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.
Speaker 2: Listen to the Hillsdale Dialogue.
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Speaker 2: I'm qu Quille.
Speaker 1: It's ash Wednesday. I hope you are observing today. If
Speaker 1: you are Christian, if you're a Catholic, go get your ashes,
Speaker 1: go to mass. I have a word of advice from
Speaker 1: my friends in the priesthood, letting masses need to be short.
Speaker 1: They don't need music. People have to go to work,
Speaker 1: they don't need sermons. They just need to happen.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: There are ASH Wednesday services late in the day after
Speaker 1: work that are fine, that can go longer and can
Speaker 1: have music, but really, the morning Mask, the noon Mass,
Speaker 1: they need to be thirty five minutes. We don't need music.
Speaker 1: People want to go to Mass and lent. Just let
Speaker 1: them go to Mass. It's not it's not Sunday. And
Speaker 1: I understand a lot of people are in the liturgical
Speaker 1: music business and they want to perform for the Lord
Speaker 1: and for the congregation.
Speaker 2: But that's not the way to do Lent.
Speaker 1: You know, the very best descriptions that led I'm gonna
Speaker 1: come to the war in a second I've ever read
Speaker 1: was in Wolf's Hall, which was an upside down novel
Speaker 1: that made Thomas Moore the bad guy, and that was bad.
Speaker 2: But they did talk about.
Speaker 1: Lent in the era of Henry the eighth, and they
Speaker 1: really went all in back then. Now it's like Lent
Speaker 1: light even for Catholics. I do is fast and abstained
Speaker 1: on ash Wednesday and Good Friday, and then abstain from
Speaker 1: meat on Friday and any other any other devotions or
Speaker 1: sacrifices you want to make in order to sort of
Speaker 1: observe the season of penance and repentance. The Pope went
Speaker 1: way out on a limb yesterday and asked every cathol
Speaker 1: like to please not use harsh words about their neighbor. Now,
Speaker 1: that's not good for my business, but I'll try and
Speaker 1: go along with that. But I still got to play
Speaker 1: you the news. And I'm sure not going to be
Speaker 1: rooting for the Ayatola and the fanatics in Iran because
Speaker 1: we're on the brink of war. All of the bulletins
Speaker 1: coming from Israel are that they've gone into their defensive crouch.
Speaker 1: They've alerted everyone to be ready for conflict. We've got
Speaker 1: the biggest mass forces that we've had anywhere in the
Speaker 1: world since prior to the Iraq invasion in two thousand
Speaker 1: and three. And it doesn't look like Iran wants to
Speaker 1: actually capitulate on the things that needs to capitulate on.
Speaker 1: Stop killing your people, Stop supporting Hamas Hezbalah and the UTIs,
Speaker 1: Stop building missiles and infect, disarm, and abandon attempts to
Speaker 1: enrich and rebuild your obliterated nuclear program. Four asks don't
Speaker 1: have to destroy you that people might rise up against you.
Speaker 1: You've murdered thirty five thousand people. And I don't think
Speaker 1: Donald Trump is Barack Obama right on schedule. By the way,
Speaker 1: Ben Rhodes, the Metternich of ms NOW in the Architect
Speaker 1: of the Echo Chamber, posted eighteen minutes ago, no legal
Speaker 1: basis and no debate in Congress about what could be
Speaker 1: a major war with no clear sense of what the
Speaker 1: objective is or what comes next.
Speaker 2: Huh. Kind of like Libya in twenty eleven.
Speaker 1: Do you remember that the NATO operation that went on
Speaker 1: months and months, took out Kadaffi.
Speaker 2: Though Kadaffi was.
Speaker 1: Not making war on his neighbors, he was a repressive dictator.
Speaker 2: He was bad for the world, and NATO went in
Speaker 2: didn't have a plan.
Speaker 1: There's still a civil war going on there, but there
Speaker 1: was no congressional authorization or maybe Bill Clinton supporting the
Speaker 1: war in Serbia with General Wes Clark in charge of
Speaker 1: it in nineteen ninety nine that went on for seventy
Speaker 1: eight days air campaign. So look, there's one standard which
Speaker 1: the president gets to ordered if he wants to, and
Speaker 1: Congress can cut off the money if they want to.
Speaker 1: Congress isn't going to cut off the money Congress want,
Speaker 1: says to happen. Left wing nutters who envisioned some kind
Speaker 1: of nirvana with Iran.
Speaker 2: The Rhodes people, they've been wrong.
Speaker 1: They've been wrong since President Obama came up with It
Speaker 1: would have been great if he'd been asked that on
Speaker 1: Friday night, but he wasn't, and he's not getting tough questions.
Speaker 2: I JD.
Speaker 1: Evance did on Monday from Martha McCollum. Here is the
Speaker 1: Vice President talking to Martha on yesterday, actually Tuesday, cut number.
Speaker 3: One well, I'm obviously not going to make an announcements today.
Speaker 3: I think the President has a lot of options. We
Speaker 3: do have a very powerful military. The President's shown a
Speaker 3: willingness to use it. He also has a remarkable diplomatic team.
Speaker 3: He shown a willingness to use that too, And so
Speaker 3: what the President has been very clear with the Iranians,
Speaker 3: and actually I just talked to Steve Wook Golf and
Speaker 3: Jared Kushner this morning about some of their negotiations is
Speaker 3: the United States has certain red lines. Our primary interest
Speaker 3: here is we don't want a Ran to get a
Speaker 3: nuclear weapon. We don't want nuclear proliferation if it Ran
Speaker 3: gets a nuclear weapon. There are a lot of othermes,
Speaker 3: some friendly, some not so friendly, who would get nuclear
Speaker 3: weapons after them. That would be a disaster for the
Speaker 3: American people because then you have these crazy regimes all
Speaker 3: over the world with the most dangerous weapons in the world.
Speaker 3: And that's one of the things the President has said
Speaker 3: he's going to prevent. Now, we would very much like, as.
Speaker 4: The President has said, to resolve.
Speaker 3: This through a conversation and a diplomatic negotiation. But the
Speaker 3: President has all options on the table. And you know,
Speaker 3: one thing about the negotiation. I will say this morning,
Speaker 3: is you know, in some ways it went well, they
Speaker 3: agreed to meet afterwards. But in other way is it
Speaker 3: was very clear that the President has set some red
Speaker 3: lines that the Iranians are not yet willing to actually
Speaker 3: acknowledge and work through. So we're going to keep on
Speaker 3: working it. But of course the President reserves the ability
Speaker 3: to say when he thinks that diplomacy has reached its
Speaker 3: natural end. We hope it will get to that point,
Speaker 3: but if we do, that'll be the president's call.
Speaker 1: He also talked about the difference between his speech at
Speaker 1: Munich and the speech that Marco Ribio gave this weekend.
Speaker 1: His speech was last year cut number three.
Speaker 5: Rubio, Secretary State, was there. Gave a speech that had
Speaker 5: a lot of similar underpinnings to it. But they were
Speaker 5: applauding and they thought it was great.
Speaker 3: So what happened with that?
Speaker 2: Why is that the outcool?
Speaker 3: Well I heard somebody say that I was the bad cop,
Speaker 3: so that Marco could be a good cop. I mean,
Speaker 3: he gave a great speech, but he drove home I
Speaker 3: think a very important point that the Europeans have largely forgotten,
Speaker 3: or at least had largely forgotten over the past year,
Speaker 3: is that the reason why the President or Marco or
Speaker 3: me talk about borders, the reason why we talk about
Speaker 3: them spending more on their own security, the reason that
Speaker 3: we talk about them more becoming a vibrant economy again,
Speaker 3: is that we want Europe to thrive and we want
Speaker 3: Europe to succeed. The problem that we have with Europe
Speaker 3: is not that we don't like Europe, even though you
Speaker 3: hear that from the European press.
Speaker 4: It's not that we don't respect our allies. It's that they.
Speaker 3: Are doing a lot of things to sabotage themselves. We
Speaker 3: would like that to stop. We would like them to
Speaker 3: be an ally in the true sense of the word.
Speaker 1: And here's what the Vice President had to say about
Speaker 1: Aosa distinguishing herself and Munich Cut number four.
Speaker 4: Martha, you bring me on your show.
Speaker 3: You show me the most uncomfortable twenty seconds of television
Speaker 3: I've ever seen.
Speaker 6: I take away from them there, what do you think?
Speaker 3: Well, I think it's a person who doesn't know what
Speaker 3: she actually thinks. And I've seen this way too much
Speaker 3: in Washington with politicians, where they are given lines and
Speaker 3: when you ask them to go outside the lines, they
Speaker 3: were given. They completely fall apart because look, does AOC.
Speaker 3: Does anybody really believe that AOC has very thoughtful ideas about.
Speaker 1: The mister vice president? But you're getting close to the
Speaker 1: Pope's landline, so we'll leave it there, and then the
Speaker 1: vice president, I'm the former President Obama cut number five.
Speaker 3: Well, I think the president will do what he thinks
Speaker 3: isn't the best interest in the American people. I think
Speaker 3: he's shown very clearly that he has not Broughck Obama.
Speaker 3: He takes a much different approach to America's national security,
Speaker 3: and he's much more willing to act aggressively to defend
Speaker 3: America's national security. But the President of the United States
Speaker 3: is very much trying to find a solution here, whether
Speaker 3: it's through diplomatic op or through another option. That means
Speaker 3: that the Iranians cannot have a nuclear weapon. That has
Speaker 3: always been the main focus. If you go back to
Speaker 3: the campaign that you ran in twenty fifteen, the Republican
Speaker 3: primary campaign that he won, he said Iran cannot have.
Speaker 4: A nuclear weapon.
Speaker 3: I think it's very important for the American people to
Speaker 3: appreciate it's one of the most hostile and also one
Speaker 3: of the most irrational regimes in the world.
