Speaker 1: Welcome to today's podcast sponsored by Hillsdale College, All Things
Speaker 1: hillsdalet 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 dialogues, all of them
Speaker 1: at Hugh for Hillsdale dot com or just Google, Apple
Speaker 1: iTunes and Hillsdale Morning Laura and Etan grayce America. The
Speaker 1: first week of the war is in the books, and
Speaker 1: the Big Weekend Pod is all about that. John ellis
Speaker 1: of course with news maybe not related to the war.
Speaker 1: There's other news out there, including very bad job numbers
Speaker 1: today in a very weak market that's worried about the
Speaker 1: price of oil, a little bit of pants wedding going
Speaker 1: on around the world because this war is not going
Speaker 1: to last more than two months. Them are going to
Speaker 1: talk about the war with Matt Continetti, with Ben Dominic,
Speaker 1: with Eli Lake, and then of course the Hillsdale Dialogue
Speaker 1: coming up. But here on the Big Weekend Pod, I
Speaker 1: don't do the Hillsdale Dialogue. You can find that at
Speaker 1: Hugh for Hillsdale dot com. We're focused on the news
Speaker 1: and just the news on the Big Weekend, so stay
Speaker 1: tuned and don't go anywhere. Welcome back in America on
Speaker 1: j Hewett. Matt Continetti has, of course, senior Fellow and
Speaker 1: Domestic Studies at the American Enterprise Institute. He's also the
Speaker 1: Free Expressions columnist at the Wall Street Journal. In today's column,
Speaker 1: he writes, at the through line of Donald Trump's foreign
Speaker 1: policy for forty years as been Iran, Matt, it got
Speaker 1: a new iteration day to unconditional surrender. Dwayne did this
Speaker 1: picture for me because I can't work chet sheetp on
Speaker 1: the images. But the original unconditional surrender man was Grant
Speaker 1: and he said it the Fort Donaldson and he he
Speaker 1: just met walk out and lay everything down. What do
Speaker 1: you think Trump meets by unconditional surrender, Well, Hugh.
Speaker 2: I think he can mean a few things.
Speaker 3: The first is that he's going to eliminate Iran's capacity
Speaker 3: to so mayhem around the region, so decimate the Iranian
Speaker 3: war machine. They're also going after Iran's apparatus of repression,
Speaker 3: the institutions like the IRGC and the basiege militia that
Speaker 3: slaughtered the thirty thousand Iranians during the recent protests. So
Speaker 3: unconditional surrender would mean a fundamental change in the Iranian government,
Speaker 3: either a new form of government, a new leader emerges
Speaker 3: that says that they are going to act according to
Speaker 3: Trump's will, that sort of regime coercion that we saw
Speaker 3: in Venezuela, or a popular uprising. The Iranian people take
Speaker 3: to the streets once again at the conclusion of this
Speaker 3: military campaign and they lay the groundwork for a new
Speaker 3: post Mulla post Aatola Iran.
Speaker 1: Are Americans overconfident at this point? Because one missile at Demona,
Speaker 1: one attack on a d sal in Saudi Arabia, one
Speaker 1: mass casually, event an American will be very unhappy.
Speaker 3: Will It's hard to know who exactly they'd be unhappy at.
Speaker 3: I think they'd be unhappy at Iran if Iran was
Speaker 3: to unleash mass terrorism or asymmetric warfare in response to
Speaker 3: this conflict. But you're right to suggest that the war
Speaker 3: is not over, and of course we.
Speaker 2: Don't know what lies ahead, but we do know this, Hugh.
Speaker 3: I mean, the military effort by our sailors, pilots, soldiers
Speaker 3: has been absolutely incredible, and the fact that we've seen
Speaker 3: this rapid decline in Iran's capacity to fire missiles at
Speaker 3: Israel at the eleven other countries it's fired missiles at
Speaker 3: since the beginning of operations last week. Is a testament,
Speaker 3: I think, to the effectiveness of the military campaign so far.
Speaker 2: And once you've.
Speaker 3: Really defanged Iran's ability to shoot these ballistic missiles at
Speaker 3: its neighbors and at our forces, then you can move
Speaker 3: on to the regime targets. And I think we saw
Speaker 3: that in the IDF strike earlier today on the governance
Speaker 3: compound underground. And then it's just a matter of time
Speaker 3: as you continue to layer on the military pressure, first
Speaker 3: against their ability to strike back, then against the broader
Speaker 3: institutions that support the Iranian regime, and we'll just see
Speaker 3: what happens when the Ranians no longer can control their
Speaker 3: military response or their own actual governance in this very
Speaker 3: large country.
Speaker 1: Now, it's not a stupid country. And so what I'm
Speaker 1: calling their Yosemite Sam strategy based upon the Warner Brothers
Speaker 1: cartoon character who would walk into the saloon and fire
Speaker 1: in every direction, what do you think was behind that?
Speaker 1: They're not stupid? What did they think they were going
Speaker 1: to get from Yosemite Sam in it?
Speaker 2: Well, a couple things.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think they're clearly wanted to test whether
Speaker 3: they could break off some of the Golf States from
Speaker 3: the American Alliance and show that the Iranian military capabilities
Speaker 3: were such that the Gulf States should pressure the United
Speaker 3: States to end the campaign and to also Iranian Israel.
Speaker 3: That has not succeeded, and in fact, the Iran Yosemite
Speaker 3: Sam strategy has actually created a coalition of the willing
Speaker 3: against Iran. All the countries that it has been striking
Speaker 3: with missiles or drones are now joining to various levels
Speaker 3: the US Israeli campaign against Iran. But I think the
Speaker 3: Iranians were also aiming for economic war, and we are
Speaker 3: seeing that. We are seeing the price of oil increase.
Speaker 3: We are seeing the stock market take a hit because
Speaker 3: of fears of potential energy crunch. Not so much in
Speaker 3: the United States thanks to Donald Trump's energy policies over
Speaker 3: the past decade, but it Europe and certainly in the Pacific.
Speaker 1: Well, I think that's where we got. Ninety dollars at
Speaker 1: barrel today is considerably higher than sixty, and so I
Speaker 1: assume the pump price will go up by a third,
Speaker 1: don't you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's right, it's already increasing here. But again I
Speaker 3: think really the people who'll bear the brunt of it
Speaker 3: aren't necessarily in the United States, but they're in the
Speaker 3: Pacific Rim, they're in Europe, so they're gonna do. The
Speaker 3: Iranians hope exert some pressure on Trump, but what we've
Speaker 3: seen so far is Trump is not not succumbing to
Speaker 3: this pressure.
Speaker 2: He wants the campaign to succeed. He wants victory.
Speaker 1: I'm going to talk Mark Wayne Mullin with Matt during
Speaker 1: the break, and on the other side, we'll be talking
Speaker 1: about what the United States has to do to prepare
Speaker 1: for the grandest strategy implications of the state tuned America.
Speaker 1: I'm back with Matt Continetti for the big weekend pod.
Speaker 1: Matt this morning, I was up early for Fox and
Speaker 1: Friends and asked about the Mark Wayne Mullen choice. My
Speaker 1: assessment is that Donald Trump is a ruthless patriot, meaning
Speaker 1: he's in a war now and he really cannot afford
Speaker 1: a side show that Christy nomand become, and he's going
Speaker 1: to be ruthless about, you know, taking out people who
Speaker 1: are or are detracting from the war effort. Will that continue?
Speaker 1: Do you think? Because he's generally been very reluctant to
Speaker 1: exile people.
Speaker 3: That's true, and the Gnome to Mullen, the switch would
Speaker 3: be the first major switch in this cabinet, which is,
Speaker 3: you know, considering the record in the first term, quite incredible.
Speaker 2: I think you know, it's a great question, Hugh.
Speaker 3: I was recently reading some of our friends, Victor Davis
Speaker 3: Hansen's work on war, and he said, you know, a
Speaker 3: war president needs to be ruthless about the types of
Speaker 3: leaders that he hires to prosecute a war. And he
Speaker 3: talked about Lincoln in the generals, and we saw George W.
