Speaker 1: Welcome to today's podcast sponsored by Hillsdale College. All Things
Speaker 1: hillsdalet Hillsdale dot edu, or I encourage you to take
Speaker 1: advantage of the many free online courses there, and of
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Speaker 1: iTunes and Hillsdale Jority Leader Senator John Thune of South Dakota, Senator,
Speaker 1: Merry Christmas to you. I hope you get out of
Speaker 1: town soon, back to South Dakota. I suspect it's warmer there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Merry Christmas you. It's probably not warmer there, but
Speaker 2: it's always better to be there than here.
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, I would say so, thank you forgiving me
Speaker 1: some time today. I want to look back at twenty
Speaker 1: twenty five and a little bit forward and mostly good news,
Speaker 1: some ongoing battles, and then a couple of disagreements I
Speaker 1: want to talk to you about. Let me begin with
Speaker 1: the best news. Since the reconciliation process came along in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy four, Republicans have successfully used it only four times,
Speaker 1: including this year, So congratulations on that for the walks
Speaker 1: out there, including me.
Speaker 3: How difficult was that.
Speaker 2: Very You know, the nice thing about reconciliation you as
Speaker 2: you know, as you can do at fifty one votes
Speaker 2: in the Senate would typically take sixty. So it is
Speaker 2: an opportunity when you have unified control of the government
Speaker 2: like we do right now, House, Senate and White House,
Speaker 2: to do really big consequential things. And we used it
Speaker 2: for that reason. We got a lot of really big
Speaker 2: consequential things done. But just getting fifty one, you know,
Speaker 2: keeping Republicans united to even pass something with a simple
Speaker 2: majority was incredibly challenging, especially something is you know, it
Speaker 2: has as far reaching and had as many moving parts
Speaker 2: as the bill that we passed last summer did. So yeah,
Speaker 2: you want to you want to make use of it
Speaker 2: in a way that creates policy that's good for a
Speaker 2: really long time. And most of the stuff that we
Speaker 2: did in there, especially on the tax side, we made permanent.
Speaker 1: So those oh, thank god the clip what it kell.
Speaker 1: But for the people who are trying to keep score
Speaker 1: at home two thousand and one, two thousand and three,
Speaker 1: two thousand and seventeen, when it was Speaker Ryan and
Speaker 1: Leader McConnell, and then twenty twenty five, do you think
Speaker 1: there will be another one?
Speaker 3: Later could be.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm open to that, and some of our
Speaker 2: colleagues are interested in another reconciliation bills. Well, we actually
Speaker 2: have a couple of vehicles available to us. The way
Speaker 2: the Democrats finished up, there was a they didn't do
Speaker 2: a budget that last year. So we took their basically
Speaker 2: shell and legislative vehicle their budget and did it. So
Speaker 2: we actually have two that we could still do this
Speaker 2: next year if we wanted to, and if there's a
Speaker 2: reason to, if we come together behind some healthcare proposal
Speaker 2: that we think we want to make permanent and create
Speaker 2: more affordable healthcare, I could see that happening. But I
Speaker 2: think there it's really important that you know the stuff
Speaker 2: that we did in this first one, which again you know,
Speaker 2: if you look at the kind of categorize it as
Speaker 2: safe streets, more money in people's pockets, and new opportunities
Speaker 2: to get a hit for the American people and on
Speaker 2: tax stuff, energy stuff, regulatory, you know, the newborn accounts,
Speaker 2: school choice, childcare, things that the Democrats been trying to
Speaker 2: do for years. We were able to get done in
Speaker 2: this build, and only on our terms, and so it
Speaker 2: was really really a consequential piece of legislation, and we'll
Speaker 2: look for other opportunities if things come along in the
Speaker 2: tax space, from the healthcare space, and we want to,
Speaker 2: you know, do some things that can make policy that
Speaker 2: will take us in a different direction, particularly on healthcare,
Speaker 2: to make it more affordable than yes, we're open using it.
Speaker 1: Well, I want to remind people what would have happened
Speaker 1: had you not. And reconcilation was very hard this year
Speaker 1: because the leader then had to work with Speaker Johnson.
Speaker 1: And not only is it fifty one votes in the Senate,
Speaker 1: I mean it's a close run thing. Everything in the
Speaker 1: House is. So you two may have the best working
Speaker 1: relationship in the years I've been doing this between the
Speaker 1: House and the Senate. Would you will you think that
Speaker 1: will stand up?
Speaker 4: I do.
Speaker 2: Mike Johnson is terrific in what he does and as
Speaker 2: just a he's a character guy and so I really
Speaker 2: enjoy working with him where we we have. He's got
Speaker 2: he's got a really hard job, as you point out,
Speaker 2: I mean talk about a narrow majority he has to
Speaker 2: navigate there. We have a similar situation, but this is
Speaker 2: even more I think complicated, frankly, but so we meet
Speaker 2: every week. We're meeting later today. We talk regularly. I
Speaker 2: talked to him on the phone yesterday, and so it's
Speaker 2: a it's a really good working relationship you and one
Speaker 2: that is conducive to getting things done. But I can't
Speaker 2: tell you how hard and challenging and complicated it is
Speaker 2: with those narrow majorities, just keeping people together, you know,
Speaker 2: on on what are some very complicated and challenging issues.
Speaker 1: And President Trump's not a shrinking violent he has opinions.
Speaker 1: Well there is that has opinions. Let me go to
Speaker 1: the second Big Deal, and again this is for want.
Speaker 1: You used the nuclear option, and I applaud that was
Speaker 1: a tough thing to decide to do, but you did it,
Speaker 1: and I'm glad you did it. Again, Let's remind people
Speaker 1: what you had to do right.
Speaker 2: Well, and frankly, that was really hard to begin. You
Speaker 2: had to get people who were in our conference. We
Speaker 2: had to do it with fifty one days. We did
Speaker 2: all with all Republicans, and honestly, we held every way together,
Speaker 2: which I think was pretty remarkable. But we did a
Speaker 2: ton of education and reforming and and you know, the
Speaker 2: idea around how the nominations process historically worked and it's
Speaker 2: supposed to work, and the Democrats had virtually blown it up.
Speaker 2: I mean they literally President Trump's first president of history
Speaker 2: not to have a single one of his nominees approved
Speaker 2: by the voice fold or unanimous consent, which is typically
Speaker 2: it's the expedited way of getting non controversial nominees through
Speaker 2: the process. And MS were just forcing us to vote
Speaker 2: literally on every you know, not just the top level
Speaker 2: people the cabinet level, which we do, but sub cabinet
Speaker 2: level and below. And it had change. Couldn't continue on
Speaker 2: this pace. The president never would have got his people
Speaker 2: in place. So we came up with a rules change,
Speaker 2: you know, something refer it as a tactical nuke instead
Speaker 2: of a strategic nuke. But we did some things that
Speaker 2: created what frankly, had been the practice for a long
Speaker 2: time in the Senate, and that is on these non
Speaker 2: concert controversial noms being able to move them quickly in
Speaker 2: an expedite way. So we're now stacking him. We're going
Speaker 2: to move a stack later. Today there are ninety seven
Speaker 2: and this bunch oh wow. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, you, however, have a disagreement with the president, and
Speaker 1: I am on your side on this on preserving the
Speaker 1: legislative filibuster. Have you persuaded him yet that we really
Speaker 1: don't want to change that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, good luck with persuading him, Hugh. He is
Speaker 2: he is very He has a strong view on it,
Speaker 2: and which I appreciate and I'm sympathetic to because of
Speaker 2: the obstacles the Democrat throw up against him. I mean,
Speaker 2: the the way that they're playing this, the Trump derangement
Speaker 2: syndrome is epic and real, and these Democrats are blinded
Speaker 2: by their hatred of the President and so they are
Speaker 2: not They don't want to do anything in any way
Speaker 2: that works with us to achieve his objectives or his
Speaker 2: goals or his agenda. And so I understand the presence frustration.
Speaker 2: But I also know that at least historically, the filibuster
Speaker 2: and as you know, since its inception, unlimited debate has
Speaker 2: been a feature of the United States and then going
Speaker 2: back to seventeen eighty nine and then now, it takes
Speaker 2: a supermajority still to this day to do anything here.
Speaker 2: And I think that makes sense on legislation. It forces collaboration,
Speaker 2: it gives a voice to the minority, and I think
Speaker 2: it's protected Republicans and conservatives in this country through the
Speaker 2: years from a lot of really bad stuff the Democrats
Speaker 2: would have done if they could have done in the
Speaker 2: fifty one vote. So I know it's controversial, but I
Speaker 2: think it's something that has protected Republicans way off more
Speaker 2: often any benefit we might get from getting rid of it.
