but it doesn't have one thousand, five
Speaker 4: hundred launchers. If we could knock out the launchers very
Speaker 4: very quickly, those missiles will be useless.
Speaker 1: So doctor Oran, I also have a friend in the
Speaker 1: United States Navy who is deployed in the Gulf during
Speaker 1: Round one with the Hooties, and it was an annoyance,
Speaker 1: but this officer was not worried about attacks on carriers,
Speaker 1: although I am and I thought, I've been repeating your
Speaker 1: warning about the Sheffield ever since you made it to me.
Speaker 1: It reminded me of nineteen eighty two about it with
Speaker 1: brit Hume yesterday. I do believe that everything has to
Speaker 1: go at once in order to decapitate the regime. And
Speaker 1: I don't think it's a ninety million, ninety two million
Speaker 1: person regime. I think it's one hundred and fifty thousand
Speaker 1: members of the Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Just finished
Speaker 1: reading a book on them, Empire of Evil by Mark Soliski,
Speaker 1: which came out four years ago, but the numbers are
Speaker 1: probably still the same. They're ideological, they are corrupt. They
Speaker 1: are completely glued to Hamani. They can't give up, and
Speaker 1: that people will kill them. So it's one hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty thousand people. You got another half million people in
Speaker 1: the Iranian army, but they are not as ideologically fanatical
Speaker 1: as that. Do you think what John Thune told me yesterday,
Speaker 1: The objective of this ought to be regime change, not occupation.
Speaker 1: Regime change. We have one minute, doctor worn.
Speaker 2: Listen, I have to be very cross this year because
Speaker 2: we don't position.
Speaker 4: There are by people already saying that Israel's pushing America
Speaker 4: into this war, and it's for Israel's interests. It's all
Speaker 4: thattayak who's doing And I don't want to push anybody
Speaker 4: into any war. But the question of regime change are
Speaker 4: not regime change almost a mood point, because if the
Speaker 4: Iranians theoretically were agreed to give up their nuclear program,
Speaker 4: give up their missiles, and stop supporting his Balla Alhaja
Speaker 4: Musk and al Kudz force which operates tear around the world,
Speaker 4: then it's not the same regime anymore, is it. It's
Speaker 4: basically a regime change, as if the regime is incapable
Speaker 4: of making those changes. What alternative is there. It's kind
Speaker 4: of a moot point.
Speaker 1: I agree, and I also think I agree with britt
Speaker 1: Hereman yesterday. Having built up this kind of force in
Speaker 1: the Middle East, not to use it would significantly deteriorate
Speaker 1: America's deternity. Doctor Orm. We'll talk again next week. I
Speaker 1: appreciate the special appearance on the Thursday. Stand by me,
Speaker 1: Welcome back America. Open source Intel reporting at this hour,
Speaker 1: the US air lift activity for the Iran operation has
Speaker 1: hit at least one hundred and two C seventeen and
Speaker 1: C five flights into Sentcom as of February five. That
Speaker 1: includes fifty eight arrivals at our air base in Jordan,
Speaker 1: thirteen arrivals at our air base and cut Her, twelve
Speaker 1: arrivals at our air base in Saudi Arabia, nine arrivals
Speaker 1: at Diego Garcia, which is a British Indian ocean territory
Speaker 1: which does have quite a lot of our stuff there.
Speaker 1: I didn't think that the Iranians had a missile capable
Speaker 1: of getting to Diego Garcia, but no chances of being
Speaker 1: taken there. Kuwait seven arrivals, Bahrain three arrivals. I started
Speaker 1: thinking that's low and pending flights twelve and I would
Speaker 1: guess they're going to go to Bahrain. So that is
Speaker 1: a build up without precedent. I think bigger than the
Speaker 1: one before midnight hammer by a lot. And Prime Minister
Speaker 1: Netanyahu warned his Knesset today that the conditions for the
Speaker 1: collapse of the regime are mounting, and I do think
Speaker 1: that is a partial explanation for the schizophrenic activity coming
Speaker 1: out of Iran. Some members of the regime, senior military members, spokespeople,
Speaker 1: are attempting to intimidate the United States via their statements,
Speaker 1: and they're showing of pictures of missiles and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: pronouncements that are poking the bear, and then actions by
Speaker 1: Iran to actually poke the bear, like attacking the Abraham
Speaker 1: Lincoln with a drone. They could do drone swarms, they
Speaker 1: could put up a lot of drones, but the Lincoln
Speaker 1: can move, and I'm not sure their drones are that good.
Speaker 1: But all of our ships will not be sitting around
Speaker 1: waiting for a drone to find it. The airbases can't move,
Speaker 1: which is why the THAD Theater Altitude Deployment System and
Speaker 1: the Patriot missiles are being deployed to our stationary basis
Speaker 1: they have a GPS. Very very likely that America will
Speaker 1: be hit hard, not continental the United States, but our
Speaker 1: bases and our people at sea and on land in
Speaker 1: the region if this begins, and I think it's going
Speaker 1: to begin, because I don't believe the Iranians are going
Speaker 1: to give up anything that they have. They have to capitulate. Basically,
Speaker 1: if they give up what they has been demanded of them,
Speaker 1: they will have to capitulate. I am afraid that the
Speaker 1: Special Envoy is invested in envoying, but mister Widcoff has
Speaker 1: pulled off a lot thus far this year, so hopefully
Speaker 1: he will continue to do so. We'll talk with Jim
Speaker 1: Tallan after the break. Donald Trump at the prayer Bakfast
Speaker 1: today Cut number twenty.
Speaker 5: Under the Trump administration was standing strongly behind the Americans
Speaker 5: of faith, stopping the attacks on our values, our traditions,
Speaker 5: defending religious liberty.
Speaker 1: Cut number twenty two.
Speaker 5: The Department of Justice recently charged individuals from for storming
Speaker 5: a church in Minnesota during a worship service and trampling
Speaker 5: on Americans First Amendment rights.
Speaker 6: I watched that.
Speaker 1: Type and you know that was violent.
Speaker 5: I saw the people sitting there Pam and they were scared.
Speaker 5: They were well, some were scared and some were holding
Speaker 5: up their hands like I believe in God.
Speaker 1: But they were violent people.
Speaker 5: Screaming your parents and Nazis. Your parents had Nazis. The
Speaker 5: people are sitting and I thought the minister was great,
Speaker 5: he was so calm and good.
Speaker 3: They's screaming at him.
Speaker 6: Terrible right in the middle of.
Speaker 1: A church service.
Speaker 5: It's got to be illegal. I mean, Pam is doing it.
Speaker 5: I'm not doing it, but Pam is doing it. And
Speaker 5: I'll tell you people are happy with the job that's
Speaker 5: taking place because they're bad people.
Speaker 6: They're bad people.
Speaker 5: You have on one Trumpeter in particular that just I
Speaker 5: watched his performance.
Speaker 3: It was terrible.
Speaker 6: They tried and use freemo, repressed.
Speaker 5: And alls to get out of a criminal event.
Speaker 1: They were. That was a horrible thing to witness. And
Speaker 1: if we allowed that to go, and you wouldn't, You
Speaker 1: wouldn't be able to have a church.
Speaker 5: No, everybody would be afraid to go to church.
Speaker 1: He is not wrong about that. Coming up, Senator Jim
Speaker 1: Talent from a senator from the very jointing to talk
Speaker 1: about Iran. Stay tuned, Welcome back, America. I'm Hugh Hewett,
Speaker 1: joined by a former United States Senator, Jim Talent, who's
Speaker 1: on the Reague Institute Center for Security.
Speaker 6: Uh.
Speaker 1: Center, Talent, your assessment of what's going on with Iran?
Speaker 7: I think the odds that we're going to strikech are
Speaker 7: very very high. You uh, there's You've been talking all
Speaker 7: day about the three things that we want. No nukes,
Speaker 7: no support for the proxies, and no ballistic missiles. Well,
Speaker 7: the new program has pretty much gone. Their economies collapsed.
Speaker 7: I can't imagine they're sending much money to Hesbalaut, but
Speaker 7: they still have a substantial ballistic missile arsenal. So the
Speaker 7: big win for the administration is if we get some
Speaker 7: kind of regime realignment or recalibration, if somebody wearing a
Speaker 7: military cap takes over from Homine and decides to play
Speaker 7: ball with us. But if they don't, we're going to
Speaker 7: go after the ballistic missiles directly. That's what I think
Speaker 7: is going to happen. And you know the issue is
Speaker 7: when your guess is as good as mine, they're certainly
Speaker 7: getting ready now.
Speaker 1: Center Talent at the Regan Institute Center for Peace through Strength.
Speaker 1: It believes in muscular foreign policy. But we haven't seen
Speaker 1: a build up like this since the invasion of Iraq
Speaker 1: and two carrier groups, all of these fads and patriots,
Speaker 1: no boots on the ground planned and not that we
Speaker 1: know of, and certainly doesn't look that way. Are you
Speaker 1: still nevertheless worried about American casualties at our bases and
Speaker 1: on our ships?
