Speaker 1: Welcome to today's podcast sponsored by Hillsdale College, All Things
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Speaker 1: iTunes and Hilldale Warning Laura and Eating Grace America. Welcome
Speaker 1: to the Big Weekend Pod. We've got regulars, Our regulars.
Speaker 1: John Ella is from news item, Eli Lake, calumnist, contributing
Speaker 1: editor at The Free Press and commentary. He's the host
Speaker 1: of the Breaking History podcast Ben Dominis as Long as
Speaker 1: he Is, and special guest Aaron McClain. Aaron is here
Speaker 1: to talk us through the School of War podcast and
Speaker 1: everything he's learned in the last three weeks about where
Speaker 1: we are right now visa be the war with Iran?
Speaker 1: Are we gonna escalate, I'm gonna hold pat I'm gonna
Speaker 1: let the blockade simply squeeze the Iranian regime out of
Speaker 1: all life. What's Aaron McClain think is happening, What's he
Speaker 1: think ought to happen? That's all coming up on today's
Speaker 1: Big Weekend Podcast. So stay tuned Lauri and Evening Grays. Yeah,
Speaker 1: give you a big weekend show I had. We always
Speaker 1: began our weekend coverage with John Ellis, founder and editor
Speaker 1: in chief of News Items, because we like to cover
Speaker 1: a few stories that may have skipped your attention span
Speaker 1: and your radar. John, good Friday to you. Let's start
Speaker 1: in Montana. Because when I read your notes from me,
Speaker 1: it might surprise you. But I don't read the MIT
Speaker 1: Technology Review on a regular basis. This sounds wild. Tell
Speaker 1: us about it.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 3: As of this week, any biotech company with an experimental
Speaker 3: drug has a clear path to selling it to consumers.
Speaker 3: This is a so called right to try rule. And
Speaker 3: so if you live in mont or you live anywhere,
Speaker 3: you can go to Montana and perhaps you read about
Speaker 3: some special treatment that's being developed by Eli Lilly or
Speaker 3: Murk or something, and although it's only at stage one
Speaker 3: of clinical trials, you can get that by essentially invoking
Speaker 3: the right to try. You sign a write off you
Speaker 3: you know, a disclaimer for going any for going any
Speaker 3: chance of litigation, and you try whatever drug it might be.
Speaker 3: It might be a wellness drug, it might be for
Speaker 3: a rare drug that's only had ten people tested. It's
Speaker 3: a big thing, and I think it will become a
Speaker 3: bigger thing. I think you'll see this more and more
Speaker 3: and more states, So keep an eye out on Right
Speaker 3: to Try.
Speaker 1: Now John Ellis, Mexico has made a big business out
Speaker 1: of this for years. I've known people who have gone
Speaker 1: to Mexico to try everything from the idiotic Laya trill
Speaker 1: to third generation drugs supervised by physicians of great credentials.
Speaker 1: Doesn't the FDA have a role in this? I mean?
Speaker 1: Or is it like dope? Dope is illegal on the
Speaker 1: federal controlled substance but every state that wants to legalize it.
Speaker 1: Is that where we're headed? I think that's the latter. Yes,
Speaker 1: I do, and I think that's where we're headed. I
Speaker 1: think because so much work is being done that points
Speaker 1: to breakthrough therapies and break through pharmaceutical breakthroughs. You know,
Speaker 1: the demand for it is simply going to overwhelm opposition
Speaker 1: to it, and states like Montana, which are notoriously libertarian,
Speaker 1: can make a good deal of tax money out of it.
Speaker 3: So we'll see. But I think it's like gambling. You know,
Speaker 3: gambling started small and it's now it's everywhere.
Speaker 1: The libertarian streak in America is deep. Let's move to
Speaker 1: point number two about Democratic voters and whether they're likely
Speaker 1: to vote for the person who can be Trump or
Speaker 1: the mainstream Republican or whether they're going to go left.
Speaker 1: What's your data show you?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 3: In twenty nineteen, Gallup took a poll and they said,
Speaker 3: for whom we vote in the Democratic primaries in twenty
Speaker 3: twenty somebody whose views aligned with yours or somebody who
Speaker 3: can beat Trump. And the result was two to one
Speaker 3: beat Trump, and thus Joe Biden was the nominee, even
Speaker 3: though you know he had been defeated in primary and
Speaker 3: caucus in the early going. This time, the Washington Post
Speaker 3: and AP excuse me, the Washington Post and IPSOS have
Speaker 3: taken a poll and they've asked, are you open to
Speaker 3: voting for a Democratic socialist candidate for president in twenty
Speaker 3: twenty eight And the answer to that question from Democratic
Speaker 3: primary voters was seventy five percent Yes. That is a
Speaker 3: I understand that two questions are not exactly parallel, but
Speaker 3: that's an enormous change.
Speaker 1: And in the last two weeks, mister l Say, doctor
Speaker 1: Lsayed in Michigan has surge passed Hailey Stevens in the
Speaker 1: most recent polls by double digit It's astonishing to me
Speaker 1: that lsay Ed can win in Michigan even in a
Speaker 1: Democratic primary. Are you surprised by that?
Speaker 2: I've been very surprised.
Speaker 3: I mean, I wasn't surprised by Mundanami, because you know,
Speaker 3: it's New York City and right, you know, fourteen percent
Speaker 3: of the electorate votes, and so yes, it was going
Speaker 3: to go left. But the fact that you know, the
Speaker 3: Sayatt is doing well in Michigan and Hong is doing
Speaker 3: well in Wisconsin, and these these congressional primaries that have
Speaker 3: produced Democratic socialist victories points to a real problem for
Speaker 3: the Democratic Party because fifty five percent of the electorate
Speaker 3: generally won't consider a socialist candidate for presidents.
Speaker 2: So that's bad math for the Democrat.
Speaker 1: And it's also Peggy Plan again in Minnesota is a
Speaker 1: hard left.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I like to say socialists in their mouth, Marxists in
Speaker 1: their mind, and communists heart. Troy Jackson in Maine, who
Speaker 1: replaced the kicked out Graham Plattner, he just as wildly
Speaker 1: left I think Tall Rico in Texas is, but he's
Speaker 1: polling better than I thought as well. Tell us about Texas.
Speaker 3: Well, Texas, you know, as a good barometer of whether
Speaker 3: there's going to be a blue wave, or whether there's
Speaker 3: going to be a mini blue wave, or whether there's
Speaker 3: going to be you know, no blue wave.
Speaker 2: And the blue.
Speaker 3: Wave would point to a Tall Rico victory in the
Speaker 3: Senate race and a very close scubinatorial race with Governor
Speaker 3: Abbot probably pulling it out. So the most recent polling
Speaker 3: shows Tell Rico head by five percentage points. The new
Speaker 3: Fox News poll shows him up by three percentage points.
Speaker 3: Given the difficulty of polling, you know, statistically, it's probably
Speaker 3: a tie or with the slightest edge at this point
Speaker 3: to Tall Rico. But the thing that really interested me
Speaker 3: was the gubinatorial race, where Abbot and the Democratic challenger
Speaker 3: are tied statistically. And you know, if you looked at
Speaker 3: Texas and you just looked at the map and said,
Speaker 3: what is the good what did the gubernatorial races look like?
Speaker 3: You would say, well, Texas, you know that'll be our
Speaker 3: that's safe. Apparently not, according to the Fox News poll.
Speaker 1: So the big new thing for me, John Allis, and
Speaker 1: I've seen a little bit of this in news items
Speaker 1: every day, is volatility. Some of these races just change
Speaker 1: in two weeks time. Have you do you recall anything
Speaker 1: as volatile as twenty twenty six? Uh?