Speaker 2: Bush in the Iraq war.
Speaker 3: Wasn't until he made that changed to David Petraeus and
Speaker 3: that shift in strategy with the surgeon in Iraq that
Speaker 3: the situation in Iraq began to turn around after several
Speaker 3: years of insurgency.
Speaker 2: So I would hope that.
Speaker 3: President Trump would follow in the footsteps of great war
Speaker 3: leaders and say, look, if you're not implementing the plan,
Speaker 3: if you were not furthering the cause of victory, then
Speaker 3: we're going to have to find somebody else.
Speaker 2: And it was clear on the home front.
Speaker 3: That Secretary Gnome had become a distraction and even a
Speaker 3: political liability, and that we needed a shift in our
Speaker 3: tactics on mass deportations away from these very dramatic raids
Speaker 3: and blue cities to a more focused approach that's been
Speaker 3: advocated by Tom Holman. So I think this was the
Speaker 3: correct move by Trump, and I don't anticipate that Mullen
Speaker 3: will have any difficulty getting confirmed.
Speaker 1: Our Democrats in danger if they slow down Mullin. We
Speaker 1: got sleepers in the United States. The hes be law
Speaker 1: round up in New Jersey last year. For real. If
Speaker 1: there's an attack and we haven't got DHS secretary because
Speaker 1: of the Democrat that's going around or Ran Paul even
Speaker 1: as chairman, do they pay a price?
Speaker 2: Well they should.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 2: I'm struck as I'm watching this.
Speaker 3: Politically from the Iran War, the Republicans are unified. You know,
Speaker 3: there are some loan dissenters, but for more or less,
Speaker 3: the polls show, and it's reflected in the Congress, Republicans
Speaker 3: are unified behind Trump. The Democrats, I think are unserious.
Speaker 3: It's not only that they're continuing to block funding for
Speaker 3: the Department of Homeland Security at a time of war,
Speaker 3: but that they're also voting on the one hand against
Speaker 3: Trump's powers as commander in chief and on the other
Speaker 3: they're admitting that Iran is the world's largest sponsor of terrorism. Well,
Speaker 3: if you think that the Iran, if you correctly, is
Speaker 3: the world's largest sponsor terrorism, why would you limit the
Speaker 3: US Commander in chief's ability to punish Iran, to in
Speaker 3: fact change the behavior of Ron to end the threat
Speaker 3: from Iran, as he's doing right now. Meanwhile, you have
Speaker 3: Gavin Newsom saying Israel's in apartheid state, declaring war on
Speaker 3: Israel rhetorically at a time when we were fighting Iran.
Speaker 1: It is the descent of Democratic Party rhetoric into incoherence.
Speaker 1: I'll be right back with Matt Continetti. Go nowhere except
Speaker 1: to X follow Matt on act at Continetti. I'm back
Speaker 1: with mac Continetti America. Matt, of course is at the
Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal for Expressions column and AEI. Matt, I
Speaker 1: have been using my Goldilock strategy. But the argument is
Speaker 1: premised on nineteen ninety one was too little. We shouldn't
Speaker 1: have quit after one hundred hours. We should have gone
Speaker 1: after said am we had to go back. The too
Speaker 1: big is two thousand and three. We went, we stayed,
Speaker 1: We stayed. In fact, we're still there. I want to
Speaker 1: just write strategy in Iran, but I don't articulate it.
Speaker 1: What do you think about a Goldilock strategy? What's it
Speaker 1: look like in the end in five years?
Speaker 2: Well, in five years we won in Iran.
Speaker 3: That's not a threat to our neighbor, its neighbors, and
Speaker 3: our allies, and then little least, it's not a threat
Speaker 3: to Europe or ultimately to the United States because of
Speaker 3: its missile program. That's not fomenting terrorism around the world
Speaker 3: and is not repressing its own people. That's the goal,
Speaker 3: and I think those are achievable goals if you apply
Speaker 3: the correct means.
Speaker 2: You're right.
Speaker 3: In nineteen ninety one, we didn't go far enough. We
Speaker 3: left a week in Saddam in place, and we had
Speaker 3: a decade where we were trying to contain Saddam ultimately unsuccessfully,
Speaker 3: and that required Operation Iraqi Freedom in two thousand and three,
Speaker 3: I think.
Speaker 2: I'd like to talk about with the Iraq War.
Speaker 3: Though you know, the initial Iraq War was stunning success.
Speaker 3: Oh yes, Saddam fell within six weeks. The regime ended
Speaker 3: within six weeks. When people criticized the Forever War in Iraq,
Speaker 3: it's not the original operation, it's the years we spent
Speaker 3: combating the insurgency, and there I would say the reason
Speaker 3: we failed to combat the insurgency effectively for years was
Speaker 3: we didn't go big enough.
Speaker 2: Then.
Speaker 3: In fact, we didn't have the number of troops that
Speaker 3: were necessary. In fact, we had been denied by Turkey.
Speaker 2: To have it.
Speaker 1: I'm so glad you said it. I was going to
Speaker 1: bring up and from there that the northern offensive was
Speaker 1: shut off at the last minute by the Turks. Are
Speaker 1: not so great allies. We are doing it again, all right.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's always important to remember.
Speaker 3: So look, I don't think we need a huge ground
Speaker 3: force right now in Iran.
Speaker 2: I don't think we're going to need it. That's not
Speaker 2: what're happening here.
Speaker 3: But what I'm saying is we need to understand how
Speaker 3: we get to the desired political end state and what
Speaker 3: that for Iran. What that means is first denying the
Speaker 3: capability of the regime to retaliate, then to destroy from
Speaker 3: the air all of the instant tuitions of repression that
Speaker 3: have kept the Iranian people down, and then third doing
Speaker 3: what's necessary to allow the Iranian people to encourage them,
Speaker 3: to give them the means to rise up and take
Speaker 3: their country back. From the Mullas. And on that third point,
Speaker 3: I just want to say our expert here at Ai
Speaker 3: Fred Kagan, has passionately made the case that we need
Speaker 3: to be providing communications to the Iranian people, that the
Speaker 3: Mullas continue to suppress Internet activity in Iran, and so
Speaker 3: we need to do everything we can to provide starlink
Speaker 3: to somehow restore avenues of communication so that the Iranian
Speaker 3: people can communicate with each other and amplify the networks
Speaker 3: of descent that will be necessary for them when the
Speaker 3: time comes to go to the streets and take back
Speaker 3: their country.
Speaker 1: Now, Fred Kagan did an Aaron McClain School of War
Speaker 1: podcast earlier this week which was truly a lesson in
Speaker 1: perspective on this, and I would recommend it to everyone.
Speaker 1: I want to close with grand strategy, Matt, what do
Speaker 1: you think the Chinese are sinking and seeing right now?
Speaker 1: Do they think and see we're running low on monitions
Speaker 1: or do they think and see, Holy smokes, the Israeli
Speaker 1: American Alliance is a few iterations ahead of us on tech.
Speaker 3: Well, I think the first thing they're seeing is that
Speaker 3: there is only one country in the world that can
Speaker 3: do what America is doing right now in Iran. There's
Speaker 3: only one country in the world here that could project
Speaker 3: this amount of power on the other side of the
Speaker 3: planet in accordance or in related cooperation with this ally Israel,
Speaker 3: this small, tiny country that has one of the most
Speaker 3: capable air forces in the world, as Admiral Cooper stated,
Speaker 3: the two most powerful air forces in the world combining
Speaker 3: forces against the regime in Iran. China is noticing that,
Speaker 3: and I think recognizing that it still has a ways
Speaker 3: to go before it can knock the United States out
Speaker 3: of the number one position. But I also think it
Speaker 3: is looking at the new way of warfare missiles, AI interceptors, munitions,
Speaker 3: and will power.
Speaker 2: And so as we look ahead.
Speaker 3: To future conflicts, rather we look ahead to deter future conflicts,
Speaker 3: we have to get serious about amassing the deterrent power
Speaker 3: that we will require to prevent any Chinese invasion of Taiwan.
