Speaker 1: Welcome to today's podcast sponsored by Hillsdale College, all Things
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Speaker 1: give you went on this August eleventh, twenty twenty six.
Speaker 1: I understand down the line in Dallas, we may have
Speaker 1: some problems technical problems with our radio broadcast. But welcome
Speaker 1: to the Sale News Channel, which I hope you turn
Speaker 1: to every day anyway, and do all of our affiliates
Speaker 1: across the United States especially want to say hello to
Speaker 1: our listeners in Oa Claire, Wisconsin on WOGO six eighty
Speaker 1: I believe that is, and to our they've got a
Speaker 1: repeater on one O three point one as well. FM.
Speaker 1: Get out and vote. We cover a lot of Wisconsin
Speaker 1: out of Chicago, WI and D five sixty and w
Speaker 1: I in D five point sixty, and we pick up
Speaker 1: western Wisconsin from Am Toby to the Patriot. So get
Speaker 1: out there and vote. It's an open primary. Republicans can
Speaker 1: vote in the Democratic primary if they want. It's a
Speaker 1: carnival of craziness over there. So I want to start
Speaker 1: with Francesca Hong, who is the state senator, allegedly leading
Speaker 1: by double digits. But that's what they said about LSA
Speaker 1: ED and Michigan. The polls were all broken there, so
Speaker 1: I'm not you know, if you are in favor of
Speaker 1: mister Barnes, get out there and vote for mister Barnes.
Speaker 1: If you're in favor of mister Crowley, get out there
Speaker 1: and vote for mister Crowley. It's not over till it's over.
Speaker 1: Francesca Hong, though, was doing the best that she can
Speaker 1: to put a bullet in her own campaign cut number eight.
Speaker 1: Francesca Hong earlier.
Speaker 2: Today, I learned then you have some hot takes, sometimes
Speaker 2: bad takes on Twitter, and I let my feelings out
Speaker 2: in the world. And right now as governor, what I'm
Speaker 2: most serious about are the issues that voters are telling
Speaker 2: me they want solutions for, for permanent affordability, to tax
Speaker 2: the ultra rich, to make sure we're getting corruption like
Speaker 2: he is out of politics, to make sure that we're
Speaker 2: fully funding public schools, and that we're fighting for universal
Speaker 2: childcare and raising wages.
Speaker 1: Anybody want to guess how many billionaires we have in
Speaker 1: the United States. I actually went to chetch Ebt to
Speaker 1: look up these numbers. Okay, ultra rich, that means billionaires, right,
Speaker 1: and so how many of them have we got? We
Speaker 1: have a grand total of nine hundred and eighty nine billionaires.
Speaker 1: They're worth eight trillion dollars. I don't think a lot
Speaker 1: of them live in Wisconsin. Some of them do. But
Speaker 1: you're not going to raise a lot of money taxing billionaire.
Speaker 1: And we have about ten thousand cent to millionaires people
Speaker 1: are worth one hundred million dollars or more. And we've
Speaker 1: got about twelve thousand Americans with ten million dollars or
Speaker 1: more in their retirement accounts. Plus we've got lots of
Speaker 1: Americans who are multimillionaires because they own a house in
Speaker 1: the right part of the country and they've owned the
Speaker 1: house for thirty years. So when you hear Democrats, it's
Speaker 1: about talking about the taxing the rich. It's either not
Speaker 1: going to be efficacious, it's not going to work right,
Speaker 1: it won't raise the revenue that they think it's going
Speaker 1: to raise. Moreover, they're really talking about you if you
Speaker 1: own a house. That's what they're talking They're talking about you,
Speaker 1: if you own a house. She also went on to
Speaker 1: elaborate on her philosophy. Today cut number nine, Francesca hung
Speaker 1: again outside of polling place, feeling.
Speaker 2: Stop feeling good like she day is always an exciting day.
Speaker 2: Have you spoken to yours? I've not spoken to the
Speaker 2: governor yet quite early. I want to let him have
Speaker 2: his coffee first.
Speaker 1: Are you concerned though it's been a tough primary? Do
Speaker 1: you need a united party in November?
Speaker 3: Can you get everybody back on the same team.
Speaker 2: We need an We need a united party. We are
Speaker 2: ready to unite not just the party, but working class
Speaker 2: people all across the state to defeat Tom Tiffany in November.
Speaker 4: Do you feel like your policies are the future of
Speaker 4: the Democratic Party.
Speaker 2: I think our policies are ones that are the solutions
Speaker 2: to live for working class people, permanent affordability, so we
Speaker 2: don't come back to moments like these. I think the
Speaker 2: Democratic Party we are a big tent party. There's always
Speaker 2: room for better policies and always room for more people.
Speaker 5: Who would you look prepared for this intense pushback that
Speaker 5: you've received, especially from Republicans framing you as far too
Speaker 5: extreme for Wisconsin.
Speaker 2: What's extreme is Congressman Tiffany, a longtime DC congressman, has
Speaker 2: voted against the interests of Wisconsin. It's over and over again.
Speaker 2: What's extreme is that he's an election denial What's extreme
Speaker 2: he continues to protect Epstein and pedophiles. What's extreme is
Speaker 2: that he has voted to help raise gas prices, and
Speaker 2: they like harder for Wisconsins. I think what people of
Speaker 2: our state are ready for. The good people of Wisconsin
Speaker 2: are ready for a government that actually puts them first,
Speaker 2: not Trump.
Speaker 1: Do you really think the good people of Wisconsin are
Speaker 1: turned on by the Epstein talking point? I'm always it's
Speaker 1: just kind of a giveaway that you've got nothing to
Speaker 1: say if you're talking about Epstein. Meanwhile, Tony Evers, who
Speaker 1: was the incumbent Democratic governor of Wisconsin, is begging Democrats
Speaker 1: not to vote for her because she's a nut. And
Speaker 1: he was out at a polling pace polling place himself
Speaker 1: cut number ten.
Speaker 3: He has spent with her entire campaign dealing with not
Speaker 3: with the Issuers, but what's on the Twitter. And I
Speaker 3: just find that that's not a good way to be
Speaker 3: Tom Tiffany.
Speaker 1: A good way to win anything is to be online
Speaker 1: too much, and that's what Francesca is. But it's not over.
Speaker 1: You can vote till eight o'clock in Wisconsin. Let's go
Speaker 1: check in on Peggy Flanagan, who is running for Senate
Speaker 1: in Minnesota. She was on that reliable place for left
Speaker 1: wing lunatics MS now with Ali bel She cut number thirteen.
Speaker 6: In at July twenty seventh debate. She said, Republicans are
Speaker 6: going to have a field day with this with you,
Speaker 6: and it's my responsibility to warn Democratic primary voters that
Speaker 6: Republicans are dying to run against you because they believe
Speaker 6: you have a unique vulnerability on fraud.
Speaker 7: Your response, I mean.
Speaker 6: My response to that is that Republicans are running against
Speaker 6: every Democrat in this race on that issue.
Speaker 1: Not much of a response, but quite a look if
Speaker 1: you're not watching on Salem News Channel. She got the big, big, big,
Speaker 1: big big black classes. Now, I've got nothing against black classes.
