Speaker 1: Welcome to today's podcast sponsored by Hillsdale College, All Things
Speaker 1: Hillsdale Hillsdale dot ed or I encourage you to take
Speaker 1: advantage of the many free online courses there, and of
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Speaker 1: iTunes and Hillsdale. Hi it to you. Hi, Welcome to
Speaker 1: the Big Weekend Pod. A great, great show today. I'm
Speaker 1: down my leadoff hitter with John Ellis. He's out, but
Speaker 1: I will be joined by Eli Lake, who will bat
Speaker 1: both first and second. Then Matt Connetty will come along
Speaker 1: second and third, and Big Ben domination in the cleanup
Speaker 1: spot as usual. And we're gonna add just in case
Speaker 1: you missed it, Havevive Reddy Gore from yesterday. That's an
Speaker 1: additional fifty minutes. If it looks like it's very long.
Speaker 1: You may have already heard uh havev talking to you
Speaker 1: on yesterday's podcast, but if you didn't, you definitely want
Speaker 1: to hear what he had to say to me on Thursday.
Speaker 1: But for the Big Weekend Pod, Havevive is making an
Speaker 1: extra special appearance, so don't miss a minute of today's
Speaker 1: big weekend Pod. I'm Hewett inside the Beltway bringing you
Speaker 1: the Friday week in Review edition. Now jarn ellis is missing,
Speaker 1: so batting leadoff and in the two hole today, Eli
Speaker 1: Lake Eli is with the Free Press. He's the host
Speaker 1: of breaking histories, a man of extraordinary accomplishments, including, as
Speaker 1: you will hear in the next segment, a facility with
Speaker 1: ai and music. But Eli, let's begin with the war
Speaker 1: that's been suspended while the President has been in China,
Speaker 1: because that's what I think happened. The ceasefire that is
Speaker 1: in the ceasefire was kept at a low level of violence.
Speaker 1: But the big new development today Michael Waltz of the
Speaker 1: UN and posted, and I just reposted on X pictures
Speaker 1: of eighty thousand barrels of oil that Iran is just
Speaker 1: dumping into the Persian Gulf because they've gotten nowhere to
Speaker 1: put it. We've gotten to mac storage and Iran faster
Speaker 1: than we had. Nevertheless, I am hoping that when the
Speaker 1: President touched it down, kinetic actions combat operations resume immediately
Speaker 1: against Iran. What say you?
Speaker 2: The most important thing is that we continue the freedom
Speaker 2: of navigation operations and we defend vessels. I think we've
Speaker 2: already cleared a path that is mind free, and we
Speaker 2: have to establish that, and there will be kinetic action
Speaker 2: as part of it, because the Iranians have attacked US
Speaker 2: destroyers and they've attacked other ships. But it should be
Speaker 2: the main the main focus, I think should be at
Speaker 2: least that, and then if there are as we've been
Speaker 2: led to believe, although it's it's very interesting, I don't know,
Speaker 2: I'm did you catch Admiral Brad Cooper's testimony on the
Speaker 2: Hill yesterday?
Speaker 1: Yesterday? Yes?
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, So he was he made a pretty he
Speaker 2: sort of said these estimates that we didn't hit anything,
Speaker 2: or that you know, we we still have they still
Speaker 2: have something like ninety percent of their missiles. Not true.
Speaker 2: We've destroyed their ability to make missiles. And he went
Speaker 2: through all of the kind of military success countering leaks
Speaker 2: in the Washington Post and the New York Times. So
Speaker 2: if but I'm glad to believe that there are still
Speaker 2: other conventional military targets. So that would be nice to
Speaker 2: sort of take off the board as well if hostilities resume.
Speaker 2: But the main thing is demonstrating that theed that the
Speaker 2: US Navy, hopefully with allies, can bring international shipping through
Speaker 2: the straight of hor moves without being harassed and hit
Speaker 2: by the Iranian the IRGC.
Speaker 1: Navy, Eli, your fabulous colleague at the Free Press. Aaron
Speaker 1: McClain was on with Mark Dubovitz on the FBD Iran
Speaker 1: Breakdown podcast. Rarely do I listen to podcasts twice. I
Speaker 1: listened to this twice in one day because there are
Speaker 1: two guys who actually know what they're talking about in
Speaker 1: great detail. Yep, the freedom of navigation, the opening of
Speaker 1: the battle of our moves via a variety of techniques.
Speaker 1: They discussed that in detail. They did not discuss adding
Speaker 1: down to Iran from the air with a new targeting
Speaker 1: assessment that the Israelis in the United States will have
Speaker 1: developed and going back after the leadership, don't you think
Speaker 1: we in for a dollar in for everything?
Speaker 2: I think so. I think that it would be it
Speaker 2: would send an important message that you're still not safe.
Speaker 2: The idea that if you I mean, I reject the
Speaker 2: argument that we heard for a lot of the war
Speaker 2: critics that you got rid of Haminae and you got
Speaker 2: an even more hardline regime. It's ridiculous to me, it's ridiculous.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, under Kamenee and Larajani, they murdered
Speaker 2: maybe up to forty two thousand. That's the number present.
Speaker 1: It's crime in the century and maybe to two centuries.
Speaker 1: Stalin killed a lot more, Mouth killed a lot more.
Speaker 1: But in thirty six hours, it's tough to beat that.
Speaker 2: Number, right in terms of right per per minute, per
Speaker 2: per hour.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: So in that respect, I just you know, would say,
Speaker 2: if you feel that Vahiti, who is the commander currently
Speaker 2: of the IRGC, is an obstacle, well then take him
Speaker 2: out and you know, cause more fracturing. He has to
Speaker 2: finish the job, and I think in the end, you know,
Speaker 2: hopefully it leads to the collapse of the regime. But
Speaker 2: at the very least he's got to open up the
Speaker 2: straits and prove to everybody that this is that that
Speaker 2: that the that the bully is newter, so to speak.
Speaker 2: And that's I think the key thing.
Speaker 1: President Jump did say at one point I'm going to
Speaker 1: take out every bridge and power plant. Any backed away
Speaker 1: from that, there is an argument to be made that
Speaker 1: we've got to cripple the regime. If we can't dislodge
Speaker 1: the top five hundred people, I'm sorry, people of Iran.
Speaker 1: If you ever want to be free, we have to
Speaker 1: cripple your regime, and that means your oil facilities and
Speaker 1: power plants to serve any part of the IRGC ought
Speaker 1: we to go back with a bombing plan to do that,
Speaker 1: even though it will take thirty years or rebuild, not three.
Speaker 2: In my if you taking out power plants would be
Speaker 2: a mistake because the people would pay much greater price,
Speaker 2: I think than anybody in the regime. I think you
Speaker 2: can make a very good argument for beginning to go
Speaker 2: after the oil facilities, and even though there's take a
Speaker 2: lot longer, and if you think about it, the damage
Speaker 2: done by excess capacity on the wells is also something
Speaker 2: that will take a long time to rebuild as well.
Speaker 2: So in that respect, I don't really have a problem
Speaker 2: going after sources of revenue for the regime. My issue
Speaker 2: is that if you take out a power plant for
Speaker 2: a major city, and there are quite a few in Iran,
Speaker 2: then you really are are adding an incredible burden to
Speaker 2: just the Iranian people that hopefully, in the end of
Speaker 2: the day will take to the streets to reclaim their country,
Speaker 2: which I think is the sort of endpoint that I
Speaker 2: still think is both possible and most desirable.
Speaker 1: That's the optim ending and I'm thinking about plunging them
Speaker 1: into darkness. Maybe you do it by cyber Okay Topic
Speaker 1: number two eli Nick Kristaff, Hugh Ewit's theory is anti Semitism,
Speaker 1: writ large, begins in the heart to spiritual disease, and
Speaker 1: it metastasizes to the head, to the brain, and the
Speaker 1: brain can offolk often covered up with anti Israeli stuff,
Speaker 1: But anti israel disease begins in the head and it
Speaker 1: metastasizes into the heart, or you become an anti semi
Speaker 1: With Nick Christop, I think it began in the head
Speaker 1: and traveled to the heart. Because I've known him as
Speaker 1: a radio person for years. I'm still stunned by this
Speaker 1: what happened to him.
Speaker 2: I mean, listen, I don't want to get it. I
Speaker 2: can't get into his mind. But in my view, we're
Speaker 2: seeing this. I would look at this as the latest
Speaker 2: example of how anti Zionism, hating Israel is the price
Speaker 2: of admission to get into the progressive club. The left's
Speaker 2: this is the new litmus test. And I think that
Speaker 2: Nick Christoph, you know, is many things. I think he's
Speaker 2: a bit of a bleeding heart. But the bottom at
Speaker 2: the end of the day, he is a liberal and
Speaker 2: he doesn't want to be left behind, and that so
Speaker 2: that I just think it's just he's going along to
Speaker 2: get along. The other thing is is that I mean
Speaker 2: the credulity that it takes to print the canine element
Speaker 2: of that story, but also to use an organization like Euromed.