Speaker 3: And that means that not only are we going to
Speaker 3: need a supplemental for this war in Iran, We're going
Speaker 3: to need to go and truly restock and commit I
Speaker 3: almost sink to an emergency crash program to get our
Speaker 3: ammunitions up to snuff.
Speaker 1: I'm with you, I think we should do. They could
Speaker 1: do a reconciliation with a pure majority in six weeks
Speaker 1: if they got the Budget Committee, Armed Services and Approaches
Speaker 1: in both houses to say only defense, only munitions, and
Speaker 1: here's a trust fund of a trillion dollars, build missiles
Speaker 1: and maybe submarines. I don't think the Chinese missed the
Speaker 1: submarine sinking Office three Lanka. You know, we don't need
Speaker 1: a lot of submarines in this war. I think they're
Speaker 1: all in the South China Sea. I don't know anything,
Speaker 1: of course, but that was pretty an impressive display.
Speaker 2: Yeah it was.
Speaker 3: And you know some of those vessels are intelligence vessels
Speaker 3: for Iran. So that also denied the Iranians capability. They've
Speaker 3: tried to slink away to Sri Lanka. It didn't work.
Speaker 3: We can we can find them. So the Chinese noticed that.
Speaker 3: There's no question, And again I think that's important for
Speaker 3: us at home to recognize the kind of awesome power
Speaker 3: of the United States here and working with Israel to
Speaker 3: end a threat that has been dogging America for fifty years.
Speaker 3: So China, I think we'll look at this and say
Speaker 3: it has a ways to go.
Speaker 1: Which one minute, Matt, which Democrat has been helped them
Speaker 1: most by the last week. A Democrat who's been helped.
Speaker 2: A Democrat who's been helped the most this week.
Speaker 3: I think it's John Fetterman, to be honest with you.
Speaker 1: I think is one running for president.
Speaker 3: I mean, Hugh, I'd be interested to see. I don't
Speaker 3: think any of them have acted responsibly. I mean we
Speaker 3: mentioned Newsom calling our ally an apartheid state.
Speaker 2: In the middle of this operation.
Speaker 3: We have Kamala Harris, who endorsed Jasmine Crockett in the
Speaker 3: Texas Democratic primary, only to see her lose. I think
Speaker 3: jos Shapiro may have been helped. He he's kind of
Speaker 3: ducked out of this. And then I know who you're thinking.
Speaker 3: You're thinking our buddy Rama Manuel, And you know you
Speaker 3: know the thing about ram is he is a font
Speaker 3: of good ideas and common sense.
Speaker 2: And there's no way the Democratic Party is good at a.
Speaker 1: Way.
Speaker 2: It took me so long to get to him.
Speaker 5: You John Ellis it said they'll nominate anyone who can
Speaker 5: beat the son of Trump, not literally, but just anybody.
Speaker 5: And the person I'm thinking who's most formidable from Emmanuel, Hey, Matt,
Speaker 5: always great to see you follow him my ax A
Speaker 5: continenty listen to him on the Wall Street Journal question
Speaker 5: say to read him rather stays.
Speaker 1: On Morning Glory and even Grace America. I'm Hugh HEWITTT.
Speaker 1: Welcome to The Hewitt Show. I hope you're watching this
Speaker 1: on Amazon Prime or on Pluto TV World, so now
Speaker 1: all over the place. But you're listening in your car
Speaker 1: if you're inside the Beltway driving home and you've been
Speaker 1: waiting for Big Ben, dominant host of the Big Ben
Speaker 1: Podcast and now the editor of the Daily Wires brand
Speaker 1: new opinion page, which I think is a fabulous breakthrough
Speaker 1: for smart people everywhere. Ben, you are cutting into my
Speaker 1: reading time already. I thought you'd take a couple of
Speaker 1: weeks to kind of lounge around and pretend to be
Speaker 1: scouting for talent. You're already pumping stuff out.
Speaker 4: Well, I'm doing that too. In sure, this is the
Speaker 4: sky and the something that I will say, Hugh, that
Speaker 4: I mean, perhaps this is unwise of me, but I
Speaker 4: did start to do free work prior to coming on,
Speaker 4: just because the simple fact is things that needed to
Speaker 4: get commissioned. And so we were very happy with the
Speaker 4: first week of our tenure and the folks that we've
Speaker 4: had to writing interesting pieces for us, and I hope
Speaker 4: that you will be one of them too. I already
Speaker 4: sent you a suggestion.
Speaker 1: So well, you know, you've got a grand canyon sized
Speaker 1: opportunity there. And it can be the replacement for BookWorld,
Speaker 1: for the New York Times magazine. It can be everything
Speaker 1: that's gone away that used to be good.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Well, I think that you're recognizing that this is
Speaker 4: something that has been a real wasteland in the last
Speaker 4: couple of years. It's gotten worse and worse, and I
Speaker 4: think that you know, there's still places that can do
Speaker 4: it well, but we kind of know what they are,
Speaker 4: you know. And no offense to our friends all three
Speaker 4: journal but it's one of these things that I think
Speaker 4: there's an opportunity here for a variety of opinion, a
Speaker 4: variety of views, young and older, more experienced and less experienced,
Speaker 4: and folks fighting it out, duking it out over all
Speaker 4: sorts of different disagreements that happened within the conservative movement.
Speaker 4: And I think that that's something that's very healthy and
Speaker 4: that I want to feature and promote, and I hope
Speaker 4: folks will come and check us out at the Daily Wire.
Speaker 4: It's been a pleasure to join their team, and we're
Speaker 4: going to have more people joining us.
Speaker 1: Now. I believe in the market. So I thank you.
Speaker 1: And Barry Weiss are in a fight. I mean, you're
Speaker 1: in a death match. It's a cage match because she
Speaker 1: goes and grabs people and you go and grab people.
Speaker 4: And fine, you should say that, but I can't comment
Speaker 4: on this.
Speaker 1: Okay, stay tuned, right, stay tuned? Are you allowed to
Speaker 1: put a sports writer in there?
Speaker 4: So? Actually, that's interesting because we were having that conversation
Speaker 4: exactly this week, and that's an area that I want
Speaker 4: to get into. We actually want to grow into having
Speaker 4: the kind of Indian pace that features not just opinions
Speaker 4: about politics, but opinions about other things as well. And
Speaker 4: sports is definitely one where I am interested in having
Speaker 4: some strong voices that we that we promote.
Speaker 1: Now, I have a specific question followed by a general one.
Speaker 1: You are a Commander's fan. You are drafting seven.
Speaker 4: I'm a redskin, your red skin?
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, the Browns still the Browns and we're still
Speaker 1: drafted in six. Who who if we draft them? Will
Speaker 1: break your heart?
Speaker 4: You know, I'm going to be completely honest with you.
Speaker 4: I'm a Jeremiah Love guy.
Speaker 1: Oh well, I'm not surprised he could be.
Speaker 4: Actually, I think, look, here's the deal. People under rate
Speaker 4: running backs. I think it's actually it's turned the corner.
Speaker 4: They were overrated for a while, then they you know,
Speaker 4: sort of drifted down and now I actually think they're underrated.
Speaker 4: And I think that if you have a game changing
Speaker 4: pass catching running back, who is that high up. I
Speaker 4: think he has a potential to be Marshall Faulk. I
Speaker 4: think he has the potential to be somebody who is
Speaker 4: who is absolutely a game changer for a team that frankly,
Speaker 4: you know, it's it's an underrated aspect of the terrible
Speaker 4: season that they had last year, but they lost all
Speaker 4: their pass catching running backs. They didn't have anybody who
Speaker 4: could really get out of the backfield and catch the ball.
Speaker 4: And that I think in this in this modern NFL,
Speaker 4: is impossible to have as an offense. You can't just
Speaker 4: have one, you know, running backs on the field who
Speaker 4: are assigned to pass, block or run and can't actually
Speaker 4: break out and get in underneath the linebackers and make
Speaker 4: make up those yards. And that's something that I think
Speaker 4: Love would change dramatically, and and you know, especially considering
Speaker 4: you know, the different things that that UH, the the
Speaker 4: team is probably willing to invest in. They've they've got uh,
Speaker 4: I believe the second highest cap availability right now in
Speaker 4: here in Washington. I think that they're going to spend
Speaker 4: that on some things, including probably wide receiver and maybe
Speaker 4: UH and maybe on the on the lines. But but
Speaker 4: I really would like to have Love and if he
Speaker 4: goes before I will be very bad.
