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
Speaker 1: course I'll listen to the Hillsdale Dialogue. All of them
Speaker 1: at Hugh for Hillsdale dot com or just Google, Apple
Speaker 1: iTunes and Hillsdale Morning, Glauri and Evening Grace America. I'm
Speaker 1: due doing the Earlief Factors video West. It's got a
Speaker 1: lot coming up. Today's Senator Tom Cotton, Dan Rundy, other
Speaker 1: experts on what looks to be the inevitability of hostilities
Speaker 1: with Iran President Trump speaking about that at the Board
Speaker 1: of Peace. I have that tape as well. But before
Speaker 1: today's program, I was able to pre record an interview
Speaker 1: that will drop next week when I'm gone. Kirschleitcher will
Speaker 1: be my guest host next week and you'll hear the
Speaker 1: whole interview then. But it gave me such great joy
Speaker 1: I just want to let you hear a little bit
Speaker 1: of it right now. Dennis, welcome back. This gives me
Speaker 1: great joy to talk to you. How are you, my friend?
Speaker 2: That is a complex question. I'm Since November twelfth, twenty
Speaker 2: twenty four. I have been paralyzed from the shoulders down,
Speaker 2: so that goes a long way in answering your question.
Speaker 2: On the other hand, I am thinking as creatively as ever,
Speaker 2: and I am able to speak, which every doctor who's
Speaker 2: commented on it, and none of them have been religious
Speaker 2: as called a miracle.
Speaker 1: Stop right there. I'm not giving away the story. You
Speaker 1: have to wait till next week. You can order Dennis's
Speaker 1: right now. It's available in bookstores on Monday, but you
Speaker 1: can pre order it so it's delivered by then. It's
Speaker 1: called If there Is No God? The battleover who Defines
Speaker 1: Good and Evil. It is written with the assistance of
Speaker 1: his dear friend Joel Alperson. It's a fabulous book. I've
Speaker 1: read it over the last week knowing that we're going
Speaker 1: to talk to Dennis today, and we spent a half
Speaker 1: hour on subjects immediate and remote, enduring, an eternal, and
Speaker 1: just as fresh as yesterday's news. We talked about ten
Speaker 1: to seven. We talked about his recovery, we talked about
Speaker 1: the imminence of the war with Iran. We talked about
Speaker 1: all that. But the book doesn't drop until Monday, so
Speaker 1: I got permission just to play a little clip, little
Speaker 1: teaser as a way of getting you to go and
Speaker 1: purchase Dennis Prager's brand new book, If there Is No God.
Speaker 1: If there Is No God. It's in bookstores on Monday,
Speaker 1: but you can have it on your doorstep if you
Speaker 1: go to Amazon or Barnes and Noble right now in
Speaker 1: order If there Is No God. Dennis Prager back in
Speaker 1: the game. So much fun to talk to him. Last
Speaker 1: time I saw Dennis, he couldn't speak. Now he speaks
Speaker 1: quite well, quite clearly. He'll take his time occasionally, but
Speaker 1: it's a fabulous interview. Kurt will play it for you
Speaker 1: next week. Now to the eminence of war, which appears
Speaker 1: to be to me certain Donald Trump at the Board
Speaker 1: of Peace this morning, cut number one.
Speaker 3: Now is the time for Iran to join us on
Speaker 3: a path that will complete what we're doing. And if
Speaker 3: they join us, that'll be great. If they don't join us,
Speaker 3: that'll be great too, but it'll be a very different path.
Speaker 3: They cannot continue to threaten the stability of the entire region,
Speaker 3: and they must make a deal. Or if that doesn't happen,
Speaker 3: I maybe can understand if it doesn't happen, it doesn't happen, But.
Speaker 1: Bad things will happen. If it doesn't, bad things for Iran.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of reporting out of Israel today about
Speaker 1: the order of battle plans, and you never know. But
Speaker 1: the Israeli media does have amazing sources within the IDF
Speaker 1: and the government, and it appears as though the missiles
Speaker 1: are the number one target. Try and take them out
Speaker 1: immediately and preemptively. The Ford is not yet there. It
Speaker 1: is reported to be headed to the coast of Israel
Speaker 1: to assist with missile defense. If Iran gets off a barrage,
Speaker 1: Iron can always capitulate.
Speaker 4: By the way, We're supposed to do.
Speaker 1: Something in writing soon, but they're down to ten days now.
Speaker 1: And with President Trump, when he gets impatient, he gets
Speaker 1: impatient and the blow will fall, and it looks like
Speaker 1: it's going to be many blows over many days. I'll
Speaker 1: talk with Senator Cotton about that. He also said cut
Speaker 1: number two. I want to play it.
Speaker 3: Again, guitar countries. Nobody could have signed. You would have
Speaker 3: had that threat. Nobody could have had. You couldn't have
Speaker 3: peace in the Middle East. So now we may have
Speaker 3: to take it a step further, or we may not.
Speaker 3: Maybe we're gonna make a deal you're gonna be finding
Speaker 3: out over the next probably ten days.
Speaker 1: Ten days, ten days. Don't count on it, Iran, make
Speaker 1: a deal or get dealt with. Also today the President
Speaker 1: heaps some praise on his secretary of State. That was
Speaker 1: kind of funny as well. Cut number five.
Speaker 3: Marco does it with the velvet love, but it's a kill.
Speaker 5: The result is the same.
Speaker 3: They do it very differently, And Marco, you really did
Speaker 3: yourself proud two days ago in Munich, In fact, so
Speaker 3: proud that I almost terminated his employee because they were saying,
Speaker 3: we why can't Trump do this? I do, but I
Speaker 3: say it differently. But Marco, don't do any better than
Speaker 3: you did.
Speaker 6: Police you think, because if you can't.
Speaker 1: Be legit funny, that was legit funny. I got asked
Speaker 1: on the Fox News today. I thought I've covered just
Speaker 1: about everything in my life. I've never been asked about
Speaker 1: British Royalty before, but I did my homework. This was
Speaker 1: with John Roberts earlier this afternoon. Cut number eight.
Speaker 7: And let's forget Hugh Hewitt, Foxy's contributed, our host of
Speaker 7: the Huge Show. So with these charges, the allegation, the
Speaker 7: investigation not about sex. It's about whether or not he
Speaker 7: gave confidential government documents to Jeffrey Epstein. But as Jillian
Speaker 7: and I were talking about just a second ago, this
Speaker 7: is kind of like popping al capone for taxibit.
Speaker 4: Well good after in John.
Speaker 1: Misconduct in public office is the charge that's a common
Speaker 1: law crime in Great Britain, meaning it goes back centuries.
Speaker 1: In fact, it goes back to before the United States
Speaker 1: was founded, before the Colony of Virginia existed, and it's
Speaker 1: pretty expansive. It can cover all sorts of actions by
Speaker 1: a public official wrongfully carrying out their public duties, and
Speaker 1: there are lots of cases about this. It can be
Speaker 1: a life imprisonment. Now, very few things are as annoying
Speaker 1: on television as a lawyer talking out of the top
Speaker 1: of their hat about things that they don't know about.
Speaker 1: I practice con law and land use law, but I
Speaker 1: dug into some of these precedents, and if Andrew gave
Speaker 1: confidential documents to Epstein from which Epstein could make a buck,
Speaker 1: it's clearly covered. But there isn't the process that we
Speaker 1: have in the United States where we get an indictment
Speaker 1: and a detailed charge of what is happening. But as
Speaker 1: it happened after the explosion of documents ordered by Congress.
Speaker 1: We have to assume that they found an email from
Speaker 1: Andrew to Epstein, including an attachment of a public note,
Speaker 1: and that would be misconducted public official. But it's not
Speaker 1: a criminal statute, it's common law.
Speaker 4: So wait till you get to the sword cases.
Speaker 1: It goes all the way back to sixteen hundred people
Speaker 1: fighting in the wrong places with swords.
Speaker 4: So it's a wild kind of a charge, right, but.
Speaker 7: It's one that was spoorted out moments ago. Could land
Speaker 7: him in prisoned for an awfully long time if he
Speaker 7: were to be convicted. Analysts are portraying this as a
Speaker 7: huge blow to the British nation and maybe an even
Speaker 7: bigger one to the monarchy, some people going so far
Speaker 7: as to say that this could be the beginning of
Speaker 7: the end for the monarchy.
Speaker 4: What do you think?
Speaker 8: I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't agree with that, John, because I think it's
Speaker 1: such an integral part of the United Kingdom and everyone
Speaker 1: else that recognizes Charles as their sovereign.
Speaker 4: And head of state. We've had abdications.
Speaker 1: We even go back to Charles the First who lost
Speaker 1: his head to Cromwell and gang. So There have been
Speaker 1: lots of crises in the long and tortured history of
Speaker 1: the British monarch, but England without a king is really
Speaker 1: kind of unthinkable. Charles has got nothing to do with this.
Speaker 1: Charles the third, I'm glad that Elizabeth the second is
Speaker 1: around is not around to say this Mecca. That's deeply
Speaker 1: embarrassing to everyone in the royal family.
Speaker 4: But it's a pillar of the.
Speaker 1: United Kingdom and those who think it's going to bring
Speaker 1: down the monarchy have been expecting the monarchy to end
Speaker 1: for about a thousand years.
Speaker 4: Not going to happen, you know.
Speaker 7: Democrats were pushing so hard to get these Epstein files released,
Speaker 7: thinking that they were going to fall hardest on Donald Trump.
Speaker 7: While the president is mentioned a number of times in
Speaker 7: various documents, there's nothing to suggest that he was guilty
Speaker 7: of any wrongdoing. Meantime, Democrats are falling by the wayside,
Speaker 7: including Catherine Rummler, who was the lead councilor for Goldman Sachs.
Speaker 7: After she stepped down. This is what Democratic consultant Michael
Speaker 7: Lrossa wrote on actually say quote and another Democrat bites
Speaker 7: the dust. How many more deeds will be embarrassed dragged
Speaker 7: through the mutter, declared guilty by association. I've lost track
Speaker 7: of the team blue casualty counts so far. But in
Speaker 7: terms of politics, these files continue to embarrass only one
Speaker 7: party over the other.
Speaker 4: What's the end game here?
Speaker 7: Did Democrats shoot themselves full of holes by pushing so
Speaker 7: hard for the document's release?
Speaker 4: I think they did. John.
Speaker 1: The blast radius is so large in getting larger, and
Speaker 1: it seems to be taking so many more Democrats down.
Speaker 1: By the way, it's exonerated Donald Trump. It's absolutely completely
Speaker 1: exonerated Donald Trump. He's got nothing to do with the
Speaker 1: misdeeds of Jeffrey Epstein. But a lot of people who
Speaker 1: were palsy wellsey with Jeffrey Epstein, even though they weren't
Speaker 1: involved with the horrific crimes that he committed.
Speaker 4: They're too close for comfort.
Speaker 1: Right now, the head of the Olympic Committee in LA
Speaker 1: is being asked to step down by everyone who lives
Speaker 1: in LA in every adjacent zip code, because they don't
Speaker 1: want to be associated with Jeffrey Epstein in any sort
Speaker 1: of way. Everyone knows he's a sordid, horrible, evil man,
Speaker 1: and so, as I said, the blast radius is large.
Speaker 1: The only thing that's going to get this off the
Speaker 1: front pages is when President and Trump begins the attack
Speaker 1: on Iran. And even then we're going to continue to
Speaker 1: hear echoes of this as Andrew goes to trial in
Speaker 1: Great Britain, or at least his release after a thorough investigation.
Speaker 4: It's just going to go on and on and on.
Speaker 7: It's real quick. You so sure that the President's going
Speaker 7: to attack hern.
Speaker 4: I believe he is.
Speaker 1: I think one does not assemble that kind of ar
Speaker 1: mod of that kind of firepower and then not use it.
Speaker 1: If he did that, it would be a shadow on
Speaker 1: his presidency and on his legacy. There is only one
Speaker 1: way out for the capitulate, give up everything, their missiles,
Speaker 1: the uranium. They might even have to leave the country,
Speaker 1: or they're going to be as many holes around the
Speaker 1: Iatolas bunker as there are around the Friends of Jeffrey Epstein.
Speaker 1: That was earlier today on Fox. There's always fun to
Speaker 1: be on with John Roberts, who knows what he's doing.
Speaker 1: I'll be right back in America. I'm Cecily. Welcome back America.
Speaker 1: I'm you Hewett. Please to welcome Congressman chip Roy to
Speaker 1: the program. Chip Roy is running for Attorney General in Texas.
Speaker 1: Early voting has begun. Chip has been a longtime friend
Speaker 1: of the program, back to when he was chief of
Speaker 1: staff to Cenator Ted Cruz. He and I get along
Speaker 1: about ninety five percent of the issues. I'm so glad
Speaker 1: he's running for AG because state AG's matter.
Speaker 8: Chip.
Speaker 1: I was just thinking of my Josh Holly Eric Schmidt.
Speaker 1: Right now, Steve Cox is the attorney general in Alaska.
Speaker 1: I've had so many great friends, David Yosta in Ohio.
Speaker 1: AG's in the states matter a lot. Some people, though,
Speaker 1: would say, why change mause representatives. We are a major
Speaker 1: player for to be attorney general? Why is that?
