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Speaker 1: promised all day. Richard Goldberg joins us. He is with
Speaker 1: the senior director at the Foundation for the Defense of
Speaker 1: Democracies and he was in the Trump first term at
Speaker 1: the National Security Council with the Iran portfolio, and the
Speaker 1: Trump second term he helped stand up the National Energy
Speaker 1: Dominance Council of Secretary of Berghaman and writer. You've heard
Speaker 1: here a lot. They went back to the FDD to
Speaker 1: study Iran, and boy, what a timely time it is. Richard.
Speaker 1: Welcome to you here at show. Great to have you,
Speaker 1: great to be here. Thank you so much so, Richard.
Speaker 1: Since President Trump appeared on the program, you know, two
Speaker 1: weeks and two days ago and said he's going to
Speaker 1: hit Iran harder and he's ever been hit before. They
Speaker 1: have ever been hit before. If they keep killing people
Speaker 1: on Mark Duvitch, your colleague, I've had on Michael Duran
Speaker 1: from Hudson. I've had on Ben and Ben Tellerblue, your colleague,
Speaker 1: I've had on I will have on Kareem Sajyapor. I
Speaker 1: think Thursday of the writty gore from Israel you, I'm
Speaker 1: doing my best to get people ready for what will
Speaker 1: be a very big kinetic collision if it happens. Do
Speaker 1: you think it's going to happen with Iran?
Speaker 2: I do think something is going to happen. I think
Speaker 2: the president is a president of determination commitment. I think
Speaker 2: he likely has his mind already set on some sort
Speaker 2: of outcome here and has asked his senior advisors to
Speaker 2: make sure his options are set and the force posture
Speaker 2: matches the options that are most aligned with what he
Speaker 2: wants to achieve. And I think he knows that as
Speaker 2: more and more of this information comes out, the intelligence
Speaker 2: that gets leaked, as some of the Internet peaks back
Speaker 2: on in Iran and his phone calls are being made,
Speaker 2: as pictures and videos come out, he and the rest
Speaker 2: of the world sees that a red line that he
Speaker 2: drew was obliterated by this regime. He is aware of
Speaker 2: that the promises of no executions apparently have continued in
Speaker 2: secret as well.
Speaker 3: And when you start seeing a.
Speaker 2: Death toll in the tens upon tens of thousands, with
Speaker 2: more still in secret locations being held, with more executions
Speaker 2: potentially on the way, that alone, of course obliterates the
Speaker 2: Red Line. But he also sees a regime that's teetering,
Speaker 2: he sees historic opportunity, and as he told you, he's
Speaker 2: already in many ways sealed his fate in history as
Speaker 2: somebody like Ronald Reagan who changes the world, whether it's
Speaker 2: last June with the B two bombers Operation Midnight Hammer,
Speaker 2: whether it's the most recent operation against Maduro, the Abraham
Speaker 2: Cords before that. But you know what, Ronald Reagan brought
Speaker 2: down the Soviet Union, a major threat to the United States,
Speaker 2: transformed the entire world scene. This president could still bring
Speaker 2: down one of those major threats that is world changing,
Speaker 2: world history changing, if he contributes to the collapse of
Speaker 2: the Islamic Republic.
Speaker 1: Of Iran, and in so doing, if that happens, having
Speaker 1: cut off the People's Republic of China from Venezuela and oil,
Speaker 1: he may succeed in cutting off Iran from setting hot
Speaker 1: oil to China. They't have to buy their oil in
Speaker 1: the world market. It's not that they won't get oil,
Speaker 1: it's just that they will pay a lot more for it. Richard,
Speaker 1: does that not serve our strategic interests as well?
Speaker 2: I mean, I think if you, for some reason don't
Speaker 2: care at all about thirty five thousand people being mass
Speaker 2: murdered in forty eight hours and executions going on, you
Speaker 2: just say, not our issue, not our national interest. And
Speaker 2: for some reason you didn't even care about the fact
Speaker 2: that Iran, as the leading state sponsor of terrorism in
Speaker 2: the world, continues to plot war against the United States,
Speaker 2: has tried to assassinate the President of the United States
Speaker 2: while he was out of office, will most certainly to
Speaker 2: assassinate him again if they remain in power after he
Speaker 2: leaves office, and all of the other bad things they
Speaker 2: do to tie us down in the region, all the
Speaker 2: gold Star families around the country who have grieving I
Speaker 2: have lost loved ones, whether in Iraq, of Beirut, colbar
Speaker 2: towers over many years, in Israel, Gaza, all these different
Speaker 2: places because of the Islamic Republic of Iran. If for
Speaker 2: some reason you didn't see that as a major national
Speaker 2: security thread to us. But you subscribe to great power competition,
Speaker 2: you say it's all about China, that's our greatest existential
Speaker 2: threat of the century. Then let me tell you about
Speaker 2: why the President is executing the most brilliant grand strategy
Speaker 2: in history right now for the United States and taking
Speaker 2: apart the axis of enablers for the top acxis of
Speaker 2: aggressors against the United States. As China starts seeing all
Speaker 2: of its chess pieces falling off the board, as Russia
Speaker 2: starts seeing its chess pieces falling off the board, started
Speaker 2: with ASAD collapse in Syria, and then Iran being able
Speaker 2: to do nothing as the President obliterates its nuclear program,
Speaker 2: Maduro being taken out in the middle of the night
Speaker 2: in fifteen minutes by delta force. China is seeing all
Speaker 2: of its Belt and Road initiatives, all of its investments,
Speaker 2: all of its key supply lines being threatened, potentially all
Speaker 2: the aggressors that are the middle powers that can threaten
Speaker 2: the United States and distract us potentially being taken off
Speaker 2: the game board. And remember, for China heavily dependent on
Speaker 2: energy imports, one of their key weaknesses. Fifty percent of
Speaker 2: their energy imports come through the Strait of Hormuz. That's
Speaker 2: obviously Saudi and the rest of the Gulf plus Iran.
Speaker 2: But if Iran is no longer a threat there, if
Speaker 2: you're able to constrain that oil supply, and you've taken
Speaker 2: off the ability for Maduro to supply a few hundred
Speaker 2: thousand barrels per day going up from Venezuela as well,
Speaker 2: they are left with the potential of having to rely
Speaker 2: on GUSU, the United States of America, from whom they
Speaker 2: could be buying more oil, and other partners where we
Speaker 2: would have strong relations, and obviously the US Navy the
Speaker 2: ability to interdict in time of conflict. That's bad grand
Speaker 2: strategy for China, that's very good grand strategy for US.
Speaker 1: So, Richard Goldberg, I believe that if the President fails
Speaker 1: to strike it Iran, it will dent the deterrence that
Speaker 1: he is so masterfully rebuilt in the first year following
Speaker 1: the disastrous years of the Locust under Joe Biden. However,
Speaker 1: I also don't believe that's going to happen. I think
Speaker 1: what he was doing with me, and then he followed
Speaker 1: with Sean Hannity, and he followed with Tony Dakoppel, and
Speaker 1: he did it on true social was trying to prevent
Speaker 1: violent It did not work ever since then, since the massacre,
Speaker 1: And you use the term thirty five thousand, I've seen
Speaker 1: now today as highest forty thousand. That's almost unimaginable. But
Speaker 1: the president is a visual person. Do you think he
Speaker 1: has a good flow of information from inside Iran as
Speaker 1: to exactly how why spread the massacre was?
Speaker 2: I think that picture is increasing and the flow of
Speaker 2: information is obviously accelerating. I do actually think that it's
Speaker 2: possible he did not have a good flow of information
Speaker 2: that first weekend when the massacres were taking place, most
Speaker 2: mainstream media were downplaying the reports that I and others
Speaker 2: were hearing from inside of Iran. The leading opposition news source,
Speaker 2: Iran International, was reporting throughout the weekend five and twelve thousand.
Speaker 2: We were hearing a lot of the stories that are
Speaker 2: now being confirmed through the weekend. But you would hear
Speaker 2: from a lot of sources in government that's just not
Speaker 2: matching what we're hearing so far, both here in the
Speaker 2: United States, in Great Britain, and elsewhere where. We would
Speaker 2: rely on the intelligence community to validate rumors coming out
Speaker 2: of Iran. There's no way to deny what's happening now.
Speaker 2: Millions of people came out in the streets. There was
Speaker 2: mass murder. The blood is still stained across Tehran and
Speaker 2: other major cities. People are still trying to identify their
Speaker 2: loved ones who are being held hostage, even as dead
Speaker 2: bodies throughout Iran. Right now, the fear of a continued
Speaker 2: crackdown if anybody else comes out into the streets. But
Speaker 2: also understanding that this is a regime that teeters. Why
Speaker 2: did people come out into the streets. There was an
Speaker 2: economic crisis that Donald Trump helped facilitate and accelerate. There
Speaker 2: has been the snapback of UN sanctions, and so there's
Speaker 2: an understanding in the market that the old Iron nuclear
Speaker 2: deal is never coming back. Banks were teetering on the
Speaker 2: edge of collapse. One did collapse. There's a water crisis
Speaker 2: because of the mismanagement of this maniacal, corrupt regime. There
Speaker 2: is a power energy crisis where the grid is experience
Speaker 2: blackouts throughout Iran. So people hate this regime. They already
Speaker 2: hate them for what they do to the people repression wise,
Speaker 2: as you can see, they hate them because their standard
Speaker 2: of living continues to go down into the gutter. This
Speaker 2: has spread from upper class to middle class to lower class, religious,
Speaker 2: secular all across Iran. And if millions of people were
Speaker 2: willing to take to the streets but right now are
Speaker 2: deterred by machine guns and IERGC forces out there, if
Speaker 2: those IRGC forces somehow are dispersed have to run away themselves,
Speaker 2: stands to reason millions of people would come back into
Speaker 2: the streets if they see help on the way, as
Speaker 2: the President promised. And frankly, we long term whether or
Speaker 2: not this collapses tomorrow. Remember nineteen seventy eight to nineteen
Speaker 2: seventy nine took a year before the shot had to
Speaker 2: flee Iran. Even if this is a long term situation
Speaker 2: and this regime does not immediately collapse or the Supreme
Speaker 2: Leader has taken out and you don't have a full
Speaker 2: change in regime, the RGC steps in a different successor
Speaker 2: from the MULLA step in. If you're able to use
Speaker 2: this opportunity to continue to degrade and dismantle a direct
Speaker 2: threat to the United States, a direct tool of the
Speaker 2: CCP in China and putin in Moscow by degrading their
Speaker 2: missile program, their navy, their drone program and their command
Speaker 2: and control. You do a great service to the United States.
Speaker 2: You enforce a red line and show the enemies of
Speaker 2: America this president continues to mean business. And maybe yes,
Speaker 2: you give the opportunity for millions of Iranians to come
Speaker 2: back out and take this country back for Iran, which
Speaker 2: will be a game changer for US national security.
Speaker 1: Don't go anywhere. I'm coming right back with Richard Goldberg,
Speaker 1: Senior director at the Foundation for the Defense of DEMOCRACIESFDD
Speaker 1: dot org, and you can follow him at Richard Goldberg
Speaker 1: on AX. I'll make sure I get the right. Is
Speaker 1: there a middle initial in there, Richard or is it
Speaker 1: just Richard Goldberg?
Speaker 4: Just at rich underscore Goldberg. The underscore catches people something
Speaker 4: rich Underscore Goldberg. It's one of the people I tell
Speaker 4: you you should follow routinely online because there are a
Speaker 4: whole bunch of people with opinions about Iran, but there
Speaker 4: aren't that many with actual firsthand knowledge of having worked
Speaker 4: the portfolio at the NFC Richard has.