Speaker 1: And it's a defensible line around the Supreme Court. And
Speaker 1: I tell everyone, if they ever blow up the filibuster
Speaker 1: and they moved to expand the court and pack the court,
Speaker 1: we will have lost the rule of law. So the
Speaker 1: filibuster is like the first trench they have to get
Speaker 1: over to get to the court, and we can't have
Speaker 1: that happen now. To my surprise, Leader Throne, two Congressional
Speaker 1: Review Acts passed. I didn't even know that they were there.
Speaker 1: I thought maybe people forgot about it. But I listened
Speaker 1: to Dan Sullivan. That really has saved our bacon in Alaska.
Speaker 1: I had totally forgotten about those things, and you got
Speaker 1: two of them through last week.
Speaker 2: We did, and that makes twenty four for the year.
Speaker 2: And they're rolling back bard some Biden regulations that in
Speaker 2: many cases, and as Dan Sullivan points out, there were
Speaker 2: seventy if you can believe the seventy Biden regulations that
Speaker 2: went after the Energy industry in the state of Alaska.
Speaker 2: It was almost like he singled them out and it
Speaker 2: was just, you know, had a specific team of blowing
Speaker 2: up the state of Alaska. So we've restored some sanity,
Speaker 2: particularly in the area of energy, but a lot of
Speaker 2: these Biden error regulations that needed to go by the wayside.
Speaker 2: We use the Congression Review Act, which is a legislative
Speaker 2: vehicle available to do that, and twenty two of the
Speaker 2: twenty four that we've passed through the Senate have now
Speaker 2: been signed in the law by the President. So it's
Speaker 2: a mechanism to undo a lot of the damage done
Speaker 2: by the previous administration. We've used it, I think very
Speaker 2: effectively got rid of the California the EPA waiver, which
Speaker 2: would have required that electric vehicles be thirty five percent
Speaker 2: of the cars in the country next year and twenty
Speaker 2: thirty five one hundred percent, which is just virtually impossible
Speaker 2: and crazy. And California had managed to export that policeyat
Speaker 2: to eighteen other states around the country. So we came
Speaker 2: up with a fairly creative way of taking that down.
Speaker 2: But that's also something I think as we look back
Speaker 2: on this past year as a real I think accomplishment,
Speaker 2: Republicans together to undo a lot of the Biden your damage, a.
Speaker 1: Lot of legislative wins. But sometimes it's also important just
Speaker 1: not to lose. And you didn't lose. You didn't blink
Speaker 1: in the shutdown. I don't know if that was ever
Speaker 1: in doubt?
Speaker 3: Was it?
Speaker 1: Because you just couldn't blink there? And I'm so glad
Speaker 1: you didn't.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that's as you know, it's hard because
Speaker 2: there's a lot of pressure and you've got people, i
Speaker 2: mean people in our office. Every day you come in,
Speaker 2: you aren't getting paid, and it's you know, becomes a
Speaker 2: very personal issue. But what they did was just unprecedented
Speaker 2: and completely uncalled for. I mean, they got themselves in
Speaker 2: over their skis, and the left, the far left in
Speaker 2: this country, was calling the shots and Chuck Schumer was
Speaker 2: taking his orders put you know, walked us marshed us
Speaker 2: into this thing. It was totally unnecessary, totally uncalled for,
Speaker 2: and frankly unprecedented in historic what they did, you know,
Speaker 2: and we, for forty three days endured it. The American
Speaker 2: people had to endure it. But if we had even
Speaker 2: given in and rewarded that kind of bad behavior, we
Speaker 2: would just get more of it. You see more and
Speaker 2: more of that. So it was important that we hold
Speaker 2: the line. And you know, it's a but it's again
Speaker 2: another indication of just the hatred that the left has
Speaker 2: for the President of the United States. We see it playing
Speaker 2: out every single day here in the Senate.
Speaker 3: I want to add another category.
Speaker 1: You don't have to do anything when the war power
Speaker 1: is invoked by the president. I know the War Powers
Speaker 1: Act I think is unconstitutional, But when he did Operation
Speaker 1: Midnight Hammer, when we're doing the interdictions in the Caribbean
Speaker 1: and the flotilla and who knows what's been announced at
Speaker 1: five o'clock to night, you have led the Republicans in
Speaker 1: standing behind the president. I don't think we've lost anyone,
Speaker 1: with the exception perhaps of Senator Paul on a thing
Speaker 1: or two. Am I right about that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's correct. I mean, there are others who were
Speaker 2: sympathetic to the argument that's made on that particular issue.
Speaker 2: But I think the presence perfectly within his rights as
Speaker 2: the command in Chief to exercise the authority that he
Speaker 2: has under the Constitution to protect Americans an American interest,
Speaker 2: and that's certainly what he's been doing with these targeting
Speaker 2: these terrorist cartels that are poisoning any American people with
Speaker 2: the drugs that they've been bringing into this country. And
Speaker 2: so you know, there's always going to be questions around that,
Speaker 2: and of course, especially now because it's this president, the
Speaker 2: Democrats have really hypercharged their attacks on him. But he's
Speaker 2: had good support from Republicans here because we believe he's
Speaker 2: on the right track when it comes to protecting Americans
Speaker 2: and that's his peace. Whose strength is you know, the
Speaker 2: policy he's adopted and one that I agree with and share.
Speaker 2: It's a dangerous world and this president is not going
Speaker 2: to shy away from doing what it takes to protect Americans.
Speaker 1: I want to add as well. Anti Semitism is everywhere,
Speaker 1: and we saw it in Bondai Beach in Australia. I
Speaker 1: think it may have a role in the murder of
Speaker 1: the mit professor. I don't know any anything about Brown.
Speaker 1: I'm not ruling it out. But you've kept the caucus
Speaker 1: together and united behind our ally Israel. That's getting tough
Speaker 1: for every day given what's happening to the Democratic Party.
Speaker 1: Is that on the agenda for twenty twenty six.
Speaker 2: It is And I think that notwithstanding what is happening
Speaker 2: to the and I don't understand, you know, with Democrats
Speaker 2: in this country, that used to be a bipartisan issue,
Speaker 2: but they have their political laugh. The Prohomas wing of
Speaker 2: the Democrat Party is ascendant right now. It's where the
Speaker 2: energy is and a lot of the money is in
Speaker 2: Democrat politics. You see it playing out in some of
Speaker 2: these elections around the country. And that's really unfortunate because
Speaker 2: support for Israel is a time honored policy of this
Speaker 2: country and our greatest ally in that part of the world,
Speaker 2: and an ally with whom we have so much in
Speaker 2: common on you know, going back to faith, tradition, to
Speaker 2: the economy, to national security interests, into democracy. There are
Speaker 2: just so many reasons why our support for is needs
Speaker 2: to be on equivocal, especially to time when they are
Speaker 2: constantly under attack. And so yeah, it's hard to explain
Speaker 2: where the Dems are. But we will continue here at
Speaker 2: least in the Senate on the Republican side of the aisle,
Speaker 2: with continuing a very strong message of support and backing
Speaker 2: it up with actions now later.
Speaker 3: It's important for realize.
Speaker 1: You not only have to move legislation and get the
Speaker 1: caucus there, and you have to get stuff done and
Speaker 1: stop stuff from happening.
Speaker 3: But it's also important you got to look ahead.
Speaker 1: You got to hold the majority, and that means Senator
Speaker 1: Collins next year, Senator Houston, Ohio, even Senator Sullivan giving
Speaker 1: their screwe voting system up there. And you've got open
Speaker 1: seats in North Carolina, Kentucky and Iowa. A great Mitch
Speaker 1: McConnell's stepping down, Jony Earns is stepping down. Tom Tillis
Speaker 1: is stepping down. How do you feel about who you've
Speaker 1: recruited and how it's going on those three vacancies in
Speaker 1: our three target Senators Collins, Houston, and Sullivan.
Speaker 2: We feel really about where those races all are. You
Speaker 2: it's a it's a midterm election, and you you have
Speaker 2: correctly as you always be diagnosed where the races and
Speaker 2: where our challenges aren't vulnerabilities are around the country. But
Speaker 2: you know, midterm elections there's typically you're you're facing a
Speaker 2: little bit of a headwind. But these are really strong
Speaker 2: incumbents and case of Senator Collins has run against you know,
Speaker 2: so many times outperformed Republicans not only in her state
Speaker 2: but all over the country. And Houston is a great
Speaker 2: new senator from Ohio, really accomplished, hard working, and and
Speaker 2: I think he's going to be in great shape there
Speaker 2: and really important too because of who he's running against.
Speaker 2: Democrats recruited Shard Brown and a far left Democrat and
Speaker 2: somebody we need to make sure that doesn't come back
Speaker 2: to the Senate. So we're gonna be working hard on
Speaker 2: that one. Of course, Ashley Hinson's a great recruit in Iowa.
Speaker 2: Were really delighted that she stepped up into that race.
