Speaker 1: We spend most Monday show talking about the exploding Somali
Speaker 1: fraud Scandali story that continues to utterly baffle him in
Speaker 1: bamboozle and swindle and defraud and all the works, all
Speaker 1: the additives. I think our fair game when it comes
Speaker 1: to this terrible story out of Minnesota, the repercussions of
Speaker 1: which we are only beginning to learn the extent of it.
Speaker 1: As Cash Hotel said over the weekend, this is very
Speaker 1: much only the tip of the iceberg we have seen
Speaker 1: when it comes to the independent YouTuber Nick Shirley on
Speaker 1: the ground and from various other sources at this point.
Speaker 1: But the world keeps on spinning, and there's plenty of
Speaker 1: other events going on as well. And we're going to
Speaker 1: bring on shortly to the show, rebeccaheim Res. Rebecca is
Speaker 1: a senior fellow at the Hudson Suit, one of my
Speaker 1: favorite thinkers when it comes to foreign affairs more generally,
Speaker 1: and we're gonna kind of just hop scotch across the
Speaker 1: globe because from my vantage points, Donald Trump is a
Speaker 1: peace making president. Donald Trump is a pro peace statement,
Speaker 1: someone who has presided over god knows how many peace deals, ceasefires,
Speaker 1: military off rams, in this first year of his second term,
Speaker 1: whether it's Congo and Rwanda in Sub Saharan Africa, whether
Speaker 1: it's Armenia and Azerbaijan, a conflict that I saw up
Speaker 1: close and personal when I was there two and a
Speaker 1: half years ago. If you had told me that there
Speaker 1: will be peace there in twenty twenty five, I literally
Speaker 1: would not have believed that. He has seen peace deals
Speaker 1: between two nuclear powers Indian Pakistan, Thailand and Cambodia, all
Speaker 1: sorts of Middle East peacemaking. He's been a phenomenal pro
Speaker 1: peace president. The big question and the question that we
Speaker 1: will get into in a few minutes here just with
Speaker 1: with Rebecca Himriz, is is this pro peace momentum going
Speaker 1: to continue into the year twenty twenty six? On Sunday,
Speaker 1: Vladimir Zelenski of Ukraine was at mar A Lago visiting
Speaker 1: with Donald Trump, and on Monday Benjaminincinniak Whu was their
Speaker 1: mini president Trump as well. Russia Ukraine continues to be
Speaker 1: the huge question that is still looming out there when
Speaker 1: it comes to the lack of a peace steal. If
Speaker 1: the were still raging this February, which unfortunately there is
Speaker 1: a very good chance it will be that will now
Speaker 1: mark four years since the carnage first started in the
Speaker 1: Dombas region of eastern Ukraine and in the Crimean Peninsula.
Speaker 1: It was in February twenty twenty two that Lamar Putin
Speaker 1: first sent the tanks over the border into Ukraine. And
Speaker 1: are we closer to a piece still now than we
Speaker 1: were three to four years ago? Maybe it's kind of
Speaker 1: hard to tell sometimes, frankly, because both sides are not
Speaker 1: quite budging on some of their terminal demands. Russia is
Speaker 1: clearly the more obstinate party. They are the aggressor. They're
Speaker 1: the ones who are refusing to compromise virtually on anything,
Speaker 1: as far as I can tell a Zelenski Foid's worth.
Speaker 1: It's also not quite ready to compromise when it comes
Speaker 1: to territorial concessions in eastern Ukraine. What a mess, certainly
Speaker 1: for me personally. As the calendar gets ready to flip
Speaker 1: from twenty twenty five into twenty twenty six, that is
Speaker 1: something that I will be paying very very close attention to.
Speaker 1: Is there anything, Is there anything that we can possibly
Speaker 1: do to try to cajole these parties to try to
Speaker 1: make mutual concessions again, Primarily from the Russian side. They
Speaker 1: are the more opnits of the two. Certainly at this time.
Speaker 1: We'll get into all that, certainly and more on the
Speaker 1: Russian crane conflict with Rebecca Heinrich speaking of Primus Nataniyahu
Speaker 1: and his visit to mar A Lago on Monday, both
Speaker 1: men fully smiling. They seem to be very much in
Speaker 1: lockstep on the same page. Trump's warm embrace of his
Speaker 1: longtime compatriot and ally Netsniaho's certainly doing a lot, I
Speaker 1: think to simmer the boiling tensions in this particular Bilatter relationship,
Speaker 1: which has really been dragged through the mud by bad
Speaker 1: faith actors, mostly on the left, but increasingly with some
Speaker 1: ferocity on the quote unquote right. And I use those
Speaker 1: scare quotes deliberately. But whatever's worth whatever the naysayers and
Speaker 1: the conspiracists may be saying, they're certainly not reaching sixteen
Speaker 1: hundred Pennsylvania Avenue. They're certainly not reaching Maro Lago. Because
Speaker 1: Donald Trump doesn't give a crap what the conspiracists say.
Speaker 1: He clearly believes strongly in this particular relationship. He clearly
Speaker 1: believes strongly in Benjamintiak, who, as an individual leader most recently,
Speaker 1: actually on this trip, the Israeli delegation announcing that they
Speaker 1: will be giving their Israel Prize, which is what they
Speaker 1: named their Great Annual National Prize. It's typically given to
Speaker 1: an Israeli citizen. This is actually the first time they're
Speaker 1: give it to Donald Trump. Apparently, this is the first
Speaker 1: time they'll be giving it to a non Israeli citizen
Speaker 1: in seven and a half eight decades essentially in the
Speaker 1: entire existence of the contemporary Jewish date. So that just
Speaker 1: shows you how he is viewed, does to say how
Speaker 1: Donald Trump is viewed in the state of Israel. And
Speaker 1: that's for good reason, because Donal Trump has been an
Speaker 1: amazing friend, an amazing friend to Israel where the rubber
Speaker 1: could potentially meet the road come twenty twenty six, and
Speaker 1: again we'll get Rebecca Himer's thoughts on this is when
Speaker 1: it comes to the reascendant threat of the Iranian regime.