Speaker 9: Well, Hugh, great to be on the show, And you're right,
Speaker 9: we are great friends. And look that give and take
Speaker 9: in those disagreements sharpen us and make us better.
Speaker 6: And I appreciate them. And you're right.
Speaker 9: Attorneys general have a great presence in Congress, in the
Speaker 9: Senate former attorneys general who have gone that direction. But
Speaker 9: the reason I'm going in the other directions because look
Speaker 9: after four terms, which I will serve out this year
Speaker 9: in my fourth term, you know, I think I've made
Speaker 9: a big difference, had a big impact, tried to change
Speaker 9: the town. And look, but I'm one four hundred and
Speaker 9: thirty fifth of one half of one third right, and
Speaker 9: as Attorney General, you're one of one. And the state
Speaker 9: of Texas is under direct assault by the radical left,
Speaker 9: by Marxists they want it, George Soros funding you know, das,
Speaker 9: and judges that are lending criminals on the streets our
Speaker 9: border when it's under assault, like Trump's got it under
Speaker 9: control now, but under Biden, my Orcht it was a
Speaker 9: total disaster. And then the Islamification of Texas. It's a
Speaker 9: real thing. It's a real issue. It's well funded. There's
Speaker 9: six hundred different groups that are doing it. And it's
Speaker 9: not just Epic City and all those things, and not
Speaker 9: just care, it's an organized effort in that and election
Speaker 9: integrity and then other issues. The AG's office is really important.
Speaker 9: It's the biggest law firm in the state of Texas.
Speaker 9: It's the number one AG's office in the state of
Speaker 9: Texas in my view. And look Ted Kruz, my former
Speaker 9: boss was the Solicitor general. A lot of our great
Speaker 9: leaders have come through that space. And so I want
Speaker 9: to go home to Texas and fight for Texas because
Speaker 9: if we lose Texas, there's no America.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: First time I met Senator Cruz was at Alliance Defending
Speaker 1: Freedom dinner at which former President Jeff W. Bush was
Speaker 1: the guest of honor. I was blown away by the guys.
Speaker 1: You know, just complete grasp of everything constitutional? Does this argument?
Speaker 1: Does the debate for Texas depend upon knowing what you're
Speaker 1: talking about? Because you'll win those debates. We might not
Speaker 1: always agree, but you're always prepped. Do they actually know
Speaker 1: anything like what you know your opponents?
Speaker 6: I mean, respectfully and as humbly as I can say it.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 9: I mean, Look, I've been in the trenches. I've been
Speaker 9: in the fights. I've been in constitutional issues. I was
Speaker 9: a Senate Judiciary lawyer. I'm the former first Assistant Attorney General,
Speaker 9: former federal prosecutor. I'm the chairman of the Subcommittee on
Speaker 9: the Constitution. I've worked for Ted Cruz. Look, I've been
Speaker 9: neck deep in this stuff. And I think, look, Hugh,
Speaker 9: I viewed this through a bit of a spiritual lens.
Speaker 9: You know, I think you know this that I went
Speaker 9: through cancer fourteen years ago. I at Hodgkins lafoma stage three,
Speaker 9: and I had a four month old daughter and a
Speaker 9: two year old son. God gave me more time on
Speaker 9: this planet. I believe that He's brought me to this moment.
Speaker 9: With the skills in the back that I have and
Speaker 9: the tested being someone who's been tested in the fights
Speaker 9: in Washington, I think I'm well prepared to try to
Speaker 9: lead Texas forward at a time when it's really critical that.
Speaker 6: We do so.
Speaker 9: So you know, look, those subsidient fights are sometimes hard
Speaker 9: to bring out for the electorate to hear them. You know,
Speaker 9: things get distilled to sound bites and ads. But people
Speaker 9: know me, they know who I am. They know I'm
Speaker 9: an independent voice. I'm ninety nine percent in line with
Speaker 9: the President and support the President's agenda and Speaker Johnson.
Speaker 6: But when I disagree, I do it. I'm independent.
Speaker 9: I follow the Constitution, I follow the truth wherever it
Speaker 9: may lead, and if I think I need to stand
Speaker 9: up on that, I'll do it, even if it raises
Speaker 9: some political pressure.
Speaker 1: I really don't think Texas can do better for an
Speaker 1: attorney general than chip Roy. And we're on right now
Speaker 1: in every major market in Texas. And I get down
Speaker 1: there enough to and I teach con law and chip
Speaker 1: Roy knows his stuff. Now I want to talk to
Speaker 1: you about the Islamification of Texas, because I read stories
Speaker 1: about the ship.
Speaker 4: And I can't even believe it.
Speaker 1: But then responsible people say no, it's actually that's against
Speaker 1: the establishment clause, and Texas is bound by the establishment clause.
Speaker 4: What is going on?
Speaker 9: Well, well, look, we've got a host of things that
Speaker 9: are happening. I mean, first of all, you and I
Speaker 9: would agree. I'm not going to put words in your mouth,
Speaker 9: but I know you all have to know your belief
Speaker 9: the Constitution mine too, that the First Amendment is sacker
Speaker 9: sanct and we've got to be very careful to ensure
Speaker 9: that we're not saying anything about what any individual can believe.
Speaker 9: Correct your right to your religious expression and so forth.
Speaker 9: But what we are saying is that two things. One,
Speaker 9: you've got a political ideological movement that is very clearly
Speaker 9: a part of the Islamist network, right the Muslim Brotherhood,
Speaker 9: a lot of people that are trying to push that
Speaker 9: not just as a religious doctrine or faith, but as
Speaker 9: a political movement in ideology. We're seeing it unfold in Europe,
Speaker 9: and it's happening here in the United States. We're seeing
Speaker 9: it in Dearborn, We're seeing it a little bit with
Speaker 9: Mom Donnie now and then that's going to get head
Speaker 9: in that direction. And in Texas it's happening in very
Speaker 9: real terms. There were two Sharia courts. There are Sharia
Speaker 9: systems that were operating in the Dallas for Worth metroplex.
Speaker 9: The governor have had to step in front of We're
Speaker 9: obviously dealing with CARE and dealing with the Muslim Brotherhood.
Speaker 9: The Governor's declared his terrorist organizations because of their deep
Speaker 9: affiliation and you know this, remember the Holy found Holy
Speaker 9: Land Foundation.
Speaker 4: Terrorists. Yep.
Speaker 9: Yeah, and they're the unindicted co conspirator from that that's
Speaker 9: affiliated with CARE. All of these things are resulting in
Speaker 9: things that you're now seeing with this epic city right
Speaker 9: this compound, this four hunderd acres that they try to say, oh,
Speaker 9: don't worry, it's fine, it's open to anybody, We're not
Speaker 9: gonna have Sharia. But when you start looking at it,
Speaker 9: that's not true. That's why the AG is going after
Speaker 9: them on their deceptive trade practices and other things. We've
Speaker 9: got to expose this. We're in the part of doing that.
Speaker 9: We're going to defend the constitution, but we're going to
Speaker 9: stand up against this political ideological effort to remake Texas
Speaker 9: in Islama FI Texas.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Chip Roy.
Speaker 1: When I first read about that, I thought to myself,
Speaker 1: where is the United States Attorney because that's got to
Speaker 1: violate the Federal fair housing hack. Is the a USA
Speaker 1: or the USA is on your side down there?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 9: I believe so, and it'd be fair. I haven't had
Speaker 9: a direct conversation with the US attorney in that district
Speaker 9: up there. Funny enough, when I was a federal prosecutor,
Speaker 9: I lived in McKenny, worked in Plano, worked in Sherman.
Speaker 9: I was right up the road there from where this
Speaker 9: is occurring. You know where epic city is. So we
Speaker 9: need to have that conversation. But I'm certainly alerted. The
Speaker 9: Department of Justice is looking into this. I know Harmeat
Speaker 9: Dylan is looking into this. I know that they're all
Speaker 9: very well aware of what's happening. And I know the
Speaker 9: current Attorney General kN Paxon has been in conversations with
Speaker 9: the Department of Justice. So I'll let them speak to it,
Speaker 9: but I know they've been having those conversations.
Speaker 1: Well, let's close with the specifics. When can people early vote?
Speaker 1: When is the primary? And probably going to be a runoff,
Speaker 1: you might get fifty percent plus one. It's possible you're
Speaker 1: that popular, that you're that qualified. But when are people
Speaker 1: voting early? When did they vote in the primary, and
Speaker 1: when would a runoff be?
Speaker 8: Yeah?
Speaker 9: Thanks, So the early voting started this past Tuesday. It
Speaker 9: runs through this week end at the next week through
Speaker 9: next Friday. The actual primary date is March third. You
Speaker 9: know Chiproy dot com. You can follow me chip Roy
Speaker 9: t x chi p r o i X on.
Speaker 6: X slash Twitter.
Speaker 9: If we have a runoff, it'll be in late May.
Speaker 9: I think it's May twenty sixth or seventh, but anyway,
Speaker 9: late May. We do want to try to win it outright,
Speaker 9: I want to save the money. If we go to
Speaker 9: a runoff, look, we'll go. We'll win it. You know,
Speaker 9: if there is a runoff, it'll probably be against a
Speaker 9: guy named mas Middleton who's running a lot of negative
Speaker 9: ads on MELL. We'll push back with all due respect.
Speaker 9: He's never been in a courtroom, he's never been a prosecutor,
Speaker 9: he's never run the AG's office, he's never run a
Speaker 9: law firm. And this is the biggest law firm in
Speaker 9: the state of Texas and one of the most important
Speaker 9: offices in the country. So we'll win that race, but
Speaker 9: we're going to need some help and support and money
Speaker 9: and get to the polls. And I appreciate it. And
Speaker 9: you keep doing what you're doing. And like, like you said,
Speaker 9: even when we occasionally disagree, Man, when I have a
Speaker 9: conversation with you, iron sharpens iron. You help me think
Speaker 9: through arguments I haven't necessarily thought through, you know, like
Speaker 9: to Save America Act. Some of the issues you and
Speaker 9: I have talked about, and we can I can come
Speaker 9: back on and talk about those and defense and everything
Speaker 9: going on with Ron and everything else. But appreciate you
Speaker 9: and appreciate the time to be on the show today.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and first thing first, you got to win.
Speaker 1: And we need chip Roy as the attorney general in
Speaker 1: tech because we need great attorney generals, so defend the
Speaker 1: constitution and know the constitution. That's chip Roy. Good to
Speaker 1: talk to you, Congressman. Keep coming back. If you don't
Speaker 1: get the fifty percent plus one, we'll talk again after
Speaker 1: the runoff. But chiproy dot com is where you go
Speaker 1: to find out more about my friend from Texas who's
Speaker 1: going to be a fantastic attorney general for the lone
Speaker 1: star State. Stay tuned in America.
Speaker 8: I'm Huglyck.
Speaker 1: Welcome back America. I'm hue you a time for the
Speaker 1: insur report. We missed Selena Zito last week. You can
Speaker 1: follow Selena on ex at Zito. Selena read all of
Speaker 1: her work at Selenazito dot com. Selena, we only have
Speaker 1: six minutes and I want to cover two stories with you.
Speaker 1: One is about The Derek from Oil City, Pennsylvania. I
Speaker 1: know about Oil City because I read Daniel Jurgen's book
Speaker 1: on John D. Rockefeller and mister Flagler, so tell us
Speaker 1: about closing the Derek, but also missing the story between
Speaker 1: the lines. I guess Ice is coming to Pittsburgh.
Speaker 10: Yeah.
Speaker 8: Absolutely, so.
Speaker 10: The Derek is one of the oldest newspapers in the country.
Speaker 10: Or it was very important in covering the oil boom,
Speaker 10: which happened in Oil City, Pennsylvania and also Pitthol City
Speaker 10: in Titusville. This is where Drake's oil was discovered. It
Speaker 10: was the first place where oil was pumped. And this
Speaker 10: was significant because before that moment you couldn't oil couldn't
Speaker 10: be produced to light buildings, to light homes, to light streets.
Speaker 10: So the industrial Revolution really wasn't able to turn until
Speaker 10: after that discovery, there was also wildcatters and it was the.
Speaker 11: Birth of.
Speaker 10: Standard oil, and there was really incredible investigations going on
Speaker 10: at that time with the local reporters, and every morning
Speaker 10: there would be a wire story that came out of
Speaker 10: the day that every newspaper in the world carriage because
Speaker 10: except the oil price every.
Speaker 1: Morning it's a great column and it's a wonderful sendoff
Speaker 1: to institution. But the times they are changing for media,
Speaker 1: and they are changing to people like Selena covering stories
Speaker 1: that nobody else does, including the crazy people tracking ice
Speaker 1: across the country. Apparently they're coming to Pittsburgh. Selena tell
Speaker 1: us about that.
Speaker 8: Yeah, so they have.