Speaker 1: I've worn them my whole life. I started wearing them
Speaker 1: when my late father in law, Wilberhelmer, said that's what
Speaker 1: the Marine Corps issued to him when he joined the
Speaker 1: Marine Corps in nineteen thirty nine or nineteen forty, and
Speaker 1: it'll warn him ever since. And I thought, you know what,
Speaker 1: you stick with black glasses the same size. It's kind
Speaker 1: of easy to go into the optometrist in order. I
Speaker 1: don't know if that's a fashion statement or not. Can
Speaker 1: we roll that again in case, I just want to
Speaker 1: try and get a measurement on it. Let's play Cut
Speaker 1: number thirteen.
Speaker 6: In at July twenty seventh debates, you said Republicans are
Speaker 6: gonna have a field day with this with you, he's
Speaker 6: my responsibility to warn Democratic primary voters that Republicans are
Speaker 6: dying to run against you because they believe you have
Speaker 6: a unique vulnerability on fraud.
Speaker 7: Your response, I mean.
Speaker 1: By response to that is that, well we lost it.
Speaker 1: Were they too big to fit in the frame? Oh
Speaker 1: well they were big. They were big. Let's go down now.
Speaker 1: Since we're playing it's the greatest it's of weird Democrats
Speaker 1: opening James Taller Rico. He's something they think he's gonna
Speaker 1: win in Texas. Cut number eleven from a stump speech.
Speaker 8: Yeah, time.
Speaker 9: It is time to repeal the Big Ugly Bill's tax
Speaker 9: cuts for the wealthy.
Speaker 10: And give out one stealing dollars to the clos.
Speaker 1: Okay, that would mean a tax hike on every Texan
Speaker 1: because the One Big Beautiful Bill took away not only
Speaker 1: taxes on Social Security, taxes on taxes on overtime. It
Speaker 1: kept in place the Trump tax cuts from twenty seventeen,
Speaker 1: which cut taxes for every American in every bracket. So
Speaker 1: what mister Talla Rica wants to do is raise taxes
Speaker 1: on every American. Way to go for Texas, he continued,
Speaker 1: Cut number twelve.
Speaker 9: Trickle down economics is not a theory. It is theft.
Speaker 9: They have been stealing from all of us who have
Speaker 9: been doing the actual work in this economy. And for
Speaker 9: five decades, Republicans and too many Democrats have sold the
Speaker 9: false gospel of trickle down economics.
Speaker 7: The idea, the idea.
Speaker 9: That the best way to grow the economy is to
Speaker 9: let the ridge get richer and forget about the rest
Speaker 9: of us.
Speaker 7: That would be a lie.
Speaker 1: And by the way, trickle down economics is not gospel.
Speaker 1: It's the talking point adjective given to supply side economics,
Speaker 1: which boom the country during the Reagan years and boom
Speaker 1: the country and Trump won and beginning to boom the
Speaker 1: country again in Trump two because it works when you
Speaker 1: let people keep their own harder and money and spend
Speaker 1: it in the way that they want. We're back in America,
Speaker 1: Hude Hewett. It's been too long since I've talked with
Speaker 1: Ben and Ben Talabu. He is the senior research fellow
Speaker 1: at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and the
Speaker 1: director of the Iran Program. Benam welcome back. It's been
Speaker 1: too long. I want to give you the floor for
Speaker 1: your assessment of where we stand in the battle with
Speaker 1: Iran as of today, August eleventh.
Speaker 11: Great to be with you, Hugh, It's always a pleasure listen.
Speaker 11: I'll keep it short. The President is picking up on
Speaker 11: a strategy that was actually successful in term one, but
Speaker 11: he's adding to it something and that's the blockade. So
Speaker 11: it seems like what's being popularly reported that after the
Speaker 11: thirteen days of strikes, that after the attempt to open
Speaker 11: up the straight of horror moves, the president is going
Speaker 11: to be relying on two pillars, particularly before the midterms.
Speaker 11: The first is maximum pressure sanctions to put the economic
Speaker 11: squeeze on the Islamic Republic and to keep it there
Speaker 11: and escalate it over time, and to make sure that
Speaker 11: the regime doesn't have the cash on hand for lack
Speaker 11: of a better world to build back better. And on
Speaker 11: the second it's the blockade, it's to find a way
Speaker 11: to kind of physically constrain the regime to make sure
Speaker 11: that they can't export their most important source of revenue,
Speaker 11: which is energy from the Persian Gulf, and to be
Speaker 11: able together on the finance side and the commodity sky
Speaker 11: to squeeze in this regime to make them have more
Speaker 11: of a budgetary crisis, and to force them into a
Speaker 11: position of either surrender, submission, or making mistakes. The only
Speaker 11: challenge here is that Trump administration should not prepare for failure.
Speaker 11: They should prepare for success because this will squeeze the regime.
Speaker 11: The regime is likely going to respond unless we forget.
Speaker 11: Despite the capability and capacity the Trump administration has taken
Speaker 11: away in the multiple cycles of violence against the regime
Speaker 11: this year, this regime feels more confidence because it survives.
Speaker 11: So even though they have less to actually punch back with,
Speaker 11: they are more eager to punch back and earlier in
Speaker 11: the conflict. So as they feel the squeeze, you know,
Speaker 11: Washington better have a strategy for a way to deal
Speaker 11: with that squeeze, even though it is popular being called
Speaker 11: the low key way to deal with this regime before
Speaker 11: the midterms.
Speaker 1: So benam A lot of questions follow from that. The
Speaker 1: first one is during Blockade Part one that ended with
Speaker 1: the MoU that then failed. During that we heard a
Speaker 1: lot about the storage capacity of the Iranian regime. I've
Speaker 1: heard nothing about that in Blockade two. Do they have
Speaker 1: the same infrastructure problem, the same problem with shutting down
Speaker 1: wells and not being able to restart them that we
Speaker 1: heard about during Blockade one?
Speaker 11: In my view, yes, But in Blockade one, something that
Speaker 11: is technically true or physically true may not be politically
Speaker 11: true for this regime, which is, yes, you can have
Speaker 11: a storage crisis, Yes you can have an energy crisis,
Speaker 11: and yes you can even have a budgetary crisis from
Speaker 11: the infrastructural crisis that follows. But because this is an
Speaker 11: Islamist Homanist authoritarian regime that is playing to the edge,
Speaker 11: that believes the stakes are borderline, if not directly existential,
Speaker 11: the things that might normally constrain and restrain the foreign
Speaker 11: policy behavior of a normal state are not yet at
Speaker 11: all in play here. I mean, this regime understands that
Speaker 11: so long as President Trump is in office, any kind
Speaker 11: of real you know, more meeting the administration more than
Speaker 11: halfway could come with a political cost and a security cost,
Speaker 11: and that's why they're inclined to double down and triple down.
Speaker 11: And so in the short term, you know, trying to
Speaker 11: see where the infrastructure will force the regime to sur
Speaker 11: is a necessary but not sufficient way to understand what
Speaker 11: the metrics are that will compel the regime to be
Speaker 11: boxed in. So I'm glad folks are not over focusing
Speaker 11: on the shortcomings and the challenges in running infrastructure, and
Speaker 11: instead what they need to focus on is the big picture,
Speaker 11: the macro economics, the fact that the regime is going
Speaker 11: to be bleeding and bleeding and bleeding, and how the
Speaker 11: regime tries to triage the bleeding. There that's when the
Speaker 11: opportunities arise for umpicle stam. It's not just going to
Speaker 11: be based in my view, on the infrastructure alone.