Speaker 1: Don't go anywhre. I'll be right back with rich Goldberg
Speaker 1: from the FDD. After the mess to State tuned that
Speaker 1: they can heal it show, Welcome back to America. I'm
Speaker 1: to heal it. With Richard Goldberg, senior fellow at the
Speaker 1: Foundation for the Defensive Democracies for years and Trump won
Speaker 1: had the portfolio over Iran sanctions, trying to rebuild some
Speaker 1: kind of pressure on Iran after Team Obama gave the
Speaker 1: world away to them, including pallets of cash. He came
Speaker 1: back in term two at the beginning of it to
Speaker 1: stand up the Energy Dominance Council and to try and
Speaker 1: repair the damage done by four years of Biden appeasement.
Speaker 1: Hypothetical entirely, Richard, before we go back to the reality
Speaker 1: of strike lists and priorities. Had Barack Obama not gone
Speaker 1: belly up on Iran in his first term and then
Speaker 1: pursued the JCPO in his second term, would this regime
Speaker 1: have already fallen? Did Obama save it?
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 2: He saved it several times. I mean two thousand and nine,
Speaker 2: the last time we remember, well, the first time I
Speaker 2: remember a mass uprising starting in Iran after what people
Speaker 2: understood to be a stolen election. They don't have elections
Speaker 2: in Iran, they have selections in Iran, and add this
Speaker 2: sort of mass uprising into Ihran suburbs taking place. It
Speaker 2: was an upper middle class revolt and they put that
Speaker 2: down with force. And Barack Obama sent the love letters
Speaker 2: behind people's back to the Supreme Leader, saying, I want
Speaker 2: to have a good relationship. By the way, I've seen
Speaker 2: those letters when I was working in the White House.
Speaker 2: This was unimaginable. He abandoned the people in the street
Speaker 2: because he wanted a nuclear deal, because he internalized this
Speaker 2: anti American ideology that we were actually to blame for
Speaker 2: all of our problems with Iran. He believed in the
Speaker 2: false narrative of a coup that the CIA was behind
Speaker 2: that the Iranian regime has put out for years. He
Speaker 2: believed that you need to have a balance of power
Speaker 2: in the region. Let Iran have a little more power
Speaker 2: and that would offset the Saudi power and the Israeli power,
Speaker 2: and then we would have this great equilibrium and kumbai
Speaker 2: Yah would happen, and we just needed to get to
Speaker 2: a nuclear deal because hey, you know, they have grievances
Speaker 2: and we should understand that.
Speaker 1: Richard, it's not very relevable, but I want you follow
Speaker 1: Has anything been heard from the Metternik of MS now
Speaker 1: Ben Rhoades. Has President Obama said anything about the massacre
Speaker 1: of tens of thousands of people. Have the people who
Speaker 1: kept the eye tolls in power, have they had the
Speaker 1: decency to come forward and condemn the regime that they
Speaker 1: parlayed with.
Speaker 2: No, because they're out there working the media right now
Speaker 2: to say it's over too late, can't do anything, too
Speaker 2: dangerous to act. Don't know what would come next, could
Speaker 2: be worse if the Supreme Leader were to go. That's
Speaker 2: who's behind a lot of those news stories and headlines
Speaker 2: that you see out there. It's Team Obama Ben Rhodes
Speaker 2: out there still trying to hope for a day where
Speaker 2: they get back to appeasement as the policy with this regime. However,
Speaker 2: I will say that for many people who are let's
Speaker 2: call them normal, more mainstream, clearly don't agree with them
Speaker 2: on a lot of policy issues, but they went along
Speaker 2: with that because they're Democrats. They believe they this is
Speaker 2: what we have to do. This is Barack Obama's foreign policy.
Speaker 2: So I'll get get on the train looking at you, say,
Speaker 2: forty thousand. They're seeing it the numbers right now, they're
Speaker 2: seeing the pictures, the videos. Those types of people on
Speaker 2: the left and in the center cannot justify the jcpoaim
Speaker 2: or cannot justify an appeasement policy anymore. Are looking at
Speaker 2: this idea of having a negotiation with this regime with
Speaker 2: everything going on right now, saying, are you kidding me?
Speaker 2: This regime has to end up in the ash heap
Speaker 2: of history, the sooner the better. So, yes, there are
Speaker 2: idealogues out there, and we remember some of them who
Speaker 2: served in the Biden administration too, like Rob Malley, the
Speaker 2: Special envoy for Iran. It was kicked out for being
Speaker 2: a little too close to the Iranians perhaps, and many others.
Speaker 2: They might be rooting against the Iranian people right now.
Speaker 2: They might be trying to, in sinister ways, influence the
Speaker 2: President not to act. But I think the vast majority
Speaker 2: of Americans see what's happening here, see a red line declared,
Speaker 2: See what this regime is capable of against its own people.
Speaker 2: Know that it's capable of building more and more missiles
Speaker 2: to use against us and our allies. He knows that
Speaker 2: this is a historic time to take advantage of for
Speaker 2: our national security.
Speaker 1: So, Richard, there are lots of different definitions of what
Speaker 1: we're aiming for. Some people want regime negotiations, and if
Speaker 1: we are to believe. One of those includes Special Envoy WITCOP,
Speaker 1: but he's been involved in some headfakes of extraordinary proportions.
Speaker 1: There's regime coercion, which is what's going on in Venezuela.
Speaker 1: There's regime evolution, which is what we hope goes on
Speaker 1: long term in Venezuela, to free and fair elections and
Speaker 1: democracy return. Then there's regime punishment and just simply a
Speaker 1: punitive strike saying what you have done here is beyond
Speaker 1: the bounds of what the West will tolerate. That's what
Speaker 1: President Trump did in term one visa via SAD when
Speaker 1: he used chemical weapons. And then there's regime change, which
Speaker 1: involves Iraq in two thousand and three, Afghanistan in two
Speaker 1: thousand and one. I'm in favor of at least regime punishment,
Speaker 1: in other words, just a simple punitive strike, and we
Speaker 1: can talk about target lists. Where are you in that option,
Speaker 1: Richard Goldberg? What would you like to see happen as
Speaker 1: a strategic goal.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I am at the very least regime punishment, but
Speaker 2: I would like to see the facilitation of regime collapse
Speaker 2: in transition. That does not mean boots on the ground,
Speaker 2: It does not mean an occupation, does not mean the
Speaker 2: United States literally going to Tehran to do things. Though,
Speaker 2: if somehow the President and General Kine and Director Ratcliffe
Speaker 2: can pull a rabbit out of the hat and there's
Speaker 2: some incredible operation like nobody imagined in Caracas that just
Speaker 2: suddenly happens, I would be impressed with that.
Speaker 6: I would not believe.
Speaker 2: I would not be predicting that it would seem high
Speaker 2: risk and dangerous.
Speaker 6: But who knows.
Speaker 2: This president and this team around him have proven everybody
Speaker 2: else that we can't really expect the unexpected with their planning.
Speaker 2: At the moment. However, given the normal set of facts
Speaker 2: in front of us, the parameters that we would imagine
Speaker 2: what we would be willing to do with this president
Speaker 2: should be going to do and what he should not
Speaker 2: be willing to do. Given the risks to US personnel,
Speaker 2: I think it is quite appropriate A to make sure
Speaker 2: they are punished for going across the red line. But
Speaker 2: B take this moment, seize this moment to continue to squeeze,
Speaker 2: to degrade, to dismantle, and the weaker and weaker and
Speaker 2: weaker they get, the stronger and stronger the people get.
Speaker 2: And yes, you will see some sort of transition. At
Speaker 2: some point, this regime cannot continue if banks are collapsing
Speaker 2: because the president enforces his thread of twenty five percent
Speaker 2: tariffs against all neighboring countries of Iran, and the cash
Speaker 2: flow starts moving, stops moving from daily trade. And you
Speaker 2: actually use either by naval forces like you saw in Venezuela,
Speaker 2: or kinetic action or cyber action, some sort of prevention
Speaker 2: of the oil flowing out of carg Island, you will
Speaker 2: force an immediate liquidity crisis. You will accelerate what is
Speaker 2: already a liquidity crisis. More banks will fail, There will
Speaker 2: be a massive inability to pay the IRGC payroll. That
Speaker 2: would be be very you know, uncertain for what happens
Speaker 2: next to that regime alone, just internally with fracturing, if
Speaker 2: you were to take out kinetically command and control, if
Speaker 2: you were disrupt communications at the same time, then to see, Richard.
Speaker 1: Does the American people and the rest of the world
Speaker 1: have to see what it is that the United States
Speaker 1: does as a reaction to the massacre, because if it doesn't,
Speaker 1: I don't know that the red line isn't erased anyway.
Speaker 1: I think they have to see it.
Speaker 2: Well, of course they have to see it. You mean
Speaker 2: you mean, could there just be a cyber uh event?
Speaker 2: And that's the no. There's no way, there's no way
Speaker 2: that that is sufficient at dis point, based on what
Speaker 2: the president has has promised, what he has suggested, and
Speaker 2: what you know, if you're sheigen Peing, if you're Vladimir
Speaker 2: Putin and you're expecting if you were to default now,
Speaker 2: moving a carrier strike group there, moving all these squadrons,
Speaker 2: building up a force posture, and then just saying, hey,
Speaker 2: I had a cyber event and we'll call it a day.
Speaker 2: I think that would be laughed out of the room.
Speaker 2: The president certainly knows that, and I think, you know,
Speaker 2: we should have a little bit of a level setting here.
Speaker 2: It's not like she and Putin don't believe the president
Speaker 2: is willing to use force. He has proven it certainly
Speaker 2: over the last year and in his first term he
Speaker 2: has just taken a dictator out of Caracas. I need
Speaker 2: to have to know he's serious. But you start stopping
Speaker 2: forcing your red lines, that can change quickly.
Speaker 1: I'll be right back with Richard Goldberg of the Foundation
Speaker 1: for the Defensive Democracy, and he's for going to talk
Speaker 1: about risk to American personnel in the region, and then
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about target loos in our last
Speaker 1: two segments on Today is Iran in Focus Hours Day tuned.
Speaker 1: I'm Vio, Hugh, Welcome back America. I'm here, Hugh at
Speaker 1: the biggest story in the world remains Iran and whether
Speaker 1: or not the United States strikes and if Israel joins
Speaker 1: in with it. Richard Goldberger, I want to talk about
Speaker 1: target sets now. I've asked all of the experts, and
Speaker 1: I'll ask Kareem when he comes on to finish my
Speaker 1: week of end experts on Iran. Why don't we hit
Speaker 1: carg Island because it and the two other oil terminals
Speaker 1: are the only hard currency generators that this regime has
Speaker 1: to pay its terrorists with. Why don't we do that?
Speaker 2: This is the number one source of revenue for the regime.
Speaker 2: If you stop the flow of oil, then you are
Speaker 2: on an egg timer for how long the regime can survive.
Speaker 2: I will add that I also think we underestimate the
Speaker 2: importance of border trade, just in its very near circle
Speaker 2: of influence and neighbors. If you actually stop some of
Speaker 2: that daily trade and the currency transfers and the cash access,
Speaker 2: you will also accelerate liquidity crises inside the banking system.
Speaker 2: But yes, we have long had this option, and obviously
Speaker 2: on sanctions alone, we saw this happen in Venezuela as well.
Speaker 2: You have an immediate impact in the market, normal actors,
Speaker 2: normal corporations, and by the way, even state owned enterprises
Speaker 2: of China shy away from completing a trans because they
Speaker 2: don't want to suffer the blow of a cutoff from
Speaker 2: the US financial system, which is the punishment under US sanctions.
Speaker 2: And so for the Chinese at least, they resort to
Speaker 2: illicit activity. They set up these so called teapot refineries.
Speaker 2: These are unofficial, sort of supposedly disconnected from state owned enterprises.