Speaker 3: Well, I think twenty twenty two was surprising in that
Speaker 3: two and a half weeks out the Republicans were headed
Speaker 3: to a red wave, if you will, and it didn't materialize.
Speaker 2: That was surprising.
Speaker 3: I don't think you know in Iowa, Ohio the race
Speaker 3: that I look at, or Iowa, Ohio, Michigan, and Alaska.
Speaker 2: I'm really interested in Alaska.
Speaker 3: But if you just look at Iowa and Ohio, the
Speaker 3: Democrats are a little bit ahead in both uh, in
Speaker 3: both races, and they have been since the beginning of
Speaker 3: the year. So that points to somewhere between a wave
Speaker 3: and a big wave. But that's before the Republicans have really,
Speaker 3: you know, campaigned as hard as they can campaign and
Speaker 3: spend as much money as they can spend.
Speaker 1: And they have an arsenal of money that I wish
Speaker 1: we had matched in our Interceptors munitions file. All right,
Speaker 1: let's finish with Annie Jacobson's book, which you tell me
Speaker 1: is about bio warfare, and I haven't read this. Is
Speaker 1: it going to keep me up at night?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: You don't want to read it, it'll you know, you'll
Speaker 3: jump out the window. So I heard your readers, I
Speaker 3: heard your listeners not to read it. But there was
Speaker 3: a book published years ago by Richard Preston called Demon
Speaker 3: in the Freezer, which was sort of the best book
Speaker 3: of at the time, about by a warfare, and it
Speaker 3: was a terrifying read. And Jacobson, who wrote a very
Speaker 3: good book about nuclear war which was published I think
Speaker 3: two or three years ago and was equally terrifying, has
Speaker 3: now published this book Biological War, which is the most
Speaker 3: terrifying thing you'll ever read. So I urge your listeners
Speaker 3: not to buy the book.
Speaker 1: Well, does she imagine a widely distributed capability to produce
Speaker 1: these agents? My brother is a PhD toxicologist. He've been
Speaker 1: telling me for years, don't worry about nukes, worry about
Speaker 1: the fact that people can do cookup bugs in their basement.
Speaker 1: Is that where she's going.
Speaker 2: Well, the big thing.
Speaker 3: Is, obviously, the change that's taken place is the advance
Speaker 3: of artificial intelligence. To you know, we're fairly close now
Speaker 3: to artificial superintelligence. So if you have that tool, and
Speaker 3: you have some basic knowledge of how germs were, you
Speaker 3: can genetically modify those terms into a weapon. And given
Speaker 3: that open models are all around the world, and given
Speaker 3: that artificial superintelligence models will be inevitably in the possession
Speaker 3: of places like North Korea, it's a terrifying prospect and
Speaker 3: one that I think you have to make massive preparations.
Speaker 1: For well warned any Jacobson biological war. John Ellis, editor
Speaker 1: and cheape of News Items. Thank you, John. People should
Speaker 1: be reading news items every day. You can subscribe it, substack,
Speaker 1: just Google news Items, John Ellis, you'll go there. Let
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Speaker 2: That go. Well, I think we just want to win.
Speaker 2: You know, we just want to win.
Speaker 1: We're doing very well.
Speaker 4: We're trying to be nice as nice as you can
Speaker 4: be in you know, a situation like that. But you
Speaker 4: know they're they're being decimated. They have no navy, they
Speaker 4: have no air force, they have no anti aircraft. Does
Speaker 4: it mean they don't have any capability? They have some
Speaker 4: Madrid little We just.
Speaker 2: Want to win.
Speaker 5: We don't want to have them as very simple, they
Speaker 5: cannot have a nuclear weapon.
Speaker 1: Welcome back America, President Trump. Day Camp David, I'm joined
Speaker 1: by Eli Lake from the Free Press. He's also those
Speaker 1: of breaking history. We just want to win, Eli, What
Speaker 1: does that mean to you?
Speaker 6: Well, on the one hand, you can kind of claim
Speaker 6: victory because I don't think that Iran is anywhere. I mean,
Speaker 6: I would put it like this, thirteen fourteen months ago,
Speaker 6: Iran was almost to break out nuclear power, and now
Speaker 6: it's nuclear program, which is you know, they have investigating
Speaker 6: in for decades, had incredible costs diplomatically and also obviously financially,
Speaker 6: and everything else is pretty much in ruins. I mean,
Speaker 6: there is Pickaxe Mountain, but I tend to think that
Speaker 6: it's it's nothing compared to what they had. It's unclear
Speaker 6: whether they could really start up again. So he's saved
Speaker 6: the world in terms of Iran is no longer going
Speaker 6: to be a breakout nuclear power. What it is now
Speaker 6: is a desperate regime that has figured out that right
Speaker 6: now the mass between missile defense and missile offense favors them.
Speaker 6: So they have a dwindling supply of ballistic missiles and
Speaker 6: they can do quite a bit of damage. And they're
Speaker 6: kind of doing quite a bit of damage not just
Speaker 6: to our bases, but to the oil refineries of the
Speaker 6: Gulf and our allies desalmination plans and you know the rest.
Speaker 6: And it has also has a kind of de facto
Speaker 6: control of the Strait of Hormuse. I think these are
Speaker 6: temporary situations, and you know, and and there are things
Speaker 6: that we can do to try to mitigate the straight
Speaker 6: of hermus like going back to the freedom of navigation
Speaker 6: and military escorts trying to find that route, reassuring allies,
Speaker 6: although it doesn't take much because this latest round of
Speaker 6: tit for tat you saw that not just Saudi's getting hit,
Speaker 6: but the saudis striking back. And then we have to
Speaker 6: kind of play a smart game here. And I think
Speaker 6: one thing that error that I would identify. I mean,
Speaker 6: there's obviously the error of not having enough missile defense
Speaker 6: systems and not maybe preparing for the straight up our moves.
Speaker 6: But the big one is we don't need a nuclear
Speaker 6: agreement right now with Iran. We don't want the people
Speaker 6: who would sign the nuclear agreement to be in power,
Speaker 6: and I don't think we need them. I mean, why
Speaker 6: are we arguing, why do we want them to sign
Speaker 6: something saying we'll never enricher raning for fifteen years? A
Speaker 6: we don't believe them, and B they don't have the
Speaker 6: capability right now and if they tried to rebuild it,
Speaker 6: Israel and the United States has already proven that we
Speaker 6: can take it away fairly quickly. I think what we
Speaker 6: need to do is to figure out the long, hard
Speaker 6: work of trying to open the strait of horn moves.
Speaker 6: I think the President's done an admirable job in calming
Speaker 6: the oil market, so it hasn't been the kind of
Speaker 6: disaster that a lot of experts predicted it might be.
Speaker 6: So that's how I would I would approach it. At
Speaker 6: this point. It's not a clean victory. Clean victory would
Speaker 6: be regime change. But you know, let's not it's not
Speaker 6: nothing that they don't have much of a nuclear program anymore.
Speaker 1: It's a lot. But what I think the President means
Speaker 1: when he says we'd like to win, he'd like capitulation
Speaker 1: of the IERGC to the reality of the power dynamic,
Speaker 1: and that can come one of two ways. Admiral Cooper,
Speaker 1: according to Wall Street Journal, has a two week plan
Speaker 1: to destroy every asset the IERGC has, including their construction companies,
Speaker 1: their shipping company, just impoverish them for generations. And then
Speaker 1: there's the keep the blockade on and try and keep
Speaker 1: the ships moving. But I just don't understand why we're
Speaker 1: talking to them. So Option A is fine. Option BE
Speaker 1: as fine. Military vegetables can advise on that. Why would
Speaker 1: we talk to them at this point?
Speaker 6: Well, I think my theory of it is is that
Speaker 6: we talk to them in order to calm.