Speaker 2: We hate to lose Joni, but Ashley will be a
Speaker 2: great replacement. But it's going to take a lot of resources.
Speaker 2: And you know, clearly we need the President and being
Speaker 2: out there helping these folks and then also having a
Speaker 2: record of accomplishment to run on, which I think they do,
Speaker 2: and then you know, we get those states. As you mentioned,
Speaker 2: we've got some pickup opportunities too, and we're gonna be
Speaker 2: working hard not only to protect and preserve our majority,
Speaker 2: but hopefully to expand upon it. But that'll take a
Speaker 2: huge team effort, you know, the President and our incumbents,
Speaker 2: our challengers, all of our supporters out there and donors
Speaker 2: working together to keep the team, to keep the team
Speaker 2: on the field and make sure you have the ability.
Speaker 1: I haven't forgotten Michigan and Georgia, maybe even Minnesota, but
Speaker 1: that's for another time. You also have to start recruiting
Speaker 1: an n RSC chair for the next cycle, don't you
Speaker 1: have you got anyone in mind? Or you're talking to people,
Speaker 1: there are.
Speaker 2: Some folks who have an interest in that. And yeah,
Speaker 2: we get some I believe it or not. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's a hard job. As you know, you're going out
Speaker 2: every day every week basically trying to raise resources to
Speaker 2: support the team, and takes an enormous amount of time.
Speaker 2: So but we get people who are really I'm so
Speaker 2: good grateful that we got people who really are difference
Speaker 2: makers here and see that as an important role. And
Speaker 2: I think we'll we'll have a good person in that spot.
Speaker 3: Stand by.
Speaker 1: I'm going to come back with the final part of
Speaker 1: my interview with Leader Thune in a little bit.
Speaker 3: Let me remind you.
Speaker 1: Angel Tree, we're running out of time. We are down
Speaker 1: to eight days, and we can take care of more kids.
Speaker 1: Of the one point five million children whose mom and
Speaker 1: or dad are in jail find bars. They get a bible,
Speaker 1: a present, a note from mom or dad, about the President,
Speaker 1: how much they love them, and most important of all,
Speaker 1: the connection to Angel Tree. You can call Angel Tree
Speaker 1: a triple A two oh six twenty seven sixty four.
Speaker 3: Whether you give a.
Speaker 1: Huge gift like my friends Carolyn jan did, or a
Speaker 1: small gift like many of you have sent ten or
Speaker 1: fifteen or twenty dollars. God sees, I see, we see,
Speaker 1: and more important, those kids receive on Christmas something from their.
Speaker 3: Mothers and fathers. Thank you an.
Speaker 1: Opportunity to talk to my guy, Governor, Glenn Youngkin of Virginia.
Speaker 1: I say my governor for another month. He's going to
Speaker 1: be my governor, and I no doubt he's going to
Speaker 1: run through the tape, but I wanted to get in
Speaker 1: line early for all the exit interviews. Governor, thank you
Speaker 1: for making time today. Good to see you, and Merry Christmas.
Speaker 5: Merry Christmas.
Speaker 2: You.
Speaker 5: Thank you for making time for me.
Speaker 6: And I got to tell you what an honor it
Speaker 6: is to not only be with you on your great
Speaker 6: radio show, but also to have a chance to reflect
Speaker 6: on what's happened over the last four years, because it's
Speaker 6: been just amazing.
Speaker 1: Well that is my first question here. What do you
Speaker 1: think are your greatest accomplishments and the state's greatest accomplishments.
Speaker 1: And I want to give you the runway because there's
Speaker 1: a lot that got done.
Speaker 5: Well. Thank you for asking the question.
Speaker 6: And Hugh, I think that the story of the last
Speaker 6: four years has been one of massive transformation. It's been
Speaker 6: one of competing and winning. It's been one of promises
Speaker 6: made and promises kept, and it's.
Speaker 5: Been a story of Virginia leading again.
Speaker 6: I was humbled the other day when I I heard
Speaker 6: someone described the last four years as the Great Virginia Renaissance.
Speaker 6: But you have to go back to where we started
Speaker 6: to really put it in perspective. Back in twenty twenty one,
Speaker 6: Virginia was struggling. It was stalled and coming out of
Speaker 6: the pandemic, we'd had twenty five thousand small businesses shut,
Speaker 6: more people move away. We were forty seventh in the
Speaker 6: nation and job recovery, we had a twenty year higher
Speaker 6: murder rate. And by the way, Virginia was ranked top
Speaker 6: in the country and learning loss in fourth grade reading,
Speaker 6: in math because the schools were all shut. I mean,
Speaker 6: that's what we walked into and we went to work,
Speaker 6: and when Virginia's hired me. I told him that I
Speaker 6: was going to go to work to transform things, to
Speaker 6: change things.
Speaker 5: And that's exactly what we've done.
Speaker 6: We had to fix business in Virginia and open it up,
Speaker 6: and Virginia's had just a remarkable run. We've had one
Speaker 6: hundred and fifty six billion dollars of investment commitments from
Speaker 6: companies over the last four years, and Hugh, that's as
Speaker 6: much as the last six governors combined. It's led to
Speaker 6: record job growth, that's led to record revenue growth for
Speaker 6: the Commonwealth, and it's been that financial strength that's then
Speaker 6: allowed us to turn around and provide record tax relief
Speaker 6: nine billion dollars, a tax relief to Virginians beyond anything
Speaker 6: that's ever been seen in Virginia before, and that I
Speaker 6: think has really led to the biggest shift, which is
Speaker 6: more people moving to Virginia from the other forty nine
Speaker 6: states than moving away for the first time in a decade.
Speaker 5: That's really the hearts of our effort.
Speaker 6: But one of the things our record revenue allowed us
Speaker 6: to do was tackle I think some of the most
Speaker 6: challenging issues that Virginia had, which was education, and at
Speaker 6: the top of the list was getting parents back in
Speaker 6: front of their students and their children at the head
Speaker 6: of the table. I mean, listen, number one in the
Speaker 6: nation and learning loss in reading and math and fourth grade.
Speaker 6: I mean, it's just stunning where Virginia was with parents
Speaker 6: being shoved out the door in their kids' lives. And
Speaker 6: on top of that, we'd seen the systematic degradation of
Speaker 6: expectations of excellence.
Speaker 5: So we went to.
Speaker 6: Work, and I have to say today I signed the
Speaker 6: bill to get the masks off of kids, to allow
Speaker 6: parents to take sexual explicit materials out of their child's curriculum,
Speaker 6: but on top of that, to totally transform the way
Speaker 6: that we accredited our schools so that now we know
Speaker 6: whether they are actually teaching the children or not. The
Speaker 6: work we've done to get cell phones out of the
Speaker 6: classrooms with bell to bell, cell phone free education across
Speaker 6: the entire state, and finally we've led the nation and
Speaker 6: reducing chronic absenteeism. All of that HUE has really been
Speaker 6: part of re establishing expectations of excellence. And guess what,
Speaker 6: we made the standardized tests harder and the students did better.
Speaker 3: How about that?
Speaker 5: And finally, this last year we were named the best
Speaker 5: state in America. For teachers. So you know, education has.
Speaker 6: Been one of our big, big, big opportunities, and I
Speaker 6: think we've done fonstrated that you can transform a broken
Speaker 6: educational system and for the benefit of students and parents.
Speaker 1: Yeah, anecdotal evidence and evidence of anecdotes. Lawyers like to
Speaker 1: say that, But my anecdote is my four grandkids who
Speaker 1: are military kids, began in Virginia, went to California, could
Speaker 1: not wait to get back to Virginia schools because of
Speaker 1: the turnaround here and the emphasis on quality. I think
Speaker 1: I don't know firsthand, but I also think you have
Speaker 1: left a mark on Virginia higher education, the state university
Speaker 1: system here.
Speaker 3: Am I right about that?
Speaker 6: Yeah, We've gone to work in order to make it
Speaker 6: a system that's focused on merit, and to try to
Speaker 6: match curriculum to job opportunities, and finally to bring the
Speaker 6: cost down because it's so hard for families in Virginia
Speaker 6: to afford these universities. And it's really just been the
Speaker 6: bully pulpit the Governor's office.
Speaker 5: I have really pushed them.
Speaker 6: We kept touish flat the first year and it's been
Speaker 6: an average of only two percent increases the last three years.
Speaker 5: Because there's plenty of money in the system.