Speaker 1: Recall that it was now six and a half months
Speaker 1: ago that the Israelis first took out a lot of
Speaker 1: the Iranian air defenses inside of the country of Iran,
Speaker 1: and then the United States came in for the kude
Speaker 1: Grath for the death blow with those B two bombers
Speaker 1: dropping those massive bombs at four Donatans and various other
Speaker 1: Iranian nuclear sites. The big question right now is what
Speaker 1: is the current state of the Iranian nuclear program. We
Speaker 1: know that there is some level of enriched geranium that
Speaker 1: is currently around there, and certainly we know that there
Speaker 1: is still a ballistic missile program that is in place
Speaker 1: there as well. So what is going to happen when
Speaker 1: it comes to the country of Iran in the year
Speaker 1: twenty twenty six.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: We will go ahead and ask Rebecca. China, another huge
Speaker 1: issue that we have to pay very close attention to
Speaker 1: was actually just on Monday that Hijianping sent his military
Speaker 1: to perform some of the largest live fire drills in
Speaker 1: the entire history of the Chinese military. This time it
Speaker 1: was directed at you guessed it, at the island of Taiwan,
Speaker 1: where they are really ramping up and ratcheting up the pressure. Clearly,
Speaker 1: Shijinping wants to reabsorb Taiwan into China, much as Varim
Speaker 1: Putin wants to reabsorb Ukraine and probably other places like
Speaker 1: Georgia and Belaries as well into broader Russia. Will he
Speaker 1: attempt something really crazy in the year twenty twenty six.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I think probably not. What I do
Speaker 1: know is that China remains the number one threat to
Speaker 1: the United States, to the American citizen, and to the
Speaker 1: American way of life throughout this presidency and frankly throughout
Speaker 1: this century as well. And finally, that takes us to
Speaker 1: one of these foremost allies, one of the stalwart allies
Speaker 1: of Russia and China in our own hemisphere, and that
Speaker 1: is Nicholas Maduro in Venezuela. This month's long pressure campaign
Speaker 1: against Nicholas Maduro and his failed tinpot socialist communist state
Speaker 1: seems to be reaching something of a boiling point and
Speaker 1: something of a fever pitch. How much longer can this
Speaker 1: pressure campaign go on? I don't really know the answer
Speaker 1: to that. What I do know is that it can't
Speaker 1: go on forever. At some point, there's gonna have to
Speaker 1: be something that's gonna have to give. Maybe Madua will abdicate,
Speaker 1: Maybe he may pull a Baucher alasade and flee to
Speaker 1: the welcoming warm bosom of Lamyir Putin in Moscow. Maybe
Speaker 1: he will stay in power. Maybe the US will actually
Speaker 1: engage in tactical airstrikes.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of open questions there at What
Speaker 1: I do know is that there are a lot of
Speaker 1: a lot of unresolved conflicts around the world. As we
Speaker 1: turn from twenty twenty five into twenty twenty six, Donald
Speaker 1: Trump's first year in office, the reputation is very much
Speaker 1: that of a peacemaker and is a very very welldess
Speaker 1: of reputation. Frankly, Donald Trump should have won the Nobel
Speaker 1: Peace Prize for his efforts. If the Noble Peace Prize
Speaker 1: was not catastrophically induced and afflicted with TDS Trump arrangement syndrome.
Speaker 1: That didn't happen. There will twenty twenty six bring more
Speaker 1: of the blessings of fruits? Or on the contrary, will
Speaker 1: there be multiple one or multiple of these geopolitical hotspots
Speaker 1: around the world that could explode into a large scale,
Speaker 1: large scale tinder box or two. I don't know the answer.
Speaker 1: What I do know is that we have to be
Speaker 1: prepared for the worst, hope for the best, but always always.
Speaker 2: Prepare for the worst.
Speaker 1: So, as we're saying there in our introductory monologue, there
Speaker 1: are no shortage of geopolitical hotspots right now, all around
Speaker 1: the globe, pretty much everywhere you look, whether it is
Speaker 1: South America our own hemispheric backyard, whether it's the Middle East,
Speaker 1: whether it's in Europe, whether it's China ever encroaching on
Speaker 1: Taiwan in the Indo Pacific, and many other hotspots in between.
Speaker 1: We wanted to bring on the consummates expert to go
Speaker 1: on and break it down for us, and that of
Speaker 1: course is Rebecca Heinritz. Becca Hinrich is a senior fellow
Speaker 1: at the Hudson Institute's one of our great thinkers when
Speaker 1: it comes to foreign affairs, and generally you can follow
Speaker 1: her on x at r L Heinrich. Rebecca Witching you
Speaker 1: a very merry belated and Christmas an early happy New Year.
Speaker 1: We really appreciate you joined the Josh Ammers Show.
Speaker 3: Thanks so much, Josh, and Happy Hanaka to you.
Speaker 2: Thank you so Recca. It's hard to know where to
Speaker 2: start to.
Speaker 1: Honestly, I thought that we would kind of just do
Speaker 1: a bit a of a foreign policy Poe Pride is
Speaker 1: kind of hopscotch your way around all of the all
Speaker 1: all of the geopolitical hotspots. I want to get to
Speaker 1: rush to the Ukraine. When I get to to Israel
Speaker 1: with Zelenski and Netsiahu with their recent visits to Trump
Speaker 1: and mar A Lago. I thought I would start, though,
Speaker 1: with with Venezuela, which a situation that is rapidly escalating.
Speaker 1: It's been escalating seemingly for months now, but it seems
Speaker 1: like it's reaching something of a fever pitch, with Trump
Speaker 1: recently acknowledging that the US did indeed strike this implementation area.
Speaker 1: He's calling it this dock where some of these drug
Speaker 1: voats were being loaded for possible shipment into the United
Speaker 1: States In North America, there is some sort of blockade
Speaker 1: around Venezuela right now. What is your read on the
Speaker 1: current situation? Frankly, Rebecca, I didn't have this one on
Speaker 1: my bingo card. If if you had ask me what
Speaker 1: was gonna happen or in our own hemisphere back on
Speaker 1: January twentieth, I wouldn't have thought that there'd be this
Speaker 1: month's long pressure campaign against Nicholas Maduro. He's a very
Speaker 1: bad actor, obviously, I just didn't necessarily see this level
Speaker 1: of intense administration pressure coming.
Speaker 2: What is your guests as to what happens.
Speaker 1: Here in let's call the next two to three months
Speaker 1: and in the foreseeable future and what should happen from
Speaker 1: your perspective.
Speaker 4: Great, So I don't think it was on anybody's BINGO card,
Speaker 4: so it wasn't just your bad Bingo card. So one
Speaker 4: thing I think is always notable as somebody who just
Speaker 4: like you do comments very regularly on events, is you know,
Speaker 4: Donald Trump actually has a very very high.