Speaker 3: You always worry you.
Speaker 7: I remember as a kid listening to your old boss,
Speaker 7: Dick Nixon talking about the Vietnam War and how much
Speaker 7: casualties it he had gone down, but he said, you know,
Speaker 7: one casualty's won too many.
Speaker 3: So and we all feel that way.
Speaker 7: But that's why we have send coom planners, Admiral Cooper,
Speaker 7: That's why we have the Joint Staff under General Kine,
Speaker 7: That's why we have the Undersecretariat for Policy in the
Speaker 7: Department of Defense, you know, to prepare to advise the
Speaker 7: President whether there's something like this can be done within
Speaker 7: an acceptable margin of risk. And I think clearly they've
Speaker 7: told them that they can, that they can do it.
Speaker 7: And my experience through the years is that when we're
Speaker 7: in a basically non competitive environment in the sense that
Speaker 7: the air defenses have not proven effective and we're going
Speaker 7: up against a non peer competitor, and we have time
Speaker 7: to build up. We're very good at this, so I
Speaker 7: have a fairly high confidence level. But of course you're
Speaker 7: gonna worry until it's over, and nobody can guarantee there
Speaker 7: won't be any losses. I mean, that's just not possible.
Speaker 7: But these are substantial Americans secure already interests that we
Speaker 7: can gain by this operation, and I think the President's
Speaker 7: decided he's going to do it if we don't get
Speaker 7: a diplomatic solution.
Speaker 3: I think he's right.
Speaker 1: Ambassador ORNs twice in a week reminded me of the
Speaker 1: British ship the Sheffield, which was hit by an Exocet
Speaker 1: missile in the Falklands conflict in nineteen eighty two. It
Speaker 1: was a lucky hit, but it killed a lot of
Speaker 1: British sailors anyway and sunk the ship. What is the
Speaker 1: threat to the Lincoln or any of the destroyers or
Speaker 1: support ships, do you think.
Speaker 7: Well, it's obviously the anti ship crews and ballistic missiles,
Speaker 7: but we know about that. I mean, those ships have
Speaker 7: very sophisticated air defense systems. We're going to take out
Speaker 7: the launchers as quickly as we can. They're going to
Speaker 7: try and achieve tactical surprise. And with all due respect
Speaker 7: to our allies, the Brits, you know, our navy, which
Speaker 7: and they had a much better navy in nineteen eighty two,
Speaker 7: but nowhere near even relatively speaking, as good as ours now.
Speaker 7: So this is why you people who all my former
Speaker 7: colleagues and colleagues who want to be president, these are
Speaker 7: the kind of decisions you got to make. I think
Speaker 7: it's time to do this. I think I think the
Speaker 7: administration is determined to eliminate the Iranian threat, which has
Speaker 7: been with us for fifty years. It's necessary to do
Speaker 7: that to achieve our vital national interest in the Middle East.
Speaker 7: Read the National Security Strategy, page five, and I think
Speaker 7: I think the President is determined, and we got the
Speaker 7: best guys and gals in the world, and if we
Speaker 7: have to do it, I think will be successful.
Speaker 1: Now. Britta Hume was my guest yesterday, Jim, and he said,
Speaker 1: and after many years of watching presidents, if a president
Speaker 1: leans this far forward as President Trump has, if nothing happens,
Speaker 1: his deterrence is injured. Do you agree with him?
Speaker 7: Yes, oh, absolutely, And the president knows that. I mean,
Speaker 7: that's why he would not have said this as often
Speaker 7: as he's at it if he did not intend to
Speaker 7: order a strike in the event the diplomatic channels fail,
Speaker 7: And I'm not quite as down on that as some
Speaker 7: other people are. I think part of this may be
Speaker 7: to pressure this regime. Well, there's no question the president's
Speaker 7: got leverage because he's in this case, it's military leverage,
Speaker 7: and he's increasing the pressure on the regime, which is
Speaker 7: one reason I think why this is going on for weeks.
Speaker 7: Imagine what that's like in their bunkers view, especially since
Speaker 7: so many of their people have already been taken out.
Speaker 7: And I know again there's concern about what they might
Speaker 7: do in response, but you I bet anything, we're holding
Speaker 7: secondary deterrence in reserve. In other words, if they respond
Speaker 7: and attack Americans, they know we can come back with
Speaker 7: even more. And what about the Israelis. If they don't
Speaker 7: go in in the first wave, they may go in
Speaker 7: in the second. So you know, I'd much rather be
Speaker 7: on our side making these decisions.
Speaker 3: Then on the Mulla side.
Speaker 1: I'm going to talk with you about timing after the break,
Speaker 1: But can you run through what you would assess the
Speaker 1: response to an actual hit on a carrier or a
Speaker 1: destroyer that took a lot of sailors lives.
Speaker 7: Well, we go in with everything then, and that would
Speaker 7: probably trigger an attack on directly on the Iranian economy.
Speaker 7: You've talked about Cark Island and I can't pronounce it either,
Speaker 7: by the way, the way the Iranians do. You've talked
Speaker 7: about that, I mean at that point, and again the
Speaker 7: president's warned that about that, and we've seen how sensitive
Speaker 7: he's been in the past to taking American casualties.
Speaker 3: So we're going very heavy then.
Speaker 7: You know, the power of an aircraft carrier task force,
Speaker 7: not to mention the submarines, not to mention the long
Speaker 7: range precision strike aircraft.
Speaker 3: We've got the V two's.
Speaker 7: If we have targets that don't have effect of anti
Speaker 7: air defenses, they're just helpless.
Speaker 1: You I'm doing my math in my head. And if
Speaker 1: the Israeli Air Force gets involved, it's five hundred bomb
Speaker 1: delivering precision munitions every cycle from the ship to the
Speaker 1: sea and from the Israeli Air Force. But it's an
Speaker 1: incredible amount of firepower.
Speaker 7: It will turn, you know, eight hundred sorties into several
Speaker 7: thousand sorties and just be absolutely devastating. And so again,
Speaker 7: they've got to be thinking about that too, before they unleash,
Speaker 7: you know, hundreds of missiles at US.
Speaker 1: Stand by Cenator Town. I'm going to ask you about
Speaker 1: timing when we come back to the u ushef stay
Speaker 1: turned in America. Welcome back to America. I'm Hugh Hewett, Centertor
Speaker 1: of Talent, is still with me because I wanted to
Speaker 1: talk to him about the window in which he believes
Speaker 1: battle with Iran will begin. What's your estimate, Center of Talent.
Speaker 3: Well, let's look at the reasons for the delay. I
Speaker 3: think there were three.
Speaker 7: One of them is so we could build up that's
Speaker 7: got to be near completion now you've been tracking the
Speaker 7: forces that have been coming into the region. The second
Speaker 7: was diplomatic because, as doctor Warren said, our allies and
Speaker 7: partners want all the things we want with their round,
Speaker 7: but the Gulf States in particular, probably nbs IS, they're
Speaker 7: nervous about whether a military conflict will destabilize the region.
Speaker 7: And I think the third reason is the president is
Speaker 7: letting the regime sweat. I mean, he's seeing that they've
Speaker 7: been pushed to the edge.
Speaker 1: We locked you there, Jim, and we don't know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know how much.
Speaker 1: You.
Speaker 7: Yeah, they're pushed to the edge and we're waiting to
Speaker 7: see if they'll break. I mean, as I said, they're
Speaker 7: the ones who are sweating at this point. Yeah, we're
Speaker 7: concerned about our servicemen and women, but we've done this
Speaker 7: kind of thing before, So I think those are the reasons.
Speaker 7: And I think once we get the force package in place,
Speaker 7: it could happen at any time.
Speaker 1: And do you think the present beat us to the
Speaker 1: punch because they have been known to go first before.
Speaker 7: Well, to me, the two questions about this you other
Speaker 7: than timing, and I have little doubt that the administration
Speaker 7: will seek to engineer a tactical surprise, which they did
Speaker 7: with Midnight Hammer. They'll do that again. To me, the
Speaker 7: two questions with this are are the Israelis going to
Speaker 7: join in initially with us? They certainly will if Iron
Speaker 7: attacks them in response. And then the second is are
Speaker 7: we going to attempt to decapitate the highest levels of
Speaker 7: leadership Omane, the Mullahs, the IRG commanders, I mean a
Speaker 7: lot of them have already been killed. Are we going
Speaker 7: to do that or are we going to hold that
Speaker 7: back to use for secondary deterrence? Those are tactical questions,
Speaker 7: as is timing, and you unless you're read into these
Speaker 7: briefings every day, I mean, you just don't know. But
Speaker 7: I think they'll they'll try and engineer a tactical surprise.
Speaker 7: It's going to be interesting to see how they try
Speaker 7: and do it.
Speaker 1: Maybe the discombobulator will be deployed. Jim Talent, do you
Speaker 1: think that's an ends.
Speaker 3: Could be?