Speaker 1: The oil markets.
Speaker 6: So you know, if if if you know, every time
Speaker 6: there has been an announcement that talks are beginning or
Speaker 6: something like that, you know, you notice that the price
Speaker 6: of oil goes down, and that's really the main thing
Speaker 6: that Trump is looking at, particularly before the midterms.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 6: But I also think that, you know, I would agree
Speaker 6: with your next guest, Darren McLain that it's a really
Speaker 6: bad thing to have the president that you know, we
Speaker 6: are giving up on the freedom of navigation for now,
Speaker 6: But I think it's a temporary situation, which is the
Speaker 6: straight up. Her news will be a depreciating asset for
Speaker 6: the Iranians themselves as the rest of the world figures
Speaker 6: out alternative roots. Which it that's not you know, it's
Speaker 6: not great. But in the end, you know, Hugh, in
Speaker 6: the end, we got to get back to what Trump
Speaker 6: was saying in the beginning of January and the end
Speaker 6: of December. I mean, this is a regime that has
Speaker 6: to go. Ultimately, it's going to be for the Iranian people.
Speaker 6: There are a lot of things we can do to
Speaker 6: help the Iranian people, and it's not going to be
Speaker 6: right away, and we can't predict exactly when, but that's
Speaker 6: the ultimate goal. I don't want to deal and you know,
Speaker 6: you know, I don't trust the the Mola's one bid.
Speaker 6: And the reason, by the way, we probably haven't done
Speaker 6: the Brad Cooper plan is that they still have enough
Speaker 6: ballistic missiles to cause quite a bit of damage. And
Speaker 6: until we can you know, find the interceptors that we
Speaker 6: would need to defend against that, then that's a major
Speaker 6: risk and it's not worth probably taking the interceptors out
Speaker 6: of the Pacific taking. You know, we need those just
Speaker 6: for deterrence in many ways against China when it comes
Speaker 6: to the Straight of Taiwan. So we're stuck right now,
Speaker 6: and I it's not ideal. But again, if I was Trump,
Speaker 6: I would be emphasizing the damage done to the nuclear
Speaker 6: program unless he has an insormation about like Pickax Mountain
Speaker 6: or something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let me switch to a bigger subject. I think
Speaker 1: Anthony Fauci ties into the Iran war because we listened
Speaker 1: to experts on everything. We listened to experts on the
Speaker 1: military situation, on interceptors, on oil as opposed to facts
Speaker 1: of market prices. Has Fauci destroyed expertise. I mean, does
Speaker 1: it destroy the Woodrow Wilson project that there's a group
Speaker 1: of people over here who know how to run thing?
Speaker 1: Have we done away with that? Now?
Speaker 6: Well, I wouldn't put it all on Fauci, but he's
Speaker 6: a big part of it. And a lot of it
Speaker 6: I think was that he often believed that he could
Speaker 6: be the arbiter of you know, he couldn't trust the
Speaker 6: American people with sort of uncertainties like, hey, I don't
Speaker 6: know what the we don't know, experts don't know what
Speaker 6: the origin of coronavirus is, yet we can't really rule
Speaker 6: it out. Instead, it became it's a conspiracy theory to
Speaker 6: say that it results it from a lab leak. That's
Speaker 6: and and you know, as a result, now I think
Speaker 6: Senator Tom Cotton, you know, looks pressient of course, but
Speaker 6: at the time he was pilloried by and But it's
Speaker 6: not just Fauci, It's the New York Times, I'm sorry
Speaker 6: to say, it's the Washington Post, It's CNN, it's the
Speaker 6: it's the mediators, uh, the old elite media. They have
Speaker 6: had they they when it wasn't just COVID, it was Russia, Gate.
Speaker 6: It was a series of things. It was the laptop
Speaker 6: that belonged to Hunter Biden and the fact that no,
Speaker 6: you know, and that particular scandal, even though there are
Speaker 6: corruption scandals on the other side right now. But the
Speaker 6: point is is that there are a series of things
Speaker 6: that the people, the expert class, if you will, was
Speaker 6: entrusted to get it straight and to at least when
Speaker 6: they got it wrong, take responsibility and punish the malefactors
Speaker 6: that didn't happen. The New York Times hasn't returned their
Speaker 6: Pulitzer prize that they got for Russigate reporting. So that's
Speaker 6: when you don't When you have institutions that can't self
Speaker 6: correct that way, that's when you really run into trouble.
Speaker 6: And right now our politics is broken because there's no
Speaker 6: reason why the Democrats shouldn't look at the facts that
Speaker 6: we have right now and say, Fauci told us things
Speaker 6: that were not true. He said he was stirring about
Speaker 6: things when it was uncertainty, and we can't stand for that. Instead, they're,
Speaker 6: you know, they're they're lining up behind him and you know,
Speaker 6: trying to say that, you know, man, Paul's the new
Speaker 6: Joe McCarthy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, credibility will not be returning to the left or
Speaker 1: legacy media until Candor precides it. Elili. Follow him on
Speaker 1: Exit Eli Lake and listen to the Breaking History podcast.
Speaker 7: Thank you, Elike.
Speaker 1: Welcome back in America. I'm here to a special guest
Speaker 1: for this weekend because it could be a very very
Speaker 1: kinetic weekend over this guys of Iran and possibly Yemen.
Speaker 1: Aaron B. McLain is the host of the School of
Speaker 1: War podcasts, which should be on your like and subscribe,
Speaker 1: download it listen every episode to School of War. He's
Speaker 1: also a national security correspondent for the CBS Evening News
Speaker 1: and a marine. Aaron, welcome. I've been eating up the
Speaker 1: School of War and I wanted to ask you to
Speaker 1: join us for the benefit of civilians like me. And
Speaker 1: I want to put up a couple of maps for
Speaker 1: you to kind of explain people. I keep looking at
Speaker 1: the Middle East and where the straight over mows is,
Speaker 1: where the band al Mandeb Strait is in the red seat.
Speaker 1: This is all very close. How hard can it be
Speaker 1: to dominate this space for a superpart? Why is it
Speaker 1: taking so long?
Speaker 8: Hey Hugh, thank you so much for having me. I
Speaker 8: love your show.
Speaker 9: I love the music on your show, by the way,
Speaker 9: and I love your guests. I was listening with great
Speaker 9: interest to Elia, like my free press colleague just before
Speaker 9: ask to your question, how hard is it to dominate? Well, look,
Speaker 9: the standard that has to be met right is for
Speaker 9: commercial shipping to feel safe enough to go through these
Speaker 9: choke points that are threatened by organizations like the IRGC
Speaker 9: for the Strait of Hormuz or the HOHO Thi's for
Speaker 9: the Red Sea in order for us to get the
Speaker 9: amount of oil and other energy resources through that we
Speaker 9: need to support the global economy. And so unfortunately, the
Speaker 9: standard for Iran and the houthis is not that they
Speaker 9: stop all traffic going to the strait. The standards they
Speaker 9: get just enough shots through here and there that they
Speaker 9: generate unease amongst commercial shippers and make it less likely
Speaker 9: for them to try.
Speaker 8: That's really their game.
Speaker 9: And so getting it to the point where you're reducing
Speaker 9: the number of incoming shots to a low and completely
Speaker 9: interceptible number is actually a pretty tall order that involves
Speaker 9: a lot of resources and a lot of investment. We
Speaker 9: are making those investments in the Strait of Hormuz right now,
Speaker 9: and I think very quietly for the last really couple months.