Speaker 3: Tolerance to keep people waiting.
Speaker 4: So he allows these pressure campaigns to just continue to
Speaker 4: build and we're all kind of waiting for the next
Speaker 4: thing or trying to understand it better, or something to break.
Speaker 4: But he's pretty impervious to this sort of just pressure
Speaker 4: to do something. So I think we might we might
Speaker 4: still be in this phase of just cranking up pressure
Speaker 4: for some time, even though it feels like we're reaching
Speaker 4: kind of a culminating point. I don't know if we're
Speaker 4: there yet. It seems to me that that what President
Speaker 4: Trump wants. He obviously he wants the drugs to stop flowing.
Speaker 4: And he keeps talking about the seaborne drugs or down eliminated,
Speaker 4: you know, ninety eight percent or whatever the percentages. But
Speaker 4: I think more than that, Maduro represents a regime that
Speaker 4: is a drug regime. Has a symbiotic relationship. There's really
Speaker 4: not a difference between the drug cartels and what they're
Speaker 4: doing and Venezuelan government with Maduro in power, not only
Speaker 4: that he has permitted these other adversaries into our own
Speaker 4: hemisphere by backing him, the Chinese, the Russians. You know,
Speaker 4: Trump tried to push out Maduro during his first administration,
Speaker 4: was unsuccessful in part because they backed off day of
Speaker 4: United We the United States backed off because the Russians
Speaker 4: sent in troops to back Maduro, and so we didn't
Speaker 4: want to have a conflict obviously with the Russians in Venezuela.
Speaker 3: We're not seeing that.
Speaker 4: This time because Russia is busy creating other problems in
Speaker 4: Eastern Europe. But I clearly I think that Trump administrations
Speaker 4: wants Maduro to go with the least cost to the
Speaker 4: American people, so preferably we do not want to have
Speaker 4: troops in Venezuela. But I do think that the president
Speaker 4: seems to have very willing to do conduct air strikes
Speaker 4: on the ground in Venezuela. That's going to make members
Speaker 4: of Congress very uncomfortable, clearly, if they're not consulted and
Speaker 4: have some kind of way in here, which I know
Speaker 4: that there are many Republicans talking to the Trump administration
Speaker 4: pushing for that before any other, you know, increased escalation
Speaker 4: in terms of the United States directly launching strikes into Venezuela.
Speaker 1: So a related question that follows directly off of that
Speaker 1: about this question of strikes, the proverbial or literal use
Speaker 1: of boots.
Speaker 2: On the ground.
Speaker 1: I mean, frankly, this term kind of gets bandoned about
Speaker 1: as a talking point more often than the reality. But
Speaker 1: this broad discussion also the recent intervention to strike some
Speaker 1: ISIS militants in the Sokota State of Nigeria to save
Speaker 1: the persecuted Belieguer Christians there. I think a lot of
Speaker 1: folks Rebecka are looking at the Maduro pressure campaign and
Speaker 1: this humanitarian intervention in Nigeria. And to be clear, it's
Speaker 1: a completely righteous intervention, for sure, But I think a
Speaker 1: lot of folks are looking at this and they're trying
Speaker 1: to say, how does this fit into the Trump doctrine.
Speaker 1: You know, it wasn't that long ago that I think
Speaker 1: a lot of us were thinking about the Trump foreign
Speaker 1: policy doctrine as being very sober and narrow minded, concrete
Speaker 1: national interests, the notion of regime change for a lot
Speaker 1: of people was tanta amount to kind of throw back
Speaker 1: to the Bush era. Now, distinction that I've made many
Speaker 1: times on this show is that it's very different. So
Speaker 1: you have us militarily imposed regime changed in the one
Speaker 1: tan versus just doing other sorts of tools to try
Speaker 1: to try to implement a change regime. On the other hand,
Speaker 1: but nonetheless, I kind of want to kick over to you,
Speaker 1: what is your attempt to kind of make sense from
Speaker 1: a Trump doctrine perspective of the Maduro situation in this
Speaker 1: more over the humanitarian situation in Nigeria as well.
Speaker 4: You know, I think what the way, and I think
Speaker 4: that Trump two is very different than Trump one and
Speaker 4: Trump one. I think had you had more Republicans in
Speaker 4: the administration, longtime Republicans, people like Mike Pompeo, a Urma Master,
Speaker 4: or you know, others who lean more sort of conservative
Speaker 4: conservative internationalist types were in power and try to put
Speaker 4: some coherency in a grand strategy on the way President
Speaker 4: Trump operates.
Speaker 3: This time, we have much less of that, and.
Speaker 4: So we have much more sort of raw Trumpian impulse
Speaker 4: and the way President Trump oper rates. And I think
Speaker 4: It can be best understood as President Trump wants to
Speaker 4: do what is in the best interests of the United States,
Speaker 4: that is doable, that is doable and doesn't drag the
Speaker 4: United States.
Speaker 3: Sounds so if you give me a problem.
Speaker 4: You know, if you come in to President Trump and
Speaker 4: you say, there's Christians being slaughtered in Nigeria by ISIS
Speaker 4: or a variant of ISIS, and the Nigerian government is
Speaker 4: going to let us wipe them out. We should do that, sir,
Speaker 4: He'll say, great, let's do it, and then and so
Speaker 4: and we'll do it. And the American people support it generally,
Speaker 4: and it's not a long, dragged out campaign, military campaign.
Speaker 4: It makes that area a bit safer for Christians, at
Speaker 4: least in the case of Venezuela. You know, it's like, look,
Speaker 4: we want to take out drugs that are just pouring
Speaker 4: into the American you know, into the United States. Fentanyl,
Speaker 4: of course, is the number one killer of Americans between
Speaker 4: the ages of I think it's eighteen and thirty five
Speaker 4: in the United States.
Speaker 3: Fentanyl's not coming out of Venezuela. That's coc other things.
Speaker 4: But there is this there is this sort of communist
Speaker 4: operation with the drug cartels in our own hemisphere that
Speaker 4: are sending in all kinds of drugs throughout the region.
Speaker 4: And so I do think that there is now beginning
Speaker 4: to be a bit of a theory here. Maybe it's
Speaker 4: Marco Rubio who's developing, and I'm not quite sure who
Speaker 4: the mind behind it does.
Speaker 3: I think it's Rubio, but that.