Speaker 7: We have a lot of ways of breaking the kill chain,
Speaker 7: and the Navy is particularly good at it and always
Speaker 7: has been electronic countermeasures, jamming the radar. I mean, there's
Speaker 7: there's all kinds of things. We're good at that and
Speaker 7: which is one of the reasons we haven't had the
Speaker 7: kind of disaster you're talking about. So again, it's it's
Speaker 7: up to the president to decide whether we can do
Speaker 7: this within an acceptable margin of risk.
Speaker 3: But I think.
Speaker 7: Clearly he has decided, and I would be surprised if
Speaker 7: that's if that's not a well founded decision.
Speaker 1: Center Jim Talent, always good to talk to you.
Speaker 8: Following or fencing, we have seen the Iranian leadership wiring
Speaker 8: money out of the country. So the rats are leaving
Speaker 8: the ship and that is a good sign that they
Speaker 8: know the end may be near.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to America. I'm Hugh hewittt that with Treasury
Speaker 1: Secretary Scott Besson on what the molocracy is doing right now.
Speaker 1: I'm joined by Noah Rothman, senior writer at National Review.
Speaker 1: No I just talked to Ambassador Oran, who believes they
Speaker 1: Iranians attempted to bake the United States into striking too
Speaker 1: soon yesterday or this week with the attack on the
Speaker 1: Lincoln by the drone and the attempt to seize the
Speaker 1: oil ship. They took two cargo ships today or two
Speaker 1: freighters today? What do you think? What's your assessment of
Speaker 1: what's going on over there.
Speaker 9: So that was a very interesting interview with Ambassador Oran.
Speaker 9: I hope your listeners caught it. That they didn't, they
Speaker 9: should catch up with it. He painted a pretty dire situation,
Speaker 9: very dire scenario, and it concerns me. It's the worst
Speaker 9: case scenario, and we've talked about it previously, the notion
Speaker 9: that the Iranian military or the IRGC will throw everything
Speaker 9: they can at US assets, particularly naval assets, but also
Speaker 9: its bases and its partner bases around the region, and
Speaker 9: it would be a significant challenge. They would attempt to
Speaker 9: in my view, engineer sinking of a US warship, but
Speaker 9: that would require a lot of assets. Now here's the
Speaker 9: other situation scenario rather that the ambassador did not bring up.
Speaker 9: Is that that situation, that scenario where Iran looses all
Speaker 9: its munitions, all its ordinance, sacrifices future deterrent capability. This
Speaker 9: is a regime that is hyper focused on survival. It
Speaker 9: has a long time horizon. It is not necessarily going
Speaker 9: to sacrifice all its missiles, all its drones in a
Speaker 9: one off strike because it won't have them to deter
Speaker 9: future aggression against future adversaries. We can anticipate that a
Speaker 9: US operation will begin with, as Ambassador orre And said,
Speaker 9: the striking of missile launch facilities and production facilities. So
Speaker 9: Iran can be certain that its capabilities will be damaged
Speaker 9: for the foreseeable future. It will take a long time
Speaker 9: to spin up those productions facilities. So what it's got
Speaker 9: is what it's got, and if it uses them, it
Speaker 9: won't have them in the future. The turn capability is
Speaker 9: something this regime would like to preserve, so we can't
Speaker 9: rule out the prospect of a calibrated response akin to
Speaker 9: what it marshaled after the operation that destroyed its nuclear
Speaker 9: facilities in June.
Speaker 1: Yeah. No, the Iranians demonstrated in two thousand and twenty
Speaker 1: when President Trump ordered Sillimani to be killed, that they
Speaker 1: can hit a United States base. They hit Ali Sad
Speaker 1: with array of ballistic missiles, and so they if there's
Speaker 1: a GPS attached, we know they can hit it. Because
Speaker 1: they hit Ali Sad. They injured a few American soldiers
Speaker 1: that were left on the base, but we had warning
Speaker 1: of it and we evacuated beforehand. What would be the
Speaker 1: response if they actually did a serious casualty figure on America,
Speaker 1: much less taking out a carrier, which is five thousand people,
Speaker 1: which is the nightmare scenario. What do you think the
Speaker 1: response from America would be.
Speaker 9: Well, the nightmare scenario that you just discussed would require
Speaker 9: a very significant response, a response that would involve, basis
Speaker 9: in the United States sending B twos with mops and
Speaker 9: five thousand pounds bombs to attack regime targets, to attack
Speaker 9: military targets as well as IRGC targets. We would make
Speaker 9: an example of the Iranian nation.
Speaker 10: That is not.
Speaker 9: Because we would want to communicate to our adversaries in
Speaker 9: Beijing and Moscow. What happens if you attack a carrier
Speaker 9: not because of iron. That is the worst case scenario.
Speaker 9: That's almost inconceivably bad for American prestige and American determ capabilities.
Speaker 9: But a smaller response is possible to think about. And
Speaker 9: the notion that the United States will not experience casualties
Speaker 9: or fatalities in that response is not something you could
Speaker 9: rule out. And how would Trump administration response, I think
Speaker 9: that depends on how the American public response. Would the
Speaker 9: American public regard this as an operation of choice, not
Speaker 9: of military, an ass and therefore something we invited on ourselves,
Speaker 9: or do they think it's an absolute imperative to get
Speaker 9: rid of this regime by whatever means are necessary and
Speaker 9: whatever comes after it is a good.
Speaker 10: Problem to have.
Speaker 9: I hope the American public would respond with the latter assumption.
Speaker 9: But the President needs to make this case to the nation.
Speaker 9: President needs to enlist the public in this project because
Speaker 9: it is a national project. And the sooner he comes
Speaker 9: before the public and says why we're doing this, the better.
Speaker 1: I agree with that, by the way, because the first
Speaker 1: part of that case is to announce how many people
Speaker 1: we think they murdered. I think it's over thirty thousand
Speaker 1: that hasn't sunk in Noah, and I don't know that
Speaker 1: the American people have their arms around that yet. That
Speaker 1: this regime is capable of murdering thirty thousand or more
Speaker 1: of its own citizens in forty eight hours, and that therefore,
Speaker 1: if they ever got a nuclear weapon or of ICBM
Speaker 1: that could hit the United States with a dirty bomb
Speaker 1: or whatever, they would do it. There's just nothing they wouldn't.
Speaker 9: Do, absolutely, And that is so to say the scale
Speaker 9: of the bloodshed, because it communicates to the public how
Speaker 9: this regime views its own survival. It compelled its own
Speaker 9: security forces to sign their death warrants with the execution
Speaker 9: of their neighbors in the streets in January. This regime
Speaker 9: regards survival, its own survival, their personal survival, as an imperative,
Speaker 9: and nothing else compares, including the survival of the citizens
Speaker 9: to which it is ostensibly dedicated. There's nothing that it
Speaker 9: wouldn't do in order to preserve its own stability, its
Speaker 9: own existence, and that does mean attacking the United States
Speaker 9: with whatever weapons it has available, attacking the United States
Speaker 9: on its own soil engineering, assassination campaigns, on American soil,
Speaker 9: killing Americans by scores. That is what this regime does,
Speaker 9: and it will not shy away from doing that. And
Speaker 9: if it has no legitimacy at home, it has no
Speaker 9: mechanism to rein it in. There's no domestic trigger that
Speaker 9: the Iranian people can pull to impose some circumspection on
Speaker 9: this regime. It is moderated and guided purely by the
Speaker 9: Islamic Republic's Supreme leader's own sense of morality, and we've
Speaker 9: not seen very much of that. It is really a
Speaker 9: force that is untethered to anything beyond what this very
Speaker 9: cloistered group of clerics is telling themselves.
Speaker 1: It's a very dangerous regime. It's a twelfth mm End
Speaker 1: Times regime, and I would encourage anyone to read deep
Speaker 1: on this. Noah, you did post on your ex account
Speaker 1: a picture of our base encatter that shows the deployment
Speaker 1: of Patriot missiles over the last three weeks. I think
Speaker 1: that explains why President Trump hasn't moved yet. And the
Speaker 1: dispatch of the George H. W. Bush carrier tells me
Speaker 1: the same that tomorrow's meeting may or may not produce
Speaker 1: a second meeting, But I don't think it matters in
Speaker 1: the end. You share my fatalism about this, Oh I do.
Speaker 9: Yeah, we gave a little bit, and I kind of
Speaker 9: wish we hadn't, But I understand why. The idea being
Speaker 9: to keep the Arab States on board with the diplomatic track.
Speaker 9: But we're too far apart. We are talking about the
Speaker 9: nuclear program, which is under several tons of lightly irradiated rubble,
Speaker 9: it's not really worth talking about. But we are also
Speaker 9: talking about the ballistic missile program and the proxy terrorist groups.
Speaker 9: The problem is that we want those things to go
Speaker 9: away forever, and the regime wants them to exist forever
Speaker 9: because they regard them as essential to their own survival.
Speaker 9: So we're just too far apart to meet in the middle.
