Speaker 1: Welcome to today's podcast sponsored by Hillsdale College, All Things
Speaker 1: Hillsdale at Hillsdale dot ed or I encourage you to
Speaker 1: take advantage of the many free online courses there, and
Speaker 1: of course I'll listen to the Hillsdale Dialogue all of
Speaker 1: them at hue for Hillsdale dot com or just Google, Apple,
Speaker 1: iTunes and Hillsdale Mornin, Glory and evening Grace America. Welcome
Speaker 1: to the Big Weekend pod Our. Regular guest are here, Eli Lake,
Speaker 1: Matt Continetti, John Ellis, Ben Dominic, and we're talking about
Speaker 1: what we've been talking about for two months, the war
Speaker 1: with Iran, which enters a new phase perhaps over this weekend.
Speaker 1: Headline in the Times of Israel Israel said bracing for
Speaker 1: iron fighting to resume soon as Trump briefed on military options.
Speaker 1: I'll be talking with most of my guests, but especially Elila,
Speaker 1: about the crazy upside down analysis of the war. Iran's
Speaker 1: gotten crushed and they continue to get crushed, and they
Speaker 1: put out press releases instead of offensive action because they
Speaker 1: had no offensive action. They have no way to move forward.
Speaker 1: And whether or not the United States goes back to
Speaker 1: kinetic operations or just squeezes them to death. I don't
Speaker 1: know what is the preferred way to go. The world
Speaker 1: is hurting because of higher oil prices, but Iran is
Speaker 1: crumbling before our eyes. We have won. We are wrapping up.
Speaker 1: It may take a few months, but it's over. I
Speaker 1: just want everyone to know that. But before we get there,
Speaker 1: we're going to start by talking about none other than
Speaker 1: Graham Platner, the anti Semitic, Nazi tattoo wearing nutter who
Speaker 1: has got the Democratic nomination locked up in Maine. I
Speaker 1: had a friend rate me last night and say they'd
Speaker 1: sent one thousand dollars to Susancollins dot com to stop
Speaker 1: the jewater. I don't think that person's alone. I think
Speaker 1: Susan Collins is going to benefit from everyone in the country,
Speaker 1: even Democrats who've just had it with crazy people getting
Speaker 1: in the politics and saying crazy things about Jews in Israel.
Speaker 1: And that will be the focus of a little bit
Speaker 1: of today's show, primarily though Iran the war after three months,
Speaker 1: what comes next? All come to you on the Big
Speaker 1: Weekend Pod. Stay tuned Morning, Lore Rating and Grace America.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Friday edition of the hu Us Show.
Speaker 1: Whether you're watching on the Salem New Channel, we'll say
Speaker 1: on the Salem Radio Network and one of our wonderful
Speaker 1: radio affiliates across the country, Welcome as usual on Friday,
Speaker 1: I begin with John Ellis, founder and editor in chief
Speaker 1: of News Items, your morning newsletter, which is the first
Speaker 1: thing I read every morning. And John's hit me a
Speaker 1: cheat sheet of stories he'd like to cover. And I
Speaker 1: covered Graham Platner for most of yesterday. But I want
Speaker 1: your take on it, John, because you know Maine a
Speaker 1: lot better than I do. I've spent four or five
Speaker 1: summers there and a few vacations, but I don't know
Speaker 1: it that well. But I do know extremism and unbalanced minds,
Speaker 1: and Graham Platner is an extremist with an unbalanced mind.
Speaker 1: Can he possibly beat Susan Collins? Yeah? I think he can.
Speaker 2: If we go back to two thousand nineteen, gallop ass
Speaker 2: democratic primary voters, Democratic presidential primary voters whether they preferred
Speaker 2: to candidate who could defeat President Trump in the fall
Speaker 2: or whether they want someone whose views most you know,
Speaker 2: closely resembled their own. And they said, by margin of
Speaker 2: two to one, we want somebody who can defeat President Trump.
Speaker 2: Fast forward to twenty twenty six, Janet Mills the incumbent governor.
Speaker 2: She's term limited, she's running for the Democratic president Senate
Speaker 2: nomination in Maine, and she makes the argument, I'm the
Speaker 2: one with the best chance to defeat Susan Collins in
Speaker 2: the fall, and in so doing, I will send a
Speaker 2: message to President Trump, which is what you Democratic primary
Speaker 2: voters want me to do. So you know that she
Speaker 2: made the electability argument, and to sort of cap it off,
Speaker 2: she ran a fairly extensive media campaign beginning in March
Speaker 2: that pointed out all of Graham Plattner's flaws and so
Speaker 2: you would think, given her you know, tenure as governor,
Speaker 2: a popular Democratic figure, and a highly flawed challenger, that
Speaker 2: she would coast a victory, when in fact, during the
Speaker 2: media blitz, Graham Plattner's numbers went up. He was when
Speaker 2: the media campaign began about ten points ahead. By the
Speaker 2: time the media campaign ended, he was thirty points ahead.
Speaker 2: So the mood seems to be if you're old and
Speaker 2: in the way, get out of the way. We don't care,
Speaker 2: you know, we just wanted we just want to, you know,
Speaker 2: shake things up.
Speaker 1: And John after after Afterday's program, a friend of mine
Speaker 1: Joey's friend of mine said, I just sent a thousand
Speaker 1: dollars to Susancollins dot com to stop the jew hater.
Speaker 1: And when you reduce it to everything, Graham Plattner is
Speaker 1: an anti semi anything not and so he might be
Speaker 1: able to win the Democratic base polling. But Main's a
Speaker 1: nice place, it's a gracious place. It's about as purple
Speaker 1: a state as you can get. I know it's got
Speaker 1: its crunchy elements to it. I don't see that state
Speaker 1: not only again, grand total of twenty months in the
Speaker 1: state and ten vacations, what would it be what would
Speaker 1: happen to Maine to make it go off the left
Speaker 1: side of the moon.
Speaker 2: I don't think it's the left right thing. I think
Speaker 2: it's get anyone who's in power out. And I'm not saying,
Speaker 2: by the way, that Susan Collins is going to lose.
Speaker 2: I mean, in twenty twenty, President Bush, I mean President
Speaker 2: Trump lost the state of Maine by nine points and
Speaker 2: Susan Collins won her reelection by ten.
Speaker 1: That's a nineteen point split.
Speaker 2: So there's no doubt that Susan Collins is a terrific
Speaker 2: vote get her. There's no doubt she knows the state
Speaker 2: inside out. The question is whether the mood is such
Speaker 2: that if you're in power, people want you out of power,
Speaker 2: and that, you know, that's a question that I think
Speaker 2: will be answered in the Senate race.
Speaker 1: I think you're right. I also think that whatever Janet
Speaker 1: Mills did for the primary, Susan Collins and the super
Speaker 1: Pacts are going to do times one thousand for the general.
Speaker 1: Let's move to your second story. President Trump's extravagance, grandiosity,
Speaker 1: called esthetic, let's call it whatever you want, step on
Speaker 1: the ballroom, the arc de triump arch, et cetera. You're right,
Speaker 1: it's starting to earn him with voters. I have not
Speaker 1: seen that polling. Where do you find that evidence? Because
Speaker 1: everyone's I know that.
Speaker 2: I am told by polsters that I trust that. While
Speaker 2: it didn't, I was started to ask posters that I know,
Speaker 2: you know, why is the Trump.
Speaker 1: What do you call it? The Trump aesthetic?