Speaker 6: But I've also been so proud of our ability to
Speaker 6: match degree paths to the labor opportunities in Virginia. I mean,
Speaker 6: we've created hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of jobs,
Speaker 6: and we need people to take those jobs. But to
Speaker 6: the blending of these two points is really important. We've
Speaker 6: created pathways for students to go straight to work, or
Speaker 6: go to college, or join our military, and that has
Speaker 6: been one of our top priorities. There's not one size
Speaker 6: fits all colleges and for everybody, and so now nearly
Speaker 6: eighty percent of our students graduate from high school with
Speaker 6: an industry recognized credential, so they can go straight to work,
Speaker 6: or they can go through one of our great JROTC
Speaker 6: programs and immediately enlist in the military, which, by the way,
Speaker 6: is such a backbone of the Commonwealth of Virginia. This
Speaker 6: idea that going to work or joining the military should
Speaker 6: be celebrated, I think is one of the big achievements
Speaker 6: of the Commonwealth of Virginia. That's not the takeaway from
Speaker 6: our great universities, but I do believe that there's a
Speaker 6: pathway that's unique to every single Virginia kid.
Speaker 5: And we got to open it up and let them
Speaker 5: chase it.
Speaker 3: Now you mentioned Billy Pulpit Governor.
Speaker 1: I want to be the first, I'm sure among many
Speaker 1: who also want to thank First Lady Youngkin for many things,
Speaker 1: but especially one Pill can Kill campaign. I think she
Speaker 1: saved lives with that. I don't know where she came
Speaker 1: up with it, but it's been brilliant. Also, bet she's
Speaker 1: going to look forward to January eighteenth when you get
Speaker 1: a little break right.
Speaker 6: Well, I have to say the First Lady has been
Speaker 6: extraordinary to serve with your wife and to see her
Speaker 6: do such amazing work. I mean, Virginia has led the
Speaker 6: nation in reducing overdose deaths from fentnol, and she's been
Speaker 6: at the forefront. She's been traveling around the state speaking
Speaker 6: with parents and students and coaches and pastors, making sure
Speaker 6: everybody understands the scourge of fentanyl. And then we've coupled
Speaker 6: that with a concentrated effort to interdict the drug trade.
Speaker 6: We have seized enough fentanyl to kill every Virginia ten
Speaker 6: times over. We have tried to really attack the gang
Speaker 6: violence in Virginia. In our partnership with the federal government
Speaker 6: has been amazing. Through the Virginia Homeland Security Task Force,
Speaker 6: we have arrested thousands and thousands and thousands of violent
Speaker 6: criminals who are here illegally. We arrested the number three
Speaker 6: player in MS thirteen living right here in Virginia.
Speaker 5: And so it's been this combination of.
Speaker 6: The great work from my amazing wife Suzanne and law
Speaker 6: enforcement that has enabled us to bring down fentanyl overdoses
Speaker 6: in such an extraordinary way.
Speaker 1: Well, Governor, I hope after you are done, you'll come
Speaker 1: back and we'll take some time to talk about the media.
Speaker 1: We'll kick Larry O'Connor around a little bit. But genuinely,
Speaker 1: honestly thank you, because Virginia is a much better place
Speaker 1: to live for years after your governorship than when I
Speaker 1: first got here. And I appreciate that you didn't have to.
Speaker 5: Do this, and you did it.
Speaker 1: Neither did missus youngkin so on my behalf of my family,
Speaker 1: thank you. We appreciate your doing the time.
Speaker 3: Greg.
Speaker 5: God bless you, Hugh.
Speaker 6: I wish you a very blessed Christmas, and most importantly,
Speaker 6: thank you for hiring me. What an honor it's been
Speaker 6: to see Virginia become the state that we all know.
Speaker 1: She should be ay'm en to that Merry Christmas, Governor.
Speaker 1: Be well, I'll be right back in America. Stay two.
Speaker 1: I've been a busy morning already, in a busy afternoon already,
Speaker 1: but I did want to take a moment to say.
Speaker 1: I woke up this morning and opened up my text
Speaker 1: my emails, then I go to my ex account. It's
Speaker 1: like a kick in the gut. Norman pod Hoortz had died.
Speaker 1: Now Norman pod Howartz is ninety six. His son is
Speaker 1: an acquaintance, a friend, a guest on this program known
Speaker 1: for a long time. I've only interviewed Norman Podhwarts a
Speaker 1: couple of times, but he's a giant in the American
Speaker 1: antheon of intellectuals and for different people. I heard this,
Speaker 1: in fact, in real time. I listened to the commentary
Speaker 1: pod today and John wasn't there sitting Shiven, no doubt.
Speaker 1: But Abe Greenwald, Christine Rosen, and Eleanna Johnson were there
Speaker 1: and I was listening and taking notes. And they're all
Speaker 1: much younger than I am, right, so they all have
Speaker 1: different understandings of Norman pod Hortz. For Abe Greenwald, Norman
Speaker 1: pod Hoortz the great editor of commentary magazine for forever,
Speaker 1: great New York intellectual. For Abe, it's the guy who
Speaker 1: introduced him to World War four, the guy who explained
Speaker 1: what nine to eleven was about and what it meant.
Speaker 1: And for Christine Rosen, it was American intellectual history. And
Speaker 1: how much Norman pod Horts, who she got to know
Speaker 1: in person like I did not, how much he loves
Speaker 1: the country, how he always used we versus I was
Speaker 1: absolutely a patriots patriot. And Eleana Johnson, who is young
Speaker 1: enough to be my daughter, said about him, Look, he
Speaker 1: was an editor's editor. And then they got to talking
Speaker 1: about the fact that he was. He didn't need to
Speaker 1: have credit for what the work he did. They told
Speaker 1: him a couple of funny stories I had not heard,
Speaker 1: including the fact that the famous Dictatorships and Double Standards
Speaker 1: article by Jane Kirkpatrick came in at one hundred pages,
Speaker 1: Harmon pod Hoort edited it down. Some magazines are writers magazines.
Speaker 1: I think Eleana makes this point, or maybe Christine, or
Speaker 1: maybe eight And you just send in whatever you send
Speaker 1: in and they check for typos, and they printed that's
Speaker 1: not commentary commentary, was it? But I'm a different age
Speaker 1: and for me, Norman pod Horritz is one of the
Speaker 1: two key intellectual figures of sort of growing up. There's
Speaker 1: William F. Buckley and there's Norman pod Horitz. There's a
Speaker 1: National View and there's common Jerry, And I can't say
Speaker 1: this for sure.
Speaker 3: About either of them.
Speaker 1: But I think I can say it about both of
Speaker 1: them that if there hadn't been both of those guys,
Speaker 1: there wouldn't have been a Reagan. The Reagan Revolution was
Speaker 1: made possible by those two guys. And I'm not sure
Speaker 1: that Norman pod Hoorts that Reagan would have made it
Speaker 1: without Norman pod Hortz, because William F. Buckley had brought
Speaker 1: in and given voice to conservatives. But Norman pod Hortz
Speaker 1: brought in the neocons. And Richard Nixon used to say
Speaker 1: all the time about Goldwater people, you can't win without them,
Speaker 1: but you.
Speaker 3: Can't win with just them.
Speaker 1: So Norman pod Hortz brought in the neocons and broke
Speaker 1: One of the key books of my intellectual growing up
Speaker 1: is Breaking Ranks, came out in nineteen eighty Already, you know,
Speaker 1: I sort of solidified who I was when I read
Speaker 1: Souls and Eatson. But to find out what the smart
Speaker 1: people that neo cons were thinking. I had Buckley and
Speaker 1: the regular conservatives, right, William F. Buckley, Catholic, Republican conservative
Speaker 1: Yale for many of us, kind of our guiding light.
Speaker 1: And then Norman Podworts came in with the brass knuckles
Speaker 1: and delivered the blow to the jaw. And I mean,
Speaker 1: New York intellectual life is not for the faint of heart.
Speaker 1: And I only spent part of nineteen eighty there. But
Speaker 1: that's why Nixon, when he left San Clementy, I was
Speaker 1: working for him. Are n wanted to go back to
Speaker 1: New York because that's where the intellectual action was in
Speaker 1: the Cold War, and the Cold War went until eighty nine.
Speaker 1: So for me, I picked up commentary at college sometime
Speaker 1: in the mid to late seventies and have never not
Speaker 1: been with it. But Norman pod Hoortz gave language to people,
Speaker 1: taught them out to think about the Soviet Union along
Speaker 1: with Reagan.
Speaker 3: Gave Reagan language. I mean, he gave.
Speaker 1: Jeane Kirkpatrick the job because he published Dictatorships and double standards.
Speaker 1: He published Daniel point Patrick moynihand he published James Q. Wilson,
Speaker 1: every great thinker of the seventies. In the eighties wrote
Speaker 1: for Commentary magazine and their symposium issues when they would
Speaker 1: put one question on the table and they would get
Speaker 1: fifty of the smartest people in the country to write
Speaker 1: about it, from all across the center right to the right.
Speaker 1: He may be with Buckley the two most important American
Speaker 1: intellectuals of the last hundred years.
Speaker 3: And I think I'm pretty comfortable saying that. More on him.
Speaker 1: Go to the Commentary podcast today. Jay POD's not there today,
Speaker 1: but he'll be back eventually.