Speaker 2: And I would even go so far as to say
Speaker 2: but Selim, which is an Israeli group. They get a
Speaker 2: lot of foreign funding, but they have had they have
Speaker 2: transformed over twenty five years from an organization that used
Speaker 2: to be kind of a good faith check on Israel
Speaker 2: that every you know, open society should have and every
Speaker 2: you know, republic should democratic republic should have, you know,
Speaker 2: human rights groups and critics of the government. But they
Speaker 2: have been they have joined a kind of you know,
Speaker 2: they've joined a chorus from within Israel. So I just
Speaker 2: think that, you know, he's there's a huge infrastructure queue
Speaker 2: of you know NGOs that you know, basically there are
Speaker 2: there to create pages and pages of reports that very
Speaker 2: few people read, and then they're used then again as
Speaker 2: references in UN reports, and it creates a kind of
Speaker 2: paper trail to make Israel seem like a monstrous country.
Speaker 2: But when you start going through the individual examples and
Speaker 2: so forth, what you find is is that these are
Speaker 2: not credible accounts. They get certain things wrong, they're terribly
Speaker 2: one sided, and they basically exist to try to push
Speaker 2: the information or the soft power of war that is
Speaker 2: supposed to end the destruction of the only Jewish state
Speaker 2: of the world.
Speaker 1: And that's that begins through the eyes, the ears, and
Speaker 1: the and the sens and ends up being anti Semitism
Speaker 1: in the heart. You become diseased by the way. That's
Speaker 1: also Husay Monsieur's theory that he related to the Ready
Speaker 1: Gore that you can't get into the elite of the
Speaker 1: progressive movement unless you are anti ziotist.
Speaker 2: And I would just point something else also about the
Speaker 2: New York Times. When The New York Times wrote Screams
Speaker 2: without Words, there was a huge staff rebellion. There was
Speaker 2: an effort to try to get in some ways the
Speaker 2: paper to retract that story. They did not submit that
Speaker 2: story for certain journalism prizes because of all of this pressure. Nothing.
Speaker 2: You know, if you compare those two accounts for Nick
Speaker 2: Christoff to the scream of that words scream of out
Speaker 2: words is far more rigorous, it's far better source. It's
Speaker 2: a much better example of journalism. And you compare that
Speaker 2: to Christoph which I think that just from a journalistic perspective,
Speaker 2: you're getting allegations. You're not getting names of the of
Speaker 2: the victims. Okay, sometimes you have to do that, but
Speaker 2: you're not getting the dates and the times and the circumstances.
Speaker 2: You're not getting a serious response from the IDF for
Speaker 2: somebody to sort of explain it. So basic stuff that
Speaker 2: you would expect in any good, serious investigation. This journalistic
Speaker 2: investigation was lacking from it, let alone, the implausible claim
Speaker 2: about dogs and give up just horrible.
Speaker 1: It is horrible. Eli is going to be with me
Speaker 1: during the break when we talk about Barack Obama and
Speaker 1: the JGTOA on the other side Beijing, So don't go anywhere,
Speaker 1: stay tuned to the UA hip Welcome Back America. Former
Speaker 1: President of Barack Obama feels so threatened by the way
Speaker 1: things have gone with his JGPOA Long Dad, that he
Speaker 1: went on with lame Duck Late Night failed comedian Stephen
Speaker 1: Colbert and said this cut number one.
Speaker 3: We pulled it off without firing a missile. We got
Speaker 3: ninety seven percent of their enriched uranium up. They were
Speaker 3: able to maintain a modest civilian nuclear program.
Speaker 4: For energy, and so you think it was working.
Speaker 1: Cool.
Speaker 3: Not only did I think it was working, even Israeli
Speaker 3: intelligence and thought it was working. Even our intelligence services
Speaker 3: thought it was working. So there's no dispute that it
Speaker 3: worked and we didn't. We didn't have to kill a
Speaker 3: whole bunch of people or shut down the straight of hormones.
Speaker 1: All right, So there's the defense eli your response, it's
Speaker 1: deeply dishonest accounting of what the JCPIA was.
Speaker 2: The JCPIA was working because the Iranians had a glide
Speaker 2: path to eventually produce as much low enriched uranium as
Speaker 2: they pleased, and they got to keep what was an illicit,
Speaker 2: industrial sized nuclear program. Not only did they get to
Speaker 2: keep that program, they got to produce centrifuges, and they
Speaker 2: got designs for much more efficient centrifuges. So what they
Speaker 2: were able to do was, in exchange for a promise
Speaker 2: that they would not use their new lay program for
Speaker 2: fuel that is suitable for a weapon, they get to
Speaker 2: keep the ability to make that fuel. That is a
Speaker 2: deal that the United States would not have signed with
Speaker 2: any other country. What was known as the gold standard
Speaker 2: was or these water called one two three agreements with
Speaker 2: countries like the United Arab Emirates, was that we or
Speaker 2: some you do not get to process and enrich your
Speaker 2: own uranium. We will give you that the nuclear fuels
Speaker 2: suitable for reactors, but you do not get to have
Speaker 2: that capability in your own country because you can turn
Speaker 2: that on very easily once you've mastered the fuel cycle
Speaker 2: into being able to make fuel suitable for a bomb.
Speaker 2: That was always the sort of deep flaw in the JCPA,
Speaker 2: in addition to having so many of its limitations expire
Speaker 2: over time. They would be expiring right around now now.
Speaker 1: I may I mentioned there were no restrictions on missiles
Speaker 1: and their length. There were absolutely the ability they could travel.
Speaker 1: There was absolutely know anytime anywhere inspection. Large military bases
Speaker 1: were absolutely forbidden from people going to inspect them, and
Speaker 1: of course by twenty thirty two they could do whatever
Speaker 1: they wanted. Why did he pick Colbert? I think he
Speaker 1: did because Colbert doesn't know anything. Is that it?
Speaker 2: I think it's also yeah, Colbert is also on site.
Speaker 2: He's as much of a political figure as a figure
Speaker 2: of comedy. In fact, I don't think he's really in
Speaker 2: the comedy lane anymore, and hasn't been for some time.
Speaker 2: I mean, he's like, you know, he's a sort of
Speaker 2: an influencer for the Democratic Party on network television.
Speaker 1: Is how I last question during it there's no rehabbing
Speaker 1: the JCPOA the room about it in the ugly Obama library.
Speaker 1: That disaster we have thirty Will there be any way
Speaker 1: to make it not a disaster?
Speaker 2: No? No, I mean, And also to compare whatever deal
Speaker 2: if Trump does get a deal with this rougine, which
Speaker 2: I don't think he will, to the ju it doesn't
Speaker 2: make any sense because Trump has destroyed the nuclear program,
Speaker 2: which the JCPU a legitimized.
Speaker 1: So that's the We'll be right back with Beijing, and
Speaker 1: Eli like stand by.
Speaker 5: We hold this truth to please self evidence. We got
Speaker 5: the raditudes our own president.
Speaker 1: You hold your stuns to stop the king need and
Speaker 1: your text out get back, Welcome back America.
Speaker 2: Enough.
Speaker 1: What you're listening to is not Hamilton. It's Eli Lake
Speaker 1: about to become Lynn Manuel Miranda. Because he uses AI
Speaker 1: to create music and this was very good. He sent
Speaker 1: this to me last night.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much like good. I mean, I got
Speaker 2: a lot of the lyrics by playing around with the
Speaker 2: actual declaration itself. And I've been thinking a lot about
Speaker 2: the declaration recently, and you know, it's incredible what AI
Speaker 2: can do. I mean, there's obviously a downside to it,
Speaker 2: but I love it and uh, it's it's it's a
Speaker 2: great outlet for me. I write a lot of I
Speaker 2: like writing the lyrics. I have some musical capabilities, but
Speaker 2: nothing like what the computers can now do.
Speaker 1: Well, Eli, I was I was talking with a friend
Speaker 1: of my daughter and I have a theater kid, grandkid,
Speaker 1: and I have told my theater kid, grandkid, it's a
Speaker 1: wonderful hobby. Don't plan on making a livelihood. And it said, Bobby,
Speaker 1: you've crushed my dream and I said no really, And
Speaker 1: the third party says, you know, creatives are the only
Speaker 1: ones who won't be replaced by AI, and I said, no.