Speaker 2: They have a ghost tanker fleet, just like what you
Speaker 2: saw in Venezuela. A lot of those, by the way,
Speaker 2: were the Iranian ghost tanker fleet. When you saw the
Speaker 2: US seizing them, they seize them with US sanctions attached
Speaker 2: from the Revolutionary Guard Corps. So you have all these
Speaker 2: ghost tankers bringing oil out of carg Island, chugging along.
Speaker 2: We let them go all the way through the Strait,
Speaker 2: We let them go all the way to China deliver it.
Speaker 2: We know exactly who they are, where they're coming from.
Speaker 2: What's what cargo they got and when they unload, and
Speaker 2: by the way, who has the off take agreements after
Speaker 2: they hit the teapot refineries the state owned oil companies
Speaker 2: of China. So we have always had the ability to
Speaker 2: escalate against Beijing in its sanctions realm to get them
Speaker 2: to try to cut off the transaction. Obviously, that's complicated
Speaker 2: in a very complicated Bilatter relationship, and maybe there's reasons
Speaker 2: in a trade war and other things, we haven't gone
Speaker 2: that direction. There are other ways to exert that influence.
Speaker 2: The President has tried a tariff threat now that doesn't
Speaker 2: seem to have worked so far. We haven't enforced it
Speaker 2: yet that I've seen in the face of Chinese that
Speaker 2: continuing to ignore that he is now moving a carrier
Speaker 2: strike group that comes with three destroyers he already had
Speaker 2: three destroyers on station. Does he envision some sort of
Speaker 2: naval armada quarantine again like what we saw in Venezuela,
Speaker 2: to start seizing the very large tankers coming out of
Speaker 2: carg Island and not let the oil flow, start having
Speaker 2: contracts canceled and simply de facto stop the oil transaction.
Speaker 1: Richard Here's student of history. We spent a lot of
Speaker 1: World War Two trying to hit Hitler's capacity to produce
Speaker 1: oil and to deny him the ability to get to
Speaker 1: the oil fields and the Soviet Union. Why don't we
Speaker 1: just blow up the refineries. They can be rebuilt under
Speaker 1: a new regime.
Speaker 3: We have that option set.
Speaker 2: The truth is is that if you go back to
Speaker 2: the Twelve Day War, it's not like this option set
Speaker 2: wasn't on the table. And by the way, that target
Speaker 2: set was on the table for the Israelis as well
Speaker 2: during twelve days of their own air strikes and with
Speaker 2: the exception of a couple of fuel depots in an
Speaker 2: inner near Tehran, they avoided hitting energy infrastructure.
Speaker 3: Why is that?
Speaker 2: Why is it that we hesitate to do that? Well,
Speaker 2: in the end, if you are a military planner, if
Speaker 2: you're advising the president, you say, well, mister President, if
Speaker 2: we hit their energy, then they will have a proportional response,
Speaker 2: which will be to hit other energy, whether that be
Speaker 2: to mine the strait of horror moves and deny Saudi
Speaker 2: oil for moving out to the market, or hit Saudi
Speaker 2: oil infrastructure itself and try to create a massive catastrophic
Speaker 2: disruption event for the market. A couple of responses to that.
Speaker 2: The President should know about. Number one, then give me
Speaker 2: the top of the target list. We're going to hit
Speaker 2: the missiles, the drones, and the IRGC navy first and
Speaker 2: take that threat off the board. Why do we keep
Speaker 2: having to be deterred by that threat? And number two,
Speaker 2: this is a different oil market today because of Donald J. Trump,
Speaker 2: and we should understand that this is China's pressure point,
Speaker 2: not ours. Fifty percent of China's oil imports comes through
Speaker 2: the Strait of Hormuz. The Iranians want to mine that straight.
Speaker 2: They want to attack. Saudi oil won't be good, not
Speaker 2: saying we won't have a short term price spike because
Speaker 2: it is a global commodity. But we're not going to
Speaker 2: run out of oil here. We're going to be okay,
Speaker 2: and we'll get the straight back open fast. And I
Speaker 2: don't think there will be any government facilities left in
Speaker 2: Tehran afterwards from what the President would do in response.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Richard, thank you. I've been through a lot of
Speaker 1: experts and they all say we got to worry about
Speaker 1: our Golf Cooperation Council allies, and we do. And msz
Speaker 1: NBC is our best ally and MBS is a rising
Speaker 1: ally and we got to worry about World Royal markets.
Speaker 1: But Canada's coming online with a lot of heavy crude,
Speaker 1: and we got a lot of heavy crude, and Venezuela's
Speaker 1: got a lot of everything that Iran's got. I just
Speaker 1: don't understand why it's not at the top of the
Speaker 1: target list. But my last segment with Richard's coming up,
Speaker 1: because we do have to discuss risks to Americans. Stay
Speaker 1: tuned on Hugoett, Welcome back America. On you here. Richard
Speaker 1: Goldberg is the senior Fellow at the Foundation for the
Speaker 1: Defensive Democracies. He's been in Trump one and Trump two.
Speaker 1: He's an Iran expert. We have a lot of assets
Speaker 1: in the region. Rich I know that families that people
Speaker 1: are on the Lincoln, and I've had family on the Lincoln,
Speaker 1: though not right now, are wondering, Hey, can they hit
Speaker 1: the Lincoln? Can they hit the destroyers? Can they hit
Speaker 1: our base and cutter? We saw a demonstration attack after
Speaker 1: midnight hammer. We saw Israel hammered a lot I think
Speaker 1: thirty dead. We've seen them hit Ali Sad with ballistic missiles,
Speaker 1: precision strikes on Ali Sad in whatever year that was
Speaker 1: that they blew up alisade I had friends and family
Speaker 1: and Ali saw that that might that got off. How
Speaker 1: much can they hurt us with their ballistic missile capacity.
Speaker 2: They can definitely target US faces in the region through
Speaker 2: their ballistic missiles. They also have a cruise missile capacity
Speaker 2: as well. We saw that utilized against the Saudi oil
Speaker 2: infrastructure back in twenty nineteen, along with drones. So long
Speaker 2: as we keep our naval forces far away with our
Speaker 2: standoff capabilities, whether that be Tomahawk strikes or fighter jets
Speaker 2: off the boat, we should be outside of their striking
Speaker 2: distance to our naval forces. They do not have much
Speaker 2: of an air defense left. If any any that would
Speaker 2: be still there will be accounted for both by the
Speaker 2: growlers on the aircraft carrier. Those are the electronic warfare
Speaker 2: fighter squadrons that we have eighteen g's and also the
Speaker 2: fact that the Israelis sort of took out all of
Speaker 2: the Russian air defense already, the Iranian knockoff of the
Speaker 2: Russian air defense, It's not to say you couldn't have
Speaker 2: an oopsie, but the threat is much lower from an
Speaker 2: air perspective.
Speaker 1: Remember the Argentinians hit that British boat. I can't remember
Speaker 1: the name of the ship that they that they shunk
Speaker 1: in the fall camp.
Speaker 2: You can't have a total prediction here, you have to there.
Speaker 2: There can always be something that goes wrong. There can
Speaker 2: always be something like you can't believe that happened. But
Speaker 2: by and large, you do have to be prepared for
Speaker 2: their missile threat. We have missile defenses available, We have
Speaker 2: the s M three's on the destroyers, we have some
Speaker 2: land based Patriots and other at our bases in the region.
Speaker 2: So yes, we would be on force protection condition highest
Speaker 2: possible level. People in barracks underground, prepared for any short
Speaker 2: of retaliation, already moving out most essential critical personnel and
Speaker 2: platforms to prepare for such a contingency. But that goes
Speaker 2: back to the fact that if you have a target
Speaker 2: list and you are most afraid of that retaliatory capability,
Speaker 2: then you want to mitigate that from the start. You
Speaker 2: want to go after all the underground facilities where they
Speaker 2: store their missiles. If there is a launch, we will
Speaker 2: detect the launch immediately and take out the launchers.
Speaker 1: That's what the.
Speaker 2: Israelis did very effectively during the Twelve Day War. If
Speaker 2: you see fast boats going around in the gulf. There
Speaker 2: should be a shoot on site order get rid of
Speaker 2: the boats. Don't hesitate if you see anything that looks
Speaker 2: like mining. Shoot the boats, you know, take out the poor,
Speaker 2: take out the IRGC, Navy headquarters and command and control.
Speaker 2: All of those should be on the top of Richard
Speaker 2: if you are looking to do something real.
Speaker 1: We got four minutes left, so I want to ask
Speaker 1: you the toughest question. Your phone rank, it's the President.
Speaker 1: Hey Goldberg. I heard you talking to Hewett and he
Speaker 1: was quoting me from two weeks ago. Things have changed.
Speaker 1: What do you want me to do? And do you
Speaker 1: really think my red line would be a race if
Speaker 1: I don't do anything? What do you want me to do?
Speaker 1: And would it really be a red line erased? What
Speaker 1: do you say to one?
Speaker 2: Mister president, everyone's watching. You gave your word. You decided
Speaker 2: that you were going to set a red line, which
Speaker 2: was totally appropriate, and that lead line has been obliterated
Speaker 2: because in the end, these are crazy, maniacal radicals who
Speaker 2: have tried to kill you, and we'll try to kill
Speaker 2: you again when you leave office. But you already know
Speaker 2: that they've killed a lot of Americans, and they will
Speaker 2: keep killing Americans. This is your moment in history. Strike
Speaker 2: them at their most lethal strategic threat to US long term,
Speaker 2: and then hit them in command and control and senior
Speaker 2: leadership to try to blind them, disorient them, and give
Speaker 2: the people a chance. I'm not saying that's going to
Speaker 2: guarantee it's going to be, you know, the collapse of
Speaker 2: the regime overnight. I don't know what's going to come next.
Speaker 2: I can't guarantee you that, but I do know that
Speaker 2: this regime staying in power, with the ability to lash
Speaker 2: out and reach the United States or our allies, is
Speaker 2: very dangerous and very good for China and Russia. And
Speaker 2: you will do the world and the United States a
Speaker 2: great favor by taking action.
Speaker 1: Now, So Baby says the same thing. Do you do
Speaker 1: you want me to have Israel come along or you
Speaker 1: want them to stay home?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 2: I think that if you have the aircraft carrier of
Speaker 2: the State of Israel at our disposal, that means we
Speaker 2: have two carrier strike groups at our disposal. Actually, the
Speaker 2: entire Israeli Air Force and their clandestine and cyber capabilities
Speaker 2: inside of Iran. We don't know what they're what they
Speaker 2: could be capable of.
Speaker 1: Doing.
Speaker 2: If I was the president of United States, I would say,
Speaker 2: what are our unique capabilities against specific targets that these
Speaker 2: Raelis can't touch, that they can't have impact on? Versus
Speaker 2: what are the Israelis able to do on their own
Speaker 2: and continue to contribute. I think it would be crazy
Speaker 2: not to coordinate this with the Israelis.
Speaker 1: And then he finishes Richard this way, you know, I
Speaker 1: like air to one. Everyone called me. He doesn't want
Speaker 1: me to do this. They just put in a strike
Speaker 1: that he put in radar in Damascus. What do we
Speaker 1: do about Turkey?
Speaker 2: Tell him that I hope he really loves what we've
Speaker 2: done to bring the Iraq Turkey pipeline back online and
Speaker 2: the revenue that's creating for his regime and for his country,
Speaker 2: that there's a lot more business to be done, and
Speaker 2: hopefully he understands that the Islamic Republic of Iran at
Speaker 2: war with the United States all these decades. People who
Speaker 2: have tried to kill me personally the present United States
Speaker 2: and have killed many, many, many Americans really shouldn't be
Speaker 2: around much longer after what they've done here in the
Speaker 2: streets and what they continue to do to the United
Speaker 2: States and our allies, and I hope you understand that
Speaker 2: as a NATO ally because we could have a great relationship.
Speaker 2: But I don't think you want to be with those guys, right.