Speaker 9: But Ambassador Orang's point is extremely important that the Arab
Speaker 9: States are not democracies. They do not necessarily want to
Speaker 9: see this regime fall from popular pressure. This is not
Speaker 9: like the Arab Spring. We're talking about some conditions that
Speaker 9: are sue generas very unique to Iran, so they have
Speaker 9: a little bit less to be worried about in Riad,
Speaker 9: although they should be worried about their own people. But
Speaker 9: it is important for us to be able to communicate
Speaker 9: and convey that what we want to see happen to
Speaker 9: the Islamic Republic is an implosion, not an explosion, and
Speaker 9: that will require sustained US power and presence in the
Speaker 9: region for the foreseeable future and a soft landing space
Speaker 9: for this regime elements of it that are willing to
Speaker 9: either exile themselves or to work with a successor government,
Speaker 9: because we do not want to see the collapse of
Speaker 9: this regime into civil war and chaos and disunion, because
Speaker 9: our partners abroad do not want.
Speaker 3: To see that.
Speaker 9: That might be distasteful, but it's real politique that we
Speaker 9: will have to consider.
Speaker 1: Well said as always, nosc Rothman. Follow him on x
Speaker 1: from National Review. Nosc Rothman on Welcome Back in America.
Speaker 1: I'm juq and Eliana Johnson is the editor in chief
Speaker 1: of the Washington Free Beacon. You can follow at Eleian
Speaker 1: at y Johnson on AX Freebeacon dot com. She's also
Speaker 1: almost daily contribute to the commentary podcast Eleana. I haven't
Speaker 1: listened to the commentary podcast from this morning, but yesterday
Speaker 1: just the last little bit was devoted to what's going
Speaker 1: on in Iran. I opened the program with Ambassador or
Speaker 1: In today who says, be very very very sure you
Speaker 1: know what you're getting into, because this is going to
Speaker 1: be very ugly if we get into a shooting match
Speaker 1: with Iran. What do you think about that?
Speaker 11: I think that's right, and I think the President's aware
Speaker 11: that this is a risky undertaking, which is part of
Speaker 11: the reason he's taking his time. We did devote quite
Speaker 11: a bit of time to talking about Iran today and
Speaker 11: actually had a debate about whether the President wants to
Speaker 11: engage in diplomacy as an off ramp and is really
Speaker 11: reluctant to do something, and whether the Iranians, in harassing
Speaker 11: the USS Abraham Lincoln with a drone, we're trying to,
Speaker 11: as the ambassador suggested, force the US to act by
Speaker 11: taunting the president before it's good and ready. So I'm
Speaker 11: not sure which one of these two avenues. I actually
Speaker 11: argued the second that I think the President is reluctant
Speaker 11: to act, but will end up choosing action because it's
Speaker 11: the least worst option that he's presented with. But many
Speaker 11: of my colleagues believed that the Iranian actions in sending
Speaker 11: a drone over the USS Abraham Lincoln were intended to
Speaker 11: force US action before they're ready because they know this
Speaker 11: is going to be quite messy.
Speaker 10: As the ambassador suggested, Well.
Speaker 1: That's my take is that President Trump's going to go
Speaker 1: when he wants to go, and that he's got a
Speaker 1: big window. He tried to prevent a masker by posting
Speaker 1: about it, but he couldn't. And any regime that will
Speaker 1: kill thirty thousand of its own people in forty eight hours,
Speaker 1: we cannot underestimate whatever they're doing. And they're probably lying
Speaker 1: up their ducks as well. But I've talked to naval
Speaker 1: officers and I believe that they are confident in their
Speaker 1: ability to quickly suppress fire. But that doesn't mean that
Speaker 1: a ship doesn't get blown up. Because the Sheffield in
Speaker 1: the Falklands was a lucky shot from Argentina with an
Speaker 1: aging EXO set. We know that the Iranians, when they
Speaker 1: have a GPS can hit the GPS. They hit the
Speaker 1: Alis Sad base after Solimani was killed. What do you
Speaker 1: think do you think Americans are ready for this?
Speaker 11: Well, I heard Noah Rothman say that President Trump needs
Speaker 11: to make the case to the American people. I think
Speaker 11: it's I think that's absolutely true, because I think there
Speaker 11: are plenty of elements of the president's own base that
Speaker 11: are skeptical of this, and I think it's worth speaking
Speaker 11: to them, as well as the Americans who aren't a
Speaker 11: member of the president's party and attempting to persuade here
Speaker 11: about why this is in the American interest. I also
Speaker 11: think he should speak to the fact that in diplomacy,
Speaker 11: in action is action. Hovering in the background of all
Speaker 11: of this are the degradation of American credibility that Barack
Speaker 11: Obama achieved by failing to act in Syria in twenty thirteen,
Speaker 11: and that the Biden administration eroded over his four years.
Speaker 11: And I think President Trump knows as his people prepare
Speaker 11: to meet in Oman and negotiate with the Iranians, that
Speaker 11: there's no such thing as real, honest negotiations with these people,
Speaker 11: and that he does not want he tore up the
Speaker 11: first nuclear deal, but that he does not want to
Speaker 11: be the second coming of Barack Obama. He's worked quite
Speaker 11: hard to restore American credibility, and that's hovering in the
Speaker 11: background here. No action is a deliberate choice in an action,
Speaker 11: and I think he should speak to that.
Speaker 1: And no action would be the destruction of the deterrent
Speaker 1: that he's rebuilt, and it was destroyed by the JCPOA,
Speaker 1: it was destroyed by the Redliner Ratier, it was permanently
Speaker 1: damaged by Joe Biden's catastrophic withdrawal from Afghanistan. But I
Speaker 1: also think even if those had not happened, when a
Speaker 1: massacre on the scale happens the United States, it's a
Speaker 1: non nuclear power. The United States represents the West. It
Speaker 1: really can't just not notice it. Eleon, and they'd killed
Speaker 1: Americans for twenty for forty seven years, they cannot not
Speaker 1: pretend that they're trying to kill us. Now.
Speaker 11: Well, he the president, chose to speak up when Ron
Speaker 11: was killing its people, which is why I think his crediblit,
Speaker 11: he's on the line here when he speaks, if and
Speaker 11: when he speaks to the American people, I really do
Speaker 11: think he should speak more to the fact that this
Speaker 11: is a regime that for the past fifty years, you know,
Speaker 11: since nineteen seventy nine, how many, yeah, fifty plus years,
Speaker 11: for the past half century plus, has devoted itself wholly
Speaker 11: and entirely to murdering Americans, has American blood on its hands,
Speaker 11: and that weakening the external threat of Iran every action
Speaker 11: we take aimed at its nuclear ballistic or its support
Speaker 11: for its terrorist proxies, itself weakens and degrades the internal
Speaker 11: standing of the regime, because that is what this regime
Speaker 11: is now.
Speaker 1: One thing that has to be done and hasn't been
Speaker 1: done yet. It was done by President George HW. Bush
Speaker 1: before Desert Storm. It was done before George W. Bush
Speaker 1: ordered the invasion in Afghanistan and then the invasion of Iraq,
Speaker 1: which was to prepare the Americans for the worst case.
Speaker 1: I mean, when we went into a rock first time
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety one, they were telling us one hundred
Speaker 1: thousand Americans could die. The second time, they were also
Speaker 1: worried about what could happen in Iraq more than Afghanistan.
Speaker 1: Does anyone have that sense of my gosh, your stomach
Speaker 1: is in knots over this, because mine is well.
Speaker 11: I think that's what's led to this long pause and
Speaker 11: deliberation inside the administration. We have pretty good reporting that
Speaker 11: three weeks ago or so, the President was prepared to
Speaker 11: act and called off an operation. And I think he's
Speaker 11: grappling with this because all of the operations he's been
Speaker 11: involved in, the assassination of customs Solimani, the Maduro operation.
Speaker 11: They have not led to the deaths of American servicemen
Speaker 11: and the withdrawal from American from Afghanistan's President Trump has
Speaker 11: compared the operations he has ordered favorably to the withdrawal
Speaker 11: from Afghanistan that led to the deaths of thirteen American
Speaker 11: service members. And we know that this president does not
Speaker 11: want the blood the bodies of American service members on
Speaker 11: his hand, and you have to imagine he's wrestling with
Speaker 11: that quite hard.
Speaker 1: I agree, but very quickly, Eliana. If he bring Hume
Speaker 1: on the program, he actually said he can't back down
Speaker 1: now or his credibility is shot in the American deterrent.
Speaker 1: It's a shot. I agree with that, do you.
Speaker 11: I think that's a black and white way to put it,
Speaker 11: but I asolutely I'm not totally there, but I think
Speaker 11: it absolutely would degrade the deterrent that he's spent the
Speaker 11: past year rebuilding from the degradation that took place during
Speaker 11: the Obama and Biden administrations.
Speaker 1: It would hurt Eliana Y. Johnson on X, editor in
Speaker 1: chief of The Washington Free Beacon, participant in the commentary podcast.