Speaker 9: You've seen Central Command escorting with aviation assets ships through
Speaker 9: that straight in the Red Sea, which is a more
Speaker 9: recent element. We don't have that effort up and running
Speaker 9: right now. These things are resource intensive, and you see
Speaker 9: the Saudis trying to organize an international coalition to do
Speaker 9: it there. But you know, to get out of that region,
Speaker 9: your energy resources basically need to move out of the
Speaker 9: Persian Gulf, likely through the Strait or out of the
Speaker 9: Red Sea, either southwards through the Babbel Mandeb or the
Speaker 9: Hooties are blocking, or northwards through Egypt where we just
Speaker 9: saw that strike a couple days ago. Those are your
Speaker 9: three exit points, really, and the bad guys are causing
Speaker 9: problems at all.
Speaker 1: Three well, let's talk about the three bad guys in
Speaker 1: reverse order. The Houties. There was a long running war
Speaker 1: there where both UAE and Saudi Arabia were involved, and
Speaker 1: we may have had something going on there as well.
Speaker 1: The UAE was forced out by world opinion basically, and
Speaker 1: the Saudis asked them to leave. And I think the
Speaker 1: UA are sitting it out this time. How hard is
Speaker 1: it to rouse the UTI? They are a rag tag
Speaker 1: band of terrorists. Maybe they're in the tens of thousands,
Speaker 1: But is the Saudi military simply that not competent enough
Speaker 1: to get them.
Speaker 9: Well, they may be a ragtag bunch of people, but
Speaker 9: they are fanatics and they do have resources, a lot
Speaker 9: of those resources from Iran. The terrain in Yemen is
Speaker 9: pretty unforgiving. There is depending on where you are in Yemen.
Speaker 9: You know, there are varying degrees of popular support for them.
Speaker 9: And yeah, not to be too blunt about some of
Speaker 9: our allies, but let's just say allied military capacity varies.
Speaker 9: And while the Saudis are certainly capable of some things,
Speaker 9: you saw them participate in these air strikes successfully in
Speaker 9: Iraq here in the last few days. You know, the
Speaker 9: kind of sustained ground action that would be required to
Speaker 9: really seize back those occupied parts of Yemen from the
Speaker 9: Hoho thies, well you know you saw attempts at that
Speaker 9: in recent years, and they weren't successful. I think the question, though,
Speaker 9: really is will the Saudis be capable with American cooperation
Speaker 9: and support, because I think Sentcom's going to be very
Speaker 9: involved in this. Well, they be capable of organizing a
Speaker 9: maritime coalition to keep traffic moving through the Strait and
Speaker 9: to deter attacks on their own energy infrastructure. Like that's
Speaker 9: really the task at hand. This Saudi Huthi war has
Speaker 9: been running, you know, with varying periods of intensity or
Speaker 9: sort of more you know, low burn cold war scenarios
Speaker 9: for years now, and it runs in parallel with the
Speaker 9: US Iran conflict. Iran and the Uthis are partners. We
Speaker 9: are obviously aligned with the Saudi's, but they really are
Speaker 9: two independent wars. It just so happens that both the
Speaker 9: Huthis and the Uranians want to damage energy infrastructure in
Speaker 9: the region, and both those efforts caused problems for US.
Speaker 1: Two years ago, the Jutis were shooting fairly heavily at
Speaker 1: our carrier group in the Indian Ocean, and Biden didn't
Speaker 1: do much. But then Trump just hammered them, and they
Speaker 1: haven't bothered us since. Do we need to do that again?
Speaker 9: It's it's certainly possible, I mean, I you know, it's
Speaker 9: it's an option, as is an option to escalate against
Speaker 9: Iran as they continue to make trouble in the Strait
Speaker 9: and you know, in terms of their targeting of our
Speaker 9: forces and our partners in the region, It does come
Speaker 9: down to a question sometimes of resources, though, I mean
Speaker 9: how much you're willing are we willing to spend? How
Speaker 9: much are we willing to ask our partners to spend
Speaker 9: to get these jobs done.
Speaker 1: I'll be right back with Aaron mclan on the other
Speaker 1: side to talk about Iran. In the part in between,
Speaker 1: which will be on the big Weekend Todd, We're going
Speaker 1: to talk about NATO and something that Rear Admiral Montgomery
Speaker 1: told him on the School of War most recent episode,
Speaker 1: which you really ought to listen to. Stay tuned. I'm
Speaker 1: back now with Aaron McClain, military strategist, host of The
Speaker 1: School of War, free press column the CBS Evening News
Speaker 1: National security correspondent. Aaron I was arrested by We're Admiral
Speaker 1: Montgomery's comment to you and he's retired for the benefit
Speaker 1: of the audience. When you asked him about who can
Speaker 1: help in the baw Belt mandeb straight, he said, well,
Speaker 1: if there's any game left in Europe, and that's a
Speaker 1: big if, he said, the Royal Navy's got two destroyers,
Speaker 1: France maybe as too. The Spaniards probably have too, but
Speaker 1: they've got problems of their own right now. And they're
Speaker 1: not coming. That kind of made it very clear to me.
Speaker 1: Is NATO a spent force except for the frontline country?
Speaker 8: Well, you said it.
Speaker 9: Those countries that are closest to Russia the polls are
Speaker 9: really the biggest success story here.
Speaker 8: But the Nordic States have been doing a lot of
Speaker 8: impressive work.
Speaker 9: The Baltic States they're smaller, but in terms of you know,
Speaker 9: what they can do compared to their populations and economies,
Speaker 9: also impressive efforts. The further west you go, the further
Speaker 9: south you go, the less impressive it is, which you see,
Speaker 9: some of the countries militarily speaking, are not only a
Speaker 9: spent force. Unfortunately, they don't seem serious at all about
Speaker 9: it attempting to address the situation.
Speaker 8: Unfortunately.
Speaker 9: The United Kingdom is probably top of the list for
Speaker 9: a description like that. But look, they absolutely have an
Speaker 9: interest in the global energy markets, just like we do
Speaker 9: here in the United States. You could argue they have
Speaker 9: more of an interest because they have less indigenous production
Speaker 9: of these resources than we do here in the United States.
Speaker 9: You know who else has a real interest in the
Speaker 9: southern end of the Red Sea, the bab Bel Mandeb
Speaker 9: are the Asians. Because if you think about it, and
Speaker 9: you had that map up there a moment ago. You
Speaker 9: if the Strait of Hormuz has got blockages, you have
Speaker 9: trouble getting your stuff out of the Strait of Hermus.
Speaker 9: One of the ways that the Saudis and others have
Speaker 9: been trying to circumvent this is to send oil west
Speaker 9: across Saudi Arabia on a pipeline that that lets out
Speaker 9: on the Red Sea, sort of halfway up and down
Speaker 9: the coast of the Red Sea for them. There le
Speaker 9: oil can then go south to go to Asia, and
Speaker 9: it can go north to go up to Suez into
Speaker 9: points westward, including Europe. But if you're having trouble getting
Speaker 9: at south and the Strait of Horn Moves is closed,
Speaker 9: those two things compound each other. And so Asian oil
Speaker 9: markets or just energy markets because we're talking about gas
Speaker 9: here too, they're really the ones that are that face
Speaker 9: the biggest risk from this hoothy pressure point at the
Speaker 9: Bab al Mandem.
Speaker 1: And so if NATO doesn't help, what's the point of NATO.
Speaker 7: Uh?
Speaker 9: Well, the point of NATO, you know, first and foremost
Speaker 9: is to deter Russia. Uh that's you know, if you
Speaker 9: if you think back to the founding day of NATO,
Speaker 9: the sort of tripartite justification for the alliance of the
Speaker 9: existence was to keep the Russians out, the Germans down,
Speaker 9: and the Americans in if we call, and I think
Speaker 9: today we can. You know, I like to give the
Speaker 9: Germans a hard time, But really you could take that
Speaker 9: part of it seriously as saying, you know, keep intra
Speaker 9: European political conflict to a minimum while we focus outboard.