Speaker 4: If you can, maybe you can pressure these regimes to
Speaker 4: stop this, this this car the cartel regime kind of relationship,
Speaker 4: that you might be able to affect all of them,
Speaker 4: because now you've seen these other these other countries are
Speaker 4: starting to get nervous, and President Trump has said, look,
Speaker 4: Venezuela might.
Speaker 3: Not be the only country. We do this too.
Speaker 4: And and so I think again, it's sort of it's
Speaker 4: like whenever the Iran strikes whenever. When President Trump initiated
Speaker 4: Operation Midnight Hammer, that was something that was incredibly doable,
Speaker 4: but he still waited until it was as little risk
Speaker 4: as possible to the Americans who are going to conduct
Speaker 4: those strikes. He waited until Israel, of course did most
Speaker 4: of the work and taking out air defenses, et cetera
Speaker 4: in Iran. So I think that that's what he's doing.
Speaker 4: It's much less it's much less of a grand strategy
Speaker 4: starting with which would be my preference. China is the
Speaker 4: biggest threat to the American way of life, and so
Speaker 4: you have to start there and then kind of see
Speaker 4: all of the parts, you know, how Iran fits into that,
Speaker 4: how Russia fits into that, and develop a coherent strategy
Speaker 4: work from there.
Speaker 3: He's much more what.
Speaker 4: Can I do with the least amount of harm to
Speaker 4: the United States that's possibly doable, so I can achieve
Speaker 4: an outcome, and I think we're.
Speaker 3: Going to see some mixed results. Some of it's been.
Speaker 4: Exceptionally good, and then you know, but we'll see what
Speaker 4: the effect is at the end of the second term.
Speaker 1: Rebecca Heimrich, because a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute,
Speaker 1: follow her on x at url Heimris, you mentioned China.
Speaker 2: We're gonna get the China momentarily. I very much am.
Speaker 2: I think I was talking about that.
Speaker 1: You know a lot of folks say they're China first,
Speaker 1: and they kind of use that as a pejorative to say,
Speaker 1: I don't really care about about other issues. Now I'm
Speaker 1: China first, while still caring about other issues. I really
Speaker 1: do think that China's most important foreign policy issue. I
Speaker 1: also care about all the other issues as well. We'll
Speaker 1: get the China just momentarily, but before then I thought
Speaker 1: we would kind of just touch on a couple of
Speaker 1: these very recent visits and mar Lago. You had Vladimir
Speaker 1: Zelenski coming in on Sunday and then Natanyahu coming in
Speaker 1: just yesterday on Monday. Let's let's take the one at
Speaker 1: a time. Let's start with the Zelenski visit. Trump followed
Speaker 1: his Zelenski powwow with a phone call to Laimir Putin.
Speaker 1: And you know, you know, Trump says some shall we say,
Speaker 1: funny things I guess black of better word at some
Speaker 1: of these prescal conferences. I mean, he said, he said
Speaker 1: in front of Zelenski that Pudin wants Ukraine to be
Speaker 1: made great. It's not entirely obvious what he means by that,
Speaker 1: other than maybe Putin just wants to gobble up Ukraine.
Speaker 1: I guess that's really Putin's vision of making Ukraine great.
Speaker 1: This situation, to me, right, Rebecca, is so frustrating because
Speaker 1: I feel like the rough contours of what a peace
Speaker 1: deal looks like have been so screamingly obvious for the
Speaker 1: past two to three years, and the parties just just
Speaker 1: just for for xyz reasons just just can't get there.
Speaker 1: I think the administration frankly deserves a lot of credit
Speaker 1: for working as hard as they.
Speaker 2: Have trying to get this peace deal in place. CLA.
Speaker 1: It's not quite working though, So what has to happen
Speaker 1: what is not currently happening that you think has to
Speaker 1: happen primarily but perhaps not exclusively from an American perspective
Speaker 1: in terms of trying to get these two parties to
Speaker 1: actually reach a deal.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So on the first thing, in terms of the comments
Speaker 4: that President Trump says whenever he's in the middle of
Speaker 4: negotiating things, and I try to remind people, you know,
Speaker 4: go back and think about the first term too. He
Speaker 4: said flattering things about Kim Jung un whenever he was
Speaker 4: trying to respond to North Korea's you know, illicit missile
Speaker 4: testing and was preparing for a nuclear test, et cetera.
Speaker 3: And so we had this big push to have peace with.
Speaker 4: North Korea, and President Trump said all kinds of flattering
Speaker 4: things about Kim jungun. It's almost like President Trump is
Speaker 4: taking sort of how he operates in the business world,
Speaker 4: and he almost tries to will things into being.
Speaker 3: Reality when they're clearly not reality, and.
Speaker 4: So it is odd, it can be off putting, But
Speaker 4: once you realize that this is kind of how he
Speaker 4: does it and doesn't necessarily mean anything materially about the
Speaker 4: substance of the negotiations, then you know you can kind
Speaker 4: of be.
Speaker 3: Put at ease at least a little bit.
Speaker 4: No, clearly, Russia is still if vladivra Putin had his way,
Speaker 4: he wants to subjugate all of you, all of Ukraine.
Speaker 4: He believes that Ukraine belongs to this greater Russia, and
Speaker 4: so Putin is going to take whatever he can, whatever
Speaker 4: he can get away with.
Speaker 3: And I think that Zelensky I don't like.
Speaker 4: I mean, Zolensky has really he had a lot more
Speaker 4: willingness to push back on President Trump to he was
Speaker 4: was a little cock here in the beginning of this
Speaker 4: of this administration. I think President Trump has sort of
Speaker 4: put that to rest and now said, look, you're going
Speaker 4: to have to listen to the way the United States
Speaker 4: is going to negotiate this. So you know, Ukraine I
Speaker 4: think has come a long way in Dolensky's willingness to
Speaker 4: negotiate and to try to come up to a peaceful resolution,
Speaker 4: at least temporarily. It's Russia that remains completely unwilling to
Speaker 4: bend at all. And so Zelenski even said, I thought
Speaker 4: Brettbahar had a great interview for Fox with Zelensky where
Speaker 4: Zalynsky said, look, if we if we've voted right now,
Speaker 4: eighty five percent of Ukrainians like want this war to
Speaker 4: be over. We want peace, but eighty five percent also
Speaker 4: do not want to surrender territory that the Russians have
Speaker 4: not already taken through force. So if the Russians can't
Speaker 4: take this fortified area of dun Esque, they haven't been
Speaker 4: able to take it since twenty fourteen. If Ukraine surrenders that,
Speaker 4: and there's like there's men in there right now, I
Speaker 4: mean they're defending it. They've been defending it now for years.