Speaker 3: Read up.
Speaker 1: I see Tom Cotton has written a tribute to Norman
Speaker 1: pod Ortz. One of the giants, really one of the giants.
Speaker 1: We shall not see their like again until people rise
Speaker 1: up to take on Jijon Ping in the Chinese communist parties.
Speaker 3: Stay tuned, I'll be consumer.
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Speaker 1: time to check no. My exit interview, My interview with
Speaker 1: John Thune, I get an EGIT interview with Glenn Younkin,
Speaker 1: and now I have my second exit interview of the
Speaker 1: day with Ohio's Attorney general and I think America's best
Speaker 1: attorney general, David Yost, who's been laboring at that or
Speaker 1: for eight years, and.
Speaker 3: I wanted to check in with him before he left town. Uh,
Speaker 3: David Jos how are you in general and Jestic?
Speaker 4: How are you?
Speaker 3: Hugh? I'm good? Well, are we gonna win the National
Speaker 3: champion You're the real buck guy. I'm just a fan.
Speaker 1: You actually went there, You get two rings.
Speaker 4: We're going to have a great run at the National Championship.
Speaker 1: All right, I'm going out on a limb here and
Speaker 1: saying it's going to be two rings.
Speaker 3: General. A couple of weeks ago, before.
Speaker 1: I get to what you're going to do next and
Speaker 1: what your greatest accomplishments are, you brought to my attention
Speaker 1: the City Club was going to cancel our friend Aaron Bear,
Speaker 1: and so I jumped on your bandwagon and they didn't
Speaker 1: cancel him. I guess they never even threatened to cancel
Speaker 1: them much. You're understanding of what happened there, but thank
Speaker 1: you for stepping into it.
Speaker 4: Well. I appreciate you picking it up.
Speaker 7: You put a national voice into the mix. Look, he
Speaker 7: had been invited. He's an interesting guy. He's built an
Speaker 7: incredible organization here called the Center for Christian Virtue, had
Speaker 7: been tremendously effective in the General Assembly. Doesn't win everything,
Speaker 7: but he's made a lot of progress here in Ohio.
Speaker 7: And the City Club, which fashions itself as a sitator
Speaker 7: free speech, invited him to come on January sixteenth and
Speaker 7: address their Cleveland audience. I don't need to tell you
Speaker 7: that excuse maybe left of center a little bit a bit,
Speaker 7: and very appropriately he agreed.
Speaker 4: And then the word.
Speaker 7: Got out and some lgbtq IA plus activists started passing
Speaker 7: a petition and raising hell about the fact that this
Speaker 7: Christian activist was going to be allowed to come and
Speaker 7: address the City Club and asked for him to be deplatformed. Now,
Speaker 7: this is the same city club that had had a
Speaker 7: national speaker in on gay rights during Pride Month last year,
Speaker 7: So obviously they have already had that point of view
Speaker 7: in the BIGS. So it's a private organization. The First
Speaker 7: Amendment does not apply it to them. But I urged
Speaker 7: them to not abandon their position on free speech and
Speaker 7: to not disinvite him, and that letter got out into
Speaker 7: the wild, and fortunately, after a few days of consideration,
Speaker 7: the board elected to confirm their invitation to airon He'll
Speaker 7: be talking there in Cleveland to that audience on the
Speaker 7: sixteenth of January. I was so pleased. I bought a
Speaker 7: table and I'm going to bring some of my friends
Speaker 7: to you. He at least has a couple of folks.
Speaker 1: I will be talking it out because City Club's a
Speaker 1: good organization. I didn't want them to actually bend or break.
Speaker 1: And so good for you for leading the fight, and
Speaker 1: you've let a lot of fights. I wanted to talk
Speaker 1: to you about your eight years of Attorney General and
Speaker 1: then find out what you're going to do next, because
Speaker 1: you've won a lot of big cases, especially on religious liberty.
Speaker 1: What do you consider to be your triumphs in eight
Speaker 1: years as the age?
Speaker 3: Dad Yost?
Speaker 4: Well, I've got another year to go before I leave office.
Speaker 4: But you're right. I mean, we have been out there
Speaker 4: in the.
Speaker 7: Trenches and some of the things are ones that have
Speaker 7: been national and we led the Amika's effort on the
Speaker 7: Wisconsin Catholic Charities case that was about whether the government
Speaker 7: gets to decide whether your charity work is sufficiently religious
Speaker 7: enough to qualify for a tax exemption.
Speaker 4: Of course, Supreme Court said, no, government, you don't. You
Speaker 4: don't get to use your your determination to decide what's
Speaker 4: religious and what's not.
Speaker 7: But I think it's maybe the stuff I'm proudest of, Hugh.
Speaker 7: It's the little stuff that doesn't make the headlines. A
Speaker 7: place called Dad's Place that stayed as a church in
Speaker 7: downtown small town here in northwest Ohio, and the powers
Speaker 7: that they didn't like them staying open all night and
Speaker 7: ministering to people who were homeless and some of them,
Speaker 7: you know, quite tragic stories, and tried to use fire
Speaker 7: code and various municipal building codes to shut them down
Speaker 7: because they didn't want them there. First, Liberty Institute represented them,
Speaker 7: and I was proud that we weighed in as well
Speaker 7: at both the trial court level and the state appellate
Speaker 7: court level. That case was just remanded with instructions to
Speaker 7: the local court that they could not use these laws
Speaker 7: to harass Dad's Place in carrying out their their religious mission.
Speaker 3: Yeah, or generally every time I turn.
Speaker 7: Around again here in Ohio, go ahead, Yeah, well, every
Speaker 7: time I turn around your turn around ce Liberty.
Speaker 1: You just did it again and again. I think you
Speaker 1: did it with the Toledo school system. I think you've
Speaker 1: done it Amika's briefs and you've been You've written a
Speaker 1: lot of letters to stop people from doing dumb things.
Speaker 1: And you do have a year left. You were going
Speaker 1: to run for governor and then you decided not to.
Speaker 1: Are you eyeing one of the new congressional districts?
Speaker 7: No Congress is so broken, I don't want to go
Speaker 7: to Washington. Look, I'm going to stay involved in There's
Speaker 7: no shuffle board court in my immediate future.
Speaker 4: But I'm going to be looking at some other options.
Speaker 4: Whether that's helping to.
Speaker 7: Train young the next generation of lawyers to stand up
Speaker 7: for our constitution, or whether it's entering, you know, some
Speaker 7: sort of public interest law firm and doing some work there.
Speaker 7: When I'm done as Attorney General next year, I will
Speaker 7: stay in the fight.
Speaker 3: Now, General, what I really wanted to ask you about?
Speaker 1: And it's kind of sneaky, tricky, I add on the
Speaker 1: President's ais are. Yesterday, David Sachs and the President issued
Speaker 1: an executive order that I think it's unprecedented. And I
Speaker 1: asked David and he's unaware of it, of any president
Speaker 1: preempting state purporting to preem states from regulating AI out
Speaker 1: of their state legislature. They of course want to stop
Speaker 1: California from screwing up AI for everyone, just like they
Speaker 1: screwed up cars for everyone, but that had to be repealed.
Speaker 1: You're a federalist, You're like, mister federalist, what do you
Speaker 1: think of that executive order? And David was quick to say,
Speaker 1: you know, Congress can did preempt under the Interstate Commerce Clause.
Speaker 1: I know that, but it's an EO from Article two.
Speaker 1: Just I don't know if you've even thought it through yet.
Speaker 1: But what's your initial reaction to that?
Speaker 7: Yeah, So, actually, when I heard the first news about this,
Speaker 7: I was immediately concerned. I don't think there is such
Speaker 7: a thing as Article two preemption, but.
Speaker 4: I understand the president's goal, and it's a worthy goal.
Speaker 4: I've got a.
Speaker 7: Team that's tearing THEEO apart, looking at the potential legislation
Speaker 7: that we have in the General Assembly. Here at the moment,
Speaker 7: the federal government is not taking any action to prevent
Speaker 7: us from doing anything withholding any resources.
Speaker 4: So it's a little.
Speaker 7: Bit academic right now, But as somebody who plays an
Speaker 7: academic occasionally on the media, I have to say, I've
Speaker 7: got I've got some concerns about this.
Speaker 4: That ultimately will be dependent upon.
Speaker 7: How does the President attempt to.
Speaker 4: Implement that EO?
Speaker 7: And I question whether there's such a thing as Article two.
Speaker 1: I've never seen one, and he can stand up task
Speaker 1: force the Department of Justice to sue for it takes
Speaker 1: to interfere with interstate commerce. But that bringing me my
Speaker 1: last question, and I'm hitting you with cold and if
Speaker 1: you haven't thought about it, you don't have to answer it.
Speaker 1: There are district court vacancies, there are six circuit vacancies
Speaker 1: coming up. Do you ever want to be a judge?