Speaker 1: Now, Benham, it's my belief that a regime like this
Speaker 1: will loot its own people and provided that they can
Speaker 1: feed the quarter million hiere GC And however, many people
Speaker 1: are in the besiege that they don't really care about
Speaker 1: the suffering of their own people. So the inflation can
Speaker 1: be eighty eight percent overall, one hundred and twenty percent
Speaker 1: over a year over year in food, and they won't blink.
Speaker 1: Is that true that they'll basically go to the mattresses
Speaker 1: and loot their own people wealth just to stay in power.
Speaker 11: Well, unfortunately, it's been true for the past four decades,
Speaker 11: depending on particularly in what time you're looking at it.
Speaker 11: It's precisely why the protesters really since two thousand and nine,
Speaker 11: have targeted the regime's foreign in security policy, because the
Speaker 11: things the regime prioritizes are the antithesis of the things
Speaker 11: the nation, the street, the people prioritize. It's why there
Speaker 11: is such a sharp chasm between state and society in
Speaker 11: that country. It's perhaps one of the greatest chasms that
Speaker 11: we see in the Middle East, which is not demographic,
Speaker 11: it's ideological. It's that you have an Islamist, anti American,
Speaker 11: anti Israeli government and a nationalist, secular, pro American, pro
Speaker 11: Israeli society, and these two things are like oil and water.
Speaker 11: So the regime is only too happy to try to
Speaker 11: find a way to transfer the cost. But it's kind
Speaker 11: of already been doing that already. So the challenge for
Speaker 11: the regime in the short to medium term is how
Speaker 11: does it manage the budgetary crisis, How does it manage,
Speaker 11: for example, the subsidy crisis, and how does does it
Speaker 11: not actually lead to a situation where it finds itself
Speaker 11: under foreign pressure and domestic pressure at the exact same time.
Speaker 11: And if you pay attention closely, it's why there was
Speaker 11: musical chairs just a few days ago in Tehran. They're
Speaker 11: putting in a new leadership for the besiege. They're trying
Speaker 11: to show strength militarily. They're trying to have an ideologue
Speaker 11: greater you could even imagine, an ideological veneer to the
Speaker 11: world and to the Irobian people to say basically, we're
Speaker 11: not going to cave and that we can afford to
Speaker 11: be in the red. That's precisely the message that the
Speaker 11: new men at the Helm are designed to send.
Speaker 1: So Benam I didn't know. I did note the musical
Speaker 1: chairs and THEHITI gets a new job and Xyz gets
Speaker 1: another job. They didn't mention anything about the arteche you're
Speaker 1: the senior director. Is there a possible division between the
Speaker 1: ARTECH and the RGDC, the RTEs being the regular military.
Speaker 1: Is that something we might see and be exploitable in
Speaker 1: the near term.
Speaker 11: You know, it's something that should be cultivated, particularly because
Speaker 11: the RTEs is a force that has been really squandered
Speaker 11: given the inheritance of the Islamic Republic from the pro
Speaker 11: American Pathlavi dynasty prior to nineteen seventy nine. But institutionally
Speaker 11: the artees has been weakened and then co opted such
Speaker 11: that the ARTEESH was even launching some drone attacks on
Speaker 11: neighboring Kuwait during the early period of the fighting after
Speaker 11: the Forty Day War and after the MoU collapse, for example.
Speaker 11: So we shouldn't put all our eggs in the Arteese basket.
Speaker 11: But something America and in particular the intelligence community really
Speaker 11: needs to unleash here is the capability to get creative
Speaker 11: against the Islamic Republic, to play to this selfishness and
Speaker 11: the opportunism and the desire for self preservation that exists
Speaker 11: across armed forces across many different authoritarian regimes, and to
Speaker 11: be able to turn on or ignite a different front
Speaker 11: based on real sentiment due to real shortcomings like the
Speaker 11: fact that the RTESCH had been so squandered and deprioritized
Speaker 11: compared to the revolutionary Successor organization.
Speaker 7: The IRGC is there, and.
Speaker 1: We got a minute to the brain any indication coming
Speaker 1: out through opposition media of cracks in the regime, benam.
Speaker 11: You know, this is actually where I disagree with the
Speaker 11: conventional wisdom. Just because there is a loud debate in
Speaker 11: Iran does not necessarily mean that that is the signal
Speaker 11: and the fact in my view, that is the noise.
Speaker 11: My fear is in the short to medium term, what
Speaker 11: we see from regime elites is actually more cohesion than fracture.
Speaker 11: It's literally just like something that is calcifying. This system
Speaker 11: does not bend, it will break though, and we are
Speaker 11: watching the calcification of a generation of hardline national security
Speaker 11: elites that aren't from one faction another faction, but are
Speaker 11: all from within one larger hard line faction. So the
Speaker 11: intra factional disputes, the intra IRGC disputes, the intra Iran
Speaker 11: Iraq war veterans, debates among friends and like minded people
Speaker 11: are much more important than debates among the other factions.
Speaker 1: I will be right back with Ben and Ben Talablue
Speaker 1: from the Foundation for the Defensive Democracy. We'll talk about
Speaker 1: pick Action Next. Stay tuned America, Welcome Back America. Ben
Speaker 1: and Ben Talabou is the Senior Director Senior Fellow at
Speaker 1: the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. He's also run
Speaker 1: the Iran program there. Ben a month ago I talked
Speaker 1: to President Trump on this program about Pickaxe Mountain said
Speaker 1: it was time to put a missile in the front door.
Speaker 1: That didn't happen. How much are you worried about that?
Speaker 1: Because the President didn't seem to be overly concerned.
Speaker 11: The President is right to have a measure of confidence
Speaker 11: given the fact that the fisile material, meaning the uranium
Speaker 11: that has to be further enriched to actually get a bomb,
Speaker 11: is believed to be under Isfahan and under Natans. But
Speaker 11: this is a regime that is still in power. It's
Speaker 11: not a race to a bomb. It's a slow, steady
Speaker 11: quest for a bomb. And Pickaxe mounted is worrisome for
Speaker 11: me and a lot of other Iran washers and a
Speaker 11: lot of other arms controllers and a lot of other
Speaker 11: non proliferation experts because it could be a future enrichment
Speaker 11: site and the regime has already said that this is
Speaker 11: going to be at the very least a centrifuge manufacturing site,
Speaker 11: and given a that we lost continuity of knowledge and
Speaker 11: the additional protocol of the IAEA during the Biden administration
Speaker 11: as early as February twenty twenty one, and b in
Speaker 11: terms of declared enrichment uranium sites that the President has
Speaker 11: struck since the Twelve Day War, we haven't had the
Speaker 11: IE go into those sites. Pickaxe Mountain, which is at
Speaker 11: least two to three times deeper than four dough and
Speaker 11: was not struck by the US or Israelis and either
Speaker 11: of the two military operations. The fact that that could
Speaker 11: be used to squirrel away uranium, or the fact that
Speaker 11: could be used as part of some larger breakout effort
Speaker 11: is very worrisome, and particularly if you zoom out and
Speaker 11: you look at the trend line of how America and
Speaker 11: the West's adversaries have been increasingly using subterranean facilities and
Speaker 11: tunneling to preserve some of their core capabilities. This regime,
Speaker 11: nuclear and missile hamas, certainly it's Arsenal, the cartels on
Speaker 11: the southern border their weapons and also their drugs, and
Speaker 11: certainly the North Koreans their military industrial complex. We're going
Speaker 11: to have to find a way to either build a
Speaker 11: bigger bomb or neutralize this facility.
Speaker 1: Okay, last question magazine depth is talked about is a
Speaker 1: constraint on the American war fighting ability because we lack interceptors.