Speaker 1: All right, very last question. I don't think the red
Speaker 1: lines obliterated yet, because there's a rationale for what he
Speaker 1: did when he did and what he said when he said,
Speaker 1: and I think it was very strategic. But it will
Speaker 1: go away by a date certain I'm saying, Saint Patrick's day.
Speaker 1: How long do they have to act, Richard before the
Speaker 1: damage Obama like damage to his credibility is done.
Speaker 2: I don't like setting a timetable on that. If he
Speaker 2: is intending to act, and he is continuing to move
Speaker 2: forces into position to be able to fulfill his objectives,
Speaker 2: he should use this time to squeeze, destabilize, and disorient
Speaker 2: that can be done in the economic realm, that can
Speaker 2: be done in the cyber realm, and then follow on
Speaker 2: with the kinetic action. So long as that's all sequenced,
Speaker 2: it's all coming together. It's all part of strategy.
Speaker 7: You know.
Speaker 2: The time is on his side. He should not rush
Speaker 2: something like this. It should be done correctly.
Speaker 1: Richard Goldberg from the Foundation for the Defensive democracies. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Follow rich On at Rich Underscore Goldberg at Rich Underscore Goldberg,
Speaker 1: and visit Foundation for Defensive Democracy that's at fdd on
Speaker 1: X as well all of their They've got the strongest
Speaker 1: Iran department inside the Beltway because they've got people who
Speaker 1: have actually done it, including Rich Goldberg, who's been mister
Speaker 1: sanctions for a long long time. Thank you, Rich, coming back,
Speaker 1: don't go anywhere, America. We've got a couple more experts
Speaker 1: to have on about this, but by now you should
Speaker 1: have a fairly comprehensive grip on the Iran situation. If
Speaker 1: you have been listening to every hour of every two
Speaker 1: huge show, stay tuned. I have Brett Bear joining me now,
Speaker 1: of course, the anchor of Special Report, America's newsman, America's anchor. Brett.
Speaker 1: I want to talk to you about Minnesota because you
Speaker 1: have a very good perspective on this. You talk to all
Speaker 1: the different people. I think a week ago Thursday, I
Speaker 1: set on the panel on Special Report. Minnesota is a
Speaker 1: shall issue state when it comes to permits, and they
Speaker 1: can shall issue an open carry or a concealed carry,
Speaker 1: and that it was dangerous, that was after an a
Speaker 1: good and before Alex Petty were shot and killed. I
Speaker 1: don't think it's going to get better either. I don't
Speaker 1: think the left is going home, and I don't think
Speaker 1: Donald Trump's going to back off. What do you think?
Speaker 1: I agree with you.
Speaker 3: You.
Speaker 7: I think President's call can you hear me?
Speaker 1: Yeah, we got you.
Speaker 7: The President's call to the governor and also to the
Speaker 7: mayor of Minneapolis. I think that those two things, at
Speaker 7: least a tone from both sides about those calls, seem
Speaker 7: to indicate something different. I agree with you that, you know,
Speaker 7: the agitators, the protesters who are hired to do that
Speaker 7: are probably not going to leave. But with the ad
Speaker 7: of you know, state police, police and maybe even National Guard,
Speaker 7: because Minnesota is engaging and working with them, I think
Speaker 7: it could change the dynamic. I mean, just having areas
Speaker 7: for protesters that are outside the operation lines of ICE
Speaker 7: agents is one thing, and the other thing is to
Speaker 7: work and give up the illegal immigrants who are already
Speaker 7: jailed for crime.
Speaker 1: This is if you've touched on I think the most
Speaker 1: important argument that Team Trump hasn't made effectively, which is
Speaker 1: that when illegal aliens are arrested, they are in a
Speaker 1: county or a city jail for a period of time
Speaker 1: until they reach trial and they get a detainer a
Speaker 1: term of art, meaning that ICE wants them whenever they're
Speaker 1: released on bond, on bail, on their own recognizance, or
Speaker 1: after acquittal. And St. Paul Minneapolis won't do that. Has
Speaker 1: Jacob Fry said he'll order police to begin cooperating.
Speaker 7: I don't know if you said that, per Se. I
Speaker 7: know that the president's asking for them, and I know
Speaker 7: that they had a good phone call. So listen, if
Speaker 7: you poll getting criminal illegal immigrants who have committed crimes
Speaker 7: off the streets, it's an eighty twenty seventy thirty issue.
Speaker 7: If you poll the type of stuff you're seeing on
Speaker 7: TV with ICE agents and you add in you know
Speaker 7: anecdotally that people have been you know, put into the
Speaker 7: middle of that who have not been criminal or illegal immigrants,
Speaker 7: then it goes exactly the opposite way. And I think
Speaker 7: they lost the pr narrative obviously in some of these
Speaker 7: in these incidents, and you know, I think it's going
Speaker 7: to change, but you're right, it could be. It could
Speaker 7: be ugly before it's better.
Speaker 1: Now they're spokespeople are I think in order of frequency
Speaker 1: of a Pearance, DHS Secretary Nome, Trish McLaughlin, the Assistant
Speaker 1: Secretary at DHS, Tom Homan, a bit of cash Betel,
Speaker 1: And every now and then Steven Miller erupts on san N.
Speaker 1: I think he goes on, said, Steve Miller done your show, Brett.
Speaker 7: He has, it's been a number of weeks.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, but he usually goes on san N because
Speaker 1: they like to erupt with Jake and he and usually
Speaker 1: wins that. Uh, do you think those five are the
Speaker 1: best five communicators at the disposal of the administration on this.
Speaker 7: Well, some of them are not clearly and they've they've
Speaker 7: had missteps. And I think the reason President Trump chose
Speaker 7: Holman to go into Minneapolis and to report directly to
Speaker 7: him tells you something. There's you know, there's a dynamic
Speaker 7: in there. And Bill Mallusion has reported on it. There's
Speaker 7: senior DHS officials who believe they the narrative was too
Speaker 7: firm and too definite about Preddy and his motivations, you know,
Speaker 7: as that shooting in the early hours, and there's a
Speaker 7: lot of bad feelings about it. And I think the
Speaker 7: President got that and sent Holman in on the ground and.
Speaker 1: He's also in New Yorker, who's followed for years Rudy
Speaker 1: Giuliani defending cops, and he wants to defend cops in
Speaker 1: law enforcement, but he probably also remembers I started my
Speaker 1: TV career two months before the LA riots, the Rodney
Speaker 1: King tape, and you can always stand behind police, but
Speaker 1: you can't stand forever if there's something wrong with an
Speaker 1: inst I have no judgment. I have no opinion one
Speaker 1: way or the other because I know that it will
Speaker 1: require weeks of special forensic analysis of what happened because
Speaker 1: ops are involved, shootings are always complicated. But I have
Speaker 1: no opinion on it. And that's what I think Cabinet
Speaker 1: secretaries ought to say, and they can say it while
Speaker 1: still saying I support the men and women of DHS,
Speaker 1: Border Patrol, Immigration Control, and alcohol, tobacco firearms in the bureau.
Speaker 1: It's not really a difficult message, is it, Brent.
Speaker 7: No, It's pretty simple. It's coming down the middle, and
Speaker 7: you wait for an investigation and say they have a
Speaker 7: tough job and it would be a lot easier if
Speaker 7: the state and local authorities would help ICE do their job.
Speaker 7: That's the message, and I think it also helps that
Speaker 7: Tom Holman was given an award by Barack Obama YEP,
Speaker 7: and was touted for his work in the Obama administration.
Speaker 1: Well, decades of law enforcement experience coming into play here,
Speaker 1: and the last person that wants to be involved in
Speaker 1: a law officer involved shooting is the officer, absolutely, one
Speaker 1: hundred percent. The few that I have known well have
Speaker 1: always said that to me. Now, Brett, when it comes
Speaker 1: time to shut down the government or not shut down
Speaker 1: the government, there's going to have to be a choice
Speaker 1: made to Democrats want to shut down the government, and
Speaker 1: I can't believe it. But I don't think Susan Collins
Speaker 1: is going to budge, and I don't think John Thune's
Speaker 1: going to budge on defunding DHS or in any way
Speaker 1: restricting ICE.
Speaker 7: Do you no, And you know it's silly. The ICE
Speaker 7: has been funded through twenty twenty nine largely. I mean
Speaker 7: it's around the edges that they're talking about additional funding,
Speaker 7: but they've been largely funded as an organization through twenty
Speaker 7: twenty nine. So if you're taking away DHS funds, taking
Speaker 7: him away from TSA, from FEMA in the wake of
Speaker 7: tough travel, that could bite you in the wake of
Speaker 7: snowstorms and other disasters that could bite you, so politically,
Speaker 7: this is dangerous. I think that's why Chuck Schumer wants
Speaker 7: to have a meeting and a call with President Trump
Speaker 7: and try to come to some deal. And that's what
Speaker 7: I'm hearing is behind the scenes right now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I must feel bad for Chuck Schumer, which I've
Speaker 1: never said on the rate, because he just cannot win
Speaker 1: the situation. He catch up down to Ja. Okay, let
Speaker 1: me turn to Iraq Iron. This is what President Trump
Speaker 1: said to said Rosenberg this morning. Brett Kunnemer IWO.
Speaker 8: We have a big armada going over there right now,
Speaker 8: and hopefully we won't have to use it.
Speaker 7: But it's very.
Speaker 8: Powerful, bigger than what we have in Venezuela that we
Speaker 8: said over that worked out so well, and the leadership
Speaker 8: there is doing a very good job coordinating.
Speaker 1: With us and anything else.
Speaker 8: But we have a big armada going over there and
Speaker 8: we'll see, hopefully we won't have to use it now.
Speaker 1: Brett Baer, I've had on every expert saved one. Kareem
Speaker 1: Sadrpor will be on I think Thursday, but Michael Duran,
Speaker 1: Mark dub It's Ben and Ben Tellablu Richard Goldberg's coming
Speaker 1: up a vive Reddick gore. Of course, the president was
Speaker 1: on all the experts want him to hit Iran hard
Speaker 1: and rattle their teeth, if not topple their regime. If
Speaker 1: it's possible and the president is ambiguous, what do you
Speaker 1: think is going to happen? You've interviewed more than anybody
Speaker 1: I think on the networks. What do you think he's
Speaker 1: doing here?
Speaker 7: Yeah, I think he's positioning. He is doing the art
Speaker 7: of the deal as he sees it, you know, having
Speaker 7: the strengths and you know, the big stick is Teddy
Speaker 7: Roosevelt would say, looking for them to do a deal.
Speaker 7: He says they want to and they call all the time.
Speaker 7: But he also kind of drew a red line about
Speaker 7: killing protesters. Now there are human rights groups on the
Speaker 7: ground saying it could be thirty thousand who died in
Speaker 7: that span where protesters were killed in Iran. So listen,
Speaker 7: I'm with you. I think that there is more likely
Speaker 7: a strike than not. I think that the delay has
Speaker 7: been about getting patriot batteries and missile defense for Israel
Speaker 7: that was low. I think that's starting to be in place,
Speaker 7: and once it is, I wouldn't be surprised that there
Speaker 7: is some action. You know, if there is action, you've
Speaker 7: got to have something on the ground. I think they're
Speaker 7: working on that. And number two, you know, think about it,
Speaker 7: Venezuela and Iran. What is the tangential benefit of that?
Speaker 7: It is a pinch on Russia and China.
Speaker 1: Brett. The last thing I want to bring your attention
Speaker 1: Tommy ved is an annoyance to me. He's one of
Speaker 1: the pod bros. And he's barking at me online right now.
Speaker 1: But something he said today I think Donald Trump might
Speaker 1: note when he's barking at me. Donald Trump told Ironi
Speaker 1: and protesters he would rescue them. He encouraged them to
Speaker 1: take over institutions, and then did nothing as they were
Speaker 1: massacred by the regime. You know, that's early to be
Speaker 1: calling you're repeating the red liner rature. And it's ironic,
Speaker 1: not completely ridiculous for an Obama bro to do it.