Speaker 1: Thank you for joining me. As always, Eleiana great to
Speaker 1: speak with. You don't not read the Washington Freebeacon go
Speaker 1: every day. Check out what they put up for you
Speaker 1: at freebeacon dot com, and do not miss one episode
Speaker 1: of the commentary podcast. I'm joined by Josh Kraashauer. He
Speaker 1: is the editor in chief of Jewish Insider. Josh. Welcome,
Speaker 1: I want to read to you for it from Open
Speaker 1: Source Intel that came out about fifteen minutes ago. Islamic
Speaker 1: Revolutionary Guard General Yadullah Havani told Al Maya Dean first
Speaker 1: unveiling the Kormashar four missile was a direct message to
Speaker 1: the United States. Two, Iran will not trade away its
Speaker 1: military capabilities at the negotiating table. Three the US returned
Speaker 1: to talks in a weakened, in humiliated position, and four
Speaker 1: the general says US power in the region has weakened.
Speaker 1: What is that message?
Speaker 12: I think it's a combination of a lot of bluster
Speaker 12: and a lot of intransigence and anyone expecting a breakthrough
Speaker 12: to come out of the talks between the United States
Speaker 12: and Iran and scheduled this Friday, scheduled tomorrow in Oman,
Speaker 12: I think is very optimistic.
Speaker 3: They're definitely going.
Speaker 12: Through the motions but there's been no sign publicly or
Speaker 12: privately from the Iranians that they're willing to make the concessions,
Speaker 12: even the basic concessions about their nuclear program, that the
Speaker 12: Trump administration has demanded. And it looks like, you know,
Speaker 12: the Iranians seem to be trying to buy some time
Speaker 12: and trying to perhaps delay the inevitable, or perhaps trying
Speaker 12: to buy time to you know, the delay inevitable and indefinitely.
Speaker 3: But we'll see.
Speaker 12: I think the Trump administration is pretty committed to going
Speaker 12: through with military action if they don't get any buying
Speaker 12: from the Iranians on any any kind of diplomacy.
Speaker 1: Josh I talked to Ambassador Orran at the beginning of
Speaker 1: the program. He laid out a potentially very dire set
Speaker 1: of reactions to a battle with Iran, including strikes on
Speaker 1: our basis and perhaps on our carriers. That the Iranians
Speaker 1: are pretty good at targeting their missiles. What do you
Speaker 1: think is the risk level that the American people are
Speaker 1: aware of?
Speaker 12: Well, I think I think Michael Orian laid it out
Speaker 12: pretty pretty directly. You look at the public hue in
Speaker 12: Israel and as opposed to last year with the war
Speaker 12: against the strongard in Israel to dost some the Iranian
Speaker 12: nuclear The public opinion in Israel is a lot more mixed.
Speaker 12: In fact, it was just a very respected survey that
Speaker 12: came out this week showing fifty to fifty in Israel
Speaker 12: between folks are who want Israel to know essentially be
Speaker 12: publicly behind any ulitary strike, and another half predominantly from
Speaker 12: the outside of it, that are much more wary about
Speaker 12: the consequences. And make no mistake that if the US
Speaker 12: duk age and does strike Iran militarily, Israel is probably
Speaker 12: a brunt of the constas.
Speaker 1: Now Prime Minister and you know who addressed the Kinessa today,
Speaker 1: and it is reported that he said there is a
Speaker 1: build up of conditions toward a critical mass that could
Speaker 1: bring about the downfall of the Iranian regime. I don't
Speaker 1: know if that's correct. Have you ever read Empire of
Speaker 1: Terror by Mark Zelenski, Josh, it's about the IRGC. I
Speaker 1: have none. Well, the IGCS one hundred and fifty thousand strong.
Speaker 1: They are a very small portion of the ninety two
Speaker 1: million Iranians, but they run everything, and they're so deeply
Speaker 1: encrusted on the regime. I don't think regime change is
Speaker 1: a question of killing the Ayatolla. I think it's a
Speaker 1: question of killing most of the i er g C.
Speaker 1: Do you agree with that?
Speaker 12: Yeah, I mean, look, there's a lot of from Israel
Speaker 12: to the Golf States. There's not an expectation that even
Speaker 12: if you know, Committee disappeared or you know, was killed,
Speaker 12: that there would be an automatic transition to a democracy
Speaker 12: or much more humane government that the IERGC in a
Speaker 12: life and they have, you know, they would natural inheritors.
Speaker 12: So you know, there's a certainly the Golf States are
Speaker 12: and in fact, I think part of the US delay,
Speaker 12: they're getting a lot of pushback I would imagine from
Speaker 12: the Golf State allies.
Speaker 3: Saudi Arabia ue.
Speaker 12: You know, the allies in the region are very worried
Speaker 12: about but what could happen if there is a long, long,
Speaker 12: long term or more days of engagement against Iran and
Speaker 12: Iran I've seen what they do and what they what
Speaker 12: kind of what kind of damage they can.
Speaker 3: Cause of the region.
Speaker 1: Yeah, our friend Noah Rothman posted pictures over at his
Speaker 1: ex account nosc Rothman of our base and cutter two
Speaker 1: weeks ago in today and the difference is Patriot Air
Speaker 1: Defense batteries have been deployed. I also saw online the
Speaker 1: account of the traffic of the big C seventeens that
Speaker 1: can carry the FAD systems anywhere in the world. They
Speaker 1: were up and flying again last night. It's clear that
Speaker 1: every air defense asset that we've got is deploying to
Speaker 1: our bases in the region, because we remember the Iranians
Speaker 1: hit Ali Sad base on the nose when they wanted
Speaker 1: to after Solimani was killed, so they can hit our bases.
Speaker 1: Do you think the American public is aware of the
Speaker 1: actually the cost that this could bring with it. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: they have.
Speaker 12: I mean you just let it out Q, both in
Speaker 12: Iraq and Katar that they've done it, and it hasn't
Speaker 12: been that long ago, so that that memory runs fresh.
Speaker 1: And look, I.
Speaker 3: Think there's been a lot of debate.
Speaker 12: We've talked about this on the show qu on whether
Speaker 12: Trump is actually going to.
Speaker 1: Go forward with military strikes.
Speaker 12: Obviously said he would after Iran slaughtered thousands of its
Speaker 12: own citizens, but the reality is it wants to negotiate
Speaker 12: with the I and it's gave a notable interview to
Speaker 12: Makan Kelly this week where he was sort of expressing
Speaker 12: out loud that the president was sort of bewildered that
Speaker 12: Iran can't even reach the Iyatola to directly negotiate in
Speaker 12: the same way he has with other enemies like Vladimir
Speaker 12: Putin or in the first term, with North Korea as
Speaker 12: a leader. So, I mean, I think it's a frustration.
Speaker 12: I think Trump would love to do some kind of deal,
Speaker 12: and that's what's driving a lot of the conversations and
Speaker 12: the meeting in Oman tomorrow. But ultimately they have been
Speaker 12: in transgend and that's who the Iranian regime is and
Speaker 12: has always been.
Speaker 1: You know, I want to close on that point. There
Speaker 1: is no negotiating with this regime. They just murdered at
Speaker 1: least thirty thousand of their own people, and some estimates
Speaker 1: I've seen go twice and high and even higher. What
Speaker 1: can you expect? I mean, really, just because Barack Obama
Speaker 1: felt for this doesn't mean all American presidents are obliged
Speaker 1: to call for this. That's right, Hugh.
Speaker 12: And look, I think it's a little bit of a
Speaker 12: mixed message and that yes, these negotiations are about nuclear
Speaker 12: and about the enrichment maybe missiles, but that's certainly been
Speaker 12: the sensible focus.
Speaker 1: But Trump has said.
Speaker 12: It was about, you know, the slaughter, I mean, the
Speaker 12: human rights abuses, the slaughter of your own citizens, the
Speaker 12: support for Rubio sectoristic Rubo. It's also about the support
Speaker 12: for tapes across the region in the world. This is
Speaker 12: a reventeous regime that has caused untold around the world,
Speaker 12: and I think it's important, you know, focus on that
Speaker 12: big picture. I think Trump sometimes can kind of get
Speaker 12: into the narrow details of a nuclear negotiation, but it's
Speaker 12: a lot more than that, all right.
Speaker 1: I think he's also pretty good at throwing a lot
Speaker 1: of dust into everybody's eyes about what is going on
Speaker 1: and when it's going to happen. He's done it, certainly
Speaker 1: to everyone in the United States. I assume the Iranians
Speaker 1: are Justice continued Josh Cross, our editor in chief of
Speaker 1: Jewish Insider, always a pleague to talk to you. Come
Speaker 1: to the on this Thursday. I will be returning later
Speaker 1: in the program to the topic of the loving battle
Speaker 1: with Iran. But there's some domestic news going on as well,
Speaker 1: and for that I have Sarah Bedford with me. She
Speaker 1: is the investigations editor at the DC Examiner Washington Examiner.