Speaker 2: Aesthetic not registered more with voters, and they said it
Speaker 2: didn't in twenty twenty five, But it's beginning to now
Speaker 2: all of the talk about the ballroom at the time
Speaker 2: that we're at war and you know, times are tough,
Speaker 2: apparently has raised this quote salience end quote of that
Speaker 2: issue in a way that it was not raised in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: That'll be interesting to see if that's I think that's true,
Speaker 1: If democratic Olama to the ballroom or the archititrium arch.
Speaker 1: I just don't want them to build the arch while
Speaker 1: I'm still living here, because that will make going over
Speaker 1: the moorial bridge, which I did twice today in Nightmare. Next,
Speaker 1: this is Saudi Arabia story, the LIV golf tournament. Now
Speaker 1: I have not followed this closely, the whole LIV controversy,
Speaker 1: but the Saudis are pulling the rugout, and you suggested
Speaker 1: to me this is just the first bubble coming to
Speaker 1: the top of the water of GCC golf, a coordinating
Speaker 1: council money being withdrawn from extravagance. Is that a good
Speaker 1: way to put it? Yeah, I think.
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't think anybody cares that the Sods
Speaker 2: have pulled the plug on Live. I don't think anybody
Speaker 2: really cared about the live golf tour. But the war,
Speaker 2: you know, they'll turn down. The downturn in revenues from
Speaker 2: oil and from tourism have caused the GCC states to
Speaker 2: pull back, and the question because there's such you know,
Speaker 2: large investors in the American innovation economy, if you will,
Speaker 2: particularly in the AI data server compute space, that if
Speaker 2: they pull back, that could have significant impact on the
Speaker 2: buildout of the infrastructure for artificial intelligence. There is I
Speaker 2: think I don't think anybody disagrees that there is a
Speaker 2: sort of reckoning coming, a shakeout coming in the AI
Speaker 2: infrastructure compute space. If the SuDS and the Emirates and
Speaker 2: stuff start, you know, pulling back their investment in infrastructure
Speaker 2: and compute, then the shakeout will come to us faster
Speaker 2: than it otherwise would.
Speaker 1: And that's that's a big deal. My frequent guest and friend,
Speaker 1: David Monson, I'm not his client, he's not my client,
Speaker 1: but I do turn them for economic advice. There is
Speaker 1: a AI shakeout coming. This will accelerate it. There will
Speaker 1: be winners, but there will be a lot of losers.
Speaker 1: You better you're in Las Vegas when you're investing in AI. Finally, John,
Speaker 1: let's talk about this is the most important story. I
Speaker 1: want people to hear it here. First, al Qaeda is
Speaker 1: taking over a large swath of the Sahl, including Mali,
Speaker 1: and they beat the Russians to do so this is
Speaker 1: this is worse than Afghanistan. Really they got more assets there.
Speaker 1: Explain Well, it's.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean the Mali is resource rich, as they say,
Speaker 2: and the Russians have been making a you know, fairly
Speaker 2: significant move to ingratiate themselves with the junta if you will,
Speaker 2: in Mali and sending mercenaries to protect the hunt and
Speaker 2: its leadership, and you know, basically trying to make it
Speaker 2: a client state.
Speaker 1: Uh and al Qaeda, a form of.
Speaker 2: Al Qaeda, an offshoot of al Qaeda, has is at
Speaker 2: the capitol gates, so to speak. I mean, it's a
Speaker 2: little bit like Afghanistan during the Biden administration. So if
Speaker 2: if in fact Mali falls, it will be an enormous
Speaker 2: defeat for mister Putin and mister Putin's inability to win
Speaker 2: the Ukraine war to be you know, it's a they
Speaker 2: have a huge military advantage and they're not gaining ground.
Speaker 2: Put those two together, and I think mister Putin's tenure
Speaker 2: is you know, at risk.
Speaker 1: I really do. I think.
Speaker 2: I think the combination of Mali and Ukraine could be
Speaker 2: his Afghanistan.
Speaker 1: The tyrant in the Kremlin cannot be wearing his crown
Speaker 1: very easily right now, so uneasily. You also know that
Speaker 1: to me that the May Day Parade is going to
Speaker 1: be sort of a third of a parade, not really
Speaker 1: the May Day parade that they usually have in Russia. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well we always see it on TV. Right you have
Speaker 1: all these.
Speaker 2: Missiles and tanks and troops and they all march through,
Speaker 2: you know, by the Kremlin, and it's a huge thing
Speaker 2: that's dating back to you know, the Soviet Union days,
Speaker 2: great show of force and strength and so on and
Speaker 2: so forth. And because the Ukraine Ukraine military has been
Speaker 2: able to penetrate so deeply into Russia that they've scaled.
Speaker 1: The whole thing down.
Speaker 2: No missiles, no tanks, and very few soldiers. It's a
Speaker 2: sparse Victory Day parade. And I think telling that it
Speaker 2: has to be that way, we ever talent, you know,
Speaker 2: it shouldn't.
Speaker 1: It shouldn't have to be that way. Putin cannot be
Speaker 1: happy right now. John Ellis, as always, thank you following
Speaker 1: at Ellis Items. If you want all your news in
Speaker 1: one place in one newsletter every morning, subscribe to news Items.
Speaker 1: Google news items in John Ellis and you'll get there,
Speaker 1: or news items dot subseat dot com. It really is
Speaker 1: your one stop shopping center for all the news that
Speaker 1: matters at six am in the morning. It covers the world.
Speaker 1: Thank you, John, be right back with Elila. Stay tuned.
Speaker 1: I'm joined now by Eli Lake, who is a correspondent
Speaker 1: for The Free Press, the host of the Breaking History podcast. Eli,
Speaker 1: let me tell you. I could spend the entire segment
Speaker 1: talking about your new Breaking History on the misinformation campaign
Speaker 1: in Great Britain. I found that that's fascinating where I
Speaker 1: could talk to you about Graham Platner. But instead I
Speaker 1: got to focus on a story in the Atlantic and
Speaker 1: the general world around it. Yesterday, Nancy Yusef and Jonathan
Speaker 1: Lemire published in the Atlantic the Iran Wars ramifications have
Speaker 1: only just begun subtitle US goals have not been met,
Speaker 1: but the war will cause long term disruption. And they
Speaker 1: quote a friend of the radio program, Richard Haas, and
Speaker 1: he's a smart guy, saying, even if Iran does not
Speaker 1: have explicit control of this trait, there is now always
Speaker 1: an implicit measure of control. Because they have shut it once,
Speaker 1: now they know they can do so again. Now, Eli,
Speaker 1: that's just dumb, and Richard's not dumb. North Korea didn't
Speaker 1: invade South Korea a second time. I got all sorts
Speaker 1: of you know, Egypt in Syria never invaded Israel a
Speaker 1: second time after the Mkipor war. It doesn't happen that
Speaker 1: way just because they do it. They've been crushed, they've
Speaker 1: been smashed. So how do you explain the defeatism or
Speaker 1: Iran's won a secret victory that permeates the left and
Speaker 1: people like Richard Oz.
Speaker 3: It's hard to understand because I keep going back to
Speaker 3: the reason why we're doing it, which is that the
Speaker 3: war is about making sure Iran doesn't have a conventional
Speaker 3: shield so that it can race for a nuclear weapon, a.
Speaker 1: Full stop yep. So everything else in between.