Speaker 1: You're always in the fight? Would you want to be
Speaker 1: a judge?
Speaker 7: You know, I wouldn't have wanted to even consider that
Speaker 7: for most of my career because I'm an advocate.
Speaker 4: I'm too passionate to be a judge, I've said.
Speaker 7: But as I've matured a little bit, I think I
Speaker 7: might enjoy that work. Of course, questions in this day
Speaker 7: and age, are my years to advance to qualify? And
Speaker 7: I guess that's for somebody else to decide.
Speaker 1: You know, I would say that Senators Houston and Marino.
Speaker 1: I'll bet you're good for twenty five.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 1: My grandfather stayed on the bench until he was eighty
Speaker 1: eight or something like that. So he was a spiritual
Speaker 1: judge up in Jefferson County, in Ashonvilla County, in Jefferson City.
Speaker 1: And I think it would be great. And I'm glad
Speaker 1: to hear you not say no, not say yes. I
Speaker 1: want to do it, not say no, just that you
Speaker 1: would think about it. David Merry Christmas, thanks for your
Speaker 1: work on behalf of First Amendment issues and for the
Speaker 1: Center for Christian Virtue and for the Republican Attorney General's
Speaker 1: Association across the country. And I don't think you're too
Speaker 1: long in the twoth I hope somebody listening. David Joes,
Speaker 1: thank you friend. Stay tuned, America. I'll be right back
Speaker 1: on the UWIT Show. Welcome back in America. I'm Hugh Hewitt.
Speaker 6: Sleepy.
Speaker 1: After the massacre in Australia, I immediately began to think
Speaker 1: of Andrew McCarthy, longtime prosecutor with the Southern District of
Speaker 1: New York. He put the blind shake fine bars and
Speaker 1: broke up the ring and convicted the ring that blew
Speaker 1: up the World Trade Center the first time. Then he
Speaker 1: wrote two books, one of them Willful Blindness. That was
Speaker 1: his first book. I interviewed him for c SPAN on
Speaker 1: that book and then the Grand Ge. Then after the
Speaker 1: shooting at Brown I thought about him a second time,
Speaker 1: and then after the subway attack in New York, I
Speaker 1: asked Danielle, our booking producer, to please get Andy, and
Speaker 1: he's available on short notice. Andy welcome. How are you doing.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's kind of a bad day for everyone.
Speaker 1: Could Norman bot Hortz died, But how are you doing?
Speaker 8: I'm doing fine. I was just telling General Listimo that
Speaker 8: you know, the world may be spinning off its access,
Speaker 8: but I'm fine. It's almost Christmas, so you know there's
Speaker 8: a silver lining here someplace.
Speaker 1: I thought of you most recently before we get to
Speaker 1: the Islamicism resurgent, when I was asked to do Winners
Speaker 1: and Loser of the Week on Special Report. And I'm
Speaker 1: not a National League fan. I'm a Guardians fan, but
Speaker 1: I love the New York pet Met's New York Post cover.
Speaker 1: You gotta bereave. Did that hit hard?
Speaker 6: That was stuff there.
Speaker 8: That's almost up there with the Ford to New York
Speaker 8: dropped dead right.
Speaker 3: I mean.
Speaker 8: People the whole same.
Speaker 1: People went out and bought three copies so they could
Speaker 1: frame them for each floor of their house.
Speaker 3: What happened to the matter, Like, I really.
Speaker 1: Don't know anything other than what Generalissimo tells me about
Speaker 1: the Angel and the Dodgers. I do not follow the
Speaker 1: National League. How badly bet how much did they lose?
Speaker 8: Well? The I think the thing that frustrates most of
Speaker 8: us is that the big problem last year was the
Speaker 8: starting pitching, and that hasn't been addressed at all. I
Speaker 8: can't really you know, Searns is a smart guy, and
Speaker 8: if he looked at the core of the team and
Speaker 8: said this is not going to work, this group is
Speaker 8: not going to win a World Series, I have to
Speaker 8: say that you got to break it up. And because
Speaker 8: that's the goal. Even though I love Alonso and I
Speaker 8: like Diaz and love Nemo, but you know, I think
Speaker 8: they're not addressing They're not addressing what the consensus he
Speaker 8: or his problem, which is starting pitching. So that's a
Speaker 8: little frustrating.
Speaker 1: Well that's also the Angel. Even Dwayne can talk op
Speaker 1: air during the break. Actually I want to talk to
Speaker 1: during break. So next time, let's get to the key
Speaker 1: subject at hand. Bondi Beach, and then we had the
Speaker 1: New York subway incident, and in between them the shooting
Speaker 1: in Brown.
Speaker 3: I want to go out of sequence.
Speaker 1: What are your thoughts about the shooting at Brown Because
Speaker 1: in all the years I've been in media, it's thirty
Speaker 1: five years, there's never been a mass shooting that they
Speaker 1: didn't catch the purp within forty eight hours that I'm
Speaker 1: aware of.
Speaker 3: Are you aware of any?
Speaker 8: Off the top of my head, no, And I would
Speaker 8: have thought that if we were ever going to see
Speaker 8: that you I guess you know. Ramsey Usef got away
Speaker 8: with the right after the World Trade Center bombing, but
Speaker 8: we did manage to arrest some people. He was the
Speaker 8: mass of mind, but he did manage to get out
Speaker 8: of the country. But off the top of my head,
Speaker 8: not only know, but you would think that a college campus,
Speaker 8: especially a modern American college campus, where their cameras just everywhere,
Speaker 8: you would think it would be inconceivable.
Speaker 1: Do you think it is possible he is holding someone
Speaker 1: hostage or that someone is hiding him.
Speaker 8: I think we can't discount anything, because it seems to
Speaker 8: me that even though they don't have a didn't have
Speaker 8: a good look at his face. With all the different
Speaker 8: technology they have, including for you know, detecting people on
Speaker 8: the basis of how they walk and other attributes, you
Speaker 8: would think they could have struck gold with that, with
Speaker 8: the image that they did have, even if it wasn't facial.
Speaker 8: So you would hope that even though they're not, you know,
Speaker 8: they're holding back information, you would hope that they've narrowly
Speaker 8: got the circle now of potential suspects, and if they
Speaker 8: haven't been able to nab the person, that means that,
Speaker 8: you know, anything could be going on that we you know,
Speaker 8: it'd be vacant speculation. What worries me is that they
Speaker 8: don't have a suspect, and I hope that's not true.
Speaker 1: Are you alarmed that they won't tell us what he
Speaker 1: was yelling in the room and everyone's speculating.
Speaker 3: I'm not.
Speaker 1: But he was shouting something and it appears he targeted
Speaker 1: a few people and didn't shoot other people.
Speaker 3: What's that add up to you?
Speaker 8: I am distressed that they haven't told us what the
Speaker 8: guy was yelling. I mean, I'm as aware as you
Speaker 8: are at the speculation about what it is and if
Speaker 8: it is, if it is indicative of jihadis terrorism. That's
Speaker 8: a piece of information that you would think they would
Speaker 8: put out. I have to say, you know, putting out
Speaker 8: the picture of the second person, I really hope they
Speaker 8: were very clear that that is not a person who's
Speaker 8: a suspect, that it's just someone they think may have
Speaker 8: information or may have seen something that's that's relevant. But
Speaker 8: I must say, if you're going to put out that
Speaker 8: kind of obscure information to the public, and yet you
Speaker 8: have something he was yelling while he was shooting, and
Speaker 8: you're withholding that, I don't understand that at all.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that makes there are I know, two real lawyers,
Speaker 1: you and Kurt, and they're on both coachs, and you
Speaker 1: both say the same thing. I don't know anything about
Speaker 1: criminal law or the FBI getting involved. By the way,
Speaker 1: do you think the Bureau is involved and they're just
Speaker 1: not telling us they're not at the press conferences.
Speaker 8: I think you that what may have happened here is
Speaker 8: they really did kind of botch the first seventy two
Speaker 8: hours of the Charlie Kirk aftermath. And what I'm hoping
Speaker 8: is that they oh the aftermath of that, talked about
Speaker 8: discipline and message discipline and let's not say anything or
Speaker 8: rear our heads till we have something helpful to contribute,
Speaker 8: because otherwise they just look inept. So I think it
Speaker 8: would be if that was the after action review after
Speaker 8: the Charlie Kirk comicide. I think that's the that's beneficial.
Speaker 1: Okay, Now drawing the camera way out the three thousand
Speaker 1: feet do you tie up Bondai Beach with the New
Speaker 1: York City Subway? The Ani Semite's going after the Habadniks?
Speaker 1: Are we see an anti Semitism having its renaissance, its resurgence?
Speaker 8: Yeah, see don't. I've never seen it that way. And
Speaker 8: you mentioned my books earlier. That interview we did almost
Speaker 8: twenty years ago.
