WEBVTT - The Big Weekend Pod

0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:03.760
<v Speaker 1>Welcome to today's podcast sponsored by Hillsdale College, All Things

0:00:03.800 --> 0:00:06.440
<v Speaker 1>Hillsdale Hillsdale dot ed or I encourage you to take

0:00:06.480 --> 0:00:08.920
<v Speaker 1>advantage of the many free online courses there, and of

0:00:08.920 --> 0:00:11.280
<v Speaker 1>course I'll listen to the Hillsdale dialogues, all of them

0:00:11.280 --> 0:00:14.560
<v Speaker 1>at Hugh for Hillsdale dot com or just Google, Apple

0:00:14.920 --> 0:00:19.079
<v Speaker 1>iTunes and Hillsdale Morning Glory and eaton Grace America. Welcome

0:00:19.120 --> 0:00:22.080
<v Speaker 1>to the Big Weekend Pod. A lot to talk about

0:00:22.120 --> 0:00:24.760
<v Speaker 1>because there's a lot of news about the war that's

0:00:24.800 --> 0:00:27.640
<v Speaker 1>not a war. It's a ceasefire that may have an

0:00:27.720 --> 0:00:30.160
<v Speaker 1>end in sight. It certainly the guns have fallen silent

0:00:30.200 --> 0:00:33.440
<v Speaker 1>and the bombs of stop dropping in Lebanon. It appears

0:00:33.479 --> 0:00:35.479
<v Speaker 1>as though this trade of horn news is open boided

0:00:35.479 --> 0:00:38.640
<v Speaker 1>oil drop like a rock, but not to where it

0:00:38.760 --> 0:00:42.760
<v Speaker 1>was pre war. Looks like a big win for Donald Trump.

0:00:43.040 --> 0:00:46.280
<v Speaker 1>But everybody sees things differently depending on what they read

0:00:46.320 --> 0:00:49.880
<v Speaker 1>and who they listen to. If you stay tuned, you'll

0:00:49.880 --> 0:00:52.519
<v Speaker 1>hear from John Ellis of News Item, Eli Lake from

0:00:52.600 --> 0:00:55.600
<v Speaker 1>Breaking History. Matt Continetti is back, of course from the

0:00:55.640 --> 0:00:57.720
<v Speaker 1>Wall Street Journal, where he writes his column for The

0:00:57.760 --> 0:01:01.080
<v Speaker 1>Free Expressions Vertical, and from the American enterprise and student

0:01:01.120 --> 0:01:04.319
<v Speaker 1>of course, Ben Dominic, editor of the op ed section

0:01:04.440 --> 0:01:08.679
<v Speaker 1>over at the Daily Wire, Big Ben Show Podcast or Extraordinary.

0:01:08.920 --> 0:01:11.480
<v Speaker 1>We all have our takes on the big news that

0:01:11.600 --> 0:01:14.400
<v Speaker 1>came out Friday and whether or not we quite believe

0:01:14.440 --> 0:01:16.920
<v Speaker 1>it or what to make of it, but we'll bring

0:01:16.920 --> 0:01:19.600
<v Speaker 1>in all sorts. I think it's an enormous win. The

0:01:19.640 --> 0:01:21.840
<v Speaker 1>world is much better off than it was on February

0:01:21.840 --> 0:01:26.200
<v Speaker 1>twenty eighth, extraordinarily so. But that doesn't mean the challenge

0:01:26.240 --> 0:01:28.720
<v Speaker 1>presented by the Islamic Republican of Iran is over. In

0:01:28.760 --> 0:01:31.640
<v Speaker 1>the Iranian people are certainly not free. There's lots more

0:01:31.680 --> 0:01:35.480
<v Speaker 1>work to be done because there's still crazy What Secretary

0:01:35.480 --> 0:01:38.000
<v Speaker 1>would be have said, these people are lunatics, So we

0:01:38.000 --> 0:01:40.880
<v Speaker 1>can't lose sight of that these people are lunatics. And

0:01:40.920 --> 0:01:43.000
<v Speaker 1>I think you'll hear that a lot coming up on

0:01:43.440 --> 0:01:47.440
<v Speaker 1>the Big Weekend Pod. Thank you for listening, Worried even

0:01:47.520 --> 0:01:50.520
<v Speaker 1>Grace America. Good Friday to you. And since I promise

0:01:50.600 --> 0:01:52.960
<v Speaker 1>you clarity, I begin by saying we have no clarity

0:01:53.000 --> 0:01:55.240
<v Speaker 1>on what's going on inside the trade of horror moves,

0:01:55.280 --> 0:01:57.559
<v Speaker 1>but we do have a lot of posts from President Trump,

0:01:57.800 --> 0:01:59.320
<v Speaker 1>a lot of news to get through today. But I

0:01:59.360 --> 0:02:02.280
<v Speaker 1>begin as I do most fridays, with John Ellis, founder

0:02:02.320 --> 0:02:05.600
<v Speaker 1>and editor in chief of News Items. John, your ears

0:02:05.640 --> 0:02:07.520
<v Speaker 1>might have been burning today. I was with a high

0:02:07.600 --> 0:02:10.200
<v Speaker 1>tech exec. I said, you know, five years ago I

0:02:10.240 --> 0:02:14.480
<v Speaker 1>got twenty subscriptions. Now I get news items in two subscriptions.

0:02:14.600 --> 0:02:18.840
<v Speaker 1>And that's basically what's happening everywhere with everything. Do you

0:02:19.040 --> 0:02:22.239
<v Speaker 1>think that the retirement of read Hastings today or the

0:02:22.240 --> 0:02:25.400
<v Speaker 1>announcement of the Vitalian June, marks the end of one

0:02:25.600 --> 0:02:30.160
<v Speaker 1>tech era and sort of the opening of another. I

0:02:30.160 --> 0:02:30.560
<v Speaker 1>think so.

0:02:31.480 --> 0:02:34.080
<v Speaker 2>I first met Read in New York City, and I

0:02:34.120 --> 0:02:36.320
<v Speaker 2>think it was two thousand and one, and he was

0:02:36.480 --> 0:02:39.919
<v Speaker 2>just starting up Netflix and was doing a press tour.

0:02:40.000 --> 0:02:42.280
<v Speaker 2>I was a columnist for Fast Company at the time,

0:02:42.840 --> 0:02:44.839
<v Speaker 2>and I had dinner with them two years I wrote

0:02:44.840 --> 0:02:47.400
<v Speaker 2>a very flattering column about him, and I had dinner

0:02:47.400 --> 0:02:51.600
<v Speaker 2>with him two years later. And he had a problem,

0:02:51.639 --> 0:02:54.880
<v Speaker 2>which was people had the red envelopes and they would

0:02:54.919 --> 0:02:57.639
<v Speaker 2>send them back. If they lived in San Francisco, they'd

0:02:57.680 --> 0:03:00.280
<v Speaker 2>send them back and they'd get them by Friday day

0:03:00.440 --> 0:03:04.239
<v Speaker 2>before the next weekend. But if they lived in Amarillo, Texas,

0:03:04.400 --> 0:03:06.480
<v Speaker 2>they sent him back on Monday. They wouldn't get him

0:03:06.480 --> 0:03:09.400
<v Speaker 2>for like eight or nine days. So what to do.

0:03:09.520 --> 0:03:11.440
<v Speaker 2>He had a choice to make. Should he build out

0:03:11.520 --> 0:03:17.280
<v Speaker 2>more distribution channels or distribution sites or should he just

0:03:17.400 --> 0:03:20.160
<v Speaker 2>wait for the whole thing to go digital? And he

0:03:20.200 --> 0:03:22.160
<v Speaker 2>asked me what I thought, and I said, I really

0:03:22.160 --> 0:03:24.760
<v Speaker 2>don't know, and he said, well, I think I have

0:03:24.840 --> 0:03:27.239
<v Speaker 2>to go with my customers. And so they built out

0:03:27.400 --> 0:03:31.000
<v Speaker 2>distribution centers, knowing that it would all be done on

0:03:31.040 --> 0:03:34.480
<v Speaker 2>the internet, you know, in five or seven years, to

0:03:34.600 --> 0:03:38.400
<v Speaker 2>make their customers happy. And that kind of executive leadership

0:03:39.480 --> 0:03:42.400
<v Speaker 2>I don't think is prevalent today.

0:03:42.480 --> 0:03:46.160
<v Speaker 1>I guess I know that he is an enormous Democratic donor.

0:03:46.440 --> 0:03:48.480
<v Speaker 1>I was already kind of grateful for him for helping

0:03:48.720 --> 0:03:51.320
<v Speaker 1>start the nudge of Joe Biden off of the good

0:03:51.320 --> 0:03:56.200
<v Speaker 1>Ship White House back in twenty twenty three thank you

0:03:56.240 --> 0:03:58.000
<v Speaker 1>or twenty twenty four one of the first and nudge

0:03:58.000 --> 0:04:01.600
<v Speaker 1>President Biden off the ticket. But I really appreciated the

0:04:01.640 --> 0:04:04.600
<v Speaker 1>red envelopes when I had small children. That was like,

0:04:05.040 --> 0:04:07.680
<v Speaker 1>rather than go to Blockbuster to get the red envelope.

0:04:07.720 --> 0:04:09.800
<v Speaker 1>That he was a genius and I'm glad he went

0:04:09.840 --> 0:04:15.440
<v Speaker 1>with the customers. May he enjoy his retirement. Interesting, Netflix

0:04:15.480 --> 0:04:17.880
<v Speaker 1>is down ten percent today when the market is about

0:04:17.880 --> 0:04:20.840
<v Speaker 1>to close up three percent for the third straight week

0:04:20.880 --> 0:04:23.720
<v Speaker 1>because of the news that the President's been posting on that,

0:04:24.080 --> 0:04:27.800
<v Speaker 1>but hard not to note a real entrepreneur retiring at

0:04:27.800 --> 0:04:30.240
<v Speaker 1>sixty five. Good on him. He'll go make this shit

0:04:30.279 --> 0:04:34.320
<v Speaker 1>for Democrats. Let's talk about the dark side of the future, John,

0:04:34.400 --> 0:04:37.240
<v Speaker 1>because I read news items this morning, I sent you

0:04:37.240 --> 0:04:39.720
<v Speaker 1>a note saying we got to talk about Mythos. This

0:04:40.400 --> 0:04:42.280
<v Speaker 1>is creepy, scary. Tell people about it.

0:04:43.640 --> 0:04:48.200
<v Speaker 2>Well, it's the latest model of the AI model, brought

0:04:48.240 --> 0:04:51.120
<v Speaker 2>forth by Anthropic, which is one of the three or

0:04:51.120 --> 0:04:55.760
<v Speaker 2>four major AI companies, And basically what they found is

0:04:55.800 --> 0:05:00.479
<v Speaker 2>that this new model called Mythos or Mythos is able

0:05:00.520 --> 0:05:08.359
<v Speaker 2>to autonomously break into self computer software systems in government

0:05:08.600 --> 0:05:12.720
<v Speaker 2>and infrastructure in businesses and financial institutions.

0:05:13.279 --> 0:05:15.640
<v Speaker 1>In theory, it could disrupt the.

0:05:15.520 --> 0:05:19.800
<v Speaker 2>Global financial system, the functioning of the US government, and

0:05:19.880 --> 0:05:24.200
<v Speaker 2>it was dangerous enough that Anthropic decided not to release

0:05:24.279 --> 0:05:26.279
<v Speaker 2>it to the public, which it had been planning to

0:05:26.320 --> 0:05:28.440
<v Speaker 2>do in which has spent a lot of money developing

0:05:28.440 --> 0:05:32.359
<v Speaker 2>the product, obviously, and instead engage the US government and

0:05:32.520 --> 0:05:37.240
<v Speaker 2>leading technology and Financial services company to say, look, we

0:05:37.320 --> 0:05:42.160
<v Speaker 2>have this, we have this unbelievably capable AI model that

0:05:42.760 --> 0:05:47.920
<v Speaker 2>could destroy your business essentially or destroy your governance, and

0:05:48.240 --> 0:05:50.760
<v Speaker 2>so we got to work together to make sure this

0:05:50.839 --> 0:05:55.320
<v Speaker 2>doesn't happen. It's a major, major development, and the reason

0:05:55.360 --> 0:05:57.599
<v Speaker 2>people are paying so much attention to it, I think,

0:05:57.640 --> 0:06:01.400
<v Speaker 2>aside from being able to you know, rob a bank,

0:06:02.839 --> 0:06:05.320
<v Speaker 2>is that it's a harbinger of what's to come in

0:06:05.360 --> 0:06:07.440
<v Speaker 2>the world of AI, which is that it's, you know,

0:06:07.480 --> 0:06:10.520
<v Speaker 2>the horse has left the barn and we don't know,

0:06:10.960 --> 0:06:13.039
<v Speaker 2>you know, we don't know where it's going, and we're

0:06:13.040 --> 0:06:15.240
<v Speaker 2>not sure that where it's going is where we want

0:06:15.279 --> 0:06:15.440
<v Speaker 2>to be.

0:06:16.200 --> 0:06:18.120
<v Speaker 1>Now. You also point out to me there is a

0:06:18.240 --> 0:06:22.719
<v Speaker 1>split in people who watch AI on the US side,

0:06:23.320 --> 0:06:27.440
<v Speaker 1>the David Sachs led White House Yah Yago Go AI

0:06:27.560 --> 0:06:31.400
<v Speaker 1>team and then the critics of Brave New World. It's

0:06:31.440 --> 0:06:35.000
<v Speaker 1>going to destroy us all and eat humanity. I'm actually

0:06:35.040 --> 0:06:37.279
<v Speaker 1>with Sacks on this. I don't think we can allow

0:06:38.600 --> 0:06:41.359
<v Speaker 1>the People's Republic of China to get a lead here,

0:06:41.720 --> 0:06:44.000
<v Speaker 1>even though they're going to develop their own meathos or

0:06:44.240 --> 0:06:47.200
<v Speaker 1>those aren't they Yes, they will.

0:06:48.080 --> 0:06:51.000
<v Speaker 2>The you know, the argument that Sacks and others make

0:06:51.640 --> 0:06:54.000
<v Speaker 2>is the answer to everything is China. If we don't

0:06:54.000 --> 0:06:57.400
<v Speaker 2>stay ahead, China will get ahead. They'll be able to

0:06:57.480 --> 0:07:01.800
<v Speaker 2>crack into our financial system, governments, et cetera. So we

0:07:01.920 --> 0:07:04.720
<v Speaker 2>have to press forward. Sorry, but we have to. There's

0:07:04.720 --> 0:07:08.839
<v Speaker 2>no other choice. The opposite side of that is it's

0:07:08.880 --> 0:07:13.800
<v Speaker 2>a major league losing political issue. People in you know,

0:07:13.920 --> 0:07:18.760
<v Speaker 2>the electorate by really large numbers doesn't trust AI, doesn't

0:07:18.800 --> 0:07:22.280
<v Speaker 2>trust the companies that are that are producing AI, and

0:07:22.320 --> 0:07:25.040
<v Speaker 2>it doesn't trust the leadership of those companies. So it's

0:07:25.080 --> 0:07:29.480
<v Speaker 2>a It's a tight spot for the administration because they

0:07:29.520 --> 0:07:32.600
<v Speaker 2>want to do what David Sachs thinks they should do,

0:07:32.680 --> 0:07:35.559
<v Speaker 2>but they fully understand it could cost them a lot

0:07:35.720 --> 0:07:37.600
<v Speaker 2>politically in November and beyond.