Speaker 4: You can't have people.
Speaker 3: Like that have the most dangerous weapon known to man.
Speaker 3: It would be awful for our security, would be awful
Speaker 3: for the future of our children. That is the goal
Speaker 3: of the President the United States, and he's got a
Speaker 3: lot of options and a lot of tools to make
Speaker 3: sure that doesn't happen.
Speaker 5: As well.
Speaker 1: After an interview and after the alert in Israel, crude
Speaker 1: oil is up by four point six percent today is
Speaker 1: sixty five dollars a barrel.
Speaker 2: And I expect that we'll get higher and higher and higher.
Speaker 1: Especially it'll pick spike when the war begins, and I
Speaker 1: think the war is going to begin. However, the ten
Speaker 1: year treasury is getting close to going below four percent,
Speaker 1: which is not your interest rate on a thirty year mortgage.
Speaker 1: A thirty year mortgage, you's got to tack on a
Speaker 1: point and a half to two points, so it's probably
Speaker 1: around six percent right now. Find out from Andrew and
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Speaker 1: come right back. Noah Rothman of National Review is next.
Speaker 1: Welcome back America. I'm Hew Hewett. Noah Rothman, senior writer
Speaker 1: for National Review, joins us, Noah, is the war going
Speaker 1: to start soon?
Speaker 4: Soon?
Speaker 7: I assure your assessment that it's all but inevitable, but
Speaker 7: I couldn't put a timeline on it. I don't think
Speaker 7: the diplomatic track, as the president says, as a president
Speaker 7: describes it is completely exhausted. I think there will need
Speaker 7: to be some more deliberations over how fast we can
Speaker 7: get the response from the Ranians. We're expecting a written
Speaker 7: response having to do with the asks that you outlined
Speaker 7: in the last segment, and if that is delayed or
Speaker 7: if they're unsatisfactory, I think you'll have the predicate that
Speaker 7: the White House needs to say that the diplomatic process
Speaker 7: is exhausted.
Speaker 4: Both for a domestic American audience and for.
Speaker 7: The audience in the Middle East that I think mostly
Speaker 7: this process has been for now.
Speaker 2: No, you've got to help me out.
Speaker 1: Pope Leo has told Catholic that this Lent, we can't
Speaker 1: say bad things about people. We have to be nice.
Speaker 1: And so Ben Rhoads posted, and so I'm going to
Speaker 1: have you respond. Ben Roads posted no legal basis and
Speaker 1: no debate in Congress about what could be a major war,
Speaker 1: with no clear sense of what the objective is.
Speaker 2: What comes next? That was twenty five minutes ago. What
Speaker 2: do you think?
Speaker 4: All right, I'm going to take some runway here.
Speaker 7: I'm under no theological obligation to avoid criticizing mister Rhodes,
Speaker 7: and I will do so. The President, President Barack Obama
Speaker 7: said in twenty twenty two, in the midst of some
Speaker 7: really rare self criticism, that one of his bigger regrets
Speaker 7: as president was ignoring the two thousand and nine Green
Speaker 7: Revolution revolts in Iran. He said, in retrospect that was
Speaker 7: a mistake. I haven't heard the president say anything he
Speaker 7: did during his presidency was a mistake, but that was,
Speaker 7: and that was Ben Rhodes brainchild, and it was part
Speaker 7: of a much broader strategy. The President Barack Obama entered
Speaker 7: office determined to get Americans out of Iraq. He did so,
Speaker 7: but he did so recklessly and by empowering the Saite
Speaker 7: militias under Iran's thumb, under the assumption that they would
Speaker 7: bolster Iraqi security as well as create a more durable
Speaker 7: balance of power in the region between Iran and its
Speaker 7: scha Eyde elements and its orbit and the Sunni kingdoms
Speaker 7: that freaked out the Sunni states Egypt, Saudi Arabia, UAE Jordan.
Speaker 7: They started developing relationships with Israel over the process, over
Speaker 7: the course of their fear that Iran was getting more
Speaker 7: power than they could deter its its aggression against and
Speaker 7: so they developed those links. When Donald Trump came in,
Speaker 7: He cultivated them. They flowered into the Abraham Accords. All
Speaker 7: the while the President executed strikes on those Schiite militias
Speaker 7: that Barack Obama refused to strike. He even stopped strikes
Speaker 7: on ISIS targets and to create at one point when
Speaker 7: he realized that there were IRGC personnel on the ground
Speaker 7: directing those strikes very deferential to Iran, President Trump abandoned
Speaker 7: all of that. He struck the Shiite militias, He struck
Speaker 7: Saudi or the Syrian regime in Bashar al Asad's chemical
Speaker 7: weapons contributing to its fatal decline. He struck Stelmani, and
Speaker 7: he observed restraint over the course of all of this
Speaker 7: could have exacted a much bigger price from Iran, for example,
Speaker 7: for the attacks on oil tankers, for the brazen drone
Speaker 7: strike on the Saudi petroleum processing facility at a Ramco
Speaker 7: in twenty nineteen, he didn't.
Speaker 4: But when they went back.
Speaker 7: Into office, he pursued that very same maximum pressure campaign
Speaker 7: with economic as well as diplomatic leverage, but also a
Speaker 7: military component. And by that point Israel had already wiped
Speaker 7: out Iran's decimated at least Iran's proxy militaries as a
Speaker 7: response to what the Wall Street Journal reports was Iran's
Speaker 7: green lighting, at least in some operational capacity of the
Speaker 7: October seventh massacre.
Speaker 4: And we thought around could not be more weak.
Speaker 7: After the Midnight Hammer operation that decimated the nuclear facilities,
Speaker 7: But we found out it could be made weaker still
Speaker 7: by its own people. The revolt in December and January,
Speaker 7: while crushed ruthlessly, has sacrificed whatever legitimacy is left in
Speaker 7: the Iranian regime. Ben Rhodes's project is in tatters. Ben Rhodes,
Speaker 7: as Barack Obama said repeatedly, tried to usher this country
Speaker 7: into the Community of Nations, to make it a responsible
Speaker 7: steward of its region and to create something like a
Speaker 7: balance of power. The idea being that we should pursue
Speaker 7: something like Detant Nixon style the tent with Iran. The
Speaker 7: Trump administration came in and like Reagan said, no, no, no,
Speaker 7: what if we don't have to live with Iran anymore?
Speaker 7: What if it didn't have to exist at all. That's
Speaker 7: been a very consistent through life.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're always had the fatal flaw. Iran is run
Speaker 1: by religious zealots. The Soviet Union was run by atheists
Speaker 1: that don't have a next life to live for right,
Speaker 1: they're not millennialists. They just wanted the Kingdom on Earth
Speaker 1: to be paradise. Mister Rhodes makes the point that there's
Speaker 1: no congressional debate, no resolution in that regard. It's like
Speaker 1: the nineteen ninety nine US participation in the bombing campaign
Speaker 1: in Yugoslavia against Serbia and Montenegro and the twenty eleven
Speaker 1: Barack Obama bombing campaign in which we participated leading from behind.
Speaker 1: I think was the famous phrase to bring down Kadafi.
Speaker 1: I'm just wondering, he is there a good way to
Speaker 1: say that those were okay? And the United States acting
Speaker 1: now is not because I don't see it.
Speaker 4: I don't see it either.
Speaker 7: You and I have had disagreements over the necessity of
Speaker 7: new AUMFS Authorizations for the use of military force, which
Speaker 7: is the functional declaration of war that Congress has the
Speaker 7: constitutional authority to issue when it comes to Venezuela.
Speaker 4: We've been at odds over that. I am not.
Speaker 7: Concerned when it comes to strikes in Iran. I think
Speaker 7: the Iranian regime is it's not a tortured reading of
Speaker 7: the two thousand and one AUMF to suggest that the
Speaker 7: regime in Iran is captured by that AUMF, and we.
Speaker 4: Acted on it.
Speaker 7: In fact, in two thousand and six two thousand and five,
Speaker 7: during the time in which Iran was actively facilitating the
Speaker 7: killing of US soldiers in Iraq, we estimate that roughly
Speaker 7: six hundred or more US soldiers are We're dead, not wounded,
Speaker 7: killed as a result of Iranian.
Speaker 4: Action in Iraq.
Speaker 7: I think the AUMF captures that would it would be
Speaker 7: sufficient to legally justify an attack on the Iranian regime
Speaker 7: designed to topple the Iranian regime.
Speaker 1: Okay, one last question. I think I'm under an injunction
Speaker 1: from the pontiff. Not to be mean, but I just
Speaker 1: want to be accurator. We gave them a billion and
Speaker 1: a half dollars on pallets, and we each sanctions during
Speaker 1: President Obama's tenure, but it was obamacarey ben roads A
Speaker 1: toen them a billion and a half in Is it
Speaker 1: fair to say they bought the bullets that killed the
Speaker 1: thirty five thousand people or.
Speaker 7: The shaped chart the shaped charges that were imported and
Speaker 7: delivered into the hands of insurgents that were used to
Speaker 7: attack US soldiers and Ied attacks yeah. I think that's
Speaker 7: absolutely fair because money is fungible. The Iranian regime uses
Speaker 7: the funds that it gets not for hospitals necessarily, but
Speaker 7: for terrorist attacks, and you can't tell where the money
Speaker 7: is going once you give it to them.
Speaker 4: I will give Ben Rhodes this.
Speaker 7: I think the president President Donald Trump should come to
Speaker 7: the American people sooner rather than later. The campaign that
Speaker 7: he's envisioning is a week's long campaign.
Speaker 4: It will be a fraught project.
Speaker 7: The Iranians might face a situation where it's not like
Speaker 7: the Twelve Day War, where it's.
Speaker 4: A use it or lose it kind of situation for them, and.