Speaker 3: Yes, it's important that Iran doesn't charge tolls on the
Speaker 3: straight up her moves and doesn't control it. I think
Speaker 3: that that is eminently militarily possible. My senses that we'll
Speaker 3: be seeing more on this very soon. But the big
Speaker 3: thing here is to make sure a bunch of fanatics
Speaker 3: in Tehran do not have nuclear weapons. In that respect,
Speaker 3: mission accomplished.
Speaker 1: Agree, But everywhere I turn I see narratives like this.
Speaker 1: They're coming from the New York Times, the Atlantic center right,
Speaker 1: people like Richard Hassu may have a twinge of TDS,
Speaker 1: and it's just it's defying logic. Now, Mat Connetti has
Speaker 1: a peach in the Wall Street Journal today, we have
Speaker 1: to force the straight of hormones. People can argue about tactics,
Speaker 1: but there's no arguing we crushed the Iranian military. They
Speaker 1: don't have any offensive power. They just have terrorism power.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they do have a few missiles left and those
Speaker 3: and they have some drones and they You're right, it
Speaker 3: is that they can.
Speaker 1: They can.
Speaker 3: They can be vandals, they can be like terrorists, but
Speaker 3: they do not have the strategic to terrance that a
Speaker 3: nuclear weapon or being a nuclear breakoup power would give them.
Speaker 3: And meanwhile, their economy is in free fall. And that is,
Speaker 3: you know, not because of the sanctions entirely, it's because
Speaker 3: of their own corruption. And I'm still not counting out
Speaker 3: the Iranian people. I know, I might be the last one.
Speaker 1: I know.
Speaker 3: It's not sort I think, I think in some ways
Speaker 3: what happened here. Another explanation is that we've never seen
Speaker 3: a war begin like this, other than what the Israelis
Speaker 3: kind of did to Hezbollah at one point, to the Emmy.
Speaker 3: But the ability without any ground troops to start a
Speaker 3: war taking out the political and military leadership, like literally
Speaker 3: within a few minutes, like in the in the first move.
Speaker 3: That's never been done before. And I think that people
Speaker 3: cannot be blamed for thinking, wow, we've never seen that before,
Speaker 3: or maybe the Iranian regime should fall. It didn't fall.
Speaker 3: It was resilient. But all this, like I told you,
Speaker 3: so they would Nobody knew that they were going to
Speaker 3: necessarily survive, that they would be able to restore their
Speaker 3: command and control. But that was not the war aim.
Speaker 1: You know, it's two months, so that's the key thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like two months. We had the Battle of Castarine
Speaker 1: Pass was our first major battle with Rommel got our
Speaker 1: rear ends kicked all over North Africa that told, and
Speaker 1: we haven't lost anything here. They just haven't collapsed. But
Speaker 1: just because we lost the Battle of Castering Passed, it
Speaker 1: meanwharire I'll lose North Africa, Italy, Normandy or the bat
Speaker 1: It's nuts and it the only I can come up
Speaker 1: with is like when the Democratic establishment turned against Vietnam
Speaker 1: as soon as Jack Kennedy was dead and they had
Speaker 1: sufficient INTERVOWSS A little bit after that, Yeah, and then
Speaker 1: I mean, it.
Speaker 3: Was like sixty six to sixty seven is when they
Speaker 3: start turning on it for real, when Bobby Kennedy turns
Speaker 3: on him.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, And so this time it accelerated to two months.
Speaker 1: But I don't think the American public are well served
Speaker 1: by Doom saying we're crushing it, and I think their
Speaker 1: economy is going to collapse. I'm fairly confident that this
Speaker 1: will end with a neutered regime. I don't know what
Speaker 1: it looks like, but they.
Speaker 3: Have to neuterd I think I wouldn't give the current crowd.
Speaker 3: I think eventually in the short ter, medium term there through.
Speaker 1: But we also kind of.
Speaker 3: Know q why there is so much of a rooting
Speaker 3: interest against it and to try to kind of create
Speaker 3: a phony conventional wisdom of the war was a failure.
Speaker 3: Because if the war was a success, what does that
Speaker 3: tell us about the signature foreign policy initiative of a
Speaker 3: Barack Obama and the Democrats, The JCPOA, the nuclear deal, but.
Speaker 1: That there is a way, there.
Speaker 3: Is a way to contain Iran's nuclear program without giving
Speaker 3: them gazillions of dollars in pallets of cash, which they did.
Speaker 3: They used to supercharge their ring of fire around Israel
Speaker 3: and their their terrorist proxies. So I think this is
Speaker 3: a little bit of kind of you know, getting out
Speaker 3: in front of what they understand to be historically will
Speaker 3: be an embarrassing story. Many people built their careers and
Speaker 3: reputations on the JCPOA, and this is the we're in
Speaker 3: the process right now. At least I think of showing
Speaker 3: that the JCPOA was a mistake and there was another
Speaker 3: way there was a military solution.
Speaker 1: Not only a mistake a disaster, because it allowed the
Speaker 1: funding of has At, allowed the funding of moss which
Speaker 1: led it to and it didn't have to happen. Maximum
Speaker 1: pressure could have done it. That there is no legacy
Speaker 1: of the Obama years his Obamacare failed. Now that JCPOA
Speaker 1: is revealed as a monumental mistake. It was a phantasm
Speaker 1: for the whole time. Tom Cotton was right. And if
Speaker 1: Trump wins, this is a world historical event. I don't
Speaker 1: know how anyone's going to be able to deny it. Right,
Speaker 1: it's a new.
Speaker 3: Middle East if this war goes as I think it
Speaker 3: will eventually, it's a new Middle East. Israel has proven
Speaker 3: that it is a now a regional superpower in every sense,
Speaker 3: it doesn't have the aircraft carriers, but it has the
Speaker 3: ability to send its you know, air force over one
Speaker 3: thousand miles away and take out the leadership of another regime.
Speaker 3: That's what it did. That speaks louder than anything else.
Speaker 3: Everybody knows it, and you're already kind of seeing the
Speaker 3: alignments forming in the aftermath of ua E getting out
Speaker 3: of OPEC and all that. These are the ramifications of
Speaker 3: a huge hinge of history moment. So again I think
Speaker 3: it's not over until the regime falls. But I also
Speaker 3: think the regime probably is going to fall. But in
Speaker 3: terms of this war, the bottom line is is that
Speaker 3: the military has been neutered, the nuclear program has been
Speaker 3: turned into rubble.
Speaker 1: Shuttered and shuddered, and I think people are going to
Speaker 1: be embarrassed by what they write and say to the contrary,
Speaker 1: and not for very It won't take very long. However,
Speaker 1: I do want to tell everyone the new Breaking History
Speaker 1: is fabulous. It makes me worry about the Five Eyes program,
Speaker 1: and I hope you think about that. I don't know
Speaker 1: that we can trust the nsay of Great Britain when
Speaker 1: I read listening to Breaking History, Eli Lake, thank you
Speaker 1: Stay tuned in America. Welcome back in America. I'm Heugh Hewittt,
Speaker 1: joined now by Matt Continetti. Matt is at the American
Speaker 1: Enterprise Institute, where he oversees domestic policy studies. He's also
Speaker 1: a calumnist for the Wall Street Journal and their Free
Speaker 1: Expressions Vertical. His very excellent column today, Time to Force
Speaker 1: Open the Strait of Horror Moved, begins quite simply. Sometime soon,
Speaker 1: President Trump will open the strait of war moves. He
Speaker 1: has no other choice. Matt, Welcome. I agree with you,
Speaker 1: but I think he has time on his side. He
Speaker 1: also sent a letter to Congress today to sort of
Speaker 1: sidestep the War Powers Act, which he doesn't think is constitutional.