0:07:38.080 --> 0:07:40.679
<v Speaker 1>You know, I have been taking meetings with tech execs

0:07:40.680 --> 0:07:43.640
<v Speaker 1>because they like to talk to broadcasters for a decade

0:07:43.840 --> 0:07:46.960
<v Speaker 1>and people from Mark Zuckerberg and Peter Thiel to the

0:07:47.040 --> 0:07:50.280
<v Speaker 1>new high tech people in DC and their their opposite.

0:07:50.400 --> 0:07:52.560
<v Speaker 1>I'm always humbled by it because you know, it's so

0:07:52.800 --> 0:07:55.440
<v Speaker 1>far removed from what you and I grew up on,

0:07:55.600 --> 0:07:59.760
<v Speaker 1>but it's it's inevitability is something to which I'm resigned.

0:07:59.760 --> 0:08:00.160
<v Speaker 1>Are you you.

0:08:02.200 --> 0:08:06.160
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I'm actually of the view that we have to

0:08:06.200 --> 0:08:09.360
<v Speaker 2>strike a grand bargain with China. They're going to get there,

0:08:09.480 --> 0:08:11.360
<v Speaker 2>We're going to get there. It doesn't really matter who

0:08:11.360 --> 0:08:15.360
<v Speaker 2>gets there first. And I think the only way to

0:08:15.400 --> 0:08:18.760
<v Speaker 2>put guardrails around this is to have the two superpowers

0:08:19.400 --> 0:08:22.400
<v Speaker 2>enter into a pact that says this is what allowable,

0:08:22.480 --> 0:08:25.200
<v Speaker 2>this is what's not allowable, and if you go with

0:08:25.360 --> 0:08:29.040
<v Speaker 2>not allowable, you will incur the full wrath of China

0:08:29.080 --> 0:08:30.120
<v Speaker 2>and the United States.

0:08:30.960 --> 0:08:33.640
<v Speaker 1>Now that had not occurred to me. Maybe they'll talk

0:08:33.640 --> 0:08:38.360
<v Speaker 1>about that in Beijing in May. John, Let's go to

0:08:37.400 --> 0:08:43.080
<v Speaker 1>the fourteen prominent people US and global that got their

0:08:43.080 --> 0:08:47.280
<v Speaker 1>favorability ratings this week. Not surprisingly, Poblo the fourteenth is

0:08:47.360 --> 0:08:55.960
<v Speaker 1>the most popular person. Is this among Americans? This is Americans? Right, Americans? Yes? Yeah,

0:08:56.040 --> 0:08:59.959
<v Speaker 1>so Leo gets the best and what I'm not surprised

0:09:00.200 --> 0:09:04.320
<v Speaker 1>that Zelenski gets a plus eighteen. I am a little

0:09:04.360 --> 0:09:09.760
<v Speaker 1>bit surprised that Emmanuel McCrone and AOC are at fifty

0:09:09.800 --> 0:09:12.800
<v Speaker 1>to fifty. I didn't think anyone in politics could be

0:09:12.800 --> 0:09:15.200
<v Speaker 1>at fifty to fifty. I thought they all got tarnished.

0:09:15.200 --> 0:09:18.160
<v Speaker 1>Are you surprised by those numbers. Bernie's different. Bernie's like

0:09:18.360 --> 0:09:21.240
<v Speaker 1>your crazy uncle that everybody loves and he can't hurt anyone,

0:09:21.280 --> 0:09:23.920
<v Speaker 1>But AOC she can hurt people.

0:09:25.600 --> 0:09:28.720
<v Speaker 2>I think there's I think the poll was taken in

0:09:28.760 --> 0:09:33.079
<v Speaker 2>August of last year. Pope Leo had just been installed,

0:09:33.120 --> 0:09:36.840
<v Speaker 2>if you will, and you know, his numbers were through

0:09:36.880 --> 0:09:40.560
<v Speaker 2>the charts at the AOC was surprising to me. But

0:09:40.679 --> 0:09:44.520
<v Speaker 2>I think that there is in the context also of

0:09:45.679 --> 0:09:49.560
<v Speaker 2>AI overlords. I think there's a resurgence on the left

0:09:49.600 --> 0:09:52.839
<v Speaker 2>and AOC is sort of I don't think people are

0:09:52.960 --> 0:09:56.360
<v Speaker 2>so much favorable of her as they are favorable of

0:09:56.440 --> 0:10:00.320
<v Speaker 2>the idea of taking on the new overlords. It's a

0:10:00.400 --> 0:10:04.840
<v Speaker 2>huge political issue of merging and it popped up in

0:10:04.880 --> 0:10:08.880
<v Speaker 2>that poll. Bernie, you know, had a net positive of

0:10:08.960 --> 0:10:14.760
<v Speaker 2>plus eleven. He was the highest rated public figure in US.

0:10:15.880 --> 0:10:18.640
<v Speaker 1>My theory on that, after I read your brief, is

0:10:18.679 --> 0:10:21.720
<v Speaker 1>that he has been who he is for a long time.

0:10:22.040 --> 0:10:25.320
<v Speaker 1>He's authentic. He might be authentically wrong and he is

0:10:25.360 --> 0:10:27.960
<v Speaker 1>about matters economic, but he's who he is and he's

0:10:28.000 --> 0:10:30.680
<v Speaker 1>always been who he is. You think that figures into it,

0:10:30.800 --> 0:10:33.559
<v Speaker 1>Just be yourself. Oh, I think absolutely.

0:10:33.800 --> 0:10:37.400
<v Speaker 2>I think it's absolutely Bernie has, you know, staked his ground.

0:10:37.440 --> 0:10:41.040
<v Speaker 2>He hasn't moved. He doesn't change with the winds. He

0:10:41.160 --> 0:10:44.400
<v Speaker 2>fighting the same battles he fought ten years ago, and

0:10:44.440 --> 0:10:47.440
<v Speaker 2>he's completely transparent about it. He said, you're a socialist,

0:10:47.520 --> 0:10:50.480
<v Speaker 2>and he says, yes, I am. So that's a whole

0:10:50.520 --> 0:10:51.720
<v Speaker 2>lot better than most.

0:10:52.120 --> 0:10:54.680
<v Speaker 1>So I want to conclude by asking you for your

0:10:54.760 --> 0:10:57.600
<v Speaker 1>We don't know what this deal is that the President

0:10:57.720 --> 0:11:02.160
<v Speaker 1>is apparently negotiated with whoever is running the Islamic Republic

0:11:02.280 --> 0:11:05.720
<v Speaker 1>negotiation team. Are you what's your spidey sentence on this.

0:11:05.840 --> 0:11:08.040
<v Speaker 1>I'm going to talk with Eli Lake. I'm sure his

0:11:08.200 --> 0:11:12.040
<v Speaker 1>will be negative. Matt Continenties will be balanced. Ben Dominic

0:11:12.080 --> 0:11:14.400
<v Speaker 1>shall be a little bit worse. What's John Ellen's thing.

0:11:16.600 --> 0:11:22.120
<v Speaker 2>I think that there will likely be a deal announced

0:11:22.640 --> 0:11:26.200
<v Speaker 2>in the next two or three days. It's unclear to

0:11:26.240 --> 0:11:28.920
<v Speaker 2>me whether you know the Iranians will honor the deal,

0:11:30.160 --> 0:11:33.000
<v Speaker 2>but I think that both sides have had enough. I

0:11:33.000 --> 0:11:35.520
<v Speaker 2>think President Trump doesn't want the war to end. I

0:11:35.520 --> 0:11:38.960
<v Speaker 2>think the Iranians want to stop getting bombed, and so

0:11:39.360 --> 0:11:43.400
<v Speaker 2>clever diplomacy should make it possible for them to come

0:11:43.400 --> 0:11:45.880
<v Speaker 2>out in a press conference and say we've arrived at

0:11:45.920 --> 0:11:49.680
<v Speaker 2>a deal. And whether that means, you know, long term

0:11:49.720 --> 0:11:52.400
<v Speaker 2>peace or whatever, we don't know. But I think they

0:11:52.440 --> 0:11:53.840
<v Speaker 2>will be able to say at the end of the

0:11:53.840 --> 0:11:56.560
<v Speaker 2>weekend that a quote deal end quote has been reached.

0:11:57.360 --> 0:11:59.920
<v Speaker 1>It will be so interesting to get to the fine

0:12:00.040 --> 0:12:01.920
<v Speaker 1>print of that, and we'll be talking about it next week.

0:12:01.960 --> 0:12:03.640
<v Speaker 1>In the meantime, I'll be reading about it in news

0:12:03.679 --> 0:12:06.640
<v Speaker 1>Items every morning. If you're not a subscriber, I recommend

0:12:06.640 --> 0:12:08.480
<v Speaker 1>it to you. John Ellis always good to talk. You

0:12:08.480 --> 0:12:11.840
<v Speaker 1>follow John on at chat Ellis Items. You can go

0:12:11.880 --> 0:12:14.280
<v Speaker 1>to newsdash Items dot com if you want to find

0:12:14.280 --> 0:12:16.080
<v Speaker 1>out what I'm talking about there, And I'm coming right

0:12:16.120 --> 0:12:18.760
<v Speaker 1>back with Eli Lake for a take on the deal.

0:12:19.040 --> 0:12:25.160
<v Speaker 1>Don't go anywhere. Welcome back in America. I'm Jude Hewitt.

0:12:25.760 --> 0:12:27.680
<v Speaker 1>I know there's been a lot of announcements today from

0:12:27.720 --> 0:12:31.600
<v Speaker 1>the President and from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps spokespeople,

0:12:31.720 --> 0:12:33.880
<v Speaker 1>and I don't know what to make of it. So

0:12:33.960 --> 0:12:36.840
<v Speaker 1>luckily Eli Lake is here to tell us whether we

0:12:37.040 --> 0:12:39.440
<v Speaker 1>like or don't like the deal that may not be

0:12:39.480 --> 0:12:41.439
<v Speaker 1>a deal. What do you think, Eli, You're the first

0:12:41.440 --> 0:12:42.400
<v Speaker 1>hot take I get.

0:12:44.480 --> 0:12:49.240
<v Speaker 3>I'm still waiting for details, but I would say overall,

0:12:50.120 --> 0:12:55.080
<v Speaker 3>I'm pretty satisfied with this. The strait is opened, at

0:12:55.160 --> 0:12:58.440
<v Speaker 3>least that's what the Iranian FIGN minister has said. Trump

0:12:58.480 --> 0:13:02.840
<v Speaker 3>says he's got a deal for the highly the the

0:13:02.880 --> 0:13:07.920
<v Speaker 3>sixty percent enriched uranium that we will go and get it.

0:13:10.200 --> 0:13:14.800
<v Speaker 3>I'm I don't like that the Iranians have interpreted the

0:13:14.880 --> 0:13:18.959
<v Speaker 3>ceasefire in Lebanon to be in a seceding to their demands.

0:13:19.800 --> 0:13:22.280
<v Speaker 3>But then again, Trump also said he wasn't going to

0:13:22.360 --> 0:13:27.520
<v Speaker 3>pay twenty billion or whatever for the uranium. So I

0:13:27.559 --> 0:13:30.439
<v Speaker 3>don't know what what what kind of sanctions really there is,

0:13:31.160 --> 0:13:33.480
<v Speaker 3>but you know, we have to take a step back.

0:13:34.120 --> 0:13:38.600
<v Speaker 3>The United States destroyed their you know what's the most

0:13:38.600 --> 0:13:41.400
<v Speaker 3>conservative vest may maybe about half of their missile launchers

0:13:41.200 --> 0:13:47.760
<v Speaker 3>and and and ballistic missile ballistic missile stocks. It destroyed

0:13:47.760 --> 0:13:52.240
<v Speaker 3>their defense industry that produces those missiles. Most of the

0:13:53.480 --> 0:13:57.479
<v Speaker 3>nuclear program is now demolished. According to Benjamin and Yahu

0:13:57.760 --> 0:14:00.240
<v Speaker 3>this week, what he said was that there are no

0:14:00.679 --> 0:14:06.400
<v Speaker 3>active enrichment facilities right now in the country. The Iranians

0:14:06.400 --> 0:14:09.800
<v Speaker 3>have lost their navy and their air force and their

0:14:10.040 --> 0:14:13.840
<v Speaker 3>one piece of leverage. I think Trump turned the tables

0:14:13.880 --> 0:14:16.280
<v Speaker 3>on in a kind of jiu jitsu move and blockaded

0:14:16.880 --> 0:14:20.880
<v Speaker 3>the blockade, forcing the Iranians to get serious. And I

0:14:20.880 --> 0:14:23.840
<v Speaker 3>think that's one of the main things that pressure them.

0:14:24.080 --> 0:14:26.960
<v Speaker 3>They are more diplomatically isolated than they were at the

0:14:26.960 --> 0:14:32.440
<v Speaker 3>beginning of the war, and you know their proxy network

0:14:32.520 --> 0:14:35.520
<v Speaker 3>at this point. Even if the war, even if the

0:14:35.520 --> 0:14:38.840
<v Speaker 3>ceasefire is an end to this particular round between Israel

0:14:38.840 --> 0:14:42.560
<v Speaker 3>and Hesba, loss suffered a lot of losses, particularly their

0:14:42.560 --> 0:14:45.880
<v Speaker 3>senior commanders in the last major bombing run that the

0:14:45.960 --> 0:14:49.720
<v Speaker 3>Israelis did. So I think overall, this looks like a win.

0:14:49.800 --> 0:14:51.920
<v Speaker 3>And by the way, you he did it with no

0:14:51.960 --> 0:14:53.560
<v Speaker 3>troops on no boots on the ground.

0:14:54.480 --> 0:14:59.000
<v Speaker 1>It it looked like an enormous win. But I'm cautious

0:14:59.240 --> 0:15:03.040
<v Speaker 1>because the and It is a salesperson and he will

0:15:04.400 --> 0:15:08.920
<v Speaker 1>over promise an underdeliver politically to people. And I don't

0:15:08.960 --> 0:15:11.440
<v Speaker 1>think he would dare do that with this, given his

0:15:11.520 --> 0:15:16.200
<v Speaker 1>record on the JCPOA. You think that might caution him.

0:15:16.600 --> 0:15:20.080
<v Speaker 3>Can I say something on the JCPOA thing, Yeah, it's

0:15:20.720 --> 0:15:23.960
<v Speaker 3>apples and oranges. I see this from all the former

0:15:24.000 --> 0:15:26.320
<v Speaker 3>Obama people like, oh, we could have had this, we

0:15:26.400 --> 0:15:26.960
<v Speaker 3>did have this.

0:15:27.560 --> 0:15:30.320
<v Speaker 1>I'm like, no, you didn't.