Speaker 7: They might fire off all all the Bliss missiles that
Speaker 7: they have in their capacity and use some asymmetric capabilities
Speaker 7: to try to target American troops American naval assets. We
Speaker 7: should be prepared for that and prepare for the prospect
Speaker 7: that it could be a war that involves casualties.
Speaker 2: U right.
Speaker 1: I think thousands of Americans could die. It's unlikely, but
Speaker 1: it's possible. Our allies could be injured. Israeli could die
Speaker 1: by the tens of thousands if they get a good
Speaker 1: hit off. And I don't think anyone has really been
Speaker 1: preparing for that in the way that before two thousand
Speaker 1: and three, and I want to give you the last word,
Speaker 1: W did and before nineteen ninety one, HW did. I
Speaker 1: don't think anyone's talking about the threat to Americans.
Speaker 7: No, no, And I worry that the White House is
Speaker 7: afraid of articulating to the American people what the worst
Speaker 7: case scenario could be, because.
Speaker 4: It is really scary.
Speaker 7: But this is a national project that deserves to be pursued.
Speaker 7: And the argument for taking out this regime the most
Speaker 7: malignant force on the planet Earth, which has been at
Speaker 7: war with the United States for fifty years, which has
Speaker 7: killed in Americans and will continue to kill Americans, and
Speaker 7: it's possessed of a suicidally millenarian outlook in which it's
Speaker 7: the members of this regime, the claresy, do not care
Speaker 7: if they invite something like a Gotterdam of room and
Speaker 7: are a real catastrophic conflict with the West. This is
Speaker 7: a necessary project. It's necessary for Donald Trump to pursue
Speaker 7: what he started in twenty sixteen and twenty seventeen.
Speaker 4: And I think the American people would be on board
Speaker 4: with him.
Speaker 7: But Donald Trump has to ask the American public to
Speaker 7: join him in this project.
Speaker 1: Because we have said Noah Rothman and I thank you
Speaker 1: for keeping me inside my lent in red lines.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much.
Speaker 1: I'll be right back in America. State Tum, Welcome back
Speaker 1: in America. I'm Hugh Hewitt. I'm joined now by Mary
Speaker 1: Katherine Ham, host of Getting Hammered, with her co host
Speaker 1: Victoria Victor Reno Mattis.
Speaker 2: I listened to it today.
Speaker 1: But before we get into that, Mary Catherine, would you
Speaker 1: update people on what you're doing for America two fifty.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 8: I am doing daily or near daily readings of primary
Speaker 8: documents from or by to or from founders so that
Speaker 8: I can sort of keep tabs on the whole year
Speaker 8: of seventeen seventy six, So I'm lining them up with
Speaker 8: each date and doing a reading on the Getting Hammered feeds.
Speaker 8: You can subscribe for all of that there. Because I
Speaker 8: didn't want to get to the end of the year
Speaker 8: and realize I hadn't done anything special to honor this
Speaker 8: year outside of July fourth or whatever holiday. So I'm
Speaker 8: learning a little bit every day because it's always helpful
Speaker 8: to brush up, and it's always helpful to hear the
Speaker 8: founders in their own words. So that's what I'm working on.
Speaker 1: I think George Washington's letters fabulous. You've used Abigail Adams,
Speaker 1: You've used John Adams. How are you finding Is there
Speaker 1: a reader out there that you're just borrowing from or
Speaker 1: you out there doing a regional research.
Speaker 8: I'm doing research, but the Library of Congress is extremely helpful.
Speaker 5: That John Adams paper is extremely helpful.
Speaker 8: And I'm going to look at talking to the Mount Vernon,
Speaker 8: Monticello and Montpellier folks and seeing if I can get
Speaker 8: access to some of these documents as I moved through
Speaker 8: the year, because there are some really fantastic ones.
Speaker 1: What I want everyone to do is to rewatch Adams HBO,
Speaker 1: the first two episodes which lead up to the Declaration
Speaker 1: of Independence, John Adams and Abigail Adams. So that is
Speaker 1: Paul Giamadi as Adam, maybe the equal mini television never made.
Speaker 1: Mary Catherine. I want to turn now first to the
Speaker 1: funny part of today's getting hammered. Who do you look like?
Speaker 1: You know when you walk up to you? Did anyone
Speaker 1: ever tell you look like X? That's happened to me
Speaker 1: a couple of times. The first time was at the
Speaker 1: two thousand and seven Game four, when the Indians went
Speaker 1: up three to one against the Red Sox in Cleveland.
Speaker 1: I was there with my brother Pat Wilson and Rob
Speaker 1: Ganary and a guy comes up and he says, are
Speaker 1: you Stephen King?
Speaker 2: And that was actually horrible, you know, I think that
Speaker 2: was terrible.
Speaker 1: But then, of course I've had a long running gag
Speaker 1: with Peter Kinder, former lieutenant governor of Missouri, because what
Speaker 1: do you think does Peter Kinner do it?
Speaker 5: I mean, I can see it a little.
Speaker 2: So who do you get compared to?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 5: My, this is the thing.
Speaker 8: You have to go super flattering, and when people talk
Speaker 8: to me, they go super flattering, and it's but then
Speaker 8: you're stuck on the other side, which is people go, wait,
Speaker 8: you're totally not as hot as Jessica Biel.
Speaker 5: Who is who I get hair to sometimes? Nev Campbell
Speaker 5: another one.
Speaker 9: Oh, I've got one for you body. I look up
Speaker 9: her name because I can't remember it. It's an old
Speaker 9: movie star who I love a lot, and it's Oh,
Speaker 9: come on, Audrey Heppern Tiffany. So do you ever get that?
Speaker 4: I don't.
Speaker 5: But that's far too kind as well, and I will
Speaker 5: take it.
Speaker 2: No take that.
Speaker 1: I think you look like Audrey Heppern. You have to
Speaker 1: change your hair a little bit more than you have now.
Speaker 1: Talking about hair, my dad used to cut our hair
Speaker 1: three boys. Took about fifteen minutes total. He had a clipper.
Speaker 1: We were buzzed. Why doesn't husband just go and buzz
Speaker 1: the little boy?
Speaker 8: Okay, So I gave my son his first haircut. He's
Speaker 8: three years old. It was getting a little out of control.
Speaker 8: The reason is because I like to cut hair. I
Speaker 8: think it's a fun.
Speaker 5: Thing to learn, and my children are my guinea pigs.
Speaker 8: I will also tell you that as a child, we
Speaker 8: didn't have a lot of money, and so my dad
Speaker 8: cut all of our hair. My dad cut his own
Speaker 8: hair and then he cut all three kids. I was
Speaker 8: the only girl, so guess what. And my mom had
Speaker 8: short hair.
Speaker 5: We all had the same haircut.
Speaker 8: I had short hair till I was like eight or nine,
Speaker 8: and I finally was like, I think I'm going to
Speaker 8: grow it out a little.
Speaker 5: So that's where the tomboys side of me probably came from.
Speaker 2: You know, when you were.
Speaker 1: Telling you about cutting your son's hair, you were like
Speaker 1: the fetching missus Hue at thirty five years ago. She
Speaker 1: did not want to cut our oldest son's hair. I
Speaker 1: think he was like a hippie until the age of three,
Speaker 1: but he had curls, and she keepts.
Speaker 2: I can't.
Speaker 1: I can't take the curls. And you know her little
Speaker 1: Prince Edward's stuff. I hated it. But moms are in
Speaker 1: charge right when it comes to haircuts.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and the curl the curls are irresistible.
Speaker 8: And you know, if you have a little boy, sometimes
Speaker 8: that might be the only time in their life that
Speaker 8: they'll have those little curls in that long hair.
Speaker 5: You get a little leeway at the beginning, so you
Speaker 5: take it.
Speaker 1: I do want to we'll come back and talk about
Speaker 1: the war on the serious side with Mary Catherine after this,
Speaker 1: But I do want to ask you the peaking Duck place.
Speaker 1: Isn't it peaking duck or is it peaking gourmet that
Speaker 1: you guys were talking about.
Speaker 5: It's peaking gourmee. But we were specifically referencing the duck,
Speaker 5: which is fantastic.
Speaker 2: You know, it was not fair about that episode.
Speaker 1: It's ash Wednesday, Mary Catherine, So listening to you two
Speaker 1: talk about Chinese food, it's not even fair. And you
Speaker 1: taped it on Fat Tuesday, but it drops on ash Wednesday,
Speaker 1: So you guys could go get your chicom food last
Speaker 1: night and we can't do it till tomorrow.
Speaker 2: It's not really very nice.
Speaker 5: That's a very smart programming note.
Speaker 8: I'm going to put that down for future Fat Tuesday
Speaker 8: programming that we need to make sure we're on schedule.
Speaker 1: Do you do do the Protestants do anything on ash
Speaker 1: Wednesday like the Catholics do?
Speaker 8: Not really, but I do sometimes observe went because I
Speaker 8: think it's healthy to meditate and to pray about what
Speaker 8: Easter means.
Speaker 5: As it's upcoming. So I will do some special Bible
Speaker 5: studies and work.
Speaker 1: Well. When we come back, I'll tell you how the
Speaker 1: Pope is screwed up my lent already. Don't go anywhere America.
Speaker 1: Mary Catherine will be back for a second segment, except
Speaker 1: go like and follow getting Hammered with Vic and Mary Katherine,
Speaker 1: and you'll get the America to fifty bit bits from
Speaker 1: Mary Katherine as well.
Speaker 2: Stay tuned.
Speaker 1: Welking back Mary Katherine Ham. I'm Hugh Hewittt. Don't go
Speaker 1: anywhere America because she is back. Mary Catherine the Pope
Speaker 1: yesterday posted this to Catholics around the world. I would
Speaker 1: like to invite you to a very practical and frequently
Speaker 1: underappreciated form of abstinence, that of refraining from words that
Speaker 1: offend and hurt our neighbor. That's very, very untimely for
Speaker 1: me because Ben Rhodes has entered the room and is
Speaker 1: tutting us about not having national authorization for striking Iran.