Speaker 1: You did the original research paper on magazine depth for
Speaker 1: the Iranian missile program. How do you assess the Iranian
Speaker 1: missile magazine depth now after six months of on and
Speaker 1: off war.
Speaker 11: Well, we have to be incredibly humble when it comes
Speaker 11: to whatever the base number or the baseline is from
Speaker 11: which we draw assessments about magazine depth. But what we
Speaker 11: saw during the Twelve Day War, what we saw during
Speaker 11: the forty day ward, what we saw with the intermitted
Speaker 11: skirmishes against the Arab world, and critical infrastructure in US bases.
Speaker 11: Following that and following the MoU tells me one big
Speaker 11: bright thing that the Islamic Republic is just as concerned,
Speaker 11: if not more concerned, with magazine depth than the US
Speaker 11: is with tea, lambs and interceptors and everything else. And
Speaker 11: the reason is Iran's defense, industrial base and ballistic missile
Speaker 11: production infrastructure is largely above ground, and the US largely
Speaker 11: did real and meaningful damage setting back that production capability
Speaker 11: several years that doesn't mean they won't be able to
Speaker 11: regroup and rebuild, particularly if we have sanctions in the
Speaker 11: blockade and are willing to do interdictions and interceptions, particularly
Speaker 11: if it comes from states like Russia, China and North
Speaker 11: Korea for example. But ultimately Iran knows that as much
Speaker 11: as of its arsenal it's been able to excavate and
Speaker 11: dig out from bases that were struck, the ability to
Speaker 11: backfill that which it fires or that which it uses
Speaker 11: to threaten is significantly limited. And that's why both during
Speaker 11: both wars you saw the regime engage in large attacks
Speaker 11: early on and then have that volume essentially trickle down,
Speaker 11: telling you that they're worried about magazine depth, and the
Speaker 11: way they've made up for it is to go get
Speaker 11: better intelligence, particularly we believe from the Russians and the Chinese,
Speaker 11: potentially gets some better tech making these systems more precise
Speaker 11: and fire them at more concentrated areas rather than diffuse
Speaker 11: wider population centers, and this has made their less in
Speaker 11: terms of quantity, systems still more qualitatively lethal and dangerous,
Speaker 11: as we saw with the strikes against more of Faxaltic
Speaker 11: Air Base in Jordan.
Speaker 1: And thank you for your time, Benham. Last question, we
Speaker 1: got about a minute to go. I have a column
Speaker 1: in the Examiner Amow proposing that a October surprise by
Speaker 1: President Trump, meaning return to full scale combat, might actually
Speaker 1: do a lot of damage to Iran and a lot
Speaker 1: of political good to the Republican Party. What do you
Speaker 1: think the impact of an October surprise major return to
Speaker 1: combat would be in October?
Speaker 11: I certainly think, well, I look forward to reading the article,
Speaker 11: but I got to tell you, I certainly think it
Speaker 11: can have a positive impact if it leads to something.
Speaker 11: You know, it's clear the president is willing to do
Speaker 11: anything and try anything so long as he can get
Speaker 11: a real success, real victory here. So if the president
Speaker 11: wants that, and indeed he's looking to kind of architect
Speaker 11: in October surprise, the planning needs to begin now about
Speaker 11: how do you unite all the different tactics that the
Speaker 11: president has had and make them part of a larger strategy.
Speaker 11: And we have to know what that is. Is that
Speaker 11: a deal, is that regime collapse? Is that containment two
Speaker 11: point zero? What is that ultimate thing, that big picture
Speaker 11: thing that the president wants? And then it's about aligning
Speaker 11: the ways means and ends from now ontil October to
Speaker 11: put us in the winning position in the Islamic Republic
Speaker 11: at every juncture in the losing position.
Speaker 1: Always good to talk to you, Benham. Thank you so
Speaker 1: much again. Follow the Foundation for Defensive demoncuss An FDD,
Speaker 1: follow Benham at Benham ben Talablue on X, and follow
Speaker 1: everything he says and writes wherever it appears. Thank you, Benham.
Speaker 1: I'll be right back in America. Stay tuned to the
Speaker 1: Quent Show. Welcome back America. I'm gu cut please to
Speaker 1: welcome back Matt Kantnetti. Matt is director of Domestic Policy
Speaker 1: Studies at the American Enterprise Institution. As you can see
Speaker 1: from his background, still not lit up yet. I want
Speaker 1: that diner, look, Matt. He's also the Wall Street Journal
Speaker 1: Free Expressions columnist. He's also the author of the book
Speaker 1: The Right, And I'm going to start with that book
Speaker 1: because it was one hundred year history of the American
Speaker 1: conservative movement. And man, I've been mean to ask you
Speaker 1: about this for a lot of time, but we all
Speaker 1: get sucked into headlines and I will in a moment,
Speaker 1: but where is that battle for the right today? Do
Speaker 1: you have to write an appendus to appendiicy to that
Speaker 1: book and republish it as a paperback.
Speaker 8: Well, I'm pleased to say, Hugh that the book is
Speaker 8: out in paperback, and it's still in print, so our
Speaker 8: audience can.
Speaker 12: Check it out there.
Speaker 8: The book goes through in its paperback edition the twenty
Speaker 8: twenty two election, So there's a lot has happened since,
Speaker 8: and I do need update it to account for everything
Speaker 8: up to twenty twenty six, including Trump's miraculous comeback Politically
Speaker 8: in the twenty twenty four election.
Speaker 12: Where does the battle stand now?
Speaker 8: You know, I think it's along the line that it's
Speaker 8: been waged for many, many years. There's a group on
Speaker 8: the right that stands for a fusion of traditional values
Speaker 8: and free economic competition, free markets, and then there's another
Speaker 8: group that says, you know, the free enterprise, free markets,
Speaker 8: those are less important. What really matters are social cohesion,
Speaker 8: traditional values, the sense that America needs to stand apart
Speaker 8: from the world, and those two camps have been going
Speaker 8: at it for some time. What's interesting about Donald Trump
Speaker 8: is that he in fact, in a way merges the
Speaker 8: two camps. And he because he's common sense, not conservative,
Speaker 8: as he often puts it, he can go back and
Speaker 8: forth toggle between them, and so that's kept this war
Speaker 8: basically kind of in a ceasefire on the right throughout
Speaker 8: the Trump era. But the Trump era is entering its
Speaker 8: final years. I expect the war to resume shortly.
Speaker 1: Let me get your take on burrito gate. That was
Speaker 1: a weird little battle between traditional conservatives and nat cons
Speaker 1: Vice President Vance was my guest last week. I asked him,
Speaker 1: from his position of being the most prominent Catholic in
Speaker 1: the United States, whether it's you know, appropriate to take
Speaker 1: shots at Mark Tison over burrito consumption. And he laughed
Speaker 1: it off, saying, you know, he's taken shots at me.
Speaker 1: Where's the vice president in this spectrum? Because I really
Speaker 1: don't think I have him pegged anywhere yet.
Speaker 8: Well, you know, Vice President Vance has been at several
Speaker 8: points on the spectrum over the course of his career.
Speaker 8: First as a businessman, in public intellectual he's very critical
Speaker 8: of Donald Trump and the populism that Donald Trump represents,
Speaker 8: Maga populism. But then as he moved closer to running
Speaker 8: for elected office in kind of the Biden years, and
Speaker 8: it's really adopted this more populist, more traditionalist, less interested
Speaker 8: in the American engagement in the world, the use of
Speaker 8: American military power in the world.