0:15:31.120 --> 0:15:37.120
<v Speaker 3>The program that the JCPUA legalized you is now no more,

0:15:37.440 --> 0:15:41.080
<v Speaker 3>is now in ruins. So we're talking about very different

0:15:41.080 --> 0:15:43.000
<v Speaker 3>things in some ways. I mean, of course, I don't

0:15:43.000 --> 0:15:46.880
<v Speaker 3>want to recognize Iran's so called right to enrichment, which

0:15:46.880 --> 0:15:50.560
<v Speaker 3>doesn't really exist in any way in the NPT the

0:15:50.680 --> 0:15:56.960
<v Speaker 3>Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty, but like leaving that aside, like you, great,

0:15:57.080 --> 0:15:59.240
<v Speaker 3>you have a right to enrich and you don't have

0:15:59.280 --> 0:16:01.240
<v Speaker 3>a faciity you don't. It's going to take an enormous

0:16:01.240 --> 0:16:03.720
<v Speaker 3>amount of rebuilding to do it. And as you pointed

0:16:03.720 --> 0:16:06.040
<v Speaker 3>out on earlier shows this week, which have been excellent,

0:16:06.720 --> 0:16:09.480
<v Speaker 3>you know, the Central Bank of Iran is saying it's

0:16:09.480 --> 0:16:13.120
<v Speaker 3>going to take twelve years to rebuild their economy. They're

0:16:13.160 --> 0:16:16.720
<v Speaker 3>expecting a kind of hyper inflation. Their real is still

0:16:16.760 --> 0:16:19.720
<v Speaker 3>worth nothing. They still they're having trouble paying their salaries

0:16:19.800 --> 0:16:23.520
<v Speaker 3>of their security forces, let alone the rest of their government.

0:16:23.520 --> 0:16:27.840
<v Speaker 3>I mean, there's so many hurdles ahead that to compare

0:16:27.880 --> 0:16:31.760
<v Speaker 3>it to the JCPUA is just it's two different galaxies.

0:16:32.200 --> 0:16:34.320
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I go back in fifteen months and I say

0:16:34.320 --> 0:16:37.000
<v Speaker 1>to people, are you glad that we have had the

0:16:37.040 --> 0:16:40.120
<v Speaker 1>last fifteen months, as the world say, for undeniably so,

0:16:40.840 --> 0:16:43.600
<v Speaker 1>and there's just a jig break though. I want to

0:16:43.600 --> 0:16:46.160
<v Speaker 1>play for your secretary Rubio. I played this for everyone

0:16:46.240 --> 0:16:48.920
<v Speaker 1>this week. There's Marco Rubio on the IRGC.

0:16:49.560 --> 0:16:52.960
<v Speaker 4>These people are lunatics, they are insane, They are religious

0:16:53.040 --> 0:16:55.520
<v Speaker 4>zelots who can never be allowed to possess a nuclear

0:16:55.520 --> 0:16:58.000
<v Speaker 4>weapon because they have an apocalyptic vision of the future,

0:16:58.120 --> 0:17:00.520
<v Speaker 4>and all their neighbors know that, by the way, which.

0:17:00.880 --> 0:17:03.960
<v Speaker 1>I play that again and again, because to me, it's

0:17:04.000 --> 0:17:08.400
<v Speaker 1>the most important takeaway that is not physical. It's it's knowledge,

0:17:08.440 --> 0:17:11.600
<v Speaker 1>it's it's communicating with the American people. You've got to

0:17:11.960 --> 0:17:15.560
<v Speaker 1>be realistic about who these people are. They're fanatics. Do

0:17:15.600 --> 0:17:17.440
<v Speaker 1>you think the country has that message now?

0:17:19.320 --> 0:17:21.639
<v Speaker 3>I hope they do. I think that it's starting to

0:17:21.680 --> 0:17:24.000
<v Speaker 3>get through. And there was a really simple way to

0:17:24.040 --> 0:17:26.719
<v Speaker 3>talk about this. You really to look at it like

0:17:26.920 --> 0:17:31.000
<v Speaker 3>Midnight Hammer and Epic Fury, and it's like one war

0:17:32.080 --> 0:17:35.320
<v Speaker 3>you know between you know, sort of two wars, but

0:17:35.359 --> 0:17:39.080
<v Speaker 3>it's really one war. And we you know, between the

0:17:39.119 --> 0:17:42.199
<v Speaker 3>two wars and what was done the press, you know,

0:17:42.680 --> 0:17:46.280
<v Speaker 3>the United States and Israel have managed to make sure

0:17:46.280 --> 0:17:50.040
<v Speaker 3>that Iran will not have a nuclear weapon for at

0:17:50.080 --> 0:17:52.439
<v Speaker 3>the very least several years, and they won't have the

0:17:52.480 --> 0:17:58.240
<v Speaker 3>ability to protect a weapons project from a huge, sort

0:17:58.240 --> 0:18:00.280
<v Speaker 3>of insurmountable style.

0:18:00.520 --> 0:18:01.680
<v Speaker 1>Of ballistic missiles.

0:18:02.000 --> 0:18:04.280
<v Speaker 3>The other thing that we have to worth watching here

0:18:04.359 --> 0:18:07.040
<v Speaker 3>is that, yes, the Chinese and the Russians helped a

0:18:07.040 --> 0:18:08.680
<v Speaker 3>little bit, but there was a lot more they could

0:18:08.720 --> 0:18:11.960
<v Speaker 3>have done. So where does Iron now stand with the

0:18:12.720 --> 0:18:14.240
<v Speaker 3>you know, axes of dirtbags.

0:18:14.720 --> 0:18:18.000
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, we have no idea. That's another They could be

0:18:18.040 --> 0:18:22.200
<v Speaker 1>so shatteredy live Hamaj shattered. Im Segal was writing about

0:18:22.200 --> 0:18:25.200
<v Speaker 1>this today. We don't know how badly shattered there Hezblah

0:18:25.280 --> 0:18:28.199
<v Speaker 1>has been shattered. So that's baby Bear, Mama Bear, and

0:18:28.200 --> 0:18:30.840
<v Speaker 1>now big Bearry Iran. It's just shattered. But we don't

0:18:30.920 --> 0:18:32.720
<v Speaker 1>know how shattered it is, and I don't know that

0:18:32.760 --> 0:18:36.080
<v Speaker 1>we'll ever know, will we.

0:18:36.080 --> 0:18:39.760
<v Speaker 3>Well one indicate one explanation as to why the Iranians

0:18:39.800 --> 0:18:41.840
<v Speaker 3>were willing to open the strait, which was their last

0:18:41.880 --> 0:18:44.120
<v Speaker 3>trump card, is because they had a couple of days

0:18:44.119 --> 0:18:47.199
<v Speaker 3>to kind of look around and assess the damages. The

0:18:47.240 --> 0:18:49.600
<v Speaker 3>other one is that the Chinese made it very clear

0:18:49.720 --> 0:18:54.919
<v Speaker 3>you are under no circumstances allowed to mind the straits,

0:18:54.920 --> 0:18:56.719
<v Speaker 3>that if you do, we will cut you off and

0:18:56.760 --> 0:19:00.920
<v Speaker 3>that's the end for them. So I think there is

0:19:00.960 --> 0:19:03.760
<v Speaker 3>a difference between mining the straits, which would shut the

0:19:03.760 --> 0:19:06.840
<v Speaker 3>straight up rooms down for months, you know, on end,

0:19:07.520 --> 0:19:12.480
<v Speaker 3>versus the harassment of drones and cruise missiles and fast boats.

0:19:12.680 --> 0:19:15.080
<v Speaker 3>I'm not saying that other, but the other threat.

0:19:14.920 --> 0:19:16.399
<v Speaker 1>Is not as serious the second one is.

0:19:16.800 --> 0:19:19.159
<v Speaker 3>So at this point, you know, I just think the

0:19:19.160 --> 0:19:22.119
<v Speaker 3>Iranians are in such a difficult position. My hope is

0:19:22.119 --> 0:19:25.480
<v Speaker 3>is that we really turn the screws and we get

0:19:25.480 --> 0:19:27.080
<v Speaker 3>as much as we can. I wrote a column earlier

0:19:27.119 --> 0:19:29.360
<v Speaker 3>this week saying that one of our one of our

0:19:29.400 --> 0:19:32.959
<v Speaker 3>asks and demands of the Iranians should be release your

0:19:33.000 --> 0:19:35.960
<v Speaker 3>political prisoners, turn on the internet and stop the executions.

0:19:36.000 --> 0:19:37.560
<v Speaker 1>That would be I think a great signal to the

0:19:37.560 --> 0:19:40.879
<v Speaker 1>Iranian people and let us in to pick Axe Mountain.

0:19:40.920 --> 0:19:43.199
<v Speaker 1>I know Mark Dubowitz, I don't know him, but I

0:19:43.240 --> 0:19:45.200
<v Speaker 1>know he's going to post at some point, what about

0:19:45.240 --> 0:19:48.040
<v Speaker 1>pick Axe Mountain? What do you think about pick Axe Mountain?

0:19:49.920 --> 0:19:53.600
<v Speaker 3>I think that, uh, my understanding is that it's it's

0:19:53.640 --> 0:19:57.719
<v Speaker 3>not online, and I think that it I don't know

0:19:57.760 --> 0:19:59.560
<v Speaker 3>why we didn't hit it in the run but my

0:20:00.040 --> 0:20:03.400
<v Speaker 3>assumption is is that because even our best bunker busters

0:20:04.640 --> 0:20:07.600
<v Speaker 3>couldn't get to it. So maybe that's but you know, again,

0:20:07.760 --> 0:20:10.479
<v Speaker 3>they've lost so much of their program at this point,

0:20:11.000 --> 0:20:12.919
<v Speaker 3>and I think that we will have eyes on that

0:20:13.040 --> 0:20:15.439
<v Speaker 3>area that it's gonna be very difficult to restart it.

0:20:16.640 --> 0:20:20.320
<v Speaker 3>But yes, Pickack Mounts, Pickaxe Mountain is a real problem,

0:20:20.720 --> 0:20:23.840
<v Speaker 3>and my hope is is that you know, we will

0:20:23.880 --> 0:20:25.879
<v Speaker 3>we will have some way to deal with it. But oh,

0:20:25.960 --> 0:20:27.760
<v Speaker 3>you know, I'm going to look for you know, whatever

0:20:27.880 --> 0:20:29.760
<v Speaker 3>happens is better than the JCP away.

0:20:30.080 --> 0:20:32.280
<v Speaker 1>Oh yeah, of course. But I'm going to look for

0:20:32.320 --> 0:20:35.320
<v Speaker 1>your detailed assessment in the Free Press as soon as possible.

0:20:35.440 --> 0:20:37.600
<v Speaker 1>I don't know if you work weekends or Breaking History

0:20:37.600 --> 0:20:40.000
<v Speaker 1>can be out. Oh I've been working the weekends. Oh good.

0:20:40.240 --> 0:20:42.960
<v Speaker 1>I am looking forward to your assessment in the Free

0:20:42.960 --> 0:20:46.200
<v Speaker 1>Press tomorrow. Because one of the people I read along

0:20:46.240 --> 0:20:48.680
<v Speaker 1>with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracy and Aaron

0:20:48.760 --> 0:20:51.680
<v Speaker 1>McClain is Eli Lake. Follow him on Exit, Eli Lake,

0:20:52.080 --> 0:20:54.240
<v Speaker 1>read him in the Free Press, Listen to his podcast

0:20:54.280 --> 0:20:57.159
<v Speaker 1>Breaking History, and come right back to today if you hear

0:20:57.240 --> 0:21:05.760
<v Speaker 1>a show. Welcome back America. I'm Hugh Hewett, Matt Continetti

0:21:05.960 --> 0:21:09.160
<v Speaker 1>is with the Wall Street Journal with the American Enterprise Institute,

0:21:09.200 --> 0:21:12.760
<v Speaker 1>and he's back on the commentary podcast at least weekly,

0:21:12.800 --> 0:21:14.840
<v Speaker 1>which I agree to. That made me very happy. Matt

0:21:14.880 --> 0:21:18.640
<v Speaker 1>dare you back talking at length with your fellow commentator

0:21:18.640 --> 0:21:22.080
<v Speaker 1>commentary people, And I hope you keep doing that. I mean,

0:21:22.359 --> 0:21:24.320
<v Speaker 1>I want to get to the serious stuff, but really,

0:21:24.800 --> 0:21:27.040
<v Speaker 1>no turning you around. On the arch that the President

0:21:27.160 --> 0:21:30.720
<v Speaker 1>is proposing for the Arlington side of the Memorial Bridge.

0:21:31.880 --> 0:21:35.439
<v Speaker 5>Well, Hugh, I don't oppose the arch in principle. I

0:21:35.640 --> 0:21:38.919
<v Speaker 5>just think that it should be scaled down just a

0:21:38.960 --> 0:21:44.080
<v Speaker 5>little bit. In my view, I'm not as grandiose maybe

0:21:44.119 --> 0:21:47.280
<v Speaker 5>as others. I think the proper size for the arch

0:21:47.320 --> 0:21:49.760
<v Speaker 5>would be smaller than the two hundred and fifty feet

0:21:50.160 --> 0:21:53.120
<v Speaker 5>proposed by the President, which would make this Memorial Arch

0:21:53.160 --> 0:21:55.880
<v Speaker 5>the largest, the largest in the world, and almost as

0:21:55.880 --> 0:21:58.120
<v Speaker 5>tall as a Capital Dome. I'm one of those guys.

0:21:58.280 --> 0:22:01.879
<v Speaker 5>The Capital is my favorite building in America, and I

0:22:01.920 --> 0:22:04.760
<v Speaker 5>don't think anything should approach the Capitol Dome and height

0:22:05.160 --> 0:22:06.240
<v Speaker 5>in Washington, d C.

0:22:07.119 --> 0:22:10.320
<v Speaker 1>Well, my only objection to the idea is and I

0:22:10.359 --> 0:22:12.840
<v Speaker 1>really have no objection because I'm too old to really

0:22:12.840 --> 0:22:14.400
<v Speaker 1>care about what the city looks like for the next

0:22:14.400 --> 0:22:17.600
<v Speaker 1>fifty years. Is that the traffic going on in Memorial

0:22:17.640 --> 0:22:20.680
<v Speaker 1>Bridge is already terrible. And if they build that dog

0:22:20.800 --> 0:22:23.440
<v Speaker 1>on thing, I want them to do it after I've retired.

0:22:23.800 --> 0:22:25.919
<v Speaker 1>Now let's get to the serious stuff. You wrote a

0:22:25.920 --> 0:22:29.040
<v Speaker 1>Wall Street Journal column nine hours ago on the Trump doctrine.

0:22:29.200 --> 0:22:30.720
<v Speaker 1>I was going to spend the whole time talking with

0:22:30.800 --> 0:22:34.359
<v Speaker 1>you about it. However, we now have a deal. Is

0:22:34.400 --> 0:22:38.040
<v Speaker 1>the deal that is emerging via the President's posts and

0:22:38.880 --> 0:22:44.439
<v Speaker 1>buzz and the Iranian replies and Israeli media, is that

0:22:44.520 --> 0:22:47.639
<v Speaker 1>part of the Trump doctrine? Is it a logical extension?

0:22:49.320 --> 0:22:51.840
<v Speaker 5>Well, I think we have to wait to see what

0:22:52.000 --> 0:22:55.639
<v Speaker 5>the deal actually is. To listen to what President Trump

0:22:55.680 --> 0:22:58.560
<v Speaker 5>is posting, I think the signs are very good that

0:22:58.880 --> 0:23:03.920
<v Speaker 5>we would obtain the remaining enriched uranium that's buried underground

0:23:04.280 --> 0:23:08.320
<v Speaker 5>after Operation Midnight Hammer last year, and that the Strait

0:23:08.320 --> 0:23:12.359
<v Speaker 5>of Hormus would be open to all traffic. Those two

0:23:12.600 --> 0:23:17.640
<v Speaker 5>points would be real wins for the President, and I

0:23:17.680 --> 0:23:20.719
<v Speaker 5>expect that they will come to some agreement in the

0:23:20.760 --> 0:23:24.800
<v Speaker 5>coming days. I still look for other elements in a deal.