Speaker 10: These protests are you know, seemingly people think, oh they're
Speaker 10: organic because I saw a local person there. They're not
Speaker 10: really organic. But you know, one of the responsibilities as
Speaker 10: a journalist that they learned very long ago was always
Speaker 10: follow the money. And so when an organization is saying
Speaker 10: they're behind something like more than likely means they are
Speaker 10: sponsoring something, and which means you should see who is
Speaker 10: trying to be disruptive, whether it is in Minneapolis or
Speaker 10: in Pittsburgh, and why are they trying to cause this disruption,
Speaker 10: and you know there will be well meaning ideological people
Speaker 10: that will go along and want to be part of
Speaker 10: this because of their ideological points of view. But a
Speaker 10: lot of the people that are causing very aggressive tactical
Speaker 10: protests that get out of hand are funded by foundations
Speaker 10: whose names you would recognize and other groups who hnd
Speaker 10: their money. But I think it's important that if you
Speaker 10: want to get involved with something, you better understand who's
Speaker 10: behind it, because then you have attached yourself to something
Speaker 10: that you might not feel comfortable with.
Speaker 1: One of the groups mentioned in your column is the
Speaker 1: Sunrise Foundation, with which my audience is very familiar, but
Speaker 1: there's also the Rockefeller Family Fund, the Wallace Global Fund.
Speaker 1: I am mostly concerned about people from abroad, not those three,
Speaker 1: but people i'm abroad pumping money into the United States,
Speaker 1: including that crazy Swiss billionaire.
Speaker 4: Do we think he's got anything to do with this stuff?
Speaker 8: We don't know. It's very hidden.
Speaker 10: However, that doesn't mean it's not the case, and they've
Speaker 10: done a really good job of hiding their tracks. Unfortunately,
Speaker 10: I mean unfortunately for them. It usually comes up either
Speaker 10: through arrogance or through someone leaking the information but I
Speaker 10: suspect we will find out quit soon.
Speaker 1: Now the Pittsburgh protests, do you expect they're going to
Speaker 1: be like the Minneapolis protests? The occasion for tragedy a
Speaker 1: ridiculous A number of outsiders and a lot of national
Speaker 1: media that the same thing going to happen again.
Speaker 10: There was a lot of outsiders there. There are a
Speaker 10: lot of troublemakers there. There are also just regular people
Speaker 10: who that's what the side of the ideological curve they
Speaker 10: are on. So far, they have not they have not
Speaker 10: gotten out of hand. However, even they get concerned, the
Speaker 10: locals get concerned that people will infiltrate their protests. They've
Speaker 10: been pretty pedestrian. There hasn't been anything crazy that's happened.
Speaker 1: Has Governor Shapiro or Senator Fetterman said anything to the
Speaker 1: protesters about not interfering with law enforcement?
Speaker 8: No, No, betterman has.
Speaker 10: Betterman has been pretty striding about about not interfering and
Speaker 10: if people are legal, they should follow the law.
Speaker 1: You know, there's a big opportunity here for Josh Shapiro,
Speaker 1: as a former attorney general, not to side with anyone,
Speaker 1: but just to say the law must be observed. If
Speaker 1: he does that, I know we'll read about it first
Speaker 1: in a Selena Zito column. Follow her again on next
Speaker 1: at Zito Selena, or go get sign up for all
Speaker 1: of her work at every newspaper in America. It appears
Speaker 1: at Selenazito dot com. Thank you, Sulline. I'll be right
Speaker 1: back in America. Stay too, working back of America. I'm you, Hewett.
Speaker 1: Eleana Johnson is editor in chief of the Washington Free Beacon.
Speaker 1: She's also a contributor to the commentary podcast almost every morning.
Speaker 1: I am not listed this morning, Eleiana, because I was
Speaker 1: here early taping an interview with our friend Dennis Prager
Speaker 1: is back in the game with a brand new book,
Speaker 1: If There Is No God? So that cheered me up.
Speaker 1: But then I heard about the Pootomac, and I'm worried
Speaker 1: about you.
Speaker 4: I didn't realize that there was sewage on.
Speaker 1: The banks of the Potomac as far as you can see.
Speaker 1: Stay away from the river, Eliana.
Speaker 12: Oh, don't worry you. You can actually see it out
Speaker 12: my back window here, not the not the Pooh, but
Speaker 12: the Toomac. And I'm on the Virginia side of the river.
Speaker 12: So I think we're okay.
Speaker 1: I just wouldn't even go over the mem Bridge right now.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't want to have the ODI first experience, Ellianna.
Speaker 1: I listen every day to commentary, and you folks are
Speaker 1: working very hard not to obsess on Iran. But I
Speaker 1: obsess on Iran every day. So I'm going to make
Speaker 1: you obsess on Iran with me. How do you read
Speaker 1: the tea leaves today?
Speaker 12: You know you I heard the President put a ten
Speaker 12: day time frame on this and say, well, we'll know
Speaker 12: in the next ten days whether there will be military
Speaker 12: action or whether these negotiations work out. I have to
Speaker 12: say I don't put too much stock in this. As
Speaker 12: you recall, the president put a two week timeframe on
Speaker 12: negotiations and about forty eight hours later we had Operation
Speaker 12: Midnight Hammer. But the best thing you I have read
Speaker 12: on this is a piece of analysis by Walter Russell
Speaker 12: Mead in the Wall Street Journal, who, just as a
Speaker 12: student of Trump said, this is exactly where the president
Speaker 12: wants to be, which is at the center of all
Speaker 12: the news coverage, with the fate of a nation and
Speaker 12: its leaders at his control. And he's at the center
Speaker 12: of it all, and he can decide is he going
Speaker 12: to try to take out the Malas. Is he going
Speaker 12: to merely attack their nuclear program? Is he going to
Speaker 12: agree to a bad deal and let the Malas live
Speaker 12: another day? Is he going to do nothing at all?
Speaker 12: This is where this is Trump's sweet spot and where
Speaker 12: he likes to be. And I think why we are
Speaker 12: seeing this drag out. Another potential reason is the potent
Speaker 12: is the positioning of our military forces, which will allow
Speaker 12: us to strike if the President wants, and I'm not
Speaker 12: sure he's made up his mind, but also to defend
Speaker 12: against any potential Iranian retaliation against us. And it does
Speaker 12: seem like we aren't moving all of our potential you know,
Speaker 12: many potential air defenses into the region.
Speaker 1: Now, I want people to listen very closely to the
Speaker 1: president of the boarded peace because he doesn't say after
Speaker 1: ten days or so, and he doesn't say it's going
Speaker 1: to be ten days. Here's what he says, cut number.
Speaker 3: Two guitar countries. Nobody could have signed. You would have
Speaker 3: had that threat. Nobody could have had You couldn't had
Speaker 3: peace in the Middle East. So now we may have
Speaker 3: to take it a step further, or we may not.
Speaker 3: Maybe we're going to make a deal with You're going
Speaker 3: to be you're gonna be finding out over the next
Speaker 3: probably ten days.
Speaker 1: So Aliana, he didn't say it's going to be ten
Speaker 1: days before you find out.
Speaker 4: He said, we're going to find out over the next
Speaker 4: ten days. That could be now, could be now.
Speaker 12: And Hugh, key to Trump's strategy and his approach to
Speaker 12: world affairs is the preservation of the element of surprise,
Speaker 12: and that is what you heard. He said, We'll see
Speaker 12: how things play out. We may do something, we may not,
Speaker 12: preserving optionality for himself. And the president likes to keep
Speaker 12: both the news media and his adversaries on their toes
Speaker 12: and prepared to be whacked upside the head.
Speaker 1: So Eleiana, I'm going to ask Seth Mandel this later,
Speaker 1: because Seth has an opinion of the vice president which
Speaker 1: I don't share, that he's an isolationist.
Speaker 4: Do you think he is? And on what is that
Speaker 4: opinion based If you do, you know.
Speaker 12: Hugh, I'm not sure we know fully what's in the
Speaker 12: vice president's heart. I think right now we see him
Speaker 12: out there supporting the president's policies, which is his job
Speaker 12: as vice president, and he's been a pretty capable defender
Speaker 12: of Trump's We saw that, particularly on the campaign trail,
Speaker 12: and we see it when he tangles with the news media. Now,
Speaker 12: if Vice President JD. Vance runs for president, we will
Speaker 12: begin to see he'll have the chance to differentiate himself
Speaker 12: from the president and to talk to the American people
Speaker 12: about what his views on world affairs are and where
Speaker 12: he stands, and have the chance to differentiate himself from
Speaker 12: the president. But I don't think I'm in a position
Speaker 12: to say what's in his heart and what his real
Speaker 12: views are right now. It's simply not his job. And
Speaker 12: he's been a really capable defender of this president.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've been interviewing him his book came out, and
Speaker 1: then when he ran for Senate a number of times
Speaker 1: I moderated to debate. He has just never struck me
Speaker 1: as an isolationist or a so called restrainer. But he's
Speaker 1: got this rap, right, I mean, you hear the rap
Speaker 1: all the time. This reputation for being from the restrainer wing,
Speaker 1: that is sort of overblown in my view. But if
Speaker 1: I can be corrected by all me, what's the best
Speaker 1: case that he's a restrainer, I don't know of any sure.
Speaker 12: I think the case for that is that he's got
Speaker 12: close friends and allies in that wing, including Tucker Carlson.
Speaker 12: You know, he's a close friend and not only that,
Speaker 12: but instrumental to his political rise and both in this
Speaker 12: White House. You see it on the president too. Win
Speaker 12: Folks in that wing of the party, you know, step
Speaker 12: in it. The Vice president and the President are reluctant
Speaker 12: to criticize, you know, they don't criticize people who like
Speaker 12: them and who are a part of their coalition. And
Speaker 12: what we will see that shake out when there's a
Speaker 12: primary campaign and there are other Republicans. We're already starting
Speaker 12: to see it with Ted Cruz and others hitting this admit,
Speaker 12: hitting the Vice president and others. But we're really going
Speaker 12: to see it ahead of twenty twenty eight when this
Speaker 12: becomes an issue in a Republican primary.
Speaker 1: Ellianna quick exit question. I think it will be a
Speaker 1: multi candidate primary. I think they'll be at least three
Speaker 1: others besides the Vice president. What do you think?
Speaker 11: I totally agree with you.
Speaker 12: I think it's going to be quite a big field
Speaker 12: as the battle to define post trump Ism and to
Speaker 12: succeed President Trump plays out, and likewise on the Democratic side,
Speaker 12: I think it's going to be quite a big field.
Speaker 12: One thing I will say, Hugh, and I think we
Speaker 12: saw this in Munich with AOC and Gretchen Whitmer being
Speaker 12: pressed on world affairs and stumbling quite visibly and embarrassingly.
Speaker 12: I do think the democratic field, though it's vaunted and
Speaker 12: puffed up by the by the legacy media, is quite overrated.
Speaker 1: Oh do you remember You're not old enough, but you
Speaker 1: might remember your dad's copy of commentary defining devanc down
Speaker 1: by Patrick moynihan. Of course, the last week is defining
Speaker 1: competence down. But they had to define it down for
Speaker 1: Whitmer and Gavin and especially for AOC. Josh Holmes on
Speaker 1: this show said, AOC, you would think she would know
Speaker 1: about Spanish horses. Her last name is Cortes. After all,
Speaker 1: Eleian always good to see you. Follow Eleana on exit,
Speaker 1: Eleanna Y Johnson, follow me to the next segment on
Speaker 1: The Hugh Hewitt Show, Morning Glory and even Grace America.
Speaker 1: I'm Hugh hewittt welcome please to be joined by the
Speaker 1: United States Senator from Arkansas, Senator Tom Cotton, Chairman of
Speaker 1: the Republican Conference and Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee,
Speaker 1: and a noted New England Patriots fan. It's taken him
Speaker 1: a week to recover from that. Senator Cotton, welcome back.
Speaker 1: I hope you're feeling better.
Speaker 13: Go back on with you now, Senator I don't.
Speaker 4: Know if you're glad to tell me.
Speaker 1: You remember the Gang of Eight that gets brief when
Speaker 1: big things are about to happen. Are you allowed to
Speaker 1: tell me if you've been brief yet?
Speaker 13: Now, Hugh, you know we're not session this week, so
Speaker 13: all of Congress is scattered all across the country, somewhere
Speaker 13: around the world. I'm here in Arkansas. I just look
Speaker 13: to Ourccount and Judge Association, not being a secure font
Speaker 13: near a secure phone. I've just been enjoying the time
Speaker 13: on campaign trail and with my fellow or Cansons. But
Speaker 13: obviously we're staying in close touch with the President his
Speaker 13: senior team and strongly supportive of what they're doing to
Speaker 13: try to make a run or to eliminate the threat
Speaker 13: from Iran once and for all.
Speaker 4: Senta.
Speaker 1: I'll come back to that, but I want to ask
Speaker 1: you about the campaign we're on. In Little Rock, we
Speaker 1: cover a lot of the state. Is anyone running against
Speaker 1: you this time? Or are you getting another Ali Ali
Speaker 1: in Free No?
Speaker 13: No, Hugh, that's pretty rare to see, right, Yeah, I've
Speaker 13: got a couple opponents of my primary, a couple of
Speaker 13: Democrats vying for the general election. So the election is
Speaker 13: just about ten days away now on March third. Early
Speaker 13: voting it is underway. So if you're in the natural
Speaker 13: you haven't voted yet, please out and vote somehow in
Speaker 13: the next few days.
Speaker 4: I concurring that please go and do that.