Speaker 1: But will the president have to live with that if
Speaker 1: he doesn't do anything?
Speaker 7: Yeah, I think that the way he talks, I think
Speaker 7: that that, you know, was was pretty bold and I
Speaker 7: think that, you know, that's why it leads me to
Speaker 7: the conclusion that I'm with you. I think it's more
Speaker 7: likely than not that there is some kind of action,
Speaker 7: but in a sense it is a little ionic for
Speaker 7: Tommy retorts.
Speaker 1: Ben Rhodes will be in next to check in with
Speaker 1: the Kurds.
Speaker 7: Have something to say about the red line.
Speaker 1: Oh yes, oh yes. Brett Bear will be watching tonight.
Speaker 1: I know Trey Yanks will probably be updating you or
Speaker 1: Lucas or one of your fine military guys over in
Speaker 1: the region. Brett Behar, host of Fox News Special Report,
Speaker 1: America's anchorman. Thank you, Brett. I'll be right back America.
Speaker 1: Lylacs is next more on Minnesota when we return to
Speaker 1: the he Hewit Show logom back America. I'm h Hewett.
Speaker 1: I asked our friend James Lylyx to come early and
Speaker 1: stay late today. You can read James at James lylys
Speaker 1: dot substact dot com because James is has been and
Speaker 1: probably always will be a resident of Minneapolis. And James,
Speaker 1: just for your benefit, I've just discussed with Brett Bair
Speaker 1: the Alex Pretty death and the Renee Good death and
Speaker 1: in between. I was on a program and I said,
Speaker 1: you know, Minnesota is an open carry and a concealed
Speaker 1: carry state and a shell issue state, and somebody was
Speaker 1: going to get hurt after renee Good and now someone's dead.
Speaker 1: You live there, you can see what we don't see
Speaker 1: and feel what we don't feel. Is the city boiling
Speaker 1: over it is on the edge of revolution, or is
Speaker 1: everyone kind of now just saying shocked and disgusted with
Speaker 1: themselves and everybody.
Speaker 3: It's neither. It's both.
Speaker 5: I mean, where I live, it's okay, it's great. I mean,
Speaker 5: I'm about twenty blocks south of where the George Floyds
Speaker 5: stuff happened in the summertime. Unlike the Governor's wife, I
Speaker 5: did not open my windows so I could smell the
Speaker 5: burning tires and think of it as the perfume of justice.
Speaker 5: But we had calamities around here. We had disorder. That
Speaker 5: was twenty twenty. This is much different. The only thing
Speaker 5: exactually penetrated my neighborhood, as I may have mentioned a
Speaker 5: couple of weeks ago, was a woman who was driving
Speaker 5: behind in black suv and she was convinced it was ice,
Speaker 5: and she was blowing whistles and gesturing and making trying
Speaker 5: to get everybody to run after it and do I
Speaker 5: don't know what, but you know, possibly was a guy
Speaker 5: with a long service, you know, a tree free friming operation,
Speaker 5: who had mistakenly been entered into the databases. So around here, no,
Speaker 5: it's quiet, but of course you talk to your friends,
Speaker 5: you talk to your neighbors. Everybody sort of tries to
Speaker 5: feel the other person out. There's a general assumption that
Speaker 5: your anti eyes. This is horrible, this is awful. They
Speaker 5: ought to leave these people. B and beyond that, the
Speaker 5: conversation doesn't go any further.
Speaker 1: Now you have just here the old colleague. You had
Speaker 1: the old colleague from the Star Tribune last week who
Speaker 1: wrote they almost left them all in Michigan after there
Speaker 1: is another shooting, the one of the trend at D
Speaker 1: Did he write anything else in the most recent shooting.
Speaker 5: I haven't actually read it yet or looked, but what
Speaker 5: is there to say?
Speaker 3: Really?
Speaker 5: One of the more unnerving things about this era that
Speaker 5: I've Selody put it quite nicely, is we all do
Speaker 5: the Zapruder film when it comes out to these all
Speaker 5: these different advantage points of the unfortunate death of that man,
Speaker 5: and we slow it down to frame by frame. But
Speaker 5: life doesn't happen that way. The best way to understand
Speaker 5: these videos, perhaps is to watch them at twice speed
Speaker 5: because everything is flooding and everything is immediate, and it's
Speaker 5: difficult to judge.
Speaker 3: I after this last shooting.
Speaker 5: It is hard for somebody who has not been supportive
Speaker 5: of going out and getting the bad guys and taking
Speaker 5: them away to say that there has to be a
Speaker 5: lowering of the temperature.
Speaker 3: But that doesn't mean that you have to stop doing
Speaker 3: what needs to be done.
Speaker 5: So the unfortunate part again is that there will be
Speaker 5: continuously these cell of people who follow around the ice agents.
Speaker 5: And the way that it's been documented is how they're
Speaker 5: doing it, and the coordination and the sacred little signals
Speaker 5: operations that they have, and the code names, and the
Speaker 5: way they've got the city into grids, and the possibility
Speaker 5: that they're getting in real time the drivers or the
Speaker 5: auto places of the vehicles that tells them it's ice.
Speaker 5: I mean, it's extraordinarily coordinated and it's not you know.
Speaker 3: A couple of wine moms who see.
Speaker 5: A truck had decide to go out soude and side
Speaker 5: and bang on a pot. It's all part of a
Speaker 5: very very sophisticated operation with tentacles. They go back to
Speaker 5: organizations that we actually are not having the country's best
Speaker 5: interest at heart. They'd love a color revolution out of this,
Speaker 5: but they're not going to get one. So the mood now,
Speaker 5: the mood now, I can't say. There was a bruhaha
Speaker 5: and a local hotel last night where they went after it,
Speaker 5: but it was a different police force.
Speaker 3: It wasn't many, as we.
Speaker 1: Answered my question. That was the Maple whatever Ridge Front Mountain,
Speaker 1: Maple Growth, Maple Grow police force, and they just brought
Speaker 1: the tackles, the offensive line and pulling guards. Took down
Speaker 1: ten demonstrators with twenty four police officers and that was
Speaker 1: the end of that. Because obviously somebody knows that the
Speaker 1: Maple Grove Hotel knows the mayor.
Speaker 5: They were banging on the side of the thing with shovels,
Speaker 5: which is a very Minnesota thing to do. I actually
Speaker 5: had to smile before I was completely disgusted by it.
Speaker 3: It really is.
Speaker 5: It's like, you know, we want to just petelt ludifisk
Speaker 5: at the windows and have that stuff d you know,
Speaker 5: slimy drip down.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they weren't playing in the sense.
Speaker 5: The Minneapolis cops stand back because it's not a sanctuary city.
Speaker 3: That's great, that's great.
Speaker 5: They also deployed an l RAD system I believe it's called,
Speaker 5: which is one of those things that makes you feel uncomfortable,
Speaker 5: probably like a TEAMU or a play school version of
Speaker 5: the one that was used in Venezuela.
Speaker 3: But that's a different set of tactics.
Speaker 5: So if they're starting to push back against letting these
Speaker 5: people just absolutely control, try to control the situation, great,
Speaker 5: that would be good, but they're not getting that from
Speaker 5: the mayor. What the mayor is saying, of course, is
Speaker 5: that he met with Holman and that they have to
Speaker 5: end the surge as quickly as possible because it's the
Speaker 5: tactics that are sowing division.
Speaker 7: Now.
Speaker 3: I don't know if you've heard specifically what the mayor said,
Speaker 3: did you No.
Speaker 5: Okay, what he said was, we have the end metro
Speaker 5: search as quickly as possible.
Speaker 3: This is his tweet.
Speaker 5: Public safety works best when it's built on community trust,
Speaker 5: not tactics that create fear or division. Well, it's a
Speaker 5: platitude and it's twaddled. But in one sense, communities say
Speaker 5: public safety requires a certain amount of fear in the
Speaker 5: mysteriants that they're going to be apprehended, but the idea
Speaker 5: that community and trust in the rest of it will
Speaker 5: somehow result in the easy acquisition of really bad ombres
Speaker 5: out there is nonsense. He's mad that they're going in
Speaker 5: and that it's paramilitary and they look scary and they.
Speaker 3: Have their faces up and all the rest of it.
Speaker 5: But the fact of the matter is that this is
Speaker 5: being done under the Obama administration, and nobody would have
Speaker 5: linked once.
Speaker 1: Where did Jacob bry go to college? Because I'm wondering
Speaker 1: what happened to the Pete Bootage, Jacob fry pod Brothers generation.
Speaker 1: That they can't answer a question with anything resembling a
Speaker 1: specificity and resolve. I mean, just say no, we're not
Speaker 1: going to we're not going to work with them, or yes,
Speaker 1: we will do the detainers and then explain why that
Speaker 1: was problem.
Speaker 5: What you read to me, Yeah, well, it's a generation
Speaker 5: that just speaks and stuff that has to that. It
Speaker 5: sounds like it's been run through HR for the appropriate
Speaker 5: amount of platitudes. But he said he also made it
Speaker 5: clear that Minneapolis does not and will not enforce federal
Speaker 5: immigration laws and that we and we will remain focused
Speaker 5: on keeping our neighbors and streets safe. So he believes
Speaker 5: this is part and parcel that not enforcing federal immigration
Speaker 5: laws is part and parcel of keeping neighborhoods safe, despite
Speaker 5: the fact that they're rolling up some people who ought
Speaker 5: not to be here and do very bad things. So
Speaker 5: it's gas. It's just all gash nonsense.
Speaker 1: Okay, he went to William and Mary. He was a
Speaker 1: lawyer at Villanova. I knew that he learned his law
Speaker 1: school at Villanova. I think he is forty four years old,
Speaker 1: So he really is in the demo of perplexed. They
Speaker 1: are perpetually perplexed by everything that the Iranians perplexed them,
Speaker 1: so they sent them bags of gold and the jcpoa.
Speaker 3: Pallats of cash. What in the.
Speaker 1: World is wrong with that generation? They should not be
Speaker 1: allowed to run anything. Is he running for governor?
Speaker 3: No, not that I know of, and he wouldn't win.
Speaker 5: Part of the problem is this, this difficulty in grappling
Speaker 5: with human nature, the sort of.
Speaker 3: Belief that there actually are.
Speaker 5: Deviations within populations, that there are hierarchies of intelligences and
Speaker 5: cultures and the rest of it, and that everybody is
Speaker 5: actually pretty much cut from the same cloth, and if
Speaker 5: you just drop them here in Minneapolis, then they're going
Speaker 5: to become productive citizens and some magic will happening.
Speaker 3: It's all great.
Speaker 5: So attacking the very idea of singling out somebody because
Speaker 5: they did not come through the legal channels, it strikes
Speaker 5: them as as as an untenable intellectual position. It's not
Speaker 5: what a good person thinks. A good person believes that
Speaker 5: borders are a construct. They're letting anybody in whatsoever is
Speaker 5: perfectly fine, and that once in, everybody should have opportunities
Speaker 5: that are equal to everybody else.
Speaker 3: When it comes from the public's funding's funding, when it comes.
Speaker 1: To a game of suggests, when it comes to public schools,
Speaker 1: Lilac can't go anywhere. During the break, you might want
Speaker 1: to look up because I want to ask you what's
Speaker 1: the difference in demographics between mapel Grove, which took on
Speaker 1: the mob effectively, and Minneapolis, which didn't. When I come
Speaker 1: back to the herere at Shovel Morgan back America, I'm
Speaker 1: Hugh Hewett Lilac, my guest. As in James Lilacs dot
Speaker 1: substack dot com. Humor is extraordinary but also very perceptive
Speaker 1: social commentator when he feels like it. James maple Grove
Speaker 1: wanted no part of the ICE organized demonstration, so they
Speaker 1: arrested them all, took them away. Minneapolis doesn't show up.