Speaker 1: He's not. Yeah, I mean, I'm looking at the NFL
Speaker 1: mock Draft database, which is my favorite site because they
Speaker 1: aggregate them all. And they've got Carnel Tate, which I'll
Speaker 1: be happy with going to the Browns, and they've got
Speaker 1: Caleb Downs going to the Redskins, and Caleb Downs would
Speaker 1: be is a Hall of Famer. I think he's going
Speaker 1: to go to the Hall of Fame. But if you
Speaker 1: don't need him, you don't need him. And right behind
Speaker 1: him is Jeremiah Love going to the Saints because he's
Speaker 1: that good.
Speaker 4: I'll tell you Cardil Tate's a great player, and I'm
Speaker 4: happy with that. Yeah, and a lot of places, you know,
Speaker 4: you know it's it's a lot of places, have you
Speaker 4: know him fall in to Washington. I don't know if
Speaker 4: you what your own preference is. But from my perspective,
Speaker 4: I think just that this in this day and age,
Speaker 4: we are going back to a tenure. And you saw
Speaker 4: that in the in the surprising market for David Montgomery,
Speaker 4: by the way, that this is a tenure where if
Speaker 4: you have a running back who can be a game changer,
Speaker 4: even if they are going to have a short tenure,
Speaker 4: that creates a window for you. And we all saw
Speaker 4: what happened for the Eagles when they pulled off that
Speaker 4: legendary Saquon trade, and that season is really because of
Speaker 4: the stupidity of the Giants.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we've got Judkins and he's real good. We need
Speaker 1: receivers and offensive tackles, so we get two first rounders,
Speaker 1: but we will not be taking Jeremiah up. Let me
Speaker 1: then turn. That leads me to the demand signal for
Speaker 1: Bock Drafts tells us that the NFL season is year round,
Speaker 1: and for the Daily Signal opinion page, it tells me
Speaker 1: that there's a Dan Jenkins out there, or any fine
Speaker 1: stain anybody like that for just an occasional great piece
Speaker 1: on any sport.
Speaker 4: I would read it, Well, look, we are going to
Speaker 4: be adding people. I have the I have at a
Speaker 4: great colleague in Brent Sure who formerly of the Free Beacon,
Speaker 4: who brought me on and convinced me to take on
Speaker 4: this gig. And one of the first things that we
Speaker 4: spent a lot of time talking about was his long
Speaker 4: suffering Jets fandom. And so look, if a man can
Speaker 4: endure that kind of pain over the course of his life,
Speaker 4: he's absolutely willing to have people who write about.
Speaker 1: It dangerous boss. I've told you he's the last man
Speaker 1: to get the fetching MISSISSI at Tipsy and so I
Speaker 1: don't trust Brent, but be careful. Now let's get the
Speaker 1: serious stuff. Dwayn did this for me today's picture of
Speaker 1: unconditional surrender Donald John Trump. And this picture came up
Speaker 1: when we got General Grant at Shiloh, and we put
Speaker 1: Donald Trump's face on him. At least Dwain did what
Speaker 1: did the president mean by unconditional surrender? Ben?
Speaker 4: I think the President is making clear that he did
Speaker 4: not enter this with any intention of having leftover problems
Speaker 4: for future presidents and for the country. I think that
Speaker 4: Donald Trump used this second term as being one where
Speaker 4: he is settling all family business, and that means he
Speaker 4: is going after all the people who he wants to
Speaker 4: take off the board and doing so with you know,
Speaker 4: a precipitous nature, but you know, one that I think
Speaker 4: Republicans have been surprised by, but also one that is
Speaker 4: intended to achieve a new reality, a new a new
Speaker 4: world that is dominated by America and that has America's
Speaker 4: interests in the decisions that he has made. I don't
Speaker 4: think he wants anything left over. I don't think he
Speaker 4: wants to be asked five six years from now, you know,
Speaker 4: if he's still you know, God be with you know,
Speaker 4: God bless him, if he's still around, if he is
Speaker 4: asked the kind of question, why did you leave a
Speaker 4: rump version of this Iran regime in place to once
Speaker 4: again threaten you know, your your friends or allies in
Speaker 4: the Middle East, you know, the people who we care about.
Speaker 4: I don't think he wants to have that question. I
Speaker 4: think he wants to take them off the board permanently.
Speaker 4: And that's why I think he's saying this unconditional surrender thing.
Speaker 4: He wants a situation that does We're down to America's
Speaker 4: interests more than any kind of you know, pie in
Speaker 4: the sky hope about a you know, a truly you know,
Speaker 4: free I ran. But I also think that he is
Speaker 4: not willing to accept what some people have proposed, which
Speaker 4: is kind of a half measure in terms of the
Speaker 4: way things look. They're thinking about domestic politics. They're worried
Speaker 4: this is going to last too long. I don't think
Speaker 4: that's something that he's worried about.
Speaker 1: I agree. I think he's looking for Goldilocks nineteen ninety
Speaker 1: one too little, two thousand and three too big. What's
Speaker 1: in the middle of that? Winning, that's right. Winning is
Speaker 1: in the middle of that, and then leaving and winning
Speaker 1: and leaving is not impossible. Here during after the break,
Speaker 1: I'm going to talk to you about the Democratic Party
Speaker 1: and their meltdown. During the break, I'm talked about Mark
Speaker 1: Wayne Mullen. Leading into the break, I want me in
Speaker 1: a minute. Are you worried about sleeper cells? Because I am.
Speaker 4: I'm less worried about sleeper cells than some people, But
Speaker 4: that doesn't mean that I'm not worried. It's a real thing.
Speaker 4: It's not a fantasy, and you shouldn't listen to anybody
Speaker 4: who says they are. This is a very real possibility.
Speaker 4: I will I will say though, that you look America's
Speaker 4: military has been planning for this for a very long time.
Speaker 4: We had a great piece this week at The Daily
Speaker 4: Wire that I recommend to everyone about the Van Riper
Speaker 4: Millennium Challenge game and what he did and why that
Speaker 4: helped inform a lot of people about what could go
Speaker 4: wrong with going after Iran. I think that same type
Speaker 4: of approach has been used to some degree domestically to
Speaker 4: pay attention to some of the risk points, et cetera.
Speaker 4: But I hope that under this administration that everybody's hands
Speaker 4: are really on the wheel. And the truth is that
Speaker 4: after a week in which we've steamed the departure of
Speaker 4: Christy zero, and after a week in which we've had
Speaker 4: concerns raised about what's going on at BOJ and the FBI,
Speaker 4: that's something that I think Americans need to have more confidence.
Speaker 1: Though we're going to talk about the fact that President
Speaker 1: Trump has gone into war, President ruthless mode needs to
Speaker 1: be inconfident turning to break and after that, when we
Speaker 1: kind of left it an't go anwhere America's big good.
Speaker 1: I'm back with Ben Dominich of The Daily Wire. The
Speaker 1: Big Ben Podcast this week is fabulous. Ben Shapiro, his
Speaker 1: new colleague is there, Ben, and Ben Talablue, who is
Speaker 1: with me yesterday, is on for an extended conversation about
Speaker 1: the Kurds. Again, it's very important. But now let's talk
Speaker 1: about this ruthlessness. I think President Trump is a ruthless,
Speaker 1: tough patriot, in other words, non autocrat. If the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court says no tariffs, he goes along with it. That's
Speaker 1: not autocratic behavior. I wish the Democrats would notice that
Speaker 1: when he loses, he loses, and he grumbles, but he loses.
Speaker 1: But he's now going to be ruthless because he cannot
Speaker 1: afford incompetence. Ben, and you just can't if you're running
Speaker 1: a war.