Speaker 4: They don't want to give it up. There's people living
Speaker 4: around that area, they don't they see themselves as Ukrainian
Speaker 4: and they don't want to give it up. And so
Speaker 4: Zelenski says, look, I'd be willing to even put this
Speaker 4: to a vote. Now, you want to have.
Speaker 3: A referendum, let's do that, something that he's been unwilling
Speaker 3: to do. Until this point.
Speaker 4: But in order to do that, you have to have
Speaker 4: a ceasefire. It has to be peaceful for people to
Speaker 4: come out and vote. And now the Russians are like,
Speaker 4: we're not going to do that though, And the Russians
Speaker 4: were refused.
Speaker 3: To have a ceasefire before there is a peace deal,
Speaker 3: which makes no sense to me at all.
Speaker 4: So and then now, of course you have a little
Speaker 4: bit of it's being sorted out I think in the media,
Speaker 4: and we'll hear what our own intelligence community says. But
Speaker 4: the Russians are claiming that during these high stakes negotiations
Speaker 4: that the Ukrainians launched an attack, an attempted attack on
Speaker 4: Putin's own residents, which Ukrainians have disputed. They said, we
Speaker 4: have not done that, but Putin told President Trump that
Speaker 4: that's what the Ukrainians did as well. So there's a
Speaker 4: lot of just you know, wrong information I think coming
Speaker 4: out of Moscow trying to really muddy the waters.
Speaker 3: And make this very difficult.
Speaker 4: My last point, I would just say, Josh, I think
Speaker 4: the way this is going to end. I appreciate President
Speaker 4: Trump pushing for these talks, I really do, and I
Speaker 4: think it's going to get us in a better position.
Speaker 3: For what security guarantees.
Speaker 4: Look like for Ukraine, rebuilding Ukraine, you know, bolstering Eastern Europe,
Speaker 4: which I think is necessary to prevent Russia from testing
Speaker 4: the waters outside of Ukraine. All of that is very
Speaker 4: overdue and necessary, and Europeans have to step up and
Speaker 4: rearm and provide the bulk of that. So all of
Speaker 4: this is going to move us towards that, which is great.
Speaker 4: I do think we're going to have to increase pressure
Speaker 4: on the Russians. The Russians simply are just they are
Speaker 4: not feeling like they need to make any concessions. And
Speaker 4: I do think that means we're going to have to
Speaker 4: ramp up selling weapons to Ukraine or selling weapons to
Speaker 4: the Europeans that they can send them to Ukraine.
Speaker 3: And I think it.
Speaker 4: Means more crushing sanctions on Russia and getting back and
Speaker 4: President Trump, I think was in a better place on this,
Speaker 4: sort of clearly on the side of NATO and Ukraine
Speaker 4: and pressuring Russia a few months ago, and I think
Speaker 4: we need to get back to that if we are
Speaker 4: going to have anything like even like a ceasefire temporarily.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it does seem like Trump has shifted a little
Speaker 1: bit so around October, giver take has Tona shifted in
Speaker 1: a notably more pro Zolensky anti pun direction. And you know,
Speaker 1: now it's a little hard to tell, so it's entirely
Speaker 1: clear exactly what's going on. But Rebecca, real quick, before
Speaker 1: we move on to the Middle East, I kind of
Speaker 1: one your thumbs up thumbs down prediction here. Do you
Speaker 1: think we have a peace deal or a ceasefire in
Speaker 1: Rushi Ukraine in twenty twenty six.
Speaker 4: Or no, I don't, No, I don't, but I do
Speaker 4: my I think sort of best case, best best case
Speaker 4: scenario that is most likely is frozen along the lines
Speaker 4: of contact right now between Ukraine and Russia, with a
Speaker 4: bolstered Ukrain ability to defend itself, hold the line and
Speaker 4: then hopefully rebuilding its own society. And then you know,
Speaker 4: a stronger, stronger NATO, a stronger NATO so that the
Speaker 4: United States is not providing the bulk of the conventional defense.
Speaker 4: But that's Europe, and that, to me is going to
Speaker 4: be the best most realistic scenario.
Speaker 1: Fair enough, And I hope that you're wrong. I fear
Speaker 1: you probably are not wrong, whatever whatever it's worth. So
Speaker 1: let's move on to another troubled part of the world,
Speaker 1: a perennially perpetually troubled part of the world, as the
Speaker 1: case may be. I speak of course, of the Middle East.
Speaker 1: There's all sorts of brand new developments actually in the
Speaker 1: country of Yemen. When it comes to this somewhat bizarre
Speaker 1: orchane dispute between Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
Speaker 2: That's a little outside of.
Speaker 1: The confines of our conversations, very in the weed stuff,
Speaker 1: but it was just breaking this morning. I'm definitely starting
Speaker 1: to monitor it a little more closely. We'll see what
Speaker 1: happens there when it comes to the ongoing decade longth
Speaker 1: civil war in Yemen. But sticking right now with Nantia,
Speaker 1: who's visit to Israel. So he was there on Monday,
Speaker 1: just yesterday, Rebecca. This seemed to me to be a
Speaker 1: very warm meeting between these two men who clearly share
Speaker 1: a natural liking and sympathy for one another. Trump seems
Speaker 1: to genuinely like bibing Nantia Nyakhu as a human being
Speaker 1: based on all that I can tell there, and they
Speaker 1: seem to agree basically on what the Israelis came to present.
Speaker 1: So it seems that the Israelis brought their assessment of
Speaker 1: the current state of the Iranian ballistic missile program and
Speaker 1: the nuclear program. It's now been six and a half
Speaker 1: months since the B two bombers, since Operation Midnight Hammer.
Speaker 1: We know that contrary to that classic trumpy and braggadocio,
Speaker 1: we know that the nuclear program is not obliterated. Rather,
Speaker 1: it was definitely dealt a very heavy blow set back
Speaker 1: by Xyz years. We can kind of debate exactly what
Speaker 1: the assessment is there. What do you think is the
Speaker 1: administration's mentality right now, Rebecca, when it comes not just
Speaker 1: to the bilateral US Israel relationship, but also to all
Speaker 1: the various Islamic radical organizations and state sponsors in the
Speaker 1: Middle East. Because it's a little hard to tell, right
Speaker 1: because on the one hand, they're very sympathetic to this
Speaker 1: new Islamist sympathetic if not just our Iselmust regime in Damascus, Syria.