Speaker 1: What's a difference in the demographics of the community.
Speaker 3: Well, demographics look like this.
Speaker 5: When you go north to Minneapolis, you get you tend
Speaker 5: to get more into African American neighborhoods.
Speaker 3: When you get beyond that, you get the.
Speaker 5: First ring of the suburbs, the old post war suburbs,
Speaker 5: which have been going through changes over the years. They're
Speaker 5: once more exclusively white. They are not anymore. It's changing
Speaker 5: in interesting ways. Brooklyn Center, which is up there, is
Speaker 5: I think something like the most diversity in the state.
Speaker 5: It's like twenty five percent, twenty five percent, twenty five percent,
Speaker 5: twenty five percent, and then Brooklyn Park next to that
Speaker 5: is a little less. So by the time you get
Speaker 5: to Maple Grove it's about eighty percent white. The farther
Speaker 5: you move out of the city and you get to
Speaker 5: the exurbs, it's mostly white and relatively more conservative, but
Speaker 5: by a Minnesota model, I mean Minnesota conservatives are pretty
Speaker 5: dark purple. To the south of me you have it
Speaker 5: allmost repeated a little bit. The suburb to the south
Speaker 5: of me, Richfield, is heavily is increasingly Hispanic in the
Speaker 5: last few years, as they build and as they move
Speaker 5: in and they buy homes and start families and all
Speaker 5: the rest of it the American dream. And I actually
Speaker 5: haven't heard an awful lot of action that's gone on
Speaker 5: down in Richfield. I mean that neighborhood every day practically,
Speaker 5: and there's no disorder. There's no tweeting whistles, there's no
Speaker 5: APC's going through the streets.
Speaker 3: So I can't say, but that's what it is.
Speaker 5: You go farther north, you get, the more diverse you
Speaker 5: get until it starts to change, and then it becomes
Speaker 5: white in the excerbs and white as the general state
Speaker 5: is now.
Speaker 1: You're been a lot of exceptions. You know, I both
Speaker 1: know because you've co hosted with me. When I've gone
Speaker 1: to the Minneapolis or the Minnesota State Fair. Everybody goes
Speaker 1: to the fair, right, everybody goes to the fair. Are
Speaker 1: the people in the watch Ice, attack, Ice, disrupt ice
Speaker 1: groups ever going to get visit the butter Princess Room.
Speaker 1: Are they going to go to the fair?
Speaker 3: Or I guarantee well, I guarantee it.
Speaker 5: The people who live here who are showing up at
Speaker 5: the protests, who are on the little signal chats who
Speaker 5: are blowing the whistles and doing the rest of it. Absolutely,
Speaker 5: I would expect to see them show up at the
Speaker 5: fair because the Fair is one of the strange things
Speaker 5: that binds us all together. And it's regardless of your
Speaker 5: political disposition. People go there because it's Minnesota, and a
Speaker 5: lot of the people who are doing these things and
Speaker 5: showing up in the street corners and protesting and the
Speaker 5: rest of it love Minnesota. They're doing it out of
Speaker 5: what they believe to be in altruistic sense. So yes,
Speaker 5: the people who are coming from elsewhere have no interest
Speaker 5: whatsoever in anything in Minnesotan or the Fair, or the
Speaker 5: lakes or the loons. They're here to bring about the
Speaker 5: social change that they think is absolutely necessary.
Speaker 6: No events.
Speaker 1: Culture Woodstock, Kent State. Yeah, George Floyd did not change
Speaker 1: the culture of Minnesota. It made it more blue. Is
Speaker 1: this event going to make it more blue or less blue?
Speaker 3: Well?
Speaker 5: Again, do you want me to go on vibe from
Speaker 5: Twitter or do you want me to go from my
Speaker 5: own experience?
Speaker 1: Here?
Speaker 5: Vibe from Twitter as a lot of people saying, you know,
Speaker 5: I was on the fence about a lot of this stuff,
Speaker 5: but having seen what I've seen.
Speaker 3: I'm absolutely going to vote for every single socialist program
Speaker 3: that comes down the pike. And I don't believe that.
Speaker 5: Would it be mean that Minnesota, that Minneapolis turns more
Speaker 5: blue and gets more push to the left. I'm not
Speaker 5: sure that's possible, actually, because right now it's you know,
Speaker 5: the Democratic socialist government and people who are generally blue,
Speaker 5: blue blue as can be. I don't know how they're
Speaker 5: gonna get any bluer unless you know, they replace their
Speaker 5: blood with the windshield wiper. So it's not going to
Speaker 5: change that the composition of Minneapolis. What it changes, what
Speaker 5: it enforces, unfortunately, is the perception of Minneapolis, which has
Speaker 5: gotten so bad and really is inaccurate.
Speaker 3: It really isn't.
Speaker 5: But you know, we've sort of deserved the number of
Speaker 5: holes that we have in our feet from gunfire. So
Speaker 5: it'll take a long time for the city.
Speaker 1: After the Cuyahoga River on fire. For the rest of
Speaker 1: my life, I've heard about the Cyhoga River catching on fire,
Speaker 1: and right there are there are events and weeks and
Speaker 1: events that and then Nick Dime Beer Knight at the
Speaker 1: Stadium when there was a mob that almost killed David
Speaker 1: Clyde Cleveland had a very bad rap for a long
Speaker 1: Minnesota treading on those territories just becoming and no goes
Speaker 1: on for the rest of the country.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and it's worse because social media has amplified it
Speaker 5: and because it becomes the thing that you say, I
Speaker 5: wouldn't go to Minneapolis if you paid me. It's a
Speaker 5: hell hole in smogadishu and the rest of it is like,
Speaker 5: you know, I look at that and I just think, Okay, fine,
Speaker 5: you're scared.
Speaker 3: You're scared.
Speaker 5: There are people in South Dakota, rural South Dakota who
Speaker 5: are scared to go to Sioux Falls for whatever reason.
Speaker 1: Stay where you are.
Speaker 5: But the idea that it's an that it's an unsafe
Speaker 5: place to be based on what you've seen, isn't true.
Speaker 3: It's a big, big, big city and I love it here.
Speaker 5: And the only reason that I'm you know, I'm leaving
Speaker 5: for different reasons, but I'm not moving away very far.
Speaker 3: I'm moving like ten blocks from the city border.
Speaker 5: So if you know, if it's engulfed in complete social chaos,
Speaker 5: it'll come to my place too.
Speaker 1: James is going to stick around, because what do we do.
Speaker 3: It's a beauty.
Speaker 1: Are you going to play around of what did President
Speaker 1: Trump mean with me? When we come back? It's a
Speaker 1: fun game and it takes someone with Lilac's agility to
Speaker 1: play it. So stay tuned for what did President Trump
Speaker 1: mean with Lilac's next on the UU check we go
Speaker 1: back America. I'm Hugh Hewett. James Lylyx is doing double
Speaker 1: triple duty with me today, Lyles says in James lylys
Speaker 1: dot substack dot com is up in Minneso. Cool because uh,
Speaker 1: Dwayne dumped a bunch of the president's presser in Iowa
Speaker 1: or walk about in Iowa on me. I need you
Speaker 1: to help me translate. Cut number twenty one, James, this
Speaker 1: is President Trump.
Speaker 3: Some of your own.
Speaker 8: Administration officials have labeled out this ABC thing?
Speaker 3: Is this one?
Speaker 6: She hasn't asked me.
Speaker 8: She hasn't asked me a good question in years. I
Speaker 8: think a nice woman, but I don't really like her
Speaker 8: too much. Go ahead, what you said, I'd say ABC
Speaker 8: is about as bad as they can President.
Speaker 1: Would you like to see the dollars? All right? As
Speaker 1: I stop, James, what's the president doing there?
Speaker 5: I believe that he's asserting that he does not believe
Speaker 5: the premacy legitimacy and the unassailable quality of the mainstream media.
Speaker 5: And frankly, I'm shocked that somebody would say that in
Speaker 5: twenty twenty six, especially President Trump.
Speaker 1: That's what he's back to the machine shed restaurant gaggle
Speaker 1: in Des Moines, cut twenty two.
Speaker 8: So you know, I'm going around, and I'm going around
Speaker 8: because hopefully we win the midterms. And it's very scary
Speaker 8: because like it's two out of fifty years or something
Speaker 8: like that. For some reason when a president wins, Republican
Speaker 8: or Democrat, even if they're a good president, and hopefully
Speaker 8: I'm a great president based on the first year.
Speaker 6: We had a great first term too. People don't.
Speaker 8: We rebuilt our military, we had phenomenal financial levers.
Speaker 6: But I think this term is blowing away.
Speaker 8: Really every time traditionally when a president gets elected, out
Speaker 8: of I think fifty years, they've had two. One I
Speaker 8: don't understand it had too so we have to and
Speaker 8: one was by unusual circumstance. So there's something psychological if
Speaker 8: you win the president and whether you're a Republican or Democrat.
Speaker 6: With that being said, the polls look very good.
Speaker 8: Everything looks very good, and you have great congressmen here
Speaker 8: with congressmen and women here, and we love Iowa.
Speaker 1: All right.
Speaker 5: James commentary, Well, what he's saying is, if we get
Speaker 5: selected in the mid terms, it's this historical inevitability because
Speaker 5: forty edit of the last fifty times, that's exactly what's happened.
Speaker 3: It's like the tide comes in and the tide goes out.
Speaker 3: The people do this, and the people do that.
Speaker 5: But if it doesn't happen, that's great because it shouldn't
Speaker 5: happen because I was good and I was good and
Speaker 5: I did this thing right, and it shouldn't happen.
Speaker 1: But if it does, its history, I mean, that's exactly right. Basically,
Speaker 1: I'm very easy to understand. I'm defying the law that
Speaker 1: he's difficult to understand. Cut number twenty three at the
Speaker 1: machine shed gaggle playing, Well, we're going to.
Speaker 6: See what happens with Cuba. Did anybody interested in Cuban
Speaker 6: in this room? Not too many. This is not a
Speaker 6: Cuba room, But that's all right.
Speaker 8: There are plenty of them around, especially in Miami, and
Speaker 8: Cuba will be failing pretty soon. Cuba is really a
Speaker 8: nation that's very close to family. You're talking about you know,
Speaker 8: they got that money from.
Speaker 6: Venezuela, and they got the oil from Venezuela. They're not
Speaker 6: getting that anymore.
Speaker 1: Okay, James, this is not a Cuba room.
Speaker 5: Yeah, well, you know, I probably is not a Cuba room.
Speaker 5: But I mean, what he's reminding us is that Cuba
Speaker 5: is next on the agenda. Is that we've gone from
Speaker 5: Venezuela to Greenland to Cuba. And I've heard this a
Speaker 5: little bit, and it's interesting because when you say Cuba
Speaker 5: is next, it makes people think, wait a minute, did
Speaker 5: did what happened with green what happened with Venezuela? And
Speaker 5: it's that sort of kinetic flow that just keeps you
Speaker 5: off balance and looking forward as opposed to looking back
Speaker 5: at the other things, which resolved was great, best time ever.
Speaker 5: So I mean, when he's somebody mentions it and he's
Speaker 5: just reminding us it's on the platter, and it's on
Speaker 5: the platter in unspecified ways.
Speaker 1: Jim, do you agree with me that if Jijinping does
Speaker 1: the very unwise thing and tries to attack Taiwan, Cuba's
Speaker 1: number comes up immediately and Donarden first goes there.
Speaker 5: I hadn't really thought of that before. I really hadn't,
Speaker 5: but it's entirely possible. It's it's suck outside of the
Speaker 5: roma possibility.
Speaker 3: Do we want to do that? Do we need to
Speaker 3: do that? Necessarily?
Speaker 5: Is what's happening in China right now. And all the
Speaker 5: reshuffling and the little internal dynamics. Shuffling is the very words.