Speaker 1: You talked to Elia. How much are you doing of this? Elia?
Speaker 2: Well, I write, I write the lyrics, and if you
Speaker 2: ask the machine to write it, they're not as good.
Speaker 2: And I've done this actually with other AI programs like Rock,
Speaker 2: where I've just said, can you write a column in
Speaker 2: Eli Lake style, and I started doing this like a
Speaker 2: year ago. They're getting better, but it's not. It doesn't compare.
Speaker 2: You should try it here. That's pretty easy to do
Speaker 2: because I'll spit it out in like five seconds. It
Speaker 2: can't it can't do that. It can't write like a
Speaker 2: good column. It can't write a feature. Yeah, but it's learning.
Speaker 2: And what it can certainly do is if I ask
Speaker 2: one of the five best books on a particular as
Speaker 2: I start my research for a particular breaking history episode,
Speaker 2: it usually gives me five. And they really are the
Speaker 2: best books I've found. I mean, I don't ask the
Speaker 2: machine too. That's crazy because.
Speaker 1: I hadn't thought of that. That's being a great book.
Speaker 1: I am reading Nick Lehman's new memoir, returning on the
Speaker 1: basis of the commentary recommends it's fabulous, which raised in
Speaker 1: my head. He runs in the same circles as Christoff.
Speaker 1: If you're a Jew and you're working with Nick Christoph,
Speaker 1: what do you do on a theoretical base, I'm not
Speaker 1: advising you to advise Brett Stevens to quit, but what
Speaker 1: do you do about that? Just ignore it? Well?
Speaker 2: I mean I think you, I mean, I don't know
Speaker 2: why I don't quite know what to do, because to me,
Speaker 2: the malice of that peace was the sort of mission
Speaker 2: statement that the Israelis were raped on October seventh, and
Speaker 2: every day Palestinians are raped, and so I guess it
Speaker 2: all evens out. And and to me it's like, Okay,
Speaker 2: would I be surprised if there were some horrible things
Speaker 2: that happened in some of those prisons, given you know
Speaker 2: the numbers and everything, No, I wouldn't. In fact, I'm
Speaker 2: sure there are terrible things, and there should be a
Speaker 2: process that is not interfered with by political side. And
Speaker 2: Israel has been through this before every country. We've been
Speaker 2: through it with Abu Grave most recently, but certainly in
Speaker 2: Vietnam we had a kind of process and that's what
Speaker 2: happens in war. And that's but but this you have
Speaker 2: to understand, and it's it's ironic that Christop's column comes
Speaker 2: out the same day that Israel that the Civil Commission
Speaker 2: releases what is the most comprehensive report on what happened
Speaker 2: on October seventh. What you find is that you know,
Speaker 2: they were given instructions on how to say in Hebrew
Speaker 2: to take off your pants and take off your underpants
Speaker 2: things like that, which is that this was a deliberate plan.
Speaker 2: It was literally using rape as a weapon of war,
Speaker 2: and the people who did it are still celebrated, not
Speaker 2: just by Palestinians but increasingly. And this is what kind
Speaker 2: of gives me chills. You find members of the left
Speaker 2: right now in the West, in America and Canada and
Speaker 2: Europe that think that Hamas are the good guys.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the thirty months since ten seven is a sort
Speaker 1: of rolling drafish affair. I suggested to you. I hope
Speaker 1: Breaking History explained what that was. It was the uncorking
Speaker 1: of anti tematism in Europe in the little late nineteenth century.
Speaker 2: Now, and you've been great this week on the Dreypest stuff.
Speaker 2: I mean, I just I've been listening to every I mean,
Speaker 2: this week has been really terrific.
Speaker 1: Well, it's because it's horrific. It's terrific. If it's terrific,
Speaker 1: it's because it's terrific. Let's finish in Beijing in the
Speaker 1: era of and Brezhnev, that was after Stalin, you could
Speaker 1: move towards Reagan and Garbageev and eventually to the fall
Speaker 1: of the Wall. G is not any of those guys
Speaker 1: he's maybe Ondropov, but he's really Stalin. Does it make
Speaker 1: sense to meet with him four times in a year.
Speaker 1: I'm skeptical. Well, let's see what we can get out
Speaker 1: of it.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think when you talk to people who
Speaker 2: tried to look at what a war with China would
Speaker 2: look like, it's something that I think we should try
Speaker 2: to avoid if we can. If there is a way
Speaker 2: to reach the sort of accommodation, what I find interesting,
Speaker 2: and I'm working on this, but when I've talked to
Speaker 2: Pentagon people, what they tell me is that China did
Speaker 2: the bare minimum to support Irad in this war. And
Speaker 2: so if Trump can use diplomacy in this way, even
Speaker 2: though I agree with you that g is, you know,
Speaker 2: he's a tyrant, he's Stalin. But if he's Stalin, right,
Speaker 2: But if you can kind of get.
Speaker 6: G to.
Speaker 2: Maybe put some constructive pressure on Iran, if you can
Speaker 2: get g Uh, you know, to play more fair in
Speaker 2: terms of its exports and and currency manipulation. In my view,
Speaker 2: if you can get something out of it, then I
Speaker 2: don't think the diplomacy necessarily hurts. The problem is is
Speaker 2: if if Trump is enticed into a kind of deal
Speaker 2: where we don't give Taiwan all of the military it
Speaker 2: needs to defend itself. That's in the event sitting.
Speaker 1: Down with the President tonight, I'm going to watch it
Speaker 1: all before being on a special report. I'm going to
Speaker 1: be leaning in what did you say about Taiwan? Because
Speaker 1: the ultimate deal is you help us everywhere you get
Speaker 1: the South China Sea, and we'll we'll close our eyes
Speaker 1: on Taiwan. That's a disaster. That's a disaster. Caning around
Speaker 1: that we can.
Speaker 2: But the reason why, in some ways Iran is important
Speaker 2: for that equation is that if we might I mean,
Speaker 2: the calculations from China might be I don't know if
Speaker 2: it's worth the candle. Everybody just assumes that the Iranians
Speaker 2: are going to come out better. I don't think that's
Speaker 2: true at all. I think that maybe the Chinese didn't
Speaker 2: help as much because they looked around and they said,
Speaker 2: this is a regime that's wobbling. I'm not sure they're
Speaker 2: going to survive six months after this war. I mean,
Speaker 2: that's that's important too. So if you can manage to
Speaker 2: get something better in Iran, then that puts that that
Speaker 2: means you need China less and it gives us more leverage.
Speaker 2: I think to focus on Taiwan. I would be surprised
Speaker 2: if Trump would have given up entirely on Taiwan at
Speaker 2: this point, but I think it is something to worry about.
Speaker 1: In terms of cultural exchanges. Importing ev I want none
Speaker 1: of it. They're a surveillance state. I joke with people
Speaker 1: and longshots at that yesterday, and we have a minute
Speaker 1: and so everything he here is being watched by the
Speaker 1: Chicoms because Mike Gallagher is there and it is that
Speaker 1: they are everywhere. Do you think the American people understand
Speaker 1: that Eli thirty seconds to the end of the No.
Speaker 2: They don't. And I've been writing about this now for
Speaker 2: nearly twenty years. It goes back to Huawei. I mean,
Speaker 2: we had Huawei circuits and chips in military stuff fifteen
Speaker 2: years ago. Our government is finally waking up to this
Speaker 2: kind of stuff, but I think the American people still
Speaker 2: don't quite realize what's going on there.
Speaker 1: So it's important to get that message out teeth Kruck
Speaker 1: and the clean Technology initiative of Trump one. I hope
Speaker 1: what's going on now Eli Lake can be followed at
Speaker 1: Eli Lake. Your name came up at Hudson yesterday asked
Speaker 1: me for the young journalists who I think are important here.
Speaker 1: One of them, as is Aaron McLain. Thank you, Eli
Speaker 1: for doing two segments today, and thank you for this
Speaker 1: wonderful song. Okay tuned in America, Matt continent. He has
Speaker 1: met working back America Matthew Kuhn, and he joins me
Speaker 1: on the Hugh Hewitt Show. Now. Matt is the free expression,
Speaker 1: the vertical calumnist for the Wall Street Journal. He's also
Speaker 1: the head of domestic policy at American Enterprise Institute. Take
Speaker 1: a moment to find the Wall Street Journal column today
Speaker 1: on AOC because he makes the central point. In fact,
Speaker 1: let's begin there, Matt. I love the fact you finally
Speaker 1: put on the table. She's got a lot of sparkle.
Speaker 1: She's got gifts. One of those is not knowledge of America.
Speaker 1: It's founding principles or what it's all about. She's not
Speaker 1: very well read. I don't want to say she's stupid,
Speaker 1: but she is ignorant of America. Is that a good
Speaker 1: summary of your column?