Speaker 1: Neither do I. But when does he have to open
Speaker 1: the strait of war moves?
Speaker 4: Well, Hugh, I think he needs to do it before June,
Speaker 4: to be honest. I mean, this war has been extremely
Speaker 4: effective in defanging the Iranian regime, in knocking out the
Speaker 4: Iranian leadership, command and control, in reducing the Iranian nuclear
Speaker 4: program to rubble. But it's exacted an economic cost on
Speaker 4: the world and in the United States and the rising
Speaker 4: gasoline prices, and that in turn has affected President Trump's
Speaker 4: political standing, and so I think the clearest way to
Speaker 4: change the momentum or the lack of momentum in this conflict,
Speaker 4: the standstill we seem to be in, is to prove
Speaker 4: to the world that the United States will not allow
Speaker 4: Iran to hold a veto over the Strait of Hormuz,
Speaker 4: and that might require us to go back into combat
Speaker 4: operations for a short period of time so that we
Speaker 4: can prepare the ground for a naval escort operation. We've
Speaker 4: done it before in the Tanker War. We can do
Speaker 4: it again. And once we deny Iran this leverage that
Speaker 4: they've held over us, they will be truly, truly broken.
Speaker 1: Now I agree with all of that, and I think
Speaker 1: we're going to do the kinetic option as well as
Speaker 1: continue the blockade because they're staggering and they're broke. But
Speaker 1: I want to contrast what you wrote, which was optimistic
Speaker 1: about the result, with a quote by Richard Haas a
Speaker 1: smart Guy in an Atlantic article yesterday. Richard is quoted
Speaker 1: as saying, even if Iran does not have explicit control,
Speaker 1: there's now always an implicit measure of control. Because they
Speaker 1: have shut it once, now they know they can do
Speaker 1: it again. That's just silly. North Korea didn't invade South
Speaker 1: Korea a second time. Sadam didn't go back into kuwaita
Speaker 1: second time. Egypt didn't invade across as so as in
Speaker 1: Israel a second time. When you get smacked and crushed,
Speaker 1: you don't do things at second time, do you.
Speaker 4: No, you don't. And the Iranian regime's capabilities have been
Speaker 4: dramatically damaged by the war. But at the same time,
Speaker 4: we know just from all these commercial vessels that are
Speaker 4: stopped up in the Gulf there that they're worried that
Speaker 4: if they try to traverse the Strait of Hermus without
Speaker 4: paying an Iranian toll and flying the flag that is
Speaker 4: aligned with a US partner rather than an Iranian partner,
Speaker 4: they'll be fired upon, they'll be intercepted, they'll be struck
Speaker 4: by a mine, They'll have to encounter a fast boat.
Speaker 4: And I just believe that America, as a superpower, cannot
Speaker 4: allow that to happen. It's been an American interest since
Speaker 4: the seventeen eighties, right after our founding, to ensure the
Speaker 4: free flow of commerce across the global commons, air, se
Speaker 4: in space. And if we allow Iran to hold this
Speaker 4: veto over the Strait of Hermuz. It will send a
Speaker 4: signal to China that they could potentially create toll booths
Speaker 4: across the straight the Taiwan Strait in any conflict there.
Speaker 4: So we have to open it up, and I think
Speaker 4: that's a three stage process we've already started. The first
Speaker 4: stage is the blockade. The blockade is working. The blockade's fantastic,
Speaker 4: but it doesn't solve the problem of the strait. In
Speaker 4: order to solve the problem of the strait, you're going
Speaker 4: to need to destroy the missile and drone teams that
Speaker 4: are along the coast. You're going to need a clear,
Speaker 4: safe passage, which I believe we're already starting to do,
Speaker 4: and then you're going to have to escort some of
Speaker 4: these vessels and prove to the world that with United
Speaker 4: States naval assets on your flanks, you can get through
Speaker 4: the Strait of Hormuz safe and sound. What that will
Speaker 4: do is it won't restore gas prices immediately to where
Speaker 4: they were before the war, but it will send a
Speaker 4: positive signal to markets. It will set the positive signal
Speaker 4: to the world, and we'll send a single to the
Speaker 4: Iranians that they have no more cards to play that
Speaker 4: the game is over, and we're going to allow safe
Speaker 4: passage through the Strait, whether they like it or not.
Speaker 4: And if they try to interfere, they will pay the price.
Speaker 4: Not our allies, not these people who are simply trying
Speaker 4: to send goods through the strait.
Speaker 1: No matter you a chess player, I am okay, So
Speaker 1: can you tell when you've lost when it's like twenty
Speaker 1: moves down the road? Or can you tell when you've
Speaker 1: won when it's not that good of a chess player.
Speaker 4: It's more like for me, it's like maybe five moves.
Speaker 1: Okay, I have a terrible chess player, but I used
Speaker 1: to play across the hall in college where the guy
Speaker 1: give me.
Speaker 4: The plastic chess player not a very good one.
Speaker 1: Well, my view is this game is over. For anyone
Speaker 1: who can see twenty moves down the road. Iran has
Speaker 1: a lot they've lost badly. That regime is doomed. But
Speaker 1: if you're only looking at the board right now and
Speaker 1: you do know how to play, you don't know that
Speaker 1: the game is over. And that's or you don't want
Speaker 1: it to be over. You don't want Donald Trump to win.
Speaker 1: And we'll talk about that during the break with Matt Continetti.
Speaker 1: Don't go anywhere America. Matt will be on the other
Speaker 1: side as well. Stay tuned. I that you do a show.
Speaker 1: So I'm back with Matt Continetti of the Wall Street
Speaker 1: Journal AEI So, Matt, what about my analogy. I think
Speaker 1: this regime is going to collapse because like bankruptcy, it
Speaker 1: happened slowly and then all at once. There's no money.
Speaker 1: We're taking their tankers off the sea in the Indian Ocean.
Speaker 1: They're not getting revenue, they're not getting food. They've got
Speaker 1: trucks going to China and to Turkey. But you can't
Speaker 1: beat ninety two million people that way, and you can't
Speaker 1: get gasoline that way. How long can it stagger on? Oh?
Speaker 4: Not that long. I think a matter of weeks or
Speaker 4: possibly one or two months. You know, the Wall Street
Speaker 4: Journal reported this week you that the Iranian economy is
Speaker 4: in a death spiral. Yes, the Iranian economy was already
Speaker 4: in terrible shape before the blockade. The blockade seems to
Speaker 4: have truly enacted terrible damage on the Iranian economy and
Speaker 4: the economy, especially these oil revenues through the shadow fleet,
Speaker 4: which are blockade is intercepting. That's the lifeblood of the regime.
Speaker 4: That's what pays the IRGC soldiers and the regular soldiers.