Speaker 4: No, you can't. And I think that you understands that.
Speaker 4: And I believe that he's been you know, look, he's
Speaker 4: a he perceives things from the outside of politics, and
Speaker 4: you know, as was informed by a lot of you know,
Speaker 4: the things that he watched and learned and read. And
Speaker 4: I think that one of his takeaways was that time
Speaker 4: and again, you know, the American warf had their hands tied.
Speaker 4: It's one of the reasons he made some choices that
Speaker 4: Washington doesn't like. When it comes to the leadership that
Speaker 4: he chose. But also I think it's because he wants
Speaker 4: to really unleash what America can do. You know, a
Speaker 4: lot of these plans just because they you know, were
Speaker 4: put into action or or or were put into the
Speaker 4: process by Symcom, didn't necessarily have the possibility of going
Speaker 4: into action under a different president, you know, meaning meaning
Speaker 4: that you would go for the more conventional or the
Speaker 4: more restrained plan. I think that he's shown that's not
Speaker 4: what he does, you know, when he I mean, there's
Speaker 4: there's a very I was not quite frankly able to
Speaker 4: run this down. Others have said that they have, whether
Speaker 4: you want to believe it or not, that the President
Speaker 4: insisted when it came to that Maduro raid that they
Speaker 4: get down to the POSI the probability of not having
Speaker 4: a single casualty on that raid. Now, that tells you
Speaker 4: something about his insistence. It tells you something about how
Speaker 4: much he pays attention to this. And you know, other
Speaker 4: presidents I think would have been willing to accept, you know, well,
Speaker 4: we're going to do this, it's going to be something
Speaker 4: that works out for us, but we're going to lose
Speaker 4: fifty guys. And I think that that's not something that
Speaker 4: is accept told him he has a ruthless behavior toward
Speaker 4: the enemy, and then he has a very protective enemy,
Speaker 4: protective attitude toward the American soldier. That's something that I
Speaker 4: think is one of the reasons that he is so
Speaker 4: uniting when it comes to the attitude of his supporters.
Speaker 4: By the way, Hugh, I think that this is the
Speaker 4: biggest miss out there that the media has been churning
Speaker 4: up suggesting that Tucker and Megan and all the other
Speaker 4: people that they actually speak for some significant president's base.
Speaker 4: They do not. There is not a look of evidence
Speaker 4: in any of these polls that is not what's going
Speaker 4: on here. He might be losing people who are part
Speaker 4: of his coalition, but the people he's losing are over
Speaker 4: economic concerns, price of gas, et cetera. Hispanic voters who
Speaker 4: feel like he's been a little too aggressive when it
Speaker 4: comes to the immigration side of things. That's all explainable.
Speaker 4: There is absolutely no evidence that these people who have
Speaker 4: been fomenting this idea that he's going to war on
Speaker 4: behalf of Israel as opposed to America's interest. They have
Speaker 4: no basis whatsoever to claim that it's.
Speaker 1: Wish casting by legacy media. That's it wish casting by
Speaker 1: legacy Media. I'm coming right back with Ben dominic Don't
Speaker 1: go anywhere America, don't come back in America. I'm here
Speaker 1: here with Ben Dominich. Ben. I don't think the late
Speaker 1: Ayatollah Hamini was a dummy, and so he came up
Speaker 1: with this, you know, semity Sam strategy where you go
Speaker 1: into the saloon and you just start shooting everywhere.
Speaker 4: And it's a great description. I wish I had come
Speaker 4: up with I enjy that.
Speaker 1: Well to take it, you run with it, because I
Speaker 1: don't own you know, semity Sam. What were they thinking?
Speaker 1: What was the thinking behind that?
Speaker 4: Which I mean oman like, yeah, we were like it's
Speaker 4: just catching strays out here. It's just like, I mean,
Speaker 4: it's Look. Shapiro has a theory about this, which he
Speaker 4: says on my podcast, which is that they wanted to
Speaker 4: just bring other people into the war and then have
Speaker 4: them essentially get in the president's year and say, hey,
Speaker 4: you got to slow things down or you can't do
Speaker 4: everything the Israelis want you to do. If that was
Speaker 4: their strategy, it was a bad strategy and it didn't work.
Speaker 4: It's also one that frankly had set up a situation where,
Speaker 4: you know, we already talked about a week into Ron,
Speaker 4: their inability to project power after everything that Israel has
Speaker 4: been able to do to their proxies across the region,
Speaker 4: and everything that has happened to them economically and internally,
Speaker 4: that has completely undermined their authority and ability to control
Speaker 4: their own populace, which of course led to those tens
Speaker 4: of thousands of people in the streets too, sadly many
Speaker 4: of them slaughtered by the regime. This is an incredibly
Speaker 4: weak moment, and so my attitude is when I see
Speaker 4: these democrats who were going out there and saying this
Speaker 4: is there's no imminent threat, there's no you know, something
Speaker 4: that's going to you know, there's no better time to
Speaker 4: kick a man than when he's down.
Speaker 1: You especially well, Okay, explain to you Gavin Newsom on
Speaker 1: the Warner Brothers theme, he's Sylvester the Cat. He doesn't
Speaker 1: have any idea what he's doing. He went on the
Speaker 1: Pod Bros, which has become like anti semi Central. They
Speaker 1: should just merge with our.
Speaker 2: Right wing frame.
Speaker 4: Seriously, they should deem themselves Pod.
Speaker 1: Yes, okay, I'll take that one. You can have your Semite, Sam,
Speaker 1: that's pretty good.
Speaker 4: But seriously, the fact that they are at this point,
Speaker 4: like are you it's but for Ben Rhoads, Like I mean, like,
Speaker 4: did you use that yet?
Speaker 5: You know, I may I may delete this and just
Speaker 5: steal that and pretend it's mine.
Speaker 1: Pod Gosh, that's perfect.
Speaker 4: But but this is But the point is just these
Speaker 4: guys they are so invested, yeah, in an ahistorical revisionist
Speaker 4: view of the Iran deal that it was some kind
Speaker 4: of dramatic, amazing, peace loving and achieving, you know, diplomatic deal.
Speaker 4: They are so invested in that narrative that they can't
Speaker 4: even see anything that's going on in front of them.
Speaker 4: It is astounding to me that these people got to
Speaker 4: the heights of power. They really were right there next
Speaker 4: to the President of the United States telling him what
Speaker 4: words to say. And by the way, Obama has not
Speaker 4: been any better on this if anything, you know, I
Speaker 4: think the fact that Donald Trump is cleaning up his
Speaker 4: mess in so many ways, I'm sure it's frustrating for him.
Speaker 4: I cannot believe. I mean, I can't even imagine what
Speaker 4: he's going through, especially considering you know, those.
Speaker 1: I can't answer this and you can't answer this, But
Speaker 1: the pod Bros Plus Ben Roads plus President Obama yesterday,
Speaker 1: have you ready Gore, who's really I think Israel's emerging
Speaker 1: public intellectual. We've had doctor Orrin for a years an
Speaker 1: he had on Micah Goodman, who I do not know,
Speaker 1: my Monetyese scholar. And they used some names like Comel
Speaker 1: from Turkey, and then they brought up Katube and Bana,
Speaker 1: guys that you would know if you read The Looming Tower.
Speaker 1: Do you think anyone on the pod Bros Or President
Speaker 1: Obama have any idea who these people are and how
Speaker 1: they shape the Middle East in the image of their
Speaker 1: resistance Islamist philosophy, because it's idiody.
Speaker 4: I think that this is I think that this is
Speaker 4: upon reflection a series of Democrat elites who were credentialed
Speaker 4: and were so incurious about history that they thought everything
Speaker 4: was new, They thought everything was bold, They thought everything
Speaker 4: was some kind of massive achievement that was going to
Speaker 4: stand the test of time. And the truth is that
Speaker 4: if you know anything about history, you would be skeptical
Speaker 4: about that. Even if you thought it was the right decision,
Speaker 4: you would be saying, well, what if it's wrong? You know, what,
Speaker 4: what if we do go in a different way. And
Speaker 4: one of the things that I think is so important
Speaker 4: when it comes to evaluating these things is to say, okay, well,
Speaker 4: let's steal man the other side of the issue. They
Speaker 4: have never done that. They have only ever plowed through
Speaker 4: straw man their entire careers. And that's what I think.