Speaker 1: I just had Chip roy Ono is running in Texas
Speaker 1: and they also have early voting. Now I'm not up
Speaker 1: to day on the calendar. Let's turn to a ron.
Speaker 1: Let me play for you what the President had to
Speaker 1: say on his flight down to Georgia last hour. Senator Cotton,
Speaker 1: can we play that Harley Day on.
Speaker 10: A lot sad things will happen, you know a lot.
Speaker 4: Yes, it's really what will that. I'm not going to
Speaker 4: talk you about that.
Speaker 10: You're just look cool to get their fifth in US
Speaker 10: mel expos.
Speaker 3: We're gonna make a deal, or we're gonna get a
Speaker 3: deal one way or the other.
Speaker 6: Starting to wait out there.
Speaker 3: I'm not going to talk to you about that, but
Speaker 3: we're either going to get a deal or it's going
Speaker 3: to be unfortunate for them, then.
Speaker 12: A deadline firm field.
Speaker 8: I would think that would be enough time.
Speaker 3: Ten to fifteen days pretty much maximum.
Speaker 1: So pretty much maximum, But he doesn't say it's going
Speaker 1: to be ten or fifteen days. Senator Cotton, you're a
Speaker 1: pretty expert listening to and translating the president.
Speaker 13: What's he saying, well, Hughes, what he's been saying for
Speaker 13: more than a decade now is that we cannot tolerate
Speaker 13: a nuclear run. For that matter, we can't tolerate a
Speaker 13: nuclear run that is armed with thousands of ballistic missiles
Speaker 13: that can target not just our troops in the region,
Speaker 13: but also our friends in the region and much of
Speaker 13: the civilized world. And finally, we can't tolerate fanatical, revolutionary
Speaker 13: theocratic regime that supports terrorists like Amos and has Belond
Speaker 13: others that have the blood of thousands of Americans on
Speaker 13: their hands. These are pretty reasonable requests by the United
Speaker 13: States and by Israel that Iran no longer export terror
Speaker 13: and violence and chaos. But of course they've been doing
Speaker 13: that for forty seven years, so color me skeptical about
Speaker 13: their willingness to change their spots at this late hour.
Speaker 1: Sata, you know that dictators can capitulate Kadothee capitulated on
Speaker 1: his WMD nukes chemical scots in two thousand and three,
Speaker 1: two thousand and four. Is that what it would take
Speaker 1: for us to hold off from attacking them?
Speaker 13: Yes, you that there are clear models. As I've said
Speaker 13: for more than a decade, if Iran could come in
Speaker 13: from the cold and uh turn the page uh Wmark
Speaker 13: Cadoppi and Libya is maybe the best example of that. Again,
Speaker 13: repressive dictator who had the blood of lots of Americans.
Speaker 4: On his hands.
Speaker 13: In two thousand and three, he was scared straight and
Speaker 13: he threw the doors open, and he told America, come in,
Speaker 13: take everything, take my nuclear research, my biological and chemical research,
Speaker 13: and weapons. I don't want to be next. And over
Speaker 13: the next eight years he became in essence of day
Speaker 13: facto ally and fill Barack Obama foolishly overthrew them and
Speaker 13: opened up what's been the chaotic civil war ever since
Speaker 13: and kind of uncorked the rest of Africa, creating migration crises.
Speaker 13: But that's what genuine disarmament would look like. If Iran said, here,
Speaker 13: take all of our nukes. By the way, we don't
Speaker 13: need we don't need ballistic missiles that I can shoot
Speaker 13: halfway around the world either and we promise, well, I'll
Speaker 13: only cut off from ofs and has blah. We'll give
Speaker 13: you the keys of the kingdom and tell you where
Speaker 13: all the money's been going and where they're located, and
Speaker 13: how you can get a hold of them.
Speaker 1: Senator, yesterday the mender nick of ms now Ben Rhoades
Speaker 1: posted that we're on the brink of war and there's
Speaker 1: been no debate, no talk, no resolution in Congress. First
Speaker 1: of all, I assume everybody in Congress is talking about
Speaker 1: Iran to each other. And I also assume the AUMF
Speaker 1: from two thousand and one is adequate to the day.
Speaker 1: But I also assume the president's inherent Article two power
Speaker 1: is adequate to the day.
Speaker 13: What do you think, Well, yeah, I mean I think
Speaker 13: the president, as commander in chief, has the authority, all
Speaker 13: the authority he needs in the Constitution to take military
Speaker 13: action to safeguard this country. It's rich that the Obama
Speaker 13: crew would be talking about military action with any need
Speaker 13: debate or vote in Congress. That's exactly what Barack Obama
Speaker 13: did in twenty eleven when he toppled Umar Kadaffi. The
Speaker 13: difference is tough. The Cadafi by that time was a
Speaker 13: de facto ally for American Iran is the most virulent
Speaker 13: anti American regime in the world. And that's the real
Speaker 13: dividing line for the Obama crew and the Democrats is
Speaker 13: they always want to attack and undermine our allies and
Speaker 13: to appease and capitulate to our enemies.
Speaker 1: Now, I also recall that during Team Obama era, they
Speaker 1: did not follow They entered into a treaty with Iran,
Speaker 1: a bad treaty, a bad deal. You wrote a letter
Speaker 1: to the Iranian government time, it's not a treaty because
Speaker 1: they didn't submit it to US. I believe the same
Speaker 1: would apply to President Trump if they entered into a
Speaker 1: deal with US. You ought to go to the Senate, right.
Speaker 13: You know. I made two simple observations in that letter,
Speaker 13: along with forty six other Republican senators. One, if you
Speaker 13: don't have a treaty with the United States, you don't
Speaker 13: have much because it can just be reversed by the
Speaker 13: next president. And to remember, the United States Senate has
Speaker 13: staggered six year terms, So what's Barack Obama left to say?
Speaker 13: The Senate would be there much longer if the President
Speaker 13: gets any kind of reasonable and forceal deal. Again, I'm
Speaker 13: skeptical that he will, because the Ietolas have never been
Speaker 13: willing to surrender their nuclear weapons or their missiles. Then yes,
Speaker 13: we would want to review that in Congress.
Speaker 1: Now, mister Rhodes wrote, I want to quote it to
Speaker 1: no legal basis and no debate in Congress about what
Speaker 1: could be a major war, with no clear sense of
Speaker 1: what the objective is or what comes next. Let's focus
Speaker 1: on the second part. I think that's incorrect. My clear
Speaker 1: objective is getting the Ietolos away from power, transitioning to
Speaker 1: any government that isn't theocratically crazy, and as millennial ambitions
Speaker 1: to end the world. What's your end objective for Iran,
Speaker 1: Senator Cotton, I.
Speaker 13: Think that puts it well. As the President said, of course,
Speaker 13: it will will be a better place if the regime
Speaker 13: was changed in Iran. That doesn't mean that America is
Speaker 13: going to do so militarily, or do so with a
Speaker 13: hundred thousand troops. But who can doubt that the world
Speaker 13: would be a better place, to include Iran itself, if
Speaker 13: you didn't have craze theocratic dictators oppressing their own people
Speaker 13: and radiating violence, chaos, and revolution across Iran's borders.
Speaker 1: A Senator, do you have any idea who might be
Speaker 1: the transitional leadership? The Crown Prince has been on this
Speaker 1: program since last week talked, but he's an expat He's
Speaker 1: been an exile for forty seven years.
Speaker 4: I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: Do you think there are other forces within the regime
Speaker 1: that could step forward as did in Venezuela. Former allies
Speaker 1: of Maduro stepped forward as soon as the guy was gone.
Speaker 13: Well, I'll put it this way. I would suspect, given
Speaker 13: human nature, that there's more than a few senior leaders
Speaker 13: in Tehran who look at what happened to Duro and
Speaker 13: look at what's happened in that country since then, who
Speaker 13: are thinking themselves. I'd like Elci Rodriguez's deal, not Nicholas's
Speaker 13: Maduro's deal.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yea question, Senator.
Speaker 4: In terms of.
Speaker 1: The costs of this operation, it's extraordinary to forward stage
Speaker 1: this number of people. And I just saw a picture
Speaker 1: of the number of tankers we've got at the Sofia
Speaker 1: airport in Bulgaria.
Speaker 4: England United Kingdom will not let.
Speaker 1: Us use their bases, but Bulgaria is letting us use
Speaker 1: their basis. Does that call for some kind of rethinking
Speaker 1: about who's our friend and who isn't.
Speaker 13: Well, Hugh, I haven't seen that reports. I don't want
Speaker 13: to comment on it, but if any one of our
Speaker 13: allies is closing their airspace or closing off their bases,
Speaker 13: let's just say I think it calls for a direct
Speaker 13: and frank phone call from the president. If not a
Speaker 13: direct and frank post on his social media accounts.
Speaker 1: Well, I hope we get that too. I cheated one
Speaker 1: more question. Do we need a supplemental for defense? Given
Speaker 1: the amount of expenditure that's going into this forward push.
Speaker 13: We're very vulmid you, especially if approporations are delayed again.
Speaker 13: You know, we've spent a large amount. That's a large
Speaker 13: amount in the department last summer during or in the
Speaker 13: Working Family Tax Cut Act, and we just increased in
Speaker 13: the last yearday and your appropriation spending a little bit.
Speaker 13: It still needs more, though to be determined, whether that's
Speaker 13: in a short term supplemental or in the typical appropriations process.
Speaker 4: Center.
Speaker 1: Tom Cotton, thank you for joining us from the campaign
Speaker 1: trailer in Arkansas. I always appreciate it, and I'll talk
Speaker 1: to you again next week. Don't go anywhere in America.
Speaker 1: I'm coming right back with Vic Mattis of the Washington
Speaker 1: Free Beacon, and we've got more President Trump talking at
Speaker 1: the Institute or at the boarded Piece today and what
Speaker 1: he had to say, as well as Vice President Vance.
Speaker 1: So there's a lot more ahead. Don't go anywhere. Stay
Speaker 1: tuned to the Salem News Channel if you've missed anything.
Speaker 1: We put on thost all of our interviews over at
Speaker 1: my YouTube channel, Hugh Hewlett YouTube. But stay tuned the
Speaker 1: Salem News Channel to watch them all, or do these
Speaker 1: great radio stations that you're listening to, because I'll be
Speaker 1: right back with a lot more on what's going on
Speaker 1: in Iran in the latest development's got.
Speaker 4: My eye on the web.
Speaker 1: Welcome back America, little free bird for you, Vic Madis.
Speaker 4: Do you know why I'm playing that?
Speaker 14: You're thinking of the Super Bowl commercial for No blud
Speaker 14: Wiser or No Now.
Speaker 1: I'm playing a prominent role in the Olympics today, but
Speaker 1: I'm not doing any spoilers. Okay, I think I heard something.
Speaker 1: I'm setting the table. I'm setting the table, Vic Madison.
Speaker 1: I'm mad at you, I know.
Speaker 8: Do you know why I do?
Speaker 14: Because I was talking about bad football teams and for
Speaker 14: some insane, crazy reason that I cannot explain, I have
Speaker 14: no excuse you. I said the Cleveland Browns. We were
Speaker 14: talking about bad teams playing overseas because we're trying to
Speaker 14: marry Catherine, and I were trying to explain about how
Speaker 14: to gin up excitement beyond our borders for American football.
Speaker 14: But every time they have some event taking place, either
Speaker 14: in Germany or in Britain or somewhere else in the future,
Speaker 14: it's always kind of two teams that do fairly bad.
Speaker 4: And for some reason, I said.
Speaker 14: Cleveland, and I know I should have known better. As
Speaker 14: soon as I said it, I thought he was going
Speaker 14: to hear this, and I know I should have said
Speaker 14: the Jets.
Speaker 4: I did hear that. But that's not the reason.
Speaker 1: That's why I always ask an open ended questions. That's
Speaker 1: because people interrogate themselves and they fall and I feel
Speaker 1: like Peter Falk right now, it's Colombo. That's not the
Speaker 1: reason I didn't mind me about the Browns. The reason
Speaker 1: is from the latest episode of Getting Hammered.
Speaker 6: Okay, no, I don't remember.
Speaker 4: Why you're mad. Okay, go ahead, you take that.
Speaker 1: On Fat Tuesday, and you talked extensively about Chinese food
Speaker 1: and how great it is and Peking gourmet and how
Speaker 1: he does that duck. You went on forever about what
Speaker 1: you'd like to eat at Chinese restaurant, and then it
Speaker 1: drops on ash Wednesday.
Speaker 4: Vic Maddis, I know.
Speaker 11: It's unfair for the rest.
Speaker 14: Of us who have to fast and that fast thing
Speaker 14: involves you know, it's it's a very peculiar thing, Hugh,
Speaker 14: as you know as a fellow Catholic, because it's like,
Speaker 14: you know, two small meals that don't equal the larger meal,
Speaker 14: but if your larger meal happens to be a Chinese buffet,
Speaker 14: you could pretty much eat anything you want. So that
Speaker 14: was unfair for most of us because all we're doing
Speaker 14: is thinking about food the one day we feel like
Speaker 14: we can't have it.