Speaker 4: So we cut that off. The Iranians really don't have
Speaker 4: any means to finance their offensive capabilities, which we've already
Speaker 4: largely taken off the table, and the apparatus of repression
Speaker 4: which has been keeping the people down. So yes, I
Speaker 4: think the game is over for the Iranian regime, but
Speaker 4: they're still dangerous and they're still holding one fifth of
Speaker 4: the world's oil market hostage. And that's that's why I
Speaker 4: think the United States need to come to the rescue.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a very expensive confrontation, but it's one in
Speaker 1: which the United States and the West will prevail. I'm
Speaker 1: wondering before we come back on the network, Matt, mister Bahadi,
Speaker 1: who is ahead of them, into how easy riot lies
Speaker 1: his head, because when things get tough, there's got to
Speaker 1: be like when law firms break up, people whisper in
Speaker 1: the hallways about who's going with who, but they're not
Speaker 1: going to kill each other. When this is a situation
Speaker 1: where he could walk into a room someday and they
Speaker 1: just say you're done. We're making a deal with Trump,
Speaker 1: And that got to be an ever present problem for
Speaker 1: this regime.
Speaker 4: Well, for everyone involved. I think more likely the people
Speaker 4: without the guns are especially worrying about who might come
Speaker 4: for them next. But when you have a situation where
Speaker 4: the forty top leaders were all taken out in the
Speaker 4: first seconds of the conflict, where the Ayatola is in
Speaker 4: hiding in hospital, no one's heard from him, has seen
Speaker 4: him since the opening day of the conflict, And you
Speaker 4: have this Fahdi, the head of the IRGC, he has
Speaker 4: all the guns. And then you have the so called
Speaker 4: political leaders. They have some of the guns, but maybe
Speaker 4: not that many. I think there's a lot of conflict
Speaker 4: within the regime right now over what to do. I
Speaker 4: think they're negotiating with themselves. I think that's a bad
Speaker 4: position for Iran to be in, and that's why the
Speaker 4: blockade is such an essential tool here. So yeah, I'd
Speaker 4: be worried. I'd also be worried, of course, you know
Speaker 4: Israel has Iran penetrated so deeply. Yes, in terms of intelligence,
Speaker 4: none of these leaders can rest easy at night.
Speaker 1: That's for sure that we're coming back on the network.
Speaker 1: But take that one to the bank too, mister BHD
Speaker 1: has got to be sleeping in a different bed every night,
Speaker 1: stay tuned in America, Welcome back in America, and hew it
Speaker 1: with Matt conton any of the Wall Street Journal and
Speaker 1: of AEI. Matt, I understand that half of America doesn't
Speaker 1: like Donald Trump to a great degree, including his policies,
Speaker 1: his intemperance sometime, and his aesthetic. I understand that. I
Speaker 1: get it. Graham Platner is a different issue. I spent
Speaker 1: most of you today's show talking about Graham Plattner and
Speaker 1: going over it, and a listener Jewish man sent me
Speaker 1: in out saying I just sent one thousand dollars to
Speaker 1: Susancollins dot com to stop the jew hater. And I
Speaker 1: mean that is play Braunt, but that's true. I think
Speaker 1: Grand Platner is a Ani semi. What do you think
Speaker 1: about that candidacy and what it says about American politics.
Speaker 4: Well, doesn't say anything good about American politics. You the
Speaker 4: ease with which Bernie Sanders anti Israel socialism, which easily
Speaker 4: slides into anti Semitism, is taking over the Democratic Party
Speaker 4: is greatly alarming. I mean, when you look at the
Speaker 4: candidacy of Zoramamdani and now Mayor of New York City,
Speaker 4: you look at the fact that you had forty four
Speaker 4: Democratic Senators vote against sending bombs and bulldozers to Israel
Speaker 4: at Bernie Sanders behest just the other week. Now you
Speaker 4: see Graham Plattner winning the Democratic nomination before a single
Speaker 4: vote is cast, you have to be greatly alarmed at
Speaker 4: the direction of the Democratic Party. The rise of socialism
Speaker 4: within the Democratic Party is one of the great undercovered
Speaker 4: stories of our time. It began even before Trump arrived
Speaker 4: on the scene, but Trump has greatly accelerated it. And
Speaker 4: it's it's bad for the country, first of all, because
Speaker 4: socialism is inherently destructive. But it's also very bad for
Speaker 4: the Democrats. These aren't your parents' Democrats, are not my parents' Democrats.
Speaker 4: You It's a different party that is animated by open borders,
Speaker 4: by socialism, by hostility to Israel, by hostility to the West,
Speaker 4: to the United States, all of our principles in history
Speaker 4: and traditions, and Grand Platner represents that. And just think,
Speaker 4: I mean, if you are supporting Platner because you're anti Trump,
Speaker 4: don't forget he's running against Susan Collins. It's a moderate Republican.
Speaker 4: It's been there forever, you know, and that shows you
Speaker 4: if you're willing to vote for Platner, you're willing to
Speaker 4: vote for anyone.
Speaker 1: I know, meaning pretty well. I've spent a few summers
Speaker 1: there in a number of vacations. They're very gracious people.
Speaker 1: It's a very mild state. It's crunchy, very crunchy, especially
Speaker 1: around Portland. But in Angus King and Susan Collins, you've
Speaker 1: got the most conservative Democrat and the most liberal Republican,
Speaker 1: and together they wield extraordinary power. They're both on the
Speaker 1: Senate Intelligence Committee, by the way, which means that they
Speaker 1: enjoy the respect of their colleagues immensely because that's the
Speaker 1: secret committee that nobody else knows about except the members
Speaker 1: of the committee, so they're very well trusted. I think
Speaker 1: there are two strains, the old Bernie Sanders socialism strain
Speaker 1: that's never bothered me. That's wacky, Ben and Jerry Vermont
Speaker 1: left wing economics that don't work. The anti Semitic, anti
Speaker 1: Jew stuff bothers me greatly. Grand Platner is outside of
Speaker 1: the level of up. He is like Nick Flints. He
Speaker 1: is as though, you know, Republicans have turned up a
Speaker 1: few candidates in our past decade like Christine whatever her
Speaker 1: name was in Delaware. I am not a witch. They're
Speaker 1: just outside the norm. This guy is very, very ominous.
Speaker 1: How ominous.
Speaker 4: Well, he pretends this poortends at potential red green alliance
Speaker 4: and alliance between socialists and Islamists, and we see that
Speaker 4: happening in Europe, and we don't want that to happen
Speaker 4: in America. But the types of rhetoric that Graham Platner
Speaker 4: has used about Israel, the type of people he's talked
Speaker 4: to about Jews, the very fact that he wears a
Speaker 4: tattoo affiliated with not just Nazism, but an SS unit
Speaker 4: on his chest, that is that's extremely disturbing. It should
Speaker 4: be to anybody, including including Democrats.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 4: So I think I think those two wings though that
Speaker 4: you describe Hugh, they're joining. They're joining under Sanders's aegis.
Speaker 4: You know, Sanders invited these Chinese AI scientists to the
Speaker 4: summit that he had on AI and you and he's
Speaker 4: saying that we should listen to the Chinese scientists and
Speaker 4: get what. Guess what the Chinese scientists are telling Americans
Speaker 4: stop developing AI. Who does that help?
Speaker 5: No?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 4: And then this case where Barney Frank Barney Frank, of
Speaker 4: all people, is saying that the Democratic Party has moved
Speaker 4: too far to the left.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: When that happens, you know something has gone wrong.
Speaker 1: I've known Barney for sixty years. Yeah, that is kind
Speaker 1: of shocked. That is shocking because Barney Frank was a
Speaker 1: liberals liberal. But here's my real question. If the legacy
Speaker 1: media will swing into action here? They took apart Todd
Speaker 1: ake and we had a couple of candidates, one in
Speaker 1: Missouri and one in Indiana. One talked about legitimate rape
Speaker 1: and it was the only story we ever heard about.