Speaker 4: That's why I think we ended up with the kind
Speaker 4: of foreign policy that we had under Barack Obama, with
Speaker 4: people who had incredibly impressive resumes in terms of their
Speaker 4: educational experience, but non impressive resumes when it came to
Speaker 4: actually doing anything, living anything, enacting any policy.
Speaker 1: They knew how to seduce legacy journalists. That's what they knew.
Speaker 1: The echo check Yes. So, which Democrat nominee for twenty
Speaker 1: twenty eight has been most helped by the last week,
Speaker 1: Assuming that the trajectory of American success continues.
Speaker 4: I think that given the way that things are going,
Speaker 4: I actually think that this benefits, of all people, AOC.
Speaker 4: I think that she has actually helped the most by this,
Speaker 4: and the reason is that she is because she has
Speaker 4: flubbed so much on the international stage. She is going
Speaker 4: to focus, i think, entirely on domestic issues, entirely on
Speaker 4: affordability on all the things that are close to home,
Speaker 4: et cetera. She's not going to try to win people
Speaker 4: over again in the way that she did when she
Speaker 4: went to Munich et cetera. I think that she's just
Speaker 4: going to say, I'm just about what's going on in America.
Speaker 4: Donald Trump has failed to meet the you know, the
Speaker 4: mission that he had when it came to helping working people,
Speaker 4: et cetera, et cetera. And I think that that's something
Speaker 4: that's going to actually work within their party coalition because
Speaker 4: they're going to want to put their blinkers on. They
Speaker 4: don't want to actually admit anything about what happened overseas.
Speaker 1: How about my my pro rama. Manuel steps out and says, hey,
Speaker 1: I was there in the first term. Obamacare hasn't worked,
Speaker 1: as Teddy Kennedy died, we can fix that.
Speaker 4: To the heel turn. And then I went to I'm
Speaker 4: in for this. I am absolutely in for this.
Speaker 1: And I went to Japan and I know what China is,
Speaker 1: and these people over here have never been out of
Speaker 1: the country and they will not be near my White House.
Speaker 1: I'm going to go get the old JFK Democrats and
Speaker 1: bring him in and by the way I drop a
Speaker 1: lot f bombs and I'm sorry, mom, but that's who
Speaker 1: I am.
Speaker 4: Well and and unlike Gavin news program, that's who it is.
Speaker 1: It it really is who he is.
Speaker 4: And I will tell you this. I will tell you
Speaker 4: this you and this is is absolutely God's honest truth.
Speaker 4: Back when I was, you know, in the in this
Speaker 4: policy space and centive in the media space, my friends
Speaker 4: and I admired Rom so much in terms of his
Speaker 4: approach to the Obama white House. And we always said,
Speaker 4: if Rom had won out over Valerie Jarrett, this white
Speaker 4: House would have gone very amen and and that and
Speaker 4: that is I believe still true to this day. You
Speaker 4: would have been a better and more effective president. We
Speaker 4: would have we would have hated it more because of
Speaker 4: that effectiveness. It's conservatives, but it's the truth.
Speaker 1: And his brother can raise the money, and he knows
Speaker 1: how to debate. And he's been on this show and
Speaker 1: Gavin new some who said a thousand times he'd come
Speaker 1: on this show and he won't show up because he
Speaker 1: won't take He's gone the other way. Now now he's hired.
Speaker 4: Is he has people been pointing this out. You you
Speaker 4: need to you need to marshal a group of people
Speaker 4: to start teasing Gavin Newsom on the internet because I
Speaker 4: have learned from Ted Cruz that that works.
Speaker 1: Oh you know, I've always thought it didn't work. But
Speaker 1: now I'm so frustrated because he said yes, yes, yes,
Speaker 1: yes yes, And then is he took over and he
Speaker 1: said yes yes, yes, yes yes, and then he doesn't
Speaker 1: reply anymore because he's I.
Speaker 4: Sit on TV with him multiple times, I've been green
Speaker 4: rooms with him multiple times. I'm sure that this is
Speaker 4: the There has got to be a way to get
Speaker 4: under his skin to the point that he comes on.
Speaker 1: Well, he's the first California gave right off the bat.
Speaker 4: Right off the bat, You're going to ask him if
Speaker 4: he read the Looming Cower and then he's going to
Speaker 4: say that you hate people who are dyslected.
Speaker 1: You're right. All he has to do is know the
Speaker 1: name Katu. He can fake that. Hey, Ben Dominics, thank
Speaker 1: you for joining me, and congratulations on the Daily Signal.
Speaker 1: That is terrific. The Daily Wire, not the Daily Signal,
Speaker 1: the Daily Wire. And on the Big Ben Pod this week,
Speaker 1: listen to it because Ben and Ben Tellablue and on
Speaker 1: that too, come my fact any the dealership Blooker back in America.
Speaker 1: I hope you'll watch Cancel on the Salem News Channel
Speaker 1: now available on Samsung TV at channel eleven seventy seven,
Speaker 1: on Blido TV and now Amazon Prime. Just go to
Speaker 1: the news menu, drop down find Salem News Channel, or
Speaker 1: listen to us in the radio and the Salem Radio Network,
Speaker 1: or of course any of our wonderful affiliates. I'm joined
Speaker 1: by Eli Lake. He is, of course of the Free Press,
Speaker 1: the host of Breaking History, and an expert on Iran.
Speaker 1: Eli were coming to the end of the first week
Speaker 1: of the war. How do you think it's going.
Speaker 6: I think it's going really well. I think there's still
Speaker 6: we shouldn't get too comfortable. But right now it's hard
Speaker 6: to say who's in charge. I think their commanding control
Speaker 6: is severely degraded. And then if you just look at
Speaker 6: the response, the Iranians have attacked everybody from Azerbaijan to Qatar,
Speaker 6: and so they've turned fence sitters who are their neighbors
Speaker 6: into adversaries. And then they're two powerful patrons. Russia and
Speaker 6: China have not really done much of anything to help them.
Speaker 6: They are alone, leaderless, and the strategy, which I think
Speaker 6: you know, some of the more pessimistic people in the
Speaker 6: West would talk about is that they want to try
Speaker 6: to extend it out and continue to sort of drain
Speaker 6: American resources. They may have hit some of our air
Speaker 6: defense and missile defense radars systems. That would be a problem.
Speaker 6: But right now, you know, according to what we're hearing
Speaker 6: from General Kin and Admiral Cooper, the United States has
Speaker 6: taken out most of their ability. I mean, the rate
Speaker 6: of fire from their missiles has decreased. We're probably going
Speaker 6: to see more of their drones, but it's going extremely well.
Speaker 1: They have adopted what I've been calling and you're old
Speaker 1: enough to remember this, maybe the Yosemite Sam strategy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I remember, I know, you know Yosemite Sam is he
Speaker 1: would fire off for a different direction. So they've done that.
Speaker 1: To what end do you think they did that?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 6: I think that there. I think it was kind of
Speaker 6: a panic move. I mean, I don't know. I mean,
Speaker 6: at this point, we have to it's it's just think
Speaker 6: about this. I was getting I was briefing some very
Speaker 6: senior Israeli military folks, and what they told me was
Speaker 6: they couldn't believe they would have the ability to target
Speaker 6: mobile missile launchers, the way that the US and Israel
Speaker 6: has in this war so effectively even a few years ago.
Speaker 6: I mean, think about how hard a problem that is
Speaker 6: in a country as large as Iran. Some of that
Speaker 6: is because Israel has the entire country rewired, but some
Speaker 6: of it is just because of our technology and our
Speaker 6: ability to do the kind of instant you know, big
Speaker 6: data sorting with AI and pinpoint these targets. But that
Speaker 6: was seen as a kind of you know, impossible problem
Speaker 6: with the amount of missiles that they had. And yet
Speaker 6: here we are, and unlike the Twelve Day War, I
Speaker 6: think we can safely say at this point that in
Speaker 6: Ron's sort of defense industrial comprop plex, its ability to
Speaker 6: eventually kind of renew its military at this point is finished.