Speaker 12: That side of the right. You could call it nat
Speaker 12: con if you want.
Speaker 8: You could call it a traditional conservative perspective if you'd like.
Speaker 12: But that's kind of where he situated himself.
Speaker 8: However, since becoming the vice president, of course, since joining
Speaker 8: the ticket with President Trump in twenty twenty four, he
Speaker 8: is the President's man. He has joined at the hip
Speaker 8: to Donald Trump and Donald Trump's policies and legacies, and
Speaker 8: so he has basically been I think a good soldier
Speaker 8: for President Trump through the first eighteen or so months
Speaker 8: of this second term, while also I think sometimes signaling
Speaker 8: that he still does have his own views on foreign
Speaker 8: policy questions, maybe even on some economic questions that are
Speaker 8: less mainstream conservative.
Speaker 1: We might say, is he, in your opinion, too online,
Speaker 1: not enough online, or just the right amount.
Speaker 12: Well, he's a little bit of both.
Speaker 8: I think that he's the first to tell you that
Speaker 8: he scaled back his online presence beginning sometime I think
Speaker 8: earlier this year.
Speaker 12: He's kind of re emerged. He throws sharp elbows when
Speaker 12: he's online.
Speaker 8: That was definitely something that he began doing in that
Speaker 8: evolution toward adopting Maga populism and then adopting also this
Speaker 8: more national conservative perspective. I think it helps him when
Speaker 8: he's less online. I think it helps everyone when we're
Speaker 8: less online, because I think the social media presents what
Speaker 8: my friend and colleague John Podhortz calls the Plato's Cave illusion,
Speaker 8: that you begin to take social media for reality when
Speaker 8: it is anything but reality. And I think the best
Speaker 8: measure reality is not social media, but it's what the
Speaker 8: elected Republicans in Congress are doing and saying. They of
Speaker 8: course have to answer to the people the House every
Speaker 8: two years, the Senate every six years, so they're probably
Speaker 8: the sure sign of what actual Republican voters want their
Speaker 8: representatives to say and do.
Speaker 1: So we're eighty four days away from the midterms, whatever
Speaker 1: their result. The presidential campaign in twenty eight begins the
Speaker 1: week thereafter. That's when Donald Trump announced his campaign in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two. I expect Vice President Vance to run,
Speaker 1: though that's not a given. He's got four small kids.
Speaker 1: I don't know if anyone wants to do that with
Speaker 1: four small kids. Who else do you think is more
Speaker 1: likely than not to join in that race?
Speaker 2: Sure?
Speaker 8: Well, I do expect Vice President Vance to run, though
Speaker 8: as you say, there's always a caveat with his family.
Speaker 8: I do expect Senator Ted Cruz of Texas to run.
Speaker 8: I wouldn't be surprised if Florida Governor Rond De Santis runs,
Speaker 8: and I want to be surprised if Missus Senator Josh
Speaker 8: Hawley runs. I think there would be some others in
Speaker 8: the mix, of course, but those would be the three
Speaker 8: players that I'd paid most attention to right now, in
Speaker 8: addition to who I consider the front runner, and that
Speaker 8: is Vice President Vance.
Speaker 1: So you didn't mention as we speak, they're voting in
Speaker 1: Wisconsin open primary. I'm on in Wisconsin. If you're a Republican,
Speaker 1: you want to go make mischief, go vote for Francesca Hang.
Speaker 1: But in Wisconsin yesterday, Glenn Youngkin was campaigning inside of
Speaker 1: Tom Tiffany. That's not usually something former governor does unless
Speaker 1: they still have a hand in the game. What do
Speaker 1: you think about Governor Youngkin?
Speaker 8: I hadn't seen that, Hugh, thank you for illuminating me
Speaker 8: as you do every week. I think that's a very
Speaker 8: revealing stop by former Governor Younkin. I think that that
Speaker 8: is a sign that maybe he is contemplating a race now.
Speaker 8: He said that he wouldn't go into the race. If
Speaker 8: jd Vance is running, maybe that will change. Of course,
Speaker 8: this is the period when a lot of candidates change
Speaker 8: their minds about whether they're going to run for president
Speaker 8: or not. I think Glenn Youngkin would have an interesting
Speaker 8: part to play in any debate because he does he
Speaker 8: represents a swing state conservatism. You know, he won in
Speaker 8: a blue state, Virginia. He did it by championing parents.
Speaker 8: He governed Virginia very well. He's a popular governor in
Speaker 8: a blue Republican governor in a blue state. But I
Speaker 8: think that he would emphasize that more traditional American conservatism,
Speaker 8: a fusion of social conservatism and economic freedom that we've
Speaker 8: come to understand in alignment with the Republican Party.
Speaker 12: So all of these different.
Speaker 8: Candidates would come at the race and the job in
Speaker 8: a different way. Ted Cruz, of course, is being very
Speaker 8: articulate about how what the dangers he sees to the
Speaker 8: country and conservatism, really focusing on anti Semitism, talking of
Speaker 8: course about the tariffs. Being critical of the Trump tariffs,
Speaker 8: DeSantis can say that he's the most successful governor in
Speaker 8: the country far, and you can look at how Florida,
Speaker 8: you know, seems immune to kind of the blue tide
Speaker 8: in the country right now. And Holly, of course is
Speaker 8: a dynamic speaker and someone who's also aligned with the
Speaker 8: nat cons.
Speaker 12: It should be a good race.
Speaker 1: I'll be right back with Matt Connetty. I got another
Speaker 1: question on politics before we turn to policy. Don't go
Speaker 1: anywhere America. I'm Hugh Hewitt. Welcome back. Matt Continetti is
Speaker 1: still with me from the Wall Street Journal. Follow him
Speaker 1: on EXA CONTINENTI American Enterprise Institute as well. Matt. The
Speaker 1: actual Rod theory after a two term president is that
Speaker 1: you look for the different personality, not policy so much.
Speaker 1: It's give me a different personality. So that George W. Bush,
Speaker 1: Texan was succeeded by Barack Obama quote cerebral unquote, followed
Speaker 1: by Donald Trump New York developer, followed by j o'biden,
Speaker 1: completely opposite of really no personality. Trump is back on
Speaker 1: the Republican side, whose personality is in the greatest distinct
Speaker 1: contract to Donald Trump's.
Speaker 8: Of the people you mentioned, yeah, of the candidates we've
Speaker 8: been talking about you, I'd say probably Glenn Youngkins has
Speaker 8: the personality that is less like President Trump's. You know,
Speaker 8: it's interesting, the axe rod theory applies to both parties.
Speaker 8: It's about, you know, who the country selects as their
Speaker 8: next president. In primaries, it may break down a little bit.
Speaker 8: I think Republican voters like Donald Trump's personality. One thing
Speaker 8: you always hear is that he's a fighter. We've been
Speaker 8: hearing that for ten years. He doesn't let any slight
Speaker 8: go unanswered. Sometimes that can distract from his overall message,
Speaker 8: but it's the quality that I think Republicans have appreciated
Speaker 8: about him. I also think Republicans have always appreciated Donald
Speaker 8: Trump's sense of humor. It's a sarcastic sense of humor
Speaker 8: at times. Sometimes it even goes into kind of dark humor,
Speaker 8: black humor, you know, but people like the fact that
Speaker 8: he can make them laugh. And then, you know, the
Speaker 8: other thing about Donald Trump, which is really kind of
Speaker 8: unreplicable if you will, is he is a billionaire who
Speaker 8: has his most devoted support among working class people. People
Speaker 8: who go work put on a uniform, they work on
Speaker 8: their feet all day, they don't use a laptop at
Speaker 8: work very often, and they love Donald Trump. And so
Speaker 8: those are the three aspects of his personality that actually
Speaker 8: think a successful candidate would want to replicate, even though
Speaker 8: Axelrod's ideas that America tends to go for people who
Speaker 8: are the opposite of the incumbent in a general.