Speaker 1: You can follow her on ex at Sarah C. Bedford. Hello, Sarah,
Speaker 1: how are you in very very cold beltwey Land.
Speaker 10: I'm great, Thanks for having me. Yeah, still pretty cold here.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I'm going back on Sunday, and I'm hoping it
Speaker 1: will warm up a little bit before then, because going
Speaker 1: from California to the Belway is going to be quite
Speaker 1: the trip. Sarah, the Leader was on with me yesterday
Speaker 1: lear Thoon, and he said the Democrats have not yet
Speaker 1: made their demands on the DHS appropriations bill. Has anything
Speaker 1: changed in twenty four hours? Have they laid out what
Speaker 1: they want yet?
Speaker 13: Yes, Democrats have since laid out ten demands that they
Speaker 13: have for the DHS funding bill, and to be honest,
Speaker 13: most of them are non starters with Republicans. One of them,
Speaker 13: sort of as expected, was to require ICE agents CBP
Speaker 13: agents to get a judicial warrant before.
Speaker 10: They go to someone's home.
Speaker 13: That would effectively end the way that immigration enforcement is
Speaker 13: conducted now. With an administrative warrant through administrative courts, it's
Speaker 13: a totally different type of law enforcement, and to bring
Speaker 13: that in line with the criminal justice system would grind
Speaker 13: enforcement to a halt. So that's one that's totally a
Speaker 13: non starter with Republicans. Another one is to end the
Speaker 13: DHS's the Trump DHS's policies on sensitive locations. The Trump
Speaker 13: administration said ICE, you can go to places like pulling areas,
Speaker 13: polling places, schools, churches. That way, illegal immigrants who know
Speaker 13: that the law enforcement is coming for them can't hide
Speaker 13: out in those locations and know that they're untouchable. If
Speaker 13: you take away the ability for ICE to go to
Speaker 13: someone's house or their school, or their workplace or a
Speaker 13: polling place, where is I supposed to arrest people? And
Speaker 13: on top of that, it ends what democrats call racial profiling,
Speaker 13: which is going to places where legal immigrants tend to congregate,
Speaker 13: such as outside home depots.
Speaker 10: I wouldn't even be allowed to do that.
Speaker 13: So if the Republicans were to concede to these Democratic demands,
Speaker 13: it would effectively end immigration enforcement altogether.
Speaker 10: And that's why they're non starters.
Speaker 1: Are there any demands that they made that Republicans appeared
Speaker 1: to consider reasonable.
Speaker 13: Republicans have shown a willingness to consider requiring body cameras
Speaker 13: for agents, and the Trump DHS has already said this
Speaker 13: is something they want to do. They're rolling it out
Speaker 13: in Minneapolis. They're willing to roll this out nationwide if
Speaker 13: the appropriations are there, to get cameras for everyone, because
Speaker 13: a lot of the agents say that the body camera
Speaker 13: footage would end up validating their version of events. The
Speaker 13: agents themselves don't seem to be that opposed to getting
Speaker 13: body cameras. In fact, Tom Homan, who's in charge of
Speaker 13: the situation in Minneapolis now, said what he heard from
Speaker 13: the rank and file.
Speaker 10: Was that they wanted to have cameras.
Speaker 13: So that's one that the Republicans could concede to the
Speaker 13: Democrats on Capitol Hill.
Speaker 1: Did the list include regularization of the Dreamers, the three
Speaker 1: million people who came into the United States as a minor,
Speaker 1: not brought by their own free will, but who were
Speaker 1: brought here.
Speaker 3: By other people.
Speaker 13: That's certainly something Democrats want, but it wasn't part of
Speaker 13: the appropriations package. That would be really difficult to do
Speaker 13: through appropriations, But certainly amsty for full swaps of people
Speaker 13: is something that Democrats would want to do policy wise,
Speaker 13: if they had control of government.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm going to differ with you, Sarah. I
Speaker 1: believe the appropriations process is amendable in regular order, provided
Speaker 1: that you get over sixty votes in the Senate. So
Speaker 1: if they really cared about the Dreamers and coupled it
Speaker 1: with I wrote about this at Fox News today, coupled
Speaker 1: it with a sanctuary city funding cut off for the Republicans,
Speaker 1: they could get the Dreamers regularized. They've been talking about
Speaker 1: it for twenty years. Why not ask for it?
Speaker 13: Well, it's a great question, and a lot of their
Speaker 13: demands had to do with sort of defanging ICE and CBP.
Speaker 13: Other things that the Democrats wanted is to prevent ICE
Speaker 13: agents from ever being able to wear masks, and not
Speaker 13: only that, but having to wear IDs visible on their
Speaker 13: uniforms at all times with a serial number that these
Speaker 13: ICE observers would be able to take down badge numbers
Speaker 13: and make individualized reports. But you do have DHS saying
Speaker 13: that threats against these agents are up something like one
Speaker 13: thousand percent. I mean, they're getting an insane number of
Speaker 13: threats against these agents, and so that's why the administration
Speaker 13: argues they need to protect these people's identities.
Speaker 1: So this is basically a dead on arrival list of
Speaker 1: demands and no room to negotiate, nothing to talk about.
Speaker 1: That means DHS won't be funded. What does that? What's
Speaker 1: the schedule call for shutdown.
Speaker 13: They have until February thirteenth, so next week to get
Speaker 13: this done. The one thing Republicans have going for them
Speaker 13: is that DHS.
Speaker 10: It's not just Ice and CVP.
Speaker 13: You have FEMA in there, you have TSA in there,
Speaker 13: things that Democrats know they can't let go without funding.
Speaker 13: And the One Big Beautiful Bill Act already gave Ice
Speaker 13: millions billions of dollars through twenty twenty nine to conduct
Speaker 13: a surgeon deportation. So allowing another shutdown for DHS wouldn't
Speaker 13: defund the stuff that Democrats hate.
Speaker 10: And because you do have.
Speaker 13: FEMA and TSA in there, Democrats will also feel pressure
Speaker 13: to reach some kind of funding deal.
Speaker 1: And last question, Serre Betfort, have they named their negotiating team?
Speaker 1: Do we know doing the actual cut and paste of
Speaker 1: any deal on DHS appropriations.
Speaker 10: We have a leadership leadership at both parties.
Speaker 13: You have a keen Jeffries, you have Chuck Schumer Thune
Speaker 13: out there right now being.
Speaker 10: The public face of negotiations.
Speaker 13: In terms of the rank and file, you know you've
Speaker 13: had at least the appropriators be more willing to play
Speaker 13: ball with each other.
Speaker 10: Susan Collins in the Senate for example, and others.
Speaker 13: So but right now, you know, because this is the
Speaker 13: ballgame for Democrats, you have leadership being the again the.
Speaker 10: Public face of the negotiations.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, I'm going to shift topic on you quickly
Speaker 1: because that's not going anywhere, and unless they sing a
Speaker 1: new tune, there's going to be a shutdown and they're
Speaker 1: going to end up being embarrassed like they were last year.
Speaker 1: Is there any concern in the Congress about the looming
Speaker 1: battle with the Iran that you've picked up?
Speaker 10: Republicans are? They are so far for the.
Speaker 13: Most part, backing Donald Trump and acknowledging you know, of
Speaker 13: course he has the authority to do any sort of
Speaker 13: limited immediate strikes. But if you're talking about a sustained
Speaker 13: military action, you do have some Republicans saying, if it's
Speaker 13: going to be a sustained situation, whether boots on the
Speaker 13: ground or a bombardment or anything, then we're going to
Speaker 13: want Trump to.
Speaker 10: Come talk to us.
Speaker 13: So Republicans are just sort of cautiously waiting to see
Speaker 13: what Trump is going to do.
Speaker 1: Sarah see Bedford from the Washington Demmer always going to
Speaker 1: talk to you. Thank you, Sarah, follower at Exit Sarah C.
Speaker 1: Bedford dot not dot com. Sara see Bedford on x.
Speaker 1: Philip Valboni is editor in chief and the founder of
Speaker 1: Global Post, which you can find at GlobalPost dot com.
Speaker 1: I don't want to make the Kanu that mistake GlobalPost
Speaker 1: dot com and the lead story today is about our
Speaker 1: neighbor to the south, Mexico. Hello, Philip, how are you?
Speaker 14: I'm good, Hugh. I love the conversation about the discombobulator.
Speaker 14: It's a tough active folk it is.
Speaker 1: I don't want to get hit by one, but you know,
Speaker 1: we might have to use it in Mexico. After I
Speaker 1: read the lead story today, it does not appear that
Speaker 1: President Schinbaum is doing enough that the Trump administration wants done.
Speaker 1: Or is she? Did I read it the right way?
Speaker 14: Well, the President has talked about possibly using special forces
Speaker 14: to attack the drug cartels. Obviously President Shangong, president of Mexico,
Speaker 14: does not want that to happen. I mean what we
Speaker 14: wrote about today was, I mean for the horrific violence
Speaker 14: that the drug cartels have been visiting on the Mexican people.