Speaker 3: I know it's remarkable about.
Speaker 8: Eighteen years ago, but I enjoyed that interview so much
Speaker 8: because we were able to talk about how in the
Speaker 8: that was in the aftermath, even though the case happened
Speaker 8: in ninety five, it was in the aftermath of nine
Speaker 8: to eleven, and the big difference then and I still
Speaker 8: think it's true, is that in our courtroom, presided over
Speaker 8: by Michael Mukasey, then a district judge later President Bush's
Speaker 8: Attorney General, there wasn't political correctness, and we were able
Speaker 8: to show the Drury a straight line between doctrine animating
Speaker 8: figures like the blind Shake and the effect that it
Speaker 8: had on young Muslims, and we were not forced to
Speaker 8: shy away from the doctrinal aspects of this. In later years,
Speaker 8: the government tried to tamp down on the ideological basis
Speaker 8: for all this because they thought that we couldn't walk
Speaker 8: into gum like if they said this was an interpretation
Speaker 8: of Islam, we were somehow smearing every Muslim on the planet,
Speaker 8: which was ridiculous so to me because I had to
Speaker 8: go to school on that stuff back in the early nineties.
Speaker 8: This is Doc trinl. This is what the doctrine is.
Speaker 8: And if you're going to have immigration policies and other
Speaker 8: policies that enable a critical mass of immigrants from fundament
Speaker 8: menalist Islamic countries and from hotbeds of radical Islam, and
Speaker 8: you're gonna let them collect in the big cities, not
Speaker 8: only in the United States but Europe, you're going to
Speaker 8: get it.
Speaker 1: I'm going to talk with Andy during the break, we'll
Speaker 1: put it on the podcast, and then he's coming back
Speaker 1: after the break, so I'll saved Australian response for after
Speaker 1: that o'cock doctrines during the break stay tuned America Andrews
Speaker 1: McCarthy on x Andy.
Speaker 3: In recent.
Speaker 1: Months years, actually since ten seven in Israel, I've become
Speaker 1: quite a fan of Haviv reddhig Gore, and like you,
Speaker 1: he's always wanting to talk about the doctrine because it's
Speaker 1: his belief. You can't understand, i'mascuse me, or any part
Speaker 1: of the Jihad until you get Katub and the whole
Speaker 1: fundamentalist Wahabism down.
Speaker 5: Have you followed him, I have.
Speaker 8: I agree with him. I've actually listened to a number
Speaker 8: of your interviews with him, and through that became more
Speaker 8: of an avid follower. I think he's excellent, but I
Speaker 8: think what he would say, not to put words in
Speaker 8: his mouth, is that this is pretty straightforward. What probably
Speaker 8: frustrates him, as it frustrates me, is it's such an
Speaker 8: obvious point. You know. I wrote a book called The
Speaker 8: Grand Jihad, which was about the Muslim Brotherhood ideology and
Speaker 8: its operations in the West, and I pointed out that
Speaker 8: the most successful project of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is
Speaker 8: almost in the United States from like to the eighties,
Speaker 8: on was dedicated to the flourishing of Hamas. Hamas is
Speaker 8: the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. But the most
Speaker 8: successful project that they had in the West was the
Speaker 8: Muslim Students Associations. In fact, they started with a handful
Speaker 8: of chapters in the mid nineteen sixties and they now
Speaker 8: have one hundreds of chapters across North America, in the
Speaker 8: United States and Canada. And that is not a social organization,
Speaker 8: that's a program. And my point is like, there are
Speaker 8: a lot of people who woke up after ten seven
Speaker 8: and they couldn't believe the campus activism. And I just
Speaker 8: shook my head and said, you know, if you let
Speaker 8: this go on for three generations. And that program was
Speaker 8: so successful it gave way to another organization, the North
Speaker 8: American Islamic Society. I'm probably screwing up the name, but
Speaker 8: the thing was, the Muslim Students Associations were so successful
Speaker 8: they had to have a successor organization, which is now
Speaker 8: the biggest Islamist organization in North America because so many
Speaker 8: people went through the program. So don't I don't. I'm
Speaker 8: not remotely surprised by this. Which surprises me is that
Speaker 8: people don't want to understand what they believed. If you
Speaker 8: can think about like if we went into World War
Speaker 8: two and we didn't want to know what the Nazis
Speaker 8: believed or what the Shinto Japanese believed, we would all
Speaker 8: say that was insane, that you couldn't protect the country
Speaker 8: without knowing what the enemy was trying to accomplish. And
Speaker 8: yet here it's like institutionalized and always has been that
Speaker 8: we have to put our head in this thing.
Speaker 1: You know that that's very well said when you say
Speaker 1: it again on the other side, Andy, not wanting to
Speaker 1: know what the other side.
Speaker 3: Believes is suicidal.
Speaker 1: And I got a letter from Harvard yesterday, an email
Speaker 1: asking for money or telling me that Graver is going
Speaker 1: to be the president. And you know in that letter
Speaker 1: they said, and he will continue the efforts against anti
Speaker 1: Semitism and anti Arab discrimination. And I thought, good lord,
Speaker 1: nothing's changed. There is no anti Arab discrimination in Harvard.
Speaker 1: Not the problem. I'll be right back on the other
Speaker 1: side with Andrew C. McCarthy. We'll talk about Australia and
Speaker 1: when the when is it going to happen in the
Speaker 1: United States. Stay tuned, Welcome back in America. I'm Hugh
Speaker 1: Hewitt with Andrews C. McCarthy, Fox News contributor, author of
Speaker 1: Wilful Blindness, The Grand Gid. He has also got his
Speaker 1: own podcast with Rich Lowry, The McCarthy Report. Uh Andy,
Speaker 1: it's I've got six minutes When and and Does an
Speaker 1: Australian shootout like the one that happened on Saturday in
Speaker 1: Australia at Bondey Beach happen in the United States?
Speaker 3: Do you think.
Speaker 8: Happily? I think that there's less chance of it. I'm
Speaker 8: not going to say that there's there's zero chances of it.
Speaker 8: But the big difference view I think between the United
Speaker 8: States and Europe, Canada and Australia is we don't have
Speaker 8: anything like no zones here. So far. The police, whether
Speaker 8: it's federal or municipal police, have not essentially surrendered sovereignty
Speaker 8: in particular areas where where you have cauldrons of jihadism.
Speaker 8: That's where you would expect this stuff to blossom. And
Speaker 8: what they've done in Europe, you know, this was Shake
Speaker 8: Caradali's strategy. He was the shake use of Carradali was
Speaker 8: the kind of the beacon for the Muslim brotherhood. His
Speaker 8: idea was to tell Muslims integrate but don't assimilate, form
Speaker 8: up enclaves in major cities in the West, and once
Speaker 8: you get to a critical mass, agitate in order to
Speaker 8: have Sharia autonomy in the local area. And once they've
Speaker 8: gotten to critical mass in a number of places, they're
Speaker 8: very hostile to the police and other agents of the States.
Speaker 8: And when you have an environment like that, that's where
Speaker 8: the thementalists preaching can take place, the recruitment, the fundraising,
Speaker 8: and it lends itself to an atmosphere where you can
Speaker 8: actually train for Gihatti's activities. The difference mainly between successful
Speaker 8: and unsuccessful jihadist plots is training where you can have it.
Speaker 8: You're much more likely to have terrorist attacks. Where the
Speaker 8: police can infiltrate, you're much less likely to have them now.
Speaker 1: And I know you've been a critic of the Trump
Speaker 1: Justice Department on a lot of different things. Do you
Speaker 1: think the Bureau and DOJ and State Attorney are they
Speaker 1: on my lookout for this? Are they still where we
Speaker 1: were on a nine to twelve. I think it's gone away,
Speaker 1: but I could just be blind to the fact that
Speaker 1: it's better than I think it is, and it's everywhere
Speaker 1: surveillance and infiltration.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I think the FBI and the Justice Department in
Speaker 8: this administration are less apt to be captured by political correctness,
Speaker 8: and they won't be afraid to take a shot if
Speaker 8: there's you know, they won't be afraid to be proactive.
Speaker 8: I mean, I think this plot that they just broke up,
Speaker 8: the New Year's Day plot shows that I think they'll
Speaker 8: be active. I think this is the kind of thing
Speaker 8: they'll be good on. I worry about how well the
Speaker 8: President grasps suria supremacism. You know, we're back to talking
Speaker 8: about the ideology again, because I think sometimes the President
Speaker 8: thinks that everybody has a price and everybody, you know,
Speaker 8: can look beyond ideology and other things they care about.
Speaker 8: And I think there's a lot of evil actors in
Speaker 8: the worldview that you know, they're just they're captured by
Speaker 8: evil ideology and they're not looking to make a deal.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I still ask first time guests if they've read The
Speaker 1: Looming Tower. I've been doing that since Lawn's Right wrote it.