0:23:25.119 --> 0:23:29.240
<v Speaker 5>There need to be radical restrictions on the Iranian missile

0:23:29.320 --> 0:23:33.919
<v Speaker 5>program so that they're unable to replenish the stocks of

0:23:34.000 --> 0:23:38.840
<v Speaker 5>missiles that we destroyed during Operation Epic Fury. I'd also

0:23:38.880 --> 0:23:43.520
<v Speaker 5>want to see them have limitations on support for terrorist proxies.

0:23:44.520 --> 0:23:46.800
<v Speaker 5>And of course, as Eli Lake was saying in the

0:23:46.880 --> 0:23:50.359
<v Speaker 5>previous segment, there are things that we should be demanding

0:23:51.280 --> 0:23:55.600
<v Speaker 5>that would help the Iranian people, including reopening the Internet

0:23:56.480 --> 0:24:00.320
<v Speaker 5>in Iran, the information straight, if you will. So, I

0:24:00.359 --> 0:24:03.399
<v Speaker 5>think what we're experiencing right now is a tremendous amount

0:24:03.400 --> 0:24:07.919
<v Speaker 5>of leverage that this president has over these negotiations. I

0:24:07.920 --> 0:24:13.200
<v Speaker 5>think that the blockade was a essential tactic in order

0:24:13.240 --> 0:24:17.280
<v Speaker 5>to force the Iranians' hands, and I think the Iranian leadership,

0:24:17.359 --> 0:24:19.800
<v Speaker 5>what is left of it, has been beginning to discover

0:24:20.080 --> 0:24:24.480
<v Speaker 5>just how much damage Operation Epic Fury and Operation Roaring

0:24:24.560 --> 0:24:27.960
<v Speaker 5>Lion wrought on their country and how they are in

0:24:28.119 --> 0:24:31.960
<v Speaker 5>an economic tailspin that is likely to grow only worse

0:24:32.119 --> 0:24:33.280
<v Speaker 5>if they don't concede.

0:24:33.640 --> 0:24:36.640
<v Speaker 1>So, Matt, here's the problem in evaluating the deal. If

0:24:36.640 --> 0:24:40.240
<v Speaker 1>you're somewhat of my generation, We've never beaten the Iranians,

0:24:40.320 --> 0:24:43.200
<v Speaker 1>all right, So I got out of college in seventy eight.

0:24:43.480 --> 0:24:46.600
<v Speaker 1>They took our hostages in seventy nine, and they released

0:24:46.640 --> 0:24:50.080
<v Speaker 1>them when Reagan was elected president. That wasn't really a win.

0:24:50.320 --> 0:24:52.280
<v Speaker 1>They were afraid, they let them out, and we were

0:24:52.280 --> 0:24:54.879
<v Speaker 1>embarrassed for four hundred and forty four days. I don't

0:24:54.880 --> 0:24:58.040
<v Speaker 1>think we've ever beaten them, so I'm kind of reluctant

0:24:58.080 --> 0:25:00.320
<v Speaker 1>to say we've won. Do you think that it's going

0:25:00.359 --> 0:25:03.840
<v Speaker 1>to be a general apprehension among the commentariat.

0:25:05.880 --> 0:25:10.240
<v Speaker 5>Well, in the anti Trump commentariat, of course, we've been

0:25:10.280 --> 0:25:13.879
<v Speaker 5>losing since the very beginning of Operation Epic Fury. I

0:25:13.920 --> 0:25:16.840
<v Speaker 5>think more generally, yes, there will be apprehensions about dealing

0:25:16.920 --> 0:25:20.359
<v Speaker 5>with the Iranians. As Senator Cotton likes to say, the

0:25:20.400 --> 0:25:24.320
<v Speaker 5>Iranians regime has never won a war, but it's also

0:25:24.400 --> 0:25:26.840
<v Speaker 5>never lost a negotiation, and so you have to be

0:25:27.000 --> 0:25:30.280
<v Speaker 5>very tough in these negotiations, and you need to demand

0:25:30.800 --> 0:25:36.119
<v Speaker 5>results before any relaxation of pressure occurs. And that's what

0:25:36.160 --> 0:25:41.159
<v Speaker 5>I'm really looking for. How real are these Iranian promises

0:25:41.720 --> 0:25:46.879
<v Speaker 5>and will they be verified before we begin to think

0:25:46.920 --> 0:25:52.760
<v Speaker 5>of relaxing, relaxing the blockade, releasing frozen funds, or much

0:25:52.880 --> 0:25:55.560
<v Speaker 5>less drop some of the sanctions that have been imposed

0:25:55.560 --> 0:26:00.840
<v Speaker 5>in Iran. Because of their just atroc behavior over the

0:26:00.920 --> 0:26:03.560
<v Speaker 5>decades in the region and in the world. You need

0:26:03.600 --> 0:26:07.000
<v Speaker 5>results first, and you can't let the pressure up until

0:26:07.000 --> 0:26:07.959
<v Speaker 5>we get them.

0:26:08.480 --> 0:26:14.080
<v Speaker 1>If the blockade is still in place, I have to

0:26:14.160 --> 0:26:18.560
<v Speaker 1>think the Iranians have or the irgc have just thrown

0:26:18.600 --> 0:26:21.560
<v Speaker 1>in their hand because well, I'll talk to Matt about

0:26:21.600 --> 0:26:24.240
<v Speaker 1>it during the break. Don't go anywhere, America. Stay tuned.

0:26:24.280 --> 0:26:26.040
<v Speaker 1>I want to get his take on the blockade and

0:26:26.160 --> 0:26:29.000
<v Speaker 1>it being placed. What does that mean? I have one take.

0:26:29.040 --> 0:26:31.360
<v Speaker 1>We'll see what Matt Continenty thinks. Stay jammed. So I'm

0:26:31.359 --> 0:26:33.480
<v Speaker 1>back with Matt Continenty of the Wall Street Journal in

0:26:33.480 --> 0:26:36.560
<v Speaker 1>American Enterprise Institute. Now he's back on the commentary podcast

0:26:36.560 --> 0:26:38.080
<v Speaker 1>once in a week. By the way, Matt, is that

0:26:38.240 --> 0:26:40.240
<v Speaker 1>a given day any week, is there going to be

0:26:40.280 --> 0:26:43.680
<v Speaker 1>Wednesdays or Thursdays. It will be.

0:26:43.680 --> 0:26:47.480
<v Speaker 5>Thursdays, Hugh where I'll appear on the commentary podcast. I

0:26:47.480 --> 0:26:50.560
<v Speaker 5>don't want to interfere with my appearances on the Hugh

0:26:50.600 --> 0:26:53.040
<v Speaker 5>Hewitt Show my top priority.

0:26:52.720 --> 0:26:53.480
<v Speaker 6>And then I'll do this.

0:26:53.800 --> 0:26:55.639
<v Speaker 5>I also appear on I also app here on the

0:26:55.640 --> 0:26:57.720
<v Speaker 5>Wall Street Journals podcast on Wednesdays.

0:26:57.720 --> 0:26:59.280
<v Speaker 1>So you know you can have a whole week.

0:26:59.160 --> 0:27:03.360
<v Speaker 5>Of CONTINENTI means you have to keep pressing different buttons

0:27:03.359 --> 0:27:05.720
<v Speaker 5>and searching different podcasts online.

0:27:05.880 --> 0:27:08.320
<v Speaker 1>Well, when we come back on the network, I'm going

0:27:08.320 --> 0:27:10.480
<v Speaker 1>to have you explain why you recommended a sci fi

0:27:10.560 --> 0:27:12.320
<v Speaker 1>novel this week, because I don't like sci fi. But

0:27:12.400 --> 0:27:15.800
<v Speaker 1>here's my take on the blockade being left in place.

0:27:16.680 --> 0:27:19.600
<v Speaker 1>The Iranians can have no leverage if the blockade is

0:27:19.640 --> 0:27:23.480
<v Speaker 1>still in play. They're basically begging us, aren't they. If

0:27:23.480 --> 0:27:27.480
<v Speaker 1>the blockade still there, they have to give us what

0:27:27.520 --> 0:27:30.120
<v Speaker 1>the President says. Otherwise they're going to just run out

0:27:30.160 --> 0:27:32.800
<v Speaker 1>of money completely. They got nothing.

0:27:34.560 --> 0:27:37.720
<v Speaker 5>That's why I think Trump used the right policy here.

0:27:38.200 --> 0:27:42.000
<v Speaker 5>He trumped the Iranian closure of the Strait of Hermuz

0:27:42.400 --> 0:27:47.080
<v Speaker 5>by saying, look, if you're not letting the commercial chips out,

0:27:47.280 --> 0:27:50.160
<v Speaker 5>we're not going to let any of your ships in

0:27:50.440 --> 0:27:54.840
<v Speaker 5>or out. And this is a stranglehold on the IRGC,

0:27:55.400 --> 0:27:59.360
<v Speaker 5>the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and it's going to deprive

0:27:59.520 --> 0:28:03.040
<v Speaker 5>the Range economy of huge amounts of funds. And remember,

0:28:03.040 --> 0:28:06.200
<v Speaker 5>because that economy is so controlled by the government, you're

0:28:06.240 --> 0:28:10.320
<v Speaker 5>really just depriving the terrorists of funds. And so what

0:28:11.000 --> 0:28:15.800
<v Speaker 5>makes Operation Epic Fury interesting here is unlike Operation Absolute

0:28:15.800 --> 0:28:20.920
<v Speaker 5>Resolve of Venezuela, where the blockade preceded the change in leadership.

0:28:21.480 --> 0:28:26.520
<v Speaker 5>Here we remove the leadership Iotola Kameni and forty top

0:28:26.520 --> 0:28:29.920
<v Speaker 5>officials in the opening minutes of the operation and then

0:28:30.080 --> 0:28:33.800
<v Speaker 5>sustained thirty eight days of intense and punishing bombardment of

0:28:33.800 --> 0:28:37.480
<v Speaker 5>Iran before we impose the blockade. I think that makes

0:28:37.480 --> 0:28:41.160
<v Speaker 5>the blockade hurt even more than the blockade of Venezuela

0:28:41.240 --> 0:28:44.680
<v Speaker 5>hurt the Maduro regime. And it means why that we

0:28:44.760 --> 0:28:48.440
<v Speaker 5>need to keep up the blockade until we see verifiable

0:28:48.480 --> 0:28:52.240
<v Speaker 5>results in concessions on the ground from the Iranian.

0:28:51.840 --> 0:28:56.000
<v Speaker 1>Government, hopefully in the form of that highly enriched uranium

0:28:56.440 --> 0:28:59.280
<v Speaker 1>being turned over to not to a third party country,

0:28:59.280 --> 0:29:01.640
<v Speaker 1>but the United States. I'll be right back with Matt

0:29:01.720 --> 0:29:03.520
<v Speaker 1>on the other side of the break. Don't go anywhere,

0:29:03.640 --> 0:29:06.320
<v Speaker 1>stay tuned to the Quit Show. Thank you for listening

0:29:06.360 --> 0:29:08.959
<v Speaker 1>to highly concentrated Hugh, and don't forget one of our

0:29:08.960 --> 0:29:12.920
<v Speaker 1>great sponsors is Consumer Seular one eight hundred forty four

0:29:13.000 --> 0:29:17.080
<v Speaker 1>fifty four, eight hundred forty four fifty four. When you

0:29:17.160 --> 0:29:19.480
<v Speaker 1>call them, and you should, because you should want to

0:29:19.520 --> 0:29:23.600
<v Speaker 1>save money, make sure you use my promo code Q Hugh.

0:29:23.640 --> 0:29:26.240
<v Speaker 1>You'll get your second month free if and when you

0:29:26.280 --> 0:29:29.280
<v Speaker 1>switch to Consumer Cellular. Whatever plan you switch with, you'll

0:29:29.280 --> 0:29:31.720
<v Speaker 1>get your second month for free. I want you to

0:29:31.760 --> 0:29:34.120
<v Speaker 1>call and investigate because you're probably paying too much for

0:29:34.200 --> 0:29:36.720
<v Speaker 1>whatever you're doing right now. With Consumer Cellular, well, you

0:29:36.720 --> 0:29:40.040
<v Speaker 1>can go online Consumer Cellular dot com slash you. They've

0:29:40.080 --> 0:29:43.480
<v Speaker 1>got great plans for every kind of person in every

0:29:43.600 --> 0:29:47.840
<v Speaker 1>kind of data usage. However, they really target people who

0:29:47.920 --> 0:29:50.840
<v Speaker 1>are fifty years and older. Listen to this. You get

0:29:50.880 --> 0:29:54.280
<v Speaker 1>a single line with Consumer Cellular with unlimited talk, text

0:29:54.360 --> 0:29:57.640
<v Speaker 1>and data for just thirty five dollars a month. That's

0:29:57.800 --> 0:30:00.160
<v Speaker 1>a single line if you're fifty years and older for

0:30:00.240 --> 0:30:03.480
<v Speaker 1>with unlimited talk, text and data for just thirty five

0:30:03.520 --> 0:30:06.680
<v Speaker 1>dollars a month. When you call Consumer Cellular eight hundred

0:30:06.720 --> 0:30:09.560
<v Speaker 1>and four one one forty four to fifty four and everybody,

0:30:09.760 --> 0:30:11.640
<v Speaker 1>he can be under fifty, you can be over fifty.

0:30:11.720 --> 0:30:15.520
<v Speaker 1>Everybody gets their second month free when you use my name, Hugh.

0:30:21.080 --> 0:30:23.720
<v Speaker 1>Welcome back in America. I'm Hugh Hewitt. Matt Connetty. It's

0:30:23.720 --> 0:30:26.200
<v Speaker 1>still with me. He of the Wall Street Journal Free

0:30:26.200 --> 0:30:30.240
<v Speaker 1>Expressions column. He of the American Enterprises too now Thursdays

0:30:30.240 --> 0:30:33.920
<v Speaker 1>on commentary podcasts most Fridays when we are lucky right

0:30:33.960 --> 0:30:36.800
<v Speaker 1>here before I go back to the latest announcement by

0:30:36.840 --> 0:30:40.400
<v Speaker 1>Admiral Cooper, head of Suncom. Matt Contnetty on your return

0:30:40.480 --> 0:30:43.160
<v Speaker 1>to the commentary podcast, you got to do a recommend

0:30:43.520 --> 0:30:46.440
<v Speaker 1>and you recommended sci fi. Now, I've never even read

0:30:46.760 --> 0:30:51.040
<v Speaker 1>enders book or whatever that thing is by Orson Scott Card.

0:30:51.440 --> 0:30:54.000
<v Speaker 1>What in the world are you doing recommending sci fi?

0:30:54.040 --> 0:30:56.080
<v Speaker 1>I've always thought it was a big time waste. Even

0:30:56.080 --> 0:31:00.280
<v Speaker 1>though I like fantasy. There's epic stuff in fantasy. What's

0:31:00.280 --> 0:31:03.280
<v Speaker 1>in this sci fi? I can't help it, Hugh.