Speaker 1: That's a very gentle word. Yeah, reshuffling going on in
Speaker 1: Joe Stalin's.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right, pory, yeah, poor.
Speaker 1: Uh so the organizations different now.
Speaker 3: Jed ted Bundy was reshuffled this morning in a chair
Speaker 3: in the right. I mean if that means that he's
Speaker 3: getting ready to do something, or that he's dealing with
Speaker 3: the Richalcitan generals who don't want to we don't know.
Speaker 3: We'll see.
Speaker 5: The opacity of China and it's it's ruling red families
Speaker 5: is a mystery to me and I wish I would
Speaker 5: I knew better about it. But that's interesting. It's just
Speaker 5: reminding you that to keep your eyes focused. And I mean,
Speaker 5: if he could, if he could effect the change in
Speaker 5: government in Cuba in such a way that redoubted to
Speaker 5: the benefit of the people, that would be a good thing.
Speaker 3: As it was in Venezulta.
Speaker 1: The real estate developer in him wants all that land. Okay,
Speaker 1: let me go to twenty four. Last Donald Trump cut
Speaker 1: from today. Cut twenty four.
Speaker 8: Remember we secured the border. Crime is down all over
Speaker 8: the country. We just had a crime report coming out
Speaker 8: from I think one of the networks which they hate
Speaker 8: to hear this with crime is the lowest number ever recorded.
Speaker 8: So I said, I don't know which we've talked about Minnesota,
Speaker 8: but in Minnesota you probably read the crime is way down.
Speaker 8: You know why because we took out thousands of criminals
Speaker 8: out of Minnesota and that's why it's good.
Speaker 1: So anyway, but.
Speaker 6: Com Homan is over there. We all love time.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I never we met with the governor, met with
Speaker 8: a Marria's going to meet with a merry guests and
Speaker 8: it's it's going very well.
Speaker 6: But remember this, even Minnesota. The crime is down down.
Speaker 1: In Minnesota, James, your crime is down. Did you know that.
Speaker 3: Even in Minnesota? And again that's the ref that we
Speaker 3: have is the Rep. Detroit crime is down. I mean,
Speaker 3: oh my god. Well, first of all, I mean this
Speaker 3: is this is standard politics.
Speaker 5: Is what presidents do. I'm tough on crime. Crime is
Speaker 5: down there for my policies, work. You can attribute a
Speaker 5: lot of it to the border being closed. You can
Speaker 5: attribute a lot of it to that. You can then
Speaker 5: turn around and say, well, wait a minute, we thought
Speaker 5: the crime was low because the cities weren't reporting it,
Speaker 5: And that's a possibility there.
Speaker 3: You can say that the people.
Speaker 5: Who were removed from Minnesota were not out there actually
Speaker 5: doing an awful lot of crime themselves.
Speaker 3: That they were.
Speaker 5: They may have had bad things they did, but they
Speaker 5: weren't every day engaging in rapiant criminality.
Speaker 3: But you know, what, do you exactly what you expect
Speaker 3: politicians to say. He said I was tough on crime.
Speaker 3: Crime is down to draw the conclusions.
Speaker 1: But is crime diamonds again? The Cuyahoga River on fire
Speaker 1: thing sticks with people from Ohio and I Minnesota is
Speaker 1: getting branded as we speak. Is crime down there?
Speaker 5: Well, if it may be for the for the time,
Speaker 5: it's simply because it's too cold to actually do a
Speaker 5: lot of criming. I mean, it's been about you know,
Speaker 5: fourteen below in session, so your miscre intends to stay home.
Speaker 5: The criminality will probably surge in the spring, in the summer,
Speaker 5: in the warm, in the clement times. But the sense
Speaker 5: of the sense of disorder crime wise seems to have
Speaker 5: abaited a bit a lot since twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: So criming with somedto God is also and you can't
Speaker 1: go to the VA. There's no criming at the fair either,
Speaker 1: as I recall.
Speaker 6: Yes there is, Yes there is.
Speaker 3: Unfortunately that's the tragedy of it.
Speaker 1: But that's another shale in the chocolate chip buckets. Really
Speaker 1: I don't know. James Wiolights dot substat dot com, James
Speaker 1: Lyle that substack dot com. Welcome back to America. I'm
Speaker 1: Hugh Hewett, joined by Michael Duncan, one of the fellas
Speaker 1: on the Ruthless Podcast, himself a Hoosier and congratulations Michael,
Speaker 1: I'm sure you are a proud Hoosier.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: With the national crown being taken from Ohio across the
Speaker 1: state line, congratulations to your friend.
Speaker 9: Thank you very much. I mean, I think bigger than
Speaker 9: Indiana's just a great story for college football. You know,
Speaker 9: doubted the whole way, losing his program in the history
Speaker 9: of college football and somehow national champions So anybody out
Speaker 9: there listening, if you think your team doesn't have a shot,
Speaker 9: you know they might.
Speaker 1: Well that that's a nice way to spin it. The
Speaker 1: other way to spin it is Mark Cuban unloaded the
Speaker 1: Dallas Mavericks and bought the Hoosiers, and just hold.
Speaker 9: On, hold on, hold on here, you hold on how
Speaker 9: Miami was paying Carson Beck what four million dollars.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that. I'm not saying there are other
Speaker 1: people out there spending billions on their college team. But
Speaker 1: Mark Cuban is a good businessman. Buys low and he
Speaker 1: sells high.
Speaker 9: But just don't expect okay, last well, fine, you all
Speaker 9: I'm saying is the reason why they were so doubted.
Speaker 9: All these transfers that Kurtz Signetti brought from JMU, and
Speaker 9: everybody said, oh, well, these kids can't compete in the
Speaker 9: Big ten. They go and they win the Big Ten,
Speaker 9: and then people said, well, they'll never be able to
Speaker 9: match up against the powerhouse of the SEC. And then
Speaker 9: they throttled Alabama and then they win the national championship.
Speaker 9: And so all these kids, those kids who were doubted,
Speaker 9: the zero star kids, are now national champions You.
Speaker 1: Know, kids who was like twenty eight. Some of them
Speaker 1: were on medicare I think, but I don't mind. I
Speaker 1: don't mind. They're Big ten. And by the way, isn't
Speaker 1: the SEC. So Mid that's what Doug lay Murray is
Speaker 1: our football expert, because Mid they're just not really a
Speaker 1: conference anymore than anyone wants to be in. It's all
Speaker 1: in the Big Ten.
Speaker 9: Now, yeah, that's right. And finally, you know, you're I
Speaker 9: know you're a Ohio guy, so I'm glad we have
Speaker 9: some solidarity here in the Big Ten.
Speaker 7: We do.
Speaker 1: Ohio basically allowed Indiana to be to leave, and it's
Speaker 1: sort of like when there's a subdivision in a neighborhood
Speaker 1: and we let them go over and take all the
Speaker 1: flat land. By the way, if you have to give
Speaker 1: a list of five tourist attractions in Indiana, rattle them
Speaker 1: off for me, will you.
Speaker 9: Okay, So, first of all, obviously the Indianapolis Motor Speedway,
Speaker 9: the Indy five hund that's one day.
Speaker 3: It's like one of the.
Speaker 9: Uh yeah, but you know it's the largest single day
Speaker 9: sporting event in the world.
Speaker 3: Here.
Speaker 1: That's that's not a tourist attraction. That's a sporting event.
Speaker 1: That's different. I mean, do we go and see the
Speaker 1: Indiana Coliseum as well when it's empty.
Speaker 9: Hugh, It is not a sporting attraction. It's a religious
Speaker 9: event being on that track.
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, we'll give you a half. What's next, I mean,
Speaker 1: where do we go?
Speaker 9: Well, we're going to go to Saint Elmos Steakhouse and
Speaker 9: we are going to get the shrimp cocktail with a
Speaker 9: super spicy horse Radish cocktail sauce.
Speaker 1: Really, we went from a one day event to a
Speaker 1: steakhouse for the Indiana attractions. Don't they have a theme park?
Speaker 9: Okay, well, we don't need theme parks because what we
Speaker 9: have is Coliseums of Sport. Next, we're going to go
Speaker 9: ahead to Lucas Oil and we're gonna go watch the
Speaker 9: Indianapolis Colts, a wonderful football franchise with a storied history.
Speaker 1: And by the way, Philip Rivers is going to transfer
Speaker 1: to IU and the lower the age of the IU
Speaker 1: people over there. Let's get the important stuff. Let's get
Speaker 1: to your podcast this morning. You guys ran the Senate map.
Speaker 1: You ran the map, and I'm glad you did. My
Speaker 1: assessment generally concurs with yours, but I am not complacent
Speaker 1: about Ohio. I have John Houston on the show almost
Speaker 1: weekly because I'm a buck eye and Sheard Brown basically
Speaker 1: is a vampire, right He lives in the dark off
Speaker 1: of government jobs. He went from Yale right to the
Speaker 1: state legislature and spent fifty years in the government. And
Speaker 1: he's not dead yet. We didn't use the garlic. We
Speaker 1: didn't we didn't get a mirror.
Speaker 9: What do you think, Well, that is the grand irony, Hugh,
Speaker 9: you alluded to it. This guy's never had a real
Speaker 9: job in his life. But in every campaign ad or
Speaker 9: campaign stop, you see him without a blazer and his
Speaker 9: sleeves rolled up. And suddenly people in Ohio seem to
Speaker 9: think this is a working class man, and of course
Speaker 9: he's not. And he's far to the left. He's the
Speaker 9: Bernie Sanders of Ohio. But he's hoodwinked the people of
Speaker 9: Ohio before, and so we do definitely have to watch
Speaker 9: that race.
Speaker 1: There is no media in Ohio. This is the sad
Speaker 1: fact that The Inquirer is down to nothing, The Playing
Speaker 1: Dealer is down to its sports section. They're all left
Speaker 1: with leaning. There's just no media on that. And I
Speaker 1: don't know, I'm a little bit worried. We'll keep bringing
Speaker 1: Houston on.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: The key question of the day, Michael, the Trump administration
Speaker 1: has a problem in Minnesota. It's a perception problem. The
Speaker 1: polling is on both sides. People don't want criminal, illegal
Speaker 1: aliens wore violent in the country, and they don't like
Speaker 1: what ICE is doing. Does President Trump retreat from Minnesota
Speaker 1: or does he double down?
Speaker 9: I really hope he doubles down. I think retreat would
Speaker 9: send the wrong message. And it's the lesson that the
Speaker 9: left learned after twenty twenty is just if they riot
Speaker 9: and obstruct enough, that will give in. And unfortunately, Joe
Speaker 9: Biden led in twenty million people into this country illegally,
Speaker 9: and so it's going to be difficult to undo all
Speaker 9: of that, and they're hoping that we get discouraged and
Speaker 9: doing it. I don't say that to disregard the political
Speaker 9: optics of this entire thing. It's going to be difficult
Speaker 9: because the Left is insistent on making it as painful
Speaker 9: as possible for us. And this tragedy is terrible, right
Speaker 9: that somebody was shot and killed during this skirmish with
Speaker 9: ICE agents, But I mean, what is the administration doing
Speaker 9: to put forward exactly what the ICE agents were doing
Speaker 9: at the time. Who are the criminals they were arresting.
Speaker 9: I mean, the perception, I think is that we have
Speaker 9: this sort of vacuum. I think on the right of
Speaker 9: not explaining enough about what ICE is doing and the
Speaker 9: terrible criminals that they're getting off the streets of Minneapolis.
Speaker 1: Let me play for you in it. On the White
Speaker 1: House lawn this morning, getting a question about Homeland Security
Speaker 1: Secretary no home cut number ten.
Speaker 3: I think he's doing a very good job.
Speaker 5: I think he's going a very good job.
Speaker 8: The border is totally secure, you know, you forget we
Speaker 8: had a border that I inherited where millions of people
Speaker 8: were coming through.