Speaker 8: On our shared enemies.
Speaker 9: But look, President Trump's been very frustrated at the lack
Speaker 9: of NATO assistance in the straight of war moves. And
Speaker 9: I think Admiral Montgomery's point about the Red Sea was
Speaker 9: a very important one that is frustrated as the Europeans
Speaker 9: occasionally maybe with the Trump administration's diplomacy. The Trump administration's
Speaker 9: diplomacy did not cause the Huthis to decide to go
Speaker 9: back to war with the Saudis essentially and attempt to
Speaker 9: close off the Red Sea to Saudi energy traffic. It
Speaker 9: is a major pressing international concern to restore traffic through
Speaker 9: that checkpoint as it is in the straight of war moves.
Speaker 9: And yes, their help would be very welcome, and yes,
Speaker 9: the effort is very.
Speaker 1: Re it's a real credibility test for Old Europe and
Speaker 1: we will see if they pass it. I'm coming back
Speaker 1: with Aaron McLean. Stay tuned, Brogan Bag in America. Aaron
Speaker 1: McClain is still with me, and he is, of course
Speaker 1: the host of School of Warp. He's a free press columnist.
Speaker 1: He's also a national security correspondent for CBS News. Aaron.
Speaker 1: Two nights ago, the Wall Street Journal published a story
Speaker 1: that made me sit up. It said that Admiral Cooper,
Speaker 1: head of Central Command, has a plan. He's talked to
Speaker 1: the President about it, but he doesn't see the President
Speaker 1: very much. And it calls for two weeks of massive
Speaker 1: bombing like our B two's and our b ones at
Speaker 1: full deployment strength and aimed at the IRGC's military assets
Speaker 1: and there they're hidden, economy and other and he believes
Speaker 1: that they can that campaign can crush them. What as
Speaker 1: a military analyst, do you think about that journal story
Speaker 1: and do you think we ought to at least try that.
Speaker 9: Well, it's clear we've had plans for escalation for some
Speaker 9: time now. I mean it was clear back at the
Speaker 9: end of March, the beginning of April. You will call
Speaker 9: President Trump at one point said, you know that a
Speaker 9: whole civilization will end tonight if the Iranians don't make
Speaker 9: a deal.
Speaker 8: Obviously, we backed off of that.
Speaker 9: We entered that period of the ceasefire, which became the
Speaker 9: period of the MoU and sort of led us to
Speaker 9: the point.
Speaker 8: That we're at right now.
Speaker 9: But that option of turning up another gear has always
Speaker 9: been there. Admiral Cooper, the reporting indicates, is an advocate
Speaker 9: for this option. There are others in the administration who
Speaker 9: prefer where we are, which is to say, we're in
Speaker 9: a situation where there's a sort of low and fluctuating
Speaker 9: level of confrontation, armed confrontation, but economic warfare. You know,
Speaker 9: we have this blockade against Iranian ports right now, we're
Speaker 9: pursuing other.
Speaker 8: Economic measures against them.
Speaker 9: That is painful for the Iranians, but it will take time,
Speaker 9: I think potentially a lot of time to bring them
Speaker 9: to the table. So that's option two, and then option
Speaker 9: three is obviously some.
Speaker 8: Kind of deal.
Speaker 9: But if you want to deal in the short run,
Speaker 9: unfortunately I don't think you're getting get a good deal
Speaker 9: from the Iranians. So option three turns out to look
Speaker 9: a lot more like surrender.
Speaker 8: So let's act as the.
Speaker 9: Only options one and two are real option one escalation,
Speaker 9: Option two prolonged economic warfare escalation. You know, the theory
Speaker 9: of the case there one is that you can deal
Speaker 9: with the threat of the incoming missile fire and drone
Speaker 9: fire by really attritting the Iranians' ability to shoot that stuff,
Speaker 9: by going back after their missile cities, by burying that stuff,
Speaker 9: by attacking the infrastructure that allows the IRGC to function
Speaker 9: as a military organization. But then it's about going after
Speaker 9: their cash. You know, I think the President is frustrated
Speaker 9: with the Iranians that they don't want to make a
Speaker 9: deal in the way that he likes to make deals,
Speaker 9: because they're not primarily motivated by material goals. They are
Speaker 9: in fact revolutionary, you know, radical Islamists, radical Shia Islamist,
Speaker 9: they are exactly what they appear to be. But even
Speaker 9: radical ideologues need cash to run a country or to
Speaker 9: dominate a country, as indeed they do in Iran. And
Speaker 9: so if you go after the rgc's military capacity, and
Speaker 9: then you go after how they make their money, the
Speaker 9: idea would be is that you're going to reduce them
Speaker 9: either to the point where they're willing to make a
Speaker 9: deal or to the point where they're.
Speaker 8: Vulnerable to their own people. That's the theory.
Speaker 1: Now, you're a good student of military history, and I
Speaker 1: want you to let your inner marine out right now.
Speaker 1: Americans prefer sharp, sharp and decisive battles. They like taking
Speaker 1: over Afghanistan in a month. They love the march to
Speaker 1: bag that they don't like what follows after it. The
Speaker 1: blockade makes a lot of sense, but only if we've
Speaker 1: tried everything else first. What would you prefer if you
Speaker 1: get five minutes with President Trump, what do you advise
Speaker 1: them to do?
Speaker 9: Aaron McLain Well, the issue with the escalation, Hugh, is
Speaker 9: we were at a very intense level of bombing back
Speaker 9: in March and April, and it didn't get the results
Speaker 9: that we wanted. And you know, if you're going to
Speaker 9: push this regime to the point of regime change, which
Speaker 9: is really what we're talking about here, whether you're actually
Speaker 9: achieving regime change or the damage is so severe that
Speaker 9: they just don't have a choice. They have to come
Speaker 9: to an accommodation or it becomes essentially suicidal for them.
Speaker 9: You know, how close do we get to that in
Speaker 9: March and April?
Speaker 8: And it didn't come off. Now, the best argument I
Speaker 8: think you could make.
Speaker 9: For the escalatory approach is that we really have never
Speaker 9: gone off directly after the Iranian economy. President Trump's Bridge
Speaker 9: and Power Plants Day, which he's talked about frequently.
Speaker 8: We've hit a few bridges here and there.
Speaker 9: We apparently hit several around band or Abas recently, But
Speaker 9: that's all sort of tied to this question of the
Speaker 9: control of the strait in the military campaign in and
Speaker 9: around the Persian Gulf. It has its appeal, it has
Speaker 9: its appeal taking one last big swing. But the risk
Speaker 9: of that is you take that big swing. They're still
Speaker 9: standing there. All they feel they have to do is survive,
Speaker 9: So one way or the other, you don't deliver the
Speaker 9: death blow, and then you're back where we are right now,
Speaker 9: choosing between prolonged economic warfare and walking away.
Speaker 8: The one thing I.
Speaker 9: Know is that we can't just walk away. We cannot
Speaker 9: having started this surrender the control of the strait of
Speaker 9: Armus to Iran's you're a student.
Speaker 1: Of military history. In my lifetime, I'm seventy, America has
Speaker 1: never quote won a war when they've allowed the enemy
Speaker 1: to have a reserve from which they may operate with impunity,
Speaker 1: whether it's Cambodi allow us in North Vietnam, whether it's
Speaker 1: the Pakistan On Governed Region, whether it was Iran during
Speaker 1: the Iraq War, in Syria during the Iraq War. Right
Speaker 1: now we're doing that again. It just drives me crazy.
Speaker 1: Am I wrong to note that pattern?
Speaker 9: You're You're not wrong, You're You're absolutely right to note that.
Speaker 9: The question the prospect of prolonged economic warfare is painful.