Speaker 14: One hundred thousand killed over the last twenty years. Ten
Speaker 14: mayors in the last year alone. Of course, the drug
Speaker 14: cartels are wreaking havoc in America as well. We have
Speaker 14: lost one hundred thousand drug overdose deaths a year. The
Speaker 14: peak was two thousand and twenty three. Last year was
Speaker 14: a little bit less. But it's a tremendous tragedy. And
Speaker 14: President hump doesn't think that the Mexican government is doing enough,
Speaker 14: and it's hard to argue that he isn't right about that.
Speaker 1: I did not I had missed until I read a
Speaker 1: Global post today the Ryan Wedding story. Do you want
Speaker 1: to tell people about that? Because I did not realize
Speaker 1: that a Canadian former Olympic snowboarder was involved with the
Speaker 1: Sineloa cartel.
Speaker 6: It appears that that is the case.
Speaker 14: And apparently an elite FBI team, although we're a little
Speaker 14: uncertainty about this, went into Mexico and extracted mister Wedding
Speaker 14: and brought him back and obviously he is going.
Speaker 6: To go on trial.
Speaker 14: But he had been involved with the Sineloa cartel allegedly
Speaker 14: for a long time, ten years or more, in you know,
Speaker 14: funneling all these drugs up across the borders. Pretty amazing story.
Speaker 14: I had not heard about it before. Until I read
Speaker 14: it in the newsletter this morning.
Speaker 1: Now I want to read the opening to this and
Speaker 1: it's at GlobalPost dot com if you want to read it.
Speaker 1: By the way, if you're a student or an educator,
Speaker 1: it's free for you to sign up for GlobalPost dot
Speaker 1: com if you just love foreign news, Philip, did you note,
Speaker 1: by the way, Jay, the Washington Post basically closed their
Speaker 1: foreign gurel.
Speaker 14: I sure did, and I know you used to write
Speaker 14: for The Post, a once great newspaper. I mean, it's
Speaker 14: really a sign of what has been going on for
Speaker 14: twenty years that declined and coverage your foreign news.
Speaker 6: The Post is another example.
Speaker 14: They eliminated seventy five percent of their foreign team. Pretty shocking.
Speaker 14: And it's why we're here. That's why Global Posts was created.
Speaker 14: Why I started it is to help Americans know the
Speaker 14: world better.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it occurred to me when I was reading the
Speaker 1: brief today that you're going to fill in and if
Speaker 1: people love knowing about the world, they should go to
Speaker 1: GlobalPost dot com, especially if you're a teacher or a student.
Speaker 1: It's free, but anyone who cares about the world, you
Speaker 1: can subscribe to it at GlobalPost dot com. The headline
Speaker 1: is in the cross here. Mack Mexico walks a tightrope
Speaker 1: as US threats mount and Philip and his team are
Speaker 1: pretty good writers. Great lead, but a tragic one. You're
Speaker 1: up on Marror. Carlos Manzo was attending Day of Death
Speaker 1: Day of the Dead celebrations in his city's historic center
Speaker 1: in November when a lone gunman shot him to death. Manzo, forty,
Speaker 1: became heir of the town in the western state of
Speaker 1: mccoaugh Khan in September twenty twenty four. Was an outspoken
Speaker 1: critic of the Cartels, pursuing a no leniency approach to
Speaker 1: finding them. Just a few months before his murder. The
Speaker 1: mayor said his efforts were inspired by his outrage over
Speaker 1: local suffering in the region taken over by these criminal groups.
Speaker 1: I don't want to be just another mayor on the
Speaker 1: list of those executed, Manzo said, But I don't want
Speaker 1: the municipal police to continue becoming statistics or the honest
Speaker 1: and honorable citizens who are victims of this social cancer amount.
Speaker 1: I don't know who runs for office in Mexico, Philip,
Speaker 1: do you.
Speaker 14: I know? I mean, this has been going on for
Speaker 14: twenty years, Hugh, and so many you know, courageous people
Speaker 14: have died, you know, trying to come back these cartels, and.
Speaker 6: They're still.
Speaker 14: Very, very powerful, and they're still you know, spreading corruption
Speaker 14: among you know, the military and the politicians.
Speaker 6: Uh, I mean.
Speaker 14: Something, something needs to change, because this can't go on,
Speaker 14: you know, any longer.
Speaker 1: Really, Now that the Post notes GlobalPost dot com, right
Speaker 1: analysts say she has gone further Claudia Scheinbaum, the President
Speaker 1: of Mexico, than her predecessors in combating the cartels, but
Speaker 1: warned that progress remains uneven, though the government's moved to
Speaker 1: decrease the already miniscule security brought budget or its reluctant
Speaker 1: to target politicians, but link to the cartels are alarming.
Speaker 1: What has she done?
Speaker 14: She has apparently, through their you know, their law enforcement people,
Speaker 14: has reduced the flow of fetanyl across the border. I
Speaker 14: think that's one of the things that she has cited.
Speaker 14: They have increased their cooperation with the DEA and other
Speaker 14: you know, law enforcement people in the United States. But
Speaker 14: these efforts have gone on know in her priors, prior administrations,
Speaker 14: her predecessor and others.
Speaker 6: Nothing seems to be able to break the power of
Speaker 6: all that money.
Speaker 14: The billions and billions of dollars that these cartels make
Speaker 14: from selling drugs in the United States, and that money
Speaker 14: is paying off people, and it's extremely difficult to break.
Speaker 14: I mean, you have to break the cartels. And I
Speaker 14: think that's why, I mean it's tempting for the President
Speaker 14: to want to use special forces. Most people think that
Speaker 14: would not work, that it would. It's not as simple
Speaker 14: as going after one person, although you could get out
Speaker 14: some of the.
Speaker 6: Leaders, but we've done that before.
Speaker 14: But you really have to break an organization of thousands
Speaker 14: and thousands of people, many of them just foot soldiers.
Speaker 14: And plus you know, going into Mexico would produce a
Speaker 14: big anti US reaction in our neighbor to the south,
Speaker 14: which is a great trade partner, important trade partner. So
Speaker 14: I don't know, it's been it's been persisting for a
Speaker 14: long time, and it doesn't look like we're making the
Speaker 14: progress that we deserve to.
Speaker 1: Well, it is difficult to imagine pulling out the cartels.
Speaker 1: By their roots, they're they're deeper and wider, I think,
Speaker 1: in fact, than the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Court, which is
Speaker 1: at one hundred and fifty thousand Phillip In the last
Speaker 1: minute that we have. Do you expect that the United
Speaker 1: States is going to initiate a battle with Iran?
Speaker 6: I wouldn't be surprised.
Speaker 14: I don't think the Iranians are going to give up
Speaker 14: the opportunity to make Nubleo weapons. I don't think they're
Speaker 14: going to give up power, and so I think it
Speaker 14: may very well come to that.
Speaker 1: I think the next time we docked the Global Post
Speaker 1: ll app stories about what we did in Iran or
Speaker 1: the imminence of it. I'm given the president till Saint
Speaker 1: Patrick's day. Because of the back to back the Olympics
Speaker 1: followed by Ramadan, there is a second carrier group going.
Speaker 1: That's a lot of strength to marshal and then not use.
Speaker 1: Philip Elbonie always go to talk to you, editor in
Speaker 1: chief of Globalposts GlobalPost dot com. If you want to
Speaker 1: learn more about it, Hi, it's you, Hewett. You've heard
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Speaker 1: is Hugh, Joined by Jonathan Williams, President of the American
Speaker 1: Legislative Exchange Council ALECALEC dot org slash u if you
Speaker 1: want to sign up for the Alex newsletter. Jonathan joins
Speaker 1: me a couple of times a month to talk about
Speaker 1: what's going on in the stage. Jonathan, I'm going to
Speaker 1: start at the with the Save Act because it's on
Speaker 1: everybody's mind. I got criticized yesterday John Thune about it
Speaker 1: because I know what the leader said, which is he'll
Speaker 1: vote for it when it comes up. What do you
Speaker 1: think about the say back. I don't think it's got
Speaker 1: sixty votes.
Speaker 15: Well, you know, regardless of the vote counting HU in Washington.
Speaker 16: I think it's got the broad backing of the American people,
Speaker 16: which is the important thing. I mean a lot of
Speaker 16: times we're here talking about common sense ALEC policy ideas.
Speaker 16: I mean, this has to be right up there with
Speaker 16: the ninety percent issue. To say that Americans say that
Speaker 16: citizens only should be the ones that are voting, and
Speaker 16: we need to have valid voter ID just as the
Speaker 16: states are working on.
Speaker 15: This is a really important item.
Speaker 16: Now, you know, if that's where, if that's the plank
Speaker 16: that some of the progressive Democrats in the Senate want
Speaker 16: to walk in an election year, that's I think that's
Speaker 16: up to them. But I mean, the American people are
Speaker 16: pretty strongly in favor of something as common sense as this.