Speaker 5: I think so, Hugh.
Speaker 7: I think my column goes out to show that Alexandria
Speaker 7: Okazio Cortez is both an economic and a historical illiterate.
Speaker 7: You know, she doesn't give many interviews, and I think
Speaker 7: we learned why in the past few days.
Speaker 5: In the first the interview, she said.
Speaker 7: That, you know, no one can earn a billion dollars,
Speaker 7: stating that essentially all billionaires somehow are thieves, that they
Speaker 7: earned they won their fortune through ill godden gains. And
Speaker 7: then in a subsequent interview to defend her the economic obliviousness,
Speaker 7: and by the way, she's an economics double major, she
Speaker 7: said that the American Revolution was fought against billionaires. And
Speaker 7: this to me is in some ways even worse than
Speaker 7: her economic sins, because she is a United States congresswoman
Speaker 7: who clearly has no grasp of why the American Revolution
Speaker 7: was fought. It was not fought because King George the
Speaker 7: Third had a piet tear in Manhattan. It was fought
Speaker 7: because the King in Parliament had denied the colonists for
Speaker 7: decades their natural and civil rights as Englishmen. And to
Speaker 7: not grasp that, I think, is to lose the plot
Speaker 7: about America itself. And I'm disturbed that this new Democratic
Speaker 7: Socialist Party is beginning to recast the American Revolution as
Speaker 7: just a kind of another peasants revolt. Another kind of
Speaker 7: exercise in the rule of the mob, like we saw
Speaker 7: in the French Revolution or the Russian Revolution, or the
Speaker 7: Chinese Civil war and revolution. That's not a path America
Speaker 7: wants to go down.
Speaker 1: AOC had she recast her marks as the original billionaires
Speaker 1: for the Nabobs who bought back the wealth of India
Speaker 1: to the United Kingdom and exploited it, including the colonization
Speaker 1: of America, it would have at least had a patina
Speaker 1: of intellectual rigor. But she'd not well learned. Now, Matt,
Speaker 1: they do have these honorary degrees that they give out
Speaker 1: at commencement time. You think BU is tempted to take
Speaker 1: hers back.
Speaker 5: Well, she's a graduate of BU double major.
Speaker 7: Like I said, economics and international relations, another field where
Speaker 7: she has no expertise. Remember the last face plant AOC
Speaker 7: had was when she went to the Munich Security Conference
Speaker 7: earlier this year and she was asked a fairly simple
Speaker 7: question on foreign policy and she gave a word salad
Speaker 7: that you would put Kamala Harris to shame. So I
Speaker 7: think that there's a level of ignorance.
Speaker 5: Here, Hugh.
Speaker 7: And it's not just aoc I, unfortunately, it's large swaths
Speaker 7: of our society. They don't understand not just economics, the
Speaker 7: laws of supply and demand, savings and investment, why inflation
Speaker 7: is bad, government spending diverting resources from the private economy.
Speaker 7: But they don't understand why America was founded.
Speaker 5: What we're about. We're about the natural rights.
Speaker 7: Of individuals created equal before God, and we've been playing
Speaker 7: out this experiment in self government for two hundred and
Speaker 7: fifty years.
Speaker 5: Come July fourth.
Speaker 7: That's what we need to understand, because once you get that,
Speaker 7: you kind of realize the value of limited government, of
Speaker 7: personal freedoms, of property rights, all the things that AOC
Speaker 7: and her squad want to attack and destroy.
Speaker 1: I matt on to Iran. The President will be back
Speaker 1: on you soil soon. I would like combat operations to
Speaker 1: commends immediately there afterwards where they Iran and the seagefire
Speaker 1: that isn't a seagefire that was paused for the summit,
Speaker 1: because we've got to bring this regime to its knees,
Speaker 1: if not down, what do you think.
Speaker 5: Something needs to give you?
Speaker 7: And I think that this cannot go on much further
Speaker 7: one for Iran because the pressure is real and the
Speaker 7: economic devastation there is for sure. But also for President Trump,
Speaker 7: because we can't let ourselves get into a corner where
Speaker 7: Iran is effectively calling the shots in the Strait of Hormones.
Speaker 7: So I think what President Trump needs to do is
Speaker 7: restart Project Freedom. He needs to open a the Strait
Speaker 7: of Hormuz. And in order to do that, it means
Speaker 7: rezooming military operations for some period of time so that
Speaker 7: we can take out those drone and missile teams along
Speaker 7: the coasts. We can take out all the harbors and
Speaker 7: ports where the Mosquito fleet of ships that harass the
Speaker 7: tankers come to port, drop that anchor. So there's needs
Speaker 7: to be a resumption of the military campaign for some
Speaker 7: time and to kind of lay the ground or the
Speaker 7: sea for the resumption of Project Freedom and opening up
Speaker 7: that straight.
Speaker 1: All of the above in my view. Matt will be
Speaker 1: with me during the break. It'll be on the One
Speaker 1: Big Weekend Pod, and then they'll be back after the
Speaker 1: break to talk about China. Don't go anywhere America. I
Speaker 1: who do it? I'm back with Matt CONTINENTI Matt. Over
Speaker 1: the last two days, President former President Obama sat down
Speaker 1: with lame duck failed Late Night Committee and Stephen Colbert interviewed,
Speaker 1: as you know, kind of paint a rosy picture about
Speaker 1: the JCPOA. Here's what the former president said to Stephen Colbert.
Speaker 3: We pulled it off without firing a missile. We got
Speaker 3: ninety seven percent of their enriched uranium out. They were
Speaker 3: able to maintain a modest civilian nuclear program.
Speaker 4: For energy, and so you think it was working.
Speaker 1: Cool.
Speaker 3: Not only did I think it was working, even Israeli
Speaker 3: intelligence thought it was working. Even our intelligence services thought
Speaker 3: it was working. So there's no dispute that it worked
Speaker 3: and we didn't. We didn't have to kill a whole
Speaker 3: bunch of people or shut down the straight of horm Moose.
Speaker 1: So, Matt Connetty, it's obviously a lie because there is
Speaker 1: it is speed about whether it worked, but it didn't work.
Speaker 1: Can you explain to the audience why it didn't work?
Speaker 5: Well?
Speaker 7: Why was the JCPOA, the Obama nuclear deal such a travesty?
Speaker 7: Whereas President Trump calls it the worst deal ever. Obama
Speaker 7: talked about what the Iranians said they were doing, that
Speaker 7: is lowering the enrichment standards. What he didn't say is
Speaker 7: what Obama gave the Iranians billions and billions of dollars,
Speaker 7: including pallets of cash, which the Iranians then turned around
Speaker 7: to spread chaos throughout the region, to foment terror. So
Speaker 7: the JCPOA didn't address the missiles, which is one of
Speaker 7: the reasons we had Operation Epic Fury, and didn't address
Speaker 7: the proxies. And moreover, it was sunseted, as you know, Hugh,
Speaker 7: which that at the end of the period of the JCPOA,
Speaker 7: Iran would have been free to do anything it wanted.
Speaker 7: And because as Obama pointed out, it still maintained the
Speaker 7: nuclear infrastructure to take off the second that the JCPOA
Speaker 7: was sunseted, so it was left. Iran was left richer,
Speaker 7: It maintained its nuclear infrastructure, and it was allowed to
Speaker 7: build up its conventional weaponry to to protect that nuclear
Speaker 7: program and to so chaos throughout the region. Obama is
Speaker 7: completely wrong. And I think it's very interesting here. Why
Speaker 7: is Obama resurfacing these days? He's everywhere. He's withs Or
Speaker 7: on Mamdani, he's with James Tallerico in Texas, he's getting
Speaker 7: ready to open up his ugly library, and in Chicago
Speaker 7: he's given interviews to The New Yorker, and now this
Speaker 7: interview to Stephen Colbert. Why because he understands that when
Speaker 7: this war is won, when Iran is militarily decimated, and
Speaker 7: eventually when that regime falls and the Strait of Hormuz
Speaker 7: is open, Obama's legacy will be gone, zeroed out. And
Speaker 7: so that's what he's trying to do and what his
Speaker 7: aids are trying to do now. They are trying to
Speaker 7: keep his legacy alive, but it is dying.
Speaker 1: It's going to be interesting. It will be the first
Speaker 1: legacy to be completely erased and failed by the time
Speaker 1: the library opens. Obamacare is a disaster of the JCPO.
Speaker 1: And you didn't even mention inspection a joke. It was
Speaker 1: like the Clusseau inspection regime. They could declare entire military
Speaker 1: bases off limit, they could go anywhere at any time.