Speaker 2: So what's response to mister.
Speaker 1: Rhodes given the twenty eleven war against Libya that had
Speaker 1: no authorization, the nineteen ninety nine war against Jegoslavia Serbia
Speaker 1: that had no authorization, and a number of US I mean, how.
Speaker 2: Do you answer, Ben? He's the matter nick of ns Now.
Speaker 5: He's also just not a reliable narrator.
Speaker 8: This is the architect of tricking US and the whole
Speaker 8: media and enlisting them to lie about the JCPOA.
Speaker 5: For all these years.
Speaker 8: Sure he wants another JCPOA, even though it doesn't do
Speaker 8: what it was advertised as doing when he was running
Speaker 8: his communications strategy about that with the American media.
Speaker 5: Although I could give you my AOC answer, which is, you.
Speaker 8: Know, I think that this is such a you know,
Speaker 8: I think that this is a long time policy of
Speaker 8: the US.
Speaker 5: That's my other answer.
Speaker 1: I'm not allowed to say that the Pope told me.
Speaker 1: I'm not That would be mean to AOC. How am
Speaker 1: I going to do this job for forty days?
Speaker 8: I don't know, I see. I feel like you want
Speaker 8: to just narrow that funnel to hurtful words. Is just
Speaker 8: like cuss words.
Speaker 1: But it just might mean my actual physical neighbors, right,
Speaker 1: I always.
Speaker 2: Wave with there you go.
Speaker 1: It could be that. Let's go to the question, the
Speaker 1: very serious question. I think we're on the cusp of
Speaker 1: a very big battle, if not a war. Do you
Speaker 1: agree with me?
Speaker 8: It feels that way for sure, And like you and
Speaker 8: I have talked about, I think Trump would like to
Speaker 8: preserve his threat credibility, which I think he, you know,
Speaker 8: told everyone that there was going to be something happening here.
Speaker 5: I have no doubt that we're doing something behind the
Speaker 5: scenes as well.
Speaker 8: My only hesitation to say that the things are well
Speaker 8: underway is that they've been very very secret about things
Speaker 8: that have happened in the past with Maduro and with
Speaker 8: the B two bomber strikes on on a run in
Speaker 8: the past, and this one seems a little louder and
Speaker 8: a little bit more noticeable what they're up to.
Speaker 5: So I'm I'm not sure if we're being tricked a
Speaker 5: little bit.
Speaker 1: Well, the dimaggiadis out there. That means people who live
Speaker 1: and do a long, long stretch of you, Hughit shows
Speaker 1: we'll remember when Mary Catherine and Guy Benson used to
Speaker 1: sit in for me when I went on vacation. And
Speaker 1: I'm going on vacation next week, celebrating my seventieth birthday
Speaker 1: with the fetching missus Schwett taking a week off, and
Speaker 1: it's inevitable in my view that it will happen next
Speaker 1: week because news always happened when you and Guy were
Speaker 1: in for me.
Speaker 2: Am I not right. News always happened.
Speaker 5: That is true. That is true. We did encounter large
Speaker 5: news stories when you were gone.
Speaker 2: So it's like clockwork.
Speaker 1: I think it's going to go off on Sunday night
Speaker 1: when I get up into the air and can't turn
Speaker 1: around Mary Catherine.
Speaker 2: If it does last. We did have the.
Speaker 1: Serbian air campaign seventy eight days nineteen ninety nine. We
Speaker 1: had the Libyan air campaign months and months till Kadafi
Speaker 1: fell in twenty eleven. Do you have any idea in
Speaker 1: your mind what you think is acceptable to the American
Speaker 1: people for an air campaign, provided that there is no
Speaker 1: mass casualty event with the American troops.
Speaker 8: I think it has to be relatively short, and it
Speaker 8: has to be well explained what is happening.
Speaker 5: If you don't make a sustained.
Speaker 8: Comm's campaign for the thing that you're doing, I think
Speaker 8: people can get antsy pretty quickly within a week or two,
Speaker 8: I would say, And that will change if you show
Speaker 8: leadership and you tell them why you're doing what you're doing.
Speaker 8: But I think they have a lot of concerns on
Speaker 8: the ground about their own lives, and if you're not
Speaker 8: making clear why risks are being taken and why things
Speaker 8: are happening and why we're using force, then they will
Speaker 8: not accept that for very long.
Speaker 2: My beauty of.
Speaker 1: Them to the bombing and Iran and in two thousand
Speaker 1: and three and after nine to eleven, w stepped up.
Speaker 1: But he had a lot of good communicators. He had
Speaker 1: Secretary Rumsfeld almost every day at the Pentagon, Chairman of
Speaker 1: the Joint Chiefs Meers, under chairman or deputy Chairman Peter Pace.
Speaker 1: They had a lot of good people talking around the
Speaker 1: like Dick Cheney did some interviews. Who's going to be
Speaker 1: that President Trump is not great on long form addresses
Speaker 1: explaining stuff the vice president is. Do you expect Jad
Speaker 1: to take the lead on this.
Speaker 8: I think he will do some of it, but honestly,
Speaker 8: I would imagine that Rubio is doing a lot of
Speaker 8: it as well, and the two of them can be
Speaker 8: very clear about what's happening, and I hope they are
Speaker 8: speaking frequently about it, because that is what's required when
Speaker 8: you are putting forces in some harm's way, even if
Speaker 8: it's minimal, and you have to make your pitch to
Speaker 8: the American people so that they stay behind you on it.
Speaker 1: So I want to close by talking about the talking
Speaker 1: filibuster and Merrick Katherine. I don't want you to be
Speaker 1: drawn into this unnecessarily, but Kim Strassel and I think
Speaker 1: it's the worst idea ever because we know something about
Speaker 1: the Senate rules. Mike Lee says, no, no, no, we're
Speaker 1: not going to We're not going to do the nuclear option.
Speaker 1: This can be done on existing precedent. If that's the case,
Speaker 1: then Kim Strassel laid out how it becomes a nightmare
Speaker 1: and a quagmire for the Republican Are you on either
Speaker 1: side of this debate.
Speaker 8: Yet I am on the more cautious side of the debate.
Speaker 8: I get worried very much about taking out these pillars
Speaker 8: that sort of allow things to be more deliberative, because
Speaker 8: the second that things are not deliberative, and I know
Speaker 8: that the Senate can be a pain, but the second
Speaker 8: that it's not a pain anymore and things are sailing
Speaker 8: through there, I'm.
Speaker 5: Not going to be happy. I don't want a bunch
Speaker 5: of things passed very quickly.
Speaker 2: You see.
Speaker 1: That is the essence of being a conservative. Government cannot
Speaker 1: do a lot of good. All they can really do
Speaker 1: is defend the country and build highways. That's all they
Speaker 1: can effectively do. Everything else ought to be just money
Speaker 1: to the states and let the states do it. I
Speaker 1: don't want the Senate reforming everything that it wants to reform.
Speaker 1: And there might be some rules for federal elections, but
Speaker 1: this one is probably not even constitutional.
Speaker 2: Have you studied the same Act?
Speaker 5: Yeah, and I have concerns about it as well. Even
Speaker 5: though the goal of it sounds great, but I am
Speaker 5: unsure of the mechanism and the way of doing that
Speaker 5: from the federal government down. And even though it's a
Speaker 5: very popular idea.
Speaker 1: Okay, last question, because you have the crystal ball for
Speaker 1: the Getting Hammered podcast, is Justice Alito going to retire?
Speaker 5: Oh, let's just say yes.
Speaker 1: All right, that's what the little Black Epe ball. Because
Speaker 1: I'm with you, I think he's going to step down.
Speaker 1: How about Justice Thomas.
Speaker 5: I don't think Thomas.
Speaker 2: We are in agreement.
Speaker 1: That's why Mary Catherine with a great guest host in
Speaker 1: the days when she could guest host with Guy Benson
Speaker 1: and it would provoke news. Next week it's Kurt Schlickter.
Speaker 1: At least you have a colonel who can explain what
Speaker 1: they're doing. MK Hammer on X follow and like Getting Hammered,
Speaker 1: make sure that you follow Getting Hammered, because you'll also
Speaker 1: get not only Vic and Mary Catherine, you will get
Speaker 1: the America to fifty series from Mary Catherine as she
Speaker 1: reads from the Framers and the Founder's important fits of
Speaker 1: American history two hundred and fifty years down the road.
Speaker 1: Stay tuned America on Juju Hewett. Welcome to this Wednesday
Speaker 1: edition of The Huge Hewitt Shack. I have been following
Speaker 1: Robert Greenway for a long time, though he's never been
Speaker 1: on the program before. Long and distinguished career in Special Forces,
Speaker 1: long and distinguished career at the National Security Council to
Speaker 1: Defense Intelligence Agency. He now directs the Allison Center on
Speaker 1: National Security at the Heritage Foundation. Robert Greenway, welcome the program.
Speaker 1: I'm honored to have you on, sir. Thank you for
Speaker 1: joining me.
Speaker 10: It's a great pleasure. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: Now, every first time guest get the same two questions.
Speaker 1: Robert was algierhis a communist spy. I'd have to say, yes, good, good,
Speaker 1: right answer. Have you read the Looming Tower?
Speaker 10: Yes, but it's been a few years.
Speaker 1: All right, that's okay, we're on the same page. That
Speaker 1: puts you in like one tenth of one percent of
Speaker 1: my guests. They don't know about HISS. They're too they're
Speaker 1: too young. But you're old enough and you know your history, Robert.
Speaker 1: I need to know what you think is going to
Speaker 1: happen in Iran, the order of battles, so to speak.