Speaker 9: It's painful economically, it's painful politically. It does seem to
Speaker 9: be the course that we're on, and the promise of
Speaker 9: a faster victory through escalation has its attraction.
Speaker 8: Again.
Speaker 9: I mean, I think to really decide which course of
Speaker 9: action was better, we would have.
Speaker 8: To see the planning.
Speaker 9: We would have to see how real the prospect of
Speaker 9: cutting off the cash for the IRGC and a RANS
Speaker 9: leaders is. If I, as the President of the United States,
Speaker 9: had confidence that two weeks of going after the Ranian
Speaker 9: economy would mean that they can't pay the salaries of
Speaker 9: IRGC fighters, I would go for it. I would go
Speaker 9: for it under those conditions.
Speaker 1: I will leave it there. Aaron McClain, thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Follow Aaron on exit. Aaron B. McLain, listen to the
Speaker 1: School of War reading in the Free Press, which you
Speaker 1: shouldbscribe to, and of course see him on CBS News. Aeron,
Speaker 1: have a great, great weekend. Thank you, my friends. You've
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Speaker 10: What happens when citizens begin to fear the very agencies
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Speaker 1: Morning Laurening in Grace America. I'm Hugh Hewitt, Time for
Speaker 1: the weekend review with Ben Domina. She is the opinion
Speaker 1: editor at The Daily Wire, is It Fox News contributor.
Speaker 1: He's the host of The Indispensable Big Ben podcast, and
Speaker 1: he's getting into a scuffle over at X with people
Speaker 1: who say he doesn't know what he's talking about in Texas,
Speaker 1: when in fact, he does know what he's talking about
Speaker 1: in Texas. Ben, welcome, before.
Speaker 7: We get the thank you, before we get started, I
Speaker 7: just want to tell you I hope that money that
Speaker 7: I sent to you in Nigeria helped you out of
Speaker 7: that jam that you were in. Uh yeah, it's always
Speaker 7: tough to need money when you're overseas.
Speaker 1: But I gotta tell people who were who were.
Speaker 7: Not m By the way, I got spoofed and.
Speaker 1: I got ACKed, and I got a d m W
Speaker 1: on friends like Ben, and almost everyone knew it was fake.
Speaker 1: I won't tell you who fell for it, but.
Speaker 7: Oh no, oh someone did. Oh gosh, yeah, some people
Speaker 7: fell for it.
Speaker 1: And however, however, it was a joke. X x is
Speaker 1: fixed it in twenty four hours, which is pretty impressive.
Speaker 7: I thought it would be typically very impressive. And I
Speaker 7: and I saw one of one of my favorite people
Speaker 7: on X Data Republican came to your aid very quickly, she.
Speaker 1: Did, and she tracked the guy to Nigeria. I'm a
Speaker 1: scuttle guy.
Speaker 7: As friends and I mean, actually useful nerds is supposed
Speaker 7: to people like me. You have, you know, a knowledge
Speaker 7: of quotes from movies long ago. No, it's to have
Speaker 7: and glad that they got it sorted for you.
Speaker 1: Data Republican is really you know, let me begin, I'm
Speaker 1: going to reverse my order. Let's compare data Republican with
Speaker 1: Tony Fauci. Data Republican earned her esteem day by day
Speaker 1: over the course of three years by people who followed
Speaker 1: their work. Tony Fauci didn't earn anything, and he let
Speaker 1: us down a dark road. Does that not tell us
Speaker 1: something about the new era?
Speaker 7: You know it does? And in fact, tomorrow at the
Speaker 7: Daily Wire we I have an interview with another person
Speaker 7: who sort of I did this similarly, Mathmathia Shapiro Matt Sapiro,
Speaker 7: who's a guy probably not known maybe to you, but
Speaker 7: he's polymath on X and he was one of the
Speaker 7: early participants in the COVID data project, the people who
Speaker 7: were tracking kind of the different things that were happening
Speaker 7: all across the country. And he's always had a fascinating
Speaker 7: experience to me because he's one of these guys who
Speaker 7: he comes from the tech world, the data world, focused
Speaker 7: on the facts focused on, you know, the analysis there
Speaker 7: works alongside a lot of people who were left a center,
Speaker 7: and what he very quickly came to realize was that
Speaker 7: there was just a complete gap between what they were
Speaker 7: seeing in the measurable data and what was being reported
Speaker 7: by hair on Fire journalists and what was unfortunately being
Speaker 7: caused or parroted or encouraged by Tony Fauci on a
Speaker 7: national level, which was incredibly infuriating to him because he
Speaker 7: was looking at data that was basically saying, look, there's
Speaker 7: there's an outbreak in this part of Georgia. It's going
Speaker 7: to move, you know, it's going to have this geographic,
Speaker 7: you know, sort of track that we are now familiar
Speaker 7: with with the way that this goes. But they're what
Speaker 7: they're going to do is they're going to overhype the
Speaker 7: the outbreak that's going to happen in schools that are
Speaker 7: in conservative districts, where masking is lax and where all
Speaker 7: these different things aren't being undertaken, and then they're going
Speaker 7: to completely nuke any kind of conversation about it when
Speaker 7: it moves downtown to the inner city and pretend like,
Speaker 7: you know, this is not something that behaves the way
Speaker 7: that it actually does, and that was an infuriating experience
Speaker 7: for him. And I think that you know, many Americas,
Speaker 7: even those who were not you know, totally in the data,
Speaker 7: paying attention to this on a day by day you
Speaker 7: know basis at the time, they know that on an
Speaker 7: extinctive level. And what we've seen from Tony Fauci. I mean, look,
Speaker 7: I don't know what you think of the hearing. I
Speaker 7: haven't had a chance this week to listen to your
Speaker 7: take on it, but to me, it was both. It
Speaker 7: was both good to see because I think that you know,
Speaker 7: particularly Josh Holly, but Ran Paul and others as well,
Speaker 7: I think, you know, really took it to him in
Speaker 7: terms of the criticisms that ought to be leveled against Fauci.
Speaker 7: But it was also so deeply unsatisfying on a level
Speaker 7: because I think that the response from the Democrats, if
Speaker 7: you actually care about public health, and I'd say this
Speaker 7: as someone who is an HHS staffer, you should want
Speaker 7: to take lessons from the experience, even if you are
Speaker 7: going to go into your partisan whole and say I'm
Speaker 7: going to defend Tony Fauci because now the right hates him,
Speaker 7: or something like that. Just at least say we should
Speaker 7: learn from this, We should learn from what went wrong,
Speaker 7: from the decisions that were made wrongly, from the lies
Speaker 7: that were told to the American people, so that we
Speaker 7: don't make them same mistake the next time that we
Speaker 7: have to deal with something on this scale. Let's, you know,
Speaker 7: hope that that never happens in our lifetimes. But it's
Speaker 7: the kind of thing where if we do, shouldn't we
Speaker 7: learn from that experience? And the fact that everybody on
Speaker 7: the Democratic side just wanted to say, no, there's nothing
Speaker 7: to see here. He's a wonderful public servant. You are
Speaker 7: you know, maligning him, You are raising all these things
Speaker 7: in this you know, terrible witch hunt, you know, and
Speaker 7: how dare you to me? It's like, no, if Democrats,
Speaker 7: if you care about the power of government, if you
Speaker 7: are at the party that basically says invest all this
Speaker 7: power in these beer them they are the experts, which
Speaker 7: is what they basically are. Right now, why don't you
Speaker 7: just say, shouldn't every question that we should have answered?
Speaker 7: Shouldn't we be able to ask those questions as oversight officials?
Speaker 7: It just it disgusts me that that's something that they
Speaker 7: can't even do anymore.