0:31:03.400 --> 0:31:07.080
<v Speaker 5>I'm a I'm a genre fiction freak. I love mysteries,

0:31:07.320 --> 0:31:11.360
<v Speaker 5>I love thrillers, and I've also loved science fiction since.

0:31:12.720 --> 0:31:13.240
<v Speaker 1>My youth.

0:31:13.440 --> 0:31:16.320
<v Speaker 5>You know, the saying goes, the golden age of science

0:31:16.320 --> 0:31:19.280
<v Speaker 5>fiction is twelve years old, and if you discover it

0:31:19.320 --> 0:31:21.240
<v Speaker 5>then you never really get rid of it.

0:31:21.640 --> 0:31:25.360
<v Speaker 1>And I think, this book, what's this book?

0:31:26.520 --> 0:31:29.200
<v Speaker 5>Oh? This book is called The Faith of Beasts. It's

0:31:29.240 --> 0:31:32.360
<v Speaker 5>part of a trilogy by the creators of The Expanse,

0:31:32.560 --> 0:31:37.120
<v Speaker 5>which is a very popular sci fi book and television franchise.

0:31:37.320 --> 0:31:39.600
<v Speaker 5>But I just say this you know, in many ways,

0:31:39.640 --> 0:31:44.240
<v Speaker 5>science fiction is the most political of genres because it's

0:31:44.280 --> 0:31:48.560
<v Speaker 5>the easiest way for authors to explore different political systems,

0:31:48.600 --> 0:31:51.760
<v Speaker 5>different forms of government, and you get to see kind

0:31:51.760 --> 0:31:56.240
<v Speaker 5>of the play of parties and intrigue in a vast landscape,

0:31:56.640 --> 0:32:00.320
<v Speaker 5>as opposed to kind of historical fiction or His Street

0:32:00.520 --> 0:32:03.520
<v Speaker 5>here at Home, which of course I read a lot

0:32:03.560 --> 0:32:04.240
<v Speaker 5>of as well.

0:32:04.440 --> 0:32:07.520
<v Speaker 1>Where do you put epic fantasy? You don't include that

0:32:07.600 --> 0:32:10.360
<v Speaker 1>in sci fi? Do you? They have magic and dragons

0:32:10.360 --> 0:32:11.320
<v Speaker 1>and stuff like that game.

0:32:11.680 --> 0:32:14.440
<v Speaker 5>Yeah, if there's magic, if it's if there's magic, it's

0:32:14.480 --> 0:32:18.200
<v Speaker 5>not science fiction. That's the general rule of thumb. And

0:32:18.640 --> 0:32:21.560
<v Speaker 5>I'm not. I'm not actually a fan of a fantasy.

0:32:22.480 --> 0:32:26.040
<v Speaker 5>My my wife is big into those romanticy novels, but

0:32:26.120 --> 0:32:29.600
<v Speaker 5>I'm not. And the only real fantasy series I've ever

0:32:29.600 --> 0:32:33.959
<v Speaker 5>really liked is The House of the Game of Thrones,

0:32:34.480 --> 0:32:35.600
<v Speaker 5>the You and.

0:32:37.200 --> 0:32:40.880
<v Speaker 1>You're You're the Same era. Ross is a big lover

0:32:41.080 --> 0:32:44.080
<v Speaker 1>of fantasy, epic fantasy series, and we've gone down many

0:32:44.120 --> 0:32:46.680
<v Speaker 1>rabbit holes together. You two ought to have a Battle

0:32:46.680 --> 0:32:47.720
<v Speaker 1>of the Titans from.

0:32:47.680 --> 0:32:50.239
<v Speaker 5>Your era one of the many areas where Ross and

0:32:50.240 --> 0:32:55.640
<v Speaker 5>I disagree despite being friends. Fantasy and science fiction. We

0:32:55.800 --> 0:32:58.400
<v Speaker 5>we differ on that. We just don't get a lot

0:32:58.480 --> 0:32:59.040
<v Speaker 5>many things.

0:32:59.360 --> 0:33:01.720
<v Speaker 1>Dogs and cat that's tox all right. Here's what Brad

0:33:01.800 --> 0:33:05.560
<v Speaker 1>Cooper said. The US military has completely halted economic trade

0:33:05.720 --> 0:33:08.720
<v Speaker 1>with Iran by sea and has stopped nineteen vessels from

0:33:08.720 --> 0:33:13.360
<v Speaker 1>trying to evade the blockade. Animal Cooper said earlier today. Quote,

0:33:13.400 --> 0:33:16.760
<v Speaker 1>we are watching every Iranian ship in every port, Cooper

0:33:16.800 --> 0:33:20.120
<v Speaker 1>told reporters today. We're able to sustain this as long

0:33:20.280 --> 0:33:23.840
<v Speaker 1>as necessary. That's music to my ears, Matt continetty, because

0:33:23.840 --> 0:33:26.440
<v Speaker 1>it will mean the end of the regime. Maybe not today,

0:33:27.160 --> 0:33:30.400
<v Speaker 1>maybe not in twenty twenty six. But they can't make

0:33:30.440 --> 0:33:33.040
<v Speaker 1>it to the end of the Trump years without any money,

0:33:33.040 --> 0:33:35.560
<v Speaker 1>can they? No, not at all.

0:33:35.600 --> 0:33:38.120
<v Speaker 5>And look here, we know that the Iranian economy was

0:33:38.120 --> 0:33:41.360
<v Speaker 5>in free fall prior to Operation Epic Fury. One of

0:33:41.400 --> 0:33:44.440
<v Speaker 5>the reasons for the public uprising that led to President

0:33:44.520 --> 0:33:47.479
<v Speaker 5>Trump saying help would was on the way was this

0:33:47.600 --> 0:33:51.120
<v Speaker 5>collapse of the Iranian economy, lack of electricity in Tehran,

0:33:51.280 --> 0:33:55.479
<v Speaker 5>lack of water, potable water in Iran. And now think

0:33:55.560 --> 0:33:58.760
<v Speaker 5>of the situation. Not only is there the devastation wrought

0:33:58.800 --> 0:34:03.560
<v Speaker 5>by the bombing campaign, the complete destruction of the defense

0:34:03.600 --> 0:34:07.640
<v Speaker 5>industrial base, the kind of chaos that the command and

0:34:07.680 --> 0:34:11.520
<v Speaker 5>control has been set into since the military operation began.

0:34:11.880 --> 0:34:15.719
<v Speaker 5>Now you have this blockade that is really exerting a

0:34:15.800 --> 0:34:20.160
<v Speaker 5>strangerhold over the Iranian economy, which is so dependent on

0:34:21.120 --> 0:34:24.440
<v Speaker 5>sea traffic. And so this means that we have the

0:34:24.520 --> 0:34:28.200
<v Speaker 5>upper hand in whatever negotiations we follow. And it also

0:34:28.280 --> 0:34:33.160
<v Speaker 5>means that the situation for the Iranian regime is bleak

0:34:33.560 --> 0:34:37.200
<v Speaker 5>and will turn ultimately, I think, totally black, And that

0:34:37.320 --> 0:34:39.920
<v Speaker 5>is another form of leverage. In addition to the economy.

0:34:40.080 --> 0:34:42.880
<v Speaker 5>In addition to the fact that, as Pete Haggs has

0:34:42.880 --> 0:34:45.480
<v Speaker 5>said yesterday, we are ready to resume the bombing campaign

0:34:45.480 --> 0:34:48.680
<v Speaker 5>if necessary, we also have the Iranian people still waiting

0:34:48.719 --> 0:34:51.600
<v Speaker 5>in the wings, and they've risen up against this government

0:34:51.640 --> 0:34:54.319
<v Speaker 5>time and time again. We're now in a position where,

0:34:54.320 --> 0:34:57.640
<v Speaker 5>if it happens, we can help them and that will

0:34:57.640 --> 0:35:00.160
<v Speaker 5>be the ultimate source of peace in the mid at

0:35:00.239 --> 0:35:02.920
<v Speaker 5>least the end of the current Iranian regime.

0:35:03.280 --> 0:35:05.920
<v Speaker 1>I agree with that. Now, the counter narrative from the

0:35:06.920 --> 0:35:10.240
<v Speaker 1>anti Trump folks is that the hardliners are now in charge.

0:35:10.600 --> 0:35:12.560
<v Speaker 1>I kind of laugh at that. If it were not

0:35:12.600 --> 0:35:15.640
<v Speaker 1>so sorrowful, how much more hardline can you be than

0:35:15.840 --> 0:35:19.480
<v Speaker 1>ordering the murder of thirty thousand people. I mean, they

0:35:19.560 --> 0:35:22.560
<v Speaker 1>can't get more hardline than what we wiped out. Am

0:35:22.600 --> 0:35:25.319
<v Speaker 1>I right about that? Yeah?

0:35:25.400 --> 0:35:29.080
<v Speaker 5>I mean the myth of the Iranian moderate has been

0:35:29.680 --> 0:35:33.440
<v Speaker 5>kind of a fantasy that has gripped the imaginations of

0:35:33.480 --> 0:35:37.000
<v Speaker 5>so many analysts in the West for so long. One

0:35:37.040 --> 0:35:39.400
<v Speaker 5>I'd say, I'm not even sure we know who is

0:35:39.400 --> 0:35:41.600
<v Speaker 5>in charge in Iran. I think that was one of

0:35:41.640 --> 0:35:46.040
<v Speaker 5>the problems that faced Vice President Vance last weekend in Islamabad.

0:35:46.400 --> 0:35:49.680
<v Speaker 5>So he has told people in interviews that every time

0:35:50.160 --> 0:35:52.600
<v Speaker 5>the group he was dealing with made some concession, they'd

0:35:52.640 --> 0:35:55.400
<v Speaker 5>have to check back with others in Iran, and it

0:35:55.520 --> 0:35:58.040
<v Speaker 5>led the Vice President to conclude that he might not

0:35:58.080 --> 0:36:00.799
<v Speaker 5>be dealing with the right people. We really don't know

0:36:00.840 --> 0:36:03.560
<v Speaker 5>what the state of play there is, but we do

0:36:03.719 --> 0:36:06.919
<v Speaker 5>know that, as you say, the people who remain are

0:36:06.960 --> 0:36:11.760
<v Speaker 5>dedicated Islamists, they are revolutionaries. This ideology has been entrenched,

0:36:12.160 --> 0:36:14.800
<v Speaker 5>and this is a regime that begins every day saying

0:36:14.960 --> 0:36:17.759
<v Speaker 5>death to America, death to Israel, and says the same

0:36:17.840 --> 0:36:20.399
<v Speaker 5>thing at the end of every day. And so yet

0:36:20.440 --> 0:36:23.200
<v Speaker 5>you can't get more radical than the regime we had

0:36:23.320 --> 0:36:26.880
<v Speaker 5>prior to Operation Epic Fury. And the truth is, it

0:36:26.920 --> 0:36:29.520
<v Speaker 5>doesn't matter how radical they are as long as they

0:36:29.560 --> 0:36:32.719
<v Speaker 5>do what Donald Trump is asking them to, and that

0:36:32.880 --> 0:36:36.600
<v Speaker 5>is give up the nuclear material, open the strait, limit

0:36:36.600 --> 0:36:40.799
<v Speaker 5>your missiles, end the support for proxies, and be more

0:36:40.840 --> 0:36:44.000
<v Speaker 5>responsive to the needs of your people. You can still

0:36:44.040 --> 0:36:47.319
<v Speaker 5>be an ideologue. What matters to Trump is not what

0:36:47.400 --> 0:36:50.560
<v Speaker 5>you believe, it's what you do. And that's why his

0:36:50.800 --> 0:36:54.680
<v Speaker 5>having the high cards right now is so important.

0:36:55.120 --> 0:36:59.239
<v Speaker 1>So, Matt, you're against the triumphal arch at the height

0:36:59.320 --> 0:37:02.200
<v Speaker 1>that it is. What do you maka like? There's Trajan's

0:37:02.320 --> 0:37:07.280
<v Speaker 1>column in Rome, and do you think maybe we should

0:37:07.320 --> 0:37:09.280
<v Speaker 1>just whisper the Trump column somewhere?

0:37:11.920 --> 0:37:15.279
<v Speaker 5>Well, you know, look, people have often talked about there's

0:37:15.360 --> 0:37:18.480
<v Speaker 5>room for that fifth face on Mount Rushmore. You know,

0:37:19.280 --> 0:37:22.439
<v Speaker 5>I've always thought that would be the best tribute as

0:37:22.520 --> 0:37:25.920
<v Speaker 5>to have him up there. Yeah, this president, on the

0:37:25.920 --> 0:37:28.840
<v Speaker 5>trajectory he's in, is going to be recognized as a

0:37:28.880 --> 0:37:33.120
<v Speaker 5>world historical figure, someone who changed the whole condition of

0:37:33.120 --> 0:37:36.400
<v Speaker 5>the United States, the shape of global politics. If he

0:37:36.520 --> 0:37:40.320
<v Speaker 5>leaves office having changed the regime in Venezuela and Iran

0:37:40.680 --> 0:37:45.279
<v Speaker 5>and Cuba, and ended the border crisis and given US

0:37:45.360 --> 0:37:50.920
<v Speaker 5>leverage over China. He will have a remarkably historical presidency

0:37:51.080 --> 0:37:53.399
<v Speaker 5>and deserve some type of monument for sure.

0:37:53.480 --> 0:37:55.640
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. I don't think of Colin, but you're right. Just

0:37:55.760 --> 0:37:59.360
<v Speaker 1>recognition is enough at one point, Matt Continetti, thank you.

0:37:59.400 --> 0:38:01.600
<v Speaker 1>Follow Matt on Exa. Continetti read them in the Wall

0:38:01.640 --> 0:38:04.239
<v Speaker 1>Street Journal and has worked at AAI. I'll be right

0:38:04.280 --> 0:38:07.160
<v Speaker 1>back in America. Steak morning, glory and even grace America.

0:38:07.320 --> 0:38:10.520
<v Speaker 1>I'm Hugh Hewittt, joined by the opinion editor of The

0:38:10.640 --> 0:38:13.680
<v Speaker 1>Daily Wire, the host of The Big Ben podcast, Fox

0:38:13.760 --> 0:38:17.840
<v Speaker 1>News contributor Extraordinary, Ben Dominic. Ben. Good to have you back,

0:38:18.160 --> 0:38:21.120
<v Speaker 1>especially on a day of such breaking news. I want

0:38:21.160 --> 0:38:24.520
<v Speaker 1>to begin with my proposition, we've lost muscle memory of

0:38:24.560 --> 0:38:27.640
<v Speaker 1>winning battles and wars. We did that in two thousand

0:38:27.680 --> 0:38:29.680
<v Speaker 1>and three with the March to Bagdad, and after that

0:38:29.800 --> 0:38:32.560
<v Speaker 1>was a twenty years log to nowhere. Two thousand and one,

0:38:32.600 --> 0:38:35.640
<v Speaker 1>it was a quick victory over the Taliban that never

0:38:35.680 --> 0:38:39.000
<v Speaker 1>became a real victory before that. It was nineteen ninety

0:38:39.000 --> 0:38:41.960
<v Speaker 1>one and it was a great one hundred hour war,

0:38:42.040 --> 0:38:46.279
<v Speaker 1>but it didn't dislodge Saddam. Do you think we might

0:38:46.320 --> 0:38:49.879
<v Speaker 1>be afraid to declare victory here over Iran because of that.