Speaker 1: Never it was a joke. He's a joke. The library's
Speaker 1: a joke. These interviews are a joke. I'm coming back
Speaker 1: with the non joke. Matt Continetti, Stay tuned, Welcome back
Speaker 1: in America. I'm Hugh Hewitt. Matt Continetti, Wall Street Journal
Speaker 1: columnist and head of domestic policy Studies at the American
Speaker 1: Enterprise Institute is still with me. Matt apropos of our
Speaker 1: earlier conversation about AOC not knowing anything. Ap story this
Speaker 1: morning quote. Kids in Lower Merion School District in Pennsylvania
Speaker 1: get iPads starting in kindergarten, switch to chromebooks in second grade,
Speaker 1: get their own MacBooks in eighth grade. One hundred of
Speaker 1: parents sign a petition asking to preserve their ability to
Speaker 1: opt their children out of using digital devices during the
Speaker 1: school day. The school district pushed back, saying it's not
Speaker 1: feasible to let hundreds of students opt out of technology
Speaker 1: that is essential to the quick. My theory, the reason
Speaker 1: American kids are ignorant is that they do not know
Speaker 1: how to read books and they don't have the discipline
Speaker 1: to finish arguments. What do you think you've got, Smalls, Well.
Speaker 5: It's a great theory.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 7: This decline, it seems, began right before the pandemic, around
Speaker 7: twenty fourteen twenty fifteen, and then of course the school
Speaker 7: lockdowns enclosures accelerated this learning loss to a very detrimental
Speaker 7: effect for American society for generations.
Speaker 5: Now, what I would.
Speaker 7: Point out, exactly as you say, around twenty fourteen fifteen,
Speaker 7: is when a lot of this what's called ed tech,
Speaker 7: that the tablets, the reliance on YouTube videos, the phones
Speaker 7: being allowed in the classroom beginning around that time, that's
Speaker 7: when it was becoming introduced. At the same time, you
Speaker 7: had a nationwide, especially in the Blue States, retreat from
Speaker 7: testing and accountability. All of the reforms that were part
Speaker 7: of the push in George W. Bush and Barack Obama's
Speaker 7: presidency that the education departed. Obama is one of the
Speaker 7: one things that worked to kind of make sure that
Speaker 7: schools were performing and to measure how students were doing.
Speaker 7: All of those reforms began to fade away in the
Speaker 7: second half of Obama's presidency. And this, of course is
Speaker 7: the states at work too, the Blue States in particular.
Speaker 7: And so we're left right now, Hugh is in this
Speaker 7: very upsetting situation. On the one hand, we are having
Speaker 7: these parent driven movements to get the phones out of
Speaker 7: the schools. That's very important to lock those phones away
Speaker 7: at least during school hours. But the next battlefield is
Speaker 7: going to have to be this ed tech, these tablets,
Speaker 7: these you know, we know that there are school systems
Speaker 7: in Virginia where the teacher just puts on a YouTube video. Yep,
Speaker 7: they think that's what they think that's education. That's not education,
Speaker 7: and it's hurting our children. On the other hand, though,
Speaker 7: especially in red states, we have a return to basic
Speaker 7: phonics in order to encourage red and reading.
Speaker 5: This is the Mississippi Miracle.
Speaker 7: We have charter schools, we have this new tax credit
Speaker 7: program as part of the Working Family's tax Credit to
Speaker 7: encourage school choice. So there are real opportunities here, but
Speaker 7: it's only the conservatives who are talking about them. And
Speaker 7: we've lost the sense where democrats and of course the
Speaker 7: teachers unions feel as though they need to be invested
Speaker 7: in accountability and testing to get our children back to
Speaker 7: where they're learning as opposed to right now. It seems
Speaker 7: almost as a national amnesia is in the midst of
Speaker 7: taking place.
Speaker 1: Notice that the people that push back in the AP
Speaker 1: story I read the school district No. One in particular,
Speaker 1: that represents some costs of bureaucracy, spending a lot of
Speaker 1: money and developing a lot of curriculum and a lot
Speaker 1: of hours and a lot of workloads based upon technology.
Speaker 1: They don't want to change. They like it. That's the problem.
Speaker 1: I want to switch back to Christoff. I talked to
Speaker 1: you earlier this week, but I've been thinking about very
Speaker 1: little NonStop, because I actually know the guy from the radio,
Speaker 1: and I'm so astonished I've come up with this theory
Speaker 1: anti Zionism, anti Israel. That's an intellectual choice that people make,
Speaker 1: and then it bleeds into your heart or it becomes
Speaker 1: and metastasizes into anti Semitism. Anti Semitism is a disease
Speaker 1: of the heart Soulzannietschman said, where good and he will reside,
Speaker 1: and it metastasizes to the brain, where it's disguised into
Speaker 1: anti Zionism or anti Israel. I think Christop has it
Speaker 1: from the brain to the heart, but he's got it.
Speaker 1: What do you make of my theory that he just
Speaker 1: kind of red himself into the anti Semitic movement accidentally
Speaker 1: because he wanted to be anti Israel.
Speaker 5: Well, I think that's a key part of it.
Speaker 7: In the New York Times, you're almost reflexively anti Israel.
Speaker 7: And if you write about Israel and you say something
Speaker 7: bad about Israel, there will be no scrutiny to what
Speaker 7: you claim. And we know that for a fact. I
Speaker 7: think there's also a measure of sheer laziness on the
Speaker 7: part of Chris stuff. We know that in the past
Speaker 7: he's fallen for frauds and articles have been apologized for
Speaker 7: or even retracted. In the case of this Cambodian anti
Speaker 7: prostitution activist, he kind of fell for earlier in this century.
Speaker 7: And we see here from the people with researched the article, Hugh,
Speaker 7: as you know, is that it seems that a lot
Speaker 7: of these unverified, anonymous sources making these scurrilous and ridiculous
Speaker 7: claims can be traced back to an NGO non governmental
Speaker 7: organization which is known to be a Hamas front. And
Speaker 7: so if you're a columnist who has an incentive to
Speaker 7: write negatively about Israel because you know it's going to
Speaker 7: please your subscriber base, you know what's your editors are
Speaker 7: going to love it. Long comes its NGO and says, hey,
Speaker 7: wait until you check out this information or not check it,
Speaker 7: but look away, we have for you. We can tee
Speaker 7: up your column or your essay right away. Well, you
Speaker 7: might be inclined to do that and have no heed
Speaker 7: of what the consequences might be in the real world
Speaker 7: for the people who will take these slanders and use
Speaker 7: them as justification for violence against Jews around the world.
Speaker 1: You just gave berta thought. NGO is a term that
Speaker 1: almost adds dignity to beggars. NGOs are beggars. NGOs are
Speaker 1: non productivity measured organization where losers and people who can't
Speaker 1: make a living go NGOs. Do we add to their
Speaker 1: dignity by referring to them as NGOs in some way
Speaker 1: associating them with government by saying they're non government organizations,
Speaker 1: but they're likely government. They're just beggars.
Speaker 7: It's kind of I'm hesitating because there's a chance that
Speaker 7: American enterprises considered an NGO.
Speaker 5: I don't want. It's not saying all NGOs here. It's
Speaker 5: a very capacious term, as we know.
Speaker 7: But in specifically, what we're talking about are these NGOs
Speaker 7: that are part of this self designated human rights community.
Speaker 7: They don't stand for human rights. They stand to delegitimize, demonize,
Speaker 7: and apply double standards to the state of Israel as
Speaker 7: part of a global movement to end the Jewish state,
Speaker 7: the only state where the Jewish people have a home.
Speaker 5: Out of all the hundreds of countries.
Speaker 7: In the world, Why is it that there is a
Speaker 7: global movement to destroy one of them? And that, I
Speaker 7: think is the question that's being asked. But you won't
Speaker 7: find that question being asked in the New York Times.
Speaker 1: Dehumanized, delegitimize, imposed a double standard. That was some very
Speaker 1: rapid work with the alliteration. Matt Continetti and my hat
Speaker 1: is tipped to you. Have a great weekend. Thank you
Speaker 1: again for joining me. Follow Matt at the Wall Street Journal,
Speaker 1: Go rid it's coming on AOC today. It's fabulous and
Speaker 1: fell him on x at Continetti. I'll be right back
Speaker 1: in America. I'm cute. Thank you for listening to highly
Speaker 1: concentrated Hugh, and don't forget. One of our great sponsors
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Speaker 1: gets their second month free when you use my name, Hugh,
Speaker 1: I'm Hewett. For regular listeners to this program, you know,
Speaker 1: for the big weekend pod. I's been most of Friday
Speaker 1: talking the same people. On last Friday we went out
Speaker 1: with a rim shot when Ben Dominicic landed a low
Speaker 1: blow with a James Harden smear. I never forget, I
Speaker 1: never forget. And they were zero and two when he
Speaker 1: hit me.