Speaker 1: An astonishing number of people don't even know what it is.
Speaker 1: Some people have said they've read a part of it
Speaker 1: or heard about it and want to read it, But
Speaker 1: I I really think it's been twenty five years, right, yep?
Speaker 3: Are we off our guard again?
Speaker 8: Well, it's a natural phenomenon when you go through a
Speaker 8: spate of time, you know. I think it's pretty remarkable
Speaker 8: that we haven't had a reprise of nine to eleven,
Speaker 8: given how hard they've tried. But the one thing I
Speaker 8: can say, and I you know, we're looking for a
Speaker 8: silver lining, hear you, I'll say this, the cooperation between
Speaker 8: law enforcement and intelligence and the way that they take
Speaker 8: information from the public and move it up the chain
Speaker 8: is night and day better today than it was in
Speaker 8: nineteen ninety three. And I think haven't had a reprise
Speaker 8: is because the guys on it, no matter what the
Speaker 8: political people are saying, the guys on the front line
Speaker 8: to do this, the intelligence guys, the cops, the FBI
Speaker 8: agents in the field, they actually do a good job
Speaker 8: and they share information with vital.
Speaker 1: And the last silver lining we got thirty seconds. Do
Speaker 1: you think some of the Muslim majority countries are also
Speaker 1: all in with us and stopping the Brotherhood?
Speaker 8: No, I mean I think that the regimes are, But
Speaker 8: like Egypt is a very difficult country for us because
Speaker 8: the regime is more or less pro American and pro Western,
Speaker 8: but it's a cauldron of fundamentalist Islam. It's the population,
Speaker 8: all right.
Speaker 3: Realism is what we get with Andy.
Speaker 1: I hope you take back the pen and I'll listen
Speaker 1: to McCarthy report this week when you and Rich get together,
Speaker 1: because it's going to be one for the ages. I
Speaker 1: think Andrew C. McCarthy on X the mccarthury Report wherever
Speaker 1: podcasts are, Thank you and a Merry Christmas, Andy, maybe
Speaker 1: the Mets will put a pitching a tree.
Speaker 3: Under your tree for you. Thank you friend. Don't go
Speaker 3: anywhere America. I'll be right back. It's beginning to go
Speaker 3: up like Christmas, Ey, were you Welcome back America.
Speaker 1: I'm Hugh Hewitt's actually beginning to look like the Bad
Speaker 1: Santa Movie. In the House of Representatives, it requires two
Speaker 1: hundred and eighteen signatures on a discharge petition to get
Speaker 1: a piece of legislation onto the House floor. Democrats have
Speaker 1: rounded up four Republicans to get a three year no
Speaker 1: Questions asked extension of the Obamacare subsidies. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania,
Speaker 1: Rob Reresnehan of Pennsylvania, Ryan Mackenzie, a Pennsylvania and our
Speaker 1: old friend maybe not any longer, Micha Lawler of New York.
Speaker 1: And so now the discharge petition has enough. I'm joined
Speaker 1: by Sarah Bedford, Washington Examiner, political investigative reporter. Merry Christmas, Sarah,
Speaker 1: how are you.
Speaker 3: Merry Christmas? Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: I'm always good to see you. Can they take their
Speaker 1: name off that discharge petition?
Speaker 9: Not once a discharge position petition has reached two hundred
Speaker 9: and eighteen signatures. If they had a change of heart
Speaker 9: before the discharge petition had gathered enough signatures, then they
Speaker 9: could have done so. But it's frozen. It's locked in
Speaker 9: once they hit the two eighteen number. And so at
Speaker 9: this point, no, none of those four Republicans. It doesn't
Speaker 9: look like they would be able to remove their signatures.
Speaker 1: What if they quit, because it's just quicker they can
Speaker 1: get their office moved out sooner because they're all going
Speaker 1: to lose. I mean, I'm as partisan as they come,
Speaker 1: but when you screw your party this way, this is
Speaker 1: pretty This is like the guys who tossed on McCarthy,
Speaker 1: only on the other end of the caucus.
Speaker 9: Well, there's a perennial complaint especially among conservatives, right that
Speaker 9: moderates do things that depress the base overall for everyone
Speaker 9: in order to save seats that they may not even
Speaker 9: be able to hang on to either way, So you
Speaker 9: might as well fight for conservative principles. The way that
Speaker 9: the Republican Party has handled this moment with the expiration
Speaker 9: of the ACA subsidies is really baffling to a lot
Speaker 9: of servatives because they've had many, many years to come
Speaker 9: up with ideas to perform a healthcare program that they've
Speaker 9: been criticizing for more than a decade now, and yet
Speaker 9: they're scrambling at this last moment, and you have moderates
Speaker 9: like Fitzpatrick saying that a clean extension of the substace
Speaker 9: is better than no extension, which is not a very
Speaker 9: traditionally conservative position, And yeah, it's really angering to a
Speaker 9: lot of other Republicans.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there is not a prayer that it will ever
Speaker 1: get through the Senate. And I think these four were
Speaker 1: you know, I gave and so did a lot of
Speaker 1: people cover for them when they wanted assault cap increase
Speaker 1: because I understand the districts in the Northeast and all that,
Speaker 1: but then to turn around and vote for a dead
Speaker 1: on a rival bill, so all they want it's just
Speaker 1: really showmanship.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: If there's a good case to be made for this,
Speaker 1: you can tell it to me. I am unaware of it.
Speaker 7: No.
Speaker 9: I mean, there are the more viable proposals in the
Speaker 9: House that have things like income caps or expanding hsas
Speaker 9: and things that would get other Republicans to get on board,
Speaker 9: and that wouldn't be seen as a sort of betrayal
Speaker 9: of principles. And this really does sort of look like
Speaker 9: a middle finger to leadership because Speaker Johnson had said
Speaker 9: he wasn't going to bring any of these compromises to
Speaker 9: the floor. I Fitzpatrick said, you know, I really tried
Speaker 9: to get some of my bipartisan or you know, more
Speaker 9: centrist compromises to the floor, and when that didn't happen,
Speaker 9: then I had to kind of just be like, screw you,
Speaker 9: I'll go aside with the Democrats. And you know, Johnson
Speaker 9: was sort of put in an impossible position here, right
Speaker 9: because Trump and Jade Vance they didn't run on cutting.
Speaker 5: Subsidies for people.
Speaker 7: Right.
Speaker 9: But at the same time, it is not anywhere in
Speaker 9: the conservative playbook to allow a COVID era subsidy like
Speaker 9: this to continue. To prop up a broken healthcare system,
Speaker 9: and so leadership the White House was in a really
Speaker 9: awful position here. But they really did get undermined by
Speaker 9: these marporate members.
Speaker 1: I think it is the mirror of Matt Gates and
Speaker 1: his knucklehead caucus what they did when they threw Kevin
Speaker 1: McCarthy out, which is they wanted some attention, the attention economy.
Speaker 1: They threw a fit. They threw out the most effective
Speaker 1: fundraiser of the Republican Party they've ever had, and they
Speaker 1: got nothing. Mike Johnson is a wonderful speaker, is a
Speaker 1: good speaker, but Lawler is and they're not going to
Speaker 1: get anything out of it. If there was any way
Speaker 1: that they would get anying out of this, I would say, okay,
Speaker 1: but it's not good politics.
Speaker 3: It's terrible paulitics. They'll probably get a primary challenge, will they.
Speaker 9: Well, the four of them are probably concerned about staying
Speaker 9: in Congress, right, And that's the only point of difference
Speaker 9: that I would say with Matt Gates, he was running
Speaker 9: in a very heavily Republican district. He never had a
Speaker 9: fear for his reelection prospects, whereas these four are probably
Speaker 9: quite nervous about what's going to happen in November, and
Speaker 9: confident that it would be really difficult for anyone to
Speaker 9: primary them from the right.
Speaker 5: In those really competitive districts.
Speaker 9: That they may end up losing no matter what they do,
Speaker 9: But that was likely. The calculation here is that they
Speaker 9: fear leaderships not looking out for their interests heading into upbraaking.
Speaker 1: They think that the Republican Party had no choice but
Speaker 1: to support them because they're wrong.
Speaker 5: Well, I think that they were.
Speaker 9: Probably They probably don't fear a primary challenge from the
Speaker 9: right that would be extremely difficult in a district like Lawlors,
Speaker 9: for example, in New York, which is very competitive.
Speaker 3: Come I got maybe maybe that's the case.
Speaker 1: But come November twenty sixth, and the NRCC has to
Speaker 1: spend money and people want airtime and they're begging for help.
Speaker 1: Those four don't get any Sarah, I'll talk to you
Speaker 1: one more time. Be poor Christmas, stay well. No one
Speaker 1: else is Sarah Bedford.
Speaker 3: Thank you, mich