Speaker 1: Not whether we're going to have a conflict. They think
Speaker 1: we're going to have a conflict, and boy, if you
Speaker 1: disagree with may tell me. But I want to know
Speaker 1: what you'd think unfolds in terms of step one, two, three, four, five.
Speaker 10: Sure, happy to do it.
Speaker 11: I think the sequence of events has been something that
Speaker 11: most of the public has now seen displayed relative to Iran.
Speaker 11: The Twelve Day War was the last time in which
Speaker 11: we were able to see it unfold. I think the
Speaker 11: president now as marshaled sufficient force the theater is what
Speaker 11: military experts would consider set or prepared to exercise the
Speaker 11: options presented to the president, which encompasses the strikes he
Speaker 11: may direct, but also more importantly is deterrence and response
Speaker 11: should the Iranians retell you with what is left what
Speaker 11: I think is likely to happen. Normally in this series
Speaker 11: of events, you'd see the first step is to blind
Speaker 11: your adversary, basically to administer anesthesia so that you can
Speaker 11: operate with impunity.
Speaker 10: But the Twelve Day War and.
Speaker 11: Israel's actions in US support has allowed that to occur.
Speaker 11: So air defenses are largely gone over the horizon, radar
Speaker 11: detection sites are destroyed and have been restored, and their
Speaker 11: ability to do command control communications for or an integrated
Speaker 11: air defense and coordinated response to any strike has also
Speaker 11: been radically altered. The only leaders left in the country
Speaker 11: are the ones that were determined to be best suited.
Speaker 11: In other words, the least competent to withstand direct attack
Speaker 11: and respond accordingly, and so I think we're in good
Speaker 11: position to see decisive action taken against their critical targets,
Speaker 11: which are probably regime leadership, potentially nuclear infrastructure to further
Speaker 11: degrade beyond what Midnight Hammer was able to do, and
Speaker 11: then most importantly, the retaliatory capacity of Iran. Principally it's
Speaker 11: ballistic this will program, but also its ability to disrupt
Speaker 11: global trade and energy markets by closing the strain of
Speaker 11: our moves, and so naval and maritime ability to mine
Speaker 11: the straight would also be potentially within view.
Speaker 10: Lastly, i'd say their energy infrastructure.
Speaker 11: If the President decided he could prevent them from being
Speaker 11: an oil exporter for the foreseeable future.
Speaker 10: All those targets are extremely vulnerable.
Speaker 11: There are repercussions, of course, but those certainly could also
Speaker 11: be part of it. The last series of targets that
Speaker 11: could be hit are those which allow the regime it's
Speaker 11: population and control both their telecommunications infrastructure and also the
Speaker 11: besiege and element of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps that
Speaker 11: suppresses the population most brutally and of course administers the
Speaker 11: executions that they said they would not do, but of
Speaker 11: course they have.
Speaker 1: Now, Robert Greenway, that target list that you just laid out,
Speaker 1: how many different missions do you think that requires by
Speaker 1: either our aircraft, our allies aircraft, or special forces on
Speaker 1: the ground about which we know nothing.
Speaker 11: Well, I'd say, since we can skip the first three steps,
Speaker 11: this patient has already been an esthetized, it doesn't have
Speaker 11: the ability to see or respond to an initial attack,
Speaker 11: we can jump right into decisive strike. And I think
Speaker 11: there are more than enough assets both in the region
Speaker 11: and certainly that are Konus based, like we saw in
Speaker 11: Midnight Hammer, that can execute strikes against command, controlling their
Speaker 11: communications infrastructure, their retaliatory capacity, and most importantly, further degrade
Speaker 11: the nuclear program. So I think all of that could
Speaker 11: happen within a forty eight to seventy two hours cycle
Speaker 11: longer if we need to restrike a target for any reason.
Speaker 1: Now the Wall Street Journal today posting an article that
Speaker 1: had in it the Iranian leadership has adopted a quote
Speaker 1: mosaic strategy, pushing command and control over their troops down
Speaker 1: the ladder so that the Supreme Leader doesn't have to
Speaker 1: get involved, the IERGC command structure doesn't have to get involved.
Speaker 1: I thought to myself, that's a good way for a
Speaker 1: colonel to decide to turn his weapons on the regime.
Speaker 1: What do you think about that?
Speaker 11: Well, I think it's an interesting idea, but I don't
Speaker 11: think it works in their system. It's not built to
Speaker 11: do it, and I don't think anyone in their system
Speaker 11: feels the ability or latitude to take decisions. But most importantly,
Speaker 11: they don't have the capacity to do it, with the
Speaker 11: exception of the ballistic missile program, and to a slighter extent,
Speaker 11: for closer targets in the region, their UAV and drone program,
Speaker 11: so that's the iergc's aerospace force. They might alone have
Speaker 11: the ability to launch a retaliatory strike of any consequence,
Speaker 11: but I'm not sure any of them have the latitude
Speaker 11: to do it. And again, most of their competent leaders
Speaker 11: were killed during the Twelve Day One, including.
Speaker 10: Their head, a man by the name of Ali Hassan Johnny.
Speaker 11: So I think we're in good shape there, and I
Speaker 11: don't think the Mosaic Plan constitutes a threat to the
Speaker 11: United States.
Speaker 1: But by pushing it down, I'll make a second run
Speaker 1: at this. I wasn't good at explaining what I was thinking.
Speaker 1: Do you remember when the private army turned on Moscow
Speaker 1: and began marching towards Moscow and he's now dead, but
Speaker 1: he didn't carry through with it. By the mosaic strategy,
Speaker 1: are they empowering their local leaders to possibly turn on
Speaker 1: the Ayatolas?
Speaker 11: Well, I think it's certainly a possibility. I also think
Speaker 11: that the stress that the regime is under, and certainly
Speaker 11: the protests we've seen from the Iranian citizens responding to
Speaker 11: forty plus years of repression has created I think a
Speaker 11: situation where local forces have to make a decision. Unfortunately,
Speaker 11: the preponderance of power is held within the Islamic Refuse
Speaker 11: Late Guard Corps, not the armed forces itself. I think
Speaker 11: they are very unlikely to turn on the regime in
Speaker 11: its current form. They might substitute the current leader for
Speaker 11: someone more ap pliable and someone more hard line than
Speaker 11: comm and eye is believe it or not, but I
Speaker 11: don't think the possibility of the broader armed forces turning
Speaker 11: against the regime is either likely or necessarily consequential. The
Speaker 11: most likely scenarios involved removing the capacity of the IRGC
Speaker 11: to repress the population.
Speaker 10: That may be among the strikes the United States takes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Robert Greenway. Our allies are very nervous, not just Israel,
Speaker 1: but our Gulf allies, especially Cutter. They're the closest and
Speaker 1: the short range missile of Fuselid canreak them. Would the
Speaker 1: Iranians be that stupid because that's a regional war that
Speaker 1: bring in everyone against the one.
Speaker 11: Well, they're not famous for the best decisions, so I
Speaker 11: don't know that we can count on I don't know
Speaker 11: we can count on rationality. They're afraid, I think, but
Speaker 11: perhaps less so because again during the Twelve Day War,
Speaker 11: there was sufficient deterrence capacity in the United States, and
Speaker 11: certainly President Trump has demonstrated the will it had been
Speaker 11: previously lacking in other US administrations. I think it's unlikely
Speaker 11: the Iranians are going to escalate to that point. However,
Speaker 11: it is possible for them to do so. It's also
Speaker 11: why we've seen a massive flow of air defense assets
Speaker 11: into the region to add what was already there. So
Speaker 11: I think our defensive capacity is sufficient. I think the
Speaker 11: Iranians are less likely to escalate because it would be
Speaker 11: complete annihilation, and I think the assets are in place
Speaker 11: to defend appropriately. I think our allies are a little
Speaker 11: less concerned they might have been, say, six months ago.
Speaker 1: Now the nineteen ninety nine campaign against Serbia or Yugoslavia
Speaker 1: and Mononegro with seventy eight days of bombing before Serbia
Speaker 1: threw in the cards. It took months in twenty eleven
Speaker 1: to get Kadafi to collapse.
Speaker 2: How are we looking for regime collapse? Here? Are we
Speaker 2: on that scale of an attack?
Speaker 11: Well, I think it would take a lot less to
Speaker 11: bring this regime to collapse, because it is, as we've
Speaker 11: exposed in the last year or so in Israel, certainly
Speaker 11: is exposed. It is a house of cards, it is
Speaker 11: economies and tatters. Its internal infrastructure is absolutely negligible, Its
Speaker 11: military capacity was a paper tiger, and all of that
Speaker 11: was proven and demonstrated, and so there's very little, I
Speaker 11: think effort required to get them to the point of
Speaker 11: internal instability. So I think the president's options encompass a
Speaker 11: broad range of targets that could really relinquish the capacity
Speaker 11: of the Supreme Leader and those loyal to him to
Speaker 11: repress the population. The question, of course, then becomes is
Speaker 11: what is what is the substitute if they do in
Speaker 11: fact collapse. Knowing that it wouldn't take much to bring
Speaker 11: them to that point, and that, of course is the
Speaker 11: question that everyone asks and no one, frankly can answer.
Speaker 11: But I do think that their ability to threaten the neighborhood,
Speaker 11: to threaten in the United States is radically diminished, and
Speaker 11: if they were to have new leadership, it would be
Speaker 11: substantially diminished beyond that. And I think that opens a
Speaker 11: broad basted on horizon for a really a new Middle
Speaker 11: East we've not seen in generations.
Speaker 1: Do you worry about their ability to attack US naval
Speaker 1: assets or a stationary basis or even something like Alisade
Speaker 1: which they hit after Solimani was killed. Did fire ballistic
Speaker 1: missiles which did hit the base we had evacuated, but
Speaker 1: it has a GPS so they were able to hit it.
Speaker 1: Are you worried about that?
Speaker 10: It's always a concern.