Speaker 1: The other one taught I can't remember what the other
Speaker 1: extremists position was. And they were both out of the
Speaker 1: race before you could know it, and they were they
Speaker 1: were ruined. Will the legacy media, actually I asked the
Speaker 1: Eleana Johnson if she'd done the work yet. But will
Speaker 1: the legacy media dig into his Reddit stuff? Or is
Speaker 1: that just all okay because it's Trumps he's a Democrat.
Speaker 1: We got to get the Senate back and pack the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court.
Speaker 4: I think you see a lot of sanewashing happening of
Speaker 4: Graham Platner. I mean, you have Chuck Schumer saying that
Speaker 4: they're going to back him, which is just incredible to behold.
Speaker 4: You have Obama Bros. Saying oh, well, he's just misunderstood.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 4: I think you'll see some of that in the media
Speaker 4: as well. So we can't depend on the media to
Speaker 4: show Grand Platner for what he is. There's a true
Speaker 4: threat to America and too and too into the American
Speaker 4: Jews and the people who support them. But you're gonna
Speaker 4: have to look to the main to the to the
Speaker 4: alternative media. You're gonna have to look to places like
Speaker 4: the Washington Free Beacon and look, Susan Collins is a
Speaker 4: very effective politician.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah.
Speaker 4: Even if The New York Times doesn't inform the people
Speaker 4: of Maine about her opponent's record, she will make sure
Speaker 4: that they know all about him, and not just on
Speaker 4: Israel and Jews, but on medicare, for all about comments
Speaker 4: he's made about women, his general radicalism in all areas.
Speaker 4: I don't think main voters at the end of the day,
Speaker 4: are going to be tempted to choose Graham Platner, no
Speaker 4: matter how much they may be disappointed in President Trump.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's not really profane and vulgar. I really think
Speaker 1: he stretches every norm in America. He shatters every norm.
Speaker 1: But we only care about norms when Donald Trump's involved, apparently,
Speaker 1: Graham Platner, come on in Matt Connetty great column today
Speaker 1: and the Wall Street Journal. Follow Matt at Continetti on X.
Speaker 1: You want to subscribe to the Journal and the Free
Speaker 1: Expressions Vertical because it's got great new stuff in it
Speaker 1: every single day. The journal is changing with the times,
Speaker 1: and they are They're just adding resources every day. Thank you, Matt,
Speaker 1: have a great weekend. Don't go anywhere America. Got lots
Speaker 1: coming up in hour number two, including Ben Dominic right
Speaker 1: here on the UEWIT Show. Thank you for listening to
Speaker 1: highly concentrated Hugh, and don't forget. One of our great
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Speaker 1: Hugh jen.
Speaker 4: Star.
Speaker 1: Welcome back, America. I'm Hugh Ewett. That's Norman Desmond in
Speaker 1: Sunset Boulevard, and I'm playing it for Ben Dominic, host
Speaker 1: of the Big Ben Podcast, opinion page editor at The
Speaker 1: Daily Wire. Do you know why I'm playing in Norman Desmond?
Speaker 5: Ben, I'm sorry you're gonna have to give me the
Speaker 5: contact for this one.
Speaker 1: Well, yesterday on the Big Ben Podcast, you were talking
Speaker 1: about the reaction of the White House correspond Association dinner,
Speaker 1: and how among a certain class, people like oh, Taylor Lorenz,
Speaker 1: the wacky Oh it didn't happen, it was staged mantra started,
Speaker 1: and I began to think about whether or not people
Speaker 1: like Jim Acosta and Don Lemon and Taylor Rent they
Speaker 1: lose their platforms and they go full normal Desmond, they
Speaker 1: lose their minds.
Speaker 5: What do you think phenomenal comparison? Yes, I think that's perfect,
Speaker 5: you know, especially especially because you know, if you think
Speaker 5: about it, it's like, I mean, you could play out
Speaker 5: the final scene there just with ring lights, yes, the
Speaker 5: camera flash bulls. Look, I think you know the reaction
Speaker 5: that they showed to this latest assassination attempt, which it
Speaker 5: clearly was. I mean, there is no doubt about it.
Speaker 5: There's no doubt about the motives. There's no doubt about
Speaker 5: why this guy, you know, took a train across country
Speaker 5: and what he intended to do. We're very fortunate that
Speaker 5: he did a very bad job of it. But I
Speaker 5: think at the same time, the thing that actually takes
Speaker 5: that they should sun people, that they should take away
Speaker 5: from this is one how much his complaints echo the
Speaker 5: complaints of people like Don Lemon and Jim Acosta about
Speaker 5: the press. There really is no you know, sort of
Speaker 5: uniquely crazy thing that this guy was upset about that
Speaker 5: separates him from your run of the mill left of center,
Speaker 5: uh you know, Trump critic, reporter turned substacker. And I
Speaker 5: think that at the same time, the other thing that
Speaker 5: we should be still, I mean, at this point, I
Speaker 5: should not be surprised by this. There's you know, there's
Speaker 5: a gambling in this place. Now. The thing that I
Speaker 5: think is is that we should be surprised at is
Speaker 5: there was not even a day before everybody got back
Speaker 5: to their places again. On the Democratic side, there was
Speaker 5: not even them, yeah, I mean, there was no hesitancy
Speaker 5: for them to go back to using the same rhetoric,
Speaker 5: the same Katie Porter's you know, campaign sending out the
Speaker 5: same you know kind of you know, uh expletive laden
Speaker 5: promotional email for her campaign and that kind of thing.
Speaker 5: There was no hesitancy on that. At least when Butler happened,
Speaker 5: there was some kind of pause for a few days
Speaker 5: where where the left seemed like, oh, you know, gosh,
Speaker 5: maybe we really overdid this Hitler thing, you know, and
Speaker 5: people will try to start treating him like Hitler, and
Speaker 5: now they're just right back to it, and they will
Speaker 5: be back to it, and they'll go it all the
Speaker 5: way along as they're promoting a guy who actually had
Speaker 5: a tattoo on his chest.
Speaker 1: Speaking of him, Senator Chris van Holland was asked about
Speaker 1: him by Jake Sherman, Ann and Palmer today and the
Speaker 1: Nazi tattoo, cutting number eleven.
Speaker 6: In my view, we need somebody who will shake things up,
Speaker 6: and Plattner has clearly proven himself to be somebody who can,
Speaker 6: you know, grab the attention of a lot of voters,
Speaker 6: and not just Democrats.
Speaker 1: But that's the good part. Now, cut number ten. The
Speaker 1: dude hasn't not had a Nazi tattoo.
Speaker 4: I mean, let's be clear about what's going on here.
Speaker 4: I mean, is that how.
Speaker 1: Do you view that?
Speaker 4: I mean, it seems it seems to be at least.
Speaker 1: Somewhat disqualifying and traditional certainly historial. Look, I mean, let's.
Speaker 6: Take a couple issues, including the comments he's made in
Speaker 6: the past. I mean, he's been very clear that he
Speaker 6: went into combat behind the United States, he went through
Speaker 6: a really rough period PTSD type period, and he is
Speaker 6: himself said there are lots of things he's done and
Speaker 6: said that.
Speaker 1: Ben, we want to add to the pile of things
Speaker 1: he's sung and said the Free Bacon has an article
Speaker 1: up right now. Working class may Or Graham Platner got
Speaker 1: two hundred thousand dollars from his father to baya his house.
Speaker 1: Record show. He now claims you relied on veterans benefits.