0:38:50.840 --> 0:38:53.400
<v Speaker 6>I think you're very much on the right path with that,

0:38:53.560 --> 0:38:55.879
<v Speaker 6>And I think a big part of that is that

0:38:56.080 --> 0:38:58.480
<v Speaker 6>you know, you, I mean, you saw it used to

0:38:58.600 --> 0:39:03.680
<v Speaker 6>great effect, that natural hesitancy by the legacy media. I

0:39:03.680 --> 0:39:07.759
<v Speaker 6>mean just openly, you know, declaring that right from right

0:39:07.840 --> 0:39:09.680
<v Speaker 6>off the bat, that this was going to be something

0:39:09.680 --> 0:39:13.319
<v Speaker 6>that led to see that ultimately it could lead, you know,

0:39:13.360 --> 0:39:17.320
<v Speaker 6>perhaps to the exiting or the end of the entire

0:39:17.480 --> 0:39:21.560
<v Speaker 6>Trumpian agenda. That's even been you know, on some magazine covers,

0:39:21.560 --> 0:39:24.239
<v Speaker 6>including What I Used to work for, not go on wood.

0:39:24.640 --> 0:39:26.720
<v Speaker 6>But one of the things that I think is really

0:39:26.920 --> 0:39:29.640
<v Speaker 6>indicative about this is that this is a moment when

0:39:29.680 --> 0:39:33.120
<v Speaker 6>the president has a ton of confidence in his ability

0:39:33.160 --> 0:39:36.480
<v Speaker 6>to get a good outcome, and the fact that we

0:39:36.600 --> 0:39:40.680
<v Speaker 6>have become so reluctant to use American military might in

0:39:40.680 --> 0:39:43.399
<v Speaker 6>the way that it was used in this case. There's

0:39:43.840 --> 0:39:46.239
<v Speaker 6>some healthy aspects of that. You don't want to give

0:39:46.239 --> 0:39:49.040
<v Speaker 6>into hubris, you don't want to be naive about what

0:39:49.080 --> 0:39:51.560
<v Speaker 6>you can achieve. But I do think that to a

0:39:51.600 --> 0:39:55.840
<v Speaker 6>certain degree, this this is a demonstration of how the

0:39:55.960 --> 0:39:59.680
<v Speaker 6>hesitancy on this part, on the part of people within

0:40:00.120 --> 0:40:03.799
<v Speaker 6>the populace in America was used and exploited by the

0:40:03.840 --> 0:40:06.880
<v Speaker 6>legacy media in ways that was not actually reflective of

0:40:06.920 --> 0:40:07.400
<v Speaker 6>the facts.

0:40:08.520 --> 0:40:12.719
<v Speaker 1>If it wasn't Donald Trump, if it was you know,

0:40:12.840 --> 0:40:17.520
<v Speaker 1>President Gretchen Whitmer, or President Gavin Newsom, or anybody that

0:40:17.719 --> 0:40:21.600
<v Speaker 1>was a Democrat or even you know, a pre Trump

0:40:21.680 --> 0:40:25.360
<v Speaker 1>Republican President Romney. If they had done this the last

0:40:25.400 --> 0:40:28.400
<v Speaker 1>six weeks, what would legacy media be saying.

0:40:29.040 --> 0:40:32.000
<v Speaker 6>Gretchen Whitmer would be on the cover of every magazine.

0:40:32.200 --> 0:40:37.840
<v Speaker 6>She would be depicted as this warrior queen to achieved

0:40:38.200 --> 0:40:41.960
<v Speaker 6>something that none of her male predecessors was willing or

0:40:42.000 --> 0:40:45.520
<v Speaker 6>courageous enough to do. You know, our own iron lady.

0:40:45.719 --> 0:40:49.359
<v Speaker 6>I mean, I can't even imagine the perlative that would

0:40:49.360 --> 0:40:51.719
<v Speaker 6>be launched in her direction. And if you don't think

0:40:51.719 --> 0:40:53.239
<v Speaker 6>that The New York Times would be saying that she

0:40:53.280 --> 0:40:55.640
<v Speaker 6>should be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, I just

0:40:55.719 --> 0:40:57.560
<v Speaker 6>I think you're out of your mind. This is this

0:40:57.680 --> 0:41:03.399
<v Speaker 6>is a situation where that level of animosity I think

0:41:03.760 --> 0:41:06.719
<v Speaker 6>was from the beginning something that led them to reject

0:41:06.840 --> 0:41:10.280
<v Speaker 6>the idea that we could even achieve this type of goal,

0:41:10.320 --> 0:41:13.879
<v Speaker 6>that we could be in a situation where we would

0:41:13.880 --> 0:41:16.960
<v Speaker 6>be sucked into a quagmire after six weeks. It's absolutely

0:41:17.040 --> 0:41:19.759
<v Speaker 6>nuts when you consider it, if you step back from it.

0:41:19.960 --> 0:41:21.640
<v Speaker 6>But I think that they were counting on people not

0:41:21.800 --> 0:41:23.680
<v Speaker 6>having the willingness to do that and to play on

0:41:23.719 --> 0:41:26.760
<v Speaker 6>their fears as opposed to what we actually know about

0:41:26.800 --> 0:41:29.719
<v Speaker 6>what is possible and what this president is capable of.

0:41:30.160 --> 0:41:33.200
<v Speaker 1>Now. The most important fact that I'm certain of is

0:41:33.239 --> 0:41:36.839
<v Speaker 1>what Admiral Cooper said earlier today. He said, we are

0:41:36.920 --> 0:41:40.520
<v Speaker 1>watching every Iranian ship in every port. We're able to

0:41:40.520 --> 0:41:43.680
<v Speaker 1>sustain this as long as necessary. Backing up the President's

0:41:43.719 --> 0:41:46.400
<v Speaker 1>statement that the blockade is still in effect, That to

0:41:46.480 --> 0:41:49.520
<v Speaker 1>me is something I can measure that I can stand by.

0:41:49.560 --> 0:41:52.240
<v Speaker 1>The blockade's still there, so the Iranians had no leverage

0:41:52.280 --> 0:41:55.399
<v Speaker 1>at this table, none zero. Is that how you read it.

0:41:56.239 --> 0:41:58.200
<v Speaker 6>I absolutely agree with that, and I think that that's

0:41:58.440 --> 0:42:02.760
<v Speaker 6>I mean, obviously, to comment from you know, a military

0:42:02.760 --> 0:42:05.120
<v Speaker 6>man as opposed to just someone who has you know,

0:42:05.160 --> 0:42:08.680
<v Speaker 6>a political acts grind or anything along those lines. I

0:42:08.680 --> 0:42:11.440
<v Speaker 6>think that this is a situation that we have to

0:42:11.480 --> 0:42:15.160
<v Speaker 6>continue to monitor. But if you know, the things stay

0:42:15.239 --> 0:42:17.920
<v Speaker 6>as they are, if they continue to look in the

0:42:17.920 --> 0:42:20.279
<v Speaker 6>direction that they are looking. You know, I just think

0:42:20.320 --> 0:42:22.160
<v Speaker 6>that there are a lot of people who should be

0:42:22.200 --> 0:42:24.400
<v Speaker 6>holding their hat in their hands, and they're not going

0:42:24.400 --> 0:42:26.000
<v Speaker 6>to by the way. They're going to try to get

0:42:26.000 --> 0:42:27.839
<v Speaker 6>away with this the same way that they always do.

0:42:28.280 --> 0:42:30.000
<v Speaker 6>And I think it's going to take a lot of

0:42:30.040 --> 0:42:33.080
<v Speaker 6>people demanding that their feet beheld the fire and that

0:42:33.120 --> 0:42:35.440
<v Speaker 6>they say, look, you know, you were wrong about this.

0:42:35.600 --> 0:42:37.680
<v Speaker 6>You were clearly wrong about this. What did you learn?

0:42:37.840 --> 0:42:40.520
<v Speaker 6>And I think that you know, we and it was

0:42:40.600 --> 0:42:43.920
<v Speaker 6>my own skepticism about what we can achieve in certain areas.

0:42:44.280 --> 0:42:46.440
<v Speaker 6>I've had to temperate with the fact that the US

0:42:46.440 --> 0:42:49.239
<v Speaker 6>military and the people who who lead it have been

0:42:49.360 --> 0:42:54.040
<v Speaker 6>running the game over and over and over again as

0:42:54.160 --> 0:42:57.000
<v Speaker 6>long as I have been live. And that's something that

0:42:57.120 --> 0:43:00.600
<v Speaker 6>does have a great benefit to the American people when

0:43:00.640 --> 0:43:03.280
<v Speaker 6>it comes to addressing these types of problems.

0:43:03.480 --> 0:43:06.200
<v Speaker 1>Well, let's go back in remind people the first criticism

0:43:06.760 --> 0:43:11.000
<v Speaker 1>of the president's decision too, with Israel strike Iran, the

0:43:11.040 --> 0:43:13.000
<v Speaker 1>straight of horror moies is closed and they didn't have

0:43:13.040 --> 0:43:15.719
<v Speaker 1>a plan. That may be the dumbest take of all,

0:43:15.760 --> 0:43:18.880
<v Speaker 1>because the Pentagon has plans for every country in the world,

0:43:19.160 --> 0:43:22.520
<v Speaker 1>including our own. They just have plans on top of

0:43:22.560 --> 0:43:24.960
<v Speaker 1>plans on top of plans. Do you think we'll see

0:43:25.000 --> 0:43:30.160
<v Speaker 1>anybody retract I wish to extend and refine my remarks.

0:43:32.400 --> 0:43:35.040
<v Speaker 6>I mean, unfortunately, you I just don't. And I think

0:43:35.040 --> 0:43:37.759
<v Speaker 6>that that's going to include a lot of people, by

0:43:37.800 --> 0:43:41.360
<v Speaker 6>the way, who were previously, particularly within the US Senate,

0:43:41.640 --> 0:43:44.600
<v Speaker 6>within the US political leadership, just you know, a few

0:43:44.600 --> 0:43:48.040
<v Speaker 6>months ago, criticizing the president for not doing enough. That's

0:43:48.080 --> 0:43:51.440
<v Speaker 6>the greatest aspect of the statistic is I mean, it's

0:43:51.520 --> 0:43:54.279
<v Speaker 6>not hilarious, but it's it's just an indictment of the

0:43:54.280 --> 0:43:57.040
<v Speaker 6>fact that there were so many people who said, you know,

0:43:57.200 --> 0:44:00.279
<v Speaker 6>this president doesn't actually have the willingness to go help

0:44:00.320 --> 0:44:02.520
<v Speaker 6>the Iranian people, He doesn't have the willingness to go

0:44:02.560 --> 0:44:06.960
<v Speaker 6>after this regime. They always return to this idea that

0:44:07.040 --> 0:44:09.480
<v Speaker 6>either the president is an out of control figure who

0:44:09.560 --> 0:44:12.880
<v Speaker 6>doesn't understand the limits of what he can do, or

0:44:13.160 --> 0:44:16.280
<v Speaker 6>he is someone who's actually, you know, just on some level,

0:44:16.320 --> 0:44:19.520
<v Speaker 6>a petty coward who is only going to speak in

0:44:19.600 --> 0:44:22.720
<v Speaker 6>sort of boisterous terms but isn't actually going to achieve anything.

0:44:23.000 --> 0:44:25.319
<v Speaker 6>And they can't ever choose in between. They just go

0:44:25.440 --> 0:44:29.280
<v Speaker 6>back and forth between the two binaries, when obviously both.

0:44:29.080 --> 0:44:32.160
<v Speaker 1>Of them are all there. But it's a complicated picture.

0:44:32.160 --> 0:44:35.799
<v Speaker 1>I just talking with Matt Contenetty last hour, and if

0:44:35.800 --> 0:44:38.360
<v Speaker 1>in fact this is the win that I sensed that

0:44:38.440 --> 0:44:40.279
<v Speaker 1>it is, because the blockade is still there and the

0:44:40.320 --> 0:44:42.839
<v Speaker 1>Iranians have thrown in their hand, If it's that sort

0:44:42.880 --> 0:44:47.400
<v Speaker 1>of historic win, Matt's argument is the world historical figure.

0:44:47.480 --> 0:44:50.399
<v Speaker 1>If he brings in Venezuela, flips Iran on its back,

0:44:50.440 --> 0:44:53.799
<v Speaker 1>and takes Cuba back to capitalism, it's going to be

0:44:53.960 --> 0:44:57.239
<v Speaker 1>a pivot point and the people he deranged, they're going

0:44:57.320 --> 0:44:59.280
<v Speaker 1>to have to deal with it. Ben can they.

0:45:00.200 --> 0:45:02.319
<v Speaker 6>I don't think that they can at this juncture. And

0:45:03.600 --> 0:45:05.800
<v Speaker 6>but the one thing I will tell you, Hugh, because

0:45:05.800 --> 0:45:09.200
<v Speaker 6>it's been one hundred percent certain in my life and

0:45:09.600 --> 0:45:12.959
<v Speaker 6>you know this to be true, there is nothing more

0:45:13.080 --> 0:45:17.440
<v Speaker 6>powerful as a motivator for the leftist and legacy media

0:45:17.840 --> 0:45:20.919
<v Speaker 6>than strange new respect. I remember the way they talked

0:45:20.960 --> 0:45:24.080
<v Speaker 6>about George W. Bush. I remember the play that they

0:45:24.200 --> 0:45:27.280
<v Speaker 6>that they look back at Ronald Reagan. I don't remember

0:45:27.320 --> 0:45:29.640
<v Speaker 6>the way that they have that they have you know,

0:45:29.760 --> 0:45:33.719
<v Speaker 6>revised their remarks about this person and I know, I

0:45:33.760 --> 0:45:37.160
<v Speaker 6>know this seems crazy. I know, it just seems absolutely ludicrous.

0:45:37.320 --> 0:45:40.319
<v Speaker 6>They're gonna do the same thing that Donald Trump. Say

0:45:40.360 --> 0:45:42.640
<v Speaker 6>what you will about JD. Van, say what you will

0:45:42.680 --> 0:45:45.920
<v Speaker 6>about Marco Rubio. But they, you know, I mean Donald Trump,

0:45:45.960 --> 0:45:47.799
<v Speaker 6>he was you know, he was from New York. He

0:45:47.920 --> 0:45:51.879
<v Speaker 6>was much more moderate. And they will absolutely run this back.

0:45:52.600 --> 0:45:54.080
<v Speaker 6>They will and that way.

0:45:54.400 --> 0:45:58.160
<v Speaker 1>It's the sand trap that both Nance and or Rubio

0:45:58.280 --> 0:45:59.960
<v Speaker 1>or anyone else who wants to be president, and I'm

0:46:00.080 --> 0:46:02.839
<v Speaker 1>Republican side will have to hit over. Now, there's one

0:46:02.840 --> 0:46:05.040
<v Speaker 1>more counter narrative I want to do with you before

0:46:05.040 --> 0:46:07.319
<v Speaker 1>we talk about the impact on the Democrats on the left,

0:46:07.320 --> 0:46:09.920
<v Speaker 1>which is significant if this is a big victory. The

0:46:09.960 --> 0:46:15.040
<v Speaker 1>counter narrative is, oh, he just promoted more hard line people. Now,

0:46:15.120 --> 0:46:17.879
<v Speaker 1>the ractional response that is, how much more hardline can

0:46:17.880 --> 0:46:20.560
<v Speaker 1>you get than mowing down thirty thousand minimum of your

0:46:20.600 --> 0:46:22.319
<v Speaker 1>own people in the street. The answer is you can't

0:46:22.320 --> 0:46:25.080
<v Speaker 1>get more hardline than that. But we're seeing that already,

0:46:25.120 --> 0:46:28.640
<v Speaker 1>ben hardliners are in charge. What do you make of that?