Speaker 1: Now that's just all The key part is is she
Speaker 1: doing a very good job? Do you agree? And do
Speaker 1: you think he will stay there? Because the President's been
Speaker 1: known to change his mind rather rapidly.
Speaker 9: I think she is doing a great job, and it's
Speaker 9: easy to look past all the success of this administration
Speaker 9: has had on the issue of border security. I also
Speaker 9: noticed that the President is bringing in Tom Homan, and
Speaker 9: I think bringing in Tom Homan, I think is a
Speaker 9: good sign that we're getting somebody with a lot of
Speaker 9: experience to be in there on the ground to make
Speaker 9: sure the operations are effective. Reminder, Hugh, it was Tom
Speaker 9: Homan who was given an award by Barack Obama when
Speaker 9: he deported a million people. Yeah, right, And so this
Speaker 9: used to be a bipartisan issue that we got criminal
Speaker 9: legal aliens off of our streets, but lost their mind
Speaker 9: during the age of Donald Trump, and hopefully we can
Speaker 9: reverse some of that now.
Speaker 1: Last question, not the president's a great communicator, best interview
Speaker 1: in America. I hope he does it right along with
Speaker 1: the fellows on Ruthless podcast before much longer. But not
Speaker 1: everyone in the White House is a great communicator. Do
Speaker 1: you think he tends to overlook the deficiencies of his friends?
Speaker 9: Wow, that's a really good question, Hugh. It's possible. It's possible. Look,
Speaker 9: it's difficult when you're dealing with these complicated issues and
Speaker 9: you have to be out there every single day fighting
Speaker 9: a media who's against you, a radical left that's well
Speaker 9: funded and against you, and so yeah, I mean, I
Speaker 9: definitely think it's a communications issue at some level that
Speaker 9: we have to be out there proactively telling the story
Speaker 9: of what this administration is doing to get criminal legal
Speaker 9: aliens off the streets. Who are these people? These are
Speaker 9: people who've trafficked human beings, these are people who are
Speaker 9: selling drugs, these are pedophiles. I mean, these are people
Speaker 9: who've done domestic assaults, and instead we're doing this a
Speaker 9: bruder film on this interaction with the ice officers in
Speaker 9: this horrible tragedy. And so it feels like, you know,
Speaker 9: the left has already won the debate by us engaging
Speaker 9: with it that way. People who are obstructing justice, people
Speaker 9: who are obstructing law enforcement from doing their lawful duty
Speaker 9: to get criminals off the street, shouldn't be anywhere near
Speaker 9: those cops.
Speaker 1: Everybody, go listen to the Ruthless Podcast this morning. They
Speaker 1: run down the map in twenty twenty six, and you'll
Speaker 1: want to hear not only Michael, but of course Josh
Speaker 1: Holmes and Smug and our good friend Ashbrook from Ashbrook
Speaker 1: from Cincinnati, which is kind of in Ohio's Stay tune
Speaker 1: in America Ontview. Hi, it's you, Hewett. You've heard me
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Speaker 1: That's one eight hundred four to one, one forty four
Speaker 1: to fifty four. Don't forget my code is Hugh. That
Speaker 1: music means America on the hu U at show time
Speaker 1: for David Drucker. He is, of course, senior political correspondent
Speaker 1: at the Dispatch. You got a brand new article out
Speaker 1: on the Texas Senate race, John Cornyn's dilemma and David, First,
Speaker 1: let's have you recite the facts before I ask him
Speaker 1: my questions about it, because I got a lot of questions.
Speaker 1: I'm a corn and backer, I have a Cornyn endorser.
Speaker 1: I love John Cornyan. But you wrote objectively you always
Speaker 1: do about the race, tell people about it.
Speaker 10: Well, you know, what makes Texas interesting in twenty twenty
Speaker 10: six is not because I think the Democrats can flip it,
Speaker 10: although you never rule anything out, but it's highly unlikely.
Speaker 3: But what is happening is this Republican primary for Senate.
Speaker 10: Where John corn is being challenged by both Ken Paxton,
Speaker 10: the state attorney general, and Wesley Hunt, a congressman from Houston.
Speaker 10: And you know, Cornyn is always won easily. I mean,
Speaker 10: he works really hard, he doesn't take anything for granted,
Speaker 10: but he's just never really faced a challenge.
Speaker 3: He's either at the general election or primary levels.
Speaker 10: And as the party has changed, you know, his political
Speaker 10: standing has just gotten a lot dicier because he's not
Speaker 10: the sort of combative populist who spends a lot of
Speaker 10: time on cable news or social media, although he does
Speaker 10: tweet a lot, and he authors his own posts on
Speaker 10: x and so he's just he's not stylistically where a
Speaker 10: lot of Republican primary voters are now, and he's in a.
Speaker 3: Real dogfight for his career. Packson has led in most polls.
Speaker 3: It's been narrow lately, but he's still up narrowly.
Speaker 10: And what we think is going to happen is that
Speaker 10: it's going to be a Ken Paxton, John corn And
Speaker 10: runoff because Texas has that rule where if you don't
Speaker 10: get fifty percent plus one, you head to a runoff.
Speaker 10: So there's a March third primary, it's coming up. There's
Speaker 10: a May twenty sixth runoff. Just about everybody I talked
Speaker 10: to and i'm hunt will make the runoff. And these
Speaker 10: are lower turnout affairs. They're lower turnout than the actual primary. Now,
Speaker 10: some people tell me that because they are going to
Speaker 10: be quite a few runoffs sprinkled throughout the state for
Speaker 10: various offices, that maybe this runoff.
Speaker 3: Won't be as low turnout as normal. But I think the.
Speaker 10: Bottom line here is what Cornyn told me when I
Speaker 10: sat down with him in ol Passo last week, is
Speaker 10: that his race is going to be a real test
Speaker 10: for whether and this was his These were his words,
Speaker 10: whether a normal Texas Texas conservative Republican can.
Speaker 3: Win a primary. And I think he's right.
Speaker 10: I think it's going to say a lot about where
Speaker 10: the party is, particularly because Paxton has so many scandals
Speaker 10: swirling around him that are you know, we say allegations,
Speaker 10: but I mean these things are pretty well known and
Speaker 10: pretty documented that it would really say quite a lot
Speaker 10: if Paxton was able to beat him.
Speaker 1: Now, I've sat on the show many times. It won't
Speaker 1: surprise my listeners. And we're on right now in every
Speaker 1: major market in Texas right now, John Cornyn is a
Speaker 1: layup reelection because you can't be more conservative on a
Speaker 1: voting record than John Corny. You can't support Trump any
Speaker 1: more than John Cornan has supported President Trump. There is
Speaker 1: no room to his right. There is only the identity
Speaker 1: is combative politics. But in the Senate, where everything is
Speaker 1: based on seniority, you don't trade in someone at the
Speaker 1: top of the food chain for someone who will be
Speaker 1: at the bottom of the food chain and will never
Speaker 1: get off of the bottom because of his age. So
Speaker 1: I don't think Congressman Hunt's going to win. I do
Speaker 1: think it will be a runoff, and I do think
Speaker 1: John Cornyan will win easily because I think Texas voters
Speaker 1: are smart and I don't know, I don't know how
Speaker 1: much money Ken Paxton is right, they got nothing against Ken.
Speaker 1: I know all the baggage that you refer to in
Speaker 1: your article. I know in detail. I'm not going to
Speaker 1: trade in it. I just I just think it's absurd
Speaker 1: to spend the money for the Republicans there, that John
Speaker 1: Thune's got to spend money of the Senate majority pack
Speaker 1: defending his buddy John Cornyn, because that's what senators do,
Speaker 1: and it's going to be John corn eventually, and we're
Speaker 1: going to waste all this money. How much do you
Speaker 1: think Corny's going to have to spend in these two races,
Speaker 1: the March third primary and then the runoff, Right, So.
Speaker 10: The pro corn and forces have already spent anywhere from
Speaker 10: fifty to seventy million dollars, ending on what kind of
Speaker 10: accounting you're doing, and I think he's going to have
Speaker 10: to spend another good, you know, twenty five to fifty
Speaker 10: million dollars to really make his case against Paxton. Because
Speaker 10: the thing is a lot of voters don't know about
Speaker 10: the allegations, and this is the this is the only
Speaker 10: way they're going to beat him, right, because the points
Speaker 10: you're making about seniority and the fact that his record
Speaker 10: actually does match well with President Trump. He has not
Speaker 10: voted against Trump. The knock on Cornin from voters I
Speaker 10: talked to in Texas is that, well, you know, when
Speaker 10: there's been a Democrat In fact, I one voter is
Speaker 10: in the story, Michael Sheridan is his name, and he said,
Speaker 10: you know, his voting record with President Trump is quite good. Actually,
Speaker 10: the problem is when we had Joe Biden or Barack
Speaker 10: Obama in office, he got soft. And of course Cornyon's
Speaker 10: a legislator who occasionally will take tough votes but is
Speaker 10: trying to do, from his perspective, whatever he can wherever
Speaker 10: he can. And when Democrats control one branch of government
Speaker 10: or all branches of government, that just means that unless
Speaker 10: you're just going to be a blanket no and never
Speaker 10: be involved, your record is not going to look as
Speaker 10: good as when Republicans are in full control of the government.
Speaker 10: And that's something, however, that a lot of voters. It's
Speaker 10: not that they can't understand it, you because voters are smart,
Speaker 10: but they understand.
Speaker 1: That Paxton could lose. That's the key. Paxton could lose
Speaker 1: because you've got so much baggage that will that will
Speaker 1: turn ay. Voters should just want to avoid the ads
Speaker 1: that are coming their way against Ken Paxton in November.
Speaker 1: But if it's Ken Paxton as the nominee, Act Blue
Speaker 1: will raise I don't know how many millions of dollars,
Speaker 1: but they'll spend them all in the major media markets
Speaker 1: just hammering Ken Paxton for the next six months, won't they. Yeah.
Speaker 10: So that's the other piece of this is even in
Speaker 10: a rough midterm cycle, Texas should be fine, but if
Speaker 10: you have a highly flawed nominee. What Republicans that support
Speaker 10: Cornyn are saying, and I think there's some truth to this,
Speaker 10: is that if you end up with not just a
Speaker 10: rough midterm election, but a rougher the normal midterm election,
Speaker 10: which is possible at this point, then Texas becomes a
Speaker 10: little bit less red. And in this case, all of
Speaker 10: a sudden, Paxton is not a lock. And on top
Speaker 10: of it, to make sure he doesn't lose, Republicans are
Speaker 10: going to have to pour tens of millions of dollars
Speaker 10: into that race that they could otherwise spend elsewhere. And
Speaker 10: from the Democratic Party's perspective, I mean they also should
Speaker 10: be more strategic I think about how they spend their money.
Speaker 10: But if Paxton's the nominee, then you can't blame them
Speaker 10: for going after him and seeing if they go off
Speaker 10: a miracle.
Speaker 1: Now that that is the proverbial late developing race that
Speaker 1: we all know will develop into a neck and neck race,
Speaker 1: and posters will have whoever their Tasmin Crockett or the
Speaker 1: other guy, the Presbyterian pastor they'll have. Yeah, they'll have
Speaker 1: them ahead in every poll because that's what's going to happen.
Speaker 1: And then more money will pour into Texas and they'll
Speaker 1: watch even more negative ads about Ken Paxton all because
Speaker 1: I mean miss as opposed to service to the country.
Speaker 1: I really don't understand Ken Paxton or Wesley Hunt here
Speaker 1: because John Cornyn is this conservative. It's good piece, very
Speaker 1: good piece by a David Drucker in The Dispatch, which
Speaker 1: you ought to be reading. It's a fine, fine journal
Speaker 1: of politics and opinion out of DC The Dispatch dot com.
Speaker 1: Thank you Drucker.