Speaker 1: It's not going to stop with this guy.
Speaker 5: Look, this is the thing that I'm going to put
Speaker 5: a warning out there for any Democrats who are listening
Speaker 5: to this. Everything that you saw at of this point
Speaker 5: in terms of opposition research that was coming out of
Speaker 5: that Platner was from Democrats, elite Democrats who were worried
Speaker 5: that if he was the nominee, Susan Collins, who even
Speaker 5: in a rough cycle, has shown the ability in close
Speaker 5: races to win Maine, would be able to pull it
Speaker 5: out against him. And now you've you've major bet, you've
Speaker 5: chosen and this guy, the people in your party have
Speaker 5: chosen this guy. He's raised a ton of money, he's got,
Speaker 5: you know, a big email list, he's got a big following,
Speaker 5: he's got people who say that he's part of this
Speaker 5: class of younger you know, just listen to Van Holland.
Speaker 5: You know he's talking about how the oh he's inspired
Speaker 5: people and that kind of thing. Okay with what okay
Speaker 5: with the kind of rhetorics that he had online, with
Speaker 5: the kind of things that he's said and done in
Speaker 5: the past. I just think that for Democrats you should
Speaker 5: be prepared. There's going to be a lot more stuff
Speaker 5: that comes out about this guy. You can just sense it,
Speaker 5: and you can.
Speaker 1: And there's goin to be blow back. Yes last I
Speaker 1: did a sean him yesterday and a listener sent a
Speaker 1: thousand dollars this Susan Collins dot com and said, I
Speaker 1: sent a thousand dollars this Susan Collins dot com to
Speaker 1: stop the jew hater. That's it in a nutshell. That's
Speaker 1: it in a nutshell. I'll be right back with Ben Dominic's
Speaker 1: during the breaking on the other side, don't go anywhere.
Speaker 1: We got lots to talk about. So I'm back with
Speaker 1: Ben Dominis. Ben Charles CW. Cook, in his inimitable fashion, said, look,
Speaker 1: there three buckets of would be killers. There are the
Speaker 1: mad people, absolutely insane mad as I had. Are people
Speaker 1: like the guy who killed Judge Roll and wounded Gabby Giffords.
Speaker 1: Then there are the religious Islamist nuts who like the
Speaker 1: disco in Florida, the Pulse Disco, and then there are
Speaker 1: political people. And it ought not to be difficult to classify.
Speaker 1: However it is. How do you classify? I'm sure you
Speaker 1: remember the comment Ping Pong pizza shooter of ten years
Speaker 1: ago he got four years. Did you know that he
Speaker 1: only got four years?
Speaker 5: Yes, I do remember it being shorter, a shorter time
Speaker 5: than people anticipated. I mean I would put him in
Speaker 5: the category of political flash crazy. Little from column a
Speaker 5: little from columb you know. But the thing that I
Speaker 5: think you hit on there is that we have a
Speaker 5: new avenue of radicalization which actually has a lot in
Speaker 5: common with the second category that you mentioned there, which
Speaker 5: is the religious zealot. The of the internet that can
Speaker 5: be has its own kind of It has its own
Speaker 5: lingua franca. It has its own ability to get into
Speaker 5: the minds and become a mind virus for people who
Speaker 5: I think don't have the defenses up against it, don't
Speaker 5: have necessarily that questioning attitude, and that can be as
Speaker 5: powerful of a motivator, I believe as that type of
Speaker 5: religious experience.
Speaker 1: You are so I think you're right, especially if you're
Speaker 1: lonely all day. If you're lonely, if you swim in sewage,
Speaker 1: you're going to get sick. And the sewage can be
Speaker 1: on the right, and it can be on the left.
Speaker 1: It can be powered by former mainstream journalists who have
Speaker 1: got the Norma Desmond effect, or it can be powered
Speaker 1: by Reddit threads. I don't do Reddit, but do you
Speaker 1: think I've been reading John Carl's book Retribution, and it's
Speaker 1: a fine recounting of the campaign. But I get mad
Speaker 1: at Alvin Bragg and Juan Murshan and everything they did
Speaker 1: to try and torture Trump. I get mad at Jane Carroll,
Speaker 1: the absurdity of it all. Do you think that that
Speaker 1: whole circuits made people crazier? Well?
Speaker 5: I think it did. But I also would add one
Speaker 5: more element to this, because I do pay attention to Reddit.
Speaker 5: I actually pay as much attention to Reddit as they
Speaker 5: do to X Wow, And I will tell you you
Speaker 5: have not. It's kind of a halfway point between X
Speaker 5: and Blue Sky. The threads about, just to pick one example,
Speaker 5: Erica Kirk walking out of the White House Correspondence dinner
Speaker 5: and then her response her monologue this week that came
Speaker 5: after that. The threads about her are insane. They are
Speaker 5: absolutely insane, and like they will make Candice Owns sound
Speaker 5: reasonable and measured. Wow, let's put it that way. So
Speaker 5: what I'm telling you is, I think that what we
Speaker 5: have underestimated here is the percentage of people I think
Speaker 5: we've thought of these folks. This is the fringe. This
Speaker 5: is the guy standing on the street corner saying the
Speaker 5: world's going to end tomorrow, and it's not anymore. It's
Speaker 5: like that guy is speaking to a stadium of people
Speaker 5: who also agree with him. And that's the thing that
Speaker 5: I think we don't really understand about the way that
Speaker 5: the gates have been have come down around media and
Speaker 5: the ability of people, especially charismatic people, to message around
Speaker 5: these crazy beliefs.
Speaker 1: It's usan piker. Yeah, stand by, we got we got
Speaker 1: to go back on the network. But you're right, it's
Speaker 1: my gosh, I'm never going on Reddit. You're going to
Speaker 1: have to translate from me. Stand By, Welcome back in America.
Speaker 1: I'm you Hewett. If you listen to podcasts, a Big
Speaker 1: Ben podcast this week with Byron New York is just fabulous.
Speaker 1: It's absolutely fabulous. You want to go and listen to it.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 1: And now I'm going to make a jump to a
Speaker 1: related subject. Bend from the craziness of Reddit and whack adoodle.
Speaker 1: It didn't happen people of the White House courtspond. I'm
Speaker 1: going to turn over to coverage of the Iran War. Yesterday,
Speaker 1: The Atlantic ran a story by Nancy Yusuf and Jonathan
Speaker 1: Lemir headline, the Iran War's ramific have only just begun.
Speaker 1: US goals haven't been met, but the war will cause
Speaker 1: long term disruptions. In this article is quoted a very
Speaker 1: smart guy done on a guest on the show many times.
Speaker 1: Richard Haas might have a touch of TDS. I don't know,
Speaker 1: but Richard says, even if Iran does not have explicit control,
Speaker 1: there is now always an implicit measure of control. Because
Speaker 1: they have shut the straight of arm moves once, now
Speaker 1: they know they can do it again. Now that doesn't
Speaker 1: follow from history, Ben, that's crazy. North Korea didn't invade
Speaker 1: South Korea second time. Saddam didn't go into Kuwait twice.
Speaker 1: Egypt didn't invade Israel a second time after the am
Speaker 1: Kapol War, and it needed in Syria defeated country don't
Speaker 1: do the thing that led to their defeat twice. So
Speaker 1: we're still in the battle. But there is an effort
Speaker 1: by crazy Trump deranged people to say that Iran is
Speaker 1: winning in some way. Do you see this as much
Speaker 1: as I do?