Speaker 1: Now Trump gave them the three strikes option. Solimani was
Speaker 1: strike number roun. The Midnight Hammer was strike number two.
Speaker 1: Now he's gone to unconditional surrender. Dwayne made this for me,
Speaker 1: a picture of the famous US Grant picture with Donald
Speaker 1: Trump's face over post. When fort Donaldson, he said, unconditional stender.
Speaker 1: What does that even mean?
Speaker 6: Eli, I think it means that whoever's left in the
Speaker 6: leadership of Iran will you know, crawl on their knees
Speaker 6: one hundred yards still they you know. I mean, this
Speaker 6: is a this goes back to the history of warfare.
Speaker 6: This is basically, you guys were saying death to America
Speaker 6: for nearly fifty years. So now what I want is
Speaker 6: for you to, you know, acknowledge that you lost and
Speaker 6: you've been defeated.
Speaker 2: I think he's.
Speaker 6: Speaking a language that the Iranians absolutely understand.
Speaker 2: At this point.
Speaker 1: Do they get to keep their small arms and their
Speaker 1: mules like Grant allows the troops to do. I mean,
Speaker 1: they got to run a country. And we're not going
Speaker 1: to disband the army again, right the arteche We're not
Speaker 1: going to do that again. We did that once in
Speaker 1: Iraq and it was the wrong move.
Speaker 6: No, especially, I think that there's more likelihood that you
Speaker 6: would see the National Army, which was by the way,
Speaker 6: created by Rezapolovi's grandfather. That was something from the Shah
Speaker 6: that I think is an institution that can stand. I
Speaker 6: think that there was a chance you'll see probably I
Speaker 6: hope leadership defections from there. I would say the Revolutionary
Speaker 6: Guard Corp that was created by Jolakomani.
Speaker 2: I think that's got to go.
Speaker 6: And then you know what's interesting is that they've been
Speaker 6: very strategic this time. I think that Trump learned a
Speaker 6: lesson from early January when he told Iranians to go
Speaker 6: into the streets.
Speaker 1: They're saying, don't do it.
Speaker 2: There's a war going on.
Speaker 6: Bombs are dropping, and it's almost as if we're sort
Speaker 6: of saying we're going to give the order. The other
Speaker 6: thing to keep in mind is that we saw developments
Speaker 6: is that it appears that there's an understanding now with
Speaker 6: Irani encourage there are ten million of them and the
Speaker 6: US government that there will be air cover if they
Speaker 6: want to begin fighting the remnants of the regime in
Speaker 6: the second phase of this. I wouldn't be surprised if
Speaker 6: you saw that with other ethnic groups. I think it's
Speaker 6: very important for these groups to come out and make
Speaker 6: very clear that they are not interested in creating sort
Speaker 6: of separatist little statelets.
Speaker 1: I've talked to the yesterday. I said that would be
Speaker 1: a nightmare if the various ethnicity has all said they
Speaker 1: want the statement.
Speaker 6: No, I don't think it's going to happen, and I
Speaker 6: think that there's an opportunity here for some competent diplomacy
Speaker 6: to make sure that doesn't happen, and then you know,
Speaker 6: we'll have to see I have been critical of elements
Speaker 6: of res apology, but I do think that he does
Speaker 6: represent something, especially now that we're getting the unconditional surrender,
Speaker 6: that he could be this option for a transitional leader
Speaker 6: who has enough recognition and he needs to build support
Speaker 6: among more Randians inside the country, though he has some
Speaker 6: of it. And then I think he has said so
Speaker 6: many times over the years he's not interested in becoming
Speaker 6: another Shah, So he would be somebody who I think
Speaker 6: you could trust to transition round to democracy. But we're
Speaker 6: not there yet. We're still in the war. But it's
Speaker 6: telling that only six days into it, we're talking about
Speaker 6: these things right now because I think they're pressing questions.
Speaker 1: What's very telling to me is that the journal story
Speaker 1: today that UAE continues to allow the Iranian shadow banking
Speaker 1: to continue. I mean, who does that? Who allows someone
Speaker 1: who's firing it.
Speaker 6: I thought that story was like a signal that they
Speaker 6: might be ending that practice. I thought that was a
Speaker 6: sign that this was going to be coming to an
Speaker 6: end soon. I think certainly. I mean, listen, what's become
Speaker 6: clear and not just because of the Iranian response when
Speaker 6: we were getting the signals like in February and late January,
Speaker 6: the Gulf States are really interested in these negotiations.
Speaker 2: That was all a ruse.
Speaker 6: They wanted to publicly say that they weren't supporting the war,
Speaker 6: but they want the regime to go as badly as
Speaker 6: I think Israel does.
Speaker 1: Is it also a signal come get your money and
Speaker 1: you can have a condo here.
Speaker 6: Yes, I think, by the way, that's smart, as much
Speaker 6: as it in some ways is unfair. Lots of bad
Speaker 6: people in a Valario. Yeah, it's Macabellian, right, But if
Speaker 6: you say, all right, you know, and it's what it's
Speaker 6: what Kareem Sogoborg says, and I think he's right. Eighty
Speaker 6: percent or corrupt twenty percent drew believers. So if you
Speaker 6: can get the eighty percent of the corrupt to just
Speaker 6: you know, not show up to work and take the deal,
Speaker 6: then I think we have an opportunity to do something
Speaker 6: truly historic. And what I don't quite understand at this
Speaker 6: point is there is such It almost feels like Trump's
Speaker 6: political opposition has determined that this is going to be
Speaker 6: a catastrophe and a fiasco without giving it a chance,
Speaker 6: and I think they're gonna it's gonna lose a lot
Speaker 6: of credibility if it goes the way I certainly hope it.
Speaker 1: That they're not fighting the last war. They're fighting the
Speaker 1: last Fama and voyants out of the spit.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Eli Lake from the pre Press. Follow him on etchit
Speaker 1: Eli Lake, readam. He's publishing a lot in the Free Press.
Speaker 1: We got to be a subscriber. Thank you, Eli, Morning
Speaker 1: Glory and even Gray. So I'm gonna go Welcome to
Speaker 1: the big weekend review show, and I'll always begin with
Speaker 1: John Ellis when we are lucky. He is the founder
Speaker 1: editor in chief of News Items, your daily compendium of
Speaker 1: real news, and it's becoming increasingly difficult to separate the
Speaker 1: fake and the false and the disinformation online. John, Just
Speaker 1: aside from the six items you've sent me, have you
Speaker 1: noticed that it's almost impossible to go through the posts
Speaker 1: and figure out what's real and what's not real. During
Speaker 1: a war, it's difficult. You know.
Speaker 7: The fog of war is a true thing, and it's
Speaker 7: probably foggier than it's ever been.
Speaker 1: I think there are lots of people who are eager
Speaker 1: to pedal narratives, and we're just very afraid of that. However,
Speaker 1: I want a reverse order of what you sent me
Speaker 1: and begin with Robin Wright, because she's the opposite of
Speaker 1: fake news. She's been doing this as long as I've
Speaker 1: been doing this, and she is writing in The New
Speaker 1: Yorker this week about the Iranian home front. How would
Speaker 1: you summarize her report from Tehran and region's nearby, Well.
Speaker 7: Just the failure of the regime to adequately you know, service,
Speaker 7: it's its population. The stunning statistic is that when she
Speaker 7: first started reporting on Iran, the real was seventy to
Speaker 7: one hundred on the dollar, so seventy if you had
Speaker 7: one hundred dollars, you'd get seventy real. And now it's
Speaker 7: one point seven re all to you know, to one,
Speaker 7: So you know, the collapse of the currency, the difficulty,
Speaker 7: you know, the electricity is intermittent, well water is intermittent.