0:46:29.600 --> 0:46:32.839
<v Speaker 6>I think that if you're making that argument today, I mean,

0:46:33.040 --> 0:46:34.880
<v Speaker 6>just take a look in the mirror. I mean, we

0:46:34.880 --> 0:46:37.759
<v Speaker 6>were talking about people who were not just willing to

0:46:37.760 --> 0:46:40.160
<v Speaker 6>say all the things that they've been saying for decades,

0:46:40.320 --> 0:46:42.920
<v Speaker 6>not just to engage in the type of support for

0:46:43.120 --> 0:46:46.040
<v Speaker 6>terror that killed so many people around the globe, but

0:46:46.120 --> 0:46:50.080
<v Speaker 6>also people that people that you know, we're very much

0:46:50.239 --> 0:46:53.840
<v Speaker 6>confident in the persistence of their regime to a point

0:46:53.840 --> 0:46:56.400
<v Speaker 6>that they were willing to meet in these ways that

0:46:56.520 --> 0:46:59.240
<v Speaker 6>led ultimately to their demise. These were people who didn't

0:46:59.280 --> 0:47:02.319
<v Speaker 6>feel like they had anything to fear from the Americans.

0:47:02.480 --> 0:47:05.120
<v Speaker 6>And to look at this new situation, do you think

0:47:05.160 --> 0:47:07.520
<v Speaker 6>that the people who are in charge now, even if

0:47:07.560 --> 0:47:10.680
<v Speaker 6>they echo the same sentiments, even if they talk to

0:47:10.760 --> 0:47:13.680
<v Speaker 6>people within the government, the analysts and the like the

0:47:14.680 --> 0:47:17.480
<v Speaker 6>Vindomins of the world today, and when it comes to Iran,

0:47:17.840 --> 0:47:21.080
<v Speaker 6>that they are going to actually not have any lessons

0:47:21.120 --> 0:47:25.359
<v Speaker 6>taken away from the way that their regime was absolutely

0:47:25.400 --> 0:47:28.600
<v Speaker 6>decapitated by these approaches. Of course, they're going to take

0:47:28.600 --> 0:47:31.000
<v Speaker 6>the lessons from that, and that's going to alter their behavior.

0:47:31.560 --> 0:47:35.560
<v Speaker 1>If you're an Iranian ordinary person, someone who runs a

0:47:35.640 --> 0:47:38.880
<v Speaker 1>convenience story you can't get gasoline, someone who who sells

0:47:38.920 --> 0:47:42.160
<v Speaker 1>wholesale flower and you can't get flowed. Are you happy

0:47:42.280 --> 0:47:44.520
<v Speaker 1>or sad that Trump made these announcement today.

0:47:45.440 --> 0:47:47.760
<v Speaker 6>I mean, I think at this point, there's no question

0:47:47.840 --> 0:47:50.800
<v Speaker 6>that you're happy. I mean, this is what we've seen,

0:47:51.520 --> 0:47:54.840
<v Speaker 6>as much as they have tried to limit the access

0:47:54.960 --> 0:47:57.799
<v Speaker 6>to the footage and to the information that has come

0:47:57.840 --> 0:48:01.560
<v Speaker 6>out during the course of this war or that there

0:48:02.120 --> 0:48:04.520
<v Speaker 6>you know is a is a reaction on the part

0:48:04.520 --> 0:48:08.600
<v Speaker 6>of the Uranian people that indicates enormous support and enormous

0:48:08.600 --> 0:48:12.120
<v Speaker 6>hopefulness about what could happen going forward. They have hope

0:48:12.160 --> 0:48:14.320
<v Speaker 6>now for the first time in a very long time,

0:48:14.600 --> 0:48:16.840
<v Speaker 6>and that's a very good development. You know. At the

0:48:16.840 --> 0:48:19.080
<v Speaker 6>same time, we're going to have to We're going to

0:48:19.120 --> 0:48:21.360
<v Speaker 6>have to see what happens. That's not something that America

0:48:21.400 --> 0:48:24.160
<v Speaker 6>has control over in terms of what comes next, to

0:48:24.200 --> 0:48:26.600
<v Speaker 6>the same degree that we've had control over what's been

0:48:26.640 --> 0:48:28.759
<v Speaker 6>going on in these past few weeks. Much better, I

0:48:28.800 --> 0:48:31.880
<v Speaker 6>think than anyone was willing to acknowledge. This is something

0:48:31.880 --> 0:48:35.560
<v Speaker 6>that you know is going to have an enormous import

0:48:35.600 --> 0:48:37.640
<v Speaker 6>for the world as a whole. You know this, You've

0:48:37.640 --> 0:48:40.040
<v Speaker 6>talked about it, and we are going to have to

0:48:40.080 --> 0:48:42.520
<v Speaker 6>monitor it and see and let's hope that this has

0:48:42.520 --> 0:48:44.160
<v Speaker 6>the kind of outcome that is possible.

0:48:44.440 --> 0:48:46.239
<v Speaker 1>I'm going to talk with Ben during the break. He'll

0:48:46.239 --> 0:48:47.640
<v Speaker 1>be back on the other side because I got to

0:48:47.640 --> 0:48:49.879
<v Speaker 1>talk with him about the New Quad as well as

0:48:49.920 --> 0:48:53.120
<v Speaker 1>the old Quad right after this and NATO Siga. I'm

0:48:53.160 --> 0:48:57.759
<v Speaker 1>back with Ben Dominich during the break here on the network. Ben,

0:48:57.800 --> 0:48:59.960
<v Speaker 1>I want to play for you Secretary of State room

0:49:00.520 --> 0:49:02.680
<v Speaker 1>early on in the sixth Week War. This is what

0:49:02.760 --> 0:49:03.759
<v Speaker 1>the Secretary had to say.

0:49:05.040 --> 0:49:08.440
<v Speaker 4>These people are lunatics, they are insane. They are religious

0:49:08.520 --> 0:49:11.000
<v Speaker 4>zelots who can never be allowed to possess a nuclear

0:49:11.000 --> 0:49:13.480
<v Speaker 4>weapon because they have an apocalyptic vision of the future.

0:49:13.600 --> 0:49:15.480
<v Speaker 4>And all of their neighbors know that, by the way,

0:49:15.560 --> 0:49:17.640
<v Speaker 4>which is why all of their neighbors have been supportive

0:49:17.640 --> 0:49:18.520
<v Speaker 4>of the Now.

0:49:18.560 --> 0:49:22.040
<v Speaker 1>After the break, I'll talk about the new Quad, Saudi Arabia, UAE,

0:49:22.400 --> 0:49:24.640
<v Speaker 1>Israel in the United States. But I think it's a

0:49:24.640 --> 0:49:27.520
<v Speaker 1>strategic win to have the Secretary of State speak this

0:49:27.719 --> 0:49:31.759
<v Speaker 1>bluntly about the IRGC and the mulis. What do you

0:49:31.920 --> 0:49:34.040
<v Speaker 1>where has he been this week? Men?

0:49:35.680 --> 0:49:37.719
<v Speaker 6>You know, I think that this is a stitution. You

0:49:37.760 --> 0:49:40.719
<v Speaker 6>know that the president you know, certainly is out there

0:49:40.719 --> 0:49:44.520
<v Speaker 6>in front. Marco Rubu has decided, I think after getting

0:49:44.760 --> 0:49:47.600
<v Speaker 6>a you know, a series of plaudits you know, from

0:49:47.640 --> 0:49:50.960
<v Speaker 6>myself included in you as well, that I think you

0:49:51.000 --> 0:49:52.680
<v Speaker 6>wanted to take a little bit of a step back

0:49:52.719 --> 0:49:56.279
<v Speaker 6>and focus on the job. I really wish that that

0:49:56.440 --> 0:49:58.080
<v Speaker 6>was a little different. I wish that he was out

0:49:58.120 --> 0:50:00.480
<v Speaker 6>there a little bit more advice for and has been

0:50:00.520 --> 0:50:02.719
<v Speaker 6>out there quite a lot this past week and a

0:50:02.760 --> 0:50:05.759
<v Speaker 6>half on things that didn't necessarily go well, you know,

0:50:05.880 --> 0:50:08.000
<v Speaker 6>for him. But I think that this is, you know,

0:50:08.120 --> 0:50:11.359
<v Speaker 6>a situation where the sectuary of State that decided I'm

0:50:11.360 --> 0:50:14.600
<v Speaker 6>going to focus on my job. And that's I think

0:50:14.640 --> 0:50:17.960
<v Speaker 6>an indication that you know, as many of us have suspected,

0:50:18.040 --> 0:50:21.080
<v Speaker 6>you know, as much as that there remains a call

0:50:21.200 --> 0:50:23.200
<v Speaker 6>out there a group of people who would like to

0:50:23.239 --> 0:50:24.960
<v Speaker 6>see him run for president, who would like to see

0:50:25.000 --> 0:50:28.600
<v Speaker 6>him contend against jd Vance potentially in the primary, that

0:50:28.760 --> 0:50:30.719
<v Speaker 6>he is still reluctant to do so, at least at

0:50:30.719 --> 0:50:31.360
<v Speaker 6>this stage.

0:50:32.000 --> 0:50:35.200
<v Speaker 1>Well, there's a narrative that the president sends Rubio to

0:50:35.239 --> 0:50:37.160
<v Speaker 1>deal with our enemies, and he sends Fans to deal

0:50:37.200 --> 0:50:40.600
<v Speaker 1>with our friends. But that's been flipped. So now I

0:50:40.640 --> 0:50:43.920
<v Speaker 1>really have no idea who's doing what. But do you

0:50:43.920 --> 0:50:46.560
<v Speaker 1>expect the Vice President to go back to Islamabad this weekend.

0:50:48.000 --> 0:50:50.600
<v Speaker 6>I don't know. I mean, I honestly don't know that

0:50:50.640 --> 0:50:52.640
<v Speaker 6>the vice president wants to be stuck in a situation

0:50:52.680 --> 0:50:54.279
<v Speaker 6>where he could come back, you know, with half a

0:50:54.320 --> 0:50:56.960
<v Speaker 6>loaf or something along those lines. But it would be

0:50:57.080 --> 0:51:00.920
<v Speaker 6>I think, in his interests to go there and to

0:51:01.040 --> 0:51:04.040
<v Speaker 6>achieve some things, because that's something people will look back

0:51:04.080 --> 0:51:05.719
<v Speaker 6>on if he's able to do it, if he's able

0:51:05.719 --> 0:51:08.200
<v Speaker 6>to pull it off, and that's I believe the better

0:51:08.239 --> 0:51:10.800
<v Speaker 6>way to run, and to build the case for running

0:51:11.040 --> 0:51:12.960
<v Speaker 6>as opposed to playing it safe all the time.

0:51:13.680 --> 0:51:15.400
<v Speaker 1>I agree with that. I hope he's on the plane.

0:51:15.440 --> 0:51:18.680
<v Speaker 1>I hope they go back and get the details ironed

0:51:18.680 --> 0:51:21.480
<v Speaker 1>out so that we know we get the highly enriched uranium.

0:51:21.520 --> 0:51:23.759
<v Speaker 1>Don't go anywhere, America. I'm coming right back with Ben Dobbin.

0:51:23.920 --> 0:51:26.160
<v Speaker 1>My friends, you've probably seen the headlines are worse. Your

0:51:26.239 --> 0:51:30.040
<v Speaker 1>latest cell bill, big wirelesses raising rates again. That means

0:51:30.080 --> 0:51:32.040
<v Speaker 1>you could be paying more for the same service or

0:51:32.040 --> 0:51:35.080
<v Speaker 1>getting pushed into a pricier plan that you simply don't need.

0:51:35.239 --> 0:51:37.279
<v Speaker 1>That's the right. There's a better way, and it's called

0:51:37.480 --> 0:51:41.080
<v Speaker 1>consumer cellular. Millions of Americans have already made this switching.

0:51:41.160 --> 0:51:44.319
<v Speaker 1>For good reason. Consumer Cellular is consistently ranked number one

0:51:44.360 --> 0:51:47.440
<v Speaker 1>in customer satisfaction because they treat you like a customer,

0:51:47.600 --> 0:51:50.960
<v Speaker 1>not a number. With Consumer Solul, you get flexible, affordable

0:51:51.000 --> 0:51:53.440
<v Speaker 1>plans to fit your life, not the other way around.

0:51:53.600 --> 0:51:56.319
<v Speaker 1>No long term contracts, no hitting fees. You can keep

0:51:56.360 --> 0:51:58.600
<v Speaker 1>your phone and use a new one, so don't let

0:51:58.600 --> 0:52:02.320
<v Speaker 1>big wireless dictate what you pay. Take control today. Visit

0:52:02.480 --> 0:52:05.920
<v Speaker 1>Consumer Sellular dot com slash Hugh and use the promo

0:52:05.960 --> 0:52:08.960
<v Speaker 1>code Hugh hug h for your second month for free,

0:52:09.200 --> 0:52:11.680
<v Speaker 1>or call eight hundred four one one forty four to

0:52:11.719 --> 0:52:14.279
<v Speaker 1>fifty four again. Remember my code is Hugh. If you're

0:52:14.280 --> 0:52:16.480
<v Speaker 1>over fifty, listen to this. You can get a single

0:52:16.480 --> 0:52:19.880
<v Speaker 1>line with unlimited talk, textan data for just thirty five dollars.

0:52:19.960 --> 0:52:26.920
<v Speaker 1>I'm a consumer Sellular dot Com slash q Welcome back America.

0:52:26.960 --> 0:52:30.040
<v Speaker 1>I'm Hugh Ewett. We have been dominant chapinion page editor,

0:52:30.080 --> 0:52:33.360
<v Speaker 1>overt Daily Wire. He's the host of the Big Ben podcast,

0:52:33.400 --> 0:52:36.200
<v Speaker 1>Fox News contributor Ben. I want to go way out

0:52:36.239 --> 0:52:39.319
<v Speaker 1>now to thirty thousand feet. Uh Nato is in the

0:52:39.360 --> 0:52:42.200
<v Speaker 1>rearview mirror in my view right in front of US.

0:52:42.280 --> 0:52:45.799
<v Speaker 1>Is the new is the quad that we know about Japan, Australia,

0:52:45.840 --> 0:52:48.799
<v Speaker 1>India and the United States, and quad adjacent countries like

0:52:49.080 --> 0:52:52.960
<v Speaker 1>South Korea and Philippines, Taiwan and Singapore. Now I think

0:52:53.000 --> 0:52:56.240
<v Speaker 1>there might be a new quad which is the US, Israel,

0:52:56.960 --> 0:53:00.359
<v Speaker 1>UAE and Saudi Arabia, and they're adjacent country like bob

0:53:00.440 --> 0:53:03.960
<v Speaker 1>Rang and Kuwait. And I think that might become the

0:53:04.560 --> 0:53:08.400
<v Speaker 1>local gendarmerie for in the Middle and Near East. What

0:53:08.440 --> 0:53:08.919
<v Speaker 1>do you think.