Speaker 1: They're definitely playing very nice with the rest of type
Speaker 1: Ertawan's Turkey, which is a huge supporter of Hamas and
Speaker 1: the Muslim Brotherhood there. On the other hand, they're definitely
Speaker 1: playing very very nice with Israel. They still seem to
Speaker 1: take the Iranian threat very seriously. So it's somewhat hard
Speaker 1: to figure out exactly where they stand when it comes
Speaker 1: to radical Islam than the Middle East in general. Kind
Speaker 1: of curious just for your general take on all the above.
Speaker 4: So I think that one I think you always be
Speaker 4: and this is a consistent now consistent from the first
Speaker 4: Trump administration the second Trump administration, was that key to
Speaker 4: any stability in the Middle East is going to be
Speaker 4: complete and total solidarity with Israel. So that's like, you know,
Speaker 4: starting that's President Trump clearly has that very clear in
Speaker 4: his own mind. And despite some maybe pressure even from
Speaker 4: the far right of the of the Trump base or
Speaker 4: those who voted for President Trump, they wanted more distance
Speaker 4: between the United States and Israel, and certainly Trump and
Speaker 4: beating at in Yahoo and maybe from those advisors even
Speaker 4: inside the administration. So there was some chatter about that
Speaker 4: coming out in the in the media, reporting of people
Speaker 4: trying to push President Trump to separate himself, and he
Speaker 4: won't do it.
Speaker 3: He won't.
Speaker 4: Not only will he not do it, but it's almost
Speaker 4: like he's like doubly over the top. And his compliments
Speaker 4: of beating it in Yahoo and his leadership of Israel.
Speaker 3: So that I think is obvious.
Speaker 4: That's very very clear that he understands that US interests
Speaker 4: are inextricably tied to the success of Israel and it
Speaker 4: being secure in the region. And he President Trump was
Speaker 4: very clear that if Iran does, you know, build its
Speaker 4: ballistic missile program, rebuild it, which it is. It's been
Speaker 4: getting help from China. China's providing some of these precursors
Speaker 4: needed for the solid rocket fuel to that Iran desperately needs.
Speaker 4: And so that has been ongoing for the last several months,
Speaker 4: and so there Israel is obviously going to keep a
Speaker 4: close eye on that. Remind people that one of the
Speaker 4: big reasons I was not supportive of the Iran deal
Speaker 4: during the Obama administration for many reasons, but one of
Speaker 4: them was it didn't include the missile program, and you
Speaker 4: need the missile program goes hand in glove with the
Speaker 4: nuclear program, So why would you let it build out
Speaker 4: its ballistic missile fleet and improve on its ICBM capability.
Speaker 3: The Iranians are back to launching satellites again.
Speaker 4: Satellite launches are directly that technology is directly applicable to
Speaker 4: an intercontinentiballistic missile, which means they could reach Americans.
Speaker 3: So you can't let them have that.
Speaker 4: And then, of course President Trump said, and if they
Speaker 4: were to sort of reconstitute and sort of work begin
Speaker 4: development again on their nuclear on the nuclear piece specifically,
Speaker 4: that it would immediately that it should be destroyed. And
Speaker 4: as you pointed out, Josh, you know, my nuclear deterrence
Speaker 4: and counterproliferation is kind of my specialty, what I really
Speaker 4: focus on. And for years what we have said is
Speaker 4: that even if you blow up you know, four doh,
Speaker 4: these natans, these these nuclear facilities, nobody was under the
Speaker 4: illusion that it would completely eliminate every single particle of
Speaker 4: its nuclear program and.
Speaker 3: That would be the end of it.
Speaker 4: It would significantly degrade it make it very very difficult
Speaker 4: to operate and to work in there, to get the
Speaker 4: scientists back in there, and it sets back the program.
Speaker 4: It buys us time, and then you have to keep
Speaker 4: pressure on the regime to make sure that they don't reconstitute.
Speaker 4: So everything is actually going according to from our side,
Speaker 4: what we can manage and what the Israelis can manage
Speaker 4: are according to plan. It's up to the Iran government
Speaker 4: if they're going to be so foolish as to try
Speaker 4: to get scientists back in there and rebuild it when
Speaker 4: the Israelis in the United States is watching so closely.
Speaker 4: And then to your point about Islamism around the region,
Speaker 4: I think that that the Trump administration is just looking
Speaker 4: at regimes that are just going to be generally cooperative
Speaker 4: with the United States and not proxies of the Iran regime.
Speaker 4: So Syria seems to fit into that category right now.
Speaker 4: I agree with you, We've got some major problems with
Speaker 4: the leadership in Syria right now, but at least it's
Speaker 4: not you know, it's not it's not a sad and
Speaker 4: so I think that that's kind of what we're doing
Speaker 4: with what we're.
Speaker 3: Dealing with, and same with with Turkey. What can we
Speaker 3: get out of them?
Speaker 4: What can we get out with the Emordies, you know,
Speaker 4: the Egyptians, et cetera.
Speaker 3: And then you point it out Yemen. You know, Mmen
Speaker 3: has been a proxy for Iran.
Speaker 4: Iran has tried to make Yemen a proxy, and so
Speaker 4: that's where the Huthis obviously have been operating out of
Speaker 4: And so it's been the Amorandis and the Saudis who
Speaker 4: have really been hammering to make sure that Yemen does
Speaker 4: not become a totally you know, proxy state of the
Speaker 4: Iran regime. So that's basically I think how the Trump
Speaker 4: administration sees it.
Speaker 2: Seems like sober analysis to me.
Speaker 1: Rebecca Himris again is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute,
Speaker 1: clearly a woman who knows what she is talking about.