Speaker 7: It's just one disaster after another. Uh, and one imagines
Speaker 7: that the people of Tehran and the people have irun
Speaker 7: more generally, can hardly wait to get rid of theocracy
Speaker 7: and the security state underneath it.
Speaker 1: John, I understood there we are to be one point
Speaker 1: seven million to one dollar to one. Okay, that's righteo
Speaker 1: point one point seven million. That's remarkable. That meant now,
Speaker 1: wonder the bizaries went out on strike in December. Their
Speaker 1: life savings are gone.
Speaker 7: Yeah, it's wallpaper. I mean, it's it's not a currency,
Speaker 7: it's wallpaper. So obviously there's a huge underground cash market.
Speaker 7: But you know, how do you how do you come
Speaker 7: to the cash market with one point seven real and
Speaker 7: get a dollar back? It's you know, it's a disaster,
Speaker 7: and you know, it's it's emblematic of everything else that's
Speaker 7: wrong with the society and the economy underneath the society.
Speaker 1: Now, we can't really point in California to power outages
Speaker 1: because that's not an infrequent occurrence here on the West coast,
Speaker 1: but we don't have yet water supply pottable water shortages,
Speaker 1: And that was in your notes to me. Their water
Speaker 1: systems are completely broken and if anyone blows up their dams,
Speaker 1: we're not going to do that America and are not
Speaker 1: going to blow up their dam. But if we did,
Speaker 1: they're done. They don't have any water.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean, the thing that people sort of don't
Speaker 7: realize about the Middle East is that it's obviously rich
Speaker 7: in hydrocarbons, but it's desperately short of water, and so
Speaker 7: Riod the UAE Kuwait depend on desalinization plants for drinking water.
Speaker 7: So if, for instance, the Iranians decided to do a
Speaker 7: drone swarm and hit the desalination plant near Riod, then
Speaker 7: Riod would have to be you know, everyone would have
Speaker 7: to leave Riod because there would be no water. Same
Speaker 7: is true in Tehran. If you blow up the two
Speaker 7: major dam systems there would you know, there'll be a
Speaker 7: huge flood obviously, and then there would be no drinking
Speaker 7: water in Tehran. So you have it in this weird way.
Speaker 7: We don't think that the Iranians are going to blow
Speaker 7: up the desalinization plants, and we don't think the US
Speaker 7: and Israel are going to blow up the dams. But
Speaker 7: if one or the other does, then the war gets
Speaker 7: you know, it's just spirals out of control.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is not on your list of news items.
Speaker 1: Story and John's news items are available. Just Google news
Speaker 1: items and John Ellison sign up for it. Yesterday's Wall
Speaker 1: Street Journal story on the UAE being a financial hub.
Speaker 1: They've taken about two hundred and fifty attacks and they
Speaker 1: have not yet cut off the shadow Iranian banking system
Speaker 1: that is in Dubai. How long do they put up
Speaker 1: with that?
Speaker 7: John, Apparently forever. You know, we'll deal with anyone seems
Speaker 7: to be the to be the modus operendi. And at
Speaker 7: some point one would think that the US would say
Speaker 7: knock it off, But so far no.
Speaker 1: All right, that's the strangest thing I've learned. Let's move
Speaker 1: to your second story. It's the David Axelrod theory that
Speaker 1: you nominate for president whomever is the opposite in personality
Speaker 1: of whoever is the incumbent. Now you point out it'll
Speaker 1: probably be a son of Trump and not really a
Speaker 1: son of Trump, but JD vans for another MAGA anointed candidate,
Speaker 1: and the Democrats will have to look for the opposite
Speaker 1: of that. But if you look at their front runners,
Speaker 1: they're not really the opposite. Gavin isn't AOC, isn't Ram
Speaker 1: Emmanuel might be, Josh Shapiro might be, but their front
Speaker 1: runners aren't that way.
Speaker 2: John.
Speaker 7: Well, you know, if you look at the candidates, you'll say,
Speaker 7: Gavin Newsom is better than Pete Butter Judge, and Pete
Speaker 7: Butter Judge is better than Elizabeth Warren or whatever. If
Speaker 7: you look at what the Democratic primary electorate wants in
Speaker 7: twenty twenty, they wanted someone to who could beat Trump
Speaker 7: by sixty sixty three thirty seven percent, and so they
Speaker 7: passed on Bernie Sanders, they passed on Elizabeth barn and
Speaker 7: they chose Biden, whom they didn't particularly care about, because
Speaker 7: they thought he had the best chance to beat Trump.
Speaker 1: I think it's likely.
Speaker 7: That the same dynamic will take place or occur in
Speaker 7: twenty twenty seven, where after three and a half years
Speaker 7: of Trump, Democrats will say primary electorate will say, look,
Speaker 7: we don't need somebody who agrees with us on every issue.
Speaker 7: We just need somebody who can get these guys out.
Speaker 7: And so that opens up I think a real opportunity
Speaker 7: for somebody Electram Emmanuel. If you read the political press,
Speaker 7: you think it's all about Gavin and this set and
Speaker 7: the other thing. But really it's the candidate who has
Speaker 7: the best chance of defeating Trump or some of Trump
Speaker 7: that is going to be the nominee.
Speaker 1: In my view, and I agree with you, by the way,
Speaker 1: rama Manuel is formidable because he is the closest thing
Speaker 1: to Clinton. I mean, he was deputy Chief of staff
Speaker 1: or something like that in the Clinton White House and
Speaker 1: then chief of staff for Obama. He's very much in
Speaker 1: line with sort of center left Democrats and he's a
Speaker 1: formidable candidate. I've had him on the program. We'll see. Now,
Speaker 1: let's talk about the AfD and German elections on Sunday.
Speaker 1: Germany's divided, like the United States into states. We've got
Speaker 1: a couple of elections coming up in Germany this weekend.
Speaker 1: Tells about him. Well.
Speaker 7: There are five state elections this year, three in the
Speaker 7: eastern what used to be East Germany, where the AfD
Speaker 7: the base if you will, of the AfD, And for
Speaker 7: simplicity's sake, we'll call the AfD the populist, mega like party.
Speaker 7: It's often referred to the press as the hard right party,
Speaker 7: and that's not you know, that's not inaccurate. The key
Speaker 7: thing that we're looking at is whether the a FD
Speaker 7: can extend its reach, if you will, into West German states.
Speaker 7: And the one that's coming up on Sunday is Baden Wurtenberg,
Speaker 7: which is the home to Mercedes Benz and Porsche h
Speaker 7: And it is expected, based on the polling, that the
Speaker 7: AfD will double its support from the last time. That
Speaker 7: is that is an indication of the of the party's
Speaker 7: growing strength, and it is also I think the sort
Speaker 7: of last straw in preventing the a f D from
Speaker 7: participating in the federal government.
Speaker 1: If it wins, then would you in the state election,
Speaker 1: would you expect Merts to invite them into the general government.
Speaker 7: It's it's unclear, you know, because the Federals are off
Speaker 7: for ways right, But I think the opportunity, the ability
Speaker 7: of the German business political establishment to keep the af
Speaker 7: D out of government diminishes with each election that the
Speaker 7: AfD does well in. They're likely to finish third, maybe
Speaker 7: even second in this election, but they will have doubled
Speaker 7: their support. It seems all but certain they will have
Speaker 7: doubled their support. And you know you can't. You can't
Speaker 7: keep people out of government if they keep doing very well.
Speaker 1: In election now, if they mean a majority less than
Speaker 1: a minute, John, I don't get optimistic about Cuba because
Speaker 1: I've been optimistic about Quba before. Are you an optimist
Speaker 1: about Cuba now?
Speaker 7: I don't think Cuba has any choice but to make
Speaker 7: some sort of deal with the United States. Otherwise I think,
Speaker 7: you know, I mean, they can barely keep the power on.
Speaker 7: It's it's it's a country in full collapse, and the
Speaker 7: only way out is to cut a deal with the
Speaker 7: United States, invite investment, etc. So I think I'm yeah,
Speaker 7: I'm pretty optimistic.
Speaker 1: That would be remarkable. John Ellis of news Items Always
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