Speaker 1: It struck me Ben that it was a sentencing hearing
Speaker 1: for a convicted criminal who showed no remorse and the
Speaker 1: victims got to have their day in court and let
Speaker 1: loose on him. But because the Democrats kept up their bodyguard,
Speaker 1: we're going to be talking about Fautci forever. And you're
Speaker 1: going to be in this business a lot longer than
Speaker 1: I am. Right, I'm at the end of my career. OK,
Speaker 1: You're going to be doing this for thirty years, thirty
Speaker 1: years and thirty years you're going to be saying, I
Speaker 1: remember what Tony Fauci did, and I think that's happening again.
Speaker 1: He's now a word that stands for a quote expert
Speaker 1: who's way off and living on their fumes of past glory.
Speaker 1: He's now an example, you know.
Speaker 7: I think that's the other thing that's an aspect of
Speaker 7: this that we really you need to appreciate, you, is
Speaker 7: that there is this mindset within the public health space
Speaker 7: that that has always been around and that has been
Speaker 7: very unfortunate, that basically says, we can't trust the populace
Speaker 7: with the truth or transparency. We have to make these
Speaker 7: decisions behind closed doors as if we are you know,
Speaker 7: a group of Catholic cardinals meeting to decide the next pope. Yep,
Speaker 7: we're all gonna come out and we're just gonna say
Speaker 7: who it is, and you're going to accept it. And
Speaker 7: it's like, no, that's not the way this works. That's
Speaker 7: not the way it should work. It's I mean, and look,
Speaker 7: I think public health is very important. I have always
Speaker 7: been someone who was pro vaccination. I think vaccination is
Speaker 7: something it's deeply important. It's part of it's part of, frankly,
Speaker 7: every country's national security. You know, the people who are
Speaker 7: climbing over you know, those the walls and everything, as
Speaker 7: we see in Spain, that is a major health risk.
Speaker 7: That's a problem, you know, like, and this is part
Speaker 7: of the you know, defending your borders is part is
Speaker 7: part of that. But I also think all this stuff
Speaker 7: has to be transparent and has to have been in public.
Speaker 7: People have to know and have confidence in it. And
Speaker 7: if you lie to them, they will take the lesson
Speaker 7: from it that, oh, everything you say is a lie,
Speaker 7: and the truth is that it's probably not. And that's
Speaker 7: dangerous to sort of take the opposite perspective on this.
Speaker 7: And I actually think that what Fauci did was devastate
Speaker 7: any kind of trust in public health officials for an
Speaker 7: entire generation of America.
Speaker 1: You know who built it out, w built it up
Speaker 1: for a year. He would walk around carrying the Great
Speaker 1: Influenza by John Barry, and he got people like me
Speaker 1: to read it. And that's why I started with a
Speaker 1: very high trust level in Fauci, and I ended up
Speaker 1: on air talking to him, calling on him to resign.
Speaker 1: Boy was he mad in his diary with me.
Speaker 7: But Oho, you is the fact that, by the way,
Speaker 7: I love that he was so mad with you. It's
Speaker 7: like he was mad at like the least amount of,
Speaker 7: like the most basic criticism. It's just like, oh, you're
Speaker 7: in my.
Speaker 1: Gentlest nudge to leave the stage. And he acted like
Speaker 1: an assassination attempt. But here's this, This is a good
Speaker 1: transition to my political question. We've got a bunch of
Speaker 1: people who are trusting Mom Donnie and his people, and
Speaker 1: they're trusting flat again and Tall Rico and Troy Jackson
Speaker 1: and especially else iaid This stuff doesn't work, and we
Speaker 1: know it doesn't work, But why are we trusting them?
Speaker 7: You know? The reason that they're being trusted to you
Speaker 7: is because of a couple of factors. I don't have
Speaker 7: much time I have, but the but the look on
Speaker 7: the on the on the Republican side, Democrats are crazy, okay, uh,
Speaker 7: the the the left and the and the socialist agenda.
Speaker 7: It doesn't work. They're radicals culturally, they're out of step
Speaker 7: with the country. All of those things are true. On
Speaker 7: the other side, they the thing that they have in
Speaker 7: their hand is, you know, the war is unpopular. Prices
Speaker 7: are not going in the way that people want them
Speaker 7: to go. People don't feel good about out the enforcement
Speaker 7: of ice and the and the actual dealing with the
Speaker 7: immigration problem that we have with the country. People do
Speaker 7: not like the president, and the right track wrong track
Speaker 7: thing is completely upside down. So what do you have there?
Speaker 7: You have somebody who's playing three cards that matter on
Speaker 7: their poker hand versus someone who's playing with five cards
Speaker 7: that matter. That's a problem for the Republicans. And there's
Speaker 7: one more aspect of it that I think that is
Speaker 7: really being underrated as the old.
Speaker 1: Good for the break, because I got to go to
Speaker 1: a break right here, Ben, And we'll come back part two,
Speaker 1: and then we'll come back after the break and talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about the war, don't go anywhere, America.
Speaker 1: Stay tuned right here. I'm talking with Ben Dominich, host
Speaker 1: of the Big Ben podcast. But you should like and
Speaker 1: subscribe download in your subscription feed. He's also the opinion
Speaker 1: editor at The Daily Wire. I'm going to look for
Speaker 1: the interview of the Week on Saturday's Daily Wire. I'll
Speaker 1: be right back with Ben during the break and on
Speaker 1: the other side on the ko heal It Show. So
Speaker 1: I'm back with Ben dominic Ben. I want to know
Speaker 1: if we get to draw the two cards that we
Speaker 1: haven't got, because if we do, I nationalize these elections,
Speaker 1: and I drive home the fact that AOC is just
Speaker 1: the beginning these people. This is the worst I've ever
Speaker 1: seen the Democratic Party. And I remember George McGovern's you.
Speaker 7: Know the thing that I say when the things that
Speaker 7: I say when I go on television Q, And I'm
Speaker 7: sure you probably have a similar approach to me. I
Speaker 7: have facts to back them up. I have poll numbers.
Speaker 7: I look at this data before I make you know,
Speaker 7: outlandish claims actually make your job harder. It's a lot
Speaker 7: easier to do the opposite. But the thing that I
Speaker 7: would say if I didn't have to back that up
Speaker 7: seventy five percent, maybe three. I mean something like that
Speaker 7: of this Democratic Party is anti Israel and potentially anti
Speaker 7: jew And I don't say that lightly. I think it's
Speaker 7: something that has happened to their coalition in a very
Speaker 7: aggressive way, in part because of the shift of what
Speaker 7: union representation is and the lack of representation of Judeo
Speaker 7: Chris people within their coalition. I think there's a number
Speaker 7: of different factors that go into it, but that's the
Speaker 7: underlying element of all of this. I don't buy for
Speaker 7: a second that this is about affordability. This is about
Speaker 7: something far crazier. And then when it comes to the
Speaker 7: situation that we have, you know, in front of the
Speaker 7: Republicans in Congress, I think a big part of their
Speaker 7: problem is they have assumed for so long that Donald
Speaker 7: Trump would save them. And he's been an excellent savior.
Speaker 7: He's been someone who has you know, he has stormed
Speaker 7: around the country. He is he has raised up big crowds,
Speaker 7: He's done his best to try to get people elected.
Speaker 1: Raise money.
Speaker 7: President. He's raised money. They have tons of money. President
Speaker 7: doesn't really care about that anymore. He's focused on all
Speaker 7: these other things that he's building he's focused on foreign policy.
Speaker 7: I don't I mean, I don't judge him for that,
Speaker 7: but I think that Republicans are acting like he's going
Speaker 7: to like swoop in and save them from all the
Speaker 7: different polling factors that they have where they're currently And
Speaker 7: I would say this, as of today, they would be
Speaker 7: losing in Ohio, they would be losing in Iowa. We
Speaker 7: are not like forget you know, talking about Michigan, forget
Speaker 7: talking about Georgia. You know, they're losing North Carolina, you know.