0:53:10.000 --> 0:53:13.400
<v Speaker 6>I think that that has a level of potential that

0:53:13.840 --> 0:53:17.040
<v Speaker 6>you know, even a little while ago, would not have

0:53:17.120 --> 0:53:19.879
<v Speaker 6>seemed real, realistic at all, But I think that now

0:53:19.960 --> 0:53:22.640
<v Speaker 6>has to be considered as a possibility, a very real one.

0:53:23.440 --> 0:53:27.160
<v Speaker 6>Of Course, those relationships are ones that I think are

0:53:28.320 --> 0:53:33.120
<v Speaker 6>fundamentally extremely transactional, and we have to understand that about them.

0:53:33.280 --> 0:53:37.880
<v Speaker 6>They don't have necessarily the level of camaraderie and of

0:53:39.360 --> 0:53:43.240
<v Speaker 6>joined at the hip nature of the other quality you mentioned.

0:53:43.320 --> 0:53:45.600
<v Speaker 6>But I think that this is also a situation where

0:53:46.280 --> 0:53:49.120
<v Speaker 6>the level of interest, the level of shared interest, is

0:53:49.200 --> 0:53:53.359
<v Speaker 6>too high not to cooperate to a greater degree. And

0:53:53.400 --> 0:53:55.759
<v Speaker 6>what we've already seen are indications that I think are

0:53:55.840 --> 0:53:58.400
<v Speaker 6>very positive in this vein. If we can continue to

0:53:58.400 --> 0:54:02.280
<v Speaker 6>see that relationship grow, it certainly could become a force

0:54:02.320 --> 0:54:04.960
<v Speaker 6>for real stability in the region going forward, and one

0:54:05.080 --> 0:54:07.000
<v Speaker 6>that I think would really take the load off a

0:54:07.000 --> 0:54:09.600
<v Speaker 6>lot of things that America has had to do in

0:54:10.360 --> 0:54:14.360
<v Speaker 6>a sort of single shock capacity going back for many years.

0:54:14.520 --> 0:54:17.160
<v Speaker 1>Okay, so that takes us to the blast radius of

0:54:17.239 --> 0:54:20.240
<v Speaker 1>the significance of the Six Week War, which is NATO

0:54:20.440 --> 0:54:24.880
<v Speaker 1>maybe the second most injured party here, all right, Iran

0:54:24.960 --> 0:54:27.480
<v Speaker 1>number one as well, I guess number one A. But

0:54:28.000 --> 0:54:30.520
<v Speaker 1>here is the president of Finland, alex Stuff, who was

0:54:30.640 --> 0:54:32.960
<v Speaker 1>very he gets along well with Trump. But he was

0:54:33.000 --> 0:54:37.080
<v Speaker 1>given an interview in I think a European network. Here's

0:54:37.120 --> 0:54:37.839
<v Speaker 1>what he had to say.

0:54:39.000 --> 0:54:41.000
<v Speaker 7>I think at the end of the day, the United

0:54:41.000 --> 0:54:44.879
<v Speaker 7>States will find themselves in quite a lonely place. I mean,

0:54:44.920 --> 0:54:49.640
<v Speaker 7>I'm the most pro American president in Europe. I'm an

0:54:49.640 --> 0:54:54.840
<v Speaker 7>avid Transatlanticist. I want the relationship to work, but I

0:54:54.920 --> 0:55:00.799
<v Speaker 7>fully also realized that, you know, with certain patterns behavior,

0:55:01.840 --> 0:55:04.000
<v Speaker 7>there is going to be a feeling of Okay, if

0:55:04.800 --> 0:55:07.399
<v Speaker 7>you treat me like that, I don't feel very good

0:55:07.400 --> 0:55:09.840
<v Speaker 7>about it. And we can see that with the European States,

0:55:10.200 --> 0:55:12.440
<v Speaker 7>we can see it with you know, Golf.

0:55:12.120 --> 0:55:13.880
<v Speaker 1>States and many others.

0:55:13.920 --> 0:55:16.600
<v Speaker 7>So I hope that it's in the interest of the

0:55:16.680 --> 0:55:19.200
<v Speaker 7>United States if it wants to continue to be one

0:55:19.239 --> 0:55:22.040
<v Speaker 7>of the world hegemons to have close friends and alys.

0:55:22.440 --> 0:55:25.960
<v Speaker 1>Now I call I throw a flag on that Ben.

0:55:26.280 --> 0:55:28.000
<v Speaker 1>The Golf States love us right now.

0:55:28.320 --> 0:55:29.000
<v Speaker 6>That very just.

0:55:30.840 --> 0:55:34.200
<v Speaker 1>That's just because the Golf States love us right now

0:55:34.200 --> 0:55:37.960
<v Speaker 1>and our patriots. Canada and NATO are not high on

0:55:38.000 --> 0:55:40.560
<v Speaker 1>my list, but I got the frontline states like Finland

0:55:40.600 --> 0:55:43.799
<v Speaker 1>and Poland and Sweden might have a little bit more

0:55:43.800 --> 0:55:45.480
<v Speaker 1>in the game with us. What do you make of that?

0:55:45.840 --> 0:55:49.400
<v Speaker 1>Is your bloss it's mine. You know what.

0:55:50.080 --> 0:55:53.160
<v Speaker 6>Whenever you go to one of these European leaders to

0:55:53.320 --> 0:55:56.640
<v Speaker 6>ask this type of question and they start talking about it,

0:55:56.680 --> 0:55:59.200
<v Speaker 6>there's this word that they use all the time, and

0:55:59.239 --> 0:56:03.239
<v Speaker 6>it bothers me. That word is feelings. Yes you've heard

0:56:03.239 --> 0:56:07.200
<v Speaker 6>it again, And to me, it's like, this isn't about

0:56:07.239 --> 0:56:10.120
<v Speaker 6>feelings that we don't actually care about that aspect. This

0:56:10.200 --> 0:56:12.759
<v Speaker 6>is about shared interest. This is about what is in

0:56:12.840 --> 0:56:15.719
<v Speaker 6>America's interest and what you are willing to do, and

0:56:15.760 --> 0:56:18.000
<v Speaker 6>we are going to cooperate you to the extent that

0:56:18.040 --> 0:56:20.640
<v Speaker 6>it is in America's interest and that's something that I

0:56:20.680 --> 0:56:25.000
<v Speaker 6>think the Europeans really need to understand because feelings, I mean,

0:56:25.080 --> 0:56:27.360
<v Speaker 6>just like the idea that they're going to continue to

0:56:27.400 --> 0:56:30.400
<v Speaker 6>be insulted by different I mean, at a certain level,

0:56:30.520 --> 0:56:33.520
<v Speaker 6>it's saying we care more about the tone of a

0:56:33.560 --> 0:56:36.319
<v Speaker 6>truth social post than we do about the interests of

0:56:36.320 --> 0:56:39.560
<v Speaker 6>our country and of the West, and that is just

0:56:39.760 --> 0:56:44.200
<v Speaker 6>a ridiculous and inconceivably stupid position to occupy.

0:56:44.640 --> 0:56:48.680
<v Speaker 1>That's well put, inconceivably stupid. They just took off the board,

0:56:48.760 --> 0:56:51.200
<v Speaker 1>the president and the American military just took off of

0:56:51.239 --> 0:56:55.480
<v Speaker 1>the board the third greatest threat to peace loving countries

0:56:55.480 --> 0:56:58.239
<v Speaker 1>in the world. And that's fine, China and Russia and

0:56:58.280 --> 0:57:01.040
<v Speaker 1>maybe a team in number two because they're let me

0:57:01.080 --> 0:57:04.840
<v Speaker 1>go to the only people who are below the NATO

0:57:06.200 --> 0:57:09.799
<v Speaker 1>non interventionist, not our problem people, and that's the Democrats.

0:57:10.080 --> 0:57:13.440
<v Speaker 1>Did any Democrat not named John Fetterman come out and

0:57:13.520 --> 0:57:18.400
<v Speaker 1>support of the president's policy towards Iran? One? Did anyone? No?

0:57:18.520 --> 0:57:21.360
<v Speaker 6>I mean, it's just and and by the way, I

0:57:21.400 --> 0:57:23.520
<v Speaker 6>want to point out again that these are the same

0:57:23.600 --> 0:57:25.640
<v Speaker 6>people who were saying just a few months ago that

0:57:25.640 --> 0:57:28.720
<v Speaker 6>the president was that he was wrong not to raise

0:57:28.800 --> 0:57:31.600
<v Speaker 6>up you know, his standard that he that he was

0:57:31.800 --> 0:57:33.760
<v Speaker 6>going to you know that he was promising things that

0:57:33.800 --> 0:57:36.400
<v Speaker 6>he couldn't deliver on. And the other thing is, by

0:57:36.440 --> 0:57:37.880
<v Speaker 6>the way, I mean you mentioned the last time that

0:57:37.920 --> 0:57:39.960
<v Speaker 6>we talked, you mentioned Mark Warner. Mark Warner has been

0:57:39.960 --> 0:57:42.880
<v Speaker 6>around long enough to know what a threat that Iran

0:57:43.000 --> 0:57:46.480
<v Speaker 6>really represents and the facts that he even he can't

0:57:46.520 --> 0:57:49.960
<v Speaker 6>even come out and say that he supports a policy

0:57:50.000 --> 0:57:53.120
<v Speaker 6>that ultimately is likely to lead to what he always

0:57:53.120 --> 0:57:55.880
<v Speaker 6>claimed he wanted it to see, all these people said that,

0:57:55.960 --> 0:57:58.200
<v Speaker 6>you know, the threat of the of a nuclear Iran

0:57:58.360 --> 0:58:01.520
<v Speaker 6>was so existential that I needed to cut this ridiculous

0:58:01.560 --> 0:58:04.400
<v Speaker 6>deal with them before. And now what are they going

0:58:04.440 --> 0:58:05.880
<v Speaker 6>to say. They're going to say that this was a

0:58:05.920 --> 0:58:09.560
<v Speaker 6>wrongheaded war, that it's a catastrophe, that it's a travesy.

0:58:09.880 --> 0:58:11.920
<v Speaker 6>Look at Chuck Schumer. I mean, come on, how can

0:58:11.960 --> 0:58:14.560
<v Speaker 6>you take him seriously after all the years when he

0:58:14.680 --> 0:58:17.160
<v Speaker 6>was clearly of the mind that a're on with such

0:58:17.200 --> 0:58:19.200
<v Speaker 6>a threat, and now he can't even say that because

0:58:19.240 --> 0:58:21.640
<v Speaker 6>his base will hold him to account if he does.

0:58:22.120 --> 0:58:24.960
<v Speaker 1>Okay, So, last question, Bett, did the Democrats price in

0:58:25.000 --> 0:58:28.040
<v Speaker 1>in November win off of the war and the gas

0:58:28.160 --> 0:58:31.919
<v Speaker 1>height price too quickly, because right now oil is down

0:58:31.960 --> 0:58:34.200
<v Speaker 1>to eighty four dollars a barrel. If it stays, if

0:58:34.200 --> 0:58:38.360
<v Speaker 1>the Strait stays open, and we've got Donald Trump welcoming

0:58:38.400 --> 0:58:41.360
<v Speaker 1>the highly enriched uranium and the internet's back on in

0:58:41.360 --> 0:58:45.880
<v Speaker 1>Iran in three weeks, did they just bury themselves?

0:58:47.280 --> 0:58:48.760
<v Speaker 6>I don't know that we can say that. I do

0:58:48.840 --> 0:58:51.800
<v Speaker 6>think that things get lost in the shuffle, and the

0:58:52.600 --> 0:58:54.680
<v Speaker 6>truth is that, as you know, voters make up their

0:58:54.680 --> 0:58:57.400
<v Speaker 6>minds typically in the first six months of the midterm year.

0:58:58.320 --> 0:58:59.600
<v Speaker 6>Republicans are going to have to get out there and

0:58:59.640 --> 0:59:01.320
<v Speaker 6>make the case to themselves. And I think that that's

0:59:01.320 --> 0:59:04.480
<v Speaker 6>something that we haven't seen them do to a great

0:59:04.520 --> 0:59:07.160
<v Speaker 6>degree when it comes to the House, which is all

0:59:07.240 --> 0:59:09.960
<v Speaker 6>a kerfuffle over so many different things and doesn't seem

0:59:10.000 --> 0:59:12.440
<v Speaker 6>to really be keeping their eye on the ball. I

0:59:12.480 --> 0:59:15.760
<v Speaker 6>think that the truth for Republicans at this moment is

0:59:15.800 --> 0:59:17.720
<v Speaker 6>that they need to take this win and run with

0:59:17.800 --> 0:59:20.360
<v Speaker 6>it as much as possible, make the Democrats on the

0:59:20.400 --> 0:59:22.960
<v Speaker 6>other side of it, and if you know, if the

0:59:23.040 --> 0:59:26.080
<v Speaker 6>voters see I think that this turns around in a

0:59:26.120 --> 0:59:28.800
<v Speaker 6>way that is beneficial to them in their household then

0:59:28.800 --> 0:59:31.880
<v Speaker 6>I think that there's possibility that they can actually, you know,

0:59:32.240 --> 0:59:34.560
<v Speaker 6>achieve something better than what we certainly thought even a

0:59:34.600 --> 0:59:35.240
<v Speaker 6>few months ago.

0:59:35.560 --> 0:59:38.240
<v Speaker 1>So Republicans have to learn to say we won, we

0:59:38.280 --> 0:59:41.400
<v Speaker 1>won conclusively, we want in a way that you can't

0:59:41.440 --> 0:59:42.120
<v Speaker 1>see see.

0:59:42.120 --> 0:59:44.200
<v Speaker 6>Then they have to make arguments to you, and that's

0:59:44.240 --> 0:59:46.960
<v Speaker 6>that's something that they seem to that's not something that

0:59:47.000 --> 0:59:47.640
<v Speaker 6>they tend to do.

0:59:47.720 --> 0:59:48.680
<v Speaker 1>They like to only.

0:59:48.520 --> 0:59:52.280
<v Speaker 6>Argue amongst themselves, So it's a real problem for them.

0:59:52.560 --> 0:59:54.760
<v Speaker 1>I just would turn Ruby l loose and the vice

0:59:54.760 --> 0:59:57.000
<v Speaker 1>president loose, and the president. By the way, the more

0:59:57.040 --> 1:00:00.000
<v Speaker 1>interview it gives at length as opposed to true social post,

1:00:00.360 --> 1:00:02.680
<v Speaker 1>the better off he is. Ben Dominich, is great to

1:00:02.760 --> 1:00:05.840
<v Speaker 1>talk to you on a victory Friday. We used to

1:00:05.840 --> 1:00:09.120
<v Speaker 1>call that in high school football, you have a victory Friday,

1:00:09.160 --> 1:00:11.040
<v Speaker 1>and that was always good to have. Good to talk

1:00:11.080 --> 1:00:13.480
<v Speaker 1>to you, Ben Dominich. What I hope the weekend proves

1:00:13.520 --> 1:00:16.280
<v Speaker 1>that we are right in our optimism. Thank you for

1:00:16.360 --> 1:00:16.680
<v Speaker 1>joining me.