Speaker 1: Follow her on x at r Alheimris Rebecca as we
Speaker 1: continue our tour eastward, I do want to touch on
Speaker 1: the aforementioned threats of the Chinese Communist Party. It actually
Speaker 1: was just on Monday that the PLA, the People's Liberation Army,
Speaker 1: the military of the Chinese Communist Party engage in some
Speaker 1: of the largest live fire military drills that they've ever
Speaker 1: done when it comes to Taiwan, up to and including
Speaker 1: full simulated blockades of all of Taiwan's ports. There're certainly
Speaker 1: ramping up the pressure. I feel like it's been going
Speaker 1: on for a long time. I mean part of me,
Speaker 1: Rebecca kind of looks at the and says, you know,
Speaker 1: if you guys are going to act on this, you
Speaker 1: really should have done it under the Bond administration, when
Speaker 1: he had a president who was just totally asleep at
Speaker 1: the wheel, who didn't even know what the difference between
Speaker 1: China and Russia and Iran. Was I mean, are you
Speaker 1: really gonna test Donald Trump right now? I mean maybe,
Speaker 1: I mean, but clearly it's it's deeply concerning. And what
Speaker 1: I what I said to my show recently was I
Speaker 1: encouraged the administration to not take the foot off the
Speaker 1: gas pedal of China. There was a potentially troubling recent
Speaker 1: phone call that Trump had with the brand new, precocious
Speaker 1: Prime Minister of Japan basically trying to kind of coax
Speaker 1: her into maybe lowering down the decibel of her rhetoric
Speaker 1: when it comes to China Taiwan. Japan had previously threatened
Speaker 1: military action if China had invaded Taiwan. There and my
Speaker 1: stance is, basically, this is not the right time to
Speaker 1: be telling our allies like Japan, Philippines, et cetera, to
Speaker 1: take their foot off the gas pedal. Frankly, I think
Speaker 1: it should be all hands on deck when it comes
Speaker 1: to China and Taiwan. I assume you view it similarly,
Speaker 1: But what would what would your advice to foreign policy
Speaker 1: makers at this time be when it comes to China
Speaker 1: More broadly, I guess Taiwana particular.
Speaker 4: No, I totally agree with you. I mean that now
Speaker 4: is the time to be backing our allies. I mean
Speaker 4: this is this is actually just a great reaganie, you know,
Speaker 4: page out of his playbook in the Cold War, which
Speaker 4: is you just you back the countries that are closer
Speaker 4: to the problem, closer to our shared adversary, and who
Speaker 4: are standing up to them. And that's what Japan is doing.
Speaker 4: We have an amazing new ally leader government in Japan,
Speaker 4: and she's wildly popular among especially young Japanese. I don't
Speaker 4: think that she's sort of one of these like picking
Speaker 4: for a fight, you know, looking for a fight. She's
Speaker 4: not that, she's not reckless, but she's tough. She's very
Speaker 4: very pro Japan, she's very very careful, and she has
Speaker 4: been I think very prudently and understandably pushing back on
Speaker 4: Chinese aggression against Japanese equities in the region.
Speaker 3: And so I agree with you.
Speaker 4: I think that now's the time for President Trump to
Speaker 4: be encouraging her and backing her and providing diplomatic cover
Speaker 4: for her public even and this kind of goes back.
Speaker 4: This is the corollary to the first point I said
Speaker 4: about the Trump doctrine, where President Trump wants to.
Speaker 3: He likes to get these wins in defense.
Speaker 4: Policy and geopolitically at a low cost to the Americans
Speaker 4: that are achievable. But of course a corollary to that
Speaker 4: is he seems to be pretty risk averse when it
Speaker 4: comes to contending with peer adversaries. And that's where it
Speaker 4: gets me a little bit uncomfortable because the president, you know,
Speaker 4: his advisors should be encouraging him though that if you
Speaker 4: if you look like you're in any way week or
Speaker 4: backing down to our peer adversaries or near peer adversaries
Speaker 4: China or Russia because of its nuclear program, if you
Speaker 4: kind of back away, they just take that. They just
Speaker 4: you give an inch, they take a mile. And so
Speaker 4: you know, now is the time, I agree with you
Speaker 4: to be bolstering our allies much closer to the threat,
Speaker 4: who are doing a lot and this this blockade, this
Speaker 4: new military you know, flexing their muscles, the Chinese flexing
Speaker 4: their muscles around Taiwan. They're doing that in response to
Speaker 4: the United States to prove the largest weapons sale of
Speaker 4: military equipment and weapons to Taiwan, which I think is great.
Speaker 4: We have a backlog. We haven't even delivered everything. They've
Speaker 4: already purchased, so we need to get at that. But
Speaker 4: that's what this is in response to. And so it's
Speaker 4: you know, now is not the time to.
Speaker 3: Be you know, hitting the brakes.
Speaker 4: You got it. You got to hit the gas so
Speaker 4: that the Chinese know that they should not move on
Speaker 4: Taiwan and they should not test the United States.
Speaker 1: So I do I do have one final substance question
Speaker 1: for you before lego, but before the final question, just
Speaker 1: very quick, you know, similar kind of thumbs of thumbs
Speaker 1: down fallow up to those remarks. Did you think that
Speaker 1: that China actually does make a legitimate move for Taiwan
Speaker 1: during this second Trump presidency?
Speaker 3: I don't. I don't.
Speaker 4: I don't as long as as long as we keep
Speaker 4: doing things like this weapon sale to Taiwan, I think
Speaker 4: we need a correct course and back the Japanese. I
Speaker 4: think we need to make sure that we're not removing
Speaker 4: US troops from South Korea or Japan, which Congress has
Speaker 4: already kind of put the marker down saying we're not
Speaker 4: going to approve that. I think that my assessment has
Speaker 4: always been Hijin Ping will move on Taiwan as soon
Speaker 4: as he believes that the United States will either not
Speaker 4: come to the defense of Taiwan or is just simply
Speaker 4: ill prepared that we might try and then back out
Speaker 4: of it because we're not going to win, and because
Speaker 4: he really, I mean that his political will to fight
Speaker 4: is going to be very, very high if he goes
Speaker 4: against Taiwan, and he's gonna want to win. And so
Speaker 4: I'm very worried about the possibility of the highest levels
Speaker 4: of violence with a country that is going gangbusters on
Speaker 4: their own nuclear weapons program right now. And so I
Speaker 4: think that as long as the United States demonstrates that
Speaker 4: Taiwan is still a core interest of the United States,
Speaker 4: it does not want Taiwan to be subjugated by the
Speaker 4: Chinese Economist Party, and that we remain committed to making
Speaker 4: sure that there's a free and open Indo Pacific, and
Speaker 4: that means that China cannot push the United States out.
Speaker 4: As long as we keep pushing that and then demonstrates
Speaker 4: to get through building our own defense industrial base and
Speaker 4: supporting our allies, I think we keep China deterred. And
Speaker 4: so I agree with you, though I thought man did
Speaker 4: the Biden administration when things were sort of falling apart.