Speaker 11: They've got somewhere between two and three thousand ballistic missiles
Speaker 11: medium range and longer that could range our infrastructure in
Speaker 11: the region, and certainly they can range Israel and our
Speaker 11: partners in allies, so it is a concern. However, I
Speaker 11: would say that their capacity is significantly limited. Our ability
Speaker 11: to detect and intercept is exceptional, and our capacity has
Speaker 11: been significantly increased by the flow of forces into the
Speaker 11: region to get the theater set. And I think our
Speaker 11: capacity to destroy the remaining infrastructure with Israel support and assistance,
Speaker 11: I think is equally high. So I think, sequenced properly,
Speaker 11: I think we can diminish the threat to the point
Speaker 11: where it no longer constitutes a grave risk to our infrastructure.
Speaker 1: Don't go anywhere, America. Robert Greenway's coming back. We're going
Speaker 1: to talk about I know all of you always ask
Speaker 1: me after I do one of these, what about the
Speaker 1: Iranian submarines? I'll ask him, what about the Straits of Hormons.
Speaker 1: I'll ask him. I'll ask him about the Shi militias
Speaker 1: in Iraq as well, which answer to iron, We'll talk
Speaker 1: about the Hotees. We'll talk about Hezbalah. He knows it all.
Speaker 1: This guy's actually go read as I posted his resume.
Speaker 1: Mister Greenway has been around. He knows of which he speaks.
Speaker 1: And you don't want to listen to people online like
Speaker 1: Ben Roads. And I'll bring up Ben Roads's post to
Speaker 1: Robert Greenway as well when we go come back. In
Speaker 1: the meantimes, don't go anywhere and stay tune of the
Speaker 1: Salem News Channel. I'll be right back on the.
Speaker 2: U Hewitt Show.
Speaker 1: Welcome Back in America, Hewitt Robert Greenway as the director of
Speaker 1: the Herish Heritage Foundations Allison Center for National Security. Robert,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if you were on the NSC under
Speaker 1: my friend Robert O'Brien, or if you were there with h. R.
Speaker 1: McMaster or with John Bolton, but you know who Ben
Speaker 1: Rhodes is. He was also on the National Security Council.
Speaker 1: He's a speech writer that ended up over there. I
Speaker 1: don't know how he ended up over there, but he
Speaker 1: became the brain of Obama. And he has posted today
Speaker 1: no legal basis and no debating Congress about what could
Speaker 1: be a major war, with no clear sense of what
Speaker 1: the objective is or what comes next. What's your response
Speaker 1: is another NSCLM to that.
Speaker 11: Well, first, I did have the pleasure of serving under
Speaker 11: all three National Security Advisors that you mentioned, and it
Speaker 11: was a privileged.
Speaker 2: To do it.
Speaker 11: My response to I mean, Ben Rhodes, I think is
Speaker 11: the only broken clock that is not right twelve day,
Speaker 11: which I guess serves a purpose and in this case
Speaker 11: again completely wrong, and that I think the President has
Speaker 11: made it abundantly clear and in fact, he's done what
Speaker 11: President Obama Ben's boss did not do, and that's document
Speaker 11: what his objectives are. And so you can see remarkable
Speaker 11: clarity in the first Trump administration with NSBM eleven and
Speaker 11: the same directive, the same guidance and policy objective was
Speaker 11: promulgated in the first week of the second Trump administration,
Speaker 11: and it is exactly the same policy objective.
Speaker 10: So he could be more wrong.
Speaker 11: And of course he's probably not paying close attention to
Speaker 11: what's happening. I think he just doesn't like seeing President
Speaker 11: Trump succeed where his boss fail.
Speaker 1: I agree with that. I also believe it. And tell
Speaker 1: me if you think this is unfair, I want to
Speaker 1: be fair to him. The palettes of cash that went
Speaker 1: over in the JCPOA they paid for something. Might they
Speaker 1: have paid for the bullets that mowed down thirty five
Speaker 1: thousand Iranians.
Speaker 11: Well, as Secretary of State Kerry admitted under congressional testimony,
Speaker 11: funds are fungible. Money is fungible, and so any assets
Speaker 11: provided to the Islamic Republic undoubtedly go to killing Americans,
Speaker 11: our partners and allies. That is their only export other
Speaker 11: than oil, and it's what they do with the oil
Speaker 11: proceeds as well. So there's no question that that money,
Speaker 11: that money was used in order to threaten the United States, Israel,
Speaker 11: our partners and allies in the region, and our European
Speaker 11: partners and allies as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I want to go through the issues I mentioned
Speaker 1: before the break. I often get questions because people read
Speaker 1: about the fact that Iran has five submarines. Do they
Speaker 1: have five submarines? Do we have to worry about them?
Speaker 11: They do have five submarines, three or Russian Kilo casts
Speaker 11: submarines they bought between nineteen ninety two and nineteen ninety six.
Speaker 11: I believe there might be a more dangerous place to
Speaker 11: be than serving on an Iranian submarine.
Speaker 10: I just don't know what.
Speaker 11: It is, and I don't think that we have anything
Speaker 11: to worry about from the submarines or the Iranian navy.
Speaker 11: So I would discard that as a viable threat. It
Speaker 11: doesn't constitute one, and I wouldn't count so anyone to
Speaker 11: be concerned.
Speaker 1: All right, let's talk about the Shad militias inside of Iraq,
Speaker 1: and there may be some left in Syria.
Speaker 2: I don't know, do you.
Speaker 11: Yes, they have two different groups, the Zenabayun and the
Speaker 11: Fatamiun both recruited outside of Syria to be employed there
Speaker 11: and work with Lebani, says Bellah, who did a lot
Speaker 11: of the heavy lifting for the Islamic Republic in Syria
Speaker 11: and elsewhere. And I think there are residual elements that
Speaker 11: are there, but I don't know how grave a threat
Speaker 11: they constitute now in terms of the hostile Shabi or
Speaker 11: the private military corporation essentially that exists inside of alb Iraq,
Speaker 11: that is, the large Shiat militia now in the region
Speaker 11: and in the Islamic Republic's greatest threat to the United States. However,
Speaker 11: their inability to provide consistent resources and their diminished role
Speaker 11: in the region has made them a little bit more autonomous,
Speaker 11: still a grave threat, but probably less likely to respond
Speaker 11: to demands. They also, though, have been providing manpower to
Speaker 11: suppress the internal population and protests inside of Iran to
Speaker 11: a certain extent, so they do have loyal followers. It
Speaker 11: is the largest armed group inside of Iraq, exceeding the
Speaker 11: regular military by a significant margin, and a threat certainly
Speaker 11: to our infrastructure, even though President Trump has reduced our
Speaker 11: presence in the region and limited our exposure.
Speaker 1: Do you worry about American troops based in Iraq to
Speaker 1: the extent that they were vulnerable in twenty twenty when
Speaker 1: Solimani was killed. They got off of the base, they
Speaker 1: scattered into the desert, but some were nevertheless injured by
Speaker 1: those ballistic missiles. Do we have to worry about the Shaited.
Speaker 2: Militias and the ballistic missiles in Iraq? We do.
Speaker 11: I think both are a concern, But as I said before,
Speaker 11: I think our ability to detect and respond to the
Speaker 11: missile threat and to retaliate and in fact to degrade
Speaker 11: it before they can employ it, I think is pretty significant.
Speaker 10: The militias, on the other hand, are a little bit
Speaker 10: more of a challenge.
Speaker 11: However, I think under the circumstances, they don't judge that
Speaker 11: Iran will come to their aid and assistance as they
Speaker 11: once did, and I think they're very unlikely to poke
Speaker 11: a fight with the United States, and the country itself
Speaker 11: and its leadership ultimately is completely dependent upon the United
Speaker 11: States still receives US dollars almost monthly in order to
Speaker 11: keep the economy aflat and if that were suspended or
Speaker 11: withdrawn the country we would be in a virtual collapse.
Speaker 10: So I don't think anyone wants that to happen.
Speaker 11: So I suspect they'll be measured in their response and
Speaker 11: less likely to respond on behalf of Tehran.
Speaker 1: So Robert Greenway, what is the ladder of escalation available
Speaker 1: to Israel? Should they repeat the twelve day war experience,
Speaker 1: but this time hit a city block with one of
Speaker 1: their heavy ICBMs or Demona or something else that's sensitive.
Speaker 1: What's Israel's ladder of escalation beyond hitting them again the
Speaker 1: way they hit them, I assume the first day of
Speaker 1: the war.
Speaker 11: That's a great question and an important one because I
Speaker 11: think that the possibility that that will occur is pretty significant.
Speaker 11: I do think that they have the capacity to inflict damage,
Speaker 11: even though Israel and the United States have proven that
Speaker 11: a theater integrated air defense system has been more than
Speaker 11: up to the task. However, no system is perfect, and
Speaker 11: so occasionally in Irani a missile can break through. And
Speaker 11: so I think the Israeli response escalation ladder is pretty
Speaker 11: significant in that they have demonstrated the ability to respond
Speaker 11: to any target inside Iran, including its leadership. They eliminated
Speaker 11: most of its senior military commanders, the head of the IRGC,
Speaker 11: the head of the armed Forces, general staff, many of
Speaker 11: its intelligence officials and nuclear scientists in the Twelve Day War.
Speaker 11: They could do it again, and they also have the
Speaker 11: ability to hit again. Iran around's nuclear infrastructure, but also
Speaker 11: its economy. The oil exports that come through the Gulf
Speaker 11: ultimately are vulnerable to attack.
Speaker 10: Israel could hit all of it.
Speaker 11: So we could remove its leadership, remove its retaliatory capacity,
Speaker 11: it's nuclear program, and its economy, and probably do it
Speaker 11: in a matter of days.