Speaker 1: So one name you didn't mention, and I'll bring it
Speaker 1: up since the it's a short segment. I would bet
Speaker 1: Mike Pompeo runs again, the former Secretary of State, former
Speaker 1: CIA director, former Kansas congressman. If there's a field that
Speaker 1: at least too, I think they are going to be
Speaker 1: three and Mike Pompeal will get in. How do you
Speaker 1: think he fair? Because he is the traditional Reagan strength,
Speaker 1: peace through strength conservative.
Speaker 8: Yeah, Pompeo is a very interesting Canada A lot of
Speaker 8: people wanted him to run in twenty four and he
Speaker 8: did not. You know, he's someone who does draw from
Speaker 8: has a social conservative, religious conservative background. Of course national
Speaker 8: security hawks, who are an important part of this party.
Speaker 8: I think that playing out in debates today, they would
Speaker 8: support him for sure. And again on the economic policy questions,
Speaker 8: I don't think he'd be very far from Donald Trump's
Speaker 8: synthesis of the more economic freedom conservatives along with the
Speaker 8: more kind of industrial policy tariff conservatives in Maga. So
Speaker 8: I think with Pompeio, my only concern is he was
Speaker 8: I'm wondering where his base of support would be because
Speaker 8: it's been a while since he's been an elected office,
Speaker 8: and he's he's not gone back to Kansas for any
Speaker 8: other offices there.
Speaker 12: But I would definitely watch him closely.
Speaker 1: So, Matt, I've been in the debate business for two cycles.
Speaker 1: I don't expect to be in the debate business this cycle.
Speaker 1: I expect you to be in the debate business this cycle.
Speaker 1: And so my question, do you think they'll start early
Speaker 1: and be often or do you think they will be
Speaker 1: few and far between, if any at all.
Speaker 12: Well, I can tell you.
Speaker 8: On the Democratic side, I bet you they're going to
Speaker 8: start very early and there will be a lot of them.
Speaker 8: On the Republican side, I can't give you an answer
Speaker 8: because the most important person in the twenty twenty eight
Speaker 8: election is Donald Trump, and on the Republican primary, everything
Speaker 8: will depend on what President Trump wants.
Speaker 12: He said just the other week. You recall that it's
Speaker 12: too early to talk about.
Speaker 8: Twenty twenty eight, and the question is going to be
Speaker 8: when will President Trump say it's time to talk about
Speaker 8: twenty twenty eight, and so I actually think that the
Speaker 8: debates may start a little bit later than we're accustomed
Speaker 8: to on the Republican side this cycle, simply because Donald
Speaker 8: Trump is right where he wants to be in that
Speaker 8: center stage and he's not going to leave stage easily.
Speaker 1: So Man, I put the idea in front of him
Speaker 1: about my moderating the debates, and he immediately went to
Speaker 1: the general election. And that's not going to happen the Democrat,
Speaker 1: but he could if he wanted to put on a
Speaker 1: show that would get twenty five million people to watch it,
Speaker 1: his moderating the debate that we had a minute. What
Speaker 1: do you think of that, Donald Trump moderated debates.
Speaker 8: Oh, it's an excellent idea. I think the Republican candidates
Speaker 8: would like it. I think he would enjoy it for sure,
Speaker 8: and that's a way to get him involved in this
Speaker 8: process of choosing his successors.
Speaker 12: So I'm all for it.
Speaker 8: When you told him about it, I thought it was
Speaker 8: a fantastic idea, Hugh. Though, of course, he wants the
Speaker 8: biggest ratings possible, and that's why he immediately said, oh, sure,
Speaker 8: I'll do it for the general election. You know, though,
Speaker 8: even though even President Trump admitted that the Democrats probably
Speaker 8: wouldn't say yes to me.
Speaker 1: No, but I think he You know, we did twenty
Speaker 1: two to twenty four million in twenty sixteen cycle. If
Speaker 1: President Trump was the moderator, they'd blow that. They wouldn't
Speaker 1: get the Super Bowl numbers, but they'd be close. Now
Speaker 1: we're going to get serious. We're going to talk about
Speaker 1: the war. Right after the break with Matt Conton that
Speaker 1: he don't go anywhere America. I'm it, watch you hear
Speaker 1: it here back with Matt Continenti from the American Enterprise Institute,
Speaker 1: the Wall Street Journal Vertical. He'll be in the paper
Speaker 1: again on Friday, and of course he is the author
Speaker 1: of the right and you can follow him on exit Continetti,
Speaker 1: Matt I got a piece in the Examiner tomorrow. There
Speaker 1: are three kinds of wars that Americans have fought since
Speaker 1: World War Two. Those that were stalemates or losses, and
Speaker 1: that includes Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Golf two. Those that
Speaker 1: were wins Granada, Panama, Golf one, and Venezuela. And those
Speaker 1: like Libya and the Balkans, about which we were not
Speaker 1: really focused on. I'm not sure if you call him
Speaker 1: a winner or loss. Where does Iran fit in this category?
Speaker 8: Well, Hugh, I think it's too early to say, mainly
Speaker 8: because the war has settled into this kind of pattern
Speaker 8: of you know, ongoing negotiations until we don't have negotiations,
Speaker 8: no kinetic action until the Iranians begin firing randomly and
Speaker 8: we respond. But also with the resumption of maximum economic
Speaker 8: pressure against the Iranian regime and the blockade of Iranian
Speaker 8: ports by the US Navy. I think at the end
Speaker 8: of the day, it's those two factors that will be
Speaker 8: most important here, and it's a matter of time before
Speaker 8: the economic pain imposed on Iran creates conflicts and distortions
Speaker 8: within the Iranian regime that could ultimately provide resolution to
Speaker 8: this conflict. So I guess I hate to disappoint, but
Speaker 8: I would say, right now the Iran wars just the
Speaker 8: jury is still out.
Speaker 1: Would you expect an October surprise from President Trump, meaning
Speaker 1: maximum combat in the weeks leading up to the vote.
Speaker 12: I would not.
Speaker 8: I think everything that President Trump is saying right now
Speaker 8: is that he wants to go back to his you know,
Speaker 8: his cruising speed, which is economic pressure. You know, Trump
Speaker 8: in terms of Kinnecticut. Action has always preferred the dramatic raid,
Speaker 8: the dramatic punitive strike, midnight hammer, absolute resolve the strike
Speaker 8: and Costome Solomany back in the first term. An ongoing campaign,
Speaker 8: I think has always made him uncomfortable, and that is
Speaker 8: basically what Iran has forced us into. And also Trump
Speaker 8: has decided he wants to have this kind of ongoing,
Speaker 8: low intensity conflict in preference to a larger campaign. If anything,
Speaker 8: I would worry about the Iranians having an October surprise
Speaker 8: for President Trump resuming violence, resuming strikes on our basis
Speaker 8: in the Middle East, on our golf allies, in order
Speaker 8: to prod Trump into a major escalation before the election.