Speaker 1: So which you guilty is charged You talked about it
Speaker 1: on Tuesday, so you could run out to your local
Speaker 1: Chinese deli and grab as much kung pow whatever that
Speaker 1: you wanted, and then the rest of us are heard
Speaker 1: on Wednesday. Now I want to go to doppelganger. You
Speaker 1: were talking about being mistaken in front of people. I
Speaker 1: didn't recognize the name of the person with the blockhead
Speaker 1: that you don't like being compared to.
Speaker 4: Yes, who is that?
Speaker 8: Yes?
Speaker 5: That is the professional golf for kJ CHOI.
Speaker 14: He's a very good golfer, so that we actually don't
Speaker 14: have in common. But when my good friend pointed that out,
Speaker 14: you know, the first thing I think.
Speaker 4: Is do we all look the same?
Speaker 14: And then I went to check him out and I said,
Speaker 14: my goodness, the skeletal structure his head size is eerily,
Speaker 14: eerily similar. And I said, okay, that was fair, all right?
Speaker 1: So I came up with for Mary Catherine Audrey Hepburn,
Speaker 1: and I think it's a very good match.
Speaker 4: And I've gott an agreement from people.
Speaker 1: But I have two doppel gangers, at least i've been
Speaker 1: accused of to. One is the former lieutenant governor of Missouri.
Speaker 1: And if you're watching on the Salem News channel, here's
Speaker 1: Peter Kinder.
Speaker 14: What do you think, vic, Yeah, that looks like a
Speaker 14: twit of yours.
Speaker 4: Definitely then perhaps older.
Speaker 1: At the two thousand and seven American League Championship game,
Speaker 1: I'm there with my brother Rob ganarian Patrick Wilson, and
Speaker 1: a fan stumbles by and says you you you're Stephen
Speaker 1: King And this is what Stephen King looks like.
Speaker 4: And I was not happy.
Speaker 8: No.
Speaker 14: I mean maybe they were thinking about your writing somehow
Speaker 14: that they just thought, you know, there's a lot about
Speaker 14: the creativity that flows through you. You know, there's some
Speaker 14: similarity just in the eyes.
Speaker 5: But that's about.
Speaker 1: It, all right, Let's go to the key issue of
Speaker 1: the day, the Pootomac. I have been following this from Afar, like, really, Afar,
Speaker 1: I'm glad I left DC last week.
Speaker 4: Where can you smell it? Well, this is the thing.
Speaker 14: This happened in late January, just before the big storm
Speaker 14: was to happen, So that is not an excuse for
Speaker 14: why there hadn't been better coverage, at least on the
Speaker 14: local level. But then when that happened, all anybody wanted
Speaker 14: to talk about was the snow Creek. And somehow it's
Speaker 14: like we almost wanted to convince ourself that it was.
Speaker 15: So cold that the sewage spell would just be frozen
Speaker 15: in place.
Speaker 4: That is not true at all.
Speaker 14: It comes out of the pipes and it's just spilling
Speaker 14: on top of the surface of what normally would be
Speaker 14: the water.
Speaker 4: So it was even worse.
Speaker 14: I mean, you've seen the video and footage of this
Speaker 14: now with the toilet paper. It's absolutely disgusting. We are
Speaker 14: down here, we don't smell it yet. This isn't the summertime.
Speaker 14: We just got an email from Arlington County assuring us
Speaker 14: our drinking water is safe because it comes from a
Speaker 14: source further upstream.
Speaker 4: They say that said.
Speaker 14: Everybody around us is saying do not go into the water. Now,
Speaker 14: that's impossible. Right now, I look out my office window
Speaker 14: and the Potomac was still largely frozen. But you oftentimes
Speaker 14: see in the late spring, well into the summer and fall,
Speaker 14: people love to go kayaking, people love to do all
Speaker 14: sorts of water sports. And even before the spill, Hue,
Speaker 14: we were told, you know, don't fall in the water,
Speaker 14: and definitely don't, you know, consume any of the water.
Speaker 14: But now it's just downright deadly and that's disappointing. In particular, Hue,
Speaker 14: where the spill happened is Cabin John. I don't know
Speaker 14: if you're familiar with that area. It's near the American
Speaker 14: Legion Bridge, Carter Rock. The Glen Echo Park is a beautiful,
Speaker 14: beautiful area in Maryland where a lot of people can
Speaker 14: go hiking. There are a lot of nature trails, not anymore.
Speaker 4: So you know, accountability is needed. Have you ever read
Speaker 4: Steven Johnson's The Map? By chance? I have no.
Speaker 1: The Ghost Map is about the eighteen fifty one cholera
Speaker 1: epidemic in London. And the cholera epidemic began when there
Speaker 1: was a mixture of human waste with well water in
Speaker 1: London and it spread throughout the city through the pipes.
Speaker 1: So I'm not buying Arlington, don't. Are they sure there
Speaker 1: is no way for that Cholera travels by human waste?
Speaker 1: I mean, why is that lot London?
Speaker 14: Yeah, Well, the good thing is that even if they're
Speaker 14: wrong about it, I'm pretty sure they'll still all have
Speaker 14: their jobs because, as you know, you know, there's no
Speaker 14: account But it's all Democrats here, I mean, and they
Speaker 14: keep on getting re elected year after year.
Speaker 4: There's no other alternative. I wish there were.
Speaker 14: And you're talking about what happened up in cabbage On,
Speaker 14: that's up in Maryland and so I mean, yeah, there's
Speaker 14: the DC Water Authority that's involved. The EPA of course
Speaker 14: now should be obviously has to be involved. And Leezelden
Speaker 14: is only now getting into it, but this is a
Speaker 14: very serious spelling and.
Speaker 4: His first month on the job.
Speaker 1: He had the Pacific Palisades with all the burned up
Speaker 1: batteries that had to be disposed of. Now a year
Speaker 1: in he gets to Pootomac and I don't know that
Speaker 1: he signed up for a job that meant clearing up
Speaker 1: all this bleep, but he did. That's his job now, right,
Speaker 1: it's inner jurisdiction on it's federal.
Speaker 14: Yeah, that's right, And I'm pretty sure that reporters will
Speaker 14: be definitely on him for that. Where the reporters were
Speaker 14: earlier is a good question. Again, we talk about the
Speaker 14: need for better metro reporting. There are some local sources
Speaker 14: obviously that we're doing a good job, but a lot
Speaker 14: of it is, you know, I mean, there doesn't seem
Speaker 14: to be a sense of urgency. Certainly when this first
Speaker 14: thing happened. You had local news radio, as you know,
Speaker 14: doing this, but none of the major papers were really
Speaker 14: spending that much time on what happened, I think, but I.
Speaker 1: Mean all over it, but I mean covering it closely,
Speaker 1: very quickly. Kudos on the Free Beacon review by the
Speaker 1: latest atheist to try and get on the atheist train.
Speaker 1: I thought the review was one of the most devastating
Speaker 1: I've ever read who wrote that, the guy.
Speaker 4: From the Ethics and Public Policy.
Speaker 14: Yeah, that is Carl Truman, a Protestant theologian. But it
Speaker 14: was my good friend and you know him as well,
Speaker 14: George Wigel, who said, you got to get.
Speaker 15: Carl to review this book. It's going to be something else.
Speaker 15: And he did not disappoint when you torture book right
Speaker 15: down to the blurbs. I mean he even took down
Speaker 15: the blurbs. That's a thorough construction of a book.
Speaker 4: Always good to talk to.
Speaker 3: Vic Madison, guitar coutries. Nobody could have signed you would
Speaker 3: have had that threat. Nobody could have had. You couldn't
Speaker 3: had peace in the Middle East. So now we may
Speaker 3: have to take it a step further, or we may
Speaker 3: maybe we're gonna make a deal. You're gonna be finding
Speaker 3: out over the next probably ten days.
Speaker 1: Probably ten days, Josh Crosser joined Vanitor in chief of
Speaker 1: Jewish Insider. How do you interpret probably ten days, Josh.
Speaker 16: Well, I have the same analysis that we've been talking
Speaker 16: about for the last several weeks, which is that Trump
Speaker 16: would like to make a good deal with getting Iran
Speaker 16: to give up its ballistic missiles, not continue building its
Speaker 16: nuclear facilities and preventing all of its rogue activities in
Speaker 16: the Middle East. Iran has not the diplomatic meetings in Geneva,
Speaker 16: but nowhere, Iran has not put anything on the table.
Speaker 16: The Wall Street Journal just came out with a breaking
Speaker 16: news report that Trump seems to be thinking about a
Speaker 16: very limited strike against Iran as a means to try
Speaker 16: to get them back to the bargaining table and to
Speaker 16: actually make concessions to show that he's serious about a
Speaker 16: more extended military engagement. But my read of Trump is
Speaker 16: that he would really like to make a deal. The Iranians,
Speaker 16: as has been their ideology for decades under the IATOLA,
Speaker 16: don't believe in giving up their nuclear program and their
Speaker 16: rogue regimes and their roague activities in the region. That's
Speaker 16: going to really force Trump's hands. So we'll see where
Speaker 16: things go. I was I think I said on the
Speaker 16: show cue that I was sort of skeptical that Trump
Speaker 16: would go ahead with military action.
Speaker 8: I don't think he wants to. I think he preferred diplomacy.
Speaker 16: But given Iranian and transigence, we may actually see the
Speaker 16: propect of military now.
Speaker 1: Now, Josh, I've got the Wall Street Journal story in
Speaker 1: front of me on the desktop. Trump Way's initial limited
Speaker 1: strike to force Iran into a nuclear deal it begins.
Speaker 1: President Trump is weighing an initial military strike on Iran
Speaker 1: to force it to meet his demands for a nuclear deal,
Speaker 1: a first step that would be designed to pressure Tehran
Speaker 1: to an agreement, but fall short of a full scale
Speaker 1: attack that could inspire a major retaliation. The opening assault,
Speaker 1: which if authorized, could come within days, would target a
Speaker 1: few military or government sites. People familiar with the matters
Speaker 1: said if Iran still refused to comply with Trump's directive
Speaker 1: to end its nuclear in Richmond, the US would respond
Speaker 1: with a broad campaign against regime facility, potentially aimed at
Speaker 1: toppling the Tehran regime. First of all, that's really ambiguous sourcing. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's not senior age to the president, well informed official.
Speaker 1: It's people familiar. That's like the worst sourcing, isn't it, Josh?
Speaker 16: It is and it's I was amused earlier in the
Speaker 16: week when there was an initial readout from an unnamed
Speaker 16: US official of the talks with the Iranians in Geneva
Speaker 16: that that they seem to go well and it turned
Speaker 16: out they were a disaster. That the Iranians didn't agreet anything.
Speaker 16: So I always am cautious about leaping to any great
Speaker 16: conclusions based on one unnamed source, especially in this White House,
Speaker 16: there's a lot of different views on foreign policy, so
Speaker 16: I think that's extra significant in this case.
Speaker 4: But look, I do think given and you've you've laid
Speaker 4: it out on.
Speaker 16: The show so with such detail, Q, But the scope
Speaker 16: of the build up over the last month in the
Speaker 16: in the Middle East, in the Gulf, suggesting you know
Speaker 16: this is that Trump is not playing around and he
Speaker 16: is very committed to at least the option of military strike.
Speaker 1: Again, Josh, again having I'm not crediting this report, but
Speaker 1: let's assume for the sake of argument that there's.
Speaker 4: Some truth to it.
Speaker 1: It would be a very bad idea to do a
Speaker 1: limited strike and give Iron the opportunity to let go
Speaker 1: with a fuseilot, as opposed to a debilitating major first
Speaker 1: strike to take out all their missile capacity that we could.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm not a general, I have never served
Speaker 1: in the military. I read spy thrillers and I talked
Speaker 1: to generals, but that just seemed to me to be
Speaker 1: a really bad choice.
Speaker 4: What do you think, Well, I.
Speaker 16: Think perhaps the worst option would be that you kind
Speaker 16: of have this symbolic pin prick that's staged, go back
Speaker 16: to the parkeating table, and hope to get anything.
Speaker 4: More out of there.
Speaker 16: I don't when I say stage, I don't mean that
Speaker 16: it's it's not you know that they they're asking for this.
Speaker 16: But you know the fact is that there's a lot
Speaker 16: of symbolic, you know, activity that that may not do
Speaker 16: much at all to degrade or Adian military capabilities, do
Speaker 16: very little to really the message about the US being serious.
Speaker 16: So yeah, I mean, I do think the worry is
Speaker 16: that Trump doesn't want to go to war and he's
Speaker 16: trying to figure out, you know, a way out, and
Speaker 16: Rand is not giving that. They're not conceding anything. So
Speaker 16: you know, on one hand, it looks like we are
Speaker 16: prepared to go to war with Iran. On the other hand,
Speaker 16: it does seem like there's some indecisiveness from the president
Speaker 16: and that's not a good sign.
Speaker 1: Well, again, I question whether or not he's just not
Speaker 1: doing the strategic confusion dance again, but I do think
Speaker 1: a pinprick or a symbolic strike is the worst idea
Speaker 1: I've seen because of what Hamani has said and as
Speaker 1: generals have said, which is massive retaliation for any kind
Speaker 1: of strike. That means Israel gets every ballistic missile they
Speaker 1: can get off in round one, doesn't it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, well, that's certainly could could be the case.