Speaker 6: Below the bell. You did you not hear the last
Speaker 6: thing that I said? I said that they'd take I
Speaker 6: said that they'd steal some at home and look at now, look.
Speaker 8: At at three and two going into seven o'clock tonight.
Speaker 8: But I want to say, you are a conspiracy theorist.
Speaker 8: And one thing only Ben Dominic the NBA. So they
Speaker 8: had the lottery this week.
Speaker 1: And who won the NBA lottery but Ben Dominic's team,
Speaker 1: the Washington Wizards. So was that fixed?
Speaker 6: I think it was. I actually think it was, and
Speaker 6: I think that I think that. One of the things
Speaker 6: to notice, of course, about this is that everyone in
Speaker 6: Utah wants wants Aja to stay there. And for listeners
Speaker 6: who don't know, uh, you know, I want the top
Speaker 6: There's basically two clear top players in basketball to be
Speaker 6: drafted this year, and Utah got the second pick. So
Speaker 6: what do you have now? You have drama? Should they
Speaker 6: trade the pick to Utah? Should they swap and do
Speaker 6: like you gin up and you get attention for it?
Speaker 6: Adam Silver doing what he does?
Speaker 1: You know, who do you want the Wizards to take?
Speaker 1: You've got everybody on injured reserve for like three months
Speaker 1: taking a vacation on the message table.
Speaker 6: Anthony Davis is probably never going to see the court anyway.
Speaker 6: But yes, I hey, when Harden wants to play in
Speaker 6: the playoffs, he's a good player. When he doesn't want
Speaker 6: to play. You notice, Well.
Speaker 1: I'm just kiddous. Who do you want the Wizards to say?
Speaker 1: If you're actually a Wizards fan. Fred Barnes was forever right,
Speaker 1: I and Morton would go together. Who's who do you want?
Speaker 6: I will just say the number of times that they
Speaker 6: played against each other. You know, I actually I think
Speaker 6: Peterson is actually the better pick. But I also think
Speaker 6: that given the fact that this is a franchise that
Speaker 6: you can't trust because they've never I mean, you need
Speaker 6: to keep in mind since since the three point shot
Speaker 6: was invented, Okay, these Wizards have not won fifty games,
Speaker 6: So that that is the way to think about this franchise.
Speaker 6: It is a loser franchise. It is very bad. They
Speaker 6: won championship, and they won the championship, and then the
Speaker 6: next year they had the three point line and then
Speaker 6: they just dropped like a rock. And it's look, I
Speaker 6: was there during the Jordan latter years, and I was
Speaker 6: there and I've been there. I was there during the
Speaker 6: Laboula years of of that, and and of course I
Speaker 6: was very disappointed with the way that the Gilbert Arenas
Speaker 6: situation turned out. And John Wall was there to make
Speaker 6: a pick, so he was there a good luck charm.
Speaker 1: But well, I'm telling you, as a Browns fan, I
Speaker 1: feel you're pain to be cursed with a terrible franchise
Speaker 1: is a bad thing. Let's get to the news. President
Speaker 1: will touchdown in DC as soon as he does. I
Speaker 1: want combat operation to begin again against Ron because of
Speaker 1: the ceasefire isn't a ceasefire. And now we have Evan's,
Speaker 1: courtesy of Ambassador Walt's, a massive environmental degradation as they're
Speaker 1: spilling oil into the strait of hormones because they haven't
Speaker 1: got any place to put it. They're already at max
Speaker 1: capacity eighty thousand barrels of washed up on carg Island.
Speaker 1: What do you think is going to happen? What ought
Speaker 1: to happen?
Speaker 6: I think that what you I think that what you
Speaker 6: laid out there is exactly what ought to happen. I
Speaker 6: don't know if the President is going to want to
Speaker 6: get back and pull the trigger as quickly as that,
Speaker 6: but I mean, you know, you heard his attitude talking
Speaker 6: about the last deal he reject did after the first sentence,
Speaker 6: uh and you know he didn't say what the sentence was,
Speaker 6: but he said there was, you know, just unacceptable on
Speaker 6: its face, and I think that his patience has completely
Speaker 6: run out for this type of situation that is, as
Speaker 6: you say, a non cease fire, seasefire. He's not going
Speaker 6: to stand for that, and it's not something that he
Speaker 6: would rather be, you know, pursuing. I think this in
Speaker 6: ways that send the message this is going to get
Speaker 6: over quickly, and if it doesn't, we're going to hit
Speaker 6: you hard and we're going to hit you again. And
Speaker 6: looks as much as the depictions that you see or
Speaker 6: that you read in the New York Times, you know,
Speaker 6: frame this as being a situation where the Iranians are
Speaker 6: coming off better when it comes to, you know, their
Speaker 6: whole military situation. The presentations that we've seen put forward
Speaker 6: by our War Department officials have been I mean, it's
Speaker 6: devastating what they've actually done to their military capabilities. And
Speaker 6: I think that that's something the President can hold his
Speaker 6: head high about. But he's not going to He's not
Speaker 6: going to keep having this situation where it's it's just
Speaker 6: a tug of war back and forth, and where they
Speaker 6: don't they don't seem to be negotiating in any time
Speaker 6: of good says.
Speaker 1: So there are levels of force and I think there's
Speaker 1: maximum level of force, which is ground troops. The eighty
Speaker 1: second Airborne is over there. I listened today to Aaron
Speaker 1: McClain and Mark dublo it's twice on the new Iran breakdown.
Speaker 1: Twice because they are smart guys, and Aaron McClain's marine
Speaker 1: and Mark duvids it does nothing but Iran. There are
Speaker 1: lots of military options, but the eighty second Airborne is
Speaker 1: part of one hundred and eighteenth Air Corps. They know
Speaker 1: how to do this. They're not a shutdown entire airspaces
Speaker 1: and do we turn them loose and just say do
Speaker 1: what you got to do to end this regime's military power.
Speaker 6: I think that the problem that you're going to run
Speaker 6: into there, of course, is the president's level of tolerance
Speaker 6: for loss of American life. He cited to Brett Behar
Speaker 6: in the interview that's going to run this evening. You
Speaker 6: know the fact that you know from his perspective, he's
Speaker 6: lost thirteen Americans in two wars. That's you know, a
Speaker 6: number clearly that is front of mind for him. The
Speaker 6: fact that he is thinking about this in those terms
Speaker 6: is something that is going to give him pause. And
Speaker 6: the unfortunate reality though, Hugh is that that's probably what
Speaker 6: it's going to take to devastate this regime to the
Speaker 6: point that most people think it needs to be, and
Speaker 6: that was always going to be a problem. The geography,
Speaker 6: the terrain is a problem. Everything that you know is
Speaker 6: challenging about Iran has been something that they have used
Speaker 6: to great effect to protect this regime for so long, though,
Speaker 6: and at some point you have to decide what are
Speaker 6: we going to finish this thing or not. Rick Scott
Speaker 6: wrote a piece for us at The Daily Wire this
Speaker 6: week saying, you know that there was nothing acceptable other
Speaker 6: than victory here, and that that means, you know, not
Speaker 6: accepting some end of the war that people domestically are
Speaker 6: arguing for because of concerns about the midterms or something
Speaker 6: of that nature. That you've got to take it all
Speaker 6: the way. And I think that that's an indication that
Speaker 6: the present and we'll get support if he makes that choice.
Speaker 1: All Right, you brought up the Daily Wire, and I
Speaker 1: didn't introduce you as the opinion editor at the Daily
Speaker 1: Wire as well as the Fox News contributor and host
Speaker 1: of the Big Ben podcast. So now that I have,
Speaker 1: let me bring up the fact the New Yorker maggot,
Speaker 1: not the New Yorker. What do we call that? New
Speaker 1: York mag decided to go after Ben Shapiro and it's
Speaker 1: been unbound. John Chape is one of the weirdest guys
Speaker 1: in the business. I mean, it is weird and it's
Speaker 1: a weird magazine. What I got against Ben Shapiro and
Speaker 1: The Daily Wire and why does anyone believe their lies?
Speaker 6: Well, it's not just them, Hugh. I would say that
Speaker 6: this is a pretty coordinated series of attacks. I mean
Speaker 6: it's you know, the Washington Post ran a piece. You know,
Speaker 6: they've been There have been multiple podcasters who've gone after it,
Speaker 6: who've suggested that there's something I would recommend to everyone
Speaker 6: the opening of Ben Shapiro Show today, which is entitled
Speaker 6: all the Haters Can Kiss My Ass. I hope that
Speaker 6: doesn't get you a violation.