Speaker 7: I mean, they're probably hanging on in Maine, and I
Speaker 7: actually think they will eventually.
Speaker 1: By the way, do you think Troy Jackson's relationship with
Speaker 1: a second cousin matters.
Speaker 7: I think it's I think it's a problem for him,
Speaker 7: and I think that, you know, you know, replacing someone
Speaker 7: who had a lot of problems with another person who
Speaker 7: has a lot of problems is never a wise idea.
Speaker 7: I think Susan Collins maybe cut some deal with you know,
Speaker 7: the Lord of Darkness at some point in the past
Speaker 7: to get this kind of fortune. I mean, it's just
Speaker 7: amazing the kind of fortune that she has. I think
Speaker 7: she's gonna pull it out. But the point is just
Speaker 7: Republicans are losing in places they should not be losing,
Speaker 7: and that is the problem that should be scaring them,
Speaker 7: and it has them scared. And Senators are scared. I
Speaker 7: talk to them at Lindsay's funeral this week. They are
Speaker 7: worried about this. They think that they are currently losing,
Speaker 7: and I think, unfortunately.
Speaker 1: That they are right. And when we come back from break,
Speaker 1: when I talk about one thing that could turn it
Speaker 1: all around, which is the Iran war, Ben dominict, She'll
Speaker 1: be right back, stay tuned.
Speaker 4: Well, I think we just want to win, you know,
Speaker 4: we just want to win.
Speaker 2: We're doing very well.
Speaker 4: We're trying to be nice, as nice as you can
Speaker 4: be in you know, a situation like that. But you know,
Speaker 4: they're they're being decimated. They have no navy, they have
Speaker 4: no air force, they have no anti aircraft. Doesn't mean
Speaker 4: they don't have any capability. They have some matrey little
Speaker 4: We just.
Speaker 2: Want to win.
Speaker 5: We don't want to have them as very simple, they
Speaker 5: cannot have a nuclear weapon.
Speaker 1: Welcome back America. President Trump this afternoon at Camp David,
Speaker 1: the Wall Street Journal reporting that he is committed to
Speaker 1: maximizing force beginning this weekend. Ben Dominic this is the
Speaker 1: wild card. If President Trump wins forces the capitulation of Iran,
Speaker 1: and I mean forces it. I think Republicans do well
Speaker 1: because we like winners. If they just tap tap taps
Speaker 1: along with this pattern of the last four months, I
Speaker 1: think we're going to get hammered.
Speaker 7: What do you say, tap tap I mean, just that's
Speaker 7: what he's been doing, cap tap tat. I agree with you,
Speaker 7: which I'm sure is not a surprise, but it's one
Speaker 7: of these things where, look, you at this point, is
Speaker 7: there a reason why you just don't drop them a
Speaker 7: lab on IRGC targets all across Iran. I mean, there's
Speaker 7: what is the reason that we're holding back at this point?
Speaker 7: There is no reason to have any kind of conversation.
Speaker 7: And quite frankly, I think that people who tried to
Speaker 7: make a pause in this they did it too early,
Speaker 7: and they did it wrongheadedly, and they did it without
Speaker 7: an understanding of the nature of the Iranian regime, which
Speaker 7: those of us who paid attention to the way that
Speaker 7: they behaved for a long time understand. I look, you know,
Speaker 7: I was not bold about this whole you know approach
Speaker 7: from the from the get go, I thought it was
Speaker 7: you know risky as I think I said the first
Speaker 7: time that I came on in your program after this,
Speaker 7: I thought it was, you know, a real roll of
Speaker 7: the dice by the president. But I also have known
Speaker 7: that the President is one of these people who has
Speaker 7: no any any kind of you know, sort of hold
Speaker 7: He is not someone who holds back. When he goes
Speaker 7: into something, he goes in full bore. And he's understood
Speaker 7: this for decades. You can go back to the way
Speaker 7: that he's talking about this when it comes to North
Speaker 7: Korea and the bomb. You can go back to the
Speaker 7: way that he was talking about this well before he
Speaker 7: was ever in politics. He understands the risks involved when
Speaker 7: it comes to this kind of thing. It's one of
Speaker 7: his most consistent attributes. So why he even sort of
Speaker 7: entertained that pause. I realized why it happened. I realized
Speaker 7: there were people in his ear around him saying, and
Speaker 7: there were people from Capitol Hill saying, hey, if we
Speaker 7: just kind of, you know, find a deal here, maybe
Speaker 7: it'll save a bunch of Senate seats and that kind
Speaker 7: of thing. Who cares, you know, that's not important in
Speaker 7: the history of this. You're going to be judged by
Speaker 7: whether you actually decimated this regime to a point where
Speaker 7: we don't have to worry about this for a decade
Speaker 7: or maybe more, or you're going to be someone who
Speaker 7: basically went on his jaunt without actually achieving anything. I
Speaker 7: don't think that's what the president wanted to do. I
Speaker 7: don't think that's what he wanted wants to do now.
Speaker 7: I think he's pissed off and a lot of people
Speaker 7: who thought that there would be different situations right now,
Speaker 7: and I hope that his reaction to this is to say,
Speaker 7: just you know, you've got the targets, hoop, go for it.
Speaker 1: Last question, there is no DELSI. I think he really
Speaker 1: was hoping that there would be a Delci Rodriguez to
Speaker 1: emerge from the rubble, and then said he got Behiti,
Speaker 1: who was retired because he was bad and extreme. So
Speaker 1: at this point, I want everybody. I want Saudi Arabia
Speaker 1: and Israel and Kuwait and the UAE, everybody in on this.
Speaker 1: And he looks him in the eye and that you're
Speaker 1: coming along for the ride here, and they just pound
Speaker 1: the daylights out of the.
Speaker 7: They have to. I mean, this is this is the
Speaker 7: best opportunity they've had to do this, and if they
Speaker 7: don't do it, you are going to be dealing with
Speaker 7: the ramifications of this very quickly. Like they've already shown
Speaker 7: how quickly they can rebuild, how quickly they can use
Speaker 7: money flows to do exactly what they said we would say,
Speaker 7: we said they would do with money flows, which is
Speaker 7: which is to say, they will rebuild, they will attack,
Speaker 7: they will support their their proxies all around the region,
Speaker 7: and it will be hell for all of these different people.
Speaker 7: So you better get on the same page.
Speaker 1: So I hope by next Friday, Ben, we can agree
Speaker 1: that that's in fact what he decided to do. And
Speaker 1: it we are midway through the two week campaign that
Speaker 1: Admiral Cooper said he's got on the shelf.
Speaker 7: Ben Dominick, I have one last thing. I just want
Speaker 7: to say this. I know you've got to go break.
Speaker 7: It is not a war mongering thing in any way
Speaker 7: to say we need to deny the Iranian regime a
Speaker 7: nuclear weapons for a generation. That is peace. That is
Speaker 7: not war mongering. That is how we achieved and fewer
Speaker 7: deaths and less human sacrifice in that region. And that
Speaker 7: is one true and it's it's ds that people say otherwise.
Speaker 1: I agree and I think his ears are closed to
Speaker 1: those people. I think he's put wax in his ears
Speaker 1: to those people who say it's warm angering and by
Speaker 1: the way, completely it's good politics too right now to
Speaker 1: win the war, not to tap tap Tapalon ben domage
Speaker 1: can be followed on Exit Be Dominant. You can listen
Speaker 1: to Big Ben podcasts, and of course read him at
Speaker 1: The Daily Wire every weekend, the Big Weekend Interview at
Speaker 1: the Daily Wire. Finally, I want to say it's my
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