Speaker 8: It's the Iranians who are, i think, feeling that they're
Speaker 8: in the driver's seat because right now they don't care
Speaker 8: about their people. All they care is about is power.
Speaker 8: And we still haven't reached the point in the blockade,
Speaker 8: as successful as it's been to where the regime itself
Speaker 8: is feeling internal tension, internal conflict beginning to actually dissolve.
Speaker 12: That will come, I think, but it's just it's going
Speaker 12: to take time.
Speaker 1: All they need to do is pay themselves in the
Speaker 1: besiege and they'll be fine. I want to close with
Speaker 1: a San Piker because you're a Hassan Piker expert. Obviously,
Speaker 1: I think El Siad put Hassan Piker on like a
Speaker 1: Spider Man suit for the primary. I don't think you
Speaker 1: can get them off now.
Speaker 7: Do you. Oh?
Speaker 8: No? I mean all the clips of l si Ed
Speaker 8: and Piker together, all of the Piker clips talking about
Speaker 8: El Sayed much less, all the disgusting Piker clips talking
Speaker 8: about America, are talking about Israel, talking about anybody he
Speaker 8: doesn't like. All that is going to be part of
Speaker 8: Mike Rodgers' campaign in the coming months, and I think
Speaker 8: it's going to be a big problem for El Sayed,
Speaker 8: who is you could even see prior to the primary,
Speaker 8: was trying to run away from the label socialists, even
Speaker 8: though the socialists support him and he has socialist policies,
Speaker 8: and now is trying to kind of downplay his relationship
Speaker 8: with Hassan Piker, who is clearly his most important surrogate
Speaker 8: during the primary campaign. It's going to be hard for
Speaker 8: him to run away from Piker. And you know what,
Speaker 8: he shouldn't be able to.
Speaker 1: He shouldn't and Mike Rodgers is not going to let
Speaker 1: him if we assume that Piker costs el Sayed the election.
Speaker 1: And I can't imagine Michigan's a normal place. I went
Speaker 1: to law school in Michigan. I hate their football team,
Speaker 1: but it's a nice, normal place. Can you imagine them
Speaker 1: a lot thing a radical like el Sayed back by
Speaker 1: an Islamis like Hassan Piker. It just doesn't add up
Speaker 1: to me. Does that addp to you?
Speaker 8: Well, I can't imagine a lot of things in this
Speaker 8: world too, and yet I sometimes the world finds a
Speaker 8: way to surprise me. Or The issue here is democratic partisanship,
Speaker 8: and you kind of see it even in James Carville's
Speaker 8: comments after the primary. But first he was saying there's
Speaker 8: no way I'd be in the same party as these guys.
Speaker 8: Now he's saying, well, I'll take the Democrat over the
Speaker 8: Republican any day of the week. And so what worries
Speaker 8: me about this election in general is that Democrats are
Speaker 8: far more enthused about voting than Republicans are. And if
Speaker 8: you have a large enough Democratic base that it's going
Speaker 8: to the polls and Republicans just aren't very excited, then
Speaker 8: you could see someone like Abdu al Sayed actually elected
Speaker 8: to the United States Senate. However, I do think that
Speaker 8: this particular candidate, because of his radicalism, because of his associations,
Speaker 8: face a lot of headwinds. And I think now it's
Speaker 8: up to Mike Rogers to really define l Sied in
Speaker 8: the minds of Michiganders so that they know that this
Speaker 8: is not a man who deserves to be elected to
Speaker 8: the United States Senate to represent Michigan.
Speaker 1: You know, one senator can really scripup the Senate. Last question,
Speaker 1: Matt he polled elsa Ed did very poorly in black pracincts.
Speaker 1: That's because I think Hassan Piker has said so many
Speaker 1: racist things, just outwardly racist thing. Do you think black voters,
Speaker 1: even in traditionally democratic black voters forget that when it
Speaker 1: comes time to the general.
Speaker 12: No, I don't think they forget that.
Speaker 8: I also think it's something that we've seen on a
Speaker 8: lot of racist Hugh, which is that socialism does not
Speaker 8: appeal to Black voters there did not support Bernie Sanders
Speaker 8: in great numbers. They did not support Zoorah Mamdani in
Speaker 8: the Democratic primary.
Speaker 12: For the mayor of New York.
Speaker 8: And here we saw that black voters very reluctant to
Speaker 8: embrace l sied. This is another opportunity for Rogers to
Speaker 8: expand his coalition by incorporating independence and disaffected Democrats.
Speaker 12: And he started doing it last week and I thought
Speaker 12: that was encouraging.
Speaker 8: He needs to do more of it because the only
Speaker 8: group that socialism appeals to are highly educated, affluent liberal voters.
Speaker 8: That's who's that that is that socialism, and that that
Speaker 8: is not what the Old Democratic Party wants to see
Speaker 8: in office.
Speaker 1: So only appeal to them when they don't have to
Speaker 1: pay the tab. Matt Continetty, always good talking to you
Speaker 1: from the AI bunker. I do like that flashing light though, Matt,
Speaker 1: if you're.
Speaker 12: Getting the lights Hugh lights on Friday, okay.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Matt Contenetty. If you've listened to this program
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Speaker 4: Half a century later, Watergate still shapes how Americans view power,
Speaker 4: scandal and trust. This weekend, the America two to fifty
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Speaker 4: through archival footage, interviews, and new arguments about what happened.
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Speaker 1: Welcome back America. I'm you, Hugh at that music means
Speaker 1: Lilas is in the house, as in James Lyacs as
Speaker 1: in Lilacs dot com or James Lilacs dot substack dot com.
Speaker 1: And it's election day in Minnesota. James, I don't see
Speaker 1: I voted sticker on your white T shirt. What's up?
Speaker 10: I never have one of those things that just seems
Speaker 10: very proud, prideful in mind. Lutheran heritage goes against it.
Speaker 10: I let it be known that I did what I did.
Speaker 10: I needn't broadcast it to the world. Also, I haven't
Speaker 10: voted yet, but yes, it is Indeed, it is indeed
Speaker 10: election day, and I have no doubt as to how
Speaker 10: it's going to go.
Speaker 7: Well, a little bit of doubt. I guess somehow somewhat.
Speaker 10: Amy Klobasher is going to be the next governor of
Speaker 10: the state of Minnesota, or the next the next goober looms.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 7: Many things could happen.
Speaker 10: She could be carried off by pterodactyls, but I don't
Speaker 10: think it's going to happen because she's she's generally liked,
Speaker 10: and she's not seen as being part of the squad
Speaker 10: woke madness She's seen as sensible enough for all the
Speaker 10: sensibilities of the fine Minnesota. So I think she's going
Speaker 10: to win, and anybody going up against her, good luck.
Speaker 1: You've got a very normal couple of candidates on the
Speaker 1: Republican side running for Senate, Michelle Tafoya, Tom Wiler. There
Speaker 1: might even be more. No matter who wins that, they're
Speaker 1: probably going to be running against your wonderful lieutenant commenter
Speaker 1: Peggy Flanagan but looks Francesca Han in the eye and says,
Speaker 1: hold my beer. What do you think about that? Right?
Speaker 10: Well, yeah, now it's fun because you know, everyone the
Speaker 10: progressives are hammering Andy Craig or Agie Craig because she's
Speaker 10: insufficiently progressive.
Speaker 7: She's not like Flannagan.