Speaker 1: I've known Ben for twenty years. Good for Ben, so
Speaker 1: but but the.
Speaker 6: Truth is this. The Daily Wire is an institution. I've
Speaker 6: only been there for two and a half months. It
Speaker 6: has a huge staff, it has enormous you know projects
Speaker 6: that they do, Uh, they do things that nobody else
Speaker 6: is doing. And what is really happening here is that
Speaker 6: a bunch of bitter podcasters who are anti what the
Speaker 6: Daily Wire and Ben and everybody else who's built that
Speaker 6: place represent, which is a traditional lane of conservatism, who
Speaker 6: want to see it instead ripped down, torn down to
Speaker 6: the to the the every bolt, you know, everything down
Speaker 6: to the foundation, and then break that foundation open in
Speaker 6: order to rebuild a crank filled right wing that is
Speaker 6: bad on Israel, is bad on our on foreign policy,
Speaker 6: is bad on national security, is bad on Jews generally,
Speaker 6: and that is fueled by a number of people, including
Speaker 6: you know, the fact that the fact that you are
Speaker 6: turning to Tucker and Candae and Nick Flint is as
Speaker 6: your sources on the fact that the Daily Wire is
Speaker 6: going down, that should tell you everything about what's going
Speaker 6: on here, Hugh. It is that they are they are
Speaker 6: giving you know, quotes to these places saying you know, oh,
Speaker 6: you know, my opponent is going down, and it's simply
Speaker 6: not true at all. And it's one of these things
Speaker 6: where I frankly think the fact that you can have
Speaker 6: people who have tiny little staffs, who you know, podcasts
Speaker 6: trump their basement live streams and things like that go
Speaker 6: out and say, you know, I've beaten this institution, I'm
Speaker 6: taking over the new Right, et cetera. Is something that
Speaker 6: is a very convenient narrative if you are someone in
Speaker 6: the legacy media.
Speaker 1: On the left, to be a displacement engine like the
Speaker 1: Daily Wire. There are the free pressures displacing the New
Speaker 1: York Times, it's taking on CBS, it's actually absorbing CBS.
Speaker 1: But the Daily Wire displacing a lot of conservative media,
Speaker 1: not all of it not normal concern to media, but
Speaker 1: it's displacing a lot of the eyeball because you can't
Speaker 1: read two things at once, and if you're reading the
Speaker 1: Daily Wire, you're not reading something else. And if you're
Speaker 1: a conservative, the Daily Wire threatens to kill a bunch
Speaker 1: of people who make their living. And that the problem.
Speaker 1: It's killing people off from their their disintermediated from their money.
Speaker 6: I think it's also the fact that you have people
Speaker 6: who very much are Yes, there's an aspect of this
Speaker 6: that's jealousy of success, but I think there are people
Speaker 6: who very much want to see their horseshoe theory come
Speaker 6: to fruition where you've got Graham Platner and Nick Flint
Speaker 6: days and that's somehow the right, and that's not.
Speaker 1: Your dream I'm coming back with Ben during the break.
Speaker 1: You'll be back on the other side. They'll go anywhere America.
Speaker 1: I'm qq welcome back. I'm with Ben Dominich on the
Speaker 1: Big Weekend Pod. Ben Barack Obama sat down with Lame
Speaker 1: Duck and failed Late Night quote comedian Stephen Colbert to
Speaker 1: defend his record. Everyone would immediately go to him, obviously,
Speaker 1: to defend your record on the JCPOA, here's how the
Speaker 1: exchange began.
Speaker 3: We pulled it off without firing a missile. We got
Speaker 3: ninety seven percent of their enriched uranium up. They were
Speaker 3: able to maintain a modest civilian nuclear program for energy.
Speaker 4: And so you think it was working.
Speaker 3: Well, not only did I think it was working, even
Speaker 3: Israeli intelligence thought it was working. Even our intelligence services
Speaker 3: thought it was working. So there's no dispute that it
Speaker 3: worked and we didn't. We didn't have to kill a
Speaker 3: whole bunch of people or shut down a straight or
Speaker 3: hor mooz.
Speaker 1: Now, some things are self evident, Ben, you and I
Speaker 1: are about to dispute that it works. So it's a
Speaker 1: lie that no one is disputing that it works. In fact,
Speaker 1: the vast majority of smart people know it didn't work,
Speaker 1: it had massive holes in it. Why is he trying
Speaker 1: to do this and why is he picking Cobert about
Speaker 1: whom no one cares to do it with.
Speaker 6: Well, first off, I would just say that a president,
Speaker 6: a former president doing this while America is at war, like,
Speaker 6: I mean, I'm sorry, pick your moment, guy, Like if
Speaker 6: you want to come back and make the case for
Speaker 6: this in the future in a book, you know, and
Speaker 6: something like that. But America is currently in a war
Speaker 6: with Iran, and for him to go and sit down
Speaker 6: with Colbert, who he knows. While while Colbert is a
Speaker 6: smart person, he plays this idiotic character on TV, I
Speaker 6: think on purpose. He plays completely dumb. Whenever he has
Speaker 6: a democratic guest on he never says anything critical. You know,
Speaker 6: he's completely abandoned any pretense of that. He used to
Speaker 6: be smart enough, by the way to lampoon the right
Speaker 6: in such a way that even the right could laugh,
Speaker 6: and now he's just completely lost that. He's just a
Speaker 6: total partisan hack. And it's really I mean, for someone
Speaker 6: who actually liked Colbert when he was much when he
Speaker 6: was younger, when he was doing I mean the Dana
Speaker 6: Carvey Show.
Speaker 1: I enjoyed being on a show. I enjoyed being his guest.
Speaker 5: Ye.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 6: But the thing is that the former president would sit
Speaker 6: down and defend this when everyone who knows this story
Speaker 6: knows that that is just not true. Is an indication
Speaker 6: of his hubris. The fact that he thinks that he
Speaker 6: is above being questioned. It's the same kind of attitude
Speaker 6: that he had when he rolled into Virginia and said
Speaker 6: that you know that our current setup was too racist
Speaker 6: and that we needed to do this emergency Jerry Mander
Speaker 6: that then got thrown out by the courts. Some constitutional
Speaker 6: scholar he is. And this is the thing that I
Speaker 6: think is so maddening about him. He will never question himself.
Speaker 6: We've talked about George W. Bush before. I think he
Speaker 6: questioned his decisions to this day that he made as
Speaker 6: president because he's someone who looks inward. Barack Obama does
Speaker 6: not have that capacity. He still views himself as I
Speaker 6: am the one you were waiting for, and that is
Speaker 6: that is still I think the way that he's going
Speaker 6: to think about himself still the end.
Speaker 1: Of the days, verging on tragic figure because, as Nema says,
Speaker 1: his ego Yeah.
Speaker 6: I say, I mean, if you could lampoon him, and
Speaker 6: I do think that it is possible to lampoon him.
Speaker 6: That is exactly the type of character you would create.
Speaker 6: It is just this utter, this complete, eat out, out
Speaker 6: of control ego that thinks that he essentially could never
Speaker 6: do anything wrong, and that everyone who is his critic
Speaker 6: has some moral defect That is really at the heart
Speaker 6: of why they're criticizing him. But that's just the way
Speaker 6: I think that he thinks about himself.
Speaker 1: I'm coming back with Ben Dominic. Stay tuned, WROG. I'm
Speaker 1: back in America. I'm here here at Ben. My vulnerability
Speaker 1: is I believe I can discern people's character and they're
Speaker 1: whether or not they're right or wrong politically, they're good faith.
Speaker 1: I have been proven wrong on Nick Kristock, and I'm
Speaker 1: bothered by it. I had him on the show many
Speaker 1: many times, and I thought, good guy, he's wrong about Someltics,
Speaker 1: but a path opens. He cares about the halt of poor,
Speaker 1: the blind, the lame, and he's a good guy. Now
Speaker 1: he's written this horrible piece, and so I've been thinking
Speaker 1: about it NonStop since he wrote this piece, and I
Speaker 1: decided there there's a there's everyone has a brain in
Speaker 1: the heart. Anti Semitism begins in the heart. It's evil,
Speaker 1: and it fantastasizes to the brain, which camouflages it, and
Speaker 1: it comes out as anti Zionism, anti Israelism, and then
Speaker 1: intellectually some people are become anti Zionist or anti Israel
Speaker 1: for reasons unrelated to being Jewish. But it moves and
Speaker 1: it fantastasizes to the heart and you become anti Semitic.