Speaker 8: And I think if this.
Speaker 16: Is not something you don't play with the military for
Speaker 16: symbolic strikes. You go and have a mission, whether it's
Speaker 16: to take out you know, nuclear facilities as we do
Speaker 16: in the Twelve Day War, whether it's to you know,
Speaker 16: get rid of some of their ballistic missiles that they've
Speaker 16: been building up and getting from other other road countries,
Speaker 16: whether it's to you know, attack the IRGC because they've
Speaker 16: been slaughtering Iranian civilians like this guy. And frankly, I
Speaker 16: think the president would be well advised to speak in
Speaker 16: front of the country to actually lay out the mission
Speaker 16: and the goals and why we're building up our military
Speaker 16: uh uh.
Speaker 8: Personnel in the in the Gulf.
Speaker 16: But you know, I think that's that's that's the big
Speaker 16: There's a lot of there's some Look, Trump has been good,
Speaker 16: as you said to you, about kind of being being
Speaker 16: coy about his intentions.
Speaker 4: Sometimes that's a good thing.
Speaker 16: But I do think that the clarity and in the
Speaker 16: mission and what the goal is. It would be helpful to,
Speaker 16: at least from the American.
Speaker 1: Public's point of view, well, we might get that in
Speaker 1: the State of the Union. We also might get an
Speaker 1: announcement during the State of the Union that the bombing
Speaker 1: of Iran is underway. With this president, you can't tell.
Speaker 1: I'm curious how you read the Israeli leaks, which are
Speaker 1: not quite big, you know, six feet from the shelter,
Speaker 1: but getting there.
Speaker 16: Yeah, well, we had a report in Yesterday's Jewish Insider
Speaker 16: that they don't expect an imminage military strike this weekend
Speaker 16: the Israelis, So you know that that was one sense
Speaker 16: about the timetable. Look Prime Minister notting Now who made
Speaker 16: a very short visit to DC to meet with President Trump.
Speaker 16: They didn't have any press briefings after. They didn't talk
Speaker 16: to to the to the press or do do the
Speaker 16: traditional kind of Trump comment uh after Trump, you know,
Speaker 16: conversations with the media after.
Speaker 8: The after the meeting.
Speaker 4: So, I mean, I think that means they must have
Speaker 4: had some very.
Speaker 16: Serious talks about, you know, gaming out what would happen
Speaker 16: if the US does that does indeed strike I ran
Speaker 16: And then there's reporting that you know Israelis would also
Speaker 16: be involved in such a military action.
Speaker 4: There's a reporting.
Speaker 1: Whatever you want to read, you can go and find
Speaker 1: and read actually somewhere because nobody knows nothing except Donald
Speaker 1: Trump and maybe Prime Minister and Josh cross Our follow
Speaker 1: him on actual Josh cross Hower follow me in the
Speaker 1: next segment of Today is you would give a show
Speaker 1: stay tuned, Good Morning Glory and even grash America. I'm
Speaker 1: h it is Thursday. It is ragning like Madden California.
Speaker 1: But all eyes aren't on California. They're on Iran, including
Speaker 1: those of former United States Senator Jim Talon, who's on
Speaker 1: the Reagan Institute's Security Board. Jim Talent, Welcome back, Senator.
Speaker 1: I want to begin by asking you about Ben Rhoades,
Speaker 1: former Deputy National Security advisor to President Obama, posted yesterday
Speaker 1: quote no legal basis and no debate in Congress about
Speaker 1: what could be a major war with no clear sense
Speaker 1: of what the objective is or what comes next? End
Speaker 1: quote and post.
Speaker 8: What do you think, Well, let's take the objectives first.
Speaker 17: You and I anticipated you asking about Ben Rhoads, and
Speaker 17: so I went and printed off page five of the
Speaker 17: National Security Strategy. You know, if this goes on much longer,
Speaker 17: I'm going to end up reading all of page five
Speaker 17: at one point or another, because I read part of
Speaker 17: it after the Venezuelan operation. Here it is, by the way,
Speaker 17: and you notice the bold part, you know, which our
Speaker 17: audience can't read yet, I'll read it to you.
Speaker 8: That's about the Middle East.
Speaker 17: It says we want to prevent an adversarial power from
Speaker 17: dominating the Middle East. It's oil and gas supplies and
Speaker 17: the choke points through which they pass while avoiding the
Speaker 17: forever wars that bogged us down in that region at
Speaker 17: great costs.
Speaker 8: So what is the adversarial power?
Speaker 17: Who is it that wants to dominate the Middle East
Speaker 17: shove their version of sharia law down everybody's throat to
Speaker 17: include most especially the Gulf States, and has threatened to
Speaker 17: and would love to shut down the choke points for
Speaker 17: oil and gas in the Middle East.
Speaker 8: Who is that?
Speaker 3: You?
Speaker 17: It's Iran, right, And so what we're doing is preventing
Speaker 17: that adversarial power, you know, from doing that. And the
Speaker 17: operational goals, I think they're pretty clear. The president is
Speaker 17: going for a big win, which is what he does.
Speaker 17: And a big win would be somebody wearing a military
Speaker 17: app in Iran, either now or after an attack, deciding
Speaker 17: that they'd like to survive and maybe keep some of
Speaker 17: the loot they've stolen from the country, so they push
Speaker 17: home any aside and decide to play ball with us.
Speaker 8: That would be a very big win.
Speaker 17: But at minimum, if that doesn't happen, because the Mullas
Speaker 17: are not going to make a deal. And if you
Speaker 17: don't think Donald Trump knows that, you don't know Donald Trump,
Speaker 17: he does not miss the obvious in a negotiation.
Speaker 4: So okay, let me be hoping.
Speaker 1: An hour ago, the Wall Street Journal posted a story
Speaker 1: Trump weighs initial limited strike to force Iran into a
Speaker 1: nuclear deal. It then reads, in the first two grabs,
Speaker 1: President Trump is weighing an initial limited military strike on
Speaker 1: Iran to force it to meet his demands for a
Speaker 1: nuclear deal, a first step that would be designed to
Speaker 1: pressure Tehran into an agreement, but fall short of a
Speaker 1: full scale attack that could inspire a major retaliation. The
Speaker 1: opening assault, which if authorized, could come within days, would
Speaker 1: target a few millionlitary or government sites. People familiar with
Speaker 1: the matter said, if Iran still refused to comply with
Speaker 1: Trump's directive to end its nuclear enrichment. The US would
Speaker 1: respond with a broad campaign against the regime, potentially aimed
Speaker 1: at toppling the Tehran regime. These are sources familiar with
Speaker 1: the situation. I think that's nonsense, Jim Tallon, because it
Speaker 1: would give Iran a first strike on Israel and our allies.
Speaker 8: I think it's highly unlikely.
Speaker 17: I think when he hits, when we hit, and I
Speaker 17: think we're going to end up doing it, because I
Speaker 17: think the Molas are going to stay in control and
Speaker 17: they're not going to do this deal. Although there's a chance,
Speaker 17: I mean, Neil Ferguson thinks. On Dan Senor's show, he
Speaker 17: indicated he thought there was a chance, and he had
Speaker 17: some pretty good arguments for it.
Speaker 8: No, I think we're going to hit him much harder
Speaker 8: than that.
Speaker 17: It is not only possible, but likely that we will
Speaker 17: reserve some targets as secondary deterrence. And you've talked about
Speaker 17: carc Island. I mean, but we can hit them very
Speaker 17: hard while still retaining targets that will secondarily deter them.
Speaker 8: And as I.
Speaker 17: Said, I think the goal is either to get a
Speaker 17: deal now that's not likely, to get a deal with
Speaker 17: new leadership after a strike that's much more likely to
Speaker 17: have the protesters come out again because they're encouraged by
Speaker 17: after a strike, because they're encouraged, and because the regime
Speaker 17: is weakened further, and overthrow the regime.
Speaker 8: That's possible. And if we don't get.
Speaker 17: Any of that, the minimum we're going to get out
Speaker 17: of this is destroying their ballistic missile arsenal, which means
Speaker 17: they will have lost two of their three tools of power.
Speaker 17: They've lost the nuclear program and they've lost the ballistic missiles.
Speaker 17: And because they're economies in the tank because of our sanctions,
Speaker 17: they can't support the proxies anymore. So we're going to
Speaker 17: get The odds are very high. We're going to get
Speaker 17: a solid win out of this. The question is how
Speaker 17: big a win? And if you read the art of
Speaker 17: the deal, you you'll see this is exactly how Trump
Speaker 17: set up all the deals he talks about there. I'm
Speaker 17: on the chapter now with the Atlantic City Casino. It's fascinating.
Speaker 1: Well again, developers are deal people and they know what
Speaker 1: they're doing on deals. Let me talk to you about
Speaker 1: the deal with the United Kingdom. Harley, if you would
Speaker 1: put up for our viewers on the Salem News Channel
Speaker 1: and for Senator Talleng. This is a picture of Sofia
Speaker 1: International Airport in Bulgaria with a half dozen KC one
Speaker 1: thirty five's parked on the ramp last night. Now, Sofia's
Speaker 1: in Bulgaria, which was on the wrong team during the
Speaker 1: Cold War. So, when you and I were young men
Speaker 1: in Washington, d C. The idea that Bulgaria would be
Speaker 1: our partner, but the United Kingdom would be telling us
Speaker 1: we can't use our air bases for this was unthinkable.
Speaker 1: But that is the report out of the United Kingdom.
Speaker 1: Jim Tallan, how do you think that sits with the President?
Speaker 8: Well, I have a well.
Speaker 17: You know how that sat with the and so do
Speaker 17: I Look, i have a soft spot for the Brits,
Speaker 17: and I'm hopeful. I think they're they're they're going through
Speaker 17: a lot of internal turmoil. I hope they get to
Speaker 17: the right place in the next couple of years. But
Speaker 17: this is an example of exactly what our people have
Speaker 17: been complaining about. I mean, first the President, then Vance,
Speaker 17: then then the Speaker Johnson in his own way before
Speaker 17: the House of Commons, and now Marco Rubio. Okay, we
Speaker 17: have a foreign policy realist administration insofar as you can
Speaker 17: capture Donald Trump's doctrine. And by the way, that's what
Speaker 17: I think Vice President Vance is. Realists believe, and I
Speaker 17: think they're right that the international order can only be
Speaker 17: anchored and be stable if it's anchored by nation states
Speaker 17: who nurture tools of power so they can achieve their
Speaker 17: own uh strategic goals, but also so they can work
Speaker 17: with with nations who have common interests and goals to
Speaker 17: achieve the common goals. That assumes the other nations have
Speaker 17: capabilities that can be actually of assistance. So the Europeans
Speaker 17: have disarmed, They've driven their economies in the tank, and
Speaker 17: now that I'm.
Speaker 8: Going to let us use their air fields.
Speaker 17: This is exactly why we're complaining about them as allies.
Speaker 8: They need to hold up their end.
Speaker 4: They have to hold up their end. They hadn't been.
Speaker 1: This is the demnimous I mean just overflight right, that
Speaker 1: doesn't cost them anything. It's our bases. They are a
Speaker 1: NATO ally. I don't understand it. I'm hoping the reports
Speaker 1: are wrong, but they are many. I want to circle
Speaker 1: back and conclude where we began. The Obama Bros, the
Speaker 1: Pod Bros, the kiddies who surrounded President Obama with Unicorn
Speaker 1: and bubbles thinking during his eight years, why are they
Speaker 1: so upset that Iran is teetering on the brink of collapse.
Speaker 17: Well, because they had a foreign policy that was crazy
Speaker 17: for the Middle East. Their policy was to try and
Speaker 17: stabilize the Middle East around a partnership with iron which
Speaker 17: was crazy. I mean that there was no way that
Speaker 17: the Islamic Republic, while it was controlled by the Molas,
Speaker 17: was ever going to try to do anything other than
Speaker 17: dominate the region. And it's choke points to the detriment
Speaker 17: of the United States. Oh and you I want to
Speaker 17: address Rhodes's claimed that there has been no debate and
Speaker 17: this needs congressional authorization, and you mentioned it before. I
Speaker 17: believe if I'm correct, that we that we had an
Speaker 17: eight month bombing campaign in Libya.
Speaker 8: Correct, we flew out.
Speaker 17: If I recall twenty five thousand sorties, including seven thousand
Speaker 17: against Libyan forces, We're not going to have an eight
Speaker 17: month bombing campaign here.
Speaker 1: No authorization from Congress, well within the president, nothing for
Speaker 1: the county.
Speaker 17: As a matter of fact, you the House voted against
Speaker 17: authorizing and it was a bipartisan vote. Now that did
Speaker 17: not pass the Senate. So I mean there was there
Speaker 17: was considerable Congressional opposition there, but the president had the
Speaker 17: authority under the counts under his Article to authority, and
Speaker 17: he did it. And so does Trump here. I mean,
Speaker 17: if Congress wants to weigh in, it'll happen when there's
Speaker 17: a supplemental and you talked about that with Tom Cotton.
Speaker 17: I think they're probably going to need one. I think
Speaker 17: Tom said that, and I think it's going to pass,
Speaker 17: and that's going to be Congressional approval.