Speaker 5: So here's first off, I completely agree with your frame
Speaker 5: that this is motivated by pds, not by actual analysis
Speaker 5: of the situation. But I also think that you know,
Speaker 5: the truth is this is being played by Democrats and
Speaker 5: by the left, and by people who are in the
Speaker 5: kind of foreign policy blob who still supported the JCPOA
Speaker 5: and were defenders and participants in creating it. In some cases,
Speaker 5: they want to frame this domestically in terms that are
Speaker 5: designed to appeal to people's fears, to play on those fears,
Speaker 5: and to suggest that this is not going the way
Speaker 5: that it actually has been going. The chaos on their side,
Speaker 5: they're fighting amongst each other. They don't even know who's
Speaker 5: in charge day to day. You know, the president himself says,
Speaker 5: you know, you've got two, three, four groups that you're
Speaker 5: talking to, and you don't really know which one is
Speaker 5: the actual one that has control. Does that sound like
Speaker 5: an enemy, a foe that is winning does that sound
Speaker 5: like a like a country that is strong. I don't
Speaker 5: think so at all. And in fact, when it comes
Speaker 5: to what they did here, I truly believe that if
Speaker 5: the there had been the kind of reaction from Europe
Speaker 5: that we had hoped for, that there could have been
Speaker 5: solutions found earlier in this process. But look, they want
Speaker 5: to play this in domestic political terms. They're thinking about
Speaker 5: the midterms. They want to get Republicans scared of the war.
Speaker 5: They want to get Republicans scared to be even talking
Speaker 5: about the war. And what I'm telling you, Hugh, is
Speaker 5: Republicans need to be emphatic that winning this war and
Speaker 5: having an endpoint solution that benefits us and benefits the
Speaker 5: world is something that they are emphatically in favor of.
Speaker 5: They are not going to be able to run away
Speaker 5: from this, and I think they should run toward it instead,
Speaker 5: and they should be all the more emphatic because as
Speaker 5: much as Democrats may want to run on anti war opposition,
Speaker 5: anti you know, sort of American positioning, even in the
Speaker 5: most extreme circumstances, you know, the truth is, I think
Speaker 5: making the case for Iran heading into a midterm is
Speaker 5: not the way to actually you know, it's certainly not
Speaker 5: the way to inspire voters, but I think that it
Speaker 5: plays on an assumption that Donald Trump is not going
Speaker 5: to be able to get out of it, come out
Speaker 5: of this at the end with the deal that he
Speaker 5: believed is good, that is better for the Middle East
Speaker 5: and better for the world. And they're, you know, they're
Speaker 5: really I think, running the risk that they could be
Speaker 5: a very negative position if if you can go back
Speaker 5: and look the point to all these different things that
Speaker 5: they've said about how much this is a disaster and
Speaker 5: a mistake. And I think of Chuck Schumer as kind
Speaker 5: of top of that list.
Speaker 1: And Bed, I don't blame you, You're a busy man.
Speaker 1: I wrote this exact thing yesterday for Fox News that Republicans.
Speaker 1: Republicans have got to put their arms around this war,
Speaker 1: start behind the president. I'm sorry, that's okay. I didn't
Speaker 1: expect you to, but it's exact. I love it when
Speaker 1: I agree with someone they agree with me, and we
Speaker 1: come to that same position via different paths. They Republicans
Speaker 1: cannot run away from this. They can't say I don't know.
Speaker 1: They got to say Iran with a nuclear weapon was
Speaker 1: an unacceptable risk. The President did the right thing. Europe
Speaker 1: is a bunch of yellow, cowardly people that we have
Speaker 1: to now wonder about NATO and we have to ask
Speaker 1: ourselves what is Merg's doing And in the meantime, when
Speaker 1: the Iran collapses, will help the people of Iran. But
Speaker 1: we're not. The blockade is working. I mean, by any
Speaker 1: objective measure, these people are criticizing Donald Trump right now
Speaker 1: would have declared World War two over after we got
Speaker 1: our butts whipped at the Battle of the Castering Pass.
Speaker 1: And we haven't lost anything. We don't have a Castering Pass.
Speaker 1: We've won everything.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So I well, I'm glad we ended up at
Speaker 5: the same point, and I apologize for not even ready
Speaker 5: your peace. But the thing that I think, the thing
Speaker 5: that I think is is critical here for Republican candidates
Speaker 5: to understand is you're one hundred percent correct. They cannot
Speaker 5: There is not going to be some distancing saying here.
Speaker 5: There is not some way to do this at arms length.
Speaker 5: You have you know, if the President has made this decision,
Speaker 5: it's a decision that's consistent with America's interests, you should
Speaker 5: be prepared to defend it. You should not be hemming
Speaker 5: and hauling, you know, beating around the bush or trying
Speaker 5: to sort of hide from this type of question going
Speaker 5: into these midterms, because that's just poison and it's wrong,
Speaker 5: which is also a play here, but it's also politically stupid.
Speaker 1: All right. So I hear'd my question to close out
Speaker 1: with Secretary of hexit really out a sparky day yesterday
Speaker 1: on the Hill, and the question is is that good
Speaker 1: or is that bad? Because you know, inside the Beltway
Speaker 1: people think Pete's a television storry doesn't know what he's doing,
Speaker 1: but recruitment is off the charts. I don't know what
Speaker 1: to make of this, but he sure doesn't act like
Speaker 1: a Secretary of Defense in my memory. What do you think?
Speaker 5: I think that a lot of people misjudged what his
Speaker 5: job was when he came in. I think that they, again,
Speaker 5: you thought of him as a tech TV personality. I
Speaker 5: think his job was to restore morale, to get rid
Speaker 5: of a lot of stupid stuff that had been done
Speaker 5: internally over the years, and to be a public defender
Speaker 5: of policy. And I think that he's done that very exceptionally.
Speaker 5: I think he's done that. You know, he's used his
Speaker 5: skill as a communicator and I think that having that
Speaker 5: type of testy back and forth is actually totally fine,
Speaker 5: and in fact, to people who are supportive of America's military,
Speaker 5: I think that they, you know, a lot of these
Speaker 5: guys view him as an avatar. And that's not to
Speaker 5: say that he's gotten everything right. I think he's made
Speaker 5: some bad moves too. But one of the things that
Speaker 5: I think we need to understand is the last several
Speaker 5: you know, and I would include even by the way,
Speaker 5: the Trump prior Trump administration, with this, we were letting
Speaker 5: our armed forces turn into places that no one wanted
Speaker 5: to be. They just did not want to be there.
Speaker 5: We were losing good people, We were losing people who
Speaker 5: we need to be in those positions because of the
Speaker 5: kind of operations that they need to be able to run.
Speaker 5: And we were doing it at such a clip that
Speaker 5: it had to be turned around. But it turned around
Speaker 5: before it became just an existential problem for us in
Speaker 5: the future in terms of American might. And I think
Speaker 5: that Pete has done a yeoman's job of getting towards that.
Speaker 1: You know, it's been shocked therapy, but I think you're right,
Speaker 1: and I think it long overdue. Ben Dominic. Everybody read
Speaker 1: him at the Daily Wire, read his columns that he
Speaker 1: supervises there, and go get the Big Ben Podcast with
Speaker 1: Byron York because it's really a very sophisticated discussion of
Speaker 1: crazy in America, and there's unfortunately a lot of it.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Ben, I'll be right back to America States