Speaker 1: That's my theory that I think it with Christop it
Speaker 1: was the latter. He had to be anti Israel because
Speaker 1: that's where the in crowd was, Tom Wolf, Maumowing and
Speaker 1: the flat catchers and ended up being anti Semitic. What
Speaker 1: do you think happened to him?
Speaker 6: I do not know him well enough to have I
Speaker 6: think I've been on a panel with him once or
Speaker 6: twice maybe, and don't know enough to analyze the reason
Speaker 6: that he wrote what he did. I assume you have
Speaker 6: related it to your listeners so that they have.
Speaker 1: Something Yeah, okay, all right.
Speaker 6: What has to be going on in your brain as
Speaker 6: a writer in order to accept that story on its
Speaker 6: face as having any merit whatsoever? Betrays a virulent strain
Speaker 6: of anti Semitism running underneath it, That is in the
Speaker 6: top one percent. I mean, we're talking it is it
Speaker 6: is you have to be so antisemitic to believe something
Speaker 6: like that, to take it as being true at all,
Speaker 6: and certainly to run with this kind of unquestioning attitude
Speaker 6: of well, you know, you know, certainly this is something
Speaker 6: that could be possible. You know, you see things that
Speaker 6: feel viral. Perhaps you don't, perhaps you don't you know,
Speaker 6: see these things in your feeds, But you see things
Speaker 6: that go viral that you know immediately are false if
Speaker 6: you have a good radar for it, you know, and
Speaker 6: I think that I do. You know, you spot stuff
Speaker 6: and you say, Okay, that's fake, that's AI, that's fake,
Speaker 6: this is going to be you know. And then what
Speaker 6: you frequently see is people community and community noting it
Speaker 6: into oblivion on X. But other people, I think they
Speaker 6: just don't have that questioning attitude, and so they're told
Speaker 6: a narrative that seems astounding on its face and they
Speaker 6: and they run with it. And in this case, my
Speaker 6: question is less about Nick Christoft, because you do have
Speaker 6: a you know, a personal connection there you about it
Speaker 6: and you and I can understand your feeling because I've
Speaker 6: experienced stuff like that before in my life where you
Speaker 6: you misjudge a person. You know, I'm sorry, I thought
Speaker 6: you were a better person. That's on me. But here's
Speaker 6: the thing, when when you look at that story, why
Speaker 6: did no one at the New York Times have the
Speaker 6: ability to just say, pump the brakes on this? Are
Speaker 6: we sure this is something that's even possible? Have we
Speaker 6: talked to any experts about these animals? Could they be
Speaker 6: trained to do this? Even it is astounding to me?
Speaker 1: How do they keep it secret? No one participates in
Speaker 1: the training of the dog. It's like Dr Evil. It's
Speaker 1: a ridiculous cartoon. So but I don't know if you've ever.
Speaker 6: Want Hermi anyone question this like today, you apparently not.
Speaker 1: It's opinion page. Do you remember Herman Woke?
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: If you read the late Great Herman Woke's Winds of
Speaker 1: War and Warner Remembrance. His central character is Aaron Jastrow
Speaker 1: professor who said about Santaiana, I could smell he was
Speaker 1: an anti Semite when he walked into the room. I
Speaker 1: have that gift. You know. I'm Irish Catholic, but I
Speaker 1: can smell and anti semit when they walk into the room.
Speaker 1: Nick was not that he talked himself into it. I
Speaker 1: don't know how it happened.
Speaker 6: Something changed and you look, I will say there is
Speaker 6: there is some inherent appeal in going along with what
Speaker 6: you see the cool kids doing, a quote unquote meaning
Speaker 6: it is. This is something that has become a general
Speaker 6: attitude dude on the left, to a much greater degree
Speaker 6: than I think anybody has really understood. And this attitude
Speaker 6: of you know, of colonization and of of you know,
Speaker 6: deep seated theft and everything else like that is so present,
Speaker 6: ever present, particularly among young leftists, that it's possible that
Speaker 6: that was the lure involved here. All I can say
Speaker 6: is the New York Times has a much bigger problem
Speaker 6: than I thought in terms of vetting these types of things.
Speaker 6: I've written for the New York Times opinion page, by
Speaker 6: the way, and you have to go through chapter and verse.
Speaker 6: I grant you the talk, Yeah, but chapter and verse
Speaker 6: on every single thing. You even have to send like
Speaker 6: multiple references because they'll often not have read the things
Speaker 6: that you're referring to. And so it's like, okay, let
Speaker 6: me take a picture of this page of this book
Speaker 6: and send it to this editory and that kind of thing,
Speaker 6: and so the fact that this didn't go through that process.
Speaker 6: It is astoundingly embarrassing. And instead the time it seems
Speaker 6: to be sort of trying to just, you know, post
Speaker 6: their way through it or something.
Speaker 1: Oh now Christoff is trying to post his way through it.
Speaker 1: He's just posting up. Well, I'm going to ignore it.
Speaker 1: Not gonna work. He's self emilated. He's self emilated. He's
Speaker 1: like the Buddhist monk in Vietnam. He's done. Let me
Speaker 1: finish with gee. Nixon will go back and forth with
Speaker 1: brenh neb and then Reagan will meet with garbagechev But
Speaker 1: she isn't those guys. She isn't even on drop up.
Speaker 1: She is stalin. Is there any point to this?
Speaker 6: So this turned out pretty much like I thought it would,
Speaker 6: where I just went into it thinking, I think a
Speaker 6: lot less is gonna happen here than people think will happen,
Speaker 6: that they had been kind of built up beyond what
Speaker 6: was possible. I view this as being largely a waste
Speaker 6: of time. I just don't think that there's going to
Speaker 6: be much that comes out of it. But I also
Speaker 6: think that it was important for the president to go
Speaker 6: over there and not make any significant sacrifices of American interest,
Speaker 6: and I think that that did succeed. I think that
Speaker 6: he did get out of there without sort of giving
Speaker 6: up anything that we're going to be all that worried
Speaker 6: about though. The details are still going to come forward
Speaker 6: and we'll see what happens. But one thing that I
Speaker 6: do want to note, and I we have a weekend
Speaker 6: interview series. It's starting tomorrow at o'deely wire. I have
Speaker 6: Michael Soolikan I know you've had you've talked to him before,
Speaker 6: I believe, who is a China expert, to talk all
Speaker 6: about the meeting, what came out about Taiwan, et cetera,
Speaker 6: et cetera. I hope people will check it out tomorrow morning.
Speaker 6: But the thing that is really I think important about
Speaker 6: this is that you could have had a situation where
Speaker 6: she offered or dangled the possibility of you could fly
Speaker 6: back home with this person or that person and get
Speaker 6: a victory from that in exchange for something dramatic that's
Speaker 6: way more important to she than holding on to a prisoner.
Speaker 1: End of the United States.
Speaker 6: Yeah, exactly, And that is something that I think was
Speaker 6: always a risky potential about this meeting and the president
Speaker 6: if that was offered. I don't know if there was
Speaker 6: didn't take it. So I look at this as being
Speaker 6: something where the press built this up as being very important.
Speaker 6: It's going to be viewed as less important. Uh and
Speaker 6: in the larger scheme of things, is probably not going
Speaker 6: to change.
Speaker 1: He made a play for Jimmy Lyi. He said on
Speaker 1: A four. When he's not getting Jimmy lis getting the
Speaker 1: Christian pastorate, probably it's up to Popo Leo. Now Pope
Speaker 1: Leo has to go get his Catholic And he asked
Speaker 1: a way the Vatican has battalions that are unsane, and
Speaker 1: the Pope has to go get the Catholic man. That's
Speaker 1: what I think. You agree with that.
Speaker 6: I think you're right. I agree completely, and I think
Speaker 6: that I think it's going to be something that is,
Speaker 6: you know, it's a test for a you know, new
Speaker 6: pope relatively, But it's one of these situations where I
Speaker 6: just don't think there was going to be there was
Speaker 6: too much that President Trump was going to have to
Speaker 6: give up in that situation, I think.
Speaker 1: And so so, the most prominent Catholic martyr in the world,
Speaker 1: the most visible one, is Jimmy Lai. She is killing him,
Speaker 1: and Leo has said nothing the So the President made
Speaker 1: a push, but he can't give up the American national interests. Well,
Speaker 1: said Ben Domitic, I'll look for the new feature tomorrow.
Speaker 1: The Daily Wire ought to be a subscription for all
Speaker 1: of you because the left and the far right hate it,
Speaker 1: so you should love it. And you can believe Ben
Speaker 1: Shapiro's not for turning Ben Dominic, follow him on Exit
Speaker 1: b Dominis, listen to Big Ben Pod, see him on Fox,
Speaker 1: and come right back on the u Uit Show.