Speaker 1: That it's always the purse strings. Congress always has. You
Speaker 1: remember the Nicaragua controversy with Reagan, they cut off the
Speaker 1: money to the conscious.
Speaker 4: They can do this again. But I'm going to.
Speaker 17: And and and with with after Nixon had gone. But
Speaker 17: on Vietnam as a practical matter, you that's where this
Speaker 17: tension works itself out to between Article one and Article two.
Speaker 17: If the military commitment is so sustained that the president
Speaker 17: has to go to Congress for more money for it,
Speaker 17: that's where Congress weighs in, and if it disapproves, it
Speaker 17: does not provide the money and the military operation stops well.
Speaker 8: Instead.
Speaker 1: Senator Jim Tallon from the Board of the Reagan Institute
Speaker 1: for Peace through Strength next week, page six of the
Speaker 1: National Security Strategy. Thank you, Senator Talent. I'll be right
Speaker 1: back with Seth Mandel. Stay to in America.
Speaker 4: Welcome back in America. I'm Hugh Hewitt.
Speaker 1: Seth Mandel joins me, senior writer for commentary magazine. Seth,
Speaker 1: I want to read to you the beginning of his
Speaker 1: story from the wires this afternoon. The United Kingdom has
Speaker 1: refused to grant US forces permission to use British military
Speaker 1: bases for potential strikes against Iran. The Times of London
Speaker 1: reported on Thursday. The decision is heightened tensions with Washington,
Speaker 1: prompted criticism President Donald Trump. Under long standing agreements, American
Speaker 1: aircraft could operate from RIF Fairford in Gloucestershire, home to
Speaker 1: US have any bombers and the joint US UK base
Speaker 1: on Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, only with prior
Speaker 1: approval from the British government. However, London had not granted
Speaker 1: that permission for any hypothetical answer against Iran, citing concerns
Speaker 1: at participating in a strike without clear legal justification could
Speaker 1: breach international law.
Speaker 4: What do you think?
Speaker 5: I think it's a bluff.
Speaker 18: I think it's a way of saying whether they you know,
Speaker 18: somebody told a reporter that they haven't yet granted that permission,
Speaker 18: and you know that's something that when things are in
Speaker 18: place and ready to.
Speaker 5: Be moved there and ready to go.
Speaker 18: That they'll get I just don't think that Britain is
Speaker 18: going to stand in the way of what is essentially
Speaker 18: meant to help free the Iranian people from there from
Speaker 18: the government that is mowing them down in the streets.
Speaker 5: I mean, the Europeans all.
Speaker 18: Talk about human rights and caring about human rights and
Speaker 18: civilians and all that, and this this is this in
Speaker 18: Iran is nothing but civilians. That's the only people dying
Speaker 18: are civilians. The only people fighting are the regime.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 18: And so this is just an easy one if you
Speaker 18: if you believe anything, if these guys believe anything that
Speaker 18: they say, they can't they can't plausibly stand in the
Speaker 18: way of of what Trump is trying to do.
Speaker 1: If they do, in fact denyse of our basis, what
Speaker 1: is the consequence of that.
Speaker 5: That's really up to the administration. I don't know.
Speaker 18: I mean, the administration will uh, you know, tends to
Speaker 18: use tariffs and things like that as as as punishment.
Speaker 5: But I don't. I don't really.
Speaker 18: It's just hard for me to believe that diplomatically, Britain
Speaker 18: would be the reason that these uh, these innocent protesters
Speaker 18: rising up for democracy in Iran would be left at
Speaker 18: the mercy of their killers. So I just don't. I
Speaker 18: don't think it's really going to be necessary.
Speaker 5: But I don't know.
Speaker 18: It's a good question about the what the you know,
Speaker 18: retaliatory measures would be.
Speaker 1: Don't right, Let me show you a picture of the
Speaker 1: Sofia airfield in Bulgaria, where a half dozen of our
Speaker 1: biggest cargo ships are located. You know, I was a
Speaker 1: kid in the Reagan White House forty years ago. The
Speaker 1: idea that we would be able to use the Bulgarian
Speaker 1: airplanes air A reports but not the United Kingdom is
Speaker 1: astonishing to me. That was the age of Thatcher. I
Speaker 1: just can't believe it. Not if they want NATO to SURVIVEE.
Speaker 5: Yeah, no, I That's why I say I don't. I
Speaker 5: don't believe it either.
Speaker 18: I just you know, there's been a lot of talk
Speaker 18: about the Transatlantic Alliance and whether Trump puts that in danger.
Speaker 18: But you know, when when Iran lobbied a couple hundred
Speaker 18: missiles and drones at Israel.
Speaker 5: The British were there.
Speaker 18: To mobilize and try to protect the skies, and so
Speaker 18: were the Jordanians. By the way, So these coalitions that
Speaker 18: Trump puts together involve Americans, Europeans, and Arab states, and
Speaker 18: I just don't see I mean, I can see why
Speaker 18: Arab states would want to not be obviously playing front
Speaker 18: and set of roles in this with Iran, like I
Speaker 18: can understand why the Saudis are trying to sort of
Speaker 18: walk a tightrope here. But in the end, this either
Speaker 18: happens or it doesn't. And if it happens, it's because
Speaker 18: Trump put together roughly the same coalition that he did
Speaker 18: last time to do it.
Speaker 4: Now, Seth Mandeu.
Speaker 1: The Wall Street Journal published sixty five minutes ago a
Speaker 1: story by Alexander Ward Good reporter Trump weighs initial limited
Speaker 1: strike to force Iran into a nuclear deal, and Alexander
Speaker 1: cited sources familiar with the situation, and it says he's
Speaker 1: kind of hit them with a small strike to force
Speaker 1: them to the table on a big deal. I think
Speaker 1: that's inane. I think that would give Iran the opportunity
Speaker 1: to launch a massive first strike on Israel and our bases.
Speaker 4: I don't believe it. Do you believe it?
Speaker 8: No?
Speaker 18: But I also think that Trump and the Israelis are
Speaker 18: preparing for for any scenario. You know, Trump has been
Speaker 18: probably more hawkish with regard to Hesbola in South Lebanon
Speaker 18: than the Israelis have been. In recent months, there have
Speaker 18: been several credible reports that he's been kind of pushing
Speaker 18: the Israelis to make sure that Hesbela doesn't stick its
Speaker 18: head up above ground and doesn't get rolling again. Obviously
Speaker 18: there's going to be smuggling and other things that are
Speaker 18: going to get Hesbola weapons and money, but you know.
Speaker 5: And some capabilities.
Speaker 18: But he's been telling the Israelis don't don't let the
Speaker 18: weeds overgo the garden. And the Israelis, I think, have
Speaker 18: been more hesitant than that to strike because they don't
Speaker 18: want another war in Lebanon. They don't to open up
Speaker 18: another front or be the ones to open up another front.
Speaker 18: But I think that this has been Trump's way of saying,
Speaker 18: let's and the whole adminstruation that's saying, let's take care
Speaker 18: of every contingency. Don't give the Iranians a chance to
Speaker 18: hit back from anywhere. Don't give them options for a
Speaker 18: first strike, don't give them options for retaliation, keep them down,
Speaker 18: keep the boot on their neck until we're ready to
Speaker 18: decide exactly what we want to do. And when that happens,
Speaker 18: it won't be for fear of retaliation. And he has
Speaker 18: not shown a willingness to allow Iran and its proxies
Speaker 18: the space to even be able to carry out an
Speaker 18: initial first strike to surprise us or.
Speaker 5: Something like that. I mean, I think he's really got
Speaker 5: them tied up.
Speaker 1: I hope you're right, but I think the one way
Speaker 1: to forfeit any advantage that has been built up is
Speaker 1: to give them a chance to go first. And Israel
Speaker 1: does not have a history of that. Last question, Cheth,
Speaker 1: I haven't heard commentary this morning, but yesterday you seem
Speaker 1: to be persuaded that the vice president is a restrainer,
Speaker 1: Neil isolationist.
Speaker 4: I am not. What do you base that.
Speaker 18: On, Well, I base it on the speech that he
Speaker 18: gave where he enunciated this most clearly was a last year.
Speaker 18: The year before, he gave a speech where he talked
Speaker 18: about The speech is mostly remembered for the fact that
Speaker 18: Vance explained why he's a supporter of Israel and why
Speaker 18: Israel is a good ally.
Speaker 5: That's usually where you hear the relevance of.
Speaker 18: The speech, because it was one of the few times
Speaker 18: that you know, Vans made clear that yes, you know,
Speaker 18: we think Israel is an ally and you know, and
Speaker 18: they're valuable and they provide us. But in that speech
Speaker 18: was he he had laid out the idea that there
Speaker 18: really can't be that weak nations are far you know,
Speaker 18: that they take more than they get, and that you know,
Speaker 18: our alliances should be with strong states like Israel. You know,
Speaker 18: in his opinion, in Israel, you obviously get the intelligence,
Speaker 18: you get the improvement on aircraft, you get all sorts
Speaker 18: of of of weapons capabilities when the two work together.
Speaker 18: What you get from Israel is very very clear. It's
Speaker 18: a it's a strong army. It's his first world power
Speaker 18: in a crucial region, and so you know that. But
Speaker 18: he does not seem to feel that way. And when
Speaker 18: he made the speech, he was pretty clear that he
Speaker 18: didn't feel that way about say.
Speaker 5: Ukraine and others.
Speaker 18: So I think he tends to, you know, not want
Speaker 18: to feel like he's carrying anybody along. And that's what
Speaker 18: makes me you know, gives me the impression that he's
Speaker 18: more of a restrainer than otherwise.
Speaker 4: I think.
Speaker 1: It, but I will and I'm glad you have something
Speaker 1: specific in mind, because I think there's there's a lot
Speaker 1: of mythology around Vance that is never evident.
Speaker 4: Its out to me in.
Speaker 1: Dozens of interviews with him over a dozen years. Seth
Speaker 1: Mandel can be followed at Seth Mandel and you can
Speaker 1: hear them every single day on the commentary podcast, which
Speaker 1: I recommend strongly.
Speaker 4: To you and stay tuned.
Speaker 1: Dan Rundy from CSI as his next still talking about
Speaker 1: it Ron, You're on.
Speaker 4: The New Dealership.
Speaker 14: In his new movie The Dragons Prophecy, Tonish de Suza
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Speaker 3: But long last we have peace in the Middle East.
Speaker 1: Israel and Christians are coming together in a way they
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Speaker 14: The Dragons Prophecy is powerful prophetic, a must see movie
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Speaker 4: Looking back in America as war looms.
Speaker 1: I thought I would talk to an expert on post
Speaker 1: war issues. Daniel Rundy is a senior advisor at the
Speaker 1: Center for Security, Strategic and International Studies CSIS in Washington, DC.
Speaker 1: Also the author of The American Imperative, which I think
Speaker 1: it's imperative for Americans to read on the brink of war. Daniel, First,
Speaker 1: your assessment of what the President had to say today
Speaker 1: and running up to today, is war inevitable?
Speaker 19: I mean, obviously President Trump has been trying to establish
Speaker 19: that we have peace. He's been trying to have negotiations.
Speaker 19: But if our counterparts are not willing to participate in
Speaker 19: negotiations in a serious way, we're looking at some sort
Speaker 19: of a conflict.
Speaker 1: So Whyett is reporting today that there's a coordinated plan
Speaker 1: to destroy all the missiles, to do damage to the
Speaker 1: command and control structures throughout Iran. It sounds like regime
Speaker 1: collapse to me? Is that how you would guess it
Speaker 1: looks to you?
Speaker 19: Yeah, I would call it something like regime collapse. This
Speaker 19: is not regime change by invasion. Rather, it's deterrence. It's
Speaker 19: nuclear rollback. It's creating conditions for Iranian led change while
Speaker 19: avoiding a regional war. I think it's really important for
Speaker 19: your listeners to understand of the prize that we're talking about.
Speaker 19: Imagine a world where there were a Mullah free world
Speaker 19: in Iran, where we had some sort of a different
Speaker 19: kind of either the current government decided that they were
Speaker 19: going to go on the wagon in terms of financing
Speaker 19: proxies and investing in nuclear weapons and decided to change
Speaker 19: their behavior, which would be a great outcome. And I
Speaker 19: want to talk about that in terms of what the
Speaker 19: best day after scenario looks like, but also like or
Speaker 19: there was some sort of a freedom there was some
Speaker 19: sort of.
Speaker 11: A freedom uprising.
Speaker 19: There's been clearly a lot of people very very unhappy
Speaker 19: with the regime. You have all these young people who
Speaker 19: are very unhappy. What's happened to the young people's outrageous.
Speaker 19: President Trump has talked about this, But I think in
Speaker 19: some ways the best day after scenario, you is a
Speaker 19: boring day after scenario. Fighting stops fast ports, open oil flows,
Speaker 19: power and water stays on. Proxies like Hezbollah or Harmas
Speaker 19: are restrained, and Iran looks for an off ramp and
Speaker 19: looks to kind of restart negotiations. Because in some ways
Speaker 19: you need to think about this as an opportunity a
Speaker 19: to defang them, but also to force them back to
Speaker 19: the negotiating table in a real way as opposed to
Speaker 19: in a fake way.