Speaker 4: It's kind of wild to me that she's in pain,
Speaker 4: didn't make a go for it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I agree with you for what I was
Speaker 1: worth in this second Trump term. Now having said that,
Speaker 1: if Gavin Newsom er god forbid, Jasmine Crockett AOC is
Speaker 1: in the White House, god forbid come January twenty twenty nine,
Speaker 1: I think all that's are off at that point, But
Speaker 1: for the next few years, I definitely tend to agree
Speaker 1: with your analysis. Rebecca, You've been amazing, so real quick
Speaker 1: before I let you go, just one final question for you.
Speaker 1: This is really not really particularly to current events, but
Speaker 1: kind of just zooming out a little bit. You and
Speaker 1: I chat a lot, both publicly and offline about the
Speaker 1: states of the rights more generally and all these current
Speaker 1: wins that are blowing and cross blowing there, and I
Speaker 1: kind of want to just take your sense as to
Speaker 1: how you feel about the future. I'm gonna call conservative
Speaker 1: foreign policy because that's self explanatory. I mean that doesn't
Speaker 1: need to be kind of gained out, but kind of
Speaker 1: going with like the more part is in part of this,
Speaker 1: I thinking about the Republican Party and a post Trump
Speaker 1: Republican Party. What are your current thoughts is the various
Speaker 1: ways that that foreign policy could emerge after twenty twenty eight.
Speaker 3: Well, so, one of the.
Speaker 4: Things I tell people, I am a conservative, So I'm
Speaker 4: dispositionally conservative. I believe in certain things that make me
Speaker 4: a sort of a conservative internationalist. That doesn't mean that
Speaker 4: everything that I prescribe in foreign policy I would expect
Speaker 4: everybody who's also a conservative to agree with it. It takes
Speaker 4: enormous amount of you know, just it's just study and thought,
Speaker 4: and people are going to come away with different, different ideas.
Speaker 4: What I am most concerned about, though, is there does
Speaker 4: seem to be a part of the Republican Party they
Speaker 4: code right wing, I think sort of philosophically may this
Speaker 4: is for another longer podcast where we just talk about this.
Speaker 4: They're not even philosophically conservative, and yet they are part
Speaker 4: of the Republican coalition, or at least they say they
Speaker 4: voted for Trump, you know, multiple times, et cetera.
Speaker 3: But maybe they hadn't voted for Republicans before.
Speaker 4: But I do believe that they are They're not conservative,
Speaker 4: and they are they've manifest.
Speaker 3: As anti Semitic.
Speaker 4: They don't believe in the United States having a strong
Speaker 4: leadership role in the world. They you know, you see
Speaker 4: some members of Congress, like Marjorie Taylor Green now who's
Speaker 4: on the oules with President Trump, but she didn't used
Speaker 4: to be, and she gets frustrated when she sees President
Speaker 4: Trump even talking with world leaders, like she thinks that
Speaker 4: the president United States should just be sort of looking inward.
Speaker 3: It's like, you know, the United States.
Speaker 4: Regardless of what you think the United States should do
Speaker 4: to end the war in Ukraine, or to back Israel,
Speaker 4: or to you know, keep China at bay, all of
Speaker 4: us should want the United States to have the capacity,
Speaker 4: the strength, and the influence to move in the world
Speaker 4: on terms that benefit the American people.
Speaker 3: And we are a global superpower.
Speaker 4: We are the global superpower, and we want to use
Speaker 4: our power for good of the American people, the American
Speaker 4: way of life, and that requires the President of the
Speaker 4: United States to engage with foreign leaders. So I'm a
Speaker 4: little bit concerned with this sort of far right flank
Speaker 4: that's you know, like they pushed conspiracy theories, and I think,
Speaker 4: and I've written about this, I think that the conspiracy
Speaker 4: theories are really meant to confuse Americans about who we
Speaker 4: even are and what our role is in the world,
Speaker 4: what our relative power is to our adversaries. Who is
Speaker 4: our adversaries and who are our adversaries and so but
Speaker 4: my hope, my hope is that there will be Republican
Speaker 4: leadership that will come up and will sort of put
Speaker 4: put you know, put these people in their place, and
Speaker 4: essentially say there is no Republican coalition, there's no conservative
Speaker 4: coalition with people who reject the idea that America is good,
Speaker 4: it's good for the world, and that it's good for
Speaker 4: us to be strong and to be the strongest superpower
Speaker 4: and to back our allies and to you know, try
Speaker 4: to deter major power conflicts so that we can live
Speaker 4: at peace. That's my hope. But I think we really
Speaker 4: are in a time for choosing right now, and it's
Speaker 4: very dynamic, and so I always appreciate you, Josh, to
Speaker 4: stay in the fight and pushing back on this really
Speaker 4: dangerous wing, I think, and it's going to just take
Speaker 4: ideas fighting ideas, and may the better ideas prevail.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: And likewise, Rebecca, and you know, one final thing I'll
Speaker 1: say is that a lot of these folks, I mean,
Speaker 1: in addition to being conspiracists, racist and de semites, again,
Speaker 1: not all of them but definitely some of them. In
Speaker 1: addition to that, they have a rather curious view of
Speaker 1: history too, right, don't they? I mean a lot of them,
Speaker 1: like to quote George Washington's Farewell address, this notion of
Speaker 1: being aware of foreign entanglements, and to be clear that
Speaker 1: that's a probatally fine and suitable sentiments actually, But at
Speaker 1: the same time, there was the X Y Z affair,
Speaker 1: which is a total foreign affair kerfuffle in the later
Speaker 1: Washingt administration. They're also the Barbary Wars, so the first
Speaker 1: and second Barbary Wars in the Jefferson presidency when it
Speaker 1: comes to fighting these Muslim pirates there. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: just a very very bizarre view of history, frankly, and
Speaker 1: a rewriting history many ways as well. But in any event, Rebecca,
Speaker 1: I share your sentiments made the best ideas when and
Speaker 1: we're proud to I'm so only proud to count to
Speaker 1: you not only as a friend but of someone who
Speaker 1: is on the sober side of all these issues. One
Speaker 1: fall on time, folks. Rebeccahim Risu is a senior fellow
Speaker 1: at the Hudson Institute. You can follow her on x
Speaker 1: at rl HEIMERSUS Brekley been very generous for the time,
Speaker 1: wishing you a very happy new year. May twenty twenty
Speaker 1: six be a wonderful year for all of us and
Speaker 1: for these great United.
Speaker 3: States you too, Thanks so much, Josh
Speaker 1: And thank you for watching day's episode of The Josh
Speaker 1: Hemmers