Speaker 1: Other experts have told me we don't want to blow
Speaker 1: up Kars Island or the other two oil terminals because
Speaker 1: if there is regime collapse in a new regime, they're
Speaker 1: going to need the oil revenue. But I have to
Speaker 1: think if they killed the significant number of Israelis, those
Speaker 1: islands are no more.
Speaker 2: Do you agree?
Speaker 10: Yeah? And I think there's a surgical way to do it.
Speaker 11: You can knock out the point of sale, the point
Speaker 11: in which the facility itself provides export oil and petrochemicals
Speaker 11: and gas to vessels themselves, without destroying the infrastructure, all
Speaker 11: of which is decrepit. It probably needs to be replaced,
Speaker 11: but the point is valid, and that if there is
Speaker 11: a change in leadership, you'd want the ability to pay
Speaker 11: for it by exporting oil and controlling it, and so
Speaker 11: you don't want to do too much damage to the infrastructure.
Speaker 11: You also don't want to destabilize energy markets. Although President
Speaker 11: Trump deserves a lot more credit for stableing it and
Speaker 11: getting prices down, which is an enormous benefit to Americans,
Speaker 11: but it also gives them flexibility in situations like this,
Speaker 11: and so I think that the Israelis have the option
Speaker 11: to do it. I think it could be surgical and
Speaker 11: how they do it, and I don't think it's necessarily
Speaker 11: going to be debilitating to a future.
Speaker 1: Iran oil is up about five percent today, Robert, and
Speaker 1: we have one more segment I want to talk to
Speaker 1: you about after the conflict in Iran when we come back,
Speaker 1: how high would oil go and how long would it
Speaker 1: go up for. I think they'd be an oil shock,
Speaker 1: but they don't think it would last very long. Do
Speaker 1: you agree with me on that.
Speaker 11: I think that's right because the market's exceptionally well supplied,
Speaker 11: which is why I think prices are down.
Speaker 10: I think the anticipation of a potential act.
Speaker 11: Is likely irresponsible for the increase we've seen, of course,
Speaker 11: but I agree with you in that I don't think
Speaker 11: it'd be sustained. I don't think it'll really get anywhere
Speaker 11: near seventy five hours of barrel depending on the scope
Speaker 11: and scale. Strikes like Iran's just not capable of entering
Speaker 11: into a conflict, they're just being able to do it.
Speaker 10: So I don't think it'll be pull off.
Speaker 1: When I come back with Robert Greenway, our final segment
Speaker 1: will be on what could come in Iran and after strike,
Speaker 1: the good and the bad, and the Agli State Churner.
Speaker 1: Welcome back in America. I'm you Hewett Robert Greenway. He
Speaker 1: is the director of the Allison Center for National Security
Speaker 1: at the Heritage Foundation. Veteran of DIA, veteran of National
Speaker 1: Security Council, veteran of Special Forces. I didn't ask you, Robert,
Speaker 1: because I doubt you would tell me if you knew.
Speaker 1: But do you think special forces will be involved in
Speaker 1: this in any way, either for the Israeli side or
Speaker 1: for our side?
Speaker 11: Well, I think it's possible in a couple different roles.
Speaker 11: I don't know that i'd say that it's necessary for
Speaker 11: it to happen. You'd only really want to put people
Speaker 11: on the ground and accept that risk. If there was
Speaker 11: something that you wanted extracted of high value, or if
Speaker 11: you wanted to control beyond the normal circumstances. Again, I
Speaker 11: don't know that the necessity is there in either case.
Speaker 11: Although it was alleged, of course that the Israeli forces
Speaker 11: special forces did put personnel on the ground during the
Speaker 11: Twelfth Day War, I don't know that that's in fact true.
Speaker 11: And again I think the argument is pretty small.
Speaker 1: Let's go then to the landscape in Iran after the conflict,
Speaker 1: and I will assume for the sake of that that
Speaker 1: there's a shake up in their leadership and massive damage
Speaker 1: to their missile deterrence and to the IRGC means of repression.
Speaker 1: But they're not gone. Does there exist enough will, in
Speaker 1: your view, for the people to do again what they
Speaker 1: did in January and December of this year and last year.
Speaker 10: It is a great question.
Speaker 11: I think the problem has always been that the population
Speaker 11: in Iran has not been willing to lay down their
Speaker 11: lives at scale. They certainly have in the same way
Speaker 11: that the regime suppressive capacity will.
Speaker 10: In other words, the IERGC are perfectly willing.
Speaker 11: To lay down their lives and to take lives in
Speaker 11: order to retain power. And that dynamic has given them
Speaker 11: a tremendous support. A lack of international support for the
Speaker 11: Iranian population has also been determinive, which is why it's
Speaker 11: refreshing to see President Trump be so vocal and supportive
Speaker 11: of those that have really suffered more than anyone else
Speaker 11: at the hands of this particular regime.
Speaker 10: I do think the capacity remains.
Speaker 11: I think they're looking for the opportunity to do it,
Speaker 11: and again, I think it would take more than just rhetorical,
Speaker 11: perhaps material support to get them to that point.
Speaker 1: Is there any way to get weaponry into the hands
Speaker 1: of either the courage in Iran or other ethnic groups
Speaker 1: in Western Iran, or even into Terehran.
Speaker 2: I don't know how we do it.
Speaker 10: Well.
Speaker 11: My experience in this part of the world is that
Speaker 11: it's not difficult to get someone to shoot someone else,
Speaker 11: and it's also not difficult for arms and material to
Speaker 11: be provided. In fact, the region's got all too much
Speaker 11: of both, so I don't think necessarily either are a problem,
Speaker 11: but it would take support and assistance for it to occur.
Speaker 11: But there's more than enough material to go around, and
Speaker 11: I don't think it would be terribly problematic for that
Speaker 11: to occur, But I do think it's also vital that
Speaker 11: we eliminate the regime's capacity to monitor internal and external communications,
Speaker 11: and all coordinated activity require both, and in fact, our
Speaker 11: ability to predict what goes on and what is occurring
Speaker 11: on the ground is predicated on free communications, which right
Speaker 11: now the regime with Chinese support, has prevented.
Speaker 1: Last question has to do with what President Trump has
Speaker 1: called frequently the discombobulator that was used in Venezuela. I've
Speaker 1: asked experts. They said it wasn't an emp to the
Speaker 1: extent you know what it is. Can we use it
Speaker 1: in Iran?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 11: I don't see any reason why any of the capabilities
Speaker 11: we developed cannot be employed. I don't know that we'd
Speaker 11: have to use that particular capability similar to it in
Speaker 11: the circumstance, because again, I don't see us going in
Speaker 11: and grabbing the Supreme Leader and bringing them to the
Speaker 11: Southern District of New York, as interesting as that might be.
Speaker 11: And so I'm not sure that the exact capabilities to
Speaker 11: be required. But our scope and capacity and inventory far
Speaker 11: exceeds the Islamic republics, that's for sure.
Speaker 1: Robert Greenway, do you think there's stuff that we don't
Speaker 1: even know about that we might use. I know, I
Speaker 1: would guess that the Ohio class tom Hawk carrying big
Speaker 1: subs are out there, the boomers. But is there something
Speaker 1: we just don't know about.
Speaker 10: I would hope.
Speaker 11: So we're spending now upwards of a trillion dollars a
Speaker 11: year on our defense inventory and capacity, and we spent
Speaker 11: a lot and invested a lot for decades, and so
Speaker 11: certainly there are and must always be I think options
Speaker 11: that are available to the president across the spectrum from
Speaker 11: the cyber to the kinetic, and I think those are available.
Speaker 11: I don't know that we'll need those kinds of niche
Speaker 11: capacities in order to do what's required in Iran, but
Speaker 11: certainly they're available to the president.
Speaker 1: And last question, how long will it take us to
Speaker 1: restock Michelles with what we use if we use it
Speaker 1: for a week to a month in Iran?
Speaker 10: Yeah, that is a really great question.
Speaker 11: We just finished a year long simulation calculating a culmination
Speaker 11: point for the US and China to protracted conflict, and
Speaker 11: munition stockpiles was a critical part of that, and the
Speaker 11: story is bleak that corrective actions being taken but insufficient
Speaker 11: right now, and all the turntimes on long range precision
Speaker 11: munitions are twelve plus months one year. That's changing far
Speaker 11: too slowly. So I hope that we're surgical in our use.
Speaker 11: I hope that we don't have to respond and defend
Speaker 11: ourselves against the barrage of Iranian missiles. I hope we
Speaker 11: can defeat them on the ground. It's much more effective
Speaker 11: to do so, but it will take considerable time to
Speaker 11: restock if we have a protracted campaign, which I think
Speaker 11: again disincentivizes us from doing it.
Speaker 10: I also don't know that it's required.
Speaker 1: Robert Greenway, thank you for an abundance of time today.
Speaker 1: Always useful to talk to someone who knows what they're
Speaker 1: talking about, and that would be you, and I appreciate
Speaker 1: the time as us the audience. Thank you very much.
Speaker 1: Come back again soon. Everyone can follow Robert on X
Speaker 1: at Capital Our Capital C Underscore Greenway RC Underscore Greenway
Speaker 1: on AX will post this, of course on my YouTube.
Speaker 2: Hi, it's you, Hewett.
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Speaker 1: God Welcome back to America. I'm Hugh hewittt joined up
Speaker 1: by shah See Bedford to The Washington Examiner, Sarah, you're
Speaker 1: a young Catholic. I'm an old Catholic. So I go
Speaker 1: to the morning Mass on Ash Wednesday, and I've been
Speaker 1: vetching a little bit about the fact it was an
Speaker 1: hour and seventy and fifteen minutes with all the music
Speaker 1: and the bells and whistles as well as the ashes.
Speaker 1: What do you expect the Lent Mass to be.
Speaker 13: Well, especially one in the middle of the day, a
Speaker 13: little bit shorter?
Speaker 5: You know, it's it's not a celebration on Ash Wednesday.