Speaker 1: Dan, do you think that that would mean that the
Speaker 1: Idolahamini and the senior molocracy would have to be out
Speaker 1: of the picture because they're fanatics. I don't think they
Speaker 1: can see a way to actually sitting down and repairing
Speaker 1: their country with the world. Do you think they are
Speaker 1: reasonable in any way?
Speaker 11: No, I mean, these are crazy people. I mean, as
Speaker 11: you know.
Speaker 19: And one of the things I want to say is,
Speaker 19: thank you you for what you've done with your radio
Speaker 19: show about consistently talking about Iran. As you know, I'm
Speaker 19: a listener, but I think you've been really it's been
Speaker 19: important to educate the American people and listeners worldwide about
Speaker 19: what an evil regime this is. Ending this regime and
Speaker 19: ending the nature of this regime would be a really
Speaker 19: great thing for the world.
Speaker 11: So my hope is is there's a small.
Speaker 19: Probability that they could They could say, oh, we're going
Speaker 19: to stop doing this, We're going to go on the bat,
Speaker 19: we're going to stop being bad guys. But it's really
Speaker 19: hard to get these folks to change their strikes stripes.
Speaker 19: So I think ultimately it's about defanging them, and it's
Speaker 19: about hoping to pave the way for the Iranians to
Speaker 19: bring about a different kind of a government on their own.
Speaker 1: Let's finish this segment and talk next segment about what
Speaker 1: is most likely, in my view, a period of chaos
Speaker 1: followed by the emergence of a quote strong man, someone
Speaker 1: to bring authority to the streets, monopoly of violence, all
Speaker 1: that sort of stuff. What is the But it's not
Speaker 1: an iotola, it's not a fanatic, it's not a theocrat.
Speaker 1: If we get to that, what's the best case scenario
Speaker 1: for ran thereafter? And we can take a couple of
Speaker 1: minutes here and then eight minutes after the break.
Speaker 19: Okay, I would say a couple of things. One is,
Speaker 19: you could have some kind of regime fracturing. That's a
Speaker 19: fancy term for the folks that have been running the
Speaker 19: country split up and say I'd rather cut a deal
Speaker 19: with the Americans than rather die or you know, or
Speaker 19: have something really bad happen. So you could have some
Speaker 19: part of the military force a coup that's possible. And
Speaker 19: then so you could have something along those lines. There's
Speaker 19: obviously been talk about having the Shaw comeback.
Speaker 11: I think that may be more.
Speaker 19: Of a hope within the diaspora community, people outside of
Speaker 19: Iran who hope to see that. There have been protests
Speaker 19: and calling for his name. There's been graffiti calling for
Speaker 19: his name. I mean, obviously that would be a wonderful
Speaker 19: phenomenal thing where he served as some sort of transitional figure.
Speaker 19: But it's more likely that you have the regime breaks
Speaker 19: up and a piece.
Speaker 11: Of it says we're going to have a palace.
Speaker 19: Coup and we're going to take over and we're going
Speaker 19: to negotiate with with the United States and our allies.
Speaker 1: When we come back from break, we're going to talk
Speaker 1: about the many, many problems that Ron faces no matter
Speaker 1: who is running it.
Speaker 4: Dan.
Speaker 1: The first time I went to a Dan seminar at CSIS,
Speaker 1: it was about rebuilding shattered economies, and they're probably an
Speaker 1: economy and the developed world economy as shattered as Ron's
Speaker 1: is nor one with as much wealth to put to
Speaker 1: the service of the people who are on if they
Speaker 1: actually want to go about it. We'll talk about the
Speaker 1: steps that ought to be followed in the aftermath of
Speaker 1: the conflict, which we hope, as Dan Rundy said, is
Speaker 1: short sharp and over with no loss of life to
Speaker 1: the Americans or allies and just simply a quick regime chain away. Gosh,
Speaker 1: what an arc that would be for my life, because
Speaker 1: I started working for Richard Nixon when they were.
Speaker 4: Pushing the show out.
Speaker 1: Wouldn't it be great to be talking on the radio
Speaker 1: and television when they pushed out the CIA tool or
Speaker 1: stated in America.
Speaker 4: Welcome back to America.
Speaker 1: I'm Hugh Hewitt, joined by Daniel Rundy. Daniel is a
Speaker 1: senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies
Speaker 1: in DC. Not place to go for smart people at CSIS.
Speaker 1: He's the author of a fabulous book, The American Imperative.
Speaker 1: Dan as I said before the break, I went up
Speaker 1: to CSIS wants to hear you talk about international banking
Speaker 1: and how lending facilities operate with countries. What is the
Speaker 1: best way for the world of support a free people
Speaker 1: of Iran with a shattered economy and infrastructure.
Speaker 19: So in an ideal world, the day after is a
Speaker 19: boring day and things are still functioning. The day after
Speaker 19: there's some sort of a peaceful, bloodless palace coup and
Speaker 19: there's some sort of a military strongman comes in that
Speaker 19: it was associated with the regime and wants to negotiate
Speaker 19: with us.
Speaker 11: That would be, in my view, the best outcome, and it's.
Speaker 19: Not impossible, but it's something that we have to work towards.
Speaker 19: So whatever happens in an ideal scenario where you have
Speaker 19: a boring day after, you have to think about stabilization
Speaker 19: along with diplomacy. So we have to think about making
Speaker 19: sure we're protecting the US force and our allies. We
Speaker 19: have to make sure that they understand that if they
Speaker 19: mess with us, then really bad things will happen, and
Speaker 19: then we need to announce a stabilization plan. They have
Speaker 19: a whole series of problems. They've had inflation, and they've
Speaker 19: had a run on their currency because they didn't have
Speaker 19: enough money in their central bank.
Speaker 11: So they're going to have to look.
Speaker 19: At things like making sure that they have enough money
Speaker 19: in the till you Also, they spend a lot of
Speaker 19: money on their army, and they also spend money on
Speaker 19: their nukes, and they spend money on their proxies.
Speaker 11: If they got out of the proxy.
Speaker 19: Business and got out of the nuke business and cut
Speaker 19: back on their defense, a lot of that money over
Speaker 19: time could be allocated towards things like water, which is
Speaker 19: something I want to talk about as well as other
Speaker 19: infrastructure projects.
Speaker 11: But also if they were out of the proxy.
Speaker 19: Business and now the nuke business, the risk premium of
Speaker 19: investing in Iran or in the neighborhood would go down.
Speaker 1: You.
Speaker 11: I mean, that's actually even more important than the money that.
Speaker 19: If people felt like, Okay, well this is actually a
Speaker 19: safer place. Imagine an Iran that was as peaceful as
Speaker 19: say Turkey, or in Iran that was as stable as
Speaker 19: a place like I don't know, Saudi Arabia, or as
Speaker 19: stable as UAE, and as investor friendly as UAE.
Speaker 11: And you know this, you because you spent a lot
Speaker 11: of time in Los Angeles.
Speaker 19: There's some incredible people of Iranian descent who live all
Speaker 19: the states and.
Speaker 4: Unbelievable.
Speaker 1: Let's go to water, water water right now in the
Speaker 1: district of Columbia. I heard on Fox News this morning,
Speaker 1: John Roberts referred to it as the pooh Tomic because
Speaker 1: of the massive sewage spill. All of a sudden, people
Speaker 1: in the h in the del Marva area are realizing
Speaker 1: clean water is not a given.
Speaker 4: Do they have enough water in Iran? When you say water, water, water.
Speaker 1: People might snooze off, but it's actually the number one
Speaker 1: thing you need in a country.
Speaker 19: So Prime Minister net and Yahoo did a video to
Speaker 19: the Iranian people with a glass of water.
Speaker 11: I don't know if you saw this here. No, this
Speaker 11: is maybe six or six or.
Speaker 19: Nine months ago, and actually maybe something for your listeners
Speaker 19: to take a look at, because he understood how important
Speaker 19: this was. So it's him sitting at a table with
Speaker 19: a clean glass of water. Because as you know you,
Speaker 19: because you've you and your your listeners, or you have
Speaker 19: a smart listening audience, they know that Israel has really
Speaker 19: done phenomenal things with water management. They've made the desert
Speaker 19: bloom in Israel. Netnyah who got on a video and
Speaker 19: said I want to bring Israel's water technology and agricultural
Speaker 19: technologies to Iran, and they drank the glass of water
Speaker 19: and said, you guys have a major water crisis and
Speaker 19: a major water problem. So some of it is about
Speaker 19: management issues, some of it's about there's also all sorts
Speaker 19: of urban issues. We're obviously here in the District of Columbia,
Speaker 19: we've been taking for granted for a long time water infrastructure.
Speaker 19: They have water infrastructure problems. The amount of money needed
Speaker 19: to repair the water systems in Iran. The estimates are
Speaker 19: certainly in the tens of billions and as high as
Speaker 19: in the hundreds of billions of dollars.
Speaker 11: Ye, they've underinvested in it.
Speaker 19: Like I said, if you have a choice between financing
Speaker 19: a proxy or financing nuclear weapons or water, they've said,
Speaker 19: I'll finance the proxies and the nuclear weapons over the water,
Speaker 19: and now they're paying for it. One of the regimes
Speaker 19: leaders has even openly talked about Tehran people leaving Tehran
Speaker 19: and moving to other cities because there's not enough water
Speaker 19: for people to live in Tehran. That the water levels
Speaker 19: and you know about this from California, like the water
Speaker 19: tables are so low for a bunch of reasons, but
Speaker 19: basically a lot of it's mismanagement, under investment, but also
Speaker 19: lack of technology. So let's say you had a peaceful Iran.
Speaker 19: Imagine Iran as you know, you had a centuries long
Speaker 19: peaceful relationship with Judaism before the Ayatolas took over. Imagine
Speaker 19: a new partnership on water and water technology and agriculture
Speaker 19: in Iran with Israel. In Iran that's at peace is
Speaker 19: in Iran that can have a much more productive agriculture.
Speaker 11: They have all sorts of.
Speaker 19: Opportunities, but they have to get a handle on this
Speaker 19: water issue so that it would be absolutely one of
Speaker 19: the first things.
Speaker 1: We no longer have USA idea, and I'm one of
Speaker 1: the people that it's happy that we don't. But who
Speaker 1: takes the lead for the United States in the post?
Speaker 1: We didn't give much shot to this when we invaded
Speaker 1: Iraq and as a result it was a mess. Who
Speaker 1: ought to be in charge of our relations with Iran?
Speaker 1: The President can't do everything and Secretary Rubio has got
Speaker 1: ninety five jobs. Who takes the lead?
Speaker 19: Well, ultimately we're going to have to have it. Certainly
Speaker 19: shouldn't be the Department of Defense over time, And as
Speaker 19: I said, I don't think we want to be in
Speaker 19: the regime like taking over and having a CPA like
Speaker 19: we had in Iraq. I don't think that's what they're
Speaker 19: looking to do. I think they're looking to either defang
Speaker 19: the regime, force them back to the negotiating table, have
Speaker 19: a palace coup and have some more pliable, manageable partner
Speaker 19: like we have in Venezuela, or hopefully some sort of
Speaker 19: a freedom agenda uprising where some more reasonable leader, whether
Speaker 19: it's the shot, the shot, the son of the shot,
Speaker 19: or somebody else, comes in. Given all that, we ultimately
Speaker 19: want the Iranians to run things. Look at what's happened
Speaker 19: in Venezuela, where since the US has been using different
Speaker 19: tools to help channel behavior and incentivize behavior, but has
Speaker 19: not put.
Speaker 11: Troops on the ground.
Speaker 19: I do not imagine center we're going to put troops
Speaker 19: on the ground, and I could see us channeling and
Speaker 19: we want to manage the oil revenues so that they're
Speaker 19: not spending it on proxies and nukes and rather spending
Speaker 19: it on things like water and electricity, and then helping
Speaker 19: to change the behavior of the regime so that all
Speaker 19: these fabulous Iranians in the diaspora come back and rebuild
Speaker 19: the country, invest in the country, and then others could
Speaker 19: come in alongside it.
Speaker 11: There's a series of institutions.
Speaker 19: Of course, the IMF and the World Bank, your listeners
Speaker 19: have heard of it, but there's a series of other
Speaker 19: institutions that are less well known that over time could
Speaker 19: be very involved in the reconstruction of Iran.
Speaker 11: One is something called the.
Speaker 19: EBRD, which has operations in Turkey operations in the Caucasuits.
Speaker 4: You don't get to use an acronym without telling it's what.
Speaker 11: It's starting for.
Speaker 4: Dan.
Speaker 11: Sorry, I shouldn't do that. I know I've been on
Speaker 11: your show before.
Speaker 1: Now you owe me a chocolate Sunday, and I know
Speaker 1: you're very particular about it.
Speaker 4: Replace what's it stands up?
Speaker 19: The European The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
Speaker 11: The ebr D was a regional development bank set up
Speaker 11: after the after the fall of the Soviet Union. So
Speaker 11: they're they're a.
Speaker 1: Partner, all right, Dan Rundy, keep coming back. Follow him
Speaker 1: on x at Dan Rundy d a n r U
Speaker 1: n d E. He's a senior advisor at the Centervisi
Speaker 1: Tech Union National Studies.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Jane, I'll be right now.