Speaker 10: Flannagan is just out there and Annie but Craig puts
Speaker 10: out as it's saying, she stood up to Trump.
Speaker 7: I voted to impeach him twice. And that's not enough.
Speaker 10: The idea that people would have the power back to
Speaker 10: somebody who was in the office during all of the
Speaker 10: massive fraud is extraordinary. You ought to be slinking off
Speaker 10: somewhere to the point of Minnesota where there's hardly any Minnesota.
Speaker 7: Left and just be quiet.
Speaker 10: But no, somebody who was practically the you know, the
Speaker 10: the poster gal for the billions of dollars that we
Speaker 10: shoveled the fraudsters is probably going to win the primary,
Speaker 10: which is extremely That says a lot about Minneapolis politics,
Speaker 10: because Minneapolis politics, as you might well imagine our argument,
Speaker 10: far more progressive than the rest of the state.
Speaker 7: But yeah, so that's that's good.
Speaker 1: Every now and then Minnesota will blurt out a Republican,
Speaker 1: you know, Rudy Bosh with the ten polenty Norm Coleman. No,
Speaker 1: could that happen this year against Peggy Flannagan.
Speaker 7: No, I don't believe it will. I don't believe so.
Speaker 7: I think the Metro will carry it and the outstate.
Speaker 10: Will just sort of slum to the polls and split
Speaker 10: it amongst these people and that people, and uh and
Speaker 10: it's you know, a good, strong consensus candidate.
Speaker 7: This isn't the year for it.
Speaker 10: You would think that it would, given the mismanagement of
Speaker 10: the state that's gone on under the walls of Flannagan administration,
Speaker 10: you would think that it would be a layup for
Speaker 10: a Republican.
Speaker 7: But that's just simply not the case. In the state anymore.
Speaker 1: Okay, talk to me a little bit about your friends
Speaker 1: next door in Wisconsin and Francesca Han who doesn't like Thanksgiving?
Speaker 1: What do you think about that?
Speaker 10: Right, Well, she's exactly what the party is going to
Speaker 10: be turning up again and again and again.
Speaker 7: She takes all of the right boxes.
Speaker 10: She doesn't like Thanksgiving or Valentine's Day or Halloween or
Speaker 10: any of these other manifestations of Western cultural superiority. She's bipolar,
Speaker 10: which gives her an advantage because now, if you have
Speaker 10: some sort of problem like that, you're seeing as much
Speaker 10: more empathetic.
Speaker 7: To people out there with their own difficulties.
Speaker 10: She's she's the you know DSA liked DSA adjacent She's
Speaker 10: going to be what the party gives again and again
Speaker 10: and again again, because there's no mood for moderation.
Speaker 7: There's just simply no no spirit for it.
Speaker 10: So the idea that a sensible cheese eating state like Wisconsin,
Speaker 10: which does.
Speaker 7: You know, have football team that you can do okay,
Speaker 7: from time to time.
Speaker 10: I would elect her is again you wonder what's happening
Speaker 10: to the sensibilities of the Midwest, And the answer is
Speaker 10: is that the old sensibilities have been leached away by inertia,
Speaker 10: by inattention, by just letting these people take over and
Speaker 10: gram a strange, crazy woke of gen The odd thing
Speaker 10: of it is is that people will vote.
Speaker 7: For somebody who's radical, more radical than they are.
Speaker 10: Because it makes them feel good about themselves. Look, I'm
Speaker 10: out there on the bleeding edge with politics. And then
Speaker 10: the people who get in by the narrowest of margins
Speaker 10: will assume that they have a broad mandate now to
Speaker 10: completely rewrite everything. Not both sides can be guilty of that,
Speaker 10: but the DSA in particular is just just salivating with
Speaker 10: the opportunity to finally remake America as Barack Obama wants.
Speaker 1: So my favorite canidate of the week is l Say,
Speaker 1: who went in Michigan. He put on a soundpiker like
Speaker 1: a spidery suit. Do you think he can win in Michigan?
Speaker 1: And what does that mean if he does.
Speaker 7: Well?
Speaker 10: He can and he absolutely can if you have enough
Speaker 10: people who are agree with everything you say, and you
Speaker 10: have enough people who believe that somehow we would be
Speaker 10: wrong to vote against him, because that would empower the
Speaker 10: people who have the wrong ideas. You know, there are
Speaker 10: guys who hate him, but for the wrong reasons. It's like, well,
Speaker 10: is it the anti Americanism? Is it the being standing
Speaker 10: next to us on Piker who's a boist who wants
Speaker 10: the streets to run.
Speaker 7: Blood with the blood of landlords? Is that the right
Speaker 7: reason to oppose it? No?
Speaker 10: No, the only reason you would oppose him was because
Speaker 10: of his ethnicity or his religion. So there'll be a
Speaker 10: lot of people who do that out of guilt, and
Speaker 10: then you know, we'll see elsewhere in the state. But again,
Speaker 10: I'm not surprised if every single radical candidate that gets
Speaker 10: up there is not swept to power but allowed to
Speaker 10: saunter and gavaut towards it. And that's sort of inability
Speaker 10: to keep the crazies out, is what's Well, let me.
Speaker 1: Play for you these craziest twenty seconds of anything else
Speaker 1: say that has said it was uncovered yesterday cut number three.
Speaker 5: Football is very much associated with a you know, particularly
Speaker 5: masculine and oftentimes toxic, toxically masculine culture, and so much
Speaker 5: of it was about you wanted to be able to
Speaker 5: get back up and play for your team, and you
Speaker 5: you really aren't allowed to show pain or vulnerability.
Speaker 7: That's part of the sport.
Speaker 1: Okay, James Ohis is not football state number one, Texas
Speaker 1: is football state number two, Florida is football state number three,
Speaker 1: and Michigan is football state number four. It's a religion.
Speaker 1: Does he can you win saying it's toxic masculinity? Y,
Speaker 1: yes you can.
Speaker 10: And when I hear that, I want to channel my
Speaker 10: inner Tony soprano and just say, whatever happened to Audie
Speaker 10: Murphy in the strong, silent type.
Speaker 7: The very things that he's cast eating there is toxic.
Speaker 10: They're very things that some people say, Yeah, we need
Speaker 10: a little bit more of that, we need a little
Speaker 10: bit less starting out every game with land acknowledgments and
Speaker 10: being very very sorry that we're having something that requires physicality.
Speaker 10: It would be ideal, actually if they were just all
Speaker 10: out in ballet. Who is quoting crows to one another?
Speaker 10: But it's American culture. What he's doing is he's sort
Speaker 10: of telling you that the fundamental nature of American culture
Speaker 10: is wrong, which is what they believe. The whole thing,
Speaker 10: shot top to bottom, is full of toxic this and
Speaker 10: toxic that, and toxic.
Speaker 7: Isms which must be expurgated by these very smart people.
Speaker 7: They're not going to be able to do it. But
Speaker 7: they'll cause the havoc while they're in.
Speaker 10: So yeah, that's again a remarkable thing to say in
Speaker 10: a football state.
Speaker 1: It is a football LICs is a place to go
Speaker 1: for not toxic masculinity, just pure masculinity. Goda, look James
Speaker 1: LICs dot substack dot com, James LICs dot substack dot com.
Speaker 1: Tune in on Thursday night to Duane's After Show seven
Speaker 1: pm in the East, four in the West, and go
Speaker 1: to lilacs dot com stay tuned to the You Do
Speaker 1: It Show