Speaker 5: It's a solemn thing.
Speaker 13: It's getting the ashes is not a sacrament. So there's
Speaker 13: there are reasons to suspect that perhaps a weekday after Wednesday,
Speaker 13: Mass should be a little bit shorter.
Speaker 1: Now, how about weekday masses during Lent? I think they
Speaker 1: ought to be thirty five minutes and no music.
Speaker 2: What do you think.
Speaker 5: Some of them are?
Speaker 13: But yeah, typically, you know, some of the weekday masses
Speaker 13: are just as longer or longer.
Speaker 5: I've been on Sunday.
Speaker 13: But yeah, if that's like your penance to go to
Speaker 13: Mass every weekday, you'd want those to be shorter, for sure.
Speaker 1: I want people to go to Mass. I just think
Speaker 1: it becomes an impediment to people working, people who can't
Speaker 1: be there for an hour and fifteen minutes because the
Speaker 1: boss might give you a pass on ash Wednesday because
Speaker 1: you're wearing the ashes. But it's not going to happen
Speaker 1: every day, is it?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 5: Probably not.
Speaker 13: And my other grive by the way, is that my
Speaker 13: church didn't offer any masses between noon and five. There
Speaker 13: was like a five hour stretch that would have been
Speaker 13: great to have a mass, time to sneak it in
Speaker 13: before school pickups.
Speaker 1: You know, Catholics want to go to church. They got
Speaker 1: to make it easier to go to church. In the confession,
Speaker 1: let me ask you something, Sarah about the war. What
Speaker 1: is your feeling based upon all your conversations about if
Speaker 1: and when it's going to start.
Speaker 5: There's a sense that it could be imminent, right.
Speaker 13: You've seen all the images of US military resources moving
Speaker 13: into the area of Donald Trump's strategic sil which I
Speaker 13: think we've talked about before. He doesn't like to tip
Speaker 13: his hand about any sort of military action he might take.
Speaker 5: That is leaving people nervous.
Speaker 13: I mean, I think people on Capitol Hill don't seem
Speaker 13: to have a sense of the timing or exact types
Speaker 13: of plans that Donald Trump might have, and it means
Speaker 13: that Trump is not out there making the case to
Speaker 13: the public about why the US should have a military
Speaker 13: engagement because.
Speaker 5: He doesn't want to tip his hand to the Iranians.
Speaker 13: But the result, at least in the short term, is
Speaker 13: a really striking silence, given the gravity of.
Speaker 5: What it feels like is about to happen.
Speaker 1: Are there any Republican senators on the record who opposed
Speaker 1: military action right now, because I'm unaware of them, though
Speaker 1: I assume Rand Paul is opposed to military action.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think you've got Rand Paul. You have others
Speaker 5: who have been a little bit nervous.
Speaker 13: Saying, you know, they understand that the president needs to have,
Speaker 13: you know, the ability to strike you unilaterally in these
Speaker 13: sorts of situations, but any sort of sustained military campaign
Speaker 13: is something that might make them, I'm a little bit nervous,
Speaker 13: and they'd want to understand better about the rationale for
Speaker 13: this sort of thing because the White House has been
Speaker 13: playing its cards so close to the vest, though there's
Speaker 13: not a lot of insight on Capitol Hill about what
Speaker 13: the tactics might look like and what specific end game,
Speaker 13: you know, each military move might have.
Speaker 5: So you do have a lot of Republican lawmakers.
Speaker 13: We're giving Trump a lot of leeway right now, but
Speaker 13: would probably have a lot of questions if this looked
Speaker 13: like a sort of sustained military engagement.
Speaker 1: Now, Sarah, I don't want to alarm you, but I
Speaker 1: want to talk about the Senate rules. And it's a
Speaker 1: horrifically boring topic, I realize, but it's an important one
Speaker 1: because the Senate is anti majoritarian. I want to keep
Speaker 1: it that way. I love the filibuster. I don't want
Speaker 1: to break it and any carry. Reid made a terrible
Speaker 1: mistake that backfired on him, and I don't want the
Speaker 1: Republicans to make a terrible mistake. Centertvely assures me online
Speaker 1: that is talking filibuster gig gambit does not involve changing
Speaker 1: the Senate rule or overruling the Senate parliamentarian or the
Speaker 1: share on any question.
Speaker 2: And therefore, the talking filibuster.
Speaker 1: That Mike Lee is proposing would have to proceed the
Speaker 1: way Kim Strassell planted it. It would be endless. It
Speaker 1: would be the giant time waste of all time. Am
Speaker 1: I missing something?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 13: You know that you have the conservatives who say that
Speaker 13: it is sort of a cost free way of getting
Speaker 13: this legislation over the finish line, I guess as the
Speaker 13: only the price of doing business that way would be time.
Speaker 13: It would lock up the Senate floor for a significant
Speaker 13: period of time. But I think, you know, Kim straswell
Speaker 13: and the Wall Street Journal laid out, you know, the
Speaker 13: case against the talking filibuster. But to me, her most
Speaker 13: compelling point was either you have protections for the Senate.
Speaker 5: Minority or you don't.
Speaker 13: You can't sort of waive some sort of procedural magic
Speaker 13: wand that would kind of take the filibuster off the
Speaker 13: table just for the Save Act, but definitely preserve it
Speaker 13: for all, you know, future pieces of legislature.
Speaker 5: I mean, let's say that it all unfolds exactly like
Speaker 5: Mike Lee suggests.
Speaker 13: It would that it would force Democrats to come out
Speaker 13: against an eighty twenty issue. It would be unpopular for them,
Speaker 13: and eventually, through patients, Republicans would get what they want.
Speaker 5: But what does that do to the filibuster in the
Speaker 5: first place?
Speaker 13: It would effectively neutralize it, right for anything that Democrats
Speaker 13: think they could just outlast Republicans on if.
Speaker 5: They're in the majority.
Speaker 13: So it is a risk of undermining the protections of
Speaker 13: the filibuster. If you think you can sort of get
Speaker 13: away with it this one time.
Speaker 2: It won't work.
Speaker 1: It will also just not work because of the amendment,
Speaker 1: the open amendment thing that Kim describe. They'd have to
Speaker 1: change the rules to stop amendments if it was going
Speaker 1: to work. If they change the rules, the filibuster is dead.
Speaker 1: And I I just want people to be honest about this.
Speaker 1: You're going to even have a Senate that protects the
Speaker 1: minority rights and makes it very difficult to pass legislation.
Speaker 1: Accept in reconciliation or you can not have that.
Speaker 2: And I like that.
Speaker 1: I think it stopped a lot more bad idea than ever.
Speaker 1: What the why hasn't If Mike Ley's idea is so great?
Speaker 1: How many Republicans support him? I saw Ted Kruz, does
Speaker 1: anybody else?
Speaker 13: You have a lot of reluctance for Republicans for endorsing
Speaker 13: this idea, including from food. I mean, this is a
Speaker 13: huge can of worms that they'd be opening even if
Speaker 13: it was successful in getting the Save Act passed. And
Speaker 13: even the White House is not really putting its full
Speaker 13: weight behind the Save Acts.
Speaker 5: You don't hear a lot about the White.
Speaker 13: House pushing for this, in fact, to the extent that
Speaker 13: Trump talks about his legislative agenda, it's sort of backwards
Speaker 13: looking like, oh, thank god, we got everything done.
Speaker 5: That we needed to, because you never know. In November,
Speaker 5: you don't hear a lot.
Speaker 13: Of forward looking expectation that the Save Act will pass.
Speaker 13: There's a whole separate conversation to be why that is.
Speaker 13: Because it's a piece of legislation that the vast majority
Speaker 13: of Americans, even a lot of Democrats support, and it
Speaker 13: makes a lot of sense. But even so it doesn't
Speaker 13: seem that high on the GOP agenda.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's because they the eighty twenty issues that are
Speaker 1: out there, they lack salience means the intensity with which
Speaker 1: people want it brought to the floor. Everybody nots like
Speaker 1: I'd vote for the Save Act. If I was in
Speaker 1: the Senate or the House, I'd vote for it, But
Speaker 1: it's not something I'd spend my career on because it's
Speaker 1: probably unconstitutional. With the citizenship requirement for state elections, it's
Speaker 1: up to the.
Speaker 13: States, right, and so I mean, this is a Republicans happened,
Speaker 13: going state by state and trying to get election changes
Speaker 13: that way. It's the most straightforward way of doing it.
Speaker 13: And so you know, I think to the extent that
Speaker 13: there's one maybe argument in favor of the talking filibuster.
Speaker 13: It's this idea that you should put Democrats on the
Speaker 13: record to say why they oppose a common sense piece
Speaker 13: of legislation that their own constituents want. But surely there's
Speaker 13: other ways Republicans could accomplish that.
Speaker 1: They'll have a vote rama next year sometime, and if
Speaker 1: we get the reconciliation, they'll be There are a lot
Speaker 1: of people. The Democrats don't want the Citizenship Act, they
Speaker 1: don't want the Save Act. Everybody knows it. It's just
Speaker 1: not it's not worth all this time, especially on the
Speaker 1: brink of war.
Speaker 2: Sarah Bedford, I hope your.
Speaker 1: Masses shorter than mine was, but I'm glad that you'll
Speaker 1: get your ashes tonight, and I appreciate you joining me
Speaker 1: this afternoon.
Speaker 2: Don't go anywhere, America. I'm coming right back.
Speaker 1: Mike. Catherineham joined me in our number one. I'm going
Speaker 1: to replay it in our three here so that all
Speaker 1: of you hear about her.
Speaker 2: America.
Speaker 1: In two fifty, we are celebrating our two undred and
Speaker 1: fiftieth birthday. Mkh and en gang over at getting hammered
Speaker 1: or doing something special. I want you to hear about
Speaker 1: it till Stay tuned to The Hut Show