Speaker 1: ALEC kids for a long time had the only Citizens
Speaker 1: Vote model policy. How many states have adopted that, Jonathan.
Speaker 15: Well, you know, we're in a number of states this year.
Speaker 16: We just adopted this is last year as a model policies.
Speaker 16: We're in the infancy of it, but we're seeing tons
Speaker 16: of states introduce it. We've had our task Force director
Speaker 16: of our New Process of Procedures task Force out of
Speaker 16: testifying on the policy. Kansas has been a real leader
Speaker 16: in this area, and so be on the lookout because
Speaker 16: I think you're going to see a lot of states
Speaker 16: get across the finish line this session.
Speaker 1: I would actually prefer to be done at the state
Speaker 1: level because then there is no constitutional issue about whether
Speaker 1: or not the Save Act works when it's mandated by
Speaker 1: Congress without a spending clause attached to it. So I
Speaker 1: hope states follow your lead on the Model Act. Let's
Speaker 1: go to the census next, John, what is this new
Speaker 1: census data telling us about twenty thirty in the reapportionment.
Speaker 16: Well, when you look at the political side of it,
Speaker 16: really bad news for if you're in California, right, I mean,
Speaker 16: they're doubling down on just silly economic policies with his
Speaker 16: wealth tax and making things even worse. But if current
Speaker 16: trends continue, California is going to lose potentially four or
Speaker 16: more US House to stricts in the reapportionment of twenty thirty.
Speaker 15: And keep it in mind, California has been a.
Speaker 16: State, as you know, since eighteen fifty. In every single
Speaker 16: decade they gained multiple.
Speaker 15: Seats in many of those decades.
Speaker 16: They only lost their very first seat in state history
Speaker 16: in the last of reapportionment in twenty twenty. So for
Speaker 16: conservatives out there that don't want another Nancy Pelosi in Congress,
Speaker 16: that's probably very good news. But it's once again reiterating
Speaker 16: the point that we make every single year here in
Speaker 16: rich states, poor states, which is Americans continue to vote
Speaker 16: with their feet away from states Lake California with the
Speaker 16: high taxes and big government policies.
Speaker 1: I'm afraid they're going to start leaving Virginia. John, I'm
Speaker 1: a Virginian year of Virginia. Even though I'm in California
Speaker 1: for a few weeks and I teach here every other year,
Speaker 1: I'm a Virginian and I know that Spanberger was not
Speaker 1: my choice. But Governor Spanburger ran as a moderate. Is
Speaker 1: she governing as a moderate?
Speaker 16: Well, the legislature still certainly not governing as a moderate
Speaker 16: with all the different bills being introduced on it's the
Speaker 16: tax increases, bringing back a death tax, as we've talked about,
Speaker 16: the regional greenhouse gas initiative, you know, and those things
Speaker 16: are not making it tour desk in many cases yet,
Speaker 16: so the jury is still out, you know.
Speaker 15: We'll see what she does with some of these. I
Speaker 15: mean during the campaign.
Speaker 16: For instance, a massive issue for job creation in Virginia
Speaker 16: is the right to work status right or you're going
Speaker 16: to have a forced union workforce.
Speaker 15: This is something that she said she would not sign
Speaker 15: during the campaign. We'll see if she actually follows that.
Speaker 16: And as you know, you governor's got a lot of
Speaker 16: times let laws become law without their signature.
Speaker 15: So there's a way to wheeze a lot of that,
Speaker 15: I suppose.
Speaker 16: But it's a good point that she did campaign as
Speaker 16: a moderate against wins seers, and based on what's happening
Speaker 16: with her party there in the Virginia General Assembly, she's
Speaker 16: going to be put to that test.
Speaker 1: Offully soon, Jonathan, do you think that they are more
Speaker 1: likely to make big mistakes in Virginia because they feel
Speaker 1: that it's not as mobile a population as California. The
Speaker 1: California's population was very mobile, and the people who made
Speaker 1: incomes left and now the billionaires are leaving and the
Speaker 1: capital is mobile. But if you're working for the federal
Speaker 1: government and you're in the northern suburbs of Virginia, you
Speaker 1: got to stay there. They are they indifferent to those people?
Speaker 15: Well, there is that argument to say, where are you
Speaker 15: going to go? Maryland or DC?
Speaker 16: And we can be arguably worse, Although some of the
Speaker 16: proposals you see out of Richmond right now would make
Speaker 16: Virginia the high tax state in the region. So you
Speaker 16: could see a reversal of the folks that have left
Speaker 16: Maryland and DC over the years to escape to the
Speaker 16: freedom loving side of the Potomac, as we used to
Speaker 16: call it in Virginia.
Speaker 15: You could see a reversal of that.
Speaker 16: But keep in mind, I was just with Governor Patrick
Speaker 16: Morsey this week in Charleston, West Virginia, and you had
Speaker 16: Virginia losing population, Glenn Young and trying to address that.
Speaker 16: West Virginia had lost population uninterrupted for one hundred years,
Speaker 16: and this most recent batch of census data showed that
Speaker 16: West Virginia actually gained six thousand residents on net from
Speaker 16: the other states. And so Harper's Ferry just west of
Speaker 16: the metro DC area here in Jefferson County, West Virginia.
Speaker 16: I think it's a great bet if you're a real
Speaker 16: estate investor in Jefferson County right now, because I think
Speaker 16: that's going to become the low cost, limited government area
Speaker 16: for people that still want to commute to the DC metro.
Speaker 1: Well, you anticipated me. I say West Virginia for last
Speaker 1: because I knew you were there in the last week.
Speaker 1: And I think you're going to see not a few
Speaker 1: people head for Harper's Ferry and beyond. It's not a
Speaker 1: bad commute. My general manager of the Salem station in
Speaker 1: the Beltway lives there and drives in every morning. It's
Speaker 1: not terrible commuteses like California commute. Actually, So what's going
Speaker 1: on in West Virginia that's attracting everyone besides the taxes?
Speaker 15: Well, you know, and.
Speaker 16: Governor Morrisey wants to continue to cut taxes this session too,
Speaker 16: to make that differential with Virginia even bigger. The other
Speaker 16: big thing is that this coming school year, the Hope
Speaker 16: Scholarship Plan that you've talked to our great board member,
Speaker 16: a Senator Patricia Rutger, who's really the heroin of national
Speaker 16: school choice movement. As the first universal school choice state
Speaker 16: with that Hope scot Ship that becomes truly universal and
Speaker 16: available to all families this coming school year. Now there's
Speaker 16: some efforts from some big government folks in West Virginia
Speaker 16: that would like to impede its progress and try to
Speaker 16: weaken it during this legislative session, but thankfully people like
Speaker 16: Senator Rutger and Governor Morrisey are standing strong. So you
Speaker 16: have that combination of school choice which benefits obviously families
Speaker 16: and kids, and you have the lower taxes, limited government regulations,
Speaker 16: and it becomes a really unescapable value creation to live
Speaker 16: on the West Virginia side of the line versus the
Speaker 16: Virginia side of the line. You know, you got access
Speaker 16: to Dallas Airport, and especially for those commuters as we
Speaker 16: are talking about you that maybe only need to come
Speaker 16: to d C two or three days a week, it
Speaker 16: becomes a whole lot more manageable. So you know, I'm
Speaker 16: a big fan of what's going on in West Virginia,
Speaker 16: and I think the folks in Richmond how to pay
Speaker 16: awfully close attention to that question.
Speaker 1: Jonathan. By the way, Senator Rucker is one of our
Speaker 1: favorite guests that the annual ALEC get together. She and
Speaker 1: Danny Perez are one two punch the speaker of the
Speaker 1: Florida House. But how many people are using the Hope Scholarship?
Speaker 1: Do you have an actual head count yet of how
Speaker 1: many people have raised their hand in West Virginia and
Speaker 1: said I want that.
Speaker 15: You know, it's a really impressive number.
Speaker 16: I think they've cleared to ten thousand student hurdle here,
Speaker 16: which is really important as they continue to build progress
Speaker 16: and it becomes truly universal in this coming school year,
Speaker 16: I think you're going to see those numbers added toe
Speaker 16: and you add that to the great new numbers just
Speaker 16: out of Texas this week yesterday that you might have
Speaker 16: seen reported where they've already had a couple of tens
Speaker 16: of dozens of individuals now joining that new education freedom
Speaker 16: plan that they just opened up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I did not know that, but it's the greatest
Speaker 1: thing going on in the country's education freedom and in
Speaker 1: fact The incentive that Ted Cruz put into the Big
Speaker 1: Beautiful Bill is working all across the United States. I'm
Speaker 1: sure ALEC is helping it do that. Go to ALC
Speaker 1: dot org. Shoot if you want to hear from Jonathan
Speaker 1: and his colleagues over at the American Legislative Exchange Council
Speaker 1: about what's going on in the state and the states
Speaker 1: are great sponsor. Love talking to Jonathan